Elijah: Elitism of the Message and Blueprint for the NAR

You Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research, at William-brandham.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend, Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org, and the author of Come Out Of Her, My People.

Charles, it's good to be back, and to talk about all things, message-related, and the mess that was created. I interviewed somebody, and they called it the mess age, which always strikes me as funny, because it is a complete mess, man.

The person that I interviewed, which I think will go out before this podcast, like me, he had traveled to different message sects and churches, and came to the conclusion that there are no two churches that exist, that get along with each other, which is pretty much the same conclusion I came to.

There are some that fellowship with each other, and they'll, you know, people travel between the churches, but I've sat through sermons that, sometimes at both locations, where they would start these sermons, and they would say things like, now some people in the message, and they'll go off into it, but we're not like that, because we listen to the prophet, and after leaving the cult, I started examining church A and church B, and yeah, church A is correct.

The prophet did say whatever is the thing that they said, that they denounce their peers, but then I studied the flip side, and well, he also said the other thing too. So it created such a big mess, and I think that's largely what we're talking about in this series.

I think it's a result of the confusion that was introduced by William Brannum into these revivals by preaching from both sides of every single topic. You're right, John. You know, the message is a religion that is just prone to schism.

It's almost inevitable that it becomes schismatic and breaks up. Now, there are a whole lot of very singular churches that nobody else quite believes the same way, and then they're kind of loosely in some of the fellowships.

But there are larger sects of the message, which have large numbers of churches that say that they agree with each other. I'll put it like that, John. They say they agree with each other. They all get together.

whether they have big conventions and they say they all get along and agree. Do they really, no? No, not at all. But do they pretend to, you know, they do, yeah. And they all kind of cooperate together.

They, it's more, you can think of it as an alliance of a whole bunch of people that have maybe slightly different views. But then there are competing fellowships, right, of these groups within the message.

But yeah, the message is so deeply prone to be a schismatic religion because just the way they're, you know, you think about it, you're chasing perfection, right? And in the message, perfection kind of has three legs.

There's personal perfection at perfect individual life. There is corporate perfection, which is like, we all have to have perfect unity, okay? And then there is the third leg of message perfection is doctrinal perfection, the perfect understanding of the Bible.

And when you think about that, and you gotta have all three perfect in order to get the rapturing faith and, you know, escape the doomsday, well, it sets you up. There's no room for 99%, right?

It's gotta be perfect. So it basically elevates every single issue to the level of a non-negotiable doctrinal point, right? I'll give you a really very simple, crazy thing from the church's icon from it that caused a schism is we had one preacher who believed that Cain was descended from Noah.

Or rather, Noah was descended from Cain. And we had another preacher who thought Cain was not descended, or Noah was not descended from Cain, okay? John, we had a schism. We broke up over that thing, you know, and it was this huge, massive to-do, right?

There's no, there's not even the, there is no variance permitted, okay? And you become, it's very easy to become schematic over the smallest, tiniest little thing. Because everything has to be perfect, or you can't make it.

So you're right, John. Everything is so schism-proned in the message. And I think today, what I'm hoping we can do is kind of pick up where we left off from the last episode. In our last podcast, we started talking about what the message looks like, what the message looked like right around the time William Brannum died, and it's immediate aftermath.

And we kind of explained how, when William Brannum died, you had roughly 35 true real message churches where the congregation all believed William Brannum was Elijah, the pastor believed William Brannum was the Elijah, they were the true message churches.

And back then, John, there were message conventions before William Brannum died. And I'm sure you know that, right? So William Brannum was still doing his tour thing. He was going around all the other places.

But there were pure message conventions happening before he died. And the very last one of those was held in Jeffersonville. It's the convention where he preached, he preached marriage and divorce. and he preached, who is this Melchizedek?

Those were his two big sermons at that convention. And that convention was held at the Jeffersonville High School. They did it in the gymnasium. And the majority of the message community came to it, right?

So all of the churches, all the people we talked about in the last episode, for example, they were all at that message convention. And at that message convention, there were, my family was there, John, there were about 1,500 people at that message convention in 1965.

And that was not the first one, there had been some leading up to that, but that 1,500 number at that convention, I think represents kind of the floor. The floor, there were at least 1,500 people in the message back then.

And I think that represents the most dedicated, hardcore followers. And then just a few months later at his funeral, there were 5,000 signatures on the guest book. And I think that gives us the range of how big the real message community was when he died.

I think 1,500 on the lower end, 5,000 on the upper end. And somewhere, my guess is probably in the 2,500 range was the real number of people that believed he was on Elijah.

And back then, most of those people, well, most of the people who believe the message were not actually in message churches. The overwhelming majority of people who believe the message were out in other ladder rain churches, right?

William Brownham would travel all around. He traveled all these places. And he would pick up, he would have individuals in every congregation that would start to accept it. Like he had people in Jack Moore's church who believed the message, right?

But Jack Moore didn't believe the message, right? And the majority of Jack Moore's church didn't believe the message, right? And so after he dies, for example, those people break away from Jack Moore and they start the message churches that are in Louisiana today.

And that is kind of what starts happening after he dies, right? The people, the individuals, and all these churches who believe the message, they start to break away from those churches they were in and to start to build their own message churches and start the message world we see today.

