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
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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
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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
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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 are
you going to do, going to run back up home to mama and papa?"
She said, "No, sir, I'm going to stay with him."
And I said, "What, sir, if you have three or four children and
nothing to feed them, and you haven't got any work, what are you going to do,
send her away?"
He said,"No, sir, I'll struggle right on, we'll make it
someway."
Foot Prints Book - Page 133
I
felt little, and I seen that he really loved her, and they loved one another.
I married them. And then I wondered where he taken her. A few days
I asked my brother Doc, "Where is it?"
Said, "Go down to New Albany," a little city below us.
And down on the river where I had some tin laying up, where I went everyday
when I was a lineman, so when the rest of the fellows, they all sat around and
told jokes and things, I would get in the truck and run down on the river and
pray during that, and read my Bible under a big piece of tin where an old
ironworks used to be. There is a bunch of old boxcars setting down there. And
this fellow had went down there and got one of them boxcars and sawed him a
door in it, and had taken newspaper and tackey buttons... How many knows what a
tacky button is? Then there is no Kentuckians then! Just take a piece of
cardboard and put a thumbtack in it or little sprig, and then push it in the...
That is a tackey button.
So they had put it all over. And he had went up there to the
ironworks and got him some stuff and made a step. They come up and then got
some old boxes and had him a table. And I thought one day, "I'll go down
and see how they're getting along."
About six months before that, I had married E. V. Knight's daughter
to E. T. Slider's son. And E. V. Knight is one of the richest man there is on
the Ohio River. And he runs a great factories through there making these prefab
houses and so forth. And Slider, Mr. E. T. Slider is a sand and gravel company--millionaires'
children. And I had married them.
And I went back in a place and practiced it for about two weeks,
and going back in a booth and kneeling on a pillow, and all the pomp and
everything I ever went through nearly, had to go through to marry that couple.
And when they come out, why, they was... This other little couple just stood
there in a little old room where we had a little couch and a folding bed--but
they both was married by the same ceremony.
Foot Prints Book - Page 134
And
then one day, I thought I would go down and visit this rich couple. They didn't
have to work; their fathers were millionaires. They had built them a nice home.
Frankly, this E. V. Knight up here on the hill, his doorknobs are fourteen
carat on his big palace, so you can imagine what kind of home they lived in.
They didn't have to work. They had a nice Cadillac given to them every year,
and just "only children." And they had just everything they wanted.
I walked up one day. Now, how I got acquainted with them, one of
their friends was a good friend of mine, and we all kind of chummed together.
And that is how I got acquainted when they wanted me to marry them. So I went
up to visit them. And I got outside of my old Ford outside and walked up the
steps. And I got up a little bit too close and I heard them.
And they were really fussing. They were jealous of one another.
They had been to a dance. She was a very pretty girl, and she was kind of one
of these beauty queens. She took many prizes around there, and won some cars
and things for being beauty queen. And I looked at them, and one was sitting in
one corner and one the other--fussing about some boy that she had danced with
or some girl or something.
When I come up, they jumped up real quick and grabbed one another
across the floor--their hands across the floor and come walking over towards
the door, said, "Why, hello there, Brother Branham. How are you getting
along?"
I said, "All right. How are you all getting along?"
And, "Oh," he said, "we're very happy, aren't we,
honey?"
And she said, "Yes, dear." See?
Now, see, you're putting on something that isn't real. Now, you
can't get warmed by a painted fire. Like some of these churches trying to paint
Pentecost of something that happened a thousand years ago, or two thousand
years ago. You can't get warmed by a painted fire. Pentecost is just as real
today as it was then, see. The fire is still falling. It ain't a painted fire,
it's a real fire.
So there they was, see. I wouldn't want to live like that.
"Well," I thought, "you know, just down over the
cliff there and over on the river, there is where this other couple wound
up." I thought one Saturday afternoon I'd slip down there and see how they
was getting along. So I was dirty on the face and dirty overalls on and my
tools on. I thought I would slip up on them, and I slipped on like I was
watching for insulators being cracked by the lightning or something as I walked
along by the side of the telephone wire--the electric cable along the river.
And the old Chevrolet was setting out front (about a year later after I had
married them) and there was a... The door was open, and I could hear them
talking. So this sounds like a hypocrite, but I walked up close enough that I
could listen--see what they was saying, stood there, and I just wanted to know
for myself.
Foot Prints Book - Page 135
I
like to find out and be sure I know what I'm talking about. That is the way I
do about God's Word. Is it the Truth, or is it the Truth? Will He keep His
Word, or does He keep His Word? If He doesn't keep His Word, then it is not
God, see, If He does keep His Word, He is God, see.
And so I wanted to see how they was getting along, and I slipped
along the side real easy. And I heard him say, "Well, honey, I wanted to
get that for you so bad."
She said, "Now look, sweetheart," she said, "this
dress is all right." She said, "Why, this is just fine." I
appreciate that, but you see..."
I slipped around so I could look in through the crack where the
door had been shoved open there in the boxcar. And there he was sitting in
there, and her on his lap, and his arm around her and her arm around him. And
he had one of these old slouch hats that put a little hole and mashed it down
in the top, and poured out his paycheck in that. He was laying it out on the
table. He said, "So much for groceries, so much for insurance, and so much
on the car," and they couldn't make their ends meet. Come to find out, he
had seen a little dress up there in a window (he had been looking at it for a couple
of weeks) that cost a dollar and something. He wanted to get it. He said,
"Well, honey, you would look so pretty in it."
And she said, "But, honey, I've got a dress. I don't really
need it."
See, and that little queen... And I backed off and looked back. I
could see the steeple on the top of the other house, and I stood there and
looked a few minutes. I thought, "Who is the rich man?" I thought,
"If... Bill Branham, if you want to take which place, where would you
go?" For me, I'd take not that pretty thing up on top of the hill, but I
would take this character down here that is a real homemaker, somebody that
loved me and stayed with me, somebody that tried to make a home without
bleeding you for everything for fineries, somebody that was with you, part of
you.
That has always stuck with me of how that was. One chose a
beautiful girl, the other one chose character. Now, that is the only way you
can choose. First, look for character, and then if you love her, fine.
Choosing A Bride, April 29, 1965
Foot Prints Book - Page 136
I
don't know how you're going to take this, but I'm going to open just a little
more for you, some of my inside Life. Sometime ago when I was on the warden
force, near Henryville, Indiana, there's a friend lives up there, and I... he
was sick. And I was turning some fish loose in a creek. So I thought I'd go
over and pray for the man. So, I had a little old gun you had to pack, as a
warden. I unbuckled the thing, throwed it up in the truck, and shut the door.
And I thought I'd go across the field, over to pray for my friend. As I walked
up across the field, I was going along, humming, I forgot that there at the
Burks' farm, a great big guernsey bull had killed a colored man down there, he
was the caretaker. He was a fine animal, and they didn't want to kill him, so
they sold him up here to this man. I knowed there was warnings all around the
field, but I had forgot about it.
And I got right out in the middle of the field where there was some
little old scrub oak. I don't think you have them in this country. And as I
passed by this, all at once this big killer bull raised up, and he snorted,
and, I recognized, that's the bull. I turned first, I felt for the gun. It
wasn't there. I'm glad it wasn't. I'd a-probably killed the bull, and then paid
for it. I felt for the gun, it wasn't there. I looked to the fence, it was too
far for me. There was no trees around for me to get into. There it was, nothing
but to face death. I said, "Well, Lord, if the time has come for me to die,
I want to face it like a man." I shoved my shoulders down. I said,
"If this is it, if I must die by this bull, then I must die."
And something happened. I know this sounds like a child, but it's
the truth. Somehow or another, instead of despising that beast, I had a love
for it. Then I thought, "That poor thing was laying out there in the
field, I come in on his territory, I disturbed him, he don't know no more than
to protect himself." And he threw his horns down and dug the dirt up, fell
onto his knees, you know how they do just before they charge. And I thought,
that animal, oh, I'm so sorry that I disturbed you." I said, "I don't
want you to kill me, I'm the servant of God. And I'm on my road to pray for
some sick people, and I forgot about those signs." I was talking just as I
am now, but there was something that had happened. I wasn't scared of him. I
was no more afraid of that bull than I would be my brother.
That's the way the church is, you're always scared it's not going
to happen. That's the reason it don't happen, when there's fear. Love casts out
fear. When you've got love, fear is gone. But as long as you got fear, love
cannot operate.
And when the bull made his charge to come to me, he come within
about ten feet. And he stopped, and threw his front feet out, and he looked so
depleted as he looked this way and that way. And he turned and went right back
around and laid down over there where he got up at. And I walked across the
field and went out of the pasture, he just laid there and looked at me. It was
love that took the fear away, and God seen me through. Now, after I got out of
the pasture and That left me, then I just shook like a leaf. But while I was in
the Presence of Him, the fear had left.
When Love Projects, May 20, 1957
Foot Prints Book - Page 137
I
just went in and cashed my check, I was making thirty dollars a week. And I--I
went in to cash my check. And, as I went in, someone had stepped off the bus
from Louisville, there on the corner of the street. Jeffersonville is a very
small city. And I seen him look at me strange. And I went in to Mason's
drugstore there, to--to cash my check. When I come back out, I had the
bottlecaps and I had them in my pocket. And somebody laid their hand on my shoulder,
said, "Sir." I turned around. And it was the... this same fellow that
looked at me so strangely. He said, "I see that you're an officer."
I said, "I work for the conservation of Indiana."
He said, "I'm looking for some, a party. Maybe you could help
me. Are you well acquainted?"
I said, "Yes, sir, I'm pretty well acquainted here." And
he... I said, "I've lived here practically all my life."
And he said, "Well, I'll give you my story." Said,
"I've been failing in health for about two years." Said, "I'm
from Paducah, Kentucky, about two hundred miles down the river." He said,
"Last night I had a strange dream." He said, "I dreamed I seen a
big bright angel come down from Heaven, and told me to come to Jeffersonville,
Indiana, and to ask for somebody by the name of Branham, to pray for me."
Said, "Now, do you know anyone here by the name of Branham?"
I tell you, I thought my heart would break. I said, "My mother
runs a boarding house right around the corner, her name is Branham."
He said,"Oh, she's Branham," said,"would that be
your name?"
I put my arm around him. I said, "Brother, three weeks ago I
was standing in my room, a great Light was shining in there, and an Angel told
me to go pray for the... He just broke down. There we knelt, on the street and
I took off my hat, knelt down on the street, on the corner. I said,
"Father, I don't understand, but You sent this man here to declare what
the Angel of the Lord told me." When I got through praying, I looked, and
people had their hats off, standing along on the street, holding their children
back, and things, no one on the street, just standing. I was kneeling on the
street, public square. God healed him right there, gloriously.
Testimony, August 12, 1950
Foot Prints Book - Page 138
I
remember Sister Cadle, Sister Howard Cadle, I think many of you remember her. I
was across the street there, and my wife sitting there now remembering she was
cold, in the room. And I got up, and had a little, old monkey stove out there with
a... we was baking the bread up in the oven, in the pipe. And it was real cold
and wind was blowing, wintertime, snow on the ground, and wind down the
smokestack, and I couldn't get that thing to burn, to save my life. And I was
just so tore up about it. And I put some in, it'd blow out again. Billy was
cold and she was cold, I was trying to make a fire. And then I happened to turn
on the radio, and a few minutes to where I just got warmed up, come on, and
Sister Cadle was singing, "When I reach that Land, on a far away strand, I
want to see Jesus. Don't you?" Oh, my!
I just set right down in the middle of the floor and just set there
and started crying. You know how she could sing down there, that real sweet
mockingbird voice of hers. I want to hear her when I cross over the border over
yonder; said, "I want to see Jesus. Don't you?"
I thought, "O God, yes, I want to see Him someday. When the
flowers are all floated by, I want to see Jesus." How... To see Him upon
His Throne, His beauty, His splendor! And how... Oh, I want to stand where John
did, so I can just stand and look at Him.
Revelation, Chapter Four, January 1, 1961
Are
you all feeling right up to it, to start the new year now? Go right out the new
year. We're going to start it off right, serving the Lord. How many got up this
morning and thanked Him for the old year and what all it meant, and asked Him
forget the back? So, we did at the bedside when we got up, and then come in to
the table and where usually a little family altar, they gather around the table
and pray.
And so we always try to make it a habit of praying of a night
before we go to bed. I have, that, since I was first converted. Get up of a
morning, and it's too dark and too misty for me to walk, I--I don't know where
I'm going. But if I just ask Him to take my hand and guide me through the day.
Then I remember, right across the street here, when I was just a
young man, and Billy Paul was about three years old, or four, and we lived just
across the street. And one night he wanted a drink of water, and it was out in
the kitchen, with the dipper in the bucket. And I said... Oh, I was so tired, I
had worked hard all day and preached half the night. And--and he said,
"Daddy, I --I want a drink."
And I said, "Billy, just go out into the kitchen there, it's
on the little table." I said...
He got up and rubbed his eyes, and looked through there, he said,
"Daddy, I'm afraid to go." See?
And I said, "Well, that's... it's all right." I said,
"Just run on, honey, and get a drink. Daddy's so tired." It's just a
little distance, about to that window.
And he--he said, "But I'm afraid to go, daddy." See?
Foot Prints Book - Page 139
Well,
I got up with the little fellow. And reached over and got a hold of my hand, and
it was a good thing; we hadn't walked four or five steps till he hit a rug
where Meda had waxed the floor, and on a piece of linoleum, and you know how
that is. And he just made a scoot, but I had his hand, and then he just
squeezed me that much tighter. And then I stood there a little bit, and I
thought, "God, that's right." See? "I don't want to make one
step without You holding my hand, 'cause I don't know when I'm going to
slide." You see? "And as long as I can feel Your big, powerful hand
grip mine, I know You'll hold me up in the times of my..." See?
So I try to make a habit of that, to--to keep my hand in His. And
sometimes I've done things that seemed ridiculous in my own sight, such things
that seem so unnatural to the human mind; but if we just let it alone, I find
out it was the only thing that could be done to be right.
You know, the things that don't look right here, if God will lead
you into them, they'll be right out here somewhere, you see, 'cause He knows
how to lead. So, seeing that He is our all-sufficient grace, and all that we
have need of or care for is in Him, then let's lay aside everything else
besides Him and hold to God's unchanging hand.
Revelation, Chapter Four, January 1, 1961
Visions was one of the first things I can remember, is visions coming. Visions come all the time. But after my conversion is where I think you were interested in, Brother Vayle. Well, I remember after I was ordained in the church, the Baptist Church, by Doctor Roy Davis, here at Watt Street, in Jeffersonville, where the church was at the time. I remember one outstanding vision not over a few weeks after my... about a... I'd say a few days after my ordination. I was... I saw a vision of an old man that was laying in the hospital, that was mashed. He was a colored man. And he was instantly healed, insomuch that it caused a lot of confusion. And he got up out of the bed and walked away.
Foot Prints Book - Page 140
And
two days, about two days after that, I was cutting off services, non-paid
services in New Albany, water and gas and--and electrical bills. And I was so
filled with joy, every time I would find an old house, I'd just go in and pray,
you know, where no one lived. And I remember telling Mr. Johnny Potts, which is
living today, he's way up close, I guess, to seventy, or eighty years old, he
was an old meter-reader. And they taken him off of meter reading then and had
placed him at the desk, to take complaints and things, as you entered the door,
and service calls. And I was telling him what the Lord had showed me. And he
had been, once in a while, picking up a few stray meters that the regular man
didn't get. And, in this, he was telling a man which I'd seen in the paper,
where they had an old wagon in those days, drove two horses, and to pick up
garbage and trash in the alley.
There was an old colored man by the name of Mr. Edward J. Merrill.
He lived at 1020 Clark Street, in New Albany. And he had been hit by two white
people, which was a white girl and a--and a boy riding in the car, and he had
lost control of the car, and it mashed him into the wheel of the wagon. And it
just broke all the bones in his body, nearly. And, they, through his chest part
especially, knocked his back out of place. And they had him in the hospital,
very bad. And Mr. Potts, passing through, the--the hospital there in New
Albany, had told him about the Lord dealing with me, and he sent for me to
come, pray for him. And immediately I thought, "That's the man that I have
seen in this vision."
So, I--I was a little scared to go, 'cause that was one of my
first, you see, to go like that. So, but however, I went and got my buddy,
which had just been converted, a little French boy named George DeArk, and I
had just led him to Christ. And we went up and I said, "Now, Brother
George, I--I--I want you to remember these things that happen to me, I can't
understand them. But, you remember, this man's going to be healed, and when
he's healed... I can't pray for him till the two white people comes and stands
on the other side of the bed. Cause I have to do it the way it was showed to
me."
And I went into the hospital and asked for Mr. Merrill. And I went
there, and his wife told me that he was very seriously, and he couldn't move
because that the x-rays had showed that some of these bones were laying right
next to the lungs. And if he moved, why, it would, might puncture his lungs,
and hemorrhage him to death. And he was very bad, and was hemorrhaging a little
from his throat and so forth, because he was bleeding around the mouth. He had
been laying there about two days. And the man was, at that time, about
sixty-five years old, I suppose, sixty or sixty-five, elderly man. His
mustache, long, had turned white, and his hair was gray.
Foot Prints Book - Page 141
And
I went in and told this man, oh, the vision I had saw from the Lord. And the
young people come in that had hit him. And I knelt down to pray for him, and,
all of a sudden, this man let out a scream, saying, "I'm healed," and
jumped up. And his wife, trying to hold him back in bed, and one of the interns
come, trying to hold him in bed, and he jumped out of the bed. It caused a lot
of excitement. And when I went to the... I said to Brother George and them...
One of the sisters, it was a Catholic hospital, come in, and said
I'd have to "get out of there, so getting that man excited," because
he had a fever about a hundred and four. And, the strange thing, when they put
him back in, the priest of the place and some of the doctors had put him...
made him go back to bed, 'cause he was putting on his clothes. And when they
took his temperature, he had no temperature.
There's many people living today that seen the vision, seen it
happened or know about it. And I went out and stood on the steps, and said to
Brother George, "Now you watch, he's going to be wearing a brown coat and
a plug hat. He will walk right down these steps in a few minutes." And he
actually did, he come right out and walked down.
Visions, September 30, 1960
About
a night after that, the Lord appeared to me again, one morning just about the
break of day, and showed me a woman hideously crippled that was going to be
made well. So I said, "Well, I'll--I'll probably find out where she's
at." And so I went down and was turning off some water, up on... I believe
it was around Eighth Street, in New Albany. And I had to, it was a double
tenement, and I was afraid I had turned off both sides. One side the people had
moved out, and the other side, the people were there. So I went over to the
side that had the people, it was occupied, and I knocked at the door.
And they was a--a real poor people. And a very attractive young
girl come to the door, rather poorly dressed, and she--she said, "What did
you want?"
And I said, "Would you try the water, to see if it's
off?"
And she said, "Yes, sir." And she went, and she said,
"No, the water is still on."
I said, "Thank you."
And her mother, laying on bed, her name was Mrs. Mary Der Ohanian,
and they, she was Armenian. Her boy played fullback, I believe it was, on the
New Albany football team. And she had her daughter was in High School, her name
was Dorothy. And she said, Dorothy said to me, "Aren't you that man of God
that had that healing here in the hospital the other day? My mother wishes to
speak to you. And I went in. And she told me that... She was laying, crippled,
and she had been crippled in the bed, seventeen years since this girl was born.
And so the girl was seventeen. And so I told her that... She said, "Are
you that man of God that healed that man?"
Foot Prints Book - Page 142
I
said, "No, ma'am, I'm not a healer. I just--I just merely pray for
the--the sick man, was showed by Something that told me." I didn't know
what to call it, a vision or what. I didn't know what it was yet, I was just a
boy and single and everything. And so there was just this lady, asked me for
prayer for her. And I told her to let me pray first, and then if the Lord
showed me to come back.
And then when I went out to pray, I got Brother George, and I said,
"That's that woman that I--I was telling you that I prayed about. I know
it's the same woman. Go with me."
And we went up there to--to offer prayer, and so this little
seventeen-year-old girl, and of course, me just a young boy, and she had a
brother about six, eight years old, something like that. And there was a
Christmas tree, it was right after Christmas, standing in the house. And they
got behind this Christmas tree to laugh at me... to make their mother well. I
told her that the Lord was going to heal her. And I...
Brother George and I got down to pray, and when I started to pray,
well, that Angel that I see, that you see in the picture, I seen it hanging
over the bed. Well, I reached over and took a hold of her hand, and I said,
"Mrs. Ohanian." Now, she lives in New Albany right now, her and her
husband, family. And I said, "Mrs. Ohanian, the Lord Jesus has sent me,
and told me before coming to pray for you and you was going to be made well.
Rise up on your feet and be made well, in the Name of Jesus." Her legs was
drawed up under her. She, with an Armenian Bible over her heart, started moving
towards the side of the bed. And as she did, she...
Then Satan spoke to me, said, "You let her hit that floor, she
will break her neck, off that high bed." I was scared for a moment.
And I had always knowed that what them visions (I didn't know what
it was then) had told me, was always right. So I went ahead, anyhow, and let
her come off the bed. And God being my witness, as soon as she started to jump
from that bed, both legs come straight. Her daughter screamed, pulling her
hair, and running out into the street, screaming as loud as she could.
Neighbors come from everywhere. And there she was, for the first time for
seventeen years, walking around in that room, praising God.
Visions, September 30, 1960
Foot Prints Book - Page 143
Not
long after that, a few weeks, I was in my mother's house one evening, and I had
been praying that day, and I--I just simply couldn't seem to break through
to--to victory in my prayer. And I--I thought I'd just stay all... You know, go
ahead to bed. I was staying at home at that time. And so I went into the--the
room to--to pray, and it was about one o'clock in the morning, I guess. And I
prayed. And, all at once, I looked. And Mama, she used to take her clothes,
just pile them in a chair, you know, we were real poor people.
And I looked, something white coming to me, and I thought I was
looking at that chair of clothes. But it was that Angel of the Lord, that--that
cloud, you know, and it come over to where I was. And I--and I was standing in
a room, a little what we call a shotgun house, little, straight house, two
rooms in it. And it had red wainscoting up here for the side, you see. There
was a little iron poster bed to my right side. There was a black-headed woman
standing against the--the one room went out into the kitchen, she was standing
against that kitchen door, a weeping. There was a father standing to me, that
had brought me a baby, that something had been laying on its little chest. And
one, its left leg, was wound around till it was laying up against its little
body, and the right leg wind by it, vice versa. Both arms wound up, too,
against its body, and its little body was twisted and wound up till it right
here at his neck. And I wondered, "What does this mean?" And I
looked, sitting down to my left, and there set an old woman, taking her glasses
off, and wiping them, from tears or something on her glasses. To my right, on a
red duofold, which was a match to the chair, set a young blond-headed boy with
curly hair, looking out the window. And I looked, standing way over to my
right, and there stood in... that Angel of the Lord, and He said to me,
"Can this baby live?"
And I said, "Sir, I don't know."
He said, "Lay your hands across it, it shall live."
And I--I did. And the baby had jumped down off the... out of the
arms of the father. And the little right leg untwisted, and the right side
untwisted, right arm untwisted. It made another step, and the other side
untwisted. Made another step, and the other side untwisted, the body, middle
part untwisted. And he put his little hands in mine, and said, Brother Branham,
"I'm perfectly whole." The little baby was wearing blue corduroy
coveralls, or overalls, little bibed overalls, and he had brown hair and a
little bitty tiny mouth.
And then the Angel of the Lord told me He was taking me somewhere
else. And I was carried way away, and He sat me down by the side of an old graveyard,
and showed me the numbers on a tombstone near a church, and he said, "This
will be your directing place." He carried me into another place, and there
was, looked like it had been, a little town with about two stores in it, and
one had a yellow front, yellow bordering on the walls. And I walked up there,
or stood there. And there was an old man coming out, with a blue corduroy
jacket on, or blue jean jacket and blue overalls with a yellow corduroy cap,
and he had a big white mustache. He said, "He will show you the way."
Foot Prints Book - Page 144
And
the next time I come to, I saw I was walking into a room following a rather
heavyset young woman. And as I entered the door, the figures and the paper on
the wall, were red. Up over the door had a sign, "God bless our
home." There was a big old brass poster bed laying to my right side and a
chunk stove sitting at the left. And over in a corner laid a girl of about
fifteen years old, and she had had polio or something that had drawed her right
leg up, and her foot turned sideways and was drawed under. And she--and she
looked like a boy, only she had hair like a girl. And she had heart-shaped lips
like a girl. And He said to me, "Can that girl walk?"
And I said, "Sir, I do not know."
He said, "Go put your hands across her stomach."
Then I thought it was a boy, sure enough, because Him having me put
my hands across her stomach. I did as He told me. And I heard somebody say,
"Praise the Lord."
And I looked up, and when I did, this girl was raising up, and when
she raised up, the pajamas she had on, her pajama leg come up and it showed a
round knee like a girl's knee, and not knotty, you know, like the boy's knee,
and I knew it was a girl. And she had on her pajamas, and she come walking to
me, combing her hair, she was blond, combing her hair. The girl lives in Salem
today, married and got three or four children, and her mother and father still
there also.
And so I--I--I come to. And I could hear somebody saying,
"Brother Branham," or "Brother Bill! Oh, Brother Bill!" And
my mother was calling.
And I thought I'd hear one one way, coming out of that vision, you
know, kind of droggy, and I said, "What do you want, Mom?"
And in the next room where she was sleeping, and she said,
"There's somebody knocking at your door."
And I heard it, "Brother Bill?" And I opened the door, it
was a man stepped in. His name was John Emil, he lives in Miami, Florida now.
And he said, "Brother Bill, you don't remember me?
And I said, "No, I don't believe I do."
Foot Prints Book - Page 145
Said,
"You baptized me and my family, but" said "I took a road that's
wrong." He said, "I killed a man here sometime ago, hit him with my
fist and broke his neck in a fight." Said, "I've lost one of my
little boys, the oldest one." And said, "The youngest one is laying
home, dying now." And said, "The doctor of the city here had just
left, and said, 'The child has double pneumonia, and it just barely can get its
breath.'" And said, "I--I--I--I just... You come on my heart, and
wonder if you'd come and have prayer with it." And said, "Now, as you
know, I'm a cousin to Graham Snelling." Which, Graham Snelling, the
Reverend Graham Snelling now, had not become a minister at that time, a nice
Christian boy. He said, "He's my cousin. I'm going down to get him, which
lives about a half a mile from me, down in the city." And said, "I'm
going down to get him. And will you go up?"
I said, "Yes, Mr. Emil, as soon as I put my clothes on."
And so he said, "I'll take my car, and take you up."
And I said, "All right."
Said, "Soon as I get Graham, and I want you all to pray for
the baby."
And I said, "All right."
So then I went to getting ready. And mother said, "What was
the matter?"
I said, "There's a little baby to be healed."
And so she said, "Healed?"
And I said, "Yes, mother." And so I said, "I'll tell
you more about it when I come back." So, in a few moments, he knocked at
the door, and Brother Graham was with him.
We were going up here by what we know as the boat-yard now, which
was the old Howard Shipyard at the time. I said, "Mr. Emil, do you...
where do you live at now?"
He said, "In above Utica."
I said, "You live in a little, what we call shotgun house,
little two room."
"Yes, sir."
"Sets on a hill."
"Yes, sir," He said.
And I said, "Your--your baseboard here is made out of tongue
and groove, and it's painted red."
He said, "That's right."
I said, "The little baby is laying in an iron poster bed, and
he does have, in the house at least, a pair of blue corduroy overalls."
Said, "He has them on."
And I said, "And the baby is tiny fellow, about three years
old, and he's also got a little tiny mouth, little bitty thin lips, and he's
got light brown hair."
He said, "That's the truth."
I said, "Mrs. Emil is a black-headed woman, and in this room
you have a red duofold, and a red chair."
He said, "Was you ever there, Brother Branham?"
And I said, "Just a while ago."
"A while ago?" he said.
I said, "Yes."
"Why," he said, "I never seen you."
I said, "No, it was spiritually." I said, "Mr. Emil,
you heard me tell, if I baptized you, of things that happens to me. I see
things before it happens."
He said, "Yes. Did something like that happen to you, Brother
Branham?"
I said, "Yes, sir, Mr. Emil. Ever what It was that told me,
has never told me a lie. Your baby's going to be healed when I get there."
Foot Prints Book - Page 146
And
he stopped the car, fell over the wheel, said, "God, be merciful to me.
Take me back, O Lord." See? "And I promise You, to live for You the
rest of my days, if You're going to spare my baby's life." And there he
gave his heart to Christ.
We moved into the house all excited about him, a soul being brought
back to Christ. When we--when we went into the house, there laid everything
just exactly the way it was, only the old woman wasn't there. Excitable, so
excited, I said, "Bring me the baby." And the baby just barely
living. See, that winding up, was the life going out of the baby. It was just
wound to here, its little throat. And I said, "Bring me the baby," not
waiting for the vision to fulfill. Brother Vayle, if this pad was supposed to
be laying here, I can't say a word till that pad is laid there. See, it has to
be just the way it's showed me. So I said, "Bring me the baby."
And the daddy brought the baby to me, and I prayed for it, and it
got worse. So I thought, "Now, something." It really lost its breath,
and they had to fight and shake and everything to get breath in it. I thought,
"Now, there's something wrong." And I happened to think,
"Where's the old woman?" That wasn't there yet. So they taken the
baby and laid it down and they was putting stuff under its nose, and
everything, and crying, and the mother screaming hysterically, and everything,
but the baby was just--just barely breathing. I thought, "Well, through
my--my stupidity, I have mis-used the vision of God, 'cause I never waited on
it, being so over excited."
Foot Prints Book - Page 147
By
this, you can see, Brother Vayle, why I wait. I don't care who tells me. I love
you as my brother. But, brother, don't never try to tell me something to do
when I--when I feel that I--I got the will of the Lord. See? No matter how well
it looks the other way, I'll wait for Him. See? And--and so I--I learned a
lesson right there, many, many, many years ago, and to do exactly what He says,
and don't do it till He says it's ready to be done.
The baby was fighting for breath. Now, I couldn't tell them what I
done, but I just had to wait. And I thought, "Maybe grace will override
it, see, forgive me. Well, I went, set down. They fought for life of the baby
till daylight. When day begin breaking, they thought the baby would just go at
any minute.
Well, I set there, and they kept asking me, "Brother Branham,
what must we do? Brother Bill," they called me, "what must I
do?"
I said, "I don't know." See? I set there with my head
down, saying, "Lord, please forgive me."
Well, and then it come daylight, Brother Graham Snelling had to go
to work. So Mr. Emil had to take him, and I knowed I had to leave the house.
And yet Brother Graham was supposed to be sitting there, 'cause he's got blond,
curly hair, as you know. He was supposed to be sitting on this duofold. So I
was sitting there where Brother Graham was supposed to be sitting, but the old
woman wasn't there, there was no old woman at the place. So I set there. And so
Mr. Emil got his coat on, then I knowed if Brother Graham left, hard telling
when he'd ever be back. See? And then I knowed that even if the woman come,
then Brother Graham wouldn't be there. So you see what kind of condition was
in. And so Mr. Emil said, "Brother Branham, do you want to go? Or, Brother
Bill, do you want to go home? Do you want me to take you down home?"
I said, "No, sir. I'll just wait, if you don't mind." I
hated to say that, stay there in the house, just the baby and the mother and
myself, 'cause they were young people. They... he was about twenty-five years
old, I suppose, and I was about the same age. And I said, "No, I'll
just-I'll just wait, if you don't mind."
He said, "It's all right, brother, Brother Bill."
And so the mother walking the floor, hysterically, and trying to...
crying and everything, you know, and the baby was just worse. See? Just look
like any minute... Just trying to catch its breath, like this, going, "Uh,
uh." That's all the breath was in it. And nothing, they didn't have
penicillin and things in them days, you see, so they just--they just put
plasters on them and things like that. But the little baby had had it for
several days, and it was gone, see, or going.
Foot Prints Book - Page 148
And
then I--I set down there, I thought, "My, if Graham goes!"
Graham got his coat on, and he started to go out the door, and he
said to his wife, he said, "Now, we'll be back just a minute."
And I thought, "O God, then I'll have to stay here all day,
and maybe all night again, you see, waiting for that vision. What can I
do?" And I looked out the window, and coming around the house come the
baby's grandmother in there. I didn't learn later it was the grandmother. And
she had on glasses. I thought, "This is it, Lord, if--if Graham just don't
go out the door."
So she always come to the front door, but somehow, they don't even
know to yet, but she went to the back door, come in the kitchen. And she walked
in the kitchen, the little old house. And she got to the door, her daughter run
over there and kissed her 'cause it was the daughter's mother, you know, and
kissed her. And Brother Graham... And then she said, "Is the baby
better?"
She said, "Mother, it's dying!" And she started screaming
like that; and her mother, crying.
Then I thought, "If this will just work, now if Graham don't
go out!" And I raised up, and I couldn't say nothing, you see, just wait.
And Brother Graham walked around, and I got up so he could sit down. And he...
and that was some of his relation, you see, so he just started crying, too, and
set down on the duofold where they was supposed to be sitting.
I thought, "Now, if that old lady will just come around and
sit down in this red chair." And I got back to the door where Mr. Emil was
standing with his overcoat on, and ready to go out, real cold weather,
blizzardy cold. And I thought... And the old lady set down in this chair, And
Graham sat down, and ducked his head down. And the mother of the baby put her
hand up over the door, and begin weeping. Just exactly the vision. And the old
lady sat down, and instead of it being tears, altogether, on her glasses coming
from the cold, it fogged them. And she reached in her little briefcase and got
a little handkerchief out, and, or a little satchel, and started wiping these
glasses. Brother, that was it!
I said to Mr. Emil, I said, "Mr. Emil, do you still have
confidence in me as a servant of Christ?"
He said, "I sure do, Brother Branham."
I said, "I can tell you now. I spoke ahead of the vision, a
while ago, that's why it didn't happen. If you still got confidence in me, go,
bring me your baby." Oh, my! I seen it was right then, you see. "Go,
bring me your baby."
He said, "I'll do anything you tell me to do, Brother Bill. I
wouldn't be afraid to pick it up." Cause they'd picked it up, it just
went, the breath altogether left it. Brought the little baby up to me, and
reached and got it in his arms, brought it up to me and stood there.
Foot Prints Book - Page 149
I
put my hand on it, said, "Lord, forgive the stupidity of Your
servant." See. "I spoke ahead of Your vision. But now let it be known
that You're God of heavens and earth."
No more than said that, the little baby throwed both arms around
its daddy and begin screaming and crying, said "Daddy, I feel all right
now." See?
I said, "Mr. Emil, let the little baby alone. It'll be three
days before it leaves it, 'cause it made three steps, unwinding."
