Prosperity Gospel: Faith, Fortune, and False Promises

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-brandham.org and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Cheno Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Cheno D. Ross, YouTube channel. Cheno is good to be back and to talk all things Hobart Freeman and psychology and you know we ended on kind of an odd and unusual note last time and I'm sure if you know people listening we're kind of wondering where we went there

we're probably going to go a little bit deeper today but one of the things that went through my head as you were talking about no love in the family with Hobart Freeman, it matches the pattern of William Brandham. William Brandham came from a life of poverty even though there were points of time in which I questioned the poverty because he's in bed with the mob and the mob had lots of money and there's there's a lot of questions surrounding how he was able to purchase a new car every two years when he was poor in destitute. However the newspapers do say William

Brandham was poor in destitute so there's there's this weird conundrum but many of the things you described match what William Brandham had in his background so when you think of the psyche of a cult leader and what makes a man or woman become who they are you think of some similarities there but that wasn't even the big one that hit me as you were talking I got to thinking about this book I read called the Raven and the Raven is a complete summary of the life and times of Jim Jones of people's temple and when the Raven was published my grandfather and a few of the quote unquote

brethren from the Brandham tabernacle I am told blocked it from being put into the library here in Jeffersonville because they did not want cult members to know that Jim Jones was connected to William Brandham so they fought to keep it out of the library according to a person who has good knowledge of the of that era and that subject and anyway in the book the Raven it describes the poverty that Jones was in how his his health conditions weren't that great because of his poverty had you know if I can't remember the story either his dad died or his dad just simply left him and he was

kind of left with his mother for many years it tells the whole back of history and what you're describing with no love in the home, it kind of reminded me a lot of Hobart Freeman. And when you think of what that does to a child and then now take the child and throw them into the mix with this weird healing revival indoctrination, that combination seems to create this sort of scenario, not just with Jones and Branham, but I've studied a few others who have similar backgrounds. So this is a fascinating topic and I'm really excited to

get into it with you today. Well, thank you, John, for having me back on today. And thank you for that introduction. Faith Assembly ended on such a bad note. I don't think anyone can deny the fact that those as we have described in earlier podcasts. And as you can find in all of the newspaper clippings and articles, things were not going well. Faith Assembly in Dr. Freeman's own person alive. You know, the church was experiencing all kinds of problems. There were court cases.

People were going to prison. Dr. Freeman had been arrested and fingerprinted and booked and then released. And he was not doing well physically. The church had lost a lot of membership. We often describe something like that as being a dumpster fire. And that's kind of what Faith Assembly was like there at the very end. And so you obviously wonder, what's the background to all of this?

How did something that probably in the very very early years started on not a completely accurate or biblical foundation, but definitely started on a good foundation. I believe in all sincerity. I don't think Dr. Freeman set out to rob people or deceive people or kill people.

I don't think he set out to do any of that. I think there were some problems at the very beginning. But by and large, things were going pretty well in the early years of Faith Assembly. And I know people probably maybe get tired of or maybe question our approach to either Freeman or Brantum from a sociological or economic or psychological background or perspective. But those are all key components in all of our lives. I think that the people that follow these ministers want to view their minister as someone who spring from the temple of Zeus or Jupiter. You know, someone who

just appeared on the scene and was given a divine message and has no background or baggage that might affect that ministry and message. I'm sure that's the way people would love to think of their leaders and ministers.

But as we all know, it's simply not the case at all. We all have a history. We all have a background, whether it's good or bad, and it's probably both. We all have some good and some bad in our background.

And the psychologists and psychiatrists are good at trying to untangle some of that and try to figure out what is it in your current that is a carryover from your past. And how can we deal with that?

Definitely Dr. Freeman did not believe in psychology, quote unquote, did not believe that's a pagan attempt and an anti-Christ method and effort, we just need to go to the Bible. And whatever the Bible says, that's what we do and that's what we believe.

And you know, I understand that on the surface and in principle, yeah, that's great to say that. But as we mature as human beings and we become adults, we know that there are a lot of things from our background.

I can remember being a young Christian and I'm thinking of one particular person in my mind right now who had a very traumatic background. And it was a young lady and she was so excited to be a believer and she was always quoting Second Corinthians 517.

If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away and behold, all things have become new. And people tend to take that in a way in which the context in the Apostle Paul do not mean.

Just because you know, you have become a believer, let's say that you have lived a very, you know, a very sketchy life with drugs and alcohol in your background doesn't mean that some of the ramifications of that don't carry over into your Christian life.

I can wish that they didn't. I mean, I would be the first to wish that they didn't. Let's say that a person had a terrible eating habit and so they have become obese or even if they haven't done that, they just have very poor health because of poor eating habit and you become a believer and now you say, well, everything that's old about me has passed away.

I don't think that's what the Bible is talking about when it says that and I think we all know that not to be the case because we look at our own life and see the other definitely some carryovers from earlier times in my life.

So I think this is definitely true with Hobart Freeman. Last time we did in John talking about what I detect as just this, it's narcissism in his life for sure but it seems like it springs from a lack of love that there was a family dynamic in his childhood home that was lacking in love and no, I cannot prove that.

You know, I have not interviewed Dr. Freeman, his wife, his mother, his father. You know, I don't have access to information like that, but what I do have access to are the public preachings of Hobart.

And as I've said many times, there are 1157 tapes on the last list that was put out a month after he died. That's not private or secret information. That information is available to everyone.

