The Assemblies Of God’s 1949 Warning And The Rise Of The NAR | 547 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John explores the 1949 Assemblies of God resolution that formally denounced the “New Order of the Latter Rain” and asks a pressing question: Did Latter Rain actually end—or was it redistributed and rebranded? Walking line-by-line through the six points of the General Council’s denunciation, he compares each concern to structures now visible in the New Apostolic Reformation and segments of the broader charismatic movement.  From impartation theology and modern apostles to prophetic utterances, mediated confession, and doctrinal innovation, this episode traces historical continuity from North Battleford through the Voice of Healing era and into contemporary apostolic networks. Drawing on documented history and decades of movement development, John argues that while the label “Latter Rain” faded, its underlying framework survived and evolved.  Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:31 Why Ask If Latter Rain Ended 06:20 What Latter Rain Was And How It Spread 10:51 Reading The 1949 Resolution And The “Disclaimer” Language 16:09 Issue 1: Impartation By Laying On Of Hands 18:18 Issue 2: Present-Day Apostles And Prophets As Foundation 20:47 Issue 3: Confession To Man And Deliverance Practices 23:09 Issue 4: Tongues As Missionary Language Equipment 31:21 Issue 5: Imposing Personal Leadings By Utterances 37:17 Issue 6: Distortions Of Scripture And Extra-Biblical Doctrine 43:02 “Unity Of The Spirit” And Why Division Was The Alarm 46:44 Rebranding, Revenue, And The Post-Resolution Networks 54:05 Closing And Call To Action ______________________ 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

Transcript

00:31Hello, 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, where history proves that truth, or at least their version of it,

00:46is truly stranger than fiction. I recently had a conversation with Jed, and we were talking about

00:52the similarities between IHOPKC and what I came out of, and we eventually came to the

01:00conclusion that there is a strong question that needs to be asked, and that is, did latter rain

01:05actually end? Now, that podcast, I can't remember. It may come out either before or after this one,

01:11I don't recall, but the question is valid, and I got to thinking about it. It really needs to be

01:19addressed more deeply than just casually asking the question, and I think if people were to be

01:25fully aware of what happened with the Assemblies of God, it would raise huge questions for today's

01:32new apostolic reformation groups and even large parts of the charismatic movement. What happened

01:39with the Assemblies of God, there's a moment in time in which the Assemblies of God stood up and

01:44said, we denounce this mess that you guys have created, and I want to talk through that a bit

01:50because that is some very, very important history. I have come to the conclusion, and this is my

01:57opinion, this isn't something that you can go find any solid answers on this, but I've come to the

02:02conclusion that the latter rain really didn't end. The Assemblies of God just pushed it out of the

02:08denomination, but the ideas, maybe not all the doctrines, but many of the ideas migrated into the

02:15looser networks, and those looser networks continued to develop and grow and solidify those ideas.

02:22And C. Peter Wagner, whenever he dubbed this big mess, he dubbed it the New Apostolic Reformation,

02:30he was aware that there were all of these loosely connected networks, all of which were teaching some

02:36of the same ideas, maybe not all the same doctrines, but they were all part of this bigger

02:42network of, you know, apostolic networks. That's how he described it. But if you understand the

02:50history, very, very quickly after the latter rain developed, when the latter rain revival broke out

02:57in Saskatchewan and all kinds of Pentecostal people were joining into this thinking that this is it,

03:04this is the big revival. Well, the Assemblies of God realized that the dangers of what they had

03:10created was catastrophic, but the charismatic world kept the power even after the Assemblies of God

03:19denounced it. In other words, the authoritarian structures that were developed in that movement,

03:27those authoritarian structures continued. Where it gets a little bit sketchy is this, as I mentioned in

03:36the last podcast when I talked about the Assemblies of God, latter rain drove a deep wedge into

03:42Pentecostalism and the Assemblies itself split in half. You had the Assemblies of God proper and you

03:50had the independent Assemblies of God, which I'll talk through that a bit in this podcast. But when it did,

03:58there were groups that didn't fully understand that they were supposed to cast all of the,

04:03all of the doctrinal structures out. They just cast out some of the doctrines that they felt aligned

04:10with the initiative that was created in 1949. In 1949, and I've got a copy of the Minutes and

04:18Constitution of the Assemblies of God, it was the 23rd General Council. And I'll put that up on the screen.

04:27I got a copy of it and I read through some of the statements. And the way that it is

04:32so,

04:34so condensed in the summary, there were people who interpreted what it meant in different ways. And

04:42if you understand the history of how the Assemblies developed into what they are today,

04:50from that point of time forward, you begin to see that there's a lot of confusion as to how to

04:55interpret these. Yet, if you look through all of the bullet points that they have documented

05:01in how they denounced the new order of latter rain, you find that it almost reads like a checklist for

05:08today's new apostolic reformation. Why? Because whenever these groups began to spread and grow and

05:16adopt these ideas, they formed the exact network that C. Peter Wagner was talking about.

