The Plagiarization of the Seven Seals

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend, Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org.

And together, we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William Brannum and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revivals. Charles last week was incredibly fun, and I was thinking maybe after we finished this series, we could do a spin-off series of message fantasy and talk about how all of the fantasy of the message could be woven into a great cartoon movie.

So there's just so much weirdness in it. And you know, today's episode is probably not going to be as fun and cartoonish for me, but in a weird sort of way, this is interwoven in fantasy in such a way that it becomes religious fantasy.

So in essence, even though this is not a magical sword, we're kind of following up with this thing that enters into the realm of religious fantasy that ironically, people who would just totally discredit the fantasy of the sword would believe this other fantasy, which we're getting into today.

Yes, John. I'm looking forward to recording today's episode. So this is, I think, episode number five since we've started talking about the events of 1963. So probably be our last episode in this segment.

But there are so much we could talk about. I mean, there are so many layers to 1963. But yeah, basically in summary, 1963 is the genesis of the message and of day scenario, just a quick recap of what it all is.

We believe that as this cloud appeared that, you know, Jesus was returning to the church in a special way that the seven seals, William Brandon, preached those, the seals were opened in 1963. Some groups believe all seven were opened.

My group, we actually only believe the first six were opened in 1963, John. So there's variance in all of this stuff and all of the sex. It's all nuanced, unique spans on what all this means.

but generally though the message has been in limbo since all this stuff started happening preparing for the eminent rapture you know chasing a rapturing faith or there's something that happened here in 1963 that everyone is chasing to get the get whatever they need so then they can have the rapture right and this is the genesis of those things and I know for me one thing I want to do John is to just look at one more example of how William Brandham copied the seven seals out of his library books because more than anything else for me realizing the

seals were not unique brand new never before known divine revelation from God that blows the lid off this more than anything else for me I was able to explain away the cloud being made by a rocket and okay that was made up I was able to explain away William Brandham wasn't even there that day he made all that up okay I was able to explain all that away there's all kinds of stuff that you can explain away and still when you're in that indoctrination hold it together but for me the thing that the straw that broke the camel's back was

when you learn William Brandham just totally end to end copied the seals out of his library books and I know we did a couple episodes on stolen revelation where we gave some some small excerpts out of like the fifth seal and the seventh seal but I'd like to just take a little time to give a little longer explanation a little longer example of that it's incredibly interesting especially if you are a cult psychologist and you're looking into how this movement splintered into all of these different factions and each faction becomes a warring faction I mean they do not get along at all when you take a step back and you

understand what it is that they're fighting over William Brandham claimed to have this revelation of the seven seals and whenever he proceeds to give this revelation he's basically plagiarizing commentaries of other men's works who are commenting on the book of Revelation which is shrouded in mystery and some of them had their own agenda like Charles Tase Russell had his own agenda of lifting himself into his own cult of personalities superiority but William Brandham is taking different figures who give commentaries and that is the commentaries becomes his revelation and so the in the end what you end up with

is you've got this quote unquote revelation which is commenting on the thing that you're supposed to be revealing but not really revealing it, and yet we were manipulated to believe that he did. So whenever I was in the cult of personality, and my family escaped January 1st, 2012, I believed that he revealed to us the Seven Seals.

I've actually got into debates with non-Colt members saying, well, he revealed the Seven Seals. Why can't you believe it? And they didn't know what he said, and they just said, well, you know, the Bible says no man is worthy to open the Seven Seals.

How on earth do you believe that he did, and he's a Christian? And then after I left, and I started to deprogram, and I started to understand that he was just plagiarizing the works of other men, and he really said nothing.

I took a step back, and I started looking at what he said, and it's really weird. There was this, I don't know if you're familiar with it, one of the favorite television programs of my maternal grandmother was the Candid Camera Show, and we talked about it last week.

There were certain sects of the message that actually allowed television. This black and white show, they had all these funny skits where they would set up a prank and they would film the prank.

One of the recurring themes was a man who did double talk, and he would come in and just look straight in the eye of whoever was his victim for the show, and he would say something, and it meant nothing, but he said it emphatically as though he was saying something, but it was double talk, and you know, and the words were incoherent, and the people just scratching their heads, and what in the world did that man just say, and so they asked him, I'm sorry, I didn't understand, and then he double talked again, and it was

just so funny to watch the reactions. And that's in the comedy world, right, and this has been a recurring theme in the comedy world in television, movies, radio, etc. But then William Brannum is doing the same thing in the religious world, and people are going, oh yeah, he revealed to us the seven seals, and it's a lot of double talk mixed with plagiarism, all of which is surrounding commentaries trying to demystify that which may never be demystified till the end of the world.

And in the end, you have all of these people who are arguing because they want their specific version of whatever they believe to be the mystery of the seven seals, they want it to be the one that William Brannum said.

So they create a splinter group, and that splinter group says, yeah, we have the right thing. And in the end, it's actually not William Brannum's thing that they believe it's their own, but it's a result of William Brannum claiming that the revelation was actually a commentary of the seven seals.

Yeah, that's a really good way to uh to look at it, John. Um, the what William Brannum did is he basically took these commentaries from that other man had wrote, Uri Smith, Clarence Lark and Charles Tase Russell, John Gill, you know, a number of other figures, and he pieced all these together to come up with his sermons on the Seven Seals, and he essentially elevated their commentaries to the level of prophecy. Now of course, he didn't tell us he was copying it out of all their books and he was elevating, um, you know, telling us this commentary was prophecy, but that's actually what it was.

