Resurrection Theology Tested: The Night Hobart Freeman Died | Chino Ross

15 hours ago

John and Chino examine the immediate aftermath of Hobart Freeman’s death and the moment Faith Assembly was forced to confront its most dangerous doctrine. Drawing from sermons, eyewitness accounts, and newspaper reporting, they reconstruct the night Freeman died, the unexplained delay in reporting his death, and the theological crisis that followed.

The discussion exposes how absolute divine-healing claims, resurrection teaching, and leadership silence collided with reality. By tracing what leaders said, what members believed, and what was withheld, this episode explores how high-control religious systems respond when prophecy and doctrine fail at the very top.

00:00 Introduction
01:00 The “Atomic Blast” of Freeman’s Death
10:36 “You Never Die Believing” — Audio Clip Analysis
15:06 Why People Don’t Leave After Collapse
27:06 Timeline: The Night of December 8, 1984
40:10 “Sonship Faith” and Raising the Dead
54:33 The Sunday Morning Announcement
01:02:09 Faith, Trials, and Final Reflections

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Transcript

00:00:31Hello, 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

00:00:40at william-branham.org.

00:00:42And with me, I have my co-host, minister, and friend, Chino Ross, pastor and the voice of

00:00:47the Understanding Scripture and Truth by Chino D. Ross YouTube channel.

00:00:52Chino, I hate to say it, but I am incredibly excited for this episode.

00:00:57There is a specific moment in time when you're looking at one of these destructive groups

00:01:02when you reach the climax and then it's like this atomic blast goes off.

00:01:09And when the atomic blast happens, you've got this big nuclear fallout.

00:01:14There's this moment in time where you wonder what happened in between the fallout and the

00:01:19blast.

00:01:20And that's what we're getting into today.

00:01:22So Hobart, we've gone all the way through his death.

00:01:25Now he's dead.

00:01:26Well, what happens on the next day?

00:01:28And I would love to go back in time.

00:01:31I wish I had your equivalent and somebody out there I'm certain could do it.

00:01:36But in the Branham cult, the day after Branham died, what happened?

00:01:40Yeah, it would be fun to be the man on the switchboard in the old days of the telephone

00:01:45company, right?

00:01:45And you could just listen in to all of the conversations that occurred after this atomic

00:01:51blast.

00:01:53The atomic blast was Dr. Freeman's death on December the 8th of 1984.

00:01:58And his death, you know, was a watershed moment in the history of his ministry, in the history

00:02:07of Faith Assembly.

00:02:08It was a watershed moment in his life because he died.

00:02:10It was a watershed moment in that whole movement because you could feel that this is probably

00:02:20the beginning of the end.

00:02:22The end didn't come soon enough, in my opinion, but it was at least the beginning of the end.

00:02:30And, you know, prior to Dr. Freeman's death, they had their share of problems.

00:02:35We've documented all of the legal and medical and state legislature problems that Faith Assembly

00:02:42was experiencing all during the calendar year from January through December of 1984.

00:02:51And people had already begun to leave the church.

00:02:56I mean, folks were filing out.

00:02:58So many people had died.

00:03:00There was just pressure from every direction, from the media, from your neighbors and friends,

00:03:06from your relatives.

00:03:08And if that's not enough, you have all of this pressure from the pulpit to line up and to be

00:03:14in

00:03:15one accord with Faith Assembly, regardless of everything that's getting ready to come down on them.

00:03:21There just was a lot of pressure at Faith Assembly.

00:03:25If you would rewind just 10 years, I've often said from 1984 to 1974, that whole church was a

00:03:35different church.

00:03:36Doesn't mean everything was good or right, but it was way better in 1974.

00:03:41You know, you're supposed to, as you age, you get better.

00:03:44But in religious cults, they just get far, far worse.

00:03:47They can start off, you know, with a leader who's a little bit arrogant and talks a lot

00:03:52about himself, but he also cracks a lot of jokes and everybody laughs.

00:03:57And so you don't really see what there is to be seen.

00:04:02You're missing what should be obvious, but you can't quite see it because you still got

00:04:07fun times in the church.

00:04:08Things are happening, allegedly, and the minister is not putting everybody under too much bondage

00:04:15of pressure, so you feel pretty good.

00:04:18But by early 1984, things were not pretty good.

00:04:22You know, I actually had a conversation, John, two, three years ago, two and a half years ago

00:04:27now in 2023 with Jeff Barnett, who a phone conversation.

00:04:37And Jeff was one of the main ministers, what I call tier one ministers at Faith Assembly.

00:04:44He was not married into the family, but Hobart had prophesied over him early, like in 1970,

00:04:51maybe early, had given him a prophecy that he was going to be called into the ministry

00:04:56and blah, blah, blah.

00:04:58And so Jeff had some clout.

00:05:01He became one of the teachers there.

00:05:03And so through a mutual person we know, I had wanted to talk to Jeff, and this person let

00:05:10Jeff know, hey, Cheno wants to talk to you.

00:05:13Here's his number.

00:05:13And so Jeff called me in the summer of 2023.

00:05:17I don't think Jeff would call me today because I don't think he is probably happy with the

00:05:26progress we've made on the podcast and everything that's been said.

00:05:30I think there'd be some differences of opinion and some disagreements.

00:05:36But anyway, when he called me, we were just talking about the last days of Faith Assembly.

00:05:43And Jeff said then, and Jeff should know, he was one of the top leaders there.

00:05:48He said, well, you know, Cheno, he said, we were up to about maybe 2,400 in membership at Faith

00:05:55Assembly.

00:05:56But he said, you know, we had lost several hundred members by that last year.

00:06:00He and no one counted, you know, they didn't count.

00:06:03But you could kind of tell by the number of chairs.

00:06:06So many people sat in this section because it was divided up in sections and so many rows

00:06:11over here.

00:06:12He said, we were probably down to about maybe 2,000 people.

00:06:18And then obviously after Hobart dies that this big watershed moment, you know, that you're

00:06:25going to have more dropouts after his death.

00:06:27And the reason that that was to be expected, although the number was not nearly as high as

00:06:33I thought it should have been, was because of the way Dr. Freeman died.

00:06:38I think if he had, you know, died as a healthy person, you probably wouldn't have had, you

00:06:44probably would have seen growth in the church instead of fall off in numbers.

00:06:48But his death by multiple diseases, which we have talked about and which people can take

00:06:57a glance at the coroner's verdict, which is a legal document that the coroner Gary Eastland

00:07:03put out, signed, dated, sealed, gave his report, you can see all of the diseases and the physical

00:07:11problems that Hobart had.

00:07:13So when you die by disease of all kinds and in the worst possible fashion, when you have

00:07:22taught a message of 100% divine healing, then you have a problem on your hands.

00:07:31I mean, you should have a problem on your hands.

00:07:33There should be a very, very obvious contradiction here.

00:07:37So there is a clip, John, I want us to listen to from a very old message of Dr. Freeman's.

00:07:46The original number of the tape was F-120.

00:07:51That stands for, it was under the faith category 120.

00:07:56And they ended up with somewhere up in the 180s, I think.

00:08:00I would have to pull out an old tape list and look.

