“When I was born in a little Kentucky cabin up there, the Angel of
the Lord come in the window and stood there. There was a Pillar of
Fire.”
The dawn was just starting to pierce the darkness of the cool April sky. The
single wooden window rose open to let the dim morning light into the tiny
one-room cabin. A robin standing next to the window seemed to be especially
excited this morning and was singing to the top of his lungs. Inside the cabin,
a youthful Charles Branham put his hands into his brand-new pair of overalls and
looked down at his 15 year-old wife. “We will call his name William,” said the
father.
Into the window came a supernatural Light. The Light moved through
the room and hovered over the bed where the baby was just born. This
Light was the same Light that brought the Hebrew children out of Egypt.
It was the same Light that met Paul on his road to Damascus. And It
would go on to lead this little baby to call a Bride of Christ out of
the world. The Light was none other than the Angel of the Lord, the
Pillar of Fire; and It had once again appeared to man.
The humble home was in the hills of southern Kentucky, near the small
town of Burkesville. The date was April 6, 1909. The baby was the first
of ten children that would be born to Charles and Ella Branham.
It was not long before the Angel of the Lord would visit young
William Branham.
When he was a young child of about two years old, the Angel of the
Lord first spoke to him saying that he would live his life near a city
called New Albany. He went into the house and told his mother the story.
Like any mother, she didn’t think much of the story from her two-year
old. Two years later, his family moved to Jeffersonville Indiana, just a
few miles from the southern Indiana city of New Albany.
The Angel again spoke to the young prophet a few years later. It was
a quiet September day with the warm sun shining through the colorful
fall leaves. The young lad was limping as he carried two buckets of
water down the trail. A corncob was tied under his stubbed toe to keep
the dirt off. He sat down to rest in the shade of a tall poplar tree.
The tears were streaming from his eyes as he cried about his misfortune.
His friends were enjoying themselves at the local fishing hole, and he
was stuck packing water for his dad. Suddenly, a wind began to swirl in
the tree above him. He wiped his eyes and stood to his feet. He heard
the sound of leaves blowing in the wind…but there was no wind. He looked
up, and about halfway up the poplar tree, a wind was swirling the dry
leaves.
Suddenly a Voice spoke, “Don't drink or smoke or defile your body in
any way, there'll be a work for you to do when you get older." The
frightened seven year old boy dropped his buckets and ran to his mother.
Like the prophet Samuel, God had again spoken to a child.
A few weeks later, he was playing marbles with his little brother. A
sick feeling came over him. He looked out over the Ohio River and saw a
beautiful bridge. Sixteen men fell to their death as the bridge crossed
the river. The young prophet had seen his first vision. He told his
mother, and she wrote his story down. Twenty-two years later, 16 men
fell to their death as the Second Street bridge in Louisville Kentucky
was being built over the Ohio River.
Like the prophets before him, the Lord was showing him visions of the
future. And like the prophets before him, the visions never failed.
Throughout his life, Brother Branham longed to be in the wilderness.
At the age of 18, he left Indiana for the rugged western mountains. It
was not long before he was forced to return. He gave the following
account of his decision to travel west in his booklet titled, “Jesus
Christ The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever.”
One day I decided I had found a way to get
rid of that calling. I was going out west to work on a ranch.
Friend, God is just as great out there as he is any place. May you
profit by my experience. When he calls for you, answer him.
One September morning in the year 1927, I told mother I was going on
a camping trip to Tunnel Mill, which is about fourteen miles from
Jeffersonville where we lived at that time. I had already planned a trip
to Arizona with some friends. When mother heard from me again, I wasn’t
at Tunnel Mill but in Phoenix., Arizona, running away from the God of
Love. The ranch life was very good for a while, but it soon grew old,
like any other pleasure of the world. But may I say here, Praise God,
that the experience with Jesus grows sweeter and sweeter all the time
and never grows old. Jesus gives perfect peace and comfort always.
Many time have I heard the wind blowing through the tall pines. It
seemed as though I could hear his voice calling away out in the forest,
saying, “Adam, where art thou?” The stars seemed to be so close you
could pick tem with your hands. God seemed to be so near.
