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He tells the story of Israel's four-hundred-year sojourn promised to Abraham in Genesis 15:13, compared with the four hundred and thirty years actually recorded in Exodus 12:40. "The logic doesn't line up," he says. "Looks like it's wrong. Oh, well, God made a mistake... And the skeptic loves, 'oh, you're making it unfalsifiable.' Yes. Because we believe by faith." He treats this as an example of something you simply have to accept without explanation, a contradiction faith must absorb.

This is also the textbook red herring (throw the Bible under the bus) tactic that was used by [[Red Herring Arguments|Voice of God Recordings (click here to see our video on the subject)]].

Except it isn't a contradiction that needs faith to absorb it. '''It's a solved problem.''' Galatians 3:17 tells us plainly that the four hundred and thirty years run "from the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ" to Moses, meaning from the promise made to Abram, not from the birth of Isaac. Genesis 15:13's four hundred years is the shorter span of actual affliction in Egypt, counted from around the birth of Isaac. Two different starting points, two different but compatible numbers, no mistake and no mystery.

Any decent study Bible will walk you through it. David Courchaine had a straightforward exegetical answer sitting one search away, but because he has his head in the Branham's sermons instead of the Bible, he reached for "we believe by faith it's unfalsifiable," which is precisely the move he mocks the atheist for making about naturalism a few minutes later.

If unfalsifiability is a mark against a belief system when an atheist uses it, it's a mark against a belief system when he uses it too. You don't get to disqualify the tool for your opponent and then pick it back up for yourself.

His double standard shows up again when he insists that belief in God is "not a rational belief... not reasonable by definition," only to quote 1 Peter 3:15 a few minutes later, a verse whose entire point is that Christians should "be ready always to give an answer... with meekness and fear" for the hope that is in them. Peter is telling us faith is reasonable enough to defend with reasons. David Courchaine wants the verse and its opposite in the same sermon.

The deeper issue is the principle he draws from it: ''nothing can counter what I believe.'' A belief that no possible evidence could ever disconfirm isn't a strong belief. It's an empty one, in the sense that it's no longer making a claim about reality that reality could confirm or deny.

'''This exact reasoning would equally protect Joseph Smith, the Watchtower, or any group Courchaine himself rejects.''' He rejects Mormonism on the grounds that Joseph Smith "pointed people to himself, not the truth." But that's an evidential, historical judgment, the very kind of reasoning he just told us we can't trust. He wants falsifiability when judging Joseph Smith and unfalsifiability when defending Branham. '''You can't have it both ways.'''

== [[Logic and the Message#The Ad Hoc Rescue|The Ad Hoc Rescue]] - Turning errors into evidence ==

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This is classic '''confirmation bias.''' Our brains naturally search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms our preexisting beliefs, while completely discarding evidence that contradicts them.

== There really is a true answer ==

=== An internal contradiction he doesn't notice ===

Courchained argues that the Nicolaitan spirit, the "image of the beast," is precisely the impulse to "settle disputes" by declaring who's right, elevating a teaching authority over the people, and "casting out those who would not agree." Councils, creeds, votes = the beast.

But the Message does exactly this, and Branham did it in the sharpest possible terms. Branham didn't merely offer a view; he said those who believe the Trinity are "possessed by the devil" and "you're lost," and he called the denominations the mark of the beast. That is the most extreme possible "casting out of those who won't agree." Courchaine praises Branham's tolerance ("find that brother and go to his church") while standing inside a system whose founder consigned Trinitarians to damnation. By Courchaine's own definition of the beast, the Message qualifies. He's applied the test to everyone except the one group it most obviously indicts, which is the very thing he warned against: "question everything except the person telling you to question everything."

=== The Pragmatic Fallacy: ''It brought millions to Jesus, therefore it's true'' ===

His climactic proof is testimonial and pragmatic: the Message introduced him to Jesus, it's brought millions to Christ, and that is "beyond dispute" and "THUS SAITH THE LORD."

