Weird Doctrines: Thou Shalt Not Superbowl!!!

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 and friend, James Goad. And together we're discussing the very weird things that preachers say, why they say them, and how they relate back to the latter-rain healing revivals of the late 1940s through the 1960s. James, today we have, as you can see, a very special chiefs episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I've got my shirt on, Patrick Mahomes. I was going to

wear my hat, but it doesn't really fit over my earphones, but I also had a coffee cup, but I could not find it, so we're going to have to settle for a doctor who instead. But football in the message was so out there. You had people who were hardcore football fans and some churches, and other churches, those same people were demonized. Some churches did not allow sports, and if they did allow sports, you could play them, but you couldn't really enjoy, you know, national sports, or whatever. It was so weird. I didn't know this was a thing, right? I grew up in the inner circle

of the Collins family elite, and I knew all of the other ministers and men, and we went to football parties. They're actually, I won't give their names, but there are actually men of high rank and status in the cold. They would rent buildings, and they would go, you know, have a football party in the building on the Super Bowl. And while I was enjoying football with my friends, I'm told that there were ministers who were aware this was going on, having sermons just chastising anybody who wasn't in that pew during the Super Bowl, because you should love the Super Bowl. You should

love God as much as you love the Super Bowl. And looking back, I say, well, if I'm supposed to joy it that much, I'd sure like to bring a big can of gatorade and dump it on you at the end of the service, like they do at the Super Bowl. Yeah. Yeah, there's so many weird, doctrinal things that get brought up around things like this. And in the nature of the sort of cult that we came out of you know it also depended on what church you were in and how the particular minister felt about things if a minister was more friendly towards sports maybe maybe he

didn't preach on it as much but if if he was very hard-nosed which happened a lot in a lot of the churches that I experienced was that you were you might as well just go ahead and punch your ticket for hell if you if you watch a football game or you get excited about something like that because those sorts of things are not what we're here to focus on we're here to we're here to focus on church and God and the message and brand those are the things we're here to focus on and you know it always come to be like you know if if you if

you can get so excited at a football game but you can't come to church and shout and praise the Lord and do all this stuff then there's something wrong with you brother because you know you know God is so much more greater than what's going on the football game but if you can't get that excited here then then obviously there's a problem with you and there are all these just weird things that they would point back at you you know not even taking to account that these are completely different mediums you've got a religious context and then an

entertainment context and they're trying to say if you don't act exactly like in like you do in the entertainment context in a religious context and there's something wrong with you and you're sitting there going but there are different things I don't understand what's going on here you know and of course when you're submissive to what's going on there because you believe what you're hearing is the truth you internalize that and you think okay I am a bad person because I did get really excited when my team won or you know I did get frustrated when the play didn't go the way I thought it was going to and I got

really excited about what was going on and those sorts of things are used to really you know work and control your thinking and in these cult groups and stuff like that because they take something that should be completely innocent and and just fun like gathering together with friends to enjoy a form of entertainment and in this context football or the Super Bowl more specifically and then they go and demonize it and make you feel like a bad person because you had fun and it's that's just one example and it happens throughout the entire cult and we've

examined it in different ways but this specifically we're looking at this this one here it really makes you scratch your head when you stop and you stand back you get around normal people and they're enjoying this and just having fun and they're not worried about going to church and being told that they're going to go to hell just because they got really excited because some great athlete made a really awesome play you've never seen before in your entire life it's so weird man and you know what's really funny is I've got to experience both sides of it

right so I grew up in this weird religion where even though I went to you know some of the Super Bowl parties I still there were times that I couldn't go I had to work or whatever and which that's another thing there were some days that I had to work and oh that's another big problem man had had to keep food on my table so I had or Sunday and get preached at for working on Sunday.

But anyway, I did hear some of the sermons from the Colt ministers who were just blasting the people who enjoyed football. And I just kind of ignored, I tuned it out. This is ridiculous, even in the message I thought this is ridiculous.

But I've got to experience both sides of it. So after leaving the Colt and having been at Super Bowl parties with some very, very key people in the Colt, I went to a new church.

And I found that the church world that we came from was very, my wife uses the term high demand. And it's very fitting. It's very high demand. You have to be there Sunday. You have to be there Sunday morning, Sunday evening.

If you went to the tabernacle, the headquarters church, you had actually two services Sunday morning. And you had to go to both of them, which was also, you sat there forever till your butt hurt.

