- 6 months ago
John Collins and McKinnon discuss the spiritual confusion and theological dangers caused by William Branham’s teachings, particularly his misinterpretation of Acts chapters 18 and 19. They explore how Branham’s use of scripture helped construct a belief system that led followers to elevate his voice above the Bible, often resulting in bondage and disconnection from broader Christian fellowship. The conversation opens with an invitation for others to share their own stories of escape from groups influenced by Branhamism, and gradually unfolds into a scriptural critique showing how Branham manipulated biblical texts to validate his own authority and prophetic role.
They explain how Branham’s theology—centered on distorted doctrines such as the “manifested sons of God” and a segmented salvation process—undermined the simple gospel of Christ. The episode connects Branham’s misuse of scripture to modern charismatic and New Apostolic Reformation teachings, highlighting how these ideologies propagate exclusivist interpretations and spiritual elitism. Through careful scriptural analysis, John and John show how Branham’s teachings ultimately led believers away from Christ and into a system of doctrinal entanglement that promotes confusion, fear, and a fractured sense of salvation.
00:00 Introduction
02:28 The Danger of Questioning Scripture and Authority
04:40 Emotional and Social Impact of Leaving High-Control Groups
08:16 Branham’s Borrowing from Pentecostal Theology
10:16 Mixture of Christianity and False Doctrine
14:35 The Cloud and the Message’s Shifting Theology
18:26 NAR, Branham, and the Return Ministry Concept
22:00 Why People Stay: Cognitive Dissonance and Pain Avoidance
24:03 Ministerial Responsibility and Moral Crossroads
26:21 Manipulation and Mind Control in Doctrinal Teaching
30:19 Analysis of Acts 18 and Apollos’ Incomplete Gospel
34:48 Acts 19 and the Disciples of John
36:58 Manifested Sons of God and False Authority
38:35 Misuse of Acts 19 to Undermine Baptist Doctrine
42:03 William Branham’s Contradictions on Salvation and the Holy Spirit
47:12 False Equivalence Between Apollos and Modern Denominations
49:00 Strategic Elevation of Branham’s Status
50:27 Giving Lip Service to Scripture While Distorting It
53:02 Final Contradictions and Mixed Messaging
55:03 Summary and Appeal for Simplicity in Salvation
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
They explain how Branham’s theology—centered on distorted doctrines such as the “manifested sons of God” and a segmented salvation process—undermined the simple gospel of Christ. The episode connects Branham’s misuse of scripture to modern charismatic and New Apostolic Reformation teachings, highlighting how these ideologies propagate exclusivist interpretations and spiritual elitism. Through careful scriptural analysis, John and John show how Branham’s teachings ultimately led believers away from Christ and into a system of doctrinal entanglement that promotes confusion, fear, and a fractured sense of salvation.
00:00 Introduction
02:28 The Danger of Questioning Scripture and Authority
04:40 Emotional and Social Impact of Leaving High-Control Groups
08:16 Branham’s Borrowing from Pentecostal Theology
10:16 Mixture of Christianity and False Doctrine
14:35 The Cloud and the Message’s Shifting Theology
18:26 NAR, Branham, and the Return Ministry Concept
22:00 Why People Stay: Cognitive Dissonance and Pain Avoidance
24:03 Ministerial Responsibility and Moral Crossroads
26:21 Manipulation and Mind Control in Doctrinal Teaching
30:19 Analysis of Acts 18 and Apollos’ Incomplete Gospel
34:48 Acts 19 and the Disciples of John
36:58 Manifested Sons of God and False Authority
38:35 Misuse of Acts 19 to Undermine Baptist Doctrine
42:03 William Branham’s Contradictions on Salvation and the Holy Spirit
47:12 False Equivalence Between Apollos and Modern Denominations
49:00 Strategic Elevation of Branham’s Status
50:27 Giving Lip Service to Scripture While Distorting It
53:02 Final Contradictions and Mixed Messaging
55:03 Summary and Appeal for Simplicity in Salvation
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, and friend, John McKinnon,
00:00:47author of The Persuasive Preacher, The Gifted Prophet, and The Noble Politician.
00:00:53John, it's good to be back, and I just want to say I'm really excited for this episode.
00:00:58I've actually been wanting to do this for a long time, and you sent me the idea, and
00:01:03we're running with it, but we've talked through much of the history, and just because of the
00:01:11history, people who were in the message cult following of William Branham came to realize
00:01:16that many things that they were told just simply was not true, and we have this mass exodus
00:01:21from the Branham cults, but as that cascaded down, because there were so many ministries
00:01:27that were built on top of Branhamism, many members of the other cults that splintered off
00:01:33of this, and even some of their descendants, their grandchildren cults, if you will, splinter
00:01:39groups, they all, you know, they all have the same type of thing happening to them.
00:01:44They realized that some of the things that they were taught were false, and they're trying
00:01:49to wade through, well, what if this was real, what if this was fiction, and in the end, after
00:01:55you go through that examination process, and you do some self-evaluation and reflecting on
00:02:00what you've learned, you come to this, everybody seems to come to the same conclusion.
00:02:06Some of this might have been actually dangerous.
00:02:08What if this that I was taught not only was destructive in a cult sense or fictional from,
00:02:16you know, these ministers who are lying, but how much of it was actually harmful to us?
00:02:21And that's a conversation I've wanted to have for a long time.
00:02:24I actually want to approach this from various different viewpoints, so I'll probably talk
00:02:30through this with you.
00:02:31It was your idea.
00:02:33Talk through it with you first, and I'm probably going to bring some others into this conversation.
00:02:37And, you know, call for anybody who has been in one of these groups, and they've escaped.
00:02:43They want to share their story.
00:02:45If you hear this, and you have ideas, too, that's worth sharing, and you want to join the
00:02:49podcast, just contact us on the website.
00:02:52But anyway, I'm excited to get into this.
00:02:55Hello, John.
00:02:55It's good to be back with you again, and I think we're on our third episode, perhaps,
00:03:00that we're going back into the message and looking at some deep dive into more subjects.
00:03:06And I just want to focus on some things that I've found as I've studied more deeply, and
00:03:13not that I'm trying to teach anything in particular, but just to emphasize things and how William
00:03:19Branham taught the scriptures and how he might have tried to sway the people.
00:03:24And so today, the subject's going to be the deep dive into Acts chapter 18 to 19, right
00:03:30at the very end of chapter 18 into the beginning of chapter 19.
00:03:35And this way, I hope to show how, you know, William Branham bent the scriptures, why it's
00:03:40a problem, how it can be harmful, and how it opened the door to things such as the new
00:03:45apostolic reformation and all the men that came after him and that continued through this
00:03:50day.
00:03:51Because you realize that once scripture can be discarded, once you can bend scripture to
00:03:57how you want and your way of thinking, then you can use it to your own means and just justify
00:04:03what you're doing to others, even.
00:04:05You can make them believe that what you're doing is even correct, and you can use it to
00:04:10your own means.
00:04:11Whether you're just mildly off the word and you have a group somewhere and, you know,
00:04:15you go with that, and you're no real threat to others, or you can get majorly off the
00:04:21word and you become a threat to, you know, your life and other people's lives with your
00:04:26strange practices.
00:04:27You end up with beliefs that just lead people off a cliff, and we've seen that.
00:04:31You know, we've seen it recently, even in the message in Africa with the starvation cult,
00:04:36for instance.
00:04:38You and Charles are talking about it currently with, in the early stages of the message,
00:04:42how it split into so many splinter groups with the men who were following the message
00:04:46and following Branham.
00:04:47They branched off in all kinds of directions, and they were many times not very good men
00:04:53holding these positions of leadership, and we just see how getting off the word, even
00:04:58in a minor way, can really cause these problems, or if you're discarding scripture, not coming
00:05:03back to saying that's your absolute.
00:05:05Now, William Branham, no doubt, gave lip service to saying, I'm only following what Paul preached.
00:05:10I'm only following the scriptures, and we're going to not deviate from scripture or get
00:05:14off of scripture, because he knew, I mean, he had to say that, that, you know, to give
00:05:21the people to believe the fact that he was on the scripture is that we can't get off of
00:05:25scripture.
00:05:26But people give lip service to that, but actually, in practice, they don't follow it.
