- 4 months ago
John and Chino unpack the origins and dangers of “positive confession” theology, focusing on how it shaped the teachings of Hobart Freeman and influenced groups like Faith Assembly and William Branham’s movement. Drawing comparisons to fictional stories like The Invention of Lying and Liar Liar, they illustrate how an insistence on speaking only faith-filled words—regardless of reality—becomes a manipulative tool that undermines common sense and critical thinking. Chino explains how this theology created a culture where admitting illness or hardship was taboo, using coded language like “trial” or “missed it” instead of describing real events.
As the discussion deepens, they examine how the doctrine evolved from its early healing revival roots, heavily influenced by Kenneth Hagin and others, into a broader system of spiritual control. John reflects on his personal experience with the teaching, sharing how it disrupted relationships and created an environment of denial, guilt, and spiritual performance. They describe the brainwashing effect of forcing people to speak what they know isn’t true, and how cult-specific jargon reinforced group loyalty. The episode closes with a sobering critique of the real-world harm caused by misapplied theology and a call for honesty, balance, and grace.
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Positive Confession and the Invention of Lying
05:06 Hobart Freeman and the Roots of PTAC
08:12 Encouraging Positivity vs. Enforcing Denial
10:48 The Sinking Boat Analogy and Real Consequences
13:59 Faith Assembly Reunion and Reflections on Survivors
15:10 Freeman’s “Blue Book” and Materialistic Confession
17:52 Living in Victory vs. Denying Reality
20:02 Doctors, Insurance, and Financial Absurdities
22:59 The Five-Step Faith Formula and Early Indoctrination
26:59 Tragic Outcomes of False Promises
28:59 Realizing the Harm and Embarrassment
30:00 Misused Scriptures: Mark 11, Matthew 9, Psalm 23
33:05 The Plagiarized Pamphlet and Academic Dishonesty
36:18 Brainwashing and Group Defensiveness
40:05 Do Words Have Power? Separating God from Man
43:19 Manipulative Stories and Psychosomatic Faith
44:54 Social Impact: Family Friction and Isolation
48:02 Cult Jargon and the Language of Control
52:33 Honesty, Paul’s “I Fear,” and the Freedom to Feel
55:20 Overcorrection: Avoiding TMI in Recovery
58:37 Ripped Verses and Scriptural Misuse
1:01:52 Biblical Sanity vs. Theological Fantasy
1:03:14 Final Reflections: Escape the Sinking Boat
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
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As the discussion deepens, they examine how the doctrine evolved from its early healing revival roots, heavily influenced by Kenneth Hagin and others, into a broader system of spiritual control. John reflects on his personal experience with the teaching, sharing how it disrupted relationships and created an environment of denial, guilt, and spiritual performance. They describe the brainwashing effect of forcing people to speak what they know isn’t true, and how cult-specific jargon reinforced group loyalty. The episode closes with a sobering critique of the real-world harm caused by misapplied theology and a call for honesty, balance, and grace.
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Positive Confession and the Invention of Lying
05:06 Hobart Freeman and the Roots of PTAC
08:12 Encouraging Positivity vs. Enforcing Denial
10:48 The Sinking Boat Analogy and Real Consequences
13:59 Faith Assembly Reunion and Reflections on Survivors
15:10 Freeman’s “Blue Book” and Materialistic Confession
17:52 Living in Victory vs. Denying Reality
20:02 Doctors, Insurance, and Financial Absurdities
22:59 The Five-Step Faith Formula and Early Indoctrination
26:59 Tragic Outcomes of False Promises
28:59 Realizing the Harm and Embarrassment
30:00 Misused Scriptures: Mark 11, Matthew 9, Psalm 23
33:05 The Plagiarized Pamphlet and Academic Dishonesty
36:18 Brainwashing and Group Defensiveness
40:05 Do Words Have Power? Separating God from Man
43:19 Manipulative Stories and Psychosomatic Faith
44:54 Social Impact: Family Friction and Isolation
48:02 Cult Jargon and the Language of Control
52:33 Honesty, Paul’s “I Fear,” and the Freedom to Feel
55:20 Overcorrection: Avoiding TMI in Recovery
58:37 Ripped Verses and Scriptural Misuse
1:01:52 Biblical Sanity vs. Theological Fantasy
1:03:14 Final Reflections: Escape the Sinking Boat
______________________
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 T
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister, and friend, Cheno Ross,
00:00:47pastor and the voice of The Understanding Scripture and Truth by Cheno D. Ross YouTube channel.
00:00:54Cheno, it's good to be back, and hopefully you had a good time at the gathering.
00:00:58I was unable to attend and actually was spending some time in the hospital, so was not able
00:01:05this weekend, but hopefully you had a good time and have a lot to talk about today that
00:01:11I think is going to hit some points that will bring back memories for me that are some good,
00:01:16some bad, some absurd.
00:01:18Well, we certainly missed you, John, this weekend.
00:01:22You're the rock star in the group, believe it or not, or whether you accept it or not,
00:01:29and I just play second fiddle to you.
00:01:32You're the rock star in the group.
00:01:34I wouldn't go that far.
00:01:36I might play some rock here and there, but.
00:01:41So today we're talking about one of my favorite subjects.
00:01:45I don't know if you've seen the movie.
00:01:46There's a movie by, I think Ricky Gervais is the actor, called The Invention of Lying,
00:01:52and it's about this fictional world where nobody has ever, ever told a lie, and Ricky Gervais
00:02:00is, it's somewhat sacrilegious, so it's not that I'm recommending this movie, but anyway,
00:02:06something happens, and he realizes that it's much easier to tell somebody the false thing
00:02:13to make them feel better, and he does, and everybody's just, they've never heard a lie
00:02:19before, so everybody believes what he says, it's a good movie in that the one lie cascades
00:02:25to a bigger lie, to a bigger lie, to a bigger lie, until by the end of the movie, it is so
00:02:31out of control that people are just breaking down his door trying to find out more about
00:02:37this thing that it's, you'd have to see it to understand it, but it is the cascading effect
00:02:43of what happens when you lie.
00:02:45I grew up in a world where my father would, he grilled into me, John, he would say there
00:02:52are two things I hate most in the world, a thief and a liar, and then he had me in this
00:02:57religion that I found was just riddled with lies, and some of which I knew, I could tell
00:03:02that my father had identified, uncovered some of these things, so he himself was living in
00:03:08a world of a lie, telling me that he hated liars, and yet the whole platform was built on this
00:03:14thing called positive confession, which is literally the invention of lying.
