Branham Stories
The Scoffer and the Oncoming Storm
And these prophets of the weather in Florida are pretty accurate with their prophesying. They are set for that purpose to warn the people. I was reading (I forget just now, I believe it was in the newspaper.) of a storm a few years ago, that was on its way across Florida, central Florida, and all the regions around Okeechobee was--was warned. I just left there about five weeks ago. And there was a neighbor man who kept in contact with radio all the time, because of these storms, and he was a very renowned Christian. And he heard that the great typhoon was coming that way, twisting down trees, and everyone was warned to get to safety. And he thought of his neighbor who had a chicken farm, and some light buildings with their chickens in them, their brooder houses, and so forth, and their pens, where all that they had in life was tied up with these chickens, of their living. And he rushed quickly, frantically, up to the gate, and stopped his car, and jumped out, and said to this fellow, "Take all the chickens and put them in your storm shelter, and you rush over to mine, because there is coming a typhoon or a--a storm that's going to twist everything down."
And the man stood and looked him in the face, and laughed at him, and said, "Nonsense. I've heard them predict such things before, and it never did happen." And the Christian neighbor was so excited; he said, "But what if it does happen?" We hear remarks like that along the line; "I've heard of this is going to happen, and that's going to happen." But it is going to happen one of these days. And it behooves us to listen to every warning.
But this man said, "I have no time for such foolishness. I raise chickens, and I have no time for such." And he cried out. The neighbor said, "In the Name of God," he said, "leave those chickens alone then, John, and come quickly, you and your family. If you don't want to believe it, let your family come." And he said, "I will not have my children to be excited over a few radio warnings. My children and I have decided we'll live as I live. And my wife will listen to me because I am the breadwinner of this home, and she must listen to me. I'm boss here, and I will not have my children all excited or tore up about some nonsense." And the neighbor was turned. And he went to his home into his shelter.
And all of a sudden, the cloud was upon him before they knew it. That's the way judgment strikes. It comes so sudden; you wonder how it can get there so quick. How I have seen cruel men, who once cursed God, fall and scream, and say, "How could You treat me this way?" The whole, every foundation was swept out from under him in a moment. It pays to take warning. Oh, you might laugh at the messenger; you might be able even to kill him; but you cannot kill the message. It'll go on just the same. God's message is eternal. His Words will never fail. Paul was successfully in having Stephen stoned. But all through his life until he surrendered to Christ, was he never able to get away from that message, "I see heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." Something got ahold of him. It wasn't the messenger; it was the message he had.
While the storm swept through the country, it caught the chicken house and the farmer, and they never found his body. And his wife, frantically fighting... And they lived close to the great Okeechobee Lake, and the waters begin to rise as the typhoon lifted the waters all the way from the bottom of the lake. That's what makes them so dangerous; they're shallow; the boats rock, and that's how the waves come up and turn the boats beneath them. The storms comes and just whirls up the water and packs it for miles. And the water is sweeping, until the mother knowed there was no hope but to get her children on top of the building. And she got her children, and got them on top the building, holding onto the chimney of the house.
And then the wildlife, the Cottonmouth moccasin, I believe, a more deadly snake than your Diamondback rattler, they was crawling for safety, and they come on the roof with her. And by listening to her husband, not taking heed to the warning, she had to... She stomped and she beat, but she had to stand and watch those vicious snakes bite her children until they died on the roof. And the mother herself was bitten so much until finally she died; that's the only way we got the story. After the storm had quietened, and the search parties hunting for bodies, and so forth, they found her laying on top of the roof, with her children laying by her side.
Oh, it pays to take warning. The first thing to do, before there can be a warning, there has to be a preparation made for safety, or there's no need of sending a warning. And the warning is only a voice of one having you to prepare for the danger. There has to be a preparation made first. And then if the preparation is made, then the warning can go forward to cause you to make your decision whether you want to listen to it or not. If you don't want to listen to it, well, that's up to you. If you do listen to it, there's safety.
God has the same method. We work on God's method in that way. God, in the early days, when the antediluvian world, when people had gotten so wicked and so sinful, that God could not look upon it and be just... God is just, and He has laws. When those laws are broken... Any law that's broken, has no penalty to it, isn't law. You cannot break the laws of God without having to pay for it somewhere. You must do it. The Bible said, "Be sure your sins will find you out." And what is sin? I'd like to stop here just a moment. Many people think smoking cigarettes is a sin. It isn't. Many people think that lying is a sin. It isn't. Committing adultery, that isn't sin. That's the attributes of unbelief. You... The reason you do those things is because you are an unbeliever.
There's only two things; that's you are either a believer or an unbeliever. If you are a believer, you do not those things. If you do do them, I don't know what kind of a profession you have; but if you do that the love of God isn't in you. The Bible said so. We've got too much profession without a possession of it, too many saying and not living it. I think, even we have too much practice on sermons and not living enough sermons. It'd be a lot better if we lived our sermon; each one of us would be a minister. It's better to live me a sermon than preach me one. The Bible said that "You are written epistles of God, read of all men." So it's best to live the sermon.
Sin is because you believe not. Did not Jesus say in the days of His flesh on earth, did He not call the people that would not lie, that would not steal, that would not commit adultery, righteous men, preachers, priests; He said, "You are of your father, the Devil," because they believed not on the Son of God. "He that believeth not is condemned already."
