File:Infidels house and apple tree stump.jpg

Photos courtesy of Jordan Peterson and Pearry Green.

And while we went back there we come to a house, and there set a--a old man, two old men, setting out there with their old hats slouched down over their face, and--and he said, "There he is." he said, "He's a tough one." Said, "He hates that word of a preacher." And said...
So I said, "Well, I just better set in the car, or we won't get to hunt at all." I said, "You go in and ask him if we can hunt."
So he got out and started walking in; he spoke to them. And in Kentucky, always, you know, it's "come in," and so forth. And so he went up there and he said, "I just wondered if we could hunt awhile on your place."
The old man setting there, about seventy-five years old, tobacco running down his mouth, he said--spit, and he said, "What's your name?"
He said, "My name is Wood."
He said, "Are you any relation to old man Jim that used to live..."
He said, "Yeah, I'm Jim's boy." Said, "I'm Banks. Yeah."
"Well," he said, "old man Jim was an honest man." Said, "Certainly, help yourself." He said--said, "Are you by yourself?"
He said, "No, my pastor is out there."
He said, "What?"
He said, "My pastor is out in the car," said, "he's hunting with me."
He said, "Wood, you don't mean you've got so lowdown till you have to tote a preacher with you wherever you go?"
So he's a rough, old character, so I thought I'd better get out of the car, you know. So I got out and walked around, and he said, "Well, and you're a preacher, huh?"
I said, "Yes, sir." He looked me up and down (squirrel blood, and dirt) and he said... I said, "Don't look much like it."
Said, "Well, I kinda like that." And he said, "You know, I want to tell you something." He said, "I'm supposed to be an infidel."
I said. "Yes, sir, I understood that." I said, "I don't think it's much to brag about though. Do you?"
And he said, "Well," he said, "I don't know." And he said, "I'm going to tell you what I think of you guys."
I said, "All right."
He said, "You're barking up the wrong tree." And how many knows what that means? See? It means it's a lying dog (You see?); the coon's not up there at all. See? He said, "You're barking up the wrong tree."
I said, "That's your opinion."
And he said, "Well," he said, "look, you see that old chimney standing up there?
"Yes."
"I was borned up there, seventy-five years ago." And said, "I've lived right here in these hills all around through all these years." And said, "I've looked towards the skies; I've looked here and there, and, surely, in all these seventy-five years, I would've seen something that looked like God. Didn't you think so?"
I said, "Well, it depends on what you're looking at, here what you're looking for."
And he said, "Well," he said, "I--I certainly don't believe there is such a creature. And I believe you fellows just simply get out and swindle the people out of their money and everything. And that's the way it goes."
I said, "Well, you're an American citizen; you have a right to your own--own thinking."
He said, "There's one guy, one time, that I heared of," he said, "that I would sure... If he... If I would ever get to talk with that fellow," said, "I'd like to--to ask him a few questions."
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "It was a preacher; you might know him." Said, "He had a meeting up here in Campbellsville, not long ago, in a church yard up there, a campground." And he said, "I forget his name." Said, "He's from Indiana."
And--and I said, "Oh? Yes, sir."
And Brother Wood started to say, "Well, I..." ("Don't say a thing.") And so he said...
I said, "What about him?"
He said, "Well," he said, "old lady (somebody) up there on the hill..." Said, "You know, she was dying with cancer." And said, "Wife and I would go up there of a morning to--to change her bed." Said, "They couldn't even raise her up high enough to put her on the bedpan," said, "just had to pull a draw sheet." And said, "She was dying. She had been to Louisville," and said, "the doctors had give her up and said she was going to die."
"And her sister went up to that meeting," and said, "that preacher was standing up there on the platform, looked back over the audience and called this woman by name, and told her when she left, she took a handkerchief and put it in her--her purse. And called this woman's name down here, twenty miles below here, and said how she was suffering with cancer, what her name was, and all she'd been through"; said, "take that handkerchief and go lay it on the woman, and said that the woman will be healed of her cancer."
