It was in February, 1964, that Brother Branham's ministry reached into the literal shaking of the earth. He and several other brothers had again gathered to hunt Javelina. The locale was the same general area as where the angels had descended and the cloud had appeared. Because of the memory of that event just the year before, one might have expected other outstanding events to emanate from this spot; yet this day, as Brother Branham and a close friend, Brother Banks Woods, returned to camp, there was no hint of anything unusual. We know now that, at that very moment, megatons of rock must have lain poised for movement deep in the bowels of the earth.

As Brother Branham and Brother Woods walked along that day, suddenly the Spirit of the Lord spoke to him and told him to pick up a stone and cast it into the air. Obediently, he did as he was told. As the stone struck the earth, a small whirlwind came down with it, and he simply spoke the words, "Thus saith the Lord." He turned to Brother Woods and said, "You watch, there will be something happen. You must do something to cause things to happen. This is the way that things are started."

The next day the hunting party was prepared to break camp. The members of the party were engaged in various activities, such as preparing their game, and Brother Branham, true to the outdoorsman's code, was carefully ensuring that the fire was out. Suddenly he turned to Brother Roy Roberson, standing near him, and quickly told him to take cover. Something was about to happen. One of the brothers was taking motion pictures of Brother Branham at the time and, just as his camera ran out of film, over the bluff from the north came a powerful whirlwind right above the prophet's head. The violent force of this whirlwind was so great that it cut part of this bluff out and threw rocks the size of a man's fist for over one hundred yards. Like a blast, it cut the tops out of the mesquite trees; the sound of its fury filled the air. Naturally the brothers with him took cover. Some dived under the trucks or scrambled beneath the bushes, but Brother Branham stood firm. The whirlwind rose, as if retreating, only to return again with unquenched violence. This fearful show of power and might was repeated a total of three times. God's prophet stood through it all, hat in hand, looking up into th emidst of the whirling force. As it lifted the last time and returned in the direction from whence it had come, he set his hat back on his head and spoke deliberately, "God spoke to Job in a whirlwind." Continuing he pronounced the awful news, "The judgment of God shall strike the west coast of America." Indeed the whirlwind had retreated in the northwesterly direction, toward that coast.

Before we learn of the extent of this impending judgment, let us return a few years back to where the prophet of God first spoke of such things. (We must remember that God sends prophets to pronounce judgment against those who will not listen, as well as for the edification of those who are eager for the word of God. To the one, the words of the prophet bring life; to the other they bring death and destruction.) The first mention of earthquake judgment by Brother Branham was in the 1950's in a sermon entitled Supernatural Gospel. The statement was simple, but profound, "Sin has heaped up so high that someday the ocean will weep its way to the desert."

The second mention of impending earthquake disaster in America was made in his sermon The Second Coming Of Christ, preached on April 17, 1957. Here he said, "The other day over in Oakland, California, when it was our privilege to be there in a meeting, and it was the first time that my wife had ever been in an earthquake, I was sitting in a barber shop and the room shoot just a little and the radio quickly announced an earthquake was on. Said they were looking for another one in about five minutes and I thought, 'Oh Lord. What if it is the last one!'" At that time not many people perceived that a prophet of God was fulfilling Scripture by referring to the last earthquake.

On December 27, 1964, in his message Who Do You Say This Is? he said, "Look at the earthquakes over here in California. I predict that, before the coming of the Lord Jesus, that God will sink that place. I believe that Hollywood and Los Angeles, and them filthy places over there, that God Almighty will sink her. It'll go beneath the bottom of the sea." Though many of us followed his message and believed him to be the prophet of God to this generation, yet, even at that hour, we did not perceive the prediction of judgment upon the west coast of America.

