According
to William Marrion Branham
When
William Branham started his ministry after the visitation of who he said was an
Angel of God who told him: “If you can get the people to believe you, nothing
can stand against your prayers, not even cancer.” It was not enough for the
supernatural signs to be in operation during his ministry to convince the
people to believe him, they needed to believe that he was a prophet of God, so
he allowed them to believe just that in order to strengthen their faith.
He
first began to address himself as God’s servant only, then proceeded to let the
people believe that he was a prophet to insure the belief of the people for
their healing. Some of what he said is as follows:
Quoting William Branham
“Sir, you standing there. You believe with all your heart now.
Do you believe me? Do you accept me as God's servant? Do you believe I'm His prophet that was sent here for your purpose,
that you might be healed? Then will you obey what I tell you to do?”
“Now, look this way, sister. Will you obey me as God's prophet”
“Do you believe me? Will
you obey me as God's prophet and servant, and believe that God sent me here
for your healing?”
“Have you believed me, sir? Do you believe that I am God's
servant, that I am His prophet, that
He sent me here for you?”
So for
years he allowed the people to believe him to be a prophet and that belief
contributed to the success of his healing ministry.
Then
nearing the end of his ministry as he observed the people elevating him above
what God wanted to occur in his ministry, He attempted to make it clear that he
was sent to be an Evangelist and not a prophet. During one of his services in
Jeffersonville Indiana on June 1, 1962, he made the following statements.
Quoting William Branham
Now, here
we are then, right up here to the end of the time when... If God did call me
(Now listen, this is not to be repeated.), if He did call me to be His prophet,
then I'm certainly not holding the office of one. Prophets don't evangelize. A
prophet hides himself in the wilderness alone with God, until he gets exactly
directly what God wants him do, and he stomps right out and gives his Message,
and back into the wilderness he goes again. He's not an evangelist, holding
meetings and getting cooperations and all these things like evangelists do. He
don't teach like evangelists. He has THUS SAITH THE LORD, and that's it, and
that's all. He gives it, throws it out, and lets the chips fall where it will,
and then away he goes again. Nobody knows where he's at, and he's in isolation
somewhere.”
“Now, I
cannot... or... If He's called me to be that, I cannot be an evangelist. And if
He's called me to be evangelist, I cannot be a prophet. Now, you get what I
mean? I don't know what to do. I've done reverently when He told me first,
about me holding the people's hand and praying for them, and then know the
secret of their heart, and all these different things. And brethren, that's
infallible. You know that's to be the truth. Every one of you knows that. See?
And how He told me it would blast across the world. And it's done it, just
exactly. Every nation under the heavens has heard it. Everywhere, newspapers,
tape recordings, everywhere. I don't know how it's ever done it, but throughout
all the world letters coming in and people from way down in Thailand and the
Hottentots back in there, how those missionaries has crowded back in there with
those tapes and given that interpretation of the Word. And now, we hear from
all over the world (See?), around the world”
“Now, as I
have done the work of an evangelist (And here's my plea.), if that is pleasing
to God, and I've done the work all right, trusting that I've pleased Him,
asking forgiveness for all my mistakes, then He may be calling me from the
field of evangelism to be His prophet. Then if it is, I'll leave evangelism.
But if He calls me to be a prophet, I cannot be an evangelist. If I'm to be
evangelist, I cannot be a prophet. I'm mixing the two offices; that's where
I've always fussed about. Standing on the platform... It's never been good,
successful. God has used it, but
I've never thought it was His direct will; it's
been His permissive will. Stand on the platform, a vision or two will knock
you out almost. See? And then if you tell this person how to straighten hisself
up and what to do, and then the next person stands there, he's expecting the
same thing, and you can't tell him 'less Something tells you to tell him. And
then the other people feel like you're a traitor or a backslider or--or a--a
demon or something because you don't tell them what they want to know. See, that's not the office, the way a
prophet operates.”
“A prophet
stays back here till he stomps right into the hospital, or wherever he's going,
with THUS SAITH THE LORD and say it and stomp back out again. He's no
evangelist at all. He don't hold meetings and discuss things, he's got the Word
of the Lord for whoever he's sent to.
