Fractured Faith: Broken Bones in a Divine Healing Cult - Chino Ross - Faith Assembly

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Chino Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Chino D Ross, YouTube channel. Chino, it's good to be back and to talk all things Hobart Freeman. We've had a little bit of a hiatus moving things around because you've been on vacation and I've seen some incredible pictures of the fish so thankfully you're back and sounds like you've had a pretty good fishing trip. Yeah John,

we're not on our normal recording day but I guess only we know that but I had gone down to Kentucky Lake. It's kind of an annual middle of May trip that we go down there. I've done it. I think I started in the year 2000 going down there. I'm not guiding. I'm with friends and family whenever I go but we had a lot of fun, caught a lot of a lot of the fish we were targeting and we also called some bonus species and you know it was just really really fun to be down there and normally we're down there to catch fish to eat. I don't always do

that on trips. It depends on the species that we're targeting but these were definitely fish you want to catch and clean and take home and eat. Well I have a boat that I keep on the Ohio River and to long crazy sad story but I a person working with the cult just totally destroyed my boat one year and I've had to go through from the interior to the exterior to the motors and everything fixing it back up after the sabotage but I have my boat up and running and you're showing me pictures which I'll put them on the screen here of the fish you caught but I

I was raised in this religion where we were taught it was almost like a Davy Crockett style mentality man you you have to live off the land you can only eat what you you can only kill what you eat that was the philosophy and it stems from Brannum's highly fictional life story accounts where he's talking about hunting and trapping and fishing to support his widowed mother while he's not got a sixth grade education because he had to be out helping them and none of it's real you ever kill Will a bear with his bare hands?

You know, if he could have pulled the story off, I think he would have tried to, but he preached his father's funeral. So there's no way, none of the story's real, absolutely not one aspect of it.

But in the back of my mind, I've got that mentality, you only kill what you eat, and this Ohio river, for anybody who knows, it's just so highly polluted, you would never eat something out of it, you might grow an extra ear.

And that's just how weird it is. But years later, I came across, and I've got a video, somebody sent me a William Brannum on one of his hunting excursions. And while I was raised with this, you must only kill what you eat mentality.

There, it's showing him walking around with all of his kills on the safari, and he's got, he's smiling, grinning ear to ear, and he's pretending he's got a rifle in his hands, and bang, bang, bang.

And they're just rows and rows of zebra skins, and bulls and things, that he's never gonna eat a zebra. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, sure he's not gonna eat a zebra. But while he's out having this lifestyle, where he's doing everything that we were trained not to, I was raised where I even have a hard time fishing because of it.

So the difference between the cult leader and what the life that they actually live versus the rules they enforce, it's just a night and day difference. And it's interesting how Dr. Freeman ended up with no hunting at all theology, which wasn't like Brannum's at all.

And I think that probably more traceable to the fact that he was not an outdoorsman. I mean, he studied, remember, 14 to 16 hours a day. So he didn't have time to go hunting, but that was where he ended up no hunting at all because he said that God does not want overcomers at least harming creation.

And yet still, surely you go and buy eggs at the store and those probably don't come from free range birds. And you probably buy bacon at the store. I mean, it's just not a very viable theology to end up with, but that's what he ended up with.

Yeah, it's so weird, man, what I've learned is that if a minister wants to do something in camp, they preach really hard against it. So nobody else can have fun either, right? When you're in these cults, that's the way the mentality is, but it just goes to show they have strayed so far from biblical teaching that it edges to personality.

And that's why it's called a cult of personality. They literally wrap their theology around their person and the fact that I have a conversation about what I can and can't haunt or what I can can't fish because of a church setting.

It's... That's a lot. That's a lot. That we are doing all of these ridiculous podcasts says a lot. It's almost like these ministers didn't know the Bible. There's so much there to teach. I teach a weekly study every week on the book of Revelation. We started February a year ago and we're in chapter six. So it's not like the Bible doesn't have things to talk about.

It has so much to talk about. And we end up having to talk about what the cults talked about, which wasn't what the Bible talked about. Well, if I could, John, here at the beginning, before we get into our podcast today, I did want to let everyone know that we do have a date set up for a potential meet and greet, share and swap stories, commiserate with one another.

Tongue lash eats other for being so foolish and so stupid. Whatever it amounts to, we'll have fun together. But it's the first weekend in August of this year, which is the first, second and third of Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Wyndham hotel in Warsaw, Indiana. So I tried to pick a place that positions this get together where the bulk of the people were and maybe still are.

A lot of people aren't there. People have spread out. But I still think that's probably the hub of the wheel as Hobart like to say for everything going on was in northern Indiana. And so it's just going to be for those that travel such as myself, I'll have to come in on a Friday.

