Branham Stories
He Saw Something Real
I used to, before I went into the evangelist work, I used to have a baking powder can. I saved nickels and things. When I--I was a game warden, I worked and I pastored a Baptist church, Baptist Tabernacle in Jeffersonville for seventeen years without one penny of salary. I never drawed a salary, never took a offering in my life. So I dropped my nickels, when I'd get paid, in there to take a hunting trip once a year.
And I used to hunt up in the north woods with some friends up there. And a good hunter, a fellow I hunted with, his name was Caul, Bert Call: fine fellow, about a half Indian also. And he--he was a good hunter. I liked to hunt with him 'cause you never had to hunt him up. He knowed where he was at. And a good shot, my, he was a dead shot, but the meanest man that I ever met in my life. That man was actually mean. He had eyes like a lizard, and they set sideways, you know, like that.
And he used to shoot little fawns just to make me feel bad. And he'd shoot... You know what a fawn is. It's a little baby deer. And he'd shoot them does, mother does and fawns, and things. Now, it's all right. If the law... Now, I'm not... You hunting brothers, I'm not condemning killing a fawn. That's all right, if the law says kill it. But just to shoot them just for fun, that's wrong. That's murder. In my book it's murder (That's right.) to kill them just to be killing. Now, not because it was a fawn...
Now, Abraham killed a calf, and God eat it. So it's not the sex, or the--or the size; but it's just killing them to be cruel to kill. That's what Bert would do, just--just to be mean, to make me feel bad. He'd shoot those little fellows and watch them tumble over, just for fun.
And I... One year I went up there. It was kind of late, and I went up. And Bert, we'd... He'd been waiting for me for two days. I told you I was always late, and even on my hunting trips. So he... I was late.
He said, "Where have you been, preacher?"
I said, "I just couldn't get off from work, Bert." We was right in time of quail season. I said, "I couldn't get off from work."
He said, "Well, it's going be late." Said, "Been hunting up here now for several days." Said, "Them little white tails are like Houdini, the escape artist. They're gone just in a second." And said...
I said, "Well, we'll try it. We know where we're at. We got about ten days now. We'll get one."
So we started off that morning, and he said, "I want to show you something, preacher. You never seen nothing like it."
I said, "What is it, Bert?"
He reached down in his pocket, and pulled out a little whistle, and he whistled it, blowed it. And it sounded just like a little baby fawn, crying for its mama.
And I said, "Now, Bert, you wouldn't be that cruel."
And he said, "Oh, you're like all the rest of the preachers. You're too chicken-hearted to be a hunter." He said, "Get next to yourself, fellow."
I said, "Bert, that--that's not being chicken-hearted. That's just--that's just acting with sense." I said, "Don't you do a thing like that, Bert."
He said, "Aw, go on, Billy. What's the matter with you?"
So we always carry some chocolate. Chocolate is better than coffee, 'cause it's stimulating. Sometime you get turned around in the woods, may have to stay out overnight. And you'd better have a little chocolate with you or something to keep you warm through the night, if you can't find some dry stuff to make a fire.
So we hunted till about, up about eleven o'clock, and we didn't see a track or a sign. About four inches, six inches of snow, good tracking weather, not a sign nowhere... Moonlight night, 'course and them deer feeding at night... But we couldn't find even a track. And I said, "Well, it's going to be pretty bad."
We walked on, about eleven o'clock, and all at once, he kind of... He come to an opening, be about twice the size of this building here. Bert kind of stooped down, and he put his hand back in his coat like this, and I thought "Well, he's going to--we're going eat a bite of lunch, and maybe separate, and him go one way and I another, and work our way in. Nine or ten o'clock tonight we'd be back to our camp."
So he reached down there, pulled out this little whistle, and I said... Now, I thought he was going to get his lunch, but he pulled out this little whistle. And he put it up to his mouth, and give a little call like a little baby fawn bleating for its mammy, you know, like that. And when he did that, he looked up at me.
And I noticed right across the little opening there a great big, beautiful doe stood up. See, she was hid, but when she heard that call of that baby, she was a mother. Instinct in her rose up. Now, she wouldn't have ordinarily done that at that time of day. But I could see them big ears like that, and those big brown eyes looking around. What was it? A baby and a mother. And he looked over at me, and them lizard eyes looked up at me.
I thought, "Bert, you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that."
He said, "Shh..." and he took that whistle again, and he blowed it again. And the deer stepped right out into that opening. Oh, my. That's unusual. And I seen him look up again, pull that lever back, and throwed that big hundred and eighty grain bullet in that .30-06: a dead shot.
I seen him level down like this, you know. And thought, "Oh, oh. Just a second more, and he will drive the heart of that mother, that loyal heart, plumb through her (See?) with that big hundred and eighty grain mushroom going right through that loyal heart. A mother looking for her baby, how could you be so deceitful."
She stomped when the--the latch went out on the gun. You know what it is, in a model 70, when the latch goes down, it makes a little noise. She turned. She seen the hunter. Now, usually she's spooked, we call it, gone, like that. But not her. She was right in the face of death, but her baby was in need. She was loyal. She wasn't a hypocrite. She wasn't putting something on. She wasn't a make-believe; she was a mother. There was something in her was mother.
And I thought, "O God, there's a lesson. 'Yet a mother may forget her suckling babe, but never will I forget you. Your name's engraved on the palms of My hand.'"
I thought, "Bert, surely you can't do that." I was behind some bush to the deer, but I was looking through--through some snow hanging on the little spruce and watching. And I seen that gun come up there. And oh, my, what--what a crack shot he was.
I couldn't look at it. I thought, "That loyal mother..." I thought, "How real, she's walked right out there in the face of that." And them ears, that nose, she caught that hunter setting there; but that didn't make her no difference. She was ready to go to death. Why? That baby was crying. And she was trying to find it. She was a mother. There was something inside of her was mother, inside of her. She was born a mother, and she was looking for that baby. She wasn't noticing the danger. It didn't make any difference. She was watching for that baby.
I turned my head. I couldn't watch it. I turned my head. I said, "Heavenly Father, be merciful to Bert. Don't let him do it, God. That precious mother standing there with that real loyal heart beating beneath there, looking for her baby... Don't let him do it, Father." And I kept standing there, praying to myself. I was listening to hear that gun crack any minute. But the gun didn't go off.
After about a full minute or two, I turned around, and the gun barrel was shaking like this. And he looked up to me, and the tears was streaming down out of them eyes. He looked at me, and his lips was quivering. He throwed the gun on the bank. He said, "Billy, I've had enough of it." He grabbed me by the pants leg, and said, "Lead me to that Jesus that you're talking about." He's a deacon--He's a deacon in a Baptist church.
What's the matter? What was it? He saw something real. He seen something that wasn't put on. He seen something that was genuine, a real mother, something inside, that she wasn't afraid of death. She wasn't afraid of nothing, because she was a mother. Her baby was in need. God, make me a Christian to love my Lord. Like that mother was, as much mother as she was mother, make me a Christian.
With our heads the way they are now, with our eyes toward God, how many in here would like to be that kind of a Christian, as much Christian as that deer was a mother?"
