- 1 day ago
John and Chino dive deep into one of the most confusing and destructive doctrines taught within Branhamism and Faith Assembly: eternal security—or, as many lived it, eternal insecurity. They unpack how William Branham and Hobart Freeman twisted the gospel of grace into a doctrine of fear, confusion, and control. Drawing from firsthand experiences, personal stories, and archived recordings, the hosts reveal how both leaders contradicted themselves, manipulated scripture, and redefined salvation to keep followers dependent on their authority.
Together they examine how Branham’s shifting messages on salvation, election, and damnation evolved through the Pentecostal, Latter Rain, and Charismatic movements, shaping Freeman’s authoritarian theology. Chino shares insights into the psychology of cult obedience, while John traces how Branham’s legacy of doctrinal chaos still influences modern fringe movements. This episode challenges listeners to discern between faith rooted in Christ and fear imposed by cult leaders.
00:00 Introduction
00:12 John opens the episode and frames the topic of eternal security
01:02 Why this subject is deeply personal and emotionally charged
02:31 The fear-based environment around salvation in Branhamism
04:04 Early manipulation: “Don’t ever tell anyone that”
05:12 Chino recalls parallels in Freemanism and doctrinal instability
07:00 Contradictions and shifting doctrines in Freeman’s teaching
09:06 Early signs of inconsistency in Freeman’s testimony
10:57 Faith teachings that caused real-world harm
12:05 Changing doctrine on women ministers
13:29 The authoritarian turn and intolerance of questions
15:12 Mapping the chaos: how Branham’s theology shifted across audiences
18:46 The blended mess of eternal security, insecurity, and serpent seed
21:04 How confusion multiplied across generations of teachers
23:34 A culture of cognitive dissonance and self-blame
24:52 Hobart Freeman’s contradictory statements about the Trinity
26:09 How he inherited Branham’s confusion
27:40 What eternal security actually means and why Freeman misrepresented it
28:58 Misusing parables and Hebrews 6
30:59 Why context matters in interpreting salvation passages
33:31 John’s middle-ground approach to endless theological debates
36:54 Freeman invents categories: saved, non-elect, and elect
38:38 The internal reaction when he introduced “saved but not elect”
41:06 Bruce’s question about being sealed by the Spirit
43:05 How Freeman avoided questions he couldn’t answer
49:01 The fear tactics: keeping people eternally insecure
50:55 Clip: Threatening members with damnation for medical care
54:04 Clip: Equating leaving the church with leaving the faith
56:51 How cults tie salvation to loyalty to the leader
58:02 Post-leader mythology and shifting salvation narratives
1:01:03 How eternal salvation becomes devotion to the cult, not Christ
1:03:05 Why people stay stuck—and how to get free
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to th
Together they examine how Branham’s shifting messages on salvation, election, and damnation evolved through the Pentecostal, Latter Rain, and Charismatic movements, shaping Freeman’s authoritarian theology. Chino shares insights into the psychology of cult obedience, while John traces how Branham’s legacy of doctrinal chaos still influences modern fringe movements. This episode challenges listeners to discern between faith rooted in Christ and fear imposed by cult leaders.
00:00 Introduction
00:12 John opens the episode and frames the topic of eternal security
01:02 Why this subject is deeply personal and emotionally charged
02:31 The fear-based environment around salvation in Branhamism
04:04 Early manipulation: “Don’t ever tell anyone that”
05:12 Chino recalls parallels in Freemanism and doctrinal instability
07:00 Contradictions and shifting doctrines in Freeman’s teaching
09:06 Early signs of inconsistency in Freeman’s testimony
10:57 Faith teachings that caused real-world harm
12:05 Changing doctrine on women ministers
13:29 The authoritarian turn and intolerance of questions
15:12 Mapping the chaos: how Branham’s theology shifted across audiences
18:46 The blended mess of eternal security, insecurity, and serpent seed
21:04 How confusion multiplied across generations of teachers
23:34 A culture of cognitive dissonance and self-blame
24:52 Hobart Freeman’s contradictory statements about the Trinity
26:09 How he inherited Branham’s confusion
27:40 What eternal security actually means and why Freeman misrepresented it
28:58 Misusing parables and Hebrews 6
30:59 Why context matters in interpreting salvation passages
33:31 John’s middle-ground approach to endless theological debates
36:54 Freeman invents categories: saved, non-elect, and elect
38:38 The internal reaction when he introduced “saved but not elect”
41:06 Bruce’s question about being sealed by the Spirit
43:05 How Freeman avoided questions he couldn’t answer
49:01 The fear tactics: keeping people eternally insecure
50:55 Clip: Threatening members with damnation for medical care
54:04 Clip: Equating leaving the church with leaving the faith
56:51 How cults tie salvation to loyalty to the leader
58:02 Post-leader mythology and shifting salvation narratives
1:01:03 How eternal salvation becomes devotion to the cult, not Christ
1:03:05 Why people stay stuck—and how to get free
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to th
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LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister, and friend, Cheno Ross,
00:00:47pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Cheno D. Ross' YouTube channel.
00:00:52Cheno, it's good to be back, and I'm actually a little bit excited for this episode.
00:00:58We were talking a little bit beforehand, and I know you probably didn't see it in my face
00:01:02or my voice, but this is a topic that I am very passionate about, and I may not be able
00:01:08to contain to an hour, because this affects every single aspect of your life when you're
00:01:14in one of these cults.
00:01:16It is a terrible thing.
00:01:18It could be a good thing.
00:01:20If you're a Christian, it should be the most wonderful thing.
00:01:22But for what we escaped, it was destructive, and it was heavily destructive.
00:01:28We're going to be talking about eternal security, and what we had was really, if you follow all
00:01:34of it out to its logical conclusion, what you really had was eternal damnation.
00:01:40And we were talking just beforehand.
00:01:43In the Branham cults, it is taboo if you install Christmas lights, because you're supposed to
00:01:50avoid Christmas, Branham preached against it while he had a tree and he celebrated Christmas.
00:01:57I just hung permanent Christmas lights, because I got tired of going up and down the ladder,
00:02:02and they changed during the year to other things.
00:02:04So if hanging Christmas lights makes you of the devil, I'm permanently, eternally of the
00:02:10devil by the group now.
00:02:11So I have eternal damnation, and the irony is, as I was thinking through that, long before
00:02:18you and I talked about this podcast episode, I was thinking the irony of that.
00:02:23They would eternally damn me for hanging Christmas lights, but if you're in the group, you still
00:02:27have this eternal damnation, because, again, follow it out to its logical conclusion, that's
00:02:32where it ends up.
00:02:33And not to go too far, I'll let you open up and introduce this, but I remember vividly
00:02:40there were people, after the service had ended, they would all hover around the altar, crying
00:02:47their hearts out, worried that they were not saved, what can I do to be saved?
00:02:53They had eternal questions, basically.
00:02:56There was no eternal security.
00:02:58They had eternal discomfort.
