William Branham was another evangelist
in this century who was mightily used of God for a number of years. In
fact, there can be little doubt that he was endued with power to a degree
that has rarely been seen since the days of the apostles.
He was one of the most anointed
men of God that ever lived in modern times.
As Gordon Lindsay wrote in his
1952 biography of Rev. Branham's early life and
ministry: "The story of
the life of William Branham is so out of this world and beyond the ordinary
that were there not available a host of infallible proofs which document
and attest its authenticity, one might well be excused for considering
it far-fetched and incredible." (G. Lindsay, 'William Branham - A man sent
from God', pg 9).
Even his birth and childhood
had unusual aspects to them. Born in 1909 in Kentucky, his family soon
shifted to the state of Indiana, where they eventually settled not far
from Jeffersonville. Rev. Branham's family were the "poorest of the poor".
When he was seven years old, he experienced the first of many godly visitations:
"It seemed to be a very still
afternoon. I stepped back from the tree and noticed that in a certain place
about the size of a barrel, the wind seemed to be blowing through the tree
leaves. Then there came a voice saying: 'Never drink, smoke, or defile
your body in any way, for I have a work for you to do when you get older.'"
(Pg 30).
Rev. Branham obeyed these restrictions,
but he had still not been truly converted. When he was about twenty years
of age, the death of his brother Edward caused him to again turn his thoughts
toward God's call upon his life. However, he carried on the way he was
going (essentially running away from God) for a couple of years. Finally,
he ended up seriously ill - at death's door, in hospital. And suddenly
God visited him again:
"Closer the wind came, louder
and louder... I heard that same voice that said, 'Never drink or smoke.'
And the leaves I heard were
the same that blew in that tree
that day. But this time the voice said, 'I called you and you would not
go.' The words were repeated the third time. Then I said, 'Lord,
if that is you, let me go back again to earth and I will preach your gospel
from the housetops and street corners. I'll tell everyone about it!'...
When this vision had passed, I found that I felt better." (Pg 40-41).
However, Rev. Branham was not
completely healed at this time. But he was now filled with a great hunger
after God.
"I started out to seek and find
God. I went from church to church trying to find some place where there
was an old-fashioned altar call. The sad part was I could find none...
One night I became so hungry
for God and a real experience that I went out to the old shed back of the
house and tried to pray... All at once there came a light in the shed and
it formed a cross, and the voice from the cross spoke to me in a language
I could not understand... as I prayed it appeared again. Then it seemed
to me that there had been a
thousand pounds lifted from my
soul...
"I knew then that if God wanted
me to preach he would heal me, so I went to a church that believed in anointing
with oil, and I was healed instantly. I saw then that the disciples had
something that most of the ministers do not have today. The disciples were
baptized with the Holy Ghost and so could heal the sick and do mighty miracles
in His name.
So I began to pray for the baptism
of the Holy Ghost. One day about six months later God gave me the desire
of my heart. He spoke to me in a great light telling me to preach and pray
for the sick and He would heal them regardless of what disease they had.
I then started preaching and doing what He told me to do." (Pg 41-42).
Rev. Branham began tent meetings
in his home town of Jeffersonville, and for a 24-year-old who was just
starting out, these were astonishingly successful, with up to 3000 people
being attracted to the meetings at one time, and scores of conversions.
Afterwards when Rev. Branham
was baptizing 130 converts in the Ohio River,
a heavenly light, like a blazing
star, appeared above him just as he was about to baptize the seventeenth
person. This was witnessed by the vast 4000-strong congregation that stood
on the banks of the river looking on. Some of them ran for fear, while
others shouted or fainted. A report of this unusual event appeared in the
local newspaper shortly afterwards. There was also a voice spoke from within
the light, saying, "As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming
of the Lord, so you are sent to forerun His second coming..."
It was in this same year of 1933
that a number of significant visions were given to Rev. William Branham.
