- 17 hours ago
John explores the origins of Joel’s Army—a militant spiritual ideology that emerged from the strange crossroads of Pentecostalism, Christian Identity, and post-WWII fear. He traces its development from early influences like Helena Blavatsky’s esoteric teachings, New Thought metaphysics, and British Israelism to William Branham’s “spoken word” theology and Roy Davis’s ideological orphanages. The episode exposes how the Sharon Orphanage in North Battleford, Canada, became a model for youth indoctrination under the guise of revival and prophecy.
John connects the rise of Joel’s Army to the political and apocalyptic climate after the atomic bomb—when fear of a coming world war fueled a militant form of faith. He explains how these doctrines laid the groundwork for movements like the Latter Rain revival and today’s New Apostolic Reformation. With historical depth and theological clarity, this episode uncovers how mysticism, nationalism, and spiritual warfare blended into a single, radical ideology that continues to shape modern charismatic movements.
00:00 – Introduction
00:31 – Childhood Experiences and Marching Songs
01:55 – Covert vs Overt Joel’s Army Teaching
03:30 – IHOPKC, Paul Cain, and the Arrowhead Stadium Prophecy
05:12 – Why Joel’s Army Became the NAR’s Turning Point
06:11 – Helena Blavatsky and Early Mystical Influences
07:14 – New Thought, Mind Science, and “Spoken Word” Origins
08:34 – John Alexander Dowie, Bosworth, and Immortality Theology
09:58 – Spiritualism and Camp Chesterfield Connections
11:35 – British Israelism and the Rise of Identity Theology
12:42 – Holiness, Universalist Sects, and Early Immortality Movements
13:53 – The Mix of Influences Forming the Latter Rain Bedrock
14:58 – Romans 8 and the Misuse of “Manifest Sons of God”
18:18 – The True Context of Paul’s Teaching
21:48 – How These Doctrines Became Militant
22:53 – World War II Fears and the Coming of Nuclear Anxiety
24:07 – The 1947 Explosion of Revivalism
25:17 – Branham, Little David Walker, and Stage Performance Healings
27:02 – The Sharon Orphanage and Birth of Latter Rain
28:29 – Why the Orphanage Was an Ideological Training Center
29:55 – Hitler Youth, Nationalism, and North American Anxiety
32:07 – Nuclear Fear and the Atomic Age Reaction
33:55 – How Leaders Weaponized Joel 2 in the Late 1940s
35:55 – Sons and Daughters Prophesying: Youth as the Core Target
37:19 – Franklin Hall and Atomic-Power Fasting
38:11 – Branham’s Metaphysical Influence on the Students
39:55 – Early Branham Gimmicks and Revival Culture
42:03 – Spiritualist Tricks and the Angel-on-Stage Myth
44:00 – Teaching Children Metaphysics as “Christian Doctrine”
47:01 – How “Spoken Word” Became a Theology of Divinized Humans
49:04 – Mixing Verses to Create a New Doctrine
50:51 – Preparing Children to Become “Manifestations of God”
53:03 – Paul Cain, IHOPKC, and Repeating the Same Patterns
54:47 – Mind-Control Tactics and Youth Indoctrination
56:03 – Why Joel’s Army Never Looked Like Christianit
John connects the rise of Joel’s Army to the political and apocalyptic climate after the atomic bomb—when fear of a coming world war fueled a militant form of faith. He explains how these doctrines laid the groundwork for movements like the Latter Rain revival and today’s New Apostolic Reformation. With historical depth and theological clarity, this episode uncovers how mysticism, nationalism, and spiritual warfare blended into a single, radical ideology that continues to shape modern charismatic movements.
00:00 – Introduction
00:31 – Childhood Experiences and Marching Songs
01:55 – Covert vs Overt Joel’s Army Teaching
03:30 – IHOPKC, Paul Cain, and the Arrowhead Stadium Prophecy
05:12 – Why Joel’s Army Became the NAR’s Turning Point
06:11 – Helena Blavatsky and Early Mystical Influences
07:14 – New Thought, Mind Science, and “Spoken Word” Origins
08:34 – John Alexander Dowie, Bosworth, and Immortality Theology
09:58 – Spiritualism and Camp Chesterfield Connections
11:35 – British Israelism and the Rise of Identity Theology
12:42 – Holiness, Universalist Sects, and Early Immortality Movements
13:53 – The Mix of Influences Forming the Latter Rain Bedrock
14:58 – Romans 8 and the Misuse of “Manifest Sons of God”
18:18 – The True Context of Paul’s Teaching
21:48 – How These Doctrines Became Militant
22:53 – World War II Fears and the Coming of Nuclear Anxiety
24:07 – The 1947 Explosion of Revivalism
25:17 – Branham, Little David Walker, and Stage Performance Healings
27:02 – The Sharon Orphanage and Birth of Latter Rain
28:29 – Why the Orphanage Was an Ideological Training Center
29:55 – Hitler Youth, Nationalism, and North American Anxiety
32:07 – Nuclear Fear and the Atomic Age Reaction
33:55 – How Leaders Weaponized Joel 2 in the Late 1940s
35:55 – Sons and Daughters Prophesying: Youth as the Core Target
37:19 – Franklin Hall and Atomic-Power Fasting
38:11 – Branham’s Metaphysical Influence on the Students
39:55 – Early Branham Gimmicks and Revival Culture
42:03 – Spiritualist Tricks and the Angel-on-Stage Myth
44:00 – Teaching Children Metaphysics as “Christian Doctrine”
47:01 – How “Spoken Word” Became a Theology of Divinized Humans
49:04 – Mixing Verses to Create a New Doctrine
50:51 – Preparing Children to Become “Manifestations of God”
53:03 – Paul Cain, IHOPKC, and Repeating the Same Patterns
54:47 – Mind-Control Tactics and Youth Indoctrination
56:03 – Why Joel’s Army Never Looked Like Christianit
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:41at william-branham.org, where history proves that truth, or at least their version of it,
00:47is truly stranger than fiction. Today, I'm diving deep into the Joel's Army, the Manifest Sons of
00:55God. There's different names that these doctrinal frameworks use to describe it, but the theme is
01:02Joel's Army. And before I start, I'll preface with this. There are themes that I grew up with
01:10that I really didn't recognize whenever I was a kid. And, you know, when you're in a church setting
01:16and you're sending your children off to Sunday school and they're marching and they're singing
01:21songs about marching in an army. And, you know, I'm not going to name the songs because these are
01:27common songs among some of the Pentecostal groups. But some of these songs take a whole different
01:34meaning when you consider the fact that this Christian identity movement was mixed into the
01:40doctrine and some of the Christian identity themes were actually quite militant. It takes a different
01:46meaning. It seems harmless. And we never used the phrase Joel's Army growing up. So I grew up like
01:54this. I marched to these songs. We sang about marching. I may never march in the infantry.
