Angels, Charts, and Pyramids: The Theatrics of Doctrinal Persuasion

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-Brandom.org and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Chinno Ross, pastor and the voice of the Understanding Scripture and Truth by Chinno D. Ross, YouTube channel. Chinno is good to be back and to talk all things Hobart Freeman and uncomfortably for me to continue on with the hermeneutics. Although I will say the last episode wasn't that painful or challenging. I do know and study as we've

talked offline. I know and study quite a bit more than I let on, but I don't want people to think that I'm an expert by no means in any of this. So I usually avoided and stick with the history. So you are having me step outside of my element. Well, so you don't want to be the theologian because then you'll be held accountable. So you just talk in vague circles, but actually you do have very firm convictions and beliefs about what we're talking about. Well you know we came out of a group that worshipped men as stronger, I don't know what you

called them, there's a hierarchy. There's a hierarchy of people and if a male person talks about the Bible among many of these groups, they start seeing them as a preacher. They call me a prophet if I mentioned the Bibles. Any Bible subject, they start saying he's a false prophet and I've never had a prophecy. So you can't really say that, but that's so that's the way these groups are and I just avoided all together by sticking with the history because for me you know the hermeneutics are completely off. Like you say, I have studied and I've read

the Bible many times. I've read many Bible scholars works to understand it myself, but it's so far off, but I have come to the conclusion that many of the people who are in these groups, they really don't care so much about the Bible.

They care more about what the prophet figure or the central figure of their cult says. And so as I began this, I actually did argue the hermeneutics early on. For the first maybe two years I did. And I came to realize it did no good, man. They simply didn't care if if the quote unquote prophet or the central figure said one thing and the Bible said something else, they would actually they argue the central figures position on the argument.

So I was getting nowhere. So I started talking about the history because it, history's fact, you can't really argue the history. And I've seen that a little bit too, John, with some of the followers of Freeman.

But the ones who do love the Lord and who do study the Bible and trust the Bible, I have found at least in my teaching and traveling and talking with people that if I can, if I can put on a piece of paper, Hobart's interpretation of X, Y, Z, you know, from the Bible and what the Bible actually says, I generally do get a pretty good response and most people start, you know, scratching their head, going, well, yeah, that is what the Bible says and that isn't what Freeman said.

Yeah. And they follow it, but you're definitely right. There are people out there who, they're gonna follow Freeman regardless of what the Bible says, just totally regardless. Either they'll just gloss over, you know, what we're trying to explain is the right interpretation of the verse or they, as you just said, we'll literally take that next step and say, well, the Lord has shown things to Brother Freeman that may be, you know, different than what the normal, carnal-minded person would see whenever they're reading the Bible.

But let me start with this. There's a story in the Old Testament about one of David's enemies. You know, he had a lot of enemies, a lot of people were opposed to David. There's a story about one of his enemies who was causing him a lot of problems and David was at the place in his life then where he could actually do something about it, you know, in an earlier time of his existence, he was fleeing for his life from Saul and from everyone else and going from cave to cave just to hide.

But by this time in his life, he had some men, he had some authority, had some power and he could do something about a person causing him problems. So he was mounting up a group of men getting ready to go wipe this guy off the face of the earth.

The guy's wife's name was Abigail. She was a pretty smart and godly woman married to the wrong spouse, obviously. And she came and threw herself down before David and pledged that, please, please, my Lord, don't do anything to my husband because as his name is, so is he.

And his name was Naval and the word men of fool. So she says, as he was correctly named by his parents. And I have often thought in looking at Dr. Freeman's name, his last name, it's a very appropriate name.

He was a free man when it came to Bible interpretation because he could just allegorize and spiritualize with the best of them. He would take a passage that obviously doesn't mean what he says and say that it did.

And then if you disagree with him, and what you're disagreeing with is a mystical take on something. And we looked at some examples last time, I won't go over that again. And his followers picked up the same tendency.

If you disagreed with their interpretation, well, it's just because, you know, your carnal, you're not spiritually minded, you're not in tune to the spirit as they were. And so as you said in the beginning of our talk today, it becomes impossible with a handful of those people to even argue the subject.

You know, you would like to say the Bible is our source and our final source of truth and revelation and authority. And you know, let's just open it up, lay it up there on the table and let's get it on in a, in a polite way, you know, in a friendly Christian way, let's get it on.

Let's look at this passage and see what does it actually say. I found that faith assembly, Freeman and his followers were always ready to quote chapter in verse if they were coming against the JDS heresy or Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons.

They would go, oh, let me give you chapter in verse for the deity of Christ or, or the eternality of the punishment of the wicked. But if it's something that they didn't want to be cornered over, then all of a sudden, they didn't want to open their Bible.

They don't want to look at that at all. And and Hobart had this real, famous tendency when he got on a strong point that he was wanting to make, he would make this point, John.

And then he would say, and that's the say of the Lord. You know, that was his added confirmation. Anybody who's heard Hobart would know, oh, I heard him say that often. He'll, he'll be talking about some point, some doctrine, especially one of his own pet peeve things. And then he'll say, and that's the say of the Lord.