00:05:31These kind of teachings that we were going to find today, they lead to people preventing
00:05:36them from challenging their leaders with the truth and holds them in bondage, and that's
00:05:42a dangerous position to be in.
00:05:43When you can't challenge your leader openly and try to bring them back to the word and
00:05:49say, this is what the word says, this is what you're saying, when you can't do that, it's
00:05:53a very dangerous position to be in.
00:05:56And once the men that we've seen, once they have been placed into leadership or once they've
00:06:00been acknowledged to be a leader in these groups, it's very hard to dethrone them when
00:06:05they're corrupt, and that has led to very bad consequences.
00:06:09It has.
00:06:09And, you know, some people don't actually recognize those consequences until after they've
00:06:13been out for many, many years.
00:06:16When you first escape, you go through this flood of emotions.
00:06:20Almost everybody who has been in the support groups will share this.
00:06:23You go through these emotions of extreme sadness and shock, you know, what just happened to
00:06:28me?
00:06:29And then you start to notice when you leave a destructive group, almost all of your friends
00:06:34and family will cut you off.
00:06:36And there's, you know, in the Amish, they have what's called shunning.
00:06:41They actually will not let you interact with people who've left.
00:06:45But in the cults like this, it's not the same.
00:06:49There's almost this emotional shunning that happens.
00:06:52Sometimes family sometimes will cut you off completely, just like the Amish.
00:06:56But other times they will just emotionally shut you out.
00:06:59And you're always wanting to reconnect and get that same level of, you know, friendship,
00:07:05family relationship that you had before.
00:07:07And they just won't let you back in.
00:07:09And so they have emotionally shunned you.
00:07:11And it isn't until after you've processed that, that you begin to realize that the foundation
00:07:18that was laid by William Branham and others that came after him.
00:07:22And, you know, if you go back in history, others who were part of the creation of who
00:07:27was William Branham, it's the same thing.
00:07:30The same things were happening for decades.
00:07:34And you can go back all through history.
00:07:37They manipulate you and they make you feel like you have to be part of the group.
00:07:42And if you're not, you're less than human.
00:07:45And that's really the problem.
00:07:46After you've escaped and you've gone through, you know, years of deconstruction, trying to
00:07:52piece back together your life and understand what hits you, you begin to realize that
00:07:56it was the very foundation that was laid by all of these men in history that call themselves
00:08:03Christian, that it's actually the opposite of the Bible.
00:08:06It's not bringing the hearts of the children to the fathers and the fathers to the children.
00:08:10It's actually separating them.
00:08:12Yes, John.
00:08:13And at the onset, you know, what I want to emphasize is that Branham was just repeating
00:08:17the Pentecostal doctrine that he had embraced, you know, a long time ago.
00:08:21He didn't start this beliefs and all with his own revelation or getting this from God.
00:08:28It was really just Pentecostal doctrine.
00:08:30He embraced this method of the three stages of salvation, which I'll point out later on in
00:08:36this podcast.
00:08:37You know, they really believe that to this day, that there's three stages of salvation.
00:08:43At least it sounded like he did on the surface.
00:08:45Now, William Branham eventually deviated from that.
00:08:48But on the surface, what he was preaching was to hold the Pentecostal people together and
00:08:53to try to get them under his wing.
00:08:55His motive for doing that was to appeal to the only group that really paid attention to
00:09:00him in those days and took him seriously at the time while he was conducting the healing
00:09:05revivals, especially in the early days from 1947 to, say, the mid-50s, which was some of
00:09:12the Pentecostal world, because we know that probably half or more of the Pentecostal world
00:09:17really rejected him in 1953, only six years after he began ministering, after they figured
00:09:23out, you know, kind of what was behind him.
00:09:26Then the Pentecostal world largely began rejecting him.
00:09:31He went further, you know, even after this, to make his message unique from all other churches.
00:09:36He began to build the legacy that he was going to leave as being the only prophet to the age
00:09:41with a message, and that the Spirit only comes to those that believe the message.
00:09:45And that'll be important in what we're talking about today.
00:09:47It wasn't just the preaching of Christ and him crucified anymore.
00:09:51It was actually moving on to his so-called message that he believed he got from God.
00:09:57So that leads message believers to have to say, you know, the message is Christ, because
00:10:02generally deep down, you know, anybody that's a believer in the Christian faith have to believe
00:10:08that Christ is the center of it.
00:10:10And so they have to say the message is Christ in order for you to really embrace the message.
00:10:16So in their hearts, they know what it really boils down to, but they have to still give
00:10:21homage to the message.
00:10:23In other words, because of their belief that if they don't, they're going to lose their
00:10:27salvation.
00:10:29And the message, if you latch on to that, it actually leads you away from Christ.
00:10:34And then for Christians in the message, they end up with a mixture.
00:10:37And that's what I found in the churches I've been involved with, is really you've got a
00:10:41mixture because you've got a minister that was sincere.
00:10:43And many, you know, just believe that William Branham was the prophet because of his gifts
00:10:50and because of his so-called supernatural manifestations.
00:10:53And we've seen and we're actually showing the facts behind these supernatural manifestations
00:10:58really weren't supernatural at all, such as we started with the cloud and showing how that
00:11:03wasn't supernatural at all.
00:11:04And many of the visions that will eventually maybe go into those.
00:11:08But you and Charles, and you've covered them very well of how the visions weren't even coming
00:11:14to pass.
00:11:15And there's some I want to focus on too as well later on.
00:11:18So it leads you to that mixture.
00:11:20On the one hand, you know, people will have to say, well, I believe in Christ for salvation
00:11:24and have that personal experience with him.
00:11:26And that's what you hear.
00:11:27You know, a lot of the message preachers will preach, and that's a great thing.
00:11:31But on the other hand, they have to also say they believe what the prophet said.
00:11:36And then if you don't believe God sent a prophet, then you're not in the bride.
00:11:39And therefore, you conclude that you're not even a Christian because only the bride makes
00:11:44the rapture.
00:11:44Only the bride gets to be seated with Christ.
00:11:47And therefore, how can you even say that you're a Christian unless you believe the message?
00:11:51So that's the mixture that they have.
00:11:54So it's truly a mixture of Christianity and false doctrine, and really the false doctrines
00:11:59and the false beliefs really poison the truth that they have.
00:12:04And many find themselves living in a dual reality, which is where I found myself, you know, one
00:12:09where they're claiming Christ, and the other where you have to bind yourself to a unique
00:12:13teaching by a man who's really proven, according to what the Scripture says, you can find many
00:12:19places where the Scripture will declare what constitutes a prophet or not.
00:12:23And what that says to actually be, you know, we find William Brown to be a false prophet because
00:12:29of the declarations of Scripture and the qualifications Scripture is very specific about.
00:12:37And so I really see that this should create a frustration in believers of the message, but
00:12:42usually they have to throw off one or the other.
00:12:46And it's usually the Scripture that loses every time because the mind has to conclude with
00:12:53the evidence at hand that they may have access to, which is the tapes, the stories they've
00:12:58been told, or the testimonies that they've heard, or what they believe that they're seeing,
00:13:03say, in the pictures that they see and so forth of the cloud, at least on the surface that
00:13:08the prophet was speaking for God, or that he heard from God and he knew the true interpretation.
00:13:13And that's another factor in this, is that they only believe that a prophet has the true
00:13:19interpretation of Scripture.
00:13:20So you have to be some prophet with a supernatural manifestation, have to have some prophecies
00:13:26to say that you're a prophet, and then that's what they follow.
00:13:29There's a song that used to be out there that has been sung that was in the message.
00:13:34It was called Eagle Call.
00:13:36It even says this with a line from the song itself, and I'll read that.
00:13:40It says, that eagle prophet was a special built bird, and referring to Branham, he gave us
00:13:46life by giving us the word.
00:13:48You know, they believe they had the true word.
00:13:50And here's the other thing that nails it down.
00:13:54He gave us life by giving us the word, the true interpretation of it all.
00:13:59Thank God I've heard that eagle call.
00:14:01So it's like their story that the eagle in the barnyard with all the other chickens, you
00:14:07know, the eagle was born an eagle from the start, and so he's the only one that hears
00:14:11the mother eagle call.
00:14:13And so the prophet is reckoned to be an eagle, and he makes the call.
00:14:17And then the person that's the true eagle, the true Christian, hears it.
