Latter Rain

In the fall of 1947, William Branham connected with Gordon Lindsay. Through the campaign management of Gordon Lindsay, William Branham's revival meetings continued into Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. There he preached a series of meetings at the "Zion Church of the Original Gospel" to Canadians from near and far. Many people had followed him from the United States. Sick, afflicted, and crippled were being flown to the Zion church from up to 1500 miles away. Branham's followers were sleeping in their cars, and all vacant lots were over crowded. He had been invited by church leaders in larger Canadian cities, and was in very high demand. With the sudden excitement displayed for "faith healers" in the United States, healing campaigns were increasingly popular in Canada. The crowds followed Branham as he traveled from Winnipeg to Saskatoon, and finally to Vancouver, BC.

Attracting even more people to his revival as he traveled from large metropolis to small towns, Branham continued to "diagnose" his "patients" and awe the crowds. One of the most common diseases he "diagnosed" was cancer. As he held their hand, he claimed that the "vibrations" had told him of their cancer, and after praying for their cure, he would say, "The vibrations are gone. The cancer is dead. You are healed." He also looked for a red and purple color on the palms of their hands. If the hand did not change color, he told them there was little hope for them. Then he would proceed to tell them that their healing was of the "gradual type." In fact, most of the healings reported at his meetings were of the "gradual type," usually to take place three days or five days after his leaving town. Branham would explain,

"Somewhere in seventy-two hours, you're going to get real sick, and will do a lot of vomiting. Now, remember this (See?), because the cancer being dead (See?), why the life goes out of it. And then after the life goes out...?... You're going to get sick...?... You may pass it, friends. If you do put it in a bottle!"
Branham, William. 1947, November 23. "The Children of Israel."

The people would often ask, "Well, what do you mean, Brother Branham? If I'm healed, why should I be sick?" But after his leaving town, some of the "healed" worsened until they died.

A newspaper in Winnipeg, curious as to the reason thousands of people were filling cities to follow William Branham, came to investigate. After hearing the many who claimed to be "healed" by Branham, they began helping advertise by giving considerable coverage to the meetings. According to their reports, several people were, in fact, healed. As subscribers read the testimonies of the "healed," Branham's throng grew like a snowball rolling downhill – collecting both the curious and the sick or afflicted seeking "miracles." But apparently, their reports were challenged. After some time, the editor of the newspaper sent reporters to interview the "healed," and confirm that they were still alive and cured.

When the reporters returned to the towns Branham had visited, it was discovered that the "healed" had either died or were in a worse state than before entering Branham's meeting. The newspaper was forced to publish admission of error in their reports, admitting that the "healings" were not genuine. When local Pentecostal ministers confronted the editor, they were asked to produce one single person who had actually been healed in Branham's "divine healing" campaign. According to Alfred Pohl, a young minister in the Pentecostal School that invited William Branham to Canada, ministers could not produce one person healed in the meetings. One pastor of the Zion Church in Winnipeg started an advertising campaign of his own by holding "testimony meetings" of William Branham's "miracles." "New cases are reported. What greater evidence do people require than facts?" he asked.

Many people did claim to have been healed in William Branham's meetings, however. Some of them claimed to have been healed of cancer, and physicians confirmed there was not a trace of cancer in their body after their "healing." Interestingly, some of those same people and their physicians had never traced the cancer before their healing. Mrs. Grace Boyd remembered her "healing" with such accuracy that she shared with others:

Brother Branham pointed me out to the audience and said that I had cancer. He also said, "If you will believe, you will be healed." I knew I was in ill health because I had been very weak and was losing weight constantly. But I had no idea I had cancer. When he told me that I was healed, I accepted it with all my heart. I instantly experienced a strange choking which began in my throat and passed down into my abdomen. My stomach became rigid and bloated. After a few minutes the sensation gradually passed away. A great restfulness came over my entire body and I knew I was healed.
1951, August. Healed of Cancer. Voice of Healing.

It was in the November 1947 meetings Branham held in Vancouver, BC that pastors, teachers, and students at the Sharon Orphanage and Schools of North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada heard William Branham's speaking on "divine healing" that he referred to as the "Latter Rain". Leaders of the Sharon Orphanage had decided that the Pentecostal movement as a whole was "drying up," or lacking the "Spiritual gifts" present in the Azusa Street Revival. Seeing this as another possible "outpouring of the Holy Spirit," these representatives went to examine the "manifestation of the Holy Spirit" in Branham's meetings. Returning to the school, the leaders began examining Branham's doctrine and methods, and began submitting themselves to extended fasting and prayers. On February 11, 1948, during extended services at the Sharon Orphanage chapel, leaders began laying hands upon the pastors and students to "impart to them" the "spiritual gifts." The entire student body enthusiastically accepted the new beliefs and practices, insomuch that the Chapel services began to take precedence over all other campus activities. As more and more students "received" what was "imparted," and news of their work began to spread, large numbers of visitors were attracted. Eventually, all educational institutions were suspended, and the North Battleford campus began holding revival meetings. These meetings later became known as the "Latter Rain," named after a prophecy from the book of Joel in the Old Testament.

