Our Stories - Silent Invasion of the NAR - With Sean Zealberg

Music Hello, 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 today I have my very special guest, Sean Zielberg, former member of the new Apostolic Reformation.

Sean, it's very good to have you and to share your story about the NAR. We've had a lot of people who are curious about the history of what created this new apostolic mess that we have.

And I've been trying to get more people to come forward and tell their story after they escape it. So I'm very glad that you did and maybe you could just tell everybody a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. My name is Sean Zielberg. I'm from San Antonio, Texas. Insurance underwriters, so sifting through the details and kind of sniffing out the BS is just my run of the mill type of day, you know.

So it's funny that you know we always go to the coverage forums to see whether or not something is true or false. But back in that time I wasn't really going to the Bible.

And that's pretty much the focus of my testimony. It all started when I was exploring my faith I had recently left this one job I was at. And I was even thinking about going to like seminary school.

So I called up a Lutheran just graduated just graduated Lutheran seminary and I was just wondering what is it like in seminary school? Would you recommend it? And he gave me a good introduction, not to his fault or anything, but he didn't share the gospel with me.

Because when you're spiritually hungry, you don't really know you're just seeking after God. Sometimes that's a God of your own choosing. Sometimes you really don't know. But what he was always good about was just focusing on the scriptures.

Of course, Martin Luther, that was kind of my introduction to reform theology. But it's so weird how I went in almost the opposite direction when I first started my faith journey. So my buddy invites me to a men's Bible study really early in the morning every Saturday.

And I call it a Bible study because yeah, we might have gotten into the Bible, but it was a father's son duo and they spent most of their time talking about books written by men.

One of them was Derek Prince. And if you're familiar with Derek Prince, he was heavily influential in the shepherding movement. That was a big controversy. Teachings on covering, teaching is on deliverance. That seemed to be the focus of these studies I would go to.

And they would just kind of focus on these books. The sun was kind of obsessed with this guy, Smith Wigglesworth. And apparently Smith Wigglesworth is one of the God's generals and the Pentecostal movements.

So when I say that I was a member of NAR, I don't, you know, there was no membership. I was just showing up every Saturday and listening to these guys talking about casting demons out of people.

The apostolic signs were heavily taught. I thought the gospel at that time was like, okay, well, for me to be saved, I got to do these things that they're talking about. I got to cast demons out of people, lay hands, speak in tongues, a lot of that stuff.

And even to this day I don't discredit that maybe some of that stuff could still go on, but I didn't really have the gospel. Therefore I didn't have the Holy Spirit so I didn't really have any power to do any of these things if they still happen today.

Introductions into various teachings beyond that like the courts of heaven. I remember one time they all wanted us to go to Reading California to visit Bethel Church to hear about this guy named Randy Clark.

And at that time I didn't know what the Toronto blessing was, but of course, Randy Clark was one of those people that was influential in the Toronto blessing and a lot of the things that happened out of that revival movement.

It got a little strange because the whole teaching on covering was so pressed that, you know, I'd be in a simple Bible study that this guy is house and he'd be like, okay, before we begin, I'm your spiritual father.

And I'm like, what, like we're both like 30 years old, what are you talking about? Like I didn't know what that was, but apparently in the shepherding movement you had to have a spiritual father and it's almost like a pyramid scheme of sorts where you have a puzzle or a prophet at the top and below that are the sheep or disciples and all the money and tie kind of flows upwards, right?

They never got that big. It was weird because they kind of started a church by I would say merging with a, I don't want to call it an NAR church. It's just a run of the small Pentecostal church.

And there was a lot of influence of like Nigerian Pentecostal culture. They would wear traditional garb and stuff like that. And anybody who studied the word of faith knows that a lot of those teachings are compatible in Africa because they do believe in generational curses.

That we would always... talking about generational curses in this Bible study. And it wasn't until a few months ago where somebody told me that, you know, there's other teachings out there, Sean, like, you can't go blaming everything on your parents or your dead ancestors, like sometimes you need to look in the mirror. It's said, this is a problem with me. You know, maybe there is no spirit of lust, like you have a problem with lust, Sean, like figure it out. And then someone told me that maybe Adam is the only real generational curse there ever was. And if you know the Bible, if you're in Adam,

you're dead and sin, but if you're in Christ, you're a new creation. So who can make a charge against God's elect? When you're in Christ, right? I really wasn't exposed to those teachings. So I spent about a good year, I would say in 2019, just heavily influenced, just listening to what people were telling me based out of these books on these spiritual leaders in the Pentecostal and the New Apostolic Reformation 2019. I think it was a watershed year for a lot of people, because when COVID shut down a lot of churches, I think that gave a lot of opportunities to leave

churches that were into these teachings. Yeah. Well, if you've heard that with some of the people on your podcast, like that's how I got out, basically, like I was just talking in favor. I noticed a big falling out with COVID, because you know, what happens is whenever you're under this group think, this, you know, if you study Dr. Stephen Hassons' work, it's mind control, but essentially what it is, it's group think. Everybody is together, they're thinking alike, they're acting in the same way. And usually they're under that authoritarian structure you're talked about.

