Most Christians are unaware of the Evangelist named William Branham, but his influence on modern Christianity cannot be underestimated.
A simple study of his life reveals he was one of the fathers of the miracle crusade movements in the last century. His main message was that “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever” and that we should expect Jesus Christ would return in the very near future. He promoted the idea that he himself was the final messenger to the churches before Christ’s return, although he would usually do this in a round-about indirect way in many of his messages.
Though he was far from being the first to interpret it as such, he interpreted the Seven Churches in the book of revelation as being symbolic of Seven Ages of the Church. Each message to the Seven Churches in the book of Revelation corresponds to each age the church has passed through in history. Each Church Age has had a messenger… For example, the Fifth Church Age had Luther as its messenger, the Sixth Church Age had John Wesley, and the Seventh and Final Church Age Messenger was none other than, of course, William Branham himself.
Such an interpretation of the Book of Revelation was not unheard of. Charles Taze Russell, the founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses, also viewed himself as the seventh messenger to the Churches. In fact, both Branham and Russell have this very reference on their tombstones – that they are the Laodicean Messenger to the Churches.
Even more eery, both have memorials at their tombs that are in the shape of large pyramids. Here are some pics to show how strangely alike each memorial is…
The book on Branham’s memorial (shown above) lists the Seven Messengers and includes Branham as the Laodicean Church Messenger, the seventh messenger. The other messengers, according to Branham were: St. Paul,Ireneus, St. Martin, Columba, Luther, and Wesley.
Charles Russell’s grave memorial is also in the shape of a pyramid with a book engraved on it. There doesn’t seem to be any reference on the pyramid to the Seven Messngers of the Churches, but Russell’s view was that the seven messengers were: St. Paul, St. John, Arius, Waldo, Wycliffe, Luther, and of course Russell as #7. His gravestone itself testifies that he also believed such a doctrine strongly.
Are these merely coincidences? Did Branham simply borrow some of Russell’s views and adopt them for his own use? We should note that Russell preceded Branham by several decades and by Branham’s time, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were already widely known and confronting orthodox Christianity for many years.
Interestingly, Scofield’s reference Bible, published around 1909, was likely the point where this new doctrine called “the seven church ages” was turned into a sort of “dogma” of many evangelical churches. Of course, we all know that Scofield’s notes in the Scofield Reference Bible are infallible interpretations of Scripture…
So, William Branham is now viewed as the Seventh Messenger to the Church of Laodicea, the current church age. He is also considered by his followers (and was considered to be so by himself clearly by his own messages) as the Prophet Elijah who is to come before the Second Advent of Christ.
William Branham had a powerful stage presence and was able to read the minds and spirits of many who came to his meetings. There are psychic mediums today that have such a power to solve detective cases and find missing persons using this psychic ability. My purpose is not to judge these people’s abilities, or even Branham’s ability. I do believe he had the ability unlike some Evangelists who have only pretended to have it. However, having such an ability does not automatically make you approved by God. If this were the case, everyone who has psychic ability would be considered a Prophet of God – even the little girl in Acts who was able to foretell events by an evil spirit.
It is my hope that this web log will help expose William Branham as a false prophet – or at least bring many to a state of doubt about his claim and the claim of those who fear, venerate, and obey him like a pope.
For those who are too involved or invested in Branhamism, I suggest you let down your guard and consider the facts presented here. I truly understand the ethos and draw of Branhamism. I have been there.
