The Hidden Agenda: From John Wimber and Shepherding to the NAR

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host and friend, Cynthia Ardish. And together we're discussing Charismania, the history and impact of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements on Christianity leading to the New Apostolic Reformation.

Cynthia it's good to be back. It's been a while. We had to put it off a few times, some because of the fires that were in LA and then some because I had some medical things I had to take care of. But finally we're getting back together and I'm a little excited. It actually worked out well that it got pushed back. I'm a little excited because as you know I came in contact with several documents and people have been sending me all kinds of things about John Wember and Lonnie Frisbee and all of the history that I guess the best way

to put it is kind of been erased. And these guys were collaborating with key figures who had just came out of the Latter-Ein, Branham Revivals. They're starting the shepherding movement. And you can't say that Wember is remembered for being part of the shepherding movement. However, he is definitely very active with them. So I thought it'd be good since you were you know you were in this movement. During the early years it'd be good to talk through some of what you know and let's just try to untangle this whole mess that was the shepherding movement. Well it's great to see you again John and thank you for

reminding me how old I am every time we talk about my past. But I think it's you know I'm really happy to go through this with you because I know when I was there back in the day I was really I mean I was so blessed to have escaped it and it really didn't do much damage to me. But like I said before I lost many friends whose faith was just wrecked. And I do remember one particular friend Jan who was a musician friend of mine. And she was very deep in shepherding. She talked all about Lonnie Frisbee in shepherding and she was excited because she

went out on these trips. You know they sent the young people to places to do things and The big thing back then was, oh my gosh, I get a trip and it's paid for, you know, we're going to Hawaii or we're going somewhere.

And now I was kind of lucky, I guess, because I was sort of a distracted geeky musician and I had other interests. So I wasn't as, I wasn't into the shepherding movement, it was like my friend was in it.

But I do, when you told me the dates about those magazines, that's pretty gobsmacking because I was at the vineyard, Anaheim vineyard, like from 81 through to 84, 85 from memory. And so that magazine you said was dated 86, one of them, and it talks about John Wimber being very much involved.

And I would say, without investigating it, but I think anyone can, a lot of this organizational template probably came out of fuller seminary because they were crafting the church growth curriculum, which is a man made, let's learn how to make the church bigger kind of thing.

And it even predated, I think, Schuhler, I don't know, but it seems like there's a connection there. What do you think? I think so. I mean, there's so many connections to be honest. Some of these names, like, so we're talking Lonnie Frisbee, and to you, this is a big name, to me, this is a new figure that I've really not dug much into.

Other than I know he's the hippie who was doing drugs and all kinds of other stuff that I won't talk about on this podcast, but as I'm getting deeper and people are sending me things, I'm starting to piece together what happened.

I'm not going to give my opinion yet, I want to study a bit more, but from the little pieces that they've sent me, it appears that key figures who were literally just fresh out of this thing that Brannum was a part of.

After he died in 1965, 1966, they started the shepherding movement, charismatic movement, the word of faith, the prosperity gospel, all of this is kind of emerging in various ways at the same time. So there is this epicenter at his death.

Then Lonnie Frisbee starts connecting directly with the heads of the shepherding movement, and keep in mind that one of those heads was William Brannum's former campaign manager, Erne Baxter. Baxter is in it. Somebody sent me, I think it's directly out of one of the testimonies of Lonnie Frisbee.

He's talking about the shepherding movement with great reverence, and he says it's tied very strongly to Watchman Knee, who is another figure that's new on my radar, but yeah. What a good die. Yeah, so it's this weird, weird mess, right?

And now keep in mind, these are the years before- for he's working with Wimber, then he comes in contact with John Wimber. And what I see happening in the timeline as I'm putting together all of these pieces, there's a point in time in which, and we'll get into the destructive nature of this later and the biblical issues with this movement.

But there came a point in time when everybody started to realize that this is turning into a very destructive cult. They have literally set up, it's the prototype for the NAR today, but they set up this hierarchy of authoritarian control.

And it went from the bottom all the way to the top to the top five people, right? So this pyramid scheme of authoritarian control existed, it was exposed, there were some sexual issues, there's all kinds of issues with it.

There's always that, yeah. After it is exposed, John Wimber connects with these guys and starts helping them to unite all charismatic with the former Shepardine guys and saying, we must have unity. And Wimber started using catch phrases like, what was he said, we're building an army, not an audience.