00:14:20He flies up to the heavenlies while the chickens are left in the barnyard.
00:14:24And so a very funny story.
00:14:27But now it doesn't have the same meaning as it once did.
00:14:31So what the message does to Christians, it pulls them away from the central message of
00:14:36Christ and him crucified, which is what Paul said the gospel was, and leads them to believe
00:14:42they're now in a different dispensation, such as the cloud being the central point of that.
00:14:47You know, when you put the cloud up there, and many do, put 1963 as a dispensational change.
00:14:54My own pastor did and continues to do so.
00:14:56But it's not a mysterious cloud at all, and it wasn't some supernatural event at all.
00:15:03You know, it was not that at all.
00:15:04But yeah, they put this now in a different dispensation.
00:15:08They've been led out to an island, really, where it's only them and their children,
00:15:13whoever they can now convince to believe the message.
00:15:15It should be very hard to convince anyone now, though, with all the information out there.
00:15:21So I think we'll see going forward, and we've already seen it in families, that we're sheltering
00:15:26their children even more, keeping them out of public schools, perhaps, just so they can
00:15:32homeschool them and indoctrinate them in the message.
00:15:34Not so much in basic reading, writing, arithmetic, but making sure they're indoctrinated fully
00:15:40in the message, even in the churches.
00:15:43And day after day, that will have the best chance of the message surviving, you know,
00:15:47long term.
00:15:48You know, you mentioned the cloud, and we did a full episode on the cloud.
00:15:52What's interesting is when I grew up, that was a deep part of your salvation.
00:15:57And I know that people who are in the cult will argue with me, especially now, because
00:16:01they don't realize how gradually things have shifted.
00:16:05We used to have, there are churches, even still today there are, but many churches back
00:16:09then would have the picture of Brenham with the halo, which we've also examined that.
00:16:15There was, you know, lighting in the building like any other building, and they would have
00:16:19the cloud.
00:16:20And often they would have it in the sanctuary of the churches.
00:16:23We have, Charles and I looked through some of this, and we've, you know, showed some examples
00:16:28of churches that still today have this, but it was part of the salvation because on the
00:16:34one hand, you had William Branham with the halo, and the halo represented or was supposed
00:16:39to be a literal version of the pillar of fire above his head.
00:16:43And then the cloud was supposed to be seven angels who gave him what became called or known
00:16:49as a deep part of the message.
00:16:52You had the opening of the seven seals.
00:16:54We were taught that William Branham defied the book of Revelation when it says that no
00:17:00man is worthy to open the seven seals.
00:17:02Well, the way Branham twisted that is he said that he would say often, I open the seven seals
00:17:08or we open the seven seals.
00:17:09But what he was essentially doing was trying to shift it such that these angels came down
00:17:15through this cloud and, you know, science captured the angels is the way he described it.
00:17:21But they came down and they gave him the mystery behind the seven seals of Revelation.
00:17:27And, you know, if you take that away, you're extracting a huge part of what was literally
00:17:33called the message, which is why the cult itself is called the message.
00:17:37You take that away, you really have nothing.
00:17:40And so what has happened over the years, it's shifted a little bit.
00:17:43That they've decreased the level of importance of this and tried to say that this isn't important.
00:17:49Yes, William Branham lied, but he was a flawed human being.
00:17:53I've heard this, you know, over the years, I've heard this from message ministers themselves
00:17:58who few of them would reach out to me and they'd say, he was flawed.
00:18:01You're flawed.
00:18:02Everybody's flawed.
00:18:02And yet, I'm not lying about seven angels coming and giving me the literal seven-sealed
00:18:09mystery of the book of Revelation, but he did.
00:18:13And what's interesting is now they've diminished it so much that they say, well, that's not
00:18:17important to our salvation.
00:18:18Well, if it's not, then why do you need Branham at all?
00:18:22Why not just go directly to Jesus?
00:18:24And hopefully that shift will continue and some of these ministers will actually do that.
00:18:29But because Branham did this, and keep in mind, if you're in the NAR and you're listening,
00:18:35there's always this phrase that seems to be flung about any of the big apostles or prophets
00:18:42in the NAR.
00:18:43They'll say, Branham had a powerful ministry and then he went astray.
00:18:47Well, if you look at the timeline, what we're talking about was during the years that he had
00:18:53not yet gone astray according to their views, and yet he's lying about the whole thing.
00:18:57So, what parts did he lie?
00:19:00What parts did he not?
00:19:01And like you said, it really comes down to a question of salvation.
00:19:05If you're building your faith upon something that is a foundation of sinking sand, how can
00:19:10you build a foundation that's going to stand long-term?
00:19:12And that's why we see the message crumbling today.
00:19:15Yeah, you know, John, I really feel bad for message believers on one hand because the indoctrination
00:19:21is going to stay with them a long time, a long period of time.
00:19:23It takes years, you know, to really come out of this indoctrination.
00:19:27You know, maybe even a lifetime where they'll, the sad part is they'll waste their lives
00:19:32on a message that was never sent by God and they'll never hear the full account of Scripture.
00:19:38Maybe in their, maybe if they come out soon, surely if they do come out soon, they'll be
00:19:45able to have more years of diving into Scriptures, hearing other ministers speak about the Scripture
00:19:51and get such a broader knowledge rather than just their very focused approach and what a
00:19:57few doctrines they do believe.
00:19:58So on the one hand, on the other hand, I know that God is able to call people out.
00:20:05You know, the ones that are in there and indoctrinated are able to be called out.
00:20:09And I have the assurance and hope that many more will wake up to these issues and realize
00:20:14the body of Christ in its entirety consists of many people in many different churches.
00:20:18And there's always going to be a mixture in those churches.
00:20:21We know that the churches will, that add the man-made rules or require certain rules to
00:20:28be followed outside of Scripture, of course, are going to lead to error and not being able
00:20:32to fellowship with the broader church world.
00:20:34And that's, that's, that's the part that I believe breaks Scripture.
00:20:39You know, we can never embrace anything unscriptural, of course, within the church world, but we
00:20:44can find fellowship with those who don't go to the same church as we do.
00:20:47And we should, you know, Christ should be at the center of our fellowship and not a certain
00:20:51man who claims to speak for God alone.
00:20:56So, so in this, in this broadcast today, I just want to make it clear.
00:20:59I'm not trying to be a teacher or sway people's beliefs.
00:21:01If you hold a certain belief about salvation, I want to make that very, very clear.
00:21:06The purpose of this episode is just to point out some things in the Scripture and how
00:21:11William Branham used it, used the Scripture to point to himself and ended up having to
00:21:16say something different than Scripture teaches to make the Scripture match his ministry.
00:21:21And that's exactly what we said eisegesis does.
00:21:24You know, you're, you're pointing, you're, you're, you're reading into Scripture something
00:21:28about that's not really there.
00:21:30You bend Scripture, ignore certain things to make it match your belief system.
00:21:34So we've all been guilty of that, of failing to look carefully at one time or another before
00:21:39we draw conclusions about Scripture.
00:21:41And so the approach I'm taking now is just always be willing to be, to adjust what I,
00:21:46how I see it, how I see something that there's more evidence to the contrary to what I believe
00:21:50I'm willing to adjust.
00:21:52And I try to do that very quickly, but cautiously now, because, you know, you don't want to be
00:21:57led into error.
00:21:58And that's the key to why people stay in the message.
00:22:00You know, they aren't willing to go through the pain or the effort or the willing to change
00:22:05when contrary evidence just stares them in the face.
00:22:08It's, it's a dangerous time really at this time for message believers, because when the
00:22:12evidence is out there, you know, it places them in the decision-making time.
00:22:16It confronts them and cognitive distance, as we've said, you know, takes over a lot of
00:22:22times.
00:22:23Most just choose to ignore just so that they can avoid the pain of confronting their own
00:22:28beliefs.
00:22:28Our mind tends to do that.
00:22:30It's too painful.
00:22:31But we do have to face the pain to come to the truth a lot of times.
00:22:35So to me, it's like, like the Jews were in Jesus's day, you know, the religion was good
00:22:40up until the time Jesus came and told them, you know, what God really required.
00:22:44And then it was painful to change.
00:22:46You know, many lost their families, their associations, their lives, even put to death
00:22:50just because they had to change.
