This is for the old timers that remember William Branham: the following is from a brother that had lunch with William Branham shortly before God took him and relates some things that he told him.
"For this purpose the Son of God was being manifest, that He might destroy the works of the devil." Guess who He is going to use to do it?
William Branham isn't here. I still feel him here. Maybe he's part of that cloud of witnesses, looking in on us. That is something bigger than me. He's not here. A.A. Allen is not here. His son, Paul Allen is sitting on the front row...I love him to death. We've grown up together. Between him and me, and a couple of seats over, Paul Hammond, we've been all over the world and preached in more tents than Carter's got liver pills.
We've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. I like the good a whole lot better. If Brother Branham was here, if Brother Allen was here or Jack Coe, who laid his giant hands on my little bitty hands when I was around 13 and prayed a big fancy prayer, said, "Jesus, teach Buford how to play the organ. Amen." I went and sat down. And I thought in my heart at the time, "Lord, he could have prayed a little longer."
But then all of a sudden I remembered like it was yesterday, those are the same hands that I saw reach up and take that cancer on that lady's face and pull it off. I almost fainted when I saw that. There was nothing left but a pink dot. And I thought, "That's the same hands that took that man whose back was all hunch-backed." He looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Brother Coe was a big man, and he put his knee on his back and pulled back on his shoulders and screamed, "Jesus." Then the man went out screaming and I knew he'd killed him. I knew he was hurt or wounded. I was sitting by the organ. I couldn't play the organ then. I was sitting by the organ, dreaming.
Anybody got a dream in this place? Don't quit dreaming. God will have somebody lay their hands on you; you will wake up the next day and your dream will become true.
I sat up there and almost fainted when Jack Coe pulled back on that man's shoulders. The man let out a scream that I misinterpreted. And I began to have a suspicion he was hurt. And the man took off running around the building. And when he came back, his back was as straight as mine is because he was healed. And then it hit me, "I'm going to play the organ."
You see, that was important to me, because I had taken three weeks of piano lessons, and a little 16-year-old concert piano concerto pianist who played like Liberace tried to teach me. And the third week he gave me my second false prophecy. He grabbed the music book, threw it on the floor and said, "You'll never play anything but the radio." Well, that was good for my confidence.
Well, I turned my radio on, ten years of age at the time; I turned my radio on and listened to A.A. Allen on the radio. I listened to Jack Coe, and some other preachers. I got saved every time. My God, they'd preach it; I could hardly stand it. If the walls of this building could talk they would testify of the miraculous that occurred in this room when I played the organ for William Branham in 1965. I also played for him in Phoenix at the Ramada Inn, and if those walls could talk.
I'm going to tell you what he told me just a few months before the Lord took him home. Today as I was leaving Phoenix to come down here, I took an associate to the airport and I had to drive down Van Beuren in Phoenix. Some of you know where it's at. And I saw the place where there used to be an old cafeteria. And on the last Sunday afternoon of the crusade in Phoenix in 1965, Brother Branham walked over to the organ after the service and he said, "Son, would you like to go for lunch with me?" I had seen him many times in different places and was privileged to be with him on occasion. But that was a joy, and my heart almost jumped out of my chest. "Oh yes, Brother Branham I'd love to have lunch." I was 19 years of age at the time.
I got off the organ. We went and got into his car and we drove over to this little cafeteria. We went on in the restaurant, got our food, and we sat down. I'm ashamed to say this, but can I just tell it like it was. I'm just going to tell the truth. I had in my mind back then that if Brother Branham hired me for an advance man, why I could really help him have big crusades or so I thought. Now, of course, that was my carnal brain. I had helped a few preachers put some ads in the paper and I had thought I had the answers for the preachers' advertisements.
But Brother Branham, he was sitting there and I said, "Brother Branham, you know you're only in your 50's. You've got plenty of energy. If you just had the right promotion you could have the biggest crusades you've ever had." He looked at me and smiled and dropped his head. He said, "No son," he said, "You see, that's not the way God planned it."
That wasn't really what I wanted to hear, but how do you tell William Branham something you didn't want to hear? He was speaking for God and I was listening with my old carnal brain. I said, "What do you mean, Brother Branham?" He said, "Well, you see, God's through with me." And I almost fell off my seat. I said, "What do you mean about that? You've got plenty of years left?" He said, "Well, my season has come to a close."
He went on to explain how he had been part of a great season of healing revivals. He mentioned all the voice of healing preachers, many of them. He mentioned Brother Allen and others. He had been in some of my father's meetings, and he was kind to mention that. Dad had a great Holy Ghost anointing. Dad and my mother could get more people through the baptism than Elvis Presley could get in his concert. Sometimes 1500 people could get the baptism, because they had a love to see people get the Holy Ghost.
We need a fresh infilling and baptism into the Holy Spirit. I'm not just talking about tongues, that's wonderful; we're going to have to learn to walk in the Spirit to get the job done in this hour.
Brother Branham said, "I've been in this season where we laid hands on people one at a time and we saw blind eyes open, cancers disappear, the lame walk. And oh, it was wonderful." But he said, "I am about to leave you because God is done with me but another season is coming. And this season is going to be teaching and revelation of the Word of Jesus Christ; who we are in Him and who He is in us." Not just Jesus hanging on the Cross. That's wonderful. But religion will leave Him on the Cross.
Brother Branham went on to emphasize, "It's about Jesus in us and us in Him." And he said, "This teaching season will go for a while, and then it will come to a close. And God is going to take every move of God in history, and even what we witnessed and what we saw in Bible days, and put it all together in one great Holy Ghost bomb and drop it on Planet Earth and the nations will rock and reel with the power of God like we've never seen."
On Prime Time News—not the late night talk/gab shows, not the preachers, the Prime Time News—will show the dead being raised and limbs created and eyes being put back in eye sockets and arms stretching out. And preachers won't lay their hands on them like we did; they will simply speak the word and blindness will leave. There'll be so many people, no auditorium, no church and no arena will hold the people. And no tent.
He said, "They'll even stand in an open field. It's going to happen in America." Brother Branham said, "God is going to bring the ministry of the apostles and the prophets to the forefront."
How many of you can remember when you never heard the word "apostle or prophet" in your churches? All we heard was pastors and teachers and evangelists because they'd been pushed in the background. Jesus said (I didn't say it, William Branham didn't say it); Jesus said that His Church would be founded on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ the Head.
God's bringing them forth, into the forefront. But Branham said to me, "They will have the mind of God and the heart of God and the Voice of God. And when they speak, their words will become the Words of God." They won't say what man says. They won't say what denominations say or tradition or any of that. They will speak as the oracle of God. And they won't just speak about the future. Anybody that reads the Bible can do that. You don't even have to have the Holy Ghost to talk about the future.
We've got a lot of people running around calling themselves prophets. But simply calling yourself a prophet doesn't necessarily make you a prophet. When this group emerges, they will speak as the oracle of God and whatever they say, God will create it because it will be His time, His will and His Word. And it won't be about the ministers, it will be about Him.
"That was six months before Brother Branham died in 1965." Just before William Branham left he said, "Something is coming." It's about a Body of people, walking with God, becoming the habitation of Him. It's not just about miracles, but it's about God in us. We are about to encounter great realms of darkness. If we don't get that level of the Lord in us, we're not going to be able to meet the needs of our generation. That's it.
He said, "Every mantle, every anointing, every commissioning that has existed will be dumped into our day." And we've been through this qualification process. It's not about how much we have done or what we have performed, but instead it's about—how emptied are you? How much have you pulled back your breastbone to allow God to extract the tares of our soul?