Well, none of that really works if you're not together. So when COVID happens and people start, you know, they tried the home thing and they tried to like control people from there through their internet feeds or Zoom meetings or whatever, it's just not the same. You have to be in the group to be in a group think. And what happened was when people separated from the group think suddenly, they woke up and they're like, what was this? What in the world was I in?

And so you saw this big falling out, they called it this big falling away in many of the cult churches. But you said so much there that I would like to unpack. You mentioned Randy Clark in my ears perked because Charles and I had just recently, I guess it was a few weeks back, we got one of the handbooks for his deliverance ministry. And it's the craziest nonsense, man, because it's like, say this type of prayer if you have a toothache or this other type of prayer if you have cataracts and the demon of cataracts will leave the person. And that's not how it works,

man. It's just, it becomes like this game of Dungeons and Dragons, and one thing that you said that I really do want to focus in on, you said that it's difficult to use the word former member when you're considering the new apostolic reformation because you don't really join it.

That's so important for people to understand because it is this vast network of apostolic churches, everything from independent churches to apostolic. They're all under this big umbrella, this network, and I'm still deep in the study, but from what I can gather, it's this weird thing where you had all of these movements that failed, like the shepherding movement you mentioned, and all of these different movements that grew into cults and failed, and all of their people are just like, you know, the ones that were under the mind control, they're just like zombies with no purpose.

Well then, the NAR can come and consume all of this, and so they'll take this cult that failed and they'll merge it into the network, and this other cult merge it into the network.

And so what you have is this big conglomeration or this federation, none of which are really connected other than through this channel of the new apostolic network where they're doing all of the conventions and meetings and sending the deliverance minister from church to church or network to network. So they're never free, by the way, they're never free.

So there's so much to unpack in what you said. I think we could probably do 10 podcasts off of it, but I'm interested to know, so you mentioned that this was your first experience with Christianity. I'm interested to know what that was like, what, knowing what you know now, would you consider the Jesus of the new apostolic reformation the same as the Jesus that you know now? It breaks my heart to say no. And the reason why, I mean, I remember these men were always fighting with each other about different doctrines and different teachings and every study was just like a debate and it just felt so hostile. And I never

knew what they were talking about when they said the word gospel. So one day I was like, you know what, I'm going to go home and what are they talking about? And I go to YouTube and I think I searched something simple like what is the gospel? And the first sermon I clicked, it was called the self-centered gospel versus the Christ-centered gospel. By an old school Baptist Bible teacher, he has a big whiteboard and he basically divided up into two sections. And he was like, if you're on the self-centered side where it's about everything that you're doing, for me, it was like, oh, to be saved. I got to cast

out demons. For me to be saved. I got to pray in tongues. For me to be saved. I got to do these things. And once he presented the gospel, that you really can't do anything other than trust in what Jesus did, the blood atonement of sin.

et cetera. Very traditional gospel preaching like my life was never the same after that. I felt like I was chasing the dragon when I was in this study group. And I think that's the problem is like you might have some people that do have genuine Jesus, the genuine gospel, but I think sometimes people forget that faith comes through hearing the word of God. That's what Romans says.

So we're spending more time in books written by fallible men instead of getting into the actual scriptures of knowing who God is, who Jesus is, what did he do, who was his ministry towards, who was the Apostle Paul, those very critical things for sound doctrine, for any new believer to understand about the faith. And it's so funny. The way you describe the new Apostolic Reformation, it makes me laugh because I try and tell people about this and they've been walking in the faith for 20 something years. And they look at me like I'm talking about aliens

and the moon landing and the assassination of JFK like I'm on drugs and conspiracy land. And I'm telling them I'm like, no, this is a real movement. Like you said, based off of these prior movements, I mean, you could take it all the way back to the anabaptists restoring the office of apostle and prophet. And now we need to be listening to whoever the apostle is or whoever the prophet is.

Churches like that still exist. This young woman in my, the church that I recently left, she invited me to one and they had an apostle. It's been more time talking about the apostle than they do Jesus Christ. So that's a really good question you asked. And I would definitely put every person that says that they were introduced to NAR teachings in that hot seat, ask them that same question. So yeah, for me, it's heartbreaking. I really do think it's another Jesus. Yeah. And I've, you know, I'm still deep in my study trying to understand the entire thing because it's so vast and there's so many failed movements. But I have come to

the conclusion that the reason why they focus on the books of men like you described and the quote unquote God's generals is because each one of these failed movements had a central figure. And if people were to realize that the central figure of that movement was very destructive and created a destructive cult, they would suddenly say, why are we basing our history off of this?

Why not base it on the gospel of Jesus Christ? But they can't do that. They have to lift up all of these groups. Otherwise, the whole network just falls apart or implodes. So I think that's why they focus on the Smith-Wiggleworth and William Brannum and all of these other guys and claim their generals. But you know, for me, so I was in this thing that was the message and even though we couldn't, I can't really say that it was NAR because we were so destructive.

