- 2 days ago
John and Pia examine the financial machinery behind the New Apostolic Reformation, tracing how celebrity pastor culture, prosperity messaging, fear-based retention, volunteer burnout, and constant fundraising cycles keep modern revival networks moving. The conversation connects Che Ahn, Lou Engle, Sean Feucht, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Rick Joyner, and other major figures to a larger system of churches, conferences, networks, youth movements, political ambitions, and donor pipelines.
Rather than focusing only on individual personalities, John and Pia analyze how the system itself rewards stage personas, spiritual pressure, exaggerated miracle claims, and financial loyalty. The discussion also connects modern NAR patterns to earlier revival movements, including Latter Rain, the Shepherding Movement, John Wimber, Take and Give, and the postwar healing revival that helped shape today's charismatic empire-building structure.
00:00 Introduction
02:54 Pia calls N.A.R. a money-making machine
05:27 Information control and hidden history
08:03 Ché Ahn and apostolic empires
12:33 How the networks connect to older movements
18:10 Lou Engle, The Call, and The Send
21:24 Good people inside destructive systems
25:22 Six ways the machine keeps turning
26:35 Prosperity messaging and miracle promises
32:41 Celebrity pastor culture
33:12 Constant fundraising cycles
34:37 Volunteer labor and burnout
37:29 Fear-based retention
40:28 Prosperity leaders and financial examples
43:20 Historical cogs that protect the system
45:22 Property, wealth, and hidden money
47:13 Pia’s personal observations
52:00 Recruitment of younger leaders
54:40 Why exploiting the vulnerable is different
______________________
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
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– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Rather than focusing only on individual personalities, John and Pia analyze how the system itself rewards stage personas, spiritual pressure, exaggerated miracle claims, and financial loyalty. The discussion also connects modern NAR patterns to earlier revival movements, including Latter Rain, the Shepherding Movement, John Wimber, Take and Give, and the postwar healing revival that helped shape today's charismatic empire-building structure.
00:00 Introduction
02:54 Pia calls N.A.R. a money-making machine
05:27 Information control and hidden history
08:03 Ché Ahn and apostolic empires
12:33 How the networks connect to older movements
18:10 Lou Engle, The Call, and The Send
21:24 Good people inside destructive systems
25:22 Six ways the machine keeps turning
26:35 Prosperity messaging and miracle promises
32:41 Celebrity pastor culture
33:12 Constant fundraising cycles
34:37 Volunteer labor and burnout
37:29 Fear-based retention
40:28 Prosperity leaders and financial examples
43:20 Historical cogs that protect the system
45:22 Property, wealth, and hidden money
47:13 Pia’s personal observations
52:00 Recruitment of younger leaders
54:40 Why exploiting the vulnerable is different
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
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, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Pia Hugo, former sister-in-law
00:46of Cheon, a super-apostle of NAR, and a missionary to the Philippines.
00:52Pia, it's good to have you on and to talk about the system.
00:55We briefly mentioned it last time, and actually we mentioned it a lot last time, but I think
01:03people don't understand how complex the system is.
01:06When we talk about system and you're talking about church, most people think theology, but
01:12there are so many different aspects of the system that you have to think about.
01:16There's the entertainment, there's the money, there's the religion, there's the effects,
01:23there's the music, there's all of these different things in the system.
01:26And for me, I get really shocked about just the money.
01:30I grew up in a world where we were trained to believe, because he said it, that Branham
01:37was one of the initiators of this revival.
01:39He was the foremost leader of it, and he had given himself the stage persona of a very
01:45poor Kentucky hillbilly.
01:47None of it was true, but he would say things like, I've never taken an offering in my entire
01:52life.
01:53And I found newspaper articles where they're carrying suitcases of money out of the
01:58revivals, right?
01:59And I'm scratching my head thinking, how can that be?
02:01But the kicker for me, I heard a recording that they forgot to edit out, apparently, and
02:10it had William Branham in it, but he was being introduced by Franklin Hall.
02:15Branham and Hall are the two men that basically were the catalysts for latter rain.
02:20And Franklin Hall says, what are you going to start with, Brother Branham?
02:23And William says, I don't know.
02:26And then he cuts him off and says, money.
02:28You're going to start with money, right?
02:31And it's right there, place day, on recording.
02:34That was it.
02:35The focus was money.
02:37But that has lost the time.
02:39Not many people know it because the system has changed.
02:42They want to kind of conceal the money part, and they want to show the religious part.
02:47And to do that, you have to have a stage persona part.
02:50So let's talk deeper about the system.
02:53Yes, let's do that, John.
02:55I am so happy to be back with you.
02:58And I call it, I call the NAR system a well-oiled money-making machine.
03:07That's what it is.
03:09And the fact that so many Christians do not talk about the money-making aspect of this system,
03:19it almost shocks me, you know, because it is such a huge part.
03:29And when somebody gets caught red-handed, I mean, that's funny what you just said about William being caught red
03:38-handed.
03:39Like, there you go.
03:40And you would think that people would start to be like, oh, wait, wait a minute.
03:45Did he just say money?
03:46This is about money?
03:49Like, there's this guy named Sean Foyt.
03:52Maybe you've heard of him.
03:55And, you know, he's very famous.
03:59Definitely got a lot of notoriety in 2020, right, when he was defying all these COVID lockdown rules.
04:08And he was just going from state to state to state.
04:14And he was having these open-air, you know, concerts, worship concerts.
04:19And what people don't realize was that he made millions.
04:24Well, most people were worried about, hey, do I still have a job after COVID?
04:31I mean, honestly, for me as a high school teacher, that was my last year, my last full year teaching.
04:40I finally retired in 2021 because, you know, like there were so many budget cuts.
