- 23 hours ago
John and Laura-Lynn discuss the authoritarian structures and doctrines that connect Branhamism, the Latter Rain, and today’s New Apostolic Reformation. They explore how William Branham’s reinterpretation of Malachi, the Elijah motif, Christian Identity influences, and mystical elements helped form a theological framework that still shapes major NAR figures and institutions. Through examples involving Jim Jones, Christ for the Nations, Gordon Lindsay, Dutch Sheets, and others, they illustrate how these ideas created a parallel “kingdom” with its own prophecy-driven hierarchy.
They also examine how these movements subtly redefine the gospel, elevate human leaders, and inject mysticism and esoteric narratives into Christian belief. John and Laura-Lynn reflect on cult dynamics such as elitism, shunning, secrecy, and the pursuit of spiritual power, emphasizing the need for critical thinking and grounding in the plain reading of Scripture. The conversation highlights why awareness, historical accuracy, and careful theological evaluation remain crucial as these movements continue to influence mainstream charismatic spaces.
CHAPTER LIST
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Opening greetings and episode setup
02:00 Jim Jones, Jonestown, and shared doctrinal roots
04:01 Branham, Malachi 4, and Elijah identity claims
06:00 How Elijah theology shaped Latter Rain and NAR kingdoms
08:33 Christ for the Nations, Gordon Lindsay, and Elijah as a spirit-movement
10:17 Restoration theology versus the biblical gospel
12:03 Modern NAR figures connected to this lineage
14:01 Christian Identity origins and serpent-seed doctrines
16:00 Joel’s Army, youth training, and esoteric mysticism
18:04 How elitism and supernatural identity claims develop
20:03 Reinterpreting Malachi: shifting restoration from Christ to humans
22:04 Mystery cult dynamics inside prophetic movements
24:01 Contradictory Branham doctrines and fragmented NAR theology
26:00 Narcissism, revelation claims, and spiritual elitism
28:06 Addiction to crowd energy and performance spirituality
30:00 Shunning, control, and psychological manipulation in cultic systems
31:22 Website resources and revival history documentation
32:16 Dutch Sheets, Christ for the Nations, and NAR authority lines
33:21 “The Man Who Did Not Die” and the Elijah-spirit transition
35:05 Shepherding movement origins and apostolic hierarchy
37:00 Mysticism, Kabbalah, and fringe teachings entering charismatic churches
40:02 Branham’s mystical doctrines and the “thought-made-manifest” Christ
43:05 Replacing the biblical Jesus with a different theological construct
45:18 Viral awareness, backlash, and attempts to suppress documentation
47:05 Why cults fight to control information and narrative
52:12 Why truth must spread through research, podcasts, and public awareness
55:23 Escaping spiritual control and encouraging critical thinking
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Iden
They also examine how these movements subtly redefine the gospel, elevate human leaders, and inject mysticism and esoteric narratives into Christian belief. John and Laura-Lynn reflect on cult dynamics such as elitism, shunning, secrecy, and the pursuit of spiritual power, emphasizing the need for critical thinking and grounding in the plain reading of Scripture. The conversation highlights why awareness, historical accuracy, and careful theological evaluation remain crucial as these movements continue to influence mainstream charismatic spaces.
CHAPTER LIST
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Opening greetings and episode setup
02:00 Jim Jones, Jonestown, and shared doctrinal roots
04:01 Branham, Malachi 4, and Elijah identity claims
06:00 How Elijah theology shaped Latter Rain and NAR kingdoms
08:33 Christ for the Nations, Gordon Lindsay, and Elijah as a spirit-movement
10:17 Restoration theology versus the biblical gospel
12:03 Modern NAR figures connected to this lineage
14:01 Christian Identity origins and serpent-seed doctrines
16:00 Joel’s Army, youth training, and esoteric mysticism
18:04 How elitism and supernatural identity claims develop
20:03 Reinterpreting Malachi: shifting restoration from Christ to humans
22:04 Mystery cult dynamics inside prophetic movements
24:01 Contradictory Branham doctrines and fragmented NAR theology
26:00 Narcissism, revelation claims, and spiritual elitism
28:06 Addiction to crowd energy and performance spirituality
30:00 Shunning, control, and psychological manipulation in cultic systems
31:22 Website resources and revival history documentation
32:16 Dutch Sheets, Christ for the Nations, and NAR authority lines
33:21 “The Man Who Did Not Die” and the Elijah-spirit transition
35:05 Shepherding movement origins and apostolic hierarchy
37:00 Mysticism, Kabbalah, and fringe teachings entering charismatic churches
40:02 Branham’s mystical doctrines and the “thought-made-manifest” Christ
43:05 Replacing the biblical Jesus with a different theological construct
45:18 Viral awareness, backlash, and attempts to suppress documentation
47:05 Why cults fight to control information and narrative
52:12 Why truth must spread through research, podcasts, and public awareness
55:23 Escaping spiritual control and encouraging critical thinking
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Iden
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 at william-branham.org.
00:43And with me, I have my co-host and friend, Laura Lynn Tyler Thompson, the host of Laura Lynn Live.
00:49Laura Lynn, it's good to be back, and I'm a little bit excited about this episode and a little bit triggered by this episode, both at the same time.
00:58Because I'm going to be getting into the heart of what is believed in Branhamism, which was a very authoritarian cult.
01:07It is, you know, thinking back is very painful for me.
01:10So I'm going to go through some pain, but I have to give you the background of this, really so you can understand the complexity of what I'm about to say.
01:19And it ties into something that you were bringing up.
01:21So I think all of this is going to tie together and hopefully be both informational and entertaining to the listeners.
01:28But I'm excited about that, John, and I'm always happy to be with you.
01:31I learned so much.
01:32I've got people telling me that it's quite revolutionary what you're presenting and that it's giving them a grasp on what happened to them.
01:40Because many people have similar stories or have tie-ins to Branhamism.
01:45And you are making it so clear.
01:48And so all of us, thank you for that.
01:50Well, this is a clear, scary thing when you really think about what this is that I'm about to say.
01:57So Jim Jones, he was the head of the People's Temple.
02:02He went to Jonestown, Guyana.
02:04Big massacre.