As the movement was in its infancy, William Branham continued to mentor leaders in the movement with his unusual teaching and extraordinary principles. One such teaching was that those "imparted" with the "Spirit of God" could make objects move in a room. Some of the ministers at the Sharon Orphanage began to practice Branham's magic, claiming that they, too, were in fact able to make objects move. Ramon A. Haas, founder of the "Latter Rain" sect "Assembly of the Body of Christ" claimed that things in the room did move on their own accord, but "the air had become very cold, dark, and heavy when this happened."

In 1948, following the pattern of the "Elijah" ministers before him, William Branham started his own publishing company. "The Voice of Healing – an Inter-Evangelical Publication of the Branham Healing Campaigns" ran its first issue in April 1948 and described Branham's meetings in Canada and the Northwest United States. It also included articles describing how Branham's "gift" came. William Branham was listed as publisher, while his campaign manager, Gordon Lindsay, was listed as "Editor." Jack Moore, a pastor from Shreveport, Louisiana where the newsletter was printed, was listed as Associate Editor. Shreveport and its publishing operations would serve as a central hub for both William Branham and his mentor Roy E. Davis, especially in the early 1960's when Davis gained control and began promoting the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

In a firm stance against those in the United States and Canada whose conditions were worsening after being "healed" by William Branham, Branham published an article written by F. F. Bosworth entitled "Why All Are Not Healed." According to Bosworth, patients could "lose their healing" if they did not believe they were healed. Moreover, if those around them did not believe, what Bosworth called "community unbelief," one might "lose their healing." As a catch-all, Bosworth claimed that Christian tradition in general could even prevent on from "keeping their healing." Basically, Bosworth told Voice of Healing subscribers that if they weren't healed in Branham's meeting, it was not Branham's fault.

After the political battle in Washington heated over the "Red Scare," Branham seized his opportunity. In the August 1948 issue, Branham began claiming that the End of Days was coming. Mathematically, he claimed that D-Day was the result of the number 666 (The number in the Book of Revelation that described the "Mark of the Beast.") This began a series in the "Voice of Healing," called "The World in Prophecy." With each new publication, the newsletter began presenting its case that the world would end in 1948. While offering the "Gospel of Divine Healing" as the solution, Branham's newsletter began claiming that modern events were the result of Biblical prophecy. World Wars I and II had set the stage for the battle of Armageddon, which Branham claimed to be a battle between "two worlds," "Democracy in the West and Communism in the East." Readers of Branham's publication were given a roadmap to the End of Days, and the "Rise of the Red Terror" was (in Branham's opinion) the final battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. In the October issue, Branham predicted that "America and Great Britain [would] be involved in Armageddon," and that when Russia "and her satellites" dropped their bombs, America would not escape.

By October of 1948, the "Latter Rain" sect had grown to such popularity that the group organized its first revival convention. Pastor A. W. Rasmussen of Edmonton, Canada hosted the convention, and it attracted several "divine healing" ministries and Pentecostal evangelists. One of those evangelists was Rev. Ern Baxter, who would later partner with William Branham for several years for the "Branham-Baxter" campaigns. Later, Baxter would credit the first Latter Rain convention as one of the greatest in his career:

Another momentous thing happened - at least for me and many others - and that's something called the Latter Rain.... I went to their second convention in Edmonton, Canada and I never saw such a concentration of the power of God. This was a tremendous movement.
Baxter, Ern

Also present were other key figures who would later spread the new sect of Pentecostalism throughout the United States and Canada. Among those present was Joseph Mattsson-Boze, who with A. W. Rasmussen would later organize huge campaigns for Branham in Chicago, IL, and George Hawtin, one of the original "Latter Rain" ministers from North Battleford. He was joined by several others from the Sharon Orphanage in North Battleford. Those from the Sharon Orphanage returned to their studies, convinced William Branham's unusual doctrines were the missing ingredient to a complex problem they were attempting to solve: modern-day application of Joel's prophecy.

By the early 1950's, Branham's doctrinal teaching would stray from the Latter Rain sect of Pentecostalism, forming a new sect: "Manifested Sons of God." Through Joseph Mattsson-Boze, the infamous Reverend Jim Jones of Jonestown would join Branham's "Message" cult following and begin teaching the "Manifested Sons of God" theology.

Put simply, William Branham (and Jim Jones) started teaching that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ would come in the form of a human being, designated as a "prophet". More specifically, the "return of Elijah" the prophet from the Old Testament.

Jesus said, in Saint Luke, the 17th chapter and the 30th verse, that, "As it was in the days of Noah." He told about Noah's time. And said, "As it was in the days of Sodom," see, His Coming, "so will it be in the days when the Son of man is being revealed." Now, He never said "the Son of God" being revealed. "The Son of man!" 169 Now, Jesus came in three names. Son of man, which is a prophet; Son of God, which went through the Church age; then Son of David. But in between the Son of God and Son of David, according to His Own Word, and according to Malachi 4 and many Scriptures, He's to return back into His Church, in physical form, in the people, in a... in human beings, in the way of being a prophet. See?
Branham, 65-0427 - Does God Change His Mind

But the Elijah of this day is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is to come according to Matthew the seventeen-... Luke 17:30, says the Son of man is to reveal Himself among His people. Not a man, God! But it'll come through a prophet.
Branham, 65-1127B - Trying To Do God A Service Without It Being God's Will

For more information about the history behind Branham's "Elijah" ministry and the creation of Reverend Jim Jones, including comparisons between Branham's and Jones' usage of Manifested Sons of God theology read Jim Jones - The Malachi 4 Elijah Prophecy.