04:49And there were so many, you know, really awful economic effects of COVID that, you know, a lot of people
05:00did lose their jobs.
05:01But meanwhile, here's Sean Foyt, he's raking in the money because you've got all these, you know, Gnar, youth brainwashed,
05:15you know, like movements going on.
05:21And there was nobody calling it out back then, at least not that I know of.
05:27And that's one of the common threads that most people who are impacted by this, they all get that notion.
05:34Nobody's calling it out, right?
05:35We see all these people.
05:37If this massive group of people are following it, it must be of God.
05:40But the problem is you have to look back at Dr. Stephen Hassan's bite model of authoritarian control.
05:48Behavioral control, information control, thought control, thought manipulation, emotional manipulation, emotion control.
05:56The information control is key.
05:58There were actually people that have been calling this out before it was even the post-World War II healing
06:04revival that birthed all of this that we're talking about.
06:07But when you're in the movement, anything that is critical is omitted from the history.
06:13And anything that is positive is the only history you're given.
06:17And that's truly that's information control.
06:19I was a little surprised when I went back in history and found that not only were people calling out
06:25everything that was the origins of the New Apostolic Reformation, it actually caused a split in the assemblies of God
06:32so wide that there were basically there were two assemblies of God.
06:36There was one that supported the revival themes, the revival healing evangelists, et cetera, the latter reign.
06:44And then there was the other side that frowned upon it and said, this is getting out of control.
06:49And those who were saying this is getting out of control, if you look at the history and look at
06:55what happened after latter reign, it seems like they lost the battle.
06:58That's really what happened here.
07:00So this is kind of a big deal.
07:03And I look at this whole thing a little bit differently.
07:07Bob Scott and I, we often talk about, we throw these terms around, but one of them is it's like
07:13Game of Thrones.
07:13This is a game of these empires.
07:15These people are building kingdoms instead of churches.
07:19That's really the problem.
07:21And because of the New Apostolic Reformation's networking scheme, each one of these empires are connected to each other.
07:30And, you know, Che On's just one of many empires in the New Apostolic Reformation.
07:34He may have one of the larger empires.
07:37I don't know.
07:38But because of his empire, other empires can exist.
07:41And this flow of information, this flow of, or I guess I should say this limiting of information, but the
07:49flow of the doctrines is the key point.
07:52These doctrines flow through these networks, and these empires support each other.
07:57And so understanding the empires is very critical to understanding how all of this works.
08:02So I'm just going to describe their empires, for lack of a better word.
08:12Each one of them are actually the kings of their own little kingdoms, if I can describe it that way.
08:23So let's start with Che.
08:25Che started Harvest Rock Church in 1994, along with his buddy Lou Engel.
08:32And other NAR pastors.
08:35And in 1996, he launched HIM, or Harvest International Ministries.
08:43And in his own words, he started it because he received a word of the Lord from respected prophet Cindy
08:54Jacobs.
08:55Because, you know, if Cindy Jacobs says it's going to happen to you, it's going to happen to you.
09:00So because of what she said, he started HIM.
09:07And Cindy Jacobs said he would be the father of an entirely new movement, a network of networks created to
09:19train and raise up the last day leaders.
09:23A lot of people outside of NAR don't even know who he is.
09:28They've never heard of him.
09:29But he is quite famous, quite successful.
09:36And, I mean, I think that's why he's so confident that he's going to win the governorship of California.
09:45Even though, may I add, he's not on the ballot.
09:49And people ask me this all the time.
09:52Like, how can he even be the governor if he's not on the ballot?
09:57Well, let me tell you, there's this thing called write-in.
10:00So all you have to do is write in his name.
10:04And I heard him say, you know, I was listening to one of his campaign programs and he's like, it's
10:09only six letters.
10:11C-H-E-H-A-N.
10:13So easy to write in his name.
10:18And, yeah.
10:19So there you go.
10:21Oh, and you might ask, well, why is his name not on the ballot?
10:28Because, apparently, he missed the deadline for turning in his last five income tax returns.
10:37The last five years of his income tax returns.
10:40His campaign manager, whom I know personally, just, oh, my gosh, she forgot and she missed the deadline.
10:49Like, really, do you forget something like that?
10:53I don't know.
10:54Or maybe, maybe he doesn't want people to look at his tax returns.
11:00I mean, I don't know.
11:02It's my opinion.
11:03And that's just my opinion.
11:04But he probably does not want even to be governor.
11:08But if you talk a big talk, you play a big game, you attract a lot of people.
11:12That's part of the system.
11:13That's one little wheel that's spinning in the system.
11:15And then, when you don't get it, you still use that as part of the system.
11:20The devil was out to get us.
11:22Oh, yeah.
11:23Oh, yeah.
11:24Well, because it was Cheyenne who went against these COVID rules and sued Governor Newsom, you know.
11:32And he won.
11:34He won.
11:36I don't know how many millions of dollars he won from the state of California.
11:41So, now, yeah, that is what he's saying.
11:43He's saying, well, they didn't want me to, you know, to run for office because, you know, I am the
11:51one bringing in God's, you know, like, strategies for California, blah, blah, blah.
11:58And, yeah, you're absolutely right.
12:01When he was disqualified from running, he had already amassed something like $850,000 in campaign, you know, funds.
12:15And some people were asking, what are you going to do with that money?
12:19And, you know, are you going to give it back to your donors?
12:23And he said, oh, no, don't you worry about that.
12:26I am still going to keep fighting this fight.
12:29So, all right.
12:31There you go.
12:33And I want to point out how important all of this is to my research.
12:37And all of it is interconnected more than people realize.
12:40Whenever you start to connect the dots, you start to see that it's not really something new that's being created.
