- 6/17/2025
John and Chino discuss the long-running charismatic healing ritual known as leg lengthening, using the life of Hobart Freeman as a case study in contradiction. Despite Freeman’s teachings that God could lengthen limbs through faith, he lived with a visibly shortened leg from childhood polio and wore orthopedic shoes throughout his life. The hosts explore the irony and inconsistency of his ministry, sharing personal stories, scriptural comparisons, and insights into the psychological manipulation often used in faith healing services. The discussion spans both personal experience and public spectacle, unpacking the difference between genuine belief and deceptive theatrics.
They examine the roots of these practices in the Latter Rain and Charismatic movements, comparing them to biblical healing accounts and exposing common tricks used by ministers to manufacture the illusion of miracles. Legends, stagecraft, and emotionally charged testimonies are critically analyzed alongside humorous and tragic anecdotes. By highlighting Freeman’s unhealed leg, the hosts invite listeners to consider how such movements have relied on emotionalism, peer pressure, and spiritual fear rather than transparent truth. In closing, they encourage critical thinking and a return to authentic biblical discernment.
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Meet and Greet, Hobart Freeman’s Irony, and Stage Tricks
04:37 1970s Leg-Lengthening Culture and Personal Church Memories
10:40 The Psychology Behind the Illusion and James Randi’s Exposure
16:10 Biblical Miracles vs. Modern Healing Claims
21:04 Urban Legends and Faith-Based Fish Stories
26:24 Absurd Healing Tales and Plastic Eye Performances
31:04 Paid Healing Classes and Doctrinal Contradictions
34:05 Hobart Freeman’s Personal Example and Inconsistencies
41:02 Fake Miracles, Darren Brown, and Stagecraft vs. Scripture
45:05 Freeman’s Claimed Visions and Prophetic Self-Justification
48:03 The Emperor’s New Clothes: Why No One Spoke Up
50:45 Disillusionment, Decline, and the Burden of Bad Theology
57:07 The Lasting Damage of Fear-Based Healing Doctrines
1:01:18 Breaking Free from the Herd Mentality
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
Chino's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@chinodross
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
They examine the roots of these practices in the Latter Rain and Charismatic movements, comparing them to biblical healing accounts and exposing common tricks used by ministers to manufacture the illusion of miracles. Legends, stagecraft, and emotionally charged testimonies are critically analyzed alongside humorous and tragic anecdotes. By highlighting Freeman’s unhealed leg, the hosts invite listeners to consider how such movements have relied on emotionalism, peer pressure, and spiritual fear rather than transparent truth. In closing, they encourage critical thinking and a return to authentic biblical discernment.
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Meet and Greet, Hobart Freeman’s Irony, and Stage Tricks
04:37 1970s Leg-Lengthening Culture and Personal Church Memories
10:40 The Psychology Behind the Illusion and James Randi’s Exposure
16:10 Biblical Miracles vs. Modern Healing Claims
21:04 Urban Legends and Faith-Based Fish Stories
26:24 Absurd Healing Tales and Plastic Eye Performances
31:04 Paid Healing Classes and Doctrinal Contradictions
34:05 Hobart Freeman’s Personal Example and Inconsistencies
41:02 Fake Miracles, Darren Brown, and Stagecraft vs. Scripture
45:05 Freeman’s Claimed Visions and Prophetic Self-Justification
48:03 The Emperor’s New Clothes: Why No One Spoke Up
50:45 Disillusionment, Decline, and the Burden of Bad Theology
57:07 The Lasting Damage of Fear-Based Healing Doctrines
1:01:18 Breaking Free from the Herd Mentality
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
Chino's YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@chinodross
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister, and friend, Chino Ross,
00:00:47pastor and the voice of the Understanding Scripture and Truth by Chino D. Ross YouTube channel.
00:00:54Chino, it's good to be back and to talk about all things leg lengthening and all things
00:00:59Hobart Freeman.
00:01:02We talked briefly about some of the content in this episode, and I don't know if I'll
00:01:06get a chance to play it.
00:01:07I'll have to look at the copyright and legal issues of it, but the things that we're about
00:01:11to get into is something that it's nothing new.
00:01:16This is going back way back into the history of Pentecostalism and various healing, faith
00:01:23healing, divine healing circles, but the fact that Hobart Freeman and his shorter leg was
00:01:31an example of this, and the fact that he became a faith healer, it really is odd if you think
00:01:36about the coincidences of that, because this is a stage trick that we're going to get into
00:01:41and explain, but here's a person who actually could benefit from it and never did.
00:01:46Yeah, the coincidence is just too much here, John, as we're going to get into, if I could
00:01:52say before we go any further, John, I just want to remind everyone of the meet and greet
00:01:57that we're going to have the first weekend in August at a place in Warsaw, Indiana.
00:02:04We'll put up on the screen the actual formal invitation to everyone.
00:02:08We just got a lot of, we're getting a lot of traction.
00:02:10I think it's going to be a big, healthy, happy, positive group of people, people that I know
00:02:16anyway, coming from hopefully all around that Northern Indiana area, but also Tennessee, Kentucky,
00:02:25Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, maybe Minnesota.
00:02:31I think some people from Texas, the people from Texas are actually people who were a part
00:02:37of churches that I have pastored or taught in in the past.
00:02:41So if they can work it into their vacation schedule, I hope they'll come.
00:02:47But please make sure that all of your friends are aware of what's going on, that we're going
00:02:52to do this meet and greet.
00:02:54Those of us who are coming from out of town will be arriving on Friday.
00:02:59I'll be staying at this Wyndham Hotel in Warsaw Friday night through Sunday morning.
00:03:07It's available to whomever is there, but the main event will start at 10 o'clock on Saturday
00:03:13morning.
00:03:14We'll probably have a little time of worship and we'll have some introductions.
00:03:22Hopefully I'll have a long piece of red carpet that you can walk across whenever, if I can
00:03:29get you there, if your schedule permits, we'll try to, I don't know, I can go to a Goodwill
00:03:35store somewhere and find a long piece of red carpet and roll that out for you.
00:03:40And, you know, we'll have some question and answer and some meet and greet and share and
00:03:45really looking forward to it, looking forward to seeing everyone there.
00:03:49So put it on your calendar.
00:03:51The first weekend, the first Saturday in the month of August, the Wyndham Hotel in Warsaw,
00:03:58Indiana.
00:03:59Well, I don't know if I'm worthy of a red carpet, maybe a black carpet, but it's not something
00:04:04that I'm used to.
00:04:05I'm not certain I'm going to be able to make it or not.
00:04:08I have a family member who is going to be into a very critical surgery, so I'm not certain
00:04:14that we're going to be able to make it.
00:04:16But I look forward to hearing the results of it if I don't get to go.
00:04:20So maybe you can bring back some stories for me.
00:04:23Well, the invitation will remain open and maybe we'll just do, this is a private joke
00:04:29between us.
00:04:30Maybe we'll just do black carpet with a red button on it, something like that.
00:04:34Anyway, moving right along.
00:04:37Yeah, let's get into this business of leg lengthening.
