- 3 days ago
John and Timothy trace the historical and theological roots of modern charismatic and prophetic movements, examining how Pentecostal spirituality evolved into systems that often elevate experience above Scripture. Drawing from personal testimony, historical research, and biblical analysis, they explore how ideas like fresh revelation, prophetic authority, and revival culture have repeatedly produced spiritual confusion and lasting harm.
The conversation follows the pipeline from early Pentecostalism through healing revivals and prophetic conferences into contemporary movements associated with the New Apostolic Reformation. Along the way, they discuss false prophecy, psychological and spiritual manipulation, fabricated supernatural signs, and why many sincere believers ultimately walk away from organized Christianity altogether.
______________________
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 Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
The conversation follows the pipeline from early Pentecostalism through healing revivals and prophetic conferences into contemporary movements associated with the New Apostolic Reformation. Along the way, they discuss false prophecy, psychological and spiritual manipulation, fabricated supernatural signs, and why many sincere believers ultimately walk away from organized Christianity altogether.
______________________
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 Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Timothy Wisniewski,
00:46former pastor in the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movement.
00:50Timothy, it's good to have you on and to let you talk about your experiences in the Pentecostal
00:56slash Charismatic Movement.
00:57We were talking a little bit before, and you were throwing some names out that were bringing
01:01back somewhat fond memories, but also like my memories are both fond and concerning at
01:08the same time, so we can talk through all of that, but maybe if you could just begin by
01:14telling everybody a little bit about yourself.
01:16Well, like you said, my name is Timothy, and I was in the Charismatic Movement for quite
01:23some time.
01:24I really grew up in it.
01:25I grew up going to Maranatha and Assemblies of God churches.
01:30I had no idea what was going on in there, you know, as a little kid.
01:33I just knew this is where our mother dragged us off to, and kind of went wayward in my teens.
01:40I saw a lot of shenanigans in the churches.
01:41I saw a lot of pastors using people to get carpets and other things, and I was more like
01:51– I wasn't a rebellious kid, but I was into skateboarding and punk rock.
01:56I had a real passion for music, so, you know, I'm this little kid.
02:00Don't do drugs.
02:01I'm straight edge.
02:02But I got blue hair, you know, and a lip ring and a nipple ring, and I didn't bode
02:08too well in my church, so I would get blamed for all the shenanigans that all these other
02:13kids were doing, even though I had nothing to do with it.
02:16I never did drugs, never drank, never – I was a straight-laced kid, just punk rock skateboarding.
02:22So, I was like, well, screw this.
02:25I'm done with church.
02:26Screw these guys.
02:27I'm out of here.
02:27And I said, I still believe in God, but I'm going to go do my own thing, which in hindsight
02:32probably wasn't a great idea, but with all the stuff I was seeing in the church, I got
02:41a really sour taste in my mouth about it.
02:43Years later, my mom gets involved in a church with this guy named Patrick Hoban, who was
02:49– he was an evangelist from Ireland, and his testimony is pretty incredible.
02:55Former drug dealer, all this stuff, encounters God.
02:57It's almost a road to Damascus kind of thing, but – and I remember him because he would
03:04go around and speak to these youth groups that I would go to with my friends, even though
03:07I wasn't actively going to the church my parents went to, I would still hit up youth
03:10groups.
03:11You know, you're chasing girls, but it's also the only culture you know is a Christian.
03:16So – and this guy always seemed to make sense to me.
03:20I was like, wow, this guy, he actually sticks in the word.
03:23He doesn't just go on some rant about homosexuality or whatever it is and get angry.
03:28So it really spoke to me, and my mom said, hey, he started a church out here.
03:34Why don't you come?
03:35So I said, okay, you know, I'll bite.
03:37Didn't have much going on.
03:38Had been kicked out of my apartment.
03:40Lost my job.
03:41All this jazz.
03:41So I had to move back with my parents when I'm 26.
03:43Not what you're looking forward to.
03:46And they said, one condition, you come here.
03:50You got to go to this church.
03:51Okay.
03:53So that's the quick and short of it.
03:55And then I get – I have what I believe was a radical encounter with the Holy Spirit.
03:59And the way my pastor explained it, you know, was that God was a person and you ought to be able to encounter a person.
04:07And so I was like, well, you know, we'll see.
04:15And then I didn't cry or nothing, you know, but I felt this overwhelming sense of, yeah, this is – I'm real.
04:24I'm realer than what you've experienced before.
04:26I said, okay, well, this must be what I've been missing.
04:29So I bought it hook, line, and sinker, jumped into the whole thing, baptized in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, all that jazz.
04:35You know, it's funny.
04:36You were mentioning having the hair and the piercings, et cetera.
04:40See, I never had any of this.
04:41I was never – honestly, I lived the life exactly like they wanted me to.
04:46That's just how I am.
04:47I'm an almost by-the-book kind of guy, but I do like to investigate and do things logically by the book.
04:53But there was one oddity about me that relates to your story in that I was in a religion that was taught that you had to look at the outward appearance.
05:04And by the outward appearance, you could tell if they're holy or not.
05:07And I didn't buy any of this.
05:10Even though I was supposed to, I didn't buy it because I actually read my Bible.
05:13And there are the passages where it says God does not look at the outward appearance.
05:17So I never did.
05:18And so I never looked that way at friends who did go down different pathways.
05:24And so I would watch exactly what you're saying.
05:27They caught all the blame.
05:29And if I was a little bit mischievous, I would do things, you know, just to spark a laughter.
05:35But if I would do something, usually they're the ones that got blamed.
05:38And it was only because of their appearance.
05:41It had nothing to do with their spirituality or anything like that.
05:44It's just based off of how they looked.
05:46I 100% lived that.
05:47Lived it.
05:48I was the other guy.
05:50He's what's wrong.
05:52I hope he leaves.
05:54But my parents gave pretty heavily to the church.
05:56So they were kind of like, oh, you know, we'll tolerate it for a bit.
06:01But so I had this encounter with the Lord.
06:06It becomes very real to me.
06:07And while I was part of the Pentecostal Charismatic Church, like, and I didn't have the same structure, like the cultist structure that you had with William Branham.
06:20And I did notice later on that, you know, some of the doctrines, some of the names and stuff, like your podcast put together to me, you know, sort of all the missing pieces of these traditions in the charismatic movement.
06:38Um, where did they, where they came from and how they got to where they were.
06:43I knew some of them, but it's really changed my perspective because I think origin stories are so important.
06:49I mean, scripture for one, right?
06:52Right.