00:03:19Well, you do remember, John, that we talked earlier about the Hans Christian Andersen's
00:03:25fable of the emperor and his clothes, which is just a, I mean, it was the name it and claim
00:03:35it positive thinking confession movement, you know, 150 years ago or 200 years ago before
00:03:41it ever came, where you've got these, where you've got these crafty, nifty tradesmen who
00:03:47came in and were able to convince the emperor that they could make him some beautiful clothes,
00:03:54and, but the moral to it all is if you're not spiritual and wise, you can't see what they're
00:04:01doing, and you can't understand what they're saying, and so no one wants to be unspiritual
00:04:07or unwise, so you just agree with whatever the man up front is saying, and you know, they set up
00:04:13their loom, and they were going to weave all of his clothes, and the emperor looked, and his servants
00:04:18looked, and they couldn't see a loom, they couldn't see any thread, they couldn't see any needles,
00:04:23but they were about their craft, and, and then they made this beautiful garment, and they asked
00:04:31him, stretch out your arms, and let us slip this garment on, and he didn't see a garment, but he
00:04:37puts his arms out, and they slip it on, and now he's going to go walk down the street, and you can't
00:04:42say that I don't see anything, because that would be contrary to the spirituality and the wisdom that
00:04:50you're supposed to have, and it takes a child to say, what's wrong with the emperor, he doesn't
00:04:55have any clothes on, so yeah, we're at another of Hobart's favorite and famous borrowed doctrines,
00:05:03I think this did not originate with him, I will borrow a statement from someone who made a comment
00:05:11on one of the earlier podcasts, it was so good, I will probably always borrow this when it comes to
00:05:16Dr. Freeman, and that person said, if Hobart Freeman ever had an original fault, it would die a lonely
00:05:22death, because this came from, you know, things that were before Hobart, everything Hobart got
00:05:30was non-original, he got it from the healing evangelist and the healing revivals before him,
00:05:36definitely got it from Hagen, definitely got it from Copeland, Jerry Savelle,
00:05:41Oral Roberts, you know, Fred Price, all of these people that were the name it and claim it,
00:05:50which you might call for short PTAC, you can just call it PTAC, people probably have never heard of
00:05:56that, but I just say PTAC or PTAC, Positive Thinking and Confession, that's a mouthful to have to always
00:06:05say, so you can just shorten it and say they were a PTAC teacher or PTAC teacher, it was not original
00:06:14to Hobart, but it was definitely a highlight in his ministry, he talked about it all the time,
00:06:21he has lots of messages about it, even his taped messages that are not about that per se,
00:06:28they could be on a theological topic in the Old Testament, he will find opportunity to work that
00:06:37in, and you know, it's one thing, it's one thing to encourage Christian people to be positive and to
00:06:45be hopeful, it's one thing to try to live in a positive mindset, I mean, I think we all would agree
00:06:54that we would rather be positive ourself, and we would rather be around people that are positive,
00:07:02the people that aren't, we generally call them a worry wart, you know, they're just always thinking
00:07:07the sky's gonna fall down, but, you know, it's one thing to encourage Christians to want to live
00:07:17positively, there's nothing wrong with that, I mean, that is not only biblical, that's just good
00:07:23mental health, is to think positively and talk positively, but don't think and speak unrealistically
00:07:31or outside of the bounds of reality, and some people have more to be negative about than other
00:07:39people, so you have to give them a break, they have a lot more going on in their life that's
00:07:44not very positive, and so maybe sometimes they come across negative, but I think this whole business
00:07:50of being positive, thinking positively and speaking positively doesn't really, for the Christian,
00:07:59spring from certain verses in the Bible that say, you better say this, you better not say that,
00:08:06I think it would spring from our overall view of the nature of God, of His sovereignty, of His power,
00:08:12and of His love, and that would tend to make us be positive if we realize God truly is in control
00:08:19of the universe, of the universe, and of my life, and I do trust Him, and He does love me, and He does
00:08:27have the power, and He does have the desire to help me, now that doesn't mean you're never going to be
00:08:32sick or nothing's ever going to go wrong in your life, because that's not either reality or what we find
00:08:39in Scripture. So, it's one thing to encourage people to be positive, it's quite another to turn
00:08:46this into a mechanical doctrine by which you bind people. Those are two different things. When people
00:08:54hear us talking against positive thinking and confession as a message, then they want to attack
00:09:01us and just say, oh, do you believe in negative thinking and negative confession? No, of course not,
00:09:07but it's not an either or here. It's why do we believe in positive thinking and confession?
00:09:13We're not going to do it in a rote, mechanical fashion that you're trying to tell us to do it.
00:09:20We're going to do it because it springs out of our heart, and because most of the time,
00:09:25most of us are feeling positive, and we have good reason to, because God is a sovereign God,
00:09:33and Jesus is still on the throne. But it's another thing to turn that around and make it into something
00:09:39where if you don't watch out, that one word that you said, that one sentence that came out of your
00:09:49mouth, that is going to be your ruin for the day or maybe even for your life.
00:09:55And I just want to reiterate, I'm a very positive thinking person, and in this world that has been
00:10:02created by these religions, it's really hard to separate your mind from the true and the false
00:10:07way of positive thinking. People sometimes merge the two because ministers have merged the two.
00:10:13But if I'm in a boat, and we're in a canoe, and we're having a race, and I've got three people in the
00:10:20boat with me, and we're paddling for all that we have in us to win this race, but we're losing,
00:10:26I'm going to say, come on, boys, we can do it. We're going to win, and I'm going to be pushing
00:10:30all the harder, and they are too. But if that boat were to get a hole in it, and we're in a very rough
00:10:36waters, I would want somebody to say, hey, man, we got a hole in our boat. We're probably not going
00:10:42to win this thing. And if the boat fills with water, and it's actually sinking, I'm going to say
00:10:48immediately, well, we're not going to win this thing because the boat is now sinking.
00:10:52But the way this religion and this platform of positive confession, positive thinking has
00:10:58developed, you're supposed to look at your sinking boat, and everyone in the same boat is supposed
00:11:04to say, we're going to win this race. And the boat's going down to the bottom of the river until
00:11:10it hits rock bottom of the bottom of the river on its way down under the water. You're still saying,
00:11:16we're going to win this race. And everybody knows that that's not true. So what is an effect? It is
00:11:22lying. And there are many, many Bible passages against lying. The one thing that I'll say, and you
00:11:28can go listen to Charles if you want to hear his side of this, but Charles is convinced, and I have
00:11:34come to the same conclusion he has, that to brainwash people, one of the true elements of brainwashing in
00:11:42this sect was the positive confession. Because if you can make them shut off their critical
00:11:47thinking, just to say, even though this boat is fully underwater, we're going to win this race.
