A Letter to the Believers of the Message

Grace and peace be abundant to you from our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom are to be found all the treasures of wisdom and blessing.

This letter was presented to our immediate spiritual superiors and elders. It is a summary of our case as presented to them, and was written after our first conversation together, for which we thank our brothers.

This letter contains our thoughts and conclusions on William Branham’s work and his Message in the light of Christianity and the Holy Scriptures. It contains information that some of you may already know or have heard of, but also information that most of us may be unaware of. We believe that every believer has the right to comprehensive information about what he places his full trust in. Whether they blindly believe it or not, everyone is entitled to the full context.

None of us asked for the matter we are facing. Guided by our conscience and the Holy Spirit, we feel obliged to express the concerns weighing on our hearts. We are writing to you because we believe in the brotherly bond that unites us in Christ, because we care about the truth and the spiritual good of all believers, because we are committed to building fellowship in our countries, and because we believe that the church of Christ is not afraid of difficult matters, of self-examination, and of to anchor oneself in the truth. We believe in “comma instead of period”. By this we mean the partial nature of our knowledge, revelation, and understanding of ourselves and all who have been saved and called by God’s grace, both individuals and fellowships.

When we hear testimonies of miraculous deliverances and deeper guidance from God, we have no doubt that God is behind it and has led you this far. Over time, we have come to realize that it is not up to us to put a period and say, “We cannot err, and this is the end of our search for the truth.” We believe that God has already guided our parents and other brothers and sisters in their earlier journeys from one place to another in search of the truth. After all, their willingness to question what they had learned and, if necessary, to give up in order to seek the truth at all costs was considered a virtue by us. This is what Brother Branham means by “putting a comma, not a period.” So who decided that in previous religions we should be critical thinkers and discerners and now turn off our critical thinking and use the same dogmatic and intimidating techniques as the ossified denominations from which we come? One of you, brethren, said in a conversation, “Yes, but this comma should be in the Message.” Brethren, this “comma placement,” which means “tolerance of different views within one’s own group,” is practiced by all churches and groups; it does not testify to open-mindedness. Critical thinking is not the same as criticism. The Bible calls critical thinking discernment and righteous judgment. Listening only to one-sided witnesses in the courtroom is sin and lawlessness. Likewise, it is not the path of truth, but of fear and dogma, to seek only the confirmation of one’s own truth, without taking into account one’s own errors.

Over the years, our knowledge and love of God’s Word and the Word of the Hour, as William Branham’s teachings are commonly called, grew, and we were brought up according to the Christian values of this Message. Each of us had our own experience with the Holy Spirit, our own separation from the things of this world, and our entry into the narrow path of the gospel. From then on, we had a burning desire to spread the full gospel and Message that God promised through his prophet and sent in our day. With great zeal and joy we participated in the youth work. We fed on God’s Word and read and listened to Brother Branham’s sermons with fascination. Brother Joel, 15 years old, longed to learn more about the Message. Although he did not have a church of his own, he took advantage of the opportunities offered to him during meetings or visits with brothers to talk and ask questions about the Inner Curtain, the seals, the trumpets, the church ages, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and other topics. The joy of possessing the truth made us feel like the man in the store who learned that everything belonged to him and longed to look at every shelf. In order to have access to all the available sermons, Joel began listening to them in English. When he saw in the Message how Brother Branham spoke, what the different terms sounded like, and what they meant in the original languages of the Bible, he felt the same natural desire to be as close as possible to the source.

As a fifth-generation follower of the Message, Gabriel was amazed throughout his life by the question of why such an extraordinary grace of God had been bestowed upon him. Not only the grace to be a believer and follower of the Message, but also the grace to properly understand the Message he had grown up with, even as people and churches everywhere fell prey to false doctrines and misinterpretations of the Message. Even as a teenager, he felt a burning desire to dedicate his life to translating and spreading the Message. Before study aids such as “The Table” became widely available, he had a well-organized library of the Message in print, PDF and audio file. He used this time to read and listen to the Message in English, Polish, and Czech, to take detailed notes, and to understand Brother Branham’s interpretation of God’s Word. During his studies at the technical school in Karviná, he became friends with a classmate who was a member of the confessional church in Český Těšín. Thanks to this acquaintance, he came to the conclusion that we owe what we have to the Message – the consecration of our entire lives to the Lord and the devotion of every aspect of our lives to Him, something that his friend’s denomination did not fully offer.

Gabriel was enthusiastic about this Message and participated in numerous projects related to the translation, proofreading, printing and recording of the Message in Polish and Czech. On his own initiative, he created Czech websites that provided information about Brother Branham’s work. He was convinced that the whole world must know about this Message if it was true. In his first year of college, he met Mormon missionaries. Knowing that they had their Prophet Joseph Smith, he tried to explain to them that they were mistaken because their belief in the Book of Mormon was inconsistent with Revelation 22:18. He argued that William Branham was the prophet sent for our time.

We looked with sorrow at every manifestation of disunity, lack of brotherly love, and spiritual stagnation, longing for the church to build up, expand, and gather the entire Bride and be ready for the Rapture. Joel witnessed his life at school, among his classmates, and later at work; every opportunity was favorable to pass on the Message of the hour.

In conversations with many Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and unbelievers, Joel recognized the disturbing image of “denominational thinking” he had heard about in the “Message”—a narrow-mindedness and an unwillingness to step out of their comfort zone and go beyond what they had learned and did not dare to speak up against. Jehovah’s Witnesses could not accept foreign material; they did not know the history of their own movement and its failures, but only an updated and revised version. The Witnesses gave the impression that their only absolute was the Bible, but when they came to the core doctrines, the basis for connecting the “first sheep” of the gospel with the 144,000 of Revelation, the biblical explanations ended and the story of the “discreet slave” began. Catholics who were unfamiliar with their own teachings simply refused to read the Bible without the explanation of a priest. The more knowledgeable said that the Word of God is absolute, but the authority to interpret it is not in the hands of the believers, but in the Magisterium—the anointed Magisterium of the Church.

Joel came to the consclusion that he did not want to adopt this approach under any circumstances and, in order not to appear hypocritical, should exemplify the same standards that he demands of others. Since we stood in Czestochowa with leaflets and told passing Catholics not to judge hastily, but to see for themselves, because we said that if they knew the truth, they should not be afraid to examine it; we should be able to walk over the bridge we built ourselves without fear that it will collapse under our weight, but that it will have a strong foundation and, like any solid structure, will not shake. Looking at the example of Muslim indoctrination in Islam, one could easily conclude that this religion owes its success over 1,400 years to ignorance and blind, fear-based obedience. When Muhammad said that Jesus did not die on the cross, and that Miriam—the mother of Jesus—was the same Miriam who was the sister of Aaron and Moses, it would be an expression of pride and disobedience to question this fact and invoke the text of the New Testament.

As we read the Bible carefully and listened to the Message, we came across statements by Brother Branham that differed from the Bible text. However, this did not undermine our faith in the Message. We knew that Brother Branham didn’t have to be infallible to be a prophet. His revealed teachings as a whole, his correction of errors that had been propagated for years in various denominations, his revelation of mysteries, and his utterances in the name of the Lord (“Thus saith the Lord”) were certainly infallible. Like the Scriptures, Brother Branham’s Message—the teachings he brought—enjoyed our faith. We didn’t have to understand every mystery or be able to explain every riddle to believe on the basis of what was clearly stated. In addition, each of us recognized the difference between us and those outside the Message—we wanted to feed on God’s Word, not the things of this world; we wanted to live for God.

Gabriel has been interested in the worldwide developments of the Message since his earliest youth. Speaking English, he read numerous materials and testimonies about Brother Branham’s life and ministry in order to understand these topics as thoroughly as possible. He was fascinated by the newly established website believethesign.com and even wanted to translate it into Czech. When he saw that the opinion of the authors of the website about Brother Branham had changed 180 degrees after a thorough examination of historical facts, he could not believe it. After reading several articles, he concluded that these were not minor contradictions, but that the question was whether or not Brother Branham was a prophet and whether or not his words had been fulfilled. Since he had formed a radically different picture of Brother Branham’s person and life by listening to the Message and reading Owen Jorgensen’s books, and did not want to raise any doubts about the Message, he decided to distance himself from these topics. He installed a program on his computer that completely blocked access to the site and protected it with a password, so he couldn’t change the settings himself. Instead, he began to carefully study what people had to say on the subject who were deeply rooted in the Message and were not afraid to expose themselves to criticism in defense of the truth. Such sources were mainly churchages.net and PTM Contender^[1]. To his surprise, the reactions of these people to the accusations against the Message seemed to be nothing more than a desperate attempt to reconcile irreconcilable statements and facts. He was one hundred percent sure that if he had traveled to Jeffersonville himself, he would have found an article in the archives about 16 people who had drowned while building a bridge in the Ohio River. He eagerly waited for the American believers to finally silence their critics once and for all, but it never happened.

When Joel heard in 2012 that people were turning away from the Message, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would do such a thing. When he heard that a number of preachers in Ukraine had rejected the Message because of the February 28 cloud, he could not understand why such a trivial thing could be the reason, since the Message was about more than just a cloud (he hadn’t realized how important the cloud was to Brother Branham and his teachings—it just wasn’t so emphasized in our circles). Joel followed events at Brother Jenkins’ church in Lima, Ohio, and listened for over two hours to a thorough defense of the cloud by the new pastor, Brother Chad Lamb. Soon, he was invited to help prepare a presentation explaining why the Thor rocket was not the cause of the cloud. In the end, the presentation was never created.

Joel had no problem with Brother Branham saying that “legion” meant “many” in Hebrew, even though it was a Latin word, or that Bethlehem did not mean “house of the bread of God” but “house of bread.” But he began to wonder when he heard that “God called the prophets eagles in the Bible,” or that Abraham in Genesis 1:18 addressed God as “Elohim,” even though the original text clearly showed that he was addressed as YHWH or Adonai—never as Elohim. Such passages led to minor dilemmas, as he had to choose between what the text said and what the prophet said. But he used the prophet’s words as a guide: “His words will fail, but the Bible will never fail.” From then on, Joel prayed for more revelation and was more determined to dispel all doubts and, like the Bereans, to investigate every matter thoroughly.

Over time, various factors came together, increasingly serious contradictions with the Bible, which could not simply be dismissed if we claimed in good conscience that we were following the Word of God. There was a clear discrepancy between the supernatural work we knew from sermons and tapes and our lives as believers. Even the best testimonies of our congregations could not be compared with the seemingly “supernatural everyday life” in the sermons. At the same time, our brethren’s repeated explanations of why certain things did not happen only faintly supported the idea that we actually possessed something that the churches around us lacked, for every supernatural work of God among us was no different from the testimonies of the denominational churches. Growing up believing that the Message had restored our faith in the book of Acts, we wondered why the things that happened under the apostles didn’t happen among us. Although our churches theoretically believed in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gift of prophecy did not manifest itself at all, and the gift of tongues was extremely rare. Our questions on this subject usually boiled down to the fact that we were not looking for gifts, but for the Giver, and that if we wanted these things, we should start with ourselves. But shouldn’t the idea of “the giver, not just gifts” mean that we received gifts in addition to the giver? Someone may have gifts, but not a giver, because the giver left them the gifts. But can anyone claim to have a giver without gifts? Can a man with a dry well brag about having something better than someone with a bottle of water?

In time, Gabriel confused Brother Branham’s interpretation of the angel in Revelation 10:7. He made every effort to verify the original text, but concluded that it was simply unacceptable for him to take Revelation 10:7 out of the context of Revelation 9:13 and 11:15, as it would contradict his Christian conscience, which is based on the authority and reliability of God’s written Word. However one interpreted these passages, a simple reading with understanding revealed no connection between Revelation 10:7 and the angel of the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14.

Moreover, there were internal contradictions in Brother Branham that we could not justify by mere absent-mindedness or the progressive nature of revelation. A simple example is the teaching on the seventy weeks of Daniel’s. Before Brother Branham taught a specially designed teaching series in 1961, he taught that the first three and a half years of the last week were fulfilled by Christ (57–1002, 517) and that there were three and a half years left after the rapture until the beginning of the Millennium (57–1006, 716). After that, he taught a very structured doctrine in the series of teachings on the seventy weeks of Daniel’s under the anointing, in which he used (which was no secret to us) the systematics of Clarence Larkin. He then taught that the 3.5 years did not concern Christ, but the Antichrist (61-0730e, 108, 141) and that the bride departed 7 years before the beginning of the Millennium (61-0806, 192). There would be nothing unusual about this, considering that he had no revelation on the matter until 1961 and then taught according to the revelation given to him, which God had previously revealed to Larkin. The problem arises, as you know, brethren, that in The Seals, under the anointing, he again teaches the same thing as before 1961. Since he does not preach on the basis of Larkin’s interpretation, he again confuses the content of verses 26 and 27 of Daniel 9 (63-0318) and also returns to the claim that there are 3.5 years left after the rapture (64-0823e, 224). This means that the entire 3.5-year storyline of the special sermon series on the 1961 weeks of Daniel is once again outdated.

While reading the sermon series “The Seventy Weeks of Daniel” and worrying about the contradiction between Brother Branham’s statements in this book and other parts of the Message, Gabriel asked two trusted brothers about it. One of them told him that Brother Branham had later told people that they had misunderstood him about the 3,5 or 7 years. Brother Branham’s statements, however, were very clear and could not possibly be misunderstood. The second brother echoed the answer of Brother Lonnie Jenkins, who said that the period was either 3.5 or 7 years and that we could not be sure of that. None of the brothers tried to find the answer in the Bible. Unable to find an answer either in the Message or from the brethren, Gabriel himself began to search the Bible to see what the Bible had to say on the subject.

Our confidence in Brother Branham began to wane, and we looked with renewed caution at other problematic statements that we had known for a long time but had not attempted to dig into. Sensing the threat, we sought comfort in God and His Word, and finally wanted to examine the most important confirmations of His ministry and prophecies to strengthen our faith in that Message.

Like many of you, dear brothers, we did not accept the Message because of the cloud, the Houston picture, or other statements or visions. We grew up with the Message, but like many others who were led to it ourselves, we were convinced of the testimonies, the change in lives, and the way it differentiated us from the people of the world. We realized, however, that these things, even if they were enough for us, were not objective evidence of Brother Branham’s mission as a prophet in the spirit of Elijah.

For reasons of conscience, we decided to honestly examine whether our foundation would hold up in the light of God’s written Word—the Bible—and in the light of indisputable historical facts.

In the following, we will try to honestly explain the main points that have proven to be problematic for us. We consider this evidence to be very serious, and its weight (both on tape and on paper) clearly outweighs what we have known as confirmation or defense so far. However, we are open to discussion and reflection on many of these points. Even if some points seem crucial, we have learned to be unbiased and always admit mistakes on our part.

We kindly ask you to honestly and sincerely consider the following points regarding William Branham’s credibility. His credibility is fundamental because most of what we know about the Message comes from his mouth. We will then discuss the prophecies and utterances in the name of the Lord (“Thus saith the Lord”), the uniqueness and origin of His teachings, and His conformity with the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

Brother Branham’s credibility problems

In the following, we would like to share a few points which, if carefully examined, could indicate the lack of credibility of the stories told by Brother Branham. We are not here to complain about slips of the tongue or small errors in date or location. We are all human, and we all make such mistakes. The point is that events, many of which are seen as confirmations of his prophetic mission, are often recounted in contradictory ways. This raises the question: Why does he tell these miraculous events in such and such a different way? What version of the event actually happened? Assuming that one version has taken place, why has he recounted the same event on other occasions of exactly the opposite kind? Certainly, neither version can be true.

You could say that some of these things are minor and insignificant inconsistencies. But how can one entrust someone with important matters that are supposed to confirm the exclusivity of his ministry, when trivial and insignificant things are clearly and undeniably changed in a way that cannot be traced back to mere human imperfection? Others, however, are not minor and insignificant inconsistencies. We do not find such things in the Holy Scriptures, such as the question of whether Peter denied Jesus three times and then the rooster crowed, or whether the rooster crowed after Peter’s second denial. We all know that the Gospel accounts were each written by a different author and that they do not even contradict each other. In the case of Brother Branham, however, we are comparing accounts of the same events told by the same person, which gives us all the more reason to agree. And yet they are very different.

A boy in Finland

I’m sure you all know the story that Brother Branham has often told: He told how he raised a young man named Kari Holma from the dead after a car accident in Kuopio, Finland. The European trip of Brother Branham’s evangelism team was described in detail in a special issue of the magazine “Voice of Healing”. A photocopy of the entire issue can be found at the following link:

In this magazine, various people report on their travel experiences from their own perspective. The car accident is addressed twice.

Brother Jack Moore picked him up and brought him back into the car with us. We saw that he was dead. I looked at the little boy and thought I recognized him. Then I remembered that he was the little boy I had seen in the vision, between eight and ten years old, with light brown hair and who was poorly dressed. I held him to my bodey and began to pray. Suddenly his life came back to him.

Arriving at the hospital, we were surprised to learn that the car had struck another little boy, and knocked him to the other side of the road. We had not seen him because he was hidden from our view, and another car had picked him up and rushed him to the hospital. After two days ...

On page S, Vilho Soininen, a local pastor and one of the organizers of the meetings in Finland, reports on the same event.

This very testimony was later published in the book “A Man Sent from God” by Gordon Lindsay.

So we knelt down, had the people to bow their heads. I said, “Heavenly Father, You Who told me this, You are a true and living God. And I know that Your Words will not fail. And there I ask You Lord, to confirm Your Word to Your servant. And this is the boy that You said shall rise. So therefore, death let him loose.” And the boy raised up screaming and jumping and running all over the place. Now, how many’s read it in your books? Let’s see your book? The book... It’s wrote in the books. You see the “Voice of Healing.” Now, if you want to come down to my office, there’s the officials of a Finland with their seal on it, was standing there watching it done. Hallelujah. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. All demons out of torment couldn’t stop it. There God has said so. Now, I never healed the boy. God had already showed what was going to be done.

I said, “Stand still, all of you.” The mayor of the city there. I said, “If that boy isn’t on his feet in two minutes from now, I’m a false prophet; ride, run me out of Finland.” Certainly. “But if he is, you owe your lives to Christ.” That’s right. They stood still.

When one reads the accounts of Brother Branham and Pastor Soininen in the magazine “Voice of Healing” as well as the accounts in Brother Branham’s sermons, one inevitably notices a serious discrepancy in the sequence of events. The question is not whether this event actually took place, but what happened after the accident.

Brother Branham himself writes in his magazine testimony that they took the boy into the car and prayed for his life on the way to the hospital. Pastor Soininen confirms this. In his sermons, however, Brother Branham always tells a completely different story. He claims that the prayer for his life took place at the scene of the accident, that the mayor was present and that the boy immediately rose from the dead and ran around the area.

Our question is: Why this discrepancy? Why did Brother Branham himself first tell us that the boy was taken to the hospital and prayed in the car, which Pastor Soininen also confirmed, and then later said in his sermons that the boy jumped up immediately after praying on the spot? Neither of the two versions can actually have been like this.

The Man from Windsor

Another famous story that Brother Branham often told is about an incident in a prayer series in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. One man came to the prayer line not to be healed, but to expose William Branham as an impostor. On his prayer card, he listed several illnesses that he did not have. He expected that, during a supernatural diagnosis, William Branham would address the alleged illnesses listed on the card and thus expose him as a liar. When the man entered the prayer line, William Branham did not recognize any illness, but in a vision, he saw a group of people preparing for the exposure. Then, as a punishment, he was attacked by the diseases he had written on the prayer card.

Brother Branham often tells this story in his sermons. Reports about what happened to the man next vary widely. Here are some of his statements:

Then a few nights after that, I was over at Windsor, Ontario. Had fourteen thousand at that meeting there.

There was a man in the meeting who thought that that was just a bunch of make-up. He went and got a prayer card in one of the lines, pretending that he was sick and in need. And he went and wrote on the prayer card he had all kinds of diseases and so forth like that. And come around and give it into the... the man, the prayer line manager. I never see the cards. They take the cards down there. He thought, “I’ll just see what this is all about.”

And when he come in and put that on a prayer card down, he come walking up. I said, “Good evening, sir.”

And I took a hold of his hand. There was no vibrations. I looked at him; I seen him and two men, standing in a room across a table making that up.

I said, “Why would you purpose in your heart to try to deceive somebody?” I said, “God is apt to strike you dead right now.”

42 And he fell down on the floor and begin to screaming to the top of his voice. He said, “God, have mercy on me.”

He said, “Brother Branham, I... I thought it was just make-up. I... I... I honestly, is there forgiveness for me?” There were.

69 And a man up in the audience screamed out, said, “That’s the truth, preacher. I was the one was with him.” And here he come, that man fell and grabbed me by the trouser leg like that.

I said, “The disease that you put on that prayer card will be on you the rest of your life.” And it is.

15 Brother, I said, “Now, the things that you put on the plat—on your prayer card, is on you. You have it now.” That was right. He fell down, grabbed a hold of my pants leg. I said, “Sir, that’s between you and God, not me.” I said, “That’s between you and God.” Far as I know, the man’s in eternity today, dead. See?

66 And that man said, “That’s the God Almighty truth. That’s right. That’s right.” And the man grabbed me by the pant’s leg, he said, “Pray for me, Brother Branham.” I said, “That’s between you and God now. It’s out of my hands. He’s done spoke it. That’s you now.” And the man’s laying bedfast to this day.

177 And he said, “Oh, pray—pray for me that I…” And he was a preacher! And I said, “I have nothing to do with that, you cursed yourself, so you have what you put on the prayer card.”

And screaming, he run from the building. There it was. I don’t know what ever happened. See?

13 And I said, “The things that you put on your card, you have, both cancer and TB.” And he fell down on the platform. 14 But the last time I heard of him, I never heard no more, just a letter from some of the people, that he was in a serious condition. So we’re not playing church.

187 I said, “Now the thing” the man grabbed, fell down and grabbed me on the platform by my pants, and I said, “the thing that you put on your prayer card, TB and so forth is on you now.” 188 The man died about a year later.

172 That fellow raised up up there, he said, “Brother Branham, that’s the truth, I was right there with him.” I said, “Now, what was on your prayer card you have.” He died about six months later with a cancer.

147 And I said, “Now what you put on your prayer card, you have.” 148 This man run down there…?…said, “God be merciful, Brother Branham, that is the truth.” They took him out paralyzed, and he’s still paralyzed.

79 And I said, “Because that you have said, and put that on your prayer card, now you have it.” And he died about six weeks afterwards.

The question arises: Why did Brother Branham give six different versions of what happened to this man later? While the discrepancy in the reports does not rule out the possibility that something happened, it does call into question the credibility of Brother Branham’s report as a whole. How could someone be dead in 1954 and laying bedfast in 1956? Could this man have died within six weeks, six months, or a year, or is he still alive today? He was paralyzed on the spot and carried out, only to run out of the building?

Baptism 1933

One of the most significant events in Brother Branham’s early ministry was the appearance of the light and voice at his baptism on the Ohio River in June 1933. This event is considered a confirmation of Brother Branham as Elijah before the return of Christ. A detailed analysis of his statements on the subject, the testimonies of others and newspaper articles shows that the generally accepted version of this event deviates from the reality of the events of that time.

In 1950-51, Brother Branham recounted this event several times but never mentioned the voice that is said to have spoken the words: “Just as John the Baptist was sent before my first coming, so your Message will forerun my second coming.” Here are Brother Branham’s statements from those years:

18 But It appeared down there on the Ohio River before nearly ten thousand people while I was baptizing in August. I was baptizing some fi—five hundred, I guess, that afternoon. Hundreds of them was standing, and the choir singing, On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand. Was about two o’clock. We hadn’t had rain for about two weeks.

I had my seventeenth candidate I was taking out in the water. And I raised up, and I asked him if he believed. He had. He would been repented at the meeting? Yes. I raised up my hand, I said, “Father, as I baptize this boy with water, may You baptize him with the Holy Spirit.”

And as I started, Something went, “Whew!” I looked up. I heard a Voice. Said, “Look up.” Thousands standing all over the bank on the Ohio River facing Louisville. Paper carried a big article of it. 19 And I looked, coming right down out of the heavens, out of a place about as big as this platform, where the blue skies churning like waters…Coming right down out of there came a big thing, like a star, whirling around, going, “Whew!” coming right down visibly before the eyes.