If he's
sent to the White House, he stomps right up in front of the White House and
it's THUS SAITH THE LORD. If it's to the Governor of the state, whoever it is,
it's THUS SAITH THE LORD. He don't fool around with a group of churches, trying
to get them to come in and take the Word, and preach these things like
evangelists, he's not an evangelist.
So you
see, brethren, that's the reason I don't
call myself a prophet. I'm not even
in the office of one. See? Now, you understand what I mean? “
So, can
you see and understand what William Branham said. He was not a prophet, God didn’t send him to be a prophet and he didn’t
minister as a prophet. God, through His permissive will, allowed the people
to believe that he was a prophet to be successful in his ministry.
Then
because his followers believed him to be a prophet and when he began to teach, everything
he taught was accepted as the correct interpretation of scripture. Not only
was William Branham not sent as a prophet, he was not sent to be a teacher of
scripture and consequently entered into error in his teaching. But his
followers accepted everything he said and made a little god out of him. That’s
just the reason that God removed him off the scene at such an early age.
A prophet of God
would never contradict the written word of God which our Bible contains. No
prophet of God, who serves as the mouthpiece of God would ever give his own
interpretation of the written word of God, he would just state it the way it is
written.. No prophet of God would ever state that you cannot accept just what
is written in scripture, instead you have to read between the lines of
scripture in order to get the true meaning, but William Branham did just that.
See the following quotes from his sermons.
Quoting William Branham:
At first he taught the following:
“So anything, any teacher, any
Bible expositor, anything else would teach you or try to get you to believe
anything one little iota different from what this Bible says it, it's
a false teaching. It's Satan again just exactly like it was to Eve. God
goes right on, no matter what he does, what Satan does, God goes right on
proving it to be so.”
“Now, I'm going to tell you
what you must not do. Now, you
must not misinterpret the Word. It
means just what it says. It
needs no interpreter. But if you're reading
between the lines and try to make It say something, that in between the lines
says something different than what the lines says, then it's wrong.”
William Branham said: “You say,
"I heard a voice tell me this." If it's contrary to the Word, it
wasn't God's voice. God's voice comes with the Word.”
“If anybody teaches anything
contrary to the Word, I wouldn't believe it”
William Branham throughout his ministry
preached that if you hear a voice, or have a revelation, or read something
between the lines (your own interpretation) and it doesn’t conform to what the
scriptures say, then it’s wrong. Then he turned right around time after
time and did the exact thing that he said you shouldn’t do.
Here is what he taught also and
contradicted himself.
“You know, do you believe the Bible's written so you have to
read between the lines, as I've said? You read between the lines. Not... The
lines is right, but there's a between the line.”
“This Bible is hid from the wise and prudent. I don't care how
great your school is, your seminary, you will never know nothing about God,
until you get in love with God. You have to read between the lines. It's hid.”
“The Bible, you must read between the lines, because God has hid
It from those who just read the word alone. I am quoting Scripture that He has
hid It from the eyes of the wise and prudent, and will reveal It to babes such
as will learn”
“Do you like to read between the lines? Why, the best part of
the Bible is wrote between the lines. Sure it is.”
“Now, you're going to have to read between the lines. Now, you
know, the Bible is written, the message is not altogether right on the letter,
but it's between the lines. Did you know that?”
This
teaching is in error in God’s eyes and must be rejected because
it was not in God’s perfect will for it to take place. The truth of God’s Word
as it is contained in the Bible is clear as it is written and does not
appear between the lines. If you declare that you are reading between the
lines of scripture, you are doing nothing but adding your own interpretation to
it. The Bible says that the scripture is of no private interpretation.
Just as
a footnote:
William
Branham admitted that there was just one thing that had not happened that the
Lord showed him. His interpretation of the tent vision that he received as
being the start of a new ministry for him and declared it as “thus saith the
Lord” never did occur during his life and ministry.
A true
prophet of God is always one hundred percent accurate in all his prophecies or
he is not a true prophet of God.
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