- 5 months ago
John and Adam examine the influence of prophetic leaders and how the concept of prophecy has shifted in modern charismatic movements. They explore the practice of retroactive prophecy—when individuals claim to have predicted events after they’ve already occurred—and describe how vague language, spiritual manipulation, and stagecraft have been used to maintain power and financial support. Drawing from their own backgrounds and historical examples, they question the integrity of many well-known figures and reflect on the psychological and theological impacts of these movements on sincere believers.
The discussion also looks at specific examples such as the Kansas City Prophets, the “billion-soul harvest,” and controversial claims made by leaders like William Branham and Paul Cain. They analyze how cycles of turnover within high-control spiritual communities create an illusion of continuity, allowing misleading claims to go unchallenged by new adherents. They close by comparing biblical prophecy with modern practices, raising questions about accountability, measurable outcomes, and the human cost of misused spiritual authority.
00:00 Introduction
01:27 Adam Introduces the Idea of Retroactive Prophecy
04:32 John Describes Psychological Manipulation in Prophetic Claims
07:34 How Vague Predictions Become Doctrines
09:33 The Role of Mentalism and Illusion in Prophetic Acts
12:03 Deification of Prophets Like Bob Jones and Bill Johnson
14:06 Reusing and Revising Failed Prophecies
15:41 Redefining the Biblical Concept of Prophecy
18:00 Modern Vague Prophecy vs. Biblical Specificity
20:02 The Pat Bickle Prophecy and 1 Billion Soul Harvest
22:44 Problems with Measuring Prophetic Fulfillment
24:16 The Use of “Touch Not God’s Anointed” to Avoid Scrutiny
25:06 The Failed 1933 Bridge Prophecy
27:06 Prophets Who Lead Followers Toward Themselves
28:05 The Role of Moral Character in Discerning a Prophet
29:07 New Testament Protocols for Testing Prophecy
32:00 Paul Cain’s 1988 Earthquake Prophecy Examined
36:11 John Explains How Earthquake Predictions Are Statistically Inevitable
40:42 Connections Between Paul Cain, William Branham, and Deceptive Origins
43:32 William Branham’s Fabricated 1933 Prophecies
46:00 The Power of Post-Event Prophecy and Financial Gain
47:44 9/11 as a Common Example of Retroactive Prophetic Claims
51:22 William Branham’s False Claim About Israel’s Nationhood Date
54:55 Why Brandham’s Followers Didn’t Question His Prophecies
56:34 Turnover and Indoctrination in Modern Charismatic Movements
58:55 Declining Enrollment at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry
1:00:19 Indoctrination Migrates with Members Across Churches
1:01:50 Closing and Future Discussion on Apostolic Migration
______________________
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 t
The discussion also looks at specific examples such as the Kansas City Prophets, the “billion-soul harvest,” and controversial claims made by leaders like William Branham and Paul Cain. They analyze how cycles of turnover within high-control spiritual communities create an illusion of continuity, allowing misleading claims to go unchallenged by new adherents. They close by comparing biblical prophecy with modern practices, raising questions about accountability, measurable outcomes, and the human cost of misused spiritual authority.
00:00 Introduction
01:27 Adam Introduces the Idea of Retroactive Prophecy
04:32 John Describes Psychological Manipulation in Prophetic Claims
07:34 How Vague Predictions Become Doctrines
09:33 The Role of Mentalism and Illusion in Prophetic Acts
12:03 Deification of Prophets Like Bob Jones and Bill Johnson
14:06 Reusing and Revising Failed Prophecies
15:41 Redefining the Biblical Concept of Prophecy
18:00 Modern Vague Prophecy vs. Biblical Specificity
20:02 The Pat Bickle Prophecy and 1 Billion Soul Harvest
22:44 Problems with Measuring Prophetic Fulfillment
24:16 The Use of “Touch Not God’s Anointed” to Avoid Scrutiny
25:06 The Failed 1933 Bridge Prophecy
27:06 Prophets Who Lead Followers Toward Themselves
28:05 The Role of Moral Character in Discerning a Prophet
29:07 New Testament Protocols for Testing Prophecy
32:00 Paul Cain’s 1988 Earthquake Prophecy Examined
36:11 John Explains How Earthquake Predictions Are Statistically Inevitable
40:42 Connections Between Paul Cain, William Branham, and Deceptive Origins
43:32 William Branham’s Fabricated 1933 Prophecies
46:00 The Power of Post-Event Prophecy and Financial Gain
47:44 9/11 as a Common Example of Retroactive Prophetic Claims
51:22 William Branham’s False Claim About Israel’s Nationhood Date
54:55 Why Brandham’s Followers Didn’t Question His Prophecies
56:34 Turnover and Indoctrination in Modern Charismatic Movements
58:55 Declining Enrollment at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry
1:00:19 Indoctrination Migrates with Members Across Churches
1:01:50 Closing and Future Discussion on Apostolic Migration
______________________
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 t
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, Adam Short, host of
00:00:47the Grit and the Wild Podcast.
00:00:49Adam, it's good to be back and to talk about prophets and prophecy.
00:00:53I was thinking, as you were mentioning what we were going to talk about today, I was thinking
00:00:58about how much this has, the single thing, the single topic has impacted my life so much
00:01:04and the lives of those around me, and the frame of reference that we have for prophets and
00:01:10prophecy is just so vastly different than the rest of Christianity.
00:01:15Anyway, this is your topic.
00:01:17I'll let you run with it.
00:01:18But I just want to say that for me, this impacted me in a significant way, and I'm still trying
00:01:24to work to detangle what it was that they put in my head.
00:01:27Wow.
00:01:28Yeah, I'm curious to hear more about your experience, John.
00:01:30But yeah, the phrase that came to mind, and it could be a new phrase.
00:01:34I don't know if other people have used this phrase.
00:01:36But what I thought is most appropriate to call this is retroactive prophecy.
00:01:43And then to sort of build upon that, it's kind of like Back to the Future, right?
00:01:48The movie, Back to the Future.
00:01:50And I think what I mean by that is there are so many examples, especially here recently,
00:01:57I'd say recent being in the past five years, particularly as these high-profile prophetic
00:02:03people in the NAR, people like Chris Vallotton and others who have, Jeremiah Johnson's another
00:02:13one that comes to mind, they've made specific prophecies about political events, right?
00:02:18Some of those being around the elections.
00:02:22And it's so interesting to me, if you go and look at this from a current event standpoint
00:02:30and a historical slash timeline standpoint, this is what they do.
00:02:34They'll come out, let's say today, July 25th, they come out and they announced that they
00:02:41had this vision.
00:02:42I had a vision.
00:02:44I had a dream three months ago that John Collins and Adam Short would do a podcast on July 25th.
00:02:54But they announced the dream and the vision that they had after they had it and after the
00:02:59event was supposed to happen so that they can validate the very event that they reportedly
00:03:04foretold.
00:03:06So it's kind of like you've got to jump back and forth on the historical timeline to make
00:03:12this stuff make sense.
