William Marrion Branham

William Marrion Branham (Kentucky April 6th, 1909 - Texas December 24th, 1965) is influential American Pasteur within the churches American pentecotists, though he refused to belong to these organizations. He is sometimes regarded as the founder of the movement " Rain of the Saison" Back;. Branham was convinced that a Minister for the Gospel must be called by God and bring the Word of God per revelation. By those which received it, he is regarded as Elie announced by the prophet Malachie in the Old Testament. (Mal.4: 5)

William Branham is one of the initiators of the movement of cure by the faith launched in 1947. It influenced certain sub-groups of the movement Pentecôtiste and Charismatique, like the movement the Rain of the Back Season, Manifestation of sons of God and the Kingdom of current theology. Its ministry had an impact in the whole world and caused the vocations of several evangelists of international repute. Among those one can quote Oral Roberts and T.L.Osborn.

According to the Reverend Gordon Lindsay, in his book a man sent of God , much had to recognize that God Himself was with work through William Branham. After this simple man received, on May 7th, 1946, the confirmation of its call and its sending per God, it started to hold of the evangelization campaigns of a particular order. In the years 1946 to 1949 the decisive opening of the full Gospel of modern times according to the model of primitive Christianity took place.

The original intention of its ministry was to bring the Revelation of the Seven Seals and to open the hidden mysteries of the Bible. One can say that its ministry made a way for the quintuple ministry éphésien of the last days.

Childhood, conversion and ordination

William Branham was born on April 6th, 1909 in a hut in Kentucky hills, oldest son of Charles and Ella Branham, and grew close to Jeffersonville, Indiana. His/her father was an illiterate and alcoholic logger.

The supernatural presence of God would have accompanied Branham as of his childhood. It would have had as of this time the vision of events which have occurred often many years later.

At seven years he would have heard a voice coming from a whirlwind in the crown of a tree, whereas everywhere else there was no wind. He was tell to him: “Wood nor never smokes, does not soil your body in any manner, because you will have a work to achieve for Me when you are older”. During its youth, he always refused to drink or smoke, though that had to cost him near his/her friends.

Become adult, it was ordered minister of a church Baptist by Dr. Roy Davis. A little later it began a ministry not attached to a particular confession, because it felt called with the service of all.

In June 1933, it held its first evangelization campaign. At the end of this series of meetings, on Sunday, June 11, 1933, a service of baptism in the Ohio took place in front of approximately 4.000 people. A few hundreds new converts were made baptize. At the time when Branham was about to baptize the seventeenth nobody he requested, saying: “Father, just as I baptize them in water, also wants You, to thus baptize me of the Holy Spirit”. It is at this moment that would be gone down from the sky a brilliant Light similar to a star, which stopped above him. Of this Light a Voice would have resounded saying: “Just as Jean-Baptiste was sent like forerunner of the first arrival of Christ, thus you will be sent with a Message which will be forerunner of the second arrival of Christ”.

Celestial Visitation and distinguishing marks of its Ministry

The evening of May 7th 1946, William Branham was in a part where it had spent some time in the prayer and the reading of the Bible. He testifies: " Suddenly, towards 23:00, from in top a Light came entering this part; It extended more and more and intensified. When I looked at I live this large suspended star. However it did not have five points, but it resembled more a fireball which radiated, and it lit the ground. Then I heard somebody walk. Fright seizes me still more, because I knew that nobody would have come in this place except myself. In this Light I live to come to me a man as naturally as you come towards me. I estimated that this man was to weigh in the 85 kilos, and it wore a white clothing. Its face was smooth, without barb, its hair black went down to the shoulders, its dye was rather dark, and it had a very pleasant appearance. It approached still more and our glances crossed. He saw my fright and says to me: ‹Do not fear. I was sent presence of God the Almighty to say to you that your particular life and the way badly included/understood which is the tien indicates that God sent to you towards the people of the ground with a gift of divine cure. If you are sincere and manage to make so that people believe you, no disease will be able to resist your prayer, even not cancer›. The words miss to me to express what I felt at this moment-là."

The Angel still says to William Branham: “In the same way that two signs were given to Moïse (e.g. 4), thus two signs will be given to you. If they do not believe the first, they will believe the second”.

The Use of its gifts

Then the Angel would have explained the first sign to him. After the preaching of the Word and the prayer with those which would then devote their life to the Lord, it should request for the patients. The first sign would consist of what it would take the hand of the patient in his own hand; on the back of its hand would present itself then in its eyes of what would literally suffer the person, the disease appearing by changes of color and certain conformations of the skin. Then the prayer for the cure would follow. The patient was to follow the event by observing the hand. When the prayer would have been exaucée, and that God would have carried out the cure, the sign identifying the disease disappears under the eyes of the patient. - This manner of announcing the Gospel was confirmed thousands of times, and that more particularly in the years 1946 to 1949. Many people cured thanks to such a miracle felt it in their body and saw this cure being achieved under their eyes, and very many were the people who shouted aloud so much they were seized by this work of God.

