Silence in Heaven.

William Branham.

Read the full account in...
Seventh Seal.

Now, we find out that that... also we.... The Lord let us take the Scripture, the Holy Scripture, what Jesus said would take place. And how would we have ever found that? Here it comes over and reveals, and bringing it just exactly... His sermon there, answering that, brings out exactly to the point, six of the seals; but He omitted the seventh. Then when the seals were open, God (notice here), He omitted revealing even any symbol of the seventh. It's a perfect secret with God. Notice, now we are going to read in the Bible in the... the seventh seal. That's found in Revelation, the 8th chapter.

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
[And that's all we have on it.]

Now, none of us know. But I'm going to tell you my revelation of it. And now, I am not prone to be a fanatic. If I am, I'm ignorant of it, see. I'm not given away to such as delirious carry-ons and imaginary things. I have said some things that might have been kind of strange to some people. But when God comes around behind it and vindicates it and says it's the truth, then that's God's Word. It may seem strange that way, see. And now, as certain as I stand in the platform tonight, I had the revelation that revealed... it's in a threefold manner. That, I will speak to you by God's help, of a fold of it. And then you.... Let's go to there first. Here's the revelation to begin what... I want to tell you what it is. What happens is that those seven thunders, that he heard thunder and was forbidden to write.... That's what the mystery is laying behind those seven consecutive thunders rolling out.

Now, why? Let us prove it. Why? It is the secret that no one knows about. John was forbidden to write about it -even write a symbol about it. Why? This is why. There was no activity in heaven. It might give away the secret. Do you see it now? If it is so great it must be included, because it's got to happen, but when the seven thunders.... Now notice, when the seven angels come forth to sound their trumpets, there was one thunder. When Israel was gathered, there was a trumpet. When time shall be no more, the last trumpet, one thunder. But here is seven straight thunders right in a row: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven -that perfect number. Seven thunders in a row uttered, not making it... just one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, straight. Then, heavens couldn't write that. Heavens can't know about it, nothing else, because there's nothing to go on. It was ...?... time. It was so great till it was kept secret from the angels. Now, why? If Satan should get ahold of it, he might do great damage. There's one thing he don't know. Now he can interpret anything he wants to, and impersonate any kind of a gift (I hope you are learning). But he can't know this. It's not even written in the Word! It's a total secret! The angels, everything shut up! If they made one move it might give something away, so they just shut up -quit harping. Everything stopped.

Seven -God's perfect number. Seven just right down the row. Seven thunders uttered straight together like they're spelling out something. Notice, at that time, John started to write, and he said, “Don't write it.” Jesus never spoke of it. John couldn't write it. Angels know nothing about it. What is it? It's the thing that Jesus said even the angels of heaven didn't know nothing about it, see. He didn't know it Himself. He said only God would know it. But He told us when we begin to see these signs coming up.... (Now, are you getting somewhere? All right.) Notice, we begin to see these signs coming up, see. If Satan could get ahold of it....

If you want something to happen.... Now you'll have to take my word for this. If I'm planning on doing something, I know better than to tell anybody about it. Not that that person'd tell it, but Satan will hear it, see? He can't get in my heart there, as long as God's got it closed up with the Holy Spirit. So it's between me and God, see. He don't know nothing about it until you speak it, then he hears it. And I've tried.... I tell people I'll do a certain-certain thing, and watch the devil cut off every wheel he can to get there, see, to beat me to it. But if I get the revelation from God and just don't say nothing about it, then it's different. Remember, Satan will try to impersonate! He'll try to impersonate everything that the church will do. He's tried to do it. We've noticed it through the antichrist. But this is one thing he cannot impersonate. There'll be no mimics to this, see, because he don't know it! There's no way for him to know it. It's the third pull. He just knows nothing about it, see. He doesn't understand it....

But there's a secret lays beneath that. Glory to God in the highest! I can never think the same the rest of my life. When I seen.... Now, I don't know what.... I know the next step there, but I don't know how to interpret that. It won't be long. I've got it wrote down here when it happened, if you can see here, “Stop! Go no further than this right here.” I'm not prone to be a fanatic. I'm just telling the truth. But you remember, the little shoe that I always tried to explain? how that the soul laid next to so-and-so and the inner-conscience, and all that kind of stuff? which it only made a big bunch of impersonations start after it. How they have to take up the hand, and hold the people and have vibration -and everybody had a vibration in their hand. But do you remember when He took me up there and said, “This is that third pull, and no one will know it!”? Do you remember that? Visions never fail! They're perfectly the truth.