00:08:02But F-120 is an old message that was done a long time ago.

00:08:06And it was actually done in 1974.

00:08:10And it was done at the Glory Barn.

00:08:12And the title of the message was this, Overcoming Satan for Your Healing.

00:08:20And I actually have, this is my cheat sheet, one of many, from years ago.

00:08:25This was from the 1980s when I would hear these messages and I would type up the, in an old

00:08:32manual typewriter, I would type up the actual verbatim quote.

00:08:37Because you got to remember back in those days, you can't push, you know, find on your, the

00:08:42transcript and it locate every word for you.

00:08:45You have to push pause and copy down, then push rewind and then play again, then pause.

00:08:53And that's how you come up with all of this stuff.

00:08:55And so, you know, his prophecy against Bruce, his beef he had with me on the conflict between

00:09:05Christ and Satan, tape 905.

00:09:08I just have all kinds of things.

00:09:10On this one, I also have the second side of the second tape he did on the restoration

00:09:16of biblical roles of husband and wife, where he makes crazy statements like, he said, Eve

00:09:23was, came along two or three days after Adam was created before Eve ever came along.

00:09:30You know, he's got just silly statements like that.

00:09:33Then he has really dangerous statements.

00:09:35That's a silly statement.

00:09:37I mean, we all know from Sunday school, God created the world in six days.

00:09:40And on the seventh day, he rested.

00:09:43Well, Hobart, Scott, Eve come along somewhere later in the next week.

00:09:48But that's not what I'm wanting to talk about.

00:09:50That's just weird.

00:09:51He has lots of weird things.

00:09:52He has Jesus with speaking in tongues, just like the early church spoke in tongues.

00:09:57I can give you the exact place where he said Jesus spoke in tongues.

00:10:02He has weird stuff that, you know, doesn't bother me.

00:10:06I wouldn't do a podcast over somebody making some weird statement.

00:10:09It's these dangerous ones where he's saying God will always heal you if you pray 10 times

00:10:15for the same thing.

00:10:16Favorite statement of his.

00:10:18You prayed nine times in unbelief.

00:10:20You'll never die believing, only doubting.

00:10:23We're going to hear that in this clip.

00:10:26Those are big claims.

00:10:28And then when you have it not fulfilled in your own life, then we have a huge problem.

00:10:33So, again, overcoming Satan for your healing from, it's a really short clip, 41 minutes

00:10:40and 15 seconds to 41 minutes and 50 seconds.

00:10:45Yet if you keep up your confession of the word of God, even if you go down to the death

00:10:49door, God will set you free.

00:10:51He will honor his word.

00:10:52No one ever died believing.

00:10:54Don't you ever take anything contrary to that statement.

00:10:57I'll confront Jesus with all confidence that I have not overstated the case.

00:11:04Amen.

00:11:05I can say that with all confidence.

00:11:07That's a tremendous responsibility to make a statement like that.

00:11:09That no one ever died believing.

00:11:12You only die doubting.

00:11:14Don't you sit out there and try to think of people you know that God prayed for and died.

00:11:19Then you're charging God with unfaithfulness.

00:11:21So, that's one of these that I actually have from 40 years, 35 years ago, at least.

00:11:28The transcript typed up by my own little fingers back when I was in my 20s.

00:11:33And so, here's what he said.

00:11:35People heard it, but let's go over this.

00:11:37And think of this in light of the fact that he has just died last night.

00:11:45As you keep up your confession of the word of God, and he's saying this in 1974, 10 years

00:11:52before he died, even if you go down to death's door, God will set you free.

00:11:58He will honor his word.

00:12:00No one ever died believing.

00:12:05Don't you ever take anything contrary to that statement.

00:12:09I'll confront Jesus with all confidence that I have not overstated the case.

00:12:15Amen.

00:12:16I can say with all confidence, and that's a tremendous responsibility to make such a statement

00:12:22like that, that no one ever died believing.

00:12:26You only die doubting.

00:12:30Don't sit out there and try to think of people you know that got prayed for and died.

00:12:35Then you're charging God with unfaithfulness.

00:12:40So, here's a man who said, you don't die believing, only doubting, and he died.

00:12:44So, what in the world are we supposed to make of that?

00:12:49It's very good that we do have these recordings and that we can pull these statements off of

00:12:56them.

00:12:57I wouldn't have to have it myself because I heard that over and over, that famous phrase,

00:13:03you never die believing, only doubting.

00:13:06He says it on countless tapes.

00:13:09You never die believing.

00:13:10You only die doubting.

00:13:12And yet, he died.

00:13:14And so, what in the world are the people going to be able to do with that?

00:13:18It's interesting to me that the Word of Faith movement, they don't really teach that by

00:13:23default because they know if you go down that area, you're going to have people that talk

00:13:28negatively about you.

00:13:29But many of them who go into the extremes, they get to that level where they think, we're

00:13:33going to defeat death.

00:13:35We are the overcomers.

00:13:36And when you hear the overcomer doctrine being preached, nine times out of ten, if it's a

00:13:41destructive cult, they're going to take it to that level eventually.

00:13:43We're going to overcome everything.

00:13:46I mentioned this in a podcast recently, but I first came in contact with all of this weird

00:13:51nonsense when I was reading and trying to understand Irenaeus against heresies, reading

00:13:57how the Gnostics were taking Christian ideas, mixing them with ancient mythologies, and they

00:14:03were coming up with off-the-wall things like this.

00:14:05One specific group, I had to laugh because they were going to be overcomers as well.

00:14:10They were going to defeat death, all of this stuff.

00:14:13But the way that they were going to do it is they weren't going to have sex.

00:14:16And eventually, as you can expect, that cult died out because there were no offspring and

00:14:23nobody wanted to join the cult with no sex.

00:14:26So, I got a little bit of a laugh out of that, but at the same time, I was kind

00:14:29of sad because

00:14:30it shows to me that psychologically there's an issue that happens.

00:14:34When you become a cult leader, you tend to believe your own nonsense and then you start

00:14:40spiraling out of control.

00:14:42And anybody who's had any sort of mental health experience or has mental health issues, you

00:14:48understand the spiraling out of control, how that can work.

00:14:50You will go down pathways that is so far destructive that it's destroying your own head.

00:14:56Now picture a central figure who's doing this, spiraling out of control, and there's a whole

00:15:01audience of people going with him.

00:15:03And that's where, for me, it just gets really sad.

00:15:05And I would have expected whenever he did die and whenever he did die of all these diseases,

00:15:10that this would have been a moment of reckoning for the whole church, a time of great eye-opening

00:15:19where everyone can pick up their Bible and notebooks and leave the church.

00:15:26But, you know, we know, we know, we know this is not the way these cults work.

00:15:32It's just not the way, I don't think it's the way our mind works.

00:15:36When you've already been in something so long, even when something as tragic like this happens,

00:15:43then you either find, you either are just dishonest about it or you find some way to rationalize

00:15:54or cope with it.

00:15:55And so I think there was some dishonesty, at least, if not in commission, in omission,

00:16:03because the people that were there, Mrs. Freeman was there in the home.

