- 1 day ago
John and Melissa discuss her journey into the Hebrew Roots movement, what attracted her at first, and the theological concerns that eventually led her to leave. The conversation explores Torah observance, Sabbath keeping, feasts, dietary laws, restorationism, church history claims, and how some groups view the church, Israel, and the New Covenant.
Melissa also shares how questions about the deity of Christ, conspiracy-based history, end-times expectations, and isolation shaped her experience. She explains why she now emphasizes the righteousness of Christ, Scripture in context, humility, and freedom in the New Covenant.
00:00 Introduction
01:31 Melissa’s Background and Journey into Hebrew Roots
03:03 Restoring Torah and the Identity of Israel
06:29 British Israelism, Lost Tribes, and the Second Exodus
10:30 Life Inside the Hebrew Roots Movement
14:29 Denying the Deity of Christ
17:47 Conspiracy Theories and Distrust of the Church
19:44 Radical Splinter Groups and the End-Time Remnant
21:33 Hebrew Roots Versus Messianic Judaism
23:59 End-Times Obsession and the Feast of Tabernacles
25:45 How Hebrew Roots Defines the New Covenant
27:06 Distrust of Catholicism and Church History
32:51 Myths, Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea
34:32 The Two Babylons and Religious Authority
36:52 Charismatic Hebrew Roots and Selective Torah Keeping
39:14 Applying Ancient Mosaic Laws Today
42:44 Final Restoration and Failed Prophecies
45:01 Ephraim, the Lost Tribes, and the Final Return
46:13 Melissa’s Departure from Hebrew Roots
48:31 Advice for Those Still in the Movement
49:28 Conclusion
______________________
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
Melissa also shares how questions about the deity of Christ, conspiracy-based history, end-times expectations, and isolation shaped her experience. She explains why she now emphasizes the righteousness of Christ, Scripture in context, humility, and freedom in the New Covenant.
00:00 Introduction
01:31 Melissa’s Background and Journey into Hebrew Roots
03:03 Restoring Torah and the Identity of Israel
06:29 British Israelism, Lost Tribes, and the Second Exodus
10:30 Life Inside the Hebrew Roots Movement
14:29 Denying the Deity of Christ
17:47 Conspiracy Theories and Distrust of the Church
19:44 Radical Splinter Groups and the End-Time Remnant
21:33 Hebrew Roots Versus Messianic Judaism
23:59 End-Times Obsession and the Feast of Tabernacles
25:45 How Hebrew Roots Defines the New Covenant
27:06 Distrust of Catholicism and Church History
32:51 Myths, Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea
34:32 The Two Babylons and Religious Authority
36:52 Charismatic Hebrew Roots and Selective Torah Keeping
39:14 Applying Ancient Mosaic Laws Today
42:44 Final Restoration and Failed Prophecies
45:01 Ephraim, the Lost Tribes, and the Final Return
46:13 Melissa’s Departure from Hebrew Roots
48:31 Advice for Those Still in the Movement
49:28 Conclusion
______________________
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
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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 Melissa Hume, former member of the Hebrew Roots
00:45Movement.
00:47Melissa, it's good to have you on and to talk about your story and your being in the Hebrew
00:52Roots.
00:53I'll start by saying I'm not an expert in Hebrew Roots, although I know just enough to be dangerous.
00:59But I did come across a lot of interesting information as I was studying Christian identity
01:06and specifically how the restoration theology came into Pentecostalism and latter reign, because
01:15there's a lot of crossover once you get into the restoration of the church.
01:19And interestingly, there's a lot of ideas that kind of fit together like a zipper, but
01:24yet they're separate.
01:25So, anyway, good to have you on.
01:27Maybe if you could begin by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.
01:31Hi, I'm Melissa Hume, and my husband and I live in Omaha, and I was raised, my mother
01:36raised me with the Christian faith and taught us the Bible and took us to church, and I was
01:41a part of an independent Christian church until I graduated from high school.
01:45I came to Christ when I was 13, and I was involved with various churches and ministries and mainly
01:51pro-life ministry.
01:53I'm originally from Nebraska.
01:55My husband and I also moved to Arkansas, eastern Tennessee, and then back to Omaha, Nebraska.
02:00And I went into the Hebrew Roots movement in 2000 and came out in 2018.
02:05That's quite a journey.
02:06And I'm dying to pick your brain.
02:09You're the first person who has come on that was Hebrew Roots, and there are just so many
02:15themes that, like I said, overlap.
02:17I think the biggest thing for me is when I was researching how restorationism came into
02:24this movement, both groups seemed to pose the same question, and I'm not going to say that
02:31the Hebrew Roots did this exactly.
02:33I'd rather you answer it for me, but in the movement that we came out of, they would ask
02:39what the church lost and what we need to restore.
02:43And I want to say that both were very similar, but I'll ask you the question.
02:47Whenever they were teaching theology and how God was going to return, what aspects of restorationism
02:55did they teach, and did they outright say that the church has lost something and it must
03:00be restored, or how did they do this?
03:03Yes, 100%.
03:04They taught that the church lost the following the Torah or the Mosaic law, including the
03:09Seventh-day Sabbath, the Feast, the Dietary Laws.
03:12And so they taught that the church lost those truths, and that it's their job to restore
03:18those truths, that they're an end-time remnant, that it's been revealed to them.
03:22They are Israel.
03:23Some of them believe they're part of the lost tribes of Israel, and that they are to restore.
03:28Their mission is the church.
03:29They don't convert non-Christians or non-believers.
03:33Their mission is the church to restore, telling them that they must keep the Mosaic law that
03:38is required for believers today.
03:40Darrell Bock Got it, because that was the very premise.
03:43They were saying that the church has lost a lot of things, and we're going to restore
03:47it, therefore come out of those churches and come into ours.
03:50And when I started studying cultists, that's basically every single cult is the same way.
03:56All those churches are wrong, come into our church, because we're the right ones.
04:00And it's just, it's so odd.
