Super Apostles - The NAR vs. The Apostle Paul

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 and friend, Cynthia Ardish, and together we are discussing Kerasmania, the history and the impact of the Pentecostal and charismatic movements on American Christianity. Cynthia, it's good to be back, and so much to talk about. This is one of my favorite subjects. I know we spoke a little bit beforehand, and it's something you're excited to get into, but I grew up in a world of who we believe was

the Super Apostle, and today we're talking about Super Apostles and the second letter of the Corinthians from Paul. This is just such a fascinating subject because if you look at what happened in today's world, you look at it and you think, well, this must be new, and the more you study, I've studied backwards in time from, you know, from William-brandham backwards, and I can see person after person after person, Super Apostle after Super Apostle after Super Apostle. As far back as time goes, and then if you actually read the Bible, which I'll let you talk about more here in a minute,

it's nothing new, it was happening back then, it's happening now, it's happening everywhere in between. So let's talk about these Super Apostles. Hi, John, great to be here, and boy, that's an understatement, isn't it? You know, when you described you going back and back, and I was thinking, you know, you're going to go all the way back to Adam and Eve if you keep going. And the real fascinating thing I like about this topic is the whole Charismania topic that we're studying today is really nothing new. It's in the Holy Scriptures, it's in the Old Testament, it's all over the

place. We just need to read and then identify a few cultural differences. Like for example, I wanted to let everyone know, Corinthians is a great letter to read, both first and second Corinthians. And they really do apply to us today. And the other thing that we know is we think that Corinthians was probably penned in 50 AD, which is pretty soon right after, you know, Jesus's resurrection and ascension and the early church and everything. And the other thing to You know, as Corinthians, I don't know if anybody knows the joke, but Corinthians' Corinth was a pagan city, and they had no knowledge of the Ten Commandments.

They had no sense of moralistic efforts like we have today, you know, totally different. It was eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, so everything was going on. So when this new church that Paul established in Corinth came to be, these new Christians, their baby Christians, they were really struggling to put away their paganism, which included witchcraft and sexual immorality, you name it.

It was, you know, everything they were trying to repent from. And so it was a real messy, you know, early Christian faith that was forming there. I think it's really fascinating that at the beginning, Paul is very successful in preaching the gospel to this church.

They are regenerate, they become born again, they are real Christians, and they love the Lord, and Paul leaves them after a short teaching stint to go on to Ephesus, to other churches he's working with, and no sooner does he leave.

He gets word that they're falling back into their old ways and a lot of, you know, really bad stuff is going on. So this is due to these individuals, there is a group of people that Paul mockingly, mockingly called the super apostles, and he uses that term for a couple of three reasons.

First of all, he doesn't mean they're, he's not serious when he says, oh, they're super and they're more powerful than me. That is, that is the ground for Paul's corrective here. He is basically saying, you know, look you guys, you've been bamboozled by these entertainment, Mr. Entertainment false apostles that show up that have the brazen gall to condemn Paul and say that they have the truth, which is basically the same thing we see now.

It's all this mysticism, they did false healings, they did a bid for money, they were involved in a lot of sexual immorality, I mean, you name it, they were successful in causing real damage to that baby church.

And Paul is, you know, in the second Corinthians is calling them out and basically reminding the baby church, look, we always have false teachers and this is why these guys are dangerous because they're not preaching the true gospel, they are preaching a pagan approach to Christianity, which is mysticism.

which is what we see in Carismania today. It's just so fascinating. I've spoken with, who was it recently? It might have been Bob Scott. We were talking about just in general, the way that the people of that era lived and behaved and worshipped outside of Christianity.

And the word Paul uses, I'll not even attempt to pronounce the Greek words, but I think it's like hyperlion as the equivalent of what is the Greek root. But it means exceedingly beyond. And I have to break it down because ironically in today's world, everybody has been misled into thinking what an apostle means.

So when you hear the word super apostle, you're literally thinking Superman, who's a messenger from God, who is the one who you, who is your mediator between God and man. That's literally the NAR version of this.

But the word for apostle just simply means one cent, one who has a message, one who is proclaiming Christ, right? So in its irony, it is a humble person who has a message who's exceedingly beyond a humble person.

So the words, the two words that go together are kind of funny if you really think about it. But this was an area with a plurality of gods. But the one in particular that fascinates me the most is the worship of Dionysus.

Because the party guy, right? So you had the party guy and Paul is writing right into the, we don't know specifically what gods are in the area he's addressing. But we can assume Dionysus was one because it was generally in that region.

But they had the religious theaters where they would present new and inventive ways to recreate their mythologies. And what was presented in the theater often entered into the mythologies. So the stage act became the religion and the religion was the stage act.

So it's this real cycle of things. And again, if you think about the NAR today and you think about every single movement that led to it, it is exactly that. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

It's like the same thing. Only we have a different wrapper or packaging. That's it. It really is. But allow me to clarify some things. What you said is great. And by the way, I wasn't even thinking of Marvel or superheroes, but you're right.

But here's the problem we have today that we've been noticing for quite a while. It's not a new problem either, but it goes like this. The ignorance of the Bible in Christianity is profound.

