The Message on Trial - Part 2

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This article is one in a series on Allistair Francis' defence of the message - you are currently on the topic that is in bold:

• Overview
• The Message on Trial - Part 1 - The Initial Defence
• The Message on Trial - Part 2 - The Counterattack
• The Message on Trial - Part 3 - The Counteroffensive
• The Message on Trial - Q&A - Questions & Answers
• The Message on Trial - Part 4 - Finding the Balance

PART 2: THE COUNTERATTACK

This article is a responses to Allistair Francis' video - "Discouraged by the Message and the Prophet — The Message on Trial P2"

VIDEO SUMMARY

This is the second installment of Pastor Allistair Francis's video series responding to criticism of William Branham and the Message movement. Unlike Part 1, which was a general defense aimed at discouraged youth, Part 2 is explicitly a response to written criticism posted in the YouTube comments of his first video. Francis reads the critic's points aloud and responds to them one by one.

The video marks a significant shift in Francis's approach. Where Part 1 leaned on emotional appeals and personal testimony, Part 2 goes on the offensive. Francis bombards his audience with Bible passages he claims are equally problematic to Branham's failed prophecies, openly declares that "faith is absolutely in spite of evidence" ([38:21–38:24]), dismisses newspaper records and witness testimony because the witnesses "didn't have the Holy Ghost" ([46:02–46:10]), and devotes his closing segment to an emotionally charged attack on those who have left the Message, calling them "turncoats" who created "all the Branhamism that exists" and now "tuck their tails between their legs" ([2:03:34–2:05:00]).

What Francis does not do — across more than two hours of video — is directly address the documented evidence against Branham's claims. He does not examine the specific failed prophecies, the documented story changes, or the verifiable historical inaccuracies. Instead, he argues that such examination is unnecessary, unspiritual, and hypocritical.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND REBUTTALS

Preliminary Observation: The Shift from Defense to Offense

Part 1 was framed as pastoral care for confused young people. Part 2 abandons that pretense entirely. Francis now directly addresses critics, reading their arguments aloud and responding with hostility. He tells anti-Message people to "stop your silliness" ([1:04:54]), calls their reasoning "pathetic" ([1:32:36]), "plain silly and ignorant" ([1:30:31]), and tells them to "put on their big boy pants" ([12:26]). This is not the language of a shepherd tending confused sheep.

More importantly, his entire strategy has shifted — and the shift is damning. Rather than defending Branham's record, Francis now attempts to put the Bible itself on trial, arguing that if critics cannot explain every difficult passage in Scripture to the satisfaction of atheists, they have no right to question Branham. Think about what this means: Francis has tacitly conceded that Branham's record cannot be defended on its own terms. He has abandoned the field. The best he can do is hide Branham behind the Bible's skirts and hope no one notices that he never actually addressed the charges. This is not defense. This is retreat disguised as offense.

Argument 15: "There Is Literally No Point to a Debate"

THE CLAIM:

At [2:58–5:43], Francis states: "There is literally no point to a debate between me and any anti-message person." He claims he has had conversations with people who have left and knows how they go: "They have their minds made up and my faith is rock solid." He says when he asks them questions about the Word, "they try to answer but cannot really answer because they end up saying things that the prophet taught." He accuses critics of using the same methods they criticize, then resorting to personal attacks when they "can't win" ([5:00–5:18]).

REBUTTAL:

The Contradiction.

Francis has just released a two-hour video responding to critics — while simultaneously claiming there is "no point" in engaging with critics. If there is truly no point, why produce this video? Why spend hours addressing arguments you claim are not worth addressing? The very existence of this video suggests the arguments are landing and people are leaving. Francis is engaging in debate — but only in a format where the other side cannot respond in real time.

The Preemptive Discrediting.

By characterizing all debates as futile before they happen, Francis inoculates his audience against the possibility that a critic might make a compelling case. This is a cult-classic thought-stopping technique: if you've already been told that anti-Message people are just attackers who "can't win" and resort to personal attacks, you have no reason to listen to anything they say. Francis is not protecting his flock from wolves. He is blinding them so they cannot see the evidence he refuses to address.

The Revealing Admission.

Francis says critics "end up saying things that the prophet taught" when answering his questions. He frames this as a gotcha — but it actually demolishes his own narrative. If people who have left the Message still find theological value in some of Branham's teachings, that proves they are nuanced thinkers, not blind haters. It is entirely possible — indeed, it is intellectually honest — to acknowledge that someone taught some true things while also acknowledging they made demonstrably false claims. A broken clock is right twice a day. Acknowledging that Branham occasionally quoted Scripture correctly does not vindicate his failed prophecies, his fabricated stories, or his "Thus Saith the Lord" statements that never came to pass. Francis knows this. He is counting on his audience not to notice.

Additionally, as you can see from the vast amount of articles on this website, we do not use the rational that Branham used. We apply logic and reason, things that God gifted humans with and things he expects us to use responsibly, We also shun from personal (ad hominem) attacks. If you can find any, please let us know and we will remove them immediately.

Allistair rejects the scriptural pattern

Paul the apostle, by his own conduct, refutes Allistair's argument:

Acts 9:22 - Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.

Acts 9:28-29 - Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him.

Acts 17:17–18 - So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him.

Acts 18:28 - For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.

We have issued Allistar Francis a public invitation to have a discussion of all of these issues on our podcast, Off The Shelf.

> Fallacy Identified: Poisoning the Well / Avoiding Engagement.

By preemptively characterizing all debate as futile and all critics as bad-faith attackers, Francis ensures his audience dismisses any counterargument before hearing it — while avoiding any format where he might have to answer hard questions in real time.

Argument 16: The Two Prophets of 1 Kings 13

THE CLAIM:

At [26:34–32:57], Francis tells the story of the young prophet and the old prophet from 1 Kings 13. The young prophet delivers a true prophecy to King Jeroboam. An old prophet lies to the young prophet, leading to the young prophet's death by a lion. Yet the Bible calls both men prophets. Francis concludes: "No matter how irresponsibly or unrighteously these prophets acted, what was more important than the prophets themselves was the word that the prophets brought" ([31:43–31:52]). He asks: "Would you spend precious time fussing about the righteousness of the young prophet or the righteousness of the older prophet... or would you pay attention to the prophecy that was given?" ([32:34–32:55]).

REBUTTAL:

The Story Actually Undermines Francis's Argument.

The young prophet in 1 Kings 13 was killed by God precisely because he listened to a prophet who lied to him. The moral of the story is not "ignore what prophets do and focus on the word." The moral is: God holds people accountable for following a lying prophet, even when the lie comes from a legitimate prophetic figure. If anything, this story is a warning to Message believers to test prophetic claims rigorously — because God does not excuse those who follow prophets uncritically.

The Critical Distinction Francis Ignores.

The old prophet's lie was about a personal instruction (come eat with me). The young prophet's actual prophecy about Israel remained true. This story distinguishes between a prophet's personal behavior and the content of tested, fulfilled prophecy. The criticism of William Branham is not merely about personal behavior — it is about the content of his prophetic claims themselves. When Branham declared "Thus Saith the Lord" about the brown bear, or "Thus Saith the Lord" about Donny Morton's healing, or "Thus Saith the Lord" about the India crusade — and these prophecies did not come to pass — the problem is not his character but the prophecies themselves. When his stories about historical events change across tellings, the problem is the content of those stories. This is the opposite of the 1 Kings 13 scenario.

The Question Francis Should Be Asking.

If the Bible records that God killed a prophet for listening to another prophet's lie, what does that tell us about blindly following prophetic authority without testing? The story cuts directly against Francis's position.

> Fallacy Identified: False Analogy.

The 1 Kings 13 story involves a true prophecy delivered alongside personal disobedience. Branham's critics are questioning the prophecies themselves — the very content of the "word" — not merely the man's personal conduct.

Argument 17: "Faith Is Absolutely in Spite of Evidence"

THE CLAIM:

This is the most significant theological statement in the entire video. At [38:17–39:10], Francis declares: "I'm sorry. This is completely false. Faith is absolutely in spite of evidence. Faith is the substance. Evidence is not the substance. Faith is the substance. Faith is the evidence of things unseen." He then uses an extended analogy about investigating a romantic partner ([38:40–41:35]): if you dig into a girl's history, "evidence produces more doubt" because "you are searching for the evidence with the intent to satisfy doubt, not belief." He says: "If you believed in someone, why would you search for evidence to prove your belief?" ([39:04–39:08]). He invokes Thomas and Jesus: "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed" ([41:46–42:09]).

REBUTTAL:

This Is Heresy.

There is no softer word for it. Francis has just articulated an epistemology — a way of knowing things — that obliterates the entire foundation of biblical Christianity and hands every cult leader in history a get-out-of-jail-free card. If faith must operate "in spite of evidence," then:

• A Mormon who believes Joseph Smith despite overwhelming evidence of fraud is exercising faith. Who are you to question?
• A Jehovah's Witness who believes Charles Taze Russell despite 1914, 1925, and 1975 all failing is exercising faith. Evidence is the enemy, remember?
• A follower of Jim Jones, David Koresh, Marshall Applewhite, or any other deceiver could make the identical claim — and by Francis's standard, they would be right to do so.

Does Francis not understand what he has done? He has handed every false prophet in history an unassailable defense. He has made discernment impossible. He has told his audience that the more evidence mounts against a claim, the more "faith" is required to believe it — which means the most obviously false claims require the most faith, and the most obvious frauds deserve the most loyalty. This is not Christianity. This is epistemological surrender dressed in spiritual language.

Francis Butchers Hebrews 11:1.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" does not mean faith operates against evidence. Any first-year Bible student knows this. The verse means faith gives substance to things we cannot yet see — future promises, spiritual realities, the hope of resurrection. It is about the unseen, not the disproven. There is a universe of difference between believing in something you cannot yet verify (the resurrection, eternal life, Christ's return) and believing in something that has been actively falsified (a "Thus Saith the Lord" prophecy about a brown bear that never came to pass, a declared healing of Donny Morton who then died, a promised revival in India that never materialized). Francis either does not understand this distinction or is deliberately obscuring it. Neither option reflects well on him.

Francis Butchers the Thomas Passage.

Jesus said "blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed" — but context matters, and Francis ignores it entirely. This was spoken after the resurrection had already occurred. Thomas's fellow disciples had already seen the risen Christ. The testimony of reliable eyewitnesses was already established. Jesus was not saying "believe without any reason to believe." He was saying "you don't need to personally insert your fingers into my wounds when you have the testimony of people who saw me alive." This is trust in credible testimony, not blind faith against contrary evidence. Francis has ripped Jesus's words from their context and weaponized them to mean the opposite of what they meant. This is not exposition. It is mutilation.

The Bible Commands the Exact Opposite of What Francis Teaches. The same Bible Francis claims to follow explicitly commands evidence-based evaluation of prophetic claims:

• Deuteronomy 18:22: "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken." This is a command to check whether prophecies come true. It is impossible to obey this verse while also believing that "faith is absolutely in spite of evidence."
• 1 Thessalonians 5:21: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Prove. Test. Examine. Not "believe all things in spite of evidence."
• 1 John 4:1: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." John explicitly warns that false prophets exist — and commands testing as the remedy. Francis says testing is the problem.
• Acts 17:11: The Bereans were called "more noble" because they "searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." They did not take Paul at his word. They checked. And Scripture commends them for it.

Francis's position that "faith is absolutely in spite of evidence" is not merely wrong. It is anti-biblical. It contradicts the explicit commands of Scripture. And it sets up his listeners to be deceived by anyone who demands belief without verification — which is precisely how every cult in history has operated.

The Romantic Partner Analogy Backfires Catastrophically.

Francis compares investigating Branham's claims to investigating a girlfriend. Fine — let's take the analogy seriously. If you discovered that your girlfriend had lied about where she went to school, fabricated stories about meeting celebrities, told you she predicted events that never happened, and changed her stories about major life events every time she told them — would continuing to trust her "in spite of evidence" be faith? Or would it be the behavior of someone being manipulated? In the real world, we have a word for someone who ignores mounting evidence that their partner is lying to them: we call them a victim of deception. Francis's analogy, honestly applied, is a devastating argument for examining Branham's claims — not against it. The fact that he cannot see this is either tragic or telling.

> Fallacy Identified: Anti-Evidentiary Epistemology / Heretical Redefinition of Faith.

If faith must operate against evidence, then all religions and all prophets are equally valid, since evidence can never disqualify any of them. This destroys Christianity's own truth claims, which rest on historical evidence (the resurrection, fulfilled prophecy, eyewitness testimony). Francis has not defended the faith. He has dismantled the very foundation on which Christianity stands.

Argument 18: The Jonah Defense

THE CLAIM:

At [51:58–54:06], Francis presents Jonah 3:4 as a parallel to Branham's failed prophecies: "Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." He points out that Nineveh was never destroyed after 40 days and asks: "Was he false? Was Jonah giving a false prophecy?" ([53:10–53:22]).

REBUTTAL:

The conditional vs. unconditional prophecy is perhaps the most common defense offered for failed prophecies, and it collapses under the slightest scrutiny. It is used repeatedly by most message ministers to justify William Branham's failed prophecies

Allistair is ignorant of the biblical explanation

The prophet Jeremiah spoke of this very situation and stated that God would withhold his judgment, delivered via prophecy, to a nation that repented of its evil ways (Jer. 18:7-10):

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

Prophecies of impending judgment because of sin are ALWAYS conditional based on Jeremiah's word from God. How did Allistair not know of this?

Jonah's prophecy was conditional — and the text makes this explicit.

Jonah 3:10 states: "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." The people of Nineveh repented. God relented. The condition was met. The prophecy functioned exactly as intended — as a warning that prompted repentance. This is standard prophetic conditionality, as explained above because of Jeremiah 18:7–8.

Branham's "Thus Saith the Lord" Prophecies Were Unconditional.

The real issue is not the 1977 prediction — which Branham himself hedged as a "prediction" rather than a prophecy — but the actual "Thus Saith the Lord" statements that failed without any condition being involved. The documented failures are numerous and devastating:

• The Brown Bear Prophecy: Branham declared "Thus Saith the Lord" regarding a brown bear that he would kill — a prophecy that remained unfulfilled at the time of his death. There was no condition. The prophecy simply did not come to pass.
• The India Crusade Prophecy: Branham prophesied "Thus Saith the Lord" that the Bombay crusade would see "tens of thousands times thousands" saved. He declared: "Mark my word; write it in the pages of your Bible, for it's THUS SAITH THE LORD, 'Remember, when we land in India, you're going to hear of tens of thousands times thousands being saved.'"

Do the math: "tens of thousands" times "thousands" equals at least 10 million people. (Note: This is actually a conservative reading. "Tens of thousands" plural suggests at minimum 20,000; "thousands" plural suggests at minimum 2,000. A strictly literal interpretation would yield 40 million as the floor. The 10 million figure uses the most charitable possible interpretation — and even this charitable reading describes an event that never occurred.) A revival of 10 million converts would be one of the largest mass conversion events in human history — an event that would be thoroughly documented in newspapers, histories, and missionary records worldwide. No such event occurred. The crusade was, by all accounts, a relative failure compared to this grandiose prophecy. No mass revival happened. No condition was stated; the prophecy simply failed.

• The Donny Morton Healing: Branham declared "Thus Saith the Lord" that a young boy named Donny Morton would be healed of meningitis. "The Holy Spirit spoke THUS SAITH THE LORD. And the baby got well" — except the child died. There was no condition of repentance, no "if you have faith" qualifier. Branham spoke in the name of the Lord, and the prophecy did not come to pass.
• The Jean Thompson Healing (1963): In January 1963, Branham claimed to have received a vision of Jean Thompson, a pianist with terminal cancer, in which she was much older with gray hair — and pronounced her healing as "Thus Saith the Lord." He instructed her to go home rejoicing. Jean's cancer was terminal ovarian cancer. She died just months later. Her death certificate lists the cause of death as "Recurrent cancer of the ovary with widespread abdominal metastasis." Another "Thus Saith the Lord" healing that ended in death.
• The Agnes Shippy Healing: Another documented "Thus Saith the Lord" healing failure. Branham declared divine healing; the patient died.
• The Israel Conversion Prophecy (1961): Branham prophesied that the entire nation of Israel would be converted to his Message in "one single day" during an upcoming world revival tour. He declared: "Before this Message is over, you'll see it's THUS SAITH THE LORD, by Word and by Spirit. Israel will be converted over, the whole nation, in one night." Branham died in 1965 before the tour happened. Israel was never converted. The prophecy completely failed.
• The South Africa Vision: Branham had a vision of the meetings in South Africa that failed to be fulfilled as prophesied. The results did not match what he claimed God had shown him.
• The Tent Vision (1956): On January 1, 1956, Branham claimed God showed him a vision of himself ministering in a "great huge tent" with a special healing ministry unlike anything before. He was so convinced of this vision that he reportedly made financial commitments toward purchasing such a tent, declaring: "I believe what I'm talking about. Yes, sir. It's from the Lord." He also stated: "When you hear that come forth, brother, I lay my life right there, it's going to be just that way. I'm forty-five years old, seen visions since I was a baby, and have never seen one time... that it didn't come to pass just exactly the way He said it." William Branham died on December 24, 1965 without ever obtaining or ministering in the prophesied tent. The vision was never fulfilled.
• The France Conversion Prophecy: Shortly before his death, Branham promoted an upcoming world tour, claiming that the Protestant part of France would also be converted. He stated: "I understood that in France, this morning, there's better than two thousand Frenchmen on a several-day fast that we'll come bring the Message to France in French. The whole Protestant nation, Protestant part of the nation of France." This never happened. Branham died, and France was never converted to the Message.

These are unconditional "Thus Saith the Lord" statements — the most serious category of prophetic utterance. They were not warnings designed to prompt repentance. They were declarations of what God had said would happen. And they did not happen. This is not one isolated failure that might be explained away. This is a pattern of failed prophecies spoken directly in the name of the Lord — a pattern so consistent that it cannot be attributed to coincidence or misunderstanding.

The Jonah Analogy Collapses Completely.

Jonah's prophecy led to repentance, and God relented — exactly as Jeremiah 18 explains. But consider Branham's failed prophecies:

• Who repented to prevent the brown bear prophecy from being fulfilled?
• Who repented to stop Donny Morton from being healed — or Jean Thompson, or Agnes Shippy?
• What condition was met to cause "tens of thousands times thousands" (at least 10 million people) in India to become a relatively small handful of converts?
• Who repented to prevent the entire nation of Israel from being converted in one day?
• What sin caused the South Africa vision to fail?
• What unbelief prevented the great tent ministry from ever manifesting?
• Who lacked faith such that France was never converted?

There were no conditions. There was no repentance clause. These were direct "Thus Saith the Lord" prophecies that simply, flatly, demonstrably failed — not once, not twice, but at minimum nine documented times across Branham's ministry. And this list is not exhaustive.

Engaging the "Implicit Conditionality" Defense.

