Weird Doctrines - The Gospel of Divine Healing

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 an interesting yet solemn episode.

Usually the ones that you and I do are I have trouble not laughing through them because they're some of the doctrines are just so hysterically funny. But in this case we actually have a serious topic to discuss. It is a weird doctrine and it is by far out of everything that we've discussed.

It's by far one of the architectural pillars that all of this was built upon. And we're discussing what all of these ministers and latter-rain called the gospel. William Brannum correctly called it the gospel of divine healing because it is different from the gospel of Jesus Christ that you find in the Bible. You've got the gospel of divine healing which claims that salvation is dependent upon your ability to faith heal yourself. Now the only way you can be saved is to accept what he's already done. And he by his stripes we were healed at Calvary. See, then you just have to accept

what he's done. Is that right? Now the ministers, many of them preach the gospel of divine healing. You accept it. It's the same results. If you look at some of the leaders that we've examined in the past, John Alexander Dowey being probably the prototype for all of this, they, what they did was they took Christianity or they called it quote unquote Christianity, I should say. And then they stepped up with their snake oil salesman, faith healing gimmick and said, if you are a Christian, you must also believe that you can be healed as long as you are looking towards me, you're great and faithful

cult leader. And I will give you the ability to heal yourself. And so with all of that laid, FF Bosworth, you know, taught this to William Brannum, as well as did Roy Davis, who was also a faith healer and swindler of people. And William Brannum brought this into the healing revol- He was the leader of the post-World War II healing revival and Tarl all these guys the quote-unquote gospel divine healing For them they raked in great amounts of money, but then what happened afterward is what we're discussing today now you have leaders who are a part of this and

What happens is as we get old as humans we have health problems as humans? It's part of life you you have health problems you go to a doctor Well many of these men who have preached for years how God can heal you and have tried to manipulate the people so that they Have the inward desire not to seek medical care Well many of these men are getting older and their bodies are falling apart Which brings us to today's discussion the gospel of divine healing right in this gospel of divine healing Is very interesting when you look at the things that Brian

I'm said to To set this out and you can find You know, I mean you just go through his transcripts of all of his sermons and you can really put together a Very interesting timeline and very interesting history especially around the The portions of his ministry when he was being questioned About his healings and stuff like that because you can you can start to see where he's combating the the accusations of false healings and things like that and and in some of the ways that Brannum defends His healing ministry it is a very interesting things that get said

And I kind of wanted to lay the foundation here and pull from some of Brannum's quotes here to sort of see What did the man say and then as we move forward and to see in what some of these guys are saying today?

I think it'll help Build the foundation of where these guys are pulling some of their stuff from but so this this first quote here Brannum says If I prayed for a person and I tell them they're gonna live I believe they're going to live, but no matter if my word was absolutely thus say at the Lord and you would disbelieve it You die anyhow certainly there is a thus thus say of the Lord and many of them receive it and die Many of them go to hell with when thus say of the Lord you don't have to is that right?

He's asking the congregation He says sure see it's it's what it's all it's all based on your faith Which is very interesting because he's talking about the healing is directly tied to the faith which this has been completely Gone through ad nauseam through many of the episodes and there there's a lot of a lot of episodes if you want to dig in deeper on that subject There's there's a ton of material in this channel, but one of the more interesting things is when you step into something more specific So even like cancer for instance Here's one of his quotes about cancer and I think I think this will

Definitely be very interesting as we go on. So he says, well, what about a lump of dead flesh lying in your body? Will you almost go through death? That's the time it's to stand and give God the praise.

Don't waver in your faith. That's exactly the truth that you're healed. See? Well, if we'd kept the cancers that passed through the people one year, I believe it was we had so many jugs and bottles We couldn't even put them on the platform to show the people when they'd passed out. Doctors names written on them. That's right if a growth Had passed. It'll die eternally and adhesions and things. It'll pass from you if it can if it can't then you're going to get sick Because it'll lay there and playing words where the simplest the child would understand the only way I know to put it

It'll rot. It's laying there rotting in your body and when it does your heart stream your bloodstream is being purified by your heart And it picks up that and causes sickness and headaches and oh, you can't stand up hardly and the person immediately the patient We can faith will say I've lost my healing why God's not that kind of father. You can't lose your healing. Jesus purchased it at yours When Jesus prayed for Peter say I pray that your faith will not will fail not Not his morals because they did but that your faith fail not see

And so it's interesting here. There's a well There's a lot of interesting things here and what brand says As always there's so many things to unpack But one of the interesting things that he talks about is that The healing has gone to the person that's praying that that's one in healing and God chose to heal them, but he didn't choose to remove the cancerous tumor The tumor is still there and Immediately in the meeting they're gonna feel good. They're gonna they're gonna feel like I've got my healing I'm great and then within like a lot of times just see this repeated like two to three days

That they start to feel sickness. They're like oh well, you know, I'm not feeling good now You know, and then they'll they'll go to the doctor and they'll still say well you've got a tumor or this of that But then Brandon would say well, yeah the the the flesh of that tumor is still there But there's no life in it because God took the life from it And that's just there to as as a challenge to your faith because if you lose your faith then you're gonna lose your healing and And it's it's one of the very

Sinister things about the message and and there's there's a lot of people who Desperately in their in their lives. They come to a point where they're they're They're at a crossroads and they desperately need some sort of a miracle in their life because especially if they get to the point where Doctors have you know kind of written them off and said well, we've done all we can for you We're still working we're still gonna try to try to help you and get you through this But you know, we don't really we don't really know, you know, the the numbers say this or you know

Maybe you've got two weeks. Maybe you've got two months and so a lot of people or some people Reach points and that where they're desperate and they're looking for something And so they'll turn to people like this because they claim to have an answer, they claim to have a healing ministry or they can heal or they know somebody who can or they can influence this situation in your life.

