William Branham did NOT plagiarize Larkin

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The church age book of Larkin has few original ideas

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.

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.

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 is 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.

The main mystery of God that Larkin and all the others missed is that the last church age has to be exactly the same as the first church age. The seed harvested and pulled off the dead plant is the same as the seed originally planted by the apostles.

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

The seventh angel's ministry is to clear up all the tricky problems that Larkin and those who came before him were unable to grasp. This was not Larkin's fault as God had not unfolded sufficient Truth in Larkin's day. Larkin lived at the start of the Laodicean age so obviously knew next to nothing about the Laodicean age.

Larkin did a great job with what he knew. But we are expected to know more.

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.

He had no idea of the restoration of Truth 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 missed the fatal Trinity error at Nicaea in AD 325

Larkin also failed to point out the fundamental error of the pagan Trinity doctrine 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. They used Greek philosophy to replace Scripture.

Trinity depended on the accuracy of certain unscriptural Greek words and the concepts of Greek philosophy like "three-in-one" and "Father and Son are of the same essence". "Essence" is an unscriptural word and can mean whatever you want it to mean.  The Roman Catholic church used Greek Philosophy and the Greek's brilliance at defending error to marry Christianity into politics and paganism. The disastrous effects of this unscriptural concept of Trinity which opened the door to more and more unscriptural pagan philosophical beliefs and rituals (like the Roman Catholic mass, purgatory, Christmas, indulgences whereby you could buy forgiveness for your sins, Good Friday, 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 606 AD.

(Pope Nicholas I, around 860 AD,  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.

Larkin could not find a name for the Trinity God

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 realistic 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 and 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 is 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.

Trinity is a God who has three Persons but only one Name in the New Testament which is Jesus, the Son.

The Holy Spirit has no name in the Bible.

The Father has no pronounceable name

Actually, the Father is the unpronounceable JHVH or better still, YHWH.   "J" only entered the English alphabet in the 1500s.  A word that cannot be pronounced is not really valid as a name, because it cannot be spoken.

Vowels were added to turn JHVH into Jehovah. But the name "Jehovah" is never mentioned in the New Testament.

Larkin never explained why.

The Bible does not give a Name to the Holy Spirit. So when it came to finding one Name for the Triune God, Larkin was unable to do so.

Larkin could not find one Name for three Persons.

Larkin, like Christians today, then hid behind the “ fuzzy”  logic of using three titles, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit instead of one Name.

Thus the Christian God effectively has no Name.

Larkin, like Christians today, was scared to admit that the Name of Almighty God is Jesus Christ.

If he admitted this, then he would contradict his church's picture of God as three Persons.

He was too busy summarizing his church's view to risk disagreeing with them.

Being a Trinitarian is the main reason that he did not get baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ according to Acts 2:38.
ACTS 2:38
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

This Scripture is rejected as a mistake. Trinitarians do not believe what Peter said, they rather believe what Jesus said in Matthew 28: 19.
MATTHEW 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Notice this philosophical logic. One Scripture contradicts another Scripture. Thus one of the Scriptures is wrong.

Trinitarians thus believe that there is a mistake in the Bible. Thus the Bible is no longer their Absolute.

As a result, they are unable to be restored back to the teachings and doctrines of the first apostolic age because the apostles got it wrong at the beginning. (So they wrongly think). Thus, they think their mission in life is to correct the apostles who wrote the New Testament.

We cannot develop faith if we reject any Scripture as a mistake.
ROMANS 10:17
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

If we believe that the Bible contradicts itself and has mistakes, then we obviously lack a deeper vision which would reveal that both Scriptures are telling us different aspects of the same truth.

The Son is Emmanuel, God with us.

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

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.

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are the three manifestations of God, above the Jews, with the Jews, and in the church.

Believing what is not actually written

Earlier writers had identified Nicolaitanism as priests being in charge of the church.

The elevation of a holy man above the people. A man who stands between the people, the laity, and God.

They had also identified Balaamism as worldliness and loose living as well as the introduction of pagan ideas into the church. This was all true, but Larkin could not take Balaamism beyond pagan festivals like Christmas and pagan rites such as the Catholic mass.

Larkin could not admit to the pagan origins of the Triune God. Triune gods were already known in Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. He thus could not identify what made Protestants the daughters of the mother harlot since the Protestants believed in the same Trinity that the Catholics had developed from Greek classical philosophy during the two centuries that followed the Nicene Council of AD 325  under the leadership and domination of Roman Emperor Constantine.

Earlier writers had already picked out that Jezebel, that awful woman who led Israel astray, referred to the Roman Catholic church.

But all of them, including Larkin, were unable to see the devastation to the Truth that the Trinity doctrine did.

Another omission in Larkin’s treatment of the Pergamos age is that he does not explain the mystery of “Satan’s seat”.

This subtle but crucial Babylonian error was going to derail the church until the end of time.

Being a Trinitarian, Larkin could not see that the Nicaean Council of AD 325 was totally wrong when it had imposed the unscriptural word Trinity or “one God in three Persons” on the church.

Having believed this doctrine without a Scripture that actually says “Trinity”, the people would then be forced to accept other unscriptural beliefs until the church got used to being run by traditions and opinions and quotes, not Scripture.

Man's words were regarded as being equal to, if not superior to, the written Word of God.