Two problems. First, even granting the sincerity, this is a textbook pragmatic fallacy - "it works, therefore it is true."

Results are never a guarantee of truth. Whether something works and whether it is true are two very different issues.

Anytime someone says... ''Try Jesus 'cause it works,'' he has committed a fallacy. Plenty of movements produce changed lives and sincere devotion, including ones Courchaine would call false. I am personally aware of:

* A Muslim man who claims Islam is true because he was miraculously delivered from drug addiction.

* A Mormon man who knows that the LDS religion is true because he experienced a "burning in his bosom."

* A Roman Catholic man who was an alcoholic but was delivered instantaneously from his addiction through the power of Jesus.

Based on the above, Courchaine would have to accept that Islam, Mormonism and Catholicism are all the truth.

Fruit in the sense of transformed affections is not the same as a true prophetic claim. Branham's claim wasn't "I'll introduce you to Jesus." It was "I am the prophet of Malachi 4:5, the angel of Revelation 10:7, and to reject my message is the mark of the beast." That claim is either true or false on the evidence, and no number of testimonies settles it.

Second, notice the quiet substitution. The thing that's "beyond dispute" (that the Message meant something to him personally) is smuggled in to vouch for the thing that is very much in dispute (that Branham was who he said he was). Those are two different claims. Conceding the first costs the critic nothing and proves nothing about the second.

= There really is a true answer =

David Courchaine is right about one thing more than any other: there really does have to be a true answer somewhere. I agree with him completely. Where I part ways with him is in how you find it.

=== A false dilemma dressed up as humility ===

== A false dilemma dressed up as humility ==

Courchaine repeatedly offers exactly two options:

#either you believe by pure faith/revelation, or

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There is no third door in his telling.

~~But there obviously~~ is ~~one,~~ and it's the historic Christian position. The faulty dilemma is one of the favorite ways to make a Christian squirm.

===The option he refuses to consider===

There is an obvious alternative that he never considers and it is the one we constantly point to... the historic Christian position. The faulty dilemma is one of the favorite ways to make a Christian squirm.

~~Here is the~~ alternative he never considers: ''~~faith~~ grounded in evidence.'' True faith is a confidence based on reliable evidence, resting on an overwhelming amount of reliable evidence from God's words and God's works, not some blind hope apart from any evidence.

The alternative he never considers? ''Faith grounded in evidence.'' True faith is a confidence based on reliable evidence, resting on an overwhelming amount of reliable evidence from God's words and God's works, not some [["Blind Faith"|blind hope]] apart from any evidence.

~~What he~~ doesn't recognize is that this third alternative is firmly grounded in scripture. There was a person in the Bible who thought that Jesus was the messiah, but later on, he began to doubt.

He also doesn't recognize that this third alternative is firmly grounded in scripture. There was a person in the Bible who thought that Jesus was the messiah, but later on, he began to doubt.

How did Jesus deal with this man's doubt?

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~~=== Textbook unfalsifiability admitted and celebrated ===~~

~~Courchaine raises the skeptic's objection himself: "Oh, you're making it unfalsifiable. It can't be proven false." His answer is essentially "Yes."~~

He uses the 400/430 year "discrepancy" (Genesis 15:13 vs. Exodus 12:40) to argue that even apparent contradictions in Scripture don't count against it, because "if intellectual consistency were truth, God isn't God."

~~This is a textbook red herring (throw the Bible under the bus) tactic that was used by [[Red Herring Arguments|Voice of God Recordings (click here to see our video on the subject)]].~~

Set aside the fact that the 400/430 figures have a straightforward harmonization that Christian apologists have offered for centuries (did he intentionally ignorant this?), so it's a weak example to hang the point on. The deeper issue is the principle he draws from it: ''nothing can counter what I believe.'' A belief that no possible evidence could ever disconfirm isn't a strong belief. It's an empty one, in the sense that it's no longer making a claim about reality that reality could confirm or deny.