02:01Again, I won't go too deep with the song names. But the fact is that people who are in this type of
02:08movement, they don't really, it doesn't really register in their heads that it is supposed to be even
02:15more militant than their singing. And again, when you consider Christian identities in the mix and
02:22you consider some of the really sinister history behind the movement, you begin to understand that
02:28the leadership was trying to create a frame of mind that was militant. And they were trying to
02:34create a form of religion that while from the surface might be viewed as somewhat harmless or benign,
02:40it actually was a militant religion. And the themes of the sermons would provoke sort of a pride that
02:51they were militant, that they're militant in their doctrine is what they would say. So again, I grew up
02:56like this. I know many other people who did. And now that I've left this and I understand what was
03:02behind it, and I'm starting to talk with different people from different groups that kind of emerged from
03:08this tree that was Branhamism, Lateran, whatever you want to call this mess. There are many others
03:16like me in different movements who also were taught Joel's army, but some of them not by name. Some of
03:23them were by name, and they would refer to it very militant, but others, it was, you know, it was kind of
03:29covert. And why was it covert? I talked to people who have escaped IHOP KC, the International House of
03:37Prayer in Kansas City. They had part of this Joel's army theme as their doctrine. They call it their
03:45prophetic history, but basically it's the background to their specific cult. And Paul Cain, who was
03:51William Branham's protege and William Branham's proxy in the countries where he wasn't allowed to go,
03:58such as Germany, Paul Cain had this vision that he claimed Joel's army and training was going to be
04:04broadcast over the Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium. And these sons and daughters would rise up and
04:11become Joel's army. And so they, they started this training center and, and you know, the history of
04:17this turns into a mess. So with all of this background, I wanted to study this and I have
04:23actually studied it from different angles and I'm continuing to study it from different angles
04:29because this seems to be the core epicenter of what turned Pentecostal, charismatic,
04:37William Branham's flavor of Christian identity. All of these themes kind of exploded into the new
04:42apostolic reformation. And this Joel's army seems to be the hinge pin. So I want to know why it's like
04:50this. Why, why was this the turning point and what is the doctrine? So I've been examining with different
04:56co-hosts and we've talked about this off and on for several, several years now, but most recently
05:03with Bob Scott, we got into a little bit and, um, I'll be diving into it more with the co-hosts,
05:08but before we go too far, I want to kind of sum up where I am in this research with Joel's army right
05:15now, because it is a crazy, fascinating history. And for those who are unfamiliar with this, it's very
05:22important to understand if you want to understand why the new apostolic reformation is what it is
05:28today. Why, why has it became this very militant, very politically activated group? So before we go
05:36there, I think it would be good for people who've never heard of this concept to understand Joel's
05:42army as it relates to the manifested sons of God theology. And there's many different ways that
05:48you can approach this. You can go historically and you can look at different people who have taught
05:55this. It's, it's nothing new. It is kind of a new rebranding and Christian identity, uh, mixed with
06:02Pentecostalism and, and now charismatic and new apostolic reformation. But the theme that this
06:10sudden rise of these superhuman spiritual beings, et cetera, you can go back to Helena Blavatsky,
06:18Steve, um, Montgomery. And I talk about this often in our converging apostasy series, Helena Blavatsky,
06:27who was a, you know, precursor, one of the precursors to the manifest sons of God theme
06:31taught that humans could evolve into a higher ascended being. And there were different concepts
06:38that were used to teach this, but basically what Blavatsky was describing was this spiritual
06:44evolution. And it wasn't a Christian spiritual evolution that was being described. Earth would
06:51enter this cosmic age, which ironically, if you, if you came from randomism or any of the Christian
06:58identity cults, that, that theme, that cosmic age kind of has a weird reference, but Blavatsky is
07:05teaching this and, um, the mind science movements of the 1800s to the 1930s, they taught something
07:13similar, which probably descended from Blavatsky's doctrine or teaching, whatever you call this,
07:19but they taught that the divine nature existed in every person and new thought brought this concept
07:26that spoken words manifested into spiritual reality. And that's really key to understand because
07:34as William Branham's spoken word, he actually used the phrase spoken word as his theology created the,
07:43the bedding for this movement to start growing. He is basically teaching that the spoken word
07:50will manifest into different ways and shapes and forms, but also that Jesus himself was a spoken word
07:59made manifest. That's one of his core doctrines. So this emerged into the movement. And when you think
08:05of the, all of the doctrines on like the, ye are little gods that, that doctrine will Branham kind of
08:13taught this, but he taught it such that you could speak it into happening. You could declare it and it
08:18would happen. This spun off into the word of faith movements and other ideas, but it wasn't new to
08:24Branham. This was basically a new thought concept. The other thing to consider is the metaphysical
08:33attributes of this so-called Joe's, Joe's army. If you go back to John Alexander Dowie and look at his
08:41group, John Alexander Dowie taught that perfected faith could even remove death. So if you had a
08:51faith that was unwavering and you had reached this higher spiritual plane through your, through your
08:58belief by excluding all, eliminating all unbelief, then you could actually conquer death. That's one of
09:05the themes that came out of John Alexander Dowie's Zion City cult. F.F. Bosworth, who was a leader in
09:12John Alexander Dowie's Zion cult, was a mentor to William Branham in the healing revivals, Bosworth
09:19himself being a divine healer, a faith healer. So he's mentoring Branham in this concept that
09:26Branham's teaching the spoken word. Now he's mixing in this concept that you must have a perfected faith
09:34to achieve this supernatural manifestation. In other words, you must be an overcomer is a phrase that is
09:41often used. It's very close to the immortal overcomers that, you know, these different spiritualist groups are
09:48talking about. And then another theme that mixes in with this is early spiritualism. You had these different
09:57groups across the United States that believed that they were communicating with spirits. One of the
10:03spiritualist camps was actually in Indiana, not far from where I live. And there's evidence that
10:09suggests that William Branham attended this camp. It was called Camp Chesterfield. And you can go on the