00:03:00Darrell Bock It was eternal insecurity, right?
00:03:03Darrell Bock Eternal insecurity.
00:03:05I was among those who were up front crying, because you can't get eternal salvation if you
00:03:10follow it out to its logical conclusion, the doctrine.
00:03:13They'll use that phrase, you have eternal security, but what you end up having is you have a bunch
00:03:19of people that are so confused, because you've made a complete mess of the gospel, they have
00:03:24no idea what is the gospel, really no idea how to gain salvation.
00:03:28Darrell Bock And I'll put it like my grandfather said to my father, one time when I was riding
00:03:36in the car, he said, I was a Methodist minister, and William Branham was preaching on salvation,
00:03:42and he made a comment, and I looked at him, and I said, well, if that's true, Brother Branham,
00:03:47all you have to do to be saved is believed in Jesus Christ.
00:03:51And he said, William Branham got real quiet, and he looked around like this, they're in a restaurant,
00:03:55and he says, don't you never tell nobody that.
00:03:59And as a child, I'm thinking, wow, that's weird, and that's odd and mysterious, but now
00:04:03as an adult, I'm thinking, that moment represents the entire movement.
00:04:09You do not know the gospel, you do not know salvation, and the leadership wants to keep
00:04:14it in a bottle where nobody can get it.
00:04:16Darrell Bock And what our listeners do not know, John, is
00:04:20that it's not as though you and I are bosom theological buddies, and we sit beside each
00:04:27other on the front pew at the same church all the time.
00:04:31We're podcast colleagues.
00:04:34I don't even know all of what you believe.
00:04:37You don't even know all of what I believe.
00:04:39But somehow, we share this common background of Branhamism and Freemanism that came from
00:04:49Branhamism.
00:04:51So as we've gotten to know each other over the last two years, we find out we have a lot
00:04:57of former beliefs that we no longer hold to, and we have a lot of current beliefs.
00:05:02And that is because we have jettisoned the beliefs of Branham and Freeman and tried to
00:05:10come to a biblical understanding and adopt a biblical belief.
00:05:14And I know you have tried hard for a long time, long before I was one of your co-hosts,
00:05:23to document all the historical facts of Branham and of the people that influenced him.
00:05:29There were predecessors prior to Branham that influenced him.
00:05:32And to try to show that what they claimed to have happened or to have occurred, you know,
00:05:43maybe didn't.
00:05:45It didn't occur, happen when they said it, the way they said it.
00:05:48You know, you've done a good job of documenting Branham retelling stories in multiple different
00:05:55fashions, which simply can't, you simply can't align those and get those all to agree.
00:06:02So I don't think that you ever, from the beginning, I could be wrong on this, but that you ever so
00:06:08much intended your historical research to be biblical and theological, but in so doing what
00:06:18you have done, I think you have helped to show people how vastly different William Branham's
00:06:25message and ministry were when you just lay that side by side with real Christianity and
00:06:31what you see in the Bible, that they're just really two different things.
00:06:36So I think you've helped people maybe more than you realize, see what a crazy religion that
00:06:40it was, that they came out of, without being overtly biblical or overtly theological, just
00:06:50saying, hey, here's what Branham said.
00:06:52The angel appeared to him here, and it was here, and then it was there, and it was this
00:06:56year, but then it was that year.
00:06:58And people, they have to pause.
00:07:00I mean, when you hear all that, you have to pause and say, well, I just thought this was
00:07:03a cut and dried story, the same from beginning to end.
00:07:08Now I'm saying this is maybe not so much true.
00:07:11It seems to me like you maybe went through more of a crisis of faith, and I know you have
00:07:19told your own story, and mine wasn't a crisis of faith, where all of a sudden, mine was very,
00:07:26very gradual.
00:07:27What I've tried to share with people so that they know is that from a junior in high school,
00:07:34I began being a Hobart Freeman follower, and he didn't have that many tapes back then.
00:07:42They were all a taped message you listened to on a tape recorder, and I'd listen to them
00:07:47on the way to school, on the way home, before you go to sleep at night, on your lunch break
00:07:52at work, at a summer job, just whenever you had opportunities.
00:07:56I was listening to tapes.
00:07:58He ended up having 1,157 of them by my count.
00:08:03Now, I could be off one or two, but if I am, it doesn't really change the fact.
00:08:07There are 1,100 plus, 1,150 plus messages, all of which I've heard.
00:08:14So what happened for me, and this is going to tie into our study of eternal security or
00:08:20our discussion of it today, what happened to me was I, before I was able, because I'm only
00:08:2917, then 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 years old, before I was able to theologically and biblically really
00:08:38understand what was wrong with what Hobart was saying, I, first of all, began to see some
00:08:46contradictions.
00:08:47And the contradictions were small at first, and you, I think when you're young, you tend
00:08:56to ignore those.
00:08:57And as you get a little bit older and you see more contradictions, then they become more
00:09:02serious.
00:09:03And I've talked about some of these before, but one of the earliest ones was, if you compare
00:09:08Hobart Freeman's tapes from the late 60s, early 70s, they are different from his messages
00:09:16done 10 years later.
00:09:18On the late 60s and early 70s messages, he was like a wild rabbit in a briar patch running
00:09:26in every direction and saying all kinds of things.
00:09:30And he loved telling his own testimony of how he said on the road home from a nightclub in
00:09:37Tampa, Florida, God saved me, a businessman, in 1952, and he gave me Matthew 6, 33, seek
00:09:44first the kingdom, and he'll supply all my needs as my passage.
00:09:48And I just have gone through my whole life by faith.
00:09:51And so I went all through college and all through seminary and never worked an hour.
00:09:57That's what you hear on the early tapes.
00:09:59And if you simply go and find Hobart Freeman's testimony tape, there is one available, his testimony.
00:10:06That is exactly what he says.
00:10:08He said, I never worked an hour.
00:10:12Well, on later tapes, we find out that he did work.
00:10:17And I was able to, I thought then, and I totally believe now, to understand why he had to go
00:10:23back and then tell the truth that he did have jobs.
00:10:27He had to go back and clarify and qualify because there were people taking him at his word.
00:10:32And there were young men there just saying, oh, well, if I just seek first the kingdom,
00:10:39which means stay home, don't get a job, read my Bible, listen to Freeman tapes all the time,
00:10:45that's seeking first the kingdom.
00:10:47Then if I do that, why can't I do what Hobart did?
00:10:50And that's exactly what people tried to do.
00:10:52So it was a very hyper faith, but it was exactly what Hobart taught.
00:10:58He said, I didn't work an hour.
00:11:00We found out later that he did hold different jobs during college and seminary days.
00:11:05So that wasn't totally the truth.
00:11:08So when I heard some later tapes, I didn't, you know, reject Freemanism, but it did cause
00:11:15a few problems.
00:11:16And then I'd hear on these early tapes, he was boasting about doctors who were spirit
00:11:21filled, charismatic, personal friends of his that he talked to on the phone and loved and
00:11:26fellowshiped with and insurance agents.