05:22So, I thought I would go through today and just read through this 1949 list and let listeners

05:29translate each bullet into modern language. Because honestly, if you read this and you understand how

05:36the Church, as it relates to the new apostolic reformation, has developed, you'll understand

05:42that this really was the blueprint. And this is the very thing that was denounced. And to the credit of

05:50the Assemblies of God, they really put up a line in the sand and said, no, we will not do

05:56this. This

05:57is wrong what is happening. The sad part is, as everybody is now aware, the wrong is actually what

06:04went forward. And there weren't enough churches who took a stand with the Bible over the heresy. That's

06:14really the bottom line. So, I want to walk through some of the heresies and walk through

06:19why the Assemblies of God denounced this. So, first, let's talk a bit through what latter rain was,

06:25because it is very confusing. In fact, it took me a long time to fully understand how to separate

06:31it from the broader post-World War II healing revival. William Branham toured through the United

06:38States and Canada drawing large crowds. And this became seen by many Pentecostals as a basically

06:47another wave of Pentecostalism. It was a revival of sorts that was coming to the United States and

06:55Canada. And at the same time, William Branham was making waves in the Pentecostal communities.

07:01You had people like Franklin Hall who were teaching unusual doctrines that they just simply weren't

07:08familiar with. The biggest of which was his atomic power from God through fasting and prayer.

07:14And those two elements were basically a catalyst for what happened in Saskatchewan. There was a group

07:22of people at the Sharon Orphanage in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, who felt like this was the formula for

07:29the end of days revival. And Pentecostalism had been preaching the end of days revival all the way back

07:35dating to St. Frank Sanford and the Shiloh cult that he was associated with. Charles Fox Parham had

07:42visited that cult and there were many ideas with a end of days revival that was being adopted. Well,

07:49they viewed these two catalysts as the spark that would ignite this end of days revival.

07:56So it broke out into a revival there at the Sharon Orphanage. And there were leaders of Pentecostalism

08:03that joined in thinking that this is it. Interestingly, there's no evidence whatsoever that William Branham

08:10even attended the revival. But what happened is it spread so quickly throughout the United States

08:16and Canada that you were almost foolish not to join in. There was such a movement that was

08:26overshadowing the entire culture of Christianity in the United States and Canada. And it was making waves

08:34that could not be stopped. If you rose up against it, you were just simply outnumbered.

08:39And what happened was there were a lot of men and women who became empowered through this movement

08:48simply by the laying on of hands. One of the elements of spiritualism that entered into the movement

08:54was the idea that there was a power that could be transferred by hands. And they viewed it quite

09:00differently than the laying on of hands in the Bible. If you were a Pentecostal leader and you had,

09:07say, the gift of prophecy or some other gift, you could lay your hands on somebody and you could

09:13transfer your power into that person. Some of those were given ministries. They became evangelists.

09:22They became pastors. Basically, the five-fold ministry was developing under this framework.

09:28And what happened was there were men and women who were transferred, who had this transference of power,

09:36who really had no idea about theology. And it didn't matter because if you had received that power,

09:45you could go preach whatever you wanted and just say that God is speaking through me. I have the

09:50spoken word, the rhema, whatever they called it back then. But people would listen to it. And that's

09:57really the problem here. So the assemblies of God began to notice that there's this weird transference

10:03of power and we didn't elect any of these people. They've not gone through the proper background checks.

10:09And just to put it into proper perspective, Jim Jones of People's Temple was one of those who

10:15got this transference of power. And everybody is familiar with what happened with Jonestown and Guyana.

10:22This is a big deal. This was something that was dangerous. It was not only dangerous theology,

10:29it was the framework from which the lack of transparency in the cover-up culture developed.

10:37Because if you had this power, if you had this anointing, you can't be questioned. Touch not God's

10:43anointing. That's one of the themes that developed from this. So let's go back to the resolution that was

10:51passed by the assemblies of God. And let's go line by line and talk through some of the things that

10:58are mentioned in here and just think as I'm going through these how similar this is to today's new

11:04apostolic reformation. What the assemblies of God denounced in 1949 is the blueprint. So the first line

11:12says that, whereas we are grateful for the visitation of God in the past and the evidences of his blessings

11:19upon us today, in other words, we accept the fact that this is a movement and it similarly matches what

11:29we had in early Pentecostalism. We're not saying anything about that. That was basically, if you

11:35understand what's read here, this is the disclaimer. So we're disclaiming that we see, yes, a movement by

11:41God. We're grateful that God is moving. But then it gets into it. Whereas we recognize a hunger on the

11:46part of God's people for a spiritual refreshing and manifestation of his Holy Spirit, be it therefore,

11:54and then it gets into the meat of the resolution. So in that second sentence, it says, and a manifestation

12:03of his Holy Spirit. Now I want to pause right here because if you understand what happened that led to

12:11this resolution and understood all of the weirdness that came with it, this resolution, you'd read it

12:18and think, well, that's not so bad. They're, they're actually being nice to the people.

