“Meda Branham's Ordeal and Alleged Healing”
In five sermons delivered by William Branham near the end of 1963 and start of 1964, he recounted different stories of how his wife, Meda, was instantly healed from a “giant tumor.” According to these accounts, the tumor supposedly developed and grew on her left ovary over a two-year period as a consequence of her “talking back to him” on one occasion.
The stories are remarkable because they have the potential to instill fear and cause people to think or believe that sickness or worse could also happen to them if they ever dare to challenge or say anything against him.
By William Branham's own admissions in those sermons, however, Meda was an excellent wife who was very devoted, loving, selfless and supportive of him in all that did. So much so that he even stated, “never one time did she ever complain, not one time” and “Father, she has never failed to be a real wife to me.”[1] He also portrayed their relationship as so harmonious that they never had a single argument or disagreement with each other. (“And for the wife and I, with this Bible before me, has never had a word in our life.” and “And we’ve lived happy. By the grace of God, we’ve never had one word. She’s been a sweetheart.”)[2]
Having represented and done so much for him and “never had one word” with him ever before, it certainly would have been highly unjust for God to have punished her harshly or severely for making a single mistake and saying one wrong thing to him on just one occasion.
According to William Branham's accounts, Meda first developed a “cyst on her left ovary” sixteen years prior (in 1947).[3] However, she said something “snappy” to him fourteen years later (in 1961) and when she did, he told her, “God is going to make you pay for that.”[4] During a physical exam that year, a doctor found a “tumor on her left ovary”, which was about the size of a walnut.[5] Within a year, the tumor grew “from the size of a walnut until the size of about a grapefruit.”[6] William Branham said that the doctors told him, “Don’t put her off any longer. You must operate”, “You just must take it out. It’s going to turn malignant” and “If that gets soft, it’ll go malignant, and then you ain’t going to have no wife.”[7] Rather than heeding the doctors' serious admonitions, William Branham said he “just let it go.” He continued to “just let it go” and the tumor worsened to the point that Meda suffered all of the following serious affects,
“She said, “Last week,” said, “Bill, the pains were so bad, I couldn’t even sit still, couldn’t sleep at night, nor nothing.” Said, “Every time I tried to turn, that big tumor turned inside.”, “And more we prayed, the bigger the tumor growed, till it got to a place till it was sticking out on her side”, “And she said, “Bill, I can’t even stand my clothes to touch it.” It was just way out like this on her side then. And her leg on that side, she could just hobble along, and the worse week she had ever had” and “And she says, “Bill, I haven’t been able to move my left leg, this week. It’s sticking plum through my dress.” Out like this, was swollen out, growing fast. And said, “It’s so sore, I can’t even put my hands out.” Said, “This week I’ve just had to put one leg out, at a time, and move like that.”[8]
It wasn't until Meda suffered all of those things that William Branham conceded to her having the surgery at the end of 1963.
The above pain and suffering that Meda endured over time clearly would have been exceedingly harsh punishment from God for her simply saying one wrong thing to her husband.
Not only did William Branham lead people to believe that “God made her pay” severely for talking back to him on just one occasion, but he also led people to believe that God ultimately gave him the power speak her healing into existence after everything that she had been through.
He gave all of the details of what allegedly happened to his wife in those five sermons in a relatively short 55-day period, so the stories should be reasonably consistent with each other. However, it is evident from the following comparisons of the three longer stories he told that they are replete with contradictions and numerous discrepancies.
Footnotes:
[1] “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120), para. 128.
[2] Ibid., para. 128, “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E), para. 141.
[3] “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E), paras. 126, 131.
[4] “Testimony” (63-1128M), para. 135.
[5] Ibid., para. 129.
[6] Ibid., para. 140.
[7] “The Token” (63-1128E), para. 9.
“His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120), para. 115.
[8] “The Token” (63-1128E), para. 11.
“Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E), paras. 157, 160.
“His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120), paras. 120-122.
William Branham told the stories with a contradictory and false context.
When the stories that William Branham told of Meda are compared in the aforesaid five sermons, it is apparent that the very context he provided is entirely contradictory and false.
In the first story he told on November 28, 1963, he specifically claimed that the entire event related to her saying something “snappy to him” occurred about two years before “at the house.” Because he had not moved to Arizona with his family until 1963, the house to which he was referring could have only been their house in Jeffersonville, Indiana.[9]
128 And about two years ago, I come in one day, now I—I must tell all truth. See, you don’t want to just bypass anything, you must tell all truth. And I’ve expressed to you, my love for my wife. But yet we have to watch in them things. I’m telling you the truth. The Heavenly Father, Who is my Witness right here now, knows it’s true. Oh, at the house, how it is, just this, that, and everything! The poor little thing is going through the change of life at this time, menopause.
129 And for the last couple years, about two years ago, when we had a physical, then the doctor found a tumor on the left ovary. It had growed to about the size of a—of a walnut. He said, “Let me examine that again, Brother Branham.” Said, “About three months, if that goes to growing, it has to come out.” Well, then we…
130 But just before that, I got something to tell you. I forgot that. One day I come in, and from the house, and I was come in to do something, and I turned around and went out. And I said…She said, “Can you go downtown with me, Bill?” And I said, “Not right now, honey.”
131 And she said, “What are we going to do about Becky, a certain-certain?” I said, “Well, honey, I don’t know just what to do.”
132 And there was something come up, and she was so nervous she could hardly hold herself together. People at the house, all night long. And like night before last, even at one o’clock in the morning, here were people in, around the house, around the windows and every…So then she was real nervous, and she said something to me, snappy, that she oughtn’t to have said it. See? She said, “Then, Bill, you’re always gone, and I have to take care of these children myself.” She said, “You’re never here. We can’t make our decisions together. You’re either out, gone…” And she started crying, went in, shut the door. “Testimony” (63-1128M).
The contradictory and false nature of the context he provided is apparent in the fourth of the five stories that he told on January 20, 1964 in Phoenix, Arizona. Because he was not yet living with his family in Arizona when the alleged event with his wife happened, it is impossible for the house to have had a “little palm tree” in front of it, as he claimed,
84...And I come in from one of the meetings, and I was tired. Been about a little over (about) two years ago, I guess, when we come out here. And I had been out, and I was real tired.
85 And my wife has had to be both mother and daddy, both, for those children, ’cause I’m away. And her decision…A father and mother should agree upon their decisions for their children. But I’m not there, I’m in the service of the Lord. And my wife now is forty-four years old, just ten years younger than I. And I come in from one of the meetings, and I was tired. Been about a little over (about) two years ago, I guess, when we come out here. And I had been out, and I was real tired.
86 And my little boy, Joseph, he is just strickly a boy, and running out in school where he hears everything. One day when I come in, he said something another, and sassed his mother. And—and then he run to me. Now, she knowed, he knowed he would get a licking from her. So she said to me, she said, “Billy, give him a whipping.”
87 And he put his arms around me, said, “Daddy, I’m so sorry.” He knowed my soft spot. And so, “Oh,” I said, “honey, let’s forget it. I can’t.”
88 And for the wife and I, with this Bible before me, has never had a word in our life. But all at once, being in that nervous time of life, she slammed the door right in my face. And she said, “Then you should take care of him a while,” and slammed the door, and went in.
89 I thought, “Poor little fellow! My, she has all that to go through, herself.”
90 I walked on out, and I said, “Joseph, come on,” I said. Took him. I said, “Daddy should give you a licking. You know that. But,” I said, “being that you repented. See? But, remember, my—my patience is going to run out, one of these days. And that, that repenting, you’ve got to bring forth fruit meets for repentance, and prove to me that you really mean it. See? If you love me, then you’ll mind me.”
91 And so I went on out, and I said, “I’ll wash the dust off my windshield of my car. And I started out to wash that windshield.
92 And, as I did, a Voice said, “Turn, and tell her to read Second Chronicles 22.”
93 I thought, “I just—I just—just…I don’t know how I ever thought that.” I thought, “Well, I just imagined that.” Kept on washing.
94 And again It come, real loud, “Go, tell her!” Well, It scared me.
95 I went in and read it. You know what it is? It’s when Miriam made fun of Moses, about marrying an Ethiopian girl. And God said, “It was better that your father spit in your face, than to do that.” See? And He called them in, said, “Go, get Miriam, she is struck with leprosy.” Said, “Go, get Miriam.” And Moses…And the Pillar of Fire came down into the tabernacle. And Moses stood there. And God talked to them. He said, “If there be one among you, who is spiritual or a prophet, I the Lord will make Myself known to him. I will speak to him in visions, reveal dreams, and so forth.” He said, “But My servant, Moses, there is none like him in the land.” He said, “Didn’t you fear God?” And Miriam, being a prophetess, was stricken with leprosy. And Moses interceded for her, and she lived.
96 Then, that scared me. I had forgot. Me, I didn’t—I didn’t notice it, but He did. He was the One that noticed it. That was my wife, I would die anytime for her. But God noticed it. Now this is the truth, my Bible laying here in front of me.
97 And I went in. And she had went into the room and shut the door, and was sewing on the sewing machine. And I knocked on the door, and I said, “Sweetheart, I want to talk to you a minute.” She said, “What do you want?”
98 I said, “Honey, open the door, right away. I got a word from the Lord.” That kind of sobered her up a little, so she opened the door.
99 And we come in. And I said, “Sweetheart, now you know, as much as I love you, I—I—I never thought nothing about that.” She said, “Well, Bill, if…I’m so nervous!”
100 I said, “I know. But He didn’t like that. That didn’t please Him. He told me right there in the tree, that tree there, that little palm tree in front of the house there, come in here and ‘read this Scripture’ to you.” And I read It.
101 So help me, within a few days, she took a pain in the left side. We had to go home. And it kept getting worse. I prayed for her. Kept getting worse.
“His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
Footnotes:
[9] William Branham established that he was moving to Arizona with his family in 1963 by stating the following on December 30, 1962,
“Now, as far as I know, let me tell you. As far as I know, I’ll be leaving in the next two or three days, Wednesday morning, to…for Tucson. I’ll not go to Tucson to preach. I’m not going there to preach. I’m going to Tucson, to establish my family in school, and then become a wanderer.” “Is This The Sign Of The End, Sir?” (62-1230E).
Tumor or Cyst?
