- today
John and Jed discuss how cult dynamics infiltrate not only fringe religious groups like IHOP, YWAM, and Bethel, but also influence mainstream churches through branding, fragmentation, and spiritual elitism. Drawing from personal experiences and historical case studies, they highlight how movements often prioritize expansion and spectacle over accountability and genuine service. From church planting strategies to failed missions rooted in emotional manipulation, they show how much of the spiritual infrastructure today mirrors the corporate franchise model.
They trace the development of these movements from early Pentecostal figures such as Frank Sanford and Charles Parham to modern-day spiritual tourism and missions that often benefit the senders more than the communities being served. The conversation raises serious concerns about the lack of oversight, the trauma caused by spiritually abusive methods, and the ease with which narcissistic leaders can build personal empires under the guise of ministry. In the end, they preview a heartbreaking example of a cult offshoot where these dangers became fatal.
00:00 Introduction
03:19 Church branding, cult isolation, and the rise of franchise faith
06:06 Global expansion of IHOP and YWAM as decentralized spiritual networks
10:48 Latter Rain theology and the empowerment of local cult leaders
15:00 From Western towns to modern cult-towns: control, fragmentation, and elitism
18:56 How mainstream churches mirror cult behavior through competitive branding
23:43 Fast-food faith: emotional hype, churn-and-burn discipleship, and false miracles
27:18 Missions as radicalization, not evangelism
34:59 When cult outreach serves the cult more than the lost
43:03 Historical parallels: Frank Sanford, Charles Parham, and failed Pentecostal missions
53:13 Writing in tongues and the myth of early Pentecostal power
58:01 Why cult training schools produce more need than aid
1:02:06 Sanitized histories and institutionalized trauma
1:05:09 How easy it is to plant your own YWAM or IHOP group
1:08:26 Teaser: a real-life tragedy from an IHOP-affiliated cult group
______________________
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
They trace the development of these movements from early Pentecostal figures such as Frank Sanford and Charles Parham to modern-day spiritual tourism and missions that often benefit the senders more than the communities being served. The conversation raises serious concerns about the lack of oversight, the trauma caused by spiritually abusive methods, and the ease with which narcissistic leaders can build personal empires under the guise of ministry. In the end, they preview a heartbreaking example of a cult offshoot where these dangers became fatal.
00:00 Introduction
03:19 Church branding, cult isolation, and the rise of franchise faith
06:06 Global expansion of IHOP and YWAM as decentralized spiritual networks
10:48 Latter Rain theology and the empowerment of local cult leaders
15:00 From Western towns to modern cult-towns: control, fragmentation, and elitism
18:56 How mainstream churches mirror cult behavior through competitive branding
23:43 Fast-food faith: emotional hype, churn-and-burn discipleship, and false miracles
27:18 Missions as radicalization, not evangelism
34:59 When cult outreach serves the cult more than the lost
43:03 Historical parallels: Frank Sanford, Charles Parham, and failed Pentecostal missions
53:13 Writing in tongues and the myth of early Pentecostal power
58:01 Why cult training schools produce more need than aid
1:02:06 Sanitized histories and institutionalized trauma
1:05:09 How easy it is to plant your own YWAM or IHOP group
1:08:26 Teaser: a real-life tragedy from an IHOP-affiliated cult group
______________________
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
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 and friend, Jed Hartley, son of
00:00:47a false prophet and former member of the International House of Prayer.
00:00:52You can see I'm laughing, right?
00:00:53This false prophet.
00:00:54We got so much feedback because we sarcastically used the word prophet.
00:01:00Son of a prophet.
00:01:02And what's funny is, so I left a cult.
00:01:05I had a cult mindset.
00:01:06I had this mindset where you viciously attacked anything that you disagreed with.
00:01:11That was your strong point, man.
00:01:14And I was thinking about that recently.
00:01:16I mentioned this in another podcast, but my mother-in-law just passed, which is very, very traumatic
00:01:25for us because when my parents cut me off, my mother-in-law became my mother.
00:01:30She was the rock that held us all together, right?
00:01:33So I get to meet all of these people that I haven't seen since, gosh, when was it?
00:01:40January 1st, 2012, I think it was, when we left the cult.
00:01:43Oh, wow.
00:01:44So many of these people I've not seen in years.
00:01:47And suddenly, as I'm walking up to see these people, and they're all in the funeral home,
00:01:52many of them have not spoken to me for that long.
00:01:55There are a couple that are nice, and there are a couple of them were, but in the back
00:02:00of your head, you're thinking, oh, my gosh, they're going to speak negatively about this,
00:02:05that, or the other.
00:02:06That's what goes through your head.
00:02:08And I suddenly stopped and realized, wait a minute, I've been out of this thing for that
00:02:12long, and that was the first thought that hit me.
00:02:15I've not had to have that feeling since I left the cult.
00:02:20And I got to thinking back to some of the people in the support groups.
00:02:24When you leave, the first thing is you're going to, everybody's going to just give all
00:02:28this backlash against you.
00:02:30They're very worried about what people say and think.
00:02:33And that's the nature of a cult.
00:02:35That's how a cult works.
00:02:37One person told me, when I left, it was the most, this is the most freedom he had had.
00:02:45He said, we had such a negative outlook on life, and so much negative energy flowed from
00:02:51person to person.
00:02:52And all of these thoughts are rushing through my head as I'm crying my heart out because
00:02:58we lost our mother.
00:02:59But anyway, we got through that.
00:03:03We tried to record a couple times.
00:03:05I don't think we've skipped a beat in what's been released.
00:03:09However, we tried a few times, and power outlets, et cetera, has pushed this back.
00:03:14And finally, we're getting to talk about all kinds of weird conspiracy theory and church
00:03:21growth.
00:03:22And I'll never forget, whenever I was in that movement that I just described, we also, we
00:03:31didn't have a concept of church growth.
00:03:34Church growth meant basically you left off the birth control pill.
00:03:38If your church grew, it's because it grew from the inside, buddy.
00:03:44And every once in a while, we would, you know, try to recruit people.
00:03:48I did often.
00:03:49I would be at work, and I would talk to somebody, hey, did you know God sent a prophet?
00:03:54And they would look at me like, hey, did you know you are a freak?
00:03:58Right, right, right.
00:04:00That's how it works, right?
00:04:01And so, after so many times of being labeled a freak, you just don't have outreach.
00:04:07But what's interesting is each, the Branham group had many different splinter groups, many
00:04:13different sects, and each one had their own weird, I don't know what you'd call it, it's
00:04:18like branding.
00:04:20Under the whole umbrella, it's like this big franchise, but you had each individual branding,
00:04:24and each one just operated a little bit differently, and to be all open and honest, as I've been
00:04:32way too open here in the intro, once I started going to mainstream churches, it still feels
00:04:38a little bit odd to me, and I think it probably always will, because you've got, you go to
00:04:44this church, and you've got this type of branding.
00:04:46You go to this other church, you've got this other type of branding, and yet they all are
00:04:51under the umbrella of Christianity, but they all want to be different.
00:04:56And so, I'm having to learn and adjust.
00:05:00Okay, in the cult, they wanted to be different, and they got to the level where they isolated
00:05:04themselves.
00:05:05We don't want outreach.
00:05:06In the mainstream churches, they want to be different, and they want to have church growth
00:05:10in their difference.
