Our Stories: Discovering the Gospel - With Daniel Loveall

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Daniel Lovell, former member of the message cult following of William Brannum.

Daniel, it's good to have you on and to tell your story about the message. Maybe you could just start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself and your connection to the cult following of William Brannum.

Thank you, John. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I started watching your videos over about a year ago. And I was born and raised in the message my whole life. My family came to the message in the 60s and they're all still in.

And I have believed that William Brannum was a prophet all the way up until December of last year. It actually all happened in a pretty hard part of my life. My little girl had been diagnosed, burnt up on the little girl.

My wife was pregnant with our daughter and she was diagnosed with a... I can't think of what the name is, but it's a condition anyways. And it was in the womb and so we were going through a hard time in the hospital.

And it was during this time, I was really searching for God and for Jesus and just wanting to know some questions I had in the past. And so yeah, I've been in the message my entire life on going on 34 years old.

So just up until a year ago, I believe that William Brannum was a prophet. Wow, so it's recently. I've had a few people tell me now that they share the same kind of story you did.

They began searching for Jesus and suddenly woke up and realized that, wait a minute, you can't find Jesus in any of these recordings. It's all pointing to William Brannum and the focus was just entirely on the wrong direction.

And he was the quote-unquote voice of God to us. So what was it like when you suddenly realized that things were not as it seemed as far as Christianity was concerned with the message?

So. it actually goes back farther than that. So, you know, I had was a very, I mean, I listened to all the tapes. I was all in. I mean, I truly believed when your brand was the voice of God for me in this age. And it wasn't until about two, well, I would say about 2009. I had gotten married to a Mosley girl. And that marriage didn't, it didn't last long. The, you know, people didn't think she was a real message girl. And she was kind of already going out. So, when I came back to the church,

I had attended other message churches. And when I came back to the church, I just felt that the love that they had for me was gone. It didn't feel like almost like I had a stain on me, you know. And and the whole time while I was in, even when I, before that, I was constantly wanting to have the Holy Ghost, get through sanctification, justification, all the things that you had, all the steps you got to go through, you know, to get the token and get, be adopted. And through that process, it was, it was always, you know, every time under justification, you know, I would get to a point where it was

where I felt like, finally, I'm being sanctified. And then I mess up. I do something I shouldn't have done. And then it just, the process would start all over again. It was like being on a hamster wheel time. And so I never felt like I was saved. I never felt like I was saved. I mean, through, throughout that, I just was always wanting salvation. And so, so after that, I'd, I had, was still attending there. And, and my dad, how, how it kind of started. So my dad hated the movie gun smoke, because William Brano said that Matt Dillon would shoot people in the back,

and that he was a yellow coward, or something along those lines. And so just being curious, because I love Westerns, I wanted to see who Matt Dillon was, you know, like the historical person.

Well, when I went to Matt Dillon, Matt Dillon was a fictitious character, like, a fictitious character, like Superman. Yeah. And so it just started these questions of like, why would he lie about something so silly? And it, but I, you know, in my, my mind, I tried to justify it. I was, I was trying to, I suppressed it is what I did. But that seed got planted right then and there. And it was just like this thing is like, man, why would he tell a lie like that?

What was the reason for that? You know, and, but I'm suppressed it. I figured, well, there must have been somebody that was real close to the name of Matt Dillon who did that. And through my research, I, I don't remember what I found, but I just kind of let it go at that point. And then believe the sign came out and that got blasted over the pulpit as far as the cloud and, and, and basically, you, you know, you're basically following, you're going to fall in the same trap and be led away, be led astray or whatever, I wanted to prove that the cloud happened.

So I kind of went through some, I went and looked at the cloud date and I went through the messages and stuff started not lining up and I was like, oh boy, so I suppressed it again and that's the crazy part that I suppressed it deep down. But after that time, that feeling of there was something wrong and then stuff had happened in the church and the church ended up getting closed down later on and I just saw what church, what message, this is supposed to be the bride, what message church, what two message churches can agree with each other.

There's not, I mean, I really know another church is in Arizona, pretty much fellowship. There's some that will fellowship with the other but they all will talk badly about the other church and it just was just like, I don't want to go to a message church. It just, it got to that point where I was like, I want anything to do with with that type of gospel. That's the way, why is it producing this? And so there was another question of why it was producing, you know, why is it producing this? People who who can't even get along and they have no desire to get people

to Christ. And so I just kind of, I stopped going, I went down a bad path for a while but then you know that hunger inside me to serve Jesus never went away. And so when I started to to seek him, truly seek him, I ended up, this is how funny it. I didn't, at the time I got engaged to a girl who's now my wife who, you know, she wasn't raised on the message or anything.