'''This exact reasoning would equally protect Joseph Smith, the Watchtower, or any group Courchaine himself rejects.''' He rejects Mormonism a few minutes later on the grounds that Joseph Smith "pointed people to himself, not the truth." But that's an evidential, historical judgment, the very kind of reasoning he just told us we can't trust. He wants falsifiability when judging Joseph Smith and unfalsifiability when defending Branham. '''You can't have it both ways.'''

~~=== The Pragmatic Fallacy: ''It brought millions to Jesus, therefore it's true'' ===~~

~~His climactic proof is testimonial and pragmatic: the Message introduced him to Jesus, it's brought millions to Christ, and that is "beyond dispute" and "THUS SAITH THE LORD."~~

~~Two problems. First, even granting the sincerity, this is a textbook pragmatic fallacy - "it works, therefore it is true."~~

~~Results are never a guarantee of truth. Whether something works and whether it is true are two very different issues.~~

Anytime someone says... ''Try Jesus 'cause it works,'' he has committed a fallacy. Plenty of movements produce changed lives and sincere devotion, including ones Courchaine would call false. I am personally aware of:

* A Muslim man who claims Islam is true because he was miraculously delivered from drug addiction.

* A Mormon man who knows that the LDS religion is true because he experienced a "burning in his bosom."

* A Roman Catholic man who was an alcoholic but was delivered instantaneously from his addiction through the power of Jesus.

~~Based on the above, Courchaine would have to accept that Islam, Mormonism and Catholicism are all the truth.~~

Fruit in the sense of transformed affections is not the same as a true prophetic claim. Branham's claim wasn't "I'll introduce you to Jesus." It was "I am the prophet of Malachi 4:5, the angel of Revelation 10:7, and to reject my message is the mark of the beast." That claim is either true or false on the evidence, and no number of testimonies settles it.

Second, notice the quiet substitution. The thing that's "beyond dispute" (that the Message meant something to him personally) is smuggled in to vouch for the thing that is very much in dispute (that Branham was who he said he was). Those are two different claims. Conceding the first costs the critic nothing and proves nothing about the second.

~~=== The Malachi / Revelation 10:7 word-chain ===~~

Courchaine repeats the familiar Message move: ''Malachi'' = "my messenger," ''mal'ak'' = "messenger" = "angel," Revelation 10:7 speaks of the seventh "angel," therefore the threads tie together into a single end-time Gentile prophet.

We dismantled the substance of this argument in ''Under the Halo.'' It's an equivocation (a term shifting meaning mid-argument). "Angel/messenger" is made to carry Branham across from Malachi to Revelation 10 by treating a translation overlap as if it were an identity of referents. But we show in ''Under The Halo'', the Greek of Revelation 10:7 ties the seventh angel to the seventh ''trumpet'' (Rev. 11:15), and Branham's own claim that the text says "the message angel, not the trumpet angel" is simply not what the Greek says, a point confirmed by the ESV, HCSB, and NLT renderings of the passage. Courchaine inherits the conclusion without re-examining the exegesis. He's building the roof on a foundation we've already shown to be unsound.

Courchaine asserts Malachi 4 "happened" and that Branham fulfilled it, but his ''only'' stated evidence is, again, personal, "the message of Brother Branham definitively brought my heart back to him." That's the pragmatic fallacy doing the exegetical work that the text can't.

~~=== An internal contradiction he doesn't notice ===~~

This one is worth pointing out because it's his own words turning on him. He argues that the Nicolaitan spirit, the "image of the beast," is precisely the impulse to "settle disputes" by declaring who's right, elevating a teaching authority over the people, and "casting out those who would not agree." Councils, creeds, votes: beast.

But the Message does exactly this, and Branham did it in the sharpest possible terms. Branham didn't merely offer a view; he said those who believe the Trinity are "possessed by the devil" and "you're lost," and he called the denominations the mark of the beast. That is the most extreme possible "casting out of those who won't agree." Courchaine praises Branham's tolerance ("find that brother and go to his church") while standing inside a system whose founder consigned Trinitarians to damnation. By Courchaine's own definition of the beast, the Message qualifies. He's applied the test to everyone except the one group it most obviously indicts, which is the very thing he warned against: "question everything except the person telling you to question everything."

