Speak to the Mountain? Faith, Fiction, and the Cessationist Debate | Chino Ross - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John and Chino explore the emotional and theological aftermath experienced by individuals leaving high-control religious movements. They reflect on the confusion many face when their spiritual “anchor” is removed, often resulting in wandering between movements in search of truth. Chino shares a story of someone who humorously called herself a “cult hopper,” illustrating how the desire for spiritual authenticity can lead to disillusionment and repeated entanglements. They emphasize the importance of returning to Scripture personally, without intermediaries claiming exclusive insight or power.  As the discussion deepens, the two unpack the flawed hermeneutics behind faith healing and miracle claims made by former leaders like Hobart Freeman and William Branham. They challenge literalist readings of verses such as Mark 11:24 and expose how metaphorical language is often distorted for doctrinal control. They stress the need for honest, humble, and context-aware Bible interpretation. Stories of unverified miracle claims, spiritual manipulation, and doctrinal borrowing from prior movements are used to highlight the dangers of constructing belief systems on unverifiable traditions rather than clear biblical teaching. ______________________ Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K ______________________ – 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

Transcript

00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.

00:00:37I'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, Cheno Ross,

00:00:47pastor and the voice of The Understanding Scripture and Truth by Cheno D. Ross YouTube channel.

00:00:53Cheno, it's good to be back, and I'm a little excited to talk about the different things

00:01:00that we believe and why.

00:01:01I get asked all kinds of questions.

00:01:04You've probably seen it in the comments, and I get some very odd emails.

00:01:09Like, the most common one is after you've been in one of these cults, you're following

00:01:13some man, and that man is your mediator between God and man.

00:01:17The most common one I get is obviously, well, if not this, our central figure, who shall

00:01:23we follow?

00:01:23That's one of the most common.

00:01:26But one of the most interesting ones is I get people who send me, well, if our leader wasn't

00:01:32biblical, tell us what church is following the Bible?

00:01:35And my answer is always simply, well, you've got the book.

00:01:39Can't you just read it, man?

00:01:42It's right there.

00:01:43You can read it.

00:01:44But the people have been so manipulated to believe that they are not powerful enough.

00:01:52They don't have enough wizardry to read their own Bibles.

00:01:55They must have another figure to do this.

00:01:57And that leads to all kinds of questions.

00:01:59And the biggest one, which obviously, in the exposure of the divine healing cult, you get

00:02:05the question, are you a cessationist, or are you not a cessationist?

00:02:09Continuous, I guess, is what it's called.

00:02:12And I just look at both of those, and I say, well, what do you see in the Bible?

00:02:16It's not my opinion.

00:02:18It's, you know, what do you see?

00:02:20So I'm a little excited to get into this, because people have asked these questions forever.

00:02:25And I don't think that we've really had an entire podcast dedicated to just talking through

00:02:30that.

00:02:30Yeah, and maybe we won't get through it all today.

00:02:32So maybe we'll end up having two of these.

00:02:35But how right you are, John.

00:02:37But it is difficult for people.

00:02:39They are so used to having an anchor.

00:02:42And whenever they have lost their anchor, and their boat is just adrift, and their anchor

00:02:47was their cult leader or the church they were a part of.

00:02:51And I can really sympathize.

00:02:53Whenever they have lost that anchor, which is their attachment to the firm ground below

00:03:00at the bottom of the lake, they're just adrift.

00:03:04And I have seen people literally go in all four directions, north, south, east, and west.

00:03:11It just depends on what direction the wind is blowing.

00:03:14And that's the way they go.

00:03:16I even had one woman tell me she had been a part of Freeman's group, Faith Assembly, years

00:03:23ago.

00:03:24And then she said she left there.

00:03:27And I think the next place was KCI Hop, International House of Prayer in Kansas City under Bickle and

00:03:34Jones and Kane and John Paul Jackson and those guys.

00:03:38And then I could be wrong, but I think the next place was some vineyard group, which was a John

00:03:44Wimber group.

00:03:45And then she put in parentheses after the big smiley face.

00:03:48Yes, I'm a cult follower.

00:03:51She says, you know, I just can't seem to help.

00:03:54She said, I can't seem to help it.

00:03:56And I said, I understand, you know, and I appreciate your humor.

00:03:59She said, when Hobart died, where am I supposed to go?

00:04:03You know, where is the movement of God?

00:04:06And that's what people are looking for.

00:04:07Instead of doing what you just said, we all have the same material available to us, and

00:04:15it's the only material we have available to us, and it's God's word.

00:04:20And rather than just open that and really start digging and trying to figure out for ourselves,

00:04:27well, what should I believe?

00:04:29Then she left Faith Assembly, goes to KCI Hop, goes to Vineyard.

00:04:34She said, I'm a cult hopper.

00:04:35I'm just hopping around from one cult to the other.

00:04:39And you do appreciate someone's humor about themselves and their experience.

00:04:45And she's definitely not the only one.

00:04:47There are other people who have done that.

00:04:50What I have seen, and I'm sure you've seen it many more times than I have,

00:04:55even in the comment section on some of our podcasts,

00:05:00will be reactions from people.

00:05:04I would say most of them are probably the few comments that go down this line.

00:05:10Most of the people that make those comments are probably still tagalongs to Freeman or to Branham or to whomever.

00:05:18And they're misinterpreting what you and I and your other host are saying against these false ministries.

00:05:28They misinterpret it to say to mean in their mind,

00:05:32I don't think you guys even believe and then fill in the blank with 10 words or less.

00:05:40You don't believe in miracles.

00:05:42You don't believe in healing.

00:05:44You don't believe in spiritual gifts.

00:05:46You don't believe in the Bible.

00:05:48You don't believe in Moses.

00:05:49You don't believe in Paul.

00:05:51You don't believe in truth or whatever.

00:05:54It's just you don't believe.

00:05:55And that's a pretty broad accusation to make.

00:06:02I don't think it's made on any good foundation because if they would have carefully listened to the podcast,

00:06:08I've given examples of miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit either in my life or someone that I feel confident in.

00:06:16And the one thing that I think I have shared enough about is that these experiences I feel have normally been in just what I would call normal people's lives.

00:06:28And that was maybe a point we can get to in a future podcast, maybe even the next one.

00:06:33So I won't say much.

00:06:34They're not in the big ministers lives or just in normal people's lives.

00:06:38So I thought today maybe we would look at what are some parameters for believing in faith and in divine healing and spiritual gifts in particular.