06:53So, so being able to put these things together later on down the road, the more and more I saw things, the more and more I was like, hey, you know, this doesn't really float or fly with scripture.
07:04There's, there's not a lot of continuity here.
07:08Um, and it's, so your podcast has helped tremendously, uh, me to sort of thread those, follow the threads that make up that tapestry.
07:19You know, it's funny because you can read through the comment feeds and you can see people who get really angry.
07:25If I go through the histories of some of these people and I'm just simply telling the history as it, as it was written, it has no really, I have no bearing over what they did.
07:34That's just simply what they did.
07:36And they mistakenly think that I'm trying to attack a movement or trying to attack a ministry.
07:41And the funny part is I'm like you, I'm just more curious about the history because each one of these ministries I've learned, if you're not watching them closely, they're going to cover up everything that you don't want to know about them.
07:53They only tell the good parts and there are some good parts, but if you only learn the good and you never learn the bad, you never learn from your mistakes.
08:01So I'm one of these people I like to dig in.
08:03I like to see, okay, who is this person?
08:05What do they do good?
08:06What did they bring to the church that's good?
08:08What did they bring to the church that's bad?
08:10And some of them I've learned are just outright scoundrels and they're worshiped as God's generals.
08:16Oh yeah.
08:16If you have a scoundrel who's bringing something to the church, I really have to question everything that they brought.
08:22But then I watch these ministries come and they build on top of what was brought by the scoundrel.
08:26Yeah, there's these, well, you know, like God's generals, right?
08:31I heard that phrase several times and when I'd later on got involved in that church, and lots of good things happened in that church.
08:43Like I would not be serving the Lord today if it wasn't for the grace and the love I was shown in that body.
08:50Wouldn't want anything to do with it.
08:53They really broke that mold that I'd seen before.
08:55But these phrases, because of the background of my pastor, how he came to believe and all this stuff, the terms and phrases were there.
09:07And later on when I went to IHOP, because our worship team, our worship leader, because I played music and was a musician for quite some time.
09:17I kind of got stuck into the worship team because I was the only bass player around.
09:21And I was like, oh, I can play four or four music, no problem, you know, this is nothing.
09:28That ended up being really good for me.
09:30But we went to IHOP and they were using the same language.
09:36So IHOP was weird to me at first.
09:39And for those of you who don't know what IHOP is, the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, which I believe is actually in Grandview.
09:46And it was weird to me at first, very uncomfortable.
09:54But I just assumed it to be the presence of God.
09:58And I was the one who something, you know, something was wrong with.
10:02Could have been could have been both, honestly.
10:04And but the more time I spent there, you know, just kind of hunkered down like, I guess we're praying for a while.
10:09So, again, I felt like God was moving in my heart.
10:13And all of a sudden, this place was amazing.
10:15I started bringing other students there, you know, that were in our student ministry.
10:18I was a student ministry leader.
10:20And a few people even interned there from our our little camp.
10:25We went to one thing events.
10:26You know, we went to the one thing in Kansas City, the big youth event.
10:30And we went to the regionals around here.
10:34And through that, my wife and I started our journey into the prophetic movement.
10:39Where we started going to prophetic conferences and stuff.
10:41Because that wasn't really facilitated in our church.
10:44We learned about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
10:46We learned about the five-fold ministry.
10:48We learned about, you know, all that jazz.
10:51But certain things weren't facilitated initially.
10:54And then later on, they came into Vogue more.
10:58And we saw some serious issues.
11:01Yeah, I was really surprised when I learned that the prophetic movement was a thing.
11:05And that IHOPKC was essentially Branhamism 2.0.
11:09Because how does that work?
11:11See, I was raised in the Branham cult at the point after it had gone destructive.
11:17And so in that version of the cult, there is a central figure.
11:20He's the only prophet.
11:21All of the other prophets are fake.
11:23I was really surprised to go back in history and learn that from the beginning,
11:27they were setting up this framework where it was a prophetic movement.
11:31They were trying to set up the five-fold ministry, the prophets, the apostles, the teachers, pastors,
11:36et cetera, missionaries.
11:37Well, they're setting this up so that it's kind of an everybody collaborate type mission.
11:43But what happened is the movement actually outgrew those trying to control the movement.
11:49And when it did, they turned into ministries, platforms.
11:53People, their ministries just basically got bigger than the movement.
11:56And then they became central figures.
11:58And they started denouncing all the other guys.
12:00So it's really weird to watch it kind of grow into what it did.
12:04But then to watch some of the people who were definitely clearly Branhamite, like Paul Cain.
12:10Paul Cain comes to International House of Prayer in Kansas City,
12:14tries to recreate what Branham was creating.
12:16But he didn't create the destructive side.
12:19He tried to create it back from the latter rain side.
12:22Bob Jones joins in, and you know the history from there.
12:25But it spun off into this prophetic movement where people were going to conferences.
12:30You too, it reminds me of Oprah.
12:31You can get a car.
12:32You too can get a car.
12:33Everybody gets a car.
12:34Everybody gets to be prophetic.
12:36Well, how does that work?
12:38Once those people outgrow the movement, it's really going to repeat itself again and again.
12:43So as history goes, as history is being written now,
12:45there will be the podcaster 20 years from now that goes back and says,
12:49look, there was a third iteration of this.
12:52Yeah, the third iteration, the third coming.
12:55It was the thing that we heard a lot, you know,
12:59because you would have to tout these individuals like F.F. Bosworth or Smith Wigglesworth,
13:04who he was a real big one my pastor was really into.
13:10And they would always say, yeah, but later on in their lives, they fell into error.
13:14And that was a phrase that was like, it somehow absolved everything and was like,
13:20well, you know, it initially started with the Holy Spirit and this move of God,
13:24which maybe it did.
13:25Who am I to say?
13:27And then it fell into error.
13:28But it's like, okay, well, then why are we continuing to preach whatever their error is?
13:35If we don't know when it happened, right?
13:38Why are we continuing to preach their doctrine when we clearly have scripture here?
13:42Yeah, I never understood that.
13:44And that, by some grace, the church I was involved with was called Church in the Word.
13:51And our pastor at least admonished us to be Bereans about what we were experiencing
13:56and what we were seeing.
13:59And that helped me tremendously.
14:01And I would say probably my punk rock background.
14:04It was a little bit anti-establishment.
14:05So I didn't like being told.
14:07I wanted to find out for myself.
14:09So I kind of had a little bit of a rebellious streak in that.
14:11But I don't think it was a bad thing when you start comparing and analyzing, you know,
14:17what's happening in the history of this movement.