And because of the fact that he loved to talk about himself, you get a lot of information. You know, had he been one who was just a college lecturer, a professor who just lectured for an hour and then walked away from the podium, and it was all subject matter related, you would know anything about the man.

But unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you want to interpret it, because he was in love with himself, we got to hear all kinds of things. So as I said, John, at the very end of the last teaching, when you listen to 1157 messages, that's public material, that's for anybody out there who wants to listen to them, you get a very, very good understanding of the man, Hobart Freeman, because he talks about himself so much.

And I simply went through the list of his father, his mother, his siblings, his wife, and then his three daughters, and trying to count the number of references to those people are the stories that he would tell about them, and they are just simply few and far between.

And the ones that he does tell are not these great, happy childhood or parenting stories. They are always, they are always without exception in the context of somehow validating his ministerial message. So for instance, when I told the story about his mother, Isabel Freeman, getting saved, he said that he had prayed for her for 14 years, from when he was converted until he got the message of faith, then he stopped praying, and he said, I just claimed her, based on John 14, 14, and in 10 minutes, she was saved.

And that's the story that he told. And that's okay, but I want to know the rest of the story. Tell me about your mother now that she's a believer. Where did she go to church?

How long did she live after that? And what is your interaction with her? This is your mother, you are her son. Now she's a believer too, right? I never, there was never, never anything about that.

It was only about, I claimed John 14, 14, and the faith message works, the end time message of faith works. And if you want to see your loved one saved, like I've seen my loved one saved, then claim John 14, 14.

And I talked about his dad. His dad was alive in living in Lexington, Kentucky when Hobart died in December of 1984. I don't know of a there isn't because I've heard all of the tapes, a single account of Dr.

Freeman ever traveling down to visit his elderly father. I know Hobart's old, he's six in his sixties, but his father is his father. That's not that far of a drive. And if he ever drove to visit his father and someone has that information, I would be happy to know it and then I can add that to my bank of knowledge.

But I just know, I just know as human beings, Sean, I'm just talking as a man, as a father and as a son and as a pastor and teacher. You know, I have been busy my whole adult life.

My parents lived down in North Mississippi. That was an eight hour drive to go see them. When I went to see him as often as I could and then when my father passed away, I went to see my mother.

And why do you do that? For one reason, for goodness sake, that's your parents, you know, you love them and you want to be with them and you want to help them. They're getting old in their life.

They've got chores. My dad loved it when I would show up because there were chores around the property that he sent. He lived in a house on a lake that he simply couldn't handle anymore.

And he said, now, if the boy gets down here, he'll take care of all those chores for him. And that's exactly what I did. And I hope my son's or listening to this will do that for me when I get old.

And I'm sure they will. The point is, there was some kind of dysfunction in this family. Never mentioning your father, taking a road trip to go visit to him. Never mentioning your mother. Any stories you tell about financial blessings are you and your ministry.

What about your wife? What are her hobbies? What's June like to do? What did you buy June? What's important in June's life? I just heard Hobart studied 14 to 16 hours a day and in his spare time, he liked to deal with amateur radios and he spent a lot of money on all of that equipment.

How about your wife? I would say that there's some kind of deprivation happening in that home life just based on the fact that in 1157 messages, there are no loving stories about any of your relatives.

That is a fact. That simply is a fact. How you interpret that is up to you. The way I interpret that is there was a lack of love there and that did something in Hobart's psyche that just made him want to be the best he could be.

If these other ministers are going to study 10 hours a day, I'm going to study 14 to 16 hours a day. It's like he was always having to earn everybody's approval and everybody's recognition.

He would talk about I'm a high school dropout, but I went through college and seminary and never made less than an a I mean To to an outside listener what you hear is someone begging for attention and someone begging for approval And and it's just sad to see that in Dr. Freeman's life But I do see that in his messages I did see that in his life and I think that it did affect his ministry and message There's so much to unpack there and I was thinking in a million directions as you were talking One of them you're talking about the you know the family unit how it should be strong between parents and children and

The sad truth of it is that a cult tries to sever those units and And especially once you are in a cult the and you leave it they there's shunning involved Sometimes it may not be actual physical shunning, but sometimes there's often there's emotional shunning You can be around us, but we're never going to connect with you the way that you were before and I had this one lady Her and her husband were talking about how you know she was struggling to cope after leaving and she said her parents Didn't want to connect except for through authoritarian rule and they said you can come back

But if you come back in my house lady you're gonna wear a dress every time you're in my house and she said I don't even own a dress I haven't for years and I said well You just have to tell her that works both ways. I'll I'll do this for you if you if you wear pants when you come into my house, right?

But it all goes back to another thing that you said It is all about the cult leader the mythology that has been created is all about the cult leader Whenever he preaches he or she we have female cult leaders now that are descended from Brannemism Whenever they preach they want to focus upon themselves because they want to make the mythology and the mythos about themselves And that's a one of the truest forms of narcissism if everything is about you you might be a narcissist, right?

And every example that I've mentioned before According to Jeff Foxworthy, right? You might be according to Jeff Foxworthy, right? But yeah, so it all has to be about you and it creates this mythology To the other point that you mentioned about how You know these quote-unquote Christian cult leaders they try to make it sound Christian and not like the ancient religions In so many ways it matches what was created in the ancient mythologies Because these cults of worship had a fictional base of you know that whatever was their mythology Whether it was a Greek or Roman temple or some of the pagan gods that the the Hebrews faced

These these mythologies that were created, were created much like fables and storytelling, and the pharaohs, it was connected politically, so you had the pharaohs or kings were often the divine, it would be the Hobart Freeman of whatever country you go into, right? The leaders are connected directly to God, and they're the divine channel from which God flowed. And in today's world, you don't have that type of mythology, but instead you have cult leaders that set up the same exact scenario on a much, much smaller scale. So so much unpack there, I could probably spend the next 10 podcasts just talking about everything that you just said.