02:06People believed his theology unto their death.
02:09Some of them were killed, but many of them willingly died.
02:13I've actually listened to the death tapes, and it is both tragic, scary, and triggering for me.
02:20Because as I'm listening to Jones speaking before everybody is, as they're taking the Kool-Aid, he is saying things that I heard in my church.
02:31And when I heard this, and I'm researching Jones, who is Jones, how is it tied to all of this, I suddenly realized that the doctrinal foundation that Jones had,
02:40the one that led them to that mass destruction, is the same doctrinal foundation that I grew up with that my kids were in.
02:48So we were at the same risk, if you understand the complexity of that.
02:51And as I began working with the Jonestown Foundation, they were giving me all kinds of different research tools and information that I didn't have on Jones.
03:04So I started to understand who he was.
03:07I started listening to his actual sermons long before any of the people's temple out west.
03:13And I'm hearing the Indiana version of Jones.
03:16And then I'm listening to a faith healing line where Jones is praying for the sick, the people are coming up.
03:23And there's this one lady that looks at Jim Jones and says,
03:27You are Elijah.
03:28Revelation helped call me Elijah.
03:31And Revelation helped call my daughter Elijah.
03:34So I saw the cripple come in young crutches and they walked out and left the crutches behind.
03:40It's a supernip.
03:41And I'm coming in with a terrible backache.
03:43My kidneys was just so badly.
03:47And Pastor Jim Jones, Revelation called me.
03:49He put his hands on me.
03:50And my heart stopped.
03:53I'm sitting there thinking, Oh my gosh, I can't believe this.
03:55Because I had just heard the Jonestown death tapes.
03:59And in Branhamism, we believe that William Branham was Elijah the prophet.
04:03And we were specifically, almost every sermon that I heard, I can't think of one that did not reference Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6.
04:15It reads, in the KJV, it reads,
04:17Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
04:23And he will turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite them with a curse.
04:29When you read great and dreadful, great and terrible is another variation of the translation.
04:37In the ancient language, this just means something great or awe-inspiring, amazing, something big, something unbelievable thing is about to happen.
04:47But when you read it in today's language, dreadful is filled with dread.
04:51You know, it's something that you're looking down upon, not something that you're looking forward to.
04:58When other Christians read this, they think immediately to the Gospels, whenever, as Jesus is being baptized in John the Baptist,
05:06they look at this and they think, that's John the Baptist that it's referring to, the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the Lord has come.
05:14And there's a reason why Christians see it one way, and the Lateran movement, the Branham cult, they see it a different way.
05:22And it comes down to something that we've mentioned a few times, Christian identity.
05:27And in Christian identity, they believe that the Old Testament could be read in a two-fold manner.
05:34It was written to the ancients, but it's also written to us.
05:39So, in Branhamism, we were taught to read this and believe that part of Malachi's prophecy, specifically chapter 3, was referring to John the Baptist.
05:50And then the second half was referring to William Branham.
05:55That's how we were trained.
05:57And where I'm building up to, and I'll stop here and let you talk for a second, but where I'm building up to is this.
06:03You have today this idea of this kingdom.
06:06And if you're Christian and you look at this kingdom that's being built by the New Apostolic Reformation,
06:11it doesn't really resemble the kingdom that Jesus was describing.
06:15And you have all of these predators and scoundrels that are leaders of this kingdom.
06:21And you're wondering, how can this be?
06:23How can they be part of this kingdom?
06:24You have to understand that there was a movement being created, and it had many of its roots, like I said, in Christian identity and white supremacy.
06:34All of these different – Steve Montgomery calls it the converging apostasy.
06:38We had this convergence of apostasy that birthed the New Apostolic Reformation.
06:43But there's a piece to this that I think a lot of people miss, and that is – think today of the Seven Mountains Mandate, the kingdom theology that the NIR had.
06:56Think of Dutch Sheets.
06:58So who is Dutch Sheets?
06:59He was a former director of Christ for the Nations Institute, where – the institute where many people are trained in this deliverance ministry.
07:07It's working with many networks within the NIR, led by – founded by Gordon Lindsay, who was William Branham's campaign manager.
07:16When William Branham died, after the entire movement believed that William Branham was the return of Elijah the prophet.
07:23William Branham died in 1966, they held his memorial service.
07:29Right after his memorial service, Gordon Lindsay started working on this book called The Man Who Did Not Die, Elijah.
07:38And it goes through and tells you the biblical story of Elijah, but the last chapter of this is entitled Will Elijah Come Again?
07:47And what he's referring to is not only William Branham as this Elijah figure, but what Gordon Lindsay did was brilliant in that he took the Elijah theme and he applied it to a spirit of a movement.
08:02And he started going through systematically this passage from Malachi and saying, this part applied to John the Baptist and Jesus, but this other part, it applies to this kingdom that we're creating.
08:15And Elijah is coming to fulfill this.
08:17The Elijah spirit is coming in our movement, the new iteration of Manifest Sons of God.
08:23All of these things were rooted in this theme.
08:28Wow, that is so eye-opening and such a sign of the delusion that was being presented to everyone as if this man is Elijah.
08:41And after everything I've learned about William Branham from you, from his history, you always have the receipts behind what was going on.
08:53It's shocking and it's a delusion and a deception.
08:57You can almost go down through the New Apostolic Reformation and just start naming names.
09:02Lance Wall now.
09:02He is a person that's heavily promoted by Christ for the Nations.
09:08Cindy Jacobs, she's well-known in NAR circles as a prophetess.
09:13She has links to Christ for the Nations.
09:15I think she might even be mentioned on the website.
09:18I know some of their literature.
09:20Bill Johnson.
09:21You have all of these figures that Christ for the Nation is either promoting, training, working with, or in the network to receive students to be trained.
09:29And they're being trained in this deliverance ministry school.
09:34A lot of people don't realize that that school was the result of Gordon Lindsay when he worked with Branham.
09:41They were starting to create the idea that they would have deliverance seminars.
09:47And these deliverance seminars would come train all of your ministers.
09:50They would learn.
09:51It became a training tool for the Joel's Army version that they were trying to create before Branham died.
09:56After Branham died, what this was developing into Christ for the Nations Institute.