14:20Yeah, and I go back and forth.
14:22There are parts of me that think, you know, any movement can potentially be a movement by God.
14:27And say God was behind the movement and God did some great thing, which if that happened,
14:34I haven't yet found it.
14:35So many bad fruits come out of this.
14:37But I'm not going to say that it didn't.
14:39The problem, like you said, is once it starts turning south, and by south I mean very heretical,
14:45there has to be a point at which somebody stands up and says,
14:48no, we're not going to continue the heresy.
14:51But what happened instead, you had, like I said, all of these ministries that were building
14:55on the foundation.
14:56They had outgrown it.
14:57They had become central figures.
14:59Well, they themselves were spreading the heresy.
15:01So they're not going to stop their own ministries, right?
15:04And there were individuals who left it.
15:06But there wasn't an overwhelming majority that stopped and said, okay, all of this is heresy.
15:13Let's walk away from it.
15:14Without that component, it just, you know, it will continue on.
15:18And the problem is, like I said, as they're writing their histories, they're scrubbing
15:22everything that's critical to their history.
15:25And so people who are examining it, they can't even determine how heretical it is because it's
15:31all been whitewashed.
15:32Yeah, it really has.
15:34I mean, my pastor didn't know much of this stuff.
15:37The thing that I saw that was most damaging that came out of the prophetic movement, especially
15:43in the early aughts, like you're talking 2005 up to, you know, 2012, 2013, is you had,
15:50again, like you had people who were going around telling anyone, oh, you know, like there's
15:56these spiritual gifts.
15:57Everybody has them.
15:58You know, whichever one they have is, you know, up to the Holy Spirit, up to God.
16:02And of course, everybody wants to be a prophet or an apostle because that's the one that
16:09everybody looks up to and respects.
16:10I mean, it's convenient.
16:11Or they want a healing ministry.
16:14But the apostles had all of it, and so did the prophets, miraculously.
16:19So, you know, what you were saying about, you know, whether a movement started with God
16:24or not, I look at it like this, like God can be in any movement.
16:29He's got, you know.
16:30But when we were going to these prophetic conferences and stuff, we were ardently seeking
16:37the presence of God.
16:38Like my wife and I, and this is even before we were married, she actually, she came to
16:44know the Lord through one of these events.
16:47But we were seeking God.
16:49We weren't seeking an event.
16:51We weren't seeking a word.
16:52We weren't seeking a whatever.
16:53We just didn't know where to go.
16:55And this was, we thought this was a group of like-minded believers who believe the same
17:00thing.
17:00And they were here to encounter what we believe to be the Holy Spirit.
17:04I never really chased a word, you know, trying to get a word from somebody or anything like
17:08that.
17:09I just wanted more Jesus.
17:11And I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything like that.
17:14I didn't know any better.
17:15I didn't know any different.
17:16And I didn't know any better.
17:17But I saw repeated patterns in the people that would, you know, you start, you go to
17:22more than one of these, especially in a certain region, you start seeing the same people.
17:26And then you're like, hey, where do you go to church?
17:28Oh, we don't go to church.
17:29We have a home group.
17:30And it's, it's, or we have our own house of prayer, you know, and it's led by an apostle
17:37named yada, yada, yada.
17:38All these guys were apostles or prophets or whatever.
17:41And I was like, oh, okay, you know, and we'd go and check it out.
17:45And it was usually people working themselves up into a frenzy and saying, oh, I'm having
17:52a vision of the third heaven.
17:53And right now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I declare.
17:57And they would go off into some rant and somebody else would jump in, back them up.
18:00And then somebody would scream off in tongues and some, and usually the person who screamed
18:05in tongues would give the interpretation, nobody else, which it's not really scriptural.
18:09So it's like, well, you know, his dad schizophrenic or why didn't he just tell you this, you
18:14know, what to say in English.
18:15And so I started seeing these little things and, and my mom helped me out a little bit.
18:21I'll get into that till a little bit later, but I'll, I'll let you, I'll let you chime
18:24in on what, on that.
18:28Yeah.
18:28You probably saw me bubbling over.
18:30I'm laughing.
18:31I have people on the podcast that I can't say these things to because they were not really
18:37in it to the level that I was.
18:39And so if I say it, it's offensive to them.
18:42And with you, I kind of feel I can.
18:44So I'm going to open up a little bit.
18:45I watched it too.
18:47I watched people.
18:48We didn't have a lot of the prophetic movement because it was Branham and then everybody else.
18:53But I did visit churches that had these miniature prophet guys that thought they were something
18:58and they would get up and do exactly like you're saying.
19:01And I remember sitting there in the pew thinking, these guys are full of it.
19:04At the time, I thought these guys are full of it.
19:08And honestly, I'm looking back at that moment in time and I'm trying to recall what was going
19:14through my head exactly because I wish, I wish that I had a camera going at that moment.
19:18And I wish I had taken notes in a diary.
19:21But something to the effect of, I was wondering, is this real?
19:26Is this of God?
19:27Or is this insanity?
19:28Has this man really fully disconnected his brain from reality?
19:32That's the kind of thought that was going through my head.
19:35Then fast forward, I'm leaving the movement.
19:38I'm starting to examine not just Branhamism, but what came next.
19:43And keep in mind, in the very early years of this, I left in January 2012.
19:49For the very first few months, I still thought Branham was a prophet.
19:53I really did.
19:54I had no idea that he had just lied about the whole thing.
19:58And so at that moment, I'm trying to think, okay, I know that he talked about mental issues.
20:03Was he really doing this?
20:05Was he really in the spirit?
20:07And maybe it was a false spirit.
20:08Or was he just insane?
20:10So that thought's going through my head.
20:12Now fast forward to behind all of this research.
20:15Now I realize he's just making it up as he goes.
20:18But when he does, he's attracting other people into the movement who are quote unquote filled
20:25with the spirit, and I'm using quotes because maybe they are, maybe they're not.
20:29I'm not going to say they're not.
20:30But whatever it is, what they're prophesying, A, doesn't come to pass, so it's false prophecy.
20:38B, doesn't really match the Bible if you stop and follow and trace all of it out.
20:43So if it is prophecy, it's coming from a different God.
20:47C, it sounds an awful lot like insanity, like they've disconnected their brains from it.
20:52So I'm going through all of this in my head, and I'm trying to weed out which people were
20:57authentic, which people were just insane.
20:59And the thought that I keep coming back to, there are psychological studies out there,
21:03but when you get yourself up into this hype, you literally start to disassociate your brain
21:10from reality.
