1956-1960
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Satan never received the Holy Ghost; he ain't got nothing then to give you faith. It's God that's got the faith. And just as you're filled with God, you're filled with faith.
If you're the Son of God, you're like God. He just speaks the Word and it creates itself. His Word's the creative power. How'd the world come here? He made it out of things which was not. He just said, "Let there be," and here it is. He believed His own Word.
("All Things Are Possible to Him That Believeth," July 22, 1956, message #56-0722)Comments:
Here it seems that William Branham (WB) suggests that God has faith in His own Word. He says that God can create things out of nothing because He believes His Word, as if somehow God was the first adherant to the Word of Faith movement. Word of Faith is the view that Christians can get whatevere material benefits they claim as long as they believe they will get it. We'll leave this false teaching for another time. In this quote, he seems to think that God can create because He believes in His own Word. In other words, God's creative power is subject to what He believes. However, it sin't that God believes His Word and it therefore comes to pass—He is His Word (John 1:1), and because of that, what He speaks must come to pass! How could a true prophet not realize that?“ ”
And now, you [women] say, "Brother Branham, I think if I got short hair, it makes me cool and everything like." That's right, but if you got long hair you'd be cooler. It'll take it all off your neck, and wrap it up and make it right. Why, you know what the Bible said, that a man has a right to put away his wife and get a divorce from her if she cuts her hair? If she cuts her hair, it shows she's living untrue to him. The Bible said so; I Corinthians 12, find out if it's not right. She that... A woman that cuts her hair dishonors her head, which is her husband. And if she's dishonorable, she should be divorced and got away from. That's right.
("The Church and Its Condition," August 5, 1956, message #56-0805)Comments:
Actually, the Bible never says that a man has a right to put away his wife and get a divorce from her if she cuts her hair, or even dishonors him in some way. And if you look it up as William Branham recommended, 1 Corinthians 12 says nothing about divorce or a woman cutting her hair. And though 1 Corinthians 11 says that a woman dishonors her husband if she has short hair, it doesn't say the husband has a right to divorce her for it. It only says if her hair is short, she should cut it all off.
The Bible says God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). And Jesus said, "Therefore, what God has joined together, no person is to separate" (Matthew 19:6). When He was asked why Moses didn't condemn divorce, Jesus (speaking of Deuteronomy 24:1) said, "Now it was said, 'Whoever sends his wife away is to give her a certificate of divorce'; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery" (Matthew 5:31-32). The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:15, "Yet if the unbelieving one [spouse] is leaving, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace." It is clear in Scripture that divorce is not a good choice to make, but that God permits it only in cases of sexual immorality or abandonment. WB has added to God's Word by making hair-cutting a third permission for divorce.“ ”
Marriage is honorable, but it should be entered prayerfully and reverently. And genuine love for that woman will bind you together forever. "What you bind on the earth, I'll bind in heaven."
("Hebrews Chapter Seven #2," September 22, 1957, message #57-0922)Comments:
There are two problems here, and they both have to do with his statement, "What you bind on the earth, I'll bind in heaven."
First, William Branham seems to have forgotten an important lesson Jesus taught the Saducees about marriage and the afterlife. He told them, "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven" (Matthew 22:29-30). How can Jesus say in one place that someone is bound in heaven to their spouse, and in another place say that they won't be married after the resurrection? The problem isn't with Jesus. It was with WB's misunderstanding of what Jesus said.
This brings us to WB's second problem. What did Jesus mean when He said, "...whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven"? He actually said this twice: once in Matthew 16:19, and the other in Matthew 18:18. Both had to do with the authority Jesus was giving the Apostles regarding judgments they would make on matters of correction and church discipline on earth. Jesus already made the marriage issue clear when He said that when a man and woman are married, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matthew 19:6). But what He didn't say was that after the resurrection, they would remain united together in marriage. If He had said they would be bound in heaven, the Sadducees' trick question would have a woman truly being married to 7 husbands in heaven!
WB was mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures. How could the Message of a true prophet contain an error like that?“ ”
I have never tried to try to present anything in my life without first it being revealed. And I'm so thankful that the Angel of the Lord... Which I had no education, no ability. And this Angel come down, and has been my help sent from God. And He has never told me one thing but what absolutely dovetailed from Genesis to Revelations with that, insomuch till... I wrote down right quick when He said, "And you—and you shall take a gift of Divine healing." And I put it down just the way He said it.
