Fear in the Message
Given the belief that message believers constitute the Christian elite - The Bride of Christ - it is surprising that the predominant response from those in the message is one of fear. Some feel that those that bring to light William Branham's many failings have unnecessarily put their eternal destination on the line. They point their fingers and say, "What if you're wrong?"
The underlying emotion is that of fear. It is interesting that in virtually all of the emails that we have received from message believers, fear is what they try to use to persuade us not to say anything.
How do you disagree with an angel of God?
William Branham clearly used fear on those he preached to. As a result, his followers are afraid to question him.
William Branham claimed to be an "angel"
William Branham stated:
- ...You said, "As it was in that day, so will it be in this day." God, You still have Angels. And we realize that Angel was manifested in human flesh, for soon He disappeared in the presence of Abraham, and Abraham called Him, " Elohim." God.[1]
William Branham claimed to have the true "message"
- ... See? It'll be... But this message that I'm preaching is the true message of this day, and it's the last message.[2]
To question him is death
- And you're on the basis of free moral agency. You can turn this down or you can accept it. To turn it down is to be lost and remain potash, and calcium, and petroleum.[3]
The opposite of fear
Scripture teaches that the opposite of fear is love. Why? The Bible states,
- There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.[4]
But we have had a rare few that contacted us in the spirit of love. One couple were convinced that the conclusions of our research were wrong, so they left the ninety and nine and came after us. They spent over 400 hours researching. They were afraid for us spiritually and that concern led them to a labor of love focused on rescuing us.
I told them that I had no desire to be wrong and that if they could prove the conclusions on our website to be wrong, we would publish that research.
You can see the research for yourself on their website, Searching for Vindication.
Those in the message believe that the capstone of love is coming down on the virtue of brotherly kindness to complete the Bride. Sadly, what we have found after leaving the message is that the conduct of message believers toward those that have left is, for the most part, lacking in both.
Footnotes