So you know, there's no way you can contradict it. You can't go against that because to go against that, you have gone against God. And that was the same exact thing that Brannum did.

That was his style of preaching. He would preach. And if it was something like he could be reading the Bible and he would say, and that is the say of the Lord, which if it came directly from the Bible, yeah, you might say that's okay.

But then he would wander off into doctrine and he would say, and that's the say of the Lord. And then the listener is faced with this question. Did God just speak through him as a prophet or is he just rattling off that phrase?

So he can have authority. And generally speaking, the wide variety of people usually go with the prophet aspect. So then every single thing that he says in a sermon is prophetic. And so people have taken that to extremes.

His son basically went around the world. saying every word that this prophet spoke on recording is thus saith the Lord, which basically means every word on these recordings is the ultimate authority on doctrine and scripture. So Hobart was basically mimicking that style of preaching. So do you remember Brandon actually making that statement he would be talking, preaching along, and he would say, and that's thus saith the Lord?

So this is going to be a pain point and I'm going to open up to you a little bit. When I first came out of this and I began investigating Branemism, I took things that he said commonly and I put them in silos of research.

And if it was massive, I would get help with it. If it was something that I could research myself, I would do it myself. And there weren't many people helping. My wife was really the only one for a long time. And we had our first conflict post message because of the saith the Lord.

There are approximately, and I've lost the count on the number. Don't quote me on the exact number, but I want to say it's approximately a thousand times he says this on recording. I started, I came across that and I started separating, okay, well, which one of these were prophecies, which ones were not. And I came up with a variety of everything from him saying that God spoke through him and it was a prophetic statement to one time he says, thus saith the Lord, anybody can say it. It's like beans and cornbread sticks to your soul. It's something like this.

And so you're like, what did that come from, man? What does that even mean? And so my wife started going through and I tasked her with helping identify the categories of thus saith the Lord.

So she created, she spent weeks and weeks and weeks and created this spreadsheet that had all the categories, all the counts, but she forgot to put the sermon index. So I couldn't use any of it.

There was no reference. It was just literally our word saying, well, he said this and it was in this category. So I never could use it and it created a little bit of conflict because she wasted, I don't know how many weeks, probably months, compiling all of this. And it was because his style was to speak his authority and to train people to believe that his sermons were prophetic by using that phrase. I find that very interesting. Hobart said it a lot. It wouldn't be in the thousands.

It probably, I don't remember it over maybe 50 times. But I always find the fact interesting when we can identify a particular point or view or interpretation or story that Hobart had that we know he got that directly from William Brannum. And when I think of these people saying, and that's the say of the Lord, I don't think. I mean, I'm Sure, I've never said that in a sermon in 45 years that I have preached, except maybe in the context you just said, if you read a verse from the Bible and you can say that's

thus say at the Lord, well that is, thus say at the Lord, but I often think, yes, they're coming across with this mystical, authoritative, don't question me, don't challenge me, don't touch God's anointed type of approach. And in the Old Testament, those men were prophets, and it was difficult to be a prophet because you were persecuted, misunderstood, but in one sense I've often thought it was the easiest thing in the world to be an Old Testament prophet, because God said, I will actually put my words in your mouth and you just have to speak them. In that sense, that was the easiest thing in the world to be a prophet in the Old

Testament. It's much harder today because everybody has to conjure up something, you know, it's not coming from God. I think it's way harder to be a prophet today than it was back then. Those men literally, John, were given the very word of God. Their ministry was difficult, their life was difficult, but to speak that word, that was the easiest thing in the world. It was a very word of God given to them. And today you see people stumbling and tripping over themselves because they're having to conjure up something and then say, that is the say of the Lord. Well, and take

it a step further. So, Brannum used it to show his authoritarian control and to convince people that he was the ultimate authority on doctrine and scripture. And it worked by and large, even the ministers who were with him and you can go look, there are hundreds of them that joined together in this. They all considered him his voice to be prophetic. And so when he preached, they thought it was the say of the Lord. But take the flip side of that as it relates to her minutics. So, I'm fascinated with history. You know that. When I was in school and we were studying American history, we're

reading through American history and I'm learning about, I don't know, the different battles that occurred just learning about the battle itself. Doesn't mean no good until I understand why the battle. So, if it's a battle, the battle between America and Mexico, for example, and you've got the Alamo story. Well, if you hear just the United States side of it, you don't understand the full story. So, you go learn the Mexico side and that's part of learning history. You learn both sides, you learn the culture, you learn the politics, what were the current events. Well, these guys,

who use this, thus say at the Lord phrase, in random is not the only one. Well, I could mention Kenneth Hagen and others that they use different words, but they're doing the same thing. It entered the charismatic movement. Whenever the do this. They do it in such a way where they actually recreate what the Bible is. So you mentioned, if you read the Bible, you're pretty safe to say to the Lord. I would actually argue that if you understand fully the concept of studying hermeneutics and what is the Bible, so you've got the Gospels. And the Gospels, what are they? They're a testimony by people

who were with Jesus, and they basically took their memories of Jesus and they wrote it down into a Gospel. And so they may have a statement, and Jesus went by the Sea of Galilee. And the author who's writing it may not have been there. So that phrase is actually not thus say at the Lord. That's the author saying, and Jesus went by the Sea of Galilee. But they remember the sayings of Jesus, and they repeated them one to another and carried them forward into what became Christianity. The words of Christ would be thus say at the Lord, if you believe Jesus is