Then the Angel would have explained to Branham the use of the second gift, and that by quoting several biblical passages. It referred to the ministry of our Jesus Lord, explaining more particularly Jean 5.19,20 to him, namely that Jesus as Sons of man had acted like a prophet, that It had visions showing Him what God wanted to do. “In truth in truth, I say to you: The Son can nothing do itself, unless he does not see making a thing with the Father something that this one makes, that, the so of the same Son I makes. Because the Father, loves the Son, and shows him all the things which it makes itself…” (Jean 5.19,20). In accordance with this word, the Son of man exerted his ministry only according to what was shown to him in vision. The Angel mentioned the two events of Jean 1, relating to Pierre and Nathanaël. We read that when André led his Simon brother to Jesus: “Jesus, having looked at it said: You are Simon, the son of Jonas; you will be called Céphas (which is interpreted Pierre)” (v. 43). He had never seen Pierre before, and however He knew his name and the name of his father. The same thing arrived with Nathanaël, that Philippe led to the Lord: “Here true a Jew, in which it does not have there fraud… Before Philippe had called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (v. 48,49).

The Angel would have continued while referring to Jean 4 and by evoking the conversation between Jesus and Samaritaine with the well of Jacob. By divine revelation, Jesus says to him: “… because you had five husbands, and that which you have now is not your husband” (v. 18). At the end of the conversation the woman exclaimed: “I know that the Messiah who is called Christ, comes; when that one comes, it will make known to us all things. Jesus says to him: I am it, me which speaks you” (v. 25,26). The Angel referred to other biblical passages where similar events arrive, where the prophetic ministry of the Son of man arises particularly. It is precisely at the time of the demonstration of this ministry for the Son of man that the pharisees sinned while saying: “It is by Béelzébul that it makes these things!” , and so on. As a Prophète the Son of man recognized even the reasons and the thoughts for the heart, and it was that precisely which in particular did not like at all the spiritual drivers of this time. However thus the spirits were discovered and separate. The Eternal God had said to Moïse: “I will cause a prophet like you to them, of the medium of their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will say all to them that I will order to him” (Deut. 18.18; Act. 3.22,23).

The Angel would have still said to Branham that this same “Sign of the Messiah” was to be expressed again in the Church of the nations, as it had been formerly in the middle of the Jews and of the Samaritans. At the beginning of almost all the services of cure which it animated, William Branham referred to these passages of the Writing that the Angel had explained to him.

The second gift consisted of what, precisely because of what God showed him, Branham could, during the service of cure, to say to the people of which country or which city they came, how they were called, which they were, which diseases they had, and, strictly speaking, all that related to them, in the same way that had arrived in the ministry of Jesus-Christ.

The column of Fire photographed on William Branham

In November 1949, William Branham informed the Reverends Jack Moore and Gordons Lindsay, which had already taken part in its ministry on the west coast of the United States, that it would organize of the gatherings in January 1950 to Houston, Texas. The news was spread some very quickly and from people came from the surroundings, so that all the city was in boiling. (" Houston Chronicle" , January 25th, 1950) the other spiritual leaders criticized these meetings. Among them, the Reverend Dr. Best convened the press and organized for on January 24th, 1950 a public discussion with William Branham in “Sam Houston Coliseum” on the topic “Today of the cures? ”, to which approximately 8000 people assisted. He invited also two professional photographs, Mr. James Ayers and Mr. Ted Kippermann.

It is Dr. Best who brought the challenge, and he was opposed to Dr. F.F. Bosworth, which accompanied William Branham, and it was requested to hold the discussion. The discussion lasted several hours. Crowd divided itself between the partisans of Braham, who shouted “Amen!” and its opponents, who shouted “Not!”. But when he was requested from the audience: “How much between you were already cured at these meetings? ”, of the hundreds of people rose. The opponent had to recognize his defeat, although it did it with sour remarks. When this part of the discussion was finished, William Branham came on the podium. Until there it had been held on the gallery and had very heard, because of course it was of itself and its ministry, and more especially about the gift of cure for the patients. It is with calm that it approached the microphone, and it says: “I did not come here to defend me. If it is God who sent to me, then it is Him also which will fight for me”.

At this moment Mr. Ayers took a photograph on which a column of fire above the head of William Branham is. The meeting had finished late, and it was almost midnight when Mr. Ayers, who was party of the Reverend Dr. Best, developed his stereotypes. It was seized by stupor: all the photographs which it had made were poor, except for one only, where this light above the head of William Branham was. Ayers went the night-even to the hotel where William Branham resided to ask to him whether it knew that a supernatural Light had been held above him.

As it was about such a supernatural phenomenon, it was decided that this negative would be submitted to Dr. George J. Lacy who had been inspector of the doubtful documents with the F.B.I. This one made known the result of its written research: it confirmed that no final improvement nor double exposure of the film had been detected. He declared that this column of Light had been really present, without what the camera could never have fixed it on the film. He says: “I am convinced that the negative one which was entrusted to me to be tested neither was improved, neither subjected perfectly to a double exposure, nor is not the product of a photographic assembly. Moreover, I am convinced perfectly that the feature of light appearing on the head was caused by the light impressing negative” the .

Death

December 18th, 1965, William Branham and her family (except her Rebekah daughter) returned from Tucson, Arizona with Jeffersonville (Indiana) for the holidays of Christmas. With approximately 3 miles in the east of Friona, Texas (approximately 70 miles in the south-west of Amarillo on the U.S. Highway 60), at the fallen night, a car rolling with misconception struck that of Branham. The driver was drunk and was killed on the blow, as well as the front passenger; the two passengers of the back seats were seriously wounded. The woman of Branham was seriously wounded, like her Sarah daughter, who was lengthened on the bench. Branham had the left arm and a leg crushed. Extracted the car at the end of 45 minutes, it was transported to the hospital of Friona, then with that of Amarillo, where it died on December 24th, 1965 with 5:49.

It was buried in Jeffersonville. At the time of the funeral, the American evangelist Tommy Osborn paid a noticed homage to him.

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