Five Fold or One Fold? The Myth of Restored Apostles and Prophets

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, Cheno Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Cheno D Ross YouTube channel.

Cheno I'm excited today to talk about the fivefold pyramid fivefold ministry. It is very much like a pyramid scheme but the only difference is it's more like a totem pole because there's literally the the guy at the top and nobody else.

That's usually the way whenever they start preaching fivefold ministry that's usually how it turns out but I'm very excited to talk about this because I have a lot of thoughts having escaped something that called itself fivefold ministry and watched all the problems within and then anytime that phrases mentioned with any sort of critical thinking you watch in the comment feeds they're very quick to point out the passage of scripture that mentions the you know the different offices but they seldom go to the next level which is how it plays out in the church today is it biblical or is it not

and there's a really a lot to discuss there. Yeah and knowing you and I we won't get it done in one podcast but we can sure give it a try John. So the last time you and I worked together we played a a rather extended prophecy that Dr. Freeman gave Hobart Freeman over his son-in-law Bruce Kinsey married to his middle daughter Kathy and that was given I mean we went way back in the archives 52 years ago to the summer of 1973 on a message entitled ministering by the spirit or a tape entitled that and Hobart called Bruce and Kathy up and

prophesied and what was interesting about that and I hope people will see how we're going to tie this into our discussion today of the so-called fivefold ministry office gifts was that Bruce had just gotten saved in the spring of 1973 he was a brand new believer and there was such a buzz of excitement in the glory barn to have Bruce Kinsey Kathy's husband now a part of the church because prior to that he had been an opponent of Dr. Freeman Kathy had met heard him when he was an unsaved man in 1970 and so a couple of years later he's converted

to Christianity and just a few months later I think maybe Hobart's emotions got the best of him and he all of a sudden thought he had a prophecy and you can you have to put yourself back in that mindset and that feeling of all of the excitement of the glory barn in the early 1970s they had just moved in in the fall of the year before in October of 1972 and Bruce has saved in the spring of 1973 and so it just seems like God is confirming everything about Dr. Freeman's ministry because everything is going well and going right for them and so

later in that year in the summer of 1973 we had this ministering by the spirit tape that was done where Hobart gives just a series of prophecies and speaking in tongues and interpretation word of knowledge, healings, different things like that one of the things I didn't mention that I'll just mention in passing is toward the end of that he calls out a brother research and he says something like this if people go and find this message online they can hear all of it he said brother research it's your teeth God wants to heal your teeth well I knew later in the 70s when I

joined the movement I knew who brother research was and that was George research who was a long time member along with his wife Lillian research a faith assembly and they were actually evangelist missionaries because they went to Belize in Central America and that's where they were stationed and I've had the opportunity to talk to some of their relatives because of these podcasts so I always love George and Lillian research they were I thought they were good people and I stayed in touch with them in the early 70s from my little teenagers allowance actually sent them money

probably five or ten dollars whatever I could afford to support their endeavors down in Central America but I would encourage the research relatives to go listen to that message and I wonder what happened with their father's teeth I do know that George research died unfortunately a terrible death following Dr Freeman's teaching died right before Hobart did with no medication at all so he unfortunately was another one of the casualties but anyway getting back to Bruce I think Hobart's emotions maybe got the best of him he gives his prophecy that Bruce Kinsey has the mantle of a prophet upon him and is going to minister to the Jew and to the Gentile out there in the

Fast forward 11 years to the fall of 1984 and this prophecy doesn't sound so good anymore because now Bruce has himself begun to question things. He's had a flip in mind about Hobart Freeman and his ministry and now he's actually become an opponent of Dr. Freeman's so much so that he has challenged Dr.

Freeman and Dr. Freeman prophesies against him the next time he has a prophecy this and we play this last year John and messages from Hobart when we were doing podcast but Hobart did a message entitled believers before the burning bush in his exhortations from Exodus series and on that tape he prophesies against Bruce and said because you've not submitted yourself to God's servant I'm going to remove your lampstand and so Bruce got out of the ministry he's no you know no longer followed Dr. Freeman and didn't follow him for you know the rest of Bruce's life until he passed away in 2008 so you've

got two prophecies you have one done in 1973 where he's everyone is excited and Dr. Freeman is fresh and excited and here goes Bruce into the ministry at some future point as a prophet and now jump fast forward 11 years later and Bruce is no longer supportive and so Hobart is prophesying against him and so I always wondered and I wonder what faith is simply people fault and think to this day what they do with that first prophecy did they just sweep it under the rug I mean it was never mentioned again it was never mentioned from the

pulpit I've often wondered did people even know that was on that message and thankfully John 52 years later it's still on that message it's still available for people to hear today did they not know it was there or did they forget it had they heard it at one time but they no longer remember it my guess would be if anyone knew that prophecy had heard it and forgotten it and someone me or someone else reminds them my guess would be they probably would ascribe everything to a failure on Bruce's part that that prophecy was a

conditional prophecy that if you stay faithful to Hobart Freeman then you get to be a prophet I mean I can't think of any other way that they would deal with that except to say it somehow a failure on Bruce's part to become a prophet but come on guys and a look at the prophets in the Bible anyone that ever tried to get out of it Moses or Jeremiah said God I'm just a child Jonah is probably the most famous story of someone trying to get out of being a prophet, there's no such thing as failure on your part. If you're a prophet in the Old Testament called by God,

you're a prophet, and he will get you sooner or later, and you will do the ministry of the prophet as the Lord called you to do. So that makes me suspicious of this prophecy that Hobart gave makes me suspicious of this whole doctrine of faithful ministry.