00:11:29Then I heard at the end of his ministry that anything associated with medical science is
00:11:37sorcery and witchcraft and demonic, and you can't have anything to do with it.
00:11:41And I, you know, as I heard that I couldn't help, but slow down and say, well, I wonder
00:11:47why you were able to be friends back then, but you're not now.
00:11:52And on his early messages, he had talked about women preachers and women teachers and talked
00:11:59about, um, uh, Maria Woodworth Eder and Amy simple McPherson and, uh, Lillian Yeomans.
00:12:06Um, who else, uh, well, he actually had June stand up in a public meeting at the glory barn
00:12:15and deliver somewhat of a message.
00:12:17That was his own wife teaching a message.
00:12:20I could point people to the tape where he had been out in Pennsylvania.
00:12:26Catherine Kuhlman was teaching then in the early seventies and in Pittsburgh, and he stopped
00:12:33by to listen to sister Coleman preach.
00:12:35He was all in favor of women preachers, women evangelists.
00:12:39But when he got to a later point in his ministry and he began teaching on, he actually did a
00:12:46series on first Corinthians and we got to first Corinthians 14 where Paul said, let the women
00:12:52be silent in church.
00:12:54And if they have a question, let them ask their husbands at home.
00:12:57Now he's got a new doctrine.
00:13:01And when he taught that message, John, it was horrific because there was a poor woman there
00:13:08who actually asked a question.
00:13:11Well, you know what?
00:13:11Prior to that, women were allowed to ask a question in his church.
00:13:17This poor woman had just heard a new revelation that women aren't allowed to ask a question.
00:13:24And Hobart really read her the right act.
00:13:28And, you know, that really, really disturbed and bothered me because what I needed to see
00:13:34was, look, if you've had an earlier position that you no longer hold to now, I'm fine with
00:13:40that.
00:13:40We all have changed our positions, but you've got to explain that to the people.
00:13:46You can't act as though, well, I've always had the truth, quote unquote, about medical science
00:13:53and doctors.
00:13:54I've always had the truth about women teachers.
00:13:59Hobart changed his position.
00:14:01And he wasn't fair to the people to come before them and say, look, 10 years ago, I believed
00:14:08that you could be a Christian doctor.
00:14:11Today, I no longer believe that.
00:14:13I have a new view.
00:14:14I'm actually 100% okay with that because we're all allowed to change our position.
00:14:21What we're not allowed to do is pretend as though I've had this position all along.
00:14:28And so, you know what that did, John?
00:14:30That created so much confusion in people's minds so that there was this cognitive dissonance
00:14:36that they went through.
00:14:37Well, I thought he didn't believe that.
00:14:38Well, now he believes this way.
00:14:40And you know what they ended up doing?
00:14:42They always put the blame back on themselves.
00:14:44Well, maybe I misunderstood.
00:14:46There must be something about me.
00:14:48No one was ever willing to challenge and question Hobart and say, listen, Hobart, you've got
00:14:54to come clean.
00:14:55If you want to change your position on something, we all have that right.
00:14:59But if you're going to be the pastor of this church and a public speaker, you owe it to
00:15:04everyone to explain the fact that you have changed your position and to tell them why.
00:15:10You know, it's funny because whenever you're talking and you're talking doctrine, and I
00:15:15can map visually in my head, my head starts spinning when you're talking Hobart because
00:15:20I can map those doctrines and I can trace where they come from and branimism and beyond.
00:15:24And you can clearly see how it shifts and changes as it gets into Hobart.
00:15:30But here's where it gets odd.
00:15:31Even what you're mentioning with the scatteredness of the doctrine, right down to the structure
00:15:37or the lack of structure thereof, of his teachings, that you can find also in Branhamism.
00:15:44And there's no way that he set out to copy a theological mess.
00:15:49But I think what happened is there are many people who study Branham to try to figure out,
00:15:54A, what did he do?
00:15:55How did he grow the following as big as he did?
00:15:57How did he spearhead the revivals?
00:15:59B, what doctrines did he introduce?
00:16:02And let's pick and choose because they, you know, not everybody after Branham thought that
00:16:07Branham was 100% correct.
00:16:09So Hobart was going through, what did Branham say that was correct?
00:16:12What was incorrect?
00:16:13And here's the mistake that is made by every single one of them that I've looked at.
00:16:17Not just Hobart, but all of them.
00:16:20You come in with this mindset that, A, this is a minister who has a message, who's on fire
00:16:26for that message, who has a consistent message, who believes what he is saying.
00:16:31All of which, as I've studied Branham, is not true.
00:16:34Right down to he really didn't even believe what he was saying.
00:16:38The consistent message.
00:16:40So you talked about women preachers.
00:16:42Branham's church, I was shocked to find out.
00:16:44Originally, there was a female, I think she was either a youth minister or an assistant
00:16:51pastor.
00:16:52She got angry and stole half of his church, if I understand the history correctly, and
00:16:57started another cult right down the road.
00:16:59So there's two cults here in Jeffersonville.
00:17:02She grew into this massive cult following.
00:17:04After this happened, he started just condemning women preachers.
00:17:09And I'm using that phrase because that's what's indoctrinated in my head.
00:17:12Women preachers.
00:17:12I should say female ministers.
00:17:15But that's the way he would just harp and condemn them.
00:17:19But yet you can find photographs of him with female ministers.
00:17:23So that wasn't consistent.
00:17:25But here's where it gets really odd as it relates to our discussion today.
00:17:29I have studied, like I said, eternal security is something that really fascinates me.
00:17:34I want to know more.
00:17:35And I studied Branham, just his scattered theological mess that he created.
00:17:41And try to organize a pattern and establish a pattern.
00:17:46And it becomes like, I don't know if you've ever done this, but if you had this five gallon
00:17:50bucket of white paint and you watch the guy who's dripping some paint in it and it's swirling
00:17:55and you're trying to find the swirls.
00:17:57Well, there's only one swirl.
00:17:58Well, it's easy to see that here's where the brown exists.
00:18:01But once they start dropping brown and green and red to blend the colors, as it starts to
00:18:08mix in, you start to see all of these different traces.
00:18:10And by the end of it, you can't find any trace of those colors.
00:18:14It's blended to this weird mess.
00:18:16Well, what you find with Branhamism is that he doesn't believe what he's saying and he'll
00:18:22go preach tailored to the crowd that he's speaking.
00:18:25So if the crowd believes in eternal security, that's what he's preaching for that crowd.
00:18:30But if the crowd is against it at another church, there's no way he's going to preach it because
00:18:34they'll never invite him back.
00:18:35So he preaches their theology.
00:18:37And what you end up with is this blended mess of theology, none of which makes any sense.
00:18:44However, by the frequency of the people who invited him to their churches, you can see
00:18:52some sort of strategy that's emerging.
00:18:56So in the early years, from 40s to probably early 50s, he's mostly invited by Pentecostals.