00:04:41I think there are problems for me, John, on so many levels with Hobart's false healing claims
00:04:50about his polio-shortened right leg that he was wanting and claiming and confessing and
00:04:59telling everyone that had been healed when he prayed for it back in 1966.
00:05:03This leg lengthening is nothing new.
00:05:07I think that maybe for a second or third generation member of a charismatic church, maybe they think
00:05:15it's new here in the mid-2020s, but let me just say that it goes back a long time, probably
00:05:24longer than I know.
00:05:25I can only speak about my own experience, but when I came into, I was converted to Christianity
00:05:31and spirit-filled in the mid-1970s, and I remember distinctly that leg lengthening was
00:05:42a thing, quote-unquote, back then.
00:05:44I don't have vivid memories of myself being involved, but I would guess that I probably
00:05:53went to an FGBMFI meeting, a Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International meeting, or a
00:05:59Catherine Kuhlman meeting, or just people that were traveling around, Pentecostal charismatic
00:06:07people in the 1970s who were teaching this and talking about it.
00:06:13They would literally seat people in a chair up in front and, you know, practice the leg
00:06:21lengthening.
00:06:22I wish I had a vivid memory so I could say, you know, I actually experienced the attempt
00:06:27or the successful attempt if it was successful, but I really, I don't remember myself ever doing
00:06:34it, but my guess is that I probably would have.
00:06:37I do remember, however, seeing other people called up by a minister and he would want to
00:06:45pray over a short leg situation, and I was even a part of a church that was somewhat of
00:06:52a satellite church from Faith Assembly.
00:06:55No Faith Assembly ministers ever traveled down there to teach in this church, but the minister,
00:07:01this was in Memphis, whose name was Ken Hall, was definitely heavily influenced by Dr.
00:07:09Freeman and other people, but he had really picked up this so-called faith message from
00:07:14Dr. Freeman and, you know, had started just a small group of people in Memphis.
00:07:19It was a very small church, but in my teenage years, I was a part of that.
00:07:24And the one thing, and so what I remember about this minister, Pastor Ken Hall, and he had some
00:07:31Bible training in Southern Baptist Seminary down in, I think, in New Orleans, but he was
00:07:37not very knowledgeable about the Bible, and meeting Dr. Freeman, I think, unfortunately
00:07:41made him less knowledgeable because it allowed him to mix all of this craziness in with maybe
00:07:48some good formal training and teaching he had received earlier.
00:07:51And I remember him sitting people down, and I remember him even saying he had never met
00:07:59anyone who didn't have a short leg.
00:08:02This was such a common thing in their services that if you didn't have any other thing to be
00:08:11prayed for, they would say, well, come up for your short leg.
00:08:15And people would go, you know, I would look, do I have one of those?
00:08:21I don't know if I have one of those or not.
00:08:24But he literally said, I've never met anybody who didn't have a short leg because I think
00:08:30every time he would sit someone down in a chair, and they always do this.
00:08:35I mean, I can see him do it.
00:08:36They put both of their hands out just like this and get the heel of each of the person's
00:08:42legs in their hand, and then they get a hold of the ankle like this, and they do whatever
00:08:48they do.
00:08:48But whenever they do that, you know, they'll look and go, see there?
00:08:52That left leg is a quarter inch shorter than the other, or the right leg is three-eighths
00:08:57of an inch shorter than the other.
00:08:59I can see him, and I can see other people holding the palms of their hands out there like
00:09:04that.
00:09:04And of course, you know, I have to confess, what I know today, I did not know back then.
00:09:11We all learn as we grow, and so I'm watching this, fascinated, and again, I can't say I
00:09:16ever saw a leg grow out.
00:09:19And by grow out, I would mean if you're sitting and the legs are this different and the leg
00:09:23just jumps like that, or even slowly goes out.
00:09:27But if it's a micrometer difference, you know, that can all just be due to posture, the way
00:09:34they have been seated, you know, whatever.
00:09:37But in looking back on that, and it didn't take me many years to get past leg lengthening,
00:09:42but I'm just telling everyone this was a thing, quote unquote, in the 1970s.
00:09:48If what Ken Hall said and what all the ministers were practicing is true, like everybody has a
00:09:54short leg, then that is telling me that God somehow left out some of the growth hormone
00:10:01in every human being so that one leg is shorter than the other.
00:10:05I mean, I just want people to ask themselves, does that make any sense?
00:10:09There was a great claim for him to say, I've never met anybody who doesn't have a short
00:10:14leg.
00:10:15And everybody immediately just questioned and say, well, I don't want to be the odd person
00:10:21here in this meeting and be the only person with two normal legs.
00:10:25I don't want to be the odd person out.
00:10:27So I want to go up there and have my legs lengthened.
00:10:30But again, come on, are you saying that God literally left the growth hormone out so that
00:10:37all human beings are born with one short leg?
00:10:40You know, William Branham said that anybody who is spiritual, especially in the Bible,
00:10:44was deemed neurotic because he himself was labeled neurotic, I guess, by multiple doctors.
00:10:52He talked about going through his, he never mentioned exactly what his diagnosis was, but
00:10:58he had some sort of mental health condition that was debilitating and it recurred every
00:11:03seven years.
00:11:04And I've talked to a few psychologists.
00:11:06I have an idea of what it is, but I'm not a doctor, so I can't really label him.
00:11:11But they like to do that.
00:11:12They like to say, well, I have this condition and, oh, don't worry, because I'm a faith
00:11:16healer and I have this condition, everybody's kind of got this thing that I have that's
00:11:20wrong with me.
00:11:21So the fact that Hobart's saying it about the feet is just, I watch those videos.
00:11:29I know I mentioned this in the last episode, but I watch those videos of the lengthening
00:11:34of the leg.
00:11:36And I want to say, I saw it as a grown man, as an adult.
00:11:39After I saw it and thought about what they were doing, I was just wanting to smack myself
00:11:45in the head and say, you dummy, how did you believe this nonsense?
00:11:50Because I know I'm very much of an architectural mind.
00:11:54I know how things work.
00:11:55And physically speaking, a person with wider hips, this trick works better on because the
00:12:01leg bones are further apart.
00:12:03But when they're sitting, the way they did it on stage, they would put a person where
00:12:08their legs were not, their feet weren't facing the audience, their legs were off, and they
00:12:13would put the side of the longer leg first so that they could twist the torso just a little
00:12:21bit.
00:12:21Because you know you got about four or five inches between the leg bones.
00:12:25And so if you twist the hips just a little bit, you can gain two, three inches, especially
00:12:31if you have wider hips.
00:12:33And so as they start praying for them, they're holding the feet and they're wiggling them.
00:12:37The reason they wiggle is because the person who's sitting there who doesn't know whether
00:12:43or not they even have a longer leg, they look down and, oh my gosh, he's right.
00:12:47How did I never notice that one of my feet doesn't reach the same length as the other leg
00:12:52does?
00:12:52And so the faith healer is wiggling them back and forth.
00:12:56Well, what he's doing, he's actually moving their torso.
00:12:59So whenever the hips straighten up, the leg that was twisted and further out suddenly is
00:13:05now further in.
00:13:06And I saw that and I was like, man, I grew up with those stories how William Branham could
00:13:11continually heal people who had shortened legs.
