William Branham's Top Ten Heresies

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 co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org.

And together, we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William Brannum and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revivals. Charles, it's been so long since we've gotten together. I know to the rest of the world who's watching the podcast, it seems like just a few weeks or maybe a couple of months, but we were recorded so far ahead.

I think it was August or maybe late July or early August before when we finally finished this and things have been kind of a whirlwind for me of research. And I know everybody's going to be excited to see you, so I'm going to shut up and just let everybody welcome Charles to back to the podcast for another questions and answers session.

And Charles, I'll just ask you, what have you been up to? Well, John, I've been pretty busy. Yeah, it has been a while. Once the last time we recorded, I think it was August, so it's been five months since we recorded an episode.

I think the last one we did maybe came out, last stuff we did somewhere in the middle or in November, so probably don't seem that long to the people. But yeah, I took a good month of a break after that and then I've been back busy doing other things. Stuff that may lead to useful research in the future.

One thing I've been doing is, you know, John, I've been kind of working on researching the post-Branum years of message history such that could possibly be documented in some way. A lot of that we've lived right through it, right? So we know it pretty well, but it's good to be able to bring together sources that way we could footnote a lot of stuff for the user.

So that's one thing I've kind of been working on. And other than that, I've just been keeping things moving along with the mission here in Jeffersonville, following the podcast with you and James and you and the other people you've been interviewing.

The stuff with Steve Montgomery was incredibly interesting. He's a great fella. And yeah, I just just enjoy following along. Yeah, we have a lot going on. I don't know if the listeners can... sense it yet or not, but we've been slowly transitioning away from William Brannum for the most part from the research side. Obviously the stuff I'm doing with James and or even the stuff I'm doing with Steve. There's such a close tie to William Brannum because he is like the linchpin that is binding all of these different things together. So I keep having to mention his name

even though I know in the last episode you and I did, I was like, if I never say that name again, I won't be incredibly happy. But I'm finding that every path of research I go down, it always comes back to the circle of men, not just specifically William Brannum, but the circle of men that he was with. And that includes some of the names we've mentioned, Roy Davis, Winrod, William Brannum, Bosworth. These guys, man, the thing that they created as it relates to early American Christianity, well, you know, in the 1900s Christianity. And now this year I'm diving into the political side

of it. What did they do with how do they weaponize religion to sway politics? That's been my focus. And it's been fascinating. Anybody who's watching the shift in the website and the blog, you can kind of see that it's now transitioning to that away from Brannum. And yeah, I'm excited for that, but I'm just as excited to get back to these questions because we have had one thread of questions that I honestly, I couldn't sit still until we covered it. And I've got it from, I think most recently was in an email. It's been all through the woven through the comments if anybody's

following that. I've even received things either text message or a phone call asking about, what were the top heresies that William Brannum introduced? Because now that people can see, and I've got several questions asking, where can they print this map that this chart that you and I created, mostly you, but I put on the website where it shows how, you know, how all of this merge together and created evolved from the early Pindock Awesome Movement to the NAR, which I'll throw that up on the screen here now and put a link to it so you can see it. But once people realized that

this thing that we talked about in our historical podcast was actually the routes that grew into the NAR, they're like, oh my gosh, well what heresy did, William Brannum introduce and how does that relate to the NAR? So I got really excited to do this and you and I chatted, but we want to talk about, you know, there's probably a hundred different heresies we could talk about, but we want to talk about some of the most fundamentally important to this thing that grew into the NAR.

Yeah, John, I mean, when you mentioned that question, that is such a loaded, loaded question, you know, what are the 10 worst heresies that And it's like where do you start? And I'm sure everyone's going to be somewhat subjective.

And it's almost scary to even try and peel that onion because depending on how we peel it, we're probably going to leave out some things that other people would think are as far worse.

So I'm has to say, it's the 10 worst by the set of criteria that maybe you and I are thinking of, which may be different than what perhaps normal Christians would think of or people from didn't come from our background, but definitely the worst ones in the sense that we're impactful to the cult that we come from.

That's certainly how I tend to think of it. And there's just so many. And I think the worst ones that were impactful to the cult, they all did kind of stem out of the ladder rain teachings.

But the message implementation of some of those teachings is probably somewhat invariant to how they implemented elsewhere. For example, William Brown preached a word of faith, the spoken word, read and stuff, right? But that would make my top 10 list, even though that's pretty bad.

He taught positive confession, which is bad. That probably would make my top 10 list. There's quite a number of things that I'm sure would probably make most other people's top 10 list that to me, if you probably just don't realize how bad Brandon was, so that it's why it doesn't necessarily make my top 10 list.

I don't know what's your thoughts about that? Well, I had trouble answering the email, because whenever you're diving into theology and whatever church you attend, you have your set of things that is the things that you consider most important to you.

Usually, they have to be the things that are being discussed in the most recent sermons, right? And so I get these emails and messages from people all over the world of different denominations of faith, different belief sets, different milestones in their journey of Christianity.