~~==== Smaller but real problems ====~~

~~A few things that don't deserve full sections but are worth noting for accuracy:~~

* '''"Faith is evidence because evidence is not conclusive."''' He's leaning on the KJV of Hebrews 11:1 ("evidence of things not seen") to argue that faith replaces evidence. But the Greek (''elenchos'') means something closer to "proof" or "conviction," and Christians for centuries have read the verse as faith being ''well-grounded confidence'', not a substitute for grounds. He's turned a verse about assurance into a verse against inquiry.

* '''"Worship means to surrender."''' Stated flatly (32:37). The main biblical words for worship (''shachah'', ''proskuneō'') center on bowing down / paying homage. Surrender is a fair devotional application, but it's presented as a definition, and it isn't one.

* '''Attributing the sinless-logic argument to "Satan knew he was intellectually wrong" from Ezekiel 28.''' Ezekiel 28 is addressed to the king of Tyre, and its application to Satan is an interpretive tradition, not a plain reading. Building a theory of skepticism-as-satanic on it is a lot of weight for a contested text.

* '''He never actually answers his own question.''' The sermon is titled "Why me / All things" and promises to explain "all things" (Romans 8:28) and "why me." He reads the texts at the start and then never returns to exposit them; the "why me" answer (God foresaw my free choice) is asserted in two sentences and dropped. The structure promises exposition and delivers a mood.

=God and logic=

~~:Main articles: [[God and the rules of logic]] and [[Logic and the Message]]~~

~~God serves as the foundation of all logic, having created the reality in which we discover the rules of laws.~~

We speak about logic in our discussion above. If you want more detail on how logic applies in theological issues, please read our separate articles on [[God and the rules of logic]] and [[Logic and the Message]].

[[Category:Unfinished articles]]