It wasn't angels that came into his room and gave this to him. It was him opening up the library books in his room and reading what was in them and then coming and deceiving us and telling us it was prophecy. That that is really what was happening. And I, I want to give an example of that here, uh, you know, in this episode. And if our listeners want to research this for themselves, I do want to emphasize this one point. You need to go back to the original transcripts of William Brannum and compare what he is saying in those original transcripts to the books. Because most sex

of the message, um, they'll never admit this, but most sex of the message no longer actually believe the seals in the way that William Brannum originally preached them, okay? You know, which by itself, how do you make sense of that? But that is the truth. Most sex of the message do not believe the seals the way William Brannum originally preached them. The teachings have evolved in most places and people are generally too indoctrinated to recognize that. So if you just take these books and open them up and you're looking at what I believe right now, then yeah, I mean,

you're going to, it's going to just not match up at all because a lot of sex have actually truly modified the teachings. But if you go back to the original transcripts of what William Brannum was originally doing, um, this is where you're going to see case and point that he is honestly reading these things, nearly word for word out of his books. You know, I grew up in several different message cult churches and they all talked about the seven seals because Charles, that was the message, right? That everything was supposed to be building up to this one event and this was to

bring the message and that message was the revelation and it included the revelation of the seven seals. And like you say, most of the ministers in the message, they largely ignore what he actually said during those sermons because there's no substance and more to the point in most of the churches that I went to, you know, the Brannum Tabernacle was different because they played the tapes but there were churches that actually preached and the way that they preached was they would say, and William Brannum said this about the seven seals and and people would just sit there and listen,

He's talking about the Seven Seals, but they pick and choose what statements he made largely from the other sermons, if William Bratham, not the Seals sermons because there's really no substance. He is, again, repeating multiple commentaries of others.

So within the message cult framework, these ministers will pick and choose various statements from all over the place. And what's interesting is, as you and I have explored during the course of this podcast, there are multiple different versions of William Bratham's stage persona.

Each version having slightly different theology. And so when they pick and choose these statements, sometimes they're choosing a different theologian. So to speak, William Bratham, the theologian that believes X, instead of William Bratham, the theologian that believes Y.

So they don't even match, and what you end up with is, you go to one end of the country and the minister is preaching about the Seventh Seals, and he says, will you and Bratham believe this?

And it's polar opposite from what the other guy's saying, because they're picking and choosing from a different series of sermons, then explode that throughout history, because there are a large number of splinter groups that have emerged as a result of all of this.

And some of them don't accept William Bratham as the central figure, of course. But they base their theology upon the framework that William Bratham laid, and just say that he went astray after this point.

And those who choose this Seals doctrine, they're also picking and choosing, right? So you end up with this scatter bomb of mess that was created because there was no substance. So let me go ahead and give you this sample.

And I want to just give a little lengthier sample than what I, we had done in the stolen revelation episodes. And this, again, this stuff is supposed to be divine revelation. William Bratham got from an angel from God.

You can go to every single one of the sermons he preached. He pretty well opened every sermon saying, an angel came to me in the room right before the sermon, and that's how I got it.

I mean, that is basically how he opens every one of these sermons. I'm just kind of paraphrasing that. And it's same thing on this 6th seal, one he said, the Holy Spirit came to him and gave him this revelation, and it took his breath away.

He just didn't hardly think he could even preach this. It was such a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit that gave him this sermon. So, but we're going to find out. In this case, the Holy Spirit is apparently Clarence Larkin because that is what he was reading from.

And during his sermon on the 6 Seals, this is the book of Revelation by Clarence Larkin. William Bratham gives a, he takes some time and he walks through each of the Seals, and he compares them back to...

Matthew chapter 24. As he makes that comparison back to Matthew chapter 24, I just want to read you from his sermon, and while I do that, I'm just gonna hold up, and I just want you to see that he's reading page after page after page after page out of this book. And John, I'll give you some clearer pictures here we can put up.

And for our listeners on the audio only feeds, Charles is holding up a book by Clarence Larkin, which is a commentary of the book of Revelation. And he's going to be reading from William Brannum, and it's gonna sound an awful lot like Brannum is reading the Bible, but Brannum is actually appears to be reading from this book, because Larkin has mapped out these different varying verses from different books in the Bible, and has basically laid out this schematic of how Larkin interprets the understanding of the book of Revelation. And Brannum is going to be reading, you know, exactly the flow that is in the pages of this book by Clarence Larkin.

William Brannum, I'm just gonna start reading here, and from his sermon on the sixth seal he says, now watch, the first seal is Revelation 6, 1 and 2. Now we read 6, 1 and 2, and I saw the Lamb when he had opened one of the seals I heard as it was the noise of thunder, one of the four be saying come and see.

And I saw and behold a white horse and he that sat on him had a bow and a crown was given unto him, and he went forth conquering into conquer. Well, who did we find this fellow was? The Antichrist. Matthew 24 now, 4 and 5.

And Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man deceive you, for many shall come in my name saying, I'm Christ, and shall deceive many. See it? The Antichrist. There is your seal. See? He spoke it here, and they opened the seal, and there it was just perfect.

I'll read the second seal one now. He says, now the second seal, following paragraph, Matthew 24 and 6, Revelation 6, 3 and 4. Now watch. Matthew 24, 6. Now let me see what it says. He's not reading the Bible. He's reading this out of Clare's Larkin's book. Let me see what it says.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that ye be not troubled for all these must come to pass, but the end is not yet. Alright, let's take the second seal. Revelation 6 and 3, watch, he says now, and when he'd open the second seal, I heard the beasts say, come and see, and there went forth another horse rider that was red and power was given unto him to sat there on to take peace from the earth, and they should kill one another, and there was given him a great sword perfectly just exactly.

Oh, I like to make the scripture answer itself. Don't you? The Holy Spirit wrote it all, but he's able to reveal it. Okay, so that's a page there. I'm going to turn the page in Clare's Larkin's book, and I'll just keep reading, but you can see there, John.