And to be bluntly, openly honest, what is considered heresy to one person may or may not be considered heresy to another? But I started to type that in response when they're asking me, what are the top 10 heresies?

And I started to type that. But then I thought, there are some Christians who are in the fundamentalist mindset. Who, if you answer like that, that answer itself is a heresy, because you should think that X, Y, and Z is the top heresy, right?

There is no greater heresy than questioning the Godhead, for example, is the belief of some, while other people that have contacted me, they openly say, whether you're oneness, whether you're trinitarian, everybody is in their journey, and they're, if they're Christians, if they believe in Christ.

And so they're more... open to it, which that's a topic that Charles and I are probably not going to go deeply into today. I know everybody wants us to. Let's talk about the the Trinitarian and the Oneness debate. Right, and kind of to the Godhead specifically, I know that probably people on the outside generally look at the message as being oneness and the majority is, but not every sect of the message is oneness actually. Two of the major sects are not oneness and so there's things like that where when you when we try to discuss it, the different sects of the message, most I don't

really remember, I don't ever believe that. I see it was so contradictory, right? And so like I'm from one of the non-oneness sects of the message John and leave ale sect was not oneness. So it's there's nuances in all of this that you can't really, it's very difficult to deal with in a comprehensive way, right? Because you're a fraction of the message you're going to disagree.

William Brown, I remember believe that and we don't believe that either and you're labeling us with something we don't believe in. And so that's part of the challenge too with coming up with the list because the message doesn't have a statement of faith, right? The message doesn't have a unified list of things they believe in. And so probably the majority of things you would pick as a top 10 heresy a lot of people would are not universally believed across the message.

And so part of my thought too is what what are the kind of more universally held beliefs or at least one is that he taught that are really obvious and really destructive. I know from me John as soon as I was asked so the number one thing that comes to my mind which probably the majority of people in the message will deny that William Brown actually taught was the you know the ultimate conclusion of his manifested sons of God theology in which he was presenting himself as the prophet God to the people, right? As he made statements like the Elijah of this day is the Lord Jesus

Christ. I think William Brannum's purposeful deification of himself, right? Putting himself into the role of Jesus Christ into the role of God Holy Spirit. I think that is by far the worst thing that William Brannum did such that it created the deity cult which we did a whole episode on the deity cult. I think that is by far the worst thing that William Brannum did which plagues every sect of the message to this day. I would agree you know whenever I address the Trinity question I always address it like this in the message believe it or not I was in the sect

that was leaned more toward oneness I guess you would really call a modalism but we leaned more towards oneness and see I'm One of the few Christians that actually read the Bible, when I was growing up, I actually knew what was in it.

And I also had the entire collection of the recordings of William Branham. And one of my favorite recordings, he openly said, God is in a trinity. Everything in God is in a trinity. And so I read that, or I heard that, and then I'm reading the Bible, how God sent the Holy Spirit.

And there's a clear distinction for me. So believe it or not, in the message, even though I was not supposed to, I believe the way that Trinitarians believe. But I was falsely trained to believe that, I was falsely trained to believe that Trinitarians thought there were three gods.

And so I clearly remember, I think I may have mentioned this in one of the podcasts, I clearly remember getting into a very heated debate with a young Christian, I think we were both 16 years old.

I was working as a dishwasher in a steak restaurant. And we got into this heated debate because he was trying to tell me that he was a Trinitarian and the Trinitarian God was the correct one.

And we got debating scripture for scripture. I was quoting him verse, he was quoting me verse. And we were saying the same exact thing, but he was using the word trinity. And so I was like, no man, that's evil.

And so the way I address it is, William Branham himself didn't take a position. And he condemned anybody who did claim the persons of the Godhead had in other words, taken the mark of the beast.

He doesn't openly say that, but he insinuates they have taken the mark of the beast. And he himself accepted the persons of the Trinity in one of the sermons. So my opinion is you have to be something.

If you do believe in that there is a God, you can't flip back and forth as to what that God is. You either make a decision and then maybe you may change later, you may change your decision, but you don't bounce around from town to town and pretend you're one thing in this city and pretend you're the polar opposite and the other city and then flip back, which is what we see happening.

So I address it like that and then beyond that I usually avoid it because I am not a theologian, I'm not a preacher, it's not my calling to be that. But I would agree with you, there is no greater heresy than making yourself to be equal with Jesus Christ.

And I have yet to attend any message church that did not place William Branham's words as equal with the words of Jesus Christ, not one. In fact, there's a common phrase, they won't say the prophet God because that's obvious heresy.

Instead, they say the word prophet. And then they will tell you, you know, after they mention this phrase, they'll in a roundabout way explain how his... words are equal to the words of Jesus Christ in the Bible. And in doing so, they are making William Brannum's words equal to Jesus Christ. There is no greater heresy than this.