I remember growing up, one of my greatest fears of all was quicksand. No matter where I went, I was afraid that quicksand was going to get me, because if you read a children's book, there was quicksand in it. If you watch one of the old Disney movies, there's quicksand.

Everywhere you look in the entertainment industry was quicksand, and then to become an adult and find out that you never ever see this stuff. It's kind of funny, but what's really odd is the cults are very much like quicksand. When the prophecy is issued, it's sitting there on top, and the more that time goes by, the more it sinks down, meaning the more less likely it is to come to pass. But there comes a point in which it completely disappears under the quicksand. It's gone. You don't see it anymore. It's long forgotten, and that's the way it is with the prophecies and the cults. It'll be there until it just sinks until

there's no salvaging it whatsoever. It's just gone. And then the cult mind just forgets about it. Many prophecies were this way, and I'll never forget, once I started going through that process of evaluating all of the many things that I believe that was going to happen in my lifetime. William Brannum would often throw this phrase out to my parents.

This is for your generation. This is not for your children's generation. This is for your generation. If you go back through that list of everything that's supposed to happen to their generation, well, many of the people he was speaking to were like my grandparents age, not even my parents, and they're all dying off. So everything that he said with a time stamp is pretty well-ended, but the prophecies themselves, they're just, you know, it can't be. Some of the things can't be. So the older I get, and the more disconnected from this, I realize that the cults themselves were much like the quicksand.

But you and I, Johnner, I'm listening to what you're saying. You and I are sticklers for the facts. I mean, if you gave this as a prophecy, I'm 100% okay with that. Now, let's let it stand the test of time. And they just, they don't stand the test of time. And then as you say, somehow they just dissolve into the quicksand. But I'm not good with that.

I mean, I'm not good with that at all. I guess that's a convenient way out. That's a great way out, if you're a false prophet, is just have everyone forget about it. But as you're saying that I'm thinking there are plenty of prophecies in their old testament, they didn't come to pass.

you know, for hundreds of years later. And that didn't involve the validity of the man or the message. Isaiah prophesied before Israel had ever gone into captivity, before the southern kingdom of Judah had ever gone into captivity, that God was gonna raise up a servant and Isaiah even named him.

He said his name will be Cyrus. And Cyrus the Persian is the very king that allowed the exiles in Babylon to return at the end of the six-century BC. That was 200 years before the time.

Of course, Bruce's prophecy won't work because you can't live to be 200 years and Bruce has been dead for a long time. But every one of these guys who comes along and gives any kind of prophecy that has a predictive element to it and not all prophecy has to have a predictive element.

But if it does, you better be careful because your life is in the balances according to the book of Deuteronomy, you know, false prophets was interesting about the nature of prophecy under the old covenant.

We can't do an Old Testament theology study here, but we can at least say this much, is it was a serious, serious institution in Israel and it was a serious offense to be found to be a false prophet.

They did not treat it lightly because they did not treat the true calling of a prophet lightly because no one could call themself and the ones who call themselves by definition were false prophets and the ones whom God called were true prophets and consequently their word came to pass.

But as soon as someone gives something nowadays, whether it's Jehovah's Witnesses predicting the date of the second advent, you know, and that didn't happen. And so when that didn't happen, they have to come back and say, well, what we meant by that was that Christ would enter into the heavenly sanctuary at that moment.

So that is what we meant by him coming again. And of course, everybody probably remembers the book, what was it, 88 reasons for the rapture in 1988. As soon as you hear anything cute like that, you know it's false because why aren't there 87 or 89 reasons for it happening in 88.

As soon as I hear 88 reasons for 88, I just check that's false, I know it's false. And we know it's false because Jesus said no one knows. So as soon as someone says, I know you're gonna either choose to believe them or choose to believe Jesus in the New Testament account.

And of course that that day came and went and then it was the next day. I think it was like September the 12th or something and then it was the 13th and then it was the 14th.

And then it has to be, well, what we meant by that was instead of someone standing, Heading up and saying, look, I'm going to go ahead and blindfold myself and step in front of the firing squad because that is the Old Testament penalty for being a false prophet.

So I'll start the process blindfold myself. You guys count to five and then fire away and I deserve to die for my false prophecies. Yeah. It's a serious offense, John, and how big has prophecy become today?

For 40 years past, Hobart's death and prophecy and prophets, false prophets, five-fold ministry, that stuff's not going away and it's not even dying down. I mean, if anything, it is on the rise, you know, click on YouTube and you can see people who claim to be prophets and prophecies and apostles giving these prophecies.

