Portait of Christ by the painter of Hoffman.

  55-0117 - How the Angel Came to Me, and His Commission    

   Rev. William Marrion Branham

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    But these gifts, these visions, I had visions then, just like I have today, that's right, because the gifts and the callings are without repentance. It's the foreknowledge of God; it's God doing something. Throughout my life, I was afraid to talk about it.

    You read my story in the little pamphlet called Jesus Christ, the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever ...

    Now, still when I was - when I was a little boy, you know what I was told in the vision, when I was about seven years old, and he told me. was said, "Do not drink, smoke, or defile your body in any way, you will have a work to do when you are older." And you heard about it in the book. Well, that's right. All along, it kept happening to me.

    When I became a preacher, why, that's where - that's where it really started to happen to me all the time.

   And one night I saw our Lord Jesus. I'm saying this with the permission of the Holy Ghost, I believe. The Angel of the Lord who is coming is not the Lord Jesus. He's not like Him, according to that vision. Because in the vision that I had of the Lord Jesus, He was a little Man. He wasn't ... I was out in the field, praying for my daddy. I come back, I went by the bed, and that night I looked at him and I_ I said, “God, save him!”

    My mother is already saved, and I baptized her. So I was like, “Oh, my dad drinks so much.” And I was like, "If only I could get him to accept the Lord Jesus!" I went out, I lay down on an old pallet in the front room, near the door.

    Something said to me, “Get up.” I got up, I started walking, I went back to the field behind me, an old broom field.

    And there, no more than ten feet [3m] from me, there was a Man. He was wearing a white garment, he was a little man; His arms was folded like this, He had a pretty short beard, His hair was down to His shoulders. And He was looking sideways from me like that. A peaceful silhouette. But I couldn't understand, His feet were right behind each other. And there was the wind blowing, His garment moved, and the brooms moved.

    I thought, “But wait a minute there.” I bit myself. I said, “Okay, I'm not sleeping.” And I pulled, I pulled out a little bit of broom, you know, it's like a toothpick in there. I put it in my mouth. I looked towards the house. I said, "No, I was over there praying for daddy, Something told me to come over here, and here's that Man standing there."

    I thought, “It looks like the Lord Jesus.” I thought, "I wonder if it's Him." He was looking exactly, in the exact direction of where our house is now. So I walked over to this side to see if I could see Him. I could see the side of His face like that. But He ... I had to go all the way around Him on this side to see Him. I said, “Uhm!” He hasn't moved at all. I thought, "I believe I'll call Him." So I said, “Jesus.” And then He turned His head to look like that. That's all I remember, He just stretched out His arms.

    There isn't an artist in the world who could paint His portrait, the features of His face. The best I've seen is Hofmann's Portrait of Christ at Thirty-Three, I put it on all my prints and everything I use. It's because it's very similar, and so ... or it's very close, as close as it could be.

    He looked like a Man who if He'd spoken it would've been the end of the world, and yet so full of love and goodness that you - you ... I fell apart. And at daybreak I found myself, at dawn, my pajama jacket soaked in tears; when I came to myself, I was walking in the broom field to return home.