00:05:12And then, enter into the New Apostolic Reformation, you have C. Peter Wagner, who's in this whole
00:05:18movement that's called the church growth movement, and then it has its own branding.
00:05:23And so, as you try to wade through all of that, navigate through, okay, what is Christianity?
00:05:30After a while, you suddenly stop to realize that none of that makes any sense.
00:05:34None of that, to me, is Christianity.
00:05:36Christianity is, okay, every franchise, every church, every branding, we're all going to get
00:05:42along with each other.
00:05:44And we're just, we're not going to have doctrines that separate us.
00:05:47Let's just go back, what does the Bible say?
00:05:49That, for me, would be Christianity.
00:05:51But I wanted to hear your opinion and talk through church branding, franchises, conspiracy
00:05:57theories on why all this exists.
00:06:00Yeah.
00:06:01Yeah.
00:06:01I mean, I don't think, so we started talking about this topic, and then, as you alluded to,
00:06:08we had started recording, and then all of your power went out.
00:06:11And so, we're having to re-record.
00:06:15But it's been kind of nice, because I've thought about the topic more than I probably would have
00:06:22in that first instance where we were recording.
00:06:25And I don't think that I've really thought about how much churches, specifically these
00:06:31NAR churches, so Bethel, IHOP, and YWAM, those are the three that I'll be talking about today
00:06:39specifically.
00:06:40Specifically, I would say more YWAM and the International House of Prayer.
00:06:45I didn't realize how many churches or communities or network locations these organizations have.
00:07:00With YWAM, it's a little bit more of the point.
00:07:02They want to spread out, and they want to have all of these different places.
00:07:07International House of Prayer, I never thought that that was explicitly part of the mission,
00:07:12but it clearly is, because I was looking, and one website had over 700 different House of Prayer
00:07:21networks that have branched off of the International House of Prayer.
00:07:27And with YWAM, there's something like over 1,500 locations worldwide of YWAM.
00:07:34In fact, I think that there's probably a lot more than this, because there's a lot of these
00:07:39YWAM outreach locations and YWAM branding that's out there that is an official YWAM.
00:07:47And I think that we've been talking about these churches as if they are local, sort of specific
00:07:54communities.
00:07:56And that's even the way that I think of it.
00:07:58I mean, IHOP was in Kansas City.
00:08:00Bethel is in Redding.
00:08:01And YWAM, my YWAM was in Kona, Hawaii, but it really is, these are global church movements,
00:08:11and they are popping up all around.
00:08:15And I think that I had mentioned this one time to you before, but I kind of jokingly in
00:08:24our conversations, I was like, they're kind of like cult franchises, where it's sort of
00:08:31like a McDonald's, you know, pops up, and then it's like, well, we want McDonald's everywhere.
00:08:35And so we just give the branding and give the sort of playbook to this individual who
00:08:43will like own it separately.
00:08:45And then they start their own McDonald's organization, or not organization, but building, and they lease
00:08:53property, and so they own it.
00:08:55And so it's like this sort of dispersed ownership method of franchising, where you can have people
00:09:01all across the globe that are popping up, and you don't have to have a specific strategy
00:09:08for where you're going to go.
00:09:09It kind of has a lot of this like sort of grassroots movement to it, and I had joked about these
00:09:20cults being like cult franchises.
00:09:22And the more and more I've thought about it, and we've talked about it, I think that's a
00:09:27pretty astute way to describe some of this stuff, especially like IHOP and YWAM, where,
00:09:33you know, in our YWAM episode, we talked about, I granted that there's a lot of,
00:09:39there's differences of what YWAM looks like if you go to base to base.
00:09:43One base might be totally fine, like, you know, have probably some problematic teachings
00:09:50and latter rain influence teachings here and there, but largely has like good accountability
00:09:55structures, you know, has some levels of multiculturalism, isn't like getting into
00:10:00Christian nationalism.
00:10:01There's, there's, it could, you know, it could be a totally, especially like I know a lot of
00:10:08YWAM organizations were involved with helping the poor or helping with food banks and really
00:10:15bringing good to the community and like the community outside of the organization itself
00:10:22might really appreciate that YWAM base.
00:10:26But then you go to a different base and it could be totally small and cloistered and very
00:10:33intense and religious and cults, you know, culty where they're based off of the one prophet
00:10:41who is the leading the, you know, sort of sub cult out there in YWAM.
00:10:47And, and I know for a fact that this is actually the case.
00:10:51Like there are many, many different smaller YWAM, some, or even larger YWAM or groups or
00:10:58churches.
00:10:58I don't know, really know what to call them because they're not really churches.
00:11:01That's the other thing too.
00:11:03It's not like they're just, it's not like they've, it's not like your Methodist church
00:11:09where it's a Sunday Methodist church where people come and they're involved in the community
00:11:14in a very like specific and known way.
00:11:16Um, they are like outreach locations and it's, it's hard to kind of really put your thumb
00:11:23on what it is because what it is looks very different depending on each community.
00:11:29And so, um, yeah, I think that, I think that this is, and I think that this is something
00:11:36about the latter rain specifically is that it gives people and pastors or, or, uh, apostles
00:11:46or prophets say, if you consider yourself an apostle, a prophet, you had a dream, whether
00:11:51it's genuinely like you believe it to be inspired or whether you are being malicious from the
00:11:58beginning or whatnot.
00:12:00Um, if there's a, an individual who has had a dream and has this sort of vision and is
00:12:06excited for their own ambitious, zealous, you know, re softly religious sort of experience
00:12:17like the, um, Oh, Oh, I'm blanking on it.
00:12:20The people's temple, James Jones.
00:12:22James, I mean, he had, he started in the sort of Pentecostal world and this is kind of in
00:12:28the latter rain movement with Branham and everything like that.
00:12:30And I'm sure he was attracted to some of the spiritualism and the ideas of like prophets
00:12:36and being able to speak and have, uh, a group of people believe that your words have been
00:12:43God ordained.
00:12:44And the latter rain movement provides the sort of infrastructure so that people can have their
00:12:52own prophetic revelations and they can have their sort of boundaries of their community.
00:12:57Like we've talked many different times about how those boundaries shift and throughout the
00:13:03years, and it could be no stringed instruments and in your band, or it could be, you know, various
00:13:10different things of, of, um, political, um, it could be more like the dominionism stuff.
00:13:17This is how the Lord is going to, um, branch out into the political movement.
00:13:24This is how God's going to capture families back.
00:13:27You know, there could be different pictures of what that looks like.
00:13:30Um, and it really just provides a sort of cult figure or cult personalities to create their
00:13:43own small cult communities, but have it within the infrastructure of a larger sort of, I don't
00:13:52want to say ordained because it's not ordained, but, but a more respectable organization.
00:14:00A lot of people who know what YWAM is, and a lot of people have heard it before.
00:14:04And Lauren Cunningham was, you know, friends with, um, uh, Billy Graham and there's the
00:14:13sort of conventions that surround it.
00:14:15And before the scandal with the International House of Prayer, International House of Prayer
00:14:20was respected in many communities because it was, you know, based off of intercessors.
00:14:25And, um, Mike Bickle was a well, well-respected member of, of the sort of evangelical community
00:14:32and people who were kind of seeing it from afar probably didn't see the more culty, uh, vibes
00:14:40of the International House of Prayer.