00:13:15And I remember as a kid hearing that and thinking, wow, man, things must have been really bad
00:13:21off and days gone by.
00:13:22I don't know anybody that's got one leg shorter than another one.
00:13:26It must have been some weird epidemic they had after the war.
00:13:30And so, you know, I was thinking about that.
00:13:34And then this guy sent me, he wanted me to read this book by a guy named James Randy.
00:13:39I don't know if you've heard of this guy.
00:13:41James Randy was a magician and a hardcore atheist.
00:13:46And we were trained and manipulated that if somebody, especially an atheist, had facts
00:13:52against our religion, those facts can fully be discounted because they're an atheist.
00:13:58And I was of that mindset.
00:13:59So I was like, yeah, I'm not going to read this.
00:14:01This guy is just trying to give me, it's Satan trying to influence me.
00:14:06That's what I thought.
00:14:07But after I woke up to realize the undeniable fact that if you're presented with fact, it
00:14:16doesn't matter who's telling the fact.
00:14:18If they have a fact, if they're atheists, if they're Christian, if they're Catholic, if
00:14:21they're Baptist, I don't care who they are.
00:14:24If they have a fact, you have to pay attention to it.
00:14:28So I finally read the book.
00:14:30He was a magician.
00:14:31He went around to all these faith healing stage shows, and he's saying, now, as a magician,
00:14:37this is how I did X, Y, and Z.
00:14:39As a faith healer, this is how they're doing the same thing I was doing.
00:14:43And he's walking you through all this stuff.
00:14:45And again, I wanted to smack my head thinking, how stupid was I that I was in this?
00:14:51And I've mentioned this a few times on the podcast.
00:14:54There are so many tricks that when you look at these faith healers, you have to think they're
00:14:59scam artists.
00:15:00That's all they are, scam artists.
00:15:02But people make the incorrect leap just because you call out a scam artist doesn't necessarily
00:15:08mean that you don't believe in that God heals and you don't believe in healing.
00:15:14There are two different things.
00:15:15Whether God heals or not is irrelevant to whether James Randi shows that, no, these guys
00:15:20are tricking you.
00:15:22You have to worry about the fraudsters.
00:15:24Yeah.
00:15:25Facts are facts.
00:15:26All truth is God's truth.
00:15:28It doesn't matter whether it comes from a Christian or an atheist.
00:15:31A fact is a fact.
00:15:32But that's one thing these groups do a good job of training their followers against.
00:15:37That if it disagrees with their teaching, then as I quoted what Hobart said last time,
00:15:42they are lying facts, which is a contradiction in terms.
00:15:46It's a fact, but it's a lying fact.
00:15:48They just don't want to admit to it.
00:15:51Um, and you know, what a terrible situation, John, that, that, and I totally agree with
00:15:57your last statement.
00:15:58I do not deny the power of God or the present day appearance and occurrence of miracles.
00:16:04But what, what's happened with this, um, they're shortchanging God's people by faking all of
00:16:13this stuff.
00:16:14I mean, when you look at this whole leg lengthening business, it's like a watered down version of
00:16:21the new Testament accounts where Jesus healed the lame.
00:16:24I don't see any leg lengthening happening in the Bible, but I do see people who were lame from
00:16:31birth being healed.
00:16:33So this to me is just like a watered down modern knockoff, you know, a cheap version, which isn't
00:16:43even true of a valid new Testament account.
00:16:48We know in John five, Jesus met the man at the pool there who was lame, couldn't even walk
00:16:56and Jesus healed him.
00:16:57Peter heals a man at the gate.
00:16:59Beautiful, uh, the apostle Paul in acts 14, heals the lame man born lame from his mother
00:17:06womb and the city of Lystra.
00:17:08And there are other accounts besides the actual ones that detail a particular person who was
00:17:15lame and who was healed.
00:17:17There are other accounts in the new Testament where it simply says that the people from the
00:17:22countryside brought all the halt and lame and withered and laid them down at Jesus feet.
00:17:30And he healed every single one of them.
00:17:33There was no leg lengthening.
00:17:35It was a real miracle.
00:17:37And something that I thought of the other day that we haven't mentioned earlier, John, when
00:17:41we were talking about those anointed handkerchiefs that, uh, everybody wants to pray over and
00:17:48send to relatives.
00:17:49And they base it on acts 19, forgetting that Luke said those were special miracles that Paul
00:17:55did that God performed by Paul's hands that he won't necessarily perform by ours earlier
00:18:02in acts.
00:18:03I think it's in acts four or five people brought sick individuals and laid them on the streets,
00:18:11hoping that Peter's shadow would touch them and heal them.
00:18:17That was the power that was on the apostle Peter in the early chapters in acts.
00:18:21I don't see anybody trying that one today.
00:18:23I see, I see, I see a lot of the anointed cloths and handkerchiefs.
00:18:29Hopefully they are not used ones.
00:18:31I hope they're clean ones that people are sending out, but, um, I don't see anyone putting
00:18:36people in the shadow of some minister.
00:18:39Let's see that, you know, let's see that come to pass.
00:18:43But on the leg lengthening, John, one of the earliest interviews you and I did, it's been
00:18:48over a year ago.
00:18:49Um, if you go back and look at them, cause I remember, cause I know who said it, bless
00:18:54her heart.
00:18:54When she said it, um, it was a pastor's wife of a Freeman satellite church.
00:19:00She jumped right on there and said, Oh, my leg was lengthened.
00:19:05You know, I had my leg grown out and I have witnessed others that had happened to.
00:19:10She was a part of a church down in Alabama.
00:19:13That was a hardcore Freeman church.
00:19:16I've even, and I know the people there.
00:19:19I knew the minister.
00:19:20I knew other people that came from that group.
00:19:23Um, I knew Joe and Tommy slaughter, the two brothers, their mother actually house this
00:19:30woman before she married her husband.
00:19:32I'm trying to not give away all the names, but I can talk about the slaughters.
00:19:36I've talked to Joe slaughter in the last I've communicated with Joe in the last week.
00:19:40Um, and that's been over 50 years ago was a church started by Eugene may and then Eugene
00:19:46went somewhere else and turned it over to another person.
00:19:49But anyway, that pastor's wife who's still alive today said she had her leg lengthened
00:19:55back then.
00:19:55And then, you know, I don't want to tell anybody that what the experience they didn't experience.
00:20:02Um, all I would say is, uh, that's probably not the reality.
00:20:08Um, even though Ken Hall said everybody has a short leg.
00:20:12I don't think that's true.
00:20:13I think if that's true, you would walk around, everybody would be wobbling back and forth
00:20:18like this.
00:20:19You wouldn't be able to have a steady gate.
00:20:21And, you know, nobody does that except a person with a short leg.
00:20:24And it's rare whenever that happens.
00:20:27She would, I'm sure this happened to this lady in the 1970s.
00:20:32So, you know, that's what, 50 years ago.
00:20:35And, um, she probably didn't have a short leg, you know, she probably had her hips adjusted
00:20:41by the minister who was praying for her, but it's almost, to me, John, it's almost taken
00:20:48on because it has gone on for so many years.
00:20:51It's almost taken on a life of its own.