And so that's what I would, I think, before we start, maybe in our future episodes, before we start talking about how the message community itself broke up in the issues that caused it to break up, let's talk about why the message people broke away from the latter rain movement and kind of separated to begin with.

Yeah, I would say that assessment is correct. I always, you know, we grew up hearing these sermons from William Brannum saying there's one in a million and we're such a small group. And it was a small group.

There wasn't a large message community in the early years. And if you hear stories like my maternal grandparents, they were traveling every single weekend up to either Jeffersonville or wherever he William Brannum was speaking.

They were traveling almost every weekend and go listen to the sermon and then go back home. And I think there was a little tiny message community there. I think we talked about it last.

last time, but it was just this little tiny group. And when I left the call 10 2012, I was completely shocked. We're talking millions of people are in this now. And they're still playing the recordings from William Brannum. And it's like they're stuck in time because he's saying there's one in a million. And I heard pastors, I heard pastors leading up to the years that I left saying there's just one in a million. They're such a small group.

And they had to have known that there are millions of people in this. So it's like they're stuck in this weird time warp where it's back in the 60s. They even dress and act like it's the 60s. But the thing is moved on and progressed. And when you study the roots of what developed, like you said, they're working with the assemblies of God, the independent assemblies of God.

And all of those grew into many of, I'm not going to name their names, but many of the large organizations in the NAR today grew out of those things. So is this mess that just exploded into who knows what all other messes? You're exactly right. I got the first print copy of my new book, John. So I'm going to come bring you a copy of this. But yes, I mean, I've kind of tried to document in there how all of this leads to new apostolic reformation, the people, the channels, the paths. And we'll do some full episodes on that. You know, before we get over the thoughts,

I'll share it. You're all that with you. But you're right. So when when William Brownem dies, the message really is not its own independent entity at that point. It's really best when he dies to think of the message as a sub-faction of the mainstream of the latter reign movement.

Okay. So we talked in our prior historical research episodes about the latter reign movement. And you know, there's so I have to say, John, there just seems to not be a lot of people that really understand how all this broke down and how all this happened. And you know, I have wonders why. But you know, anyways, let's let's talk what how this really happened. Okay. When the latter reign movement started, okay, it started in officially started in North Battleford, right? Sharon Orphanage. Sharon Orphanage had seven elders at there at that orphanage, right? Which it was

Orphanage in name only, John, like, why do we call it Sharon Orphanage? It never was a real orphanage, right? Like it never really was a real orphanage. Anyways, I think that was just a way to get donations. But anyway, they they eventually they're more commonly called Sharon Mission, I think, in later years. They switched to Sharon Mission. But anyway, those men and started that movement that was inspired by William Brownem, they joined independent assemblies of God. Okay.

I want to say, 1949, 1950, Sharon Orphanage joined independent assemblies of God. And independent assemblies of God became the main trunk of the latter reign movement at that time. They weren't the only group, you know, there's the Elon missionary fellowship, there's other groups that were in latter reign as well. But independent assemblies The God was the main branch, main trunk of Latter-Rain, and so when that happens, the Joseph Matson-Bose, the Philadelphia Church, all these other churches become hubs, important hubs of the Latter-Rain movement, and as time goes on, Sharon Orphanage actually radicalizes the majority of the original elders leave Sharon Orphanage, like the Houghton brothers,

for example, leave Sharon Orphanage, and they stay in independent assemblies of God. And they fellowship with message churches like Arsjon to the end of their lives, okay? And so, if you think about the Latter-Rain movement and you just follow Sharon Orphanage down its path, you're going to miss the bigger picture.

Because although, yeah, the Sharon Orphanage radicalized, and the minority of its elders went down a radical path and kind of broke back away from independent assemblies of God, the majority stayed with the independent assemblies of God, including the majority of the elders of Sharon Orphanage, okay?

And they went to other places, George Houghton started another church, his brother Ernest and another elder went and started a church in California, you have the ones that go off and start the Shepparding movement with Derek Prince, Jim Wattenham, so the independent assemblies of God really is the main trunk of the Latter-Rain movement.

And so, as all of the message churches are kicking off, they're generally all somewhat in independent assemblies of God. And the way it broke down, right, they thought they were leaving the denominations when they went to independent assemblies of God, John, because independent assemblies of God was a loose fellowship, it didn't have a denominational board, it didn't have a statement of faith.

And so, in their minds, as they're leaving assemblies of God and they're leaving Pentecostal assemblies of Canada and they're leaving wherever else, right? And they're joining the UP, or they're joining independent assemblies, God, all these people in their minds, they're leaving the denominations to join this loose fellowship, right?

And so, the anti-denominationalism was already there, the majority of the things that we believed in the message were already present in this movement, in independent assemblies God in the broader later reign movement, before the message really broke away and became its own independent thing.

And I think that's really important to realize is that aside from our belief that Brannum was the Elijah, and then the things we built on top of that, when William Brannum died, our beliefs were not substantially different from the main trunk of later reign.

We were not substantially different in our beliefs from the rest of independent assemblies of God at that point in time, right? The thing that really made us different was our beliefs that Brannum was the Elijah, and then the stuff we built on top of that.

