William Branham corrected Larkin's beliefs



William Branham did not plagiarize Larkin's work. He corrected Larkin's mistakes, and agreed where Larkin was right.

First published on the 30th of April 2018 — Last updated on the 17th of October 2023

Larkin claimed that Adam was not the first man

Clarence Larkin got many things right but also got many things wrong.

He misunderstood certain things and left many gaps where he did not know what was happening.

Many things he simply got wrong.

Larkin only had access to wrong science theories.

This was not his fault, but it produced wrong ideas nevertheless about the creation.

All knowledge depends on keeping some ideas from the past and also changing the rest of the previous ideas in the light of new insights.

Clarence Larkin had many good ideas but he also had many other ideas that needed correcting.

The sentences that are highlighted in yellow refer to comments from Larkin’s book "Dispensational Truth". Each of these ideas will be followed by corrections that line up with William Branham’s teachings.

Larkin used the outdated science of his day to explain creation in terms of the Nebular Hypothesis.

This Nebular Hypothesis theory became obsolete and was replaced by the Big Bang theory which has now also become obsolete because it neither predicted nor explained Dark Energy and Dark Matter.

So Science does not know how things started.

Professors Steven Weinberg and Alan Guth who championed the Big Bang have since distanced themselves from the theory.

There are no laws of science that can explain creation.

The laws of science are based on decay, usually due to friction and disorder.

To explain creation by using science is simply wrong. Larkin should not have entered this field.

He claimed that Adam was not the first man.

GENESIS 1:2   And the earth was without form, and void;

Larkin claims for Genesis 1:2   “An awful catastrophe, the earth became formless and void”.

Larkin changes "was without form" to "became formless and void".

Changing a Bible Word is a deadly mistake.

You must change your theory to fit the Bible, not change the Bible to fit your theory.

Larkin says “To punish Satan the earth was thrown into a chaotic state…..if there were human beings on the original or pre-Adamic earth, they were doubtless involved in Satan’s fall and destroyed”.

Thus Larkin says there was a civilization before Adam that was destroyed.  Then God wiped them out  and began to restore a new earth.

The words "if" and "doubtless" just mean that he is guessing.

This claim means that God can eliminate sin and start again without using the Blood of Jesus. Not possible.

GENESIS 1:2   And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

The early earth was covered in water and froze in deep space. God moved “snowball earth” closer to the sun and the ice melted. This was the first ice age.  The earth was then covered in water which has a flat surface and has no form, no hills or valleys. The evaporated water formed dense clouds which covered the earth and stopped the sunlight from reaching the earth's surface.

Thus the surface of the water was in darkness.

Moses is watching this in a vision.

GENESIS 1:3   And God said, Let there be light:

Larkin says this light was not sunlight. It was cosmic light

(Whatever that means. Just making up a fancy word that has no Bible meaning).

But when the spoken Word of God struck the clouds they dispersed and sunlight hit the earth on the first day, which is why it is called Sunday.  When we are born our souls are covered in clouds of unbelief and cannot see the light of the Word. When we get saved then God speaks and His Word disperses the unbelief around our souls which can then see the light of God’s Word and believe.

Larkin claims that the clouds around the earth only dispersed on the fourth day.

No. They were dispersed on the first day after the initial creation of heaven and earth.

Vegetation on the third day needed sunlight for photosynthesis.

The first four days follow the four stages of the Reformation.

The first day saw the light, salvation by faith alone in Jesus, as taught by Martin Luther.

The second day created an atmosphere, holiness as taught by John Wesley.

The third day brought forth life, Pentecostal gifts and power in America at 312 Asuza Street in Los Angeles.

Then comes the placing of the sons of God in the Truth when the mysteries of the Bible are revealed by the seventh angel or messenger.

The fourth day thus sees the earth placed at the correct distance from both the sun and the moon so that the sun and moon were MADE to control the day and night.

God did not create the sun and moon on this fourth day.

He had already created the heaven with the sun and moon in it. On the fourth day God made the sun control the day and the moon control the night, by placing the earth at just the right distance from the sun and moon.

Larkin has no clue about what original sin was

 Larkin claims that Genesis Chapter 1 and Genesis Chapter 2  tell the same story.

“Genesis Chapter 1 is the fact of creation and Genesis Chapter 2 is the manner of creation”.

No.  Genesis Chapter 1 is the creation of Adam as a spirit, in the image of God Who is Spirit.

Feminine attributes were inside the spirit of man just as our human attributes were inside the Spirit of God. Being spirit, man could do nothing wrong. There is no mention of a bad tree.

Genesis Chapter 2 sees the spirit of man breathed into a human body. Now that God has breathed the spirit of man into a body of flesh, things can go wrong. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is mentioned.

Larkin misses that the Tree of Life is the Spirit Christ and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the spirit of Satan.