And then, you know, things like this happen where they go to a man that says you're healed. But now, three days from now, if you start to feel bad, it's not that I didn't heal you or I don't have the power to heal you or that it didn't happen.

That this tumor is there or this dead flesh of a tumor is left there to challenge your faith because reasons, you know, it doesn't quite make sense when you dissect it. But, you know, that's just that's sort of the foundation of what a lot of these healing ministries that stem from the messenger built on.

Yeah. You know, what's fascinating to me when you look at the early stages of this whole movement, you go back to John Alexander Dowey and he had this satchel that he carried from from stage show to stage show. We'll call it that where he pulls out letters of testimonies of people and he will tell the people that, look, I have a testimony. This person was healed in this other city. In other words, you just have to take my word for it. You can't go see that they're healed. And initially this worked, which is fascinating to me. But the newspaper

reporter's caught on. Wait a minute. This guy scamming us. He's never yet healed a person in the same city of which he holds a meeting. So from town to town, he's got all of these satchel of letters, right? Well, as this progressed and, you know, these guys refined this over time, there were all kinds of different stage tricks. There are, you can see documentaries for example of Jim Jones and he would pray for the lady and he would drop a chicken gizzard. And look, a cancer fell from the body. And when I was in this cult, I thought, you know, William

Brandham would never do that. But you take a step back and you look at some of the things that he claimed like this. We have jugs and jugs of these cancers that fell out. Well, people in today's world, they realize that, no, it doesn't really work that way. A cancer doesn't just fall out onto the ground. And so they have to refine their stage act even more. And Brandham also was one of these guys that he says, we have boxes and boxes of testimonies from doctors who have said, this person is cured with no medical explanation. But yet nobody's ever seen these boxes, right?

And if you write into headquarters, which some of the former members have, they say, they're missing or some, I can't remember how they said it, but it was something like this. They just disappeared. We no longer have all of these things that make our profit guy credible.

And so what happens is, sadly, you have a lot of ministers in the message who were duped by the same stage tricks. Some of them, I think, knew they were stage tricks. My grandfather, for instance, always talked about how William Brandham could straight legs and he did it at every one of his meetings and now in today's world everybody seen the thing where the person sits slightly twisted and they pull the leg and look this leg just grew magically right in front of you people today wouldn't fall for it my grandfather had to have known

that that was fake I mean my grandpa was pretty smart I have no doubt he knew but not all of them some of the men truly believed it and so now you enter this weird I said this was getting solemn and it is you get in this weird place where a minister gets sick and he truly believes in this gospel of faith healing this gospel of divine healing they call it so he you know like any normal person is going to pray for his body to be healed and I want to make sure that we stress the fact that we're not ridiculing this at all that that's the good part

of this that is the thing where I agree he should pray God can heal but the part that they always miss is that God does not always heal every person in every case and so they push the issue and in doing so they turn this into a weird doctrine it's a mess but that sets the stage for where we're headed right and and like John just said I mean you know there's one thing that looking at these weird doctrines and looking at all this stuff one thing that can't be missed is the human element because at the end of the day all these people are still human beings and I think that

that's something that while some choose the route in these these movements of dehumanizing those who who maybe point out facts and errors with with the things that what they say I mean I don't ever want to get to the point where I'm personally dehumanizing somebody especially somebody who's dealing with with something so like you know stage four cancer that's just just rifling through their body you know because you've got a family you've got you've got loved ones you've got a wife you've got children you know there's people who care about these people and they they want to see

you know something good come out of it and they want to see a you know a complete restoration but what what gets messy as John alluded to is when when you base your ministry and especially the healing portion on Brannum's healing ministry

there's a lot of things that Brannum did and Brannum said that one or you know medical science completely debunks especially when it comes to talking about cancers and stuff like that there's there's there's so many examples we don't we don't have time to get into all of them today but you know there's there's all this stuff gets preached and propagated to to the members in the congregation and and this thing about the faith the faith has to be at a certain level to receive the healing and cancer to the people in this group is such a big demon as they would

put it in their words it's a big devil and it ends and so it's going to take more faith to knock it down. And so a lot of times what happens is they tend to conscript the faith of the members of the congregation and say that we've all got to believe together to take down this demon of cancer in our brother and our friend or whoever it is.

And that by itself may not sound insidious. But when you look at the thing that, okay, somebody comes up for prayer in this group. And they say, okay, I have this thing going on, maybe I have cancer, maybe I have some other thing going on in me.

And then they'll pray for them and they'll say, okay, God gave you your healing. You are healed. And then if the person is still struggling with that after that, there is a tendency in some of these groups to say, okay, well, you know, God healed you.

And then you're still not well. Therefore you must have done something wrong. Your faith must have wavered because God did heal you. But according to Brannum, the man who these people believe to be their prophet, their last messenger to the final age, said that if you lose your faith or your faith even symbols just slightly, the life itself will come back into the cancer.

And yeah, that's a very, very damaging and very interesting thing that I wanted to take a look at here. Just kind of start us out with, but yeah, let's roll into this clip and take a look.

God can perform a miracle. And if God performs a miracle, the tumor will completely just fall off or disappear. But then God also, Amen, there's also such a thing as divine healing. Now, divine healing is a process.