10:16website, you can type in, I think, Madam Mimi, but you'll see the reasons why it seems, it does appear
10:23that William Branham was at that camp. But prior to that, whenever William Branham's, the person who
10:30ordained William Branham in the Pentecostal faith and the second in command of the 1915 clan, Roy Davis,
10:38when he came to Jeffersonville running from the law, he claimed to have, he claimed to expose
10:46spiritualism. And I think, I think it was Davis that claimed that he was a converted spiritualist and
10:52he was going to tell all. And so by telling all, I guess they went to this camp and they figured out how
10:58it worked. But anyway, early spiritualism taught that you could communicate with spirits, that you
11:05could progress to higher spiritual states. And that the more that the, the more that the earth
11:13manifested these spiritual beings, the more the earth improved. Again, that's spiritualism. It is
11:18not Christianity, but this is mixing in with the themes that are starting to create the bedrock for what
11:26would eventually develop into the latter rain and all the way down to the new apostolic reformation.
11:32At the same time, you had British Israelism mixing in. So British Israelism was this concept that
11:40the United States and Canada were the descendants of the lost 10 tribes of Israel. And there was this
11:49theme that began to emerge as it was starting to turn into Christian identity, that earth would be
11:55transformed by the true Israel. And that what we see in Israel was the false Israel. And so you had
12:01this, I don't know what you call it. You had this militant position against people who were the so-called
12:08false Jews in Christian identity. In British Israelism, it had not yet turned that racist. And British
12:15Israelism is what would come into the, um, into the early latter rain movement. When you understand how it
12:24works and why the, why the way in which scripture is taken out of context, then you begin to understand
12:33how all of this unfolds. So I'll come back to the British Israelism, but there were also other
12:39influences, which are probably worth mentioning. There is different types of universalist strands that
12:47came in, the holiness strands that came in 1800s. And they were teaching things like the entire
12:53sanctification as a godlike nature. In other words, you must be fully sanctified to overcome.
13:01And if you get into the extremes of this, and I can't recall any of the names at the moment, but some
13:08of the leaders in this movement began to claim that immortality was achievable. If you, if you were to fully
13:15cleanse yourself, I guess, is how they would say it. So there, there are some direct transmissions of
13:22all of these things into the, uh, Pentecostal groups that developed into what would become latter rain.
13:29So to sum, sum all of this up, you had the Helena Blavatsky influence. You had the new thought,
13:36the mind science movements, the metaphysical healing cults, the early spiritualism, British Israelism,
13:45Christian identity, holiness, sex, universalist sex, all of these things were kind of creating this
13:52bedrock, so to speak. And it was creating a atmosphere where when a revivalist would come
14:00into the United States and start going through the United States, holding these tent revivals,
14:06it was appealing to teach these themes. And so people began to associate these themes with
14:12Christian theology while the Christian theology, theologians were just, you know, in, in a state
14:19of shock. Why are they doing this? This is not Christianity. So that's kind of the background
14:24to this. So the other thing you have to understand again, is the manifest sons of God. And to understand
14:32that if you've never encountered this, you go to Romans eight. And if you take this chapter out of
14:42context and specific verses within the chapter, then you can make it safe, whatever you want,
14:48because you've taken it out of context. But specifically, you can say that people are going
14:54to achieve a supernatural, uh, spiritual Superman, if you want to call it this. So what these people
15:03did, again, go back to British Israelism, the idea that we in the United States and Canada
15:10and the UK are the descendants of the lost 10 tribes of Israel. And when you read the Bible under this
15:19context, you begin to see this idea where I'm reading a passage and wow, that passage looks
15:27similarly familiar to what we're seeing today, even though it's written to the ancients. And so
15:33these prophetic statements in the old Testament and some of the more obscure statements in the new
15:41Testament could be applied to both the old ancient situations that it's describing and the new
15:49situations. An example of this that I often use is Branham claimed that Nahum was prophesying all
15:56about ancient Nineveh, but also about Chicago. And he said, when he saw the lights going to and fro,
16:02he was describing outer drive in Chicago, which is absurd. And you can only do this if you believe
16:08this British Israel concept, we're going to take a verse out of its context, and we're going to apply
16:14that single verse to today. So in reading Romans eight, there is a somewhat obscure passage. If you
16:22read it in the English language, it's Romans eight verse 19 in the King James version, it says for the
16:29earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. And I read King
16:37James version because it uses the phrase manifestation of the sons of God. When you hear that word, and
16:44you've come from this movement, you are immediately triggered with this loaded language of the
16:51manifestation or manifested sons of God theology, you're literally your mind goes directly to that
16:56word manifestation. Because that is one of the keywords one of the loaded language of the cult. If you
17:03read in a modern translation, like Romans, Romans eight in the ESV, it says, for example, for creation
17:12waits for the eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. And interestingly, if you grew up in
17:20this cult mindset, where you're using the loaded language of manifest manifestation manifesting, the
17:28whole verse, the whole chapter takes a different meaning. It does for me when even when I read this,
17:33if I'm reading King James, this whole this whole chapter just means something different. When you
17:38read it in modern translations, because the loaded language isn't embedded into the text, the loaded
17:46language doesn't fire off all of these triggers. So when I hear revealing of the sons of God, and I'm
17:51reading it in context, the chapter actually makes sense. And it doesn't really talk about anything
17:57metaphysical or spiritualist or anything like this. It's literally talking about the summary, this
18:05basically the climax of what Paul is describing in this chapter. So not to dive too deeply into
18:11theology, but this was a letter, this was written by Paul to a group of men. If you understand that this
18:19was a letter, it can be read. The men who read it did not need spiritual lens or filters or loaded
18:26language to understand the letter that they received from Paul. They just simply read it the
18:30same way I would read a letter if somebody sent me a letter in the mail. And it's very clear what
18:35it's saying. If you just follow the flow logically, understand what Paul is saying. Again, it's apparent.