One thing that seems to mean so much to me yet about that country is
the roads in the desert. If you ever get off the road, you get lost so
easy. So many times tourists see little desert flowers and go off the
highway to pick them. They wander off in the desert and are lost and
sometimes die of thirst. So it is in the Christian way – God has a
highway. He speaks of it in Isaiah, 35th chapter. It is called the
“Highway of Holiness.” Many times little pleasures of the world draw you
off the highway. Then you have lost your experience with God. In the
desert when you are lost, there sometimes appears a mirage. To people who
are dying of thirst, the mirage will be a river or a lake. Many times
people run after them and fall in them only to find that they are just
bathing in hot sand. Sometime the Devil shows you something that he says
is a good time. That is just a mirage, it is something that isn’t real.
If you listen you will find yourself only heaping sorrows on your head.
Don’t heed him, dear reader. Believe Jesus who gives you living water
for them that hunger and thirst.
One day I got a letter from home telling me that one of my brothers
was very ill.
It was Edward, the one next to me. Of course I thought not serious,
so I believed he would be all right. But one evening a few days later
when I was coming from the city as I passed through the mess hall at the
ranch I saw a paper on the table. I took it up. It read, “Bill, come out
to the north pasture. Very important.” After I read the note a friend
and I walked out to the pasture. The first person I met was an old Lone
Star ranger who worked on the ranch. His name was Durfy, but we called
him “Pop.” He had a sad expression on his face as he said, “Billy boy, I
have bad news for you.” At that time the foreman came walking up. They
told me that a telegram had just arrived telling me of the death of my
brother.
Dear friend, for a moment I could not move. It was the first death in
our family. But I want to say that the first thing I thought of was if
he was prepared to die. As I turned around and looked across the yellow
prairie, tears ran down my cheeks. How I remembered how we’d struggled
together when we were little lads and how hard it had been for us.
We went to school with hardly enough to eat. The toes were out of our
shoes and we would have to wear old coats pinned up at the neck because
we had no shirts on. How I remembered also one day Mother had some
popcorn in a little bucket for lunch. We did not eat with the rest of
the children. We couldn’t afford food like they had. We would always
slip over the hill and eat. I remember that the day we had pop corn we
thought it was a real treat. So to be sure I got my share of it I went
out before noon, took a good handful before brother got his share.
The standing there looking at that sun parched prairie I thought of
all those things and wondered if God had taken him to a better place.
Then again God called me, but as usual, I tried to fight it off.
I made ready to come home for the funeral. When Rev. McKinny of Port
Fulton Church, a man who is just like a father to me, preached his
funeral he made mention that “There may be some here who do not know
God, if so, expect him now.”
Oh how I grasped my seat, God was dealing again. Dear reader, when he
calls, answer him.
I’ll never forget how poor old Dad and Mother cried after the
funeral. I wanted to go back West but Mother begged me so hard to stay
that I finally agreed to stay if I could find work. I soon got a job
with the Public Service Company of Indiana, where I am employed now.
About two years later while testing meters in the meter shop at the
Gas Works in New Albany I was overcome with gas and for weeks I suffered
from it. I went to all doctors I knew. I could get no relief. I suffered
with acid stomach, caused from the effects of gas. It grew worse all the
time. I was taken to specialists in Louisville, Ky. They finally said it
was my appendix and said I had to have an operation. I could not believe
it for I never had a pain in my side. The doctors said they could do no
more for me until I had an operation. Finally I agreed to have it done
but insisted that they use a local anesthetic so that I could watch the
operation.
Oh, I wanted some one to stand by me that knew God. I believed in
prayer but could not pray. So the minister from the First Baptist Church
went with me to the operating room.
When they took me from the table to my bed I felt myself getting
weaker and weaker all the time. My heart was hardly beating. I felt
Death upon me. My breath was get¬ting shorter all the time. I knew I had
reached the end of my road. Oh friend wait until you get there once then
you will think of a lot of things you have done. I knew I had never
smoked, drank or had any unclean habits but I knew I was not ready to
meet my God.