("Questions And Answers On Hebrews #1," September 25, 1957, message #57-0925)Comments:
Once again we hear talk about William Branham's angel who accompanied him throughout his life. His "Message" is revered by his followers as God's revealed Word of the hour. The question is, revealed by whom? According to this quote, WB expresses his thankfulness that the relealed nature of his teachings came directly from his angel. Christians have the Bible to look to for God's revelation. Followers of William Branham have his angel to thank for the Message which they presume is from God. But remember, his angel never identified himself to WB. WB only took the angel's word for it that he was sent from God. He couldn't test his angel by the Bible because the angel was giving him new revelations.“ ”
He [Adam] was made both male and female; the man was. The Bible said he was. God made man both male and female, "created He him." Notice. Now, when man was separated from the theophany and put in flesh, he was—he wasn't just altogether there; part of his being was still a theophany, so it didn't look right.
("Questions and Answers on Hebrews #3," October 6, 1957, message #57-1006)Comments:
Does the Bible say that the man, Adam, was made as a male/female being? Here is what the Bible says:And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:26-28)The English translation presents this passage just as the original Hebrew would suggest. God made "man", that is, mankind, in His image. He made "them" male and female. He told "them" to be fruitful and multiply, and gave "them" dominion over the animals. In a previous quote, William Branham said that Adam remained a dual male/female being for many years before God made Eve for him from one of his ribs. This would have meant that Eve was created long after God's day of rest, and long after God instructed man to be fruitful and multiply, to subdue the animals, and to eat from the plants that grew from the earth. The context of Genesis 1 is that God created mankind as male and female, and Genesis 2 explains how man became male and female. WB's view of Adam being created as an androgynos being comes from a category of ancient Jewish interpration tradition called midrash, and not from the Bible itself.“ ”
Every person in here is healed right now. The Bible says you are. Every sinner inside this door, and every sinner in the world is already saved and been saved since Jesus' death at Calvary. You say, "Brother Branham, I was saved ten years ago." No, you accepted it ten years ago. He took away the sin of the world nineteen hundred years ago. But it's your personal faith in a finished work that brings the results. If you never accept it, you'll die and without mercy because you judged the Son of God thus. If you are sick tonight, "He was wounded for our transgressions and with His stripes you were healed." It's the past tense. It isn't that I lay hands on you, or any other minister lays hands on you; it's your personal faith in a finished work that Christ has did. Certainly.
("Queen of the South," February 8, 1958, message #58-0208)Comments:
Here we see William Branham mixing two heresies into one quote. First, he says that everyone in his audience, and even the whole world, are saved because Jesus took away the sin of the world when He died on the cross. One might initially think that he is preachiing Universalism here, but he isn't. He is saying that everyone is saved by Jesus death on the cross, but if you die without accepting it by faith, then you lose that salvation. My question to him would be, Why does anyone need faith at all if Jesus already died for their sins? If the wages for our sins is death, then how could anyone die if Jesus already did away with the sin of the world? That makes absolutely no biblical sense.The other problem with this quote is that WB again brings up what he had mentioned earlier in his ministry as a "dual atonement." He believed that when Jesus died on the cross, He was fulfilling the prophecy in Isaiah 53:5 that says, "by His stripes we are healed." The result is that whoever is saved also receives physical healing of all their diseases. That is the explanation of this quote. But if that were true, this is what it means:
1) Everyone would be free from sin until they die, after which those who don't have faith would lose their salvation.
2) Everyone in the world is now physically healed as long as they have faith.The problem now is: Jesus died for the sins of everyone right now even if they don't have faith, but He died for the physical healing of only those who do have faith. Can anyone explain this biblically or even logically? If you can't then WB is teaching false doctrine, and his followers are following a false prophet. Everyone following the Message must repent and believe the true Gospel of Jesus Christ!
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Now, every church, as you say, "I'm a Christian." "What denomination do you belong to?" What difference does that make what denomination you belong to? We realize that denomination has nothing to do with God's Bible. And all Protestant denominations are harlots. The Bible said so. When you say you're a Methodist, you're a Methodist harlot. You say you're a Baptist, you're a Baptist harlot. When you say you're a Pentecost, you're a Pentecostal harlot. That's what the Bible said. So she [the Catholic Church] is a mother of harlots
("The Baptism of the Holy Spirit," September 28, 1958, message #58-0928M)Comments:
Again with saying the Bible says something it never said. What William Branham is really saying is, "I say what I want the Bible to mean." The Bible doesn't even mention "denominations." The closest thing to that might be in 1 Corinthians 1:10-15 where Paul was exhorting the Corinthian church to stop quarreling and identifying primarily with particular leaders of the church. But he never called them harlots! What kind of prophet speaks so disparagingly of Christ's body, the Church, as to say they are harlots and daughters of the Great Harlot? All denominations have their biblical blind spots, but I would not say that all the members of those denominations are harlots, that is, unfaithful to Christ. Certainly God doesn't look with favor on the division that exists in Christianity, but to say that people who have repented and have been born again by grace through faith in Jesus are harlots against Christ just because they identify with one denomination or the other (provided that the denomination is not promoting heresy), is to slander Christ's body. What kind of prophet despises people who love our Lord just because they don't follow his unorthodox interpretation of the Bible? I will tell you a false prophet would, and there are many out there. Are you following one? Then repent and believe the Gospel!“ ”
God had done quit creating for years and years and years, until He made the woman out of a rib out of his side.