And his words became literally the battle cry for this movement as it's going through. I've got one of the, one of the backs of these magazines. This is March 17th through 21, 1987. In Washington, D.C., there's a conference for mobilizing the pastors.

And it has Larry Tomzack, who we briefly discussed before, but he was key individual in the Shepardine movement. And it has in these magazines, there's all kinds of names that you'll be familiar with, but they're using his phrase, build an army instead of an audience, which if you think of the timeline, they're using the army language shortly after this, he starts working with the Kansas City Fellowship who is bringing back Joel's army.

So all of these weird puzzle pieces, they're all starting to fit together a little bit. Yeah, and without, like studying this particularly, it just sounds like they're co-opting, well, first of all, they're misusing scripture, of course.

But if you look at just the design of all this, especially now, the time we live in now, we know what MLM organizations are. Pyramid scheme, I'm thinking mostly, like Shaq Lee or any multi-level marketing thing,

because here's the thing, these individuals are not leading true churches. These are our counterfeit churches, because in the Bible, we have a template, Jesus said, I'm building my, church. And a lot of the Pentecostals do not know where the information in the Bible is where it talks about Jesus' church. They're very particular things, you know, how the elders, there is accountability, there's order, there's a governing framework to it, like a Presbyterian design, governing framework to it. And I know people hate this word, institution, but the Lord himself institutes his church. And I'm not talking about like giant buildings,

incorporate designed, you know, Christian religions. I'm not, we're not talking about that. We're talking about the design and the order and the accountability of the real Christian church as taught in Scripture. And when you compare these movements, we notice right off the bat, that we have something similar to Chuck Smith's aberrant model. He had the Moses model, which means you got one head guy at the top that tells everybody else what to do, right? Top down. And I can imagine that when this stuff started brewing in the local area, other pastors of churches were really

upset and nervous because these movements are co-opting their flocks. I saw it. I just didn't know what it was until you started explaining more of this. And I thought, oh yeah, that's what my friend Jan met when she was really, you know, enthusiastic about these trips. I got roped into plain in one of Lonnie Frisbee's bands. So that's how I knew him. I didn't even know him because back in the day, there was always somebody out there preaching, you know, the Jesus movement in Southern California, right? But these guys were what we call itinerant. They were a self-appointed people. And we don't have

that in the Bible. We have ordained ministers who have checks and balances and all of that. So yeah, it's interesting. If you're going to have a religious business, this is the way you go, right?

Well, and it's kind of funny because whenever a one person in the business rises up and he's got business competitors, business competition, in other words, other evangelists, they start attacking each other. And so in one of these books that I've that have been sent from somebody that Lonnie Frisbee telling his life story, basically, he apparently met Bob Mumford, who was one of the key five in the shepherding movement at seminary. He said he was the Bible professor at what was a melody land school in Anaheim. So he met Bob Mumford and had a connection directly to Bob Mumford

before any of the shepherding movement mass came. And what's funny is there came a point in time and when they all started fighting with each other. And as I've mentioned to you before, We started recording.

I don't fully accept their stories as to why everybody separated. I don't think that is true. I think they're covering something up. But in this book, he's talking about Chuck Smith, apparently, absolutely hated Derek Prince.

He said, Derek Prince is a false prophet. And what he said, I don't know how much I disagree with it. He said, he's focusing so heavily on deliverance that he's, I'm paraphrasing. He's avoiding the gospel to focus on deliverance, which is probably a good thing that he said that.

But there is this parting of ways. And the interesting part is Lonnie Frisbee took the side of the deliverance minister because he was part of the Shepherding movement. And he speaks very highly of Derek Prince.

And so all of this builds up into this big foundation for everything. My one thing I do remember when you mentioned Derek Prince, my mom, who was not religious, used to have Derek Prince on the TV all the time.

And luckily, I never really paid more attention to it than, oh, there's this preacher yelling on the TV or whatever, because they get really excited. And that's why I get that idea. Why are they always yelling?

What is that? But yeah, he was a prosperity preacher back in the day before we knew it was what it was. And yeah, like I said, these individuals, in their business, this is a business model.

I mean, if you just ignore our personal spiritual, either we're offended or we agree with these people, I've met secular folks who analyze some of this. And there's one wonderful young man who analyzes all of the, it's interesting.

