The Remnant On Line History Page

William J. Branham
The Age of The Healers

He was strange and he was brought forth in a season and a time to stir a fire in Pentecostal circles that hadn’t been seen since Amiee Simple McPhereson’s Angeles Temple days.

God was going to use this man of God to open a door to the supernatural that had never been seen before. He was a poor boy born in a Kentucky log cabin like Abe Lincoln, and from the moment he was born supernatural signs and wonders surrounded him. William J. Branham’s parents were so poor that they couldn’t even afford to buy him a shirt to go to school in. His mother had to alter the dresses that his sisters wore to accommodate his cloths for a shirt to wear. At his birth a supernatural light appeared over his crib, and to look at his background and surroundings you would of said he never do anything in his life for God. William J. Branham would open the door to the supernatural that many faith healers would go through in the early 1950’s.

The founder of Christ For The Nations School in Dallas, Texas published a journal of William J. Branhams events until the evangelist became sick after returning from Africa on a mission. The Voice of Healing Magazine, established by Gordon Lindsey was a written record and account of Branham’s ministry. The reason Branham was so facinating was that he was the first of his kind in this type of ministry and he displayed so many supernatural signs that his ministry was more powerful than any of the others who followed him. Oral Roberts, A. A. Allen and Jack Coe would follow in the traditions of this healer in the 1950’s.

Branham was unusual in the fact he had an angel visit him at night to bring council from God. The angel was seen by his son Billy one night and the sight of that divine figure caused him to faint. During several of his meetings he would lay a hand upon an individual with cancer or some other illness and his hand would turn red with a coarseness, when the hand returned to normal the person was completely healed. Many charged him as being a fake in what he was doing but the day of one challenge in Houston, Texas would reveal the supernatural nature of this man. A ball of fire that moved from the top of an auditorium and hovered over Branham’s head on a stage was visible to all who saw it. He was not an educated man and spoke in a broken Kentucky hill billy accent but his ministry was the most unusual out of all the healers. He died in a head on collision in the desert of the southwest. He was involved in the darkest part of him ministry at the time. Many could not understand why Branham in the later days of his ministry began to move away from the call of healing on his life. He began to teach many doctrinal errors outside of the bible. Gordon Lindsey remarked that God took William Branham before his time because of the errors he was teaching before the body of Christ. Branham was unique in signs and wonders and healings and there hasn’t been anything like him in the healing ministry since his death. There are those who came after him such as Kathryn Kulhman, Oral Roberts, Jack Coe, and A.A. Allen but Branham had the special gifts of healing that no other person had in the 20th Century had.

Gordon Lindsey was a pioneer in Christian Journalism and his written word came from the exploits of William Branham but when Branham almost died after coming back from Africa. Lindsey had to keep his publication, The Voice of Healing going by covering other evangelists. Many of the people who had visited Branham in the late forties began to come upon the scene and one of those was Jack Coe. Coe was a controversial healer that used a tent to go around the country for his crusades. He had great success in what he was doing.

He often inflamed the voices of religion and spoke to the General Council of the Assemblies of God and told them that they needed to get back to the foundational calling of what they were called to do and that was the supernatural. Springfield would never again endorse his ministry while he was alive. Even though he spoke the truth it was a door that the Assemblies of God chose not to go through.

Schambach And Early Radio 

Another man called by God in the healing ministry was A. A. Allen. Some of the things that came through the hands of this healing evangelists are still talked about today. R. W. Schambach told the story of a little boy that was brought by his mother from Chattanooga to be healed in a tent meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. He was so deformed and unable to walk or see. His mother layed him out for the evangelist to pray for him. When Allen began his prayer over this child his tongue which was hanging out of his head immediately went inside. Two eyes were created in his head that where not there before. People in in the quietness of the large tent could hear the bones cracking and popping into place. God transformed this small boy who could not walk back into a normal child. More than 26 illnesses were healed right before the people’s eyes. The power of this miracle was go great that it ignited a fire in that tent where several people came to Christ and several terminal illnesses were healed that week. One thing about these healers that God had called forth in this age, they were not perfect. Religion attacked A. A. Allen several times. Allen grew up in a house of alcoholics and many people knew Allen had a problem with alcoholism. When he died in San Francisco the coroner ruled that he died from acute alcoholism. While the evidence might have been to validate his disease the evidence was also there that this man had many signs and wonders of divine healing in his testimony that was attributed to the powerful ministry he had while he was alive.

One of the last healer we will speak about is Oral Roberts. Roberts grew up in this time period also and was a contemporary of these men but Roberts was called to several ministries during his time of ministry. Roberts was much like Jack Coe and A. A. Allen but Roberts’ ministry stretched into the 60s, 70’s and into the new century. He started like the others did as an off spring of Branham but he had a personal knowledge that the others didn’t have. He was healed in a tent meeting of tuberculosis and felt the call to deliver the healing power of God to this generation. He was so moved by the healing ministry that he established a university in Tulsa, Oklahoma and name it Oral Robert’s University. This University was built around the healing power of God and was built to take that power around the world. Billy Graham dedicated Oral Robert’s University, on the day they dedicated the school a man heard someone say this, "We were outside the Timko-Barton building and Billy Graham stepped up to the microphone and said, ‘Good afternoon,’ and commented that it looked as if it was going to rain. Just then someone said, ‘You know, the Lord wouldn’t dare let it rain with Oral Roberts and Billy Graham on the platform at the same time.’" This was door opened that would never close as people like Benny Hinn took the mantle up long after these were no longer involved.