The Light of God’s Word was going out. The Dark Ages were pulling in.

And the Harper Collins Bible Dictionary states, “The formal doctrine of the 

Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries 

is not to be found in the New Testament.” — (Paul Achtemeier, editor, 1996, “Trinity”)

The fourth and fifth centuries were from 300-500 AD.

Greek philosophy used words like “essence” and “substance” when describing their gods as well as Plato's Triad concept which allowed the use of mental gymnastics like "one-in-three or three-in-one" (whatever that means).

Try drawing a picture of it. Is it 3 Persons sitting on one throne as in the Egyptian Trinity of  Isis, Horus, and Seb.

This is the origin of the IHS that often appears on the communion wafers, sometimes called the Eucharist, as well as Methodist altar cloths.

Or is it one Person with three heads as in the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva?

Greek philosophy which had been used to describe their many pagan gods was now introduced to develop a Triune Christian God.

Notice how this took the church away from what was actually written in the New Testament.

"What we think it means" replaces "It is written".

This is the sad habit that leads the church into darkness.

Martin Luther who was the German priest who initiated the Protestant Reformation said, “It is indeed true that the name 'Trinity' is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures,

but has been conceived and invented by man.”

— (reproduced in The Sermons of Martin Luther, John Lenker, editor, Vol. 3, 1988, p. 406)

Historian and science fiction writer H.G. Wells in his noted work The Outline of History stated, “There is no evidence that the apostles of Jesus ever heard of the trinity—at any rate from Him.” — (1920, Vol. 2, p. 499)

If Jesus never taught the Trinity, who did?

So the church was now teaching doctrines that never came from the Bible but had been invented by man.

This was the reason that the world went into the Dark Ages. The Bible Light was going out.

Professor Charles Ryrie wrote,

“Many doctrines are accepted by evangelicals as being 

clearly taught in the Scripture for which there are no proof texts. 

The doctrine of the Trinity furnishes the best example of this. It is fair to say that the 

Bible does not clearly teach the doctrine of the Trinity . . . In fact, there is not even one proof text,

if by proof text we mean a verse or passage 

that 'clearly' states that there is one God who exists in three persons.”

— (Basic Theology, p. 89)

He goes on to say,

“The above illustrations prove the fallacy of concluding that if something is not proof texted in the Bible we cannot clearly teach the results . . . If that were so, I could never teach the doctrine of the Trinity.” — (lbid, p. 90)

So, having taught the Trinity without Biblical proof, they feel that they are now free to also teach other doctrines without Biblical proof too. This philosophy simply compounds the errors and forces Christians to believe ever more doctrines that are not written in the Bible.

Thus the philosophy of believing what is not actually written in the Bible took over the minds of the people.

Church leaders used this excuse to move away from written Scripture into Greek philosophical ideas.

Message believers have developed exactly the same attitude towards the quotes of William Branham.

Brother Branham never said, “The seven Thunders have uttered”.

But the thunders-believers all take this non-quote as their starting point and claim that he did say it.

Having fooled the people on that first step by getting them to get away from an actual quote, their minds are then open to any other opinion that William Branham never specifically said.

Hence we have a multitude of different Thunders doctrines that are all quite ingenious since John never wrote a single word about what the seven Thunders uttered. Message preachers thus mislead people because they preach what they think William Branham meant.

Shirley Guthrie, professor of theology at Columbia Theological Seminary wrote, “The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity. Neither the word 'trinity' itself nor such language as 'one-in-three,' 'three-in-one,' one 'essence' (or 'substance'), and three 'persons,' is biblical language.

The language of the doctrine is the language of the ancient church taken from classical Greek philosophy.”

— (Christian Doctrine, 1994, pp. 76, 77)

Pagan Greek philosophy which developed the idea of the many gods of Greece was cleverly used to develop a Triune God for the Christians.

A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge states regarding the trinity, “Precisely what that [Trinity] doctrine is, or rather precisely how it is to be explained, Trinitarians are not agreed among themselves.” — (Lyman Abbott, editor, 1885, “Trinitarians”)

So the Trinity doctrine gave learned men an excuse to indulge in endless debate about an issue which they themselves did not understand because it was unscriptural.

After a while, most people, who are the laity, gave up arguing about the words that they could not understand and just accepted the doctrine.

Larkin never had neither the courage nor the insight to tackle this great mystery of the Trinity.

They were simply dominated by Greek-speaking learned scholars who, although they themselves did not understand the Trinity, claimed that they did understand it.

By creating a fog of unscriptural words they could conjure up a flickering shadow that could not be grasped,

but sometimes it looked like one and sometimes it looked like three.

Having been clubbed into submission and forced to accept what was neither understandable nor clearly written in Scripture, the people (the laity) were so conquered that it was easy for them to accept other unscriptural doctrines.

Now our brains are so battered by human church leaders' opinions that we somehow even think that an Easter egg or a Christmas tree has something to do with the Gospel.

So Larkin helped to keep the church in its bondage to the Trinity error.

Larkin had church ages 6 and 7 running together

Another mistake by Larkin :

“The hour of temptation” that the Philadelphian church age is spared cannot be the years of great Tribulation, which is what Larkin claims.  Great Tribulation comes at the end of the church age of the Laodiceans. All six of the previous ages would be spared the 3.5 years of great 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 punishment of great Tribulation.