00:14:42And so I, we've talked about the organizations, the specific organizations, um, in, in detail,
00:14:51like the specific, um, centers of the organization, specifically about the, like, International
00:14:57House of Prayer.
00:14:57We've talked about IHOPKC, but I think that it's really important to start looking at, like,
00:15:04what are all of these communities and how are they popping up that are building these
00:15:11end times prayer movement mini cults?
00:15:16And what is the accountability and structure for that?
00:15:19It's just all so fascinating and confusing to me at the same time.
00:15:23So, as you know, I'm a big fan of history.
00:15:26I'm also, not many people know this because I have the Millennium Falcon on my wall behind
00:15:31me.
00:15:31I'm also a huge Western fan.
00:15:34I've read every one of the Louis L'Amour books and I, one of my favorite pastimes to sit
00:15:40and watch old black and white Westerns.
00:15:42I love them.
00:15:43And in that era, in history, as the United States was expanding across all of the unclaimed
00:15:51territories, whenever a city was formed, one of the first things that they put in was a
00:15:57church.
00:15:58And the church, believe it or not, the minister had, maybe not quite the same level, but they
00:16:06had almost the same authority as a sheriff did before a sheriff was assigned to a city.
00:16:11Because he could tell people, you know, what's, this is right, this is wrong.
00:16:16He was dictating the law.
00:16:17But in some cases, whenever you had somebody who was, you know, narcissistic, their example
00:16:24is in history of literally men who owned the town, who were ministers.
00:16:30So, you went from this history in the United States where these guys were owning the towns
00:16:35and in some cases, they were above the law because they could tell the law that what you're doing
00:16:40is wrong and God's going to punish you, sheriff.
00:16:43That's how weird this is.
00:16:46Fast forward to today's world.
00:16:47So, in the cult that we left, in the same city that we live in, and we live right across
00:16:55the river from Louisville, Kentucky, it's like 10 minutes from my house to get to Kentucky.
00:17:02So, in this area, I can count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven cult churches, which is
00:17:14crazy, right?
00:17:14Yeah, yeah.
00:17:15Now, the main one, the one that my grandfather led for 50 years, we had people who traveled
00:17:20to that church who might drive two and a half hours.
00:17:23Yeah.
00:17:24It's crazy.
00:17:25They would drive all this way because, not because they did not have a church in their own city
00:17:30two and a half hours away that was a Christian church, but because they are part of this
00:17:36elite group, they have to be here.
00:17:37Well, what happens is, the elite members of the elite groups can't get along with each
00:17:44other, and they say, well, my doctrine is better than your doctrine, and they break off
00:17:48and they create, we're talking franchises, they create these separate groups and then
00:17:54they suck members out of it.
00:17:55And so, it's like, if you really think about it, it's the opposite of church growth.
00:18:01It's church dissolving, right?
00:18:03Splintering.
00:18:03Splintering, dissolving, and because there is no real outreach, only by repopulation,
00:18:10they have to make sure they get a male and a female whenever they get somebody out of
00:18:14one of these churches or they just implode.
00:18:16It's kind of weird.
00:18:17So, I left all of this mess, and I'm not going to name the denomination, but I went to
00:18:23another denomination of faith, and that was all my experience.
00:18:26I only knew this, and I heard them talking about planting a church.
00:18:30And I was like, okay, and the minister had explained to me that my cult church mindset
00:18:39was incorrect, and we should not be isolationists.
00:18:43Everybody who's – if you're Methodist, Baptist, no matter what you are, if you're
00:18:47a Christian, you believe Christ.
00:18:48We just have differences in doctrines.
00:18:50So, he's explaining all this to me, and then they say we're planting a church.
00:18:54And my first question was, is there no church there already?
00:18:58Oh, there's like 10, but we don't have our specific denomination.
00:19:03And I'm scratching my head thinking, wait a minute, how does that work?
00:19:07Yeah.
00:19:08But then take it a step further.
00:19:10So, in the cult churches that we went to, the most common theme is you preach against
00:19:17something.
00:19:18It's not that you preach for Jesus, for Christ.
00:19:21You preach against something, and they would often preach about – preach against the other
00:19:26churches, especially denominations.
00:19:28But in this weird conglomeration of splinter groups, they would even preach against their
00:19:34own ministers, their own kind.
00:19:36So, we left this, and I go to a mainstream church, to what I thought was a healthy church,
00:19:42and then I hear a sermon preaching about a church that's literally like three blocks
00:19:49down the road, and they're preaching about the sign that's on the front of the lawn.
00:19:55And so, you clearly know who they're preaching against.
00:19:57And it was the same denomination of faith.
00:20:00And so, of course.
00:20:02How does this work?
00:20:03So, this was the first time it really hit me.
00:20:07Some of my experiences, I'm starting to realize that even in the mainstream churches, some
00:20:14of them have an unhealthy nature to them.
00:20:18And that was – you don't preach like – you don't teach your people to preach against
00:20:22other people in your same denomination of faith.
00:20:25But then apply that to broader Christianity.
00:20:27So, spreading of YWAM, like you said, if YWAM comes into an area and, hey, we're all
00:20:34going to work together as Christians.
00:20:36Now, maybe there are no Christians.
00:20:37I don't know.
00:20:38But I have heard of organizations like this, maybe not YWAM, going into a place where there
00:20:45are already – there's already a big Christian presence, right?
00:20:49Yeah.
00:20:49And I'm applying everything that I just said to that.
00:20:53How does that make sense?
00:20:54If you're sending missionaries in and there's already missionaries there, well, what is
00:20:59your purpose?
00:21:00It's like – I love your example.
00:21:03It's like, there's already a McDonald's in this town, man.
00:21:06We don't need a Burger King.
00:21:08Right, right.
00:21:09Well, and I think that – I don't want to keep stretching the McDonald's franchise metaphor,
00:21:18but just in one last sense, I do think that it's in that.
00:21:22Like, let's say, you know, someone who's running the McDonald's franchise is like, we
00:21:27need to feed all of America.
00:21:30And it's like, well, no, there are restaurants and there's places all over the United States.
00:21:36Like, you don't need McDonald's to be the thing that feeds them.
00:21:40Like, the only way that you get fed is not through this, like, one-chain restaurant.
00:21:46But that's the mentality that is similarly, like – and say that, you know, you then
00:21:53put McDonald's in this small-town area.
00:21:57Well, what does it do?
00:21:58It drives out and it makes, like, the restaurants that are there, the mom-and-pop places, like,
00:22:06it drives them out.
00:22:08Like, small-town suburban America is all franchises.
00:22:12Now, it's all of these, like, franchise restaurants because all the small restaurants have been
00:22:18pushed out because of these franchises that can come in and cut costs and do it cheaper
00:22:23and more unhealthy, quite literally.
00:22:27And not to, you know, get my – that's a whole different political issue.
00:22:32But I think it's a good metaphor of, like, there is this sort of laddering doctrine that
00:22:40is very – we've talked about it being, like, sort of like that unhealthy food in the
00:22:47past.
00:22:48We've used that metaphor in the past because it's, like, it satiates only for a second.
00:22:54It's very, like, alluring.
00:22:58It tastes good for a minute, but then it burns people out.
00:23:01And a lot of these – the IHOPs, the YWAMs of the world, they're, I mean, they're built
00:23:07around bringing people in and then spitting them out and then bringing new people in because
00:23:13it's just not sustainable.
00:23:15You can't have this sort of healthy, long-term, sustainable growth because it's so radical.
