Two definite areas had to be dealt with by the Holy Spirit in order to prepare a Church for Christ's return. First, as already mentioned, it was imperative to restore the elect back to the pure Word of God and correct the doctrinal hodge-podge created by hundreds of denominations. There are also many revelations of Scripture essential to the Bride of the end-time which have never been clearly taught. The wheat and tares of Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43, the anti-Christ of II Thessalonians 2:4: the mystery of the rapture; the mysteries of the Book of Revelation, and others. This is precisely why a prophetic forerunner, with a vindicated "Thus saith the Lord," was essential. You will notice ONLY the forerunner of Christ's first Coming, (John the Baptist,) was able to identify the scriptures such as Isaiah 40:1-3 which were being fulfilled and only he was able to identify the Lamb. So will it also be in the ministry of this end-time Elijah concerning the multitudes of Scriptures coming to pass in his day!
The second area was to deal with the actual conduct of the people. You will notice that besides rebuking the traditions of the clergy, John also trumpeted a call to repentance and holy living. Today, we find churches have relaxed their standard of holiness to such an extent until the conduct of their people conforms almost completely with that of the world.
In today's evangelical World, the focus has shifted from holiness to finance. The various projects of many internationally famous preachers are costing billions to build and maintain. One can hardly attend a meeting or turn on a religious broadcast without being accosted repeatedly for enormous sums of money to pay for religious resorts, hospitals, broadcasts, colleges, and universities. Adherents are compelled to support real estate empires and worldwide organizational systems.
In addition to this, mixed swimming, scantily clad women, social drinking, smoking, necking and petting among the young people, etc., has become acceptable in the churches.
Jesus identified these days with the days of Lot and Noah. In them, the prevalent sin was sexual promiscuity and finally, total perversion. The word, 'unisex,' has been widely adopted to describe the attitudes, styles and appearances of today's men and women. Over the last 20 years, the trend has evolved until now they are literally exchanging roles. The women are cutting their hair, wearing men's garments, demanding equal rights and have forsaken motherhood and home-keeping to pursue their own careers. The men have become morally weak and perverse, growing their hair like women, wearing blouse-like shirts, tight suggestive pants, high heels, and even necklaces and earrings.
The churches, instead of resisting this perverse decline, have succumbed and adopted most of its standards of conduct, dress, music, and entertainment. Consequently God has given then the portion of the unbeliever. Ichabod has been scratched across their ornate portals and God has abandoned them to the harlot system and the irrevocable mark of the Beast (Revelation 13:15-18.)
God, however, cannot forsake His predestinated and in spite of this dismal, end-time scenario, He promises 'a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing' (Ephesians 5:27.) Once again, God has prepared an ark for a lovely but tiny end-time Bride. Her final call is twofold. One, "Come out of her (Rome and her daughters) My people" (Revelation 18:4;) two, come into Christ (Ephesians 1:10,) the Living Word of God. She alone will recognize Christ's forerunner and begin to busily prepare for the great translation; the rest will be swept away by the modern so-called revivals into the council of churches and perdition. This truly is the last call - there will not be another. The Jews are in their homeland, the Elijah of Malachi 4:5-6 has come and gone, his Message is in the hands and hearts of God's people, and the stage is now set for the rapture!
Multitudes of tapes and books of William Branham's sermons have been distributed all over the world. In country after country, God has raised up churches, and thousands, through the still speaking voice of His prophet (Revelation 10:7) have been delivered from sin, the world and denominationalism to walk according to the Scriptures. If you have been baptized by some organization under the titles Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, you need to be rebaptized (Acts 19:1-5) in the Name of Jesus Christ. Every Christian must realize that he cannot follow God without following His Word! The evidence of our love for God is measured directly by our obedience to His revealed Word (John 14:15) and we can only know Him as we see Him unveiled in His Word. In the Laodicean Church Age, (Revelation 3:14-22,) a pitiful picture is presented of Jesus Christ knocking on the outside of the church, (not the heart as so many suppose.) Notice the call sounds to the individual, "any man," and not to the Word-rejecting systems. May whoever reads this also hear and respond to the voice of the Bridegroom and join Him on the outside of everything that has to do with man and enter into His perfect Word!
Jesus promised in Matthew 24:45 that His faithful minority at the end of the world who love to do the will of God would be given "meat (spiritual food) in due season." He promised that while He was withdrawing from an apostate world they would have provision and be nourished. Just as Elijah provided meal and oil for the widow of Zarephath, so the Elijah of this final age has been commissioned to leave a "Message" which would carry the Bride through to the Rapture. (See last page regarding "The Message".)