A more sophisticated apologetic might argue that all prophecy has implicit conditions — that God's sovereignty and human response always qualify prophetic statements, even when conditions are not explicitly stated. Jeremiah 18:7-10 establishes a general principle: God may relent from announced judgment if a nation repents, or withdraw promised blessing if a nation turns to evil. This argument fails for several reasons. First, if all prophecy is implicitly conditional, the Deuteronomy 18:22 test becomes meaningless — no prophecy could ever be judged as failed, since we could always posit some unknown condition that wasn't met. This interpretation makes the test useless for its stated purpose. Second, the Bible itself treats some prophecies as unconditional — Messianic prophecies, for example, were fulfilled regardless of human response. Third, and most importantly, Branham's own framing explicitly rejected conditionality. He said: "Write it in the pages of your Bible, for it's THUS SAITH THE LORD" (India crusade). He said: "I lay my life right there, it's going to be just that way" (Tent Vision). He said: "I've never seen one time that it didn't come to pass just exactly the way He said it." These are not hedged, conditional statements. Branham himself presented them as certain, and the burden falls on the apologist to identify which specific condition wasn't met — not merely to speculate that "maybe something" prevented fulfillment.

Deuteronomy 18:22 is unambiguous:

Deuteronomy 18:22 states:

"When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously."

Branham spoke in the name of the Lord. The things did not come to pass. The text tells us what to conclude.

Francis Himself Knows This.

Notice that Francis, after raising the Jonah comparison, never actually explains how the two situations are parallel. He does not identify what condition was attached to Branham's failed prophecies. He does not explain who repented to prevent them. He simply presents Jonah, asks "was he a false prophet?", and moves on — hoping his audience won't notice that the analogy doesn't work. He does not address the conditionality because doing so would destroy his own argument.

Even Branham knew this

It is clear that William Branham considered himself to be an Old Testament prophet and that, as a result, he was not subject to the judgment of the church. He also stated the test in Deuteronomy 18:20-22 applied to him:

“But the only person that has a right to say, THUS SAITH THE LORD, is an a vindicated prophet. You never seen anybody judging Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or those people. They were prophets, foreordained and borned in the world to be prophets. And they foresaw the thing by a vision, and then said, “THUS SAITH THE LORD,” for the Lord had already said it.

You can go to my hometown and find it one time, in all the times that It’s ever told anything, that didn’t come to pass just exactly the way It said. Now, you pin a sign on my back as a false prophet, and I’ll walk through your streets. Cause it’s not myself, I’m a man, but He’s God. And He’s the One Who does the saying. If I would say it, it could be a lie, ’cause I’m subject to any mistakes, lies, anything else, like anybody else.

Prophets are foreordained. They’re prophets. Now, there’s a gift of prophecy in the church, that could be on one, then the next one, the next one, the next one, and so forth—of prophecy. Paul said you may all prophesy one by one. But there’s a lot of difference between a prophet and a prophecy. A prophecy has to be judged by three witnesses (two or three) before it can be given or accepted in the church, according to the Scriptures. But a prophet, like the Old Testament prophet, they had the Word of the Lord. The translation was right to them. And they were known, because the Bible said, “If there be one among you spiritual or a prophet, I, the Lord, will make Myself known unto him, speak to him in visions, and reveal Myself in dreams. And if what this man says comes to pass, then hear him, for I’m am with him. If it doesn’t, then don’t hear him. I’m not with him. Don’t fear him.”

And you who will not come back, I want you to do me a favor, mark a little piece of paper, and put it in your Bible, and say, “Brother Branham said, ‘THUS SAITH THE LORD.’” Then if God lets us live, watch what this thing’s coming to. If God lets us live for a few more years and I pass through Phoenix, get that—get a little yellow piece of paper out, and walk up to the pulpit and say, “What about this, Brother Branham?” Then I’ll tack it on my back, and you get in your car, and drive me down the street, as a sign on my back, “A false prophet.”

God always sends a prophet. The Word comes to the prophet; the written Word, a discerner of the thoughts of the heart. Did you always notice? The prophet, being that he knowed that he was a prophet, is because that the Word of God discerns the thought that’s in the heart, foretells things, forth-teller and teller-forth. Did you ever take the dictionary, the old Hebrew dictionary, and see what the word seer means? It’s the one that has the Divine revelation of the written Word. And how it’s vindicated, he foresees things that he foretells, and they come to pass. 42 Now, how does that type in with the Scripture? Just exactly. “If there be one among you, who is spiritual or a prophet, I the Lord will make Myself known to him, speak to him in visions. And if these things comes to pass, then it’s God. If they don’t come to pass, then don’t hear him; don’t fear him at all, but just ignore it.”

The Bible said, “If there be one, and what he says comes to pass, then you hear him; but, if it doesn’t, don’t believe him, don’t fear him, but My…if—if My Word is not in him. But if it does come to pass, then My Word is in him.” That’s his identification. That’s the characteristic of a prophet.

Now, prophets. There’s such a thing as “gift of prophecy” in the Church; but a prophet is predestinated and foreordained for the hour. See? Yes, sir. Now, if a prophecy goes forth, two or three has to set and judge whether that’s right or not, ’fore the church can receive it. But nobody set before a prophet, ’cause he was—he was absolutely the Word of God. He was that Word in his day. You seen God reflect. Now, God has promised to send us that again in the last days, to bring the Bride out of that ecclesiastical mess, in the only way it can be done.

> Fallacy Identified: False Analogy.

Comparing a conditional prophecy (whose condition was explicitly met through Nineveh's repentance) to unconditional "Thus Saith the Lord" statements (that simply failed with no condition in sight) is comparing fundamentally different things. The Jonah defense does not explain the brown bear. It does not explain Donny Morton, Jean Thompson, or Agnes Shippy — all declared healed by "Thus Saith the Lord," all dead. It does not explain the India crusade. It does not explain the tent vision. It does not explain Israel's non-conversion. It does not explain France. It explains nothing — except Francis's desperation to find any biblical parallel that might shield Branham from Deuteronomy 18:22. When you have nine documented "Thus Saith the Lord" failures, you do not have a prophet who occasionally missed. You have a pattern that the Bible explicitly warns us to recognize.

Argument 18b: The "Deuteronomy 18:22 Was About Canaan" Defense

THE CLAIM:

At [44:12–45:32], Francis attempts to limit the application of Deuteronomy 18:22. He argues: "I just love how they throw Deuteronomy 18 around without context as if we don't know what it says... it was there because they told the Lord told Israel to not listen to prophets that were going to be in Canaan, right? who spoke in the name of other gods and they were only to adhere to prophets that God raised from their brethren. Then it warned them if there are prophets from your brethren who speak in the name of other gods or said things that God didn't tell them to say in other words they used their gift to speak things advantageously to them for their own benefit which God did not show them. So that was what the whole chapter of the warning was about." Earlier, at [26:18–26:28], Francis dismisses critics: "ALL THEY KNOW IS Deuteronomy 18 and um mark a prophet whose word doesn't come true. That's all you know. And yet you don't go to the entire Bible."

REBUTTAL:

The Text Says the Opposite.

Read Deuteronomy 18:20-22 in full context:

"But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."

Notice the structure. Verse 20 identifies two categories of false prophets:

1. those who presume to speak in God's name what He did not command, and
2. those who speak in the name of other gods.

Verses 21-22 then answer the question: "How shall we know?" The test given — whether the prophecy comes to pass — is specifically for prophets who claim to speak "in the name of the LORD."

Francis Misreads His Own Proof Text.

Francis claims the passage is about prophets "who spoke in the name of other gods." But verse 22 explicitly addresses prophets who speak "in the name of the LORD" — the exact opposite. The fulfillment test is not for identifying obvious pagan prophets (who openly served other gods and needed no test). The test exists precisely because the dangerous false prophet is the one who claims to speak for Yahweh while speaking presumptuously. Francis has the passage backwards.

The "Personal Advantage" Reading Is Invented.

Francis adds that the passage addresses prophets who "used their gift to speak things advantageously to them for their own benefit." This phrase appears nowhere in Deuteronomy 18. The text says the prophet "hath spoken it presumptuously" — meaning he claimed divine authority he did not have. Francis has inserted a motive test that the text does not contain. The biblical test is simple: did the prophecy come to pass? Not: what was the prophet's motive?

Branham Fits the Exact Profile.

William Branham claimed to speak "in the name of the LORD." He repeatedly said "Thus Saith the Lord" before making prophetic declarations. He claimed to be God's end-time prophet, the fulfillment of Malachi 4:5-6. He was not a pagan prophet worshipping other gods — he was a man claiming to speak for the God of the Bible. This places him directly under the Deuteronomy 18:22 standard. The test exists for exactly this situation.

Old Testament Prophets Were Judged by This Standard.

Consider Hananiah in Jeremiah 28. He was not a pagan prophet — he was an Israelite who prophesied falsely "in the name of the LORD" (v. 11). Jeremiah pronounced judgment on him: "The LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie" (v. 15). Hananiah died that same year, exactly as Jeremiah predicted. The same standard applies in Ezekiel 13, where God condemns prophets who say "The LORD saith" when "the LORD hath not sent them" (v. 6). These were not Canaanite prophets. They were Israelites falsely claiming divine authority. The fulfillment test applied to them.

The New Testament Confirms This Standard for Christian Prophets.

Jesus warned: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing" (Matthew 7:15). False prophets do not announce themselves as servants of Satan — they come appearing to be genuine. The test Jesus gave was fruit: "By their fruits ye shall know them" (v. 20). Failed prophecies are bad fruit. John commanded: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). The command is to test those who claim prophetic authority — not to exempt them from testing because they claim to be Christian.

Francis's Argument Proves Too Much.

If Deuteronomy 18:22 only applies to Canaanite prophets or those speaking for "other gods," then there is no biblical test for evaluating prophets within the believing community. Any Christian who claims "Thus Saith the Lord" would be immune from scrutiny. Joseph Smith could claim immunity. David Koresh could claim immunity. Every false prophet in church history who invoked Jesus's name could claim immunity. This interpretation renders the entire concept of testing prophets meaningless within Christianity — which is precisely the opposite of what Scripture commands.

Francis Himself Knows the Text Applies.

At [48:48–50:09], Francis acknowledges: "Deuteronomy 18 also says it's a good warning. If a prophet does speak without God's authority, he speaks presumptuously." He then sarcastically restates the critics' position: "Prophets must be checked by Deuteronomy 18. Prophets must whatever prophecy they say must come to pass or else they are false prophets." But this is not critics "spinning" the text — this is exactly what the text says. Francis acknowledges the standard and then dismisses it without refuting it.

A Note on Contested Interpretation.

All biblical interpretation involves some degree of contested meaning, and intellectual honesty requires acknowledging this. Francis offers alternative readings of Deuteronomy 18:22 — that it addresses Canaanite prophets, that "don't be afraid" doesn't mean "identify publicly," that motive matters. These are interpretations, and one might argue we cannot definitively prove which is correct.

However, Francis's readings fail on their own terms for specific, identifiable reasons:

• The "pagan prophets only" reading contradicts the explicit text: verse 22 says "when a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD" — not in the name of other gods.
• The "don't be afraid ≠ don't identify" reading renders the verse purposeless. Why would God give a test for identifying false prophets if the community was forbidden from acting on that identification?
• The "motive test" reading inserts words that aren't there. The text asks whether the prophecy came to pass — not whether the prophet meant well.

The question is not whether some ambiguity exists in interpretation, but whether Francis's specific readings are textually defensible. They are not.

> Fallacy Identified: Special Pleading / Misrepresentation of Scripture.

Francis attempts to exempt Branham from Deuteronomy 18:22 by claiming the text was specifically about Canaanite prophets or those speaking in the name of other gods, when verse 22 explicitly addresses prophets who speak "in the name of the LORD" — exactly what Branham claimed to do. Francis also invents a "personal advantage" motive test that appears nowhere in the text. The biblical test is whether the prophecy came to pass, not what the prophet's motive was. Exempting Branham from this test inverts the purpose of the passage and creates a category of untestable prophets that Scripture nowhere supports.

Argument 18c: The Deuteronomy 18:22 Goalpost Marathon

THE PATTERN:

Across his series, Francis deploys no fewer than seven distinct defenses against the application of Deuteronomy 18:22 to William Branham. These defenses are mutually inconsistent, shift without acknowledgment, and collectively reveal a pattern of goalpost-moving designed to make Branham unfalsifiable.

Defense 1: Dismissal.

"ALL THEY KNOW IS Deuteronomy 18 and um mark a prophet whose word doesn't come true. That's all you know. And yet you don't go to the entire Bible" ([26:18–26:28]). Francis begins by dismissing critics as ignorant, as if knowing the biblical test for prophets is somehow a weakness.

Defense 2: The "Canaanite Prophets" Claim.

"It was there because they told the Lord told Israel to not listen to prophets that were going to be in Canaan... who spoke in the name of other gods" ([44:12–45:32]). Francis claims Deuteronomy 18:22 was specifically about pagan prophets. But verse 22 explicitly addresses prophets who speak "in the name of the LORD" — the exact opposite.

Defense 3: The Invented "Motive Test."

Francis adds that the passage addresses prophets who "used their gift to speak things advantageously to them for their own benefit" ([44:12–45:32]). This phrase appears nowhere in Deuteronomy 18. Francis has invented a test that the text does not contain.

Defense 4: The "Don't Be Afraid" Minimization.

"It doesn't say you must go around shaming him and destroying his life and destroying his family. It's simply telling you don't pay attention to his prophecy" (Q&A, [47:39–48:02]). Francis reinterprets "thou shalt not be afraid of him" to mean critics should remain silent — a reading that renders the verse purposeless for protecting anyone from false prophets.

Defense 5: The Jonah Defense.

Francis points to Jonah's prophecy that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days, which did not literally occur. "Was he false? Was Jonah giving a false prophecy?" ([49:54–51:40]). But Jonah's prophecy was explicitly conditional (Nineveh repented), while Branham's "Thus Saith the Lord" statements were presented as certain and unconditional. This is a false analogy that we address separately.

Defense 6: The "God Chose Him That Way" Claim.

"God chose brother Branham that particular vessel with all those faults and failures and grammatical issues and and all over the place brain whatever you want to say. He chose him for the exact reason that it is playing out exactly as it should be right now" ([9:15–9:35]). This shifts from defending the prophecies to embracing the failures as divinely intended.

Defense 7: The "I Won't Defend Him" Retreat.

"I'm not going to defend brother Branham's misstatement here or this statement there... I don't have the desire to do that. I don't even have the time to do that. I'm not going to do it" (Part 1, [1:16:24–1:17:02]). Francis ultimately refuses to actually defend the failed prophecies at all — while spending hours defending them.

THE PATTERN EXPOSED:

Notice the trajectory:

1. First, critics are dismissed as ignorant for citing the test.
2. Then, the test is reinterpreted to exclude Branham.
3. Then, new criteria are invented that appear nowhere in the text.
4. Then, the consequences of failing the test are minimized.
5. Then, biblical examples of conditional prophecy are conflated with unconditional ones.
6. Then, the failures are reframed as divinely purposed.
7. Finally, the whole enterprise of defense is abandoned.

This is not a coherent argument. It is a series of fallback positions, each abandoned when it becomes untenable. Taken together, these defenses guarantee that nothing could ever falsify Branham's prophetic status. Failed prophecies don't count because of Jonah. The test doesn't apply because of Canaanite context. Motive matters even though the text doesn't say so. Pointing out failures is forbidden by the "don't be afraid" clause. And ultimately, the failures were meant to happen anyway.

The Question Francis Will Not Answer.

If Deuteronomy 18:22 cannot be applied to Branham for all these reasons, then to whom can it be applied? Can any Christian prophet who claims "Thus Saith the Lord" be evaluated by this standard? Or has Francis constructed a hermeneutical fortress that makes all self-proclaimed prophets in the Christian community immune from biblical testing?

If the test applies to no one, it protects no one. And that is precisely the opposite of its purpose.

THE CONCESSION HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Step back and consider what Francis is actually doing in this extended attack on Deuteronomy 18:22. He is not defending Branham's prophecies. He is attacking the biblical standard for evaluating them.

This is an extraordinary implicit admission.

If Branham's "Thus Saith the Lord" prophecies had actually come to pass, Francis would have a simple and devastating response to critics: "You say Branham failed the test? Here is the brown bear that was killed. Here is the documentation of Donny Morton's healing. Here is the evidence that the tent vision was fulfilled. Here is the proof that India converted to Christianity. The prophecies came true. Deuteronomy 18:22 vindicates him." But Francis cannot say this. He cannot point to fulfillment because there is no fulfillment to point to. The brown bear was never killed. Donny Morton died. The tent vision never materialized. India did not convert. These are not matters of interpretation — they are matters of historical fact.

And so Francis is left with only one option: invalidate the test itself.

Think about what this means. Francis spends hours across his series attacking, reinterpreting, minimizing, and ultimately dismissing the very biblical standard God gave for identifying false prophets. He claims the test was only for Canaanite prophets. He invents motive requirements that appear nowhere in the text. He argues that "don't be afraid" means "don't identify publicly." He points to Jonah as if conditional prophecy explains unconditional failure. He suggests the failures were divinely intended.

All of this elaborate hermeneutical maneuvering exists for one reason: the prophecies failed, and Francis knows it. If Francis believed the prophecies had been fulfilled, he would not need to attack the test. He would embrace it. He would say, "Deuteronomy 18:22 is exactly the standard we should use — and Branham passes with flying colors." The fact that he instead devotes enormous energy to invalidating, limiting, reinterpreting, and ultimately dismissing the biblical standard is the clearest possible admission that Branham does not meet it.

Consider the alternative. Imagine a defense attorney who, instead of presenting evidence of his client's innocence, spends the entire trial arguing that the law against murder is unconstitutional, that the definition of "murder" is culturally conditioned, that witnesses shouldn't be trusted, and that even if his client did kill someone, it was divinely ordained. What would you conclude about that attorney's confidence in his client's innocence?

Francis is that attorney. His relentless attack on Deuteronomy 18:22 is not a sign of confidence — it is a sign of desperation. It is the defense you mount when you cannot mount the obvious defense. It is what you do when the prophecies failed and you have no answer.

The question critics are asking is simple: Did Branham's "Thus Saith the Lord" prophecies come to pass? The answer Francis gives is telling: Let me explain why that question shouldn't be asked.

This is not a defense of Branham. It is a confession dressed as apologetics.

> Fallacy Identified: Moving the Goalposts / Unfalsifiability.

Francis deploys multiple, mutually inconsistent defenses against Deuteronomy 18:22 without acknowledging the shifts or contradictions. Each defense is abandoned for a new one when challenged. The cumulative effect is to make Branham's prophetic claims unfalsifiable — no evidence could ever demonstrate failure, because Francis has preemptively disqualified every form of evidence. This is not biblical interpretation. It is special pleading dressed in scriptural language.

> The Implicit Concession:

Francis's elaborate attack on the biblical standard is itself an admission that Branham fails that standard. If the prophecies had been fulfilled, Francis would triumphantly point to their fulfillment rather than laboring to invalidate the test. His strategy reveals what he cannot say directly: the prophecies failed, and there is no honest way to defend them.

Argument 19: The Biblical Difficulties Barrage

THE CLAIM:

From [54:14] to [1:05:46], Francis presents a rapid series of Bible passages he claims are equally problematic:

1. Matthew 16:28 ([54:16–55:07]): "There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." Francis asks how anti-Branham people explain this.
2. 1 John 2:18 ([56:01–58:05]): "Little children, it is the last time." Francis asks: "Was John a liar? Was he a false prophet?"
3. John 1:18 ([59:01–1:00:00]): "No man hath seen God at any time" — yet Jacob, Moses, and Manoah claimed to see God. Francis asks why we don't call John a "liar" for this.
4. Matthew 12:40 ([1:00:30–1:04:17]): Three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Francis claims: "There is no Christian on earth today who can sufficiently explain Matthew 12:40 to an atheist" ([1:01:17–1:01:26]). He says: "You anti William Branham people, you cannot explain this. I know you can't because I've tried you already" ([1:04:10–1:04:14]).