12:23And I don't really understand why they didn't go a little bit further with their language, because

12:30remember this is written, this resolution is written in 1949. In 1947, when this thing was breaking out and

12:37all of these people were getting involved, we had things like, I've mentioned this before,

12:42little David Walker, the young boy who did the preaching before William Branham did the faith

12:48healing lines that he did. In those revivals, you've got a little boy preaching who has no idea of theology,

12:56claiming that he had spent five hours in heaven. And to prove this powerful fact,

13:02he would levitate on stage, which is just so odd. And when I read, we're grateful for the visitation

13:10of God in the past and the evidences of his blessings upon us today. I really question whether

13:17a levitating boy is evidence of blessing from God. I really do. In fact, James Randy, who was a stage

13:25magician, it was during this time, he was going through all of these faith healing ministries

13:33and exposing them for what they were. He was a stage magician. He was watching stage magic tricks,

13:41like levitating boys in the revivals. And he was just calling them out saying, look,

13:46this is false. This is not Christianity. I don't care what they're telling you, but you people are being

13:52duped. And sadly, because James Randy was an atheist, there were many people who didn't listen

13:59to him, even though what he said was actually true. They weren't listening to him because he

14:05didn't have a voice in their community. They would not accept outside criticism. And that's really the

14:11problem here. So when you have a levitating boy and you've got a movement that is claiming that this

14:16levitation is something from God, now you've got the verbiage that says we value the blessings of

14:23God on us today. You have to question, if this is truly about the new order of latter rain,

14:28why didn't they go further and say, we do not want magic tricks in our revivals? But you have to

14:36be

14:36cautious with how you word this. I understand. So what they did was a good thing. They did carry

14:42forward some resolution to stop this thing. But the language is very, very delicate. I think

14:49that's the point I'm trying to the point I'm trying to make here. It continues resolved that we

14:55recommend to the ministers of the assemblies of God and two churches affiliated and associated with us

15:02that we set our hearts to seek out a continued outpouring of the Holy Spirit founded upon the clear

15:08teaching of the word of God. And be it further resolved that we disapprove of these extreme

15:15teachings and practices which being unfounded scripturally serve only to break fellowship

15:21of like precious faith and tend to confusion and division among the members of the body of Christ.

15:29And be it hereby known that this 23rd General Council disapproves

15:35of the so-called new order of latter rain to wit. So here's where it is getting to the heart

15:41of the

15:41matter. It was viewed as extremism from the very beginning. And as I will continue into this,

15:49you'll see that much of that extremism exists today. It's just been rebranded. They won't tell you that

15:55we're doing the same things latter rain was doing. We just swapped out some doctrines and put a

16:00fresh bow tie on a fresh paint job on this rusty old car. But that's exactly what's happening.

16:06So here begins the six problems that they mentioned in this denouncing of latter rain.

16:12The first is the over emphasis relative to imparting, identifying, bestowing, or confirming of gifts

16:21by the laying on of hands and prophecy. In other words, we don't trust that you can lay hands on

16:28just

16:29anyone and they can be empowered by God and it will suddenly change all of their inward problems and

16:36give them instant theology. And that's what exactly what was happening here. If you could get counsel with

16:43somebody who had the superpower and they could lay hands on you, if you could gain enough of their favor,

16:50you could suddenly be a big name in the revival. And that's really what was happening. You look at

16:57Jim Jones. Jones, his ministry was launched very quickly once he had this happen to him. Prior to that,

17:04he was just a humble little Indiana pastor near inside of Indianapolis. Once he got this imparting of

17:12this gift, this laying on of hands, he's suddenly inviting the entire convention, including all of

17:18the big names in the revival, Branham, etc. So this was very, very important. And compare it to today's

17:27new apostolic reformation. Look at some of the people that the apostles of the NAR have brought in,

17:34either through a prophecy or laying on of hands, and look how their ministries have turned out.

17:39We're now starting to examine the fruits of this. It took a long time for people to wake up and

17:45recognize that they're not picking very good people for some reason. Well, this is exactly what's

17:52happening. And the Assemblies of God noticed it in 1949. Now, this was only just a couple years into

17:59the revival. The New Apostolic Reformation, on the other hand, it has gone decades. And people are just

18:05now starting to wake up to this fact of this point number one. So strike one for the New Apostolic

18:13Reformation and praise to the Assemblies of God. They wanted to stop this very quickly. Now,

18:21it had spread already so far out of control that I don't believe they were able to, well, history proves

18:29they were not able to stop it. But they did try. Number two, the erroneous teaching that the church

18:36is built on the foundation of present-day apostles and prophets. This is the big one. I grew up in

18:45a

18:45world where there was only one prophet, because even though Branham was part of this, many of these

18:52groups like Branham went off into an isolationist cult. And so what happened was you had either an

18:59apostle or a prophet. And I'm using that word in air quotes, because you really can't trust that they

19:05were really what they were gifted with by this new order of latter rain. But they started to see

19:12themselves as the authoritarian figure, the central figure, the voice of God, or however you want to

19:19view them. That's what they were doing. They would wander off into further isolation. And the

19:26Assemblies of God said, no, no, no, no. You can't take this erroneous teaching that these modern-day

19:32apostles and prophets are the foundation of today's church. That's just not right.

