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| {| style="width:800px" | | William Branham preached a series of sermons in March 1963 on the Seven Seals of the book of Revelation, and said that each seal identifies a religious disturbance. William Branham compared Jesus’ words in Matthew 24:29-30 with the Sixth seal. |
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| William Branham preached a series of sermons in March 1963 on the Seven Seals of the book of Revelation. This article contains a summary of these sermons as taught by William Branham, who taught that each seal identifies a religous disturbance. Much of William Branham's teachings on the Seven Seals can also be found in the works of Clarence Larkin, a dispensational Baptist author. | |
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| Each seal opens a new chapter in the book sealed with seven seals. This page reviews William Branham's commentary on the Sixth Seal as found in the twelfth to seventeenth verses of Revelation Chapter 6.
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| <div style="border-bottom:1px #B87333 solid; text-align:center; font-size:140%; padding:1px; margin:1px;">Revelation Chapter 6 Verse 12</div>
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| | !Matthew 24:29-30 |
| ''And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; ''
| | !Revelation 6:12-17 |
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| |} | | |Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. |
| | | |And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? |
| ====The Lamb opens the sixth seal====
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| It is the Lamb of God, who is Jesus Christ, who is the only one worthy to open the seals.
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| {{7 Seals}}
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| ====Disruption of nature====
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| Immediately after the seal is opened there is a disruption of nature: an earthquake, darkness in the daytime, and blood at night. This was prophecied by Jesus to occur before the end of time:
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| *'''Matthew 24:29''' ''Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:''
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| William Branham taught that all of these things occurred or were mentioned earlier in the scriptures, and it is possible to see why they are happening again: they are nature's response to a prophet.
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| '''Earthquake''' Matthew 27:54 - ''Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.'' <br>
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| '''Darkness''' Exodus 10:22 - ''And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days:''<br>
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| '''Blood''' Joel 2:31 - ''The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.''
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| Joel prophecied that the moon would be turned into blood before the "great and terrible day of the LORD". Malachi prophecied that before the "great and dreadful day of the LORD" Elijah the prophet would come, and the people would remember the law of Moses.
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| ====The two witnesses====
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| '''REVELATION 11:3, 6''' And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. ...These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
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| The words in this scripture, as taught by William Branham mean:
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| '''Days''': Using the Hebrew calendar of 30 days in a month, 1,260 days is 42 months, which is three and a half years. Daniel prophecied that Messiah (Jesus) would be cut off in the midst of the week (a day being equal to a year), leaving three and a half days (or years) to finish the redemption of the Children of Israel.
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| '''Power to shut heaven''': In the Bible, Elijah the prophet was the only one with power to withhold dew and rain from heaven. (I Kings 17:1) Elijah then held the rain back from the land for over three years (I Kings 18:1).
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| '''Power to turn water into blood''': In the Bible, Moses the prophet was the only one with power to turn water into blood(Exodus 7:19), and to smite the earth with plagues (Exodus 8-12).
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| These two prophets, Moses and Elijah, are the cause of the disruption of nature, as foretold by the prophets Malachi and Joel to occur before the "day of the LORD".
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| ====The reason for the disruptions====
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| An earthquake followed Jesus' crucifixion because the world had rejected the Messiah. Elijah held back the rain because Ahab had forsaken the commandments of God, and followed other gods (I Kings 18:8). Moses turned water into blood because the people refused to listen to the two signs given to him by God (Exodus 4:9). This disruption of nature is redemption through judgement.
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| William Branham taught that redemption by judgement marks the start of freedom for those who believe: Jesus broke the penalty of sin and death, Elijah brought the people back to God on Mount Carmel, and Moses brought the deliverance of the Children of Israel and set them into tribal order.
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| <div style="border-bottom:1px #B87333 solid; text-align:center; font-size:140%; padding:1px; margin:1px;">Revelation Chapter 6 Verse 13 and 14</div>
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| {|style="width:800px; background-color:#cedff2; border:1px #a3b0bf solid; text-align:center;"
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| |''And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.''
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| William Branham said:
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| :''“Brother, the earthquake burst open, and the stars shake; volcanics will come forth, and the earth will renew itself. New lava will break forth from the center of the earth, and she'll crumble all around and around and around when she spins out in yonder. And I tell you, one morning when Jesus and His Bride comes back to the earth, there'll be a paradise of God there”''
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| :''“Let me show you the reason the world's got to do it. The frame of this world: the iron and the brass and the materials of this earth has been pulled out of it, its framework, for war and industry until it's just about ready..”''
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| <div style="border-bottom:1px #B87333 solid; text-align:center; font-size:140%; padding:1px; margin:1px;">Revelation Chapter 6 Verse 15 and 16</div>
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| {|style="width:800px; background-color:#cedff2; border:1px #a3b0bf solid; text-align:center;"
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| |''And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:''
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| :''“Those who had laughed at the preaching of the Word, of the vindicated Word of the living God... When them prophets that stood there and performed miracles, closed the sun, and everything else, and all down through the age... See? They cried for the rocks and the mountains to hide them (See?), to hide them from the Word that they'd laughed at, 'cause they seen Him coming. "Hide us from the wrath of the Lamb." He is the Word. See?”''
