Glasses, Guilt, and Gaslighting: Divine Healing Cults - Chino Ross

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Geno Ross, pastor and the voice of the Understanding Scripture and Truth by Geno D. Ross, YouTube channel.

Geno, it's good to be back and to talk all things, glasses and teeth and hair and who knows what all else. The levels of control that ministers have put over the people in this so-called deliverance ministry.

But it's a crazy thing. I have a few stories to tell from my side, but I'm certain you do as well. These ministers in the faith healing movement, what happened was they taught a level of perfection.

You had to perfect yourself in order to get this so-called rapturing faith or, you know, they spin it different ways. Brannum called it the rapturing faith. And the problem is they so closely tied the healing to the salvation to the rapturing faith, it all came in one bundle. And when you weren't raptured, well now you have to start looking, okay, what else went wrong with our quote-unquote salvation? Maybe we should get rid of glasses.

Maybe it's because we're wearing glasses or false teeth or Brannum had things like wigs. You can't wear a wigs if you're going to be perfect for heaven. Because in heaven, you're not going to wear a wig, my brother.

John, you and I don't compare notes. Obviously, before we go online, you always ask me, well, what are you going to talk about today? And I just say, here's what we're going to talk about.

But you just mentioned, which I have planned about halfway through this to talk about this rapturing faith and this salvation faith as it compares to healing. And I will get to that. But this has been a really busy week for me, just fielding calls from people who have connections to faith assembly in the past, literally all over the country, from coast to coast and various places in between.

And for the people who follow this particular one of yours dealing with faith assembly, I just want to give them the heads up that on this Friday, which is May the night, you often do on Friday something you call our stories where you are interviewing people who have a brand on background or an eye hop or a faith assembly background. And you have this woman named Jen Johnson who of Zaten Colorado, who's gonna tell her story.

So she was not a part of the mother church in Indiana, but she was a part of one of several satellite groups up in the state of Wisconsin. And I've talked with her on the phone and have had some really good conversations with her.

So she has some really interesting things to share that I hope everyone will tune into. But I wanted to start today with a long message on Facebook, messenger. And this is often the way people are able to track me down since I don't have this big presence on YouTube and the internet that you have.

And they can generally find one way or the other to track me down, but they track me down this way. And here's what she had to say. I'll just say in a far away state, but here in the United States.

And by the way, I think all of the people that I'm going to share something from today all said, you have our permission to use our names and say anything you want to. And I normally don't say the names just because I don't want to harm any family members that are still in a convoluted state in their mind or other friends.

But anyway, she said, hi, Chenou, you don't know me, but I discovered your podcast a week ago through my sister-in-law. We are old faith assembly members and we live in such and such state.

I love Jesus and have been through quite the journey since faith assembly, dealing with the aftermath 40 plus years later. We're hearing this exact same story of people who've navigated away from faith assembly to a greater or lesser degree.

I think I'm close to your age bracket and I too got into it when I was 17 or 18 years old. Words cannot express my gratitude for the podcast you guys are doing and the transparency and the truth that you were sharing.

But the first time in my life since faith assembly days, I sense a lightness and clarity like the clouds have parted and I see things differently. It's like I've had a heavy rock tied around my heart with a string and I lug it around constantly trying to assure myself that Jesus truly loves me and that his grace is real.

But then that rock of fear and condemnation and those old teachings popped into my mind. I tell myself that I'm way past all of that but discovering your podcast with John Collins has brought so, so much to the surface.

Imagine that. I'm sure it has. That's probably an understatement. And given me the opportunity. it to really take a hard look and yank out those last bits of weeds and thorns that have been there for so many years. My parents and family had quite the adventure. We had a small house church here in our state and my dad also pastored a small church in Finland and brought Dr. Freeman's message there as well. My sister was really good friends with Pam Meeney who died. You know, John, we did a whole podcast. That's the girl who died the summer of 84

over which Hobart was indicted and was booked and arrested and fingerprinted and I guarantee you had he not died himself had he gone to trial. He would have been convicted. We've talked before the judge interviewed him and asked him, you know, did you teach this? And he said, no, I just teach God wants to heal us people on however they work it out. They work it out on their own.

And you know, the prosecution would have gotten a hold of all of the cassette tapes where that is definitely not true. She said, I was best friends with Pam's older sister. Her death hit us all so hard. We're talking about 41 years ago when this young lady died. She was the sweetest young girl and it was such a tragedy. I've listened to hundreds and hundreds of Hobart's tapes and Bruce Kinsey and Jeff Barnett and all of them. She says that her husband was from Indiana and she has relatives who are married into some of the Freeman daughter's families and that's Pam and Kathy

and Becky. She said, I didn't know any other way to contact you but Facebook. Thank you, thank you for the messages for Y'all's heart for helping us who have been a part of this to find healing and wholeness in Jesus. She said to be honest, you guys are probably the first people I've ever come across in my life that I feel I can trust when it comes to talking about my past at Faith Assembly. She said, I follow children of F.A. on Facebook, which is a big Facebook group.

