Inside Christ Gospel Church: A Former Insider Speaks Out | Our Stories | Harold Edwards | 561 - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

John welcomes Harold Edwards, a former member and minister within Christ’s Gospel Church, to discuss his firsthand experience inside the Jeffersonville-based group and its theological roots. Together, they explore how Christ’s Gospel developed as a splinter from Branhamism, examining strict legalism, control mechanisms, and the emphasis on hidden spiritual knowledge that shaped daily life and belief.  The conversation traces deeper connections to Latter Rain theology, manifested sons teaching, mysticism, and authoritarian leadership structures that mirror broader patterns across Pentecostal and charismatic movements. Drawing on history, scripture, and personal experience, John and Harold unpack how spiritual language can be used to enforce conformity, suppress questioning, and elevate leaders, while offering guidance to those questioning similar environments today.  00:00 Introduction 03:18 What Makes Christ Gospel Different From Biblical Christianity 07:24 Legalism, Outward Holiness, And Old Covenant Rules 14:08 Branhamism, Splinter Groups, And Extra-Biblical Teaching 20:41 Secret Knowledge, Urim And Thummim, And Mystical Interpretation 25:20 Kabbalah, Enoch, And Invented Hebrew Claims 29:21 “Summoning God” And Spiritual Warfare Practices 31:51 British Israelism And Manifested Sons Theology 34:20 Jim Jones, Cult Parallels, And The Central Figure Problem 40:20 Emotional Control, Shouting Culture, And Denying Common Sense 47:04 Jezebel Teaching, Leadership, And Sexual Brokenness 54:56 Advice For Those Questioning Christ Gospel   ______________________ 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

00:00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.

00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research

00:00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Harold Edwards, former

00:00:45member of Christ's Gospel Church.

00:00:48Harold, it's good to have you on.

00:00:50I have, I've mentioned quite a few times on the podcast, I've been wanting to get more

00:00:54people from Christ's Gospel to come forward, because that place is literally like three

00:00:58blocks from my house, right?

00:01:00And I grew up not knowing that, we knew about the Christ's Gospel people here in Jeffersonville,

00:01:05but we did not know that they were a splinter group from the Branham Church.

00:01:09And so whenever I was digging through the research and I found this, I'm scratching my head,

00:01:13thinking, wait a minute, I know these people, only they were the other ones.

00:01:17We were holier than they were in our minds, and they were holier than us in their minds,

00:01:22and so it's this weird, weird thing, and yet they're both Pentecostal groups here in Jeffersonville.

00:01:27So thank you for coming on to share your story.

00:01:30Maybe if you could start by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.

00:01:34Well, thanks for having me, and thank you for starting this podcast.

00:01:40I think at some point down the line, you'll see what work you're really doing, and I hope that,

00:01:49and I know God will definitely reward you for what you're doing.

00:01:53A little bit about me.

00:01:58I joined Christ's Gospel in about 2005.

00:02:01I took a 10-year break.

00:02:03I was in the Army, and so did I, in about 2000, I believe 16, there was a split.

00:02:16And I didn't go back to church, to the physical building after the split.

00:02:23I think a couple of us did like a little Bible study until that just fell apart.

00:02:30And I think about 2018 is when I became, like, fully into Christ's Gospel.

00:02:37I mean, for about five and a half years straight, I was in the message.

00:02:44It's so odd for me to hear you say the message, because that's what we grew up with, the message,

00:02:49and rightfully so.

00:02:50It is a splinter group of it, and I have talked to other people,

00:02:54and they have told me about the split, and they asked me,

00:02:57was anything like this happening in Branhamism?

00:03:00And my initial thought is, well, your group wouldn't exist if there wasn't such a thing.

00:03:05That's the way the nature of this religion.

00:03:07It grows, it splits, it grows, it splits, and that's why you have splinter groups all around the world.

00:03:12That's literally the nature of the beast.

00:03:14And when I say beast, I'm speaking quite literally.

00:03:18This thing was a beast.

00:03:19Maybe for those who are unaware of what is Christ's Gospel,

00:03:23maybe it would also be good if you were to explain what this is.

00:03:27How is this different from normal Christianity?

00:03:30Good question.

00:03:31And I'll do my best to explain this.

00:03:34What makes Christ's Gospel different from normal Christianity?

00:03:39Number one is what I thought was the Holy Ghost witness on how we should dress

00:03:46and how we should do, you know, how should we dress if we're on the floor

00:03:52amongst a popular congregation, how we should dress wherever we are on the platform.

00:03:58Number one thing that separates it from Christianity is legalism.

00:04:03There's the skies behind the Holy Ghost witness.