00:22:53With the message, it could be, it could be just as easy.
00:22:58It's much easier right now to make a course correction.
00:23:01You know, later on, it's going to be more difficult.
00:23:03But right now, the way I see it in the message is that we could easily make a course correction.
00:23:10And you either have to say that Christ and the truth is more important to you right now
00:23:15or repeating the lies that we know are lies or those that have been exposed to the issues
00:23:21and keep holding on to that.
00:23:23You know, it's much easier now than it will be in the future.
00:23:27So, so you have to say to yourself, you know, and people have to make these decisions, is
00:23:31my pain and my loss more important than truth and the scripture and the sake of the gospel.
00:23:38And the longer they wait to make corrections at this point, I think the more painful it will
00:23:42be for them and their families later.
00:23:44Once the truth is out there, you know, if we just stick our heads in the sand, put a blindfold
00:23:49on, it's not going to make things any better and it will not change the facts, you know,
00:23:55that's been brought out.
00:23:57And what I also believe, John, I believe ministry does bear about 90% of the responsibility
00:24:02to make these course corrections because they do hold a position of trust and authority in
00:24:08their teaching, being teachers of the people.
00:24:11So what they do with the facts really show their true colors.
00:24:14So, you know, if you're a believer under these particular ministers, you know, what they're
00:24:19doing with these facts really, really show who they are, where they're only after building
00:24:22up the kingdom or keeping their money flowing in, avoiding egg on their face or really caring
00:24:27about the souls and eternal life of the people they claim to serve.
00:24:31You know, that's, that's the crossroads I was at.
00:24:33Do I, do I really care enough about the people and the people I'm claiming to serve with the
00:24:39word?
00:24:39Or do I just care about covering what I know up and just saying something to them that's
00:24:45going to be a pleasant to their ears to hear?
00:24:49You know, I think we have to come to grips with that.
00:24:52And so to me, it was not, it was a no brainer to me.
00:24:56I could not continue, you know, ministering the word and things I know weren't true.
00:25:02I had to come, come to that crossroads and, and had to, to, to say that that's, that's what
00:25:08I had to do or, or otherwise I just have to leave.
00:25:11So, so maybe there's some of them, the ministers out there that are really deceives, deceived,
00:25:16and they put themselves out there as a teacher.
00:25:18They, they do bear that responsibility still, even if they're deceived, whether they admit
00:25:23it or not and accept the responsibility to be challenged.
00:25:26It just comes with the territory of being a minister.
00:25:29So, so far, all I can see that ministers are just running away.
00:25:33They're hiding their, and their name calling others.
00:25:35So I'm glad to see that we have a few that has accepted the responsibility.
00:25:39There are a few ministers out there that are coming, have come out and have cared more
00:25:44for telling people the truth.
00:25:45And so to me, that's been so encouraging.
00:25:47I'm glad you brought up the encouraging parts of all of this, because there are many people
00:25:52who are in, on the outside, looking in at this weird thing that we call the message.
00:25:58And they say, these people are willfully allowing themselves to be submitted to false doctrine.
00:26:02Sometimes it's just extra biblical, but in many cases, there are things that were taught
00:26:08that were just anti-scriptural.
00:26:10And if you, like you said, if you choose the, the words of William Branham over the Bible,
00:26:16this places you into a very dangerous category.
00:26:19So people outside looking in, they think that, you know, they have the choice to just walk
00:26:24away, but it's not always the case.
00:26:27Sometimes you've been brainwashed, manipulated, you're under a level of mind control, or also,
00:26:33like you said, sometimes just cognitive dissonance steps in and you're trying to reconcile, okay,
00:26:38the Bible says this one thing, William Branham taught the truth and he stayed with the Bible
00:26:43and he taught the opposite.
00:26:45And your brain tries to mix those together and try to make sense of it.
00:26:49And that's why it's so confusing.
00:26:51Sometimes whenever you get into a debate with a person under that level of mind control, what
00:26:56they're saying doesn't make any sense.
00:26:58But to them, it's very real and it does make sense.
00:27:02And I'll never forget, I had a minister contact, he actually drove here from out east and he
00:27:09was in the Branham cults and he told me, John, I really like what you're doing.
00:27:13I disagree with everything that you say about William Branham.
00:27:16I think he was a good man.
00:27:18But the problem is, he said, ministers today, they have taken him above the Bible.
00:27:24And in my church, I don't do this.
00:27:25I always stay with the Bible.
00:27:27And if William Branham says something different, I'm quick to point it out to the church.
00:27:31And we got to talking for a while.
00:27:33He went deeper into what that meant for him.
00:27:38But when he started talking about the things that he stood for, he was still saying some
00:27:42of the things that William Branham said that were actually either extra biblical or anti-biblical
00:27:47because his own cognitive dissonance wouldn't let him go any further.
00:27:51And that's, again, we're talking about the dangers.
00:27:53That's the real danger of this because when you're in this mindset where you're under this
00:27:58level of manipulation where somebody has said that Almighty God is speaking through this
00:28:04person and you're trying to uplift some of the things that is being said and trying to
00:28:10understand that some of the things were just completely false, where do you draw that line?
00:28:14You're being manipulated either way.
00:28:17And so there is some danger there.
00:28:19And where it gets really, really dangerous is whenever there were—William Branham would
00:28:25say, let me take this verse as my context.
00:28:28And then he would go off into something that was completely out of the context of the passage
00:28:34that he was reading.
00:28:35None of it really tied back.
00:28:36But what he did was he planted in all of the heads listening this thing that was supposed
00:28:41to be meant by a certain passage in the Bible.
00:28:45And today we have these—they call them word ministers—and they're preaching these phrases
00:28:51and they're quoting verses by the book name and the chapter and verse numbers and using
00:28:59that as loaded language.
00:29:00And so they're overloading what these verses actually mean.
00:29:04And people who are in the pews, they're being indoctrinated to believe that that specific
00:29:09verse means this other thing than what's in the Bible.
00:29:12So that's where it gets really dangerous.
00:29:14Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern
00:29:19Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements
00:29:25into the new apostolic reformation?
00:29:27You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
00:29:35On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles
00:29:40Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and
00:29:47digital versions of each book.
00:29:49You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
00:29:54movements.
00:29:55If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute
00:30:01button at the top.
00:30:02And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're
00:30:07listening to or watching.
00:30:08On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:30:13So now I want to get in to see how William Branham used these scriptures that we're talking
00:30:18about.
00:30:18So turn into Acts 18, verse 24.
00:30:21I want to read this real quick.
00:30:23And a certain Jew named Apollos, born in Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures,
00:30:28came to Ephesus.
00:30:30This man was instructed in the way of the Lord.
00:30:32And being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord,
00:30:37knowing only the baptism of John.
00:30:40So when we read this, we see Apollos is first a Jew and Jews, of course, only knew the Old
00:30:46Testament.
00:30:46That's what they were very familiar with.
00:30:48He knew that very well.
00:30:49It says he was a great speaker, eloquent.
00:30:52He was strong in the Old Testament and he was at Ephesus.
00:30:55So he was in the vicinity of these other disciples.
00:30:58We'll be seeing here in Acts 19.
00:31:01It says that he was instructed in the way of the Lord.
00:31:03He taught things with a lot of zeal.
00:31:05It was fervent in spirit.
00:31:07But all that he taught was that God sent John and preached to people have to repent.
00:31:12He took John to be from God, of course, and he preached repentance.
00:31:15He only knew this about John, but surely he heard about Jesus, you would think.
00:31:22But he didn't preach the gospel because he had to be corrected by Aquila and Priscilla.
00:31:28His preaching did not save people, could not save people who hurt him because he didn't
00:31:32preach only Jesus, his work on the cross and really what it did, what it accomplished for
00:31:36them.
00:31:37So people had nothing to put their faith in other than just, I'm going to repent before
00:31:41God.
00:31:42John's preaching was more of what people could do.
00:31:44It was more of a works thing.
00:31:47Here's what you can do.
00:31:47You can repent and believe in God, but didn't go so far as to tell them that we do not work
00:31:53to get salvation.
00:31:54God gives salvation by grace alone, and the Spirit of God comes to regenerate the person
00:31:59and forever lives in them after that when they believe the gospel.
00:32:05So in verse 26, it says, he began to speak boldly in the synagogue.