00:19:05The Latarine Revival is flourishing.
00:19:09The Assemblies of God has not yet started to sanction him.
00:19:13And he is teaching that you don't have eternal security.
00:19:17He's tailoring his message to those crowds.
00:19:20But about the 1950s, he starts preaching the eternal security doctrines that got really popular
00:19:27and emerged into the charismatic movement.
00:19:30Once everybody started sanctioning Branham and his cult became more destructive and more
00:19:36isolationist, then it turned into this weird dualism.
00:19:40Yes, you have eternal security, but you can also be eternally damned.
00:19:45And add to this weird mix, he's preaching the serpent seed doctrine from 1957 forward.
00:19:52So he would mix in with this, but if you're of this elect seed, you can't be damned.
00:19:59So you've got eternal security on the left, you've got non-eternal security on the right,
00:20:03and in the middle is this racist serpent seed doctrine where you're in neither category.
00:20:09I hope people can hold that fault of that you could be elect and then you could not be,
00:20:16and then there's something in between because we're going to get to that because that's where
00:20:20Hobart ended up. And of course, I don't know how much of this he got from Branham because I don't
00:20:25know Branhamism the way you do. But I saw not only those contradictions that whenever you first
00:20:36hear them and you're so excited about your walk with God and you're so excited that maybe I can do
00:20:43Matthew 633 and not have to have a job. You're just, you hear the positive and then you don't
00:20:49hear later on when he says, well, I was a night watchman and I graded papers and I did this and
00:20:55I did that. And, but as you get older, then when you, when you then hear sermons and he is rebuking
00:21:03the young men for just sitting at home and not getting a job. And then I'm saying to myself,
00:21:09but wait a minute, isn't that kind of what you encourage them by your whole testimony?
00:21:12That was your whole testimony story. So that's why people like Malcolm Weber, I've told this story
00:21:17about Malcolm Weber, who was down in Australia at the time, he wasn't going to put any new tires on
00:21:23his car because the children of Israel walked through the wilderness for 38 years and their
00:21:29clothes and shoes didn't wear out. So, I mean, if that's true and that was true and the way Hobart was
00:21:34teaching things, anything in the Bible that ever happened to anyone, well, you can just claim it for
00:21:39yourself because God's no respecter of persons. He'd pull these verses out of context because
00:21:44Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever because all the promises of God in Christ are yes
00:21:51and in him, amen. He'd pull all these verses out of their context and, and encourage you to think
00:21:59that any miracle that's ever happened in the Bible will happen to you. You just have to have enough
00:22:04faith. So, you know, I don't blame Malcolm for that thought that he had way back in the, probably
00:22:10the seventies or early eighties because he had been influenced by Hobart as had I, and as had
00:22:16everyone else. His main tape man was a guy by the name of John Abel who lives not many miles that
00:22:23direction from me right now. He was the main person who did all of Dr. Freeman's tapes. You can find
00:22:29John Abel's testimony and he tells when he got married and went on his honeymoon, you know, he
00:22:35didn't have a dime. And I thought that's the way you do it. You just pick a destination spot, take off
00:22:42driving and trust the Lord to fill your tank up with gas and provide all of your needs because that's
00:22:48exactly what Hobart Freeman had taught them early on. Well, when they began trying to do that
00:22:56and it didn't work, then you began having all kinds of problems in the church. And then Hobart
00:23:02had to come and say, now we need to have a message on misconceptions regarding faith and healing.
00:23:10But he would never say, I'm so sorry that I misled you people. They didn't understand because they
00:23:16weren't able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Hobart didn't just not have a job. He did
00:23:22have a job and he had multiple jobs. And had he not had a job, then he would have condemned by,
00:23:28would have been condemned by scripture where Paul said, if you don't get a job and provide for your
00:23:34own house, you have denied the faith and you are worse than an infidel. No one thought to bring that
00:23:42passage up to him. They were just so enamored with everything. So not only was he contradictory,
00:23:48but he was, I thought, often confused literally and profoundly himself about what he taught.
00:23:56One of the areas that we've already talked about, I'll just mention it in passing, that I know
00:24:01he got from Branham that he was so confused about was the doctrine of the Trinity. He was so confused.
00:24:09He had been brought up believing an orthodox view that God is one in essence and three in person,
00:24:16that there is a oneness we can speak of with regard to God. And there is a threeness
00:24:22with regard to God. He heard Branham and he was so enamored with Branham because he thought that all
00:24:30of Branham's miracles were real, that he could, you know, read people's mail and predict people's
00:24:36death who had tried to deceive him in the healing line. And he had heard all that nonsense, thought it
00:24:42was true. So consequently had bought in to his own assumption that Branham was a true prophet of God.
00:24:50So then when Branham had some weird things to say about the Trinity, Hobart couldn't discount that.
00:24:56He just couldn't because this is a prophet. Now Hobart did end up discounting some of Branham's stuff,
00:25:03but to the day he died on later tapes, he said, this is a quote, I don't care what anyone says.
00:25:09William Branham was God's prophet. Well, I mean, that tells you to the day of his death,
00:25:14he was a believer in Branham, not in serpent seed doctrine per se, not in some of his other stuff,
00:25:21but he still had this core belief that William Branham was God's prophet. So when it came to the
00:25:26Trinity, we played these clips before, we're not doing that again, but Hobart had a tape entitled
00:25:33Teaching on the Godhead. And he also has one on the eternal personifications in the Godhead.
00:25:41He couldn't say persons because he didn't believe in persons, but personifications within the Godhead.
00:25:48One of those tapes, he says, oneness is heresy. The other one said, he says, oneness is not heresy.
00:25:54So that says it all right there on two different tapes. If you can condemn oneness, the Jesus only
00:26:01view as heresy, and then on another one, you say it's not heresy. What does that tell us? But you're
00:26:07confused in your own mind. And do you know what else he was confused about? The doctrine of eternal
00:26:13security or salvation. You know, eternal security, John, as people probably know, goes by a variety of
00:26:20names. Sometimes it's referred to as the perseverance of the saints. Sometimes it's referred to as the
00:26:28preservation of the saints. For people who do not believe in eternal security, they refer to it under a
00:26:41pejorative statement by saying, oh, that's the belief, once saved, always saved. And the reason they
00:26:50say, once saved, always saved is because even though that does express correctly what eternal
00:26:58security is, if you've ever been saved by the blood of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, if it's
00:27:06ever happened, it cannot be undone because that's a work of God. Even though it expresses that eternal
00:27:13security by saying, once saved, always saved, it's that flippant attitude. It is a straw man
00:27:20that those people will bring up. And they say, well, those of you who hold to eternal security
00:27:26believe that once you get saved back in 1964, then you can just live like the devil. You can do
00:27:35whatever you want to do and you can never lose your salvation. That has never been the reformed view of
00:27:43eternal security. That's never been the reformed view of salvation. The reformed view of salvation,
00:27:49Paul's teaching on salvation, never says that salvation is simply an event that happens somewhere
00:27:56past in your life and it has no bearing on your day-to-day living. Paul said, if you are saved,
00:28:05you'll produce the works of salvation. Not perfectly. You will still err and sin in your life.