He does magicians, and he does faith healers. And he just shows how they know their craft, all the tricks that they employ to trick people into believing them, that kind of thing. Yeah, it's such a weird mess.

And I look back somewhere I have, and I meant to archive it on the website. And I don't think I'd ever got around to it. I need to go back and do that. But there is, so Derek Prince was big into the full gospel businessmen, which is also key to all of this.

A lot of what we see today would not exist without the full gospel businessmen. And I think I've mentioned it to you offline. I don't think I've mentioned in the podcast. But the two key figures that were the founders of that organization, one of them is related to the Kardashian family.

The other one is from, it's like 15 minutes from my house. He was a Brannum convert, and he toured with Brannum all throughout the United States. They were helping organize sponsor the meetings. And Charles is going through this history with me in the Revival series.

But. Almost throughout the entire history of the full gospel businessmen, there has been some Brannemite who was in power at a high level in the organization and when Brannem died, they helped fund the spreading of Brannemism So these guys are working together. Derek Prince is in there and somewhere I have an audio clip of Derek Prince introducing William Brannem as this great prophet and And oh wow. What's funny is years later, you know, they all say that we didn't have a part in this He was good until the end and then he went astray, but the timeline says something entirely differently

Well, I have to say this I actually applied for a job at the full gospel businessmen's headquarters in Costa Mesa Wow And you know what was weird I don't know if you remember, but remember when I said I worked I played in the orchestra for the praise symphony for Calvary Chapel Okay, and by the way whenever I say I worked it means I did work. I didn't get paid But when you're a hungry musician in college, right? A starving college student you'll play for anybody, right?

And I love the Lord so I thought I was doing good by playing that kind of music But I remember, you know, I needed a job and I was sitting in their waiting room I went to their building which was right down the street from TBN Because sometimes the praise symphony from Calvary would play at the TBN studios, right?

And I'll never forget sitting in the waiting room for my application to be you know approved or whatever I guess it was a secretarial position. It was not anything Intelligent right it was just well, it's just a worker bee, right?

But the creepiest thing in that building was it it was decorated exactly like TBN Which was like a mansion sort of like a really gaudy Everything was gold and crystal and wow It was really gaudy Stuff and I just got the ebgb's and luckily my My application was not accepted So I never got a job working there. I actually went to work for Disneyland instead So This is back in 80 gosh 82 81-ish something like that You dodged a bullet I think I think my guardian angel was working over time maybe time and a half

Because I was clueless really, you know, I had a vibe So there was something going on there and with a tummy gurgle but I don't know what it is about these false teachers. They always seem to be using the same Playbook and just the The wealth and opulence and Greasy familiar arity, you know, I don't know how else to describe it. It's just creepy So let's take a moment for anybody who's unfamiliar with a shepherding movement and how significant this is as it relates to the NAR, the charismatic movement, and let's just describe a bit the shepherding movement, and we'll go a little bit deeper after this,

and we'll talk about some of the scriptural implications. The movement, I guess it still exists today, I think there are some still, you know, some little chapters or whatever, but for the most part it has been dissolved because it was a very authoritarian structure.

So in the history of time, as I mentioned, right after William Brannum died, you had five people who got together in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and they began this new movement, which was really an attempt to control as all of this latering mess was starting to dissolve, because with Brannum's death, Brannum being the leader of the latering revivals, even though he was severely chastised towards the end of his ministry, he was still kind of holding it all together, and then he died, and everybody's just thinking, well, we were following this mess, I would just walk away from this, and so these groups started rising up to catch the fallout. One of them was

the shepherding movement, and one of William Brannum's, it was a member of his deity cult, T.L. Osborne, who's big in the word of faith and the prosperity gospel, he was sending these guys materials to start their little mission as they're starting to grow this thing.

