William Branham's Golden Calf
"If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
(Deuteronomy 13:1-5)"When the people saw that Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said to him, 'Come, make us a god* who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!'
Then Aaron replied to them, 'Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings that were on their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from their hands, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into an image of a calf.'
Then they said, 'Israel, this is your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!'
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; then he made an announcement: 'There will be a festival to the LORD tomorrow.' Early the next morning they arose, offered burnt offerings, and presented fellowship offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink, then got up to play.
The LORD spoke to Moses: 'Go down at once! For your people you brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them; they have made for themselves an image of a calf. They have bowed down to it, sacrificed to it, and said, "Israel, this is your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt."’ The LORD also said to Moses: 'I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. Now leave Me alone, so that My anger can burn against them and I can destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.'”
(Exodus 32:1-10 [Holman Christian Standard Bible])
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*The word translated as "god" in this passage is elohim, which is a plural word except when used in reference to Yahweh. Most versions translate elohim in this passage as "gods" even though it is clear it is speaking of a singular golden calf which was to represent the one God who brought them out of Egypt. The HCSB rightly retains the context of their God being a singular God and translates elohim as the singular "god" and "God."What do these two passages have in common? They both have to do with worshiping gods other than Yahweh. The passage from Deuteronomy tells us that a prophet can perform signs and wonders, and even make accurate predictive prophecies. But if that prophet tells the people to follow after other gods, then he is a false prophet.
The passage in Exodus describes a heinous sin that Israel committed against God. What was their sin? Instinctively, we recognize that it was idolatry; their worship of a false god, namely the golden calf. And what does Aaron say about this golden calf? We will say more about this in a moment.
We often make an issue of the fact that William Branham never made a predictive prophecy which came to pass as predicted. Message believers deny this, but it’s a proven fact. Be that as it may, Message believers contend that WMB’s flawless gift of prophecy showed that he was a true prophet of God. But does an impeccable prophetic record prove that a man is a prophet of God? The passage in Deuteronomy says no. God says that even if a prophet is able to predict future events accurately, the fact that he leads people to follow after other gods identifies him as a false prophet. You may say, “But Brother Branham didn’t tell people to follow after false gods.” Didn’t he?
Let’s take another look at Exodus 32 and see what Aaron had to say about the golden calf:
“These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD [that is, Yahweh].”
Aaron equated the golden calf with Yahweh. The LORD (the capital L-O-R-D indicates the name Yahweh) to whom Aaron was proclaiming this feast was an image of Yahweh in the form of a golden calf. Aaron was proclaiming the golden calf to be Yahweh who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt. God’s anger was hot against Israel for worshiping the the golden calf in His place, even though they equated it to Himself. They worshiped a false god saying it was the true God and God would have destroyed them except for Moses' intercession.
WMB did the same thing. Even if he did make thousands of prophecies without a single error, the god WMB led his followers to was not the Christian God. He led them to another god (Deuteronomy 13:1). His god was a false representation of the triune God which many false teachers and false prophets before him have tried to get the Church to follow. And many of those who have left the Message continue to believe and propogate WMB's false god, his idol.
Just because you may perceive WMB to have been flawless in predictive prophecy, it does not vindicate him as a prophet sent by God since his god was an idol, the equivalent to Israel's golden calf. And if you continue to follow his god, or some form of it which is not according to the biblical relelation of Yahweh, you are still an idolator. You need to repent and turn to the one True God, revealed in the Bible as the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. You need to repent and believe the gospel of the true God made flesh, Jesus Christ!
You, as a Message believer, or even a former Message believer, are responsible for who or what you worship. It is no excuse to follow WMB's view of God, saying, "We just can't see your view of God." That is to follow WMB's "Yahweh"--WMB's golden calf.
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