00:28:11But if you've ever been saved by God, then you are eternally saved by God. Hobart's teachings will
00:28:19show that he grossly misunderstood and therefore grossly misrepresented the opposing opinions. And
00:28:28that was because, and I'll take a break, John, that was because just like with the Trinity, where Hobart
00:28:36could see passages where there seemed to be three, like at Jesus' baptism, the Father in heaven, the
00:28:43Spirit descending, the Son being baptized, he could also see passages where Jesus said, if you've seen
00:28:50me, you've seen the Father, or the Father and I are one. So he was confused about that. In the same
00:28:57regard, Hobart could see passages where it seems like that if you're saved, as for instance, Jude says in
00:29:06the end of his epistle, Jesus' half-brother, you're kept by the power of God. And if you're saved, it
00:29:13means that your name was written in the Lamb's book of life back before the world began. How can it be
00:29:20written and then unwritten? So he saw those, but then he saw other passages where, like in the end of the
00:29:29Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus said that there will be those who say, Lord, Lord, have we not
00:29:36prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and done many wonderful works in your name?
00:29:43And he'll say, I never knew you. So Hobart saw this, you know, this dichotomy that he was not able
00:29:51to explain. So he's going to come up with his own new theology. Have you ever wondered how the
00:29:58Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the
00:30:04latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
00:30:09You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
00:30:14william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of
00:30:21John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,
00:30:28audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various
00:30:34people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support
00:30:40the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and
00:30:46subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William
00:30:51Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. I watched a football game one time
00:30:57and the quarterback walked out. I can't remember what the event was for or why, but they handed him a
00:31:03baseball and he pitched the most perfect pitch with a baseball at a football game. And I was watching
00:31:10this and I wasn't paying much attention because I was wanting to watch football. This was pregame
00:31:15ceremony of some kind. They were celebrating something. I can't remember what it was. But the
00:31:20point I'm wanting to make is this. If I were to try to canonize that football game and say the best way to
00:31:28throw a perfect pitch of a baseball is in a football game. Everything that I said is correct. I watched the
00:31:36perfect pitch. I'm watching a football game. The environment doesn't fit the situation, but yet it
00:31:43happened, right? The problem that I have when I started studying this subject, eternal salvation,
00:31:49the problem that I had was I studied Branham and believed it was a consistent message. It was a
00:31:56confusing message because he would preach one way or the other or the doctrine in between. So I knew them
00:32:03all and I knew every side of every argument and yet tried to, like you said, through cognitive dissonance,
00:32:11try to make them all fit. And what you end up with is mental spaghetti. You had the passage,
00:32:18what is it, Ephesians? It says once you're sealed, you're sealed with the earnest of your inheritance.
00:32:24So you're sealed by God. You have eternal security. But then I would listen to him preach
00:32:29damnation upon the souls of those who didn't join into the revivals or who had sanctioned him. And
00:32:36he went all the way back to Hebrews where they commonly use this one. It's impossible once they
00:32:41fall away that you can renew them into repentance.
00:32:44Darrell Bock Hebrews 6.
00:32:45Darrell Bock They are doomed forever, man. So I've got both of these things in my head. I can go down
00:32:50the list. I won't do it. But I know both sides of this argument. Broaden this past Branhamism.
00:32:57Now you've got denominations and you have denominations that favor the balance of one
00:33:02or the other. And neither one of them, in my opinion, are looking at, they're looking at the
00:33:07baseball that's thrown in a football game. This is a letter that's written to a specific situation
00:33:12by a specific apostle. And not every single statement that is being applied to eternal salvation
00:33:20is really applied to the church as a whole. In some cases, it's just applied to a specific
00:33:25situation. So now I have to separate theologically, well, what is intended to be for me? What was for
00:33:33the situation? If I'm in that situation, how do I apply it to that situation? Where I ended up with
00:33:40is this. I know people want to find out what I believe on this subject. And what I believe is this.
00:33:46This is something that if it were important to my salvation to have an opinion one way or the other,
00:33:52it would have been clearly written that you must believe it this way if you want to be saved.
00:33:58So where I ended up with is, I'm still learning.
00:34:01Oh, John. I mean, that's a cliffhanger. Now you've left everyone with a cliffhanger.
00:34:09Well, I will take a step past you and tell everyone what I believe, but that's not that
00:34:16important. It's what my real goal here is to show how confused Hobart was and where it left the people.
00:34:24As I said, the reason I'm even wanting to talk about this is I have had several people
00:34:29actually ask me, will you please talk about eternal security? Because my mind is spaghetti
00:34:38over all of that. I've heard everything Hobart said, and it seems like he's talking like,
00:34:45I can know that I'm saved. He did a whole series on 1 John, the little epistle of 1 John.
00:34:52And he, back in those days, this would have been the mid to late 70s, correctly stressed that what
00:34:59John is saying in his first epistle is there are some things that you can know. And one of the
00:35:05things that you can know is you can know that you have eternal life. That is exactly what John's
00:35:10epistle is about. You can know that you have eternal life. And then you go back to Faith Assembly
00:35:16the next month and you find out, oh, maybe I can't know. And it's because Hobart himself was
00:35:23confused. So for instance, he will, and I'm just going to pick some random passages that come to mind
00:35:31because I think Hobart, he just did not understand how the New Testament authors would use terminology.
00:35:40For instance, in Acts chapter 8, this is the case, I'm sorry, yeah, that's Acts 8. This is the case of
00:35:47the sorcerer who saw, who heard the message of Philip, that Philip was preaching in Samaria,
00:35:54the gospel of Christ. And it says, I don't know the verse, but it says in Acts 8, Philip believed
00:36:01those things that were said. So when it says that, then what Hobart would assume is he became a
00:36:08believer. He became a Christian. It doesn't say that. It just says that he believed those things.
00:36:15Another passage would be the sower in the seed. You've got the sower sowing the seed. You've got
00:36:20several different kinds of ground, but in some of those, before you get to the really good ground,
00:36:24you have other ground that does receive the word. It says anon with joy and maybe produces a
00:36:31little bit of fruit. But then by and by, persecution arises for the word's sake or
00:36:36cares of this world, choke it out, or whatever the person's case is, they lost that seed or that early
00:36:44growth that they had. And of course, Hebrews 6 is the big passage. That's the one, Hebrews 10 to a
00:36:51lesser degree, but Hebrews 6 was the main passage. Again, not understanding it, John, as you just said,
00:36:58against a backdrop of this is an epistle written by one of the early church leaders. We don't know
00:37:04exactly whom, but written to Jewish Christians who were a part of a Jewish, that's why it's called
00:37:12Hebrews. They were Jewish. They were Hebrews written against that backdrop of them being tempted to
00:37:19return to the Jewish way. And that's why there's so much about the Old Testament sacrificial system
00:37:24there. And so because Hobart did not know what to do with how can you have a saved person and then an
00:37:34unsaved person, then he created this hybrid in between of a saved person who is an elect saved person
00:37:45versus the saved person who is non-elect. And you say, are you sure Hobart taught that? Yes.