When William Brannum died in 1966, T.L. Osborne openly admitted and declared and said, I don't even care if you think it's sacrilegious, we saw Jesus Christ come down in this man, William Brannum, and he was part of the deity cult that believed that God had come down in the flesh and William Brannum. If you come to Jeffersonville, there are hundreds of people who believe that same thing here today, that's part of the Brannum deity cult. So this guy is influencing the shepherds. He is working very close with, you know, he's known many of these guys for years,

but he worked especially close with earned baxter who toured with Brannum in the Baxter Brannum campaigns. And so they set up this structure where you basically, you have scribed to a shepherd and that shepherd would lead you, and over time, it was kind of like what happened with the Catholic church right before the Protestant Reformation. There were shepherds that were demanding money, there were demanding sex, there were all kinds of different problems with this, and people were willingly submitting to these guys. And then the people who were in the little, it's like little platoons, right? The people in the little platoons submitted to their generals or their pastors,

and these guys submitted all the way up to the admirals, and this hierarchy of authoritarian control is absolutely perfect. mission was created and established, I'm certain that it was presented with good intentions because nobody just joins into something that's horrific, but after realizing just how problematic this is, that you're fully submitting to other humans, it turned into a mess, and we'll talk about the mess later, but essentially it became known that this wasn't authoritarian cult that was created to create, establish, to create sub-cultes within the cult hierarchy.

So it was a big, huge mess. Yeah, I'm trying to, in my mind, I'm trying to edit or make this brief because I just want everybody to notice something that I noticed when I started setting this.

Okay, so the shepherding movement claimed to be based on second Timothy. You know, all of the instructions, you know, the new testament we find, the instructions for a true church, distributed throughout many of the letters and some of the finest ones are Paul's letters to Timothy and Titus, but here's the trick, and Paul says this, and even the other apostles say it too, Peter says, look, our brother Paul says things that are hard to understand.

And if you don't really work at it, you can misunderstand things. So what happened was the shepherding movement ironically distorted the scriptures, okay, to claim where the leaders, you got to do what we say, and this is very much about piotism, you know, you're not a Christian unless you do these things, right?

And I think they even said they were worried about weak faith, right? I guess they're judging faith by works, which is not okay, okay? But humans do that because that's what we do, that's our bad habit.

So with that to bolster their claims that they're the shepherds, they're the ones in the know, they're special. They have been chosen by God to tell everybody what to do and so on and so forth.

The irony is, they're using the very parts of scripture that tell us what the right thing to do is and how to look out for them. I think the scripture calls people like them, Janice and Jim Brace, remember those guys?

They were the evil magicians that wanted to keep the children of Israel in slavery and they opposed Moses, who was the covenant mediator. And so it's interesting, I think, that if you're in a shepherding movement, you really, I don't know of anybody, including my friend Jan, whoever really read all of the scriptures in context, they just took what was taught them.

And then you have all these liver shiver moments, what we call liver shiver moments. There's a exciting, you know, miracle or whatever the heck it was to keep people excited and thinking, oh God is working here.

So the entire enterprise is corrupt based on the description of the scripture. It is. And, you know, the way they presented it, and even still today, like I have seen to some smaller extent, I have seen this in churches recently, but they emphasize the fact that you need somebody to partner with you.

So basically what they're trying to create, it sounds kind of funny, but it's almost like they're trying to establish an AA program for church. So you're a center, you other people are a center, and you can come to me in my AA group and I'm going to help you overcome your sin instead of alcohol, that's what it is.

You know, the intent is good, but that's not really what it's supposed to be. Add this, you may not know this, but Rick Warren and the church growth movement as it blossomed with, you know, purpose and all that stuff, they have a whole menu of self-help classes, and it's called recovery, recovery from this, recovery from that.

And on and on, AA, you name it, okay. Now I want everyone to know, I understand the pain of people, and that is important to minister to people in pain and get them help.

But the right way to get help is if you're in pain over drug addiction or whatever, you should seek the best trained qualified professionals that can help that category, you know, that kind of thing.

And because this is a vulnerability, I think the reason the scriptures absolutely do not allow this stuff is because humans are vulnerable, and especially when they're suffering greatly from something like a pernicious sin or a pernicious entrapment to something unhealthy, you know, whatever that is.

Piotism is a poison, piotism, not piety, piotism, and that's the idea that if you don't get right with God, if you don't clean up your act, if you're not like a recovered alcoholic or a recovered whatever, you're not good enough for the Lord to love you, and that is a lie.

The Lord takes us as we are, in fact, it says he saves us while we're yet enemies, that's interesting. So it is really, it's really, I'm sorry, I have no patience for it now because I know folks that have suffered so deeply.

and continue to suffer. So this lie that they say, oh, if you do this, you'll be free. Well, Paul says in the book of Romans, well, the letter to the Romans, he says, a wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death, because Paul is talking about the back and forth daily life of a Christian. I do the things that I don't want to do. I don't do the things that I should be doing.

