The Infidel and the Apple
Tree
GOD HAS A
PROVIDED WAY 62-0728
E-28
Well, they loved me so much till they just moved over, my neighbor to
me. And a real Acts 2:4 neighbor they are too. They really are, both of them
receiving the Holy Ghost. And all of his family, practically every one of them
been readers in the Jehovah Witness, through the visions and powers of God,
turned them every one to the baptism of the Holy Ghost. His wife's people all
being Methodist, good women, good men, and everything, and every one of her
people, the whole group, has come in and received the baptism of the Holy
Ghost, excepting of one. Watching God... And Brother Banks and I likes to
squirrel hunt. I don't know whether anybody... How many ever went squirrel
hunting? Oh, my. What part of Kentucky are you from anyhow. See? And there's no
hunting like it, nowhere at all. And we hunt squirrels with twenty-two rifle,
fifty yard shot, eye shots. And we just don't get too many squirrels, but we
have a great time when I go on vacation.
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And one day down there, it was... The fall was real dry, two years ago,
and we was camping out: hadn't took a bath in a couple weeks, and beard all
over our face, and squirrel blood. We were a mess. But I was relaxing from
meetings, kinda getting away back into nature. I always see God in His nature,
watching His provided way. Notice. And then it got so dry, when we'd step in
the woods, them flat woods, one little break of the leaf... And you talk about
Houdini at being a escape artist, he's an amateur the side of one of them
squirrels. He's gone, like that. And to shoot a rifle shot, and then an eye,
it's a hard thing to do. So Brother Banks said, "You know, I know where
there's a man that's got five hundred acres of woods all in the hollows."
How many knows what a hollow is? All right. And that's down in the valley like,
where the water runs through. Said, "We could get down there and walk."
So we went down to see this man. He said, "The only thing is, that this
man is an infidel, a very awful unbeliever."
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Well, we went through fields and everything till we got back to his
place. And when we got back to the place where this infidel, unbeliever lived,
there he set out under the tree, him and another old man setting out there,
with their hats pulled down, chewing tobacco and spitting, like that. So
Brother Wood got out of the car, and goes over, and said, "Could I squirrel
hunt on your place a little while?" He said, "What's your name?"
He said,
"Wood." He said, "What Wood are you?" And he said,
"Banks." He said, "Are you Jim Wood's boy?" He said,
"Yes." That was his father. He said, "Well, any boy or any of
Jim Wood's people is welcome anywhere on my place they want to come." So
he said. "I brought my pastor along. Could he hunt too?" This old
fellow spit and said, "Wood, you don't mean to tell me you got bad enough
till you have to carry a preacher with you wherever you go."
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And so I thought it was about time for me to get out of the car. So I
got out of the car and walked around there. I said, "How do you do?"
He said, "And you're the preacher?" I said, "Yes, sir." And
before Brother Wood got a chance to introduce me, why, he said, "You know,
the trouble with you fellows," he said, "you're barking up the wrong
tree." You know what a... Coon dog that barks up the wrong tree, he's a
liar (See?), and the coon's got away, and he ain't barking at nothing. So he
said, "You fellows are barking up the wrong tree so much." I said,
"What do you mean?" He didn't believe there was such a thing as God,
and he knowed nothing about it. "Well," I thought, "now, that
old fellow isn't bad. He don't mean to be that way." He said, "They
talk about this, and they talk about that, and there's nothing to it. I've been
right here, and I've never seen nothing that looks like it. I can look up that
way, and I don't see nothing; look this way, don't see nothing." Said,
"Why, they're..."
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You see, the trouble of it is,
it's just like people coming to one of the meetings; there's so many trees you
can't see the woods. That's just it. See? So then, he set there, you know, a
little while. And thought, "Lord, if You'll just help me now, maybe we can
catch the old fellow for the Kingdom of God." And there was a apple tree
standing there, and the yellow jackets... How many knows what a yellow jacket
is? He was... They was eating on the apples. And I reached down and picked
up... I said, "Can I have one of these apples?" Said, "Help
yourself. Yellow jackets are eating them up." So I begin to rub it, like
that. And he said, "There was one preacher one time here about three years
ago, or four, that come over here to a little town called Acton." And said,
"Acton's a little bitty place where they have a Methodist
campground." Said, "This preacher come down from Indiana, and he had
that place packed out full of people there for three nights."
E-33
And said, "Old lady (some name) up here on the hill had cancer in
her stomach." And said, "She got so bad they couldn't put her on the
bedpan no more. They had to use a draw sheet." And said, "Wife and
I'd go up there twice a day and change her bed for her." Said,
"Doctors give her up to die weeks before that," and said,
"wasn't nothing could be done. She could hardly speak anymore. Couldn't
even keep warm water on her stomach." And said, "Her sister went down
to that meeting that night." And said, "This preacher, standing up
there (never was in this country before in his life) looked back over the
audience and said, 'This woman setting back here is named So-and-so. When she
left home tonight, she put--took from a drawer of a dresser on the right hand
side a little handkerchief with a blue figure in it, put it in her pocketbook.