God, you have to. So for me, the study of hermeneutics is fascinating because you rightly divide what is a written under inspiration, be what was meant to be written as history, their whole chapters of books in the Bible that are just history. Poetry, you've got music, you've got everything from prophecy to there are moral codes in the mosaic law that aren't religious codes, but they're like telling you how not to have mold grow in your hut. It's to that level, right? And if you can understand all of this, the Bible becomes a much greater book than you even thought it was. But

what these guys did, whenever they started saying that every single word is penned by God and written by God, that may be, you know, maybe God did work through the author's hands, but they're really limiting what the book is because they're limiting the understanding of what the book is. And in the book, by saying book, it's actually a library, it's a collection of books that we call the Bible.

Yeah, of 66 different books. So speaking of rightly dividing the word, this is a little tiny pocket spiral notebook. I can hardly open it up because all of the pages in it had just, you know, fallen out, but this is all of Dr. Freeman's teaching material when he did a study on the book of Revelation. He actually taught this when they were still in the Claypool church, the pink house, the church under the water tower, the home under the water tower in Claypool, Indiana in 1970, which was his home. And I'm teaching on the book of Revelation myself right now to

to a group of people in southern Kentucky. And I don't, I don't use Hobart's notes, but I picked this book up occasionally and just let through it to see what he said. And I just found last week or week before because I sent it to you, John.

I've gotten a little photograph of two pages that if you could show the people, they'll see exactly what I'm talking about. But I didn't know that in Revelation chapter six, this would be the third message in that series.

It's like an 11 tape series. You covered the whole book of Revelation 22 chapters and 11 messages. But in the third message, on the right page, right in the middle of the page, in his little spiral notebook, he is saying, he's trying to figure out what's going on with the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

That's the first eight verses of chapter six. The white horse, the red horse, the black horse, and then the pale horse. And he says right in the middle of that page that the antichrist is the writer on all four of those horses.

And then here's a quote from that in Hobart's own handwriting, Brannum given same interpretation. The interpretation Hobart has, wherever he got it from, Brannum given same interpretation. And of course, that is completely false.

It's not true. The text never says that antichrist is a writer. Actually, the first three writers are anonymous or unidentified. And actually, the writer on the fourth horse, John does identify. He didn't say antichrist.

He said, it's not at all. It's death. And Hades is following right behind him. So if you want to take John's view, we know who the fourth writer is and it's not what Brannum said.

But if you look at the very way, Hobart phrase that, Brannum given the same interpretation. In other words, we don't learn the meaning of scripture by diligent study. That's the way you're supposed to learn, by the way, by diligent study, by comparing scripture, with scripture.

The Bible is its own best interpreter. It's its own best commentary. You don't learn that way. You learn by whatever is just given to you. So somehow the Holy Spirit had given, way, and Brannum, the truth that nobody else had, unless the Holy Spirit gives it to you, that the antichrist is the writer on all four of these horses.

So that's a little example of really, really poor hermeneutics. And it actually contradicts what John said in his identification of the writer of the fourth horse. So here's where it gets interesting. And I looked it up while we were talking because my mind was like this.

I have to know. William Brannum said, does say at the Lord 1,606... 10 times. So that is the number of times my wife had to look up every single quote and go through it and she may have came back and said, you mean to tell me I went through 6,000 quotes? Maybe that's what stuck in my head, I don't know. But he was definitely using it a lot, which is where Hobart Freeman would have gotten the idea. Well, this white horse rider is interesting history.

As I told you, hermeneutics for me is fascinating because of the history. So the white supremacy groups in the early 1900s were fighting against, as you know, people who had black skin. But that's not the only forces that they were fighting against because of Christian identity. They believed by and large that the people with black skin were going to come as Satan's army, basically. But who was going to lead this army? The KKK was teaching that it was, it would be coming from Rome. And this doctrine spread throughout all of the United States that Rome was the anti-Christ. The Pope was

the anti-Christ, right? So William Brannum, working with, as we know, clan leaders, he found a source in Charles Tay's Russell's book, The Finish Mystery. He said, and behold the white horse, the doctrines and teachings of the Lord and the apostles recognized in one rule of faith and practice. And he that sat on him, the Bishop of Rome, the embryo Pope, the personal representative of Satan. So when William Brannum taught his first, he called it the first seal. I think that was the title of the sermon, if I remember correctly. And he had quoted previously Charles Tay's Russell, but he found this series of drawings by another person who totally destroyed

the hermeneutics and the understanding of revelation, a man by the name of Clarence Larkin. And Larkin was a dispensationalist, and he believed that where it says seven churches in the book of Revelation, he thought there were church ages. He added the word, even though the last chapter of the book says, if you add two or take away from, your part will be taken from the book of life.