00:16:09Pam and Kathy, the two daughters, were there in the home.

00:16:13The top aides and ministers like Jack Farrell and Stan Hill, the son-in-law, Steve Hill,

00:16:21they were there.

00:16:22There were other ministers.

00:16:23I don't know the names of all of them.

00:16:25I only know of some of them.

00:16:27They know the ministers who were there.

00:16:31See, the family who was there, they know who was there.

00:16:34And that's the time to, it's incumbent upon them to be honest with that congregation.

00:16:43A group of people who had loyally followed Dr. Freeman's ministry and message for years,

00:16:52some of them more than a decade, 15 years, maybe even close to 20 years for a handful of them.

00:17:01They knew his condition, and it was their responsibility to be forthright with the church members and to tell them

00:17:08the truth.

00:17:09I think I mentioned last time that in a defense that was put on YouTube, it's been a little over

00:17:16a year ago by someone who was listening to these podcasts

00:17:20and is none the happier for having heard what you and I have said, made his own defense and said,

00:17:27I think Chenow Ross is not telling the truth.

00:17:30He's telling lies about Dr. Freeman, and this is really not what the truth was.

00:17:37And he was the one who said that one of the Brenneman brothers, the elder Joe Brenneman had told him

00:17:46that Joe had seen the medical report

00:17:48and that Hobart died peacefully in his sleep and that Hobart didn't have any problems.

00:17:52I don't know if Joe told him that or not.

00:17:55It sounds like what the leadership would have said there.

00:17:59They were definitely covering, this was a major cover-up.

00:18:06You know, I don't know which ones to accuse of knowingly covering up and which ones to accuse of.

00:18:14They're simply repeating what someone told them who knowingly covered it up.

00:18:18But from the very beginning, after Dr. Freeman died, this much we know, that the people who were in that

00:18:26room

00:18:26and saw a man who weighed between 125 and 128 pounds dead in his bed, not healed of anything that

00:18:35he had claimed healing from,

00:18:37they knew that it didn't work.

00:18:38They knew 100% that it didn't work, that at least it didn't work with him.

00:18:44And so it's incumbent upon them in the name of transparency and Christian honesty and Christian truthfulness to be honest

00:18:55with the people.

00:18:56Now, who in there went and told a lie about it?

00:19:00I don't know.

00:19:02But, you know, there are different ways to cover up.

00:19:05You know, one way of covering up is just kind of ignoring it and just going on as though nothing

00:19:11happened.

00:19:11That's a cover-up.

00:19:12Did you actually come and lie and say Hobart was healed?

00:19:16No, but that is a cover-up.

00:19:18After our last podcast we did, John, I was contacted by a member of Faith Assembly who joined in 1978.

00:19:28His name was John Schell.

00:19:31You actually interviewed John in one of your early interviews of Faith Assembly survivors.

00:19:37He was there right after they had moved in the new building, even before they had the heating and air

00:19:44conditioning system set up.

00:19:45He was there, one of the people shivering in the late 1978 time period, and stayed all the way until

00:19:521987, four years after Hobart died.

00:19:56He told me that in a 2013 conversation with Joe's brother, Jim Brenneman, that Jim told John Schell that Hef

00:20:10was healed of all of his issues and conditions before he died.

00:20:15Now, I don't know whether Jim told John that or not.

00:20:19John said that he did.

00:20:22I go back to J.B. Phillips, the ring of truth.

00:20:25Does something have a ring of truth?

00:20:26Does it sound like it could be possible?

00:20:28It could be possible that he did say that, because those ministers, and it was the majority of them, who

00:20:37stayed rabid Freemanites for X number of years.

00:20:40They can fill in the blank for however long they stayed a Freemanite, but they most certainly did.

00:20:46And Joe and Jim Brenneman most certainly did.

00:20:49Anything to the contrary would be an absolute falsehood that they remained committed to Freeman's teaching for a number of

00:20:58years afterwards.

00:21:00So, for one of them or for one of the other ministers to say that Hobart was healed of all

00:21:07of his issues and conditions before he died,

00:21:10I'm telling you, these poor people at Faith Assembly were just, they were living in what I've called before a

00:21:18wilderness of mirrors.

00:21:20You know, they just, anywhere you turned, you're seeing some reflection of something somewhere else.

00:21:28It was just a difficult time for the people in the church.

00:21:31And a cover-up story like the ones told by the leadership remind me, John, so much, as I have

00:21:44thought about that,

00:21:45remind me of the cover-up story involved with the Jewish authorities after Jesus died and was resurrected from the

00:21:55dead,

00:21:56where they went around spreading this idea that Jesus didn't rise, but he did,

00:22:05where Faith Assembly ministers went around saying Hobart was healed, but he wasn't.

00:22:12It's a cover-up story.

00:22:14There was a cover-up story by the Jewish authorities in Jesus' day.

00:22:18They did not want people to hear from the tomb guards that they had stationed there themselves,

00:22:25that the tomb was empty.

00:22:26They did not want that news spread.

00:22:29They paid those soldiers a great deal of money to say, well, his disciples came and stole away his body.

00:22:37They did not want people to believe that Jesus rose from the dead when, in fact, he did.

00:22:42And I'm saying what we have with Faith Assembly and its leadership,

00:22:46the deception by the leadership at Faith Assembly was they were going around either saying or implying

00:22:54that Hobart was healed when he wasn't.

00:22:57So whether you directly stand up and tell a lie or whether you simply are involved in the cover-up,

00:23:06my point is the net results are still the same.

00:23:09There's a common phrase, which you've probably heard before,

00:23:12but in the software world, I get upset with this phrase.

00:23:16There are people that say that you're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution.

00:23:20And that works very good in a black-and-white world, right?

00:23:23But in the software world, you have so many different variations of problem and solution

00:23:29that not every problem can be solved by the same solution.

00:23:33And therefore, you may be part of the problem in a different way.

00:23:36And I get frustrated with the whole thing.

00:23:39But where that actually does apply is something that is black or white,

00:23:43and a cult teaches a very black-or-white mentality.

00:23:46So there's very few instances in this world where that actually applies.

00:23:50With a cult, it actually does.

00:23:52You're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution.

00:23:56Whenever people could have done the right thing and they didn't,

00:24:00for me, that's it.

00:24:01You're part of the problem.

00:24:02You could have stood up.

00:24:03You could have said, okay, this whole thing was false.

00:24:06We have people who have died for this, and we were all in error.

00:24:10Let's fix the error.

00:24:12I don't even care if they stayed in the same church, stayed in the same community group.

00:24:16Maybe they stayed in the same cult.

00:24:18It doesn't have to be a destructive cult.

00:24:20You could have the cult following of Hobart Freeman.

00:24:23That's not a destructive cult.

00:24:25So for me, they're part of the problem if you did this.

00:24:28But then, like you said, it goes a step worse whenever you go into the cover-up mode.

00:24:34I'll never forget, and this was the most painful thing that I did,

00:24:38but we've mentioned a couple times on the podcast.

00:24:40After I left the cult, and I discovered that there were a lot of questions

00:24:45surrounding the stories told about William Branham's death,

00:24:49I wanted to know more about it.