So she was wanting to seek God and I didn't want to take her to a message church because I was like, well that's just a bunch of crazy people and I don't want her to, to, you know, that be her exposure of all this infighting and stuff. So what I do, I was trying to think, well, William Brannum was a Baptist at one point. So I started going to a Baptist church. I was like, it won't be Pentecostal because that'll really scare. And so we started going to a Baptist church for a short period of time and before we ended up moving to Texas, but it was the love of the people

and the love for souls, like junior wine love for getting people saved it. And that just was like, well that's a little different, you know, why isn't that not in the message? You know, it's kind of funny because I remember many of the milestones that you're describing.

I came across the fact that Matt Dillon was a fictional character. And like you, I'd heard all my life, he's, I've heard the sermon over and over. I can't remember which one it was, but he was saying that he's a yellow-bellied coward and how, you know, you weren't supposed to watch TV because their displaying cowards on TV was the essence of what he was saying. And then I found it was not real. And kind of like you, I just scratched my head. Why would you lie about that? That's kind of a...

silly thing, and I kept finding other silly lies that just really had no bearing in the sermon at all. Like, why would you say it? And then I came across, he was doing the same thing with Bible verses.

And he said that we, he said that the Bible says that we're born in sin, shaped in an equity, came into the world speaking lies, which isn't a Bible verse. He took two Bible verses and blended them together to make this.

And so here's a man who's continually lying, who's inventing Bible verses, and inventing them so that he can tell his lies. And I'm, I still scratched my head. I'm like, well, yeah, but maybe that's not that important.

And the problem was the lies kept growing and growing. And it was, it went from there to trivial matters to he's talking about spiritual things. And he's not truthful about those as well. And it presented a logical flaw because the whole summation of his alleged call to be the messenger of the age was that God was sending a perfect message to prepare the church for the coming rapture and the end of the world.

And like you, I've been to multiple churches. And so I'm scratching my head again. I'm thinking, wait a minute, if this was the perfect message, why is there such a mess of divisions among all of it?

And this was during the time, I don't know if you remember, Joseph Brannum had put out some sort of a, here I stand, magazine, I can't remember what it was, but he was, it was a call to action basically that all of these disparate groups of conflicting sects of the message must come together because they're stealing our copyrighted information, which wasn't copyrighted, copyrighted, which was also another lie.

So at the end of the day, I was like, you know, none of this makes any sense. I need to start digging deeper, but that was, that was a big milestone in my journey as well.

Well, you know, a lot of it is, is you listen to the sermon, a lot of people listen to the sermons and he might say one thing over here, and if you just listen to tapes, it goes right over you because you, if you don't listen to back-to-back or, or in a sequence to where you catch it, you won't ever catch it.

You know, he might, you know, like his father's death or his life story, he'll change things in there and you, if you listen to it one day and you don't listen to it for a long time after that, you'll, you'll, you'll never, you'll never catch it.

It's just like it, it's one of those things where it's, you have to actually look, you know, especially when you've been taught so much that if you even look or if you even question, you're going to, you're going to hell, man, you're, you're doomed.

I mean, that was my biggest fear all these years, this is when I would find stuff like, you know, like the Matt Dillon thing, it was this fear of looking any farther because You almost think that you're taught you're blaspheming the Holy Spirit by raising a question and I mean that's that's why I suppressed things so So much I would I would find you know, and it wasn't a whole lot of things that I'm fine It was a lot of it like I said was the the two two major wasn't I mean The major one being the cloud I suppressed that one the most but it was also like you said just the the absolute

division among the churches to where even it And you know, that's where I guess the people who are the tape group if they are true messaged believers and believe they're the bride they if they're not being taught or they're being more open to other people maybe they are the ones who are closer to the truth, but I mean outside of that you can't find anybody who agrees with each other I mean it is complete division and And they'll outcast You know a whole churches and and I saw a lot of that growing up a lot of that

Even with our own family. I mean we were looked down upon as far as Because we didn't go to another certain church, you know, so But yeah, my What my uh my journey continued and um I had I had went I'd went to Indiana to see my family and uh on that um On that trip I was lit I listened to a book by Phil Roberson of dup dynastie of all things And he gives his testimony and and in his testimony He he was a pretty bad character who came to Christ and until the life he lived after in the amount of people

