The Cause

DR. BILL BRANHAM IS A MAN OF GOD

"Remember, I'm your brother. There's not one thing about me could heal. I'm just a man. I have no powers to heal. No other man has any power to heal... But there's no such a thing as any kind of healing besides Divine healing. God is the only One Who can create, and you cannot heal without creating. When you break your arm, the doctor don't claim to heal your arm; he sets your arm. God heals it. See? God... The doctor can remove a growth, but God has to create the cells to heal it back. Medicine does not heal. It only assists nature; God is the Creator Who creates. So there's no other healing but Divine healing. When people say that there is no Divine healing, they just got the thing turned right around. There's no other healing but Divine healing. God said, "I'm the Lord thy God Who heals all of thy diseases." His Words cannot fail."
(-William Branham /BALM.IN.GILEAD/CHICAGO.IL 59-0614)

DR. BILL BRANHAM DOESN'T CLAIM TO HEAL

"Now, I do not believe that there is any man who can heal people. I believe that healing is done by faith in Christ, like salvation. There's no one could forgive our sins. They're already forgiven. Christ saved the world from sin when He died at Calvary. It'll never do you any good except you receive it as your own personal benefit. And that's the way it is by healing. All that God could do for the sick and the afflicted, He did it when He died at Calvary. And now, He purchased that for us. That was His achievement. Now, but to receive it, we have to accept it as our own personal property: salvation.
I might ask today, "How many of you people were saved ten years ago?" Many hands would go up. "How many was saved last year?" Hands would go up. But you see, you was not saved ten years ago or last year. You were saved nineteen hundred years ago. You accepted it ten years ago, or--or whenever you did. Now, it's already a finished work.
The Bible said, "He was wounded for our transgressions, with his stripes we were healed." See? It's a past tense, something that has been done. So simple, and yet Divine healing is one of the great masterpieces of the Bible, the masterpieces of--of God that was given to the Christian church, that's been long forgotten, long ago. But it's something that belongs to us; it's something that's your personal property.
(-William Branham /JESUS.CHRIST.SAME GRAND.PRAIRIE.AL 61-0516A)

BILL BRANHAM'S LIFESTORY

William Branham was born on April 6, 1909 in a one-room log cabin near Burkesville, Kentucky. His life was filled with supernatural events, from the mysterious light that entered the room at his birth, to hundreds of thousands of visions he saw until his death on December 24, 1965. He received a commission to pray for the sick from an angel, sent from the presence of God. He was told by the angel that if he could get the people to believe, and be sincere, nothing would stand before his prayers, not even cancer. The outstanding miracles that occurred when he prayed for the sick have never been equaled. In meetings around the world, he prayed for millions of people, including the kings of England and Sweden. His ministry was set apart from other healing evangelists by his gift of discernment, whereby he was able to know not only from what sickness a person suffered, but the name, address, and secret past events of a person's life. Never one time in thousands of discernments did this gift ever fail.
Books of Brother Branham's life story, William Branham, A Man Sent From God and Brother Branham as well as other books that tell of incidents in his life are available from Voice Of God Recordings.

As Gordon Lindsay wrote in his 1952 biography of Branham's early life and ministry: "The story of the life of William Branham is so out of this world and beyond the ordinary that were there not available a host of infallible proofs which document and attest its authenticity, one might well be excused for considering it far-fetched and incredible." (G. Lind- say, 'William Branham - A man sent from God', pg 9).

Even his birth and childhood had unusual aspects to them. Born in 1909 in Kentucky, his family soon shifted to the state of Indiana, where they eventually settled not far from Jeffersonville. Bill Branham's family were the "poorest of the poor".

When he was seven years old, he experienced the first of many godly visitations: "It seemed to be a very still afternoon. I stepped back from the tree and noticed that in a certain place about the size of a barrel, the wind seemed to be blowing through the tree leaves. Then there came a voice saying: 'Never drink, smoke, or defile your body in any way, for I have a work for you to do when you get older.'"

Bill Branham obeyed these strictures, but he had still not been truly converted. When he was about twenty years of age, the death of his brother Edward caused him to again turn his thoughts toward God's call upon his life. However, he carried on the way he was going (essentially running away from God) for a couple of years. Finally, he ended up seriously ill - at death's door, in hospital. And suddenly God visited him again: "Closer the wind came, louder and louder... I heard that same voice that said, 'Never drink or smoke.' And the leaves I heard were the same that blew in that tree that day. But this time the voice said, 'I called you and you would not go.' The words were repeated the third time. Then I said, 'Lord, if that is you, let me go back again to earth and I will preach your gospel from the housetops and street corners. I'll tell everyone about it!'... When this vision had passed, I found that I felt better."

