William Branham, Arrogance, and Jezebel

[rockytopva]

I believe in the seven churches as ages...

Ephesus - Messianic - Beginning with the Apostle to the circumcision, Peter.
Smyrna - Gentile Persecuted Church - Beginning with the Apostle to the uncircumcision, Paul.
Pergamos - Orthodoxy formed in this time... Pergos is a tower... Needed in the dark ages
Thyatira - Catholicism formed in this time - The spirit of Jezebel is to control and to dominate.
Sardis - Protestantism formed in this time- A sardius is a gem - elegant yet hard and rigid
Philadelphia - Wesleyism formed in this time - To be sanctioned is to acquire it with love.
Laodicea - Charismatic movement formed in this time - Rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing?

I got my definition of the seven churches from William Branham. I believe that William Branham was initially on the right track. Furthermore Branham enjoyed a healing ministry and at one time was a sought out evangelist... Until he made himself head of the Laodicean church. Now, if people are not following him, they are heretics. He also fell in with the oneness Pentecostals and became incredibly arrogant, which lead to the mans death... The story as retold by Freda Lindsay....

One day Kenneth Hagin came into our offices. He handed Gordon a piece of paper on which was written a prophecy he said the Lord had given him. The prophecy stated that the leader of the deliverance movement was soon to be taken in death because he was getting into error, and the Lord was having to remove him from the scene for that reason. Gordon took the prophecy and placed it on his desk.

After Brother Hagin left, I asked, “What do you think about this? Is this Branham?”

Gordon answered gravely, “Yes, it is Branham. He is getting into error. He thinks he is Elijah. He thinks he is the messenger of the covenant. The sad thing is that unscrupulous men around him are putting words into his mouth, and due to his limited background he is taking them up. ”

Two years later, William Branham, who had moved from his home in Jeffersonville, Indiana, was driving to Tucson, Arizona, his new base. In West Texas he had a head-on collision with a drunken driver and was taken to the hospital. His head became terribly swollen. A tube was placed in his throat to assist his breathing, but on Christmas Eve, 1965, he departed this world, even as the prophecy had stated. A tremendous ministry that had veered off course! - http://wp.believethe...com/archives/14

William Branham took the goods God gave him and used it against himself to become incredibly arrogant, and died at an early age, 56. This was also true of Martin Luther and John Calvin. It was said of Martin Luther, who passed away at 62...

Luther had been suffering from ill health for years, including Ménière's disease, vertigo, fainting, tinnitus, and a cataract in one eye. From 1531 to 1546, his health deteriorated further. The years of struggle with Rome, the antagonisms with and among his fellow reformers, and the scandal which ensued from the bigamy of the Philip of Hesse incident, in which Luther had played a leading role, all may have contributed. In 1536, he began to suffer from kidney and bladder stones, and arthritis, and an ear infection ruptured an ear drum. In December 1544, he began to feel the effects of angina.

His poor physical health made him short-tempered and even harsher in his writings and comments. His wife Katharina was overheard saying, "Dear husband, you are too rude," and he responded, "They are teaching me to be rude." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther

And of John Calvin, who passed away at 54....

The burden of work and responsibilities was turned into crushing labor by his continual poor health. Overwork in his law-student days had impaired his digestion. This in turn, increased by his excitable and nervous disposition, brought on migraines. Later his lungs became affected, perhaps through too much preaching and talking, and he was incapacitated by lung hemorrhages. As if all this were not enough, he was tortured by bladder stones and the gout. - http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-12/life-and-times-of-john-calvin.html

John Wesley, on the other hand, was not interested in reforming the church into a denomination, but one to revive the church within its existing denominations. Without all that stress and tension he was still active in his mid-eighties.

I do not believe it a healthy thing to promote a denomination or to play the church politics.

 

[rockytopva]

My beliefs have their origins in the works of William Seymour and the Azusa Street Mission. The following is out of the devotions of William Seymour.

But even after that great revival power struggles ensued and destroyed the mission. In Seymours devotions is a structure of the church in which he makes himself Bishop.

John Wesley discouraged such titles and chastised Asbury for making himself Bishop of the movement...

The Journal of Asbury refers to this letter. On March 15, 1789, he says, "Here I received a bitter pill from one of my greatest friends. Praise the Lord for my trials also! May they all be sanctified!" It was the last letter he had from Wesley.

LONDON
September 20, 1788


My Dear Brother:

There is, indeed, a wide difference between the relation wherein you stand to the Americans and the relation wherein I stand to all the Methodists. You are the elder brother of the American Methodists: I am under God the father of the whole family. Therefore I naturally care for you all in a manner no other persons can do. Therefore I in a measure provide for you all; for the supplies which Dr. Coke provides for you, he could not provide were it not for me, were it not that I not only permit him to collect but also support him in so doing.