Now notice, remember the vision of the constellation? (Charlie, here you are.) Something going on, I've told you, this week that you... it's been all around you, but I wanted you to notice it. Remember the constellation of the vision of the angels when I left here to go to Arizona? Do you remember, “What Time Is It, Sirs?” Do you remember that? Notice, there was only one great burst of thunder, and seven angels appeared. Is that right? One burst of thunder, seven angels appeared. “And I saw the Lamb when he had opened the first seal, and I heard as it was a voice of a thunder, and one of the four beasts said, 'Come and see.'” Notice, one thunder -seven messages that's been sealed up and cannot be revealed until the last day, at this age. See what I mean?

Now, have you noticed the mysterious part of this week? That's what it is. That's what it's been. It's been, not a human being, a man; it has been the angels of the Lord. Notice, there's witnesses of three sitting in here, that a week ago (a little over a week ago) I was up way back into the mountains, nearly to Mexico, with two brethren that's sitting here, picking cocklebur... or sandburs off of my trouser leg; and a blast went off that almost, looked like, shook the mountains down. Now that's right. I never told my brethren, but they noticed a difference. And He said to me, “Now, be ready. Go east.” Here's the interpretation of that vision. See? Now, to let you know, Brother Sothmann has not got the game that he went after. We was trying to get it for him. And He said, “Now tonight, for a sign to you, he isn't going to do it. You must consecrate yourself at this time for the visitation of these angels.” And I felt beside myself, you remember. And I was in the west; the angels was coming east. And as they come by, I was picked up with them. Do you remember that? -coming east.

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And did you notice that one angel, I said in there, was a strange angel? He looked more to me than any of the rest of them. Do you remember that? They were in a constellation -three on a side and one on top. And the one right next to me here, counting from the left to the right, would have been the seventh angel. He was brighter, meant more to me than the rest of them. You remember, I said he had his chest out like that, and was flying eastward. Do you remember like that? I said, “It picked me up, lifted me up.” Do you remember that?

Here it is! The one with the seventh seal -the thing that I've wondered all my life. Amen! Them other seals meant a lot to me, of course. But, oh, you don't know what this has meant! For one time in life... I've prayed, I cried out to God. After that Phoenix meeting, any of the people there with me know, I laid in the mountains. One morning I got up and went up in Sabino Canyon -great, rugged, high mountains. And I went up in there, and there's a little foot trail after you lead off -go on up into Lemmon Mountain which is a thirty-mile walk, and there was about thirty foot of snow up there.

So, up in the mountain real early before day, going up through this little foot trail, rolling rocks along, I felt led to turn this way. And I turned and went up into some great jagged rocks -oh, my, hundreds of feet high. And I knelt down between those rocks. I laid down this Bible and laid down this book -this little tablet. I said, “Lord God, what does this vision mean?” I said, “Lord, does it mean my dying?” (You remember I told you I thought it might mean my death, because something exploded till it just shook me to pieces. You remember. How many knows... have heard it? Sure, all of you.) And I thought it could mean my death. And then in the room, I said, “What was it, Lord? What does it mean? Does it mean I'm going to die? If it is, all right. I won't tell my family. Just let me go on, see, if my work is finished.” And I said.... Now, what was it? But He sent a witness back -you remember me telling you -but it wasn't that, it was a furtherment of my work.

Oh! Do you get it, see? Sitting up in Sabino Canyon -the heavenly Father knows this -just as true as you see that come to pass, those angels come right down and vindicated every message to be the same. Then you know whether it come from God or not. It was foretold you by a vision. I couldn't tell you until the service was over, because I was forbidden to. In Sabino Canyon, sitting up there that morning, I had my hands up, and the wind had blowed my old black hat down. I was standing there with my hands up praying. I said, “Lord God, what does this mean? I can't understand it, Lord. What am I to do? If it's my going-home time, let me go up here where they'll never find me. I don't want nobody to be mourning around if I'm going. I want just the family to think I just took a walk, and they won't find me. Hide me away somewhere! If I'm going to go away, why, just let me go. Maybe Joseph will find my Bible laying here someday, and let him use it. [See?] If I'm going away, let me go, Lord.”

