Africa Trip Report
Owensboro, Kentucky, U.S.A.
Sermon translation in French: 53-1109 - Shp
E-1 [Brother Branham is reading from Acts 27:21-25--Ed.]
After a long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, you should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have caused this harm and loss.
But now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there stood by me... (Beg your pardon? The 22nd verse)
And... I exhort you to be of a good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship.
For there stood by me this night an angel of God, whose I am, and whose servant I am.
Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God has given unto thee all them that sail with thee.
Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.
May the Lord add His blessing to His Word.
E-2 Now, could you imagine on a stormy sea, and all hopes, and knowing they were out of the will of God, 'cause God had warned Paul not to loosed from Crete, but he couldn't help it. But they went ahead. The ship master, he knowed more about it then what the Holy Spirit did, you know. So he just loosed and went ahead anyhow. And they got out on the ship there in the sea, and there come up a great storm, and for several days and nights there was no moon, no stars, fourteen days and nights. And all hopes that they'd ever be saved was all give up and gone. They was bound to be drowned. They throwed out the tackle of the ship and everything, and still just let it drive, and it was just going anyway. And Paul went down into the gallery and prayed. And there was an Angel that stood by Paul, and said--told him the message.
E-3 Now, I can just see that little Jew come up on top of the--the ship where all these men were weeping and crying. They'll never see their wives again, never see their children again. Just like the doctor tells you that, "You just get ready to die. The cancer's going to kill you. And you'll never get up from the bed no more, and your days are finished." And--and they're weeping. They'll never be up again or something like that.
But this little Jew went down in there and prayed through until he touched God. And in a vision, standing by his side, he saw an Angel which brought him the message, the Angel of the Lord. And he come up and he said, "Wherefore, sir, be of a good cheer: for the Angel of God, Whose servant I am, stood by me last night and said, 'Fear not, Paul; for thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God has give all them that sail with you to you. There won't be any loss of any man.' So he said, wherefore, sirs, be of a good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be just as it was shown me."
Now, I'm so thankful. Wouldn't you like to have been there when Paul, when that was taking place on that ship? Wouldn't we had a wonderful time, just to rejoice and shout with Paul, and walk up and down that--the galleries of that ship? Why, I couldn't have kept still. Could you? And I just wonder why we keep still, and the same thing taking place here night after night. See? That's what I wonder. The same thing... If we'd have been there, we'd have just like we are now.
The great things of God is so great, and yet people try to imagine so much out in here somewhere in the supernatural of a hocus-pocus like, when it's right down here.
E-4 I can teach a five year old child the Kingdom of God, better that I can teach a man that's got a--a degree out of college. I can teach him Christ better. He's simple. He just listens to what you say. Watch coming to the platform. You'll never see God turn a child down. He don't do it. No, sir. Because they're just simple in faith. They believe it. And when they believe it, that just settles it. God says so, and that--that takes care of it. The little child will believe it, but, oh, my, we know better, you know. We knowed all the angles, and just how could it be. We got to figure out, "Now, how could this be?" But it'll be anyhow.
What caused me to go to--to Africa on this trip? Just to... Brings up this vision. And I'm watching that clock there, but I'm way early, so I got plenty of time. It's only twenty-five minutes till four, so I--I suppose I have a whole lot of time. But you... Some of you brothers let me know about, when it's just about time to start the prayer line in about a half-hour.
E-5 I was with Brother Bosworth. It was the night the Angel of the Lord's picture was taken. How many has got that picture now in your possession? Thank you. I'm sure it'll be a great blessing to you.
Here sometime ago, there's a lady at the hospital at the city I live. The picture was setting on the table. The doctor had told here she couldn't get well. Now, this is her story. She said looking at... Not at her brother, but to the Angel of the Lord...
Now, if you'll notice, friends, that is a--a Pillar of Fire. George J. Lacy, you read what he said. Now, that's the best that we got in the United States on--on that kind of work, on research. And when he said that day, said, "If--if the old hypocrite (he meant the unbeliever) says that there can be... never could be scientifically proved that there was a supernatural Being," but said, "he can't say that now, because here's scientific proof that there is a supernatural Being." For you hear what he said. The Light struck the lens. See? And It was there. It was... He said, "The mechanical eye of this camera won't take psychology." Said, "It's not psychology." Said, "I've said it was psychology, Mister Branham, myself," but said, "mechanical eye of this camera won't take psychology. The Light struck the lens. And the--the Being was there."
E-6 You heard what Mr. Dr. Stomewell... How many reads "The Voice of Healing," and read that article in there of Dr. Stomewell on that? He said, "Absolutely." Now, he don't know nothing about this picture yet. He was an atheist, just been converted a few weeks. But he said that, "That magnetic power of a believer in contact with God was so vital," he said, "that even he believed over the Christ, that that halo that was painted was absolutely could been seen." Because it's a power.
Now, just think. He took a--a machine. You know, the human being is not made to lie. And if you're telling a lie, they can put you before a lie detector, and your nerves will react. And then they took this same thing and converted it to a way that they could tell whether it was truth or not, and put it on a person praying, and I think it taken, I forget how many thousand kilowatts to send a radio message around the world, and when this woman begin to pray at her death, there went out enough power from her till it registered over as far as the needle would go. Enough power leaving that woman, actually supernatural power that caught on this machine, some kind of a magnetic power of her prayer, that was powerful enough to send a radio message fifty-five times around the world. That's scientific.
E-7 Men working around in science has found God. That's right. He lives out there. He is in the scientific world. They just touched around on His little basic play things, that He plays with, or has out there for them. Now, they're coming up into a place, in a category, where they can find Him.
Now, on this picture, Brother Bosworth brought me the picture of Florence Nightingale, and you... I'm sorry. We have no more of those books. They're out of print at the time. We wasn't financially able to... Was about ten thousand dollars, to cost about a dollar apiece to print them to put them back in print, and they won't print less than ten thousand. So we couldn't do it. But when they first went out, why then, we sold all them, and they were gone.
E-8 Then, in there he got a copyright from permitting the copyright to place this picture in there. The picture belongs to the Douglas Studios, not me. And--and then, in this picture, as I was saying a few moments ago, a woman in the hospital was looking at it, and was praying after her doctor told her she couldn't get well. She claimed that she seen that picture, that mill of Fire, come out of there and stand over where she was. I knowed one thing, I don't know what taken place there, but the next day, she was sent home well. I don't know what. I--I know that. And she was sent home well.
Now, It's His Being. And if we'll read the Scripture, we find out that it was a Pillar of Fire that led the children of Israel. That same Pillar of Fire, I believe, was over Jesus Christ. And I believe that He's raised--risen from the dead, showing the same signs that He showed when He was here on earth. And it's that same Pillar of Fire that's over the Church right now, the same Angel of God, that same Presence.
E-9 Now, there is times that you say, "God..." We have--want to look at it that way, but there's many times that things are done and said that angelic Beings brings the message to Him. God was in a certain place, and met a certain man at a certain time, and if He could've found a man one time, in the end He would've slew him, and so forth. We realize that there's times where God is certain places. That's exactly truth. The Scripture teaches that.
Now, in this case when we promise God... And I told you a few nights ago about the healing of Florence Nightingale. When we went down into Africa...
Now, my wife is setting somewhere in the building. I haven't spied where she's at yet, but anyhow, I guess she's got backed up in a corner. So anyhow, she's as bashful as I used to be. And so, anyhow, when--when we were... Knowed so much about the... I tell you how much geography we knowed. I told her. She said, "Where you going now, honey."
E-10 I said, "I'm going down to Durban, South Africa, or--or Durban, Southern Rhodesia. That's where I going." Why... And she wrote... I said, "You write all of my mail to Durban, Southern Rhodesia." And here, she was writing to Durban, Southern Rhodesia, and Durban's in South Africa, not in Rhodesia. Just be like writing Owensboro, British Columbia. There is no such a place. See? But anyhow, the man, I guess, seeing how dumb we were, so they just... The post office sent it on down to South Africa, another nation, and down in Durban.
But when we landed in Johannesburg that afternoon, I guess there was many, many thousand people at the ramp. And so then, when we went out that night and got into Durban... Now, Brother Bosworth setting here, which was right present for every bit of it... And there was Mr. Baxter, and many of the others; my boy also was present. And when we landed, why then, they had to take me several miles out into the country where they had no place to put the people, and no park, no nothing in the city. Had to go way out into the country to where there's a big school, and place them out there. And I guess the police was guarding the roads up and down, just strings of people for miles. And there they was, all out in this place. It taking us, oh, I guess, twenty-five, thirty minutes to drive to where the place was.
E-11 And when we got there, I'd been in the air for three days and three nights, almost wrecked twice. You heard in the paper here about three years ago, when a car... Fifty-two were killed at one time. We were just behind that accident. And the same place, the instrument broke, and we were over that city, my boy and I, over that city for about two and a half hours, trying to come down with no instrument, and it so fog you couldn't even see nothing. It... Go right down real low and see the lights, then they was going... My wife would've been screaming and crying and praying if she'd knowed that I was in that fix then.
But I was... Not only was she praying, that she'd been praying, I was praying. That's right. And I was very thankful that I had a heavenly Father Who was riding by my side to help me down.
E-12 Sailors and things, when they got off of there, said, "Well, this is the last one. For the rest of the way from here, we'll go by ship. They can have all the airplanes they want. We'll take ours by water." And so, they were ready to get away.
And so, finally when we got in there, and got out to the place where the meeting was, I just got at the platform, tired, no sleep, you can imagine what it was, rocking and pitching in that air for all that time, and thousands of people, just like oceans of people were setting. And they were... I was strange. I thought Africans were all black people, but every one of these was white. And I said, "Are these Africans?"
"Yeah, they're all Afrikaans people."
E-13 So I expect when I landed in--down there that I'd have to find a beaten path to the little hut, but I come to find out it's more modern then our cities are here in America. It's just a beautiful place at Johannesburg. So I thought, "My, this is strange." I thought, "Where's all the David Livingstons? They won't need them around here no more."
And so, they... We went out to the people there, and just as soon as we got to the platform, I happened to notice coming across the top of the people, I guess, Brother Bosworth, I hadn't been there, oh, about five minutes, till a vision started, and I seen a--a bus moving like this over top the audience, and it was something blue, and I just kept watching it, till it got to me. I wasn't saying nothing, because I was tired, and didn't know just exactly where to make my first beginning, the closing to a vision, to close in with the individual to a vision. And I noticed the--the bus coming. It come right close to me real close, and I seen a sign on it said, "Durban." And the bus went out of my sight.
Well, I just started on speaking, and went on, and I noticed, here come that bus again. And I seen it stop, and I seen a boy get on that had one leg about six inches shorter than the other one on a crutch. And he held his leg on this crutch (You see?), and walked like that. He got on the bus, and I seen him coming on like that. That bus come on up close to me and stopped again. Well, I just kept on speaking, if I said, "I'm awfully tired tonight. I'm really worn out." I said, "We're expecting a great meeting here in Africa. We just closed one in New York City, and..."
Now, there's something about New York City. Now, you watch. Remember, there's something about New York City. Don't forget that, you hear? All right. I had just left New York, New York. I said, "I'm so tired." And I watched that. Then I seen this boy again coming, walking across the audience, and he didn't have this crutch under his arm anymore. He was just normal and well, with his leg just a normal size.
E-14 Now, this was the first thing, they'd been setting there about... Been... I'd been in the audience of people at least ten minutes. And I happened to look, and where the boy had walked and stopped in the air, I looked right down below him, and there sit the boy, just about the distance of this building, hardly as far. And I looked and seen the boy. And I said, "Don't you come from Durban there, son, with the white shirt on?"
He said, "Yes, sir." Spoke English. "Yes, sir." He come from Durban.
I said, "Aren't one of your legs about six inches shorter?"
And he said, "That's me, exactly."
I said, "It isn't anymore. You're healed." And here he come walking up there just as normal just as he could be. And the people begin screaming, and faith, oh, my, with one collapse.
E-15 Just then I seen a little green car hit the road like this, and turn around like this, and slide backward, hit a tree. I seen them take a young lady, blond-headed, and she was all broke up. They wouldn't let... move her. They went and got the doctors, and they put her on a ambulance. It was in her spine. She was broke three or four places in the spine. But I seen the thing take place, but I couldn't tell where it was. I couldn't see that girl, that went when... And it happened, there was a high fence like, a high place built, and I happened to look right down under me, and here she laid right down here, beneath right here. I seen it was the same girl. And I said, "Didn't you have an accident recently?"
"Yes."
And I said, "You was in a little green car, and the--the car slid sideways and then backed up like this and hit a tree."
She said, "That's right."
I said, "Your back is broke."
And her mother said, "Oh, she just can't move."
I looked out, and I seen the girl going real fast right down across the audience in a vision, going walking real fast. I said, "Stand up, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for THUS SAITH THE LORD, you're healed."
E-16 And she said... Her mother said, "Oh, no, darling. No, no." Said, "If she moves, she'll die. The doctor said she'd die." And the girl jumped up and let out a big scream, and her mother fainted and fell in the same cot. So they just let her lay in the cot, and let the girl go on. Is that right, Brother Bosworth?
[Brother Bosworth says, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes, sure. And the next night I saw this, her back was broke in three places. I saw her in the audience the next night, and waited till I got her eye, for her come up here. And she came up and set. I told her, 'Set on one of these seats back here till Brother Branham comes. I want to introduce you.' And so she set there, and as quick as I saw you come through that side door. 'Come quick, come quick!" And there they took the picture. We have the picture now."--Ed.] That's right. Thank you, brother.