But it's almost... It reminds me of what you and I have discussed earlier as far as divine healing goes. The message that Hobart taught of healing is for a bum left shin or sore right shoulder.

It's so waters down what we truly see in the Bible of specific healings that happen immediately. They happen that day and they are of incredible illnesses or diseases or even death. And you've been buried like Lazarus for three days.

You're just trivializing the things in the Bible. You're making mockery of that by teaching your healing message is somehow biblical. And I can't help but think that the same thing is probably happening with prophets and prophecies today where people think that if it's a prophet that he's somehow similar to Agabus in the New Testament or to Ezekiel in the Old Testament.

And I just think that that, you know, it really devalues what we have in the Bible of true prophets in my own personal study. I'm reading Ezekiel and I keep reading where it said, and the word of the Lord came unto me saying, son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel.

So what he claimed, and it was true because it's in God's word, is that the word of the Lord came to him. It just came to him. He didn't go to school and learn it.

He didn't think it up. He didn't dream it up. It did not have its origin within himself. The word of the Lord came to him and that word said, prophesy to the nation of Israel and then say these words, and that's what he did.

And I think people are today prophesying out of their own heart when it has all of this addictive element in it. And I think the verse we closed with last time at the end of Deuteronomy of 13 or 18, whichever chapter it was, said you don't have to be afraid of these people because they prophesy out of their own heart.

It really becomes more of sorcery or fortune telling than it does prophecy. And if you're a businessman, you understand that it's also more marketing than it is even religion. You mentioned the 88 reasons that would the rapture come in 88.

William Brannum would always mock the guys that were throwing out these numbers. One of them, I think he said a million more in 44, 1944 being the date. They were talking about different strategies.

Well, that's a catchy phrase. And it makes a good slogan and it makes good marketing material. So the one you publish books, magazines, literature, newspaper advertisements, if you put that little slogan, that's going to bring in revenue.

And that's really what it's about as revenue. And I'm sure the guy got a lot of revenue out of his book for naming it like that. That's how it works. But that's not how, if you read the Bible, that's not how God works.

You don't find prophecies that are based off of random numbers that are catchy phrases. But in today's world, the sad part is, it has become so common that people think that the catchy phrase that's generated by a marketing engine sounds biblical because all of these guys are using the word Jesus while they're using these phrases.

And it's sad to me to watch it happen. When I was just a teenager, 17 years old, first heard Dr. Freeman, one of the things that I began hearing immediately because it was in every sermon was God is in his present day restoring the five-fold ministry offices to the body of Christ.

And he would go on these long speeches that, you know, we can't come to maturity, we can't be who God wants us to be without the five-fold ministry offices. And he had this wonderful little, we called it the bubble book.

It's this pink book that has these bubbles on it. Charismatic body ministry. That is a picture of a young Hobart Freeman. And you can see my copy dates to May the 10th of 1976.

One of the earliest things I got from Dr. Freeman was this little book. And what he does is he, you know, he takes you down the path of how this was in the early church because the early church lost the experience of the Holy Spirit, they lost the ministry gifts and God is now restoring them today in the 20th century.

That would have been in the 1970s. And you know, this was great news to us. I mean, I knew of Deacons and Elders and pastors because we had the- I knew the Catholic Church had bishops and cardinals and popes, but I had never heard of apostles and prophets.

And so it was exciting for everyone to think. And this is a way that it was told to us that it can be just like the book of Acts again. And really, this is a way all of their teachings were because anything they read in the Bible, you know, from the crossing of the Red Sea to Paul being called up to the third heaven, those weren't a one-time event.

You know, these events, if you have enough faith and you're in God's in-time army, these events can happen regularly to all of us. That's exactly the kind of stuff that was being told to us.

So Peter's shadow just falling on someone. You know, we heard Peter's shadow in Acts 5, that's going to happen again, and Paul's anointed Claus in Acts 19, and you know, being called up and seeing all of these visions, we were told that you can have these things today.

And Hobart did a basis on a verse in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 11, where Paul is talking about Christ who descended is also the one who ascended and when he ascended back to heaven, then he sent gave ministry gifts to the church.

And we read in Ephesians 4, 11, that he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. And then Paul goes on to say for the edifying of the body of Christ, for the equipping of the saints, for the perfecting of us until we come into maturity.

And so Hobart's argument would be, if you're lacking any of these ministry offices, then there is no way you can ever be the type of Christian God has called you to be. You simply can't be.

If all you have is your local church with a pastor who teaches you, then there's no way that you can ever be fully equipped and become fully mature as a child of God. You've got to have these five full ministry offices.

And so that became a part of the language. That became part of the cult language where we would call any minister, rather than calling the minister or something, we'd normally just say, he's fivefold.

Fivefold. And so that was cult terminology. And it just lasted for years and years. And it was, as I look back on it, it is such an aberration. And it is so childish and immature, it's just almost cartoonish, where these church people would say, yeah, we've got a fivefold coming in next week.