You know, I've been in contact with some of the different groups. Like you mentioned, Sharon Orphanage, they're, I think they're called Global Missions now, but that group and many of the others who have contacted me, they go through this process reform and so what exists today looks nothing like what we're talking about from the 50s and 60s but what I'm finding that seems to be common among some of them maybe not all but they reform and when they say that usually it means that we had a leader the leader went rogue and we no longer follow that leader so then they set up a framework where they say okay we're

going to try to stop people from becoming a central figure but they don't remove the entire framework that created the structure that enabled the central figure and so they keep elements of the foundational logic which is you know it's extra biblical so they keep this some of these extra biblical ideas and over time what happens is another leader rises because the latter that produced the former leader still exists and somebody else just climbs up the ladder and at all I cover this some in my book but it all goes back to British Israelism if you view the Bible

through British Israelism and try to enable the architecture in which Christianity is based off of the old covenant which that's essentially the essence of British Israelism the groups that maintain this you're going to have another Moses rise up there's no there's no stopping it because you have that framework so many of the groups have reformed some of them still adopt some of the same underlying structure and I worry a bit because some of the splinter groups that we're talking about you know they may be reformed now but where they headed if you if you still maintain

that architecture it's still to me it seems a little bit dangerous you're right and you said so much there I want to unpack all that so when when all these groups are still together in this main trunk of the ladder rain movement okay you know in the mid 60s early 60s mid 60s all these groups are still in the main trunk of ladder rain before William Brownum dies they all share a very common belief set and when they start to break out right so shepherding movement breaks out they were in that trunk the message breaks out okay a palkane was in that group okay he breaks out

well down the road we'll do some episodes but in the 80s these start recombining the shepherding movement recombines to Kansas City prophets inside the vineyard movement okay so these these ladder rain movement these ladder rain factions that came out of this get absorbed into vineyard right and then kicked out of vineyard afterwards but we can top through all that but these these people that came out of these factions had similar ideas already at that point they come out they break out they go on their own path some of them come back and recombine in later years so but the message at

that point is right there alongside them okay and what do they believe back then well they believe ministry. They believe all of the deliverance stuff. They believe all of the, you know, signs wonders, miracles stuff. They believe last day revival stuff, right? They believe lots of all of that stuff. And among that stuff, they believe, John, is the return of Elijah stuff.

Okay. And you are exactly right in tracing this back to British years realism. Okay. And this is, this is something it's so important. I just feel like this is so important to understand. Before Pentecostalism existed, British Israelism was already here. It was a pre-existing movement.

And in that movement was certain ideas and concepts. And one that is important in this context of what we're talking about is their Elijah beliefs. British Israelism had, you know, redirect, they believe they were the 10 lost tribes of Israel. They had redirected Old Testament prophecies to themselves, right? They had taken the Malachi four prophecy, redirected it to themselves, right? And we're expecting an Elijah to come to them. And they started that pattern of, hey, I'm Elijah. And then he dies. Hey, I'm Elijah. And then he died. You know, they started that pattern of the Elijah's coming to the church. Well, when Pentecostalism formed, the British Israelites

formed an important faction of early Pentecostalism. British Israelites converted to Pentecostalism, and they brought those ideas with them. And yeah, a lot of very large faction of the early leaders of Pentecostalism were British Israelites. Charles Parham was a British Israelite. Who claimed to be Elijah? You know, John Lake was a British Israelite. Who claimed to be Elijah, right? And you can follow that pattern. And that faction exists within Pentecostalism. And it is that faction that produces the latter reign movement. Okay, that faction of Pentecostalism, which, you know, we've talked about how they kind of pooled into the four-squared denomination by the

1930s and 40s. They were the one sponsoring Sharon Orphanage. Sharon Orphanage was led by British Israelites, right? These ideas were in this faction that produces latter reign. And they already have in their belief set an expectation that Elijah's coming back. Okay? Because they are from the faction of Pentecostalism that had British Israel ideas that already thought there's an expectation in them that, yeah, Elijah is going to come back, right? And so when William Brannum does his Elijah stick, right? He's appealing to people who already have this notion in their belief set, right? That they have, that has come in from Pentecostalism from British

Israel and has revived and came on down. And the people working on alongside William Brannum, as we mentioned, were men like FF Bosworth, men like Gordon Lindsay, who had followed multiple of these Elijah figures already before they come into William Brannum's orbit, okay? So William Brannum, when he launches this Elijah stuff, the broader latter reign movement is entertaining the idea that maybe he- is this Elijah, right? A very large cross section of the movement is entertaining that idea.

Now, a lot of them ultimately don't accept it because he dies, right? Like they don't know that he died. Obviously, he couldn't be Elijah. He died and the Lord didn't come back. He died and he didn't restore all things, right? But not so with the message, okay? The message believers were convinced he was the Elijah. And that's how you start to get the weird stuff where they say, oh, no, the Lord did return. It was that cloud out in Arizona and you guys missed it, right? He really did restore all things. And it's this perfect message we have now. So they get stuck on him

being this Elijah figure, whereas the larger the broader ladder rain movement that we were still, our groups were all still fellow shipping with at that point, who had been entertaining the possibility. When he dies, they start to walk that back and well, no, he couldn't have been because he died.