00:11:53If you get people to that level of control, you have brainwashed their heads.
00:11:59And by the way, I did see Charles, he did attend the meet and greet and his wife.
00:12:03Um, so it was good to see him there. We wish you were there, but, uh, we had, we had two out of
00:12:09three Charles and I'll say we had the best two out of the three. We were just missing one who stayed
00:12:15behind. Um, yeah. So, yeah. And so you guys that are sinking in the boat, guess what? That's going to
00:12:21be called really soon. If you can't swim, it's going to be called death. And that's exactly what's
00:12:26happened, John, to so many of these people on their way down to the bottom of the lake. They're saying,
00:12:31I'm really don't have cancer, even though my body is, um, eaten up with it. I really don't have
00:12:37diabetes, even though, um, that is the diagnosis and I have stopped taking my insulin. So I now have
00:12:43a hole in my boat. I'm not sinking. I'm not going to die. And unfortunately, you know, so unfortunately
00:12:52they did die. They did sink. And I don't make fun of any of those people at all. I just, I really
00:12:57don't, you know, I just, I try to tell things as plainly as I can. Uh, some of the people that I
00:13:04was able to meet at the meet and greet say, you know, you do talk a real, um, real boldly. You
00:13:11don't hold anything back. And I said, but I hope I'm doing it in a spirit of love and grace. I'm
00:13:17definitely more, I'm more upset with the ministers. I'm not upset with the people at all. You know,
00:13:23we had people, John, from Texas and Tennessee and Kentucky and Indiana and Ohio and Michigan.
00:13:31Those are the States I can think of off the top of my head. And what a, what a great time
00:13:36to get together with people who for, you know, all of these years, literally 40 plus years
00:13:43are the survivors of faith assembly. And I had not, I didn't, when I walk in the room, I don't
00:13:50know a soul. Of course they know me because they see our faces in these podcasts, but I
00:13:55don't, I don't know them. I've talked to or texted or emailed or written to, but I don't
00:14:03know them and I see them and I get to meet them and I go, Oh my word, you guys are just
00:14:09the sweetest people ever. You know, your faith assembly ministers who changed their garments
00:14:15and change your address and walked away and moved to another state for another group. I said,
00:14:19it was their loss. It's not your loss. You haven't lost anything. It was their loss to give up the
00:14:28most, um, godly Christ honoring people who are hungry for scripture. Like these people who were
00:14:36kind to me, I'm a total stranger. They don't know me at all. I'm a complete stranger. And to be as kind
00:14:43generous and hospitable and warm. I mean, that says a lot about people. And you've been in the
00:14:50groups where everyone is over against the wall, looking sideways out of their eyes and all, you
00:14:56know, bent up and, and suspicious. And these people weren't like that at all. So it was my, my pleasure
00:15:03to meet them and my pleasure to get to meet Charles as well. So yeah, PTAC was important enough to
00:15:12Hobart Freeman that he, um, he likes to call it a book. I would call it a very, very small pamphlet,
00:15:18you know, but he wrote a book on positive thinking and confession. Uh, we always called it the blue
00:15:25book, positive thinking and confession, how to live victoriously 365 days a year. Like here's the
00:15:34secret. Here's the trick. It's in these three pages. No, it's more than that, but it's not a
00:15:40book. It's just a little pamphlet. And that shows that it wasn't just a sideshow for Hobart that he
00:15:49would spend the time to put out this little booklet or little pamphlet on it. And if you looked
00:15:55on his, um, tape list, you'll find all kinds of messages on, uh, PTAC, P-T-A-C, positive thinking
00:16:04and confession. I've copied down just a few of them just from the faith series. 104 was called
00:16:11confessing faith. 119 was called the vocabulary of faith. 128 was called abiding in our confession of
00:16:22faith. 130 was entitled confessing our possessions. That's a five tape series. And you know, John,
00:16:32you'd never guess, you would never guess what chapter in the Bible confessing our possessions
00:16:39is based on. It's one chapter. One of the most famous chapters in all of the Bible is Psalm 23.
00:16:46The Lord is our shepherd. So what he did with five tapes on Psalm 23, confessing our possessions
00:16:54is turned that Psalm into a way by which you could get a new car. You could get a home. You could get
00:17:04new clothes. You could get a new suit. It was all materialism confessing our possessions. We possess
00:17:11these according to scripture. So you must confess your possessions in order to possess your possessions.
00:17:21And then one other message was 150 and it was entitled, um, the importance of what we say.
00:17:30And like I said earlier, it's not just on messages which were specifically devoted to the PTAC subject.
00:17:40You will literally find, um, this brainwashing teaching, ignore reality and jump on board with
00:17:49PTAC positive thinking and confession. This is simply the way to go. And, um, he tells you all about
00:17:57how to do it in the book, positive thinking confession. This is how to live victorious 365 days a year.
00:18:04And so he'll, so many times, especially when he was traveling and he was a guest speaker somewhere
00:18:10else where people didn't know him. So they didn't see him on a regular basis. And he would say something
00:18:16along this line. He said, you're looking at a person who lives in victory 365 days a year.
00:18:24And, you know, of course, in one sense that can be true. If, if you are a child of God and redeemed
00:18:34by the blood of Christ, you truly are living in victory 365 days a year. So there's always a sense
00:18:41in which something is true, but there are also many senses in which it is not true. You know,
00:18:47he had the same car wrecks and kidney problems and heart conditions and polio and headaches and
00:18:56theft of his home and theft of business offices. I mean, he had the same experiences everybody else
00:19:03had. But when you stand up and say, I live and walk in victory 365 days a year, the audience just
00:19:12looks at the person and thinks, wow, you know, they don't have any problems. And according to Freeman,
00:19:19he didn't have any, but they just had invented other terminology. You know, for them, a problem
00:19:25was not a problem. They called it a T-R-I-A-L, a trial. They had their own language for things because
00:19:31they were not wanting to deal with reality. I don't know how many doctors and surgeons and
00:19:38businessmen and insurance agents use our book, Positive Thinking and Confession.
00:19:45Not only to help themselves, but to help others. Like one doctor has it in his reception room.
00:19:52Positive Thinking and Confession. Why no charismatic, spirit-filled doctors and surgeons
00:19:58that will tell their charismatic, spirit-filled Christian patients that you don't need our treatment
00:20:05if you're willing to trust God like we do. I mean, like the doctors do. These doctors,
00:20:11I know them personally, some of them. They don't get too many takers, they tell me. I know of at least
00:20:18three insurance agents. I know of four now. That will tell you assurance, assurance, spelled
00:20:26with an A, not an I. Assurance is the best policy you can get. Like one brother said in Florida,
00:20:34he said, I'm an agent. I have my own agency. You keep preaching it just like you do. Come on,
00:20:39that's strong. Because he said, I sell it, but it's not for a Christian, although they buy it.