We were isolationists, but we were the backbone of what created the NAR, which is ironic if you really think about it. So we were one of those dead cults, right? In this, in the way in which we thought, we, like you, we had this understanding that you must believe in Jesus Christ and you must know the gospel to be saved.

But the ministry almost never, in fact, in the 37 years I was in it, I don't think I ever heard what the gospel was. They just preached, assuming that everybody knows and never teaching it to any of the youth.

And so all of the youth grow up and they've heard the word gospel 10,000 times, I mean, the course of a year, but have never heard what it actually is. So when I finally escaped and I'm in a new church, I think I've mentioned this a few times, but the pastor of the new church asked me, John, we're holding a class, teaching people what is the gospel.

And I'd like to invite you if you want to come and I said, I already know the gospel and he said, well, what is it? And it was the most complicated, I tried to explain to him what I thought it was.

It was so complicated in my head, I couldn't even explain it to him. And he says, come on to the, come on to the saying, give me this little tiny book of what is the gospel.

It can't have been bigger than this and only, you know, eighth of an inch thick. And I thought you can't contain what I believe as the gospel in this little tiny book. It's so complicated and over, it's cumbersome to try to understand it.

And so we go through the class and he tells me and, good Lord, I was like, why did they want to complicate this? This is the best thing ever, the most simple thing ever.

Why would you even want to complicate that? So I'm curious after you went through and understood that they are teaching a different Jesus, how different is the gospel for you from what it was taught in the New Apostolic Reformation?

I think the real question is how different am I? I've changed completely and that was the challenge, John. I didn't want to make this about myself. I wanted to focus on the NAR, but anybody who comes in contact with the gospel who receives it, they change.

And that's what I would say is like, you know, it's sad because I remember struggling with old habits back in the day, like I'd go out to a bar and then I would see a woman in a wheelchair and yeah, I'd had a couple drinks with me and I'd be trying to cast a spirit of infirmity out of her.

You know what I mean? It was just so embarrassing that whatever happened to ordinary prayer, why didn't they teach me sanctification that this is a process that the old man is always going to struggle with the new man, the spirit versus the flesh, like, and it's so sad.

You're right, like I think even the Apostle Paul warned Some of those early churches in his letters like don't be deceived like Just like the serpent you know in the garden don't be deceived and move away from the simplicity of the gospel Because it really is simple and man always wants to complicate it add things on to it Put requirements or evidence of salvation. I would say yeah a changed life is important But some people struggle and that's why you need fellowship and you need the right Structure. I don't have any problem with accountability in churches. You can't have a free for all

But why do they want to move past Pastor office and then elders who are in fellowship with the the body there and you have a good ratio Or it's not a mega church where nobody's just like a face in the crowd right I'm so it was radically radically different um But once I got to the point where I kept studying it and this is where you came on to the scene. It's so funny John like

I kind of found a nice church and I loved it um the pastors all came from Pentecostal background But they it said they kind of want to undo some of the harm in that movement and I was like hey I'm right here, you know, this sounds like the perfect place um And I was about to just like give up on all this NAR stuff It's just not a big deal nobody understands me when I'm talking about it. Just forget it Move past as part of your life and then I came across your video About that guy in Kenya who had the death cult using the voice of God recordings off of William Brannum

Yeah, and then you joined one of the NAR support groups on Facebook And you started posting more of your content and when I found out about William Brannum and their connection to Bethel Church and how This I think you put it perfectly. It's like a deity cult. They may not say it Up front like that like of course, they're not going to say that they worship a man But when you're the leader of a church as an apostle or a modern prophet and you're praying for the anointing of a dead man In William Brannum who's still to this day is responsible for people's spiritual deaths and physical deaths

Like that was the smoking gun that I needed and it got so bad job because I was really involved in this church and they didn't do anything bad nice people. I love them but Bethel music I didn't know that when you sing those songs those churches have to pay royalties to Bethel And I'm like oh man, you know, I'm giving money to this church and my trafficking and NAR theology like I didn't want anything to do with it, you know, so um What you see in a lot of these churches you see these NAR teachings creep in

It might be through the music because it's good music good music, right? I mean, some people would say the bad treat doesn't bear good fruit, but you might have some people they love Bethel music and then they want to hear a sermon from Bill or a prophetic word from Chris Valeton. A lot of people don't know that there is that William Brandham connection. And not to ramble, but the craziest thing that blows my mind is when you and your historical work show that William Brandham was a racist who said you couldn't be Christian and integration, you know, supporting

integration in the schools. How could that man be racist? And yet you have Bethel church doing their Lord of the Rings performance where they're casting out a spirit of racism by reenacting the Lord of the Rings like, you shall not pass. Like don't you realize the disconnect there? How can I mean, Bethel has given seminars on healthy Christian masculinity. I think that's a perfectly acceptable thing. The churches need to be talking about what does it mean to be a man in the Christian faith. But I don't think they're exposed to some of the stuff that you're bringing up where William Brandham said that

women were created by the devil for the purpose of sex and they're lower than a dog or a pig and they're not even worth a clean bullet. Like how do you reconcile this modern theology that's still drawing on a dead man's heresies and the cult that he created that's still doing damage today? Yeah, it's such a big deal. And I think it all comes back down to this.

