- 1 day ago
John and Chino explore the hidden cost of life inside Faith Assembly and similar high-control churches, unpacking the difference between first- and second-generation members, how utopian promises slowly harden into authoritarian control, and why so many survivors carry more emotional baggage than they realize. Drawing on years of conversations with former members, they talk through holiday taboos, "negative confession," fear-based teaching, and the long shadow of legalistic Pentecostal culture on work, family, and identity.
Along the way, they examine how Bible verses were repeatedly pulled out of context, how that misuse of scripture fuels magical thinking and self-destructive choices, and why counseling and safe relationships are so vital in recovery. John shares how people can be talked back from the brink when they feel utterly alone, while Chino emphasizes humility, honesty, and re-learning what genuine Christian faith looks like outside of performance, control, and fear. This conversation offers both language and hope for anyone trying to make sense of life after a controlling religious environment.
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Rising Testimonies and Shared Survivor Patterns
03:02 First-Generation vs. Second-Generation Cult Survivors
05:40 Emotional Burdens, Identity, and Holiday Trauma
07:05 Recognizing Baggage and Seeking Safe Spaces
09:00 Understanding Personal Backgrounds and Trauma
11:05 Counseling, Stigma, and Humanity
12:41 Self-Destruction Mode After Leaving
15:08 Culture Shock and Adjusting to the Outside World
17:54 Language, Worldview, and the Psychology of Difference
20:05 Relaxing Legalism and Reframing Christianity
23:03 Crisis Calls and Talking Survivors “Off the Bridge”
27:03 Survivor Testimonies and the Friday Story Series
29:04 How First-Generation Members Entered the Movement
31:00 Predators, Fringe Members, and Sincerity
33:14 The Glory Barn vs. The Later High-Control Environment
35:18 Gradual Indoctrination and the “Moving Desk” Effect
39:56 Why People Don’t See Cult Dynamics Until Too Late
41:50 The Harm of False Urgency and Lost Futures
44:45 Scripture Misuse and Repetition as Indoctrination
48:01 Why Mark 11:24 Was Misapplied
50:51 Psalm 91, Satan’s Misuse of Scripture, and Misapplication
54:00 Misunderstanding “Bible Promises” Through a Cult Lens
56:34 Alternate Worldviews and Dangerous Faith Claims
58:59 How Indoctrination Becomes Nearly Impossible to Escape
1:00:49 Closing Thoughts and Next Steps
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
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Along the way, they examine how Bible verses were repeatedly pulled out of context, how that misuse of scripture fuels magical thinking and self-destructive choices, and why counseling and safe relationships are so vital in recovery. John shares how people can be talked back from the brink when they feel utterly alone, while Chino emphasizes humility, honesty, and re-learning what genuine Christian faith looks like outside of performance, control, and fear. This conversation offers both language and hope for anyone trying to make sense of life after a controlling religious environment.
00:00 Introduction
00:31 Rising Testimonies and Shared Survivor Patterns
03:02 First-Generation vs. Second-Generation Cult Survivors
05:40 Emotional Burdens, Identity, and Holiday Trauma
07:05 Recognizing Baggage and Seeking Safe Spaces
09:00 Understanding Personal Backgrounds and Trauma
11:05 Counseling, Stigma, and Humanity
12:41 Self-Destruction Mode After Leaving
15:08 Culture Shock and Adjusting to the Outside World
17:54 Language, Worldview, and the Psychology of Difference
20:05 Relaxing Legalism and Reframing Christianity
23:03 Crisis Calls and Talking Survivors “Off the Bridge”
27:03 Survivor Testimonies and the Friday Story Series
29:04 How First-Generation Members Entered the Movement
31:00 Predators, Fringe Members, and Sincerity
33:14 The Glory Barn vs. The Later High-Control Environment
35:18 Gradual Indoctrination and the “Moving Desk” Effect
39:56 Why People Don’t See Cult Dynamics Until Too Late
41:50 The Harm of False Urgency and Lost Futures
44:45 Scripture Misuse and Repetition as Indoctrination
48:01 Why Mark 11:24 Was Misapplied
50:51 Psalm 91, Satan’s Misuse of Scripture, and Misapplication
54:00 Misunderstanding “Bible Promises” Through a Cult Lens
56:34 Alternate Worldviews and Dangerous Faith Claims
58:59 How Indoctrination Becomes Nearly Impossible to Escape
1:00:49 Closing Thoughts and Next Steps
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twit
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister, and friend, Cheno Ross,
00:00:47pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Cheno D. Ross' YouTube channel.
00:00:53Cheno, it's good to be back, and I'm starting to finally get over that cold that was bothering
00:00:57me the last time that we were talking.
00:01:00I've got just a little bit left if you can't hear it, but I'm clearing up, and it's good
00:01:04timing to clear up because I've had so many people who are now coming out from Faith Assembly
00:01:09who are sharing their stories.
00:01:11We have one that's coming out just this Friday, which I'll let you talk about and introduce,
00:01:16but there are so many similarities between what the Faith Assembly people had, what the
00:01:21Branhamites have, and now some of the other groups that I'm talking to, even all the way
00:01:26in the UK, they're sharing their testimonies and their stories, and you hear the same patterns
00:01:31repeated over and over and over.
00:01:33Doctrines are different, I understand, but the underlying problem that drove all of this
00:01:38mess, the underlying problem is the same in so many different movements, and yet at the
00:01:43same time, each person who escapes, they have the same set of psychological issues that they
00:01:49face and struggles that they face.
00:01:51Some of them, like the one that's coming out this Friday, I was just so deeply burdened for
00:01:57this lady when she started talking because many of the things that she said in her testimony,
00:02:03I was hearing from many people in the support groups and in private people, you know, people send me
00:02:10all kinds of stuff.
00:02:11The things that she experienced, which some of the things is really hard to talk about,
00:02:15it's not that uncommon, and when you understand the root of the problem was the cult, then you
00:02:21begin to see that, you know, you can move on.
00:02:24You can get past this.
00:02:25Other people have moved past it, and hopefully people will hear the stories, and they too
00:02:30can kind of, you know, move along and move on in life and make things better.
00:02:35Well, what I want to do, John, today is at least begin, I don't know that we'll get through
00:02:39with this in one podcast, but talk about first and second generation cult members or cult survivors
00:02:47or however you want to phrase that.
00:02:51I've asked, I've been asked by quite a few people, could I maybe talk about that?
00:02:57Because we're dealing with two really, really different groups of people.
00:03:03The first generation people, which would be probably how I would have to classify myself,
00:03:12even though I'm somewhat in between.
00:03:15I'm first generation in the sense that my parents did not believe this and follow it,
00:03:21and therefore I followed because of them.
00:03:25However, I was only a teenager when I got in this, so I was kind of an adult, but not yet
00:03:32an adult.
00:03:33So you have your first generation people, and then you have your second generation people.
