Examining the great commission that the angel informed William Branham about.
It went like this:
The visiting angel in April 7, 1946 said:
"Do not fear; I'm sent from the Presence of God to tell you that you're taking a gift of Divine healings to the people of the world." Then said "If you'll get them to believe you, and be sincere when you pray, there'll be nothing stand before your prayers. Not even cancer"
Do you see that? He was given a gift of divine healing, but he had to get the people to believe him. If you really possess the power to heal someone, it shouldn’t be necessary for the people to have to believe you. Either you’ve got the gift or you don’t. Either you’ve got the power to heal, or you don’t. Obviously in this case, William Branham did not possess the power to heal anyone. So if the healing took place, what was the cause of it?
If the people had to believe before they could be healed, what did they have to believe in? Did they have to believe that William Branham possessed the gift or the power to heal, or did they simply have to believe that God would honor his prayer and heal the person?
Well for certain, they had to believe something; they had to have faith in something. If it was necessary to believe that God would heal them, what did they need William Branham for? Was their faith in the ability to be healed based upon God or William Branham?
Now we all know that man does not have the ability to heal anyone and only God can heal. Many times, William Branham told this to the people that it was not him, but God who performed the healing. So, if God does the healing why doesn’t God just heal the person if they ask for healing, instead of feeling the need for someone else to pray for them? Could this just simply be a lack of faith and they need to have their faith built up to a point that God will heal them? Or do they just need to have faith and believe without doubting that God will give them what they request of Him?
Let’s ask ourselves, where does our healing come from? Does it come down from God above or do we possess the ability in our own bodies to receive our healing? God did say in the Bible that in the last days that He would pour out His Spirit on all flesh. So if our bodies contain the Spirit of God, is this how we can obtain our healing, by believing in the healing power of God who dwells in us?
Even in the Bible Jesus made it known that He did not perform the healing, but it was from the Father who dwelt in Him. Many times He said that a person’s own faith was responsible for their own healing. So it appears that the answer is in our faith, our faith without doubting that God will give us whatever we ask for if we ask in faith, doubting nothing.
Now back to William Branham again. Did God give him the gift of Divine healing? Not at all, because he could not heal anyone. So, did God give him the gift of having his prayers answered for a person’s healing to take place? Yes, but it was conditional upon the faith of the person being prayed for. If the person didn’t have the faith that God would answer his prayers, they wouldn’t receive their healing. So without the faith in his prayers to be answered by God they remained sick. It obviously would take more than what is on the surface to achieve what the people wanted.
Now, here comes the influencing factor in order for the people to have enough faith to receive their healing. It was the supernatural signs that were in operation that were used to get the people to believe that he would have his prayers answered by God. Without these signs in operation, faith could not be established and William Branham’s prayers would not be answered. It goes right back to the faith that the people needed to have. Only the signs could accomplish the results that were needed. Still there was a condition that had to be met here also. According to William Branham the signs would not work unless the angel he talked about was present in the meetings with him. So this looks like the signs were in operation because of the angel and William Branham didn't have any gift that caused the signs to be in operation.
The bottom line here is not the people to receive their healing, because they could possibly get sick again from something else or even die soon after receiving their healing. The bottom line was to get the people to believe the gospel and receive salvation for eternal life.
This became just a shadow of what happened during the ministry of Jesus. Without God providing supernatural signs during the ministry of Jesus, He would not have been accepted as the Son of God. Without the signs the people would not have had the faith to be healed and would not have believed upon Jesus for their salvation. It all comes down to the effect brought on by supernatural signs which are provided by God.
Even after the ministry of Jesus, down through the years men have been gifted with supernatural gifts proving that God had ordained these certain individuals to preach the Gospel. Without these supernatural gifts in operation during the ministry of anyone, the proof of their commission by God is absent and serves to us all that they have not been sent by God.
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