In May 1960, Brother Branham had an experience where he went beyond the curtain of time.
"Oh, my precious friend, my beloved, my darlings of the Gospel, my begotten children unto God, listen to me, your pastor. I wish there was some way I could explain it to you. There's no words. I couldn't find it. It's not found anywhere.But just beyond this last breath is the most glorious thing that you ever-- There is no way to explain it. There's no way. I just can't do it.
But whatever you do, friends, lay aside everything else till you get perfect love. Get to a spot that you can love everybody, every enemy, everything else.
That one visit there to me has made me a different man. I can never, never, never be the same Brother Branham that I was. Whether the planes are rocking, whether lightning's a-flashing, whether the spies has a gun on me, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. I'm going to press the battle by the grace of God while I preach the Gospel to every creature and every person that I can, persuading them to that beautiful land yonder."
Brother Branham telling of his experience Beyond the Curtain of Time [MP3 Audio]
Abridged Booklet of Beyond the Curtain of Time
Beyond the Curtain of Time
[Abridged from The Rejected King, May 15, 1960 a.m.]
I don’t know my days. No one does. The other morning I was laying in my bed. I had been asleep, and I dreamed that Joseph was sick and I’d picked him up to pray for him. When I woke up I was very upset. I said, “Well, maybe Joseph is going to be sick.”
I looked going before me in a little dark shadow, rather, of a brownish color, and it seemed like it was me. I watched it and coming behind it was someone white, and it was Him. I looked over to my wife to see if she was awake that I could show her, if she could see the vision, but she was sleeping.
I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Lord, but that’s been my life. You’ve had to drive me to everything that I done. Every time anything would happen, I’d think it was You doing it, and I realized it was Satan trying to keep me away from it.” I said, “If You could only lead me.”
As I looked I seen the prettiest face I ever saw on a Man. He was in front of me looking back. He raised His hand and got ahold of mine and started moving this way. The vision left me.
Last Sunday morning I had wakened up early. That was on Saturday, this vision. I’ve always wearied. I’ve always thought of dying that me, being fifty, it’s—my time is not I didn’t think was too long. I wondered what I would be in this theophany, celestial body. Would it be that I’d see my precious friends and say a little white fog going by and say, “There goes Brother Neville,” or he couldn’t say, “Hello, Brother Branham.” And when Jesus come, then I’d be man again. I often thought that.
I was dreaming that I was out west and I— coming down through a little sagebrush place, and my wife was with me, and we’d been trout fishing, and I stopped and opened up the gate, and the skies were so pretty. They didn’t look like they do over the valley here. They were blue and the pretty white clouds— I said to wife, “We ought to have been out here a long time ago, honey.”
She said, “For the children’s sake, we should’ve been, Billy.”
I said, “That’s right—”
And I woke up. I thought, “I’m dreaming so much. I wonder why.” I looked down and she was laying by me. I raised up on my pillow, as many of you people have done, put my head upon the headboard of the bed, and put my hands behind me.
I was laying there like this, and I said, “Well, I just wonder what it will be the other side. I am already fifty, and I haven’t done nothing yet. If I could only do something to help the Lord. For I know I won’t be mortal— Half of my time is gone, at least, or more than half. If I live to be as old as my people, still half my time is gone.
I looked around and I was laying there fixing to get up—it was about seven o’clock. I said, “I believe I’ll go down to church this morning. If I am hoarse, I’d like to hear Brother Neville preach.” So I said, “Are you awake, honey?” And she was sleeping very soundly.
I don’t want you to miss this. It has changed me. I can’t be the same Brother Branham that I was.
I looked, and I heard something kept saying, “You’re just starting. Press the battle. Just keep pressing.”
I shook my head a minute and then I thought, “Well, I probably just thinking like this, you know, a person can get some imaginations.” I said, “I just probably imagined that.”
It said, “Press the battle. Keep going. Keep going.”
I said, “Maybe I said it.” I put my lips within my teeth, and put my hand over my mouth, and there it come again— Said, “Just keep pressing. If you only knew what was at the end of the road.”