I went home and I told it in my church. And I said, "I'm going
back." That was on Monday. I said, "Wednesday night before church I'm
going up there." They was poor people, and we made them up a basket of
groceries to take to them. So I said, "I want you all to go. And when I go
there, and you get around the house, and when I come to that place to where
that house is, you watch and see if that little baby don't come across the
floor, with a little mustache made here where he's been drinking chocolate milk
or something, see, and put his hands in mine, and say these words, 'Brother
Bill, I'm perfectly whole,' this little three-year-old baby. Watch and see if
it don't happen."
My wife now, Meda, way before we were married, though, she was in
the bunch, and a truckload went and placed themselves around the house, see, to
see me when I drove up in the old Public Service Company truck that I had at
home that night. I didn't have any car of my own. Full of tar in the back, and
things, you know, where I had been hauling it that day and fixing things. Drove
up in front, stopped, and went up on the porch, knocked on the door. And they
didn't have no rugs on the little old floor. And the mother come across the
floor, said, "Why, it's Brother Bill," like that. And the people were
looking in the windows at the time, to see what would happen. And in the
corner, playing, was this little boy, the third day. I stopped, never said a
word, and he come strolling across the floor, put his little hands up in mine,
with the... been drinking chocolate milk, his little mustache-like across there,
from the chocolate milk. Put his hands up in mine, Brother Bill, I'm perfectly
whole."
That night at the church, I told it. I said, "There's a
crippled girl somewhere that's needy." I said, "Church, I don't know
what these things mean. I can't tell you."
And--and so I was working at the Public Service. And I remember,
one day about a week after that, I started to leave the building, going out,
and Mr. Herb Scott, lives here in the city right now, he was my boss. And he
said... I started down, he said, Billy."
And I said, "Yes?"
Said, "Before you leave, I've got a letter here for you."
I said, "Okay, Herby, I'll pick it up in a minute."
Foot Prints Book - Page 150
And
so I went over to get my other work I was checking up. So I went over to get my
other work done, and when I--I did, I remembered that letter. And I went and
got it, and I opened it up, it said, "Dear Mr. Branham," see, said,
"my name is Nale, I'm Mrs. Harold Nale. We live at a place called South
Boston." And said, "We are Methodists, by faith. And I happened to
read a little book that you wrote, called, 'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, and forever,' a little pamphlet. And we were having prayer meeting in
our house the other night, and we have heard of you having success, praying for
the sick." And said, "I have an afflicted daughter, fifteen years
old," said, "that's laying on the bed of affliction. And, somehow, I
just can't get it off my mind," said, "I should have you to come pray
for this girl. Would you please do it? Yours truly, Mrs. Harold Nale. South
Boston, Indiana."
I said, "You know, that's the girl. That's her." I went
home, told my mother. Told them about it, I said, "That--that's the
girl."
And then, that night at church , I said to the church, I said,
"Here's that-that-that-that place." I said, "Anybody know where
South Boston is?"
And Brother George Wright, you all are acquainted with him, he
said, "Brother Branham, it's, I think it's down in the south."
So the next day, two friends of mine, and my wife, which now is,
and a man and his wife from Texas, their name was Brace, Ed Brace, he lives
down here now, in below Milltown, farmer. He was a rancher out in the west and
he had moved here to be close to the church, and I prayed for his wife, and she
had been healed of the tubercular condition. And so he wanted to see this
happen. I said, " You go with me, and see if it don't happen just this a
way." So the lady had never seen a vision, Mrs.--Mrs. Brace. So my wife
went with me, and Brother Jim Wisehart, the old elder, you remember the church
there, the old deacon, he wanted to see it. And I just had a little old
roadster then, and I piled them all in there, and we went down below New
Albany. And I found this sign, and, I come to find out, it wasn't South Boston,
it was New Boston. So then I didn't know where to go.
So I come back up to Jeffersonville, and asked somebody. And
somebody went to the Post Office, they said, "South Boston is up above
Henryville."
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So
I--I went up to Henryville and I asked there, and they said, "Turn off on
this road, it's about fifteen miles, back where these knobs here, you find a
little place. You'll be careful, you'll miss it," said, "because it's
just one little store, and the store has got the post office and everything
else in it. South Boston, over these knobs." There's seventeen thousand
acres of them knobs in there, you see, and this was over behind, in the hills
there.
So we went on, riding along and, all at once, I felt real strange.
After been driving five or six miles, I felt real strange. And I said, "I
don't know."
They said, "What's the matter?"
I said, "I believe that--that One that talks to me, wants to
talk to me, so I'm going to have to leave the car."
So I got out of the car, and the women sitting on women's laps, you
know, and everything, that little old roadster. And I got out of the car and
went around behind the car. And I bowed my head down, put my foot up on the
bumper in the back of the car, and I said, "Heavenly Father, what would You
have Your servant know?" And I prayed, nothing happened. I waited a few
minutes, and I thought, "Well, He usually, where there's a crowd like
that, I have to get to myself." And so I waited a few minutes. And I
happened to be attracted, look over there, and I happened to think, "Well,
looky here, here's that old church sitting down here." And if you're ever
at it, it's the Bunker Hill Church. And I looked over on the side of the Bunker
Hill Christian Church, and there was the tombstones of the graveyard, right in
front of the church. And I went over there. I said, "Now, you all got them
letters. I never been in that country before, in my life; never was in above
there, anywhere, in my life." And I said, "You get them names and
numbers, and come over here, see if they ain't the same one on this
tombstone." There it was, just exactly. I said, "That's it. We're on
the right road now." I said, "That was the Angel of the Lord. See,
I'd pass right on by it and not know it." So, oh, He's perfect.
And so we rode on and on. Directly I met a man, and I said,
"Could you tell me where South Boston is, sir?"
He said, "You jog to the right, and the left," you know,
so forth like that." And we just kept on going.
So, after a while, we come into... I noticed I come into a little
place, and it had kind of a little village-like, and I--I looked, and I said,
"That's it. That's it right there." I said, "There is the...
There--there's that yellow storefront out there. And you watch. A man is going
to come out of there with a blue overalls on, and a white corduroy, or a yellow
corduroy cap, with a white mustache, and tell me where to go. If it ain't, I'm
a big story-teller." And so they was all waiting.
Foot Prints Book - Page 152
And--and
I drove up in front of the place, and just as I drove up in front, out come the
man with blue overall suit on, and the yellow corduroy cap, and a white
mustache. And Mrs. Brace fainted in the car, seeing it come to pass like that.
And I said, "Sir, you're to tell me where Harold Nale lives."
He said, "Yes, sir." Said, "You come from the
south?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
Said, "You passed it about a half a mile down the road. You
turn the first road to the left, you go up and you find a big red barn, and you
turn in there at that red barn." Said, "It's the second house on your
right, as you turn up that little lane-like road."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "Why?"
I said, "He has an afflicted daughter, doesn't he?"
Said, "Yes, sir, he does."
I said, "The Lord is going to heal her." And the old man
started crying. See, he never knows. And so he was included in the vision, he
didn't know what was going on.
I turned around. We got Mrs. Nale kind of revived again, and went
up there. Walked up into the yard, got out of the car, started in, started up
to the place to the, you know, to the place where it was at. And a heavyset
young woman come to the door. I said, "There she is. See?
And so she said, "How do you do?"
And I said, "How do you do." I said, "I'm--I'm
Brother Bill."
"Oh," she said, "I--I--I thought you were." She
said, "You got my letter?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am, I did."
She said, "I'm Mrs. Harold Nale."
I said, "Well, I'm glad to know you, Mrs. Nale, and this is
just a little party come with me to pray for your girl."
Said, "Yes."
I said, "She's fixing to be healed."
She said, "What?" And her lips started quivering, she
started crying.
I said, "Yes, ma'am." And I--I don't know, I never
stopped for the woman, I walked right on down the hall, and my party followed
me. When I opened the door to the right of the hall, big old country home,
opened the door, there was the yellow news-... the yellow papers on the wall,
red figures; the sign, "God bless our home." The old brass poster bed,
chunk stove sitting to my left, and there was a little bitty cot sitting there
with this boyish-looking girl laying in it.
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Now,
something happened, I was up in the corner of the room, watching my body go to
that bed. And I laid my hands right across her stomach exactly the way the Lord
said. And when I did that, when Mrs. Nale walked in the room and seen that,
down she went on the floor again, fainted. She's kind of a weakly person. And
she fainted on her floor again. And Brother Nale was trying to work with her,
and old Brother Jim standing there, saying, "Bless the Lord," holding
his hands together, you all knew how he acted.
And so then I looked at that, and I seen that, and I laid my hands
upon her, or across her stomach like this. And I said, "Lord, I do this at
the command of what I think is God telling me to do it." And, about that
time, she started crying, and she jumped up. And they just got Mrs. Nale to her
feet, she had woke up from the fainting spell. And when the girl jumped from
the bed, there come her pajama leg up on the right leg, just exactly the way
that it showed in the vision, and there was that round knee of a girl instead
of a boy. And down went Mrs. Nale again, see, she fainted. That's the three
times she fainted.
And that girl walked out of there in that room, and went into her
dressing room, weeping, and put on her kimona, come walking back, combing her
hair with her... with that... And her one hand was paralyzed, too, on the right
side. Combing her hair with that crippled hand. She's married, got a bunch of
children, her name... I don't know what her name is now, but Nale, anybody
could tell you, Harold Nale. And, that, visions are true. I could place that
and take you to people that would make a volume of books of such things has
happened.
Visions, September 30, 1960
I
was at my Mother's house and I was going to stay all night down there. I had
been praying for the sick, and I got in late, and so I just stopped off at
Mother's and I was talking to her. And we went to bed. In a little while, some,
I got up, and I just couldn't rest. Did you ever have those restless nights? Be
careful, if you're a Christian, that might be God dealing with you, see. So
I--I got up and walking around, and I kind of got a burden. I thought,
"Well, maybe somebody is sick somewhere, and they want me to pray for
them."
And I got down, and I couldn't pray through. And just went on for a
while, and after a while I looked across the room. And did any of you women
ever wash and bring your wash in like that and pile it down in a chair? That's
my mother. And then iron, barefooted. And if she knew I said that, she'd turn
me over her checked apron. But I seen the poor old thing many times standing
there, and singing with her iron, you know, barefooted, ironing. And she had...
I thought she laid her clothes in a chair in the corner in the bedroom there.
Foot Prints Book - Page 154
And
looked like Something white begin coming closer to me. I looked at It, and It
wasn't the chair. It was Something moving, white. And seemed like I went into
It, or It come into me, and in a few moments I was walking down through a
wilderness country and I could hear a lamb bleating, going, "Baa,
baa!" Did you ever hear a little lamb cry? It's the most pitiful thing in
the world. And it was bleating.
I said, "That poor little thing, I'm going to see if I can
find it."
And I started up towards the brush and stuff. And as I got closer
to it, it wasn't a lamb. It was a human, and it was calling, saying,
"Milltown. Milltown."
Well, I never heard of the place in my life. So when I came to
myself... I went to church the following Wednesday night, and I said to some of
them, "Anybody know where Milltown is?" No one knew. So then Sunday
night I announced it, "Does anyone know where Milltown is?"
And a brother by the name of George Wright, I guess many of you
that go around the Tabernacle know him, and he said, "Yes, Brother
Branham, about thirty-five miles down the Southern here." Said, "I
live close to it."
I said, "I will be down next Saturday. God wants me to go to
Milltown, there's somebody down there in trouble."
He said, "Small city, about five hundred people, or a
thousand, down on the Southern there."
Said, I said, "Well, I'll be down."
We went down, and I remember I went to that grocery store where the
big corner turns. I thought, "I wonder what the Lord wants of me." I
went in and bought a box and come out there. And I thought, "I'll preach
right here on the comer." Well, I got up on the box. I--I--I couldn't
think of nothing to preach about. And all the folks there in the country, you
know, come in on Saturday, do their shopping.
Brother Wright said, "I'm going up on the hill to do a little
trading, Brother Branham, got to take some eggs up there to a man." Said,
"You want to ride up with me?"
And I said, "Yes." And as I went up, there was a big
white church standing up on the hill. And I said, "Hey, look, isn't that a
lovely church!"
He said, "Yes, it's a pity about that church." Said,
"That's a Baptist Church, and the pastor there got into some trouble.
And," said, "the church went down, and never had a pastor there
since." Said, "The city taken it over. The congregation all left and
went to other churches."
And I felt the Spirit of God tell me "stop." I went over
there, and the door was locked. And I said, "You go ahead, Brother Wright.
And I, you have to pick me up after while."
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And
after he got gone, I knelt down there and I prayed. And I said, "Lord, if
You want me in this church, unlock these doors for me."
And so while I was praying, I got up, and I heard somebody coming.
It was a man walking around. He said, "Hello!"
And I said, "How do you do."
He said, "I seen you were praying."
I said, "Yes, sir, I'm... I just... I'm a preacher and I just
was praying here on the steps."
He said, "You want to go in?"
And I said, "Yes, sir."
Said, "I got the key."
I said, "Thank You, Lord." I said, "Thank You,
Lord." Are you believing that? Yes, sir. Yes, sir, He's real!
And he opened the door for me and I went in. There, it'd seat about
three, four hundred people. And I walked up to the place and I bowed my head
and prayed. I said, "Who owns it?"
Said, "Oh, the city," said, "we just... I just take
care of it here." Said, "The only thing we have in it is funerals and
so forth."
I said, "What about having a revival here?"
Said, "See the city official."
And I went down and asked him. He said, "Sure, if you'll put a
meter in it."
I said, "Well, I work for the utility company, I'll put my own
meter in."
He said, "All right."
I put the meter in, and announced around there that I was going to
have a revival. I never will forget the first man I asked. I said, "Going
to have a revival, sir. Will you come?"
He said, "Say, we raise chickens around here. I ain't got time
to go to no church."
I said, "Well, couldn't you just let the chickens alone for a
little while and come to the meeting?"
He said, "Ah, we ain't got time for nothing like that." I
got my business to take care of, and you take care of your own!"
I said, "I didn't aim to hurt your feelings, sir." About
ten days from then, you know, they had to take out time to bury the man, he
died. And so they buried him right down there in front of the church.
We started a revival. And, oh, I went out and prayed in the woods,
and I thought the Lord give me a great message, and I was just burning up my
heart to deliver it. I said, "Oh, we'll probably have a big crowd there
tonight. Maybe the Lord wants me to hold a revival." So, I got down there,
you know who was there? George Wright, his wife, and son and daughter, I had
four in the congregation. I preached the message the Lord had give me, just the
same.
Foot Prints Book - Page 156
And
then the next night there was an odd-looking fellow walked up to the outside,
and he was a... They told me he was a backslidden Nazarene, once belonged to
the Nazarene Church and had backslid. Had his corncob pipe in his mouth, and he
knocked it out up on the side of the building, hair hanging down in his face.
And tooth out on the side, and looks in, said, "Where is that little Billy
Sunday you're talking about in here?" Like that, Mr. Wright went back and
got him and set him down.
I was up there reading the Bible, behind the pulpit, Brother Wright
come up, said, "The hardest falling fellow there is in the country, just
walked in." Said, "Oh, he's a rip-snorter." Said, "His name
is William Hall, he runs the quarry sitting on the hill."
I said, "Maybe that's the one the Lord's after."
So I got to preaching. Brother Wright went back to him, said,
"You want to move up front?"
He said, "I'll take care of things back here, you go on up
front." And as the meeting come on, when the service closed, Mr. Hall was
kneeling on the rail, praying to God. He's my associate pastor down there now.
And still a few nights, there was some healings taken place, and
then that started the crowd when that man was healed, assistant to Dr. Tree.
There seemed like yet it wasn't an.
So there's a young lady that belonged to a certain church there.
That, I won't call no name, they don't believe in any Spirit, just the letter,
"We speak where the Word speaks, and silent where It's silent." And
they had made a proclamation there, that anybody that went to that meeting
would be given their church letter and sent home. Her daddy was a deacon in the
church. And so she got a hold of one of my little books, and this lady, girl,
she's about twenty-five years old now. Her name's Miss. Georgie Carter. She had
been laying nine years and eight months, that she had never raised her head off
the bed, TB. And they couldn't even put a bed pan under her, they keep a rubber
sheet and had a draw sheet. I guess you know her, Brother Ryan. Had to pull the
draw sheet like that. She had never seen the outside world, nowhere out, even
the windows, for nine years and eight months.
And somebody come and told me, but said, "You can't go pray
for her." Said, "She's crying for you."
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And
just as soon as they said that, seemed like that was the one I was to go see.
Well, her mother and dad wouldn't let me come, said, "No, we won't let
that deceiver come."
And then after I got ready to leave the revival, her daddy said,
well, he'd leave the house, and her mother said he's, she'd leave, and to
satisfy the girl. But I think they must have got permission from the preacher,
just to let me come down there. So I went in to see her, and the poor little
thing had my little book laying there. And on the back of the bed, before she
could... got past putting her hands back, the paint was all rubbed off the bed
where she had held and cried and prayed for deliverance. But her church didn't
believe in Divine healing. And she got this book, and she seen in the paper
where another girl had been healed and had been sent in a vision, and she
wanted to be healed. So the poor little thing had just cried so, and I went in,
she said, "Brother Branham, I just believed that you would come and Jesus
would let me get well."
I said, "Will you serve Him, sister?"
Said, "All my heart."
And her little old arms, she couldn't raise her sputum cup. She'd
start and she'd go, "uh, uh, uh," then they'd have to hold the cup.
She'd go, "uh, uh, uh," just spit in it like that. And that's the
condition she was in. I knelt and had prayer for her, and went out of the room.
And about two weeks from then, I was back again to start another
meeting. We had a three or four-nights meeting. And there was another minister
up there that didn't believe in immersing. And I was going to baptize a bunch
down there in the river. And he had had a revival in a tent, and he said,
"If anybody... if one of my congregation even walk in that church where
that crazy Divine healer... " Said, "I would--I'd absolutely take
them out of the church." And he said, "The very idea!" Said, "That
guy will drown you in water." You know. He said, "Well!"
I went up there to have a baptismal service that afternoon. And
little Georgie, I told her, I said, "Now--now, sister, I can pray for you.
That's all I know."
She said, "Well, can you do for me like you did for that Nale
girl?"
I said, "No, that was a vision, honey. I have to see the
vision first." And I said, "If He ever sends me back, I'll come back,
but I believe you're going to get well." Encouraging her faith.
And, so, but the last day of the service, I went over to baptize at
Totton Ford. Many of you people around Corydon know where that's at. And so I
went over there to baptize. And here this minister had closed his service, and
all the congregation standing on the bank. And I walked out there in the river,
you know. Oh, my, that glorious feeling, the water splashing around everywhere!
And I baptized about fifty people that afternoon. And while I was standing
there, it just seemed like Angel was sitting on every branch of the trees. And
I was standing there, started to pray like that, I said, "As God sent John
to baptize!" I said, "He said, 'Go ye into all the world and make
disciples of all nations, and baptize them. These signs shall follow them that
believe.'"
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And,
about that time, the Holy Spirit swept down across that bank, and the entire
congregation, that minister walked out in the river, screaming, with their good
clothes on, I baptized every one of them that afternoon. Every one of them!
That's right. That's true. Women, screaming, with silk dresses on, young
ladies, and mothers and dads, and were bringing their kiddies and everything. I
baptized till it was almost dark, they had to pull me out of the water.
And so I was to have the meeting down at the Baptist Church that
night. I went up with Brother Wright and them to eat supper. And Mother Wright,
she's a real cook, way back up in the country where they live. And I said,
"I don't want supper right now." I said, "I'll go over here to
pray. The Lord wants me to pray, There's something leaning heavy on my
heart."
So then she said, "Well, when I ring the dinner bell, you
come, Brother Branham," said, "cause we going to have to hurry."
I said, "All right."
And I went over there and I knelt down. Did you ever feel like, you
know, the briars stuck you and the floor was too hard? Did you ever have that?
That's the time to press on. That's the Devil trying to keep you from it. Move
right on! As long as you're doing right, you can't be doing wrong. See? You
can't go this way when you're going this a-way. And I know it's right to pray,
and I just kept on praying. The wind blew and a sticker hit me in the face, and
I just said, "Thank You, Lord," just kept on praying.
And after a while I got lost in the Spirit. Did you ever get lost
in the Spirit? Excuse me for talking fast like a woods on fire, but I'm trying
to hurry up. But I just got lost in the Spirit. I didn't hardly know where I
was at. I heard that bell ring, but I was having too good a time with God then,
to think about supper. And the bell rang and rang, and I know it's getting
dark. And I just praying, and I said, "Thank You, Lord, for Your
goodness."
And just then it kind of quietened down. I thought I'd get up and
go on over then, maybe the--the first bunch would be away from the table. And I
said, "Thank You, Lord."
And as I opened my eyes, kind of right down through a little
dogwood bush there, there was a Light, kind of an emerald-green, yellowish
Light shining right down on me. And a Voice spoke, like a great deep Voice way
back there in the woods, and said, "Go by the way of Carter."
Foot Prints Book - Page 159
That
was enough. That had it. I jumped up and started screaming. I run down. They
had search parties looking for me out in the woods. I jumped over the fence,
and down there in the field, and jumped right into Brother Wright's arms. He
said, "Brother Billy," he said, "mama's been waiting supper on
you for hours." Said, "They're out everywhere over the hill here,
hunting for you."
And I said, "Well, Brother Wright, I'm not going to eat
supper." I said, "Georgie Carter is going to be healed completely in
the next few minutes." She was about eight miles away.
He said, "What?"
I said, "Yes, sir. THUS SAITH THE LORD!"
He said, "You mean she's going to get up?"
I said, "She's going to be normal and well in the next few
minutes, soon as I can get there."
He said, "Can I go with you?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
And there was a man there from Texas, just brought his wife up, and
she was healed. He said, "Brother Branham, can I go with you?" He
seen the Nale girl healed a few weeks before that.
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "You mean that little pile of bones?"
And I said, She's going to be healed just in a few minutes."
We jumped in the car and went down.
Now, God works on both ends of the line. Don't you believe that?
When they was having a prayer meeting down at John Mark's house, Peter in the
prison, the Angel of the Lord was there. You know what I mean.
And then this woman, the mother, Mrs. Carter, I want you all to
write to her if you want to. She was very critical, but she...
The little Georgie cried. She promised God if she could get healed
that afternoon, she'd go down and be baptized. So, and she hadn't raised off
that bed now, her head up, for nine years and eight months. And then she was
laying there, crying, and her mother got so worked up. Her mother set there,
fairly young woman, went gray-headed and took the palsy, just sitting there by
that bed all the time, day and night, just what little sleep she could get.
All right, her mother went in the kitchen, she knelt down, she
said, "O Dear God!" Sincerity, now, just been taught wrong. Said,
"O Dear God," said, "have mercy on my poor little girl in there.
Poor little thing laying there, just a few days from death, and she's laying
there. And that impostor come through this country here claiming to be
something," and said, "and has got my child all tore up." Said,
"God, have mercy!" Started praying like that.
Foot Prints Book - Page 160
Now,
here's her testimony. I don't know this, this is her words. She said she raised
her head up like that, and was wiping the tears from her eyes. Her daughter
lived next door...?... was good people. And the sun was setting in the West,
and was shining in like this against the wall. She said she seen a shadow
coming down the wall, and she thought it was her daughter coming around the
house. But when It got right up to her, she said It was the Lord Jesus Christ.
Said He walked right up close like that. She said, "Who is this?" And
said He looked, and she could see me with this high forehead, and this Bible
laying on my heart, coming, walking into the house. And she said, "Oh,
mercy! I--I've went to... I'm asleep." She never seen a vision. She said,
"I'm--I'm asleep."
And she run in and told Georgie, said, "Georgie, I was out
there a few minutes ago, praying, and looked like I seen a form on the wall,
looked like Jesus. And I seen that Brother Branham come in," said,
"with two man following him. Had a Bible over his heart."
And, about that time, the door closed outside, and here come me and
the two man.
I tell you, oh, my, I feel good! Brother, you'll never know how it
feels till you know just where you're standing. Then all devils out of hell
can't stop it! There's nothing can! You know where you're at then.
And walked up to the porch, I never... It seemed to me like that I
felt myself come out of my body, and seen my body open that door and go in. And
there was that little girl was laying there. And her mother just keeled over on
the floor and fainted.
And I walked up to the bed where she was at. I said, "Sister
Georgie, even the Lord Jesus Who you love and trusted all this time, has met me
in the woods and said that I must come and you would be made well. Therefore,
in obedience to the commission that was just given me some few moments ago in
the woods, I take you by the hand and say, in the Name of Jesus Christ, stand
to your feet and be made well."
And that poor little girl, weighing not over thirty-six or
thirty-seven pounds, just a bunch of bones, (why, she couldn't have stood if
she had to), not only stood, but she jumped to her feet, screaming to the top
of her voice. And there the people begin to scream. Perfectly normal and well!
And her mother fainted.
Her sister come running next, and she didn't know what to do, she
begin screaming, her hair... running down the road, pulling her hair like that,
said, "Something's happened!"
Foot Prints Book - Page 161
Her
father was coming across from the farm, with some milk in--in a little container
like this, and he heard the piano playing, and he run into the house, to find
what it was. And there was his daughter, that had never moved from that bed for
nine years and eight months, sitting at the piano, playing "Jesus, keep me
near the Cross, there is a precious fountain; free to all, a healing stream
that flows from Calvary's mountain."
Perfectly normal and well! My, here come the Marengo, the Baptist
preacher, and all them coming in there. And she run into the yard, she blessed
the leaves, she blessed the grass. She was so happy! Brother, sister, that's
been about six years ago.
Tonight, Georgie Carter's playing the piano at the Milltown Baptist
Church where I'm still the pastor. Write to her. Miss. Georgie, G-e-o-r-g-i-e
C-a-r-t-e-r, Milltown, Indiana. Get her own personal testimony. That same Jesus
Christ that healed Georgie that night is right here tonight to do the same
thing for every individual that's standing here in Divine order. Do you believe
that?
Life Of Demons, July 22, 1951
One
time I was preaching down in Kentucky. And if there's some of the newcomers,
and Catholic and different ones, who may not understand how these deep rich
things of the Scripture, I'd been preaching on Divine healing. A little
bare-footed girl brought... she wasn't but fifteen years old, had a little baby
and it had the palsy. And I said, "What's the matter, sister, with your
baby.
Said, "It's got the jerks." She didn't know what to say,
palsy, she didn't know what to call it.
Little thing probably never had a pair of shoes on, in her life.
Some man's darling, long hair hanging down. And I said, "Do you
believe?". '
And those little, steel-gray eyes looked at me, she said,
"Yeah, sir, I sure believe."
I took the little baby. And while I was praying for it, it quit
jerking, Uh-huh, and it went out-went out.
Next day, I was squirrel hunting, over in the side of a mountain.
And I heard some man setting there talking, old saw buzzing. And I slipped
down, I'd been squirrel hunting. They was talking about me, had, setting there
a-chewing tobacco, and spitting, the leaves a-flying like that. And they were
talking about, now, about the meeting the night before. And one of them said, I
seen that baby, I went there this morning. It isn't jerking, yet this
morning." See? Said, "That was real." And he was spitting the...
Foot Prints Book - Page 162
And
they had rifles leaning against the tree, so I thought I'd better make myself
known. You know, they had feuds down there, too. So I walked up, I said,
"Good morning, brethren."
And that great big fellow, seemed to be speaking, he had a chew of
tobacco in his mouth like that, way out on the side like that, and big, long
neck. And he had a great big old hat on, pulled down over his face. He looked
around and he seen me, he reached up and got that hat, jerked it off, went...
[Brother Branham illustrates--Ed.] swallowed that chewing tobacco, said,
"Good morning, parson." See? Yes, sir. Respect! And that's right. How
he ever lived over it, I don't know. But, he did.
So, the next night, coming back, there was a man there who wanted
to argue with me a little bit. He went to a church that didn't believe in
Divine healing. So, this was a Methodist Church, White Hill, Kentucky. So
he--he went to... He was standing outside. He had a lantern in his hand, and he
said, "I want to say something, preacher. I just can't accept That, 'cause
I can't see It."
I said, "You can't see It?"
He said, "No!" Said, "I'm a sick man, myself,
but" said "I just can't see It."
I said, "Where do you live?"
He said, "Back over on Big Renox."
I said, "Well, now, how you going to get home?"
He said, "Well, I'm going to walk home."
I said, "Can you see your home?"
He said, "No, sir."
I said, "Awful dark tonight, it's cloudy."
He said, "Yes."
I said, "How you going home?"
He said, "By this lantern."
I said, "The lantern doesn't show light all the way to the
house." I said, "How do you go?"
He said, "I'll walk by the lantern."
I said, "That's it. You've got the light of the lantern now,
and every time you step this a-way, the light will keep showing on ahead of
you. If you just keep walking, the light will keep going with you."
And you do that this morning, you want Christ the great High
Priest, the Intercessor for your sickness, or your diseases, or your soul. You
might not understand It, we don't, but we're commanded to "walk in the
Light as He is in the Light." You make one step in the Light. And when you
got the Light with you, the Light will shine unto the perfect day, It'll keep
the path before you.
Hebrews, Chapter Six, September 15, 1957
Foot Prints Book - Page 163
Got
a little story to say about my precious wife setting back there. I gave her a
rough time before we was married, I've tried to make up for it after we was
married. And I didn't know whether I wanted to be married again or not, and so
she got all broke up. And I thought she was too good a girl just to leave go,
let some good man marry her that'd take care of her. And I thought I even
wasn't worthy of it; and I am not, of her kindness, anyhow. So she was all tore
up and didn't know what to do. This has been years ago, about twenty years ago.
She got so tore up, she started crying day and night. And I was trying to break
away from her, not because I didn't love her, because I didn't want to take her
time; 'cause, let her find somebody, some good person, 'cause she's too good a
girl just to let go like that, and me take... to just go with her and things
like that. And I--I thought she loved me, and I knowed I loved her. So then I
thought, "Well, I'll just try to... I'll get a date with some other girl and
go out, and make her feel bad about me." I liked to a-killed her, I hated
it awful bad afterwards; she got all broke up. I told her, I said," You're
too good a girl, I--I don't want to take your time like that."
And she said, "But I--I just love you, Bill, and that's the
only one I can love." Said, I--I've always loved you."
I said, "I--I appreciate that. But," I said, "you
know," I said, "I'm a hermit." I said, "I'm--I'm just going
to live like a hermit. See, I--I ain't going to get married at all."
And she was so set on it, you know, poor little fellow. And she
went out to the shed. And she got out there, she got down on her knees, and she
said, "Lord, I don't know what to do. I--I don't want to disobey You, and
yet I love Bill, and I don't know what to do. Lord, will You just give me a
little bit of consolation? Will You just help me a little bit? I never did ask
You this before in my life, Lord, and I hope I never have to ask You
again," she said, "but if You'll just help me, and let me open up
this Bible, and You give me a Scripture. I've heard people say You did
that." And when she opened it up, it was Malachi 4, "Behold, I give
unto... or send unto you Elijah the prophet before the... that terrible day of
the Lord." She said, "I got up from there just as well satisfied that
we was going to get married as anything." See?
"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven. And
all the proud, yea, all they that do wicked, shall be stubbles; and the day
cometh that shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, and it shall leave
them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear My Name, the Sun, S-u-n,
Sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in His wings."
The Patmos Vision, December 4, 1960
Foot Prints Book - Page 164
I
got one time where I thought that I was kind of a good woodsman, you know,
hunted so much. I thought, "I'm just foolproof, nobody's going to... You
couldn't lose me. My mom was a half Indian, and I loved that. Oh, my! You can't
lose me in the woods, I know where I'm at."
And, oh, for my honeymoon, I kind of cheated a little bit on the
wife, I told her, "You know, honey, it'd be a good thing for us to get
married on October the twenty-third." Course, that's when the Lord told me
to do it.
And I thought, "Now, for a little honeymoon! I saved up my
money, and I'll take her over by Niagara Falls, and go over on the Adirondack
and do a little hunting." See? So I took her and Billy, he was just a
little bitty thing. And so I had to take her on a honeymoon, and it was on a
hunting trip, too, you know. So--so I thought that'd be a good thing to do. And
so I took her up, and the...
I wrote to Mr. Denton, the ranger. And we was going up on Hurricane
Mountain. And I said, "Mr. Denton, I'm coming up, I want to hunt some bear
with you this fall."
And he said, "Okay, Billy, come on up." So he said,
"I'll be up there on a certain--certain date." Well, wife and I got
there a day early, and Billy, and so the cabin was locked up, and there was a
little lean-to back up in the woods.
Where, Brother Fred Sothmann and I went not long ago and stood
there. The Holy Spirit, I seen Him standing there, that yellow Light moving
around in the bush, and Fred standing right there. He said, "Come aside, I
want to speak to you. Tomorrow," said, "be careful, they set a trap
for you." Said, "Be alert!" Is that right, Brother Fred? And I
went and told hundreds of people that night, over in Vermont, I said
"There's a trap set for me; I'm going to see it. I don't know where it's
at." And the very next night, there it come, there it was. Said,
"Here is the trap that's set." Yes, sir. But the Holy Spirit led me
in what to do. And, oh, my, that was just right! Oh, many of you know what it
was. I haven't time to ten it.
But standing there at that place that time, it just begin to turn
cold that day. Mr. Denton was coming up the next day, I said, "You know,
honey, it'd be nice if I got a--a big buck to take home." I said, "We
can. I had to save these pennies, and we just got married." And I said,
"We'd get our winter's meat if I'd get a little hunt today."
And she said, "Well, go ahead, Billy." Said, "Now,
you remember, I never was in these woods." She said she was about
twenty-five miles up in the mountains, you know, and she said, "I don't
know nothing about this."
Foot Prints Book - Page 165
And
she said, so I... And I said, "Well, now, you remember, it was two years
ago I killed those three bear. That was right back over the top of the mountain
over there." And I said, "Now, I'll get a big buck and we'll get some
bear," and I said, "we'll have our winter's meat in." Well, that
sounded pretty good, you know. (And we picked blackberries, and got our coal
for that--for that winter; and so then Billy sold them, and Meda and I picked
them of an evening after I got off of my patrol.) So then I--I said,
"Well, I'm going to pick up my rifle, I'm going down here." I said,
"There's a lot of deer in here, I'll find one." And I said, "You
know," I said, "then I'll get him." And I said, "We'll...
I'll be back in a little while."
She said, "Okay."
