Branham Stories
The Word, Not Sensations
I remember the first sermon I preached. I got up there, and I--I thought I did real well, and all of the old ladies set around and they cried a little bit, you know, and said, "Oh, what a wonderful boy." The old pastor, Doctor Davis, was an old lawyer. I went down, and he said, "I want to see you down at the house."
I said, "All right." I walked in next day, you know, all swelled out. I said, "How did I do, Doctor Davis?"
Said, "The rottenest I ever heard."
I said, "What?"
He said, "The worst I ever heard."
"Oh," I said, "Brother Davis, everybody was crying."
He said, "Yes, they cry at funerals, cry at births, everything else." He said, "What it is, Billy, you never quoted one bit of God's Word. You talked about some mother that had done gone on, or something like this, and got everybody to crying." Said, "You're not borned again upon things and sensations of this earth; you're born by the Word." Said, "Billy, I..."
Oh, he cut the wind right out of me. I'm glad he did. See, see? Not jumping up and down, hollering, that isn't it. It's the Word that makes alive. The Word's quickened, not experiences; the Word.
He said, "I remember the first case I tried, Billy." He said, "I beat on the rail," and he said, "I said, 'Look at this poor woman.'" Oh, he said, "'Look how she look, and her husband's mistreated her.'" And said, "I cried a little and picked up my handkerchief, and I acted just like the rest of the lawyers." Said, "I thought I'd go through the same emotion." Said, "Judge, your Honor, why don't you give her a divorce. Look at there. She says her husband beat her back across the back." He couldn't even see it, under her underneath clothes. "They beat her across the back." And said, "Why won't you give her..." The old judge just set there, looked.
Directly the old attorney setting across on the other side had growed up; he said, "Judge, your Honor, how much more will--of this nonsense will your court stand?"
Just a lot of carrying on, that's the way too many people do: too much carrying on without enough Word behind it to back up. Grow up. "Oh, he danced in the Spirit last night, Brother Branham; he's all right." No, that don't make him all right to me. No, sir. Got to grow up, be proved, tested, growing up to Him, seasoned."