00:20:44He said, insurance is for the unbelieving world and the skeptics and doubters in the church.
00:20:48I was just reading a letter from a couple who have a friend who's an insurance agent said he's
00:20:53getting a lot of opportunities to witness now that he canceled his insurance. There's a fourth one we
00:20:59know of who got into the word, who heard the faith tapes or whatever, and saw the inconsistency of,
00:21:05well, lightning rods to paragraph, sub-paragraph B in some insurance policy being your assurance.
00:21:15They've discovered that assurance, insurance, and assurance, while they sound similar, not the
00:21:22same thing, that insurance can only comfort your survivors and can't help you at all. Assurance is
00:21:27a great comfort the person who has it. Then I've got a letter here from a Christian banker. I get
00:21:31all sorts of weird mail from a Christian banker who said, I tell the Christians who come in for
00:21:40loans, they don't need to borrow money from a bank. He's a banker. If they're willing to trust God like
00:21:47he does. So one of the reasons I wanted people to hear that was he brings in his positive thinking
00:21:53and confession book. And he says, as everyone just heard that, you know, doctors and loan officers
00:22:01at banks and surgeons and insurance agents, they're ordering the book and they keep it on the table out
00:22:08in the waiting room. And he said, I've got any number of doctors who believe in PTAC and they'll treat
00:22:17you, but they won't treat themselves or their children. And he goes on as you hear in the clip
00:22:22there of bankers who will tell you, you don't need to borrow money. You can just claim things by faith.
00:22:28So you don't need to come seeking a loan. You need to get into this book on positive thinking and
00:22:33confession. And so, you know, it's, it's no doctors, it's no insurance, it's no bank loans,
00:22:39it's no seatbelts, it's no lightning rods, because it's PTAC, positive thinking and confession.
00:22:48And as we know from life, and as we know from reality, it's, it's not reality. In Hobart's
00:22:56other little book, aka pamphlet, it was the orange one about faith. He had his famous five conditions
00:23:07for faith, that you have to base it on the word of God, then you claim it, confess it,
00:23:14act on it, and endure it. And you know, if I've heard that one time, I've heard it a thousand times.
00:23:21And that is what we call, they hate that we called it that, but it is what we call faith formula
00:23:28theology. It was divorced from a real understanding of scripture, and it was divorced from a real
00:23:35understanding of reality. But the third one of those three conditions, base it on the word,
00:23:42claim it, the third one is you must be willing to confess it. And so people, including myself,
00:23:48in my young days of ignorance, would go around saying things, as you have said earlier, John,
00:23:55that weren't true, but I thought they were true, simply because I was saying that they were true.
00:24:03So you have this nasty, you have that going on, this nasty cough going on. And people say,
00:24:14are you sick, brother? You say, no, I'm not sick. Well, it sure sounds like you are.
00:24:20You go again. Are you sick? I'm not sick. Because if what happens, if you say you're sick,
00:24:30then you might get sick. But the problem is, you already are sick. So it's too late now to use
00:24:38positive thinking and confession. And all the times before you actually got sick, when you were claiming
00:24:45Psalm 91 and claiming Psalm 103, that you would never get sick, it didn't work because one day you
00:24:53came down with something and you got sick. And now the next step is to pretend like you're not sick
00:25:01and confess that you aren't sick and act like you aren't sick and endure until you finally are no longer
00:25:09sick. And then you go to church and say, praise God, I just want to give the Lord the glory that the devil
00:25:16tried to put something on me, but I'm healed. But you went through the seven-day crud, just like your
00:25:22neighbor, who's not even a believer, went through the seven-day crud. And at the end of it, his body
00:25:28finally threw it off. And at the end of seven days, your body finally threw it off. So we have a problem
00:25:36here, do we not? I'd say we do. One of the more absurd stories, William Branham was big into the
00:25:44positive confession, obviously, as all faith healers per se. I hate to use that word faith
00:25:50healers, but that's what they claim to be. There was this one guy who was in a wheelchair and he was
00:25:58crippled. He was crippled for life. There was no way he was getting out of that wheelchair. And Branham had
00:26:03boasted of thousands upon thousands of wheelchair patients being healed. We have members who were in
00:26:10the congregation who were at some of the meetings, watching people come into the line, and the elderly
00:26:16would be given a wheelchair so the ushers could push them up and they didn't have to stand in line so
00:26:20long. So even though he never specifically claimed to have healed their walking, the audience is seeing
00:26:26people rise out of wheelchairs. And you know what this does to an audience when they see this.
00:26:30Well, this one guy who actually was a wheelchair patient who never again would walk, who never again
00:26:38did walk for the rest of his life until he died. Branham said, one of these days, brother, you're
00:26:43going to say the right thing. And when you do, you'll rise up out of that wheelchair. And so this guy went
00:26:49to his grave thinking that someday he's going to say something out of his mouth that's going to make
00:26:55him instantly healed, which never happened. But don't think about him. Don't think about the
00:27:01nonsense Branham said. Think about all of the people who are around him who aren't in this cult,
00:27:08who he uses this positive confession and says, one of these days, I'm going to say something and
00:27:14whatever it is that I say, I don't know what it is yet. It's going to instantly heal my body and I'm
00:27:19going to rise up out of this thing. The people think this guy is a fool, man. And rightfully so.
00:27:26Where I'm headed with this is I was in the positive confession faith. I believe this whole thing,
00:27:31hook, line and sinker. I did positively confess to people who weren't in the cult. And I remember
00:27:37them raising that eyebrow. You'll never forget it when it first happens to you. You will always
00:27:43remember when they raised that eyebrow. And you're suddenly faced with a thought, wait a minute,
00:27:48what I said is really stupid. And I can see in their face that they don't believe it. It's really
00:27:53stupid. And you either try to convince them that your positive confession is true, or you realize
00:27:59that you're just going to hit a brick wall because you yourself inwardly know there's a problem here.
00:28:04And I think deep inside whoever's in this positive confession thing, I think deep inside under all of
00:28:10that programmed indoctrination, they know it's wrong, but they still say it.
00:28:16That brings two things to my mind, John. One, how we would all like to go back and apologize to those
00:28:23people years ago and say, you were right, and I was such a fool. And the second thing it reminds me of
00:28:29is we would all like to go back and get a refund, get a financial refund from all of these people,
00:28:36Hobart Freeman, Branham included, who deceived us. You know how Hobart went about this, and it wasn't
00:28:43unique to him. He got it from the guys before him, is he went looking through the Bible. Let's break
00:28:50this down a little. He went looking through the Bible to find the word say or sayeth or said to show
00:29:02that you must confess these things. Their most favorite and famous verse is Mark 11, 23.