He misses that the original sin was adultery between the serpent, as the top mammal between ape and man, and Eve. The seprent was big, as that is where the giant genes came from, and could speak.

When the veil of her virginity broke then blood was shed by the serpent. An animal caused sin by shedding blood so God requires the shed blood of an animal to atone for sin.

Larkin says “There may have been a number of children, both sons and daughters, born between Cain and Abel”.

There is no Scripture for this.

The serpent had made Eve pregnant as God punished her for having a conception. God could not punish Eve if Adam had made her pregnant.

GENESIS 3:16   Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception;

Larkin makes no mention that Eve was punished for being pregnant.

Then Adam knew Eve and two children, Cain and Abel, were born as twins.

GENESIS 4:1    And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

:2   And she again bare his brother Abel.

One act by Adam and two children were born. But there was a conception that God punished Eve for. That could not be due to Adam as a wife is allowed to conceive from her husband. Thus  Cain was the son of the serpent.

There is a missing link.

The gap between man and ape is just too big. Science has searched for it amongst fossil bones for over 150 years and never found it. Larkin does not address this issue of the big gap between man and ape.

The serpent was a beast, a mammal. Now it is a reptile. That is a physical change due to the curse. Its original skeleton was totally changed. Thus there is no serpent skeleton to be found which is why the link between man and ape remains missing. But the gap between man and ape is there.

Larkin claims it was Satan that made the serpent speak.

Nowhere in the Bible does God allow the Devil to speak through some animal that cannot speak.

Larkin does not give an example of this in order to justify applying this theory that it was the Devil speaking in the serpent. Satan has no creative powers. Nowhere in Scripture does the Devil ever make an animal speak.

When the devils went into the swine at Gedara, the pigs never spoke.

Lucifer was cursed to form Satan. Something that is cursed changes.

Why did God say “Because you have done this..” to the serpent if it was a dumb animal that could not speak or understand?

Why did God not say, “Because…..” to Eve?

Eve could not understand what she had done wrong. Since God creates all life, she could claim Cain came from God. But she carefully avoids mentioning the physical father. Very unusual for a mother who is bragging about the first baby ever born.

Eve as a woman symbolizes the church.

She was called "wo-man" which means "from man". She only got her name after she sinned. Any church that has a name other than Christian (from Christ) has also fallen into sin. "In the Message" is just as unscriptural as "Lutheran".

Speaking to the serpent God says:

GENESIS 3:15    And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

The woman had a seed, the Man Jesus Who has no human father.

The serpent had a seed. A man with no human father. Who was this? Larkin does not explain.

Larkin fails to explain why Eve does not say that Adam was the father of Cain and why the Book of Chronicles does not list Adam as the father of Cain.

Cain as the serpent's seed had no human father.

He denies the serpent had sex but says angels had sex

GENESIS 6:2   That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Larkin claims that angels now had sex with women. He says that the sons of God were cherubim who mingled with the daughters of men.

Larkin thus claims that the sons of God are fallen angels.

The Bible never uses the term "fallen angels".

When the serpent fell he became a snake, not a "fallen serpent".

When angels fell they became demons, not "fallen angels".

Angels cannot marry.

MATTHEW 22:30   For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

There is no blood in heaven.

I CORINTHIANS 15:50   Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;

Without blood, a male cannot have an erection, so it is impossible for angels to have sex.

But cherubim are special angels.  But there are only four cherubim and they are the living creatures (lion, ox, man, eagle) which stand around the throne of God.

But angels are not sons of God.

HEBREWS 1:5   For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?

God does not have a Father-son relationship with angels.

JOB 1:6   Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

If this was a presentation of angels, why did God ask Satan about the man Job?

DEUTERONOMY 16:16   Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose;

JOSHUA 24:1   And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God.

God required men to present themselves and appear before Him.

God tells Job that the sons of God, who were in the mind of God, shouted for joy when He created the earth as that was their future home. Just like Levi rejoiced in his great grandfather Abraham when he paid tithes.

JOB 38:6   Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof [of the world];

:7     When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Speaking to Abraham God says that his seed will be as the stars.

GENESIS 22:17   That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven,

JOHN 1:12   But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,

The righteous are the sons of God. The first son of God was Adam.

LUKE 3:38 … which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

So the sons of God were the descendants of Seth, the third son of Adam. The daughters of men were the descendants of Cain.

Cain was a human-serpent hybrid.  The two lines mixed and became hybridized. Thus God decided to wipe them out in the Flood.

Larkin has no name for the Triune God of 3 Persons

Larkin speaks of the man-made  “God the Son" and "God the Holy Spirit”.

Both these statements are unscriptural. Just copied from the Roman Catholic church.

The Son of God is the Man, Jesus.

God is a Spirit. God is not flesh, so God cannot be a Man. God is the Spirit that dwelt in the Man, Jesus.