I'll leave on a Sunday, but we have a conference room reserved for that Saturday. And we'll just get together and a Q and A time someone had asked, Hey, are you going to preach or teach on this?

And I said, that's the last thing I'm going to do. Nobody's coming to hear anybody teach or preach on anything. And she said, but we have questions. I said, Oh, yeah, questions for sure.

I mean, it'll just be open to whomever. And I've even people have asked me, well, now I know someone that they don't like you too much, but they're real curious. I said, well, they're welcome. I don't care. I like them. Whether they like me or not, I like them. So, yeah, they're welcome to come. And something else, John Collins, I have been asked by many of these people, is Johnny Mac coming along? Are you going to bring him? Is he coming? And so this is to them and to you between the two of us, I have told people that you've got a really busy, busy,

professional life. You've got a busy, um, personal schedule as well. So I can't promise to anyone that you will come, but I know. you're wanted and people are asking. And so I just want to make sure you know that I'm kind of like I'm kind of like George Harrison to your Paul McCartney. And they really want you there.

They don't care too much about me. So the invitation is there to come and join us. Everyone, so those of you that can please let John or I know that you're coming just so we have some idea of the number of people that will be there so that we can prepare. And it doesn't have to be just people affected by Hobart Freeman or Faith Assembly, you know, whomever. It's kind of everybody's traveling in the same mentality of this cult of personality and that they have been freed from. So we would love to see everyone. First, we can in August, Wyndham Hotel and Warsaw,

Indiana. Well, to your analogy, I'm more like the screaming Yoko Ono that nobody wants to hear. That's more me. But yeah, we I do have a busy schedule and we have some health complications that I'm not sure that I can make. And beyond that, I have attracted a whole lot of enemies and I would hate to say that I'm coming and attract those enemies to the place. So it's probably better that I keep some distance. But we'll we'll talk about it after the podcast and see where it heads. But anyway, we have an exciting episode to get into today talking about broken bones and such. When

when you're in these divine healing cults that have gone beyond their whatever was the corthiology that made the cult and then they head towards destructiveness, it's so weird because it's like a train without rails. You don't know where it's headed. You can go any direction.

And in Hobart Freeman's case, it just went to the real absurd. It's it went beyond levels of normal even normal humanity and just went into the absurd. And so when people outside of this culture listening to this podcast or watching what's happening, they look at it and they scratch their heads thinking, how could anybody submit themselves to that? And you have to understand that once you're in that cult mentality, you're in the group think, it's not a instant change. So when Hobart Freeman was creating a cult and he's saying, come join me and you won't need your medicine after we

get into our revelation or whatever it was that he said. If he had just said from the very get-go and when you join us, we're not going to let you go to the doctor when you have a broken bone.

Not a single person would join it, but because it's so gradual over time in a group think setting, everybody just casually starts to believe the same thing. And so some of the responsibility for that actually falls to the people as well, even though they're being manipulated.

programming. I mean, it is definitely programming that happens. And when you look at Dr. Freeman's perspective on healing and faith, it really is honestly the inevitable place that you end up back early. Hobart was just excited to hear that healing was in the atonement in his opinion, and he needed healing. But I think early on healing would be for, you know, simple things like a head and or really important things like cancer, but they were, they were things that they thought you can actually pray for God to heal you or the person before you and God will answer your prayer.

They'll say that it says in James 5, call for the elders of church and they'll annoy it with oil and pray the prayer faith and you will be healed. But as we saw in our last discussion, we got into the subject of eye care and eyeglasses where that's not even a sickness or disease or an illness, but it is something that is not perfection. And that's what they were all after.

Hobart really fell and taught that you could be perfect in this life to the point that you wouldn't even have to die. And he didn't even bring into the discussion if you were alive at the time of the rapture, he would just argue there's no physical reason for human beings to die since our body and our cells and our skin are constantly regenerating themselves, that if you will live close enough to the Lord and have enough faith in him, then he will literally renew your youth like the Eagles to the point that there's really no

aging involved. And of course, when people hear that, they say that, I mean, literally sounds like something out of science fiction. And it is. But it made perfect sense to him. Why should my eyesight grow dim? Why should my skin have wrinkles in it? Why should I lose some of my hair? All of that is the design of decay, degeneration, demise, death, you know, all these words we don't like to hear. But it's exactly where the human body is headed from birth to death.

So it's the inevitable place for Dr. Freeman to end up by not just praying for what you would recognize to be a disease or an illness, but any type of physical issue in your body at all. That is covered by God's word. I mean, he was certain on that. He promised people that the verse they would use for this is Psalm 34.

and verse 20, he keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken. He keepeth all his bones, not one of them are broken. And people would stand on that. But then the problem was everybody is using that verse.

They're not using it proactively. They're not claiming that verse until after the child has already fallen off the roller skates or the novice skier on the slope had veered off the trail and smacked into a tree and broke in their armor, their shoulder.

