Questions & Answers
Questions 342 (COD Page 1095)
We–we were married twenty-one years ago by the justice of the peace. Was–was it wrong?
154 Yes, it was wrong for you to do that. Marriage belongs in the house of God. But being that you are married, here’s when you are really married: you’re married when you vow one to the other, when you promise one another that you’re...that you’ll take one another. The justice of peace could give you license, that’s legal terms, of living together as husband and wife without being common-law husband and wife. But when you promise this girl, and this...you promise that man that you’ll live true to him, and you take him to be your husband, you’re married then. You remember, I explained that last week, I believe it was. See? When you promise her. See?
155 Even in the old–in the old Bible, if a man was betrothed to a maid, and (you know the laws on that. Why, it was just the same as an adultery. Certainly was!) when he promised, that was it.
156 The question was asked the other day, “Was a annulment–annulment–an annulment the same as a divorce?” See? When you ask me those questions, friend, you don’t know what that does to me. I’ve got many friends setting here that’s married two or three times. Did you realize I’m talking to my own son, Billy Paul? Would I spare Billy Paul? No indeedy! Billy Paul got married to some little girl, and come up, and said,
“Daddy, I’m going to get married.”
157 I was washing my car; I said, “Butt your head against the wall,” just kept on washing my car like that. He said, “I’m going to get married.”
I said, “Oh, go on,” just kept on like that. He goes around and tell his mother, and his mother laughed at him. You know what he done? Run off with some little kid still in common school and got married. We annulled the wedding, the father of this girl and myself. We annulled the wedding, but he was married just the same. He’s my boy setting here listening at me now. Now, that’s exactly.
158 He come to me with the girl that he lives with now, my daughter-in-law. My little grandson...He said, “Daddy will you marry me?”
159 I said, “By no means.” That’s my own son. You think that don’t cut me to the core when I packed him in my arms and done everything I could do, and I’ve been both father and mother to him? You think that don’t kill me to say that? But it’s the Truth. Certainly! My boy setting here listening at...My daughter-in-law and my little grandson setting right here now...But I tell him it’s wrong (see?), because I’ve got to. I’m duty bound to that Word.
160 And I say, you got married by a magistrate? You should have been married by the church, by the minister. That’s the decent thing to do for a Christian. But being that you have already made that promise, and vow, and been married twenty-one years ago, I think it’s all right. You say, “Well I...”
161 The question might be, “Should I come and be married again?” If you wish to. Don’t have nothing in your mind that bothers your faith, ’cause if anything’s there, you can’t go no further than right there; you stop right there. When that question mark come, that’s where you end, right there. But now, for me it would be all right.
162 The man that baptized me in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ finally run me out of the church, because I wouldn’t agree with him on women preachers. That didn’t make me be rebaptized again. See? Sure not. See? That’s all right.
163 But just remember, these things are cutting to me. I got bosom friends setting here, man and women that would take their...lay their...pull their eye out and give it to me if I’d ask them for it (yes, sir!), and they’re married twice, sometimes three times, setting right here now. And my own boy, my own grandson, my grand-...and my daughter-in-law that I love...Look at Billy, how I stood by him and how he stood by me, but to say truth or truth, it’s truth’s truth.
164 I’ve got...I could go out here today and call up some of these Assemblies of God or some of these people and tell them, “I’ve...I’m...was all wrong, I ain’t going to stay with that Word, I’m going to stay with you.” I’d probably be a very popular person pretty soon with a gift of God. To throw all of my influence to one of those organizations, I’d probably have a big name among them. I ain’t caring about my name among them. I love them, that’s the truth. But I got to be truthful. I–I–I’d be a hypocrite if I did that.
165 And I’d be a hypocrite if I stood here because my own son setting here that was promised to a girl, and I said...If–if he never even had the ceremony said over him, no matter if he ever lived with the woman, or slept with her, the girl, or whatever it was, when he made that vow, he’s married, Billy Paul or no Billy Paul. That’s exactly the truth! He’s married when he made that promise. If it’s me, it’s the same.
166 We’ve got to be honest. If I can’t be honest with my boy, I can’t be honest with you. If I ain’t honest with you, I won’t be honest with God. And I want you to believe what I tell you to be my honest-to-goodness opinion. Don’t make anything else out of it, just say it the way I said it (see?), ’cause I’m going to tell you the Truth.
167 Now, I don’t talk to you all like that too often, because you’re my children, I call you. I’ve begotten you to Christ through the Gospel. And while we’re here together, just our own group setting here, I–I shave you down a little bit. But I want to tell you: but when you come to me and ask anything, I’m going to tell you the best that I know how! If it’s in the Word, I don’t care if it condemns me, I’ve got many knots should be shaved off of me. Exactly!
168 But when you ask me anything, I’m going to tell you. If I tell you anything, going to tell you the Truth. I’ve always tried to live that way. That’s the way I want to live and die that way, to be honest with anybody.
169 A little girl come to me not long ago; the woman’s not here now. Tom Simpson, many of you know him. Tom is a nice fellow; none of his people are here. I think all those people went back, unless Fred’s still here. I...Fred Sothmann, I don’t know whether he’s here yet or not, but I–I think they are. But Tom Simpson, they...he come down from Canada with–with Fred. And they...You know Brother Fred, our trustee.
170 And Brother Tom, many of you know him here. And Tom’s a fine man; he’s a dandy guy; and so is Mrs. Simpson. If she’d only listen to what I tell her, she’s going to walk again too. And she’s setting in that wheelchair crippled up. She’s going to walk if she’ll just do what was said do. And you just watch and see if that isn’t true. See? Now. But she’s got to do what she was told to do if she expects to do it.