Now, that's where the part I want to deal with and show you this principle because Brannum said, somebody will come up and get prayed for it. He said, and God, Amen, will heal them.

And you know what happened, Amen, the spirit of God will curse the life. God is in that tumor. Now brother Brannum said the tumor is still there, but the life is left it. Amen, but the thing about it is and the person feels better.

They feel better. But then in about 72 hours, see three days, what's going to happen because the life is left it. Brother Brannum said, now corruption is going to sit in, but corruption not in the body, in that cancer because it's dead.

And he said, when it does, it'll begin to swell and the person will feel sick. You can see it clearly with somebody had a tumor on their eyes. They come up in the prayer line brother, you know, they'll be prayed for their heal.

They can see. Amen, they can see, they feel better, they can see. But then three days later, that thing begins to swell. Amen, their eyesight begins to, and watch. Amen, the prophet of God said, Amen, when the symptoms begin to come back and they begin to feel bad again, amen, you know what they'll do, Satan is right there.

He's right there to say, you didn't get your healing. You never was healed. It didn't really happen. He said, if you ain't careful, unbelief will resurrect the life that was in that cancer. You know, this for me is really sad because there are a lot of people suffering with terminal illnesses that I have known.

I've watched people die in this movement and they believe to their dying breath that they were healed. And no matter how you twist it, they were not healed if they died of the disease that God allegedly healed them from.

And it's somewhat different now because William Brannum's dead. I mean, when he was alive and he said, you are healed, you could say, well, you are a false prophet when the person died. Now we're after this and these ministers have a real easy job, right?

Because they say, well, I pray for you just like William Brannum and you're healed. But then if you don't get healed, what's not my fault, you know? But what's interesting is just like Brannum, they also give themselves an out.

If it comes back, then you really didn't believe or you have sin in your life, whatever it is, they'll turn it on the victim and further victimize the victim. Right. And that's what's so damaging to so many people because I mean, they're just desperate.

They're just desperate for a move of God, something that happened in their life to make them well and to give them hope of a future. And then they're being told that, hey, sorry, but we did everything we were supposed to do.

You were healed. God healed you. But your moment of faith, shaking, caused the cancer to life to come back into the cancer, which is so sad because that is completely different to how anything Jesus did healing in the New Testament, which is what these men should be taking as their example.

But sadly, more often than not, they don't take Jesus's healings as their example. They take Brannum's alleged healings as their example. And you know, Brannum said that if your faith wavers even the slightest, you know, you could doubt just for a microsecond.

And that's the thing. It's not just that you, you full on say, God isn't real. I don't believe any of this stuff. It's that the doctor says, well, it looks like the cancer is still growing and then they're scared for half a second.

And then even a deeper fear grows inside people because they say, oh no, did I just lose my healing? Did that moment of listening to that doctor make me completely, all the progress I've just made is now gone, which is so completely...

anti scriptural and it's so damaging to people because not only are they dealing with something let's just say as as as bad in this situation as maybe cancer but now they're living in constant fear that they take the wrong step and it's going to get worse because they betrayed God's healing gift that he gave to him which is so sad right it is sad and again we're not here to talk bad about the people because the people are the victims in some cases the victims are ministers leaders elders evangelists whatever these guys are but they're further victimized which

is the point that we want to show throughout the course of this particular story that we're going to follow in this episode and we're leading into the case where a person has a terminal illness and he's in a position of authority and like everyone in the movement they pray that God will heal them which is good we're not talking bad about this but as this progresses we'll see where it heads and where you end up is in the end you know God ultimately does not heal every person which is it's sad and for the families we we also share your pain because I have family members who

have suffered and the problem is throughout their lives and throughout their suffering of whatever is the illness many of them because this doctrines in your head that you didn't get healed because you have sin in your life or you didn't get healed because you didn't believe well to the congregation the rank and file members they suffer even further because now they have this thought well gosh what's in do I have what's causing this or man I wish I could believe harder that's that's how it is but then there's this distinct separation between the rank and file members and leaders

because they can't show themselves as having not sin in their life or having not belief and that's where this really gets weird so moving on into this this story here this kind of the focus of this episode here we've got a minister and this story starts in around the very beginning of 2020 this minister announces that they have cancer you know the the story quickly spreads across all the different sister churches and all the different churches in the movement that are friendly to to this sect and you know the call goes out that we've got to pray for our

brother because we want to see a full full restoration and we want to see God move in his life it's also announced at this time that he has stage four cancer so it's progressed really far and you know and this goes out and one of the things that is interesting in this first clip is one of the ministers from a from a sister church comes down down to pray with, and I believe take the services that we can while the minister is going through his initial tests and stuff with the doctor to really kind of get to the bottom

of, try to get to the bottom of what's going on now that they've discovered that he has this stage 4 cancer. And while he's there with that minister taking the services and then also, you know, being with him at the hospital while he's going through it, he tells his church, his congregation that he has this dream, has this dream of, you know, you know, 12 buzzards and pigs and that, you know, the buzzards are eaten by the pigs and that when he gets to the doctor, he says that the treatment that they want to put this minister on is what they call an

immunotherapy. And he starts, gets on his phone, he says, and he starts looking this up and then he says that the treatment was first tested and grown in pigs because according to the article that he reads that the pig physiology in this instance can help mimic human physiology and how the cancer is going to interact with the, in this case, would be the example of the human anatomy and stuff.