They fallen off their bike or a car wreck or something. Then they're saying, oh, I'm claiming Psalm 3420. And when I heard things like that, I'm like, wait a minute. Didn't it say he keepeth all of his bones?

Obviously the Lord didn't keep your bone because it's broken now. And then the rest of the verse said, not one of them is broken. But now you're using a verse that says he'll keep all of them and none of them are broken.

Now you're using that verse retroactively. And I'm saying, wait, wait, wait, that's not the way this works. You know, that's not the way you play this game. Your time for using that verse is all over.

That's in the past. You already have a broken bone. Now you need to find a verse that says if you have a broken bone, then you don't need to go and have it set.

You simply need to pray to the Lord. It's just this one verse that happens to mention broken bones and they became so fixated on it. But that's the problem that I have talked about so often in these podcasts, Sean, is Hobart was just a master at Biblical hopscotch, just connect the dots.

You know, it's just a, if you can find a verse that uses the word, then boom, claim that verse and that verse will work for you. I'm still laughing at Biblical hopscotch. I'm going to use that going forward.

You know, I've wondered where this came from because it's not just Hobart, it's not just Brannum that's doing this. You can find it widespread like a plague in many Pentecostal churches, even still today, even though a lot of them have reformed.

They'll take verses that are just totally out of the context. And if they can preach a sermon and wedge a, pick some Brannum verse and then wedge it in their sermon and say, here, that sounds really good with what I'm saying, they'll do it.

And you know, it really comes down to a lot of the ministers I think, you know, having been a public speaker and sometimes I have been in situations where I've had to they call it shooting from the hip while you're talking.

Sometimes I wonder if they're not doing that, but. I actually went into a deep study to figure out why is it widespread because ministers who prepare for their sermons were also doing it. And I go back into studying British Israelism and learning that they were trying to make like the dual atonement that Hobart taught. The British Israel doctrine tried to create a dual interpretation of all of the passages of the Old Testament. So it had this meaning way back then. But I can take this one verse and take it out of context and apply it to

today. The biggest example of this William Brannum said that the great eagle, Nayhum, as he was looking and peering through the curtains of time, he saw the outer drive in Chicago and saw the cars running to and fro has absolutely nothing to do with Nayhum division. But that's what they were doing. They were trying to say through British Israel doctrine that the Old Testament prophets prophesied for Israel. But now today we're live how did they say it was like a shadow of what was to come. So the greater fulfillment than actually Nineveh, it's outer drive in Chicago. But to the point you're talking about what was it, Psalms 34, I think you

said. One of the things that also hit me is minister like Hobart, he studied outside of the cult. He knew a lot of the things, a lot of doctrinal things about the Bible. And he threw it out the window, which is just odd to me. But things like the bones passage, I can't remember what book it is, you probably know. But there's a new testament passage where it's talking about the application of that to Jesus. And Jesus's bones was not broken. And here I am veering off into my theological stance, which I try to avoid. But Jesus in that interpretation was representing the Passover lamb.

And the Passover lamb had to be without blemish, which meant without broken bones. And there are passages that use that. And it is a cultural phrase. It would be like, I don't know, I use the term shot from the hip, which is referring back to the Old West when they would shoot without lifting their gun. Well, that's a cultural reference. And it would be like a minister taking that phrase and saying, shooting from the hip fits with my sermon. So I'm going to use it. But in the old language, they're actually using cultural phrases. And further to the point, what was it Ezekiel

and the Valley of Dry Bones? Some of the passages were talking about broken bones. It has metaphors and metaphorical uses. The Valley of Dry Bones was representing each bone was representing the bringing together of the broken Israel. So whenever you get into understanding theology, you understand that what he did, it can't work with Christian theology, it's polar opposite. And the irony is that he studied theology, so he knew that he was preaching polar opposite from the Bible.

I know, but I think that was part of the allure of it for the people that followed him, including myself. And I've never hesitated to include myself in this company of idiots back when I was younger, because he was highly trained and a polished speaker and knew a lot of theological stuff. So again, the mentality of the impressionable person is, how can I come against that? I mean, I only have my education. He's got a doctor's degree in this. But I hope through these podcasts, you know, we let everyone know that you, we all, we stand on our own feet. If a minister says

something crazy, you just need to say that. I'm sorry, dude, but that's crazy, what you just said there. And all these examples come to my mind. I could give some from Hobart, the last verse in the little prophecy of Ovidai. It only has 21 verses in it. The very last verse in that, and I won't do a sermon here for it, for everybody, but it is talking about the restoration of Israel in a millennial context, but it mentions that deliverers will come up on Mount Zion to judge the amount of Issa on the kingdom should be the Lord. So it's basically a quotation of that verse.