00:06:52What are some parameters in the Bible versus this backdrop of the loose, questionable practices of Hobart Freeman and of William Branham and of any of the people past and current?

00:07:12There are a lot of people that are out there today.

00:07:15I mean, I've probably more than ever in the past who have ministries that are allegedly performing healings and exercising spiritual gifts that I would probably find fault with.

00:07:31So I am 100 percent, just so I'll make this clear, a continuationist.

00:07:38I am not a cessationist.

00:07:39I've actually done some of my own podcasts, not with you, John, but with someone else in favor of continuationism and against cessationism.

00:07:51But I think what could be helpful for people who are following this particular podcast of yours relating to Dr. Freeman is to continue to demythologize Hobart Freeman.

00:08:04And the way you demythologize someone is you give them some legs and some arms and some eyeballs.

00:08:12You know, you put some flesh on the bones and make the person real rather than this shadowy, misty figure as Hobart always was.

00:08:24He would just appear on the scene from the ante room behind the pulpit.

00:08:28He would deliver his message and he would just disappear out that back door and hop in his car.

00:08:35And June, his wife would drive him home.

00:08:37And I even had a conversation this weekend on the phone with someone about that.

00:08:42Can you imagine what what it was going through anyone's mind?

00:08:50I guess nothing was going through anyone's mind that that is a Christian pastor.

00:08:55He was a pastor of the church.

00:08:56That was his flock and he claimed to be the leader and the pastor of the church.

00:09:01And that you have no interaction with the people beyond just appearing like David Copperfield, giving your sermon and then just disappearing and not have to deal with anybody anymore.

00:09:18So I think the more we can demythologize Dr. Freeman, the more you have demythologized William Branham and these other leaders, the better people are.

00:09:31And here's maybe where I want to start.

00:09:33The biggest secret that Dr. Freeman had that should not have been a secret.

00:09:39All you have to do is really listen and pay attention.

00:09:41But the biggest secret that Dr.

00:09:43Freeman had was that he hijacked his theology from other people.

00:09:50He hijacked everything he believed from other people.

00:09:54And I'm not saying it's wrong to borrow.

00:09:57That's the only way to know anything is we all have information and knowledge built upon information and knowledge that people before us have come up with and we have learned from them.

00:10:09The problem is when you try to exert this view or this feeling that all of your views are original to you, that this knowledge and these doctrines are all original to you.

00:10:27That's a huge secret that people weren't aware of.

00:10:32They came to faith assembly and the way Hobart presented the material, it was always the denominations are all wrong.

00:10:42If you read any commentary, it will be wrong.

00:10:46Everything was wrong, wrong, wrong, except what I'm about to tell you.

00:10:52And so they thought it was all original with him.

00:10:54And what I tried to do in debunking this false idea of Dr.

00:11:00Freeman is say, look, all you have to do is go back and look at the positions he took, for instance, on the Sermon on the Mount, on non-resistance, on not taking the oath.

00:11:12Those are some of the core beliefs of the Grace Brethren denomination.

00:11:17And so when Hobart became charismatic and would begin saying, now in the seminary, I tried to teach students a Sermon on the Mount and they wouldn't listen to me.

00:11:26They would revolt.

00:11:27He's talking about the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, which was a liberal seminary at the time.

00:11:34And they didn't believe that the Sermon on the Mount was valid for the Christian in this era or in this age.

00:11:42But he did learn that at Grace Brethren Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana.

00:11:48Core belief of theirs, they were very well known for that.

00:11:52And something else that the Brethren were very well known for was their practice of what they call plain dress.

00:12:00So all the Hobart stuff about pants and shoes and neckties and jewelry and dresses and none of that was original to Hobart.

00:12:10He didn't, in other words, read the Bible and find that teaching for himself in the Bible.

00:12:18No, absolutely not.

00:12:21He was influenced by Grace Brethren for that, for the Sermon on the Mount teaching.

00:12:28And then when you move a little further in Hobart's life, where did he get these views on faith and healing?

00:12:35That all you have to do is name it and claim it.

00:12:38Mark 11, 24.

00:12:40He got it from Kenneth Hagin.

00:12:42And where did he get his views on various interpretations of Revelation and church ages and the manifestation of the sons of God?

00:12:52He got it from William Branham and the people that came before him.

00:12:56So the biggest secret about Hobart, which should not have been a secret, is that none of his theology was original to him.

00:13:06And I'm not saying that's wrong.

00:13:07You're not supposed to have original theology.

00:13:10There's something wrong with you if you're the only one who believes and knows all of this stuff.

00:13:16All of us have learned things from other people.

00:13:18Our theology is built on things we have learned earlier.

00:13:21But the secret was, oh, this is all directly from God to Hobart?

00:13:29Because they thought it was original, and that's the way Hobart presented it, it made them afraid to question or challenge anything.

00:13:37And that was just part of the control of the information input in the lives of those people.

00:13:45You know, people from both sides of the equation ask me through emails and comments and even phone calls sometimes, what are you?

00:13:55Because whenever I'm talking about some of the things that we found in our research that offend the cessationists, they'll blast me and say that I'm continuous.

00:14:05And on the opposite side, it's the same direction.

00:14:09And to be open and honest with everyone, I'm a continuous skept-sationist.

00:14:15I look at everything a little bit skeptically because I have to.

00:14:18That's the way that we were trained.

00:14:21We were trained with a false notion of almost everything.

00:14:25And once you understand that, no, there's a man behind the curtain, and when you pull the curtain back and you see him pulling the strings of all of the people,

00:14:34you have to realize that some of it may have been real, some of it may not have been real.

00:14:39You have to have a healthy level of skepticism, which is what I have.

00:14:44And I don't land on either side, which is kind of funny.

00:14:46One of the things that I try to do in the podcast, and I'm not very good at it yet, hopefully over time my speech will improve and I can do this,

00:14:58but I try to explain that it isn't just the minds that they hijacked.

00:15:03They hijacked Bible verses, and they ripped them completely out of context to make them sound more beneficial to them and their ministries as they did this magic trick on the stage.

00:15:17And they also did not take the time to learn the language and the structure of the passages from the Bible.

00:15:26For example, this is a plain terms example.

00:15:30I like to use things that people can relate to.

00:15:32You know, whenever I am doing a job and I go to my boss and I've done this great job and I walk into his office and I say,

00:15:41man, I hit that out of the ballpark.

00:15:43If I were to write a letter to the Galatians and write, I hit that out of the ballpark,

00:15:48it doesn't mean that I literally took the job and hit it with, I just hit my microphone, hit it with a baseball bat.