He added the word ages. So they're both adding to the book of Revelation, right? Well, Clarence Larkin said, this white horse rider will be Satan's Superman. And he goes on, you know, there's some quotes that go along with the pictures and etc. You can look it up.

His book, I think, is called dispensational truth that has most of that in it. So William Brannum taught that, but he also taught that the white horse rider of Revelation was the Holy Spirit.

So, depending on which tapes that Hobart got from Brannum, It would have two different polar opposite meanings it's just wild and you know we spend and in my teaching on we've just finished those eight verses and I've spent several months probably I don't know two months so that's a teaching a week eight teachings probably more than that don't remember people go on my YouTube channel and find those messages but it does not identify the writer of the first three so you better not go identify it's it does and then it does identify the writer of the fourth one but I just find it fascinating that

Hobart is bringing so much Brannemism into his ministry and message he really admired the man and even though later in the mid-70s Hobart would say Brannem got off that was his favorite phrase well he got off at the end of his life and we would say he was never on you know there's no point at which he got off he was never on even though Hobart would admit he got off he would always follow that up with but I still believe he was God's prophet so you have a prophet who's teaching a bunch of crazy stuff and you know that's just

that's that and I can remember John as a teenager I never heard of William Browne first time I heard the name was through Hobart's tapes and then I would hear that he got off and then I would hear things about the Trinity and Serpent seed and you know the Seventh Messenger and Elijah and all of this I would hear this stuff and then I would hear but he was still God's prophet and it was very confusing to me as not only as a young person but as a new Christian because I couldn't reconcile that with what I thought I was seeing in

the Bible God's prophets were God's prophets and they didn't teach all this heretical stuff and somehow Hobart wanted to have his cake and eat it too he wanted to still say that Brandon was a prophet from God but you know he taught all this heretical doctrine none of that made any sense to me and if someone were to ask me what what did you do with that I didn't know what to do with it you know I couldn't explain it so all I could do is put it up on a shelf and not think about it and that's a very unfortunate thing to have to do as a

believer and and we never want Christian people I never want my listeners to say wow he's saying so many contradictory things you know whatever Chino says I'm just gonna put it on a shelf no I want to become an ask me say how could he be God's prophet and teach all this heresy another thing Hobart was just famous for all of his diagrams and Clarence Larkin as you said those people Scofield, Dallas Seminary, Clarence Larkin they're famous for all these diagrams here's another one John that I've given you if you could show them look at this crazy stuff going on I mean this is not real

biblical scholarship at all. This is something you do in kindergarten, trying to trace out and find spiritual meanings in everything in the tabernacle. In all of the Feast of Israel, Hobart is always just desperate to find hidden meanings. And I'm pretty famous for saying this. If the meaning is hidden, it's hidden for a good reason because it doesn't exist. Don't look for and believe in any hidden meaning. Just believe what's plainly and obviously said. If you look up in the top right hand corner, you know, people can on YouTube go back and pause on your picture and read this whole thing.

Top right hand corner of this fanciful chart he's drawing, you have in his handwriting all given clay pool 11, 24, 71. And in the top left corner, it says this, star of David, a picture of resurrected, reigning church. Then underneath star of David, cross. And that is a picture of the crucified church or the crucified Christ in church. And I mean, it's just, you know, there was no star of David in the Old Testament for sure. That's something that has to do with the modern state of Israel. But Hobart was always busy, John, looking for different groups of Christians. And he

could find them in the feast and Passover and Pentecost and Tabernacles. He could find them in the furniture of the Tabernacle. He could find your just born again, your spirit fill a born again, and then your manchild. He's always looking for the three. And the manchild, the overcomer, the one going all the way with God. I mean, this is just an exercise in mystical, biblical confusion to go through and study all these charts this way. He never thought that

what he would call a mere Christian, you know, merely a believer. He never thought that was very good. I mean, all they are, all they have is John 3, 16. All they have, and I would go, all they have is the gift of eternal life. There is no greater gift than that. As a gift of grace, it's not of works. We can't boast. It's given to us by God. There's no greater gift. You might have other gifts that come subsequent to that, but there's no greater gift than eternal life.

But those people, they just have John 3, 16. And that second group, that's the people who believe in the feast of Pentecost. They just have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But we're going on to feast of tabernacles, and you know, George Warnock.

as this very famous book written in title, Feast of Tabernacles, where these numbscalls are just hopping and skipping and jumping through the Bible, looking for typology and allegories and symbols and spiritualizing everything. And I would say that when you practice that form of Bible interpretation, 10 times out of 10 times is gonna lead you into error.

You need to just stay with what the text has to say. 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 Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.

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There is a psychological strategy. Whenever you're wanting to debate a hot topic and you have a group of people together, you don't focus on the topic. You focus their attention to something entirely different where they're thinking about the thing entirely different while you're telling them what you want to think about the topic.