Again, you said so much in that first two minutes to unpack and probably spend the rest of it. It was good stuff. It was really good stuff. But one of the things you said so many things caught my attention. But one of them that caught my attention was that you while you're in it, you read the Bible, but after you left, you suddenly started digging into the Bible. I can't remember how exactly how you phrased that. I'm the same way. When I for 37 years, I read the Bible every single day, multiple times per day. But the problem is when you are

manipulated in these kind of groups, you're reading it according to what you have heard them say about it. And every single passage that you read from every single book, you're thinking back to, okay, what did he say on Sunday? And how can I fit this into my daily, the daily bread that I'm reading for today? How can I apply it in such a way that fits that mold? And what happens is you're literally trying to take the text of the Bible and fit it to the mold that is being created by all of these this cult structure. So the cult mindset with all of the extra

biblical things that they're teaching, you're trying to apply what's actually written to the extra biblical notions. And it isn't until you flip that upside down where you're evaluating what they say according to the Bible that you really realize, wait a minute.

These two are incompatible. How does that even work? We'll take that a step further. So now they've got all of these dead cults. Like you mentioned the deity cult. This was an actual thing.

People actually prayed, it's still today, they pray in William Brandham's name. And the leadership of these movements know that this is the case. That's why they say he went astray towards the later years of his life.

So if anybody comes across these deity cult people who are praying in his name, they can just cast them aside and say no, that's because that Brandham went astray in his later years. They won't tell you that leadership in the movements that are the backbone to everything that was created were also in the deity cult.

Like Tommy Osborne was in the deity cult and he proclaimed his allegiance to Brandham at Brandham's Memorial Service. They leave all of that out. But what happens is people hear it and just like they don't evaluate what the men say according to the Bible.

Well now these men are talking about history that's outside of the Bible that can be verified. But people accepted it face value because they're like, again, another thing that you said in the intro, they're spiritual authorities.

So why would you question their spiritual authority? And it's just, it's so problematic and it's so difficult for the people because when you're in that mindset how do you even begin to critically think?

So I wanna unpack that a little bit more. Let's talk about when you're in the New Apostolic Reformation churches and this vast network of mess that has been created. What is it like to understand what it is they're saying that's outside of the Bible?

Now knowing what you know of what the Bible actually says and then there's this extra part that they're adding one to it. Whether it's the deliverance ministries or they talk about the spiritual forefathers, many of them go into prophetic histories they call it.

Let's unpack that a little bit. What is the difference between true Christianity and the New Apostolic Reformation's extrabiblical doctrines? I would say that, I mean, I would even quote scripture right now. The natural man can't understand things of the spirit.

So yeah, you've got a lot of people, they think that they're following Jesus that they've received an authentic gospel, but really it's a narcissistic Jesus. I know that's kind of like a double-on-chondra, but yeah, it is a very self-centered Jesus.

It is a very narcissistic interpretation of the scriptures. It's all about your authority and of course, if you're not performing signs and wonders and miracles and you're a nobody, it's just focused on yourself.

And that's the hardest thing to realize for a lot of people is the gospel's not about you. You're not King David. You're not any of... these people in the Bible, if you're a believer, you're a child of God and you're part of the New Covenant of Jesus Christ because of what he did on the cross.

And so like, I mean, I don't really, I can't even think of the last time that I was in that type of environment. It might have been like an apostolic Bible study, the one I mentioned earlier where they had the church and they had a lead apostle, so to speak instead of a pastor.

But even then, you know, the prophetic Bible study was very self-centered and I can understand why that's popular in good times and bad times because when it's bad times, you're going to listen, you're just going to be tickled by a prophetic word that's going to tell you that the breakthrough is coming.

If you only are more obedient or if you tie more or if you pray in tongues for six hours, you know, after work, like whatever it's going to take, that they get people involved in these, like, I want to say like spiritual rigmaru, like, you're always falling short.

So you're always doing something out of your own strength to get ahead or being good favor. And it's really never about understanding that it's not about you and submitting to what God says and believing in what God says in His word.

So it's like, I have a phrase I call it Jesus and name only. So they'll get into these doctrines of men. They'll get into these traditions of men. But at the very end, it's like the little asterisks, like, yeah, in Jesus' name, and, you know, let's, let's, let's, let's, I say Jesus, let's pick one little scripture out of context, completely detached from the previous chapters and we're going to use that to support it.

And that's the seal of approval for whatever the sermon is or the Bible study is. So I think that's how they really do it, you know, it's all man-centered, it's all self-centered. But at the very end, yeah, they'll, they'll say this is in Jesus' name and they'll reference a little bit of God's word, but it's a, like I said, Narsah Jesus, that's, that's a real spiritual term.