Remember that part? And it is an incessant prison of pain. And we Christians should be showing compassion and mercy towards those believers who earnestly seek to be free of their sin. But then Paul says, we will be free the day we either die or the Lord comes back again.

The Christian life is the struggle with sin. So there's a lot of money to be made with humans that struggle with sin. Look at the self-help book business. If you go into a bookstore, if you can find one nowadays, the self-help book department will never go out of business.

Never. There will always be somebody writing a book or doing a video on how to do, how to go in this diet, how to do this, you know, whatever, right? We've said New Year's. And that's pietism. And that's the poison of the shepherding movement. Because now people are enslaved just like the children of Israel to keep performing. And I don't know. I hope the viewers can kind of see that and maybe seek some relief. For me, it's a little bit odd because it's almost as though these men, if you can picture this scenario, somebody walks up to you and they've got these gates

of iron in their hands. And they say, you can be free here. Put these gates of iron around you. That's literally what they're doing, right? And Jesus, exactly, they're changed in Matthew. I think it's Matthew 23, if I remember right. Jesus says something to the effect, don't be called rabbi. You only have one teacher and you're all brothers. He did not teach this authoritarian structure. He wanted, basically, he's teaching against this authoritarian structure.

Well, I always wondered, I caught a snippet of it, of course, because pietism is everywhere, but one thing that hit me in studying the scriptures, I love the story of Mary Magdalene, or who we think is Mary Magdalene. It's the prostitute who breaks into the luncheon party that Jesus is attending with the Pharisees. He's there with the religious leaders, right? And she breaks in, and she's not speaking. She's just weeping, brokenhearted. She throws herself at his feet, and is weeping on his feet, and she dries his feet with her hair. She says nothing.

And he forgives. her of her sin. And I'm sorry, it's emotional because he says go. He says something like, I know daughter, I know your sins are many. He knows who she is. He goes, your faith has saved you.

Go and sin no more. Go in peace. You know, and it's this incredible moment. And she leaves. And and then he says, you know, keep this ointment for my burial. He's there's all these intriguing things going on there. But the notice that the religious leaders, you know, the Pharisees are insulted.

They say, throw this woman out. She has no reason to be here. Well, when you learn a little bit about the history of Pharisees, okay, they are a cult, a Jewish cult back then. They figured out they needed to add laws to the ten commandment and do things. You know, you've got to wash your hands. You have to do this before you're acceptable to be with God. And Jesus comes down hard on them.

So I love the moments where Jesus forgives these people in his healing moments. And we've seen nothing like that in these fake healings. No, that are in Charismania. Nothing. No. When it was, was it Peter? It might have been Paul. He said, what are you doing? Why are you submitting to a yoke of slavery? And he's talking about the same sort of thing that's going on, right? And I look back, you know, if you really think about what's happening in the timeline. So the Shepherding movement has been exposed. They went so far in some cases that you had to submit all of your

decisions. So if you wanted a new job, you had to go submit to your authority and say, can I have this new job? If I wanted a relationship, who can I marry? I actually knew some people who had been in that kind of thing. And their marriage was disastrous because they were actually told that they couldn't marry the one they wanted, but they could marry the one they didn't. And that just didn't work out. It was sad, but it's kind of a mess. But they had that level of submission and authority, right? And so back in Paul's day, he says, why are you submitting to this authority?

Why are you letting these Shepherding movement guys back then control you? And then John Wember comes along after it's been exposed for that level of control and problem. It would be as if he went to the people Paul is condemning and said, no, no, Paul, we must have unity.

And and it's interesting to I've been recapping my studies on Wember. His yoke of slavery is every bit as terrible, maybe worse, because it has the window dressing. Like I said before, he was such a friendly guy. He didn't have the obvious scandal or I mean, he just wasn't arrogant in any kind of relational way, but really studying what he said, I went back and looked at one of the videos of one of the sessions we had.

Man, it's flaming mysticism. It's right out of gnaustic pericy, okay? It's witchcraft dressed up in christianese, really. So the terrible stuff we see in R, N-A-R, is definitely related to that. You know, it's not anything new.

It is the same deception. The same deception we've seen in the Old Testament. That's why the Bible talks about Janice and Jambres, and what I find interesting about Janice and Jambres, see the Bible points to their particular damage to the church, which was, you need to doubt the covenantal relationship that Yahweh has with His people.