But it uses that word deliverer. Hobart was huge on Anton deliverance ministry. We haven't talked about that part of his ministry. We'll do that at some point. Oh, my word was Dr. Freeman off biblical basis for all of his views about deliverance. But anyway, when he would reference, when he would go to Obadiah, he would say that verse even has reference to these current end time deliverance ministries in the charismatic and the coastal world. No, it does not. It has no reference to that at all. That's totally out of his context. You just with scissors and paste,

cut it out and paste it it in to your sermon somewhere. But that's the way. That's the bad hermeneutics we've talked about before, John. That is the way Hobart chose to interpret scripture. He was learning it from Brannum, from Gordon Lindsay, from everybody that came before him.

Just find a verse that sings the tune you want it to sing and just rip it out of his context. Who cares what his context is it? You know, this is the Holy Spirit speaking to me.

I'm an example that comes to my mind from someone else, Malcolm Weber. Someone has told me this story about Malcolm Weber. Malcolm. And look, I'm not criticizing Malcolm, at all, I and my youthfulness, just stupid is what I'm getting ready to say that Malcolm did.

And I give examples from myself, but Malcolm, who came from Australia, came to join Faith Assembly. I think right before Hobart died, like too late, you know, now he's dead. But he stayed, believe the message totally, 100% believe the message. Before he came from Australia, he was down there teaching it in Australia. And so what Malcolm did is he wasn't going to put any new tires on his car. And that was on the basis of the children Israel, when they were wandering in the wilderness, their shoes never wore out over that 38 year period. So there again, because

of the kind of teaching that Hobart was giving, they got it from Hobart. Malcolm would have never come up with that on his own. No, no sane person would. And Malcolm's the sane human being, because Hobart was stressing miracles everywhere. You know, nothing, don't plan anything, don't budget. It's just claim everything. Everything's a miracle. Well, if that's true, then why would you change tires on your car? Why not just lay hands on those, um, firestone tires and say, in the name of Jesus, tread be still. You just don't want it to disappear at all. And then they would say, well, why can't I do that? Because the children Israel,

their shoes never wore out. And the response is obvious. That was a unique miracle for those people. And if you don't think it was, go ahead and try it. I'm guaranteed, I guarantee you, you'll buy new pair of shoes and you'll put a new set of tires on your car.

Now, see, I'm up the opinion because I've had enough of them to know that if you have a firestone brand tire, you really do need to live on some kind of faith because they just do not last. But that's another story for another day. But I get what you mean. And what's funny is that the faith healing doctrines because it's anti-biblical, because what they're teaching is in some cases extra biblical. And then in some cases, it goes far beyond to anti-biblical. They have actually taken it outside of the realm of faith as it relates to humans and Christianity into sorcery

where you try to change objects. And I may or may not have done this as a child prayed over things that weren't working toys that broke. Okay, I did it. As an adult, I can remember clearly praying for my grandfather's radio in his O's mobile. And I kid you not, it magically started working. I can't explain how or why, other than he probably hit a bump and the thing probably shook.

It did work, and we praised the Lord that my prayer of faith had fixed the radio. But you know, when you take a step back, after you understand what is Christianity and understand the differences, that was edging towards sorcery, and I should feel really guilty that I did such a thing, because that's not what Christianity is about.

But you're right, it is widespread. It wasn't just free-minute, it wasn't just random. There was something about all of these guys' style of teaching that tended toward the people believing that they weren't responsible for things in their own life, that you really were supposed to pray to God for everything, and that God would take care of everything.

And you know, again, I think I've said before in these podcasts that when we read the Bible, it's written over several thousand year period, and it looks like a miracle happened every day. But it's written over several thousand years, times 365 days in a year, you know, miracles didn't just happen every day, and some of them were very special miracles.

We looked at Paul, those anointed calls that went from Paul's body, and then all these Pentecostals think that they can bring you a handkerchief, and the whole minister can pray on the thing, and you can carry it away, and someone will get healed.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. My point is what the text says is that God wrote special miracles by the hands of Paul. So that tells me something. Just when I read that text, I mean, a normal person would, if you read the text and you're honest, and you're not looking for something, you know, for yourself, like, what can I get out of this?

That's not the way we're supposed to read the Bible. We're supposed to read the Bible in this way. What is it telling me? What's it telling me? Not what can I get out of it?

What is telling me is that Paul had some special things God did, and like, by exclusion, I'm not Paul, and that may not happen with me, and I probably shouldn't expect for that to happen to me, or then it wasn't that God did special miracles by Paul's hands.

It would just be, this is a common miracle that any Christian can perform. Just take a handkerchief from yourself, from your body, go lay it on a sick person, or demon possess person, and watch the results happen.

Maybe it can happen, maybe it has happened on occasion, because God is wonderful, and almighty, and gracious, and kind, and wants to see the sick heal, and wants to see the demon possess delivered.