00:03:13But I look back on my experience in hypercharismatic church and I realized how normal it was for
00:03:19my brain to just accept it at face value, right?
00:03:22So like you hear a leader giving a prophetic experience they had, it's they give the experience
00:03:31after the event supposedly was fulfilled in their prophecy.
00:03:35So who, so, so I think your question is very pertinent.
00:03:38Like, how do you know if the, how do you know if the leader had the actual, maybe they
00:03:46had the actual vision, but maybe they interpreted their vision or dream based on the actual events
00:03:53that really happened and said, Hey, I'm right because what I prophesied or what I experienced
00:03:59and then now I'm prophesying was this, this, and this, and it, and it actually happened.
00:04:04So I'm validating my, it's like a feedback loop that just never ends.
00:04:07It's like this, you know what I'm saying?
00:04:09Like, so like it's a hundred percent validation of the data because they get to interpret it
00:04:15exactly how they choose to, because they're retroactively, um, I don't know if this makes
00:04:21sense, but they're looking back retroactively about an experience they had that then supposedly
00:04:26was foretold.
00:04:27So the best thing I can call it is retroactive prophecy, John.
00:04:31So I don't know if that made any sense at all.
00:04:34It does.
00:04:34A lot of people call it prophecy after the fact.
00:04:37I grew up in this weird world where I get to be around some of the quote unquote spiritually
00:04:43elite.
00:04:44And it, this is fascinating to me, this subject, because it's so far more complicated than people
00:04:51realize.
00:04:51It isn't just simply that some guy randomly, or a girl, randomly claims prophecy on something
00:04:58in the past.
00:04:59There's a lot more to it than that.
00:05:01And there's a lot more people involved than that.
00:05:03One of the most powerful tools of persuasion, and you can get this if you read some psychology
00:05:09books.
00:05:10Um, I got it from reading a book by, uh, Sigmund Freud's nephew, um, was his name Bernays.
00:05:18I think it was a book on mass psychology, how you can achieve mass psychology.
00:05:23One of the techniques is you actually the best technique.
00:05:27If you can give people breadcrumbs to where they can come to their own conclusion, rather
00:05:33than you giving them that conclusion, they will believe it for a lifetime.
00:05:37But if you try to force your opinion and force your conclusion on them, they just kind of
00:05:43step back and they say, wait a minute, let me, let me think about this first.
00:05:46And they may not, may not adopt that opinion.
00:05:49So as a tool of persuasion, you leave breadcrumbs and you lead people there.
00:05:54Well, complicate that even further by the cult mindset.
00:05:59You have a bunch of people who are manipulated already to see things that aren't there, to
00:06:06try to grasp things that aren't yet fulfilled and try to lift a single person or group of
00:06:14people into a spiritual plane that is higher than themselves.
00:06:17So they're expecting something that isn't there.
00:06:21What happens is you get these people who, I was around people who were quote unquote prophetic
00:06:28and they would say things like, we'd be at a ball game and they would say things like,
00:06:33you just watch, the Chiefs are going to win this game.
00:06:37And to the casual person, like if I were to say that, you would say, if I was wrong, you'd
00:06:41say, see John, you're wrong.
00:06:43The Chiefs didn't win.
00:06:44And if I was right, you'd go, oh, wow, you called it.
00:06:47I mean, it would be that simple, but when you're in this mindset, what happens is those
00:06:52people who hear it, they go home and they think that there's some big expectation by
00:06:57God.
00:06:57Oh, God must be surrounding this game of the Chiefs.
00:07:00We all need to watch it.
00:07:02And so then it turns into like this miniature doctrine.
00:07:05We all have to watch the Chiefs game.
00:07:07Then they do.
00:07:08If the Chiefs happen to win, which is a 50-50 chance, right?
00:07:12If they happen to win, they say, that was a prophecy.
00:07:14Did you know that?
00:07:15Well, later in sermons, what happens is the quote-unquote prophetic individual who didn't
00:07:24really prophesy, they just said some random statement, but because that random statement
00:07:29came true, they will mention things about the past and then claim that they had prophesied
00:07:36it when they didn't.
00:07:36They just randomly said something.
00:07:38And they will mention it in such a way that the people that they knew who heard them say
00:07:44it will immediately connect the dots.
00:07:48So then those people will uplift whatever was said as prophecy.
00:07:52So suddenly the Chiefs game becomes a prophecy in this scenario.
00:07:56Well, if you're around these kind of people, which I have been, you start to notice that
00:08:00they don't talk like normal people.
00:08:02They say things like that.
00:08:03You just watch.
00:08:05The Federal Reserve is going to raise interest rates.
00:08:09It's a random statement.
00:08:10It doesn't really have any meaning whatsoever, you know, unless you're wanting to play the
00:08:15stock market.
00:08:16And if it fails, the casual person would say, well, you're wrong.
00:08:20That failed.
00:08:21But the way that they say it is setting them up for, there's a term in basketball called
00:08:26an alley-oop.
00:08:27They basically throw the ball up so that somebody else will do the alley-oop and claim that,
00:08:32oh, that was a prophecy.
00:08:33Yeah, that's interesting.
00:08:34It's kind of like the exploitated or exploited version of, you can show a man, you can give
00:08:42a man some fish, but you can teach a man to fish and he can eat his whole life, something
00:08:49like that.
00:08:49It's almost like an exploited version of that, where, like to your point, where you're
00:08:53leading people to make their own conclusions, but it's the very conclusions that they want
00:08:57you to make, right?
00:08:59It's kind of like what we've talked about in the past of this primed faith concept, where
00:09:05leaders will use all kinds of different mechanisms and trickery and what have you to prime people's
00:09:14faith to then grab a hold of whatever that cutting edge at the cusp supernatural experience
00:09:23or event is, whether it's a healing or whether it's a release of a corporate anointing or
00:09:28whatever.
00:09:28But yeah, it's like taking things like the chief game, some very ordinary common event in life
00:09:37and charging it with so much meaning and spiritual and supernatural couching to where it becomes
00:09:44such a significant event in people's minds that they do.
00:09:50You're right.
00:09:50They build a doctrine around it.
00:09:52They build this meaning around it that they're like, okay, I'm a part of this because the
00:09:59prophet, I was under the hearing of this prophetic word, this purported prophetic word.
00:10:05So I'm caught up in this very exciting prophetic phenomenon or this unfolding of events.
00:10:14And I'm actually a person who believes that prophecy is a real thing and it's a biblical
00:10:19thing, but it's just that I think a large percentage of what we see now in hyper charismatic
00:10:26churches is not biblical prophecy.
00:10:29It's like, it could be a mixture.
00:10:32I know we've talked about this before on sources.
00:10:34It could be a mixture of just 100% trickery.
00:10:40It could be a mixture of divination coming from dark sources, or it could be even some
00:10:47of this could be even people who are gifted in mentalism.
00:10:52You know, there are magicians that are gifted in this kind of stuff like David Blaine.
00:10:55We've talked about him before where, you know, he's really well known for going on the streets
00:11:01and doing these face-to-face, you know, magic, this magic stuff that is honestly pretty mind-blowing.
