Our Stories - Why I Left The Message of William Branham

I feel like it is time for me to present the reasons why I left the Message of William Branham, also known as the "Message of the Hour" or the "Message of This Day", with the hope that my reasons may give courage for others who are questioning what they are being taught or are fearful that leaving the Message will subject themselves to the judgement of God. I believe there is more than adequate scriptural justification to stop believing that William Branham is a true prophet. Most of us who have made the decision to leave the Message will attest that leaving is much easier than enduring the consequences of what follows. Following Christ was never promised to be an easy road as has been the case for the majority of Christians since the time the Christian church began. For everyone who has left or decides to leave, it is certain that following Christ alone will never subject anyone to the judgements of God. On the contrary, leaving the Message to follow Christ alone allows one to receive the true blessings of God, being taught and led by the Holy Spirit.

Most Christians believe the Lord Jesus is coming soon and they wait in anticipation of that event and receiving their inheritance in the Kingdom of God based solely on their acceptance of the work of Jesus Christ and the message of the gospel alone. There are other groups of people operating on the fringes of Christianity, and some in these groups may be true Christians, who claim to have the ultimate truth or who follow a leader who claims he can help them reach the place they need to be to inherit the Kingdom of God. Most of these more extreme groups point to the errors of other groups and believe their group is the most correct or has the most truth. Examples of these groups are Latter Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, Seventh Day Adventist, and those who are known as Message believers or believers in the messages of William Branham. The Christians who believe in the message of William Branham, believe that for the hour you are now living in, God has sent a vindicated prophet to deliver a message to forerun and prepare Christians for Christ’s second soon coming and the Rapture. What this looks like to those who are outside the message belief system is that there is a group of people who follow a man’s teaching who they believe to be more true than any other brand of Christianity and condemn other beliefs as not having enough truth to take you to your full inheritance in the Kingdom of God, rather than relying on the power of the Gospel of Christ alone.

I believed and followed the message of William Branham for about 33 years, until February of 2019. From a child, I grew up attending a local Baptist church regularly with my family, but I was a fairly new Christian when I came across this belief system. At that stage in my Christian walk as a new believer, I was hungry for more of the knowledge of God and was acquainted with many of the different belief systems and wanted to know which one God would want me to be a part of or where God was working today. At all times I had a high regard for the Word of God and it has always been my anchor to everything I believe. I regard the scriptures as the only real truth there is in this world and everything we believe to be true must be compared to scripture and rightly divided. So as I compared various belief systems with the Word, I kept moving in the direction of wanting to follow as much truth of the Word as God would allow. The caused me to walk from mainline denominational Christianity to independent Pentecostal/Charismatic believers.

By the time I encountered a message believer who told me about William Branham, I was ready to hear this as it seemed to answer the questions I had and offered what I thought was a true interpretation of the Word. Unfortunately, young sincere Christians like myself have believed and have been persuaded through the testimony of others, even though they unknowingly were giving out false information. Most are repeating what they have heard and passing along false information is unintentional. It was unfortunate at the time that there none of the ministers I asked cared enough about the issue or could offer a refutation of the doctrines at that time. It is unfortunate that the tools to research the claims of William Branham have only become available many decades later when so many lives have been impacted or ruined. It is unfortunate but ultimately a true blessing that 33 years later my eyes were opened to the Word of God to the degree that I could have solid Bible answers to discern the belief system that presented itself to me.

There are several ways people become convinced that William Branham’s ministry fulfilled Malachi 4:5-6 and that he was a true prophet. Each person who voluntarily joined with this belief system has their own testimony as to what led them to be attracted to it. To most, I believe it is the gift that William Branham manifested, to others it is the way the people live separate from the world, to others it is the doctrines that were different from the mainstream but seemed to align with scripture, to others it was the signs and wonders, and to others, it was the "prophecies" which were declared to have come to pass.

To start with, there will always be divisions of doctrine and disagreements in the church of Christ. There should not be divisions but it is the reality in which we live. If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that there is no assembly of the people of God with which you would agree 100%. So there will likely be some man made rules or practices or doctrines we must overlook if we can without compromising the Word or we must find another assembly closely matched to what we believe or we must start our own church to be free from all doctrines and man-made rules in which we choose not to be subject to.

