Testimony

There's something about this kind of worship that just seems to be different. Just the simplicity of just letting your soul be blessed by the presence of the Lord. To me, that's real Christianity in action.

Each morning at the Angelus Temple, at 10 o'clock, I believe it is, Brother duPlessis speaks. Is that right, Brother duPlessis? He's a—one of the few men that I have ever met that really understood my ministry. And if you will come, I'm sure your souls will be blessed by hearing Brother duPlessis.

I just had the privilege of meeting his wife for the first time in my life. Such—she's just a typical Afrikaans woman. She said she was from Texas... You all love me in California? You know, Texas is the second, next to the greatest, state in the Union now? Hmm. Alaska's first, you know. [Brother Branham laughs] Oh, my, that makes Texas think, doesn't it? Well, my mother's from Texas, and I have some things to brag about Texas myself. And many great souls has come from Texas. I'm sure they'll be represented well in heaven when we get there: great revivals and so forth.

Now, today, and in this charged room with the Spirit of God, I could just expect anything to happen. It's when the people are assembled in one accord; that's when things take place.

Happy to have this morning, my friend, back here, that was hunting with me. I can't think of his name half the time. Brother Johnny from a—from Van Rooten: Burt Van Rooten. And so, he... We were hunting together up on the River of No Return, by the courtesy, myself, of the Christian Businessmen. We certainly had lots of good fellowship together.

And now, I think we don't have time to really take a text to speak to you, but I would just like to leave just this little testimony. And to think... Now, Brother duPlessis asked me to say to the audience that he wasn't walking out rudely, but he's got a service right now he's got to go to, and so... At the Angelus Temple; he's speaking there this morning. And tonight, we expecting another great outpouring of His Spirit at the Temple. Last night we had an unusual night at the Temple.

Now, some of the old timers to the Temple was standing out there in the little alley as I passed through, just weeping, and saying, “This seems like the old times.” One fellow that I called “Big Mike,” I guess he may be present. He's kind of an usher there, or something. He was just having himself a jubilee.

Now, I was speaking last night on the leadings of the Holy Spirit, how God leads. And if we could just think in our minds that all these things come from God.

And about a week ago, I had a—a letter from an incident that taken place about fourteen years ago and of thinking—wanting to question, “Are these healings mental healings or are they physical healings?” And I thought I would just express that this morning, what taken place that happened to a colored girl in Jonesboro, Arkansas, about fourteen years ago at the beginning of my ministry.

We had... There was no one on the field then but myself. Brother Roberts and them had not come in yet, and Brother Coe, and many of the great workers in the field today. And I'd been there eight days straight at the platform and had not left: just stayed there day and night. And would take a little nap against the side of the pulpit, and they'd bring me some orange juice; and I was determined to stay till I prayed for everyone. But there was... At the end of the eight days, there were thousands or more than there was at the beginning.

And so, I remember of someone motioning to me with a uniform on. And—and it was a—an ambulance driver. And he said, “I've got a patient out here that's dying. Can you come to her?”

Just the night before there had been a man that was a shoe cobbler, up in another city in Arkansas, that had been blind for some twenty years. And when he passed through the line, the Holy Spirit had told him about his conditions and pronounced him healed. Well, when he left the building, he could not see any more than he did when he come in the building, but he knew that I did not know him and there had to be some sort of a supernatural Being to speak it; because he knew I knowed nothing of him. And he accepted that Person, not me, the One that was speaking.

And the story was, as they threw it on the radio the next morning and across the country, that on his road home that night, about two o'clock in the morning, he began to see the lights of the car flickering in front of him. And the next morning he rushed into his own church, the Methodist church and there they were... He caused so much disturbment till he was thrown out. And then down the street he went into one church and then the other to testify. And it caused a commotion.