00:15:55Or a better example, I'm one of these people who is very impromptu.

00:16:01I do things sometimes without even thinking.

00:16:04I'll just act.

00:16:05I'll act often before I do.

00:16:07Sometimes I'll come home and I'll want to do a construction project and I'll tear the walls out of the house.

00:16:13Well, my wife will come home and she'll see the mess and she will go nuclear.

00:16:17If I were to write a letter to Galatians and write, and my wife went nuclear, it doesn't mean that she literally exploded in my house.

00:16:27But whenever these ministers can find any phrase that has any sort of metaphor that they can use to apply to their magic tricks,

00:16:38they'll use that and rip it out of the context of what it means.

00:16:41And it's became so widespread and so commonplace that even, I'll say this, but it will offend people.

00:16:49I get often criticized for the people who think that I'm a cessationist.

00:16:54They'll say, well, you're a cessationist.

00:16:56What about when Jesus said, speak unto this mountain, be thou removed?

00:17:00And my answer is usually, well, the moment in which you can find a human who has done this, you'll understand why that was a metaphor instead of not a metaphor in the Bible.

00:17:12Because I can't think of a single human who has done this in world history.

00:17:17This is just, you know, that was a metaphor.

00:17:19It was overemphasizing something that he was trying to convey, in my opinion.

00:17:24Now, everybody's welcome to their opinions.

00:17:26But they hijack the verses.

00:17:28They don't understand the metaphors or the context.

00:17:31And they want to be very literal in the cases where it benefits them and very not literal in the cases where it doesn't benefit them.

00:17:40You cannot have both.

00:17:43And so I'll clear the air right here.

00:17:45Like I said, I'm a continued skeptationist.

00:17:49My father was healed in one of these ministries after the cult leader prayed for him and said, you will be healed.

00:17:57He had, what was it he had?

00:18:00I think he had rheumatic fever.

00:18:03He was, they gave him so long to live, apparently, according to my grandfather.

00:18:07Goes to the prayer line, he gets prayed for, he gets healed.

00:18:10So if this is true, I myself would not be here today if that's the case.

00:18:15I would like to believe that my family is being honest, and maybe they are.

00:18:20I mean, I've seen some of the history, and I know that he was incredibly sick.

00:18:26But what I don't do, and the difference between most of these charismatic Pentecostal-style cults,

00:18:33I don't attribute the healing with the person who's on the platform claiming,

00:18:39I can heal you if you come to me.

00:18:41Those are two separate things.

00:18:43That is the Wizard of Oz type of religion, and I just don't buy it anymore.

00:18:47So I'm a continued skeptationist.

00:18:52John is perfect.

00:18:53We're going to go down all of these same paths.

00:18:55I think my belief and your belief are very similar to one another.

00:19:00I actually had someone within the past month talking to me on the phone from out of state

00:19:05about that particular verse in Mark 11, 22, about the mountain.

00:19:11And he said, well, it does say that.

00:19:13And I said, it does say that.

00:19:14So I said, so we're in agreement so far.

00:19:17It does.

00:19:17You say it says it.

00:19:19I agree it says it.

00:19:20But the point I made to him was the exact point you made.

00:19:24I said, but if that is so, if that's what it meant,

00:19:28then that would be something pretty regularly seen and pretty easy to accomplish.

00:19:34And I said, I am unaware of a single case in human history, including in biblical history.

00:19:41I'm unaware of anybody who's ever removed a mountain by simply speaking to it.

00:19:46I said, are you aware of that, of anyone?

00:19:49And he said, well, no.

00:19:50And I said, well, doesn't that tell you something?

00:19:54I mean, it's got to tell us something.

00:19:57If it just meant speak to the mountain.

00:20:01And Hobart taught that very thing because Kenneth Hagen taught that very thing.

00:20:05Hobart said he was looking at a specific mountain.

00:20:09And he meant that specific mountain right there, that if you would command it to be uprooted

00:20:15and remove itself and drop into the ocean, it would do it.

00:20:21And as you just said, John, unfortunately, all of us believers, we love God's word.

00:20:27We believe God.

00:20:28We believe God's word.

00:20:29So we're reading that.

00:20:30And that is what it says.

00:20:31And so before you know it, a person who is not using proper hermeneutics, who is using

00:20:40scissors and paste, playing biblical hopscotch, he can string together enough verses and ideas

00:20:46and thoughts.

00:20:47And then he'll give you examples outside of the Bible of somebody in the 1920s that we have

00:20:52no way of verifying.

00:20:53And they raised the dead and they did this and they did that.

00:20:56And it just becomes, you know, it's just this snowball effect.

00:21:00And before you know it, you have all of this cult doctrine.

00:21:05And that's just not the way things go.

00:21:07You gave the example of, you know, your head exploding or your wife going nuclear.

00:21:13I'm going on this Thursday night.

00:21:15I teach every Thursday night a home Bible study in the book of Revelation.

00:21:19And, you know, the book of Revelation, let's all be honest, it is full of symbols and figures,

00:21:24but it's also full of real truth that's actually going to happen.

00:21:30How do you distinguish between the two?

00:21:33And I have been teaching the group that I teach.

00:21:35It's not as difficult as it seems if you will be humble and honest with the text.

00:21:43You have to go to it, not trying to make it mean anything.

00:21:46You have to go to it and you have to do this with any text of the Bible, willing for it

00:21:53to be literally like that, but also willing for it to be some type of symbolic or figurative

00:22:02meaning.

00:22:03And so the example that I plan on giving Thursday night of this week is this sentence, similar,

00:22:09very similar, John, to what you just said.

00:22:11But it's a sentence where the discerning listener has to recognize that part of that sentence

00:22:19is symbolic and part of it is literal.

00:22:23And the example I plan on giving will be this.

00:22:27I'll tell the story that this man heard such good news that he was overjoyed and he jumped

00:22:35over the moon.

00:22:35Okay, now a literalist is going to say, well, I believe he was literally overjoyed and now

00:22:44he literally jumped over the moon.

00:22:47The figurative guy says, no, I don't believe you could jump over the moon.

00:22:51So what?

00:22:52I guess he wasn't overjoyed.

00:22:54Why can't they both be true?

00:22:56Why can't part of that sentence be symbolic or figurative?

00:23:01And that's the jumping over the moon.

00:23:03We know because of the size and distance of the moon, no one can jump over it.

00:23:08Why can't that part be symbolic or figurative?