But in one point, my dear brother, I am a little afraid both the Doctor and you differ from me. I study to be little: you study to be great. I creep;

you strut along. I found a school: you a college! [Cokesbury College.] nay, and call it after your own names! 0 beware, do not seek to be something! Let me be nothing, and "Christ be all in all!"

One instance of this, of your greatness, has given me great concern. How can you, how dare you suffer yourself to be called Bishop?

I shudder, I start at the very thought! Men may call me a knave or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never by my consent call me Bishop! For my sake, for God's sake, for Christ's sake put a full end to this! Let the Presbyterians do what they please, but let the Methodists know their calling better.

Thus, my dear Franky, I have told you all that is in my heart. And let this, when I am no more seen, bear witness how sincerely I am Your affectionate friend and brother,

John Wesley

 

[rockytopva]

I was a teenager during the 1980's election. I had thought that if we elected Reagan in it would be the salvation of the nation. Along with the Reagan election came the rise of many Pentecostal ministries. I even heard some evangelist declare that if God was not using their ministry that the work of the Lord would not proceed. I would imagine saying this would help build their growing empire. It was amazing thing to see these empires come crashing to the ground after the revealed sinful activity.

Path to Caritas (Latin for love in the purest form)...

1. Hope - All things begin with a hope
2. Faith - Motivation is a child of faith and hope
3. Charis - Grace - A powerful neighbor of caritas
4. Dynamos - Greek for virtue and motivation
5. Eucharisteo - Much grace... Gratitude
6. Charisomai - Well favored - A lucky kind of feeling
7. Euchrestos - Greek for profitable
8. Chairo - Greek for cheer - "Cheerio mate!"
9. Chara - Greek for joy
10. Chrestotes - An 'Aunt Bee' kind of Goodness
11. Charisma - Heavenly Graciousness
12. Chrisma - Heavenly Anointing

When we had a plating department in our facility I worked under a chemist. This chemist was very smart and very good at math. When he laid out equations he did so in very neat handwriting and there would be much activity as he turned the results of an analysis into an addition. I would take his calculations and put them in the form of visual basic functions and sub procedures.

Of all the years I worked with this man I had one opportunity to witness to him. I made my presentation while he was analyzing adhesion under a microscope in which you could hear the sounds... Scratch, scratch, scratch! Scratch scratch, scratch! After my presentation he just continued to look under the microscope as if ignored everything I said so I just continued in my work. Then... The scratch scratch, scratching stopped! And he speaks!

"You know what I think it is?" He says while continuing to look under the microscope... "I think it is arrogance!"

And then, without taking his eyes off the microscope, he continues his work... Scratch, scratch, scratch! Scratch scratch, scratch! I did not reply but went about my work. If I had a sick feeling in my stomach, it was that he never did witness the true spiritual light and energies, and those religious folk that he met in his life were arrogant... Which is not the light and energy God would have us present.

What is spiritual light? Faith, hope, charity, joy, goodness, gentlenss, meekness, kindness, and the like?
And the spiritual darkness the opposite? Fear, depression, greed, sorrow, badness, roughness, arrogance, and the like?

If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: - 1 John 1:6
But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. - James 3:14

1. The anointing of God is not human ego (arrogance)
2. If you do not love everyone you dwell in darkness
3. Our gospel truth is not to hold others in bondage
4. There is no denominational superiority... We are all in the flesh and subject to our faults and failures.
5, Even though you feel you may have truth, if it is not accompanied with the appropriate spiritual light, you do not.

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

Finally we are encouraged in scripture to try the spirits and weigh them to see if they are of God. If you are in the position where you have people over you, and the Spirit is raising red flags, react to that as God would have you to. I remember I use to follow a certain evangelist and I would be warned by a little voice inside of me that there was something wrong with the guy. And sure enough, I would learn of his fall years later.

For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. - Isaiah 66:2

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence. - 1 Corinthians 1

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. - Proverbs 16:18

Finally it is not the high and the esteemed that God looks to but to the poor and the lowly. If people get overboard in their ego know that a fall is on the way!

 

[rockytopva]

Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? - 1 Corinthians 5:6

According to the Apostle Paul... Just a little ego... And the whole batch is bad! I must cry with Wesley on this matter, 0 beware, do not seek to be something! Let me be nothing, and "Christ be all in all!" It important not to let our study go to our head where we think we are superior than everyone else because we have arrived at some doctrinal truth. With all of that said, it is nice to run upon people who are very knowledgeable in the way, and who have the matching spiritual light and energies in their heart as well.