00:03:39And all of these have come from some type, with regard to Freeman, it's just like this,
00:03:45and the others it's similar, of a cult of personality, where your identity is wrapped up
00:03:52in the charisma and magnetism, speaking ability, scripture quotation ability, whatever his shtick
00:04:02is, you're really following this particular person.
00:04:05So it's an authoritarian cult.
00:04:08It's utopian.
00:04:11They're definitely promising you things that are not realistic.
00:04:17And had I tried to tell anyone that, and I did in the 1980s, no one believed me.
00:04:25Had someone tried to tell me that in the late 1970s, I would not have believed them,
00:04:30because I thought I was hearing from God, and I thought these were biblical passages.
00:04:36But as we look back, you know, there's nothing like hindsight, and there's nothing like history
00:04:41that all of us have been able to experience.
00:04:44This utopian setting was really not a true setting.
00:04:50These promises that were made, they were not realized.
00:04:54So these groups are very dysfunctional, and the people who come from them consequently carry
00:05:03a lot of baggage.
00:05:04They probably carry more baggage than they realize.
00:05:09And until they can experience some type of healing, they're just not going to experience
00:05:16normalcy, whatever that is.
00:05:18Because we talked before we came on the air that I said, I have a real normal life, and
00:05:25you said, what is that?
00:05:26It's just because you have so many irons in the fire, and you have so much going on, and
00:05:30I don't ever do anything.
00:05:32I just lay around the house and just get ready for a podcast every week.
00:05:37But what I mean by normalcy is we just don't have to deal with the craziness of these religious
00:05:44cults.
00:05:45If you think of some of the taboos at Faith Assembly, oh my word, you're getting around
00:05:50this time of year, and it becomes very stressful because you were not allowed to celebrate Christmas.
00:05:57And I've told you before, I don't celebrate Christmas to this day, but Christmas has never
00:06:02bothered me.
00:06:03I don't mind the lights.
00:06:04I've always said for the people who didn't celebrate Christmas, and they thought this cake
00:06:10and these cookies and these pieces of candy, if you partake of that, you're partaking of
00:06:16demons.
00:06:17And I always just said, well, give it all to me then, because I don't believe any of that
00:06:21stuff will harm me.
00:06:22This is a traumatic time, stressful for Faith Assembly people back in the day, because everyone
00:06:28else is making merry with their lights and holiday celebrations, and Faith Assembly was all buckled
00:06:37down, rebuking demons, opposing the forces of darkness that might somehow gain entrance into
00:06:44their life.
00:06:45Look, that's not a normal lifestyle.
00:06:48Even if you choose not to celebrate a certain holiday, you can choose not to celebrate in
00:06:53some normal fashion, where you're just a normal person and these things aren't bothering you.
00:07:00But I think in order for the people who are carrying the baggage to be able to drop some
00:07:05of the baggage, they've got to be able to recognize what has taken place in their life.
00:07:10They've got to be willing to acknowledge some of these things in the past.
00:07:17And find an open and safe environment in which to deal with that.
00:07:24And that was one of the problems with Faith Assembly.
00:07:27Faith Assembly lacked anything that would come close to being an open and safe environment.
00:07:34That's one of the roots of the whole problem of the people who have a past association with
00:07:43Faith Assembly, and it's just one of the things that makes them so distrusting.
00:07:50But my encouragement to everyone is that even though I would say it probably takes special
00:08:00tools to be able to navigate your way out of these groups and away from them as far as
00:08:09your background goes, even though it takes special tools, we all either possess these tools or
00:08:16they are readily available to them.
00:08:19And one of the most basic tools is simply to be humble and to be honest.
00:08:24And I say simply because some people find that very hard, but we shouldn't as a Christian
00:08:29to be able to just say, yep, here's where I was.
00:08:33Yes, that is exactly what I believe.
00:08:36Now, there's the honesty.
00:08:38There's the humility.
00:08:40And now we've got to use some introspection and be able to figure out, well, what was going
00:08:46on in my life then?
00:08:48And what, how am I, what is a healthy way in which and by which to address that?
00:08:57And also to recognize, and here's a huge thing I would say to everyone, it's not just those
00:09:04of us who have some type of religious cult background that have a background that we have
00:09:11to deal with.
00:09:11Everybody has a background.
00:09:13Every single person has some kind of background.
00:09:16What if your father was in the military?
00:09:19There's, you have a military background.
00:09:20And so as a child, you pulled up and moved from place to place all around the United States
00:09:28and maybe to military bases around the world.
00:09:31And so maybe as a consequent of that, you have maybe an inability or an aversion or just the
00:09:41lack of experience in making friendships that last because you know it's not going to last.
00:09:47And so there's no sense in even trying.
00:09:49What if you, what if you are rabidly anti-Catholic now, but you were born into a Catholic family
00:09:56or if you're rabidly anti-Baptist or Pentecostal now, but that's what you were born into, or
00:10:03you were born into a home where your parents were into drugs or alcohol or motorcycle gang
00:10:09or whatever.
00:10:11It could have been anything.
00:10:12We all have a background that we need to be able to look at honestly, introspectively,
00:10:20humbly, and say, you know, it's time for me to deal with that.
00:10:26It's just the problem with a religious cult background is it is so distorting of the truth.
00:10:35It's not just like I was born into a military family and I can recognize that and I have
00:10:41this one thing and that is making friends that I have to deal with.
00:10:45This religious cult background just so colors and dominates and confuses everything in a
00:10:53person's background.
00:10:54It does make it more difficult to deal with.
00:10:57But as I said, we all either have the tools or they are readily available, and one of those
00:11:03readily available tools is counseling.
00:11:06Now, that was a taboo, absolutely forbidden at Faith Assembly.
00:11:11Number one, you couldn't acknowledge you had a problem.
00:11:13That would be a negative confession, and that's part of the religious cult whole background.
00:11:19And number two, you certainly couldn't go to get any counseling.
00:11:23That would just be leaning to the arm of the flesh.
00:11:26God forbid you do that.
00:11:28Or especially, especially if this person was not a Christian or not a believer, well, then
00:11:35anything that comes out of their mouth is going to be unchristian, demonic, antichrist.
00:11:41You couldn't go down that path at all.
00:11:43Well, I would beg to differ with all of that, that there are good counselors.
00:11:49There are good, better, and best, and there are a few bad ones out there.
00:11:53You have to find the situation that fits you.
00:11:57And full disclaimer up front, John, is I'm not a counselor.
00:12:00I'm not a psychologist.
00:12:01I'm not a psychiatrist.
00:12:03If anything I say in our discussion about this somehow violates one of the 10 laws of
00:12:12the American Association of Counselors, please ignore what I say, and please go with what
00:12:18they say, but I have heard enough over the last two years from Faith Assembly survivors
00:12:24to realize people do need someone that they can talk to.
00:12:28You know, I've talked to hundreds at this point of cult survivors from Branimism to IHOP
00:12:35KC to all kinds of different cults, different Pentecostal, NAR, Charismatic.