And if you're not a part of the cult, you have no idea. You don't have a clue what they mean. But what they mean is, well, Brother Judd. who's been kind of teaching, talking to us, you know, for the last few weeks.

Next week we'll have something better because we'll have a fivefold here. In other words, you'll have one of those recognized ministers from a recognized ministry office approved by Faith Assembly who will be traveling to one of these, you know, distant satellite groups to be our minister.

And that was a big deal. Another little local guy is just, he's second class. He's just fill in because he's probably got a day job and, you know, God forbid, you can't work a day job and be a true minister, you know, and then you say, well, what about Paul?

Paul had a day job every day of his life and he's the greatest Christian minister who ever walked the face of the earth. But according to our theology, if you're fivefold, you've got to spend all your time in prayer and in the Word.

And what that really meant is listening to Hobart Freeman's tapes. That's what you really had to be spending your time doing and you didn't have time to have another job. So they were very grateful whenever a fivefold will come along.

So you know, John, in all my early years, I use the same terminology. And I just thought that is really great fivefold ministry. I thought we had a verse for it, Ephesians 4.11.

I didn't read two chapters before Ephesians 2.20. Well, I did read it, but I didn't see any inconsistency because you just, you just take what you're being told, but you know, a few years go by and you're able to think for yourself a little better.

And even when I wasn't to the point that I could deal doctrinally or exegetically with that whole concept, there were other ways that I could deal with it. And this is kind of the way that I personally was able to transition.

I couldn't always deal doctrinally because I didn't know enough to undo the false doctrine, but what always would stand out to me were inconsistencies, either in teaching or practice. And the inconsistencies were always the things because I, even though I believed that, which was a false doctrine, I believed a false doctrine.

I believed it in the sincerity of my heart. I believed it in the genuineness and the sincerity of my heart. And proof of that was when I developed a little more and I thought I could recognize there's some kind of inconsistency happening here.

I wouldn't just brush that inconsistency all. I was not willing to do that. I was the type of person who would say, well, I still believe in fivefold because that's what I've been taught.

But now I got to deal with this inconsistency and I can't just sweep it under the rug. I've got to figure out what's the answer to this. And so here's the first inconsistency I saw that I would recommend for everyone out there in listening land to at least consider, and that was this.

I knew Hobart's tapes well because I listened to all of them multiple times, and he didn't have that many in 1976 compared to what he had eight years later by 1984. And one thing I noticed is that those earlier prophets and apostles and evangelists and so forth that Hobart had so glowingly referred to and spoke of, he later unathematized all of them.

And so that began to present a problem for me because when I first heard Fifeful Ministry office, I saw it in the Bible and then because I didn't know any apostles or prophets, then when Hobart was able to provide me with the names of current ones who were living, then I thought, well, that settles it then.

You know, that totally settles it. The Bible teaches it. He lost it in our church for thousands of years and now God is restoring the Fifeful Ministry and proof that he is restoring are these men in these ministry offices now.

So if we could, John, if you could play this the very brief clip from a message Hobart did entitled Preparation for Restoration or Roberts is an evangelist, he's not a teacher. Again, none of this is to be taken in the wrong sense.

We're trying to make a point just like I'm not an evangelist, you see. So that isn't a reflection on me or Roberts is an evangelist, he's not a teacher. T. L. Osborne is an apostle, he's not a teacher.

William Brownham was a prophet. I'm a teacher. Billy Graham doesn't even have the baptism, but I believe God's reaching him to reach denominational people. He could have it if he wanted, but there's where God is using a situation like it is.

So this is not an isolated example on any of Hobart's early messages. I'll say from the late 60s into the mid-70s, say 1975, maybe 1976, Hobart, he had not become the charismatic curmudgeon that he did later in his life.

So he was recognizing all of these people. We heard on that clip, he said, so all Roberts is an evangelist. So he went on to scathingly denounce all Roberts because he was building a medical complex, which is in contradiction to his healing message.

And so Hobart totally rejected him. Or Roberts is an evangelist, T. L. Osborne is an apostle. Well you have some of the craziest stories and you've already talked about them and put them out there of what T. L. Osborne's ministry was all about.

I've never heard of T. L. Osborne, but Hobart told stories and there were just stories. You know, that's it. There were just stories. And he would say, if you've got a man who's an apostle like T. L. Osborne, he can see He thousand people converted under one message and he would use TL Osborne as the example.

And then we also heard in that clip and he said, and William Brannum was a prophet. And then I'm a teacher. And on many, many other tapes, he would call Brannum a prophet. On many other tapes, he would call Kenneth Hagen a prophet.

Well, Kenneth Hagen ended up teaching the Jesus died spiritual, spiritually, heresy that he died spiritually. Hobart said, that's a heresy. Hagen definitely taught that. So here's the inconsistency. You see that I'm having a process.

How is it that Hagen is a prophet? A prophet means an Isaiah, Jeremiah, is equal to me. I mean, he's a prophet. How is it Hagen is a prophet? And he's teaching a damnable heresy.