10:02And the version that I have is not the original version, but it is actually published by Christ for the Nations Institute.
10:09So they are still publishing this idea that this Elijah spirit is coming back.
10:15For me, where this gets really problematic is this.
10:18I've read the Bible over and over after leaving, and one of the things that you begin to understand when you compare that systematic way of thinking to what the Bible is saying,
10:33there was the law of Moses.
10:37There were the curses.
10:38There were the blessings.
10:39You read through the Book of Kings.
10:41You find people falling into idolatry.
10:43The curses came upon Israel.
10:45Well, the final curse was death.
10:48And if you understand the Old Testament, you understand that they needed redemption.
10:54They needed a Savior.
10:55Then you have the Gospels.
10:57Jesus comes.
10:58He is the Redeemer.
10:59He is the one who is restoring all things, restoring it to where the people are now united with God.
11:06They're not under the curse.
11:07It is literally describing everything that Malachi said.
11:11And so it's being fulfilled in the Gospels, if you understand the Bible, if you understand the Gospels.
11:18But what they have done is they've twisted it so they can say, no, the Gospel doesn't apply to this situation.
11:25It applies to only a portion of Israel.
11:29And then we are the new Israel.
11:31We're the one that, whenever you read the last chapter of Malachi 4, we're the ones that's being restored, not Israel.
11:37And when you do that, you're actually taking away the application of the Gospel to ancient Israel.
11:43That has all kinds of ramifications.
11:48You know, the names that we bring up, that you bring up, are like pivotal to what, first of all, Dutch Sheets,
11:56everyone's listening to the Give Him 15, Cindy Jacobs, and all of these others.
12:04And, you know, it's troubling in our spirits.
12:08And I think this is why when I, you know, mention some of these names sometimes on my broadcast,
12:15like the feed, the live feed goes really crazy.
12:19They don't, everybody's waking up to the fact that something's not right with this teaching.
12:24We talked briefly about Dean Briggs before, but this manifest Sons of God and Joel's army and all of that.
12:32So, it's not like these guys are putting this out right in front of us.
12:36That's why we have to figure out what they believe.
12:39And then people like yourself expose it, and everyone needs to know.
12:45There's only so much that I can present through history for people to understand it.
12:48You actually really need to go back to the Bible.
12:51If you understand just simply the basic concepts of the Bible, you begin to understand that what they're teaching doesn't quite fit.
12:59And it reminds me, I don't know if you remember those cubes that the children have with the square and the circle and the triangle,
13:05and you put the block into the cube.
13:08Well, it's like trying to take the triangle and wedge it into the circle hole.
13:12It just doesn't quite fit.
13:14But if you take a hammer and you beat it hard enough, you can make it go into the box, right?
13:19So, for me, when I look at all of this, I look at it with the idea that if you could read the Bible for yourself without the lens that they're trying to give you
13:31and understand what it's saying to you, all of this nonsense that they have presented, all of it can be just eliminated.
13:40Not a bit of it has the foundation rooted in the Bible, but it does have the foundations, as we've talked about in many of these other themes.
13:48Christian identity, for example.
13:50They wanted the idea that whenever Gordon Lindsay began working with the, I think it's called the Anglo-Saxon Federation,
14:00I've got, in some of the podcasts we've done, I put some newspaper articles up about that.
14:05But this was a movement that was truly believing that there were two races of people on the earth.
14:13One that was the result of the sexual union of Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
14:20And one that was the good guys.
14:22And so, you had this good or bad, black or white, Thor and Loki.
14:27You literally had the types of religion that they had in the ancient world.
14:31It's us versus them.
14:33And the movement, as it developed, as the themes began to integrate into the Lateran movement,
14:40that us-or-them mentality continued so much so that they started pointing fingers at all of the denominational churches
14:47and said, we are the true seed, but you are in the cold form of denominations.
14:52And so, they created this dividing line between Christians themselves.
14:57And you know the Bible passages as well as I do.
15:00There are passages that talk about those people who come and try to sever the body of Christ.
15:05Well, this literally was a movement intended to sever the body of Christ.
15:09That is so scary.
15:11And I remember you telling me about this serpent seed theology.
15:16And, you know, in all my years of Christendom and all of that, you might hear my dog in the background.
15:23But I've never, you know, I haven't heard it.
15:26But I do know, like, if you look it up, people actually believe in all of this stuff.
15:31And I guess that's how we get to manifest sons of God.
15:35Is that right?
15:35Like, because they're, like, that's the good side.
15:40And so, we get to be, like, super, super beings.
15:43And especially if you're the chosen or whatever.
15:45It's like elitism.
15:47That's it exactly.
15:48But it's a little bit more complex than that.
15:50So, early Pentecostalism, the Azusa Street Revival, the birth of Pentecostalism,
15:57they took a chapter from Joel 2 that talked about,
16:01Behold, I was poor in my spirit upon all flesh.
16:03What they tried to establish was the idea that the day of Pentecost mentioned in the New Testament
16:11was the old reign, and we are now the new latter reign.
16:16That's early Pentecostalism, before the latter reign movement existed.
16:20Well, what happened is that began to die out.
16:22And so, they used that same passage to say that Pentecostalism was the former reign to our new, new latter reign.
16:30And so, they called it the new order of the latter reign.
16:33So, you had a little bit of complexity there.
16:37But the Joel's army theme, it does come from Joel 2.
16:40It's talking about the canker worm, the palmer worm, the caterpillar.
16:45And what's interesting about that is that, again, if you read the Bible, none of it makes any sense.
16:50The army that it's describing in Joel 2 was not the good guys.
16:54It was the plagues that was being sent, when you read about the army.
16:59But there's a specific phrase that's mentioned in there.
17:03Your sons and daughters will dream dreams, your old men will see visions.
17:07They began to focus on the sons and daughters.
17:10So, at the Sharon Orphanage, they tried to train the young people
17:14to get into this movement to basically summon a spirit.
17:19And if you think of Christian mysticism and you think of spiritualism, this gets really scary stuff.
17:25But they're trying to summon, essentially, this Elijah spirit.
17:29They want to summon the Elijah that is coming before the great and terrible day.
17:34And so, they're trying to train an army of youth to do this.