19:38That is the very premise of the New Apostolic Reformation. If you're going to be a leader in the NAR,

19:44you must be an apostle. You must be a prophet. It's part of the fivefold ministry structure that

19:49the Assemblies of God was starting to denounce. But latter rain had evolved and basically taken the

19:59offices that's mentioned in the Bible, pastor, prophet, apostle, teacher, etc. They'd taken that

20:06and turned it into an authoritarian structure. The apostle was at the top, the prophet came under,

20:11and you just go right down the line. And if you're in that succession, you have authority over the

20:17general public. It was an authoritarian structure. And you can't really read much into this because

20:24the Assemblies of God was very, very superficial whenever they were giving these six items that

20:32they were denouncing latter rain for. I have to believe that it was that very reason why they put

20:38this line in there, because it is a huge problem. You can see that it exists today.

20:43And this is the same problem that exists back in 1949. Number three, and this one angers me that

20:49this has continued. The extreme teaching as advocated by the new order regarding the confession of sin to

20:57man and deliverance as practice, which claims prerogatives to human agency, which belong only to Christ.

21:06Now, in latter rain, the way that this worked, the individuals were encouraged or sometimes even

21:12pressured to confess sins to designated spiritual authorities. And they gave you the spiritual

21:19covering, just like today. The leaders functioned as mediators of your restoration if you were in sin.

21:26So you had a mediator between God and man, and that was your apostle, your prophet,

21:31part of this deliverance framework that had developed. And spiritual breakthrough, if you call it that,

21:39was often tied to the way that you submitted to these authority figures and the confession

21:47system that was within that structure. So the main concern from the Assemblies of God was basically that

21:55this mediation isn't the Holy Spirit. This is a human. This is a human being. You can't do this.

22:01The Holy Spirit is the one to lead us and guide us. And theologically, not only is that in clear

22:08violation of the passage that says there's only one mediator between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ,

22:15what it did was it enabled people, leadership within the movement to have dirt on the people that were

22:23confessing the sins. So now you had more of a power over them than just simply if they were your

22:29leader,

22:29you knew what they did and you might expose it. And that's really, that's really awful. Because if you

22:36look at the world today, that same thing is going on. In fact, if you listen to many of the

22:42stories that I

22:43have on the Friday, our stories segment of the podcast, many of them say that they have experienced

22:50exactly this. This is continuing today in the new apostolic reformation. And again, it, it angers me to

22:58no end that the Assemblies of God denounced that in 1949 and it still exists today. Number four,

23:06and this one fascinates me if you understand the history of Pentecostalism, because not many people

23:12are aware that the Assemblies denounced this in 1949. But number four says the erroneous teaching

23:18concerning the impartation of the gift of language, in other words, speaking in tongues,

23:24as special equipment for missionary service. Now, in the system of speaking in tongues and Pentecostalism,

23:34after Charles Fox Parham visited Frank Sanford's commune and learned Sanford's ideas on the end of

23:40day's revival, the Christian identity doctrines that were being taught there, all of that stuff.

23:47After having also visited John Alexander Dowie's commune in Zion City, Charles Fox Parham came back

23:55to his own sect and he started to try to work up the idea that if we can speak in

24:02tongues like they did

24:03in the Bible, then when we go on the mission field and we go to another country where people speak

24:08a

24:08different language, we will speak in their native language. In other words, I don't have to teach

24:14you guys how to speak other languages. God's going to do this for us. And this thing that we're doing

24:20now, the speaking in tongues, it must be another language. So what happened was, if you understand

24:26that history, they were sent to China. The missionaries nearly starved to death because

24:31what they were speaking, which was supposed to be quote unquote, Chinese understood by the Chinese

24:38people, nobody could understand them. And so they had to come back in total defeat. Not many people

24:46are aware that that's how Pentecostalism actually started. Because what happened was, instead, they

24:52rebranded the speaking in tongues as a language that nobody can understand. In other words, God's going to

24:58speak to you in gibberish, much like the Tower of Babel. That's really how this changed and developed.

25:05It's interesting to me that the assemblies of God denounced this in 1949. So what they were trying

25:12to say is, essentially, if you understand the context and language here, the Holy Spirit could

25:19supernaturally impart a known human language. And that gift would function as missionary equipment.

25:25And former language training would be unnecessary. The Spirit would provide what's needed on the

25:32field. And the assemblies of God objected entirely. They said that missionary service—and I'm reading

25:39in between the lines. You have to understand the broader concept of what they're addressing here.

25:44What they're saying, not implicitly, is that missionary service really requires language study.

25:50It requires cultural understanding, and it's a long-term discipline. It's not something that

25:56you're just going to lay your hands on somebody and suddenly they can do. The assemblies of God

26:02believe that claiming a supernatural linguistic equipment could just discourage preparation before

26:10you went on the mission field. It would create disillusionment because when you sent the missionaries

26:16and nobody can understand them, well, how's the missionary going to feel? And ultimately,

26:23I think the reason why they denounced it is that it would damage the mission's work.