Since I had just become acquainted with Pentecostalism within the first year of committing my life to Christ and learned of the errors of some mainstream churches, I figured that any true servant of God would be Pentecostal in experience and would call out the errors of others. This is what initially led me to look at the message when a believer witnessed to me. Testimonies from other believers about signs, wonders, and miracles performed in the ministry caused me to become more convinced, and I assumed all of it was true at the time. Over a short period of time, the doctrines I studied within the message, seemed to align with the Word and this drew me in deeper. The final clinching of the deal with me was hearing the discernment on the tape-recorded messages of William Branham. Over and over the accuracy was unparalleled to anything I had ever witnessed or heard. After I became convinced and believed that William Branham was not only a prophet, but The Prophet of the day, supposedly backed up by scriptural prophecy of his coming at the end time, it would be a long time before I could be convinced otherwise.

I think today if only we had the information we have today, if only the denominational ministers I spoke to were able to fully explain from scripture the reasons why the ministry is not as it seems to be, or if only I had been wiser in the scriptures at the time, I may have been able to avoid the path I took and believe I could have been a better servant of Christ during my adult life. But at the time, the message was the difference between life and death to me. Indeed, I believe that in all groups that at least preach enough gospel to produce saving faith, God is fully able to save people within it. God does save people sovereignly in the Catholic, the Baptist, the Methodist, the Presbyterian, the Pentecostal, the Charismatic, and in the Message, and so on. Once a person is converted, he or she can be led to the Word and into all truth by the Holy Spirit. Conversion may cause them to choose a different church.

The major error which led me down this path for 33 years was my ignorance of the scriptures. The scripture has been and always will be supreme to me. Misplaced scripture is dangerous to Christians. Groups that create narratives around scriptures that make the group more exalted, unique, or worthy to inherit the Kingdom of God than other believers are doing a disservice to the Kingdom of God. The narrative around such groups gets you tied to an exalted mortal man rather than Christ. The mortal man eventually becomes an idol standing in the way of Christ and your salvation depends on believing in the mortal man’s words rather than Christ’s Words. When the mortal man contradicts the Word of God, the group’s tendency is to take the mortal man’s word above God’s Word. Every narrative or doctrine of the group must come through the filter of the mortal man rather than scripture. This is a dangerous practice to the Body of Christ and churches following the message of William Branham do practice such things.

After embracing the message, my desire was to get others to hear William Branham’s message and if they were already Christians, to be sure they were baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ. I was convinced that if they were not a Christian yet, they would hear the gospel and become convinced that William Branham was the last day prophet by just listening to the tape recorded sermons. I collected as many artifacts as I could find over the years, both for and against William Branham. I was convinced that we had all the proof we needed to show that we were believing the scriptures correctly. After all, we had great ministers, we had the testimony of eye witnesses, we had our churches with all the anticipation and excitement, and we believed we were pleasing Christ most of all. What most believers of the message, including myself, did not know is that there were issues in the ministry of William Branham that were well known and this information was purposely kept from the people.

After nine years of following the message, in 1995, I had the opportunity to visit Jeffersonville, Indiana one Easter for the annual meetings. While I was in town I knew I wanted to go to the library to research the local newspaper to find the article in June of 1933 that told of the mystic light that William Branham said appeared above him while he was baptizing on the Ohio River after a tent revival. William Branham had said many times on tape that the event appeared in the local newspapers and even up into Canada. So I figured this would be an easy task to find mention of it in some of the Jeffersonville and Louisville papers. At the time, only microfilm copies were available, so I checked out the film and looked at all the local papers and found only one small mention of the tent revival where fourteen souls were converted. There was no mention of the mystic light. I didn’t have a lot of time so I copied the article and others about William Branham’s death in 1965 before I left. The fact that I didn’t find the article at the time didn’t bother me as I still believed William Branham’s testimony that a newspaper somewhere packed the article that was yet to be found.