There, I mean, we have seminary students that fail the biblical questionnaire tests that they get when you go to seminary. And I remember there was kind of a survey done on the 10th. Commandments and at one of the Christian booksellers conventions, you know, one of the big places where all the Christian books are sold And a friend of mine had this show where they went around with a microphone just asking people there You know, do you know the ten commandments? What are they? Well, that was a huge eye opener. It was a huge fail I think the only ten ten commandment people got right was the adultery one or the murder one and everything else they didn't even know right

So so we were like knowing for quite some time here in in my area Of apologetics that okay, we're in big trouble. You know, what's that about? Um, and yet when you study Corinthians here What I'd like to point out to your viewers um First of all, I'd monish everyone please please do yourself a favor and obey the Lord with his good His good resources he gives us study first and second Corinthians just read it just read it from beginning to and don't worry about anything just read it Um, don't chop it up just read it. Uh, that is the best fastest solution for anyone who's confused about things

But I also wanted to call out a couple of cultural things that folks get confused by um, number one most Christians don't They have a confused idea of what the gospel is Okay, there's one gospel one not one and a half there's one not five there's one and it is Uh, as Paul says in Corinthians it is the gospel of Jesus Christ who died on the cross To pay for the sins of mankind he rose in the third day according to the scriptures And if you fill in the blank with reading more about it, why did he do that to save people from God's judgment to come

And it's coming Okay, the only reason Christians are different than pagans or or other people who call themselves Christians are We are saved by God Through Christ and the Holy Spirit from his judgment and wrath to come that's it. It's a free gift It's nothing more nothing less now today It's kind of interesting my friends also did a survey what is the gospel and we heard all kinds of responses that had nothing to do with Christ They thought it was like oh, it's my testimony. I got delivered from being a drug addict or an you know, whatever

Whatever bad thing my life was terrible now my life is good So a lot of confusion is because most people think the Bible is about morality It's not it's about the gospel Yes, morality is in there But but the message of the apostles is not Uh, you better clean your act up and do a better life so God can save you which is usually lead the misunderstanding we hit and we get caught up in moralistic deism of doing things for God and thinking we're okay because our feelings are the things we are led by.

So if I feel like I'm a good person, then God's going to be my friend. But getting back to the culture, the other thing that Paul is referring to and the super apostle thing is whoever these guys were, they were self-appointed, very, very charismatic speakers, performers, I always think of T.D. Jakes, somebody who's just larger than life on the stage.

And back in those days, the Greco-Roman culture really valued flowery rhetoric, language that was really hyperbolic and ornamented, right? And Paul was a very, I mean, it's funny, but not funny, when you look at his resume, when he defends himself, he says, they're accusing me of not being very convincing.

Well, he's been beat up, thrown out of a window, shipwrecked, run out of town. He's got medical conditions. So Paul as a person doesn't present very well because he's had a pretty hard life, right?

He's suffering for the gospel and it kind of reads like the perils of Pauline, if you remember that movie, well, they get that titled from the apostle Paul because Paul goes through his bio and he says, look, I am not impressive because I've been living the real life here out in the field and I beat up, you know?

So he doesn't look the part of being convincing, but Paul's message is the most powerful message of all that humans totally do not understand because humans like to think all the exaggerated claims of healing or wealth or here's your best life now.

That is where we need to go, what we call the theology of glory, you know, the promise of success or power or healing or, you know, all of those things. That's our problem as sinners, we get attracted to that.

But Paul's argument to the Corinthian church is saying, these super apostles, and he sort of mocks them. Yeah, they're really, you know, they're really slick. They probably have a light show and a fog machine.

I don't know, you know, they are within the church. That's the other thing I find interesting, they're inside the church. Okay, and they're cashing in on the sinful Struggles we all have Where of course we're going to want health and wealth if we're poor or sick, you know those are you know expected But Paul's point to the Corinthians is their gospel is no gospel at all and it's actually a battle He says You know, it's like this battle For Christ self-revelation in the gospel to save a people for himself Because the false gospel does not save right and it's just so fascinating to me

Again the parallels between what we see today and what Paul is writing about Whenever you read like second Christmas Corinthians, I think it's 11

At the very beginning of that chapter. He's talking about Who has beguiled you that's the King James word who who has tricked you right you're you're in this new gospel this thing that isn't what we taught you and You left your sincere devotion to the original gospel I just recently came across In fact, I think it went out either be yesterday or maybe the day before I just came across the The FBI's declassified document on barren frery tea William T. frery von Blumberg who if you don't know this name and you're listening you need to go look up who this guy was

Because this guy was connected to the fellowship international Otherwise known as the family the one that's in bed with all of the elite in Washington and the Bethel the all of these big in our churches So this man the FBI had their eye on him because he's working with all of the evangelicals He's working with the full gospel businessman Will he was William Brandham's campaign manager, so he's deeply connected to ladder rain He's working with Gordon Lindsey Christ for the nations all of these people everybody who became word of faith Prosperity gospel charismatic in AR

This guy is in the heart of it The reason the FBI was investigating him heavily Number one because he was homosexual which went against everything that everyone he's connected to stood for and he was He was openly engaging in sexual immorality on his trips overseas and that everybody knew it he was kind of open about it And so they knew that this guy was not what he appeared to be And just like Paul the FBI is rebuking this guy right Well as it turns out they We're doing an investigation on him related to McCarthyism Which is another fascinating study for another day. It's deeply tied to communism and