00:20:54You know, we, you hear sometimes about urban legends.
00:20:58I think this is something of a charismatic legend.
00:21:05I know as a professional fishing guide, there is one particular fishing legend.
00:21:11Let me share this with you.
00:21:12You may have heard it.
00:21:13You may not have, but every fisherman has heard of it and people tell it like it's true.
00:21:20And here's how the story goes.
00:21:22Yeah.
00:21:22Now, my friend has a friend who had a friend who was a diver and he was below one of those
00:21:31dams on one of the big rivers, like the Ohio or the Mississippi and the Ohio or the, uh,
00:21:37Missouri.
00:21:38And he saw catfish down there as big as a Volkswagen.
00:21:43Well, that has been told thousands of times.
00:21:47And the largest catfish ever called in this country is like 150 pounds.
00:21:53It's not as big as a Volkswagen, but that story gets told and it gets told over and over.
00:22:00And you have heard it from many different sources.
00:22:03So it's not like in your mind that this person is trying to deceive me because you say, well,
00:22:08yeah, I remember such and such told me that.
00:22:11And this other person, and I was even traveling in another state and I heard that same story.
00:22:16It must be true.
00:22:18There must be catfish down there as big as a Volkswagen.
00:22:21I've heard this story about legs being lengthened.
00:22:24I've heard that.
00:22:25So it must be true.
00:22:27I think it's one of those charismatic legends that needs to be put to rest.
00:22:31And it's kind of on par with another Christian charismatic legend.
00:22:36Maybe you've heard, maybe you've not, but I've heard it since I was a teenager.
00:22:41Someone will tell the story that they knew somebody who knew somebody.
00:22:44They were driving along in a car and all of a sudden they heard a voice in the backseat
00:22:50of their car and they turned around and it was an angel.
00:22:55And the angel said, don't you know, Jesus is coming back soon.
00:23:00And then he vanished.
00:23:02I've heard that story my entire life, but I've never have known a person who actually
00:23:08had that happen to them.
00:23:10It's just a story of a story.
00:23:13I think it's an urban legend.
00:23:14Well, since we're telling fish stories, I've got two to tell you.
00:23:18The first one is, you know, I'm a musician.
00:23:23I love music.
00:23:24I love all kinds of music.
00:23:25My playlist has everything from Frank Sinatra to, you know, hard rock.
00:23:31Like, it's all, it's crazy the amount of music I listen to, but I was doing some research
00:23:36on Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses because I came across a interview with him.
00:23:43I think it was in Rolling Stone magazine.
00:23:45He was talking about the church he grew up in and how that church, how his, he didn't,
00:23:51he didn't explicitly say it, but in other words, how his bad experience in church led to him
00:23:57being this megastar, you know, this megastar in music.
00:24:02Well, he described his church and it sounded very much like my church that I grew up in.
00:24:08So I go back and I start looking at it and did some research.
00:24:12I was able to find which church he grew up in, find out they were independent, much like
00:24:19the churches we were in.
00:24:20And then I came across this guy named Ronald Coyne.
00:24:25Have you heard of this guy, Ronald Coyne?
00:24:27No, no.
00:24:28So this is a funny story and it's, it may be slightly bigger of a fishtail than the one
00:24:33you just told.
00:24:35So they had these, these guys that ran, James Randy would call.
00:24:39These are faith healing magicians that were out there.
00:24:42So one of them had this gimmick for this younger child.
00:24:48And I want to say it was, um, Raymond Hoekstra who was setting up the stage act, Raymond Hoekstra
00:24:54who also toured with Branham, but this boy, I think he was seven years old or something
00:24:59like this was swinging barbed wire and somehow made it come and knock an eyeball out or poke
00:25:06it where the eyeball withered and died.
00:25:09And so after surgery, he was given a plastic eye.
00:25:13So rather than like any other normal church, pray and pray that God helped the child who
00:25:19now has the plastic eye as a normal church would do, they made a stage act out of him
00:25:25wherein he, he could put a patch over his good eye and see through his plastic eye.
00:25:34And people would come up during these, I mean, picture this.
00:25:37This is like a normal church service that this guy would do this.
00:25:41They would have a line where people walk up and hold up an object and he could see it through
00:25:45his plastic eyeball.
00:25:47And this was, this was supposed to be in the name of God.
00:25:50Well, that was a latter rain stage act, which means that Axel Rose was in a latter rain church,
00:25:57which means he's like, well, he's two, two steps away from Branhamism.
00:26:00So the, the, you know, the similarities are a little bit odd, but that's what happened.
00:26:08They, well, they wanted to do these abnormal, unusual things and people would just fall for
00:26:14it like crazy.
00:26:15And, you know, I want to say it was like a year after this, I had people who had escaped
00:26:22Branhamism and one of Branham's sons, he's dead now, but he's well-respected even outside
00:26:29of the message community.
00:26:30He was touring and having these conversations with young folks and somebody sent me a video
00:26:36of it.
00:26:37And he told this story, he said that there's this guy in this army and the guy was asked
00:26:44to go work on the truck and move the truck over to another, another hill or somewhere
00:26:51to work on it.
00:26:52And the guy got down there and they had played a joke on him.
00:26:55There's no engine in the truck.
00:26:56And he kneeled down and prayed for it.
00:26:58And by God, that truck started right up with no engine in it and drove to the other hill.
00:27:03And all the kids are, praise God, praise God, oh, I can't believe God can do this.
00:27:10Well, I looked at it and I thought, you know, when I started my IT career, there used to be
00:27:14these email jokes that went around and that was, it was the climax of the joke that went around
00:27:20the internet.
00:27:21So they had literally taken an internet joke and turned it into a supernatural story and
00:27:27people just turned off all critical thinking and that were, you know, especially for children,
00:27:33they're gullible.
00:27:34But the fact that people in the name of Christianity would do something that they know is a lie,
00:27:41they know it's untrue, and then prey upon the people who are more gullible than themselves,
00:27:47it's really sad to think that they could do this.
00:27:50Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern
00:27:55Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements
00:28:01into the new apostolic reformation?
00:28:03You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
00:28:08william-branham.org.
00:28:10On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins,
00:28:16Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,
00:28:22audio, and digital versions of each book.
00:28:24You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
00:28:30movements.
00:28:31If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute
00:28:36button at the top.
00:28:38And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening
00:28:43to or watching.
00:28:44On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:28:49And what I keep stressing in all this, John, is, as we said earlier, we both believe in the
00:28:55miraculous and the supernatural.
00:28:57I strongly and firmly believe in it for today.
00:29:00But this type of charismania cheapens.
00:29:06What it does is it cheapens the reality of the true biblical miracles that happen in biblical
00:29:13days and that even happen today.
00:29:15It just cheapens all that.
00:29:17All of this emphasis on dreams and visions, like you can go and take a class for $499 and
00:29:24learn how to dream and interpret dreams.
00:29:27You know, none of that is biblical.
00:29:29That is horrible stuff to do.
00:29:31But the Bible is very clear that God has spoken not just to prophets and apostles, but to ordinary
00:29:37people through a dream or through a vision.
00:29:41But it's an occasional thing that might happen a few times in your life.