There is no mention of ‘God the Father’ in the Old Testament. God could not be a Father until the Son of God was born. Thus in the Old Testament you must just speak of God, never “God the Father”.

Look at these Scriptures. They draw a difference between God and the Father.

EPHESIANS 5:20    Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

COLOSSIANS 2:2   ...  to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;

Thus Larkin was a Trinitarian. But the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible.

Larkin could not explain the difference between God and the Father.

Father and Son are not two People. The Son of God is the Man Jesus. Living inside this Man is the fullness of the Spirit of God.

COLOSSIANS 2:9   For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

“One God in three Persons” is an unscriptural statement. It is not a statement that anyone can explain either. The Triune Godhead remains a mystery that humans cannot understand.

The name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit remains a mystery. Three People cannot have one name.

Thus, according to the Trinity doctrine, the Christian God has no name, just three titles.

So, Larkin does not explain and thus cannot finish the mystery of God.

He never realized that Jesus Christ is the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

REVELATION 10:7   But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished,

Larkin and the Trinitarians cannot explain this verse.

The Trinity mystery can never be finished. It remains a puzzle.

Billy Graham admitted not understanding the Trinity and so did Dr. David Regan.

Larkin and the Trinitarians have the wrong "picture" of the Godhead.

As the Father, God was above the Jews.

As the Son, God was with the Jews.

MATTHEW 1:23   Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

I TIMOTHY 3:16   And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh,

JOHN 14:17   Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

As the Holy Spirit God is in His church.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost mean God above us, God with us, and God in us.

Mistakes that Larkin made

Larkin never understood these concepts.

Larkin refers to Sunday as the “Lord’s Day”.

No.  The Lord’s Day is the Tribulation.

ISAIAH 13:6   Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

Larkin said “The Sabbath day belongs to the Jews alone”.

No. The Sabbath in the Old Testament was the rest from work on Saturday.

The Sabbath in the New Testament is the rest from sinful works as a result of the Holy Ghost baptism.

Sabbath means rest.

ISAIAH 28:11    For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

:12     To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

This is an obvious reference to the tongues on the Day of Pentecost. This was the Holy Ghost baptism which makes us rest from our sins and unbelief. That is what the Jewish Sabbath was symbolizing.

Larkin says that all the ten commandments are reaffirmed in the New Testament except for the Sabbath day.

But Larkin did not know about the Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Spirit.   So he missed the point of the true Sabbath.

The New Testament Sabbath is the rest from sin, not from work. It is the Holy Ghost baptism.

HEBREWS 4:10   For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

God worked and then rested. After that, He never went back to His creative works again as they were complete.

If you rest from your natural works then you have to go back to work again in order to earn a living. That is not the true Sabbath.

But when the Holy Spirit sets you free from sin then you do not go back to your smoking, drinking, gambling, swearing, stealing, etc. That is the real Sabbath, the rest from sin.

Larkin speaks of “Eternal Ages”. “They correspond to what the apostle Paul in Ephesians calls the ‘Ages to Come’ “

There are no eternal ages in Scripture.

EPHESIANS 2:7   That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace

Paul is writing to the first church of Ephesus and here tells them about the other church ages that are still to come. Larkin completely missed this point.

Larkin knew nothing about the seventh church age.

Larkin copied ideas from others but left gaps

William Branham did not plagiarize Clarence Larkin’s Seven Church Ages  doctrine.

Plagiarism is pretending that Clarence Larkin’s original ideas were William Branham's own ideas.

But very few of the ideas in Clarence Larkin’s book were his own.

Take away the date AD 1750,  and the meanings of three church names (Ephesus, Pergamos, and Sardis), and virtually everything else that Larkin taught on the church ages had been said by previous writers.

[Information received from Brother Ken O'Dwyer, where he points out that Larkin even got the AD 170 date from a previous writer --

Actually, Larkin borrowed the date AD 170 from William Mitchell Ramsay's book "The Church in the Roman Empire Before A.D. 170" which was published in 1892.  Larkin no doubt was familiar with this book which was published 27 years before his own "The Book of Revelation" in 1919.

Ramsay chose 170 AD because, as he says, all the main elements of church organisation were completed by AD 170 especially as to how each church was "ruled by a gradation of officials at whose head was the bishop" and "councils determined and expressed the common views of a number of communities" (p363).]

If you copied everything that was Larkin’s original thinking on the church ages topic, you would not have too much information.

Being a Trinitarian he missed the evil of the Nicaean Council in AD 325

when Trinity was imposed on the church,

and the bishop of Rome gained political backing from Emperor Constantine.

When the other main churches in the Middle East and North Africa were overrun by the Muslims after they surged out of Arabia in AD 632, then the Roman church became the leader of the western church in competition with the Greek Orthodox Church of Constantinople. So the Pope rose to power.

Larkin used 1900 as the starting date for the Laodicean church age.