00:12:40And what I can tell you is from talking to all of these people, they all share a common,
00:12:46very, very troubling problem, and that is humanity.
00:12:51Everybody who leaves the cult is human, and humans have human problems.
00:12:56And if you go to counseling, you can kind of understand this.
00:13:01I'm going to try to paint a picture so that people who are having aversion to going to a
00:13:05counselor can understand, but if you go to counseling, your therapist will probably work
00:13:10through this topic with you, but when you are in a destructive environment, which we
00:13:16were, and you escape, and everybody turns on you, which happens in almost every single
00:13:22cult environment, there's a point of time in which you are so low that you just simply
00:13:27want to give up.
00:13:28And at that point, it really depends on the other things in your life that are happening.
00:13:35If you are not facing anything else, if everything else is kind of going smoothly and you're dealing
00:13:41with a cult, you can kind of slip through.
00:13:43You might even slip through without counseling.
00:13:46But if your world is falling apart, and then this thing happens, what typically happens, people
00:13:53get into self-destruction mode.
00:13:55And so what happens is they leave the cult, they're human, they're in self-destruction
00:14:00mode, and they just give up and they purposefully do things that they would not have otherwise
00:14:05have done.
00:14:06And this creates an even bigger problem because now you have the cult members who are pointing
00:14:10fingers saying, look, they left the cult just so they could go do X, Y, and Z.
00:14:14And the person leaving may have never, ever done this kind of thing, but they're in
00:14:18self-destruction mode.
00:14:20That's one of the many, many problems.
00:14:22And beyond that, they're trying to face now, I'm out of the cult.
00:14:28I'm now into a different world, a different environment.
00:14:31How do I adapt?
00:14:33How do I live?
00:14:33How do I grow?
00:14:34And I'm in self-destruction mode.
00:14:37And now the world around them sees the self-destruction mode and they too cast them out because they
00:14:42want no part of the self-destruction mode.
00:14:44So it turns into this problem that grows even bigger.
00:14:48It's like a snowball going down the hill.
00:14:51And I can speak from experience because whenever I left, my world was falling apart in many
00:14:56ways.
00:14:57I understand every single thing that everybody goes through.
00:15:00And people have told me the most unbelievably horrific things about what they've done, where
00:15:05they've been, where they came from.
00:15:07And I don't really look at anybody with ill will because I know exactly what they went
00:15:14through.
00:15:14That's one of the huge, huge problems.
00:15:17The other thing that people face, and I'm going to use a ridiculous example to paint this
00:15:24picture, but I think people need to understand.
00:15:27You have grown up in a cult.
00:15:29You're in this cultural environment that is different than the rest of the world.
00:15:33And so your mindset is different.
00:15:36Your worldview is different.
00:15:37You're in a cult of personality.
00:15:39Your personality is different.
00:15:41When you leave, whether you're in the destruction mode or not, nobody else has that same culture
00:15:47or personality because that was what was the cult personality.
00:15:51Your identity is now, you're now trying to change your identity, which is difficult.
00:15:57One of the things that hit me that was kind of shell shock, this happened almost at the
00:16:01same time.
00:16:02I'm leaving the cult, and in the cult, we had the very rigid Pentecostal way of life,
00:16:08the way we spoke, the way we dressed, all of it.
00:16:11And I'm in this big business meeting.
00:16:15At that point, I had not yet started my business.
00:16:18The CEO, a new CEO came in, gave this motivational speech, and he said the F word in his motivational
00:16:26speech.
00:16:28And I didn't know what to do with this.
00:16:30I grew up in the world where if, let alone a cuss word, if you say the F word, that was
00:16:34like the mother of all cuss words, right?
00:16:36And yet, he used it in a motivational sense, and I felt motivated.
00:16:42And I was like, well, this just doesn't make any sense to me.
00:16:47And I went down this pathway of, I study everything to no end.
00:16:51So, I just studied the history of cussing.
00:16:52And it will take, if you study this, it'll take you down weird pathways.
00:16:58And I'm trying not to distract too much, but I'm trying to paint a picture.
00:17:02What had happened, long story short, I won't go into all of the research, but long story
00:17:06short, the culture around our identity group had changed so much that even the language had
00:17:15changed, and some of the words used that we thought would be offensive, that the outside
00:17:21world years ago would have also thought was offensive.
00:17:25Now, it's being adapted into common language.
00:17:27So, the two cultures have grown in two different ways.
00:17:31And I began, as I'm studying it, the thing that hit me and made me just snap out of it
00:17:35and wake up was, at first, I studied Martin Luther.
00:17:38I wanted to know the Protestant Reformation.
00:17:41And I looked at the way that he spoke, and we would have called it cuss words.
00:17:46When he was upset, buddy, he let you know he was upset.
00:17:49Darrell Bock He was a bull in a china shop, yes.
00:17:51Darrell Bock He was, very much so.
00:17:53And then I started looking at, okay, well, in the Bible, when people got angry, what did they
00:17:58say?
00:17:58And you go back and look at some of the things they say, you snakes in the grass.
00:18:05In the translation, that's, you know, we just think snakes in the grass.
00:18:09That's a common thing that we hear from behind pulpits.
00:18:13But if you look at the phraseology, what they're doing is actually what we would call today's
00:18:18cuss words, but they were doing the same thing.
00:18:21It's basically you want to shock somebody with a word or phrase, get their attention, and sometimes
00:18:27you're doing it in anger, and that's essentially the motivation behind it.
00:18:30Well, then I took it a step further.
00:18:32Well, if people do it, and people came from God, did God do the same thing?
00:18:36And Ezekiel 2320.
00:18:39I'm not going to read it because YouTube might actually censor me if I read this Bible verse.
00:18:45But you who want to know, you can go look it up.
00:18:48This is God who's speaking in anger against Israel and says something that by the same
00:18:54comparison of what is a cuss word, you would say, okay, well, is God evil for saying this?
00:19:00I don't think God is.
00:19:02But what I learned was that the shock value of the words back in the ancient world was
00:19:08used in the same way today as the shock value.
00:19:10The point I'm trying to make with all of this is we had isolated our mindset, even though
00:19:16we weren't isolated in the world, where our culture developed in such a way, along with
00:19:22other cultures developing in the same way, that we moved our culture into a box that really
00:19:29didn't progress with the rest of the world.
00:19:31Now you leave the cult, and the outside world has a different culture, and you feel, you just
00:19:37feel icky.
00:19:38I don't know how to put it.
00:19:39You feel like you don't even want to adapt because your mindset is that you're associating
00:19:45evil with every single thing in the other culture, and it's not necessarily that it
00:19:50is evil.
00:19:50It just has progressed in different ways.
00:19:53Yeah, I think what you're saying, John, is something that could never have been said
00:19:56at Faith Assembly, and that is just take a breath and relax.
