Introduction
My Testimony
Who Was William Branham and What Was His Message?
Controversial Prophecies
Controversial Teachings
Issues and Events in William Branham’s Life 
Key Passages of Scripture as Interpreted by William Branham
William Branham Quote Book
What Was the Attraction on the Mountain?
Why Do People Believe the Message?
My Statement of Faith
What Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
Discussion Forum and Blog
Other articles by John Kennah as they've appeared in Christian Awareness Fellowship's newsletter, The SERVANT:
Recommended Message Related Links:
Also, please see 2 fine etracts from my friends at CFAR:
Good Non-Message Related Links:
Introduction
Dear Reader, Maybe you are not a follower of the Message but you have loved ones who are. Perhaps you’ve seen friendships severed or family members distance themselves from you because you don’t believe the Message of William Branham. You may find yourself wishing you knew what "The Message" is all about.
My name is John Kennah. I spent nearly 10 years of my life following, studying and preaching the Message of William Branham. I no longer follow the Message, but I have learned much in the many years since I was introduced to it in 1980 that may be helpful to those of you who have read this far. I am not a trained counselor nor an ordained minister, but I love Jesus Christ and strive to pattern my life according to the written Word of God, the Bible. I would be more than happy to answer your questions concerning Wm. Branham's teachings and how they relate to Scripture, as I am able.
I was introduced to the teachings of William Marrion Branham [WMB] and accepted them as the Message of the Hour in June 1980. I attended Tucson Tabernacle, where Pearry Green is pastor, from then until December 1989. I was a diligent student of the Message and preached it in Arizona prisons and local nursing homes. As I studied the Message in greater depth, I began to discover discrepancies and contradictions in WMB's teachings. The first discrepancy to catch my attention was in his teaching of the "Seventy Weeks of Daniel" where he offered several conflicting interpretations of Daniel chapter 9 in the course of his ministry (these are described at this Site in the section titled, "Controversial Teachings"). I occasionally sought the insight of the leadership at the Tabernacle for explanations of the apparent contradictions, but I never received any concrete answers. Their advice to me consisted of statements such as, "Just put your questions on the shelf and the Lord will reveal it to you in His time," or, "Just don't dwell on it. Lean not on your own understanding; just have faith that the Message is true." As time went on, I came across other disturbing discrepancies in the Message.
My doubts began to create a fear in me that I was "Serpent's Seed." I learned that some brothers and sisters at the Tabernacle were already calling me Serpent Seed behind my back because I had dared to question the prophet. I clung even tighter to the Message, ignoring my doubts!
Finally, during a sermon in late 1989, Pearry Green criticized a man who indicated that WMB could not have been legally hunting javelina at the time of the February 28, 1963 Cloud that appeared in the May 17, 1963 issue of LIFE magazine. (I would here like to point out that at the time of this discovery, everyone following the Message believed WMB's claims that the Cloud of February 28, 1963 appeared on the day WMB was hunting javelina near Wilcox, AZ. It would have seemed absurd back then for anyone to question that, yet today it's hard to find a Message believer who thinks that the Cloud in LIFE magazine was the same Cloud WMB saw while hunting javelina.) The thought that WMB might have been hunting out of season so disturbed me that I began to research this claim myself. I contacted the Arizona Game and Fish Department to find out when javelina season was in 1963. I learned that javelina hunting season that year ran from March 1 through 10. I also began a study of everything that WMB had to say about the Cloud and this hunting trip. As a result, I discovered that WMB himself indicated that he did not go on this hunting trip until after March 4, 1963 (See or listen to his sermon, Absolute, preached on March 4, 1963. Compare this to his sermon, Trying to do God a Service Without it Being God’s Will, vol. 7, book 2, pages 8 and 9, preached November 27, 1965).