00:04:07For example, if you had a beard and you were a minister,

00:04:15the most legalistic thing that I was told was,

00:04:18if you have a beard, you cannot teach the Word of God

00:04:21because your hair will interrupt you from preaching the Word of God,

00:04:26teaching the Word of God.

00:04:31And I believe you've heard something that similar.

00:04:35Yeah, I'm laughing.

00:04:36You can tell I'm laughing.

00:04:37I'm dying to interject because, see, I did not know that this was a thing.

00:04:41I did not know that you were not supposed to have a beard.

00:04:44You look at a picture of Jesus.

00:04:46Jesus had a beard, right?

00:04:47And so I grew up, I'm like, what on earth?

00:04:50I had no idea, right?

00:04:51So I come here.

00:04:52I come to Jeffersonville.

00:04:54And it wasn't until I got married, I think, whenever I grew my first beard.

00:04:58And I'll never forget this.

00:05:00I walk around the back of the church, and I had, I'm not going to mention who,

00:05:03but I had family members that looked at me just disgusted.

00:05:06It was the first time they'd seen me with a beard.

00:05:08And they said something to the effect, you know, whenever my husband and I got married,

00:05:14I almost said the name.

00:05:15I've got to be careful.

00:05:16When my husband and I got married, he also didn't know that it was ungodly to have a beard.

00:05:22And so he grew a beard, and I waited until like 2 a.m., and I snuck in there,

00:05:28and I shaved his beard while he was sleeping.

00:05:31And he looked at it, and he laughed, and he was all proud that she had done this.

00:05:34And the other bad thing, and I'm admitting that I fell into the bad way of thinking,

00:05:41but they were very demeaning towards women.

00:05:44It was a very misogynistic cult.

00:05:46And I just looked at her straight in the eye, and I said,

00:05:50well, if my wife had done that to me, I would have put her in her place.

00:05:54And, you know, it's weird how the cult mindset thinks.

00:05:59But it wasn't until later, after I was telling somebody else about that,

00:06:03and they said, yeah, you weren't supposed to grow a beard, John.

00:06:06And I'm like, oh, my gosh, really?

00:06:08Am I going to hell because I grew a beard?

00:06:10Right, right.

00:06:13So it's not just, you know, it's not just a beard.

00:06:16You know, those are things that they're, you know, like pants, for example.

00:06:21You know, and that's, unfortunately, that's just not Christ's gospel.

00:06:24I mean, I think that's across all Pentecostal platforms,

00:06:29that pants, you know, are forbidden.

00:06:32And pants are linked towards a male garment.

00:06:36Now, in the scriptures, there are no pants in the Bible days.

00:06:40So how can that be now, a male garment, when neither one of them had pants back then?

00:06:45So, you know, it's, like I said, it's, the biggest thing was legalism.

00:06:52But it's also, and legalism is, honestly, that is witchcraft.

00:06:59Um, there's, there's no other way to look at it, you know, it's, because if you're adding

00:07:04to the scripture, you know, that's, and which God said, don't do, I mean, that is witchcraft.

00:07:11So you can't wake up one day and say, you know, we're going to dress like this, we're

00:07:16going to dress like this, we're going to dress like that.

00:07:18And then we're going to put this in the name of the Holy Ghost witness.

00:07:21And so that we scare you into doing what I want you to do.

00:07:24Yeah, the, the pants thing, I grew up in the same cult, same religion.

00:07:28I believe the same thing.

00:07:29And you're right.

00:07:30It's widespread Pentecostal faith.

00:07:32And I'll never forget the shock whenever I, one, one of the exercises I did after I left

00:07:37the cult, I read the Bible over and over just for what it said, come from book to book

00:07:41to book, just straight down chapter to chapter.

00:07:45And I came across the passage, and I'm drawing a blank where it comes from, but it's, God

00:07:50looks, does not look on the outward appearance, God looks at the heart.

00:07:53And I'm scratching my head thinking the whole religion was based on the outward appearance,

00:07:57the whole religion.

00:07:59And I, I say that because I remember every single sermon had that in it.

00:08:03You might have a different topic, but it always had that in it.

00:08:07And then I was reading, and it just suddenly hit me whenever I understood the covenants, and

00:08:13you had the old covenant, and then you had the new covenant.

00:08:16And I'm reading through the old covenant, and it's things like, don't eat shellfish.

00:08:21And I'm a person who eats shrimp.

00:08:23And I remember sitting in the sermons of ministers who were quite large, who avoided the whole

00:08:28sin of gluttony conversation.

00:08:30And they loved their shellfish, man, right?

00:08:33And so there were parts of the law that they ignored.