He is just reading this stuff. Word for word, the whole analysis that he's given. comes straight out of this book word for word. Even the phraseology he's using, he's reading the margin notes out of Clarence Larkin's book and it's not the Holy Spirit revealing this, he's plainly just reading off of these pages in this book. And remember Charles, the angel met him in the room before each sermon. For me, this is one of the most significant points because as he is giving quote unquote divine revelation, which as you mentioned, he's plagiarizing from Clarence Larkin.

He's claiming not to have known anything before it, you know, before he meets in this room. And this point in time, when he starts beginning this series, he's not yet came in contact with the information that this cloud thing happened. So he was, remember, before he left, before take the cloud away, take the, you know, the Leslie Douglas Ashley story away, before he left, it was a vision of a constellation of five angels saying go west. And so he goes west and then he comes back knowing nothing about the cloud. And then says before each sermon, I knew nothing about

it met me in the room. Well, this is very problematic because if this were the case, then why the need for these quote unquote seven angels coming in the cloud to come give him the revelation of the seals out west whenever he knows nothing about it when he returns back east. So there's this huge conflict that emerges because at this point in time, he has not yet become aware that this cloud thing happened. It blows your mind. All right, I'm just going to flip to the next page and Clarence Larkin's book and we'll just, and as you just watch on the screen, you'll see William

Brannum is literally just reading the stuff out of Clarence Larkin's book. So here we flip over to the next page. All right. Now it's the third seal. Let's notice the third seal. Now is famine.

Now Matthew 24 and 7 and 8. Let's get 7 and 8 and Matthew. And nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there should be famines, pestilence, earthquakes, and diverse places. And these things are the beginning of sorrow. See, you're coming right up now. Now, Revelation in the 6th we're going to open the third seal. It's found in Revelation 6 and 5 and 6.

And when he'd opened the third seal, I beheld the third beast say, come and see and behold, in low a black horse and he that sat on him at a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard the voice in the midst of the four beasts saying a measure, a penny, a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny and see thou hurt not the oil and wine. Famine. See exactly what the seal, the seal, same thing Jesus said. Hey, so you just read the third seal. Let's go to the next one.

Fourth seal, pestilence and death. Notice Matthew 24 will read right the 8th verse 7th and 8th. I believe it's on the fourth seal. I got it here. All right. Matthew 24, 7 and 8. Now the pestilences and death yes sir now we're going to it seven and eight now that would be the fourth seal now Let's see where we get the fourth seal and when he'd open the fourth seal Yeah, the pale horse rider death see and I looked and behold a pale horse and he pale horse and his name that sat on him was

Death and hell followed him and power was given him over four parts of the earth to kill With the sword and hunger and with death and with the beast of the earth now see that was death and again just notice how he's even using the the central

Highlights out of the kind of the margins here in Larkin's book He says now the fifth seal Matthew 24 9 and 13. Let's see if I got this right now again see Then they shall deliver you up and be afflicted and she'll kill you and there you are You should be hated of all nations for my namesake and when then many shall betray many shall be offended and shall betray one another And they shall hate one another and many false profit shall arise and deceive many and because the niquity shall Abound the love of many shall wax cold but he that endured to the end the same shall be saved now

We're on the fifth seal and that was last night see they'll deliver you up betray one another and so forth Now watch here on the sixth seal seal 6 9 to 11 now let's get to that one revelation 6 9 to 11 and when he'd open the fifth seal I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God for the testimony which they held and they cried to A loud voice saying how long Lord holy true dust thou judge and avenger our blood on them the dwell on the earth

Now the white robes were given to them every one and it was said into them that they should Rest for yet a little season until their fellow servants also and their brethren should be killed and they should be fulfilled Now you see under the fifth seal we find here martyrdom and There under there and under the 24 9 over here to 13 we find that it was martyrdom They shall deliver you up and kill you and so forth see the same seal being open So I'm gonna read one more page after this and I just

Three pages in a row that people can just see he is literally reading this stuff page out of here and I won't read the whole next page, but If you turn to the very next page and Clarence Larkin's book He then moves over to the sixth seal and as he moves over to the sixth seal on the next page I really think it's entirely possible that William Brannum had this book open in front of him on the platform when he preached And neither that or he had fully transcribed large parts of this But I'll read his next paragraph again goes on to say now in the sixth seal

It's the one we're coming to now Matthew 24 29 and 30 Here we are now we're going to get also revelation 12 to 17. That's exactly what we just read Now listen to this, what Jesus said in Matthew 24, 29, and 30 immediately after the tribulation of those days. What? When the tribulation of those days, this amateur tribulation, they've went through here. The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give or light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken, and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of

the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with great power glory. So I'm just going to stop reading here, John. Every stitch of what I've read here is honestly almost word for word out of Clarence Larkin's book. And so it's so obvious to me that just page after page, he is reading this stuff out of these books. And I could keep going, you could do this for all of his sermons on the seals. So there's like 12 hours of sermons on the seals, and you could do this for the majority of those sermons. It is shocking stuff,

shocking stuff that he copied this like this out of his library books. Yeah. And again, it is commentary. There is no revelation. It is literally Clarence Larkin, who's trying to give you a better insight into what is happening within this prophecy in the book of Revelation. But there's no revelation. It is literally just a good way of commenting on the book of Revelation. I never will forget, you know, a lot of people in the message, sadly, don't read their Bibles, and they don't even know what's in the book of Revelation. I never will forget working

with somebody who had escaped the message. And they were talking about this. They said, well, you know, we see all these prophecies failed. But what about the revelation of the seven seals? This is mind-blowing when you think of Christianity. He's the only one who revealed this.

And I said, if you actually read the book. And so I had to walk them through, you know, how to read the book of Revelation. And a lot of people just ignore it because it's all symbology. It's all prophetic. And it's very difficult to understand because it's, again, it's symbology. There's no way to say clearly that this thing that's happening in the book of Revelation points to a certain era, events, whatever it is. And so people just largely ignore the book.

