Video available here: youtu.be/e3F_udtKrMU There is a website we have been watching from some person or people who were enslaved in the cult of William Branham, and had heard time and again how William Branham was a “vindicated prophet.” But like us, the phrase “vindicated” was thrown around like some beach ball, and never landing into the hands of someone who had enough knowledge about the subject to give an answer as to WHAT this vindication was. This website is searchingforvindication When the only answers given about “vindication of a prophet” were that Branham had a massive healing campaign – like Oral Roberts or Billy Graham did, these people quickly realized that every cult pastor in every cult church was sidestepping the issue. Why? Oral Roberts and Billy Graham had huge healing campaigns. Did this make them “prophets?” Oral Roberts even claimed to have been a prophet, and you can read about the prophecies that he had as self-promotion – prophecies that failed. Does the fact that Roberts had a healing campaign make him no less a false prophet? SearchingForVindication was not satisfied with the cult pastors dodging the issue each time the question was asked, and knew that their promoting the idea of an “evil spirit” each time a member asks this valid question was absolutely against scripture. So they decided to search for this “vindication” themselves. (Hence the name, Searching For Vindication.) In the first set of articles produced by Searching For Vindication, they examined the “Ohio Bridge Prophecy,” one of the many “prophecies” by William Branham that could not be substantiated. Throughout the years, many in the cult had tried to find supporting evidence of these 16 men who fell to their deaths in the prophecy given by William Branham. Each time a new person would search, they did find 16 men falling to their deaths when a section of the bridge collapsed – but it was for the Big Four Bridge in Louisville, a bridge that was built long before William Branham was even born. Some, like myself, have spoken with the local Bridge Authority. Men who were alive and even remembered William Branham would chuckle a bit when I asked them about these sixteen men. Respectfully, they never would say anything negative about William Branham, but under duty, was obligated to tell the truth. The Clark Memorial Bridge – the one that Branham claimed to have seen in the vision prior to the sixteen men falling – was one of the safest constructions for its time. In fact, because there were so few casualties, the method of building the bridge used for the Clark Memorial Bridge is still used to this date. But this was not enough to persuade those who think that William Branham was a “vindicated prophet.” So Searching For Vindication went through a painstaking effort to filter through the entire set of newspapers and logs from the coast guard, daily recording not only deaths, but atmospheric conditions and other information relative to the construction of the bridge. You can read through this information yourself on their website, searchingforvindication, but here is a summary of their findings that is listed after the search: Each day the log contained the wind direction, force, barometric pressure, temperature, and surf conditions. These all had to be recorded at 4 AM, 8 AM, Noon, 4 PM, 8 PM, and Midnight. The log also records the number and types of ships that passed. It appears that the main types tracked were steamers and barges in tow. The station ran a regular lookout schedule which was recorded every two hours. Absences for vacation or sick leave were recorded. The log includes any drills held as well as a count of vessel boardings, inspections, and most importantly, the cases of assistance and number of lives saved. Finally, the second page of the daily log included a record of miscellaneous events of the day, recorded in chronological order. The log was signed by the officer in charge at the end of each day. We’ve reviewed all of these logs and found that the Coast Guard Station ran a lookout twenty-four hours per day, every day of the year. The logs contain information about all distress calls, cases of assistance, and even mundane events at the station, like painting the kitchen, or buying groceries to supplement rations. The log contained accounts of drownings, body recoveries, suicide attempts, aiding prohibition agents in executing searches on remote islands, etc. There were heart-wrenching entries about young children drowning and Coast Guard personnel administering resuscitation for up to 90 minutes in a failed attempts to save young lives. The log covered capsized boats, mechanical problems, cars crashing into the river, saving unsuspecting canoeists headed for the peril of the falls, and even records of recovering a little boy’s lost bicycle that ended up in the river. The Coast Guard station was located a few hundred yards from the Municipal Bridge and ran