E-17 That she was... Her mother fainted and fell in the same cot, so they just pushed it over, and let her mother lay in the cot while the girl rejoiced in the Lord going up-and-down the place. And a doctor said, "If she moved..." And you know what it is, a back--broken back, an accident on a highway here. Even a--a... No one can move that person 'less the doctor orders it. And you better know what your speaking about before you call such a person too. If that's in your own head, well, something will... That person would kill themselves. But don't worry. If God says so, you move. That's just exactly, 'cause it'll be that way.
Well, we would just... Oh, there's so many things happened there in about fifteen minutes, till I just collapsed almost. They taken me to the house. And on the road up, there was a man, Brother Schoeman, men many of you may know him. He was the chairman of the National Committee. And all the churches of Africa was co-operating. They... All but the Dutch Reform church, and that's really a hard church to get along with. If there's any here, I don't mean to say any word about the church, but they don't believe in water baptism; they don't--they don't believe anything hardly. And so, they are just a very formal, ritualistic, cold, indifferent church.
E-18 And so the--the next day, Brother Schoeman going up, which he was--he belonged to the--the Apostolic Faith Missions of Africa. And he was the President of the--of my--of my group. And he was a National Committee. And Brother Schoeman, going home that night, he said, "Oh, I think that was wonderful." But he was telling me that, but yet, I knowed he didn't believe that. I knowed he didn't believe it. And I was going home at his house to stay all night, 'cause there wasn't no places to stay. So I--I went to his house to stay all night. And I went in the room, Brother Baxter said, "Oh," said, "I tell you, this fellow Schoeman is a mighty man."
I said, "Yes, he is." But I knowed he wasn't believing that.
E-19 So I, the next morning come out... He was a nice man, but he thought sure that I was--it was mental telepathy, or some kind of a--a trick I had up my sleeve to do it. It was like a rabbits foot or something, you know, you rub on. Till he--he... I knowed he was suspicious. And the next morning, I got up, and we went to breakfast. And when we was setting at the breakfast table, I thought... I looked at him again, and caught him this a way to know that I'd catch his spirit. I said, "It's beautiful weather in Africa, Brother Schoeman."
Said, "Yes, just very, very, very."
E-20 And I thought, "Ha-ha-ha." You could just feel that little shadow there. I--I knew that he wasn't just exactly where he should be...?... So I thought, "Now, Lord, if You'll just help me to just kind of shake him just a little, then--then it'll make the thing... 'Cause he's the chairman of the committee." And just... I thought, "Well, if You don't, why, it's all right. Just let it go."
So, I was setting there eating, and after while the Holy Spirit come down and there broke a vision across the table while we was setting there. I said, "Brother Schoeman, your little girl here, isn't her name Andrea?"
He said, "Yes."
And I said, "About six months ago, you almost lost her, didn't you?"
He said, "Yes, sir."
I said, "It was something wrong in her throat."
Said, "Yes, sir."
I said, "She's had a hard time swallowing since then, hasn't she?"
Said, "Say, that's right."
E-21 And--and then It turned around and told him something that I won't say here, 'cause some his friends may be setting here. And he just almost passed out at the table.
He said, "Brother Branham, I told Brother Baxter before we come in." He said, "Brother Branham, I was just a little bit skeptic, but I want to reach my hand to you." It was clear then. He--he knew.
So the next... That day, we had a marvelous time. The next morning, Brother Baxter and all of us, we come in and he said, "Brother Branham," he said, "I got some news for you."
Said, "What?"
E-22 He said, "How would you like to go way down through Kimberly and Capetown, and all around through there, up around through Victoria?"
"Oh," I said, "that would be marvelous."
He said, "Do you know what? Brother duPlessis has come over and set up an itinerary, all of them, and we're going to take a great big itinerary hundreds of miles down through here."
I said, "Marvelous, marvelous, that's just fine."
So then, after the service that night, I went home, went in the room, went to bed, went to sleep, and about two o'clock in the morning I woke up, and I heard some kind of a little old bird out the window. And I slipped over and raised up and looked through those reeds to look where--where the birds was. And it was--it was chirping at night. And I thought, "That isn't a nightingale." And I looked at my watch, and it was about two o'clock. I come back and set down, turned on a little dim light and begin to--to read my Bible. And just then, I looked up and here He was standing before me, milling around.
E-23 He said, "Don't you go with them, but you stay right here in Durban." And said, "You... Right here in--in Johannesburg." Said, "You stay here two weeks, and then there's going to be a man by the name of Jackson, is going to take you lion hunting. And you're going out, and you take that week with him and go out and hunt lions, and tigers, and things for a week out in the jungle." Said, "Come back, and then you go over to Durban, a place called Durban, and stay there a month."
He said, "Now, that you might know that this will come to pass," he said, "tomorrow morning," he said, "they're going to take you down to this city. And there's going to be a--a little garden like, and a--a native standing there with a purple shirt on." Said, "It's going to be a rare thing. You tell the men that they're going to take you down there." And said, "Then they're going to get a doctor, and they're going to work it around to another minister, and this doctor is going to be a thin man wearing glasses." And said, "The doctors tell him that he's got cancer and dying." But said, "It's an error. It's an error of the doctors. They cut the wrong thing in him, and he's dying because of that." And said, "Don't pray for him, for he's going to die."
E-24 And He said, "Now, now, and on the road, they're going to take you to another city. And on the road, you're going to meet a girl. She'll be selling beads on the side of the road. She's going to have a great big skin place on the side of her head. And while you're standing there," said, "Mr. Baxter is going to call your attention to a very funny looking big bird making a noise as it goes across the--the plain." And said, "By this, you'll know, and they'll know that you're not to take that itinerary that them ministers has got set up, but you're to go this a way."
Well, that settled it. So I went in and woke Brother Baxter up. I said, "Brother Baxter, we can't take that itinerary."
Said, "Well, you'll have to tell Brother Schoeman tomorrow."
I told Brother Schoeman. And, oh, if you have ever been in Africa, why, that's kinda hard to let them know that, you know.
E-25 Said, "Oh, it's set up." So here come the whole association. That night, the Lord worked a powerful miracle. And the next morning, when we got up, they'd... I'll tell you what the miracle was.
I just... As the second night there--third night, it would've been that night, and here's what taken place. Now, this African man, this Boer, had never heard about the Angel of the Lord. Now we got the shirt, and everything to show, the papers and everything, headlines two or three pages in the Dutch Reform church which controls.
And the second morning, while we're there, I forget to tell you this. The first night I was there, and the first night I spoke and they seen the miracle, there happened to be a group of the Medical Association out there. And the next morning, the entire Medical Association of all South Africa called me to come to breakfast and give me the right-hand of fellowship, and said, "Brother Branham, that's genuine Divine healing."
E-26 How about that, Brother Bosworth? Huh? "The genuine Divine healing, which we're absolutely not against." He said, "Now, there's many people down here that didn't believe in doctors. We heard you speak for the doctors." Said, "There's been people that we could've helped, Rev. Branham, and we are Christians." He said, "We could've helped them, but they had the--the Christian Science idea that you shouldn't have a doctor." And said, "Through that, they died, many of them. And we believe we could've helped them." And said, "Now, they love you. And you spoke for us," and said, "now, we're speaking for you, and anything that we can do for you, let us know. And every hospital in the whole Transvaal, Free state, Orange state, everything's absolutely open. Anybody that can come; you can go to any hospital. Anything we can do, we'll be right along with you to help you." And they followed me through out entire Africa.
And in a few moments, I'll get to the story of the conversion of some of them, and if I can hurry to get my time in now. All right. Now... Or get my story out before my time is up.
E-27 So then, then that same night, there was a... One of these Boer ministers. That's a--a church of the--of the--of the Boer. They called the Dutch Reform church, they went out. He went out to see his friend, and his friend said that I was a spiritualist, mind reader. So he went over to his friend; he said, "God have mercy on you." Said, "It's the hour of visitation to Africa. And you--and you doing such a thing as that." Said, "That's sin."
He said, "The man ain't nothing in the world but a polished up soothsayer."
And he said, "I'd go out and have prayer for your sinful soul, 'cause God might strike you dead." And he goes out in the kneels down there in a little--a little, I believe it was a peach tree, a little peach tree just about twenty yards from the house, raised up his hands, he... They wear a white shirt, and a white tie. And so, he raised up his hands, said, "God, have mercy on my friend in there. He's going to die and go to hell with such thoughts as that." And--and said, "The hour of visitation is here, and look at him in there. There he is setting there." Oh, he was just telling God all about it.
Now, here is the man's story. He said that a Pillar of Light, about two foot long, about eight inches, or ten inches high, of a Light came down, and the Light parted from side to side, and that man described that Angel to a dot. Said, a large Man, two hundred pounds, dark hair to His shoulder, walked down to him and laid His hand on his back. And he said, "When He laid his hand on his back, it felt like that fire had burnt plumb through his body." And he said, "Rise, and tell your friend that this is the hour of visitation, and not to condemn this man."
E-28 So, he jumped up from there, and he said, "Did I go to sleep? Was I dreaming?" And he run and said, "Well, well, I--I don't..." And he run up and begin to tell his friend about it, and his friend looked around, and here was the shape of that Angel's hand scorched in that white, broad-cloth shirt. And the next morning, the man seen it, and they took it, and here was a picture that big in the paper, went plumb through all Africa.
I got the shirt now. They called me down, the authorities, checked my hand with it, and every... And there the man's hand, just perfectly a man's hand scorched right through his shirt. We got the shirt. There it was in the African paper. Right a way, my. And then, them...
They wanted me to leave. Why, I said, "No. The Lord told me stay here." He said for me to stay here.
And the next day, when we started out, everything the Lord had said would take place, took place just exactly that way. Even to the little bead salesman. And Brother Baxter trying to take our picture. I said, "Don't you remember that bead salesman I told you?"
E-29 "Oh," he said, "Brother Branham, that's her." Just then something went, "Squawk, squawk." And it was a--a wild peacock, going, flying down through... I said--he said, "Look at that bird there. Wasn't that a funny looking thing, Brother Branham?"
I said, "It is."
Brother Schoeman said, "That's a wild peacock."
And I said, "Do you remember, Brother Baxter, what I told?"
He said, "Well, Brother Branham, it's exactly, isn't it?"
And I said, "Brother Schoeman, I can't take that itinerary." I said, "I'm sorry to have to interfere with you ministers, but He told me not to take it."
Said, "Brother Branham, we have to take it."
"Oh," I said, "but, you may have to take it, but--but not me." I said, "No, I don't have to take it, Brother Schoeman."
E-30 The next morning, they're just that persistent, here come the cars right up to go anyhow. Well I, if you go... Brother Baxter said, "Are you going, Brother Branham?"
I said, "No, sir."
So here they was outside, and my suitcase wasn't packed, nothing. I said, "No. The Lord told me not to go."
Well, in come the ministers, and Brother Bosworth knows, we had a round of it. He said, "Well, the meetings are closed here."
And I said, "Ridiculous. Right where the Lord's give us the favor and everything, and telling us to stay here, and here's where we're to stay."
E-31 And no, they wanted to go. And so, I put my clothes under my arm and so forth, and we got out, and Brother Bosworth and all of them right along. And we started down, and as we started going, just a hundred and something miles, I said, "What are you going down here for?"
"Well, we promised Brother So-and-so we'd be here, Brother..."
E-32 I say this with reverence brother, if you want to get in trouble, just mess with a preacher. You sure get in trouble. So that's right. Now, they're God's servants. They have to be a little suspicious and things. But, brother, I've had more trouble of preachers getting me out of the will of God then anything I've ever seen in my life." Yes, sir! 'Cause one will say, "The Lord..." See, the man's right. If the Lord told him to do that, let him go do it. He may tell me something else. And no matter whatever tells you, if he's a prophet, if he's a preacher, whatever he may be, if God's told you something contrary, don't you pay no attention to that prophet, preacher, priest, or whatever it is; you listen to God. Always listen to God.
E-33 How many ever read I Kings 13, where a little prophet went down and prophesied, and done works of God told him something to do. And another real prophet come to him and told him, said, "The Lord met me and said you come to my house and eat." You know what happened, don't you? Yes, sir. You listen to God, regardless of who says or what says. You listen to God.
Well, the minister said, "We promised our brethren that we'd bring you to their town."
I said, "What size city is this we're going to?"
"About three thousand."
"Why, there was ten, fifteen, twenty thousand people out there to go to the meeting. Where are you going to put them?"
"Don't know. But we promised brother we'd be there." There you are.
I said, "I--I appreciate that. I love our brethren, but God has said...?... to be right over there."
E-34 So, we started down the road, and Brother and Sister Schoeman in the car, and Billy Paul, I believe... No, I was by myself, and I think Billy was back with Brother Bosworth and them. And what... Three or four carloads of ministers coming, kept going on down, the Holy Spirit said, "Are you going to listen to Me?"
I said, "Brother Schoeman, stop the car."
He said, "What's the matter, Brother Branham?"
I said, "Just stop."
And he stopped and said, "Well, what?" We way ahead of the rest of them, 'cause he drove like Jehu. So he pulled the brake up and he--and he said, "Well, what's the matter?"