However, Bill Branham was not completely healed at this time. But he was now filled with a great hunger after God. "I started out to seek and find God. I went from church to church trying to find some place where there was an old-fashioned altar call. The sad part was I could find none... One night I became so hungry for God and a real experience that I went out to the old shed back of the house and tried to pray... All at once there came a light in the shed and it formed a cross, and the voice from the cross spoke to me in a language I could not understand... as I prayed it appeared again. Then it seemed to me that there had been a thousand pounds lifted from my soul... "I knew then that if God wanted me to preach he would heal me, so I went to a church that believed in anointing with oil, and I was healed instantly. I saw then that the disciples had something that most of the ministers do not have today. The disciples were baptized with the Holy Ghost and so could heal the sick and do mighty miracles in His name. So I began to pray for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. One day about six months later God gave me the desire of my heart. He spoke to me in a great light telling me to preach and pray for the sick and He would heal them regardless of what disease they had. I then started preaching and doing what He told me to do."

Bill Branham began tent meetings in his hometown of Jeffersonville, and for a 24-year-old who was just starting out, these were astonishingly successful, with up to 3000 people being attracted to the meetings at one time, and scores of conversions.

Afterwards when Branham was baptizing 130 converts in the Ohio River, a heavenly light, like a blazing star, appeared above him just as he was about to baptize the seventeenth person. This was witnessed by the vast 4000-strong congregation that stood on the banks of the river looking on. Some of them ran for fear, while others shouted or fainted. A report of this unusual event appeared in the local newspaper shortly afterwards. It has also been reported that a voice spoke from within the light, saying, "As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of the Lord, so you are sent to forerun His second coming..." What is certain is that a heavenly light was seen, and it seems likely also that something along these lines was spoken over him.

It was in this same year of 1933 that a number of significant visions were given to William Branham. In June 1933 he was given a series of seven visions relating to world events that lay immediately ahead (and he told his congregation of these visions at the time). In the first of these he saw the Italian dictator Mussolini successfully invading Ethiopia, but eventually coming to a terrible demise - murdered and spat upon by his own people. In the second he saw America being drawn into a world war against Germany, which would be headed up by an Austrian. The war would overthrow this leader, and he would come to a mysterious end. The third vision showed the three 'isms' in the world - Fascism, Nazism and Communism, and that the first two would come to nothing, but that Communism would flourish. He was told, "Watch Russia. She will be- come a great world power." In the fourth vision he was shown some of the tremendous advances in Science that would come after the Second World War. The fifth vision showed the rapid moral decay in the world, relating especially to women. He was shown this decline from the beginning of the feminist "liberation" movement of the late 19th century, and the gradual gaining of worldly power by women, to the eventual election of a 'boy president' (probably Kennedy - known to have been elected be- cause of the women's vote) and after this the progressive decline in the way women dressed - deliberately exposing their bodies more and more in an ever-increasing display of brazen sensuality. With true womanhood so little valued, a terrible decay of all flesh came upon the earth, and every form of perversion arose, just as is prophesied for the Last Days. In the sixth vision there arose in the United States a beautiful woman, clothed in splendour and royal robes - a woman given great power, and beautiful - yet cruel, cunning and deceitful. She dominated the land with her authority. Branham felt that she represented either an actual person, or else a particular organization (perhaps the Catholic church?) However, surely there is also the possibility that she represents a great "Jezebelic" spirit that utterly dominates the landscape?

In the seventh and final vision, he witnessed a great explosion that rent the entire land and left America a smouldering, chaotic ruin, with no humanity in sight. This final vision then faded away. (This last one reminds me of another Branham vision/prophecy, which he referred to often in later years, that showed that the day would come when the entire state of California west of the San Andreas Fault, would be wiped out and sent into the Pacific Ocean by a massive earthquake). The amazing thing about this series of seven visions is that they were given at a time (June 1933) when Branham had no way at all of coming to these conclusions through mere guesswork. In 1933 Germany was by no means ready for war, Russia was by no means a dominant world power, and Communism was a relatively minor force in the world. Some of the details given in the visions were just too extraordinary to pass off as mere coincidence.