But so many on there were toddlers or really young when I was there and so many have just thrown out Christianity altogether. So I don't find it to be very spiritually constructive for me.

That's just my humble opinion and everyone has their own experience and how they feel. But it saddens me when I see that those years turned people away from Christ altogether. You get it. You were in it and you listened to all the tapes and you followed the ministry, but you were an outlier, not part of the inside, but you still communicated your concerns to Hobart and everything you share is so interesting. A lot of it I didn't know about his background, except for the stories that he told over and over, and then she goes on to tell

more stories of how her husband, she said, was suspicious of the Sodomite shoes and prostitute purses. And, you know, he had a skeptical eye for things like that, but he was still drawn in by the theological studies that Hobart did. So even after Hobart died, they were a part of the church there, and they continued to be a part of the church for a pretty good little while.

She said, later in the 80s, we haven't gotten to this part in our podcast. You dealt with Paul Cain and KCI Hop on with some of the other people you talk with, but we haven't gotten to that with how Faith Assembly ended up, and they did in the late 80s, heading in that direction to John Paul Jackson and Bob Jones and Mike Bickle and Paul Cain and that whole group.

But whenever that influence became prevalent at Faith Assembly, then her husband and consequently her along with him didn't want to follow that anymore. They had a meeting. They were called in to a meeting. Imagine that of the church because her husband, she said, was a little more vocal in his opposition, which you should be. You should be raising questions and saying, what about this and what about that? Not everybody's willing to do that, but evidently her husband was. So he raised questions called into a meeting and then kicked out of the church because of their opposition

to Paul Cain and Mike Bickle and look at where Paul Cain and Mike Bickle are today, where they ended up. This man had some good common sense. They were kicked out. She went on to say in a later communication with me and I also found interesting years later. They were going back to Indiana to visit relatives and they set up a little meeting. I think it might have been, let's have coffee together with Steve Hill and his wife Pam, that's Dr. Freeman's oldest daughter. She said, at that point, they joked about and laughed about being kicked out of the church way back in those

days, but nothing was said about Dr. Freeman of the message. It's just like, oh yeah, wasn't that funny? You all got kicked out. Here we are sitting. I think that's part of the huge problem that people have today with some of these ministers who are still connected to it in the sense that, no, they don't follow that hard line anymore, but they won't say why. They won't throw it under the bus and call it what it really is. At that meeting, what should have been said is I so much apologised to you for kicking- you out of the church, I have no authority to do that. You can't kick someone out of your church

because they disagree with the false prophet that you're wanting to follow now. You know, there's no grounds for kicking anybody out of the church. I think some people out there in YouTube Land wonder, and I've had people ask me, how much authority do you think a pastor should have in the lives of the people in his church? You know, from 1% to 100%, you know, what percentage of their life do you think that the pastor of the church should be able to have authority in their life? And my response would be none of that, it would be 0%. As a pastor,

you have the responsibility to share God's word from the pulpit to the best of your ability and to love your people and be there for your people. As far as authority in their life, where they work, who they marry, what they wear, what they drink, whether they go to the doctor, don't, who they listen to on radio or television. Hobart Filthy had authority in every sphere of their life as we know from all of our earlier podcasts. I don't think a real pastor has any authority at all in anybody's life in the church. You know, once they walk out those doors,

if you've got something you want to control in the service and it's your building and you're the pastor, you know, so be it. Once they walk out those doors and before they walk into those doors, their life is their life. And you know, if you have to put a bridal in somebody's mouth to force them to do something, that's not the way to do it anyway. You want people to do things willingly.

So you share what you need to share. You teach what you think is the right thing to teach and then just let people make up their own mind. So some wonderful stories from some people who are feeling the healing. And I said to you before you went online that you're, you're an old hand at this. I mean, you've been in the cult awareness business for a long time. And I had no idea, John a year ago when you and I hooked up and you asked me, you only do a few podcasts. And that's what I thought we probably both thought it would be two or three or four or five on Hobart Freeman.

And here we are a year later. And so you've heard everything. For me, I'm telling you when I read these messages from people. I mean, it, it really bothers me. It bothers me in the sense that I try to put myself in their shoes, which I simply know that I cannot do. And I just can't believe the sure those people were under and the links that they tried to go to to obey and then just the all of these years later, it's rare that I've talked to anyone who've said, you know, I ditch that teaching 40 years ago and have never thought twice about it. Even the people who

say that out of their life, once they hear us talking about it, they will say, I still catch myself. If the car is slitting, I say the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, or if their hammer hits their finger, they'll say the same thing. Or they just have all of this, they said, it's still a part of me. And then you guys say, well, where did any early Christian ever plead the blood?