12:46This is just an emerging, evolving mess that came from the latter rain movement, post-World War II healing revival.
12:53And even that mess came from other messes in the past that I've examined some of these.
13:00But Cheyenne is strongly connected to Larry Tomczak, which I've briefly mentioned before.
13:06I'm still digging into a lot of what happened with Tomczak, but I have mentioned him.
13:11I'll pull up a newspaper article here.
13:13This is an advertisement for Cheyenne.
13:17It's asking, can a young Oriental American son of a Baptist minister from Baltimore, Maryland,
13:22successfully find his place in life?
13:25That's how he's being advertised.
13:26And it says, Chey is a Bible teacher at both Gathering of Believers and TAG, which is important.
13:32We're going to go a little bit deeper with this TAG in the course of this podcast series.
13:37But TAG, which is Take and Give Christian Ministries in Washington, D.C.
13:44That's another focal point that we're getting into.
13:46A lot of this has to do with politics, and you're going to find a lot of what we're talking
13:50about
13:50heading directly towards Washington, D.C.
13:53It says he has returned from a speaking engagement and a seminar, a teaching seminar, at Louisiana
13:59State University.
14:00So when you know all of these people, how they're interconnected, know their business organizations,
14:07how those are connected, it gets a little bit weird.
14:10Because some of the people are, you might consider, good Christian men.
14:16Some you might consider, well, that's not really a good person they're with.
14:20And I'm still trying to determine and distinguish which is which and all of this mess that I'm
14:26waiting through.
14:27But Take and Give was, Larry Tomczak was a big part of this Take and Give in Washington,
14:34D.C.
14:34It was a large, charismatic teaching and worship meeting that was held in Washington, D.C.
14:41I think it was during the 70s, if I remember correctly.
14:44But anyway, Tomczak was a big part of this.
14:47Tomczak and C.J.
14:48Mahaney, they were leaders in this.
14:50So they were connected directly to Che On, where it gets a little bit odd in my research.
14:57Everybody is familiar with my trail of research up to John Wember through the shepherding movement.
15:04I've had quite a few podcasts and discussions on that.
15:08There was a point in time in which the shepherding movement, which is another name for this is
15:13discipling, which Tomczak was a big part of.
15:16The shepherding movement was coming under exposure for its authoritarian control structures,
15:23widespread abuse.
15:24There's so many problems with this.
15:26In fact, you can just go to Wikipedia and type in shepherding movement, and you can see all
15:31of the many, many problems that you can just see.
15:34This is not a good Christian structure, and it's dangerous.
15:37Well, there was a point in time.
15:39John Wember was involved with key figures in this.
15:51John Wember is one of a few names who were trying to bring unity to all of the church leaders,
15:58which included the shepherding.
16:00And he's actually advertised on the shepherding magazine, New Wine magazine, shepherding publication.
16:07So he is supportive, at least, and he's working with many of these people in these revival events.
16:14So he is connected to people like C.J. Mahaney, which I've discussed that in the past.
16:20I've also got, you know, if you look at this New Wine cover, you've got Kenneth Copeland,
16:24you've got John Jimenez, Charles Simpson, Simpson being one of the founders of the shepherding movement.
16:29So this is bringing unity to an authoritarian structure.
16:32That's the key point I want to emphasize here.
16:36And if you realize that the shepherding movement was spawning off all of these different people
16:43with this discipling theme, and then understand the authoritarian control structures in NAR,
16:50you begin to understand that this was really the framework that developed what enabled NAR.
16:56It's not that NAR is the shepherding movement or a continuation of it,
16:59but they used the framework of authoritarian control, which is disgusting.
17:03If you really dig under the hood and look at what it is.
17:08Well, Tom Zak was also, if you, I'm pulling up another magazine.
17:13This is his publication, and it's got a big advertisement for a pastor's conference.
17:19Planned to be there March 17th through 21, 1987 in Washington, D.C. area.
17:25And it's got pictures of various people, including Larry Tom Zak and C.J. Mahaney.
17:31These people are mobilizing what was being described.
17:36John Wimbers were exactly where we're building an army.
17:39Well, it gets odd when you think that that army was being mobilized and mobilized in Washington, D.C.,
17:46especially when you consider the political themes that have emerged in the New Apostolic Reformation.
17:52Che On is just one component.
17:54He's one cog in this big system, this big engine that's spinning NAR.
17:59He's just one cog.
18:00But those cogs connect directly to Washington, D.C., down to your local churches,
18:04all spread through this New Apostolic Reformation apostolic network framework.
18:10Okay, next is Lou Engel.
18:13Now, mind you, I still have a lot of respect for Lou.
18:19When I was going through my divorce, he actually showed me compassion, you know, him and his wife.
18:27And so I think as a person, I can't really say anything bad about Lou or his wife, Therese.
18:36But I think, again, it's the system, right?
18:39We're focusing on the system.
18:40So Lou Engel is the founder and main leader of two youth-oriented movements called The Call and The Send.
18:50The Call was founded in 2000, and it began as a massive prayer and fasting movement
18:58that held large stadium gatherings across the United States focused on revival.
19:04So, yeah, almost every large stadium gathering, except for the Promise Keepers,
19:15there was that movement called the Promise Keepers.
19:17But any youth-focused large stadium gathering, I'm going to say maybe in the last 20 years, it was Lou.
19:27Lou was the one behind that.
19:30And, again, think about that.
19:32Who can attract that many people?
19:35That is how convincing and how charismatic Lou Engel is.
19:45And the other one is called The Send.
19:48And this was born out of a 2016 gathering known as the Azusa Now,
19:56when they were, you know, celebrating, I think, the 100th year anniversary of the Azusa Street Revival.