Indeed, William Branham did not go on this hunting trip until after the Cloud had come and gone! This was the last blow to my waning faith in the Message! The truth hit me hard. While praying earnestly about what to believe concerning the Message, I felt the Holy Spirit impress on my heart that the Bible is our guide to the Truth. I heard Him say (not audibly) that if I found some of WMB’s teachings to be inconsistent with the Bible, I was not obligated to accept them. The Bible would be my absolute. Once I recognized that I could question WMB's teachings without fear of the Lord’s condemnation, I began to recall the many questions I had about the Message, some of which I had long forgotten. I decided to give each of two prominent elders at the Tabernacle one last opportunity to address the discrepancies in the Message. They were unable to give me any satisfactory answers. One of these elders had several dreams which confirmed to him that WMB was a prophet. He scolded me for implying that his dreams may not have come from the Holy Spirit. I left Tucson Tabernacle and the Message in December 1989, received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in repentance and faith, and I now worship and serve at Faith Community Church, a Reformed, non-denominational church in Tucson, Arizona.
Rewriting Message History WMB’s oldest daughter, Rebekah Branham-Smith, responded by writing an article in her magazine, Only Believe (see, "On the Road to Sunset", June 1992), in which she affirmed my findings but reinterpreted the Cloud as a sign which predicted that a week later, seven angels would appear to him while he was hunting to commission him to preach the Seven Seals. This new interpretation was based on a single, misquoted statement WMB made in the sermon, "Come, Follow Me", in June 1963, while ignoring over a dozen statements in which WMB clearly said he was hunting at the time of the Cloud's appearance! In 1993, Pearry Green followed suit by publishing a revised edition of his book, The Acts of the Prophet, in which the only changes that were made were: 1) The removal of all statements in which he claimed the Cloud was formed while WMB was hunting javelina at Sunset Peak, and; 2) Inserting the new explanation that Rebekah Branham-Smith had introduced in her article. As a result of this rewriting of Message history, a new generation of Message believers has been taught, not through the Message but from the pulpit, that WMB had claimed all along that the Cloud actually appeared "a day or two" before or after he went hunting at Sunset, and not while he was there. This in spite of the fact that he explicitly said in over a dozen sermons that it was formed at the very time he was hunting at Sunset Peak (See my article, What Was the Attraction On the Mountain, at this site). Furthermore, pastors in the Message are now saying that so-called critics like myself are the ones who really misunderstood what WMB said about the Cloud, even though it is they who were forced to reinterpret its appearance as a result of what I and other Message critics were saying! The Bible has had its critics over the centuries, but archeological facts have always sustained the integrity of the Bible and proven the critics wrong time after time. That’s not what we see happening in the Message. Followers of the Message have found it necessary to change the long established Message teaching on the Cloud precisely because critics--not Message believers--have discovered and publicized the errors of WMB’s claims. I may be critical of WMB's claim to be a prophet and of the unbiblical aspects of his teachings, but I love the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible, and those who follow the Message of WMB. My desire is that they place their confidence not in those things which cannot be reconciled with the facts, but in the immutable Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which has never been disproved by its harshest critics!