I was amount of souls that man went after him baptized and I was just thinking to myself Man, why isn't that in the message why aren't we doing that? Why isn't why aren't these message churches out there that I've never seen I mean if they see another a center I mean they almost want to walk on the other side of the street if it's somebody to You know that that looks too bad to them or they they shun kind of everybody that the the deep care for souls was not there And so that That kind of sat with me, you know, there's one thing that was

Eating at me for you know, just another thing added that was eating at me and uh When I went there we went down to the Ohio River where we were standing there by the municipal bridge and Um my brother-in-law was telling my wife about the 1933 baptism and all that and And so he was talking to her and I was just standing there by myself and so I was like, you know We find that 16 men who fell off the bridge don't want to get the articles show To my wife because at this time I still believe you as a prophet even though it was slowly starting to

I was slowly waking up, you know, but It was just another big question. It was like why why is I can't why am I not seeing anything on this? And at that point in my heart, I knew that the bridge probably didn't have, but I suppressed it.

And time went on, and I just kept wanting to serve the Lord. I would still listen to tapes pretty regularly. No, I just didn't say pretty regularly, but I would still listen to tapes.

It was hard because when I listened to tapes, and I would hear him, and then your mind goes, how could he have lied about anything? He just seems like such a sweet person, and you almost feel like it almost sucks you back in when you do listen to his sermons or did in the past.

But the one thing I was holding onto was Billy Paul, because I knew Billy Paul was already an old man. And I could just kind of justify that my mind was like, well, he still says he's not an old man.

So if he feels like he's not an old man, I'll leave it at that. But California ought to sink pretty soon. And I was in a parking lot at a restaurant. And my mom texted me, said, I just want to let you know, Billy Paul passed.

And the immediate thought that hit my mind was, well, he's a false prophet. I mean, that thought entered my mind a bit. I got so scared. I started repeating, like, Lord, I'm sorry. Like, let me, you know, I don't want to black thing the Holy Spirit, you know.

But that thought came through my mind. And it was just like, wow, I've heard that with my whole life. And to go back on that, whenever I was, whenever I was in our pastor, the one who had taken over when I was, when he first took over, they was a rumor that went around the message that Billy Paul had died.

And it kind of shook everybody up. And I remember him saying that could not have happened at the lie. Because if he, if he passed before this prophecies fulfilled, that would make Brother Random a false prophet.

As I remember him saying that. And so that was the biggest wake up call for me to really start, start looking. Yeah. And it's so different now. When I was in the message and, you know, growing up, coast to coast, I'd hear all these ministers say similar things.

I remember exactly the moment and time that you're talking about. Whenever the rumors went out, Billy Paul had died. And William Brandon predicted that before he's an old man, California, Los Angeles specifically would sink beneath the ocean.

And once Billy Paul got very, very elderly, you didn't hear that so much in all the churches. They kind of cut that part out. And you didn't hear any of that anymore. And then I want to say it was two years prior to his death.

The rumor had gone. I think his cancer diagnosis came either one year. here two years, I can't remember which before, but anyway, whenever the cancer hit the rumor mill that he had, you know, he'd developed cancer, you didn't hear a single thing about, well he's not gonna die because California hasn't sunk yet.

What you heard is, pray for him, it doesn't look good and they completely changed their tune. But so the people who are listening who are unfamiliar with all of these stories, you know, William Brannum made all of these ridiculous, some of them ridiculous claims, some of them just simply prophecies that he pulled out of his butt.

There's really no better way to say it. He would be speaking and suddenly he'd pull out and I've got this prophecy here and then two or three sermons later he changes it slightly, some variation and over time it changes until what was eventually the quote unquote prophecy that entered into cult mythology.

The biggest of which was Billy Paul was not supposed to be an old man before California sank. Right. And that opened the can of worms for me. I mean, at this point, you know, I still had the fear but I was driving to work and I just started praying.

I prayed, I mean probably like I've never prayed before and I just prayed to God, I said, Lord, if this man is your prophet, then I said, my prayer started with, you're not the author of confusion.

And if this man is a prophet, then when I look into, I'm going to look into these things and if it is absolutely the truth, it'll all shake out and I will find the truth.

And if he's not, then I will denounce him and I will follow you and you alone. And it was that day I started looking and I started with a little bit of belief to sign that I got on the off the shelf podcast with Ron.

