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November 11 Veterans DayTHE.INVISIBLE.UNION.OF.THE.BRIDE.OF.CHRIST SHP.LA THURSDAY 65-11-25The other day, on Armistice Day, I was standing down there in Tucson. My little boy wanted to see the parade. I was studying, and I didn't have time to do it. I had a lot of sick calls and things. So he said, "Daddy, they won't take me." He said, "Take me." I said, "All right." Brother Simpson, I think he's here; and his little boy wanted to go. So I jerked them in the car and run down. I stood there on the corner and watched. And after while, I heard, way back in the distance, a muffle coming, "womp, womp," drums, beating. I stood there. I thought, "Well, these little fellows, they really read all these books about army. They'll really like that." I noticed, coming up first was the old World War I tank. There they come up, little bitty fellows like that. There was next come, after that; was the next come after that was the big new tank of the Second World War, the big Sherman tank with a muzzle break on it. Then come the next, and the next, and after while come the Gold Star Mothers. And then, after while, come twelve veterans that's left, in the whole state of Arizona, from the First World War; twelve veterans. After that, come a float, the unknown soldier, the little white cross. There stood a sailor, marine, and a soldier, standing guard; a little partition on the float. On the other side was an old gray-headed mother, setting with a gold star pinned on her, a little lovely wife crying, her husband was dead; a little ragged boy, his head turned sideways. His daddy was killed. And then behind that come more and more and more, and then to the new army. I stood there. What a sight to behold, but how sad! I thought, "O God, one of these days I'm going to behold another sight."
They'll come forth a resurrection day, which, "The first will be last; they which are last will be first." The old prophets will come breaking forth, first, and they see that procession going, marching up in the air. "And we which are alive and remain shall not hinder them which are asleep. For the trumpet of God shall sound, the dead in Christ shall rise first." We'll fall right in line with them going in, hallelujah, all down through the age of Luther, Wesley, Methodist, Presbyterian, on down to the last age, who received the Word in their age. God bless you. Get all things ready, and the Fire will fall. I was 33 years old, a 1st Sergeant, and had been in France since the beginning of the liberation. I was with the 4th Armored Division, Company A, 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion, which was a part of General Patton's Third Army. On November 17th, the vehicle in which I was riding took a direct hit from a German tank, and my driver and myself were severely injured. I never completely lost consciousness, but they didn't know whether or not I would live, because I was bleeding so badly. They put me on a stretcher, and I could see that my right arm was barely attached to my body. I was also wounded in both legs, but I didn't learn until later that nerves in both of my legs had been severed.
While I was lying there, waiting to be taken to a hospital, a jeep drove up and I could see that it had a flag and a white cross on it. It was a chaplain. He was a small man with captain’s bars on, and he knelt down next to me and said, "Soldier, are you a Protestant?" I said, "Yes sir," but in fact, I wasn't anything. The chaplain took hold of my hand and said the Lord's Prayer over me, and then he went to my buddy who was on a cot next to mine and said a prayer for him. I hadn't been saved and didn't know the Lord yet, but I was praying, real hard, right then. I promised the Lord that if He would spare my life, I'd live for Him, and I never forgot that promise.
I was twenty-six years old when I enlisted in the Army at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I was just a farm boy, born in English, Indiana, the youngest of three boys. My mother died when I was eight years old, and I moved for a while to New Albany, Indiana, and lived with my aunt and uncle. Until I joined the service in 1937, I lived and worked in the cities of Jeffersonville, Clarksville, and New Albany. Looking back, it seems almost impossible that I never heard the name of William Branham mentioned during that time. There was no way for me to ever know then what an impact the life and ministry of this little man from Jeffersonville was to have on my life.
After being injured in Mortagne, France, I spent the next two years in military hospitals in France, England, and finally in Memphis, Tennessee. After I was discharged from the service, my wife and I returned to New Albany and made our home there. We had grown away from the Methodist doctrine, which was how we had been raised as children, and we never gave much thought to attending church. But always in the back of my mind was that promise I'd made to the Lord when I was lying on that stretcher and I thought my life was over.
One Sunday night I told my wife, "We have to get out and find us a church to go to and serve the Lord." We got in our car and drove around to several churches, but we didn't get out and go in. It just didn't seem right. It was getting late when we finally pulled into the parking lot at the Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville, and we got out of the car, walked in, and sat down in the very back seats. Neither one of us had been to church in years, but from that time on our lives were forever changed. Right away, we accepted the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior and were baptized in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ at the Tabernacle on Palm Sunday, 1949. To read more of this testimony visit Roy Roberson's Testimony. |
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