But when they actually read it, they're like, wait a minute. Most of the things that William Brannum saying is right there in the book of Revelation. And the things that aren't are coming directly from Clarence Larkin. So you take a step back and you say, well, where's the substance?

What is being revealed? And what you end up with is there is no revelation. But in this, you know, horse and pony show that William Brannum's doing, he is actually convinced his cult of personality that he revealed something. And everybody Scrambles to figure out, okay, what is it that he revealed?

I know. Like in that section, what people would say is, well, he is revealing the overlap of connection between Matthew 24 and the six seals, right? Like that's what we would, we would look at that. And my section of the message, we didn't believe that part. Like we, like that part, I just read, we never, we did not actually believe in that, right? Like, wow, which how do you do that? How do you throw away part of this thing he got from the angel? I don't know. But we, we did not believe what I just read there from William Brannum and my sect of the

message. But, but, but that's what people would do though. They, they would take okay, this, this part fits here. And he's showing us how to line these things up the right way. And now we can connect all these things. And this symbol means that. And that symbol means this. That's what we thought he had the ability to do. But lo and behold, he is just reading it out of these books, which, which again, I don't, I'm not going to offer an opinion. I mean, maybe that's perfectly some people might find that a perfectly good way to analyze and

compare the seals to Matthew 24. I mean, I never believed in that before personally. I mean, where we come from. But maybe this is a fine way to do it. But I mean, it's just this guy's thoughts, right? If you open up the very first page in Clarence Larkin's books like this one, you will find that he has in here, basically a, a disclaimer that this work is the result of 25 years of study. And then he goes on in here to say that he claims no originality to anything in here. He makes no claim whatsoever that this is revealed from

been sort of a Holy Spirit way. This is just basically a compilation of different studies and things that he's performed in a system which can be used to analyze the book of Revelation. There is no claim by Clarence Larkin that this is prophetic divine revelation in any way. In fact, there's disclaimer that it's not. Okay. And so for William Brannum, to turn this commentary into something he got from an angel is very problematic.

Yeah, you know, I never will forget years ago, there was this website. I don't think it exists anymore, but they had discovered that William Brannum had plagiarized Clarence Larkin and they just went all through the revelation of the seven seals and the church ages and and low and behold, he's copied all of it, right? And there was this message cult minister who tried to defend William Brannum and said, yes, but we know that he's copying all of these men. We've known this for years. We've got we've got Clarence Larkin's book.

We know that he's copying them, right? But William Brannum had the prophetic insight to choose which commentary he was reading from. And this was an actual rebuttal to this, right? And there were actually message people that believe this. They were sitting there thinking, yes, oh praise God, brother, brand new, which commentary to read.

That's not the way it works, man. A prophet is a mouthpiece for God, not a mouthpiece for Clarence Larkin. But more to the point, you don't find the prophets of the Old Testament, like Isaiah, saying, yes, I read this from Pharaoh's scholars or whatever it is. They don't say that he pick and chose from the ancient Greek pagans or whatever mythology they chose.

Prophets were supposed to be a mouthpiece, a direct mouthpiece from God to the people, not a mouthpiece of commentary. And this is what, you know, when the angels came down supposedly in this cloud and sent him back to Jeffersonville and then came and met him in the room before each of these sermons and gave him this divine stuff to speak. That's what this is supposed to all be about, not him reading this stuff out of a book. And when he, he even says on tape so many times that this is not even, he says quote, and this is contrary to every book I've ever read,

unquote, I mean, he says things like that when he preached the seals while he's reading from the book.

Does it does not, I mean, it is pure deception, John, it is pure deception. And it's just unbelievable. And again, you don't got to decide, is it right? Is it wrong? As far as a, you know, a valid interpretation of the book revelation, but you can very solidly say William Brannum was whole full and tricking us about where this stuff came from. Right? I mean, this didn't come to him from the portals of glory. This is not a new revelation that's a sign of anything. This is just him reading these sermons out of his library book. And so it's really hard to understand how

to make sense of this out of the seals being opened in 1963 when he copied it all from other sources. And none of it's new, right? The messages don't make sense. If the seals were somewhere out there in the world before 1963, the message don't make sense, right? I mean, does that make sense?

To you, I mean, how could, how can the message make sense if the seals were preached before 1963 by other people? It's like a, it's like a hand me down yard sale message, man.

So it's totally safe to say that the seals were not opened in 1963. It's a hoax. And there's not a shred of evidence beyond trusting the words of William Brannum to say they were opened in 1963. And there's really absolutely nothing special about what William Brannum did here.

Anybody can do this. Anybody that can read English can open up these same books, just like he did. You can copy these parts out of these books, just like he did, and you can come up with the exact same prophetic interpretations.

And you never even need to hear the name William Branham. It's that plain and simple. And that's, that is so shocking, you know, for someone who has spent their whole life in the message to hear that.

You know, from a business standpoint, this is a great way to make money without doing a lot of work. You just take the works of somebody else, call it divine revelation, and just read from it to the people, and you're gonna find a large crowd of unsuspecting people who've never read it, and they'll think, oh my gosh, he's got this new revelation.

But, you know, with William Branham, it's not just the seals that he's doing this with. You can almost take every single doctrine throughout time that he is, quote unquote, revealed to the people, and you find another source for it somewhere.

And then these people claim that he's the prophet Elijah. He's bringing these new revelations to the church to correct the church. Because remember, based off of this British-Israelism prophecy of Malachi, the way they've twisted it for British-Israelism, William Branham was supposed to be the prophet of Malachi for that brought the hearts of the children to the father and the hearts of the father to the children.

So he's supposed to be, quote unquote, correcting the church. In this correction, didn't come from God, it came from these individuals who had commentaries on the Bible. There is one other aspect of these events from 1963.