00:23:12And the first part of the sentence, he was just overcome with joy, be literal.

00:23:18He really did feel a lot of joy.

00:23:21So, you know, John, it just goes back to what we've talked about in the past.

00:23:25And that's just basic, simple, biblical hermeneutics.

00:23:28You have to be able to read the passage, the text, from the original author in its context

00:23:35to the original recipients.

00:23:37But that's part of the problem with what Hobart did with his teaching of scripture.

00:23:43What was so attractive to Christians who first heard Dr. Freeman was Dr. Freeman read the Bible,

00:23:51interpreted it, and taught it like it's a personal letter to him.

00:23:55And I know when I say that, people are going to maybe have a little bit of a negative response.

00:24:02Chino, you mean it's not a personal letter?

00:24:05That's exactly right.

00:24:06It is not a personal letter to me or to you or to him.

00:24:11I mean, whenever God revealed the Pentateuch to the prophet Moses, you know, 2,000 years

00:24:18to 3,000 years ago, we were just a speck in the divine mind in the distant future.

00:24:26He, no, the Bible is not a personal letter.

00:24:30That sounds warm and fuzzy and emotional and gives us nice, warm feelings that this Bible

00:24:36is a personal letter to us.

00:24:39But no, it is not a personal letter to us.

00:24:42You know, in the first place, that's completely misunderstanding, again, the original author

00:24:50and recipients.

00:24:51And in the second place, it is completely overestimating ourself.

00:24:57I mean, do I think God wrote all of that with just me in mind?

00:25:03You are really overestimating yourself if you think this is a letter from God to you.

00:25:08Um, this involves way more than any single individual.

00:25:13So when Hobart would read it, it's a personal letter.

00:25:17So all of these stories and all of these miracles, as I've said before, it's like going to Baskin

00:25:22Robbins.

00:25:23It's just whatever flavor you want for the day, you can, you can pick where previously

00:25:30these Christian people who are now in love with Hobart's way to interpret the Bible

00:25:36had thought that these are special accounts because they had probably been taught that

00:25:42in their denominational church, correctly so, that these are special narratives, special

00:25:48accounts in the Bible that related to those people at that time.

00:25:54It may have deeper spiritual meanings or something in the future, but it was real and it was,

00:25:59and it was real for them.

00:26:01And a good example that we have used more than once here is the eyesight of the prophet

00:26:07Moses, um, which Hobart just made hay out of those last verses in, in Deuteronomy 34.

00:26:15He said, Moses was 120 years old.

00:26:18His eye was not dim.

00:26:20And so they just use that for throwing away their glasses.

00:26:24Everyone's believing for their healing.

00:26:25No one ever saw any better.

00:26:27Hobart's eyesight declined and they're not failing to realize that was a specific thing

00:26:35that Moses had need of.

00:26:38Can you put yourself, please, back in the position of leading several million people out of Egypt

00:26:45across the Sinai Arabian desert?

00:26:49It would be very nice to have perfect eyesight and see in the distance what's coming up,

00:26:55what is there or what isn't there.

00:26:58There's no weird reason why Moses had great eyesight.

00:27:03It was a practical reason.

00:27:05He needed that kind of eyesight because he's leading this group of people across a desert area.

00:27:12And if you can go to the eye doctor and get a pair of glasses and see better so you can pass your test

00:27:19at the driver's office and get your driver's license and drive, go do it.

00:27:25That verse is not an indictment against you for going to do that.

00:27:31But there is a classic example of Hobart having read the Bible like this is all to me.

00:27:37And what can I get out of it for me?

00:27:39So you're going to get you can live to be 120 because Moses did.

00:27:45And of course, Hobart didn't.

00:27:47I won't.

00:27:48I hope I don't.

00:27:49I don't know anybody who does.

00:27:51You can live to be 120.

00:27:53You can have perfect vision and you can be just as strong at age 120 as you were at 20.

00:28:00That was supernatural and it was needed for Moses.

00:28:05And it's just not needed for us today.

00:28:07I think the necessity is something that is often overlooked whenever you examine these

00:28:13movements or if you're in a part of one of them, because the way it works, if if they

00:28:18find a particular miracle for a particular situation in the Bible, let's say this fits

00:28:24you to you to have this scenario.

00:28:26So you to step right up and give me money can be healed of this, whatever it is.

00:28:32And there are things like, you know, in the ancient world, they didn't have prosthetics and

00:28:36you have Jesus who is healing people with missing limbs, Jesus who is divine.

00:28:42Well, they try to use that same scenario and say that, I don't know, Kenneth Hagen, Hobart

00:28:46Freeman, you too can step right up and you can grow a new limb.

00:28:50And I have yet to hear of anybody who actually grew a new limb in one of these things, but

00:28:55that's what they advertised.

00:28:57But in the ancient world, they didn't have the advancement that we have today.

00:29:03In the modern world, we can simply pray for the money to get a prosthetic or if you have

00:29:09insurance, et cetera.

00:29:10The prayers for your necessity, your needs are different.

00:29:14The needs are different today than they were back then.

00:29:17And there are a lot of medications that can heal the diseases that many people could have

00:29:23gone and avoided the medications and gone for prayer for.

00:29:27Sadly, some of which died.

00:29:28Well, the need is different today because they could also have just simply gone to the doctor.

00:29:34And I know you probably have come and encountered some, but I know many doctors who are Christian

00:29:39and they, some of them will pray right there with you in the room if you ask them to.

00:29:44And it's not that they don't believe in healing, but they are aware that they have the ability

00:29:51to help you because they have tools that we didn't have in the ancient world.

00:29:55So if you take the needs of today and compare them to the needs of the ancient world, it

00:30:02is two completely different scenarios.

00:30:05And like we said before, they like to paint a picture with a broad brush based off of what

00:30:11they read in a certain passage that applied to a certain individual and try to rip it

00:30:17out of its context to say that you two can step right up and be healed and give me your

00:30:21tithe.

00:30:21Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of

00:30:27modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe

00:30:32movements into the new apostolic reformation?

00:30:35You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.

00:30:42On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles

00:30:48Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio,

00:30:55and digital versions of each book.

00:30:57You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those

00:31:03movements.

00:31:04If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the

00:31:08contribute button at the top.

00:31:10And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening

00:31:15to or watching.

00:31:17On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

00:31:21Yes, John, I would just encourage people as they read the Bible and you read these great stories

00:31:26of faith and miracles performed by Abraham or Moses or Joshua or Elijah or Paul or Jesus,

00:31:36don't necessarily read those as events that are to be duplicated today or that are repeatable

00:31:46today.