00:20:01You know, Christianity is not as complicated as Faith Assembly made it out to be, and neither
00:20:06you nor I are encouraging anybody to do anything that's sinful or evil or that would be displeasing
00:20:12to the Lord.
00:20:13We're not encouraging that at all.
00:20:14But Christianity is not as—I mean, a phrase that I've always used when people seem to get
00:20:21all, I don't know, all wound up over things, and I hope this is appropriate to say.
00:20:28If it's not, you can always edit it, right?
00:20:30I just say, don't get your panties in a wad.
00:20:33You know, it's not that big of a deal.
00:20:35You know, just relax.
00:20:37You know, so someone celebrated Christmas.
00:20:40So someone ate a Christmas piece of candy.
00:20:43So someone made a negative confession.
00:20:46It's not that big of a deal.
00:20:47There are—Jesus said, and the prophets said, there are weightier matters of the law than
00:20:54tithing your little small bit from the seeds of your garden, and it's judgment and mercy
00:21:01and faith.
00:21:02Those are the weightier matters of the law.
00:21:05And I knew, John, your background is that, you know, you and I have a completely different
00:21:11background, although similar, because you have a Branham background.
00:21:16I have a Freeman one.
00:21:17You were born into it, and I wasn't.
00:21:21And we extricated ourselves in, you know, just down a different path with different steps.
00:21:30But they were both the same in this way, that there was meaningful, purposeful study and
00:21:39introspection and thought put into, okay, this is what I was told, but what does the Bible
00:21:45actually say?
00:21:46And I was taught this in this context, but what do I believe now?
00:21:53And for me, it was gradual, for sure.
00:21:56I just, as I've said before, I saw contradictions and inconsistencies in Hobart's messages before
00:22:01I ever saw anything that was outright that I would say, you know, I don't agree with that
00:22:06interpretation of the Bible anymore.
00:22:07I just saw his own internal inconsistencies.
00:22:11And it's okay to have inconsistencies.
00:22:14We all do.
00:22:15It's not okay when you present yourself as being infallible.
00:22:18Then you're in trouble if you do ever have a contradiction.
00:22:23You know, I'm sure I've contradicted myself.
00:22:24I know I have.
00:22:25And I know I have had and have and will have inconsistencies in my life and teaching.
00:22:30But that's okay because that's the way I present myself.
00:22:33I don't know it all.
00:22:34But when you present yourself as you know it all and you're hearing directly from God,
00:22:39well, guess what?
00:22:40You cannot have any contradictions.
00:22:42You know, too bad for you.
00:22:43You know, you've walked out on the end of the plank and sawed it off behind yourself.
00:22:48You can't have any errors in your life.
00:22:51You can't make any mistakes because you've presented yourself as being above those.
00:22:55But I know you have probably had more conversations with people than I have.
00:23:03I've had my share.
00:23:05I've had enough.
00:23:05But I'm sure I will have some more because I'm not a counselor.
00:23:08But I do love people.
00:23:10I deeply, deeply love people.
00:23:12I love God's people.
00:23:13And I love talking to them.
00:23:16And I can even remember, I don't think I've shared this,
00:23:19but since we started the podcast, I did have an episode of, what do you call that?
00:23:26Talking them off the bridge.
00:23:28And I had never been in a position of doing that before.
00:23:31But it was someone who has, he did not come,
00:23:34they did not come from a Freeman background in particular,
00:23:37but it was the same kind of thing.
00:23:39It was a Pentecostal background where you couldn't,
00:23:44women had to wear pants and you couldn't eat this kind of food
00:23:51and you couldn't sing this kind of song and you can't do this and don't do that.
00:23:55And God forbid, don't ever do that.
00:23:57You can't say this.
00:23:58You can't go there.
00:23:59You know, no cards, no movies, no dice, you know, no dancing,
00:24:04no music that's secular, you know, no, no, no, no, just a whole lot of no's.
00:24:08And this person began to listen to the podcast.
00:24:13And as you just said earlier, there's a moment often of crisis in people's lives
00:24:22and it's happening either before, during, or just after their exit from this religious group.
00:24:27And it is a very difficult time in their life.
00:24:30And so I had missed a call from this young man.
00:24:33I had spoken with him on several occasions before.
00:24:36I think the first time he called me, he was literally crying saying,
00:24:40you know, I'm trying to navigate my way out of legalistic Pentecostalism.
00:24:47It's just all a list of don'ts and can'ts.
00:24:50And I'm learning from these podcasts that this is not New Testament biblical Christianity.
00:24:57And so he was right in the middle of doing that.
00:24:59He had marital issues.
00:25:02He had job issues.
00:25:03He had financial issues.
00:25:05You know, unfortunately, many times when it rains, it storms.
00:25:09And all of these things were coming on this poor young man at the same time.
00:25:14And so even though we had talked on the phone before, I missed a call from him.
00:25:20I can't always take everybody's call like I would like to.
00:25:24And when I found out the need later, I just felt terribly bad that I had not taken his call because I did call him within an hour.
00:25:34And you know what?
00:25:36He was already out on some lonely stretch of a highway with a gun in his car.
00:25:43He had already walked down to the creek and he was going to shoot himself.
00:25:47And I said, I am so sorry, brother, that I did not take your call.
00:25:52You know, if I had had any idea, if you had texted me and said, what is about to happen, please call me.
00:25:58I would have dropped everything and called you.
00:26:00But it took a couple of phone conversations.
00:26:04I thought one did it.
00:26:05And then I ended up hearing from him again when he was about to do that for the second time.
00:26:11Thank God he never did it.
00:26:13I said, look, there are better days ahead.
00:26:16Just keep me on the phone.
00:26:18Get back in your car.
00:26:19Get back to a safe place.
00:26:20And we're going to we're going to hold hands over the phone.
00:26:24We're going to work our way through this together.
00:26:26And we're going to get you off the the bridge.
00:26:30That's what we're going to do.
00:26:31And we did.
00:26:32And I think he's in a lot better place right now.
00:26:35So, as you said, way back at the very beginning of our time today, John, and I forgot to mention it.
00:26:41Later this week, on Friday of this week, you're going to air an interview that you did some time ago with a Faith Assembly survivor.
00:26:50And one of the things I have realized in talking to so many of these dear and precious people is that they don't even realize that on Fridays, you tend to do this.
00:27:02I think you call it our stories where you have interviews of different people who have come from these different segments of a dysfunctional cult background.
00:27:15And this this coming Friday will make six total that you have done of people who specifically have come from Hobart Freeman and the Faith Assembly background.
00:27:28So, I would just recommend and encourage everyone if they're not aware of that.
00:27:32Now, they are aware of that and they can find those interviews and listen to them.
00:27:37The one that's coming out this Friday, and I have talked to her many times.
00:27:42I've actually met her one time face to face.
00:27:44But she said, by all means, you're welcome to use my name and refer to me.