Another story for another day But the reason why that they were digging so deeply is because he's in bed with all of these people and he's on the He was the head of the Boston chapter of the Fellowship and her national He was on the Board of Directors for Bob Jones University He's William Brannem's campaign manager taking later reign all around the world and

When they confronted him on is this a Christian organization? His response was no, this is not we support all the religions and I'm paraphrasing what he said But he's basically saying we are not a Christian organization So this is the man who's leading William Brannem who's leading the latter reign working with all of what became Charismania and if you look at the years in which he got involved That's the same years Brannem started introducing all of his prophetic wild prophetic claims that enabled him to become the God's general prophet for the NAR and The doctrine began to shift into a feel good gospel

So much so that the gospel was taking a back seat and Brannem and others in the movement were saying things like we had the gospel Any child can have this we need to move beyond it and I grew up in the work moving beyond it face So I actually never heard the gospel for 37 years Because we're stuck in this limbo in this cult that I was in But that influenced all of the others you look at I've mentioned the name and I get backlash every time I do but look at John Wembers feel good gospel

It's basically the same thing and it originated there with latter reign However, it dates all the way back to what we're reading about here that Paul is talking about You can trace it all through history So here's the thing I want to make clear to your viewers because you and I've joked about it John, but you know when I tell you You're an incredible researcher and you're finding all of these lurid facts about these individuals and I was kidding with you I said look there's no end There is no you you could make five lifetime careers out of this work. Yes

And people do that all right But to the Christian in the holy scriptures what I find so Intriguing far more intriguing Okay, the command and the scriptures to the Christian is to In fact, it says Paul says do not tolerate these Individuals who teach doctrines of demons Okay, right. Yeah, I'm working with a friend right now who's a she's got a very fragile faith in the Lord and she is so open to this other stuff and I've told her I said you need to get away from that right now It's like touch your hand on a hot stove. Back off, get away. Okay. Now, Paul and his teaching is teaching

the church what to do. And our problem in the 20th, 21st century, mostly in the 21st century now, because we're sort of unique in our own way here. We have a problem in America. We don't have any respect for the true institutional church that Jesus himself promised he would build and the gates of hell would not prevail it against it. Okay. We hear that all the time. And I don't blame people who have been harmed by cults or bad, you know, bad churches. I was one back in the day, you know, when I left John Wimber, I didn't go to church for years.

Okay. But I had to come to a personal awareness. I mean, see, my problem was I kept studying scripture. And it convicted me. And I knew I was off the rails. And I had to find a true church. And I prayed because during that season of my life, I'd seen a lot of so-called Christian religions and they were all not desirable. Okay. I prayed that the Lord, you know, I knew I was out of bounds, you know, sinning. And I said, Lord, please find me a true church. And he did. Okay, it wasn't easy. And it wasn't overnight. But that's why I know what I believe and why I believe

it now. It's out of the discipling of a true church. Now, when you look at Corinthians and all the other stories, like I was going to see another book that everyone should read when we get off this call here is the book of Jude, the letter of Jude. It's 25 verses long, 25 verses. It's one one chapter. Okay. And it is a powerful, powerful book. Very important because it continues to emphasize the false teachers that are attacking the church and what the Christians should do about it. And that's what I want Christians to know to do. I really, really want to tell them, please,

in my awkward way, I'm trying to promise all of you. The salvation of your soul depends on it. And second of all, the health and your sanity of your human life here depends on it. It really does. Because if we continue to, to, you know, obsess about those people who have harmed us and believe me, I, I know they can be very harmful. There's a, there's a dead end in that because their evil will never end in this life until the Lord, until the second advent happens. And boy, oh, boy, I can't wait for that, right? So that's another show, right? But because he said he's going to

deal with it. He gives us instructions on how to handle it ourselves. And nowadays, the twenty century church in America, what we call American evangelicalism, which is a movement. It's not a biblical church. It's a movement, one of many. We have all kinds of chaotic conditions.

And my heart is just so heavy for Christians who are suffering. Like you say, you never heard the gospel, why would kind of disagree with that? I would say the Lord knows His people. He saves His people. We don't choose Him. He chooses us. And even in the concofony and mess that you grew up in, somehow the gospel nugget got through to you John. And that's the miracle. That's the miracle of it, right? I'm not kidding. I used to do TV shows on TBN as a musician when I was a baby Christian and worked for Calvary. And now I look back on those days. And even on TBN with all the

terrible stuff that was on there, every now and then you can notice if you're trained to find it, you know, know what the gospel is. You do witness what we call a gospel fly by.

You know, it's like a jet going by like zoom. There's a gospel nugget flying by. Really cute. It sneaks in there. And when human ears hear the gospel, the Lord has promised to save His people by regenerating their heart with His faith of the Holy Spirit and they're born again. So it's what we hear that saves us. Not what we do. And even in terrible darkness like TBN or this awful cult that you suffered or the silliness of John Wimber or whoever the Lord knows His people and He will accomplish His work. So I think studying a lot of this is fascinating, especially looking back

on my terrible. My life is a roadmap. I don't even want to get into it. It's crazy. But it amazes me how somehow the Lord got the gospel in there in the middle of my charismatic experiences and my vulnerability, right? There was no one to help me. I was there alone. And so one thing I wanted along that line, I wanted to introduce this idea. In Corinthians, Paul's argument touches upon these words that we misunderstand frequently. And one word is faith. Okay, let's talk about that word faith. Especially in NAR, they always talk about faith. And the Bible doesn't talk about

faith like they do. The Bible says there is the faith, capital T H E, the faith, not faith. Okay, because the word faith, it means it's trust, right? It could mean faith in anything.