00:11:11But he incorporates mentalism in there and it's like he can read people's minds.
00:11:17Now, whether he's doing that from, you know, a supernatural source or it's just a skill he's
00:11:24developed or a combination of the two, I'm not sure, but like if you translate that over to the
00:11:29hyper charismatic church, I feel like there's a mixture of all of those different things in there.
00:11:35And then, but ultimately, what is the, I think the question, the deeper question is what is the outcome
00:11:41or what is the impact to the greater body of Christ and the people at large?
00:11:46And I think the impact is these profits are bolstered up even further on their pedestals
00:11:53and they're seen as even more credible because, hey, this man or woman can predict the future.
00:11:59They are walking in a level of superhuman, you know, capability that most of us don't walk in.
00:12:07And so, you know, the logical outcome of that is these people end up getting more and more influence,
00:12:13more and more money and more and more God-like status and they're practically are worshiped.
00:12:21And I'll say this, Bob Jones was, I've told, I told Richard Moore this lately, recently,
00:12:28Bob Jones, the prophet Bob Jones, I would say is probably about as close to worshiping a person
00:12:36as you can get.
00:12:37Like when, when you, like I was in Morningstar, I was at Bethel, I was in the IHOP circles.
00:12:43He was practically worshiped.
00:12:45I mean, I think probably a close second would be Bill Johnson as far as like people actually
00:12:51worshiping a person.
00:12:53But I mean, Bob Jones was like seen as this larger than life.
00:12:59I don't know, not, I don't want to say omniscient, but pretty close to omniscient person that
00:13:04could literally see everything's going to happen in the future.
00:13:07And, you know, there are different theories about him.
00:13:10Was he, did he just have this uncanny ability to speak in gobbledygook to convince people
00:13:19that he knew the future?
00:13:21Or was it all a concocted plan where he and others conspired to like convince people that
00:13:30he was prophetic?
00:13:31Or did he actually have supernatural experiences?
00:13:35And I mean, Bob Scott brings us up in his book that Bob Jones was struck by lightning early
00:13:41on in life.
00:13:42And I think if I remember correctly, Bob Scott thinks that that has something to do with
00:13:47Bob Jones's kind of weird wiring or whatever.
00:13:50So I don't know.
00:13:51There's all these theories out there.
00:13:52But I just think that for those of us that have been in these circles who have sat under
00:13:57the ministries of the prophetic people, it's very disingenuous, actually.
00:14:06Now, I will give Chris Vallotton credit.
00:14:08He did come out and acknowledge that he was wrong about his prophecy about, I think it was
00:14:13a 2020 election.
00:14:14Is that right?
00:14:15I might be getting that wrong.
00:14:17But he did make a video and explain to people that he got it wrong.
00:14:21So I appreciate that.
00:14:23I think that was a good thing.
00:14:26But the fact is, amongst the sea of prophecy, that was an outlier where Chris actually acknowledged
00:14:34that he was wrong.
00:14:35Most of the time, that doesn't happen.
00:14:37Like people just, you know, if you prophesy something and it doesn't happen, then what they
00:14:43do is they go back and they revise the meaning of what the prophecy was.
00:14:46Well, when we prophesied this the first time, that's not actually what we mean or what we
00:14:51meant by it, even though you can go back and listen to the recording and see that that was
00:14:54what they meant by it.
00:14:57But it's like you reinterpret the meaning to mean something else entirely.
00:15:01Like this has a different fulfillment or a separate meaning in the future that we have not yet
00:15:05seen.
00:15:06So it's like, I mean, literally they could take one prophecy and recycle it and use it
00:15:11over and over again to their liking and to like basically form a conclusion however they
00:15:20want to do.
00:15:20So, I don't know, it's like retroactive prophecy, but then retroactive and reusing a prophecy.
00:15:27It's the three R's.
00:15:30Retroactive, reuse, and recycle prophecy.
00:15:35Well, it's actually four R's and recreate.
00:15:37Recreate, okay.
00:15:38So, here's the thing.
00:15:40These movements, these type of movements have recreated what is the meaning of prophecy.
00:15:45If you understand the Bible and if you read the Bible, it's very plain.
00:15:50Prophecy is whenever God is speaking using a human as a mouthpiece.
00:15:55So this is God who doesn't exist in time, in our time, who knows the future, the past,
00:16:01the present, who sees everything that we don't see.
00:16:04And when he speaks through the mouthpiece of a prophet, in the Bible, there are examples
00:16:08of how the prophecies were given in symbolic meaning.
00:16:12And they may have seemed somewhat vague at the time they were given to the people.
00:16:19However, there's a significant difference between what they're calling prophecy today
00:16:23and what you see in the Bible.
00:16:25In the Bible, the prophecy given was for the instruction and betterment of the people.
00:16:31Usually, in the Old Testament, it was given because I have given you the set of commandments,
00:16:36I being God, you have deviated from the Mosaic Law, you've started to fall into idolatry,
00:16:43and here is the consequences of doing that.
00:16:46So usually, it was not even a futuristic prediction.
00:16:51It was just simply, you did this bad thing, and I promised you these blessings if you did
00:16:56the good things, and these curses if you did the bad things.
00:16:59Usually, that's what it was.
00:17:00There were some things that were pointing out, events that would happen in the future,
00:17:05but they were for Israel as a whole.
00:17:10It wasn't just simply, some guy said, some guy claimed to be a prophet and walked up to
00:17:17this other guy and said, I expect that you're going to get a bunch of new cattle in your
00:17:22herd because God is going to bless you specifically.
00:17:25It was never something like this, and they do that today.
00:17:28They will go up to a businessman and say, God is going to prosper your business, so give
00:17:32me more tithe because you're going to expect it.
00:17:34I mean, that's usually how weird this gets.
00:17:37But prophecy was given to the people in this vague, symbolic form, but whenever the event
00:17:44happened, it fit so perfectly that they would identify this is the fulfillment of that prophecy.
00:17:50So it was vague and become more clear, and that was the progression.
00:17:54So they had scribes that would write down exactly what the prophecy was.
00:17:59They never had to change it.
00:18:01It was set in stone because this came from the mouthpiece of God.
00:18:04When the event happened, they could go back to what was written down by the scribes and
00:18:08compare, oh, well, this is the event.
00:18:10Clearly, this is the event.
00:18:13In what is, I don't even look at it anymore as though this is some demonic spirit.
00:18:18I know a lot of people do.
00:18:20But if you understand what these guys are doing and how they're doing it, they are trying
00:18:25to speak in vague terms because they're using the vagueness of the prophecies in the Old
00:18:31Testament as their strategy, basically.
00:18:35But what they're doing is they're giving it so vague that it could apply to many different
00:18:40situations.
00:18:40And then whenever a situation comes that almost fits, nearly every prophecy that I have examined
00:18:49by this movement, it never fully fits, but little certain pieces will fit, and they'll
00:18:55say, see, this was my prophecy, and this one element of my entire prophecy fits, so ignore
00:19:02everything that doesn't fit, and we're going to say this is a prophecy.