20:03And it transitioned from just focusing on prayer to mobilizing youth for missionary work and evangelism.
20:12It was founded by a coalition of leaders, Lou Engel, of course, Andy Byrd, Youth with a Mission.
20:21And I know you've been covering some of the not-so-good stories about YWAM.
20:32I have my own stories, by the way.
20:34Maybe we'll get to that later.
20:37Brian Brent of Circuit Writers, Daniel Kalenda of Christ for All Nations, Michael Kulianis, Jesus Image.
20:48And isn't Michael, like, the son-in-law of Benny Hinn, if I'm not mistaken?
20:54Like, they're all related.
20:55They're all related.
20:56They're all connected.
20:59And Todd White of Lifestyle Christianity.
21:04So, it's like the who's who in the charismatic and youth ministry and missions and evangelism ministry today.
21:16So, all those organizations, we can trace it all back to Lou Engel.
21:24I want to go back and emphasize something you said, because it is really important as we continue into this.
21:29You were about to introduce Lou Engel, and you said, this is a great guy, and then got into, you
21:35know, your description of him.
21:37Every single person that I have interviewed so far who has mentioned Lou Engel, that's what they all say.
21:42This is a great guy.
21:43This is a really good guy.
21:45And then some of them are a little bit shell-shocked.
21:48How could a good guy do something that involved the indoctrination and sometimes destruction of several people and several lives?
21:57How could those two be connected?
22:00And they begin to question the good guy part.
22:03I want to stress the fact that we're looking at the system, not the guy.
22:07And every person that I look at and interview, every person that I investigate, that's really what I'm looking for,
22:15is how does it connect from a systematic standpoint?
22:18Because the people that get involved many times are good people.
22:22The system changes them.
22:24And that's really key to understand.
22:27Whenever you think back to, well, even my own experience.
22:30I'll share some of mine.
22:32I was pretty close with one of William Branham's sons.
22:35My family was really close to William Branham's sons and daughters.
22:39My father grew up playing with one son.
22:42My uncle with the other son.
22:44My aunts and their sisters playing with Branham's daughters.
22:49We knew the Branham family pretty well.
22:52And I would say that the Branham son that I knew, I knew him well enough to know I really
22:58liked him.
22:59He was a great guy.
23:00And we had some private and intimate conversations about things that he kind of struggled with whenever he was in
23:07the movement.
23:08And this is really the right-hand man to Branham, if you really know the complexities of how Branham's system
23:15worked.
23:16Until Branham died, Billy Paul was right at his side.
23:19So, whenever I began to understand that what I came from was really, really destructive, it bothered me because I
23:29started looking at all of the people who were involved in creating this system that could destroy lives.
23:36And I started looking at them with disgust.
23:39And it took me a really long time to get over that.
23:42But the problem is, they're good people sometimes caught up in a bad system.
23:46And the bad system can either make a good person turn evil or make an evil person turn worse.
23:52That's the scary part of all of this.
23:55So, whenever I'm talking about people like Cheyenne, Lou Engle, I'm not really looking at the person.
23:59I'm looking at, okay, how does this fit into the bigger picture, and where does this all go?
24:05That's really what I'm looking at.
24:07But as it relates to this podcast, think about the money-making aspects.
24:12Sometimes you can have a really bad person who is doing it so much for the money that he creates
24:19this personality.
24:21And that personality is a kind, genuinely friendly personality.
24:25Sometimes, when you get to know the people offstage, you're like, that's not really what I see offstage.
24:30This is not a good person.
24:32An example of this, and I won't give a name.
24:34I knew somebody who everybody thought was just the friendliest person ever.
24:39And I was in their house, and I listened to a phone call.
24:42They literally made a support representative on the phone start crying because they were just being –
24:49they didn't use cuss words because they were against cuss words.
24:52But what they said was worse than cussing to this person.
24:56And I was listening to it thinking, oh, my gosh, that's not the persona that they give out.
25:02So whenever people say, this is a nice guy, I take it with a grain of salt.
25:06It may or may not be.
25:08This is a nice person from the outward appearance who's in a system that can either be covering it up
25:14or making somebody who is genuinely nice turn out to be pretty bad.
25:19And it all goes back to money.
25:21Yeah.
25:22Well, to prepare for this podcast, because I knew that we were going to focus on the money-making aspects.
25:33So I have these – how many are there?
25:41Six.
25:43How shall we say these things?
25:46There are six ways, I guess, that the wheels are allowed to turn.
25:53The cogs, you know, in order for the cogs to function properly,
26:02these six things need to always be in place.
26:07We can call them the six mountains.
26:12Well, people might mistake that for the seven mountains.
26:16So we'll talk about the seven mountain mandate later, because that is a big one.
26:22But I'm going to say that these are six things that are in every large church.
26:30They're inserted in almost every sermon.
26:36And, okay, I'll just – I don't know what we're going to call them, but here's number one.
26:41Prosperity-based messaging, right?
26:44It's all about getting the promotion, getting the favor from God.
26:51And they'll say things like, you've got to sow a seed.
26:55You know, for every 1,000, you get 10,000.
26:59So why don't you sow 10,000 so you can get 100,000?
27:03And, you know, like just ridiculous preachings like that.
27:10And promising of supernatural returns on donations.
27:16I think this is the most heartbreaking.
27:19When I hear about, you know, people with cancer, people, you know, with terminal diseases,
27:28you know, people who are – who've been in wheelchairs for decades, and they're just so desperate for their healing.
27:35And they go to these, you know, miracle crusades, or they're just watching on TV, you know,
27:44and they hear these promises from these prosperity, you know, gospel preachers.
27:49And, of course, they're not going to get healed.
27:52Like, I don't know.