04:03So, once I got into studying that, I did skim the surface at some of the theology, and I'm
04:12curious from your perspective, because I read other articles that were saying very similar
04:18things.
04:19In Pentecostalism, they focus on Acts 2.
04:22That's where the gifts come to the church, the Holy Spirit comes.
04:26Pentecostalism is basically based off of that, and I think it's the second chapter of Joel.
04:32Did your church have a heavy focus on the second chapter in Acts?
04:37Pentecostalism The main focus was the Torah, the first
04:40five books of Moses, and specifically the laws given to Moses at Sinai to the people of Israel.
04:47And so, they believe that is to be restored to the church, and that, like you were speaking,
04:52that many of them teach the church of Babylon, you need to come out of the church, that the
04:56Reformation didn't go far enough, that the Catholic Church throughout the Sabbath, throughout
05:01the Feast, took pagan holidays, Christmas and Easter, and Christianized them.
05:06And so, they said that the church didn't go far enough.
05:09We need to throw those pagan things out, and that we need to be restored to the Sabbath
05:13and the Feast of the Dietary Laws and to the Torah.
05:16The restoration theology as it exists, it exists in different ways, but they're basically saying
05:23that for us to be enlightened, and I'm using that word very, very loosely, in each different
05:31branch, it's a different thing.
05:32But essentially, for the good thing to happen, we must restore first, and then all of the
05:38blessings come to the church.
05:40Am I saying that correctly?
05:41Absolutely.
05:42And so, they teach that they're actually Israel, and they teach when a Christian Gentile comes
05:50to the knowledge of the Torah, that we're supposed to keep the Torah, then they know they become
05:56part of Israel, or they recognize their identity as Israel.
05:59And some of them believe they're spiritual Israel, and some believe that they're actually
06:02descendants of the Timos tribes.
06:04And so, in the restoration, there are some charismatic, there's many, many branches in
06:10the Hebrew Ritz movement.
06:11So, they're, basically, these people are coming out of Christianity, and some will bring their
06:14charismatic with them.
06:16So, there's, and some are not charismatic.
06:18There's very wide branches in the Hebrew Ritz movement.
06:21Got it.
06:22That makes sense.
06:23And that is the crossover that led me down that path.
06:26So, I want to explore that a bit.
06:29I began this journey when I started looking into British Israelism.
06:33And this is the idea that came from Britain, that the British Isles, the United States,
06:38and Canada are part of the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel.
06:43And there were a number of different cults that branched off of this.
06:48I started exploring some of them, and there were just too many to count.
06:52Pentecostalism, interestingly, I can't say that it branched off of it, but it adopted some
06:56of that theology through Charles Fox Parham, who was studying, I think it was Frank Sanford,
07:01who was big into the British Israel theology.
07:05But then it kind of exploded in the 1920s.
07:08There were a lot of different groups that were bringing this in.
07:10So, how much did they, how far did they go with the British Israel theology?
07:16Again, you mentioned that they are, they believe they were the lost ten tribes.
07:20What did they think about the overall descent of the bloodline as it relates to the Jews?
07:29Did they believe that regionally or just specifically to your church or your group?
07:34Well, basically, and not all the Hebrew people believe that.
07:38It's really a controversial issue.
07:40But the Hebrew Ritz is rooted in the worldwide Church of God, in Herbert Armstrong.
07:45And so, when that cult, which they embraced British Israelism or a form of it.
07:48So, when that cult broke up and splintered in the 1990s, many of the leaders came out of
07:54that and started Hebrew Ritz groups.
07:56And so, they have this theology where they go back to like the two sticks in Ezekiel 37.
08:01And they say, they talk about when the house of Israel split and the ten tribes were scattered.
08:07And so, they believe that they are, the restoration is now in these last days, that they are descendants of
08:17those lost tribes.
08:18The Gentiles were scattered, but they were really the Gentiles that come to Christ and come to the Torah are
08:23actually lost tribes of the descendants.
08:26And so, that's what they teach and believe.
08:29And they also have a really interesting, some of them have a really interesting, what they call the second exodus.
08:34And so, they believe that they're actually going to go through a wilderness-like experience, like the first exodus.
08:40And that they are going to go back to the land of Israel during the tribulation.
08:44And that they are preparing for the tribulation to survive it, and they're going to go back to Israel, and
08:48they are going to be reunited with the Jews.
08:50And then that, the two houses and the two sticks of Ezekiel 37 will come back together.
08:55And so, they believe they're, and they call it Ephraim, they're Ephraim and Judah.
08:59They'll say, the Christians need to come to the Torah, the Jews need to come to the Messiah.
09:03And when the Jews come to Messiah and the Christians come to Torah, then they become one.
09:07Darrell Bock It's so interesting, because you're basically describing elements of what I came out of.
09:13And I would say that a large majority of the Pentecostals did not adopt some of those elements, but we
09:19did, which is interesting, because that developed into latter reign and eventually into the New Apostolic Reformation.
09:25So, the core of it is pretty much similar to what you just described.
09:30And you also mentioned Herb Armstrong.
09:32He's another guy that I've been researching, I still am researching, but he was bringing the idea that we needed
09:40to restore the lost truth, essentially.
09:42And that concept, even though he was never really Pentecostal, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't
09:49think he was either Hebrew roots, either.
09:51But the ideas that he was saying, the themes that he was bringing to the church, was adopted by many
09:58of these people.
09:59And they would just use his books or his literature as a breeding ground to spread it.
10:05But anyway, I feel like I've hijacked your podcast, but I'm so fascinated to learn more, and that's why I'm
10:11picking your brain.
10:12And maybe if you could tell me a little bit about, just simply, what was it like when you were
10:19in it?
10:19And I'm talking everything from the way that you were, the way that you were trained to believe the Bible,
10:27the way that you lived your lives.
10:29What was it like being in the Hebrew roots?
10:31So the first four years, I was in a congregation, which I would label Hebrew roots white, and I was
10:38having the time of my life.
10:39It was really great.
10:40I enjoyed learning the Messianic Jewish dance, the worship, the feast.