Right. And the message has to make William Brannum's words equal in authority to the Bible and really greater in some ways because he overrides the Bible in a lot of ways in his teachings.

Part, you know, a lot of message preachers and people will say the message is in the Bible. And what they mean by that is the symbols on which message is based are in the Bible.

Yeah, the midnight cries in the Bible. Yeah, the shouts in the Bible. But the interpretation of what those symbols means is not in the Bible. The interpretation that the message believes those symbols means came from the lips of William Brannum.

The sole authority for believing a large percentage of message teachings is that William Brannum told us this is what the symbol means. This is what the shout means. This is what the midnight cry means. This is what the red horse means. This is what the black horse means.

This is what the three woes mean. William Brannum told us what those symbols mean. Are the symbols in the Bible? You better believe it. Are what William Brannum told us those symbols are in the Bible?

No, definitely not. Our entire basis for believing what those things means are the fact that we thought William Brannum was inspired of God, led of God, moved of God, and that he was speaking something on par with the power of the spoken word, right, to tell us what all those things were.

And then that then gives us the message of the hour, right. And so, yeah, I mean, William Brannum is definitely lifted up into a very, very high place that no other figure since Jesus Christ was lifted up to in the church, right.

And very problematic, very problematic, especially when you find out William Brannum was not who he claimed to be. And he definitely, and this is true in every sect of the message, he definitely usurped the role of God.

He usurped the role of speaking the word of God when he clearly wasn't. He inserted himself into the role of the Holy Spirit, taking personal leadership over people's lives, things that the message preachers do to this day.

And he also usurped the role of Savior by what you'll talk about as one of the other terrible things he did by adding himself and his teachings to the formula for salvation. The message Christians, message believers, don't believe you can be saved, you know, without the message.

You're not really fully saved without the message. So William Brannum even put himself into the role of Savior, Holy Spirit. It's very clear in his teachings in a very bad way. So I would say that is putting himself in the role of God, usurping the role of God is...

very problematic and definitely the worst thing that he did. I would agree. And the way that they do it is very strategic and deceptive, because they will, whenever they're doing this, whenever trying to associate William Brannum's words, with the words of Jesus Christ and make them equal, or the Bible and make it equal to Bible, they will often take a verse, a single verse from the Bible completely out of context, but when you say the sentence or phrase that they have snipped out of the context of the Bible, and in their beautifully, masterfully, strategically invented speech,

they will say something that sounds exactly like that word or phrase. And therefore, because it sounds the same, mentally, the people make this mental leap to think, oh, well, they're talking about William Brannum right here in the Bible.

How can anybody not see this, right? It's like, you know, it's like saying that Honda is in the Bible because they were all in one accord. That verse means nothing like the automobile Honda, but that's what they're doing.

They're taking single verses and twisting them out of context. And for me, the problem, Charles, is I could never do this. Can you picture yourself standing in front of a group of people, knowing what you're doing, and knowing that you're taking a verse, and knowing, you know, some of these men actually do read their Bibles.

I believe they do, but they read the context. They know whenever they say a verse, that it means nothing like they're using it for, but they'll get behind a pulpit and they'll take that one verse, and they will rip it out of context and point it to this man who died in the 60s because every single person sitting in those pews is going to give them money in the offering plate.

I can't do it. You know, this is the lowest form of evil for me. Yeah, so I guess kind of moving on to the next item. So John, I just jotted these down and these are not in any particular order.

So don't think I'm trying to rank his Heresys here on out, you know, worse, you know, one worse than the other. I definitely think the making himself into a God was by far his worst Heresy, but here on out, this is just not in any particular order.

So the second one I put down was what he did in the marriage and divorce sermon, John. And we actually did a full episode where we went through the marriage and divorce sermon, but in that sermon, he claimed that Satan was co-equal with God, that's a direct quote.

Satan is co-equal with God. Like, didn't you know, Satan was co-equal with God?

That is terrible, terrible, terrible Heresy. Satan is co-equal with God and then through his reasoning, and the reason he brought that in was because he's trying to explain how man was made in the image of God, but then woman was...

designed beautiful because Satan likes beauty. So man was made by God and the image you've got but woman was designed by the devil to be beautiful because the devil liked beauty. And you know he goes through a whole explanation on that how you know Michael and Michael and Lucifer didn't get along and Lucifer liked beautiful things and he wanted his kingdom to be beautiful and very bizarre explanations think you don't really find in scripture but anyways the ultimate conclusion Satan being co-equal with God designed women to be beautiful because Satan likes beauty. So I think that is another very heretical thing that he taught

which a lot of people in the message generally don't believe and most don't repeat that but that is another very terrible thing that that William Brown taught. As I was leaving the message in deprogramming and trying to understand what is this world and what does it mean and what is religion and what is Christianity and how does it differ from the message. There was this book that I read that described the worship of Satan and it was a Christian book it was talking about the worship of Satan in today's world and there aren't you know well there may be but in general they're not