27:53I shouldn't say of course.
27:54Like, I still believe in miracles, but I'm going to say – I don't know what the statistics are,
28:01but it is quite low, right?
28:03I think we can agree on that.
28:05So, yeah, I think it's very dangerous when giving is manipulated through fear, guilt, or exaggerated promises.
28:16Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started,
28:19or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign
28:24charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
28:29You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
28:34william-branham.org.
28:36On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins,
28:41Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others,
28:45with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
28:50You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
28:57If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
29:03top.
29:03And, as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
29:09watching.
29:10On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
29:15You mentioned the exaggerated promises, and that's something that when I was in the revival culture,
29:21we were always chasing a miracle.
29:23It didn't matter how big, how small.
29:25If we could say that something happened and it was beyond our control, we would go for it.
29:31And we would never think about the cause and effect.
29:34Sometimes there would be a natural cause and effect, and you could easily explain what happened.
29:38But we would say, no, that was God.
29:40That was much bigger than me.
29:42And it may have been God.
29:44I'm not saying that it wasn't.
29:45But there is often a cause and effect.
29:48But the exaggeration is where it turns into a big problem.
29:51Because whenever you listen to some of the stories, and I've done this a few times in Branham's recordings,
29:57but you can go through almost any revival leader and do the same thing.
30:02Watch how the story begins.
30:04Go back through all of their writings, their recordings, their speeches, their sermons, their letters, etc.
30:12Find how something originally began, and watch how it ended up.
30:17Because usually when it ended up, it's this great big explosive thing.
30:20And whenever it began, it was this little tiny small thing that, yes, it might have been of God, but
30:25why embellish it?
30:27Why do you need to add all of these miraculous details that some of them aren't even true?
30:32I started doing that to try to uncover what was truth and what was fiction in the movement.
30:38And the problem with all of the exaggerations and embellishments, because it's been embellished,
30:44and because there are all of these fictional details, often you don't believe the truth.
30:50Like some of the things actually could have happened, but I don't believe them.
30:53And I don't because I see all of the lies that are associated with it.
30:57When you add something that isn't true to embellish a truthful fact, you turn the truthful fact into a lie.
31:05But it goes beyond the leader, and that's the point I want to drive at here.
31:09In this type of movement, because the people have been indoctrinated to do this, the people do the same kind
31:16of things.
31:17If they get some ailment, they will say,
31:19It is the worst thing. I nearly died.
31:21I was in the hospital. They didn't know if I was going to live.
31:24And you go, and it might have been a toothache.
31:26It's just really odd.
31:28When you get out of the movement, and you look backwards at the way things were,
31:33you just wonder, what was wrong with us?
31:35Why did we do this?
31:37And to the people, like if there was an innocent bystander who's listening to two people talk,
31:42who are in this revival culture, who knows the background details,
31:46they'll think, that person's just lying through their teeth.
31:48I was there. That was just a toothache.
31:51But that's how your mentality is when you're in the movement.
31:54It's all exaggerated.
31:56And for me, if everything is exaggerated, it turns it into something that isn't true.
32:01So when I look at the Pentecostal Charismatic Movement, NAR, I look at the fruits of it,
32:07and I see the fruits aren't true.
32:10I have to question the origins if the fruits aren't true.
32:13So when you connect all of those dots and pieces, you go back to something that it actually may have
32:19been true.
32:20There may have actually been something that was astounding in the inception of some of these movements.
32:26But does it mean it was of God if they had to embellish it?
32:29And number two, why would they embellish the truth?
32:32That's what people who are untruthful do.
32:35So for me, that's a big, big deal.
32:37But not to hijack your six mountains.
32:40The second is celebrity pastor culture.
32:44We've already been talking about this.
32:46There's a reason why so many people want to enroll in Rick Joyner's university,
32:54or they go to these stadium events sponsored by Lou Engel,
33:00or these people vote for Cheyenne for governor of California.
33:05It's because they're celebrities.
33:08They're just that famous.
33:12All right, number three, constant fundraising cycles.
33:17So that includes building campaigns.
33:22Like, how many buildings does a church need?
33:30Like, I don't know.
33:33Some of the most anointed meetings I've been to myself have been small,
33:38and they occurred in people's houses.
33:44But for some reason, these mega churches, you know,
33:49I guess because they're constantly building schools, daycare centers, coffee shops,
33:57their own gas station.
34:00Like, it's like a mini city sometimes for these mega churches, you know.
34:04And then, of course, there's always these special offerings, right,
34:10because they're going to go to this country or that country.
34:15And subscription-style donor programs where, you know,
34:21nowadays it's just that QR code, right?
34:24Just swipe and boom.
34:28You know, that's how easy it is to give your thousands,
34:31ten thousands to these churches.
34:37Number four, volunteer labor replacing healthy structure.
34:43So we talked a little bit about this, the burnout, the exhaustion of the volunteers.
34:50And the reason why so many volunteers keep saying yes is because they're taught what?
34:59Exhaustion equals holiness, right?
35:04Saying no is a rebellion.
35:07And three, serving leadership is serving God.
35:13So because these three are constantly being, like, ingrained into your head,
35:20you wouldn't even dream of saying no,
35:25especially if your senior pastor calls you.
35:28And because Jay was my senior pastor, he would often call me, you know, to do this and that for
35:35him.
35:35And that goes back to something that I've been talking about a few times recently.
35:39The movement tries to over-spiritualize everything.
35:43And I mean everything.
35:45If you can turn it into an angel, turn it into a demon.
35:48But more than that, because of the way that the Bible is interpreted, I'll say it like that,
35:55because of the way it is interpreted, they want to make it so that you, the listener,
36:01can plug yourself into the picture that's being painted by the Bible
36:05and make you as great as one of the figures in the Bible.