00:29:12Whosoever shall say to this mountain, depart and be cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart,
00:29:21but shall believe that those things that he sayeth shall come to pass. He shall have whatsoever he
00:29:28sayeth. And it was that sayeth that was always emphasized. We have one say and two sayeth in Mark
00:29:3711, 23. And I can remember, as I was being trained in this, in my teenage years and in my early 20s,
00:29:46then as I would read the Bible, you know, those words would all of a sudden start standing out to me.
00:29:51And so you would have the case of the centurion in the gospel accounts with his servant. The
00:29:58centurion, a Roman military leader, had come and told Jesus, I've got a sick servant and would you
00:30:05heal him? And Jesus said, yes. He said, I will come. I will come to your house. I will come to your
00:30:12place and I will heal him. And the centurion said, look, he said, I'm a man under authority. I have
00:30:21people over me. I am an authority and I have people under me. And I will say to one go and he will go
00:30:29come. Another will come do this and they'll do it. He said, I recognize you're a man of authority
00:30:35and all you have to do is to say it. All you have, you don't have to come. You don't have to lay hands.
00:30:43There's no anointed cloth required. Nothing is required, but for you to say, if you will speak
00:30:50the word only, then my servant will be healed. And of course, that's what Jesus did. He spoke the word
00:30:57only and that's exactly the result. His servant was healed. So we would see these places in scripture
00:31:04and they would tell us here is the power of what the spoken word. And I think that's William Branham's
00:31:13publication, spoken word publications, spoken word ministries. It is that spoken word. And so once you
00:31:23see a few examples, then you're finding more examples. And so then you find the woman with the issue of
00:31:29blood in Mark five, where there was a crowd around Jesus. She had this issue of blood for a long time
00:31:35and she wanted to be healed. And we read in Mark five that she said, that she said, if I can just touch
00:31:45the hem of his garment, then I will be healed. She did. And she was. And so I've heard my share of
00:31:51messages on that. That's the power of the spoken word. She said, you can't just sit there and think
00:31:58you can't just believe you can't wish. She said, you have to speak it out loud. You have to say it
00:32:05out loud. And you do you that's their belief. This is not done in your mind mentally or quietly.
00:32:13You must speak these things out loud. The interesting story, however, with the woman with the issue of
00:32:19blood is if you read Matthew's account of it in Matthew chapter nine, what she said, we're told by
00:32:26Matthew, she said within herself. In other words, she didn't say anything verbally. She didn't say
00:32:34anything out loud. It was a thought that she said, and she said it within herself. So, you know, we are
00:32:43tricked by these ministers into following this line of reasoning. Hobart has his famous blue book
00:32:51on PTAC. But let me tell people who are longtime Faith Assembly followers and Hobart Freeman followers.
00:32:59Let me tell them an interesting story that they might not know. I didn't know until recently.
00:33:05And how I found out was through one of the former tier one Faith Assembly ministers, and that was Jim
00:33:13Brenneman. There were two brothers, Joe and Jim Brenneman, who were long, longtime members of
00:33:21Faith Assembly, back to Glory Barn days, and they were hard-nosed Freemanites. Joe passed away about a
00:33:32year ago. Jim is no longer a Freemanite, but they continued years after Freeman died, teaching Hobart
00:33:41Freeman doctrine thoroughly and hard to everyone. So I say that as a background that Jim, who is
00:33:51an acquaintance of mine to this day, I mean, we've spoken in the last, this year and last year,
00:33:56that Jim was not a critic of Dr. Freeman or anything by any means. He was a loyal follower
00:34:03and adherent of what Dr. Freeman taught. And so it was Jim himself who told me this story. And he told
00:34:10me face-to-face, we're four feet away, three feet away from each other as I'm hearing this story,
00:34:15because we were talking about Dr. Freeman's book on positive thinking and confession. And Jim said to
00:34:21me, you know what, you know, he said, I came across, this was early 1970s, I came across an interesting
00:34:31booklet, book, pamphlet, newsletter, something on positive thinking and confession that maybe at that
00:34:38time, I doubt Jim believes this to this day, but at that time sounded interesting to him. You know,
00:34:46that's end of Jesus movement. That's Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, that's name it and claim it. That's
00:34:51all of this stuff, word of faith, W-O-F happening. So it was interesting to Jim. So guess what? He gave
00:34:58that booklet or pamphlet to Dr. Freeman. And he said within a matter of a couple of months,
00:35:04here comes Dr. Freeman's book, positive thinking and confession. So, you know, we kind of call that
00:35:12plagiarism. We kind of, which is, you know, academic fraud. That's what we call that. It's,
00:35:19you know, intellectual embezzlement to have just picked up this little pamphlet that probably done
00:35:27by a no name person. So no one will ever know. I don't know who did it. No one will ever know if you
00:35:34kind of take the gist of that. And that's what Jim said. He said, what was in Hobart's book was what
00:35:40you actually originally found in this pamphlet before. So yet another historical tidbit and fact
00:35:49coming from someone who was a dyed in the wool Freemanite and Freeman follower. So he had no
00:35:57reason to try to make Dr. Freeman look bad in any way. He was a loyal, adherent of everything.
00:36:02Here's a tidbit of factual information that that book or booklet that Dr. Freeman wrote
00:36:10was not original with him in any sense of the word. As I've said all along,
00:36:14I don't think very many of these things were.
00:36:17Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern
00:36:23Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements
00:36:28into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's
00:36:35website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research
00:36:42of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,
00:36:49audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation
00:36:55on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the
00:37:00cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always,
00:37:06be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
00:37:12On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:37:17Positive confession, as I said earlier, it's one of the key manipulation tools for brainwashing.
00:37:22If you can convince the people to say something they know is not true, then you have full control
00:37:29of their head. We'll take that to the next level. Somebody outside says something that is destructive
00:37:36that can be critically against the group or its theology, and they see it as destructive in their
00:37:44heads, they will start attacking it in the same way that they attack whatever is said about the
00:37:49positive confession. So people have, they often ask me whenever they encounter one of these groups,
00:37:55why are they so, why do they get so upset whenever you tell them some little thing that's off with
00:38:02their theology? Why don't they just say, oh, well, let me look at that. Let me see if it's right or
00:38:06wrong. Instead, they want to attack. They want to attack whoever's speaking. It's because of that
00:38:12positive confession mindset. They're attacking the human who is giving them something, the inoculation
00:38:18for their false doctrine or whatever, in the same way that they would the doctor who's giving them
00:38:23medicine for whatever they're confessing they don't have.