these temples where you go and sacrifice a child and blood's running down the altar today and where they're worshiping some satanic deity instead today people lift Satan up in power that he does not have mentally and often through words and even in sermons they do this and the book made a very strong argument that if you take Satan out of his place and lift him up into power in your mind you're actually worshiping Satan and if you do it in a setting where you're talking to other people and training them to worship Satan in this way you know to deify Satan in a way that Satan

is not a deity that you're actually a priest for Satan it was a concept it really took me a while to get that I think I actually had to read the book a couple of times because this is a concept that was foreign to me we did this Charles we were scared of Satan where most Christians they teach you peace and you know you're protected by God you go here in normal church this preaching the normal gospel you walk away feeling a sense of security because God is with you but when you go to these cult churches they have glorified Satan to such a level where he is a deity and you are

scared that he is going to snag you at every turn that's the way that they do it because what they're trying to do like all cults if you can lift the enemy in power and then give an answer to this enemy which is oh by the way our central figure then the central figure has the answer and now you're looking to the central figure for the answer so in the way in which the cult has presented Satan.

William Brannum was actually, according to this book, and now in my opinion, he was worshiping Satan. Yeah, there's really just no way to, I've heard some message preachers try to do it. Try to walk around the, and explain away the Satan is co-equal with God, quote.

But yeah, I mean, if there is no way around it, you have got to throw William Brannum under the bus. Satan is not co-equal with God. There is no way to rescue that quote.

And the best you could do is say, William Brannum was mispeaking, right, which is what most do. But then at the end of the sermon, William Brannum said it was all thus say at the Lord.

So he's mispeaking and thus say at the Lord. So it's, that is an incredibly difficult sermon

to wrap your mind around it. But yeah, a lot of people, a lot of message preachers will dance around it. So he's maybe moving on to the next item on the list. This one's a good one.

So William Brannum preached a sermon called The Token. And the token sermon represents the message formula for salvation, okay? So this is how you're saved in the message, the token sermon. You've got to have the token.

Do you ever hear that, John? You know you must have the token. You must have the token, you know? And so there is an obsession with that. And if you hear message preachers talking about, you must have the token there.

Let's loaded language referring back to William Brannum's token sermon and it's the message salvation, the message formula for salvation. So I would put this into the top 10 list

because William Brannum utterly bastardized the gospel with this sermon. He, he sidetracked people, he trapped people, he led them down a path that will never lead them into true salvation, right, with, with that sermon.

And what he did in it is he introduced, basically a ladder of steps you climb to salvation. And it starts out with first, John, I'm sure you, you can, you know all this from heart as well.

First you need to be justified, my brother. You gotta get under the blood. And now justified though, that's not good enough, right? You're not gonna, you're just back there with Martin Luther, right? So after you get justified, then you need to work up to the second step.

You've got to be sanctified. It God will not fill an unclean vessel, my brother. You must clean up your vessel. So and sanctification is basically, turns into a list of rules you must keep in order to be appropriately holy.

Upon keeping this list of appropriate rules to make yourself holy, you then become a candidate to receive the Holy Spirit. And baptism of the Holy Spirit, then becomes your third step. But you're still not really, going to make it through everything even at that stage. And then it finally climaxes with receiving the message for your hour. And the true evidence of the Holy Spirit in the message is believing the message, right? The evidence of the Holy Spirit is believing the message in the message, which is pretty convenient. And so you've basically William Brannum has added himself in his message as the final step in his message

salvation formula in there. And so you must receive the message for your hour. And then of course, message preachers, you know, continue to build on this to the day and all the other sects because William Brannum's gone and now there's a new messenger, a new message with new message. So it's a new message for the hour every hour, running hour. And so you need the message for your hour. And I know where I come from and different ones will say, well, the message is for brother Brannum's day. That'll save you in 63, but you need what I have today to still

be sent. And so the preachers continue to recycle this to add themselves over and over again into the message salvation. And then you're all the way down today in 63 like where I come from. You needed the message of Raymond Jackson. Oh, you need the message of William Brannum. And you need the message of Raymond Jackson. And then you need the message of his success. And you've got to have it all in order to make it, right? And if you don't make it, guess what? I mean, you know what happens, John, you get to burn up in the tribulation. And maybe you'll still be

saved. Well, if you're in the message, no, you couldn't be saved, right? Because you can't be in it and leave and still be saved. But maybe the people on the outside who never heard about it could possibly still be saved when they burn up. But you are definitely not going to be saved. You're going to burn up and go to hell because you knew better because you were in the church and heard it. So boy, John, that's a mess. It's such a mess. You know, I've never been in one of the NAR churches that exists today. But I'm contacted with people who have now

escaped it. And they say that it is this growing cult that's very similar to the message. And this is a theme that they apparently in some of these churches they share where it's your new word for the day. And this is it, it all stems from, you know, William Brann, I'm called the spoken word. And you've got the reema you've got. And I'm told that I pronounce that incorrectly. So I apologize.