Then you go Sunday night, Wednesday night, and sometimes services in between. In a normal church, there are multiple services on Sunday. And you get to choose which one you go to. And the first time I saw this, I was like, what in the world is this?

What are they doing? I haven't this. Yeah, exactly. But during Super Bowl season, the services were still targeting people who were enjoying the sports, which was odd. We went, I went through a progression after leaving the message.

We went to some very evangelical hard core. In my opinion, they were like one step out of the message and one foot in, one foot out. And those churches would blast the people for, during the Super Bowl parties, for praying to God that their team was gonna win, or that their athlete was gonna make a great play.

Which I get it, you know, that's absurd. And that's out there too. Don't be doing that people. But the target for the chastisement was different. And it wasn't until years later, I realized that that type of religion is not for me.

In my opinion, it doesn't match the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is not like the Egyptian God raw, who is so demanding and harsh on the people. But anyway, whereas headed with this, is at the normal churches that we went to, well, they had church Super Bowl parties.

And you could go often to be at the minister's house and it would be a small group of people. And they'd like spool it up into other small groups or like one time we even, the church had like a community building and I wanna say we had one in there.

I can't remember clearly. But it was a celebration. It was a time that you get together like they, you know, the talks about in the book of Acts that people got together and they were all.

You know, maybe not all in one accord in the spirit in the way which the the Bible portrays it But they were showing love and community and support and people enjoying people. That's really what church is all about But in these cult groups, it's not about that at all man There's very high demand you have to be there and if you're not in your seat during the Super Bowl they equate it to Being to questioning your salvation and questioning your God if you follow everything they say out to its logical conclusion They're saying that if you miss a church service to go sit in a Super Bowl

You might as well be going straight to hell Seeing a church that has two services on Sunday and and what you see there in a normal situation Outside of the cult context is like okay, you maybe you have an evening service in a morning service If it's more convenient to get to the morning service go to the morning service It's a more community to get to the evening service because you're scheduled go to the evening service It's like it's just normal things, but these cults put such a high importance on attendance in in such a way that

It becomes almost impossible to maintain the you know And it is sort of a rat race too because you've got all these people that have an impossible standard to live up to because it's Mitt to be impossible and so there's this constant rat race if I'm more holy than you I went to church two more times and you needed people don't think that Consciously there is sort of an unconscious level of trying to prove How much more spiritual you are than the next guy because if you fall just below a certain thing Then you're the guy that's getting kicked out. You're the guy that's getting preached on you're the guy that you or your family

maybe Completely ostracized and you have maybe have to go to completely different church because you they've turned their back on you and you're too worldly all this stuff so there is a lot of all these things sound innocuous and they and they sound like well You know the the minister just has a really bad opinion of sports But when you get down deeper you see what's going on on a psychological level It is extremely damaging and hurtful to people that they're having to be forced to live up to these things that it's just no normal

situation That have people in positions of authority who Care about the people that they're trying to shepherd Would put them under these sorts of rigorous sorts of thought processes and you know, it's so crazy that You just can't have fun is really what it comes down to because if you're having fun outside of the cult Then maybe the cult loses its grasp on you and that's I think what some of this is driven towards is that How can you how can you maintain the people if they're and because what is there there's nothing there There's no substance to the cult the cult is is just it's it's a dust bowl

There's nothing there nothing of value, but you know having fun with friends and family in a on an environment watching a super bowl. I mean, that can be fulfilling, you know, and that can be things that make you happy and spending time with people in a good, honest way.

Yeah, so yeah, you have to demonize these things and you have to make them seem so abhorrent to somebody who would want to be living up to this standard that is set forth by this liar of a profit.

They try to keep your mind at all times focused on the cult. And you are, you know, no matter where you are, whether you're church or not, it's not that you have to be focused on God.

You have to be focused on the cult rules. In fact, for the audience who is not getting the visual feed for the podcast audio only, James and I are both wearing chiefs jerseys and I have Patrick Mahomes, so I have the better jersey.

But, and I should pause there and say, there's this new fad, right? The chiefs and Taylor Swift and all of this weirdness that's going on, it's like the new popular thing to be the chiefs.

James and I are fans of the chiefs from long before any of the, we were fans when it was not popular to be a chiefs fan, right? Oh yeah. I, to further illustrate my previous point, my first, the first super bowl that I remember really getting into was, or the first super, the first football season I should say that I really enjoy getting into was the season where Joe Montana came to the chiefs.

