WILLIAM BRANHAM WAS GOD IN HUMAN FLESH (PART III)

“T.L. Osborn’s Rousing Eulogy to William Branham”

By Akin Ojumu

Today’s iteration of this commentary series is a verbatim excerpt of the address given by T. L. Osborn at the memorial service held in honor of the false prophet and heretic, William Branham on January 26, 1966. The event was held at the Ramada Inn, Phoenix, Arizona. 

I decided to post this excerpt of a rather long speech so that those of you struggling to accept my categorization of T.L. Osborn as a false teacher, a deceived deceiver, and a pretend believer will understand that I have receipts to back up my claim. 

By their fruits we shall know them. Any tree that produces a doctrinally bad fruit is a spiritually diseased tree. No true preacher of the Gospel will call a heretic like William Branham God in human flesh. You cannot be a true follower of Christ Jesus and consider Branham a forerunner of the second coming of Christ.

Matthew 7:17-18

“So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.”

Like I said last time, even though it’s an excerpt from T.L. Osborn’s original speech, it is still quite a long speech. Nevertheless, I suggest you read the entire thing. You’d be doing yourself a world of good if you did. 

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But then, not long after, things began to happen as in Judges chapter two. Another generation arose who forgot God and what God in the flesh was like. They forgot, and down through the years they forgot more and more, until so-called “Christiandom” degenerated into a traditional, cold, and hopeless religious society without power, without God, and without miracles. It was destitute of God.

Then the end began to draw near, and the last days began to come upon us. A bit of light then began to come through; a bit more, and a bit more, until a few years ago we were nearing the end of the cycle of another two thousand years, (which is the final one) so that the day of the Lord is at hand. As the light began to dawn, many of the signs of the coming of the Lord began to be fulfilled, until the people of God knew that surely His coming was drawing nigh. But something very great, basic, and all important had not been done. This gospel of the kingdom was to be preached as a witness to all nations, and then the end would come. But what was this gospel of the kingdom? The church had forgotten. It was a generation where although many of them were religious and sincere, and many of them were hungry and seeking; but yet they had forgotten what it really was like.

This was the closing generation. Something had to happen. It couldn’t go as past generations had gone. This one is IT! Therefore, in God’s divine mercy, somehow stepping beyond the bounds of ordinary measure, He had foreordained at this hour to send again this prophet.

Some are going to think I am sacrilegious or off doctrinally (and it doesn’t really matter), but God came again in human flesh and said, “Apparently, I must show them again. I must remind them again. They must see one more time. Once again, they must know what God is like.” AND HE STEPPED DOWN AND SENT A LITTLE MAN, A PROPHET, BUT MORE THAN A PROPHET THIS TIME, A JESUS-MAN THIS TIME!

Elijah was not that. This is more than that which we have beheld! Moses was not that, for because of the different dispensation in which he lived, it couldn’t be what we have seen. MORE THAN THAT! A JESUS-MAN, A MAN FULL OF GOD, BUT SENT AS A SPECIAL SIGN TO A GENERATION – THIS GENERATION. A SUPERNATURAL SIGN, AN EXTRAORDINARY MEASURE.

Why? It was done before, why do it again? To arouse this last generation! Once more to be the forerunner: once more, to be sure the record is clear, to be sure there is no excuse, and to be sure that God has demonstrated afresh; to be sure there can be no mistake, and to be sure that we are reminded afresh of what God is like, how Jesus was, and of what God does in the flesh. To be sure that this generation, charged with bringing back the King, would know without question what it must be like, what the work must be to do, and what the minister must be. So we would know what our mission is to perform, what our witness is, how we are to perform and execute it, what we are to do, and how we are to act. Once more to be without excuse, beyond measure. To be the forerunner of His second coming.

The first night I ever heard and saw Brother Branham minister, I didn’t hear a voice, I Didn’t know that it had been said of him, and I didn’t know that the voice from heaven had spoken these words. I knew nothing of that. I had not been with any of the ministers that believed in him, for most of those that I was with did not believe in him. But like a voice, and yet not like a voice, I heard it. I knew it. It came to me! “As John the Baptist was sent as a forerunner of His first coming, William Branham is sent as a forerunner of His second coming.” I knew that.