I still, yeah, I still don't know the actual pronunciation. It's our R H E M A, right? We're not Greek scholars, right? I'm not agree. I'm not a scholar at all, man. But you know, whenever I first started my website, I, as you know, and can see, I've been big in the music. I love music. And we had all of these wonderful songs with bad theology growing up in the message. One of them was the token. And I sang this song and I used to play these four part harmonies. And, you know, I I had quite a bit of music on my original YouTube site that I think is either this one or

is another one similar to it that had the highest number of views of anything that I had on the old YouTube site before the cult attacked it and brought it down. But it was a song called The Token.

And if you're in the message, you know the song called The Token because God was sent his prophet to give us this token. In other words, God sent this prophet to give us salvation is essentially what the theme of the song was.

And even after leaving the message and I had my new site because I had never heard the actual gospel and my 37 years of being in the cult had no idea. You know, I did read my Bible, but we were so twisted in our head of what is the gospel.

It wasn't until, gosh, I can't remember how many months or maybe even after a year later, I went through a course in the church where they just set everybody down who I sat down with a new converts because I wanted to see what was it like when you converted into Christianity.

And so they they had this course, they gave me this little tiny book that said, what is the gospel? And I was expecting something like this stick, man, because in the message to explain the gospel, you had to have this massive set of complex theories and it all ended up with, you have to believe William Brannum essentially, but they gave me this little tiny thin book and it was essentially, it was my favorite phrase in the Bible in the message and out for grace you have been saved by faith.

It's Ephesians too, right? But in the message, we were taught this verse, but we were taught it in such a way that we left off the second half of it. And the next verse, I think it's verse nine, it says it's not of your own doing.

This is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no man may boast. And in the course of this, what is the gospel, you know, it's a little class that I took, they focus very heavily on that verse nine because if you miss that, you have missed the fact that this is something that Jesus Christ did for you, not that you're doing for Jesus Christ to be saved.

It's a gift that he gave. For God loved his only begotten son, so he gave the gift to the world. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you can be saved. That's the gospel in its simplicity.

But we were taught this token, this reema, this spoken word. You had to believe this complex mess. And then after it wasn't good enough that you believed in the quote unquote word profit that they call it, once you do believe you had this set of weights that you had to put on your shoulders, it's not good enough that you believe you must also do this.

And doing this isn't going to save you either. You must also do this and this and this and this and by the time you stack all of these weights, some of them. are sins in the Bible, but I would say probably 90% of them are unbiblical things that they make you do.

Right, I've got a list on my website. I should throw it up on the video called cult rules. There's some insane things like don't wear suede shoes. We had this list of rules, man, and what it is, they have omitted verse 9 of Ephesians 2, not a result of work, so that no man may boast.

You had to have this token, which essentially was William Brannum. When you say it like that, Charles, I'm starting to agree with you. That one may rank either equal to the co-equal with God in Satan, or maybe slightly above it, because this was a man who claimed to be preaching the gospel, who was teaching the exact opposite of the gospel, which in effect means he was preaching a false gospel, and we all know what the Bible says about men who preach a false gospel.

It really is something else, because he, with step 2, with the way he approached sanctification, and he told us he got all this from John Wesley, which is a big lie. He did not get this from John Wesley.

He got this from the higher life, as we're where this came from, but he basically turns step 2 into salvation by works, right? Here's the works you must perform, and then you can be saved.

Step 2, he added in works into salvation, the salvation formula. With receiving the Holy Spirit, he made it this really vague thing, which I don't know. I don't know how it was where you come from, but generally the preachers say, you just need your experience.

You need an experience, and that's how you heard it, John. You need an experience. Of course, no one really ever explains what this experience says that you need, you just need this experience, and how do you know, right?

And then, of course, then, the truth, the evidence that you actually had this experience is that you believe the message. It's something else. And the truth is, the message is the token, the message formula for salvation is not really unique to the message.

It's adapted for the message, right? But it is not unique to the message. William Brownembar, the broader lateral reign movement has that, and so what you find out in other lateral reign influence group is they'll use different terminology, instead of message for your hour, they might refer to it as the present truth.

You probably heard that phrase a lot, John, the present truth, and it's this idea that William Brownem brought in that the formula for salvation changes. It changes in every age, so in every new age, you've got a new formula for salvation, which is, yeah, it's incredibly heretical, but it allows them to constantly evolve the requirements for salvation, whereas, you know, I think, normal Christians believe...

There has only ever been one way to be saved, and there only ever will be one way to be saved. Yeah, and it's half-faith on Christ, right? Yeah. And, sorry, if I get just a tad preachy, John, that's about all I've been doing since we've laughed for a quarter of the episodes is being preachy, but yeah, there's no other way, you know, in normative Christianity, you know, it's the one and only way there's ever been to be saved is half-faith on Christ, and he will save you, not perform works and be saved or learn mysteries and be saved or, you know, have your new message of the hour,

every hour on the hour and be saved. It's just believe on Jesus and be saved, so. Yeah. Yeah, it's problematic. It's so problematic. And I'm not a preacher, nor do I claim to be, nor do I want to be, so I feel kind of awkward and out of place in this whole conversation, but I am one of the few, like I said, I have actually read my Bible several times and I still, you know, I've got study tools, anybody can go to biblegateway.com, like I do, and you can study very easily.