But to make claims on God, saying, this is the way to do it, and as long as I can get an anointing cloth onto someone, that's what they call them, an anointing cloth, as long as I can get this on them, then they're going to be set free.

That might be presumptuous on our part. I think John in the last... interview you did with a faith assembly satellite survivor. That woman told a story when she was 10 or 12 years old of a of a fractured thumb that she had in a cast and it was just a wonderful story how the sister shared it. She knew at that young age because she was in a faith assembly satellite group if you come to church with glasses on or a cast or a cane or anything you're not an overcomer you're somehow less than us and she felt that at the age of 10 or 12 so she said I

have to go in the bathroom and soak this cast off of my fractured thumb so that I can blend in with the rest of the overcomers here in my group. Again that is perfect proof of what Freeman's message was doing whether Freeman ever stood in the pulpit and said thou shalt not wear a cast he didn't have to do that. His teachings told even 10 and 12 year olds that if you have any kind of mechanical or physical aid a walk or a wheelchair you're not trusting God. Somebody told me of a person at faith assembly that they rolled around in a wheelchair everywhere until they got

to church then they picked that human being up out of their car brought him in and sat him down in a chair because they didn't want them to be seen in a wheelchair. Now at home a wheelchair is okay but at church a wheelchair is not okay because that's a sign of a lack of faith in God.

So that's the extreme to which Dr. Freeman went and as I said earlier it's just the inevitable place you're going to end up if you've got an unscriptural view of faith if you've got an unscriptural view of healing. Hobart never taught a detailed you know seminary level where you cover every passage in the original language of what faith is what healing is because had you had he done that he wouldn't have ended up where he ended up because had he done that he would have gone to where Paul said Timothy drink a little wine for your stomach's sake and for your

often infirmities that's a no no verse at faith assembly not only is it no no in the sense that wow Timothy is sick and Paul's not encouraging him to believe for his healing not only did a no no in that sense it's a no no in the sense of did you hear that confession Paul just made Timothy you are often sick and you have stomach issues you could not let anything like that come out out. And so where I got into trouble, John, years ago, I mean, this is not new for me to say these things about Dr. Freeman. I said it 40 years ago, as a matter of fact, somebody

who is following who is listening to one of my series from 40 years ago said, Hey, Chen O, just so you know, I just listened to it was Christian ethics, date number 100, just approved to people and Christian ethics, take 101, those were taught fed worry the ninth of 1986. And they said, Hey, you're giving Hobart Freeman a hard time on these messages right here. It was 40 years ago, where I got into trouble is I would raise a simple question.

Now Paul said to drink wine because you're often sick, Hobart says you can't do that. Okay. Who am I going to believe? Who am I going to follow? Am I going to follow the word of God or the word of a man? And whenever I would just bring that up, I mean, I just bring it up innocently. I try to talk to Dr. Freeman or one of those ministers and say, Shouldn't we follow this verse? It shouldn't it be okay for this verse to be in our Bible? You know, shouldn't that be okay and even to practice this verse? I would get into all kinds

of trouble like Chen O, you're just a logical intellectual. And I said, No, I'm not really very smart at all, but I can read plain English and plain English disagrees with what Hobart's teaching. So should we take the Bible or should we take faith to simply what should we do? Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William 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 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-Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. You know, one of the biggest heresies that came out of all of this is the manifested sons of God, which we've talked about, you know, Hobart had his different span on it.

And the ministries that grew from this, they have their different loaded language because they realized the manifested sons of God became widely known as a heresy. So they changed the names and the terms of it. Sometimes it's overcomers.

There's different armies that they use, different terms that they use, but this idea of Joel's army developed in such a way that the ministers who were teaching it started focusing very heavily on the passages where it's talking about the miracles that Jesus did because they always go back to that one passage, greater works than this shall you do. You're from over the passage. John 1412. Yes, they always go back to that and they say, when these manifested sons of God rise up, they'll do greater works. And then the heresy spread throughout Lateran, ministers started claiming that

I have seen more miracles in my ministry than Jesus ever had on his life. And you know, Brandham said that. I think I remember Hobart saying that, but it could be wrong. But these ministers start doing this. And then what they started doing is everywhere where there was a miracle, there's verbiage in the Bible that they can use that they can kind of play a mind game with the people. They'll use that phrase, but not point it to Jesus, they'll point it to themselves.