18:44In verse 14, he says, believers are now the sons of God. So this isn't some future thing that's
18:51coming. This is Paul writing in the ancient world. Believers are now the son of God. 15 through 16,
18:58he says, the spirit testifies of our present adoption, but it's not yet visible to the world.
19:05And he goes on to say, as God's children, we are heirs, but we must suffer now before receiving the
19:11glory. So we're sons of God, we're heirs, but we're in this present condition, essentially is what
19:17he's saying. Verse 18, he goes on to say, the glory that's revealed is our future. It's not currently
19:23seen. And then he gets to that one passage that's been ripped out of context. Creation waits for the
19:30revealing of these sons of God, something creation has not yet seen. So follow down through the rest of
19:37the letter or this segment in the letter, he said, creation still in corruption and will only be set
19:44free when these believers are glorified. So this part of the statement is a future statement and
19:51creation is groaning now like childbirth anticipating for this transformation. But here, here's where it
19:59gets to be the key phrase to understand. Even believers who have the spirit who groan inwardly,
20:05this is verse 23, they're waiting for the redemption of our bodies. In other words, the
20:12resurrection, the future. And 24 through 25 goes on to say that we have hope for these things,
20:20which we don't see, but we wait with patience. So if you read that whole context of that section of
20:27this letter, it's talking about we are now the sons of God. This is not a future thing that's going to
20:33come in the 20th century. We are waiting in anticipation for our new bodies. We are waiting
20:41on the resurrection. And literally, this is what every Christian that I know of believes. This is
20:48what this is just simply one of Paul's letters. So if you understand the Christian version of this,
20:55which is simply not even my words, just read the passage and read it without the context of this
21:01loaded language, it's nothing really new. But what the people were trying to do with the merging of
21:08all of these, Steve calls it the converging apostasy, all of these different apostasies into this
21:14movement, it's trying to say that this passage isn't something that was for Paul's day and Paul's
21:21age. This is something that is going to come in our future and we must prepare for it. We must become
21:26militant. We must become super righteous, supernatural. We must start presenting all of
21:33these supernatural signs. And essentially, we must summon God if you follow it down to its logical
21:40conclusion, which is essentially the basic concepts of spiritualism, mysticism. So now when you consider
21:48all of these themes that I've mentioned from the Blavatsky influence to the new thought, the new
21:55science, mind science movements, the metaphysical healing cults, early spiritualism, British Israelism,
22:03all of these concepts as they're coming in and creating this fertile soil for these believers,
22:09now consider the fact that World War II has ended. And while there was for a moment, there was a
22:17a sense of peace that the war to end all wars had actually ended the wars and were in this exciting
22:26new era of peace. Well, that quickly subsided and they started to have fears of World War III.
22:33And the religious leaders who are understanding all of these concepts that I just mentioned started to
22:40fear that World War III was what would actually bring upon the end of days, the Armageddon scenario.
22:48So you had all of these themes of spiritualism and the fears of war and the coming impending
22:55destruction of the world. Basically, all of this created the scenario where people started to take
23:01these religious ideas and these religious concepts and started to apply them in a end of days sense.
23:09So they're taking all of the passages, the apocalyptic passages from the Bible, from the Book of
23:15Revelations, etc. And they're trying to take those verses out of context, use the same type of loaded
23:22language and apply them to world events that they're seeing currently. So now, when you add the fear
23:29aspect to all of this cross-pollination of ideas and understand that the fear was that there was going to
23:35be another world war, the religious leaders started to prepare for war by claiming we need our own army.
23:42This is going to not be a war that is just simply a battle between nations. This is a battle between
23:49good versus evil. We must have the army that is going to combat the evil. And that's where Joel's army
23:56begins to enter into the picture. On the heels of World War II, there was the series of very strange
24:02events that would suddenly explode in 1947. You had the Kardashian family, who is working with a
24:10Christian identity leader named Clem Davies, who also is working with and sponsoring the ministry of
24:19Avak Hagopian, an Iranian faith healer. Hagopian tours throughout the United States, and he basically brings
24:27this mob of people to Palm Springs. And the number was like 10,000 or so people. There was more people
24:35than there were hotels in Palm Springs. So many of the mansions and houses were taking in people from
24:42across the nation who were coming to see the faith healer. Well, they saw these masses and they began
24:48to realize, wait a minute, there's some money in this. So they started sponsoring William Branham.