And said, "They come down here that night." And said, "Honest, I heard the awfullest screaming up there. I thought they had the Salvation Army turned loose on top of the hill up there. Said, 'Well,' I said, 'I guess the old sister's dead.' Said, 'We'll... Tomorrow we'll go and get the wagon, and how we take her out to get to the main road,' and said, 'so they can take her to the undertaker.' And said that the... We waited. No need of going up that time of night," said, "about a mile up on the hill here." Said, "We went up there the next morning, and you know what happened?"
I said, "No, sir."
He said, "She was setting there eating fried apple pies, and drinking coffee with her husband."
And I said, "You mean that?"
He said, "Yes, sir."
"Oh," I said. "now, mister, you really don't mean that."
He said, "What bothers me is what... How did that man, and never in this country, and knew that." See?
"And I said, "Oh, you don't believe that."
He said, "It's the truth."
I said, "You believe that?" See?
He--he said, "Well, go right up there on the hill; I can prove it to you." He's preaching back to me now. You see?
So I--I said, "Um-um." I picked up an apple, and--and I said, "Can I have one of these apples?" and I rubbed it on my clothes.
He said, "Well, the yellow jackets are eating them up, I guess you can have one." And then... And now I said, "Well--well..." I--I bite--bit into it, and I said, "That's a nice apple."
He said, "Oh, yes." Said, "You know what? I planted that tree there, oh, forty years ago, or something like that."
I said, "Oh, is that right?"
"Yes, sir."
And I said, "Well, and every year..." I said, "I notice we haven't had no frost yet; it's early August." And I said, "Them leaves are falling off the trees."
"Yes, sir. That's right; it's coming on fall. Believe we'll have a early one this time."
I said, "Yes, sir." Changed the subject. See? And he said... I said, "Well, you know, it's strange," I said, "how that sap goes out of that tree." I said, "And them leaves falls off, and yet there's no--they--they haven't had no frost to kill the leaf."
And He said, "Well," he said, "What's that got to do with what we're talking about?"
And I said, "Well, I--I just wondering." (You know, mama always said, "Give a cow enough rope and it'll hang itself, you know." So I just give him plenty of rope.)
So he went on out, and he said, "Well, yes, what's that got to do with it?"
I said, "You know, God brings them apples up, and you enjoy those apples and leaves, and you set in the shade and so forth. It goes down in the fall of the year," and I said, "comes back up again with the apples and with the leaves again."
And he said, "Oh, that's just nature. See? That's just nature."
And I said, "Well, of course, that's nature." I said, "That's nature, but Somebody has to control nature." See? I... He said... "You tell me now what does that?"
He said, "Well, it's just--just naturally nature."
I said, "Who is it that says to that little leaf now, and the..." I said, "Now, the reason that leaf falls off, it's because the sap goes down into the root. And what if that sap stayed up in the tree through the wintertime? What would happen?"
Said, "It would kill the tree."
"Well," I said, "now, what intelligence that runs that sap down into the roots, said, 'Get out of here now; it's coming fall of the year, get down into the roots and hide'? And stay down into the roots like a grave; and then next spring comes back up again, brings up more apples, and brings up more leaves and things?"
He said, "That's just nature, it'll do it." Said, "The weather. The changing, you know, coming on fall."
I said, "Set a bucket of water on the post out there, and see if nature runs it down the bottom of the post and brings it back up again." See, see?
"Well," he said, "you might have something."
I said, "Think of it while we go hunting."
And he said, "Well," and he said, "hunt where you want to."
And I said, "When I come back, if you'll tell me what intelligence runs that sap out of that tree down into the roots and stay all winter and come back the next winter, I'll tell you that's the same Intelligence that told me about that woman up there."
Said, "Told you?"
I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "You're not that preacher."
I said, "Would you know his name?"
Said, "Yes."
I said, "Branham?"
He said, "That's him."
I said, "That--that's right." See?
And you know what? I led the old man to Christ right there on his own testimony.

Sermon: Leadership, December 7, 1965, Covina, California.