Sinned Away Your Day of Grace
Like all central figures of any cult of personality, William Branham used fear to hold his victims captive. Often this fear involved spiritual abuse in the form of cult doctrine that was incompatible with Christianity. The problem is that many of these doctrines — created solely for the purpose of abuse and captivation — made it into the revivals and into other pseudo-Christian sects.
Like all central figures of any cult of personality, William Branham used fear to hold his victims captive. Often this fear involved spiritual abuse in the form of cult doctrine that was incompatible with Christianity. The problem is that many of these doctrines — created solely for the purpose of abuse and captivation — made it into the revivals and into other pseudo-Christian sects.
One such doctrine is “Sinning away your day of grace.” William Branham strongly disagreed with Ephesians 2:8-10, specifically the second part of verse 8. So much so that leaders in Branham’s cult of personality often quote the first half of verse 8, “by grace you are saved by faith,” and leave off the second half that says, “not by the things that you do.” Branham had no understanding of the New Covenant and, in many ways, preached against it.
When a man spurns the mercy of God, there is only one thing left, that's judgment. And, my dear friend, today, God helping us, when you see the end of this text come, and if you spurn the mercy that's offered you by Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, there will be nothing left but Divine judgment. There can't be nothing left. 67 Pharaoh finally sinned away his day of grace and there wasn't nothing left, 'cause the junction was at hand. And God junctioned the time.[1]
In Branham’s revivals, he often warned people that they were about to “sin away their day of grace”. He claimed that Pharoh[2] and Esau[3] — during the Old Covenant — had “sinned away his day of grace” even though the New Covenant was not yet in existence. In some cases, he cursed entire cities and said that they had “sinned away their day of grace”. By 1959 he cursed America as a whole for not joining in his revivals, saying that the people of America had sinned away their day of grace.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
- Ephesians 2:8-10