You know, when Paul was about shipwreck or when Peter was in jail or, you know, anything that we read in the book of Acts, what did anybody say? I plead the blood of Jesus against that.

And of course, for us to say that, the people that are still following for him and say, well, you guys are just anti Jesus or anti the crawls for something, but you know, it's nothing like that.

I have a much different word when I hit my hand with a hammer now, but you know, there's so much there to unpack. When people ask me how much authority a pastor should have over them, my answer is always look at the pastor's kids and tell me how it's working to have that authority. Not a single pastor's child that I know of lives the life that the pastor wants.

And that's the one that the pastor's usually control the most because as they try to keep up the appearance of avoiding all evil, et cetera and having the perfect household, usually the kids will tell you what kind of man the pastor is. And I say, look there first. And if they don't understand that, then I usually say, if there's less than 0%, I would dub it less than 0%. Because you know, that doesn't work. Even when you train a dog, you don't train a dog by trying to force it and beat it and scold it and rebuke it. You give a dog a treat. Otherwise, the dog's going to behave

very poorly. And my second answer, if they don't get the first one, as I said, I always say, do you want to be treated less than a dog? Because that's really what it is when a pastor does this. And you know, the sad truth of it is, you're right. I have talked to a very lot of people, hundreds of people at this point. I've worked probably one on one. I would say it's at least in the two or three hundreds of people that I've worked one on one with over the years. Some of them remote,

you know, through email, but and I can't count the number of people. Every person who approaches me without fail, they think that they're unique. They think that their story is so awful that it is unique.

And the first, I don't know, the first 50 that I got, I was so emotionally connected to it, I was, I was a nervous rack man, it was tearing me up. And you kind of have to lift rise above that once you realize that, you know, there's so many people that were treated like dogs and you have to help them back up and you have to show them much like a pastor should be doing for them.

You have to teach them to help themselves. And that's really the problem and the crux with the pastors who are so controlling. They're not really teaching the people, they're just trying to corral the people and there's a big difference between leadership that will corral people and try to maintain whatever is the appearance versus enabling people to become more powerful leaders themselves.

Yeah, and I'm always looking for striking the balance. You have a lot more experience with this than I do. When I hear from someone, I don't want to treat it like, oh, you're just one of a hundred.

I've heard this story many times before because it is in their mind and opinion, it's totally unique to them. And I get that. I think what they are realizing, John, by listening to the podcast is that they're not the only one.

They're going, wow, you know, then that's why I read some of this letter or message from this sister in another state, when other people here, they say, well, that's me. That's exactly me. And that's what I've heard from a lot of them.

It's very vindicating for them to find out that, you know, they're not the only one who was caught up in this and who have gone through some of the same steps to disentangle themselves from it.

And so other people I heard from this week, and we talked about eyeglasses last time, eyeglasses was just a big subject at faith assembly. It was almost a litmus test because you can see, you know, you don't know if somebody's trusting God for their kidneys or whatever else, but you can see whether they're trusting God for their eyes or not, quote unquote, are they wearing glasses?

And so then you have, then you have these women who are mothers, who are homemakers. I've heard from their children, my mother, she was a homemaker, and that's a wonderful calling. And that was really the only calling Dr. Freeman would allow for women was as a homemaker.

And that's a wonderful calling. And they could not even read the recipes to make the food for their children. And they were homeschooling their children. And homeschooling is wonderful if you and your husband and wife and family can navigate that process.

It's good. It has its benefits. It has some drawbacks because of the lack of socialization of your children. You know, there's no right or wrong way every family has to determine that on their own.

My wife and I did homeschooling pretty much all five of our children, at least in the early years of their life. They did all go into public school at some point in their life.

We have kind of a unique story, just speaking of homeschooling in that my oldest wanted to be homeschool gone through homeschooling early then through the public school system. And the last two years of high school, which are the hardest years, your junior and senior year of high school, he wanted to be homeschooled again.

Well, I was busy working. His mother was not capable of doing that. So he homeschooled himself. And guess what, he's got an earned doctorate degree and he's a college professor now. So, you know, there is no one size fits all.

You know, some people can do that and some people can. But for the mothers who were trying to homeschool, they can't read the lessons themselves. And the kids, if they needed glasses and weren't allowed, they couldn't read the lessons.

And the kids who weren't homeschooled and not all were, they were put in a public school system. Can you imagine, and I can because I've heard from them, what it's like to sit in a classroom and you either can't read the blackboard because you can't see far away or you can't read the book because you can't see up close.