But yeah, so it goes on to this very long thing and how he's not only telling his church this dream, he's also interpreting what the dream means and that the buzzards are the cancers and he feeds them to the pigs.

And he also ties this into the story of Legion where Legion was cast out into the pigs and the pigs went into the sea. And so he says, well, this is biblical because, you know, we're going to, the buzzards are the cancers and, you know, there's 12 and there's the doctor prescribed 12 treatments.

And so this, this seems to be very, this is presented as though it's a very spiritual, supernatural thing that happened because this minister saw his dream and so many things in his mind line up with what's happening in the physical.

And so, so yeah, let's roll into this clip and let's, let's dive in a bit further. And all of a sudden the dream come back to me. I told my wife about it the night before and a dream came back to me of seeing those buzzards and feeding those buzzards to pigs and all of a sudden it just came to me.

The brother Adam told us in his first, I think it's the first place in diseases and afflictions of first search on buzzards. He said in a cancer in the nother in the spiritual, he's a devil, he tights the scavenger in the buzzard, he eats dead things.

So now, you know, all of a sudden I knew this dream had some significance in brother, I told brother, I said in buzzards there were cancers and I was feeding them to pigs. And so, you know, and then, and then I was puzzled why.

of what the pigs meant. So I was kind of silent for the next ride into the doctors and then sitting in the hospital, and I was searching, scan through nearly 200 quotes on pigs. I couldn't find a clue in the sermons, but when the doctors was talking about treatments and using immunotherapy, I did an internet search on cancer and immunotherapy and pigs, and found that they developed this immunotherapy using small pigs like I saw in the drink. In fact, to the matter of years, I just read a document on it and so they were being fed to pigs and the pigs were gobbling them

and there was about 12 of them, and I fed them about a dozen pigs, one by one, to see them chopping them up. Now, there's to be about 12 treatments, and after then he will have a pet scan, and I'm asking you to agree with me and believe with me for this pet scan is going to come back off clear, completely well. Amen. Now, this is all biblical. You know, in the Bible, legions of devils were cast out of a man and went into pigs, and the pigs then took them devils to the sea and drowned them. Amen, and as far as the man he was restored his family

healthy and well. Amen, so we got scriptural evidence. Amen. Yes, so James, this for me is the reason why this episode is so important, because for legal reasons, many of these ministers will not tell their congregations. You're not allowed to take medicine, which is when you trace, trace its history, that's what happened with John Alexander Dowie's cult, and many of the cults that sprung up immediately after the death of Dowie, well, some during the death of Dowie, until it turned into a situation where these guys that were doing this were held liable for the deaths of the people, and suddenly they

all had this divine inspiration that it was okay to take medicine, but instead what we're going to do is try to manipulate the people not to take it through the same foundational doctrine. And if you trace the history forward through William Brannum and the Laterane Revivals, through their splinter groups, et cetera, that's where it has ended up now. They will, they won't come out and say don't take your medicine, although there are some that still do, but for the most part, most of them do not. Instead, they will manipulate you by tying your healing to your

faith. And if you believe, you wouldn't take the medicine in the first place because God has healed you. But these same ministers who claim this, when they take the medicine, it's always a spiritual thing. They always want to twist it. I had a dream. I had a vision. I had this supernatural thing happen to me. And so therefore, me as the person who has tried to manipulate you not to take your medicine, it's okay if I take mine. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter

reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the

audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. What's interesting about this particular situation is the minister has also announced publicly over the Pope at many times the medicine costs, according to them, cost them about $30,000 a month. That's a decent chunk of change, and I know that there's probably very many people, if at all, in their congregations that could afford a medical bill like that. And what is so interesting is as we'll go on and all of the reports of this particular thing, and is that the minister appears to be taking from what it can

glean from what's publicly said, appears to be taking a very aggressive cutting edge, very expensive cancer treatment to try to take out this cancer. And so it's just something interesting of note. It doesn't necessarily damn the minister one way or another. But like John said, it also depends on the sect, because if your sect is very anti-medicine, then this would be considered as a very like, well, we prayed, there was a dream, all these things, so you don't even need the medicine.

But this minister, for his particular instance, has chosen to take the medicine. And I'm very pro medicine in this situation. I'm very glad the minister has chosen to take medicine for this, because I think that trusting in your doctors in this situation is a very good thing to do.

Wherever it leads, I've I think that it's a positive, and I think that taking the medicine should be encouraged for the most part, and I definitely believe that. But moving on from this thing, so we've got this other minister interprets this dream that he claims to have had, and that he conscripts his entire congregation that they've got to believe with him that the PET scan is going to come back completely clear.

Keep in mind that this would back in very beginning of 2020. Now interesting things start happening when we start examining sort of how this spreads through the various sex and groups in this movement, because these things propagate and stories, and sometimes you get some very wild and interesting stories.

One of the things we have here is a minister claiming that this story comes directly from the minister in question with the cancer, and that when the doctors try to probe the cancer to try to get a sample of it, as they're in their very early stages trying to get to the bottom of what exactly what type of cancer it is, and really start to get a plan going here, that something miraculous and supernatural begins to happen that in this minister's version of the story, that the cancer itself starts to try to move, physically move away

from the doctor's instrument so that it can't be detected, even though the doctor has clearly detected it and the doctor can see it, and they're trying to literally get a sample of it. According to the story, they've got a camera on it and they can see it.

Yeah, let's listen to this minister's take on it and see what we think. The devil's greatest work. The devil's best work is done when he hides. He does a lot of things in hiding. He does a lot of things in secret. Cancer is so insidious because it hides so well.