00:31:47And that is exactly what Dr. Freeman taught.

00:31:52And that is why his message gathered so many people together, because let's face it, people

00:31:59have needs.

00:32:00Hobart himself, as I've tried to document and demythologizing him, he had financial and healing

00:32:07needs.

00:32:08So he himself was suckered in to this false message of faith and healing in 1966, just like

00:32:17he suckered people in after that.

00:32:19He heard, oh, wow, God's going to heal my polio leg.

00:32:22God's going to heal my heart condition.

00:32:25God is going to heal my poor vision.

00:32:27God is going to put money in my bank account.

00:32:30God is going to grow hair on my head because my hair is thinning.

00:32:35And I'm claiming Psalm 103 that he renews my youth like the eagles.

00:32:39And he'd tell these stories.

00:32:40You know, the eagle, he never gets old and bald.

00:32:43He just sheds some feathers and gets some new feathers.

00:32:47So he's taking something literal that happens to the eagle.

00:32:51We're back to this hermeneutic again.

00:32:54You have to be careful to figure out what's symbolic, figurative and what's literal.

00:32:58And he would say, oh, I'm going to take that literal.

00:33:01Obviously, you know, the things that are bad, we're going to interpret those symbolic.

00:33:06The things we want, we're going to interpret those literally.

00:33:09Literally, it's like the church would leave all the curses for Israel and take the blessings

00:33:14for themselves.

00:33:15It's just a very, very selfish way to read the Bible.

00:33:19And as we've said over and over again, not only is it not scriptural, and if people can't

00:33:25handle that, then I say, well, go with verifiable facts.

00:33:29Not only is it not scriptural, it doesn't work.

00:33:32People died by the hundreds at Faith Assembly.

00:33:36The leader himself, who did not go to a doctor, who preached and believed miraculous healing

00:33:43to the very end, died of multiple diseases.

00:33:47It does not work.

00:33:49The people who've been waiting for their manifestation for the last 20 or 30 years are still waiting

00:33:55for their manifestation.

00:33:57When are they going to wake up and say, there's something not right here?

00:34:00You know, they're so afraid to challenge or question anything, but you shouldn't be.

00:34:06It's time to wake up and say, wait a minute, you know, nothing has happened.

00:34:11The Mark 11, 22, speak to the mountain, speak to the fig tree, dry the fig tree up from its

00:34:17roots and throw the mountain into the sea.

00:34:19Do you know anyone who has done that?

00:34:22Well, no, but I just believe God's word.

00:34:25No, you really don't believe God's word.

00:34:27You're living foolishly.

00:34:29You are denying the reality and the facts.

00:34:34You know, the burden of proof is on you.

00:34:36If that's what that verse means, surely there is an example somewhere.

00:34:42And Hobart, however, John, would find alleged examples.

00:34:46I'm thinking of something now, and I'm thinking of the crossing of the Red Sea or the crossing

00:34:53of the Jordan River by the Israelites under Joshua, he would find examples in some foreign country

00:35:00that none of us could verify or document.

00:35:03But he would tell the story as though, well, of course it happened.

00:35:07And if you don't believe that, you know, you're just doubting God.

00:35:10You know, if you if you didn't believe the stories that he told, which he didn't verify and couldn't

00:35:18verify for some reason, the fault was yours, not his.

00:35:22It was your lack of faith.

00:35:24It was because you are a doubter.

00:35:27But I don't know if people are familiar with a book that came out in the early 1970s.

00:35:33It was written by a man named Mel Tari.

00:35:35It was called Like a Mighty Wind.

00:35:37And it was about the so-called miracles and revival that was happening in Indonesia then.

00:35:44And in the early to mid-70s, Hobart talked a lot about the stories that came out of that

00:35:52book, Like a Mighty Wind.

00:35:54And Mel Tari became a pretty well-known figure.

00:35:57He ended up in the United States traveling around to Pentecostal and charismatic churches

00:36:03everywhere.

00:36:05And the story that Hobart would like to use among many.

00:36:09And I've read the book and it has, you know, it has fantastic things in there, like these

00:36:16children who were hungry and they needed to get to the top of the, you know, coconut tree

00:36:23and they had no way to get there.

00:36:24And so God just created like lizards feet on them so they could literally just stand on the

00:36:32side of the tree and walk to the top of the tree and get a coconut and bring it back down.

00:36:37You know, I'm sorry.

00:36:40I suppose that could happen.

00:36:42I doubt that it did.

00:36:44I've never saw it happen.

00:36:46And I don't know anybody who knows anybody who knows anybody who knows anybody that saw

00:36:51it happen.

00:36:53I'm telling you what, this is a whole dangerous realm that people are getting into just believing

00:37:00what I call just lore and legend.

00:37:03It's just lore and legend that the cult has dreamed up.

00:37:06But one of the other stories they would often talk about, because they had a biblical precedent

00:37:11crossing the Jordan River, is, oh yeah, they would be fleeing from their persecutors in

00:37:16Indonesia and they would come to a river and they would just smite the river with their

00:37:22bamboo rod and the waters would part and they would go across.

00:37:27Or on another occasion, they would just come to the river and just like Jesus and the apostle

00:37:33Peter, they would just step out in there and the water would only be about ankle deep and

00:37:38they would just walk all the way across the river.

00:37:40And then when their enemies tried, they would drown whenever they stepped in the river.

00:37:45God is certainly capable of doing that to protect his people.

00:37:50And I wasn't there.

00:37:52So I cannot say whether it did happen or whether it didn't happen.

00:37:56He is definitely capable of doing that.

00:37:59He's capable of protecting his people from their enemies in a variety of different ways.

00:38:04My problem with that, with that book and with Visions Beyond the Veil that Baker printed

00:38:11way back in the early 1970s, all these five and six year old Chinese orphans, Hobart said

00:38:19from this book, Visions Beyond the Veil, are given visions of heaven.

00:38:25And they're on par with John's vision in the book of Revelation.

00:38:29And they're little beggar children that can't even read or write.

00:38:32And they have all these tremendous visions.

00:38:35To me, that just sounds like charismatic chaos.

00:38:39It doesn't sound like anything that has any kind of solid biblical footing underneath it.

00:38:46But yet Hobart has taught these things.

00:38:48I've given these examples before, John, because Hobart would, you know, he would just say,

00:38:54God will multiply the loaves and fishes just like he did then.

00:38:58And so Hobart gave several examples on tapes from the early to mid 70s of people who would

00:39:05drive cross country with no gas in their tank.