@@ Line 124: / Line 124: @@
 He tells the story of Israel's four-hundred-year sojourn promised to Abraham in Genesis 15:13, compared with the four hundred and thirty years actually recorded in Exodus 12:40. "The logic doesn't line up," he says. "Looks like it's wrong. Oh, well, God made a mistake... And the skeptic loves, 'oh, you're making it unfalsifiable.' Yes. Because we believe by faith." He treats this as an example of something you simply have to accept without explanation, a contradiction faith must absorb.
+This is also the textbook red herring (throw the Bible under the bus) tactic that was used by [[Red Herring Arguments|Voice of God Recordings (click here to see our video on the subject)]].
 Except it isn't a contradiction that needs faith to absorb it. '''It's a solved problem.''' Galatians 3:17 tells us plainly that the four hundred and thirty years run "from the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ" to Moses, meaning from the promise made to Abram, not from the birth of Isaac. Genesis 15:13's four hundred years is the shorter span of actual affliction in Egypt, counted from around the birth of Isaac. Two different starting points, two different but compatible numbers, no mistake and no mystery.
 Any decent study Bible will walk you through it. David Courchaine had a straightforward exegetical answer sitting one search away, but because he has his head in the Branham's sermons instead of the Bible, he reached for "we believe by faith it's unfalsifiable," which is precisely the move he mocks the atheist for making about naturalism a few minutes later.
 If unfalsifiability is a mark against a belief system when an atheist uses it, it's a mark against a belief system when he uses it too. You don't get to disqualify the tool for your opponent and then pick it back up for yourself.
 His double standard shows up again when he insists that belief in God is "not a rational belief... not reasonable by definition," only to quote 1 Peter 3:15 a few minutes later, a verse whose entire point is that Christians should "be ready always to give an answer... with meekness and fear" for the hope that is in them. Peter is telling us faith is reasonable enough to defend with reasons. David Courchaine wants the verse and its opposite in the same sermon.
+The deeper issue is the principle he draws from it: ''nothing can counter what I believe.'' A belief that no possible evidence could ever disconfirm isn't a strong belief. It's an empty one, in the sense that it's no longer making a claim about reality that reality could confirm or deny.
+'''This exact reasoning would equally protect Joseph Smith, the Watchtower, or any group Courchaine himself rejects.''' He rejects Mormonism on the grounds that Joseph Smith "pointed people to himself, not the truth." But that's an evidential, historical judgment, the very kind of reasoning he just told us we can't trust. He wants falsifiability when judging Joseph Smith and unfalsifiability when defending Branham. '''You can't have it both ways.'''
 == [[Logic and the Message#The Ad Hoc Rescue|The Ad Hoc Rescue]] - Turning errors into evidence ==
@@ Line 177: / Line 183: @@
 This is classic '''confirmation bias.''' Our brains naturally search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms our preexisting beliefs, while completely discarding evidence that contradicts them.
-== There really is a true answer ==
+=== An internal contradiction he doesn't notice ===
+Courchained argues that the Nicolaitan spirit, the "image of the beast," is precisely the impulse to "settle disputes" by declaring who's right, elevating a teaching authority over the people, and "casting out those who would not agree." Councils, creeds, votes = the beast.
+But the Message does exactly this, and Branham did it in the sharpest possible terms. Branham didn't merely offer a view; he said those who believe the Trinity are "possessed by the devil" and "you're lost," and he called the denominations the mark of the beast. That is the most extreme possible "casting out of those who won't agree." Courchaine praises Branham's tolerance ("find that brother and go to his church") while standing inside a system whose founder consigned Trinitarians to damnation. By Courchaine's own definition of the beast, the Message qualifies. He's applied the test to everyone except the one group it most obviously indicts, which is the very thing he warned against: "question everything except the person telling you to question everything."
+=== The Pragmatic Fallacy: ''It brought millions to Jesus, therefore it's true'' ===
+His climactic proof is testimonial and pragmatic: the Message introduced him to Jesus, it's brought millions to Christ, and that is "beyond dispute" and "THUS SAITH THE LORD."
+Two problems. First, even granting the sincerity, this is a textbook pragmatic fallacy - "it works, therefore it is true."
+Results are never a guarantee of truth. Whether something works and whether it is true are two very different issues.
+Anytime someone says... ''Try Jesus 'cause it works,'' he has committed a fallacy. Plenty of movements produce changed lives and sincere devotion, including ones Courchaine would call false. I am personally aware of:
+* A Muslim man who claims Islam is true because he was miraculously delivered from drug addiction.
+* A Mormon man who knows that the LDS religion is true because he experienced a "burning in his bosom."