I said, "I'm just not going any farther."
"Well," he said, "Brother Branham," said, "I don't care for you staying up there." Said... He's the chairman. Said, "That's my city. That's my district." He said, "But the brethren want you to go down there." He said, "They're not going to listen to that, Brother Branham."
I said, "Well, I'm going to listen to God, anyhow."
E-35 So, he--he stopped, and up come the brethren. Now, if anybody's here remembers in Shreveport, Louisiana, standing and speaking like this, one day the Holy Spirit come just before going over, and he said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD," to me, "be careful, there's a trap for you in Africa."
Well, I thought it was witch doctors and so forth. I thought, "Well, I know Who God is, and witch doctors ain't going to bother me." I didn't know it was among brethren. See? So sly was Satan.
And we stopped on the road. Up come Brother Bosworth and Brother Baxter, and all of them stopped, and all them... And Brother Schoeman went back there and said, "You'll have to go see him." Said, "He just refuses to go any farther."
E-36 Well, up come Brother Baxter, and got kind of huffy with me. He said, "Brother Branham, listen." He said, "We're about twelve thousand miles away from home. We're down here at the mercy of these people. And don't you think these ministers, we should consider them?"
I said, "As far as considering and being reverent to brothers, we should. But I should look to God first."
And he said, "Brother Branham, I--I just--just can't believe that it's exactly right."
And then, up comes Brother Bosworth. And Brother Bosworth setting here, now watch, right's right, and wrong... Brother Bosworth said, "Brother Branham, I believe you're mistaken."
And I said, "My old saintly dad that stood on the platform with me and watched the visions, and works, and wonders and so forth, and hear me say, 'THUS SAITH THE LORD'?"
E-37 Brother Baxter, Brother Bosworth, lovely, both of them, well, the ministers... Another African minister walked up and said, "Brother Branham, don't you think God speaks to somebody else besides you?"
I said, "Yes, Korah had the same idea at one time." I said, "But I don't know what."
He said, "God told us to make that itinerary."
E-38 I said, "But God told me not to take it." I said, "He might've told you, but He told me not to take it. And for my part, I'm not going to take it."
So then, there we was all hugged together on the road. All right, stopped in the middle of the road, meeting waiting. And I... You remember it, Brother Bosworth. I said, "I'm not going to do it."
So, they went on and hum-hawed around. Said, Brother Baxter said, "Well, Brother Branham, I'd go on down to the city at least, and then pray for them people there, and we'll go home." Said, "I'm just through, and tired, and sick." And Brother Baxter's very nervous, you know. And--and he said, "I'm just through with the whole thing. I wash my hands of it." Said, "You can't listen to things like that." Said, "I--I'm through with the managing of it."
And I said, "Well, you can be that too." But I said, "I'm going to listen to God, regardless." And God, if I'd only hung with that. See?
E-39 And then, I walked over there, and got some locust leaves off the tree. And pulled the locust leaves down, and put them in my hand, and there stood Brother Bosworth, Brother Baxter, and several ministers. And I walked along with these locust leaves throwing it on their feet. I said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, from this time on, we're out of the will of God, and it'll be nothing but trouble until we return." Got back in the car crying like a baby, set down in the car, and I held my head down. Brother Schoeman glad to get me back in the car, and so away he went with me again.
We got down there in that little city, and there they was laying out there in the fields and hills, no place to go, no place to eat, nothing, laying out there, that great big place back there ready for us, just moved out of it.
E-40 All right. Immediately, Brother Bosworth starts, holding of, kind of give a little beginning of the meeting, and there come up a tropical storm, and liked to drown the whole bunch. And there I was setting down the house, out of the will of God, just as much as Abraham was when he was in Gerar. Just setting down there in the house, I said, "Lord, let them have a lesson of it." So I was just setting there in the house.
About midnight, in come Brother Bosworth, drenched. Said, "Oh, my, we tried tonight."
I said, "Uh-huh."
E-41 So, the next day... "Oh, that'll be all right," they said. "We..." And you've never seen a storm till you hear a tropical storm. You hear a lot to lightening flash, and roaring, and after while it--it just clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. It's just like that, the lightning's flashing. Just a constant roar, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, the lightning a going.
And then, all of them liked to have drowned, sick people, and everything.
So then, the next morning it cleared off. Said, "Oh, this'll be fine tonight." And then when it come night time, just about the time they got ready to take me, there come up a cold spell, and liked to froze them all to death. That's right.
About ten o'clock, come into the house, eleven o'clock, I said, "Uh-huh." I said, "Now, tomorrow night, we'll have an earthquake." I said, "We're out of the will of God, brethren."
E-42 Brother Bosworth, my old saintly dad setting here, setting there at the table, at the round table, we just got into our Brother Fourie's house, and his... I just met his wife setting there at the table. I looked over to his wife, I said, "Lady..." Told her what she was suffering with, what she had, what was wrong with her, and said, "You're healed." And right there, God healed her and made her well. Looked over to Brother Fourie, and told him, that was in their house. I said, "Now, do you believe?"
"We believe."
But the ministers, they wouldn't... "No. We got to go on. We're going on anyhow."
E-43 Well, we fussed till about two o'clock in the morning, wasn't it, Brother Bosworth. And now, there's many things that I make a mistake, and God, sometimes let's your very best bosom friends, do you know that, wrap right around you. Now, Brother Bosworth was just as sincere. He's setting here, and so is Brother Baxter. But you see, God was giving me a try. So he said, "Somebody..."
Brother Bosworth said to me, said, "Brother Branham, I believe now, if you'll go down through that way." They told him they had natives down there. But we didn't know the truth of it. The only place there wasn't any segregation was at Durban. And we didn't know it at the time.
Brother Bosworth was looking at it from the natural, ministerial stand point, like, if I'd happen to quit this meeting right here in the next ten minutes and walk away, somebody'd say, "Well, that guy's a hypocrite." You just don't understand. You have to do what the Holy Spirit says. I can't be like some of them sets their meetings up for two or three years ahead of time. I don't know even an hour from now what God's going to have me doing. But, now, whatever He tells me, I'm going to do it by His grace.
E-44 So then, watch this lesson, and then you'll understand. Then, Brother Bosworth said, "Brother Branham, I believe if you'll go on down there, you will see the exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we could do or think, or so forth. That's His word."
I said, "Brother Bosworth," I put my hand in his, I said, "As many battles as we've stood together, and I'm telling you in the Name of the Lord Jesus, that we're out of the will of God. And it's going to be nothing but trouble."
All the ministers begin to carry on. So they begin to talk about, along about two o'clock in the morning, the permissive will of God. God would permit it. It wouldn't be His perfect will, but being they had put up thousands of dollars for advertisement, rented great big auditoriums and things, big baseball parks and things down through there, why, it was no more than right we should go. Thousands of dollars, and natives was already piling in from everywhere, all down through there. I said, "God can sent then all up here." And we found out later, He--it would've right. But no, they wouldn't listen to that. Huh-uh. No, we had to go anyhow, because they'd promised the brothers.
E-45 So he said, "Do you said they were going to have an earthquake tomorrow night?"
I said, "I don't know what we'll have tomorrow night. It's hard to tell what we'll have." And I... Well, they asked the permissive will. I said, "God might permit it, but it'll never be His will."
So, I was crying again, so in the room we went. And my little old boy, I don't see him standing here anywhere, but he's in here somewhere in the building. When we walked out of the room, I was alone. He put his arm around me, come out with me. He said, "Daddy, don't you listen to those preachers." He said, "If nobody in the whole country will stand by you, I'll stay with you if we have to hitchhike back home."
E-46 And I said, "Well, Billy, I--I don't know what to do. I... Here we are down here, and these people, and..." If we ever got back, they had to pay the way. So we was--we was out there. I got enough friends in America, I believe, that'd send me a ticket to come home on. I'd pay it back to them later. And I said, "I--I... But if I go back home, I'm still not doing what He told me to do. He told me to stay in Johannesburg."
And so I... Billy said, "Well, daddy, I'll stay with you."
I said, "Well, come on, let's pray, honey."
We went in the room, our room, and there was a great bunch of ministers. They went in their rooms and so forth, and they said, "Go ask the Lord if He will permit you to do it, being we've got everything set up like this. Well, I prayed. Billy went to bed, went to sleep after he got tired. He prayed a little bit, and kid-like, crawled up and went to sleep.
E-47 So, I--I just kept on praying. Along about three or four o'clock in the morning, here He come. I said, "Who are these men? And what do they mean, Lord?"
He said, "Go on with them. But you're going to pay for it if you go with them." Said, "You can go. And if you want to go, all right. But remember, you're going to pay for it." He said, "Tomorrow morning, go wake up your boy." He had respect to Billy. If Billy'd only submit his way to God, and believe in God, the ministry of mine would just be a little bitty thing. I know what's in the boy. But he's just in an adolescence age, and he just--he just don't know where he's standing. But I know that boy, setting here the other night, and he said, "Daddy, I was going down the road, and something...?..." He will say, "Daddy, you know... "We never been on this road before." Said, "Right along another place, there's going to be a barn setting at a certain place, and a certain..." Why sure. Be just exactly that way. See? And that gift is laying so close to him, if he'd just move over into it, it would be wonderful. But he's just at that frolic age, you know, and adolescence, and you know what I mean. And so, I pray that God will settle him down someday, and put him on a platform that'll give a ministry that'll just bring millions of souls to Christ. I do. You pray for him too. And so, he's got a lot up front, but I know what Billy is in the back. See?
E-48 So then, we--we... He went in there, and the Angel of the Lord told me, said, "You go, wake up Billy, and tell him that tomorrow morning this storm, or weather is going to clear up. Then at Sunday school, the Sunday school service out on the desert, they're going to ask you to come pray for the sick. He's going... There's going to be a boy come with him..." [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] See, he come so that nobody would talk to me while I'm on--coming on the road, they don't let no one talk when you're under the anointing. And said, "Now, when he comes, he's going to come in a little black car, and there's going to be boy come with him, and he's going to pick up another boy. And on the road down, there's going to be a native standing by a, dressed in a white safari suit at a eucalyptus tree, narrow bridge, he's going to striking another native with a stick. Your boy will call your attention. By that, you know that you're permitted to go. I won't take your life, but you're going to pay for it."
E-49 I went right in, woke up Brother Bosworth. He had a little-little light there that Billy give him. He pressed on. The Lord speaks to him along in the night time with something or the other, he writes it down on a piece of paper so he can have it for the next day. He said he couldn't remember as good as he used to, said he'd have to write it down when the Lord had give him something.
And I went in, woke him up, woke up Brother Stadsklev, Brother Baxter, Brother Bosworth, and all of them, the ministers. I said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, that God has told me that I could go, but I'd pay for it. And our meetings will not be like they should be. But if you're determined, I'm willing to take this, to whatever the--the whipping is to come, but we shouldn't do it." And I told them what exactly the morning would be, and it was still storming then. I said what it'd be. And the next morning, it happened just exactly (Is that right, Brother Bosworth?), just exactly the way the Lord said. Billy come after me the same way, them boys. And he just had his hand back like this. The boy started talking to me, and the boy motioned, my boy motioned his hand not to do that. And I was setting there praying, waiting till he got to the platform. And--and just then, Billy said, he was looking around behind the seat. The driving wheel's on the right hand side, and he was looking this way, had his arm across, and he was setting in the front, another boy, and I in the back. He said, "Daddy, looky there." And there was that native with that white suit on, standing at that eucalyptus tree, near the bridge, fixing to strike the other one. And I said, "What'd I tell you, Billy?" And the little fellow started crying. I said, "Daddy's headed for some trouble for himself, but here we are." I said, "The next time I ever come to this country, I'd better be straightened out 'fore I get here." And I said, "I won't--I won't come if it's not."
E-50 We went on out, had the meeting that day, went on down, at the very next town was Kimberly, wasn't it? A big diamond mine, where the President taken us down, and showed us the mines... And we had about fifteen thousand people, and a little building that would seat half of this. And that Afrikaans minister, Brother Bosworth went to him, said, "Well, isn't there a place?"
"No place could get it. And anyhow, we're going to have it in my church. The brethren promised me we can have it in our church."
Brother Bosworth said, "Well, ridiculous man." Said. "Look at the streets, they're packed full of people. The fields are standing full of people." Said, "You mean to tell me that you want it in your little old church there that'll seat about three or four hundred, and there around fifteen thousand or more people standing there?"
"The brethren told me I could have it in my church, and that's just where it's going to be."
And poor old Brother Bosworth, I never seen him out of humor in my life. But he come back up to the house, he said, "Let's take a walk."
We went walking. He said, "Brother Branham, did you ever hear of such? It's ridiculous."
E-51 I said, "Of course, Brother Bosworth, that's the exceedingly, abundantly (You see?), that we..." I said, "We're out of the will of God."
Brother Bosworth said, "I just can't stand that preacher acting like that." And downtown he went on his own hook, went out there, and rented a great big stadium that seated them every one real nice, had the meeting. Went on down through Capetown, on the road coming back, coming out of Capetown, here the story starts. I got sick, started getting sicker. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] By the time I got to Durban about two weeks later, I was really sick. I couldn't even hold my head up.
And I got to Durban, and their meeting there consisted of a nearly a hundred thousand people, where thirty thousand converts in one day's time. And they said, "We promised Brother So-and-so." Two thousand miles farther up in Rhodesia I should go, after about two or three days meeting in Durban: walk off and leave a hundred thousand natives that had toiled for as many as a hundreds of miles, and packing their loved ones on reeds through the jungles to be healed. That's the exceedingly, abundantly.