24:54Branham goes to the West Coast and in the church of Harry Morse, who we've talked about in previous
25:01podcasts, but he was a sexual predator, Oneness Pentecostal leader, part of what would become the
25:10United Pentecostal Church in its early phases. I believe his church joined, but at minimum,
25:16he's working with Branham. He and several others in the church prophesied over Branham,
25:21and essentially, it was the prophecy that the spirit of Smith Wigglesworth would rest on Branham
25:30and his ministry. So in today's term, it was the passing of a mantle. Back then, it was just
25:36literally spiritualism. You're going to get the spirit of Smith Wigglesworth. Branham kind of describes
25:42this later in his ministry. So with the spirit of Smith Wigglesworth, Branham starts touring.
25:47The Kardashian family is apparently sponsoring him too, according to Branham's words. He said,
25:53the people who sponsored Avak Hagopian also sponsored my ministry. And he starts touring
26:00with Raymond Hoekstra, who did become a United Pentecostal Church leader. Hoekstra purchased,
26:08literally purchased a boy named Little David Walker. If you read through the newspapers,
26:14this is a wild rabbit trail, but he essentially owned this boy and the family had to fight to get
26:20him back. Branham and the little boy would tour Branham preaching and praying for the sick,
26:27but the boy claiming that he had spent so many minutes in heaven and he was telling the story of
26:33what he saw in heaven. So they're touring, they're bringing this weird stage act, and suddenly the boy
26:40starts to, at part of the stage act, he started levitating in the ministry. So people are filled with
26:47spiritualism themes and in the bedrock of their their theology, and now here's a boy who can suddenly
26:54levitate. Is this not the manifestation of the sons of God? So all of this began to explode. Branham became
27:01instantly overnight famous, and he started touring through the United States and Canada.
27:07Well, in the United, in Canada, in North Battleford, there was an orphanage called the Sharon Orphanage,
27:15which there are many, many connections back to Branhamism, but this is really where the Joel's army
27:22starts to take its shape, is at the Sharon Orphanage. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement
27:29started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign,
27:34charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and
27:40more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page
27:48of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
27:54John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
28:00You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
28:06movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking
28:12the Contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video
28:18version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research,
28:23we want to thank you for your support. For someone to understand Joel's army, they must first
28:29understand the Sharon Orphanage. But before you can fully understand the Sharon Orphanage,
28:34you must also understand the history and understand the culture, the mindset. What were the religious
28:42leaders thinking in the United States and Canada? How did that relate to the world politics, the global
28:48war? The Sharon Orphanage was being built during the last phases of the war. And the mindset of the
28:56Christians at that time was a mindset of fear. They were fearing that this was going to be the end of
29:02days. And what the Sharon Orphanage represented, I think a lot of people miss when they write the
29:08histories. And it was being built not only as a religious institution or an orphanage just simply for
29:16the youth. This was an ideological training center for the youth. The timeline of the Hitler Youth is
29:22actually significant. The Hitler Youth program was actually established in 1933, the same year that
29:29Hitler came into power. And American newspapers started covering it almost immediately, describing
29:35it as a curious or impressive national youth movement. It wasn't anything to be really alarmed
29:42of. Whenever the news first broke out, it was just curious. Why are they doing this? The alarm actually
29:49came from around 1936 to 1938, when it became obvious that the Hitler Youth was becoming militarized.
29:58By the 1936 Berlin Olympics, there were foreign journalists and diplomats that could see the
30:05militarization in the Hitler Youth programs. You had the uniforms, the drills, the loyalty oaths, the Nazi
30:13salutes. This was obviously a indoctrination scheme for militarizing children and creating a nationalist
30:22mindset of the children. The full realization came around 1939 and began to develop in the United States
30:32from approximately 1939 through 1945, the same years that the Sharon Orphanage actually began development.
30:41And if you look through some of the early photos of the orphanage, it seems a little bit odd because
30:46it looks more like a military operation than actually an orphanage. But also interestingly,
30:53William Branham's mentor, Roy Davis, at the same time the Sharon Orphanage was being developed, was
30:59developing his own orphanage, which also had a component that was an ideological training center.
31:05Davis had worked with Congressman William D. Upshaw in the Klan during his years. I think it was the early 20s.
31:14They reunited on the West Coast and Congressman Upshaw led the Department of Americanization, he called it,
31:22which is basically your it's an ideological concept to train the youth that they need to be nationalists.
31:30And all of this, both the Sharon Orphanage, both Davis's orphanage, and from what I have read,
31:37several other ideological training centers by various groups were being built. And all of this
31:42with the full intent to indoctrinate children of an ideology. So the orphanage itself, like I said,
31:49was being developed before the war had ended. But after the war had ended, there are a series of events
31:55that took place that really are the background for what drove the initiative for this Joel's Army theme.
32:04That theme, as it was nearing the latter rain revival, was a theme of fear because of the atomic bomb.
32:12In 1939, Einstein sent a letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, warning that Hitler could develop a uranium bomb.
32:20The scientists began to flee Europe because they feared the Nazi nuclear science programs,
32:26and the United States at the same time began to build up their uranium research to try to figure
32:32out how to build the bomb first and avoid the German supremacy in the war. The main fear was,
32:38if we don't build it first, Hitler will. 1942 through 1945, you had the Manhattan Project,
32:47which was a concern that we must build this bomb quickly. Still, all of this was limited to a fear
32:56that remained classified. There was an internal fear in the government, but the general public was
33:01largely unaware that any of this was going on. It wasn't until the atomic bomb was dropped that the
33:10entire public began to see that this nuclear war is a real thing. It can destroy entire cities,
33:16it can destroy entire nations. By the late 1940s, there was widespread public fear that the atomic
33:23threat was not only real, but that it would be used in World War III, this time on the shores of North
33:30America. Religious leaders began to capitalize on that fear, telling people that they must quickly turn
33:37to Christianity because all would soon be ending. The end of days was near. To understand the mindset of
33:45the spiritual leaders of the Sharon orphanage, the ones who are involved with the religious aspects,
33:51but also the ideological training for the youth, you have to understand some of the core concepts of
33:57modern Pentecostalism. Modern Pentecostalism, which was birthed at Azusa Street in the year 1906,
34:06the Azusa Street Revival broke out, and whenever people began to see dreams, prophesy, speak in
34:15tongues, the movement declared that we are seeing the fulfillment of Joel 2. There's a passage in Joel
34:222 that says, It shall come to pass that I will pour my spirit out upon all flesh. Your sons and daughters
34:28shall prophesy. Your old man shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. You can continue reading
34:35the passage and you can see how it sounds similar to what a Pentecostal would believe during this time.
