Dearly beloved, during my childhood and adolescence I have known about the Word and the Message of our Prophet William Marrion Branham. However, I have not been able to give my life completely to God. By His grace, I married a believer in this Message, and she and my two daughters are always praying for me. I can assure you that those prayers have helped me on many occasions. I would like to give you the testimony of one of those occasions.
In May 2009, in my work, I was kidnapped, tied up, and taken in the back seat of my own vehicle to a deserted part of the city. On the way there, one of the kidnappers was driving, and a woman had her gun in my side the whole time. My eyes were closed all the way.
When we stopped, I heard that there were more people waiting for us. I briefly opened my eyes, looked up, and saw a man getting out of one of the vehicles. He approached me and told me to open my eyes. I was reluctant to do so because I was afraid, but he ordered one of the people who were there to hand him a gun, which he put on my forehead and said, "Open your eyes, don't be afraid of me. Be afraid of the police, not of me." And leaning the barrel against my forehead, he cocked the gun and said, "Open your eyes or I'll shoot." I opened them with fear and he said, "See how nothing happened?"
He pulled me out of the back seat and put me in the driver's seat. He went to sit in the passenger’s seat, where he put his feet up on the dashboard, leaned back, and started asking me questions as he went through my things in the glove compartment. There he found a C.D. that my wife gave me, and it was a sermon by a brother that I had known for years. The sermon is called "I Will Continue." He asked me, "What is in this C.D.?" I only answered, "It is a sermon that my wife gave me," to which he ordered me to put it in. I put the C.D. in the player, fast-forwarded to the beginning of the preaching.
As soon as it started, I noticed that he was listening in a very attentive way to the welcome and the gratitude of the pastor for being in that service, and where he was addressing the church saying: "Brothers, let’s go to the Book of Philippians 3:11-17.
11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
It was there, in that moment and in that instant, which I am sure and certain that our Lord Jesus Christ came down and touched the soul of that man, because his only reaction was to get his feet off the dashboard and tell me, “You will stay here for the next 20 minutes while we leave, and after that time, you can go."
I thank God because even though I am not completely devoted to Him, I have always felt Him close to me through the prayers of my wife and daughters.
God bless you.
Sergio De la Colina
Mexico