That sounds like a false prophet to me and not a true prophet. And he would say on many other tapes that Catherine Coolman was an evangelist. Was a female evangelist. And he would say, now you don't have any problem with that.

With God calling women into ministry now, do you? He would say that on early tapes. Well, on later tapes, when he got to teaching on 1 Corinthians chapter 14, where he would teach women are not allowed in a speaking capacity with any authority over the church, that your women keep silence in church.

So he went on to blast not only these all Roberts, Osborne, Branham, and Hagen, but Catherine Coolman as well. So there was a first inconsistency I saw. So God has restored to the church, five-fold ministry office.

Here are some examples. He gave the examples in glowing terms. He gave the examples. And he went on to enathmetize him later, well, now you've just taken away from me. All the ones that I fought were current and were valid today.

So you know, it leaves me scratching my head and it leaves me wondering if God is restoring five-fold ministry office, then where are they? 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, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

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Any time that I mention the Firefold Ministry cult, which I will call it that outright, I always mention the Firefold Ministry passage as it is interpreted by the Firefold Ministry cult with skepticism. And the reason why is because of the straw man arguments used to support the cult version of it and the circular arguments to defend the cult version of it.

So any time that you're talking about the biblical offices and you talk about the prophets apostles and compare that to what we have today, the very first thing that you say if you have any sort of conscience of what's going on, as you say, well there's an awful lot of people that claim that they are apostles or prophets.

And you can clearly tell that they're not. And that begins the discussion. It opens the door. And here's where I kind of walk down the middle is, I can't remember what the word I use.

Was it skeptic, continued cessationist or something? Here's where I try to walk down the middle. Just openly discuss it as it's mentioned in the Bible. There is a passage in Ephesians that talks about the different offices.

But when you talk to somebody who is of the fivefold ministry cult, they say they want to use the word restore because the cult also has a restoration movement theology mixed in with it.

And there's, we could go into five podcasts and discuss why that is. But for now, we'll just say that if you try to add restoration to it, you have to add something that's extra biblical because there is nothing that says that this office will be restored in the so-called last days.

And if you use the phrase last days, you also have to do other podcasts to explain why they use the phrase last days because that too. So there are building blocks of loaded language that have to exist prior to the fivefold ministry cult's existence.

Without those building blocks, it doesn't exist. But then take it a step further. If you ever get into a discussion, which I have with somebody who's in the fivefold ministry cult, instead of going down that path, when you mentioned that there is no restoration, what they do is they do the circular argument.

Well, there's nowhere in the Bible that said these offices ever end. And that's what you call a straw man argument. Yes, that is correct. But there's also nowhere in history where it has continued.

And they will never discuss that part. There in history do you find this, until this weird mass of a movement that exists today, that literally exists only because of the cult's. You can only see this office being, quote unquote, restored because of the cult's.

And every leader who has appointed himself as such, is appointing himself as a self-proclaimed Prophet Apostle, and usually they don't even understand what the word Prophet or Apostle means, and sadly neither do their congregations. But those circular arguments, those building blocks of false theology, if you take all that away and just take what the Bible says and read it for the context of the Bible, and this is me taking the sort of the cessationist view into this, not that I'm saying that I am this, but what it is describing is a snapshot in time. There were apostles,

there were prophets. If you read the Bible, you can find all of these things. It doesn't say that it is to continue forever, so that's where you get into the continuous debate. But also in history, you don't see that it did continue. That's where the point that I'm driving at. It's not that there's nothing explicitly that says these gifts will end, but there's a long period of time where you don't find, you don't find faithful ministry being preached as it is today, what you instead find are people who are preaching about the past apostles, the past prophets, the past offices,

and some may be teachers, of course, some may many are preachers, but those offices that were for the for the biblical versions of a prophet and biblical versions of an Apostle, they didn't exist until the last day mass. Everything you said, John, it's so loaded there and you're so right, and we are so limited in our time today. The idea of restoration, that's Acts 321 until the time of the restitution of all things spoken of by the Holy Prophet since the world began. They use that verse all the time. That's clearly, if you read the context, that is a second advent

millennial context. I won't say anymore on that. I would love to go into the doctrinal side of all of this, but that wasn't and isn't my purpose today. The the latter reign, the former reign in the latter reign, Joel 2, that is a huge issue and I hope that we can talk about that, but yes, the whole restoration implies that they disappeared, but that brings me into my next point, because that is a good point and they had an answer or they had an answer for that. The fact that

you were you said, well, in order for them to be restored, they have to have stopped and we don't have anywhere in the Bible that says they were ever going to stop and that was part of their argument. That they would say, I think it's 1 Corinthians 1228, God has set in the church first apostles, secondarily prophets, then after that teachers, works of miracles and so forth, and they would say God set them in the church and he never said that he took them out. We'll hopefully come back to that before we're through today, but the next inconsistency that I saw