And that was back early 90s, 91 I think it was. So I've been a chiefs fan this long. So I've got bragging rights to wear the shirt. But, but there are sects in the message that you cannot even wear the football jerseys.

If you're away from church, you're not allowed to. In fact, I'm not going to give his name, but I gifted a friend of mine who was never allowed to wear a t-shirt with a print on it.

At all, I gifted him a print t-shirt and he thought I'd gifted him a demon man. He was like, oh man, man. But I think he now he's wearing it and he's understanding, there's no demon going to come out of the shirt and get you, man.

But anyway, for the audience who isn't to wear, the people who are never in this thing, you're not allowed to even wear the jerseys sometimes when you're away from the church because they, it's like any cult group.

If they can keep your mind focused on the cult at all times, it keeps your mind away from questioning the cult. So if there is critical information and you're deep in thought about the cult, you separate that from critical thought and you put the critical thought on the shelf while you're focusing on the cult.

And what they have done is they have bound their set of rules and their set of, basically their set of means to indoctrinate you and keep you indoctrinated. They equate that directly to salvation.

So if you're not in the full mental state of always being indoctrinated, then they start. verbally whipping you with a with the whiplash of a tongue saying that you're about to lose your salvation. Yeah, and it was so crazy is that using the phrase lose your own soul to talk about sports and stuff, it's so crazy because they take all this stuff to such a level and they build it up and it's because it's this constant spiritual warfare that's going on and and watching a football game is the equivalent of taking a nuke to your spiritual life and it's like and the

devil's going to win and just completely overcome all your defenses because you watched a football game and the Super Bowl can be worst of all and it's just it's crazy that you see all the ways that different ministers use these similar lines of thinking to reach the same conclusion that you know protecting in these forms of entertainment is going to eventually probably hurt your walk with God and I'm man I don't know coming away from the cult and stuff and just getting into more normal atmospheres you're just like okay that that's a little much you know because it's like

it's entertainment it's fun it's okay to to you know to protect an innocent entertainment there's nothing there's nothing wrong with that um you know if if we didn't have things to watch if we didn't have books to read our imaginations would be coming up with its own forms of entertainment you know we you know we would be concocting all sorts of things our imagination because our brain needs to do this to to sort of balance out everything else that's going on this is something that humans have done for ages we create entertainment to to relax ourselves to our fun for creative

outlets there's all sorts of thing but every time you have some sort of a creative endeavor that the cult gets its eyes on it's like it finds some way to say the devil is in that and it's just like come on man it's just football yeah you're not going into hell on the hand basket just because you like football I you know again it's so weird if you were never in this thing you're probably looking at this and you're thinking man these these guys are freaks well what in the world are they thinking but on the on the flip side there are people in the message who I mean just the fact that

we're wearing these jerseys they may not even watch this show that's how really how wrong this is and so this first clip that we wanted to roll into here um you know this minister takes a very interesting stance and talks about you know you know sports and all these things and and and how the the ultimate thing of losing your own soul to some of this stuff and and it's it's it's it's interesting and um I think that you know we'll we'll listen to what he has to say here and then we'll we'll take a step back and we'll sort of we'll sort of see what we

think about it the scripture says speaks about this what good would it do if you win the whole world and lose your own soul is it worth it to win the whole world No.

And lose your soul. No. Come on, friends. Yeah. I'm not going to be much longer. Is it worth it to win the Super Bowl or win the Stanley Cup or? No, no. You know, be the best, you know, the best yard in Lyndon, you know?

Feel $40 or the best beauty contest, you know, winner. And to lose your soul, is it worth it? I would say, no, it's not worth it. But all tonight, what about the Aunt Jamima lady?

They're in Memphis, Tennessee. She'd raise her son to live right and do right. And he took a wrong road. It's crazy because I know that there are people who have very athletic people that I grew up around, who may have had a shot at, you know, maybe professional sports, but they felt condemned in their spirits because of the types of things they were hearing over the pulpit.

That if they pursued that sort of career, that somehow it would, you know, make them less of a Christian or maybe they wouldn't make it to heaven because they wanted to be a professional player.

And it's sad to see somebody with so much talent and so much ability be just capped at the knees and say, no, you cannot pursue this, something that would actually really fulfill a part of your life and completely, all things being equal should be completely fine and harmless.

You know, pursuing a career, whether it's in, you know, normal business or sports, you know, it's like it's up to you the things that come with that. That's completely up to you. And, you know, just seeing people be diverted away from things because they feel like, like I said, like they feel like they won't be able to make it into heaven because they chose a sports career.