Can you imagine, you know, a nine-year-old, a 12-year-old, the pressure that they're under? You're already under this immense pressure knowing that you're different because at every turn you are pulled out of the classroom and put in a special room because you can't celebrate Easter because you can't go to the football game because you can't celebrate Christmas because you can't eat this candy because you can't go watch a magic show because you can't, you can't, you can't.

These children were pulled out of class all the time. They went sat in the room until that hour event got over and all their classmates know, you're the only one that got pulled out.

What's wrong with you? Why are you so weird? And then they can't read? This is the trauma that these poor people have had to deal with. The first generation faith assembly are older people.

It's the children and the grandchildren born into this who didn't have a say on what they could or couldn't do and who have experience as trauma. And again, when you grow up in a religious setting like that, being different to an extreme degree, being a Christian already is going to make you different but being different to an extreme degree where you're not just different, you're weird.

You're not allowed to do anything. There's no list to do. The list is only a list of dunks, which you are not allowed to do. Then there is no surprise. Why some of these kids? I talked to I want to say when I say kids there in their 40s and 50s, maybe two different ones just this week.

Who were wonderful to talk to, by the way, but who actually were willing to communicate with me, you know, I don't even think I'm a believer. I don't even know that I want to be a Christian.

And, you know, I told the ones I talked to, I said, look, I get it. You know, as a Christian minister, I'm going to urge you, as Jesus said to me, Kadeem, as you must be born again, or you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. But having said that, why you don't want to be a Christian, I totally understand. Had I been raised there, I wouldn't want to be a Christian either.

So I, so what I'm trying to do is show them there is a huge difference between what the New Testament says about Christianity and the love of God and being born again and what you were raised in. And you can't communicate that overnight and you can't pick that up overnight.

But I think if people can find some sympathy, and can you imagine if you told the pastor or minister to faith assembly, I'm not a Christian. Boom, man, you are going to get lectured and you are going to get threatened. You're going to die and go to hell and you may die tomorrow in a car accident. And who knows? And you better get saved right now. The wrath of God is abiding upon you. Um, hey, I understand all that and I get all that. But I know beyond a shadow of the doubt that will not work with those people. Those people need understanding. They need a listening

ear. They need a loving heart. And you know, it's just, it's an honor and a privilege to get to talk to them. And I hope through listening to these podcasts that their heart can be softened and they can see. Yeah, that was not Christianity. It had some elements of Christianity to it.

But it is simply not what we find when we read the Bible. And the pressure that the people were under to take the example of glasses, they knew that Hobart had also taught from Romans 13 that we should obey the laws of the land. They knew, you know, they weren't just taught, you can do anything you want to do and be rebellious. You need to obey the laws of the land, but they were also taught you got to obey God's laws. And anytime they conflict, you have to choose God's way over the laws of the land. So they would see that that taking a test and wearing glasses for your poor

vision is somehow going to violate God's law. And so many of them would just break the law. They'd say, well, I got to choose between them. I've got to be able to draw. I can't pass the test. I can't wear glasses. Here again, this conundrum, these people are in, so they would just break the law.

Some people would drive and couldn't see, and there were a number of accidents. They were just vendor vendors because they happened in the parking lot at Faith Assembly. You've got these people driving around who were blind as a back. I mean, they just can't see. I even had one person tell me this story just recently.

There was a man at Faith Assembly who would either cover his eyes with his hand or wear blindfold and run around up and down the aisles of Faith Assembly. And he said that he never tripped, never ran into anything and imagined all the diaper bags and child carriers and book bags and Bibles.

And he said this proved the anointing of the Holy Ghost on me that he could blindfold himself and run around Faith Assembly. And I just hear things like this and I go, oh Lord, you know, I know where that came from. No, Hobart never talked to do anything like that.

And Hobart himself would have been opposed to that. But I know where that came from. That came from this hyper, hyper teaching on Faith that you need to do extreme things to prove that you have Faith.

And what does something like that accomplish? Where is anything like that in the Bible? That is so ridiculous to do something like that. But I know the origin of it. It's simply Hobart's extreme teaching on we have Faith for everything and you need to be able to demonstrate your Faith.

So there's a way someone tried to demonstrate it. You know, I take the extremes that you're talking about much further back. A lot of people don't know this, but William Brannum and his mentor, who was, we've mentioned he was a ranking member of the clan, they were helping the snake handling and poison drinking sect of Pentecostalism.

In fact, I'm in communication with the son or is it the son? They might be the nephew of one of the more famous snake handling pastors who is in Cincinnati, big part of Brannum's revival tours, he was following Brannum everywhere.

There are quotes where Brannum is talking about he and Roy Davis, that's his mentor, standing in front of audiences and Davis would drink strict nine, which I'm certain it wasn't strict nine, but that's what they told the people and look at the power of God that I can test my faith.