The Greek word for "angel" is "messenger" and it is used in Scripture to mean men as well as the usual connotation of heavenly beings. In both Luke 7:24 and James 2:25, the same word is translated "messengers" and obviously means men.
Following excerpt is from THE NEW SCOFIELD BIBLE footnote to Hebrews 1:4: "Angel, summary: Angel, i.e. 'messenger,' is used of God, of men, and of an order of created, spiritual beings whose chief attributes are strength and wisdom (II Samuel 14:20; Psalms 103:20; 104:4.) In the Old Testament, the expression "the angel of the Lord" (sometimes "of God",) usually implies the presence of Deity in angelic forms (Genesis 16:1-13; 21:17-19; 22:11-16; 31:11-13; Exodus 3:2-4; Judges 2:1; 6:12-16; 13:3- 22.) See Judges 2:1, note cp. Malachi 3:1, note the word "angel" is used of men in Luke 7:24; James 2:25; Revelation 1:20; 2:1,8,13,18; 3:1,7,14.
ORAL ROBERTS: "A humble devout man of God" (HEALING WATERS, July 1948.)
GORDON LINDSAY: "Never had we known of any preacher calling deaf mutes and blind people to pray for, and then to see those people delivered on the spot - a ministry that was beyond any that we had before witnessed" (THE HOUSE THAT THE LORD BUILT.)
JACK MOORE: "The most gifted of all the evangelists (ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE, by David Edwin Harrell, jr.)
F. F. BOSWORTH: "When the gift is operating, Bro. Branham is the most sensitive person to the presence and working of the Holy Spirit and to spiritual realities of any person I have ever known (A PROPHET VISITS SOUTH AFRICA, by Julius Stadsklev.)
TOMMY OSBORN: "God has chosen diverse and mysterious ways to reveal Himself to His servants, especially those called for dispensational purposes as was Brother Branham's call" (William Branham's Memorial Service.)
"In short, the man we know as William Branham, was sent to demonstrate God again in the flesh" (William Branham's Memorial Service.)
"So, He (God) sent forth a particular human vessel surrounded by supernatural signs to attract attention, to make this wayward generation stop and look and ponder and search and think. Thus the halo of Light that appeared at his birth, the star, the angel, the discernment, the gifts, all of these for that purpose. What for!? To show us God again. To repeat what He showed us in Jesus Christ when He came in the form of flesh. To remind us one final time. Like Jesus, Brother Branham redemonstrated the very things which made men believe that the true Messiah had come" (William Branham's Memorial Service.)
GEORGE EKEROTH: "God called this humble man...and anointed his ministry to a degree that within a few short years his name was known in the most remote jungle out-station. Wherever you would go in this world you would find that the name of this messenger had preceded you" (WIND OVER THE 20TH CENTURY, by Morris Cerullo.)
DAVID EDWIN HARRELL, JR: "Most of the participants of the Healing Revival (that erupted in 1947) looked upon Branham as its initiator... William Branham became a prophet to a generation ... Night after night before thousands of awed believers, he discerned the diseases of the sick and pronounced them healed" (ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.)
"The power of Branham service...remains a legend unparalleled in the history of the charismatic movement" (ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.)
JAMES MORRIS: "It was Branham, more than any other evangelist, who started the post-World War II fundamental faith healing revival allowing his encounter with an angel on May 7, 1946" (THE PREACHERS.)
"Word radiated in every direction that all manner of diseases and afflictions were healed instantly by the little Indiana preacher. Even cases of raising the dead were published" (THE PREACHERS.)
THOMAS R. NICKEL: "In Bible days, there were men of God who were prophets and seers. But in all the sacred records, none of these had a greater ministry than that of William Branham, a Prophet and Seer of God, whose photograph appears on the front cover of this issue of "FULL GOSPEL MAN'S VOICE. Branham has been used by God, in the Name of Jesus, to raise the dead" (FULL GOSPEL MEN'S VOICE, February 1961.)
JOSEPH MATTSON BOZE: "Sometimes I was scared because of the deep sense of holiness that penetrated the meetings, but I never failed to see the gift of God in operation through His servant and to feel the warmth of love that flowed through his ministry" (THE HERALD OF FAITH, February 1966.)
