Other Places

Brother Branham tells the story about the mountain range on the Idaho - Montana border in the sermon "Standing In The Gap," preached in Jeffersonville, Indiana, on June 23, 1963. [MP3 Audio Excerpt] - From "Standing In The Gap," June 23, 1963. 

In my mind, I'd made up my mind that I was going to go up to Bud's, because he's in a bad shape up there as a hunter. Before leaving here… I dreamed a funny dream, an odd dream. I hope if my brother-in-law ever gets a hold of this, it doesn't hurt his feelings. And I hope I don't hurt my wife, who's sitting present now. It was around about October or November I dreamed that I was a-roaming out in the dark, and I had no place to go and nobody cared for me. I'd become a bum, just a bum. I was cold, and I looked in the distance and I saw fire. When I got over there, it was a city dump. And they had ditches, and the fire was in these ditches. Between the ditches was slick were bums would sleep there to keep warm (keep from freezing) between these fires on a cold winter night. And I was cold. I walked up to this fire to get warm, and it was laying full of bums... I didn't see any of them, but they all like had stalls or places where their sleeping places was. And I saw my brother-in-law, Fletcher Broy.

And Fletcher… how I remember him. He's a good kid. But this might be a lesson to the young children. I remember a few years ago a handsome young man of James Fletcher Broy, and he got with the wrong crowd, and he took his first drink. I remember he called me behind the curtains in my house. And his daddy was out there picking a guitar, “On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross.”

And Fletcher called me back; he said, “Brother Bill, pray for me. Listen that piece my daddy's playing, and I've been drinking today.”

And I said, “Fletcher...” About eighteen-year-old boy, I said, “Don't go that route.” But he never listened. He went on; he become a complete alcoholic. And his wife left him, his children... God knows I love him...

I went to pray for him, just a bum. I went to pray for him here not long ago; he'd got hurt, while I was here with the Seven Seals. I said, “Fletch, I got a couple suits up there I'd like to give you.”

He said, “Don't do it, Brother Bill.”

Now, I know he had no clothes. And I said, “Why don't you take the clothes?”

He said, “Huh-uh.” And he looked up at me and, “See, you know what I'd do with them: pawn them and get drunk.”

And I said, “I'll give you a little money, Fletch.”

He said, “No, don't do it, Brother Bill. I--I don't want you to do it.” He's a real guy at heart, but he's become an alcoholic and a bum. And his wife has took the wrong road. And, oh, just everything's happened to the poor fellow.

Before I woke up, Fletch said to me in the dream, “Billy, I'll hunt you a place, Brother Bill. You fed my children when they were hungry. You was a daddy to them. Now, I'll find you a place here to keep warm.” We went walking by the bums' places and finally come to a place. He said, “I'll sit down here.”

And I said, “I'll walk up here and see if I can find a place.” And I walked up and looked out into the dark, cold night, and I thought, “Think of it... One time, God Almighty let me lead His Church. One time He let me preach His gospel and see souls saved. Men and women come from around the world to speak with me for a few minutes. And here I am now, a bum; nobody wants me. And I'm cold. And what must I do?” Then I woke up.

I told my wife, “Maybe it means that Fletch is in need.” So we hurried up to see if we could find him. And his brother found him. He was staying out here with the “Weidners,” out there where they have trade horses and things; sleep in a corner of a barn or something. And I went on. I thought, “Well, just have to let it go.”

So I come back down now from Canada with Fred and them the other day. And in my mind, I had it made up, “If these people didn't want to hear my message, all right, they didn't have to.” I'd preached now for about thirty-five years. And the last fifteen, eighteen years I've done nothing but just... I've tried to live so close to Him and not say a word till He told me first…

People say, “Now, if Brother Branham tells you he's coming, remember, look out for a meeting, because he's coming in the name of the Lord. He won't do nothing till the Lord tell...” That's right. I waited till He told me. I didn't move till He told me. And then He got so for the last few months, He didn't tell me nothing about places to go.