34:43So there are two verses from that passage in Joel 2 that you have to really understand
34:49to understand Joel's army and how it was birthed. The first is the verse 30 when it talks about,
34:56I will show great signs in heaven and earth and blood and fire, pillars of smoke.
35:02Whenever the atomic bomb was dropped and there was this sudden pillar of smoke,
35:08there were Pentecostal leaders and fundamentalist leaders that were saying that this could be the
35:14verse that's describing our time. And under the British Israel theology, you could take a passage
35:21that was written to the ancient world and you could multi-purpose that passage. So yes, this applied to the
35:27ancient world that Joe, Joel was prophesying too, but also it applies to us. And this might be the atomic
35:34bomb. So people combined that with verse 31, the sun shall be turned to darkness, the moon to blood.
35:42They were starting to believe that this atomic bomb could cause a scenario that would look exactly like
35:49this chapter is describing. But the verse really to focus on for Joel's army is back to verse 28,
35:56I will pour my spirit out upon all flesh. The next phrase is your sons and your daughters shall
36:03prophesy. In other words, the youth, we need to focus on the youth. And that is exactly the mission
36:09of this orphanage. So while the orphanage initially began as somewhat of a ideological training center,
36:16a youth Christian training center, it began to shift at this time towards trying to find a way
36:24to build an army that can be prepared for the end of days. And the leaders of the orphanage began
36:31working with other people who were bringing in unusual spiritual tactics. I can't think of a better word
36:38for the spiritual tactics to train the youth into how to achieve a superhuman, supernatural state.
36:48One of those people was the Reverend Franklin Hall. Hall had recently published a book on
36:55the atomic power of God through fasting and prayer and capitalized on the atomic bomb verbiage,
37:02because that's the ideology that was coming into the religious leaders of this time.
37:07We're seeing the atomic bomb. The end of days is coming. We need to fight this. We need to,
37:13we need to ready the troops, so to speak, the spiritual troops. And this was really,
37:19if you understand the spiritual warfare of the new apostolic reformation, this was really the
37:25breeding ground for what would develop into this, this ideology. And that's truly what it is. It is an
37:32ideology. So they brought in Franklin Hall, his fasting and prayer. The men began fasting and
37:38praying and trying to summon God. They were going back to the roots of very mystic ideas that if they,
37:48if they really pour themselves into it, they can do better than they did before. Better than your
37:54average Christian who's just praying and trusting and believing in God. We can do better because we're
38:02in our position in trying to summon the spirit, so to speak. The other person that was brought in
38:09was the theology of William Branham and eventually Branham himself. I don't know that he visited the
38:15orphanage itself, but as he was touring through Canada, the leaders of the orphanage began to take
38:22the students into the revival meetings that Branham held, and they began to see Branham's work in
38:29action. Branham's style was unusual at that time. There were many faith healers who had done all kinds of
38:38gimmicks and tricks, from John Alexander Dowie to, there's a newspaper that I read that said,
38:44we're seeing David's and Moses's, and when are people going to wake up and realize that these people
38:49aren't the spiritual leaders that they claim. Branham's gimmick was that he, he had a vibrating
38:56hand and he would hold it over and shake his hand and he would say this is how he was detecting the
39:03diseases. He also had another gimmick that was, from everything that I have read, it was a trick that
39:09was done by placing a rock or a stone under your underarm and squeezing tight, cutting off the circulation
39:15and your hand changes color. He would go into these revival meetings, the prayer line would happen,
39:22they would go up to the platform, and if his hand began to change color, that's how he was diagnosing
39:28diseases. And people unfamiliar with the gimmick would look at his hand and say, oh my gosh, his
39:33hand is changing color, is not the Spirit of God with him? Word began to spread of all of this weirdness,
39:40and he was asked to go to several churches throughout the, throughout the United States and Canada,
39:47but it is the Canadian trip that really attracted, I believe, the Sharon Orphanage. So as he's touring
39:53through Canada, he's claiming to have raised the dead back in his hometown of Jeffersonville,
40:00which was proven to be false, but the people who were traveling with him, the students of the Sharon
40:06Orphanage would have never known that it was a false claim. There were also apparently people
40:12planted in the, in these revivals who were healed of the same diseases in multiple cities. Obviously,
40:20they, they were not healed if they were having to be healed again in the, in the very next city,
40:25and it all cries out that this was a staged, staged thing that was happening. But again, the people of
40:32the Sharon Orphanage, the students and the leaders of the orphanage would have never known that there
40:37were any parlor tricks happening in these revivals. And what happened was the fame of William Branham's
40:47ministry began to spread so quickly and rapidly, especially after claiming that he had raised the dead,
40:54that the negative news, the critical news, could not come into the movement as fast as the
41:02boisterous claims of healings and people who, there were people who actually went to the meetings and
41:08were actually healed, not by the man on the platform by, they were healed by God if they're
41:14Christian believers. But you're starting to see this thing, this engine start turning and the leaders of
41:20the Sharon Orphanage, as they see this, they want to know how it works. How is this doctrine, how is this
41:26doctrine happening? And how is this power that he has? We need to harness this power and we need to
41:32put this power into our students because this is the army that we are building. So here is where,
41:39from a Christian historian standpoint, it gets really weird. As I mentioned earlier, Roy Davis came into
41:47Jeffersonville. He was the second in command of the 1915 Ku Klux Klan. He had started multiple
41:55white supremacy organizations, some of them very militant. When he came into Jeffersonville,
42:00as I said, he was posing as a person who was going to overturn and expose spiritualism. He claimed that
42:09he was bringing people in who had claimed to be spiritualists, who converted to Christianity.