was not only did Hobart anathematize these people that he before had told us are our current examples of apostles and prophets which we really need to have some is one thing to say God's restoring and we're all saying amen amen God's restoring and then but the next thing is show me one you know if God's restoring show me one and of course you said John while there's everybody claiming and we can tell there are many false and they would say well yeah there are plenty false one but they're also true I'm good with that show me one that's what we're wanting to

do is see a show me one and now he's anathematized the ones that he had pull forward as exhibit number one for an apostle and a prophet so then my mind says well okay but since faith assembly and Dr. Freeman's message is the only pure n-time church message group movement word then that's where I would expect to find the prophets and the apostles that's the only approved pure n-time word is Hobart's word so okay I can accept the fact that Hagen is false and Brannem is false and T. L. Osborne is false but now you're narrowing your

confines even more now I need to find one within the midst of faith assembly and so so here we go with my my logical mind looking for consistency or the lack thereof so we have one Bruce Bruce is called to be a prophet problem is Bruce was never a prophet he never went into any ministry office Bruce never claimed to be one just Hobart had prophesied you will be one okay but then fast forward to the fall of 1984 and Hobart anathematized his Bruce as well so there goes one that was from within the midst and so here you talk about some circular obscure

reasoning and arguments here is a path that Hobart went down that anyone who came from faith assembly will remember this because Hobart because he likes to talk about himself a lot he talked about this story a lot and this was the apostle who came from Denmark the apostle who came from Denmark so we have a clip that we're going to play and before you play it maybe I will just kind of outline it so people know where they're headed John before they listen to the clip but it's found on many different messages but as I was going through trying to find well Hobart where

did you give a a full or more complete account of this story you can find it on a message entitled Preparation for Manifestation Part two, this is in the Roman series. So this is probably in Romans 8 when he's gonna teach on the manifestation of the sons of God, 36 minute, 36 second time stamp to 40 minute,

and 29 second time stamp. And here's what you're gonna hear, and then we'll listen to it in a minute. Hobart Till tells a story of an apostle who lived in Denmark, who God appeared to in 1959, and this man went on a fast.

The man went on a fast because, according to Hobart, this man who was an apostle, you gotta remember, an apostle in the church in Denmark, but he was an apostle in the brethren denomination in the church in Denmark.

He came over to the United States in 1959 to visit the brethren church and was heartbroken over the fact that the brethren church in the United States had lost the experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.

Hobart said, oh yeah, they had it in Europe. You know, it never disappeared. It continued from the apostles right on through history. This goes back to your point in earlier, John, but it was just in little hidden pockets.

You know, it was never known in any broad scale way. The Catholic church was big, the Protestant Reformation was big, but the charismatic were always there. They were just hidden tucked away somewhere. So in the brethren denomination, Hobart said in Denmark, they're charismatic, they're filled over the whole history of their existence.

You know, and I'm scratching my head thinking, but I thought we were anti-denominational. So how can you have an apostle in the brethren denomination? But anyway, you know, you just, you hear all these inconsistencies and you just, they don't make sense, but you just keep listening to the story and you keep buying into the story.

So when he went back to Denmark in 1959, the year I was born, he was so grieved over it, he went on a fast. He fasted for four weeks with no food and with no water.

And at the end of four weeks, God gave him a vision of a man and said pray for him. And that's all he said. Here's a man pray for him. He continued his fast for another three weeks.

At the end of 49 days with no food and with no water, God said, the reason that I showed you that man is I'm going to fill him with my Holy Spirit and use him as my end time messenger.

The reason most of you are here as far as being related to this body is because somebody got a direct revelation about it. your pastor back in 1959 the only thing I knew about the baptism of the Holy Spirit is it was a doctrine we taught it over three years in seminary when it came up or in Sunday school it came up you know that's all I knew about it a brother came over here to our seminary where I taught discovered that the brethren no longer believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gifts

and were even saying tongues were in the devil and he said practically broke his heart happens to be an apostle never been told you know they're not for today and happens to be an apostle in his church over in Denmark and said he went back and began to fast and pray for the brethren over here in America because he said when they came over they had this experience and they did you can read their history they were charismatic when they came and so somewhere they lost the gifts and the apostleship and the anointing and all of that went back and began to fast and

prayed I found out about this later I learned of it in 66 but this was happening in 59 when I asked not so much as her to the Holy Spirit we're talking about direct revelation he said he fast and prayed without food and water for four weeks four weeks super natural now he doesn't he doesn't fast without water over time but it was a super that's this concern for the brethren in America then the four weeks he said God gave him a vision of a man and said pray for this man that's all he said well he said you know that wasn't enough for him to satisfy him he's crying

out for God to pour his spirit out again upon these men who had it when they came over here and now resisting it and he said he fast he just kept up he's fast for three more weeks 49 days seven weeks without food or water I you couldn't go eight days probably without water you couldn't but I mean God could enable you he said at the eight on the 49th day in the seventh week all they had was the vision pray for this man he said the Lord spoke again he said the reason I told you to pray

for this man he said I'm going to raise him up filling with my spirit here be an instrument in my hand in these last days well that's what he told him so he obeyed the Lord began to pray and for years prayed for that man he saw on the vision 59 all the way up to 1966 and somewhere around 67 a brother who was as one of my students in the seminary came by and found out we were charismatic and he when he was in the seminaries of student we always knew there was something wrong with him he

had the Holy Ghost we didn't know what it was he was odd you know he was real odd in the sense that he was kind of always caught up in the spirit we thought and wasn't down here where everyone else was living his Christians he just had faith in the victory and knew the baptism of the Holy Spirit well anyway when he he came by to visit me and found out we're charismatic and stayed that night and spoke I spoke and he spoke and took a picture and went back to Denmark He's from also and visited this brother who was doing all this fasting and praying back in 59.