17:38So, it's a really twisted theology when you think about it.
17:41And none of it, again, if you read the Bible, none of it makes any sense.
17:45You don't want to create an army that are these plagues that are coming to the people.
17:50Yeah, it really doesn't make sense.
17:53But they're teaching it.
17:56I know Art Lussier had a youth group, and I think it was called Joel's Army,
18:01and he was teaching some similar things.
18:04And so, it's very important that we fully understand what is being presented here
18:10and the fallacy of it, what is and what isn't right.
18:14And how, I'm not understanding, actually, John, how any of that means that apostles or prophets are elite
18:22and have special powers.
18:25Like, it goes so far as to say, like, sometimes, you know, you won't die or, I don't know,
18:31healings and all of this kind of thing, right?
18:34It's like, it goes really far if you dig into it.
18:37Well, it goes back to something I said earlier.
18:39What they've done with this movement is they've taken the gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
18:45Jesus came to pay the final penalty, which was death, and restore everything, restore all things.
18:53He is the one who's literally, when you read Malachi and you read all the way up to chapter 4,
18:59it is talking about the coming of Christ.
19:01It's talking about John the Baptist immediately before this.
19:04If you understand that and understand the relationship between Jesus coming to pay the penalty,
19:13which was death, the ancient Old Covenant, the result of the Mosaic Law and the failures of the law,
19:20that is the gospel.
19:22Whenever you understand all of this, it's not really that difficult to understand.
19:27But what they did was they twisted it so that it was a slightly different gospel.
19:31It sounds the same.
19:33They're mentioning many of the same things.
19:35But what they're doing is they're taking the restoration of all things that Jesus did,
19:40and they're twisting it so that it can happen in a later day in this Elijah spirit.
19:46So that's how you begin to have this restoration movement that comes, this new kingdom that's coming.
19:51All of the passages that Jesus is referring to when he talks about the kingdom,
19:56now it's no longer what Jesus is talking about in the New Testament.
19:59It's now this new thing, this new kingdom.
20:02So restoration changes, the kingdom changes, but the bigger consequence of this,
20:10behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day.
20:15If you read that such that this is John the Baptist and then Jesus is the greatest thing,
20:20that's the gospel.
20:22If you read it in their terms, Jesus wasn't the greatest thing.
20:27There will be this new thing that's coming, this new Elijah spirit.
20:31So think of the end of days.
20:32Think of the right before Armageddon.
20:35They're not looking for Jesus to come.
20:37They're actually looking for this Elijah figure to come.
20:39So they're taking all of the work that is intended for Jesus to do when he returns.
20:46It goes right onto the head of a human.
20:49So essentially what they've done is they've rewritten the DNA of the gospel
20:53and recreated what Chuck Smith called it, the Moses model.
20:59Basically, it is an apostolic figure who is the one who is going to do all of the things
21:04that Jesus is returning to do.
21:08Okay, so this is so very wrong when you think about it the way that you're saying it, John.
21:16This is aberrant.
21:17So the hard part is to get it written down in such a form somewhere that you can actually
21:23put your finger on it because I think that's what happened with Dean Briggs when he suddenly
21:29said, okay, okay, I manifest sons of God and I believe in William Branham, all of that.
21:34The friends that were with him had to literally, and for those that don't know, they need to go
21:39back and watch your interview on this, but this is where you don't know what they believe
21:46until you press them until it kind of like just they have to tell you, right?
21:52Like is that common?
21:53Or is Bill Johnson or any of these other people actually putting this in writing?
22:00Well, that's where it gets even stranger.
22:03So when you look at the ancient mystery cults, the way a mystery cult works in the ancient
22:10world was they had this divine mystery, whatever it was.
22:14In the cult of Dionysus, they had this idea that they could get into the spiritual ecstasy
22:19and get into a frenzy and go rip the flesh off of animals.
22:23And that was their mystery.
22:24On the outside, you look in, this is just a group of people.
22:27We don't know that they're doing this weird thing, but that's what they're doing to get
22:31into the spirit or whatever it was that they wanted.
22:34They were actually bringing down all kinds of sin and I won't even describe the things
22:41that they did.
22:42It was awful.
22:43But in a mystery cult, the outsiders can't know your mystery.
22:47Otherwise, it's no longer a mystery.
22:49And that's the way in which these esoteric religions work.
22:54They have a mystery.
22:56They want to conceal it.
22:57And they will often mention that we have the mysteries fulfilled.
23:01That was a theme that we heard over and over and over in Branhamism.
23:06And if you go back through the recordings of William Branham, you can see that even during
23:11the Lateran movement, when he's widely popular, you have hundreds of ministers who are subscribing,
23:16either subscribing to him or joining him and participating in his revivals, they all believe
23:21this mystery theme.
23:23But to the outsider, what is the mystery?
23:25We don't know.
23:26What's interesting is even if you're on the inside, they never fully tell you what the
23:30mystery is.
23:31There were mysteries.
23:32So William Branham claimed that he opened the seven seals.
23:37We truly believe that he had the revelation of the seven seals.
23:40He knew the mystery that was underneath.
23:42The seven seals from the book of Revelation, that no man was worthy to open, according to
23:47the book.
23:48We believe that he did, but he couldn't tell us.
23:52And so today, when you ask any minister, you try to corner them.
23:56And what was the mystery behind the seven seals?
23:59You get different answers because they all try to give their own answer.
24:02But when they get into a room together, none of them have the same opinion of what is the
24:08mystery.
24:08So they don't really want to talk about it because the other guy might start arguing with
24:12them.
24:13So now broaden this to the New Apostolic Reformation.
24:17They all have, like you mentioned, he goes back to William Branham.
24:21Well, there isn't a single person who can build their ministry off of William Branham and
24:26be consistent with another person who does.
24:29Because on every single subject, William Branham taught both sides.
24:33Otherwise, he might offend the people who are working with him.
24:37So you can make it say black.
24:39You can make it say white.
24:40You can make it say red, green.
24:43Literally every doctrine, insomuch that he would go to a Oneness Pentecostal group and
24:48say that anybody who even uses the word Trinity is of the devil.
24:54They've taken the mark of the beast.
24:56There is no such word as Trinity in the Bible.