00:08:36And the passage that says it's a sin for a man to put on the garment that pertains to

00:08:42a woman, or vice versa, that came from the old covenant law.

00:08:46But if you keep reading, it has things in it right in that same chapter that's like, don't

00:08:51let an ox and a mule plow the ditch together.

00:08:54I mean, it's things that we don't even, we don't even adhere to today.

00:08:58But what they did, they tried to pick and choose different things.

00:09:01And in the end, it comes down to something that you said, I think you used the word witchcraft.

00:09:06But I think what you really meant is spiritualism.

00:09:08This is spiritualism 101.

00:09:11They're trying to do things themselves so they can summon God.

00:09:14It's not that Jesus is coming.

00:09:16It's that they have to summon God.

00:09:18My wife, my current wife, so funny, funny.

00:09:23When I met my wife, you know, God told me to marry outside of Christ's gospel.

00:09:29And I didn't understand why.

00:09:32So my wife comes to the church.

00:09:38And my wife was being mistreated.

00:09:42And since I still have this cult mindset, I'm not understanding why she's being mistreated.

00:09:49And sometimes I'm not even understanding the fact that she was being mistreated.

00:09:54But in fact, she was being mistreated.

00:09:57And so since I was part of the cult mindset, I misread the mistreatment.

00:10:01And so I would tell my wife things that I was taught, you know, they're doing that because God is

00:10:10looking for something in you.

00:10:11And they're treating you like this because, you know, you're treating God the same way.

00:10:18You know, those cult-like things.

00:10:22And sometimes that is true, but that is not understanding.

00:10:28And that's one of the things that I had to be delivered up to.

00:10:31And the other thing is that it was definitely a super religious.

00:10:38It's not even a word, but I'm going to use that because there is no way I can really put

00:10:43this into context without saying it was super religious because it was.

00:10:47And battling with that religious spirit, which is why most things were done out of works.

00:10:56You know, that's the way it was.

00:10:58There's this religious zeal that you have to have.

00:11:00And again, it comes back to the idea that you're summoning God.

00:11:04And I'm fascinated with ancient mythology and ancient world history.

00:11:08So when I read the ancient mythologies and I look at the way that the ancient religions tried to summon

00:11:13their gods, and they're looking at the sun, moon, and stars.

00:11:17They're looking at hidden meanings.

00:11:18You had the birth of what's called a mystery cult.

00:11:21It means basically we have the divine mystery and only our group has it.

00:11:26The others do not have the divine mystery and we're the holders of the mysteries and therefore we're the spiritual

00:11:31elite.

00:11:32Well, it brought that elitist mindset.

00:11:35And I look, I never went to Christ's Gospel Church, but I've looked on the website and just read through,

00:11:42even just skimming the about page and some of the pages about Hicks, you find out that she's, well, how

00:11:49did she phrase it?

00:11:50She phrased it sum to the effect that she was a Bible teacher emphasizing the hidden meanings of Hebrews, hidden

00:11:57meanings of the Jews.

00:11:59And what that means essentially is she's picking out the hidden meanings that were within the Old Covenant.

00:12:05And there's a problem there immediately because the Old Covenant wasn't for us.

00:12:09In fact, the book of Hebrews completely undermines that idea.

00:12:12It says we're now entered into a new covenant.

00:12:14So you've got all of these people like Hicks, like Branham, like the others I've mentioned on the podcast that

00:12:20are trying to build this secret, basically a secret society of a religion.

00:12:26And if you're part of it, you're part of the elite and you have that religious zeal that you're talking

00:12:31about.

00:12:31Oh, definitely, definitely.

00:12:35And I, you know, Lord willing, I hope we get to the point where we link her to Branham because

00:12:43I know beyond shadow of a doubt that she wanted to distance herself far away from Branham as possible.

00:12:50And I'm going to get into that a little bit later.

00:12:53So, and I know why.

00:12:55Well, and he mentions her on recording.

00:12:57So there's definitely a link.

00:12:58It's beyond a shadow of a doubt.

00:12:59What happened was, as I've been able to piece the history together, and the problem is neither group is honest

00:13:06about their histories.

00:13:07So you can't really, you can only line up the histories and look at the chronologies.

00:13:13Branham was working with the second in command of the Klan, and that whole history has been erased.

00:13:20Almost nobody knows about it.

00:13:22That, the leader, his name was Roy Davis, he was setting up a Pentecostal church here in Jeffersonville.

00:13:28And that Pentecostal church was going to, I don't know, it looks like their plans were eventually to just take

00:13:35over Pentecostalism in the state of Indiana, mainly because G.T. Haywood, who was a black minister, was spreading the

00:13:44idea of an interracial revival.