That's who Moses, see Moses wasn't a leader. He was a covenant mediator, so God only relates to His people in covenant. That's it. And you're either in the covenant or you're not. So it's really important to notice that nuance because it's not like Janice and Jambres were just these, you know, magicians who were unsaved and believed in false gods, of course.

No, they were conniving and they had an agenda. They had a particular goal. 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 Brandham Historical Research's website, William-Brandham.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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The other thing I want to point out to the viewers, everyone needs to read 2 Timothy 3rd chapter all the way through from beginning to end without stopping because there are warnings in there about people like this shepherding movement that are in the church.

Not outside the church. In fact, I don't think we're ever warned about worldliness. We're taught about it, but I love Paul. He's like, look, we understand the world. Any Christian who's got a couple of years of maturity gets what the world is, right?

But we Christians have trouble recognizing the dark perils that are in the church as we sojourn towards the age to come. We're pilgrims here. We are not there yet. We're in the age of grace, the age of the church.

We're in this world, but we're not to be of the world. And these charlatans that showed up, and that's who they are. They lied. They cheated. They stole. They distorted the scriptures. They abused the flock.

And one day the Lord will deal with that. But we're warned about it in 2 Timothy, 3, and other places. You know, you mentioned the legalism that flowed through this thing. It works base, works righteous.

What's interesting to me is the weird shift in the presentation of this. Because if you look at the whole movement's history, you can tie it all the way back into the Pentecostal faith, which is heavily worksbathed faith.

And then it goes into the charismatic movement. And they kind of package it up in this way that it doesn't seem to be worksbathed faith. But the deeper you get into it, that's the hook, right?

From the outside, it's all shiny and glittery and nice. Once they hook you, then whether it's a shepherding movement or some other similar thing, now you've got to submit to the authority of the elders.

And even though time and time again, it's been exposed for authoritarianism, it continues to repeat itself, just like you said, all the way up to the NAR. So let's talk about present day for a minute.

So in today's world, we don't have what's called shepherding movement, but we have these NAR quote unquote apostles. And you and I have talked to know in about how the word doesn't even apply to what these guys are doing there, to just randomly chose a title.

But they have created an established and authoritarianism structure where you can't question your apostles authority. You can't question his prophecy. You can't, if you do it, they fling these phrases like touch-knock-gods anointed or that kind of thing.

And they try to present the idea that they have been anointed, whether they have or haven't. But what they've created is exactly the same thing, too, I want to say it's a much larger scale than the shepherding movement, but it's not being presented as shepherding or discipling.

And in fact, they don't even use the term NAR, they don't like to do it. Instead, they have, like I said before, they've created this nice, glittery, shiny thing that come to our mega-church.

where there's all of these people and everybody's joyful, then you get in there and you submit to the authority. How is that different than what the shepherding movement was? Well, I see what you mean, but I want to get down to the bottom of things, okay?

So that word, piotism, that's a theological word. That's the word we should be using, because that'll help, okay? Because piotism is everywhere in the church. Remember how I said before, there's no safe denomination.

The Lord is saving His people throughout all time, throughout all lands. We have pretty much covered the earth with the gospel, which is so wonderful. I have some friends now that are from Africa that have an incredibly wonderful church there, and they're coming to America to evangelize us.

That's interesting. So piotism is the enemy of the gospel, because piotism at its core, you know, if you study what is it, how does it work? Is a problem for Christians because of one thing, actually.

The Lord has created all men, and He says in His holy word that the law of God is written on the hearts of all men, even the bad guys that don't seem like they have that in there, right?

They've suppressed the truth and unrighteousness, that kind of thing. But no, we have the law in our hearts, okay? And that's the 10 commandments, and that's what tells anybody on this planet, you know, this is right, that's wrong, and they develop their own version of it, but it's there.

Now, what mankind doesn't have written on their hearts is the gospel. That is the good news of how the Lord saves His people from His wrath to come, how He has sent His son to pay the price for our treason against a creator God, who is the great king of all creation, right?

That's not on our hearts. That's why the church has been commissioned to share that message. It's an announcement. It's not an instruction. It's like on the battlefield, when one army was winning over another, they would send a messenger into town to say, hey, we're winning.

You know, they'd send the good news into the town and just say, you know, our army is winning, right? That's the gospel of Jesus Christ. He has won everything for us. He died on the cross to pay for our sins and rose again on the third day to accomplish regeneration for all dead souls in this world under the curse of the law, okay?