I definitely think we need to touch on before we move away from the cloud and these things of 63. But most sex of the message believe that Jesus Christ returned in some form or another in 1963.

And that's actually a fulfillment of Latter-Rain teachings. So the Latter-Rain, by and large, believed that the glory of God was going to return to the earth in a spiritual second coming of Jesus Christ, which would bring about the manifested sons of God and start the end of day's scenario, okay?

You find George Warnock writing about that in Fisa Tabernacles in the 50s, for example. So that was not actually a new concept, right? That's actually something that had been imported from Jehovah Witness Theologies, the truth where that stuff came from.

And in the last two years of his life, William Brandham was preaching manifested sons of God theology almost nonstop. I mean, it was in probably, I think it might be safe stays in the majority of his sermon, certainly close to half anyway.

And we talked a lot about that manifested sons of God's stuff back in episode 16 and 17. So you can go check that out if you want little more details on those episodes or on how that worked.

But when William Brandham preached all this stuff in 1963, that is what he was building on, right? It was not something new that he came up with, but he was actually trying to convince the people that 1963 started this.

new era which the latter reign had been predicting would happen that's going to usher in the manifested sons of God. And let me read a couple quotes here about from William Brannum where he he just kind of explained this and it you know in a sermon. So this one is from a sermon called the rapture. He said the first thing comes when he starts descending from heaven there's a shout.

What is it? It's a message to get people together. A message comes forth first. Now lamp trimming time rise and trim your lamps. What watch was that? The seventh not the sixth. The seventh. Behold the bridegroom comet. Rise and trim your lamps and they did. Some of them found out they didn't even have oil in their lamps but see it's lamp trimming time. It's Malachi four time. What he promised it's Luke 17.

It's all those prophecies perfectly set in order for this day. In scripture we see it living right there. See these things happen my dear brother and sister when God in heaven knows I could die on this platform right now you you just ought to walk around a while it's tremendous when you see God come from heaven. Stand before groups of men and stand there and declare himself just as he ever did and that's the truth with this Bible open. See right we are here we are here right so he's saying it's set in order for this day he's saying we're we're here so William Brannum is telling us

that this this prophetic thing was happening right before their eyes right God was being manifested right before their eyes and William Brannum said these things were fulfilled he's telling us there the shout is fulfilled the midnight cries fulfilled the separation of the wise and foolish the all of these things the Malachi four stuff and it's really unmistakable what he's saying and and if you're familiar with what the ladder rain message was teaching up to that point the manifested sons of God stuff it's very clear that William Brannum is trying to convince his audience that this

manifestation has begun okay let me read you one more quote from the same sermon William Brannum says for the Lord himself 16 first shall descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the Archangel and the Trump of God three things happens a voice a shout a voice a trumpet has to happen before Jesus appears now a shout Jesus does all three of them when he is descending a shout what is the shout it's the message going forth okay so John when the different sex of the message taught us that Jesus Christ spiritually returned in 1963 and that the message was the shout

as the Lord was descending from heaven with the shout they were repeating to us exactly what William Brannum said and it's something that was universally taught and believed throughout all the first decades of the message.

Yeah, and we mentioned it in the last episode, but first Thessalonians 416, it says, the Lord will descend from heaven with a shout, and the very last sentence of that verse is, and the dead in Christ will rise first. With this manifested sons of God theology, there are a large number of people in the message who believed it exactly like William Brannum taught it. William Brannum insinuated that he and or his message was the manifestation of the Son of Man. In other words, he was saying that he was Jesus Christ. In fact, there's one statement of reference at a few times where he says, not a man but God in the form of a prophet.

So he is saying that God himself is coming down, giving the shout, the shout is the message, the message of William Brannum. And so there were a large number of people that believed that this was God, and then he died. And when he died, there was this push by my grandfather was involved.

I know Perry Green, some of the others were involved, to believe that William Brannum would rise up from his grave because that last sentence in Thessalonians says, and the dead in Christ will rise first. And so what they did is they flipped it. And they said that the shout came and then the dead in Christ will rise because the sentences placed afterwards in that verse, right? Even though it says in the dead in Christ will rise first. So what they did is they connected it to the passage, to the verses that come after this. And this became hugely, this became hugely problematic when he

didn't rise from the grave because now there's no resurrection. So you had a shout that came and then you had the expectation that the dead in Christ would rise. And there's not been a single dead person rise up out of a grave that in this history of time since William Brannum has died. So if this were truly a message of God, it fizzled out and the shout was meaningless.

William Brannum's teachings on manifested sons of God, it really was pretty convoluted to be honest. And you can interpret what he was saying in all kinds of different ways, honestly. And so these teachings have evolved differently in each sect of the message. You know, at one end, you have groups who believe the shout happened in 1963. And the return of Christ has been in progress since 1963. And they've been in this weird sort of limbo all these years waiting for the next shoe to drop. You probably know people like that, John. We kind of love people like that. Okay.

Then you've got some other groups who believe the rapture happened in 1963 and they got glorified bodies then and that they're living in the millennium now. Yes. But those people have largely faded out because most of them have died from old age, right?

And that belief is, I don't think that's very widely held the last number of years, but there was a point in time that was a very strong belief in the early days, okay? So then you've also got other groups, and I think this probably represents the majority who believe that Christ is still bodily in heaven, but he returned in some spiritual way to the church in 1963.

And his spirit is working in the church to bring about the manifestation of the sons of God or some derivative of that, right? And when that process is completed and everyone reaches the stature of the perfect man or gets the rapturing faith, whatever it is, right?

Or usually it's a multiple combination of those things. Then the rapture will happen. And my second was more left in this mold. I know the thunders, the thunders inspiration group, they were in that mold.

I think most of the brides coming type groups are would more or less agree with that too. So I think it's fair to say the spiritual return of Christ in 1963 is probably representative of the majority of the message.