00:13:47And that obviously doesn't work well with the Klan.

00:13:49I don't know the reasons behind why he chose Pentecostal, because he was a Baptist.

00:13:53But here in Jeffersonville is Pentecostal.

00:13:56Branham erased all of this history, and he started claiming that he was instead Baptist, not Pentecostal.

00:14:01And there's one publication that the Branham organization for a long time did not print.

00:14:08They may print it now, actually, but it's called I Was Not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision.

00:14:13And Branham talks about exactly what we talked about earlier, a church split.

00:14:17He said that the, how did he, he said he had a vision, and in the vision, the tabernacle people

00:14:23would no longer eat his bread or something like this.

00:14:25And what he's describing is, these people just won't listen to him anymore.

00:14:29Well, that's about the same time that Hicks, who was, I think Branham said he was his song minister or

00:14:37piano player, something like this.

00:14:38She was teaching Sunday school for him in the Branham Tabernacle, or the Pentecostal Tabernacle, before it became the Branham

00:14:46Tabernacle.

00:14:47She split off about that same time.

00:14:49So it looks like there was a church split.

00:14:51And if I read her side of the story, it gets kind of odd, because she seems to be, she's

00:14:58wanting to do a power play.

00:14:59So you have a church split.

00:15:01Both people are wanting to have control, and neither one wants to give control.

00:15:05You're right.

00:15:06And so, biblically speaking, if Christ is the head over the man, and a man is the head over the

00:15:15woman, why are you in control of men?

00:15:19And that's normal.

00:15:21If you look at her history, nothing is linked to Branham.

00:15:26Nothing is.

00:15:27But I know that you were two, you two were together.

00:15:30And I found something else that was odd, that I know she was married, but there is no history.

00:15:37There is no history of her husband linked to her.

00:15:39Nowhere.

00:15:40I can't find this obituary.

00:15:44I think I looked it up one time, and I found his name.

00:15:48But if you put in who was her husband today, AI can't even tell you who he was.

00:15:54If you are teaching an organization that they have to be married to be pastors, but you are single because

00:16:03you're a widow, and the jury is still out on how your husband died.

00:16:09Because, like I said, I can't find an obituary.

00:16:12And that's a mystery to me, that in all of your documents, and we know you were married at one

00:16:18point, your husband is nowhere to be found.

00:16:21Now, with that being said, it makes me look at the spiritual aspect behind what she has done.

00:16:29Since we know what God's natural order is, and you clearly violated that by being a single woman in charge

00:16:38of an organization that big, and the spirit of Jazz Bill not attached to it.

00:16:44Because we know what Jazz Bill stood for, and now, since you look at what Jazz Bill stood for in

00:16:51the Old Testament, and then we look at what you're doing now.

00:16:57Well, not now, because, you know, obviously she's no longer here, but what she has done now is that she

00:17:04has an organization that's being ran in, and nobody can pass.

00:17:07You can't even be a youth pastor without being married.

00:17:11Now, you're leading an organization while also being a hypocrite.

00:17:16And nothing under you is supposed to challenge that authority.

00:17:21Nothing.

00:17:21You know, and it gets even stranger.

00:17:23I've gone through the history, and I don't want to distract from your story too much, but just to follow

00:17:28up, and then we'll go back to the women, because this actually is a pivot point that leads you back

00:17:32there.

00:17:33You're right, the way that the religion has framed the hierarchy of the male and the female, her being a

00:17:40leader just doesn't fit at all.

00:17:42Yet, whenever Branham's campaign manager, Gordon Lindsay, left him, and he's trying to rebuild his new campaign, Jim Jones of

00:17:52People's Temple became a leader who's sponsoring Branham's meetings.

00:17:56I don't know if you know that history or not.

00:17:58It was during that time she actually meets Branham.

00:18:02It's 1956.

00:18:04In fact, I pulled it up so I could read through it, but he talks about Sister Hicks, who used

00:18:09to be a Sunday school teacher here at the Tabernacle.

00:18:12I met her and her husband, and what's funny is he says, I met a name that you won't know,

00:18:17Ben Bryant, who went out from this Tabernacle out there to fellowship with them.

00:18:22I did not know Ben Bryant personally.

00:18:24Unfortunately, I knew of him because my family knew him well, and this was a crazy guy.

00:18:29He was literally crazy, but he was fellowshipping both churches and apparently went from the Branham Church out to the

00:18:35Hicks Church.

00:18:36So they were still, as late as 1956, in some sort of a collaboration.