00:19:05Well, then whenever the next situation occurs, which may fit a different element that didn't
00:19:11fit the first time, they'll reuse that prophecy.
00:19:14But what they're doing essentially is they're recreating the prophecy.
00:19:17So the prophecy is given vague.
00:19:19It becomes more vague and more obscure as time goes on because they're trying to retrofit
00:19:24it for whatever was the event.
00:19:27But again, if you go back to the Bible, it was given in symbolic form.
00:19:31When the event happened, it was so perfectly, every detail would line up.
00:19:35And they'd say, this was our prophecy.
00:19:37This is exactly what happened.
00:19:39Yeah, yeah.
00:19:40No, there's so many layers to this.
00:19:42And yeah, the subjectivity slash sort of, I think, big target that they paint with the
00:19:49original prophecies is very much the flavor of what happens in the hyper-charismatic churches.
00:19:58Now, there are occasional prophecies that you hear that are very specific.
00:20:02And the examples I'm thinking of are more around the prophetic history of IHOP, like specifically
00:20:09the white horse prophecy, which related to Pat Bickle, Mike Bickle's brother, who had
00:20:17the accident in the 70s and he became paralyzed.
00:20:22And so, you know, Bob Jones had this white horse prophecy where related to, you know, the man
00:20:31on the board and this whole prophecy that when Pat Bickle was healed, it would begin this
00:20:37one billion soul harvest and Kansas City Chiefs were involved in that and all that stuff later
00:20:42on.
00:20:44You know, people still look at that and said, well, look, the Kansas City Chiefs won the
00:20:48Super Bowl a few times.
00:20:49That was part of the prophecy in its later form.
00:20:51But here's what people skip is, in the IHOP prophetic history, they actually stopped talking
00:20:59about that portion of the prophecy related to Pat Bickle.
00:21:02It sort of got scrubbed from the prophetic history as you move forward and it was reinterpreted
00:21:07and reinvented and whatnot.
00:21:09And so, this is an example of a very specific prophecy centered around one particular man and
00:21:15his healing, which actually did not happen.
00:21:18He was not healed.
00:21:19And so, then, the part two of the prophecy related to the billion soul harvest, it's
00:21:26like, well, I think that's probably pretty well disproven at this point, isn't it?
00:21:30Because the specificity of it was quite specific, but the event that was prophesied did not happen.
00:21:40What's interesting, though, is how are you going to validate the one billion soul harvest?
00:21:45Think about this.
00:21:46I've thought about this over recent years.
00:21:51You know, why?
00:21:52Okay, first of all, why is it one billion?
00:21:55Okay.
00:21:56And how do you measure that?
00:21:57If you're going to have a prophecy that has a number attached to it, there has to be,
00:22:01doesn't there have to be a way to be able to measure that number?
00:22:06And if the answer is yes, then how do you measure that number?
00:22:10Do you measure the one billion soul harvest by the number of people who heard the gospel from people who preach the gospel?
00:22:17Do you measure it by numbers of people who filled out a card in a church service and said they want to believe in Jesus or they raised their hand at a service?
00:22:26Like, how do you actually measure the one billion soul harvest?
00:22:29I think it's the one billion soul harvest has been made such a larger than life concept in the NAR that it's like we just take it for granted.
00:22:38We're just like, oh, yeah, the billion soul harvest.
00:22:39Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:40But we don't actually stop to think about what does that actually mean?
00:22:43How do we know if that prophecy is fulfilled?
00:22:46And I think that this is another example of a vague prophecy that you actually cannot validate.
00:22:54Whereas if you look at like the one that comes to mind from the Old Testament, Isaiah 9, 6, where he talks about it's actually a prophecy about Jesus many, many years before Jesus even was born.
00:23:07And that's the one where it says the government will rest upon his shoulders.
00:23:15And it's a foretelling of Jesus Christ.
00:23:22Very specific, you know, and but yet here in this example of the one billion soul harvest prophecy, we have a very specific trigger sort of event around Pat Bickle.
00:23:35But then this sort of the the event that was prophesied, like the one billion soul harvest was very, very large target that, again, I think it's very difficult to validate whether or not that actually happened or will happen.
00:23:51I mean, I'm of the opinion it's it's not a real prophecy.
00:23:54I think it's it was made up.
00:23:55But but anyway, just trying to kind of compare like back to what you said, comparing the examples of prophecy we have now to what's in the Bible.
00:24:08So anyway, yeah, those are just my thoughts on that around subjectivity and specificity.
00:24:14There's another aspect of this to consider whenever these stage acts and that's that's literally how I look at all of these guys.
00:24:22They're just simply stage acts whenever they do their prophetic gift or whatever it is that they say that they have.
00:24:29They also combine other verses to negate the testing of that gift.
00:24:36Touch not God's anointed is one example.
00:24:38They'll use that phrase and they'll say this means you can't test us.
00:24:41You can't question us.
00:24:43Touch not God's not anointed means I'm superior and you're inferior.
00:24:46That's essentially what it's saying.
00:24:49But there were multiple descriptions of how to treat prophecy in the Bible.
00:24:55Deuteronomy, I think it's 18.
00:24:57It talks about testing the prophecies.
00:25:00And essentially, if the prophecy came true, then it was a prophecy from God.
00:25:04And if it was false, it was definitely not.
00:25:07You had to test and see did all of the prophecy come true?
00:25:10In the latter rain movement, Branham started claiming that he had predicted that he had this vision of this bridge falling and 16 men fell to their deaths.
00:25:21And there's several elements that you can use this as an example of how how this movement was swayed in this wrong direction.
00:25:29So we were able to go back through the records.
00:25:33Fortunately, there was a Coast Guard station set up that was monitoring the entire construction of this bridge.
00:25:41And we were able to determine that 16 men never died on this bridge.
00:25:46It was actually a bridge further upstream that the event happened on.
00:25:51But Branham said in the vision,
00:25:52So the first question one must ask is, does it come true?
00:26:04According to the Bible, you have to test it.
00:26:06Was there such a thing?
00:26:07Was it 22 years?
00:26:09And if you go back to there's actually a lot of documentation on this bridge because the Coast Guard was involved.
00:26:16If you line the dates up, 22 years would have Branham prophesying before he was even born.
00:26:23The bridge wasn't built 22 years later.
00:26:26So it fails the test, right?
00:26:29Yeah.
00:26:29That's a great example.
00:26:31He said 16 men would fall to the deaths and drown.
00:26:34Well, not a single person were we able to confirm drown.
00:26:38The Coast Guard kept logs of everything right down to the we need sandwiches so we're sending somebody for bread.
00:26:45That's the detail of these logs, right?
00:26:48So it failed the first test.
00:26:51There are other passages.
00:26:53I think it's Deuteronomy 13.
00:26:57It talks about how even if the prophecy comes true, the prophet can still be false if they're leading people away from God.
00:27:05But if you examine this bridge prophecy, and this applies to almost all of the prophecies in the NAR, not a single one of those prophecies are leading people to God.
00:27:17They're instead leading people to the prophet.