If... She's got a sick sister. She has a sick sister by the name of So-and-so
that lives up here, and she's dying with cancer. THUS SAITH THE LORD, take this
handkerchief and go lay it on your sister and she'll be healed.'"
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And said, "The woman got up
out of the chair from where she was setting, and went and laid that
handkerchief on that woman." And he said, "Why, they... I thought
they had the Salvation Army up there on top of the hill." Said, "I
never heard so much screaming, about twelve o'clock that night." Well, it
was a bunch of them up there putting the handkerchief on the old lady, and she
was healed, just according to the Word of the Lord: Got up, jumping all around,
shouting, praising the Lord.
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And said, "The next morning wife and I went up there." Said,
"It was late, about midnight. We thought the old lady... We was looking
for her to die any minute anyhow. We thought that was her children screaming,
that she'd already passed away." And said, "We went up there the next
morning. There was she and her husband setting at the table eating fried apple
pies and drinking coffee." And said, "She does her own work and the
neighbor's work." I thought, "Oh, oh. That's why... I'm glad you said
that." And Brother Banks started to say, "Well, that..."
"Don't. See? Don't." I said, "Is that so?" He said,
"Yes, it's so." I said, "You don't believe that?" He said,
"Go right up there and find out." See, he was preaching back to me
then. You see, see? "Go right up there and find out. Her name's So-and-so.
She lives right around the corner." The other old man setting there said,
"That's right." See? And I said, "Do you mean that's the
truth?" Said, "Well, go find out for yourself." I said, "My."
I said, "What was that guy's name?" Said, "I don't know."
Said, "I forget it." Said, "Some preacher from up in
Indiana," he said.
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And I said, "Yes, sir." And I was eating on that apple, you
know, and I said, "That's a good apple." Said, "Oh, yeah."
Said, "She's a dandy. We can off it every year."
I said, "How
old is that tree?" "Oh," he said, "we... I planted that
tree there myself about fifty years ago, something like that." He was
seventy-six, I think it was. I said, "Yes, uh-huh." I said, "I
want to ask you a question." And he said, "Yes, sir." He'd just
got through saying, "If that preacher ever comes back here, seemed like he
had something on the ball." He said, "I'm going to ask him how did he
know that woman was in that shape, and how did he know she was going to be made
well?" And I said, "You say you planted that tree there so long
ago?" "Yes." I said, "I want to ask you a question. It's
just about the middle of August; we haven't even had a cool night. Why is those
leaves dropping off the tree?" "Oh," he said, "the life has
left them." "Oh," I said. "Is that right? Well, what
happened to the life?" "Oh," he says, "it went down into
the roots of the tree." I said, "Why did it go down there?" He
said, "Well, if it doesn't, it'll die. The winter will kill it. The germ
of life can't stay up in this tree here." I said, "Oh. Well," I
said, "what causes it to go down before there's any cold spell?"
"Well," he said, "it just goes down." And I said,
"Well, now..." He said, "It's just nature. It just actually goes
down."
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I said, "Well, if I get a
bucket of water and set it out here on that locust stump, will when fall of the
year comes along, will that water go out of the bucket right down to the bottom
of the stump, and next spring come back up, bringing up another bucket of
water?" He said, "No." I said, "Then there's bound to be
some Intelligence. That tree has no intelligence. It's a--it's a tree, a plant.
There's got to be some kind of Intelligence to cause it to go down to hide its
life, and then come back up to bring you another bunch of apples." He
said, "Well, you know what?" he said, "I hadn't thought of it
just that way."
And I said,
"I tell you, you think of that. And whenever you can find out the
Intelligence that says to that tree, 'Drop your leaf. Hurry back down into the
roots, and stay there, and next spring come back again.' When you find what
Intelligence that directed that tree to do that, I'll tell you what
Intelligence that told me that woman was dying with a cancer, and put the
handkerchief on her. She'd be healed." He said, "You're not that
preacher?" I said, "Yes, sir, I am. I'm Brother Branham." He
said, "That's the name."
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That old man become a Christian, gave his heart to Christ. Last year
Brother Wood and I were down there, and I drove over to see the old man. And
his wife was setting on the back porch peeling apples off of the same tree. And
I come up and talked to her. And she said, "Brother Branham, that simple
little story led the old brother to Christ. He died in Christian faith a year
ago." Now, what was it? He found God's provided way. By looking the way He
could provide a way of escape of death of that tree, he found a provided way
that God had provided for him to live again.