William Branham claimed that he told his wife that she has a tumor after she put her hands on top of his and the tumor vibrated:
121 One night, in California,
. . .
123 And so I held my hand out like that. I said, “Here, here is my wife, I know there is nothing wrong with her. Lay your hands upon mine, honey.” And she did, and there a tumor vibrated, from female. And I said, “Sweetheart, you have a tumor, honey, in the female glands.” “Testimony” (63-1128M).
In contradictory fashion, he claimed that he told his wife that she has “a cyst on the left ovary” after she put her hand on top of his:
126 About sixteen years ago
. . .
131 I said, “Here, there is nothing wrong with my wife, put her hand…”
“Look here, honey, put your hand on mine.” She is sitting there, my wife. She put her hand on mine. As soon as it did, I said, “You have a cyst on the left ovary. You do have female trouble.” “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
He claimed again in contradictory fashion that he told his wife that she has “a cyst on the left ovary” after she put her hand on top of his:
74 I said, “There is nothing wrong with my wife. Put your hand on, honey.” And just as soon as her hand hit mine, my own wife, I said, “You got a cyst on the left ovary.” “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
William Branham also contradicted his claims that he told his wife that she has “a cyst on the left ovary” and made that discovery sixteen years ago by stating that he told her five or six years ago that she has “a tumor”:
8 I was telling you this morning about the wife, and how that now for most three years, about, oh, five or six years ago, by taking a hold of her hand one night (trying to show someone, another woman, what a vibration…), knowing she had nothing wrong with her, I found her with a tumor. The doctor couldn’t find it. Three or four years passed, he couldn’t find it. “The Token” (63-1128E).
Problem with Becky or Joseph?
William Branham said one day about two years ago (i.e. in 1961) he “come in to do something” and there was a problem with his daughter, Becky, of which he didn't know what to do. He said nothing of his wife slamming the door in his face, but only said she “shut the door”:
128 And about two years ago, I come in one day, now I—I must tell all truth.
. . .
The poor little thing is going through the change of life at this time, menopause.
129 And for the last couple years, about two years ago, when we had a physical, then the doctor found a tumor on the left ovary. It had growed to about the size of a—of a walnut.
. . .
130 But just before that, I got something to tell you. I forgot that. One day I come in, and from the house, and I was come in to do something, and I turned around and went out. And I said…She said, “Can you go downtown with me, Bill?” And I said, “Not right now, honey.”
131 And she said, “What are we going to do about Becky, a certain-certain?” I said, “Well, honey, I don’t know just what to do.”
132 And there was something come up, and she was so nervous she could hardly hold herself together. People at the house, all night long. And like night before last, even at one o’clock in the morning, here were people in, around the house, around the windows and every…So then she was real nervous, and she said something to me, snappy, that she oughtn’t to have said it. See? She said, “Then, Bill, you’re always gone, and I have to take care of these children myself.” She said, “You’re never here. We can’t make our decisions together. You’re either out, gone…” And she started crying, went in, shut the door.
“Testimony” (63-1128M).
In the following account, he portrayed the problem as not being with Becky, but with his son, Joseph, to whom he refused to give a licking. He changed the story to say his wife “slammed the door” right in his face:
142 One day I come in. And she has had to raise these children by herself; me gone in the ministry. Not many women would put up with that; you know that, they would be hard. And then I come in, and she said something or the other. We got Joseph back there, and he’s a…He sure is a boy! And he helped put some of the gray hair in his mother’s head, as well as I did. So he was really all boy, and he had done something real bad. And I said to her…She said to me, “Bill, give him a licking.” I said, “I just ain’t got the nerve.” See?
143 And she said, “Yes, if you had to put up with it,” and she slammed the door right in my face. “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
William Branham said he come in from one of the meetings and again portrayed the problem as not being with Becky, but with his son, Joseph, to whom he refused to give a whipping. Again, he said his wife “slammed the door” in his face:
85... And I come in from one of the meetings, and I was tired. Been about a little over (about) two years ago, I guess, when we come out here. And I had been out, and I was real tired.
86 And my little boy, Joseph, he is just strickly a boy, and running out in school where he hears everything. One day when I come in, he said something another, and sassed his mother. And—and then he run to me. Now, she knowed, he knowed he would get a licking from her. So she said to me, she said, “Billy, give him a whipping.”
87 And he put his arms around me, said, “Daddy, I’m so sorry.” He knowed my soft spot. And so, “Oh,” I said, “honey, let’s forget it. I can’t.”
88 And for the wife and I, with this Bible before me, has never had a word in our life. But all at once, being in that nervous time of life, she slammed the door right in my face. And she said, “Then you should take care of him a while,” and slammed the door, and went in.
89 I thought, “Poor little fellow! My, she has all that to go through, herself.” “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
William Branham tells Meda, “God is going to
make you pay” for saying the wrong thing to him.
William Branham claimed that he started out and “It” told him to read Second Chronicles 22 (where Miriam rebuked Moses, for marrying an Ethiopian girl). He also claimed that he went in and told his wife, “You said the wrong thing” and “God is going to make you pay for that.” He mentions nothing of reading the Bible to her:
133 Right then I said, “Oh, poor little fellow!” I said, “My, I ought…” And I started out.
134 And It said, “Read Second Chronicles 22.” It was when Miriam rebuked Moses, for marrying an Ethiopian girl; be better that her father had spit in her face, than to do this.
135 And I—I went back in, I said, “Sweetheart, you said the wrong thing.” And she was crying. I said, “You said the wrong thing, honey. God is going to make you pay for that. You shouldn’t have done that. I’m all tore up, myself. You shouldn’t have said that.”
136 And she said, “Well, Bill, I—I get so tore up.” And I just turned and walked back, ’cause I knowed she wasn’t in any mood to receive it, so I went back out.
“Testimony” (63-1128M).
In contradictory fashion, he claimed he went outside to wash his car and when he got out there, “the Holy Spirit” instructed him twice to tell his wife to read Second Chronicles 22. He also claimed he told his wife, “Sweetheart, you know how I love you, but God didn’t like that. You oughtn’t to said that.” He mentions nothing of her reading the Bible as instructed to do, but claimed that he did:
144 “Well,” I thought, “that’s all right. Poor little fellow didn’t mean that.”
145 I just went on out to wash my car. And when I got out there, the Holy Spirit didn’t like it; He said, “Go tell her,” I believe it’s Second Chronicles, 22nd chapter. I didn’t. I thought, at first, I just imagined that. I just kept on washing. And It said it again, “Go tell her to read this.”
146 And I went in and got the Bible, and read it. It was where Mo-…or Miriam, the prophetess, made fun of her brother, Moses, for marrying an Ethiopian girl, and God didn’t like it. And He said, “It had been better that her father spit in her face, than—than to—to done that.”
147 So, Miriam broke out with leprosy, all over.
. . .
150 Well, when I seen that, I run in. And she was in the other room. I knocked on the door. She had shut herself up. And I told her I want to speak to her. And I went in there and talked to her, tried to tell her what it was. I said, “Sweetheart, you know how I love you, but God didn’t like that. You oughtn’t to said that.” Immediately after that, she took a trouble in her side. “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
William Branham also claimed he had already started to wash the windshield of his car when “a Voice” instructed him twice to tell his wife to to read Second Chronicles 22. He contradicted himself further by claiming that he told her, “But He didn’t like that. That didn’t please Him. He told me right there in the tree, that tree there, that little palm tree in front of the house there, come in here and ‘read this Scripture’ to you.” And despite the “Voice” twice telling him to have his wife read II Chronicles 22, he said, “I read It.”
91 And so I went on out, and I said, “I’ll wash the dust off my windshield of my car. And I started out to wash that windshield.
92 And, as I did, a Voice said, “Turn, and tell her to read Second Chronicles 22.”
93 I thought, “I just—I just—just…I don’t know how I ever thought that.” I thought, “Well, I just imagined that.” Kept on washing.
94 And again It come, real loud, “Go, tell her!” Well, It scared me.
95 I went in and read it. You know what it is? It’s when Miriam made fun of Moses, about marrying an Ethiopian girl. And God said, “It was better that your father spit in your face, than to do that.” See? And He called them in, said, “Go, get Miriam, she is struck with leprosy.”
. . .
97 And I went in. And she had went into the room and shut the door, and was sewing on the sewing machine. And I knocked on the door, and I said, “Sweetheart, I want to talk to you a minute.” She said, “What do you want?”
98 I said, “Honey, open the door, right away. I got a word from the Lord.” That kind of sobered her up a little, so she opened the door.
99 And we come in. And I said, “Sweetheart, now you know, as much as I love you, I—I—I never thought nothing about that.” She said, “Well, Bill, if…I’m so nervous!”
100 I said, “I know. But He didn’t like that. That didn’t please Him. He told me right there in the tree, that tree there, that little palm tree in front of the house there, come in here and ‘read this Scripture’ to you.” And I read It.
101 So help me, within a few days, she took a pain in the left side. We had to go home. And it kept getting worse. I prayed for her. Kept getting worse. “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
NOTE: It is impossible for the Lord or Holy Spirit to have instructed his wife or him to read the story of Moses and Miriam in Second Chronicles 22 because the story is actually in Numbers 12.
As is evident in Numbers 12, Miriam did not develop and suffer from a long-term medical condition for speaking against Moses. Her skin only very briefly changed to leprous snow. When it first did, Moses cried to the Lord for God to “heal her now.” Upon hearing Moses' cry, the Lord agreed that instead she would be “shut out from the camp seven days.”
The doctor found a tumor or cyst at Meda's next exam?
William Branham claimed that the doctor found that it was a “tumor on the left ovary” at Meda's next exam:
137 And the next examination, about a month after that, showed the tumor.
138 Last year, here it come again. When she tried it again, now it was up to the size of an orange. The doctor said, “Don’t put her off any longer. You must operate. That’s at a fast growing tumor, is malignant. If it gets all fed over, and gets hooked into the side, what are you going to do?” I said, “Doctor, we have faith in God.”
139 I never said to the church, or nothing, I just let it go. We started praying. And I said, “Lord God, help us, please. I pray You would help us,” and on like that. Tumor growed on and on. “Testimony” (63-1128M).
