It is a matter of history that his ministry under God spearheaded an apostolic revival that swept around the world.
We well remember what happened right after the close of World War II. The great evangelists, Dr. Charles S. Price, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Smith Wigglesworth all died within a short space of time. Many people began wondering if the days of revival were over. In fact some preached that they were over. But almost simultaneously with their passing, God raised up William Branham and after him many others to carry on a new wave of revival that has reached nearly every nation of the free world.
I was associated with William Branham as his manager for several years during the time his ministry spearheaded the great deliverance revival that swept around the world. I, therefore, am taking the liberty of making a few comments on the life of a man that has had so great an impact upon the world.
To know Brother Branham was to love him. His nature was tender, kind, and his sensibilities reached deeply to the suffering and pain of others. So great was his compassion for the sick and afflicted that he at times permitted his own health to suffer while praying long hours for endless lines of sick. For a while he carried, as it were, the weight of a suffering world upon his frail shoulders, until at last God made it known unto him that his responsibility must be shared by others.
There was a characteristic in his ministry that made him intensively loved by the multitudes who heard him - it was his simple humility. In his earlier years he had known nothing but the pangs of poverty, hardship, and crushing sorrows, a man who had even the little of life wrenched from his grasp. As he would often tell the story, his family was the poorest of the poor. For a long time he was unable to afford the most meager of houshold conveniences. Once he lost an easy chair to a finance company, not being able to keep up the payments. To pay expenses he worked as an Indiana game warden but was too kind-hearted to impose fines, although that was his only source of income.
While managing Brother Branham's meetings, we often ran into problems with those who wished to use his great influence to help propagate some particular doctrine. Brother Branham took a firm stand on this, and we published a statement that our brother was not endorsing this or that view, but that God had called him to unite the church and not to divide it. Those attending those great campaigns will remember how Brother Branham would come to the platform and again in a most humble spirit tell the people that God had called him as a prophet to minister to people of all churches and not to wrangle over doctrine. His great calling was to bring the truth of the supernatural ministry to the hearts of the people of our generation that they might know that Christ was a living reality. I never cease marvelling at the great effect he had upon people of all walks of life. Multitudes are Christians today because William Branham lived.
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