I was an inexperienced young preacher. I was not a theologian. I did not know the Scripture. Why I knew this, I do not know; but I knew it. I said, “Thank God, he crossed my path. Thank God, I learned. Thank God, I caught on.” It did not take ten nights, only one night.

This generation seeks a sign, another sign, another one, and still another one! One is enough! One is ample! God willing, to be sure, that we don’t fail in the knowledge of the immutability of His covenant, did it again in the twentieth century, the generation destined to bring Him back. This generation must know. This generation must be without excuse, for unto this generation is committed the task to do this. So, He sent forth a particular human vessel, surrounded by supernatural signs to attract attention and to make this wayward generation look up, ponder, search, and think.

Thus, the halo of light that appeared at his birth, the star, the angel, the discernment, the gifts, all of these were given for that purpose. For what? TO SHOW US GOD AGAIN! To repeat what He showed us in Jesus Christ, when He came in the form of flesh; and to remind us one final time. Like Jesus, Brother Branham re-demonstrated the very thing which made men believe that the true Messiah had come.

He was a seer; he saw. He lived in both worlds, the seen and the unseen at the same time, and transcended both of them practically all the time. Jesus said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do.”

Here comes Brother Branham along in the twentieth century and does exactly the same way. GOD IN THE FLESH, again crossing our paths; and many did not know. THEY WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN HIM IF THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN HERE – WHEN GOD CROSSED THEIR PATH IN THE BODY THEY CALLED JESUS CHRIST! People have not changed. Those who questioned then, would question now. Those who didn’t believe then would not believe now. “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father doing. For what things soever He doeth. these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son and showeth Him all things.”

He saw the miracles before they happened. Jesus saw the crippled man who 38 times had been to the pool but never could get into the water. Jesus saw all this before He went in, stood there. and told him to stand up. He saw Lazarus raised before it came to pass. He had already settled it with the Father. It had already been rehearsed. He saw Nathaniel before Philip ever called him when he was over under the fig tree, before they were even

converted.

He foretold exactly how the disciples would go down the streets and meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. He said that they should follow him and would find an ass tied there, and He also told them to bring him. He saw all this before it happened.

This was William Branham’s life. Precisely as we read it in the Scriptures. Then men hear Brother Branham say this, and they say, “It is wrong today;” but it isn’t. They don’t believe today; they would not have believed then. But God has come again, crossed our paths again, and showed us again what the God-man is like, what God is like, what He is like in the flesh, and what the new creation is like.

See what this is? This is the new creation at work. He was a discerner, as Jesus discerned the woman at the well and her life. And how many times have you sat and marveled? If we believe when we read the Scriptures of the few things that we heard that Jesus did, how can we be without excuse when we sat night after night and saw these things repeated, not once, but dozens of times in the same perfect manner in which Jesus did them? Exactly!

How it has been that one could see this and not believe, is beyond me. Brother Branham knew diseases. He knew them everywhere before anyone told him. The same God knows all things. It is God in man, demonstrating His knowledge – what He is, how that He transcends all natural barriers, and nothing is impossible with Him.

He knew when virtue had gone out of him. How many have sat and watched when Brother Branham whirled around and said, “There she is,” “There he is?” Only once in the scriptures did the little woman see this. Of course, we do have the fact that later everybody heard about it, and they all got it; but only one case is set forth in detail. But my eyes have beheld dozens of cases, and some of you have seen hundreds of cases! How can I not believe?

This does not bring doctrinal barriers to me. This simply tells me that what happened then is the same today. My God is unchanged. By these signs it is witnessed in the Scriptures that the Gentiles were made obedient by word and deed through mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God. Have we not looked on and seen the multitudes come to Christ as they beheld the wonders and repented of their sins, cried out for salvation, and received eternal life, not only here, but abroad to the count of as many as 30,000 in a single day, standing to receive the life of Jesus Christ, because a God crossed their path in human flesh and unveiled Himself?

Is this a mystery? This is not a mystery; this is the wonder of God! Is this a matter to dicker over doctrinally? This is a matter to give glory to our God, who has come in the flesh again in our generation. He has come in the flesh in all of us, but in a particular way in this man who was His prophet for this generation, for He surrounded him with these supernatural signs which were to attract the attention of the world once again by a sign.

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If, after reading the above speech, you are still convinced T.L. Osborn is a true man of God who served God faithfully, you are far more lost than you can ever imagine.