In June 1933 he was given a series of seven visions relating to world events
that lay immediately ahead (and he told his congregation of these visions
at the time). In the first of these he saw the Italian dictator Mussolini
successfully invading Ethiopia, but eventually coming to a terrible demise
- murdered and spat upon by his own peeople. In the second he saw
America being drawn into a world war against Germany, which would be headed
up by an Austrian. The war would overthrow this leader, and he would come
to a mysterious end. The third vision showed the three 'isms' in the world
- Fascism, Nazism and Communism, and thhat the first two would come to nothing,
but that Communism would flourish. He was told, "Watch Russia. She will
become a great world power." In the fourth vision he was shown some of
the tremendous advances in Science that would come after the Second World
War. The fifth vision showed the rapid moral decay in the world, relating
especially to women. He was shown this decline from the beginning of the
feminist "liberation" movement of the late 19th century, and the gradual
gaining of worldly power by women, to the eventual election of a 'boy president'
(probably Kennedy - known to have been elected because of the women's vote)
and after this the progressive decline in the way women dressed - deliberately
exposing their bodies more and more in an ever-increasing display of brazen
sensuality. With true womanhood
so little valued, a terrible
decay of all flesh came upon the earth, and every form of perversion arose,
just as is prophesied for the Last Days. In the sixth vision there arose
in the United States a beautiful woman, clothed in splendour and royal
robes - a woman given great power, and beautiful - yet cruel, cunning and
deceitful. She dominated the land with her authority. Rev. Branham felt
that she represented either an actual person,
or else a particular organization.
In the seventh and final vision, he witnessed a great explosion that rent
the entire land and left America a smouldering, chaotic ruin, with no humanity
in sight. This final vision then faded away.
(This last one reminds one of
another Rev. Branham vision/prophecy, which he referred to often in later
years, that showed that the day would come when the entire state of California
west of the San Andreas Fault, would be wiped out and sent into the Pacific
Ocean by a massive earthquake).
The amazing thing about this
series of seven visions is that they were given at a time (June 1933) when
Rev. Branham had no way at all of coming to these conclusions through mere
guesswork. In 1933 Germany was by no means ready for war, Russia was by
no means a dominant world power, and Communism was a relatively minor force
in the world. Some of the details given in the visions were just too extraordinary
to pass
off as mere coincidence. (See
'The Acts of the Prophet' by Perry Green, pg 48-51, for a fuller description).
Also, the fact is that these
visions were given to an uneducated, simple man in the back-woods of Indiana,
a man who had little understanding at all of political complexities. And
the fact that at least five of these visions have now been precisely fulfilled,
means that we should surely take the others seriously also.
After the baptisms, a church
was built for Rev. Branham to pastor in Jeffersonville. The next few years
were a fruitful time in his life and ministry, during which he married
a lovely Christian wife and they had two children. However, several years
later Rev. Branham came to a crossroads and made a serious error of
judgment that was to have serious repercussions for his family and ministry.
After attending a Pentecostal convention for the first time (up until then
he had been an independent Baptist), Rev. Branham was invited by these
Pentecostals to become a travelling evangelist for them, and he felt that
this was definitely a call from God.
However, he allowed himself to
be persuaded by friends that the Pentecostals were "trash" (they were known
as 'holy rollers' at the time -the lowest of the low), and he drew bac
from joining with them.
"It was at this time that the
anointing of God which had come upon me left me. It never really returned
until five years later... Everything went wrong. With my church going down,
I didn't know what to do. Then
began the dark period of my life
when the Ohio River flood that took so many lives, came, and was responsible
for the death of two of those that were the dearest to me in all the world."
(G. Lindsay, 'William Branham
- A man sent from God', pg. 51).
The great Ohio River flood of
1937 claimed the lives of Rev. Branham's wife and baby daughter, and Rev.
Branham was left heartbroken, with only his infant son left. This was only
eight months after he had drawn back from obeying God and joining with
the Pentecostals, and he himself acknowledged the tragic connection.