And here, we're still here. And I want to talk about that a little more, but that is what starts to set up the the schism that ends up with the message people breaking away from that main trunk of the ladder rain movement and really starting the message churches that we come from.

Yeah. And to re-emphasize, because like you said, this is one of the most important elements to understand. I had, I've had multiple people now contact me who were never in this. They're just researching it. They want to learn more. And the common question is, why is the message and its splinter groups so heavily focused on rules? Why do they, why do they, why do they censor their focus on rules instead of the gospel? And you have to understand when you're in the British Israel mindset and old covenant law is now applicable to you. You're still living in old covenant law.

However, British Israelism gave you the opportunity to pick and choose which laws that you try to keep up. I have a podcast coming out. It'll also come out before this one, but Chino Ross was talking to somebody and he was familiar with the concept. I don't think he framed it as British Israelism in his description, but some guy came up and started just railing him because his daughters were wearing pants. And he said, the guy said, aren't you familiar with the Bible? And Chino says, well, I'm familiar with the Bible, but I may not be familiar with what you're talking

about. Can you explain it to me? And he already knew, Chino did. And the guy said, the Bible says, you shall not wear a garment that pertains to a man if you're a woman. And Chino's response was, well, brother, that's the whole covenant law. And if you read down further in that passage, let me ask you a question. Do you wear garments that have different types of cloth in it?

Which, you know, every man does in the Pentecostal movement, right? It's in that same law, but British Israelism allowed you to pick and choose and say, well, we're going to apply the law that discriminates against the women, but we're going to avoid the ones that discriminate against the man. And so they try to uphold that. And if you understand the new covenant and the New Testament, it says, if you try to keep any of the law, but fail at any point of it, you're guilty of the whole law. And so people who've never been involved in this, they're scratching their heads thinking, well, why are they picking and

choosing some of this? We have to understand, it's the way British Israelism was structured. So when you have a group who is focused on trying to upkeep parts of the old covenant law, to save themselves and enter into the state of rapture with an Elijah prophet, what happens is you never achieve that rapture. And so you're in the old covenant mindset and you start to say, what additional rules and regulations can we place on the people to make them more holy so that we can achieve this rapture state and so that the Elijah will return. And the way the groups develop,

it isn't always a single human that is the Elijah. It starts out like the Elijah spirit is coming to us. And over time, what happens is they keep adding rules, adding rules, the Elijah spirit and evercoms. And then they start to look to an individual because some guy who's just slightly mentally unstable says, I'm it, I'm your Elijah. And he rises up and because everybody's in this hype, they just agree with it with no critical thinking. So it happens over and over and over. And as we get into further into this series and we start talking about all of these groups, you have to really

keep that in the back of your head that the gospel that they have isn't the same gospel as Christianity. It is a rule rules based gospel wherein even though they say they're not trying to save themselves by works, you have to have those works for salvation. So it is a different gospel.

So here you have an entire sect of Christianity that was enabling a different gospel. And over time, what happens is eventually the actual gospel becomes forgotten in these groups. If you were asking me, I mean, maybe this is too pointed, I have a hard time believing the British Israelites of the 1800s were probably even authentic Christians. I really don't think they were a cult or they were a pseudo Christian cult. And that's not to say that some of a weren't genuine Christians, but a lot of them were just, they were really confused cultists.

And it's, there's so much nuance in that, John, you know, when you're right, you know, they're basically thinking they're the 10 lost tribes of Israel. They're into a lot of law keeping, they're redirecting a lot of Old Testament prophecies to themselves. When they come into Pentecostalism, right? Over time, the majority of Pentecostalism rejects it and pushes them out.

right? And then you see the same thing happen as the laterane movement takes hold, right? The same thing happens. A lot of Pentecostalism rejects them and they get pushed out, right? The more radical, the radical side of this stuff gradually gets pushed out and the main body seems to reform.

But you keep being left with this radical fringe side of things that has these ideas. And as they come in, as the British Israelites came into Pentecostalism, you know, their ideas are at that point, they're starting to mix with fundamentalism, right? Christian fundamentalism and there's a lot of other layers to it that happen. And they start to gradually drop the idea that they're the 10 lost tribes of Israel, but retain a lot of the other pieces of that ideology, right?

They are still retaining the idea of law keeping. They're still retaining the idea of the Malachi for prophecy pointing to them, even though they gradually start to drop the idea that they're the 10 lost tribes of Israel. Well, as you come up to the message, you know, the laterane movement, these guys are pushed again, they're pushed out of assemblies of God, they're pushed out of the mainstream Pentecostalism, Pentecostal denominations gradually, and they're all ending up in independent assemblies of God. There's another important denomination too that that springs up that has these ideas. And I use that word denomination really loosely because these denominations

of independent assemblies of God and this next one I'm going to mention, they have no central board, they have no statement of faith, they have no, they have practically no structures that

a typical denomination would have, right? They're almost as a denomination in name only, they're a fellowship in name only. And the other one I want to mention, John, is the full gospel fellowship international, okay? So full gospel fellowship international. And I think the actual formal name of it might be full gospel fellowship of churches and ministers international, okay?