00:27:48So, she is a granddaughter of Don and Betty Nye.
00:27:53That name was fairly significant in Faith Assembly days because the Nyes were the original people who allowed Faith Assembly to build that gigantic, what today is now a pontoon boat storage place, but church building on their property outside of Wilmot in northern Indiana.
00:28:14And Lael Nye McKay is one of the grandchildren of Don and Betty.
00:28:22And so, I would just encourage people who are not aware of the fact that you are releasing that on a Friday to look it up on this coming Friday.
00:28:30And you'll hear the story of Lael.
00:28:34And she's just a wonderful young lady, very courageous young woman who has, in a very deliberate and meticulous and purposeful way, navigated away from all of these things in her childhood.
00:28:52And I don't want to steal her thunder.
00:28:53Maybe I'll mention something here or there when it comes to mine, but I'm going to leave that for her.
00:28:59Let me, I guess, with the time we have left, John, today, talk a little about the first-generation people.
00:29:07The first-generation people, you know, we've got these two different groups of people.
00:29:11And so, we have an incredibly complex dynamic happening between those who went into Hobart Freeman's church and ministry and message with their eyes wide open.
00:29:26Wide open may be in quotation marks.
00:29:28They didn't really know what they were in for.
00:29:30But they went into it with their eyes wide open versus the second generation who definitely did not go into it with their eyes wide open because they were still in their mother's womb.
00:29:40So, you've got two different groups.
00:29:42You've got people who made Faith Assembly their choice and Dr. Freeman's message who said, this is what I want to do.
00:29:50And then you have their children, and we even have a third generation now, the grandchildren who did not make the choice, who were simply born into it.
00:29:59So, for the first-generation people, I think that back in the early days and even to the end of Faith Assembly, there were definitely some fringe members of Faith Assembly, of that movement.
00:30:16By fringe members, I mean they weren't genuine.
00:30:19I think you'll find that with any movement, especially any large-scale movement.
00:30:24You're going to have fringe members.
00:30:25There were, for instance, predators who were lurking around the corner seeing a situation where you have, you know, all these women staying at home giving birth to all these children and no one going to school and all the babysitting required and all the child swapping from this family to that family because, you know, my husband can't drive and I have to drive.
00:30:49And I've got to get him to work, but I've got seven children at home.
00:30:53Can someone watch my children?
00:30:54I mean, it's just a very ripe environment for a lot of not-so-savory things to take place.
00:31:01So, there were predators lurking.
00:31:03You've always got your, you know, I don't know, natural-born anti-establishment people.
00:31:09So, anytime you've got a movement preaching against all other denominations and preaching against the government and preaching against everything, you know, they just want to be a part of that.
00:31:19They're just a rah-rah, let's-see-if-we-can-be-different-from-everybody-else type of person.
00:31:25You've always got your curiosity seekers.
00:31:28You've got people that were just there because they were lonely and needed a place.
00:31:33You've got your fringe members.
00:31:34But I would say that most of the people, these are the people that I have talked to, that most of the people were sincere, genuine.
00:31:47They were young.
00:31:50I mean, I am describing myself, even though I was really young.
00:31:54I was only 17 years old.
00:31:56Most of these people were older than me.
00:31:58So, they are, you know, in their 70s now, or some of them are in their 80s now because they were in their early 20s, newly married, idealistic, so inexperienced, so trusting, but genuine and sincere.
00:32:15And so, when they saw the glory barn, where you've got tambourines and guitars and people are worshiping the Lord and singing and lifting their hands, and it, you know, we're at the very tail end of the Jesus movement, where so many young people had come into Christianity.
00:32:36You know, this is a very inviting place, and it was a very warm place at the time.
00:32:44When you walked into the glory barn in, say, 1974, they were there from 72 to 78, so right in the middle in 1974.
00:32:54When you walked into the glory barn in 1974, versus when you walked into what they call the new building in 1984, that's just a 10-year time period, and the church was completely different.
00:33:09By 1984, it was a SS, Nazi, Gestapo mentality.
00:33:15You had to be part of the group, and they had lookouts to make sure no one else got in.
00:33:23And back in 1974, you know, have guitar, we'll travel.
00:33:28Have a Bible, you're welcome.
00:33:30It didn't matter what you were wearing.
00:33:32It didn't matter if the guys had long hair, and the girls had blue jeans on, and trust me, they did.
00:33:39They were all welcome.
00:33:40And it was, you know, just a very friendly, warm, inviting place.
00:33:46So, this is the environment that so many of these people, I'm talking about the first generation people, came into.
00:33:56As I have often told all of them, because there is a lot of guilt involved in the lives of those who recognize what then they took their children and or grandchildren through.
00:34:07What I tried to explain to them is, look, no one believes that you intentionally decided to get up on a Sunday morning and tell your wife, look, I'm tired of going to church.
00:34:24Let's go find a religious cult to join.
00:34:27And then you go down to the glory barn.
00:34:28That did not happen.
00:34:30And you were, out of the goodness and sincerity and love and enthusiasm and joy of your own heart, really believing you had found a great place to go to church.
00:34:43And, you know, maybe for a year or two there, it could have been an okay place to go to church.
00:34:50Hobart Freeman was always deeply steeped in word of faith.
00:34:54He was always deeply steeped in latter rain.
00:34:57That was always there.
00:34:59That was not going anywhere.
00:35:02But at least there was friendliness.
00:35:05There was toleration.
00:35:07There was definitely a divine healing message being taught.
00:35:12But at least, and it was not a correct message.
00:35:15I'm not excusing it at all.
00:35:17But at least there was a divine healing message being taught.
00:35:21And there was not an anti-doctor message being taught.
00:35:24So, again, the divine healing message that he was teaching even then was not a biblical message.
00:35:30And his positive thinking and confession was not biblical at all then.
00:35:34But there was just freedom and genuineness and sincerity.
00:35:39So, for all of the second generation and third generation, and if there are any fourth generation people out there, this is one thing they've got to recognize.
00:35:50There is a Facebook group called the Children of F.A., and there are a lot of really angry and hurt people, descendants of first generation people on that page.
00:36:03And I've met and talked with many of them, and the first thing that I would try to explain to them is to give them a picture of what it was like for their parents or their grandparents when they first walked in the glory barn.
00:36:23It was easy to be sucked into that.
00:36:28They were sucked into it, and they were sucked into it because I think that they were genuine and sincere in looking for the things of the Lord.
00:36:40Have 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
00:36:51into the New Apostolic Reformation into the New Apostolic Reformation?
00:36:54You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
00:37:01On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others,
00:37:11with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
00:37:15You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
00:37:22If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top.
00:37:28And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
00:37:35On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:37:39I give this example a few times, but never on a serious podcast like this.
00:37:45I had a job one time as an architect.
00:37:48I've done all kinds of different things in my life.
00:37:50It's a little bit crazy, but I had this job as an architect.
00:37:54And I would sit there, and you're staring at drawings all day.