Well, then let's take you to a little further and look at some more things that we haven't talked about. We do know that what Hobart Freeman really became known for was his, what Bruce Barron in his famous book that came out in the 80s called the Health and Wealth Gospel, that prosperity and divine healing became two of the key components to Dr. Freeman's message. And so with that in mind, it's also very easy to take the same public messages of Dr. Freeman, and you have to listen to all of them, because I mean, that's a lot being

said on 1157 approximately an hour or long messages. You have to you have to hear them all, but when you hear them all, you're going to hear some of the same things repeated. You know, the big stories about himself, you hear those hundreds of times, but these small things about his own life, you only hear them, you know, in a vulnerable moment during a message when Hobart pulls something out of the recesses of his mind as a memory from the past to tie in to whatever the point is he's making in his message. So having said that, I would lead secondly after

the just the psychological deprivation, the dysfunction in whatever ways that was manifested in his home life, the second thing that I do know about Hobart is he came from a life of poverty. He was born in Ewing Kentucky. He was a Kentucky guy. I think random is from Burnsville, so these are both Kentucky guys from Berksville. Berksville, I'm sorry, Brandon was from Berksville, Kentucky. I actually have an employee who has a cabin on the river down there in Berksville, Kentucky. So I should know Berksville, Kentucky. Hobart was born in Ewing, Kentucky, but he grew up in Louisville. He grew up on the south side of the downtown area of Louisville

in a Catholic neighborhood, in a poor neighborhood. He went to Isaac Shelby School. He went to DuPont Manual High School. school, you can drive by DuPont Manual High School today. But what we need to remember is that Dr. Freeman, we're talking about him and we are in 19 and 20, I mean, we're in 20 and 25. Hope Hart was born in 1920. He would be 125 years a hold if he were alive today.

He was born in 1920. This is, you know, pre-depression era, but he was a depression era child or young person because when the depression hit, you know, he's basically nine or ten years old. I mean, when he was born, this is just a couple of years after the end of the first World War. Something that young people like you and I, John, we studied in school and textbooks and Hope Hart was born two years after the end of the first Great World War. This was before F. Scott Fitzgerald published his book, The Great Gaspe that we all had to read in school. This was before

the invention of sliced bread. That's how old Hope Hart Freeman was when you consider when he was born. So he's born. He's raised during these depression years. He lives in a, in a poor Catholic neighborhood on the south side of Louisville. He dropped out of high school when he was 17 years old. He never even finished DuPont manual high school. But he immediately, then you often see this with kids who come from a poor background. He immediately decided to do something about that.

He did go to business school in Louisville, which is where he met Ava June Tompkins, who became June Freeman his wife. And he started some small businesses. They ended up moving to St. Petersburg, Florida in the early 1950s. He had a little small retail grocery store that was open seven days a week. And he also had his own independent photography business where he would take pictures of the nightclub stars and starlets and then go sell, you know, a high quality picture back to them, you know, for promotional purposes. And his him being unable to make a sale during a depression

time down there is what actually eventually led to his conversion. Anyway, he was, he was earning money. He said, I was earning money hand over fist if you listen to his testimony. He was because he had come from a poor background, you know, he's doing well by this time in his life.

Okay, so then he gets converted. And he is converted in St. Petersburg, Florida on the way home as he always tells from a nightclub in Tampa in 1952. And he immediately feels this call to ministry.

He tells the story on many of his messages where he tries for a long period of time to sell this little retail business, but because there's been an economic downturn in that part of Florida around that time.

He just couldn't sell the business. He finally found someone who said they would give him $500 for the business, all the equipment, everything, the stock, what's on the shelves. I'll give you $500, and then charged him $50 to move some stuff, so I think he said he walked away with $450.

And went away to Georgetown College and Georgetown Kentucky to pursue an undergraduate degree in Bible, and that's exactly what he did. So he went from a very poor background to a prosperous background. Realists will be short period of time. Right back into the poverty of being a Baptist minister, and he talks about that all the time that the church members would say, God, you keep our pastor humble and we'll keeping poor.

That was the philosophy he said of the Baptist churches. God, you keeping humble and we'll keeping poor. And so, you know, he said he was a very poor Baptist preacher, and he was the last year of his professorship at Grace Seminary, he said his annual salary was $4,200, $4,200, which you can do the math.

That's probably not terrible today, but according to him, that was pretty bad in 1960, 1961, $4,200. I do remember, however, that the message in which he tells his story, he's telling that story, which is so interesting to see when he pulls these things from his background to the current.

He's telling that story in light of the message he's preaching about how he is now living the abundant life, and he said it would take four years at that annual income to purchase the two cars parked his driveway right then. That is, if I don't eat, he said, so he's got two $8,000 cars.

And if you listen to all the messages, you know that he loved to drive Cadillacs, he loved the big Cadillacs. But when he really began carrying books to more of these seminars and meetings that he would appreciate around the country, he said because Lincoln town cars had a bigger trunk, then he switched from Cadillacs to Lincoln town cars.