42:15And it appears that he, based off of the things that William Branham said in his revivals,
42:22it appears that he and Branham had gone to the Camp Chesterfield Spiritualist Camp in Indiana,
42:29which was a somewhat famous spiritualist camp. William Branham describes going into these camps of
42:36these witches, I think he calls it. And he says that this piano would float up into the air and the
42:43keys would play the shave and a haircut two bits, which if you're familiar with Beverly Hillbillies,
42:49it's the dun dun dun dun dun dun. So this weird gimmick, which it sounds eerily like a old carnival.
42:59William Branham would use this as a reference in his ministry of what it was like to encounter
43:05spiritualists. And so he is visiting spiritualist counts camps, he's understanding how it works.
43:13And he apparently comes into the Sharon orphanage in contact with the Sharon orphanage leadership.
43:21And he is teaching them what we would now call metaphysics. If you go to the very first recording
43:27that William Branham has available to the public, there are prior recordings to this, but on the website,
43:35table.branham.org, you can search through his sermons. The very first sermon he is talking about
43:41using your mind, using your faith to move bracelets in the air. And there are articles on the web of
43:50people who their father was the central figure of different cults that spun off of this Branhamism,
43:57weird mess. And they declare that Branham did come into the movement and was teaching them how to move
44:04objects with their mind. One person said that it was really scary and you could actually see the
44:12objects moving. Whether I believe that or not, I don't know. I have seen how some of these tricks
44:18work. I don't truly believe it, but there are people who do believe that he was doing it. Those who are
44:25Christian and understand that that's not a Christian thing to do believe that he was empowered by some
44:30demon. And interestingly, Branham always claimed to have an angel on the platform with him and he would
44:37pray to the angel, which is not something a Christian would ever do. So there, if you believe
44:43in evil spirits, you believe that he was empowered by an evil spirit. Me, I don't know that I believe
44:49all of this because I have seen how some of these parlor trick work, much like placing the rock under the
44:55underarm and squeezing, making your circulation. I know how to make my hand change color. I knew that
45:01as a kid. So some of these things could easily be proven. Some of them we don't know, but at a
45:07minimum, he is coming into contact with leadership and he is teaching what we would now call metaphysics.
45:15So you have a group of children who are in an ideological training center,
45:22who are believing that they are in a Christian training center, which is now teaching them how to
45:30try and achieve a spiritual Superman status. So the spiritual warfare that they're about to engage in,
45:39they need to be the elite soldiers of their spiritual army. And that is where the background
45:45to the Joel's army comes into place. This truly is, if they are following this passage from Joel,
45:52these are the young men that are going to see the visions. And these are the young women who
45:58are going to prophesy. These are, these are the young children mentioned in the book of Joel,
46:03Joel chapter two. So combined with all of this weird ideology that is coming into this group of
46:11students who are trying to become the army that they believe is mentioned in the book of Joel.
46:17There is also another thing that you have to understand that is coming into this, which makes it
46:22really sinister. And I, you know, if you're a Christian and you understand Christian theology
46:28and you understand the gospels, just simply the basics of the gospels, you have to understand that
46:34this is an anti-Christian ideology that is coming into this. This is coming in through William Branham.
46:41According to Branham's theology, there is the concept of the spoken word. This is the same type
46:48of thing that if you listen to Kenneth Hagin, he's talking about the rhema. There are different,
46:54in the word of faith movement, there's different ways that they say this. I've mentioned recently
46:59that there are others who are in today's world still using the phrase spoken word.
47:04Branham taught that Jesus Christ was the result of a thought that was expressed by God.
47:13According to the theology, Jesus was just a human. Actually, if you take all of his statements out to
47:20their logical conclusion, Jesus was less than a human because he claimed that Mary was nothing but
47:28an incubator. He had, he had no mother. There was no earthly mother, which is actually in disagreement
47:34with a few passages of scripture. But Jesus was less than a human because he didn't have a mother. And
47:40God thought and this thought was expressed. The word became flesh in the beginning was the word where
47:49the word became flesh and was manifest among us. He would use that passage to say that God thought
47:55Jesus. And therefore, the thought became expressed when it was spoken and the spoken word became flesh.
48:03And then Jesus, Jesus was filled with the spirit. And he would say things like,
48:08Jesus was powerless to heal people. He had to see a vision first from the father. And if you combine
48:16this with this thought of Joel to the young man shall see visions, what they're doing is they're
48:20trying to say that Jesus was a manifestation, a manifestation of the spoken word. And we too
48:28will see manifestations of the, our thoughts expressed in these young men and women. That is,
48:36that's literally how this theology began to develop much like a witch's brew. There were several passages
48:43that were developed by the movement by taking a verse from one chapter, taking it out of its original
48:49context, mixing it or combining it with another verse from another chapter, taking it out of its
48:55context and developing a doctrine from the combination of these verses. One of them that was used for the
49:02Joel's army came from Romans eight, the passage that is talking about the expectation of the manifested sons
49:10of God. When you read verse 18, it says the current sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
49:19compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us. The movement began to see all of the suffering that
49:27was happening because of the war and the impending threats of world war three. They saw this as a,
49:35a relevant passage for the era. And then they continued to verse 19 about the manifested sons of God.