Now they've got some rare, some very good reference tools. I use some of the, I think the Matthew Henry commentary was my favorite whenever I had first left a message, but there's some other really good tools out there.

But I think we should mention, along with the token and something you said just sparked this memory, because this is equally problematic and somewhat similar to the token doctrine. Is the notion that when you think of the dispensationalism that he brought, which was another heresy for another day, he is, he is specifically naming people who he said was the quote unquote angel for the age or the messenger for the age.

And he says that each messenger had their own quote unquote message and that one message didn't carry over to the other one. And if you did not believe the one for your age, but you were saved under the one before it.

So if you live like at the beginning of an age, you might be saved in the message for the other guy who had a different message than the one you're in. And it was, the problem is he is talking specifically and, you know, the Apostle Paul was the messenger for his quote unquote age.

And he is specifically saying that the gospel, that the Apostle Paul preached was not good enough. And he gives this whole quote unquote vision where he's seeing all of the, he called him his people.

He sees all of his people waiting to go through the judgment. And they're all scared. Are we going to be judged? Are we going to make it? And, and he said, well, I preach the same message that Paul preached.

And then they say, well, we're resting on this. In other words, we're resting on your words instead of the words that Paul wrote in the Bible. And in some cases, he come, he goes as far as to say that the message for one messenger won't work for the next eight.

age. In other words, I don't think he openly says this about Paul, but he says, in some cases, the messenger had a different message and you can't be saved under that message. So that is just as problematic. I can't say that's the token doctrine, but when you take that and you combine it with the token, what you essentially have is you have this gospel that points to a mediator between God and man. In the book of Timothy, it says, there is no mediator between God and man except for the Lord Jesus Christ. And we all know

that William Brannum was not the Lord Jesus Christ. The word of Moses' time did not work in the days of Jesus' time. The word, the word in the days of the apostles does not work in this day. You know, there's no way there's no way to justify that and definitely was teaching that the formula for salvation changes with every age of time, every hour on the hour. Message for your hours, what you must have. It's so problematic. You know, they make the complex formula for salvation and the message so difficult that I was somewhat immune

to it. Like I said, I did read the Bible and my favorite verse was by Grace, you've been saved through faith. I was twisted as to what that faith meant. I thought it meant you had to believe in your prophet because that's what I was trained and manipulated to believe.

But I did have faith. I believed in William Brannum. I believed in Jesus and William Brannum, like every good message Christian should be, right? But we traveled a lot. We went from church to church many different places and some of the churches did not allow alter calls because some versions of William Brannum's stage persona was against an alter call, which is odd when you really think about it. Other versions were not and he would have alter calls. And so some of the churches we went to had them, some churches did not. But I never will forget,

I was very secure in my faith. I was a believer. I believed it hook, line, and sinker. But I never will forget we started attending this church and suddenly they had this big alter call. And I watched as all my friends got up and kneeled down. And I just, I felt out of place because I've been taught, well, you're not supposed to do this. And they're all doing it.

And it really felt awkward because you felt like you're supposed to go. I don't know if you've been through an alter call where it's like a forced alter call, which is what they're doing in some of these cases. But I was like, well, I don't know what to do here. So I just sat there and then after the service, you know, everybody's crying. The girls have, they don't have makeup so that doesn't run. But you can see the tears and they're, they're talking as though they don't know whether or not they're saved. And even in the cult, whenever I was even in this wrong mindset and

did not understand the gospel, for me, that was problematic because if you read the Bible, just simply reading the Bible gives you the security that you can be saved by grace through faith. And I had no question whether or not I was saved, not one single question.

And yet the youth people are being trained and manipulated on several occasions that they had to come to the altar to answer the question and find the question, are you saved? And some of the people like as long as we attended that church, they never got their answer.

And I'm laughing just because of the absurdity, but this is a very serious thing. These are ministers who are teaching the opposite of the gospel, and they're scaring children in their eternal salvation, which is robbing them of the greatest blessing that you can even get in a church.

Yeah, there's so much there. And the way it all works out is it really doesn't matter what you do, you're always in doubt of your salvation because maybe you're saved, but then maybe the demon of television seduce you to watch TV show.

You lose yourself in sports. Yeah, or the demon of sports, you know, seduce you to play a basketball game or something, right? And then you're like, oh, am I really sanctified now? I've went back and I have my vessels not cleaned anymore, right?

Or it could be things more serious than that, which are actual real sins, but, you know, in the message, you don't matter if it's a sin or not, right? You touch the basketball, you're in trouble there, you know, that TV demon got you, man, you watch leave it to be where you're in trouble, man.