It seemed like I could hear Graham Snelling, or somebody that sing that song like this— they sings it here, Anna Mae and all of you all:
I am homesick and blue, and I want to see Jesus;
····· I would like to hear those sweet harbor bells chime;
It would brighten my path and would vanish all fears;
····· Lord, let me look past the curtain of time.
You’ve heard it sang here at the church.
I heard something say, “Would you like to see just beyond the curtain?”
I said, “It would help me so much.” And I looked, and in just a moment, I—one breath, I’d come into a little place that’s slanted. I looked back, and there I was laying on the bed. I said, “This is a strange thing.”
Now, I would not want you to repeat this. This is before my church, or my sheep that I am pastoring.
Whether it was I was in this body or out, whether it was a translation— It wasn’t like any vision I ever had. I could look there, and I could look here. And when I hit that little place, I never seen so many people come running, screaming, “Oh, our precious brother.” I looked, and young women, maybe in their early twenties (eighteen to twenty), they were throwing their arms around me and screaming, “Our precious brother.”
Here come young men in the brilliance of young manhood, and their eyes glistening and looking like stars on a darkened night, their teeth as white as pearl, and they were screaming, and grabbing me, and screaming, “Oh, our precious brother.”
I stopped and I looked, and I was young. I looked back at my old body laying there with my hands behind my head. I said, “I don’t understand this.” And these young women throwing their arms around me—
Now, I do realize this is a mixed audience, and I say this with the sweetness and with the mellowness of the Spirit. Men cannot put your arm around women without a human sensation. But it wasn’t there.
There was no yesterday nor tomorrow. They didn’t get tired. They were—
I never seen such pretty women in all my life. They had hair way down to their waistline, long skirts to their feet, and they were just a hugging me. It wasn’t a hug like even my own sister setting there would hug me. They were not kissing me, and I was not kissing them. It was something that I have not got the vocabulary— I haven’t got the words to say. Perfection wouldn’t touch it. Superb wouldn’t even touch it nowhere. It was something that I never— You just have to be there.
I looked this a way and that way, and they were coming by the thousands. And I said, “Now, I don’t understand this. Why, they—”
And here come Hope—that was my first wife. She run and never said, “My husband.” She said, “My precious brother.” When she hugged me, there was another woman standing there that’d hugged me, and then Hope hugged this woman, and each one—
I thought, “Oh, wh— This has to be something different; it can’t be. There’s something—” I thought, “Oh, would I ever want to go back to that old carcass again?”
I looked around there and I thought, “What is this?” I looked real good and I said, “I can’t understand this.” But Hope seemed to be like a guest of honor. She was no different but just like a guest of honor.
I heard a voice then that spoke to me that was in the room, said, “This is what you preached was the Holy Ghost. This is perfect love. And nothing can enter here without it.”
I am more determined than ever in my life that it takes perfect love to enter there.
There was no jealousy. There was no tiredness. There was no death. Sickness could never in there. Mortality could never make you old, and they could not cry. It was just one joy, “Oh, my precious brother.”
They took me up and set me up on a great big high place. I thought, “I am not dreaming. I’m looking back at my body laying down there on the bed.” They set me up there, and I said, “Oh, I shouldn’t set up here.”
Here come women and men from both sides just in the bloom of youth, screaming. One woman was standing there, and she screamed, “Oh, my precious brother. Oh, we are so happy to see you here.”
I said, “I don’t understand this.”
Then that voice that was speaking from above me, said, “You know it is written in the Bible that the prophets were gathered with their people.”
I said, “Yes, I remember that in the Scriptures.”
Said, “Why, this is when you will gather with your people.”
I said, “Then they’ll be real, and I can feel them.”
“Oh, yes.”
I said, “But I— There’s millions. There’s not that many Branhams.”
That voice said, “They’re not Branhams— them’s your converts. That’s the ones that you’ve led to the Lord. Some of them women there that you think are so beautiful were better than ninety years old when you led them to the Lord. No wonder they’re screaming, ‘Our precious brother.’“
And they screamed all at once, “If you hadn’t have went, we wouldn’t be here.”
I looked around and I thought, “Well, I don’t get it.” I said, “Oh, where is Jesus? I want to see Him so bad.”