00:27:19I prophesied this, I'm the one you should look at.
00:27:23Look at me.
00:27:23Look at me.
00:27:24I did the prophecy, right?
00:27:26So it fails number two.
00:27:28There's nothing that could possibly lead me closer to God by learning that 16 men fell to the deaths off of a bridge.
00:27:35It has nothing to do even with me at all, or the city, or, you know, the whole thing is ridiculous.
00:27:40Also, not many people are aware of this, but if you understand the language that is written about prophets and prophecy, Jesus said, you'll know them by their fruits.
00:27:55That whole passage is referring to examining a prophet.
00:27:59You have to look at also the moral character of the prophet.
00:28:02They have planted this idea in the minds of the congregations that if they can prophesy and it sounds true and it comes true, then they must be of God, no questions asked.
00:28:14But that's not necessarily true.
00:28:15If you look in the ancient world, you had countless prophets.
00:28:20You had the Oracle of Delphi, which is one of the greatest, you know, set of prophets.
00:28:26It wasn't a single person.
00:28:27It was multiple, but very, very accurate according to the histories of the ancient world.
00:28:34And they're not leading people to God.
00:28:35So you can't say this is a prophet of God.
00:28:37This was definitely something else, right?
00:28:40So you have to look at the moral character.
00:28:43And the big thing that is really missed, and I find this odd because if you look at how the Pentecostal movement developed,
00:28:53they were trying to recreate what is described in the New Testament about how the day of Pentecost came and what happened when the Spirit fell.
00:29:03Well, it is, I think it's Corinthians.
00:29:07It says, let the prophets speak, let two or three of them and let others weigh what is said,
00:29:13which is meaning you're going to have multiple people prophesy,
00:29:16and then people are going to be dedicated to testing the prophecy.
00:29:20Is it 100% accurate or did it fail?
00:29:24And remember, this is God speaking through the mouth of a person.
00:29:27So if any single detail is off, you can tell that this guy is making it up or this girl is making it up because God doesn't miss details.
00:29:35That's not how this works.
00:29:37And those simple four things, there's probably more, but if you read through the Bible and you understand how to treat prophets,
00:29:44it's not that you treat them as though they're this untouchable, superior being.
00:29:50They're one among you.
00:29:51They're a human like you are.
00:29:53And there might be wolves among the sheep.
00:29:56You have to test them and make sure that they're not a wolf.
00:29:58Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign,
00:30:07charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
00:30:11You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
00:30:19On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others,
00:30:29with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
00:30:33You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
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00:30:46And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
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00:30:58You know, going back to Deuteronomy 18, I actually opened that up here to just take a glance at it.
00:31:04And yeah, it's some pretty strong language that God gives for prophets that come that claim to be speaking for God.
00:31:15You know, and here's a quote just to put us all at ease.
00:31:19Verse 21 of Deuteronomy 18, NIV.
00:31:24I mean, that's pretty, that's a pretty clear test.
00:31:48Now, some people might say, well, that was the Old Testament.
00:31:51We need to, we need to now go to the New Testament to see what does prophecy look like in the, in the New Testament.
00:31:58And I mean, I think that's a fair point.
00:32:01We have the prophet Agabus in the New Testament, in the book of Acts,
00:32:06which he actually prophesied, I believe it was to Paul,
00:32:10that you would be, you'd be bound up with ropes if you go to such and such place.
00:32:17So there were, there were specificity in what Agabus said.
00:32:22It wasn't like you, Paul, the apostle are going to be bound in spiritual ropes and struggles in the demonic principalities,
00:32:33like some flowerly language, like it was, it was a very specific,
00:32:38it was a very specific indicator that you could actually look at and know whether it comes to pass or not.
00:32:44Right.
00:32:45So very measurable and very objective.
00:32:50And as you're talking, John, I was, I was thinking about what came to mind back to the specificity thing.
00:32:56And you're probably familiar with this.
00:32:58It is the, at least in our worlds of the NAR, it was the prophecy of Paul Cain about the earthquake in 1988.
00:33:10And Jack Deere and his son, Stephen Deere in particular, have talked about this publicly in the past couple of years.
00:33:18You can check out the article on divine detours.
00:33:22And I know you've talked to, you've talked, sorry, that was incorrect English.
00:33:25You've talked to Stephen before John on your podcast, but there's the story told about when Paul Cain asked Jack Deere to introduce him to John Wimber.
00:33:42And then, and then, you know, the meeting was scheduled in the summer of 1988 when the Deere's moved out to Anaheim, California to be on John Wimber's staff.
00:33:53And, and, and Paul Cain said that the Lord showed him that there would be an earthquake in Southern California on the day he arrived in Anaheim.
00:34:05And the interesting thing is, is, um, there was an earthquake as I understand it.
00:34:14There was an earthquake that happened in Armenia.
00:34:18Um, and then there was another earthquake that happened, I believe in SoCal, correct me if I'm wrong.
00:34:25Uh, but the one in Armenia was very, very destructive.
00:34:29It was, um, it, there were a lot of people that died.
00:34:34The one in Southern California, I don't know, but the thing about Southern California is everybody who's lived in California knows this.
00:34:40And I have lived in California, Northern California, but even in Northern California, we had a lot of seismic activity.
00:34:46But Southern California, especially, you have a ton of seismic activity happening all the time.
00:34:50So here's the question, what is the probability, like statistically, I would love to know on any given day in Southern California in 1988,
00:34:59what would be the probability of a large earthquake hitting that region?
00:35:04You know, is it one out of a million?
00:35:06Is it one out of 10,000?
00:35:07Is it one out of a, one out of a thousand, one out of a hundred?
00:35:10And then, and then you take a step further and you're like, well, define large earthquake.
00:35:15How do you know what is a large earthquake?
00:35:17Is it, is it 4.0 on the Richter scale?
00:35:20Is it 5.0?
00:35:21And then the next question is how deep is the earthquake?
00:35:24Because we know that you can have a very high rating on the Richter scale of an earthquake, but if it's really deep,
00:35:32it won't create as much damage on the surface.
00:35:34So these are all the questions I'm asking in my brain.
00:35:38Was it coincidental that two, or not just one, but two earthquakes happened?
00:35:45They actually did.
00:35:46It's recorded in history.
00:35:48You can look it up.
00:35:51Is that coincidental?
00:35:52Did Paul Kane have some kind of, and I can just tell, John, you've got a lot of opinion about this.
00:35:57I can't wait to hear.
00:35:59What is that?
00:36:00Like, what's going on here?
00:36:01Is this, is this an example of coincidence?
00:36:03Is this, is this an example of maybe Paul Kane got one right?
00:36:07I don't know.
00:36:08I legitimately don't know.
00:36:09I'm dying to know what you think.
00:36:11Well, back, back to my Chiefs game.
00:36:13If I were to have sat there and watched, watched a pre-show game where I was watching about the other team,
00:36:23and I saw that their star quarterback is out.
00:36:25They had to put in second string, and their defensive line, a couple guys are sick or broken legs,
00:36:33and I knew that the other team was heavily crippled.