So, when I started off, it was kind of low, And any of you New
Hampshire people, and up in there in the New England, knows what it means when
that fog comes down, or anywhere else in the mountains, you don't know where
you're at. That's all. You can't see your hand before you. So then I started
down through a--a little chopping, like, come down, and went over across the
ridge and come up. And I noticed a panther, you'd call it here in this part of
the country. We call it, in the West, a cougar. They call it, up there, a
mountain lion. It's all the same animal. It's a puma, really what it is. Same
cat, about nine-foot long, weight about a hundred fifty, two hundred pounds. He
crossed the road, and I slipped the gun real quick, not fast enough to get the
shot at him.
Well, I slipped on up over the hill, chasing this cougar, watching
the leaves where he had moved, you know. I could hear him. He had four feet. I
knowed he wasn't a two-footed animal, his four feet. And I knowed he wasn't a
deer, 'cause a deer stomps, And he would slip real easy, the cat, you know,
like that. And a bear rolls his feet when he walks. And so I knew it must be a
cougar. And he was behind a log and I didn't see him, till just got a glimpse
of him, he was gone.
And I watched the way he disturbed the leaves, you know, up over
the top of the mountain, and down like this, and I wasn't watching that cloud
coming all the time, you know, coming down the fog. I slipped down, went down
through a great valley and went down into the giants, following this cougar. I
thought, "I'll catch him after a while." I'd see a place, and I'd run
up on a high place, and look all around like that, and peep around, see if I
could see him; listen real close, and get down, slip down again. You could hear
the brush go crashing, way ahead of him as he going out. See, he was hitting
the trees then so I couldn't trail him, See, he got smart, got up in the trees
and jumping from tree to tree. Then he knowed I couldn't trail him there. Oh, I
thought, "Oh, anyhow!"
And I started back up the canyon, and I whiffed a bear, an old male
bear. I thought, "I'll get him now, boy, that's good!" I whiffed
again, and I went a little farther, and I watched for all kinds of signs and
everything. I couldn't see a thing; turned back down, and went back down the
other side of the mountain. And then I begin to notice, getting a little foggy.
And I'd whiff again, he was in the air somewhere. I said, "No. Now, what
happened, the wind was coming this a-way, and I caught the bear whiff come from
this down that way, and I've crossed around now and the wind's coming from this
other direction. So I have to go back to where I smelled the bear the first
time, and take it from there."
Foot Prints Book - Page 166
And
on my road back, I looked across the canyon, I seen the bushes move. And when I
did, something black moved. I thought, "There he is." I throwed a
shell up in the gun, real quick, and stood still. And, when it did, it was a
great big buck, great big one. I thought, "That's just what I was wanting,
anyhow." Shot the buck.
I thought, "Well!" I never noticed it was kind of... Time
I got him fixed up, looked... I cleaned off my hands and fixed my knife, put it
back. And I thought, "Praise God! Thank you, Lord Jesus, You've give me my
winter's meat. Praise be to God!" And I got my gun. I thought, "I'll
go right back up the canyon here now." I said, "Look at here, boy,
storm's coming. I better get out of here and get back over to Meda and
them." I said, "I have to hurry."
Up the canyon I went, unbuttoned my big red coat, and I was running
up the canyon like this, around. The first thing you know, I thought, "My,
where did I turn off at?" Wind was already down, the trees lapping
together. I thought, "Where did I turn off at?" I went around. I--I
knowed I was going right straight to Hurricane Mountain. But I happened to
stop, and I was sweating, I thought, "What's the matter here? I've been
gone a half hour, or three quarters, and I can't find that place I turned
off." I looked up, and there hung my deer. I was right at the same place.
I thought, "Well, what did I do?"
Well, I took off again. I thought, "I'll make it this time, I
just wasn't noticing." I watched every little move everywhere, watching. I
kept searching, searching, searching. Them clouds coming, I know a snowstorm
was on the road, fog hanging low, and then I begin to notice. I thought,
"I'll go a little further," went on, on, on, on, on, on, on. And I
thought, "Well, this is strange, look like I've seen this place
before." And I looked, and there hung my deer. See?
You know what I was on? The Indians call it the "death
walk." See, you're walking in a circle, round and around. Well, I thought
I was too good a guide to ever be lost. See, nothing had to tell me the woods,
I knowed my way around. See?
And I started off again. I said, "I can't make this
mistake." And I come back again.
Foot Prints Book - Page 167
I
moved up the canyon a little piece, then it had done started blowing. Oh, my,
snow everywhere! Almost towards dark. And I knew that Meda would die that night
in the wilderness, she didn't know how to take care of herself. And Billy was
just about four years old, three years old, just a little bitty thing. And I
thought, "What will they do?" Well, I got up this far and I hit some
moss bed, I thought, "I'm in a flat somewhere, and I can't see nothing,
it's all foggy." I was going around now.
Ordinarily, I'd have found me a place and hold up, if I had
somebody with me. I'd hold up and wait till the storm was over, a day or two,
and come on out. Cut my piece of deer... over my back, and went in, eat, and
forgot about it. But you can't do that, and your wife and baby laying up there
in the woods, perishing. See?
So I begin to think, "What can I do?" So I went a little
farther. And I thought, "Now, wait. When I crossed over that first valley,
the wind was in my face, so I must have come this a-way. I've got to come this
way." And I had wandered way down in the giants, but I didn't know where I
was at. I said, "Oh! I begin to get nervous. And I thought, "Wait a
minute, Bill, you're not lost," trying to bluff myself. You can't bluff
it. No, no. That inner conscience tells you you're wrong.
Oh, you--you try to say, "Oh, I'm saved, I go to church."
Don't you worry, you wait till that deathbed comes, and you'll know it's
different. Your conscience tells you. Something inside of you tells you you're
wrong. See? You know if you'd die you couldn't meet a holy God. As we seen Him
last night, even the holy Angels have to veil their face to stand before Him.
How are you going to stand outside the Blood of Jesus Christ to veil you?
I thought, "Oh, I'll make it." I started on. And I found
out I kept hearing Something. Then I got nervous. And I thought, "Now, if
I do that, I'm going to go to pieces." That's usually what a lose man
does, he goes to pieces in the woods. Then he will take his gun, shoot himself;
or fall over a ditch and break his leg, and there he lays, he will die there.
So I thought, "What am I going to do?" So I started walking on.
And I kept hearing Something saying, "I'm a very present Help
in a time of trouble." And I just kept walking on.
I thought, "Now, I know I'm getting...?... off now, I can hear
the voice talk to me." I kept going on. And it, "whew, whew,
whew," whistling, you know. I thought, "Now, I'm not lost. You know
where you're at, boy! What's the matter with you? You can't get lost.
You're--you're too good a hunter, you can't get lost." Self-bragging, you
know, making myself bluff myself through.
Foot Prints Book - Page 168
You
can't bluff it. Way down here there's a little wheel turning, saying,
"Boy, you're lost and you know you are. See, you're lost."
I kept moving on. "Oh, I'm not lost! I'll be all right. I'll
find my way out." Things begin to look funny, winds close. Snow begin to
flying, the little hominy snow, we call it "spitting down." And I
thought of wife and baby. I'm not... I thought, "Oh, my!"
Directly I heard That again, said "I'm a very present Help in
a time of trouble." I was a minister of the Gospel then, preaching right
here at the Tabernacle.
So I thought, "Well, what can I do?" I stopped, looked
everywhere, and there was fog already down now. I... That was it. Nothing could
be done then. I thought, "Oh, what can I do?" I thought, "Sir,
I'm not fit to live, I've had too much self-confidence. I thought I was a
hunter, but I'm not."
And, brother, I've always trusted Him. Shooting, I've got records
up there, And a fisherman, I'm a poor one, but I've always trusted Him. Shots,
I'm a poor shot, but He's let me make world records on it. See? Shoot deer,
seven, eight hundred yard. Got a gun up there killed thirty-five head of game
without missing a shot with it. Just read that anywhere. if you can. See? Not
me, it's Him. I've trusted Him.
There I was, I thought, "What can I do? What can I do?"
I Kept... That getting closer, closer, "I'm a very present
help in a time of trouble, a very present Help."
I thought, "Is that God talking to me?" I took off my
hat. I had my patrol hat, red handkerchief wrapped around it. I laid it down.
Took off my coat, it was moist. And I laid my coat down, set my gun up against
the side of a tree. I said, "Heavenly Father, now I'm getting beyond
myself, I'm hearing a voice speaking to me. Is that you?" I said,
"Lord, I'm going to admit to You that I ain't no hunter. I ain't, I--I
can't find my way around. You have to help me. I'm not fit to live, and doing
the things that I've done, coming in here and thinking I knowed too much about
it to ever get lost. I need You, Lord. My wife is a good woman. My baby, my
little boy, his mother's gone on, and she's trying to be mother to him, and
I've just married her. And here she is, a kid, there in the woods, they'll both
die tonight. That wind, it'll turn down about ten below zero, and they won't
know how to live. They'll die tonight. Don't let them die, God. Take me to
them, so that I can see that they don't die. I'm lost! I'm lost, God! I--I
can't find my way around. Won't you please help me? And forgive me for my own
self-centered way! I can't do nothing without You, You're my Guide. You help
me, Lord."
Foot Prints Book - Page 169
I
got up, and I Said, "Amen." Picked up my handkerchief; my coat,
picked it up; put my hat back on; picked up my gun. I said, "Now I'll fix
myself in the very best way that I know how to go, the very best of my
understanding; and I'll go straight one way, 'cause I'm walking around a circle
somewhere, I don't know where. But I'll go the way You tell me, Lord God, my Guide."
I started walking this way. I said, "This is it, and I have to
make myself believe it. I'm going this a-way. I'm going straight this a-way.
I'm not going to vary, I'm going this a-way. I know I'm right. I'm going this
a-way." If I'd have went that way, I'd a-headed off over in Canada. See?
Just then I felt Something touch me on the shoulder, a hand, it
felt like a man's hand, so quick that I turned around to look. There was nobody
standing there. I thought, "What was that?" Here's the Bible laying
before me, God, my Guide and Judge is standing here. I just looked up. And
right back this a-way, that fog just cleared back till I could see the tower on
top of Hurricane Mountain. Going right straight away from it, the best of my
hunting ability, I was going away from it, getting real late in the evening
then. I turned real quick, directing myself like this. I took hold of my hat
and raised up my hands, I said, "Guide me over, God, You're my
Guide."
I started. I had to go right straight up bluffs and everything
getting there, later and later. Then it got dark. Deers was jumping in front of
me, and everything, I couldn't think of nothing but keeping myself one way,
right up this mountain.
And I know if I could get to the tower, Mr. Denton and I--I helped
put the line up that spring. We tacked the telephone wire from the Hurricane
Mountain, all the way down about three and a half or four miles, right down to
the camp. And it went right down a little trail, but, the snow on there, you
couldn't tell the trail. See? And the wind blowing and everything, it was dark
and blizzard and going, you couldn't tell where you was at. Well, the only
thing I knew to do, after it got dark, and I didn't know... I know I was going
one way, and right up the mountain. Cause I was supposed to go up the mountain,
and the tower set right at the top of the mountain, and I had about six miles
to get to it. Just think, that fog clearing back, six miles, just one hole,
till I could see it!
And then I--I'd pack my rifle in this hand, and hold this hand up,
'cause I had tacked the--the wire on the trees like that going down, the
telephone wires to the cabin, so he could talk to his wife, and then call out
from there, from the mountain. And I was going to help him take it down that
fall. And I had my hand up like this, saying, "O God, let me touch that
line." Walk, and my arm would get so sore, tired, I couldn't hardly hold
it, and I'd have to let it down. And I'd change the gun and put it in that;
step back a couple steps so I'd be sure not to miss it, then raise my hand up,
start walking, walking. Getting late, dark, wind blowing. Oh, I'd grab a hold
of a limb, I'd say, "That's it! No, that's not it." Oh, it, you,
don't let it give an uncertain sound.
Foot Prints Book - Page 170
After
while, when I just about ready to give up, my hand hit something. Oh my! I had
been found, when I was lost. I held to that wire. I dropped the rifle right
down, took my hat off of my head, and I stood there. I said, "O God, what
a feeling it is to be found, when you're lost." I said, "Right down
to the end of this wire, I'll never turn it loose. I'll hold onto this wire.
It'll guide me right straight to where all on this earth that's dear to me is
laying, right down there. My wife and baby, frantically, not knowing where I
am, not knowing how to make a fire, not knowing what to do, and winds
a-blowing, and limbs a-popping and falling off of trees." I was daresn't
to let go of that wire. I held that wire until it guided me right in to where
all that was dear on earth was to me.
That was a horrible experience, and a great experience to find my
way out, but that wasn't half of it. One day I was lost in sin, I went church
after church, trying to find Something. I went to the Seventh-day Adventists,
they told me, "Keep the Sabbath, quit eating meat." I went over to
the Baptist Church, first Baptist Church, he said, "Just get up and tell
them that you believe Jesus Christ the Son of God," and I'll baptize you,
that's it. There wasn't nothing. But one day, out in a little coal shed, I held
my hands up, I caught a hold of Something; or, now I say, Something got a hold
of me. It was a Lifeline, the Guide. And He's led me safe this far, I ain't
going to take my hand off of that wire. I'm a-holding my hand to Him. Let
creeds, the denominations do whatever they want to, I'm holding onto the Guide.
For all that was ever on earth and all that's in Heaven, ever means precious to
me, is at the end of this line. He's brought me safely this far, I'll trust Him
the rest the way. "When He the Holy Ghost is come, He will guide you and
lead you into all Light."
Friends, It's brought me right where I am today. It's made me what
I am. I could gladly introduce It to you. It's the only Guide that I know
anything about, for here on earth or up There. He is my Guide when I go
hunting. He's my Guide when I go fishing. He's my Guide when I talk to
somebody. He's my Guide when I preach. He's my Guide when I sleep. And when I
come to die, He will be standing there at the river, He will guide me across the
way. I'll fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they'll
correct me and guide me across the river.
My Guide, October 14, 1962
Foot Prints Book - Page 171
It
was in the month of March, 1945, one morning about three A.M., that our Lord
Jesus Christ gave me a vision. This He has done many times and I most humbly
praise Him for it.
At the beginning of this vision, seemingly, I was walking northeast
on a road when the Spirit turned me and pointed me toward the west. I was
facing a great mountain. It seemed to be the mountain of the Lord! It had a
towering, high church steeple on the top of it. I was then asked to go west
toward the mountain.
I entered the mountain through a door and on the inside I was met
by a woman who had on a garment that might have been snow white at one time.
Now the garment was very soiled. She asked me if I was Brother Bill Branham,
and I replied, "I am." She then introduced herself as Mrs. Methodist.
I asked her why the spots on that lovely white garment. She
replied, "I have been so busy."
I then said to her, "That's right, you Methodists have so many
organizations and societies in your church, you haven't had much time for the
Lord."
Then she said, "I was told that you were being sent to me.
Maybe I should awaken my husband!" Then she disappeared.
Looking to my left, I saw a small heap of smooth-baked bread. There
were white fowls standing near it, but they would not eat much of it. Then the
Lord said to me, "Do you know them?"
I said, "No."
Then He said, "That is your Tabernacle, and they won't eat the
Bread of Life anymore. I am sending you this way." Then I journeyed on
westward.
I was then brought to a plain where a platform was erected.
Seemingly, it was under a large tent or auditorium. There were curtains drawn
in back of the platform. The Lord then told me to pull back the curtains, and,
when I did, I saw a great mountain of the Bread of Life. He then said,
"Feed these," and turning around I saw white-robed people coming from
everywhere, making up a large audience.
I Was Not Disobedient Unto The Heavenly Vision, March, 1945
I pray for the little flock that the Holy Spirit has made me overseer of, to feed them. I have done all that I know how to do, Lord, to feed them on the Bread of Life. As in that vision, many years ago, where that big curtain laid in the West, and a mountain of the Bread of Life. The little book, I Was Not Disobedient Unto The Heavenly Vision, and here it all comes to pass, revealed right in our face.
Sirs, Is This The Time? December 30, 1962
Foot Prints Book - Page 172
I
was talking to a Jew up here at Benton Harbor, when that John Ryan, being blind
all of his life nearly, received his sight. They taken me over there to that
House of David, and this rabbi came out with his long beard, he said, "By
what authority did you give John Ryan his sight?"
I said, "In the Name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
He said, "Far be it from God having a son!" And he said,
"You people can't cut God in three pieces and give Him to a Jew, make
three gods out of Him. You are a bunch of heathens."
I said, "I don't cut Him in three pieces." I said,
"Rabbi, would it be a strange thing for you to believe one of your
prophets told something wrong?"
He said, "Our prophets don't tell nothing wrong."
I said, "Who was Isaiah 9:6 speaking of?"
He said, "The Messiah."
I said, "Then Messiah will be a man-prophet. Is that
right?"
He said, "Yes, sir, that's right."
I said, "Show me where Jesus missed it." I said,
"What relation will Messiah-prophet be to God?"
He said, "He will be God."
I said, "That's right. Now, you got it on the Word," So
help me, that Jew standing there and the tears rolling off his cheeks, said,
"I'll hear you sometime later."
I said, "Rabbi, do you believe that?"
And he said, "Look," he said, "God is able of these
stones to rise children unto Abraham." I knew he was in the New Testament.
I said, "Right, Rabbi. Now what about it?"
He said, "If I preached that, I'd be down there," you
know where their place sits on the hill there, "down there in the street,
begging my bread."
I said, "I would rather be down there begging my bread."
The Jew's still got his hands on money, you know. See? "I'd
rather..." and his name in gold on the... I said, "I'd rather be down
there eating salted crackers and drinking branch water, and know that I was in
the harmony with God and proved, than I would be here with my name on that
building, in gold letters like that, and knowing I was away from God, to know
that." He wouldn't listen to me no more.
Foot Prints Book - Page 173
So, he went in. That's it. You can't cut God in no two or three pieces, called Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and make three gods and hand it to a Jew. His very commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. I am the Lord thy God." What did Jesus say? Jesus said, "Hear ye, O Israel, I'm the Lord your God. One God, not three." You'll never give that to them. No prophet will ever talk about three gods. You'll never hear that, no, that's pagan and heathen as where it come from.
The Seventh Seal, March 24, 1963
Many
of you remember up there that night when that man come out on the platform. He
thought that there was a mental telepathy to reading the prayer cards. And how
he thought he had it right then, brother, he was sure he had it. He come
around, he belonged to a church that don't believe in--in these, in the Gospel,
the Full Gospel. And he come up on the platform. I was tired, and they was
fixing to take me away. That was at Windsor, Ontario. And there... Come right
across the... from United States there, right across from Detroit at Windsor,
the big auditorium. And this man come up there with a gray suit on, and a red
tie, intelligent-looking man, smart as a tack. He come to the platform, and
I... he walked up. And I said, "Well, just let me have your hand." I
said, "I'm tired, I've seen so many visions. Let me have your hand."
And I never noticed the man, he put his hand over on mine. And I said,
"Sir, there's nothing wrong with you. Go ahead."
He said, "Oh, there is too!"
And I said, "Let me see then." I said, "No, sir,
there's not one sign. No, sir, you're healthy man."
He said, "Go look at my prayer card."
I said, "I don't care what you put on your prayer card."
I said, "I don't have nothing to do with the prayer card." Not thinking,
you see. I was tired and worn out, and my... But the grace of God, you see, was
still there, you remember. If He sends you, it's His obligation to take care of
you. It ain't mine, it's Him. He sent It. I'm just supposed to stand on what's
Truth.
When Moses throwed his stick down, and it turned into a serpent,
and the magicians done the same thing, what could Moses do, but stand there and
wait for the grace of God? That's all. Same thing. He followed out the
commandments, and you know what happened, don't you?
This man said, "Well," he said, "there is, look at
my prayer card,"
I said, "Well, you might've had a lot of faith, and might've
done it." Not thinking, you see, done... Not even paying attention. Then
he unbuttons his coat, and pushed out his chest.
He said, "There you are!" to the audience.
Foot Prints Book - Page 174
And
I thought, "What's going on here?"
Looked around and he said, "There you are!" Said,
"See the gimmick?" That's your Judas! A religious man, a preacher of
a great denomination! Said, "There you are. I had so much faith now. He's
got so weak he can't read the telepathy. See, it don't come to him no more. And
there he says, 'Not my faith was so great.' Said, "I put that on the
prayer card, and now he can't catch it, you see. That's the gimmick."
I thought, "What's going on?" Then the grace of God came
down.
I said, "Sir, why has the devil put in your heart to try to
deceive God?" A modern Judas. I said, "You are a Church of Christ...
" Excuse me. Well, I done said it, "You are a Church of Christ
preacher. You belong to the Church of Christ over in the United States. And
that man setting up there with that blue suit on, and your wife, and his wife
setting there, you set at a table last night that had a green thing over it, a spread
like this, and you made up that this was telepathy, and you were coming
tonight."
That man raised up. He said, "That's the honest truth. God
have mercy on me."
I said, "Sir, you put TB and cancer on that card, and now you
have it. It's yours now."
And he grabbed me by the pants leg, he said, "I
didn't..."
I said, "I can't help. You go right ahead. That's up between
you and God. You wrote your doom right on your card." And that got him.
That was all of it.
See, make-believers, deceivers, trying to find some fault with God
and His Word! That's the Judases. That's the ones. You see how Judas come out?
See how that guy come out? That's the way the make-believers happen. See?
Make-believers. Oh, highly educated sometimes! And a great showdown comes between
the Word and their creed, and when it does, they sell out to their
denominations just exactly like their forerunner did, Judas. Judas sold out to
his denomination, sold Jesus, the Word, to his denomination and betrayed Jesus
Christ after he claimed to be a part of it.
Three Kinds Of Believers, November 24, 1963
Foot Prints Book - Page 175
King
George of England, and a man by the name of... I forget, of Fort Wayne, you
remember the meeting in Fort Wayne Gospel Tabernacle, was had... was a
businessman of the city. He had multiple sclerosis and been a bed patient, ten
years, and a vision come over the man and he was made perfectly whole. Walt
Amen was his name. Walked up, and he was a friend to the King's private secretary.
And, through there, King George of England sent word to me. I have his
statements, and have his letters of his seals, to come pray for him with
multiple sclerosis. And so I couldn't go up that time, so I just wired back and
told the King that I would pray for him here; that God would hear here just the
same as He would over there.
And so then another telegram come through, and wanted me to come on
over immediately. Later, when I went to England, over there to--to see him,
now, the Lord had healed him. He was... couldn't even stand up over five
minutes at a time. And he, I believe the second day, he played eighteen holes
of golf. And never was bothered with it no more until the very day he died.
And I was in Africa when he died. They found a little tumor here on
his lung, decided to cut it open. And air got to it someway, I don't know, and
caused a blood clot to go to his brain, and killed him instantly. So, very fine
man.
Testimony, November 29, 1953
That's
the reason I walked out of the Baptist Church, see, for the very first time. I
had just been in there a little bit and they--they asked me to ordain some
women preachers. Well, I couldn't actually stay in it. I said, "I--I
refuse to do it."
And the pastor jerked me up. "What's this? You're an
elder!"
I said, "Doctor Davis, in all due respects to the Baptist
faith, and everything that I have been ordained to, I did not know that it was
in the doctrine of the Baptist Church to ordain women. That was one thing that
was left out of it."
And he said, "That is the doctrine of this church."
I said, "Sir, could I be excused for tonight, or would you
answer some questions for me?" See?
He said, "I'll answer your questions." Said, "It's
your duty to be there."
I said, "It is, sir. That's right. I'm supposed to anticipate
in anything that this church does. I'm in the line of duty, one of the local
elders." And he said... I said, "Could you explain to me why that in
I Corinthians 14 or 15 there, where Paul said, 'Let your women keep silent in
the churches, it's not permitted them to speak.'"
And he said, "Why, certainly!" He said, "If... I can
answer that." He said, "You see, what it was," said, "Paul
said... All--all the women was sitting back in the corners, popping off like
they do a lot of the other time. He said, "Don't let them do that.' See
?"
And I said, "Then explain II Timothy to me, where Paul said,
also, the same scribe, the same apostle, said, 'I suffer not a woman to teach
or to usurp any authority, see, but to--to be in obedience. For Adam was first
formed and then Eve, and Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived.'
She's deceived. Now, I don't say she wants to do anything wrong, but she's
actually deceived in it. She shouldn't be a teacher."
He said, "Is that your personal opinion?"
I said, "That's the Scripture's opinion to my way of seeing
it. That's what the Bible said."
He said, "Young man, you could have your license taken from
you for that."
I said, "I'll just save them the trouble. I'll just give it,
Doctor Davis." I said, "Not to any disregard to you..." And he
wouldn't do it, though. He let it go, let it go by like that.
Foot Prints Book - Page 176
Then
he told me he would hold an open debate with me with it. And I said, "All
right, just anytime." But he--he didn't do that.
So then a--a little later on, then, when the Lord spoke to me, and
about the--the Angel of the Lord came, then--then he just made fun of That, you
see. And then I--I just told him, I said, "Well, Doctor Davis, it's best
that I get rid of this right now, see " I said, "'cause it's going to
be a burden. I've just been ordained a little bit, anyhow, so it's going to be
a burden to me, so I just might as well get rid of it right now."
So therefore if I could not stay in the Baptist Church and teach
Baptist doctrine and take up for Baptist belief, If I did it--if I did it just
because it was a church, then I'm wrong, see, I'm hiding something back. And if
I--if I--if I'm honest with myself, I'll go to the Baptist people (my pastor or
whoever can explain it to me) and ask them for a--a word of Life; if he can
correctly show me where it's right in the Scripture, and satisfies my feeling,
then I'll speak it just the way they speak it, see, and I'll be a Baptist.
That's the reason I am an independent. That's the reason that I do
not belong to the organizations, because I do not believe in organizations. And
I believe it's unscriptural, for an organization.
Therefore, I could not belong to any organization and feel justified
by doing it. See? Therefore, I do not take people in and make them members, and
so forth like that, because I believe we are borned to be members, we are
borned into the Church of the living God.
Questions And Answers, January 12, 1961
Foot Prints Book - Page 177
I'm thankful to look back behind and see that many things has been accomplished for Christ in this past year. And as I think of now that we're facing a time such as never been known, the nations everywhere are breaking. We're in such an awful turmoil and I truly believe that it will not be long until we see Him Who we love, coming in power, Jesus. And it's my determination, by His help, to try to do more this year than I did the year before, by His grace. Some... after leaving here, and believe in the year coming, of some thirty-five thousand definite cases of healing was done in my services by Jesus, last year alone. That wasn't just what someone testified and say, "I'm healed." That's doctors' statements. And I don't know how many hundreds of different things, of cancer, deaf, dumb, and blind, and almost everything.
Experiences, December 21, 1947
Not
long ago, a little woman that was, I remember, she went to live down below my
church, she does now, at Jeffersonville. She was in a sanitarium at Waverly
Hills, and they brought her down. And they said the doctor said she had to die
right away. They was going to give her, I believe, ten days, two weeks to live,
a tubercular case. Now, I went down there to see her, they called me down.
About, been about eight years ago, or ten, just before I come to Phoenix the
first time. And I went down there and was praying for the woman. She had about
five little children. And I was praying with her that night.
And while I prayed, and got up, I seen her even with tinted-gray
hair. She was... hair was dark brown, and I seen her with tinted-gray hair. Her
children walking in, shaking hands with her, years later. And I said,
"Sister, THUS SAITH THE LORD, you're going to live."
She started weeping. She said, "Reverend Branham, something's
happened in my heart." She said, "I--I--I just feel that I'm going to
live. Something just satisfies me, I'm going to get well."
I said, "You are, for it's THUS SAITH THE LORD!" I went
back up, told them at the church.
There was a man lived next door to me, very fine friend, and he had
a hobby of making leather things. By the way, he made me this pocketbook, and
I've had... carried that for ten years. And he made it out of a deerskin that I
got myself. Got the picture of my Tabernacle on it, on in the inside. Got a
fish here, and a deer head here. So he made me that little pocketbook. And I've
carried it in memorial of that, for so long. A perfect, total infidel, a scientist,
worked at the government depot, he didn't believe there was such a thing as
God. Said, "Anybody believed such was crazy. He said,
"They're..." I--I can understand easily how people can get that in
their mind.
Foot Prints Book - Page 178
This
morning, standing in a businessman's office here in this city, with some
ministers, how they talked about how Mohammedism in Africa is sweeping. Look,
twenty-five Mohammeds to one Christian! That's the pressure. Why? Mohammedism
is hooked together, one unity! They believe that the Koran is inspired. We
Christians, the first thing, we're separated between Catholic and Protestant.
The Catholic says, "The Bible's inspired, but the Catholic Church is over
the Bible." The Protestant said, "Well, It's inspired, as much as I
believe, the rest of It is not inspired." Fussing, fighting, arguing,
separating, oh, it's a pitiful thing! I'm sure glad God got a hold of me before
the church did. That's right. Yes, sir. That God taught me first, 'cause I'd
a-probably been an unbeliever. I see what people call themselves,
"Christians," and in church and so forth, and each one wanting to
pull little nacks and everything, from one to the other, and "separating,
unseemly, not having the Faith." Sure.
Now, this man was a perfect infidel. And somebody got the news out
the next day that I said that about the woman. I hadn't went out having
services yet. I was patrolling out on highlands and my clothes ragged. And I
got on my old bicycle and went over to get some groceries down to the store.
And had to turn a corner, where that woman lived just two blocks below where I
was. And here come the infidel walking down the street, and he spoke to me. I
said, "Good morning, sir."
And he said, "Hello, preacher." Said, "Just a
minute, I want to talk to you." He said, "Aren't you ashamed of
yourself?"
And I said, "For what?"
He said, "Telling that poor little dying mother in there that
she was going to live, building that people up under a false hope like
that."
I said, "Well, I never built them up under no false
hope."
He said, "Well, she's dying." Said, "Her husband
works with me out there at the government." And said, "He told me
that you had come over there last night, or night before last, it was then, and
prayed for her, and you--you told her that she was going to be well and live to
be an old woman."
I said, "That's right. I never did that, God did that."
He said, "Nonsense!" He said, "Shame on you! You
ought to be gentleman enough not to build people up under such things false as
that."
I said, "That's not false."
He said, "Away with such," turned around and walked on.
Foot Prints Book - Page 179
And
I thought, "Well, okay." I went on and got my groceries. I come back.
About two or three days after that... He had a lovely little wife,
was a believer. And so I... my wife knew her real well, said she was a lovely
lady, and she belonged to the Christian Church. So my wife told me when I come
in, said, "Well, that Mrs. Andrews is very ill, Billy." Said,
"You ought to go over and see her."
I said, "All right." I said, "Her husband's that
infidel." I said, "I--I have to walk easy." So I said,
"I'll go over and ask him if I can get him some kindling and coal for him,
and maybe he will ask... maybe she will ask me if I... want me to pray for her."
And so I went over, and I said, "How do you do, Mr.
Andrews?"
He said, "Hello, preacher."
And I said, "I hear you got a sick wife."
Said, "Yes, I have, but I got a good doctor with her."
I said, "Yes, sir. I just wanted to ask you, Mr. Andrews, being
that we're neighbors here so close, if I could help you get in some coal or run
an errand to the grocery, or anything, I--I'd do it for you."
He said, "Ah, well, thank you very much, but," said,
"we got a good doctor with her. Everything will be all right."
And he told me who the doctor was in the city, and I said, "He
is a fine man." I said, "I like him very much."
"Yeah! We got the situation!" Said, "She's got
appendicitis," and said, "it'll be all right." Said, "He's
freezing it out. It'll be okay." And I said, "Thank you, Mr.
Andrews, I certainly hope so. If I can be of any help to you, I live next door,
just call me." Shut the door when I went on back, kind of unconcerned.
Well, the next day, the doctor come up, said, "Well, they'll
have to take her to the hospital?' She's swelling awful bad. Said, "Well
have to take her to the hospital and operate."
So they took her out to the hospital. And when they took the blood
tests from her, found out she didn't appendicitis. So they sent to Louisville for
a specialist. And they got the specialist over there, the specialist examined
her. And, when he did, he said, "She's got between four and six hours to
live. There's a blood clot right near the heart. That's what it's from."
Said, "She's gone, that's all."
So my wife told me, next morning, said, "Mrs. Andrews is going
to die, Billy." Said, "I just heard it. She's got a blood clot. The
nurse, one of the nurse friends, called up and said she was fixing to die, said
she's already unconscious."
I said, "It's too bad, Meda, I hate to hear that. Poor
thing." I said, "We'll just pray for her." So we prayed and I
went on and started off to work.
Foot Prints Book - Page 180
It
was kind of drizzling rain and I was going out through the field, something
kept saying, "Turn and go back. Turn and go back."
So I thought, "Well, I'll turn and go back."
So I went back, called up and turned in. It was inclement weather,
so I couldn't work just for that, 'cause I knew the Lord wanted something. And
so, the first thing you know, I set there and taking my old gun apart and was
cleaning it out. And, the first thing you know, coming around the house come
Mr. Andrews, walking along, his hat pulled down over his ears, knocked on the
door, and he said, "Mrs. Branham," said, "is preacher Branham
here?"
Said, "Yes, Mr. Andrews, won't you come in?" So he come
in.
I said, "Hello, Mr. Andrews. Get you a chair." I kept
working on my gun, you know.
And he said, "Preacher?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "My--my wife's pretty sick. You heard about it?"
I said, "Yes. I heard she was going to die, Mr. Andrews."
I said, "It's too bad." I said, "Course, you got a real good
doctor out there," and I said, "I--I just hope she gets along all
right."
He said--he said, "Well," said, "we got a
specialist. You understood that?"
I said, "Yes, I understood you did, Mr. Andrews. Heard it was
a blood clot near the heart."
Said, "Yes," said, "that's right." Said,
"My," said, "she's in awful shape."
I said, "Yes, sir, that sure is too bad."
I thought, "You sweat it out. You made me sweat it, so now you
sweat a while." So I just kept cleaning on my gun, let him do some
sweating. So I just kept cleaning on my gun, and looking through it like that.
It was clean, but I just wanted him to take a little while. So I kept looking
through it like that.
And he said, "Preacher," he said, "you know
what?"
I said, "What, Mr. Andrews?"
He said, "I wonder if you could help her a little bit."
And I said, "What do you mean?"
He said, "You know."
And I said, "You mean pray for her?"
He said, "Yes."
I said, "I thought you didn't believe in such." See? I
Said, "I thought you told me, in less than a week ago, down there at the
corner, you didn't even believe there was a God."
He said, "Well," he said, "you know."
Foot Prints Book - Page 181
I
thought, "Yeah, when the time comes, you'll believe Him." That's
right. Just let it get close enough to your own door one time, and you'll
believe it. And I said, "Well, all right, Mr. Andrews. What do
you..."
He said, "Would--would you go out and pray for her?"
I said, "I want to ask you something, Mr. Andrews." I
said, "How about you kneeling here with me, and let's pray for her right
here?"