Then I come down from Canada and Brother Roy told me his dream, as he and I and Brother Banks rode along together, just before we separated. And then, the next day we got out at Brother Fred's, and his boy, Lynn wasn't at home, and so he couldn't come on with us. And him and his wife had to wait. He picked up his wife there at Melrose, Saskatchewan. And Billy and I come on in Brother Fred's truck. That night we traveled most the night and the next day. And then on the next morning we had left Helena, Montana, and was coming on towards the border. And I can stay up till about nine o'clock, and I get sleepy. I got to sleep. And Billy, he wants to sleep till about ten o'clock the next day, when the daylight comes up. So it makes it pretty good for us to travel.

So I got up at about four o'clock and got started driving, and Billy was sleeping. We went into a place, and I was thinking on my mind, “You know what? One of these days, as soon as I can get the wife up there... And I won't tell her what I'm going to do. But I'd get up there. And then I'm going to tell her, ‘I love this place so well, no need of us going anywhere else. Let's just stay here.’” And that's back from civilization eleven hundred miles from anywhere, way in the wilderness. I thought, “Boy, won't that be fine? I won't have to get a haircut, and I won't have to dress up. And I'll just be a regular mountaineer, what I always wanted to be. I got some guns, and some people give me... I'll be a guide like you never heard of. I'll just love it. Then if the Lord tells me go down and tell somebody something, I'll run out and tell them and come back again. I'll help Bud, and we'll really have a real place here.” I was thinking on that.

We went into a restaurant to eat (a little place in the mountains) just about seven o'clock. It was getting a little late, so I woke Billy up. We was out of gasoline, so had to get some gasoline, and went into this little restaurant. While there, a man come across the street, maybe a teeny bit older than I was, but he looked like a man to me. He had on a pair of overalls, overall jacket, riding boots, a black hat, whiskers down on his face like this (snow-white), and hair hanging out from under back of his hat. I thought that looked like a man to me, not some soft, lazy, with a cigar in his mouth about that long, sitting with a pair of shorts on, around some patio or swimming pool, some pot-bellied easterner, like... Excuse that expression. But, however, the guy looked like a man to me: hard, rough. Looked like he lived where God made man to live. And I was admiring him.

He come into the restaurant and ordered some pancakes. Was about fifteen, twenty people. He had to sneeze. You know how some people [Brother Branham imitates stifling a sneeze--Ed.]... But he let out a great big, healthy wood sneeze: Ker-choo-ee! My, it looked like the wind was blasting. And when he did, nobody dared to say nothing. No, sir. I said, “Billy, there's a man after my own heart.”

He said, “Aw, daddy, you don't want to be like...”

“That's what... That's me in the future.” I said, “That's me.”

And I set there a little bit, and Billy looked up at me and kept on eating his pancakes, and I was finished with mine. In a few minutes, somebody in a booth right around from of us, with the boards this way, a back of the booth, I couldn't see around. A man got up that looked exactly my profile, about seventy-five years old, little bitty fellow, and his clothes tied on him, ragged. And the buddy that got up with him was Fletcher Broy, exactly: gray hair hanging in his face. Billy looked around and he said, “Daddy, that looks like you and Fletcher.” You could imagine how I felt. The little fellow, looked like me, wobbled up, and had been standing over a campfire with smoke all over them, faces dirty. I think their breakfast together, the man must've paid twenty cents: maybe a cup of coffee or something. My heart bounced within me. I watched. And Billy said, “What's the matter with you?”

I said, “Nothing.” And I watched that. And they went around and went out.

He said, “Daddy, what's the matter?”

I said, “Nothing.” And he got in the car.

He said, “Do you mind driving again?”

I said, “No.”

He said, “I'm still sleepy.”

So he went to sleep, and I went speeding down the road about fifty-five miles an hour in the truck, over the mountains, coming on towards the border, coming home to Arizona, but I was coming now into Utah. As I got there, just coming down from the mountains about twenty miles out of the city... You've heard it, as I told you, about the morning about the squirrels and all these things, how something... Somebody went to talking to me, a voice just the same as you hear mine. I know it sounds neurotically, but as I've just got through expressing, “Have I ever told you anything but what was right?”

And a voice got to talking. I was talking to it. It said, “Carry out your plans and you'll be like that.”

I said, “Lord, I don't want to be like that.”

Said, “Your wife will go too. She won't live up there in them hills like that. And you'll become a bum just as the dream showed you you would.”