00:32:09And when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them and expounded unto him to
00:32:14the way of God more perfectly.
00:32:16And after they expounded the word of God to him, his whole message then was Christ and
00:32:20him crucified, that Jesus was the Messiah.
00:32:23Prior to that, it wasn't.
00:32:25So, and then after that, Apollos was disposed to pass into Achaia, which is in verse 27,
00:32:32the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him who, when he was come, helped
00:32:37them much, which had believed through grace, for he convinced the Jews and that publicly
00:32:43showing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.
00:32:47So prior to him meeting Aquila and Priscilla, he didn't do this.
00:32:50He only preached the baptism of John and what that was all about.
00:32:53He really didn't know how Christ and the scriptures matched up and what Christ really did for them,
00:33:00believing through grace.
00:33:02So, so there we see, that's what the scripture is actually saying.
00:33:06So there was a time when Apollos was not preaching truth fully.
00:33:09And then there was a time when he preached Jesus was to Christ.
00:33:12So where we tend to read into scriptures at this point to start to make doctrines in Acts 19
00:33:18is when Paul met those disciples in Ephesus.
00:33:21You know, we find out that disciples are just learners.
00:33:25It doesn't mean they believed anything about the Christian faith.
00:33:28You know, in fact, we find they didn't know about Christ or his work.
00:33:31They'd only heard of John coming and were baptized and repented of sins.
00:33:35So, so people make the inference here that these, because they were called disciples,
00:33:41they were actually Christians or they knew about Christ and his work and they just hadn't
00:33:44received the Holy Ghost yet.
00:33:46And, and so let's read in Acts 19 one, what it says there.
00:33:50And it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, you know, Apollos, Apollos had left.
00:33:55Paul passed through the inland country, came to Ephesus and there he found some disciples.
00:33:59Like I say, the scriptures doesn't say they were Christian disciples, just learners.
00:34:03But we find out here in the next verse, what, what they really knew.
00:34:08And the scriptures also don't say that Apollos had spoken to these disciples.
00:34:12You know, they were just disciples.
00:34:13It doesn't say that Apollos was there.
00:34:16We might could infer that Apollos could have preached to them, but we know for a fact, it
00:34:21wasn't when Apollos knew about Christ.
00:34:24It was more about when Apollos knew about John, if he spoke to them at all, because there was
00:34:28one time when, when John had only, Apollos had only spoken about John.
00:34:33So, so we don't know whether these disciples had heard about John at the Jordan River.
00:34:38They attended his baptism and his preaching or whether he heard it from Apollos, but one
00:34:43of the two that he did, they heard it at some point.
00:34:46So in verse two, it said, and Paul said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when
00:34:50you believe?
00:34:51And they said, no, we've not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.
00:34:54And they said, well, into what then were you baptized?
00:34:57And they said, into John's baptism.
00:35:00And Paul said, well, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to
00:35:03believe in the one who was to come after him.
00:35:06That is Jesus.
00:35:07On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
00:35:10And when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them.
00:35:13They began to speak in tongues and prophesy.
00:35:15There's about 12 men in all.
00:35:18So the issue becomes then is what you believe Apollos had said to them, if he spoke to them at
00:35:23all, and to me, it's obvious that Apollos, if he did speak to them at all, he spoke to
00:35:29them prior to his visit with Aquila and Priscilla, because these disciples also needed instruction,
00:35:35not knowing only of John's baptism.
00:35:37And that did not affect salvation in them.
00:35:40They didn't receive the Holy Ghost under that teaching.
00:35:43They didn't receive the Spirit because they didn't have that true saving faith there, because
00:35:48faith is specific, and it has to be placed in the right thing for God to effect salvation.
00:35:55So in reality, whether William Branham was using these scriptures to relate to the Pentecostal
00:36:00world in general about someone has to be saved and then receive the Holy Spirit, whether he
00:36:06was trying to say, well, I believe the same thing as you, or I'm not sure, or whether this
00:36:11is one example of the many where he didn't say the same thing as scripture says.
00:36:14You know, what we're not trying to do here is referring to whether you receive the Spirit
00:36:20at the time of faith or sometime after.
00:36:23We're just saying that William Branham read something into the text that wasn't there,
00:36:27and therefore we're showing how this led to him bending scripture, you know, to point to
00:36:34himself, to either relate to the general Pentecostal world to try to bring him under his wing, or
00:36:41eventually point to himself, as we'll see.
00:36:42Exactly, and as we get into this further, this will make more sense, but if you take
00:36:47William Branham's version of the manifested sons of God doctrine, from which many of the
00:36:52NAR structures were built, you have to understand that he was literally teaching that whenever
00:37:00the Bible is talking about Jesus sending the Holy Spirit, or especially the phrases like
00:37:06you too can become gods, he's talking about there are apostles and prophets of the last days
00:37:11that will be the Jesus Christ manifested before the people.
00:37:16And so when it's talking about Christ's return, this was the return, and that's why you have
00:37:21what's called the return ministry sect and the message following William Branham.
00:37:26They're teaching that Jesus has come back in these people.
00:37:29Branham, because he's on this platform that's shared with all these other ministers, he kind
00:37:34of opened the door for a bit, and then pulled it back, to say that it was the movement.
00:37:39Christ was manifesting himself in the movement, but like you just alluded to, later in the
00:37:45years, he went to say that, no, it's going to be, and he didn't come out and just say
00:37:50me, but he uses phrases that if you're in the message, you know he's talking about himself
00:37:54when he says these things, which we'll get into.
00:37:57But through this manifested sons of God, you have to understand that there comes a problem
00:38:02with this, because in Christianity, you're teaching that you're followers of Christ,
00:38:07you're a follower of Jesus.
00:38:08Well, whenever these people inject themselves into this, and they say that Christ is in
00:38:13them, and they have the spoken word, the voice of God, the rhema, these other terms that
00:38:18they're using, they're literally saying that they are the ones, their voices are the ones
00:38:23to be worshiped as a new replacement for the Bible, and that's dangerous.
00:38:29So yeah, John, this is, it just keeps going and going, you know, the more you deviate from
00:38:34the text of Scripture, the more you read into it, it just takes you further and further away.
00:38:39And so what we find out here is what William Branham read into the text, he was saying that
00:38:44these disciples were actually Christians like the current Baptist churches.
00:38:48This is where he really got off into this era that he was in.
00:38:54You know, the Baptist church is seen by the message believers as only nominal when it comes
00:38:58to Christianity, and just like all other denominations are to message believers, you know, Baptist
00:39:04and denominations, other than Pentecostal at the time William Branham was preaching, are
00:39:09seen as those who don't really have the spirit baptism of Christ yet.
00:39:13Yet we know that anyone who doesn't have the spirit of Christ is really not Christ at all,
00:39:17according to Scripture.
00:39:18So that's a, that's a big statement to make.
00:39:21And this causes division among Christians and saying, you don't have as much of Christ
00:39:25as I have, because you didn't have this certain experience.
00:39:29And you need to seek for some extra experience.
00:39:32So then we begin to rely on experiences more than we rely on Scriptures.
00:39:37And later in William Branham's case, we have to think that there's some message to believe
00:39:41to even have the spirit.
00:39:42That's where this eventually led.
00:39:44That's why this was not very, a very safe teaching to try to hold on to.
00:39:49And I'm going to read a few quotes from William Branham, just to show you to nail down what
00:39:54he was believing about this scripture.
00:39:56He says in early spiritual experiences in 1952, July 13th, he says, that's where I differ
00:40:02with my own church, the church that I come from, the Baptist church.
00:40:06They said, you said you receive the Holy Ghost when you believe.
00:40:09I said, that's contrary to the Bible.
00:40:11Paul said in Acts 19, he asked those Baptists up there that was following Apollos, he said,
00:40:17have you received the Holy Ghost since you believe, not when you believe, but since you
00:40:21have believed.
00:40:22You believe first and the Holy Ghost is the gift of God, so he comes to you.
00:40:25It is different.
00:40:27Here, altogether different from being saved, being called out in God.
00:40:31So here we see he's starting to show you that he believed Apollos had preached Christ to
00:40:37these people.
00:40:38They became just like regular Baptist church people are today.
00:40:42They believed in Christ, but just hadn't received the Holy Ghost.