That group was started by the Voice of Healing Fellowship, okay? So if you remember back through a podcast series, as William Brannum kicked off the Healing Revivals, they started Voice of Healing magazine, and then they started a group of ministers called the Voice of Healing Fellowship, and all of these ministers joined, or Robert's jointed, A. Allen jointed, Jack Ho jointed, like all of these hundreds of healing evangelists start joining this fellowship. And when you come into the 50s as the full gospel businessmen launch, they launch connected to this, right? They launch as financials for this in some ways. And then when you get a little further beyond that,

they actually decide to build a formal fellowship of churches, and they build that, they basically turn the full gospel, the Voice of Healing Fellowship into this full gospel fellowship of churches. So in a sense, it is the exact, it's the group of ministers, right? What's left of it?

That started as the Voice of Healing Fellowship turning into a formal fellowship. of churches. And some of the early message churches were members of that group. Gordon Lindsey was one of the charter leaders, charter members to launch that group. But there were churches all over the United States that were part of that fellowship. And in later years, for example, that's where the Brownsville Revival happens. We'll probably talk into that some more when we talk about the 90s. But the Brownsville Revival happens in that fellowship of churches, which we could tie back to William Brown and being the original

senior figure that launches all of that group. So anyways, when you go back to William Brown's death, probably I would say it's safe, maybe roughly three quarters of the group of the people of the churches are in independent assemblies of God, the other quarter, or roughly in Gordon Lindsey's or this full gospel fellowship group. Okay.

And what happens, John, is when William Brownum dies, the broader part of the movement starts to try and shift the Elijah beliefs. They start to shift and start to say it couldn't have been William Brownum and they start to retool it. And that retool is what starts to drive the schism that gradually worsens into the point that the message churches end up completely separated and isolated from the broader latter reign movement. Let me, I just want to point you out a couple of things for examples of this. Okay. So these are two books that Gordon Lindsey wrote in 1966. These were wrote, one of these was wrote

before William Brownum was buried and the other just after he was buried in 1966. Okay. So between his death and his burial and shortly thereafter, these books come out. And to the audience who is on the audio only feed, it is the man who did not die Elijah and the whirlwind prophet Elijah. Exactly. And the first one that came out is the whirlwind prophet. And in this book, Gordon Lindsey lays out the standard Elijah beliefs of this movement. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe

movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brownum Historical Research's website, William-Branum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen McCummery, 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-Branum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

This belief had been in the movement from the beginning. This is another book by Gordon Lindsay. This is from an article that was published in Voice of Healing Magazine. Will Elijah return again? All right, this Elijah belief was in this movement from its inception.

It pre-existed from British Israelism. And they had started to merge this into their manifest its sons of God ideology, right? And they started to equate the manifestation of Elijah, the return of this Elijah, with the manifestation of the sons of God.

And that was the mainstream view of it up until William Brandham died. But they started to shift it when William Brandham died. And let me just read to you. I want to read you, John, on how they started to shift it.

I just want to get your take on it. OK, so Gordon Lindsay towards the end of this book. I'm just going to read this to you, and I just want, you know, just ask you, does this sound like the beliefs of the message?

Gordon Lindsay writes, behold, I will send Elijah the prophet before the coming and great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children of the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with the cursed.

Now, the question is, will Elijah come to earth again? The above scripture plainly says that Elijah will come again. The fact that this is the Old Testament lends importance to it. He goes on here to talk about how Elijah will come, really, at the last days before the second coming of the Lord, if Elijah ministered in the spirit of Elijah after the prophet was gone, and if John the Baptist ministered in the spirit of Elijah centuries later, what about the day we're living in now?

Shall not God once more raise up men of faith who go forth in the spirit of Elijah and turn the hearts of the fathers to the children? Now, when I say that to you, don't that sound so much like the beliefs of the message?

Absolutely. I'll never forget, whenever, see, we were raised, Charles, to believe that we were the only group that had this Elijah prophet, and we would, when we were witnessing to other people, we would use that reference and we would say, what does your group have Elijah?

Do you believe Malachi four? And you would see the responses, you know, looking back, I'm embarrassed that I had those conversations, but the people just scratching the head like, what are you talking about?

Don't, and you know, I'm looking back at this conversation, I'm thinking how much they must have had to withhold, to not say, you must be a fool, man, because we believe some nonsense. But we thought that, and I'll never forget the shock, whenever I'm reading through the transcripts of Jim Jones, after I had connected Jones to Brannemism, and here's some lady who is in a healing line from Jim Jones, and calls Jim Jones the Elijah.

It hit me like a brick wall, man. Like, here's Jim Jones, one of the most infamous cult leaders. notorious cult leaders who caused the death of hundreds, and here is his victim who's calling him Elijah. It was the same framework, and that's what made me realize that, wait a minute, I've got to take a step back. This is much bigger than even just William Brannum in the message.