00:37:53Listen, you don't have to play this clip. I'm just going to read this. But Hobart in 1979,
00:38:001980, over that fall winter period, he did a little nine tape series on the book of Jude.
00:38:09That's only 25 verses in this small epistle, the little epistle right before the book of Revelation.
00:38:14And he called it the judgments of Jude. And it was all about judgment. This created so much fear in
00:38:22the life of the members of faith assembly. And on one of those messages entitled the preservation of
00:38:31the elect from seven minutes, 50 seconds to eight minute and 16 seconds. Here's what he says. He's
00:38:38talking about how can we reconcile these passages where it seems as though someone was saved and then
00:38:48they lost that salvation. And there are other passages that seem to teach that if you're saved,
00:38:55you can't lose that salvation. How do we reconcile those two? So here's what this clip says. Now,
00:39:03the question was posed me, is it possible to be saved and not elect? He says, it is. Now,
00:39:15I notice it's mighty quiet. Well, you've got to come to some biblical conclusion on these things
00:39:22like Hebrews six cannot even renew themselves to repentance into quote. So I remember when I first
00:39:31heard that and I thought you're positing a difference between a saved person who is non-elect
00:39:37and a saved person who is elect. And then he said, I noticed it's mighty quiet. And I thought,
00:39:43I know exactly why it's quiet because they were simply stunned that they, they could not figure
00:39:50out. I thought election was unto salvation. How can you be saved? Do we understand even what that
00:39:58means? I don't think Hobart did save means you have been born again. Uh, John's gospel chapter three
00:40:05and the teaching with Jesus and Nicodemus. If you're born again, how can you become unborn again?
00:40:10If you have been regenerated, saved, washed by the blood of the lamb, how can all of that be undone?
00:40:19What I understood from the teaching of the new Testament is that salvation is the work of God
00:40:25from start to finish. And salvation is not an excuse to live any way you want to. Paul would argue,
00:40:34if you don't have the signs and the fruit, you know, it's all about fruit. If you don't have
00:40:40regular consistent fruit in your life, then it doesn't mean that you're saved, but you're not
00:40:46elect. It means that you're not even born again yet. I just think Hobart did not know how to deal with
00:40:53those different types of passages. And so he says, there's another group of people,
00:40:59the elect, there's the saved, there's an unsaved, and then there are the elect. And notice how he said
00:41:07the question was posed to me. Guess who posed a question to him? Here is my own typed up just the
00:41:17first half of Dr. Freeman's biblical theology series. There were 124 messages in this. And on message
00:41:28number 71, which is a very back of my own typed notes, it's very interesting. When I listened to
00:41:37this, I heard a question asked by someone in the audience. And do you know who that person was?
00:41:44It was Bruce Kinsey, his son-in-law. Bruce was a pretty sharp guy. That's why I always regret that
00:41:50Bruce died, that Bruce left the church under the circumstances that he did and was just ostracized
00:41:57by all of those people. I wish I could find someone out there in YouTube land who was a friend of
00:42:06Bruce's, who loved Bruce and was a close friend. I would really, if you're out there, locate me. I
00:42:12would really like to talk to you about Bruce's life. But in any event, this was the message number 71
00:42:19in biblical theology entitled, The Biblical View of Eternal Security. And what was Hobart doing?
00:42:27He was going through that same business of, well, no, you got passages that say you can lose your
00:42:32salvation. And you've got passages that say you can't lose your salvation, that you're kept by the
00:42:38power of God. So, you know, the burden is on you to understand the biblical doctrine. No, the burden is on
00:42:45you as a teacher to help explain that to us. So, here's the question. Here's my handwritten notes
00:42:52in here when I went back and listened to this. And you can tell it's Bruce because Bruce's voice was
00:42:59very recognizable. Bruce asked the question, and John, this is going to go back to what you said.
00:43:05You didn't even know it, but earlier in this podcast, Bruce asked the question about the sealing
00:43:11of the Spirit. He said, well, if we are sealed by the Spirit, he said to Dr. Freeman, I'm not
00:43:21understanding. So, he said, if Hebrews 6 is talking about people who have been sealed with the Holy
00:43:30Spirit, then how could they ever get unsealed? Bruce saw there's a logical inconsistency in this.
00:43:38You've got to say either God is able to both save you and keep you. It's not by works of
00:43:47righteousness, which we have done, but it's according to his mercy that he saved us. And
00:43:52after we have been saved, then Paul said, it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his
00:44:00good pleasure. It's God the Holy Spirit who even gives us the desire and then the ability to live the
00:44:06Christian life. Hobart had this weird view about perfectionism. And he would say, Matthew 5, 48,
00:44:13well, I'm not perfect yet, but I'm claiming it. That's nothing you can claim that you're going to
00:44:17be perfect because that's not going to happen in this life. So, because he was so confused, John,
00:44:23about so many different doctrines, he had this view of perfectionism. So, he was very intolerant
00:44:31of Christian sin, of sin in a Christian's life. He just thought that was a contradiction. How can a
00:44:37Christian sin? And yet, that's exactly what the New Testament teaches, that even though we are
00:44:43regenerate and we are elect and we are saved and we have been born again, we are in the process of
00:44:50being sanctified. And it's not going to be completed until we're in the next life. Some people sin more,
00:44:56some people sin less. Bruce was smart enough to recognize if there was a divine sealing done by
00:45:04God, done by the power of the Holy Spirit, how can you ever be unsealed? And that was his question.
00:45:12And then my comment, I said, Hobart had no answer for Bruce's question because he couldn't understand
00:45:21Bruce's question. Hobart himself was so confused about the whole matter, there's no way that he can
00:45:28understand what Bruce was asking.
00:45:30I usually take a neutral position in most of these arguments because in the end, you're going to find
00:45:36hundreds of different scenarios where you can support your argument and what you end up is this circular
00:45:41debate that never ends. What I instead really enjoy as I'm trying out new churches, I like to see what
00:45:48happens whenever I go to a specific church that I know their theology and their position. And then
00:45:55they read a verse from the Bible that fully contradicts it. One of the churches that I
00:45:59attended, they were very heavy into Calvinism, which raised all kinds of questions for me around some of
00:46:06the teachings they had. But it wasn't the eternal security, if I remember correctly, it was more about
00:46:11perseverance of the saints. And they had their favorite verses that they would read and supporting that
00:46:17perseverance. He who overcometh, you know, the chapter from Revelation. Well, this particular
00:46:24church, there was a minister who came in who wanted to go through chapter by chapter and just
00:46:29systematically go through the Bible. And instead of preaching about the world around him, let's focus
00:46:35on the Bible and how does it apply to the world, which is good. I did like that. But the moment he hit
00:46:40some of the eternal security statements, it was funny to watch because as he's preaching it, you just
00:46:46watch his face change. He's like, well, how do I do this? How do I dance around this? And then what
00:46:50happens is, as he's preaching it, he would say, he would read the verse, and then he would qualify
00:46:56what was written by the author of the verse. And I'm sitting here thinking, now, if you're having to
00:47:02qualify what you're reading directly from the Bible, do you really believe what you're saying?