00:23:26And, I mean, especially with – when you have in the 80s and 90s, you're prophesying
00:23:31about the end times that's going to happen in 2015.
00:23:34You know, you have to have a whole new base of people that you're turning through by 2015
00:23:41because everybody who was in there in the 80s and 90s is going to be like, we've already
00:23:45heard this shit.
00:23:46This is the same prophecy, different – you know, it's the same story just looped with,
00:23:52like, different dates and – which is a whole new thing.
00:23:57Like, it is so funny.
00:23:59When I, like, first started criticizing the International House of Prayer more publicly
00:24:02in 2023 or 24, just a couple of years ago, there were definitely people who were like,
00:24:10who is this guy?
00:24:11What's his – you know?
00:24:12And it's like, how are the Hartleys involved with the International House of Prayer?
00:24:16And it was just like, um, who are you?
00:24:20And we were – not to say that we were, like, huge or a particularly big deal, the Hartleys
00:24:28family was, but it just was like, we were a part of that 90s, early 2000s community that
00:24:35helped build it.
00:24:36And, like, I know – like, I grew up there and I know all of the people, all of the leaders,
00:24:40the Alan Hoods, the – obviously, Mike Bickle, but, like, all of the secondary, the Stuart
00:24:47Greaves and the Greaves family, like, that – I grew up with all of them.
00:24:51But there was this sort of sense, and when the scandal was coming out, there was some
00:24:57of the old guard, new guard, sort of, those who had been there, been burnt out by IHOP
00:25:02and had left, and then were coming back to, like, criticize how it's like that.
00:25:07And there's been a lot of people who were like, well, if you're not a part of IHOP,
00:25:10you have no place to criticize it.
00:25:12And it was like, no, we were a part of IHOP.
00:25:15That's why we are criticizing, because we've been through this process.
00:25:20We were – we got burned or abused in more extreme – like, burned is probably an understatement
00:25:27for a lot of the experiences that people have had.
00:25:29But anyway, so all that to say is that it is this sort of, like, burns bright and quick
00:25:37and burns out the people who are used with it.
00:25:41And what this does is that the first thing, the first, like, red flag for these cult communities
00:25:49is local church congregations.
00:25:54And I can – you can find this with Bethel, you can find this with YWAM, you can find
00:25:58this with IHOP, but every time, even an iteration of these, so even not just the, like, main YWAM
00:26:07base, but several YWAM bases, every time they started getting big, there's an outcry from
00:26:14local pastors, local Christian pastors in those communities.
00:26:19Those are the first people who raised the red flag of, like, ooh, this is not good.
00:26:26It's because they're the first ones who see the IHOP or this latter rain, you know, church
00:26:33pops up, brings a bunch of people in, does it quickly without, like, thinking about disrupting
00:26:42the sort of local community, doesn't think about the community that they're ministering
00:26:50to, because why would you?
00:26:51It's about the end times.
00:26:52It's about this much greater vision.
00:26:54Who cares about the local politics of Joplin, Missouri, or wherever you are?
00:27:01And I don't mean politics in, like, a capital P politics.
00:27:05I mean politics and just, like, the ethos of the populace, like, what is going on with
00:27:13the people, who cares about the food banks or the different things that are already being
00:27:20established, or the Methodist church that has been there since, you know, 1910, who has
00:27:27established, like, a great connection with the local community and whatnot.
00:27:32Who cares if you're disrupting that, because it's all for the greater good of God and the
00:27:39glory of God, and it's much more radical, and it's impatient.
00:27:43You know, it's a very impatient doctrine.
00:27:45It's a very, the Lord is coming at any given moment, and we have to be ready.
00:27:52I remember one of the teachings at YWAM that I remember hearing, I forget who, it might have
00:28:01been Andy Byrd, who said this, or I can't remember who it was, but one of the teachings
00:28:08at YWAM, and I maybe have given this metaphor before on the podcast, but they gave the metaphor
00:28:13of, like, if you were in a burning building, and you were in an apartment complex, and you
00:28:19realized that your apartment, the complex was on fire.
00:28:24When you were leaving, would you, like, quietly knock on doors and, and, like, slip notes under
00:28:31your neighbor's doors to, like, warn them of the fire?
00:28:35No, you would break down the door, and you would drag them out.
00:28:38If they didn't see the fire, who cares?
00:28:40You're saving their lives.
00:28:42And I think that that is such a good example of what people in the latter rain movement think
00:28:48that they are doing.
00:28:49They think that they're going and breaking down doors, and they're doing it because there's
00:28:55a fire in the building.
00:28:57But largely, the fires in the building are entirely manufactured.
00:29:03There are prophecies that are not real.
00:29:06They are healing movements that are not real.
00:29:09They are political strife that's not real.
00:29:13You know, there's a lot of manufactured political, like, you know, these immigrants are coming
00:29:19to kill you and, you know, eat your children and all, like, there's a lot of, like, fear
00:29:28mongering and miracle mongering.
00:29:31I don't know if that's a word, but I'm going to start using it.
00:29:36And, and so, going back to the point that I was making is it's these local churches, pastors
00:29:42of local churches, and I can show you some of the receipts on this, even Ernie Gruen,
00:29:48who called out Mike Bickle back in the 90s, did it because they saw this sort of, like,
00:29:58you're disrupting the ecosystem.
00:30:00You're disrupting this local community.
00:30:02And like you said, there are already churches there.
00:30:06Like, you don't have to go plant churches in Kansas City, Missouri.
00:30:10Everybody there is already Christian, you know, unless your goal is not to evangelize,
00:30:19but it's to radicalize.
00:30:21Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of
00:30:26modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe
00:30:32movements into the new apostolic reformation?
00:30:34You 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, and
00:30:54digital versions of each book.
00:30:56You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
00:31:02movements.
00:31:02If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute
00:31:08button at the top.
00:31:09And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening
00:31:15to or watching.
00:31:16On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:31:21I'm so glad you brought that up in the way that you did.
00:31:24So, whenever I take a step back and I look at all of this, one of the things that I've
00:31:29realized is that the cult influence, the cult influence goes far beyond the cults.
00:31:35And you start to see it even in mainstream.
00:31:37But in the cults, one of the things that they do is they want to shift the gospel, basically
00:31:44flip it upside down, where the gospel becomes a gospel of, I'm going to correct you.
00:31:49And so, even their sermon structures are preaching against something, like I said, when you're
00:31:54in these groups.
00:31:56And you can almost, you can name any, like in the New Apostolic Reformation, name something
00:32:01and then go listen to about 10 other sermons.
00:32:03You're going to find that they're preaching at something rather than preaching to help change
00:32:08things.
00:32:08Well, that mentality, I think, is the underlying problem of all of this.
00:32:13Because if you are, no matter what denomination you are in, I understand the differences between
00:32:21the denominations.
00:32:22I know I probably over-exaggerated that.
00:32:25But people have things that are very important to them.
00:32:29And so, they want to focus on that because that's their level of importance.
00:32:33Methodists, for example, one of their primary missions is to help feed people.
00:32:38It's their methods, right?
00:32:40They want to be known by their methods.
00:32:42And I have no problem with this.
00:32:45My wife was, even we for a while were attending the Methodist Church.
00:32:50Even before this, my wife was helping out with the missions to help feed the homeless in the
00:32:56city.
00:32:56That's a good thing.