00:36:36Then if I were to randomly say, you watch, the Chiefs are going to win this game,
00:36:41it really means nothing because I've watched the pre-game show,
00:36:44and I know that the other team has a strong disadvantage.
00:36:46Well, to anyone who doesn't live in Southern California or hasn't spent any significant amount of time
00:36:54who is unaware how many earthquakes happen in California per day, it's not just one or two.
00:37:03I mean, we're talking, you can pull up a map, and you can see it is,
00:37:07if I were to predict that an earthquake is going to happen tomorrow, I might actually get it right.
00:37:11Yeah.
00:37:12Because it just continually happens.
00:37:14Sure.
00:37:14It sits right there on the San Andreas Fault.
00:37:17Yeah.
00:37:17Well, a lot of people also didn't know this when Cain was throwing these random predictions.
00:37:23Armenia also has a fault line going right through it.
00:37:26Okay.
00:37:26So what you see in Southern California, you also see in Armenia.
00:37:30And if you apply that to the global scale, which he did,
00:37:34I can predict that tomorrow an earthquake is going to happen.
00:37:38And I'm going to be right because somewhere in the world,
00:37:40some country is going to have an earthquake.
00:37:43That's the way the world we live in works.
00:37:47But that's how these people do it.
00:37:49And again, take it back to those criteria that I mentioned before.
00:37:53How does it help the church to know that there is an earthquake going to happen?
00:37:58What good does that do?
00:37:59What value is that to the church?
00:38:01Right.
00:38:01Exactly.
00:38:02How does it help the church better the church?
00:38:03Instead, it's pointing to prophecy as basically pointing to the prophet as the ultimate authority.
00:38:09And it's pointing people to him instead of God.
00:38:12So this is actually failing one of the criterias.
00:38:15That's a great point.
00:38:16Thank you for saying that.
00:38:17Yeah.
00:38:17It's not just about the event.
00:38:19Like, let's say, okay, let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
00:38:21Let's say it was potentially a legit prophecy.
00:38:24Okay, but like, yeah, part two, like how many people came to the Lord or who chose to follow Jesus Christ because of this earthquake prophecy?
00:38:36That is a great point.
00:38:37And so, and I mean, and then, you know, my next sort of snark comment question is, well, how do you know?
00:38:45Like, how do you know if somebody is getting pointed towards God in this situation?
00:38:51And I don't know.
00:38:52I mean, that's probably a subjective question that's probably, it's probably a different answer for everybody, every different person, just depending on that person's experience.
00:39:01But still, like, if you boil it down and you just look at it at face value, like, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I think probably the result was that Paul Cain was elevated in his sort of position and his believability and validation as a prophet, you know, and it wouldn't be long after this that, or actually, it was during this time that the Kansas City prophets
00:39:30were sort of in their heyday in Kansas City and so sort of helped to, I think, probably bolster his position in that sort of circle and, you know, contribute to the prophetic history of IHOP.
00:39:46So, and then other, you know, circles and groups too.
00:39:50But yeah, it's very perplexing.
00:39:53Like, I like to look at both sides of the argument and really give it an honest look and not just, you know, say, okay, well, it's all just bad.
00:40:03Let's throw it all out.
00:40:03Like, I actually want to give each side of the argument the benefit of the doubt and think about it critically.
00:40:12I would love to know what the statistical probability is, though, of an earthquake, a major earthquake happening at any given day in Southern California, more specifically 1988.
00:40:21And I'm sure Grok or ChatGPT could tell us.
00:40:25According to ChatGPT, the probability is 100%.
00:40:28100%.
00:40:30I mean, if you look at the map, you understand why it's like this.
00:40:34Every single day, there's going to be an earthquake somewhere.
00:40:37And, you know, so let's take a step back at this.
00:40:41Cain was William Branham's protege.
00:40:44Branham got ejected from Germany and I don't know how many other countries.
00:40:49Cain is the one that Branham would send in his stead.
00:40:52He was literally that guy, right?
00:40:55He started working with Branham in the mid-50s.
00:40:58I think it was the mid-50s he started working with Branham.
00:41:00So he would have been around for what I'm about to say.
00:41:04Around the mid-50s, there were a lot of things that started to happen quickly.
00:41:08One of which was Branham took on the leadership of the homosexual William T. Freire von Blumberg, who was one of the directors for the Fellowship Foundation, otherwise known as The Family.
00:41:25And they were planting family organizations all around the globe, apparently.
00:41:30And he was openly homosexual to his inner circle.
00:41:36Cain was also, and other people we have connected to this were as well.
00:41:40And all that to say, each one of the men who were involved in this inner circle was preaching strongly against homosexuality while working with known homosexuals.
00:41:52So, all that to say, they were speaking out of both sides of their mouth.
00:41:57They weren't doing what it was that they were saying, which, if you understand by their fruit, you shall know them, all the passages that are related to that, they're actually failing one of the critiques for being a prophet.
00:42:10Jim Jones is one of the people who started working with him at the same time.
00:42:15That's the level of nasty that this gets.
00:42:18Well, it is during the mid-50s that William Branham took one of his old alleged prophecies and kind of twisted and rewrote it.
00:42:29During the early, gosh, it would have been in the early 40s to mid-40s, there were men who were claiming that Mussolini was going to lead people to the end of day's destruction.
00:42:45Because of the Christian identity doctrine, they believed that the false Jews had invaded the United States, Mussolini and Rome was the other part of this equation, that would lead to Armageddon, etc.
00:42:57And Branham admits, or you can find this on recording, he admits to almost having been arrested for this, why there were several people who were involved in this conspiracy that were part of what became the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.
00:43:14They were essentially trying to sway the American public against the government and cause a mass sedition.
00:43:23So Branham admits to being part of this, and he claims that he had some prophecy surrounding this.
00:43:29Well, he was one of hundreds who were making the same claims.
00:43:32Fast forward to 1950s, Branham then, in the mid-1950s, claimed that he had a series of prophecies in the year 1933, which included that Mussolini prophecy.
00:43:48He claims that he buried, he wrote them all down on a piece of paper, and then buried it for no one to see.
00:43:54So if you go back to the scriptural example of a prophet, the prophets had scribes that would write things down so that when the event happened, they knew that that was the event that happened by God.
00:44:06They didn't hide them for no one to see.
00:44:09And years later, we have discovered that not only did he not bury them, the cornerstone that they were buried in was dug up twice in the history of it.
00:44:23And found to be empty.
00:44:25The details that he got in those prophecies weren't the same from retelling to retelling of what are the seven prophecies.
00:44:34They changed and evolved over time.
00:44:36They grew.
00:44:37They morphed.
00:44:39Where I'm headed with this is people like Paul Cain were there with Branham when he would say,
00:44:44Do you remember when I prophesied about this female vice president, which wasn't one of the original seven?
00:44:51People who were with him, who thought him to be the end of days messenger from God, they were studying what he said, everything that he said.
00:45:01So in the 50s, they suddenly came to be aware of these 1933 prophecies.
00:45:07They would have scrambled to learn more.