The "hour of temptation” is the uniting of the churches, money, and politics in the ecumenical movement which occurs in the church age of the Laodiceans 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 the demonology of Big Business that starves the people spiritually by providing human 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 the 3.5 years of great Tribulation, then the antichrist rider (the driving force behind the uniting churches of the Laodiceans) 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.

The Word is Life, so Death only enters when the Word is rejected. When the Holy Spirit leaves as He catches the Bride up to Heaven, then Life leaves and Death enters the earth.

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.

The ecumenical move effectively started when it received a big boost during World War 2 (1939 - 1945)  because men from different denominations were locked up together in prisoner-of-war camps and learned to co-operate by not stressing doctrinal or Scriptural accuracy. Their motto soon became "Fellowship is important so do not worry about doctrine".

By this time, the missionary age of Philadelphia was over and those Christians had been spared the subtle errors that would arise from the uniting of all the evil trends in Laodicea.  Unscriptural errors will fool almost everyone until hardly anyone states Scripture to justify their beliefs. There are now over 100 versions of the English Bible and 45000 different denominations and types of churches to choose from. It is virtually impossible to find the truth in all that chaos.

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

The good guys then claim that they are Philadelphians and it is only the bad guys 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.

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

His Philadelphian missionary age is very superficial

Larkin's treatment of the Philadelphian missionary age is shallow as he does not see Wesley adding holiness and outreach to Luther's salvation by faith alone.

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. During this time 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 in Los Angeles. 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 Pentecostal movement. In 1917 God allowed Lenin to introduce the brutal Communist revolution in Russia. God will use Russia, the King of the North, to judge America in the end.

After the Pentecostal revival, Elijah would come on the scene and restore the New Testament truths of the early church as laid down by Saint Paul and the writers of the New Testament.

The denominational churches would ignore the modern-day Elijah (William Branham from America) 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.

As an analogy: The Jews followed Moses (a name) through the waters of the Red Sea which symbolized water baptism. The Egyptians followed Pharaoh (a title) through the same waters of baptism and drowned. So baptism needs the Name of Jesus Christ, not the titles of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

What is the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?

Trinitarians cannot answer this question. They do not have three Names as the Bible does not give a Name for the Holy Ghost. Thus they end up with a Triune God Who has no name.

Another problem for them is that the name of the Father is Jehovah in the Old Testament but Jehovah is never mentioned in the New Testament. They do not know why.

"God the Father" is never mentioned in the Old Testament, Trinitarians do not know why.

"God the Son" and "God the Holy Spirit" are never mentioned in the Bible. Trinitarians do not know why.

So there is just one name written in Scripture for God, that can be pronounced: Jesus.

But, brainwashed by Trinity, church-goers cannot accept the name of Jesus for Almighty God.

But what is the one Name for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Here the Trinitarians are at a complete loss.

The correct answer is Jesus Christ. But that contradicts their picture of three Persons. So they just stay with the three titles.

Thus there is not one Name for the Triune God of the Christians.

AMOS 6:10  Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD.

This describes the Trinity God. Nobody speaks about his (or their) name.

God winked at the ignorance of the churches during the 5^th and 6^th ages because no-one knew any better. He complimented them on what they had correctly restored.
ACTS 17:30
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

But we are expected to understand the Bible because brother Branham has restored the truth.

Repentance is what God advocates for the Laodicean age.
REVELATION 3:19
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

But today the churches will have to explain to God why they ignored the revealed Word in their day because they refused to listen to the end-time Elijah who was William Branham.

Then the followers of brother Branham would denominate around his quotes and their interpretations of his quotes and they too would remain in ignorance of the written Word because their focus would be on quotes.

The "deification" of this man is a result of his followers calling his preaching the "Voice of God" and insisting that he does not make mistakes as he is infallible. Thus you cannot argue about anything he says. You are only free to "parrot" his quotes. They uplift his quotes to the level of Scripture (and sometimes even above Scripture) and this is like a pendulum that has been pulled too far to the one side. Then they shun or even condemn those critics who claim that brother Branham did make mistakes (the Catholics call it ex-communication).

This unhealthy doctrine of "infallibility" (only a Pope is infallible) produces a sad reaction where the pendulum then swings too far to the other side and the critics focus on brother Branham's mistakes (both real and imagined) until they believe that he was a false prophet and that his teachings are thus wrong.

So fewer and fewer people prove what they believe from Scripture or have any deeper insight into Scripture.

Ask any Christian why Jesus wrote in the sand when questioned about a woman who was taken in adultery and they shrug it off as unimportant. Ask why He then wrote a second time in the sand and their lack of understanding of Scripture becomes evident.

Ask why David was allowed to eat the shewbread that only the priests could eat and again the answer is usually a blank stare.  Why is animal blood the atonement for sin in the Old Testament?

We know God demanded this, but why?

Christians do not take the Bible that seriously anymore and do not even look for answers to deeper questions. Any question that we do not know we just shrug off as not being important.

Yet Christians happily believe that the wise men went into the stable to give presents to the baby Jesus. The truth is that they never went into the stable. They went into a house. Jesus was not a baby but a young child. Joseph was not present.
MATTHEW 2:11
And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.

Thus the full Truth from the Bible is not really taught in the churches of the Laodiceans anymore. We are so in love with our pagan traditions.