REBUTTAL:

This Entire Section Is a Red Herring. None of these passages have anything to do with whether William Branham's specific claims are true. The question is not "can you explain every difficult Bible passage to an atheist?" The question is: "Did William Branham make 'Thus Saith the Lord' prophecies that did not come to pass?" The answer is yes — the brown bear, Donny Morton, the India crusade, and others. Throwing Matthew 12:40 at a critic of Branham does not change that fact.

Each Passage Has Well-Established Scholarly Interpretations:

• Matthew 16:28 is widely understood as referring to the Transfiguration (which occurs immediately after in Matthew 17), where Peter, James, and John literally saw Christ in glorified form. Many scholars also understand it as a reference to Christ's coming in judgment on Jerusalem in AD 70. These are not "spins" — they are mainstream biblical scholarship going back centuries.
• 1 John 2:18 ("it is the last time") uses eschatological language common in the New Testament. The "last days" began with Christ's first coming (Acts 2:17, Hebrews 1:2). John was not predicting an imminent end of the world — he was describing the current dispensation. Again, this is standard biblical interpretation.
• John 1:18 ("no man hath seen God") is a theological statement about seeing God's full essence. The Old Testament theophanies were partial manifestations. This tension is discussed in virtually every commentary on John. It is not an error — it is a theological distinction.
• Matthew 12:40 (three days and three nights) is explained by the Jewish method of counting days, where any part of a day counts as a full day. Friday, Saturday, Sunday = three days by inclusive reckoning. Again, this is standard scholarship, not exotic interpretation.

But here is the critical point: even if none of these passages could be explained, it would not validate Branham's claims. Problems in the Bible do not make Branham a true prophet. This is textbook whataboutism.

The "We Know the Answer Because of the Message" Claim.

Francis repeatedly says: "We know the answer to all these things because of the message" ([54:52–55:03]) and "We know the answer... because we are in the message" ([59:58–1:00:00]). But he never actually provides the answers. He teases secret knowledge available only to Message believers — particularly regarding the seventh seal — but offers no substance. This is a classic appeal to mystery: "I have answers you don't, but I won't tell you what they are."

> Fallacy Identified: Tu Quoque (Whataboutism) / Red Herring / Gish Gallop.

Flooding the conversation with Bible difficulties — none of which are relevant to whether Branham's claims are true — is a deflection technique. Even if every one of these passages were genuinely irresolvable, it would not move the needle on whether Branham's "Thus Saith the Lord" prophecies failed or whether his stories changed over time.

Furthermore, rapidly presenting multiple challenges without allowing time for response is a textbook Gish Gallop.

The Robert Collins Challenge — And Its Exquisite Irony

At [1:05:24–1:05:46], Francis escalates the whataboutism to its fullest expression: "Go read the book 100 False Bible Prophecies by Robert Collins. Go have your faith tested before you come and lecture us about inconsistencies and testing prophets with evidence. Go read it. I've read it. Okay, I'm good with it."

This is a fascinating moment — and not for the reasons Francis intends.

The Argument Is Still Whataboutism.

Even if Robert Collins had identified 100 genuinely irresolvable problems in the Bible, it would not validate a single one of Branham's failed "Thus Saith the Lord" prophecies. Two texts having problems does not make either text true.

This is elementary logic.

The Categories Are Different.

Biblical "difficulties" typically involve interpretation, translation, genre conventions, ancient Near Eastern context, manuscript transmission, or theological paradox. Scholars have engaged these questions for centuries, producing libraries of careful analysis. Branham's failures are not interpretive puzzles — they are straightforward factual claims with verifiable outcomes. "Thus Saith the Lord, this brown bear will kill you" is not a genre question. The bear was either killed or it wasn't. (It wasn't.) "Thus Saith the Lord, Donny Morton will be healed" is not a manuscript variant. Morton either lived or died. (He died.) These are not the same category of problem.

The Irony Is Devastating.

Notice what Francis reveals in this challenge: "I've read it. Okay, I'm good with it."

Francis read Robert Collins. He engaged with the atheist critique of Scripture. He examined the evidence, weighed it, and reached a conclusion. He did not say, "I refuse to read atheist material because I already know what I believe." He did not say, "Only people with the Holy Ghost can evaluate the Bible, so Collins's research is invalid." He did not say, "Reading critical material about Scripture is something nobody in his right mind would do."

He read it. He's "good with it."

Yet this is the same Francis who tells Message believers: "I already know what I believe and I don't need to go and prove myself and my faith wrong with anything" ([10:33–10:43]). The same Francis who says examining evidence against Branham is something "nobody in his right mind" would do. The same Francis who spends three videos telling young people not to read critical websites, not to engage with documented evidence, not to examine the claims for themselves.

The double standard is breathtaking. When atheists challenge the Bible, Francis rises to the occasion — he reads the book, evaluates the arguments, and emerges confident. When critics challenge Branham with documented evidence, Francis tells his audience to close their eyes, plug their ears, and refuse to look.

Why the difference? If Francis's faith in Scripture can survive engagement with Robert Collins, why can't Message believers' faith survive engagement with Believe the Sign? If examining challenges strengthens faith (as Francis's example demonstrates), why is examining challenges to Branham forbidden?

The answer, of course, is that Francis knows the difference between a defensible position and an indefensible one. Scripture has two thousand years of scholarly engagement, and it has survived. Branham's specific claims — the brown bear, Donny Morton, the India crusade, the Municipal Bridge — have no such defense. Francis read Collins because he knew he could answer Collins. He forbids reading critical material about Branham because he knows he cannot answer it. His own example condemns his own advice.

Argument 20: "Were You There?" — The Appeal to Ignorance

THE CLAIM:

At [51:09–51:42], Francis challenges critics: "Were you there in the time of the prophet to tell me literal, time bound, and testable? Were you there as a personal and actual witness of the things that took place on those stages when those healing lines were coming through, when those prophecies were made? Do you know, were you there?"

REBUTTAL:

This Argument Destroys All of History.

Were you there when George Washington crossed the Delaware? Were you there when Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door? Were you there when Jesus was crucified? By this standard, we can know nothing about the past. This is not a serious argument — it is an appeal to ignorance that, if applied consistently, would invalidate the Bible itself, since no living person was "there" for any biblical event.

We Don't Need to Have Been There.

The entire discipline of history operates on documentary evidence, records, and testimony. Branham's own sermons were recorded. His statements are preserved on tape. When he said one thing in 1952 and a different thing in 1963, we do not need to have been "there" — we have the recordings. When he declared "Thus Saith the Lord" about the brown bear or Donny Morton's healing and those prophecies failed, we do not need to have been "there" — we have the documented outcomes. Francis's Own Argument Requires "Not Being There." Francis himself was born in 1975 (as he states at [1:46:14]). He was not "there" for any of Branham's ministry. By his own standard, he has no authority to testify about what happened in those healing lines either. He believes based on testimony and recordings — exactly the same sources the critics use.

> Fallacy Identified: Appeal to Ignorance / Self-Refuting Argument.

"Were you there?" is an argument that, if valid, would disqualify Francis's own defense as much as any criticism.

Argument 21: Dismissing Evidence Because Witnesses "Don't Have the Holy Ghost"

THE CLAIM:

At [45:41–46:54], Francis argues: "What we have now is after the fact internet surfers and researchers of information who collect and report things reported by people who did not have the Holy Ghost. Are we judging prophets today by witnesses and newspaper articles from people who didn't have the Holy Ghost?" ([46:02–46:10]). He later states: "Why would I, who has the Holy Ghost, trust to report and fact check a prophet with people who don't?" ([48:26–49:02]).

REBUTTAL:

This Is the Genetic Fallacy in Its Purest Form.

The genetic fallacy occurs when you dismiss information based on its source rather than its content. A newspaper report that records the number of deaths during a bridge construction is either accurate or inaccurate — the reporter's spiritual condition is completely irrelevant to whether the number is correct.

=====By This Standard, All Secular History Is Invalid.=====The historians who recorded the dates of the Roman Empire, the battles of the Crusades, the discovery of the Americas — most were not Spirit-filled Christians by any evangelical definition. If we can only trust testimony from people who "have the Holy Ghost," then we must discard virtually all of recorded human history. This is absurd on its face.

The Bible Itself Relies on Secular Sources.

Luke's Gospel opens by explaining that he "had perfect understanding of all things from the very first" through investigation and eyewitness testimony (Luke 1:3). He was a historian collecting accounts. Acts records interactions with Roman governors, secular court proceedings, and pagan witnesses. The Bible does not require that all witnesses be Spirit-filled before their testimony can be evaluated.

The Circular Trap.

Francis is essentially saying: only people who already believe Branham (and therefore "have the Holy Ghost" in his framework) are qualified to evaluate Branham's claims. This is a closed loop. It is identical to saying "only members of our group are allowed to investigate whether our group's claims are true." No honest inquiry can function under this standard.

> Fallacy Identified: Genetic Fallacy / Circular Reasoning.

Dismissing factual evidence based on the spiritual status of the source, rather than the accuracy of the content, is a textbook genetic fallacy. Requiring belief as a precondition for evaluation is circular reasoning.

Argument 22: The Bridge Scandal

THE CLAIM:

At [1:46:56–1:48:23], Francis briefly mentions the bridge death toll discrepancy, admitting: "There's this whole thing about the bridge scandal. I haven't, you know, read so much about it... I don't know why what Brother Branham saw, why he said those things. I don't know what happened. I just don't know and I cannot corroborate anything and I don't wish to."

He then pivots to arguing that newspapers are unreliable, citing apartheid-era South Africa where deaths of non-white construction workers went unreported ([1:47:36–1:48:11]). He concludes: "I'm telling you why I don't trust people who report things because there's always an agenda. We know the media is corrupt" ([1:48:08–1:48:16]).

REBUTTAL:

The Admission Is More Damaging Than the Defense.

Francis says, regarding a core factual claim of Branham's ministry, "I don't know what happened. I just don't know and I cannot corroborate anything and I don't wish to." This is a pastor telling his flock, in effect: "I don't know if this foundational claim is true, I can't verify it, and I don't want to try." And he is asking young people to stake their spiritual lives on this?

The Apartheid Analogy Is Irrelevant.

The fact that some deaths went unreported in apartheid South Africa has nothing to do with whether deaths were accurately reported in Jeffersonville, Indiana. This is a non sequitur. Municipal records in 1920s–1930s America are well-documented and accessible. Francis has no evidence that those specific records are corrupt — he simply assumes they might be because it is convenient.

"I Don't Wish To" Is the Problem.

This is not a man who investigated and reached a different conclusion. This is a man who explicitly refuses to investigate. If the bridge claim is true, investigation would confirm it. If it is false, investigation would reveal it. The only reason to refuse to investigate is if you suspect you will not like what you find.

> Fallacy Identified: Willful Ignorance / Red Herring.

Refusing to examine evidence and then pointing to unrelated examples of media corruption in a different country, decade, and context is not a defense — it is evasion.

Argument 23: The Luther and Wesley Parallel

THE CLAIM:

At [1:10:34–1:17:05], Francis presents Martin Luther and John Wesley as parallel cases. He details Luther's anti-semitism — writing hateful treatises against the Jews, influencing the persecution of Jewish people, and being invoked by Hitler ([1:10:48–1:11:50]). He describes Wesley's romantic failures, his wife's abuse of him, and accusations of plagiarism ([1:12:49–1:14:07]).

He concludes: "No matter what happened in John Wesley's personal life, I can look past that. I can look at what he did. I can look at what God achieved in his ministry. I can look past the anti-semitism of Martin Luther and look at what he did to bring people out of the clutches of the Catholic Church" ([1:16:19–1:16:40]).

REBUTTAL:

The Comparison Is Fundamentally Flawed.

Nobody claims Martin Luther was an infallible prophet who received direct revelation from God that must be obeyed. Nobody claims John Wesley was Malachi 4:5–6. Luther and Wesley are respected as reformers and teachers — but Protestantism does not collapse if Luther was wrong about the Jews (he was), or if Wesley had personal failures (he did). Their authority rests in their teaching pointing back to Scripture, not in claims of personal prophetic infallibility.

William Branham's movement, by contrast, positions him as the end-time prophet whose word carries quasi-scriptural authority. When your entire movement rests on one man being a uniquely anointed prophet of God, the accuracy and integrity of that man's specific claims matters in a way it does not for Luther or Wesley.

Luther's Anti-Semitism IS Condemned.

Francis presents Luther's anti-semitism as though critics of Branham would hypocritically overlook it. In reality, virtually every Lutheran denomination and Protestant scholar today openly condemns Luther's writings on the Jews. The Lutheran World Federation has formally repudiated them. This is the opposite of what the Message does with Branham's problems — where the typical response is not honest reckoning but excuse-making.

The Actual Parallel Proves the Critic's Point.

If we can acknowledge that Luther was a great reformer and also that his anti-semitism was evil — if we can hold both truths simultaneously — then why can't Message believers acknowledge that Branham may have been used by God in some ways and also that he made false prophetic claims? The fact that Francis presents this as an argument for uncritical loyalty to Branham, rather than a model for honest evaluation, reveals the problem.

> Fallacy Identified: False Equivalence / Tu Quoque.

Comparing a reformer's moral failings to a prophet's factually false predictions conflates two entirely different categories of criticism. The standard for "did he predict something correctly?" is entirely different from "was he a good person?"

Argument 24: The Plagiarism Defense

THE CLAIM:

At [1:46:50–2:00:04], Francis addresses the plagiarism accusation at length. He argues that Branham openly cited Clarence Larkin and others: "I've read many of their commentaries... I'm very grateful to Mr. Smith of the Adventist Church for his views. I'm very grateful to Dr. Larkin" (quoting Branham, [1:47:13–1:47:30]). He says this was "public knowledge" in Branham's day and that theologians around him "knew the things that were said came from Clarence Larkin" ([1:49:23–1:49:32]).

Francis asks: "Why were you shocked and disturbed that Brother Branham preached from the writings of Clarence Larkin and many others? You poor thing" ([1:49:02–1:49:11]). He frames the plagiarism issue as ignorance on the part of those who didn't study deeply enough: "I was never shocked because I've studied these books myself when I was 16" ([1:55:18–1:55:27]).

REBUTTAL:

The Problem Is Not "Using Sources"

It Is Claiming Divine Revelation. No one objects to a preacher reading Clarence Larkin and finding it helpful. The problem is when a preacher presents ideas word-for-word from another man's book and frames them as direct divine revelation — as something "the angel showed him." Francis himself acknowledges this: he says Branham's approach was "I am to tie up the loose ends left by all these men" ([1:55:09–1:55:15]).

If Branham said "I studied Larkin and here's what I learned," that would be scholarship. But when he says something nearly word-for-word from Larkin's Dispensational Truth and frames the context as direct angelic revelation, that is not "tying up loose ends" — that is misrepresenting the source of one's teaching. Every seminary student in the world understands this distinction.

"Public Knowledge" Does Not Equal Honest Attribution.

Francis argues that theologians like Lee Vayle knew where the material came from, so it wasn't deceptive. But the audience for these sermons was not primarily theologians — it was ordinary congregants who were told the prophet was receiving direct revelation. If the inner circle knew but the general audience didn't, that makes the problem worse, not better. It means there was a two-tier system of knowledge: insiders who knew the real sources, and ordinary believers who were led to believe it was all divinely revealed.

Francis's Own Experience Proves the Problem.

Francis says he studied Larkin at 16 because his father directed him to. He asks why other ministers are "suddenly shocked." But the fact that ministers are leaving over this demonstrates that the vast majority of Message believers did not know. Francis grew up in an unusually educated Message family. The typical Message believer was told Branham received everything by divine revelation. Their shock is not evidence of their ignorance — it is evidence that they were misled.

> Fallacy Identified: Moving the Goalposts / Minimization.

Shifting from "he received divine revelation" to "everybody knew he read Larkin" is moving the goalposts. The claim was divine origin. The reality was published books. Calling the resulting disillusionment "ignorance" blames the victim.

Argument 25: The 1977 Prediction Defense (Not a Prophecy)

THE CLAIM:

At [1:39:47–1:46:44], Francis addresses the 1977 prediction directly. He quotes Branham: "I predict, I do not prophesy, but as a student of the Bible, I predict that 1977 will be the ending of... the ushering of the millennium" ([1:39:57–1:40:07]). He says: "I could try and explain and defend him and say, 'Well, the ushering in of the millennium means this'... But there isn't any point, is there?" ([1:40:31–1:40:42]).

Francis then offers his real defense: comparing Branham to Peter. He reads 1 Peter 4:7: "But the end of all things is at hand. Be you therefore sober and watch unto prayer" ([1:41:34–1:41:42]). He says: "This is like the prophet having a feeling that 1977 is going to be whatever it is" ([1:41:46–1:41:53]). He argues that Peter believed the end was coming in his day, was wrong, and yet was inspired by God to create urgency. He asks: "Was he here speaking presumptuously, or did God inspire him? The same way he inspired Jonah and Peter?" ([1:40:48–1:40:55]).

REBUTTAL:

A Necessary Distinction.

It should be noted that the 1977 statement was explicitly hedged by Branham as a "prediction" rather than a prophecy — and he acknowledged the distinction himself. This is not the same category as his "Thus Saith the Lord" prophecies (the brown bear, Donny Morton, the India crusade) which failed without any such hedging. The 1977 prediction is therefore less damning than the actual "Thus Saith the Lord" failures. Nevertheless, since Francis raises it, it deserves a response.

Francis Tacitly Concedes the Prediction Failed. Notice his language:

"There isn't any point" in trying to explain it away. He doesn't claim it was fulfilled. He doesn't claim it was misunderstood. He simply gives up defending it on its merits and pivots to a different argument. This is significant — even Branham's defenders cannot defend this prediction.

Peter's Statement Is Not Comparable to Branham's.

There are critical differences:

1. Peter gave no date. He said "the end of all things is at hand" — a general statement of imminence. Branham specified 1977.
2. Peter did not say "I predict." His statement was pastoral encouragement to sober living. Branham explicitly framed his as a prediction.
3. Peter's statement still functions theologically. Christians have always understood "at hand" as describing the current dispensation's relationship to the end times. Branham's prediction had a specific expiration date — and it expired.

The difference between "the end is near, so live soberly" and "I predict 1977 will be the end" is the difference between pastoral exhortation and a testable prediction. One is timeless; the other has a timestamp.

"Did God Inspire Him?" - The Implications.

Francis suggests God may have "inspired" Branham to make a prediction He knew was false, just as He inspired Peter's urgency. But this makes God the author of deception — a claim Francis himself would reject (1 Corinthians 14:33: "God is not the author of confusion"). If God inspired Branham to say 1977, knowing it was false, then God deliberately misled thousands of people who sold their homes, quit their jobs, and rearranged their lives based on that prediction. This is not the God of the Bible. This is theological gaslighting.