So my point is he went from poverty to establishing businesses and being well all and driving nice cars back to poverty whenever he's a Baptist preacher. So I mean, the circumstances are just all ripe.

Whenever Hobart becomes charismatic in 1966 and he ends up. going to Dallas, Texas and sitting in on a seminar and listening to WV Grant and Kenneth Hagen and Gordon Lindsay and other people and hopefully in the future. John, you and I can talk about that because you've got actual pictures of the meeting room, which wasn't big where all of these people met. That was Hobart's introduction to the health and wealth gospel.

This was brand new to him. All he had thought before is, well, God, if you will just give me my daily bread, Matthew 6, early part of Matthew 6, I'm happy with that. But when he got down to Dallas, Texas, he learned, oh, there are more verses in Matthew 6. How about Matthew 6, 19 to 34, that he talked about all the time where he said, God, if you won't seek it, God, if you'll seek first the kingdom, God will provide all your needs. And he had always say,

he says, five or six times in those verses, you don't even have to take thought. And that's what we all were raised on hearing Hobart say that. So once he got into this health and wealth gospel, the wealth part of it was huge for him. You would hear in Matthew or I'm sorry, Philippians 419, my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. So what do you have need for? Do you need a new home? Do you need a new car? What do you have need? God will supply it. Third John 2, beloved, I wish above all things that you prosper and be in health,

even as your soul prospers. And John 10, 10, this is what he would use for preaching the abundant life. The thief come with not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. But Jesus said, I am come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. But do you see what's going on anytime abundant life is mentioned or prosperity or wealth or needs? It's all interpreted in a material sense. Every time you would go to any verse that has any of those words, it is all interpreted in a material sense. He has a message entitled The Abundant Life. And here are my

notes on it. He taught it at the glory barn early on in the early 1970s. And it's a message based on Matthew 633 and John 10, 10. And my first note I put on this is crass materialism. Because that's all it was about. And at the 41 minute and 6 second time stamp, he had this to say, he said, we must not try to budget God. I'm thinking in the financial realm, a budget limits God. The quicker you burn your budgets, the better all.

your life will be. And it goes on to teach the same thing on part one of God's great and precious promises. So here's a guy who's already got a pretty big following by this time and it's kind of easy to say don't go by a budget. But I've talked to other people, John, who heard that and thought, well, yeah, you know, if if I'm believing for the abundant life, quote unquote, and the abundant life for Hobart Freeman was Cadillacs and cars and no dead and clothes and whatever you want, he did not, he did not teach on that. He did not teach John 10, 10. He did not stress anything from

that passage in any kind of spiritual or godly sense. The life that you have now is one of financial prosperity and abundance. And that is just so reckless to do to a congregation. If you want to live that way yourself, but when you teach that to a congregation of people who don't have your following and therefore they don't have your income and you're just telling them, hey, I claim the promise. All you have to do is just claim the promise. It's all about claiming God's promises. I don't have these things because of my following. I have these things because I

claim the promises and you can do the same thing. And we know that's not the way this works at all. So you got young people there who probably needed to be on a budget and they just spend all that they had. It didn't matter to them. They just spend all because, you know, if you have a budget, Hobart had convinced them logically, budget equals limiting God. Don't put a limit on God so don't have a budget. And so Hobart would talk about, you know, he had no insurance on anything.

I claim Psalm 91. God's going to protect me and all that's mine. And then he'd also tell stories where two times he had severe traffic accidents, which he was preserved through. However, his vehicle was totaled. But he didn't carry. He said, well, God will just provide another one.

So consequently, I know one of the ministers there, we know everybody, I including me when we were, when I was a teenager, I was claiming a new car. Everybody's claiming a new car. Why? That's the abundant life. That's the Philippians 419. That's the third John two life. Just crass materialism is all that it was. And it works. If you've got thousands of followers and it doesn't work, if you don't have them or I paying job, it just doesn't work. And so this, this minister also claimed he got a car through a wealthy donor, no insurance on it. He hadn't had it a week,

and he got told in an automobile accident. And so guess what? Now he has no new car. And he didn't have the resources to go. Purchase a new one like Hobart did so when I heard all of that back then of course I'm young and dumb like everyone else when I have thought about that John over the years and I reflect on that I think what about The rest of the Bible's teaching on good Christian stewardship You should plan for a rainy day. That is biblical teaching from beginning to end you need to be wise

What about the fact that this money spent on these cars Came from the offerings of very poor people you need to use that responsibly You don't need to be so glib He thought his two Cadillacs came from God. They came from the generous offerings of a lot of loving people And just to say well, I didn't have any insurance because I'm trusting God. Oh, well, God didn't protect my cars Hmm, but he did protect me, but I got plenty of money coming from These wonderful people so I'll just go buy me two more cars and that's exactly what he did and I just have

As you can tell I just have serious problems as a minister Processing all of this as an adult where I am in my life and where I've been for years I just have serious problems with the crass materialism But I do believe that it in Hobart's life and Probably in a lot of these other ministers Maybe William Brannum was really poor in his childhood days I think a lot of this springs from childhood poverty So I think it does pay to do a little psychological investigation into the background of these people Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism

Transition through the latter reign Charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website William-Brannum.org On the book's page of the website You can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley, Stephen McCummery, John McKinnon and others With links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements If you want to contribute to the cause you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top

And as always be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching On behalf of William Brannum Historical Research we want to thank you for your support in our IHOP KC series Particularly the ones I'm doing with Bob Scott We talked some I think in a couple of episodes now about how For a cult to form and to create an authoritarian structure It takes a narcissistic personality just like you've mentioned, but it also takes something else that people often don't think about when they escape a cult.