They said, “Now, He’s just a little higher, right up that way. Someday He will come to you.” You see? Said, “You were sent for a leader. And God will come, and when He does, He’ll judge you according to what you taught them, first; whether they go in or not.” “We’ll go in according to your teaching.”
I said, “Oh, I’m so glad. Did Paul, does he have to stand like this? Does Peter have to stand like this?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Then I’ve preached every word that they preached. I never divvied from it one side to the other. Where they baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, I did too. Where they taught the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I did too. Whatever they taught, I did too.”
Them people screamed and said, “We know that, and we know we’re going with you someday back to earth. Jesus will come, and you’ll be judged according to the Word that you preached us. And then, if you are accepted at that time, which you will be, then you will present us to Him as your trophies of your ministry. You will guide us to Him, and all together we’ll go back to the earth to live forever.”
I said, “Do I have to return back now?”
“Yes, but keep pressing on.”
I looked, and I could see the people, just as far as I could see, still coming, wanting to hug me, screaming, “Our precious brother.”
Just then a voice said, “All that you ever loved, and all that ever loved you, God has given you here.” I looked, and here come my old dog come walking up. Here come my horse and laid his head up over my shoulder and nickered.
Said, “All that you ever loved and all that ever loved you, God has given them into your hands through your ministry.”
I felt myself move from that beautiful place. I looked around. I said, “Are you awake, honey?” She was still asleep.
I thought, “O God, oh, help me, O God. Never let me compromise with one word. Let me stay right straight on that Word and preach It. I don’t care what comes or goes, what anybody does, how many Sauls of—sons of Kish rise, how many this, that, or the other, let me, Lord, press to that place.
All fear of death—
I say this with my Bible before me this morning. I’ve got a little boy there four years old, to be raised. I’ve got a nine year old girl and a teenager that I’m thankful for, that’s turned the way of the Lord. God, let me live to bring them up in the admonition of God.
Above that, the whole world seems to scream to me. Ninety-year-old women and men and all kinds, “If you hadn’t have went, we wouldn’t been here.”
God, let me press the battle. But if it comes to dying, I am no more— It would be a joy; it would be a pleasure to enter from this corruption and disgrace.
If I could make up yonder, one hundred billion miles high, a square block, and that’s perfect love. Each step this way, it narrows until we get down to where we are now. It would be just merely a shadow of corruption. That little something that we can sense and feel that there’s something somewhere, we don’t know what it is.
Oh, my precious friend, my beloved, my darlings of the Gospel, my begotten children unto God, listen to me, your pastor. I wish there was some way I could explain it to you. There’s no words. I couldn’t find it. It’s not found anywhere.
But just beyond this last breath is the most glorious thing that you ever— There is no way to explain it. There’s no way. I just can’t do it.
But whatever you do, friends, lay aside everything else till you get perfect love. Get to a spot that you can love everybody, every enemy, everything else.
That one visit there to me has made me a different man. I can never, never, never be the same Brother Branham that I was. Whether the planes are rocking, whether lightning’s flashing, whether the spies has a gun on me, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to press the battle by the grace of God while I preach the Gospel to every creature and every person that I can, persuading them to that beautiful land yonder. It may seem hard. It may take a lot of strength.
I don’t know how much longer— We don’t know. Physically speaking from my examination the other day, said, “You’ve got twenty-five years of hard, good life. You’re solid.” That helped me.
But, oh, that wasn’t it. That isn’t it. It’s something within here. This corruption has got to put on incorruption; this mortal’s got to put on immortality.
Sons of Kish may rise. All the good things they do, I have nothing evil to say against it: giving to the poor and to charity. And you remember, why, Samuel told Saul, “You’ll also prophesy.” And many of those men are great mighty preachers, can preach the Word like archangels, but still it wasn’t God’s will. God was to be their King.
Brother, sister, you let the Holy Spirit lead you. Let us bow our heads just a moment.
I’m so homesick and blue, and I want to see Jesus,
····· I would like to hear those sweet harbor bells chime.
