A Critique of each Vision
This is an essay analyzing William Branham's Seven Visions of 1933. It was written by a former message follower.
Click on the links below to go to a specific section within the essay. You are currently on the topic below that is in bold:
An Introduction to the Analysis of the Seven Visions of 1933
What were the Seven Visions?
How many Visions?
Why were the Visions given?
Why did the Visions fail to change men’s religious ideas?
A Comparison of the 1960 Sermon and the Church Age Book
A Critique of each Vision
- Mussolini
- Hitler
- Three ISMs
- Scientific progress
- Women and morals
- Powerful Woman in America
- America destroyed
The Prediction
The sequence of the visions
Two views of the Seven Visions
Summary of the discussion
A Critique of each Vision
As we look at the statements that William Branham made in his sermons there is a common theme: he frequently added to or changed the original details.
As already argued, it is difficult to imagine that the record of the visions in the Church Age Book is not definitive and therefore equally difficult to imagine that it could be changed. This then raises questions about these modifications – why were contrary statements made in the sermons? Why were the originals not referenced?
All of the sermon statements related to the visions are included here. Most of them reiterate the basics of each vision however there are a significant number that don’t and a subset of those will be considered here. The following general comments can be made:
- Some visions were first mentioned post fact and therefore cannot be considered to constitute be prophecies.
- Sermon statements sometimes add detail to the original.
- Sermon statements sometimes modify the original.
- No vision published before the fact has unequivocally been fulfilled.
- The 1977 date for the fulfillment of all of the visions has passed.
- The fulfillment of the visions was supposed to herald the soon coming of Christ.
- The ‘Three ISMs’ vision cannot now be fulfilled.
- The rise to power of the Catholic Church in America is unlikely ever to be fulfilled.
But to reiterate, the basic problem with statements he made in sermons from 1953 on, is that details are changed and this is impossible to justify. As the years passed, he should have just been restating the visions and relating world events to their progressive fulfillment. So, each one of the variations listed in this section has to be seen as an implied modification to the original vision. Visions don’t work that way and why he changed the details of the visions cannot be explained.
This section highlights some of the variations over time and also provides a critique of the vision itself based on actual events and developments.