24:58He would say this.
24:59But then he would go to another church and he would say – he would even pray.
25:04He would pray, thank you, God, for sending the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit,
25:10who's in our hearts tonight.
25:12We have accepted the Holy Spirit.
25:14So he has actually accepted the Trinity in the second church, but he's rejected it in
25:20the first.
25:20So two people reading and understanding what he's saying, they get two different ideas.
25:25Everyone who's built on top of this, it's like this pane of glass that shatters in a
25:31million different directions.
25:33You don't know which pieces go together, so they all can't tell you their mystery.
25:37They themselves don't even understand it.
25:39And it seems like and feels like maybe they kind of make it up and they kind of feed it
25:45themselves with some, you know, ideas which are kind of ego gratifying.
25:52Like maybe I have this revelation, whatever it is, and I have an idea of what it is, and
25:58I'm not sure if they do or know it or my other guy that I associate with what he really thinks
26:02it is.
26:03But I'm kind of – I really like this because this might mean that I'm important, that I'm
26:08special, and I might get these special powers or whatever.
26:12To me, it's just ego gratifying, and it takes our focus off of God and off the simple gospel
26:20message.
26:21I'm really grasping what you're saying onto this new, completely, totally thought, this
26:28new thought of what this is about, and it all makes them feel better.
26:34And a lot of these people are really narcissists.
26:37It's narcissism, and so they easily accept it, like Jim Jones, who you started with.
26:43This guy thought he was all that and a bag of chips, so much so.
26:47He took people to their deaths.
26:49He thought he was so significant.
26:52Absolutely.
26:53And that's really what's so scary about this, because when you get in that mindset, not
26:58everybody intends to end up like this.
27:01If you go back and listen to some of the sermons by Jim Jones, you'll think he's just an average
27:06Pentecostal preacher.
27:08You know, this is a – in fact, many of the things he said, he was praised in the local
27:12newspapers for his work with the poor, for his ministry.
27:16He was actually respected when he was in Indianapolis.
27:19What happens is, when you get in that mindset, and you're connecting with the crowd – Bob
27:27Scott and I just did a podcast on this.
27:29We've talked about it a few times, but there is that energy that flows as a speaker, and
27:34you get it – so a football player, when he gets in the crowd, he's on fire, and you
27:41see him when he leaves the stadium, he might act a little bit differently, might not see the
27:45same guy.
27:46Same with a rock star.
27:47They get onto the stage, they feel that energy, what they're feeling actually is a dopamine
27:51hit.
27:52When you get into that excitement, you start to release chemicals in your brain, and if
27:57you continue to do it, you become addicted to those chemicals.
28:01So as you're connecting with the crowd, they're feeling the excitement too, and many of them
28:07also have the same releases of hormones.
28:10So as they continue to come, they become addicted to it.
28:13So there's this weird high that happens, but that's just, you know, rock concert aside,
28:20take this town to the religious level.
28:23Now you've got a framework of people who believe that we have a Moses model.
28:28We are the ones who are coming to restore all things.
28:31We must restore all things, because Jesus won't return if we do.
28:36We have to have, through our prophetic and apostolic power, we have to be the ones to claim dominion,
28:42to wipe away and restore all things.
28:45Then Jesus returns.
28:47So the mission changes.
28:48Instead of the gospel saying, go make disciples of others, it's literally go conquer others.
28:54So the idea of Joel's army as it fits into this, it's literally a mission to conquer those who
29:00do not believe as you do.
29:02And that's not what the gospel is.
29:04So when you say conquering others, is that rejection of anyone who's not going to buy into
29:13what I'm saying?
29:13So you're not one of us.
29:15You know, you quickly, you destroy relationships by, you know, a natural force, because they
29:22don't, they're not buying what you're dishing out.
29:25So this is very divisive then, I guess.
29:29Absolutely.
29:30Whenever I was in the group, the way it worked was this.
29:32If somebody seemed to be receptive to whatever you had to say about the cult and the cult leader,
29:39you would entertain the idea and you would try to get them to join.
29:43That's how recruiting works.
29:45The moment in which they reject it, you totally cut them off.
29:49There is no way that they're going to be converted.
29:52So now we move on to the next person.
29:54That's how missionaries work and within a very destructive cult.
29:58What's interesting is there are varying levels of destruction within the groups.
30:04So in Branhamism, you had people who actually went out and they tried to do real missionary work.
30:09You had others who would just cut them off, blindly cut them off.
30:13But as a destructive cult, the moment that they started to believe and then came in contact with some critical information,
30:22the moment that they left the group, I can't think of anyone who is in any of the levels of destructiveness that didn't just cut off the ones who left.
30:30So you end up with a shunning, you end up with abandoning, fathers separating from children, etc.
30:38That mindset flows through the entire movement.
30:42And that mindset was actually at the foundation.
30:45Whenever people like Dutch Sheets is talking about, we believe, William Branham, the years that they were claiming that he was in his full element, that was the years when all of this that I came from was created.
30:57So they're believing in this idea that you do cut people off.
31:02We're on a mission and anybody who's not with us on that mission, they're either with us or against us.
31:07We're going to cut them off.
31:08And they are, we called them cannon fodder, which meant basically we don't care if they die.
31:14Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
31:28You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
31:35On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
31:49You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
31:56If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top.
32:02And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
32:09On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
32:14If I could just ask, because I bet you a lot of people have questions about Dutch Sheets and what you're saying.
32:20You have mentioned him very specifically.
32:24Is he definitely Gnar?
32:25Do you have any indication that he believes in this sort of mystery gospel?
32:35Or is it kind of like piecing it together?
32:39I mention him specifically because in connecting to the New Apostolic Reformation, and the answer is clearly yes,
32:46but in connecting to the New Apostolic Reformation, I was going through this theme specifically, this Elijah,
32:53the man who did not die, written by Gordon Lindsay, who founded Christ for the Nations.
32:58Dutch Sheet was an executive director for Christ for the Nations.
33:03So not only does he believe it, he is teaching the same type of theology.
33:07He was a member of the school.
33:09I don't believe he still is, but in the mid, what was it, 2013 or 12, he was an executive director for the company that published this book.
