Pentecostal Revival

Year 9; Volume 10 - October, 1954
“Let everyone say the truth to his neighbor.” Ephesians 4:25

Brother Branham’s Visit to the Italian Assembly of God Church in Rome

“And everyone was astonished and glorified God, being full of fear, and saying, today we have seen strange things.”

With these same words from the Gospel of Luke, Pastor Roberto Bracco closed the meeting which Brother Branham had at the church in Rome. Truly we had seen strange things.

While the memory of that service is still fresh in my memory, I would like to transcribe some personal impressions, so that others might come to the knowledge of the unique ministry that Brother Branham has received from God.

I knew about this servant of the Lord from the stories that came to me through foreign evangelical periodicals and from the testimonies I had heard from other people. I knew that since Brother Branham was passing through Rome, there was a good possibility that he would stop by for our Sunday service. For that reason I was anxious to be present in church at the appointed time. The church building was packed with people.

My eyes have never seen nor did my ears hear such things before. I have never felt so close to heaven as I did that evening. I have never experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit as gloriously as was manifested among us. Believe me, brethren, as strange as these things that I want to tell you may seem they are exactly the truth.

Brother Branham introduced his Message with these simple words: “Passing through Rome I had a great desire to see you.” It seemed as though I was hearing the Apostle Paul speaking to the Romans of his day, “Having had for many years a great desire to come among you, when I go to Spain I hope to pass by and see you.”

His Message was also very simple and strictly evangelical. First he told us, however, a few of his own personal testimonies.

What struck me the most was the supernatural imprint that has characterized all of his life. That same supernatural imprint also characterized the meeting that Sunday at our church in Rome. Brother Branham’s parents were Catholics, but only in name, because they did not actually claim to have any religion. They did not give any religious instruction to their children. Thus, until he reached a certain point during his adolescence, Brother Branham had only a vague knowledge of God.

One afternoon, returning home from a water well, with his bucket overflowing with water, he had the desire to rest a few moments beneath the shade of an elm tree. While he was seated like that, in the solemn silence of the countryside, broken only by the far-off sound of rippling water in the river, with his thoughts wandering afar off, he heard something like the sound of the wind whirling round about him. He looked around several times, but the perfect stillness of all the surrounding vegetation clearly demonstrated that there was not even the slightest breeze blowing. Where could that sound of wind, which came to his ears so distinctly, have come from? Frightened, he picked up his bucket and began to go back down the road when his eyes, following the direction of the rustling sound, looked up into the tree. At that moment he saw partially hidden in the leaves a large ball of light. He had not completely noticed this appearance when he heard a Voice that said to him, “Do not defile yourself ever with drinking alcohol or smoking because I desire to set you apart for my ministry.”

After that day, he often saw the luminous sphere, and that invisible Voice became ever more familiar to him. He also has had many prophetic visions concerning future events, many of which have come to pass.

One day while he was playing marbles with his friends near his home, he heard that familiar Voice call him. He got alone to himself, and again the Voice told him, “Write down what you see.”

Suddenly, there appeared before him a vision: Some distance away he saw many men engaged in the construction of a bridge. Within a few moments, he saw all of the progressive phases of the construction. During the work of that project, he saw sixteen men die. After that, the bridge was completed.

Years later when the bridge was actually built, it was proved that the Brother Branham’s prophetic vision had been fulfilled. Even the details of the exact location of the bridge and the accidental deaths of the sixteen workers were fulfilled.

He had never seen the person who often spoke to him through the ball of light until that day that God called him to the ministry which he now is carrying out. He was praying in his room when a radiant light that almost blinded him appeared. Because the brightness hurt his vision, he did not see the person until he was almost upon him. He was a tall, robust, dark-skinned man, dressed in an oriental fashion. He was seized with fear, but he was reassured by the tone of that Voice of that person who appeared to him. He recognized it immediately as the same harmonious Voice that he had heard on the previous occasions. This person told him that he was the Angel who stood before God and that he was sent to him to confer upon him the high ministry which he would carry out to the entire world.

Brother Branham also told us about other spiritual experiences from his life, which were very interesting and glorious, but I cannot write about them all because of the limits of space.