00:29:45And maybe it doesn't happen at all in your life.
00:29:48But maybe it happens in the life of someone you know well.
00:29:52And it's happened once or twice.
00:29:54But it is not.
00:29:55It is not an everyday experience.
00:29:58It is not something you can go to school and learn how to have a vision.
00:30:04I mean, that's just a contradiction of the whole purpose of God supernaturally doing it.
00:30:10And the same is true with these healings.
00:30:14I know there have been healing classes where you can go, sign up, pay your $499.99 and learn
00:30:23how to heal the sick.
00:30:24There's no such thing as that.
00:30:26God can heal the sick, does heal the sick, often uses a person through whom he works to
00:30:32heal the sick.
00:30:33But there are no classes involved.
00:30:35That's just, that's not the biblical way to go about it at all.
00:30:39And I think it cheapens the whole experience.
00:30:42So I know that people, when they first hear something like what you and I are saying, when
00:30:51you first read Randy's book, you know, you're a little bit afraid to believe.
00:30:56Maybe they actually have the facts and maybe these facts are going to shoot down my miracle
00:31:05and they may well do that.
00:31:07But as I tell everybody, anything that's the truth will withstand anything.
00:31:10True doctrine, true miracles, true healing.
00:31:13You have nothing to be afraid of.
00:31:15It will stand up under the closest scrutiny.
00:31:18But that's the problem.
00:31:20These people who have these healings, they don't want to have any verification of it.
00:31:25Hobart, he would talk about John G.
00:31:28Lake, that he had 100,000 authenticated healings.
00:31:32But if you ever ask so much as ask for medical, at the hospital, doctors, proof, prior and post
00:31:42him praying for someone.
00:31:45Oh, that's a sign of unbelief.
00:31:46You know, that's a sign of unbelief.
00:31:48You just have to trust God.
00:31:50No, I totally disagree with that.
00:31:52I think, again, that cheapens the true experience.
00:31:56And it also just leaves this door open to emotionalism, personal, subjective experiences
00:32:07and feelings.
00:32:08And that's what people have.
00:32:09And maybe even some demonic stuff that might be happening.
00:32:12But I know a lot of it.
00:32:13It's just emotional stuff.
00:32:14People, you know, they're in a, I can only imagine, John, being in a big healing crusade,
00:32:21which I was never, I wasn't alive in the days of A.A.
00:32:24Allen and Jack Coe and William Branham and Oral Roberts.
00:32:28But to be in a, you know, an old fashioned tent revival with 15,000 people there on chairs
00:32:36and a sawdust floor and the organ playing and the minister up there sweating and hollering
00:32:42and running around on the platform and slapping his hands on people and saying they're healed.
00:32:47I'm sorry, but you can work up a frenzy in people where maybe you went in there with a
00:32:54little bit of a headache and you come out with so much adrenaline, your headache's gone.
00:32:59So you say, well, I was healed by the power of God.
00:33:02But again, please, please, people, let's don't cheapen the things of God.
00:33:07Most headaches are just normal experiences caused by a variety of factors that you can take
00:33:13care of yourself.
00:33:14Well, it is so ironic that we are talking about leg lengthening and of all people, Hobart
00:33:21had a critically short leg.
00:33:24So if that was a valid experience that people could be have themselves seated in a chair and
00:33:33pray for their leg to grow out, he would be a prime candidate.
00:33:35As we've said, all these other people that have one leg a quarter inch shorter because they're
00:33:41sitting awkward in the chair, you didn't have a short leg.
00:33:44So stop all that nonsense.
00:33:46Just stop that.
00:33:47Give that up and say, no, I was tricked and fooled.
00:33:51Hobart Freeman definitely has a short leg.
00:33:53That was verifiable.
00:33:54He knew it.
00:33:55Everybody else knew it.
00:33:56The doctors knew it.
00:33:58I'm sure it was in childhood x-rays or whatever.
00:34:01He contracted polio in 1922 when he was two years old.
00:34:05He had a short leg.
00:34:06So here, here is the perfect example, the perfect test case for God to lengthen a leg and do
00:34:15it with Dr. Freeman.
00:34:16But did it happen?
00:34:18No.
00:34:19You know, so not only is this leg lengthening not biblical.
00:34:24In the second place, when you look at Dr. Freeman's experience himself, even though he
00:34:34taught it, even though he said that God is lengthening legs, he says it on all of the
00:34:40early tapes, it's like I said earlier, get in on the act.
00:34:44This is the thing, quote unquote, happening in the 1970s.
00:34:48God is lengthening legs, even though he said that, even though he was wanting and hoping
00:34:56and praying for a leg to be lengthened, he had a special shoe made for himself.
00:35:05He had, he had one, he had to have one his whole life with a lift in it so that even though
00:35:13he still walked, if you look, if you watched him walk to the podium, he had a very,
00:35:18very slight limp, because I don't think even a shoe with a lift in it is going to be like
00:35:23when God creates you and you had two legs that are the same length, it was still discernible
00:35:30to the discriminating eye to see the limp.
00:35:34Even though he had this belief about healing of short legs and taught others about it and
00:35:44taught others how to act their faith in cases where they were believing God, I just had a
00:35:50huge problem from early on with the fact that he didn't do what he taught others to do.
00:35:58And it was, it was very disappointing for me.
00:36:01It was one of those early things in my twenties because I had heard his tapes.
00:36:08I knew that he had a short leg and I knew that he was carrying around in the trunk of
00:36:13his Cadillac.
00:36:13You played some of these clips last time, a pair of normal shoes.
00:36:17And so my little, um, untrained, ignorant, but curious, you know, 22 year old mind would
00:36:25say, Hmm, now wait a minute.
00:36:28I thought you preached against people using crutches, canes, wheelchairs, glasses, medicine.
00:36:37Something doesn't seem kosher about this.
00:36:40If a person can't see well enough to get their driver's license and they prayed and said, God
00:36:47heal my eyes while they're waiting, quote unquote, for God to heal their eyes, you have outlawed
00:36:54glasses for them because that would be leaning to the arm of the flesh.
00:36:59If, if someone has prayed for healing of some disease, you've outlawed medicine for them,
00:37:04you know, go ahead and take it while you're waiting for God to heal.
00:37:07Well, that'd be trusting in man and God.
00:37:09You can't have it both ways.
00:37:10You got to have one or the other.
00:37:12And then I just could not wrap my head around what I thought was an inconsistency.
00:37:19But then of course you just shake your head and say, well, there must be something I'm
00:37:22not seeing or, you know, come on, Shano, don't be so critical.
00:37:26But yet I was a little critical.
00:37:29I would go, but wait a minute, even though I don't want to be critical, it still doesn't
00:37:33make sense.
00:37:34Why can these children not wear glasses to school?
00:37:38I mean, John, these poor kids, their parents took their glasses away from them and said,
00:37:43you've got to act your faith.
00:37:44They can't even see the blackboard in school.
00:37:47You know, they have to go up to the very front row or maybe sit on the corner of the
00:37:50teacher's desk to see the darn blackboard.
00:37:53And Hobart has no empathy for that at all.
00:37:57The psychological turmoil kids are going through who all they want to do when you're a child
00:38:02is not be different.