21:11And when you do this, the things that come out of your mouth aren't things that you would
21:15naturally say.
21:16Therefore, when you do it, and everybody's in this hype, they think you're talking in the
21:21spirit.
21:21So you could have cases where maybe it is God, maybe God's speaking, maybe there's a
21:26spirit, but also you can have cases where people have just disassociated, and everything
21:32they say is just nonsense.
21:34Yeah.
21:35I think part of the issue, too, is when you're in a culture of this, and it's sort of monkey
21:46see, monkey do.
21:46You see somebody do it, somebody that you respect, they've got a ministry, and maybe
21:52they've got some miracles under their belts, and it's like, wow, and you're like, oh, I
22:00can do this, too?
22:01Oh, anybody can do this?
22:02And that's how it was taught.
22:04We weren't just taught that there was only one prophet.
22:06That's where sort of your cult background and my Christian mysticism, it got to the point
22:16where I started calling these people prophet liars because of what I saw versus what was
22:24actually taking place.
22:25And I'll tell you one of the things that really, we were kind of coming out of it, and God bless
22:31my mom, because I remember, and this is not to say like, preternatural or things that appear
22:37to be supernatural didn't happen in these spaces.
22:40I remember going to this, it was called the Ministry of the, the School of the Ministry of
22:47Angels.
22:48That's what this prophecy conference was called, right?
22:50So you go there, and I don't know if you're meeting angels or whatever, but I remember
22:55at one point watching a ball of light whip around this woman, it materialized out of
23:01nowhere, it whipped around her, and her garments, like, it was like a gust of wind went around
23:07her, and she goes, and then it vanishes, and I was like, whoa, what's that?
23:13And, you know, then the preacher would get up, and he would say, the spirit named, or the
23:19angel named Breakthrough Revival is here, and he's going to say in this, he's here to say
23:24in this area, there's going to be a Breakthrough Revival, and some things happen there that
23:28I can't explain, but you saw spiritual things take place all throughout Scripture.
23:34I mean, a demon-possessed boy was in the synagogue.
23:37So how do we discern what was of God, what wasn't, you know, and the Scripture tells us we
23:43base it on the fruit.
23:44Well, nothing came out of that revival.
23:47Revival didn't break out through our area or our region, and I remember telling my pastor
23:52about this, because we were stoked.
23:53We were like, oh, dude, it's going to happen, you know, and next day was Sunday, my wife
23:57and I ran up, they were, Pastor, are you ever going to believe that the angel of Breakthrough
24:00Revival's here, and this is his name, he must be like 20 feet tall, and we just went on a
24:06rant, and he was just looking at us like, guys.
24:08And I remember telling my mom, and my mom, God bless her, she goes, oh, Timothy.
24:12She goes, that kind of thing has been happening so long.
24:16I remember this type of thing being in tent revivals that I used to go to when I was a
24:20little girl, and the exact same thing was being said by the exact same type of people.
24:26And I'd never heard that from my mother, and it was just like, yeah, honey, this happens
24:32because her father was a reverend.
24:37My grandpa was reverend in churches, so he was sort of part of this community back then.
24:41But I'd never heard her say, I thought she was going to be ecstatic, you know, and she's
24:46kind of like, ah, yeah, I've heard that before.
24:48I have never talked about the lights, and you're getting me to open up in ways that I'm
24:54feeling uncomfortable, but yet comfortable at the same time.
24:58In the Branham movement, there was this thought about the lights, and you can, the whole movement
25:03looks at Branham's halo photograph as though that's the, they call it the pillar of fire.
25:06But because of this, there are other attributes of light that the cult focuses on, which is a little
25:14bit weird if you think about it.
25:16I remember clearly when I was in the cult, I was a director of IT, and I was showing a, I guess he was
25:24a lateral to me in position.
25:26I was showing him this photograph of this weird light over William Branham, not the halo, but a different
25:32one, and he looked at it, and I didn't explain what it was, I just started talking about it, and he
25:36said, oh, it looks like somebody's camera was broken.
25:39And I later found that in the Branham movement, there was a, one of the leaders, one of the two
25:47main leaders of the sect, the two main branches, if you will, one of them fully admitted that there
25:54was a broken camera that they went around taking photographs.
25:56And he says, everybody's talking about this light, well, and he gives the name of the person
26:01that has it, and he says, well, this guy had the camera, I knew, I watched him do it.
26:06And I asked him one time, take a photograph of the light of the house across the street,
26:11and let's see if it has a supernatural light.
26:13And he would never do it because he knew the camera was broken.
26:16So you had fakery.
26:18But at the same time, you had people who, and I have very close friends who I trust, who
26:24I know did not lie to me, you have people who were in meetings, and they saw this thing
26:29that you're talking about, this weird light comes down.
26:32And so when I was in the movement, and they would tell me these stories, I never saw it
26:36personally, but I know the people, I know they did not lie to me.
26:40When I was in the movement, and I thought about it, I thought, well, that must be God coming
26:45down, that's showing the spirit, exactly like we're indoctrinated.
26:49Now, moving forward, I'm left with this conundrum, what do I believe?
26:54Because in some aspects, I can tell that there was so much trickery that was happening in
27:00the movement, that clearly there were things that could be explained through the trickery.
27:06I also know at the same time that there were, you know, whenever he would say he had an angel
27:11on the platform with him, well, if he did, this wasn't an angel of God, and everything
27:17being said was fully, not fully, but many things were either extra-biblical, some things
27:23anti-biblical.
27:24So you're not going to have an angel of God telling you something anti-biblical.
27:28If I look at it like that, I start to wonder, well, was that light something demonic?
27:32Was there a demon coming in to show, you know, show itself, or what was this, right?
27:37And there's a large number of the audience who, they write me and they say this, you
27:42know, this is demonic, this is a thing.
27:45From a psychological standpoint, again, if you can separate yourself from reality, well,
27:50if you've disassociated, your brain can see things that aren't there.
27:53That's just how it works, right?
27:55I have taken, I have high blood pressure among the other things that I have.
28:00I have taken the wrong medicine on accident one time with the high blood pressure.
28:04Your medication can make you see all kinds of strange lights.
28:08I have seen this in my life.
28:09I know how this works.
28:10So you can have medical condition, psychological condition, demonic, or trickery.
28:16So you've got four paths to go down.
28:18Which do you go?
28:19And this plagued me as I'm researching.
28:21I want to know, well, which one was it?
28:24And what I've learned is you can't answer in one single aspect.
28:28I have found all four.
28:29There literally are all four.
