I bought a 1-year Alabama fishing license this weekend! This is due to my love for the state's PCB-rich waters, and for the beautiful brown color of its streams and rivers and lakes (and tap water).
I went fishing w/ Bro. Chad and Bro. Jeremy early saturday morning. We saw a couple of big stripers, but I think there weren't a lot in the creek yet, and even those weren't biting. I did catch a small one though, and hooked something big near the bank, but somehow the hook didn't get set good. I also caught a few nice bluegill on a crappie jig bro. Chad gave me. Bro. Chad spotted the shadow of a monster striper swimming upstream, and bro. Jeremy saw a huge one chasing a fish right under his boat.
It was a hot day, but there was a little wind, and the river was beautiful. It's a lot of fun to get outside and fish and talk about the Lord, and I'm thankful to have such good friends to share it with.
Maybe I enjoyed it too much. This was the last day of our memorial day meetings. After our church dinner I proclaimed that instead of playing softball w/ the other brothers, I would go fishing instead. On the way home I remembered today is Sunday! I suppose it must have felt like a saturday or a monday... or maybe I'm just a dummy. Anyhow, I have a good reason for staying home instead:
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1050-257 Now, you say, "Brother Branham, you hunt. Didn't you ever hunt on Sunday?" Let me tell you something. Not--I'm not patting myself to the back of this, but I'm... I'm not a Sabbatarian now; I believe the Holy Spirit is our Sabbath. I believe that, but I believe we should honor that resurrection as a memorial. That's a memorial that I... If you honor any day, honor that resurrection.Now, there's no law on keeping any certain day, because you enter into the Sabbath of peace, when you enter into Him. I've got that question in here to answer pretty soon anyhow, if the Lord willing, about what is the Sabbath day? And I'll explain it, God willing.And now notice, remember this. See? When I was a little boy, right up here where Eichs lived on the road, I was about fourteen years old; I was trapping for a living. The only thing I had to help get bread in our house was catching skunks, muskrats, opossums.I love trapping, and I had to do it. I'd go to school smelling like a skunk, and I--I had only one pair of clothes, and that's all I could wear. That's all I had. Mom would take them off and wash them, put them back on; and now, that's how I went to school, little boy. But I was standing up there one night; I said, "I got them traps set up there around Wathen's, up above that." I'd leave every morning about 2 o'clock with a lantern to run these traps, then get back in time to go to school. I'd catch a rabbit; I got fifteen cents out of it. I'd get a box of shells out of that, and maybe that kill three or four rabbits. What we didn't have to make some biscuits and rabbits, why, and gravy for supper, I'd sell the other, and maybe get enough to get some bread, or some meal, or some flour to make gravy with. I don't know whether you had to live like that or not.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1051-259 I'd set trout lines on the river; go down, and get them fish, and sell them for ten cents a pound. Set my trout lines; I didn't have no boat; I'd swim out with a log. Get in the river, and it's still cold, put my bucket of bait out here on the log and to paddle and paddle out like that, my naked body in the river, and run this... Had me a string on this side, tie my fish up. Them old catfish finning me in the leg going along like that, and put my bait on...But look, a many a night have I went out in that river at 11 o'clock and shake every piece of bait off that line. If I couldn't catch enough in six days, I didn't want the one come on the seventh. I've stood there in the rain.
QUESTIONS.AND.ANSWERS_ JEFF.IN COD SUNDAY_ 64-0823E 1051-261 One night I can just see myself yet standing, leaning against... I was a sinner; but I was standing, leaning against the post like this, the door. Oh, it was pouring down rain, pretty near 11 o'clock. I said, "I'll be late tonight, but I'm going and spring every one of those traps. I won't catch him on the Sabbath." I said, "I won't--I won't set them traps." God honors that.