It also takes cult members willing to submit themselves to the cult leader, and maybe unknowingly submit, but in the end they're willing to submit. And you think about the psychology of those people and what they were going through to the process that they went through to get to the place where they could submit.

And that leads me to another trail of thought that I think is largely untapped in the studies of these cult leaders that are in the prosperity gospel word of faith, randomism, latarine, NAR, all of this.

Whenever this was growing and being created, remember the lifespan of Hobart Freeman. So Hobart Freeman grew up poor, and to anybody who's young listening to these sad stories of how poor he was, oh my gosh, he's sad and he's poor.

And in today's world, if you were to hear the tapes, that's what you would think. But remember the old timers that were in there with him, the old timers who went through the Great Depression.

These are people who everybody, if you are of a certain age, everybody was poor during that time, and they could very easily relate to it. And so you find, that's part of the reason why I sometimes question how poor Brandon really was, because some of it was stage act, some of it was true.

And it's really hard to divide that line when somebody's really lying about everything that they say about themselves. Hobart may have been poor, I don't know, I'm not saying he wasn't. But what I am saying is that as you are tailoring your sermons about your mythology, rather than creating actually Bible-based sermons, where you're going to the context of the Bible and preaching about the Bible, he's choosing to focus on a topic that relates heavily to the people in his audience which went through the Great Depression.

Now combine that with many of these people also went through all of the turmoil of thinking the world was ending when World War II hit. So you've got the extreme poverty, you've got the end of the world, doomsday gloom, the rapturing faith we need to overcome this challenge that the world is in, they all had that mentality, especially the older ones in the congregation.

So psychologically they could connect with these sermons and that mythology sad to say more than they could connect with the actual scriptures had he been preaching it. So if he were to have been just preaching a Bible-based sermon and he starts telling people, you can't take your medicine.

But we're going to read this book, we're going to read from the book of Psalms now, come read with us. It would have emptied the crowds, right? Nobody would have listened to this nonsense, but he went through this psychological process and exercised manipulating his crowds based off of things in his own mythology that they were familiar with.

And we all have to question our own background. or investigated. Look at it. I bought in 100% to what Hobart taught. 100%. 110%. I didn't challenge or question a single thing, but I also have to look at the fact I was 17 years old, and you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer when you're 17 years old. I was an A student also, but I was not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to, I mean, how can you be? You don't have the worldly, you're just, you're just worldly dumb. You just are. And that's no fault of yours.

You know, you can only glean 17 years worth of life experience out of 17 years. That's all you can get out of it. When you're 30 and 40 and 50 and 60, I mean, look how, look how much more you have to call upon. So I, I've often said this that if you look at the constituents of faith assembly, you look up, you look at who made up the membership. People don't like it when I say this, but it is totally true that the majority of the people, the majority means not everyone, means there are exceptions. The majority of the people were down and out people.

I know. I just, I just know. Now, yes, there were some educated people. There were attorneys that burned their law degree. There were nurses that burned their nursing degree. There were doctors that gave up practicing medicine. Yes, there were some of those. There were college professors.

There were college educated people. Yes. There were those people there, but by and large. I have seen, and I think it is still true today, that messages like Hobart or Laterane, you know, that promise, you're going to rule the world one day. Those kinds of messages appeal to down and out people. I have often said who don't have any other way to get to that point. Let's say of financial prosperity. They come from a poor background. They aren't college educated. They did not go to a trade school. So they don't really have any good way to earn a decent income and

definitely not a high income. Now, we, again, there are always exceptions to anything you say. They're entrepreneurs out there who are who don't have any schooling and they're making more money than all of us. They're always the exceptions, but by and large, by and large is what I'm talking about. When you don't have any way to ever own a Lincoln town car or a drive an El Dorado Cadillac, any of those big lead sleds back in the day in the 1970s.

than these, why wouldn't you join up with a group like this? Because they can provide you with an absolute passage in the Bible that says in all things, whatsoever you ask in prayer, believing you shall receive. And then they will just continue to emphasize.

Now all things, now I didn't say some things. This is a way Hobart would teach you. I didn't say some things. It said all things. Now all things means all things. All things mean there are no exceptions. And they just pound that into you. And you walk away saying, well, after all that is what the verse said, you know, who am I? You know, number one, that is what the verse said. Number two, that's what the minister said that it said. And so who am I?

And that's exactly what I thought, John, who am I to question that? Plus, I'm pretty happy. You know, I can go claim a car. I claim a car and I didn't get it. And so did everybody else. They claim things and didn't get it. Why? Because we just weren't smart enough to figure out. Oh, Hobart wasn't driving Cadillacs on day one either. He had to build up enough of a following to generate enough of an income before he could drive the new cars. And then he could say, look, God's promises work for me. You know, we just couldn't

figure that out. And I guess, unfortunately, and evidently, there are still people today, John, that are following ministries and ministers like this, preaching this kind of message. You know these crazy guys like Kenneth Copeland and that whole word of faith group. They all say all this same stuff. It's the same health and wealth gospel. It's it's preaching wealth to these people. It's it's preaching Philippians 419. My God will supply all your need. And then they'll say, well, now that's really a need. And then they'll find another verse that says, well, he'll even get you the desires of your heart. You know, you know, so they are

masters at doing that instead of let's slow down and let's look at that verse in its context. And even without knowing anything about the context, just use common sense, surely Christianity, surely this, this profound belief system, religion of all religions, and I call it religion in quotation marks, this religion of all religions, surely, it is about more than health and wealth, physical health and wealth. Surely, it's about more than crass materialism. And and yes, Hobart's defendants will say, well, he preached on the spiritual side of things. Yes, he did, but they always took a back seat. They always took a back seat to what he really wanted

to talk about. And that was this material prosperity. And I'm telling you. telling you, it's almost unfortunate what happened to Hobart when he went to Dallas, Texas in 1966. He is newly spirit filled.