He again claimed that the doctor found that it was a “tumor on the left ovary” at Meda's next exam:
151 We took her over to the doctor here in Louisville, Doctor Arthur Schoen, and he found a tumor on the left ovary, that I had found fifteen or sixteen years before. “Tumor on the left ovary, about the size of a walnut.” I said, “What about it, doctor?”
152 He said, “Let’s see what happens. Bring her back again in a few months, about two months or something.” “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
In contradictory fashion, William Branham claimed that the doctor found that it was a “cyst on the left ovary” at Meda's next exam:
102 I took her over to my doctor friend in Louisville, Doctor Schoen, specialist. He examined her, said, “Mrs. Branham, tell Brother Branham I want to see him.” She said, “Doctor, what did you find?” Said, “I’d rather tell him.”
103 So Meda called me, and I come over. And he said, “Brother Branham, she’s got a cyst on the left ovary, about the size of a walnut.” “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
The doctors warned that the tumor could turn malignant
and therefore it needed to be removed right away.
William Branham said that the tumor grew to the size of a grapefruit and the doctor in Tucson told him that it needed to be removed “at once” or it was going to turn malignant:
140 Then when we left to go to Tucson, our doctor at home sent word to a doctor friend of his there, said, “If…You must take this tumor from Mrs. Branham, at once.” Said, “If you don’t, it’s going to turn malignant.” Told him, said, “The tumor has already growed, within a year, from the size of a walnut until the size of about a grapefruit,” it had gotten so big. There it was, pushed out on her side, like that. And the other day… “Testimony” (63-1128M).
He also said that the tumor grew to the size of a lemon within a few months and they took Meda back to the doctor in Louisville who said it better be removed or it could get soft and turn malignant:
151 We took her over to the doctor here in Louisville, Doctor Arthur Schoen, and he found a tumor on the left ovary, that I had found fifteen or sixteen years before. “Tumor on the left ovary, about the size of a walnut.” I said, “What about it, doctor?”
152 He said, “Let’s see what happens. Bring her back again in a few months, about two months or something.”
153 We took her back. It had growed, from a walnut to about the size of a lemon. Said, “Better come out; if that gets soft and turn malignant.” “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
William Branham also said that the tumor grew to the size of an orange and the doctor in Tucson told him if its gets soft it will become malignant and Meda would die:
113 Then when we went back on our other vacation, they took another x-ray of it, it was the size of an orange. He said, “Mr. Branham, I sure appreciate your faith in Almighty God.” He said, “I’m a Christian, too. Doctor Schoen tells me that you’re a faith healer.”
. . .
115 Said, “If that gets soft, it’ll go malignant, and then you ain’t going to have no wife.” And I said, “I realize that, doctor.” Said, “Are you against it being taken out?”
116 I said, “No, sir. But,” I said, “we have a reason. Just let it go a little while longer, won’t you?” “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
William Branham not only wanted to postpone the surgery, but he wanted
to postpone it until after Christmas so it wouldn't interfere with plans back home.
It was not until the tumor grew to the size of a “grapefruit” that William Branham admitted their faith was insufficient for Meda's healing. Despite the tumor being so enormous in size, he continued to show his aversion and relutance for it to be removed surgically:
141 She—she had put it off, going; I said, “Try…” We prayed. We cried. We begged, everything, nothing would take place. Then she was going, had to go last…let’s see, yesterday. Yeah, yesterday she went to the doctor for the final. I said, “Well, I hate to do it, but we’ll probably have to give in. And then, honey, you’ll—you’ll just have to—to give in, to have the…have it taken out, ’cause it’s getting so big, our faith is not sufficient.” “Testimony” (63-1128M).
Even though he was fully aware of the gravity of Meda's condition and said that the doctors told him the tumor needed to be removed immediately, William Branham said he wanted her to postpone the operation until after Christmas so it wouldn't interfere with plans he made with people back home:
157 But it was testing our faith. And constantly we prayed. And more we prayed, the bigger the tumor growed, till it got to a place till it was sticking out on her side. We kept it quiet; a few of the people here knew it; trying to see what would happen.
. . .
160 And she said, “Bill, I can’t even stand my clothes to touch it.” It was just way out like this on her side then. And her leg on that side, she could just hobble along, and the worse week she had ever had. Now she is sitting there, listening at me. The worst week she had ever had. And she said, “I’ve got to go, day after tomorrow, for that examination.”
161 I thought, “O God, if they cut it out, that’ll keep us from going home at Christmas, and I done told the people I’d be there.” And I said, “What a time! Oh, my!” I thought.
162 “Tell him, if he’s going to operate, well, ‘Let it go a little longer, till after Christmas.’”
163 Then I got to thinking, “It might be malignant.” And back over here, you know, that’s a bad thing, run back into the kidneys. If it straight, goes malignant, it’ll kill you. “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
William Branham again stated that he wanted Meda to postone the operation so it wouldn't interfere with Christmas even though her condition was grave and the doctors' said that the tumor needed to be removed immediately so it wouldn't become malignant:
119 Well, I had to go. I went up north, and went on my vacation.
. . .
120 I called the wife, the night going through, and she said, “Honey, tomorrow I’ve got to go to the—the doctor’s again, for an examination.” And she says, “Bill, I haven’t been able to move my left leg, this week. It’s sticking plum through my dress.” Out like this, was swollen out, growing fast. And said, “It’s so sore, I can’t even put my hands out.” Said, “This week I’ve just had to put one leg out, at a time, and move like that.”
121 And I said, “Honey, he is going to want to take it out.” And I said, “If he does, it will be right through Christmas time; we can’t come back here, back home.” And she said, “I know it.” She said, “Well, what must we do?”
122 I said, “Well, just tell him, if he’d ‘just let it go till after Christmas.’ Then we’ll have it taken out, immediately after Christmas. Cause, I want you to come back home again before you go to the hospital.” “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
William Branham even prayed to the Lord that the doctor put off the surgery until after Christmas,
I said, “Lord, I told her, last night, ‘Ask the doctor to put it off till after Christmas.’ Did I do wrong? Would that turn malignant? Ibid.
By William Branham's own admissions, Meda did not deserve to
have “God make her pay” for sassing him back one time in her life.
In William Branham's prayer for Meda before her surgery, he admits that “she never, not one time” voiced any objections to him going to the meetings and describes her as always being a devoted, loving, selfless and supportive wife:
145...And I said, “Tomorrow she goes in, and perhaps I’ll not be able to finish my meetings, because she’ll perhaps be taken to the hospital, for this great tumor that we’ve asked You to take away. It’s growed and growed, till now it must be taken away.” And I said, “I—I’ve begged to You.”
146 And I said, “Lord, if she said something wrong, when she…when there, I was torn up. If she said something wrong,” I said, “Lord, just think, she has never one time, not one time has she ever said one thing to me going in Your meetings.” I said, “You’ll…She has always had my clothes clean and ready; and hold me by the hand, and cry and pray, and say, ‘If I could just do something to help the Lord!’” And I said, “Look at her condition, Lord. And don’t—don’t do it. Don’t, please don’t, Lord.” And I—I said, “God, help her, I pray that You will be merciful to her. And if she has to go through that operation, help her through, Lord. If I’d lose her now, I don’t know what I’d do. I’m—I’m an old man. And them little kids to be raised, and what could I do? Be merciful to her, Lord. You know how I love her.” And I said, “I—I just pray that You’ll help her.”“Testimony” (63-1128M).
In his prayer for Meda before her surgery, he admits again that “she never, not one time” objected to him going to the meetings and staying away for months. He again describes her as always being a devoted, loving, selfless and supportive wife:
168 So as I got down to pray, I said, “Lord, I miss them this morning, around here.” I said, “I pray that You will help them and bless them. May we come back to this place again. And now,” I said, “they’re out there because that You sent me there on a vision, and You fulfilled it. Now I’m wanting to wait, to see what You’re going to tell me to do next.” I said, “I pray for…Be merciful to her.” And I said, “Help me in the meeting down there.” And then I kept…I said, “Lord, don’t let it be malignant. And let that doctor wait till after the first of the year, to take it out. I—I just hate to see her…”
169 I said, “Lord, she didn’t mean what she did that morning. She didn’t mean that.” I said, “Lord, not one time has she ever said one word about me going in the meetings, staying months, or whatever it was. Not one time has she ever opened her mouth about it. She has always sent my clothes to the cleaners, and washed my shirts, and had everything ready to go in the meeting. Then, she wonders how she can serve God.”
170 You women, as you serve your husband, you serve God, of course.
171 “And now, and then when I come in, all tired and wore out, people coming from everywhere. I’d have to go out somewhere on a fishing trip, or a hunting trip. Why, many women would have blowed up at that. What’d she do? Got my hunting clothes ready for me to go; let me go.” I said, “Lord, she didn’t mean that.” And I said, “She’s had to be cut open three times, on account of she was caesarean.” And I said I…“Lord, I—I hate to see her have to do it again.” “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
In William Branham's prayer for Meda before her surgery, he admits again that “never one time did she ever complain, not one time” and even says, “Father, she has never failed to be a real wife to me”:
127…I said, “Way across the deserts, is my faithful little wife, waiting this morning. She is going up there, for get ready for that operation.” I said, “Lord, I told her, last night, ‘Ask the doctor to put it off till after Christmas.’ Did I do wrong? Would that turn malignant? If I did that, and asked her to beg that doctor, ‘turn off,’ and, between that time, it would go malignant and I’d lose her, I would never forgive myself for that.”
128 I said, “Lord, I’ve talked to You now for these two years, yes, sixteen years, but,” I said, “the last two years since that happened.” I said, “Father, she has never failed to be a real wife to me. When I get ready to go on the services, never one time did she ever complain, not one time. Always gets my clothes cleaned, and my shirts laundered, and everything, and have them all ready for me. And then when I come home, I’m so tired, I can’t…And it’s, usually, a woman would want her husband to be with her. And I come in, people crowding in, what do I do? Get off on a hunting trip or a fishing trip. Did she ever complain? Not one time. Go get my clothes ready, and let me go on, ‘That’s all right.’ The poor little fellow, forty-four years old, snow-white-headed, standing between me and the public.” I said, “God, she didn’t mean that, that morning. She really didn’t mean it, Father. Her actions show she didn’t mean it. She was just nervous.” “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
William Branham's contradictory claims of
what spoke to him and what It told him to do.