00:18:40Now, how far that goes and how you do this, because seemingly she split off from him,

00:18:47but the one thing that I've learned is a church split in this movement is not what it appears to

00:18:53be in all cases.

00:18:54In some cases, it's more advantageous for the church to split because now you have two bodies of people with

00:19:00two separate sets of revenue.

00:19:02And if you're looking at it from an authoritarian perspective, now you've got two big bodies of people that can

00:19:07now grow and you can govern those people.

00:19:09So a church split isn't always because, from the public appearance, it looks like they're at odds with each other,

00:19:17but it's not necessarily the case in all instances.

00:19:20This message is built with so much mixture.

00:19:25That is ridiculous.

00:19:26Now, even the Bible teaches against—I'm just going to bring up this point, I'm going to move back to this—

00:19:30but even the Bible teaches against astrology.

00:19:33But now you're telling me I can be holy and be an Aquarius.

00:19:36You know, I can be, you know, a Christian and still be and still believe in astrology.

00:19:43I can still believe in the stars.

00:19:44No, you can't.

00:19:46So much of this message is mixed with so many things.

00:19:51It's the same thing that happened in the garden.

00:19:53And so what happens is that they'll give you a lot of truth, but they'll mix in so many other

00:20:00things.

00:20:02And then you'll get—and so I like what they—now, this is—I like what they did with this one.

00:20:09They said, if you don't understand something, put it on the shelf.

00:20:12Now, that actually became a problem because the problem is I did put it on the shelf.

00:20:17And now since I put it on the shelf, now when I go back and study what you told me

00:20:23to put on the shelf,

00:20:25it comes to now with the detriment of this message because, for example, I'm not going to say what preacher.

00:20:32I'm not going to call him by name, but he is the lead preacher in ministry.

00:20:35I remember he preached a message, and he was talking about Ephesians, the fourth chapter,

00:20:41and how we should endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit of peace.

00:20:47And he said that the unity of the spirit of peace means to lie and wait.

00:20:52That is completely false.

00:20:54When you look up endeavor, it means to be diligent.

00:20:59It means to be quickly to restore peace.

00:21:01It does not mean lie and wait for an opportunity.

00:21:03No, it means quickly to restore peace.

00:21:06And so these are some of the things that are being taught that is completely false.

00:21:11And so you have people in there, and I know that somebody else mentioned to you the Kutalini spirit on

00:21:18this podcast,

00:21:19and that's exactly what it was.

00:21:21You have this false Holy Ghost witness that's bearing the false witness to complete lies.

00:21:27And so when I left this message, I also needed to be delivered from this Kutalini spirit.

00:21:34You know, one of the things that you've mentioned a few times is the Holy Ghost witness.

00:21:37And to somebody, this is loaded language for the Christ gospel.

00:21:41We didn't even have it in Branhamism.

00:21:43Maybe if you could talk a little bit about what that is to somebody who's unfamiliar with this.

00:21:47The Holy Ghost witness, reversed back to the Old Testament,

00:21:53Ephah, the Urim and Tumi.

00:21:56What they teach is that one is the Word witness, one is the Spirit witness.

00:22:01There is no need for that.

00:22:04There's no need for Urim and Tumi.

00:22:06We have the Holy Ghost.

00:22:08There's no need for it.

00:22:09And so they have a witness room, a Holy Ghost witness room, that is dedicated to tell, you know, people

00:22:19about themselves,

00:22:22where their strengths of weaknesses are, and the spirits around.

00:22:26Now, my issue with this is, is that I know now that those are monitoring spirits.

00:22:33I'm not impressed by you knowing my past, because the enemy knows that already.

00:22:41I'm not impressed by you telling me something that you think is going to happen in the future, because I

00:22:47do have a relationship with God.

00:22:49All you can do is confirm or go against what he's told me already because of my relationship.

00:22:56Now, they, look, all right, let me stay on topic with the Holy Ghost witness.

00:23:00I'm trying to prevent her off.

00:23:02So, in a sense, that's what the Holy Ghost witness is, is coming from the Old Testament, which we don't

00:23:07even use anymore, the Urim and Tumi, because since Jesus came and died and sent the Holy Ghost, there is

00:23:15no need for Urim and Tumi, because the Holy Ghost is that.

00:23:18That's, we no longer have to go put on the ephod and acquire the mind of God, like David had

00:23:24to do.

00:23:28The irony of all of this is, it would be much more than I could do in a podcast, and

00:23:33I don't even have the skills to do it.

00:23:35I'd have to bring somebody else on, but just to simply explain the culture of the ancient Jews, and you

00:23:42really need to understand that culture to defy what these people like Hicks are doing.