So Christ returned in or to the church in some vague way.

And it's hard to say how this stuff's gonna evolve as time goes on because the message teachings on this stuff is actually very shifty. And message leaders are constantly obviously revising this stuff. But I think the most popular opinion in the message today is the Christ returned spiritually to the church in 1963.

Yeah, you know, with any cult, when critical information is presented to the public and the public is aware that some doctrine that was supposed to be literal could not be because of the critical information, the leaders salvage whatever is the cult theology by saying, oh, but that's in the spiritual, not in the natural.

And you can do this with anything. I mean, you can take anything that has failed and say that happened spiritually, but not naturally. We saw it fail naturally, but God did it spiritually. And it's just so problematic because it takes away the ability for people to critically think and examine for themselves.

Did this thing happen? As he said, did it not? They have even, you've probably aware of this too, Charles, but there are large portions of the message sect that they take the Christian identity doctrine, this, what we brand them call it, Serpent Seed.

And they've taken it out of the literal so that it doesn't appear to be grounded in white supremacy. And they say it's a spiritual serpent seed. It's a spiritual thing, not a physical thing.

And to do that, you have to largely ignore what William Brandham said. William Brandham said very clearly that if a person with black skin breeds with a person with white skin, they have produced a...

bongrel, and you know, it was a very, very literal thing that he was teaching. But with the seals, with the teachings, with the serpent seed, anybody who rejects it can very easily salvage whatever is remaining the message of the message by saying, well, it was a spiritual thing, my brother. It was not a literal thing.

Yeah, and you're right, John. I mean, like serpent seed, they can spiritualize things even though William Brandham specifically said, that ham was the servant seed, the father of the African peoples, and that, and he traces the family line all the way down to the Jewish people through, through Jezebel and the King Ahab and Judas is here. So William Brandham, you know, specifically traced the line of serpent seed into Africans and Jews, right? Christian identity theology. But the message, some people say it's spiritual. Well, I mean, that's not what brother Brandham said, right? So I mean, do you believe the message or not? And

you take stuff like this, you know, when obviously, yeah, brother Brandham is not going to race from the dead. I mean, he's not going to come back. So yeah, they've got to spiritualize God coming back in some other way or Jesus coming back in some other way to the church.

And it's something else, honestly. And, you know, we've got to mention the deity cult in this, too, John. And before this is over, we definitely got to do a full episode on the deity cult one of these days before we're done. And the deity cult believes that William Brandham in 1963 became a manifested son of God, more or less, he became God incarnate. And they were beginning to worship him as God incarnate while he was still alive. And the members of the deity cult completely took over the most important organs of the message while William Brandham was still living.

And I've say with his blessing, they got control over the tapes, the transcripts, the William Brandham Evangelistic Association, the tabernacle even you could say, and so on. So all of the central bodies of the message were completely taken over by the deity people.

Really why William Brandham was still living. And so yeah, the spiritual return of Jesus Christ in 1963 is perhaps the most bizarre teaching of the message to people on the outside. But it's all rooted in William Brandham preaching that the message was the shout of first esolonians. And the Lord descended from heaven with the shout. And so you can't get the shout without the Lord descending. So somehow they have to have a return of Jesus Christ. And for a lot of people, that's what this cloud represents. This was the Lord descending from heaven with the

shout especially, especially up into the the earlier days of the message. And because that was a core teaching of the message during the 60s, every major sect has developed their own unique span on how to explain that 1963 return of Christ. Did you believe I've heard a a lot of stuff from different people and deedy cult people about what they believe.

Like, I know some of them believe that the cloud coming down was like Jesus being on the Mount of Transfiguration and the cloud comes down and Jean Norman and Fred Soffman or like Peter and James, you know, they're with them and stuff.

Like, I've heard it, you know, said like that. It's really unusual stuff. Yeah, you know, you know this as well as I do. The Jeffersonville Brannum Tabernacle, even though even to the message cult in general, most people don't view it this way, but it is the epicenter of the deedy cult.

And a lot of people, even when they move here, they don't realize it for a few years because the people who are of that mindset, they're aware that they would be strongly looked down at and condemned by other people if this were to get out.

So they try to conceal it. And so it isn't until it isn't until you've moved here and you've gotten close to them and they have decided to let their guard down that they'll even tell you that yes, I believe that William Brannum or and or his message was Jesus Christ.

And I've been privileged to conversations that people who came here and they suddenly realized this, they approached my grandfather. They said, all these people believe that William Brannum is God. And my grandfather, when his guard was up, he would say, oh yes, that's very wrong.

That's very wrong. William Brannum himself condemned this. And yet at the same time, we played the audio clip where my grandfather says he was God tabernacled in human flesh. I have been privity conversations where he has strongly condemned it and sided with the people against the deedy cult.

And then privy to other conversations where in private, he is declaring his allegiance to the deity cult. And whenever somebody approaches anybody who's in rank in the ministry in this area, they will pretend as though they don't believe this, but they never try to stop it.

From William Brannum's sons, to my grandfather, to anybody who's in authority in this in this area, they want this thing to continue because either A, they're part of it and they truly believe it, which I doubt, or B, they realize that this is a good way for money to be generated.

When people believe that my father was God or this prophet that we worship was God, they're gonna be, yeah, I mean, it's just, he goes on and on. These people, they found a way to manipulate the heads even further than what William Brannum himself did.

And so the cult has progressed to, in my opinion, a far more dangerous place in this area. Yeah, I think you're safe in that assessment, John. For me, I really believe, and this is, you know, an opinion, I'm sure people could disagree with this opinion, but I believe that William Brannum was indeed purposefully trying to set himself up as the return of Christ in those last years, starting with this stuff here in 63.