This pre-existed, and this was a framework that was used to create cult leaders. It's horrific when you think about it. Right, and you know, if you or I went and to say we went to a Methodist or Baptist or Presbyterian or even your average Pentecostal, and we said, let me tell you about the Malachi 4 prophet, right? Like what in the world are you talking about? And if anything, I think you're talking about John the Baptist, right? But within the message and the entire stream of Laterane that the message was in at that time, they all expected a return of the Elijah

anointing at the last days to proceed the second coming. This was a common belief in the whole movement, not just the message, right? The message was just a fraction of this broader movement that had the belief, okay? Representative Gordon Lindsay was in the movement, you know, all kinds of peoples in the movement that we've talked about. T.L. Osborne was in the movement on down. So that belief was there, but so here's what happens, okay? So William Brannum dies, and you got to remember, for Gordon Lindsay, William Brannum was what? William Brannum was Elijah No. 4 for Gordon

Lindsay, okay? Gordon Lindsay had already had three Elijah's before Brannum. William Brannum was No. 4, right? What's Gordon Lindsay's pattern to find another one, okay? This is the pattern for all these guys. When it turns out that they die and it proves that they couldn't be Elijah, their pattern is, okay, let's go get another one. Well, the message church like churches and people like, no, he was it. We don't need another one. You know, the cloud, the Lord did come back. We've got the perfect rep, so the message settles in, but here I'm what's going to read to you what the

mainstream of the rest of that movement starts to do. Let me read what what Gordon Lindsay says here. So Gordon Lindsay says this, he says, if Elijah ministered in the spirit of Elijah after the prophet was gone, and if John the Baptist ministered in the spirit of Elijah centuries later, what about the day we're living in now? Shall not God once more raise up men of faith who will go forth in the spirit of Elijah and turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers? In other words, make a people ready of this generation prepared for the Lord.

We are assured that he will and he is doing that this very day in 1966. He's writing this. Then he says there is, however, a word of warning that we should sound. Remember, he's saying this right after William Brandham died. When John the Baptist was asked if he were Elijah, he answered that he was not. He had no desire or ambition for self-exaltation. He was willing to be a voice in the wilderness.

All he desired was to see people prepare cared for the second coming of the Lord. Unfortunately, not all men are so self-effacing. History records the fatal mistakes of some who have imagined themselves to be Elijah and who thought that by their human efforts they would bring the millennium.

William Brannum is just buried the previous 30 days. Time has proven the folly and shame of such assumptions. God grant that no more, so he's saying, God, please send no more of these men to appear on the scene who shall seek for themselves the title Elijah.

So this is a full repudiation of William Brannum as Elijah, the Gordon Lindsay's doing right here. Then he says, God grant, however, that many shall covet the power of Elijah so that they may go forth in minister and they may make ready a people prepared for the coming of the Lord.

Elijah shall come first and restore all things. Perhaps the very Elijah of Bible times will come to earth and the little, literal fulfillment of that prophecy. If that is God's plan, so shall it be, God will take care of that in his own time, but it is our concern that God will raise up many allices and many John the Baptist that will thunder repentance and will bring the message of deliverance to a world whose son is about to set in a night of apostasy and judgment.

Only the spirit of Elijah will meet the challenge of our day. Only the boldness of Elijah will break the grip of sin and iniquity in which the nations are sinking. Only the ministry of the supernatural will cause people to fall on their faces as they did at Mount Carmel and say, the Lord he is God, the Lord he is God, only the ministry of the miraculous will beat back the powers of darkness that are seeking to overwhelm the people of God.

We need, we must have man who will minister in the spirit of Elijah. Thank God they are coming. Okay, so John, I'm gonna let you take it from here, but you see Gordon Lindsay is saying, William Brownham was not yet, now let's transition to the generation of Elijah beliefs.

This is what's happening in the mainstream of the movement. They are stepping back from the singular Elijah belief and they are transitioning into what will turn into the generation of Elijah beliefs. Same ideology evolved stepping forward after William Brownham's death.

And notice he said multiple. So here you have the exact blueprint for creating the New Apostolic Reformation. The idea that you can create multiple of these guys and they're gonna become your authoritarian heads.

And think back, I mean, we're talking Gordon Lindsay was big in helping to spark the charismatic movement. This was a key figure, right? So all of these men connected to him are all of that same mindset that we need new leaders to step up and become the new, maybe they didn't use the term Elijah or maybe they just use Elijah spirit, but they had that same mindset.

So you get all of these men with that same mindset, including men like Chuck Smith, who... was a laterane minister. All parts of the country, everything that developed into the new apostolic reformation, you can trace its roots through every step, every phase, every revival.

It all comes back to this. This is the blueprint. Gordon Lindsay is nowhere near the only guy doing this, in this space of time after William Brown dies. But I think that I use him because it's the most illustrative, because he was born in John Alexander Dowie's commune, right?

Elijah I, he was converted under parham, Elijah II. He learned and become a minister under John Lake, Elijah III. He helps launch and popularize William Brannum, Elijah IV. And then when William Brannum dies, you see him now transitioning the same ideology into a generation of Elijah's, okay?

And so when we say that this is the same ideology, going all the way back from British Israelism, coming into Pentecostalism, becoming fringe in Pentecostalism, going into the later reign movement, and then evolving into the generation of Elijah stuff in the post-Branum later reign movement, that is exactly what happened, right?

And it's all in black and white. Like we are not making this stuff up. You know, and this is what happened. And so this idea, which is the exact same stuff we believed in the message, John, slightly evolved, slightly evolved, this is going into, well Gordon Lindsay's running the full gospel fellowship denomination where Brownsville revival is going to happen.