And that's where it comes down to the root of that is Christians who are in this type of mindset, and I'm using the word Christians very, very loosely there. They're in that type of mindset where they have combined so many things with the gospel that aren't the gospel that they have to prove those things are correct.

And the way that they prove it is through the actions that they do. And many of those actions are just absurd if you're never in this. But when you're in it, you see this is this holy thing.

And that difference between being in it and seeing all of this craziness, you know, I have a lot of people who, like I said, a lot of people have contacted me who are struggling.

They've left the call. Some of them have left the call 50 years. I talked to one guy that was in his, gosh, I think he was in his 70s when he actually finally left.

And he says this thing is robbed my entire life for me. And when they're 70, you can see how that would be. But take a step back and just look at some of the 30-year-olds that have left.

When they leave, if they have any relationship with their parents, which many of them don't, but if their parents are not cut them off, the parents will say things like you had a pretty good life, though it didn't you.

And they'll try to push this notion that all of this weirdness was good and that they just missed out on a few things. What they do is they pick the big don'ts that were obvious, usually the ones for appearance.

Yes, you had to wear long dresses, but you had an otherwise good life. But they don't go back to the psyche of the child who is in school, who does have to miss out.

I was one of those children. I was one of those children who would exit the class whenever they were talking about something that destroyed the foundation of our faith, especially science classes, man, you can't take some of those because once you learn the reality of some of the science and how it doesn't coincide with some of the things that they're teaching, you just you kind of have to step out and other things like dances and whatnot.

When I started working with people after leaving the cult, and I was somewhat distant from this at this point, I've lived after leaving the cult, I've had new experiences that I didn't have while in it.

So you kind of forget about it. But people who are wanting to help people who are escaping a cult will ask me, how can I help? What can I do? And usually I try to tailor it to the cult.

But in general, it's really just the little things. Things that you take for granted that everybody should be able to do and why would they not because that's really stupid. Some of them may not.

I talked to one lady who what her family did not let her read any books, literature, magazines, newspaper, anything, nothing except the Bible. The Bible is the only holy book so you can read nothing.

And she did read some, she would sneak in her closet, and she would sneak home a book from her school library. But for her, just giving her a book was the most wonderful thing you could do to her.

I had another, this couple had never been to the movie theater, ever in their life. And they're like 40 years old, man. You take somebody. out on a trip to the movie theater and you think of little things like that that everybody enjoys well some of these people didn't have it. I've had friends who had in the cult they didn't drink coffee and they like like the person running without the blindfolded it wasn't really a doctrine but they tried to prove their faith they tried to push it even further right. So many things that you

take for granted and some of these people have never done so my advice to people who ask me who weren't in the cult how how can I how can I help this person what can I do for them be a friend do the do the little things that you take for granted they may have never ever done them. 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

Branham Historical Research's website William-Branham.org on the book's page of the website you can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley Steven 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 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-Branham Historical Research we want to thank you for your support one of the people I talked to this week told me the story of how her her father who was a a good father to her and to her siblings and was a good Christian man but he simply couldn't pass the eye exam and he had a professional job that he had to get to and I think it was his mother this woman's grandmother who happened to be one of the how can I say this and not give away people one of the pillars of the church from years ago from faith assembly the mother church the

main church there northern Indiana told her son that he should take off his glasses in order to trust God and so here we have a parent telling their adult child what they need to do and he did it and you know that's nothing that any of us should do you don't go around telling other people how to practice their faith or how to live their Christian life you let people figure that out on their own and of course the advice she gave him was terrible advice to take off your glasses and it was not biblical advice at all and try to pass the test

and he couldn't pass the test and so for I don't know how many years I I don't know if it was the rest of his life, but I know it was at least the next 10 years, maybe the rest of his life, because he never got his vision manifested, quote unquote.

The mother who is busy with all of these children has to take him to work every day. And I've had a conversation with a different person and a different physical ailment along this same line where I pointed out to them, look, I'm all in favor of helping your relatives if they need help.

But let me just share something from their perspective, what they should be thinking of, because they're a Christian and they're an adult. Can you imagine the selfishness and irresponsibility involved in a person like that who is now dragging others along your faith trial with you?

Hey, if you don't want to wear glasses and not be able to drive, you know, that's your decision as an adult. Guess what, you get to live with the consequences. The fact that you can't get to work, sorry, that's not my fault or my problem.

And neither is it your wives or anybody else's, you know, you make that decision, you live with the consequences. And the people from faith assembly, I don't know that they ever saw until years later in their experience, the reality of what I'm saying right now.

The person that I talked to earlier who has a relative who is not, who is in a very dire strait and who simply cannot take care of themselves anymore because of physical issues, but these physical issues were things that could have easily been dealt with years ago, had he gone to the doctor and had it taken care of.