He's come out of this dry, as burnt, stale, toast, Baptist doctrine background. That's what he says. And he said, I was just dying on the inside. I needed to change. And so he enters into the charismatic realm and he goes to Dallas, Texas.

And then he hears of all people, people like Kenneth Hagen, who was one of the speakers there, who is preaching this wealth and health gospel, who's saying you can have what you say. Kenneth Hagen had a very famous sermon entitled How to Write Your Own Ticket with God.

I mean, that was a famous sermon of Kenneth Hagen's that, I mean, famous in the sense it is legendary that he could teach you as a Christian believer how to write your own ticket with God.

That is the true name and enclaimment message right there that you just fill out on the order form. What it is, you want to order from your celestial God in heaven and he will airmail that to you.

How to write your own ticket with God? And I am as aware as the next person is, trust me, of the verses that they will use to support that. But I would still with all that within me is argue that it's against not just the context, but it is against the message of the Christian Bible.

We've looked before, John, at some of these passages and acts. It's almost as though these ministers today think they have a higher revelation than the apostles in the early church did because in the early church there were poor people.

Paul was actually traveling around taking up a collection. He clearly tells us this in 1st and 2nd Corinthians and he is going to carry it back to the poor saints at Jerusalem. Why didn't he just rebuke them for their lack of faith?

That's exactly what Freeman did. He would rebuke people for their unbelief and then he would go to verses where Jesus scolded people for a lack of faith. So he would scold people. The reason you don't have is because you don't ask or you don't ask with enough faith.

But in the early church there was a chronic problem of poverty and it did not seem like any of the early Christian ministers felt it was their obligation to go around and with correct teaching free the church from this problem of poverty.

Just a reverse. They went around collecting offerings for them because I think the apostles were wise men and they knew, yes, God has made some promises to bless them. as people, but people are people. People come from all kinds of backgrounds. Not everyone is going to be on the same level as their neighbor around them. And Paul himself is traveling around sometimes he receives offerings like from the saints at Philippi and sometimes he doesn't. And he said, I, in my life, have learned how to be content with whatever I have and wherever I am. He said, I know how to abound and I know how to be a beast.

He says that himself. He says himself that he has suffered some blessings and he has suffered some adversity. And he's talking about in the realm of actually having a place to lay his head. And I don't see Paul claiming a new home claiming two new donkeys. He's just not doing that. He's just, he's just going out there and living his life. He's preaching the gospel and he's being persecuted not for him teaching health and well, but for teaching the cross of Jesus Christ. That's where he receives his persecution.

You know, I'm just odd enough of a character that I wish I had two donkeys. But you know, the point you're driving at is one that I've been thinking about how best to put into some sort of a research article or publication. But in the Bible, there is a concept that was common among all the ancient worlds, but the Israelite version of it differed from the other ancient pagan gods.

And that's of the divine council. In the divine council that you have the supreme deity and you have the court of all of the, you know, in polytheialistic religions, you had all the different gods of Pantheon. But in the Israelite version, the best examples in the book of Job where it describes Jesus and the adversary comes into the divine court and says, where were you and I was running to and fro and go see Job? You know, you know the story of Job. Anybody can read it.

That is a God who is in full and complete control. It's not a God that on a whim can be provoked by right your own divine ticket. You know, it's more like the God Loki if you're a Marvel fan, obviously, but if you understand Norse mythology and understand the chaos gods, if you look at the way in which some of the pagan religions, they just had complete chaos in the divine council.

And the humans were required to kind of intercede between that. Well, that's what these guys are doing, man. It's not a Christian version of the religion they're preaching by no means. No, not at all. And it did so much damage, you know. It just did so much damage to the people.

If you trace it back to, we're talking about Husbands and wives who are and you know all the legalism we've already covered which we won't recover But all that they are having to deal with you know

You can't wear glasses So you can't have a driver's license unless you're gonna do it illegally You can't work at all of these kinds of occupations because they're unscriptural the wife can't work She has to stay at home. She can't wear pants and be comfortable. She's got to wear a dress She's got to be barefoot and pregnant at all times for all seasons You have all of these things that have been put on faith assembly with Biblical Verses to support all of it. Of course, you know, you can't have it without a verse Hobart has taught them all this and and so I'm thinking of these poor people now with four and five and six and ten and eleven and one family

thirteen children And I'm thinking that so many of them lived in such dire poverty And yet he's preaching this message of prosperity and What I would always say is if the message is true then it will work It wasn't true and it didn't work We haven't even gotten to the healing side maybe we'll do that next week John But the healing message that Hobart taught was God will heal all sicknesses all the time under any and all circumstances If you just offer to him a mustard seed of faith that's all you have to do offer to him a mustard seed of faith

and all these things will happen the fact of the matter is Regardless of what your verse says, you know, you have to live in reality the fact of the matter says The message didn't work People were claiming and praying and believing and confessing and adoring for years and never got their healing Including Hobart and we will give those details when we get to that point so My point is it was a message that was based on verses taken out of their context Hobart was an expert proof texture He came from that kind of He came from that kind of church background as well

But I just think that it's something that worked well in Hobart's mind and what I mean by that

Is some people seem to think That the more verses you can get on your side, you know pick an argument Pre-trib post-trib rapture the more verses you can get on your side the better off you are and That's what Hobart would do rather than think about look there is only one correct view God doesn't have a half a dozen ways he's that are truth There is the truth and there is everything less than the truth not that any of us know all of what they truth is, but there is a truth. God doesn't have contradictory things in the Bible for good reason.

