1956-1960
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 Wm. Branham 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 Wm. 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. Wm. Branham 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)