DR. BILL'S TESTIMONY OF THE GIFT OF HEALING

"I must tell you of the angel and the coming of the Gift. I shall never forget the time, May 7, 1946, a very beautiful season of the year in Indiana, where I was still working as a game warden. I had come home for lunch... and while walking around the house under a maple tree, it seemed that the whole top of the tree let loose. It seemed that something came down through that tree like a great rushing wind... My wife came from the house frightened, and asked me what was wrong. Trying to get hold of myself, I sat down and told her that after all these twenty odd years of being conscious of this strange feeling, the time had come when I had to find out what it was all about. The crisis had come! "That afternoon I went away to a secret place to pray and read the Bible. I became deep in prayer; it seemed that my whole soul would tear from me. I cried before God...I laid my face to the ground...I looked up to God and cried, 'If you will forgive me for the way that I have done, I'll try to do better... I'm sorry that I've been so neglectful all these years in doing the work you wanted me to do...Will you speak to me someway, God? If you don't help me, I can't go on'... Then along in the night, about the eleventh hour, I had quit praying and was sitting up when I noticed a light flickering in the room... the light was spreading out on the floor, becoming wider... as I looked up, there hung that great star. However, it did not have five points like a star, but looked more like a ball of fire or light shining down upon the floor. Just then I heard someone walking across the floor... "Now, coming through the light, I saw the feet of a man coming toward me, as naturally as you would walk to me. He appeared to be a man who, in human weight, would weigh about two hundred pounds, clothed in a white robe. He had a smooth face, no beard, dark hair down to his shoulders, of rather dark-complexion, with a very pleasant countenance, and coming closer, his eyes caught with mine. Seeing how fearful I was, he began to speak. 'Fear not. I am sent from the Presence of Almighty God to tell you that your peculiar life and your misunderstood ways have been to indicate that God has sent you to take a gift of divine healing to the peoples of the world. IF YOU WILL BE SINCERE, AND CAN GET THE PEOPLE TO BELIEVE YOU, NOTHING SHALL STAND BEFORE YOUR PRAYER, NOT EVEN CANCER.'" The angel told Bill Branham that he would now have two special signs or gifts operating in his life, given to him by God. The first would enable him to detect or discern illnesses in people - a visible violent reaction in his left hand which would make it red and swollen whenever it came into contact with sickness. The second sign would be a gift that would enable him to discern the thoughts and deeds in the past life of the individual - specific sins that needed to be repented of, etc. It was often found that as Branham challenged people over such specific sins, and they confessed them to God, they would regularly be healed of whatever ailed them even before he had a chance to lay hands on them. This angelic visitation marked the beginning of Branham's incredible international miracle ministry, and also led directly to the great American Healing Revival of 1947 through 1955, in which many well-known ministries were raised up, and thousands upon thousands of people were saved and healed. As Branham himself said, "The great things which have taken place during these months are too innumerable to ever be recorded, but God has confirmed the angel's words time after time. Deaf, dumb, blind, all manners of diseases have been healed, and thous- ands of testimonies are on record to date. I do not have any power of my own to do this... God always has something or someone to work through, and I am only an instrument used by Him.".

Right to the end of his life, William Branham was renowned for his transparency, his simplicity and his genuine humility. No doubt this was due in part to his early life of hardship, brokenness and poverty - a great advantage when it came to his eventual ministry. I have read several of his early sermons, and they often appeared to be little more than personal testimonies accompanied by a simple (yet effective) gospel message. There was little sign of the somewhat strange, divisive and controversial teachings of his latter years. After all, the angel had told him that part of his commission was to help UNIFY Christians of differing back- grounds. Speaking of Branham's "outstandingly humble spirit", one observer wrote: "There is nothing boisterous or arrogant about him. He is a meek and humble man... He is a man loved by all. No-one begrudges him any of his success or is envious of his great popularity." (David Harrell Jr, 'ALL Things are Possible', pg 39).

Over the following months and years, Bill Branham traveled widely in the USA, and also to Europe and South Africa, etc. Thousands came from far and wide to hear him preach and to witness the many outstanding healings, miracles and 'words of knowledge' that accompanied his ministry. Often, he would call out the name, city of origin and back- ground information of people in the audience whom he had never met, who had come to hear his preaching or to be healed. Of all the thousands of such 'words of knowledge' that he gave, none was ever known to be wrong or inaccurate. His gift was reportedly "exactly 100%". The deaf were healed, the blind received their sight, and even the dead were raised.

There were also a number of meetings where Bill Branham was photographed with bright 'haloes' or strange lights around him. It became standard for Branham to have the angel of God standing beside him as he ministered, and he would often wait for the angel to arrive before he began. It was also commonplace for Branham to see specific miracles enacted before his eyes in vision form several days before they actually occurred, so that when he found himself in the precise circumstance pictured in the vision, he would know exactly what to do. Astounding! And everywhere he went, God was glorified in the most profound way. There can be no doubt that Bill Branham was the initial pioneer and the key leader of the great Healing Revival of 1947 through 1955. During this Revival, literally dozens of healing ministries were raised up all over America, some well-known and others less prominent, but all of them inspired by the example of Branham and others. Thousands were saved and healed, not just in America, but in many other nations also.

Even amongst the better-known evangelists who came into prominence at that time (such as Oral Roberts, T.L. Osborne, A.A. Allen, Jack Coe, etc), William Branham was acknowledged as something special - something extraordinary. "The younger deliverance evangelists viewed him as a man set apart, like Moses. 'He was number one,' said Richard Hall, 'of the common run of evangelists that we have now, put twenty of them at one end and William Branham on the other; he would outweigh them all.'" (Winkie Pratney, 'Revival', pg 220-221).

Later in the 1950's, when a number of healing evangelists were drifting into showmanship, hype, 'prosperity' doctrines and begging for money, Bill Branham would have none of it. He was unchanged in his attitude toward these kinds of excesses right to the very end. One observer wrote of him in 1959: "On my last visit I mentioned how 'car conscious' American preachers are, almost judging a man's success by the car he drives. At this particular conference, where Brother Branham was the principal speaker, they all came up in their nice cars, the picture of elegance, but Brother Branham drove up in a truck. He doesn't seem to worry about these things..." (D. Harrell Jr, 'ALL Things are Possible', pg 162).

To know more about Dr. Bill Branham's ministry, visit the William Branham Web Page.