36:09And the best way to do this is to become a martyr.
36:12So with the revival culture comes the martyr culture.
36:16People will, as martyrs, they will push themselves until they go to their limit
36:21and then they go so far beyond it that they actually need help, you know, from God to pick them
36:27back up
36:28because they have over-exhausted themselves.
36:30They've burnt themselves out.
36:31It drives people to health issues because they push themselves so hard.
36:37I've mentioned a few times, we've talked about it with Jenny in YWAM,
36:41how she pushed herself, believing that she was martyring herself.
36:46Because of the movement.
36:47The movement, it's not that they tell you to do this outright.
36:51It's not that they say, go kill yourself for us.
36:53We want you to go kill yourself for us.
36:55But they will give you a biblical example of somebody who may have died
36:59or somebody who did push themselves until they got into some trouble or health issues, etc.
37:05They will lift that up as the example and then they'll frame it in such a way,
37:09hey, now this person, they went to that extreme.
37:13What will you do for God?
37:15And, you know, that's a good thought if you put it into its proper context.
37:19But not everybody is in the same situations as the biblical figures that did this.
37:24Not everybody is in the situation where they need to martyr themselves.
37:28But the movement, because they over-spiritualize everything, they push you to martyrdom.
37:33There you go.
37:34Number five, fear-based retention.
37:39So, I think this is true of all cults, right?
37:42If you leave, if you leave this cave, you don't know what's out there.
37:48It's best that you just stay here where it's safe, where we can protect you.
37:54We can control what you see and hear.
37:58Because, remember my first interview with you, I told you I didn't know any of these secular songs.
38:05Because I wasn't even allowed to, you know, to listen to Madonna or Michael Jackson, you know?
38:14Like, I was an 80s kid, but I was probably the only 80s kid who didn't really listen to, you
38:20know, Madonna or Michael Jackson.
38:24So, fear-based retention is when we're taught that leaving means leaving God's protection, losing one's calling.
38:34You're going to be spiritually deceived, and this is the big one.
38:38You are going to come under God's judgment.
38:42And that's a big one that goes hand-in-hand with the martyr culture that I was talking about.
38:47You have the martyr culture, but you also have the whip of fear to keep them in that.
38:52In other words, if you martyr yourself, you're going to go to heaven.
38:56If you don't, you're going to come under the judgment.
38:58So, therefore, you must martyr yourself.
39:00It's this vicious, vicious cycle.
39:03And when you think of this as a money-making machine, if you spin the mechanics into this spiritual coercion
39:10that they're doing,
39:11the point is the fear becomes one of the gears that protects the financial system.
39:17That's really key to understand.
39:19If it wasn't for money, I don't think they would even need these whips of fear because if you were
39:25– let's say it like this.
39:27Say you're in a movement that is true, and it is the most righteous thing.
39:31It is exactly like they're advertising.
39:33This is the truth.
39:34You leave the movement.
39:36When you leave, you're not giving them your money, of course.
39:39But when you leave the movement and you start exploring and you go to a few different churches and you
39:44find out,
39:44wait a minute, everything that they said that I left was true, you're going to go back to it because
39:51that was the truth,
39:52and you found the faults.
39:54They don't want you to do this.
39:55They don't want you to go explore because while you're exploring, you're not giving them the money.
40:01That's really what it boils down to.
40:03If they knew that they had the truth, they would let you go explore and say, see, look,
40:07you found that what I'm saying is true.
40:10Come back and join us.
40:11But instead, they cut you off, and that's another fear tactic.
40:15When you leave, suddenly you are no more.
40:17You don't exist in our minds.
40:19You are abhorrent to God because you have left us to go explore is this thing that we're telling you
40:26true.
40:26So anyway, then I came up with four examples of these ministers who preach the prosperity gospel.
40:39The most famous of them all, Kenneth Copeland.
40:43$300 million to $400 million is his net worth these days.
40:50He's considered the wealthiest pastor in America.
40:54He's got his own private plane.
40:56Do you know why he prefers private planes over commercial planes?
41:03No.
41:04I'm going to quote this.
41:06He said, because commercial planes are like a long tube with a bunch of demons.
41:16He actually said that.
41:18Like, oh, no, no, no.
41:20I don't want to be around ordinary people because they're all demonic.
41:25I am so pure and holy.
41:27I need my own private plane.
41:31So that is the insanity of Kenneth Copeland for you.
41:35If you're watching the YouTube version of this, I put the magazine cover up again to show that when John
41:41Wimber is pushing for unity, he's pushing for unity with people like Kenneth Copeland.
41:45He's got the shepherding guys who are who have the authoritarian control.
41:49That's one gear that's spinning.
41:51He's got the prosperity guy, Kenneth Copeland.
41:53That's one gear spinning.
41:55He's got his movement, which is spinning, and it will spin off into IHOP, KC, some other things.
42:00All of these cogs in this system are spinning for their designated purpose.
42:06So whenever I have people contact me and one person, one leader, one cog that's spinning just happens to have
42:15the presence of being humble, of being sincere, being worshipful.
42:19You have to remember there's still a cog spinning, and you don't know is what you're seeing the stage persona
42:25that they're putting on, the air that they're putting on.
42:28Like Lou Engel, this might be a really good guy, but look at the system he's in.
42:32Look at the stage presence that all of the people in the system have.
42:37You really have to question and make sure, is this really a good person or are they just putting on
42:42an act?
42:43Because whenever that cog is spinning, it's turning other cogs, and every cog in the end is spinning out money.
42:50That's really, I hate to say it, but that's really what's happening here.