It was human leadership that invented the Trinity and led the church into the Dark Ages.

The word “pastor” is mentioned once in the New Testament but despite this, each pastor has somehow become the head of his church. There is no written Scripture that a pastor is a shepherd. Because the pastor claims to be the head of the church, thus the true Head, Jesus, has to stand outside the church. Two heads on one body would start looking something like the Hindu trinity.

Brother Branham's followers will only study his quotes without needing to prove them from the Bible.

So when any mistakes are pointed out, these are simply ignored.

Consequently, they will not learn from the critics and will continue in these mistakes. Thus the critics perform an essential function in helping us to eliminate the errors from our beliefs. Those errors that we were too blind to see for ourselves.

But, human beings do make mistakes. Prophets made mistakes in the Bible days. We live in a messy real world. Only Jesus is perfect. But the King James Version of the Bible is our only perfect Light, our only Absolute.

Larkin cannot explain why Christ is outside the church

If the age of the Laodiceans is blind it is because Truth is no longer proven in the churches by following a doctrinal belief through the different verses of the Bible, as this is the only way to get true Light.

If the age of the Laodiceans is blind, then the Light has gone out from all our churches. That is why Jesus, the “Light of the world, has gone out” of the church and stands outside all our churches.
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.

He only knocks for individuals, not for the whole church.

The quotes of a man are interesting and may be instructive. But only what is written in the Bible can command my faith.

So all quotes must be checked against the Scripture.

Another problem is that when Larkin writes about Laodicea there are many Bible words that he actually says very little about. Not surprising as the age was only starting in his day so he would just be guessing.

Larkin cannot explain why Christ is outside the church and thus why Christ condemns all the churches. None of those earlier writers wanted to admit that Laodicea ends up in failure.

Modern writers don’t want to admit this either.

Message churches also deny this blanket condemnation. After all, Laodicea is an age of self-satisfied delusions with every church saying “The others are all wrong but we are right”.

Each of us is content to dwell self-righteously in our own doctrinal cocoon that we have spun to suit ourselves.

Self-absorbed and self-assured, we think that we have need of nothing so we obviously need no correction.
REVELATION 3:17
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods,

and have need of nothing;

Larkin added 3 church names but left out 2

Larkin supplied a meaning for 3 church names (Ephesus means relaxed.  Pergamos means married. Sardis means escaping ones). This was original.

But Larkin provided no meaning for the names Thyatira and Laodicea.

Larkin also used the names Philadelphia (brotherly love) and  Smyrna (myrrh, a bitter herb for embalming the dead) which other writers had already used.

So, using names that others had thought of first, was no crime as far as he was concerned. He was happy to use the basic ideas of the church ages that others had already thought of. Then he added his contribution. That is how knowledge grows. We add our bit to the knowledge that has already been developed by others before us.

For example, consider the internet. The internet is incredible but it was built on two previous inventions: the computer and the telephone.

As that great genius, Isaac Newton famously said, “If I have seen further it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants”.

Larkin was original when he provided 1750 as the end of the Reformation or Sardis age. This age did not end in a specific event so we may as well accept this rather vague date. Methodism was getting strong in 1750 but we could move this date around a few years without changing anything.

But Larkin started the Ephesus age in AD 70 when St Paul was probably already dead.

But Paul played a major role in establishing the first church age.

Thus Larkin knew nothing about the church age messengers.

Larkin wrote that the Laodicean age started in 1900 when nothing specific happened, instead of beginning in 1906 with the Azusa Street Pentecostal revival in Los Angeles, California because he simply ignored the Pentecostal movement.

Larkin copied three dates that earlier writers had already used for the church ages. Larkin ended the Smyrna second church age in AD 312 (Constantine’s victory) and ended the Pergamos third church age in 606 AD (when the Pope claimed he was Universal Bishop) and ended the Thyatira fourth church age in 1520 when Luther burnt the Pope’s Bull that condemned him and started the Reformation “war” against Rome.  All of these dates were already well known to the earlier writers. Some earlier writers had used other dates.

A fundamental error with Larkin and the earlier writers was that they ignored the stars or messengers that influenced each age.

They had no revelation in their day as to what a messenger was, so Larkin wisely kept quiet on this topic.

The seven church ages identified by Clarence Larkin were known long before him and as such. He collected a very useful summary of this previous knowledge that the earlier writers had slowly built up. There were points that they explained well but there were also serious gaps in their knowledge.

See what earlier writers had said about the church ages

From the Mukwonago Baptist Church web  site :

“Numerous interpreters through the centuries

 have adopted the viewpoint that the seven churches of Revelation two and three represent 

seven distinct periods of church history. 

It is possible that the first one to endorse a version of this theory was 

Victorinus, Bishop of Pettau, who died in A. D. 303.

Andrew Miller’s  (1810 – 1883) Church History actually uses Revelation Chapters two and three as an outline for his book on church history.

The early anti-Trinitarian Seventh Day Adventists, such as Uriah Smith in his Daniel and the Revelation, endorsed this prophetic view of the chapters.