a constant lookout. There’s no record of any accident where sixteen men fell from the bridge to their deaths and drowned. There’s also no evidence of construction in 1936 as was suggested by one reader. searchingforvindication/2013/03/18/Coast-Guard-Life-Saving-Station-Conclusion/ By the time they finished their search, I think it was obvious that they realized that instead of “vindicated,” William Branham was very much “un-vindicated.” But they continued. Searching For Vindication put together an interactive timeline of events that occurred early in William Branham’s ministry, and found some very shocking results. Census records were found, confirming that William Branham was born April 6, 1907 – invalidating his many stories in sermons like “How An Angel Came To Me,” where the “fortune teller” told him that he was “born under a sign” in the year 1909. He could not have been born a second time! Not to even mention the fact that they found a third date given on his first marriage license. Before the story of the mystic woman was given, Branham also claimed to have been born in 1908! They also found census records and confirmed birth dates showing how William Branham’s siblings were born in Indiana – not the hills of Kentucky. Branham himself moved to Indiana before age three according to census records – but he would often tell stories of how he hunted and trapped in the hills of Kentucky to support his poor family. There are even songs, such as the “Cabins Location,” that immortalize Branham’s stories of his childhood with his siblings in Kentucky. But these records show that his childhood stories are just another fabrication in the huge web of things that are simply not true. The timeline shows newspaper articles of Branham’s siblings marrying, divorcing, and then getting re-married – by William Branham himself. In public, Branham had a tremendous hatred for any minister of the gospel that would do anything that would even slightly violate certain parts of the Mosaic Law that was rendered obsolete (according to Paul) after the New Covenant of Grace. But then in private, Branham would massively bend rules so that his brothers could enjoy new wives as though they were trading in for a new car every few years. And while William Branham claims that God’s wrath smote his wife and child, wrath because he did not believe in the Pentecostal movement, the newspaper articles tell a slightly different story. Hope and Sharon Rose died several months AFTER the flood of 1937, and Branham’s daughter died of a short-term illness. …this is very strange, when you combine this with the fact that one of Branham’s closest friends, Dr. Sam Adair, performed the autopsies! But this was not the shocker! The shocker was that William Branham was already ministering at a Pentecostal tabernacle BEFORE the flood! A fact that now uncovered, completely eradicates his ENTIRE conversion story before it even started! This strange new turn of events sent Searching For Vindication on a new journey, one that investigates the history behind the Branham Tabernacle, and all the stories William Branham told that surround the Pentecostal Tabernacle – that should have NOT been Pentecostal according to Branham’s many conversion stories. One such event is one that all cult followers immortalize: The 1933 Baptism. Many of you are familiar with that story – because it is one of MANY “commission” stories that Branham claimed to have had to “vindicate” his ministry. In 1965, Branham reminds his followers once again of the story: Then, consider now, I ask you at this hour, you people here of Jeffersonville. In 1933, the supernatural Light that fell down yonder on the river , that day when I was baptizing five hundred in the Name of Jesus Christ, as about a twenty-year-old boy. What did It say, Jeffersonville? What was It at the foot of Spring Street there, when the Courier Journal, I believe it was the Louisville Herald, packed the article of It? It went plumb across the Associated Press, plumb into Canada. Doctor Lee Vayle cut it out of the paper, way up in Canada, in 1933. When I was baptizing my seventeenth person, under this Witness; and you know the rest of the story. And when I was standing there, baptizing the seventeenth person, a Light come down from Heaven, shining down above there, like a Star falling from the Heaven. A Voice said, “As John the Baptist was sent to forerun the first coming of Christ, your Message shall forerun His second Coming, into all the world.” This day this Scripture is fulfilled. This Day This Scripture Is Fulfilled preached in Jeffersonville, Indiana on February 19, 1965 But what Searching For Vindication found was not a great event, so great that the Associated Press would quickly travel to the little town of Jeffersonville, Indiana to cover this incredible breaking news that God had spoken from the heavens! There was not five hundred being baptized, not even close. In