42:53This is a money-making machine, and you've got the good cogs, you've got the bad cogs, but everybody's working
42:59together to keep this engine running because it's dumping out more money than we can ever imagine.
43:06Number two, Benny Hinn, net worth $40 million to $60 million.
43:12He has a 10,000 square foot mansion.
43:15He's got a bunch of Mercedes Benzes, and of course, let's not forget the private jet.
43:22And I'll mention with Benny Hinn, this is a cog that is spinning, you know, just like the other cogs,
43:28but think of these cogs like this.
43:30They are spinning financially right now, but they're also spinning historically, because if you take the historical background away from
43:38it, the whole system just collapses.
43:40It doesn't exist.
43:42Benny Hinn is one of the people, you've probably seen it on several of the different channels talking about this.
43:47He's one of the people who is really respecting Branham as a true prophet of God, a true miracle worker,
43:52and he gives all of these examples.
43:55And if you listen to our Revival History series, almost every example that he is giving about William Branham and
44:02the complete miraculous details, he is giving examples that have been fully debunked.
44:08They're not even true, but if you take away Branham from the system, you pulled this big cog out that
44:15helped with the creation of this engine, and you cannot pull that cog out.
44:20That's why all of these guys will continue forever to lift up what they call, quote, unquote, God's generals.
44:26You take one of these generals out, you've taken a cog out of the financial engine, and they can't allow
44:31this.
44:32If you pull the one gear out, all of the gears stop spinning.
44:35That's really how this works.
44:37Benny Hinn is just one of the people who are doing this.
44:39There are many other cogs that they go back and they support the historical cogs as well.
44:44Sean Foyt, I already told you, you know, he's something else.
44:48He's being sued right now.
44:50He's being sued by a California businessman named Steve Bray, and he is being accused of using $250,000, which
45:03this Steve Bray donated to him in August of 2023, expecting it to fund 10 specific stops on Sean Foyt's
45:14Let Us Go Worship concerts.
45:18And instead, he used it to buy personal property.
45:22I'm glad you brought up the property because that's something that fully caught me off guard.
45:27Whenever you start looking into all of these people, you know, they give this stage presence of just being a
45:33humble servant of God.
45:35And you don't really think about the money that's moving behind the scenes and where it is moving.
45:40Property is one of those places that it isn't that apparent.
45:44It's not visually apparent.
45:45They can go buy property in some other country, for example, and you don't even have a way to go
45:51find where it is they bought what they did.
45:54Fortunately, some of them are just so extravagant that they buy their properties in the United States and you can
46:00easily do some property searches and find it.
46:03But you look back to the history of this movement, all of the many people who are making millions of
46:09dollars, bringing in some of them.
46:12I want to say some of them have billions on their record.
46:15If you do the math of what the money was worth back then and what it is now, what do
46:21you do with all this money, right?
46:22You don't even need all this money.
46:24And how do you hide it so that people don't realize that you have that much?
46:28You can invest it, but you're not having fun with your money.
46:31So people will buy properties.
46:33And none of the people who they've been convincing to be a humble, poor servant of God, none of them
46:40really know it.
46:41So they might go on a mission trip, for example, and the mission trip just happens to be next to
46:45one of the properties they own.
46:46And they go have a nice little vacation in their property home.
46:50That's how all of this works.
46:52And I didn't think about it because we were trained to shut off critical thinking.
46:59But we were trained to believe that God was so involved with the movement, money really didn't matter.
47:05It doesn't matter.
47:06You won't need your money because we're about to leave this earth.
47:09But give me all your money, says the leader.
47:11That's how all this works.
47:13And of course, last but not least, my former brother-in-law, Cheon, I'm just going to say it this
47:24way.
47:27I know about his luxury vacations.
47:33They go to Hawaii every single year.
47:36And they go to many other beautiful destinations because I'm friends with his kids on Facebook.
47:47And I see where they go.
47:50And there was at least two times where my kids got to go because it was this family, you know,
47:57big reunion.
47:58And, yeah, I mean, it was very nice that their Uncle Che and Aunt Sue Ahn wanted to treat them.
48:09But, you know, and of course, my kids have been invited to birthday parties and weddings.
48:18It's always very lavish.
48:22And he does live in a gated community here in Los Angeles.
48:27So, I mean, I bring up these four men.
48:30Of course, we could go on and on and on.
48:33But that's just an example.
48:35And I'll say it like this so that people understand.
48:38I am not against people making money.
48:41You know, I could really care less if the guy lives in a gated community.
48:44If he has millions, billions of dollars, I really don't care.
48:47As a businessman, that is your goal.
48:50For me, whenever I ran my business, I would have loved to have had as much as some of these
48:55ministers have.
48:56I never made it that big because it takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, a lot of
49:01time, a lot of growth to grow a legitimate business in that way.
49:06There are just so many aspects to business.
49:08It's complicated.
49:09It's really hard.
49:10That's why a lot of these people get into this system, though.
49:14It is much, much easier to make that kind of money if you put yourself into a cog into this
49:21big engine.
49:22Because once you're in that cog, you have all of the other cogs who are supporting you.
49:26And that engine, it's a finely tuned engine that it has a history of making money.
49:32It would be like, so if I'm a businessman, say instead of starting a business that's brand new and it
49:38does some sort of, I did consulting, say it's a business that sells cogs, for example.
49:44I'm selling cogs and I'm starting out as a business, but I don't have a name established.
49:50It's going to take me a long time to grow my business up to the point of some of the
49:53other cog makers.
49:55I'm thinking Cogswell Cogs, which is kind of funny, if you know the Jetsons.
49:59So the problem is that is a difficult path.
50:04It's a difficult journey for a businessman to take, and it's ambitious, and it takes a lot of work, a
50:09heck of a lot of work.