Larkin had absolutely no idea about the start of the Laodicean age in 1906 with the Pentecostal revival at 312 Azusa Street in downtown Los Angeles, California. He had no definite starting date for Laodicea. He just wrote down 1900. But nothing specific happened then.

Larkin missed the Pentecostal restoration of spiritual gifts completely.

Yet Larkin happily copied down what others wrote before him. Different people had already discovered certain bits of the truth and Larkin, a fine scholar in his own right, combined many of these bits and pieces into one logical structure, and then added his own extra portion.

This is a standard procedure on how to develop knowledge.

As an example, let us look at the opening paragraphs by Larkin (1920) and by C. I. Scofield (1907):

LARKIN

“Chapters two and three, must be a description or prophetic outline of the "Spiritual History" of the Church from the time when John wrote the Book in A. D. 96, down to the taking out of the Church, or else we have no "prophetic view" of the Church during that period, for she disappears from the earth at the close of chapter three, and is not seen again until she reappears with her Lord in chapter nineteen.”

SCOFIELD

“ The messages to the seven churches have a fourfold application: … the fourth is prophetic, as disclosing the seven phases of the spiritual history of the church, from, say, A.D. 96 to the end.  It is incredible that in a prophecy covering the church period there should be no such foreview.  These messages must contain that foreview if it is in the book at all, for the church does not appear after Chapter 3:22”.

As you can see, Larkin copied his basic ideas from Scofield.

Scofield had made a great start and there was no reason why Larkin could not use Scofield's valuable information.

Larkin summarized an outline and a fuller structure of the different fragments that others had said before him, which is good scholarship, but his main weakness was all the gaps that he left in his record.

Larkin knew a lot and did a great job but he was baffled on certain points and thus could not complete or "finish the mystery" that others had started.

Filling in these gaps would give a completely different thrust to the history of the churches.

It would reveal fundamental errors in our church doctrines that indicate how far our churches are still off the mark despite some good work being done during the Reformation centuries to partly get us back to the original truths of the New Testament.

Larkin could see certain errors but was unable to see the more subtle and far more dangerous mistakes.

Larkin did his best with what he knew.

William Branham started with what Clarence Larkin knew and then, most importantly, went on to fill in all the gaps that were unknown to Larkin and the earlier writers.

Thus, thanks to William Branham, the "mystery should be finished" as far as our understanding of the church ages are concerned.
REVELATION 10:7   But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

William Branham made enough knowledge available for us to understand the theme of the church ages if we are prepared to do enough homework in search of the truth.

So the main issue is not the points that Larkin made, most of which had  already been made by others, but rather all the points that neither he nor the earlier writers had been able to understand.

The gaps in the church ages that Larkin never understood.

That is where the real secrets of the church ages are to be found that baffled the earlier writers.

A quick test of your knowledge :

Archbishop R C Trench (1807 – 1886) said that " the church names mean something. So why does Pergamos have a Greek  ending –os  instead of its usual name Pergamum? None of the other church names have a Greek ending."

This is a brilliant question. He admitted that he did not know the answer. But he would have loved to know, because it puzzled him.

If you can’t answer the Archbishop's question then you need the seventh angel or messenger to finish up the mystery for you.

Larkin failed to explain many points like “Satan’s seat” and the “hour of temptation” and missed most of what the last two church ages were all about.

He had no idea what the stars or messengers represented.

Larkin had no idea of the restoration of Truth after the Dark Ages

through the Justification of Luther, the Sanctification of Wesley, the Holy Ghost Baptism of Pentecost and the end-time Elijah who would restore believers back to the beliefs of the New Testament first church age.

He also failed to point out the fundamental error of the pagan Trinity doctrine, polished up by clever Greek philosophy of one-in-three and three-in-one etc, which was forced onto the third church age of Pergamos (the mystery age with the Greek ending -os) at the Nicaean Council in AD 325.

And the disastrous effects of this unscriptural concept which opened the door to more and more unscriptural Greek pagan philosophical beliefs and rituals (like the Roman Catholic mass, purgatory, Christmas, Good Friday, indulgences whereby you could buy forgiveness for your sins, etc) which successfully drove the church into the devastating winter of the Dark Ages.

Larkin made two technical errors that needed correction :

Pope Boniface III was not crowned in AD 606.

(Pope Nicholas I, around AD 860,  seems to be the first Pope to wear a crown.)

Attalus III was not the pagan priest-king that fled from Babylon in 538 BC.

Attalus III  was the priest-king who gave his Pergamos kingdom to Rome in  133 BC.

These are minor errors that do not detract from his excellent scholarship.

If you read through the documents dealing with the seven church ages written by the earlier writers you will find that  Larkin contributed very few original ideas of his own.

Larkin summarized the viewpoints of earlier writers who gave a rough outline but provided no real theme for what was driving the seven church ages and left huge gaps as to the actual doctrinal deception that occurred in the different ages and influenced the history of the church.