And so I've been able to share with them, and you see the, this is a message that does not work at all. It's 100% a false healing message, it does not work. These people have stepped out on the limb, said, I'm not going to go to the doctor for this, let's say a small procedure that I need.

I'm just going to trust God. And because they don't go and God hasn't healed them and it's gotten worse and worse and worse and worse, now what's going on? Well, you can't even take care of yourself.

So now your wife or your children or your grandchildren or somebody is in the house doing what you should be doing. And yet there you are laying in bed saying, but I'm believing God by faith, he's going to heal me.

No, that's not how these things work. You know, if you're an adult and you're big enough to climb your healing, then you can live with all the ramifications and consequences of that. And I'm not saying because these people are so seriously deceived that the adult children shouldn't help the parent.

That's, you know, that family will have to determine how they're going to handle that. But I simply wanted everyone to see. but irresponsibility of this so-called faith message and waiting for your manifestation. You, as I said earlier, be my guest and wait for your manifestation until the cows come home.

But do it on your own and be responsible for all of the inconveniences that you have brought upon yourself while you're waiting for your manifestation to occur. But speaking of glasses, you know hope aren't gonna have his verses and he had his most favorite one, second Corinthians five, seven, for we walk not by sight but by faith.

Wow, I mean, look at there, we've actually got a verse that said, you don't have to walk by sight. You can blindfold yourself and run around the church. We don't walk by sight, we walk by faith.

I would encourage everyone to read first Corinthians five, the first few verses. Paul, it has nothing to do with healings or manifestations or faith trials or anything. Paul is talking about wanting to be closed with his resurrection body.

He is anxious to get to heaven, give up the mortal body, and I don't want to be unclosed, but I want to be closed upon with my resurrection body. And so he said meanwhile, you know, we're just walking by faith, not by sight.

I can't see heaven yet. I can't see my resurrection yet. I can't see my glorified resurrection body yet. He said, but I know it's gonna happen. And so meanwhile, I'm not walking by sight.

I'm walking by faith. That's the context of that. That is the context of that verse. But here we go again, where people like Dr. Freeman have turned the Bible into a connect the dots book where they play hopscotch through the Bible.

Find a verse that says what you want it to say. Never tell the people what the context is. And if I've heard that verse once in a faith or healing message, I've heard it a hundred times.

We walk by faith and not by sight. But if you don't know the context, you're slow down to look at it. You think, well, that's a literal text that says, even if I can't see with my, you know, by not wearing glasses and not being able to pass the test, it doesn't matter because we don't walk by sight anyway.

We walk by faith. That is a classic and prime example of just twisting the Bible out of its context, making it say something it doesn't say. And there goes Hobart again, just playing God in the lives of the people.

He doesn't live in these people's homes to witness. the difficulty and the suffering and their lack of comfort. He doesn't care. He stands up in the pulpit. He pontificates. He goes out the back door, opts in his car and wife drives him back home, where he can study for 14 to 16 hours a day until it's his time to teach again.

I've heard that verse so many times too, man. In fact, we had our favorite sermons and looking back how silly that was, but we had these recordings of William Branham. I had the whole collection in my father's house, but I had my subset, which I thought were my favorites. One of them was William Branham's sermon, When Love Projects. I think it may be called When Divine Love Projects Now. What he's essentially teaching is projection.

If you studied the occult and you study all of the different gnostic views, he was teaching projection. The example that he gave, and he's tying divine love to faith, and he talks about going into the pasture and, oh my gosh, I didn't know there was this raging bull in the pasture. The bull started charging me, and I thought, I really love that bull. I projected my love on him, and he was just as calm as a kitten. I was telling this to one of my friends, I work in IT, so I work with a variety of different religions of people. One of my

friends said, you know that's straight from the stories from Buddha, right? That's not a Christian story that you're telling me, John. This man has copied Buddha, and I look it up, and I'll probably never find it again, but sure enough, I found some weird thing where Buddha is projecting his something, whatever you call it, that they project onto a cow. But the minister who's telling this nonsense for crowd appeal doesn't think about all of the children who might go try that.

What if your kid gets trampled by a bull because this ridiculous minister has said something so ridiculous? I can remember as a child, when I first heard that, I was living in the city, not near a bull. Had I heard that sermon a few years before and became excited by that, I might have been dead, but I really did want to try this. You know, if he can do it, I can do it too.

We can have that same level of faith. He told me we can have that same level of faith. And even though he's copying the Buddha, and it's not a Christian theme, what he's doing, he's wrecking the lives of people and maybe even taking the lives of people. And the fact that this has spread and grown into what we see today with all of these different ministries, I was thinking about this morning.

It really has turned into a type of religion where you want to live in a fantasy world and you want to live in a fantasy world and you want to live in a fantasy world and you want to live in a fantasy world it sees to come real, and you're wishing so hard that those fantasies do come real, that you're not even paying attention to the reality of what's actually happening in the world around you.