("Serpent's Seed," September 28, 1958, message #58-0928E)Comments:
William Branham is adding something to the Bible what it does not say. In fact, he's actually contradicting Genesis 1:26-31, because there we read that when God made man and woman, He told them to be fruitful and multiply. He gave them dominion over animals, and gave them plant life for food. All this on the sixth day! Then, Genesis 2 explains how He did it. Nowhere does the Bible ever even hint that Adam was alive for years until God made Eve from one of His ribs. It all happened on the 6th day before God rested on the 7th day.“ ”
Now, I'm called a woman-hater; you know that, because I'm always kind of against women, but not against you sisters. I'm just against the way modern women act. That's right. Good women should be packed along.
But I can remember when my father's still up there running, I had to be out there with water and stuff, see young ladies that wasn't over seventeen, eighteen years old, up there with men my age now, drunk. And they'd have to sober them up and give them black coffee to get home to cook their husband's supper. Oh, something like that, I said, "I..." This was my remark then, "They're not worth a good clean bullet to kill them with it." That's right. And I hated women. That's right. And I just have to watch every move now, to keep from still thinking the same thing.
("Life Story," April 19, 1959, message #59-0419A)Comments:
William Branham had a problem in that he found himself feeling such contempt for "immoral women" throughout his life (often referring to them as "dog meat") that he would make statments like this about sinners he was supposedly ministering to. It is indeed wrong to think so lowly about another human being, but according to Jesus, that mindset alone is equal to murder. It certainly seems unfitting that he, as one who professeed to believe in Jesus, would find it important to tell his followers that he still had to fight the thought that an immoral woman is worth less than one of the squirrels he used to hunt.But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets."
(Matthew 22:34-40)“ ”
And if a man marries a woman and she has lived unclean before she marries him, and then she comes to him, if they've been married ever so long, and then she comes to him and says, "Honey, I want to tell you something. I did run out with another man; I never told you," Jesus said he has a right to put her away and marry another, because they're not married in the beginning, 'cause she falsely told a—a lie against him.
("Questions and Answers," June 28, 1959, message #59-0628E)Comments:
If anyone reading this is wondering where Jesus said this, let me tell you that He didn't. William Branham is putting words in Jesus' mouth. In fact, he just bore false witness against Jesus. Why would someone who loves God's Word find it appropriate to follow someone who claims to be a prophet, but lies about what Jesus taught? If you profess to love God's Word, then do what Jesus said: "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves" (Matthew 7:15). How much more ravenous could a wolf be than to tell his followers that Jesus said something He did not say just to make you believe in one of his unbiblical teachings? Jesus died for the forgiveness of sins, not William Branham.
Beware, repent, and believe the Gospel of Jesus!“ ”
Jesus, the Lord Jesus Himself was a Tabernacle in which God dwelt in to manifest Himself, 'cause He was a Spirit. He was a Spirit. Now, Jesus wasn't eternal. God's Eternal. Jesus now is eternal because God has taken up a Body.
("Palmerworm, Locust, Cankerworm, Caterpillar," August 23, 1959, message #59-0823)“ ”
Tell me a congregation where evil doesn't set. Tell me where the sons of God are gathered together that Satan isn't in the midst of them. It's everything. So don't frown at that. See? Satan's everywhere.
("Q&A On the Holy Ghost," December 19, 1956, message #59-1219)“ ”
When that great man, Doctor Lamsa, the translation of the Lamsa Bible, when he said that morning when I told him that, I said—I said, "What's that sign?" He said, "That's God's ancient sign in the Hebrew: God, one God in three attributes." I said, "Such as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?" He stopped, and he set his cup of coffee down; he looked at me. Gene, believe you was there, Leo. Said, "You believe that?" I said, "With all my heart." He said, "Last night, standing in your meeting, Brother Branham, I seen that discernment. I've never seen it before in America, or in my land." He said, "These American people don't even know the Bible. Only thing they know is their denomination. They don't even know where they're standing." Said, "They don't know nothing." He said, "But when I stood there last night," I said—I said... Now, Brother Gene, I just say this with reverence and love and such; He said, "I said, 'That must be a prophet.' But when I see that you believe that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost was no three gods, it was attributes, then I know that you are a prophet of God, or it wouldn't be revealed to you like that." He said, "That's a perfect sign." Said, "I've never..." Said, "You're not Oneness?" I said, "No, sir. I am not the Oneness. I believe in God being the Almighty God, and the three attributes are only three offices that the one God lived in." He said, "Bless your heart." He said, "Someday you'll pour your blood upon the earth for that," but said, "prophets always die for their cause." And I said, "So let it be, if it pleases my Lord."