Larkin plots the path of the church into the Dark Ages but is unaware of what caused the downfall of the church.

He recognized the great turn-around that occurred under Luther who preached Justification. Then he simply loses the thread during the last two church ages. There he basically out of his depth, especially in the Laodicean age as he lived at the beginning of the age and could obviously not guess what was going to happen as the age unfolded.

One of the biggest problems that face us all and which  Larkin is unable to fully explain, is why the churches went into the Dark Ages that were so terrible.

What had made the church get so far away from the written Word?

Larkin’s problem is that he was a Trinitarian and as such he could not see the ongoing damage that the Trinity doctrine did to the church.

Another mistake by Larkin :

“The hour of temptation” that the Philadelphian church is spared cannot be the 3.5 years of great Tribulation, which is what Larkin claims.

The Tribulation comes at the end of the Laodicean age. All six of the previous ages would be spared the Tribulation if this were true, because the six ages are past tense when the seventh age starts. Only the Bride which is caught up to meet the Lord in the air will escape the Tribulation.

The "hour of temptation” is the uniting of the churches, money, and politics in the ecumenical movement which occurs in the Laodicean age as the three horses of Revelation Chapter 6 unite (the white horse of religious deception, the red horse of political power and the black horse of demonology that starves the people spiritually by providing man’s opinions and quotes rather than Scripture and then charging the people for this daylight robbery). There is only one mystery rider. There is only one Devil (fortunately. Imagine the damage that two could do.)

When the three horses unite to form the pale corpse-colored horse that is ridden into great Tribulation, then that spirit of antichrist that sat on the horse (the driving force behind the Laodicean churches) is revealed as being  Death.

Death is the absence of Life. Death only enters the church of the Laodiceans because Jesus, the Life, is outside the church.
REVELATION 3:14   And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write.....
REVELATION 3:20   Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

 

Another mistake is that Larkin has the sixth age running together with the seventh age, at the same time.

The good Christians then claim that they are Philadelphians and it is only the bad Christians who are the  Laodiceans. Notice this lack of logic. The first 5 ages followed each other in order but suddenly age 6 and age 7 run together in parallel.

But Larkin cannot tell us the difference between good churches and bad churches.

Larkin and the earlier writers did not understand the Philadelphian and Laodicean ages.

His treatment of the Philadelphian missionary age is very superficial.

Larkin did not understand that the churches were to lose the New Testament truths until they ended up in the superstitious Dark Ages.  The Nicene Council in AD 325 that enforced the unscriptural Trinity doctrine, drove the church into a morass of unscriptural ideas which caused a blackout of Truth and all the unscriptural Papal errors of the Dark Ages when the Bible was actually banned as it contradicted most of the church’s beliefs.

Then from this dark pit, the Truth would re-emerge in four stages:

The Reformation of Sardis would restore Justification under that bravest of reformers, Martin Luther.

The Reformation of Philadelphia would restore holiness and outreach under the tireless dedication of John Wesley (who served God in a way that we can only dream of, because of his phenomenal self-discipline and energy). That was the golden age of Christianity which developed into the missionary age.

Laodicea would then add a further restoration in the form of the  Pentecostal baptism of the Holy Spirit with the restoration of the gifts of the Spirit that started in 1906 with the Asuza Street revival. Initially, this movement had a freedom that was not subject to human leadership. Sadly, by 1917 they had denominated and humans dominated and led the movement.

Larkin missed this

Then Elijah would come on the scene and restore the New Testament truths of the early church as laid down by St Paul and the writers of the New Testament.

Larkin missed this

The denominational churches would ignore Elijah and thus never get the Light of the revealed Word. So they stay in their darkness of Trinity and water baptism in the name of three titles instead of the Name of Jesus Christ.

Larkin gets his dates wrong

Seventy weeks of Daniel.

Larkin has the end of Jesus’ ministry in AD 30 instead of AD 33.

Church-goers and Larkin all refuse to believe that Jesus was born in the year 0.

They prefer to believe He was born in the year 4 BC.

Then they are forced to make the very stupid statement that "Jesus was born four years before Jesus was born".

Augustus, the first and most famous emperor, died in the year AD 14.

Tiberius, although being a co-emperor since AD 12, could only became emperor when the Senate acknowledged him in the year AD 14.

John the Baptist began preaching in the 15th year of Tiberius which would be in the year AD 29.

Jesus was about 30 when He was baptized.

So His ministry began in the year AD 29.

It did not end in the year AD 30 as Larkin claims.

LUKE 3:1   Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,

LUKE 3:2   … the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

LUKE 3:23   And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age,

Larkin got that very wrong.

DANIEL 9:25   Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks:

Larkin said Jesus came into Jerusalem as King to fulfill this prophecy.

The prophecy was “unto Messiah the Prince”.