00:37:59You're looking at, you know, different measurements, etc.
00:38:03You're really tiring your brain.
00:38:05And one of the guys I work with, he worked in an office across the room.
00:38:11And I would go talk to him, and one day he said something.
00:38:14And I thought, well, I'm just going to play a little trick on him to get back at him.
00:38:18And I stayed after hours, after he left the building, for about six months.
00:38:26And I would push his desk one millimeter closer to the wall for six straight months.
00:38:30And whenever it's that gradual, you don't notice the change.
00:38:35And so his desk was moving closer and closer.
00:38:38Well, after about four months, he says, John, I don't know what's happening, but I just feel claustrophobic in this office.
00:38:43And I think I'm getting fat.
00:38:45I'm going to go on a diet.
00:38:46I am thankful to me.
00:38:48This guy lost like 30 or 40 pounds.
00:38:50He went on a pretty significant diet.
00:38:53But he did not notice that we were moving his desk.
00:38:56I had another guy that was helping me.
00:38:57And that's how gradual that change was.
00:39:00Well, when you join a cult, it's this very exciting, happy thing that you really, you're joining with good intentions.
00:39:08They're not sharing everything with you because it's a cult.
00:39:10They keep all of their darkest secrets secret.
00:39:13And then once you start to learn, they gradually drop them on you.
00:39:17And if you get into the leadership, it gets even more odd because the leadership know that they're doing this.
00:39:24And it's not like they're doing it mischievously or with bad intent.
00:39:29They just say they wouldn't understand if you told them everything that we believe.
00:39:33And so they give you just little bits and pieces.
00:39:35What they're doing is they're moving that desk one millimeter at a time for sometimes years.
00:39:40And then when they drop the big bombs, well, that desk has already moved.
00:39:45You don't even notice.
00:39:46Big atomic bomb happens in the room.
00:39:49Well, you're just oblivious to it.
00:39:51And that's how it is.
00:39:52It moves so gradually that you don't understand.
00:39:56And once you're caught up in it, once your mind has been programmed, you never really saw it coming.
00:40:01And so when you leave, it's a little bit odd as well because you leave thinking, well, all of these people knew this.
00:40:08What's wrong with them?
00:40:09I didn't know.
00:40:10I found out and I left.
00:40:11What's wrong with them?
00:40:12But you have to understand that they went through a similar process, maybe not the same process you had, but they went through a similar process of indoctrination.
00:40:21And they're not yet at the place in their journey where they can escape, but you are.
00:40:26So I'm very thankful for the Friday stories because in doing that, it helps other people to kind of speed up the process to help escape.
00:40:35Yes, for sure.
00:40:35And that's exactly where I was going, John.
00:40:38Before you know it, you're trapped.
00:40:41You're quickly trapped.
00:40:42You're trapped by false promises.
00:40:45You're trapped by this sense of urgency.
00:40:48That was huge in the early 70s and mid-70s messages of Freeman.
00:40:53When you hear from the pulpit and you think he's given you a biblical verses for it, that Jesus is coming back really, really soon, what does that do to your life?
00:41:04What does that do to your future plans?
00:41:07You know, and we have talked before how devastating that sense of urgency is to this day for those poor people back then thinking the world's coming to an end.
00:41:20You know, why finish my college degree?
00:41:23You know, Bruce Kinsey had an outreach called The Lighthouse right there at Purdue University.
00:41:28He had an outreach right there on at Purdue University.
00:41:33And so some of those people went ahead and finished their degrees.
00:41:36But, you know, again, I've heard from a lot of them who didn't.
00:41:39And I've heard from people, you know, all over.
00:41:41I was one of the very fortunate ones.
00:41:43You know, I was into Freemanism when I was a junior in high school, and I still went through college and got an undergraduate degree.
00:41:52I don't know what anybody thought of me.
00:41:54They might have thought I'm worldly or terrible because why would you be getting a college degree?
00:41:59But it was very important for my parents that I do that.
00:42:03And I'm glad I listened to their advice, and I'm glad I did that.
00:42:07But if Jesus is coming back, don't plan for the future.
00:42:11You don't even need to prepare for retirement at all because, you know, 60, 70 years old, you'll never live to that.
00:42:17You're going to – Jesus will be back by the time you're 30, and look where that's left people today.
00:42:22You know, and I lay all that at the feet of Hobart Freeman or William Branham or any other nut job who has encouraged people along that line.
00:42:30That is so irresponsible to do to people.
00:42:33You know, what I would like to say is let's find what is owed to all of these people, and we need to bill that to the Freeman account, you know.
00:42:42That needs to come out of his estate.
00:42:45Unfortunately, there's not enough money to reimburse these people for all of their lost wages.
00:42:51So, yeah, people were just quickly trapped by false promises.
00:42:56I'll tell you one of the main ways that you are trapped in a ministry like Dr. Freeman's is just the repetitive mishandling of biblical text.
00:43:08Hobart Freeman was a master at that.
00:43:12I'm not convinced that he understood the Bible very well, but I am convinced that he knew Bible passages very thoroughly.
00:43:22And the only way to know that is to read your Bible and memorize them.
00:43:28And I'm convinced that Hobart read his Bible a lot.
00:43:32But, you know, that's not good enough.
00:43:35You know, it's just not good enough.
00:43:36The scribes and Pharisees were very familiar with the Old Testament law, with the Mosaic law.
00:43:41But Jesus just said, often to them, it was very embarrassing when he would address them, because they were the professional teachers of the law, and he would address them with this question, have ye not read?
00:43:57You know, that was very embarrassing to them, because what he was saying to them, he knew they had read.
00:44:02But what his meaning was, yes, you know the text, but you've misunderstood the meaning.
00:44:10And he accused the religious leaders of his day of that fact all the time.
00:44:15And, you know, surprise of surprise, Hobart never thought that he would be in the category of being a Pharisee.
00:44:21But he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
00:44:23He would bind anyone over the smallest details, and he would omit the weightier matters of the law, like mercy and love.
00:44:32Those are much more important than how you dot your I or cross your T on some Hebrew passage or some Greek word.
00:44:43This repetition, John, is just a hallmark of religious cults.
00:44:48It's a hallmark of mind control.
00:44:50It's a hallmark of indoctrination.
00:44:52It was just a profuse quoting of Bible verses without any regard to the context in which they're found.
00:45:00And I would invite anyone to pick up, you know, pretty much any Freeman tape, pick up any Freeman message and listen to it.
00:45:08He'll have a text that he starts with, and then he tells lots of stories.
00:45:12And then while he's telling stories, he's also pulling verses out of their context.
00:45:18And the way he uses those verses, they reinforce the story that he's telling.
00:45:23And the story that he's telling is something that Smith Wigglesworth or Oral Roberts did that I can't verify.
00:45:29There's no way to verify, validate that.
00:45:32But I've heard the story told now from the guy behind the podium, and now it's been buttressed, supported by all these verses before and behind it.