And he said, "Well," he said, "I--I--I don't hardly
know what to do."
I said, "You just kneel here, I'll instruct you." And so
he got down there.
I said, "Now raise up your hands." And he raised. I said,
"The first thing, from the bottom of your heart, say 'God, be merciful to
me a sinner.'" So I got him to praying. He got to crying. Said, "Oh,
my, we had..." He said... got up and wiped his eyes, he said, "Well,
preacher, you--you--you think now that she's going to be helped?" I
said... He said, "Would you go out?"
And I said, "Yes, I'll go out and see her." So I said to
Meda, "Get your coat on."
We went out there. And when she did, she didn't know us, just
swollen way up, her eyes and her lips turned out. So the little nurse, when
they come in, she said, "Come on, Brother Branham." Taken me up
there. And I knelt down and prayed for her, put my hand over on her. Stood
there a little while. My wife stood there, and she said, "See
anything?"
I said, "No, honey, I don't." We walked out, and down around
where the babies was, and looked in the maternity ward there, you know, where
the babies was all laying, she was talking about them.
I went back to Mrs. Andrews again. Just as I went in the door, I
seen it. Oh, my! I said, "Honey, it's going to be over. Don't worry, God
has heard."
When I went home, Mr. Andrews come over, and he said, "What do
you think about it, preacher?"
I said, "She's going to live." He started crying. My!
"Yeah, I think she's going to live." I said, "Don't worry. God's
done said by the same vision told that woman down there she was going to live,
and now she's up now there, the woman," I said, "now, Mrs.
Reets." And I said, "She's going to live, too."
He said, "Oh, I'm so glad, preacher."
Foot Prints Book - Page 182
In
a few moments, the phone rang. And he went over, said, "Come to your wife
at once, she's dying."
So he come told me. I said, "Do you believe what I told
you?"
He said, "Well, preacher, I want to." Said, "But
they tell me she's dying."
I said, "That, that don't make a bit of difference, what they
say." And I said, "When God speaks anything, it's got to be just that
way."
So he said, so the first thing you know, he said, "Oh, I can't
go see it!"
I said, "See what?" And I said, "You still think
she's going to die, don't you?"
He said, "I'm just all nerves."
I thought, "That's good for you right now, you see, to sweat
it out good." So just let him go.
And the first thing you know, another phone call come, they called
him, across the street. Here he went over, and he come back, "And they
said I got to go to the hospital right at once." So out to the hospital he
went.
And Meda said, "What do you think about it?"
I said, "Why, don't worry about it. God's done said so. That
settles it." I said, "If that woman don't bake me an apple pie in
three days from now, and I'll be sitting on that porch and eat it, then I'm a
false prophet." That's right. She could really bake a good one, too! So
I--I knew it, so I told her, told them right there at the hospital, told the
nurse that, I said, "She will bake me a pie in three days from now. If
that isn't so, then I'll--I'll walk out of the ministry." That's right. I
said, "Because it absolutely is the truth."
And, you know, he come back across the field, in a few moments, and
the mucus running out of his nose, and he was a-leaping and a-jumping like
that. He said, "Preacher! Preacher, guess what happened?" Said,
"I went there to see her, and time I got there," said, "the
something had broke loose and all the water had run out of her. And she was
setting up in the bed, said she was hungry. And I called the nurse." And
said, "They brought her up some bouillon." And she said, 'Take that
stuff out. I want some wieners and sauerkraut.'" Said, "She was
normal and well."
She lives today. And God in Heaven, Who looked down... And about a
week after that, he made me that pocketbook that I've carried ever since, in my
pocket, around the world. That's right. That is the truth. God in Heaven knows.
She lives tonight. Why? Cause Jesus lives, she lives also.
Believe From The Heart, March 2, 1955
Foot Prints Book - Page 183
"What?"
She said, "The Healer." Said that, "A man from up somewhere, up
in Arkansas, had been healed that morning, a blind shoe cobbler." You know
the story, it'd been on the radio.
And I said... I thought... I played the part of a hypocrite. I
said, "You don't believe that's the Truth?"
She said, "Yes, sir, I do."
And I said, "Do you believe in this day when God would do
something like that, when..."
She said, "Sir, I listened to the religious program." She
said, "I'm a Christian." She said, I listened to the programs, I
heard that man up there that was healed this morning, that blind shoe cobbler.
They throwed him out of the church, he was making so much noise, one church to
the other. With his hat on a cane, wiggling it around, running up and down the
church. He was everywhere in the city, hollering, 'I'm healed! I'm healed!' A
blind shoe cobbler."
I said, "Do you believe that?"
And she stood there a little bit, was kind of drizzling rain, she
said, " Sir, if you'll get me in where he's at, then I'll find my
Father." Then I felt about like that.
I said, "Maybe I'm the one you're looking for."
She said... grabbed me by the lapels of the coat, she said,
"Is you the Healer?"
I said, "No, sister, but I'm Brother Branham."
She said, "Have mercy!" I thought of poor old blind Fanny
Crosby, "While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by." See,
He had healed one, He could heal her.
I put my hands over her eyes, I said, "Dear Jesus, one day an
old rugged cross come bumping down the street, the shoulders with blood running
out of them, the little frail body that was practically fell under the load. A
colored man by the name of Simon, of Cyrene, came up and picked up the cross,
helped Him bear it. I'm sure You remember it, Father. And one of His children
is staggering here in darkness, I'm sure You understand."
She said, "Glory to God! I can see!" Uh-huh!
I said, "Can you see?"
She said, "Yes, sir."
I said, "Count them lights." And she counted them. I
said, "What color suit I got on?"
Said, "You got on a gray suit, with a yellow tie." That
was it, she could see.
Oh, God respects humility, uh-huh, "This in itself is that
which will make, and bring to pass, the tremendous victory in the Love
Divine."
On The Wings Of A Snow-White Dove, November 28, 1965
Foot Prints Book - Page 184
You
remember me telling the other night about that Angel coming into the room where
I was at, at--at Camden, Arkansas? The next day after that, I had went into a
little church there, a little church, to have a morning service. No prayer for
the sick; just to preach. I was pretty well worn, I had been days and days I
hadn't even laid down no more than just across the bed, or set in a chair. They
had different places, they'd just take me from house to house, from place to
place all the time. And they went down to a little church, and I was going to
speak. And when I started out, it had four police there that was taking me out,
stand at the door. And as I started out, the people... Oh, brother, sister! It
would break the heart of an iron man. I--I'm human, and I stand here and look
at those children like here, laying along like this, I got children myself. I
see sick people, and I think, "O God, what can I do?" But I--I
can't... I have, can't do no more than what He tells me to do. I can't. It'd be
a failure if I did. So I started out. They was trying to touch my clothes, and
you know, going through the crowd, crying.
And I heard somebody hollering, "Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!"
And I happened to turn and look, standing off to hisself... In Arkansas they
have what they call the Jim Crow law, colored and white can't be together. I'm
from the South, but I don't think that's right. So then, I--I looked over
there, and there stood a poor old colored man standing there, aged, little rim
of white hair, and his hair, he had his cap in his hand. His wife was standing
by him. And he had his hands up, blind as he could be, saying, "Mercy!
Mercy!" The tears streaming down his cheeks. I thought of old blind
Bartimaeus standing at the gates of Jericho, looked around, started moving on.
The Holy Spirit said, "Go over there where he's at." I
turned aside.
They said, "Don't go over there, Brother Branham."
I said, "But the Holy Spirit tells me, 'Go over there.'"
I went over there and they drawed a ring. I never will forget what his wife
said, she said, "The parson and them coming to you, honey." I walked
on over to where he was at,
His old feeble hand shook, said, "Is--is--is this you, Parson
Branham?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He felt my face, he said, "Oh, you is a young man."
I said, "Not too young," said, "I'm thirty-six years
old."
He feeled around over my face, said, "Parson Branham, have you
got just a minute to listen to me?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "My old mammy had religion like you got."
Religion. Said, "She never told me a lie in all her life." Said,
"Parson Branham, she's been dead now many years." Said, "I've
been blind, and drawing a blind pension for about ten years." Said,
"I lived about two hundred miles from here, I never heard of you in my
life." But said, "This morning about three o'clock," said,
"I woke up in the room. And, course, I can't see. But to look, right
standing before me stood my old mammy. And I said, 'Mammy, is that you? She
said, 'Yes, honey.' And said, 'You go down to Camden, Arkansas, rise and put on
your clothes. And ask for somebody by the name of Branham, that's praying for the
sick. Ye shall receive your sight.'" Said, "Parson Branham, I put on
my clothes and here I is." Said, "Can you help me?" Oh, my!
Foot Prints Book - Page 185
I
thought, "God, You'll witness it, these stones will cry out. Something has
to say it." I just put my hands over on his eyes, and I said,
"Father, I do not understand, but if You've sent the brother here, I ask
for his sight."
I took my hands down. He was smiling, wiping his eyes. Looked
around, and kind of smiled, said, "I see, honey."
She said, "You see, honey?"
Said, "Sure!" Said, "See them people there in that
red car sitting behind you?" She fell on her knees and screamed to the top
of her voice. About that time the people begin to break in. Next thing I knew,
I was in the car. I thought this then, "God knows all about it. He can
speak to the people through visions and dreams and revelation. He can send
them."
Testimony, August 12, 1950
That night at Portland, seen the maniac run up to the platform, say, "I'll break every bone in your body, you hypocrite!" I was just speaking. The man weighed some three hundred pounds, arms about like that. He set his teeth, he said, "You hypocrite! You snake in the grass!" Five hundred preachers, about, moved back, straight back. And Brother Baxter was with them, moved back. Here, a police that I had just led to God, run out there to grab the man. I said, "This is not a flesh and blood affair." Sixty-six hundred people setting; or six thousand, six hundred people setting, besides what was in the streets, everybody breathless. I weighed a hundred and twenty-eight pounds then. I turned around to him, never said a word. You better know what you're talking about.
Foot Prints Book - Page 186
Well,
he said, "Tonight I'll prove that there's nothing in you but a
hypocrite." He said, "I'll break every bone in that little frail body
of yours." He drew up them arms, and he was well able to carry out his
threat, physically speaking. He come walking towards me with his teeth set, and
his eyes rolled like that. He got real close to me, he said... spit in my face.
Said, "You snake in the grass, you--you posing to be a man of God!" I
never said a word. I was waiting for the Angel of the Lord to speak; mine is no
good. And he said, "Tonight I'll break every bone in your body. I'll knock
you in the middle of that congregation out there."
And just about that time, Something went, "Whoooossssh!"
I said, "Tonight, because you made this challenge, you'll fall over my
feet. THUS SAITH THE LORD!" There you are.
Now, six thousand, six hundred people, waiting breathless, both
challenges was made. I had to look up like that to see him. He said, "I'll
show you whose feet I'll fall over, you snake in the grass!" And here he
come like that, drew back his big fist, and just about ready to strike me, he
did like that.
I said, "Satan, come out of the man." And when he did, he
went, "uh, uh," he turned around like that, and his eyes bulged out,
and foam came from his mouth. He whirled around on the floor and fell over my
feet, and pinned me on the floor, till the police had to roll him off of my
feet before he'd get up. Now, both prophecies were made, there it was at hand.
Early Spiritual Experiences, July 14, 1952
When
I was up at Portland, Oregon, and there was a maniac run out to the platform
that night, to kill me, did you read that? About one third of you. I'll just
give you the story. There's something that happens. I wish it would always
happen, but it doesn't.
I was preaching. Six thousand people inside, and I don't know how
many outside, the rain pouring. Oral Roberts, none of the rest of them had come
on the scene in them days, and I was. The tinsel was on the meeting, certainly.
And while I was speaking, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen," there was about a couple of hundred
preachers sitting behind me. And, all of a sudden, down through that building
come a great big man, six... about six-foot-two, weighing about two-forty or
two-fifty, gray suit on, going like this, just real hard. I thought he must be
bringing a message for someone. And when he got near the platform, all those
preachers realized who he was, and they took a run as hard as they could go. He
was a maniac out of an insane institution. And he run to the platform, and he
started walking up towards me. And he said... I weighed one hundred and
twenty-eight pounds at the time. And he said, "You snake in the grass. You
hypocrite. Here, imposing yourself as a servant of God. I'm going to break every
bone in your body, tonight, and I'll show this people that you're nothing but a
big liar."
Foot Prints Book - Page 187
And
I turned and looked at him. Ordinarily I'd been scared to death. But, instead
of that, something happened. Oh, I wish it would always happen. Instead of
despising that man, I loved him. Something has to do it. I've begged God, let
me get in that state and stay there forever. But I loved the man. I thought,
"Poor fellow, he wouldn't want to hurt me. He's out of his mind. Why, he's
probably got a family somewhere. And as he started towards me...
Just before coming in the meeting, I led two little policemen to
Christ, back in the dressing room. They rushed out to get him. Now, ask the
police force, many people's called. That's authentic, it has to be before it's
put in the magazine. So he... The police rushed out to get him. I said,
"No, don't. Leave him alone. This is not of flesh and blood, this is a
spiritual affair." They just took their hats off and walked back.
He walked up towards me, he said, "Tonight, I'm going to break
every bone in your body."
I had to look up to see him. I thought, "Poor fellow,"
never said a word. He went... spit right in my face, and it flew all over me. I
thought, "Poor fellow, he don't mean to do that. He's out of his
mind."
And he said, "Tonight, I'm going to knock you way out in the
middle of that audience." He was well able to do it, great big arms. And I
never said a word. I knowed better than to say anything. I just stood still.
The audience was hushed. I just looking at him.
He walked up to me, and he drew his great big arm back, and started
to raise back. And I heard myself speaking to him, and It said, "Because
you have challenged the Spirit of God, tonight you'll fall over my feet."
He said, "Fall over your feet? You low-down hypocrite!"
He said, "I'll show you whose feet I'll fall over," and he drew his
big fist back to strike me. I said, "Satan, come out of the
man." And he threw his hands up in the air, paralyzed him, went "Uh!
Uh," turned around two or three times, and fell across my feet, till the
policemen had to roll him off of my feet. What was it, faith? It was love that
did it.
When Love Projects, May 19, 1957
Foot Prints Book - Page 188
When
I was in Texas the other time, that was in operation. Is that right? Any of you
was in my meeting before, raise your hand, if that was in operation. And if
this... Now, you people raise your hands all that was in my meeting and knowed
that was in operation. Not perfect, because I--I guessed at the diseases a
whole lot, see, because I didn't know how it felt. I'd feel a funny feeling,
sometimes female trouble and cancer, I couldn't detect it, it sounded so much
alike, but felt so much alike. "Do you see the visible results on my
hand?" and so forth.
And I told you people, now remember, I told you people, I said,
"He told me, 'If you'll be sincere, see, then it will come to pass that
you will tell the people the very secrets of their hearts and the things that
they have done in their life that's wrong, and so forth, if you'll be sincere
with what I give.'" Did I say that? How many remembers me saying that?
Well, that has come to pass. It was standing at Calgary, or to
Regina, Saskatchewan, last... about three months ago, and I was standing on the
platform talking like this, to my audience. And we were having a great meeting,
some, I guess, close to ten thousand people were gathered in for that night, at
the pavilion, or the--the Queen Gardens it was, out where they have the
stampedes. And I was speaking, and I said, "Now, the Lord has told me,
that if I'd be sincere, that someday" (I did it each meeting) "it
would come to pass that the secrets of people's heart would be told. I repeated
this before we close."
And I turned around to get a drink on the platform, and they was
forming the prayer line. And when I turned around to get a drink, Reverend Mr.
Baxter, my Canadian manager, I was taking a drink of water, and he taken his
handkerchief and just wiping the perspiration off of my forehead. He said,
"God bless you, Brother Branham."
I said, "Thank you, Brother Baxter."
And I turned around, he had walked around, and there stood a lady
standing by the microphone, that had been brought up in the prayer line. And I
walked over like that, and as I looked at the lady, I said, "How do you
do?"
And she said, "How do you do."
Something happened. I--I knew there was something that happened
somewhere. I never felt it like that before. It was that anointing. It doesn't
feel like the Holy Spirit. It's a real sacred feeling. And I looked at that
woman, and she was standing there, her regular size, and I seen her get real
little and start going back. Now you'll hear that spoke right here. And I seen
a little bitty girl standing way down where she went, down to a little bitty
girl about twelve years old. And I seen her sitting by a desk. I said,
"Something's happened, friend. I see a little girl, that woman left
me." I said, "I see a little--a little girl. She's sitting in a room,
she... a schoolroom. She's hitting her pencil, no, it's a pen. Oh," I
said, "I--I see it fly. It struck her in the eye."
Foot Prints Book - Page 189
And
the woman begin to screaming. It left off. She said, "Brother Branham,
that was me. I'm blind in my right eye." She said, "The pen
struck."
I said, "Well, I never had anything like that." I said,
"Well, say!" And there she went back again. I seen a young lady about
sixteen years old, and she was just a-running as hard as she could, and she had
a big ribbon tied on her hair, on a double plait hanging on her back. She had
on a checked dress, and she was running real fast. And I looked and there was a
big yellow dog a-chasing her. I said, "I see a young lady with a checkered
dress," begin to tell just what I was seeing, looking in front of me. I
said, "She goes up on a porch. I see a lady that take her in,
running."
She started screaming, she said, "That was me when I was going
to school." Said, "I never thought of it before in my life."
I said, "Something's happened here, friends, I don't know
what's the matter." And I start, I said, "Let me have your hand,
sister." And I took her by the hand and started to--to... I said,
"Well, I--I don't feel any vibration from it," and I was looking down
at her hand. I looked up again and I seen a lady coming from a white house, or
from a barn, red-looking barn, coming in towards a white house. She had an
apron, holding something like this, and she was walking slow. And I see her
come, I said, "I see a lady coming." I said, "Sister, it's
you." That was the normal time then. I could recognize it being the same
woman. And I said, "Now, I see the lady, you--you've started up a
step." And I said, "There's a flower bed over to your right, and the
steps goes up like this." I said, "There's something wrong with your
back. I see you can't get up the steps." And I said, "You lean over
sideways and you're crying." And I heard her say, "If I can ever get
to Brother Branham's meeting, it'll be over."
And when I said that, somebody caught the woman, she started
fainting. And when she come to, her blind eye was normal. Her back, she could
just move it, the arthritis of the spine, she can just move her back and way,
just perfectly normal like that. And I said, "Well, something has
happened!"
Foot Prints Book - Page 190
And
then Brother Baxter grabbed the microphone, he said, "Brother Branham,
that's just what you spoke of a while ago would come to pass." And
everybody begin screaming, all over the building, everywhere.
And I heard crutches rattling, and I looked, and here come a young
fellow, he said, "Brother Branham," trying to hobble on his crutches,
he said, "tell me what to do."
And I said, "Well, brother dear," I said,
"I..." And the ushers come to pull him off the platform, 'cause he
was coming without a prayer card. And I said, "Just a minute."
He said, "Well, brother..."
I said, "You go back, get you a prayer card, sonny boy."
And just as he... He said, "Well, tell me what to do, only
thing." Just a-crying, you know. And he said, "That's all, I want you
to tell me just what to do."
I said, "Well, I don't know what to tell you." I said,
"Just a minute. Don't take him, ushers." I said, "You left
Regina Beach this morning." I seen him standing beside of a--a..." I
said, "You caught a bus." I seen up over the door, said, "Regina
Beach." I said, "I see a man and a woman refusing you to go. That's
your father and mother."
He said, "That's right."
And I said, "And I see another man loaned you some money,
which is... looks like your father."
Said, "It was my uncle."
And I said, "I seen you. You're now, I see you in a room, and
it's got a bay window, you're looking out the side."
Said, "That's my aunt sitting right over there. I'm living in
her room," like that. Said, What must I do, Brother Branham?"
I said, "Do you believe with all your heart?"
He said, "With all my heart."
I said, "Stand on your feet, Jesus Christ has healed
you." And down went his crutches, and both legs come straight. And down
through the building he went, just a-glorifying God. And from that it started,
one after the other, and it never has ceased yet. That's right. That's true,
friend. "It will come to pass, if they won't hear the first, they will
hear the second."
Two Signs Explained, October 28, 1949
Foot Prints Book - Page 191
The
Catholic priest set not long ago in my house, and he said, "Mr. Branham, I
come to ask you a question."
I said, "All right, sir."
Said, "I have a letter here from the bishop, to you."
I said, "All right, sir."
He said, "The statements that you make, will you hold your
hand and solemnly swear you'll tell the truth?"
I said, "I will not." I said, "The Bible said,
'Swear not at all, by heavens or by earth (for it's His footstool). Let your
yeas be yea, nay..." If the bishop wants to hear what I got to say, he
will take my word for it. If he don't, I don't swear."
This little priest up here at the Sacred Heart Church, he said,
"Did you baptize Pauline Frazier on a certain--certain date?"
I said, "I did, sir, down in the Ohio River."
Said, "How did you baptize her?"
I said, "I baptized her by immersing her beneath the water in
the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ."
He put it down. Said, "You know, the Catholic Church used to
baptize like that."
I said, "When?"
He said, "In the early age."
I said, "What early age?"
He said, "Well, at the beginning."
I said, "What beginning?"
He said, "In the Bible."
I said, "Do you mean the ear-... in--in the disciples?"
He said, "Sure."
I said, "Do you call the Catholic the... You say the disciples
were Catholic."
He said, "Sure, they were."
I said, "I thought the Catholic Church didn't change?"
He said, "It doesn't."
I said, "Then why did Peter say, 'Repent, and be baptized in
the Name of Jesus Christ'? And you that was... he was a pope?"
"Yeah."
"Then why do you baptize in the name of 'Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost'? And he immersed, and you sprinkle. Now what's happened?"
He said, "But, you see," said, "the Catholic Church
has power to do anything they want to do." (huh)
I said, "And you called the disciples 'Catholics'?"
He said, "Yeah."
I said, "Sir, I've got Josephus, I've got the Foxe's Book of
Martyrs, I've got Pemberman's Early Ages, I've got the Hislop's Two Babylons,
the most ancient histories that there is in the world, show me in there where
the Catholic Church was ever ordained or ever come into an organization... six
hundred years after the death of the last apostle."
"Oh," he said, "we believe what the church
says."
I said, "I believe what the Bible said." See?
"Why," he said, "God's in His church."
I said, "God's in His Word." And I said,
"If..." He said... I said, "The Bible doesn't say God's in His
church, but the Bible says God's in His Word. 'In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and dwelt among us.'"
That's right. I said, "God's in His Word."
Foot Prints Book - Page 192
He
went on out and told that. He said, "Well, we couldn't argue," said,
"because you believe in the Bible, I believe in the church."
I said, "I believe that the Bible is God's inspired Word and
there's not one contradiction in It. And It's God's Word, His Eternal plans for
the whole ages to come. He said, 'Heavens and earth will pass away but My Word
shall not pass away.' That's right. I believe the Word."
He went out to Mrs. Frazier. He said, "Mrs. Frazier, will you
sign a paper here consenting that your girl can be a member of the Catholic
Church?"
She said, "I'd rather walk with her to the grave."
Said, "Shame on you." Said, "You ought to be
thankful that that girl's coming out of that nonsense, into the Catholic
Church."
Said, "What if it was your girl coming to my church, what
would you say about it?"
"Oh," he said, "that's different."
Said, "No, it's not." He knowed he had been somewhere
when he left that little woman out there. He knowed he had been somewhere. She
said, "Now, the same door's open that you come in at."
See, that's the way. Don't be run over, you don't have to be run
over. If God's for you, who can be against you? Right! The trouble of it is
today, you got a wishbone instead of a backbone. Stand for God and right!
Questions And Answers On Hebrews, September 25, 1957
Foot Prints Book - Page 193
Just
keep coming in my mind, I've just got to tell it, I tried to quench it off,
four or five times. I have to say it. How many remembers this brother, pastor,
that used to be here at the Church of God? Brother... right up here. What was
his name? Worked for Vorgang down there. Oh, you all... The First Church of
God, right here on the corner. Or, used to sell Rawleigh's in time of the--of
the depression. A real, godly, saintly man. Brother Smith took his place up
there. I'll call his name in a few minutes. He was a God-saved man.
Remember, if you don't walk up to the correction, and you do
something wrong as a Christian, God will warn you, and then if you don't take
the warning, He will just take you right off the earth. That's what He done.
You remember in the Bible, look at that Corinthians church. He told
them what they was positionally in Christ. But he warned them of what was going
to happen, and they corrected themselves, and got straightened out with God.
And this little brother he was a wonderful little brother, I
believe, a God-saved min. And he got him a job down here at the... at
Vorgang's. If some of his people's setting here, I hope you don't think that
I... I don't know you if you're setting here. But Ramsey, Brother Ramsey, how
many remembers Brother Ramsey up here at the Church of God? Sure, you do,
wonderful little man. And he used to come to my house and we'd talk together,
and we'd set there and weep and hold one another's hands; a real Christian!
One day I went into it down there, just come from overseas in a
meeting, had my car checked up, Brother Ramsey said, "What can I do for
you, Billy?"
I said, "Check her out, Brother Ramsey, change the oil."
"Okay," he said, "fine and dandy." Said,
"You'd have a nice meeting?"
I said, "O Brother Ramsey, it was wonderful." I said,
"I wish you could go with me sometime. Why don't you go with me?"
He said, "I don't serve the Lord no more, Billy."
I looked around, I said, "What'd you say?"
He just kind-a said, "I don't serve Him no more," walked
away.
And I thought, "Oh, he's just going on." I went on and
went somewhere.
Come back and got in my car. I come up home, and I begin to think
about that, "I don't serve the Lord no more."
The Lord put it on my heart to go back and ask him again. So, I
said, "Meda, just hold the fort."
And I got in, and got in my car and went back down and stopped
again, went into Vorgang's. I said, "Brother Ramsey, I want to ask you a
question."
Said, "All right, Billy, what is it?"
I Said, "You Said, a while ago, you 'don't serve the Lord no
more.' You was just teasing me, wasn't you?"
He said, "No."
I said, "Brother Ramsey, you--you don't mean that."
He said, "Yes. "
I said, "Don't you love Him?"
He said, "If I loved Him, I'd serve Him. Wouldn't I,
Billy?" and walked away.
I thought. "Say, Brother Ramsey..."
Said, "I don't want to talk no more about it."
Foot Prints Book - Page 194
I
went home and went in a room and shut the door. And, oh, you know how you feel
real heavy, like you'd taken the cookies away from a baby or something, you
know. I--I thought, "What? It can't be. Surely something's happened to
Brother Ramsey."
And there's a little colored boy, named Jimmy, he comes here to
church; got one leg... you know, he limps kind of. I forget his name, works
down there at Vorgang's runs a wrecker. He met me, and he said, "You know,
Reverend Branham," he said, "I don't know about this here Doctor
Ramsey around here." He said, "I told him the other day, said, 'we
all was scared to even open our mouth around here,' said, 'you was a godly
man.'" But said, "He took his preacher's license and went over to the
basket and tore them apart, and throwed them in the basket, said, 'I don't want
nothing to do with it no more.'"
He said, "Hey, mister! Say, you oughtn't to do that."
He said, "Ah, Jim, I'm through serving the Lord."
So he went on, said, "You--you don't mean that."
And said, "Then he told me. said he was coming down to grind
his valves on Labor Day," I believe it was, "And he said, 'Now, I
want you to come help me, Jim.'"
He said, "I'll help you after I come from church, but first
I's going to church."
Said he, "Went back down and Mr. Ramsey was grinding the
valves on his car, he said, 'Jimmy, slip over the river, the saloons is closed
here, slip over the river and get me a case of beer.'"
He said, "Mr. Ramsey, I's been guilty of many things, but
never will I be guilty of getting a servant of the Lord a case of beer."
He said, 'No, sir, I'll never do that."
And he said, "Well, go on and get it, Jim."
He said, "Mr. Ramsey, I grind your valves. But if you get any
beer, you'll go get it yourself." He said, "I ain't goin' to never
get a servant of the Lord anything like that."
Foot Prints Book - Page 195
So
Ramsey jumped in Jimmy's car, and took over the river; come back, half keyed
up, with a case of beer (drinking it).
He started going down. He got sick. See? God couldn't speak to him.
I warned him, I done everything I could. Brother Smith went to him and warned
him. Everybody tried to do everything they could for him. Still, he just shook
his head. What happened? He took sick, and died. That showed that he was a
saved man. If God could not make him... bring him in obedience, He will have to
take him out of the earth and bring him Home. That's exactly what the Bible
said. That's what the Bible promises. If you won't stand correction, you've got
to come on Home.
So God cannot lose you after He's saved you, but He can shorten
your days here make you pay for every sin you've done. So if you sin, you're
going to have to pay for what you've done. Just remember that.
Now, now the Lord be with you. I believe, tonight, that Brother
Ramsey was saved. Absolutely, I believe it. But he just wouldn't obey God, and
when he wouldn't obey God, God had to bring him home. That's the only thing to
do, because... What was it? "He'd bring reproach and disgrace to the Blood
wherewith he was sanctified with." Is that right? "And count the
covenant an unholy thing," if that isn't just exactly what this Hebrew
letter said. See? It would be impossible for him to be lost, but he would bring
shame and disgrace, so God would have to take him off the earth and bring him
Home. That's exactly what would take place.
Hebrews, Chapter Six, September 8, 1957
Had
a couple days of vacation, and I went down in Kentucky with a Brother Wood
here, one of the deacons of the church, or trustees rather, to hunt, And we
went into the woods.
I had shot the first squirrel, and I said, "I'll just
wait," because someone come through with some dogs. And I said, I'll just
wait till the squirrels come back out of their holes; and they're up in the
trees, in the holes and hid now." Said, "When they come out... I'll
set here and wait." Because it was real cold and frosty, and ears
a-burning and, you know, the--the keen winds coming through the hollows. I
said, "I'll just wait till the squirrels come back out."
No more than set down, until the Holy Spirit said, "Rise, and
go up in the place that you call 'Sportsman's Hollow,' there I'll speak with
you."
And I went up into this place that I named "Sportsman's
Hollow." Because the reason I named those hollows myself, so I'd know
where I was at. "Sportsman's Hollow" was because they had... I went
in there and saw sixteen squirrels setting on one tree, shot the limit, left
the rest of them there and went away. And that's the sport, the thing to do. So
then I called it "Sportsman's Hollow."
Foot Prints Book - Page 196
And
He referred to me, "The place that you called 'Sportsman's Hollow.'"
Not that He called it, but that I called it that.
Then I went up at the head of that hollow and set down under a
white oak tree and waited about a half hour, and nothing happened. I laid
myself on the ground, prostrated myself on the ground, laid my hands out. Then
He spoke to me.
And when He did, the Word that He revealed to me on this very
Scripture that we're coming to this morning, I had never seen it before in all
my life.
And then when I got to Shreveport, Louisiana, a woman... who is a
gifted woman, her name is Mrs. Shrader.
Many years ago when the Angel of the Lord had met me down here at
the river the first time, that appeared in that Light, and the Words that He
spoke there; eleven years later, when I walked into a meeting, this little
woman rose and spoke in tongues and interpreted. It was word for word the same
thing that Angel said.
And this same little woman, when I walked into the tabernacle at...
or the place at Shreveport that we were in, the Life Tabernacle, the Holy
Spirit moved on that woman and said word for word what He said to me up there
on the hill. Then the Spirit begin to move and give interpretation, foretelling
things by the revelation, by prophecy, the things that were to happen in the
meeting the following night; and not one time did it fail.
Before that, a little Woman stood up in the meeting, a Baptist
woman, come over there not knowing what she could do. And she was standing in
the midst of the meeting and the Holy Spirit fell on her, on her, and begin to
speak with tongues, a Baptist woman from the First Baptist Church of
Shreveport; and then she didn't know what she had did. And then before she
could say anything, the Holy Spirit give the interpretation, said, THUS SAID
THE LORD, 'Within three months there'll be the Spirit of Moses, Elijah, and
Christ, ministering in this tabernacle.'" There it happened, perfectly.
A Baptist man from Meridian, Mississippi, started to lay his hand
on his refrigerator to get something out of the refrigerator, and the Spirit of
God come upon him; and he spoke in tongues, not knowing what he was doing. And
before he got... could understand what he was doing, the Holy Spirit spoke back
and said, "Go to Shreveport, Louisiana, My servant will tell you what to
do."
And he come there, said, "I don't understand this, never
happened before." Oh, my! We are living in the last days just before the
coming of the Lord.
The Revelation Of Jesus Christ, December 4, 1960
That
afternoon when the Holy Spirit came down at the meeting in the racetrack and
begin to reveal the secrets of the heart, after I had took the Scripture. About
an hour, where it really taken me fifteen minutes, 'cause they had fifteen
different interpreters for it to go through. So I--I'd speak like, "Jesus
Christ the Son of God;" and this one say, "bah, bah, bah, bah,
bah;" this one, "gloo, gloo, gloo, gloo;" and then, "um,
um, um," like that; all meant "Jesus Christ the Son of God;"
interpreters. And I'd have to jot down what I said last, I wouldn't know where
he was at, and then wait till they got through.
And then when it got back, I said, "Now, the missionary told
you of a Jesus that come to save you." You see them looking at one
another, you know, different tribes, and all the way up and down like that. I
said, "The missionary told you that. But did that missionary... In reading
this Book, did you see there where He was a great Healer and said that He would
live down through the age in the people till He come again? 'Works that I do
shall you also.' You that's ever accepted Christ as your Saviour, with those
tags on, would you like to see Jesus come back up here today and walk down
through the people and do the same thing He did when He was here on
earth?"
Oh, all of them, "Sure!" They wanted to see that, you
see, They wanted that.
I said, "Then if He will do it, use us here to do the same
thing that He did when He was here on earth, would you believe His Word? "
"Oh, sure!" You see, the Mohammedan setting out there.
The first... second person on the platform was a Mohammedan woman.
The Holy Spirit speaking, I said to the woman myself, I said, "Now, you
know I don't know you, I can't even speak your language." And she admitted
that.
She had the red dot right in between her eyes here, which meant she
was a thoroughbred and a Mohammedan. So, I said, "Well, now, for healing
you, I cannot heal you." But I said, "Did you understand the... what
I said this afternoon, the Message?"
And she--she talked back to the Mohammedan interpreter that... She
was an Indian, what she was, She said, "Yes, she understood, she had read
the New Testament." Oh, yeah, uh-huh.
See, they believe in God, too. They're the seed of Abraham, also.
See? But said then, "She believed in God, but she believed Mohammed was
His prophet." And we believe Jesus was His Son. See? So she said,
"Oh, she--she believed God."
And I said, "Then if you know the Old Testament and know what
God was in the man gone by, in the ages gone, then Jesus, One that we call 'the
Christ,' was to be the God-prophet. Yeah, they killed Him. You think they
didn't 'cause you said he got on a white horse and rode away. That's what
you're taught by your priest, that, 'He never was killed, now. And he died a
normal death somewhere else, years later.'"