Many men from before the current so-called “Laodicean age,” such as John Gill, have approved of this view of seven church ages.  A list of more modern writers who believed in seven church ages include :

Harrison, Tatford, Walter Scott, Morgan, Seiss, Newell, Ironside, Ottman, Kelly, Theissen, Stanton, Pember, Pentecost, Larkin, Gaebelein, Cohen, Hains, DeHann, N. Harrison, Blanchard, Talbot, Grant, Pettingill, Adams, Simpson, Walvoord,

W. A. Spurgeon, Strauss, Scofield, Phillips, Willmington, David Cloud, and W. MacDonald.

It is consequently apparent that the viewpoint in question has a historical legacy and a large number of writers agree with this viewpoint.”

Wikipedia Encyclopaedia

“Some historians typically interpret the seven churches as representing seven different periods in the history of the Western Church from the time of Paul until the return of Jesus Christ.

Scofield, writing between  1909 – 1917, states that "these messages by their very terms go beyond the local assemblies mentioned. He is of the opinion that the letters have a prophetic purpose disclosing the seven phases of the spiritual history of the Church.

Other writers, such as Clarence Larkin (1920,)  Henry Hampton Halley (1924),

Merrill Unger,(1909 – 1980) and William M. Branham also have posited the view that the seven churches preview the history of the global Church.”

[ Larkin  finalized his views on the seven church ages between 1918 and 1920.] These square brackets and the use of italics indicate that it is my comment.

Referring to Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

Clarence Larkin  “studied the Scriptures, with the help of some books that fell into his hands”.

“Larkin, a kind and gentle man, disliked and deplored the tendency of writers who had different viewpoints on church history to say uncharitable things about each other.”

“His books have been prepared after years of study, not only of the Scriptures themselves, 

but of the writings of men along prophetic lines.

Wikipedia :

“Like C. I. Scofield, Larkin postulated seven separate dispensations”…. “that draws on the major themes found in the works of figures like C.I. Scofield, William Eugene Blackstone, and John Nelson Darby.”

www.bible.ca/rapture-origin-john-nelson-darby-1830ad.htm

“Darby believed in the division of history into eras or dispensations

. …. most agreed with Darby that there were seven.”

RC Trench  1807 - 1886

“The … extreme Franciscans, (around 1200 AD) are the first among whom this scheme of interpretation assumed any prominence. It is well known to those who are at all familiar with this wonderful body of men, what an important part the 

distribution of the Church's history into seven ages 

played in their theology, and what weapons they found in this armoury for their assault on the dominant Church and hierarchy of Rome”.

RC Trench  1807 - 1886

“After the Reformation, the first historian in whom I meet this 

interpretation of the seven Churches, as predictive of the seven ages of the Church and foreshadowingtheir condition,

is an English divine, Thomas Brightman (1557 -  1607).”

Henry More  1614 - 1687

“But this can be no argument with them that hold the Seven Churches to be seven successive Conditions of the Church to the world’s end.”

Andrew Miller (1810 - 1883)

1.  “Doubtless the seven churches are strictly historical, and this fact must be allowed its full weight in studying

their prophetic character… to bear a prophetic meaning, as well as a historical application.

They were selected from amongst many, and so arranged and described as to 

foreshadow what was to come.

2.  Only in chapters 2 & 3 is the church seen as responsible on the earth,

and the object of divine government. From chapter 4-19 she is seen in heaven.”

[ Both Scofield and Larkin were drawing on ideas that had already been expressed by earlier writers. ]

http://biblehub.com/commentaries/revelation/1-4.htm

[ This site refers to Campegius Vitringa Sr., or Kempe Vitringa  who was a Dutch Protestant theologian   1669 – 1722 ]  

“Seven churches.—It has been maintained by some (notably by Vitringa) that the epistles to the seven churches are prophetic, and set forth the condition of the Church in the successive epochs of its after-history. “

“For Vitringa,

Ephesus represents the condition of the Church starting from the day of Pentecost …

Smyrna, …ended with the persecution … of Diocletian, (302 -312).

Pergamum, from the time of Constantine (312) until the close of the seventh century ”

[ Vitringa got Ages 1, 2 and 3   correct ]

“In Holland Cocceius (1603-1669) argued for a divinely-intended division into seven periods of the whole history of the Church” :

“Smyrna represents the last and most terrible struggles with heathen Rome;Protestant expositors see the Papacy in the scarlet woman of Babylon. The Jezebel of Thyatira appears exactly at the right time, coinciding with the Papacy at its height”

“to claim, as Brightman (1557-1607)does, …. and, as must necessarily follow, to contemplate 

Sardis  as representing the Church of the actual Reformation.”

[ Cocceius got Ages 2, 4 and 5 correct ]

[ Jezebel was identified as the Roman Catholic church ]

LARKIN

“Jezebel …typified a “System” and that “System” was the “Papal Church.”

James S White   1880

(1.) Ephesus signifies " desirable," which well represents the first Christians who had received the doctrine of Christ in its purity.(2.) Smyrna signifies "myrrh," denoting that the church in this age would be a sweet-smelling savor to God, while passing through the fiery ordeal of persecution … This state reached down to Constantine covering much of the period called the ten persecutions.(3.) Pergamos signifies " height, elevation." This period reached from Constantine …. down to the rise of antichrist(4) Thyatira signifies " sweet savor of labor," or "sacrifice and contrition," which seems descriptive of the church of Jesus Christ during the  years of papal persecution. This age of dreadful cruelty, and martyrdom of the true church.

LARKIN : Smyrna means bitterness…myrrh is an ointment associated with death.