Moved right down, looked like a star at a distance. When it got close, It looked like a milling fire of Light, moving right down and stood over where I was. Then went right back up into the heavens again.

The waters let up. I’ve often wondered if that wasn’t the Angel that was on the waters (See?) in Bethesda, you know.

Went away… And papers carried a big article, “Mysterious Star Appears Over Minister While Baptizing.” And on down, It kept coming.

55 When I was baptizing hundreds down at the Ohio River at the foot of Spring Street in Jeffersonville, where thousands were blacked on the bank…At right at two o’clock in the afternoon, I was baptizing the seventeenth person. I started to pray, and thousands standing there looking. And down from the heavens came that green, whirling down like a big star in the distance. When It got close, It was that Light, a Pillar of Fire.

I think It’s the same One that led the children of Israel in the days that went before Moses. And It’s in the church today. It’s here tonight, the same Pillar of Fire.

56 When He told me, He said, “As Moses was given two signs to vindicate his ministry, so will you be given two signs. And by these signs, that people will believe.” And there It is. I believe It’s the same Angel of the covenant. And He came down when hundreds and hundreds standing there, people fainted, and fell, and everything.

The papers carried a great article, “Mystic star appears over minister at two o’clock in the afternoon while baptizing.” There It was. Friends, settle yourself down.

The hour has come. There’s been a lot of “playing religion.” There’s been a lot of playing church. But the hour has come where God’s calling out His people. That’s right. And He’s vindicating it by signs and wonders.

And that’s it. And here’s the statement. Anyone’s welcome to read it. It’s here any time, and for anybody. And look at it.

15 About twelve years ago, I was baptizing my first group after my—one of my revivals at Jeffersonville, Indiana, where I lived at this time—my home is, rather. And standing on the banks of the Ohio River where [Blank spot on tape—Ed.] had gathered out. And while I was baptizing…It was two o’clock in the evening, on June. And the seventeenth candidate, I was baptizing in water at the Ohio River at the foot of Spring Street. And I heard Something speak, and I felt Something take a hold of me. And I looked up. And when I did, coming down from glory came this whirl coming down where I was at.

“Courier Journal Newspaper” packed an article of it, said, “A mystic star appears over a local Baptist pastor while baptizing in the river.” They couldn’t make out. Oh, up to probably ten thousand people saw It as It moved down where I was at, and went back up in the skies. Come right where I was and went back up into the sky. Well I…Many asked me what It meant. And I said, “I do not know.”

48 But I have seen times where whole audiences of thousands, ten thousand at one time seen Him coming right down at two o’clock in the afternoon and standing over where I was at, when the newspapers flashed it everywhere.

The books “A Prophet Visits South Africa”, “A Man Sent from God” and the treatise “Jesus Christ the Same Yesterday, Today and for Ever” also mention a light at baptism, but nothing is said about the voice. However, in the book “A Man Sent from God,” there is a prophecy that is very similar to the one Brother Branham later mentions in connection with the baptism on the Ohio River.

The next incident was a stirring Message given in the Spirit and interpreted, almost identical to two others which were to be given in other Branham meetings in different places, a sure testimony of the authenticity of this anointed ministry. It was uttered with such rousing force that it almost seemed unearthly, and this was the gist of the Message... that as John the Baptist was sent as a forerunner of the Lord’s first coming, so was He sending forth this evangelist and others like him to move the people and prepare them for His second coming. Months later we heard this same Message interpreted amidst a large crowd of people attending the Branham meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Sister Anna Schrader whom we later learned to appreciate deeply. Truly, these words penetrated our hearts.

Brother Branham himself considered Anna Schrader prophetic. In the 1950s and 1960s, she was known in Pentecostal circles for her charismatic gifts. The magazine “Voice of Healing” reports on her role in Brother Branham’s healing campaigns (Brother Branham, the founder of “Voice of Healing”, was its editor-in-chief until 1952).

This great revival [Branham’s campaign in the New Life Tabernacle], which lasted from Nov.r 25 to Dec. 4, was preceded by ten-day preparatory meetings at which Sister Anna Morehead Schrader, mightily anointed prophetess of the Lord, was the minister. Sister Schrader was also greatly instrumental throughout the Branham campaign with the various gifts of the Spirit which are humbly operated through her.

183 How many knows that visions almost kill you. Jesus, one woman touched His garment, virtue went from Him. You know that? Here’s little Mrs. Schrader here, I was talking to her today in there. You wonder why she lays like that? She has a gift of prophecy, that’s what does it.

Brother Branham first spoke about the voice in his sermon “Do You Believe Now?” (August 17, 1952). This happened after the publication of Gordon Lindsay’s book, which contained Anna Schrader’s prophecy.

On September 7, 1982, Lee Vayle recounts his conversation with Sister Meda Branham (you can listen to it as audio):

“But”, she [Meda Branham] said, “I heard the words that he said, “As John the Baptist was sent to (you know) precede the First Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, so your Message will go before the Second Coming.” And she said, “But you know Bro. Vayle, when I talked to Bro. Bill, I said, “Bill, I heard what was said, but, (she said) “Bill, that was your voice that said It.” And she said, “he looked at me kind of crooked like, (you know) ...?... he just kind of grinned and walked on.

Brother Branham’s accounts of this event vary greatly in the number of baptized people and the number of people who witnessed the event.

A testimony of Bruce Hall is available on the Internet, who personally knew people who had witnessed this baptism. One of those people was Graham Snelling, who made no secret of Brother Branham’s need to sort things out. One of those things was the enormous number of people present at the baptism in the Ohio River. Graham Snelling put it this way: “If we had 100 people back then, we felt it was a crowd.” Jeffersonville had about 12,000 inhabitants at the time.

On June 2, 1933, the following short article was published in the Jeffersonville Evening News:

FOURTEEN CONVERTS—Fourteen conversions are reported in a tent meeting conducted at the corner of Eighth Street and Pratt Street by the Rev. William Branham.

To this day, Branham’s chapel stands at the intersection of Eighth Street, Penn Street and Pratt Street (cross streets), with the chapel itself being closer to Penn Street and the chapel’s current parking lot – then probably an undeveloped property – closer to Pratt Street. The tent meetings apparently took place on a small square right next to the chapel. According to this article, 14 people were converted. This is the only information in a newspaper that mentions Brother Branham’s congregations at that time.

It has never been confirmed that the 1937 flood destroyed archives that may have contained other materials related to the event. On the contrary, all newspapers from this period and earlier are available in the local archives. It was already common practice at that time to archive copies of the same documents in different places in the country.

If the voice that was supposed to accompany the light is such a crucial element of this event, why does Brother Branham say nothing about the voice between 1947 and 1951, and why does the voice suddenly appear in 1952—when Gordon Lindsay’s book had already been published—with the words, “As John the Baptist …”?

Why are there such large differences between the number of baptized people (130 – 1,000) and the number of people standing on the shore (500 – 10,000)?

Why, despite countless attempts to find the article “Mystical Light Appears During Baptism Over a Local Baptist Preacher,” has it been possible to find only a brief entry about 14 converts at the mission? Local newspapers at the time covered even the most trivial events (such as Hope Brumbach’s social gatherings, including Halloween and birthday masquerade parties, with a list of invited guests and activities such as games, dancing, drinking, swimming, and beach trips). Brother Branham reiterated that word of this impressive event had spread throughout the country, with articles about it not only in local but also in well-known newspapers such as the Associated Press. It’s strange that an event of this caliber can’t be found anywhere when we have access to dozens of ads for Hope Branham’s private parties.

Sadly, it seems once again that a modest event (the baptism of a dozen people after local congregations with about 100 attendees) announced with a small article in the local newspaper escalates years later, in Brother Branham’s words, into a supernatural phenomenon that becomes known throughout the country. Such serious problems related to the baptism in the Ohio River in 1933 simply cannot be overlooked.

Visions from 1933

Among the most spectacular events in Brother Branham’s ministry are his seven prophetic visions, which are considered powerful, supernatural confirmations of his ministry. People can predict future events by making guesses based on their respective knowledge. However, since no man has direct insight into the future, prophecies that name specific people and events provide strong evidence of a man’s mission. A wonderful example of such predictions is the prophecies of Daniel, to whom an angel gave vision and a precise interpretation. It listed the sequence of events and the names of the kingdoms that would arise, fall, and wage war with each other.

In 1953, Brother Branham first mentioned a series of visions that he had and wrote down in 1933. The clearest and most up-to-date list can be found in the book “The Seven Church Ages”:

The Lord Jesus spoke to me and said that the coming of the Lord was drawing nigh, but that before He came, seven major events would transpire. I wrote them all down and that morning I gave forth the revelation of the Lord.

These prophecies sound unusual to our ears today, especially some of their parts, since most of their content refers to events that were widely circulated as breaking news even in 1933 (even if we agree that they were spoken at the time).

However, among these well-known facts, there are also elements that can only be guessed or known from the future:

These elements of the vision would not have been so obviously foreseeable in 1933, but there is a problem. The first mention of these visions was not until 1953, when the fate of Mussolini and Hitler as well as the war were already history. Of course, we had known for a long time that Brother Branham did not talk about this until the 1950s, but the problem was not that, but the inconsistency was already discussed and, unfortunately, Brother Branham’s credibility, which was badly damaged. We have given an example above of how the boy’s story in Finland changed over the years from “praying in the car on the way to the hospital” to “jumping up at the scene of an accident”. Even if we were to insist that just because he gave a supernatural touch to events elsewhere does not necessarily mean that the visions were supernatural. But here Brother Branham himself expresses doubts about his own reports. His first mention of the prophecy about Mussolini differs considerably from the officially accepted one:

I said, “If Mussolini ever goes towards Ethiopia, mark this down, there will never be peace till Jesus Christ comes.”

That doesn’t sound like a definitive prophecy. There is nothing in his “if” that someone has not already guessed. The same is true of the ongoing strife on earth, which has always been a harsh reality for humanity. There can be no talk of a tragic death at the hands of one’s own people. Here, too, we see the germ of what we see in so many other cases: the original version is much more modest, more definitive – rich in details that did not exist before.

We have presented the visions as they are found in the Seven Church Ages Book. On tape, however, they sound even different:

And so he presented the visions in the sermon “Condemnation by Representation”, and what is important, this time (as he says) he reads from the piece of paper on which the visions were written, so that we can be sure we are hearing their entire content and nothing is lost:

I’d like to read you a prophecy that was given. I got on…And may…By the way, Mr. Mercier and many of them are going to take some of these old prophecies, and dig them out, and revise them a little, or bring them up to date, and put them in papers. I’d like to read some things that I’d like for you to—to…This one, first. I’d like to read something to you.

“1932.” Listen to this. “As I was on my way, or as I was getting ready to go on my way to church this morning, it came to pass that I fell into a vision. Our services is being held on Meigs Avenue, at the old orphan’s home where Charlie Kern lives in part of the building.” He lives just across the street now, you know. “And it came to pass, that, while I was in this vision, I seen some dreadful things take place. I speak this in the Name of the Lord.

“The President which now is, President Franklin D. Roosevelt,” now remember, this is twenty-eight years ago, “will cause the whole world to go to war. And the new dictator of Italy, Mussolini, shall make his first invasion towards Ethiopia. And he will take Ethiopia, but that will be his last. He shall come to his end.

“We will be in war with Germany. Watch Russia. Now, that, see, Communism, Nazism, and Fascism. Watch Russia, but that is not the main one to watch.

“It shall also…has been an evil thing done in this country, they have permitted women to vote. This is a woman’s nation, and she will pollute this nation as Eve did Eden.” Now you see why I’m hammering the way I do? I got THUS SAITH THE LORD. “In her voting, she will elect the wrong person.

“The Americans will take a great beating at a place that Germany will build, which will be a great wall built of concrete,” the Maginot Line, eleven years before it was ever built, “but finally they will be victors.

“Then when these women help elect the wrong person, then I seen a great woman rise up in the United States, well-dressed and beautiful, but cruel in heart. She will either guide or lead this nation to ruination.” I got, in parenthesis, “(Perhaps, Catholic church).

“Also, science will progress, especially in the mechanical world. Automobiles will continue to get like egg-shape. Finally they will build one that won’t need a steering wheel.” They’ve got it now. “It will be controlled by some other power.

“Then I seen the United States as one smoldering, burnt-over place. It will be near the end.” Then I got, in parenthesis, “(I predict that this will take place…).” Now, remember, the Lord, that’s what the Lord showed. “(But I predict this will take place before 1977.) Upon this prediction, I base, because of the onrushing slaught that’s coming now, how fast that it was moving, how long it’ll take till this nation meets its place.”

In President Franklin D. Roosevelt, took America to England’s tea party. That’s right. Germany never picked on us; we picked on them. Throwed the whole world into a war, that caused the world war. The German’s built the Maginot Line. Which, there, any veteran here knows what she took there at the Maginot Line.

Women, given the right to vote, elected President-elect Kennedy, was the woman’s vote, the wrong man; which will finally lead to full control, of the Catholic church, in United States. Then the bomb comes that explodes her.

There are seven things predicted, and five of them has already happened. So you can judge, yourself, how far away we are. We’re near the end. If them five things happened, these other two things are bound to happen. It’s just got to happen.

The Church Age Book was to be a linguistically revised transcript of what Brother Branham preached and recorded on tape. But here, too, we see that important prophetic elements have been deliberately changed.

The tape contains the phenomenal information that a vision from 1933 “predicted Kennedy’s election.” Unfortunately, however, this information only appears after the announcement of the election results of 1960. He probably meant what he said next: that it was about women’s suffrage and that Kennedy won thanks to women’s suffrage. Brother Branham was very dissatisfied with the election result and did not predict who would win. It was only after the election that he blamed the election winner in various ways and began to claim that the vision had predicted him. And finally, there is the question of women’s suffrage, which he blamed for Nixon’s defeat. According to Gallup polls from the 1960 election, however, most women voted for Nixon and not Kennedy. And this, too, came out of Brother Branham’s mouth as “Thus saith the Lord”—after the election, of course.

On the tape, Roosevelt is the one who plunges the world into war; in the book it is “the young Austrian Hitler”. For years, Joel confused this; he did not understand the contradiction. A simple explanation was unthinkable at the time: the prophecy about Roosevelt was false, so it was changed to a prophecy about Hitler. It is not Roosevelt who receives the Message; we know very well that people are impressed by the fact that “William Branham predicted that Hitler would start a war”.

The first version of the prophecy about Mussolini is not even a prophecy and is very general: “If Mussolini goes there, there will be no more peace in the world.” The second version, read from a piece of paper, contains information that was not on paper in previous years. Details were added later. The biggest problem, however, is that the newer version of the prophecy predicts that the invasion of Ethiopia will be Mussolini’s last invasion and that he will then face his end. This prophecy can be verified in retrospect: Mussolini attacked Ethiopia, then invaded Albania and then Greece. All facts about the prophecy were given afterwards; even in 1933, Mussolini was already in power and the newspapers were full of his plans to invade Ethiopia.

The second vision speaks of someone who will drag the whole world into war. In the version on the tape read from the piece of paper, this man is President Roosevelt, who, as history teaches us, was an isolationist and refused to intervene in the world war that was already underway. One could argue that the war will only become global when the United States enters, but few would agree with that. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, which forced Roosevelt to enter the war, dozens of countries on every continent were involved in the war. On December 11, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on the United States – not the other way around. Apparently, this is precisely why the second prophecy in the book is updated and President Roosevelt, whom Brother Branham read from the paper, was replaced by Hitler—the universally recognized ringleader of World War II.

In the original vision of the egg car, there was no mention that it would drive on autopilot. This detail, as well as the description of people playing a board game together, came up in 1958 after Brother Branham saw a Disney cartoon with the exact same image (https://youtu.be/Vo4-rYNGEwE?start=219, time 3:39). The Louisville Courier Journal, a newspaper sold in Branham’s hometown of Jeffersonville, published an article on August 9, 1931, describing the “egg-shaped car of the future.” The car industry was a topic of local discussions. Reporters from Louisville beat William Branham to the punch with his predictions. Many cities across the country discussed the new “egg-shaped design”. For example, on April 25, 1931, the Ottawa Journal published an article titled “Egg-Shaped Body Announces Future.” The egg car also appeared at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago as a concept for the future of the automobile. Brother Branham was at the fair, as he himself reports^[2]. Please note that Brother Branham says that 5 of the 7 visions have already been fulfilled, which means that only the cruel woman and the destruction of the United States remain. In the Laodicean church age, Brother Branham said that the vision of the car had already been fulfilled and only such cars were waiting for better roads. In hindsight, we know very well that nothing of the sort is happening as far as egg-shaped cars are concerned, nor are there any preparations for these particular cars that Brother Branham spoke of fulfilling the vision of the future. These cars are now museum pieces and driving has taken a completely different direction. Brother Branham was guided by what he saw at the time, and his predictions did not exceed the imagination of the time.

In view of these problems and contradictions, it is no surprise that Billy Paul believes that he has also lost the prophecy sheet.

These three errors alone disqualify Brother Branham as a prophet. Miracles testify to a miracle worker, sermons to a preacher, but his prophecies to a prophet. Most of what he said about the seven visions was common knowledge, but he was mistaken about the things that were not. William Branham falsely claimed that Mussolini would not invade other countries after Ethiopia and that Roosevelt would drag the world into a war in which it was already embroiled. He was also mistaken in his analysis of the election result (which he presented as a prophecy from “Thus saith the Lord”) by blaming women for Nixon’s defeat, even though the vast majority of women had voted for Nixon.

The Cloud 1963

The photo of the clouds, taken on February 28, 1963, is considered one of the greatest and most impressive confirmations of Brother Branham’s work. This photo, along with the Houston photo, is one of the most frequently exhibited in parishes and homes of believers.

Depending on the direction of the Message, different meanings were attributed to it. Some believers believe that it is an investigative judgment, like the event in Genesis 18:21, when the Lord descended to investigate the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah (“investigative judgment” is a unique term coined by Ellen White in Adventist theology). Other believers believe it was the Lord’s return and the fulfillment of Revelation 10:1. This understanding is now prevalent in Message circles around the world.

In late 1962, Brother Branham predicted an event that would be accompanied by an explosion. According to him, this prophecy was fulfilled during a hunting trip in Arizona with brothers Fred Shotman and Gene Norman, when he was taken in by a constellation of angels and commissioned to deliver the revelation of the Seven Seals, which he did shortly after. The departing angels are said to have created a pyramid-shaped constellation, the image of which was published in Life magazine on May 17 of the same year.

Until 1992, supporters of the Message believed that the photo was taken directly after Brother Branham’s sealing order experience. Most people thought nothing of it; they simply believed Brother Branham’s words. In 1992, Rebecca and George Smith published an article in their magazine “Only Believe” called “Road To Sunset”. In this article, they set forth their findings, pointing out that the 1963 javelina hunting season lasted from March 1 to 10, and that Brother Branham, as an honest hunter, did not hunt outside of that season and therefore could not have been present on the last day of February. The entire chronology of the Smiths fits perfectly with his sermon on “The Absolut” on March 4 in Houston, Texas, and it was only after his return from Texas that he went hunting with the brothers. During his sermon in Houston, Brother Branham does not mention an assignment by an angel or the cloud. Gene Norman also says in his testimony that they did not go hunting until after Brother Branham returned from Houston, around March 7 or 8. Brother Branham himself says the following:

81 Brother Fred Sothmann, I know he’s here. And I’m pretty sure Brother Norman is here. We was up…I had to go to Houston about getting that little boy saved from the electric chair. And then I went back and I went hunting up there with the brethren.

Some of you, dear brothers, have argued that you can prove that Brother Branham wasn’t hunting on February 28 just as well as others could prove that he was out hunting on February 28 and was under the cloud. The latter, however, cannot be proved, as it contradicts Brother Branham’s own words in the above quote. On the map of Arizona, you can see that the city of Flagstaff, over which the cloud was photographed, and the place where Brother Branham hunted, called Rattlesnake Mesa or Sunset Mountain, 60 km northeast of Tucson, are 300 km apart as the crow flies.

(The red line on the map represents the 196 miles (302 km) between Flagstaff and Rattlesnake Mesa, where Brother Branham hunted.)

13 When I come, one thing, was by a vision, that I was standing above Tucson up here when a—a—a blast went off. Well, Brother Fred was there when it went off. And they took that picture now, you know, in the sky. And I didn’t think much about it, never noticed it. So it begin to impress me somehow, other day. And Brother Norman, Norma’s father here, told me, said, “Did you notice this?” 14 And just as I looked, right there was them Angels just as plain as They could be, setting right there in that picture. See? I looked to see when it was, and it was time, same, about day or two before, or day or two after I was up there. I looked where it was at. “Northeast of Flagstaff, or Prescott, which is below Flagstaff.” Well, that’s just where we was at, see, just exactly.

82 And, now, I didn’t know at the time, that they were taking pictures of that, scientists was, as the Angels lowered themselves from Heaven, to bring the Message. And you remember, I said the One on the right side of the constellation had, kind of, His chest back, and His wings. You remember me saying that, all of you? And how that I watched Him? He was very distinctive from the others. And I didn’t know they were taking a picture of It, ’cause immediately I hurried East. But going back home to Tucson, there It was all through the papers that had been seen almost nation-wide, or plumb into Mexico, and all the Western States, and I think the Courier over here. It was on the Associated Press. How many saw, “A Mysterious Cloud In The Sky?” You see the hands. And now the Life magazine picked it up. And I have the—the article here this morning, in the Life magazine here, to show. Now here It is, the same time I was there. See the pyramid of the Cloud? I was standing just below this. And there, see the distinctive Angel on the right-hand side? See the pointed wing of It? Just exactly what was said. And here it’s in the view of Mexico and different places from where they took the picture. Now, this scientist here is trying to—to get all the information about the picture, that he can, about the people who has the picture. He is studying it.

149 One day, standing there, picking the cockleburs off, or a little bullheaders off of my legs, like it was; there that seven Angels broke through from the sky and shook the place, till, rocks, weighing fifty or sixty pounds, rolled down the hillside. There stood seven Angels standing there, commissioned me go back and to bring these Messages, and said, “One by one” they would “meet and tell what happened.” And it did exactly that way. And when they ascended up on High, like that, went thirty miles high in the air; and, on the same day, they took the picture of It, science did, and went around the world. It’s a paradox, but it was an Absolute. It tied me tighter into Jesus Christ, winding my life into Him. I know it seemed strange, it’s always.

Based on the above quotes, immediately after his encounter with the cloud, Brother Branham was absolutely convinced that seven angels had formed it. He expressly states that he was under the cloud. One statement suggests that he was initially aware of a temporal deviation by saying, “a day or two earlier, or a day or two later,” but in later sermons he claims that the time and place were exactly right. He remained convinced of this until his death less than three years later and never corrected it.

However, on the basis of the facts presented, it is clear that neither the time nor the place of these events fit together at all. So how did Brother Branham come to associate hunting with the cloud? The answer is quite simple and can be found in Gene Norman’s testimony “Bread upon the Waters” (also from Only Believe). An excerpt from it is reproduced below:

It was sometime during the first week of May that I stopped by to see my brother-in-law, Willard, and on his table was a copy of the new Life magazine. I began to look through it and when I came to page 112, there were pictures that had been taken in Arizona of a cloud. The caption read “Ring Of Mystery.” It looked interesting, and when l asked, Willard said that I could keep the magazine, so I took it home.

Frequently, Brother and Sister Branham would stop by and pick up the wife and I for church on Sunday mornings, and I believe it was the very next Sunday that he got there a bit early. He came in and sat on the couch, and I picked up the magazine, opened it to the cloud photo and handed it to him. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” I asked him.

He looked at it, but he didn’t answer “Yes” or “No” to my question. After a moment, he said, “I guess you noticed that it is in the form of a pyramid.”

Actually, I hadn’t. I don’t know what it was that had attracted my attention to the photo, except that it looked unique and it happened in Arizona. It had to have been the Lord prompting me.

Brother Branham asked if he could have the magazine and I gladly gave it to him, but he never offered any further explanation at that time. Of course, he knew what it was, but it wasn’t the Lime for us to know yet.