00:40:46And this is where relying on the King James can be an issue because the King James puts
00:40:51it in there as the term, since you believed.
00:40:54When I've read where that scripture can mean when you believe just as easily, if not more,
00:41:01than trying to say it comes after.
00:41:03So regardless of what it means, as soon as you have saving faith, as soon as that faith
00:41:09is given to you, you receive the Holy Spirit, the baptism.
00:41:13It's not, you've got to wait for it sometime after.
00:41:16And that's where we, when we get off into that, then we start doubting our salvation.
00:41:20Then we start seeking after experiences to try to nail down when Christ has come into us.
00:41:26But the obvious way, you know, Christ has come into you is, is how much are you following
00:41:31the word after that?
00:41:32You know, how much is your life?
00:41:34Are you loving the word, loving Christ, loving, attending church, loving to fellowship with
00:41:41other believers?
00:41:42There's a lot of other evidences other than speaking in tongues or shouting or whatever
00:41:46to prove or believing in the message to prove that you have the Holy Spirit.
00:41:50So here's another quote in Israel and the church, number four, 53, March 28th.
00:41:57He says, I ain't got nothing against the Baptists.
00:41:59They got a whole lot of good things.
00:42:01But look, brother, I heard them on the radio the other day, a fellow, a fine Baptist minister
00:42:05trying to bypass Acts 19.
00:42:08He said, Apollos didn't know Jesus.
00:42:10So that's the reason they had to be rebaptized again.
00:42:13Then brother Brown said, oh no, Apollos did know Jesus.
00:42:16He was proving by the word of God that Jesus was to Christ.
00:42:20Amen.
00:42:21And he said, have you received the Holy Ghost since you have believed?
00:42:23That's right.
00:42:24So here we see what William Branham really believed about these scriptures.
00:42:30See, he took the scriptures out of place and he said, well, the scriptures say Apollos knew
00:42:34Christ.
00:42:35He was preaching publicly Jesus was to Christ.
00:42:37But what William Branham doesn't seem to say is that there was a time when Apollos didn't
00:42:43know what Christ had done or did not know Christ in the fullness that he should know
00:42:47him and know his work on the cross.
00:42:50And see, he misplaced scripture there and tried to allude to the fact that trying to build
00:42:54his doctrine on the fact that, well, you can know Christ.
00:42:57You first have to believe in Christ before you receive the Holy Spirit at some later time.
00:43:01So it's this last quote.
00:43:03We see what he really believed.
00:43:04He believed that Apollos had preached Christ to those disciples when in fact he had not.
00:43:09Even if those disciples had heard Apollos preach to them, because Apollos was only preaching
00:43:14John at one time in John's baptism.
00:43:17If Apollos did meet those disciples, it was obvious before he met Aquila and Priscilla, because
00:43:25after that, we see that he was publicly preaching Jesus Christ.
00:43:29But William Branham just places this in the wrong sequence.
00:43:32So to the message believer, they would say, this is not important.
00:43:36It's not important that William Branham taught something wrong.
00:43:39But I disagree.
00:43:41It's vitally important because we're dealing with things about salvation here and the credibility
00:43:46of the prophet of God.
00:43:48We're building a doctrine that says you can put your faith in Christ and still be lost
00:43:52because you don't have the spirit of God.
00:43:54That leads people to wondering about whether they are even saved or not.
00:43:58Even in the message, we find a lot of people wonder, do they even have salvation or not?
00:44:02They're trying to figure out, what is it that I got to believe to have salvation?
00:44:06Even the message leads to confusion about salvation.
00:44:09People are forever wondering about their assurance of salvation.
00:44:14You know, the only assurance you have in the message is, do you believe William Branham's
00:44:18message or not?
00:44:19And that leaves people to leave scripture out and to make sure they have the message
00:44:25down pat first and that they think they know versus what the apostles preached only.
00:44:31You know, they have to have this message that they're trying to put together.
00:44:35It gets you in all kinds of twists and turns.
00:44:37And then you're living in bondage.
00:44:39And whether you know it or not, you may like your bondage and be content with it.
00:44:44You know, many people are, and then many people have to go through the motions again.
00:44:47They have to get re-baptized again.
00:44:49I've seen that happen, you know, not too long ago.
00:44:52They almost had a re-baptism ceremony where everybody marched through the line and got
00:44:57re-baptized, and they were baptized many, many years ago, early in their Christian walk.
00:45:02And then that just was evidence they doubted their salvation, wanted to make it sure again.
00:45:07And this happened in a message church.
00:45:09Here's another quote from Questions and Answers on Genesis in 1953, July 29.
00:45:16It says, Paul in Acts 19, after he passed over, Apollos was Billy Graham type up there,
00:45:22was having a big revival and a good time.
00:45:24He said, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed to that bunch of Baptists?
00:45:28They said, we're John's followers.
00:45:30We know Apollos is our preacher.
00:45:32He's a converted lawyer, smartest man in the country.
00:45:34And I think Brother Branham threw this quote in because it's just another example of how
00:45:39he threw off on men who studied the scripture or have been to college or seminary.
00:45:45It was just his way to kind of throw that out there.
00:45:49There's another one, and God keeps his word, 1957, January the 15th.
00:45:54He said, Sam, we want you to tell us how to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
00:45:59He was speaking to somebody.
00:46:00He said, now, we believe that in when we receive the Holy Ghost, when we believe.
00:46:06And I said, well, did you ever read Acts 19?
00:46:09And he says, yes.
00:46:10I said, well, there's some mighty fine Baptists up there, had a good pastor, a good preacher.
00:46:15His name was Apollos.
00:46:16He was a converted lawyer.
00:46:17He was proving Jesus the Christ by the Bible.
00:46:20Here's another quote, Hebrews chapter 2, number 2, in August 25th, 1957.
00:46:26He said, Paul, Acts 10, 5, he passed through the upper coast of Ephesus.
00:46:31He finds disciples.
00:46:32He's talking about Acts 19.
00:46:34They were Baptist disciples, was everyone Baptist.
00:46:37They were converted under a Baptist preacher by the name of C. Apollos.
00:46:41He was a Baptist preacher, and he was proving by the Bible Jesus was to Christ.
00:46:46Paul said, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?
00:46:49They said, we not know whether there be any Holy Ghost.
00:46:50And he said, how was you baptized?
00:46:52They said, we've been baptized by the same man that baptized Jesus, the whole water out there.
00:46:56That's good enough.
00:46:57Paul said, that won't work now.
00:46:59You have to be baptized over again.
00:47:01And Paul commanded them to be baptized over again in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:47:05Laid his hands on them, and the Holy Ghost come on them.
00:47:07Correct?
00:47:08Yes, sir.
00:47:09So William Branham was just, again, affirming the fact that Apollos, he believed Apollos was
00:47:15preaching Christ to these disciples.
00:47:17He believed that these disciples had believed in Jesus, that somehow the Holy Ghost has come.
00:47:23But that's not what the scripture said, because we saw where they only believed in John's baptism.
00:47:27They haven't yet known Christ.
00:47:29It was only when Paul preached Christ to them that they really believed in Christ.
00:47:34But he used these quotes, William Branham used these quotes over and over to throw off on
00:47:37Baptist churches as not having enough, or any of the other denomination not having enough.
00:47:42Either he deliberately used Baptist name while not really explaining that he was referring
00:47:46to John's disciples with the name Baptist, or he was saying something derogatory about
00:47:51the church he had associated with.
00:47:53I think it was both.
00:47:54But the issue is that William Branham taught that the disciples had heard Apollos preach
00:47:59Christ, and we know that's not the case.
00:48:02We just went through it with scripture.
00:48:04In my mind, a prophet would have to expound the word correctly, because they constantly say,
00:48:09message believers say, a prophet is a divine interpreter of the word.
00:48:13So I can't give William Branham a pass here if he cannot expound the word or give a little
00:48:18more attention to the word to get it correct, if he was really a divine interpreter of the
00:48:22word, as the message believers would say.
00:48:25And here's one more quote in 1957, questions and answers on Hebrews 1.
00:48:31And they come over here and found Aquila and Priscilla, and they was having a revival up
00:48:35there by a Baptist preacher by the name of Apollos, who was proving by the scriptures that
00:48:39Jesus was the Christ.