00:23:46Because what essentially they're doing, they're taking the most obscure passages from the Old Testament, the ones that you can't

00:23:52plainly read, and they're saying, I have the mystery.

00:23:54I know what this is.

00:23:56And the, we called it Urim and Thummim, because of Branham's Kentucky English.

00:24:02I don't know which is correct, actually, but it's basically, it was the, it was the, what was it, the

00:24:07gems, I think, in the breastplate of the high priest.

00:24:11And what this was, biblically speaking, you know, and there may have been more to it that we don't know,

00:24:17but biblically speaking, it was a sacred way to cast lots.

00:24:21And if you understand what that is, they, casting lots would be, you would take, you take something like sticks

00:24:28or something, throw them down and see who had the longest one.

00:24:30And it was essentially to make a decision when nobody could make a decision, right?

00:24:34Well, in religious matters, you had to have a sacred way to do this, because for me, for you and

00:24:39me, it would be like, let's flip a coin.

00:24:41That's how you would say casting a lot.

00:24:42Let's flip a coin and see who goes.

00:24:45Well, they're doing that kind of thing, but it's a religious thing.

00:24:48Because of the way that the passage is written so obscured, it sounds as though they've got, I don't know

00:24:55if you're a sci-fi fan, it's like they've got some ancient alien technology in the breastplate, right?

00:24:59And that's what she's doing, she's trying to mix, in fact, I think this edges towards Kabbalah.

00:25:05She's trying to, she's trying to take Kabbalistic ideas, if that's the correct pronunciation, inject it into Christianity and say,

00:25:13I have the secret mystery, and oh, by the way, everybody in the Kabbalah religions teach the same kind of

00:25:19things.

00:25:19So, no, you're right.

00:25:21So, it is Kabbalism, mixed with a little bit of Greek mythology, mixed with what you said about the Old

00:25:28Testament, and mixed with books of the Bible that you told your people not to even read.

00:25:36So, a lot of the stuff that she talks about is actually the Book of Enoch, which you said don't

00:25:41read because you used a scary tactic to say, if you read the Book of Enoch, you're going to be

00:25:45visited by prehistoric spirits.

00:25:47How is it that a lot of your teachings come from a book that you said don't read?

00:25:52You have a book that is called The Missing Link that came from books of the Bible that you said

00:25:58don't read.

00:26:01With this Greek mythology stuff, that goes back to the things that were taught about.

00:26:07You taught about characters like Mother Wicked and Father Wicked.

00:26:11These people aren't in Scripture anywhere.

00:26:14You can't even find a Hebrew name for these characters.

00:26:18Anywhere.

00:26:20And then you say stuff like, put this on the shelf.

00:26:22I cannot put divination on the shelf.

00:26:24I can't.

00:26:27And so, it's sad to me because I remember being on Facebook when I was, because I don't have a

00:26:33Facebook account anymore, but when I was in Christ's Gospel, I remember this poor young lady was studying and needed

00:26:42help.

00:26:42And she posted in Christ's Gospel's chat and she said, I was studying these Hebrew words and I cannot find

00:26:51where Reverend has got an answer from.

00:26:54And another pastor, I'm not going to call his name, he came and said, oh, that's because Reverend Hitchin studied

00:26:58ancient Hebrew.

00:27:01Now, you should have told the truth.

00:27:05The blue letter Bible is written in Hebrew's original language.

00:27:10It's not that she can't find it.

00:27:12It doesn't exist.

00:27:13I mean, you can't find it if you look for it.

00:27:15Why don't you just tell the truth?

00:27:18And so, since I was also a minister in this message, I taught some of the foolishness that I'm talking

00:27:23about today, which is why I'm really so upset about it.

00:27:27It's because, you know, I mean, at some point, I'm probably going to go publicly and actually openly repent for

00:27:35some of the people that I taught in the era.

00:27:37But there was so much mixture in this message that it is nauseating.

00:27:45There is so much that it has nothing to do with the word God whatsoever.

00:27:49Like, there's going to be eight more creations after us.

00:27:53That's not in Scripture.

00:27:55I understand the book of Ezekiel is still not have yet not fulfilled itself.

00:28:00Some of the food that was taught came from the fallen angels because that just doesn't exist.

00:28:07Like, I don't even care if it's true.

00:28:08If God didn't give it to you, don't speak it because he said don't add or take away from the

00:28:12word.

00:28:12But that's what you're doing.

00:28:14Yeah.

00:28:15You know, it's really interesting when you see how this movement developed.

00:28:19You've got the Latter Rain movement, which sprung late 1947.

00:28:24What happened two years right before this, that's whenever they discovered the caves, the Nagamai scrolls, we have the Dead

00:28:32Sea Scrolls, etc.

