“Seven Seals”
William Branham led people to believe that he was the seventh angel of Revelation 10:7 who God used to open and reveal the “seven seals” of Revelation Chapters 5-6 and 8.
He did so even though the Bible does not state that the seventh angel of Revelation 10:7 would be used by God to break, open and reveal the “seven seals”, as he claimed in the following statements,
“And at that day of the sounding of the last church age, the seventh angel, the mysteries of God should be made known in that day. The Seven Seals would be broken. The mysteries of all these churches and things, how they happened, and what tak-... how, what taken place.” “Spiritual.Food.In.Due.Season” (65-0718E).
“Notice, it was to be the seventh angel’s Message that was to reveal the seventh, the Seven Seals. Revelation 10:7, now, you’ll find it. See?” “Souls That Are In Prison Now” (63-1110M).
“And these Seven Seals was not to be opened (Revelation 10) until the sounding of the last earthly angel on earth, Revelation 10:7.” “The Rapture” (65-1204).
“And remember, Revelation 10:1-7, (1-7, chapter 10:1-7) at the end of the Seventh Angel’s Message, ALL the mysteries of God would be known.” The Seventh Seal, Seals, p. 564a, 3/24/63.
The Bible also does not state that “the mysteries of God should be made known” in the day of the seventh angel, as William Branham claimed. From a plain reading of Revelation 10:7 that follows, it is evident that the Scripture merely states, “the mystery of God should be finished” when the seventh angel will begin to sound,
“But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.”
Because the Scripture specifies that a single “mystery of God should be finished” and does not specify that multiple “mysteries will be made known” when the seventh angel begins to sound, William Branham's claims above are completely unfounded and untrue. Simply stated, there is no mention in Revelation 10:7 of the seventh angel revealing multiple “mysteries” let alone of that angel revealing the seven seals.[1]
William Branham's claims that God would use the seventh angel “messenger” (a man) to open and reveal the “seven seals” are also false and contrary to the Bible because St. John clearly states in Revelation 5:3-4 that,
“....no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.”
As also established in Revelation 5:6-9, only the Lamb (Jesus Christ) was “worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof” and he alone was worthy because He was “slain, and hast redeemed us to God.” It is apparent therein that the Lamb did not need the help of a seventh angel “messenger” (a man) to open it and “to loose the seven seals thereof.” The Lamb opened all seven seals individually on his own after He “came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.”
Even if a seventh angel “messenger” would have been used by Jesus Christ to “open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof” that “messenger” certainly would have had to be as worthy as Jesus Christ to open and look upon it. And William Branham as the purported seventh angel “messenger” certainly was not worthy to assist with opening the book and loosing the seals thereof based on the serious ways in which he misrepresented God, the Bible and the truth in his significantly false “church age” and other teachings that are identified on this website.
It is further evident that William Branham was not worthy to look upon the book and assist the Lamb of God with opening it by the fact that he outright lied about receiving a “commission”
from seven angels in Arizona in 1963 that told him to return home because the “mysteries of the Bible, which the Seven Seals held, would be revealed.”[2]
William Branham outright lied by stating that he was standing under the mysterious cloud that appeared in northern Arizona on February 28, 1963 when the seven angels allegedly appeared to him,
“How many saw a mysterious cloud in the sky? Lets see the hands. And now, the "Life" Magazine picked it up. And I have the--the article here this morning in the "Life" Magazine there, of the show... Now, here it is, the same time I was there. See the pyramid or the Cloud? I was standing just below this.” “Standing In The Gap” (63-0623M).
William Branham was never in northern Arizona or anywhere close to the mysterious cloud when it appeared, but he again stated that he was,
“And science is baffled. Standing right under where it was happening there... Now science took the picture of It, you seen It, went on Associated Press. They didn't know what It was. There is a Cloud hanging, twenty-six miles high. That's fifteen miles, or twenty, above even where vapor is at. They don't know what it's all going about, and they are trying to investigate It. And there, right under It, I was standing.” “O Lord, Just Once More” (63-0628A).
“Later the Angels appeared as was prophesied. And at the same time, a great cluster of--of Light left to where I was standing and moved thirty miles high in the air and around the circle, like the wings of the Angels, and drawed into the skies a shape of a pyramid in the same constellation of Angels that appeared.
Science took the picture all the way from Mexico as it moved from northern Arizona, where the Holy Spirit said I would be standing (forty miles northeast of Tucson). And it went into the air, and "Life" magazine packed the pictures: a mystic something way in the spheres where there can be no moisture, where there can be no evaporations of anything, thirty miles high and twenty-seven miles across and coming right up from where those Angels were.” “It Is The Rising Of The Sun” (65-0418M).
William Branham, in fact, was not even in the state of Arizona when the cloud appeared during the evening of February 28, 1963 just north of Flagstaff. It wasn't until the morning of March 8, 1963 when he was hunting javelina in Rattlesnake Mesa in southern Arizona that he allegedly was told by seven angels to return home because the “mysteries of the Bible, which the Seven Seals held, would be revealed.”
The two events occurred approximately 200-miles and a week and a day apart and at different times of the day. Consequently, William Branham could not have been standing just below the cloud as he claimed. The cloud also could not have been formed the day the seven angels allegedly appeared to him. Rather, the cloud most likely formed and traveled from west to east from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California after a Thor rocket booster was detonated at 27.65 miles high. “The altitude at detonation was close to the photogrammetrically estimated cloud altitude” according to American physicist, Dr. James E. McDonald.
William Branham's false representation of an “angelic commission” related to the “seven seals” clearly rendered him not more worthy, but even less worthy, to look upon the book and assist the Holy Lamb of God with opening it and loosing the seven seals thereof. Consequently, he could not have been chosen or used by Jesus Christ for that purpose.
(For more about the “cloud” and information that demonstrates the untrue nature of his related claims, see the discussion here.)
It is also apparent that William Branham could not have been the “seventh angel” of the
10th chapter of Revelation who would make known the “seven seals” and other “mysteries” of God to the Gentile church, as he led people to believe, because he specifically stated that God is only dealing with Israel from the 4th to the 19th chapters of Revelation, as follows,
“The first three chapters of the Book of Revelations reveals all the happenings unto the Church. Then from the 3rd chapter unto the 19th chapter of Revelation there is no more seen of the Church. The Church goes up at the 4th chapter of Revelations and returns back at the 19th chapter of Revelations, the Bride and the Groom together coming to the earth. And then from the 19th chapter to the conclusive of the 22nd chapter, it's all on the millennium and what will be in the years that is to follow. During the 4th to the 19th, God is dealing with Israel.” “The Feast Of The Trumpets” (64-0719M).
Based on those teachings of his, the “seventh angel” would have to be a Jew and not a Gentile in that part of the Bible.
Footnotes:
[1] NOTE: Prior to 1963, William Branham did not misrepresent Revelation 10:7 to say that, “ALL the MYSTERIES of God would be made known” by the seventh angel like he did above. In 1960, he recognized that the Scripture indicates that ONE “mystery of God would be finished” and even taught that the ONE mystery is the mystery of who God is as one Person as follows,
“As Daniel heard the seven thunders, and forbidden; and John heard the voices, and this Book was sealed, and the back of the book was sealed with Seven Seals; but in the days of these Seals to be opened, "The mystery of God would be finished." In other words, God would be known to His Church; not in three people, but as one Person.” “The Ephesian Church Age” (60-1205).
[2] “Shalom” 1/19/64,V-22, N-1, p. 25.