It was a few years later when the Only Believe magazine, written by William Branham’s daughter, Rebekah Branham Smith, mentioned the timeline of the supposed supernatural cloud that appeared in Arizona on February 28, 1963. The was supposedly the time of the opening of the Seven Seals of Revelation in the ministry of William Branham and the cloud supposedly had everything to do with his ministry. I learned in the magazine that William Branham was in Houston, Texas when the cloud appeared and he arrived in Arizona a few days later. Later I would learn that the cloud was not near where he was standing in Arizona when he said the vision was fulfilled, but was hundreds of miles north of where he was. Finding this out didn’t shake my belief in the message, as I still thought the cloud to be a supernatural occurrence since William Branham came to Arizona by a vision and then said the Seven Seals were opened to him to preach at that time. The cloud never caused me to come out of the message since I still thought it was supernatural and it was only after I came out that I could admit that by the evidence available, the cloud was made by a Thor rocket explosion.

From then on, my faith was as strong as ever in the message until I had the opportunity about ten years later to begin ministering with my pastor. I am forever grateful that I was given this opportunity as this began my departure from the message. At first, my sermons relied heavily on the message of William Branham. After a couple of years, I became convinced that the only word I should be giving to the people is what God said in His Word. Eventually, I found that I had to tiptoe around the message and try to find a quote from the message that I could use in my sermons when my focus was only based on the scripture.

I will not take the time here to explain the differences in the doctrines of the message that are opposed to scripture as that information is readily available. The more I studied and listened to sound Biblical teaching, I soon found I could not make even the basic doctrine of salvation as taught by scripture line up with the message and I eventually resolved to teach only from the scripture. Sometimes I would use a quote from William Branham but also more from other pioneers of the faith. There came a time in late 2018 when I had to make a decision. I knew if I kept ministering to a message congregation, I would eventually contradict William Branham’s doctrines and I did not want to say things that contradicted the message for the sake of the people listening who believed the message. It was about this time in early 2019 I came across an avalanche of information that was available about the ministry on the internet which convinced me that it was time to take a stand for truth.

I first went to my pastor to explain the situation and mentioned we need to go to the people and tell them the truth. Suggesting that we tell the truth got me removed from the church in a silent excommunication of sorts. I was “cancelled” before cancel culture became a popular thing. Then I was shunned by my church family that I had known for the last 33 years. I was shunned by In-Laws and church friends I had known for many of those 33 years. I can’t blame the fact that I was shunned by my children, since I was only to blame for raising them up to believe the message. The single looming question I got asked from a close fellow believer and father in law was this, “So you don’t believe Brother Branham is a prophet of God?”. It was not, have you stopped believing in Jesus Christ or His Word. This confirms that to message people, not believing in William Branham as the prophet of this age is enough to keep you out of the inheritance of the Kingdom of God since message believers believe only Branham has the words of eternal life in this day. There is however plenty of evidence to show that William Branham taught things which are contrary to the Word of God, had prophecies that failed to come to pass, and told things as truth which cannot be verified by very reliable archives.

In the message belief system, the simple plain gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is not enough to allow you to obtain your final inheritance, your immortal body, or the privilege of living within the New Heavenly Jerusalem. Only the message believers, who they believe are only ones in the Bride of Christ will dwell in the city of God. Message believers say that others who believe in Christ can be saved but will not receive the same inheritance as they. Ministers, including my former pastor and other ministers, call this receiving a partial atonement. In the message view, saved people, those who only get the partial atonement, those who were (according to William Branham’s version of salvation) justified and sanctified but never sealed with the Holy Spirit by receiving William Branham’s message and therefore are not in the Bride will live outside the City of God. I do not believe a partial atonement is taught anywhere in the Word of God. Believing that William Branham is God’s prophet and taking all the message as coming from God becomes the key to receiving the evidence of having the Holy Ghost and receiving your inheritance in the Kingdom of God.