For a number of years after this,
Rev. Branham continued to preach and also
work at various jobs. He remarried,
and when a new visitation of the angel of God came in 1946, he was working
as an Indiana state game warden. This was to be the beginning of his international
miracle ministry:
"I must tell you of the angel
and the coming of the Gift. I shall never forget the time, May 7, 1946,
a very beautiful season of the year
in Indiana, where I was still
working as a game warden. I had come home for lunch... and while walking
around the house under a maple tree, it seemed that the whole top of the
tree let loose. It seemed that something came down through that tree like
a great rushing wind... My wife came from the house frightened, and asked
me what was wrong. Trying to get hold of myself, I sat down and told her
that after all these twenty odd years of being conscious of this strange
feeling, the time had come when I had to find out what it was all about.
The crisis had come!
"That afternoon I went away to
a secret place to pray and read the Bible. I became deep in prayer; it
seemed that my whole soul would tear from me. I cried before God...I laid
my face to the ground...I looked up to God and cried, 'If you will forgive
me for the way that I have done, I'll try to do better... I'm sorry that
I've been so neglectful all these years in doing the work you wanted me
to do...Will you speak to me some way, God?
If you don't help me, I can't
go on'... Then along in the night, about the eleventh hour, I had quit
praying and was sitting up when I noticed a light flickering in the room...
the light was spreading out on the floor, becoming wider... as I looked
up, there hung that great star. However, it did not have five points like
a star, but looked more like a ball of fire
or light shining down upon the
floor. Just then I heard someone walking across the floor...
"Now, coming through the light,
I saw the feet of a man coming toward me, as naturally as you would walk
to me. He appeared to be a man who, in human weight, would weigh about
two hundred pounds, clothed in a white robe. He had a smooth face, no beard,
dark hair down to his shoulders, of rather dark-complexion, with a very
pleasant countenance, and coming closer, his eyes caught with mine. Seeing
how fearful I was,
he began to speak. 'Fear not.
I am sent from the Presence of Almighty God to tell you that your peculiar
life and your misunderstood ways have been to indicate that God has sent
you to take a gift of divine healing to the peoples of the world. IF YOU
WILL BE SINCERE, AND CAN GET THE
PEOPLE TO BELIEVE YOU, NOTHING
SHALL STAND BEFORE YOUR PRAYER, NOT EVEN CANCER.'" (Pg. 76-77).
The angel told Rev. Branham that
he would now have two special signs or gifts operating in his life, given
to him by God. The first would enable him to detect or discern illnesses
in people - a visible violent reaction in his left hand which would make
it red and swollen whenever it came into contact with sickness. The second
sign would be a gift that would
enable him to discern the thoughts
and deeds in the past life of the individual - specific sins that needed
to be repented of, etc. It was often
found that as Rev. Branham challenged
people over such specific sins, and they
confessed them to God, they would
regularly be healed of whatever ailed them even before he had a chance
to lay hands on them.
This angelic visitation marked
the beginning of Rev. Branham's incredible international miracle ministry,
and also led directly to the great American Healing Revival of 1947 through
1955, in which many well-known ministries were raised up, and thousands
upon thousands of people were saved and healed. As Rev. Branham himself
said,
"The great things which have
taken place during these months are too innumerable to ever be recorded,
but God has confirmed the angel's words time after time. Deaf, dumb, blind,
all manners of diseases have been healed, and thousands of testimonies
are on record to date. I do not have any power of my own to do this...
God always has something or someone to work through, and I am only an instrument
used by Him." (Pg. 78).
Right to the end of his life,
Rev. William Branham was renowned for his transparency, his simplicity
and his genuine humility. No doubt this was due in part to his early life
of hardship, being broken and suffering poverty - a great advantage when
it came to his eventual ministry.
After all, the angel had told
him that part of his commission was to help UNIFY Christians of differing
backgrounds. Speaking of Rev. Branham's "outstandingly humble spirit",
one observer wrote:
"There is nothing boisterous
or arrogant about him. He is a meek and humble man... He is a man loved
by all. No-one begrudges him any of his success or is envious of his great
popularity." (David Harrell Jr.,
'ALL Things are Possible', pg.
39).
Over the following months and
years, Rev. Branham travelled widely in the USA, and also to Europe and
South Africa, etc. Thousands came from far and wide to hear him preach
and to witness the many outstanding healings, miracles and 'words of knowledge'
that accompanied his ministry. Often, he would call out the name, city
of origin and background information of people in the audience whom he
had never met, who had come to hear his preaching or to be healed. Of all
the thousands of such 'words of knowledge' that he gave, none was ever
known to be wrong or inaccurate. His gift was "exactly 100%". The deaf
were healed, the blind received their sight, and even the dead were raised.