00:39:08And they told him the story.

00:39:09And then he came and told it from the pulpit.

00:39:12Well, I don't know that he told their story accurately.

00:39:15There's number one.

00:39:15Number two, I don't know that they told their story accurately.

00:39:19There's number one.

00:39:20You know, there are just too many problems with this.

00:39:24We, in order for God to be glorified and people to be protected, we need to know the truth of

00:39:32these matters.

00:39:33And we don't need to be doing all of this exaggerating, lifting Bible verses out of their

00:39:40context.

00:39:41Yes, Jesus did multiply the loaves and fishes.

00:39:44And yes, Elijah and Elisha did it under their ministry with the woman with the oil and meal,

00:39:51feed me first, and then you will not run out.

00:39:53And she didn't.

00:39:54Those are pretty rare miracles in the Bible.

00:39:57And so I would say that if miracles like that happened today, they would be pretty rare.

00:40:04But the way they are taught in charismatic circles is this is just run of the mill.

00:40:10This is just ordinary stuff.

00:40:12Whatever you want, when you pray, believe that you receive it and you shall have it.

00:40:17Mark 11, 24.

00:40:18And so we've been told all of these stories in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

00:40:25You and I have talked before on some podcasts about the anointed cloths.

00:40:29And I did have several people reach out to me and say, you know what?

00:40:33I never did notice until you pointed it out that the text actually says God wrote special

00:40:41miracles by the hands of Paul.

00:40:43Wow.

00:40:43I never even saw that.

00:40:44And it's right in the text that that may mean to tell you that was something special for Paul,

00:40:52that all the other apostles weren't doing that.

00:40:55That was something God was doing by the hands of Paul.

00:40:58It's interesting when you are willing to read the Bible for yourself and read it, put all

00:41:07and put my doctrine, your doctrine, put everything else aside.

00:41:11You can put my doctrine aside for sure.

00:41:14It's not worth anything at all.

00:41:16Just read what the Bible itself says and you may end up on a whole different foundation rather

00:41:23than I've given this example before.

00:41:26I'll give it one more time and I don't mean to, I'm not blaming Malcolm Weber at all,

00:41:32but Malcolm Weber was a Freeman follower who heard the message in Australia, moved over

00:41:38to the United States to be a part of Faith Assembly in the summer of 1984.

00:41:44And he was only there six months and Hobart died.

00:41:47So, I mean, he almost came a little too late, but he did stay and believe all of that stuff

00:41:52then, he did transition away from that later.

00:41:54But earlier in his life, because of the way that Hobart read, interpreted, and taught the

00:42:04Bible, like these are just run-of-the-mill miracles, they are available to any believer, any day,

00:42:10at any time, if you'll just exercise faith.

00:42:13Then since he saw the children of Israel going through 38 years in the desert and their shoes

00:42:20never wore out, then he decided, I'm never going to change the tires on my car.

00:42:26I should be able to get 500,000 miles out of them because look at the mileage, quote,

00:42:32unquote, that the children of Israel got out of their shoes.

00:42:34Failing to understand, that's a special miracle for a special people at that time.

00:42:41I'm not blaming Malcolm at all.

00:42:43Where would Malcolm have ever come up with that?

00:42:45And I did stupid things like that myself.

00:42:48Where would any of us have gotten stupid ideas like that, except Hobart was communicating that?

00:42:55People have tried to shift the blame away and say, well, Hobart never said you shouldn't

00:42:59change the tires on your car.

00:43:01He didn't have to say that.

00:43:02He didn't have to say that.

00:43:04By virtue of the fact that he presented the miracles of the Bible as a golden corral buffet,

00:43:12you can just walk down the line and pick anything you want.

00:43:16That is the way he taught scripture.

00:43:18So all of us naturally would walk away trying to get out of that whatever we needed in our

00:43:25own life.

00:43:25And that's simply not the way we're supposed to deal with the Bible.

00:43:29You know, what's interesting, I have a lot of friends who have escaped and they were

00:43:34so burned by this religion, they want nothing to do with it.

00:43:37Some of them are now atheists because of this type of religion, which is really sad if you

00:43:43think about what was created and how the difference between what they experienced and what other

00:43:48Christians experience.

00:43:51But many of those same people will read the Bible because they want to understand what it was they

00:43:57were supposed to believe while they were in this thing teaching them something that they should

00:44:02never have believed in the first place.

00:44:05And some of them are quite intelligent whenever it comes to reading the Bible.

00:44:09They know many things because they actually read it for what it says.

00:44:13And the difference between that and somebody who has been manipulated by this, there's this

00:44:19tendency to try to retain something, to hold onto something that you had and believed, even

00:44:25if it's false.

00:44:26Because this thing goes through your head, it went through mine.

00:44:29It all can't be false.

00:44:31Can it all be false?

00:44:32You start going through those loops and you keep trying to hold up something that was false.

00:44:39And by doing so, you read other passages through this one false belief and the whole thing says

00:44:44something different.

00:44:45But when these authors were writing, like the letters from Paul, this was a letter.

00:44:49This was something that had context.

00:44:51It had meaning.

00:44:53It wasn't meant to take one section, one paragraph, and create a whole doctrine and run with it.

00:44:58But he would have, I sincerely think he would roll over in his grave if he knew that people

00:45:03were doing this today, man.

00:45:05What are you guys doing?

00:45:06Do you not realize that I was writing this letter to so-and-so?

00:45:09But that's the way that it has been taught.

00:45:12And sadly, I have visited a lot of different churches, a lot of different varieties after

00:45:17leaving.

00:45:18And it seems to be, except for some of the ones that have really reformed, it seems to be a

00:45:24common thread.

00:45:25They like to get on their soapbox, whatever the soapbox is, and if they can find a paragraph

00:45:31to wedge under that soapbox to prop it up just a little higher, that's the way that they

00:45:36do it.

00:45:37And what happens is it's creating people who want nothing to do with the faith at all.

00:45:42Unfortunately, John, I've talked to several people, not many.

00:45:45They're definitely in the minority, but they've been very honest and upfront with me.

00:45:50They were followers, and their families were followers of Freeman, and they got away from

00:45:56it and just saw his death, everyone else's death.

00:46:00The church just splintered, imploded, fell apart.

00:46:05And then they look back and see all of the legalisms and bondages and how mean-spirited

00:46:11those people were.

00:46:13I mean, you want to talk about a cult.

00:46:15Branham's group is the same way.