28:30Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of
28:36modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe
28:42movements into the new apostolic reformation?
28:45You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
28:52On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins,
28:57Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,
29:03audio, and digital versions of each book.
29:06You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
29:12movements.
29:13If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the
29:17Contribute button at the top.
29:19And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening
29:24to or watching.
29:26On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
29:31God's grace is so profound because in every one of these events where there was definitely
29:37some other spirit involved, you know, whether it's just a person being deceived or there's
29:44something nefarious, some sort of, you know, intelligent evil at work, there was always
29:49one speaker who would, and it was usually one of the first or second ones, and they would
29:55bring some sort of reason to the event.
29:59They would say, hey, look, don't go chasing this, don't go chasing that, get into the word.
30:03And they were usually the ones that nobody wanted to hear.
30:06Everyone frowned against.
30:08It was almost like God's grace.
30:09There was a warning there still to be the Bereans, right?
30:12Get back, go back to the word, seek me, don't seek this, these events.
30:16And then it was usually go on and there was this, you know, crazy charismatic party.
30:20But one of the things I saw that was really troubling was, I don't, have you ever heard
30:24about the gems, the gemstones?
30:26No, I haven't.
30:27Okay.
30:27So, in the prophetic movement, there was a big deal made over, like, gold dust happening
30:34during worship.
30:35So, gold dust would appear on people.
30:37They found those events, by the way, at some of these locations.
30:44But for a while, there was these gems, like, they just looked like rubies or whatever.
30:50And people would say, oh, these appeared after a prophetic movement of God, or they manifested
30:57and were left on an altar.
30:59And so, we'd carry them around, and they would build this whole story around these things.
31:05You know, and people that look at these things, it reminded me of, you know, when Gideon,
31:14he makes that effigy, right?
31:16And it ends up being this big problem, and God's like, I never told you to do that.
31:20What are you doing?
31:22Well, they had their own little effigies.
31:24And for the first time, we actually had a prophetic conference at our church.
31:28And it was really why we did it was because we were hard up for money.
31:32So, we opened the doors to a ministry we semi-trusted and brought in all these people, charged
31:39them, you know, to be part of the weekend.
31:41And what I saw there really kind of buried the hatchet with all this stuff for me.
31:47And this guy was going on and on about these gems, right?
31:50And at this point, I'm a pastor, but I'm also the sound guy, the sound engineer.
31:55So, I got to run sound for this whole event.
31:59And this guy's going on and on for days about this stuff.
32:02And then there's somebody else who's a prophet, and he's prophet-lying over people.
32:05And then towards the end of the night with the gems, and I went and I examined them and
32:12said, can I touch that?
32:13And it honestly just felt like a piece of plastic, like a plastic cut gem.
32:18And I go, hey, I go, have you ever had this tested in a molecular level?
32:23Have you ever had it cut and tested in a molecular level?
32:26The guy grabs it out of my hand and he holds it and goes, no, I could never do that with
32:30one of God's gifts.
32:33And he, and it like, it kind of took me back.
32:36I'm like, well, if this is really something that you want to show the world, why wouldn't
32:42you?
32:42Like, if this is from heaven and not from earth, and he just kind of stopped talking to me
32:47after that.
32:48I'm like, this guy's super suspect.
32:50But the most damaging part about this is I remember distinctly, this kid was like an
32:54eight-year-old boy.
32:56And it was after this event, and people come from all over, right?
32:58They're not just our church members.
33:01And this kid had found part of a broken hair band, and it had little plastic diamonds
33:11in it.
33:12And he finds just one little diamond, and he goes around to everybody, he goes, look,
33:17look what God brought me.
33:18He brought me a gem, because he knew it was my birthday, and he ran around the whole thing.
33:23And I found the rest of the hair band under the seats, because, you know, I'm cleaning
33:30up afterwards.
33:31And I go up to the kid, I go, hey, buddy.
33:34I go, look, God loves you, and happy birthday.
33:37But that's actually part of a plastic, you know, a little plastic thing, and it's not
33:42a gem from God.
33:43And that kid refused to believe what he was being, the cognitive dissonance there was so
33:51deep, and this little boy, and the fact that his parents were good with it, and the fact
33:56that the guy who had come and brought his little gems was good with it, and all the occult literature
34:02in the lobby that had Christian symbology on it, but it was 100% occult literature, because
34:10I'd studied the occult, color graphs and all this stuff that meant different giftings of
34:16the Holy Spirit.
34:16Um, that really sent me into the direction about researching and determining how to speak
34:24to people about this, finding the origins of where this stuff came from, looking into
34:29more biblical academia and biblical scholarship on how to actually, like, interpret Scripture.
34:37What was Scripture, who were the people God was writing to, right?
34:41I mean, the Scripture's for everybody, but it was authored for a specific group of people
34:45at a specific time, and they had cultural nuances that the Bible specifically references
34:50in idioms and stuff that we have no idea in our modern Western American exceptionalist
34:55ideology.
34:56You know, I mentioned all of these ministries that cover up their past and their histories.
35:00This has been going on for ages, and I'll never forget the surprise, I think I've mentioned
35:05this on the podcast, but I'm studying Charles Fox Parham, who is by many counts the father
35:10of modern Pentecostalism.
35:12He's the, um, what do they call him?
35:15The, he was the projector of the apostolic faith, is his self-given title.
35:20Projector or progenitor?
35:23Uh, actually, I found both in the newspapers, progenitor, projector, and the projector was
35:28probably a derogatory statement by the newspapers.
35:30But anyway, in, in the newspapers, I come across this court trial where he is suing somebody who
35:40has duped him into thinking that this little magic elixir could be dropped onto rocks, ordinary
35:46rocks, and turn them into gold from God.
35:50And I looked at a few newspaper articles, and I found, you know, he'd been fully duped.
35:54So he, you know, he, in these articles, he was not to blame.
35:58Um, and I talked to a historian who is, he's very pro Charles Fox Parham, and he said, yeah,
36:04he was duped.
36:05You can clearly tell.
36:05And that's, it's accurate.
36:07That is true.
36:08But the thought that's not mentioned is number one, this whole thing has been erased from
36:13history.
36:13You won't find that in any of the history books.
36:15Number two, this was a religious leader who had stock in a company selling elixirs that
36:22would turn ordinary rocks into gold.
36:26So you have to know that whether it's documented or not, you know, he was probably selling it
36:31in his church and he was trying, as he was touring, he was giving this out, right?
36:36Well, he's, he's involved in this.