In fact, Brother Branham himself confirms this in the above quote from his sermon “Come, Follow Me.” The simple truth is that he first saw the cloud when Gene Norman showed it to him in Life magazine. This unusual phenomenon caught his attention because it looked like a pyramid to him. He remembered that he had been on a hunting trip around that time and, without much concern for date or place, confused Flagstaff, Prescott, and Tucson. He realized that the photo depicted seven angels who were associated with the hunting experience. When the photo was later photocopied and flipped, the outlines of eyes and a nose, as well as a light, suddenly appeared where the face was looking, even though there was no face or light in the original photo. Soon after, he began to use this photo as an endorsement of his service. He ascribed incredible importance to it. He claimed, among other things, that it was Christ who wore the white wig of the supreme deity, the Supreme Judge, a confirmation that the Message is true (65-0418), and that it was Jesus who stood looking at us (65-0725E).

The photo became popular because it was printed in the book “The Revelation of the Seven Seals” with the footnote that it depicted the seven angels after their encounter with William Branham. Today, this photo is a symbol of the Message movement and (as mentioned above) is considered by many to be the Second Coming of the Lord.

And something else is full of contradictions and inconsistencies. Brother Branham’s words are impossible to reconcile with what is actually happening. Brother Branham’s theory that a cloud of seven angels formed after the encounter is completely unfounded and unrealistic. Some cite an unspecified private statement by Brother Branham, in which he allegedly said that these seven angels had been waiting for him for seven days. However, this is in direct contradiction to his own words, in which he says that “seven angels came down from heaven and shook the place.”

Dr. James McDonald of the University of Arizona’s Institute of Atmospheric Physics, the same man William Branham invoked to support his claim that the February 28 cloud was mysterious and supernatural, published a scientific report on May 31, 1963, in which he stated that the U.S. military was likely responsible for the cloud. Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California later confirmed that they had detonated a Thor launch vehicle for a military spy satellite on February 28 and that it had to be destroyed due to complications at an altitude of 43.87 km. A U.S. Air Force officer in charge of Air Force history confirmed that Dr. James McDonald was absolutely right. He said the cloud photographed on February 28, 1963, was the result of the ignition of a Thor missile by it (the US Air Force). The Air Force now has several photos taken after the detonation of other similar missiles that detonated due to complications and also led to the release of unburned rocket fuel and water particles that created similar photos and clouds at the same altitude.

Some try to justify the contradictions in Brother Branham’s accounts biblically by pointing out that the book of Jeremiah does not describe certain events chronologically, for example, by describing a later event first and the next chapter describing an earlier one. Although Jeremiah did not write these accounts himself, but his companion Baruch, who compiled and edited the entire prophecy, the fact that one chapter describes something earlier than the previous one is not a confusion of events; it is a normal process called retrospection or looking back at something earlier. If Brother Branham had been under the cloud on February 28 but had first described in his report what he did a week later and then returned to the events before, there would have been no problem. The problem is that he was NOT where he supposedly was on February 28 and even believing believers like George Smith admit this. All that remains are the weak, meagre explanations of Ezekiel 13, such as: “The prophet thinks differently.” No, a prophet is obligated to tell the truth, just like any other person. That is why God has given us His Scriptures and set up their standards for our defense against false prophets, so that we can uphold them. Any attempt to belittle them should alarm us.

A Time of Encounter with Pentecostal Doctrine + Roy Davis

Brother Branham often said that he first met the Pentecostals and their teachings in Mishawaka.

67 And I remember one day then I wanted to go on a little fishing trip up at Mishawaka, Indiana. That was my first time to ever come in contact with any Pentecostal people. And I went up to old Brother Ryan’s and went fishing. On my road back, they was having a…It was the—the P. A. of W., I believe it is, or P. A. of J. C. I think the organization’s died out and gone now, but—or reunited with some other organization.

4 About twenty-three years ago I was visiting in your—your neighboring city of Mishawaka for my first time to ever have any contact with Pentecostal people. And it was over at certain tabernacle, I was coming down from—from up at Dowagiac, Michigan.

29 Why, I remember the first Pentecostal meeting I ever went into, it was at Mishawaka, Indiana.

However, Brother Branham does not once mention in his testimonies that his church was originally called Pentecostal Tabernacle and not Branham Tabernacle. Roy E. Davis, his first pastor, whom he described as a missionary Baptist preacher, turned out to be a Pentecostal himself, according to his own testimony that appeared in Voice of Healing, the magazine of Brother Branham and Gordon Lindsay. He reports that Brother Branham received the baptism of the Holy Ghost in his home. Brother Branham could move people to tears with his story of how he rejected God’s plan because he listened to his mother-in-law, who was very upset that he wanted to have anything to do with this group of Pentecostals. The problem is that Hope’s mother also belonged to Davis’s Pentecostal church. Hope was also one of them and served there herself. The excerpt below shows a newspaper ad with upcoming meetings. Hope was supposed to “lead a housewarming meeting” on Saturday night .

The Angel’s Command and the Establishment of the State of Israel

Brother Branham repeatedly emphasizes in various sermons that the angel’s command was given in May 1946, the same year that the State of Israel was established. He also states that Smith Wigglesworth died on the same days. As is well known, Smith Wigglesworth died on March 12, 1947, and the State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948.

King George VI Windsor

Brother Branham claimed that King George VI was healed of multiple sclerosis after praying for him. In some of his sermons, he also mentions that King George was healed of stomach ulcers. The prayer for the king is said to have taken place during Brother Branham’s first trip to Europe in 1950.

43 And he was a friend to the king’s private secretary, and through there King George of England sent word to me. I have his statements and have his letters of his fields and every…To come pray for him of multiple sclerosis, and so I couldn’t go up that time. So I just wired back and told the king that I would pray for him here, that God would hear here just the same as he would over there. And so, then another telegram come through and wanted me to come on over immediately. Later when I went to England, over there, to see him, and the Lord healed him. He was—couldn’t even stand up over five minutes at a time, and he…I believe the second day he played eighteen holes of golf, and never was bothered with it no more until the very day he died. And I was in Africa when he died. They found a little tumor here on his lung. They started to cut it open and air got to it some way, I don’t know, and caused a blood clot to go to his brain and killed him instantly. So very fine man…

However, there are serious doubts as to whether Brother Branham ever prayed for this king. Here are the facts:

George Lamsa and the Ancient Symbol of God

Brother Branham spoke several times about George Lamsa, the translator of the Syriac Peschitta into English (the Lamsa Bible). He kept mentioning that Lamsa translated this Bible, but also how Lamsa showed him a mysterious ancient symbol of God:

108 A few days ago, talking to the great Doctor Lamsa, who translated the Bible from the Aramaic, unto English. And I seen that little sign, God’s sign on there, with three little dots in it. I said, “Doctor Lamsa, what is that?” He said, “It’s God, with three attributes.” 109 And I said, “You mean, God living in three offices, such as, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?” 110 He raised and looked at me, tears come in that Jew’s eyes, he said, “Do you believe that, Brother Branham?”

121 A few days ago, when Doctor Lamsa come to me, and never knowed nothing about that, and brought me a picture, which brother’s got it there with him now. Have you got that picture? Have you got the Bible with you, laying there, it’s in your book? All right. There was a picture of the old ancient Hebrew sign of God, just exactly that—that what existed in the days of Job, before the Bible was ever wrote. God in His three attributes, not three gods. One God in three attributes: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three offices that God worked into. Not three gods, three attributes! And there It was. When that great man, Doctor Lamsa, the translation of the Lamsa Bible, when he said that morning…

Joel was fascinated by it and wanted to know more and more about this symbol, as he had never heard of it before. One day he became interested in the translation of Lamsa and acquired a Syriac New Testament (the so-called “Peshitta”, a translation of the New Testament into an Aramaic dialect), which served as the source text for his English translation. There he finally came across exactly the symbol that had fascinated him for so long.

In fact, it has been used for centuries in the Assyrian Church of the East – an ancient branch of the Eastern Church (alongside the Orthodox Church in Greece and Russia and the Coptic Church in Egypt). One of their peculiarities is that they use Syriac, a late dialect of Aramaic, instead of Greek in their liturgy, and that they consider the above-mentioned Peshitta to be the original text of the New Testament, not the Greek manuscripts from which all our Bibles are translated. George Lamsa was a member of this church. Lamsa, born in Mar Bish in eastern Turkey, popularized his church’s claim in the West that the Peshitta was the true text of the Bible, which is why he translated it into English. But unfortunately, this is where the correspondence with Brother Branham’s story ends. We mention this point here because it is another example of how Brother Branham distorts and changes the meaning and content of information that he hears and does not fully understand. This symbol consists of two letters of the divine name – JH (Yah). In other words, it is a shortened version of YHWH, analogous to Hebrew, but in Syriac script. However, this emblem has nothing else to do with Jews or Hebrew. Neither was Lamsa, who was not a Jew but an Assyrian by birth. It is not an “ancient Hebrew symbol, older than the Bible”. It is no older than the Bible, as the alphabet in which it is written was created in the 1st century AD. It is an ancient Christian symbol used by Syrian Christians locally to mark sacred texts by church clerks. It came into being at the earliest in the 4th century AD within the framework of the universal church of the time, which unanimously accepted the decisions of the Council of Nicaea. Lamsa, like the Assyrian Church of the East, to which she belonged, believed in the Trinity. And the three dots on this symbol, in their view, represent the three divine persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Joel was amazed when he heard about it and could not understand why Brother Branham was twisting the facts so drastically. Unfortunately, in time he realized that Brother Branham had been doing the same thing more and more often, and finally realized that this was not the exception but the rule: Brother Branham, whether intentionally or not, consistently distorted the facts and proved to be an unreliable witness.

Supernatural reason for photos and lights

In the Message there are several photos related to Brother Branham’s work and presumably showing a supernatural light or being. These photos are often found on materials designed to draw attention to his ministry, such as book covers, bookmarks, tracts, and websites. Most of these photos are considered supernatural only because Brother Branham describes them as supernatural. However, there is no confirmation from third parties or independent witnesses that these are indeed photos of a supernatural event. A closer look at these photos also shows that they are by no means supernatural photos.

Photos from Lakeport

In 1958, two photos of Brother Branham were taken during a service in Lakeport, California. He claimed that one of the photos showed supernatural light and the face of Jesus Christ. The larger size of the plant in one of the photos was also attributed to the influence of supernatural light.

164 And here a few weeks ago, maybe the strangers here never seen it, they caught another one. I got it at home. It’s the profile of the Lord Jesus standing right behind where I was standing. And His hands are out, and tongues of Fire flying off from His hand, while I was speaking on the subject, “Say to this mountain, ‘Be moved,’ and don’t doubt in your heart, but believe.” And we’ve got it. It’s in Techni-…Kodachrome colors. And they got it at the home now. And they’re making…It’s been examined now by science, and so forth, and laboratories. It’ll be out pretty soon, another one, which makes about six of them now in different places, that’s been took. 165 This is the most outstanding of all of them. Never seen…There is His—His beard, His face, His profile, His arms hanging out. And I was standing right in like this, and where He’s got His arms, you can’t even see a place of me, like that; my head, then my feet down at the floor, just head and feet, that’s all there was left. See? And He—and He is standing with His arms out like this. And I got my hands out like this, preaching, saying, “Say to this mountain.” And about that time, something took place. And they snapped the picture of It like that. And there It was, behind, all in colors.

156 There’s no more guessing, science has took the pictures! Look at their colors, just look at the colors of fire in there. See? The rainbow. Look at this yellowish-emerald color. Now, on this camera, it was just a straight photographer’s camera. On this camera was color, colored pictures, Kodachrome color. Look at the emerald colors in there. If I could get it over a light somewhere where you could see it in the back. Can you see now? “Like unto a rainbow,” look at the streaks coming back and forth like the rainbow, every one a different color.

Brother Branham put so much emphasis on this photo that he placed it on a coffee table in his home, as seen in the photo below:

An objective and careful examination of this photo will reveal the following facts:

Below are photos of “supernatural apparitions” of South Africa’s Seven Thunder preacher Edgar Roscoe. He obviously uses the same naïve attempt to use long exposures or photos with overexposed artifacts.

Pillar of Fire on the Shoulder

A photo of Brother Branham was taken in Dallas, Texas, in 1964 and shows a reflection of light on his shoulder.

The reflection of light is seen as a pillar of fire. In fact, however, it is a reflection of sunlight entering the room through the open door, as can be seen in the upper left part of the photo. The contours of the cut fabric are visible in the reflection on the jacket collar. There is no indication that there is anything supernatural about this photo.

Pillar of Fire of Houston

The most famous photograph of Brother Branham was taken in January 1950 in Houston, Texas. It still hangs today in hundreds or thousands of churches. The generally accepted information about this photo is as follows:

Owen Jorgensen claims in his book that 30,000 people were present at this event.

On January 24, the Houston Press published a detailed report on the debate between Dr. Best and F. F. Bosworth. The article contained three photos of the debate, some of which clearly showed the same lectern behind which Brother Branham was photographed.

On Gordon Lindsay’s initiative, the photo was examined for double exposure to confirm that the light above Brother Branham’s head was indeed photographed and not caused by any other factor. George Lacy, who was not the director of the FBI but ran a private company that investigated controversial documents, confirmed that the light was originally part of the photo. His account in no way suggests that the light was supernatural in nature.

There is no eyewitness or neutral source to confirm that the light above Brother Branham’s head is supernatural. If the light were actually directly above him, his head, shoulders and pulpit would be brightly lit, which is not visible in the photo. The photo would look something like the one on the right:

We have come across the argument that it is supernatural light. But the point is that “the light fell on the lens,” as George J. Lacy put it. So it was normal visible light with the usual physical properties of light. “The camera can’t capture psychology,” we know that too. Yes, the light was real, and it is precisely these characteristics that lead to the conclusion that it did not hang over Brother Branham’s head but was in the background and was subject to a blurring effect.

No one involved in the matter could confirm that the Religious Hall of Art in Washington, D.C., where the photograph of Brother Branham with the Pillar of Fire hangs, even existed. Since the photo was copyrighted, it is still in the archives of Washington today, as can be seen in this video: https://youtu.be/oVydfR9kXL4. Gabriel himself, as a child, was convinced that this photo hung somewhere in the hallway of the White House, and that the President of the United States walked past it every day. Many simple believers probably think the same way, because that’s the simplest and most direct understanding of what Brother Branham says.

The Sam Houston Coliseum had a capacity of 9,217 seats. For non-sporting events, the seating capacity could be increased by about 1,000 by using the available space in the arena. Therefore, Owen Jorgensen’s theory regarding the number of witnesses to this event is completely unfounded.

Photo from Switzerland

During Brother Branham’s trip to Europe in 1955, a series of photographs were taken in which the angel of the Lord appears as a supernatural light, according to Brother Branham. Here is a quote from Brother Branham:

22 Now, that doesn’t mean anything to me. These people in the pit here, I never noticed; they didn’t get to see it; so I’ll kinda show it if you don’t mind, just a moment. There’s the one before. See, see? that’s the picture that was before anything was taken And here is the Angel of the Lord coming down. See, see? And here is the picture after it was already settled on me where I was standing. See? And here’s the picture just dwindling away there (See?), and just half of my face is showing where it’s going off like that. And if you’ll happen to notice, it’s going off on the right hand side, and I always call my sick everywhere to the right hand side. The Angel of the Lord always appears to me on the right hand side, every time, and there the…to—to prove that it’s true, there goes the Angel of the Lord off on the right hand side, just exactly. And here’s a picture afterwards, that there was nothing left in the building. And we got, we got around twenty something pictures between these two things, and…the camera stationary setting at the same place, and nothing at all showed any otherwise. So it just goes to show that our dear Lord Jesus still lives and reigns, doesn’t He? He’s wonderful, exceedingly, abundantly, and we love Him with all of our hearts.

The only indication that these are supernatural photos is (once again) the words of William Branham himself. If someone else came and showed you such a photo and claimed that it showed a supernatural being, each of us would immediately answer that it was merely the reflection of a camera flash in the window on the opposite wall of the room. The photo on the left mentioned by Brother Branham, taken a few seconds before the “supernatural” photo, provides us with excellent context. Today, anyone would recognize that this photo was taken without flash, with natural light coming in through the window, so that the silhouettes of everyone present are brightly lit from the right, while their sides facing us are dark and unlit. In the second photo, the situation changes: the photographer’s strong light illuminates the backs of the spectators and falls on the opposite windows, from which it is reflected. These photos practically do not even need commentary. Brethren, photography may have been a mysterious technical marvel at the time, especially to someone like Brother Branham, but today it is common knowledge, and you too are well aware when you look at these pictures that you are dealing with a flash.

We do not think it is like counting peas to bring up such things, for this is just another example of many that tell us much about Brother Branham’s personality and how he often exaggerated quite natural things. Please consider this and consider whether his judgment was really that reliable. This is not a case of a prophet seeing something in another dimension; it is an example of how a man once again proves something he either does not understand or does not want to understand with an unjustified explanation.

The Church Ages on the Wall

The Message assumes that on January 8, 1961, during the sermon on Revelation, chapter 4, part 3 (time 3:05:20), lights representing the seven church ages miraculously appeared on the back wall of the tabernacle. They followed the circles on the map drawn by Brother Branham. Some believers even believe that the entire map, including the candle shape, appeared and was visible for several minutes.

376 Now, look this way, you all. Now, that’s just like it is when it comes under Glory here, see. See? See? It comes…It’s the Light over here. You’re moving here, you see. Now, look, it’s just—it’s just a reflection, just a reflection, that is, see. It’s not the Light. Here’s the Light hanging right here, see, right here at this woman. I just happened to catch It and I thought It was over somebody.

Unfortunately, however, there is another problem that arises from Brother Branham’s claim that many things that were not supernatural at all had supernatural causes. When he saw the light, he drew the attention of the people to himself, and those who believed him, especially the women, immediately responded with a cry. Had Brother Branham not said this, no one would have guessed that the headlights of the car that drove across the parking lot and shone into the hall could be supernatural light.

The entire incident lasted less than ten seconds while the car drove out of the parking lot. Brother Branham, however, turned it into another miraculous confirmation of his ministry. Those present knew that it was the headlights of the car, but no one dared to rebuke Brother Branham, since he had authority and the atmosphere in the church favored such apparitions. Some of these people were deeply depressed because they knew the truth but bringing it to light would have been inappropriate and unbelieving. Thus, in time, the truth was swept under the rug, and only Brother Branham’s version remained. And this version has been handed down to us.

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In summary, Brother Branham’s credibility problems gradually increased. We noticed a recurring pattern: when he first described an event, it was much more modest and probably the most truthful, but over time, previously non-existent but crucial details accumulated that dramatically changed the picture. Ordinary prayers turned into events full of prophetic speeches and immediate miracles. It’s normal to occasionally twist things a bit when describing events that happened years ago. But the extent to which Brother Branham distorted the facts went beyond normal human error. Most of his accounts of miraculous events had the same characteristic of dramatic changes over time. This was also evident in his propensity to see supernatural elements in photos. He was not familiar with photography, and what we take for granted today, such as overexposure, double exposure, or flash, was something extraordinary to Brother Branham, and unfortunately this revealed his superstition and lack of perspective in his own judgment.

We are people of faith and believe in miracles and supernatural events. However, this belief is based on trustworthiness. If a person repeatedly has trouble adhering to the facts of everyday life, he or she is untrustworthy when it comes to supernatural things that require special faith. Here, too, it is not about isolated untruths, but about systematic untruths and the distortion of events.

George Smith himself, aware of these incredible discrepancies, tries to justify Brother Branham by saying that “he was just a storyteller and liked to tell stories,” or that “you can’t understand the way a prophet thinks.” Junior Jackson says in the video during the service that he did not have a dream about the pyramid, that Brother Branham only told him, but that “he could not do anything about it because it was his words”^[3].

Of course, the question arises as to why none of those present rebuked Brother Branham for his falsehoods. However, it is known among believers that one of the first pastors of Branham Tabernacle, Graham Snelling, went to Brother Branham and asked him to stop telling falsehoods. Also (as mentioned above) his own wife, Sister Meda, drew his attention to the events on the Ohio River in 1933. Ernest Fandler also rebuked Brother Branham for his exaggerations.^[4]

Those who knew about these things, and knew that theory and practice differed significantly, simply could not bear it and gave up the Message, mostly in the Pentecostal churches. Banks Wood, for example, and brother Orman Neville’s son did just that. Such persons disappeared without a trace, and over time, falsehoods were repeated so many times that they became truths when those who knew the reality died. Many years later, completely exaggerated and sensationalized accounts of these events reached us in Europe.

The Scriptures, in which we all believe, are not half fiction and half truth. Luke, the author of a large part of the New Testament, did not report in his books legends that were heavily riddled with falsehoods, but rather carefully researched facts that he received from many eyewitnesses to the events. They were not “artfully invented fables”. The resurrection of Jesus was an indisputable fact, witnessed by over 500 people, at least 250 of whom were still alive when Paul wrote the letter to the Corinthians.

Lk 1:1-4: Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.

Acts 1:3: To whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8: For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.

2 Peter 1:16: For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

On the other hand, we know that there are statements in the Holy Scriptures that have not yet been archaeologically confirmed. Nevertheless, we accept them in faith, just as we accept the whole of Scripture. However, there has never been a case in history in which archaeology has contradicted the statements of the Holy Scriptures. We do not base our faith on archaeology, but any archaeological research will always confirm that the content of the Holy Scriptures corresponds to history.

However, this is by no means true when researching the life of Brother Branham. Most of the events that are considered miraculous confirmations of his ministry do not stand up to closer scrutiny. The current defensiveness of the brothers who defend the Message is astonishing and completely different from that which William Branham seemed to occupy on the tapes. In his sermons, Brother Branham strongly promoted his ministry and cited numerous confirmations, scientific evidence, and medical reports, including the famous photographs we discussed earlier here. In fact, there is no shortage of testimonies from brothers around Brother Branham; we ourselves listened intently to the testimonies of Perry Green and Ed Byskal and even read the stories from the book Generation. However, it turns out that all these testimonies distract from the real problems. They are like praising the beautiful bricks of a house with a soaked foundation. Even if all the miraculous healings or events described by these brothers had actually taken place, even a thousand healings or kind gestures would not justify unfulfilled prophecies, errors, and false statements. This excuse can apply to an ordinary preacher who tries to know God’s will but does not always succeed. But not for a man who teaches that his office is that of the “divine interpreter of the Word”, that “all his prophecies have always been fulfilled” and that he is Elijah, the one who will restore all things. In fact, today’s apologies for Brother Branham’s errors, unfulfilled prophecies, and contradictions do not live up to the high standards of Brother Branham himself.

People who are confronted with the above facts often answer that it was not supernatural images or the cloud that led them to the Message, and that their faith is not based on these images. Nevertheless, these pictures can be found on the bookmarks of their Bibles, they use them in their sermons by showing them to people, they adorn the covers of their books and brochures, and some even hang on the walls of their church buildings. Above all, Brother Branham considered these images to be extremely important and used them as a confirmation of his ministry. Therefore, it is appropriate to examine and consider the above points in more detail.

Unfulfilled Prophecies and “Thus Saith the Lord”

The Bible commands us to prove all men without exception. Uncertainty and questioning are neither disrespectful nor an expression of disbelief. We believe that God has left us His perfect criterion, comparable to the Urim and Thummim—His written Word. The claims of various false prophets have been shattered against this foundation over the years. We believe that God has left certain warnings for a reason, and when we disregard them, we are following our own notions, not the Word.

Deuteronomy 13:1-3: “If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 18:20-22: But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

Jeremiah 28:9: As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as one whom the Lord has truly sent.”

Each representative of the fivefold ministry of the New Testament speaks under God’s inspiration. However, the mark of a prophet is that he speaks in the name of the Lord. That is, the Lord speaks through him. The Lord borrows His lips to speak to His people. Prophets are an integral part of the New Testament church. In the Old Testament, too, we find many prophets and their recorded prophecies. There we often find a statement that is preceded by the word “Thus saith the Lord”. Such a statement is usually formulated in the first person, since God Himself speaks, and usually concerns concrete situations and predictions of future events.

If someone speaks like this, he must bear full responsibility for his words. Examining the words of a person speaking in the name of the Lord is absolutely biblical and must be done. This is the only way we can know if the Lord really spoke through that person.

Brother Branham himself used this method to identify a false prophet and says that he used it to convince Jehovah’s Witnesses that their prophet Charles Taze Russell was a false prophet.

