<TITLE>03. Par 10-12</TITLE>L-10 There's something about childhood, and the adolescent age, that there's nothing else through life will ever take its place. Remember the old... How our mothers used to catch us, and dad when we'd do wrong, give us a little spanking? Oh, that was horrible. But you know, many of you this afternoon, along with myself, I would just give anything that I could think of if my daddy was on this earth to give me a spanking. He can't be no more though; my father has gone on, and many of you the same way. There's nothing like the childhood.
I, with many of you here this afternoon, was born here in Kentucky, up here in a little log cabin. Well, we moved to Indiana, just across the river, when I was just a little lad, just very young, not over two years old, three.
I remember our first experience here, we were very, very poor. That's the reason today that I, my choice... And I--I say this with reverence. My choice is to be a poor man. I could've been a multi-millionaire if I had wanted to be. One person brought me a check, FBI agent, for a million, five hundred thousand dollars, a bank draft, and I refused to look at it from the Mission Bell Winery in California. A woman was healed, been to St. Louis, and both breasts taken off, and she was... Cancer went through her, and a doctor was converted on the case, Dr. Theodore Palvias, which is preaching the Gospel this afternoon in Oakland, California. And how the Lord spoke to the woman, told her on three days she'd be shopping in the street. Told her daughter she was unconscious. The doctor said, "The very idea, Reverend Branham, you build somebody up on a false hope like that, and that woman laying there dying."

L-11 I said, "I'm in position to stay here. If that woman isn't walking of the street well in three days, I'll put a sign on my back as false prophet, and you just run me around over town in front of your car. And then if she isn't, I'll do that. And if she is, let me put one on your back and go."
The doctor was converted, preaching the Gospel today. One of the best surgeons on the west coast, people even flew from New York to be operated by him. And they sent me a--a million, five hundred thousands in a bank draft; two agents brought it, me living in a two room shanty at the time. But it isn't money what makes happiness, it...
Happiness doesn't consist of how much of the world's goods you own, but how contented you are with the portion that has been 'lotted to you. Just make yourself contented as long as one thing that brings contentment, and that alone, is Jesus Christ.

L-12 Here sometime ago, Mr. Avak, over in the same country, was given a great, big, nice Cadillac. I appreciate that. Any man that can ride in one, I appreciate it. And at that time, I had an old Chevrolet, old truck, all beat up, about eight, ten years old. And some of those wealthy, fine Armenian people said, "Brother Branham, we gave Avak a Cadillac. We got one for you."
And I said, "Thank you, but I don't believe I could use it."
Said, "Well, we'll give it to you. We'll give you a Packard, or whatever you want." Said, "That old truck, you beating around in it..."
I said, "If I got what I deserved, I'd walk." And that's true. But how could I come down through Arkansas, where some of my meetings are held among the poorest of people, a little old mother out there pulling a cotton sack, half dead with female trouble or something, eating jowl bacon, and corn bread for breakfast, putting a dollar in the offering at night, and me come along down through there in a big, nice Cadillac... "There goes Brother Branham." I--I--I couldn't do that. No, no, I--I--I don't... I'd rather have favor with God than to have anything that I know of in the world. And if I got favor with God, I can serve His people.


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