00:48:41And things like that is what made me recognize the dangers here, because like you said, he's
00:48:47saying two different things.
00:48:49And what he's trying to do is he's trying to suggest that he is more than human and everybody
00:48:55else is less than him, especially who are evangelists on the field.
00:48:59And I began to notice that many of the things that he did, it wasn't just that he was in
00:49:04error.
00:49:05There was a strategy behind it.
00:49:06And once I picked up on the strategy, I began to realize this was a dangerous person.
00:49:11This was not the humble little prophet man that he claimed.
00:49:15So I began to investigate his so-called humble history and found out that it was almost complete
00:49:20fiction.
00:49:21But he's trying to elevate his status to that of a God.
00:49:26And when you get to that level and people are believing it, that's where it becomes really,
00:49:31really dangerous.
00:49:32We have examples, like you mentioned, the Chacahola Forest Massacre.
00:49:36You've got Jim Jones, who is also in this.
00:49:38When a person has convinced his people that he is a God, this turns into a very, it's the
00:49:45recipe for disaster.
00:49:46So, yeah, John, I believe William Branham knew what he was doing and how to sway people
00:49:50into his thinking that he only preached truth.
00:49:53You can see how he took the scriptures there and was constantly just hitting it over and
00:49:58over again like that because he wanted people to believe a certain way.
00:50:02He used Christian doctrine and he preached enough of that on the surface.
00:50:06It sounded like it was genuine.
00:50:08But then he put down other ministries and gave Christian churches a bad name for not following
00:50:14his rules, his interpretation of scriptures.
00:50:16And then he gave lip service to following only the scripture, which was good as far as he
00:50:22went preaching scripture.
00:50:23But hopefully I'll present in the future of where he took detours.
00:50:28And we're going to see a lot of these detours.
00:50:30This is just one example where he took a detour from scripture to get some kind of point across.
00:50:36In another quote in 1957, Hebrews chapter 3, this is where he gives lip service to the Bible.
00:50:42He says, there's something about where you go, what church you go to, what teacher teaches
00:50:46you.
00:50:47Did you know that?
00:50:48It's got something to it.
00:50:50Therefore, we ought to seek out the very best that we can find.
00:50:53So we're getting the best, not because it's sociable and so forth, but real Bible teaching.
00:50:59So he taught the series in Hebrews in 1957.
00:51:02This was in September 1st.
00:51:04But here he is trying to allude to the fact that you've got to find true Bible teaching.
00:51:08And then here's another quote from Hebrews series, September the 8th, where he says,
00:51:15the Bible can only have one meaning.
00:51:17It can't have two meanings.
00:51:19And if one part of the Bible says one thing and another part of the Bible says something
00:51:22else, then something is wrong.
00:51:24See, it's got to say the thing all the way through it.
00:51:28But remember, in studying the Bible is hid from the wise and prudent, revealed to babes
00:51:33because it's a spiritual book.
00:51:35It's not a Western book.
00:51:36It's an Eastern book.
00:51:37But there's only one thing can interpret it.
00:51:39That's the Holy Spirit.
00:51:40I know each one of us wants to say that the Holy Spirit is telling us what we believe in
00:51:44it.
00:51:44Well, now, if every scripture lines up exactly the same, then that's the Holy Spirit.
00:51:49If it doesn't line up, it's got a gap there and a gap over here.
00:51:52There's something wrong with our belief.
00:51:54Oh, it's a marvelous book.
00:51:55So here, William Brown's giving a lot of lip service to the Bible and saying how it must
00:52:00line up.
00:52:01But clearly show there, he didn't make it line up there in Acts 18 and 19 because he got
00:52:06it out of place.
00:52:08And that's a red flag.
00:52:10I mean, it's just clear.
00:52:11It's really clear when you look at it in the scriptures and read it.
00:52:15But here he is getting it out of place, failing to understand these disciples were not Christian
00:52:19believers prior to receiving the Holy Spirit.
00:52:22So here's another one where it nails down clearly.
00:52:27This is right after the Hebrew series.
00:52:28It's actually questions and answers on Hebrews, 1957, October 2nd.
00:52:33But now, as far as having eternal life and being a Christian, you are a Christian the moment
00:52:38you believe.
00:52:39Now, that's not make-believe.
00:52:40That's truly believe on the Lord Jesus, accept him as your personal Savior.
00:52:44You are born again right there and have eternal life.
00:52:47God comes into you.
00:52:49Now, watch.
00:52:49Eternal life.
00:52:50Jesus said, Now he that heareth my words believeth on him that sent me hath eternal life, shall
00:52:55not come into judgment, but pass from death unto life.
00:52:57You're a new creature right then.
00:53:00Then Paul had met some of these people up there in Acts 19.
00:53:03They had a preacher up there with them, which was a converted lawyer by the name of Apollos.
00:53:08And Apollos was a mighty man in the scriptures.
00:53:09He was proving by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.
00:53:13See?
00:53:14Now, watch.
00:53:14Apollo, through the word, was proving by the word.
00:53:16Faith comes by hearing, hearing of the word.
00:53:18He that heareth my word believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life.
00:53:22You get it?
00:53:23Apollos, by the word, was proving.
00:53:25And listen to this.
00:53:27And these were Christians.
00:53:28They were followers, disciples.
00:53:31Apollos was proving by the word that Jesus was the Christ.
00:53:34And they had great joy and received the word, yet only knowing the baptism of John.
00:53:38So how can you have both?
00:53:40You either have Christ or you have the baptism of John.
00:53:43And he goes on.
00:53:44And when Paul passed through the upper coast of Ephesus, he finds these disciples and said,
00:53:48Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?
00:53:50See?
00:53:51Now, this is a tremendous contradiction of everything he's saying here.
00:53:55If you go through this paragraph line by line, you'll find in one place he's saying,
00:53:59You have eternal life the moment you believe in Christ.
00:54:02And on the other point, he's trying to point to the scriptures, not having the Holy Ghost
00:54:07because it's since you believed.
00:54:09And then he was trying to say, Apollos had preached Christ to them.
00:54:11He said they were Christians.
00:54:14It's just to get his take on the scriptures here.
00:54:17But it puts a lot of confusion.
00:54:19You know, how can you be a Christian without the Holy Spirit dwelling inside you?
00:54:23He even said, God comes into you.
00:54:26This whole quote is just a massive contradiction.
00:54:30And that's why it creates confusion.
00:54:31That's why the message puts confusion in the hearts of believers, because when he says
00:54:36things contrary, one after the other, you know, what do you put your faith in?
00:54:41You know, John MacArthur put the word disciple here.
00:54:45He said it means learner.
00:54:47He expounds this a little further.
00:54:49He says, In the concept of believing, there's no real implication of Christianity here.
00:54:54The reason people assume they had to be Christians here is because the word disciple in the book
00:54:58of Acts is used to speak of Christians, no less than a dozen times, at least in the first
00:55:0315 chapters.
00:55:04And so they say they've got to be Christians.
00:55:07And that's where William Branham makes the error.
00:55:09He says they've got to be Christians because it says they're disciples.
00:55:13Well, the teaching of Acts 19, 1 to 7, then is this.
00:55:17Here were 12 men who lacked the Holy Spirit.
00:55:19Do you know why they lacked the Holy Spirit?
00:55:20Not because of a failure to summon him, not because they didn't surrender, not because
00:55:25they didn't speak in tongues, but because they never knew Jesus Christ.
00:55:29And that's very clear in the scripture.
00:55:32So it's to demonstrate further.
00:55:36I want to show how churches even today hold on to this doctrine, you know, and demonstrate
00:55:41how that they believe in three stages of salvation.
00:55:44There's a church here in my hometown.
00:55:44There's a couple of quotes on there from some of the staff, and here's how they say they
00:55:50came to Christ.
00:55:52And this is one of the Pentecostal churches.
00:55:55So it says, so-and-so became a member of so-and-so church in January of 1996, held several positions
00:56:02in church leadership since that time, including being a member of the pastor's council.
00:56:07Brother so-and-so was saved in July, 1983, and was later sanctified and filled with the
00:56:16Holy Ghost in February of 1995.
00:56:20Now that's what, 12 years later.
00:56:24He continues to be a blessing to the church and the members daily.
00:56:27Here's another one about a sister.
00:56:29Sister so-and-so became a member of the church in 2001.