This is the water baptism of Jesus. The Holy Spirit spoke as He descended like a Dove and said’ “This is my beloved Son”.

That emphasizes Jesus as the Son of the King. That makes  Him the Prince.

The Holy Ghost resting on Him is a public anointing. This made Him Messiah, the Anointed One.

JOHN 1:33 … , the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him,

The Holy Spirit never went into Jesus. It rested on Him.

MATTHEW 1:20   But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

The man who places the seed of life in a woman’s womb is the father of that child.

The Holy Ghost conceived Jesus in the womb of Mary. Thus the Holy Ghost is the Father of Jesus.

“Daniel’s 69 weeks ran out on Aril 2, AD 30, the day that Jesus rode in triumph into the city of Jerusalem”.

But this time ended with “Messiah the Prince”  which happened with His water baptism.

When He rode in on Palm Sunday He was hailed as the King.

ZECHARIAH 9:9   Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Fulfilling the prophecy of a King does not fulfill the time to Messiah the Prince.

Larkin got the wrong event.

His seven-year Tribulation is very unscriptural

The big mistake that Larkin made was to predict a seven-year Tribulation.

Sadly, all the churches follow this belief of Larkin which is why they make a mess-up of prophecy

DANIEL 9:27   And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,

A seven-year covenant is not made.  A seven-year covenant is confirmed.

Thus the covenant had to be made before it could be confirmed for seven years.

Larkin missed the meaning of “confirmed”.

He, as all the churches do, assumed that “he shall confirm the covenant”  means that the antichrist will "make" a seven-year covenant with the Jews at the start of great Tribulation.

Larkin has no answer as to when the covenant is made.

He takes the Scripture that says the covenant is confirmed for seven years and mistakenly claims that that is when it is made.

Only one covenant was confirmed in the Bible.

GALATIANS 3:17   And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ,

DANIEL 9:27   …and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease

Jesus was supposed to have a 7-year ministry with the Jews.

The middle of the week. Three and a half days representing the three and a half years of the ministry of Jesus. His death ended the Jewish sacrifices as God tore up the Temple veil.

When Jesus died that did not break the covenant, it confirmed the covenant.

Larkin misses this great point completely.

God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis Chapter 15 with certain sacrifices. He confirmed that covenant with Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

ACTS 3:25   Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.

GENESIS 15:9   And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.

:18   In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

Three animals, each was three years old.

When truth was lost in the dark ages, God confirmed that the truth would be restored in the last three church ages.

The original truth of the first church age would be lost during the next three church ages. Church ages 2 to 4.

EVIL means moving away from the first church age.

 

Then Martin Luther turned things around in the 5th church age.

EVIL was reversed and became LIVE.

The church began to move back towards the first church age beliefs.

Three church ages (5 - 7) would be needed to restore the truth back to the first church age beliefs.

Larkin cannot see the history of the beast

“The Papal system is not the Antichrist and these Scriptures can only be fulfilled in the person of some individual yet to appear”

REVELATION 17:9   ... when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

The pagan Roman Empire beast spirit was destroyed by the barbarians and resurrected up on the ruins of the Roman Empire as the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope is the figurehead of the Church. By claiming Peter as the first Pope, they claim that there always WAS a Pope.

"And is not".  The Pope dies.

"And yet is". A new Pope is elected.

This represents the succession of Popes over a time of almost 2000 years. That makes them the longest line of rulers in the world.

Larkin had absolutely no clue about this prophecy that shows that the beast spirit was back there in Pagan Rome as Christians were thrown to the lions in the Colosseum.

That same beast spirit was present in the Roman Catholic Church during the Dark Ages when they killed tens of millions of opponents. Then the holiness and missionary outreach of John Wesley's golden age of Philadelphia (brotherly love) forced Christians to stop killing each other. But that evil beast spirit is still in the church. Unable to kill people, it is now focused on killing the truth by rejecting the revealed mysteries or else using the message-churches to distort brother Branham's quotes away from Scripture. Then character assassination destroys the influence of Bible teachers who prove his quotes from Scripture.

Denominational Christianity, which is teaching for doctrine the commandments of man, was developed by the Roman Catholic Church and copied by the Protestant churches. Many antichrists that were present in the days of the apostles have infiltrated the church systems and are waiting for the final figurehead, the man of sin, the last Pope.

Larkin is correct about the final appearing of that vile person in the future. But he misses the point that the Roman Papal system has over the last 2000 years built up the evil denominational church system that the final Pope will take over in order to achieve world domination. To rule the world you need religious deception, political power, and Big Money.

The coronavirus pandemic that swept the world in 2020 encouraged democratic leaders to rule in a dictatorial manner.

The shambles and chaos as democratic America ended their attempt to impose democracy on Afghanistan was a big encouragement to dictatorial regimes like Russia, China, and Iran. It was a real slap in the face to those who favour democracy.