There were also a number of meetings where Rev. Branham was photo-graphed
with bright 'haloes' or lights around him. It became standard for Rev.
Branham to have the angel of God standing beside him as he ministered,
and he would often wait for the angel to arrive before he
began. It was also commonplace
for Rev. Branham to see specific miracles enacted before his eyes in vision
form several days before they actually occurred, so that when he found
himself in the precise circumstance pictured in the vision, he would know
exactly what to do. Astounding! And everywhere he went, God was glorified
in the most profound way.
There can be no doubt that Rev.
Branham was the initial pioneer and the key leader of the great Healing
Revival of 1947 through 1955. During this Revival, literally dozens of
healing ministries were raised up all over
America, some well-known and
others less prominent, but all of them inspired by the example of Rev.
Branham and others. Thousands were saved and healed, not just in America,
but in many other nations also. And the mighty 1954 Argentina Revival under
Rev. Tommy Hicks (with meetings of up to 400,000 people) also had strong
links with this Revival. Even amongst the better-known evangelists who
came into prominence at that
time (such as Rev. Oral Roberts,
Rev. T.L. Osborne, Rev. A.A. Allen, Rev. Jack Coe, etc.), Rev. William
Branham was acknowledged as something special - something extraordinary.
"The younger deliverance evangelists viewed him as a man set apart, like
Moses. 'He was number one,' said Rev. Richard Hall, 'of the common
run of evangelists that we have now, put twenty of them at one end and
Rev. William Branham on the other; he would outweigh them all.'" (Winkie
Pratney, 'Revival', pg. 220-221).
Later in the 1950's, when a number
of healing evangelists were drifting into showmanship, hype, 'prosperity'
doctrines and begging for money, Rev. Branham would have none of it. He
was unchanged in his attitude toward these kinds of excesses right to the
very end. One observer wrote of him in 1959: "On my last visit I
mentioned how 'car conscious' American preachers are, almost judging a
man's success by the car he drives. At this particular conference, where
Brother Branham was the principal speaker, they all came up in their nice
cars, the picture of elegance, but Brother Branham drove up in a truck.
He doesn't seem to worry about
these things..." (D. Harrell
Jr., 'ALL Things are Possible', pg. 162).
In 1955, Rev. Branham had some
money trouble and he wrote:
'For nine years, the Lord met
every need without my having to pull for money.
Then, in 1955, in each of three
of my greatest meetings, the income fell far short of expenses and others
stepped in to make up large deficits'...
Rev. Branham's difficulties became
more complicated in 1956 when the Internal
Revenue Service filed a tax evasion
suit against him... The unsophisticated Rev. Branham, apparently little
interested in personal wealth, worked under the burden of a $40,000.00
debt to the IRS. (Which
was an enormous amount of money
in those days).
By 1958, Rev. William Branham
was deeply re-assessing his ministry. It was clear that the great Healing
Revival was now well and truly over.
In 1957, Rev. Branham had received
a dream in which he was ministering in a 'white disk' above a pyramid.
A voice from heaven proclaimed that no other man could stand in the disk
"unless he die or be killed", and that Rev. Branham was "the only one who
can and will stand there." Rev. Branham knew this dream to be of 'spiritual
significance'.
It is clear that he had been
anointed and commissioned by God to have a prophetic ministry. However,
the original sign-giftings that God had given him never left him, right
up until the time of his death in 1965.
Two years later, when driving
from Tucson, Arizona, Rev. William Branham was involved in a head-on collision
with a drunk driver. His wife was badly injured in the smash, and Branham's
body was horribly tangled in the wreck. He lingered on for a few days in
hospital, though his head became terribly swollen and a tube was placed
in his throat to assist his breathing.
Rev. William Branham died on
Christmas Eve, 1965, just before the turn of the year.
Rev. Branham spoke much of these men so I will be adding information about them as soon as I can.