Many of the peoples had come from the hospitals and were wanting to be prayed for. As we went out across, some men helping me to the ambulance, there was a—a typical Arkansas mother, laying there, dying with cancer. And her husband thought that she was dead, for she had just went into an—a coma, frankly. And she was—she was laying quietly and her husband knelt down in the back of the ambulance where the driver put me in. And he said, “Brother Branham, she longed so much for you to pray for her.” Said, “She was a good woman.” Said, “She helped hire... There was the harrow over these old clods here, and she made me what I am.” And said, “She's a mother of five children.” And he said, “I sold my farm and I put her in the hospital, and the last thing we sold was our—our team. The doctors has fought faithfully,” he said, “to save her life, but she was given up and sent home. And to get the ambulance to bring us down, she sold her blackberries that we canned two years ago, to get the money to come. And now she lays quiet; she's dead.”

And I took a hold of her hand, and he knelt down in his old patched shirt, faded out... And as I prayed just a little prayer, I thought I seen the wrinkles in her forehead kindly frown. Satan said to me, “Of course, you know that's just the reaction of the muscles. She's dead.” But as I continued to pray, her hand gripped mine like that. And Satan said again, “It's just the muscles.” But I just kept on praying.

In a few moments she raised up, and she said, “Who are you?” And her old husband, so overcome by the bringing of life again to his sweet wife, he threw his arms around her, begin to scream, “Mother.”

I slipped out the door of the ambulance, and I said, “Can you get me back to the platform?”

And the man said, “There's two thousand people between here and the door.” He said, “I'll take you around in the back of the parking lot and see if I can make the way in.”

And just to show that God will respect those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, when we got to where the line of the chartered buses was, I heard a noise. And I looked, and it was a young colored girl, nicely dressed. In Arkansas, in those days had strict segregation. And she was blind, and she was trying to find her way around, calling for her papa. I noticed her because she was kindly tall, and she was saying, “Oh, papa, where are you?” and feeling with her hands, and saying, “Won't somebody help me to find my papa?”

Well, I stood still. No one knew me, 'cause I'd just been in the temple all the time, and they couldn't get near the place. So I just stood there just a moment, and I looked at her. And she said, “Somebody, please help me find my papa.” Nobody seemed to pay any attention to her. And I was standing still, watching her. She come moving through the crowd.

And I thought of old blind Anna in the temple, that when she had prayed so long, and waited for the consolation of Israel, and when they brought our Lord into the temple to do for Him after the custom of the law, the Holy Spirit led her through that crowd, her being blind, up to where He was. And I stood still. And the young woman come moving on up, and finally she staggered right into me. She said, “Pardon me.” And she started again. And I said, “Who are you looking for, young lady?”

She said, “Sir, I'm looking for my papa.” She said, “I have... We come over here from Memphis to see the healer.” And said, “My papa was trying to find a way for me to get in, and he told me to stand still; but they pushed me out of the place, and I've lost where I was standing; and I'm blind, and I can't find my way back. Would you be so kind,” she said, “to help me to the bus where my papa can find me?”

Now, this seems like being a hypocrite, but I said, “What did you say you come over here to see?”

She said, “I come over to see the healer.” She said, “You see, sir, I've been blind for years.” And she said, “I heard on the radio this morning of a man who got his sight.” And said, “Papa got the money ready, and we got on the chartered bus, and I come over to see him. And now they say you can't even get near the building.”

I said, “You don't believe in such stuff as that, do you?” I said, “In the days when we got such fine doctors...”

She said, “But you see, sir, they can't do me no good.”

And I said, “You mean to tell me that you believe that the prayer of that man would do something for me—or for you?”

And she said like this. I never forget it. She said, “I'll tell you what I'll do. If you'll just help me in where that man is, then I'll find my papa.” What a rebuke to me.

I thought of blind Fanny Crosby. She'd heard of this other man being healed, the other blind person, and I thought of Fanny Crosby when she wrote,

And while God is healing in Angelus Temple, He can heal in this upper room. He's the God Who healed that man on that wheelchair last night, brought back with cancer off of the cot to rejoice when he couldn't even move. The One Who healed little Ricky, the One Who sent the message all the way across the sea and spoke to that woman dying with diabetes, and here sets her sister here this morning: called back. He's the same God now.