E-52 And there, the white and black could come together. They separated each tribe and so forth, but the only place in Africa that you could do it. Is that right, Brother Bosworth? The Holy Spirit knew that all the time, and we didn't.
So then, the rest of the meeting, I just barely lived to get home. And when I come home, come to find out, I had an African ameba dysentery, blood just poured just as hard as it could. Nothing would stop it. They was going to throw me the pesthouse when I got to America. They took me in to a doctor and examined me. He said, "It's the worst case I ever saw in my life." He put me in a place, and he give me sixty-days treatment. God just turned His back on me, said, "Go ahead, take it. You wanted it."
E-53 I said, "O Lord, help me. Help me." And He just let me just go ahead and holler. And I just cried and begged and everything else. Didn't do no good. Months passed, just the same, never let up at all. Just kept on. The doctors give me everything they had. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] And he straightly examined me, he said, "I only got one more treatment, and that's strict arsenic." He said, "I can't give you that very much." He give me seven doses of it, and I turned as yellow as a pumpkin. He examined me again, said, "Reverend, if I give you..." His father was a minister right here in Kentucky, Doctor Lucus, at Louisville, Kentucky, if you'd like to ask him: Doctor Lucus and Ryan. And so he, the best there is on--on ameba in this country. And he said, "Reverend Branham, that's the worst type of ameba." Said, "It's not a germ, it's a parasite. Gets into the stomach, and intestinal tract, and just set there and suck on the--on the intestinal tract till the mucus is gone, then gets in the blood stream, takes your life."
So then, and they're in little cones, and when you send medicine down, they just shut up and don't eat it. And I tell you, you never get over it hardly.
So then, I... There I was laying there dying. So then, he give me the that. And they give me examination after that. I had more ameba than I had in the first place.
Now he said, "Reverend Branham, I don't want to alarm you." Said, "You're a married man, got a couple children, three?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "You return home now. There's nothing we can do for you." Said, "There's nothing in the line of medicine that can be done." He said, "Now, if those amebas retire why they--you may go on all right, and have these breaks the rest of your life. He said, "If they go into the farther from the mucus gland into the blood stream, you'll start taking a real high fever. And if they gather on the liver, it'll push out a knot, and you'll get real heavy cramps here. And you let us know right at once, and we'll cut in there and drain that liver out. You'll get over it. But then, if it strikes the brain, or the heart, you'll live ten hours."
E-54 Well, that was a lot of encouragement. I went home. My poor little old wife setting there, and I told her. "Well, what am I going to do? My ministry's ended now. I got two little children to raise: one's seven and the other one two. Now what am I going to do?" That's the exceedingly, abundantly, not obeying God.
I walked up-and-down the floors. I've cried. I begged. I persuaded, back and forth, back and forth, got down to about a hundred and ten pounds, just walking back and forth, crying and praying, back and forth, and back and forth on the floor. Got so I couldn't rest at night. Just, every time, I thought I had a fever every five minutes. And--and I just knew the fever was coming. I was laying there, and the little girl and I was in one of the bedrooms sleeping. Wife and the other little girl was in the next bedroom. The hallway's between the bath, setting between the two beds. So in that room, I was laying there. I woke about two o'clock in the morning; I'd been sleeping about a half hour, and I put my hand back like this, and I said, "O God."
And I remembered Brother Bosworth when I left Africa. I put my arm around him when we got on the plane. I said, "Well, Brother Bosworth, I have fought a good fight. I've finished the course. I accept my fate--or the fate." He said... I said, "I guess my days are over."
He said, "Well, you're just a brand new Branham." He said, "You're just a boy." Said, "I was your..."
I said, "Well, I'm forty-two years old."
E-55 He said, "Well, I was forty years old, 'fore I started preaching here." Said, "Boy, you're just a child." Said, "Here I am, seventy, something," said, "I'm just going strong." Said, "I..." Said, "Well, you just got your education and diploma." Just going on like that, and I thought, "Oh, my."
So, I was thinking about what I told Brother Bosworth. I thought, "What if my future holds. I guess it won't be long now till I'll be gone." And I thought, "If fever strike me, ten hours, my wife will be here with two little children to raise, my boy. What will be the outcome of my life?" I was laying there, I started crying. And I'm... place to the vision. I started crying.
And I looked up, and I thought, "God, what must I do?" I heard something going, "Wooooo." First time for months and months, I knew He was in the room. I looked around, I seen that Light standing over there by a--a chifforobe, whirling around. I got out on the floor, and I said, "O God, have You come with pardon for Your servant, or have You come to take me away?"
E-56 And just then, I looked coming right down in front of me, must've broke into a vision, here come a man walking to me, with typewriter paper, looked like, in his hands like that. And he walked up, and he said, "Insomuch as you was thinking about your future..."
I said, "Yes. I wonder what my future holds."
And I looked down on the floor, and something had been wrote on. And he took that typewriter paper like this, and he went... Threw it like that, and just one right after the other like that, and made a complete road up into heaven. And a great voice screamed from above that paper and said, "Your future is clear."
E-57 I come out of it. I begin crying. I said, "O God, if I could just ask Him." He never shows me over one thing at a time like that. And I thought, "Oh, if I'd have just ask Him if I was ever going to get over these things here, if I--if I was going to get over it, and what would it be." I thought, "Oh, if I could..." Here He come back again.
And I seen that time, when He come walking to me, I said, "Will I ever get over this fear, this..." Said, "I... Will I ever have it anymore?"
He said, "Not at all."
And when He left that time, I begin to rejoice. And I thought, "Oh, if I'd only asked Him about my meetings. If I'd asked Him about my meetings then. Everybody is telling me, 'Brother Roberts prays for people faster than I do, and more people tends the meeting because more can get prayed for.'" I thought, "Well, what... If I'd just had asked Him that." And I thought, "The next time He does, maybe He's--He's... I know He loves me now. He's back talking to me again." And I said, "If He--if He'd tell me again, well then, ever come..." And just there, here He was again. And I said, "Lord, would--would my Lord let me know, it's always throwed up to me about how I pray for the people." I said, "Should... would You bless the people? You told me that--that the--the gift was to get the people to believe, and then if I be sincere when I prayed, do You want me to lay hands on the people, or just pray for the whole group like Brother Bosworth says, or just--or just one, just wherever I see the vision?"
He said, "Just as you're led."
E-58 Then He went away again. And I started rejoicing there, and was real happy. And just then, here He come again and taken me away. Now, listen close, now. Have your paper ready. But when He come this time, He set me down in a Durban meeting, geographically; I was looking just the way the Durban meeting was, looking south. I was in the north. And there was a great Durban meeting, just the same meeting. And I noticed that meeting begin to turn blue, raised up off the ground, the people, and faded away towards the west.
Now, I talk slow, now, so the people can get it, and is writing. Faded towards the west... And just then I looked in front of me again this away, only it was towards the south, and there was a new meeting, greater than the other one was. And there was beautiful people: Men and women with their hands up, a praising God. And I said, "Are all those white people?" And I looked, and I seen the Africans, the great dark race standing in there. And just then, I heard something going, just making a real humming noise, like a dynamo a running.
E-59 And I looked up, and here came another Angel. This One standing by my side was the same Man that always talks. And here come another One from heaven, and He had great oscillating Light turned on. And this Angel caught me by the shoulders and turned me to the east. And as I looked to the east, I never seen so many people in all my life, and they wasn't Africans. They looked like they... They had a--a sheet wrapped around them like this, and just pulled it up and stuffed it down like the Indians wear, up around Calcutta, and up in that way. And they were little bitty, skinny men. And they had their hands up, just a praising God, and a screaming my name as loud as they could to come that way.
And I looked, and the Angel that stood just above me then, He was a great, mighty looking Fellow too. And He had this great light in His hand, oscillating. And He turned It on, and It went way back through the hills. And just as far as I could see, was nothing but a solid mass of people.
And then, the Angel that was standing near me, when I seen all of that turning that way, He said... I heard the number just as plain as you hear me. He said, "There's three hundred thousand of those in that Branham meeting."
E-60 And I pitched forward in the floor. My strength was gone. I raised up, looked around, and I heard something going... The leaves turning, and I looked, and here come my Bible right down, and It was turned to the same Scripture where I read tonight. And then It was turning back towards the front of the Bible, and as It turned back towards the front part, It stopped on Joshua, the 1st chapter, and a finger begin to read down, point down along the lines. "The Lord thy God is with thee wheresoever thou goest. No man shall stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so will I be with you. Be very courageous..." And so forth like that, till It read down there, most of the chapter, 1st chapter of Joshua. And then, It went away.
E-61 At that time, I had came to, and I heard somebody knocked on the door; it was my wife setting there. She was knocking at the door, and she said, "Can I come in?"
Oh, I thought, "That's strange. My wife asking me to come in."
I said, "Yes."
She said, "I started in here three o'clock this morning." Now, she's very timid, but is very spiritual. This is the first time this ever happened in our home. She said, "There's Something told me not to go in there, there was a vision going on." And from three o'clock, this was six o'clock, it'd been three hours I was in that vision. And we went out and was talking of it, and I was telling her.
E-62 And my mother-in-law, a saintly, godly, old, Holy-Ghost filled woman, my wife's mother lives just below me; and as she come up to the house, she said, kind of half crying, she said, "Is anything wrong up here?" She said, "The Lord told me to come up here, something had gone on up here."
There you are. That's two witnesses. I went down to the bank in New Albany, the two boys are very well acquainted. And little Bob Dennison, I guess you know him at the bank, Union National Bank, and I want to pick up my checks to see if I had any income tax to pay. And when I went out, I noticed him weeping. And I went over to him, I said, "What's the matter, Bobby?"
E-63 He said, "Why, Billy Branham." He knowed of Miss Morgan being healed with cancer. He said, "Billy, most of my people die with cancer in the bowels," he said, "of just bleeding." And said, "Last night, I had a very strange dream. I dreamed that I saw a Man come down from heaven, dressed in white, and told me you was going to be standing here today." That was it. That was all. God in the mouth of three witnesses. It's going to happen, friend.
I went home. I called up Dr. Lucus. I said, "Dr. Lucus, I want to come over examination."
He said, "What for?"
I said, "I'm... I haven't got any ameba."
He said, "Oh, yes. You got it, Reverend. Branham." Lovely man, one of the best men that you'd want to meet, one of the nicest little doctors, him and Dr. Ryan...
And I said, "Well, Dr. Lucus, I'd like for you to examine me."
He said, "Well, I just examined you the other day, Bro--Brother Branham." Said, "You got ameba."
I said, "Huh-uh." Ha. I said, "Would you give me..."
"Oh," he said, "come on over."
And I went over, and as busy as he was, he said, "What about it, reverend?"
And I said, "I haven't got any ameba."
He said, "You just got--you just got a little relief." He said, "You're just..."
E-64 I said, "No, it's not a relief. This is permanent." I said, "I--I--I'm absolutely healed of it."
And he said, "Well."
And I said, "Will you take another examination?"
He said, "Climb up on the table." And he took the smear, went out into the laboratory. Come back, said, "Could I take that again?" I knowed what had happened. He goes down, takes it again, comes back, and he said, "Reverend, you haven't got any."
I said, "That's what I told you."
And he said, "Well, I have to examine you for three months," said, "'fore I can let you be free."
I said, "You can examine me every day, if you want to." I said, "It's all right."
And he said, "What happened?"
And I set down and told him. I said, "Do you believe that?"
Said, "How can I doubt it?" Said..?... And I was healed. God called me to...
Now, what I've got to do... There's more with it, but I've close now. It's time to start praying for the sick.
E-65 What's happened, friends? Now, I have to go right straight back to Africa, where I started from. I... There in Von Vonblumburg, I have a little dinner with the Prime Minister of India, Nehru, [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] then I go into India. The archbishop, which is to be with us in this next meeting, down here the Baptist and Methodist is sponsoring here in Florida, Dr...?... Lee of the big Baptist school there. They're sponsoring this meeting at West Palm Beach, just the fundamental churches alone.
And the archbishop of India come over here to find out a lot of Indians was converted and healed there. He come over to find out whether it was true, and he receive the Holy Ghost himself.
He said, "Be unto me."
Don Wells, the one that wrote me...?... received the Holy Ghost. Dr. Reedhead, the President...?... of the great Sudan Missions received the baptism of the Holy Ghost in my camp meeting. See? [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]
He said, "Brother Branham, the move is on."
E-66 So, some of them, when I said, "...?... Lee" they thought it was Doctor Lee at Memphis. So they wrote there and told them, "Oh, no. Certainly Doctor Lee wouldn't believe that?"
I said, "What about it?" I said, "If he wants to travel in a ox cart, let him go on. We're in a jet plane. Let's move on. We're a different type of Baptist. Let's go on." The move is on. God is a moving among His people. And that's why here in America right now, we're trying to stimulate enough finance to put the road back to Africa again, India, and so forth.
And mark it in your Bible, that you will hear this, that I was in India, or somewhere east of Africa, Tanganyika, somewhere where Indians are at, somewhere in that eastern country which I believe will be India, itself, where there'll be three hundred thousand people, either they will be attending the meeting, or they'll be...