00:38:04I mean, that's your number one goal is to blend in and don't be different.
00:38:08You know, I want to be liked by everyone.
00:38:10I don't want to be, you know, a two headed person here.
00:38:13So here I am a person that can't see.
00:38:15And everybody said, why don't you just go get glasses like John and Mary have?
00:38:18Well, I don't need glasses.
00:38:21God has healed me.
00:38:22Oh, really?
00:38:23Well, if God's healed you, why are your eyeballs glued to the chalkboard?
00:38:26Why don't you sit on the back row?
00:38:28Well, that's a little complicated, but I'm waiting for the manifestation of my healing.
00:38:33You know, you're putting children through this mental gym set.
00:38:40And yet you as the pastor yourself should be wearing that pair of shoes that you're carrying
00:38:47around in the trunk of your Cadillac and limping pretty badly to get to the pulpit.
00:38:53But instead of doing that, you have special shoes made.
00:38:59And because your leg really is short with a lift in it.
00:39:04And I think in all of these teachings, John, that these guys have given, you and I talked
00:39:09before we got on the air, and I know you've done a lot more historical study in all of
00:39:15this than I ever have.
00:39:16I've just been more interested in the biblical side of all this.
00:39:20But even in A.A. Allen's days, this is back in Miracle Valley, Arizona, I used to read
00:39:26some of Allen's stuff back in the 70s when I was in college.
00:39:30And I think wasn't a son-in-law or someone took over the ministry, maybe Stuart or something
00:39:37was his name.
00:39:38But anyway, you said that that was this leg lengthening goes way back to A.A. Allen days.
00:39:44But I think what people need to understand, you have explained it, and I've never watched
00:39:49any of these videos of how they twist people.
00:39:52I'm assuming what you're saying is probably the way it happens, because I don't believe
00:39:57a miracle is happening.
00:39:58Because if a miracle is happening, if you have a short leg, this isn't healing.
00:40:04You don't have a disease or illness.
00:40:06This isn't healing.
00:40:07This is a creation, a creation.
00:40:10You have to have new bone, new blood vessels, new flesh.
00:40:15God can't just stretch it and just lengthen it.
00:40:18I mean, where is the bone and muscle and tissue and ligaments?
00:40:22And where is all that coming from?
00:40:24You're actually asking for a creative miracle.
00:40:29And is God able to do that?
00:40:32Well, yes, the sun rises.
00:40:34God is able to do anything.
00:40:36But is that likely to happen?
00:40:37And I would say, no, that's probably not likely.
00:40:41No, it's not.
00:40:42You know, from an outsider looking in on all of this, even from whether you're atheist
00:40:48or Christian, you're outside looking in on the charismatic movement, and you start to
00:40:53realize that the whole thing is just wrong.
00:40:57The way that they have set it up, the way that they make these stage personas, these people,
00:41:02whether they're cult leaders or not, they want to make them a stage act and follow them
00:41:06around, if you're a Christian on the outside looking in, what you're seeing is a person
00:41:12who's using the same passages of Scripture that applied to Jesus from the New Testament.
00:41:18Whenever Jesus went from town to town and the throngs followed him and everybody witnessed
00:41:23the great healing, they like to reference that with their own meetings.
00:41:26So what they're essentially doing is they're saying, I'm another Jesus.
00:41:29I'm another guy who's just like Jesus.
00:41:31That's what they're saying.
00:41:33I've mentioned it, I think, on one of the podcasts I did with you.
00:41:37I know I did with Charles.
00:41:38But there was another atheist named Darren Brown who made this video.
00:41:43You can go look it up on, I think it's on YouTube, called Miracles for Sale.
00:41:47And if you were in any of the faith healing charismatic circles, I highly recommend you watch this
00:41:53atheist who's making a documentary about exactly what we're talking about.
00:41:58He sets out to, not really to expose, but really to show how it worked psychologically within
00:42:07these faith healing meetings.
00:42:10And so he advertises himself in this big city, I can't remember where, as a faith healer coming
00:42:14into town.
00:42:15And he gets up and he preaches one hardcore charismatic sermon.
00:42:20And throughout the documentary, he's talking about his process, what he's doing, how he's
00:42:24advertising, and he's really doing, if you know the inner workings of this, he's doing
00:42:29exactly what these faith healers are doing.
00:42:31So he sets up the ambiance.
00:42:33He sets up the music, the lighting.
00:42:36Everything plays a part in psychologically manipulating the crowd.
00:42:41Then he gets the crowd to come, and he's already manipulated them to some extent.
00:42:46So they're coming expecting something great.
00:42:49They're expecting Jesus on the platform.
00:42:52People left that meeting, and it was multi-nights, multiple nights per week, I think.
00:42:57People left the meeting, and they were talking to reporters saying, I got healed in this meeting.
00:43:02This great man of God healed me.
00:43:05And, you know, God has given us the power within our own bodies to heal.
00:43:10If you cut your hand with a knife, you don't expect that you're going to die, that it's going
00:43:15to wither away, you expect that the skin's probably going to grow back together unless
00:43:19you cut it too far.
00:43:20And if you cut it too far, I've actually learned from a guy who is, I don't know if
00:43:26he's military training or what, but you can also squeeze it together and put a little
00:43:29superglue on it, and it will grow back together.
00:43:32It's held together.
00:43:34Your body is capable of healing to a limited extent.
00:43:39Same thing with headaches or many of the things you're describing, except for polio legs.
00:43:43Your body can heal itself.
00:43:47Well, these faith healers, they like to prey upon the people who have the healable diseases
00:43:53to build the excitement.
00:43:55And once they build the excitement, everybody, no matter what they've got, they start to feel
00:43:59better, whether they do or not.
00:44:01Psychologically, they think they do.
00:44:03And they walk out and they tell the reporters, hey, I'm healed.
00:44:06This guy, this man of God who they don't know is an atheist has healed me.
00:44:09Then on the last night, he says, now look, I have to confess something to you.
00:44:14I'm not a man of God.
00:44:16I'm an atheist.
00:44:17And he explained his whole thing, everything that he did.
00:44:21So he was being honest at the end, even though there was a lot of people who were very sad
00:44:26that this was the case.
00:44:28Some still said they got healed from the atheist.
00:44:31And in their statements, I caught something that I had not caught before we've talked
00:44:38about it, though.
00:44:40They were looking to the man on the stage for the healing.
00:44:43And even though he was an atheist, they claimed that he healed them.
00:44:47They're not looking to God when they go to these meetings.
00:44:50Even though they'll say, yes, God healed me through brother so-and-so.
00:44:54If you take away the brother so-and-so, you don't have a crowd of people looking for healing.
00:44:59And they can do the same exact thing right there alone in their home.
00:45:03Yeah.
00:45:04And as we said, John, Hobart is a case example.
00:45:08He really did have a short leg.
00:45:10So the people from Faith Assembly, from Hobart's ministry, you know, wake up and look at the
00:45:17facts.
00:45:18He died 18 years after claiming his healing for a short leg with what?
00:45:22A short leg.
00:45:24There's where we need to see a leg lengthened.
00:45:26We don't need to see it with people who don't have a short leg.