00:28:33Those did not get republished until later.

00:28:36But there were people who went there because, oh, my gosh, we've got all the secret knowledge that now, if

00:28:41you're in a mystery cult, this is like the gold mine, man.

00:28:44You've got the gold mine for the secret knowledge.

00:28:46And they went back to book – Branham went to – there was a fragment of the book of Noah

00:28:51that said that Noah and Enoch walked together and Noah's life on – or Enoch's life on earth was 500

00:28:58years.

00:28:59And he repeated this over and over throughout his ministry.

00:29:03I'm reading the Bible and I'm seeing 365 years.

00:29:07And I'm like, where did he get that from?

00:29:08I finally found out he's doing that.

00:29:10He's going to those ancient scrolls that aren't biblical, if you study their history.

00:29:16And he's not the only one doing it.

00:29:18So I think what happened is there was a collaborative effort among many of the different people to say, now

00:29:24we have the ultimate mysteries.

00:29:26We can summon God.

00:29:27We can bring heaven down.

00:29:29Let's do it.

00:29:30And they got together and they tried to do it.

00:29:32What I don't yet know, was it a sinister plot or did they really think that they could summon God?

00:29:37And I go back and forth on what that is.

00:29:40No, you're right to go back and forth on what it is.

00:29:43And so that's one other thing that Christ's gospel does, too.

00:29:45And they'll say, you know, that they're doing spiritual warfare.

00:29:50We know that the name of Jesus is above all names and every knee shall bow and confess that Jesus

00:29:56Christ is Lord.

00:29:57There is no need to chant the Father's name over and over.

00:30:00That is summoning God.

00:30:01And that's the – I'm glad you did that.

00:30:04And it must have been God to bring that back to your memory because we had left that subject.

00:30:07And I was going to ask you about that because, you know, a light did go off when you said

00:30:12they're summoning God.

00:30:13And that's exactly what's going on.

00:30:15Here, once again, I used to be in charge of some of these spiritual warfare prayer meetings.

00:30:24I wasn't even aware that I was trying to summon God.

00:30:28And so, you know, I'm up there, you know, spelling the Father's name.

00:30:34Yud-Heh-Vah-Heh.

00:30:50Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter

00:30:58reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

00:31:04You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.

00:31:11On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,

00:31:19John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

00:31:25You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.

00:31:31If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the

00:31:38top.

00:31:38And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or

00:31:44watching.

00:31:45On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

00:31:50As you were talking, I got to thinking, I haven't fully dissected Bernice Hicks sermons, but I have actually listened

00:31:57to and watched quite a few of them.

00:32:00And what I'm learning is the Christian identity framework, more specifically the British Israel, but there were elements of also

00:32:07Christian identity.

00:32:08That was augmenting her teaching.

00:32:11She was coming up with different things that you can only get from British Israel or from the Christian identity.

00:32:18One of the things is the manifested sons of God, which was widespread throughout latter rain.

00:32:23She was teaching that.

00:32:24You as a minister, how far did you go in that?

00:32:27Did you actually teach the Joel's Army theology or did you stop at just simply manifested sons?

00:32:32No, I never even taught that.

00:32:34And it's amazing you asked me that question.

00:32:38And I thank God that he did shield me away from a lot of things.

00:32:42Even though I was there teaching and preaching for five years, he sealed me away from so much.

00:32:46And I will always be more than grateful for that.

00:32:49So I never got to reach that because I studied a lot on my own way.

00:32:54I never really brought up a bunch of Reverend Hicks notes to the pulpit.

00:33:00No, I never did that.

00:33:01But I know plenty of preachers who preach nothing but her notes.

00:33:05And I always thought that was mind-boggling.

00:33:08You didn't study anything on your own.

00:33:09You just got to get up here and flip through a bunch of her page notes and say, you know,

00:33:14this is the word of God.

00:33:15But no, I never did that, thank God.

00:33:18So I cannot speak to that extent because I never did that.

00:33:23God was just with me.

00:33:26I do know what you're talking about as far as a light of rain and a manifest the signs of

00:33:30God.

00:33:31That is a real teaching there.

00:33:32And that is definitely popular because they do teach that.

00:33:39And when Jesus comes back, we have to be manifest the signs of God that we're not going.

00:33:45That is a real teaching.

00:33:49I would not teach that because God wouldn't allow me to, but that is a real teaching, a real teaching.

00:33:56Now, the Bible does say that he gave us a power to be sons of God.

00:33:59He never said I'm manifest the son of God.

00:34:02That would be equivalent to me.

00:34:04That would be equivalent to me calling myself Jesus.