I said, “I don't want to be that, but the... I don't want to have to live like that. I want to do something different. But I was told that You'd call me to be a prophet, and I want to live in the wilderness like the prophet.” But I was using my own excuse so I could hunt: my own good.

And He said, “But that was the prophets of the Old Testament. You've been called to be there in a much higher office than that. You have more gifts besides that. You was called to pray for the sick and to preach the gospel in the apostolic forms. You know of greater things, many great gifts. Why do you wait for Me to move you every time you move? Where is your reward?” Then I seen. “You remember what Brother Roberson told you in his dream, or vision? That you had done like Moses; you forgot the feeling of your people. You forgot the call that I called you to.”

I let the sick lay. I want Lord to tell me where to go and not to. That's wrong. I'd built myself a complex, because the people didn't hear my message. And God forbid that I've tried to compare the life of like Moses, but it's exactly what Moses did. The people wouldn't listen to him when he come to deliver them, so he just left them alone and went into the wilderness, but God turned him around. And he'd long forgot the suffering people.

And then I said, “Lord, if... How could I... That's right. With no education but a grammar school education, be able... And the people would stand in rows and everywhere to hear the simple gospel.” It's more; it's greater now than it was under the old covenant. He ascended on high and give gifts unto men, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Then I was talking and I heard It talking to me. And It left me. And I said, “Billy.” And he was sound asleep. I said, “Billy, was that you?” And he didn't even wake up.

And I thought, “Lord God (I slowed my car down.), what does this mean?”

And I said, “Billy, Billy.”

Said, “What do you want?”

And I said, “You talking to me?”

“No, why?”

And I said, “I want to tell you something. I dreamed a dream not long ago. You remember seeing that guy, looked like me and Fletch? Ask mother when you get back to Tucson; I told her this dream. And Billy, there's something's happening. It's going on now. Something was talking to me, and I thought it was you.”

He looked at me kind of strange and waited a little bit. We was driving on, so a few minutes he went back to sleep again. I was driving along thinking about, “What could that mean?” Driving along right in the road, and all at once, here It come talking again.

And He said, “Return. Did not I tell you in the beginning to do the work of an evangelist? When I called you down on the river, did not I say, “As John the Baptist was sent forth to forerun the first coming... Wasn't John more than a prophet?” Jesus said so Himself: “What'd you go out to see, a prophet? More than a prophet.” 

Then it all begin to come to me. I begin to wonder. Then He reminded me again of the people. How, doing what Moses did, how could Moses reach the people in the wilderness? And how could I reach the people in the wilderness? Exactly the same thing. Then it come this II Timothy 4. Remember when we dedicated the church that morning thirty years ago, when He showed me them trees and I planted them on both sides. You remember the vision. It's all wrote in books and on tapes and everything. Been years ago, how I seen these, and I never crossed up the oneness and the trinity. I stood between them and planted these trees, and they were the only two trees that had fruit. All the trees growed up about thirty feet and stop. These went plumb into heaven. Broke off of the same branch... One on one side and one on the other, and I broke them. You remember the vision. It's wrote in books and it's in my life story. And they went plumb up into heaven like that, quickly. And He said, “Hold out your hands for the fruit.” And then I found the same fruit in the cross when I run down there. And He said, “Do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of your ministry. The time will come when they'll not endure sound doctrine. Don't quit then; keep going.” That all come into my mind.

And then I remember…. I was preaching in Los Angeles at the Business Men's breakfast, and something there just laying down on those organizations, and there set the head man of the Assemblies and many of the great dignitaries had gathered in there. When I got through speaking and started to leave the platform, getting ready... 'cause the message was being sent out across the nation on radio, and had to change back. During this change when he cut off the radio, then to send that message out, and it come back and announce the station, and I was at Clifton's where we had the breakfast... And as I was walking from the upper platform to the lower, a fine handsome-looking young fellow of about thirty years old, run forth and threw his arms around me. He said, “I'm Danny Henry.” And not knowing that that was his brother doing the televising. And it televises after the Christian Business Men. (And it's Jane Russell, that movie star, her cousin. Her mother's a Pentecostal preacher.)