William Branham claimed that while he was praying he heard a Voice say, “Stand up on your feet.” and when he did the Voice said, “Just say the word, and there will be no more tumor.”:
147 And as I was praying, I heard Something say, “Stand up on your feet.” And I just went ahead, praying, ’cause I—I—I thought maybe I imagined that. And as I prayed on, Something said, “Stand up on your feet.” And I stopped praying, and looked up. And the picture of Christ, the one that…
148 I never did care for Sallman’s picture. I—I like Hofmann’s picture, The Head At Thirty-three, you know. And I’ve got a big picture of it, ’cause, when I seen Him in the vision that time, that’s just the way He looked. And there it was, I got it fixed so that He would be looking right at me when I was praying, in this picture.
149 And I looked up there, and I looked at the picture. And I looked all around. I thought, “What was that, ‘Stand up on your feet’?” I thought, “Well, I’ll stand up on my feet.” And I got up on my feet.
150 Just that same Voice that spoke up there on the hill that night, same One Who always come. I said, “Lord God, was that You speaking to Your servant?”
151 He said, “Just say the word, and there will be no more tumor.” “Testimony” (63-1128M).
In his sermon that he preached that evening, William Branham contradicted those statements by claiming that “He told me what to say”:
10 And yesterday, or day before, knowing that yesterday she was to go for her final. Before the examination, I knelt in the room, praying, all my heart. And when I raised up, or started…Before I raised up, He told me what to say. And I raised up. And the doctor can’t find a trace of it, anywhere. It’s all gone. And—and just gone, and no more. “The Token” (63-1128E).
William Branham contradicted all of the above claims by alleging that that a Light also appeared and it was the Light that said, “Stand up on your feet.” And I stood up. He said, “Whatever you say, that’s the way it’ll be.”
129 So help me, for the fifth time that it’s been done! Since the squirrels; and then down in Kentucky; then the Wright children down there; then that storm on the mountain, which I haven’t time to tell you tonight; and this time, just as certain! There come that Light, hanging down there, and It said, “Stand up on your feet.” And I stood up. He said, “Whatever you say, that’s the way it’ll be.” “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
William Branham's contradictory claims of how Meda's healing happened.
After allegedly being given the power to speak anything he wanted into existence, William Branham claimed that he said all of the following,
152 I stood there a little bit, to get to myself right. Many of you knows, in here, and the people in the tabernacle knows what was, that she had it. I said, “Then I say, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that that tumor shall leave her.” Been bothering her so bad, she had been in bed for three or four days, with it. I said, “They will never even find a trace of it. For, the Lord my God, Who is Creator, Who can stop winds and storms, and can rebuke the seas, and bring forth that, He is the Creator of heavens and earth. And I love Him and believe Him, and I believe that this time is now nearing when these things are to be. And You, Who could create a squirrel and put it into existence, could take an enemy out of existence.” I said, “When the devil wrapped hisself in the storm…The winds is God’s creation. The water is God’s creation. But the devil got into it, that’s what did it, and put a—a spasm in the sea, like that.” I said, “You could calm it. And You that could calm that, can take away the tumor from my wife. And I say that it is done right now, never shall it be found anymore. It’s finished.” “Testimony” (63-1128M).
In contradictory fashion, he claimed he simply said,
173 I waited just a minute. I said, “Before the doctor’s hand shall touch her, the hand of God shall take the tumor away, and it won’t even be found.”“Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
William Branham contradicted himself further by also claiming that he simply said,
130 I said, “The hand of God will dissolve the tumor before the doctor’s hand can touch it.” “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
William Branham's claims of the giant tumor
disappearing completely from Meda's body at the time of her surgery.
William Branham claimed that Meda called him and told him that the grapefruit-sized tumor was completely gone:
153 I went out of there with assurance, told my son and daughter-in-law. We come on down, and last night I run in here real quick to have the meeting; and went back, called her. And she knowed nothing about it yet. I didn’t tell her.
154 And when she called, she was just all happy. She said, “Billy, I got something to tell you, honey.” She said, “There isn’t one sign of tumor left nowhere. The doctor said he couldn’t find a thing.” She said, “I was so happy! And Mrs. Norman and many of the sisters here, two or three of them, was with us here in the room.” She said, “The doctor said, ‘And you mean to say! I can’t understand. A month ago, was a tumor there the size of a grapefruit.’ And said, ‘Mrs. Branham, rest assured, there is not one sign of tumor about you, no more.’” “Testimony” (63-1128M).
William Branham alleged that he called Meda and he said that the tumor was “so big” that she “could hardly get on the table”, but portrayed it as leaving her body so completely that the doctor didn't even know which side it was on:
174 That settled it, to me. I never called her. We went right on, went and got Billy and Loyce, and went to Shreveport.
175 The next night I called her. She was happy. She said, “Bill, I want to tell you!”
176 Now here she is, and she can verify this. Had to hobble her way over there; went in the room with the nurse and Mrs. Norman, and put her clothes on for…the gown, for the examination. The doctor came out, and she could hardly get on the table; the tumor hanging up there, so big. And when she…The doctor come in and was talking to her. And he came over, to raise back the sheet to touch her, and, just before he touched her, it left.
177 And the doctor didn’t know which side it was on. He said, “Wait a minute!” With the drawed diagrams and all the pictures, and everything else, he couldn’t find one trace of it. He examined her, over and over. He said, “I might not be able to explain it, but, Mrs. Branham, that tumor isn’t there.” And she has never had one symptom of it, since. “Look Away to Jesus” (63-1229E).
William Branham changed the story to say that “a real cool Something swept over her, and the tumor was gone”:
132 She had went to the doctor. And Mrs. Norman had to help her over, and the nurse, in the room, to get her gown on, to come out for on the table. And they moved the machines up, with the diagrams and x-rays, and things. He said, “How you been feeling, Mrs. Branham?” He said…
133 And, the doctor, we opened the letter, to see what he wrote in it, to this doctor. Said, “Mrs. Branham is a very fine woman, and her husband is a fine man. He is a faith healer, but he doesn’t disagree with you operating. Doctor, it should come out at once!” That’s, we had read that, see, “That tumor should be moved at once, or Mrs. Branham will die.”
134 And then just as the doctor come out, to raise back the sheet, to touch her side, a real cool Something swept over her, and the tumor was gone. There is no tumor. And the doctor…She lay there, and he touched, he said, “Mrs. Branham, that tumor was on the left side, wasn’t it?” She said, “Yes, sir, it was.”
135 So he turned her back under the x-ray machine, he went and got his diagrams, went all through the examination again. He said, “Mrs. Branham, I can’t explain it, but that tumor isn’t there no more. That tumor is gone.”
136 Now, that’s the truth, so help me! God Almighty knows it’s the truth, standing here. See, just as it was said! But “the doctor’s hand,” she said, “wasn’t that far” from her, until a cool Something swept over her. She could hardly…Had to be helped by Mrs. Norman and them, (and the folks back there can tell you about it), helped up on the table. And the diagram and the x-rays, and everything there, of the tumor. And there wasn’t one sign of it. And she has not had a symptom since. And that was about two weeks before Christmas. “His Unfailing Words Of Promise” (64-0120).
Below are William Branham's full accounts of what happened to Meda, as told by him near the end of 1963 and start of 1964:
Testimony
63-1128m
Shreveport Louisiana U.S.A.
121 One night, in California, I was sitting with the Malicki family, Brother Moore remembers and Brother Brown, the Malicki family. And the little lady was going to take milk leg, from childbirth. And I—I had her put her hand out, I said, “There it is, you see the vibration of it. See?” And I said, “You, you’re going to take milk leg.” I said, “It’s already working in you.” And she did, almost lost her life.
122 And Brother Malicki said to me, said, “Brother Branham, how do you do that?” I said, “I don’t know. I can’t tell you how it is. It’s God.”
123 And so I held my hand out like that. I said, “Here, here is my wife, I know there is nothing wrong with her. Lay your hands upon mine, honey.” And she did, and there a tumor vibrated, from female. And I said, “Sweetheart, you have a tumor, honey, in the female glands.” And she said, “I—I feel no effects.”
124 I said, “Sweetheart, here it is on my hand. Raise your hand up.” She raised up, then lay it back down. “See it?”
125 Well, when we went, come home, we got a very fine doctor friend; I went to school with him. We took her down, an examination. Said, “Billy, there is nothing wrong with her.” Said, “She is all right. No tumor there.”
126 I said, “Sam, I don’t want to doubt your word, see, because you examined her, but there is tumor there.”
127 Everybody, over three or four years, when I go to get my physical, when I go overseas, she goes with me for a physical. And when it was, never seen it.
128 And about two years ago, I come in one day, now I—I must tell all truth. See, you don’t want to just bypass anything, you must tell all truth. And I’ve expressed to you, my love for my wife. But yet we have to watch in them things. I’m telling you the truth. The Heavenly Father, Who is my Witness right here now, knows it’s true. Oh, at the house, how it is, just this, that, and everything! The poor little thing is going through the change of life at this time, menopause.
129 And for the last couple years, about two years ago, when we had a physical, then the doctor found a tumor on the left ovary. It had growed to about the size of a—of a walnut. He said, “Let me examine that again, Brother Branham.” Said, “About three months, if that goes to growing, it has to come out.” Well, then we…
130 But just before that, I got something to tell you. I forgot that. One day I come in, and from the house, and I was come in to do something, and I turned around and went out. And I said…She said, “Can you go downtown with me, Bill?” And I said, “Not right now, honey.”
131 And she said, “What are we going to do about Becky, a certain-certain?” I said, “Well, honey, I don’t know just what to do.”
132 And there was something come up, and she was so nervous she could hardly hold herself together. People at the house, all night long. And like night before last, even at one o’clock in the morning, here were people in, around the house, around the windows and every…So then she was real nervous, and she said something to me, snappy, that she oughtn’t to have said it. See? She said, “Then, Bill, you’re always gone, and I have to take care of these children myself.” She said, “You’re never here. We can’t make our decisions together. You’re either out, gone…” And she started crying, went in, shut the door.
133 Right then I said, “Oh, poor little fellow!” I said, “My, I ought…” And I started out.
134 And It said, “Read Second Chronicles 22.” It was when Miriam rebuked Moses, for marrying an Ethiopian girl; be better that her father had spit in her face, than to do this.
