Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

William Marrion Branham (April 6, 1909, Kentucky – December 24, 1965) was a Christian minister, usually credited with founding the post World War II faith healing movement. Today, he is acknowledged as a true Scriptural prophet by those Christians around the world who believe his ministry and teachings were vindicated by God.

The declared intention of William Branham's ministry was to turn Christians back to what he believed to be the original apostolic faith of the Bible, as stated in Malachi 4:5-6. His theme was from Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Early life, conversion, and ordination
William Branham was born April 6, 1909 in a log cabin in the Kentucky hills. The first of nine children of Charles and Ella Branham, he was raised near Jeffersonville, Indiana. Branham's family was nominally Roman Catholic, however, he had minimal contact with Christianity during his childhood. His father was an illiterate logger and an alcoholic, and Branham often talked about how his upbringing was difficult and impoverished.

From his early childhood Branham claimed to have supernatural experiences including prophetic visions. He recalled that in his early childhood, while assisting his father at a backyard moonshine still, he heard the voice of the Angel of the Lord who told him 'never to drink, smoke or defile himself by living immorally with women'. On one occasion during his teenage years, he remembered being approached by an astrologer telling him that he was 'born under a special sign' and that they predicted an important religious calling for him. Later he came to understand this to be similar to Paul's experience with the "damsel with a spirit of divination" in Acts 16:16-17



Leaving home at nineteen, Branham worked on a ranch in Arizona and also had a short career as a boxer, reportedly winning 15 fights. At the age of twenty-four, he had a Christian conversion experience, and was later ordained as an assistant pastor at a Missionary Baptist Church in Jeffersonville. When he disagreed with the pastor about the role of women preaching, Branham held a series of revivals on his own in a tent. Later, the meetings moved to a local Masonic hall until they were able to construct a building in 1933 which became known as 'Branham Tabernacle'.




Successful public ministry
In May 1946, Branham reported receiving an angelic visitation, commissioning his worldwide ministry of evangelism and faith healing.From accounts by Branham's family, it is evident that he had been conducting healing campaigns at least as early as 1941 when he conducted a two-week 'revival' in Milltown, and his 1945 tract "I Was Not Disobedient Unto the Heavenly Vision' shows that his faith healing ministry was well established by this time.

During the mid 1940s Branham was conducting healing campaigns almost exclusively with Oneness Pentecostal groups. The broadening of Branham's ministry to the wider Pentecostal community came as a result of his introduction to Gordon Lindsay in 1947, who soon became his primary manager and promoter.Around this time several other prominent Pentecostals joined his ministry team including Ern Baxter and F. F. Bosworth. Gordon Lindsay proved to be an able publicist for Branham, founding The Voice of Healing magazine in 1948 which was originally aimed at reporting on Branham's healing campaigns.


William Branham preaching in San Jose, California in 1959In June 1947, the Evening Sun newspaper of Jonesboro, Arkansas reported that "Residents of at least 25 States and Mexico have visited Jonesboro since Rev. Branham opened the camp meeting, June 1st. The total attendance for the services is likely to surpass the 20,000 mark". Several newspapers carried reports of healings in the meetings" His success took him to countries around the world. According to a Pentecostal historian, "Branham filled the largest stadiums and meeting halls in the world."

In Durban, South Africa in 1951 he addressed meetings sponsored by the Apostolic Faith Mission, the Assemblies of God, the Pentecostal Holiness Church, and the Full Gospel Church of God. Meetings were conducted in eleven cities, with a combined attendance of a half million people. On the final day of the Durban meetings, held at the Greyville Racecourse, an estimated 45,000 people attended and thousands more were turned away at the gates. Many healings were reported in the local newspapers.

U.S. Congressman Upshaw publicly proclaimed his miraculous healing in a leaflet called "I'm Standing on the Promises".

See also: William D. Upshaw
William Branham also claimed that God's miraculous intervention healed King George VI of England of multiple-sclerosis through Branham's prayers.

From the mid 1950s onwards Branham taught that neither Oneness theology nor Trinitarianism were correct, but that God was the same Person in three different offices - in the same way that a husband can also be a father and a grandfather. As he began to speak more openly about doctrine, such as the Godhead and serpent seed, the popularity of his ministry began to decline


Angelic visitations and supernatural signs
Those who regard William Branham as a God-ordained prophet, see his ministry as fulfilling Scriptural prophecies about the end times. He said that supernatural signs were given to him in order to encourage people to believe, and to vindicate what he was saying was the truth. Witnesses observed a physical sign appearing in his hand which was to indicate a disease or healing. (described by F. F. Bosworth in "The Gifts of Healing Plus").

From July 1949, ministers working with Branham in his meetings, testified that he was able to reveal the thoughts, experiences, and needs of individuals who came to the platform. Branham himself explained that this knowledge was given to him through visions. In a 1978 interview, Ern Baxter (who worked with William Branham from 1947 to 1954) stated: "Branham had a tremendous word of knowledge. Before praying for a person, he would give accurate details concerning the person’s ailments, and also details of their lives - their home town, activities, actions - even way back in their childhood. Branham never once made a mistake with the word of knowledge in all the years I was with him. That covers, in my case, thousands of instances".