And it's sad you get so many people, especially when they come out and they start to deep program office and some of those things leave really deep scars because they feel like I let somebody control my mind and steal something from me that I could have achieved.

And it's hard to get over some of that things for people. And people have those in multiple different aspects. You know, it's not always sports for everybody, but you know, it's just the feeling of like the cult robbed me, you know, it's so sad to see that happen to people or something.

It's just, it's sports, man, it can be a career. It can be fun to watch. It's like, why do we have to make everything the devil? Yeah. And one of the things that I caught, which I played the clip and I added the next sentence on.

But the minister's talking, what about the Aunt Jamima lady? Not realizing that this is a ratio of slur. Yes. People were the black people in his church because William Branham was using the racial slurs and they, they're so indoctrinated.

They don't realize that they're even doing this. They don't realize that this is a racial slur. I I grew up in Georgia and I almost brought it out to you. Along with my chiefs hat, I have a Georgia Bulldogs hat, but I grabbed it and it was the same color and the same, it looked almost the same.

But when I was in Georgia and I, you know, I quoted William Brannem even in school and I would say things and I can't remember it was this racial slur or a different one that I was using.

I suddenly realized that no, you do not say this in public. You do not say these things that our prophets say in public because you will, you get in some big trouble. It's no good, man.

But this guy is doing it. He's quoting this and, you know, the point he's trying to make is wrong. He's trying to bind all of this to your salvation and what it is doing it is limiting the power of God.

In other words, and I saw this all throughout, you know, even when I was in the Colton, I would hear the ministers chastising the people who were watching the Super Bowl. It was as if the God was not powerful enough to save you if you went and watched the Super Bowl.

You could accidentally lose your salvation by watching it. It's completely ridiculous. I mean, when you're in it, it feels real and that fear that they're promoting over the pulpit. It sinks deep, especially when you're a true believer.

And I can say that from experience, you know, and that's what makes, you know, when we go back and we examine some of these things and that's why it's so easy to be so on point about some of these things and just really point them out very pointedly and say, you know, this is just below me because, you know, it's like, you know, we're, we're, this is just a normal thing going to a football game, consuming it through, you know, maybe TV or whatever.

These are just normal, these are normal things. And, you know, it's, you know, being told that it's gonna hinder your salvation. It's like, okay, you know, maybe you could find one example somewhere of somebody that got so obsessed with something that maybe it did hinder aspects of their life, but you can't use a one-off edge case example to build an entire doctrine on because that's, that's not how sound doctrine works, you know, but these ministers do it all the time.

Yeah, you know, the other thing that they do is they, when you go to a normal church, they will often use people as good examples of how their, their life's change and they become better.

And they give you, they give you clear reasons why God helped them make this change, but in the cult, they flip it upside down. One of the things that they do, and I'm sure you've heard it too, James, where they take some athlete or movie star, whatever, and say that because they were doing this thing that violates, are cult rules, it drove them insane or drove them to suicide, drove them to death, it drove them whatever it was, and they use it as basically they use it as a means to manipulate your mind.

So they'll take whatever is the cult rule, and they'll show you the worst, excessively extreme example of what can go wrong if you don't follow the cult rules. And again, when you piece it all together, many cases they're talking about, you need to be in your seats, and you need to not be watching the Super Bowl.

Yeah, yeah, and that's a great stepping off point into this next clip here because we have a minister that's doing something pretty much exactly that. You know, we have setting up an illustration to get to a point that the minister obviously wants to get to, but as we dig in, maybe the point he's trying to make isn't the substance of the actual story.

But let's play the clip, and let's dig in a bit further. Like, one time we watch a video of Tom Brady and all these other famous guys, and they're like, wow, you have millions of dollars, you have a beautiful wife, you've won all these Super Bowl, are you the 10, and in every case they said, no, this is going to make me happy.

I want you to be on standards. He thought, let's have the Super Bowl, I'll be happy. You know what? Have you won the Super Bowl? You know what he did? He took his car, but he was trying to commit suicide.

He drove off the cliff, but God stopped him there and he didn't die. This is how empty these people are. You know, the devil likes them trying to tempt us, well, you just have more of this and more money and more houses, lands, and we'd be more happy.

No, sir, no sir, it actually makes you more, it makes you more selfish, it makes you more discontent. So there are a number of ways I could go on this one, James, and we're on a lighthearted episode, so I'm not going, I'll just mention it casually and let this go.