I wrote it's Rod, sorry. And Rod, he does a good job of explaining Deuteronomy 18 is a 20 through 22, I believe the scripture about what qualifies a prophet. If a prophet speaks anything in my name and it does not happen, do not believe it.

And that effect, the scripture goes on to say to Stony. So in Old Testament terms, if we still lived under the law, then he would have had to have been stoned based on a false prophecy.

And so I'd started there and then I mean, I just started digging, I watched every podcast. I looked up everything I could, I searched the message, I started comparing quotes and there was always things that you would wonder about.

He would say one thing over here and then say something different over here. So I just started looking for contradictions if there was changes of his beliefs or how those things came about. And I got through Rod's podcast, I got to the point.

of the trailer park episode with Deborah would have been Dalton at the time and she talks about what happened at that trailer park and I grew up around that so you know everybody on the Dalton side I have family who were married into it and and everything like that so I had heard about them being at that trailer park but I did not know it went on there truly that was always that was never talked about there were some things that some criminal activity that they participated in as far as they had started poaching with the blessing of William Brennan and they always put it

as he told them not to take it too far but it's just a feature family it's okay well they got addicted to it and almost got caught yeah they almost they almost got caught and and actually I believe it was Jim Dalton had said he had a dream that they had all got mowed down and they were getting close to catching them and they they ended up stopping doing you know doing that and I believe they're repented for it later so I'm not you know what they did but you know that was just kind of something that was going on at that trailer park of one thing but when she described

everything else that went on with the children and I had some stuff happen to me when I was a very very young child and so listening to that it broke me and it I mean it made me it actually made me angry that he would allow that because he condoned it he he literally he put those people there he put Leo and Jean to game in uh who were evil evil meant and he allowed them to do these things and the thing that came to me was he actually went there and preached and and and she said

that everybody acted like nothing was wrong but to me if he's a prophet where was the discernment got got has a very he's very protective of children and so knowing what happened to those children and that he'd ever discerned it at finally which is like he is a false prophet those words finally came out of my bowel and after that I mean it I just I got onto your podcast and you put a lot of pieces and puzzles and and things together and if you go back to when I got to the Roy Davis uh uh situation and anybody in my family or anybody in the message who who you know is it here's

this go look up Roy Davis and see who that man was and that's that man well in brad of never ever

denounced him he just never did and there the that's a whole other can of worms we can I mean I don't know if you want to go into that but yeah After that, you put a lot of pieces together for me.

Yeah, there's just so many flaws, critical flaws with all of it from start to finish. And you begin to wonder, what was this? It wasn't really Christianity by no means, it wasn't, you know, it was almost like it was a stage act and it wasn't even a religion.

When you really take a step back and look at everything that happened, everything that was said right down to the lies that you mentioned. The only thing that I could come up with as a reason why somebody would say something like the, you know, the thing with Matt Dillon is that it sounded good for the stage act because he would say these things and he would get a response.

And if the response was positive, he'd go to the next town and he would say the same thing because he got a really positive response in the first town. So it becomes more like a traveling circus than it does a religion.

And when you look where it ended up, traveling circus is, it might be a blessing to be a traveling circus compared to where it ended up. It's such a mess. Yeah, it has, I mean, it's take how many directions it's taken, it's taken a million directions.

I mean, it's it went all over the place and it all comes down to him saying one thing in one town, going to the next town and saying something different to where, you know, one of these cult leaders will get a hold of that and they run off with another message and then, you know, they do it again and then the next guy does it with something else.

And it's actually funny, the cult Christmas thing now that's really close to Christmas time. When I first grew up, we were taught Christmas, you know, that was, that was the pagan, it was blasted.

And I'm not allowed to participate with Christmas, but my grandmother, who is a baptist lady, she, in my grandfather, they, they were a little more well off and they always made sure we had Christmas.

I mean, she would, they weren't going to stand for us kids not having Christmas, but we never had a Christmas tree or or anything like that. And then, and then later on when, when the next pastor took over, he's telling the people well, you know, William Brownham had a Christmas tree and, and he said, do it for the kiddies.

And if you, if you think it's wrong to have a Christmas tree, well, you're saying he's a, that he must not be a prophet, you know, it was this, so then we got actual Christmas towards the end of, you know, my time living at home, but yeah, it's just so many things like that.

Yeah. And that's the hard part, right? When you've got a stage act where you have a doctrine that appeals to one crowd and then it doesn't appeal to the other crowd, you change the doctrine.