00:32:57I think every church should do this, right?
00:32:59Yeah.
00:32:59And that's their mission.
00:33:01But what has happened is, because everyone, not everyone, but because many people are
00:33:07influenced to think of the gospel as a gospel of me correcting you, then whenever you have
00:33:15these differences in the denominations, they start to indoctrinate people to think that
00:33:20they're a different type of Christian that is slightly better than the other ones.
00:33:25Right, right.
00:33:26Maybe they're not cultish.
00:33:26Maybe they're not destructive, anything like this.
00:33:30But there is that mentality.
00:33:31And like the example that I gave, that church down the road with the sign on the door, you
00:33:36saw what they're preaching.
00:33:38We don't preach that.
00:33:40Right.
00:33:40When you get that mentality, once it gets to the level where a minister is saying it,
00:33:45who has narcissism or some mental health disorder causing that, well, there are people that
00:33:52are receiving this in a way where they don't shut off critical thinking.
00:33:57And unfortunately, there are many people that just accept it as the gospel.
00:34:02You know, this is a minister saying it.
00:34:03It's our gospel.
00:34:04Well, take that and apply it to what you just said about sending YWAM, these organizations
00:34:11overseas, and also apply it to the burning building.
00:34:15So when they send missionaries out, like I said, there are churches galore that are sending
00:34:22missionaries out.
00:34:23And I have heard stories of missionaries going into a certain area, and they had trouble working
00:34:29because of the other missionaries in the same area.
00:34:32Yeah.
00:34:32None of it makes any sense, man.
00:34:34So the burning building example, picture me as a redneck yahoo who sees that there's
00:34:42a fire down the street, and I run with my axe and my water hose.
00:34:46While I get there, did I plan for where am I going to hook up my water hose?
00:34:50Do I have a sufficient water supply?
00:34:53I'm a little guy.
00:34:54I'm not prepared for this, right?
00:34:56Well, many of these groups, if they were to be working all together as all the missionaries
00:35:02in a collaborative unit, think of the change they could bring.
00:35:06But you find that these cults will send small groups of people, and I'm actually of the
00:35:13opinion that it's more intended for the members than it is the people they're sent to help.
00:35:18If I can give them a mission, they feel important, and they'll stay in the cult.
00:35:22So they send this group of people, they're unprepared, they may not have the supplies
00:35:28they need, they may not have the strategy they need, and so they're starting to watch other
00:35:32people who are in other missionaries from other churches, and their strategy's working better,
00:35:37so they phone back home, hey, those guys have a water hose and a water supply.
00:35:42Now, I'm talking about a fire here, but they're doing this in ways of even the gospel, like
00:35:51there are not enough Bibles, there are not enough people who are trained in a certain
00:35:54area.
00:35:56This particular community has a problem with this certain sin.
00:36:00Do we have anybody who's familiar with this?
00:36:03Or maybe it's mental health, whatever it is.
00:36:05If you're not organized and prepared and you're just randomly sending people, what do you get
00:36:11when you're finished with this, you get a bigger mess than what was there to begin with?
00:36:15Well, and I like your sort of continuation of that analogy of the burning building because
00:36:20it's like, yeah, it's sending people who are ill-equipped to the burning building who
00:36:26don't even know where the exits are and who aren't prepared, and you then have this issue
00:36:33of multiple people from multiple different churches coming into the metaphorical apartment
00:36:39complex screaming about the fire, and they're all saying to go different directions.
00:36:45And so, like, you know, then it becomes just an issue of who's screaming the loudest.
00:36:51And so, I think that when we're talking about, like, initially when we first started talking
00:36:57today, there's sort of this conversation about branding and church branding and the issues
00:37:03of needing to, like, differentiate yourself from the church down the street through branding
00:37:11and it's kind of the problem.
00:37:15This is not just, like, a problem in the New Apostolic Reformation.
00:37:19This is not at all a problem exclusively to the New Apostolic Reformation.
00:37:24This is a problem just with churches in America and Western culture in general is that you need
00:37:30to, like, it's all about funding, so if you can't raise the funds, you can't buy the church,
00:37:35you know, or you can't give money to the minister and you can't pay for a budget to advertise your
00:37:47things.
00:37:47Like, it's all about money and it's all about needing money in both a sinister way and just
00:37:53a practical way.
00:37:54And so, you have all of these churches who are really having to work on their brands
00:37:59to separate themselves and be like, okay, there's a dozen churches within, you know, a mile of
00:38:06me.
00:38:07If you're in any metropolitan city in the United States, like, or any metropolitan area in the
00:38:13United States, there's probably a half dozen churches within a few miles of you.
00:38:19And so, there's this, like, how do you make sure that people want to go to your church
00:38:27versus the church down the road?
00:38:29And that's a huge problem.
00:38:31But this is where, this is sort of the warning.
00:38:35Latter-range churches are always going to win that battle or not at least, maybe not always
00:38:39win that, but they have the leg up.
00:38:42And it's the same with marketing.
00:38:44Like, if you are a, you know, a restaurant down the road and you're fighting against
00:38:51the, like, McDonald's that has a national brand, or if you're fighting against someone
00:38:55who's, like, using all sorts of advertising tricks and in-your-face sort of, like, intense
00:39:03things using, you know, sex sells and having all this sort of stuff, like, you're going to
00:39:08be in this position where you're, like, if your advertising isn't as good as the church
00:39:14down the road or the restaurant down the road, I'm mixing metaphors here, but you're going
00:39:20to lose your people.
00:39:21And, but, like, the latter rain message is so much more intense than the, you know, mainline
00:39:31Christian, Baptist, Methodist, Universalist, whatever, like, teaching.
00:39:40If there's this, if one church is, like, being, like, live a good, humble life, be, give to
00:39:48the poor, you know, do X, Y, and Z, come on Sundays, give 10% of your tithe.
00:39:56This is, like, sort of cultural.
00:39:59That appeals to a lot of people, but this new church comes in banging on the drums and
00:40:04being, like, there's a revival coming, and it's going to happen in this city, and people
00:40:08are getting healed, and you know your niece who has this disease, like, she could be healed
00:40:13too, and, you know, your grandmother who passed away, she could have been healed, and, you
00:40:19know, speaking with the dead, like, I heard your grandmother came and visited me in a dream,
00:40:23and she's told me this.
00:40:24And then you have the magicians, like my father, who are false prophets, who are manufacturing
00:40:33things and outwardly deceiving people and saying, hey, I actually know your name, and I know your
00:40:39birthday, and I know the address, and God knows me, your church, your pastor, back at
00:40:45your church, he doesn't even remember your name.
00:40:47You've been going there for 20 years, and he forgets your name all the time, but God knows
00:40:52your name, and I know your address, and all this sort of stuff.
00:40:56Like, they're always going to win the branding war, because it's just more exciting, and it's
00:41:03more intense, and they target, who do they target?
00:41:07Target youth and old people.
00:41:10Like, it's either the young adults, or with, like, fear-mongering stuff, it's the older and
00:41:17more vulnerable population of individuals using AI to generate these prophecies and stuff like
00:41:24that, and that should be a whole other topic that we've focused on the youth, but at some
00:41:32point, we should talk about the way that it also stirs up, like, vulnerable elderly populations.