It would brighten my path and would vanish all fear;
····· Lord, let us look a-past the curtain of time.
Lord, let me look a-past the curtain of sorrows and fear;
····· Let me view that sunny bright clime.
It would strengthen our faith and would vanish all fear;
····· Lord, let them look a-past the curtain of time.
I am sure, Lord, if this little church this morning could just look a-past the curtain: not an affliction among them—nor never could be, not a sickness, nothing but perfection. And it’s just one breath between here and there, from old age to youth, from time to eternity, from a weary of tomorrow and a sorrow of yesterday till a present time of eternity in perfection.
I pray, God, that You will bless every person here. If there be those here, Lord, who does not know You in that way of love—
And truly, Father, nothing could enter that holy place without that type of love, the new birth to be borned again. The Holy Spirit, God is love.
And we know that that is true. No matter if we move mountains by our faith, if we did great things, still without that there we could never climb that great ladder yonder. But with that, it’ll lift us beyond this earthly cares.
I pray, Father, that You will bless the people here, and may that every person that has heard me this morning tell this truth, that You be my witness, Lord, as Samuel of old, “Have I ever told them anything in Your name but what was true?” They’re the judges. And I tell them now, Lord, that You taken me to that land. And Thou knowest that it’s true.
And now, Father, if there be some that doesn’t know You, may this be the hour that they say, “Lord, place within me the will to be Thy will.” Grant it, Father.
Now you with your heads bowed, would you raise your hands and say, “Pray for me, Brother Branham. God will within me.”
Now, while you’re right where you are, just real sweetly, why don’t you just say to Father, “God, within my heart, today I renounce all things of the world. I renounce everything to love You and serve You all my life. And I will, from this day henceforth, follow You in every Scripture of Your Bible.”
If you have not been baptized in the Christian baptism, “I will, Lord.”
“If I have not yet received the Holy Ghost—” You’ll know when you received It. It’ll give to you the assurance and love that you need.
Oh, you might’ve done different—had sensations, like you might’ve shouted or spoke with tongues, which is fine, but if that Divine Love isn’t there—
Believe me now, say, “Lord, place within my heart and in my soul the reaching of Your Spirit, that I might love, and honor, and have that Divine Love in my heart today that would take me to that land when my final breath leaves me.” While we pray, you pray yourself now. In your own way, you pray. Ask God to do that for you.
I love you. I love you. You precious gray-headed men setting here, who’s worked hard and fed little children. You poor old mamas who stroked the tears from their eyes, let me assure you this, sister dear, it isn’t that way across the other breath yonder.
I believe that it is absolutely in the room. It’s just a dimension that we live into. This is just a corruption that we live in now.
“Will in me, Lord, Thy will to be.” You pray while we pray together.
Reverently, Lord, upon the basis of Thy Word and Thy Holy Spirit, we are so glad that we know where our birth comes from. We are glad that we were born, not of the will of man, nor of the will of flesh, but of the will of God.
We pray today, Father, that these who are now asking for pardoning grace, that Your Spirit will do that work, Lord. There’s no way for me to do it. I’m just a man, another son of Kish. But we need You, the Holy Spirit.
God, let me be as Samuel, one who tells the truth of the Word. And you have vindicated It so far, and I believe that You will continue as long as I stay true to You.
May they all now receive Eternal Life, Father. May this day never depart from them.
In the hour when they come to leave this world, may this, what I have just said to them, open to a reality.
As we set here mortal today, looking at our watch, thinking of our dinner, of work tomorrow, of the cares and toils of life, they’ll not be then. They’d all fade away. There will be no cares: one great joy of eternity.
Give them that type of Life, Father, everyone. I ask you this, Father, that every person that’s here this morning, that’s heard me say this vision, may I meet every one of them on the other side.
Though there may be men here that would disagree with me, and women too, but Father, never let that stand in our way. May we meet them over there when they run too, and we grab each other, screaming, “Our precious brother.”
Let it be like it was shown there, Lord, to everyone. All that I loved and all that loved me. I pray that it’ll be that way, Lord. And I love them all. Let them appear, Father. I offer them Eternal Life now. May they do their part to accept it. For I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.