And I've noticed this, like the, the Christmas thing, he would blast Christmas to hell and back in one city and then he go to the next one, he'd go back home to Jeffersonville where he's actually opening his presents.

Well, the people in the town that he just blasted it had no idea that he's opening his presence, and he has a Christmas tree and all these things, right? And so because the people have taken this religion as the quote unquote spoken word, which is superior in their minds to the written word or the Bible, and they have been trained to believe the Bible in a very fundamentalist, very legalistic manner, where it's inherent.

And so they think that the words of William Brannum are inherent. So when they read these things, don't have Christmas, and you're essentially, you're doomed to hell, if you go to, if you participate in Christmas.

Well, because they're following the legalistic standpoint, well, which side do you take, which side of the coin? And what I have learned from all of the churches that are visited is they always choose the more strict side when they find a conflict.

If they find doctrine A, doesn't match doctrine A in this other place, on this other town that he spoke, well, which one is gonna make it harder and more difficult on the people? That's the one that they're gonna choose.

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On behalf of William-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. Paul addresses us to the Galatians about if you, you know, not to quote exact scripture, but basically if you take on the law, you're subject to all of it and you're subject to the weight of the law and it's not through rules and regulations and all this stuff, it is about your belief in Jesus Christ, your faith in Christ and he sanctifies you.

And this is one thing I've recently been thinking about when it comes to the perfection of the bride. We hear that all the time, you know, this message is to perfect the bride. Well, if you believe that, then you're casting Christ out.

You can't have Christ and the message because Christ perfects us. We are sanctified, you Christ. We're as perfect as perfect can be. through Christ Jesus, and they've been marked faith is in him, and this whole idea of the fact that you have to be perfect, and this message is going to make you perfect, so these people they take, like you said, the hardest things that they can find to try to perfect the people to their to their idea of what a perfect Christian is, and it just throws it literally you'll have to throw out Christ to accept, to accept the the perfection message because he is the one who was perfect,

I can't live up to the law, and I tried, I tried really hard, but I can't do it, John, and I don't think any man is going to do the real walk this earth as well.

Well, and that's the whole sum of the gospel, right? If you read Hebrews and you read, like you said, Galatians, all throughout the New Testament, it talks about how man could not save themselves, and that's why the law was replaced with the better thing.

And Hebrews goes, the book of Hebrews goes very clearly into, we now have no high priest, we don't need this anymore, we have Jesus, and we have the gospel, but that's not what they teach in these churches.

In fact, they teach the opposite of the book of Hebrews in the message church, and even many of the things, many of the groups that have developed because of the message, they look to the current apostle or prophet of whatever is their movement as their new high priest, and he becomes the mediator between God and man. And Timothy says there's only one mediator between God and man, that's Jesus, but what they've essentially done is replace Jesus with whoever is their apostle or the prophet.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And the whole, the, the fact that the funny, well, we back up, the funniest part about it is, if you are in Christ Jesus and you have the Holy Spirit, you're not going to go run around on your wife, you're not going to murder somebody, you're not going to do break the 10 commandments because you love because it's through love, the love of Christ that's in you.

And there's no extra biblical rules or there's nothing like that. You know, in your heart, when you sin, you know, nobody has to tell you a thing, but when you make up sin, and you make up, you know, extra, extra things that now everything as a sin, you're literally trapped in this weight, this weight of, of never being good enough, and you never will be through false something like that.

Yeah, exactly. I remember the difference between what we were raised in, and true Christianity, when I started experiencing churches after leaving the cult, because quite honestly, I had never heard the gospel. I had heard things that were called the gospel.

And interestingly, if you go study the recordings of Brannum or the variations taught by Brannum's ministers, even that was in conflict. There was no real gospel. In fact, the gospel to them is the good news.

God has sent William Brannum, and so I started my new churches, and the very first church I attended, which was also a Baptist, they had this little class of teaching you what is the gospel, and they wanted me to go to it, and I said, well, I've been a Christian all my life.

I know what's the gospel, and the pastor said, okay, John, what is it? And I tried to explain it, and it was so convoluted and complicated. And I finally said, well, it would take me a while for me to explain it to you, but it's a complicated thing I know.

And he's like, but no, it's simple, John, why don't you come to this class? So I went to it, and they hand me this little thin book, what is the gospel? And I mean, there's only like this tall, it was probably not even an eighth of an itch thick, and I thought they can't pack the gospel in this little tiny thing.