I mean, it would be so confusing to everyone. So there is some kind of healing and some kind of prosperity being taught in the Bible, but it's not what Hobart taught because Hobart's did not work, did not work for himself, did not work for his congregation, did not work for any of his followers.

What I have said before, John, about, and one of the earlier podcasts about this whole business of prosperity, because if you, to be fair, if you read the scriptures from cover to cover, there's definitely an emphasis on the fact of God materially caring for his people.

Now, it is not in the absolute right- your own ticket sense that Hagen and Freeman taught. I don't think it's in that sense at all, but there is definitely a message of prosperity, not the way they say it. I think Hobart's background of poverty is what made the word of faith message of prosperity just sound like he had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I just think he was so excited he couldn't believe because he heard also from Hagen, Hagen interpreted those verses the exact same way that Hobart would go on to do because Hobart learned it from Hagen and from the other guys there. And so Hobart himself was having to say, well, that is what the verse says. I guess I just misinterpreted it all along. I think that the Bible view of, of not only this, but everything is not a proof text view. It's an organic view. And what I mean by that is if you would go back and look at Deuteronomy 28, which God has the great suzerain with his

suzerainny treaty to the Israelite people, to that nation, he said, this is going to be my covenant with you. I'm going to be your God. You're going to be my people. And here are the stipulations of the covenant and the stipulations where you had to love me with all your heart. You're not allowed to have other gods and other idols before you. You had to obey my commandments. And if you will do all of these things, then here's what I will do for you. I will take care of you. Now he didn't say you won't have any down days in your life, but the overall theme is you won't have to name an

enclavement. What Moses said in Deuteronomy 28 from God is that these blessings will come on you and overtake you. And the blessings that Moses describes actually were blessings. He said, you'll be blessed in the field in your crops with your livestock in the city coming in going.

out the head and not the tail. I'll make you above all the nations instead of beneath all the nations. So there was a material sense in which God's promises were going to be fulfilled.

Political sense, a material sense, God said, I will take care of you. But notice that it is in this context. This is a point that I want to make. It's not in a context of how many verses can you find in the New Testament to prove prosperity versus the verses that the Baptist will use to prove Christian poverty. It's like there's two messages and I'm going to pull out my verses for prosperity and see if we can overwhelm your verses for poverty. That's not the way the Bible is written. The Bible is written to encourage God's people by saying, if you'll live a covenant

life with me and no one lives that perfectly. But if you will live in covenant relationship with me, if you will love me, if you will put me first in your life. And again, I have to always add in the parenthesis so that people understand nobody does it perfectly. And that's why we have God's long suffering and His mercy and His grace. No one does it perfectly. But if in our heart of hearts, our goal is to love the Lord and be obedient and to be in service of Him and to Him.

Then what Moses says, he says, these blessings will come on you and overtake you. In other words, you'll be so busy in your life, just living your Jewish life then or Christian life today.

We don't have to have a list on the board of, let's see, I got four more promises. I still need to claim before next Sunday gets here. You don't go through your life that way. You go through your life and covenant relationship with him. And then he said, these blessings will come on you and overtake you. And I just know for whatever reason, that's not the way Hobart lived his life.

I hate to say it, but he had this tendency towards legalism. I've said before no one could out Pharisee, Dr. Freeman as a Pharisee. For some reason, he had this legalistic tendency toward toward his teaching. I don't know if that came from his childhood or from denominational teaching.

I don't know where he got that, but he was just big on checking off the boxes, checking off, make sure you pray today, make sure you fast, make sure you intercede for the government, make sure you pray for the nation of Israel. There was such a list of things to do, and it was always taught in that manner that we have all these things that we need to do, but primarily find your need, locate a promise that addresses it.

and then simply claim the promise and then he'd go through his five steps, you know, you claim it and you confess it and you act on it and you endure it and then eventually the answer comes everything was a little mechanical system for dr freeman.

Consequently it didn't work didn't work for him didn't work for his followers didn't work for me when i was in my teenage years. But what did work for me in my teenage years and what has worked for me ever since then is simply by trying to live a godly life.

And don't get wrapped up and who's driving what kind of car you probably don't need that kind of car anyway and if you do then maybe you will be driving that you know it's just the craft materialism has got to go by by it's a terrible terrible blind on the christian faith.

It makes things it it makes christianity look like such a farce to people outside and let me just close from my side john with with one story we were talking earlier in this podcast about what is it that that makes those of us including myself who have followed a message like this what made us do that is hard for me to say about myself because I was a teenager.

If you began following this later in life you know then that would be a question that person would have to ask themselves what is it about me that made me different than normal reasonable people who would hear this kind of message and go now there's something not right with that I understand that they're using a verse to justify it but there's something that's not right.

