
It wasn’t a full 24 hours after the inauguration for the meme above to find its way around message circles on social media. By the following Sunday, message ministers had added it to their sermons and message followers were cheering.
It’s been more than six years since I have written. I took a much necessary step away from all things message related. Most days I do not want to hear that voice in my head anymore, I want to forget what it sounds like. I want to forget the stories and quotes, more so I’d like to forget all the lies that created the box I once lived in that captivates so many lives even still.
This is why I now write again, we must continue to hold these men accountable for their words. We must endeavor to hold them accountable for the lies. The only way to extinguish a lie is to speak truth.
I have been asked, “Do you ever doubt leaving?”
“Do you ever wonder, what if? What if he was right?”
No.
I have absolute confidence and can resolutely say William Branham is a false prophet and his teachings are heretical. I do not have any doubt. When I tell you I am not afraid, I am telling you truth. What bothers me deep inside my heart, my mind, and very soul is that I know the many who have left the message who have not escaped those fears. I want to find each one and bring them into my home, wrap my arms around them just like a small child, and sing softly while rocking back and forth; “Jesus loves you this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”
I imagine them crumpling in my arms and I would tell them, “Don’t be afraid, you are loved. Don’t you be afraid.”
I know of many who left the message before Believe the Sign published Humble Pie, before Seek the Truth, before all the research on Searching for Vindication. They left for various reasons. Some simply “backslid” and didn’t go to church anymore. Some didn’t want to live or follow the standards. A few I knew made it through college and left after “education from the devil got a hold of them.” For them, I am most hopeful. I hope they do not walk in the shadow of doubt or fear. The saddest ones were those who couldn’t understand what was said and believed they were without revelation.
One of the most heart breaking circumstances I witnessed while growing up in the message was in my pastor’s family. His daughter met a young man at work and ended up expecting a child around the young age of 16. When the baby was born my pastor and his wife raised and kept him while their daughter continued her education and later worked. My pastor and his grandchild were such good buddies, wherever my pastor went, his little grandson would be right with him. He rocked him, fed him, and loved him with every fiber of his being. One evening after service as I gathered up songbooks my pastor stood over the little one quietly sitting looking at books.
His gaze was thoughtful, uncertain, and sad. His eyes stayed on the child as he spoke to my dad. “Brother Branham says he can’t be bride. Did you know he said that?” I stopped what I was doing and looked at my dad to see him quietly nod and looking down toward the floor. My pastor went on, “I don’t understand it. He’s just a child.” He turned toward dad and their two gazes met, “He’s just a child.” My Pastor carried the concern for his children and grandchildren with him to his death.
This story isn’t unique. I know plenty who came into the message from broken families or had children from separate marriages prior. I often wondered what they were told when it came to the teachings in ‘Marriage and Divorce’. I wondered what interracial couples thought, more so, I wondered why they stayed. When I learned Meda Branham’s parents had been married and divorced prior to her birth I nearly choked. Where was that little nugget of information when so many asked about their illegitimate children and grand children? Thinking on this just makes my blood boil. Aside from the torment and sorrow he caused so many, his lies watered down the blood of Jesus Christ in the process.
The message mentality is mind boggling. Frankly it is disturbing. The damage I have seen and continue to see is enough to break a mind and heart beyond reconciliation. The longer I am out the more it all just becomes nonsense.
None of it is clear. It is all misquoted scriptures and dramatic stories and what teaching is in there is mostly plagiarized from someone or somewhere else. Message followers like to use his lack of education to excuse much of it. They will go so far to say that God used William Branham’s mistakes to “weed out the foolish virgins”. They need to be reminded that God is not the author of confusion.
To think God would send a prophet to speak a word to His people and it be so jumbled up it needed to be deciphered by revelation. Yes, I have heard that’s the Holy Spirit, but let’s be real- If we are gonna lean on the Holy Spirit, William Branham wasn’t needed in the first place. Hello New Covenant.
I believe this is why we hear things like “Just say what the tapes say.” Or when it gets especially sticky, “That wasn’t Thus Saith the Lord, that was just him as a man speaking.” I really had to laugh when I heard someone say, “Young message kids today don’t know the difference between the third seal and a wet seal.” It’s true most message believers don’t know what he said.
It’s only when you take each of his teachings, prophecies, and stories chronologically and line them up side by side with biblical scripture that the lies become visible.
At first glance when you see the quote next to Vice President Kamala’s photo, it is a little striking. Especially if you are not familiar with the prophecy or the full context. When you read the full quote, you’ll notice what else he said, “But I predict that that’ll all happen between right now, 1933, and 1977″.