Branham told of supernatural experiences that went back to his childhood. As a young boy he was considered "nervous" because from an early age he spoke of "visions" and "a voice" that spoke to him out of a wind, saying, "Don't ever drink, or smoke, or defile your body in any way. There will be a work for you to do when you get older." Shortly after being ordained, Branham was baptizing people on June 11, 1933 in the Ohio River near Jeffersonville. He described how people along the bank saw a bright light descend over where he was standing, and that he heard a voice say, "As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of Jesus Christ, so your message will forerun His second coming."

Branham recalled that as he prayed alone late one night during his search for personal meaning in May 1946, an angel of light appeared, saying: "Do not fear. I am sent from the presence of the Almighty God to tell you that your peculiar birth and misunderstood life has been to indicate that you are to take a gift of Divine healing to the peoples of the world. If you will be sincere when you pray and can get the people to believe you, nothing shall stand before your prayer, not even cancer. You will go into many parts of the earth and will pray for kings and rulers and potentates. You will preach to multitudes the world over and thousands will come to you for counsel." His successful career around the world and his meetings with world dignitaries are claimed to be fulfillment of this prophecy.



In 1948 Branham reported seeing a vision of a boy being raised from the dead. He related the details to his audiences and asked them to write those details down in the flyleaves of their bibles.


The "Supernatural Photo"One of William Branham's biographers, Gordon Lindsay, records that the vision was fulfilled two years later during a speaking trip to Helsinki, Finland in 1950 at the scene of a street accident near Kuopio, Finland, where a boy on a bicycle had been struck by a car and killed. Branham's party had come upon the scene and he then asked that the sheet covering the boy's body be removed, as he recognized the boy as the one he had seen in his vision. Lindsay, a member of this party,relates that Branham prayed over the boy and the child was raised from the dead. The boy's name is Kari Holma and he is alive and well today



On the night of January 24, 1950, an unusual photograph was taken during a speaking engagement in the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas. A photograph, the only one of its film roll that developed, showed an apparent halo of light appearing above Branham's head. George J. Lacy, an investigator of questioned documents, subjected the negative to testing. In his report he said, "Based upon the above described examination and study I am of the definite opinion that the negative submitted for examination, was not retouched nor was it a composite or double exposed negative. Further, I am of the definite opinion that the light streak appearing above the head in a halo position was caused by the light striking the negative." The original of the photograph is in the archives of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Branham regarded his series of sermons on the Seven Seals (Rev 6:1-17 and Rev 8:1) in 1963 as a highlight of his ministry[32]. He said a cluster of seven angels met him on Sunset Mountain in Arizona to commission the opening of the Seals , which he believed was in fulfilment of a vision he had told his church several months earlier. Two men who were nearby at the time related hearing a loud noise like an explosion and seeing a cloud rising into the air. Branham interpreted an unusual cloud formation resembling the head of Christ which had been photographed several days earlier , and was featured in Life and Science magazines, as vindication of his experience. Some critics have claimed that the cloud was the result of a rocket explosion in California 500 miles to the west. Those who believe the cloud was of a supernatural origin point to Scriptural references that connect the return of the Lord Jesus Christ with clouds.


William Branham's doctrines and teachings

William Branham in his study.William Branham preached thousands of sermons, of which almost 1,200 have been recorded and transcribed. His sermons dealt not only with the doctrines that would secure his place in modern religious history, but with staples of Pentecostalism such as personal prophecy.

Along with some other Bible commentators, Branham believed that the seven churches described in The Revelation, chapters two and three, represent seven historical ages of the Christian church, from its beginning to the present time. He further identified the "angel" of each church as a human messenger. The first six he named as Paul, Irenaeus, Martin, Columba, Martin Luther, and John Wesley. While he never explicitly claimed to be the seventh angel, his followers today believe him to be the final messenger to this the Laodicean church age.

William Branham said he had received seven major prophecies in 1933. When revealing them in later sermons, he said that the first five had already come true, and that they would all be fulfilled.

"Franklin D. Roosevelt will run four terms and take America into a second world war.
"The dictator that's now arising in Italy will come into power. Ethiopia will fall. He'll come to a shameful end.
"The women have been permitted to vote. And in voting, someday they'll elect the wrong man.
"Our war will be with Germany and they will build a great big concrete place and fortify themselves in there and the Americans will take a horrible beating.
"Science will progress in such a way until they will make a car that will not have to be guided by a steering wheel and the cars will continue to be shaped like an egg until the consummation.
"I saw a great woman stand up, beautiful looking, dressed in real highly royals like purple and I got little parenthesis down here, 'She was a great ruler in the United States, perhaps the Catholic church'"
"I saw this United States burning like a smolder; rocks had been blowed up. And it was burning like a heap of fire in logs or something that just set it afire; and looked as far as I could see and she'd been blown up.
Other notable prophecies by Branham include:

That Los Angeles and much of California would sink beneath the sea. Branham told one group of his followers: "People will make fun of the destruction of the earthquake that we have said would happen, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ on the west coast of America, but I want you brothers to know this, that if you have any friends or relation in Los Angeles, if I were you, I’d get them out as quickly as possible."Many of Branham’s followers did leave California including 95% of one Church, thus ensuring their future generations would be less likely to be affected by the destruction caused by the "big one" that seismologists now think is inevitable.