All of these guys that do all of these drawings, it's psychology 101. But what Hobart is doing in this drawing you've given, I'm gonna pull it back up for the visual audience if you're watching the YouTube feed instead of the audio only.

Hobart Freeman has this pyramid going up and this pyramid going down. And off to the right, you can see he has this five point star of David. So not only is this Brannumism corthiology, this ties deeply to the Christian identity doctrine which was highly racist, highly problematic.

I'm gonna read your quote and then I'll describe what all of this means. This is 1965, sermon Brannum preached called ashamed. I want to preach on the descending of the star. I'll put a pyramid out and I'll draw it here and put the five point star of David coming down on it.

Well he has, and I'll throw this on the screen also. He has this diagram what's called the stature of a perfect man. And if you look at Hobart's top pyramid, it's got the pyramid.

and then it's got God at the top. That came directly from Branum's stature of a perfect man drawing that he drew on the chalkboard in my grandfather's church, the Branum Tabernacle. He believed that he had the ability to draw these things and he was drawing, tying it to the ancient pyramid of Giza.

Because pyramidology was deeply rooted in pentacostalism and dallyism. Everything, basically, the entire hierarchy of cults that descendant to create the Freeman movement. But he's teaching Branumism 101. So Branum had a pyramid going up to God being the capstone of the pyramid.

He would say, Jesus is the capstone. And then he also had the descended through the fire and water. I can't remember exactly how he called the pyramid going the other direction. But those two comprised the star of David.

I think a lot of Hobart followers who listen to his messages probably aren't aware. I have, unlike them, thankfully, unfortunately for me, I have the boxes of all of his notes, and sermons, and drawings, and diagrams.

So I had never seen anything like this until I started digging into his boxes. And it's possible that, and I think it's somewhat true to be honest and to be fair, that later in his life, he did, he tended to have a different approach to scripture than all of this stuff.

But I still think later in his life, this was still foundational. He never gave any of this up. He wasn't going to draw this up on the board. I think by, you know, 10 years later in, or 12 years later into his ministry, he might have thought, ah, that's a little far out.

I'll probably better not do that. But it was still core to what his belief was in trying to divide Christianity up between the haves and the have-mots, and the haves are those of us who attend faith assembly, and the have-mots would be everybody else out there.

I just want people who follow these podcasts, and we have some really good responses constantly. Weekly, I hear from people, John, who are following this, and who are, you know, it's a process. It is a process to untangle this web in your mind.

And the people that correspond with me have been a huge blessing because this is all hat to me, and I have forgotten what I had to go through. And trust me, I had to go through it like every other human being.

You know, you don't leave a cult on Sunday, and by Monday, you got everything figured out. You know, 100% where they're wrong and 100% what the Bible says. It simply doesn't happen that way.

But because it was so long ago for me, you know, I can't, I don't remember, and I can't appreciate until I watch someone. Before my very eyes going through this transformation like wow, I Thought Hobart was a good scholar. I thought he was a sound Bible teacher and I go Yeah, I remember one time. I thought the same thing. It's just been so long ago and now these people are going Wow, I'm listening to what you're saying and I'm following the thread. I'm listening to the facts You know you'll we actually play. This is what Hobart said. It's not my

My rendition of it. It's him speaking himself and and In light of this information that people are being given now. They're saying

What he said that doesn't line up with Scripture and I'm like hello, you know, that's what we've been saying all along here Doesn't line up with Scripture. Here is one. I just have to read this because I got to give props and credit to all these wonderful people out there. Here's one Message I got on Friday morning from a brother and we'll just say in another state He said brother Chenu. I want to thank you for your continued podcast with John Collins I took another step this morning. This was Friday last week and I'm getting ready to burn up those books by

Hobart Freeman And listen, I've never I've never encouraged anybody to burn anything, you know I keep it. Don't keep it. Read it. Don't read it. Just be careful. You know, Hobart was famous. You know, it was it was kind of like that Roman Catholics during the Inquisition period where Freeman had the books and tapes that could be followed and those were his and other ministers at faith Assembly and nobody else. I'll tell people you read whatever you want to read. Nobody can put that restriction on you But just be careful, but I found it so

interesting and humorous that this brother said I'm ready to burn up those books by Hobart Freeman I'm beginning to see Because he's following these podcasts that theologically he was in the far left field and he added so many rules to what the word of God says That it became impossible to keep I am working hard at breaking that mentality that one develops by listening to this stuff He said yes, I met Hobart. I met Jeff Barnett. I met Stan Hill. I met met Jack Farrell. I met Steve Hill back in the 1980s in the early 80s

He said, Chino you and I talked on the telephone this past fall just going into winter time And I do plan to call you again soon some Saturday and catch up on all these things and yes I would be willing to tell my story on John Paul Collins podcast at some point in time. Again, thanks for bringing these things up. And I was actually driving home from out of town from the teaching that I do and I was looking at my phone and my driving and then a picture pops up and he had gone to some wood lot somewhere, put all the