JAMES HASTINGS: "It has been customary to trace the institution of the practice to the words of Christ in Matthew 28:19, but the authenticity of this passage has been challenged on historical as well as textural grounds. It must be acknowledged that the formula of the threefold name, which is here enjoined, does not appear to have been used by the primitive church, which so far as our information goes, baptized 'in' or 'into' the Name of Jesus, or Jesus Christ, or the Lord Jesus, without any reference to the Father or the Spirit" (DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE, Page 88.)
SCRIBNERS: "The original form of words were into the Name of Jesus Christ or Lord Jesus. Baptism into trinity was a later development" (DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE, Vol. I, Page 241.)
CANNEY ENCYCLOPAEDIA: "The early church always baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus until the development of the trinity; afterward they were baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" (Page 53.)
ENCYCLOPAEDIA AMERICAN, INTERNATIONAL EDITION: "The term Trinity was used by Theophilus of Antioch in AD 180" (Vol. 27, Page 116.)
BRITANNICA ENCYCLOPAEDIA: "The triune and trinity formula was not uni- formly used from the beginning, and up until the third century, baptism in the Name of Christ only was so widespread that Pope Stephen, in opposition to St. Cyprian, said that baptism in the Name of Christ was valid. But Catholic missionaries, by omitting one or more persons of the Trinity when they were baptized, were anathematized by the Roman church. Now the formula of Rome is, 'I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost" (11th Ed., Vol. 3, Pages 365-366.)
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIONS: "Persons were baptized at first in the Name of Jesus Christ, or 'in the Name of the Lord Jesus.' Afterwards, with the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, they were baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost" (Page 53.)
NEW INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA: "The Trinity doctrine. The Catholic faith is this: 'We worship one in trinity, but there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. The glory equal - the majesty co-eternal.' The doctrine is not found in its fully developed form in the Scriptures. Modern theology does not seek to find it in the Old Testament. At the time of the Reformation, the Protestant Church took over the doctrine of the Trinity without serious examination" (Vol. 22, Page 476.)
HASTINGS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION: "Christian baptism was administered by using the words 'in the Name of Jesus.' The use of a Trinity formula of any sort was not suggested in the early Church history. Baptism was always in the Name of the Lord Jesus until the time of Justin Martyr when the Triune formula was used" (Vol. 2, Pages 377-378, 389.)
"NAME was an ancient synonym for "Person." Payment was always made in the name of some person referring to ownership. Therefore one being baptized in Jesus' Name became His personal property. "Ye are Christ's." (Acts 1:15; Revelation 3:4; I Corinthians 3:23.)
LIFE MAGAZINE: "The Catholics made this statement concerning their doctrine of the Trinity to defend the dogma of the assumption of Mary in an article by Graham Green: 'Our opponents sometimes claim that no belief should be held dogmatically which is not explicitly stated in the Scripture but the Protestant churches have themselves accepted such dogma as the Trinity for which there exists no such authority in the Gospels'" (October 30, 1950, vol. 29, Number 18, Page 51.)
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPAEDIA: "The true doctrine of the sacrament of baptism is not taught by the Roman church. Baptism given by heretics in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost with the intention of performing what the church performs, is not true baptism" (Vol. 2, Page 259.)
NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: "With regard to the form used for Baptism in the early church, there is the difficulty that although Matthew (28:19) speaks of the Trinitarian formula, which is now used, the Acts of the Apostles (2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5) and Paul (I Corinthians 1:13; 6:11; Galatians 3:27; Romans 6:3) speak only of Baptism 'in the Name of Jesus.' Baptism in titles cannot be found in the first centuries..." (McGraw Hill Publishing, Page 59.)
WILLIAM PHILLIPS HALL: "In this very ancient version (Syriac Peschito Version) which is believed by good authorities (Gwilliam, Boners, and others) to represent a text much older that of the Greek manuscript from which our English New Testament was largely derived, 'The Name of the Lord Jesus Messiah or Christ' appears in all four readings given (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5)" (A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY, Page 70.)
INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA: "The doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the Apostles' preachings, as this is reported in the New Testament" (First Edition, Vol. 18, Page 226.)
NEW INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BIBLE ENCYCLOPEDIA: "The term 'Trinity' was originated by...Tertulian, a Roman Catholic church father. No record of the Trinitarian formula can be discovered in the Acts of the Apostles... At the time of the Reformation, the Protestant Church took over the doctrine of the Trinity without serious examination" (Vol. 1, Page 396.)