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| William Branham taught that every person who has rejected the leadership of the Word of God, as delivered through his servants the prophets, is subject to the wrath of the Lamb. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, paid the penalty for sin and death. However, anyone who rejects this sacrifice is guilty of the sacrifice, and it is Jesus himself who becomes the judge of man, instead of his saviour.
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| *'''Romans 10:16-17''' ''But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.''
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| <div style="border-bottom:1px #B87333 solid; text-align:center; font-size:140%; padding:1px; margin:1px;">Revelation Chapter 6 Verse 17</div>
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| |''For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? ''
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| William Branham taught that the day of wrath is prophecied in Malachi, Daniel, Isaiah, and II Peter. With such repetition of prophecy, there is no doubt that judgement will come, and the day of the Lord will arrive. | | William Branham opens the Sixth Seal with a modified retelling of Max Brand’s 1920 story “A Sagebrush Cinderella”. |
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| *'''II Peter 3:10''' ''But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.''
| | He then ties the earthquake, and signs in heaven and on earth, to the ministries of Moses and Elijah after the Rapture. Since Moses and Elijah both performed signs in heaven and earth during their ministries, he concluded that they would return to continue their job. |
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| *'''Malachi 4:1''' ''For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.''
| | :''“Israel is God’s son, so he is going to deliver him here in the Tribulation period, just exactly the way He did down in Egypt. …There is your Seal. Who does it? It’s the prophets, the other side of the Rapture. With the Power of God, the Word of God, they just condemn nature. They can send earthquakes, turn the moon into blood, the sun can go down, or anything, at their command.”'' |
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| *'''Daniel 12:1''' ''And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.''
| | By 1964, William Branham was trying out his own hand at condemning nature, proclaiming judgment on Los Angeles, and claiming that an earthquake in Alaska was fulfillment of his ministry’s judgment on the West Coast. |
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| *'''Isaiah 13:6-8''' ''Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.''
| | William Branham again makes a number of very strange statements in this sermon: |
| | #He talks respectfully about Mormon prophets: “Joseph Smith…that fine man, and the vision, I don’t doubt at all but what he had the vision. I believe he was a sincere man. But the vision he had was contrary to the Scripture.” |
| | #He mentions a vision being present in Heaven with Jesus and the recording angel, when the recording angel calls his name. Meda and Hope then enter heaven with him. This story is to reassure those who listened to sermon on the Fifth Seal, that those waiting under the altar following his ministry would enter heaven with him. |
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| | William Branham also takes the time to lash out critically at big-game hunters: |
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| | :''"Why, it's a sin. That's not sport. When I was standing out on the field out yonder, in where I hunt and things like that, and see where them white hunters come out there and shoot them deer and cut a hindquarters off of it and sometimes kill eight or ten little does and leave them laying there, and their fawns running around trying to find their mammy, and you mean that's sportsmanship? That's pure murder in my book… Buffalo Bill and them plainsmen had shot off all them buffaloes, forty, fifty in an afternoon. They know when they ridded that, they got rid of the Indian. Oh, my, a stain on the flag the way they treated them Indians. There you are. But remember, the Bible said, "The hour's come that God will destroy them that destroys the earth."'' |
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| | On May 26, 1965, William Branham went to Africa and shot 33 large game animals (including buffalo) in 21 days. Owen Jorgenson wrote that “Bill wanted to shoot a lion…He tried setting a trap. First he shot a zebra. Tying the dead zebra behind the Land Rover, he drug it in a wide circle around a tree, then left the zebra carcass under the tree, hoping a lion would smell the zebra scent and follow it to the tree”. So it turns out that William Branham became the big-game hunter that he condemned so harshly. Think about it…when is the last time you shot 33 large game animals in 21 days? William Branham simply did in Africa what he accused the white man of doing in America – and he did it while wearing shorts. |
| !Matthew 24:29-30
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| !Revelation 6:12-17
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| |Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
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| |And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
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| ==Plagiarism== | | ==Plagiarism== |
| | William Branham’s secret source of information for this sermon was the writings of [[Plagiarism|Clarence Larkin]]. Here is a comparison: |
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| {{Portal Navigation}} | | ==Questions== |
| | Voice of God Recordings and many Message Believers have tried to prove William Branham correct by saying there are discrepancies in the Bible. As part of the Sixth Seal, William Branham addresses these concerns himself: |
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| | :''“I can take one Scripture and say, “Judas went and hung himself,” take another and say, “You go do the same.” See? But, see, it won’t blend in with the rest of It.” |
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| | :''"The Bible does not contradict itself. “And the Bible does not contradict Itself anywhere. I've heard the old critics say that, but I have had an offer for him for a long time to show me where it's at. It isn't in here.” |
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| | William Branham preached hard against the "sin" of big-game hunting, during an important sermon like the Sixth Seal. He then went out and shot 33 large animals in Africa in 21 days. In other words, he did the very thing he preached against. |
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| | What other sins did William Branham preach against, but participate in? |
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