135 And I—I went back in, I said, “Sweetheart, you said the wrong thing.” And she was crying. I said, “You said the wrong thing, honey. God is going to make you pay for that. You shouldn’t have done that. I’m all tore up, myself. You shouldn’t have said that.”
136 And she said, “Well, Bill, I—I get so tore up.” And I just turned and walked back, ’cause I knowed she wasn’t in any mood to receive it, so I went back out.
137 And the next examination, about a month after that, showed the tumor.
138 Last year, here it come again. When she tried it again, now it was up to the size of an orange. The doctor said, “Don’t put her off any longer. You must operate. That’s at a fast growing tumor, is malignant. If it gets all fed over, and gets hooked into the side, what are you going to do?” I said, “Doctor, we have faith in God.”
139 I never said to the church, or nothing, I just let it go. We started praying. And I said, “Lord God, help us, please. I pray You would help us,” and on like that. Tumor growed on and on. 140 Then when we left to go to Tucson, our doctor at home sent word to a doctor friend of his there, said, “If…You must take this tumor from Mrs. Branham, at once.” Said, “If you don’t, it’s going to turn malignant.” Told him, said, “The tumor has already growed, within a year, from the size of a walnut until the size of about a grapefruit,” it had gotten so big. There it was, pushed out on her side, like that. And the other day…
141 She—she had put it off, going; I said, “Try…” We prayed. We cried. We begged, everything, nothing would take place. Then she was going, had to go last…let’s see, yesterday. Yeah, yesterday she went to the doctor for the final. I said, “Well, I hate to do it, but we’ll probably have to give in. And then, honey, you’ll—you’ll just have to—to give in, to have the…have it taken out, ’cause it’s getting so big, our faith is not sufficient.”
142 So, day before yesterday, before I left, knowing, she said, “Don’t call me till after you have Brother Jack’s service that night, then tell me what kind of a meeting you had, and how the people are down in Shreveport. Then,” said, “I’ll give you what the doctor said.” I said, “All right, honey.” And I hung up.
143 Yesterday, day before yesterday, when I started to leave there, in the house, I went in and…Always when we leave, all the kiddies and all of us get together and kneel around there in the room, and pray. And the Lord, we tell the Lord…When I’m going overseas, I say, “Lord Jesus, take care of my family.” And they pray for me, that God will help me, that we can meet together again. Then all the kids start crying and things, you know, ’cause, you know how it is. 144 Talk about President Kennedy being shot? I’ve had to be guarded many times from being shot with an infrared scope, and maybe at three or four hundred yards away, at nighttime. They can see just the same as they can in the daytime, through that spotter scope at night. And I’ve been in Catholic countries where radicals and everything, down in Mexico there where they sent back there, and send word, telegram messages wrote by everything, “We’ll get you tonight,” and so forth like that, going in and out, and looking for me. And perhaps I will get it sometime. That’s all right. But I got Something that will take care of me when that time comes, see.
145 And then when I started to leave again, just by myself, the other day, I knelt down, day before yesterday, and I knelt down in the room. And I looked around. I had been there a couple days, lonesome, nobody there at the house. And I said, “Heavenly Father, I—I pray that You would be merciful now, and help me. I’m going down to Shreveport to do everything I can to help Your Kingdom.” I said, “How many times has my wife and I knelt here in the room like this! We pray. And today I’m so lonesome for her.” And I said, “Tomorrow she goes in, and perhaps I’ll not be able to finish my meetings, because she’ll perhaps be taken to the hospital, for this great tumor that we’ve asked You to take away. It’s growed and growed, till now it must be taken away.” And I said, “I—I’ve begged to You.”
146 And I said, “Lord, if she said something wrong, when she…when there, I was torn up. If she said something wrong,” I said, “Lord, just think, she has never one time, not one time has she ever said one thing to me going in Your meetings.” I said, “You’ll…She has always had my clothes clean and ready; and hold me by the hand, and cry and pray, and say, ‘If I could just do something to help the Lord!’” And I said, “Look at her condition, Lord. And don’t—don’t do it. Don’t, please don’t, Lord.” And I—I said, “God, help her, I pray that You will be merciful to her. And if she has to go through that operation, help her through, Lord. If I’d lose her now, I don’t know what I’d do. I’m—I’m an old man. And them little kids to be raised, and what could I do? Be merciful to her, Lord. You know how I love her.” And I said, “I—I just pray that You’ll help her.”
147 And as I was praying, I heard Something say, “Stand up on your feet.” And I just went ahead, praying, ’cause I—I—I thought maybe I imagined that. And as I prayed on, Something said, “Stand up on your feet.” And I stopped praying, and looked up. And the picture of Christ, the one that…
148 I never did care for Sallman’s picture. I—I like Hofmann’s picture, The Head At Thirty-three, you know. And I’ve got a big picture of it, ’cause, when I seen Him in the vision that time, that’s just the way He looked. And there it was, I got it fixed so that He would be looking right at me when I was praying, in this picture.
149 And I looked up there, and I looked at the picture. And I looked all around. I thought, “What was that, ‘Stand up on your feet’?” I thought, “Well, I’ll stand up on my feet.” And I got up on my feet.
150 Just that same Voice that spoke up there on the hill that night, same One Who always come. I said, “Lord God, was that You speaking to Your servant?”
151 He said, “Just say the word, and there will be no more tumor.”
152 I stood there a little bit, to get to myself right. Many of you knows, in here, and the people in the tabernacle knows what was, that she had it. I said, “Then I say, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that that tumor shall leave her.” Been bothering her so bad, she had been in bed for three or four days, with it. I said, “They will never even find a trace of it. For, the Lord my God, Who is Creator, Who can stop winds and storms, and can rebuke the seas, and bring forth that, He is the Creator of heavens and earth. And I love Him and believe Him, and I believe that this time is now nearing when these things are to be. And You, Who could create a squirrel and put it into existence, could take an enemy out of existence.” I said, “When the devil wrapped hisself in the storm…The winds is God’s creation. The water is God’s creation. But the devil got into it, that’s what did it, and put a—a spasm in the sea, like that.” I said, “You could calm it. And You that could calm that, can take away the tumor from my wife. And I say that it is done right now, never shall it be found anymore. It’s finished.”
153 I went out of there with assurance, told my son and daughter-in-law. We come on down, and last night I run in here real quick to have the meeting; and went back, called her. And she knowed nothing about it yet. I didn’t tell her.
154 And when she called, she was just all happy. She said, “Billy, I got something to tell you, honey.” She said, “There isn’t one sign of tumor left nowhere. The doctor said he couldn’t find a thing.” She said, “I was so happy! And Mrs. Norman and many of the sisters here, two or three of them, was with us here in the room.” She said, “The doctor said, ‘And you mean to say! I can’t understand. A month ago, was a tumor there the size of a grapefruit.’ And said, ‘Mrs. Branham, rest assured, there is not one sign of tumor about you, no more.’”
155 It’s the Lord our God! A thanksgiving day? Oh, thank God for the gift of Jesus Christ, that supreme Gift that is the same yesterday, today, and forever! That is true. I don’t believe in taking oaths by the heavens or by the earth, or nothing else. But with the Bible over my heart, and God Whom I love, knows that every word of that is solemnly the truth. Thanksgiving day! When I thought tomorrow I’d have, or the next few days, I might have to even leave the meeting, to go. Couldn’t even promise the people that I would be back at Christmas time, at home, for my children, to bring them back home again for Christmas; knowing, quivering down in my heart, that an operation waited my wife, with a tumor the size of a grapefruit. And there it was.
156 And the very Word of God, that said, “Say what you will, and it will be that way.”
157 And I said, “The tumor is gone. They will never find it no more.”
158 And it’s gone, today. And the best surgeon and best doctors there was on this staff at Tucson, Arizona; when, a few days ago, there was a great, a great big tumor like that. And the same doctor could find no trace of it at all, and wrote out a free statement like this, that, “Mrs. Branham has no sign of tumor, nowhere at all.”
159 Oh, thanksgivings to God! This is a day of thanksgiving, to me. To know, above that, that someday that little face that I married there, glory to God, someday these old-age marks of death will fade away, and we’ll be there in the likeness of youth, and never no more to get old. And the gift of God, through Jesus Christ, of the Holy Ghost that we have received now, is what gives us this, this anchor.
The Token
63-1128e
Shreveport Louisiana U.S.A.
8 I was telling you this morning about the wife, and how that now for most three years, about, oh, five or six years ago, by taking a hold of her hand one night (trying to show someone, another woman, what a vibration…), knowing she had nothing wrong with her, I found her with a tumor. The doctor couldn’t find it. Three or four years passed, he couldn’t find it.
9 Finally it showed up, about two years ago, started growing quickly; from the size of a walnut, size of a lemon, now to the size of a grapefruit. The physician…We was holding on, for faith. And the physician said, “You just must take it out. It’s going to turn malignant. You got to be done.”
10 And yesterday, or day before, knowing that yesterday she was to go for her final. Before the examination, I knelt in the room, praying, all my heart. And when I raised up, or started…Before I raised up, He told me what to say. And I raised up. And the doctor can’t find a trace of it, anywhere. It’s all gone. And—and just gone, and no more.
11 I called her again, a while ago, and she was so happy. She said, “Last week,” said, “Bill, the pains were so bad, I couldn’t even sit still, couldn’t sleep at night, nor nothing.” Said, “Every time I tried to turn, that big tumor turned inside.” And said, “I’ve got the words to the doctor here, said, ‘Mrs. Branham…’” As soon as she come from the table, her and some of the sisters. “Said, ‘There is not one trace. I don’t know what’s happened.’ Said, ‘There is not one trace.’ And he said-he said, ‘Stand up.’ And what he said do, I did it. And, that, the Lord answered the rest.”
Look Away To Jesus
63-1229e
Jeffersonville Indiana U.S.A.
126 Now here is something I—I want to say, and I must tell exactly the truth. About sixteen years ago I was in California with Brother John Sharrit, and I was having a meeting. And Meda and I, and Brother Sharrit and Sister Sharrit, and them, were staying in a hotel. And a man named Paul Melikian, who stood right here in this Tabernacle many time; he’s a wealthy Armenian. And his wife had give birth to a child up at Fresno, California, where they lived; and was come down, brought his wife down, and called me at the hotel, and said, “Can I bring my wife up, Brother Branham?” I said, “Yes, you may.” Next day, I was going to Catalina.