00:45:08Well, why didn't he tell us this until 1950s?
00:45:11Then when they got the original seven, the moment in which he mentions an eighth and drops one of the first original seven, they would have stood back and said, What in the world?
00:45:22That's not the seven that I have.
00:45:24I'm studying this because I think this is the messenger from God.
00:45:28But the way that Branham did this was, and with the men that he was working with, was with such deception that the men who were with him, Cain included, were fully aware that he wasn't being truthful about even having the seven prophecies.
00:45:44There's clear evidence that he never even had a single prophecy.
00:45:49They were aware of this, but what they did was they watched the way that he introduced after the fact retroactive or, you know, whatever is the word that you used in the beginning of the retroactive prophecy, retroactive prophecy.
00:46:03He did this and they watched the people believe it.
00:46:07But not only that, they watched the people believe it and start sending in large sums of money.
00:46:13So then this turns into this big scheme, this basically religious racketeering is what this is.
00:46:20It turned into this and they saw the power of claiming prophecy.
00:46:25But more than that, they saw that the power he had over the individuals to believe him as a prophet, no matter whether it's true or not.
00:46:33They wanted to adopt this and create a movement that was far, far larger in scope than even what Branham created.
00:46:40Cain helped create this.
00:46:41This is mind-blowing.
00:46:43Okay.
00:46:43What you're describing here, among other things, is first and foremost, spiritual abuse at the highest level, right?
00:46:52Because, yes, you're talking about deception that it's deception that intersects with human agency.
00:47:00And it hijacks a person's belief in God, and it causes that person's agency to be exploited and supplanted by the man of God, you know, prophet person.
00:47:17And then you wake up 20 years later after being in it, and you're like, my entire internal spiritual structure has been hijacked, right?
00:47:28And you multiply that by, like, hundreds of thousands of people that have now been impacted by the offshoots of the original message organization, the NAR.
00:47:41But, like, back to what you said, that is a perfect example.
00:47:44That's crazy, though.
00:47:45I've heard you talk about this before, like, with the 1933 prophecy with William Branham and how they dug up the stone and there was no paper.
00:47:52You know, there was nothing there that was recorded.
00:47:59This is a perfect example of retroactive prophecy.
00:48:03And other prophetic people have done this around other geopolitical events, namely 9-11, okay?
00:48:11I can't even tell you how many people I've run across.
00:48:14I'm sure you have, too, prophetic people who conveniently announced to the general public that they had a dream or vision after the fact about 9-11, right?
00:48:27So even years later, like, some of these are even recent, like, in the past five years.
00:48:32Hey, by the way, y'all, I had a dream where I saw the towers get hit by airplanes, and they all, you know, fell down and disappeared and exploded.
00:48:41And all these people died.
00:48:43And it's like, I mean, really, like, you know, this is probably the most severe terrorist attack our country has faced ever.
00:48:55And you're getting on the horn and saying, oh, yeah, I knew about this beforehand.
00:48:59Well, if you knew about it beforehand, why didn't you tell us?
00:49:03Why did you not bother to warn us?
00:49:05And, you know, and I think some of these guys are so steeped in their, you know, drinking their own Kool-Aid that they actually say, well, I did warn y'all.
00:49:14I gave y'all all these prophetic words beforehand, you know, that were, that you, if you were spiritual, you would have been able to interpret this,
00:49:23and you could have avoided loss of life or something or some whatever, you know?
00:49:28And it's like, this to me is the ultimate grift because you're, you're using, you're actually using events that happened already in the past.
00:49:40Okay.
00:49:41Again, going back to my original point, it is 2025.
00:49:46And I could get on YouTube or some other platform and say, I'm a prophet.
00:49:51And I could tell y'all, you know what?
00:49:53I had a dream that COVID was going to happen.
00:49:56I had a dream that this virus was going to, this new virus that nobody has ever heard of, that doctors have never even seen before,
00:50:05was going to take over the world, was going to be this worldwide pandemic and all these people are going to die.
00:50:09And I saw all this back in 1994, you know, and I saw dark clouds coming over to the United States and all these people dying from this virus that would make you cough and you would lose your,
00:50:26I hate to be graphic, but this is the, this is the kind of stuff they say, like, uh, people can't breathe.
00:50:31They have to have respirators.
00:50:32And then, and the next thing you know, you've got family members that are dying of a virus that you've never heard of before.
00:50:38And they're like, this is exactly what they do.
00:50:42They will take a historical event that has already occurred.
00:50:47They will claim that they, they knew about it beforehand by reason of prophetic revelation, whether it be vision, dream or visitation or something else.
00:50:57And because I knew about it, I'm validated as a prophet.
00:51:02I am to be followed.
00:51:04I am to be listened to.
00:51:05I am to be believed.
00:51:07And by the way, to your point, I am to be given much money to like, you need to write your checks to me because I need to be able to fund my ministry to be able to continue telling you about all the future events that haven't yet happened.
00:51:22So let me blow your mind even further, please.
00:51:25So, in the late 1940s, right about the time latter rain is getting ready to explode, William Branham starts to say, you may not have known this, people.
00:51:40He's speaking to the audience.
00:51:41But the very day that the Lord sent his angel down to me and met me in that room alone with this angel to give me the gift of divine healing, that day was the same exact day that Israel became a nation.
00:51:57And he gives it a year.
00:51:58And people who are listening think, oh, my gosh, this is symbolic.
00:52:02This is spiritual because Israel.
00:52:04Well, the year he gives wasn't the year that Israel became a nation.
00:52:09No way.
00:52:10He was just pulling it out of his butt.
00:52:12So what year did he claim that Israel became a nation?
00:52:15I'll just read you the quote.
00:52:17He says,
00:52:17So he's using the date, May the 6th, 1947.
00:52:38Here's where it gets a little bit funny.
00:52:40The very first recording of a faith healing ministry that we are allowed to hear.
00:52:47There are recordings that preexist this.
00:52:49The very first one that is in the tape index is April 1947.
00:52:55So he's having these divine healing lines before the alleged angel met him.
00:53:02But where I'm headed with this is somewhere entirely different.
00:53:05Interesting.
00:53:06So William Branham, we came across a book that was written by William Branham, a little pamphlet
00:53:11that was dated 1945.
00:53:14And he gives the date in his letter.
00:53:16He's got a preface letter.
00:53:18And he says,
00:53:20This day, this angel, this vision has come to me and has given me this new commission to heal the sick.
00:53:28So that's in 1945.
00:53:29He's mentioning that he's healing the sick.
00:53:32So he's got a divine commission way before his 1947 claim.
00:53:38In that letter, he describes having a gift of healing starting, I think the date goes back to 1936.
00:53:47And he says,
00:53:48And then the gift left me and then it came back.
00:53:51But there's a critical point that he mentions in this book.
00:53:54He says,
00:53:55In the vision, I was told to go out west because the people in the tabernacle would no longer eat my bread.
00:54:04So symbolically, he's saying that the people in his church aren't listening to him.
00:54:08And people who are not familiar with the history of the Branham tabernacle do not realize the Branham tabernacle had this significant turnover.