The Ananias and Sapphira Comparison Is Alarming.

At [1:45:04–1:45:31], Francis cites Ananias and Sapphira dying for not selling their belongings as evidence that God was behind the disciples' urgency. He then draws a parallel to Message believers who "sold their stuff, sold their houses and their cars" ([1:45:43–1:45:54]) based on the 1977 prediction. But he frames this as potentially God-ordained — suggesting that people who suffered real financial ruin because of a false prediction were somehow participating in God's plan. This is not wisdom. It is an attempt to spiritualize the real-world damage caused by a failed prediction.

> Fallacy Identified: False Analogy / Special Pleading.

Equating Peter's undated pastoral exhortation with Branham's dated prediction treats fundamentally different statements as equivalent. Suggesting God "inspired" a known falsehood to create urgency is special pleading that could justify any failed prediction by any religious leader.

Argument 26: The "Turncoat" Attack

THE CLAIM:

In the most emotionally charged section of the video ([2:00:24–2:06:13]), Francis turns on those who have left the Message. He calls them "turncoats eating humble pie" ([2:00:30–2:00:34]). He accuses them of being the ones who created the very Branhamism they now criticize: "These elders and older people who are leaving the message now after being in it for many years are the ones who caused all this ruckus and who are responsible for all the Branhamism that exists" ([2:01:21–2:01:36]).

He describes them as people who "forced us to listen to their stories of William Branham... gave testimonies... cried tears... went around the world passing out pictures of a cloud" ([2:01:52–2:02:19]). He then accuses them of financial exploitation: "After benefiting financially from his name, taking tithes and offerings, educating their children with that money, putting them through colleges and universities, setting themselves up financially... they think now is finally time for them to tell us the truth" ([2:03:46–2:04:12]).

He concludes with a quote: "Never trust a turncoat. The feeling behind it was if they betrayed their side once, they'll betray the next side they choose" ([2:04:43–2:04:54]).

REBUTTAL:

This Is an Ad Hominem Attack, Not an Argument.

The question is not whether the people who left were previously overzealous. The question is whether the evidence they now present is accurate. If a former true-believer says "I promoted something I now realize was false, and here's the evidence that convinced me," attacking their past behavior does not address the evidence. The character of the messenger does not determine the truth of the message — a principle Francis himself argues elsewhere (Argument 16: the word matters more than the vessel).

The "They Created Branhamism" Accusation Is Victim-Blaming.

Francis blames those who left for having propagated Branhamism — but they did so because they genuinely believed. When they discovered problems, they changed their position. That is not betrayal. That is intellectual honesty. Would Francis prefer they discovered problems and stayed silent? Would he prefer they continued propagating what they now believe to be false? People who change their mind when confronted with evidence are not "turncoats" — they are doing exactly what honest people are supposed to do.

The Financial Accusation Is Manipulative.

Francis accuses those who left of having "benefited financially" from the Message and then leaving. But by this logic, no one who has ever worked in ministry could ever change their theological position without being accused of financial dishonesty. Do pastors who leave Catholicism for Protestantism deserve the same accusation? Do Baptist pastors who become non-denominational? This is a silencing tactic designed to make the cost of leaving so reputationally devastating that people stay out of fear rather than conviction.

"Never Trust a Turncoat" Is a Thought-Stopping Cliché.

This phrase — which Francis says comes from the Middle Ages and the Civil War ([2:04:43]) — is designed to preemptively discredit anyone who changes their mind. But in the context of religious belief, "turncoat" language is exactly what cults use to prevent defection. Healthy organizations do not need to tell members that anyone who leaves is untrustworthy. Truth does not need loyalty oaths.

> Fallacy Identified: Ad Hominem / Poisoning the Well / Genetic Fallacy.

Attacking the character, history, and motivations of those who left — rather than the evidence they present — is textbook ad hominem. The "turncoat" framing poisons the well against anyone who might leave in the future.

Argument 27: The 1963 Cloud Defense

THE CLAIM:

At [1:18:46–1:23:24], Francis addresses the supernatural cloud. Notably, he agrees with critics that the cloud is not "public vindication": "The cloud is not public vindication. It's not. I agree. Many message people made it that way. It's not. It's just stupidity to think that it's public vindication" ([1:19:41–1:19:55]). He says Message believers believe in it solely "because the prophet said it and we believe the prophet's word. That's it" ([1:20:03–1:20:07]). He then asks: if God could use a donkey to talk to Balaam and a pillar of cloud to veil Himself, couldn't He use "a formation of gases fired from a rocket" to vindicate something to His prophet? ([1:22:02–1:22:16]).

REBUTTAL:

This Is a Significant Concession.

Francis admits the cloud is not public vindication — something many Message leaders have promoted for decades. He calls using it as public proof "stupidity." This is honest, and credit where it is due. But it raises a question: if a core piece of evidence promoted by the Message movement for 60 years is now admitted to be "stupidity," what else might fall into the same category upon honest examination?

"We Believe Because the Prophet Said It" Is Circular Reasoning.

Francis's defense of the cloud boils down to: we believe the cloud was supernatural because Branham said so, and we believe Branham because he's a prophet. But the question being debated is whether Branham was a reliable prophet. Using his claims as evidence for his own reliability is the definition of circular reasoning.

The Rocket Exhaust Defense Is Self-Undermining.

Francis suggests God could have used rocket exhaust to create a sign for the prophet. Perhaps — but if the cloud was caused by rocket exhaust (which it was — this is documented), then calling it a supernatural cloud in sermons is at minimum misleading. The defense has shifted from "it was a supernatural cloud" to "maybe God used a natural cloud supernaturally" — which is unfalsifiable and could be said about literally anything.

> Fallacy Identified: Circular Reasoning / Unfalsifiable Claim.

"We believe because the prophet said it" presupposes the conclusion. "God could use anything" makes any natural event potentially supernatural, rendering the claim untestable.

Argument 28: The Straw Man — "Can You Say No Souls Were Saved?"

THE CLAIM:

At [1:23:24–1:25:06], Francis challenges: "Can you say that without a shadow of doubt, not even 1% of doubt, that no souls were ever saved under William Branham's ministry?" ([1:23:37–1:23:46]). He presses: "Can you say that no souls, not a single soul was led to Christ or healed under Brother Branham's ministry?" ([1:24:04–1:24:16]).

REBUTTAL:

No Serious Critic Makes This Claim.

This is a textbook straw man. No one — not Believe the Sign, not Seek Ye the Truth, not any prominent critic of the Message — claims that zero souls were saved through Branham's ministry. The argument has never been "Branham did no good." The argument is: "Branham made specific claims that are demonstrably false, and his movement has characteristics of a cult."

These are entirely compatible positions. God has used flawed people and even false messages to bring people to genuine salvation. People have come to Christ through ministries that were later exposed as fraudulent. The existence of genuine conversions does not validate every claim a minister made.

The Logic Is Absurd If Applied Consistently.

By Francis's reasoning, any ministry that ever produced a conversion is immune from criticism. Jim Jones led people to faith before Jonestown. The Catholic Church during the Crusades also produced genuine believers. Does that mean the Crusades were justified? Does that mean Jim Jones was a true prophet? Of course not. The fruit of some conversions does not retroactively validate everything else.

> Fallacy Identified: Straw Man / Non Sequitur.

No critic claims zero souls were saved. And the existence of genuine conversions does not validate false prophetic claims.

Argument 29: "Judge by Fruit" Deflection

THE CLAIM:

At [1:29:43–1:32:39], Francis responds to the argument that the Message should be judged by its fruit (patterns of abuse across churches). He argues: "By this argument, Christianity has 2,000 years of history that has undesirable fruit all over the world. And therefore, Christianity will be the most false of all religions" ([1:30:56–1:31:10]). He points to the Bible being used to defend slavery, the Crusades, and apartheid, and asks: "Which church system in the world is immune from church scandals, abusive ministers, false prophets, false teachers?" ([1:32:07–1:32:20]).

REBUTTAL:

The Scale and Consistency Matter.

It is true that bad actors exist in every religious tradition. But when a pattern of controlling, legalistic, abusive behavior occurs across Message churches on multiple continents, spanning decades, and Message believers themselves (including Francis) acknowledge the pattern — that is not random bad actors. That is a systemic problem flowing from the teachings themselves.

Christianity as a whole contains thousands of denominations with vastly different cultures. The Message is a single movement following one man's teachings. When the same patterns of control emerge across the movement, the common denominator is the teaching, not random chance.

Francis Himself Has Already Identified the Problem.

In Part 1, Francis acknowledged that some Message churches "without a doubt" are "just cults." He admitted the abusive behavior is real. In this very video, he says "it is true there is a lot of Branhamism and cultish behavior among message churches" ([2:00:34–2:00:37]). If the founder's teachings consistently produce the same dysfunctional patterns across diverse cultures, the teachings themselves deserve scrutiny — not just the individuals who implement them.

If the "Fruits" Argument Is Silly, Why Doesn't Francis Call Out the Bad Fruit?

This is the critical question Francis never answers. If judging by fruit is illegitimate — if we cannot draw conclusions from the pattern of abuse, legalism, and cover-ups across Message churches — then Francis has no obligation to address these problems. But if the problems are real and do matter, then judging by fruit is exactly what Scripture commands, and Francis's dismissal is evasion.

Here is the test:

Does Francis publicly call out the abuse and legalism in Message churches? Does he name names? Does he hold Message ministers to a higher standard than he holds denominational churches? Does he distance himself from those credibly accused of serious misconduct?

The answer is no.

The Isaac Noriega Problem.

Consider Francis's association with Pastor Isaac Noriega of Golden Dawn Tabernacle in Arizona — a minister Francis has shared platforms with and whose church represents a significant Message congregation. In June 2025, Isaac Noriega was criminally indicted on charges of failure to report child abuse — accused of covering up the abuse of a minor rather than reporting it to authorities as required by law. This was not a mere accusation from critics; it was a grand jury indictment.

If Francis genuinely believed that bad fruit should be called out, if he genuinely believed that abuse in churches is a serious problem, if he genuinely believed that Message ministers should be held to a high standard — this would be an obvious case to address. A Message pastor criminally charged with covering up child abuse is precisely the kind of "fruit" that demands response.

Francis's silence is deafening.

His continued association with figures like Noriega, his refusal to publicly distance himself from ministers credibly accused of serious misconduct, his dismissal of the "fruits" argument as "silly" and "pathetic reasoning" — all of this reveals that he is not interested in holding the Message to a higher standard. He is interested in deflecting criticism.

Silence Is Complicity.

When Francis dismisses critics who point to patterns of abuse as engaging in "pathetic reasoning," while simultaneously refusing to call out the abuse himself, he is not neutral. He is providing cover. He is telling Message believers that the documented problems do not matter, that pointing them out is illegitimate, and that they should ignore the evidence.

This is not pastoral care. This is institutional protection at the expense of victims.

A minister who genuinely cared about the "fruit" problem would say: "Yes, there are serious problems in some Message churches. Yes, I condemn abuse and cover-ups. Yes, ministers who fail to report child abuse should face consequences. Let me name the problems so we can address them." Francis does the opposite. He tells his audience that raising these concerns is "silly," then moves on without addressing a single specific case.

By his own standard — or lack thereof — Francis has revealed whose side he is on. It is not the side of the victims.

> Fallacy Identified: Whataboutism / False Equivalence.

The existence of problems in other religious traditions does not address whether the Message's specific teachings produce specific patterns of harm. Furthermore, dismissing the "fruits" argument while simultaneously refusing to address documented abuse is not neutrality — it is complicity.

FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS WITH PART 2

1. The Anti-Evidence Epistemology Is Self-Destructive

The single most important statement in this video is: "Faith is absolutely in spite of evidence." This is not just a bad argument — it is an epistemological framework that, if adopted, makes discernment impossible. If evidence can never count against what you believe, you can never discover you are wrong about anything. Every cult, every false religion, every con artist in history has relied on exactly this principle: "Don't look at the evidence; just believe." The Bible explicitly rejects this approach (1 Thessalonians 5:21, 1 John 4:1, Acts 17:11).

2. The Entire Video Is Organized Around Deflection

Not a single argument in Part 2 directly addresses the documented evidence against Branham's claims. Instead, every argument follows the same pattern: "What about the Bible?" "What about Luther?" "What about Peter?" "Were you there?" "Can you explain Matthew 12:40?" These are all deflections. The question on the table — "Did Branham make specific, testable claims that turned out to be false?" — remains unanswered after two-plus hours of video.

3. The Turncoat Rhetoric Reveals the Movement's Character

The extended attack on those who have left the Message is perhaps the most revealing section of the video. In a healthy religious community, when members leave after discovering problems, the response is self-examination: "What did we get wrong? How can we do better?" In the Message, the response is: "They were never real believers. They created the problems they now complain about. Never trust a turncoat." This is not the response of a community confident in its truth. It is the response of a community that must punish defection to prevent it from spreading.

4. The Appeal to Emotion Is Not Unique to the Message

In his closing remarks ([2:07:29–2:10:02]), Francis paints a beautiful picture of the Message life: "Wholesome marriages, obedient, God-fearing, moral living children, decently dressed women... men who are true headships who can lead their homes with the highest wisdom." This is genuinely moving — and it is not exclusive to the Message. There are Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, non-denominational churches, Pentecostal churches, and house churches all over the world where families live in love, children are raised with integrity, worship is vibrant, and communities are tight-knit. These experiences are the fruit of genuine faith in Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit — not the unique product of following one man's teachings. When Francis presents these blessings as evidence for the Message, he conflates the universal work of the Holy Spirit with the specific claims of William Branham. Millions of Christians worldwide experience everything Francis describes without ever hearing Branham's name.

WHAT ABOUT FULFILLED PROPHECIES?

A complete analysis must acknowledge that Message believers cite numerous fulfilled prophecies as evidence of Branham's prophetic authority — the 1933 visions, various healings, words of knowledge in meetings, and other supernatural occurrences. Intellectual honesty requires addressing this, not ignoring it.

The Batting Average Problem.

The question is not whether Branham made any predictions that came true, but whether his track record meets the biblical standard. Deuteronomy 18:22 does not establish a "batting average" — it does not say "if most of his prophecies come to pass" or "if his successful predictions outweigh his failures." The test is whether prophecies spoken "in the name of the LORD" come to pass. A prophet who says "Thus Saith the Lord" and is wrong even once has spoken presumptuously. The failures documented in this rebuttal — the brown bear, Donny Morton, India, the tent vision, and others — are not ambiguous near-misses. They are explicit "Thus Saith the Lord" statements that simply did not occur.

The Unfalsifiable Fulfillment Problem.

Many claimed fulfillments are vague, symbolic, or unfalsifiable. Consider the 1933 visions:

• The vision of Mussolini's end could be retrofitted to match events after the fact.
• The vision of Hitler's rise was common speculation in 1933 among those watching German politics.
• The "egg-shaped car" is sufficiently vague that any streamlined vehicle could be claimed as fulfillment.
• Some visions in the list have their own documentation problems — the original 1933 account differs from later retellings.

This is not to say no predictions came true, but that the standard of evidence for claimed fulfillments is often far lower than the standard critics are held to for documented failures.

The Real Question.

Even if we granted that some prophecies were genuinely fulfilled, the question remains: does this validate the failed ones? The biblical standard does not work this way. A prophet who accurately predicts ten things but says "Thus Saith the Lord" about an eleventh thing that fails has spoken presumptuously on that eleventh thing. The successes do not retroactively validate the failures. This is why Deuteronomy 18:22 is phrased as it is: "if the thing follow not, nor come to pass" — a single failure demonstrates presumptuous speech.

The Message movement's response to failed prophecies is typically not "he made some mistakes" but rather "he never failed." This is the claim being tested. If Branham never failed, explain the brown bear. Explain Donny Morton. Explain the tent vision. Explain India. The existence of other predictions is not an explanation — it is a deflection.

CONCLUSION

What This Is Really About

Throughout Parts 1 and 2 of this series, Allistair Francis has consistently characterized critics of the Message as enemies — people driven by hate, intellectual arrogance, or spiritual blindness. He has framed the choice as binary: either believe Branham and stay in the Message, or become one of the "anti-Branham" people who live in bitterness and unbelief.

This is a false dichotomy.

The people who run websites like Believe the Sign, the people who make videos explaining why they left, the people who write responses like this one — they are not, by and large, "anti-Branham." They are not motivated by hate. The vast majority of them are simply Christians who examined the evidence, found that certain claims did not hold up, and made the difficult decision to prioritize truth over tradition.

At the end of the day, the purpose is not to tear down William Branham's memory, shame his followers, or destroy anyone's faith. The purpose is far simpler: to return people to the true foundation, which is salvation through Jesus Christ and Him alone. That is the entire point. Not a denomination. Not a prophet. Not a system of teachings about seven seals and church ages. Jesus Christ, and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Millions of Christians around the world live joyful, faithful, Spirit-filled lives without William Branham. Their faith is no less valid, their worship no less genuine, their salvation no less real. If the Message points people to Christ, wonderful — but when the Message becomes the thing that must be believed, when loyalty to Branham's specific claims is treated as essential to salvation, when leaving the Message is equated with leaving Christ, then the Message has become an obstacle to the very gospel it claims to represent.

The Biblical Standard Remains.

Deuteronomy 18:22 gives us a clear test: "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously." This standard is not cruel. It is not "anti-Branham." It is God's own safeguard against deception. And it requires evidence — the very thing Francis tells us to ignore.

To the young people Francis addresses in these videos:

You are not wrong to ask questions. You are not spiritually blind for examining evidence. You are not turncoats for changing your mind when the facts require it. You are doing exactly what the Bereans did, exactly what Paul commanded, and exactly what honest faith demands.

And the God who said "come, let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18) is not afraid of your questions. This document references the timestamped transcript of Allistair Francis's video "Discouraged by the Message and the Prophet — The Message on Trial P2," available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe7L-xxVGcg. All timestamps refer to the video's runtime. Direct quotes are transcribed from the video audio.