00:34:06I need to be Jesus when he comes back.

00:34:08That would never happen because if I had to be Jesus, why would he say being confident in this very

00:34:14thing that he had which begun a good work and he will perform to the day of Jesus Christ?

00:34:18Why would he say that if I had to be him?

00:34:20You know, that's one of the things that really hit me hard because I was asked to do a research

00:34:26article paper for the Jonestown Institute.

00:34:29And I've actually done almost every year.

00:34:32I did not do one last year, but a research into how Jim Jones was tied to this movement.

00:34:38One of them, it was the most difficult thing I ever had to do, but I actually had to go

00:34:43through and listen to the death tapes.

00:34:45This is when all of the people from people's temple, they went to Jonestown, Guyana, and they committed mass suicide.

00:34:52And they have audio tapes of this.

00:34:54It's horrific.

00:34:55As I'm listening to those audio tapes, I'm starting to hear things that I heard in church.

00:35:00And it just made me sick to my stomach because we were in the same type of movement.

00:35:05We just did not realize it.

00:35:07And so I started to go back through some of his earlier sermons and try to piece together, well, how

00:35:13far did this go, right?

00:35:14And suddenly I come across the statement, he is making it.

00:35:17And I'm paraphrasing greatly, but he says something to the fact, I'm a manifested son.

00:35:21You're a manifested son.

00:35:23My manifestation is just a little bit higher than yours.

00:35:26That's exactly the way it works in this movement.

00:35:29The central figure has a higher manifestation.

00:35:31And then each person underneath has a different level of manifestation.

00:35:36And it changes the dynamics of what they believe when they summon God.

00:35:40If you really follow that out to its logical conclusion, the manifestation of the central figure is such that they

00:35:48become the God.

00:35:49And there's this weird union.

00:35:51We would talk about the mystical union of the Bride of Christ.

00:35:54I never really thought about it.

00:35:56But that mystical union that they're talking about really is that God is coming down in the leader.

00:36:02And the leader is still human, but the leader becomes God before the people.

00:36:05And that's their highest level of manifestation.

00:36:09The people under it, they're achieving also levels of manifestation.

00:36:13But they can never make that final leap to become like the God because there's only one God.

00:36:18And that's the central figure.

00:36:19Once I understood that, and I'm listening to these people who are literally giving their lives for their religion, I

00:36:26became so sick I almost couldn't finish the article.

00:36:28I did, but it was really hard.

00:36:31And to think that that has grown into what became the New Apostolic Reformation today.

00:36:37You've got people who are teaching this manifested sons of God theology widespread throughout the United States and abroad.

00:36:44And it all comes back down to this that we're talking about.

00:36:47This is summoning God, but summoning it into a human.

00:36:52Good Lord.

00:36:53And I know that had to be hard, man.

00:36:57I couldn't imagine researching that and not trying and not just bawling out in tears to see what's really going

00:37:05on.

00:37:05I couldn't imagine doing that and not fall to pieces.

00:37:10But, no, it's difficult.

00:37:14To know that and to have been a part of that and to know that there are so many good

00:37:20people that are still there.

00:37:22And all I can do, for the most part, is pray that God will open their eyes and just walk

00:37:27away.

00:37:29But that is definitely a real thing there.

00:37:35I know because I was told that.

00:37:37See, this is what they do.

00:37:39They don't tell you that we're summoning God.

00:37:44They don't tell you that.

00:37:45They do what Satan did in the beginning.

00:37:48They'll tell you the truth, but not the consequences of what you're doing.

00:37:54You know, kind of like what Satan did.

00:37:57You know, he told Adam and Eve the truth.

00:37:59You know, when you eat of this forbidden fruit, you're going to be, your eyes are going to be, you're

00:38:04going to be, they're going to become like God.

00:38:05You're going to know the difference between good and evil.

00:38:07Now, he told them the complete truth, but didn't tell them the consequences of eating this fruit.

00:38:13And just like what's going on in the message, they don't know the consequences of what they're eating.

00:38:20And it saddens me because everybody there thinks that they're part of the 144,000.

00:38:25The 144,000 don't even know who they are.

00:38:27You know, you said something that I've been trying to frame into a thought.

00:38:32In fact, I intend to do a full podcast on it at some point.

00:38:35But the idea of the original sin, Branham twisted what was the original sin.

00:38:40For us, we believed it was sex between Eve and the serpent, which created two bloodlines, which is Christian identity.

00:38:46The irony of that is I'm seeing Hicks teaching Christian identity.

00:38:49So at some point, she had that doctrine.

00:38:51It also had the Zodiac things in it.

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