Some of the medical people here are nodding their heads. They'll tell you that they can do blood tests, they can do scans, they can do this, they can do something else, they can do, and they can miss it and miss it and miss it, and all of a sudden bang, it'll show up because they're looking at it maybe from a different angle, using a different tool, using something else.

Yesterday in the hospital, he said, I know you'll use this to preach on it, so he said, I'll tell you this in a way that you can use it. He said, when he was doing the biopsy in his lungs, they did not anethicize him, they didn't put him out completely, they just numbed him so they could go in with the needle and I'm sparing you some of the details, but they could go in and they could extract some of that and take it out and then do the, sorry, I won't be long here, and they could do the analysis of it, but they had to go in, but they didn't put him out. He said,

I was laying on the bed and I was watching this on a monitor. He said, I'm looking at my lungs on the monitor right here and there's a screen so he can't physically see it, but he can see what's going on inside. They have a little camera on the end of that.

right, and they were in their probing, and he's looking at the end of this needle. Listen, he's looking at the end of this needle, and it's moving in there to try to get a sample of that spot, that black spot that's on the screen. He can figure it out. He's not a doctor, but he can figure it out. And he said, this is the way he said it. When that needle came in there, he said, and it was going towards this black spot, he said, that thing began to quiver and pull back. And he said, the doctor told him, he said, there's actually a life

in this thing. This is what the doctor told him. There's a life in this thing. And when the needle was moving towards it, it began to jiggle and move back away from the needle, because it knew it did not want to have the discovery. It didn't want to have that needle extract anything from the inside of that, because it's so covered over with a shell, it's kind of a waxy substance into shell. And that actual entity, that mass did not want to have that piercing done to extract that and find out what it really is. Because you

know what, when that comes out, we know exactly what this is. The devil's job is always to hide. And just like the last one we played, this is also further complicating the problem with all of all of this mess, all of this weird doctrine. Because by nature, cancer, especially in its latter stages, it spreads throughout the body. And it's hard to find. Sometimes you can go through the treatments and the cancer will go into remission, hopefully long term, but sometimes short term, but it has spread through the body and it can come in other places. Whenever people hear this kind of thing, especially try to picture the people

who are in the congregation who have cancer and who are going to doctors and they have little hope because their cancer has spread and they understand that all of this is spreading. Think of what that's doing to those people. It is not only further victimizing them. It's also causing them anguish because here's the guy on the platform who has this supernatural, mysterious dodging cancer, dodging instrument, supernatural weirdness. I'll just call it like that. But they themselves are going through treatment and they see the thing happen.

But they can't claim supernatural because they're not some prophet, apostle, pastor, teacher. They're not a fivefold leader over the rank and fall members. They're just a rank and fall member. So then they start to feel inferior to the person who is on stage who's saying these things or like in this case, another guy who's saying it to them. But they're victimizing the people who have the deadly disease. And for me, that is just so problematic.

It's tough because a lot of these ministers appear to be doing. If you give them the benefit of that, is that because faith is such a big part of how they look at divine healing in in their groups that the more faith the better.

So if you tell the church, the congregation, these stories that helps build their faith, then you just take an ad up everybody's faith together and therefore you've got a super weapon of faith to attack this minister's sickness.

And while in a normal situation, you look at it and say maybe that's fine, but the thing about it is, is that how in this movement, it's weaponized, it's in this situation, we're all believing for our brother, but in your situation, it might be well, if you've still got the cancer, brother, sister, maybe this problem's used.

So that's something interesting to keep in mind as we keep going through this, that while some things presented as though they are, they might seem fine in a normal setting, but one thing to keep in mind is that we're not in a normal setting here, we're in a message setting, and message settings tend to lean very heavily into the bizarre and weird when you start tracing all their doctrines to the root and seeing what was actually said.

But so that story is quite interesting of the cancer physically moving while the doctor is trying, is literally has it on camera and they see the cancer moving because they say that the Satan's trying to hide.

It's very interesting. And these stories get propagated and people hear these things and people don't know, and it sounds like they're telling them the truth. And I don't know, I wasn't there, I can't say what the cancer did, do I just know from what I know about cancer, that doesn't seem to be something that is gonna quite happen on camera, but these things spread and go on.

Now, we're getting further into the first year of this cancer being known about and getting later on. And one thing that this minister says when he's approaching his congregation about the cancer is that he asks his doctor how long will I be stage four?

When will I no longer be stage four? And the doctor responds and replies to him, you will be stage four until the day you die, which is a very sad and solemn report for someone to get from a doctor.

It's not something that anybody wants to hear, but it's very interesting to keep that in mind as we go through and further into some of these more things about where we go and what is said about this particular minister's situation.

But for now, let's roll into this clip here and we'll see what he says. Hey, man, just as a report for you, I had two cancer appointments, actually many more than that, but cancer appointments this week and sometimes they just scratch their heads and say, wow, we don't even know.

And so, and so I, I just, we just chuckle sister and I just kind of chuckled just before I was going into the appointment. We saw on Facebook if somebody already had the results of my appointments before I even walked in.

And so I, let me, let me just give you the straight of it. I take treatments every day and that is basically a immunotherapy treatment. I take eight pills a day and cancers in my lungs and in my brains and in my lymph nodes.

And they're fighting them and they're changing. They're doing some different transformations of the cancer is kind of moving a bit. We're believing they're leaving our body. I don't know, I asked the other day, I asked one of the doctors the other day.