fact, there was not even seventeen, the number Branham gives when he fabricates a story about God speaking from the heavens. In fact, this is the only thing that the newspapers wrote about the event – which to them was simply about another few people seeking their salvation: “FOURTEEN CONVERTED – Fourteen conversions are reported in a tent meeting conducted at Eighth and Pratt streets by the Rev. William Branham. Not the five hundred, not even the seventeen. And not some of the greater numbers Branham gives when he exaggerates this story with even more added details. Such as the time that he claimed that five thousand were converted: That day down there, about thirty-three years ago, or thirty-four, standing on the banks of the Ohio River there, at the bridge, and about five thousand people or more gathered on the banks. I was just about twenty years old, twenty-three, twenty-two or twenty-three years old, my first revival. Go Awake Jesus preached in Shreveport, Louisiana on November 30, 1963: Yet he claims that TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE were standing there to witness it! It’s all down through the records. The first time that was ever taken, the Canadian newspaper packed it thirty-one years ago, across the whole province of Canada, all the provinces, the Dominion of Canada. Said, “A mystic Light appears over a minister while baptizing in the river.” That was in 1930, at the foot of Spring Street at Jeffersonville, Indiana, when around ten thousand people was standing there. And I was baptizing my seventeenth person. A Testimony Upon The Sea preached in Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada on July 26, 1962: I’m anxious to hear the upcoming results from the study on Branham’s first years as a Pentecostal pastor in the church that the other Pentecostal Pastor Roy E. Davis started. The same Roy E. Davis that was establishing the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which would have been the one that taught William Branham the mystic knowledge of Freemasonry. Even after everything I myself have uncovered in the many fabricated stories Branham told, this one shocks even me. I had no idea that Branham was a Pentecostal minister before the flood. I had no idea that he was preaching at a Pentecostal church – when practically the entire world believes that he started out as a Missionary Baptist preacher. I knew that the story of the 1933 Baptism, specifically the part about the mystic light speaking from the heavens so that ten thousand people would witness God telling the world that William Branham was the “next forerunner” of Christ. But I did not know that it was such a small event – so small that it received just a tiny little section in the newspaper – less than the seventeen that were baptized before Branham’s claim that “God spoke from the heavens and it changed the hearts of over five thousand people.” I recently watched a documentary on the ancient religion of Hindu, from the country Branham wanted so badly to return to: India. The documentary described how the story of the Hindu gods were embellished so that the people would worship them more. The people themselves KNEW that they were adding details to the story, but their form of worship was not to worship in truth – they would rather invent new stories and greater stories to make their god sound more powerful. The question I will leave you with is this: Which “god” did William Branham serve? Was it the God of the Bible, the One True God? The God that not only ASKS us to follow all truth – the God that IS TRUTH? Or did William Branham serve another god, one that required fabricating supernatural events so that he sounded greater than he really was? One that the truth was not good enough – when Branham sold his soul to this god, he was required to add fictional details to lift this god into power? Wouldn’t you rather serve the God of the Bible? Wouldn’t you rather believe in Jesus Christ? There IS power in the Gospel of Jesus Christ – the simple Good News that God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to suffer and die for our sins so that we do not have to. The Good News that Christ paid our penalty, and now holds the keys to death, hell, and the grave. The POWERFUL story that Christ rose again, so that we will rise with Him! It is not a power that the cult would enjoy and immortalize with added fictional details. It doesn’t turn people into wizards, give them super-human abilities, or make them communicate with the dead like William Branham claimed to have done for the mother whose son had “gone on to a better place.” It is the power of Love. It will change hearts. When you tell others of the Gospel, you can take the most violent sinner and make them into the most humble seeker of Truth. I’ve made my choice as to which God I will serve. Won’t you make the same choice? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:15:29 +0000