("Ephesians Parallels Joshua," May 15, 1960, message #60-0515E)“ ”
I want to raise my little boy back there, Joseph. I want to see him in the pulpit, when I can take this Bible... When I get to a place I see Joseph in the pulpit preaching as a—as a young man filled with the Holy Ghost, anointed with the Spirit of God upon him... And I believe he'll be a prophet. The day when I—when I-when I saw him six years before he was born, you remember me telling you he was coming. Remember when I caught him right there at the side of the altar, not knowing what I was saying, dedicating babies, I said, "Joseph, thou art a prophet."
("Adoption," May 22, 1922, message #60-0522E)“ ”
Now, I doubt whether either—any of you ever seen a real vision, seen me have a real vision. My wife could tell you how it is. Sometimes I lay for hours without a bit of breath or a doctor can examine and find no pulse, and strike a match and hold that close to my nose and no breath for an hour or more.
("Be Not Afraid," July 17, 1960, message #60-0717)“ ”
But every human being's got a little compartment in his heart , that there's not even a blood cell in it. Many years ago the critics used to say, "God made such an awful mistake when He said, 'As a man thinketh in his heart ,' because there's no mental faculties in the heart for him to think with." But two years ago, I believe it was, when I was in Chicago in a meeting, great headlines come in the paper, that they had discovered, science has, that a man does have a mental faculty in his heart , that there's a little compartment in the heart , the human heart , that's not in the—the animal heart . They've found it on research on the heart , and it—in there they say it's the place where the soul abides. So then, after all, God was right when He said, 'As a man thinketh in his heart ."
("What It Takes to Overcome All Unbelief: Our Faith", July 29, 1960, message #60-0729)Comments:
Here is yet another example of where WMB confused urban legend with true science!“ ”
Jesus died, speaking in tongues. They said He spoke, and He spoke in another language. Sure, He did. "He spoke in Hebrew." He did not. That's not Hebrew writing. He spoke in a heavenly language.
("Five Definite Identifications of the True Church of the Living God," September 11, 1960, message #60-0911E)Comments:
The Bible does record Jesus as having spoken in another language from the cross: "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) However, the language was not a heavenly language, but Aramaic, which was the common language spoken by the Jews in Jesus' day.“ ”
"Now, Brother Branham is a prophet of the Lord," he said, "but don't listen to his teaching, because he's wrong." The same Holy Spirit that preached the service tonight, the same Holy Spirit preaches all these things is the same Holy Spirit that discerns the thoughts of the heart. Certainly. What is the mark of a prophet? He's a divine interpreter of the Divine Word. That's exactly. The Word of the Lord came to the prophet. That's who it came to, not the theologian, the prophet. Do you know what ‘prophet’ means? Take the dictionary, and look, and see what it means: ‘An interpreter of the Divine Word.’ And then come and say such as that... See how... People just got so churchy, till they don't know God no more.
("Queen of the South," November 27, 1960, message #60-1127E)“ ”
Now, man... I was going to choke it, but I'm going to say it. Man is omnipotent. You don't believe that, but he is. A man that's fully surrendered to God is omnipotent. Did not He say in Mark 11:22, "Whatsoever things you say and don't doubt in your heart, it'll come to pass. You can have what you've said?" What happens when two omnipotence meet? When God and man comes together through omnipotence, something's got to shake. Some... Whatsoever you'd say with that creative power of omnipotence of God, knowing that He's promised it, and He said it in His Word, it creates a power that goes out yonder and brings things to pass; things that is not, it makes them as though they are, because two omnipotence have met. There He stands. Oh, isn't He wonderful.
("The Patmos Vision," December 4, 1960, message #60-1204E)“ ”
And now, Noah was a type of the Jews, but Enoch went home without dying. And when Noah seen Enoch go, he knowed it was time to start on that ark. That's right. That was Noah's sign, when Enoch went home.
("Revelation Chapter One," December 4, 1960, message #60-1204M)Comments:
A careful reading of Genesis 5 will reveal that Enoch had already been gone 69 years before Noah was even born!“ ”
Now, when we were made, if—when we were made. And they just found out, recently, that your body is full of light. X-ray proves that. The x-ray does not have any light of its own. It's your light that it uses. You're born with four rays. After a little while, say twenty, twenty-five, one ray goes out; and thirty-five, another; or forty, another one goes out; and finally when you get pass about sixty-five, you're living on your last ray. And every time you take a x-ray picture, you're tearing them rays down. That's the reason you don't have no more... and you stick these kids' feet in them machines, because it was just tearing the rays right out of their little bodies. And that's cosmic light that's in you, that you're made up, full of light cells. Now, that's cosmic light.
("The Uncertain Sound," December 18, 1960, message #60-1218)