And in doing so, the people start thinking about the phrase and associating it with the minister. Over time, it grows into such a way where the minister becomes Christ in their minds. And so now you've got the biblical verses about the false Christ that will arise coming out of this kind of thing. It got to the point where I can recall sitting in a, we'd have these testimony sermons talking about how wonderful it was when William Brandham was alive and the wonderful miracles that he did that was greater than Jesus. And this one guy got up and he says,

and I was near the platform and I touched the hymn of his garment. And I was healed right there. Think of the level of heresy that that gets towards whenever people are like this. They have actually compared Jesus to the minister to Jesus. And you can read it all throughout the comment feeds whenever somebody attacks, they'll attack saying, but you know, the people rose up against Jesus too in his day because they've associated whatever is the minister, Hobart Freeman or Brandham or Paul Cain, any of these guys, they associate them with the Christ. And so all of the passages

rebuking those who oppose the Christ, they'll use those passages against you. And it's all part of the loaded language schematic that these guys were following. I hope in the future we can talk about Hobart's theology concerning overcomers and manifested sons. I did not realize when I first started listening to Hobart and heard all of that, I thought that was original with him. And I just thought, wow, we're going to be the manifested sons of God. You know, I didn't have a clue.

Didn't have a clue that anybody had taught that before him. And then as I realized, they, oh yeah, he got that from these other people, then you realize he got other things. things from other people.

And it's not that it's bad. We all stand on other men's shoulders. You just want to stand on the right men's shoulders and not the wrong men. None of us have can claim any original stuff.

If you do, you're probably lying. You know, you've picked up bits and pieces from all kinds of people and that's fine. You just want to pick up the right stuff from other people.

So you know, we're still talking about broken bones and there's just been, I think of a story of people I know very, very well. I know the whole family have known them for 30 years.

And their son was in an airplane crash. And I don't mean a commercial airline. I mean, one of these things with wings, little small things that you fly around. It hit the side of the mountain.

And he was a part of a big faith assembly satellite. Probably the biggest, longest lasting faith assembly. A satellite group out there, not the mother church itself. And obviously ended up, you know, with multiple broken bones.

And so again, some 3420, you can't use that retroactively like people try to do. And the young man is married, I think, with a family today. And I'm sure a good Christian man, but his body, if you look at him, you can tell, it's not the same.

So this business of claiming these things, it simply hasn't worked. And I don't know why people won't correctly deal with that or handle that. One other story, I'll just maybe share a little bit without any of the names of the actual parties involved.

I'm really hoping this brother will, at some point, be interviewed by you, John. I know you'll have spoken privately. And he can give you the full version of everything. But here's a man who was a part of a satellite group, won't say winner, where, but for a long time, bought into every jot and tittle of what had been taught not only by Dr. Freeman, but by some of the satellite ministers.

And his flavor of choice was Tom Hamilton. Tom Hamilton was the preacher of the big group in Shelbyville, Kentucky, just for years and years and years. So the brother that I have referenced to had a child who had some type of accident.

And I believe it was an arm broke, broke their arm. I mean, a broken arm. And he shared this story with me last fall. I never forgot it because as I listened to him, I thought I knew where he was going.

And I even interrupted him when he got to a certain point. But he said, you know, my child had a broken arm. We're taught to claim everything by faith, no doctors, no medicine. And if it's no doctors, and it means no cast, you know, it means you can't.

go have that properly and professionally set. You either do it yourself or you just pray and say, oh, I'm claiming Psalm 3420, retroactively. I'm claiming Psalm 3420. But it's a pretty serious breakage of the bone.

So he happened to have Tom's phone number and so he picked up the phone and he called Tom. And he said, after some small talk, he got to the point of his call. And he said, look, brother Tom, I got a big issue I'm dealing with here.

And as soon as he said that, I said, let me guess. Let me guess, Tom's response. And it's not just Tom's. It would be Dr. Freeman. We saw it with Dr. Freeman when he actually went before the judge and the judge said, did you teach that?

He said, no, I didn't teach that. I just said, everybody trust God and working out on your own. That's not what he said. He said, if you even have a television saying you're home, God may kill one of your children.

That's what he said. And had he ever gone to actual trial, they would have played those tapes and he would have been convicted. So I said, let me guess. I bet Tom distanced himself from you, didn't he?

Because what can he say? Tom can either say, that's right, brother. We preach total faith. Don't you take him? Let's bring him over to my house. We'll pray for him right now. God's going to set that bone supernaturally.

He's either going to say that or he's going to say, no, you need to go to the hospital. And that's going to contradict his message. He stuck either way. He can't say go to the hospital.

That'll contradict his message. He can't say bring him over to my house and I'll lay hands on him because he knows that won't work. So I said, my guess is he probably kind of distanced himself in that conversation, didn't he?

Brother said, how did you know? I said, well, he has no choice. That's exactly what all of them are going to do in a case like that. They're going to say, well, I can't give you an advice.

Brother, but just trust the Lord. But I can't tell you what to do. And I told this same brother. I said, let's put it like this. What if you're a married man, brother, right?