The archbishop told me, said, "Brother Branham," said, "that's three hundred thousand conversions." He said, "Because I assure you, there'll be a...?...
After a long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, you should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have caused this harm and loss.
But now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there stood by me... (Beg your pardon? The 22nd verse)
And... I exhort you to be of a good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship.
For there stood by me this night an angel of God, whose I am, and whose servant I am.
Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God has given unto thee all them that sail with thee.
Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.
May the Lord add His blessing to His Word.
E-2 Now, could you imagine on a stormy sea, and all hopes, and knowing they were out of the will of God, 'cause God had warned Paul not to loosed from Crete, but he couldn't help it. But they went ahead. The ship master, he knowed more about it then what the Holy Spirit did, you know. So he just loosed and went ahead anyhow. And they got out on the ship there in the sea, and there come up a great storm, and for several days and nights there was no moon, no stars, fourteen days and nights. And all hopes that they'd ever be saved was all give up and gone. They was bound to be drowned. They throwed out the tackle of the ship and everything, and still just let it drive, and it was just going anyway. And Paul went down into the gallery and prayed. And there was an Angel that stood by Paul, and said--told him the message.
E-3 Now, I can just see that little Jew come up on top of the--the ship where all these men were weeping and crying. They'll never see their wives again, never see their children again. Just like the doctor tells you that, "You just get ready to die. The cancer's going to kill you. And you'll never get up from the bed no more, and your days are finished." And--and they're weeping. They'll never be up again or something like that.
But this little Jew went down in there and prayed through until he touched God. And in a vision, standing by his side, he saw an Angel which brought him the message, the Angel of the Lord. And he come up and he said, "Wherefore, sir, be of a good cheer: for the Angel of God, Whose servant I am, stood by me last night and said, 'Fear not, Paul; for thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God has give all them that sail with you to you. There won't be any loss of any man.' So he said, wherefore, sirs, be of a good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be just as it was shown me."
Now, I'm so thankful. Wouldn't you like to have been there when Paul, when that was taking place on that ship? Wouldn't we had a wonderful time, just to rejoice and shout with Paul, and walk up and down that--the galleries of that ship? Why, I couldn't have kept still. Could you? And I just wonder why we keep still, and the same thing taking place here night after night. See? That's what I wonder. The same thing... If we'd have been there, we'd have just like we are now.
The great things of God is so great, and yet people try to imagine so much out in here somewhere in the supernatural of a hocus-pocus like, when it's right down here.
E-4 I can teach a five year old child the Kingdom of God, better that I can teach a man that's got a--a degree out of college. I can teach him Christ better. He's simple. He just listens to what you say. Watch coming to the platform. You'll never see God turn a child down. He don't do it. No, sir. Because they're just simple in faith. They believe it. And when they believe it, that just settles it. God says so, and that--that takes care of it. The little child will believe it, but, oh, my, we know better, you know. We knowed all the angles, and just how could it be. We got to figure out, "Now, how could this be?" But it'll be anyhow.
What caused me to go to--to Africa on this trip? Just to... Brings up this vision. And I'm watching that clock there, but I'm way early, so I got plenty of time. It's only twenty-five minutes till four, so I--I suppose I have a whole lot of time. But you... Some of you brothers let me know about, when it's just about time to start the prayer line in about a half-hour.
E-5 I was with Brother Bosworth. It was the night the Angel of the Lord's picture was taken. How many has got that picture now in your possession? Thank you. I'm sure it'll be a great blessing to you.
Here sometime ago, there's a lady at the hospital at the city I live. The picture was setting on the table. The doctor had told here she couldn't get well. Now, this is her story. She said looking at... Not at her brother, but to the Angel of the Lord...
Now, if you'll notice, friends, that is a--a Pillar of Fire. George J. Lacy, you read what he said. Now, that's the best that we got in the United States on--on that kind of work, on research. And when he said that day, said, "If--if the old hypocrite (he meant the unbeliever) says that there can be... never could be scientifically proved that there was a supernatural Being," but said, "he can't say that now, because here's scientific proof that there is a supernatural Being." For you hear what he said. The Light struck the lens. See? And It was there. It was... He said, "The mechanical eye of this camera won't take psychology." Said, "It's not psychology." Said, "I've said it was psychology, Mister Branham, myself," but said, "mechanical eye of this camera won't take psychology. The Light struck the lens. And the--the Being was there."
E-6 You heard what Mr. Dr. Stomewell... How many reads "The Voice of Healing," and read that article in there of Dr. Stomewell on that? He said, "Absolutely." Now, he don't know nothing about this picture yet. He was an atheist, just been converted a few weeks. But he said that, "That magnetic power of a believer in contact with God was so vital," he said, "that even he believed over the Christ, that that halo that was painted was absolutely could been seen." Because it's a power.
Now, just think. He took a--a machine. You know, the human being is not made to lie. And if you're telling a lie, they can put you before a lie detector, and your nerves will react. And then they took this same thing and converted it to a way that they could tell whether it was truth or not, and put it on a person praying, and I think it taken, I forget how many thousand kilowatts to send a radio message around the world, and when this woman begin to pray at her death, there went out enough power from her till it registered over as far as the needle would go. Enough power leaving that woman, actually supernatural power that caught on this machine, some kind of a magnetic power of her prayer, that was powerful enough to send a radio message fifty-five times around the world. That's scientific.
E-7 Men working around in science has found God. That's right. He lives out there. He is in the scientific world. They just touched around on His little basic play things, that He plays with, or has out there for them. Now, they're coming up into a place, in a category, where they can find Him.
Now, on this picture, Brother Bosworth brought me the picture of Florence Nightingale, and you... I'm sorry. We have no more of those books. They're out of print at the time. We wasn't financially able to... Was about ten thousand dollars, to cost about a dollar apiece to print them to put them back in print, and they won't print less than ten thousand. So we couldn't do it. But when they first went out, why then, we sold all them, and they were gone.
E-8 Then, in there he got a copyright from permitting the copyright to place this picture in there. The picture belongs to the Douglas Studios, not me. And--and then, in this picture, as I was saying a few moments ago, a woman in the hospital was looking at it, and was praying after her doctor told her she couldn't get well. She claimed that she seen that picture, that mill of Fire, come out of there and stand over where she was. I knowed one thing, I don't know what taken place there, but the next day, she was sent home well. I don't know what. I--I know that. And she was sent home well.
Now, It's His Being. And if we'll read the Scripture, we find out that it was a Pillar of Fire that led the children of Israel. That same Pillar of Fire, I believe, was over Jesus Christ. And I believe that He's raised--risen from the dead, showing the same signs that He showed when He was here on earth. And it's that same Pillar of Fire that's over the Church right now, the same Angel of God, that same Presence.
E-9 Now, there is times that you say, "God..." We have--want to look at it that way, but there's many times that things are done and said that angelic Beings brings the message to Him. God was in a certain place, and met a certain man at a certain time, and if He could've found a man one time, in the end He would've slew him, and so forth. We realize that there's times where God is certain places. That's exactly truth. The Scripture teaches that.
Now, in this case when we promise God... And I told you a few nights ago about the healing of Florence Nightingale. When we went down into Africa...
Now, my wife is setting somewhere in the building. I haven't spied where she's at yet, but anyhow, I guess she's got backed up in a corner. So anyhow, she's as bashful as I used to be. And so, anyhow, when--when we were... Knowed so much about the... I tell you how much geography we knowed. I told her. She said, "Where you going now, honey."
E-10 I said, "I'm going down to Durban, South Africa, or--or Durban, Southern Rhodesia. That's where I going." Why... And she wrote... I said, "You write all of my mail to Durban, Southern Rhodesia." And here, she was writing to Durban, Southern Rhodesia, and Durban's in South Africa, not in Rhodesia. Just be like writing Owensboro, British Columbia. There is no such a place. See? But anyhow, the man, I guess, seeing how dumb we were, so they just... The post office sent it on down to South Africa, another nation, and down in Durban.
But when we landed in Johannesburg that afternoon, I guess there was many, many thousand people at the ramp. And so then, when we went out that night and got into Durban... Now, Brother Bosworth setting here, which was right present for every bit of it... And there was Mr. Baxter, and many of the others; my boy also was present. And when we landed, why then, they had to take me several miles out into the country where they had no place to put the people, and no park, no nothing in the city. Had to go way out into the country to where there's a big school, and place them out there. And I guess the police was guarding the roads up and down, just strings of people for miles. And there they was, all out in this place. It taking us, oh, I guess, twenty-five, thirty minutes to drive to where the place was.
E-11 And when we got there, I'd been in the air for three days and three nights, almost wrecked twice. You heard in the paper here about three years ago, when a car... Fifty-two were killed at one time. We were just behind that accident. And the same place, the instrument broke, and we were over that city, my boy and I, over that city for about two and a half hours, trying to come down with no instrument, and it so fog you couldn't even see nothing. It... Go right down real low and see the lights, then they was going... My wife would've been screaming and crying and praying if she'd knowed that I was in that fix then.
But I was... Not only was she praying, that she'd been praying, I was praying. That's right. And I was very thankful that I had a heavenly Father Who was riding by my side to help me down.
E-12 Sailors and things, when they got off of there, said, "Well, this is the last one. For the rest of the way from here, we'll go by ship. They can have all the airplanes they want. We'll take ours by water." And so, they were ready to get away.
And so, finally when we got in there, and got out to the place where the meeting was, I just got at the platform, tired, no sleep, you can imagine what it was, rocking and pitching in that air for all that time, and thousands of people, just like oceans of people were setting. And they were... I was strange. I thought Africans were all black people, but every one of these was white. And I said, "Are these Africans?"
"Yeah, they're all Afrikaans people."
E-13 So I expect when I landed in--down there that I'd have to find a beaten path to the little hut, but I come to find out it's more modern then our cities are here in America. It's just a beautiful place at Johannesburg. So I thought, "My, this is strange." I thought, "Where's all the David Livingstons? They won't need them around here no more."
And so, they... We went out to the people there, and just as soon as we got to the platform, I happened to notice coming across the top of the people, I guess, Brother Bosworth, I hadn't been there, oh, about five minutes, till a vision started, and I seen a--a bus moving like this over top the audience, and it was something blue, and I just kept watching it, till it got to me. I wasn't saying nothing, because I was tired, and didn't know just exactly where to make my first beginning, the closing to a vision, to close in with the individual to a vision. And I noticed the--the bus coming. It come right close to me real close, and I seen a sign on it said, "Durban." And the bus went out of my sight.
Well, I just started on speaking, and went on, and I noticed, here come that bus again. And I seen it stop, and I seen a boy get on that had one leg about six inches shorter than the other one on a crutch. And he held his leg on this crutch (You see?), and walked like that. He got on the bus, and I seen him coming on like that. That bus come on up close to me and stopped again. Well, I just kept on speaking, if I said, "I'm awfully tired tonight. I'm really worn out." I said, "We're expecting a great meeting here in Africa. We just closed one in New York City, and..."
Now, there's something about New York City. Now, you watch. Remember, there's something about New York City. Don't forget that, you hear? All right. I had just left New York, New York. I said, "I'm so tired." And I watched that. Then I seen this boy again coming, walking across the audience, and he didn't have this crutch under his arm anymore. He was just normal and well, with his leg just a normal size.
E-14 Now, this was the first thing, they'd been setting there about... Been... I'd been in the audience of people at least ten minutes. And I happened to look, and where the boy had walked and stopped in the air, I looked right down below him, and there sit the boy, just about the distance of this building, hardly as far. And I looked and seen the boy. And I said, "Don't you come from Durban there, son, with the white shirt on?"
He said, "Yes, sir." Spoke English. "Yes, sir." He come from Durban.
I said, "Aren't one of your legs about six inches shorter?"
And he said, "That's me, exactly."
I said, "It isn't anymore. You're healed." And here he come walking up there just as normal just as he could be. And the people begin screaming, and faith, oh, my, with one collapse.
E-15 Just then I seen a little green car hit the road like this, and turn around like this, and slide backward, hit a tree. I seen them take a young lady, blond-headed, and she was all broke up. They wouldn't let... move her. They went and got the doctors, and they put her on a ambulance. It was in her spine. She was broke three or four places in the spine. But I seen the thing take place, but I couldn't tell where it was. I couldn't see that girl, that went when... And it happened, there was a high fence like, a high place built, and I happened to look right down under me, and here she laid right down here, beneath right here. I seen it was the same girl. And I said, "Didn't you have an accident recently?"
"Yes."
And I said, "You was in a little green car, and the--the car slid sideways and then backed up like this and hit a tree."
She said, "That's right."
I said, "Your back is broke."
And her mother said, "Oh, she just can't move."
I looked out, and I seen the girl going real fast right down across the audience in a vision, going walking real fast. I said, "Stand up, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for THUS SAITH THE LORD, you're healed."
E-16 And she said... Her mother said, "Oh, no, darling. No, no." Said, "If she moves, she'll die. The doctor said she'd die." And the girl jumped up and let out a big scream, and her mother fainted and fell in the same cot. So they just let her lay in the cot, and let the girl go on. Is that right, Brother Bosworth?
[Brother Bosworth says, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes, sure. And the next night I saw this, her back was broke in three places. I saw her in the audience the next night, and waited till I got her eye, for her come up here. And she came up and set. I told her, 'Set on one of these seats back here till Brother Branham comes. I want to introduce you.' And so she set there, and as quick as I saw you come through that side door. 'Come quick, come quick!" And there they took the picture. We have the picture now."--Ed.] That's right. Thank you, brother.