00:38:26And we've talked about this before, John, that you can hardly get through to these people. It was
00:38:31one of my biggest frustrations 40 years ago in trying to talk to Hobart, where I got to the point,
00:38:36well, he died. So that was the end of talking to Hobart. But even trying to talk to anyone else
00:38:42that was related to it, connected to it, not on your life. I mean, you're just almost wasting your
00:38:49time. And I can genuinely say that this is not the way I taught my church. And this is not, I didn't
00:38:58teach them this to close your mind to anything anybody says. What I said is, you may have the right
00:39:06opinion, or you may think, or we may think that we have the right opinion or the right doctrine on
00:39:11something. But that's never a reason not to listen to the other side. And I always use the argument,
00:39:18either they will convince you that you are wrong, or you will be unable to convince them that they
00:39:24are wrong, and you'll be confirmed in your own belief. So it's a win-win either way. But I think
00:39:30where this continued to, by looking at all these passages where Moses spoke to the rock, or Moses
00:39:39did this, or Joshua did that, or Elijah did that, we're looking at all these passages where these
00:39:44people said things. And so as this theology just developed over time, then I think rather than just
00:39:53being kind of something humorous, like, oh, you say you aren't sick, but we know you are,
00:39:58you know, big deal, that doesn't really do any harm. It began to develop into something that was,
00:40:05I think, completely unbiblical, probably even heretical. And that was when they evolved to the
00:40:13point of teaching their congregation that words actually have power within themselves,
00:40:22that somehow words actually have power. Before, if you just say, hey, let's all think positively and
00:40:31speak positively, I don't have any problem. Paul said in Philippians 4, 8, finally my brethren,
00:40:37and he gives this list, if they're good, lovely, just of a good report, think on these things.
00:40:43Yes, I mean, for general advice, let's think positively, and let's speak positively.
00:40:49But you can't do that in any slavish fashion, because sometimes people have very good reason
00:40:55not to be thinking positively, and not to be speaking positively. And rather than shoot that
00:41:02down, you need to be able to reach the person and help them and minister to them in whatever state
00:41:07they are. But when it reached this stage of saying that words have power, and I can remember people
00:41:16like Kenneth Copeland was just the worst on that, and Jerry Savelle was just the worst,
00:41:22and Jesse Duplantis, and all of that WOF group, where, I mean, they had as much Bible knowledge
00:41:31as my cat has. And they would go to their, that's one of my harsh statements, I need to dial that back,
00:41:38people at the meeting. You really don't even, no one has to guess where you're coming from,
00:41:44do they? No, they have more Bible knowledge than my cat, for sure. So that was a hyperbolic
00:41:50statement. That is hyperbole, a statement made for point of emphasis. So they will take you back to
00:41:57the Genesis narrative and say, now how did everything come into being? God said, let there be light.
00:42:06And God said, and God said, and God spoke the world into existence. And God did. That's the whole
00:42:13point. He did, and we're not him. But they have this real weird little God's theology that maybe
00:42:21we'll talk about in another podcast, and you probably have already dealt with this, John. That's a whole
00:42:26other area. But in one sense, not a whole other area. It's connected to this, where they're saying,
00:42:33well, look, God just speaks the word, and things happen. And yeah, you're right. He does. And you
00:42:40know where you're wrong, is we're not God. We're just human beings. So for them to say words have
00:42:47power, that's not true. That is something heretical. Words don't have power. Words are just words.
00:42:54Words are just words. And you're not going to create something by speaking it into existence.
00:43:03Can God create something by speaking it into existence? He certainly can, and he certainly
00:43:09has. Let me give you an example. One of the earliest examples I heard from Dr. Freeman. So it would be on
00:43:20the faith series. That's the first few, five or six tapes in the so-called faith series. And that's
00:43:26what you were, that's what you were supposed to get into early so that you knew, you know, how to base
00:43:34your faith on the word, claim the promise, confess the promise, act on the promise, and endure until
00:43:40you receive the promise. So that's Faith Formula Theology 101 for Hobart Edward Freeman. And when I was 17
00:43:48years old and I first heard a tape, I heard this story. There's an old couple in bed one night,
00:43:55country farmhouse. The wind is lightly blowing outside. There's a little bit of a breeze outside
00:44:02and they are retiring for the evening. And as they lay down in bed to go to sleep, the old man,
00:44:09the husband, the farmer said, you know, I'd like to open the windows. You know, let's keep the windows
00:44:17open. Let's open the windows. Um, and that'll be for a great night's sleep. This is a story that
00:44:23Hobart told that he said really happened. And the wife who was, you know, she's the worry ward of the
00:44:31family. She's the negative minded and negatively speaking one. She said, Oh no, Oh no, we can't have
00:44:38the window open. If we have the window open, you know, I always get this, uh, this croup, this cough,
00:44:44I get this congestion. No, we can't do that. And he said, no, I wanted to have the windows open.
00:44:49And she said, Oh, it's going to make me miserable. You know, I'll wake up sick tomorrow. If you open
00:44:53the windows, don't open the windows. And he said, I want the windows open. So it's dark and he gets
00:44:58out of bed and he goes over there and fumbles around and opens what he thinks are the windows.
00:45:06And they go to bed and they wake up the next morning and he gets up out of bed, stretching and
00:45:11yawning and saying, what an awesome night sleep I had because that wonderful outdoor breeze blowing
00:45:18through in the fresh air. And the wife is over on the other side of the bed, coughing and wheezing
00:45:24and saying, see, I told you, if you open the windows at night, this, this is what I have to deal with.
00:45:31And it wasn't quite sunrise yet. And they did their little fussing back and forth until there was
00:45:38enough daylight and they got up out of bed and turned and looked and realized that he had just
00:45:46opened the indoor shutters, but he had never actually opened the window. The window had stayed
00:45:52closed all night. And so the moral of the story is he got a great night's sleep by breathing all of
00:46:01that fresh outdoor air. And she got sick by breathing all of that outdoor air. And it wasn't even a
00:46:11reality. The window had never been opened. It was their positive thinking and confession that kept him
00:46:19healthy. And it was her negative thinking and confession that made her sick. When I heard that story,
00:46:26I thought I was amazed, but I didn't know where he was going with the punchline. And when he got to it,
00:46:34then that convinced me being a dumb and young and gullible teenager, that there is that much power
00:46:44in just what you think. And in just what you confess enough to heal one person and make another person
00:46:52sick. And right along with that, I don't think people who are in the positive confession mindset
00:46:58realize how much their positive confession hurts people around them who aren't in that mindset.