And then, when... he started running to me, and he throwed his arms around me, and said, “God bless you, Brother Branham. I hope this don't sound sacrilegious, but to my way of seeing it, that message could be the 23rd chapter of Revelation.” And when he said that, he started speaking in tongues, a boy who never even heard of such a thing, a Baptist by denomination. He turned white, and he looked at me; he didn't know what to do. And he didn't know what to say.

And there's a great, big French woman sitting down here; she raised up; she said, “Why, that don't need any interpretation. That was purely French.”

The boy said, “I don't know one word of French.” And she'd wrote down what he said. And then there was a man setting on the corner; he said, “That's correct. I've got wrote down what he said. It's French.” Way back in the back, a blond-headed, handsome-looking fellow, standing up against the wall, come forward and compared notes. He was the interpreter for the U.N., for French. And this man over here was Victor Le Doux, of the Arne Vick church out there, and he wrote it down.

I've got the interpretation to it. Listen to this if I can read it.

I, Victor Le Doux, am a full-blooded Frenchman, borned again Christian, filled with the Holy Spirit. My address is 809 North King Road, Los Angeles 46. I attend the Bethel Temple, pastor Arne Vick, pastor. A true translation that I proclaim, of prophecy said over Brother Branham, given by Danny Henry in French, February the 11th, 1961, at the Full Gospel Business Men's breakfast. A true translation of the prophecy.

Because thou has chosen the narrow path, the harder way, thou has walked in your own choosing. (Now, I can see that. Moses had to make his choice too.) Thou hast picked the precise and correct way (correct decision), and it is My way (underlined ‘My way,’ the Holy Spirit speaking back). Because of this momentous decision, a huge portion of heaven awaits thee. What a glorious decision... (Now, listen close.)... What a glorious decision thou has made. This in itself is that which will make, and come to pass, the tremendous victory in the love Divine.

You notice, it's a verb before the adverb. French... Now, the U.N. interpreter interpreted that, and the boy knows not one word: never heard of such thing as speaking in tongues. He was a Baptist. Just happened to drop in there and heard that music, and said come up there, and stand up there and listen at me preach.

Now... “in the love Divine,” Divine Love... How can that be Divine Love if it isn't the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is Divine Love.

As Billy and I started going on down the road, Billy went to sleep again. And It said, “I'll give you an everlasting sign.”

I said, “Lord, what...” I waited a little bit and nothing happened. I said, “What is the everlasting sign, Lord?” And I waited a few minutes. I looked over to see Billy; he was asleep.

He said, “I'll give you an everlasting sign. Look westward from where you're at.”

And I turned my head like this in the truck to look (slowed down, you know)... And oh, my, the Spirit of the Lord... I felt like I could scream and cry. I looked, and I just saw a mountain with white caps on it. I said, “I don't see no everlasting sign about that.”

He said, “Your name is wrote all over it.”

I thought, “What is that?” And I got real weak and I started stopping.

Billy raised up and said, “What's the matter with you?” And I pulled my hands like this, perspiration dropping off my hands…

I said, “Billy, something's happening. At one time I know where I've done wrong. I know that I've failed God.” And looked like I could hear that song being sung and see thousands of mixed people lame, halt, blind, and withered: heared a choir, a voice of some great renown voice singing:

Unclean! Unclean! The evil spirits drove him. (You know the song.) Then Jesus came and set the captive free.

I could see the sick lines laying everywhere. And I had to stop. Billy didn't know what was taking place, and I looked up.

I stopped and looked up on the mountain, and I seen those seven hills. There was seven peaks on top of a mountain, one mountain, that run for several miles. The last mountain before you go into the other country, no more mountains after that. And it was running from east to the west, the mountain set. And it was snowcapped on top.

The first two small peaks, and then a large peak... then another small peak… then a larger peak... then a small peak… then a great, large, long, snowcapped mountain. And I said, “Lord, I do not understand what that means.”

He said, “How many peaks are there?”

I said, “There's seven.”

“How many letters is in your name?” [W-i-l-l-i-a-m], M-a-r-r-i-o-n, B-r-a-n-h-a-m.

And there was three outstanding peaks. He said, “Those three peaks are the first, second, and third pull. The first one was your first part of your ministry: small hill; then your first pull, pretty high.” (You know, sign in the hand.) Then there's a little interval in there, the time that I was taken off from being too tired. Many of you remember it. And then come the discernment, the second pull. Now, I've had another, about few years here of just kind of little peaks, back like my ministry wasn't just... And then come the third one.