If you're a listener, you can take it wherever you want, but this is a very serious subject. I have a family member who committed suicide because of this cult. There were extreme, you know, there's multiple reasons why people do, and in the end it's mental health, but this is a person who grew up in the cult and realized that he was not able to have a cult style fulfilling life and he took his own life.

That's really bad. So, but let's put that away because this is a lighthearted episode about the Super Bowl, and I'm, people don't realize this, we're recording this before the Super Bowl, so we don't even yet know, we're both wearing the victory chiefs of our jerseys, but we don't really know yet, but this could age very poorly.

It could age, we could both be on the wrong side of history, man. But this guy is talking about, and he was a millionaire and all of this stuff. Many of them who are saying these things, the people in their pews have no idea.

I mean, there are people, I know personally people who did not make enough money to pay both. to pay both the grocery and the light bill and their tides. And many of these ministers, a lot of people don't realize this, they encourage you to give more than 10% of your wages. In fact, there are some that say you pay 10% off of your gross income before they take out of your, you know, your expenses and everything. So the people are making literally nothing. And they don't realize that many of these ministers that are saying this are millionaires. They have

fancy cars and big houses and sometimes multiple houses and houseboats and so on and so forth. But what they try to do is they're praying upon the minds of poor people. And so they're saying and you poor person, look at this millionaire and his, his extravagant lifestyle. You're not like this and you don't want to be like this. In other words, we want to keep you poor. The whole thing is just absurd. Right. And you know, it's so crazy to say that money and fame drove this person insane. Because like you said, when you look at some of these ministers, especially some of the

more popular ones that have some of the bigger churches, they have money. They have fame in their circles. They are looked up to as icons and almost idols in some groups, depending on who you're talking about. And they have money. They have mansions. They have really nice cars. And all the while there are people like you said in their churches who are struggling to make ends meet. But they're told you have to give me 10% if not more of your of your income so that God can bless you just like he's blessing from the and the minister saying this from their perspective and that would be them.

You know, and it's so twisted and so messed up because if money and fame were were the Achilles heel to this entire self, you know, walk of salvation, then shouldn't these ministers want to give up all of the all of the income that they've made off of these churches and all all all the stuff that they get and just give it all the way and live as a popper live, live, you know, hand to mouth like some people in their church have to. And then that way they're on the same level as those people and they're not lording above them. You'd think if they were

practicing what they preached and that it was so evil, they might want to take that route. But nine times out of 10, that's not the route you see some of these guys taking. No. And they're certainly not going to tell you I too have maybe not millions but hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I'm not trying to commit suicide because I have that much money.

You know, the whole thing is just wrong. And in fact, the way that they're manipulating people, it it is so it should be criminal. I'll just say it like that and leave it like that. It should be criminal. But these men, what they do is they keep you in this state of mind where you have to follow the court rules. You can.

can't go watch the Super Bowl on Sunday. Well, by the way, many of them and many of their peers in the elite circles are watching the Super Bowl on Sunday. And, you know, I should pause there.

On the, when I was going to the tabernacle, on the days in which I had to work or whatever I wasn't able to go to a Super Bowl party, there were times when I watch half the church clear out.

And, you know, it's always the same people missing. So, after a while, you just start to notice, oh, I know who's watching the Super Bowl. Think about what that does to your mind because it wasn't for me.

I thought it was ridiculous when I was in the call. I really did. But there were people who didn't, who thought, if you went to see the Super Bowl, you're losing your salvation, whatever.

Well, think about what that does to their mind. They see brother Joe Smith, whoever, and hopefully there's not a Joe Smith. Going to the Super Bowl every single year, he's missing from church. Well, then they begin to associate this with Joe Smith.

Well, he, that guy's lost. I don't want to have anything to do with that guy. It creates this mental barrier where you're actually dividing the people. And, again, after having experienced the call and we go to a new church, the difference was so significant.

Here is a minister who is clearly dividing his own church, putting them against each other like this, versus in the new churches. They're having Super Bowl parties, everybody's bringing chips and dip and whatever and everybody's getting together and we're having a really, really good time.

And even though it is centered around the football, one of the things that it taught me, which was very difficult for me to learn after leaving this thing, is that we could focus on the Super Bowl and God, both at the same time.

And the way that these cult ministers manipulate you, they want you to think that you can't do both. And by doing so, that's how they keep these walls around you in your mind so that you're stuck in the cold.