33:21So this book, is it still available, and is there parts of it that can be cited to show incorrect theology?
33:33I received this copy today, this very day.
33:37I was trying to order it so I could get it before you and I talked, but Charles Paisley and I, Charles has a copy of this,
33:43and in our Revival History series, we actually build up to this book,
33:48because this book is actually more pivotal than people realize.
33:52So you're leading up to the death of William Branham.
33:55The movement as a whole believes that he was the return of Elijah.
33:59He is the fulfillment of Malachi 4-5.
34:01That's the reason why T.L. Osborne, who is high in the Word of Faith, Prosperity Gospel,
34:08that's the reason he said that this was more than a man.
34:11This was a God-man.
34:13It's this Elijah theme.
34:14They believed that he was Elijah.
34:16He was restoring all things.
34:19But then he died, and nothing was restored.
34:22So when this happens, through cognitive dissonance, you try to understand,
34:26well, wait a minute, we believe that he was going to restore all things.
34:29Now he's dead.
34:30What does this mean?
34:32So Gordon Lindsay took charge to spiritualize it.
34:36It's the spirit of Elijah.
34:37It's not William Branham.
34:39We think this is going to come on the corporate body of Christ.
34:43That's what he started to frame this as.
34:47This is being published about the same time that Earn Baxter,
34:50who is William Branham's other campaign manager,
34:53he starts forming the shepherding movement with Don Basham, Derek Prince, Charles Simpson, I believe.
35:04Five people created the shepherding movement, and they created this authoritarian hierarchy of control
35:10that was literally the – I almost call it the prototype for the New Apostolic Reformation.
35:16They're creating an authoritarian pyramid scheme in which the five at the top were the super apostles.
35:23The ones below it are under governance of the super apostles, all the way down to the rank and file member.
35:29So that structure was being created.
35:31All of these people are trying to understand, they're trying to reconcile,
35:36okay, William Branham died.
35:38What do we do with this?
35:39How do we move forward?
35:42And one of the ways that they move forward is the Elijah spirit is coming in the corporate body of this movement,
35:47but we need to take more control because the end of days is drawing near,
35:55and we're not in a state as a church where we can fulfill these scriptures ourselves.
36:00So we have to move forward.
36:01We have to become more diligent in our authoritarian control.
36:05Oh, wow.
36:08And that makes sense because of the control that some of these big mega ministries now have
36:16and how very strange they are.
36:18Some of them, even, I mean, even really strange things coming to light.
36:23And I don't know if it ties into Branhamism at all, but the Kabbalah, the religion of Kabbalah
36:33and looking at ancient old texts.
36:36So you can sort of bring in, like some people are bringing in the Torah, the Talmud,
36:42and these other writings, ancient writings that have, you know, strange things in them.
36:50And that all gets tied in too.
36:51And it's like very cultish.
36:54And they present it like it's God's truth when they're just,
36:59people do in these high level, big money, mega ministries want control over everybody.
37:08And so strangely, there's been this, you know, raising of concerns about what Robin Bullock
37:15is teaching lately.
37:17And it's Kabbalah teaching.
37:19It's sort of mysticism from Israel writings and different things that he ties all in.
37:26But a guy ended up dying in his office, a tragic death and a sudden death.
37:31And he didn't go to the guy's funeral.
37:35It was a key person in their ministry.
37:38And then over the next few months, he keeps dropping that there's, you know,
37:42he's seen an Ananias and Sapphira death.
37:45Well, this guy was an awesome man, apparently, by all accounts.
37:49He was a good man.
37:50That was kind of a bit of a problem for Robin because he was calling out some of the things
37:55that he sees.
37:56Now, that story is unfolding, so I don't know much more other than to say this seems
38:02to be problematic when these big leaders want power, want to retain the money, have
38:09to have this mystery about them, teach and kind of draw in all kinds of things that are
38:14kind of mystical.
38:15And even Bill Johnson doing things like that, bringing in new age, that it just seems so
38:20fun.
38:21Okay, kids, let's all lie on the floor and try to have a trip to heaven right now.
38:25Like literally doing mystical, crazy stuff, unbiblical.
38:31And this has been rising.
38:34It's like a form of witchcraft, I would say.
38:37I don't know what you think about that, but.
38:40Mysticism, we could probably do 10, 15 podcasts if I were to go through the history of what
38:45we were taught to believe.
38:46So, like all of these NAR movements that are the Moses models, they all have what is called,
38:56they have different names for it, but essentially they're prophetic histories.
38:59IHOP KC actually called it the prophetic history.
39:02And it's a focus on the humans, not a focus on God, if you understand what this is.
39:06It's hero worship, right?
39:08Well, in our hero worship in Branhamism, one of the pillars of the story was that he kept
39:15encountering fortune tellers, and he would call them a mystic woman, and they would tell
39:21his fortune of how the stars and the planets aligned on the day of his birth.
39:25It sounds so silly talking through it now, but all of this was happening, and he received
39:30this from a fortune teller, and that's a huge part of his, they call it his life story.
39:37So, this is the life story that is being sold to the Latter Rain movement.
39:42If you go back through all of his recordings, they even brand it like this.
39:46Gordon Lindsay, who founded Christ for the Nations, who published this book, would publish
39:51this as the life story in the Voice of Healing magazine, which was distributed among all of the
39:57evangelists.
39:57Embedded in this are these esoteric mysticism themes, in so much that we actually demoted
40:07Jesus of the Bible so that we could elevate ourselves to his level.
40:13And we did that through what William Branham called as the, well, he even used the word
40:19mystical, now I'm thinking about it, the mystical union between the Christ and the Bride, as
40:25is some of the series of sermons he had.
40:27And what he tried to say was this, that he would reference the passage, in the beginning
40:32was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was made flesh among us.
40:36He would, from John 1.1, he would say that Jesus was actually the result of a thought made
40:44manifest.
40:45So, if you think about that, God had a thought, and Jesus appeared, and then when Jesus came
40:51to earth, he was this weird mystical figure.
40:56William Branham said he was powerless before the people.
41:00He had to see a vision first from God before he could do anything.
41:03And he was neither human nor God in this weird form, because Branham would say Jesus had to
41:11die as a man because you can't kill God.