00:46:17Freeman's is the same way.

00:46:19I would assume IHOP is the same way.

00:46:22If you leave one of those groups, you are shunned by everyone else.

00:46:26Now, tell me, what part of Christianity does that resemble?

00:46:30That has nothing to do with Christianity.

00:46:32That is nothing but a darn religious cult.

00:46:35And you're mad because someone doesn't agree with your little cult views anymore, and so

00:46:39they pulled out, and so I'm not going to talk to them anymore.

00:46:43And they don't.

00:46:44And it could be relatives.

00:46:45It could even be a husband and wife or children or parents, and you don't even hear from those

00:46:51people anymore.

00:46:52That is not Christianity.

00:46:55That, along with all these other things we're saying, should show people right away there's

00:47:01something seriously wrong with this.

00:47:03And yes, John, I could not agree with you anymore about Paul, about any of the books of the Bible.

00:47:10You know, those were letters from Paul.

00:47:12The Pentateuch, you know, was a very important, formal five-book document that Moses wrote for

00:47:20the nation of Israel.

00:47:21Well, there's something wrong with us as Western Christians and Western civilization if we think

00:47:33that what we are supposed to do is go to the Bible and find something that's talking to me.

00:47:40I mean, if you just turn on TV, all of the garbage that's on the Christian broadcasting satellite

00:47:50network people there, they're just messages where people can go and get something for me today.

00:48:00You know, I'm hurting today.

00:48:02Something for me today.

00:48:04Go read the book of Leviticus.

00:48:06I don't know that you're even going to be able to walk away for yourself that day with anything

00:48:13from the book of Leviticus, but that's God's word.

00:48:16What I have always tried to teach my listeners, church members, students that I have taught for

00:48:2245 years is we have to approach the Bible, I call it the three H's, with humility, with hunger,

00:48:30and with honesty.

00:48:32You have to have those three things.

00:48:34You know, you have to be hungry, like I really want to know the word of God.

00:48:41Thankfully, John, I have that in my heart, and I give God all the credit for that.

00:48:46I am hungry.

00:48:48I really, really want to know what God's word teaches, and I don't presume to think that

00:48:55I know it all.

00:48:56I really do want to know.

00:48:58I really want to know.

00:48:59And then we have to be hungry.

00:49:01We have to dive into it and spend time reading it and meditating on it, and then we have to

00:49:08be honest.

00:49:10And this honesty factor, the honesty factor is one of the things that affected me early

00:49:17in my Christian life and ministry in my early to mid-twenties, because, you know, just as

00:49:26a Christian, I think that we have this natural tendency, because we are born again, to want

00:49:32to be people of the truth and to want to be honest and speak the truth.

00:49:37And here's where I'm going with that.

00:49:39So I had a healing doctrine that I got from Hobart Freeman and Kenneth Hagen and, you know,

00:49:45the other people, Marilyn Hickey and Charles Capps and Fred Price, and, you know, there

00:49:51were so many faith teachers.

00:49:53But the bulk of what I got, I got from Hobart Freeman.

00:49:57And so I get this faith and I get this healing message from him, and I'm all in, over my head.

00:50:04I believe everything he says is true.

00:50:07But then, because I'm a Christian and because I want to be honest with God's word, when I

00:50:14read the Bible and I come to a passage that says to Timothy, we've talked about this a

00:50:21lot before, Timothy, you don't need to claim your healing and walk it out and confess it

00:50:28and endure, or just take a little wine for your often infirmities.

00:50:33When I read that, wow, see, my honesty kicks in and I go, what am I going to do with that?

00:50:41What am I going to do with that?

00:50:42Because that doesn't fit my healing doctrine.

00:50:44Or when Hobart became so upset against medical science and he said, all medicine is demonic.

00:50:53It has sorcery and witchcraft origins.

00:50:56You can't go to doctors or anything like that.

00:50:59And then I read in Colossians 4 that Paul referred to one of his favorite people, Luke, as the

00:51:06beloved physician.

00:51:08Not like he was a physician, but then he got the end time message of faith.

00:51:13And so he had to reject being a physician.

00:51:15Paul would never even use that if there's some kind of witchcraft or sorcery connection

00:51:21or origin to that.

00:51:23Paul would never have used that.

00:51:24Paul, in other words, didn't think there was anything wrong.

00:51:28There was no contradiction to anything Paul believed and taught, anything Luke wrote about

00:51:33in his gospel or the book of Acts by calling him Luke, the beloved physician.

00:51:39So what happened was my honesty began to kick in.

00:51:45And I said, you know, these passages don't square with my theology.

00:51:51And so something's got to give.

00:51:53And of course, my theology was Freemanism at the time.

00:51:57And so I was coming to the place and it didn't happen overnight.

00:52:01It took time.

00:52:03It's always layer upon layer.

00:52:05I haven't found a person yet, you know, who listens to one podcast or one of my teachings

00:52:11and says, I reject everything Freeman I've ever been taught.

00:52:15It doesn't work like that.

00:52:16It's layer upon layer.

00:52:18It's line upon line.

00:52:21You're slowly able to unpeel the onion, show them what's really wrong and, you know, show

00:52:30them the direction that they need to go in.

00:52:34And so my desire to be true to scripture, because I knew, John, that if I keep looking at these

00:52:41verses and just close my eyes to them and hold on to my Freeman doctrine, that's not good.

00:52:49There's no way there's no way that Hobart's doctrine is better, more valid, more accurate,

00:52:55more true, more godly, more faithful than Paul's doctrine.

00:53:00If I've got to choose between the two, Hobart and Paul, you know, we've all got to choose

00:53:06Paul, Paul is giving us the inspired word of God.

00:53:11And so if he is able to say that I left Trophimus sick at Miletus, if he's able to say that,

00:53:21he didn't say, well, Trophimus was having a trial.

00:53:24That's the catchphrase for being sick, having a trial.

00:53:28If you ask anybody at Faith Assembly who was sick, how are you doing?

00:53:31Oh, God is faithful.

00:53:33God is true.

00:53:33And God is true to his word.

00:53:35Well, how are you feeling?

00:53:36I'm just going through a trial.

00:53:39A trial.

00:53:40What do you, I mean, trial was just cult terminology for I'm sick, but I can't say it.

00:53:45A trial is I'm sick, but I can't say it.

00:53:47Paul could say it.

00:53:49Are you better than Paul?

00:53:50Am I better than Paul?

00:53:52You know, that's what I had to come to grips with.

00:53:55Do I think I'm more spiritual than the apostle Paul?