It's a real way that a lot of people interpret the Bible to make it all about themselves and make them the hero of the story. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

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The problem is whenever you've got men who are trying to elevate themselves into an authority rather than being, you know, the biblical role for a pastor or an apostle is a servant. It's somebody who's helping the people, a pastor is somebody who's helping you stand up and learn more about the gospel and spread the gospel to others.

An apostle is somebody who goes out who's sent forth to spread the gospel. But see, they've even manipulated the heads into these roles making authority figures out of the apostles and the prophets instead of what they're intended to be, right?

And so when you have that structure of authoritarian control, it makes it very easy for people who have tenants, narcissistic tendencies to take over a church and point to themselves. And I'll never forget that feeling whenever I left, it was like I suddenly snapped out of it and I was like, why are we focusing so much on the men?

Why don't we focus on Jesus if this is a Christian church? It should focus on Christ. That's what Christian means. But I came to realize that if you're in any of these churches that has the apostle or the prophet that becomes the center of focus, put their name instead of Christ and Christian church and we were in a Brannemite church and the one that I escaped and you can just go down, go down the line and you can basically take any authoritarian figure and take Christ out and put them in Christ's place.

One of the problems that I see with this is that because it's so insidious and the way in which they use apostolic networks can connect to each other, it's almost undetectable. Because some of them are actually decent, healthy churches, right?

And some of them don't have an authoritarian structure but they start inviting people in through this network that are part of this and so they train them on whatever it is, deliverance or discipleship, whatever is their agenda.

And so these ideas creep into standard churches that aren't, you wouldn't even consider them in AR. Have you experienced anything like this? Yes. As of like two weeks ago,

after I got away from all that teaching, I moved across to a different side of town and I was like, I wanna be in fellowship with people. So I joined a church and it was perfect.

Like I love the people there. I think the pastor is probably one of the best pastors in America, the way that he's able to explore the scriptures and really give passionate spirit filled sermons.

The issue is that once you know, you know, We learn to see things that other believers don't really see. Like I remember going to a Bible study at this church because they believe in circles are better than rows, which comes from a man named Andy Stanley.

And his father was one of the first big radio preachers. Anyway, circles are better than rows, so come to service on a Sunday, but go to a men's Bible study on a Thursday. And I remember being in this Bible study and we are studying from the Bible, learning about sanctification and cool stuff that is helpful for believers.

And I see a little book on the nightstand, The Believer's Authority by Kenneth Hagen. And I'm like, no, I know who Kenneth Hagen is. It's so like, I hate to say it like this, but it's like imagine finding drugs in your kid's sock drawer.

And so I pick up a book and I'm like, hey, bro, what is this? And then he's like, oh, yeah, you know, my wife used to go to Kenneth Hagen's school. And he's like, come check this out.

And he just opens a big collection full of word of faith books. So I wouldn't say that's N-A-R, but the word of faith and the N-A-R, that's the same thing, basically. You look at Kansas City, I-Hop, a lot of these modern prophets, Kenneth Hagen was the father of the word of faith.

He influenced Kenneth Copeland and a lot of other word of faith preachers. Being on the prayer team, I noticed like people had different prayer methods. Some people were very focused on spirits, bindings, satan, declarations, declaring decree.

I kind of learned that that was a lot of word of faith stuff. I don't particularly pray that way and I don't want to discredit anybody for praying from a genuine place in their heart.

But like I said, when you know, you know, I remember, here's where it gets weird. We had a young adult group and they would go hang out at this coffee shop that apparently was run by a prophetess, not even affiliated with the church.

And I remember a woman that I'm close with. She was going through a hard time and I was like, look, they've got this 24-7 worship night. Let's go. We'll talk things through about what you're going through.

And at the very end, this woman gives a prophetic word that war, W-A-R, is coming to American soil this October. And the Pacific Northwest is going to get nuked with San Antonio. It's always through fasting and prayer, by the way, because if it doesn't happen, you can always credit it to your obedience.

Of course, a nuclear weapon hasn't been detonated this fall. Of course, war hasn't been declared through Congress. You know, I'll give, just don't despise prophecies, test all things. I hold on to what is good.

I get that. I don't despise this stuff. But after a while, it gets pretty tiring. So I've got three active prophecies that I'm testing. War coming to American soil, by fall, you know, technically we've got to what mid-December.

We're almost there at the end of fall. Konami is going to collapse this winter. That was a prophetic word in this church. Oh, and a woman had sent me a big NAR type of figure.

I think his name is Mike Signarelli or something. And he said that there's going to be terror attacks in 2024. So it's like you get this sense of fatigue when you're just trying to study the word of God, like no office of profit, but there's also no decorum.

Anybody these days because they go on social media and they see a profit releasing prophetic words, they want to do the same thing at their church. Well, to me, from my understanding, even in the most charismatic churches that are out there, if you have a prophetic word, you go to the pastor.