00:24:51And I went back through all of the newspaper articles

00:24:54and found that there was this flood of people coming to Jeffersonville,

00:24:58some of them famous people,

00:24:59some of them televangelists that became excessively famous.

00:25:03And they're coming into Jeffersonville

00:25:05claiming that William Branham is God in the flesh,

00:25:08just like my grandfather did.

00:25:10My grandfather and a few other people were claiming that,

00:25:15not claiming outright, but saying, in other words,

00:25:19he was going to rise from the grave.

00:25:21So they were building this hype that he was going to rise up out of the grave.

00:25:25But then when confronted by the newspaper reporters,

00:25:28outright denied it.

00:25:30And it hit me because after I had left the cult and my grandfather confronted me,

00:25:37he was talking in those terms that William Branham was still going to rise from the dead.

00:25:43He got confronted, I don't know if you know this,

00:25:45but he got confronted by the newspaper articles,

00:25:47newspaper reporters again after I went public because they interviewed me.

00:25:52And so they go interview him and he outright denied the fact that he believed that this was going to

00:25:58happen.

00:25:58So from his own words, he's lying to the newspaper reporters.

00:26:03Not to speak ill of my grandfather.

00:26:05He's dead and gone.

00:26:07But he was part of the problem, not part of the solution.

00:26:09He could have done the right thing.

00:26:12And he didn't.

00:26:13And for me, you know, I love my grandfather.

00:26:16I'm sad to have just said everything that I did.

00:26:19But if you don't do the right thing,

00:26:21look at the lives that you destroy when you don't do it.

00:26:25And a lot of people get pretty angry at what I do.

00:26:28I even have people who are ex-cult members that say,

00:26:30John, you've just taken this too far.

00:26:32Just walk away.

00:26:33Be quiet.

00:26:34Let the dead dogs lie, right?

00:26:38But the problem is there are so many people that did that.

00:26:41If everybody does it, then they too become part of the problem.

00:26:44So somebody has to stand up and say, look, this is enough.

00:26:48We have destroyed lives.

00:26:49And even if not outright destroying the lives,

00:26:52you've kind of messed with people in such a way that they can't have a normal, healthy life.

00:26:58So they don't enjoy life like the average person.

00:27:01They live the cult mentality.

00:27:03More people need to stand up and say, this is enough.

00:27:06Let's walk away from this.

00:27:09Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started

00:27:12or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign,

00:27:17charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?

00:27:22You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,

00:27:27william-branham.org.

00:27:29On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins,

00:27:35Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others,

00:27:39with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

00:27:43You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those

00:27:49movements.

00:27:50If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the

00:27:55Contribute button at the top.

00:27:56And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're

00:28:02listening to or watching.

00:28:03On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

00:28:08So Hobart died somewhere around 8 or 9 o'clock, as far as we know, John, on Saturday evening,

00:28:14and there's a 12-hour delay before his death is reported.

00:28:18It's early 8.30, 9 o'clock the next morning before Titus' funeral home is called.

00:28:24What's up with the 12-hour delay?

00:28:26Well, the Freeman home on Shoe Lake on that evening and that afternoon of December 8, 1984,

00:28:36was not a place of faith.

00:28:38It was a house of fear.

00:28:41And you can only imagine what was going on in the minds of the people that were there.

00:28:48I'm going to read what someone said who was there that night when they later gave an interview

00:28:55with the newspaper.

00:28:56So this was one of the ministers, Jack Farrell, who was there that night.

00:29:00And there's so many more things that could be said.

00:29:03But it's easy to glean from the information that we have what was happening there.

00:29:11One thing we know is that because they had this very unbiblical view about Satan and demons

00:29:20and demonology, that they were trying to rid the residents of any avenue that Satan could use

00:29:29to somehow get in there and prevent Dr. Freeman's healing.

00:29:36And hopefully we can have some time maybe on a later podcast, John.

00:29:41We'll talk a little about Dr. Freeman's views on demonology and demon possession.

00:29:45But people can already guess what my opinion would be.

00:29:50I don't think Hobart's view on divine healing has any basis in the Gospels or the Book of Acts.

00:29:56And I don't think his understanding of demons has good, sound, biblical foundation.

00:30:04He had been taught himself and had taught them to be so afraid that demons and Satan

00:30:10can just about get in any way possible into your life.

00:30:15They somehow have forgotten about the almighty power of God and the love of Jesus for his people

00:30:24and the protection of the Holy Spirit was a very sneaky, dark, negative attitude they had.

00:30:31So because he had done a lot of research on the occult, there was a lot of occult material.

00:30:36Not that Hobart was over there in the corner playing with the Ouija board,

00:30:40but he had the reference materials for a lot of this stuff.

00:30:45And so they came in there and said, we got to get all this stuff out.

00:30:50Once we get all this stuff out of the house, either by burning or by burying or by hauling away,

00:30:56then that will get Satan out of the Freeman home.

00:31:00And it will allow God to heal Dr. Freeman of these illnesses that he had.

00:31:07Well, you know, he's in a critical situation.

00:31:09He is literally hours away from death.

00:31:13And so one of the ministers who was called to the Freeman residence that night

00:31:18was one of the two assistant pastors there.

00:31:22There were the mainline younger ministers like Bruce Kinsey before he left and Steve Hill

00:31:30and Jeff Barnett and some other people.

00:31:33But Dr. Freeman had a couple of older men who were born back in the 20s and 30s,

00:31:38like when he was born, and they were the associate pastor.

00:31:42One was Stan Hill.

00:31:45And we'll talk about him in a future podcast, I'm sure.

00:31:48Stan Hill was Steve Hill's father, who had been a minister himself prior to coming to Faith

00:31:55Assembly.

00:31:56And the other was Jack Farrell, who also himself had been a part of ministry in the Brethren

00:32:03denomination.

00:32:04But then he joined Faith Assembly early, I would say 1974, Jack Farrell.

00:32:09So way back early in the Glory Barn days, when it was a place worth going to back in 1974,

00:32:16but not a place worth going to in 1984.

00:32:20We'll talk more about Jack's story because he tells his story in this newspaper article,

00:32:26and I've got other accounts of it as well.

00:32:28Jack ends up, thankfully, leaving Faith Assembly not that long after Dr. Freeman's death.

00:32:34But here in this newspaper article where he gave an interview to a reporter from the Warsaw

00:32:42Times Union, I want to read just a few things of what he had to say, because this isn't an

00:32:50opinion of someone who is simply trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, which

00:32:55would be a person like myself.

00:32:57This is someone who was actually there.

00:33:01And here's what Jack said.

00:33:04He said,

00:33:04I walked in and I could tell he was dead, said Farrell.

00:33:09He and others from the church made a rare visit to the Freeman's Shoe Lake home, where

00:33:16they prayed for their leader.

00:33:18Freeman's wife, June, had called Farrell and others to the home.

00:33:24She knew he was getting worse, Farrell said, about that December 8, 1984 visit.

00:33:31He couldn't even talk.

00:33:34When she would put liquid in his mouth, she had to use a straw.

00:33:39He wasn't able to communicate.

00:33:43So, I mean, the guy is literally hours away from death.

