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William Branham: Difference between revisions
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=Teaching Strange Doctrine= | =Teaching Strange Doctrine= | ||
From the mid 1950s onwards William Branham became more open with his beliefs, | From the mid-1950s onwards William Branham became more open with his own beliefs. As a result, people who once preached with him abandoned his ministry. Ern Baxter told him not to teach, but he did not listen. William Booth Clibborn accused William Branham of not knowing his Bible, but William Branham never put the effort in to learn his Bible. Gordon Lindsay also reached out to William Branham, but William Branham went hunting rather than meeting Gordon Lindsay as he said he would do. | ||
It was during these years that William Branham introduced the vision of the “third pull” that was to play a more significant part in later years. | Some of William Branham’s doctrines from the 1950’s include: | ||
*He taught that neither Oneness theology nor Trinitarianism lined up with the Bible. | |||
*Reaching outside the Bible to the book of Enoch, he said that Enoch talked with Noah. He typed this to a sign of the rapture, with Noah preparing for the tribulation after Enoch’s rapture. But based on the Bible, Noah was born after Enoch was not. | |||
*Like Job’s friends, William Branham taught that God always punishes you for good reason (which is why his first wife Hope died). | |||
*William Branham taught that he was a prophet like Moses, with two signs. But he had to overlook the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth to claim that he was a prophet like Moses. | |||
*Because Elijah confronted Jezebel, William Branham felt vindicated to speak harshly against women. | |||
**In March 1958, William Branham was teaching that it was appropriate for a man to blister his wife with a 2x4 if she smoked or wore shorts. | |||
**William Branham preached that Eve cursed the human race by breeding with the Serpent, producing Cain, even though the Bible says that “sin entered the world by one man” (Romans 5:12) | |||
**He taught that Satan designed the Woman, even though God said “Let us make mankind in our image.” | |||
*He taught that prophets were eagles in the Bible – which is not supported by scripture. | |||
*He took doctrines from the Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons, modified them, and called the “revelation”. | |||
*He taught that the Holy Spirit would come or go based on your actions. While Jesus said, “I will never leave you”, William Branham taught that the Holy Spirit would leave you for something as simple as speeding. | |||
*William Branham also did not understand the doctrine of grace. He taught that falling from grace was looking like Elvis, and remaining in God’s grace required obedience to his many rules on conduct, order, and doctrine. | |||
It was during these years that William Branham introduced the vision of the “third pull” that was to play a more significant part in later years. The third pull relates to a vision of an Angel who was teaching him how to fish. He was to cast his line out, pull slow at first (his healing ministry), jerk a little harder the second time (his discernment ministry), and set the hook for the catch on the third pull. However, in the vision William Branham got his line tangled, and the Angel rebuked him for making a public show of his ministry. The angel then took him back to a tent where people were being saved (reminiscent of his 1945 commissioning vision), and the pillar of fire leaves William Branham and goes back into a small building to meet people privately. | |||
It is in the late 1950’s that William Branham began talking about ‘speaking things into existence’. By his word, he claimed to have raised dead fish to life, brought a woman’s two sons to instant salvation, and created squirrels. He shot the squirrels, and one follow of William Branham claimed they sat in his freezer for years, and had no belly buttons. | |||
In an interview, Ern Baxter said “Branham as a teacher was outside of his calling. The fruits of his teaching ministry are not good.” | |||
On June 1956 William Branham preached a three day campaign at the Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis with Jim Jones. This three day campaign was attended by over 11, 000 people and sky-rocketed Jim Jones to fame. Jones later went on to commit mass suicide in 1978 after the world never ended in 1977. | |||
=A Prophet?= | =A Prophet?= | ||
In 1960 William Branham spoke a series of sermons on the Church Ages (see Seven Church Ages for more details) that outlined his views of church history and his interpretation of the first few chapters of the book of Revelation. In these sermons, William Branham predicted that the seven visions he saw in 1933 would be fulfilled by 1977. Much of these sermons is similar to the doctrines published by the Baptist theologian Clarence Larkin. | |||