10:44I was having a wonderful time.
10:47And then people started denying the deity of Christ, and that's when things started to not go so well.
10:55And we actually had two couples in the congregation that we were a part of renounce Christ, and one couple
11:02said they were converting to Judaism.
11:04And so when that happened, the rabbi said that this couple had, and I had known this couple before I'd
11:13even gone to this congregation.
11:14And this couple, he said that they had studied and researched, and they believed that Jesus was not who he
11:20said he was.
11:21He was not the Messiah and Savior and Lord.
11:23And I had, this thought came to me, what if they're right?
11:28And I felt despair at that moment, because I knew if they were right, that there was no hope.
11:34And so, but the Spirit of God rose up in me, and I'm like, I know that I know that
11:38I know who he is.
11:40And so that led me to actually research out the Messianic prophecies that Jesus fulfilled.
11:45And so that was very disturbing, though, because we see all these people denying the deity of Christ.
11:50I was a part of a Bible study, Torah study group, and they stopped, the people stopped hosting it, because
11:57all these people are denying the deity of Christ.
11:58We're seeing people renounce Christ, which is very, very disturbing people I knew.
12:03And so I thought that all these things, bad things were coming into the movement, but I didn't know that
12:07the movement itself was bad.
12:09And so I was part of various congregations, home groups in different states.
12:15We went to Feast and Tabernacle celebrations.
12:17We had a blast.
12:18We had a great time of fellowship and worship, but they did immerse us in the teaching.
12:22We went to conferences.
12:24We were not supposed to buy and sell on the Sabbath, so that was difficult at times.
12:30I remember one time my husband and I going to a Christian coffee shop on Saturday, and I felt guilty
12:36because I was causing my husband to buy and sell on the Sabbath, so I could not even enjoy a
12:40cup of coffee on Saturday with my husband.
12:42And so we also weren't allowed to celebrate Christmas.
12:45We were taught that it had pagan origins.
12:47There were times I secretly missed Christmas, and we did at the end start celebrating it again, but very quietly.
12:55We didn't have Christmas trees or anything like that because they were considered pagan and so forth.
13:00And so there was good parts of it, but there were parts that were legalistic and that brought bondage, and
13:06there were parts that were joyful, and there were parts that were very disturbing when we saw Kabbalah came in,
13:12which is Jewish mysticism.
13:14I had, I don't know if I can keep going, but I was a part of, sometimes we were very
13:21isolated when I was living in Arkansas.
13:24We couldn't find any Messianic, Heberitz, Christian fellowship, anything, and I was very, very depressed, and I reached out to
13:33a Heberitz friend, and she basically told me that Yeshua rebuked me.
13:38I'm denying the presence of God, that I choose depression.
13:41That was very disturbing, and I think that is what planted a seed in my heart that started recognizing the
13:48bad fruit of the movement, that started turning me away from the movement.
13:52And so it was a mixed bag, honestly, and it depended where we were at and where I was at,
13:58and it was a mixed bag.
13:59Darrell Bock You just described most of my upbringing.
14:03There were good and bad in what I had, but from a theological standpoint, you matched a lot of what
14:11I grew up believing.
14:12And that's the other interesting part.
14:15Again, I'm still skimming the surface of Hebrew roots, but I'm going there specifically because of something you said.
14:21They began to reject the deity of Christ in certain groups, and you also mentioned the Feast of Tabernacles.
14:28So if you study Latter Rain and how it developed into Charismania and to New Apostolic Reformation, they will also
14:36trace back to this book called the Feast of Tabernacles.
14:39And that was the origin, many consider it to be the origin, of the manifested sons of God theology, which
14:46I don't know if you've heard me mention this.
14:48Darrell Bock But essentially where that evolved, people like Branham, and Branham was just one of many in the movement
14:56doing it, began to say things like Jesus could not do anything on earth unless he first saw a vision
15:04from the Father.
15:05So therefore, Jesus was a prophet.
15:08So he demoted Jesus from God down to a prophet.
15:10Darrell Bock And what that did was it eventually drove people to take the next step.
15:16Okay, if Jesus was just a prophet, well, and we have a prophet today too, then that prophet is equal
15:24to Jesus, and people would make that leap, and eventually some would abandon the faith, some would just, you know,
15:30they went all kinds of different directions.
15:32Darrell Bock But that was the theology that went awry.
15:36Darrell Bock Did you have, whenever you're studying the theologies that led people down that path, was there anything similar
15:46to what I just described?
15:48Darrell Bock Well, yes.
15:49Darrell Bock The first, the slippery slope is denying the deity of Christ and the Trinity.
15:53And then the people who continued down the path, there are many people in that movement that actually renounced Christ
16:00and said that he was no longer the Messiah, and it's much more prevalent than people realize.
16:05Not everybody, of course, goes down that far, but it's very much a very – it leads people away from
16:13Christ in another gospel.
16:15Darrell Bock Like I said, I'm fascinated, and I'm filled with questions that I want to ask.
16:20So for me growing up, I didn't really think through many of those things.
16:25I actually read the Bible, and I understood it.
16:29Darrell Bock There were things that I didn't understand very clearly because I was being told false doctrines about what
16:35it said.
16:35And so I had to put those off to the side.
16:38But I knew the core of Christianity, just simply from reading the Bible, said that Jesus is God.
16:44And you can read multiple passages that say this.
16:48So in my mind, I did not really reject it, as did some others.
16:53Darrell Bock And I never would have ever considered – if I had have known that Branham was saying these
16:58things, I would have never considered even staying in the movement.
17:01However, there were people that did.
17:04And I'm thinking through the problems that it causes.
17:09Whenever you're in that type of environment, whenever you don't have a solid foundation for your faith, then you begin
17:16to question everything.
17:17Darrell Bock And I watch people go down that path.
17:20They question every single thing.
17:23And some of them try to find answers outside of the church, because if the church is telling me this
17:28thing that I believe is false, where do I find the truth?
17:33What was it like for people who were under that type of leadership?