26:28And that's really the bottom line. And again, everything that I've said isn't written in here

26:32because they weren't that explicit. They just put a one-line summary and they left it to each individual

26:39church to understand and interpret what they meant by this. And that's really, for me, that's really

26:46the biggest flaw I see in the assemblies denouncing it. They could have written an entire book. I mean,

26:53every single aspect of this thing was just so wrong. And the churches had bought into it.

26:59So you had assemblies of God churches who believed everything that was being taught in

27:03latter rain and, and had adopted it. And then the assembly's headquarters was so

27:10they're being so cautious that they just put very, very high level summaries. And that's really

27:16ultimately, in my opinion, that's what led to the massive split in the assemblies of God.

27:21Had they been explicit and said, here's a problem. Here's how it doesn't match the Bible. And here's

27:28the consequences for adopting this latter rain idea. If they'd have been that explicit,

27:33in here, I think many of the churches might've woken up and said, you know, that's right. This is just

27:41wrong what we're doing. Why, how did we adopt this? What led us to this confusion? How did we do

27:47this?

27:48But sadly, the assemblies of God, you know, they, they were trying, I think, to

27:55navigate very cautiously because so many people had, had adopted it and so many people agreed with the

28:01concepts. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern

28:08Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter rain, charismatic and other fringe movements

28:14into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's

28:20website, William-Branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of

28:28John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others with links to the paper,

28:35audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people

28:42and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the

28:47podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe

28:53to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical

28:59Research, we want to thank you for your support. So I've talked through the first four issues that

29:05the assemblies of God took with the new order of the latter rain. And if you are in today's charismatic

29:12or

29:12new apostolic reformation churches, you probably recognize a few of those things that I've mentioned.

29:18Because like I said, this movement spread throughout Americanized Christianity and in fact to the globe.

29:27And there were so many churches that adopted it, that by the time that this resolution was passed,

29:32it was unstoppable. This was an unstoppable force. And the assemblies of God handled it very delicately,

29:39just one or two statements, why we denounce it, and did not really go into detail. So churches were left

29:45to interpret what these things meant. And the point I'm trying to stress is that interpretation

29:54developed into an even bigger problem. And as we'll go into, there's two more that I'm going to be

30:00talking through in the podcast. But these last two, if you understand the consequences of what they

30:06were denouncing, they were justified in their denouncing it. But the churches had already

30:12accepted that which was being denounced. And it created a movement that went beyond what the

30:19new order of the latter rain entailed. Many people who were part of the new order of the latter rain,

30:27there's a point of time in which the latter rain and the voice of healing revivals merged.

30:32And it's in that intersection where this gets interesting, because after they separated,

30:38and they separated largely because of this resolution, after they separated, each one of

30:43these bullet points that I'm talking about were adopted into the movement, but without the name

30:50latter rain. In fact, some of the ministers, Branham included, just said he, the latter rain has spun out

30:56of control. We don't want this. And that was an appeal to any church who was in the assemblies of

31:01God,

31:02because they're not allowed to have latter rain. So what happened was it was slightly rebranded.

31:09And if you understand what's being denounced in point five and six, you understand that it is

31:15the making of a new religion. And that's really where this comes down to. Latter rain was wrong,

31:22assemblies of God denounced it. But what developed from it was a new religion entirely that wasn't

31:28Christian. Number five, the extreme and unscriptural practice of imparting or imposing personal

31:37leadings by the means of gifts of utterance. And you almost can't read that without thinking Kenneth

31:45Hagan, because that is the framework for how Rhema works. If you are a Branhamite, you almost can't read

31:53this without thinking spoken word, because that's the framework of Branhamism. In fact, you can almost

32:00go down, ministry by ministry, every single one that's connected to this, and you can see that

32:07the things that they speak when, quote unquote, in the prophetic, or the things that they speak when

32:14in utterance. However, the movement claims this gift, they put so much emphasis on it that it

32:22becomes a new replacement for the written word. It is a new spoken word. And in fact, that's what

32:29they called it, the spoken word. Branham's organization, whenever it was formed, it was

32:34called the spoken word. Why? Because this was a new Bible that was spoken through Branham and written

32:40to us today. Ministers in the movement called it another book of Acts. And Branham, again,

32:47he's not the only one doing this. There's so many different people doing this. This was after the

32:52Assemblies of God had denounced latter rain and denounced all of these things. But as I said,

32:57most churches didn't know how to interpret this. And so what happened is you had churches who agreed

33:03in the denunciation of latter rain, but are still doing the same things. And so it was continuing even

33:10within the Assemblies of God. This is not a small thing, especially at this point number five. This

33:16is a big one. It's not a small doctrinal quibble. And you could probably argue some of the previous

33:21ones were. But this one is specifically about who gets to steer your life. The key phrase,

33:30if you understand what is being said, is imparting or imposing personal leadings. Because in latter rain

33:37practice, this is directly tied to where someone should move, who someone should marry, ministerial

33:47roles. If there's an utterance over your ministry, now you have a ministry of God. Men could redirect

33:54careers. You could find hidden motives. And remember, these are people who are confessing their sins.