E-17 That she was... Her mother fainted and fell in the same cot, so they just pushed it over, and let her mother lay in the cot while the girl rejoiced in the Lord going up-and-down the place. And a doctor said, "If she moved..." And you know what it is, a back--broken back, an accident on a highway here. Even a--a... No one can move that person 'less the doctor orders it. And you better know what your speaking about before you call such a person too. If that's in your own head, well, something will... That person would kill themselves. But don't worry. If God says so, you move. That's just exactly, 'cause it'll be that way.
Well, we would just... Oh, there's so many things happened there in about fifteen minutes, till I just collapsed almost. They taken me to the house. And on the road up, there was a man, Brother Schoeman, men many of you may know him. He was the chairman of the National Committee. And all the churches of Africa was co-operating. They... All but the Dutch Reform church, and that's really a hard church to get along with. If there's any here, I don't mean to say any word about the church, but they don't believe in water baptism; they don't--they don't believe anything hardly. And so, they are just a very formal, ritualistic, cold, indifferent church.
E-18 And so the--the next day, Brother Schoeman going up, which he was--he belonged to the--the Apostolic Faith Missions of Africa. And he was the President of the--of my--of my group. And he was a National Committee. And Brother Schoeman, going home that night, he said, "Oh, I think that was wonderful." But he was telling me that, but yet, I knowed he didn't believe that. I knowed he didn't believe it. And I was going home at his house to stay all night, 'cause there wasn't no places to stay. So I--I went to his house to stay all night. And I went in the room, Brother Baxter said, "Oh," said, "I tell you, this fellow Schoeman is a mighty man."
I said, "Yes, he is." But I knowed he wasn't believing that.
E-19 So I, the next morning come out... He was a nice man, but he thought sure that I was--it was mental telepathy, or some kind of a--a trick I had up my sleeve to do it. It was like a rabbits foot or something, you know, you rub on. Till he--he... I knowed he was suspicious. And the next morning, I got up, and we went to breakfast. And when we was setting at the breakfast table, I thought... I looked at him again, and caught him this a way to know that I'd catch his spirit. I said, "It's beautiful weather in Africa, Brother Schoeman."
Said, "Yes, just very, very, very."
E-20 And I thought, "Ha-ha-ha." You could just feel that little shadow there. I--I knew that he wasn't just exactly where he should be...?... So I thought, "Now, Lord, if You'll just help me to just kind of shake him just a little, then--then it'll make the thing... 'Cause he's the chairman of the committee." And just... I thought, "Well, if You don't, why, it's all right. Just let it go."
So, I was setting there eating, and after while the Holy Spirit come down and there broke a vision across the table while we was setting there. I said, "Brother Schoeman, your little girl here, isn't her name Andrea?"
He said, "Yes."
And I said, "About six months ago, you almost lost her, didn't you?"
He said, "Yes, sir."
I said, "It was something wrong in her throat."
Said, "Yes, sir."
I said, "She's had a hard time swallowing since then, hasn't she?"
Said, "Say, that's right."
E-21 And--and then It turned around and told him something that I won't say here, 'cause some his friends may be setting here. And he just almost passed out at the table.
He said, "Brother Branham, I told Brother Baxter before we come in." He said, "Brother Branham, I was just a little bit skeptic, but I want to reach my hand to you." It was clear then. He--he knew.
So the next... That day, we had a marvelous time. The next morning, Brother Baxter and all of us, we come in and he said, "Brother Branham," he said, "I got some news for you."
Said, "What?"
E-22 He said, "How would you like to go way down through Kimberly and Capetown, and all around through there, up around through Victoria?"
"Oh," I said, "that would be marvelous."
He said, "Do you know what? Brother duPlessis has come over and set up an itinerary, all of them, and we're going to take a great big itinerary hundreds of miles down through here."
I said, "Marvelous, marvelous, that's just fine."
So then, after the service that night, I went home, went in the room, went to bed, went to sleep, and about two o'clock in the morning I woke up, and I heard some kind of a little old bird out the window. And I slipped over and raised up and looked through those reeds to look where--where the birds was. And it was--it was chirping at night. And I thought, "That isn't a nightingale." And I looked at my watch, and it was about two o'clock. I come back and set down, turned on a little dim light and begin to--to read my Bible. And just then, I looked up and here He was standing before me, milling around.
E-23 He said, "Don't you go with them, but you stay right here in Durban." And said, "You... Right here in--in Johannesburg." Said, "You stay here two weeks, and then there's going to be a man by the name of Jackson, is going to take you lion hunting. And you're going out, and you take that week with him and go out and hunt lions, and tigers, and things for a week out in the jungle." Said, "Come back, and then you go over to Durban, a place called Durban, and stay there a month."
He said, "Now, that you might know that this will come to pass," he said, "tomorrow morning," he said, "they're going to take you down to this city. And there's going to be a--a little garden like, and a--a native standing there with a purple shirt on." Said, "It's going to be a rare thing. You tell the men that they're going to take you down there." And said, "Then they're going to get a doctor, and they're going to work it around to another minister, and this doctor is going to be a thin man wearing glasses." And said, "The doctors tell him that he's got cancer and dying." But said, "It's an error. It's an error of the doctors. They cut the wrong thing in him, and he's dying because of that." And said, "Don't pray for him, for he's going to die."
E-24 And He said, "Now, now, and on the road, they're going to take you to another city. And on the road, you're going to meet a girl. She'll be selling beads on the side of the road. She's going to have a great big skin place on the side of her head. And while you're standing there," said, "Mr. Baxter is going to call your attention to a very funny looking big bird making a noise as it goes across the--the plain." And said, "By this, you'll know, and they'll know that you're not to take that itinerary that them ministers has got set up, but you're to go this a way."
Well, that settled it. So I went in and woke Brother Baxter up. I said, "Brother Baxter, we can't take that itinerary."
Said, "Well, you'll have to tell Brother Schoeman tomorrow."
I told Brother Schoeman. And, oh, if you have ever been in Africa, why, that's kinda hard to let them know that, you know.
E-25 Said, "Oh, it's set up." So here come the whole association. That night, the Lord worked a powerful miracle. And the next morning, when we got up, they'd... I'll tell you what the miracle was.
I just... As the second night there--third night, it would've been that night, and here's what taken place. Now, this African man, this Boer, had never heard about the Angel of the Lord. Now we got the shirt, and everything to show, the papers and everything, headlines two or three pages in the Dutch Reform church which controls.
And the second morning, while we're there, I forget to tell you this. The first night I was there, and the first night I spoke and they seen the miracle, there happened to be a group of the Medical Association out there. And the next morning, the entire Medical Association of all South Africa called me to come to breakfast and give me the right-hand of fellowship, and said, "Brother Branham, that's genuine Divine healing."
E-26 How about that, Brother Bosworth? Huh? "The genuine Divine healing, which we're absolutely not against." He said, "Now, there's many people down here that didn't believe in doctors. We heard you speak for the doctors." Said, "There's been people that we could've helped, Rev. Branham, and we are Christians." He said, "We could've helped them, but they had the--the Christian Science idea that you shouldn't have a doctor." And said, "Through that, they died, many of them. And we believe we could've helped them." And said, "Now, they love you. And you spoke for us," and said, "now, we're speaking for you, and anything that we can do for you, let us know. And every hospital in the whole Transvaal, Free state, Orange state, everything's absolutely open. Anybody that can come; you can go to any hospital. Anything we can do, we'll be right along with you to help you." And they followed me through out entire Africa.
And in a few moments, I'll get to the story of the conversion of some of them, and if I can hurry to get my time in now. All right. Now... Or get my story out before my time is up.
E-27 So then, then that same night, there was a... One of these Boer ministers. That's a--a church of the--of the--of the Boer. They called the Dutch Reform church, they went out. He went out to see his friend, and his friend said that I was a spiritualist, mind reader. So he went over to his friend; he said, "God have mercy on you." Said, "It's the hour of visitation to Africa. And you--and you doing such a thing as that." Said, "That's sin."
He said, "The man ain't nothing in the world but a polished up soothsayer."
And he said, "I'd go out and have prayer for your sinful soul, 'cause God might strike you dead." And he goes out in the kneels down there in a little--a little, I believe it was a peach tree, a little peach tree just about twenty yards from the house, raised up his hands, he... They wear a white shirt, and a white tie. And so, he raised up his hands, said, "God, have mercy on my friend in there. He's going to die and go to hell with such thoughts as that." And--and said, "The hour of visitation is here, and look at him in there. There he is setting there." Oh, he was just telling God all about it.
Now, here is the man's story. He said that a Pillar of Light, about two foot long, about eight inches, or ten inches high, of a Light came down, and the Light parted from side to side, and that man described that Angel to a dot. Said, a large Man, two hundred pounds, dark hair to His shoulder, walked down to him and laid His hand on his back. And he said, "When He laid his hand on his back, it felt like that fire had burnt plumb through his body." And he said, "Rise, and tell your friend that this is the hour of visitation, and not to condemn this man."
E-28 So, he jumped up from there, and he said, "Did I go to sleep? Was I dreaming?" And he run and said, "Well, well, I--I don't..." And he run up and begin to tell his friend about it, and his friend looked around, and here was the shape of that Angel's hand scorched in that white, broad-cloth shirt. And the next morning, the man seen it, and they took it, and here was a picture that big in the paper, went plumb through all Africa.
I got the shirt now. They called me down, the authorities, checked my hand with it, and every... And there the man's hand, just perfectly a man's hand scorched right through his shirt. We got the shirt. There it was in the African paper. Right a way, my. And then, them...
They wanted me to leave. Why, I said, "No. The Lord told me stay here." He said for me to stay here.
And the next day, when we started out, everything the Lord had said would take place, took place just exactly that way. Even to the little bead salesman. And Brother Baxter trying to take our picture. I said, "Don't you remember that bead salesman I told you?"
E-29 "Oh," he said, "Brother Branham, that's her." Just then something went, "Squawk, squawk." And it was a--a wild peacock, going, flying down through... I said--he said, "Look at that bird there. Wasn't that a funny looking thing, Brother Branham?"
I said, "It is."
Brother Schoeman said, "That's a wild peacock."
And I said, "Do you remember, Brother Baxter, what I told?"
He said, "Well, Brother Branham, it's exactly, isn't it?"
And I said, "Brother Schoeman, I can't take that itinerary." I said, "I'm sorry to have to interfere with you ministers, but He told me not to take it."
Said, "Brother Branham, we have to take it."
"Oh," I said, "but, you may have to take it, but--but not me." I said, "No, I don't have to take it, Brother Schoeman."
E-30 The next morning, they're just that persistent, here come the cars right up to go anyhow. Well I, if you go... Brother Baxter said, "Are you going, Brother Branham?"
I said, "No, sir."
So here they was outside, and my suitcase wasn't packed, nothing. I said, "No. The Lord told me not to go."
Well, in come the ministers, and Brother Bosworth knows, we had a round of it. He said, "Well, the meetings are closed here."
And I said, "Ridiculous. Right where the Lord's give us the favor and everything, and telling us to stay here, and here's where we're to stay."
E-31 And no, they wanted to go. And so, I put my clothes under my arm and so forth, and we got out, and Brother Bosworth and all of them right along. And we started down, and as we started going, just a hundred and something miles, I said, "What are you going down here for?"
"Well, we promised Brother So-and-so we'd be here, Brother..."
E-32 I say this with reverence brother, if you want to get in trouble, just mess with a preacher. You sure get in trouble. So that's right. Now, they're God's servants. They have to be a little suspicious and things. But, brother, I've had more trouble of preachers getting me out of the will of God then anything I've ever seen in my life." Yes, sir! 'Cause one will say, "The Lord..." See, the man's right. If the Lord told him to do that, let him go do it. He may tell me something else. And no matter whatever tells you, if he's a prophet, if he's a preacher, whatever he may be, if God's told you something contrary, don't you pay no attention to that prophet, preacher, priest, or whatever it is; you listen to God. Always listen to God.
E-33 How many ever read I Kings 13, where a little prophet went down and prophesied, and done works of God told him something to do. And another real prophet come to him and told him, said, "The Lord met me and said you come to my house and eat." You know what happened, don't you? Yes, sir. You listen to God, regardless of who says or what says. You listen to God.
Well, the minister said, "We promised our brethren that we'd bring you to their town."
I said, "What size city is this we're going to?"
"About three thousand."
"Why, there was ten, fifteen, twenty thousand people out there to go to the meeting. Where are you going to put them?"
"Don't know. But we promised brother we'd be there." There you are.
I said, "I--I appreciate that. I love our brethren, but God has said...?... to be right over there."
E-34 So, we started down the road, and Brother and Sister Schoeman in the car, and Billy Paul, I believe... No, I was by myself, and I think Billy was back with Brother Bosworth and them. And what... Three or four carloads of ministers coming, kept going on down, the Holy Spirit said, "Are you going to listen to Me?"
I said, "Brother Schoeman, stop the car."
He said, "What's the matter, Brother Branham?"
I said, "Just stop."
And he stopped and said, "Well, what?" We way ahead of the rest of them, 'cause he drove like Jehu. So he pulled the brake up and he--and he said, "Well, what's the matter?"
I said, "I'm just not going any farther."