So here's the story I would tell and it comes from my wonderful father who was never a part of this message my father was college educated he was a division one college basketball player we're right in the middle of March madness right now he was a paratrooper in the army he was a bank executive.

So the picture I'm trying to give is my dad had real life experience which I did not have as a 17 year old my dad had real adult manly life experience and he did was not happy at all that I was listening to doctor Freeman's tapes he would hear a few things being said he was definitely hearing what I'm sharing with him of what I'm learning he did was not happy with that at all did not agree with it at all.

My dad and my mother both but my dad was wise enough and patient enough to let me do what I was going to do you know within boundaries so when it came to college as I said before had I had my way when I graduated from high school I would have gone street.

to Northwestern Indiana and been a part of the glory barn. But because my father said no, and I felt I should respect my father's wishes, he said, no, you're going to get college educated first, then you can do whatever in the heck you want to go do, which was a very wise decision of his.

During the same time, he also found out that I had found a little church not far from where we lived. We were in North Mississippi and this church was up in Memphis and the pastor had gotten his early introduction to all this through none other than Hobart Freeman.

He never attended the glory barn as a member and he wasn't a satellite group because he began doing and teaching a lot of things, not like what Hobart taught, but he still believed all of your Freeman, Hagen, Copeland, that kind of stuff, that kind of message, that he believed.

So my father, after I had attended there, a few services, maybe even longer than that, said, you know, son, I think it's wise, I think I need to go to one of your church services.

I want to see what's going on there, very smart of my father to do. And so here, here I am, I'm probably 18 years old at the time, just a new Christian, I'm so excited about my walk, we're raising our hands, we're praising God and here comes my bank executive ex-Army Paratrooper, very stiff father into the church service, sits right with me on the front row.

And a story, an event happened that I have never forgotten that was incredibly embarrassing to me back then, but I'm so glad that it happened and it showed me so much later in my life.

So this church that we attended, which was called the Mid-South Charismatic Teaching Center, was on Sweeney Road, which literally ran right beside Memphis International Airport. It was one of the roads that, I mean, there was the church, the road, the tall fence, you jump the fence, and there the planes were taking off.

Plains were taking off all the time, literally right across the street from the church. So it was in a section of Memphis where you just had a lot of people wandering around. This particular service, a Sunday morning service that my father attended in the front door walks someone right out of Skid Row.

I mean, this was an old man who was drunk and he had found his way in the church. So he is teetering and tottering, coming up to center aisle, takes his place in an empty chair up on the front row, barely can keep his head up straight.

And of course, I'm witnessing this, my father's witnessing this, but here's what happened. So the pastor of the church, whose name was... Ken Hall saw that drunk man believes in all of this super spiritual supernatural stuff because that's what he's heard from all these latter rain people and from Hobart Freeman.

And he knows when he sees that man, that's definitely a demon of alcoholism. That is a spirit of alcohol that has possessed that man and he's going to go over there and lay hands on that man and cast that spirit of alcohol out.

And whenever that happens, of course what we're expecting is a result like when the apostles prayed for the lame man in Acts 3, the lame man got up and walked. We're expecting sobriety to hit this man full time.

So the pastor lays hands on him, rebukes that demon of alcohol. I cast this spirit out in Jesus name, be gone, you demon of alcohol. And when he got through praying, the man was sluked over, still drunk.

And of course I was embarrassed because I expected the demon of alcohol to be cast out of him. And I expected him to be sober. My father didn't expect that to happen at all because he didn't think it was a demon of alcohol.

He just saw the guy was drunk because he was probably an alcoholic and he had problems with him. And guess who was right? It wasn't the young man, me who had all the Bible knowledge.

It wasn't the young man who had all the Bible knowledge. It was my father who did not have all the Bible knowledge, but simply had common sense. And I just use that as an illustration for all of these things that we're talking about.

Miracles can and do happen. But they didn't happen that day and the guy might not have had a spirit of alcohol. He might have needed way more than simply someone slapping their hand on his forehead and praying for it.

You know, I often said this about the healing gospel, but the healing gospel and the prosperity gospel when it's a parent child relationship, they both really coexist. It's just prosperity, healing is just prosperity in the body versus prosperity in the wallet.

But I've said this before. So in the healing lines, in the faith healing lines during the healing revival, it was really odd because there were times at which there would be really old people who were going through the healing lines with old people ailments.

Everybody gets them. I'm already starting to get some of them, unfortunately, but hey, you better watch your confession over there. Yeah, it's a negative confession. But you'd watch these really old people go through the lines or listen to them and they would say, go home, you're healed, right?

And at the same time, they're preaching the prosperity health version of the prosperity gospel. The preaching that the world is going to end at any set. And so literally God just healed this person so that tomorrow they can go up to heaven and they're not going to need their healing, right?

They're going to get the new body in heaven. Well, think about that in terms of the wallet prosperity gospel. We're going to give you all this money. It reminds you of a person who Decides that they're fed up with this country. They want to move to France and on their way to the airport as they're leaving never to return.

Somebody comes up and hands them a suitcase of cash and says, look, I've got this suitcase of cash, but I'm not going to give it to you in France. I'm going to go put it in your house that you're leaving.

That's the prosperity gospel in a nutshell for me. So it's I could go into all kinds of rants and I I think I won't but So much so much to think through. Thank you for doing this. All right. Thanks for having me John. I appreciate it If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web You can find us at William-Branum.org. From more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation You can read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR available on Amazon, Kindle and Audible

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