00:45:46And you don't have the critical thinking going on saying, oh, wait just a minute.
00:45:50That is not an appropriate use of that verse.
00:45:53It's happening too fast.
00:45:55And this is what Hobart did.
00:45:57This is, in my opinion, the way he was able to deceive people as thoroughly as he was.
00:46:04It was a repetitious, quoting and misusing Bible passages without any reference to their context.
00:46:13His hallmark verse, if we want to call it that, and I guess we could, was Mark 11, 24.
00:46:20What things so ever you desire.
00:46:21When you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.
00:46:24If he's preached that once, he's preached it a hundred times, Mark 11, 24.
00:46:29That was his ministry verse.
00:46:33And, of course, when he's quoting that, what things so ever you desire, he would emphasize.
00:46:37Now, there are no limitations on this.
00:46:40It says, what things so ever.
00:46:43And then he would emphasize the word desire.
00:46:46What do you desire?
00:46:47Do you desire a new Lincoln or do you desire a new Cadillac?
00:46:51It says, what things so ever you desire.
00:46:55And so you're hearing that.
00:46:57He's going to tell you stories how I've got my first three Cadillacs just on that verse.
00:47:03Like that verse is some kind of mechanical talisman that you can use.
00:47:08Just, you know, some kind of lucky rabbit's foot that you can rub it enough.
00:47:13And, you know, a genie's bottle and out something will pop.
00:47:17But you're hearing him tell a story.
00:47:19You're hearing that he got a Cadillac from that.
00:47:23And then you're hearing the verse and you're hearing it emphasized over and over.
00:47:27And you know what?
00:47:28You never slow down to think, I wonder how the apostles heard that.
00:47:34And I wonder how they interpreted that.
00:47:37Why don't we see cases in Acts where when they needed something, they just claimed it and said,
00:47:44I'm claiming this based on Mark 11, 24.
00:47:47You know, when I read the New Testament, I don't see that they understood what Jesus said
00:47:53in the same way that Dr. Freeman taught it.
00:47:55You know, I'm convinced they did not.
00:47:57They did not understand that verse in a crass, materialistic, cars, houses, donkeys, bags
00:48:06of money type of way that all of your faith preachers have preached it.
00:48:10So what I'm saying by that is whenever Hobart is constantly using that verse and he's constantly
00:48:18telling stories and then he's backing it up with other verses that say, oh, yeah, delight
00:48:23thyself also in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.
00:48:27What do you desire?
00:48:28Do you desire a new home, a better job?
00:48:31You know, whatever you desire, God will give you.
00:48:34When we're hearing that constant repetition, it is a hallmark of deception.
00:48:40It's a hallmark of indoctrination.
00:48:43And it's going to trap a person very quickly so that they cannot figure their way out.
00:48:53Because, John, I'm still hearing from people today saying, I hear what you're saying, Cheno,
00:48:59but the verse does say, you know, such and such.
00:49:04We did a whole podcast, John, just on Psalm 91, 16 verses.
00:49:10If you want to talk about a talisman for Hobart, that's what that was.
00:49:14He said, if you, because this was his practice, just quote this, pray it, confess it, read it
00:49:22before you get out of bed in the morning, then you don't need any insurance.
00:49:26This is your divine assurance.
00:49:29What's interesting about that, and I'll take a breath because I thought about this, John,
00:49:36after we did the Psalm 91.
00:49:38What's interesting about that is one of those verses is actually quoted by Satan to Jesus
00:49:46during Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.
00:49:48You know the account.
00:49:49Everyone knows the account.
00:49:50After Jesus had been on this long fast, he now is going to be tempted by Satan because
00:49:57he's fasting, he's hungry, and so the first temptation is for his hunger to be satisfied,
00:50:03and the devil said, if you're the son of God, just take these stones and talk to them
00:50:09and tell them to become bread, and because you're God and you have that power, then they
00:50:13will do that, and Jesus quotes the scripture to him and said, man's not to live by bread
00:50:19alone, but by every word of God.
00:50:21Now, Satan then realized, oh, if you're going to quote scripture, I can quote scripture also.
00:50:28Watch what happens with quotation of scripture.
00:50:31It's not enough.
00:50:33Watch what happens with it in this second temptation.
00:50:36So Jesus is taken to the temple with the devil, sat on the pinnacle of the temple, and he said,
00:50:43if you're the son of God, just throw yourself down, because there is a verse in the Bible,
00:50:49and it's in Psalm 91, and it says that his angels will bear you up lest you dash your foot
00:50:56against a stone, and Jesus doesn't challenge his quotation of the passage.
00:51:04That is more or less an accurate quotation from the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament,
00:51:09the Greek translation, what Satan says to Jesus to do.
00:51:15Jesus doesn't dispute the quotation.
00:51:18What he disputes is the interpretation and the application of it, and that's what I was
00:51:24doing whenever we did that podcast on Psalm 91.
00:51:28What Jesus is saying is just because that is there, you're not allowed to court danger.
00:51:36You know, Satan was misapplying the passage.
00:51:39He was taking the passage out of a proper context, and what Jesus in his rebuke to him does is
00:51:47he lets him know, and he lets us know as we read the passage, that we can't deliberately
00:51:53create a situation in which you have made God now obligated to save you.
00:52:01You know, he is not disputing the quotation.
00:52:05He's disputing how Satan is interpreting it and applying it, and he's saying we can't court
00:52:12danger.
00:52:13Well, these crazy claims that Hobart was always making, like, oh, you can just drive through
00:52:19the fog and, you know, just claim Psalm 91.
00:52:23You are courting danger.
00:52:24In other words, the very thing Jesus said you are not to do, he goes on to rebuff Satan by
00:52:30quoting another scripture and saying, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
00:52:35You are not allowed to use your faith or passages or whatever to deliberately try to
00:52:43create a situation where now you think God is obligated to rescue you from that.
00:52:49Jesus said that's not how the Bible works.
00:52:51So, I think that is exactly how Dr. Freeman was using scripture.
00:52:57He would tell people, just take your glasses off.
00:53:00You don't need those glasses.
00:53:02Your eyes are healed.
00:53:03In other words, he's courting danger.
00:53:05In other words, he's trying to get them to place themselves in a position where God is
00:53:10obligated to respond rather than you have a pair of glasses that work perfectly fine.
00:53:17Now you can see, just wear your glasses and everything will be fine.
00:53:23There was no need for Jesus to jump off of the temple.
00:53:27He could just climb back down.
00:53:29We can't court danger and thereby misuse and misapply God's scriptures.
00:53:37And I think that's what Hobart was trying to do all the time.
00:53:40Whenever you're in this mindset of being in a personality cult, and especially the high control
00:53:46groups, you're in a high control environment, and as an adult, there are certain concepts
00:53:51that get programmed in your head, and they don't really apply to the real world.