And I had my hands out, and all at once something hit my hand. I don't know. I can't say. Did I go to sleep? I don't know. Did I go into a trance? I don't know. Was it a vision? I can't tell you. The only thing I can say is from what I.... Just the same thing like them angels was. And it struck my hand, and I looked and it was a sword. And it had pearl handles -real pretty. And had a guard over it with gold, and the blade looked like, something like a chrome, like silver only it was real shiny. And it was so featheredged sharp, oh, my! And I thought, “isn't that the prettiest thing?” -just fit my hand. I thought, “That's awful pretty.” But I said, “Hey, I'm always afraid of them things,” a sword. And I thought, “What will I do with that?” And just then a voice shook down through there that rocked the rocks! Said, “It's the sword of the King!”, and then I come out of it. The sword of the King! Now, if it'd said, “the sword of a king....” But it said, “the sword of the King,” and there's only one “the King,” and that's God! And He has one sword. That's His Word -what I live by! So help me, God... standing over His holy desk here with this holy Word laying here. It's the Word. Amen!

Oh, what a day we're living in! What a great thing! See the mystery and secret? The third.... Standing there, when this left me, something just come to me and said, “Don't fear.” Now, I didn't hear no voice -like on the inside of me spoke. I just tell you the truth, just exactly what happened. Something hit, and said, “Don't fear. This is that third pull.” Third pull. Do you remember it? He said, “You've had so many impersonators on this, what you tried to explain.” Said, “Don't even try this.” Do you remember it? How many remembers that vision? Why, it's all over. It's taped and everywhere. That's been about six years ago. Seven years ago -it's been seven years ago. Said, “Don't try to explain that.” Said, “This is the third pull, but I'll meet you in there.” Is that right? He said, “Don't try....”

I was standing with a little baby's shoe when He told me, said, “Now, make your first pull. And when you do, the fish will run after the lure.” Said, “Then watch your second pull,” said, “because there will only be small fish.” He said, “Then the third pull will get it.” And all them ministers got around and said, “Brother Branham, we know you can do it. Hallelujah, Brother Branham.” (That's where I always get tied-up with a bunch of preachers. I love people, and they want you to explain everything -this, that.)

And I said, “Well,” I said, “I don't know.” I said, “I understand fishing.” I said, “Now, the first thing you do.... Here's the way it's done. You see all the fish around. You've got to jerk the lure.” (Well, that's exactly the tactics of fishing.) So I said, “Jerk the lure.” Now, you see when I jerked the lure the first time, now the fish takes out after it, but they were little ones. That's just like they were catching. So then I said, “Then you're set...” and I jerked it out on the bank and I had a fish. But it looked like a skin over the lure, it just... it was so little. And then I was standing there and something said, “I told you not to do that!” and I started crying. All the line was tangled around me like this, and I had... was standing there crying with my head down like that. I said, “God, oh, forgive me. I'm a stupid person, Lord. Forgive me.” And I had this line and that, what I had in my hand, was a little baby's shoe, about that long. And I had... that string was about as big around as my finger- about a half inch, like. And the eyelet in this shoe was just about the size of a... littler than one-sixteenth, probably, of an inch, was the eyelet. And I was trying to lace this little shoe up with this great big inch cord. And a voice come and said, “You can't teach Pentecostal babies supernatural things.” Said, “Now, let them alone!”

And just then He picked me up. He took me up and sat me way up high, to where a meeting was going on -looked like a tent or a cathedral of some sort. And I looked and there was a little box-like, little place over there on the side. And I seen that light was talking to somebody above me -that light that you see there on the picture. It whirled away from me, like that, and went over to that tent, and said, “I'll meet you there.” And said, “This will be the third pull, and you won't tell it to nobody!” And in Sabino Canyon, He said, “This is the third pull.” And there's three great things that goes with it, and one unfolded today... or yesterday, the other one unfolded today, and there's one thing that I cannot interpret because it's in an unknown language. But I stand right there and looked right straight at it, and this is the third pull coming up. And the Holy Spirit of God.... Oh, my! That's the reason all heaven was silent!

Read the full account in... Seventh Seal.

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:

And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,

And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

Revelation 10:1-3