17:37Darrell Bock You mentioned some lost the faith, but were there people who were actively seeking other religions when they're
17:44in Hebrew roots, or what was that like?
17:47Darrell Bock Some of them added Kabbalah, which is Jewish mysticism.
17:49So some dabbled with the Jewish mysticism, and they're very big into conspiracy theory.
17:53And so, and the whole thing with the, like, they basically, like you said, people question, like, okay, the church
17:58is wrong about – they were wrong about Christmas, and they're wrong about Easter, and they're wrong about – and
18:03so they begin to question everything.
18:04Darrell Bock And so some of them believe the church, basically, everything they taught was a lie in their mind.
18:09And so they become very distrusting of the church and everything they were taught.
18:15And so they go to a lot of conspiracy theory-type stuff to, like, kind of search for the truth,
18:20and they begin to get in this very big conspiracy world.
18:24And they kind of live in that world, some of them.
18:27Darrell Bock And you've just hit on the other thing that – I didn't know if I was going to
18:30bring that up or not.
18:31I'm glad that you went there.
18:33Darrell Bock I began studying this, like I said, mainly for the British-Israel doctrines, but I began to see
18:40so many similarities that it was like both sides are separate, but they're fitting together like a zipper, and you
18:45can just zip it straight up.
18:47And what you just described is what I found when I was studying Jonestown and People's Temple.
18:52Jones emerged from all of this, and it went catastrophic, if you know that history.
18:57Darrell Bock Well, Jones began to say things like that, that you can't trust the Bible, you can't trust anything
19:03in this.
19:04He's going down the path that you just described.
19:07Darrell Bock But if you listen to the death tapes, which I have, and it's horrific, it's a hard thing
19:13to listen to.
19:14Darrell Bock He's making statements that point back to the manifested sons of God doctrines.
19:18Darrell Bock So he hasn't fully rejected manifest sons of God, he has rejected either the Bible or parts of
19:25the Bible, and the movement is more centered around him than it was anything else.
19:31He became basically the central figure that led them to their death.
19:35Did you witness groups that did this?
19:38Were there splinter groups that merged off of the main sect whenever you were in it?
19:43Darrell Bock Absolutely.
19:44There are some really extreme radical groups, and there's many, many groups in Hebrew.
19:50Some are more extreme and legalistic than others.
19:52Some are very bizarre, and so that is very much a case.
19:56The one thing they all agree on is Sabbath feast dietary laws.
20:00They're Israel, the church is wrong, Christmas and Easter are pagan, and that's basically the similarities.
20:06And after that, they split off in many different ways.
20:08Darrell Bock And one of the things that I've noticed about these groups that try to claim some sort of
20:14restorationism, they try to put it on their own shoulders.
20:20In other words, we're going to be the ones that cause the end to come, and the end will be
20:26in our favor.
20:26So therefore, we must do X, Y, and Z.
20:29Different groups will go off into, like International House of Prayer in Kansas City, they started the fasting.
20:35And we will fast and pray until Jesus comes, and we will bring forth the Joel's army, the manifested sons
20:41of God.
20:43In these extremist groups that you're talking about, and even in the main sect, did they feel like the burden
20:49was on their shoulders, or did they feel like God was in full control?
20:52It was absolutely, they feel like they were called, written in the end times to restore the Torah to the
20:59church.
21:00And that is very much, it was very, they believe that they're sanctified through the law, righteousness is kind of
21:07like Jesus plus the law.
21:08And so that they were supposed to live like this, and then bring it to other people, and to bring
21:13that to other Christians.
21:14I'm also realizing, as we're talking through all these terms, that there are things that I'm familiar with just simply
21:21because I've read a lot, but our listeners may not be aware.
21:23So let's define what some of these are.
21:26Let's talk about Messianic Judaism, how does it differ from Hebrew roots, and how does that differ from Pentecostalism?
21:33That's a great question.
21:34So many Hebrew rooters, they don't label themselves Hebrew roots, they used to, it was actually coined by their own
21:40person, Dean Wheelock.
21:43But then when it started getting negative connotations, many of them would drop the terminology, some of them call themselves
21:49Torah observant, or Messianic, hijacking the terminology, but their theology hasn't changed.
21:54Messianic Judaism is basically Jewish believers who come to Jesus Christ, trusting him as Messiah, and they hold on to
22:01the cultural traditions.
22:02They believe in the New Covenant, they do not believe that the Torah is binding, especially not on Gentile Christians,
22:09and so they would be more similar to the Christian belief.
22:13Hebrew roots people are mainly Gentiles, who believe that they're Israel, and that they are required to keep the Torah,
22:20the Sabbath, the Feast, dietary laws, and so forth.
22:23And so many of them call themselves Messianic, but they are Hebrew roots in theology.
22:28And so it's very deceptive, and that's why it's very hard for people to recognize the Hebrew roots theology, and
22:36they mix in with these other groups.
22:38And so it's, yeah, that happens often.
22:40It's kind of funny, because as you were talking, I was picturing me being as a listener to this podcast,
22:45and they would say, well, Protestantism isn't like this, Pentecostalism isn't like this, you know, and they'll go down that
22:52path.
22:53But I'm thinking on the other side of that, looked at all the different splinter groups that have emerged, each
23:00one thinking they're the right ones, the other guys are the wrong ones.
23:03And in the end, what you have is this spiderweb mess of chaos that it's really hard to connect all
23:08of these dots, and each one thinks that their specific dot that you would connect is the only one that
23:15makes it, you know.
23:16But all of them, on the Pentecostal side, all of them share this fervor for, I don't know, they look
23:24at the end times, they're so focused on the end times that that's all they want to talk about is
23:29the end times.
23:30The end is coming, the end is nigh, and interestingly, if you watch movies, it's usually those guys that are
23:37in the cults that are at the airports with the signs saying, join our cult, the end is near, right?
23:42But I grew up in that environment, and it wasn't until I left that I realized why the movies portray
23:49it like this.
23:50Usually, end times energy ends up into destructive natures.
23:55What was that like?