He said, I want to tell you about my experience when I went to America and talked to the seminary and they're non-charismatic in opposing it at all and he started telling him all this and I went back, came back here and began to pray and fast and said, the Lord gave me the vision of a man.

And this brother who had been my student said he began to describe this person. Why? He said, I know him. He's my former teacher. In fact, he said we were just in his church and they're charismatic now. He's already got the baptism. He says, let me show you. This isn't the man.

He said he pulled the picture out. He took on our house church. Why? He said, that's a man. The God showed me in 59. So the congregation, John, at the glory barn is really excited.

Hobart says only reason any of you people are even here is because of what happened years ago when God gave this brother this burden and then gave him this vision and I'm a result of that and you're a result of that and how the connection was made as you hear in the curtain the clip is there was a seminary student of Hobart at the brethren seminary, Grace Brethren seminary, who came over and visited Hobart's home church in Claypool in 1966 after Hobart had become charismatic. He was from Denmark. He was in the brethren church and once he saw that his former

professor had received the Holy Spirit on one of his trips back to Denmark, he somehow ran across this Denmark brethren apostle was telling him what God was doing in the United States. The apostle was saying, well, I had a vision or a dream of this man. They compare stories, the apostle realizes, oh, that's the very man I've been praying for and so it all coalesces as this miracle that God had shown a man Hobart Freeman's face in 1959 and now this is being fulfilled in Hobart Freeman's line. That's a story that's been told and retold and retold. There are several

problems with that story. In Hobart's own little declaration that he of his the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in his church in Claypool where they met under the Claypool Water Tower in 1966, Hobart wrote this a year later. He relates that story in here, but in this account of it, the man is a pastor. He's not an apostle. The story began to evolve as Hobart told the story. He was no longer a pastor. Now he...

is an apostle. And as Hobart would continue to tell the story, the story just took on a life of its own. And when I first heard the story, it sounded like, you know, confirmation of Hobart Freeman's entire ministry that God would use an apostle in Denmark to go on a 49 day, no food, no water, fast, just for this one man. And then this whole monument of faith ministry that he would build until faith assembly, you know, let's go in hindsight, fell apart and disintegrated, you know, people, you could see why people would hold onto

that and believe it because faith assembly in the 70s was growing and vibrant and lively. The inconsistencies were still there. And you know, the one that I always wondered about and thought about during those years is, why haven't we ever met this apostle? I mean, that would have been, that would have been the guy was alive back in the 60s at least.

Why didn't he come and see this figure? Why didn't, why don't we have some record? I'd like to know the person's name. I would like to know everything I can about this apostle. The problem is that was never going to happen. I know there are people out there probably wondering, well, what is the story of this man? I don't know the story of this man, but I just see too many inconsistencies. Hobart Freeman's ministry, you know, fell apart, dissolved. You know, he died sick. Everybody else died sick. So if this had been a valid word, I don't think this would have been the result of the ministry. There are too many shady

things without documentation in the background. And I would ask that anyone who continues to follow Dr. Freeman's ministry, they need to take seriously this whole story of the apostle in Denmark and you need to find some way to deal with that.

You mentioned the issue of the guy was a preacher and then he's supposed to be a teacher or one of the other offices. This is actually the sole reason why I don't take either side of this argument because if you take a moment to understand the ancient world and the context in which the scripture is written, you have a bunch of people who were largely illiterate, who if you gave them a Bible, they couldn't read it for themselves, who came out of pagan backgrounds, who had no idea how Christian worship or even ancient Judaism would have been

the ceremonies and the structure and the religion would have been structured. You had to have somebody who's teaching them. And the teacher office is the one that I usually use whenever I describe this because you really needed that. You needed apostle, apostle means somebody who sent out, it's very close to to the ancient word for a missionary.

This is somebody who goes out. But what you find in this weird fivefold cult that exists today, anybody who claims that they're in this fivefold thing and they have an office that's not preacher, well, they usually started as a preacher.

They didn't start out as a prophet of fossil or any of the others. They started out and then what happened was usually, and I know there are exceptions to this rule, but usually it's somebody who you can clearly tell has some sort of a mental health issue or who is struggling with narcissistic personality disorder to think that they are something more than the preacher that they are.

So they start to see themselves as this new apostle or a prophet or whatever the office is. So they've tried to step into a role that wasn't really fitting for them in the first place.