34:02These utterances could literally take any form, any direction, to the extent it could even override

34:11things that were written in the Bible. I attended churches where I came in in the aftermath. I didn't

34:18I didn't see it in its destructive phase. But one of the ministers believed that he had the power to

34:24tell

34:24people who they could marry, who they couldn't marry. If they wanted to buy a car, they would go,

34:29they would have to ask him. He literally ruled their personal lives to the extent it had become so

34:36destructive. There were marriages between people that were forced to marry with people they didn't

34:42want to marry because the minister said so. That's how bad this actually got. And not many people

34:50realized that this is all a direct result of latter rain. The assemblies of God denounced it. They said,

34:56we do not like this. You cannot do this to people. And they did not like the idea that

35:05now you've taken it a step further in the mediator between God and man area. You're now saying that

35:13these utterances are actually God speaking through you. And if you understand what this means in context

35:19of scripture, if God is speaking through you, these utterances are prophecy. And that's how the

35:26prophetic movement began. We have these utterances. It must be prophecy. God must be speaking through us.

35:33But the problem is they're not always accurate. And sometimes they're completely false. And so

35:39what the new order of latter rain did was it took the idea that you could have these utterances

35:46and you could have many of them. Some of them may come true. Some of them may not. Some of

35:52them may

35:52be biblical. Some of them may be anti-biblical. But we take the sum of all of these utterances.

35:58And if the overwhelming sum is in favor of Christianity, then it must be of God. Let's just

36:04ignore the ones that are wrong. And what you end up with is you have people who are

36:11preying upon other people with authority that they shouldn't be given, with power they shouldn't have,

36:18and they completely wreck the lives of the people involved. I have listened time and time again

36:25of how this works in Pentecostalism, Charismatic Movement, New Apostolic Reformation,

36:33in these stories that people tell us on Friday whenever I'm interviewing for the Our Stories segment.

36:39This is a problem that exists today. It existed in 1949. And it was denounced for the very reason of

36:46all of the problems that the people talk about today. I just, I struggle to believe that the

36:53movement took something that was so dangerous, so anti-biblical, and decided we're going to carry

36:59this forward. And we're going to ignore the resolution of the Assemblies of God.

37:05It tells me that this was another movement. This was not a Christian movement. This developed into

37:11something else. The Assemblies tried to stop it. The last one, and it is just as important in my

37:17opinion as number five, is such other wrestlings and distortions of Scripture, interpretations which

37:25are in opposition to teachings and practices generally accepted among us.

37:32What is being said here is that whenever you have these people who are led by their utterances,

37:40and we can't fully trust that those utterances came from God, what you end up with is a distortion

37:47of Scripture. And I will say that out of all of the people that I have listened to or read

37:53the works

37:53of who are critical of the Pentecostal Charismatic Movement and New Apostolic Reformation Movement,

38:00which developed from it, that's really the number one thing. They point out that some of the teachings

38:07are either extra-biblical or, in some cases, anti-biblical. And the Assemblies of God was saying that

38:14we will not allow these new interpretations of Scripture to dominate our movement, because it's

38:21swaying the movement in a direction that is actually away from the Bible. If you read between the

38:26lines of what's being said here, that's exactly it. Yet, at the same time, as I mentioned, this is a

38:33movement that's growing so far beyond the control of the Assemblies of God, it actually overtook the

38:41Assemblies' position against it in interpreting Scripture in a way that the movement liked that wasn't

38:50quite biblical. I'm trying to say that delicately because I know there's a lot of people that might

38:55be offended by this. The Assemblies took a position, which I may not agree with all of their doctrines,

39:01but they took a position that if you try to go outside of the Bible, you're going to end up

39:07with

39:07something that isn't the Bible. I think that's the best way to say it. Yet, the movement as a whole

39:13wanted something that wasn't the Bible. That's really what it comes down to, because if you take

39:21such priority with these spiritual utterances that the Bible takes second place, it means that you're

39:29not concerned about the Bible so much as what these new people are saying. It's exciting. It tickles the

39:35itching ears. And the Assemblies of God said, we don't want something that tickles the itching ears.

39:41We want something that is generally accepted among us. And that phrase I want to emphasize here,

39:49generally accepted among us. I've had a few people who were in the movement who talked about how

39:57they left the movement, but they would only seek after independent churches, non-denominational

40:03churches. There's a reason why those exist. Now, not all of them are a result of this. However,

40:10when the assembly split, you had the Assemblies of God, which was organized, which had a

40:16corporate that had a council that would put emphasis on things like this that really needed to be

40:25structured and implemented across all of the body of churches within the assemblies.

40:29It had a governance council. It had people who were making sure that there weren't ministers

40:35who were going down their own pathway to destruction. That's a good thing, in my opinion.