23:56Did you focus on the end times, or was it a trivial thing?
23:59One of the congregations I was involved with was obsessed about the end times.
24:03It's all they talked about.
24:04Again, their whole goal was preparing for the tribulation.
24:08They thought they could actually physically make it through the tribulation, and they were preparing to go through the tribulation,
24:13the wilderness, the second exodus.
24:15And we go to these Feast and Tabernacle festivals, and they would have all the focus was often on end
24:25times.
24:25And I actually had a book, one of the books was that Prince Charles was the Antichrist, and there was
24:32a whole book, a whole teaching on that, one of the Sukkot festivals.
24:35And so, yeah, they were very obsessed with end times doctrines.
24:39That being said, so if they were interested, I'm curious about the feasts.
24:44How did the feasts connect to their end times theology?
24:46They believe they're the rehearsals for, they're dress rehearsals for the coming, they're preparing for Jesus to come, like they're
24:55the bride, and that he gave us these feasts, and they're the appointed times, we're supposed to be keeping them,
25:00they're shadows of Christ's coming.
25:03And they don't see it really as, they recognize that the spring feasts were fulfilled in Christ's birth and death
25:10and resurrection.
25:11But they say that the fall feasts have not yet been fulfilled, those are going to be fulfilled in the
25:15second coming or in the end times.
25:17And so, that they were still waiting for those fulfillment of those particular feasts.
25:22And Feast of Tabernacles was a preparation for going into the wilderness and camping, and what you're going to be
25:26doing in the end times is the second exodus.
25:28Like, Israelites came out during the wilderness exodus, they celebrated Sukkot.
25:33And so, that is one of the things that they're preparing for when they're doing the Feast of Tabernacles, preparing
25:38for that period of time.
25:40So, how did the Hebrew Roots Movement view the New Covenant?
25:45They mostly believed that it was the Mosaic Covenant renewed, that it was not a brand new covenant.
25:52Some believe that the New Covenant doesn't happen until Jesus comes back, but the majority is simply the Mosaic Covenant
25:58renewed.
25:59And so, what is the New Covenant?
26:00It's the Mosaic Law written upon our hearts and minds, and therefore, we are supposed to keep them as believers
26:05and be obedient to the Lord.
26:07Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter
26:15reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
26:21You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
26:28On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
26:36John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
26:42You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
26:48If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
26:55top.
26:55And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
27:01watching.
27:01On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
27:06So let's talk a bit about theology, because you seem to know a lot of the questions that I'm asking
27:12here.
27:12You seem to know them pretty well.
27:15I have been studying and trying to grasp this concept, because we came out of a movement that was clearly
27:23marked by elements of white supremacy.
27:26And some of that, some of those elements mixed with Christian identity, and there was this distrust of church history.
27:34I'll just sum it up like that.
27:37They were solidly, firmly, adamantly against anything Roman Catholic.
27:42Yet, if you study church history, actual church history, it's the Catholic church that has most of that history up
27:51to a certain point.
27:52Then Protestantism splits off, and then obviously you can study a divergence in history.
27:58But there is a point where the church is being developed in the Catholic church.
28:04And while I'm not Catholic, and I'm not promoting Catholicism by me saying that, it is history, and you can't
28:11erase history and try to come up with something that's accurate.
28:14It just simply doesn't work.
28:17But we distrusted history.
28:19We looked at the Catholic church as though everything that they have written, everything that they've recorded is incorrect.
28:25We can't believe any of it.
28:26And I started reading and studying some of the early church fathers, and I was surprised to learn that, much
28:33like me, they were on a journey to truth.
28:36Some of them went grossly into error, I'll admit.
28:39But there was a process of refinement as you went through, and they started to emerge different doctrines and theologies
28:48to better explain what they read in the Bible.
28:51Until a certain point, whenever things got nasty.
28:54I'll just say it like that.
28:55Martin Luther said, I don't want your nasty.
28:57So there was a point in time like this.
29:00Where I'm headed with this is most groups that are in this Reformation mindset, they'll tell you, do not trust
29:08the history, trust us instead.
29:10We're the ones who hold the absolute truth because we know what happened.
29:15But yet there's no way really to erase any of the written history.
29:20They have to invent new histories to get past this.
29:24I started looking at the Hebrew Roots Movement and trying to understand how they viewed history, and that's where I'm
29:32headed with this question.
29:32I want to ask you, what was their views on Catholicism, on church history, on the evolution of Christianity as
29:39it relates to the world today?
29:41Most Hebrew writers are very ignorant of church history, and so they believe the myths.
29:46They believe everything started at Council of Nicaea.
29:49That's when Constantine started the Roman Catholic Church.
29:53That's when Constantine Christianized pagan holidays.
29:55That's when he threw out the Sabbath and feasts.
29:58He threw out books of the Bible.
29:59He invented the deity and the Trinity.
30:01That's what they teach.
30:02Well, that's not actually what happened at the Council of Nicaea.
30:05So many of them are very ignorant.
30:06The ones that are not ignorant would be more some of the teachers, and they just leave things out that
30:11they don't want you to know about or don't want their followers to know about.
30:14But the Catholic Church is actually absolutely the devil, according to the Hebrew Roots Movement.
30:19Everything evil and bad came out of the Catholic Church.
30:22And even though I, again, don't agree with Catholic theology either on many things, they say the Catholic Church did
30:29things they never actually did.
30:30And so I actually had a friend in the Hebrew Roots Movement who became Catholic.
30:35He left the Hebrew Roots Movement, and they were horrible to him.
30:37They're not really kind to anybody who leaves, Protestant or Catholic.
30:41I mean, those who go back to the Protestant Church or Catholic.
30:44But they just, yeah, the Catholic Church is like the devil.
30:47It's evil.
30:48It's just horrible.
30:50They call, Protestants are basically protesting Catholics.
30:52And so, yeah, the church history, they basically embrace church history myths because most of them have never studied church
30:59history.
31:00They just believe what they're taught, the myths that they're taught from their Torah teachers.