"Well," he said, "Brother Branham," said, "I don't care for you staying up there." Said... He's the chairman. Said, "That's my city. That's my district." He said, "But the brethren want you to go down there." He said, "They're not going to listen to that, Brother Branham."
I said, "Well, I'm going to listen to God, anyhow."
E-35 So, he--he stopped, and up come the brethren. Now, if anybody's here remembers in Shreveport, Louisiana, standing and speaking like this, one day the Holy Spirit come just before going over, and he said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD," to me, "be careful, there's a trap for you in Africa."
Well, I thought it was witch doctors and so forth. I thought, "Well, I know Who God is, and witch doctors ain't going to bother me." I didn't know it was among brethren. See? So sly was Satan.
And we stopped on the road. Up come Brother Bosworth and Brother Baxter, and all of them stopped, and all them... And Brother Schoeman went back there and said, "You'll have to go see him." Said, "He just refuses to go any farther."
E-36 Well, up come Brother Baxter, and got kind of huffy with me. He said, "Brother Branham, listen." He said, "We're about twelve thousand miles away from home. We're down here at the mercy of these people. And don't you think these ministers, we should consider them?"
I said, "As far as considering and being reverent to brothers, we should. But I should look to God first."
And he said, "Brother Branham, I--I just--just can't believe that it's exactly right."
And then, up comes Brother Bosworth. And Brother Bosworth setting here, now watch, right's right, and wrong... Brother Bosworth said, "Brother Branham, I believe you're mistaken."
And I said, "My old saintly dad that stood on the platform with me and watched the visions, and works, and wonders and so forth, and hear me say, 'THUS SAITH THE LORD'?"
E-37 Brother Baxter, Brother Bosworth, lovely, both of them, well, the ministers... Another African minister walked up and said, "Brother Branham, don't you think God speaks to somebody else besides you?"
I said, "Yes, Korah had the same idea at one time." I said, "But I don't know what."
He said, "God told us to make that itinerary."
E-38 I said, "But God told me not to take it." I said, "He might've told you, but He told me not to take it. And for my part, I'm not going to take it."
So then, there we was all hugged together on the road. All right, stopped in the middle of the road, meeting waiting. And I... You remember it, Brother Bosworth. I said, "I'm not going to do it."
So, they went on and hum-hawed around. Said, Brother Baxter said, "Well, Brother Branham, I'd go on down to the city at least, and then pray for them people there, and we'll go home." Said, "I'm just through, and tired, and sick." And Brother Baxter's very nervous, you know. And--and he said, "I'm just through with the whole thing. I wash my hands of it." Said, "You can't listen to things like that." Said, "I--I'm through with the managing of it."
And I said, "Well, you can be that too." But I said, "I'm going to listen to God, regardless." And God, if I'd only hung with that. See?
E-39 And then, I walked over there, and got some locust leaves off the tree. And pulled the locust leaves down, and put them in my hand, and there stood Brother Bosworth, Brother Baxter, and several ministers. And I walked along with these locust leaves throwing it on their feet. I said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, from this time on, we're out of the will of God, and it'll be nothing but trouble until we return." Got back in the car crying like a baby, set down in the car, and I held my head down. Brother Schoeman glad to get me back in the car, and so away he went with me again.
We got down there in that little city, and there they was laying out there in the fields and hills, no place to go, no place to eat, nothing, laying out there, that great big place back there ready for us, just moved out of it.
E-40 All right. Immediately, Brother Bosworth starts, holding of, kind of give a little beginning of the meeting, and there come up a tropical storm, and liked to drown the whole bunch. And there I was setting down the house, out of the will of God, just as much as Abraham was when he was in Gerar. Just setting down there in the house, I said, "Lord, let them have a lesson of it." So I was just setting there in the house.
About midnight, in come Brother Bosworth, drenched. Said, "Oh, my, we tried tonight."
I said, "Uh-huh."
E-41 So, the next day... "Oh, that'll be all right," they said. "We..." And you've never seen a storm till you hear a tropical storm. You hear a lot to lightening flash, and roaring, and after while it--it just clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. It's just like that, the lightning's flashing. Just a constant roar, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, the lightning a going.
And then, all of them liked to have drowned, sick people, and everything.
So then, the next morning it cleared off. Said, "Oh, this'll be fine tonight." And then when it come night time, just about the time they got ready to take me, there come up a cold spell, and liked to froze them all to death. That's right.
About ten o'clock, come into the house, eleven o'clock, I said, "Uh-huh." I said, "Now, tomorrow night, we'll have an earthquake." I said, "We're out of the will of God, brethren."
E-42 Brother Bosworth, my old saintly dad setting here, setting there at the table, at the round table, we just got into our Brother Fourie's house, and his... I just met his wife setting there at the table. I looked over to his wife, I said, "Lady..." Told her what she was suffering with, what she had, what was wrong with her, and said, "You're healed." And right there, God healed her and made her well. Looked over to Brother Fourie, and told him, that was in their house. I said, "Now, do you believe?"
"We believe."
But the ministers, they wouldn't... "No. We got to go on. We're going on anyhow."
E-43 Well, we fussed till about two o'clock in the morning, wasn't it, Brother Bosworth. And now, there's many things that I make a mistake, and God, sometimes let's your very best bosom friends, do you know that, wrap right around you. Now, Brother Bosworth was just as sincere. He's setting here, and so is Brother Baxter. But you see, God was giving me a try. So he said, "Somebody..."
Brother Bosworth said to me, said, "Brother Branham, I believe now, if you'll go down through that way." They told him they had natives down there. But we didn't know the truth of it. The only place there wasn't any segregation was at Durban. And we didn't know it at the time.
Brother Bosworth was looking at it from the natural, ministerial stand point, like, if I'd happen to quit this meeting right here in the next ten minutes and walk away, somebody'd say, "Well, that guy's a hypocrite." You just don't understand. You have to do what the Holy Spirit says. I can't be like some of them sets their meetings up for two or three years ahead of time. I don't know even an hour from now what God's going to have me doing. But, now, whatever He tells me, I'm going to do it by His grace.
E-44 So then, watch this lesson, and then you'll understand. Then, Brother Bosworth said, "Brother Branham, I believe if you'll go on down there, you will see the exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we could do or think, or so forth. That's His word."
I said, "Brother Bosworth," I put my hand in his, I said, "As many battles as we've stood together, and I'm telling you in the Name of the Lord Jesus, that we're out of the will of God. And it's going to be nothing but trouble."
All the ministers begin to carry on. So they begin to talk about, along about two o'clock in the morning, the permissive will of God. God would permit it. It wouldn't be His perfect will, but being they had put up thousands of dollars for advertisement, rented great big auditoriums and things, big baseball parks and things down through there, why, it was no more than right we should go. Thousands of dollars, and natives was already piling in from everywhere, all down through there. I said, "God can sent then all up here." And we found out later, He--it would've right. But no, they wouldn't listen to that. Huh-uh. No, we had to go anyhow, because they'd promised the brothers.
E-45 So he said, "Do you said they were going to have an earthquake tomorrow night?"
I said, "I don't know what we'll have tomorrow night. It's hard to tell what we'll have." And I... Well, they asked the permissive will. I said, "God might permit it, but it'll never be His will."
So, I was crying again, so in the room we went. And my little old boy, I don't see him standing here anywhere, but he's in here somewhere in the building. When we walked out of the room, I was alone. He put his arm around me, come out with me. He said, "Daddy, don't you listen to those preachers." He said, "If nobody in the whole country will stand by you, I'll stay with you if we have to hitchhike back home."
E-46 And I said, "Well, Billy, I--I don't know what to do. I... Here we are down here, and these people, and..." If we ever got back, they had to pay the way. So we was--we was out there. I got enough friends in America, I believe, that'd send me a ticket to come home on. I'd pay it back to them later. And I said, "I--I... But if I go back home, I'm still not doing what He told me to do. He told me to stay in Johannesburg."
And so I... Billy said, "Well, daddy, I'll stay with you."
I said, "Well, come on, let's pray, honey."
We went in the room, our room, and there was a great bunch of ministers. They went in their rooms and so forth, and they said, "Go ask the Lord if He will permit you to do it, being we've got everything set up like this. Well, I prayed. Billy went to bed, went to sleep after he got tired. He prayed a little bit, and kid-like, crawled up and went to sleep.
E-47 So, I--I just kept on praying. Along about three or four o'clock in the morning, here He come. I said, "Who are these men? And what do they mean, Lord?"
He said, "Go on with them. But you're going to pay for it if you go with them." Said, "You can go. And if you want to go, all right. But remember, you're going to pay for it." He said, "Tomorrow morning, go wake up your boy." He had respect to Billy. If Billy'd only submit his way to God, and believe in God, the ministry of mine would just be a little bitty thing. I know what's in the boy. But he's just in an adolescence age, and he just--he just don't know where he's standing. But I know that boy, setting here the other night, and he said, "Daddy, I was going down the road, and something...?..." He will say, "Daddy, you know... "We never been on this road before." Said, "Right along another place, there's going to be a barn setting at a certain place, and a certain..." Why sure. Be just exactly that way. See? And that gift is laying so close to him, if he'd just move over into it, it would be wonderful. But he's just at that frolic age, you know, and adolescence, and you know what I mean. And so, I pray that God will settle him down someday, and put him on a platform that'll give a ministry that'll just bring millions of souls to Christ. I do. You pray for him too. And so, he's got a lot up front, but I know what Billy is in the back. See?
E-48 So then, we--we... He went in there, and the Angel of the Lord told me, said, "You go, wake up Billy, and tell him that tomorrow morning this storm, or weather is going to clear up. Then at Sunday school, the Sunday school service out on the desert, they're going to ask you to come pray for the sick. He's going... There's going to be a boy come with him..." [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] See, he come so that nobody would talk to me while I'm on--coming on the road, they don't let no one talk when you're under the anointing. And said, "Now, when he comes, he's going to come in a little black car, and there's going to be boy come with him, and he's going to pick up another boy. And on the road down, there's going to be a native standing by a, dressed in a white safari suit at a eucalyptus tree, narrow bridge, he's going to striking another native with a stick. Your boy will call your attention. By that, you know that you're permitted to go. I won't take your life, but you're going to pay for it."
E-49 I went right in, woke up Brother Bosworth. He had a little-little light there that Billy give him. He pressed on. The Lord speaks to him along in the night time with something or the other, he writes it down on a piece of paper so he can have it for the next day. He said he couldn't remember as good as he used to, said he'd have to write it down when the Lord had give him something.
And I went in, woke him up, woke up Brother Stadsklev, Brother Baxter, Brother Bosworth, and all of them, the ministers. I said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, that God has told me that I could go, but I'd pay for it. And our meetings will not be like they should be. But if you're determined, I'm willing to take this, to whatever the--the whipping is to come, but we shouldn't do it." And I told them what exactly the morning would be, and it was still storming then. I said what it'd be. And the next morning, it happened just exactly (Is that right, Brother Bosworth?), just exactly the way the Lord said. Billy come after me the same way, them boys. And he just had his hand back like this. The boy started talking to me, and the boy motioned, my boy motioned his hand not to do that. And I was setting there praying, waiting till he got to the platform. And--and just then, Billy said, he was looking around behind the seat. The driving wheel's on the right hand side, and he was looking this way, had his arm across, and he was setting in the front, another boy, and I in the back. He said, "Daddy, looky there." And there was that native with that white suit on, standing at that eucalyptus tree, near the bridge, fixing to strike the other one. And I said, "What'd I tell you, Billy?" And the little fellow started crying. I said, "Daddy's headed for some trouble for himself, but here we are." I said, "The next time I ever come to this country, I'd better be straightened out 'fore I get here." And I said, "I won't--I won't come if it's not."
E-50 We went on out, had the meeting that day, went on down, at the very next town was Kimberly, wasn't it? A big diamond mine, where the President taken us down, and showed us the mines... And we had about fifteen thousand people, and a little building that would seat half of this. And that Afrikaans minister, Brother Bosworth went to him, said, "Well, isn't there a place?"
"No place could get it. And anyhow, we're going to have it in my church. The brethren promised me we can have it in our church."
Brother Bosworth said, "Well, ridiculous man." Said. "Look at the streets, they're packed full of people. The fields are standing full of people." Said, "You mean to tell me that you want it in your little old church there that'll seat about three or four hundred, and there around fifteen thousand or more people standing there?"
"The brethren told me I could have it in my church, and that's just where it's going to be."
And poor old Brother Bosworth, I never seen him out of humor in my life. But he come back up to the house, he said, "Let's take a walk."
We went walking. He said, "Brother Branham, did you ever hear of such? It's ridiculous."
E-51 I said, "Of course, Brother Bosworth, that's the exceedingly, abundantly (You see?), that we..." I said, "We're out of the will of God."
Brother Bosworth said, "I just can't stand that preacher acting like that." And downtown he went on his own hook, went out there, and rented a great big stadium that seated them every one real nice, had the meeting. Went on down through Capetown, on the road coming back, coming out of Capetown, here the story starts. I got sick, started getting sicker. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] By the time I got to Durban about two weeks later, I was really sick. I couldn't even hold my head up.
And I got to Durban, and their meeting there consisted of a nearly a hundred thousand people, where thirty thousand converts in one day's time. And they said, "We promised Brother So-and-so." Two thousand miles farther up in Rhodesia I should go, after about two or three days meeting in Durban: walk off and leave a hundred thousand natives that had toiled for as many as a hundreds of miles, and packing their loved ones on reeds through the jungles to be healed. That's the exceedingly, abundantly.