127 So he brought his wife up, and the little lady was so sick! And she looked…I said, “Put your hand on mine, Sister Melikian,” I said, “we’ll see if the Lord will tell us.” And as soon as she laid her hands upon me, I said, “Oh, it’s milk leg.” She said, “I don’t seem to have any symptoms.”
128 I said, “You watch.” In two days, they was doctoring her for milk leg.
129 Like little Jimmy Poole here, his little baby. The other day he come in with that heart attack, they thought, and it was an asthmatic attack. And I put my hand on him. I said, “Watch him for a couple of days; he’s got measles. It’s coming through. It’s the fever.” I met him last night. He said he’s broke out, all over, in measles. See?
130 Now, I was talking to Sister Melikian, with the hand. She said, “That’s amazing thing, to watch that, Brother Branham.” She said, “Does that work on every hand?”
131 I said, “Well, if there’s something wrong with the patient.” I said, “Now here, I’ll put my hand on,” many of you stood and watched it, and it didn’t do it. I said, “Here, there is nothing wrong with my wife, put her hand…”
132 “Look here, honey, put your hand on mine.” She is sitting there, my wife. She put her hand on mine. As soon as it did, I said, “You have a cyst on the left ovary. You do have female trouble.” And she said, “I don’t feel any different.”
133 I said, “But you have it.” Becky was two years old. My daughter that just played, a while ago, she was two years old.
134 Two more years, Sarah come on the scene, and when…She was with caesarean. And I asked Doctor Dillman, our doctor down in—in Corydon, to, “When you have her open, look at that left ovary,” and he did. He said, “There is nothing wrong, that I saw.” I put my hand; it was still there.
135 Four years later come Joseph. I asked him to look again. “Nothing wrong, as I seen.” Put my hand; it was still there. So we just forgot about it.
136 Now this is something that I have to say. I don’t like to say it, but it just has to make the truth, see, and that’s what you want. Always tell the truth, no matter what takes place. Years had passed, we had never noticed it.
137 And I say this, not because she is sitting there, because I say it when she is not there. And you know that. I don’t believe there could be a better wife in the world than my wife, and I hope she always remains that way. And I want to be a loyal husband, and I hope that every young man in this building, when he gets married, gets a wife like my wife. I don’t know how long we’ll live that way, but I hope the rest of our days on earth. We’ve been very happy together. God was the one who told me to marry her.
138 At the same time, her not knowing, I was trying not to marry her; not because I didn’t love her, but because I didn’t think I was able to make a living for her. And she was a fine woman, and I just didn’t deserve that.
139 And she went out to pray, and opened up the Bible. And guess…She said, “Lord, I’ve never did this before, but give me a Scripture that’ll help me. If I got to forget him, I’ve got to forget it.” Opened the Bible…
140 And she went out in a little shed and prayed. And when she opened the Bible up, “Malachi 4. Behold, I send unto you Elijah the prophet before the…” That was—that was twenty something years ago, knowing nothing about the ministry of this day. And I was…couldn’t be…
141 I was lying down on the river there. And He woke—woke me up, one night, and I heard Him standing there by the door. He said, “Go get her, and your wedding shall be this coming October, the twenty-third.” And that’s just exactly what I did. And we’ve lived happy. By the grace of God, we’ve never had one word. She’s been a sweetheart.
142 One day I come in. And she has had to raise these children by herself; me gone in the ministry. Not many women would put up with that; you know that, they would be hard. And then I come in, and she said something or the other. We got Joseph back there, and he’s a…He sure is a boy! And he helped put some of the gray hair in his mother’s head, as well as I did. So he was really all boy, and he had done something real bad. And I said to her…She said to me, “Bill, give him a licking.” I said, “I just ain’t got the nerve.” See?
143 And she said, “Yes, if you had to put up with it,” and she slammed the door right in my face.
144 “Well,” I thought, “that’s all right. Poor little fellow didn’t mean that.”
145 I just went on out to wash my car. And when I got out there, the Holy Spirit didn’t like it; He said, “Go tell her,” I believe it’s Second Chronicles, 22nd chapter. I didn’t. I thought, at first, I just imagined that. I just kept on washing. And It said it again, “Go tell her to read this.”
146 And I went in and got the Bible, and read it. It was where Mo-…or Miriam, the prophetess, made fun of her brother, Moses, for marrying an Ethiopian girl, and God didn’t like it. And He said, “It had been better that her father spit in her face, than—than to—to done that.”
147 So, Miriam broke out with leprosy, all over. And so Aaron come, told his sister, said…or come told his brother, said, “She is dying, with leprosy.”
148 And so Moses run in to intercede for her, at the altar. And when he did, the Pillar of Fire come down, God. He said, “Go call her and Aaron, and bring them here.” And Aaron was in it, too. So He said, “Call them and come here.”
149 He said, “If there be one among you,” God speaking now to them, “that is spiritual, or a prophet, I the Lord will make Myself known to him. I’ll speak to him in visions, and reveal Myself to him by dreams, and—and reveal dreams, and so forth.” He said, “But My servant, Moses, there is no one in the land like him.” He said, “I speak with him from lip to ear.” He said, “Didn’t you fear God?” See, God didn’t like it.
150 Well, when I seen that, I run in. And she was in the other room. I knocked on the door. She had shut herself up. And I told her I want to speak to her. And I went in there and talked to her, tried to tell her what it was. I said, “Sweetheart, you know how I love you, but God didn’t like that. You oughtn’t to said that.” Immediately after that, she took a trouble in her side.
151 We took her over to the doctor here in Louisville, Doctor Arthur Schoen, and he found a tumor on the left ovary, that I had found fifteen or sixteen years before. “Tumor on the left ovary, about the size of a walnut.” I said, “What about it, doctor?”
152 He said, “Let’s see what happens. Bring her back again in a few months, about two months or something.”
153 We took her back. It had growed, from a walnut to about the size of a lemon. Said, “Better come out; if that gets soft and turn malignant.”
154 And I said, “Well, my,” I said, “we’re—we’re going to Tucson. The Lord has sent me out to Tucson.”
155 He sent her up to a female specialist; he didn’t want it on his hands. So he must have told him about my ministry, ’cause he…The female specialist said, “It’ll have to come out.” So he said…We told him we were going to—to Tucson. He said, “Well, I’ve got a specialist there, a dear friend of mine. I used to live in Tucson.” He said, “I’m going to send you to him.”
156 So he wrote a note and sent it to him, and said, “Mrs. Branham is a nice lady,” and went on like that. Said…Sent her the diagram of how big the tumor was, and so forth. It had turned tumor then; and said how big it was. And said, “I know…” You know, he knowed he…I think he thought, called me a “Divine healer.” That’s all he knowed how to put it. But said, “I have agreed that—that it could come out, and it should. If it has to be taken out, take it out.”
157 But it was testing our faith. And constantly we prayed. And more we prayed, the bigger the tumor growed, till it got to a place till it was sticking out on her side. We kept it quiet; a few of the people here knew it; trying to see what would happen. On and on it went. Finally, when I come down from Canada, from where I left…
158 The Lord let me lead that tribe of Indians to Christ. I’m going back to baptize them, in the Name of the Lord Jesus, this Spring, the Lord willing.
159 Now, come down, and it was time for her to go, when I was in New York…or down here to have another opera-…to have the operation, or be examined for the last time. I went on to New York. And when I came back, I stopped in here, and went up…After I had the meeting here, the last meeting, I went up there and called her from Brother Wood’s.
160 And she said, “Bill, I can’t even stand my clothes to touch it.” It was just way out like this on her side then. And her leg on that side, she could just hobble along, and the worse week she had ever had. Now she is sitting there, listening at me. The worst week she had ever had. And she said, “I’ve got to go, day after tomorrow, for that examination.”
161 I thought, “O God, if they cut it out, that’ll keep us from going home at Christmas, and I done told the people I’d be there.” And I said, “What a time! Oh, my!” I thought.
162 “Tell him, if he’s going to operate, well, ‘Let it go a little longer, till after Christmas.’”
163 Then I got to thinking, “It might be malignant.” And back over here, you know, that’s a bad thing, run back into the kidneys. If it straight, goes malignant, it’ll kill you. So then I thought, “What can I do?” And Meda said, “Well, now, you call me,” said.
164 The day that I got in Shreveport, which would be the day after that, when I got in Shreveport, she had to go for the examination. And so she went to the…Mrs. Norman was going, Sister Norman; all of you know her, the people that comes here to the Tabernacle. She was going with her, and to this specialist. And so she said, “Wait till you have your first night, at—at…and then come back.” Cause, the difference, two hours in time. “Then call me when you come back, after the meeting, I’ll tell you what I’ve got to do.” And I said, “All right.” So, I went on.
165 And the next morning, before I left, I was going to get Billy and Loyce. They are both sitting present. And always…
166 We got an old stool there that Brother Palmer covered for us, here not long ago, and we always get around that stool and pray, whenever we’re…Oh, Ottoman, like, you know, footstool. Whenever we get around there and pray, when I’m going on a meeting, we ask God to help us.
167 And I had been up there, a couple days, and I was—I was lonesome. The house; the kids gone, and her gone. You know, many of you know I had to go through that one time, go back to an empty house; only, I buried that wife, Hope. And now it all over again. And I got down, I thought, “Well, I’ll pray and then go pick up Billy and Loyce, and go on.”
168 So as I got down to pray, I said, “Lord, I miss them this morning, around here.” I said, “I pray that You will help them and bless them. May we come back to this place again. And now,” I said, “they’re out there because that You sent me there on a vision, and You fulfilled it. Now I’m wanting to wait, to see what You’re going to tell me to do next.” I said, “I pray for…Be merciful to her.” And I said, “Help me in the meeting down there.” And then I kept…I said, “Lord, don’t let it be malignant. And let that doctor wait till after the first of the year, to take it out. I—I just hate to see her…”
169 I said, “Lord, she didn’t mean what she did that morning. She didn’t mean that.” I said, “Lord, not one time has she ever said one word about me going in the meetings, staying months, or whatever it was. Not one time has she ever opened her mouth about it. She has always sent my clothes to the cleaners, and washed my shirts, and had everything ready to go in the meeting. Then, she wonders how she can serve God.”