36:38He's one of the, um, on the board of directors of this company that he got duped from, which
36:44sells a magic elixir that turned ordinary gold into God, ordinary rocks into gold.
36:49And so this thing has been going on forever and the people get duped by it.
36:54You get sucked in, you start believing it.
36:56And it's, I'm a big fan of the old Bonanza show and Rawhide and all of those old Westerns.
37:02There's always that, that snake oil salesman would go through town and he's selling the
37:07elixir.
37:07That's going to make everybody feel good.
37:09By the time everybody realizes this guy just took us for all of our money.
37:13He's gone to the next town, right?
37:15Well, that's what these guys were doing.
37:17And this is before you had, you know, Parham, I, if I remember, he was before the radio and
37:23definitely before television, before they could be traced like they are today.
37:28And what happened is the gimmicks that they could be traced for.
37:32They started to suppress those as soon as, as soon as information starts to spread quickly
37:37through newspaper, radio, et cetera, and travel, you know, is, is widespread.
37:42So what they did instead is they tried to take things from the natural, like a, a, an elixir
37:48that would turn a rock into gold.
37:50Instead, they'll take it to the spiritual.
37:52We'll sell you the spiritual thing and you can get the spiritual thing.
37:55Come join me.
37:55You can, you too can get the spiritual thing and how you're going to prove that they didn't
38:00get it right.
38:00So it's the same trick.
38:02It's the same gimmick, but it's rebranded differently.
38:05There's a plausible deniability there, right?
38:07Because if it doesn't work, you just didn't have enough faith.
38:11That's a, I mean, it's a good model, I guess, a good, a good, a good working model if you
38:17want to make money.
38:18And, but I have a mug, it's a coffee mug and it says bad theology hurts people.
38:24And it's, it's, it's one of my favorite mugs.
38:26I think it's actually from another podcast called a cultish.
38:29And, um, I think about that often, you know, I think about, okay, if I'm presenting
38:34the gospel to somebody, how am I doing it?
38:37What is the end goal?
38:39Right?
38:39Because sometimes it's experiential.
38:41You're, you're, you're sharing about Jesus with people and you, you do have these experiences,
38:47however anecdotal they may be.
38:48And sometimes there's a miraculous element involved, but what is the end goal?
38:53What am I, am I drawing them to the person of Jesus or am I drawing them to an event or
38:57am I drawing them to a thing or am I making a doctrine out of a miracles, right?
39:02Am I making a doctrine out of healing?
39:04Am I making a doctrine out of prophecy that cannot be found in scripture, cannot be sustained
39:09in any way, especially by any human means.
39:14And so that's, that's what I'm continuously asking myself at this point, especially with
39:20all of the stuff that, that we've seen.
39:21And that's, you know, that's like a fraction of it.
39:24And we've seen miracles.
39:25I watched a crippled man in India become uncrippled before my eyes.
39:31He, his, his arms were bound up, his legs were bound up on one side.
39:35This goofy dude I knew just said the worst, lamest prayer in the world over him and, and
39:42said, well, you know, I know what the Bible says, says rise up and walk.
39:45And, and I watched his arm come down.
39:48I watched his leg loosen and he followed us all around India after that, or at least all
39:53around that village.
39:54And later on that evening, he goes up and Indian people are very reserved.
39:59They're not, they're not prone to making a big, it's just part of their culture, not
40:02a big example of things, at least back then it wasn't.
40:05And he went up and he said, he goes, he goes, this morning, he goes, this morning, I was
40:09a Muslim, but Jesus healed me.
40:11And now I'm a Christian.
40:13And he said that before his whole village.
40:14And they all knew that this guy had had a pretty terrible farming accident.
40:17He'd been like that for about a year and a half to two years.
40:20And when they saw him walking around in his own strength, he actually pushed his walker
40:24away.
40:24And these are the things you hear about in some of these healing revivals and these
40:27ministries and stuff.
40:29And I saw it with my own eyes and somewhere there's video of it.
40:32Somebody was filming, but one of my favorite scholars said something one time that I'll
40:38never forget.
40:38And he said that every experience has an expiration date.
40:42And even when it comes to like things like this, which I'm, I'm certain was of God and
40:47for the glory of God, that still doesn't keep that person out, you know, or other people
40:54who saw it.
40:54Like there were so many young people that were with us that saw that happen, who are
40:58no longer serving the Lord.
41:00They're no longer pursuing the God, God in any capacity.
41:04So why?
41:05It was all this other stuff that they saw was all this other stuff they experienced.
41:09And the onus is on them to, to an extent, like they weren't in the word.
41:13They weren't, they weren't doing their own due diligence and maybe it wasn't promoted,
41:18you know, to really study it in that way.
41:20It was, it was more this based on confirmation bias of what you want to see versus what you
41:26think you're seeing.
41:27And this is how we interpret scripture instead of the way it should be done.
41:31In the movement that Branham was creating, and this is long before it turned destructive
41:35and people started abandoning him, he was putting into position this idea that people could have
41:43the spoken word.
41:44And in today's NAR charismatic movements, it's the new manna, the fresh manna, the
41:49The rhema word.
41:51Rhema, the fresh revelation.
41:52There's different ways that they frame it, right?
41:54But if you understand what was being done there, Branham clearly said that the word for Moses'
42:02day wouldn't work in Paul's day, which that part is kind of true, but he was framing it
42:07as though it were gospel because he did not understand the gospel and he didn't understand
42:11really that Moses couldn't have had the gospel.
42:14Jesus had not come.
42:15There was no gospel, but he would frame it like this and he would say the word that Paul
42:20gave for his day doesn't work in our day.
42:22What does this mean?
42:23It means that we need fresh manna.
42:24We need a new spoken word, new revelation.
42:27And when you hear this and you understand what the Bible says, what you're hearing is
42:32pure heresy.
42:33There is pure, plain, and simple.
42:35It is heresy.
42:35There's no way to say it any other way.
42:38But think of the numbers of people that were attending those conventions and the ministries
42:43that were involved with it, the ministries that grew and exploded into what we see today.
42:49These people agreed with it.
42:50Whether they want to admit it or not, there was a point in time that they agreed with this.
42:54Some of them went in a good way and they finally abandoned the heresy.
42:59And I respect those.
43:01But there were others that built on it and built entire schools that were teaching people
43:06how to do this kind of thing, right?
43:07You're basically teaching people how to do heresy when it comes right down to it.
43:13And once I discovered this, I was a little bit shocked because I, in the Branham cult,
43:19even though I was a cult member, I was a faithful cult member, I read the Bible continuously.
43:24And I did not put anything else above it.