E-52 And there, the white and black could come together. They separated each tribe and so forth, but the only place in Africa that you could do it. Is that right, Brother Bosworth? The Holy Spirit knew that all the time, and we didn't.
So then, the rest of the meeting, I just barely lived to get home. And when I come home, come to find out, I had an African ameba dysentery, blood just poured just as hard as it could. Nothing would stop it. They was going to throw me the pesthouse when I got to America. They took me in to a doctor and examined me. He said, "It's the worst case I ever saw in my life." He put me in a place, and he give me sixty-days treatment. God just turned His back on me, said, "Go ahead, take it. You wanted it."
E-53 I said, "O Lord, help me. Help me." And He just let me just go ahead and holler. And I just cried and begged and everything else. Didn't do no good. Months passed, just the same, never let up at all. Just kept on. The doctors give me everything they had. [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] And he straightly examined me, he said, "I only got one more treatment, and that's strict arsenic." He said, "I can't give you that very much." He give me seven doses of it, and I turned as yellow as a pumpkin. He examined me again, said, "Reverend, if I give you..." His father was a minister right here in Kentucky, Doctor Lucus, at Louisville, Kentucky, if you'd like to ask him: Doctor Lucus and Ryan. And so he, the best there is on--on ameba in this country. And he said, "Reverend Branham, that's the worst type of ameba." Said, "It's not a germ, it's a parasite. Gets into the stomach, and intestinal tract, and just set there and suck on the--on the intestinal tract till the mucus is gone, then gets in the blood stream, takes your life."
So then, and they're in little cones, and when you send medicine down, they just shut up and don't eat it. And I tell you, you never get over it hardly.
So then, I... There I was laying there dying. So then, he give me the that. And they give me examination after that. I had more ameba than I had in the first place.
Now he said, "Reverend Branham, I don't want to alarm you." Said, "You're a married man, got a couple children, three?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "You return home now. There's nothing we can do for you." Said, "There's nothing in the line of medicine that can be done." He said, "Now, if those amebas retire why they--you may go on all right, and have these breaks the rest of your life. He said, "If they go into the farther from the mucus gland into the blood stream, you'll start taking a real high fever. And if they gather on the liver, it'll push out a knot, and you'll get real heavy cramps here. And you let us know right at once, and we'll cut in there and drain that liver out. You'll get over it. But then, if it strikes the brain, or the heart, you'll live ten hours."
E-54 Well, that was a lot of encouragement. I went home. My poor little old wife setting there, and I told her. "Well, what am I going to do? My ministry's ended now. I got two little children to raise: one's seven and the other one two. Now what am I going to do?" That's the exceedingly, abundantly, not obeying God.
I walked up-and-down the floors. I've cried. I begged. I persuaded, back and forth, back and forth, got down to about a hundred and ten pounds, just walking back and forth, crying and praying, back and forth, and back and forth on the floor. Got so I couldn't rest at night. Just, every time, I thought I had a fever every five minutes. And--and I just knew the fever was coming. I was laying there, and the little girl and I was in one of the bedrooms sleeping. Wife and the other little girl was in the next bedroom. The hallway's between the bath, setting between the two beds. So in that room, I was laying there. I woke about two o'clock in the morning; I'd been sleeping about a half hour, and I put my hand back like this, and I said, "O God."
And I remembered Brother Bosworth when I left Africa. I put my arm around him when we got on the plane. I said, "Well, Brother Bosworth, I have fought a good fight. I've finished the course. I accept my fate--or the fate." He said... I said, "I guess my days are over."
He said, "Well, you're just a brand new Branham." He said, "You're just a boy." Said, "I was your..."
I said, "Well, I'm forty-two years old."
E-55 He said, "Well, I was forty years old, 'fore I started preaching here." Said, "Boy, you're just a child." Said, "Here I am, seventy, something," said, "I'm just going strong." Said, "I..." Said, "Well, you just got your education and diploma." Just going on like that, and I thought, "Oh, my."
So, I was thinking about what I told Brother Bosworth. I thought, "What if my future holds. I guess it won't be long now till I'll be gone." And I thought, "If fever strike me, ten hours, my wife will be here with two little children to raise, my boy. What will be the outcome of my life?" I was laying there, I started crying. And I'm... place to the vision. I started crying.
And I looked up, and I thought, "God, what must I do?" I heard something going, "Wooooo." First time for months and months, I knew He was in the room. I looked around, I seen that Light standing over there by a--a chifforobe, whirling around. I got out on the floor, and I said, "O God, have You come with pardon for Your servant, or have You come to take me away?"
E-56 And just then, I looked coming right down in front of me, must've broke into a vision, here come a man walking to me, with typewriter paper, looked like, in his hands like that. And he walked up, and he said, "Insomuch as you was thinking about your future..."
I said, "Yes. I wonder what my future holds."
And I looked down on the floor, and something had been wrote on. And he took that typewriter paper like this, and he went... Threw it like that, and just one right after the other like that, and made a complete road up into heaven. And a great voice screamed from above that paper and said, "Your future is clear."
E-57 I come out of it. I begin crying. I said, "O God, if I could just ask Him." He never shows me over one thing at a time like that. And I thought, "Oh, if I'd have just ask Him if I was ever going to get over these things here, if I--if I was going to get over it, and what would it be." I thought, "Oh, if I could..." Here He come back again.
And I seen that time, when He come walking to me, I said, "Will I ever get over this fear, this..." Said, "I... Will I ever have it anymore?"
He said, "Not at all."
And when He left that time, I begin to rejoice. And I thought, "Oh, if I'd only asked Him about my meetings. If I'd asked Him about my meetings then. Everybody is telling me, 'Brother Roberts prays for people faster than I do, and more people tends the meeting because more can get prayed for.'" I thought, "Well, what... If I'd just had asked Him that." And I thought, "The next time He does, maybe He's--He's... I know He loves me now. He's back talking to me again." And I said, "If He--if He'd tell me again, well then, ever come..." And just there, here He was again. And I said, "Lord, would--would my Lord let me know, it's always throwed up to me about how I pray for the people." I said, "Should... would You bless the people? You told me that--that the--the gift was to get the people to believe, and then if I be sincere when I prayed, do You want me to lay hands on the people, or just pray for the whole group like Brother Bosworth says, or just--or just one, just wherever I see the vision?"
He said, "Just as you're led."
E-58 Then He went away again. And I started rejoicing there, and was real happy. And just then, here He come again and taken me away. Now, listen close, now. Have your paper ready. But when He come this time, He set me down in a Durban meeting, geographically; I was looking just the way the Durban meeting was, looking south. I was in the north. And there was a great Durban meeting, just the same meeting. And I noticed that meeting begin to turn blue, raised up off the ground, the people, and faded away towards the west.
Now, I talk slow, now, so the people can get it, and is writing. Faded towards the west... And just then I looked in front of me again this away, only it was towards the south, and there was a new meeting, greater than the other one was. And there was beautiful people: Men and women with their hands up, a praising God. And I said, "Are all those white people?" And I looked, and I seen the Africans, the great dark race standing in there. And just then, I heard something going, just making a real humming noise, like a dynamo a running.
E-59 And I looked up, and here came another Angel. This One standing by my side was the same Man that always talks. And here come another One from heaven, and He had great oscillating Light turned on. And this Angel caught me by the shoulders and turned me to the east. And as I looked to the east, I never seen so many people in all my life, and they wasn't Africans. They looked like they... They had a--a sheet wrapped around them like this, and just pulled it up and stuffed it down like the Indians wear, up around Calcutta, and up in that way. And they were little bitty, skinny men. And they had their hands up, just a praising God, and a screaming my name as loud as they could to come that way.
And I looked, and the Angel that stood just above me then, He was a great, mighty looking Fellow too. And He had this great light in His hand, oscillating. And He turned It on, and It went way back through the hills. And just as far as I could see, was nothing but a solid mass of people.
And then, the Angel that was standing near me, when I seen all of that turning that way, He said... I heard the number just as plain as you hear me. He said, "There's three hundred thousand of those in that Branham meeting."
E-60 And I pitched forward in the floor. My strength was gone. I raised up, looked around, and I heard something going... The leaves turning, and I looked, and here come my Bible right down, and It was turned to the same Scripture where I read tonight. And then It was turning back towards the front of the Bible, and as It turned back towards the front part, It stopped on Joshua, the 1st chapter, and a finger begin to read down, point down along the lines. "The Lord thy God is with thee wheresoever thou goest. No man shall stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so will I be with you. Be very courageous..." And so forth like that, till It read down there, most of the chapter, 1st chapter of Joshua. And then, It went away.
E-61 At that time, I had came to, and I heard somebody knocked on the door; it was my wife setting there. She was knocking at the door, and she said, "Can I come in?"
Oh, I thought, "That's strange. My wife asking me to come in."
I said, "Yes."
She said, "I started in here three o'clock this morning." Now, she's very timid, but is very spiritual. This is the first time this ever happened in our home. She said, "There's Something told me not to go in there, there was a vision going on." And from three o'clock, this was six o'clock, it'd been three hours I was in that vision. And we went out and was talking of it, and I was telling her.
E-62 And my mother-in-law, a saintly, godly, old, Holy-Ghost filled woman, my wife's mother lives just below me; and as she come up to the house, she said, kind of half crying, she said, "Is anything wrong up here?" She said, "The Lord told me to come up here, something had gone on up here."
There you are. That's two witnesses. I went down to the bank in New Albany, the two boys are very well acquainted. And little Bob Dennison, I guess you know him at the bank, Union National Bank, and I want to pick up my checks to see if I had any income tax to pay. And when I went out, I noticed him weeping. And I went over to him, I said, "What's the matter, Bobby?"
E-63 He said, "Why, Billy Branham." He knowed of Miss Morgan being healed with cancer. He said, "Billy, most of my people die with cancer in the bowels," he said, "of just bleeding." And said, "Last night, I had a very strange dream. I dreamed that I saw a Man come down from heaven, dressed in white, and told me you was going to be standing here today." That was it. That was all. God in the mouth of three witnesses. It's going to happen, friend.
I went home. I called up Dr. Lucus. I said, "Dr. Lucus, I want to come over examination."
He said, "What for?"
I said, "I'm... I haven't got any ameba."
He said, "Oh, yes. You got it, Reverend. Branham." Lovely man, one of the best men that you'd want to meet, one of the nicest little doctors, him and Dr. Ryan...
And I said, "Well, Dr. Lucus, I'd like for you to examine me."
He said, "Well, I just examined you the other day, Bro--Brother Branham." Said, "You got ameba."
I said, "Huh-uh." Ha. I said, "Would you give me..."
"Oh," he said, "come on over."
And I went over, and as busy as he was, he said, "What about it, reverend?"
And I said, "I haven't got any ameba."
He said, "You just got--you just got a little relief." He said, "You're just..."
E-64 I said, "No, it's not a relief. This is permanent." I said, "I--I--I'm absolutely healed of it."
And he said, "Well."
And I said, "Will you take another examination?"
He said, "Climb up on the table." And he took the smear, went out into the laboratory. Come back, said, "Could I take that again?" I knowed what had happened. He goes down, takes it again, comes back, and he said, "Reverend, you haven't got any."
I said, "That's what I told you."
And he said, "Well, I have to examine you for three months," said, "'fore I can let you be free."
I said, "You can examine me every day, if you want to." I said, "It's all right."
And he said, "What happened?"
And I set down and told him. I said, "Do you believe that?"
Said, "How can I doubt it?" Said..?... And I was healed. God called me to...
Now, what I've got to do... There's more with it, but I've close now. It's time to start praying for the sick.
E-65 What's happened, friends? Now, I have to go right straight back to Africa, where I started from. I... There in Von Vonblumburg, I have a little dinner with the Prime Minister of India, Nehru, [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.] then I go into India. The archbishop, which is to be with us in this next meeting, down here the Baptist and Methodist is sponsoring here in Florida, Dr...?... Lee of the big Baptist school there. They're sponsoring this meeting at West Palm Beach, just the fundamental churches alone.
And the archbishop of India come over here to find out a lot of Indians was converted and healed there. He come over to find out whether it was true, and he receive the Holy Ghost himself.
He said, "Be unto me."
Don Wells, the one that wrote me...?... received the Holy Ghost. Dr. Reedhead, the President...?... of the great Sudan Missions received the baptism of the Holy Ghost in my camp meeting. See? [Blank.spot.on.tape--Ed.]
He said, "Brother Branham, the move is on."
E-66 So, some of them, when I said, "...?... Lee" they thought it was Doctor Lee at Memphis. So they wrote there and told them, "Oh, no. Certainly Doctor Lee wouldn't believe that?"
I said, "What about it?" I said, "If he wants to travel in a ox cart, let him go on. We're in a jet plane. Let's move on. We're a different type of Baptist. Let's go on." The move is on. God is a moving among His people. And that's why here in America right now, we're trying to stimulate enough finance to put the road back to Africa again, India, and so forth.
And mark it in your Bible, that you will hear this, that I was in India, or somewhere east of Africa, Tanganyika, somewhere where Indians are at, somewhere in that eastern country which I believe will be India, itself, where there'll be three hundred thousand people, either they will be attending the meeting, or they'll be...
The archbishop told me, said, "Brother Branham," said, "that's three hundred thousand conversions." He said, "Because I assure you, there'll be a...?...