00:47:06Whenever I believe something that I know other people don't believe, a lot of times I'll just keep
00:47:10it to myself because A, I might be wrong. I might need to reevaluate it. I don't want them to know if
00:47:16I'm believing something wrong, but B, it might be something that offends them. People in the positive
00:47:21confession mindset, because of the way that they're indoctrinated, it's like boasting. Yes,
00:47:28I'm healed. Yes, I'm missing this leg, but it's going to grow back. It'll grow back tonight. You
00:47:32just watch. You say these things to people, and then you're supposed to be, I don't know,
00:47:39you're supposed to be offended if they don't believe you. So you want to fight with them. That's
00:47:44essentially how you're programmed. Well, the people who are around you who don't believe this,
00:47:48they're offended by it. And they are often hurt because they don't know why you're acting like
00:47:54this. They have no idea. And that mindset, it creates friction and divisions in families that
00:47:59should never be. So this, ultimately, if you take it all the way down to its root, this is a doctrine
00:48:06of divisions more than it is a doctrine of healing. Yeah, I've never looked at it as a doctrine of
00:48:11division. But from what you just said, that's definitely true, John, because this message created
00:48:19a new world and subculture, you know, did it not, of coded language and forbidden words. And so when
00:48:30you first, yeah, I mean, to your point, to what you just said, when you come into the group for the
00:48:37first time, let's say someone shows up at the glory barn or at the new building for the first time
00:48:42and, you know, join, become a member, it's hard on the new members. They're always being corrected.
00:48:50You know, the early people, the young people, the new members are always being corrected.
00:48:55You find it really difficult to evangelize those outside the group.
00:49:00And, but to be in the group in good standing, you have to use the terminology that is part of the
00:49:10group. I call it cult jargon. It's group specific. It's terminology that is group specific. And it
00:49:19varies from cult group to cult group, but it is definitely cult jargon. It's normally not that
00:49:27normal of a statement or an idea or a word or a concept. And so that does make it very difficult
00:49:35for people to pick up and to follow. And it, and it creates this, you know, this anxiety in new
00:49:43members of, am I saying things the right way? Because God knows if you don't say it the right
00:49:49way, you are definitely going to be called out for it. Now, maybe in a loving way, but you will
00:49:54definitely be called out for it. They'll say, brother, you know, you can't make a confession
00:49:58like that. And you didn't even know what you had done wrong, you know, but just because
00:50:02you said, you know, um, the baby was coughing and I was up a long time last night. Oh, don't,
00:50:08don't confess any sickness on your baby or don't confess any, um, you know, lack of sleep
00:50:13on yourself. Even though both of those were a reality, the baby was sick and you lack sleep.
00:50:18You know, they warn you against those things. And so it's, and we could also call it and I've called
00:50:25it, it's coded language. It is cult jargon that is coded language. So let me give you a couple of
00:50:33examples of this. How about the fact that you can never get a straight answer out of anybody,
00:50:39at least at faith assembly in response to the simple question, Hey, brother, sister,
00:50:45how are you today? You can never get a straight answer. And it took me a while to realize that
00:50:55you, you can't ask someone that you just can't ask, how are you doing today? You would get
00:51:00God's word is true and God's true to his word. Invariably you'd get that or something similar.
00:51:05God's word is true and God's true to his word. And it's like, I realized God's word is true.
00:51:11That's called inerrancy. I realized that God is true to his word. That's called his immutability.
00:51:17I'm not asking for anything theological. I'm asking for your welfare, for your wellbeing right
00:51:23now. How are you doing today? Well, they can't say that anything's wrong. So what they have to say
00:51:32when you keep pressing is, well, I'm experiencing a trial. And we think of trial like courtrooms and
00:51:39attorneys and prosecutor and defense. We think of that as a trial, but trial became one of the most
00:51:47famous, largest words at faith assembly. And a trial simply meant, um, it was coded language for
00:51:57there is a reality, which I can't say. So the reality that I can't say, I can call this brother,
00:52:05I'm going through a trial. Now the trial could be the baby. It could be, you lost your job. It could
00:52:10be, um, your wife wasn't submissive enough to you yesterday. It could be, you lost that promotion.
00:52:17You were hoping to get at work. It could be the washing machine stopped working, but whatever it
00:52:23was, every, nothing was reality. Nothing was reality. Everything was a trial. And here's another
00:52:31one. Um, yeah, that brother just missed it, missed it. You just think about this. If you're part of
00:52:39the cult, you know exactly what all these words mean. If you're not, you don't missed it. We
00:52:43normally think of maybe target practice that when he fired, he missed it. That's what I would think
00:52:49of is someone said, well, that brother missed it, you know, miss the exit or miss the target or
00:52:55miss the deadline. No missed it was cult language for they sent and maybe sin pretty badly. And how
00:53:04they missed it would be, see, they have a trial. So they have a trial and the next step is they missed
00:53:13it. And how they missed it was they went to the arm of the flesh. Now you have to interpret all of
00:53:19this. A normal person, a Lutheran, a Baptist, a Presbyterian that walks into this, they're
00:53:25clueless. They talked to the brother. How are you doing? He said, well, I had, I had a trial,
00:53:29but I missed it. And I went to the arm of the flesh that translates into, I was sick and I sinned
00:53:35by going to a doctor. Why didn't you just say that? Why didn't you just say I was sick and I sinned
00:53:41against God because I went to the doctor. No, the coded language has to be used. I had a trial.
00:53:47I missed it. And I leaned to the arm of the flesh. And so you just have created all of this
00:53:54subculture, cult terminology. And yes, John, it makes people feel very proud that we've learned
00:54:03the cult jargon and we're pretty good at it. And we're good at beating other people up who don't
00:54:09know the cult jargon. When in fact, if you would just speak the way a normal human being
00:54:17speaks like Paul, for instance, of all people, Paul, he didn't say, well, Trophimus was having
00:54:25a trial. He said, I left Trophimus sick. S I C K. I left him sick at another city. And whenever he
00:54:36gets over his sickness, he'll be with me or do whatever he's going to do. For some reason,
00:54:41Paul didn't seem that it was necessary to use any of this cult jargon. He just said things the way
00:54:48they were. And that's the problem with cult terminology. Not that there aren't words that
00:54:54are specific to Christianity. I'm not saying that, but let's don't invent more words that are necessary
00:55:00to our religion. And these are just inventing words that are not necessary. Just say, I was sick.