You say pastor, God told me something. I have a prophetic word. You tell it to the pastor, he vets it, discerns it, decides whether or not it's okay to release to the congregation. I remember being in this coffee shop listening to this lady's prophetic word because she doubled down.

Like I first heard this word in April and then they had this big Facebook announcement, big warning from God, it was in September and I knew she was doubling down. And of course, she's basically saying that we're in revelation right now and if you're not in a full gospel church, like you're part of the great harlot of Babylon and these great harlot churches are exploiting and basically prostituting people that serve in the music ministry and the serving ministries.

And a kid's crying because he thinks like his parents are gonna get nuked. And I think that nobody tests this stuff anymore. It's just another day that ends in why for a lot of these churches that don't realize that it doesn't have to be somebody in your church.

It could be somebody in the local faith community that introduces prophetic words or NAR teachings and then they creep into the church. So that's kind of what I've seen. And you know what, I'll share one more thing if that's okay, John.

And I found this out the day before they had this program in a lot of churches, thousands across America called Freedom. And the Freedom Conference from my understanding it was about hurts and hang ups, getting over the past forgiveness.

Great topics. And a lot of men don't wanna go through this because we're cowboys, we're too tough, we don't wanna talk about our feelings. Like not me, like I love to talk about this stuff because it's helpful.

And it's a lot cheaper than talk therapy. Let's be honest. Like that's one of the blessings about being with believers as you can open up like that and you're supposed to have people pray for you.

But I'm not even kidding. Like the day before the conference, I look up who the creator is. His name is Chris Hodges. And what drew me into this church is they have these like signs and the signs say, no God, fine freedom, discover purpose, make it different.

And I'm like, this is the place for me. Well, I didn't know that's the title of Chris Hodges' book. Chris Hodges created the Freedom Program. His mentor was a guy named Ted Haggard.

Ted Haggard was a big evangelical leader who eventually got caught having,

I know we're on YouTube, so he was using sex workers that were the same sex as him. And also using methamphetamine. So once I found out that these two guys were connected, I was like, whoa, what else is going on here?

And of course, Chris Hodges is a pretty big on dominionism, a lot of these teachings on spiritual warfare. Heavy Pentecostal type of teachings are part of this program. And so what we were talking about earlier, like another Jesus, different spiritual beliefs, like they have little declarations in this book that you can say, we said them during the conference.

And yeah, there's truth behind these declarations, biblical truth. But if you don't have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it's just vain babbling, the Bible would call them. The Kingdom of God is not in talk, but in power.

And when people have the Holy Spirit from hearing the authentic gospel, then yeah, like there's much more to these declarations, but my biggest fear is people take this course all across America. And they think Christianity is waking up every morning and declaration, I gotta say my declaration a day or else I'm not saved, you know, that type of mentality.

So it was just so sad, John, like a little leavened leavens, the whole lump, I'm that type of person where they didn't do anything bad, nobody hurt my feelings. I mean, I'll be honest, great preaching, beautiful women.

In fact, like love is first sight type of beautiful women, like five times over. But I don't care how good the preaching is, how beautiful the women are, how good the food is on a Thursday Bible study, like I can't compromise knowing what I know now.

And so that's why I'm kinda talking to you about it because I want people to know that this is something that's real, these doctrines and philosophies are creeping into the church. And even beyond that, you're gonna see much more of this.

Don't take this as a political statement, but the Seven Mountain Mandate. This is from the National Day of Prayer in 2024. I went to my buddy's church and I was like, yeah, National Day of Prayer, what a great idea.

On the back of this is the Seven Mountain Mandate and prayers that you can pray for the church, family, education, business, military, government, arts and entertainment. So people don't know that this dominionist theology is from the N-A-R.

And now this little thing right here is probably, you know, it was in thousands of churches, all across. us America. So it is a real thing. It does creep in. And I think people need to be vigilant.

And I'm sorry, it's we're going to connect all these dots. Okay. So Chris Hodges, the creator of the freedom program, he was very close with Robert Morris. Robert Morris was the guy out of Fort Worth, I believe, who had to step down because he was having an inappropriate relationship with a minor, huge controversy. So guess who takes his place as Chris Hodges apostolic overseer, Jim LaFoon from the latter reign movement. So I don't know if you know who Jim LaFoon is, but once I started studying like some of the stuff you post about the randomites and the latter reign movement, it's still going on today. And people

don't see how connected it is to these church networks. Yeah. It's so much like the matrix man. Once you take that red pill, you see it everywhere. It's everywhere you look. And until you do, you really can't even sense it. You know, people are lulled to sleep in such a way they don't see that all of this is happening right before their eyes. And once you take that pill, once you wake up to this thing, like you mentioned the prophetic, they're always talking about something bad is about to happen because that's what grips you. Something bad is going to happen. And they always go after the things

that are occurring. You'll hear a lot of, there's going to be an earthquake if you're on the west coast, which has a lot of earthquakes. There's going to be a hurricane. Yeah, fires. There's going to be a hurricane. If you're down on the south where every year, there's a lot of hurricanes. There's going to be war. That's an easy one to predict. Every single several times a year, somebody's, some country's breaking out into war. And there's going to be a threat against the United States. Well, what year since the United States has been an existence that that wasn't the case. And whenever I left, you know, we were in a

doomsday call, which was heavily focused on that kind of stuff. And I started researching, I got a subscription to newspapers.com, which was fascinating. And I'm reading through, I can't tell you how many hundreds of thousands of newspapers that I've read. But I started noticing this pattern. I'm reading back in the 1900s and every single thing that we thought was a bad event about to happen to us in our current age. There was going to be unbelievable.

