01/04/2023
THE VISION OF HEAVEN AND HELL by Rev William Branham~
[ Excerpt from the Sermon "Beyond the Curtain of Time"]
"I had just awoke from sleep, and I placed my hands behind my head and relaxed with my head on the pillow. Then I began to wonder what it will be like on the other side. [I realized that I have lived more than half my life if I live to be as old as my people, and I wanted to do more for the Lord before I left this life.]
I heard a Voice saying: “You are just starting! Press the battle! Keep pressing!”
As I lay there pondering the words, I thought that I just imagined that I had heard a Voice.
Again the Voice said: “Press the battle! Keep going! Keep going!” Still unbelieving, I thought that possibly I had spoken the words myself. I placed my lips between my teeth and held my hand over my mouth and listened. The Voice spoke again: “Just keep pressing! If you only knew what is at the end of the road!” I seemed to hear the music and words of an old, familiar song:
“I’m homesick and blue, and I want to see Jesus, I would like to hear those harbor bells chime. It would brighten my path and banish all fears. Lord, let me look past the curtain of time!”
Then the Voice asked: “Would you like to see just beyond the curtain?” I answered: “It would help me so much!”
What happened I cannot say. Whether I was in the body or out, or whether it was a translation, I do not know, but it was unlike any vision I have ever had. I could see the place to which I was taken and I could see myself lying back there upon my bed. I said: “This is a strange thing!”
There were great numbers of people and they came running to greet me, crying: “Oh, our precious brother!”
First came young women, apparently in their early twenties, and as they would embrace me they said: “Our precious brother!” Young men, in the brilliance of young manhood, with eyes glistening like stars on a darkened night, with teeth as white as pearls, embraced me, saying, “Our precious brother.”
Then I noticed that I, too, had become young again. I looked at myself there and turned and looked back at my old body lying on the bed with my hands behind my head. I said: “I don’t understand this!”
As I began to try to comprehend the place where I was, I began to realize that there was no yesterday and no tomorrow there. No one seemed to get tired. As a multitude of the most beautiful young women I have ever seen threw their arms around me, I discovered there was only a great love that overwhelmed me and no physical attraction as in the human behaviour. I noticed these young women all wore their hair down to their waistline and their skirts went down to their feet.
After this, Hope, my first wife, hugged me, and said: “My precious brother!” Then another young woman hugged me and Hope turned and hugged the young woman. I said: “I don’t understand this. This is something entirely different from our human love. I don’t want to go back to that old body on the bed.”
Then a Voice spoke to me: “This is what you preached that the Holy Ghost is! This is perfect love. Nothing can enter Here without it!”
Next I was taken up and seated on a high place. All around me were great numbers of men and women in the bloom of youth. They were crying, with joy: “Oh, our precious brother, we are so happy to see you here!” I thought: “I’m not dreaming, for I can see these people and I can see my body lying back there on the bed.”
The Voice spoke to me: “You know it is written in the Bible that the prophets were gathered with their people.” I said: “Yes I remember that in the Scriptures, but there are not this many Branhams.”
The Voice replied: “These are not Branhams. These are your converts, the ones you have led to the Lord. Some of these women you think are so young and beautiful were more than ninety years old when you led them to the Lord. No wonder they are crying out, ‘My precious brother!’”
Then the multitude cried together: “If you hadn’t gone forth with the Gospel, we wouldn’t be here!”
I asked: “Oh, where is Jesus? I want to see Him!” The people replied: “He is just a little higher. Some day He will come to you. You were sent as a leader, and when God comes, He will judge you according to your teaching.”
I asked: “Does Paul and Peter have to stand this judgment also?” The answer was: “Yes!”
I said, “I have preached what they preached. I did not divert from It to one side or the other. Where they baptized in the Name of Jesus, I did too; where they taught the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, I did too. Whatever they taught, I taught, also.”
“We know that,” the people cried, “and we know that we are going back to earth with you sometime. Jesus will come and judge you according to the Word you preached us. Then you will present us to Him, and all together we will go back to earth to live forever.”
I asked: “Do I have to go back to earth, now?” They answered: “Yes, but keep pressing on!”
As I began to move from that beautiful, joyful place, as far as my eyes could see, people were coming towards me to embrace me, crying: “My precious brother!”
Suddenly I was back on the bed again. I said: “Oh, God, help me! Never let me compromise with the Word. Let me stay straight on the Word. I don’t care what anyone else does, Lord, let me press on to that beautiful, joyful place!”
I am more convinced than ever in my life that it will take perfect love to enter that place. There was no jealousy, no tiredness, no sickness, no old age, no death. Only supreme beauty and joy.
Whatever you do, lay aside everything else until you get perfect love! Get to where you can love everybody, even every enemy. No matter if the plane is rocking, the lightning is flashing, or the guns of the enemy are upon you, these things do not matter: get perfect love!
If you are not saved, accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour now! If you have not been baptized in water, be baptized now! If you have not received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, receive it now! Press on to that perfect love which will take you to that beautiful and joyful place beyond the curtain of time!
(~61-0305 - Beyond The Curtain Of Time by Rev. William Marrion Branham)
THE VISION OF HELL
[ Excerpt from "Things That Are To Be"]
"And when I was a little boy, I saw a vision of hell, as a little boy. And you know how the ladies, today, or the women (lady wouldn’t do a thing like that), paint their eyes like a wolf, or something like that, that blue stuff under their eye. I seen that.
I was sinking. As a little boy, I had been shot, and I was laying, dying in a hospital. And I had always knowed there was God.
I remember the first prayer I ever tried to pray. The only thing I could say…I’ve never told this before. I just feel I’ll tell it right now. I was shot, laying there, dying in a field. And the only plea that I could have to God, I said, “You know, Lord, I never did commit adultery.” See? As a little, young boy about fifteen years old, I tried to live right. And I said, “I’ve lived clean.” And that’s all I could say. That’s all the merit that I could offer Him.
And then laying there, then, when the doctor done walked away from me, and I felt myself sinking into a dark Eternity, and looked like. I holler for papa, “Oh, papa, help me!” There was no papa there. “Mama, help me!” There was no mama there. “God, help me.” There was no God there. It was just the endless, horrible, oh, nightmare. Burning, blazing hell would be a pleasure, being up aside of that.
And falling through there, I thought, “Oh, my!” Over and over, like this. I got into a place, smoke, and dark, and sick. And, oh, such a feeling! It was death on me.
And I could see those women coming up to me, with them kind of painted eyes like that. Now remember, that’s been forty-five years ago, about forty years ago, anyhow. Going, they was going, “Oooh! Oooh! Oooh!”
I said, “Am I to be there forever?”
“Forever.”
I said, “O God, if You’ll let me out of here, I—I—I’ll never be ashamed of You again. I’ll never be ashamed. God, please give me a chance.”
The first thing you know, I felt myself coming back up. And the doctor was alarmed, ’cause my heart was only beating seventeen times to the minute. I done bled all my blood out and everything, was laying in my own blood. And I’ve wondered, someday that would happen?
(~65-1205 - Things That Are To Be, Rev. William Marrion Branham)
"Now, the fifth dimension is where the sinner, the unbeliever dies and goes to. The fifth dimension is the, kind of the, well, the horrible dimension. And when a Christian dies, he goes into the sixth dimension. And God is in the seventh dimension.
Now then, you see, the Christian when he dies, he goes under the altar of God, right into the Presence of God, under the altar. And he’s at rest."
(~62-0908 - Present Stage Of My Ministry, Rev. William Marrion Branham)
