BelieveTheSign

Why does this website exist?

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Click on headings to expand them, or links to go to specific articles.

What is the motivation for this website?

The development of this website started in 2004, and the site went public in 2007, with the purpose of being a sane voice in defense of the message of William Branham.

We left the message church we had attended for 37 years after it turned out that the pastor of the church had covered up the sexual abuse of a minor. The majority of the congregation also left within a month after our leaving and a new church started up. It did not differ doctrinally from the church we left, yet the pastor from our former church believed all those who left were apostate. The most problematic issue was the fact that not a single message minister stood up publicly against the terrible sin of our former pastor.

How could this be? Wasn't the purpose of the message to create a pure bride that could stand above sin and the world? We began to think that the message had somehow been perverted by the ministers of the message. To determine whether this was the case, we went to the very foundation of our faith and started examining what we believed. We asked ourselves these two questions:

  1. Had ministers of the message perverted William Branham's teaching? OR
  2. Was there a fundamental problem with the message itself?

And so the purpose of this website changed to become a source of objective, verifiable information on William Branham and to detail the research that resulted from our questions about the message.

A special message to followers of William Branham
To the best of our knowledge, all of the information on this website is factual.
If you believe any of the evidence contained on this website is inaccurate, please provide us with the details.
We will immediately post any evidence that conflicts with our research and revise our conclusions, provided that we can independently confirm the accuracy of the evidence.

On January 14, 2016 we issued "A Scriptural Challenge to Followers of William Branham" and have not yet received a single response. We are still waiting...

Our questions

We started asking a lot of questions which didn't make us popular with the leadership within the message.

Can we trust the Bible?

Because the message is basically a "King James Version Only" denomination (and, yes, we believe the message is a "denomination" as that word is commonly defined), we started examining the Bible and which versions we could consider as trustworthy. Through our research over a period of about 9 months, it became clear that the Bible was very trustworthy, although our understanding was changed somewhat as we clearly understood how the New Testament had been passed down to us today.

Can we trust the message?

We then started to research the message. Our sole purpose was to prove the message to be true so that we could determine how it had been perverted by the message ministers who refused to stand up against sin in the pulpit.

While the Bible had stood up well to intense scrutiny, our research into the message started raising some very difficult questions - visions that had apparently failed, prophecies that had changed over time, credibility issues and doctrinal problems.

Paul, in Acts 17, considered those that searched scripture to try to prove whether things were true to be more noble than those that did not:

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.[1]

The research we did to try answer the questions we encountered raised even more questions, so we became even more diligent in our efforts to prove that the message was correct and that William Branham was a true prophet of God. The ongoing results of our research continued to raise even more questions. We spent several years researching these issues which in turn raised multitudes of questions.

What happened next...

Our biggest problem was that no one in our church was prepared to sincerely consider our questions and try to answer them. We talked to many well-known ministers that also followed William Branham, but they didn't have any answers either. A few of the more honest ministers actually admitted that we had stumbled onto some questions that they couldn't answer (at least in a way that reflected positively on William Branham). So we kept searching for answers.

What was important to us was the Bible and it has always been our sincere desire to follow Christ regardless of the cost. That is more important to us than family, friends or work. Our questions were driven by our desire to know Jesus Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.

What does the Bible say about sincere questions?

Read our article on What Jesus had to say about asking questions?

The Book of Acts contains numerous examples of Paul reasoning with the Jews in their synagogues about the Messiah. Paul was dealing with tough questions being put to him by Jews that did not believe the message of Christ.

When someone comes to us with a tough question, how are we supposed to respond? Peter gives us the answer in 1 Peter 3:15 (shown below from several translations):

KJV - But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear...[2]


NASB - ...but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence...[3]


NLT - Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way.[4]

I am not sure why those in our church did not seem to believe or practice this verse, but we have found this attitude through out the message - message believers refuse to answer, or even discuss, our questions in an open and honest manner.

This page consists of our list of questions. Each question contains a link which, if you click on, will take you to our detailed research on the specific issue.

How did Jesus deal with questions arising out of doubt?

There was a person in the Bible that thought that Jesus was the messiah but later on he began to have some doubt.

How did Jesus deal with this man's doubt?

Here is the story about John the Baptist from Luke 7:18- 23:

John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, 19 he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”  When the men came to Jesus, they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ ”  At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind.  So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.  Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” [5]

Jesus did not say, "How could you doubt me, John?" He did not condemn John for doubting. What he did was point to the evidence and to tell John's followers to go back to him and tell John the Baptist what they saw.

Jesus did not condemn doubt and he simply pointed to the evidence.

Fear not

If you are a message believer, the list below is frightening. You may get angry. Some have become physically ill. They are going to raise a lot of questions. But please just take your time. Think about the questions that we are asking and the facts that we are presenting (click on the highlighted text to go to the specific research on an issue).

We are not expecting you to believe anything just because we are saying it. But what we have done is to provide all of the facts, quotes and references necessary to back up all of our research and observations. Study these things out for yourself. If you can find any errors in our research, we will change the information on our website - please, just let us know about it.

To the extent anyone in the message has sought to provide us with an explanation for, or specific solution to, a problem or concern that we have raised, we have listed these in the discussion of the issue. There have not been a lot of explanations to date that have been sent to us, and most of them are easily identified as being the product of Cognitive Dissonance (if you don't know what that is, please click on the link).

Finally, don't be afraid. The opposite of love is not hate, but fear. If you have doubts, they need to be resolved, and the only way to do that is to find out the truth. We wished that we had known these things years ago. And we are presenting them here so that you don't have to spend the years researching these issues that we did.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. 4:19 We love because he loved us first. (1 John 4:18-19)[6]


Video Transcript

I Stand by the Door by Sam Shoemaker

I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out.
The door is the most important door in the world -
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There is no use my going way inside and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where the door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men,
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it.
So I stand by the door.
The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door - the door to God.
The most important thing that any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands
And put it on the latch - the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man's own touch.
Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter.
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live on the other side of it - live because they have not found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him.
So I stand by the door.
Go in great saints; go all the way in -
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics.
It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms,
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening . . .
So I stand by the door.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving—preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stand by the door.
I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not even found the door,
Or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him, and know He is there,
But not so far from people as not to hear them,
And remember they are there too.
Where? Outside the door—
Thousands of them, millions of them.
But — more important for me —
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch,
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
"I had rather be a door-keeper..."
So I stand by the door.

Sam Shoemaker (1893-1963) served as a pastor in New York City and Pittsburgh. He was instrumental in establishing the spiritual foundation for Alcoholics Anonymous, particularly the need to turn to God as a way of coming out of alcoholism. Pastor Shoemaker wrote this poem toward the end of his life as an apology for his ministry.

Someone mentioned this poem in passing at a meeting in which we were discussing the vision of the organization I was leading at the time. After the meeting, I searched for the poem and was moved to tears as I read it the first time. I started sending it to anyone who was interested in evangelism and was asked to read the poem for an online evangelism conference. I trust it will impact you as it did me.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ac 17:10–11.
  2. ↑ 1 Peter 3:15-16 (KJV)
  3. ↑ 1 Peter 3:15-16 (NASB)
  4. ↑ 1 Peter 3:15-16 (NLT)
  5. ↑ The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Lk 7:18–23.
  6. ↑ Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2006), 1 Jn 4:18–19.


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