00:53:57And one of them result, one of the concepts, I won't go too deeply, we're running out of
00:54:01time, but one of the concepts with regards to just work ethics usually results in child labor
00:54:09labor for the cult members who are second, third generation.
00:54:13I was in that category.
00:54:15My father frequently used me as child labor.
00:54:18And the thing of it is, because you're in this world where you're supposed to know everything
00:54:24because God has given you the mysteries, well, frequently you don't train your child before
00:54:29you give them the task.
00:54:30You just watch them fail and scold them for it because you're going to church and you're
00:54:34getting scolded for it.
00:54:35So I'm going to a point here.
00:54:38I was, I want to say I was second grade, might have been second grade, maybe earlier, barely
00:54:44enough to know, you know, old enough to know how the world worked.
00:54:48And my dad entrusted me with washing his car.
00:54:52And he came out one time and he showed me, now look, if you take this SOS pad and clean
00:54:56the tires, the letters will shine, something like that, right?
00:55:00Well, my brain, because I'm still learning everything, I thought, well, it made the tire
00:55:05shine.
00:55:06I wonder what it does to the side of the car.
00:55:09And I took an SOS pad to the entire side of his car.
00:55:13And that concept, if you think of that, yes, it does make the car shine, but not everything
00:55:20on the car shines.
00:55:21You have to know the specific rules to which they apply.
00:55:24Well, many people who are in the cult, they'll use that same mentality with Bible verses.
00:55:31Yes, you too can move a mountain because the Bible says, speak to the mountain, be ye removed.
00:55:36Or Moses parted the Red Sea, do we not have the power to part the Red Sea?
00:55:41And they're doing exactly the same thing that as a second, you know, second grade child is
00:55:46doing.
00:55:46Yes, it did work in the Bible, but I don't think that applies today in the way that you
00:55:51think it applies today.
00:55:52I just had this conversation, I guess it was yesterday with Jed, we were recording a
00:55:58podcast.
00:55:58And the mentality that you get, it creates an alternate worldview.
00:56:03And when you're in that alternate worldview, what happens is because the world that you're
00:56:09speaking doesn't come into existence, not a single person can move a mountain by speaking
00:56:14to it.
00:56:15Well, it causes you to disassociate.
00:56:18And so now you, your brain enters into this world where the reality that you're living
00:56:24doesn't really exist.
00:56:25And you try to find other things that apply to the same concept as moving the mountain,
00:56:30even though you can't move the mountain.
00:56:32And so you'll, you'll like, your brain goes through these ridiculous exercises trying to
00:56:37prove your faith.
00:56:38And the sad truth of that is if you look back through history, each time that a group starts
00:56:43doing this, they'll try to prove their faith and go into destruction, sometimes deadly destruction,
00:56:49snake handling, you know, drinking poison, this kind of thing.
00:56:52You can't, you can't apply everything in the same way.
00:56:56But the way that the cults have twisted the passages and though what they're doing is they're
00:57:01taking a verse and they're wanting to apply their context to that verse instead of the context
00:57:06of the verse to their meaning.
00:57:08It's, it's completely upside down and reversed.
00:57:11And like I said, when, when you do this, it turns out deadly in Hobart Freeman's case,
00:57:16it turned out deadly.
00:57:17Yes, it did turn out deadly.
00:57:19And he was such a master at it.
00:57:21And I think John, what made him so dangerous was he really did know Bible verses better,
00:57:28far better than most ministers that you will ever hear.
00:57:31He's, he's quoting the passages without looking at them, but it was easy to do because he'd
00:57:36been doing it for years.
00:57:37And you've got a set group of passages to use for healing, for faith, for eyesight or
00:57:42whatever.
00:57:43And, and he knew them and he knew them well, but they're misapplied, they're misinterpreted,
00:57:49they're pulled out of their own context.
00:57:51And it was, you know, I'm talking to all of the people, the first and second generation,
00:57:57it was almost impossible not to fail.
00:58:00It was almost impossible once you got in that, not to become quickly trapped.
00:58:06And so that's my plea, which we will continue in our next podcast to the second generation
00:58:12people who are looking back saying, mom and dad, how dumb could you have been?
00:58:18Um, yeah, it's, it was, it's not as easy to say how dumb could you have been when we put
00:58:27ourselves in their position, when you are hungry, you're newly saved, maybe you're newly baptized
00:58:34in the Holy spirit.
00:58:35Maybe you're newly in a group where you're listening to, you know, this lively kind of
00:58:40worship rather than the church hymns that maybe they had been brought up with in an earlier
00:58:45denominational setting.
00:58:47It's just, it's just a very intoxicating environment.
00:58:51And I don't mean intoxicating negatively or positively.
00:58:54It's just, that's what it is.
00:58:56And it's difficult.
00:58:58I mean, a person would be an unusual and exceptional person to have been able to put the brakes on
00:59:05really, really early.
00:59:06I mean, I went several years before I was able to put the brakes on and I'm, you know, probably
00:59:13about average for that.
00:59:15I don't know anyone because you see, if you could have put the brakes on early, you never
00:59:19would have gotten there in the first place.
00:59:21As soon as you walked in and you heard your first sermon, you'd say, well, this guy's nuts
00:59:25because he's pulling these verses all out of context.
00:59:28So by virtue of the fact that you were there and listened to a sermon or two and didn't immediately
00:59:34object to it means that you're probably going to be there for a little while.
00:59:39Something is going to have to happen.
00:59:42And I think in our last podcast, the thing that so was so surprising to me, John, that
00:59:48we talked about that did happen was the man who said he would never die and was always
00:59:53going to be well died.
00:59:54And he died very sick.
00:59:58And, you know, I was not shocked that it happened.
01:00:02And I was just shocked when the news came to me, the realization of it.
01:00:06But most of the people, and I'm going to tell that story because that's a very personal
01:00:11story the day I found out and what my immediate reaction was that cold, dark Friday afternoon
01:00:19when I found out.
01:00:20I found out on a Friday afternoon after he had died the previous weekend, I'll tell that
01:00:25I'll save that story for later.
01:00:27But for everyone at Faith Assembly, when they found out, it's like, oh, I mean, the sky has
01:00:34fallen because here's our leader and he died and they were so shocked over it.
01:00:41And my point in our previous podcast is we should not have been shocked over that.
01:00:46We should have been shocked at how long God allowed this man to live, even though he was
01:00:52creating so much distress and harm in the people's lives.
01:00:59So next go around, we'll pick up here and we'll talk some more about first generation and
01:01:03then our second generation group of folks.
01:01:07Sounds good.
01:01:08Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out
01:01:11on the web.
01:01:12You can find us at william-branham.org.
01:01:14For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
01:01:19from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:01:38We'll see you next time.
01:01:38Thanks for joining us.
01:01:43Bye-bye.
01:01:45Bye-bye.
01:01:55Bye-bye.
01:01:58Bye-bye.
01:02:00Bye-bye.
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