+* A Roman Catholic man who was an alcoholic but was delivered instantaneously from his addiction through the power of Jesus.
+Based on the above, Courchaine would have to accept that Islam, Mormonism and Catholicism are all the truth.
+Fruit in the sense of transformed affections is not the same as a true prophetic claim. Branham's claim wasn't "I'll introduce you to Jesus." It was "I am the prophet of Malachi 4:5, the angel of Revelation 10:7, and to reject my message is the mark of the beast." That claim is either true or false on the evidence, and no number of testimonies settles it.
+Second, notice the quiet substitution. The thing that's "beyond dispute" (that the Message meant something to him personally) is smuggled in to vouch for the thing that is very much in dispute (that Branham was who he said he was). Those are two different claims. Conceding the first costs the critic nothing and proves nothing about the second.
+= There really is a true answer =
 David Courchaine is right about one thing more than any other: there really does have to be a true answer somewhere. I agree with him completely. Where I part ways with him is in how you find it.
-=== A false dilemma dressed up as humility ===
+== A false dilemma dressed up as humility ==
 Courchaine repeatedly offers exactly two options:
 #either you believe by pure faith/revelation, or
@@ Line 187: / Line 216: @@
 There is no third door in his telling.
-But there obviously is one, and it's the historic Christian position. The faulty dilemma is one of the favorite ways to make a Christian squirm.
+===The option he refuses to consider===
+There is an obvious alternative that he never considers and it is the one we constantly point to... the historic Christian position. The faulty dilemma is one of the favorite ways to make a Christian squirm.
-Here is the alternative he never considers: ''faith grounded in evidence.'' True faith is a confidence based on reliable evidence, resting on an overwhelming amount of reliable evidence from God's words and God's works, not some blind hope apart from any evidence.
+The alternative he never considers? ''Faith grounded in evidence.'' True faith is a confidence based on reliable evidence, resting on an overwhelming amount of reliable evidence from God's words and God's works, not some [["Blind Faith"|blind hope]] apart from any evidence.
-What he doesn't recognize is that this third alternative is firmly grounded in scripture. There was a person in the Bible who thought that Jesus was the messiah, but later on, he began to doubt.
+He also doesn't recognize that this third alternative is firmly grounded in scripture. There was a person in the Bible who thought that Jesus was the messiah, but later on, he began to doubt.
 How did Jesus deal with this man's doubt?
@@ Line 216: / Line 247: @@
-=== Textbook unfalsifiability admitted and celebrated ===
-Courchaine raises the skeptic's objection himself: "Oh, you're making it unfalsifiable. It can't be proven false." His answer is essentially "Yes."
-He uses the 400/430 year "discrepancy" (Genesis 15:13 vs. Exodus 12:40) to argue that even apparent contradictions in Scripture don't count against it, because "if intellectual consistency were truth, God isn't God."
-This is a textbook red herring (throw the Bible under the bus) tactic that was used by [[Red Herring Arguments|Voice of God Recordings (click here to see our video on the subject)]].
-Set aside the fact that the 400/430 figures have a straightforward harmonization that Christian apologists have offered for centuries (did he intentionally ignorant this?), so it's a weak example to hang the point on. The deeper issue is the principle he draws from it: ''nothing can counter what I believe.'' A belief that no possible evidence could ever disconfirm isn't a strong belief. It's an empty one, in the sense that it's no longer making a claim about reality that reality could confirm or deny.
-'''This exact reasoning would equally protect Joseph Smith, the Watchtower, or any group Courchaine himself rejects.''' He rejects Mormonism a few minutes later on the grounds that Joseph Smith "pointed people to himself, not the truth." But that's an evidential, historical judgment, the very kind of reasoning he just told us we can't trust. He wants falsifiability when judging Joseph Smith and unfalsifiability when defending Branham. '''You can't have it both ways.'''
-=== The Pragmatic Fallacy: ''It brought millions to Jesus, therefore it's true'' ===
-His climactic proof is testimonial and pragmatic: the Message introduced him to Jesus, it's brought millions to Christ, and that is "beyond dispute" and "THUS SAITH THE LORD."
-Two problems. First, even granting the sincerity, this is a textbook pragmatic fallacy - "it works, therefore it is true."
-Results are never a guarantee of truth. Whether something works and whether it is true are two very different issues.
-Anytime someone says... ''Try Jesus 'cause it works,'' he has committed a fallacy. Plenty of movements produce changed lives and sincere devotion, including ones Courchaine would call false. I am personally aware of:
-* A Muslim man who claims Islam is true because he was miraculously delivered from drug addiction.
-* A Mormon man who knows that the LDS religion is true because he experienced a "burning in his bosom."