126 Then, when the man come to me, I said, “Now, sir, the Bible said, ‘If there be one among you who is spiritual, and a prophet, and what he says comes to pass, then hear him. If it doesn’t…’” And I took four outstanding prophecies of Jehovah Witness and showed him that none of them had come to pass; every one of them failed.

As believers, we have a sacred duty to examine the words of every person who claims to be a prophet or to speak in the name of the Lord, and to determine whether or not his words have been fulfilled. Brother Branham must also be subjected to this test. The criteria set out in God’s Word are very demanding. The question is not whether the prophecies have been fulfilled in most cases. The question is whether they have been fulfilled 100 percent of cases. If not, consequences must be drawn according to Deuteronomy 18 and Jeremiah 28.

77 But all these impressions, we mustn’t take them and say, “THUS SAITH THE LORD.” We mustn’t do that. We must have a direct voice, an answer from God, before we can say it’s God. Not an impression, not a sensation, no matter how much it’s pulsating. You might say, “I believe it could be this way.” 78 But when you speak, “THUS SAITH THE LORD,” it’s not you. Watch on the platform. Have you ever seen it fail? THUS SAITH THE LORD is perfect, never has failed. And as long as it is THUS SAITH THE LORD, it can’t fail.

We cannot accept the argument, “No one will ever have such a spiritual revelation to test a prophet.” A prophet is only considered a prophet when his words are fulfilled. The same is true of a man who prophesies with a single anointing, as of a prophet called from birth, like Samuel or Jeremiah. The Bible says, “The Lord did not let any of Samuel’s words fall to the ground.” And because his words were fully fulfilled, “all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was a faithful prophet of the Lord.” Whether it is a dream or the Word of the Lord, it must be judged. Judging does not affect God’s anointed one. Brother Branham must be tested in the same way as any other contemporary or historical prophet who claims to have a Word of the Lord. In the two thousand years of Christian history, there have been numerous such prophets. Entire religious movements grew out of the revelations of people like Joseph Smith, Ellen White and Charles Taze Russell. If we believe that Brother Branham does not need to be examined, then we should not examine the experiences and teachings of the above persons, but accept them uncritically, as well as those of anyone who walks in the street and says he is a prophet and has a Word from the Lord.

Gatherings in India or Africa with 300,000 attendants

In 1950, Brother Branham and his evangelism team visited South Africa. In 1952, he gave a very detailed prophecy about further visits to Africa and India.

58 Then just then, He taken me out in the Spirit. Listen, Brother Jackson, you never heard this, none of the rest have. And He set me down at Durban, South Africa, in that same booth, standing there before those tens of thousands, and thousands of people there. And I looked and I seen all that meeting gather together, and fade off to my right. Geographically, I was standing this way. And it faded to the left going this way, turning blue. And then right before me, stood blocked off streets like that, with people standing there, with their hands up praising God. Then He turned me to the east, and looked that way. And I seen people standing there with clouts, like on, like the Indians wear. And there were thousands of them, and they had their hands up in the air, just praising God and screaming and praising God. And I couldn’t even see the end of them. And just about that time, come a great Angel from heaven, and stood be—over the top of me here, with a big Light. And that Light like on the end of one of these oscillating lights on the front of a—of a big locomotive, and begin to throw. And the hillsides were sitting black and standing with people for a mile away nearly. 59 And I said, “Oh, are they all black people?” Then He turned my face here in front of me, to Durban again, and there was beautiful white men and women, standing with their hands up in the air, praising God. Then He turned me back again, and the great Light started going way back over the hills and showing. Then the Angel drew near. And I heard Him scream with a Voice, that shook me from the vision. Said, “There’ll be three hundred thousand of them in that meeting. THUS SAITH THE LORD mark it in your book.”

This prophecy was confirmed by “Thus saith the Lord,” and it follows from it the following:

That same evening, Brother Branham again invokes the same vision. This time he says he believes there will be 300,000 people in Bombay and that at least half of them will be converted.

8 I told you the vision this afternoon, and there will be a meeting that I will hold somewhere, and I believe it’s in India, near Bombay, that there’ll be three hundred thousand people, and I don’t know how many converts there will be in that meeting, probably run up to a hundred and fifty, two hundred thousand people, converted.

Over the next two years, Brother Branham mentions this vision again and again in different ways. Sometimes he talks about India, sometimes about Africa, sometimes he says he doesn’t know where it will take place. Sometimes 300,000 people are supposed to be present, sometimes 300,000 people are to be saved. He also says that this will be the largest gathering in world history since Pentecost. Finally, in 1954, a few months before his departure for India, he says again: “Thus saith the Lord” about India. He quotes the same words of the angel as in 1952:

140 Mark my Word, write It in your pages of your Bible, for It’s THUS SAITH THE LORD, “Remember, when we land in India, you’re going to hear of tens of thousands times thousands being saved.” The Holy Spirit has said It. I’ve wrote It here in my Bible. It’s wrote in tens of thousands of Bibles right here, like the resurrection of the little boy, by a vision that He said. “There is three hundred thousand of them in there.” And you see if that isn’t right! There is how the Gospel is going to be preached just overnight. She’ll just sweep like that, from place to place.

In September 1954, Brother Branham traveled to India. Shortly after the trip, he stated in a recent report that he was not allowed to hold outdoor gatherings during his stay in India.

110 Oh, such a disgrace that was in India! That’s the reason we couldn’t even have our meetings in the open air.

Today, in 2021, the largest stadium in the world is located in India and can accommodate 132,000 people. In 1954, this stadium did not yet exist. The largest fully covered stadium in the world is located in the Philippines and has a capacity of 55,000 people. Therefore, gatherings of 300,000 people, even if they did not take place outdoors, could not have taken place.

In the years that followed, however, Brother Branham repeatedly stated that there were a large number of people present at the meetings in India, estimating their number at 500,000.

In 1957 and 1958 he reported in more detail on the events in India. He describes the miraculous healing of a blind man and the joyful response of the crowd but also says that the congregations in India did not have the expected success because he did not obey the Holy Spirit and did not travel first to Africa and then to India. Apparently, the authorities did not want such large crowds, so he had to cut short his stay in India. He himself admits his mistake.

71 I had been very much constrained to—to go to India. And yet, as many of you might know, the Indian trip wasn’t the success that it should have been because I failed to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, and never recognized it after He give me a vision to go to Africa first, and then to India.

102 The mayor estimated that if I stayed the three days, or, the five days I was supposed to stay, that it to be five hundred thousand outside people in Bombay; they had heard, they had come. 103 And I thought, “Well, if these preachers don’t want to cooperate, let them alone then.” But I made a mistake, I should have turned and come back, till I got cooperation.

Brother Branham also says that he misunderstood God’s command, which was actually to travel first to Africa and then to India. As the previous quotes show, he himself says that disobedience to this commandment was the reason for the failure of the meetings in India. Nevertheless, he says he looked at the back of the Bible again and saw that it actually said he should travel first to India and then to Africa. He then claims that his interpretation of the vision had been corrected, meaning that the order on the page was wrong and he should have traveled to Africa first. Did he misunderstand the vision? Or did he record it incorrectly? Apparently so. He adds that the Lord knew he would fail, but the vision could not fail. At this point, however, it is clear that the vision failed, because by traveling to India first, he acted according to his interpretation of the vision and not according to what the vision said. The actual order of the journey (vision 1952, India 1954, Africa 1965) was the opposite of the correct interpretation of the vision.

34 Now, in that…Here some time ago, a vision came and told me about going to Africa. And I thought that it meant go to Africa first, then to India. And the Lord spoke to me and told me to go to Africa first, and then to India. Well I thought that compared with the vision. 35 And then I forgot about it and went to India first, and then He condemned me at Portugal, as you know the story. And said, “I thought I said to you, ‘Go to Africa first.’” And then I was condemned. And I thought all the time, and now it just comes up, the revelation begins to push me for Africa, and I read in the vision, and the vision really said, “Go to India first, and back to Africa.” It’s just exactly the way it’s going to happen. 36 Now, see, the Lord spoke to me, knowing that I would fail, but the vision can’t fail, it’s what God has already said, and it cannot fail. The vision, I’ve got it wrote in an flyleaf of my Bible. I will bring it down, maybe, and let you see it, how that it really reads that I will go to India first and then back to Africa, but He told me to go to Africa first and then to India, knowing that I would fail, but the vision can never fail. God has spoke it, it’s got to be that way.

In the years that followed, Brother Branham remained convinced that one day he would travel to Africa and hold meetings in Durban with 300,000 attendants. He himself said this a few days before his second trip to Africa in spring of 1965.

53 And I just want say this, the many who knows me, and my friends are in here tonight: I just got my telegram back this morning from Durban, South Africa, the vision where three hundred thousand people will be gathered pretty soon for a meeting which is coming up right away. Oh, I’m so thankful for that! Dr. Vayle, I don’t know whether you, yeah, I believe I did tell you in the lobby a while ago that we had gotten back now. I guess we will…The letter of details will coming soon.

260 I’m going to South Africa after this. For, oh, my, you know how it is down there where you can’t even talk to the people. And there’d be…We’re at least expecting three hundred thousand, one single meeting.

In a short recording from South Africa from May 1965, which is part of the sermon “Ashamed” of July 11, 1965, he says that he waited 15 years for this moment. When he got a temporary tourist visa, he almost suffered a heart attack. However, he still believed that he could preach to the people of Africa. Nevertheless, as we know, he was unable to preach at large official meetings during this journey and spent his time hunting. Many try to explain this by saying that the prophecy was fulfilled by the South Africans accepting the Message. However, this theory is not tenable, as the prophecy says that Brother Branham himself will preach at a congregation in Durban that will be attended by 300,000 people—a huge crowd.

“Thus saith the Lord” was fulfilled neither in the order of the journeys – for Brother Branham had reversed the order through a misinterpretation of the vision – nor in the number of attendants. In India, the authorities did not allow open-air events with hundreds of thousands of people, and in Africa, no events took place at all. Moreover, the 1952 vision “Thus saith the Lord” clearly predicted crowds of people in both Africa and India.

Municipal Bridge

Brother Branham repeatedly tells the story of how, as a child, while playing with his brother, he had a vision of the construction of a bridge over the Ohio River and 16 people died when part of the bridge collapsed. He also clearly states that he saw the number 22 in the vision, which means that it would be fulfilled in 22 years. On the tapes, he repeats several times that this vision was fulfilled exactly 22 years later and 16 men lost their lives. He also identifies the bridge, then called the Municipal Bridge, which connected Jeffersonville, Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky. Wikipedia explains that this bridge has been called the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge since 1949 and is also known to locals as the Second Street Bridge.

13 A little later on, about two weeks later I was playing marbles with my brother, and I felt something come to me. We lived up on a hill, and the river was below us: a wilderness around. And I saw a bridge come up out of the wilderness. And it started across the river. Sixteen men dropped off in—into the water and perished. And I seen a big sign, it said “twenty-two years.” I run in and told my mother. Oh, she said, “Son, you’re nervous. You went to sleep and you were dreaming.” I said, “No. No. I saw it.” So they wrote it down on a piece of paper. And twenty-two years from then, the great bridge crossed the river, and twen—sixteen men dropped off of it and—and drowned in the river. Every time, it’s perfect.

Without a doubt, the death of 16 people is a tremendous tragedy that does not happen every day. Reports of such events are often meticulously documented in the press and in all sorts of official documents. Despite the incredible and sustained efforts of many of the Message’s believers (including Rebecca and George Smith), no trace has been found to this day that indicates that such a tragic accident ever occurred on this bridge. A search in all possible document and newspaper archives revealed that the construction history of this bridge is by no means incomplete, but on the contrary thoroughly documented. Contrary to information disseminated by Joseph Branham’s Voice of God Recordings Inc., no archives were destroyed in the flood of 1937, and all materials remain publicly available to this day.

Construction of the Municipal Bridge began in June 1928, and it was opened to the public on October 31, 1929. Two deaths occurred during the construction of the bridge. The first man to die during construction was not even on the bridge, but on a barge under the bridge, where he was accidentally hit in the head and thrown into the water. His name was Richard Pilton, and he died on June 19, 1929, according to a Coast Guard report, the body was recovered within five minutes. This article was reprinted in the local newspaper, the Jeffersonville Evening News, with the comment that this was the first death during the construction of this bridge. In the second accident, a man slipped and fell from the bridge onto a barge with reinforced concrete 26 meters lower. He didn’t even fall into the water, but onto the barge. He broke his neck and other bones and died on impact. His name was Lloyd McEwen, and he died on September 10, 1929. An article in the same newspaper said that this was the second death during the construction of this bridge. After that, there were no further fatalities, and the bridge was opened less than two months later. Coast Guard reports from 1928 to 1939 (a period of over 10 years) were also thoroughly investigated, without mentioning the 16 deaths. All documents, photocopies of newspaper articles about bridge construction, and Coast Guard reports on the Ohio River can be found at searchingforvindication.com/bridge.html .

So, we are dealing with a serious problem, because Brother Branham’s vision of 16 people falling into the water and drowning has not been fulfilled. Nor does the date of the fulfillment of the vision claimed by Brother Branham fit. He gives different ages in different statements. However, if we assume that he had the vision at the age of six, around 1915, the addition of 22 years gives the year 1937. The bridge was completed and opened in 1929.

Not far from the Municipal Bridge, another bridge crosses the Ohio River, the Big Four Bridge. It was built in the 1890s. During the construction of this bridge, two serious tragedies occurred. On January 10, 1890, a caisson failure occurred, in which 16 people died. Less than four years later, on December 15, 1893, part of the bridge collapsed, and 51 people fell into the water, 12 of them died. This tragedy made it to the front pages of newspapers such as the New York Tribune and the Herald of Los Angeles. So, if many years later 16 people had actually died during the construction of the Municipal Bridge, such a tragedy would certainly have been reported in the newspapers.

In 2014, Voice of God Recordings published an interview with a man named Jack Vissing, the son of a longtime mayor of Jeffersonville who had previously known Brother Branham. He claimed that his grandmother had told him about the incident and that while pouring one of the pillars, the workers had not fallen into the water, but into the concrete and were still there today. We do not want to disparage Mr. Vissing’s sincerity, but his statement is based on incomplete information he received second- or third-hand and cannot be considered authoritative. He has no personal report. About a dozen corpses in the concrete of a bridge pier would seriously endanger the stability of the pier. To this day, numerous legends circulate about people who were buried alive in large concrete structures in many parts of the world. Several wives and children had filed a lawsuit because no one had saved their husbands/fathers from the concrete. Likewise, the claim that they were cheap Chinese workers and therefore no one cared about their deaths is completely unfounded. In addition, Mr. Vissing’s testimony contradicts Brother Branham’s vision that the workers drowned in the water. A thorough investigation into this matter, of which Mr. Vissing certainly knew nothing, revealed that, as described above, only two people died.

You might think, dear brethren, that this is not a “Thus saith the Lord” prophecy. But Brother Branham emphasizes dozens of times in the Message that the prophecy has come to pass exactly as it was shown to him. He describes it as an amazing event in his youth that honors his entire life and calling. Unfortunately, this statement is not true.

Sharks in Los Angeles

We all know one of Brother Branham’s most anointed prophecies: The sinful city of Los Angeles would sink to the bottom of the ocean. He expressed it repeatedly between 1964 and 1965. Here are some of his statements:

47 Look at the earthquakes over here in California. I predict, 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 them. They’ll go beneath the bottom of the sea. And it’s so much sin, you see, it’s the barrier.

229 That is solemn warning. We don’t know what time, and you don’t know what time, that this city one day is going to be laying out here in the bottom of this ocean. 230 “Oh, Capernaum,” said Jesus, “thou who exalted into heaven, will be brought down into hell. For, if the mighty works had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, it’d have been standing to this day.” And Sodom, Gomorrah lays in the bottom of the Dead Sea. And Capernaum is in the bottom of the sea. 231 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, to your fine churches and steeples, and so forth, the way you do. Remember, one day you’ll be laying in the bottom of the 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 out over that? When, that ocean out yonder, a mile deep, will slide in there, plumb back to the Salton Sea. It’ll be worse than the last day of Pompeii. Repent, Los Angeles.

145 Nations are breaking. The world is falling apart. Fifteen-hundred-mile chunk of it, three- or four-hundred-miles wide, will sink, hundred…or maybe forty miles down into that great fault out yonder, one of these days, and waves will shoot plumb out to the state of Kentucky. And when it does, it’ll shake the world so hard that everything on top of it will shake down.

191 I remember, just my last Message in California, where I thought I’d never go back again, when I predicted, “Los Angeles will go beneath the ocean. THUS SAITH THE LORD.” It will. She is done. She is washed. She is finished. What hour? I don’t know when, but it will be sunk. Right after that, the earthquakes begin to jolt and bow.

This prophecy is problematic in many ways. First, he says the waves will reach as far as the Salton Sea (200 kilometers from Los Angeles), and second, the waves will reach as far as Kentucky, whose westernmost point is 2,600 kilometers from Los Angeles. Secondly, he himself said that on July 11, 1965, he had seen a television program in which a scientist spoke on this subject. Third, one of Brother Branham’s prophetic warnings to Los Angeles was to compare the city to Capernaum, which he claimed was at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee. However, the ruins of Capernaum still stand on the shores of the lake. We both visited the site in person. Gabriel explicitly asked his guide about this during a guided tour of Capernaum and learned that the water level of the lake was several meters higher in New Testament times. Therefore, part of Capernaum cannot lie on the seabed.

The book “The Acts of a Prophet” records the following conversation between Brother Branham and Billy Paul.

[William Branham] 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 personal prediction: “ 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.”

It is absolutely obvious and logically indisputable that when Brother Branham spoke to Billy Paul about the floating sharks, he meant the fulfillment of his prophecy about the destruction of Los Angeles. But we know that this prophecy has not been fulfilled to this day. Los Angeles is still standing. Brother Billy Paul is 86 years old, and you can’t say he’s not an old man. [Note: Billy Paul Branham passed away on 19.10.2023.]

To defend Brother Branham’s credibility, supporters of the Message have theorized that this prophecy was fulfilled in ways other than the destruction of Los Angeles. Brother Tim Pruitt began claiming in 2017 that there was a flood in Los Angeles in the 1970s that brought water and sharks right up to where Brother Branham and Billy Paul stood. Brother Tim Humes personally took the time to investigate the matter thoroughly. He learned that after the catastrophic flooding in Los Angeles in 1938, which claimed 113 lives, local streams were diverted into concrete channels and numerous new flood control dams and debris basins were built. These flood protection dams protected Southern California from all subsequent flood hazards, such as the storms of 1969 and 2005. Both were larger than the flood of 1938 but did not cause any significant flooding. There has never been an earthquake or flood that has brought so much sea or cloud water to downtown Los Angeles that sharks have been carried away. The Mays Building, in front of which Brother Branham stood during the above-mentioned conversation with Billy Paul, was about 21 kilometers from the nearest coast and was 78 meters above sea level. How could a flood from the sea reach 21 kilometers inland without completely destroying Los Angeles? To get 21 kilometers inland and 78 meters above sea level, it would take a wave of apocalyptic proportions. There has never been such a wave in Los Angeles.

Some brothers try to refute Brother Branham’s prophecy to Billy Paul by claiming that it was not tape-recorded. Why, then, have generations of people grown up with the warning that Billy Paul won’t be old when California falls into the sea? We ourselves remember the fear that filled us when Billy Paul turned 70 in 2005. We were all sure that the fulfillment of the prophecy was imminent, as he was aging greatly. And now that the prophecy has obviously not been fulfilled, some people are making a “non-canonical” statement out of it.

1977

Brother Branham associates the seventh vision, which he received in 1933 about the destruction of the United States, with the prediction that this vision would be fulfilled by 1977 at the latest. He identifies this date as a personal note on a prophecy sheet. In some cases, he even speaks of great destruction or total annihilation of the entire world.

21 I predict that either a great destruction or a total annihilation of the entire earth, between now and ’77. 22 I predicted it, in 1933.

10 But I predicted, in 1933, that the world would meet total annihilation before ’77.

The Laodicean Age began around the turn of the Twentieth Century, perhaps 1906. How long will it last? As a servant of God who has had multitudes of visions, of which NONE has ever failed, let me predict (I did not say prophesy, but predict) that this age will end around 1977. If you will pardon a personal note here, I base this prediction on seven major continuous visions that came to me one Sunday morning in June, 1933. (...)

And though many may feel that this is an irresponsible statement in view of the fact that Jesus said that “no man knoweth the day nor the hour.” I still maintain this prediction after thirty years because, Jesus did NOT say no man could know the year, month or week in which His coming was to be completed. So I repeat, I sincerely believe and maintain as a private student of the Word, along with Divine inspiration that 1977 ought to terminate the world systems and usher in the millennium

Out of caution, Brother Branham did not use the word “prophesy” but “predict” on this date. Despite this caution, he was personally so convinced of this date that he invoked “divine inspiration” in his study of the Word. In most cases, we would consider such words to be an irrefutable teaching of God if this prediction had not come true.

Some older people still remember well the events in the Message circles in 1977 and even earlier, if you subtract the three and a half years of the Great Tribulation, based on Brother Branham’s claim that the Millennium would begin in 1977. The expectation among the believers at that time was unbelievable. A brother from Poland was wearing a suit. Another refused to build a house because of this. So significant was Brother Branham’s prediction, which was not even a prophecy. You yourselves also know people who turned away from the Message because their prophecy was not fulfilled.

Judge for yourself whether the blame for this disappointment lies with these people because they invoked a prophecy that was not “Thus saith the Lord,” but merely “inspired of God.” Or is not Brother Branham the culprit in this case, whose words raised false hopes in the people who were later bitterly disappointed? With this unfulfilled prophecy, Brother Branham joins the ranks of countless others who have mistakenly predicted a specific date or year for the Lord’s return or the end of the world. This matter is more than serious and must not be taken lightly.

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We have come across the claim that no biblical prophet could have passed the test of Deuteronomy 18. Therefore, we ask ourselves: Why is the condition in Deuteronomy 18 in the Bible, if no prophet fulfilled it? God’s Word cannot be invalidated in this way. The prophet Isaiah prophesied that the virgin would become pregnant and give birth to a son, but did not give a specific date, place, or person through whom this prophecy would be fulfilled. In addition, we know today in retrospect that it has been fulfilled perfectly. William Branham, on the other hand, gave concrete dates, places and people in most of his prophecies. For example, the meetings of 300,000 people in Africa announced in “Thus saith the Lord” never took place and will never take place again because Brother Branham is no longer with us. Therefore, we have no choice but to label many of his prophecies as unfulfilled and therefore false.

We note with regret that the statements of the defenders of the Message do not raise the confirmations of the Message to the high standard of biblical examination but lower the biblical bar and amount to an attempt to find errors in the Bible that correspond to those of the Message. If we were to lower the bar that far, many other men who call themselves prophets would easily exceed it. When Brother Branham spoke of his confirmations, he repeated that everything had to be perfect and every iota had to be right, but he didn’t explain that the biblical prophets were not so accurate either. It is unwise to try to change the standard now.

This does not mean that we refuse to examine the statements that have been exposed as errors in the Bible. For centuries, Christianity has fearlessly accepted the challenges of the skeptics, and instead of accusing the questioners of a lack of revelation, each individual case is examined in detail. This leads to the considerable spiritual literature of Christianity today. When problems arose with the confirmations of the Message, we decided, trusting in its truth, to examine it in the same way as the confirmations of the Bible. To this day, none of these objections to the Bible has remained unanswered.

It is also worth noting that Brother Branham’s sermons and the Scriptures are completely different texts. The Bible is a collection of different books written over thousands of years by different, often unknown people. They were completed thousands of years ago in a culture foreign to us and contained many of the nuances that were common knowledge at the time and are unknown to us today, non-Jews from a completely different civilization. These difficulties provide cause for sluggish minds to drill holes in the text, but for persistent researchers they are no obstacle to solving many mysteries. Many of these “gaps” are pointed out not by serious (unbelieving) scholars, but by uninformed atheists who merely repeat what they hear and about which scholars have no doubts (such as Zechariah’s prophecy in the Jeremiah Scroll).

Compared to the Bible, Brother Branham’s sermons are a very uniform collection of recorded statements by a man over several decades, where we don’t have to examine whether or not he said anything. Nevertheless, we find many serious contradictions that cannot be explained, just as every supposed problem has been explained in the Bible so far.