00:56:33She was saved in 1963 and received the Holy Ghost in 1968 and became a member of the church
00:56:41ever since.
00:56:42So it just shows you that there's people today that actually believe that there's a time
00:56:47when they receive salvation, receive Christ, and then later receive the Holy Spirit and
00:56:52even was sanctified.
00:56:53So they put the salvation experience into those three stages.
00:56:57Even William Branham did this many times.
00:57:00Here's an early sermon, 1953.
00:57:02Three, uh, demonology, physical realm, uh, June the 8th.
00:57:07If you want to look it up, three elements, there's three elements we go through that weren't
00:57:10born again, justification, sanctification, baptism of the Holy Spirit.
00:57:14Now that can be all in one act, but it takes, but you can be justified in a justified state
00:57:20without being sanctified.
00:57:22You can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and still carry on your filth with you, but you
00:57:26could absolutely live in both a justified and clean, holy life and without the Holy Ghost.
00:57:31Now here's another one in question and answer is 1954.
00:57:35Now you cannot have the father without having the son.
00:57:38You cannot have the son without having the Holy Ghost because, but you can be justified
00:57:42without being sanctified and you can be both justified and sanctified and still not have
00:57:47the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
00:57:49See, that's true.
00:57:50That's scripture.
00:57:51Here's another one in 53.
00:57:53I won't go through that one, but in this one in 1953, this is what we'll get into in
00:58:00another time.
00:58:02There was five wise virgins who had oil in their lamps, rapturing faith, believing all
00:58:06the signs, wonders, prophecies, and everything.
00:58:08And these five cut out of the remnant was taken away.
00:58:10The rest of them were still virgins and not, will not be lost, but we'll go through the
00:58:15tribulation period.
00:58:16Because before that, he said, you can be unjustified without being sanctified.
00:58:19You can be sanctified without having the Holy Ghost, be clean, live a pure life, have a form
00:58:24of godliness, deny the power of healing, speaking in tongues, great gifts of God and everyone
00:58:29in there.
00:58:29And he said, there's your five wise virgins who had oil and the five foolish, which I'll
00:58:34go through another time.
00:58:36And here in 1965, in one of the last sermons he preached on January 24th, he said, and so
00:58:42it is in the spiritual realm.
00:58:44It's water, justification by faith, believing God, receiving him as your personal savior,
00:58:48and being baptized.
00:58:49Second is sanctification of the spirit.
00:58:52And God cleanses the spirit from all elements of the world and desire of the world.
00:58:55And then the Holy Spirit comes in and gives new birth and fills up that sanctified vessel.
00:59:00So prior to that, you don't even have the new birth according to this teaching.
00:59:05And therein lies the heart of the problem.
00:59:07It comes down to a salvation question.
00:59:10Can you be saved in the message?
00:59:12Or is this a different thing that's teaching a different gospel that is a different version
00:59:17of salvation?
00:59:18And that honestly, that's the question that hit me so hard that whenever in 2011, I made
00:59:24my decision that my family needs to get out of this.
00:59:28This is not healthy.
00:59:29It's destructive.
00:59:30Many of the things I discovered some, not to the level now, but many of the things that
00:59:35I had examined to that point, I found out that he just clearly was not telling the truth.
00:59:40And once I recognized the pattern, the strategy behind the things that he said were untrue,
00:59:45I realized that this man is toying with the heads and I've got to get my family out of here.
00:59:50That's why we walked away.
00:59:52So, so John, I don't want to leave people hanging.
00:59:54I want to wrap this up and really, really say what I, where I see it.
00:59:59And, and so the confusion maybe can be allayed here, but it's easy to be confused when we
01:00:05receive Christ in his spirit with all the teaching that's out there in the church world.
01:00:10I just want to make it simple.
01:00:12You know, a person gets saved, you know, when God decides it's their appointed time and
01:00:17they receive the spirit at that time.
01:00:19And it enables the person to believe with saving faith.
01:00:22As we know, Ephesians says, you're saved by faith and that's not of yourselves, it's the
01:00:27gift of God.
01:00:29You know, at that time is when you receive the spirit of Christ is when you believe with
01:00:34the faith that God gives you.
01:00:35And I would, I would turn that saving faith.
01:00:38There's no future period where they have to become sanctified and then filled with the
01:00:42Holy Spirit or baptized with the Holy Spirit.
01:00:44I will use the term, should be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
01:00:48They have the Holy Spirit right there when they're regenerated the moment they believe.
01:00:52And I see sanctification this way.
01:00:55You know, when you are saved, you're positionally sanctified in God's sight.
01:00:59You're clean in God's sight because of the work of Christ on the cross, not because of
01:01:03any work that you did, not because of the way you clean up your life.
01:01:07Over time, I believe that sanctification will become more and more a reality in your life
01:01:12as you grow in grace.
01:01:14As far as the experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit goes, you know, you receive
01:01:18that when you believe also, whether or not you have manifestations as seen in the book
01:01:23of Acts or not.
01:01:25But at the time you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, you then are commanded to be filled
01:01:30with the Spirit.
01:01:31You know, that is in Scripture.
01:01:33The key is here where the confusion comes in is you're never commanded to be baptized with
01:01:39the Spirit.
01:01:39There's no command there because that's the work of God.
01:01:43That's something you cannot do.
01:01:44But you are commanded to be filled with the Spirit.
01:01:47That's something you can do.
01:01:49Now, how do you do that?
01:01:50How do you become more and more filled with the Spirit?
01:01:53Well, John, it's just letting the Word of Christ dwelling in you richly day by day, growing
01:01:58in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
01:02:01It's as simple as that.
01:02:03And here's a couple of examples of where Paul commands in Scripture I'll read here.
01:02:07Now, Colossians and Ephesians, if you read both those books simultaneously, you can see
01:02:12they're very closely related, and one interprets the other.
01:02:16Colossians 3.16 says,
01:02:18Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
01:02:23another psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
01:02:28Now, that's something.
01:02:30That's a command.
01:02:30Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.
01:02:33Ephesians 5.18 also has another command.
01:02:36He says,
01:02:36And be not drunk with wine, whereas in excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to
01:02:42yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts
01:02:47to the Lord.
01:02:48Those two verses dovetail perfectly.
01:02:51One is talking about letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.
01:02:55The other one's talking about be filled with the Spirit.
01:02:57So if you want to know how to be filled with the Spirit, don't look for some massive manifestation
01:03:03to come upon you, but stay in the Word of God.
01:03:07So I want to emphasize as I wrap up here what I'm saying, I'm not trying to change anyone's
01:03:13mind or belief, but just trying to show how William Branham's beliefs and how he bent
01:03:18scriptures was moving into the message and how when you start with the bending of scripture,
01:03:23then it leads into all kinds of things that we see in the church world today.
01:03:30And in this case, he was using the term Baptist in Acts to present the idea that a person could
01:03:34be a Christian and really not possess the Holy Spirit, which the scriptures are very clear
01:03:40about that.
01:03:40That is an impossible thing to say.
01:03:43Eventually, he would use this belief to make his message exclusive to believing in order
01:03:49to have the Holy Spirit.
01:03:50Because eventually we'll find where he said, you've got to receive the message of the hour
01:03:54and that proves that you're the elect.
01:03:56And that's where this teaching of his ended up.
01:03:59And that's why what he taught is really harmful to people and believers.
01:04:04It's not so much believing and experience after salvation, but he was tightening his grip
01:04:09on people with this belief and then ostracizing all others who did not agree with him being
01:04:15the prophet of the hour.
01:04:16That's what it eventually became.
01:04:17And John, I'll end up there, but I'll say we've got so much more to cover on this subject
01:04:22and more to come, more to bring out about why the message is harmful to Christians.
01:04:26I'm really looking forward to it.
01:04:28I'm really looking to deep dive into other scriptures as we go along.
01:04:32So we'll see you next time.
01:04:34Sounds good.
01:04:35Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on
01:04:38the web.
01:04:39You can find us at william-branham.org.
01:04:41For more about Roy Davis and William Branham, you can read The Persuasive Preacher, The Gifted
01:04:46Prophet, and The Noble Politician.
01:04:48And for more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized
01:04:52Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:04:58Great.
01:05:25Bye.
01:05:26Bye.
01:05:26Bye.
01:05:27Bye.
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