[ White had the same meaning for Smyrna as Larkin had ]

[ White laid out the framework of the first four church ages ]

John Gill (1697 - 1771)

Age 2 :  “Smyrna…  

and ye shall have tribulation ten days:

The Dioclesian persecution lasted ten years  (302 – 312) almost throughout: and some think that this last persecution, which held ten years, is here particularly meant, and not without some good reason; since it is usual in prophetic writings, and in this book of the Revelation, 

to put days for years; so that these ten days may be the ten years the last persecution held,

and at which time the period of this church state ended, and that of Pergamos took place.”

LARKIN : “or it may refer to the 10 years of the last and fiercest persecution under Diocletion.”

[ Thus  312 AD establishes the end of the Smyrna Age.  LARKIN also chose this date ]

John Gill   Age 3 :   “ Pergamos : This church represents the church from the time of Constantine, and onward, rising up to, and enjoying great power, riches, and honour “

LARKIN : “ Constantine … gave to the Bishops of the church a number of imposing buildings called Basilicas for conversion into churches … He was lavish in the gift of money . He also supplied superb vestments (clothes) for the clergy“.

John Gill    “ Antipas the martyr got his name through opposition to the popes of Rome; for Antipas is the contraction of Antipater, and is the same with Antipapas, or Antipappas, which signifies one that is against the pope, an opposer of that holy father”

[ A brilliant insight :  Anti pas means anti the Pope. 

Around 450 AD, Bishop of Rome Leo 1 called himself the Pope .

• Larkin missed this point as he makes no mention of it.]

John Gill  Age 4 :   “Thyatira:  in the interval this church represents; and this period takes in the darkest and most superstitious times of Popery, until the Reformation.

Jezebel, the wife of Ahab; as she was the daughter of an Heathen, so is Rome Papal the daughter of Rome Pagan”

[ Another flash of brilliance: Jezebel is identified by Gill as the Roman Catholic church ]

LARKIN: “Jezebel …typified a “System” and that “System” was the “Papal Church.”

SCOFIELD :

“ As Jezebel brought idolatry into Israel, so Romanism weds Christian doctrine to pagan ceremonies”.

John Gill Age 5 : Sardis :  This church represents the state of the church from the time of the Reformation by Luther and others, until a more glorious state of the church appears, or until the spiritual reign of Christ in the Philadelphian period; under the Sardian church state we now are: (this was published by John Gill in 1747, Editor.”)

LARKIN : “By the Reformation we mean that period in the history of the Christian Church when Martin Luther and a number of other reformers protested against the false teaching, tyranny, and claims of the Papal Church”. (Larkin said the Sardis age ended in 1750).

[ Another brilliant flash : John Gill in 1747 wrote just before Wesley’s age and somehow sensed that there was another Philadelphian age coming. Gill claimed that 1747 was still the Sardis age. Larkin agreed with him because Larkin started the Philadelphia age in 1750 ]

Walter Scott (1796 – April 23, 1861)

Scott's church Age 1 : “Gaining pre-eminence in the church and departure from first love 

characterized the close of the apostolic period―Ephesus (chap. 2:1-7)."

[ III John speaks of Diotrephes who loved to have the pre-eminence and kicked dissenters out if they agreed with the apostle John who wrote the original Scripture. One man becoming head of the assembly or church is not a good idea]

III JOHN 1:9
I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes,

who loveth to have the preeminence among them,

receiveth us not.

:10   Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and

casteth them out of the church.

:11   Beloved,

follow not that which is evil,

but that which is good.

Church Age 2 : “Next succeeded the martyr period, which brings us down to the close of the tenth and last persecution, under Diocletian (303 – 312 AD) Smyrna (chap. 2:8-11).”

[ 312 AD is now an accepted date for the end of Smyrna and the start of Pergamos ]

Church Age 3 :  “Decreasing spirituality and increasing worldliness went hand in hand from the accession of Constantine and his public patronage of Christianity on to the seventh century (which started in 600 AD ) ―Pergamos (chap. 2:12-17)”

Church Age 4 : “ The Papal Church, which is Satan's masterpiece on earth, is witnessed in the assumption of universal authority

[ this was Pope Boniface III claiming to be Universal Bishop in AD 606 ]

 and cruel persecution of the saints of God. Its evil reign covers "the Middle Ages," the moral characteristics of which have been well termed "dark." Popery blights everything it touches―Thyatira (chap. 2:18-29). “

“Thyatira…  in the interval this church represents; and this period takes in the darkest and most superstitious times of Popery, until the Reformation. “

LARKIN : “Thyatira extended from 606 AD”

[ So Larkin agrees with this date of  Scott ]

Scott's Church Age 5 :  “The Reformation was God's intervention in grace and power to cripple papal authority, and introduce into Europe the light which for 300 years has been burning with more or less brilliancy. Protestantism, with its divisions and deadness, shows clearly enough how far short it comes of God's ideal of the Church and Christianity― Sardis (chap. 3:1-6). “

LARKIN : “Sardis … Reformation period “

Scott Age 6 : Another Reformation, equally the work of God, characterized the beginning of last century― Philadelphia (chap. 3:7-13).

[ Walter Scott was aware of another Reformation age but did not grasp the idea that Luther restored Salvation and Wesley added to this by restoring  Holiness and outreach.