Video Transcript

God bless you saints. Uh we certainly are happy to be here with you sharing God's word and uh getting into these subjects is never an easy thing but we are grateful to God that he has given us the opportunity to do so. we realize that it's uh you know closing times and we can see that the world is um in such a state so many things happening in the politics of the world and um the Christian world the religious world and so we appreciate what God has done for us in this time. So uh and we appreciate that we have this cliff in the rock. we have this message that is um just uh beyond amazing. And so we want to speak this evening on um discouraged by the message and the prophet and this is going to be part two and uh so and of course the title is the message on trial. So we like to begin with our scripture reading from John chapter 20 and verse 29-31. So I'm just going to share the screen so you could follow with me. John 20 29-31. And the Bible reads like this. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name. Amen. The Lord add a blessing to his word. So I want to begin with some um introductory statements and uh just to explain what's been going on. So um firstly with all the feedback from last week's service and of course you can imagine with people desiring that we debate the website creators of believe the sign and seeking the truth and all of that and uh I just want to say you know this is the ancient desire in man to see a battle of gladiators and men slaying one another. It's just this enjoyment that people get from seeing people or men go into battle. There is literally no point to a debate between me and any uh anti- message person. Believe me, it's I'm not afraid of uh debate or arguments. I've had plenty of them in my life and I've seen where it goes to. I've had um discussions and conversations with people who have left the message. So I actually know how this will go. You know, they have their minds made up and my faith is rock solid. And so it leads me to ask them questions on the word which they try to answer but cannot really answer because they end up saying things that the prophet taught or backed into a corner and they get defensive. Then they keep insisting that I explain uh the prophets failed prophecies and plagiarism and which they have articles and evidence which I just don't buy into because it doesn't interest me. And when I present them with what atheists say about the Bible and ask them to substantiate, they do everything they can eventually accuse me of do. You know what they do while I ask them those questions is they do exactly what they accuse me of in defending the prophet. So what I'm basically seeing is they're trying to defend the Bible and their faith in the way that they expected me not to defend the message. So it's really quite hypocritical. But they claim because it's the Bible which is greater than the message and that they are allowed to use whatever methods possible and that there's no um um they're shamelessly will will use exactly the same methods of arguing and even worse I would say because because they believe William Brham is a liar, a false prophet, he's trash and much more. And then when they can't win, they go to attacking me and my dad personally, which then causes the debate to break down because I don't even get upset when they do that. I don't respond. I don't re react. And it proves just one thing. They came into a discussion with me prepared to attack me personally and I'm not doing that back to them. And it also shows they went around and investigated me, you know, and uh spoke to reliable people um reliable people who will fabricate and lie about us and um because I don't care for personal attacks and I look past whatever they attack me with and focus on the point. Stay with the point. Stay with the word. It just breaks down. So we focus on the word. So debating people who just love to seek uh to destroy people, to shame, to discredit is just not worth the time and the effort. Okay. Then there was, you know, concern about uh those leaving the message. So apparently it's been said that I'm not targeting the real reasons why people are leaving the message. uh and I was a little confused because how can I accurately know this for each person? How can I know the reason for each person leaving the message? It would just be generalizations. Of course, there are reasons I can give reasons that are biblical because we know that these things have to be they are not just leaving the message people. There are people leaving Christianity in droves. If you go to the churches here in Durban, and I mean Anglican, Presbyterian, uh, Catholic, all kinds of churches, uh, old Orthodox established churches that used to be here for 200 years or more, they're empty. There's nobody there. The churches are being sold and being bought off by Muslims here in Durban City. Um, churches are emptying all over the world. And the only ones that seem to be sustaining very large numbers are those who are extremely liberal, who use worship as entertainment, and who preach a really watered down message. Um, so I just want to make this clear. I was not answering the question of why people are leaving the message. I was answering the concerns of confused young people who are considering leaving the message based on things they read online uh in these websites and uh I was addressing the concerns of parents who have children who are either in the situation or have left the message. I just want to say from the from the uh outset I'm not bothered by the reason that people leave the message at all. We're not trying to get the whole world into the message. People must do as they choose, right? We are not here to promote a message denomination or achieve the greatest or largest church in the world. We know that's not what God wants us to do. So, it's very simple. Let him that is holy be holy still and he that is filthy be filthy still. It's not my words. It's the end of the book of Revelations. That is the prophecy of the end time. So in the last or rather in the last week since last Wednesday's message the first part of this discouraged by the prophet and message I have received all kinds of good messages from believers all over expressing thanks and encouragement but also cries for help. those with cries for help seem to be in dire situations where they are not getting answers from the church leaders or elders or or sometimes parents. And um I just want to say that while I I'm willing to help anybody in need of guidance, I must confess I do not view myself as somebody who has all the answers for you. Neither do I have all the right answers for you. I just have the view or the inspiration God has given me and I'm willing to share that. But I cannot answer every single question or have every answer. It's not just not going to happen or satisfy everybody. I do not see myself as someone with the authority on the word for all message people. I am not doing this for popularity or gain. I have been doing this personally with youth for the last two decades at youth camps, meetings, by telephone and in person. Um, however, we decided to do this last year to really get this going last year when I returned from the USA in Canada. Um because there have been so many reaching out to us and because we became aware that since COVID pandemic lockdowns almost all youth in the message are connected to the internet and social media and I know that doing this online does not bring me any personal gain. In fact, it brings me more pain. Notoriety and infamy is not something I enjoy and nor should anyone enjoy it. I enjoy I enjoyed a quiet peaceful anonymous life under the radar for a very long time in the message. But now because I have children and two adult children who are part of this new generation, I feel that if there is so much that the youth are reading online that is negative, that is against the word, that is against the message, that is against us, that before my time expires, I want to do all I can to put in their space what is on the side of the word to balance the scales. That's all I'm doing, right? Those are my intentions. I don't aim to speak with irrational emotions. Uh, forgive me. I'm South African. We are still getting there to the woke world, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. We are rough around the edges. We we um say it like it is. We sometimes say it like it shouldn't be said. And this is just our makeup here in South Africa. We laugh at ourselves. We laugh at each other. We mock one another. Uh and we love one another at the same time. It's it's craziness, but this is our nation. So, uh I don't I also being that way, I don't want to speak so carefully that I don't offend anybody. I just want to speak from my heart and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. And hey, you know, these people online have called the prophet a liar, a false prophet. They call him trash. They call us cult leaders. Um they call us cult pastors. They call us all kinds of um names. So, you know, if I'm going to say something that's going to be provocative, insulting, or hurtful, well, then they must put on their big boy pants and take it as good as they give it, right? So I've received many comments um you know that were made uh on the YouTube channel that obviously get passed to me and with and others questions. So um and requests to explain particular things that was said against the prophet and the message but it's it's too much to do and I will struggle to have time. I'm just hoping this is the last segment on this series so I can just get back to the book of Genesis uh that we were the series on the book of Genesis. Someone also posted me a video of a brother who has left a message in which I must say he very eloquently and respectfully expressed his thoughts and reasons for leaving the message. I've never met the brother personally, but I was told that this video and several others in this series was responsible for discouraging some young people in that particular church and even cause them to leave. So, you know, I don't feel the leading to dispute the man, but I will certainly address some of the concerns that were addressed in there, which some of it really surprised me to be honest. However, it seems fortunate that someone on the YouTube comments posted a good list of grievances for us to follow. And I like it because it gives us a kind of skeleton with which we can put some flesh around. and um they claimed that these are the core problems with our argument. In other words, the last segment we did on Wednesday um they responded to that and um so I would like to address some of the major controversies once again by not defending them because I believe they were meant to be and that's what you young people need to understand. So you you're discouraged by the prophet and the message because of what you're reading online and because of what you're watching with people while leaving the message. And I'll say it again, God chose brother Brham that particular vessel with all those faults and failures and grammatical issues and and all over the place brain whatever you want to say. He chose him for the exact reason that it is playing out exactly as it should be right now. This is no mistake. God foresaw it. God knew it. God knew what was going to happen. So I'm not going to defend anything that he said or that happened in his life. I am addressing the controversies only in a way to show the wisdom behind it and also that when you uh read the things that they say like I pointed out last week um they don't realize that every accusation they made has been made against Christ, the disciples, the apostles and almost every man of God that spoke the truth. Right? In fact, most of those people throughout the ages, throughout Christianity, people who preached safe on the level uh non-controversial stuff, they just went disappeared into oblivion. Nobody knows anything about them. Very few people even follow um the word that they preached. It's just those people who actually brought the truth were the ones who are constantly brought to the forefront and criticized. So that's what it is. So let's begin with this comment from the YouTube channel which very nicely gives us like I said a skeleton to put flesh around. And I just want to say I don't know the person who wrote this. My comments will not be personal against that person, but it's going to be reacting to the whole because every single thing this person has written is what I've heard from every other person that I've spoken to who's left the message. It's like the same points like as if you're speaking to a, you know, a 7-day Adventist who's going to tell you about the Sabbath. Like they're taught step by step by step by step how to tell you. It's exactly the same thing. It's identical to what you're going to hear from any anti- message person who has been influenced by Believe the Sign and who has taken the time to study the website and fill their head with this knowledge. It's exactly that. So, let's go ahead and share the first part. They say, "Here are the core problems plainly stated. You don't understand because you lack revelation." In other words, they're quoting my statement from last week where Jesus said, "You do not understand. You do not understand my words because you do not even hear my words." Right? So, I said it means you don't understand what I'm saying to you because you lack revelation of what I'm saying to you. And this person is saying it is circular reasoning. It's so funny. Uh this, you know, the Bible is true because the Bible says so. That's circular reasoning. It's exactly what they will say to you. This argument immunizes the message from all criticism. Any disagreement, see now this is like putting words in her mouth. It's really foolish. Any disagreement is defined as spiritual blindness by default. That is not biblical reasoning. Biblical reasoning. Wow. Scripture repeatedly commands believers to test prophets. really a claim that cannot be questioned is not faith, it is insulation. Okay. So um I like the way it's uh how a lot of the message people who leave suddenly become educated on how to argue and so on. It's quite amazing. So these are literally the words of Christ. That's what I said. You don't understand my words even because you cannot hear my words. These this is the words of Christ is Christ using circular reasoning. It is circular reasoning to prove the Bible and Christ by saying the Bible says so. Right? That's what Christians are accused of. These are intellectual arguments that are pointless. No one is immunizing the message from criticiz from criticism. See this is like putting words in our mouth. We are not immunizing the message from all criticism. We welcome criticism but we reserve the right to tell the truth to those who believe the message. Right? So question and test the prophets all you want to. But know that what you are doing know what you are doing and be consistent in your criticism. also be better that those than those who criticize Christ also uh unless you are absolutely sure that God has shown this to you, you know that he is a false prophet and a a uh um and a liar and God has if you are not sure that God has absolutely shown this to you that the Holy Spirit has revealed to you then don't say those makes that's really not even Christian, right? It's not even the way uh a Christian should behave. Okay, I don't want to spend too much of time on that. Let's go to the next um the next grievance. Okay, number two. Equating criticism of William Brham with criticism of Jesus Christ is a false equivalence. A false equivalence. Jesus is the standard by which prophets are judged. He is not a peer prophet subject to the same category of evaluation. Scripture evaluates prophets. What prophets do not redefine scriptures standards. Collapsing that distinction quietly elevates brennam beyond accountability. Oh my goodness. Okay. you know uh I don't understand how this is false equivalence um you know okay so this person I don't know if they're in the university or they learn to argue using the whole study of fallacies and all that perhaps because they're talking about false equivalence which which when you're in university or college you learn about arguments and how to you know when you're in a debate or something you learn about different things that that you can identify an argument. So a false equivalence is like basically uh like comparing apples and oranges. That's what they're saying. So it's like you can't compare William Brandham to Christ because it's like it's like comparing apples and oranges. Um so I don't understand what they're saying. is is what we said is it because they're different people right the many criticism but what were we saying we were equating the criticism to the criticism right and many of the criticisms against brother man is exactly the same as the criticisms against Christ that's what we were showing you and it's it was made by the similar spirits in different people how is this false equivalent. No matter how you can articulate this to people in the most simplest way, people don't fail to amaze me at how disingenuous they can be. Not because they are at heart disingenuous. It's just because they choose to be because unfortunately their hearts are ruled by hate and because they have no proper argument. So answer my question. Don't deflect. Was Christ, John the Baptist, and the apostles proven as false because of all the accusations made against him? And should we no longer listen to their word? Answer the questions. Was John the Baptist, Malachi 4:5, and 6, did he turn the hearts of the children back to the fathers? Because that's the argument you made. It's not what we said. It's you. You said those things. You said brother Madam lied about being me Malachi 45 and 6. So did John the Baptist turn the hearts of the children back to the fathers and the fathers to the children? Did was the day of John the Baptist or thereafter was it the great and dreadful day of the Lord? Explain yourselves. Don't just sling out things to say William Brandham is false. He lied about this. He lied about that. Explain it. Tell us what you got. Right? So let's make this clear for kindergarten kids, right? By comparing the accusations made against the prophet with the accusations against Christ. Some of you in the message might have said, "Brother Alistister, how can you how can you go and say, you know, these are the accusations? How can you reveal that accusations against Christ and say speak about him uh speaking about this generation shall not pass?" How can you do that? You know, you're you're putting more doubt into the minds of our kids. What are you doing with your kids? Not teaching them the gospel. This is the real world. When you get to university, that's the first thing they hit them with, right? Are you not preparing your kids? Are you not doing stuff like this in family altars? Are you not discussing these things? What is this just news happened to break now for you? Okay. So what I'm saying to you is by comparing the accusations against the prophet with the accusations against Christ, I am I I want to say this clear. I am not saying that brother Brandham is Christ or greater than Christ. Stop it. Stop being deliberately stupid and trigger happy and listen with a good heart. It's not difficult for me to be respectful because I am respectful. I respect the people who criticize brother Baron as well as those who criticize Christ. I can have a full-on argument with somebody who is criticizing Christ. Someone who's an atheist and I'll never get angry with them. They can swear Jesus Christ. They can curse at they can curse at me. They can curse at our prophet. I do not even get so angry that my face goes red. I just do not react. I I remain respectful. Stick with the point. Right. In my hometown, in here in this city of Durban, I live at peace with all people of all beliefs. Scripture, here's here's something that's wrong. Scripture does not evaluate prophets. Where do these things come from? People evaluate prophets by how they interpret scripture and by what they think scripture says prophets should be. Yet I found that most people don't even understand. Most of these people, these people who come against brother Brandham don't even understand prophets and they don't even understand how God works with prophets. ALL THEY KNOW IS Deuteronomy 18 and um mark a prophet whose word doesn't come true. That's all you know. And yet you don't go to the entire Bible, right? Uh let me give you an example. Okay, there is a story of two prophets in first kings 13 during the time of King Jeroboam, right? It's one of the craziest stories you hear in the Bible. You you actually don't know why it's there, but let let me tell you, right? So Jeroboam is this king who wickedness stepped into his kingdom and so on and he was doing some sacrifice and whatever and here comes this young prophet who's got a word from the Lord and he speaks a prophecy and condemns what is going on and brings a prophecy for the future of Israel. Right? And then Jeroboam now is terrified. So he's uh he speaks to his prophet and says look come in come into my palace. Let's have something to eat. Let's uh talk about this. He wants to he wants him to change the prophecy and he wants to like get this prophet on his good side, right? And this prophet tells him, "I'm sorry. I was literally told by God not to accept any money, any food, any drink from anybody, but to come here and say what I have to and go on my way and not to be entertained by anybody." Right? And then you know what happens? Um there is an old prophet in the region that means uh he was a a true prophet an older one who previously served the kingdom and his sons or in other words his followers and so on came and told him the prophecy of this young prophet. So he said well I I need to go meet with this guy. So uh you know settle me up and ask and let's let's go let's go meet this guy. So this prophet goes to this um this he meets this young prophet and says hey I'm a prophet you know and um how you doing and whatever whatever and says listen come on come home let's go let's go have some food and wine and let's fellowship about this let's talk about this and his young prophet said no I'm sorry I uh I cannot do this this is what God has told me I cannot stop anywhere I've got to go on my way I can't accept food money or drink or whatever Just got to keep going. And this old prophet says, "I am also a prophet. And an angel came to me and told me a message from God that you must come to my house and uh come and eat with me and rest and sleep overnight and be refreshed and then go on your journey." I'm just dramatizing, paraphrasing it, right? And yet I want to save time. So um in this of course the this young prophet um accepts he goes to this old prophet's house and the next day he leaves and uh or he sleeps over the next day he leaves and on the way he is killed by a lion right now. Uh so the old prophet finds out that this young prophet was killed by the lion and then what he does is he goes there and he uh uh he goes and checks this whole thing out and they bury this this young prophet and so on and then he feels bad about what he did and then he tells his sons listen when I die you will bury me next to the bones of this young prophet and he says I want to tell you that what this prophet prophesied is the truth. Okay. Now, in this story, the Bible calls them both prophets. Right? This is what I want you to understand, young people, is the nature of prophets and what God makes them do. Both were true prophets of God used by God in their time. They are true prophets of Israel. The young prophet had just given a true prophecy to King Jeroboam. It was given instructions by God which he intended to follow. The old prophet lied to trap the young prophet and the young prophet is killed by the lion and the old prophet admits to his fault and proclaims that the young prophet's prophecy was true. So what are the questions you should be asking here? So let's go. Why did God allow the young prophet to be killed for listening to the old prophet? Why didn't God kill the old prophet for lying to the younger one? This is the most important question. Didn't God know this was going to happen? Or did God tell him not to accept food, money, or drink knowing this was going to happen? this. Of course, of course, God knew. It absolutely looks like God set him up because, you know, but but man has free will. Either one of them, both young prophet and old prophet could have chosen to do the right thing, right? But God knew this was going to happen. God knew the young prophet was going to be killed. So, did God tell him not to accept food, money, uh, or drink knowing this was going to happen? Of course, God knew it's going to happen. So, what does the story tell you? No matter how irresponsible or unrighteously these prophets acted, what was more important than the prophets themselves was the word that the prophets brought. Even though the one lied which was a stupid thing to do and the other one listened to the other prophet uh disobeying what God told him to do irrespective of what the prophets did the prophecy still remained the word still remained so this is I'm saying this they're saying that scripture evaluates prophets These are prophets. There are prophets all over the world who did crazy things, right? Uh are they supposed to be called false prophets because they did stuff like this? What are you saying? Right? So if you lived in that time of these two prophets, would you spend precious time fussing about the righteousness of the young prophet or the righteousness of the older prophet and the credibility of either one of the men or would you pay attention to the prophecy that was given? Think on that a while while we go to the next point and I will tell you more about prophets later. So let's go and share uh the next point. It's incredible, right? Okay. Point number three. Jesus was accused too. So, he's quoting us, right? Jesus was accused too. Does not make all accusations meaningless. Ancient slander without evidence is not the same as modern document-based criticism with named witnesses, recordings, dates, and internal contradictions. calling everything the same persecution avoids dealing with the substance. So it's basically saying like um all the accusations against Christ were and John the Baptist were ancient slander without evidence and that the things brought against William Brandham has evidence. It has documents. It has witnesses dates. It's got it's like foolproof, right? and calling it the same uh is saying, "Well, because it's the same, we don't have to deal with the situation." That's what they're saying. That's what they're accusing us of doing. So, there's one thing here that I I agree with the person on. Accusations are not meaningless. So, he says, "Jesus was accused too does not make all accusations meaningless." No, no, no, no. I agree with you, sir. Accusations are not meaningless. They are purposeful. They are meant to be. They are they are done with God's knowledge. God knew this was going to happen. We are not afraid of criticisms and accusations or even crucifixions of cult pastors online. We're not afraid. Bring it on. These are necessary for men to be brought down and for the word to remain. We are fully aware as all people of the Bible that we have to be brought down. We have to be cut down. We have to be shamed. We have to be criticized. We have to be persecuted. We know this. We don't walk around with our heads in clouds. We know this. And the reason why accusations are not meaningless and why they have to be there is so that men are brought down so the word remains. Men must never be above the word. But it is disingenuous on the parts of those of you who are anti- William Brandom, expecting the highest standard of accountability for him and yet you have no way of doing the same when it comes to everybody else in the Bible. So what are modern day document documentbased criticism with named witnesses, recordings, dates, internal contradiction? What is all this? This happened in every age with every single messenger, with every preacher. It's just you don't have those those things anymore because they've disappeared over 2,000 years, right? You don't have them. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, right? We know Paul was put in court. Paul was imprisoned. Peter and them were beheaded. Almost every uh messenger or or preacher or teacher of the Bible throughout history has been accused. Did you know that? Right. So this happened in every single age. Do not act like the scale at which William Brandham is criticized was never ever experienced before. He's the worst. Simply because we are in an age where you have documents, emails, WhatsApp, social media, ways of preserving documents. Come on, be better. Right? And again, do not deflect from the point. There are there were many accusations against Jesus. I brought it out last week against the disciples, John the Baptist, even Paul the Apostle. 2,000 years later, you no longer have witnesses for all those accusations brought. But if you did have those accusations and those witnesses and those documents, what would you be saying? What would you be saying of Paul? Right? If you were in the crowds when they brought witness against Jesus Christ regarding taxes, things he allegedly said against Rome, things his disciples were doing, which side would you be on with absolute evidence being presented to Pontius Pilate, witness testimony, documents, and the like. Which side would you be on? I know what you say. You think you'd be on Christ's side now after the fact, 2,000 years later. But listen to yourselves and look at what you're doing. Okay, let's share the next point. Faith is not belief in spite of evidence. Biblical faith is trust grounded in testimony, witnesses, and fulfilled prophecy. Redefining faith as refusing verification directly contradicts the way scripture itself argues for truth. I'm sorry. This is completely false. Faith is absolutely in spite of evidence. Faith is the substance. Evidence is not the substance. Faith is the substance. Faith is the evidence of things unseen. Our church knows that I often say this to them. If you find all the evidence you can dig up all histories, do everything, all evidence of a girl you are attracted to, you'll never marry her because you will never have faith in her. Evidence produces more doubt. Why does evidence produce more doubt? Because you are searching for the evidence with the intent to satisfy doubt, not belief. If you believed in someone, why would you search for evidence to prove your belief? I I don't understand. How are we even Christians in talking about this that we need evidence to believe? Do you need evidence to believe Christ? That's what I spoke about last week, right? If you go looking for something to prove to you why you should not marry this girl, the reason is because you have fear. You have insecurity and you don't want to make a mistake that's going to endanger your future. With that perspective, you are going to find something. You are going to find something. If you go looking for something on this girl, she's beautiful. She's charming. She's attractive. She's talkative just the way you like her. But hey, you got insecurities. You've got fears. You don't know if she'll cheat on you. You want to go search up a history. You want to go question people from a church. You want to go question of things. When you go to do that, you are going to find things. You are going to find jealous people who liked her quietly and want to stop you from ever marrying. You're going to find liars. You're going TO FIND YOU'RE GOING to find something and probably many things that's going to set off red flags for you. You are going to be increased with doubt and then you're going to go back to her and you're going to question her and you're going to you're going to ask, "Well, look, this is what somebody said." and and uh because it's going to look like she's trying to make herself look good in your eyes when she explains to you and you're going to feel like h I'm listening to her, you know, oh she's so beautiful but something is not right and I'm you know then what's going to happen is she's going to come become increasingly disappointed in you because she believes she's telling you the truth and you're not believing her. In her mind, she's going to she's going to try to tell you the truth about this evidence that you found. And you are not wholly accepting her experience and she starts becoming closer and closer to deciding that you are not even worth the trouble. Yes, both of you may have been great for each other and if you just had faith in each other and believe that you could build a future together despite the past, you could have been wonderful together. Faith is absolutely in spite of evidence. It's literally a principle of Christ as we read in the beginning. So let's let's share that again. uh we all know the scripture so well but I read in the beginning this is Jesus saying unto him that is Thomas because remember Thomas was being told that Jesus is risen the resurrection has taken place and and Thomas says I will never believe it unless I see it in other words I will never believe unless I have evidence these are the words of Jesus blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed right and many other signs truly did to Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. Right? There's no evidence of things that are not written. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, that believing you might have life through his name. And then of course you get to the scriptures where it tells you you are never going to believe unless you have the Holy Spirit. Not because of evidence. you there are many people who read the Bible and don't believe it. There's the evidence. You got a scripture that says we wrote these things so you might believe. And there's people who read it and say ah I don't believe it. What what is the evidence then? Is the evidence because the Bible said so? Is that the evidence? No. Without the Holy Spirit, you're never going to accept it anyway. Which means you need the spirit of truth to make you believe. And then the evidence itself confirms what you have first believed. I don't know. This is a this is a simple concept of scripture which I don't even know why we're arguing, right? It's craziness. So you may say, but hey, hold on. I know the other scripture where Christ said, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear." Again, don't be silly. You should know Christ is not talking about the same thing with Thomas. Christ there in that scripture is talking about understanding the mysteries of the kingdom through the parables that other people were never going to understand but the elect's eyes would be open to it. Okay, let's go to number five. Okay, number five. Failed prophecies are not neutral data points. Deuteronomy 18 does not allow reinterpretation, partial fulfillment. See, all this is all this is from those websites, right? Or context fixes after the fact. Jesus apocalyptic language has recognized interpretive frameworks. Panam's failed predictions were often literal, time bound, and testable. Those are not the same category. All right, this is where it starts to get real. I just love how they throw Deuteronomy 18 around without context as if we don't know what it says. We never came across it. We message believers never even read that part. You know, listen, it it was there because they told the Lord told Israel to not listen to prophets that were going to be in in Canaan, right? who spoke in the name of other gods and they were only to adhere to prophets that God raised from their brethren. Then it warned them if there are prophets from your brethren who speak in the name of other gods or said things that God didn't tell them to say in other words they used their gift to speak things advantageously to them for their own benefit which God did not show them. So that was what the whole chapter of the warning was about. Usually in Israel these things would have been proved by the yurim tumim right those stones in the breastplate that would shine when something that was brought that was questionable that needed to be checked they checked it with the urim the urean to meim which we don't have today. So what we have now um is after the fact internet surfers and researchers of information who collect and report uh things they collect things reported by people who did not have the Holy Ghost. Are we judging prophets today by witnesses and newspaper articles from people who didn't have the Holy Ghost? Seriously, we're doing that now, right? Are we supposed to accept the word of all these people uh above what the Holy Spirit tells us in our hearts? Is that what you as Christians are asking us to do? You know, there's this whole thing about the bridge scandal. I haven't uh, you know, read so much about it. I I get it. I I I don't know why what Brother Manam saw, why he said those things. I don't know what happened. I just don't know and I cannot cor corroborate anything and I don't wish to. Uh and yet listen, this is not a defense. I'm just telling you why I don't trust evidences from people who don't have the Holy Ghost. And I'm going to tell you this based on well uh that those what do they call that bridge? The the big four bridge or something. The other one, not the one the prophet is talking about, the other one. There was some, I don't know, scandal about that in America because there was some political thing. But I think that people felt like people were suppressing the newspapers were not telling the truth and they were suppressing the amount of deaths and the the American public didn't even um um trust what was written in the newspapers. Also I'll tell you here from South Africa during the times of aparade um there were plenty of people who died in constructions and because the some of the workers were non-white people uh people whose names could not be they were immigrants they had no ID they were their deaths were never reported their deaths were never recorded now I'm in no ways am I saying that this is what happened. I'm not I'm not doing that, okay? Not defending. I'm telling you why I don't trust people who report things because there's always an agenda. We know the media is corrupt. We know newspapers are corrupt. We know people are paid to report things and paid to be witnesses of stuff that is false. Why would I, who has the Holy Ghost, trust to report and fact check a prophet with people who don't? Tell me. Do you trust the media for everything? Do you do you trust witnesses who don't have the Holy Spirit? Do you really? Okay, that's dangerous because that's what they did in the time of Christ. So, Deuteronomy 18 also says it's it's a good warning. If a prophet does speak without God's authority, he speaks presumptuously. There's a history of prophets throughout the Bible who speak presumptuously, who did things God told them not to do. Like for example, Elisha who who made that she bear come and eat all his children. Did God tell him to do that? That was an angry prophet. He spoke presumptuously. And just so that God makes the people respect this man's word, God had to allow that she bear to come and eat those children. These are even things that atheist people fight with us about. How could a God allow a prophet to get a bear to eat little children? What kind of God is this? This is stuff we face. This is prophets. Are they checked by scripture? My goodness, people don't read the Bible. Honestly, are there records in the Bible where prophets were told by God to say something which then would never happen? Did you hear my question? Okay. So, prophets must never be wrong. Prophets must be checked by Deuteronomy 18. Prophets must whatever prophecy they say must come to pass or else they are false prophets. Recognize interpretive frameworks. What? Explain it then. Let's hear you anti- message people spin it. I haven't met one of you who can give a satisfying answer to the things I'm about to tell you. You all end up doing the same thing that you are accusing us of doing. Everything comes in when you can't explain yourself. Everything you accuse us of circular reasoning, straw man, ad homonym and to qui, addulum, appeal to authority, post hawk, eropto hog, false dichotomies and more. All these things that you learn in wherever you get it from. Uh if you go to college and university, you learn those things. So you bring it all here and say, "Look, there's what he's doing." And he stood there smug. This is what you're doing. See, literal, time bound, and testable. Were you there in the time of the prophet to tell me literal, time bound, and testable? Were you there as a personal and actual witness of the things that took place on those stages when when those healing lines were coming through, when those prophecies were made? Do you know, were you there? Will you at least give credence to our argument that you may not properly understand statements or prophecies and for the purpose they were said? No, you can't. Okay, so I'm going to throw you something. Spin this because you say scripture tests prophets. Okay, let me give you a prophet whose word never came to pass. Jonah 3:4. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey. And he cried and said, "Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." Oh my. What happened here? Yeah. Let me just tell you what happened, right? So Jonah is told by God, "Go to Nineveh and prophesy and get these people. Tell them that judgment is coming." Jonah runs off. We know the story. He doesn't want He hates these people. He hates Nineveh. He hates Babylon. He like, "Why should I even go to this place and prophesy? Let these people die. You know, I don't care about them." And he runs away. And of course, God pulls him back and sends him there. We have no idea why God is doing this, right? And then now Jonah eventually learns his lesson of course goes there and then prophesies and said in 40 days Nineveh shall be overthrown. He went around the city crying and telling the people Nineveh is going to be you have 40 days to repent cuz Nineveh is going to be overthrown. And you know the story after 40 days Nineveh was never overthrown. It wasn't destroyed. It never happened. Was he false? Was Jonah giving a false prophecy? Why was Nineveh not destroyed after 40 days? Was he a true prophet or not? And let me tell you, even Jonah was upset because he looked like God didn't keep his word and he made Jonah look like a fool. You know what happened with Jonah going and sitting there under those g guards and uh upset, right? He was upset that the people uh repented and um he had been through all the correction of God, been through those seas, spent time in the the sea monster's belly and then he basically comes out here now and he is now made a fool. He tells them in 40 days it's going to be done and then it doesn't happen. That's in the Bible, right? This is what they're going to ask you. Let's go to another one. Matthew 16:28. Okay. Says, "Verily, I say unto you." This is Jesus saying, "There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." And this is what I'm saying. You anti- message people. I like to hear you spin this, right? How about this one? How do you anti- William Brandom people argue this point? How do you substantiate what happened? Which argument type are you going to use? Which fallacy are you going to use? We know the answer. We know the answer to all these things because of the message. Imagine the message of the prophet makes us look at these questionable things and still believe. We have the answer to these questions because of the message. But how are you going to answer that? Right? I've had conversations with denominational people. I've had conversations with others. All other denominations flounder at this and barely can give a coherent answer. And anyway, no matter what answer they give, you can never give a satisfactory answer that will change the mind of an atheist to this to the atheist who reads the scripture. your evidence. Um, uh, Christ was false because all those people died and they did not see the son of man coming in his kingdom. See, so no matter what answer they give, it doesn't satisfy, right? And that's exactly how we feel about you antibrand people because it doesn't matter what answer we give, it's never going to satisfy you, right? Let's go to 1 John 2:18. Now again, people, this is not brother Alistister. What are you doing? Why are you making us doubt the Bible? I'm not. Come on, you people need to wake up. 1 John 2:18, little children, it is the last time. This is John prophesying that the day he's living in is the end of days, the last time. And as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists whereby we know that it is the last time. So this is the epistles of John, right? Was John a liar? Was he a false prophet? Right? Here John says again something that can be proven as not factual. Right? He's he's saying this that it is the last day because he told us false Christ will arise and because many are already risen. That's how we know it is the the end of days. It's the last time, right? Do you not know what those disciples got everyone to do in the book of Acts? Because they believed. They they didn't make a mistake. And this is why I say I love to hear you spend this because these these disciples believed by the words that Christ spoke to them that their days was the end of days. They preached it. They prophesied it because they because they believed Jesus was coming in their time. Here's what the book of Acts, the church in the book of Acts made them do. Peter and all the disciples made them sell their houses, divide their goods among the church, leave their families, and so much more just because they had to work as hard as they could to get as many people as possible to believe in Christ. Many of those people, in fact, all of those people in the time of the disciples, including the disciples and the apostles, all died never having realized the end of days and never saw Jesus coming the second time. Did that prove that the disciples were false prophets and teachers? Does that is that proof that we must denounce the book of Acts, denounce everything Paul said, uh, denounce the the New Testament because it's it's what they said because the few statements they made concerning the end of days is proven to be wrong. Therefore, we shouldn't believe them. Maybe to some of them uh you know but to God the work of getting the gospel to the world had been done. Whatever he said to them incentivized them to go and get the gospel as fast as possible to the world. It's what they needed to hear and it's what was done. Whether they were inaccurate or whether they look like they are false or what was more important was the word that was sent. Go into the world preach the gospel. Amen. Let's go to John 1:18. John 1:18. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten son which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him. So John the revelator, is he inconsistent with the word? He says no man had seen God any time. And yet in the Bible, Jacob said he saw the Lord. Moses said he saw the Lord. Manoah said he saw the Lord. The Bible says in Exodus 24:9 that the 70 elders that were with Moses coming up to the mount beheld the Lord God of Israel. So why won't you read John 1:18 and say John was a liar? John was a false prophet because of this inconsistent words that he spoke that that brings discrepancy with scripture. There are witnesses in the Bible that prove it. Yes. How will you spin it people? We know the answer to all these things because WE ARE IN THE message right by the message. We don't make excuses for the Bible. We believe the Bible by revelation. You people are accusing us of placing the message above the Bible. And yet the the message makes us believe the Bible even stronger than you can. That's the thing. And it's because we believe the Bible by revelation without needing evidence and because we have the Holy Spirit. I love this next one. This is this is the ultimate one, right? because you say Jesus is the standard by which you have to judge all the prophets. Okay, let's look at another one. Matthew 12:40. This is, you know, the Lord Jesus people were asking him for a sign and he said, "The only sign you will ever have is the sign of the prophet Jonas, right?" Verse 40, Matthew 12:40. And as Jonas, that is Jonah, was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Notice it doesn't say three days. It says three days and three nights. Okay, we have a a massive problem here people because there is no Christian on earth today who can sufficiently explain Matthew 12:40 to an atheist especially after Jesus says this here uh in Matthew chapter 12 and then in John chapter 2 he says destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up. So listen, 3 days and three nights is 72 hours, right? Is that right? Uh I don't know if I'm getting my maths right. So 24 24 hours of night, 12 hours of day, 12 hours of night, 12 hours of day, 12 hours of night, 12 hours of day. Right? So that's the sign of the son of man. That's that's the sign that they are going to see. Jesus said that I will be in the heart of the earth. The son of man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. Right? In other places he said after 3 days I will raise it up again. He says in other places on the third day. So what firstly is he contradicting himself? First he says the son of man says in three days and three nights. Now he says on the third day. So what do you say antibrand people? Was he inaccurate? Was he false? Is this the standard of evaluating prophets? Do you need evidence or no evidence? Do you believe Jesus Christ to be Christ to be the Messiah? How is he speaking inaccuracies and it what looks like even falsehoods? Because here you people who go and celebrate Easter say he died on Friday night and then he was resurrected on Sunday morning. If he died on Friday night, that's one night, one day. One night, and then he resurrected at 6:00 a.m. in the morning at the rising of the sun. That's two nights and one day. That's not three nights and three days. Spin that. The truth is we um you will never understand this unless you understand the opening of the seal, the seventh seal, right? So what do you say? We understand this because we understand the opening of the seventh seal, right? Wouldn't you like to know? No, you've denounced the seven seal. If you don't read the intunement message and understand dimensions and the seven seal, you will never truly understand this scripture and tie it in with all the other scriptures. You can't do it. I have listened to commentators from denominations try their best. I've listened to apologists try their best. I've I've listened to people eventually give up on this. You don't know it. And you anti William Brandon people, you cannot explain this. I know you can't because I've tried you already. Right? So, you'll just have to take Jesus's word for it and hope your intellectual smarts hold on long enough until you meet someone more intellectual and smarter than you, than smarter than you think you are. Just because you studied one website for more than 30 minutes, suddenly you can take the prophet to task. Okay? You can't even answer your Bible questions. you fuss about. He said 22 years and he said this wrong here and this number is wrong there. He made a mistake with this story and he was inaccurate there. The only thing he's got you doing is wasting your time trying to prove him wrong. So just stop it. Stop your silliness. And just because the only thing you properly studied for longer than 30 minutes was Legend of the Fall by Peter Dyen, believe the sign and seek you the truth. You didn't study your Bible. You didn't study the message properly. No. All you have is these sites that you spend the longest thing you've ever spent studying uh with both Bible and message is this website. And this is what you can come up with. Go read. I want to tell you now, you antibrand people, go read the book 100 False Bible Prophecies by Robert Collins. Go have your faith tested before you come and lecture us about inconsistencies and testing prophets with evidence. Go read it. 100 False Bible Prophecies by Robert Collins. Go read it. I've read it. Okay, I'm good with it. A lot of this book is very much the same way you people attack us. But there are some things in there that I would pay to watch you answer in a theater while holding a huge bag of popcorn. I would seriously enjoy watching you squirm. You find yourself in the same seat you try to squash us into and all message believers trying to put us in places where you can trap us with gotcha points. Right? If you attack the prophet in the same way in a certain way while defending the Bible from him then you must be held accountable the same way when you defend the Bible from atheists. I want to just tell you, you know, we are not so weak in faith that we need evidence. We love the Lord and his servants regardless of what evidence we need or need to find or evidence that he's given. We