On April 29, 1965, the next link in the chain of prophecy was forged while Brother Branham was preaching in Los Angeles itself. Just before his message that morning, a very dear friend, Sister Florence Shakarian, had just sung a song in her inimitable style. (Sister Florence had been sick for a long time and a few months previous, Brother Demos Shakarian had asked Brother Branham to pray for his sister, who was dying of cancer. At that time Brother Branham had been given a word from the Lord concerning Sister Florence. He told Demos that she would not die then, but that she would die before the coming of the Lord, that it would happen between 2 and 3 o'clock some morning, and that he had seen her lying in state.) Sister Florence's song that morning carried a special anointing, for she could sing like a nightingale. The song was a tremendous blessing, and the congregation was deeply moved. At the end of her song, Brother Branham, sitting on the platform next to Brother Carl Williams, nudged Brother Carl and said, "Do you hear that?" Brother Carl asked him what he meant, and Brother Branham replied, "She's walking up the Golden Stairs, can't you hear her?"

At about this same time a man rose up and brought one of those powerful, spine tingling messages in tongues that are often given in Pentecostal congregations. You could almost feel the anointing from the words this man brought; so forceful, and with such authority it was given. The interpretation came immediately from the other side of the auditorium: "Oh daughter of Zion, thou shalt not fear, thou shalt not worry, for thou shalt live to see the coming of the Lord." Brother Billy Paul, in the audience that day, was deeply disturbed, for he knew that this message contradicted that which Brother Branham had received from the Lord. The message had come with such force and such anointing; yet he knew that the Angel of the Lord had never failed Brother Branham.

No explanation was forthcoming at this time and Brother Branham went on to deliver his message Choosing Of A Bride. The next prophetic link was forged as he said to the people of Los Angeles, "You don't know what time that this city one day is going to be lying out there at the bottom of this ocean. 'Oh Capernaum,' said Jesus, 'thou who art exalted into heaven will be brought down into hell, for if the mighty works had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, it would have been standing until this day,' and Sodom and Gomorrah lay at the bottom of the Dead Sea, and Capernaum is in the bottom of the sea. Thou city who claims to be the City of the Angels, who has exalted yourself into heaven and sent all the dirty, filthy things of fashions and things, till even the foreign countries come here to pick up our filth and send it away, with your find churches and steeples, and so forth, the way you do, remember, one day you'll be lying in the bottom of this sea. Your great honeycomb under you right now, the wrath of God is belching right beneath you. How much longer He will hold this sandbar hanging over that, when that ocean out yonder a mile deep will slode in there plumb back to the Salton Sea. It will be worse than the last day of Pompeii! Repent Los Angeles! Repent the rest of you and turn to God; the hour of His wrath is upon the earth. Flee while there is time to flee and come into Christ. Let us pray."

This was the great moment for those of us who believed that Brother Branham was the prophet of God with the spirit of Elijah, when the realization swept over us that the tapes we had heard, the books we had read, and what we had heard this great man of God say, all pointed to a tremendous prophecy of doom for the west coast. Now we realized that he was prophesying. Knowing him to be a Word prophet, we knew that he spoke nothing unless it could be found in the Scriptures. Now we began to pay attention.

On June 22, 1965, Brother Branham speaking on a coast-to-coast, border-to-border telephone hookup, in his sermon Thinking Man's Filter clearly pronounced judgment upon America: "The Holy Spirit in my heart tonight cries, 'Blind Laodicea, how oft God would have give you a revival, but now your time has come, too late now. How did you laugh and make fun of the people God sent to you. But now your time has come. Oh United States! United States! How God would have hovered over you as a hen does her brood, but you would not.' Now this voice is going from coast to coast, from north to south and east to west. How God would have hovered you, but you would not. . .now your time has come. Nations are breaking. The world is falling apart, fifteen hundred mile chunk of it, three to four hundred miles wide, will sink maybe forty miles down into that great fault out yonder. One of these days them waves will shoot plumb out to the state of Kentucky and when it does, it will shake the world so hard that everything on top of it will shake down."

What a parallel between the words of God's prophet concerning the United States and Jesus' words when He said, "Oh Jerusalem! If you had only known the day of your visitation. . ." If the United States and the people who call themselves the people of God, even claiming the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the gifts of the Spirit, the divine healing, had only known their day when God visited this generation in the life of a prophet!

The whirlwind had descended three times on that day in February 1964. The first answering judgment struck on Good Friday of that year in the form of an earthquake which nearly tore the coast out of Alaska. No one who experienced the terror of that day, or who has since examined the record of the destruction and loss of life, could ever forget what it is like to experienfce the heavy hand of God in judgment.