So there's a law in the gospel and this piotism thing is an enemy. to the gospel because it continues the lie that, well, you haven't done enough. Jesus dying on the cross and rising again is not enough. You better get busy. You know, you better not be able to even make a decision in your life without figuring out, are you doing it right? Are you doing it wrong? And all of this. And so overarching in the entire message of the entire Bible, we see this dichotomy, you know, the law in the gospel.

The law has to, we have to have the law in our hearts as humans. So we even know what's good and bad because we are so depraved. Our fall from grace is so complete. Okay. So, so big. But when the Lord brings the gospel, that is the news from outside of us that we don't have in ourselves naturally. That's why we fight it. And you know, that's why there's so much trouble, right?

But that's why it's good news. And it's an important that the church that is the institution that the Lord has put on this planet to bring His message of mercy to sinners. And that is the ingredient that actually causes the most profound miracle on this planet. It gives life to dead sinners.

And that's where the resurrection really happens. Instead of in Carismania, they're trying to run around and raise somebody's pet dog from the dead or whatever, you know. It's always an imitation. See, the the enemy is always imitating what the truth is. And I sort of say it's a cheap knockoff of the real thing, right? Yeah. It's not even a good knockoff, right? Because in these movements, the signs and the wonders, the miracles, that actually has become the deity in these movements.

Yeah, it is. And that's why the Bible speaks so very harshly. I mean, the Lord Himself warns. He says, it's an evil generation who looks for a sign. You know, faith comes by hearing, not by seeing.

And all of that. I mean, if you read your Bible and read it in context, you'll be okay. Because even if you're poisoned by this pietism, like many folks who've come out of it have been.

I've been encouraged to read these testimonies of people who say, wow, I was caught in this terrible cult for 25 years. And I started reading through the letter of Romans in the New Testament.

See, the word of God is powerful, like a sword. And that's why I think the Lord is so strong about warning us against signs. Because I've never seen John Wimber teach a Bible study.

Ever. I mean, here's what I mean by that. I don't want everybody freaking out. No, I have gone through theological classes the last 30 years. But we took four years to go through the letter to the Romans, four years to study it deeply.

That's discipleship. And that's what I mean, studying the word of God in context and with intention to understand what the scripture says, not what it can do for me. I need more money, so I got to find all the passages that are going to make me wealthier, whatever.

There's a difference there. And that's what I hope we all continue to remember, because we're all vulnerable. None of us can walk. I mean, Paul says, don't get very fully yourselves or you could get pruned off the grapevine.

So we are to be dependent on the word of God, because Jesus is the word. That's why it says in the scripture, he is the word, the word of Christ, right? And I feel so safe in remembering that, because there's so much noise out there, everybody's saying something, and I have to say this, this whole ideology about an army, right?

And you've got the army of what the Shepherding Movement was, and now we have these people who think they're a Christian nationalist army going to take over the world, whatever. There's always going to be somebody out there claiming this army thing.

Well, I'd rather look at what the Lord says about his army, because he is with us this moment, and there will come a time when he will reveal what's really going on. So I'm excited about that, but stay away from the signs and wonders, because that's sort of like a beginning Christian disciple thing everyone should learn.

The faith comes by hearing, and you come as you are. So pietism is what we're looking at. Legalism is the same, very similar. People will accuse Christians like me of, oh, you're anti-nome, and you don't believe in the law, because we're so free to obey the Lord.

And it's like, no, that's a misunderstanding. No, the reason I'm free to obey the Lord is because I very well understand the guilt that I have and the grace that I've been given, which blows me away and makes me grateful.

And then I am free to do what I do in my life, because the Lord is governing me. I belong to Him. So I hope that the pain from the shepherding movement can really be used to teach people who the true shepherd is.

And Jesus said, my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. So the last topic that I'll bring up is accountability. It, as history has repeated itself again and again, one of the problems with the shepherding movement is who holds the shepherds accountable, right?

And whenever you have that type of leadership, the Bible says there's one mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. Well, these guys have literally become a mediator in these movements. Now, in today's world, in the NAR, again, it's the same similar structure.

You have the apostles who are your mediator between God and man, but in some cases, just your mediator for cheap tricks. I was talking to this one guy and the, I didn't even know they were still doing this, but the thing where William Brannum would guess the names and addresses and they would, you know.