The stage is being set for the rise of a dictatorship spirit.

The Bible never says "The Antichrist". This is a common church mistake that makes preachers look for a politician. They think it will be the President of the European Union.

II THESSALONIANS 2:3   Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

The first son of perdition (or child from hell) was Judas Iscariot. He was an apostle, a church leader.

Jesus prayed for His disciples, except for Judas.

JOHN 17:12   ... and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition;

So, Larkin was wrong to exclude the Pope. We must look amongst the church leaders for the child from hell.

The most influential church leader is the Pope with the vast wealth of the Vatican and the 1.4 billion Roman Catholics behind him. If there is to be a one-man church leader to rule the world, he will be a Pope.

Larkin interprets prophecy in a way that the king of the north is Syria.

Just before Larkin died, Russia was a mess from the Bolshevik revolution that imposed the dictatorship of Communism on them. So Russia had little world influence as they had just been defeated by Germany in World War 1.

Today, things have totally changed in ways Larkin could not have forseen. In terms of geography today we know that the king of the North is Russia.

Larkin then places Revelation Chapters 13 and 17 in great Tribulation.

He even suggests that Judas Iscariot will be resurrected to take part in great Tribulation.

He claims that the Antichrist will be killed and then resurrected back to life.

Chapters 13 and 17 relate the rise of evil during the church ages. Larkin totally misses this point.

Chapter 13 describes the rise of the Roman Catholic Church to be the powerful religious and financial power that the final Pope can use to dominate the world when he rises on the scene. The centre or head of government of the Roman Empire was the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill. That head was destroyed by the barbarians and the Capitoline Hill lost all its political authority. But the deadly wound recovered as the Roman Pope in the Lateran Palace on the Caelian hill, the official headquarters of the Roman church, rose to power over the world using religion rather than a sword.

The second half Chapter 13 describes the rise of America to be the world scientific and military superpower that brings the other Protestant and non-Catholic churches into submission to Rome. This sets the scene for the final man of sin to take over as Pope.

2021 saw the second Catholic President rule America. Joe Biden closed down the disastrous Afghanistan war in a chaotic manner. The Afghan war certainly made a democratic leader look incompetent.

In 1961 John Kennedy the first Catholic President of America boosted the dangerous decision of Eisenhower to get involved in Vietnam. Eisenhower had about 1500 military advisors in Vietnam. Kennedy had the chance to withdraw them but compounded the error by boosting the numbers to 16000 military advisors. Then Lyndon Johnson escalated the disastrous war in 1965 until it closed down in chaos in 1975. The Vietnam war made democratic leaders look incapable.

2021 undermined the values of democracy by making dictatorship look more effective, especially in the handling of the coronavirus pandemic. This pestilence has caused much economic and mental health damage. Much fake news and propaganda has been established on social media.

Matthew 24 warned that after the pestilence would come earthquakes. That will be bigger trouble and will make the world far more willing to accept dictatorship since Afghanistan and the coronavirus have made vote-seeking Democrats look inept.

 

Chapter 17 describes the destruction of the Roman republic by Julius Caesar and the next five members of his family who ruled as emperors before Galba, a military general, usurped the position of Emperor.

This laid the foundation for the rise of the Roman Catholic Church to rise to power when the pagan Roman Empire collapsed.

In the end, a military genius, controlling ten powerful dictators that rule as kings (with a king’s dictatorial power though they wear no crowns) will usurp the position of the Pope.

Thus the Roman Empire will revive as a worldwide Roman Catholic Church and financial power.

Their military power will come from ten dictators like Putin in Russia, which pretends to be a democracy, but Putin controls Russian media while Russia even stoops to poisoning and killing opponents and journalists.

We do not know who these ten dictaors are.

But the savage COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic made many democratic leaders behave in a harsh dictatorial manner.

Since 1914 we have seen two world wars and rumours of wars (the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union).
MATTHEW 24:6   And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

MATTHEW 24:7   For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

Wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

About 70 million people have died in famines in the last 100 years.

Pestilences. The Spanish Flu of 1918-1919 killed about 100 million people. Now the 2019 coronavirus pandemic that is making nations run up huge debts.

Next up is earthquakes.

If Los Angeles sinks into the sea it will cripple California which is America's richest state. If the American economy collapses in a time of huge debt then there will be little to stop the very wealthy Vatican from taking over America. The woman that brother Branham saw taking America to her ruin.

61-0312 JEHOVAH  JIREH

And I seen a great woman rise up, beautiful to look at, but a cruel wicked heart. And that will be a church. And she's on her road now.

LAODICEAN  CHURCH  AGE - CHURCH  AGE  BOOK CPT.9
Then in the sixth vision there arose up in America a most beautiful, but cruel woman. She held the people in her complete power. I believed that this was the rise of the Roman Catholic Church, though I knew it could possibly be a vision of some woman rising in great power in America due to a popular vote by women.

