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