This is going to be the worst thing that's ever happened. I'm reading the headlines and here it's happened in this year in the early 1900s, again in 1910s, again, and it's just repeating itself again and again and again. And then I started noticing all of the Pentecostal prophets who are saying these bad things are about to happen again and again and again and again.

single five years, seven years, whatever it is, all the way back to Azusa Street. There was a, you know, the great earthquake of San Francisco or whatever they're saying, this is it. This is the big one.

Earthquake has just struck. And this is the part that they don't tell you about the Azusa Street revival. All of the prophets started proclaiming their Doomsday predictions right there in the heart of the revival.

And they said things like, you're going to watch all the skyscrapers just fall and twist and burn within the next few weeks or months or whatever. You're going to see all the trains because now, you know, people travel with airplanes a lot more than was happening back then.

They were saying that all of the trains, the tracks would just suddenly twist and the trains wouldn't be able to move them. So people will be stuck where they are. You're having all these prophecies that never, ever happened.

But you don't hear them referencing that when they talk about the great events when the spirit came down at Azusa Street. Now, I'm not saying that every prophecy that happened from a Pentecostal minister's false, but I can't tell you that those are, that never happened.

But it becomes part of the prophetic history. And what happens is that spins off because they have the Doomsday focus, that spun off into numerous cults. And you had this Pentecostal movement itself, grew splintered, tried to join back again, splintered again.

Laterane came, tried to join it together, splintered again. And it just keeps happening and happening. And it splintered into a thousand different weird sub-cults. And then NAR started bringing them all back together. And then they came up with the agendas, like the Seven Mountain Mandate.

So once you take that red pill, and you suddenly wake up to all of this, and you see it everywhere, and you see they're all referencing all of this history that's invalid, you take a step back and you think, what does that, what does any of that matter?

All you really need is the Bible, all you really need is the gospel. You don't have to go back and focus on Azusa Street because these men gathered together and they prayed and they spoke in tongues, who cares if they did that?

We don't need that today. We have the Bible today. And so it's all, it all is connected. And I like the way that you keep saying that once you know, you know, there's no better way to say it.

Once you have understood what all of this is, this mess, it's really hard not to see the mess as it is being created. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, and that story I told about that coffee shop with the prophetess, like the worst part is, is that after that Doomsday prophecy, they asked for money because the business was failing.

And you have to wonder like if this was really a move of God, why is he not sustaining it to begin with? And I know that sounds harsh, maybe in judgmental. And I try, John, I try, I was like, okay, well, let me just check out this person's social media.

And then she's saying that God's answering her prayers because the bars and her little retail, little strip where she's at, they're all closing down, but she's being sustained. And that must be favor from God.

John, I just think it's the economy, like nightlife is expensive, trust me. And the difference between her and these other business owners is they're not using God to get money using the bio of Christ as a bailout.

I hate to even say it like that. And so it just goes to show how widespread NAR theology is where anybody and everybody can become a profit or an apostle. And all it takes is the podcast equipment that you've got in your studio right now to have hundreds, if not thousands of followers.

So it is real, we are seeing it spread. And I hope more people wake up because that would be my prayer. This for people to wake up, believe in the sufficiency of scripture and who Jesus Christ is revealed in the scriptures.

If you got somebody call themselves profit, test them, are they 100% accurate? And that's not to say, I think people could have a prophetic ministry if they're warning people, if they're sharing the word of God because he already spoke it in the scriptures or maybe even apostolic.

Like you said, I think there's a lot of people who have a apostolic ministry just because they're planning churches and places that need them that nobody is willing to plan a church. But this whole new movement of replacing the office of pastor with apostle and profit, I think it's dangerous.

And we're gonna see their fruit of it pretty soon. But isn't it ironic that all these people that are associated with this movement, they seem to be falling like dominoes, don't they? Mike Bickle with IOP, Michael, Dr. Michael Brown, who held up the American gospel documentary.

I don't know if you're familiar with that project, but they're supposed to do a third installment about the NAR and Dr. Michael Brown was basically sandbagging the entire team. Look what happened to Henry.

I think I'm in that third one. Really? Yeah. It's such a big release, like he's been going off for years. It's such a big deal, man. And you're right. They're replacing pastors with apostles and prophets and they're always wanting money.

And people, like we said at the very beginning, they're not going back to the Bible to critically examine these things. When Jesus sent them, it was, take no thought of how you're going to be provided for.