00:33:48And Jack saw it.

00:33:51June saw it.

00:33:52Every other person there saw it.

00:33:54They know that he died.

00:33:56Jack, to his credit, you know, you can't throw Jack under the bus with the rest of them.

00:34:02I mean, he was there for 10 years, but I was there, not at that building, but a part of

00:34:09Freeman's following.

00:34:10I was a part of that following for several years.

00:34:13But when Freeman died, as I said, that's a watershed moment.

00:34:19That should be the time when your eyes are open.

00:34:22It didn't take Jack long, within a few months.

00:34:26And as I said, we're going to cover his story later on.

00:34:30But it didn't take him long before he decided, I've got to leave this place as well.

00:34:35But there's this 12-hour delay.

00:34:36What's going on during this 12-hour delay?

00:34:39They are trying to bring Hobart Freeman back to life.

00:34:43I said last time, one of the ministers followed Elijah and Paul's practice of stretching his

00:34:49self upon the dead body and trying to bring life back into the body.

00:34:54Dr. Freeman was a very, very frail man at the time of his death.

00:34:58We gave all these statistics last time, John, whenever he went in for his arraignment after

00:35:04he had been indicted and he was going in to be booked in the county jail, his driver's

00:35:10license had him weighing 180-plus pounds.

00:35:13When they weighed him, he only weighed 158 pounds at that time.

00:35:17And on the coroner's report, he weighed between 125 and 128 pounds.

00:35:22And I know people are probably mortified that we're even talking about these details.

00:35:28But you have to, if you don't, it's just what you said a few moments ago, John, everybody

00:35:34just that you become a part of the cover-up and you say, well, it wasn't as bad as, you

00:35:40know, someone thinks that it was.

00:35:42It's not as bad as that person is reporting it was.

00:35:46It's probably worse than what we have been reporting that it is.

00:35:50When you're dying with 125 pounds on a six-foot or six-one frame, there's not much meat on

00:35:58the bones there.

00:35:59And I just know there was so much suffering in what happened as Dr. Freeman died.

00:36:06But then once he's died, I mean, they look at him, there's no pulse.

00:36:10There's no respiration.

00:36:12There's no breath.

00:36:13The man has died.

00:36:15What are we going to do?

00:36:18I just would ask people listening to the podcast to take a moment and put yourself in their

00:36:24position as family member, as top minister, as top aid, a part of this group that has always

00:36:31said, you don't die believing.

00:36:33You only die doubting.

00:36:35I'm going to live to be this age.

00:36:36I'm healed of all this.

00:36:38I have all these visions that show me meeting Jesus by will and walking in an airport.

00:36:43And I'm going to preach to 50,000 people in this auditorium.

00:36:47And all the seats have this red upholstery on them.

00:36:50I remember all the stories Hobart told.

00:36:53These are future events that are yet to happen in his life.

00:36:57Guess what?

00:36:57They're not going to happen to a dead man.

00:37:00You've got to get this man alive again.

00:37:03And so, yes, it was a big part of Dr. Freeman's teaching, especially early on.

00:37:11We'll say a few things here in a moment where he had to tone it down and back off a

00:37:16little

00:37:17after reality set in.

00:37:19But early on, Dr. Freeman was all about, why should you?

00:37:24I mean, sickness is just temporary and death is just temporary.

00:37:27You can get rid of sickness and you can get rid of death.

00:37:30That's what the end time message of faith in his mind was all about.

00:37:38And so, in another clip, John, this was from a tape entitled Sonship Faith.

00:37:47It has the number F110 on it.

00:37:50The previous one was 120.

00:37:52F110 is a very early tape.

00:37:55It actually goes back to 1969.

00:37:59So, he is, the glory barn doesn't even exist.

00:38:02We're long before the glory barn.

00:38:04We're back when they are still meeting in Dr. Freeman's living room in the house in Claypool,

00:38:10Indiana, underneath the water tower.

00:38:12But this is not where this message was preached.

00:38:15He also preached in a message.

00:38:18He preached in a meeting in Muncie, Indiana.

00:38:21He had a big group of people in a lady's basement in Muncie, Indiana.

00:38:25And this is where this message, Sonship Faith, was preached.

00:38:30And Sonship Faith, to tell people what he meant by that, is we, because we're little gods,

00:38:37it all ties into that same theology.

00:38:39Because we're little gods, we are supposed to have the same faith that Jesus had.

00:38:46So, you could just have kind of nominal charismatic faith, or you, he said, you can come up to

00:38:52a higher level, and you can enter into the realm.

00:38:55You know, all of these things, John, just, they're just so bizarre.

00:38:59Just all these different measures of faith, and the little faith, and a lot of faith, and

00:39:04Sonship, everything was just so mysterious.

00:39:07And everyone was just glazed eyes, as you would listen to, I can go from just normal faith to

00:39:14Sonship Faith.

00:39:17Sonship Faith is you have the same faith that the Lord Jesus Christ had in his earthly ministry.

00:39:24One hundred percent, he taught that.

00:39:27Now, that is a higher level of faith, and that's only for the consecrated few who will

00:39:32pay the cost to get there, but if you'll do it, you can get to Sonship Faith.

00:39:38So, on this message, it's kind of a long, it's about a three-minute clip, but it's from

00:39:4545 minutes and 35 seconds to 48 minutes and 33 seconds.

00:39:52But before you play that, let me just introduce it.

00:39:56He's going to talk about people who've died and been brought back to life.

00:40:01And so, the first example he's going to give is Smith Wigglesworth.

00:40:05And, you know, Smith Wigglesworth is, I mean, he's on, he's par equal with the Apostle Paul,

00:40:13I think, in the charismatic movement.

00:40:15The Smith Wigglesworth stories are just, you know, incredible, phenomenal.

00:40:22Late 1800s, early 1900s, of course, you can't document any of that.

00:40:26It's been 150 years ago.

00:40:27But Smith Wigglesworth was the person.

00:40:30He loved talking about Smith Wigglesworth.

00:40:34So, in this case, Smith has a young lady who has TB, tuberculosis, and going to end up dying

00:40:43of it, dies of it.

00:40:44And Smith, after praying for like four hours, I think he says 3.30 in the morning, Smith Wigglesworth,

00:40:52the girl died.

00:40:53He's been claiming her healing.

00:40:55She wasn't healed.

00:40:55Until she died, Smith says, Lord, I won't take a no.

00:41:01And so, God said, okay, then it's a yes.

00:41:05And the girl came back to life.

00:41:07So, that is the beginning of this clip from Sonship Faith.

00:41:11As I like to say, if you gasp with your last breath, I am healed, God will have to raise

00:41:16you from the dead, if it was faith taught.

00:41:20It's always quiet after you make those statements.

00:41:25Nevertheless, I say it with all the authority of the Word of God, that if you say, by his stripes,

00:41:32I am healed, I am healed, and say it, and gasp the last breath, saying it, God will honor your

00:41:38faith.

00:41:38He'll have to honor your faith and send somebody to raise you up.

00:41:42Now, I know of a case.