170 You women, as you serve your husband, you serve God, of course.
171 “And now, and then when I come in, all tired and wore out, people coming from everywhere. I’d have to go out somewhere on a fishing trip, or a hunting trip. Why, many women would have blowed up at that. What’d she do? Got my hunting clothes ready for me to go; let me go.” I said, “Lord, she didn’t mean that.” And I said, “She’s had to be cut open three times, on account of she was caesarean.” And I said I…“Lord, I—I hate to see her have to do it again.”
172 And just then I heard something in the room. I looked up. And a Voice said, “Stand up.” Said, “Now whatever you say, that’s the way it’ll be.”
173 I waited just a minute. I said, “Before the doctor’s hand shall touch her, the hand of God shall take the tumor away, and it won’t even be found.”
174 That settled it, to me. I never called her. We went right on, went and got Billy and Loyce, and went to Shreveport.
175 The next night I called her. She was happy. She said, “Bill, I want to tell you!”
176 Now here she is, and she can verify this. Had to hobble her way over there; went in the room with the nurse and Mrs. Norman, and put her clothes on for…the gown, for the examination. The doctor came out, and she could hardly get on the table; the tumor hanging up there, so big. And when she…The doctor come in and was talking to her. And he came over, to raise back the sheet to touch her, and, just before he touched her, it left.
177 And the doctor didn’t know which side it was on. He said, “Wait a minute!” With the drawed diagrams and all the pictures, and everything else, he couldn’t find one trace of it. He examined her, over and over. He said, “I might not be able to explain it, but, Mrs. Branham, that tumor isn’t there.” And she has never had one symptom of it, since.
178 What was it? Notice, just exactly the way It said, “Before the doctor’s hand can touch it.” One split second, and his hand would have touched it. How perfect is the Word of the Lord! 179 Now, there is my wife, and we’re both before God. But before the doctor’s hand could even touch her body, on the road coming to her like that, something happened, the tumor left. And they couldn’t, he—he said…I believe it was, wasn’t it, sweetheart? “I want to reassure you, Mrs. Branham,” (Is that right, the way he said it? That’s right.) “that that tumor isn’t there. You don’t have any tumor.”
180 What was it? Just exactly according to the Word of the Lord, that was…?…Amen. That’s the fifth time. Five is the number of grace, a number of f-a-i-t-h, too.
181 There is no more doubt in my mind. I know what the Third Pull is, and I know what it does. Now be reverent, just keep quiet, the hour will soon arrive where God is going to do some great things for us. Now let us bow our heads for a word of prayer.
His Unfailing Words Of Promise
64-0120
Phoenix Arizona U.S.A.
65 I went to California, and I believe that Brother John Sharrit was with me then. I was thinking today, thinking on it, coming up here. I’m pretty sure he was. And wife and I…And my Rebekah, a young woman now, graduating this year; she was a little baby, I was packing her in my arms. And we went, too, went over to Catalina, was going to Catalina after the meeting was over, just take the boat over and come back, just to say we was on the sea. And the night before we left, or night or two…
66 Paul Melikian, most all of you know him. Paul Melikian. I believe he’s with the chap-…What? [A brother says, “Madera.”—Ed.] Where? [“Madera.”] Madera, California. His mother, father, both had been healed in the meetings. I flew out here by plane, to visit them, and they were healed.
67 Paul’s wife had just give birth to—to a baby. A fine people, Armenian, and they called down there and asked, the wife was sick and wanted to bring her down. I said, “All right, come on down.” So, they brought her down there. And that night…She, and my wife and I, and it might be Brother Sharrit. I’m not sure.
68 Is Brother Sharrit here? If he was…Was that right, Brother Sharrit, was you there that night? That’s right. There is the witness. I—I was looking to see Brother John, and see if he was here. 69 Now she laid her hand upon mine, and quickly it buzzed. “And, look, she has life to kill her, an evil life.” And I said, “You have milk leg.” Well, she had no symptoms of it then. But a couple days afterwards, the doctor was doctoring her for milk leg. She said, “That’s marvelous, Brother Branham.”
70 Now I’m going to have to say some things here that—that’s going to be scratchy. But I—I must tell the truth, no matter what it is. I’ve always hated to say that my father was a bootlegger. I hated to say that, but it’s the truth. Yeah. If there is anything wrong, let’s—let’s—let’s straighten it right here, don’t wait till we get up There. And I—I like to say the good things, but we must say the bad ones, too.
71 My wife was in the room, a little, black-headed woman. And Mrs. Malicki said, “That’s strange, how that acts on your hand.” Said, “Does it do that on everybody’s hand?” I said, “No, ma’am.” Said, “Can you explain it?” I said, “No, ma’am.”
72 No, you can’t explain nothing of God. You can’t explain the works of God. You can’t explain God. God is without explaining. If it was, we wouldn’t have to believe Him by faith.
73 I said, “The works of God are past finding out. See?” I said, “It’s an act of God, that I cannot explain.” And she said, “Well, I…That is certainly marvelous.” And, and I said, “Well, I’ll put my hand on. See there, nothing happens.”
74 I said, “There is nothing wrong with my wife. Put your hand on, honey.” And just as soon as her hand hit mine, my own wife, I said, “You got a cyst on the left ovary.” Remember that, Brother Sharrit, in the room that night?
75 Well, two years after that, my little Sarah was born, four years after Becky. I said to the doctor, this…They all have to be caesarean, because she can’t have babies normal; she was the same way, her family is that way. And I said to the doctor, “Look on the left ovary, and when you have her open, and see if there isn’t a cyst on it.”
76 He said, “Brother Branham, we, I’ll—I’ll take a look.” But when it…When he come back down, he said, “I didn’t see nothing, Brother Branham.” I said, “All right.”
77 Four years later, my little Joseph come on the scene. And I—I’d take a hold of her hand, it was still there. And I said, “Doctor, look at that left ovary again, will you?”
78 And he said, “Yes, Brother Branham.” He looked at it, and it…“No, nothing there,” he said.
79 I took a hold of her hand. I said, “But it is there. It is there. Here, it proves it here.” He couldn’t find it. Well, it went on, years passed by.
80 Last year, we, it was our twenty-second year we had been married. And I had been on a hunting trip, every honeymoon. And I always go to a little place up there on top of the mountain, and I have a little prayer up there, and offer God my thanksgiving for a good wife. My wife has been a darling to me, and so I do that each year.
81 When we come over here in Arizona, by the commandment of the Lord. And you seen in the paper, and I had the little picture here, was showing it to somebody this afternoon, how the magazine packed it. And I stood right here on this platform, and told every person here, “THUS SAITH THE LORD, ‘Something is fixing to take place. I seen a constellation of seven Angels meet me, north of Tucson.’” You remember that? How many was in here when I said that years ago? All right. And you know just exactly how it happened, the same way.
82 The magazine even packed the picture, “Seen a mysterious Light, twenty-seven miles high; thirty miles high, and twenty-seven miles across.” Moisture only goes about eight or nine miles high, you know, and they can’t figure out what It was. I never said a word about it, just let it go; ’cause, it don’t do one bit of good, not one.
83 Just the same as it did about the Light that they taken, the Angel of the Lord, they still don’t believe It.
84 And now, so when we come out here, I constantly in meetings, doing everything I can for the Lord. But I don’t do all that I should, I—I know that I make so many mistakes.
85 And my wife has had to be both mother and daddy, both, for those children, ’cause I’m away. And her decision…A father and mother should agree upon their decisions for their children. But I’m not there, I’m in the service of the Lord. And my wife now is forty-four years old, just ten years younger than I. And I come in from one of the meetings, and I was tired. Been about a little over (about) two years ago, I guess, when we come out here. And I had been out, and I was real tired.
86 And my little boy, Joseph, he is just strickly a boy, and running out in school where he hears everything. One day when I come in, he said something another, and sassed his mother. And—and then he run to me. Now, she knowed, he knowed he would get a licking from her. So she said to me, she said, “Billy, give him a whipping.”
87 And he put his arms around me, said, “Daddy, I’m so sorry.” He knowed my soft spot. And so, “Oh,” I said, “honey, let’s forget it. I can’t.”
88 And for the wife and I, with this Bible before me, has never had a word in our life. But all at once, being in that nervous time of life, she slammed the door right in my face. And she said, “Then you should take care of him a while,” and slammed the door, and went in.
89 I thought, “Poor little fellow! My, she has all that to go through, herself.”
90 I walked on out, and I said, “Joseph, come on,” I said. Took him. I said, “Daddy should give you a licking. You know that. But,” I said, “being that you repented. See? But, remember, my—my patience is going to run out, one of these days. And that, that repenting, you’ve got to bring forth fruit meets for repentance, and prove to me that you really mean it. See? If you love me, then you’ll mind me.”
91 And so I went on out, and I said, “I’ll wash the dust off my windshield of my car. And I started out to wash that windshield.
92 And, as I did, a Voice said, “Turn, and tell her to read Second Chronicles 22.”
93 I thought, “I just—I just—just…I don’t know how I ever thought that.” I thought, “Well, I just imagined that.” Kept on washing.
94 And again It come, real loud, “Go, tell her!” Well, It scared me.
95 I went in and read it. You know what it is? It’s when Miriam made fun of Moses, about marrying an Ethiopian girl. And God said, “It was better that your father spit in your face, than to do that.” See? And He called them in, said, “Go, get Miriam, she is struck with leprosy.” Said, “Go, get Miriam.” And Moses…And the Pillar of Fire came down into the tabernacle. And Moses stood there. And God talked to them. He said, “If there be one among you, who is spiritual or a prophet, I the Lord will make Myself known to him. I will speak to him in visions, reveal dreams, and so forth.” He said, “But My servant, Moses, there is none like him in the land.” He said, “Didn’t you fear God?” And Miriam, being a prophetess, was stricken with leprosy. And Moses interceded for her, and she lived.
96 Then, that scared me. I had forgot. Me, I didn’t—I didn’t notice it, but He did. He was the One that noticed it. That was my wife, I would die anytime for her. But God noticed it. Now this is the truth, my Bible laying here in front of me.
97 And I went in. And she had went into the room and shut the door, and was sewing on the sewing machine. And I knocked on the door, and I said, “Sweetheart, I want to talk to you a minute.” She said, “What do you want?”
98 I said, “Honey, open the door, right away. I got a word from the Lord.” That kind of sobered her up a little, so she opened the door.