Go with only the shoes on your feet, basically. And you will be taken care of. That was what an apostle was, a biblical apostle. But these apostles, they want their money before they go anywhere and then they never go.

And if they do go at some big convention where we need more money because, we got to the convention house and all of this. And it all comes back down to what you said at the very beginning.

If people just read their Bible and read it for what it says, not read it for what they're telling you it says, it really undermines the whole thing. None of it can stand up if you just read it.

You know, what we were talking about with these modern apostles and the connection with money, I have a theory that there's this big focus on rebuilding the axe church. And I think it's axe chapter four, they talk about everybody laying down the money and the possessions at the apostles' feet.

Right. I wanna be an apostle, so therefore I'm gonna go spend thousands of dollars at Bethel's supernatural school of ministry. Even the Bible says, you know, even though it says that these spiritual gifts can only be given by God, like you don't pay man to get a certificate that makes you an apostle.

My biggest fear is that people want these titles that were supposed to be God or gain titles. They're paying money to go to a school to learn the gifts of the Holy Spirit just so these other people who believe that they're a real apostle will lay down their money and possessions just like it's in the Bible.

Like we were talking about earlier, you know, they'll find one scripture and they'll find a way to justify their flesh or their bellies is what they really serve at the end of the day if they're exposed for that.

And the saddest thing is is when calamity comes to a lot of these people, is your apostle gonna be there? If your house burns down, is your apostle gonna be there? If you're terminally ill, despite all the money you gave them, that's gonna be the real truth behind these self-titled apostles and prophets.

If the prophet is not accurate, like how do they handle it? I mean, I give a lot of grace to people if somebody gives a false prophecy, just apologize. Like, I think there's this woman that I recently followed, she's on the American Gospel app that I have that they host the documentaries and all that.

I can't remember what her name is, but I looked at her Instagram bio the other day. I think the love sixth scribe is like her like pen name and her bio literally says like former NAR false prophet.

And it made me laugh because it's like, man, like that's not something you put on your bio, your LinkedIn, but I love how she misses it. And she's willing to say, yeah, I was wrong.

I got sucked into this movement. And I think we need to be a very discerning, but also very forgiving. Cause I think there's a lot of people who will come to terms with the fact that they could be a false prophet or a false apostle.

You should not wait till calamity hits and you get exposed for something cause it happens, we're all fallible, we're all men. And we're prone to fall and fall short, but I don't know, it's just sad sometimes that that's what people gravitate to these days.

Um, I remember I went to my first reform church two weeks ago. John, they all look like you, but a little bit older. So I walk in there and it's like, wow, a young person.

And they asked me, how did you find the church? And I was like, I found you on the G3 church network because I wanted to see whatever reform church is like, you know, like I'm, I'm very used to like singing Bethel songs and the fog machines and the lights.

Um, this is mostly just older people, but they were so nice. Um, and I think that's, you see that kind of dying because it doesn't attract too many people, but the verse by verse teaching from the pastor was very impressive.

You walk in there, they give you an outline with study notes. Um, and the pastor, like I said, at the church that I left, like he was great at teaching and preaching the word of God, the problem is that people are so thirsty for more that as soon as that service is over, they have their smartphone or any other, um, application where they can seek teachings elsewhere. Um, you know, I remember there was a young woman in the church.

She's like, I want you to listen to this podcast. It was John Bevere. And I was like, you know, he used to work for many hymn, right? She's like, yeah, I was like, yeah, I don't like, I don't know if they know the, the depth and depravity that some of these men, um, have gone involved in just for the love of money, basically.

So, um, you know, when the well dries up, like there's going to be a lot of hurt people, I think, um, but a lot of people would say that the NAR is just going to grow stronger because maybe this is the great falling away. Maybe we are really witnessing apostasy and falling away from the teachings of Jesus Christ and scripture as authority because everybody's got some new revelation that's outside the scripture.

And it's always that exciting, fresh revelation that people want to hear. And then the thing that gets lower, it is always scripture in thousands of years ago from, you know, real apostles and real prophets.

If you want to hear about a prophet or a apostle, like you can just open your Bible and read about apostles and prophets all day long, basically, but I mean, that that's kind of where I would leave off that, you know, just be vigilant, be forgiving, um, don't be afraid to challenge people because they're not going to want you to challenge them.

You know, don't, don't touch the annoying to don't, don't come against the prophet. You know, they're going to say that bad things are going to happen to you, but be like the Bereans who were noble and they tested these things per the scriptures. Like we've got to go back to that.

It's very good advice. So thank you so much for doing this. This has been incredible fun. Yeah. Thank you. No, this is like therapy for me. So thank you, John. Awesome. Believe it or not, I've been trying to tell my testimony to so many people.

And it's like I get lost. Like I said, they think I'm talking about aliens in the moon landing and like you were the first person where I can like sit down. He's going to know what I'm talking about.

He's going to know the subject matter and I can just like let loose. So I appreciate it. Awesome. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at www.William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponize Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

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