In the 1960’s William Branham would often say, “I am a prophet”, and “I am not a prophet”. He also expressed confusion as to whether he was a seer or an evangelist. | |||
William Branham’s mother Ella Harvey (Branham) died October 27, 1961. Just over a year later, William Branham moved his family to Tucson, Arizona. As he left, he told his congregation in Jeffersonville that he was leaving to fulfill a vision of hunting in the Mountains with his son Joseph, and that five angels would appear to him. | |||
William Branham came back for meetings in Jeffersonville in early 1963 where he preached about an angelic visitation he had received without his son Joseph, and how he was divinely instructed to preach about the Seven Seals. These sermons contained a lot of church history, and also borrowed heavily from the commentary of Clarence Larkin. People who believe that William Branham was a major prophet consider these sermons the fulfillment of Matthew 17:11, where Jesus says that Elijah must come and “restore all things”. The seals as taught by William Branham can be summarized as follows: | |||
In | *First Seal - Lying | ||
*Second Seal – False Doctrine | |||
*Third Seal – Immorality in the ministry | |||
*Fourth Seal – Death | |||
*Fifth Seal - Destruction | |||
*Sixth Seal – hunting | |||
*Seventh Seal – Tent vision | |||
In these sermons, William Branham tells that he was hunting earlier that month when seven angels came to him in Arizona, and that one angel revealed the seals to him before each sermon. He later saw a picture of a cloud over Arizona in LIFE magazine, and claimed that he was hunting exactly under it at the time, when he actually went hunting a few hundred miles south of the cloud a week later. | |||
In May 1962 William Branham expressed his confusion and decision at becoming a seer or an evangelist.<ref>Questions and Answers, May 27, 1962</ref> In June 1963 he tells of an angelic visitation where he is told to ''"Return! Did not I tell you in the beginning to do the work of an Evangelist?"'' In the same sermon, William Branham confesses that he has lost the love for the people, calling them "Ricky and Ricketta" when they are still children of God, and are only under bondage to denominations who tell them ''"don't you do this, and don't you do that."'' <ref>Standing in the Gap, June 23, 1963</ref> | In May 1962 William Branham expressed his confusion and decision at becoming a seer or an evangelist.<ref>Questions and Answers, May 27, 1962</ref> In June 1963 he tells of an angelic visitation where he is told to ''"Return! Did not I tell you in the beginning to do the work of an Evangelist?"'' In the same sermon, William Branham confesses that he has lost the love for the people, calling them "Ricky and Ricketta" when they are still children of God, and are only under bondage to denominations who tell them ''"don't you do this, and don't you do that."'' <ref>Standing in the Gap, June 23, 1963</ref> | ||
In January 1964, | William Branham spoke some very bold prophecies that were recorded during his sermons in the 1960’s that did not come to pass. These prophecies include: | ||
*A vision of him shooting a record brown bear. | |||
*A vision of him preaching to 300,000 people in South Africa in single meeting. | |||
*The seventh angel (who he indirectly taught was himself) would be alive on earth at the time of the second coming. | |||
*He predicted the end of the world in 1977. | |||
*He prophesied that Los Angeles would sink into the ocean. He told Pearry Green privately that this would take place before his son Billy Paul was an old man (Billy Paul was born in 1936). | |||
*Christians would play rock and roll in their churches, and would be taken to hell with it. | |||
In January 1964, Kenneth Hagin had a prophecy that Gordon Lindsay communicated to William Branham, that the devil would take William Branham's life before the end of 1965 because of his own error. | |||
William Branham went hunting again in March 1964. This time he took a larger number of friends with him. He claimed that a whirlwind came from heaven (there is a video of the dust-devil taken at the camp). He claimed that it was the judgment sign of the end of the world, and that his message was the “evening light” that came to him on “Sunset Mountain”. In reality, all of these men were hunting on Rattlesnake Mesa. While he declared judgement on California, an earthquake struck Alaska. Not deterred, William Branham claimed it was fulfillment of judgement. | |||
In 1965 he spoke some radical sermons. In Marriage and Divorce, he taught that a man could divorce his wife if she trimmed her hair. There was no mercy in William Branham’s sermons in 1965. He also taught that rapturing faith could only come by listening to his voice. | |||
=Death= | =Death= | ||