I believe it's very clear that William Brannum was trying to do it, not maybe as some people would consider, like, the nominal Christianity would consider the return of Jesus Christ, but I believe he was definitely trying to teach the manifested sons of God, paruja-style return of Christ in him, right? So I absolutely believe that is what he was teaching, and I think, you know, unless you're familiar with the manifested sons of God teachings, and how they believe that the spirit of Christ would return, it can be a little confusing if you're thinking about it in terms of the way that normal Christianity thinks about the return

of Christ, right? Because it's a spiritual thing where Christ returns in the church, and then they're manifesting Christ, basically. And I absolutely believe that William Brannum was teaching that, and I don't know, you know, whether I would say that the deity cult people misunderstood him and took it a step further than he wanted, that's possible, or it's possible he really was going the full way to proclaiming himself the literal second coming, you know, that's possible.

You know, when you understand the historical context of the succession of the Elijah's, you had Frank Sanford, who claimed that he was Elijah the prophet, he had John Alexander Dowey, who claimed that he was Elijah the prophet, Charles Fox Parum, who modeled his cult after both of those two, also claimed that he was Elijah the prophet. William Brannum comes to the scene, he claims that he is Elijah, and he's strongly influenced by this movement, the Pentecostalism in general, but specifically with Dowey's cult, and when you understand that succession of Elijah's towards the end of his life, William Brannum

said, now he promised that the Bible, the Bible promised that these Elijah's, he said, that wasn't Elijah that was the spirit of God on Elijah, Elijah was just a man, and he said, now we've had Elijah's and Elijah's coats and Elijah's mantles and Elijah's everything. He is referring to, in the first sense, he's referring to the biblical Elijah, but when he gets into talking about the mantles, he's actually talking about the Dowey to Parum to himself, he's talking about the mantles, and that's where the NAR cults, they get the, you know, I got Brannum's mantle, he's talking about the mantle of Dowey,

and he says, but the Elijah of this day is the Lord Jesus Christ. So he's saying he himself is above the mantles. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. He said he's supposed to come according to Matthew and then he corrects himself. Luke 1730, the son of man is to reveal himself among his people, not a man but God, but it will come through a prophet. So this is whenever you're in the deity cult, which sadly my family was part of, when you're in the deity cult, this is the statement by William Brannum that cannot be ignored. Whenever there's an argument that ensues over whether he

was claiming to be God or whether he was not, this is him claiming to be God. There is no, there's no way to argue this. So the deity cult will use this as the means to say, yes, I believe he was God because he said he was God. And when you maybe compare this as you was doing to other charismatic groups that are of, you know, in the influence of some of this stuff is this is the same base stuff at which the theology of this generation of overcomers or this special manifestation of people with all these supernatural gifts who are going to do these amazing things at the end of days.

All of that flows out of the same route teaching is what William Brannum is doing here. It's all the same thing and you'll find that very commonly taught in in the charismatic groups that were influenced by Paul Cain, right? Those teachings moved from Paul Cain to the Kansas City prophets and disseminated out quite widely through there. It's not believed so much in the in the groups that that came from Osborne or Hagen that I know of, but the groups that were influenced by Paul Cain, you see that same belief in this manifestation of special end time, preachers, saints, whatever

is very heavy. You in charismatic Christianity, there's there's a number of churches and groups that believe in this generation of Elijah's is going to come, right? That is, that is message theology that was adapted by Paul Cain and taught through the Kansas City prophets in the third way of Pentecostalism. That is where this stuff comes from. The roots of that theology pass directly through the message to reach out to these other places. So it's kind of weird just to see how some of these other places have adapted this stuff, but that's where it comes from. It really is something else.

So John, as we wrap up this episode, there's maybe one last point I'll make and it's that all the leaders of the message will tell you that the message is in the Bible, right? Like well, we all believe the message was in the Bible. When I was in the message, I preached the messages in the Bible, you know? That's it's in the Bible, we would say, but not a lot of them will explain what they mean by that. And there's really only a handful of scriptures they have in mind generally when they say that.

When they're saying the messages in the Bible, they're generally saying that the message is the midnight cry of Matthew 25, and that the message is the shout of 1st Thessalonians 4, and that the message is the voice of Revelation 10-7.

Those are the verses they'll generally use to say the message is in the Bible, and then that's because that's what William Brown told us the message was, right? He told us the message was those things.

And when they say that, it's usually those verses of the Bible they have in mind. And you know, sure the Red Horse Rider and the Lambbeasts and all those different kinds of symbols are in the Bible, but William Brownham's interpretation of what those symbols mean is definitely not in the Bible, right?

The interpretation of the symbolism is based on, we thought, William Brownham receiving divine revelation from God. And his authority to interpret those symbols was predicated on the events that happened in 1963. So these things from 1963 are what we used to put the message in the Bible and say the message is in the Bible.

So when the things from 1963 are exposed as a hoax, which they definitely are, the message is not really in the Bible, right? These things break the key proofs and the key links that we would use to say the message is in the Bible.

So the Lord himself never descended from heaven with the shout. So the message cannot be the shout. William Brownham said the shout was the midnight cry. So that invalidates the midnight cry. And that means William Brownham had no authority to say come out of her, my people.

He never had the authority to make all these prophetic interpretations. The seals were never opened, certainly not in the manner that he taught anyway. So the message totally falls apart because those are the verses which they used to say that there even is such a thing as a last-day message, right?

Where in the Bible is there such a thing as a last-day message? It's not there except you use these verses which William Brownham told us. Otherwise, I mean, there is no last-day message, right?

So if you take these things away, there just is no. There is not even a basis, I think, to say that there is such a thing as a last-day message. So the whole message just implodes when you find out these stories from 1963 or a hoax.

And it does not leave anyone who expects to be able to put these things in the Bible with anything left, right? But I'll say this for the people who practice only believe is them.