It would take a thick book to explain the gospel to you based on the message of William and I started reading it while they were talking, and suddenly I knew my Bible, I had read my Bible continuously growing up, and they're pointing out to actual Bible verses of what is the gospel, and I'm like, oh, no, out of everything that I was lied to about, all of the lies that I found in the message, don't tell me that they actually lied about what is the gospel.

And at the end of the class, I finally concluded, not only did he lie about Matt Dillon, William Brandham also lied about what was the gospel. Yeah, I mean, absolutely, that's that to me, I never knew what the gospel was, I thought like you said, you think you know, but you have all these things, I mean, it's it, it's so confused.

It actually, you get confused trying to understand it. And whenever I broke free and that weight, I mean, it, as well, I want to tell people who, who are searching out there, the weight of breaking free and realizing Jesus Christ is the only answer to all to, to lie, to your problems, to everything, once, once you realize that and once you truly surrender to him and to announce this thing, the weight of the world will come off to you because it is so simple that a child could understand it.

And that was Jesus's intention when he said, go forth and preach the gospel. He didn't say, go forth and preach him the seven seals and the, and the thunders, seven churches, but you know, preach the gospel and it's such a simple thing a child could understand it.

The gospel was actually look almost like it was the secondary downplay thing of any Christian out there. Well, they just have the gospel or they just have Jesus, they don't really don't have the truth.

And so therefore, they're going to all have to be burned up, but in the end, they'll be say, but they're not going to be part of the bride. They'll be kind of this little outskirts of heaven type preaching at one point in the message just thinking I'll never make it because I can't, you know, I can't ever seem to be perfected. I figured, well, Lord, if you'll just let me just let me in. I don't have to be part of the bride. Just let me not knowing that it was so simple all along. I mean, it, yeah, it's a wonderful thing.

It's really hard to believe. And the people while you're under this mind control or whatever this is when you're in the message, you have been manipulated and trained to believe that it's easier to believe the this thing that they're calling the gospel. It's easier on you than the outside world and the outside world. And the fact that they use the phrase outside world declares it's a call. Right. But to say between you and the outside world, the outside world struggles so deeply because they don't have what we have, brother.

And once you're, once you're out of it, you're like, wait a minute. I had so much weight on my shoulder. I was, you look at some of the people they're before and after photographs of what they look like when they're in the cult and when they left. It's a night and day difference. It's like they, some of the people look like they lose 10 years off of their lot, 10 years of age off of their life whenever they leave because they look so happier and refreshed and unburdened. I think that's the biggest way to say is unburdened.

And I'll never forget that feeling. You start a new church and you suddenly feel like I don't have to abide by all of these rules that I can't find in the Bible anywhere. And I don't have to live according to the standards that I don't know how to put this in a kind way and there's probably not a kind way. But you had to look down on people who weren't in it. You had to, you had to believe that you were better than them because you knew this prophet guy who's lying to you through his teeth. And they don't. So they're the ones

that are not going to be saved. You had to look down on them according to the doctrines if you follow all of them out to their conclusion. I'm a people person and I can't do this.

The one of my burden, my biggest weight was why do I have to, why do I have to treat people like this or think this way about them? They're human just like I am. Why don't we go out and reach them? If they're lost, let's go pull them into the message.

Not only do they look out, look at the denominations or just people who aren't Christians or anybody else in this in the world like that, they look at the next church, the next message church down the street the same exact way. Absolutely. And and and being raised in that or well, I had family from other churches, you would get that feeling when you get around them. Like, you know, I'm not, I'm a lesser Christian because I don't go to your church.

And and my grandpa had just a. recently passed away on the mom's side. And they were never in the message. And a family member had held the funeral, or we didn't really have a funeral, we had a little memorial for him.

And his words were, well, he accepted Jesus Christ. So basically it was almost in a way that he might be saved. But because he was a friend of the bride, that we know he'll be saved because he was a friend of the bride.

And here I have family members who are not in the message, or family members who don't go to that church, all at that memorial. I mean, this was before I came out. It had angered me at that point.

I was like, you're downplaying if he was known to have given his life to Jesus Christ, he's saved. There's no, maybe he might because he didn't have the message because he was a friend of the message people that way there would save him.

So it was the salvation through the message, even if you're a friend of it. Yeah, it's like a get out of jail free card, man. So if you want to live any way that you want, just be kind to the people that are in the call.

But there is a caveat. You can't have been in the cult and also get that set about you at your funeral. You have to have never believed it and be kind to the bride.