00:47:07Because you can't read the Bible and then qualify it with the exact opposite thing.
00:47:12But that's what you have to do if you take one position or the other and don't understand the
00:47:18entire scenario that's being given. So, I'm sitting here and I'm listening to this, and
00:47:23at this point, I had not studied theology as much as I have now. So, it was more confusing to watch
00:47:31him try to preach the opposite of what the text was saying. But it became even more problematic for me
00:47:39as I'm watching, not just in that instance, once you do this, once you go down that path of saying,
00:47:45now, this verse says this, but it means this other thing that we believe. Once you go down that
00:47:49pathway, every verse after it, you've changed the context, and it's like you're going down I-65 and
00:47:57suddenly you just hang a right. You don't know where you're going, but you're not on the interstate
00:48:00anymore, buddy. And that's how these sermons were. So, I kind of choose the middle ground
00:48:07on things that are an endless debate. And I'll qualify that statement by if you look at some of
00:48:15the doctrines that have emerged over the centuries, there are centuries of debates from one side or
00:48:22the other, and it will never end. Until we die, until this world is no more, those same debates
00:48:27will always exist. And people want me to get in one side or the other, and I just don't do it because
00:48:32this, to me, this is fruitless. And my main goal is to show Hobart's confusion over, not to convince
00:48:42anybody of one position or the other. But if you notice from these clips that I've read and the
00:48:47statement from Bruce, Hobart had allowed questions during earlier teachings. I mean, during the teaching,
00:48:53you raise your hand, he would allow questions. As time went on, he would not allow questions.
00:49:01And I think so much of it had to do with the fact that he was himself confused and did not want to be
00:49:06put on the spot. So, for instance, in this same series called The Judgments of Jude, done from 1979 to 1980,
00:49:16the same message, the preservation of the elect, the 14 minute and 58 second mark. Listen to what he
00:49:29said. Don't even come up here and debate it with me. It's all on the theology tapes. See, he does not
00:49:38want to have to go through. Bruce had already cornered him. And as I said, Hobart couldn't answer the
00:49:43question because Hobart didn't understand what was being asked. But what I want to do here in
00:49:49conclusion, John, is to show the severe ramifications it's had on the people there at Faith Assembly. As I
00:49:56said earlier, I've had some people ask me, will you please talk about this? Because I've gone through
00:50:01my Christian life because of Hobart's fear and threatening and damnation approach to everything.
00:50:07I mean, he even called this study The Judgments of Jude. He always wanted to keep people eternally
00:50:14insecure. He really did. He wanted to be able to answer text. So he comes up with this, well, you can
00:50:19be saved but not elect. The elect is a certain category and the saved is another category. But he
00:50:26just loved threatening people and it's kept people so insecure. So here is a clip. I think I actually gave
00:50:33this to you last week, John, so you're going to have to go in our communication last week. But if
00:50:39you could play from the preservation of the elect, the 16 minute, 43 second mark to 17 minute, 37 second
00:50:51mark. I want to tell you, thus saith the Lord, they'll not get off into error. They will be preserved
00:50:59because they'll persevere in obedience, in faith. They won't run to man when they break
00:51:04a leg. You've got no assurance that you're one of the elect. When the emergency comes or
00:51:13the trial comes, you'll run to man for help. And some of you have done it. And we're not
00:51:17going to condone it in this church. We're going to tell you, you miss God. We don't stand at
00:51:25the door and say, you can't come in if you've got a cane or a crutch, but you miss God. And
00:51:31you are a sorry testimony to this church. And some of you sat out there for months and years
00:51:38and when the baby came or whatever, you turned to man because you were afraid. There's no
00:51:43excuse for that. Not in this church.
00:51:46I love it when people get to hear Hobart himself. And they said they love it too. They said, well,
00:51:53I won't say what they say. It's pretty critical. I will say this much. They say that old nasally
00:51:57whiny voice. I just about throw up every time I hear it. And they say worse things than that as
00:52:04well. But I like people to hear his voice, his tone. Not me saying that he said this,
00:52:13but I do have it because I have all of these things transcribed. This is on that same message
00:52:20where he's trying to talk to the people. They are shocked. They're in stunned silence because
00:52:26they've never heard anything like this, that you can be saved, but not elect, gone through all the
00:52:35salvation. Jesus has died for you. You've been born again. You've been regenerated. You've been sealed
00:52:40by the Holy Spirit. And then you can lose all that. I know that was new to them. And they're trying to
00:52:47process that. And he says in this clip, I want to tell you, and here he goes on a rant,
00:52:53this is thus saith the Lord. They will not get off and err, the elect. They won't run to man
00:53:02when they break a leg. You've got no assurance. You're one of elect when the emergency comes or the
00:53:11trial comes and you run to man for help. But some of you have done it and we're not going to condone
00:53:20that in this church. And there are some other statements about if you're trying to have a baby
00:53:26and you know, he's forbidding any medical science. And he said, if you do that, then you will lose
00:53:33your salvation. And you will only prove that you were never elect to begin with. And then I have
00:53:41one other very brief clip on a different tape, but the same series, John. It's in that same series,
00:53:49The Judgment of Jude, but it's on the tape entitled The Day of the Lord. This might be the last one of
00:53:56that series. So at the very beginning, six minutes and 53 seconds to seven minutes and 36 seconds.
00:54:06These people are falling away. You fall away. We'll say it again from faith assembly. You're
00:54:12falling away from the faith. You can call it whatever you want. If a five-year-old stands up
00:54:16there and reads the word, a promise of God, and some skeptic sits out there 25 or 35 years old and
00:54:23says, I don't believe it, he's falling away from the word of that five-year-old because it came
00:54:29right out of the word of God. So when you fall away from the word of faith assembly, you fall away
00:54:33from the faith because that's all we teach is faith. And it's right out of the word of God. You find
00:54:37something, you find something, find something that isn't in line with the word of God. You go ahead
00:54:46and find it. No, I don't care what that sounds like. This is classic faith assembly in Hobart
00:54:53Freeman. Here, he takes a step beyond. If you go to the doctor, you will lose your salvation and
00:55:03have fallen away. You're not elect. Here's what he said. These people who are falling away,
00:55:10if you fall away from faith assembly, you are falling away from the faith. He's equating
00:55:18membership in that church with election, that you prove your election of God only by being a member
00:55:26of that church. So he gives you no hope, no ground to stand on at all. If you saw something in the
00:55:33church or in Freeman, his teaching, his ministry that you disagreed with and that you left the church
00:55:39over, then because you did that, and when you did that, if you fall away from faith assembly,
00:55:46you've fallen away from the faith. And people heard the rest of it. He said, you find something.
