Branham Stories
The Infidel and the Apple Tree
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.
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."
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."
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..."
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."
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.'"
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.
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.
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."
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."
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."