60-1113 CONDEMNATION  BY  REPRESENTATION
Then when these women help elect the wrong person, then I seen a great woman rise up in the United States, well-dressed and beautiful, but cruel in heart. She will either guide or lead this nation to ruination. (I've got in parenthesis "perhaps Catholic church.")

So the world seems to be driven towards the end-time events.

There was absolutely no way in which Larkin could have foreseen all these complex circumstances.

Larkin, writing between 1900 and 1924 had absolutely no idea of the events of last century nor the way the Trinity doctrine would tie the churches into Roman Catholic error.

Larkin places all seven Seals into the time of the Tribulation.

That simply shows his ignorance of how antichrist spirits operated in the church throughout the 7 church ages.

Larkin had no idea that the fifth Seal refers to the Jews who were killed during the church ages.

He also had no idea that the seventh Seal refers to the Coming of the Lord.

The big multitude in Revelation 9: 9-17 is taken to be Christians who get saved in great Tribulation.

This is a bad mistake as Christ leaves the mercy seat to fetch His Bride from the earth. After that there is no mercy.

Christians have to be saved before going into the Tribulation. This vast number indicates that most of the saved Christians of today will go into great Tribulation and be killed there.

Larkin’s doctrine believes that all saved Christians will escape great Tribulation.

But the parable of the ten virgins (clean women representing saved church members) says that the foolish virgins, though saved, go into great Tribulation.

Being saved means we will not go to hell but it does not mean we will go to the Wedding Supper.

PHILIPPIANS 2:12    Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

We have to be restored back to the first church age if we hope to qualify as the Bride of Christ.

Larkin had no idea of the last church age having to return to the beliefs of the first church age.

Larkin had no idea of the doctrine of seven church age messengers.

Larkin got body and soul and spirit wrong

Larkin believed in “body, soul, spirit”   instead of  “body, spirit, soul”.

The Scripture never says "body and soul and spirit".

The Scripture says it in the reverse direction.

I THESSALONIANS 5:23   ...  and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us see what differences this doctrine produces.

Larkin places the soul next to the body and has the spirit as the inner man.

So he says that memory, imagination, reason, feelings, and conscience are all features of the soul.

But the soul is the most important part of man.

MATTHEW 16:26   For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Animals have spirits.

ECCLESIASTES 3:21   Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

The human spirit goes up to take its soul back to God’s Judgement throne.

ROMANS 8:10  but the Spirit is life

I SAMUEL 25:29   but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life

So the soul is bound up in the bundle of spirit.

JOB 14:22   But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.

“Him”  must be the spirit which is between the soul and the flesh of his body.

Brother Branham’s doctrine starts slightly differently but has big consequences for the soul by placing the soul as the innermost part of man.

So he says that memory, imagination, reason, feelings, and conscience are all features of the spirit. Animals have a spirit of life in them. Animals have memory and feelings. They can reason things out to some extent as in a group of lions hunting together. The Americans sent an ape Ham into orbit and he was able to press the right buttons in the space capsule.

Larkin has the innermost man as the spirit and has the Holy Spirit within the human spirit. He has one avenue to the spirit which is “The will”.

Then he uses five words  which all sound good as attributes of the spirit.

 

 

But these words are very arbitrary and could be replaced by five other very good-sounding words.

So his use of five words is not very helpful as it simply leaves out many other useful words.

The key omission in this picture is the Word of God.

JOHN 16:13   Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:

So William Branham’s version is very different.

Self-will is the entrance to the soul. The soul either believes or disbelieves (doubts).

The soul is the innermost part of man. That soul contains the seed Word of God.

The entrance to the soul is self-will.

We can have faith in parts of the Scripture or doubt as we ignore and contradict other parts of the Scripture. This basically makes us lukewarm.

However, once we are born again, the Holy Spirit takes over our lives.

We sacrifice our own self-will and ask God to replace it with God’s Will.

Then our soul has only got faith in it.  Pure faith is the only way to germinate God’s Word in our souls.

JEREMIAH 31:12    …and their soul shall be as a watered garden

LUKE 8:11   Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

The Seed of God’s Word grows in our souls, watered by the Holy Spirit.

JOHN 7:38    He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

:39   (But this spake he of the Spirit,…)

So the order in which God works is first to convict us by His Spirit, then the Spirit germinates the Word in our soul. Then the seed Word will bring the body under subjection.

 

I CORINTHIANS 15:38    But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.

Our roots must be established in Scripture with Jesus Christ being the main root, the main focus of the Bible.

We can only grow off Him.

I THESSALONIANS 5:23    And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Larkin thought this was the order in which they are in a person.

William Branham corrected this by explaining that they represent the order in which they work so as to bring us under submission to God’s Word.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” — 1 Corinthians 16:23