I said, "You believe that. But this Jesus, according to the
New Testament, He died and rose again, and sent His Spirit back on His
Church." Now you got them, see. That's exactly what that Mohammedan
challenged Billy Graham about, see. Same thing, same principle.
I said, "Now if... Mohammed never made you an any promises.
But Jesus made us a promise, that the same works that he did we'd do also. Now,
you remember He said in St. John 5:19, 'I do nothing till the Father shows
Me.'" And I said, "Now, if Jesus will come and show me what your
trouble is or what you're here for, tell you what your outcome was, what your
past was, and what your future will be, and if He can tell you what your future...
your past was, surely you'll believe what the future will be."
She said, "That's true." See, through the interpreter.
And I said, "All right, may He do it."
Foot Prints Book - Page 198
And
all them Mohammedans just raising up, watching, you know. And when the Holy
Spirit said, "Your husband short, heavyset man, with a black mustache, You
was at a doctor, about three days ago." Said, "You got two children.
He give you a female examination, he said, 'You had a cyst on the womb.'"
She looked down and bowed her head, she said, "That is
truth."
And I said, "Now, if you read the New Testament, is that like
Jesus Christ Who told the woman at the well?"
"That is true."
And I said, "Well, why did you come to me as a Christian? Why
didn't you go to your Mohammedan prophet?"
She said, "I think you can help me."
And I said, "I can't help you. But if you'll accept this Jesus
Who is here now, Who knows your life and knows all about you, He will help
you."
She said, "I accept Jesus as my Saviour."
That did it. That was it. Ten thousand Mohammedans come to Christ
that afternoon. See, about thirty years on the mission field, and it turned one
over by literature; where in five minutes time, ten thousand come by the Gospel
being made manifest.
The Philadelphian Church Age, December 10, 1960
Foot Prints Book - Page 199
There
is two different tongues. Tongues of angels, that's the man in private prayer
out yonder somewhere speaking to God, speaking to God in angelic tongues. I
could just call you a case right now, but I haven't got time. You remember when
the woman come to the auditorium there, in where Doctor Alexander Dowie's from,
Zion. Remember me down there? And Billy come after me down there to get me to
go to the meeting, and I said, "Billy, go on back." And I...
He said, "What you crying about? Somebody been here?"
I said, "No, sir, You go on back, tell Brother Baxter to
preach tonight."
And I got down on the floor and I said, "Lord, what's the
matter with me?"
And all of a sudden I heard Somebody at the door, speaking in other
languages. I thought... It was German. I thought, "Well, that fellow's
come up to get him a..." I stopped, you know, praying, I listened at him
standing there like this. And I thought, "Well, how will that guy ever
understand that?" Cause I knowed the man that run that motel, about five
miles out of the city, you know. I had to get out there (so many people
around), a small town. I said, "Well, that's strange. Uh." And I
said, "There... Well, boy, did you ever hear a... what... That guy don't
even get his breath, hardly." See, I was thinking that, "Hard as he
was speaking! Well, I said, "Well, that, why, it was me!" So I just
kept real still, he didn't say any... just kept real still. After a while He
got through speaking, and, when It did, it felt like I could run through a
troop and leap over a wall.
And I went out and Billy was going out the gate and I hollered at
him, "Wait a minute!"
He come back, he had been drinking a soda pop. And he said,
"Daddy, what's the matter?"
I said, "Wait just a minute, just a minute, I'm going with
you."
I started washing my face real quick. He said, "What's the
matter?" He knows better than to talk to me, going to the meeting. He
said, "What's the matter?"
I said, "Nothing, nothing, nothing, not at all. Just go ahead
to the meeting."
Foot Prints Book - Page 200
We
went on to the meeting, Brother Baxter was sitting there playing, "Nothing
between my soul and the Saviour." He come in, he said, "Whew! Thought
you wasn't coming!"
I said, "Sh." Went on up and just started preaching.
When I got through, about time I got through preaching, well, boy,
somebody like to took the back of the building, back there in that big
auditorium. Run an extension mike back there, and there was a woman back there
just walking up and down that aisle, shouting hard as she could shout.
Come to find out, she had TB, and had left Twin Cities, St. Paul,
the ambulance wouldn't bring her because they was afraid she would burst her
lungs. The doctor said, "Anything, her lungs was like honeycombs,"
said, "if they ever broke she'd be dead. That'd be all." And some
saints took an old '38 Chevrolet car, and took the back seat and fixed it up,
put her in there and was on the road over. And they hit a little bump or
something another down there, and she started hemorrhaging, and she just
started spurting the blood right out, and she... it was going through her nose
and everything like that. She got weaker and weaker, and finally... She didn't
want to die in the car, she told them to stop and put her on a grass plat.
They picked her out. And they was all standing over her, praying,
and all of a sudden she said something struck her and up she got. And away she
went, shouting down that road, as hard as she could. Here she was at church,
just walking up and down those aisle.
I said, "Sister, what time was that?" Just exactly the
same time the Holy Spirit was speaking through me. What was it? Gifts.
What's that--that old opossum laying up there at the gate to be
prayed for? An ignorant animal, not even a soul, don't know right from wrong;
see, hasn't got a soul, (got a spirit), no soul to it.
What was it? The Holy Spirit making intercessions. God sent a gift
to the earth, and the Holy Spirit just couldn't wait any longer so He just come
took me over and begin to speak back Himself like that, back Hisself, making
intercessions Himself. And as we checked the time, at the very same minute that
she... they put her out on a plat like that, they wanted to see... Cause they
knowed she was dying, they'd have to say what time she died. It was that very
minute that the Holy Spirit fell upon me up there and begin to make
intercessions, utterance, words, can't understand them, see, like that, giving
utterance. That's the Holy Spirit speaking.
Questions And Answers, January 12, 1961
Foot Prints Book - Page 201
In
Harlington, Texas, here not long ago, when a certain thing taken place, when
some fellows come down there and wrote out an article in the paper, a--a little
paper, and passed it on there, and said that I "was nothing but Simon the
sorcerer," and I "was bewitching people," and the FBI agents was
there that night to expose me on the platform. Many of you... Was anybody at
Harlington, at the Harlington meeting? If you are, raise your hand, around here
from Harlington, Texas, or down in the valley. Well, I got the article of it in
my little scrapbook. Passed great big things out, and said there was going to
be all these different things, said, "All it is is mental telepathy. He's
Simon the sorcerer." When I walked to the platform that night. And said,
"What it is, it's a--it's a trick that he plays." And all like that.
Said, "It was a big stage show," and all that. Said the FBI agents...
I come to the platform, Mr. Baxter was standing there. The
custodian of the building had went out and had them little Mexican children...
They'd take all them off the car. He was standing there weeping, he said,
"Reverend Branham, it's a shame." Said, "My baby was healed in
this meeting. And look, such a--a damnable rot like that," said, "the
law ought to pick that guy for doing that."
I said, "That's all right. There's a higher Law than earth, He
will take care of that. 'For verily I say unto you, whosoever shall speak a
word against the Holy Ghost, it'll not be forgiven him in this world or the
world to come.'" I said, "He's just mentally upset."
And a little lady had just been healed of a condition. She run, she
said, "Reverend Branham," she said, "I know it wasn't mental
telepathy that night when..."
I said, "Now look, sis."
Said, "I'm going to leave the building, if the FBI's going to
arrest you on the platform." Said, "I don't know what I'd do, Brother
Branham."
I said, "Don't you worry about that, sis." I said,
"I've had the FBI in meetings, two or three times, and every time he got
converted." I said, "I sure like to have them again."
And Brother Bosworth remembers one night in my meeting, when the
FBI come in Seattle, Washington. Went out the next day and knelt down in the
shooting gallery, said, "Brother Branham, look, how can I receive the type
of Holy Spirit that you got?" See? I put my arms around him and led him to
Christ. A year from now, he retires, he's going with me. That's right. I like
to see people come in who is really sincere.
So I got up on the platform that night, I said, "Look." I
said, "I have a little piece of paper." I said, "My brother,
Howard," I said, "you go on out of the building. And Mr. Baxter, you
leave the building." I said, "It's been said this was mental
telepathy." I said, "Setting in the back of the building just about
two hours ago, as Mr. Baxter here knows, before he leaves..." I said,
"One day while I was down here in Texas, a little newspaper (went busted
later on) carried it, dirty article, and said that I was up there, and a whole
lot, said I 'received so much money in a meeting, it taken two big man to pack
the offerings out of the building.'"
Foot Prints Book - Page 202
Brother,
sister, I had a minion, five hundred thousand dollars give to me at one time,
and refused to put my name on it, and told them to take it back. That's right.
I had twenty-five thousand dollars give to me in one check at the platform in
Texas, for a man, from Texas oil owner there that come said his mother was
healed out of a wheelchair, they just flew in there. And I said,
"Sir!" And I tore the check up before him. That's right. I'm a poor
man.
Someone offered me, here not long ago, said, "Brother Branham,
we'll buy you a nice Cadillac to ride."
I said, "A Cadillac?" I said "Me go down through
Arkansas, and some of them poor little old Arkansas-ers down there picking
cotton, little old mother with her hands stuck up with cockleburs, and things,
or burrs off of that cotton picking, pulling a sack, half dead with female
trouble, and things like that, eating fat bacon and cornbread for breakfast,
come put a dollar in my meeting, and me ride in a Cadillac? No, sir! No, indeedy!"
I said, "No, indeedy! I'll never do that." And thank you. I want to
be like the people that come to me to be prayed for. No, sir, if I could afford
it, I sure wouldn't even have them to even put in nickels and dimes to pay for
the auditorium. And I said, "No." I... If I got what I deserved, I'd
be walking. Now, wouldn't I feel funny? Now, say, "There goes Brother
Branham," a big Cadillac going down the road. And them poor little fellows
couldn't even afford a bicycle, and then me going in a Cadillac? That's not
right. No, sir! So I just wouldn't stand for it.
And this man made a great remark that I took money and everything
like that. It was wrong, but God dealt with him.
And one day, I remember a friend of mine, Mr. Reese, from over...
and may be in this meeting tonight. Many of you might know Mr. Reese. He had a
stroke, and his hands was hanging like that, and the doctor said he'd die
before morning. They called me way down, Florida, when I was at your place, and
I prayed for him on the phone. God saved his life and he's been... And one
night he was coming out, of one day there at... What was that little place
where you got them big caves there in New Mexico? Carlsbad. And we was coming
out. And Billy and I were going down the street, and here come Mr. Reese out,
and his colored driver, and Mrs. Reese trying to help him. And he was, and he
seen me coming and he held his mouth open, crying, and him trying to wipe the
tears away from his eyes. He said, "Brother Branham, last night you called
from twenty-five to thirty-five, and mine was thirty-six," He said,
"Oh, if I could have only got to the line!"
And I said--I said, "Well, Brother Reese, that wouldn't have
healed you, brother."
He said, "No, Brother Branham, but I want to know what I've
done. If I've done anything, God knows that I'm sorry of it." Said,
"Why should I have to go like this through life now?" Said, "I'm
glad to be a-living, but..." Holding like that, and--and the boy trying to
hold him, his wife like that.
I said, "Well, Mr. Reese, I have no way." I said,
"Just tonight I just call the number of those cards." I said,
"And if God would have intended it."
He said, "Well, it was all right." Said, "Brother
Branham, I'll keep on till God gives, He shows me if I'm ever going to be well
or not, what I can do." Poor old fellow, standing there.
Foot Prints Book - Page 203
I
looked, coming up from him I seen a palm tree standing out there. I seen him
with a brown suit on, and a white shirt and a brown tie, standing perfectly
straight, lifting up his hands and arms, walking like this. I said,
"Brother Reese, THUS SAITH THE LORD. I don't know when, I don't know how,
I don't know where it'll be. It isn't here, 'cause there's no palm trees here.
But you'll be standing somewhere by the side of a palm tree, with a brown suit
on, and a brown tie, and a white shirt. You are going to be a well man. Whether
it's this year, next year, or ten years from now, I don't know. But THUS SAITH
THE SPIRIT!"
So that, I went on overseas to Finland, and so forth, and come
back, and went down. And that night, just before I went to the meeting...
Brother Baxter, which is listening right now, here somewhere, and he was--he
was with me. And I had been in the room for three days, just fasting and
praying. Am I taking too much of your time? I hope not, see. I--I was been
fasting and praying and wouldn't go out to eat. And Brother Baxter come, said,
"You got to eat tonight." So he took me down to the Cafeteria. And
just as we got in the Cafeteria, he said, "Say," he said, "we're
kind of fasting here." Said, "There's some of our friends in there,
and they're probably sitting close now, too. There's the one that give me that
hat the other day, the Wilbanks, was a very fine friend."
Said, "Here, sure want to talk to you!" Well, it's not
that I don't want to talk to people, but, when That's on, He just simply goes
to revealing things. So when we started out, Brother and Sister Wilbanks, sure
enough, they visited me the other day down home. And they was standing there,
excited, over... And said, "Now, Brother Branham, I want to shake your
hand."
And Brother Baxter said, "Now, look," said, "don't
talk to him."
Foot Prints Book - Page 204
And
they--they We understand." They're very lovely. And he shook my hand. I
started on down the street.
And I started walking down the street, the Holy Spirit said,
"Turn around and go in the car with them."
I thought, "That, I just need prayer. Got to go on." I
said, "Brother Baxter, it's a nice night."
And he said, "Yes." I felt Something stop me. Looked like
I couldn't move my legs anymore. Just getting... couldn't move my legs no more.
I stopped in the street. He said, "What's the matter?"
I said, "Brother Baxter, I must go back and get in the car
with Wilbanks."
He said, "Brother Branham, you can't."
I said, "It's the Spirit of the Lord."
He said, "All right, then."
So we turned and went back and got into the car. I said, "Will
you take me around to the hotel, Brother Wilbanks?"
He said, "Yes."
We went around to the hotel. And when we got out at the hotel, at
the hotel we started up, Brother Baxter went walking on in. I started in, and
Something said, "Go back and talk to Wilbanks."
I went back. I said, "Friends, I hope there's nothing wrong
with your family. There's Something here that just keeps telling me about
this," I said, "not to--not to do this, you see, and not to go in,
and so forth."
He said, "Well," he said, "there's nothing wrong
with us at all."
I said, "There's something strange." And Brother Baxter
had done went over to a--a ring over there with some flowers in it, right
almost to the hotel. And Brother Baxter standing over there with these, messing
around the flowers. Said, "Come on in, Brother Branham?"
I said, "In a little bit." And I said, "I don't
know, there's something happening somewhere."
And I stayed there about three or four minutes. And looked like
Something said, "Go on in."
I started to walk on in, and just as they pulled away, started to
pull away, I looked coming down the street, and stopped right up there beside
of a palm tree, was the Reese family getting out. There he had the brown suit
on, and brown tie. I looked at that, I looked at him, I never said a word. As
he did, he threw both arms in the air and hollered, "Glory to God,"
and here he come down the street, They thought they had the Salvation Army out
there. And up and down them steps he went!
Foot Prints Book - Page 205
Almost
to the meeting, I Said, "Now go on over to the meeting, and Set down. See,
just don't Say nothing, just set there at the meeting. "There's a bunch
over there tonight," I said, "it's nothing in the world but them same
old spirits that lived on Ananias and those priests back there that denied the
Lord Jesus. It's the same thing today living in man. The Devil takes his man but
never his spirit, he just moves on, gets another one. And so then when it went
on down like that, the Bible said, "They were foreordained to that
condemnation." You know the Bible says that. "Turned the grace of our
Lord into lasciviousness." That's right, the Jews.
And then notice this, then they come down there, just born for
unbelievers, and there they were sitting there. And I got up and I said,
"Now, I've been told here, according to this, that the FBI is going to
expose me tonight." I said, "All right. All right, FBI, wherever you
are now," I said, "my manager is gone and so forth, I invite you to
come on up to the platform and expose me of anything that I've done that's
illegal, anything contrary to the Bible, anything illegal to the laws of the nation."
I said, "Anything of that, come up and expose me, tell me where I'm
wrong." Which, I knew there was no FBI. So I just stood there a little
bit, waited a little while. I said, "No, it looks strange that the FBI
don't come." I said, "You've got the platform, come on." I said,
"If I done anything wrong to be exposed, then raise right up, and come up
and tell me. See? Here where it's at, I'm willing to stand the... by the Word
of the Lord, and--and to be exposed by It. See, I said, "anything I
done."
Just then I noticed a moving over on this side, I seen a black
object. And it moved across the audience and went over and hung right up here
in the platform, over a man dressed in a gray suit, and one in a blue. They
were preachers. I said, "No, it ain't no FBI." I said, "They
said they was going to expose me tonight. The guys that done it hasn't got
nerve enough. They've backed out." I said, "There they set, right up
there." I said, "That man in the gray suit, an blue." He got
down like that. I said, "I thought you was going to expose me?" I
said, "All right, you're not FBI agents, you're backslidden preachers.
That's exactly what you are." You ask anybody you wish to. Ask my manager.
And I said, "You're backslidden preachers. And I challenge you, in the Name
of the Lord Jesus. You wrote this sign and said I was Simon the sorcerer. If I
am Simon the sorcerer, and you're holy man, then you come to the platform and
God strike me dead. Then if I am a man of God, and you're wrong, when you come
to the platform God strike you dead. Come on down now." Yeah.
They set there a little bit. First thing you know, I said,
"You see what's happened?" I looked, and they was going out of the
building real fast, as hard as they could. I said, "Well, we'll wait a few
minutes, just play Only Believe or something, see if they come. Nobody never
did show up, never has since. I said, "You see what it is when it comes to
a showdown or the fact, it's nothing in the world but the Devil. That's exactly
what it is. Exactly. God's works moves on just the same, Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today, and forever!"
Experiences, July 15, 1952
Foot Prints Book - Page 206
One
day I was mowing my yard with a lawn mower, and I was trying to lawn-mow the
front, and I would make a few rounds, and somebody come in to be prayed for,
I'd have to run, change clothes, and pray for them. Well, the front was growing
up before I could get to the back. And it was on a hot summer afternoon, Gene,
Leo and them, the boys here, been to the place. I took off my shirt, no one
could see me back there in the back. And I was running this power mower, and I
forgot that right down at the end of the fence, was a big nest of these hornets
hanging there. And I was running this mower real fast to get it cut real quick,
and I never noticed them, and I'm not home too much, and I slammed right into
those hornets. Was aiming to burn them, get them out of there. And I hit that
hornets' nest, now, with no shirt on, and just in a moment the whole... around
me was covered with hornets.
Anyone knows that one sting can kill you. Last summer a man was
stung on the lip by a honey bee, and it broke up some kind of a blood affair,
died before the doctor could get there. A hornet will knock you flat on the
ground when he stings you.
And, here, a whole hive of them over me. But now, instead of being
afraid... I don't know what you're going to think of me after this. It doesn't
matter, 'cause I'm telling the truth. You'll have to answer with God about what
you think about it. I hit, them hornets all around me. And instead of wanting
to fight at them, something happened. I wasn't afraid of them. I loved them. I
thought, "Little creatures of God, stinging is the only way you got to
protect yourself, that's your God-given weapon. And I disturbed you out of your
house. And I said, "Now I've got to pray for God's sick children, I'm the
servant of the Lord. Now in the Name of our Creator, Jesus Christ, go back into
your nest. I'll not bother you no more."
And when I meet you at the judgment bar, them hornets whirled
around me, and took circle, and made a B-line, and every one of them went right
back into their nest. Why? The atmosphere had been changed. You say,
"Brother Branham, that sounds silly." That's the reason you don't
know the Bible. Did not the lions come after Daniel and could not touch him?
The atmosphere was changed. Could the fire burn Shadrach, Meshach and
Abed-nego? The atmosphere was changed. And the God of Daniel still lives
tonight, He's the same God!
When Love Projects, May 19, 1957
Foot Prints Book - Page 207
Someone
laid a--a note here on the desk, and said they "took up an offering"
for me tonight. That wasn't necessary, don't do that. I can't take it back. I
remember one time, in Calgary, Canada, they took up an... this offering was
taken up. Brother Jack was trying to tell me... My wife setting back there;
she, the children had an old two rooms we were living in, she had to put a
blanket in the door to keep the--the door shut so the children wouldn't get
pneumonia. And she said... He said to me, said, "Brother Branham, that's
not fair to treat her that way." So, you remember the case. They took up,
I forget how many thousand dollars.
And I said, "Oh, take it back, Brother Jack."
He said, "Now, how we going to do it?' So, I bought the place
and it's there. So, to the glory and honor of God. We kept it for a couple
years, the wife and I, as a gift from the church to people.
And then I thought, "That doesn't sound right. I brought
nothing into this world, it's certain that I'll take nothing out." So I
turned around and lotted it, and deeded it back over to the Tabernacle. That
when I'm finished, well, some other servant of God, if there is a tomorrow,
will use it then. See? So, thank you very kindly, friends. God bless you, for
it.
Works Is Faith Expressed, November 26, 1965
It's
happened in Germany when them fifteen witch doctors, on each side of me,
said... because Billy and Brother Arganbright wouldn't let them--let them see
me. Then he said, "Well, we'll cause that tent to blow away." And
they set down there, with their enchantments, and called on their god (the
Devil), and here he come with a storm. About thirty thousand, forty thousand
Germans out there, and that tent just raising up and down like this. Them...
and then cut a... took a scissors and cut a feather, and pointed it back like
that. And setting there, going through all of their enchantments and saying the
three holy words, they say, "The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost;
wo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo. The Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost; ahhhh."
Going like that, and actually the storm come up, sure, "he's
the prince of the power of the air," Satan. And they called the storm, and
how... Even that great big tent, setting out like that... Oh, my, cover about a
city block; and it built up, built out of two-by-four's, and just canvas tacked
over it. The wind got under there and just raised it, like that. That wind and
lightning a-flying like that, I just continually preached.
Foot Prints Book - Page 208
And,
oh, they just going into a big enchantment, going on and on like that, saying
those little Holy words. They said, "The three high holy words: Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost," on both sides like that. Then I seen him bow, and
surrounded by devils there, but not bound.
And I said to Brother Lowster, "Don't interpret this."
I said, "Brother Arganbright, just pray."
I said, "Lord God, Creator of heavens and earth, You sent me
here, and I set my foot on this German soil in the Name of Jesus Christ because
You sent me here. And that cloud has no power over me. It does not, because I'm
anointed and sent here for the salvation of this people. I command you in
Jesus' Name to depart from here."
And the thunders going, "Bang! Bang! Bang," went
"grrrrrrrrr," and rolled away; and right straight over the tent,
blowed back, and the sun shined out. And within ten minutes, there was about
ten thousand around the altars and things, screaming for mercy, to see the
power of God. Why? "Greater is He that's in you, than he that's in the
world."
He That Is In You, November 10, 1963
If
I'm not mistaken, they were either Episcopalians or Presbyterian people that
had brought a little girl from Kansas, and the doctors had give her up with
leukemia, and they gave her, I believe, four days to live. She had gotten so
bad so they said it just... Spend those four days coming over here through the
snowdrifts and things across the country to have her prayed for. And the
grandfather, a very fine looking, elderly man with grayed hair. And they had
her already two days down here in a little motel out here, I guess it isn't
standing there now, this side of Silver Creek. And so I went down that night to
pray for her.
It was early in the morning. I'd come in that night from out of
town and went down. The elderly grandfather was walking in the floor, and the
mother trying to take care of the child. And while I knelt to pray, the Holy
Spirit revealed to me a secret that was between the mother and the father,
something they done. I called them to the side and asked them about it. They
started crying, and said, "That's right."
Then I looked back, and I seen the little girl skipping a rope,
going, playing. And now the little child, in about three weeks time, they sent
me a picture of the little girl back in school, skipping a rope, and having no
leukemia at all. Now, those testimonies are absolutely bona-fide truths, see.
So, our God is so real. Just serve Him and believe Him, and I know He's real.
The Fourth Seal, March 21, 1963
Foot Prints Book - Page 209
Like
the little Stadsklev baby, when they sent over here to... Mrs. Stadsklev said,
"Brother Branham, I called from Germany." There was an American army,
with one of their jet planes setting out here at the field, would fly me to
Germany and back in a day. He was a chaplain. And the baby was laying dead. And
that little mother screaming, she said, "Listen!" Said, "I know;
I stood right there and seen that woman hold that dead baby in her arms that
died that morning. And I seen Brother Branham walk right out there and lay
hands on that dead baby, and it come to life." Said, "This is my
baby, Brother Branham." Never been a death in their family. See? And this
little thing took sick one morning and died that afternoon.
Here was all of them standing around and giving prophecies and things,
"The baby was going to raise up!" and all like that.
I said, "Well, that's mighty nice, Sister Stadsklev, but let
me see what Father says." And I went out to the woods, and I prayed. Come
back in, she had done called two or three times 'fore I got back the next
morning. Nothing.
The doctor said, "All right," said, "if that's... if
you have faith like that, lady, we'll never let the baby leave the hospital.
Let it lay right here, you stay right here with it. That's all right."
Brother Stadsklev went and seen the army and major, and they said,
"Sure, we--we'll fly him over and bring him back."
And there was a plane setting, waiting to take me over that morning
and bring me back that night to Germany, to Heidelberg, Germany, for the
resurrection of this baby. I said, "Sure, God can do it, but let's see
what His will is."
Then I went out and prayed all night, nothing happened. Come back
the next morning, nothing happened. And I started into the room. Just then I
looked there, and there stood that Light hanging near the door, said,
"Don't put your hand on that. Don't rebuke that. That's the hand of
God."
I got her on the phone, I said, "Sister Stadsklev, bury your
baby. It's the hand of the Lord. It's God's will. Something would happen to
that baby down along the line. You let it go right where God knows where it's
at. You can't go to it now. If it lives, you won't. You leave it right like
that."
That great Lutheran preacher in Germany wrote a letter and said,
"How I can appreciate what Brother Branham... waiting for that clear-cut
decision of God before he said anything." That's it! Hold to God's
decision! No matter what others say, or whatever it is, don't proposition with
Satan at all.
How Can I Overcome? August 25, 1963
Foot Prints Book - Page 210
I
begin to study the eagle when I read this. What about the eagle? I find out
that the eagle is a very odd bird. He can fly higher than any other bird that
there is. He's a special built bird. He builds his nest in the rocks, way up
high. He's a very odd bird. And another thing, his feathers are so tight you
can hardly--you can't pull them out with a pair of pliers. He's a huge mammoth
bird, one of the biggest there is, and he's a very odd bird. But he's built
special because he has a special work to do. The word eagle, means ripper with
beak. And he feeds with the beak, a very beautiful thing of the Word of God.
Feed from mouth to mouth, God feeding His children.
And then he builds his nest high. He has that for a purpose and
everything. Now, the eagle had a great powerful wing, that's for deliverance.
And another thing the eagle does that's strange, he renews his youth. The
eagle, after so long a time, just rotates and comes right back to a young eagle
again, brings himself right back. He renews his youth. That's another type of
the Church, of God's people. We'll get all down and kind of stale, and all at
once the Holy Spirit comes and renews us again. God renewing the experience and
the youth of His Church, giving them a new experience. That is the type of the
eagle.
Some years ago, I used to do a lot of riding, ranch, and we were up
on the Troublesome River in Colorado. The Hereford Association grazes the
Arapahoe pastures there and so forth, and up around on the mountains, and we
used to take the cattle up there, and then in the fall of the year we'd have to
hunt them out again; put them in the National Forest, and then we'd raise their
hay down in the bottoms to feed out through the winter.
And I would go out there each year to hunt, I do yet. And a friend
of mine, we'd go back after all the people from the city had got down there and
shot around the does, fawns, young cows, and old straggling bulls of the elks
that's down low. Why we always go way back high, where you can't get in, and
camp out back there. He'd take the east or west fork, on, and I'd take the
other. We'll be several days before we meet one another.
And I'll never forget, one year it hadn't snowed. It was along in
October when the season come in. And if it snows up in the mountains, why,
maybe in October it'll come a real pretty afternoon; maybe in another hour
it'll be snowing. Then it will rain it off, and then the sun will come
out--just changing weather. But then when the snow comes it runs the elk and
the deer--those big ones that stay high away from the noise of civilization--it
runs them down into the valley. That's where you usually get the trophies.
This year the snows hadn't come yet, and I was way up high. I had
left my horse several miles behind and tied him up so he'd have plenty of room
and some hay so he could eat, and I had went all the way around timberline, up
in there looking.
Foot Prints Book - Page 211
That
afternoon there came a storm sweeping across the mountains and the roaring of
thunder and lightning flashing. And I got behind a tree, and I stood back
behind the tree till the storm was over--it dropped down into the timber.
There'd been a "blow-down" there. And I was standing behind the
timber, waiting till the storm passed; standing there thinking. I had my rifle
sitting just against the tree. Then when the storm was over, I was thinking
about God, how wonderful He was. And while the storm was going on, the cold
winds set in, and it froze much of the water on the evergreens--like icicles
hanging. Then when the sun came out, way back over in the West, I could see the
sun just peeping through the crevice of the mountain, and looked like the Eye
of God.
You know God's everywhere. You can just see Him anywhere, if you
just look for Him. He's there, you have to see Him. He will be there. He is
here right now. If you'll just look around, you'll see Him. And then, when I
was standing there, I looked at that sunset, and I raised up my hands and I
said, "Oh great Jehovah God, Your eye has run to and fro through the
earth." Just then I heard the bugle from a bull elk. He had got scattered
away from the herd in the storm, and he was making that real sharp squeal of a
sound like that. I heard answering him over here in another place.
Way up on the side of the mountain, the old gray wolf begin to
howl, and the mate answered down in the bottom. I looked around across the
valley from one mountain across the divide; there was a rainbow. Just
everywhere I looked, there was God.
My mother is a half Indian. She came off the reservations a
Cherokee Indian; and her mother drawed a pension. My conversion never took that
out of me. There's something about the woods and outdoors that I love. When I
heard that old wolf howling and the mate answering it, tears began to run down
my cheeks. I heard that old bull elk screaming up there for his herd. It
answered.
I looked at the rainbow, and said, "Yep. There's God
again." He's Alpha and Omega. He's the colors, the covenant in the
rainbow. God's everywhere, if you'll just look around for Him.
I got so happy I just raised up my hands and the tears running down
my cheeks, I run around and around and around that tree. I was just having me a
big time. Nobody in thirty miles of me--just jumping up and down and screaming
to the top of my voice. Honestly, if there'd been somebody watching me, they'd
thought somebody out of the insane institution was out there. But I wasn't
caring; I was having a good time. I was worshipping the Lord, my God. It didn't
make any difference to me what anybody else thought.
Foot Prints Book - Page 212
I
was just having a good time, just around and around and around that tree. And I
stopped, listened to that wolf, listened to that scream again, and around and
around the tree I'd go again. And I excited something.
And there was a little pine squirrel--I don't know whether you know
what they are here in Oklahoma or not--just a little bitty noisy thing about
that long. He's a blue coat policeman of the woods. He just... He makes so much
noise, and there's nothing to him. He jumped up on a stump, and he begin to
"chatter, chatter, chatter," just as hard as he could. And I thought,
"There's no need of you getting excited, I'm worshipping the Lord. If you
don't like that, watch this." And around and around and around and around
again I went, just as hard as I could. And I said, "Isn't that wonderful?
Your Creator, my God. Here we go again!" And around and around and around
like that. And I noticed the little fellow cocking his little head sideways and
looking down in that blow down.
It didn't seem like I excited him; it was something else excited
him. Well, I thought, "Don't think I'm acting funny, because I'm not
acting funny to myself. And I know He's a blessing me. So, you might as well
join in with me." And, so, I happened to look, and the storm had forced a
big eagle down. It had forced him down in... been down low, probably eating. He
couldn't get his... above to get above the storm, so it forced him down into
the bushes. And there he was down in these bushes here, and that was what was
exciting the little squirrel.
He was watching it real close like that, and going, "chatter,
chatter, chatter, chatter;" like he was going to tear that eagle to
pieces. Well, he wasn't big enough to tear nothing to pieces. So he was
standing on that stump, his little tan curled up like that; "Chatter,
chatter, chatter; chatter, chatter, chatter."
I thought, "Well, don't get excited; he ain't gonna hurt
you." And that big eagle jumped out on a limb like that and I thought,
"Oh God, there You are in that wolf call. There You are in the call of the
wild. There You are in the sunset. There You are in the rainbow. Why did You
put that eagle before me? What's that eagle doing there? I can't see You in
that eagle."
I watched that eagle. I said... looked at him, his great big
gray-looking eyes. He wasn't noticing that pine squirrel so much; he was
watching me. I could see those great big eyes watching me; and I thought,
"Well, yeah, I can see God in that eagle, because that he's not
afraid--there's something about him that he's not afraid."
I said, "I'll try and see if he's afraid." I said,
"Say Fellow, you know I could shoot you?" I said, "This is my
rifle. I could shoot you."
He just looked up at me like that. I kept noticing him feeling his
wings. I said, "I see now. That's the reason. You're not afraid because
that God gave you two wings, and you know good and well you could be in that
timber there before I could even get that rifle in my hand."
Foot Prints Book - Page 213
I
thought, "If you could trust your God-given wings to get out of danger,
how much more ought the Church with a God-given Spirit of the Holy Ghost among
us to get away from things, get out of it! I watched him, how he felt them
wings, as long...
Someone said to me one time, "Brother Branham, aren't you
afraid you'll make a mistake?" No, sir, not as long as I can feel
Something around me. That's all I want, That's okay. As long as He's there,
it's Him doing it.
And I watched the eagle for a length of time. He saw that I loved
him too much; I wasn't going to hurt him. And so, he wasn't afraid of me, but
he just got nauseated with that, "Chatter, chatter, chatter; chatter,
chatter, chatter." And he got tired of it, so he just made a great big
jump, flopped his wings twice; and then I seen why he broke in on me shouting,
That big eagle never flopped his wings anymore. He just seemed to
know how to set his wings; and every time the wind would come in, he'd ride up
higher. And the wind would come in; he'd ride higher. I stood there and watched
him till he become just a little bitty speck.
And I said, "Oh God, that's it." He got tired of that,
"Chatter, chatter, chatter." It isn't run from church to church, join
this one and join that one--it's just knowing how to set your wings in the
power of His Holy Spirit. When He comes riding in, just ride on, ride on--on
and on. Get out of the way from this, "Chatter, chatter--days of miracles
has passed!" "No such a thing as the Holy Ghost!" "You're
all wrong in this!" "There ain't no such thing as divine
healing." Just ride on above it. Just let the Holy Ghost ride in and ride
on away. Just carry on way up and above, plumb out of hearing distance.