00:41:43I mean, I know that there are more than one, but I know of a case where he told the

00:41:48girl,

00:41:48I'm going to heal you, bedridden, all sorts of diseases, twisted, deformed, terrible pain,

00:41:56I'm going to raise you up.

00:41:58Told the mother the same thing.

00:41:59She was over in the bedroom.

00:42:01The girl was really dying.

00:42:02God said, I'm going to heal you.

00:42:03While she was dying, told the mother in the bedroom, praying, Lord, I want my daughter.

00:42:06I'm claiming her.

00:42:07I'll heal her, he said.

00:42:09And just about that time she died, and the mother, for five hours,

00:42:13looked in the faith of a corpse, waiting for God to keep his Word.

00:42:17Believing that he would, five hours later, she sat up in bed perfectly whole.

00:42:20Now, that's not some story off in some Pentecostal journal, vintage of 1918 or something.

00:42:27You know, that denominational people don't like to believe because it's Pentecostal.

00:42:31I don't have any problem myself anymore, but, you know,

00:42:35Oh, this made the headlines, friends.

00:42:39The husband of this woman is a Ph.D.

00:42:42Not that that means anything, but, I mean, it's not somebody back in the woods.

00:42:46Somewhere that you've never heard of.

00:42:48But this actually happened.

00:42:49It made the headlines, the newspapers.

00:42:52Reporters came from all over because this girl had died.

00:42:57And there were too many witnesses, doctors and others.

00:43:00Five hours, a corpse.

00:43:03But God said, I'll heal her.

00:43:05And he had to raise her up to do it.

00:43:09Don't take no.

00:43:11If your loved one died of disease, you don't have to call the undertaker.

00:43:15I hope some of us sometime get a hold of this kind of faith.

00:43:21That's right.

00:43:23I can't conceive of a loved one of mine dying now in this end time.

00:43:27The faith that he's worked in my heart through just the things I have seen him do.

00:43:32And just resign yourself to it.

00:43:34Say, call the ambulance.

00:43:35Call the hearse.

00:43:36Take him to the morgue.

00:43:38Oh, I mean business, friends.

00:43:39I'm going to stay with that corpse.

00:43:42I don't know about you.

00:43:45Well, why shouldn't I?

00:43:49It wouldn't be anything new that God would raise the dead.

00:43:53And so then for anything less than the dead, why can't you believe for that?

00:43:57I'm willing to believe that God will raise up the dead.

00:44:01Hold to it.

00:44:02Say, Lord, I won't take no.

00:44:04You promised it.

00:44:04He won't give you no.

00:44:06He's wanting you to do this.

00:44:08To stay with him.

00:44:09This is bold faith.

00:44:10So we're talking why the 12-hour delay in reporting the death.

00:44:14They're obviously trying to resurrect Dr. Freeman from the dead.

00:44:18You know, he tells another story of someone who was resurrected from the dead.

00:44:22And then in the end of this clip, what he goes on to say is, he said, look,

00:44:28Faith Assembly members who are meeting in the basement in Muncie, Indiana,

00:44:33look, God has brought me to such a place of faith in my life.

00:44:38And this is only three years after he entered the charismatic movement from 1966 to 1967.

00:44:45But he said, God's brought me to such a place of faith in my life.

00:44:50I just can't see myself, if I have a loved one who has died, turning them over to the authorities.

00:45:00That's what he said.

00:45:01He said, I can't see myself doing that.

00:45:04I'm going to be just like Smith.

00:45:05I'm not calling the hearse.

00:45:08I'm not calling the funeral home.

00:45:10So that is the background that these people have been indoctrinated with.

00:45:15They've grown up believing that we are not supposed to accept death.

00:45:22We need to rebuke.

00:45:24Death is a spirit.

00:45:25Rebuke that spirit of death and command the spirit of life to come back in this body.

00:45:31I guarantee you, John, that was happening left and right.

00:45:35There was all kinds of praying in tongues happening in that bedroom that night.

00:45:40There was shouting.

00:45:41There was claiming.

00:45:42There was commanding.

00:45:44There was rebuking.

00:45:45There was decreeing.

00:45:46I mean, they pulled every verse out of the Bible, I'm sure, and used it on Dr. Freeman to get

00:45:54him back to life.

00:45:57Now, I'll be quiet here in a minute, John, but let me just say for a little more of the

00:46:02background, that's what he said in 1974 or rather 1969 when this message was done because they weren't having anybody

00:46:10die in the church back then.

00:46:12When people began to die, Dr. Freeman took a different tone because he actually did a message in 1976 that

00:46:23involved various subjects, but it said, now concerning natural childbirth, because they had had all kinds of problems with childbirth,

00:46:31and now concerning raising the dead.

00:46:35And he kind of rebuked the congregation for holding on to dead bodies and not calling the authorities.

00:46:43And again, if I was a part of the church, I'd say, but wait a minute, that's what you encouraged

00:46:47me to do on those earlier messages.

00:46:49You're the one who said God's brought you to such a place of faith.

00:46:53You wouldn't be turning loose of any dead body of a relative to the authorities.

00:46:57You'd be praying for them to be resurrected.

00:46:59But when Bruce and Kathy's first child died, Brent, who was born with respiratory problems and only lived 36 hours,

00:47:09Dr. Freeman was called over that.

00:47:12And I don't know whether he prayed for the child or not.

00:47:17I've heard that he did pray for the child, but the child did not come back to life.

00:47:22And so, you know, then what's the advice?

00:47:24It's normal advice.

00:47:26You need to call the funeral home.

00:47:28So as time went on, he toned it down.

00:47:32But whenever he experienced death himself, I just think there was no way those people were going to let that

00:47:39go without a fight, without a try.

00:47:43Because if our leader has died under these conditions, it is going to be a new moment in the history

00:47:50of faith assembly.

00:47:51So let's all hold on, rebuke, command, decree, claim, confess, sing, dance, pray in tongues, do whatever we have to

00:48:01do.

00:48:02Get rid of all the occult literature.

00:48:04Let's do whatever we've got to do to bring this man back to life.

00:48:08However, by daylight the next morning, he had not come back to life, and so they called the authorities.

00:48:14I've mentioned it before, but all through my time in the Branham religion, we were supposed to have such an

00:48:21elevated faith that I could speak animals into existence.

00:48:24Because our prophet spoke a squirrel into existence for the sole purpose of blowing its head off, which is a

00:48:30crazy funny story for another day.

00:48:33But I was raised in that mentality, so I understand exactly what these people are going through.

00:48:37The problem is, I did it over and over and over again, or I should say I tried to do

00:48:43it over and over again.

00:48:44Not speaking animals, but doing other things.

00:48:46I should be able to speak to the rock, right?

00:48:49The problem is, it never ever worked.

00:48:51But you would want it to work.

00:48:54Like, you'd pour your whole heart and soul into this voice that I'm speaking, and it still never worked.

00:49:00But that one time you said, Lord, I lost my car keys, make them appear, and you searched the house

00:49:06for like two hours, and suddenly you found them.

00:49:09God, God help me with those keys, brother.

00:49:12You start to get that mentality.

00:49:13So understand how it works, the mechanics of the faith.