There's all these loopholes and complexities and it's just so overcomplicated. The gospel is supposed to be simple. And I remember exactly what, as you mentioned that, all these triggers are going off in my head.

You're talking about how one church won't communicate with another and they condemn the other ones. I remember going and hearing these sermons about what was the phrase they would use. They would be all of these sermons where it was some churches in the message.

Won't do X, some churches in the message. And they would start like a whole series of sermons on this using this some churches in the message and towards the end of it, they would say, but I'll tell you why, friends, it's because they don't believe the prophet like we do.

And you're like, man, I just visited that church. They do believe the prophet. And so I never really thought about it until I left, but I went back through all of the times of the some churches believe sermons that I heard.

And I started just comparing, okay, this church doesn't like this other church because he said X, what did he actually say? And to the detriment of the message, one of the biggest downfalls was they released the search engine where you can search everything that the guy said.

So you go look and you search on this sermon and sure enough, this church is right. That other church is not living to what he said, but now let's go look on the flip side.

And you go type it in and you're like, well, that one's right too. So both churches are wrong. So where do you go? What do you believe? The whole thing is just a... convoluted mess if if you if you went back to Jesus Jesus so said you by person based on based on the way it is because there's it's like the Pharisees and the Sadducees you know that here they are doing the same thing when he was on earth and he condemned them for that and then we come back for our day and we have people doing the exact same thing it's uh

I don't know it's just once you once you get on the other side of it and you you look back and we look at all of the the crazy the craziness that goes with it and like you said the the ability just to go search and look things up um it all makes sense why why there's so much division it was created in a way that and I don't think he did it on purpose I think as he changed his act over time of where he was going with things that he would say things in the past to you know

to appease the people he was who were still following him at that time and then as he went forward you know then then those people left him so then he was onto a new group and so he would change his white you know the whole Trinity thing that that shocked me when I came out and looked up when him praying to the third person of the Trinity I just was like no that's the mark of the beast yeah I had one interview I'm not able to play it yet because the the unfortunate it's unfortunate the person threatened to sue if I play his testimony so I'm waiting till he passes

but he he was describing um his his father worked very closely with William Brannum during the early years and apparently Brannum caused a huge huge controversy among all of the early Pentecostals because he had no issue going into a Pentecostal church and baptizing in the you know in the name of Jesus Christ according to oneness Pentecostalism and then going to the next town and baptizing a person in the name of the father son and Holy Ghost and this was early in his ministry this wasn't you know this wasn't um it was after he after Laterane whenever he allegedly

got the commission from the angel or whatever in the early stages he's doing this and they're they're casting out they're rejecting him and the whole thing man I have to question did he actually believe anything that he said in his stage act because there's certain things like that that if you are if you have a conviction so strongly about the nature of God for example if you have a conviction you're going to stick with that conviction you're not going to go on both sides but it's like he didn't even have a conviction about what it was he was teaching

and he so he'd do both and it reminds me I don't know if you remember these two for Super Bowl commercials, but they would have like these guys sitting there with a can of beer and they say, I wanna watch ballet dancing, I wanna watch football.

Let's watch both and they crush the beer down and you'd see ballet dancers. Well, that's what it's like, man. This is like the religion of let's have both. Yeah, it absolutely is. And it's just over time how much he changed his persona.

His persona, I used to listen to a lot of the messages in the 50s because I was so seeking the basic salvation of how to be saved because I never felt like I truly understood it.

And he did go into more of the gospel and I felt like in his back in the 50s and you would hear him say, you know, you're all your circle bigger and you know, it doesn't matter if you're a Baptist, Methodist.

It's one body of Christ and if you're saved, you know, you could be a Catholic and you're still saved and he would say statements like that. And so that was one thing that would always confuse me.

It was like, well, now they say all his denominations are doomed and here he was saying, don't leave your Baptist church. Go back there for your Catholic church. Go back there, you know. But that time went on, he changed it again.

Yeah. It's like how every church, every cult starts. You start up by saying, everybody's welcome. He would say, I remember this growing up, I'd listen to those sermons too. He'd say if they draw you out of their circle, draw a bigger circle and draw them back in and he's referring to not only Baptist and Methodist, he's also referring to Catholics which became the messages number one enemy.

So he's literally saying, if you're Catholic and they try to excommunicate you, we'll bring them in to your fold and have fellowship with them because they're your brother and the early stages, get everybody hooked and then condemn all of the organizations that they came into the movement.