And in doing so, you're robbing the lives of the people as they're living, because literally they're watching the world go by, not caring of the actual world that's happening. They really want the fantasy.

And we know that people had died, you know. Many people have died. I don't know how many died throughout Brannum's ministry, but because Freeman's view was so extreme, you know, absolutely forbidding medicine and medication and hospital help, we know that a lot of people did die.

And then if you had any objection to it at all, of course, you're just ostracized in black ball. You're accused of being faithless. And everybody rallies around the pastor, the teacher, with this touch-not-mind-enointed nonsense.

And we've covered that before. You know, they use Moses and other biblical persons, Peter, you know, Paul put a curse on Elements, the Sorcerer, and he was blind for a while. And for some reason, these ministers think they're on the same level.

And of course, you're not. You don't have any authority to put a curse on anybody. But they say that they do. And then they'll tell a story about how coincidentally, the week after somebody said something against him, something bad happened to them.

And so it must be because of that. And nobody ever checks to verify. And I did that really happen and was it really caused by what they said against the minister. They just are out there like little gullible sheep.

And I don't mean to criticize them because they have been trained and programmed with this dark, dark theology. And that's not even what the New Testament's message of a Christian pastor or minister is.

It's actually just the opposite. Actually, when you read the New Testament, Jesus talks about a good shepherd is the one who would leave the 99 who are okay and go out there searching for that one lost sheep.

It's the message that Jesus gave that he would do as a shepherd. And all pastors, according to 1 Peter 5 or under shepherds, under him, well, they would have the same responsibility. And it was never that way at faith assembly.

They almost relish the fact that someone strayed according to them and departed from their doctrine of healing according to them and ended up in the doctrine, even if they died. You know, I actually felt people thought their message was vindicated rather than it breaking their heart.

Like, yep, he went to the doctor, he leaned to the arm of the flesh and look, he died. And they would use those as... scare tactics that never broke their heart like why couldn't I get to that person and helped them before they died.

We know Pam LaMini died and Hobart didn't care, didn't care about that one bit. You know, the only thing he cared about was the pulpit that he had and that was the voice, you know, that was his place.

Hobart, if someone had a problem and left the church, Hobart never went looking for anyone. He would always say, well, don't let the door hit you on the way out. He would say there are four people standing in line to get your seat anyway.

You know, he would malk the people that left. That's not a Christian minister. Come on. There's no way anyone can argue that is the attitude that a Christian pastor over his church should have.

The attitude is you'll drop everything you're doing and go see, can save that one that's lost out there, the one that has, you know, lost their way. Someone else I talked to this week, John, is a, I'll just say he is a relative of one of the main tier one ministers there.

And he contacted me and we traded some messages and we have actually talking on the phone and he was just a delightful person to talk to and he said, so here's my story, you know, he said, you know, I was, I was at the glory barn back in the glory barn days.

My mom and I, I don't know where his real father was at the time of my mom and I ended up there. My mom married someone at faith assembly went on to have nine children with this man.

So these are step brothers and step sisters of his. He was molested by his stepfather that his mother had married a member of faith assembly. And so he said, here I am with this kind of baggage that I'm trying to carry around for the rest of my life.

He said, even when he was at faith assembly, he said, guess what? He said, you know, you told some stories about somebody who worked in faith ministries and publications stealing money out of the offering box because they were so poor and got caught and had to pay back and repent and did it on more than one occasion.

He said, I'm guilty of that. He said, I stole out of the offering box. He said, you know what else? I knew who the richer sisters, families, couples were in the church. He said, I'd steal out of the ladies' purses sitting right there in the chair at faith assembly.

And I said, I am so sorry to hear that that is that you were put in the position because of the poverty of your family, the large number of children. He said, we were so poor, we didn't have any money.

He said, we couldn't pay our bills. We didn't have enough money to buy food. and trace that back to Hobart for bidding all of these jobs and you can't have an education and the woman can't work out of the home and birth control is wrong and you gotta have all these children all of this is just tightly wound in a ball that makes for this religious cult that faith assembly was and so you know I just sympathize with someone like that and I think he has experience you know what people say do you think that's right to steal from women's purses we don't even have

to answer that question everybody knows the answer to that but that's not what this is about what this is about is why did a 14 or 15 year old teenage boy feel the need to do that had he come from a stable home life with loving grounded parents with a stepfather not molesting him not having to battle you know nine with nine and maybe more I don't know half brothers and half sisters with him not having to do that you know maybe you turn out differently in life and who do I blame for this I blame Hobart Freeman I blame Hobart Freeman and he kept finding ways john to indoctrinate people with his view on healing to go back where you started earlier which was a great point at the very beginning of this Hobart