And sometimes whether you did it or not, if the preacher thinks you did it, sometimes that was enough to lose your salvation. It's crazy. So, you know, all of those sort of things or other preachers are always constantly making you think that, you know, you're not, you're not saved for whatever reason.

And then even if you, you know, have this experience, right, well, the evidence is believing the message, which in part is understanding the message. And the thing is such a convoluted, complicated thing, right?

Very few people even grasp, I mean, it is such a complicated message, right? Very few people, unless, you know, they study endlessly can even begin to, you know, unravel the complexities of the message.

It is uber complex, I mean, you know what, John, as well as I do. And most people just are not unable to unravel all of that, right? So then, oh, do I really believe the message because I can't even explain it?

It doesn't actually make sense to me. And they know back in the back of their mind, wait a minute, this thing don't add up. And then they're, my faith, I don't believe, I'm going to hell, I don't believe the message, right?

And so it's just a trap that traps all kinds of people into the state where they never really believe they're saved and they live this tortured life, honestly, trying to feel saved in a token type system of religion that will never actually let them feel it, right?

And what they don't realize is that all the people around them who say they are saved are actually just hypocrites. it's who are watching leave it to beaver and everything else right and and then when they wake up like holy cow and we I remember that john you know at a certain point you know towards the end I'm like I started to wake up and I realized am I the only person here that actually keeps all the rules are you kidding no like slut in the world you know we many churches you weren't allowed to watch television and in especially in the Jeffersonville area I'll never forget coming

back here and being in the home of I won't give his name but this is one of the most respected people in the cult coast to coast and I went in his house and we were watching Abbott and Costello and I was like wait a minute I'm not even allowed to have a TV in my house I'm watching Abbott and Costello in your house and looking back you know the way that they present the gospel I don't know if you've seen the skit if you haven't you need to see the skit the who's on first skit

they're talking in circles man who's on first and and this baseball player says his name is who if you haven't seen it go watch it it's funny as heck but what they've done is they've turned your fear of salvation and their answer to what is the gospel into this who's on first game whether it's a circle it can never be answered and in doing so they have created a pyramid scheme that is in an infinite pyramid and for me again I go back to the thing this there's no great no better than a petty thief what they're doing they're doing it in such a way where you know

they're getting paid every Sunday for this and so they're creating creating the problem adding themself as the solution and then creating a problem that that is recurring it presents itself in a recurring way instead of just simply saying look guys believe in Jesus go home rest in peace because you're believing in Jesus here are several Bible verses that tell you you can rest in peace because you're believing in Jesus they don't do this and for me this is a problem so here we are John I mean we're only on number three two episodes for this one question top 10 heresies okay so maybe we can try and get through

and at least this next one before we break it up how about that that's good so next one so I this one again not these are not in any particular order but William Brandham taught that the seals of Revelation were opened in 1963 so you know Revelation chapter 5 6 7 you know the the seven seals scroll is taken by Jesus and he unfurls the seals off of the scroll and you know the horse riders are running and and this William Brandham taught that those seals that Jesus arose and removed those seals from the scroll in 1963 and that as Jesus did that that angels brought him the secret

revelation of those seals. And that is right at the very foundational core of the message, is the belief that Jesus revealed this secret mystery to the earthly bride through his humble prophet William Brannum in 1963. And so this makes my list, John, because the thing is a total hoax. And he hoaxed the whole thing. It is unbelievable that he hoaxed that. And if you take that away, there is no message. You have no message if that did not happen. And it's unbelievable. Everything he told us about it is an absolute hoax. He was not hunting on

February 28th, 1963. This face of Jesus that supposedly showed up in the sky was actually, it was supposed to be made by angels, so he said, actually made by a rocket. And then the message that the angels came and gave them about the seals, lo and behold, we find him wrote in the books. It is library. God have mercy, John. God have mercy. He hoaxed us on the most important revelation. And so, you know, whatever you want to say, the three woes are and the red horse rider and all that. Hey, maybe Clarence Larkins, right? Maybe Charles Russell's

right. And I don't even got to touch that. But that sure never happened in 1963. What a scam. What a scam. It is such a scam. And you know, what's I'm laughing, I shouldn't laugh on a, this is why I won't be a minister, right? Because I would laugh the whole sermon. I would think of the absurdity of things that we were taught in this religion. And I just couldn't do it because some of them are funny. If you really take a step back and ignore the fact that they're sending souls to hell, some of them are actually funny. And for me, this one ranks up there in the top

funniest. If you think about Leslie Douglas Ashley and the rocket blast and the fact that the only reason that he's even got, you know, the only reason he even has to go save Ashley is because it was Halo photograph. This whole thing, it's like a comedy, an absurd comedy. But even funnier to me is the fact that if you gather any two message preachers in a room, I don't care who they are, get two of them together and ask them, okay, well, what was the mystery that he allegedly opened that was underneath that seal? You're going to get two different answers and get four ministers in.