00:55:52You find something. Find something that isn't in line with the word of God. No, I don't care what
00:56:01that sounds like. So he claimed to be infallible. He claimed right there, you find something that I've
00:56:08taught that's not in line with the word. He said three times, you find something, you find something,
00:56:13go ahead and try to find something that's not in line with the word of God. And then he says,
00:56:18I don't care what that sounds like. So this is the, this is the life, John, that people had to live
00:56:26as they exited faith assembly. I think it's the life that so many people live for months,
00:56:33and I hope not years when they leave a destructive religious cult of personality that just keeps
00:56:40people in the worst forms of bondage because everything you know about God and Christianity
00:56:47is tied up in that church or in that group. And it is a fearful thing to leave one of those places
00:56:54because that's God, that's Jesus, that's church, that's Christianity. And if I leave that, now you
00:57:02and I, you're so far removed from that, doesn't bother you, but I know it bothers a lot of people
00:57:10who are recently removed from it. And of course, what I have said all along is no church, no local
00:57:17church would ever use threats like that. If you decide to leave that church because you disagree
00:57:23with something and want to go to another church, the first thing a real pastor would do is to
00:57:29discuss it with you and make sure the fault's not in him or in his teaching or the church. And
00:57:34sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. And sometimes, as you've said, the church just isn't
00:57:39a good fit. But to, in such a haughty matter, dare people to find anything in his teaching that's not
00:57:48in line with the Word of God and then say, you won't find it. Because what I teach is the pure,
00:57:55unadulterated, whole counsel of God. And it's just, you know, it's a laughingstock is what it is.
00:58:02So I mentioned the three phases of eternal security doctrines that Branham taught. Well,
00:58:08there's a fourth phase to this. And I find that this phase appears to be common in many of the groups
00:58:14where the leader has died. And this hit me. Part of the reason why I'm fascinated with this study is
00:58:21because of an event that happened that I've mentioned before, I think, with you. But it was
00:58:25in the post office. This guy walked up. He knew who I was. He knew that at this point, I was like
00:58:32hardcore, only focusing on Branham and exposing Branham. And I knew him. And he walked up and he shook
00:58:38my hand. And I was a little surprised he was so kind to me because most of them aren't. I'll just say it
00:58:43like that. And he says, I know what you're doing, John. And I thought, uh-oh, he's fixing to come
00:58:50down on me right in front of everybody here. And he says, I'm okay with it. And it shocked me. I was
00:58:56like, what? And he said, I'm okay with it. And he says, you know, I was there in Shreveport in 1960.
00:59:04I don't know what a year. He said, 63 or something like this. He said, I was there and I watched Jesus
00:59:09Christ on the platform. And I said, really? What do you say to this, right? And he's referring
00:59:17to William Branham preaching.
00:59:18Darrell Bock What you say is, I wish I was there and could have seen the Lord.
00:59:21Darrell Bock You know, so he says, it really don't matter. You can speak against William
00:59:27Branham. It doesn't matter. That's the old flesh that's dead and gone. We saw Jesus when he was
00:59:31there. And I said, okay. And he says, you could do whatever you want. You could go sleep with
00:59:37prostitutes if you wanted. And he started naming off all of these, like the seven deadly sins,
00:59:42right? He's saying you could go do all of these things and none of it matters because we're
00:59:46now living in the millennium. Jesus Christ has come and gone. And the reason why this subject
00:59:53fascinates me and why I study it so much is because in the context of a cult, what happens
00:59:59as the cult becomes more and more destructive, eternal salvation becomes less wrapped up with
01:00:05the Bible or Jesus. But it's more focused on your eternal salvation is fully bound to whether
01:00:12or not you believe the cult group and its doctrine and its leader. That is your eternal salvation.
01:00:19And after the leader dies and it becomes a mythology, well, that mythology, if you're not
01:00:24following that mythology, it's like the worshipers of Zeus. If you're not following Zeus, you're not a
01:00:31Zeusite or whatever they called them, the cult following of Zeus. Well, you have shifted from
01:00:36the cult following of Jesus Christ to the cult following of Branham or Hobart Freeman or whoever
01:00:41is the cult leader. And your eternal salvation is now linked to that. So it has shifted from
01:00:46Christianity to this destruction. And everything that they say about salvation from that point
01:00:52forward, yes, they'll read the Bible verses, but it's also qualified like the church that I went to,
01:00:59I almost mentioned the name and I won't. Whenever you're reading the Bible and you say,
01:01:04we believe this 100% except for the exact opposite. Well, once you start down that pathway of saying
01:01:11that your cult leader is bound to your salvation, well, you've done the same thing. You've taken the
01:01:16Bible verse, you flipped it upside down, it is now the opposite. And your eternal salvation is into
01:01:21something that isn't in the text at all. It is tied to the cult leader. So for me, part of the
01:01:28fascination is just studying that mindset because the psychology behind it is unbelievable that people
01:01:34can disconnect that part of their brain and go down this pathway and still think that they're
01:01:39logically Christians when they apparently have just lost all concept of Christianity.
01:01:46And what is so surprising to me is that the people after Hobart died, the people at Faith
01:01:51Assembly, they beat themselves up by saying, well, God had to remove Brother Freeman because it was
01:01:59our fault because we were all looking at a man. You know, we all had our eyes on a man. And what I said to
01:02:06them is, yeah, you did have your eyes on a man. And that's exactly what that man taught you to do. That
01:02:12is exactly what he taught you to do. He never deferred to other people or other experts or other
01:02:18scholars. There were no other experts besides him. He was an expert on everything from marriage to
01:02:27raising children to theology. And he's the one who drew everyone's attention to him. And that's,
01:02:35you know, sign number uno that you are in a false cult. When that minister points, makes everyone look at
01:02:44him, agree with him. You can't disagree with him. You can't ask questions anymore. You know,
01:02:52he just rebuffed everyone and said, it's all on tape. And the reason that I always felt that people
01:02:59had questions, I know the reason that I sometimes had questions back then is because what he said on
01:03:06the tapes was so confusing. Had it been as clear, and he'd always say, it's clear, I've already dealt with
01:03:12it. And I would go, you dealt with it, but you didn't deal with it very clearly. You know, it's
01:03:17as clear as mud. And that's why people are asking you questions. And the reason it's unclear is
01:03:23because he himself was confused and he spoke with a forked tongue. Absolutely. And the forked tongue
01:03:30bothered me. So I left. And if somebody's still stuck in one of these groups, you can leave too.
01:03:35It's that easy. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on
01:03:39the web. You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the dark side of the new apostolic
01:03:44reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon,
01:03:51Kindle, and Audible.
01:04:09For more information, pleaseuuatin.com.
01:04:27Bye-bye.
01:04:30We'll see you next time.
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