love the Lord. We love his servants. We love the word. Amen. All right, let's share the next point. Failed ministers matter precisely because Brham claimed prophetic discernment. Judah's failing does not validate later prophets. Brham explicitly claimed supernatural insight into people's lives and futures when he repeatedly endorsed men who later collapsed morally or doctrinally. That is evidence, not persecution. Come on. Right. Oh my goodness. What are you saying again? Didn't Jesus have prophetic discernment? Didn't he have the greatest supernatural insight of all? Did he not know the 70 were going to be deceived and reject him? Why did he anoint them with the Holy Ghost and send them to cast out devils in his name and heal the sick? If he knew they're going to to reject him, why did he give them the Holy Ghost? Didn't he know they were going to reject him? What are you even saying? How could he give um unbelievers the Holy Ghost? Come on now. How could he make unbelievers who are going to reject him and add to crucifying him? How could he give them the Holy Ghost to go heal people and cast out devils in his name? Come on, you lot. Don't deflect. answer the question. These were all points the Jews used to discredit Christ exactly the same way. By the way, it's a silly argument, right? So, didn't God know which message believers were going to be used by him until they reject the message? Yeah, God knew it. Okay. All right. So, I want to maybe educate you on something. Maybe you didn't know. Um, did you know that there were accusations against men of God throughout the church ages, throughout Christendom? Right. Massive, even worse things than what you're bringing against William Brandham. Uh there was an accusation against the apostle Paul for misappropriating funds collected for the poor because he used it for himself instead of what it was supposed to be used for. There were also accusations against him which were theological discrepancies brought by the first church. Right? Even dissent amongst the disciples were trying to prove that false that Paul was was wrong and preaching false things. At least Peter had the respect to say, "Oh, precious brother Paul preaches things that we wrestle with, things that are very hard to understand." But many of the other people at the time felt, "Who are you? Why should we listen to you just because you uh you saw a pillar of fire on the way to Damascus, which nobody can prove?" There are some people there who said they heard a voice. Other people saw a light. Nobody can prove it. Then you who killed us and criticized us suddenly you you go there you get some epiphany and then you you know you you come and preach to us. Now you want to teach us the the scripture. We spent three and a half years with this man and you want to teach us. You were not even a witness of him. Okay. You can go back and read history. The founding fathers there were scores of accusations against them. theological problems, differences, scandals, whole lot of things, right? Uh how about Martin Luther? You anti-brandom people, do you respect Martin Luther? Do you believe him to be a man of God? Do you believe him to be a credible man of God? Right. Martin Luther uh has been documented and seen as the the one whose influence brought Germany to anti-semitism. Right? Uh anti-semitism in Germany is largely attributed to the influence of Martin Luther. He wrote in 1543 the triotize on the Jews and their lies. Right? He wrote hateful things about the Jews. He got Christians to persecute Jews. Luther got Christians to burn down people's synagogues and homes and collect and burn all their books and writings. Do you know Adolf Hitler constantly invoke Luther's writings in his speeches in in his testimonies? and he said Adolf Hitler says Martin Luther was a national hero of Germany and he celebrated Martin Luther's birthday in 1933. I think it must have been his 450th birthday. Was Martin Luther a bad man? Was he a man of God? This man brought the just shall live by faith. He was hailed as one of the most significant beginners of the reformation movement and broke Christians away from the hold of an abusive Catholic church. But this man was an anti-semite who wrote absolutely hateful pe things about the Jews and got the Germans to burn down synagogues and houses and persecute the Jewish people. If brother Brandham did that, wow. Well, how about John Wesley? John Wesley, the darling of the Methodist church. This man, I tell you, people people speak great things about him and he was a wonderful man. Traveled by horse horseback uh spent every moment of his life in the gospel. Do you know John Wesley fell in love with a girl in Savannah, Georgia in America on a missionary trip and this girl didn't love him back. she married somebody else. So John Wesley was so overcome with jealousy that he shamed this girl publicly and he refused to serve her holy communion in the church and the elders of the church got upset and what has been reported is that he even interfered with her marriage uh trying to upset it such that he was the church there forced him to leave America and return to England. And then he goes to England. He marries a woman whom he didn't love because he still loved this other one. Now he he married a woman whom he didn't love. And this woman physically abused John Wesley. There's reports of of someone finding him lying on the floor with his hair pulled out. Right. Uh she beat him. She beat John Wesley, who we believe is the messenger of the Philadelphia age. She she wrote fraudulent fraudulent letters in John Wesley's name and she threatened him constantly to expose him of adulteries. Do you know that in America John Wesley was accused of plagiarism? I so I'm asking you, was this man a man of God or a false prophet or a false teacher? And because of the accusations against him, we should write everything off. Write off his word. Write off everything he did. You know who John Wesley was? This was an absolute man of God. He transformed England away from the clutches of the church of the the Anglican church, the abuse and the corruption. He founded the Methodist movement, the great Methodist movement which many people say, many even the critics say saved the soul of England. John Wesley and a young man who some of you might know called William Wilberforce was credited by many and I would think not credited enough for the greatest fight against the slave trade and and William Wilberforce was very largely influenced by the ministry of John Wesley. In fact, in the last letter recorded of John Wesley would have been 6 days before um John Wesley died, he wrote these words. He said, "Go on in the name of God and in the power of his might till even American slavery, the vilest ever saw uh the sun shall vanish away before it." It's it's one of the most amazing lines written in there in his letter to William Wilberforce. This man had problems with his personal life, loved another girl, married one he didn't love, and had marital problems. Was he a man of God? Is he worthy of being a man of God? He's uh accused of plagiarism. What do we do with these things? Antibrandom people. Looking back at history, seeing the good of what the ministry of these men eventually achieved makes us overlook hot scandals and rejection they faced in their time. No matter what happened in John Wesley's personal life, I can look past that. I can look at what he did. I can look at what God achieved in his ministry. I can look past the anti-semitism of Martin Luther and look at what he did to bring people out of the cultures of the Catholic Church, right? And I don't care looking back at history, seeing the good that they did and all the scandals and rejection and accusations people brought against them at the time while they were living and even shortly after their deaths. Here's what happens. These men's names will live on as men of God who stood for their convictions in their time. I believe it's the same thing that will happen here. All the naysayers and anti-W William Brandham propagandist, listen, young people, they're going to die off soon. They won't even these guys who made up the sites, they'll die. They won't even be around. They'll disappear into oblivion. Nobody will even remember their names because nobody in the world cares to read every anything they say except those people who left the message and people who hate William Brandham. There's billions of people who will never even read the site or care what has been said. But even after they're dead and gone, the word of the prophet will still live on and it will keep changing lives of people who search for Christ and find him through the message of the hour. That's just the truth. The message is not a threat to anyone in the world. It's not even a threat to denominations and governments. They don't even care for us. Go have a look at maybe a list of the greatest threats of um you know religious threats or right-wing activists in America wherever you won't even find the message there. It's it's other denominations. Right? We are we will never have a part of the lobby among evangelicals. Neither will we be a part of any system. We will we are literally nobodies who don't make a dent anywhere in the world. So they don't care about us. So all the stuff written on sites is never even going to matter. It's never going to be remembered. Nobody's going to care about it. The squeeze of a one world system and the mark of the beast will affect all of Christianity of which we the nobodies will not take the enemy's lie. Praise be to God. Amen. Let's go to number seven. Number seven. The 1963 cloud cannot be both public vindication and private meaning. Really? Okay. Firstly, says who? It can be anything God wants you to be, right? Who are you or anybody else to say that something can't be? Anyway, uh reading on. If it was used publicly as physical confirmation, it must withstand physical scrutiny. Retreating to it was only for him. Oh, is that what you took from what I said last week? It was only for him. After factual challenges arise is a move away from falsifiability, not clarification. Oh, that's good. That's really good. Uh I just want to say I absolutely agree with you here. The cloud is not public vindication. It's not. I agree. Many message people made it that way. It's not. It It's just stupidity to think that it's public vindication. It isn't because we were not there. We were not there when the publication was made. We only believe believe in it because the prophet said it and we believe the prophet's word. That's it. It's not a public vindication of anything, right? It's a vindication to him. If you understand the three-folds of the seventh seal, you'll understand why it was a vindication to him of what was being preached in March 17 to March 24th. And we are the people of the third cycle of the seventh seal. That's what we believe. Those of you who don't study the message don't know that. So you'll never understand that it did not happen in our day. So I agree with you. It's not public vindication. Uh we also don't care which elders we don't know used it for physical confirmation. I don't care which great ministers in the message used it for physical and public confirmation. I'm sorry. It doesn't matter to me what other men say. But we are not retreating from anything. See this is classic argument. We are retreating into its not it's only for him. Listen people, those of us who study the message for the word and not sensationalism have always been constant. We believe the prophet's testimony on it because we believe the word not the other way around. Okay. I have preached this long before believe the sign came up. So is my father, my dad. We So we know we are not retreating. Maybe others are, but we are not. I haven't even heard other people tell you what I told you last week, right? Have you considered See here, here's something. This is not a defense. I'm just asking you to consider. Have you considered that? And I preached this long ago. long ago, two decades ago, if God wanted to, he could use anything. And I'll say it in this thing, in this case, a formation of gases fired from a rocket to vindicate something to his prophet. Do you consider that if God wanted to do that, he would? God could use a donkey to talk to Balum. God could use a pillar of cloud to veil himself. So what's your point? What's the point? If if the the contrails of an airplane flying through the uh way above the clouds could be used by God to create some sign to vindicate something to someone down there. Is it not possible? Right. So, or is it that people are are you offended because or affected because people took the cloud and made stuff about it and because maybe William Brandham was inaccurate about the details when he told the story of him being there during that time. Um, so because he was inaccurate on the details, therefore he lied. Therefore, he's a false prophet and everything he preached from beginning to end is uh false and and and u therefore he is worthy of your absolute excoriation. Can you say that without a shadow of doubt, not even 1% of doubt, that no souls were ever saved under William Brandham's ministry? Cuz I want to know what you're saying. Can you say that no souls, not a single soul was led to Christ or healed under brother Brandham's ministry? Now, be careful, right? Because are you not careful to watch your words against someone who very might very well might have been used by God even though you don't know it or don't believe it. I I I want that answer. Can you say that absolutely no souls were saved or brought to Christ under William Brand's ministry when he was there and afterward? Because I want to know what you want us to do with all this great evidence and information you've provided us and to discourage all our young people. What do you want us to do? Right. What do you want us to do? denounce William Brandham and then what uh you want us to say that all the work that was done by God, all the prayers that were made, all the people in the lines, whoever came, there was zero healings, there were zero testimonies. Are you telling us that thousands of people who accepted the message didn't accept Christ as their personal savior? Their lives were not changed. Is that what you're telling us? So what are you telling us? What must we do with all the stuff you're putting out to us? Let's go to number eight. Leaving the message leads to leaving Christ. Apparently, that's what their take is from what I said last week. Okay. Is a fear appeal? In other words, I'm scaring people into if you leave the message, you're going to leave Christ. Not an argument. Okay. They many people leave high control religious systems and remain Christians. That's true. Truth does not acquire hostage taking. Apparently I was taken hostages. If Christianity collapses without Brham that indicates that indictes Brham, not Christianity. Awesome. Okay. Oh man, I don't know how these people come up with all this stuff. Listen people, nobody said Christianity collapses without William Brandom. Don't put words in our mouth. We didn't say that. All message believers know that we respect true Christians in other denominations. We even believe there is a foolish virgin. We believe there are virgin Christians in other denominations. We believe there are precious Christians all over the world, not in the message, who live righteous lives and who do so much for the gospel of Christ. I'll tell you this, I would even enjoy listening to sermons of Pastor John MacArthur over some of the performative message ministers that I hear. The man made more sense to me than a lot of people who claim to preach in the message. The man was a respectful man, read his Bible, study. I've got plenty of denominational friends who I respect and I know. So don't give me this dril, right? Those who leave the message, the ones I'm talking about, who leave the message with hate in their hearts, making it an obsession to defame the prophet, call him a liar, call him trash, call him false prophet. Firstly, that's not even Christian behavior. Do you agree? Then they make it their every waking moment to criticize and bring down others, to shame ministers, to uh investigate pastors and their churches, to bring them before the law, to do all of these things, to bring to shame message people on public platforms, investigate others to bring them down, end up uh all these people end up professing Christianity and end up leaving the most or living the most unrighteous just double standard lives you can ever think of. That's what I said. Okay. And I speak from experience. I've seen that here in SA. Many of those who left with this nature have gone into alcohol, drugs, smoking heavily, marriages are messed up, children badly backsliden, don't even care to go to church, don't even pay attention in the denominational church they've settled in. Many have stopped going to church altogether. They live blaming the message. They are excited to blame the message. They blame the message for their lives going into terrible situations and all they can do they do all they can to prove the message wrong. If they go you know if they go attend a denomination and remain a good Christian we will even applaud them for having faith and taking responsibility over their lives. But leaving the word and then living a life that does not even reflect Christ at all is worrying and concerning for parents and family. Which is why I said that, right? Um I'll tell you one thing. There is a brother I know personally who recently left the message and yet has shown impeccable character. He says, he told me he still regards brother Madam as a prophet of God, but he doesn't see him as Elijah or the seventh messenger of the last church age. He is respectful and he's not interested in shaming anyone. That is a real Christian attitude I can get behind. The man has a backbone. The man has scruples. The man has has uh decency in him, not this other stuff that we're seeing. The man treads carefully aware of the Holy Spirit. All right, very big difference. Uh, as we coming towards the end, let's go to number nine. Redefining abuse, control, and church harm as misunderstanding the message. Oh, this is a rich one. This is amazing. Misunderstanding the message evades responsibility. Now I read this here and I also saw this in that video of that brother who spoke about you can tell by the fruit. It says here when patterns repeat across churches, countries and decades that is not just bad actors. Systems produce fruit. Scripture tells us to judge by fruit. Wonderful. I'm glad you brought that up and I'm sorry. This is just plain silly and ignorant reasoning if ever I heard. Right. And this I hear consistently from these people. By their fruit you shall know them. That because you have all these uh um message ministers who abuse their people. This one is immoral. This one did that. This one did that. Therefore the message is wrong. Okay, listen. Wake up. By this argument, Christianity has 2,000 years of history that has undesirable fruit all over the world. And therefore, Christianity will be the most false of all religions by what you just said. There's more unity in Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism than there is in Christianity. Right? Christianity is probably the most divided religion on earth. There are literally thousands of different denominations who disagree with each other, hate each other and speak against each other. The Bible has been used, the name of Jesus Christ has been invoked to murder people, to take people as slaves through the slave trade. The Bible was used to defend aparate here in my country in South Africa. It was used as reason for the crusades. Are these the fruits of Christ? Is this proper reasoning that you're giving me? By that standard, please tell me, kind people, which church is producing the fruit that you're talking about? Which church system in the world is immune from church scandals, abusive ministers, false prophets, false teachers, fraudulent moves for money. Which church? Name them. Name them. Tell me where where there are the best Christians in the world. Please indulge me. You can't. That's why this is such pathetic reasoning, right? What is the fruit you speak of? And here's your arguments, right? We are circular reasoning. We do this. We produce all here's your arguments. This is your argument. Some ministers are bad guys, therefore all message ministers are bad and are going to hell with their churches. Some message ministers are bad, therefore the message is false. Therefore, William Brandham is a false prophet. Do you hear yourself making the same post hawk erggo proper hawk? Some very bad ministers believe in William Brandham's message. Therefore, William Brandham bad. Come on. You want to debate intellectually? Let's go. Sorry, not interested. We're interested in those who believe. Amen. Let's bring this to a close. Bottom line, this person says this video, so this is the video we put out last week, does not answer critics. It it relabels criticism as spiritual failure. Equates a man with scripture. Wow. And teaches loyalty over truth. This this proves to me how blind hatred it is that though I can explain things respectfully and carefully, it still tells me, they still tell me I'm equating a man with scripture and I'm teaching loyalty over truth. And this is not how biblical truth defends itself. If William Braner must be protected from the very standards, who's protecting William Brano? We're not. Go for it, man. Right. If William Brandon must be protected from the very standard scripture uses to test prophets, then he has already failed those standards. Listen, they crucified Christ. They scourged him. They beat him up. They plucked off his beard. They punched him in the face. They poked him in his side with a spear. Who is William Brandon to protect him? Who am I to protect me? If they did this to Christ, our savior, we're not standing here for William Brandham. Listen, when Peter tried to defend Christ, Christ healed Melkus' ear and told him, "Stop it. This must this is meant to be." We are in no way protecting William Brandham. Do not use what I'm saying for one second to think I am doing that. This has to be you who are doing this. You are ordained of God to do this. There you go. Okay. He has already failed those stand. Listen to this. Listen. Listen. If William Brandon must be protected from the very standard scripture uses to test prophets, then listen to this. I don't know who this person is. I don't know whether they themselves are a prophet or some person with a with a greatly anointed with the Holy Ghost. But this person is saying of brother Brandham, he has already failed those standards. My goodness, I wouldn't say that about anybody. I just wouldn't do that. I wouldn't have the gall to do that. I wouldn't have the guts to do that to say that about any man who has the Holy Spirit. I wouldn't even say that about a denominational man who has the baptism of the Holy Ghost healing people in a denominational church and on the mission field. I wouldn't even say even if he's preaching wrong doctrine, I wouldn't say that. But here's what you guys are doing. It's it's it's phenomenal. It's unbelievable. All right, people. I just want to say an answer to this. We don't need to answer critics. It says this video does not answer critics. We don't. I didn't do this to answer critics. We don't care about critics. Okay? We only care to put out wisdom for those who read the criticism and ask questions. God has ordained all critics to be there. There is no need to stop them or try to change the minds of the critics. equating man to scripture. That's just foolishness. I don't even know what that means. What does it mean equating what you're saying is I'm equating William Brandham to scripture. I don't even understand that. Maybe I've missed out on a lot that has happened um online or I quite honestly some of the vid the video that I that I saw I have seen it for the first I saw it for the first time. I didn't even realize there were so many parts of things and so many people who were why I left a cult why I left the cult of William Brandham and all this stuff you know there are few minutes of fame on on YouTube I don't know I have never seen them before but having seen now what has been shown me just for a few minutes and stuff but you know maybe I've missed a lot my view is you put yourself out there you are fair game and I'm talking about brother Bham the prophet would put himself out on book and tape and in video and all kinds of media. You're fair game. You're fair game, brother Brandham. You put yourself out there knowing you were going to be crit criticized and you were going to draw the eye from the world. So, who are we kidding, right? We're not going to defend you because you put yourself out there. We What did we expect? People message people. I'm talking to you. We did it. We put it out in book. We printed his name. We put it in gold and silver embossed lettering. We u put his stuff out on the internet. You said things. You even made up false stuff about the prophet. What were you expecting the world to sit back and and nod along saying, "Oh yeah, what a great guy." No. What did we expect the world to fall in love with? The man who called out women's dressing, women's behavior, men's men's habits, addictive habits, who called out television, rock and roll, Hollywood. Did you really think the world was just going to say, "Oh, yeah, it's okay. Just another preacher. Just let him be." Nope. Not at all. He's fair game. So, I say, "Go for it. It's your choice." Listen, people, we just love to hear the word. That's who we are. We just love to hear the word man. We we we just want to worship God through the revelation of Jesus Christ revealed in this man's voice. That's all. We don't want to wear his hat, hold his rifle, stand where he stood. We just love the word. That's all. That's all we we're doing. I've I've traveled to America so many times. I didn't go there to wear his hat and stand in this place and try to feel the anointing over in this place. No, there are people who do that. I'm just not one of them. Right? So, I want to mention this last thing. Well, two things. This the first is this 1977 conundrum. Those of you who know or read about it where brother says, I predict, I do not prophesy, but as a student of the Bible, I predict that 1977 will be the ending of whatever whatever the ushering of the millennium and so on. Okay, this I I think I explained this in in doctrines of the message and uh I've I've done it so many times. I'm not going to go through it all