Plagiarism and incorrect interpretation of sources

One of the most serious issues related to the uniqueness and prophetic nature of William Branham’s ministry is the question of plagiarism and how he obtained information for his sermons.

Plagiarism is a legal term. Although the word has negative connotations, it is neither vulgar nor offensive. Plagiarism is the practice of using someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own without citing the source. Of course, it is not necessary to cite the source if the facts are publicly available or if the facts are reproduced in one’s own words or interpreted in one’s own way. However, attribution is required when a person quotes entire sentences or even statements of another person in a book, sermon or lecture, using exactly the same expressions, terms, terminology, dimensions or dates.

In Brother Branham’s preaching there are many doctrines that were clearly taken from the theological books available at the time. Not only did he conceal his source, but he presented it to his listeners as a revelation from God, so that they were firmly convinced that his words were directly inspired by God. One of the unfortunate consequences of Brother Branham’s practice is the belief held by the vast majority of believers in the Message that such wonderful ideas and teachings are expressed only in this Message. We don’t hear anyone say, “Praise be to God for Brother Spurgeon, Brother Graham, Larkin, Finney, or Darby, to whom God gave such wonderful thoughts that Brother Branham could also benefit and share this blessing with us.” Instead, we hear that it is only in this Message that such a depth of knowledge of the Word and of the love and worship of Christ can be found. Finally, in the course of our conversation, the discussion arose that while Brother Branham’s teachings were not unique and had been taught before by other respected Christian teachers, the prophet’s unique ministry was a “supernatural compilation,” that is, the extraction of revealed truths scattered among the many false teachings of these men. We will return to this topic, but first we would like to deal with specific cases.

We would like to give examples of very important teachings of Brother Branham that turned out not to have been revealed to him by God, but were taken verbatim from a Baptist author named Clarence Larkin (1850–1924) from his books “Dispensational Truth—God’s Plan and Purpose in the Ages” and “The Book of Revelation.”

Joel learned about Clarence Larkin about five years ago when he first heard about allegations of plagiarism in the “Message”. He later became interested in it and concluded that the entire sermon series on Daniel’s 70 weeks of 1961 was based on Larkin’s work, as was the “ An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages.” However, this did not necessarily mean plagiarism. Finally, Clarence Larkin and other theologians also relied on the work and research of earlier scholars and theologians. In addition, there was neither a system nor rigid rules for quotations as we know them today, especially in academic and scientific circles. It is even more unreasonable to expect that Brother Branham even knew such rules, let alone kept them. In addition, Brother Branham mentions Larkin in his sermon series on the 70 weeks of Daniel’s years. In one of only three direct mentions in all of his sermons, Brother Branham expresses his gratitude for the insights of Larkin and other scholars:

51 And so, no doubt that down through the age, there has been hundreds times hundreds of people, scholars, abled men, trying to explain what these seventy of weeks were. And I’ve read many of their commentaries on it. And I’m very grateful to Mr. Smith, of the Adventist church, for his views. I’m very grateful to Dr. Larkin, of his views. I’m grateful to all these great scholars, for their views on this. And in reading them, it enlightens me much, that I can find places that looks right. But to get the views that I—I thought that I would like to explain, I searched through the encyclopedia, of “time,” to find out what “time” meant. [from the book of Daniel, editor’s note].

Joel concluded that the use of the works of Larkin or Uriah Smith did not automatically constitute plagiarism, but had to admit that the origin of these teachings was not due to supernatural revelation, as he had previously believed, since it was said of Jesus “how he knows all these things, although he did not learn them”. Brother Branham may not have learned proper grammar in school, but he could read well enough to go to the library frequently and gain knowledge there, as he himself reported. It is clear from the above quotation that Brother Branham had to make considerable intellectual effort to obtain revelation from God. Brother Branham mentions Larkin and expresses his appreciation for much that he found useful or consistent with his vision of past and future events, but he does not acknowledge the extent to which he owes his knowledge to him and other scholars; it seems more like he’s congratulating them on their brave, but not entirely effective, efforts. Even if his intentions were good, the result is very bad, because most of the believers in the Message, reading his sermons, feel that Brother Branham is their direct source of instruction (bypassing God). This would be appropriate for a prophet, but considering how Brother Branham gained certain facts and knowledge, he is more like a Bible student. For while the biblical prophets did not learn their oracles, Brother Branham clearly learned the content of his oracles from books.

31 We have been now for months in the study of the Book of Revelations, The Revelation Of Jesus Christ. We have come through the church ages. The first three chapters of Revelations was the church ages. Then John was caught up in the 4th and 5th chapter, and was showed things that—that was to be hereafter. Now, on the 6th chapter, he drops down into the earth again, to see things taking place that will go from the 6th chapter, the 1st verse, until the 19th chapter and the 21st verse. In here comes in the Seals, the Plagues, the Woes, the locusts, the—the woman in the sun, and the casting out of the red dragon, the sealing away the hundred and forty-four thousand, and all these things.

32 This has been a week of tremendous study. Yesterday, all day, I hardly moved from the room, trying to study. And it’s something in the last time, a many of the old-timers here, that I taught, I just said, “In here belongs the seventy weeks of Daniel,” but I did not try to attack it, to explain it. But this time, by the grace of God, I have taken upon myself to try to ask grace before God, that I might bring it to the people. And in here I’m finding things that I do not know one thing about.

33 And, then, I—I’ve been reading Dr. Larkin’s book, Dr. Smith’s book, Dr. Scofield’s notes, different commentaries from men everywhere, and yet I cannot put theirs together to make it come out right. See? So, this week I’m planning on, been visiting the library in Kentucky, on some of the ancient astronomy of the calendars and times, and picking up from the libraries, and so forth, all the ancient books that I can, and to what little I can do, and having my trust solemnly in Jesus Christ to reveal it to me.

One might conclude, therefore, that both the Daniel 70-year-week series and the Church Age series were merely intended as a theological and historical survey study that Brother Branham had compiled and prepared for his church to give them the context for the true prophetic revelation that was to come: Revelation of the 7 Seals.

71 We must stop and explain why these seventy of weeks. Cause, if you don’t, you’ll miss those Seals, you’ll miss those Trumpets, you’ll miss those Vials, those Plagues, those three unclean spirits like frogs, those three Woes, the casting out of the red dragon, the woman in the sun. You’ll miss it all, if you don’t, ’cause it takes place right here in this seventieth week. That’s where it takes place.

Joel found serious errors and distortions in the study of the seven ages but was convinced at the time that these could be forgiven, since it was merely a study intended to give believers an overview of church history and not a direct revelation from God. However, Joel did not remember at the time the things that Brother Branham himself had said about this sermon series.

52 Now, the revelation in the Greek word means like, “taking the—the cloth off of a statue, the—the unveiling it.” See? And that’s The Unveiling Of Jesus Christ In The Seven Church Ages. And I’m writing a little commentary on it. I can’t write it, of course, but I just have to speak it under the inspiration, as I receive it, and then, course, they’ll magnetic tape it,

38 Now, then, when we got finished with the book of the revelation of the church, what God did to those seven churches, which were then in their infancy, or their shadow, in Asia Minor. Then the Holy Spirit revealed and opened to us all the mysteries in There, of how He has brought His Church through history. And if you don’t have The Seven Church Ages on tape, it would be good if you listened to them. And soon they’ll be in book form.

“With this key, so simple, yet so wonderful, I was able, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to read the Book of Revelation and the histories and find therein each age, each messenger, the duration of each age, and the part each played in the purpose of God from Pentecost to the consummation of those ages.”

And this is where the problem lies. It is clear from this statement that Brother Branham claims to have found the dates of the church age himself with the help of the Holy Spirit. Not surprisingly, one of the brothers, Joel, wondered how Brother Branham had found this data. He answered, “by revelation,” which agrees with Brother Branham’s statement. Nevertheless, almost all the data corresponds perfectly with Larkin’s book. Only the beginning date of the first “age” differs (A.D. 55 versus Larkin’s A.D. 70), and Brother Branham explains here that he considers Paul’s first missionary journey to be the beginning. He moved the beginning of the Laodicean era from 1900 to 1906 to better align it with the Azusa Street revival. Apart from these dates, all the start and end dates remain unchanged. It has always been strange when you read a book about the church ages that certain information or statements would come up without explanation. Brother Branham never explained how the “churches” in Revelation suddenly became “church ages.” From the beginning, Brother Branham used the term “church age” and not “churches” as the Bible says. It seems as if there is a gap in the book, a preconceived opinion that the reader is not entitled to in any way. The same applies to data. In explaining the context of each “age,” Brother Branham casually mentions the dates at the end, without explaining how he obtained them.

... that would confirm the church in idolatry which is spiritual fornication, from which she would never rise. Death was permeating her root to branch and they that partook of her, partook of bitterness and death. This age lasted from 170 to 312 A.D.

The Thyatirean Age lasted the longest of them all, about 900 years, from 606 to 1520.

It turns out that Larkin provided specific explanations both for these dates and for the thesis that the “church” mentioned in the first chapters of Revelation are indeed epochs or periods. Larkin shows a complete thought process and a desire to fully justify his position. Brother Branham merely drew ready-made conclusions and did not bother to substantiate them.

There are certain details that clearly prove that Brother Branham’s only source of knowledge on these subjects was the books of others (in this case, Larkin’s) and not a divine revelation or a mystery that had been hidden for centuries that Larkin was able to partially unravel without the intervention of the revealing angel of Revelation 10:7. Brother Branham made several obvious factual errors in copying, either because of his negligence or because of his ignorance of the concepts he was reading about.

In his book “Dispensational Truth,” Brother Larkin describes the shape of the New Jerusalem and explains why he believes it will be pyramid-shaped:

We are told that the length and breadth and the height of it are equal. This does not necessarily imply that it is a Cube, for there is another geometrical figure that equal dimensions, and that is a Pyramid.

371 Now, now, that doesn’t necessary mean, by being equal…It said, “And the walls and the foundation were equal,” that doesn’t necessary mean that it’s a cube or square. There is another geographical measure, that the dimensions are the same, that is, a pyramid.

Brother Branham copies the entire statement almost identically, but in doing so he comes across an unknown or difficult word (geometrical figure) and twists it (too geographical measure). Any thinking person who does not know Brother Branham and does not have a positive or negative opinion of him would agree that this is a typical mistake based on a misunderstanding of the copied text.

In this sermon, he says several times that he received these things through prayer and revelation. He says that he measured the city.

54 Now, way I always find my Messages is by prayer. I’ll be sitting in prayer and something reveals to me. And I wait on it a few minutes and see if it’s right, then I feel it closer. And then sometimes I keep waiting till it breaks into a vision. But when it begins to come, and I’m satisfied it comes from God, then I go to the Scripture. See, That is, ought to be the confirmation of every spiritual thing that’s done, because the Bible is the complete revelation of Jesus Christ; see, It is His Body. 55 And now, in that, maybe I find a place in the Scripture that doesn’t sound just right, and I’ll wonder. I go back again to prayer. It comes again. Then I—then I begin to—to examine my Scripture.

173 The inspiration strikes me for something, … But, in that, the Lord has still give me a way.

366 Here is a deep revelation from God. Here, I’ll just stop here. None of these other…I’ll bring the rest of this up, the Lord willing. 367 Notice now the earth is…Well, you turn over into the Book of Revelation, you can see how he measured it by the cubits and by the furlongs. Twenty-three hundred…So now we find out that the—the City is measured, “fifteen hundred miles” square. 368 You know how far that would reach? I measured it off, this week. It would reach from Maine to Florida, and from the eastern seaboard to six hundred miles apast, west of the Mississippi. In other words, half of the United States, just for the City.

It will take its abode on the New Earth, and we see in this why the present Earth will have to be renovated by fire, and why there will be “no more sea,” for the New City is 12,000 furlongs, or 1500 miles square, and would reach from Maine to Florida, and from the Atlantic Seaboard 600 miles to the west of the Mississippi River. In other words occupy more than one-half of the United States.

Brother Branham did exactly what preachers in The Message accuse members of certain denominations: They say they are taking over from The Message without admitting it. Brother Branham took over from Larkin without admitting it. He mentions him only three times in the entire Message, the first time less than a year after he preached The Church Ages. One time he says he is grateful to him and other scholars for their views, and the second time he says he can’t bring it together. He says the same about Cyrus Scofield. At various points he says he disagrees with the commentary in the Scofield Bible, even though the Scofield Bible itself is not “Scofield’s translation,” but simply the King James Bible with his commentary. So, the only special thing about it is this commentary. And although Brother Branham claims to disagree with him, he too has adopted much of his work.

And this is exactly where the problem with Brother Branham’s “plagiarism” lies. It’s not that every time he mentioned the teachings of others, he didn’t mention that he had read them somewhere. Rather, the proportion in which he used the works of other teachers is disproportionate to the public recognition they gave to his theology, eschatology, Christology, or other areas of Christian doctrine. In over a thousand sermons, including dozens on end-time interpretation, he mentions Larkin by name three times, saying that he is “grateful for his insights and that I was amazed to find passages that seemed right to me“ - this is inadequate. Elsewhere he quotes him and other teachers and states that he has read them but cannot quite put them together. This is insufficient, since his end-time doctrine is based on the works of these men. Impressive proof of this is the fact that the vast majority of people in the Message do not even know that someone like Larkin existed.

But there is another, even more glaring example, which can only be described as a serious error, even if one wanted to excuse it. It clearly shows where Brother Branham got his information from. In the Book of Revelation chapter 2, Clarence Larkin explains the dates and time frame of the Pergamon era:

This “Period” extends from the accession of Constantine A.D. 312 to A.D. 606, when Boniface III was crowned “Universal Bishop”.

Clarence Larkin The Book of Revelation Part II - III The Church at Pergamos, p. 28

263 This lasted unto the assassination of Constantine which come between 312 and—and…a.d. 312 and 606. Then Boniface III was made the universal bishop or pope over the whole universal church.

It is no surprise that this passage is not included in the book; it is only available on cassettes and can now also be read in Polish in the form of sermons from cassettes. In the next copied passage, Brother Branham twists a key word and completely changes the events described. The word “accession” is a special and rare word in English and means to join something or take a position, in this case the imperial throne. Brother Branham was apparently unfamiliar with this word and mistakenly replaced it with the more common word “assassination,” which refers to murder, the deliberate killing, often of a high-ranking person. Apart from the fact that “assassination” lasted from 312 to 606 – which is rather incidental here – it is known that Constantine was not murdered. Again, a comparison of these two texts would lead any unbiased person to conclude that it is a mistake based on a misunderstanding of the text being read.

There are plenty of examples. Bryan Smalls, a former preacher of the Message, was fascinated by Brother Branham’s “Seven Church Ages” interpretation and accepted his Message. He began to investigate these questions over the years and eventually conducted a thorough analysis, which he published in his book “Investigating William Branham”. We have both examined the contents of this book, and we are sorry to find that it is overwhelming to see the amount of material that Brother Branham claims was given to him by direct revelation, but which turns out to be the work of Larkin, Russell, Scofield, Smith, or others. It is not that he used these works; rather, he did use them, but he presented what he had read or learned as if he had heard it word for word from an angel and written it down. From the examples above, it is clear that these errors were not dictated by an angel; he simply did not understand the text he was copying.

The brothers seem to defend the uniqueness of Brother Branham’s talk by pointing out that Larkin did not suggest messengers for the periods and epochs he named. Admittedly, just because he didn’t take over everything from Larkin doesn’t mean he took over almost everything else. Moreover, we are not dealing here with divine, prophetic knowledge that cannot be obtained in any other way, but with conjectures based on available and well-known historical figures. Charles T. Russell has done this before; he adopted the interpretation that the churches in Revelation are epochs and, on the basis of historical studies, also proposed messengers: Paul, John, Arius, Petrus Waldo, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and, of course, as the “messenger of Laodicea” Charles Russell. Anyone can do that.

It is worth noting that Brother Branham relied heavily on Russell’s work, including in the development of the Revelation of the Seven Seals.^[5] In the Bible, prophets never had to search for their prophecies themselves. Through Isaiah, God simply spoke directly, “This is what the Lord says to His anointed one, to Cyrus.” Isaiah did not have to search for this name, nor could he have done so, because Cyrus, the king of Persia, was not even born at that time. However, Brother Branham does not even hide the fact that he used “God’s method” or “key” by which he himself “selected” and “determined” who was the messenger for which age. God said nothing to Brother Branham on the matter; Brother Branham had to rely on his own judgment. It is therefore no surprise that we have problems with his decisions. First, he misleads readers by claiming that Irenaeus of Lyons, Martin of Tours, and Columba of Iona were bitter opponents of the Roman Catholic Church, and that none of them were canonized by the Church because they were rejected. None of this information is true; all three were bishops consecrated by the Church, all three were respected during their lives and after their deaths. All three were canonized. None of them were officially canonized after their death, because no one was canonized until the 10th century, when the Catholic Church began to officially canonize people. Until then, local groups of believers had proclaimed the saints. And that happened to all three. Secondly, the messenger of the Thyatira Age: Saint Columba, Abbot of Hy, who was famous for his monastic foundations, died in 597, that is, before the beginning of “his age” (606-1520).

Let us return to Irenaeus of Lyons, whom Brother Branham recognized as the messenger of the “church age” of Smyrna.

With Irenaeus this was not so. He was militant against any form of organization. Also, his life history, wherein he served the Lord, was one of much manifestation in the Holy Spirit; and the Word was taught with unusual clarity and conformity to its original precepts. His churches in France were known to have the gifts of the Spirit among them, for the saints spoke in tongues, prophesied, raised the dead, and healed the sick by the prayer of faith. He saw the danger of any kind of organized brotherhood among the elders, pastors, etcetera. He stood solidly for a unified, Spirit-filled, gift-manifesting local church. And God honored him for the power of God manifested among the saints.

He was also clear on his understanding of the Godhead. And since he was the disciple of Polycarp, who in turn was the disciple of Saint John, we can know for sure he had as perfect teaching as is possible on this subject. In Volume 1, page 412 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, we have this statement by him on the Godhead. “All the other expressions, likewise, bring out the title of one, and the same being, the Lord of Power, the Lord, the Father of All, God Almighty, Most High, Creator, Maker, and such like, these are not the names and the titles of a succession of different beings, but of one and the same.” He pointed out clearly that these are but titles as is Rose of Sharon, Bright and Morning Star, Fairest of Ten Thousand, etcetera. Neither is there but ONE God. His Name is Lord Jesus Christ.

The first problem arises in the characterization of Irenaeus. Brother Branham portrays him as a fighter against organizations. By “He saw the danger of any kind of organized brotherhood among the elders” is probably to be understood as opposing the church in Rome and the bishop of Rome, and probably other patriarchs in Antioch and Alexandria. On the tape we find some more comments from Brother Branham about him:

8 The reason that I chose Irenaeus: because I believe that Irenaeus was more closer to the Scripture than Polycarp was. Because Polycarp leaned kind of towards the Roman idea of setting up an organization. And—and Irenaeus was firmly against it, he absolutely denounced it. And then, as we all know, the great issue was coming at the Nicene Council; one of the great issues was whether God was three or God was one. And Irenaeus took the side that God was God, now, just One.

So, we learn that Irenaeus was preferred to Polycarp of Smyrna (his mentor) precisely because of this fierce opposition to the bishop of Rome. Furthermore, Brother Branham claims that Irenaeus strongly rejected the doctrine of the Trinity and even took a contrary position at the Council of Nicaea.

All these statements contradict the story and the words of Irenaeus himself, who left a very rich textual legacy.

2. Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self- pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its pre-eminent authority [potiorem principitatem], that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.

3. The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy.

Catholics like this statement of Irenaeus very much, but Protestants do not shy away from it either and offer very reasonable interpretations that are worth reading (for example, this article: https://apologeticsandagape.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/irenaeus-and-the-church-at-rome-in-his-day/). Most importantly in our context, however, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon in the Roman province of Gaul, not only did not fight “the organization,” but is also one of the earliest proponents of the idea of apostolic succession. Irenaeus condemns “unauthorized assemblies,” that is, those outside the structure created by the bishops, which emerged from the “great and famous Church” in Rome, founded and organized by Peter and Paul (Brother Branham denied that Peter had ever been to Rome). Irenaeus also recommends that every church should take the Church of Rome as its model and then lists the succession of the bishops from Rome to Eleutherus in his time.

Brother Branham characterizes Irenaeus as a rebel against the organization, but Irenaeus was the exact opposite; he defended the church structure of the time. All of Irenaeus’ writings, including his Against Heresies, are addressed primarily to the Gnostics (of whom hardly anyone in the Message has heard anything thanks to our ignorance of Church history). Irenaeus never quarreled with other bishops, and he was on very good terms with the bishop of Rome, mediating during the Quartodeciman controversy (the date of the Christian Passover). We must also not forget that the Church in Rome was a persecuted underground group in its time and not the “hierarchical monster” we imagine. The bishop of Rome, like other Christians, had to go into hiding, and many died a martyr’s death. It is not difficult to imagine that the church in Rome at the turn of the second to the third century could actually have been a model for other churches.

We will not dwell on the erroneous claim that Irenaeus participated in the Council of Nicaea, which took place only 125 years after Irenaeus’ death. We merely add that Irenaeus never spoke out against the doctrine of the Trinity, either positively or negatively. He simply does not use the term because there has been no controversy on this topic in the Church so far. Instead, he teaches the pre-existence of the Son, which is one of the fundamental elements of this doctrine.

However, the exact quote from Irenaeus quoted by Brother Branham takes his words out of context.

One need only read a more detailed excerpt from Irenaeus’ statement to see that his words have nothing to do with the theme of the divine Persons in the Trinity, a subject that had not caused any major controversy in the Church for a hundred years. Here Irenaeus opposes the Gnostic teachings of a certain Basilides, who claimed that different designations of God in the Old Testament refer to different gods:

2. The remainder of those who are falsely termed Gnostics, and who maintain that the prophets uttered their prophecies under the inspiration of different gods, will be easily overthrown by this fact, that all the prophets proclaimed one God and Lord, and that the very Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things which are therein; while they moreover announced the advent of His Son, as I shall demonstrate from the Scriptures themselves, in the books which follow.

Irenaeus then goes on to discuss the different meanings of the Greek and Hebrew words for God and concludes:

In the same way, too, the word Ja th, when the last syllable is made long and aspirated, denotes “a predetermined measure;” but when it is written shortly by the Greek letter Omicron, namely Ja th, it signifies “one who puts evils to flight.” All the other expressions likewise bring out the title of one and the same Being; as, for example, The Lord of Powers, The Father of all, God Almighty, The Most High, The Creator, The Maker, and such like. These are not the names and titles of a succession of different beings, but of one and the same, by means of which the one God and Father is revealed, He who contains all things, and grants to all the boon of existence.

Irenaeus did not attack any Church teacher here (or his contemporary Tertullian, who was one of the first to write about the Trinity), but, as in other cases, a certain Gnostic heresy. This time, he explained why all Old Testament titles and names for God do not refer, as he put it, to “a series (or sequence) of different beings,” but to one and the same. Notice that under these titles (such as Creator, Most High, or Maker), he does not mention “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Brother Branham does this cleverly in his commentary on these words, trying to bring in a context that does not exist in the text.