My friend if you are only a cold formal church member you will know
when you reach the end that you are not ready. So if that is all you
know about my God, I ask you right here to get down on your knees and
ask Jesus to give you that experience of being Born again, like that He
told Nicodemus about in John. chapter 3, and oh how the joy bells will
ring Praise His Name.
It began to grow darker in the hospital room as though it were in a
great woods. I could hear the wind blowing. through the leaves, yet it
seemed a great way off in the forest. You have probably heard a puff of
wind blowing the leaves, coming closer and closer to you. I thought,
"Well, this is death coming to take me." Oh! my soul was to meet God, I
tried to pray but could not.
Closer the wind came, louder and louder. The leaves rattled and all
at once I was gone.
It seemed then that I was back again a little barefooted boy,
standing in that lane under the same tree. I heard that same voice that
said, "Never drink or smoke." And the leaves I heard were the same that
blew in that tree that day.
But this time the voice said, "I called you and you would not go." It
repeated the 3rd time.
Then I said, "Lord, if that is you, let me go back again to earth and
I will preach your Gospel from the house tops and street corners. I'll
tell everyone about it!"
When this vision had passed, I found that I had never felt better. My
surgeon was still in the building. He came and looked at me and was
surprised. He looked as though he thought I would be dead, then he said.
"I am not a church going man, my practice is so great, but I know God
has visited this boy." Why he said that I don't know. No one had said
anything about it. If I had known then what I know now, I would have
risen from that bed shouting Praise to His Name.
After a few days I was allowed to return home but I was still sick
and was forced to wear glasses on my eyes because of astigmatism. My
head shook when I looked at anything for a moment.
I started out to seek and find God. I went from church to church
trying to find some place where there was an old fashioned altar call.
The sad part was I could find none.
I said that if I ever was a Christian, I would really be one. A
minister that heard me make the remark said, "Now Billy boy, you are
going off in Fanaticism." I said that if I ever got religion I wanted'
to feel it when it came just as the disciples did.
Oh praise His name. I got religion later on and I still have it and
by his help I will keep it always.
One night I became so hungry for God and a real experience that I
went out to the old shed back of the house and tried to pray. I did not
know how to pray then so I just began to talk to Him like I would anyone
else. All at once there came a light in the shed and it formed a cross
and the voice from the cross spoke to me in a language I could not
understand. It then went away. I was spell¬bound. When I got to myself
again I prayed, "Lord if that is you, please come and talk to me again."
I had been reading my Bible since I had been home from the hospital and
I had read in John 4, "Beloved believe not all spirits, but try them if
they be of God."
I knew that a spirit had appeared to me and as I prayed it appeared
again. Then it seemed to me that there had been a thousand pounds lifted
from my soul. I jumped up and ran to the house and it seemed as though I
was running on air.
Mother asked, "Bill, what has happened to you ?" I replied, "I do not
know but I sure feel good and light." I could not stay in the house any
longer. I had to get out and run.
I knew then that if God wanted me to preach he would heal me so I
went to a church that believed in anointing with oil and I was healed
instantly. I saw then that the disciple had something that most of the
ministers do not have today. The disciples were baptized with the Holy
Ghost and so could heal the sick and do mighty miracles in His name. So
I began to pray for the baptism of the Holy Ghost and got it.
One day about six months later God gave me the desire of my heart. He
spoke to me in a great light telling me to go preach and to pray for the
sick and He would heal them regardless of what disease they had. I
started preaching and doing what He told me to do. Oh friend, I can't
begin to tell you what all has happened: Blinded eyes opened. The lame
walked, cancers have been healed and all kinds of miracles have been
done
One day at the foot of Spring Street, Jeffersonville, Indiana, after
a two weeks' revival, I was baptizing 130 people. It was a hot August
Day and there were about three thousand people present. I was about to
baptize the 17th person when all of a sudden I heard that still, little
voice again and it said, "Look up." The sky was like brass on that hot
August day. We had not had any rain for about three weeks. I heard the
voice again, and then again the third time it said "Look up."