00:45:31We need to see it with someone who did have a short leg.
00:45:35And of all of these stories, I don't know of anybody else, all of this leg lengthening
00:45:39stuff, here is a minister teaching it who truly had a short leg.
00:45:45You know, this would have been the prime example for God to show that he lengthens legs.
00:45:51But it didn't happen with Hobart.
00:45:54And it was very disappointing for me as a young person to hear him say that I'm carrying
00:46:01around my new pair of shoes in the trunk of my Cadillac.
00:46:03And he didn't even hide the fact that he was carrying the new pair of shoes around.
00:46:07And so that presented another problem for me.
00:46:11And this is why I had problems early on with Faith Assembly and why all the ministers at
00:46:16Faith Assembly and hating me because they said, Cheno questions too many things.
00:46:20But they took my questioning as though I'm questioning God.
00:46:24I don't question God at all.
00:46:26Zero.
00:46:27Everything in the Bible, every jot and tittle is the word of God.
00:46:31I believe all of it.
00:46:32I just don't believe these ministers.
00:46:35I just don't have a lot of faith in them.
00:46:38And as I said before, I trust the people in the church oftentimes more than I trust the
00:46:45minister.
00:46:45And that's just backwards, John, because if you're a minister, the qualifications of character
00:46:52and honesty and sincerity and a lack of guile and transparency are high, high, high.
00:46:59And we should expect that.
00:47:02We should want that.
00:47:03And then when we should go to a church, we should kind of be able to go comfortably.
00:47:07Knowing this is a minister.
00:47:10And so the qualifications for a minister, Paul gives are really high.
00:47:15So I can kind of go in here and I'm comfortable because I know he's met those qualifications.
00:47:20Unfortunately, our experience has told us, you better go in with some suspicion and reservation.
00:47:27And it's too bad that we have to do that.
00:47:30But the reason that we have to do that is our past experience has told us, if you don't,
00:47:36someone knowingly or I'll give people the benefit of the doubt, unknowingly will deceive you.
00:47:43I'm not saying that Hobart Freeman purposely sat anybody down when he used to pray for legs
00:47:50and manipulated legs.
00:47:51I don't know whether he did or not.
00:47:53I do know the facts.
00:47:56The facts are he had a short leg.
00:47:59The facts are it never grew out.
00:48:01The facts are he died with a short leg.
00:48:04These are the facts.
00:48:05You can be mad at me all you want, but these are still the facts.
00:48:09And you can be mad at me and I will still love you because I know how difficult it is.
00:48:14Could you say, but wait a minute, you know, I know healings in the Bible.
00:48:16I know that too.
00:48:18We're not talking about what's in the Bible.
00:48:20We're talking about what was on the end of Hobart's foot.
00:48:23And it was a shoe, a special orthopedic one with a lift in it.
00:48:29Why, John, wasn't there a mutiny on the bounty?
00:48:33I was never able to figure that out.
00:48:35How all those people knew Hobart had a short leg and knew that he wasn't acting his faith.
00:48:40I mean, and he came down strong on them.
00:48:43You better act your faith.
00:48:46And yet they knew, hey, he's carrying around in his trunk a new pair of shoes.
00:48:52You know, it reminds me, I'm sure most people, most of your viewers will know the story of Hans Christian Andersen, the emperor's new clothes.
00:49:03This is a fascinating, I don't know, 200-year-old tale that has had so many applications.
00:49:11And it has application 100% here with Dr. Freeman.
00:49:15So for the people that don't know Hans Christian Andersen, the emperor's new clothes, it went like this.
00:49:21There was an emperor.
00:49:23And in his kingdom came two con artists.
00:49:27These were con artists, and they convinced the emperor that they were going to make him some new royal garments, robes, clothes.
00:49:38But they were such special clothes that they were invisible to anybody except to the initiated.
00:49:48And so if you couldn't see them, you're just stupid.
00:49:51There's something wrong with you if you can't see it.
00:49:53I mean, there is something totally wrong with you.
00:49:55So the two con artists set up their loom, and they've got, they're weaving and stitching and sewing together this intricate garment.
00:50:06And the emperor and his court are all watching, and they don't see anything.
00:50:12But they know I can't say something, because if I say something, that means I'm stupid.
00:50:16So as the con artists are sewing the clothes together, the emperor is going, oh, that's beautiful, that's magnificent, that's wonderful.
00:50:26Well, once they get the robes made for the king, now it's time for him to put them on.
00:50:31And he still doesn't see anything, but he can admit it, because he would be a buffoon.
00:50:37And so they say, stretch out your arms, and they put the clothes on him, and then he goes out and he walks down the street in his royal procession.
00:50:46And everybody out there knows, I can't say that I don't see anything, because if I admit that, then I'd be stupid.
00:50:54And so they all applaud the king for his beautiful new clothes, except for one child that says the emperor's naked, he's not wearing anything.
00:51:06What is wrong with him?
00:51:08And that's where we come into the picture sometimes, John.
00:51:12We're the only ones willing to say, there's nothing there.
00:51:16Everybody who has said, oh, there's something there.
00:51:19And I know I have to agree with all my fellow church members, there's something there, because if I don't, they'll say, you're not spiritual, you're stupid, you're just a buffoon.
00:51:31But if you would just face reality like the child did, the child said, the emperor is naked, he's not wearing any clothes.
00:51:42And that's what it takes.
00:51:44It just takes someone who doesn't have anything to lose.
00:51:46Everyone else was afraid of losing prestige in the village.
00:51:52So they just, it's herd mentality.
00:51:54You just agree with everyone else.
00:51:57And it took this child to say, no, no, no, no.
00:52:01I don't think he has anything on, because it was con artistry from the beginning.
00:52:07You've heard that story, I'm sure.
00:52:09I have.
00:52:10I liken these guys more, though, to the wolf in Red Riding Hood stories.
00:52:14But it's just so wrong what they're doing.
00:52:17And, you know, part of me feels sorry for people like Hobart.
00:52:21They're looking for something initially.
00:52:24Hobart had to have been seeking something, some sort of a healing for his leg.
00:52:28So I don't blame him for getting into it.
00:52:31But there had to have come a point in which he realized that it's probably not going to happen.
00:52:35I'm probably going to have to wear this shoe for the rest of my life.
00:52:38But I am going to come down hard on every single person who's in my congregation and make their lives miserable, because my life is also miserable.
00:52:48Yeah, I see a lot of that.
00:52:50When I look at Hobart from 1974 to 1984, wow, there is a huge difference.
00:52:59And I've said this before, but early in the 70s, Hobart was joyful, excited, free in his walk with the Lord.
00:53:07He was just eagerly anticipating everything.
00:53:11But, you know, things didn't happen.
00:53:12He was not healed of that short leg.
00:53:16He was not healed of his heart condition.
00:53:18His hair continued to thin like mine has done.
00:53:21His youth was not renewed like the Eagles, as he had prayed for and hoped for and expected.
00:53:29Here's where the rubber meets the road.
00:53:30Most of us, when things like that happen, we are honest.
00:53:37And I would say just fair enough to say, maybe I need to reevaluate my beliefs.
00:53:44That's all you have to do is maybe I need to reevaluate my beliefs.