Origin of the Cloud and the Message Believers’ Response What caused this unusual Cloud formation over the Arizona desert on February 28, 1963? It is true that it was located about 26 miles in altitude. It is not true that clouds do not form this high. However, this cloud was not formed naturally or even supernaturally; it was man-made. During an investigation of the Cloud, Dr. James E. McDonald of the University of Arizona Institute of Atmospheric Physics learned that a series of test missiles were launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the coast north of Los Angeles, California in 1963. Several of those launches left trails in the sky similar to the one that appeared in the May 17, 1963 issue of LIFE magazine. Trails at the altitude of the Cloud are not visible during daylight hours because the sky is too bright for them to be seen (just as stars are not visible during daylight hours). When the sky is dark, these clouds are so high that they remain illuminated by the sun which shines directly on them (just as the sun continues to shine on the moon after sunset). This was a rare phenomenon in 1963 because missile tests were uncommon. When the clouds formed by the rockets began appearing, the public did not know what caused them. The formation of such clouds is now relatively common. I have seen this awesome phenomenon on at least four occasions during the past 8 years here in Tucson because of our close proximity to Vandenberg AFB and White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. It is a fantastic sight to see a brightly-lit cloud in a dark sky. Dr. McDonald concluded that the Cloud was the result of a test missile which was launched from Vandenberg AFB and detonated nearly directly overhead earlier in the day of February 28, 1963. The steady, high speed stratospheric wind carried the Cloud to where it was later discovered over Flagstaff, Arizona after sunset. Followers of the Message, however, continue to insist that there is no scientific explanation for the Cloud. Recently, Message believers have attempted to suggest that Dr. McDonald really wasn’t sure what caused the formation of the Cloud based on a six page document he published in May 1963. In the course of his investigation of the Cloud, Dr. McDonald amassed a large volume of photographs and weather data pertaining to the Cloud. On May 31, 1963, he published this six paged paper which was titled, "Status of Investigation of the Northern Arizona Stratospheric Cloud of February 28, 1963". This report was not a final analysis of his investigation, but a progress report of what he had learned to date. However, Message believers misrepresent this report and refer to it as proof that Dr. McDonald was not convinced that the Cloud was formed by the Vandenberg rocket. On page 5 of the report, Dr. McDonald clearly stated, "... [I]t remains uncertain whether one may conclude that the Flagstaff cloud was due to the detonation at Vandenberg. It is necessary to seek still further cross-checks" (emphasis added). The "further cross-checks" were never made because such data was not collected and thus not available to Dr. McDonald. It is clear that in this report, Dr. McDonald had not finished his investigation nor had he drawn a final conclusion of what formed the Cloud. Some time after he wrote this paper, he became satisfied that the Cloud was the result of the rocket launched from Vandenberg. In a 1996 letter to George Greene of Christian Awareness Fellowship, Aden and Marjorie Meinel (authors of Sunsets, Twilights and Evening Skies, and colleagues of Dr. McDonald at the University of Arizona) said, “Aden was involved with the launch of rockets from Vandenburg AFB, California and immediately recognized the McDonald cloud as from an explosion of a rocket the afternoon of 28 February 1963. We told McDonald of the event. . . . He was disappointed to learn that it was only a man-made cloud.” This mundane explanation for the Cloud caused him to lose all interest in publishing any further articles about it, and he spent the major part of his energies with his real passion, the investigation of UFO's, of which he was a firm believer. The Message believers’ claim that Dr. McDonald was not sure the Cloud was formed by the rocket at Vandenberg, particularly based on his progress report, is thus unfounded. At this point, it is interesting to note that after Dr. McDonald published his final article pertaining to the Cloud, other similar clouds began appearing over southwestern skies. These clouds were immediately explained as noctilucent trails caused by the launches of rockets from from Vandenberg AFB. Please see, "Cloud Was 1 of Several in 1963".
For those who are still inclined to believe that the Cloud was a supernatural sign sent to confirm WMB's Message, please consider the following:
When the facts are known, we find that there is no connection whatsoever between the Cloud’s appearance and WMB's hunting trip in Arizona. In fact, there is nothing in common between the Cloud formation and William Branham at all!