The next time earthquake judgment struck was one year later, on April 29, 1965, again on Good Friday. Less severe than the first, nevertheless, this quake reached 7.0 on the Richter scale. Centered as it was in Puget Sound, fifteen miles south of Seattle, the quake accounted for much less loss in property and lives, but was judgment just the same - significantly right down the western coast from the first strike in Alaska.

On July 18, 1965, in his message entitled Doing God A Service Without His Will, Brother Branham said, "I don't even pray for America. She's going further away and is going to sink! Nearly one-tenth of the earth is ready to fall in."

Why do I include all the direct quotations from Brother Branham's own sermons? It is simply because I wish to clarify what he actually said in the face of much that is attributed to him that he did not say. Remember, he never set dates. He never said when it would happen, except as he predicted that it would happen before the coming of the Lord.

Preaching on July 25, 1965, Anointed Ones At The End Time, he said, "But we have been told by the Lord Jesus that when these things that we see now begin to come to pass then we are to lift up our heads for our redemption is drawing nigh. What 'drawing nigh' means, I do not know. Maybe it means as the scientist said the other day, speaking of the great cracks in the earth thousands of miles long, that the earth is going to sink. How many of you saw on television how they followed this crack in the earth with radar? It went up along the coast, broke in below San Jose, went across over into Alaska, out through the Aleutian Islands, then went about two hundred miles out into the sea, came back down into San Diego, and went around behind Los Angeles, forming a great pocket. All the earthquakes we've been having are from volcanic action hitting this great hollow dipper, however. When this shakes it causes these earthquakes we've been having for years on the west coast. Now the earth is cracked all the way around."

That night, July 25, 1965, when he preached What Is The Attraction On The Mountain, he said, "Listen close. (At this he goes to the Scripture, proving that he is a Word prophet, and quotes Zechariah who is prophesying of the coming of Christ in the last days.) Zecharaiah 14:4,5:
And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and a half of it toward the south.
And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: . . .

Another earthquake splitting open the earth. If you want to follow through on Scripture, notice in the fifth verse it applies that the cleaving of the mount of Olives is due to an earthquake. This is confirmed by Isaiah 29:6: Thou shall be visited of the Lord of Hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire.

And Revelation 16, verse 17 and 18. Exactly what does all this mean? The prophet who spoke of His first coming also saw His second coming. Notice, 'As in the days of the earthquake...' See what the earthquakes are doing? See the predictions of them? ... Do you see where we are at? 'Nations are breaking, Israel's awakening; The signs that our prophets fortold.' The earthquake to the Gentiles in the last day!"

On December 6, 1965, at San Bernardino, speaking his sermon entitled Modern Events Made Clear By Prophecy, he said that he did not think that he would have
ever been back to California again and he made this statement, "Watch her slide into the sea." -- His last visit to California.

He was approached by the various brothersw who lived in California, asking him what they should do. He said to one group, while on a hunting trip, "People will make fun of the destruction of the earthquake that we have said would happen, 'Thus saith the Lord,' on the west coast of America, but I want you brothers to know this, that if you have any friends or relation in Los Angeles, if I were you, I'd get thenm out as quickly as possible." Then he told the story of how the Angel of the Lord had told him that his wife, Meda, would give birth to a little boy and that he would name him Joseph. He said, "The same Angel of the Lord that told me that Los Angeles would sink and slide into the Pacific Ocean as the result of an earthquake."

To return now to the state of unrest that Brother Billy Paul found himself in concerning the conflicting prophecy over Sister Shakarian on that day when the message in tongues had gone forth and Brother Branham had preached Choosing Of A Bride. As the prophet and his son were walking back to their hotel, he perceived that something was troubling Billy and he said, "Paul, what's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing Dad," Billy replied.

After a few steps, Brother Branham asked again, "What's troubling you, Paul?"

"Well, Daddy," said Billy, "You heard that message of tongues and interpretation there."

"So what?" said the prophet.

"But Dad, you know that you said that the Angel of the Lord told you that she would die between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning."