99 And we come in. And I said, “Sweetheart, now you know, as much as I love you, I—I—I never thought nothing about that.” She said, “Well, Bill, if…I’m so nervous!”
100 I said, “I know. But He didn’t like that. That didn’t please Him. He told me right there in the tree, that tree there, that little palm tree in front of the house there, come in here and ‘read this Scripture’ to you.” And I read It.
101 So help me, within a few days, she took a pain in the left side. We had to go home. And it kept getting worse. I prayed for her. Kept getting worse.
102 I took her over to my doctor friend in Louisville, Doctor Schoen, specialist. He examined her, said, “Mrs. Branham, tell Brother Branham I want to see him.” She said, “Doctor, what did you find?” Said, “I’d rather tell him.”
103 So Meda called me, and I come over. And he said, “Brother Branham, she’s got a cyst on the left ovary, about the size of a walnut.” And I went back home with her, and I said, “You remember?”
104 She said, “That happened with Brother Sharrit, if I’m not mistaken, over there in California. You’ve told me that for sixteen years now.” I said, “That’s right. Now it’s just showing up.” She said, “Bill, you think it’s what I did that morning?”
105 I said, “I don’t know, honey, I—I just can’t say.” Well, we put our arms around one another and started weeping, before the Lord. I went in the room and I prayed for her, with all my heart. 106 Doctor Schoen, I called him back, I said, “Doc, what should we do?” He said, “Should come out of there.” And I said, “Just let it go a little bit.”
107 He said, “I’ll tell you, Brother Branham, maybe I better send you up to a female specialist, with her, a good friend. He’s a Christian, too.”
108 I said, “Well, what about you, Doc?” He wanted to get it off his own hand, see.
109 He said, “I’ll send you up there.” He loved me, and he respected my work for the Lord. And he told this other doctor about it.
110 And I took her up there. And they examined it, and then drawed a diagram of it; drawed a diagram and—and what, just what size it was. Said, “Bring her back in about thirty days.”
111 In thirty days, I brought it back, and it changed from a walnut to a lemon, that quick. And all those years, it laid like that.
112 Then the Lord spoke to me, and sent me back again, I come back out here.
113 Then when we went back on our other vacation, they took another x-ray of it, it was the size of an orange. He said, “Mr. Branham, I sure appreciate your faith in Almighty God.” He said, “I’m a Christian, too. Doctor Schoen tells me that you’re a faith healer.”
114 I said, “He just didn’t understand. I’m not a faith healer.” I said, “I just believe God.” And I said, “We understand this case.” And he—he said, “Mr. Branham, you got a fine wife.” I said, “How well I know it!”
115 Said, “If that gets soft, it’ll go malignant, and then you ain’t going to have no wife.” And I said, “I realize that, doctor.” Said, “Are you against it being taken out?”
116 I said, “No, sir. But,” I said, “we have a reason. Just let it go a little while longer, won’t you?”
117 And he said, “Well, I’ll tell you.” Said, “They say you’re living in Tucson now.” And he told me the specialist, said, “He’s a friend of mine.” Said, “I moved to Tucson, and tried to live there, once.” He said, “It was a little too dry for me.” Said, “This man is the best there is, west of the Mississippi.” So he said, “I’m going to send the x-rays and diagram, and all, over to him.” So, he sent it down to Tucson.
118 And the man, when he got over here, thirty days more, we took another look at it, the man did. And he said, “It’s the size of a grapefruit, getting real big. It must come out, at once.”
119 Well, I had to go. I went up north, and went on my vacation. Come back, and went to New York, to New York City, to Morris Auditorium, for a revival. On the road back, I had to stop in Louisiana, at Brother Jack Moore’s.
120 I called the wife, the night going through, and she said, “Honey, tomorrow I’ve got to go to the—the doctor’s again, for an examination.” And she says, “Bill, I haven’t been able to move my left leg, this week. It’s sticking plum through my dress.” Out like this, was swollen out, growing fast. And said, “It’s so sore, I can’t even put my hands out.” Said, “This week I’ve just had to put one leg out, at a time, and move like that.”
121 And I said, “Honey, he is going to want to take it out.” And I said, “If he does, it will be right through Christmas time; we can’t come back here, back home.” And she said, “I know it.” She said, “Well, what must we do?”
122 I said, “Well, just tell him, if he’d ‘just let it go till after Christmas.’ Then we’ll have it taken out, immediately after Christmas. Cause, I want you to come back home again before you go to the hospital.”
123 And now she said, “Now, I’m going tomorrow, about three o’clock,” something like that. And that would be different in our time. She said, “You’ll have your first service then in Shreveport, then you call me, afterwards.” I said, “All right.”
124 A lady friend down there, a very fine Christian woman. They was here Sunday, I don’t think they are tonight. They’ll come up. Norman, a Mrs. Norman. Would you be here, Mr. and Mrs. Norman? I don’t know whether they’re here, or not, Brother and Sister Norman, from Tucson. She was the one who…I think they can’t come every night, so she’ll be here tomorrow night, I suppose. Is there a brother, Sister Norman’s brother here? I think he come. Is he here? There’s…The family, any of the family here, the Norm-…? Oh, yes, sure. There they are, back in the back. Yeah. All right. She taken the wife over.
125 Now the morning that I left, at our home, we always had to get up, and when we would go to pray; when we’d leave, we’d take the children and all of us, stand around towards the picture of Jesus, in our front room, Hofmann’s Head of Christ at Thirty-three. And we would all gather round there, the children, and each one of them would pray for me. The wife would pray for me, and then I pray for her. Then I’d go overseas, wherever it is. And we commit ourselves to the Lord, for His service.
126 You know, I lost a wife, once, when I was a boy, Billy’s mother. And I had been there in the house for two or three days, and, you know, the kiddies and everybody there, and everybody gone then. It was lonesome. It brought back all those memories.
127 And that morning, early, I got up, Billy and Loyce there was waiting for me. And I knelt down, and pulled this little old stool along, little ottoman. Knelt down, looked up, and I said, “Oh, how I miss them!” I said, “Heavenly Father, I’m on my road now to Shreveport. I pray You’ll help me down there. And bless me, give me souls, Lord, for Your Kingdom. Use me in any way You wish. I’m in Your hands.” I said, “Way across the deserts, is my faithful little wife, waiting this morning. She is going up there, for get ready for that operation.” I said, “Lord, I told her, last night, ‘Ask the doctor to put it off till after Christmas.’ Did I do wrong? Would that turn malignant? If I did that, and asked her to beg that doctor, ‘turn off,’ and, between that time, it would go malignant and I’d lose her, I would never forgive myself for that.”
128 I said, “Lord, I’ve talked to You now for these two years, yes, sixteen years, but,” I said, “the last two years since that happened.” I said, “Father, she has never failed to be a real wife to me. When I get ready to go on the services, never one time did she ever complain, not one time. Always gets my clothes cleaned, and my shirts laundered, and everything, and have them all ready for me. And then when I come home, I’m so tired, I can’t…And it’s, usually, a woman would want her husband to be with her. And I come in, people crowding in, what do I do? Get off on a hunting trip or a fishing trip. Did she ever complain? Not one time. Go get my clothes ready, and let me go on, ‘That’s all right.’ The poor little fellow, forty-four years old, snow-white-headed, standing between me and the public.” I said, “God, she didn’t mean that, that morning. She really didn’t mean it, Father. Her actions show she didn’t mean it. She was just nervous.”
129 So help me, for the fifth time that it’s been done! Since the squirrels; and then down in Kentucky; then the Wright children down there; then that storm on the mountain, which I haven’t time to tell you tonight; and this time, just as certain! There come that Light, hanging down there, and It said, “Stand up on your feet.” And I stood up. He said, “Whatever you say, that’s the way it’ll be.”
130 I said, “The hand of God will dissolve the tumor before the doctor’s hand can touch it.”
131 I’ll have Mrs. Norman here tomorrow night. I never called her, it was right…Billy and Loyce was waiting on me. We went on to Shreveport, got around the phone to call her when we got there.
132 She had went to the doctor. And Mrs. Norman had to help her over, and the nurse, in the room, to get her gown on, to come out for on the table. And they moved the machines up, with the diagrams and x-rays, and things. He said, “How you been feeling, Mrs. Branham?” He said…
133 And, the doctor, we opened the letter, to see what he wrote in it, to this doctor. Said, “Mrs. Branham is a very fine woman, and her husband is a fine man. He is a faith healer, but he doesn’t disagree with you operating. Doctor, it should come out at once!” That’s, we had read that, see, “That tumor should be moved at once, or Mrs. Branham will die.”
134 And then just as the doctor come out, to raise back the sheet, to touch her side, a real cool Something swept over her, and the tumor was gone. There is no tumor. And the doctor…She lay there, and he touched, he said, “Mrs. Branham, that tumor was on the left side, wasn’t it?” She said, “Yes, sir, it was.”
135 So he turned her back under the x-ray machine, he went and got his diagrams, went all through the examination again. He said, “Mrs. Branham, I can’t explain it, but that tumor isn’t there no more. That tumor is gone.”
136 Now, that’s the truth, so help me! God Almighty knows it’s the truth, standing here. See, just as it was said! But “the doctor’s hand,” she said, “wasn’t that far” from her, until a cool Something swept over her. She could hardly…Had to be helped by Mrs. Norman and them, (and the folks back there can tell you about it), helped up on the table. And the diagram and the x-rays, and everything there, of the tumor. And there wasn’t one sign of it. And she has not had a symptom since. And that was about two weeks before Christmas.
137 God still remains true to His Word! “Both Heavens and earth will pass away, but My Words shall not pass away.” God, Who can create squirrels, Who can take away tumors, He is still the same God tonight, for It’s Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do you believe that? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.] Heavenly Father, Who is my witness, with this Bible over my heart, knows that word by word of that is as true as I know how to say it. What good would it do me to say something wrong, friends? What am I saying this for? That it might encourage you to believe.
God’s Word Calls For A Total Separation From Unbelief
64-0121
Phoenix Arizona U.S.A.
90 Our Heavenly Father, Thou knowest this story to be true. That was the fourth time. And then the fifth time, was with my own precious wife, when You…Last week, when that doctor writing that statement, that big tumor left before his hand touched her; just according to what it said.