Right. And then one of the things that's even more interesting is when you look at, for this instance, when you look at the example that he uses, Dion Sanders, very famous football player, now a very famous college coach, because he's coaching over in Colorado.

He's been a commentator. He's been extremely famous and making money for many years. But with this story comes from, he wrote a book about his life and he talked about, he reached a point in his career where he had to be like, you know what?

Everything's not working. He was about to go through a divorce. His life had reached a very successful football player, but then he realized that what he was missing in his life was God and he said he reoriented his life, tried to commit, you know, this was, this, revelation came after he tried to commit suicide and failed. He survived a 30 or 40 foot drop, it says. And then he walked away from that being like, I got to change my life.

I got to get closer to God. I got to get out of my life. And I got to bring a balance into my life. And it's a great uplifting story seeing somebody like that who changes their life. But what this minister doesn't do, he doesn't tell you that. He says that the life that he lived, the sports life, the fame and the money, is what drove him to that. But Dion Sanders said is the reason why that happened was because God wasn't in his life. But once he brought God in his life, he still played football, he still made money

and he was still famous and he's still famous today. So the moral of the story that Dion is promoting is completely different, more often than the minister is promoting, which is just it's hilarious when you look at it. It's absurd, man. And I've been while you're talking, I'm thinking through, I've looked some of the quotes that you found about the Super Bowl. It's blowing my mind, man, there's no way that we're going to hit all of these quotes and, you know, add it into a packet into one hour show. But the level of manipulation, when you take a step back and you realize what they're doing, the people who are sitting

in the pews, they're not really thinking about what the guy is saying. So he can say this about Dion Sanders and many of them are never going to go look up the actual story. So most of them will never know Dion Sanders' real experience, right? But they even take it a step further. They give you these examples for the sole purpose of enforcing the cult indoctrination. And I was looking through one of the other quotes that you had while you were talking. And the next one, I'm going to lead us into this one. I know I usually

like you, but it's just so wrong, man. And I'm looking at the quote, the reason why it stuck out in my head is I know the person that he was with very intimate. My family knew this guy. So these are guys, like I said, these are guys in the cult elite who are going in and having super bowl parties. And this person, this minister, we won't give his name, but he's saying I went and I'll let him speak for himself. But he basically, he's putting himself into a situation where he says, I went and oh, I didn't like it. I didn't like

it at all. It was bad. So therefore you must also think it is bad. And let's just play the clip and you can hear it. You know, a friend of mine, he and I, we decided that we're going to play hooking on church for other. And then we all went together in Flagstaff.

Well, it was time for the super bowl, super bowl Sunday. Guess what? We had two services on Sunday. Well, we decided we're going to watch this Super Bowl and, you know, my wife says, you're a backslid. Don't judge me. I'm going to church the whole rest of the year, one day, one day. That's all I want to do, one service. Yeah, huh? Man, I've said there and she said, I'm going to church. Well, you go without me. So we went there, we watched this Super Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday. What a joke, huh? But at the moment, we thought,

I'm going to do it. I'm going to, huh? How many of you have been so stubborn? I'm going to do it? Make one of me. I don't care what you do. You think you're so holy. Because you're going to church.

Hey, I've gone through the whole spectrum. You know, hey, listen, and you know what? I found out that when I got older, it didn't matter anymore. I didn't even know when they're playing. I didn't even know who's playing. I could care less. And the closer I get to God and the more that the rapture is coming close and close and close and we're seeing the revealing of the Son of Man, hey, that's the only thing I'm interested in. Man, the something that gets me excited is going to get me out of here.

I don't want to stay here. I don't want to be here when all of this stuff starts going on. I don't want to be here when the pill horse rider starts to ride. What's so crazy about this is, as one, he mentions the whole two church services thing, which you brought up earlier in the episode.