Notice Brother Branham's reply -- so typical of him -- where he answers and yet does not speak against the tongues and interpretation: "Well, all I can say is, Paul, that the Lord has not told me any different."

On September 11, 1965, Brother Branham was in Phoenix, preaching a message entitled God's Power To Transform. It was at this time that I personally witnessed the solution to the question troubling Brother Billy Paul. We were at the Ramada Inn when Brother Carl Williams received a long distance call from Los Angeles informing him that Sister Florence had died the night before. Brother Branham was given the message and he immediately asked Brother Williams to find out the time of her death. I was there when the call went through and the answer was given us that she had died at 2:45 a.m.

Now, were the tongues and interpretation from God, or were they a result of someone's own zealousness? The Angel of God had told the prophet of God that she oulw die between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning. The message in tongues and interpretation said she would not die, but our sister does sleep in Christ and it happened exactly when the Angel of the Lord said that it would -- another vindication of the prophet of God in the face of strong opposition.

Though the evidence overwhelmingly points to Brother Branham being the prophet of God for this hour, yet there are those who tread critical and dangerous pathways. In the matter of the prophesied destruction of the west coast, their unbelief finds fertile ground, causing them to scoff against the very warning that God has given this generation. For example, there is the claim that Brother Branham predicted the destruction of Los Angeles would occur before another international convention of the Full Gospel Businessmen could be held in that city. Those who make the claim dare to deride the woreds of the prophet by saying that the 1968 convention was held in Los Angeles. I challenge this claim -- first of all on the basis that I do not believe he made the statement. The man who claims he has it on tape will not permit me to hear the tape. His claim is that Brother Branham did not make the statement publically, but whispered it to someone next to him on the platform and that his microphone picked up Brother Branham's voice. Strangely enough, the man will not allow any of us to hear this whisper attributed to Brother Branham.

Now supposing that he did made the statement -- is it in contrast to the true events as they occurred? In other words, did the Full Gospel Businessmen have their convention in Los Angeles? The answer is no. The convention was not held in Los Angeles, but rather in the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel. For their sakes, I would not like to see them schedule one in Los Angeles if the prophet of God did make this statement.

For myself, I wait for that day, for I believe that it is the day that shall bring forth the resurrection of those who sleep in Christ Jesus.

One world-renowned denominational Pentecostal leader plunges blindly ahead in a letter which states, "No wonder that God had to take William Branham off the scene. Anybody that would predict the destruction of Los Angeles, with four hundred and twenty thousand Holy Ghost filled believers in the city -- God would certainly condemn a man for making such a judgment." This man is obviously ignorant of the Scriptures and is also ignorant of the moving of God among His people this day. His action is childish, the reflection of an immature judgment and understanding. I won't name him, but I sincerely hope that he reads this book because he must be made to understand that he stands in dire need of repentance. Blasphemously, he goes on to say, "William Branham spoke about having an Angel of God with him all the time; that Angel must have been taking his Christmas vacation on th enight of December 18, 1965." This is blasphemy, in every sense of the word. It is making fun of the Spirit of God. In love I say that I hope he repents and retracts these words, lest he face them on Judgment Day. He does not know the God whom he claims to serve. If he did, he would tremble with fear at the God who caused twenty-eight thousand men to be killed in one day simple because one man sinned among the children of Israel. This is the God of the Bible; not the God of men's imaginations.

There is another internationally-known evangelist who writes in his paper concerning these predictions of earthquakes that he didn't find such things in the Scripture and that he believed that these were just occurances which would continue, but which have absolutely no significance to the people of God. This man also proves himself ignorant of the Scriptures, because he does not recall Daniel 12:1 which sayd that the great archangel shall stand upon the earth and that there shall be destruction such as never been known since there was a nation, but they are "Not to fear in that hour whose names are written in the Book of Life." He must also be ignorant of Revelation 6:12 which states that at the opening of the Sixth Seal there shall be a great earthquake. John the Revelator sayd, "I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became as black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood." You have but to read Brother Branham's Revelation Of The Seven Seals to see that the Sixth Seal happens to the Jews when Christ reveals Himself to His brethren, but the Gentile Bride is taken away at that time.