00:41:39But yeah, I think that it's just, it's clearly this situation in which it is a process of
00:41:46radicalization, and it is a process of trying to capture what is already, from a Christian
00:41:54standpoint, already territory where the gospel is being spread, and it's way more about seizing
00:42:01control ends than it is about actually saving people from whatever fire.
00:42:09Like I said, in the end, it really comes down to many of the missions, I suspect, are more
00:42:14intended for the people they're sending than the people they're sending to, because like you said,
00:42:19there's already people everywhere. You almost can't find a place in the world where there's not
00:42:25already a Christian presence within some traveling distance. I understand that there are some remote
00:42:31countries where this can happen, but if you organize properly and you have a proper team,
00:42:38many of the situations might turn out far better, and I think many just don't realize that.
00:42:45But the cults do have an edge, and the one, I was hoping you would say this, but the one thing that
00:42:51goes beyond what you said is they also appeal to the itching ears, because it's not like the normal
00:42:58gospel where you're just teaching Jesus saves. Jesus saves, and we have this secret. Do you want
00:43:03to come hear our secret? That's what it is, man. And especially in the developing nations,
00:43:09wait, they have a secret? I want to know their secret. Is their secret better than the shaman or
00:43:15the witch doctor in my town? And I mean, literally, that's how latter rain was spreading. In fact,
00:43:21latter rain, you can go back through Branham sermons, and he is preaching a message that would
00:43:26really appeal to people who were in the witch doctor camps, because he's doing things like
00:43:31metaphysics, where he's got bracelets moving on their own, and wow, that's magic, man. That's better
00:43:38than my witch doctor can do. So they're entering in these places, and they're appealing to the itching
00:43:43years. And I have to, you know, I've went back and I've looked at some of the locations where
00:43:48the, not just Branham, but many of the missionaries were sent, and there's already, like, you know,
00:43:55many of them are cults, unfortunately, but there's already other presences there. So why did they send
00:44:01them? What was their mission? And that's where, in the beginning, I said it might lead towards
00:44:05conspiracy theories. I suspect that their missions, if there were to be a mission, was beyond just
00:44:12manipulating the crowds that they're sending in the gospel. You look at, you know, Branham's campaign
00:44:18manager was a member of the Fellowship Foundation, the family, the one who goes to the National Prayer
00:44:24Breakfast, and the one who's, you know, this group is strongly influencing Washington. Well, if you go
00:44:30back in the newspapers and you understand that history, they're sending these men on these missions,
00:44:37and women, some women, not many, but they're sending them on missions, and they're establishing
00:44:42similar organizations in other countries, especially in the developing nations. History's
00:44:48kind of forgotten that because they were developing at the time, but some of those nations have now
00:44:53developed. And so they've got this very, very strong cult presence in nations that have, you know,
00:44:59a complete infrastructure. Now the cult presence is strong, as strong as some of the denominations are
00:45:06here in the United States. So was it a mission for planting for Jesus, or were they really planting
00:45:12to establish their franchise? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Establish control and dominion in these places.
00:45:19But also, you mentioned it, and we've talked about it before, but, you know, part of the reason of
00:45:27sending people out is, I mean, there's many, many different sort of agendas that we can kind of pinpoint
00:45:35of why you would want these plants all over the world of these different church plants.
00:45:45But one thing, have you ever heard of, I don't know how exactly they call it, but Nico, it's like a thing
00:45:54in YWAM. It's called Nico. No. Um, but, um, and it doesn't stand, it's like a Greek word. I never went
00:46:02on this. Um, and I, but I knew people at the, um, University of the Nations Kona where I was at,
00:46:10who also had either done it in different locations or whatever, but it's basically, there's this method
00:46:18that several different YWAM, um, locations still do and training centers do where they will send
00:46:28out young students for five to six days, um, in the wilderness, either in the wilderness or in a,
00:46:37uh, you know, rural area or an urban dense population where there isn't a whole lot of Western,
00:46:46um, influence and it, and they basically send them with no information, no real supplies. Um,
00:46:55and you're supposed to go on treasure hunts for God where you're just supposed to be led for the
00:47:02spirit. It's, it's this idea of like, throw the baby in the water and let it swim on itself and throw
00:47:09them into the deep end and, and, and, and see them swimming. And so whether it be in the wilderness
00:47:16or whether it be in like the, the, the urban population, you know, urban high density areas
00:47:25where you don't know anyone, which feels a little bit like the wilderness and feels just as terrifying
00:47:31as the wilderness in some respects, if you like, don't know the people there. Um, and you have to
00:47:36rely on God. It's like a faith act thing. So this isn't even, this is like the missions
00:47:42with the missions part removed, um, because you're not really sharing the gospel. I think that that's
00:47:48part of it is that you're supposed to meet people with this sort of active faith. And I ate this idea
00:47:55up when I was in my like early twenties, because I was like, I felt very adventurous. It was just like,
00:48:01let God lead you. And so I did with a few different people, our own like mini things where
00:48:08we would do this. And like in India, I kind of just went off for, uh, on, on excursions where I was
00:48:15like, I'm just going to lead wherever the spirit leads, or I'm just going to go wherever the spirit
00:48:20leads me. And I'm praying where it's in India and I don't have a cell phone back then. And I don't have
00:48:28location, you know, fortunately India, the plenty of people speak English. And if I can just be like,
00:48:33oh, okay, here's a taxi, get me back to here. I'm fine. You know? Um, and it's cheap to get around.
00:48:40So like, I'm, I'm going to have enough, uh, money in my pocket. But a lot of times what they would do
00:48:47on these like more extreme excursions is they wouldn't have any money. So you couldn't rely
00:48:52on sort of money to get you there. And you had to rely on people and the generosity of people and
00:48:59everything like that. Um, well, and I want to look this up and I, I want to make sure that this
00:49:04story, but like is, uh, I was trying to research it a little bit and maybe in a later podcast,
00:49:11we'll, I'll talk about it more. Um, or if anybody who's listening knows more about this and can reach
00:49:16out, but, um, someone passed away, um, died during one of these excursions. And, um, this became,
00:49:27it became a little bit more taboo. And I remember being in YOM during some of this period of time
00:49:33where this happened, where it was like, oh, maybe we shouldn't tell people that we're doing this,
00:49:39but this was the mentality. This was like, the idea is that you throw them into the fire and let them
00:49:47learn and grow on their own and have God support them. And like, I do know too, like I, this is also
00:49:55what's really hard because I know a lot of people who have gone on similar journeys and they, it went
00:50:01fine for them because they were like, oh, I just want to have faith in God. And then they met someone
00:50:08and that person was like really helpful to them. And they, you know, said, come and, you know, and so
00:50:15you can learn a lot about like the goodness of people by doing excursions like this or, and of course,
00:50:22you're going to hyper-spiritualize that and be like, God sent that person to me. But it's such
00:50:27an unnecessarily dangerous thing to do. And it's like people who make it through without any scars
00:50:37say, have nothing but positive things to say about the experience. But the people who don't make it
00:50:45through, leave YWAP never to return because it was so traumatic for them. And there isn't that sort
00:50:52of like, you know, the, you know, the image of the, there was like certain bombers that were being
00:51:03sent out in, I think this is World War II. I might be mixing it up, but there was bombers being sent out
00:51:09and they were coming back and people were looking at where there were bullet holes in the planes and
00:51:16they were putting, they were reinforcing those areas because it was like, oh, these are the typically
00:51:22the areas that get shot because they were looking at the bullet holes and they're like, we need to
00:51:27reinforce these areas. And then more planes were being shot down and they were like, what's,
00:51:34what's going on? Our reinforcement isn't helping. And it's like, no, you, you don't want to reinforce
00:51:39the areas that have bullet holes. You want to reinforce the areas that don't have bullet holes
00:51:44because like the areas that get shot that aren't, you know, that if you have a bullet hole in this
00:51:52particular area, the plane's probably going down. So you need to look at the planes that went down,
00:51:57not the planes that returned, because you're only looking at planes that returned and not the ones that
00:52:02were shot down. And going back to this whole idea of, of the way that these NAR movements churn through
00:52:13people, they do it where they churn through people and then they spit them to the side and then they
00:52:19leave the community and then they build their sort of system to ignore any criticism. Like the ex-YWAM-er
00:52:28who's just bitter, who talks about YWAM, they just ignore what there is being said. The person who,
00:52:35you know, went on one of these NECO excursions and got sick and of course, or did, you know,
00:52:43had to go to the hospital and YWAM didn't pay for that, you know, and, and lost a bunch of money.