I said, when will, when will I not be stage four? She said, you'll be stage four till the day that you go home. And so, and so my other doctor says it like this.

Who's report do you believe? And so we believe that report. So here's where, for me, James, it gets really sad. And I feel sad for this minister and I have friends who have lost their life to cancer.

I have seen, watched them go through the stages of cancer and very clearly their body is falling apart by the time you reach stage four. I have seen men who were strong enough. One of the guys, one of my best friends, he was, I think he died in his, I want to say, 60s maybe.

He was one of my best friends, he was a close friend of the family. He was a Marine who was strong enough that when we moved, he himself picked up my mother's upright piano and set it off of the truck.

And then he himself carried it into the house by himself. I mean, I can't even imagine what this thing weighed. It was probably three, four hundred pounds. That's the bulk of this man. And he was running, I think he was jogging seven miles per day up until two weeks before he died.

And stage four cancer, it's eating his body. So as he's jogging, he's getting thinner and thinner and thinner until one day he collapsed on his run. And it wasn't long before he died. But like this doctor has told this minister, once your body reaches that stage, it's really, it's very difficult for it to go into complete remission.

You've reached stage four. I do know people that it has gone into remission, but for a large number of people, that is not the case. So it is very sad. And the way that it is presented in this case, he has gone to multiple doctors and he's looking for a second opinion.

And in the context of the message, the way it works if you're in leadership. Once you get the diagnosis that isn't this bad, you'll never recover again, or you're in a faith healing cult, you're going to get a second opinion, and you're gonna get a third and fourth and fifth and sixth, you're going to get one person who says something contrary to your terminal decision, because that's what you're going to use as your example in the church, which again, remember the people in the church who are suffering with similar conditions.

It's so problematic to them, because they may be in his church dying. I don't know, I actually don't know this minister, but there may be people who are extremely sick, who have no hope, and instead of a normal church where the pastor is preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, instead of the gospel of divine healing, the church comes together as a community to comfort the family, to help out any way they can.

Hey, you don't feel good today, can I mow your lawn, all of these things? Well, what it does is not only for the pastor who's doing this for the people who are suffering in these congregations, they lose the support of the community, because now they're seen as, well, if their condition is worsening, well, they must have sin in their lives, or they must not be a believer, they're not a true believer, and so they feel further condemned, and that is the example that is given here.

Again, it's very sad what this guy is going through, but think of the difference of what it would be like if he were to simply say, they tell me, I may have this the rest of my life, I hope that God heals me, it may not happen, but I would appreciate your prayers if we could all come together and help one another like the Bible describes.

Right, and it's interesting as we go further on here, because now we're getting towards the end of the first year, and this is towards the end of November, right around the very beginning of December of the first year, and like I said, this was originally announced, I believe back in early February of 2020, so this has been going on for quite a while now, there's been a lot of different reports, a lot of different stories going on, and then this minister here, who appears to be very closely connected to this, and though a lot of reports come through this minister here,

but the minister with the cancer went to the doctor and they apparently told him that they believed he had melanoma in his eyes. Now, one of the things that originally caused this cancer to be spotted was that the minister went blind back in the early part of 2020, according to his report, and that incident is what caused him to go to the doctor in the first place, and then that's when they found the cancer.

Now, they've told him that they believed he had melanoma in his eyes, and that they believed that's where the cancer had started, and then within a week of the... Now, this is later on, this is later on in the year towards the very end of the year.

They told him within one week, they said, we believe cancer is in your eyes. And then he went in for another scan and they said, we don't think the cancer started in your eyes anymore because there is no cancer in your eyes.

Now this is something that you see quite often in message circles. Is that a doctor's report will be a lot of times and can be used to say things that the doctor didn't say.

And what the minister goes on to say is that we believe this is a healing. They said in one report, they said the cancer is in your eyes, you've got melanoma in your eyes.

And then we think that the cancer started there. Then he goes back for another scan and they say that we don't think the cancer started there because we don't think you've got cancer in your eyes.

Now I don't know if this is two different doctors. If this is one specialist on cancer, one specialist on maybe eye treatment, I don't really know. But it's very interesting how the slightest change, like the doctor changes their mind on something and the fact that the doctor changes their mind means that this is healing.

It's very interesting to approach it like that. Let's roll into this clip here and take a deeper look. If we look at circumstances, we'll stagger. We will fall. I mean, I cannot look at the circumstances of our brother, what he's going through.

I cannot look at those circumstances, even though we get little promises and hopes and things that are dropped to us a little bit of time this week. You know what? One of the great things that happens.

A month ago, he went to an eye doctor and they looked at his eye and said, here, there's cancer in your eyes. He said, this melanoma, we believe it started there. And there with this melanoma in your eyes, we think it spread from there to other things and you got melanoma in your eyes.

He goes back for another eye exam this week and they said, oh, we don't think it started there because they ain't even any cancer in your eyes. Last night, he was having a heart attack and they rushed him to the ER where he can get there.

All the symptoms are gone. They are baffled. Don't know what it was. Don't understand what it was. But you see the devil comes in on one side and on another. When the saints get to pray and things start changing because we're not nippin' of faith.

Quits looking at it. The circumstances and looks at the promise. It can only be on their faith when it looks at the promise. Otherwise, when it looks at the circumference, it's only unbelief, but today, we stagger not at the promise of God through unbelief, but we're strong in the faith.

So now we're entering in the phase where it becomes part of the name it and claim it gospel. It is obviously the cancer has spread or is still spreading, and there are various locations where the cancer is manifesting itself.