Finally, many of us have asked ourselves the following question: Since each messenger had a Message from God for his time, it must have been relevant to the entire age, to the entire Church of the world at that time. This was undoubtedly true of Paul, Irenaeus, Wesley, and Luther, but what about Martin of Tours and Columba of Iona? Joel sometimes wondered about it. Brother Branham, when talking about God’s work and restoration at that time, usually only mentioned Luther, Wesley, and the “Pentecostals,” which is strange, because first, “Pentecostals” are not messengers, but a religious movement, and they seem a bit “squeezed in.” But basically, even from the teachings of the church ages, we never learn what they taught. We only learn that they “performed miracles, resisted Rome, and taught the truth.” It seems strange, however, that Brother Branham does not tell us more about them than we can learn from the available sources. In truth, this tells us less, because, as mentioned above, history denies that any of them questioned the structure of the Church itself. A final point is their local and theologically negligible (i.e., doctrine-related) influence on the church of their time. If Columba’s work spread beyond Scotland, it was the founding of monasteries, which bears little resemblance from our post-Catholic perspective. Columba undoubtedly did great missionary work and deserves credit for his efforts to convert the pagan peoples of the north. In his teaching, however, he did not differ significantly from his confreres and did not go down in history as a teacher, but rather as a bishop and worker in the expansion of the Church. Similarly, Martin of Tours is best known for the story of how he shared his cloak with a beggar who turned out to be Christ in disguise. Little more is known about Martin than about Columba, but Martin of Tours, a disciple of Bishop Hilary of Poitiers, who was called the “hammer of the Arians” because of his fight for Trinitarianism against the Arian doctrine of the divine nature of Jesus, became famous for his fight for “Nicene orthodoxy”, i.e. for the divinity of Jesus, but also for the doctrine of the Trinity. This is probably why Brother Branham does not speak much about them in his sermons, since it is difficult to attribute to them a spiritual influence on the entire church in his “time.” Even Wesley can hardly be described as groundbreaking in the context in which Brother Branham wanted to portray him – because his achievements were not different from Lutheranism, but from his ancestral Anglicanism. John Wesley was undoubtedly a more important figure in church history, but his view on consecration stemmed mainly from promoting the views of Jacobus Arminius (Arminianism) as a counterpoint to the prevailing Calvinist doctrine of predestination in the Church of England. As far as sanctification and other teachings were concerned, Wesley took his cue from Luther, and their theology was not so different. Both believed equally in ordination, except that Wesley believed that a Christian could achieve perfect perfection (just like in our Message, everyone believes in sanctification, but some emphasize that perfection can be achieved in this life, while others do not). Interestingly, Wesley was one of the first promoters of Women as Ministers. Convinced by Mary Bosanquet, he officially allowed women to preach in 1771.

Regarding the “Revelation of the Seven Seals,” Brother Branham relates how, when he was preparing for his sermon on the first seal, he had prepared material that the first horseman was Christ (the doctrine of Uriah Smith), but the Holy Spirit corrected him and had him preach that the first horseman was the Antichrist (the doctrine of Larkin). However, the facts show us that Brother Branham made serious mistakes in reading, understanding, and interpreting the sources he used. Not once, not twice, and there was no correction. William Branham acted alone, based on his own understanding, and was left alone with his mistakes.

During the sermons on the seals, he admitted that he wanted to hold it as Uriah Smith taught, but that he had received a revelation. He said that angels came to him every day and revealed a seal to him at a time. He didn’t say, “God revealed it well to Larkin, so he drew his conclusions,” although today Brother Branham is so justified. He claimed that when he already had notes according to the Adventist teacher’s teaching (that the rider on the white horse is Christ), he received a revelation and angels revealed the truth to him (that the rider had no arrows and was therefore a deceiver-the Antichrist). He did not mention that the same angelic revelation was available in books he knew well. On the contrary, he convinced his listeners of the uniqueness of his revelation:

29 Now I want to make this real clear: Every time, every time that these Seals has come to the place, everything that I ever believed on Them, and has read of other people, has been contrary to what come to me in the room.

Unfortunately, this is not true. It was a devastating blow to Joel, for while he believed that the lecture on the Seven Church Ages was based on other doctrines, he did believe Brother Branham’s stories about the uniqueness of the seals. After all, he claimed, that is why this last messenger had come—to reveal these truths. But when it turned out that everything, including the teaching on the seals, was available in every good library, when it was found that Brother Branham had also said of the lecture on the Seven Church Ages that he had determined the periods “himself, but with the help of the Holy Spirit,” when he saw the historical errors, copying errors, and general lack of integrity on Brother Branham’s side, the individual “small details” began to add up, and it turned out that a mountain had formed from these “small details”. Even the earlier explanation that Joel had adhered to, that “this messenger should bring nothing new, but only pick up loose ends”, did not help. This explanation was practical because it could justify Brother Branham’s “hoarding” among former Bible teachers. The fundamental problem with this explanation is that it comes from Brother Branham, the person who would be most comfortable with it. It is as if the defendant himself had written in the criminal code: “Does not apply to John Doe”. Nowhere in the Bible is it taught to “pick up loose ends.” Nowhere in the Bible did a prophet have to go around and find out what to prophesy about.

Dan 2:1-11: Now in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; and his spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him. 2 Then the king gave the command to call the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. 3 And the king said to them, “I have had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream.” 4 Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic, “O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation.” 5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “My decision is firm: if you do not make known the dream to me, and its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made an ash heap. 6 However, if you tell the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts, rewards, and great honor. Therefore tell me the dream and its interpretation.” 7 They answered again and said, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will give its interpretation.” 8 The king answered and said, “I know for certain that you would gain time, because you see that my decision is firm: 9 if you do not make known the dream to me, there is only one decree for you! For you have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the time has changed. Therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can give me its interpretation.” 10 The Chaldeans answered the king, and said, “There is not a man on earth who can tell the king’s matter; therefore no king, lord, or ruler has ever asked such things of any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean. 11 It is a difficult thing that the king requests, and there is no other who can tell it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.”

Dan 2:19: Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. So Daniel blessed the God of heaven.

Dan 2:23: “I thank You and praise You, O God of my fathers; You have given me wisdom and might, And have now made known to me what we asked of You, For You have made known to us the king’s demand.”

Daniel, like other prophets, did not need to seek other sources to reveal secrets about the future or the past. William Branham is subject to the same standards; he cannot be excused - he equated himself with Elijah and defined his status as a divine interpreter of the Word. He compared his work (calling himself the Son of Man) to the prophetic work of Jesus and to God, who spoke to Abraham in the flesh and revealed the mystery to him. He set the bar high and should be held accountable for his words. Brothers, unfortunately, in your desperate attempt to defend this fallible man, you are behaving as we did before you, like the Chaldeans and the astrologers who wanted to explain to Nebuchadnezzar that he was asking wrongly, that he was testing falsely, and that his demand was impossible. Daniel was not among them; he did not try to find out if anyone had heard the king speak in his dreams. Daniel prayed to God and received a precise, accurate interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. This is the standard of a biblical prophet. Daniel had NO other way to know the exact content of the king’s dream, as he had forgotten it himself. Likewise, there is no human explanation for how Isaiah could have learned the name of the Persian king who was supposed to be the anointed one of God.

Unfortunately, Brother Branham does not live up to this high standard; each of his teachings can be found elsewhere, and his explanations of “loose ends” are of no help. You don’t have to be a prophet to pick up the loose ends; a good church historian would suffice. His revelations about church history reach as far as the books he holds in his hands, just as his insights into the future are no more accurate than the newspapers he reads.

To sum up, we are faced with a twofold problem. The first is of a moral nature: William Branham gave (and still is) more or less consciously giving people the false impression that God had given him this unique knowledge. The second problem is of a categorical nature: On closer examination of the sources of his teachings, he is more suitable as a teacher, historian or theologian than as a prophet according to biblical standards.

Details of William Branham’s library (photo published in “Only Believe” magazine)

Scriptures taken out of context, unbiblical teachings, and disturbing statements

Revelation 10:7

This verse from Revelation is one of several Bible verses in which Brother Branham inserted himself and his ministry.

75 And we find out, at the last church age, over in Revelation 10, there is to be a trumpet sound, and there was seven voices uttered at…They was not permitted to write. But it was sealed on the backside of the Book, the seven seals was on the backside of the Book. After the Book is written, then It’s sealed back there with seven seals. Now, no one knows what they are. But It said, “In the days of the seventh angel sounding forth his Message,” that’s earthly angel, now. 76 Because this Angel came down from Heaven; and this was on earth; angel is “a messenger,” a messenger to the age.

Brother Branham’s interpretation of this verse is based on the following assumptions:

Brother Branham overlooked several basic things in his interpretation of this verse:

Brethren, it is impossible to defend Brother Branham’s interpretation with arguments such as the fact that none of the other angels are mentioned “when he blows...” or to point out that chapter 10 is an insertion between chapters 9 and 11, and therefore a different angel is mentioned than in chapter 11. God’s Word here is clear and lucid, and no one has the right to change its meaning in this way. Revelation 10:7 refers to the angel of Revelation 11:15.

Luke 17:30

In the last years of his life, Brother Branham placed great emphasis on the distinction between the “coming” of the Son of man and the “revelation” of the Son of man, claiming that the Son of man was revealed through the ministry of Malachi 4 and through the angel in Revelation 10:7.

221 Now, after nineteen hundred years, with the church ages past, and all the things that He prophesied of Luther, Wesley, we just went through and seen it drawed out, and the moon come down and drawed it out, and the Lord drawed it on the board here for us, and showed it, and come down Himself and confirmed it to be right. After nineteen hundred years, and we’re at the end of the Laodicea Church Age, He promised, in Luke 17:30, that this same Son of man (He promised it) would be revealed in the days like it was in Sodom, upon the earth. Did He do it? Does it have to come to pass? It’s impossible…Now, remember, He come in three names: the Son of man, a prophet; the Son of God, the Spirit; the Son of David, for the Millennium. But in between, this conjunction, now according to His own Words, in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed, reveal Himself as (what? not Son of God) Son of man. Will reveal Hisself in a different way. Now, what does that make? Malachi 4, exactly right. See, the Son of man will reveal Himself, not in a whole big denominations and things, as we’ve had through the ages, but He would manifest Himself as Son of man again, to make manifest Malachi 4.

73 Jesus said, “When the Son of man is revealed from Heaven.” Let me close by saying this: that the Son of man is now being revealed from Heaven. 74 “Will it come after while, Brother Branham?” 75 It is now. And I hope I won’t have to make this so personal of this own meeting, but that your spirit within you that’s give you by God can read what I’m talking about. The Son of man has already come from Glory and is revealing Himself for the past few years to His Church in mercy, showing them His great Presence, doing the same things that He did when He was here on earth, revealing Himself like He did to Abraham before the destruction [of Sodom].

Brother Branham’s interpretation of this verse, however, was completely taken out of context of God’s Word. Let’s look at Luke 17 in context:

Luke 17:22-33:
22 Then He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
23 And they will say to you, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’ Do not go after them or follow them.
24 For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day.
25 But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
26 And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man:
27 They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.
30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
31 “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back.
32 Remember Lot’s wife.
33 Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

First, Jesus warns his disciples not to believe anyone who tells them that Christ is here or there. He then describes the “day of the Son of man,” the day of His return, and compares it to lightning that is sudden, swift, and visible to all. He emphasizes that he must first suffer and be rejected. He also compares his day to two events of the past - the Flood and the destruction of Sodom. Both events were sudden punishments for the ungodly, but the righteous (Noah and Lot) were saved. Then Jesus says, “Just as in the days of Noah and Lot,” it will also be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. In other words, on the day of His revelation, the wicked will be destroyed and the righteous will be saved.

The term “Son of Man” is used by Jesus to refer to Himself in visible form. It should be noted that the same term is also used in the Gospel of Matthew, where the same event, the arrival of the Son of Man, is described as follows:

Matthew 24:23-31:
23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it.
24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
25 See, I have told you beforehand.
26 “Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it.
27 For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
28 For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.
29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
30 Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Brethren, no one who reads the Bible and really wants to understand what it says and takes its teachings to heart cannot, under any circumstances, accept Brother Branham’s interpretation of Luke 17:30. It is a scandalous distortion of the Word of God, the sole purpose of which was to draw people’s attention to the uniqueness of His own ministry.

Given Brother Branham’s teachings on revelation and the Lord’s return, it is no wonder that there is confusion within the Message movement on this subject. We have witnessed sermons and conversations in which various preachers expressed bizarre views about the Lord’s return. These ranged from more cautious statements such as “He came in the form of His Word” to categorical statements such as “ If you expect Jesus to return physically, you won’t be expecting him when he does return.” (Jacek Walach, July 2019)

In this context, it is important to mention Brother Branham’s important teaching that Jesus never considered or referred to Himself as the Son of God, but as the Son of Man. This is significant to his teaching that “Son of Man” is a term that designates only one prophet. So, Jesus fulfilled this prophetic function only on earth. It was only after His death and resurrection, during the “Church Ages,” that He was the Son of God as the Holy Spirit, and when He returns to His kingdom, He will come as the Son of David.

183 Jesus said, in Saint Luke the 17th chapter, the 30th verse. Jesus Christ, the Word Himself! Do you believe that? Jesus Christ, the Word Himself, made flesh, spoke and said what the Word would be in the end time, what will be the sign of the end of the world. He told them nation would rise against nation, but He said, “As it was in the days of Sodom, so shall it be in the day when the Son of man is being revealed.”

184 Now, when Jesus came to the earth, He came in the name of three Sons: Son of man, which is a prophet; Son of God; and Son of David.

185 Now, He lived here on earth. He never did say He was the Son of God, He said, “I’m the Son of man.” Jehovah, Himself, called Ezekiel and the prophets, “son of man,” because, He had to come to fulfill Scripture as a prophet. Moses said, “The Lord your God shall raise up a Prophet liken unto me.” That’s the reason He could not be the Son of God there, because He was the Son of man. He…“The Word came to the prophets,” and He was the Word in Its fulness, Son of man, the—the major Prophet, not the major Prophet, but the God-Prophet, “The fulness of the Godhead bodily was in Him,” therefore, He was the Son of man.

187 And in the Millennium, He’ll be Son of David, upon the Throne. We all know that, who believe the Scriptures.

188 Now, Jesus said, just at the end of this church age that we’re living in, that “The Son of man would be revealed again in the same manner it was, as it was at Sodom.”

In this way, Brother Branham applies to himself the prophecy that Christians and even the Lord Jesus have always applied to the Lord Jesus. He does this on the basis that the prophecies about the Son of Man do not speak of the Lord’s return, but of a prophet, since Son of Man means prophet.

However, this claim also contradicts the Word of God. The Lord Jesus clearly referred to Himself as the Son of God. The same was true of his disciples and others.

John 9:35-38: 35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when He had found him, He said to him, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” 36 He answered and said, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” 37 And Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” 38 Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” And he worshiped Him.

John 10:36: do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

John 11:4: When Jesus heard that, He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Matthew 27:43: He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

Mark 15:39: So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”

Another untrue statement is that “Son of Man” means prophet. Brother Branham misleads his listeners by presenting a true and a false statement side by side in the same sentence: “Jehovah called Ezekiel and the prophets ‘Son of man.’” In fact, God called him “Son of Man” in the book of Ezekiel, but this happened only with Ezekiel and once with Daniel. No other prophet in the Bible was called so. In addition, the word “Son of Man” appears frequently in the Old Testament and simply means “man.”

Numbers 23:19: “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Job 35:8: Your wickedness affects a man such as you, And your righteousness a son of man.

Psalm 144:3: Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that You are mindful of him?

When the text speaks of “sons of men” (bnei adam) or “son of man” (ben adam), there is no indication or connotation that this refers to prophets. God simply addressed Ezekiel and Daniel as men who happened to be prophets.

But this sentence has another, prophetic meaning, and it is not without reason that Jesus called himself the Son of Man. He not only defined his humanity but also invoked the prophecies about him.

Matthew 24:30: Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Matthew 26:64: Jesus said to him, “It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

This is not just a “prophet.” The Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven is a vision that Daniel had:

Dan 7:13-14: 13 “I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. 14 Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed.

The Pharisees and Sadducees who interrogated him knew exactly what he was talking about. They tore their robes and cried, “He has blasphemed God.” In Jesus’ words, the Son of Man appears in a position of power, sitting on a throne. If William Branham’s personal interpretation were correct, there could be no question of a “prophet” (Son of Man) coming on the clouds of heaven or sitting at the right hand of God. By calling Himself the Son of Man, Jesus did not mean that He would come “simply as a prophet.” Brother Branham ignored these scriptures in order to apply the words of Luke 17:30 to himself. In doing so, he usurped the place in the Holy Scriptures that only Jesus deserved. His statement that “Jesus never called himself the Son of God” is just as biblical as the statement that “God always called his prophets eagles in the Bible.”

Elijah from Malachi 4

In the case of Elijah in Malachi 4:5-6, two basic questions can be distinguished:

In today’s Christian circles, some people interpret this passage similarly, often inserting their own Elijah. A current example is the banner on repentslovakia.com, which presents the prophet David Owuor as the Elijah of Malachi 4. His meetings in the Czech Republic a few years ago were also attended by people from our circles. Other examples from the 20th century include Alexander Dowie, Frank Sandford, and Herbert W. Armstrong.

In addition to Malachi 4:5-6, New Testament scriptures about Elijah are also frequently cited, namely Matthew 17:11 and Luke 1:17.

Matthew 17:10-13:
10 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
11 Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things.
12 But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.”
13 Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist.^[6]

Jesus’ statement “Elijah will come first and restore all things” is considered a premonition of another Elijah, someone other than John the Baptist. But let’s look at this verse in context. First, the disciples ask Jesus if what the scribes say is correct. Jesus answers, “They rightly teach you that Elijah will come and restore all things.” And then he adds something that the scribes no longer teach: Elijah, for whom they are waiting, has already come, and they have overlooked the fulfillment of this scripture and killed him, just as they will kill the Son of Man.

The word “restore” in Matthew 17:11 is exactly the same word ἀποκαθίστημι (apokathistimi) that the Septuagint uses to translate the word “return” in Malachi 4:6. Therefore, it is obvious that the scribes mentioned in Matthew 17:10, as well as Jesus, were referring to Malachi 4:5-6. “Restoring everything” means the same as “turning the hearts of fathers to children, and children to fathers”. Then the disciples understood that Malachi’s prophecy referred to John the Baptist. Some Bible translations even put Matthew 17:11 in quotation marks, so that the reader can see that Jesus is quoting the words of the scribes, who in turn quoted the words of Malachi.

Matthew 11:9-14: 9 But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. 10 For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You.’ 11 “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come.

Here Jesus identifies John the Baptist of Malachi 3:1 and places him above the prophets of the Old Testament because he had the most important task of all - to prepare the way for the Messiah. He adds that the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament, the foundation of the Jewish faith, existed until John, and identifies John with Elijah of Malachi 4:5, the end of “the law and the prophets,” the only named person of Elijah in all the prophets. He does not mention that John fulfilled this passage only partially.

Luke 1:17: He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

These words of the angel to Zacharias are considered proof that John fulfilled only half of this verse. It is worth noting, however, that the angel here does not quote Malachi 4:5-6 verbatim, but refers to it freely. Instead of “fathers to sons” he says “fathers to children” and instead of “sons to fathers” he says “disobedient to the understanding of the righteous”, since it is usually children who disobey and parents who are wise. It is therefore an angelic paraphrase of the entire verse, not just a part of it. The Septuagint also deviates somewhat from the Hebrew original, translating it as follows: “He will turn the heart of the Father to the Son, and the heart of each one to his neighbor.”

It is important to note that the interpretation of Malachi 4:5-6 accepted in the Message comes from this very man who claims to fulfill part of this prophecy. Even if his interpretation were correct, how could he be fulfilling it if, unlike John the Baptist, he did not bring the Messiah to the stage? John appeared just before Jesus, and after Jesus’ appearance, his strength diminished as Jesus grew. Brother Branham, on the other hand, has been dead for over half a century, and the Lord’s return is yet to come. To justify this discrepancy, the believers in the Message claim at best that Brother Branham’s Message preceded Christ, not himself; at worst, Christ’s coming had taken place during his lifetime, and we were now only waiting for his departure.

When the question arises as to whether Brother Branham was really the Elijah for the Gentiles, the answer is not, “Do you even believe that there should be an Elijah for the Gentiles?” but “If not Brother Branham, then who?” William Branham’s qualification as Elijah and the heathens’ need for an Elijah are two different issues that should be dealt with independently.

Mind, soul and body

The teaching of mind, soul, and body is vital to the Message. Initially, Brother Branham, in agreement with the entire Christian world, held the view that the Spirit was the deepest element of the human being. Over time, however, he began to teach that the soul was the most important and profound element and that the mind was the seat of a person’s emotions and psyche. This teaching is significant because it is actually one of the few unique and original teachings of Brother Branham.

Joel first encountered this understanding of the soul when he read the New Testament in the original Greek. He was not looking for anything, he was just reading 1 Corinthians and came across Paul’s words: ψυχικὸς δε ̀ ἄνθρωπος οὐ δέχεται τα ̀ τοῦ Πνεύματος τοῦ Θεοῦ (psichikos de anthropos u dechete ta tu Pnewmatos tu Theu), “a man of soul who does not understand the Spirit of God.” Joel could not understand why such a word (psichikos) was used here, since the soul (psiche) is noble and close to God. Joel also mentioned the order of mention in 1. Thessalonians 5 (spirit, soul, and body) but took into account that the author of Hebrews (who did not sign as Paul, so we cannot arrogantly claim that he is the author, although it is possible) lists soul and spirit in a different order. We can therefore agree that we should not try to determine the hierarchy of these elements based on the order of mention, as it varies.

But the question remains as to what constitutes spirit and soul and what role the Holy Scriptures ascribe to them. It should be noted that great caution should be exercised when discussing these questions in the Old Testament, since these terms are used differently and less precisely in Hebrew than in New Testament Greek. For example, soul simply refers to the life of every living being (both animal and human):

Genesis 9:4-5: 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.

Genesis 9:9-10: 9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.

The Bible identifies blood with the soul, the Bible calls blood the soul and warns against consuming the animal soul, i.e. its blood.

Numbers 6:6 All the days that he separates himself to the Lord he shall not go near a dead body.

This word literally means “to the dead soul” (nefesh met) in the Hebrew text. This example also perfectly explains why the Bible calls animals and humans “living souls.” In our modern language, a living soul is a living being. And when it dies, it becomes a dead being (dead soul – nefesh met). Hence all the confusion in various Christian teachings, as some hold on to certain Old Testament statements, while others favor others. The confusing-sounding phrase “the soul that sins will die” simply means, “He who sins will suffer death.”

But the soul is not only “flesh and blood”. In one context it says: “We are souls”, in another: “We have souls”. Deuteronomy 6 commands us to love the Lord with “all our souls.” In this context, soul simply means life – the breath that is in a person, the breath of life (this is the meaning of the word Nefesh). That is why it is written:

Genesis 2:7: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Genesis 14:21: Now the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons (literally: souls – ha nefesh), and take the goods for yourself.”

Genesis 37:21: But Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands, and said, “Let us not kill him.” (literally: לא נכנו נפש lo nakachnu nefesh – let us not take away his soul).

Judges 18:25: And the children of Dan said to him, “Do not let your voice be heard among us, lest angry men fall upon you, and you lose your life (soul – nephesh), with the lives of your household!”

1 Chronicles 28:9: “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind (nephesh hafza – willing soul); for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.

Psalm 19:8: The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;

Psalm 11:5: The Lord tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.

Numbers 21:5: And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.”

Psalm 10:3: For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire; He blesses the greedy and renounces the Lord.

Revelation 8:9: And a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

So, we see that the soul means life, but it is also closely connected to the body. The Old Testament also connects the soul (Hebrew: nephesh, Greek: psyche) with the human psyche. Yes, that’s where this word comes from, our emotions, and our character traits, some of which are mentioned above in Scripture.

However, we have Paul’s explanation of these concepts in the Old Testament in the context that interests us, that is, the relationship between soul and spirit, or their mutual hierarchy.

With a deeper awareness of the Old Testament context of the word Nefesh, we now turn to Paul’s description and the word “psichikos” (sensual/physical/the nature of the soul/“spiritual”) used by him and other apostles:

The adjective psichikos means “of, belonging to, connected in some way to the ‘soul’, psuchē” and as such can have many different nuances of meaning depending on the context. Psichikos can be a property of the earthly body and is then “physical”, “natural”, but this is not emphasized in this context. In this context, it refers to a person who is guided by sensual desires. So it means “natural, not spiritual, physical, temporal, controlled by the soul”. “It refers to a behavior typical of human nature” (Louw-Nida Greek English Lexicon ). That is, “governed by ψυ, [psuchē], i.e., the sensual nature, which is subordinate to desires and passions.”

The word psichikos cannot be separated from psiche, just as sarkikos (physical) cannot be separated from sarks (body) or pneumatikos (spiritual) cannot be separated from pneuma (mind).