Freeman's books there, let them match to them, burned them and sent me a picture. And all I could do was just send back a cry face laughing, you know. It's a brother, you're really out there doing that. And then he said, and I threw away the tapes. I used to talk to Joe Brennan when I would order them and I did have the deeper deliverance and discernment series. Back then it was easy to listen to while I was a part of the satellite group and attending faith assembly whenever I was able to in Indiana. But now they actually sound

ridiculous. After we began to apply critical thinking and see what the Word of God actually says. And that's some wonderful fruit right there from just normal stuff of us talking about correct harmonutical principles. And he's welcome to share his story as well as anybody else who is wanting to come on if you were involved with the Freeman Cult. Every Friday I do the our stories and share somebody's story of what it was like for them. I found that no two people are alike in some cases. They because of the way the mind control works, their understanding of the cult and what happened to them is entirely different. And even my

own household will have people over who have escaped the brand of cult and we'll be talking. I'll say something that is deeply rooted in my mental ideology based off of this cult. And my wife will say something like no they didn't teach that. And then we'll have this little side side conversation where we're trying to explain well yeah they they did actually teach that but different people hold on to different values because it's also conflicting the doctrines are so conflicting. So it's it's interesting. And then when they leave a vast number of people want to burn everything. They want no part of it. And I'm going to throw this out there. You may have

something that Chino wants. So before you do it, contact Chino. Make sure that it's not something that he wants or needs. When we left the brand of cult, I wanted to destroy everything. And I live in the city. So I can't just easily burn it where I live. So what I did was I took these big old gallon these five gallon drywall buckets and I soaked them for weeks until there wasn't a single word on any of the pages in the books. And then a few years later afterwards, I'm like, man, I wish I'd have kept those because now I'm doing all this research. And I don't have the books. But

fortunately somebody sent me most of what I lost. I'm glad I've saved everything John. I don't even know why I did you know you keep seeing everyone keeps seeing these newspaper clippings and they're just about dry rotted they're so old I've had them in folders and files for all these years never dreamed never dreamed that I would have such need of them and use them under these circumstances but I'm glad that I did but you know I don't tell anyone to burn or get rid of your books you do whatever you want to with your books and with your

tapes but if you have some really good stuff thanks for the plug John please send it to me I have a lot of stuff but I'm sure I don't have everything and I don't because I'm learning from the stories that these people write and tell me about just fascinating details so the for the people who are still following Dr. Freeman or who are still in the process of untangling things in their mind what I would recommend is to just go and listen to the last two thing series that he taught and I've mentioned this before but I don't know that everyone hears every podcast or hears

everything that I say on the podcast the last things that he taught were first of all a little mini series called exhortations from Exodus this was taught in the summer and in the fall of 1984 and if you look on Hobart's tape list you'll see things like preaching from the prophets and gleaning from Galatians and teachings from Titus and judgments from Jude Hobart got real he loved the liberation and I thought at the end of his life he just got real cutesy he just liked things to rhyme he wanted to get laughs I have his notes where he actually has the joke written out so none

of this comes spontaneously he has the joke written out and he has ha ha beside it that's his reminder to tell it in such a way give dramatic calls so that he can get the appropriate response and I'm not saying it's wrong and you write it out or not write out you know every minister and teacher does their own thing but I just see at the end of his life he just got real cutesy with everything the way he told his stories he just had everything perfectly written down there was not anything spontaneous at the end so if listeners think that they were hearing the voice of God they

had to have they got to go back earlier that it was the handwriting of God when he wrote those notes before he stood up to speak those notes because when he was speaking down there was no anointing at all he already had everything written down it's kind of like the Pentecostal history I don't know if you know this or not but the speaking in tongues that emerged out of Charles Fox Parham's It actually started with writing in tongues and it's a history that not many people know and if you actually go look I've got a photograph of it on my website

But it looks a lot like somebody some kid two-year-olds maybe has been given a piece of paper and a crayon And there's a tic-tac toe board and there's some other gibberish and they said this was writing in Chinese Well, I have Chinese friends man and no way man This is this is not any dialect of Chinese But you're right people who especially the ministers like Brannum Hobart who are saying This is thus sayeth the Lord People get in that mindset where everything coming is thus sayeth the Lord in other words This is God speaking through our

Our mediator between God and man. That's essentially what they have created as a mediator and To find out that the mediator was part and like you said, there's nothing wrong with it But it was part of a stage presence a stage persona Just rocks worlds for people who are in this kind of thing. Yeah, and Hobart knew better and he knew enough I mean, he did have formal academic Bible training He knew enough to do a better job. That's what I really faulted him with When when it came to The end of his life and he's teaching, you know like this stuff on Exodus this was just and

He did not do a study of the book of Exodus. This was an occasion or an excuse for him to preach on his own pet doctrines What he really wanted to say anyway? and the biggest proof of that is He thought he had stumbled upon this great Corroboration for what faith assembly was experiencing in the childbirth issue You know, that was the big thing in 1984 children were being born children were dying in childbirth and People were going to jail over it. That was the whole thing about 1984 and Hobart thought he had stumbled on

Perfect corroboration in the book of Exodus and so that's why he started teaching that series And if you listen to the first couple of messages in that series He labors to show the people that faith assembly that This is just the history of God's people as we today are Experiencing so Israel and Egypt the problem with God's people has always been their faith in God and natural childbirth and as I Listen to that I could not believe what I was hearing You know, I still probably at that point in my mind I don't know I did in my life still had some

Tangle midst some wrong views in my mind based on Hobart's teaching But as I heard that that was his clearest day to me because as I read Exodus what I see there is that the civil authorities, namely Pharaoh and the leaders, the civil authorities were the ones who were trying to kill all the male infant Hebrew children.