31:05That's what I assumed, but I wanted to ask you.
31:08And what's interesting is you literally, again, just described everything that I grew up with.
31:13That's exactly how we would say it.
31:15And I can't tell you how many times I heard Council of Nicaea in a sermon, in a non-Catholic
31:21sermon.
31:21We were listening to these guys.
31:23They were just so against it.
31:25And they would often tie it to Babylon.
31:30They would say that the Catholic Church is Babylon.
31:33It's rising.
31:33It's going to become mystery Babylon.
31:35So they would tie it to Revelation and all of these end-time themes.
31:40And, again, I'm not saying that, you know, the Catholic Church is the way to go.
31:45I won't make that distinction.
31:47But many of the things that they're saying, like you said, are absolutely false if you study history.
31:52In fact, many of the things that I have learned about church history came from websites where they have clearly
31:59just documented,
32:01here is the history.
32:02These are the errors we made.
32:04This is the good, bad, and ugly.
32:07And as a historian, that's what you want.
32:09You want the good with the bad so that you can learn from the bad and not make mistakes.
32:13So there was this idea that began to emerge as I was doing my research, this idea that something that
32:22is trying to become true,
32:24they will preserve their history, both good and bad, learn from their mistakes, move forward.
32:29Yes, they did some bad things.
32:31Yes, it was awful.
32:32But now we're correcting.
32:33Let's move forward.
32:35What I found with the Pentecostal movement is, and I do this almost every podcast,
32:41there are large portions of history where it's just omitted.
32:44And people have no idea because there's no record, and so it repeats itself, all of the mistakes.
32:50Did the Hebrew Roots movement preserve histories?
32:55Like, could you go get a history that's fully documented?
32:58Here's the doctrines.
33:00Here's why we had the doctrines.
33:01What was that like?
33:02Did they preserve, are you talking about church history or their own history?
33:06Their own history and as it relates to church history.
33:09Not really.
33:09They don't, they just have their conspiracy myths, and like a lot of it comes from like
33:14two Babylons, Alex Hyslop.
33:17And so, but they don't know.
33:18Most people don't know.
33:19They just read on the internet.
33:20They read a book.
33:21They hear a teacher tell them these myths.
33:23Constantine started the Catholic Church.
33:24He threw out.
33:25I mean, that's basically what they're taught.
33:27That's basically as far as it goes.
33:29Constantine started the Catholic Church at the Council of Nicaea, and he Christianized the
33:35pagan holidays and threw out the Sabbath and all of these things that we're supposed
33:38to be keeping, and that's basically as far as it goes.
33:42And no one really studies church history, and most people are ignorant.
33:47And many people, when they start studying church history, they come out.
33:50One of the things I did was start studying church history, which brought me out of the
33:53Oh, Christmas has pagan origins and all of these different things.
33:56And when I studied the Council of Nicaea and the Aryan heresy and found out what the Council
34:01of Nicaea was actually about, I realized that it was myths and conspiracy theories.
34:06And they really had a different history that was just passed on, and no one really actually
34:14did the research.
34:15And there are a few in the Torah movement that have actually come out and said, Christmas
34:19isn't pagan.
34:19We don't celebrate it.
34:20We shouldn't condemn Christians from celebrating it.
34:22And they would, because they actually did some history research, and they were very actively
34:26opposed by their own people.
34:28People were very upset over those who actually did do history and tried to share truth.
34:32I was taken aback just then, because you mentioned Hislop's Two Babylons.
34:36That's a book that I grew up with.
34:37We went to that book.
34:39And surprisingly, when I began my research into Christian identity and white supremacy, I kept
34:47finding references to that book everywhere.
34:49All of the white supremacists favored that book.
34:52And I don't know the full reasons other than the fact that it is a conspiracy theory.
34:58There's not a lot of, I want to say there's not a lot of truth in the book, but there's
35:03a lot of things that are taken out of context of true history.
35:07I'll say it like that.
35:09So I rejected the book, but I wanted to know why is this?
35:14Why are there so many white supremacists using this book?
35:17And that led me down the path to find exactly what you found.
35:20Council of Nicaea was not at all what they told us that it was.
35:24And it's a strange thing.
35:27The interesting part about that is all of the different groups that I found that used
35:32that Hislop's Two Babylons, our group included, they would all reject the power structures of
35:39the Catholic Church and say that it's wrong to have a pope.
35:42It's wrong to have this hierarchy of these bishops.
35:45And they'd just condemn it outright, but then they would do the same thing.
35:49And usually, whenever one of them went extremist, they would break off into their own sect from
35:56Pentecostalism.
35:56The extremist group would have their own pope.
35:59They would just call it a prophet or an apostle instead of a pope.
36:02So, did that happen in the group that you left?
36:07There were many different teachers.
36:09There's not like a one-man prophet or there's various, various different teachers.
36:14Now, there are certain ones that are very popular, but you hear the same things being
36:17spread by, even though there are different teachers.
36:20And so, there's not like just one individual.
36:22But there are a lot of internet.
36:24There are certain people that have their favorite pet Torah teachers that they follow online
36:30and different ministries.
36:31And often, I'll ask people, like, they'll often claim, oh, we just came to this knowledge
36:36by reading the Bible and the Holy Spirit.
36:38If you talk to them long enough, sometimes they'll eventually come out, no, you're actually
36:41getting it from this ministry.
36:42You were taught it from this ministry or that ministry.
36:44But it's much, it doesn't have like a headquarters, like a lot of cult or one man or one prophet.
36:49So, that is one way that the Hebrew is different.
36:52Darrell Bock There's also a difference between Hebrew
36:54roots and Pentecostalism that I probably should mention.
36:58And it's an interesting split.
37:00There's this clash between Pentecostalism's work of the Spirit, move of the Spirit, and
37:05the Hebrew roots, from what I can tell, it's more of a law, workspace, Torah obligation.
37:11That is a clash where, I would say, movements like the Word of Faith, where we're speaking
37:18new revelations from our mouths from behind the pulpits, and these new revelations or
37:23new words or rhema.