43:27I didn't know I was supposed to.
43:28In fact, it wasn't until after I left that I learned that I was supposed to.
43:33Because why would you do this, man?
43:36It doesn't make any sense.
43:37And after I learned that we were supposed to put Branham's words above the Bible,
43:42I was just completely shocked.
43:44And that's whenever I started the blog, the broadcast, all of this information.
43:49And then to learn that there were other people doing it still today,
43:53not using his name, but using his methods, I was like, I can't believe this is happening.
43:58What has the world come to that you will claim you're Christian,
44:02but you're going to put your words above the Bible?
44:05By definition, that is not Christian.
44:07Yeah, it's a self-refuting prophecy.
44:10I saw that so much in the movement, and the destruction that I saw come with that.
44:19And even with certain things like, even just the prophetic utterances, right?
44:26And I remember this one guy specifically, his name was Steve.
44:30And he came to our church and stayed because of a word of knowledge that was spoken over him.
44:37He was actually so upset about it, he thought somebody,
44:40had given our pastor sort of the inside scoop on his life to kind of mess with him.
44:46And that had not happened at all.
44:48This really was sort of a God talking to this guy through our pastor.
44:54But what that did, maybe it was God talking to him, maybe it was something else.
45:02But all of a sudden, instead of I'm jumping on the Jesus wagon,
45:08and I want to know everything I can about scripture,
45:11he went from being sort of a junkie in the world to like this supernatural junkie,
45:15where he suddenly started to seek out these supernatural events,
45:18like the one that had just happened and spoke into his life.
45:21And I saw him a few years later, and he was disheveled, looked crazy.
45:27It was a couple years later.
45:28It wasn't one of the few years.
45:30So I'm at a prophetic conference.
45:31We were still going to those every now and then,
45:33but I was sort of on my way out of that movement.
45:35And I was in the bathroom at a urinal at this event.
45:39And out of nowhere, this guy shows up.
45:41He's like, hey, man.
45:42And I'm like, whoa, you know, I'm going to the bathroom.
45:45And he's right here at the urinal.
45:46He's like, hey, God told me to give you this.
45:49And he goes, digs in his pocket, and he hands me this sheet of paper.
45:52And I go, oh, thanks, man.
45:53And I read it.
45:54It has nothing to do with anything.
45:55And I go, this is for me, huh?
45:57And mind you, I'm still at the urinal.
46:00And he's like, yeah, yeah, God said that's for you.
46:03And he had a whole pocket full of these pieces of paper that he had written on.
46:07And he's homeless.
46:08I said, well, where are you living now?
46:09Where are you working?
46:10Oh, I'm in Florida.
46:11I don't have a job.
46:12God provides for me.
46:13And I go, well, where are you getting the word of God from?
46:18And he goes, I don't need that anymore.
46:19God has given me his word.
46:21I am God's word.
46:23And that broke my heart so much because I know the first quote-unquote encounter he had was at my church.
46:33And there was no, like, real follow-up.
46:35There was no guidance as to, hey, you know, you're getting into some weird stuff.
46:40I know my role I played in that.
46:42I probably took him to his first prophetic conference.
46:44And then to see him years later with his life in shambles.
46:50And Lord knows what he's doing or what he's saying to people.
46:54You know, screaming to people that, oh, God told me you're going to have six babies.
46:58You're going to be super rich.
47:00You're going to do this.
47:00You're going to do that.
47:01You know, when this woman he's talking to just had, like, the worst two miscarriages of her life,
47:07he has no idea what he's saying.
47:09And so that really bothered me.
47:15That really, I repented.
47:18I actually had to go home and say, Lord, I'm sorry for my role in this.
47:21I'm sorry for participating in this thing.
47:24I didn't know what I was doing.
47:26Please forgive me.
47:28And started to really move on from there.
47:30But I've seen that so many times.
47:33And it's far more damaging than I've ever seen it be a blessing to anyone.
47:37Absolutely.
47:38And the damage that this movement has done, you can't really count how many people have
47:44been hurt by this.
47:45And I know firsthand, because I've worked with many people, people who are damaged by
47:49the movement, who left Christianity altogether.
47:52And I know that a lot of people hate me for saying this, but I don't blame them.
47:58When you're in this kind of movement and you've been burned by this thing that they're
48:01calling God, number one, it's not God.
48:03This is not the God of the Bible anyway.
48:05When they leave, I don't blame them at all.
48:09And I try to open up the platform where people can share their stories.
48:14I don't care who you are, what you've done, what you believe, what you don't, because I
48:19too was burned.
48:20I know exactly what it means to deconstruct the false God and then try to rebuild everything.
48:26I have 37 years of rebuilding to do, and I'm taking my time with it.
48:31It may take me the next 37 years, because I was built up to believe this false thing.
48:37And I'm thankful people like you were able to get out of this, because the more people
48:42that get out and speak out against it, the more change can happen.
48:46I 100% agree.
48:47And the more people like you, right?
48:50I mean, like I said before, like your podcast, your videos, especially on Dowie, because I'd
48:56always heard about Dowie.
48:57I'd always heard about the Azusa Street.
49:00But they all ended in madness.
49:03But I didn't know the depths of Dowie, Dowie-ism.
49:08I didn't know like the, the debauchery and the murders and all that, that blew my mind.
49:16And I was like, how can people, how can people tout this guy at all?
49:20Like, how can people use him as a foundation or a reason for what they, they say they believe
49:25as far as the prophetic or healing revivals or, um, you know, this particular dispensation
49:33that we're in, uh, or, or what the dominion, you know, the dominion we have as, as, as new,
49:40uh, new atoms or whatever phrase they use.
49:44So, but your, your podcast, I think it's, it's, it's paramount.
49:48I think there's a few other people really doing it.
49:50I think Julie Royce, um, she's taken a lot of heat, but she's, she's doing the work of
49:55God protecting, uh, young ladies and people that have been, uh, abused by the church.
50:00Your podcast is huge.
50:02Um, and what I appreciate most about yours is you have other people who come in.
50:08Some of them don't believe anymore.
50:10Some of them are, they have a background in, in psychology.
50:12They have a background in, uh, neurology and, and, and then you've got guys who were directly
50:18involved in some of the, the origin story of IHOP and that whole movement.
50:22I mean, it's paramount.
50:24It's important.
50:25And I just pray that the people that are still steeped in this cognitive dissonance,
50:30which again is part of the culture.
50:33Um, but I know God and I know Holy Spirit is just bigger.
50:36He's bigger than all this stuff.