00:49:16And, you know, who's to say God didn't help me find the keys in the two hours I turned everything

00:49:22over in the house?

00:49:22Maybe he did, maybe he didn't.

00:49:24The point I'm trying to make is, you get yourself so hyped up.

00:49:28But there's a difference with a death, because death is final.

00:49:31So whenever this happens, Hobart, inwardly, that has to have hit him like a brick wall hitting his chest.

00:49:38And the people, the man who laid on his body, and it didn't work, that's whenever you really, you're shaken

00:49:45so badly, because it is final.

00:49:47There is nothing, there's nothing you can do once the person's dead.

00:49:51Now you're coming to the terms with the fact that the word of faith doctrine I've been taught doesn't really

00:49:57work.

00:49:58Is it biblical or not?

00:49:59And you run through the scenarios in your mind.

00:50:01You start thinking of all the verses that you've been indoctrinated.

00:50:05And in the end, like me, you just go deeper into it.

00:50:09You believe it even more than you did before it didn't work, because that's how the cult mentality works.

00:50:15So each time that it failed for me, I believed it more than before it failed, which is really interesting

00:50:22if you think about it.

00:50:23But then a death.

00:50:24What do you do with this?

00:50:26Because now this is the ultimate test.

00:50:29Can the person be raised from the dead or not?

00:50:31And when it doesn't happen, now you're really shaken to the point where there are a lot of people that

00:50:35could wake up in that moment.

00:50:38If not for other people who are being just a little bit dishonest and trying to corral the people and

00:50:44keep them into the same fold.

00:50:46So that's where, for me, I hate to use the word predator, but if you're thinking of a flock of

00:50:53sheep and then you've got these wolves that are trying to keep them packed into the corral for the feeding,

00:50:58there's not many words that I can use besides predator.

00:51:01You and I both, John, hesitate to accuse people of things, you know, we really do.

00:51:08I mean, most of my life, I lived pretty innocently and naively, and I just did not know that people

00:51:15would knowingly deceive other people.

00:51:19I mean, we've all been deceived about something, myself included.

00:51:23And I thought I was right, and I thought this verse meant that, and I went and taught it, and

00:51:27I was as wrong as a summer day is long, but I didn't know I was wrong.

00:51:32You know, that comes with more study and time.

00:51:36I don't, I can't think of a time when I knew that this was not true, or I knew that

00:51:43this was wrong, or I knew that I'm completely butchering this verse, but I don't care.

00:51:49I'm going to do it anyway.

00:51:50I can't think of a time that I did that, and maybe I did.

00:51:55It'd be rare and few and far between.

00:52:00And so it's hard for me, as you were just saying there, to use the word predator, but, you know,

00:52:06I'm not saying you're wrong at all.

00:52:07I don't know.

00:52:09I don't know what's in the minds of these people, the ones in leadership.

00:52:14You know, I think some people I'm willing to call a predator because it's just so obvious, and some people,

00:52:20I don't know, they're, they just have enough sneakiness to them.

00:52:25But look, none of these guys are willing to come on here and talk about this.

00:52:29None of the guys have been willing to talk to me about it.

00:52:32None of them, none of the top ministers.

00:52:34What do you, what do you have to hide?

00:52:36None of them have been willing.

00:52:39So it does make me wonder.

00:52:41And, you know, the people in the know knew exactly what had happened that night.

00:52:46Don't you know that the phone lines were burned up in northern Indiana late in the evening of December 8,

00:52:551984?

00:52:55I mean, I bet that was an overload on the switchboard because the people that knew were calling the closest

00:53:04people they could trust, family members, close, close friends and associates, and say, Dr. Freeman died, Dr. Freeman died, Dr.

00:53:13Freeman died.

00:53:14But that would only be, that would be a little small core group of the higher up in the church.

00:53:21And so what happens when you go to church?

00:53:24Yeah, church is next morning.

00:53:26He died on a Saturday night.

00:53:29Sunday morning is church, December the 9th, 1984, church as usual.

00:53:33They had been on a fast three days for the church earlier in that week from Sunday to Wednesday in

00:53:39that week.

00:53:40And now they're just, everyone is just, you know, with bated breath, holding on, wondering what's going on.

00:53:46Now, June on Saturday calls some of the major trusted people to please come over and help me and pray.

00:53:55And she didn't know what to do.

00:53:57I mean, I feel so sorry for the lady.

00:53:59This is her husband who is literally wasted away, suffered agonizing.

00:54:04Hobart Freeman, when you look at his medical condition in the medical reports, Hobart Freeman died the death of the

00:54:12damned.

00:54:13I'm not saying he was damned.

00:54:14I have no idea about his eternal well-being.

00:54:18But I'm saying he died the death of the damned to have suffered as much as he did and to

00:54:26be weighing under 130 pounds whenever he died.

00:54:30So when you show up at church the next morning, it was a very somber time.

00:54:37Here are just a few of the details.

00:54:40And we may not have enough time to cover much more of this, John.

00:54:44But here are a few of the details.

00:54:47One of the people who were, and I've heard from so many people who were a member of Faith Assembly.

00:54:53So they were there Sunday morning.

00:54:54And then you, well, I'll talk about that here in a moment.

00:54:56So one of the members that I know to this today, his name is Mark Harness.

00:55:04And Mark, as he was telling me, when he showed up at Faith Assembly on Sunday morning, he ran into

00:55:13a woman by the name of Melody Powers.

00:55:16Melody Powers was, she was, she had a really good singing voice.

00:55:22So she ministered in song there.

00:55:24She was obviously because she was a woman, was not in any kind of church leadership, but she was some

00:55:30of, she was a part of the people in the know.

00:55:33Let's say it like that.

00:55:34You know, you, every group unavoidably has this.

00:55:38You've got the very top people, the people under them.

00:55:40You have the people in the know.

00:55:42And finally you get down to people like me and you, and we're just rank and file members.

00:55:47But Mark went up to Melody and Melody Powers said that announcement was going to be forthcoming that morning.

00:55:55So you've got these people, I mean, sitting on the edge of their seat, not knowing what to expect.

00:56:02The message that morning, which I have a list of messages at Faith Assembly that were happening at that time.

00:56:10The message that morning was supposed to be given by Jack Farrell.

00:56:15He's one of the two, he and Stan Hill, one of the two associate pastors.

00:56:20The one that I read the interview by the reporter here a few moments ago, and the one that we'll

00:56:26find out later is going to soon leave Faith Assembly.

00:56:30He was, he was scheduled to preach on December the 12th.

00:56:37Let me just back up on December the 5th, which would have been a Wednesday night of the week Hobart

00:56:43died.

00:56:43The preacher that night was Harry Albright, and Harry Albright preached a message entitled Confidence and Courage in Conflict.

00:56:56You know, a lot of Faith Assembly faithful from back in the day aren't going to believe that we actually

00:57:04know the titles of the messages and who was scheduled to preach.

00:57:08And it'll probably bring back a lot of memories in their mind.

00:57:11The previous Sunday morning would have been December the 2nd, and that message was preached by Jeff Barnett, and it

00:57:25was entitled Declaring the Atonement.

