I thank the Lord for His amazing Grace towards my father, and I have on my heart to share this testimony with His Bride for His glory.
To give a little background, my father joined a Catholic Brother Community at the age of 15 in line to become maybe a priest (by this he escaped the 2nd World War). But after 10 years, he came out of that to get married, and he spent all his life struggling to make a living for a family of 7 children. He spent his life trying to earn paradise by doing good deeds everywhere, for anybody, at anytime. He has set an example for us, and he really lives his faith before us.
During the Jubilee, Brother Branham tells us to apply the token and to claim It!
Twenty one years ago, at the age of 69, my father was really chocked and upset about two of his sons leaving the Catholic system, me and my brother. He was what we call a real Catholic, going faithfully to church and living what he believed with my mother. Through the years, he slowly accepted the reality of seeing us maintaining our stand, and despite his frustrations, he never lost his respect and love for us all. Last year, he has suffered two strokes and ended up in a wheel chair at the age of 89 years old.
Before that happened, he was working all the time, always doing something, but for the last year his life has stopped, and the only thing he could do was think and wait for someone to visit him at the hospital. So from one visit to another, we really expressed our love to him and prayed for him, and his heart was melting day by day. Then one day, around September 2013, my son offered him to listen to a tape of Brother Branham. He accepted and began to hear between 5 to 15 minutes each visit with joy and attention. One day he said to my son, “I want to hear ALL that this man has to say.”
After a couple of visits, I came to him and he said to me: “Your son is converting me.” So I talked with him and read the Bible in Ephesians, where Paul speaks about the predestination. He started crying and said: “I was wrong all my life, God chose me at 89 years.” I replied, “NO dad, He chose you before the foundation of this world.” Then he cried and began to repent! He asked me how he can be in peace with God. I replied: “Just repent Dad, tell Him yourself, and be sincere, and He will let you know that on Calvary, the case was settled!” I continued reading the Bible to Him, and He just cried and cried, saying, “I have read it many times, but never understood it like now.” I replied: “Dad, it is because you have heard His Voice on the tapes. He is behind that Voice, it’s Him speaking to you!” Starting from Genesis to Revelations, I let him see the program of God, sending always one man.
It was a real special moment for me to hug my father while His Presence was flowing on both of us.
He told me that he had tried all his life to be a Saint without success, and he said that what we believe is God because for all those years, he has seen all of our lives so in line with God, that’s what he wants to believe.
So he does, and by His Grace he put his life in order with God at our church, just after the wedding of my brother’s son, last December. Our pastor prayed for him, and for my mother who accepted to be prayed for also.
Few weeks ago, my mother called my brother and asked him to stop at the hospital to see his dad on his way back home from work, because he was not feeling well, he was just crying. He went to see him, and my dad was troubled. When my brother saw him like that, knowing the Lord was working a lot with him lately, he asked him if he was struggling with his decision to be baptized over again, after having been baptized as a baby in the Catholic church. He repeated the promise in Acts 2:38, and my father decided to get baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of his sins. Praise God! Imagine, my father, at 90 years old, got baptized. It was not an easy task, since my father can’t walk and stand on his feet, but Satan couldn’t stop it.
We are trusting the Lord will bring our mother and other brothers and sisters to Him. We keep our faith in His Word and apply the token for all the family and all the believers around the world!
Imagine he is now 90 years old and he is ready for his last trip, and I don’t doubt a bit that I will see him young again! I just think about that quote:
Now, the other night, or the other morning, at seven o'clock, when the Holy Spirit, by His goodness and His grace, taken me from this body, I believe (I believe. Yes or no, I don't say.), and entered into that land and saw those people, and they were all young. And I seen the prettiest people I ever seen in my life. And He said to me, "some of them was ninety years old. They're your converts. No wonder they're screaming, 'My brother, my brother'."
AMAZING GRACE HOW SWEET THE SOUND!
Bro. Sylvain