50:38And he's moving in this in ways that we can't, we can't imagine all the time, regardless of
50:44what we're seeing and regardless of how much it hurts to see.
50:47Cause you and I, we have such a small sphere of influence, but, but the Holy Spirit is limited,
50:53limited.
50:54So what advice would you give to people who are still in this kind of movement?
50:58Because we have a, we have a large part of the audience that they're watching with interest
51:02because they too are in something similar.
51:04What advice would you give them?
51:06I would say when you get out, I would say, you know, Paul, Paul admonishes, Paul gives this testimony.
51:18He's talking to church leaders and he gives this testimony of Jesus Christ and the people that are listening.
51:26He admonishes them and he advocates their actions.
51:30And he says, these Bereans, they didn't just buy it immediately.
51:34They went, they searched the scriptures to find that if what I was saying was true.
51:40So I admonishes first and foremost, go back to the word of God.
51:46But the hard part is not going through it with the lens that you've been given.
51:50So if you're still looking at scripture through this confirmation bias of a prophetic lens,
51:55it's going to be hard for you to see things outside of that or, or, uh, you know, sort of this sort of a Branimite lens, right?
52:03Because we were taught to look at scripture a certain way based on the movement we were in.
52:10But there's really, really good resources out there from biblical scholars and biblical scholars.
52:18They believe in things.
52:19Some of them believe in miracles.
52:21Some of them don't.
52:22Some of them aren't even Christians.
52:24They're just biblical scholars.
52:25So there's good resources.
52:28You know, I, I, I'm a big proponent of Dr. Michael Heiser's work, the late, great Dr. Michael Heiser.
52:33Who wrote the book on the unseen realm, but he had a podcast called the naked, naked Bible podcast.
52:38And the older ones with him, he goes through scripture.
52:43He goes through the ideas that maybe like, you know, he'll, he'll tackle speaking in tongues or he'll tackle the, um, the old, uh, uh, the Levitical law.
52:54Right.
52:54Because the way it's touted in a lot of these churches, especially charismatic churches is way different than the way it was written.
53:00And he'll go through and he'll, he'll give you the, all the skeptical arguments.
53:03He'll give you what scholarship says, what it doesn't say.
53:06And then, and then he'll come to a conclusion on it and say, well, here's, you know, based on the cohesiveness of all these things, here's what, here's what it looks like.
53:15Here's what we can, here's what we can definitively say and what we can't.
53:19Um, the Bible project, Dr. Tim Mackey, I think he's very good.
53:22He's got John Collins, another guy named John Collins, who's with him.
53:26And John Collins is a layman and he just asked really good questions.
53:30I used to be really annoyed at it because I just wanted to hear the good doctor talk, but it opens up a dialogue as to why, why or, or where these things come from.
53:42These, you know, these certain terms in scripture, where was, where was Jesus when he said this thing and why does it matter?
53:49So there's good resources out there.
53:51I would say pursue it, but you've got to be willing to do the work.
53:54You've, you've, you've got to be willing to, to do the work, understand that, that you don't have to get revelation from every little thing you read from the scripture.
54:04You know, this is, this is, this is a process that takes time.
54:08I'm still on the journey.
54:09I, I almost walked away numerous times from my, from Jesus, especially after the prophetic movement and the charismatic, uh, charismania that I was involved in.
54:20Um, and again, there's lots of good things, saw amazing things.
54:23So I know I saw definitive miracles.
54:25I know I had a definitive encounter with the Holy spirit.
54:27I still do, but my baseline has to be the word of God.
54:32And it has to be people that, that, that can back it up like their knowledge base, not just hearsay, not just some angel showing up and did this people that have put in the work.
54:42And for me, I have to go into academic studies for that.
54:46Um, so, and if you look at Paul, if you look at a lot of these, these guys were well-versed individuals.
54:52They knew the word, they knew several different languages for Paul, the right, what he wrote, the, the, the mass that he wrote and talk about the apostle Paul, it was incredibly expensive.
55:03Vellum paper was not cheap at that time or vellum rather.
55:06It wasn't in paper.
55:07Um, so for him to put that much time and effort in it, you better believe it wasn't just willy nilly.
55:14And we've got tens of thousands of documents to back that stuff up.
55:19We, we have very little to back up FF Bosworth and all these other guys and Dowie and whatever.
55:26So you're finding it though.
55:27You're doing a great job digging, digging up the dirt on archive.org, but which is phenomenal.
55:34So I don't know if I helped it out.
55:36That's, that's, that's, that's the best advice I can give.
55:38And it's okay if you're upset, it's okay if you're hurt, it's okay.
55:44I think it's okay to walk away.
55:46I think it's okay to walk away.
55:48I had to determine to myself, I had to do, do a thing where I, I determined to myself to stop blaming God for the things men did.
55:55And it was hard because I, I wanted to be able to blame him and, and it felt good.
56:06You know, I don't resent these people.
56:08I don't resent these.
56:09Like I said, I wouldn't be serving the Lord today if it wasn't for some of these people.
56:12But my mission now and my wife's mission is how can we help people that are hurt by the church, that are hurt by movements like this?
56:20How do we love people who are unchurched and still show them Jesus, even though they have no Christianese, right?
56:27So that's where we're at.
56:29And that's what I would, I would, I would really look into.
56:31And you can hit me up.
56:32I'll give you my, my email address if people want to hit me up afterwards.
56:35I'll give them all the resources that my wife and I have found over the years.
56:39And I'd be happy to talk with anybody, you know, whatever I can offer.
56:44You know, I'm no academic.
56:45I don't have a seminary.
56:46I was ordained, you know, a pentecostal church.
56:49None of us have seminary degrees.
56:51But, but I'll tell you what, I, I'm ardent about pursuing God and, and, and, and, um, and being able to back it, back up what I believe now.
57:03Well, that's very good advice.
57:04And if you want to contact Timothy, you can reach out to me on the website,
57:07William-Brandom.org on the contact page, and then I will forward it to Timothy.
57:11So thank you so much for doing this.
57:13I appreciate it, man.
57:14Appreciate it, brother.
57:15God bless you.
57:16And for all people out there, man, you know, pursue the Lord and, and look into this stuff.
57:22Don't, don't take his word for it.
57:23Look into it.
57:25You got nothing to lose.
57:27Well, you got some things to lose, but it's probably a good thing.
57:30Absolutely.
57:31Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
57:35You can find us at william-branom.org.
57:37For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion,
57:42From Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
58:05And for more information, we'll talk about it.
58:13We'll see you in the next video.
58:32We'll see you next time.
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