You're going to get four different answers. This was a mystery that he allegedly revealed to the church. And the church doesn't know what it is. And the reason why there's so many splinter groups is because there are ministers that think they have the revelation. And you've got the thunders group. Well, they know what's the revelation of the thunders.

One of my favorite books, and I have it on my desk with all of my random literature, is The Lord of the Rings. The mystery that Frodo Baggins got was the ring. And I can ask any person who has seen The Lord of the Rings, and they can tell you, okay, he had a ring.

They know what the mystery was, even though he was invisible, right? Well, in William Branham's case, he had allegedly this fantastic thing happen with Seven Angels, and this great mystery that he revealed, and he doesn't say a single thing that you can't find under another author's name, or, you know, in some cases, the authors that he's quoting is just simply quoting Bible verses.

It's not even a mystery, just open your Bible and read what is being said. There is no mystery, but they will tell you that he revealed it, and you as a poor message believer trying to figure out, well, what in the heck is the mystery?

You go through these mental gymnastics, and it's another who's on first. You know, here we can laugh about it right now, John. I mean, at this stage, I've been out of the message almost three years, and you can laugh about it.

But when you discover this, and you're still in there, I mean, the best description of the reaction is utter and sheer horror, utter and sheer horror, to discover that William Branham hoaxed the seals.

I mean, it is horror, because I mean, that is bedrock to the message. That is what made us the elite Christian, right? That is what separate, that's like the dividing line between the message and everything that came before.

That's the event that, you know, kicks it all off in 1963, and to find out that he hoaxed the most important thing to the message believer from his ministry is sheer horror. And, you know, when you're in there, you do not want to let that go for anything, because that collapses your world.

Honestly, it will collapse your world to admit that out loud, and you will tie yourself in knots. You'll try to find any loophole you can to hold onto it. Okay, yeah. Yeah, the cloud was made by rockets, but the revelation is still good.

Yeah, he wasn't really out hunting. You know, there's something fuzzy there about the story, but we still got the genuine revelation. Oh, yeah, I can read a lot of it out of these books.

But the angels really did give it to him, and this is some sort of a weird coincidence, right? Like, you will find ways to continually just push back the reality that William Branham lied to us about every single aspect of the revelation of the seals.

And God, have mercy, John. I mean, again, maybe Charles. Brussels, right? Maybe Clarence, Larkins, right? Maybe John Gail, these guys he copied from is right. You know, hey, maybe it's so. You know, I have my opinion, right?

But I'll leave that out here. But he lied to us about where it all came from and what happened. And it is so horrific when you were in the message to come to that reality.

And dear message listeners, if you're listening to this, I mean, my heart goes up to you. I mean, I know the pain. I know the suffering that coming to that knowledge will bring to you.

My heart goes up to you and I totally understand why some people rather hold on to the fantasy than to admit that the very core of your world review is based on a host.

Yeah, for me, Charles, I don't know if the audience saw it or not, but my dog just walked in here. I, when I go for a walk with my dog, I have to carry these little plastic bags because along the way, she's gonna stop and I'm gonna have to pick something up.

I'm not gonna tell what it is. But this thing that William Brandham did is not much better than that stuff that I pick up. I'll say it like that and you can use your imagination.

But all joking aside, this is a very serious thing that he's claiming here because the Bible said, no man is worthy to open the seals. And that is really the heresy here. He's claiming that he did it and all of these ministers who come after him are openly claiming that he did it.

And they're fully ignoring the fact that the Bible says, no man is worthy to open the seals. So what does that leave William Brandham? The answer to this as my grandfather would say is he was more than a man.

He was God tabernacle than human flesh. In other words, we deify William Brandham so that he can become greater than a human being and he can be elevated to this level just like we've elevated Satan in your minds and we worshiping Satan, you worshiping William Brandham.

It really comes out plain and simple. It's that simple. And if you are listening to this and you're one of the NAR researchers, you're already aware that all of these men who are in the NAR, if you use William Brandham as a stepping stone and they have claimed that he was a prophet, a healer, he was a God-spirit-filled man until he suddenly went astray.

They're not telling you this stuff about the seals and the cloud. Go back and listen to, I can't remember what episode it is, but listen to our series on the cloud. If you want to see what kind of a man this was, there was no spirit involved here.

This was a fraud, plain and simple. But as you said, Charles, we've gone a bit over. Let's wrap this up here and then we'll come back next week. We've got more questions that have been sent to us and we're addressing the issue of what are the greatest heresies that William Brandham brought to the church and how does that flow down through this chart that I shared earlier in the video if you're watching the video feed.

So if you've enjoyed the show and if you have a question, you can see... it into us and we'll try to address it sometime in the future. If you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-Branum.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org.

For an overview of the historical research of William Branum and the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods a critical examination of William Branum in his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

www.William-Branum.org www.William-Branum.org