I'm sure none of this is going to bother them, John. You know, they'll listen to this and they'll be just fine. But very sadly for someone like me who lived my whole life in this thing and I have to confess and I have to admit that the foundation of the message is a series of fake stories made up by William Brownham.

And it breaks my heart to this day, but that is the truth. The foundation of the message is a series of fake stories. made up by William Branham, and our forefathers who converted into the message were tricked, bamboozled accomplices, one of the above by William Branham, and they were tricked by his great hoax of 1963.

You know, simply put, the message was sold to the people as God preparing his bride for the coming rapture, and it was supposed to be by divine revelation. And this event in general, the cloud was, like you said, it was the shout. It was the thing that was supposed to bring the message, which we find now is largely plagiarized from others. And so you take the shout away, basically, and what you're left with is maybe William Branham was sent by God to prepare a bride for the coming rapture. That's what goes in your head. Maybe it happened. But now look at all of

the time that's passed. And what did he prepare? I mean, if you look at what has happened in the world, yeah, my parents set us down as children, and they told us this was presented to them as though William Branham said it was for you and your generation, meaning my parents and their generation, these things are going to happen for you and your generation. And we were just by products of that. We, because we were their children, we were supposed to go with them in their generation. The vast majority of that generation has died out. So while they died believing that

they were prepared, what ends up happening is it, the preparation was for nothing, but even worse, now we're looking at my children are now having their generation and they're fully on, if they were in the message, they're fully unprepared. There is no preparation. So if this message were sent by God to prepare us for something, well, what? I mean, there's not a single thing that he said that is of value for preparation for today. Most of it's plagiarized and a large part of it was pure fiction. Most of the prophecies weren't even, as we've explored, weren't even real prophecies.

So what do you end up with? What was being prepared? There are some outer limits that William Brannum did set on these things in the seals. Like there are some hard limits, for example, in the fifth seal on the amount of time that can pass from, you know, until the seal time itself just invalidates the seal, right? So this thing cannot stretch you very much further. There's very little wiggle room of play left in William Brannum prophecies. You know, if the end doesn't happen, I mean, in the next very short space of time, I mean, I would say certainly the next five to ten years,

at the absolute most, there's just no stretch left in William Brannum's prophecies to continue to keep them, you know, the message just loses cohesion because the too much time has passed and and the deadlines that he set for different things just can't be stretched any further.

And where I come from, John, every sect of the message that splintered off of us have Doomsday set dates over and over and they're all over the next, you know, some of them is even this year.

You know, out for the next six months to a year. Like here, here's a tape. I mean, this is just sitting on my desk from when I was in the message. This was preached in, this is the start of our end of days.

This is from 1993. We've had end of day calculations in my sect of the message my entire life. And these things, they just cannot be stretched very much further. And I am really afraid as to what happens when the clock runs out and you can't stretch these things anymore because we see what has happened.

You know, you look at, look at what happened with the Melindicol. Look at what happened in Jim Jones town, right? Look at what's happened in some of these other really crazy radical places, you know, that have are connected to the message.

And I'm really scared what happens when this Doomsday clock runs out and there's no way to stretch it any further, right? Because at this point, they are not waking up. What happens when there's no sand left in the hourglass?

William Brennan had multiple versions of stage persona. The earliest was so deeply rooted in British israelism. In fact, that's, if you look at the 1947 version of the stage persona, that's the one that starts what we have now as the message.

It's so largely rooted in British israelism. And he was tied spiritually, according to this weird theology, to the recreation of the nation of Israel. He talks about it many times. He even said, the very day that the angel was sent to me, that was the day that Israel became a nation, even though he got the date wrong.

Well, he also taught, and many people are unaware of this. He taught that before he died, he was going to save the entire nation of Israel. Let me read this quote. This is from 1961.

Israel returning to their homeland. He said, let me just say this now. I guess it's off tape, which is, for me, these off tape things are pretty key if you search for it. He said, let me say this, the very hour that Israel became a nation.

The reason I've always believed before my class here, that there was something that I'd have a part before I die of getting Israel back to the Lord. Now, remember, he believes this is off tape, so he's talking about this prophecy that you're not gonna find too many instances of it on tape, because he was saying this secretly to his little group.

Well, his little group, that whole generation has mostly died off by now. But that group back then, for that stage persona, believed that William Brannum, before he died, he was going to save the entire nation of Israel, because that's what he said.

And he copied this stuff out of Claret's Larkin's book, do a lot of this stuff as far as, you know, his predictions about Israel. Like, he, if you just look at that last page, I held up when I looked at the 6th seal. You see what Claret's Larkin is putting about the Jewish people being converted and so forth.

The sign of a fig tree from Matthew 24. I mean, all of this stuff is... Even his mistakes are not original, John. Oh my, there are so many rabbit holes you can look at in his teachings, John. Just so many rabbit holes.

Charles, we could actually go on... I've got enough subject matter. We could probably go for two or three hours on this, but we can just sum it up like this. William Brannum had no revelation. William Brannum was reading the commentary, and he was calling the commentary revelation, and that's what was sold to the people.

And it's still being sold today to the people. And while under the mind control, they actually believe this, because that's what they're being told. It's really, really sad when you think about it. But for me, just to sum it up, maybe it's good what Claret's Larkin said. I don't agree with all, but maybe you do.

But take that away from it. If William Brannum said that this was God speaking through him, then why did he need Claret's Larkin? And more to the point, why is it not consistent if it was a message to our age? Why is he quoting other people with conflicting commentaries on the books of Revelation and other versions of his stage persona?

So for me, it's very simple. Just take it away. You can read the Bible, and you can get a majority of what's being said. And you obviously take the commentary part out. But what do you need William Brannum for? Just read the Bible. It's that simple.

It's something else, John. Join us again next week. We've got a great episode coming.

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