"If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
Deuteronomy 13:1-5
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
Exodus 32:1-10
What do these two passages have to do with each other? They both have to do with worshiping gods other than Yahweh. The passage from Deuteronomy tells us that a prophet can perform signs and wonders, and even make accurate predictive prophecies. But if that prophet tells the people to follow after other gods, then he is a false prophet.
The passage in Exodus describes a heinous sin that Israel committed against God. What was their sin? Instinctively, we say that it was their worship of a false god, namely the golden calf. And we would be correct. But what does Aaron say about this golden calf? We will say more about this in a moment.
We often make an issue of the fact that WMB never made a predictive prophecy which came to pass as predicted. Message believers deny this, but it’s a proven fact. Be that as it may, Message believers contend that WMB’s flawless gift of prophecy showed that he was a true prophet of God. But does an impeccable prophetic record prove that a man is a prophet of God? The passage in Deuteronomy says no. God says that even if a prophet is able to predict future events accurately, if he tells people to follow after other gods, he is a false prophet. You may say, “But Brother Branham didn’t tell people to follow after false gods.” Didn’t he?
Let’s take another look at Exodus 32. Aaron equates the golden calf with Yahweh, who brought Israel out of Egypt. He said,
“These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD [that is, Yahweh].”
The Lord to whom Aaron was proclaiming this feast was Yahweh. Aaron was proclaiming the golden calf to be Yahweh who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt. God’s anger was hot against Israel for worshiping the the golden calf in His place, even though they equated it to God. They worshiped a false god saying it was the true God.
WMB does the same thing. Even if he indeed made thousands of prophecies without making a single error, the god WMB led his followers to (Deuteronomy 13:1) is not the Christian God. His is a false representation of God which many false teachers and false prophets before him tried to get the Church to follow.
The lesson is, just because you may perceive WMB to have been flawless in predictive prophecy, it does not vindicate him as having been sent by God. His teachings must be according to the Bible. And by that, it’s according to what the Bible itself teaches, not what WMB says it says.
For more of what William Branham believed and taught, see