<TITLE>11. Par 33-36</TITLE>L-33 I said, "Well, sir, I'd like to ask you a question."
He said, "All right."
I said, "Pray tell me, what intelligence that tells that leaf before there--or that life up in that tree, what intelligence tells that--that life, 'Get away from up here and get down into the roots, because if you don't you're going to die.'?" And I said, "Then--then the spring of the year, it brings up another leaf." I said, "Now, what makes it go down into the root of the tree?"
"Oh," he said, "that's nature for the water to drop."
I said, "All right. Perhaps I'll set a bucket of water on the post out here. And about the middle of August it'll go down into the bottom of the post, and come back again next spring."
"No, it won't do it."
I--I said, "Why won't it do it?"
"Well," he says, "it isn't nature for it."
I said, "What is nature? Who governs nature? Why is it that it doesn't do it for the pine tree then? It stays up here. What different makes the it--differentiates the difference between them?"

L-34 The old man studied a little bit. I said, "You see, sir," I said, "there has to be an intelligence, because the tree has no intelligence. It has to be operated. It isn't a mechanical device. It is an intelligence that sends the life down into the root of the tree, like death, burial, and resurrection." Lived all that years and couldn't see life.
I said, "I have..." I'm a missionary, and I've heard all (I'm saying this to you); I've heard all the different ideas: Buddha, Hindu, and different theories, but they're all wrong. Christianity is based upon burial and resurrection, not reproduction; resurrection. Not bring up something like it; the same thing that went down, comes up, the same Jesus.

L-35 If you'll notice, God testifies every day of our life. Of a morning the sun is born. At ten o'clock it's in its teen-age. At noontime it's in its full strength, and it sets in the evening (Is that the end of it?), only to come up again: birth, life, death, resurrection, constantly, God testifying in life.
The tree goes back down, the sap into the roots to bring forth life again next year. We're... You and I are hanging on the Tree of Life. We are--we are the fruit of that tree.
The old man, after he set there a little bit, he said, "I never thought of that."
I said, "You haven't answered my question. I want you to tell me what Intelligence that controls that life in that tree that goes down. This Intelligence can speak to that life, not the tree; the life (the life that's in you. See?), controls that life, and runs it back down here and hides it (as Job said, 'Hide... Thou would hide me in the grave. Keep me in the secret place.') and then brings it back again in the spring." And he couldn't answer me.

L-36 I said, "The same Intelligence that speaks to the life in that tree and says, 'Hide if you expect to live,' that's the same Intelligence that told me what to say to that woman how to live, believe."
He said, "You're not the preacher?"
I said, "Yes, sir. I am."
There on the ground that day, with a simple little story... I know it's getting late, I'm way... ought to have been gone. I got... There's some more goes to it. But on that ground that day, by just a simple little thing of the man just seeing life, I led him to Christ.
Last year I was back again and his widow was setting on the porch when I come up. She met me. With her hands clasped in mine, she said, "Brother Branham, he died in the faith of the Lord Jesus. He's gone on."


<A HREF="P12">Next Page</A>