Three is a number of completion, the third one. The next peak was five, number of grace. And the next peak was seven, a number of perfection, the end. “Six days shall ye labor; the seventh is the Sabbath, the end of the week, the end of time.” See? And I stopped and I showed it to Billy. And I looked at them. He said, “Let that stand. If there's ever a doubt in your mind, remember this place; come back here.”

And Billy punched me on the shoulder, he said, “Daddy, look eastward.” And how it ever happened I don't know, but there on the east side of the road was that burning dump. Miles and miles from any kind of a city, an old rubbish heap dump laying there on the left hand side of the road. 

I am returning to the field. Amen. Old or young, live or die, I'll obey God until death shall set me free. I have failed the Lord, not willing... Whether I make... I've tried... Let me insert this. I've wanted to see Jesus Christ manifested without one flaw. And let the brethren who hear this tape and this church remember from this day, the reason you haven't had no flaws, and the reason that all these years, you can't say one thing that ever said or done but what it happened. I challenge anybody to bring any of the thousands of things on the platform, and the discernment, and the prediction of what would happen; it's happened exactly to the letter. Now, if the church believes that, say, “Amen.” [Congregation answers, “Amen.”--Ed.] There's not a person in the world can show one.

But be it known to the church here and to the church hereafter: If God pushes a man through a pipe and he don't move at all until God tells him, there's no faith connected with it. It's God pushing you to something. And it's built the ministry to a place to where there's nobody can say one word against it. But from henceforth, let me first speak to you in the Name of the Lord, before you listen, because I must go out by faith. I must do it by faith whether I think it's right or wrong, or what... I do the best of my choosing and then go do it. Because it hasn't been wrong, it's 'cause I've waited till He told me to go do it. I've waited for Him, so it wasn't me; it was Him.

But, you see, even the great Saint Paul got between the straits one time. And many times that God has did things or let His servants do it, that was mistakes, in order to prove these things. Now, we know that human beings can make mistakes, but God can make no mistake. But now, if I get into the field of preaching and going the way I do, then I have to set up meetings ahead and get things lined up. And perhaps this is that great time coming that we been looking for. And surely, if this in itself is a tremendous thing that will bring to pass, and make come to pass, the tremendous victory in the Love Divine (and that's the verb before adverb), then it's Divine Love which is God. See? And it takes the love of God to dash out there on the front line and stand in the gap for the people.

And these Rickys and Rickettas that have so sassed the words, that I've called them “Ricky” and “Ricketta,” God gives me to understand I shouldn't do that, because many of them are still His children. They can't help because they act so much different. Some of these old, cold formal churches that's got them, that spirit upon them, and they're as much in prison as Israel was in prison, just as much as Moses went down to deliver them from slavery: human beings that love Jesus Christ, would serve Him if they only know what to serve Him by. And they're in bondage under denominationalism that tells them, “Don't you do this,” and “Don't you do that.”

But the call of God must come, “Whoever wants to march towards the Promised Land, let him march.” We're on our road to the Promised Land. Amen. Let them come, march. We're on our road to meet Christ at the end time. And I wanted to bring this to you so that you would see, and show you that the mistakes that a man can make, yet being sincere.

Moses lost the feeling of his people because they wouldn't listen to him. Brother Roy, you see your dream? And now, I cannot go with a ministry like that, until I feel different in my heart about it, no matter if God did tell me. But that is what change that, Brother Roy, that's coming. Something's got to change me, because I, in my heart, if I go out there feeling the way I do now... I still feel that they ought to have heared that message, they ought to done... And I don't have the feeling for the people that I should have. And till I can get that feeling, there's no need in me going because I'd be a hypocrite.

And all these years I've tried to serve Him with a true heart, and I won't go out there being a hypocrite. I got to feel that, that it isn't “Ricky” and “Ricketta,” and it isn't this bunch. It's God's children that's in bondage, and I must go to them. And until I can feel that way, I'll just have to loaf around, preach some conventions and things, but wait.

(From "Standing In The Gap" preached in Jeffersonville, Indiana; Volume 6 Book 7; Sunday  63-0623m; paragraphs 98 - 162, edited)