My, God made the eagle. Now, if he didn't have... If the hawk tried
to follow the eagle, he would disintegrate in the air. A crow try to follow
him, the feathers would fall out of him. He's a special made bird.
God likened His eagles unto His prophets. A prophet rides high into
the spheres where he can look way away. Now, if the eagle has got great
powerful wings that can take him up there, and his eyes aren't compared with
his wings, he'd be blind when he got up there. That's the reason a hawk, trying
to become an eagle, when he got so high, he couldn't see anyhow; so it wouldn't
do him no good to climb up. See, he is a special made bird. And a Christian is
a special made person. That's exactly right.
There is no need of going to church unless you've got something
that tells you that it is all there. It's something special that God does for
you. That eagle can go so high till you can't see him, And he can see anything
moving on the ground, the least little object, his eye is so great.
God's Eagles, March 2, 1960
Foot Prints Book - Page 214
Well,
I say, "Bless the Lord!" God bless you, my brother. And they could
say nothing evil of it, for the man stood with them that had been laying at the
gate for forty years; and this man was sixty-six years, an invalid. Jesus
Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. How did Mr. Upshaw... I never
seen him in my life. I knowed nothing of him. How did I know he was a
congressman and who he was? But the Holy Spirit revealed it here at the
platform. He revealed it, so It makes the secrets known.
Now, that's nothing to do with me, see, I just happen to be that I
was born for that purpose. See? Just like the pool or the water of Bethesda, it
couldn't say, "Look what a great water I am." But when the Angel went
off of the water, it was just water. Is that right? That's right. Now, I'm just
your brother, by the grace of God. But when the Angel of the Lord moves down,
it becomes then a Voice of God to you. Maybe if I offended you by saying that,
forgive me, but I felt that might been resented. But I am God's Voice to you.
See, I say that again, that time was under inspiration. See? And I--I felt bad
about it the first time, but It repeated it. Now, see, I can say nothing in
myself. But what He shows me, I say it, and you believe it and watch what
happens.
My Commission, And Faith Without Works Is Dead, May 5, 1951
"How
hear we every man in our own language?" Say, what if we Indiana people
spoke a different language from the Kentucky people and Brother Banks is a
Kentuckian? And they spoke a different language then, and here we know that he
couldn't speak Indiana language. And then he raised up there speaking in--in
Indiana language, and know that he don't know it. See? And we hear him in
Indiana language, he's thinking he's speaking Kentucky language. He's just
testifying, "Praise God! Jesus has raised from the dead. Hallelujah!"
but we're hearing him in Indiana language. That's the way it was on the Day of
Pentecost. See? "How do we hear every man," see, "behold, are
not all these which are speaking Galileans," see, Kentuckians? "And
how do we Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, and Maine, and Massachusetts, and
Californians, hear him in our language wherein we were born?" Get the
idea? See, it's inspiration. See, it's inspiration to them to hear, it's
inspiration to them.
See, the message... the thing of it is, is a testimony of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. See, that's right. Now, if God doesn't live that
Life in you, no matter how much you testify of It, you still didn't get It.
See? That's right. How well you...
Foot Prints Book - Page 215
Is
there another question now? [Brother Roy Roberson says, "Well, Brother
Branham, I think that we saw that happen in the prayer line, that Spanish
girl."--Ed.] Yes, very good, Brother Roy, it was at--at right where I'm
going now, at Beaumont, Beaumont. Was it Beaumont? Yes, sir.
Now, the prayer line was stopped. There was a little Spanish girl
come up on the platform. Well, frankly, I believe I was going out, wasn't it?
Howard was taking me out, and--and this... I--I--I heard somebody crying, it
was a little Spanish girl there, oh, about fifteen, sixteen years old, right...
just a kid. And--and I looked, and she would a-been the next prayer card if I
had went ahead. I had a bunch up there, she'd a-been the next prayer card. I
said, "Bring her on." So they brought her on up. I was going over to
another meeting, and I said, "Bring her on up."
So, I come to find out, I said to her something like this,
"Now, will you believe? If Jesus will help me to tell you what's wrong
with you, will you believe that--that He will heal you?" And she just kept
her head down. I thought she must be deaf and dumb. See?
So when I looked again, I said, "No, she just can't speak
English." So they got an interpreter to come there, and I said, "Will
you believe It?" She motioned back to... Then she could understand through
the interpreter, of course. See?
Well, then I said... And I looked and I saw a vision. I said,
"I see you sitting by an old-fashioned fireplace and a big kettle swinging
out, full of ears of yellow corn." You old... You remember that, Brother
Roy? I said, "You overeat that corn. And when you did, you fell violently
ill and your mother put you on the bed and you started with epileptic
fits." And I said, "You've had them ever since."
And then she turns around to the interpreter and said to him
through her own language, "I thought he couldn't speak English... or speak
Spanish!"
And he turned to me and said, "You didn't speak Spanish, did
you?"
I said, "No." So we looked on the recorder, stopped the
recorders, it was absolutely English.
But then the interpreter said, "You tell me what he said
then." See, he had to get the interpretation. Said, "You tell me what
he said." And she said the very same words back to him, and he give it out
again.
Now, she heard me in her own language wherein she was born, and I
was speaking English. She heard it in Spanish. "How hear we every man in
our own tongue wherein we were born?" And the child was healed. See,
that's it, it's the wonderful works of God.
Questions And Answers, January 12, 1961
Foot Prints Book - Page 216
Florence
Nightingale, the great-granddaughter of the late Florence Nightingale that
founded the Red Cross. You seen her picture in the book, weighed about thirty
pounds, cancer had eat her up. In London, England... They brought her from
Africa to London, England. And there in despair... Brother Bosworth wrote back
and told her, said, "We can't come to Africa."
She just wrote back, had the nurse to write and said, "I can't
be moved. I can't do it." Showed the picture, You seen the picture. Only
we had to put a little piece over it. It just had a small cord around. I
thought maybe somebody, put in the book, might criticize because she was--her
body was so exposed there, and we put a little thing across her here. She just
had a--a little--a rag or towel laying across--across her hips, but up above
there was nothing. And even... But we thought we'd put a little piece of paper
on there and photograph the photograph back. Keeps the people who's not got
right kind of a position in their mind of thinking, that they wouldn't
criticize me putting that picture in the paper.
And then when the doctor said that she can't be moved, and she
knowed I was going to visit England, she had them to put her on a stretcher and
pack her to a plane, and bring her to London, England, and send a guard out to
the plane before going down to Buckingham Palace, sent a guard out there, to
come pray her her. And she was so far gone until she couldn't even speak to me.
They had to raise her hands to put it in mine.
You know how London is, some of you soldiers been there. It's
always so foggy. And I knelt down there by the side of a window, and she... The
tears were running off. She wanted to... I don't know how she even got enough
moisture to let tears come. It was just only bones, skin over them; and
her--her legs up here at the hips wasn't over about, looked to me like about two
inches across, or three inches. Her veins was collapsed. How she was living, I
don't know. You seen her picture later. I knelt down by the side of the bed.
Now, she was desperate. Whether I could come or not, they're going to bring her
anyhow.
And I got down there, my heart was a-bleeding within me, of the
faith of that poor, little, dying creature, and I prayed with all the heart
that I had. And while I started to pray, a little turtledove come flew on the
window, begin to walk up and down, cooing. I thought it was a pet. I hadn't
been in England but about an hour, just coming from the airport down there. And
I thought it was a pet, and when I raised up and said, "Amen," it
flew away. And I started to ask the brethren, did they hear that dove. And they
were talking about it, and when I started to say, "Did you see... what
that dove mean?" It come out, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, you'll live and
not die." And she's living today. Why? Desperation. Desperation drove the
woman to take a stand, live or die. Desperation arranged it that she got there
at the same time I did. And a token from God, He sent a dove to give THUS SAITH
THE LORD.
Desperation, September 1, 1963
Foot Prints Book - Page 217
One
of the greatest moments of my life. I'm looking across somebody's shoulder, my
mother. I led her out here in the Ohio River and baptized her in the Name of
the Lord Jesus. Now my boy. O God, if possible, let Hope look down over the
banister, this morning, look across the veil that hangs between earth and
Glory. I pray God will make a preacher out of my boy! I pray that God will
anoint him and give him a double portion of the Spirit. May God bless his life.
Thank you all, for your prayer. Prayer changes things. I'll pray
for your children too. Billy, boy, some of these days, honey, we, if Jesus
tarries, we'll have to go down in one of these, they'll throw dirt on us. But,
sonny, God will bring us up. "I know my Redeemer liveth, at the last days
He will stand on this earth."
I pray that God will bless him, keep the enemy from him. Give him a
free access, way down this long road, son. There's many souls dying down
through there. But throw out the lifeline to them, bring them in. I trust,
Billy, that you will stand and baptize literally thousands times thousands of
precious souls, for the remission of their sin. God, bless my boy, I pray.
O Master! Oh, how I... My boy, Lord, that I've raised for Thee.
Here's my boy, Lord, he's all I got. I bring him to You this morning. I'm so
thankful, Lord, that he believes You. So thankful that he's repented, God. O
Lord Jesus, O Christ, anoint him with the Holy Ghost. Grant it, Lord, that the
power of the Spirit of the resurrected Christ hold my boy. Grant it, Lord. May
he be filled with God's Spirit, to preach the Word, unadulterated Gospel of
Christ, to all the ends of the world. Grant it, Lord. Bless him and use him.
Here he stands by the grave before him, Lord. I think of that
morning out yonder, we're going like mother laying there with his sister. O
Christ, this will be recorded in Heaven. And there'll be... God, grant my boy
faith during his life and on his journey Home, bless him in that Life. Bless
him, Lord. May he have a great ministry, saving souls. Here he is, Lord. As
Thou hast commissioned Thy servant to go into all the world and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost, therefore, Lord, upon this commission, my--my heart bleeds
to You.
My son, upon the confession of your sins and your faith in God's
Son, Jesus Christ, I baptize thee, my beloved son, in the Name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, Amen.
Baptizing Billy, April 9, 1950
Foot Prints Book - Page 218
One
of my meetings, not long ago, there was a Jehovah Witness brother that had been
a little skeptic of the meeting. And when he heard of it, then he came to
Louisville. He had a boy that his legs was bent up from polio. But one night he
saw a little boy taken from a wheelchair, that was so braced up over his hips,
and one leg was shorter than the other, the little fellow ran all over the
place and jumped up on the platform and preached a sermon. That convinced him.
He was a contractor. His name was Wood, Banks Wood. He lives... and they are
neighbors to me now. He was from Crestwood, Kentucky.
Up in Ohio, I had a big tent, he brought his boy and was sitting
back in the tent. That night the Holy Spirit went back into the meeting, and
said, "The man sitting back there, His name is Banks Wood. He's from
Crestwood, Kentucky, a contractor. Jehovah Witness by faith. But he has a boy
with him by the name of David, that's got polio, one leg is drawed up. THUS
SAITH THE LORD, he's healed."
He didn't know what to do. In a few moments the boy's mother said,
"David, stand up." And when the boy stood up, he was just as normal
and perfect as he could be. That convinced him. He stopped carpenter work,
contracting, sold everything he had, bought a little house next door to me, and
has lived there ever since. And, Mr. Banks Wood, how many knows him? Why, you,
many of you know him here, why, from selling books. He sells books in the
meetings with me, many times. His family, all being Jehovah Witness, very fine
people, just the very nicest of people, honest, their name is above reproach in
the state of Kentucky. Fine people!
So one of his brothers, by the name of Lyle, came down to visit
him, because they excommunicated him upon the basis of his--his faith then in
God, on Divine healing, because they said it was of the Devil.
But the boy was healed. The boy now is a young man, and married.
And he doesn't even... you have to... he has to study to see which leg it was
that was crippled. And he works for the supermarket, some kind of a buyer or
something for the supermarkets, or he just had.
And, now, this Mr. Lyle came into Mr. Wood's house, he said,
"Banks, you know, as a brother, we all love you." But said, "How
come you go off on a deep end like that? How come to you listen to some fanatic
preacher and to give up the faith that your father has taught you?"
He said, "I haven't give up the faith that my father has
taught me. I just believe more." He said, "I believe that plus what I
know now."
Well, he said, "What kind of a quack did you get mixed up
with?"
He said, "There he is out there in the field, cutting
hay." And--and he said, "Well, you want to speak to him?"
Said, "Yes, I'd like to talk to him a minute." Said,
"I'd like to just see what he's made out of."
Foot Prints Book - Page 219
So
he called me out there, Mr. Wood did, and I was dirty, and you know how you'd
be, and hot and sweaty, and overalls just white with perspiration and where
they had been the day before. He come in, he said, "And you're the
preacher that took Banks on this wild chase?"
And I said, "No, sir, I am not." I said, "I'm his
brother in Christ, who preaches the Gospel."
And he looked me all up and down a few times. We set down to talk,
not an unreasonable person, nice. But he said, "Mr. Branham," said,
"we were raised strictly Jehovah Witness. Our father is a reader in the
Jehovah Witness."
I said, "That's fine. I'm certainly glad to hear
that--that." "And you have a nice name, and I sure appreciate a daddy
that would raise you, and a mother, to be honest and upright people as you
are."
And so while I was there, the Holy Spirit, in the goodness of His
mercy, a vision came over me. And I said, "Mr. Wood, I see you're a
married man. You have a wife. She's a blond-headed woman. You have two little
boys, about six and eight years old." And he looked around towards Banks
real funny, looked back. I said, "You thought Banks had told me that. He
had not." I said, "Perhaps maybe you know this. You have left your
wife, or you're untrue to her. Last night you was with a woman that had auburn
hair. She's much younger than you are. You were in a place where she and you
were in a room together, and there was a man knocking at the door. You slipped
through the window. And it's a good thing you didn't go to the door, you'd
a-got your head shot off, 'cause he had a pistol in his hand." And he fell
on the floor, he knowed that Banks didn't tell me that.
He said, "Mr. Branham, I want to know more about this."
Right there in the room, the Lord Jesus saved him. Away he went to tell his
daddy.
And his daddy said, "Now you've got all mixed up."
So here comes his sister down. And she attended the first meeting
and was converted, and I baptized her in the Christian faith.
Then that blew the daddy up, and here he come. And so Banks was
gone, when my wife and I had just arrived at the house, and there was a car
sitting down the road, and an elderly man standing in the yard. And so we spoke
to him, and he said, "I'm Mr. Wood."
And I said, "Yes, sir." I said, "My name is
Branham." I said, "I'm glad to meet you."
And he said, "Well, I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Branham."
Said, "You know where Banks is?"
And I said, "He's probably gone to the grocery. This is
usually our time to go, and he and his wife is gone. Won't you come in?"
And so he said, "No, I'd better stay right out here."
I said, "Well, come in and have a glass of water and refresh
yourself, Banks will be in in a few minutes."
In a few moments he come in, and he said, "I want to go
fishing with you. Have you got time to go fishing?"
I said, "Oh, sure." I wanted to work on him.
So he said... Well, the next, that night it rained like everything.
And then the next day we went down to... Said, "Well, I don't guess
there's any need going, the streams will all be muddy."
Foot Prints Book - Page 220
And
I said, "Well, we can go, try." We crossed the river, and I was
praying for the Lord to help me. I wasn't going to say one thing about
religion, let him name it. And so then, if he's hungering, he will mention it.
So then when we crossed the river, I saw a vision. And I said, "Mr. Woods,
as you might know," I said, "today, every stream that we pass will be
muddy." And I said, "Then when we get down to the lake that we're
going, it'll be pretty and blue. We shall fish till about three-thirty this afternoon,
without catching any fish. Then I'm going to start catching fish, I'm going to
catch about fifty pound. You're going to catch one. Your boy, Lyle, will catch
one. We'll stop fishing at midnight. The next morning we go back a-fishing
again, I'll catch a large-scale fish. These fish that I catch will be blue cat,
and the next will be a large-scale fish. Then we'll fish the rest of the day
and won't even get a bite. That's THUS SAITH THE LORD." He looked over at
Banks and kind of grinned a little, and looked around.
That's just exactly the way it happened. And when he left that
night, after the second night, we fished all day, and that man climbed every
bank that he could, to try to make a fish bite, and he couldn't even get
another bite. And I had about twenty-five pounds of fish, caught two of them,
five and eight pounds apiece, on a little number-four hook, and without a
landing net. Now, that, that had to be God, if anybody knows about fishing. And
he was sitting there watching it, He kind of talks down in his throat.
And his son said to him the next day, said, "Well, dad, what
do you think about it?"
Said, "Well, I guess if anybody can see fish before they catch
them, I guess that's all right.
And so I said, "But I can't do that always, Mr. Wood. It was
for your sake." I said, "Now, without any disregards, the Bible said
if there be one among you who's a prophet, or spiritual, if this one prophesies
and what he says comes to pass, then hear him." I said, "No disregard
to Mr. Rutherford, but he said 'Christ would come in '14,' then he turned off
'spiritual,' which, He come that way on the Day of Pentecost. Now if the other
four things that he missed..." I said, "What about this?" See?
And I baptized him about three Sundays ago, him and his wife, in the Christian
faith.
Speak To This Mountain, November 23, 1959
Foot Prints Book - Page 221
Standing
yonder in Finland that day, and that little boy laying there, and I walked
around him laying there dead. Been dead for a half hour, you read in the book.
I started to walk away, Something put their hands on me. I turned around, I
thought, "What was that?" And I looked again. I thought, "Wait a
minute!" Looked back here on the flyleaf of the Bible, "And it shall
come to pass, a little boy about nine years old, he will be killed by an
automobile. There'll be a long strip of evergreen, rocks lapped in there; the
car will be laying across the road, wrecked. He will have on little stockings
like, up high; a cropped haircut; and his little eyes will be turned back, the
bones in his body will be broken."
I looked, I thought, "O God!"
I said, "Stand still, all of you!" The mayor of the city
there. I said, "If that boy isn't on his feet in two minutes from now, I'm
a false prophet, ride and run me out of Finland." Certainly! "But if
he is, you owe your lives to Christ." That's right. They stood still.
I said, "Heavenly Father, across the sea yonder, two years
ago, You said this little boy would lay here."
There was Brother Moore and Brother Lindsay, and them looking at
that. And everywhere, and they'd wrote it in the Bible; and thousands of Bibles
across the land had it wrote in it. What was it? An Absolute.
The Father had showed what would take place. There's no fear at all
standing there. Absolute! Sure, he will rise.
Right there in Finland, where thousands of people coming in
nightly, and have to even move some out and let them be... seat them, move them
out and put somebody else in. There he stood with... All that--the people loved
me; and they'd seen healings done, but here was a boy laying there dead. What
was the Absolute? The vision. "I do what the Father says do. He that
believeth in Me, the works that I do shall he also." There's your
Absolute.
I said, "Death, you can't hold him any longer, God has spoken!
Come back, give him up!" And the little boy raised up and looked around
like that. The people got to fainting and everything. There it is, wrote right
there and signed by the mayor of the city, by a notary public. That's right!
The Absolute, December 30, 1962
Foot Prints Book - Page 222
Billy
remembers this, Costa Mesa, California. Every time when I get ready to make an
altar call there'd be a woman jump up, and run up and down them aisles,
speaking in tongues, and she'd just tear that altar call to pieces. And I'd
just have to walk out. You could see the Spirit done--done grieved, you see.
Nothing will grieve the Spirit of God if it's in order. See? [Blank spot on
tape--Ed.]... just before she got ready to start, how she'd get herself ready,
'cause I watched her. Any minister will do that when he sees anything out of
order. Then this woman was back there and she told Billy, and Billy told me
when I was coming in that night, said, "Daddy, you know that woman that's
broke them--them altar call, two nights?"
"Yeah."
Said, "She was sitting out there," said, "she said,
'Glory to God, Billy, I got another message tonight!'"
Well, now, you see, I watched her down over the audience. There was
thousands of people there; that's when the Reader's Digest wrote up that about
the healing of Donny Morton, you know, The Miracle of Donny Morton. So I
watched that woman, and just about the time I started to make my altar call,
she... Now, she was just untrained; no doubt, a good woman. But she looked
around, she started fixing her hair. She had bobbed hair, see. So, you see, she
belonged to the Assemblies or some of them churches that--that permitted that.
She was fixing her hair up. She reached down and pulled up her stockings, got
ready like that. And just about time I started to make the altar... I said,
"Now, how many in here, how many is there present now that would like to
come forward and--and give their hearts to the Lord Jesus?"
She jumped up. I said, "Sit down." She started on. I
said, "Sit down!" See? And, boy, everybody... I just stopped. She
acted like she didn't hear me, and I squalled it out again. She heard me that
time, 'cause I like to shook the building over with that big microphone
standing right there. And she set down.
I said, "Now, as I was saying, how many wants to come to the
altar and give their hearts to God?" And I went right ahead with the
meeting, see.
And that night when I started the truck, I was surrounded. And here
them bunch of women sounded like a bunch of chickens, you know, "You
blasphemed the Holy Ghost."
I said, "I did?" I said, "How can I blaspheme the
Holy Ghost by following the... His, the declaration of the Scriptures?"
See?
And this woman said, "I had a message right straight from God."
I said, "But you was giving it in the wrong time,
sister." I said, "I'm not..."
"You say that wasn't--that wasn't of God?"
I said, "I couldn't tell you, lady." I said,
"I--I--I believe it was, see." I said, "I'll say it for your
benefit, that, 'I say I believe it was.' And I believe you're a good woman, but
you were out of order."
Foot Prints Book - Page 223
And
there was her pastor standing there. I knew he was her pastor, see. And I
said... I--I said, "There's only one thing I can say, that either you was
in the flesh or you've got a pastor that's trained you that don't know nothing
about the Scriptures." I said, "He ought to come and talk to us a
little while about the Scriptures. That's wrong, you're out of order. You lost
many souls, night before last, and many last night again, and would have done
the same thing tonight."
And this man said, "Brother Branham," said, "I beg
your pardon."
I said, "What do you mean?"
Said, "She had a right to give that message, you was
through."
I said, "I was on the platform, and the spirit of the prophets
is subject to the prophet. I'm still in the platform."
And he said, "Well..."
I said, "I still had the Message. I was making my altar call,
that's to rake in. I throwed my net out, I'm pulling it now. Don't throw barbed
wire out there or something to upset it, see." I said, "I was still
pulling my net." And--and I said, "She interfered with the--with the
bringing in of souls. The... What good would it do to preach or anything else
if you don't call and get sinners to come up? See?"
And he said, "Well, her message was later than yours. Hers was
right off the platform... Hers was right straight from God."
I said, "'If any man thinks himself to be spiritual or a
prophet let him acknowledge what I say is the Commandments of the Lord. But if
he be ignorant, just let him be ignorant. We have no such custom, neither the
Church of God,'" quoting Paul, you know. I said, "No, sir, nothing
fresh! He, Jesus, said, 'Let every man's word be a lie and Mine be True.' Paul
said, 'Though an Angel from Heaven come with anything else but what's Here, let
it be accursed.'" I said, "Mister, you are firmly off the line."
I said, "What kind of a church have you got? I bet it's a big bunch of
confusion. See? If you'd let them people do that how do you ever make your
altar call? She's got a ministry, they all got a ministry, but you got times
for your ministry, see, that's given to."
Questions And Answers, January 12, 1961
Foot Prints Book - Page 224
Here's
a little experience happened to me, I was up at--at Toledo, Ohio. I was in a
revival and--and having a meeting down there, and so many people. They knowed
the hotels was at, so they had taken me out into the country. And I was staying
out there, a little motel.
We had been eating at a little Dunkard restaurant, it was a
wonderful place. The little ladies in there just as Christian and
sainted-looking as they could be, clean and real nice. Sunday come, I got
hungry. I had been fasting a little, and I want to go across the street to
another orderly little... a little road there by a corner, and there's a...
just a regular, common, American place there to eat. Little, had a little
place, a cafe, open all night. When I walked in there on that Sunday, about two
o'clock in the afternoon, before going down to preach that afternoon.
I was so gotten, I didn't know what to do. I walked in and the
first thing I noticed was a young lady about sixteen, eighteen years old (some
papa's darling, and some mother's darling), standing back there with a boy,
with her hands around her hips. Bunch of teen-agers setting at the--at the
counter.
I heard a slot machine. And looked over here and there was a
policeman standing there with his arm around a woman, up around here, her
waistline, and playing a slot machine, Now, you know that gambling and slot
machines is illegal in Ohio, you Buckeye people here. And you know that's
illegal. And here was the law, playing a slot machine; and a man of my age,
probably married, bunch of children, maybe a grandfather. A policeman, rode
patrol, playing a slot machine. There was that young... What's a teen-age done?
What's this done?
I stood there. And nobody noticed me coming in, they was too busy,
half of them drunk. So, I watched. I heard somebody saying, "Well, do you
think the rain'll hurt the rhubarb?" And looked around over here, and here
set a lady setting there, old lady, real... she was sixty-five, seventy, close
to it. And the poor lady... I don't blame anyone from looking their best, but
when she... She'd fixed herself... She made her hair blue, real blue-looking,
and all cut off over the top and made it real blue. And she had on real thick
manicure, or what you call the stuff put on her face, and a big spots. And she
had on little bitty shorts and the poor old thing was so wrinkled till the
meat, flab, meat was hanging down like that over her leg. And she was drunk.
She was setting there with an old man, in the summertime, with one of these old
gray army overcoats on, or olive drab. And hanging down like that, and a big
scarf around his neck. Drunk, two of them, and they was with this poor old
woman.
Foot Prints Book - Page 225
I
stood there and looked around. I said, "God, how can You stand it?
What--what, how do You look at such as that? When it makes me, a sinner saved
by grace, think that, how can--can You look at it? Why, it looks like You'd
burst the thing open. Will my little Rebekah and Sarah have to come up under
that kind of an influence? Will my two little girls have to meet a--a popular,
so known, world as it is today, where the people act like that? God, how can I
ever... what can I do?" Course, it's His grace. If they were ordained to
Eternal Life, they'll come to It; if they wasn't, they won't. I don't know. That's
up to God. I'll do my part.
I thought, "How can You stand it, God? Look like You're so
holy that You just wipe that thing off the earth." I said, "Look at
that poor grandmother setting there. Look at that young girl back there. And
here's a woman standing here, probably twenty-five years old. And that police
with his arms around her waist, a-playing a slot machine. And there's the law,
the nation's gone. There's the motherhood gone. Here's the elder gone. And
there's a young girl setting back there, and she's gone. Look at the boys, when
they ought to be in church or somewhere."
And I thought, "O God, what can I do? And here I am in this
city a-crying with all my heart, and they ignore it and walk as if they
were..." And I thought, "Well, God..."
Well, then a thought come. "If I haven't called them, how can
they come? All the Father has given Me will come. 'You have eyes but you can't
see, ears and you can't hear.' "
I thought, "Well, if the President would come to town instead
of the revival, everybody'd come out. Oh, sure, that's worldly."
Then I got to thinking, "Well, God, how, why don't You just...
Well, come on and send Jesus and let's have it over with. Why don't You
just--just go and have it all over with, and let it go?"
Then I begin to see something moving in front of me. It looked like
a little whirl going around like this. I kept watching it, and I saw a world
turning around and around. And I watched it, and where it was spraying
something off. And I looked, and is was a spray of red, crimson Blood; across,
around the world; just like a whirl going around, like a comet, and it had a
whirl around like this. And I looked at this whirl, and just above it, I saw
Jesus in the vision. He was looking down. And I seen myself standing down here
on the earth doing the things that I should not do. And every time that I
sinned, God would have killed me, "Cause the day you eat of it, the day
you die." And God's holiness and justice requires, and you'd have to die.
And then I looked there, and I kept rubbing my eyes, I said, "I'm not, I
never went to sleep. I'm... It's a vision, I'm sure this is a vision."
Foot Prints Book - Page 226
I
kept watching, as I stood behind the door. And I seen my own sins come up. And
every time they would start to hit the Throne, His Blood act like a bumper on a
car. It caught it and I'd see It shake, and the Blood would run down His face.
And I seen Him raise His hands, and said, "Father, forgive him, he doesn't
know what he's doing."
I seen myself do something else, it shook Him again, bump. It
would... God would have killed me right then, but His Blood was a-catching me.
It was holding my sins. Thought, "O God, did I do that? Surely it wasn't
me." But it was!
Then I went walking like this, like I was going through that room,
and I walked up close to Him. I seen a book laying there and it had my name on
it, and all kinds of black letters wrote across it. I said, "Lord, I'm
sorry I did this. Did my sins cause You to do that? Did I spin Your Blood
around the world? Did I--did I do this to You, Lord? I'm so sorry that I did
it." And He reached out. I said, "Will You forgive me? I didn't mean
to. I'll... You, by Your grace... I'll try to be a better boy if You'll just
help me."
He took His hand and patted His side, took His finger and wrote
"pardoned" on my book, throwed it over behind Him (the Sea of
Forgetfulness). I watched it a little bit. And He said, "Now, I forgive
you, but you want to condemn her." See? Said, "You're forgiven, but
what about her? You want to blow her up. You didn't want her to live."
I thought, "O God, forgive me. I didn't mean to think that. I
didn't want to do that. I--I--I didn't want to do that."
"You're forgiven, you feel all right. But what about her? She
needs it, too. She needs it."
Oh, I thought, "God, how did I know who You've called, and who
You haven't called?" It's my business to speak to everyone.
So, when the vision left me, I walked over to her, I said,
"How do you do, lady?" And them two man had went to the rest room.
And they... She was setting there hiccupping, you know, laughing. The bottle of
whiskey setting on the table, or beer it was, alcohol, setting there where they
been drinking. I walked up, said, "How do you do?"
And she said, "Oh, hello."
And I said, "Could I set down?"
She said, "Oh, I got company."
I said, "I didn't mean it in that way, Sister."
She looked at me when I called her "Sister." She said,
"What do you want?"
And I said, "Could I set down just a minute."
She said, "Help yourself." And I sat down.
I told her what had happened. She said, "What's your
name?"
And I said, "Branham."
She said, "Are you the man down here in this arena?"
And I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She said, "I've been wanting to come down there." She
said, "Mr. Branham, I was raised in a Christian family." She said,
"I got two young girls that's Christian. But certain, certain things
happened, and she got on the wrong road, or started."
I said, "But, Sister, I don't care, the Blood's still around
you. This world's covered over with Blood." If It didn't, God would kill
us, every one. He... When that Blood's moved, look out for judgment. But now,
if you die without that Blood, you go beyond that place, then there's nothing
to act for you. Today the Blood acts in your stead. I said, "Lady, sure, the
Blood's still got you covered. As long as you got breath in your body, the
Blood has you covered. But someday when the breath leaves here, the soul goes
out, you'll go beyond that Blood, and there's nothing but judgment. While you
got a chance for pardon..."
Foot Prints Book - Page 227
And
I took her by the hand, she was crying, said, "Mr. Branham, I'm
drinking."
I said, "That don't hurt. Something, another has warned me to
come tell you." I said, "God, before the foundation of the world,
called you, Sister. And you're doing wrong, and you're only making it
worse."
She said, "Do you think He would have me?"
I said, "Absolutely, He'd have you."
And there on her knees, we got down in the middle of that floor,
had an old-fashioned prayer meeting. And that police took off his hat and bowed
on one knee. There we had a prayer meeting, in that place, Why? God's
sovereign. "Laying aside these dead works, let us go on to
perfection." Let's move into that realm where there's...
"I belong to church. And I belong to that." That's all
finished. And let's go to perfection,
My sinner friend, if you're without the Blood today, without
salvation, without grace, the Blood of Jesus Christ holds you. You say,
"Well, I got by all this time." But one day you're going where there's
nothing left for you then.
Hebrews, Chapter Five And Six, September 8, 1957
Foot Prints Book - Page 228
I
moved into Durban, Brother Bosworth and I. This may scratch a little here, but
truth is truth. I moved in, we was having a wonderful meeting, and God had done
so many marvelous works, I tell you, it was enough to alarm anything. Even two
Dutch Reformed ministers, Brother Jackson here acquainted with what I'm going
to say, two Dutch Reformed ministers was arguing. I have the shirt, they--they
both sent it to me, Brother Schoeman. It hasn't arrived yet, neither has the
zebra skins or anything has arrived. But they sent this shirt in.
There was a Dutch Reformed went over and told another, said,
"This is the day of our visitation, and you should hear it."
The other Dutch Reformed said, "He's nothing but a
spiritualist."
And the other one said, "Did you ever see a spiritualist heal
the sick?"
"No."
He said, "I'll go out and pray for your soul," one saying
to the other.
And one went back to the yard, knelt down, and got under a peach
tree and begin to pray, "God, have mercy," on his friend's soul.
Then, when he did, he said, down before him "come the Angel of the Lord in
a whirl." And then that moved back, and an angel come and laid his hand on
his shoulder and told him to return to his friend. And when he went back, then
he said what had happened. And here, the next day it come out, this minister
turned around and looked, and there on the man's shirt, there's a scorch print
of the angel's hand laying on his shirt. Hallelujah! Headlines through the
biggest paper in South Africa. That right, brother? There the Brother and
Sister Nolan, standing there. There it is. I'll have it pretty soon, it's sent
to me now to be translated over into English.
There the minister's eyes like this. And they took me down there,
and took my left hand and laid it on the left hand, just perfectly covered it
exactly. When, a man was standing there with a normal shirt, and the minister
looking at him; and a second from then, oh, not a second, I'd say three minutes
from then, there he said, Something struck him like fire on his back, and there
was the Angel of God who he said was in a whirl, just exactly like explaining,
testifying he was telling the man the truth. Signs and wonders of everything!
Experiences, July 15, 1952
Foot Prints Book - Page 229
He
told me, said, "You're going down there in Capetown, and down through that
way, and make an itinerary." I said, "That's all right with me,
Brother Baxter. We're having a wonderful time here, thousands and thousands and
thousands are coming." I said, "Why not stay here?" I said,
"Where is Durban?" I thought Durban was in Rhodesia. My wife was
writing me, "Durban, Southern Rhodesia." That's like writing
"Hammond, Canada," see, another nation. So I was... I said,
"Where shall we?" I said.
Brother Baxter said, "Well, they got an itinerary set for you
to go way down through there."
I said, "That's all right with me, doesn't matter."
Listen closely now, I'm going to close just in a moment. So that
night I remember when I went in to pray, the Angel of the Lord come near me, He
said, "Don't go down there." Said, "Don't you go." He said,
"You stay right here in Johannesburg for two more weeks. Then go over in
the other place for a rest, to go hunting," which the man had already
fixed up. Then said, "You go to Durban and stay a month."
I said, "Yes, Lord."
Said, "Tomorrow they're going to pull you out to a doctor, but
don't pronounce him 'well,' because he's not going to get well." And said,
"Don't you do that." And said, "Your manager tomorrow is going
to show you a peculiar bird a-flying." Said, "And then you're going
to find a native bead-salesman sitting on the side of the road, with a skinned
place on the side of her head."