00:52:50They're just bitter and they move them, they cast them aside. So it's, it's sort of reaffirming and
00:52:55reinforcing only the planes that have returned sort of thing and ignoring what is actually going on
00:53:02here. Um, so I don't remember the exact point I was trying to make with that, but that was
00:53:09thought of apt metaphor for this whole thing. It's really ironic too, when you think about it,
00:53:15because this movement grew and developed from Pentecostalism, you can trace its history directly
00:53:20back to the birth of Pentecostalism. Most people refer to Azusa street as that birth, but it has a
00:53:27deeper, more, more rich history, which is a more odd history. But Frank Sanford was a very incredibly,
00:53:39I'm not going to say powerful, but well-respected man. He had set up a Bethel, uh, I think it was
00:53:46called Bethel, Shiloh. Yeah. So Shiloh school. And it was, it was a world famous, massive, massive
00:53:53school. There were people from all over the world coming to see it because he was, believe it or not,
00:53:58before Parham did it, they had speaking in tongues in this school. They were teaching Christian identity.
00:54:04So this was part of the spread of that. And, um, what's her name? Is it, it might've,
00:54:10might be a millionaire Earhart. Somebody flew over this in one of the early planes, flew over the school
00:54:16and thought it was the, the governor's mansion because it was, it was just massive. Right.
00:54:22Yeah. But anyway, he decides that he's much like we're describing, we're going to go on a mission
00:54:28and it's more about the people than it is the mission because his cult is kind of imploding
00:54:33at this point. Sends them on these two boats. The history is on the website if you want to read it.
00:54:38But the interesting part of that mission is as they're going from country to country with this
00:54:43handful of people on two boats. He's preaching at countries, not in, but at, you know, float the
00:54:53boats up to it, preach at it. If they did, they surely had to have gone ashore. Maybe they held a
00:54:58little meeting revival there on shore, but you can't convert a whole nation from one little meeting
00:55:03right there in the shores. Right. So the whole strategy, if you're thinking strategy, this is not
00:55:09a strategy that even he had to have known it was not going to work. But for the sake of the people
00:55:15that were there, they go on this tour, the tragedy hits, the boats, basically two people had, two
00:55:22boats, people had to combine onto one boat. When one boat sank, they came back. They only had enough
00:55:28food and supplies for about a third of the crew. People were dying. And this, this comes back to the
00:55:35United States and he goes to prison. Charles Fox Parham visited this sect because he wanted to
00:55:41learn how to establish his own cult. So he goes there. He also goes to John Alexander Dowie's cult,
00:55:47which we've mentioned. And then he starts, there's this weird event, and most Pentecostals will deny
00:55:57this, but there's this weird event where some lady who's related to Charles Fox Parham starts writing
00:56:04chicken scratch on a piece of paper. You can go to my website, you can type in Charles Fox Parham,
00:56:08you can see this paper. It looks much like a tic-tac-toe game meeting a grade school person
00:56:16who's just scribbling. That's what it looks like. And they said it's Chinese. Now, in today's world,
00:56:21we've all seen Chinese. We know what Chinese looks like. Every Pentecostal who sees this,
00:56:27they will deny, no, that's really Chinese, my brother. No, I've got Chinese friends. That's not even,
00:56:33there's no dialect of Chinese that looks like chicken scratch. But that was what was called
00:56:37writing in tongues. And the writing in tongues predated the speaking in tongues. Now, the chicken
00:56:45scratch, nobody could read it. Even the Chinese people could not read the chicken scratch.
00:56:49Then they started speaking in tongues, thinking that they could evangelize the world. They were going
00:56:55to do the same thing that Frank Sanford did. They send missionaries to the other countries. And much
00:57:02like the chicken scratch that can't be read, they were speaking chicken scratch that could not be
00:57:07heard. So they get there, convert no one, and they come back. That is something in Pentecostal history
00:57:14they don't teach you when you're in a Pentecostal church. This didn't work. What they instead teach
00:57:19you is, this is a language that nobody can hear, my brother. We have to have an interpreter. But that's
00:57:26not how it started. Own your history. If you believe it is of God, and this is talking directly
00:57:32from God, own the history where it didn't start that way. But the point of all of this
00:57:38is, because of the way that Parham established this group, and because of the way that all
00:57:44of the others defend it, this notion that you can send missionaries for the sole purpose of
00:57:50sending them, not that they can do any good whatsoever, but we can send them and by glory
00:57:57to God, it's good that we sent them. That's really the purpose of it is to send, not to
00:58:03actually have any fruit from it. Now what happens is when there is fruit, say that it works out,
00:58:11say that they send people and, I don't know, some soul gets saved and then it spreads through
00:58:16a whole community. That's a good thing. I'm not saying it's bad. But think how much more
00:58:21broad in scope it could be if it were organized. Let's not send missionaries who speak this
00:58:28thing that they're calling Chinese that not a single Chinese person can understand it.
00:58:32Let's send some people who actually speak Chinese into the country and let's spread this thing.
00:58:37What's interesting is had they done it correctly, Pentecostal might be the major religion in
00:58:42China, who knows?
00:58:43Right. Yeah, well, and this has been a theme that you and I have talked about so many different
00:58:48times, like whether it be the phony PhDs or just the cutting corners of the Pentecostal world
00:58:59through spiritual spirituality, like the, I've talked to many times about like, if you want
00:59:06to heal people, go to school and learn how to be a doctor. Like the Lord has given us a good brain
00:59:15and it's like the ability to write things down and to study things. And like, you can be a good
00:59:23study doctor and you can bring about a lot of good by just learning, you know, to
00:59:31learning medicine. Or if you want to share the love of God in China, learn how to speak Mandarin.
00:59:42It'll take you a couple of years, if not, you know, more, but invest in that and then go there
00:59:50instead of like, six month period where you're at this discipleship training school, I'm picking
00:59:58on YWAM a little bit today, but, you know, six month training school and then be sent to this area
01:00:06and then wander around and be the person who needs to be saved. Like you end up being the person who
01:00:13needs help rather than helping the people because you're just going off. And like the,
01:00:19the, the, the Sanford and his boat, like so many people died and were malnourished on that boat.