William Branham said that his Message was sent to correct longstanding doctrinal errors and to reveal the mysteries of the Bible, yet not even his followers can agree on what he taught. The truth is that God sent His Son to earth not simply in a man, but as a man (John 1:14). He was born of a human mother of the lineage of David (Romans 1:3). But His father was God the Father. Jesus Christ was both fully man (Luke 2:40) and fully God (John 8:58). His mission was to redeem those whom the Father had given to Him (John 6:37; Matthew 20:28). As a man, Jesus, in obedience to the Father, kept every aspect of the Law of God inviolable (Matthew 5:17; John 8:46). He was sinless (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus Christ was not only righteous because He is God, He earned righteousness as a man on our behalf by His obedience to the Law (Romans 5:19). Then He offered Himself as a sacrifice to atone once and for all for the sins of all who believe in Him (Hebrews 9:26). Jesus was a perfect man, and only the blood of a sinless man could atone for the sins of the unrighteous. What Jesus did was take upon Himself our sins (2 Corinthians 5:21), and then the Father's wrath was poured out on Him instead of us (Isaiah 53:10). It's like this: We owed God a debt we could not pay (the sins of men against an infinitely holy God are therefore infinitely sinful), and Jesus paid our fine (only an infinitely holy God--Jesus Christ--could pay our infinite debt against Him). After paying our fine in His life's blood, He rose from the dead, defeating death and proving that the Father was pleased with His atoning work. Now, as our risen Savior, He imputes the righteousness He earned to our account.
We have had our sins paid for and have been declared righteous by God because of Jesus Christ (Romans 3:19-24). Our response to this gloriously good news is to repent of our sins and place our faith in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. That is the Gospel.
That is the Gospel that we are saved by! That is the True Message of the hour! There is no other requirement or message necessary for salvation.
Thank you for your time in reading my testimony. I would be happy to hear from you if you would like to discuss these issues further. I pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in your walk with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
How To Contact Me: William Marrion Branham was a main figure of the healing revivals of the late 40's and 50's. Many believe that his was the most dramatic healing ministry of the revivals. His ministry and Church Order are a derivation of the Pentecostal movement. His followers believe he was a Major, or "Word" prophet.
Mr. Branham's followers believe (based on his teachings, known as The Message) that he is the fulfillment of Malachi 4:5,6. Mr. Branham taught that the seven churches in Asia from the book of Revelation represent the history of the Christian Church in 7 specific segments or ages. William Branham implied that he was the angel (messenger) to the Laodicean Church Age.* As such, his followers believe he was the 7th angel in Revelation 10:7, sounding (i.e., revealing) the mysteries of God that have been previously hidden to the Church.
Mr. Branham said that the Lord revealed to him that, as John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah to forerun the first coming of Jesus Christ, Mr. Branham was sent in the spirit of Elijah to forerun His second coming. His Message was to restore the Word of God that had been twisted and manhandled through centuries of denominational Christianity. Emphasis is not placed on evangelizing the lost for Christ but on preparing the Bride for the second coming of Christ.
Mr. Branham's most controversial doctrines were unorthodox interpretations of the Scriptures that he said had been lost through the ages. He believed that God sent him as a prophet to restore these lost "mysteries" to the Church. Some of his most well known teachings include:
Moriarty, Michael G. The New Charismatics: A Concerned Voice Responds to Dangerous New Trends, Zondervan Publishing House,1992.
Weaver, C. Douglas. The Healer Prophet, William Marrion Branham: A Study in the Prophetic in American Pentecostalism, Mercer University Press, 1987.
Duyzer, Peter Legend of the Fall (free ebook)
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I believe the Bible to be the written revelation of God, complete and sufficient in all respects. We believe the Scriptures to be "God-breathed" and therefore fully authoritative in and of themselves; they rely for their authority upon no church, council, or creed, but are authoritative simply because they are the Word of God. The Scriptures, as they embody the very speaking of God, partake of His authority, His power. *This Statement of Faith, with which I agree, is taken from Alpha and Omega Ministries
Are you a follower of the Message of William Branham or do you know someone who is? Do you have questions about the Message that you have longed to ask but were afraid of being judged as a doubter of the prophet--or even worse, "serpent’s seed?" Do you struggle with certain things that William Branham taught that just don't seem right and have no one to discuss them with? Have you seen an absence of the "signs following" in your life and now wonder if you're even saved? Has the Message church you attend taken control of your life? Do you live in fear of someone finding out about your questions and doubts?