You could have faith in Disneyland. You could have faith in Easter Bunny. You could have faith in You know, you could be healed by doing stuff. The Bible is very clear about identifying the faith that was once delivered to the people of God, once, not five times, not one and a half, once. So there's one faith, one gospel, one church, which is interesting because we look around us and, oh my gosh, we have thousands.

No, there's one church of Christ. And I find that very, in one salvation, you know, I find that very encouraging because when I stumbled upon that years ago, I thought, what does that mean? Well Paul unpacks that in Corinthians. And then the other word that we get wrong is the word flesh. When Paul talks about Corinthians, he's telling them, you know, resist the will of the flesh. Well, he's not talking in the original language that doesn't mean our bodies like, you know, my body committing sin in the flesh like through sexual sin or eating too much or whatever, right? That's not what it means. In the context of what Paul is teaching,

he's talking about, there are two ways of thinking in the world. There are the ways that God thinks and there are the ways that the world thinks in the scripture. And so Paul is saying here,

the flesh is not a reference to our bodies, it's about how the world thinks and acts. So the Christian thinking and acting is different. And it takes into account that the world thinking and acting is different. And Christians are told to have the mind of Christ, the wisdom of God, we are to approach life, thinking like Christians, not thinking like the world. And I tell me what you think, John, when we look at the NAR, do we see biblical Christianity being lived out in just the way they conduct activities? And they're thinking, I mean, you've been great in calling

out all the silly, I think they're silly, but they're really dangerous. All their doctrines, you know, the grave soaking or whatever, you know, you can't even keep up. I don't even know what the latest report is. You know, they're always going to come up with neck, another excitement to hook people into their lies, right? And this is why Paul is absolutely, he takes no prisoner.

He calls these teachers out as demonic. I mean, he goes right for that. Yeah. And so my dear friend who's toying with NAR right now, it's really difficult for me because my problem is I know too much and I'm so worried for her. But you know, I can't change her mind. She's really committed to testing these things out. And that's the predicament I think we all live with today. You know, those of us who know the dangers. But clarifying the scriptures just by reading is a good start. So if you can get anyone to read, which that'll be interesting, I also say if you can't read, listen

to it read, you know, listen to Jude read. And so the pagan ways are different than the Christian ways. The pagan ways are the way of the world. And so yeah, John, you were talking about Dionysius. When I was a kid, I loved studying Greek and Roman mythology. That was kind of a hobby of mine. And I'm really terrible now. I can't remember all the names of the gods and what they did. But I know Dionysius was the party god was that had the grape leaves on his crown and wrote on it. Yeah. And you know, I went through bullfinches mythology book,

which is a standard traditional text we learn in school. And interestingly enough, studying that helped me to understand Christianity more. Because one thing I noticed in mythology is all these different gods and goddesses, they're very interesting stories, right? But in all the stories, the gods and goddesses were exactly like humans. They were jealous. They were greedy. They would without warning, they would exact vengeance on people. And after I read it for a few years, I started feeling like, wow, as a believer in one of the false gods, you could never know when you'd get hit with a lightning bolt because you were not doing

what they wanted. It was such a scary thing, right? Unreliable thing. And that's the way I think NAR is. I mean, I've met some people who are suffering. I met one dear lady. She was so terrified of demons hiding behind every rock, so to speak. As a Christian, she goes, oh, you know, the demon of this, the demon of that is going to come to get me. And I had a conversation with her and learned she really did trust in Jesus for her salvation, the real Jesus, right? And she had very fragile faith that the Lord had given her. And I comforted her and I

said, oh, let me tell you something, if you trust in the Lord alone, in the true Christ alone for your salvation, you have nothing to fear. So get away from those guys that are, you know,

and she cried. She was so relieved. She said, you mean the demons are not waiting for me at the laundry mat? And I said, I said, said in a joke, I was serious, they said, no, the devil actually has more important work to do than to hang out in the laundromat, you know, I said, he's, he's busy attacking the nations, you know, really bad stuff and twisting the gospel. I mean, we just have to get back to the word of God and we're going to learn a lot that will open our eyes to the silliness we see in NAR because it's getting a lot sillier, isn't it?

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What you're describing with that person being afraid of everything, there's a demon around every corner. That is the irony of what I was mentioning earlier. So if you look at the word super apostle, we kind of broke it down for you. That's the ancient Greek. We'll now take it fast forward into the Laterane and beyond, all the way leading up to the NAR.

When I said it wasn't like Superman, back when Paul wrote all of the letters, right? In today's world, it has actually flipped into that because the way that these men presented themselves as their own Laterane and now NAR super apostles, it was a narcissistic version.