Scott did not know that each age had a star who was a famous reformer ]

Nicolaitans and Balaam and the Seat of Satan

Nicolaitanism :

LARKIN : “The word which is from “Niko” to conquer, to overthrow and “Laos”  the people or laity. The object was to establish a holy order of men and place them over the people, which was foreign to the New Testament plan…the separation of the Clergy from the Laity”.

C. I. SCOFIELD

“Nicolaitanes … from nikao “to conquer” and laos “the people or laity”… it refers to the earliest form of the notion of a priestly order  or clergy which later divided an equal brotherhood into “priests” and “laity”.

Nicolaitanism is priestly assumption”.

Andrew Miller (1810 -1883)

“Nicolaitanism :  The new teachers of the church seem also to have forgotten the beautiful simplicity of the divine order in the church. There were only two orders of office-bearers — elders and deacons. The one was appointed to attend to the temporal, the other to the spiritual need of the assembly of the saints. Elder, or bishop, simply means overseer, one who takes a spiritual oversight. He may have been "apt to teach," or he may not; he was not an ordained teacher, but an ordained overseer.

The Holy Ghost had come down to take the lead in the assembly, according to the Word of the Lord, and the promise of the Father; and no Christian, however gifted, believing this, could take the place of leader, and thus practically displace the Holy Spirit. But, from the moment that this truth was lost sight of, men began to contend for place and power, and of course the Holy Spirit had no longer His right place in the assembly. Scarcely had the voice of inspiration become silent in the church, than we hear the voice of the new teachers crying loudly and earnestly for the highest honours being paid to the bishop, and a supreme place being given to him. Not a word about the Spirit's place as sovereign ruler in the church of God.

Ignatius the Bishop of Antioch  (died about 107 AD) in his letters said :  "I exhort you that ye study to do all things in a divine concord; your bishops presiding in the place of God”…… “Do nothing without the Bishop”.

The leading idea in all Ignatius’ letters is the perfect submission of the people to their rulers, or of the laity to their clergy bishop”.

Miller concludes: “The only priesthood, then, in the church of God is the common priesthood of all believers. “

Balaam

SCOFIELD :  “The doctrine of Balaam was the union of the world and the church which is spiritual unchastity… Balaamism is worldliness”.

LARKIN : “Pergamos means marriage and when the church entered into a union with the state it was guilty of spiritual fornication or Balaamism … the great pagan festivals were adopted… it was found advisable to change the birthday of the Son of God to December 25 … the birthday of the pagan sun god.”

Satan’s seat

SCOFIELD : “Pergamos was dwelling where Satan’s throne is, in the world”…. Pergamos : the church settled down in the world where Satan’s throne is”.

LARKIN

“When Attalus III. The priest-king of the Chaldean hierarchy fled from Babylon before the conquering Persians of Cyrus, he went to Pergamos and settled there. Satan shifted his capital from Babylon to Pergamos.”

• [ Larkin made one small mistake. The priest-king was just Attalus. Only later would an Attalid (or bull-horned) line of deified priest kings emerge at Pergamos. The last of these was Attalus III who left his kingdom to Rome when he died in 133 BC.]

[ Larkin misses the issue here. He gives no clue as to what is meant by Satan’s throne.

The Greeks conquered Pergamos, Egypt, and Part of Hindu India. 

They united the trinity gods of Egypt (father, son, mother) with the trinity of India (three men) with the Greek trinity of Plato (unknown Father, Logos or Word, World Soul). As time went on Greek philosophy changed the World Soul into the Holy Spirit. But the Father remained unknown because the name of the Father, Jehovah, never appears in the New Testament and "God the Father" never appears in the Old Testament.

Scofield is partly right. Satan encourages worldliness but a far bigger danger is false doctrine and neither Larkin nor Scofield indicate what the key ideas of Satan’s very subtle religious deception are.

The main Babylonian error was that many gods of the pagans were united in the form of a Trinity that was originally based on the Sun, Moon, and stars.

Egypt : Osiris, Horus, Isis   and   Isis, Horus, Seb

Rome : Jupiter, Juno, Minerva

Babylon : Nimrod, Semiramas, and Tammuz]

India : Brahma, Krishna, Siva

Greece :  In Plato’s philosophy it was the Unknown Father, Logos and World Soul that formed a Triad.

The Christian Trinity was thus a fiction of the school of later Greek  Platonists who changed Plato's idea of a Triad into Father, Son and Holy Spirit.]

[ It can easily be seen that Larkin has so far made no original contribution to the seven church ages doctrine. He has expertly brought together different ideas from different people and assembled them into a “church ages theme” which others had already spoken about. In places he has elaborated on some of these points but the basic ideas had already been made. 

What did Larkin contribute that was original? 

One date  1750  and 3 of the meanings of the church names:

Smyrna means myrrh and bitterness and Philadelphia means brotherly love. These two names were well known.

The other 5 names cause contention as they seem to have more than one meaning. 

Larkin seems to have been inspired to select useful meanings for 3 of the names:  Ephesus means let go or relax.  Pergamos means marriage.  Sardis means escaping one. 

Please note that the meaning of Thyatira and Laodicea were left out by Larkin. 