In fact, the Simplies case, it was the civil authorities who were trying to save the lives of all of the infant children. And I thought, Hobart, you have actually taken a biblical story and stood it on its head.

It is upside down. And why is it those people that they to Simplie are sitting there going, Amen, Amen, gobbling it up. It's the power of this cult figure telling you that he's got this interpretation of Exodus and childbirth and you just go along with it.

And obviously, I forgive everyone because we all have believed false things from religious leaders. But the ones that I really hold accountable, let's not forget there were 40 word ministers. Those were the men who had greed, we've had Greek and we've had Hebrew and we've had archaeology and we've studied biblical theology and we know this and we know that.

Well where were you when Hobart is standing the Exodus story on its head and trying to make that apply to what's going on in faith assembly? Where they were is they were showing where their true loyalty existed, their loyalty was with Hobart Freeman, not with God, not with God's word and not with God's people.

Had it been one of those ministers would have stood up and said, hold on, time out here. That's not at all what we're being told here in the book of Exodus. The civil authorities are trying to kill the kids, the civil authorities today are trying to save the kids.

Other ones killing the kids, it's a court system trying to save the kids. As I have said, and I didn't make many friends over it, those guys couldn't fight their way out of a wet theological back.

Could they have they been able to do that? They would have stood up to Hobart and said, enough is enough. This is not the correct biblical interpretation, but they just go on saying whatever they want to say.

So one of the things people could listen to would be exhortations from Exodus. That's the one, if you listen to that, that has a prophecy about Bruce. That has Hobart talking against me, saying this man who got the faith message through this church is now writing three critical letters.

The third one, especially a critical letter, I'd write one letter, wouldn't get a response, so I'd wait a few months and write another one. The other thing they could listen to, John, would be the last couple of messages he preached and you've heard the name of these before, but they were entitled Comfort for Trouble Time.

It's part one and part two. And oh my, did faith assembly need some comfort for Trouble Time? times. He was teaching the whole 8th chapter of Romans in these two messages. They were taught on October 17th, a Wednesday night. That day he found out he had been indicted the next morning. He shows up, turns himself in at the county courthouse. And the following week, Wednesday night, October the 24th, he teaches part two of comfort for trouble times.

And if we can hear just a couple of clips, and I refuse to give in or give up or compromise, I don't compromise with the media, I don't compromise with the state, I don't compromise my position with the seminary where I taught to keep my job. If I'm not going to compromise over those things, why in the world would I be concerned about losing some money? I'd never compromise over that. I'm not confessing anything. I told him, I don't think you'll get a dime, but it wouldn't matter. Somebody said, what would you do if the court said five

million dollars would have cost you? I said, faith doesn't say what if. And what he has referenced to in that that we just heard is a civil trial where they're trying to determine Hobart's assets and get money out of him. And I'll never forget hearing this, hearing this clip because I thought, listen, Hobart, this is going to get your own teaching on non-resistance.

Hobart had picked up this view and teaching on non-resistance after having joined the brethren church where Jesus said, you've heard of old time, love your enemy, or love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say unto you that you do good to everyone that you don't resist evil if they slap you on one cheek, turn the other cheek. If they compil you to go one mile, go two mile. He taught on this rapidly all the time. And if they take you to court and take your coat, then freely offer them your cloak also. And in this clip

we just heard, Hobart said, I'm not confessing anything because he was so worried about negative confession. If you just say something, it has a power to come into being. He said, I'm not confessing anything, but I don't believe they'll get a dime. You mean you're not going to give your money as you have taught in the past. You're not just going to, they take your cloak, give them your coat also. I thought this is very, very hypocritical. And then John, we've got one final thing that I would like to play goes into a whole another area

so we maybe can end it with this. But this was in that same message. And by the way, there are true visitations of righteous elect angels. You have to know that difference. Certainly angels make appearances. There are guardians. Angels have been seen to use myself as an example, but it's happened to many have been seen as I minister the angel is ministering because I don't do the healing the angel of the Lord does. Now this will open up a whole can of worms that we can discuss in the future, but he's he's talking about angels

and he's talking about angels appearing and he makes this fantastic statement and he says well you know I'll just use myself for an example and he could not wait to use himself for an example about everything all he talked about was himself, but he he says in the clip on this is the last message that Hobart Freeman preached October 24th come for for trouble times part two the last message that he preached he says now it's possible that I've got an angel standing up here beside me now because people before have seen the angel of the Lord standing beside me as I minister

because you know I'm not the one who does the healing it's the angel of the Lord who does the healing and here comes that this unspoken threat against the people again you know he has himself in this position of touch not mine anointed he has himself in this position of don't question because this is the saith the Lord and now to add more power and I know Brannum and all these other false ministers have done the same thing but to add more power to that he's he's telling the people now you might not be able to see but other people the Lord has shown other people the angel of the