A narcissist has to have a villain. If you study the psychology behind what makes their brains work, you've got to have an evil force to conquer, right? So when they lift themselves up in power, they also have to lift up who is the demonic forces or enemy that they can protect you from. And so everybody congregates under the super apostle of today because he's going to protect you from the villains that he is describing or creating. I grew up in the world where I was afraid of all of this too. If you stumped your toe, it was because

some demon had tripped you, man. It was ridiculous how far we went with this. And it all goes, I get studying, I start. studying Dionysus ironically because of the hair doctrine. The Pentecostal hair doctrine, you're familiar with the passage they use. Paul says when he's talking about the hair is for recovering, Paul is actually writing to a group of people that actually fits the Dionysus cult mold because the women, the women of that cult, so they had the mysteries of Dionysus, and I'm probably saying that name incorrectly. I heard you say it differently, but they had

these divine mysteries. And what would happen is when they would get into the religious ecstasy, the women had their hair all up and up into, you know, wrapped around the head with this big bobby pin through it, and you can get online and you can look up the mysteries of Dionysus, and you can see these bobby pins they had. It's fascinating history. And what would happen is, yeah, so they would pull it out and then their hair would flow and they would be like banshee's going, they would rip the flesh off of animals and eat the flesh and all kinds of weird stuff that

they did. And apparently if you read into what Paul is saying, there was some sort of a disruption in the church because of the way in which that these women were behaving. And at the very end of that passage, he said a phrase that caught my eye, he says, but, but we in the Christian churches have no such custom. And so I thought custom that that sounds like he's writing to something different than Pentecostal hair. So I began researching, I found the mysteries of Dionysus, but if you read Paul's letters about the worship of these super apostles and combine it with what

he said in other of his letters, like first Corinthians, he rebuked them because you're saying you're a follower of Paul or you're a follower of Cephas or Paulus, right? He's rebuking them for being under the leadership of a human being instead of Christ. Well, in the Laterane version, there were actually prophetic utterances that came out in Laterane where they were claiming to have seen on the other side. And all the worshipers were congregating under who was the spiritual head that led them into heaven. That was, that was Laterane 101. They were, they were trying to build

these tears of, as a pyramid structure, basically, a pyramid structure of different cults under the leadership. And then they were all fighting to who was, to see who would be at the top of that pyramid. So you've got all these sub cults and then you've got a man at the top. Well, you were hanging a second. I got a point to something you just said. You remember the place in the Bible that talks about Jesus' disciples fighting over who wants to be first. Who's going to sit next to him? See that? See that's sin 101. Okay? I mean, look.

They're the disciples and they really didn't look good a lot, you know, those guys were just doofuses all the time, right? So I mean, if you just, if you just look at the thing that they're doing, they're posturing because they want to be the favorite or, you know, they want to ingratiate themselves. And this is with the Lord. Can you imagine? You're like with the Lord being a jerk, right? So I mean, it's one thing to be a jerk when you've got your own religion, you're starting. But it's another thing when you're when you're a disciple,

right next to Jesus. And you're even saying stupid things to Jesus. Like I think of Peter, when Jesus is going to go to Jerusalem and he tells Peter the Messiah is going to go to Jerusalem to die, Peter goes, no, no, no, we can't, we can't allow that. You know, we've got to make you be the head guy so we can wipe out Roman all that. And Jesus says to him, get the behind me Satan.

He said, man does not think like God thinks. He says this to Peter. Okay. So are we surprised when we see false teachers at Peter's not a false teacher, of course. He's the favorite of Jesus.

He is the one who's given the keys to the kingdom and all of that, right? And he really screws up. You know, I love Peter because he's he's such a wonderful picture of humanity. Just your Christian 101 snapshot, right? And of course his fall is great. And his grief over his sin is great. And that just makes the Lord's forgiveness even greater. And then we're building the church at that point. So the application has to be noticed. We have this sinful humans, no matter who you are, even if you're a disciple, you are going to mess up. But the point is Jesus came on a mission

to die, to fulfill the law, God's law, to rise from the dead, to secure the credentials that he needed to really save his people from the wrath to come. And that's the message that needs.

We need to circle back at that because that is why we even have Christianity. And like Paul says here, if we don't have the resurrection, what the heck are we doing? We need to just go home and party and do whatever because if we don't focus on the gospel, which is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, then we're idiots for even caring about it. And so the NAR or whoever is coming down the pike, they all have the same lies. And the Bible does not change. It is sufficient in telling the Christian.

and what to do, and Jude is actually very succinct, which I think is interesting. I don't know if anybody knows, realizes here. On Jude 5, verse 5, always intrigued me. Jude talks about the story of how God saves his people.

He first does a little history lesson. And verse 5, let me read here because it's pretty stunning. He says that Jesus, who saved a people for himself in the desert of Sinai. Now think about that for a minute.

Jesus saved a people for himself in the desert, Sinai, and also destroyed the unbelievers. So right there, Jude is saying Jesus is God. He is the Old Testament God that saved the children of Israel and judged them, you know, saved the ones that repented and judged the ones that did not, right?

And from that platform, he goes on to tell the church how to deal with false teachers.

And so the message, you know, the takeaway is the cross of Christ is supposed to be the antidote to all the silliness. A lot of people don't really buy that because they think, well, how can the story of a dead rabbi coming back to life unpack all of the gnarly lies that William Brandon or Bob Jones or whoever, you know, is doing.