Not even knowing we were going to get here, which is totally great. But, you know, and so he's like, he had to choose between two church services. He's like, well, I'll just go, I'll just skip one of those and go watch the Super Bowl. And it's like, yeah, that's perfectly fine. If you have two services on the one day, one of them has to be optional. And if it's not, that's a problem, you know, because it's like this, you know, I mean, hey, operate your churches however you want to, as long as you're not coercion people and forcing people to do things beyond their will and

controlling people. But, you know, at the same time, it's like two church services on the same day. Sometimes people have to travel long distances to get to these things. And it's like, what do you want people to like get a hotel just so they can hang around and then go to the second service or whatever it's kind of silly. But anyways, getting back to the Super Bowl thing, you know, and he even talks about, you know, later on, you know, after he, you know, he didn't go to the church service and felt repentant about it. You know, and he's like, now I don't even know who those

players are anymore because it doesn't matter to me. I don't even know who plays, you know, and, and, you know, you know, because we're getting closer and closer to the rapture. And that's the only thing that matters, you know, the revealing of the son of a man. This is our, this is our, should be your entire focus and that right there.

is the quiet part out loud. You know, it's, it's, don't focus on all the normal stuff. Don't focus on anything that's not the cult, not this impending rapture that we're hyper focusing on and all this stuff because this is all that matters.

And that right there, those words, if you live those out to their logical conclusion, that can be very dangerous and destructive for your life because there's a lot of things in life that matter.

And, you know, health of your family and, you know, having a steady job so you can support your family and all these things, you know, and having fun with your family and doing things to fulfill and enrich your life, you know, are very important things to living a happy, well-rounded life.

But as far as some of these ministers are concerned, the rapture and the revelation of the Son of Man is the only thing that matters. And it's very dangerous to start thinking that way.

Yeah, it's a joke I shouldn't make but many of these ministers are also well-rounded but that's another topic for another day, the Son of Gluttony. But, you know, when you hear this kind of thing, you just have to take a step back and you have to realize that his audience, one of the things when you become a public speaker, if you go through any sort of training, they'll tell you that you have to be mindful of your audience.

And in this guy's church, I can guarantee you that maybe not all, but a very, very large percentage of the people who are adolescent males in the cult, they know these stars that he says he doesn't know.

And their kids, man, they wanna have fun. I had a friend of mine while I was in the cult. He said something that has stuck with me through all these years, it still does today.

He escaped in his, I wanna say he was 70-ish years old before he escaped the cult. But, long time friend of the family, you know, even before I was born, he was a friend of the family.

But he said, these ministers and many of the cult elite, they tell you that you must be so, they incite the atmosphere that you become more spiritually minded than you are earthly minded. And he said, in doing so, there are people who are so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good.

You know, it's a balance, you have to be both. But they want to teach you that you cannot be both. And they want you to be so, you know, they want you to be so spiritually minded that you are no earthly good.

And they say it's a good thing, but that's not what the Bible teaches is the problem. And these ministers who are doing this, who are manipulating you by giving you one side of the story, oh, I went to it and I didn't like it, so therefore you won't like it either.

Well, what about the people who went and did like it, who did have a good time and who did realize, wait a minute. it. I can enjoy the Super Bowl and I can believe in God both at the same time. Right and it also what one of the darker sides that some of this stuff does because you know some of these ministers may re re re re butt this and say that or things like this and say that well we didn't outright say you couldn't go but what you're doing is you're stacking the deck so far against this thing in people's minds that they what you're relying on is the is the

internal judgment in their own being because they're going to these churches they want to line up to what's being said they believe what's being said and so therefore if they're being told that it's going to hinder their focus then they're going to be like well I don't want that for my life I want to be closer to God that's the whole point of me going here and and so they're going to try to line up to that even if you don't explicitly outright say you know it exactly like like like what's being said underneath what's actually said you know and another thing is that when

that happens you also have situations like you said people who are like but I don't see a problem with this and then they're like so they go and watch the Super Bowl and maybe you've got a husband and a wife or the husband's like I don't see a problem with this but the wife is like this is this is a problem we shouldn't be watching the Super Bowl and something so simple and innocuous is just having fun watching simple entertainment like a Super Bowl and then you have strife in the home over this because two people see it differently and it's and it's over eternal salvation

which is a big deal especially in the group you know so it it it drives wedges in people's lives and in people's relationships in a way that's so destructive and I'm I'm sure there's so many people who have had just you know tons and tons of fights over things like this because they're they see it differently over something that shouldn't have even been a problem in the first place James this becomes a recurring theme for you and I but at the end of the episode we usually say and this has no place in the church I mean in the end what what if these ministers started

harping on you know um um matchbox cars what are they start saying and those matchbox cars I want to play them one day brother and I don't play those anymore well every single kid who's in the church I think wait a minute I like to play with my matchbox cars or Barbie doll whatever they are you know and I said Barbie dolls but there are actually ministers I have set through sermons where they will just chastise the girls that they're playing with Barbie dolls which is another weird episode for another day but but in the end none of this belongs in church the these

are sports this is what you do when you're outside of the church when you're going to have fun away from the church and I'll just say it plain and simply they are invading your personal lives they have no place doing this it is not their place to do this if there was and I'm not saying there is If there was something wrong with enjoying sports or the Super Bowl or whatever it is, that's the job of the Holy Spirit to change you.