The earthquake becomes, then, a pivot point around which the words of the prophet sweep in telling the Bride to come out and make herself ready; but that same Bride must also see that what delivers the people of God will also bring judgment upon the ungodly.

On one occasion I was reading to Brother Branham from chapter 14 in the book of Revelation on through the 18th chapter. Revelation 18:4 says "... Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." As I read these words, the full realization struck me that this was Brother Branham's message. It was him that said, "Come out of her," speaking of coming out of the systems, the denominations, the Roman plague, the daughters of the harlot, and everything else that would blind the eyes. Then, I knew that he not only fulfilled Malachi 4, Luke 17:30, and Revelation 10:7, but he was also fulfilling the 18th chapter of the Book of Revelation. As I read that day to verse 8, which speaks of this great city Babylon, that sits on seven hills (per the description in Revelation 17), saying, "... she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. Standing afar off for the fear of her torment... (When I read this portion, Brother Branham said, "atomic power.") Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come." If this were ordinary fire, they would try to put it out. Brother Branham had predicted this atomic holocaust in 1959 in a message entitled The Great Harlot when he said, "Thus saith the Lord, someday Russia will drop an atomic bomb on the Vatican and in one hour she will be destroyed!" Here, in the Scriptures, it is proved (to those who have eyes to see) that it is so. A prophet of God had to stand on this earth and say, "Thus saith the Lord," in order that it might fulfill the Scipture. Likewise he had to stand on the earth and say, "Thus saith the Lord," California will sink, in order that it would sink. The Word of the Lord has to be spoken before God will bring it to pass.

Revelation 18:20 says, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles, and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her ..." God is saying, "Rejoice, I have avenged you of the Roman system, it's gone, it's destroyed by fire." Then I read verse 21: "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all." At this the prophet said quietly to me, "Notice, Brother Green, the two Babylons." This was in August 1964, before his prediction of the destruction of Los Angeles. Therefore, at that time, I did not perceive what he meant by two Babylons -- one being destroyed by fire and one being cast into the ocean. Notice the Scripture he applied to what would happen to Los Angeles: "And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsmen, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by their sorceries were all nations deceived." (You can't light a candle underwater.)

Return now to that day when Brother Branham turned to Brother Billy Paul and said, "Billy, all I can say is that God has told me no different (about Sister Florence)."

After making this statement, he turned to his son and said, "Billy, where are you standing?"

"Downtown Los Angeles," Billy Paul replied.

"Where are you standing?" queried the prophet.

"In front of the May Company, downtown Los Angeles," replied Billy.

At this Brother Branham made a prophetic statement: "Billy," he said, "I may not be here, but you won't be an old man until sharks will swim right where we are standing."

Brother Branham preached his last message in California on December 7, 1965, in Covina. In his message Leadership, he said that he didn't know that he would ever be back to California again. That night when he finished his sermon, he did something that none of us who followed him closely had ever seen or heard him do before. Usually as he left his church in Jeffersonville, he would sing the song Till We Meet. That night in Covina, California, he closed his portion of the service for the first time outside his church in Jeffersonville with the song Till We Meet. "Till we meet, till we meet, at Jesus' feet..." I was sitting at the head table with Brother Carl Williams. I saw him as he walked off the edge of the platform with Billy, pull away from Billy, step back on the platform, and while they sang the song, he waved good-bye. This is something that I had never seen him do before and never saw him do again.

As I witnessed this, I nudged Brother Carl Williams and said, "Brother Carl, is he telling California good-bye?"

He never went back again.

How foolish the attitude of those who say that they will move off of the west coast when God tells them to. To you people, I want you to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God has already told you to, You were told when God sent a prophet to this generation who said, "Thus saith the Lord, the city of Los Angeles, as the result of an earthquake, will break off and slide off into the Pacific Ocean." If you are spiritual and you hear and believe that this man was the fulfillment of Malachi 4, a forerunner of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you live on the west coast, you'll get out as quickly as possible, for God has indeed spoken.

Questions can be directed to: Bro. Garold MacGraw

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