Lord standing right here beside me and look we do see the angel of the Lord standing beside Joshua in his book and and and Midia and and Gideon with the Midianites in the book of Judges but here you've got a minister saying the angel of the Lord is standing right here beside me as I minister that's a scary thing I've never said that in any of my teachings I would like to think that he is maybe is but I don't know that he is and I would never claim that he is nobody has seen him to be there

and if someone said they saw him I don't know whether they really saw him or not you know I don't know but that's not that's not necessary if you can't as a minister just teach God's word it's enough it's authoritative it's sufficient it's more than ample if you've got to have anything more than that then I think we have problems on our hands you know Chenna I've mentioned to you and have mentioned a few times on the podcast I'm a big fan of cars tunes. And I'm a big fan of comic books. Comic books were forbidden in the

Brandham religion. I don't know if you knew that or not. My favorite is Batman. And there is this character, this villain called the Ventriloquist. And he's an actual Ventriloquist who has a little dummy sitting in his lap.

And he is a mob boss that performs all of these villainous crimes, these horrendous crimes. But when he gets confronted by the law, it's the dolls that it's doing the talking. And the Ventriloquist is sitting there.

No, he made me do it. He made me do it. The way that the way that Hobart and obviously this was a direct plagiarization of Brandham strategy. The way that they're focusing on this angel beside them is the same thing as the this evil Ventriloquist because Brandham, I don't, I guess you know this, but I'll say it if you haven't. From 1946 or 47 when his stage persona was recreated, he shifted to having a angel beside him during the services. And you can find him talking about this quote unquote angel on recordings. He mentions frequently the description of the angel,

which is in conflict with other descriptions of his same angel from himself. One one one particular case, he he looks like an Indian guy with a turban and he's got a clean shaven beer, clean shaven face and one a beard and another. Anyway, it's all nonsense.

But what he did was like the Ventriloquist because he would tell the people, now it's not me speaking. When that angel comes near, it's God speaking through me. And this created a complex problem with his hermeneutics because then he had to also bring in Charles Tais Russell's theology wherein the archangel Michael was Jesus Christ. So he demoted Christ to that of an angel.

And then Brandham began claiming that his angel was Jesus Christ. So it creates this complex problem, but the strategy worked because nobody could argue with him when he said this ridiculous doctrine that was contrary to the Bible. No, it was the angel talking, not me. Like the like the Ventriloquist, no, it's this dummy in my lap, not me, right? And the irony of all of this for me look from the outside looking in whenever he Hobart is preaching the comfort for trouble times and going through the chapter of Romans. These guys trained the people to believe that chapters were in fact books. That's the

way that they taught it. They would read from a chapter and this chapter is the summary, the summation of his thought. But that's not the case. This was a letter to Romans. And the irony of this is that the letter to Romans was combating cult theology, cult hierarchies. If you continue on It's 12, it talks about Romans 10.

I think it talks about the exclusivity of these cults. And he says, no, no, no, no, there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. We are all one. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

In other words, you Gentiles who think that you're better than the Jews because you have the New Covenant don't think like this. No, we're all one. And they were being exclusive, just like Hobart, just like Branemism.

And if you continue reading to, what is it? I think it's chapter 16. He says that, I urge you to watch out for those who cause divisions among you. And I can't remember the exact phrase, you have to go look it up.

But he's literally talking about the Hobart Freemans of the world, the William Brannems of the world, who come professing a different Jesus, a different gospel, creating a division, creating a sect. And the irony of Hobart doing that during the last years of his life, while also mimicking Branem's angel, is unbelievable for me.

Yeah, and the real irony, John, that verse in Romans 16 and other passages, Hobart love that. Mark those that calls divisions contrary to what you have learned from faith assembly. That's why I was excluded.

It wasn't what the Bible teaches is what our doctrine is. They love those passages because that gave them the ammunition to exclude everybody that disagreed with them. But what Paul is saying is, if you have differed with biblical doctrine, then those are the ones you would exclude, not your own sect doctrine.

But that's what they practiced against me all the time. And just to share, if you didn't need any other reason for not following someone like Hobart, not listening to his messages, not buying the books in the tape.

If you didn't need any other reason, but this, this is enough. And it's just a narcissism. He was talking about himself all the time. And that's enough right there for you to know this minister is not from God.

Absolutely. Well, this was fun. I made it through another one. I wasn't sure when we started if I would, but I think I was able to contribute a little bit. So thank you for doing this.

You always contribute well, John. We interact well together. Well, thank you. 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-Branham.org.

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