40:41But what happened was, whenever this splintered Pentecostalism, those who weren't in the assemblies

40:47went even further. And they would say that this was a foundational teaching of Lateran. The churches

40:53had grown cold and apostate because they were organized. And that organization they saw as

41:00destructive. Whenever the assemblies did this, it further emphasized that theme. In other words,

41:08we just watch what an organization can do to our movement. They tried to stop us. Therefore,

41:14organizations are evil. They're of the devil. That's the language that I grew up with. I heard it time and

41:20time again. We were so against organization that we felt like if a church had organized and they had

41:28some sort of a council of leadership that required accountability, that organizational structure

41:36was actually part of Satan's Eden. In fact, that was a phrase that we had in our loaded language,

41:42Satan's Eden. So the assemblies of God said, no, we're not going to let this happen. You must not

41:50adopt doctrines that are not generally accepted among us. If somebody's speaking a new spoken word

41:56and that spoken word has a doctrinal connotation, you can't accept that doctrine because they spoke it out

42:03of prophetic utterance or whatever they're claiming. It must be adopted by the general counsel. We must have

42:09men who understand the Bible, understand theology. And again, I'm not saying that I agree with

42:15Assemblies of God theology. I do agree with what they're trying to say here. You have a council of

42:21people who are of like mind, who study the scriptures, who know theology. And if you bring something in

42:29that is anti-biblical theology, we want the power to reject it so that it doesn't spread throughout our

42:36organization. Otherwise, how do you control the organization? If the assemblies had not done this,

42:42and they allowed these extra biblical doctrines to dominate the movement, well, how could you even

42:48call it the assemblies? It doesn't even match the doctrine of the assemblies. So they were saying,

42:53we need a way to contain it. And you can't do this. You can't go outside of what we generally

42:59accept

43:00among us. And I really liked this last resolution. It's not numbered, but it comes right after number

43:05six. It said, be it further resolved that we recommend following these things, which make for

43:12peace among us and these doctrines and practices whereby we may edify one another endeavoring to

43:19keep the unity of the spirit until we all come into the unity of faith. For me, this is probably

43:25the

43:25most powerful statement in the entire resolution. If you understand what they're saying here,

43:31they're saying that number one, above all, pursue peace, not division and hatred. If you look at what

43:39was happening in the movement, they were actually starting to hate other Christians. That was a theme

43:44that I know people have talked about the new apostolic reformation doing this today, but that was a theme

43:49back in 1949. There wasn't peace. This was a new religion that wasn't Christianity that was bringing the

43:57idea that we're not bringers of peace. We're bringers of hate because the other churches are apostate. We

44:04hate their apostate state of being. So they were saying, don't be like this, pursue peace, pursue edification.

44:14More than that, guard unity. As Christians, we need to come together. We don't need to separate. In fact,

44:21there are Bible passages that talk about those that would come and try to sever the body of Christ.

44:26That is the Antichrist. That's not a Christian way to be. And the movement was adopting the methods

44:34of Antichrist. That's really the bottom line here. Now, the assemblies did not come out that explicit and

44:40say this. But if you read between the lines and you know what the Bible says about it,

44:44what they're denouncing is the spirit of the Antichrist that was invading the movement.

44:51And they were wanting ministers to avoid anything that would fracture the fellowship. Because even if

45:01we're in disagreement, if you fracture the fellowship and you have something that is so divisive that it

45:07makes people actually hate other Christians, how can you call it Christianity? How can you hate your

45:14brother? If your brother disagrees with you, how can you hate him? In other words, their concern was not

45:20just doctrinal precision, I guess is the best way to put that. Their concern was that this thing that

45:28had invaded the assemblies of God was attacking Christianity itself. And they were asking for unity,

45:37asking for stability. And the interesting part of this, if you know the history, the movement actually

45:43saw unity and stability as evil. I grew up in a world where they would clearly denounce other

45:52Christians because they're all coming together. They're all coming together. Well, that's a good

45:56thing. That's not a bad thing. That's how people grow and develop and learn and become stronger as they

46:02come together, not divide. And the latter rain was being denounced as a movement that was dividing the

46:10body of Christ. So whenever I read this and I read that last statement, I recognize that what the

46:17assemblies of God was trying to do was very good. I'm in full agreement with it. But the problem was

46:24it

46:24had spun so far out of their control. It simply could not be stopped. What happened from here,

46:31in my opinion, was pure and utter chaos. And I still, it's fascinating to me to understand how

46:38it all unraveled and and how it all connects. But it's also sad to me to see that it was

46:45rebranded and

46:47allowed to continue. Gordon Lindsay, who is William Branham's campaign manager,

46:51was largely responsible for that, I believe. I'm still trying to unpack all of that.

46:57But Gordon Lindsay was the campaign manager. He was the editor of the Voice of Healing.