But we are, the gospel is saving sinners in the middle of their sin.

And that's the real magic, you know, back in the day, by the way, the Corinthians suffered from mysticism, Judeaic mysticism. And I can't pronounce the original language term for the term, but it is carismania and it's all based on visions, healings, dreams, sound familiar.

Absolutely. And you know, when I first studied this years ago, my little takeaway on my own was, gee, anybody who walks in the door and says, vision, dreams, whatever is not okay. That's why when John Wimber, my first encounter, when I realized what he was doing, he comes out, oh, there's dreams and there's, you know, he was actually giving it a formal title in his manual, the dreams and the visions.

And so I was already tracking something was off before he literally held the Bible up one day and said, don't trust this book, you know, trust the dreams. And I think that's where the punctuation mark really hit me over the head, like a little hammer, like a cartoon hammer.

I was like going clunk, oh, oh, you know, it really was like a cartoon because I was by myself and I'm thinking, oh, oh, you know. So. Reading is really where the safety is, reading the Holy Scriptures for yourself.

And I mean my gosh, all of the drama and the terrible abuse and damage and horrific damage that these teachers bring upon the church. It's going to be really bad for them one day because the Lord says he is going to judge them with fire.

And that's why every time they joke, you know, they're serious when they say fire is a good thing. And I'm thinking, haven't you guys read the Bible? Fire is a judgment motif, okay? Yeah. Well that's the irony, right?

Most Christians, a vast majority of Christians have never read the Bible. When I came out of this occult that I escaped and I started just studying Christianity in general. When I saw that statistic, I'm scratching my head.

You mean the book that's like the most important book in the world to all Christians, they've never read. Why? And one of the things I think I shared it with you, but one of the first things I did when I left was I started reading the Bible over and over and over, I lost count probably 20 times, I don't know, but I just covered a cover just straight through for what it said.

I did, took no preconceived notion for what it said according to all of the weirdness that I'd heard. What does it say? Let me read it. And it reads like a book. You read it like any book, right?

And the letters, you read them like somebody wrote a letter. It's a letter from start to finish. It's not chopped up. And I came across things like Colossians too. No one disqualifies you by insisting on asceticism, which was by ironically the backbone of our religion, and worship of angels going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind.

It literally described not just William Brannon, but every single one of the men in the laterane movement. And then take that forward, carry it forward into what happened with Charismania. They built upon it, and they took exactly what Paul is saying, don't do here.

And they built upon it and created charismatic movement. And then now that's going into the NAR. If you just read the Bible, you can start to see that it's reversed. The men are lifting themselves up, and in doing so, they're making themselves idols of worship.

So if you're an apostle instead of the biblical term for a apostle, it just simply means somebody who's going out and spreading the gospel abroad. Well, they're sitting there with their Cadillacs and their empires and their great big churches.

That's not an apostle. That's an object of worship. And so people are actually worshiping these guys as deities. Once that hit me, I started wanting to know who. Why, I wanted to piece it together and that's what actually led me to wrapping all of this history together because I wanted to see the trail of how this all emerged.

And so when I focus on, you know, I bring out John Wimber, the history of him in the trail leading to the NAR, then I can watch a group of people suddenly outcry because I have published critical history of this guy, well I know they're worshiping this guy because you wouldn't defend the critical history if you weren't worshiping the guy.

And Wimber is just one of, I guess, probably one of 200 people I have on my website and I'll bet there's a thousand more for me to detail. Well, that's what I'm serious when I say John, your work, if for anyone to do this kind of work, it is a massive thing because you're basically studying human sinfulness in false teachers.

And if you, if anybody, well, when they study the Bible and they, like they say, two thirds of the New Testament is all about false teachers, two thirds, that's true. It's a big deal, okay?

So it's not like a little passing thing, it's a real thing. I mean, your work or work like yours that people do that can keep going forever. I mean, it is beyond any human endeavor to captivate all of it, right?

However, and I'm glad people do that because it is, there is some value, there's great value. When people have real human lives, you know, we're not robots, we can't just turn off our life if we've been abused or harmed in some way, we have to work through that pain and make sense of it if we can.

And the Lord uses many resources to heal our hearts and give us, you know, closure, you might say. So that is such valuable work. It's just, you know, the scriptures are sufficient and that's the thing that we really need to hang on for dear life because right now, even today, you know, the 21st century where we are now, the latest report this year, whatever.

I don't think it shows any sign at all that things are getting better. You know, I just was at a church meeting where we were all talking about persecution, our favorite topic, right? And one of the leaders said, you know, we've had it pretty good in Southern California for a long time.

And we just take it for granted because we've never known the real persecution like some of our brothers and sisters in foreign countries have. Like right now, the Arab countries, we have missionaries there that are being murdered.

You know, this is not a new story for all of us. And one of our people said, you know, I think whatever happens in the future, it sure looks like we're going to be experiencing some kind of...

persecution in this area in America, right? Especially when we look at some of the people who are claiming Christianity and the insist they need to make the government into a Christian government, you know, wacky things like that.

So it'll be whatever it is, right? Yeah. But I think, look, I am not going to lose track of the gospel. It is the word of God to save us. It is the word of God to sanctify us. It is what frees us from the tyranny of sin and piotism. Piotism is the idea that I got to do something to merit my salvation. And it makes me a prisoner of my own belly button where I'm always looking at me.