00:53:48But Hobart had already taken such a strong stand, and he had just ruled out doctors.
00:53:55He said, if you pray 10 times for the same thing, you've prayed nine times in unbelief.
00:54:01You, Mark 11, 24, you pray one time, it's settled, and then you wait for the answer.
00:54:08He had taken such an extremely hard stand on that, that for him to go back on that, I mean, that's the end of his faith ministry.
00:54:17You really couldn't have a faith ministry after that.
00:54:20It would be the end of it.
00:54:22And, you know, he obviously wasn't going to do that and wasn't willing to do that.
00:54:28When I first started in the ministry, I was a Freemannite.
00:54:31I had the same beliefs that Hobart did.
00:54:34I was real young, so I didn't have health issues like he had.
00:54:38I've said before, the faith and healing movement works wonderfully for people in their 20s and 30s
00:54:43because you don't have health issues, and when you get older, you have health issues that are just normal things.
00:54:49And then you realize, well, maybe my theology is not right.
00:54:53Now, look, there are still some people, not very many, thankfully,
00:54:56but some people who have continued to die down to this day.
00:55:00And there's just something, there's a disconnect in their mind to hold on to some,
00:55:07what you think is a promise of God, which really isn't, or it would have happened.
00:55:10God is faithful.
00:55:12If God has said something that he's going to do, he's going to do it.
00:55:16If you have to be worried about 5,000 conditions that you've got to meet in order for him to do it,
00:55:23no, there's something sketchy in your theology, sounds more like the Pharisees than it does Christianity,
00:55:29because if God's made a promise to you that he's going to heal you, you can be certain that's going to happen.
00:55:36And even if you get in the way a little bit, God is so big and God is so loving and so kind,
00:55:42he'll still heal you.
00:55:43With Hobart's theology, 99% of the burden was put on the person.
00:55:48And you have to say the right thing and confess the right thing and endure and hold on
00:55:53and not make a negative confession and not think negatively
00:55:56and then rid your house of any vestigial remains of medicine or medical science,
00:56:02or have you ever been involved with a Ouija board or gone to a seance
00:56:07or watched, you know, Rosemary's Baby movie or whatever.
00:56:12You can have all of these open doors and it's all of these secret open doors
00:56:16which have allowed evil spirits to come back in your life.
00:56:20And that's why your healing is not manifested.
00:56:22And we'll talk hopefully in future podcasts about Dr. Freeman's views on demons and deliverance.
00:56:28But that was just, you know, a hodgepodge of mess,
00:56:32just a cesspool of disgusting stuff that puts so much fear in the people's lives.
00:56:39And again, it's nothing like that.
00:56:41I don't find anything in the Bible where we've got some promises in Acts or the Gospels for healing.
00:56:47And yet then we have 44 warnings afterwards.
00:56:51Now you need to check your medicine cabinet and check your confession
00:56:54and check occult involvement and check seances and witchcraft and Satanism and UFOs
00:57:01and, you know, Harry Potter and whatever else you've been involved with
00:57:05that may cause this healing not to come to you.
00:57:09That is so, that is nothing but garbage.
00:57:12That's the only polite word I can think for that.
00:57:16That is just pure religious garbage that Hobart or any minister would teach.
00:57:22As I said, if God's made a promise to heal you, God is definitely going to heal you.
00:57:26But he didn't Hobart, and I don't know why people didn't open their eyes to see it all, John.
00:57:34And then to end with today, to compound the issue, he kept leading the people on.
00:57:41You also played in the end of our last interview together some clips from messages
00:57:47where Hobart was just flaunting the special place that he had
00:57:55and the special place that his healing would have for like the entire church.
00:58:01As though you're a special person and your little short leg is some big deal.
00:58:07Other people were dying of treatable illnesses.
00:58:09You can live with a short leg.
00:58:11That's not going to kill you.
00:58:13And he obviously did live with it for a while.
00:58:15But then he began telling these stories.
00:58:18Well, such and such had a vision and they confirmed my healing.
00:58:24And then he went on on other message to say there have been as many as 20 visions
00:58:30seen by at least 20 different people.
00:58:34My eventual leg lengthening healing has been seen by 20 different people in vision
00:58:41confirming that it's going to happen.
00:58:43And that the day that that happens, he said, I don't know what this means, but this is what
00:58:48one sister showed me, shared with me, the whole body would somehow enter into it and receive
00:58:55their healing.
00:58:55On one of his quotations, he said, and you might get your new set of teeth.
00:59:00So he's saying someone who has no teeth, just going to have teeth created the same day that
00:59:06his leg is lengthened.
00:59:07And do you know what you hear on those tapes?
00:59:09You hear, amen, praise the Lord, lots of clapping.
00:59:14So I know what happened.
00:59:15What happened?
00:59:16People say, well, how did what happened was Hobart had gone several years and not had his
00:59:23leg lengthened.
00:59:24And there's some sister in the body who got emotional.
00:59:27I'm sorry, but who got emotional one day and thought they had a vision because you didn't
00:59:33have a vision because it didn't happen.
00:59:35And you don't want to be a false prophet.
00:59:37So just say, no, I got emotional one day and had a vision and this will help my pastor
00:59:44out.
00:59:44This will put me in good graces with him.
00:59:46If after the service, I go up and say, brother Freeman, I had this vision of your healing.
00:59:52And I saw that when you were healed, the whole body of Christ enters.
00:59:55And then Hobart tells that years ago.
00:59:57And then six months later, another person has a, oh, brother, I had a vision that's confirming
01:00:02that sister's vision.
01:00:03That's how all of these things happen.
01:00:07And there were no true visions because there was no true healing.
01:00:12And I just feel sorry for all these people who've been led along for all these years,
01:00:18but better late than never, better wise and foolish.
01:00:22So let's believe what God's word says, what it clearly says.
01:00:27And let's just be very, very careful when a minister tells us a story.
01:00:33Yeah, I feel sorry for the people to anybody who has been in this sort of thing.
01:00:37It's, you know, even though they should have been critically thinking, they should have been
01:00:42able to filter this out.
01:00:43The problem is, like you said, they're part of the herd.
01:00:46And once you're in the herd, it doesn't matter if the emperor has clothes or not.
01:00:50The herd all somewhat agrees.
01:00:53And it's a very complicated problem that it becomes.
01:00:57And I was part of that problem, so I understand it.
01:00:59Not many people looking on the outside were in it.
01:01:02So it's very difficult when you see somebody say, well, that's unscriptural.
01:01:06These people shouldn't be like that.
01:01:07But as the herd moves, the herd can move in the wrong direction, and there are not enough
01:01:13people who stop it.
01:01:14There are not enough barriers.
01:01:16So unfortunately, with Hobart, it moved way off into the wrong direction.
01:01:21But anyway, I'm glad that people are starting to wake up.
01:01:24Hopefully this helps and more people can not be part of that same type of herd.
01:01:29So thank you for doing this.
01:01:31Thank you, John.
01:01:32Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on
01:01:35the web.
01:01:35You can find us at william-branham.org.
01:01:38For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponize Religion
01:01:43from Christian Identity to the NAR.
01:01:46Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
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