The attempt to abstract from the adjective psychicos, which in the words of the apostles has a clearly negative connotation, is the only defense of the psyche-soul as the larger and more important immaterial part of the human being. This attempt fails, however, because both the language and the authors of the New Testament oppose such attempts:

1 Corinthians 15:43-46:
43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.

Notice the clear order that the apostle Paul draws here. His entire statement is based on a comparison of the transient with the imperishable and perfect. The “soul body” (soma psichikon) and the “spiritual body” (soma pneumatikon) are opposed to each other, but in the same way the soul (psiche) appears opposite the spirit (pneuma).

Jude 1:19: These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.

Again, it is impossible to separate the word “soul” from the soul, for here Jude immediately adds that people who correspond only to the soul do not have the spirit.

James, like Jude, uses the same terminology as Paul, confirming that this is a normal expression of the Greek language.

1 Corinthians 2:14: But the natural man (psichikos) does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

James 3:15: This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual (psychic), demonic.

The accusation that the order of “mind, soul and body” is derived from Platonism is not tenable if one compares it with Plato’s conception of the soul. In his “State” (Book IV), Plato states that man is governed by three forces: desire, spirit and reason, and all three form the soul. Thus, while Christians teach that the immaterial human being consists of spirit and soul, Plato taught that the immaterial human being is a soul, but it consists of three parts: a desiring soul, a spiritual soul, and a rational soul.

The Platonic teachings have nothing to do with the Christian teachings of the primacy of the spirit and the role of the soul as mediator between mind and body. William Branham began to spread false doctrines on the subject, and his teachings remained uncorrected for two reasons: a) he did not know the original language, which would have prevented this error, or he respected, since he did not master the language itself, the knowledge of those who mastered it; b) he surrounded himself with people who knew the Bible no better than he did and who also had no access to the original text (this also applies to “Dr.” Lee Vayle, whom Brother Branham politely called “Doctor” but who did not have a doctorate). The early Christians were uneducated and simple, but we forget that the Bible was written in a language they knew (Koine Greek). False doctrines and interpretations have always existed, but as soon as Christian teachings penetrated beyond the borders of the Eastern Roman Empire, where everyone spoke Greek, additional misinterpretations arose based on ignorance of the original text. Therefore, from the beginnings of Christianity through the early centuries to the Reformation, Christian teachers have always cultivated a knowledge of the language of these “uneducated and simple” in order to ensure unhindered access to the original content of the Holy Scriptures. One could argue that this is unnecessary, since the Holy Spirit leads into all truth and it is possible to know nothing. (Well, that’s exactly what the Catholic Church declared during the Reformation when it spoke out against Bible translations from the original languages.) The Holy Spirit can and does this. But there must always be someone to ensure this conformity, and a simple servant of God who does not know the language himself will not be afraid to check whether his sermon is in accordance with the original text. That is why Christians always have “on duty” people who know the original text. Thus, in addition to ordinary preachers and evangelists, there were also teachers with deeper knowledge, even in the original languages. In our country, this knowledge is not only not cultivated, but in the age of “revelation” it is considered completely unnecessary and even harmful. We are like students who threw their examiners out of the window because they didn’t like their exam results. William Branham realized that the churches did not accept his unbiblical teachings. Instead of proving his point to the critics - yes, it is not true that “no one opposed him in his lifetime,” as Branham himself claims - William Booth-Clibborn said to him, “You don’t know the Bible at all.” Branham answered evasively: “I may not know the Bible, but I know the author.” He then tried to discredit Christian preachers, teachers, and theologians by condemning their training and the entire discipline of Scripture and theology. At the same time, he himself went to the library, read theological treatises and acquired knowledge, which he then passed on as a “revelation” that did not have to be acquired.

You don’t need to know the original languages or have a theological education to preach God’s Word and be God’s servant. The problem is that no one ever thought that way, and it was Brother Branham’s attack that gave us that impression. On the contrary, many great preachers with theological training, such as Charles Spurgeon, emphasized that theological knowledge is not everything, and emphasized faith and humility. The problem with Brother Branham was not that he was preaching without theological training. The problem was that he believed he was above criticism (even if he glossed over it and tried to sound humble). When devout, biblically trained preachers corrected him, he attacked them and their entire profession instead of accepting criticism. And so, we stand today in the Message, where almost NO ONE knows the original text of the Bible because it is unnecessary. As a result, there is even more confusion and false doctrine in our small movement than in the much larger Christian world. Because we have decided that we do not need “theology,” and by coming across this word without fully understanding its meaning, we have created our own new theology, a theology that does not have to rely on centuries-old Christian heritage and divine wisdom that the church has gathered over the years through the Holy Spirit. Brother Branham used it freely; We are advised not to do so. Brother Branham has read books on Church history; his view of the entire topic is enough for us, which is summarized in a book – full of errors, simplifications and oversights.

105 “Education has been the mark of antichrist all through the ages.” Education is the worst enemy the Gospel ever had.

According to Brother Branham, most of the great Christian teachers in history, including Martin Luther and John Wesley or even Clarence Larkin, wore the mark of the Antichrist.

Daniel 1:17: As for these four young men, God gave them knowledge and skill in all literature and wisdom; and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

Enoch and Noah

Brother Branham has said in many sermons that Enoch and Noah are a picture of the bride and the remnant of the Jews who will survive the tribulation.

334 O God, may someday…the Church, which is a type of Enoch. Five hundred years he walked before God. Walking! Walking in the Light, with a testimony that “Everything God said, he did it.” He didn’t displease Him. What the Lord said do, Enoch done it. Now, he was a type, remember. The ark is a type of the Jews, the hundred and forty-four thousand that’s carried over, which is Noah and his bunch; but Enoch went Home just a little bit before the flood. You know that. So Enoch just kept walking in the Light. So one day he felt his feet getting off the ground, he just kept walking, and he walked on into Glory without even dying. That’s right. God took him away because he was walking in the Light, with a testimony that “he walked in the Light of God.” Kept walking, walking.

61 But remember, before…Don’t forget this! Before one drop of rain fell, before there was one thing in the sky, before Noah ever—ever had the ark completed, Enoch was taken Home. Enoch was raptured without death, just started walking one day, and—and gravitation lost its hold on him. And he found one foot a little higher, and the other foot a little higher, and another foot a little higher, and first thing you know, he said, “Farewell, world.” Just walked on up into Glory. 62 And when Noah looked around and couldn’t find Enoch anywhere, he looked around and he didn’t know where Enoch went, then he said, “It’s time to get to building the ark now.” See? And he went to work on the ark to carry over the remnant.

126 In the days of Enoch, just before the flood, when Enoch looked out there and saw Noah building away on that ark. Enoch was a prophet. Enoch knew that he was a type. And he knew, that before the floods came, that he had to give an example, so one afternoon it was becoming to him to take a walk.

145 Now, God sent His Word by His prophet, Noah, and when Noah and Enoch begin to prophesy. And then just before the flood struck, what happened? Enoch went up; Noah went through. See? Enoch was translated. Noah’s sign, was, watching Enoch. When Enoch come up missing, then Noah knew the flood was at hand, ’cause he was keeping his eye on Enoch.

These repeated statements are not a one-time mistake or slip of the tongue. Brother Branham confused Enoch with Methuselah because Enoch better suited the image of the raptured bride. But in all these sermons, right up to the end, the error was repeated: Enoch saw Noah, and Noah saw Enoch. The problem is that Enoch disappeared 60 years before Noah was born. However, the Flood came immediately after Methuselah’s death (Methuselah – “his death will send [the Flood]”).

214 What was a prophet? A Divine interpreter of the Word, had the Divine interpretation. The signs of Him foretelling and foreknowing, that was to vindicate to the people that he was a Prophet.

Preachers in denominations are accused of not preaching all biblical truth. Even if someone preaches the full doctrine, we conclude that there is no complete revelation because the full revelation is found on these tapes. These tapes contain glaring errors. The doctrine of Noah’s observation of Enoch is not a divine interpretation, but just another erroneous human interpretation.

Jews, Gentiles, Samaritans

93 Now, we know there’s three races of people, that’s Ham, Shem, and Japheth’s people, which turn to be Jew, Gentile and Samaritan.

159 Now, notice, there’s only three generations of people, that’s Ham, Shem, and Japheth’s people, if we believe the Bible, the world was destroyed in the antediluvian flood. And that was Ham, Shem, and Japheth. Now, that was Jew, Gentile, and Samaritan: half Jew and Gentile.

43 So while Jesus setting there alone, nobody around, there was a lady came out of the city, and she went to draw some water. She was a Samaritan. And a Samaritan is a half Jew and Gentile, kind of a crossbreed. They was very much at one another throats at that day.

Brother Branham repeatedly taught in his sermons that all mankind was descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth (which is true), but associated them with Jews, Gentiles, and Samaritans (which is false). Worse, he kept adding that the Samaritans were a mixture of the first two (Gentiles and Jews), which could be at least partially true, but not if it was claimed that these three groups of people were descended from three brothers.

As we know, the Semites, including the Jews, but also the Assyrians, Arabs and Babylonians – including the Gentiles – are descended from Shem. Thus, the “peoples” (goyim – pagans) descended from Shem, and among them the elect – the Jews. The Egyptians, Canaanites and Cushites, on the other hand, descend from Ham. Japhet’s descendants are the tribes to the north and east. These are different ethnic groups.

Samaritans, as we know, were the people whom the Assyrian King Sennacherib relocated from the east of his empire to the north of Israel, while he led the Israelites to the east. The Samaritans may have mixed with the rest of the local population.

But they cannot both be descendants of one of Noah’s sons (Japheth) if they are a “mixture” of Jews (Shem) and Gentiles (Ham). If they are descendants of a man, then they are a homogeneous ethnic group, like other peoples, with a past. Japhet’s descendants are not a mixture of Shem and Ham; they are descendants of Japheth. Three brothers – three different lines. If we have the lines A and B, and C is a mixture of A and B, then we still only have two lines: A and B, because C only carries the genes of A and B. Therefore, the Samaritans (as one of the three basic races) are either descendants of Japhet – and therefore not a mixture – or they are a mixture of the lines of Shem and Ham – and therefore not descended from Japheth. Whichever option we choose, Brother Branham teaches a mistake.

Abraham and Elohim

112 The reason I don’t believe that was theophanies, because that I’ll tell you why: The Man eat veal chops, He eat a calf that Abraham slayed, He drank the milk, and eat some corn bread with butter on it. He wasn’t no Spirit, He was a Man. And Abraham called Him Lord, capital L, Elohim. Amen. He was God.

193 Watch this Fellow, stayed behind, what sign He give the Church, “His Own.” The One that stayed behind was not an Angel, It was God. The Bible said It was God, Abraham called Him Elohim, the Self-existing One, capital L-o-r-d. He ought to knowed, he was the one talking to Him. God…

195 I said, “It was God. Because, now, listen. Abraham called Him, capital L-o-r-d. And any scholar knows that that’s capital L-o-r-d is Elohim, which is God.”

94 But the One that stayed and talked to Abraham, that Abraham called, “Elohim, the Almighty.” Genesis 1, “God! In the beginning, God,” Elohim, the—the All Sufficient One, the Self-existing One. Abraham called Him, “Elohim.” And He set down and eat with Abraham; He drank; He was in human flesh. And watch the sign that He give Abraham.

Brother Branham repeats a total of about 70 times from the beginning to the end of his ministry that Abraham called the angel/one of the heavenly creatures that came to him Elohim. This is not a single, insignificant statement, but an important element of his teaching. But this is a mistake; nowhere does Abraham address God as “Elohim”, especially not in the verses discussed. As you probably also know, the capitalized LORD replaces the name of God YHWH, never Elohim. I leave aside the fact that Elohim does not mean “self-existent,” but, as some of you probably know, the plural form of the word Eloah—God. The word Eloah itself comes from El and means strong, powerful. The word “exist” can be expressed by the Hebrew words hayah or kayam. El, Eloah or Elohim have nothing to do with it. William Branham, as a simple and uneducated man, had the right to make such a mistake, but not if his teachings were not his own, but came directly from God.

God did not intend to give Israel the law, they asked for it themselves

147 Little did those Egyptian slaves know, when they stood on the bank after seeing a great revival that that prophet came down and brought to them, and they’d seen the mighty hand of God, and they’d been protected and come out there, and dancing in the Spirit after they crossed through the Red Sea and seeing their enemies drowned behind them, all their habits, and things, like we’d call today, drowned behind them, the things that torment them, and Miriam dancing in the Spirit, and Moses singing in the Spirit, and so forth, little did they know that when they was only about ten days from the promised land, knowing that they were forty years away from it. Why? Because they refused to follow God, they wanted a law instead of grace, and they got it, so they could make their own way and have their own so-and-so, man has always tried to do something by himself, and God let every one of them perish in the wilderness, and raised up a new generation and took them to the promised land.

37 Now, we find out that, all these things, they had a Passover lamb provided, God had provided them manna out of Heaven for their journey, He had provided them a Rock to drink from when they were thirsty, a brass serpent to heal them when they were sick, and yet, with all that, they had to have a law. They wanted a—a theological experience, so that they could have something to fuss, and organize, and break themselves up.

49 When Israel wanted a king, good ol’ Samuel the prophet, called them up, and he said, “Listen, I want to tell you something.” In other words, like this: “You don’t want to be like the Philistines, you don’t be like the other nations of the world, they have their kings, but you got one King, that’s Jehovah.” Any true prophet would tell you that, not steer you into something else, put you back on Jehovah; let Him lead you, let Him guide you. Well, they wanted to be like the other nations anyhow, and ol’ Samuel stood up, he said, “God is your King.”

Brother Branham often condemned the Pentecostals for the history of their movement and compared them to the disobedient Israelites. He accused them of having had good beginnings like the Israelites, but of wanting to contribute their own ideas and teachings. As we know, baptism was one of the central themes at that time. Brother Branham could not decide whether it was a trivial matter that should not be argued about, or whether baptism was so important that everyone had to be baptized in the only right way. Both sides believed this, and that is why the split occurred. Similarly, the latter rain movement later separated from the Assemblies of God and the Message movement from the latter rain movement.

The point, however, is how Brother Branham used the Bible for all of this commentary. He didn’t seem so much interested in the biblical context, but rather in using his own context and using the biblical story, whether it fit or not.

Please note that in his sermons on this subject, Brother Branham juxtaposes two stories, one about the Exodus and legislation, and the other from the first book of Samuel about the Israelites’ desire for a king.

He teaches that the legislation on Mount Sinai was the result of Israel’s unbelief and disobedience, and that God originally had a different purpose, namely that they would have “a prophet and the blood of the Lamb,” but in addition they demanded the law from God—something they could argue about.

Instead of explaining the basis of his teaching, he suddenly goes back hundreds of years into history, where Israel actually wanted something and not God’s original plan.

This is the complete Bible text quoted during the sermon “ The Church Choosing Law For Grace “:

The Bible denies that Israel fell under the “law” during the exile “by grace.” Even the bloody lamb was just another commandment that had to be fulfilled. The entire Passover was a strict set of commandments that were repeated in the same way on Mount Sinai.

But before they reached Mount Sinai, while still walking under grace, God sent them manna, according to Brother Branham’s account, and exhorted Moses to remember to obey His law:

Exodus 16:4-6: Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. 5 And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.” 6 Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, “At evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

Even earlier, shortly after drowning the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, the Israelites reached the bitter waters of Mara:

Exodus 15:26: And said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”

At Mount Sinai, there was not once an occasion when people asked God or Moses for something. The only exception was when they asked God to speak through Moses (i.e., when they asked for a prophet) because they were very afraid:

Deuteronomy 5:24-27: And you said: ‘Surely the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man; yet he still lives. 25 Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore, then we shall die. 26 For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? 27 You go near and hear all that the Lord our God may say, and tell us all that the Lord our God says to you, and we will hear and do it.’.

Deuteronomy 5:28-29: “Then the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me: ‘I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. 29 Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!

The Lord explained that the people had spoken wisely and that this was an expression of proper fear that they should keep.

Brother Branham’s Sermon is contrary to the Bible and serves to illustrate his understanding of the conflict within the Pentecostal movement rather than to actually draw lessons from the Bible. The Bible is no longer a source of doctrine, but has become a tool for advancing one’s own goals.

The Bible does not teach that the Israelites asked for the law. Already in Egypt God gave them commandments through Moses, on the ascent to the mountain he reminded them to obey his law, and in Sinai he gave them the law they had not asked for.

The Humanity of Jesus

Brother Branham often claims that he preached nothing other than the apostle Paul, yet his teaching about the humanity of Jesus contradicts Paul’s preaching (and the rest of the New Testament) and shows his lack of understanding of the divinity and humanity of Jesus.

94 You know that the blood comes from the male sex. And then somebody said, “Oh, Jesus was a Jew.” He was not a Jew. “Oh, we’re saved by Jewish blood.” No, we’re not. If we were saved by Jewish blood, we’re still lost. Jesus was not Jew, neither was He Gentile. He was God: God the Father, the Spirit, the unseen One. “No man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten of the Father has declared Him.” He manifested God, what God was.

We could begin by saying that “blood comes from the male sex” contradicts everything we and you, dear brothers, know about the world around us. Brother Branham regularly confuses blood with sperm. In other places, he says that “hemoglobin comes from the man” – you know the places. Blood has nothing to do with sexual processes, and more importantly, it is inherited from both parents. A child can have blood from its mother.

As far as Jesus’ Judaism is concerned, the statement “Jesus was neither Jew nor Gentile – he was God” is equivalent to the statement “Jesus was not a man – he was God”. Of course, Jesus was God, but he was also a full-fledged human being. And according to biblical prophecy, his humanity had a Jewish origin, as the apostle Paul often repeated:

Romans 1:3-4: Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who [a]was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, 4 and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

Romans 9:4-5: Who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

2 Timothy 2:8: Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel.

Jesus himself recognized not only his divinity, but also his humanity, including his Jewish origins.

John 4:9-10: Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

John 4:22: You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

Not only did he not correct the Samaritan woman when she called him a Jew, but he identified himself as a Jew.

There is nothing unusual about this; after all, as Paul said, Jesus was a descendant of David in the flesh, a Jew. God formed a seed of life in Mary’s womb, but this seed grew from the material of Mary, who was not an incubator, but his full-fledged mother, as the Bible calls her. He grew up in her womb and drew from her power, then was nourished by her breasts, and his body grew out of her Jewish material. One of the reasons Jesus was a miracle was that he was not God, who pretended to be a man, but a perfect God and a perfect man. His body was not divine, not immortal; he was wholly human and had Israelite, Jewish ancestors across the line of David.

When Brother Branham says that Jesus was “neither Jew nor Gentile, but God,” he shows that he does not understand that Jesus was both God and man. By denying his Jewishness, he contradicts Paul’s prophecies and words.

Prohibition of mixed marriages

One of Brother Branham’s most harmful teachings concerns marriage to people of color. This controversial topic is little known and of little importance to us, as we have hardly any believers of color in Poland and the Czech Republic. I would even say that it would not be an issue in our region. Joel saw a case of marriage between a black brother and a Belarusian sister. But during our conversation on Monday, dear brothers, you yourself pointed out that the decisive factor of doctrine is not what people believe about the Message, but what the Message itself says on the subject.

Brother Branham has repeated this matter in the same negative light in various places:

112 What good would a white woman want to have a baby by a colored man, make it a mulatto child? It’s not sensible. If God wanted a man brown, black, white, whatever color He wanted him, that’s God’s creation, that’s the way he wanted it. He wants white flowers, blue flowers; God is a God of variety. He likes big mountains, little mountains, deserts, plains, white, black, short, fat, and indifferent. God is a God of variety.

Again and again the argument comes up: “What woman wants mulatto children?” It is difficult to understand what is so perverse and repulsive about mulattoes. Joel had a good friend at school who was a mulatto – a wonderful, bright boy – I wonder how he would feel if he heard that sermon.

Yes, God is a God of variety, but the mulatto is an example of this variety. Brother Branham also did not know that even within the people of Israel there is a separation between whites and blacks. In Israel today, there is a large group of black Ethiopian Jews who are Jews according to the law and are allowed to mix with their white brothers according to the law.

As if he did not know or ignored that Miriam accused Moses of marrying an Ethiopian woman (according to the Hebrew text, a Cushite, i.e. a black woman from Africa who was descended from Ham):

Numbers 12:1: Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman (Kushitin).

The Bible nowhere prohibits or discourages intermarriage. The only exception was marriages between Jews and unbelieving Gentiles (i.e., those who had not gone through the process of incorporation into the people).

Brother Branham’s teachings on this subject are unbiblical; rather, they reflect the theories of movements such as the Ku Klux Klan, of which William D. Upshaw was a member and whose high-ranking member and press representative was Roy E. Davis.

Regarding Aaron and Miriam, it is worth noting that their criticism of Moses cannot be compared to their criticism of the Message. Moses was their spiritual guide; they were witnesses of how the Lord spoke to him and through him. They witnessed the pillar of cloud descend into the tent of encounter and speak to Moses. At that time, Moses was the voice of God for all people. Every person had to measure up to Moses. Today, the voice of God is His written Word. Every person must be measured by God’s word. If anyone can be compared to Moses, it is not Brother Branham, but Christ about whom Moses himself prophesied:

Deuteronomy 18:15: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear.”

Baptism with the Holy Spirit

Brother Branham clearly teaches that the proof that someone has truly been baptized with the Holy Spirit is not the fruit of the Spirit, but the receiving of the “Word for the Day.” Therefore, without receiving the “Word for the Day,” one cannot be sure that one is truly baptized with the Holy Spirit.

44 Now, that’s no evidence of the Holy Ghost. See? You can’t rely upon that. You can’t rely upon the fruit of the Spirit, because the first fruit of the Spirit is love. And the Christian Science exercise more love than anybody I know of, and they even deny Jesus Christ being Divine. See? There’s only one evidence of the Holy Spirit that I know of, and that is a genuine faith in the promised Word of the hour!

Gabriel remembers how, as a teenager, when he had his first experience with God, he received this very answer from you, brethren, regarding the proof of baptism in the Holy Spirit. As a young, inexperienced man, he could not understand how it was possible that the Holy Spirit did not lead us into the whole truth, but that the “truth” was clearly spoken and the baptism in the Holy Spirit was dependent on the acceptance of this truth. Then why do we need the Holy Spirit if the truth is obvious? If the “truth” did not prove to be the true truth, how could the Holy Spirit lead us into the true truth?

You are teaching, brethren, that even one who knows nothing of the Message can truly be filled with the Holy Spirit somewhere in the denomination, and that as soon as he hears the “cry of the eagle,” he immediately recognizes that prophetic voice and accepts the Message. At the same time, one of you, brethren, has clearly and repeatedly taught that Pentecostal baptism with the Holy Spirit is different from the baptism with the Holy Spirit in the Message. Both statements contradict the Bible’s teaching on the subject. There are neither two Holy Spirits nor two types of baptism with the Holy Spirit. Nor have there been different conditions or evidence for the baptism of the Holy Spirit in different ages. God’s New Testament plan for rebirth is always the same and is not subject to updating or revision.

Acts 2:38: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Brethren, we are not indifferent to the plight of many young people who wallow in the uncertainty of whether they are filled with the Holy Spirit. The sad truth is that most of them answer this question with “I think so,” which is a diplomatic way of saying “I’m not sure.” We are not saying that none of them has the Holy Spirit. However, we have personal testimonies of people from the more “conservative” part of the Message who, in gatherings where everyone was weeping and screaming and the “last call” sounded from the pulpit, had an emotional experience that they believed to be the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Afterwards, they were disappointed and expected a change in their lives, but the change did not happen. Another person who attended the same congregation did not “survive” this emotional experience. After learning from the Message that there is no true experience without tears, she knows in her heart to this day that she is not filled with the Holy Spirit, but does not know how to receive Him, and lives in terrible fear of missing the Rapture. However, the more “progressive” part of the Message has completely equated the baptism of the Holy Spirit with “faith in the revealed Word.” As a result, the topic of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the Message is still a misunderstood concept and has become a taboo among young people today.

About Women

Brother Branham’s way of talking about women is one of hatred. When Gabriel fell in love and married, he was deeply affected, even outraged, by Brother Branham’s statements, for it was only when he was married that he could appreciate the value of a woman as a life companion. In his infamous sermon “Marriage and Divorce,” Brother Branham says the following about women:

105 Notice the reason that she did this, she was not in the original creation. She is not in God’s original creation; she is a by-product.

