William Marrion Branham

William Branham is the prophet, sent and vindicated by God for this age. His ministry brought about a worldwide revival in Christianity after the Second World War. Several books are written about this revival and William Branham, among which is “All Things Are Possible” by Prof. David Edwin Harrell.

The Message which William Branham brought, called the Bride of Christ out to the Word and restored all the Biblical truths. The revival, which proceeded out of William Branham’s ministry, travelled all around the world and also reached the Netherlands in the 1950’s. Many were touched and blessed by the Gospel, in which was declared that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Same, yesterday, today and forever.

A man in the Netherlands by the name of Karel Hoekendijk was called by the Lord to the ministry, in 1953. He became a well known Pentecostal minister in Holland as well as in some other countries. Around 1982, about five years before he passed away, he gave out his memoirs in Dutch, called “Before I Forget”. In this book Karel Hoekendijk relates how he received letters from William Branham. Then he writes: “In the first one that he wrote me he pointed, led by Gods Spirit, to a very small place on the globe, the Netherlands, while the Lord told him that from that country, the Netherlands, the revival would go out over the world”. William Branham knew no address in that country, but the Lord gave him the name and address of Karel Hoekendijk, and that’s why he wrote the letter to him. William Branham had planned to have some revival meetings in the Netherlands so he asked Karel Hoekendijk, by letter, to arrange these campaigns, but to do so in absolute secrecy and not to speak about it to anyone. Karel Hoekendijk then relates how the plans became known when he wanted to opt on some large halls in Utrecht, and how subsequently the devil blocked everything.

Although Karel Hoekendijk never received a complete insight in the Message which William Branham preached, he writes how he never saw a ministry like that of William Branham and how he followed him to all the places where William Branham ministered in Europe. In his book he relates about “the most wonderful things” he saw, “the dramatic miracles of healings, indicated and introduced by clear discernments, sharp, precise diagnoses”.

From left to right: Daga & Joseph Mattson-Boze, Daisy & Tommy Osborn, Gordon Lindsay, William Branham and Ern Baxter, 1953.

The evangelist, Tommy Osborn, had received his calling as a young man in one of William Branham’s meetings and had visited William Branham in his home a few weeks after that, to talk to him about his calling as an evangelist, after which he travelled around the world, preaching the Gospel.

In the memorial service of W.M. Branham in Phoenix, Arizona (1966), Tommy Osborn said the following about Brother Branham in his speech: “The man we know as William Branham was sent to demonstrate God again in the flesh. But why was he sent to do this and why all of these signs? Had they not already been witnessed and recorded? Yes, yes, absolutely. They had all been done already and man had forgotten them. They were forgotten. So God willing more abundantly to show us the immutability of His Council, did it again in the twentieth century. He did it again and I beheld it. His Glory.... William Branham came our way, the prophet of God, and showed us in the twentieth century precisely the same things that were shown us in the Gospel. Where we read of a few incidents in the Gospel, we have hundreds in our generation. No less glorious and wonderful. Far more numerous. We have seen them in our day. He came and walked the shores of Galilee, but he came to the streets of Phoenix, and of Portland, Oregon and Tulsa, Oklahoma and across my nation. I saw it and when I saw it once, I knew what it meant. This was the Word in action.”