Guess who's coming to his seminary in these years, John? Paul K, WV Grant, Derrick Prince, all of the leaders of Keras, you know, all the people who are going to, you know, keep moving this thing forward, all of them, right?

So all of this, these ideas evolved when William Brannum died and they start going on off on the trajectory that's eventually going to lead you to the third wave of Pentecostalism that's going to lead you into NAR, which I look forward to, you know, kind of talking about how all of that happened.

But I think for, especially for the purposes today, the message rejected this, okay? When these guys started doing this, when they started to go from single Elijah to generation of Elijah's, the message rejected this.

We said, no. Our leader said, no, you're wrong. I have taped responses from message leaders to these books where they said, no, Gordon Lindsay, you are dead wrong, Elijah was it, William Brannum was it, William Brannum was the Elijah, there's not gonna be a generation of Elijah's, right?

The Lord, 1963 already happened, the cloud already happened, the perfect has already been restored, right? And now we're going on, right? So to the message, the Elijah prophecies in the past, to these guys, the Elijah prophecy is still in the future and they transitioned it to a generation of Elijah's.

And it's so important, so important to realize this is what happened, and this is how this ideology moved forward. And it's also important to mention that, Largely it's been covered up. I have responses from Christ for the nation's institute where they fully deny that Gordon Lindsay was involved with either British Israelism or Christian identity and Yet we have books like those two books are clearly British Israelism But you can go find other books where even the titles of the name that names of the books are British Israel titles But they don't sell them at Christ for the nation's anymore

And so I'm certain that the person who responded to me just simply didn't know they don't know the history But you know Gordon Lindsay was speaking at Christian identity conferences and for those who are unfamiliar with the term British Israelism was the framework that developed into all of this mass. We explained that pretty well Well Christian identity was the idea whenever it hit America British Israelism It came in during a time when there was heavy racism So when racism combined with British Israelism it created Christian identity and Gordon Lindsay speaking as the keynote speaker at multiple Christian identity conferences and here's William

Brandham joining in who's mentored by the white supremacy leader of his day, you know This is such a big mess and I don't think people really realize It's just all been covered up. They do not want you to know where this came from right because just like the Elijah's stuff came from British Israelism So did the serpent seed stuff, right?

The serpent seed ideas were in British Israelism before Pentecostalism existed, right? One famous British Israelite preacher that was teaching serpent seed in the 1800s was Russell Kelsokar, we talked about him in a British Israelism episode in the past British British Israelism in the late 1800s 1890s Contained serpent seed, right? So the same people who had these Elijah beliefs also had the serpent seed beliefs John and

Just like these ideas were you know, just like some of the Elijah and stuff those ideas were fringe and Pentecostalism Says no, thank you and pushes some of that back out. They did the same thing with with serpent seed, right?

The mainstream Pentecostalism. No, thank you. We don't we don't want any of that right and out it goes But guess what it was it was still a Sharon orphanage. It was still in ladder rain, right? It's in this faction. It's in this small group And I say small How small how small was the how big was the ladder rain movement? Okay, so if you if you go back to when William Brannum died What there were probably 30-ish million Pentecostals, I would say that that'd be a fair number How many of how many were were ladder rain people maybe a hundred thousand?

Okay, so it's not we're this isn't the mainstream, right? This is a small sliver at this point in time and so They have serpent seed beliefs. We know serpent seed was taught by George Hotton. We know it was taught by elders at Sharon orphanage You know, it was taught in Derek Princes, Broadway Tabernacle in the 60s.

We know lots of the people around this were teaching Elden Purvis, you know, we know he taught Serpent Seed, right? And the British, the British Israelism, right, on one stream is kicking off the latter reign movement.

But at the same time, you're right, it's kicking off the Christian identity movement. So if you think of the kind of the pedicostle branch of British Israelism, it splits in two. All right, you got one branch of Pentecostal British Israelism that produces the latter reign movement.

You got another branch that produces the Christian identity movement. And in the early days of that split, they're still cooperating. They're still, you know, the split is not full, right, it just, it starts to diverge gradually.

By the time you get to the 80s and 90s, yeah, they are fully divergent. But in the 40s, in the 50s, even into the 60s, they're still not fully diverged. It is too fully distinct, separate movements.

And yes, there is absolutely overlap in their ideology. That's why the Christian identity movement believes the same Elijah stuff. That's why the Christian identity movement also had Serpent Seed, you know, all of those things.

And they went far more racial with their view of it than say the latter reign movement. So the latter reign movement's got a soft racial version of it. Christian identity has a hard racial version of it.

So it's, all of this is happening kind of at the same, in the same time, in the same window of years. And it is complicated. And I know it's hard for people maybe who haven't studied it deeply and looked at it hard to really visualize or get in their mind just how this broke out.

But yeah, it's one movement branching off in different areas. And so coming back to the Elijah stuff, I think it is just so important for people to realize when the message said, come out of her, my people, and all of that, they had already come out of all the denominations and went into independent, independent assemblies God and started this non-denominational sort of fellowship.