01:00:26Like they were the ones who needed to be evangelized to like whatever groups they were going to,
01:00:31it should have been the, you know, Hindus in India or whoever were like, come and eat. Like we,
01:00:37well, we've been called to help you because you guys are going to die without our help. Like,
01:00:43um, and I, I think it's just, it's so egotistical and it's so impatient, the world of the, the latter
01:00:52reign of, of this rhetoric of it's gotta be now and it's gotta be miraculous and it's gotta be big.
01:01:00And, um, you know, I, I am empathetic to all of the individuals who get sucked into that. Um,
01:01:08but, um, especially when the, the horror stories of how that's gone bad are just not told. And this
01:01:15is kind of like you were saying with Pentecostalism, just in a larger sense, know your history. Like
01:01:21these, I think that places like the international house of prayer would be way less enticing if people
01:01:33knew the stories of Frank Sanford and of, um, Parham and of the, the deliverance, um, uh, session
01:01:46at the Parhamites, um, where a woman died and had all her bones broken. I remember that was the first
01:01:53exposure that I had to your work was reading about, um, Parham and the Parhamites and, and, um,
01:01:59the, uh, abusive things that were going on, um, there. Um, if people like, but I was, you know,
01:02:08that was only a couple of years ago that I was not just exposed to your work, but just exposed to that
01:02:14story in general. Um, and I grew up in this community. I grew up with Shiloh and Bethel,
01:02:20like places, places, not just like Bethel church, but we named several of the locations in the
01:02:30international house of prayer sort of, uh, ecosystem. We named them after her, uh, similar
01:02:38biblical concepts that had been used in the past. Like, like, like there was the Shiloh center and
01:02:43hearing and reading about the Shiloh center with, um, it was Sanford was connected with
01:02:50Shiloh, right? I mixed up who had what. Yeah. It's all such a weird mess. Sanford had Shiloh,
01:02:58uh, Parham planted Bethel school and Dowie had Zion. That's right. Right. And, and these are all
01:03:05the names of the, the, like, I went to all of those different schools. Like there was Zion school.
01:03:11There was, uh, uh, uh, well, there wasn't Shiloh school, but there was a Shiloh at IHOP. And then
01:03:17there was a Bethel school. Like if we had just known the history and even, even if you're,
01:03:27are still believing that there were miracles in those times, like if it, it's not just that the,
01:03:33the miracles are exaggerated, it's the miracles are exaggerated and all of the horror stories
01:03:40are buried. And people like you and I, who talk about them are, are labeled, you know, uh,
01:03:47all sorts of things. I don't know what they label us anymore. I, you know, all I, I, people,
01:03:55well, nevermind that I was going to go on a tangent there, but, um, it's just the same method. And it's,
01:04:01it's just so clear how it continues to, to propagate and, um, grow and, and, uh, the kind of final
01:04:09thought that I have on this, um, too, is it provides, I always grew up with a lot of crazy
01:04:17stories at the international house of prayer. Um, and people doing like, there was a story of a
01:04:24couple who had malnourished their child and the child died. And the, the child was like, they were
01:04:31fasting and they were having the child fast and, and the child died of malnourishment. And they were
01:04:38associated with IHOP, but it was IHOP distanced themselves from this family. And the idea was
01:04:45like, well, IHOP just sort of attracts the crazies was, um, the rhetoric within the world.
01:04:53Like that wasn't, that was what we sort of the defenders of IHOP. That's what we said is that,
01:05:00well, well, you know, IHOP's a bright light and it sort of attracts the crazies.
01:05:04Well, that's true. It is, it did attract a lot of the crazies because it, it gave ways to structure
01:05:15and institutionalize in some respects pathologies. Like for the narcissistic, um, people who wanted
01:05:25to build their own cults and have a small calm commune follow them. The international house of
01:05:32prayer provides you the perfect rhetoric. And, and this is my last point. If you look at what it
01:05:38takes to, to launch your own house of prayer or your own YWAM, it is crazy simple. Like with YWAM,
01:05:48they they're like, as long as you know, someone who's within the world, I don't know if I might
01:05:54myself be able to just like go launch a YWAM right now. Um, there just isn't because I was with YWAM,
01:06:01but I don't even know if you have to do a DTS to launch your own YWAM school, but there's like a few
01:06:07different qualifications. And it's basically just like, as long as someone within the circle can
01:06:13vouch for you and that you are financially independent, that you can establish your own
01:06:19and, and, and you're doing it with the purpose of, of doing it permanently and not just like
01:06:25popping up and, and being there for a couple of years. And it's like, uh, I can understand how a lot
01:06:31of cults are popping up in YWAM's name because it is very easy to just be a part of this organization
01:06:40and have the brand with you. I mean, it is quite literally million times easier to start your own
01:06:47YWAM than to like join the McDonald franchise. So, you know, you and I could do that. We could
01:06:55start a YWAM. We could print off a bunch of these writing in tongues from Charles Fox Barham's history
01:07:01and pass them out and say, this is the spirit of God written in Chinese. And it would actually be
01:07:06to the effect of leading people out of cults because they would see it and they would immediately
01:07:11they would say, that's not Chinese. You guys are freaks. And we've come full circle. It's much
01:07:18like whenever I was in the cult and I said, did you know God sent a prophet? And he said,
01:07:23but did you know you're a freak? There's a reason why that they don't share the writing in tongues
01:07:29these days. I'll just say it like that and, and not say anything more. If you want to believe it is
01:07:34of God, that's your opinion. But in my opinion, it's not Chinese. And in the opinion of my Chinese
01:07:40friends, there is no dialect of Chinese that's like this. So, so much more we could talk about.
01:07:46I'm like I said, in the beginning, I'm crazy fascinated by all of this. And I know I'm kind
01:07:51of joking and laughing the different denominations. I understand it. Yeah, it's just to somebody who
01:07:58didn't grow up in it. It is very confusing when you see it. But then like, like the path that you
01:08:04led us, when you go down and you focus on these little tiny groups that invade for no purpose
01:08:10whatsoever, having no good effect whatsoever, maybe a little bit of effect in some cases,
01:08:16none of it makes any sense. And when you take a step back from all of it, you have to ask, well,
01:08:21what is the reason why all of this is doing it? And maybe that's the why, the why in YWAM.
01:08:28Yeah, that's good. Yeah. And just to tease, we talked about this at the beginning before we're
01:08:34doing it, but just to tease for people, I think a really, really good example of this sort of like
01:08:40the cult franchise and the way that like the IHOP rhetoric can then be used by smaller cults.
01:08:48There's a really, really good and heartbreaking example of that with
01:08:54a small sort of splinter group that was associated with the International House of Prayer where a young
01:09:02woman died. And next session that you and I are on, we're going to talk about that. And I'm looking
01:09:11forward to talking about that because I think that, I think it is also good for people to recognize,
01:09:16I'm not just, we're not just talking. This is not just our perspective. Like there are very specific
01:09:23examples of how this can go wrong. We're not, we're not future. We're not, we're not speaking
01:09:29prophetically in this sense of what could be like, we have seen a lot of the disaster and we've seen the
01:09:36way that IHOP and YWAM and latter rain rhetoric has been turned into like some pretty nasty cults.
01:09:45And so we'll talk about one specific example of that next time.
01:09:48Well, I look forward to it. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information,
01:09:52you can check us out on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the dark
01:09:57side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to
01:10:02the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:10:15The NAR timeframe
01:10:15The NAR 108
01:10:24Ending
01:10:32And
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