112 Now, there is nothing designed that can deceive, and be deceived, as easy as a woman. There is nothing designed or can stoop as low as a woman can. Think now. There is nothing designed, in all creation, that can stoop as low as a woman can. She can tear a man’s heart to pieces easier than anything else there is in the world, is his wife. Let that nice little wife get to running around with some other man; look at that fellow sitting there with his children, the tears dropping out of his eyes. She is designed that way. She is designed to do this. There is no hog, no dog, or no other animal, designed like her or can stoop as low as she can stoop. Now, that is true.

118 She is designed, alone, for filth and unclean living. A dog can’t, and no other female can. It’s just the woman that can.

125 You may question me about Satan being her designer, but that’s the Truth. Satan designed her. He still does it.

168 A immoral woman is the lowest thing that can be thought of, in the earth. Excuse this, young ladies. She is nothing but a human garbage can, a sex exposal. That’s all she is, an immoral woman, is a human sexual garbage can, a pollution, where filthy, dirty, ornery, low-down filth is disposed by her. What is she made this way for? For deception. Every sin that ever was on the earth was caused by a woman.

182 Even in our schools today, they’re teaching sex acts. Our rotten world of woman-worship! I know they don’t want to believe that. Stand and sing some kind of hymn, and so forth, on one day; and out with women, running around, all night long. See? All right. When, in God’s sight, the Word, she is the lowest of all animals that God put on the earth.

In other sermons, Branham says that women should not have a driver’s license (e.g., 56-0715) and should not be allowed to vote (60-1113).

It could be argued that Brother Branham’s harsh words were directed against immoral women. But the claim that women are by-products has nothing to do with (im)morality and is in direct contradiction to what is written in Genesis:

Genesis 2:7, 21-24: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. … 21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23 And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be[d] joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Woman is neither an unoriginal creation of God nor a byproduct; nor was she created to tempt; nor was she created by Satan; nor was she created to deceive; nor was every sin that has ever existed on earth caused by woman; nor is she the most abominable of all creatures on earth. Just try to imagine, brethren, how your wives and daughters would react if one of you or a guest preacher made such horrible statements about gender segregation.

In Brother Branham’s version of the events in the Garden of Eden, we imagine Eve, far away from her husband, being deceived by the serpent that “came to her before Adam.” But the Scriptures clearly say, “The woman took of the fruit, ate it, and gave it to Adam, who was with her.”

Divorce and remarriage

In the same sermon, “Marriage and Divorce,” Brother Branham teaches that a divorced man can remarry a virgin.

227 See, she has got a living husband, so no man can marry her. Care what she does and who she is, she’s got a living husband, there is no grounds for her at all. But, it’s not, for him. “Causes her,” not him. Get it? You have to make the Word run in continuity. See, nothing saying he couldn’t, but she can’t. See, “causes her,” not him. That’s exactly what the Bible says, “causes her.” It is not stated against him to remarry, but “her.” Why? Christ in the type. 228 Notice, it is stated that he cannot remarry, only a virgin. He can remarry. He can ma-…he can remarry again if it’s a virgin, but he can’t marry somebody else’s wife. No indeedy. And if he does marry a divorced woman, he is living in adultery, I don’t care who he is. The Bible said, “Whosoever marrieth her that is put away, liveth in adultery.” There you are, not no divorcees.

The teaching of William Branham is in direct contradiction to the teaching of Jesus, who makes no distinction between the sexes in this matter and does not set different conditions for men and women.

Mark 10:11-12: He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. 12 And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Is it possible that Brother Branham taught this unscriptural doctrine to justify his son, Billy Paul, who married a woman named Ollie May Christopher on August 12, 1953, and divorced her on September 20 of that year? Brother Branham himself declared this on August 30, 1964.

Haircut and divorce

76 I had a hot one on that, down the other day in Shreveport. They was talking about the women, and should women wear long hair. And I said, “A woman that bobbed her hair, her husband had a right and a Bible right to divorce her.” That’s right. That’s what the Bible says. That’s exactly right. Oh, my! Holy Ghost women sitting there, just the way they been taught, that’s all. See? Just, that’s slipped loosely.

Brother Branham repeats in The Message over twenty times in all seriousness that the Bible clearly teaches that a man has the right to divorce a woman if she cuts her hair. Every time he says, “I can show you this in the Bible,” but he never does. The reason for this is that the Bible simply does not teach this; quite the opposite. The Mosaic Law commands a man who wants to marry a woman he has kidnapped to cut off her hair completely:

Deuteronomy 21:10-13: “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your wife, 12 then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13 She shall put off the clothes of her captivity, remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

Brother Branham’s teaching is unbiblical. Although a woman should not cut her hair, the apostle Paul teaches, it is not a reason for divorce. William Branham’s teaching contradicts the words of Jesus himself, who taught that anyone who divorces one woman (except for fornication^[7]) and marries another commits adultery (Matthew 19).

When Gabriel saw this in the Message, he was deeply concerned that Brother Branham was teaching something that contradicted the Bible, and even quoting verbatim what the Bible teaches. So he turned to two brothers with this question. A brother told him that although he had not yet found this doctrine in the Bible, he believed that it was somewhere there and that one day he would surely find it. From then on, the other brother refused to even remotely think that Brother Branham was teaching anything unscriptural, and from then on every time he read the Message, he took a picture of the quote and sent it to Gabriel, regardless of the fact that Gabriel had asked for a quote from the Bible and not from the Message. So the question remained unanswered. No one had the courage to admit that the Bible simply did not teach it.

About the Freemasons

103 Now, I ain’t saying nothing on Kiwanis now, that’s all right. See? Just some people take…Cause I—I believe that the Masons are all right, but the Mason Lodge will never take the place of the Church, or the Blood of Jesus Christ. All my people are Masons, and, now, they’re all right as a lodge, but it won’t take the place of the Church.

QUESTION: Brother Branham, is there anything wrong with belonging to a lodge after we have become a Christian, such as the Masons?

182 No, sir! You be a Christian wherever you are. I don’t care where you are, you can still be a Christian.

Would you agree with me, brethren, that membership in a Masonic lodge is nothing wrong? Such a statement testifies to a lack of fundamental spiritual discernment. After all, we all know that the Freemasons has a spiritualistic basis and is not an ideologically neutral charity organization.

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To sum up this passage, we wanted to make it clear that Brother Branham’s problem was not occasional errors, accidental mix-ups, or a one-time erroneous paraphrase of Scripture from memory, or human slips of the tongue. We can even accept this from a prophet of God. Yet Brother Branham repeated and taught many false and unscriptural things with full conviction over the years. His false teachings were not limited to trivialities or reduced to topics that he believed to be his own opinion. His knowledge of the Holy Scriptures was highly superficial, his textual analysis highly biased and inaccurate. He often ignored the larger context and quoted individual passages. Worst of all, he used the Bible as a tool to legitimize himself and give his ministry a unique character. He interfered in prophecies about Jesus Christ himself. And that’s no small thing. It does not surprise us today that so many in today’s Message consider Brother Branham to be Christ incarnate. This is a direct consequence of his insertion into the messianic and Christological passages of Sacred Scripture.

The fruit of Brother Branham’s unbiblical and chaotic teaching is today’s doctrinal confusion in the Message movement. The reliable source of teaching, the Bible, has been replaced by quotations and booklets. Instead of looking at the Message through the lens of the Bible (as we aspire to do), people look at the Bible through the lens of the Message. It is very sad to see how people can split over the question of whether or not the seventh seal is opened. Each page contains its quotes and its revelation. The Word of God has been replaced by the Word of man. Today’s Judaism is the fruit of the Pharisaic rabbinic teaching, based on the revealed tradition of the elders. Rabbinic Judaism is based on the concept of an “oral Torah”. It teaches that Moses received two Torahs on Mount Sinai—one written in the Pentateuch, the other orally transmitted. In other words, they believe in a “spoken word” that is a “perfect interpretation of the Torah with divine confirmation.” Catholics believe that their teachings are not found directly in the Bible, as they are also apostolic teachings that were passed on orally from the apostles to the bishops. Believers in the Message are therefore guilty of the same thing as the scribes: they invalidate the Word of God through their tradition, the “spoken word”.

Conclusion

Each of you, dear brothers, has had your own powerful experiences in receiving the Message. We have also had our own experiences. Just as every other person in every religious movement in the world has his own experience with the faith, he professes to be the perfect truth. When Gabriel spoke to Mormon missionaries a few years ago and presented them with the drawing of the Stature of a perfect man, one of them said that the doctrine was wonderful, but he pointed to the place where “Elijah” was written, and said something like this: “I believe that instead of William Branham, Joseph Smith is to be here. The Holy Spirit confirms this truth in my heart.” Does this man’s claim mean it’s true?

A spiritual experience is only valuable if it is supported by the Holy Scriptures. The apostle Paul had an incredible experience. He was thrown off his horse, saw a light and heard a voice. This experience changed his life forever. But shortly after this experience, we read the following about him:

Acts 9:22: But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ.

Can we expect the Jews to be baffled by Paul’s account of his experience on the road to Damascus? No doubt he told them this experience. But this experience was no proof for the Jews, because they could interpret the voice from heaven as mere thunder. For the Jews, the testimony of the Holy Scriptures was the proof. And in the same way, Paul convinced them of Jesus until the end of his life in Rome:

Acts 28:23: So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening.

Apollos in Achaiah and Stephen before the Council used exactly the same method of witnessing. An experience can be a powerful testimony, an impulse, or a direction for an individual, but it must always be based on the Word of God, must not overstep its boundaries, and must not be used as an absolute argument to convince another person. Doctrinal disagreements between believers can only be resolved on the basis of common ground that both parties believe in. And that foundation is not personal experience or personal revelation, but the Bible, which is the Word of God for both sides. It is the only infallible, absolute and perfect source of teaching.

Brothers, lately you’ve often been calling us intellectuals. The sermons of some of you are directed against an intellectual understanding of Scripture, as if “simple faith” is enough and any hint of reason is merely an obstacle. But the Word of God shows that the gospel is perfectly understandable and that reason does not have to be ignored in order to accept it. The Son of God came to give us reason, to enlighten the eyes of our spirits, so that we might understand His Word and His power. It is precisely those who do not understand the things of God who are foolish and erring. Nowhere does the Bible teach two centers of understanding—one spiritual and one physical.

In the Bible, the heart is always the center of thought, contemplation, and understanding. All wisdom and understanding on every level (human or divine) always go to the heart. Whether human teaching or revelation of God – according to the Bible, the resulting knowledge always goes into the heart and is received through reason, i.e. through what God has given us to think and perceive reality – both mentally and physically. Reason is a praised and desirable quality/tool that God has given to man in the Bible. The arguments against critical thinking and judgment made in “The Message” are based on several biblical passages taken out of context and are also used in other movements that invoke human authority and forbid their followers to examine things for themselves – thus robbing them of a God-given tool so that these wolves in sheep’s clothing can take advantage of human ignorance. A popular verse from Proverbs 3:5: “lean not on your own understanding” is quoted without the surrounding verses. The Holy Spirit invites Solomon to be faithful to the law and to trust in the Lord. That is, he should trust God’s Word, not his own ideas, and not be arrogant, because the next verse says, “do not be wise in your own eyes.” Solomon does not condemn reason; Nowhere does he teach that we should not think, reason, and investigate. On the contrary, in the following verses of the same chapter he says:

Proverbs 3:13-14: Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding, for his proceeds are better than the profits of silver, and his gain than fine gold.

One brother added his own comment every time he read passages of Scripture in the church in which the apostle Paul or someone else wrote about our “understanding”: “But not with this sense (he pointed to his head),” even though the apostle said nothing of the kind and nowhere else in the Bible, where meaning is mentioned, it says, “Oh, but not with this mind, but with God’s mind.” God has His own mind; we are not God; our ability to think and judge is a miracle of God’s creation and reflects God’s mind but is of course limited. Jesus was not rejected by intelligent and rational people; it was rejected by deluded people whose minds were blinded by religious formulas and limited thinking, and unable to transcend imposed boundaries. We in the Message, following Brother Branham, have condemned creeds in this regard, although we ourselves have developed creeds and dogmas that must not be discussed – and do not bow to the dogmas of the Catholic Church, which also tells its believers: “This is the secret of faith” when we encounter an inexplicable contradiction. This does not mean that reason is completely sufficient. We simply wish to emphasize that reason has its honorable and important place in the Christian experience and in the investigation of truth, and that reason is not contrary to faith. Faith is necessary where our reason does not reach, but faith and reason work together. Our knowledge is limited but based on what we have experienced and proven to be true, we have faith, which in turn allows us to fill in gaps in our knowledge. The Bible encourages reflection, examination and analysis. The Bible promotes well-founded, not blind faith.

Mind and heart: Matthew 9:4; Luke 10:27; Job 38:36; Proverbs 2:1-12; 3,5,13; 23,7; 18,15; Psalm 14:1; Exodus 35:35; Matthew 15:18-19; Luke 24:25,45; 1 John 5:20; Col. 1:9.

Sometimes, in response to our remarks that Brother Branham contradicted the Scriptures, we were told, “The letter kills.” This abbreviation, often used on such occasions, is another sad example of how Scripture is taken out of context.

2 Corinthians 3:6-9: Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7 But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.

“The letter kills” is used as a weapon against the exact observance of Scripture. It is incorrectly taught that the Pharisees “followed the letters of the Word” even though Jesus demonstrated their superficial knowledge of it. When we teach about “denominations,” we strike tones such as “strict adherence to the word,” “the prophet taught nothing but Paul,” or “I stand by every word of God.” When it is pointed out that we ourselves do not keep the word, arguments arise about “Pharisees”, “legalism” and “the letter kills”. But what does Saul-Paul speak of in this passage? CONTEXT: Paul compares the Law of Moses to the New Testament, the ministry of the letter to the ministry of the Spirit. The “letter” is the law of Moses, and the New Testament is both revelation and ministry of the Spirit. To refer to the entirety of God’s written Word, including the New Testament and the prophets, as “letters” reveals either a bias or a misunderstanding of Scripture. Even the part of the “Old Testament” called the prophets cannot be called a letter, since it already offers a glimpse into the future, not a repetition of the law, but a premonition of the New Covenant. In 2. Corinthians 3, the apostle Paul does not say that “the letter kills” when he speaks of someone who “clings too tightly to the word.” He speaks of the role of the Mosaic Law and its significance in the context of the revelation of the New Covenant, which was given to Paul by God’s grace and now appears written in the pages of the New Testament, which is not a letter but a ministry of the Spirit. And to hold on to what is written is not a “dead letter”, but “to trust in the Lord and His Word and not to rely on one’s own reason”.

We also heard the objection that we were attacking the foundation of your faith. What, then, is the foundation of your faith, brethren? The Word of Man or the Word of God? After all, it wasn’t William Branham who died on the cross for you. Brother Branham could have been, and certainly was, a person whose sermons were spiritually enriching to you as well as to us. But is fellowship with God dependent on reading William Branham’s sermons? Are they the foundation of your faith? Or rather, the only foundation, which is Jesus Christ?

1 Corinthians 3:11: For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

So should the gospel be associated with the one who preached it? Should we say, “I belong to Branham, I belong to Coleman, I belong to Frank, I belong to Vayle...”?

1 Corinthians 3:4: For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?

The Apostle Paul, the author of a large part of the New Testament, set a very strict standard for the truth of the Gospel and did not even exclude himself from the list of his potential enemies.

Galatians 1:8: But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

Galatians 1:11-12: But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The gospel, the New Testament, is the highest form of revelation. This revelation was given to Paul, whose letters we can read today. Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Nor did Paul marginalize the law but showed that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 10:4). And today, the gospel of the New Covenant does not need to be revised, corrected, or updated. Although it has been distorted by traditions and views over the centuries and continues to do so today, the content of the Gospel is perfect and sufficient. We must return to what we have been given. Revelation is not in these tapes, but in the pages of the Bible. It is not for nothing that the following warning is written on the last page:

Revelation 22:18-19: For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

The blood of Jesus Christ has redeemed us. We are filled with His Spirit. We are saved by the Good News – the Gospel. The Message has not opened the way to heaven for us, nor is it a prerequisite for participating in the Rapture, as one of you said recently. To speak of the “Word for this hour” automatically implies the obsolescence and inadequacy of the Gospel itself, which then becomes the “Word for that hour” or the “old manna”. This is how Brother Branham presents the sequence of “messages” in the Message. Noah had the Message of the ark, but the ark wouldn’t have worked in the days of Moses, so Moses had the Message of the Exodus. But the exodus would not have worked in the days of Jesus, who brought a new Message. Did Branham stop doing that? At the Message of Jesus? No, he said, “Luther had his Message.” But if Luther had had “his Message” and not the “Message of Jesus”, he would have been a false prophet, because the Message of Jesus given to the apostles inevitably remains the “Word for this hour”. Luther’s belief was to teach only what the Bible teaches, and so did Wesley. Neither of them taught that they had a unique “word for this time.” The word for this time remains the doctrines handed down to us in the apostolic epistles and the Gospels, and they do not need “divine interpreters,” as the early Apostolic Fathers and Reformers insisted. It doesn’t matter if they are Catholic “successors of the apostles,” the “recognizable slave” of Jehovah’s Witnesses, or a “prophet for this generation.” Each of them is the fifth wheel in the chariot of the four-wheeled and self-sufficient gospel.

One of you said the other day that he couldn’t accept that Brother Branham was telling the untruth. However, it is important to remember that human words can always fail. We cannot blindly trust in the moral perfection and infallibility of any man, nor in Brother Branham. The human vessel is always susceptible to errors, deceptions and misinterpretations. We cannot accept a person’s words uncritically just because we think they are great.

A much easier way would be for us to simply close our eyes to all this and let ourselves drift. We wish Brother Branham’s life was really as wonderful as Owen Jorgensen described. But understand, dear brothers, our conscience does not allow us to do this. What we know about His life and ministry we simply cannot overlook or ignore. We chose a more difficult path.

We are neither the first nor the last people in the world who have spent part of their lives in the Message movement and at some point, along the way have done spiritual self-reflection and begun to check whether what they believe is biblically correct and generally true. There are thousands of such people around the world. There are entire congregations of believers in the United States, Africa, and India who have realized that they were wrong and are now serving the living God with even greater zeal and fervor, continuing to live a fully consecrated life for the Lord, and proclaiming the true biblical gospel. There are also several congregations in Romania with a total of about 300 members who have taken this path in recent years.

The truth about Brother Branham’s teachings and life comes to light, whether you or I are involved. Unanswered questions that have lain deep in our hearts for years are now coming to the surface, and people are starting to search for answers. Many believers, your church, your children, your grandchildren, will ask you these questions as elders in the faith and as those who are on the front lines. These questions cannot be swept under the carpet. We have to rise to the challenge and find the answers. The two of us have already covered part of the way. We can’t claim to know all the answers. But we decided to share our knowledge with you to help you.

We understand, dear brothers, the tension and stress that this kind of spiritual self-reflection entails. We’ve been through it ourselves. It’s not easy. We went many sleepless nights and cried many tears, as our wives did. We know from our own experience how stressful the cognitive dissonance that comes with it is. We understand that admitting that Brother Branham was wrong on one thing requires an examination of everything else. But God has brought us through, and we believe that he will bring you through too.

In answering the question, “If not William Branham’s teachings, then what?” we must point out that most of us do not care much about the fate of people who leave the Message to become Christians within another group of believers. In our country, most of the people who leave the Message are primarily those who have not converted and have apostatized into the world. They were not interested in Brother Branham or the Bible. Cases of people deliberately leaving the Message movement to visit other Christian communities are more numerous, but we still tend to suspect what is happening to them more often than we are actually interested in finding out. We tend to focus on individual cases where someone simply stops believing in God and ignores that this is happening without questioning William Branham’s ministry. Christ promised that He would build His church Himself, that the gates of hell would not prevail against it, and that He would be with His church until the end of the world/age. If the Message is not the entire church, then that church is somewhere else, or it is a larger whole that also includes the believers of this movement. We believe it is helpful to realize that we are not the only movement that believes we are the only bride of Christ and rejects the surrounding churches. Just as there are entire groups and churches that have not even heard of the Message, we cannot know that there is a small flock somewhere to which Christ calls His sheep. Since our Lord warned against thieves and against people who can become very similar to the true Lord, we must be vigilant until the end. And if it turns out that we as sheep have followed someone other than the true shepherd for a long time, we must be willing to repent even after a long journey.

We believe that the groups and churches that have been formed so far have not been in vain, nor have ours and yours. We ourselves have received many blessings from God through your involvement in the Lord’s work. We believe that God has been gracious and tolerated times of ignorance, just as He tolerates partial knowledge in other churches. We do not intend to preach about leaving our churches; our job is to inform people about the truth about William Branham. In our context, it is easy to imagine an analogy with churches that follow the Message but have taken in an additional teacher who, as we all agree, puts himself in a position he should not have had, like Brother Ewald Frank or Joseph Coleman. Just as we believed that the people in these groups should leave the movement of the man who usurped his undue authority and return to prophetic ministry, so now, after examining the case of Brother Branham, we believe that people should be encouraged to keep the good and to abandon every unbiblical and unrecognized authority.

We are aware, and do not deny, that through the Message, many people who had previously been formal or lukewarm Christians elsewhere have stepped out of the world or darkness of Roman Catholicism, found the Lord, experienced repentance, or even found deeper communion with the Lord, or gained a deeper understanding of certain teachings of Scripture. And for each of these people we are grateful to the Lord. But this is by no means the determining factor in the excellence of the Scriptures, the reliability of the prophecies, or the degree of Brother Branham’s sincerity. In the same way, people convert to other churches and experience revivals, sincerely experience the power of God, and find fulfillment.

The Message movement differs from many other churches and movements in its adherence to external consecration (especially clothing and hair) and demarcation from the world, which are completely biblical and correct. We know that many people have learned these things through the Message. Unfortunately, however, there is a belief within the Message that true consecration can only be found in the Message and that all others who profess external consecration do so violently and compulsively, not from the bottom of their hearts, but solely on the basis of the teaching of their denomination. This belief is completely wrong and, unfortunately, often hypocritical. There are millions of Christians from different groups and communities who lead a consecrated life and separate themselves from the world. For example, (but not exclusively) the same standards of consecration apply in Oneness Pentecostal Church as in the Message. True holiness should not be about exalting oneself above others or dividing people into better or worse, but the desire to please God, because without holiness no one will see the Lord. However, this is no reason to consider other Christians who may not have understood this unworthy to be called part of the Body of Christ or the Bride. We often tolerate years of resentment and lack of forgiveness, laziness, or gluttony among each other, believing that God will somehow fix them. But we are not in a position to show this mercy to people who not only ignore the standards of sacrifice and clothing, but also understand them differently.

We have heard repeatedly that the only way to the Rapture is to accept Brother Branham’s Message. The brothers of the Seven Thunders Movement say the same thing, but about Brother Coleman’s inspiration. Many other movements based on humans say the same thing. This assertion denies the sufficiency of the Scriptures, as if the Scriptures alone, its teachings, and the fivefold ministry alone could not lead a believer to the knowledge of the full truth and perfection in Christ and thus make him a partaker of the Rapture.

We have written to you, dear brothers, “a little more courageously,” because the matter we are writing about is of the utmost importance. Believe us, what we have written comes from the bottom of our hearts. We pray that these several dozen pages will build you up spiritually in the long term. We trust that you will carefully consider and examine every single point in this letter. We are interested in your answers to the individual points. We are open to further meetings to discuss, pray and seek mutual understanding according to God’s will and glory.

We love you with all our hearts, dear brothers. You mean so much to us. Our desire is to build up the body of Christ and to experience fellowship in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

[1] Present Truth Ministries – Jason DeMars of Bethel Tabernacle, North Carolina (Pastor – Jason Watkins), https://www.facebook.com/ptmcontender/

[2] 62-0612 Greater than Solomon is here, §39

[5] Interested parties are referred to the book “Finished Mystery”, CT Russell’s masterpiece on the Book of Revelation.

[6] ερχεται (erchetai) is the imperfect form of the present tense έρχομαι (erchomai). That means: “He is coming.” Zaremba’s literal translation is: “Elijah truly comes and restores all things” (Mt 17:11), “Elijah, who came before, truly restores all things” (Mk 9:12).

[7] Greek porneia: refers to sexual immorality in the broader sense, not just premarital sexual intercourse; it can also include adultery, which, as extramarital sexual intercourse, is a form of porneia - fornication.