47:03When the two revivals merged, he was the Voice of Healing half and the latter rain revival eventually

47:10separated off. So the movement started to adopt these things that were denounced by the assemblies of

47:17God. But they rebranded them, they took them out. And it looks to me, and this is my opinion, this

47:25this isn't something that's clearly documented. But it looks to me like the leadership still wanted

47:31these ideas, but they wanted to do them covertly. Because the assemblies of God had denounced it,

47:36other denominations might denounce it. And this was a movement that was really growing and developing and

47:42generating a lot of revenue. If you had other denominations sanction the movement like the

47:49assemblies did, well, suddenly you've put a strong hindrance on that revenue stream. And

47:56you just simply can't separate the movement from the revenue stream. I think that's the easiest way to

48:02say this. Gordon Lindsay went on to found Christ for the Nations. But along that pathway from

48:09bladder rain to Christ for the Nations, it's almost fully documented within the Voice of Healing

48:15magazines. And you start to read through all of these ministries that were being established by

48:20Gordon Lindsay and partnering with Branham for a period of the early years. When you see these

48:27ministries being created, you see them being created with many of these ideas that the assemblies of

48:32God had denounced. Yet at the same time, some of them are assemblies of God ministers. How can that be?

48:40I have tried to separate this. And I've talked to people who had been part of assemblies of God

48:46churches who were not on the latter rain side. And some of them even still respected Branham. In fact,

48:53one of them told me that they sometimes would play Branham tapes in their church. And I'm just

49:00scratching my head thinking, how is that? The assemblies of God denounced it. But what they

49:06denounced was a movement. And they denounced all of the things that would lead to the consequences.

49:12What they did not do is explicitly state what these things mean. And so again, all of the churches

49:20within the assemblies, they were left to interpret, well, what does this mean? And some of them would

49:25interpret so loosely that they would slowly and gradually adopt some of these concepts.

49:31And the assemblies of God took a different direction. It's not that they became latter rain

49:36rebranded. But some of those churches that I'm talking about would eventually split off and form

49:43other churches that were in the apostolic networks. At the same time, you had Joseph Mattson-Bose and A.W.

49:51Rasmussen, who were two of William Branham's biggest supporters. Rasmussen had founded the

49:57Independent Assemblies of God, which had merged with the main assemblies of God. Well, once this

50:03resolution was passed, he disagreed with it. He wanted the extremism. And so he splintered his group

50:10back away from the assemblies of God. So the Independent Assemblies of God was now competing with the

50:17primary assemblies of God. And it wasn't long after that split, just a few years,

50:23that Joseph Mattson-Bose ordained Jim Jones of Jonestown, Guyana fame, as a leader in the movement.

50:32And Jones was one of the people who had, as I mentioned, he had had the impartation laying on of

50:38hands. This group did not like the idea that there needed to be a transparency and an accountability

50:48to not only the core doctrines, but even the background checks of the people. They valued the

50:53prophetic utterances and the impartations over sound doctrine and scripture and accountability.

51:01And for me, that's really where this ends up. I look at the movement today and I have to ask,

51:06did the latter rain really end? The doctrines are different. And if you study any theologian who

51:12looks at the NAR today and looks at the latter rain, what they'll tell you is that this was a

51:18result of latter rain. Latter rain developed into these ministries and now something new is here.

51:25But I argue that the framework that latter rain developed actually continued. It continued through

51:32ministries like Branham, Gordon Lindsay. These frameworks were authoritarian structures,

51:38and the men liked it. It gave them power. Some of the women liked it. It gave them power.

51:44The latter rain, in my opinion, did not end. It just simply changed containers.

51:49It wasn't defeated. It was instead redistributed across the globe. And it was rebranded in such a way that

51:57you can't really determine is this latter rain or not. What you see is just simply that they adopted

52:04the authoritarian structures. So if these patterns remain, what's going to happen now whenever this

52:12new branding starts to fail? Because it will. They're going to be churches that rise up and say,

52:18we denounce everything that New Apostolic Reformation stands for. We pass in our resolution.

52:23You can't do these things. And that's why I say that I don't think the latter rain ended. Because

52:30if such a resolution were to be passed today, it would almost be line by line what the Assemblies of

52:37God did back in 1949. That is exactly what has continued. And you can look at the New Apostolic

52:45Reformation churches. You can even look at some of the charismatic churches from the 80s, 90s.

52:53You can see that same pattern remaining all throughout time. The label died, but the logic is what

53:00survived. So hopefully this helps. There's so much that I want to say that I look at this and I

53:08see the

53:09harm it causes to people. And that's really why I wanted to talk through this, because this is a

53:15dangerous theology. Take aside all of just the problems with theology that exist with this. You

53:23can talk to your pastor about the theology. Just look at the harm that it does people. If this were

53:30a

53:31business movement and the business were establishing some sort of a framework that would harm people

53:37within that business movement, the government would actually come and shut it down. But because this is

53:43under the disguise of religion, the government has no power to shut it down. The church has to shut it

53:49down. And I think what I'm trying to say is the Assemblies did it. They tried to shut it down.

53:56We need

53:57more churches today to try to shut it down. And they need to pass resolutions that say,

54:02we do not want this anymore. We do not accept your rebranding of the new order of the latter reign.

54:10So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

54:13You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the dark side of the new apostolic

54:18reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon,

54:25Kindle, and Audible.

54:48Why?

55:15Why most people do not understand this.

The Assemblies Of God’s 1949 Warning And The Rise Of The NAR | 547

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