again, right? I've looked at the statements he made. I only heard him say, "I predict I do not prophesy." And yet he himself believed being a minister of God believed that it would be the ushering in of the millennium. I could try and explain and defend him and say, "Well, the ushering in of the millennium means this." and to defend his prediction. But there isn't any point, is there? My question, and this is what I want to show you, to bring balance, to bring wisdom. Was he here speaking presumptuously, or did God inspire him? The same way, the same way he inspired Jonah and Peter? Cuz you must understand prophets. There's going to be naysayers. We can deal with that, right? But what do you believe? What do you believe when you read this? Okay, we can spin it. We can. Trust me. If you have messages and Bible scriptures, you can spin it. You can do what you want and make it sound accurate and so on. It's never going to satisfy the naysayers. Maybe some of you might be satisfied with a good explanation. I'm not going to do that. But read this. Here's another one. Peter the great apostle, he says in 1 Peter 4:7, "But the end of all things is at hand. Be you therefore sober and watch unto prayer." I'm saying to you, this is like the prophet having a feeling that 1977 is going to be whatever it is. Maybe he's he didn't say the coming of the Lord. Maybe the ushering in of the millennium can be translated to be the rapture or the coming of the Lord. Did he use those words, the rapture? No, he didn't. So, we can be a little bit technical here and there. Stop it. Right. Look at Peter. Peter is telling the people in his day, the end of all things is at hand. Means it's happening now. It's going to happen right away. So what you need to do is watch and pray. Be really sober. It means watch, right? So what was Peter false? Did Peter prophesy or did he predict here? Did he have a feeling? Did he believe that in his day was the end of all things? Yes, he did. And he was wrong. Oh, brother Alistister, what are you saying? Well, we now know he was wrong because the end of all things did not happen in Peter's day, right? But the the Holy Spirit and God made him say this. Obviously, I will never believe that anything in scripture is wrong. So, I'm saying in the eyes of people, people would say, and I know this for a fact because this is an exact scripture that people say Peter prophesied falsely. But we we know because we know because of how God handles his prophets and his people that what is more important is the word and not the credibility of the vessels. So what did he do? He got all those disciples told them things made confusing. I I preached a whole message uh as one of the first messages uh on the second coming. My first message was the confusing uh the confusion created by the confusing statements of Christ spoken to the disciples right where he speaks about uh this generation shall not pass and all of these scriptures that I showed you. I've preached an entire message on it. So did Peter prophesy or did he predict here? He believed it. Listen people, I I don't want to downplay this. I want you to understand the seriousness of it. Peter said this. And then Christ did not come the second time in Peter's day. Right? Peter believed it. John believed it. James believed it. All of them believed it. They believed the coming of the Lord was in their day. And some of them, the Bible says, believed that John was going to be alive to see it. The Bible records that based on what Jesus said. So this belief of the disciples and apostles was definitely inspired by the Holy Ghost. Why did the Holy Ghost inspire them to say something that was not going to happen? Like I told you before, they got people to sell up all their stuff. They divided all their belongings among the saints. They forsook their vocations. That means they left their jobs. This was so serious that when listen Ananas and Safh died, the Holy Ghost brought their death because they refused to sell their belongings and bring it and properly divide it among the saints. I mean this was a big deal. The Lord clearly did not come in that time and it was not the end of all things. So why did Ananas and Zafra have to die? Why couldn't they have kept some of this stuff if the Lord was not really coming? Didn't they have enough time to go and spread the gospel? Why do they have to do all this? You people say those poor message believers who believe the rapture was taking place in 1977. They sold their stuff, sold their houses and their cars. They put their families in order. Blah blah blah. Poor ignorant fools, they thought. Have you considered that God was in it irrespective of what it was going to look like to the naysayers? Whatever God wanted to achieve has been achieved. I'm saying I don't know enough because I was a baby then. I was only born in 1975 and I was not even there when the prophet spoke these things. So I don't know why he would say what he said. Right? I'm not going to stand here in 2026 and assume that I know why he predicted this. right? Uh or or what inspired him or why God inspired him to say this, but I will do as Galiel said, don't speak against it. For adventure, it is of God. Just let it be. If it is of God, it will prosper. If not, it won't. So, I'm careful, right? Okay. Our last point is on this plagiarism and this you know this really uh shocked me a little bit. So I want to begin by just reading the last quote before we close the message 7 70th week of Daniel. This is paragraph 49 and brother brother is saying here in 1961 and I've read many of their commentaries on it. I'm very grateful to Mr. Smith of the Adventist Church for his views. I'm very grateful to Dr. Lan of his views. I'm grateful to all these great scholars for their views on this. So, brother Marmy is saying, I've read Dr. Smith from the Adventist church. I've read his books. I've read Lockan's books. I've read the books of other great scholars. And then he says, "And in reading them, it enlightens me much that I can find places that looks right. But to get the views that I thought that I would like to explain, I searched through the encyclopedia of time to find out what time meant." Okay. Um, so in some ways I want to say I'm shocked by these ministers who are leaving the message because they are just now they are they are being discouraged by brother Brandham's plagiarism. I mean did you not ask questions when you were with your daddies who were there in the prophet's meetings or your daddies who were preachers? Did you not ask the questions? Did you not read Clarence Lockan yourself being a minister for so many years? How are you shocked that brother said things from Clarence Lockan's books when you know uh he said things from his books and other books and we know that I did. I asked my dad and I'll even tell you why. My question to you ministers leaving the message because of plagiarism. Why were you shocked and disturbed that brother Brandon preached from the writings of Clarence Lockan and many others? You poor thing. So there are statements in the message future home that he made word for word words of Clarence Lan and things that were spoken by Clarence Lan were public knowledge. They were known by brother Lee Vale and other theologians who were listening to this message who knew the things that were said came from Clarence Lockan. So brother Baron this evil genius who read these things in secret and spoke these things thinking that Lee Hale didn't know that it came from Clarence Lan and other theologians around him didn't know. He just said these things and claimed these are my revelations. Really? Is that what you think? Right. Some of the the the theologians bought the books for brother Baron. They gifted him with the books and and they directed him to the works of these men. In fact, voice of God recordings in folio views and other places even tells us these are the books brother Ben Brandham read and studied. Right? Okay. Still not enough. Do you really think he would say those things and claim them as his own among the I love the way they constructed. He first said this. this is how I get my inspiration from God for the message and then he says these things off-handedly. So um do you really think he said those things and claimed them as his own among theologians who knew where these things came from? I you know I just want to say that's really stupid. Brother Benham did that. He was really being foolish knowing he was sitting amongst these guys who read went to Bible school knew all those things and said those things. Listen people that was public knowledge in brother Bam's day. If he said those when he said when he spoke about the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Noah covenant. Those are all written in in dispensational truth. I have this book right here, dispensational truth by Clarence Lockan. I have this book here, Rightly Dividing the Word by Clarence Lockan. I've got Luther's works here. I've got Spurgeon's works here. I read these books. These books are passed down in our family for decades. They've been the books that my dad read. Um, so I I do it sometimes in my teaching. When I preach, I speak things that are public knowledge which I know are are written in books that they're not coming from me. And I don't always say these things were said by brother Lan or brother so and so from from this place. My question is to you people to those ministers shocked that brother Baron plagiarized. Okay. uh apart from those paragraphs where they were word for word from Clarence Lockan in the entire 72page future whole message was everything else plagiarism is everything else in that book nothing is there nothing else there inspired by the Holy Ghost apart from so because of those statements that he made the whole book is just cancelled is that what you're Right. So, nothing else in there is spoken. Uh, is there anything else in that book, Future Home, that was not said by Clarence Lock? Yes. Plenty. Right. So, is nothing else because he plagiarized nothing else is inspired by the Holy Ghost. Wow. In a few other statements, other messages, all they bring it up. the seals, the church ages. I've I I've heard message people tell me the church ages is false because it was written by Lee Vale. There's a whole sect of the message that believes that cancel the church age book because it's written by Lee Vale. Uh you know, okay, Daniel 70 weeks I I know Daniel 70 weeks because I studied it with my dad and with that book dispensational truths. I know what brother gets from it. I knew that years ago when I was 16 like why are these ministers with 30 40 years in the message now suddenly shocked because there's which means they never read it they never studied it right so um some maybe word for word from other Christian preachers of previous centuries uh even if brother Brandham said those things was it not the truth that was said so I'm asking are you 100% sure that God did not inspire him to say what they said and then improve on it. If he said the angel showed it to him, could he not have been referring to what the angel revealed to him after he he said what those other men said and what the angel showed him to improve on what those men said. Those of you who read the message can search, go into your table or follow your views and search for the name Lan. You'll find brother mamm speaks of him speaks of Smith speaks of Calvin Nox Finny Sanki and others and you'll find that brother madam openly says he read their works and he agrees with them on some and he disagrees with them he differences or difference with them on that. Right? He also speaks about Scoffield. He tells us that he studied with a Scoffield Bible. He had a Scoffield Bible and he agrees with Scoffield here and he doesn't agree with Scoffield there. He pre he even preaches something stating this is not news to us. This is why we don't understand why people are suddenly shocked and calling it plagiarism. Again, those of you who actually study the message would also know that he believed in his ministry, brother Baron's belief in his ministry was that he was to do one particular thing. Go type this into your table. such loose ends. He believed his ministry was to tie up the loose ends left by all these men. That's what he believed. That's what he believed God showed to him, right? That meant he agreed with a lot of things they said, a lot of things. Their dates, their times, their diagrams, some of their teachings, some of their wordings. He agreed with it, but not everything. I was never shocked because I studied these books myself when I was 16. My dad had me go through it. He made me take uh uh uh diagrams from dispensational truth and had me draw them out in A1 pages when he would do teachings for the church. So I replicated Clarence Lockan's drawings because brother Bammy used those drawings. I I remember even doing the body, spirit, soul diagram from Clarence Lockan, except we swapped out spirit and soul. To me, it's like how could you message ministers whose fathers were in the ministry with the prophet and our friends? How could you not know this? What did you not study the message? I was never shocked because I've studied these books myself. I still have all these books with me. I was not surprised that brother Benham used it because I'd studied Lan from a 16-year-old. I had seen where brother Benham had spoken from. I I can tell you where brother Benham spoke from Lockan's writings concerning Daniel's visions, the three-fold purpose of Christ, the covenants, the body, spirit soul, and many other things. These were teachings that rose up during the reformation by amazing men under that man beast anointing. And having studied them myself from my youth, I could also compare with the message. I could see because I read Lan, I read the others and I read the message and I see exactly what it was no issue for me because I know brother Maram is tying up the loose ends, you know. So you may see it as plagiarism. I see it as God's word and not the word of men. To me, it's not the word of Clarence Lan. It's not the word of Luther. It's not the word of Wesley. It's the word of God through those men. And if God wants to speak the same word through another man, it's not plagiarism. It's the word of God. I certainly did not see brother Brandon literally taking a doctrine, you know, and saying the serpent seed revelation is my revelation. He even said in marriage and divorce, serpent seed became new after the seals were open. If you didn't read it and you're shocked, that's because you didn't do due diligence. We knew that the serpent seed doctrine was something brought in by the Jews and that was kicked out as a heretical doctrine by Irenius. We knew because we studied church history. We were not shocked. I've never in my life believed that serpent seed was something brother Brandon came up with because it was known by denominations, right? and it was rejected by them. We knew this. I I'm shocked that you message people don't know this. And now you're shocked about plagiarism. It's It's incredible. I don't understand. But you know what? I think I know why. Because you spent your lives in this message, not studying the word, not properly doing due diligence to your studies as ministers. All you do is preach anointing for uh you know what? overcoming or uh God rich in mercy and just Pentecostal um like messages, just good feeling messages. You're the bride, you're safe, you're the that's all you do while I watch my dad go to his study from 8:00 in the morning to 2 every day like a working day studying. And I do the same Monday to Friday like a full workday pouring through the word searching the scriptures reading checking this with that. During co my dad was preaching seven days a week during lockdown while others were just sitting around. Do the work. Stop acting surprised. You know you who are anti- William Brandham will only see plagiarism in the message future home. I want to ask you a question. Do you see the abundant mysteries hidden in the message future home? I bet you don't. Do you see the things there that he spoke that were not spoken by Lan but revealed in its time by the Holy Spirit to him? You probably don't. And I want to tell you that's what we feast on. What you can't see. I want to say something. I know it's not very nice, but um like I said in the beginning, uh these guys call us cult leaders, cult pastors. They use the worst words on us. Branommites. They call us brandomites. They they they shame us publicly. They investigate our churches. They to me they are turn coats eating humble pie. So I want to say this. It is true there is a lot of brandism and cultish behavior among message churches. Some very severe in cultural areas and others they're just playing it safe. I just want to say to the to the people to you young people I'm closing now. I want to say to you young people who are reading all this stuff by these people, these websites, people going online making their their message videos and how they left and all this stuff and these ministers especially. I want to say those of you listening to the stuff against the prophet and being discouraged, these elders and older people who are leaving the message now after being in it for many years are the ones who caused all this ruckus and who are responsible for all the branimism that exists. Some of these who were in the prophet's meetings and some who were the children of these men who were in the prophet's meetings or friends of the prophet or friends of the prophet's friends. These people forced us to listen to their stories of William Brham. They told yarns and stories of supernatural events. They gave testimonies. They cried tears telling us of all their experiences and dreams they had and supernatural things took place in their lives and vindications God gave them. And they prophesied over some people and had dreams and visions about about things. They went around the world passing out pictures of a cloud, pictures of the prophet with the pillar of fire, passing out paraphernalia uh from the prophet's life, promoting idolatry and loyalty to the man. They did it. Their stories got them respect. They were invited to the best churches. They were uh invited um given funding to travel to the world. They saw the world to tell their stories. They got respect. People flocked to see them. People would fill like a like an arena, like a stadium to come and hear these stories. They did it. They were elders. They were song leaders. They were they corrected us. They forced us to comply with their legalism. They checked out our dressing, our hairstyles, our fashion, our music, our entertainment, our books. They controlled our lives. When they were song leaders, they composed songs with brother Bam's name in it. And elders and preachers held us accountable as teenagers to cood to the highest standard with the most severe penalties. When we became preachers, they put the highest pressure on on us to say what the prophet says, to stay with the tapes, or else they wouldn't give us the pulpit. They did this. They caused this. And now after benefiting financially from his name, taking tithes and offerings, educating their children with that money, putting them through colleges and universities, setting themselves up financially, making businesses for themselves, they think now is finally time for them to tell us the truth. They go on YouTube and internet and sanctimoniously lecture us on what truth is and how William Brandham is a false prophet. After the mess they created, they tuck their tails between their legs and become the greater theologians than anybody else, historians, factcheckers, and do not apologize for what they have done or for capitalizing on the message of a humble man. They're richer than William Brham ever was. There's a very poignant phrase that was used during the Middle Ages and the American Civil War that said, "Never trust a turncoat." The feeling behind it was if they betrayed their side once, they'll betray the next side they choose. I've seen this in my time in the message. And the very people who were legalistic and victimize other people and other people's children, when it came time and their children grew up and they couldn't handle them and they couldn't keep their wives in line, then they chose to leave the message and demonize the prophet and message people. How convenient. I'm not saying that every person who leaves the message has done these things, but certainly the leaders and preachers and elders and song leaders and deacons who held all this, you have a lot to account for. What I'm saying to you is people who pushed and propagated brandomism instead of the word cannot be trusted with their now sanctimonious lectures and newfound discoveries and revelations. The only thing it proves is this. If you were in the message and promoted and propagated brandomism instead of the word and now you are claiming that he's a liar and a false prophet, then you are just proving that you are someone who was deceived when you claimed to be saved and have the Holy Ghost for decades. But you were living under the deception of the highest note according to you. And now the s now it hurts you that you have to say this but you were deceived. You were deceived. That's what you are actually saying. And the same Holy Ghost now is revealing to you that he's false. You really want us to believe? What? You think I'm stupid? You think we are stupid? That all those years you claimed to have the Holy Ghost. You did all these great things in William Brandham's name. You propagated brandomism. And now you have the Holy Ghost to tell us he's false. Really, I'm sorry. This is really annoying. If you are somebody who has who was hurt by message ministers, by a message church, you were subjected to legalism by those people who propagated brandomism. You have a legitimate reason to leave. It's understandable. I empathize with you. And God be with you. God prosper your way. You have my prayer. If this is the reason you're you're leaving the message because you abused by an abusive ministry, an abusive church, I'm with you. May God be with you. I pray for you. But let me tell you what the message is to us. When you remove all the noise, what has the ministry of William Brandham? Young people, I want you to listen up. What has the message of William Brandham done for us? And why am I still following it? Why are we still following it? as the wisdom of God for this day. Here we go. It set us free from organized religion. It alerted us to the true mark of the beast, which is organized religion. It identified the abuse of gifts in Pentecost. It taught us that what Adam lost was oneness with God and the two comeings of Christ are purpose to restore us back to becoming God made flesh. No denomination preaches that. It is the message is bride focused. It makes us focus on our souls being married to the word and not an organization or human leadership. It shows us there is more to the Bible than histories and stories. Uh that the mystery of Christ in us lays in the types and shadows. The message reveals to us that we are to become the bride to give mercy to the world and at the white th especially at the white throne judgment not to condemn people. The message reveals to us all of these things and the natural benefits of the message of living right, dressing right, doing what cood teaches us. The natural benefits of the message is healthy addictionfree bodies, clear minds that can focus on a two-hour teaching of the word, wholesome marriages, obedient, god-fearing, moral living children, decently dressed women who express the feminine nature of God, who become our wives. men who are true headships who can lead their homes with the highest wisdom, understanding and character of Christ. We are non-political. We are not bound by religious traditions. We do not answer to any head office. Nobody controls how we preach. We are all sovereign assemblies, each having the liberty to receive inspiration from the Bible and the message and preach it as we see it. Nobody checks on us. The people have a right to believe or leave. That's it. Nobody signs in. Nobody signs out. These benefits serve us well to be able to travel, spread the word of Christ, knowing that our families and our homes are happy and in order back home with Christ so that we can speedily fulfill our purpose and return and everything's still normal and still good and still under the banner of and and the love of Christ. We are now facing challenges that other generations did not have and denominational churches have no control over these challenges. We are reaching that stage right now there in this world. Pornography, immorality, uh uh wokeness, gender confusion, whole lot of things that's happening right now. Denominations have no control over these things. Things are going bad to worse. We have now reached that stage right now in the world in this present time where everything is failing. Churches will fail, ministries will fail, people will fail. And we've reached the stage where if the word cannot help you, nothing can. That's it. The word is our absolute. The word is consistent. The word is what will take us through. That's where we have reached right now, saints. I trust that this will not answer questions, not answer your doubts or anything. All that we want to do is put the wisdom out there to balance what you are hearing. That's what the word is to us. Amen. We do not worship William Brandom. We are not a cult. I don't even understand where this whole thing comes from. We are just a normal group of church people who do everything we can to live right to to worship Jesus Christ. We pray to Jesus Christ. We worship God. We sing hymns. We sing hymns of Ira Deni and Fanny Crosby and all these people. We we sing the hymns. Uh we don't worship William Brandom. We um uh pray to God. We pray to Christ. We speak in his name. We believe in the blood of Calvary. I don't understand all these accusations that they make against us and call us all these kind of names, but it has to be. So, what we're saying is we're not going to convince people or answer the critics or, you know, whatever it is that people are expecting us to do. We are simply going to put the word out there. You young people, you are in the worst time ever in the history of mankind. You are going to have all this stuff on this hand. You are going to have what we put out in this hand and what the prophet has put out in the message. You are going to have to make a choice. That's where we are today. If the word can't help you, nothing can. The Lord bless you.

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