207 Now, I predicted, and have said, “I saw a great woman stand up, beautiful-looking, dressed in real highly royal-like purple.” And I got little parenthesis down here, “(She was a great ruler in the United States; perhaps the Catholic church.)” A woman, some woman; I don’t know it’ll be the Catholic church. I don’t know. I can’t say. Only thing I seen, I seen the woman, that was all. 208 But this is a woman’s nation. This nation is number thirteen, in prophecy. She’s got thirteen stripes, thirteen stars. She started thirteen colonies. Thirteen, thirteen, everything is thirteen. Appears in the 13th chapter of Revelations, even. She is thirteen. And she is a woman nation. 209 The divorce courts in America produce more divorces, by our women, than all the rest of the nations. The morals in our country is lower, and divorces, than it is in France or Italy, where prostitution is on the street. So, but they are prostitutes; ours is married women trying to live with several men, and several married men trying to live with other women. 210 In the nations where they have polygamy, it’s a thousand times better. And, yet, polygamy is wrong, we know. But, just show how degraded we are. 211 I got a piece up there out of the paper, where it showed that when our American boys went overseas, in this last war, that over, I believe, it was around seventy percent…Why, now, wait a minute, I believe it was three out of four that went overseas, was divorced by their wife before they got back. And its great big headline says, “What’s happened to the morals of our American people?” You remember seeing it? [Congregation says, “Amen.”—Ed.] All of you did, I guess. “What’s happened to the morals of our American women?” Plants, working out yonder with other men. It’s a woman’s nation. What’s she going have? A woman god, or a goddess. 212 Now, then, after that, I turned and looked. And I saw this United States burning like a smolder, rocks had been blowed up. And it was burning like a—a heap of fire in logs, or something that just set it afire. And looked as far as I could see, and she had been blown up. And then the vision left me. Five out of the three has happened…or five out of the seven, rather, has happened. 213 And here comes around and shows. And then I predicted. I never said the Lord told me that, but, standing that morning in the church, I said, “The way progress…” I got back to one end of their wall, and run to the other end of the wall. I said, “The way progress is going on, I’ll predict that the time…I don’t know why I’m saying it. But I predict that that’ll all happen between right now, 1933, and 1977.”
William Branham
It is this type of quote taken out of context that give just enough room for his statements to appear legitimate. It breeds fear, re-enforces the teachings, and strengthens the indoctrination.
If only they would take the time to read just a few sentences further down any hope of truth in this statement would dissipate with his final words capturing his entire prediction summarizing it with a date: 1977.
Why on this earth did this statement not decimate this message itself when 1977 came and went? For heaven’s sake it is now 2021 and we find them taking a portion of his words, pasting it to their pages, adding it to their power point sermons, and cheering with excitement.
I don’t know whether to be sickened, baffled, bewildered, or amazed. We must hold them accountable!

N Prophecy: the foretelling or prediction of what is to come.something that is declared by a prophet, especially a divinely inspired prediction, instruction, or exhortation.a divinely inspired utterance or revelation:oracular prophecies.the action, function, or faculty of a prophet.
V Predict: to declare or tell in advance; prophesy; foretell:to predict the weather; to predict the fall of a civilization.
It is very interesting that this “prophecy” or “prediction” is one of the seven visions William Branham claimed to have had in 1933. Now he doesn’t mention them until many many years later and by that time five of them supposedly came to pass with just two left. One was the woman rising to power and the last was for the United States to be nothing but rubble. The end of the world. If it is a part of seven and five “came to pass” then one of the seven cannot be a mere prediction or not part of his “thus saith the Lord” prophecy. Oh yes, read on, he said it.
If you read all nineteen times this “woman” is mentioned, William Branham changes his interpretation from a woman rising to a powerful position to the catholic church several times. He even made reference to it already being fulfilled when President Kennedy was in office. You will also notice the color purple was only added in a few times.
Anyone in a position of authority ought to guard their words and speak carefully. Even more so for someone claiming to be God’s mouthpiece.
But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken? when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
Deuteronomy 18:20-22
I fail to comprehend how a woman being president or vice president could even fall into the category of prophecy, prediction, or divinity. Women all over the world throughout time have risen to positions of great power. A female president or vice president was and is inevitable. Prophetic? No, it was and is just a matter of time. For goodness sakes, even the Simpsons knew that.
Purple and Pearls

“Just say what the tapes say.” Say all of it. Expose the lie. If we are going to repeat anything he said, repeat it in full context and then -Speak the Truth:
…when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
If we do not hold them accountable, the lies continue to produce fear and we neglect to be a light shining in the darkness.
Now, so then I said, “There will be in that time, during that time the women will be permitted to vote, and they’ll elect the wrong person.” They did it on this last election. That’s right. “Which will start the stronghold. During that time it’ll come to pass that—that there’ll be a great woman rise up in the United States, she’ll be beautifully dressed,” and I got in parenthesis: “(perhaps the Catholic church).” See? “That’ll take rulership over the power, overpower the others in the United States. She’ll be beautiful to look at, but she’ll be cruel-hearted as she can be.” 199 I said, “Then I looked again, and I saw the United States just blowed to pieces. There wasn’t nothing left on it.” 200 And I predicted then. “Now this, that was THUS SAITH THE LORD.” 201 And think! Of five of those seven predictions, has already happened. 202 The church to take a hold, the Catholic church. And the coming of the end time. 203 And I said, “I seen, looked like there was stumps burning; rocks, blowed out; and the whole United States just looked bare, laying like that, as far as I could see where I was standing.” 204 And I said, “I predict, according to the way time is moving, it’ll be sometime between this year ’33 and ’77.” 60-1208