50:10I can assure you to start a business is a lot of work.
50:14On the flip side, had I been just a little bit devious and mischievous and downright unethical, I'll just go
50:22on and say it, I could have plugged myself into the ministry, especially because of my family name.
50:28I could have put on a charismatic stage act.
50:30I could have played on the heartstrings of the people and said, oh, this is the greatest move of God,
50:37and we need funding for X, Y, and Z.
50:39People are going to give your money, give me money just so easily.
50:43It would be if I wanted to start a business and I wanted to make money quick, this is the
50:48get rich quick scheme because the engine has already been built.
50:53All you have to do is plug yourself in to all of the other businesses.
50:57So now take my example of my Johnswell Cogs, not Cogswell Cogs, say that instead I'm going to plug myself
51:05into a partnership with a sprocket company, with all of these different companies.
51:12I'm going to plug myself into a pre-existing business engine.
51:16That would kickstart and that would grow my business faster because I'm plugging myself into an engine that already exists.
51:23The problem is the business engine still takes a lot of work to do it, takes a lot of work
51:27to grow it, but if you think of the quote-unquote spiritual engine that's running, that's been established, it's not
51:35that much work.
51:36You just simply put on a suit and tie.
51:38Well, even in today's NAR, you don't even need to wear a suit.
51:41You just wear a fancy shirt.
51:43You wear your fancy shirt, get on stage, make the people fear that they're going to hell, give them something
51:50to cry about, give them some emotion.
51:52And then ask for their money.
51:55And that's all it takes.
51:56That is literally all it takes with the engine that they have built.
51:59When I say NAR is a money-making machine, I know what I'm talking about.
52:06These facts are not just from the internet.
52:10Like, I've been to their homes.
52:13Like, my son, I remember my son, when he was a teacher at Cominia School in North Carolina for Morningstar
52:23Ministries, there was a teacher's retreat.
52:30And because he knew that I was such a Rick Joyner's fan, he FaceTimed me.
52:35And he's like, hey, mom, guess where I am?
52:38And he shows me, you know, a beautiful home and, like, this mansion.
52:43And, like, wow, like, is that like a hotel?
52:48And he laughed and he said, no, this isn't, this is Rick Joyner's house.
52:55So, I don't know.
52:59It used to not really bother me before.
53:03Like you said, somehow it did not compute.
53:06Like, because they're still so anointed.
53:09They're saving so many souls, John.
53:12Like, they are so needed in these last days, right?
53:16That's what matters, right?
53:18And so, because you see how successful they are.
53:22They're thriving.
53:24All these people are, you know, populating their churches, their schools, their universities, their conferences, their, you know, services.
53:33Like, how could all these people be wrong?
53:38And maybe, hey, I wouldn't mind a Mercedes-Benz in my garage.
53:45I wouldn't mind living in a mansion, private jet.
53:48Why not?
53:49And unfortunately, if they target young men like that.
53:58And I'm going to say men because usually they're men.
54:01These older men who have been in the system and the big cogs, they're always looking for smaller cogs, right?
54:11To train and to raise up.
54:14And they don't even, like, they don't even hide that fact.
54:20They're constantly recruiting among teenagers and 20-somethings.
54:25And it's obvious because they're the most impressionable.
54:30You know, they're the, they're, like me, I was 19 years old, in love with Jesus.
54:34All I wanted was to give my whole life to Jesus and to preach the gospel.
54:40Exactly.
54:41And that's really the problem for me.
54:42Like I said, I don't have a problem at all with people making money.
54:46I don't have a problem with people wanting to get rich.
54:49I don't have a problem with people getting rich.
54:51As a businessman, that's your, that's your goal, right?
54:54That's your ambition.
54:55You want to get rich.
54:56I never made it that far.
54:57I wish I, I wish I did.
54:59But think of how this, this engine works.
55:02Say that my John's Will Cogs was, my target customer for John's Will Cogs is the poor person who can't
55:11afford to even buy a cog.
55:13And I'm going to make my entire business strategy off of targeting that person, or a person who's just too
55:20sick to even make it to the store to buy a cog, or who suffers severely when they come to
55:26buy a cog, who suffers when they use one of my cogs.
55:29Think what kind of a person I would be if I did this.
55:32That's an awful business strategy.
55:34But when you take it into the quote unquote religious realm, that's exactly what they're doing.
55:39Most of these people who have gotten rich have gotten rich off of the backs of people who couldn't afford
55:45to make the other person rich.
55:47I have a huge problem with this.
55:49Some of the people, if you look through the history of this movement, go all the way back to the
55:54healing revivals.
55:55There were people who were so sick, many of them died.
55:58Many of them died convinced that they were healed.
56:01Many families watched this.
56:03And they gave so much money.
56:05We've got examples in the Revival History series of people who were donating thousands of dollars, and then they died.
56:14And the people who got rich off of this were getting rich off of the deaths of the poor people.
56:19That's how bad this is.
56:21So whenever I'm thinking of an engine that is being built to make money, and I'm trying to stamp on
56:28that engine, picture this engine with all of these gears and all of these different mechanisms to keep the engine
56:35moving.
56:35Picture the brand of the engine if you were to stamp on it the name of Jesus.
56:40And then think of what Jesus would see if he looked down and saw this engine.
56:43What would he think?
56:44I just – it boggles my mind that people can do this and believe that they're doing this for God.
56:52It shows me that instead they're doing this for the engine, and the engine is spitting out money at a
56:57rate that goes beyond what any normal business could possibly do.
57:01So thank you so much for doing this.
57:03Thank you so much for having me.
57:05Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
57:08You can find us at william-branham.org.
57:11For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to
57:17the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
58:09Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
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