They already did that. And that wasn't even William Brown, it was the idea, okay? Yeah, he glombed onto it, but that all pre-existed him. And so somewhere along the line, John, you know, is this stuff happening with Gordon Lindsay, our leaders in the message all decided that independent assemblies of God was another denomination we need to come out of.

And full gospel fellowship was another denomination we needed to come out of, right? Even though they, those denomination, those groups already believed we should come out of denominations. So they separated from the separatists, right?

So we were separatists from separatists and that is what starts to gradually put the message off on this isolated tangent where we're the fringe of the fringe, okay? That started to generate the message called.

We weren't the only branch of ladder rain that did that, lots of other branches did. Sam Fife did it with the move, right? The body did it, you know? all these different groups did it.

But that specifically, it's specifically over this Elijah stuff and how we made William Brannem Elijah. That's what starts to transition us away. Our churches start going around all of the same churches we went to before and our preachers, we're gonna walk through some of this.

Our preachers started to, they would go visit the UPC churches that William Brannem visited and they would start to say, it's time to come out of the denomination ladies and gentlemen. And the message believers in the UPC churches come out and start their own churches.

They go to the different independent assemblies of God churches, they ladies and gentlemen. This is a filthy wicked denomination. It's time to start your own churches and they do. And this is what happens.

And all of these people that William Brannem has seated in all of these churches that he has visited, the leaders and these 35 churches that I have mentioned, they go around and they start drawing all the people out and forcing divisions and start new churches.

That is exactly what happens. And I think that answers the next biggest question that I'm frequently asked, is why does the penicostal movement splinter, merge, splinter, merge, grow, splinter, merge? And there's all these different branches and they become divergent.

You have to understand that whenever you're basing your quote unquote gospel on old covenant law like this, British Israelism, the problem that exists is because it can't be reconciled with the actual gospel, what's in the New Testament.

Men get different ideas of how to reconcile that. So they diverge some devious mind rises up to become the Elijah figure. And then they go off into pure destruction. And as we've talked about, it's usually destruction with a different gospel.

It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Where this gets really, really sinister is you've got all of these groups, many of which are destructive. And along come C. Peter Wagner, who says, these are apostolic networks and they need to all be network together.

And so in one of the biggest swaths of different groups bringing them all back into unity, C. Peter Wagner created the notion of these apostolic networks, which form the NAR, and he brings all the destruction back in.

And so people like Paul Kane, which we will get into later, he's bringing in Brannemism right into the NAR. And with Brannemism comes the elitism, the everything that I'm not gonna give names of the new apostolic leaders right now, but you can visualize their faces as I'm talking.

These men are just copycats. They're creating the same exact thing Brannem created under different names. And the irony is it is different theology so that whenever you're a historian, when you're a religious historian and you look at some of the big names in the NAR and then compare that to Brannem's doctrine, the doctrines are different and so they dismiss it.

But they're missing the R. a texture. Gordon Lindsay laid out the blue print for what became the NAR. All these guys are using the blue print. And Gordon Lindsay made that blue print off of brandemism because it was so popular and profitable.

I look forward to diving into all that as we proceed on. I have in my book John a full chapter on how all of this moved out of the that branch of the letter rain the message and how it the path it takes. I don't even want to like say it out loud because it it I don't want to make anybody mad until I have chances to fully explain all of the pieces. Okay, but I the path is traced. The people the organizations the groups all the way from the message all the way to the launch

of the NAR right it's all there it's all fully connected both ideologically both person to person handing it off it is all it's all there John. And what you have is you come into the 1980s multiple branches of the ladder rain movement that had broken up in the 60s recombine. Okay, recombine. Same people recombine. Okay, there is an explosion that happens. And then when that explosion happens like one of the chunks that blows off that explosion is the NAR. Okay, and so we'll we will we'll we'll chat through all of that when we get there. I'm

looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it also this is going to be mind blowing to a lot of people who are listening because I've also I've also got a lot of emails and communications from the groups that just they're trying to distance themselves from this but you can't it's history it's it's literally black and white history. Let me throw this on John right before we we end this. So my sect of the message which is again the second oldest message church one of the largest international sex of the message. Okay, who maintained relationship

with the hot and brothers with the ladder rain all of this stuff. Okay, we've watched. I don't know if any I guess I don't know if we were the only sect of the message like this John but we kept our brain and Jackson our leaders kept tabs on everyone and everything. I'm telling you he watched everyone like a hawk he kept files on everybody. Okay, and everything that happened with with Paul Cain on down. I mean we were he was watching it. We were getting regular updates when the Toronto blessing kicked off. We followed these guys constantly.

Okay, we sent spies into some of those places to even you know see what was going on. So we we always had awareness of the network of how everything interacted and everything. And so I think that's part of the way I feel like I can help put some of these pieces together for people if they don't already know them but this is what happened ladies and gentlemen. This is absolutely what happened in and the message is kind of became the secretarian separate group. Some of us watch the rest of the ladder rain movement over all the

years how it evolved. I look forward to to walking through all that John. It's going to be awesome. If you've enjoyed a show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at www.William-Brandom.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org. For more about the history of William Brandom and the healing revivals, read Come Out of Her My People, Available on Amazon and Kindle and Volume 1 and Volume 2.

For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Follow on Amazon, Kindle, and AutoVol.

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