Yes, I'm married. What if you have a really attractive secretary at work? I mean, she's really a hobby, as they say. That's your secretary and you are considering having a affair with her. And you go ask Tom or Hobart or anybody, should I do it?

They'll give you a definite answer. Absolutely, don't do it, brother. Why? Because they know that's what the Bible teaches. Don't cheat on your wife. So they would absolutely give you advice for that. Why is it when it comes to an area where I don't want to be responsible?

I don't want to tell you to go to the doctor. I don't want to tell you to trust God. I don't want to be responsible. Hey, big guy, you're responsible up in the pulpit when you were telling everybody God will work miracles.

Now, when the rubber meets the road, you're not such a big... anymore. You know, I said, I just don't have, I don't have a lot of respect for situations like that. I don't. You know, if it is a biblical message, it's a biblical message, no matter what.

If you know that the authorities are going to cut your head off, if you profess your faith in Jesus Christ, would you recommend someone profess their faith? I would absolutely recommend that. Do not deny the Lord. Say, He is my Lord and Savior. And if you get beheaded, you get beheaded.

And that's just all there is to it. And you'll go out gloriously. They might say that in a case like that. But I hope everyone can tell when it comes to one of these touching go issues that minister is going to backtrack. It's going to be hands off. That's why I'm doing this. I don't, I don't want to have anything to do with it. I'm not going to tell you yes. I'm not going to tell you no. And I just don't think that's right, John. I just think, you know, if it's a biblical message and you're a big time preacher, then, you know, go for it brother and tell us what God's word says.

But it's just not the way that it happened. You know, people who are in these types of movements, they try to defend the leader by humanizing them and saying, he's just like you and me. He's our brother. That's why they use the phrase brother, I think, so that they can bring them down and humble themselves whenever they should be taking responsibility. But like you said, these guys, their levels above the members because they're trying to teach the doctrine and they're swaying the herd in one way or another. It'd be like me, if I were to walk across the bridge over

in the Louisville and see some guy who's down on his luck and started telling him, you know, things would be so much simpler if you were to just jump off the bridge. I didn't tell him to do it, but if I were to coax him into doing it after he's down on his luck, I'm responsible for doing that. And if a judge were to corner me and say, did you tell him to jump off the bridge, I could say, no, I didn't. I was just saying that he would be better off if he did, you know, they use that

kind of strategy. They try to, they try to dodge responsibility when in fact they're actually responsible for every single thing that's happened. Every person who died under Hobart Freeman, you know, you figure the number of men had actually jumped from this bridge is not even a great significant number compared to the people who have died in these ministries, these faith healing ministries where they're trying to coax people out of taking their medicine. And simply, like the man who's at the bridge, I could say, man, I can show you a better way. Come down here and

let's go talk. And I could bring him back into safety. Well, these guys could have also brought the people who were suffering back into safety, but they pushed them just a little bit further.

And in the end, it was only from money or power and sometimes sex. These guys have agenda that supports themselves rather than the person who they're trying to teach or preach to. I've never really been able to process all that, John. Even I have thought, even with a minister who has a, let's say, a strong view of faith and healing, even if you had a strong view of faith and healing. I just think, just teach your view of faith and healing, but leave the doctors out, leave out telling people what they shouldn't do or can't do, let them make all those

decisions on their own. And I think early in Hobart's ministry, he was much more inclined to do that. He would just talk about what a privilege it is that we have a God who will heal us.

And that is an entirely different message. You'd go ahead and preach that message and let people study the scriptures and figure it out and apply it on their own. But Hobart went to meddling in people's lives. He wasn't satisfied with what he saw to be the level of faith in the lives of his congregation. So he would go interfering in their life and then tell them. And sometimes he'd tell them by example, he wouldn't say from the pulpit, you can't. Here's what he would do. He would, he never says none of you are allowed in this church to wear glasses. That's, Hobart was too slick

for that. He would never, because he didn't want to be held accountable for it. What he would do is he would say, yeah, I taught this message in Pensacola, Florida. And this sister came up and said, thank you, brother Freeman, for this strong message. Now I'm just hearing all this about faith and healing. Should I continue to wear my glasses? He would tell the story and put it all on someone else.

And then Hobart would say, well, that depends on whether your eyes are healed or not.

And he wants him to say, oh, so if my eyes are healed by faith, then I don't need them. And if I wear them, that means I don't believe they're healed. He put all that responsibility back on the person. People would come and ask him, should I continue to take my insulin now that I've claimed healing from diabetes? And he would say, it depends on whether you have diabetes or not.

If you have faith, you don't have diabetes. If you don't have faith, you do. So he would. And so consequently, as we just said, he would not be liable or responsible for whatever is going to happen to the people. And it's just a sad story. So this brother who went and asked Tom Hamilton, what should I do? I'll let him tell the outcome of the story if he ever decides to.