-* A Roman Catholic man who was an alcoholic but was delivered instantaneously from his addiction through the power of Jesus.
-Based on the above, Courchaine would have to accept that Islam, Mormonism and Catholicism are all the truth.
-Fruit in the sense of transformed affections is not the same as a true prophetic claim. Branham's claim wasn't "I'll introduce you to Jesus." It was "I am the prophet of Malachi 4:5, the angel of Revelation 10:7, and to reject my message is the mark of the beast." That claim is either true or false on the evidence, and no number of testimonies settles it.
-Second, notice the quiet substitution. The thing that's "beyond dispute" (that the Message meant something to him personally) is smuggled in to vouch for the thing that is very much in dispute (that Branham was who he said he was). Those are two different claims. Conceding the first costs the critic nothing and proves nothing about the second.
-=== The Malachi / Revelation 10:7 word-chain ===
-Courchaine repeats the familiar Message move: ''Malachi'' = "my messenger," ''mal'ak'' = "messenger" = "angel," Revelation 10:7 speaks of the seventh "angel," therefore the threads tie together into a single end-time Gentile prophet.
-We dismantled the substance of this argument in ''Under the Halo.'' It's an equivocation (a term shifting meaning mid-argument). "Angel/messenger" is made to carry Branham across from Malachi to Revelation 10 by treating a translation overlap as if it were an identity of referents. But we show in ''Under The Halo'', the Greek of Revelation 10:7 ties the seventh angel to the seventh ''trumpet'' (Rev. 11:15), and Branham's own claim that the text says "the message angel, not the trumpet angel" is simply not what the Greek says, a point confirmed by the ESV, HCSB, and NLT renderings of the passage. Courchaine inherits the conclusion without re-examining the exegesis. He's building the roof on a foundation we've already shown to be unsound.
-Courchaine asserts Malachi 4 "happened" and that Branham fulfilled it, but his ''only'' stated evidence is, again, personal, "the message of Brother Branham definitively brought my heart back to him." That's the pragmatic fallacy doing the exegetical work that the text can't.
-=== An internal contradiction he doesn't notice ===
-This one is worth pointing out because it's his own words turning on him. He argues that the Nicolaitan spirit, the "image of the beast," is precisely the impulse to "settle disputes" by declaring who's right, elevating a teaching authority over the people, and "casting out those who would not agree." Councils, creeds, votes: beast.
-But the Message does exactly this, and Branham did it in the sharpest possible terms. Branham didn't merely offer a view; he said those who believe the Trinity are "possessed by the devil" and "you're lost," and he called the denominations the mark of the beast. That is the most extreme possible "casting out of those who won't agree." Courchaine praises Branham's tolerance ("find that brother and go to his church") while standing inside a system whose founder consigned Trinitarians to damnation. By Courchaine's own definition of the beast, the Message qualifies. He's applied the test to everyone except the one group it most obviously indicts, which is the very thing he warned against: "question everything except the person telling you to question everything."
-==== Smaller but real problems ====
-A few things that don't deserve full sections but are worth noting for accuracy:
-* '''"Faith is evidence because evidence is not conclusive."''' He's leaning on the KJV of Hebrews 11:1 ("evidence of things not seen") to argue that faith replaces evidence. But the Greek (''elenchos'') means something closer to "proof" or "conviction," and Christians for centuries have read the verse as faith being ''well-grounded confidence'', not a substitute for grounds. He's turned a verse about assurance into a verse against inquiry.
-* '''"Worship means to surrender."''' Stated flatly (32:37). The main biblical words for worship (''shachah'', ''proskuneō'') center on bowing down / paying homage. Surrender is a fair devotional application, but it's presented as a definition, and it isn't one.
-* '''Attributing the sinless-logic argument to "Satan knew he was intellectually wrong" from Ezekiel 28.''' Ezekiel 28 is addressed to the king of Tyre, and its application to Satan is an interpretive tradition, not a plain reading. Building a theory of skepticism-as-satanic on it is a lot of weight for a contested text.
-* '''He never actually answers his own question.''' The sermon is titled "Why me / All things" and promises to explain "all things" (Romans 8:28) and "why me." He reads the texts at the start and then never returns to exposit them; the "why me" answer (God foresaw my free choice) is asserted in two sentences and dropped. The structure promises exposition and delivers a mood.
 =God and logic=
-:Main articles: [[God and the rules of logic]] and [[Logic and the Message]]
-God serves as the foundation of all logic, having created the reality in which we discover the rules of laws.
+We speak about logic in our discussion above. If you want more detail on how logic applies in theological issues, please read our separate articles on [[God and the rules of logic]] and [[Logic and the Message]].
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 [[Category:Unfinished articles]]