Dates: Larkin starts the Ephesus age  in AD 70 but Paul baptized the Ephesian disciples around 53-55 AD to get that church started. Their re-baptism in the Name of Jesus Christ was an essential step to get the first church right away from any Trinity doctrine that would creep in by using the titles Father, Son and Holy Ghost as if they are the Name of God.

Larkin starts the Laodicean age in 1900 AD. This is a vague and meaningless date as neither he nor any of the earlier writers had any idea what Laodicea was all about. The Pentecostal movement that broke out in the historic Azusa Street Revival of 1906 is missed by Larkin and the other writers. Hence they could not choose the 1906 date to start our Pentecostal  Age of Laodicea. ]

John Gill (November 23, 1697-October 14, 1771)

This church, and its pastor, represent the state of the church under the persecutions of the Roman emperors. 

Smyrna signifies "myrrh", which being bitter of taste,

is expressive of the bitter afflictions, and persecutions, and deaths, the people of God in this interval endured; and 

yet, as myrrh is of a sweet smell,

so were those saints, in their sufferings for Christ, exceeding grateful and well-pleasing to him; wherefore nothing is said by way of complaint to this church; not that she was without fault, but it was proper to use her tenderly in her afflicted state: and, 

as Dr. More observes, as myrrh was used in the embalming of dead bodies, it may point to the many deaths and martyrdoms of the saints in this period, 

whereby their names and memories are perpetuated and eternalized.

Philadelphia This church is an emblem of, and represents the church in that period of time, in which will be the spiritual reign of Christ. Its name signifies "brotherly love".

The meaning of Philadelphia and Smyrna were well known before Larkin's day.

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 170 AD 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 struggle to make one paragraph.

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). They are very similar.

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”.

So William Branham started building on the foundation that many others had already started laying. Then he moved beyond what they had been able to understand and finished the church age doctrine by filling in the gaps that the earlier writers had left out.

This, essentially, is the ministry of the seventh angel to the Laodicean church.

7th angel finishes the mystery that others started

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.

There is only one way in which you can judge if William Branham was the seventh angel, the messenger to the seventh church age which is Laodicea and that is to determine whether he finished up the mystery of the seven church ages by filling in the blanks that the previous writers had been unable to do.

You cannot judge him by any faults or failings that he may have had as a man.

(Remember your own faults and failings before you cast the first stone).

His ministry was just to finish the mystery of God's Word by explaining the deeper issues that others had missed.

The mystery of God is only finished when the Bible mysteries are revealed so that the last church age can return to the beliefs of the first church age.

That is the mystery of the Bible. The harvested wheat is the same as the wheat that was planted.

If he digressed and told his life story and gave his opinion on other matters, then that never was the focus of his ministry. So ignore those issues as they do not help us to finish up the mystery of the church ages in a way that we can fully understand what went on.

God will judge him in terms of how effectively he fulfilled this Scripture. Other issues where he went wrong must be identified as errors and then put aside as they will never help us to finish the mystery of the church ages which is Jesus walking in the midst of His church throughout the 2000 years of church history.

John the Baptist doubted that Jesus was Messiah. What a massive blunder. John must really have kicked himself after doing that.
MATTHEW 11:2
 Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples,

:3   And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?

Jesus ignored this error and just referred to John fulfilling the Scripture of being the messenger before Christ's first Coming.

He then said that John was more than a prophet. This is very complimentary because John's critics could have claimed that he was much less than a prophet on the grounds that John the Baptist had totally messed up, big time.

MATTHEW 11:9
But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.

:10   For this is he, of whom

it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

:11   Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Jesus never denied that John had made a mistake.

Jesus also did not emphasize John's mistake in order to discredit John.

Jesus actually never even mentioned John's mistake.

Jesus knew John was wrong and just ignored that issue.

Jesus simply focused on what John had done right according to the written Word that predicted his ministry.

John had fulfilled Scripture because he did prepare the way before Jesus.

So Jesus gave him full marks for fulfilling that Scripture.

That is all that really counted.

Did he fulfill the Scripture?

Did he fulfill the Scripture written about him? Yes, 100 %

The Scripture is God's perfect will, His Big Picture.

Did John make any mistakes? This is not a relevant question in terms of God's Big Picture.  So it will not affect his score of 100 % in God's eyes.

Personal mistakes are part of our individual small pictures. These are bad news but they do not affect God's Big Picture.

So let us learn from how the Master handled John the Baptist's personal mistakes when we analyze William Branham's ministry.

He was sent to finish the mystery of God's Word. Make it clear to us. That is the Big Picture. That is all we must judge him by. Having studied the Bible for over 50 years I can only testify that I have never come across anyone who can explain the Scripture with the clarity and insight that William Branham does.

Of course, he makes mistakes in places. But that is part of the teaching process.

If a student can spot a mistake in the teacher's lesson, it means the student knows what he or she is talking about.

A good teacher is thus always proud when a student points out a mistake that has been made.

That simply means that the process of transferring the knowledge has been successful.

The issue is not how much the teacher knows but rather how effectively the students are able to think for themselves.

Do not deny his mistakes (that is not being truthful) nor emphasize his mistakes in order to discredit or de-prophetize him. Getting tangled up in the imperfections just means you have taken your eyes off the Big Picture.

Rather focus on the brilliant reflected light in Scripture where he got it right, because that is the only real reason why God sent him.

Remember, only Jesus is Perfect.

Only the King James Version of the Bible is infallible as the Absolute truth.