37:25That really couldn't exist in what you came out of, because they're going back instead
37:29to the Torah and trying to uplift the Torah.
37:32That being said, what I find interesting is, in Pentecostalism, they will pick and choose
37:38different verses from the Torah.
37:40And they'll say, we must uphold this one, this one, and this one, and totally overlook
37:45things like, don't eat shellfish.
37:48So, were there groups in your movement that would take parts of the Torah and say, we must
37:55uphold these, and then ignore some of the others?
37:57Absolutely, they completely do that, because their main focus is Sabbath, feast, and dietary
38:02laws, and we try to point out, well, what about all these other commands that, they claim
38:06that we're following the Torah, they'll usually say, well, there's no temple now, so we can't
38:09do that.
38:10But there's a lot of commandments they could actually do, even with no temple, but they
38:15just, they cherry pick.
38:17But they will claim to follow the Torah, even though it's mainly Sabbath, feast, dietary
38:21laws, and they ignore the ones that they don't want to do, basically, yes.
38:27So, yeah, and there is a charismatic, there are charismatic Hebrew rooters that came out
38:33of charismatic, but again, you'll have some that are anti-charismatic, some that are charismatic.
38:38It's a very bad blend, actually, the charismatic Hebrew rooters is a very bad blend.
38:42And so, we do have that in the Hebrew Roots movement, but again, there's a wide branch, lots
38:47of branches in the Hebrew Roots umbrella.
38:49That's interesting, because I was thinking there are certain elements about the Hebrew Roots
38:54movement that would actually be appealing to a charismatic, especially when you get back
38:59into some of the law-abiding, works-righteous types of faith.
39:05Many of the groups that spun off of Pentecostalism have a works-righteous element to it, which leads
39:11me to one of my funnier questions that I'm going to ask you.
39:14This really fascinates me because of multiple reasons, which I'm going to talk about in a
39:19few podcasts, and I guess it'll come out before this, there is a passage in Old Covenant
39:24Law that talks about what happens when you have mold in your hut, and it talks about how
39:30you stack the rocks, and when the rocks get, what is it, the word they use, I think, is
39:37leprosy is how it's translated.
39:38When the rock gets leprosy, you bring the priest to pray for the rock, and if the praying doesn't
39:44work for the rock, then you need to get it out and get some new rocks.
39:46I'm paraphrasing, but essentially what they're describing is, mold is bad.
39:51You don't need to be living with mold in your hut.
39:54How do things like that translate into Hebrew roots today?
39:58Because some of the Mosaic Law was so specific to things in the ancient world that just don't
40:04at all relate with today's world.
40:07What do they do when they come across something that's unrelatable?
40:10They basically say, well, it's not something you have to deal with today.
40:15It's not, you know, relatable to days that was specific at that time.
40:20Again, they always go back to, often they'll say, we're just doing the best we can.
40:24We're keeping the commandments that apply to us that we can keep, but they think God's
40:29going to restore all of it, and so they think there's going to be a temple again.
40:33There's going to be sacrifices.
40:34There's going to be, a lot of them teach there'll be animal sacrifices.
40:37So they think that when Christ comes back, it's all going to be restored.
40:41It reminds me, I was listening to, I can't remember where this was, some documentary
40:47was talking about there was a problem the first time that they had Muslims in space, because
40:52Muslims are supposed to pray towards Mecca, but what is it, three times a day?
40:56When you're outside of the orbit, which direction is Mecca?
41:01And the world is spinning, which direction is Mecca?
41:03It does, it's hard to apply that, because things have changed, things have evolved.
41:09I came to realize that there were certain passages that I read from both the Old Testament
41:14and the New Testament that really does not have an applicable concept for today, but yet
41:22I've heard sermons where they try to find some way to, what is the phrase, squint at an
41:29ad or something like this.
41:30They try to make it fit, and they can't really make it fit.
41:34What were the sermons like?
41:36Whenever you were hearing a sermon and they're preaching some of these things that just really
41:39didn't quite fit, did they try to make the context of the sermon fit the passage, or
41:46did they try to read the passage in context?
41:49They basically, their whole focus was Sabbath feast, and they just basically stuck to the
41:56ones that they embraced.
41:59And they would have Torah studies sometimes where they would discuss these different things.
42:02But they, like, for example, I would point out to people who claim, like, oh, we're keeping
42:07the dietary laws.
42:08And I'm like, okay, do you ever eat out?
42:11Because if unclean food is made in the oven with clean food, you're still not supposed to,
42:16according to the dietary laws, eat that food.
42:18Or if you go to someone's home.
42:20And so, again, they just want to wiggle their way out of those particular commands, and they'll
42:25come up with, oh, that's a particular kind of oven.
42:27And they just come up with different excuses of why they can't keep those certain commands,
42:33all the way claiming there are Torah keepers and that the church is lawless, and we need
42:38to do these things.
42:38And I think the last theological question, I feel like I've hijacked your podcast, the
42:44last theological question that I'm really dying to know, there's this concept in Pentecostalism
42:50where there's, it takes different names and different forms depending on which sect or
42:55flavor you're in.
42:56But basically, it's this idea of the final move of God.
43:00If you're in the New Apostolic Reformation, it's the final billion-soul harvest revival.
43:05There's different ways that they talk about this.
43:07But essentially, there's going to be this final thing.
43:10And for me, whenever I hear this said, it usually sets off all of these alarms because
43:16no man can know the hour, you know, the time that this thing is going to happen, but they
43:22all try to predict it.
43:24What was that like in Hebrew roots?
43:27Did they have this type of final thing that's coming, and did they have predictions of when
43:32it's going to happen?
43:33There was a last big thing that after the third wave of the Holy Spirit being
43:37restored to the church, now the Hebrew roots and the Torah will be restored to the church.
43:41So like this is the last, there was like technically so-called prophecies given, I think, in Colorado
43:46to a Hebrew roots teacher in the 90s.
43:48There was also a thing years ago called the Daniel's Timeline where they actually predicted
43:52when they believed that the tribulation was going to begin.