Did I do it good enough? Did I do it right? You know, all of that when the gospel of Jesus is to set his people free. And boy, we can sure use that right now. I mean, it's uh, I don't know if you've seen the price of eggs lately, but you know, people are talking about all the economic stuff we're seeing. And it's like, you know, I thought of that. So I thought of that in the grocery store the other day. I thought, well, I guess we're going to see how all of these doodads, I call them,

I try to make humor into the bad stuff so it's not so bad to me. But it's like, we're going to see some really serious problems. And the other good thing though is like my friend who reached out to me who insists on toying with NAR, right? And and she's just having her own way. She's rebelling, you know? I can't do anything but pray for her. I've already told her. Get away. It's dangerous.

It's this, you know, I rationalize things. No, it's got like we saved with our children. It's got to be their own idea. And when we care for someone, we know they're probably going to have to hurt more. Maybe we don't want that, but we are nervous about that because oh my gosh, I don't want you to be in pain, but there it is. And so the Corinthians were exactly in the same kind of place. The only differences, they didn't have the internet or electricity or or Amazon or Amazon, you know?

All right. We spread our sin so much faster than humankind has ever done in history.

So it's that's the trick, you know, how do we navigate that, right? Right. But one thing I want to close with that I just adore is things look really bad. And the super apostles sure look like they're winning. I mean, that's what it looks like, right? But in Jude, you know, the teacher in Jude, he says, he encourages us by saying, no matter what it looks like, the Lord is going to save his people.

It's really up to Jesus to save us from all of this, right? And I think that makes all of us feel comfortable because it is the faith once delivered. We all have the same salvation, the same faith.

We get all of Christ, so there is no such thing as these Christians that have supergifts over other Christians that are practicing to get better gifts, that kind of nonsense. We focus on what the Lord has given us, and we hang on to it for dear life.

This is where, you know, on that e-ticket at the amusement park here, we're in the middle of all of the world swirling around. And there is no peace getting wrapped up in all of the drama and the danger and the peril.

The other idea that I think I hope people think about, because they'll see this in the text, the kingdom of the Lord is already here. You know, we talked about that before. There is the gnar claiming that the kingdom is this other thing.

It's a lot simpler than what they say. The kingdom belongs to the king, and Jesus is the king. And when Jesus was on earth, he said, behold, the kingdom is at hand. And he meant by that, that those of us who believe in him and trust in him for our salvation alone, his kingdom lives in our hearts with him as we seek to live under his gracious reign day by day.

It's not to be detected by any fancy, schmancy, loud, flashy, miracle, you know what I mean? It is nothing to do with the the promises of miracle and all this exaggerated blessing, which is fake, because this present evil age is passing away.

And at the same time, the age to come has been inaugurated by the resurrection and the ascension of the king. So it's the already and the not yet that's overlapped. And that's why it's important to focus on the scriptures, because I know it doesn't look like he's reigning, but he is.

Even in the face of people like John Wimber or, you know, the Bethel church or whatever, they're the latest, biggest NAR church. I mean, I guess it... spreading. It's all over. Yeah, I don't care how big and loud the Roman Catholic Church or the Bethel Church or whoever who has the false gospel. I don't care if they have a 20 megaton sound system with light's camera action spouting out their lies. It doesn't matter. The gospel like Paul is saying to the Corinthians has more power than all of that because it has the power to save

from God's wrath to come. And that's the uncomfortable, you know, the uncomfortable point. But it's it's precious to Christians who trust in him. It's like I am so grateful. You know, I say bring it. I, you know, things are so bad. I don't like things getting drawn out, you know, I'm one of those people that, okay, if it's going to be battle, then let's do this, you know, let's stop the the little prelude to it. Let's get to it. Get it over with. Yeah, that's kind of how I am. It's like, well, I'm a Maranatha person. It's like this one good takeaway.

I got from Calvary. I really mean it when I say Maranatha. It's like, yes, Lord, get here. This is we're not doing so good, you know, and the good news is when he comes to deal with evil and judge the earth and save his people, it's going to be public and everyone's going to know it. It's not going to be this little back door. Some people find out about it. Other people don't. No, no, no. It's so, you know, scripture says it's going to be big, big, loud, noisy. Everybody's going to know no one's going to sleep through it, you know, and, you know, it's going to be terrifying

to those who don't know the Lord and exhilarating because when I think about it, I think, wow, what's that going to look like? I mean, cataclysmic, you know, the sky rolling back like a scroll, all of that language. I'd like to see that, but at the same time, I'm trembling at that thought because, wow, that's better than any CGI movie, you know, disaster movie you can go see in the theater, right? It's probably going to really one up that in a big way. But the super apostles are everywhere and they can say whatever they want to say about them. One day, they will answer for it.

You know, that's all I can, that's what the scripture says. So, you know, Judith is a good book to read. It's only 25 verses. That'll take you 10 minutes, maybe, five minutes, I don't know. But it's, I really like thinking about these things in a good way.

It's hard to have loved ones, you know, pray upon, you know, entrapped with these cults. They're you know, pray upon. They are doctrines of demons. There's very little I could say to compliment what you said.