00:57:28And so on the morning after Hobart's death, which is December the 9th of 1984, Jack Farrell was scheduled to

00:57:39preach a message entitled Abstain from All Appearance of Evil, Part 2.

00:57:46He did not teach that message.

00:57:49The message was canceled, and they simply, you know, had a time of prayer and intercession.

00:57:55Jack was able to come back later on January the 2nd of 1985 and teach that message, Abstain from All

00:58:05Appearance of Evil, Part 2, you know, first message in the new year in January of 1985.

00:58:14So this is when the rank and file members hear what's going on.

00:58:18Our pastor died.

00:58:20I mean, at least they did come and tell everyone Dr. Freeman died last night, so they just had a

00:58:25time of prayer.

00:58:26So if you think the phone lines were burning up Saturday evening when only a handful of people knew to

00:58:32call, now everybody at Faith Assembly knows.

00:58:35And it spread like wildfire.

00:58:39I mean, as soon as people got home, in those days, you had to go home because your telephone had

00:58:44a wire on it that was connected to the wall, and that's the way you made your call.

00:58:49So everyone is racing to get back home because this is the news of all news for any Faith Assembly

00:58:56member that Hobart Edward Freeman died last night.

00:59:00He died of all of these diseases.

00:59:01Now, whether they said he had all those diseases, it remains to be seen.

00:59:06I think they did not say that.

00:59:07It's just that our pastor died.

00:59:10Maybe he died peacefully.

00:59:12I don't know what they said.

00:59:13But immediately that began to spread.

00:59:16And so I know this from the studies online that a man up in Canada whose name is Tom McLaughlin,

00:59:25who did a whole lot of work as far as positively in favor of Freeman and his beliefs and his

00:59:33teachings and everything.

00:59:34He was called Sunday afternoon, December the 9th, 1984, by Mark Yotter, who worked in the tape part of the

00:59:43ministry and who was also the man upon whom's arm Hobart leaned whenever he had to go and make his

00:59:50court appearance.

00:59:51Mark Yotter called Tom with the news.

00:59:54Tom flew down a month later.

00:59:57Tom flew down from Canada because Tom has said he did this, flew down from Canada a month later.

01:00:03And this is when all the satellite people began trying to get more information, pouring in to find out all

01:00:09the details that they could.

01:00:11And Tom said that whenever he was there, he spoke with Steve Hill, married to Pam Hill, Dr. Freeman's oldest

01:00:19daughter, and that Steve Hill told Tom that the church is believing for Dr. Freeman to be raised from the

01:00:27dead.

01:00:28That was the belief that they were holding to.

01:00:31And so, as you can see here in conclusion today, John, that I don't know, at Faith Assembly, nothing was

01:00:41a reality.

01:00:42Everything was a mirage.

01:00:45Everything was a trial.

01:00:48They called everything a trial.

01:00:50You literally could not show up at church and ask your brother, sister, how are you doing today?

01:00:57And not get God is faithful.

01:00:59God's word is true, and God is true to his word.

01:01:02Even if he's sick, the wife is left, and the kids are out on drugs, it wouldn't matter what's going

01:01:08on.

01:01:09You're not ever going to hear reality.

01:01:10You're going to hear some type of faith confession.

01:01:14And that's just the world they lived in, that nothing at Faith Assembly was a reality.

01:01:19Everything was a trial.

01:01:21So, if your washing machine is not working, it's not because you have failed in your maintenance of your washing

01:01:32machine.

01:01:32It's because you're going through a trial.

01:01:35If you don't have enough money to pay rent that month, it's not because you haven't held down two jobs

01:01:42like you should have as a husband to provide for your family.

01:01:45It's, we're going through a trial, brother.

01:01:49Everything was a trial.

01:01:51Nothing was a reality.

01:01:53And so, in the end, even when Hobart dies, this isn't a reality.

01:01:58This is only a trial because the church is believing for him to be raised from the dead.

01:02:04Sitting out by my road at this moment is a dishwasher that was going through a trial.

01:02:09Somebody in my family, I'm not going to say who, put regular hand dishwashing soap in it.

01:02:14And it is just like the television shows, the comedy shows, where this big block of foam comes out and

01:02:20just destroys everything in your kitchen.

01:02:22That's what it is like, I will admit.

01:02:24And, yes, it was a trial.

01:02:26But it was a different kind of trial than you're talking about.

01:02:30You know, the thing of it is, we're having this conversation because people didn't stand up and do the right

01:02:37thing.

01:02:38I will soon be putting out a podcast.

01:02:40I've been asked several times to talk about Azusa Street Revival.

01:02:45And there's one thing that you just said that I want to mention that is similar.

01:02:49And when you think about Pentecostalism, how it grew, it's actually a result of this.

01:02:55If you read through any account of the Azusa Street Revival, whether it's newspapers, Pentecostal historians, the focus is always

01:03:05on the speaking in tongues.

01:03:06This is where we spoke in tongues.

01:03:08And this is the event, people.

01:03:09This is Pentecost came down.

01:03:11We spoke in tongues.

01:03:12You don't find too many instances where they talk about, and this is where the gospel was spread.

01:03:17This is where the gospel was shared.

01:03:19I don't think – I've read several of the histories.

01:03:22I don't think I've read one that actually mentions the gospel in combination with this.

01:03:26It's always about the greater thing.

01:03:28We have a greater thing.

01:03:29The other churches have the gospel.

01:03:31We have a greater thing.

01:03:32Well, F.F. Bosworth is one of the people that split off from this belief that speaking in tongues was

01:03:39the initial evidence.

01:03:40But what he did was he twisted it.

01:03:41The healing is the initial evidence.

01:03:44So it's the same doctrine, just different form.

01:03:47That's what Branham ran with.

01:03:49That was all through the revivals.

01:03:50That's what spread into Hobart Freeman's doctrine.

01:03:53The focus really – and Hobart may have preached the gospel.

01:03:57I'm not saying he didn't.

01:03:58But the focus was somewhere else, and that's really the problem.

01:04:02The gospel becomes diminished in that mentality, and it's the other things that get really the primary focus.

01:04:10And in the end, I could not faith my dishwasher to be well.

01:04:15I had to take it out.

01:04:16It was a heck of a lot of work, and it was a lot more work than I remember doing

01:04:20the last time I did it.

01:04:21It just doesn't work, man.

01:04:23Sometimes you have to get a wrench and a screwdriver and a drill.

01:04:26But in the end, I can't say that I have – in my life, I was in it for 37

01:04:33years, I can't say that I benefited from one single thing that they topped on to Christianity and said, we

01:04:40have this extra thing.

01:04:41I can't say that there's one single benefit.

01:04:44My body – I have health problems, as you know.

01:04:46My dishwasher's out by the road because I couldn't cure it.

01:04:50But I did find my keys, so I guess I could say in 37 years, I was able to get

01:04:55something out of it because I did find my keys in my house.

01:04:59So thank you for doing this.

01:05:02Thanks for having me, John.

01:05:03Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

01:05:06You can find us at william-branum.org.

01:05:09For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to

01:05:15the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

01:05:48Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

01:06:18Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

Resurrection Theology Tested: The Night Hobart Freeman Died | Chino Ross | 540

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