41:14He would say things like this.
41:16But he would also say that Mary was not his mother.
41:19So, this was a man who was not born of a mother, who was not God, who had to die as a man.
41:25And the whole gospel just becomes really twisted when you think of this.
41:28The reason he did this was because of the manifested sons of God doctrine, which you mentioned
41:34earlier.
41:35He believed that Jesus was the ultimate manifestation of God until this Elijah figure.
41:41So, we had Jesus of the Old Testament.
41:44We have Elijah of the – Jesus of the New Testament.
41:48Elijah of the New New Testament, which is essentially his words and his recordings.
41:55The reason he did this is because he wanted to say that we are – we have this mystical
42:00union between Christ and the Bride.
42:02We were thought of by God before the world was formed.
42:07So, therefore, we are just like Jesus in that we were a thought made manifest today.
42:13And we will be endued with this power from the manifested sons of God theology.
42:18We will become like gods.
42:20And from this was birthed many things.
42:24I'm certain that you've thought through the themes, but you can tie this back to the
42:28Word of Faith movement, the NARs, Little Gods theology.
42:33All of this was built on that framework.
42:36Wow, that's just crazy what you just said about all of these beliefs.
42:41Like, literally, he wasn't – like, Mary wasn't his mother.
42:45I mean, it's just not even Christian anymore.
42:52Absolutely.
42:53And it twists – because he's twisted the gospel, it's a new and different gospel.
42:58But because he's twisted it, you can't make the Jesus of the Bible fit within the new gospel.
43:05So, I'm certain you're shocked.
43:07Jesus had no mother.
43:09That doesn't make sense.
43:10Jesus even said he called his – you know, he called his mother by name.
43:14So, when you twist it like this, you're rewriting the DNA of the Bible, and you're rewriting
43:21the DNA of who Jesus is.
43:23It's a different gospel, a different Bible, and now you have a different Jesus.
43:28And there are numerous passages talking about men who will come and preach a different Jesus.
43:33That's literally what this movement was based upon.
43:37Here's where it gets really scary and problematic.
43:39You have people like Bill Johnson, you have the God's General's guy – I'm drawing
43:45a blank on his name – the ones who are saying that William Branham was a good man, he was
43:50God's General, and then he went astray.
43:54Everything that I'm talking about to this point is during the years that they think he
43:58didn't go astray.
44:01They think in the latter years, towards the end of his life, he formed a destructive cult.
44:05The cult still exists, and we can see they're a destructive cult.
44:08So, they brand that as the years that he went astray.
44:12But all of this horrific theology that I've mentioned, this was during the height of his
44:18movement, not the latter part of his movement.
44:21This is really eye-opening.
44:23What can we do, I'm wondering, to get the word out?
44:27Like, people, podcasters, you know, they've got social media opportunities to just put
44:34certain quotes of what Branham said that would be mind-blowing.
44:42Is there anything like that, like where there's actual, you know, comments that he's actually
44:47made so that it can be – it can kind of begin getting out there that if you've put your
44:52hope?
44:52Because I know Steve Holmstrom, good friend of Art Lucey, and all of them, they are – they
44:57worship Branham.
44:58They want the Branham anointing and mantle, and they want to be just like him.
45:03This is the bunch, you know, just recently on Daystar.
45:07And it's so – you would think that this is kind of some weirdness, but it's actually
45:13going very mainstream.
45:14It's a double-edged sword.
45:16So, I have my YouTube channel, Leaving the Message, which has the podcast and the research
45:21videos.
45:22Before this, my website and my YouTube channel – my website was called SeekYethetruth.com,
45:30and I had a matching website, YouTube channel.
45:34I published this series called Did You Know?
45:37The cult had published things that was intended for children.
45:41And little memes, I guess you would say, that said, Did You Know?
45:45And they would have a quote by Branham of some ridiculous, nonsensical thing.
45:50The children were being indoctrinated with this.
45:53So, I countered this with these short viral videos, Did You Know?
45:58And I would say things like, Did You Know?
46:00Here's a quote of Branham, Jesus had no mother.
46:03Here's a quote of Branham, Jesus was not God.
46:06He was human because you can't kill God.
46:08I started to publish these things, and as it started to catch on, as people started to
46:15see these, I made it all the way up to the point where I'm now talking about Jim Jones.
46:22I got a very sophisticated attack against my website, my YouTube channel, my Facebook.
46:29I was literally at work one day at a client site, and my phone started just buzzing off,
46:34buzzing like crazy, and Gmail's been hacked, YouTube's been hacked, YouTube copyright strike
46:41one, two, three, with three strikes on YouTube, everything comes down.
46:47Eventually, all of it came down, and the attack was severe.
46:52There were things that, they attacked technology in my house, actually physical hardware in my
46:58house.
46:58Whenever all of this happened, I lost a very expensive piece of hardware.
47:02So, they will stop at nothing to bring it down if you make people aware.
47:08So, it goes back to the mystery conversation we had before.
47:12When you're in the group, and you're speaking amongst yourselves, you can say all of the
47:19non-cystical things, and people will believe it and worship it.
47:22They're worshiping Branham.
47:24But when the outsiders learn of this, well, that's our mystery.
47:27We can't let it known to the outside world.
47:29So, that becomes very problematic for a mystery cult.
47:32Why do they care?
47:35Why would they go to such a, you know, I'm really tempted right now, and I don't know
47:39if you've been using Grok, and I don't want to do stuff on your show that, you know, Grok.
47:45Like, so, we have X accounts.
47:48Like, it used to be Twitter.
47:49It's X now.
47:49And I don't know if you're on X, but when you sign up for X, you get Grok.
47:55So, Grok is the new AI.
47:57I have absolutely been blessed to pieces by the knowledge.
48:02You know, the Word of God says in the last days, knowledge will increase.
48:06So, for instance, if I say I want to know about all the times that demons cried out against
48:15Jesus, or if I want to know about witches, which is something I presented on a recent
48:20show, it just gives me where witches are mentioned in the Bible, like, and it has, like, commentary
48:28and stuff like that, you know?
48:30And I don't know if you're game, but if I said, do you have William Branham quotes, we
48:36could see what it says.