because he just wanted to force the people to believe his view of divine healing he had a message entitled healing is easier and he actually had this same theme in a lot of his different faith in healing teachings and it was based on an account in the gospel narratives where where the Pharisees and Sadducees are offended at Jesus and um there is a man who is lame and he says to the Pharisees and Sadducees what's harder for giving the man sins or healing him of his lameness but to show you that the son of man has power on earth to forgive sins he turned the lame man said take up your bed and walk

and so Hobart got a message from that watch this psychology and how he looked people with that where he said healing believing for healing is easier than believing for salvation now that's not what the passage teaches but that's what he gets from that with his message entitled healing is easier believing for healing is believed is easier than believing for salvation so consequently if you can't even believe God to heal your eyes you have no proof that you can and you have no assurance that you can believe God for salvation and he would also teach that to be raptured you mentioned both of these things earlier John to be raptured takes faith you have to have faith and if you

don't have faith, you won't be raptured. And if you don't have enough faith to be healed and keep yourself out of the hospital, there's no way that you have enough faith to be raptured.

And that's why when you have trained people that way, that's why they are trying so hard and to go to the extremes that they do, to be physically healed because they are questioning themselves in their own mind, well, am I even a Christian?

According to Hobart, if I can't trust God for simple things like divine healing, then how can I have any assurance that I can trust Jesus for my salvation? And how can I know that God is gonna rapture me because that takes a special kind of faith?

One of the people I talk to this week brought up this business of rapture faith. And he said, what do you think of that? And I said, that is nonsense. I said, it doesn't take any special faith.

If you are a believer and you are alive at the second advent, it's automatic. And if you're dead at the second advent, your body will be resurrected. It's automatic. That comes with you're being born again and you're being a Christian.

It doesn't take a level eight faith versus a level three and a half faith. It just takes being a believer. All of these things are simple, simple, simple. But Hobart complicated it and he was always looking for new ways to indoctrinate and new ways to force people to do what he wanted them to do.

And I know I ended one text exchange, I think over the weekend with the sister from another state, not the one I read from earlier, who had told me these horrific stories that she and her family had been through.

And I said in this regard, in the regards that we're speaking right now, where Hobart put the pressure on the people, die, you know, be like Joe, though he slain me yet, well, I trust him, die rather than go to a doctor.

In this regard, Hobart Framing was a monster. In this regard, he was a monster because he was not in your homes watching the suffering and the pain and the lack of comfort that the sheep and his congregation had and he just didn't care.

He only cared that he had a pulpit and that he had a platform and that he was going to preach what he wanted to preach. You know, what they taught was so backwards that whenever I have somebody who was never in it, who is a Christian, who comes across this and they're filled with questions, like what in the world is this mess, man?

And how to develop into this bigger mess we see today. It's hard to explain to them just how backwards all of it is. And you can't, like they'll go, they'll try to find, well, what's the root source?

What's the root cause of this mess? And there isn't a root source. There are themes that are the root source. I would say, say if there was a root source, it was that many passages were taken completely out of context. And this is another podcast for another day, but the Pentecostal style of taking a single passage and preaching a whole sermon on a verse rather than the summary of what that verse is about. They twist things out of context with this. And you can twist it any way that you want if you just take a single phrase. I mentioned the pastor's kids earlier.

There are a few pastor's kids that I know that love the verse from Acts. What is it? Acts 16. It said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you and your household will be saved.

So they're saved immediately because their father believed, right? So his whole household is saved. They don't have to do anything. They can live however they want. And what's funny is that's the way that Hobart and Branham and all of these guys are preaching. They're taking a verse so far out of what it's intended meaning is that you can make it say anything that you want. It can become any religion that you want. And it's backwards to this extent.

You mentioned the good shepherd who leaves the flock to find that one lost lamb. There's many songs about this. I may have mentioned this on the podcast with you if not, I did one of the other guys, but one of the doctrines that became a theme and laterane from which all of this became built on was that a good shepherd will break the legs of its sheep so it can't do that again. That is an actual doctrine that I can show you actual statements.

I can show you sermon summaries that is talking about the good shepherd that will snap the legs of its sheep so it can never do that again. And think of what that means. And you know, I talked with people who grew up in that doctrine. Well, that's just a doctrine. But no, man, put into practice with everything else that they taught. That is really the sum of what they taught in many various different ways. They really want to manipulate. They want to control you. They don't want you to wear glasses because their doctrine may, you know, whatever, whatever went

through his head. I don't even know how to put that in the words. But what he's doing is he's breaking the legs of his sheep. And what you end up with, like you and I have noticed, there's a lot of people who have now broken legs and they're trying to learn how to walk again.

Hopefully this podcast is helping some of them start to walk. So thank you for doing this. You're welcome. Thank you, John. 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, you can read Weaponize Religion from Christian I Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Automore.