And I looked at her, and I said to her, “I—I... Maybe I'm the one you're supposed to see.” See how God locks things just exactly right. Why was I taken to the back? She grabbed me by the lapels of my coat like that, and she said, “Are you the healer?”

And I said, “No, sister, I am not. I'm just your brother.”

She said, “I want to see the healer.”

And I said, “I hope that you see Him someday, and I believe you will.”

She said, “What is your name?”

And I said, “Brother Branham.”

She said, “You's the one I want to see.”

And I said, “Now, no one knows me. I'll pray for you, but don't let it be known. Take your hand...” And I couldn't pull her hands off of my lapel. She was holding on for dear life. And I said to her, “I can pray if you'll believe.”

She said, “That's all I ask you to do.” And we bowed our heads, and while we were praying, I heard a scream. And she ran out into the lot, throwing people one way or the other, and she fell on the ground screaming, “I, who was once blind, can now see.”

A few weeks ago, I got a letter from her. Oh, her eyes are 20/20. She don't even have to wear glasses or nothing. It's amazing grace of God that does these things. It's something that Jesus Christ gave to His church to enjoy the privileges of good health.

I remember that night. As we close, I might say this: when the Lord give the ministry to me to go pray for His children, as you all know I've been brought up in a poor home, and that's the reason I'm uneducated, and can't speak, and so forth; but, I asked the Lord: I don't want to be great. I don't want to be popular, I just want to be honest; that's all I desire, that you can know that I telling the truth because I represent Him.

And when I started on the field to pray for the sick, I—I didn't have a suit to put on. And I never taken a offering yet in my life. And my brother, a sinner boy at that time, had been in an automobile accident and they cut his clothes all up. And he gave me that old suit. And the trousers were torn pretty well. And my wife went down to the ten cent store and got some of them patches you iron on with the iron, you know. And she'd fixed up the trousers pretty well, and the pocket was torn out. And I got me a needle and thread, and kindly whipped the pocket over, you know, patched it up, sewed it. And I'm not very good with a needle.

And I remember, when they would introduce me to ministers such as we have here this morning, I was kindly ashamed of the coat. It was on the right side, and that's—I had reach my right hand. So I'd hold my hand, sleeve, down over that torn pocket, and reach out my left hand to shake hands with the ministers, and saying excuse my left hand, but it's closer to my heart. But the thing was that I was ashamed of that old torn pocket.

But when those people saw that young Ethiopian girl with her sight, there stood an old man there with a club and a twisted foot; he said, “I know who you are, Brother Branham. I've been standing here three days in this rain. If you'll just ask God, God will heal my foot.” What can be done at that time?

I said to him, “My brother, if you believe that Jesus died and rose again the third day to make all these things possible, hand me your club. And when he handed the club, he wasn't just kidding, he meant it. And I seen with my own two eyes; that twisted club foot come straight; and he jumped into the air and begin to scream.

Four man rushed around me but people, mother's with their little babies trying to get in close enough, just to touch that old ragged coat, and God was healing them. It wasn't the ragged coat, nor it wasn't the one that was wearing it. It was the Lord Jesus that's here this morning, honoring their faith. He leads us in mysterious ways because He loves us. He makes it so simple until it goes over the head of the wise and prudent, as He said it would, and shall reveal Hisself to babes such as will learn.

I am sensitive enough of the Holy Spirit to know now that there's many people that are suffering right here in this building. And why not us just settle it now and accept what Jesus did for you all? The same God was out there that night, is the same God that's here right now. And you have the same needs that they had. And He is no respecter of persons. The Scriptures are true. These things are done that it might vindicate that we're living in the last days, in the shadow of the coming of the Lord.

As one speaker just said awhile ago, and being called into the President, to the cabinet, and so forth, to ask the question, “What can be done?”... There's nothing can be done. Just get ready to meet the Lord. We have sinned away our day of grace, and there's only one thing left, and that's the coming of the Lord. And these signs and wonders that you see taking place, are...