William Branham and Balaam

Special thanks to Joe Heflin for helping put this together! A link to his page is in the description, and if you have been impacted by William Branham’s “Message” cult of personality, please subscribe!

Balaam from the book of Numbers in the Old Testament is almost universally viewed as an evil character by Christians. According to the book of Numbers, King Balak of Moab paid for Balaam's services to curse Israel, but God displayed his power over the forces of evil by causing Balaam to bless Israel. The book of Revelation further details how Balaam enticed Israel into sexual immorality and idolatry. As a result, God sent a deadly plague to Israel.

On our website, we have a comparison between William Branham’s ministry and that of Balaam. William Branham either did not understand or fully disagreed with the reasons for the condemnation of Balaam in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, and Branham appears to have patterned key elements of his stage persona after Balaam. Though Branham admitted that Balaam led Israel into idolatry, Branham taught that Balaam's practice of divination was holy. According to Branham, Balaam's practice was not evil; he was "anointed with the same Spirit that was upon Moses." In fact, Branham frequently used Balaam as an example for his version of the Nativity story claiming that Jews were witnessing the vindication of Balaam's prophecy.

When William Branham abandoned the 1945 version of his stage persona detailed in his tract, "I Was Not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision" and introduced the "angelic commission" version of his stage persona, he used a theme of "anointed with the same Spirit" by claiming many of Balaam's divination practices condemned by God. Some of these practices were fundamental elements in the versions of his "Life Story" accounts, such as the "fortune teller" who claimed that Branham's birth coincided with a planetary event allowing their divination of his arrival.

You can learn this and more on william-branham.org

Joe Heflin’s Page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC732vggT_lAAeb8sdyEFYPg

Joe's Video on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Sx64VHI1o

Balaam Research:
https://william-branham.org/site/research/people/balaam