You said it all pretty much, but I do want to hone in on one thing that you said. You talked about the sky peeling back in the awe in the movements that were created from Pentecostalism forward.

As soon as Christian identity entered into those movements, they tried to, as we've discussed, they tried to reapply the Old Testament to today's world and claim that we are the 12 tribes of Israel, etc.

One of the things that they did, because most of the men and women who did this had no idea of biblical scholarship or even how to understand the text. They took phrases and made them mean different things than what it was intended.

The biggest of which was in Malachi, it talks about the great and dreadful day of the Lord. If you read the King James English, well, that word dreadful had multiple meanings back in the Queen's English in the 1600s.

It means awe, the great awe, the great wonderful day, the great amazing, like the word can't encapsulate all of the different English words for it, but the Greek word meant, or the Hebrew word meant, this is amazing.

This thing that's about to happen, but because it used dreadful, and the word dread was in the English language of that era, this is the dreadful day, so it must apply to when the world is going to be burned or atomic blasts or whatever it was.

And what happens, we've got a variety of listeners to this podcast and viewers on the YouTube site, some of which are Christian, some of which are not. If you are a Christian or proclaiming to be one, and you're in one of these movements, what Cynthia has described, I went through it myself once you go through that transition out of these movements with the super apostles, there's a phrase that is used for these groups called high demand groups, and there's a reason for that to build yourself up in this constant hype where you've got to have a greater miracle or a greater sign and wonder, or you're

putting all the weight on your own shoulders, and it's exhausting to try to do this. You've got all this weight on your shoulders. More than that, these groups practice asceticism, much like the chapter or the verse of ancient from Romans, you're literally trying to save yourselves, and if you actually read the text of the New Testament, saving yourself is not the way that it works.

You look to Jesus, and so what happens is what Paul is saying about the super apostles is, these guys have taken you away from the simple truth that I told you that says basically Jesus did it once for all, and we look back to that, that's in its simplicity.

You don't need all... of these weights, you don't need all these super apostles. These guys that are lifting themselves up, the moment in which you can realize what is actually being said, this burden of weight comes off your shoulders, and suddenly you're like, why did they do this to us, man?

Why would they put us through that burden? Well, because it works in their manipulative system, you see, and humans also have the law written on their hearts. See, the problem is every human on the planet, whether they're a believer or not, they have the law of God written on their hearts.

And when we expose ourselves to the law, it sort of incites sinfulness, that it's designed by God to drive us to Christ. And when all you get is la, la, la, la, la, without the gospel, you become neurotic, because you, of course, are terrified, and you're all of that.

What I think is so beautiful, though, is when you read the Holy Scriptures, you read again and again and again, how the Lord, on the cross, received God's judgment for sinners. And that's why he said it is finished to Palestine.

It is finished. And so those of us who trust in Him, he's already received the wrath of God for us. And what is so mind blowing is, not only does he receive God's wrath, so that means a judgment day is done for Christians.

We're not going to receive wrath. Even when he opens the sky, if we happen to be here, when that cosmic moment happens, when the natural world changes, because the Lord and the creator of all the earth shows up and deals with His creation, right?

We are saved from that. And furthermore, He cloths us in His own cloak of righteousness. So when Jehovah God, the judge of all, looks upon the Christian, he does not see us. He sees His Son.

I mean, it's, when you ponder that, that's based on the word of God. That's what I ponder. It blows me away. I think, wow, how I can't even grasp that, even though I can write about it, and I understand it intellectually.

But it blows me away. Talk about being odd. It just leaves me speechless. And it should, because that's the appropriate reaction. Like John in Revelation, remember the scary moment in Revelation where the Apostle John has a vision.

And he sees the Lord in his power. And it describes the Lord Jesus, how he has the eyes of a flame of fire and his... he tears his white as wool and his clothing is brighter than, you know, the sun, right?

And what does John do? He is on his face on the ground in terror. And the Lord reaches down and touches his shoulder and says, don't be afraid. And see that tenderness and that mercy and that kindness is who our Lord is to his people.

The wonderful thing I think we need to get back to is we need to start studying who Jesus really, really is. Not the Vidal Sassoon hippie Jesus, we see in all of the movies that are here, you know, in our culture, the chosen Jesus, who's just kind of cracking jokes and blowing raspberries.

Hey, their claim is what we want Jesus to be more down to earth. And I'm thinking, you know what, you please explain to me how more down to earth a person can get when they bleed on a Roman cross and our age typeable blood.

And they die a human death subjected to an unfair, unjust execution. You know, we really have drifted far from the text as Christians in our culture. We're so willing to accept what the culture portrays as Christian.

And I think we need to get back to that. But you're so right, John. The dreadful day, I love the King James language, by the way, so, you know, beautiful, isn't it? It's this vintage language.

But yeah, dreadful is a good word if you know what it means, you know, if you don't know the Lord, yeah, you're going to feel dread. I think the text also says we want the mountains to fall on us, where that's scared.

It's like mountains fall on me, hide me, you know, yeah, it's going to be, yeah, it's going to do that. Well, this has been incredibly fun. And hopefully somebody who's listening and his own defense between the NAR and getting out into true Christianity, hopefully you've got something that can help you.

So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org. From more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Soon, Horrible.