That's just the way it happened the next day, just word by word. I
said, "Brother Baxter, I'm not going down there."
"Well, their national committee said you're going, got to
go!"
I said, "Oh, no, I don't! No!" I said, "I only do
what God tells me to do." And I said, "I don't go but where He tells
me to go."
"Oh," but said, "the... you think the Lord speaks to
somebody else besides you, one the committeemen said?"
Now, now, my brothers, I'm not throwing off on preachers. You're
godly man, you're doing a lot for this meetings, and so forth. There's godly
preachers. But if you ever want to get in trouble, just get muddled up with a
bunch of preachers. That's right. That's the reason I keep clear of them. Yes,
sir. Now, that's right.
They said, "The Lord speaks to us as well as He speaks to
you."
I said, "Korah had that same thought one day." That's
right. I said, "I know."
And he said, "Well, the Lord told us to make that
itinerary."
I said, "Maybe He did, but He told me not to take it. Now, you
can decide for yourself. I'm not going." And I went on back in.
Foot Prints Book - Page 230
And
here done come the car. Brother Baxter said, "Brother Branham, you--you're
going to have to make some kind of a move."
I said, "Well, I'm not going."
He said, "Well, I'd at least go to this one, then we can get
later." Said, "They're already out here waiting."
I said, "Brother Baxter, remember! In the Name of the Lord I
speak, it's not God's will!"
He said, "But, Brother Branham, it's great."
I said, "I don't care what they say down there. God told me
not to do it!" We went on down.
I started in with Mr. Schoeman, the chairman. I said, "Mr.
Schoeman, look, God's telling me not to do this. You are deliberately taking
possession in doing things that you shouldn't do. Remember!"
He said, "Brother Branham, I'm just one of the committee, the
committee says we got to do it, We promised Brother So-and-so we'd bring you
there. We promised Brother..." Yeah, there you are, uh-huh.
"No matter what you promised Brother So-and-so, God told me
not to do it." And I said, "I--I'm not going." So he kept on,
went a little farther, about sixty miles out of town, going to a little
Klerksdorp. Is that the name of the little place? Klerksdorp. Going down
through there, we was going along. I said, "Stop, Brother Schoeman, just
stop. Let the rest of them catch up." And here they all come up, caught
up.
Brother Schoeman walked back, said, "You'll have to go talk to
him. He's still determined he's not going to do it."
Brother Baxter come over there, and he said, "Brother
Branham!" Brother Baxter's listening at me now. Said, "Brother
Branham," said, "I believe if they've got that committee already
formed, you should go ahead."
I said, "Brother Baxter, listen to me!"
That goes to show! I'll show you the lesson of it. No matter if
he's my manager, he's a good man, a religious man, a fine man, a Christian man,
full of the Holy Ghost, but God is my Guide! And God was trying to get that to
me.
He said, "Brother Branham, as they already..." Said,
"Here's what you're saying. You're saying you're going up to Jackson's
farm to hunt," like that. Said, "I wouldn't mention hunting," he
said. Them--them brothers think the millions of people laying down here,
suffering, and you go hunting."
I said, "If I never seen another gun, I never fired another
gun, it doesn't matter to me, God said so!" He seen that break between
there. They kept me under too long, I'd be like I was about three years ago,
laid up for eight months. Couldn't stay too long. I said, "God said so,
and I must do it."
Foot Prints Book - Page 231
So
they argued and argued around there. And I walked over there and got a hold of
some of them, I guess it's wild locust. Is it--is it, is that what kind of look
like a locust, I guess. I pulled some branches off a tree, walked back out
there where those ministers was standing, and threw it over their feet like
that, and said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD! If we go down, even to Klerksdorp,
you'll suffer the results." "You got me here. I haven't even got
money to pay my way back. You--you got me here, and I can't go back, 'cause I
couldn't go back. He told me to go ahead to Johannesburg, you got me sewed up
here." I said, "You'll see, as Paul said one day, 'You should have
listened to me.'" See? I said, "There God is a blessing."
There, even the medical association called me up the next morning,
wanted to take me out to breakfast. Said, "Brother Branham, you've done
more for the people here in South Africa than half the missionaries that come
over here in fifty years, already." The medical association! They
dismissed the hospitals, and they come by the stretchers and everything else.
Yes, sir. Said, "We believe Divine healing the way you preach it."
I said, "Sir, I'm not a fanatic. I only tell what's
Truth."
He said, "We like your way of doing it. We believe it. That's
right." Said, "We're Christian man, and we believe It, and we give
you the right-hand of fellowship." And there it was, you see the pictures
in the books, where the ambulances and nurses just lined everywhere. Anybody
wanted to come, could come to the meeting. All right.
Then I went on, and then we started on down. When we got to
Klerksdorp that night, oh, my, it was a discredit to the place. There were the
people lined up on the hills and everything else, not enough room to take care
of them in the city, no place to eat, no place to stay. And I stayed at a
minister's house. And just about time they got ready to bring me to the
meeting, you know what happened, a tropical storm hit that country. I'm telling
you! And from about seven-thirty till about ten-thirty, it was one constant
roar and flash and lightning. You ain't had no storm around here, you ought to
see an African storm one time. Oh, my, like to drowned everybody!
We come back up to the building where I was at, and I stayed right
in the house. After they done dismissed and Brother Bosworth went over and got
some people over in a little building of some sort and was praying for them to
come back up. I walked in, I said, "Do you believe me?"
"Well, that was just a storm that could happen."
I said, "All right, let it be like that."
Foot Prints Book - Page 232
And
the next night they like to froze to death, a blizzard swept through! Come back
up there, and I said, "Now do you believe me? Tomorrow night we'll have an
earthquake, see." I said, "We're out of the will of the Lord!" I
said, "You just might as well..."
They got to arguing, "Well, we promised Brother So-and-so!"
And now here, not to no discredit, F. F. Bosworth sitting there is
one of the... as good a friend and as close a brother to me as there is in this
world. That old man has become a part of my heart, like me... he to be my
daddy, but just that God trying to let me know that you can't touch... And this
kind of a Spirit, or give, or this kind of a gift, you've got to follow God.
Brother Bosworth come to me, and he's a witness standing there, he
said, "Brother Branham, I think you are wrong." He said, I believe if
you'll go down that way around Capetown you'll see the exceedingly, the
abundantly, the best you've ever seen in all your life." And there sets
Brother Bosworth as a witness.
I said, "Brother Bosworth, as long as I've been with you, and
you've seen those visions and seen how they come to pass, and I tell you now in
the Name of the Lord that it is not God's will for us to do that. We're to go
to Durban, not down to Capetown. And you mean to tell me?"
Said, "Well"' he said something another about,
"wonder if it could have been a false vision?"
Well, I said, "Well, Brother Bosworth! There, you're
my--my--my--my second daddy, the man that I love, the very bosom."
And I looked, and I said, "O God, have mercy!" Fifteen
thousand miles away from home, and there my manager, and Brother Baxter, and
Brother Bosworth, and everybody. I said, "God, what can I do?"
I walked back in there, and I said, "Well, look, I'm trapped,
but not in God. I tell you in the Name of the Lord, I shall not take that--that
way there."
They said, "Is it..." Well, they, somebody thought up,
"Could it be then the permissive will of God?" Well, when something
was named about the permissive, "Oh, well?"
I said, "God might permit it, but it ain't His will."
Foot Prints Book - Page 233
Well,
when the permissive will... You know what happened, Brother Bosworth.
Everybody, "Well, go in and ask Him. Go in and see."
And I walked in, and my poor little boy (sitting here behind me),
we was sleeping in the same room, little Billy come in and put his arm around
me, said, "Daddy, don't you listen to them preachers. You listen to what
God's a-telling you, daddy."
And I said, "Pray with me, Billy." We knelt down. Course,
he got tired, you know, didn't know much about it, so he went to bed. I stayed
there.
Along towards three o'clock in the morning, I raised up, and I felt
It, just like a man standing there, He moved around this side, and I said,
"My Lord," I said, "what are these man telling me out
here?"
He said, "Go with them. Go on, but," said, "you'll
pay for it. You're trapped, but you--you'll pay for it. Go on with them, and
I'll give you the permission to go. But, remember, you'll pay for it." And
said, "By that, go wake up your boy." He honored Billy. He said, "Go
wake up your boy." Because Billy had the Truth. And He come, said,
"Go wake up your boy, and tell him, 'In the morning, that, it's going to
be a pretty day, the storm and things will clear away." And in the morning
will be a pretty day, and they'll want you to go pray for the sick at Sunday
school. I'll bless it." He said, "And Billy's going to come after
you. And a man, a young fellow in a little black car, and he's going to pick up
another boy on the road. On the road back, there's going to be a native,"
a colored man, we call it here, "standing by a eucalyptus tree near a
bridge, fixing to strike another one. He's got a white safari suit on, fixing
to strike another one with a stick. Tell your boy that, and tell those man
that, so they'll know that it's THUS SAITH THE LORD!"
I woke Billy up, and I said, "Billy, boy, God has honored you,
son. And here's what shall come to pass." And I told him.
I went in to Brother Bosworth. Is that right, Brother Bosworth? If
that's right, raise up your hand so the people can see. And I walked in to
Brother Bosworth, I said, "Brother Bosworth, Brother Baxter, all the rest
of you, Brother Stadsklev, all of you here. THUS SAITH THE LORD, God told me to
go ahead with you, but it's His permissive will and it'll never be
successfully. God wants me to go back to Johannesburg, and then up to Brother
Jackson's, then over to Durban for a month."
Little did we know then that they had the segregation all through
there. Didn't know it until we got to Durban. They didn't have the segregation
at Durban, the only place in South Africa they didn't have the segregation,
where the natives could come in. Then that's what we went for. And then when we
got...
Foot Prints Book - Page 234
We
started off the next morning, was a pretty morning. Got up... They went down
and, sure enough, they sent back for me to come to Sunday school. I done
preparing myself, didn't eat, and waiting for the Spirit of the Lord.
And when Billy come in, he said, "Daddy!"
And I looked out there. I said, "Where'd you pick up that
boy?"
Said, "Just as you said, standing down on the corner."
We got out and got in the car. Billy was sitting in front. Nobody
speaks to me while we're going along under the anointing, no one talks. And
then going down, Billy was happening just rubbing his hand across the back of
my hand laying there, patting my hand. He said, "Daddy, look at
there!"
And there, standing with a white safari suit on, a native standing
near a eucalyptus tree by a bridge, fixing to strike another one with a stick.
I said, "You remember what I told you this morning ?" The little
fellow cried. I said, "There it is, Billy. That's the right a way to go,
but we'll pay for it."
And, Brother Bosworth, as a witness of God. The very next meeting,
hell broke loose. Is that right? Trouble set in! And it was that way till we
got plumb to Durban. And there, Durban, where nearly a hundred thousand people
had gathered for the meeting, and so forth. And there's where the thirty
thousand converts was in a day. On the road around, I got a great... Brother
Baxter got sick first, he really got sick. Billy got sick, all of them got
sick. I... all my bunch, Billy and I, and Brother Baxter. Then I got sick. And,
I really got sick, I mean. I was so sick I couldn't even get to the pulpit,
hardly. I'd stand just so weak, oh, so sick. My! And come to find out I had
caught African ameba.
And then when they brought me home, I suffered, I suffered with it.
When a little doctor lives just across, Doctor Sam Adair, from me, I spoke to
him about it, he said, "Billy, that thing can kill you in ten hours."
Said, "Gets in the bloodstream. If it goes to the liver, you die. Or it
get your liver, it'll burst; they can drain you, you'll live. If it goes to the
heart or to the brain, it kills you. You, it finishes you in ten hours. You
take a real heavy fever and you're done.
African ameba. It's a bac-... it's not a bacteria, it's a--it's a
parasite. Like little barnacles that gets into the intestinal tract and comes
from the Indians. And they stick right in there and suck the blood or the mucus
out of your tract until they bury themself. There's no medicine can touch them
on it. You haven't got a treatment hardly to... And then on and on, and worse
and worse, and worse and worse I got, and on and on, and on--and on. And now you
wonder why I've been out of meetings for eight months.
Foot Prints Book - Page 235
And,
Brother Bosworth, here's another thing. I speak this in the Name of the Lord.
When I stood at Shreveport, Louisiana... God knows I'm saying this. I said,
"Satan has a trap set for me," when I prophesied under the Spirit.
Then I said, "In Africa, there's something, you all pray for me."
Little did I know that it was among my brethren. But there was a trap. And then
when we left there, at Klerksdorp, I said, "If... I'm taking this, but
we'll probably be out of meetings between six months and a year." You
remember saying that, Brother Bosworth? Is that right? Seven months has passed,
this is going in the eighth since the meeting. A dysentery, couldn't hardly
stand up, so sick! I'd pray, I'd pray, I'd walk the floor; I'd cry, I'd pray,
I'd walk the floor; and I'd cry, and people would come there, come.
Hyman Appleman's friends, and all them, they leaned across the
table, and said, "Brother Branham, this ministry!" Said, "We've
been to the school, but we believe the teachers are wrong." Said, "We
want to know the Supernatural." And here I was so sick and trembling,
myself, I couldn't hardly move.
I went down to see Brother Bosworth, we knelt and had prayer, and
so forth, and nothing, looked like God had shut the Heavens up. I walked back
and forth across the floor. It seemed like He'd say, "Now, the next time
you'll listen." For months after months.
And finally Doctor Sam come over to where I was one night. We was
sitting there, talking, he said, "I want you to pray for a certain fellow
down here, Billy, that's got a... he's a neurotic. He set in my office,
talking." He said, "What about the ameba? How's things getting
along?"
I said, "Oh, it's..." I told him the symptoms of it.
He said, "Oh, Billy, my boy!" He said, "There--there
isn't nothing can touch it now, it's gone."
I said, "Oh, my!" I said, "God, have mercy, have
mercy!"
I walked the floors. And one night when I coming back across the
sea, I said to Brother Bosworth. I..."
He said, "Oh, Brother Branham!" He put his arms around
me, said, "I'm so proud of you, my boy," Brother Bosworth.
I said, "I have fought a good fight, Brother Bosworth, I'm
forty years old," I said, "My, I guess she's all over now."
Said, "Forty years old?" Said, "I was your age
before I got converted. Boy, you're just starting!" Like that, and I begin
to think like that, you know.
Early Spiritual Experiences, July 14, 1952
Foot Prints Book - Page 236
Then
that night I was laying there on the bed. And I said... I slept in a room to
myself. With a little... my little girl, and my little five-year-old girl, the
wife was in the next room. There had been people there all day. Now, as I
close, here's what taken place. Write this down. And remember this, keep it in
your mind. As it was prophesied Brother Upshaw, and you all over in Finland
when you seen the little resurrection of the little boy, and so forth, knowed
about that when it was told, I want you to put this down also. I was laying
there one morning about three o'clock in the morning, and I was thinking,
"Oh, what will be my future? What will be the outcome?"
And while I was laying there, I fell into a trance, and here come
One walking to me. Oh, my! I looked at Him, He walked straight to me, stern, He
said, "As thou was thinking of what would be your future."
I said, "Yes."
He grabbed up a piece of papers like that, and fold them like
typewriter paper like that, held it out like this. And He stood beside me like
that. And swirled them like that, and they went plumb up into the heaven, and
He said, "Your future is clear."
And I come out of it. I said, "O God, I wanted to talk to You
so much!" He never comes but one time, one at a time. And I said,
"Lord, I was wanting to talk to You so much. If Thy servant has found
favor in Your sight, will You return again, great Holy Spirit, to me
again?"
And then I felt It coming, "Whoooossssh!" And as I went
that time, I seen Him walk to me, said, "You've been fearing about that
ameba condition."
I said, "Yes. Will it ever leave me, and bother me
anymore?"
He said, "Never no more." That settled it. Then He come
again, He said, "You've been thinking on these things, about how you
should conduct your meeting, and them telling you about other man who conduct
their meeting." Said, "You do just as I lead you to do. Whatever
meeting, let it provide for itself."
Then, just then He taken me out in the Spirit. Listen Brother
Jackson, you never heard this, none of the rest have. And He set me down at
Durban, South Africa, in that same booth, standing there before those tens of
thousands and thousands of people there. And I looked, and I seen all that
meeting gathered together, and say, off to my right, geographically, I was
standing this way, and it faded to the West, going this way, turning blue.
And then right before me stood blocked off streets like that, with
people standing there with their hands up, praising God.
Foot Prints Book - Page 237
Then
He turned me to the East and looked that way. And I seen people standing there
with clouts like on like the Indians wear. And there were thousands of them,
and they had their hands up in the air, just a-praising God, and screaming and
praising God. And I couldn't even see the end of them. And just about that time
come a great Angel from Heaven, and stood over the top of me here, with a big
light, and that light like on the end of one of these oscillating lights on the
front of a--a big locomotive, and begin the throw. And the hillsides were
sitting black, and showing the people for a mile away, nearly. I said,
"Oh, are they all black people?"
Then He turned my face here in front of me, to Durban again, and
there were beautiful white men and women, standing with their hands up in the
air, praising God.
Then He turned me back again. The great light started going way
back over the hills, and showing. Then the Angel drew near, and I heard Him
scream with a voice that shook me from the vision, said, "There'll be
three hundred thousand of them in that meeting." THUS SAITH THE LORD. Mark
it in your book.
When I come out of it, I said, "My Lord and my God, thanks be
to You. I appreciate the stripes and the whipping that You give me for
disobeying You. But from this on, Lord, knowingly, if I ever know again, I'll
never tie myself up with a bunch of nobody else, preachers, managers, or no one
else, but what I'll be free to do what You say do. And I'll go just where You
say go, and do just what You say do, the rest of my life. And I'll always try
to do just as You say do."
About that time, here He come again, and I seen my Bible rise off
the table and come over to me like this. It was turned over to the place where
Paul, in the storm, said, "He should have listened to me and not have
loosed from Crete. But, nevertheless, the Angel of the Lord Who stood by
me," and so forth.
But then He turned right back to Joshua, the 1st chapter. And a
Finger placed on there, said, "No man shall stand before you all the days
of your life. As I was with Moses, so will I be with you." And reading It
right on down through the lines, there come back, "Only be strong and very
courageous."
And I come to myself. Then I said, "My God!" My body was
weak, I had been under it for about three hours.
Just then a little wee knock come at the door, it was my beloved
wife coming with a baby on her arm. She said, Bill, something's happened.
I said, "What's the matter?"
She said, "At three o'clock this morning, the baby woke up,
and I started to come in. Never before in our life," she said, "and
Something stopped me there at the door before I come to the hall, and said,
'Don't go in there, a vision's going on that cannot be interrupted.'" Oh,
amazing grace!
I said, "Yes, honey," and I told her. And I grabbed my
Bible and wrote it all out on the flyleaf, so I'd be sure to know it like that,
and got it out like that.
Foot Prints Book - Page 238
We
went on out to breakfast. And here come my mother-in-law, a very staunch
Christian. She said, "What's happened up here this morning?" Said,
"I got up and started to wash the dishes, and" said, "a Voice
spoke to me, and said, 'Go up to Billy's right away.'"
And I said, "Sister Broy, the Angel of the Lord has appeared
to me and told me to forget about the ameba, it's going to be alright. And I'm
going to have a meeting, it's going to consist of three hundred thousand
people. God... " I said, "My ministry's just now beginning." I
said, "I want to base it, I want to paw that thing out from where it was,
and get rid of all these here leaches and things a hanging on, so I can get to
the people and tell them what's the Truth. And I'm trying." And I said,
"I'm tired of listening to man-made stuff, anyhow. And I'm going to be
where God can use me. I'm going to live right in that channel, as long as I
live."
I went down there, and they called me up, the man did, said,
"You better come on down and pick up these canceled checks, on account of
the income." Said, "You got to make out a return." Which, I
don't have very much to pay, seven dollars and fifty cents. But I had to go
down and pick up the canceled checks.
As I started back through the bank, I saw all them fellows, they
was hollering, "Hello, Brother Branham! Hello, Brother Branham," the
tellers.
And as I started back through, Something said to me,
"Stop." And I felt Something lay on my shoulder.
I thought, "Oh, just imagined that," you know. Started
on. I thought, "No, no, there's something wrong. Who's looking at me
now?" I looked around. I didn't see anybody. I thought, "Lord, You're
near. What's happened?
And I seen little Bobby Deach over there, looking down like that.
And Something said, "Go over and talk to him."
I said, "How are you, Bobby?"
He said, "Just fine, Brother Branham, I guess."
I said, "Looks like you're sad this morning.
He said, "Brother Branham, look," he said, "all my
people nearly died with cancer." He said, "I, just sure as the world,
I got it." He said, "I'm bleeding through the bowels and
everything." Said, "You know, the funniest thing happened, Brother
Branham. Being that you're standing here," he said, "this morning at
three o'clock, I woke up in the room." And said, "There was a Voice
said to me, 'See Billy Branham today.'"
Foot Prints Book - Page 239
I
had a hold of his hand, I said, "Bobby, everything's been going like that
this morning." I told him about it. That's been about two, three months
ago.
I met him again the other day, said, "Brother Branham, I
haven't had a bleeding from that day since." He said, "I've been
healed since that day," a teller in a bank. Three confirmations. It shall
come to pass. Remember that!
Early Spiritual Experiences, July 13, 1952
Mark my Word, write It in the pages of your Bible, for it's THUS SAITH THE LORD, "Remember, when we land in India, you're going to hear of tens of thousands times thousands being saved." The Holy Spirit has said It, I've wrote It here in my Bible. It's wrote in tens of thousands of Bibles right here, like the resurrection of the little boy. By a vision that He said, "There's three hundred thousand of them in there." And you see if that isn't right! There's how the Gospel's going to be preached just over night. She will just sweep like that from place to place.
Questions And Answers, May 15, 1954
There
was a great man right here, sitting here, wore crutches for a long time, the
congressman of the United States Congress, sitting here, Mr. Upshaw, is sitting
here, was a cripple for many, many years, sixty-six years, injured. And here he
is tonight without his crutches, without his chair, without anything, walking
just as normally. The Holy Spirit is true. Now, that--that's him with his hands
up, if some of you have never seen him. That's him here. How many ever seen...
never seen Congressman Upshaw, the congressman, let's see you raise your hands
there.
Well, he was an invalid for sixty-six years. He fell, and while
standing here on the platform, when I walked up, Eternal God, Who is my Judge,
knows I never seen or heard of the man in my life.
Not knowing, I'm uneducated. If I had had any education, I would
have knowed this man if I had been in libraries and read books. And he run for
President, I think, in 1926. And he, and a great man from Georgia, but I never
knew him.
And one night I walked into the platform here, Mr. Baxter had just
left the platform. I looked, hanging right out here, and I seen the White
House, seen all about it, begin to speak, And I couldn't tell, and I told Mr.
Baxter. In a few moments It fell, and I seen where the man was sitting. I seen
it was him, seen him get hurt when he was just a little boy, and he had been a
cripple for all... And I started to leave, and the Spirit of God begin to fall.
My Commission, And Faith Without Works Is Dead, May 5, 1951
Foot Prints Book - Page 240
My
choice, and I--I say this with reverence, my choice is to be a poor man. I
could have been a multimillionaire if I had wanted to be. One person brought me
a check, FBI agent, for a million, five hundred thousand dollars, a bank draft.
And I refused to look at it; the Mission Bell Winery in California. A woman was
healed, been in St. Louis, and both breasts taken off, and she was... cancer
went through her. And a doctor was converted on the case, Doctor Theodore Palvedes,
which is preaching the Gospel this afternoon in Oakland, California. And how
the Lord spoke to the woman, told her, "On three days she'd be shopping in
the street," told her daughter, she was unconscious.
The doctor said, "Very idea, Reverend Branham! You build
somebody up on a false hope like that, and that woman laying there,
dying."
I said, "I'm in position to say here, if that woman isn't
walking on the street, well in three days, I'll put a sign on my back as false
prophet, and you just run me around over town in front of your car. And then if
she isn't, I'll do that; and if she is, let me put one on your back, and
go." The doctor was converted, preaching the Gospel today. One of the best
surgeons on the West Coast. People even flew from New York to be operated by
him.
And they sent me a--a million, five hundred thousand dollars, in a
bank draft. Two agents brought it. And me living in a two-room shanty at the
time. But it isn't money what makes happiness. Happiness doesn't consist of how
much of the world's goods you own, but how contented you are with the portion
that's been lotted to you. Just make yourself contented as long... There's one
Thing that brings contentment, and That alone, is Jesus Christ.
Here some time ago, Mr. Avack over in the same country, was given a
great big nice Cadillac. I appreciate that, any man that can ride in one, I
appreciate it. And at that time, I had an old Chevrolet, old truck, all beat
up, about eight, ten years old. And some of those wealthy fine Armenian people
said, "Brother Branham, we gave Avack a Cadillac, we got one for
you."
And I said, "Thank you, but I don't believe I could use
it,"
Said, "Well, we'll give it to you. We'll give you a Packard or
whatever you want." Said, "That old truck, you're beating around in
it."
I said, "If I got what I deserved, I'd walk." And that's
true. But how could I come down through Arkansas where some of my meetings are
held among the poorest of people, a little old mother out there pulling a
cotton sack, half dead with female trouble or something, eating jowl bacon and
cornbread for breakfast, putting a dollar in the offering at night, and me come
along down through there in a big nice Cadillac, "there goes Brother
Branham"? I--I--I couldn't do that, no. No, I--I'd--I'd rather have favor
with God than to have anything that I know of in the world. And, if I got favor
with God, I can serve His people.
Life Story, November 8, 1953
Foot Prints Book - Page 241
I
had a man, not long ago that made a remark on a--after a little broadcast I had
in Jonesboro, Arkansas, telling about some woman being healed. This fellow
belonged to a certain denomination church, and he got up behind there and said,
"I challenge any man to bring me, show me a miracle." I went and got
a doctor, a man had been cured of cancer. I went and got a woman that had been
in the wheelchair for about twenty years; she was healed of arthritis, been in
a wheelchair. I took it over and said, "Now, I want the money, a thousand
dollars."
He said, "Well, a, er, uh, it isn't here. It's over in Waco,
Texas, where our headquarters is."
I said, "All right. We'll just go over there and get it."
Said, I said, "You make arrangements and we'll go tomorrow." See? I
said, "We'll mail..." I said, "Here's a doctor that say that
these people absolutely had cancer. Here it is on the list, x-ray. Here is this
woman that the whole neighborhood knows she sat in that wheelchair for twenty
years, and she's walking right now. And the doctors... There's been doctor, after
doctor, after doctor, after doctor, and everything; and here she is alive
today. Now, you said you'd give a thousand dollars. I want to put it in a
missionary fund, I want it."
He said, "Well, it's over at Waco, Texas."
I said, "We'll go tomorrow."
He said, "Wait a minute. Let me tell you something. I'll take
a little girl with me. And let me take a razor and cut her arm, and then you
heal it before our brethren, and they'll give you the money."
I said, "You devil!"
"If thou be the Son of God, come off of this cross. Tell us
who hit You." With a rag around His head, hit Him on it, said, "Now,
if You're a prophet, tell us who... If Thou be the Son of God come down off the
cross." Blind leaders of the blind. They need mental healing, a man that'd
do a thing like that or make a remark like that. Certainly.
A familiar old cry, though, "Let us see You do a miracle.
Master, we would desire a miracle from You," when every day, every hour it
was happening right along, just as God would lead it to be done. But they
wasn't present. If they was, they called it Beelzebub, the devil. See?
"Master, we'd desire if You'd do it the way we want You to do it (that's
it), go where we want You to go, do what we want!" Oh, yes! They had no
strings on Him. No, sir! That's the reason why they get Him out of their midst.
Yes, sir! They're trying to do the same thing today. And through the federation
of churches, they'll finally accomplish to do it. All of them going in, that
familiar old cry.
The Indictment, July 7, 1963
Foot Prints Book - Page 242
When
Paul met Him, He was in the same form that He was when He led Israel, a Pillar
of Fire. And Paul looked Him right into the face, being unconverted, and It caused
him to have eye trouble the rest of his days. He went blind, and for several
days He could not see nothing at all. He had to be led to a street called
Straight.
And God had a prophet down there that He spoke to, by the name of
Ananias, who came in (by a vision) and laid his hands on Paul, and said,
"Brother Saul, receive thy sight."
And we find out then that that same Holy Spirit, that same Lord
Jesus, came to Peter in a form of a Light and delivered him out of the prison.
And we find that that same Lord Jesus, in these days, is still in
that Pillar of Fire (Light) that's leading His people (His Church), performing
the same thing, giving visions; come in and lay hands on the people, by a
vision. The Lord Jesus, Who met last Sunday morning at the house, and said,
"There was a man coming, black-headed, graying. He was a Greek. His wife
was middle-aged, and would be weeping at the altar."
Some of them had told it, and knowed it was happening. He was both
crippled, the--the balance nerve in his head was gone, he couldn't even have
control of his feet or his limbs, and he was blind. And to make it double
proof; I had a little lady to come pray for the sick first, then turned back
around and had Brother Toms to come pray; and we, setting here watching it develop.
And then I went down and prayed for the sick, and walked back. And she come,
just exactly according to the vision, and caught me by the arm and begin to
weeping, and said Dr. Ackerman had sent them here. Dr. Ackerman is a bosom
friend of mine, Catholic. His boy is a priest at the monastery at--at Saint
Meinrad, and down in Indiana. And this man was from Jasper. And the Lord healed
him out of that chair, he got up and walked, He could see as good as anybody
else, and walked out of the building, normal and whole. All by a vision!
Hebrews, Chapter Four, September 1, 1957
Foot Prints Book - Page 243
There's
your hundred and forty-four thousand (Israel) that's waiting for the coming of
the Lord and cannot go in until first the Gentiles are finished, got to be
finished.
Now I might say just a little personal something, I'll trust that
you'll understand it. When Lewi Pethrus of Stockholm, Sweden, the general
overseer, head of the Philadelphian churches, he sent down a million Bibles to
these Jews, little Testaments. I got one of them up there, a little souvenir
from him. The Jew always reads from the back to the front, and so you know how
their--their language is. And they would read these books, and they said,
"Well, if this Jesus is the Messiah, and He's dead and His spirit is back
in the form of the Spirit, let us see Him do the sign of the prophet, then
we'll believe Him."
What a perfect setup! I thought, "Lord, here's the time now.
Now's the time, here it is." So on a airplane I go, Billy and I and Loyce,
and took off.
And I was going on up into India, and I said, "Now, on my road
back, I'll slip right over here and I'll bring the Message to the Jews, and get
them out there and say, 'Here's the Truth!'"
The Jews always believe their prophets, we all know that. Cause God
told them that the Messiah would be a prophet, and they believe their prophets,
and God said, "If there be among you a man who is a prophet, a seer, and
if he... I'll deal with him in visions and so forth. And--and if what he says
come to pass, then you hear him, for I am with him." See? "But if it
don't come to pass, then don't have nothing to do with that prophet, 'cause
I--I--I ain't with him. But if it does come to pass, what he says, then you hear
him, 'cause I'm with him." And the Jews know that.
And I thought, "Oh, my! Wouldn't it be wonderful! I'll just
get me about four or five thousand of them and stand them out there, and let
them--them that's reading that Bible and say, 'If this be the Messiah, let's
see Him do the sign of the prophet.'" I said, "What a setup it'll
be!" Had my ticket in my hand, just about thirty minutes before calling
time on the Arabian plane's line. So I was standing out there at Cairo, Egypt,
and I thought, "Praise God! In two more hours the Jews will receive the
same thing that they did at Pentecost, just as sure as anything." I
thought, "If I stand there and can tell them, 'Go pick yourself out a
bunch of man out there among you, and bring them here, see if He's still
Messiah.' See, and then I'll say, 'Now, upon the same grounds that your
forefathers rejected this Messiah, you receive Him. Raise up your hands and He
will... you'll receive the Holy Ghost right now.' And then they'll evangelize
the world in their part of the world when they--when they receive It. Get the
leaders, don't... Just hit the main nerve center, the leaders, let them start
it."
Foot Prints Book - Page 244
And
Something struck me and said, "Do not go now, for the hour is not
yet." See, the Gentile's isn't fulfilled yet, see, day isn't finished.
"Oh," I thought, "that was just me."
So I started again, and it got so bad till I just couldn't stand
it. And I went out behind a hangar and I bowed my head, I said, "Father,
is that You speaking to me?"
He said, "Do not go to Israel now, the hour is not yet."
I just went in, changed my ticket, routed it again, went the other way. See,
'cause the hour is not yet.
But one of these days the Message will go to Israel, and what'll
break for... God will send unto them Moses and Elijah, in Revelation 11, and
they'll do signs and wonders and Jehovah's sign; while the Gentiles is
finished, the grace of... day of grace will leave the Gentile church, the
Pentecostal age will leave. The denominations will continue on because they
come up here with the sleeping virgin (we'll go into that just in a moment),
but they'll come up in that class.
But then when they do, when they do that, the Jews will receive the
baptism of the Holy Ghost and there'll be a revival there that'll stop the
heavens in the days of... "Don't rain!" They'll do all kinds of signs
and miracles. And finally the Roman hierarchy... The Jews has the wealth of the
world, and--and so the Roman Catholic church will break his agreement with the
Jews after this thing is over and then there will... (the treaty that they got
signed between them), he will go down there, and then's when God will stand
like He did in the--the old days there, and fight for Israel. They'll finally
kill these two prophets and they'll lay in the street, and spit on them.
The Ten Virgins, December 11, 1960
When I went to Bombay, I count that my greatest meeting because of the effects it had on the people, And I... If in Africa they say thirty thousand came to Christ at one time, then there was a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand came to Christ at one time out of that half a million there. What could I do? There wasn't a thing. Perhaps maybe, say there was, just say there was a hundred thousand of them. There was no church, nothing I could do. There was nobody to give to them the Message that I believed, there wasn't even a Pentecostal denomination would cooperate with me. And all those souls probably drifted right back into Shiites, Jains, Buddhism, what-ever-more they come from. No place to put them. Now that's a shame, that's a disgrace. See, because I had no cooperation, because of the stand that I take.
Taking Sides With Jesus, June 1, 1962
Foot Prints Book - Page 245
I believe, one of these glorious days, when this uniting of federation of church goes together and the new pope is brought out of the United States and put over there according to prophecy, then they'll form an image like unto the beast, and I'll tell you, the true Church of God will be drove together. The real, true believers out of Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostals, Nazarene, Pilgrim Holiness, whatever they'll be, will go together, and cemented by the love of God, that'll make the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ... all the believers. And agnostics and shallow-minded will be cast to one side, they'll go right on into the confederation of churches.