49:42They began to develop this doctrine that came largely from what Branham was teaching.
49:48If Jesus Christ was a thought expressed and that spoken word could develop a manifestation
49:55of God himself in Jesus Christ, then cannot we do the same thing? And are we not supposed to be the
50:02manifestation of the sons of God? So in these weird ideological youth programs, the movement began to
50:10say that these will become manifestations of God. We have to develop routines and strategies to enhance their
50:20spiritual abilities. And some of those were just simply trying to boost their faith to a level that they could
50:29achieve things that were just impossible. And William Branham preached a, an array of sermons on how to do this. It
50:36never really came to fruition because we did not see any of the students moving mountains or anything like
50:42this. And only the faith healer apparently has the power to heal in these movements. But that manifested
50:49sons of God theology, as it was combined with the Joel's army theology, this birth, the combination of
50:57something that became very, very militant, and very, very heretical. Because again, they're teaching that Jesus Christ was
51:05just simply a thought that was expressed, and that he was a human that was powerless, less than a human, because he
51:11had no mother. That is how this doctrine began to develop among the movement. And while many people say that William
51:19Branham went astray in his later years, many people within the New Apostolic Reformation, these would be the years that they would
51:27say that he was actually on the mark. And interestingly to a Christian who understands what he's actually
51:34teaching, on the mark is an anti-biblical theology. So you have to understand that from its inception,
51:42it was not a Christian movement, it was an ideological movement. And even the doctrines themselves, many of
51:48them are so anti-biblical that you can't even really say that it is a Christian ideology that's being taught here.
51:55What you can say is that the movement was trying to do things like metaphysics. There were many
52:02different schemes to try to elevate their faith to almost a mind over matter type ideology. So it became
52:11more like Christian science than it was even Christianity. And yet the irony and the reason that I laugh at
52:17this is because the movement, as it was holding the revivals, they would preach heavily against Christian
52:23science. And yet they're doing the same type of thing, just in different ways. As you look through
52:29history from the present going backwards to this weird movement that's developing from all kinds of
52:36different ideologies that aren't quite Christian, you start to see patterns that emerge. And you can see
52:44clear milestones in time where this ideology is trying to resurface again through people who were trained in
52:51the same ideology. Paul Cain, who is William Branham's mentor, as I've mentioned, was trying to establish
52:59this exact same concept with the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. They were trying to take a
53:06bunch of youth into a movement. They were trying to supercharge their faith through 24-7 prayer and
53:14singing this worship, this kind of thing. They were trying to build a Joel's army. And even the prophecy
53:22that Paul Cain used was that he had seen a vision of Joel's army in training in this vision. So what
53:30they're trying to do is they're trying to recreate what William Branham and others were establishing.
53:36Basically, they're trying to recreate the Sharon Orphanage. And this concept of Joel's army,
53:41the theology did reemerge with International House of Prayer in Kansas City. But the concept,
53:50it seems to repeat itself. You can go back to the days of the Jesus movement. As the revivals were
53:57breaking out and the youth were getting involved, they didn't have the same type of theology. And many
54:02of them had never even heard the name William Branham. But some of the leaders who were there,
54:07such as Chuck Smith, were in the latter rain movement. So they knew Branham, they knew the
54:12theology, they knew the ideology. But more than that, they knew the mission. And the mission was to
54:19indoctrinate children of a mindset and try to sway that mindset towards the national ideology that they
54:29that they agreed with, and try to force out any other ideologies that they disagreed with.
54:36This could be a good thing. This could be a bad thing. But the way that they're doing it,
54:40for me, it's a little bit sketchy. Because if you're having to indoctrinate people to a belief set,
54:49and trying to dissuade them from critically thinking about that belief set, what you're essentially doing
54:55is you're practicing mind control. These are the basic elements of mind control. You can learn more
55:01about the mind control from Dr. Steven Hassan's book, Combating Cult Mind Control. What he's describing
55:07in that book, the framework for establishing mind control in a victim, these people were doing
55:15in the youth. And for me, this is problematic. So hopefully, to somebody who's on the outside looking
55:21in, this helps to understand what is Joel's army. Because from the outside looking in,
55:27I have spoken with people who were never part of this movement, who some of them have actually
55:33studied theology. And they look at this, and they say, What is this? This doesn't really seem Christian,
55:38but yet they're using the word Jesus Christ. It seems more like a political movement, but yet
55:44they're not really preaching politics, they're preaching ideology. And what is this? What is this
55:50movement? You have to understand that, yes, it is politics. Yes, it is an ideology. Yes, it is a
55:58pseudo type of Christianity. But it is many other things. It is spiritualism. It is metaphysics.
56:06You can go down the list of things that you would just run screaming if you thought that your pastor
56:11and your church was teaching. That is what this movement was trying to do. And they were trying to
56:17do it with the mindset that we must create warriors, we must create warriors, the Hitler youth,
56:24Hitler youth had done this thing that we need to combat. And there became a, I guess, an idea that
56:32the end justifies the means. So we're going to do guerrilla warfare, we're going to use the enemy's
56:38tactics against them. Some of those tactics are using spiritualism, metaphysics, all kinds of mysticism,
56:45and other things. So that's why it doesn't look like a Christian movement. It really wasn't intended
56:51to be a Christian movement. But the irony is that there were Christian leaders trying to establish
56:57the youth program that was literally the creation of Joel's army. So hopefully this helps. If you've
57:05enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at
57:09william-branham.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation,
57:14you can read Weaponized Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
57:39I'll see you next time.
57:44Bye-bye.
57:46Bye-bye.
57:48Bye-bye.
57:53Bye-bye.
57:57Bye-bye.
58:00Bye-bye.
58:06Bye-bye.
58:08Bye-bye.
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