00:54:18People were coming and they would sit for a while and then they would never return again.
00:54:23So whenever he says things like,
00:54:26Do you remember back in that day when I prophesied?
00:54:29You people were there.
00:54:30You were hearing it.
00:54:31Well, most of the people that he's speaking to weren't there.
00:54:35They didn't know it.
00:54:37The ones who were there, they quit coming because they knew that this guy just lied through his teeth.
00:54:43Why would I come back to this liar who's saying this?
00:54:45But those statements are recorded.
00:54:49So every future generation that hears those recordings, they think that he's being truthful.
00:54:55And here's the point I'm trying to make, which not many people understand this.
00:54:59For these types of people, Branham, Bickle, all of the ones who are pulling this prophetic nonsense,
00:55:05they don't really care if what they say is true.
00:55:09They don't even care if the audience believes that it's true because the audience that do not believe will leave eventually and they'll be replaced with people who do.
00:55:21And the people who are replaced can go back and they can see it's either written form, it's recorded form, whatever it is.
00:55:28They'll go back and say, wow, everybody that I'm in this new church with, not knowing that this turnover exists, they all believe the same thing.
00:55:36I must believe it, too.
00:55:38Okay, you learned me something.
00:55:40You learned me something, John.
00:55:44So, okay, let's go back.
00:55:46May, you said May 6th, 1947.
00:55:51Right.
00:55:51He said it was May the 6th, 1947.
00:55:54And you can go back.
00:55:55I mean, this is fully documented.
00:55:57You can go through the history of the state of Israel.
00:55:59It was May, I think it was May 14th, 1948.
00:56:0348, yeah.
00:56:03I'm looking at the Office of the Historian of the U.S. State Department.
00:56:07And it says May 14th, 1948 was when Israel became a nation.
00:56:13So he was one year and seven days early.
00:56:19Yeah, but keep in mind, like he's saying this to people who have already just kind of adopted everything that he said.
00:56:27Those people who recognize that, wait a minute, that's not even true, they would have just left.
00:56:31They're not there.
00:56:32They're not even there.
00:56:33Yeah.
00:56:34Okay, this is what I want to say.
00:56:37The thing you learned me right now.
00:56:39Well, so when I go back and I look at the structure and organization of all three trifecta hyper charismatic churches I was a part of, right?
00:56:51So for me, it was Morningstar, IOPKC slash Metro Christian Belgium, and then Bethel.
00:56:58Every one of those organizations' orbits is very similar to what you described in that, but it's anchored around now schools of ministry and conferences, right?
00:57:13And so you've heard the concept conference church.
00:57:16Well, what happens is just what you described in the brand of organization, you have volumes and volumes of people coming, and you have volumes and volumes of people leaving.
00:57:27It's literally like a revolving door.
00:57:28Now, you do have some people that are long lifers or whatever, people that stick around for a while, and we still know a number of them at Bethel that are in leadership and staff and what have you.
00:57:41They've been there for a good long time.
00:57:42But by and large, people come and people go in great number.
00:57:47You know, whether it's they spend a year, they spend six months, they might spend three weeks or five years or whatever.
00:57:52For us, it was four years at Bethel.
00:57:58But it's a great observation because exactly what you said, like the people that would have been there at the time that these original things were spoken,
00:58:11a lot of them may not be there anymore.
00:58:14Even though now I think we have a lot more volume of material that's recorded, both audio and video, than they did back then.
00:58:21So it's easier to kind of, you know, it's easier to see through that than it was back then, probably.
00:58:29But still, like there are plenty of people who are still drinking the Kool-Aid.
00:58:33Like they're coming in, they're staying, and then maybe they get disillusioned or they leave or whatever.
00:58:37And they, you know, and they're out.
00:58:40And you got a whole crop of new people coming in.
00:58:43But I will say this about Bethel.
00:58:45I've been hearing from credible sources that, and this is just what I've been hearing.
00:58:50I don't know if it's true or not.
00:58:51I'm just saying, like, take this as a grain of salt.
00:58:56That enrollment of BSSM, Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, is kind of going down.
00:59:02It's been kind of on a downtrend.
00:59:04And I just wonder, like, is it because word is getting out that more and more of the scandals is, you know, being made public?
00:59:13There's been more hubbub at Bethel here this year around Sean Boltz, the Griffith, you know, the fake prophecy data mining that Sean Boltz did.
00:59:21There's been stuff with Bob Hartley over there.
00:59:24And, you know, and so you just wonder, like, is that impacting the incoming pipeline of people?
00:59:32And I'm just interested in the numbers, like, and it's hard to prove this because these numbers aren't really public, like, as far as how many people are coming into the Bethel orbit now versus, like, maybe five years ago, for example.
00:59:46And is that notably different?
00:59:49Is it comparable or what?
00:59:51I would love to know what those numbers are.
00:59:52I don't know what they are, but I would venture to say, based on what I've heard, that the numbers have decreased.
00:59:57But that being said, Bethel still has tremendous influence and resources worldwide in their reach.
01:00:05So, even if they did have a downtick in pipeline of people coming in, you know, that may not make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things as far as their influence on large numbers of people.
01:00:20I think it's a combination of things, and it brings me, actually, to my last point.
01:00:23So, you have this turnover.
01:00:26People who recognize that this whole thing is a scam, they leave, and new people come.
01:00:32And anybody who's in the prophetic can say, do you remember when I said, well, half the people weren't there, so they didn't hear it.
01:00:40But the people who were, who come, who believe this, they get under this level of mind control where they're part of the system, even though that they can recognize there are cracks in the walls of the system, they have been indoctrinated.
01:00:56So, when they do leave, when they come across something that causes them to leave, they don't throw it all away.
01:01:03They don't realize that they've been scammed.
01:01:05Instead, they'll take whatever's the thing that they found wrong, and they'll say, well, this is problematic.
01:01:10I'm going somewhere else.
01:01:12When they do, they take with them their indoctrination.
01:01:15And because they're in this apostolic network that is under the umbrella of the NAR, they usually go to another church that's in the same network who's doing the same exact thing, who – you know, they're saying, do you remember when I said – well, then they're already indoctrinated from the first church.
01:01:34They go to the second, and they immediately accept it and believe it rather than use critical thinking.
01:01:39So, it's a problem that cascades and grows over time with the individuals that go from church to church.
01:01:46But that is a topic, I think, for another day.
01:01:50Yeah, we should talk about that more like the migration.
01:01:54I know we've talked about cross-pollination before, and that's definitely part of my story, too.
01:01:58Like, I hop between three different ones and then some.
01:02:02So, yeah, it happens.
01:02:03Yours truly did that.
01:02:04But – so, guilty as charged.
01:02:07But, yeah, we should talk about that sometime.
01:02:10Awesome.
01:02:10Well, this has been fun.
01:02:11Thank you for doing this.
01:02:12Of course.
01:02:13Absolutely happy to be here.
01:02:16Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
01:02:19You can find us at william-branum.org and the Grit in the Wild podcast.
01:02:25For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
01:02:32Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
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