43:55And they believed the great tribulation is three and a half period.
43:58So they actually prophesied, this man actually prophesied when he believed that Christ was
44:02going to return.
44:03And so it was a very popular DVD for a time.
44:08And then, of course, the date came and left and it never happened.
44:12So there is some of that that happened that certain teachers will make false prophecies.
44:16And a lot of them won't make specific dates, but they do think that the Torah being restored
44:21is an in-time movement to restore the Torah to the church.
44:25And I guess the last, last question that I'll ask you, whenever a group has that type of theology,
44:33usually it turns isolationist after a while because they start to see the world closing
44:38in on them.
44:39Some people just don't agree with it.
44:41And what happens is they start using phrases like, we use the remnant is what we would say.
44:48In Pentecostal charismania, you would say, we're the spirit-filled remnant.
44:52In New Apostolic Reformation, we're the, I don't know, prophetic army, Joel's army.
44:56I think Armstrong said, we're the true church with the restored gospel is the way he would
45:01say it.
45:02What did the Hebrew roots say?
45:04Did they use remnant or any type of theology like this?
45:08They would use remnant sometimes, but mainly that they were Ephraim, which was symbolic
45:13of the descendants of the lost tribes, that they had discovered their identity of being
45:18the descendants of the lost tribe, that they were Israel, which restored, you know, that
45:23part is being restored.
45:24And so again, the final restoration was when they went back to the land and they are reunited
45:31with the Jews.
45:32And so some of them taught that.
45:33That was like such an emphasis that sometimes they, there were particular teachers that
45:38would say, yeah, Jesus came to die, but that wasn't his main reason for dying for our sin.
45:41He actually died so that the lost two tribes could come back together.
45:44And that was one of the big teachings to bring the two tribes back together, which of course
45:49they were Israel and then restored with Judah.
45:53So earlier you talked about the final things that were happening in your mind and your theology
45:59that were making you decide to leave.
46:01What did it look like after you left?
46:04Some of these groups that have this isindulatianist mentality, they don't treat former members very
46:10well.
46:10I'll just say it like that.
46:11How were you treated when you left?
46:13Most of them cut me off.
46:14And so I want to share a little bit how God brought me out.
46:18So I was very zealous.
46:18I believe this 100% that God had revealed these truths to me and I was sitting in a Hebrew
46:24rich congregation and the spirit of God rent the veil.
46:28And I could see that the thoughts that came to me that they were exalting the Torah above
46:32Yeshua.
46:33They're out of balance and I didn't need to go there anymore.
46:36And I went home that day and I thought all these bad things were coming into the movement.
46:40But what the Lord, the insight I received from the Lord was that there, the foundation and
46:47of the Torah movement, the Hebrew rich movement is faulty and cracked because it was not based
46:51on Jesus and the gospel, but based on the Torah.
46:54And so the next day I went to, and I felt like I was in this box in my identity
46:57guys being shaken
46:59and get out of the box and went to church the next day.
47:02And we sing this song, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
47:06And I realized at that moment that I had lost sight of the righteousness of Christ while
47:10in that movement.
47:11So that's when my eyes were opened.
47:13It took some time to unravel from some of the doctrines of Sabbath and so forth.
47:16And, but, um, I, I could have just went on with my life after I came out of these things,
47:21but I felt that the Holy spirit kept impressing me truth and love go together.
47:25They can't be separated to speak out and share truth on Facebook.
47:27I had many, many Hebrew roots, Facebook friends, many Hebrew roots friends, not only where I
47:32live, but all over because of living in different states and going to tavern, actual celebrations
47:35all over.
47:36And the majority of them would speak very, um, harshly and cut me off.
47:41Um, so yes, most of them cut you off and they think we're, um, they think Christians are
47:46ignorant and some of them believe that Christians will be released in the kingdom for not keeping
47:50the law and some will be cast out of the kingdom.
47:52But someone who was in the Torah movement, the Hebrew roots movement that came out, they
47:57actually think we are just completely apostate because we knew the truth and we're willfully
48:02rejecting it.
48:03We are rebellious and, um, they are very, um, yes, very harsh.
48:08And, um, most of them get very upset and they absolutely, many of them, people who I stayed
48:14in their homes, like overnight people who I went camping with, we, we celebrated the feast
48:20together, knew them for years, cut me off.
48:23And so that is very much a reality.
48:25The Hebrew roots movement.
48:26When you leave.
48:27What advice would you give to people who are still in the Hebrew roots movement?
48:30That Jesus is our righteousness, that his righteousness is imputed to us, that the law does not sanctify,
48:37the law does not add to the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
48:41And that our, it is about Christ in a relationship with him being filled with his spirit and being
48:48transformed by the spirit of God.
48:50And that, um, just be humble, be open, be teachable.
48:54Love truth, research out truth, read scripture in context.
48:58That is huge because many of the scriptures in the Hebrew roots movement are built on out
49:04of context scriptures and just have a love for truth and that our God is a good God.
49:10And he's not this nitpicky God that expects us to keep the laws that were never given to
49:15us, um, under the Mosaic law.
49:18We are under a brand new covenant.
49:19Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant and we have freedom in Christ through the new covenant
49:26and through his blood that was shed for us.
49:28Well, that's very good advice.
49:29Thank you so much for doing this.
49:31Thank you so much.
49:32If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can
49:35check us out on the web.
49:37You can find us at william-branham.org.
49:39For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
49:43from Christian Identity to the NAR.
49:46Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
50:16Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
50:26Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
50:27Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
50:32Marshall, Ticket, and B operates.
50:32Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
50:33Well, being able to serve is your own business and your own business and your own business,
50:34et cetera, joy-speaking one, audible.
50:34Well, I felt in love for you.
50:34It's in love for you.
50:35I felt like you were living with me.
50:40And really heavy friends for my friend, When I was in love with Familie.
50:40Well, it's in love with visitors, you can see you guys
50:42Let's come see that way Paul Frank Bliss.
50:42Yeah, you can't see you know.
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