And he says towards the end of this, he says, but I'm healed, God has healed me. And obviously, at least at this point in time, there is not healing because they detect the cancer.

There are two sides of the coin. Either you're healed and there is no cancer or you're not healed, and you're just naming it so that you can claim it and pretend that it's not there.

And again, this is coming from the leadership. He's not the only one doing this. So we're not singling this minister out, and we feel sorry for him, and we hope that God does heal him.

But what he's doing is wrong to the people, especially again, to the people who are suffering inside of these churches. You know, as we progress further here, we're moving into sort of a year later now.

So we're in February of the following year. So the cancer has been known about for a little over a year at this point publicly from the best I've been able to find. And the minister with the cancer goes to his congregation on this service and presents, starts to tell them about a dream that they had.

And in this dream, they were at a meeting, and William Brannum was at that meeting. That's a big thing. There's a bunch of people there. It sounds from the sound of the dream. There's more people than can there that can really fit in the room.

So what you're left with the interpretation is that, you know, there's a lot of people desiring to be there more than the building can hold. And so at one point, the Brannum in the dream comes down to the minister, pats him on the cheek and says, you're going to get well.

Which, hey, that's a great dream. I mean, if I was in that movement and I still had Brannum on such a high tier, high level in my mind, and I had this, and I was suffering with all this, and I had, you know, I would sit there and go, man, that was a great dream. That was really nice to have.

You know, I'm suffering with this thing. It's a constant struggle and a constant battle to get up every day and keep pressing forward. But then this profit, who, in quotes here, comes into my dream and tells me I'm going to get well.

Well, you know, it doesn't quite end there because he also says that he hands him a book in the dream. And then, you know, it's a green book specifically. And the green book is the way of a true profit, which is a, which is a Brannum.

that's a book published by by Brannem's people and you know think about it is is this book has a very specific meaning to this minister because this in his words this is the book or this is the sermon that his own father came to believe that William Brannem was a prophet and this is how he came into the movement. It seemed like that in the dream we had been invited to a meeting and and it was a meeting to where there looked like a small building but a massive crowd. Little did I know that brother Brannem was going to be the speaker.

Brother Brannem was dressed in a very beautiful beautiful whiteish suit and I just don't have a name quite how the color would be but it would be somewhere between ivory and white. Brother Brannem walked over to me right after he finished speaking and he walked over to me and he had a he had a book in his hand and the book was a greenbound book and it was one of the original books I have one in my in my desk and it's a it's the way of a true prophet and that's the sermon meant my dad came to the Lord that believed brother Brannem was a

prophet and so I heard that many many many times in my life and brother Brannem just looked at me and he said would you like to have this book and he just kind of held it out to me like that. When he did I looked at him and I just looked into his eyes and I said brother Brannem I have believed this message all my life. Now this is the first time I've ever dreamed of brother Brannem. I have believed this message with all my life and I preached it all over the world and I've tried to do my best and he just looked at me and he said and he

just patted me on the cheek he said you're going to get well. It's just so sad I mean again I'm as I'm hearing these I'm thinking about the people in the congregation. I'm actually not thinking so much about the minister because everyone in the congregation who is suffering with something that night and day that's all they can think about. They're suffering and their mortality. I mean let's face it when you're in this last stage of cancer here in the final the final stages and your body is telling you that something's wrong and the doctors are telling you that something wrong. It's all you can think about.

Well there are people in the congregations who are suffering with either this or something similar that may be terminated. And that's all they can think about. And so they're having dreams too, but they don't see themselves as spiritual in many of these cases.

And so they're having the same kind of dreams, but they don't see it as an announcement that they're going to be healed. They're not sharing with other people, hey, I had this dream and oh, this tells me you're by God that I'm gonna be healed because they don't see it this way.

But the minister does, and yet many of those same people will look at the minister and think, oh, well, he says he's spiritual, I will shut off all critical thought and not compare my situation with his and realize that, yeah, he had a dream.

Yes, I had a dream or whatever it was. Sometimes it's even medication. I'm taking a medication and I saw a vision. Some of these medications that they give you will cause this kind of thing.

I'm on a drug that I take morning and night and I take it right before I go to bed. And the side effect is nightmares. And I pray that God brides the nightmare. That's what I do.

But your body's made up of a chemical body, so it's got it. Satan uses what he can to get into that. So I'm in a relaxed state. And so in that state, he attacks through that dimension.

This very morning, knowing this is a sermon that I'm preaching, this very moment, this morning, I'm working as a preacher with some very precious friends, as a preacher, and these demons are screaming to me.

I'm not saying that the minister didn't, that's between him and God. But the problem that I see is that he's announcing it in this way when there are other people who may be in just as dire of a situation.

And again, he's robbing them of their hope whenever he's in this situation. The same people could have a community of supporters around them. Hey, you're really sick. I see that your medications making you tired, the radiation treatments, whatever it is, can I make food for your family?

Can I, you mind if I come over and fold your clothes? I have been in churches after leaving the cult, where the minister would actually get up and say things like this from behind the pulpit.

Hey, sister, so and so is really, really struggling. And she's in our audience today, if you want to give her a hug on the way out, and we'd really like for you to get banned together and help the family, help support them.

That's not what's happening here. So in effect, the minister is robbing the people, and he's using himself as the example to rob them of the community that they could be having. Right, and one of the things that's interesting, especially as it pertains to this minister with the cancer, this minister has for many years presented themselves as though they are a dreamer, and that they have supernatural dreams.