And please forgive me, brother, for stealing your Thunder and telling your story, but it's just such a classic example of these ministers holding to a belief kind of, but as I shared with the illustration of cheating on your wife or denying Christ, they don't hold to their healing view like they hold to those two views, but whenever they're preaching it, it's like everything's equal. They don't even realize there are doctrines in the Bible that are more important than others, and there are doctrines that are less important.

For some reason, those ministers were afraid to say that. They just want to say all truth is of equal importance. Oh, come on, you can't really believe that. You know, there is no way that's true. There are some doctrines of Scripture that definitely take priority over other doctrines, and they're big and strong on these definite doctrines, and in their mind, they're big and strong on all of them until the rubber meets the road. And someone says, you know, I've got a child dying, they're going to be dead by the end of the day. Should I take him to the house, middle or not?

They're not going to say, don't, and they're not going to say, dude, they're going to say, brother, you've been here. How many years? How many years have you sat under this end time message of faith? And you have to ask me that question. I see, I see a lot of cowardice and a lot of ministers, and to go back to our subject, if we are wrapping up now, John on broken bones, do you realize that you got this close to being a pastor and a Bible teacher earlier in this podcast, John, you got this close, and I will tell you where you got this close, you did fantastic. You say you aren't,

but you got this close because you said Psalm 3420, isn't that a messianic prophecy? Isn't that what that verse is? Isn't that presumptuous of us to say, I'm going to claim Psalm 3420, that verse was fulfilled according to John's gospel in John 19 when the soldiers went to break a bone because they did that to expedite the death of the person. They saw that our Lord was already dead. And so they didn't break his bone. And John said so that the scripture can be fulfilled that not a bone of his was broken. So here we are, we crazy charismatic running

around, hopscushing, connecting the dots, naven and claim it all through the Bible, pulling all these verses out of context. That's a verse that's talking about the Lord Jesus as he is our sacrifice on Calvary. And we have the audacity to say retroactively, I'm going to claim that even though I have a broken bone, I'm going to claim that I don't have a broken bone.

It's a messianic prophecy and promise. You know, I just had this conversation earlier today. I was recording a podcast with a guy and I said, when I was in the cult, I was an oddity because I was one of the few people.

I actually read my Bible. I knew what was in it. I was manipulated and indoctrinated and sometimes I'd read and it was, I don't know how to explain this, it's like my mind shut off.

I would read passages that in hindsight, they were condemning everything that the cult stood for, but I just my mind shut off, but I did read it. And then after I left, it's like suddenly those opened up, the veil that I had that was keeping me from understanding what I was reading suddenly lifted.

But then after I left and I started attending other churches, I found that I'm still an oddity. And it's surprising to me that not many people who even are Christian actually read their Bible, but if you read it, passages like the psalm, the psalm that you're mentioning, I mean, that's common knowledge if you actually read the thing.

You just read the passages and they, they're self-explanatory, right? Why would you apply this to a broken bone that you've already got? It none of it makes sense. But the fact that men like Hobart Freeman, men, while I doubt Brannum had any knowledge beforehand, although there is some question where they went to seminary, but the fact that some people actually know what it means and they decide to turn away from it, that's troubling because these men, some of them came in contact with the truth at some point and they decided to abandon the truth and let's say

the exact opposite of what this thing says. And is it mind control? I don't know, it's hard for me to picture somebody like Hobart Freeman being suddenly trapped into this and suddenly gradually convinced to abandon all of his teaching.

There had to been something else and what was it? Don't know that I can really answer that. I know that Hobart knew from reading John 19 that Psalm 3420 is a messianic prophecy, but they just always thought that there were dual, triple, multiple applications of every passage and everybody was so selfish.

They're just desperately looking for something for themselves. And there is plenty in the Bible for us without twisting something out of context. It's not for us like the shoes of the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness.

There are plenty of passages for us. There's plenty of truth to apply. As a matter of fact, you know, our problem is there's so much truth and we don't apply it to ourselves. That's the whole problem.

We all live a hypocritical life. God has so many commandments in the New Testament for us to practice. One of them is to love your neighbor, his yourself, and we don't do that. because if they don't agree with us and our cult, we just kick them out and never have anything to do with them again.

Well, you have failed the, one of the most basic verses in the Bible to love your neighbor as yourself. You have grossly failed that verse. So why go looking for broken bone verses when we can't even deal with the things that are sitting right in front of us?

Well, I'm just glad and fortunate that I didn't have the same thing that the Freemanites did. In the random cult, I could go get a cast, I could take it off. We had not gone to that level of extremism, but I have a running theory that some of these guys that go into the more extreme patterns, they're just a little mentally unstable, and that may be the answer to all of it.

So there's a lot to explore there, but we'll save that one for another podcast. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Brandom.org.

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

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