Acts Of The Holy Spirit, December 19, 1954
I
feel like Solomon did when he prayed, and said, give him wisdom that he might
be able to lead God's people. That's my sincere prayer.
My associates with me here, around, I see Brother Mercier, and--and
Brother Roy Borders, and Brother Neville, and Billy Paul, my son, and Gene's here
somewhere, and the brethren, Teddy and them. I appreciate all these people who
come to help me.
I remember here not long ago, Brother Leo, a--a vision that he had,
"dream," he called it, one night when we first met, that he saw a
great pyramid peak, way up in the air. And I was up there preaching somewhere,
and he climbed up to see what it was all about. And when he got up there on top
this peak, why, he said, way off in kind of a silver-looking Light, like a
platter, I was standing preaching to the people. And he attracted my attention,
and I looked around to him, and he said, "How did you ever get out there?
How could I get out there?"
I said, "Leo, no one can come out here. God has to take a man
here. Now, you're not to come up here. You're to go down and witness to those
people down there, after you've seen it, that it's the Truth, that that is the
Truth." Leo climbs back down to witness to the people.
How long ago has that been, Brother Leo? Several years, hasn't it?
Several years. Since then, as far as I know, he's been faithful in doing that,
witnessing to the people that the ministry comes from God. Now, and I--I do not
want it to come from me. If it is from me, then it's no good, because there's
no good in a man. See, it has to come from God.
The Seventy Weeks Of Daniel, August 6, 1961
Foot Prints Book - Page 246
I
was in the Vatican. I've seen the triple crown. I was supposed to have an
interview with the pope. Baron Von Blumberg got it for me for a Wednesday
afternoon at three o'clock. When they took me to the king, they cut the cuffs
out of my trousers. That's all right. They told me never to turn my back and
walk away from him. That's all right. But I said, "What do I have to do
before this guy?"
They said, "Just go in and kneel down on one knee and kiss his
finger."
I said, "That's out. No, sir." I said, "I would call
any man a brother that wants to be a brother. I will call him reverend, if he
wants to have the title of that. But to worship a man, that all belongs to
Jesus Christ." No man can stand in like that. No, indeed.
So, I didn't do it, but I got to go all through the Vatican. Why,
you couldn't buy it with a hundred billion billion dollars. And just think,
"The wealth of the world," the Bible says, "was found in
her." Just think of the great places, the billions times...
Why did Communism raise up over here in Russia? It just makes me
sick at my stomach to hear so many preachers hollering about Communism, and
they don't even know what they're crowing about. That's right. Communism ain't
nothing. It is a tool in the hand of God to bring revenge upon the earth for
the blood of the saints.
The First Seal, March 18, 1963
Here
sometime ago, I was down to a home having a prayer meeting. And Brother Junior
Jackson (I heard him a while ago, or I thought I did), he was with me. And he
had got through speaking. And there was a minister from another church; and no
more than I'd hardly gotten to the floor, he jumped up and started wanting to fuss
with me. Well, it happened to be about five ministers there, and they was all
going to climb onto the man at once. I said, "No. Don't do that. Now,
he--he challenged me, so let he and I talk it over."
Well, he started off, "We speak where the Bible speaks, silent
where It's silent," and so forth. And away they went. And just in a few
moments... I just kept marking down the Scriptures he was misquoting,
misplacing. Said, "There wasn't but--there wasn't but twelve people ever
did receive the Holy Ghost, and that was the apostles. And Divine healing was
only give to those twelve," and so forth. So you see he just missed the
mark by a million miles. So after the--after I... After about a half hour of
him speaking, I asked him. And he said I was a devil.
Foot Prints Book - Page 247
And
so then, after he got through speaking, I said, "Now, the first thing I
want to say, brother, I forgive you for that, because you didn't mean that. I
know you didn't. For if you're a minister and I'm a minister, we should be brothers."
See? And then I said, "Now, to misunderstand each other in the Scripture
is something different."
So then, we begin to take the Scripture. And the poor fellow was so
lost in a minute, he didn't know where to stand or what to do. Then he got so tied
up, he didn't know what to do and he... When he walked out of the building,
though, that night, he said, "I'll say one thing, Brother Branham, you
have the Spirit of Christ." See?
And then I thought, "'The devil' a few minutes ago, and now
'the Spirit of Christ.'" It's only the way you approach It, that's all.
Christ, if I was to fuss...
Now--now the man, because that he did that, horrible things
happened to him, almost lost his mind; from an institution or something, jumped
out of a window and almost killed himself. And now he's coming back to some
good friends of mine. He's seeking, every day, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Wants to come up to my house to have hands laid on him to receive the Holy
Ghost, a preacher of a great denominational church.
Identified With Christ, December 20, 1959
I
was just thinking. I don't know whether I ever quoted this or not, Brother
Charlie. Some time ago I was down in Kentucky with him, and he said,
"Brother Branham, do you think in the Millennium you and I will squirrel
hunt?"
I said, "I don't think so Charlie."
He said, "Well, we like it so well, do you think we will when
we get in the Millennium?"
I said, "No, there won't be anything killed in the
Millennium."
And he Well, we just like it."
I said, "Charlie, what if I could convince you that one time
you were a hog, and you had raised to a higher being, to being a human being.
Would you ever want to go back and enjoy the pleasures of a hog?"
He said, "No."
I said, "See, you would be so much higher than the hog, now
you are human, you would never want to be a hog anymore." I said,
"Now multiply that by ten thousand, and that is what you'll be when you
are changed from here to what you will be. You'll never want to be human
again." That's right. It'll be something different. I'm so glad just for
the thoughts of it, knowing that someday we will climb higher.
That Day On Calvary, September 25, 1960
Foot Prints Book - Page 248
The
other day, in Germany. How many here has ever seen the picture of the Angel of
the Lord that was taken in Houston? Let's see your hands, if you're in the
building. They've got it here. And they were taken in different places. And the
other day in Germany, It was taken.
And, now, the state church in Switzerland was against me. They were
against Billy Graham, as you seen the write-up that brother got in the paper.
And it is... So then after he left... And the reason they was against him,
because he believed in the supreme Deity of Jesus Christ.
Now, the Swiss church doesn't believe that Jesus was the--was the
virgin-born Son of God. They come from the Zwingli. First was Luther, then come
Zwingli and Calvin, and so forth. And Zwingli was in Switzerland, and they...
the state church is--is built upon his doctrine, they believe that he was
the--the... In their own books and everything they declare it, that they
believe that "He was the son of Joseph, called the Son of God. He was the
prophet that Moses spoke of would come, but actually Joseph was His
father." That knocks every prop from under Christianity. It... that takes
every Divine thing away from it. He was absolute the virgin-born Son of God,
and Joseph had no more to do with it than we have to do with it. That's right.
He was the virgin-born Son of God, and I believe that with all my heart, soul,
mind, and strength.
And then I jumped right in behind Billy Graham, and I started the
same thing. Oh, my, they bitterly opposed It. And then when they rose against
me, and then give that write-up against Billy, then the Catholics come around,
said, "See, they're both no good!" So that... Oh, if people could
only get their head right or their heart right, one. It...
So then when they did, it went up in Germany. And when we was to
come up to Karlsruke, Germany, they wrote up there to the state church and told
them not to receive me because I was an impostor. So the church and state is
together there. What the church says, the state has to do. So they... After
they had their big cathedral that was put... seat thousands of people, had to
build it 'cause they wouldn't rent no place to them. Then the authorities told
them they couldn't have it.
But Doctor Guengebuhl, a very smart lawyer, that's one of our
sponsors there, he didn't take "no" for an answer. He went right on
down to the major in the United States Army. And he said, "Tell Brother
Branham to come on. The rest of them can come, he can too." So they give
me a chance to come into Germany.
The first night, they had to mill around me to keep the communists
from taking a shot at me. Someone had come at nearly getting Billy, my boy, but
the Lord was with us. And they just kept walking around. So, in the dark, they
couldn't take a shot, you know, 'cause...
Foot Prints Book - Page 249
And
on the second night, God gave sight to a total blind girl, eight years old.
Then the state church and their pastors, and all, got together, and
wanted to have a meeting with me, they wanted to ask me some questions.
We went to the breakfast. And, at the breakfast, they had taken a
big German camera, and set it up like this. Up in the day, there was plenty of
light, they needed no flash or nothing. They were taking the pictures of the
breakfast, and so, when they did, there was... they taken several pictures.
And they said, "Now, Brother Branham, we believe that God is
with you. But, them visions, we can't understand it. Can't understand it."
"Oh," I said, "I couldn't explain it, because it's
God. And you can't explain God, you've got to believe God. God's not known
by--by scientific, God's known by--by faith. Well, they couldn't see that at
all, you know.
And just at the time, the sovereignty of God, right when the strain
was on, I said, "Just a moment, here He is now." And I said,
"He's coming now." Well, that German camera, they just moved it right
on Him. And the German thought he'd try a few shots. So he--he took the
picture. And, when he did, the Holy Spirit come down, I said, "The man
standing right here to my left, he's a stranger among us all this
morning." I said, "He's not a German, neither is he a French."
(I was at Lausanne at the time.) I said, "He's not a French, German, or...
"I said, "He's an Italian. And he's been the leader of thirty-two
thousand Communists." And the boy started crying out. And I said,
"Now he's picked up a Bible. His background is Catholic. And he picked up
a Bible one day and was reading where Jesus died for his sins, and he accepted
Christ. Now he's persecuted, he's run a little orphanage up in the mountains.
He can't eat his breakfast this morning, that's why he pushed his table... or
the plate back from his table, from the table, because he has an ulcer in his
stomach."
And the boy raised his hand, said, "Every word of that's the
Truth." They said...
I looked at him, he was still... he was gray-headed and eating a
good square meal, I said, "But THUS SAITH THE LORD, eat your meal because
Jesus Christ has made you well." See? He set right down and started
eating.
Well, that German camera was standing there taking those pictures,
And after It left, then it... they took about a dozen more. They taken about a
dozen before and a dozen after.
Foot Prints Book - Page 250
And
when they developed them, there was the Angel of the Lord right on their
picture, coming down. There it happened. So showed Him coming down, when He
enclosed around where I was standing. The next thing showed where He was going
away, you'll see half of It that way as It's moving away. And I had my hand up,
and saying "It's THUS SAITH THE LORD. It's finished," like that.
And I have them here tonight so that I could show them to you. I
don't know how well you'll be able to see them from the platform here. Sometime
we might develop them if we get somebody that'd want them, and we could maybe
make negatives from them and put them into print. But it just goes to show that
every time... I've never had a time that the gift of God was ever questioned
but what God come right down and done something outstanding. So criticism is
perfectly welcomed. Amen. And we--we love to see it, 'cause always waiting to
see the glory of our Lord God.
Now I've got them here. You may not be able to see. I don't know
how good the... Can you see that from where you... from where I'm standing?
It's a--it's a picture of the breakfast. Now, here's all the ministers. The
camera's setting back here. See where the lights is in the building, up here?
And it was eleven o'clock in the day, doesn't need any--any light of any type,
Now, that's the first picture.
And here's where they all stood to their feet. And there's the
Angel of the Lord coming down. See? And here's the man standing, and that's me
and my hand pointed towards him. And this is him standing here with a Roman
collar on. That's--that's explaining to him what it's all about. That's when
It's coming, just started down. See, It's just above me. This is me standing
right here, and It's just above me.
Now, here's the next picture, when It done settled down over their
head like that. It--It's--It's down over them, and the vision is going on.
And here's the next picture when It's leaving away, and just half
of me can be seen there, where the--the Angel of the Lord has still got it
masked over, just half of it, going away.
And here's the next picture afterward, it's perfectly clear,
normal. There's nothing there, see, after It had gone away.
Jesus Christ still lives and reigns. Amen. I... Now, that doesn't
mean anything to be...
These people in the pit here, I never noticed, they didn't get to
see it. Why, kind of show it, if you don't mind just a moment.
There's the one before, see, see, that's the picture that was
before anything was taken. And here is the Angel of the Lord coming down. See?
See? And here is the picture after It was already settled on me where I was
standing. See? And here is the picture just... It's dwindling away there, see,
and just half of my face is showing, where It's going off like that.
Foot Prints Book - Page 251
And,
if you'll happen to notice, It's going off on the right hand side. And I always
call my sick, everywhere, to the right hand side. The Angel of the Lord always
appeared to me on the right hand side, every time. And there's the... And to
prove that it's true, there goes the Angel of the Lord off on the right hand
side, just exactly.
And here's the picture afterwards, but there was nothing left in
the building,
And we got--we got around twenty-something pictures between these
two things, And cameras stationary, setting at the same place, and nothing at
all shows any other wise. So it just goes to show that our dear Lord Jesus
still lives and reigns. Doesn't He? And He's wonderful, exceedingly,
abundantly, and we love Him with all of our heart.
Faith In Action, October 3, 1955
I
remember that up here in "Twin City," I think Brother Brown and them
was with me, and I was taking the life of Joseph, in the Bible. And I read that
Bible, there was a man there was nothing against! Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and
all of them, had something against them, but not Joseph. What a man, a perfect
man, a perfect type of Christ!
When I read that, I just got to crying, one day, in my little ol'
hotel room. And I went over in the closet where I had my clothes hanging,
pulled the door together, and I said, "God, I want to thank You for a man
like Joseph, a man who once lived on the earth, a--a man in flesh like I am, a
man that could believe You and take Your Word." He was hated of his
brothers. He couldn't help being spiritual. He saw a vision. He could interpret
dream. All of them hated him for it. He couldn't help that, that's just what he
was.
See, it just wasn't to the others. They ought to have loved him,
but instead of that... When he told them, sometimes things against them,
"Oh," they say, "here comes that dreamer." See? And they
hated him without a cause.
I said, "Why did they do that?" And yet that man never
moved, he stayed right there. See? I said, "Thank You, Lord. O God, thank
You for such a man."
And right then the Holy Spirit revealed to me, said, "You'll
have a son, and you'll call his name 'Joseph.'" I got up from there and
thanked the Lord.
Becky, setting back there, had just been borned about a... she was
about a year old. She was with caesarean, it runs in my wife's family to be
caesarean; 'cause they don't unhinge like the woman should, the bones are solid
like a man, and she had to be cut from her mother. And the doctor told me, he
said, "Brother Branham, don't you never have another child by this
woman." Said, "Her womb is as thin as a balloon." He said,
"You'd better let me tie those tubes."
I said, "No, I wouldn't, don't think about doing that,
Doc."
He said, "Well, you--you--you'll... She shouldn't have another
child." Said, "You're going to ruin her," said, "she will
die." Said, "We had an awful time there," said, "you
just... she just did come through."
Foot Prints Book - Page 252
And
then the Lord told me I was "going to have a son" and his name would
be called "Joseph." I never was scared about it. All of you... many
of you remember it.
I went forth announcing, "I'm going to have a baby and his
name's going to be Joseph." How many remembers it? Sure! All around, out
over the country, everywhere, telling people, "Going to have a baby, his
name's going to be Joseph."
Just the same as that little boy was raised up, in Finland, from
the dead. Brother Jack was right there when it happened. Told you, two or three
years before it happened, "There'd be a little boy," how he'd be
dressed, where he'd be laying. "God said so!"
"How is it going to be?"
"I don't know! But it was revealed to me that it was going to
happen!"
It was revealed to me, "I was going to Arizona, and there I'd
meet seven Angels. And they would tell me then what... a Message that I was to
preach." And that was the Seven Seals. It happened! How many remembers me
saying that? The tapes and things will go to that. And it happened! Magazines,
everything else, took the picture of It. That Light there in the air, they
can't even understand It yet. There it was.
I remember calling Brother Jack and asking him about that, Christ
being standing there, and Brother Jack said, "That's in His glorified
state." See? I love Brother Jack. He's one of the best theologians I know
of, but I just couldn't hit it just right.
I was standing there, I said, "Lord, how is this? Young man
here" I said, "with hair like wool."
And He said, "He is wigged." Watch in the book, before it
ever happened, I said that. And that day when that happened, it went up. And
then you turn that picture sideways, if you've got Look Magazine or Life
Magazine. Turn it sideways. There He is, just perfectly, Hoffman's Head of
Christ, looking right down where I was standing; there It is in the magazine!
How many's ever seen It? Course, you've all seen. There, looking right back,
proved exactly the revelation was correct.
Foot Prints Book - Page 253
Why
wigged? Why, the old English judges, the Jewish judges, used to wear a--a--a
wig, they do yet in England; when he's... that's supreme authority, he wears a
wig. And that showed Him standing there, wigged by Angels' wings, He is the
Alpha and Omega. He is the Supreme Judge, and none other but Him. He is to look
upon as Alpha and Omega. And there He was a young man, no more thirty years
old, wearing a wig of white. Showing that He was Supreme God. "The Father
hath committed all judgment unto the hands of the Son." Hallelujah! The
revelation is never wrong! Speak It anyhow, no matter what it sounds like, goes
right with the Word.
Now remember, four years later, my wife...
We knew we was going to have a baby. Everybody said, "Is this
Joseph coming?"
I said, "I guess it is, I don't know, but I'm going to have
Joseph."
When it was borned, it was Sarah. Then a man called me up, and
laughed in my face, he said, "Say, you know what? You mean
Josephine!" The man died. The man died.
I said, "Sir, I said, 'God told me I was "going to have a
son" and I would "call his name 'Joseph'!"
There was three people that left a certain denominational church
and come to our church, and heard me saying that. When Sarah was borned, they
said, "Why, he's a false prophet."
I said, "Wait a minute, lady, I never said when, neither did
God say when. He told me, was 'going to have a...' He was going to... told
Abraham, they was 'going to have a Isaac,' but Ishmael was borned in between
that time, but it didn't take It away." I said, "God said I'll have
this boy and we'll call his name 'Joseph.'"
The doctor said, when he come up, he said, "Reverend, I'm
going to tie those tubes now." Said, "I..."
I said, "Don't you do it!" I said...
He said, "Well, you might get married again and have that boy
yet."
I said, "I'm going to have it by her! God said so!" I
couldn't read it out of the Bible, but it was wrote on my heart by revelation,
by faith; God said so! Didn't want to stagger at the promise of God through
unbelief.
Some of them said, "You mean 'Josephine.'"
I said, "I meant 'Joseph.'"
Doctor said, "She can't have another baby."
I said, "She will have another baby."
Four years passed, finally she was going to be mother again.
Then a woman, (a false prophecy sent forth across the country)
writing words, said, "Now Meda's going to die, during this time, because I
was sent to lead Bill." And it said that "He won't listen to me
'cause I'm a woman, and God's going to get even with him now by killing his
wife."
I said, "God sent Jesus Christ to lead me." See? And I
said, "I'm led by the Spirit."
Foot Prints Book - Page 254
Poor
little Meda. We had a nurse that had been healed there in a meetings, you all
know, Mrs. Morgan, (and one of Mayo's nurses, the worse cases). Well, she's on
the record, "dead," about twenty years ago, with cancer.
"Succumbed with cancer," in Louisville, right on the Baptist hospital
record. She's nursing in--in Jeffersonville, in the hospital, now. She's been
there for all these years, 'cause God said "She'd live."
And, so, Meda loved her, and she said, "I want Margie come
with me, Bill, I don't feel like going to the hospital."
I said, "Don't make... We love Margie, but Margie's not our God,
Margie's our sister." And I took off up to Green's Mill. She'd got me all
tore up, course I love her, and I went up to Green's Mill. And I...
And she said, "Bill, do you think I'm going to die?"
And I said, "I don't know, but the baby's going to be borned
anyhow. You're going to have a Joseph."
She said, "Is this him?"
I said, "I don't know, Honey. I can't say, but God said we're
'going to have Joseph,' and we're going to have Joseph. I don't care what
anything says, we're going to have Joseph. Then the same God that's told me all
these revelations, told me that, He never failed on others and He won't fail on
that."
I went up to the mill to pray. And started over there, seen that
Light hang between two trees, said, "Go back to your work and to your
book." I went back to this...
The Bible was... and laying in my car. And when I did, the wind had
blowed it over to where Nathan was setting, and David; said, "Go tell My
servant David; I took him from that sheepcote, from feeding those few sheep of
his father's, and I made him a great name like the great man." (not all
the--the greatest name, but just like great man; never made him a Billy Graham,
but a... give him a name, you know) Said, "Well, I done that, but"
said, "I can't let him build the Temple, but his son..." And just as
soon as It said, "His sons," oh, my, there it was.
I said, "Joseph?" That's right.
Right there, in the house I went. And there's the little fellow, so
big she... she's a big old boy, she couldn't hardly walk, going out through the
field. I run, throw my arms around her, and I said, "Honey! Joseph is
coming. Joseph is on his road."
Anyone knows, with caesarean, you can't let the baby drop. That
night the baby dropped. [Blank spot on tape--Ed.]... broke, everything else.
Foot Prints Book - Page 255
Next
morning, at seven o'clock, we went over to the hospital, the doctor said,
"Oh, mercy, goodness."
I kissed her good-bye, said, "Honey, it won't be long, Joseph
will be here." Went up the steps, she went like that on the operating
table.
A few minutes, the nurse come back, said, "Rev. Branham?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She said, "You got a fine, seven pound, three ounce,
boy."
I said, "Joseph, son, welcome." Yes, sir! Why? Why? What
is it? It wasn't written in the Bible that would happen, but the same God of
the Bible that revealed it to Abraham, we didn't consider the deadness of her
womb, the impossibility to being that way. You don't stagger at the promise of
God through unbelief, but you give praise to God, know that it's got to happen!
I don't care what doctor says, everything else will come in all kind of a way,
but don't you believe it, it's a lie of the Devil. Yes, sir, truth. Faith goes
about, together with works, to create the promise.
Works Is Faith Expressed, November 26, 1965
I
was sometime ago down in Kentucky, I--I like to squirrel hunt, and I went down
in the fall of the year there to squirrel hunt with a friend of mine. And
it's... got very dry.
And anyone ever hunted gray squirrel, know that how hard it is to
slip up on them when the--the leaves just crackling. And, oh, Houdini is an
amateur escape artist to--to those fellows, how they can get away! And then
trying to shoot eye shots at fifty yards, it takes some good hunting to get
your limit in a day.
So, Mr. Wood, a friend of mine, a--a converted Jehovah Witness, was
with me. And we... He said, "I know a farm over here where there's a man
that's got a lot of..." We call them there, "hollars."
Leadership, December 7, 1965
He
said' "Well, this old man, we'll go over and see him. He's got a lot of
hollars in his place," he said, "but he's an infidel." He said,
"If... He just about curse us out if we went over there."
I said, "But we're not getting no squirrels here, we've been
camping two weeks. And we was dirty, and beard all out over our face, and that.
He said, "Well, let's--let's go over."
So we went a few miles down, about twenty miles. I'd been in the
country down there once before, for three nights, at a Methodist campground
where there had been some great things the Lord had did, and great healing
service amongst the Methodist people. And then we went way back over some hills
and hollars and ridges. And you just have to know Kentucky to know it, what
kind of a place you had to get into. And while we went back there we come to a
house, and there sat an old man, two old man, setting out there with their old
hats slouched down over their face, and
--and he said,
"There he is," he said, "he's a tough one." Said, "He
hates that word of a 'preacher.'" And said...
So I said, "Well, I just better set in the car, or we won't
get to hunt at all." I said, "You go in and ask him if we can
hunt."
Foot Prints Book - Page 256
So
he got out and started walking in, he spoke to them, And in Kentucky, always,
you know, it's "come in," and so forth. And so he went up there and
he said, "I just wondered if we could hunt a while on your place."
The old man setting there, about seventy-five years old, tobacco
running down his mouth, he said... spit, and he said, "What's your
name?"
He said, "My name is Wood."
He said, "Are you any relation to old man Jim that used to
live..."
He said, "Yeah, I'm Jim's boy." Said, "I'm Banks.
Yeah."
"Well," he said, "old man Jim was an honest
man." Said, "Certainly, help yourself." He said--said, "Are
you by yourself?"
He said, "No, my pastor is out there."
He said, "What?"
He said, "My pastor is out in the car," said, "he's
hunting with me."
He said, "Wood, you don't mean you've got so low-down till you
have to tote a preacher with you wherever you go?"
So he's a rough, old character, so I thought I'd better get out of
the car, you know. So I got out and walked around, and he said, "well,
you're a preacher, huh?"
I said, "Yes sir." He looked me up and down (squirrel
blood, and dirt) and he said... I said, "Don't look much like it."
Said, "Ah, I kind of like that." And he said, "You
know, I want to tell you something." He said, "I'm supposed to be an
infidel!"
I said, "Yes, sir, I understand that." I said, "I don't
think it's much to brag about, though. Do you?"
And he said, "Well," he said, "I don't know. And he
said, "I'm going to tell you what I think of you guys."
I said, "All right."
He said, "You're barking up the wrong tree." And how many
knows what that means? See? It means it's a lying dog, you see; the coon's not
up there at all, see. He said, "You're barking up the wrong tree."
I said, "That's your opinion."
And he said, "Well," he said, "look, you see that
old chimney standing up there?"
"Yes."
Foot Prints Book - Page 257
"I
was borned up there, seventy-five years ago." And said, "I've lived
right here in these hills all along through all these years." And said,
"I've looked towards the skies, I've looked here and there, and, surely,
in all these seventy-five years, I would have seen something that looked like
God. Didn't you think so?"
I said, "Well, it depends on what you're looking at. See, what
you're looking for."
And he said, "Well," he said, "I--I certainly don't
believe there is such a creature. And I believe you fellows just simply get out
and swindle the people out of their money and everything. And that's the way it
goes."
I said, "Well, you're an American citizen, you have a right to
your own--own thinking."
He said, "There's one guy, one time, that I heard of," he
said, "that I would sure... If he... If I would ever get to talk with that
fellow," said, "I'd like to--to ask him a few questions."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "It was a preacher, you might know him." Said,
"He had a meeting up here at Campbellsville, not long ago, in a church
yard up there, a campground." And he said, "I forget his name."
Said, "He's from Indiana."
And--and I said, "Oh? Yes, sir."
And Brother Wood started to say, "Well, I..."
("Don't say that.") And so he said...
I said, "What about him?"
He said, "Well," he said, "old lady," somebody,
"up there on the hill." Said, "You know, she was dying with
cancer." And said, "Wife and I would go up there of a morning to--to
change her bed." Said, "They couldn't even raise her up high enough
to put her on the bedpan," said, "just had to pull a draw
sheet." And said, "She was dying. She had been to Louisville, and
said the doctors had give her up and said she was 'going to die.'"
"And her sister went up to that meeting, and said, 'That
preacher was standing up there on the platform, looked back over the audience
and called this woman by name, and told her, "When she left, she took a
handkerchief and put it in her--her purse." And called this woman's name
down here, twenty miles below here, and said how she was suffering with cancer,
what her name was, and all she'd been through; said, "Take that
handkerchief and go lay it on the woman," and said that, "the woman
will be healed of her cancer."'"
Foot Prints Book - Page 258
And
said, "They come down here that night." And said, "Honest, I
heard the awfullest screaming up there. I thought they had the Salvation Army
turned loose on top of the hill up there. Said, 'Well,' I said, 'I guess the
old sister's dead.' Said, 'Well... Tomorrow we'll go and get the wagon, and how
we take her out to get to the main road,' and said, 'so they can take her to
the undertaker.' And said that the... We waited. No need of going up that time
of night," said, "about a mile up on the hill here." Said,
"We went up there the next morning, and you know what happened?"
I said, "No, sir."
He said, "She was setting there eating fried apple pies, and
drinking coffee, with her husband."
And I said, "You mean that?"
He said, "Yes, sir."
"Oh!" I said. "Now, mister, you really don't mean
that."
He said, "What bothers me is what... how did that man, and
never in this country, and knew that." See?
He said, "Oh, you don't believe that."
He said, "It's the truth."
I said, "You believe that?" See?
He--he said, "Well, go right up there on the hill, I can prove
it to you." He's preaching back to me now, you see.
So I--I said, "Um-um." I picked up an apple, and--and I
said, "Can I have one of these apples?" and I rubbed it on my
clothes.
He said, "Well, the yellow jackets are eating them up, I guess
you can have one." And then... And now I said, "Well--well..."
I--I bite... bit into it, and I said, "That's a nice apple."
He said, "Oh, yes." Said, "You know what? I planted
that tree there, oh, forty years ago, or something like that."
I said, "Oh, is that right?"
"Yes, sir."
And I said, "Well, and every year..." I said, "I
notice we haven't had no frost yet, it's early August." And I said,
"Them leaves are falling off the trees."
"Yes, sir. That's right, it's coming on fall, Believe we'll
have an early one this time."
I said, "Yes, sir." Changed the subject, see. And he
said... I said, "Well, you know, it's strange," I said, "how
that sap goes out of that tree." I said, "And them leaves falls off,
and yet there's no... they--they haven't had no frost to kill the leaf."
And he said, "Well," he said, "what's that got to do
with what we're talking about?"
And I said, "Well, I--I just wondering." (You know, Mama
always said, "Give a cow enough rope and it'll hang itself, you
know." So I just give him plenty of rope.)
Foot Prints Book - Page 259
So
he went on out, and he said, "Well, yes, what's that got to do with
it."
I said, "You know, God brings them apples up, and you enjoy
those apples and leaves, and you set in--in the shade and so forth. It goes
down in the fall of the year and," I said, "comes back up again with
the apples and with the leaves again."
And he said, "Oh, that's just nature. See, that's just
nature."
And I said, "Well, of course, that's nature." I said,
"That's nature, but Somebody has to control nature." See, I... he
said... "You tell me now what does that?"
And he said, "Well, it's just--just naturally nature."
I said, "Who is it that says to that little leaf now, and
the... " I said, "Now, the reason that leaf falls off, it's because
the sap goes down into the root. And what if that sap stayed up in the tree
through the wintertime? What would happen?"
Said, "It would kill the tree."
"Well," I said, "now, what intelligence that runs
that sap down into the roots, said, 'Get out of here now, it's coming fall of
the year, get down into the roots and hide?' And stay down into the roots like
a grave; and then next spring comes back up again, brings up more apples, and
brings up more leaves and things."
He said, "That's just nature, it'll do it." Said,
"The weather! The changing, you know, coming on fall."
I said, "Set a bucket of water on the post out there, and see
if nature runs it down the bottom of the post and brings it back up again.
See?" See?
"Well," he said, "you might have something."
I said, "Think of it while we go hunting."
And he said, "Well," and he said, "hunt where you
want to."
And I said, "When I come back, if you'll tell me what
intelligence runs that sap out of that tree down into the roots and stay all
winter and come back the next winter, I'll tell you That's the same
intelligence that told me about that woman up there."
Said, "Told you?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "You're not that preacher!"
I said, "Would you know his name?"
Said, "Yes."
I said, "Branham?"
He said, "That's him."
I said, "That--that's right." See?
Foot Prints Book - Page 260
And
you know what? I led the old man to Christ, right there on his own testimony.
And a year later I was down there and pulled a car (Indiana license
on it) in the yard. They had moved away, he had died. And so when I come back,
there stood his wife who really raked me over; and I thought I had permission
to hunt. And she come out there, she said, "Can't you read?"
I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said, "Did you see those
signs saying 'No hunting'?"
I said, Yes, ma'am, but" I said, "I--I have
permission."
"You do not have permission!" she said. And said,
"We got this place--place posted for many years."
I said, "Well, sister, I--I was wrong then, I'm sorry."
And said, "Sorry nothing! Them Indiana license on there, and
set up here, you're the boldest people!"
I said, "Could I just explain it?" I said...
"Yeah! Who give you permission?"
I said, "I don't know just..." I said, "It was an
elderly man setting out there on the porch, when I was down here last year, and
we was talking about God." See?
And she looked, she said, "Are you Brother Branham?"
And I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She said, "Forgive me. I didn't know who you were." She
said, "I want to tell you his testimony. In this last dying hours, he
raised up his hands and praised God." Said, "He died in Christian
faith, and was carried away to God." See?
"If they hold their peace, the rocks will immediately cry
out." There's something in nature. Watch the birds, watch the animals,
watch everything, and you watch nature.
Leadership, December 7, 1965
Foot Prints Book - Page 261
I
was saying somewhere maybe here, a few nights ago, I wanted to preach so bad, I
preached to my wife in bed till twelve o'clock, just telling her of how
glorious Jesus was. A text come in my heart. It kept burning me so great till I
just couldn't rest with it. And I just Honey, I want to preach to you a little
while." And she roused up, by grace she listened.
I said, "The Christian faith is based entirely upon rest.
That's right. A Christian is not tossed about. A Christian doesn't run from
place to place. A Christian doesn't fuss, and fume, and worry about things. A
Christian rests. It's all over. It's all finished for the believer at Calvary.
That right. Oh, sickness may come and disappointments, but the Christian's at
rest; knowing this, that God's able to keep that which He has performed.
Knowing that no matter what the thing is, or how it looks, there's neither
sickness called death; there's neither starvation, or anything, that can
separate us from the love of God that's in Jesus Christ. We're at rest. Let the
old ship toss anyway she wants to, the anchor holds."
The Inner Veil, January 1, 1956
The
Bible said in the last days there would come a famine upon the earth, not for
bread and water alone, but for hearing the true Word of God, and people will go
from east to west and everywhere trying to find It. That hour is here! That
hour is here, when man are putting themselves up like Gods and wanting to be
glorified! But people say, "Oh, Doctor So-and-so, and big So-and-so!"
Paul said, "I have one fear, and that is except you would try
to worship me instead of the things I'm preaching. I never come to you with
enchanting words of man's wisdom, but in the power of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. That your hopes would be built on that, that there."
Today is a horrible day. The people are scattered abroad.
I stood a few weeks ago where there was a big tent erected (not
slamming, God forgive) where a man said he could cast out evil spirits. Which,
I have no doubt of that, but evil spirits are not cast out by cruel and indifferent
living! The most powerful weapon there is in the world is love!
I stood by a little lady the other night where her husband was
fixing to leave her and marry another woman, a very fine, known couple. I kind
of looked at her, she said, "Well, I'm going to leave, Brother
Branham."
I said, "Don't do it, sister."
She said, "Oh, my husband, his ministry will be ruined. What
can I do? I'm going to New York, and I'm going to get me a job."
I said, "Don't do it. Don't do it, sister."
"What can I do, Brother Branham?"
I said, "Go up to him."
She said, "Well, I found one of his pictures and I broke it
up, and I done so-and-so."
Foot Prints Book - Page 262
I
stood there, "I see that." But I said, "Go up to him and put
your arms around him, and say, 'Sweetheart, no matter what you done, I still
love you.' That will do it." I was right.
A young fellow come to me not long ago. He was a Pentecostal. He'd
seen too many of these meetings, and he goes in... And his wife is a staunch
Lutheran. She said, "Well, I guess you all went down and shouted last
ni