And so, and they can even, you know, read people, people's thoughts and like the, I don't know if it's an angel or God speaks directly to them and tells them secrets that no one knows about people.

And so when you look at it through that lens, the people in this congregation have been very trained that this minister has supernatural dreams. And so when the minister goes and tells the church about this dream, the minister doesn't have to say it's supernatural.

The minister doesn't have to say it's the thus say it's the Lord. If the people have been conditioned to think that all these dreams that he speaks are supernatural or they have a supernatural meaning or that they're of God, then the people are going to receive it that way.

And so sometimes you don't even have to say it to get the same effect. So it's an interesting thing that begins to go on a year after this cancer is announced. You know, there's a lot of things that proceed to go on.

At this point, there's a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of reports that I feel better one day or I'm really, you know, it's just the normal things you'd think you're going to hear when someone has an illness like this.

It's like, you know, some days are better than others. Some days are really bad and it's a struggle to be here, but by God's grace I'm still here. You know, but moving forward into this year, now we're four years with this cancer and a lot of people around the movement have been praying for this minister, hoping that he will get well and that God will, you know, heal him completely of his cancer and give him many more years to preach.

Something interesting happens, the doctors tell him, according to him, that he has cancer in his eyes. Now, if you'll remember early on in the first year, that was something that was going on. I have cancer in my eyes, I don't have cancer in my eyes.

Now there's a report out that he does have cancer in his eyes and a bunch of ministers rush up to him to have special meetings and there's all these things going on. And then after all this happens, there's a lot of, there's a, there's a, there's a prayer line that the ministers are praying for it for this minister on the platform.

And then they get up in front of the congregation and it's the minister's wife this time speaking and saying that they went to the doctor again and that there, there is no cancer in his eyes and that, you know, he's got lesions in his eyes, but it's not cancer.

And so he comes back in and he says, let me tell you, this is miscommunication. He said, there is no, no, no, no. He said, there is no, no, no. No, cancer in your ass.

You know, if it makes the person feel better, maybe it's not so bad. But at the same time, I've been in situations where similar things have been used to build up a minister into a spot where, you know, they command people's faith and they command people's adoration and, you know, it's interesting in one way and another way, you know, it's kind of sad.

It is sad, James. And a lot of people I know are going to ask, why are you doing this episode? Are you picking on this minister? We're definitely not. In fact, part of the reason why we're doing this now instead of, you know, after whatever happens is that we don't want it to be seen as though we are belittling the person and further hurting the family.

We hope that this ministry gets better. I hope he gets better, you know. I really do. I don't want to come back later if something were to happen and then do this episode because then it would be seen as even, you know, far worse than it is now.

We hope he gets better, but historically, this is a good way to represent what happens in these divine healing cults, especially when leadership has something like this happen. It's going to continue to go back and forth and back and forth.

And we have many more clips. We could go through many different scenarios where a doctor found some glimmer of hope and then the hope turns into a revelation and divine healing has just occurred until the next incident in the, you know, the episode with the cancer because that's the nature of cancer.

It gets better, it gets worse. If you're in stage four, it may be terminal. But the way that this is presented to the people is any faint glimmer of hope or change. It's used to excite the people and keep them further interested into this gospel of divine healing.

Right. And, you know, the thing about it is that what's so sad about convincing people that if they just have an honest communication about what's going on in their body, that it's going to hinder their faith, you know, because if people were able to freely talk about these things, I mean, especially if this is the last moments that they have with their family, with their loved ones, with the people they care about, living in fear that the smallest misstep could make you lose your healing is just another way to destroy the person mentally with their

last moments, you know, let those last moments be surrounded by people they care about, people who fill their life with joy, not constantly living in fear that they're going to lose their healing. know, um, the cancer has gone, but, but, you know, maybe, you know, maybe I did something that pleases God. Now the cancer is back. You know, it's, it's just, it's so sad. And, and that, you know, sometimes you don't, it's not just the, the, the, the people and the congregation who go through this, but sometimes it's the ministers, you know, because some of these ministers, while some, some of them do know that it's a fraud and they're preaching

a fraud, some of them have been in out all their lives. And they truly believe that this is the truth. And they're trying to, they're best to live up to what they believe is the truth of the hour. And, and what they need to do to, to get well. And it's sad to see anybody captured by this, by this, by this, by this fraud, because the William Brown's message is a fraud. And it leads people into so much pain, especially in some sub terminal as cancer with all the, all the miss, miss, the things he said that were completely wrong

about, even the medical stuff about cancer, just just, if, if, if a prophet could know all these secrets, why would God let him spread so much false information about something like cancer? Because it's, it's, it's not helpful to people. It doesn't, it doesn't help make them well. It just goes to hurt them even more while they're trying to find some glimmer of hope in something that, in, in some situations, in a lot of situations, doesn't have a good outcome at the end of it. Absolutely. And I'm giving this minister the benefit of the doubt because hopefully he has a good heart. And hopefully he is saying

all of these things because that's how he was indoctrinated and he believes it. There are a number of ministers that I can assure you do not believe it. And that's, you know, that's problematic. But in this case, we hope he does get better and we, you know, I pray for him in the same way that his church prays for him. But to show the example of what happens whenever you have a gospel of divine healing instead of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it can affect the church, we wanted to have this episode. So 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-Branum.org. For an in depth look of the dangers of being in these groups, read Weaponized Religion from Latter-Rain to Colonia Dignidad, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.