Not this guy who is just railing all of these other people in his church, railing them for enjoying life. And again, that's a recurring theme. The further we go with this, the more you'll see.

They do not want you to enjoy life. They are very much like the priests of the ancient gods of evil. They do not want you to enjoy life. They want to oppress you. Because they're pushing you down and oppressing you, they're lifting themselves up at the same time.

They become more powerful than you and it's like miniature dictators inside of the churches. Oh, yeah. And it's very dangerous when you see that happen because people, they look to the preacher as almost a mini prophet in their churches, they treat them with such, in these message churches, they treat them with such reverence and that God is speaking to him on a daily basis.

And so they take everything he's saying, he's not trying to hurt me, this stuff is closer to me. You might as well just be coming from God. When these preachers set themselves up as mini gods inside these churches, just following the example of Brannum, which is who they're trying to emulate, it sets up a very, very vicious cycle in these churches and it hurts a lot of people.

And it's something that most people don't even realize the damage that's happened to them until they start coming out and re-evaluating what's going on. And it's sad, but at the same time, when you've come out, it's a long road.

I mean, it's, you know, the road to healing, I'd rather be on the road to healing than it continually being abused in some of these churches. It's so wrong. You know, they are abusing the people.

This is spiritual abuse, plain and simple. If you're in a church where you're being spiritually abused and you want to go see the football, go watch the Super Bowl. And I mean, in the end, there is a wealth of information out there.

We have published so much that number one, they're in a church that's being spiritual abusive. Number two, they're being manipulated. Number three, the biggest of which they're following a false prophet. And you know, when you combine all of this together and many of these ministers are aware of this, that's mind-boggling to me.

The fact that many of them know these things that we're talking about in this podcast. It's really, really unbelievable. But speaking of prophecy, we could talk forever about Super Bowls and I'm looking through and I'm even going to play all the quotes that you have up for us.

Some of these things are so absurd, man. If you take a step back and look at what these guys are saying, it's like watching one of the old black and white comedy shows where it's just slapstick.

comedy, man. This has no place in a church. I'll just leave it at that. You can take with it what you want. Speaking of prophecy, I'm no profit, but I'm going to put you on the spot. We're recording this before the Super Bowl. And I've got my smoker ready. I've got ribs and I've got a few, I go all out during the Super Bowl. So I've got ribs and a pork roast and one of the things that is my new, my new way of smoking. I've learned that you mix some of this maker's mark in with your, yeah, your pork. Oh my gosh, it's good. And this is a new freedom for anybody who

who is never in this kind of thing. You weren't allowed to cook with anything like this. But I'll never forget. I was at a, I was at a person's house with my father and mother and brother, we were having dinner at this house. And the guy made the best steaks I've ever had. I mean, even to this day, my mouth water is thinking about him. And we're all eating the steak. This is a message guy, right? From Arizona. And we're all eating my dad just on and on. This is so good brother.

How did you make this steak? And oh, I just mixed a little alcohol in with it and you'd be surprised what that does to the meat. And you should have seen the look on our, I mean, it was like suddenly the fork dropped or the mic dropped, right? But you're not allowed to do this. Well, this is one of my new freedoms. And I guarantee you what I smoked today for the Super Bowl is going to be phenomenal. But I'll put you on the spot as our new prophet of the Super Bowl. Who's going to win,

James? Obviously, I'm not biased, but I'm going to go with the Kansas City Chiefs. Okay, I'm going with the Chiefs too. And we're recording this before the fact so you can, you will be able to know by the time this airs whether James is a false prophet or not.

But remember, if you're in the cult, James is not vindicated by his prophecy. Because in the cult, you don't do this. You don't vindicate the prophet by his prophecy. It's by the healing. And James, are you well today? I'm feeling quite well today. We'll see how I feel after the game, though. Vindicated prophet. If you have weird doctrines that you'd like for us to discuss on the show, you can contact us on the web. You can find us at William-Branham.org.

For an in-depth look at the dangers of being in those groups, read Weaponized Religion from Latter-Rain to Colonia Dignidad, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

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