00:55:06And according to my belief, I sinned grievously against the Lord. And I went to a doctor instead
00:55:13of I had a trial and I missed it. And now I'm leaning to the arm of the flesh. So this is my
00:55:21episode for movies. There's, there's another movie by Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey is the main actor called
00:55:28liar liar. And something happens and he can never tell a lie. It's one of my favorite movies. He gets the
00:55:35you know what beat out of him for telling the truth everywhere. Well, what are the problems
00:55:41that you have if you're in this type of religion? And I'm going to warn the people who have escaped
00:55:46when you have lived positive confession and then you realize how wrong it is. Well, the opposite of
00:55:52that is to just open up and tell the truth. And I, there was a time, I think it might've been,
00:55:59I think you called me on that same day, but I was having one of the worst days ever. Everything that I
00:56:04touched went wrong. I was having, I had two people in the hospital. One person had died.
00:56:10I had a vandal who had beaten out my wife's car windows of her car and everything, every single
00:56:17thing was hitting me. And somebody called me and said, how are you doing? Well, even in mainstream
00:56:24Christianity, the common positive confession word that is used by mainstream Christianity is
00:56:30all as well. Well, I can't do this anymore, man. I lived in positive confession. All was not well.
00:56:38So I started opening up and I realized that after about 20 minutes, I still probably had 20 minutes
00:56:44of things that went wrong to tell. And I could tell the person who was listening to me didn't want to
00:56:51hear more. I was just ruining their day too. So the point I'm trying to make is don't unload
00:56:56everything. Hold a few things back because you will make a fool of yourself. And the person who's
00:57:01listening to you might tell you like, I think this person may have told me this, you may need to go
00:57:07see a counselor, John. You have an awful lot going wrong with you, which is probably true. But
00:57:12there's balance, I guess is what I'm trying to say. There's balance to it. If you go to the positive
00:57:18confession extreme, you're just lying. All is well, my friend. Or if you go to the other side,
00:57:25you can just really unload and you can ruin somebody's day. And I realized I don't want
00:57:30to ruin somebody's day. So I just say, yeah, I'm going through a little bit. It'll get better.
00:57:35That's usually my standard answer now. So I would just recommend that the people be careful with
00:57:40the way their ministers use scripture. Proverbs 6, 2 was probably Hobart's favorite one. Thou art
00:57:47snared with the words of thy mouth. And he just thought that was a great verse to use. If you read the
00:57:53verse before it and the verse after it, you'll realize right away, that's absolutely horrific
00:57:59taking of a verse out of his context. It has to do with loaning money to someone, getting yourself in
00:58:06a position that you should not have gotten yourself into. In other words, practice some wisdom and
00:58:11discernment. It's nothing about positive thinking and confession. They had a doctrine. This is what I've
00:58:18always said. They had a doctrine. Then they search the scriptures to find verses to back it up. And
00:58:25then they pull those verses by scissors and paste out of context, move them to a new location,
00:58:31inserted that text in their message. And everyone knew, thou art snared with the words of thy mouth.
00:58:39So that woman who was in bed, who was snared with the words of her mouth, I'm making a negative
00:58:45confession. That's why she got sick the next day. I don't even believe the story that he told.
00:58:50Honestly, you know, I don't even believe that story at all. He either made it up or someone who told him
00:58:55the story had made it up. So what this does, John, in conclusion here is if this positive thinking,
00:59:03positive confession message, it leaves no room for Christians just to be able to speak and live
00:59:11and think and act normally. They're afraid. They're taught to be afraid over being afraid.
00:59:19They're taught fear over don't ever use the word fear. One of the big verses I can remember all the
00:59:27Haganites and Copelandites using was back in Job. And they said the reason Job had all of his problems
00:59:33was Job 325. He said, the thing I greatly feared has come upon me. And because of that negative
00:59:39confession and negative thinking, that's why Job had all of his problems. But that's not true.
00:59:46That's a verse out of context. That's not true if you read chapters 1 and 2. Job was such a perfect
00:59:51and such a righteous man. And we're told in chapter 2 that he did not sin with his lips. He was a great
00:59:59man. And God simply allowed Satan to test him for a while. The origin of his misery and trials had
01:00:07nothing to do with what he said or thought. And I can remember, John, and after hearing all of these
01:00:15things from Hobart that you can't say this and can't say that, I'd read passages in the New Testament,
01:00:21definitely in the Old, but even in the New, where I think it's in 2 Corinthians 11, where Paul said,
01:00:30I fear that as Eve was deceived, you Corinthians may be deceived. He said, I fear. And I can remember
01:00:37reading that because I know I couldn't say I fear. Could you ever say I fear anything? You weren't
01:00:44allowed to say that. That's a negative confession. And so in my young mind, the only way I knew to deal
01:00:50with that is somehow, and this is where it was headed and where it kind of ended up, is somehow,
01:00:56I guess we're better than Paul. That we have a revelation in this end time message of faith
01:01:03that's a higher revelation of faith than Paul had. Because you better believe Hobart would have
01:01:10never said, I fear. Because that would be a negative confession. As soon as you make it,
01:01:16words have power. You've opened the door to the devil, to his demons. Your life, something bad is
01:01:21going to happen to you. But as I progressed in my early Christianity, I came to realize that I think
01:01:30Paul knows more than Hobart Freeman or William Branham or me. I'm going to have to trust Paul more than
01:01:37any of them. And Paul didn't feel there was anything wrong in 2 Corinthians 11. I think it's
01:01:43verse 2 to say, I fear that as Eve was deceived, so will you be deceived. Because Paul's living in
01:01:52reality. He said, I have this fear that if you don't make changes in your approach to matters,
01:01:59you can be deceived by Satan as Eve was deceived. So what we all experience in life is not an illusion.
01:02:09It's a reality. It's a reality. And it won't go away just because you say the right thing for the
01:02:16long enough period of time. It's a whole freedom, I think, for people who've been in PTAC,
01:02:25positive thinking and confession. It's a whole freedom to realize God expects you to have the
01:02:31normal thought processes, the normal reaction to feel the normal emotions. I mean, these people were
01:02:40so robbed of reality that when a person would die and they would bury them, it's almost like you
01:02:49couldn't cry, you couldn't mourn, you couldn't feel anything because that would somehow be an admission
01:02:56that this person is dead and buried and gone. So it's just robbed people of so many things. It is
01:03:04a false message. In my opinion, it is not a biblical message. It is definitely not. And the bottom line
01:03:11for me is, if the boat is sinking, get out of the boat. Thank you so much for doing this. Amen, brother.
01:03:19Thank you. If you enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
01:03:23You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation,
01:03:28you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:04:23You can find us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham.org. For more information, visit us at william-branham. For more information, visit us at william-branham. For more information
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