171 And one of her little girls, sweet little girls...I...When they was little bitty things, I’d take them up on my lap and play with them. They’re too big now; they’re almost women, ten, twelve years old. And so, one of them come to me and said, “Brother Branham, I had a dream.” And she told me the dream. And she said, “What does that mean?”
I said, “Don’t know, Honey. I’ll pray, and if the Lord gives it to me, I’ll tell you.”
172 She said, “All right!” A few days she come back, said, “Got that dream?”
I said, “No, Honey, I haven’t; He hasn’t revealed it to me.”
173 About a week or two later she come back, said, “Brother Branham, what about that dream?”
I said, “I don’t know.” Well, looked like she was kind of disappointed. I...
174 You remember, when you ask me anything to tell you, and I don’t get it from the Lord, I’m disappointed too. But I ain’t going to be hypocrite, or a liar, I’m going to tell you the truth. If He tells me, I’ll tell you; if He don’t, I won’t. That’s all I can do. And I want you to believe me that way.
175 And now, I thought I knowed what the dream meant in my mind, but how did I know. I have to see the thing over again. And not one of you can lay your finger at anytime or anyplace, where I ever told you the interpretation of a dream in the Name of the Lord but was exactly that way. Yes, sir! Never have I told you anything in the Name of the Lord but what come to pass too, just that way, because I’m–I...It’s Him. And then it ain’t my responsibility then, it’s Him; it’s His responsibility.
176 I said, “Look, Trudy, what if we’re going to Arizona. And what if–if I come told you that when you got out there, ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD, your little brother is going...’? Little Johnny, the one I tease about having his belly open all the time.” I said, “What if he gets run over on the street? And I say, ‘You know what’s going to happen? He’s going to get run over on the street.’ And you’re coming up to me, and–and you’re going to say, ‘Brother Branham...’ ‘Go, take him to Brother Branham,’ rather. And then you’re going to hunt around, and you’ll find me standing on a steps, talking to a man with a white suit on. And then I’m just going to lay my hands upon little Johnny; he’s going to come to life again and run along.” Now, said, “Then you go out West, and the first thing you know, one day you hear your mother screaming, your daddy screaming, and look, and little Johnny has been run over. What would you do?” See? You believe me. See? And I want you to have confidence in me. I ain’t going to tell you nothing just presumingly; I’m going to tell you the truth, or don’t tell you nothing. And I said, “Then you come to me and say, ‘Oh, little Johnny...’ Or, come to your mother, ‘Oh, little Johnny’s run over. He’s dead! He’s dead!’”
177 “The doctor come, pull his eyes back, check his heart, his respiration. ‘He’s dead. Take him to the morgue.’”
“What would you do? You’re going to say, ‘Wait just a minute! Wait just a minute! Take him in my arms; let’s start walking.’” Amen!
“‘Where you going, Trudy?’”
“‘I don’t know.’”
“‘What you got?’ You got your little dead brother in your arms. Just keep walking down the street. People say, ‘Is that girl crazy?’ No, sir!” She’s got THUS SAITH THE LORD. What’s going to happen?
178 “First thing you know, you say to your father and mother, ‘Wait, we’ll find Brother Branham. He’ll be standing on the steps talking to a man with a white suit on. There he is standing right there. Watch what happens.’ Not a doubt in your mind. Walk up there and say, ‘Brother Branham, you know what you told me?’”
“Yes, Trudy. ‘Johnny, wake up!’” Jump off and go on down the street.
179 “But what if I just presumingly tell you some things that I just think is right, and tell you in that manner, THUS SAITH THE LORD, and it isn’t right, and it don’t happen, it never comes to pass; then you’d be scared to death of the little boy. You wouldn’t know whether to bring him or not.”
180 God sent me here to help you, and I want to be a help to you. And no matter if it cuts, hurts or whatever it is, I got to say it anyhow.
181 But now on the case of marriage and divorce, I’ve asked you like a brother, hold your peace until you hear from me. Hear? Just go right on as you have lived. (I’m taking up too much of the time there.)
182 “We were married twenty-one years ago (yeah)...justice of the peace.” Sister dear, Brother dear, one time a salesman was telling me he walked into a church (he was a Christian) up in Connecticut or somewhere up there, great big church, just went in to pray. It wasn’t...He was a Pentecostal, but he went in there to pray. And said when he got in there and knelt down in the church to pray...said he was riding along, was tired, kinda homesick, he’s a salesman, and he’s selling stuff, and said he...to factories. And he went in there to–to make some buys or something, and then he come by the church, thought, “I’ll go...I believe I’ll go in and pray.” The door’s open; said he went in. Didn’t hear nobody, so he knelt down and started praying. After he was praying there, stayed about a hour, said, directly he heard some doors slam or something; he thought it was a custodian or something of the church. Said, after while he noticed, here come...He heard somebody talking. He slipped up there and look, and looked around to see whether it was the custodian. It was a man and woman standing before the altar holding one another’s hands, said, “I take you, dear, to be my lawful wedded wife.” See?
She said, “I take you, dear, to be my lawful wedded husband.”
“Why,” he said, “this is a strange thing,” said, this Pentecostal, he said, “this man and woman getting married
without a preacher.” See? And so he just set down and waited; and after they made their vows to live true to one another, only death would separate them, they put their arms around one another, kissed each other, turned around and walked out smiling. He said, “Just a moment!” He said, “I’m kinda curious;
I’m a stranger.” Said, “You all gettin’ married?”
Said, “Yes!”
“Without a preacher?”
He said, “No!” Said, “We been married forty years.” He said,
“We got married right here at this altar forty years ago, and every year we come back and renew our vows.” That’s a good idea. See?
183 But as far as married, when you promise her, she takes your word; you take her word; and God takes both your word. See? But just don’t promise less...[Blank spot on tape–Ed.]