So now you've got them, you've brought them into the fold now that you're quote unquote, you're people. And that's literally how every cult starts. Bring them in, make everybody welcome and then cut them off from the outside world.

That's actually where the church, the pastor that my last pastor, when he took over, he was very into growing. He drew his circle as big as he could. He tried to get all the message churches to get together and to put the visions aside and the church started growing and things were going good.

And as soon as time went on and I think a lot of it came down to when the believe the sign, now if I look at the timelines, when the believe the sign stuff come out, I almost wonder if he saw these things and had his own doubts, but then he clamped down like a, it was like an iron fist and he drove so many people out of the church till at the end, it was just this small little group and there was no fellowship going on outside of.

That grew and before I mean he had us going to Florida, Georgia We went all over the place, you know trying to fellowship with other message churches But right around that timeline It changed. I mean it and it got more and more cultish As time went on it got down to a point where where my parents My mom and admitted this to me that she she said we dreaded even going to church because he would just hammer on them constantly Basically nobody in the church was going to be saved but him and He got into you know at the end he ended up with a depression and and all kinds of he struggled with that and he let us know that but

Eventually just closed himself off from the people and would just play the tapes and hardly interact with the congregation and Ended up saying he was gonna Go help the youth in in Jeffersonville. He started having the people followed Joseph Brannum and

He basically just disappeared and And cut all communication off on the church my dad kept it going but then he ended up having to Set it down because I mean the pastor's gone and There's a handful of people, but it was really leading in a bad Better his daughters actually while I was still there his daughters In it up in the middle of night and I think the one daughter was probably about 17 the other one was maybe 19 They disappeared in the middle of the night from their family and I don't know all what went on. I know the one daughter has nothing to do with message people the other one

I believe is still in but they literally had to flee their home Because they were what you would imagine what was going on at church something Worst or or just as bad was going on at home To where they literally had to get up in the middle of night and take off and The one daughter I ended up speaking to her later on and she still believed the message and But she said she only think she told me she said Daniel if you knew what was going out at home you had a left too and

And And then to just all you know eventually just all came to an end and It's sad. I mean, it's it's sad how that that stuff happens over and over and over again Especially with something like the message where it's so right for Extreme cults to to start. I mean, it's it's the perfect It's the perfect Breeding ground for it. Yeah, the newspaper and Arizona recently said that this was a cult that was ready made for abuse And it was all over the headlines and apparently it's gone from coast to coast There are cities I get notifications almost every day of some new city across the nation that's now exposing the message

And it's really true. It is ready made for abuse. This is a cult that spins off cults and the people just you can't get along in a religion like this because like you said one group is going to believe one thing and they're going to chastise the other group because they don't believe the same thing and yet William Brandham said both things and they don't really many of them don't realize that. I think like you I think some of the ministers now I know that they watch the videos I produce because I hear about them in the sermons which is

kind of ironic but I know that they're aware of the issues. What's really surprising to me is that even though they're aware that some of these things are critically flawed where there is no way to redeem it. They'll still try to defend it even though they're aware and I have to question the morals of a pastor who will do this because if you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it's something you're saying almost every Sunday is untrue. Why would you keep saying it?

And what kind of like the thing with William Brandham talking about Matt Dillon? What point is it? You know if you realize that it's not true and it is Christianity why do you have to focus on the thing that's not true? Just point people to Jesus. That's all you really need and it's such a complicated gospel. How do you even do that? If you're in this thing it's made such a corrupt system that I don't know that they could simply go back to the gospel because you have to make a choice.

Either you choose William Brandham or you choose the gospel you can't really have both. What I would say to people who are in the message is if you hear things like this and you are a true Christian and you believe you are then your duty as the Christian would be to search these things out. Make sure that John's not or my myself is not being misled and bring us back to the truth by showing us the evidence. If you're willing to do that you have to get to a point where you have to be willing to open up yourself and just say if this is true it'll all shake out.

The truth will never be born in a lie but here's one saying a truth can have or a lie can have truth but a truth will never have a lie and so if you're willing to to know what the truth is the truth will always set you free and the truth will always be true.

There will never be a lie found in the truth and if you want to condemn people like John or me to hell then you should absolutely go research this stuff. Research like you've never researched before too if anything help us if we're if we're being misled well the truth is out there but so far the truth has shown that this whole thing is false. He was not

after form. Search the truth out and the truth will set you free. And if you can bring yourself to that, you will be free of this thing. Well, it's very good advice. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for sharing your story.

Thank you, John. It was a pleasure reading you. Awesome. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.