00:53:58You know, oh, don't flatter yourself out there.

00:54:01You're a charismatic person to think, oh, I would never say I'm sick.

00:54:05Paul did.

00:54:06Yes, he did.

00:54:08Yes, he did.

00:54:09And so as I began to see those things, if you are hungry, humble, and honest, you have

00:54:15the three H's working in your life, you're okay with that because here's what's going

00:54:20to happen.

00:54:21Unfortunately, you're going to have to change your doctrine, and that's not easy to start

00:54:25with.

00:54:26That is a process that we all go through.

00:54:29So unfortunately, you're going to have to admit that you were wrong in this area, but

00:54:34fortunately, you get on God's side and the apostle Paul's side and the side of Trophimus

00:54:41and Luke and all of these other biblical characters that we read about, and we leave Freeman and

00:54:49Hagen and Copeland and Branham and John G.

00:54:54Lake and John Alexander Dowie.

00:54:57We leave all those guys and we go to the side of the writers of Scripture.

00:55:02And I mean, what a wonderful journey that was for me back then.

00:55:07It continues to this day to be a wonderful journey.

00:55:11I definitely don't know it all.

00:55:13I'm learning things every week in my life about the Scriptures, which allow me to navigate

00:55:18away from an earlier position.

00:55:21You know, maybe it's just something very, very small.

00:55:23Nothing to do with healing.

00:55:24It's some doctrinal issue.

00:55:26But you're able to navigate away from that and you're able to go toward God's Word.

00:55:31And so it gives you this freedom.

00:55:37You know that you're reading Scripture accurately and faithfully.

00:55:44And I never tire of saying this in my teachings.

00:55:49I always find new ways to say it.

00:55:52There's a reason we have three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, not just one.

00:55:57So it's OK to be repetitive on occasion and say some things again if you can find a new

00:56:04way.

00:56:05But here's the way I've always tried to communicate it to people, because I'm always looking for

00:56:10because I am a Bible teacher and preacher.

00:56:15I'm always looking for effective ways to communicate the truth, you know, an effective

00:56:22way that's not offensive, but that resonates with the people.

00:56:26And this has always resonated with people when I share it like this.

00:56:30And I say, if when you are reading your Bible and you come across a passage that you don't

00:56:38really like, I don't know any other way to say it, but I just don't like that passage because

00:56:44it doesn't fit my doctrine.

00:56:47You know, take your whatever your view on the rapture is.

00:56:49If you read a passage that doesn't fit your view.

00:56:53It could be, you know, give give yourself grace.

00:56:58It could be that your view is wrong.

00:57:01Now, maybe you're just not seeing the passage right, but give yourself space and grace.

00:57:06It could be that your view is wrong and that that passage is going to be the first one

00:57:12that puts you on the right path of being able to interpret scripture correctly.

00:57:17So all of these little passages, John, about Trophimus was sick and Epaphroditus was sick

00:57:24and and Timothy was never told to claim his healing.

00:57:28He was just told to drink some wine.

00:57:31And Paul is able to use the word sick instead of trial.

00:57:34He didn't and Paul knew, let me just say this, Paul knew more about the atonement and the

00:57:41meaning of the atonement than any of us do.

00:57:43Again, don't flatter yourself, charismatic person out there.

00:57:47Well, I think healing's in the atonement.

00:57:49You think what you want, but don't flatter yourself to think you know more about the atonement

00:57:54than the Apostle Paul.

00:57:56The Apostle Paul knew more about the atonement than all of us put together.

00:58:00And he still said that certain people were sick.

00:58:03He did not shy away from that terminology.

00:58:08Everything turned out fine.

00:58:09Everything will turn out fine in our life if we'll take God at his word.

00:58:14Be humble and recognize that God's word is the master and we are the slave.

00:58:19You know, there's a lot of pride that goes with trying to hang on to the things that you

00:58:23believed.

00:58:24And I was telling this just last week, I was talking to somebody and one of the exercises

00:58:29that I did when I was going through all of the Bible, reading it over and over.

00:58:34One of the times that I passed through it, I was taking note of all of the sins listed

00:58:38in the New Testament just because I was curious.

00:58:41And I found that the most common thing mentioned was pride.

00:58:44And there were other sins that were strongly linked to it.

00:58:48So you could say pride was a root of a lot of the sins mentioned in the New Testament.

00:58:52And then it kind of humbled me because I was trying to hang on to all of these things too.

00:58:58And I asked myself, well, why did I do it?

00:59:00And it was mainly because I didn't want to admit that I had been duped and I was so far

00:59:05off.

00:59:05But the pride is what makes people hang on to these things.

00:59:11And one of the freedoms that I have now that I didn't have back then, I get people who

00:59:17comment or send me emails and say, you're wrong about this.

00:59:20And one of the freedoms that I have right now is sometimes they may be actually correct.

00:59:25I might be wrong because I make a lot of mistakes, but I have the freedom now to say, yeah, you're

00:59:30right.

00:59:30I messed up.

00:59:31And it's kind of freeing not to have to have that over your head to try to be right all

00:59:37the time because I'll be honest, I'm not right.

00:59:42Most of the time I have to go look things up and correct myself.

00:59:45And that's why whenever I find a mistake, I publish a correction to that mistake.

00:59:49So it is a freedom.

00:59:51And sadly, if you're one of these cults, it's a very difficult thing to do to admit that

00:59:56you've made a mistake, that you've been wrong.

00:59:58So I enjoy that freedom.

01:00:01And hopefully, as we get further along in the podcast, we can help other people to enjoy

01:00:06that same freedom.

01:00:07So thank you for doing this.

01:00:09John, I enjoy that same freedom tremendously because, you know, I teach every week and people

01:00:15have questions they want to ask.

01:00:17And I tell them in advance, I said, there's one particular question that I will not answer.

01:00:22I refuse to answer.

01:00:24And they say, what is?

01:00:25I said, the one I don't have the answer to.

01:00:27That's the one I will not answer is because I don't know everything.

01:00:31But yeah, ministers feel like they have to know everything.

01:00:36And Hobart felt like he did know everything.

01:00:38And he obviously didn't.

01:00:40Absolutely.

01:00:42Well, this has been fun.

01:00:43If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the

01:00:46web.

01:00:46You can find us at william-branum.org.

01:00:49For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read weaponized religion

01:00:54from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

01:00:59And here's what it did for you.

Speak to the Mountain? Faith, Fiction, and the Cessationist Debate | Chino Ross

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