After coming out of the message, I’ve had time to reflect on my decision. I believe I made the right decision and would make the same decision again. I have not done or behaved as perfectly as I would have liked. From my standpoint and not being a firsthand witness of what happened many years ago, I cannot fault William Branham for believing who he thought he was at that time in history. He may have been heavily influenced by others around him and sought to find a way to best use his gift in this world. He sincerely believed his ministry was placed into scripture as a major prophetic ministry due to the gift and experiences that he had. I cannot fault ministers who became convinced, as I became just as convinced as they for the same reasons. But now we live in a time when error has been exposed and things that are contrary to the Word of God must be laid aside if we are to progress as the Christian church.

Today we have the tools to examine the claims and the prophecies and the ministry so we are without excuse. Scripture tells us that we should test the spirits to see if they be from God, prove all things and hold fast to what is good, beware of false prophets, beware of false teachers, and examine the scriptures to see if these things be so, as so forth. We are never taught in the scripture to believe in a gift as vindication but we are told to beware of false Christs and false prophets which could show great signs and wonders to deceive. We are also told to let every man’s word be a lie, but let God’s Word be true.

Today I am happy to be able to be free of any and all false doctrines that I am aware of and I remain very careful not to come under the bondage of any man or church system. I will fellowship with anyone who names the Name of Christ as long as they are willing to fellowship with me. I will respect all others in their beliefs and do not intend to compromise the Word of God. I am willing to be corrected in all things by the scripture as I am shown so that I might know the way of the Lord more perfectly.

How do I or how should we relate to the ministry of William Branham today? We can choose our attitude. We do go through stages of emotion as we come to grips with what has happened to us. Once we become stable in our decision, in the long run, we can choose bitterness and anger or forgiveness and presenting the truth to others in love. God understands our anger when we find out we have been deceived for most of our productive lives. God understands the hurt we feel when others reject us for following the scriptures instead of going along with a false narrative. And I believe God gives us grace while we stumble to find our way again. From a high level, I can still respect what God did through the ministries of the last century and thank God for sending gifts to help others in their faith as far as it went. I can thank God for the good things while at the same time avoiding the same unscriptural errors many Christians of the last century were captured by.

What do I want to see happen from this time forward regarding the ministry of William Branham? I would like for God to have mercy on all sincere ministers who are currently bound to this belief system. I would like to see the eyes of the ministers in the message opened to the issues and false doctrines surrounding the ministry of William Branham. I would like to see these ministers have the courage to stand with the scripture and lay aside all false doctrine and beliefs which are contrary to scripture. I would like to see churches that have separated fellowship over whether William Branham is a true or false prophet come together again. I would like to see the body of message believers as a whole admit the error and come back to the Word of God. Eventually I would like to see the message and the messenger fully decrease to nothing so that Christ may increase to become everything.

William Branham was just one of many ministers of his time with gifts and any one ministry is not above another in importance. We should be vigilant and careful of the doctrines we believe coming out of any ministry to ensure that we are not in error. We can forgive William Branham and other ministers who did not always do, say, or teach things correctly, but made the best effort they could to get others to Christ. We can forgive them for their wrong motives, mistakes and self-exaltation and sins just as we want others to forgive us of our mistakes and sins as Christ commanded us. We can honor the things that God chose to do in the ministers during the last century, knowing that we are just mortals subject to the same passions and failures, except for the mercy and grace of God on us.

I am now content not to avoid joining any particular system of belief, but I fellowship with many assemblies of Christ. As long as Christ is proclaimed as the preeminent One, I lend my support to those who are dedicated to scripture regardless of whether I agree 100% with how every doctrine is preached. I am also extremely careful to avoid groups that restrict a person’s Christian liberty by adopting laws and rules of man for others to be bound by. Perhaps my prayers will be answered and the majority of the churches that now follow the message will reverse course so that we may once again have communion and fellowship with Christ as the preeminent One in our midst. Our only hope should be in the finished work of Jesus Christ, His death on the cross, and in the resurrection Life He sends back to us when we accept the free offer of His grace. Jesus Christ is and always will be the preeminent One, at this present time, and when He returns to rule and reign in the age to come.

John McKinnon