Oh, my God. They're doing it like left and right in these places still today. Yeah, yeah. That's like, that sounds like one of those cocktail party tricks where somebody, you know, the higher magician who's doing, you know, how they go around the room and they, you know, ask guests, you know, can I tell your fortune or whatever they do that?

Well, you heard about the Hula worship over at Saddleback. Oh, no, I didn't hear that. Oh, you get anybody can Google this. They still have it. You know how here's the thing. Since they're a purpose church, they want to have a smorgasbord of lots of different kinds of worship to please everybody.

And remember how I said they also have a menu of all these self-help classes, you know. Well, they have a Hula worship. Look it up. Just Google Hula worship Saddleback, you know. And they just love it.

They think it's wonderful. They think it's an artistic ministry to the Lord. And now my question is, gee, I'm sort of a mythology student. And I know about the false gods, you know, the god of the volcano in Hawaii is Pele.

That's what Hula is all about. And by the way, I love looking at Hula. I mean, when you go to a Luao and you have Hula dancers and you're eating that wonderful barbecue pork or whatever, you know, it's a cultural experience, isn't it?

But to have Hula worship in a Christian church. I can't believe we're even having to say this on a podcast. This is not where you do this. Right. Yeah, I mean, Paul says it again.

I have to get back to Paul. He talks about eating meat, sacrifice to idols, right? Because everybody in the church were worried about that. Because you had a lot of that in that culture, right?

And he basically says, hey, if it doesn't bother your conscience, go ahead and order barbecue. Doesn't matter if it's good barbecue. Yeah. You know, that's why I said, if you want to go to a Luao and have a wonderful meal of barbecue pork, which is delicious, by the way, I've been to Hawaii.

And we had Hula dancers and they have the knife dancers and the torch dancers. That's a dinner party. That's not... going to send me to hell if I go there, even if I have an adult beverage, right?

But this bringing, importing these things into the church in order to appease sinners, people, all people are sinners, right? And that was the big problem with Rick Warren, that the man is apostate. You know, we certainly know now, if we ever doubted it, I mean, the whole of worship, you think would be a big signal.

I would have, I've been over at that church years ago, and I thought, you know, I don't know about those holy dancers. I don't think I'm coming back here. Yeah, it's hard to believe that we have entered a world where this is actually becoming the norm, all of these weird things that you see in the churches. And to the extent now you're seeing, and I'm not, I'm not going to go too deep with this because we'll get all kinds of hate mail, but you can see it extending all the way from the religious scene into the political scene.

Once it gets there, imagine where all it's going to go after that. So this, this has been a problem. What do dare we say, you know, I don't want to get into it, but dare we say we now see Paula White, who is the head of the religion department for the White House. Yeah.

That, I mean, right there is like, uh-oh, anyway, it is what it is. Not going to, yeah, not going to chase that down, but, you know, I'm excited because see the Lord has talked about the time in which he will help his people. And we're in that time for certain now.

I mean, 20 years ago, maybe not so much, but I see things that are so consistent with what the scripture describes. And if you want, I'd like to read what the scripture says to the church about the false teachers in the church.

So second Timothy, chapter three, I'm going to read the whole thing. It says, okay, and this is Paul, who has trained Timothy a new pastor. And he's talking about the godlessness in the last days.

And so he's talking about in the church. Okay. So he says, but understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Avoid such people. Okay. For among them are those who creep into households. and capture weak women that are burdened with sin and they're led astray by various passions, always learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.

Just as Janice and Jembray's opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth. Men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith, but they will not get very far for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

You, however, Timothy, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my practice, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch and Iconium and at Lystra, which persecutions I have endured, yet from them all the Lord has rescued me.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and imposter will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And knowing that, I don't know how a true believer in Christ could ever get snuckered by someone telling them they don't have enough of the Holy Spirit.

The problem is the Bible has no longer became important. The signs, the wonders, the feels, all of this chain reaction of events that we've been talking about, all of this led to what we see today and it's fascinating to me and scary all at the same time, but thank you for helping me to detangle this.

Well, we'll hang together there, John. It's an exciting time. It's also a terrible time. Isn't there a book about that? It was the worst of times. It was the best of times. I think I've heard that somewhere.

Yeah, but thank you for being my friend and being out there for people who are learning more about this. And I pray that they will find their comfort zone with our Lord Himself. Well, 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. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Automal.

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