If you are a follower of the Message, perhaps you will be challenged by this Website to search the Bible as the Bereans did (Acts 17:10-11) to see if the Message really does line up with the Scriptures. If you’re not a Message believer, maybe it will give you just the insight you need to speak more knowledgeably with a friend or a relative who does follow the Message. In either case, my prayer is that you will in some way benefit from my experience with the Message and that you and yours will find encouragement and a closer, more biblically based walk with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If I can be of help, you may contact me at my discussion forum (click here--My nickname at the forum is JohnK63). My prayer is that this Website will provide you with the information you need to help you resolve the issues that led you this far. Please continue reading as I share my testimony of my involvement with the Message of William Branham.--John Kennah
You may visit me at my Discussion Forum (my nickname at the forum is JohnK63) or you may email me at johnk63@comcast.net. I may not get back to you by email, but if you contact me at the forum, you will be sure to get a response.
He taught that God was not omnipresent because, as a being, He could not be everywhere at once. He also believed that Jesus was not God until the Holy Spirit incarnated His body at the time of His baptism. Jesus was again reduced to a mere mortal man when the Holy Spirit supposedly left His body in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He was crucified.
Harrell, David Edwin, Jr. All Things Are Possible: The Healing and Charasmatic Revivals in Modern America, Indiana University Press, 1975.
* During a prayer line, Mr. Branham once said, "You, setting here in front, you believe me to be God's prophet? A prophet is a messenger to an age. You believe I have God's message?" (Discerning the Body of the Lord, August 12, 1959, tape #59-0812).
I believe in one true and eternal God, unchanging, unchangeable. I believe God is the Creator of all that exists in heaven and in earth. The God who is described in the Bible is unique; He is unlike anyone or anything else in all the universe. God has all power, all knowledge, all wisdom, and is due all glory, honor and praise. All that comes to pass does so at the decree of God. All things will, in the end, result in the glory of God.
I believe the Bible teaches that there is but one being of God, yet there are three Persons who share this one being of God: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Each Person is fully and completely God, each is described in Scripture as possessing the attributes of God. The Father, Son, and Spirit have eternally existed in the relationship described by the term "Trinity."
I believe that man was created in the image of God. Man rebelled against His Creator, and fell into sin. As a result, man became spiritually dead, totally unwilling and indeed incapable of seeking after God. God, from eternity past, having foreordained all things, joined a certain people to Christ Jesus, so that He might redeem them from their sin and in so doing bring glory to Himself. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died in the place of this elect people, providing full and complete forgiveness of sins by His death upon the cross of Calvary. No other work can provide for forgiveness of sins, and no addition can be made to the completed and finished work of Christ.
I believe that God, in His sovereign grace and mercy, regenerates sinful men by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by any action of their own, bringing them to new life. God grants to them the gifts of faith and repentance, which they then exercise by believing in Christ and turning from their sins in love for God. As a result of this faith, based upon the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, God justifies or makes righteous the one who believes. God's gift of faith, and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the elect, results in good works. These good works flow from true, saving faith; they are a necessary result of faith, but are not to be considered necessary to the gaining of justification, which is by God's grace through faith alone, so that no man can boast.
I believe Jesus Christ established His Church, which is made up of all the elect of God. His Church, as an obedient bride, listens to His Word as found in the Bible. All who believe in Christ are placed in His body, the Church. The local expressions of the Church are very important, and each believer should be actively involved in such a fellowship.
I believe that Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead. This promise is found throughout the inspired Scriptures. Till His return, believers are to live lives that bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. The Church is to be busy doing the work of evangelism and discipleship, proclaiming the pure, uncompromised Gospel of Christ by teaching the Word of God.
Examining the Message of William Branham
This forum is open for discussion only to former Message believers, non-Message believers, or Message believers having doubts about the Message. However, everyone--including Message believers--are free to read everything at the forum. It contains a huge volume of topics and can be a valuable informational resource on almost anything relating to William Branham's life and Message.
The Message of Truth Blog
This is my personal blog in which I periodically post what's on my mind.
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