48:37So, what you're talking about is the spreading of awareness through different medias, in this
48:44case, Grok, but other AI platforms.
48:46So, here's what people need to know.
48:49Whenever you're doing a search on something, say, the Bible, and you're searching the King
48:53James Version, this is literally an index of many different platforms, whether it's books
48:58or media or websites.
49:00AI is just consuming information.
49:03Sometimes that information can be correct.
49:05Sometimes it can be incorrect, and this really gets to the heart of what we're talking about
49:10here as far as the cover-up by these cults.
49:13So, when you type in a search and you're trying to find, does the Bible say this or that?
49:18Well, in almost every instance of it finding the King James Version or the ESV or the NIV,
49:24it is finding an exact replica.
49:27So, through a majority of the consensus of information, it can give you a fairly accurate answer.
49:33It can't give you a spiritual answer by no means, and you also have to qualify and make
49:38sure that what it gave you was correct because AI has issues.
49:42It's a software.
49:43It can return hallucinations.
49:46But here's the dangerous part, and here is why I do what I do.
49:51Whenever it is indexing information, say it's websites, we have all of these different movements,
49:56all of these different cult groups, and even not quite destructive cult groups, but leading
50:04into destruction.
50:05I'll say it like this.
50:07They're putting out misinformation.
50:09That's why whenever I publish histories, I get all this backlash.
50:12They say, no, that's not true, and I put all of the references in my book.
50:17So, I'm putting the actual literal sources.
50:19What is happening is AI can index those sources, but at the same time that I'm putting out
50:26information, there are, for my one, there's a thousand different people who are putting
50:32out misinformation, and some of them, not even purposefully, they just don't know their
50:37own histories because the cults have covered up their histories.
50:40So, what you're talking about, literally spreading awareness.
50:42Can we spread awareness where people, no matter where they search, they're going to find the
50:46truth, the cold, hard fact of all of this is that unless people dive in themselves, unless
50:53they dig in themselves, it's going to be very difficult to find accurate truth because
50:58there's so much information out there.
51:00I've been trying very meticulously to document the truth and to go through and paint all of
51:07the histories that have been erased, which is quite a big deal, and sadly, if you search
51:13for the Bible in AI, you're going to find a fairly accurate result because every copy
51:17of the Bible that it finds is exactly the same, but no two stories are the same with
51:22many of the cults.
51:23As I mentioned earlier, you've got Branham preaching oneness, Branham preaching Trinitarian.
51:28How can a software decide which one he really was when he was neither?
51:32You know what I mean?
51:33It's like, so you have to get to the heart of the information, which is factual, which is
51:40historical, and from that, you start building pillars of truth.
51:45Eventually, if enough people do this, if enough people are starting to voice their findings
51:51of truth, eventually software platforms, like you're mentioning, will find a different consensus,
51:58but there has to be enough people who are overwhelming the software with the truth that they're actually
52:04overcoming all of the misinformation that's out there.
52:06It's a big deal.
52:08People really need to be spreading awareness.
52:11That's really, that's what you're driving at with the question, and that's what I, that's
52:15why I do what I do.
52:17People need to be spreading awareness.
52:19Unless there are enough voices out there who are saying, no, we will not stand for the
52:23false thing.
52:24We want to know the truth.
52:25Do not cover up your histories.
52:27Do not paint pictures of history that are invalid because you can't build, it's sinking sand.
52:33You can't build all of these towers on sinking sand and expect that they're going to continue
52:37to stand.
52:38Eventually, somebody's going to find out and it's going to topple.
52:40So that's why I do what I do.
52:42We want to get the correct information out there.
52:44And that's, you know, getting you on the show where you can help share this, this puzzle
52:50of finding out what is this mess.
52:51I think that's very helpful because people can watch you as you go through this as well.
52:56So getting the information out there for me is the key.
52:59This is pivotal to us understanding where we've come from, how this happened.
53:05And my concern is people not listening, like thinking that persons like yourself or me,
53:12like we're the fringe, we're not, you know, we just don't get it or, you know, we're, you
53:18know, some kind of heretics.
53:20But in actuality, you've been researching all the facts.
53:24And so this is so scary that people are so deceived and they are literally now they have
53:31been steeped and bred in it.
53:34So as hard as it was for you to come to the realization that you had, you were in a cult
53:41and you had to come out of it.
53:43And I did resonate earlier.
53:45You said something, you know, you don't know how, how it was, you know, with us growing up.
53:49But yeah, we thought we were it.
53:50We were told, if anyone leaves glad tidings, you're out of the will of God, you're going
53:55to someplace that doesn't have the same Holy Spirit power.
53:59And our church was like, you know, you just don't leave.
54:04This was said from the pulpit.
54:05I remember that.
54:06So this elitism, this control factor is an interesting, it's an interesting, well, it's
54:15an indicator that this is the kind of, this is not good, you know, if somebody's actually
54:20trying to pull this stuff off.
54:22But people do get suckered in.
54:24Yes, they get suckered in.
54:26And I was a sucker.
54:27You know, I've had people contact me.
54:30How do people get trapped in these movements?
54:33And interestingly, it's not always the less intelligent people who get sucked in.
54:39Often it's the more intelligent people.
54:40Because you go to church thinking that you're going to hear the gospel, and you just kind
54:46of shut off the critical thinking when you're sitting there.
54:49So they start talking, and there are manipulation techniques that are used.
54:53If you know what those are, you start to pick up on them whenever you listen and critically
54:58think.
54:59But most people don't critically think.
55:01So they just turn off their thinking.
55:03They come in to try to rest, relax, recover from the week.
55:07They sit there on Sunday, and they think they're hearing the gospel, but they're hearing something
55:12quite different.
55:13And I think if people were to just turn on their critical thinking just a little bit,
55:17there would be this mass exodus as people leave this thing.
55:21So very, very glad that we were able to escape.
55:24I'm glad that you were able to escape.
55:27And I hope that we have said something that would help somebody else to wake up, and maybe
55:33they too can escape.
55:34So thank you so much for doing this.
55:36I appreciate it, John.
55:37Once again, always a pleasure.
55:40Well, if you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
55:43You can find us at william-branum.org and Laura Lynn Live.
55:46For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
55:50from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
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