But go back to the role of teacher. In today's world, we didn't come out of pagan religion. We do understand as Christians, by and large, the Christian religion, we teach our children the Christian religion.

The office of teacher in today's world almost doesn't make sense. Because from a very early age, we're being taught in our Sunday school programs, even the adult Sunday school programs and you have people teaching people, you really don't have the need for that specific office.

And I find it very ironic that Hobart Freeman chooses the office of a teacher. I don't know why that is, because most cult leaders, as a narcissistic personality disorder, they want to go to the very top and this five-fold ministry, while the biblical version of it is in a case where everybody is equal.

Everybody's doing their specific part, their specific role. There is no authority. The version of five-fold ministry cult is usually a pyramid where, at the very top is the apostle guy. So that's why every single one of these guys wants to say, I'm an apostle.

And if they are coming in under somebody, they'll say, well, I'm a prophet, because the guy at the top is the apostle. It's a pyramid scheme. But the role of a teacher isn't usually the one that they choose.

And then, like I said in today's world, you don't even need it. So the whole thing to me doesn't make sense. And I think the reason that Hobart, and that's a good observation, John, he didn't claim any of those, the top two, apostle or prophet.

I think the reason that he didn't is because he had enough common sense and biblical sense, even though he had lots of narcissism too, to remember that he himself had taught that in order to be an apostle, that requires a direct appearance of Jesus Christ to you as we see in the end of Acts 1.

In order for them to have chosen a replacement for Judas, the requirements were you had to have seen the Lord Jesus, you had to have been a part of the ministry of his ministry in his life, you had to have seen him after...

the resurrection, you know, you couldn't just go out into the world in the first century and claim to be an apostle if you didn't meet certain requirements. And that's why the apostle Paul was so different because we know that he was not a part of Jesus' ministry.

He was not a part of the group in the upper room who saw Jesus in his resurrected state. That's why we have such a big emphasis in the book of Acts on Paul's conversion experience on the road to Damascus where he did see the Lord.

Here in 28 chapters of early church history when, you know, you want to economize space because you have so much to tell, Luke tells Paul's conversion experience three different times when one would be sufficient.

When you look at what an author does and you ask, why did he do it? And I think the reason Luke told Paul's conversion experience three different times is it was so important and so significant for the early church to recognize that even though the apostle Paul wasn't a part of the 12th and even though he wasn't the replacement for Judas, even though he didn't see Jesus in Jesus' earthly ministry, Jesus made a specific direct appearance to him on the road to Damascus and we read the first account in Acts 9 of that account of Paul seeing the risen Lord and being called into the ministry.

Hobart knew he's not seen Jesus. Now, he might have seen a vision or a dream, but he has not seen Jesus as the apostles and the New Testament dead and as Paul did. So then we're again, we're back to the day.

How can you claim to be an apostle today? I don't think they understand the people claiming that what the biblical requirements are and they are that you were a part of the Lord's ministry and if you weren't that, you have to be the exception like the apostle Paul was and we just don't have that.

I think Hobart knew he couldn't claim those things because it's going to contradict all that he had taught the people before so he just was happy being stuck down at the bottom as a pastor or a teacher, but he claimed he was a prophetic teacher that his teachings had a prophetic element to him.

It wasn't just Bible exposition. He called that the dead letter of the word and I think the dead letter of the word, I don't even know that Hobart understood what Paul meant when Paul used that phrase.

I know those two men meant two entirely different things. Hobart didn't like just the writing on the page. You had to have the spiritual meaning of it in order for it to be valid.

But this inconsistency in the fact that there aren't any ministry offices at faith assembly except the teacher. And yet these people constantly said, well, we believe in fivefold ministry. And as I was emerging from the fog of that false teaching back in my 20s, I was asking the question, well, if you believe in it, then where are they?

And they just insisted on, well, he's a fivefold. He's a, and I would always come back. No, he's a onefold. You believe in a onefold ministry. You don't have Ephesians 4.11. You have a onefold ministry of a teacher. All these men were being sent out to all of these satellite groups. And none of them, none of them were even given the, the allowance by Hobart to become a pastor. They had to come back and hear him teach what he had to say. You know, one time we had someone show up in my church, Sean, who was a prophet. He was a very young man,

newly married, no children. I won't mention his name. But he showed up before he came. He called me, got my telephone number. And actually before he moved to the state, he was leaving another one of these faith assembly satellite groups. He was a part of Tom Hamilton's church in Shelbyville, Kentucky. And he called me and said he wanted to come and join my group. He didn't tell me who or what he was, just where he was coming from. Well, I never wanted to be any kind of sheepstealer.

So I actually called Tom Hamill on the phone. I said, Tom, somebody's wanting to leave your church and come and join my church. And I said, I'm not ever comfortable with that. You know, I don't like the appearance of that. Everybody's out there stealing everybody else's people. I said, that's the furthest thing from I would ever want to do. And when Tom heard who it was, this should have told me something. When Tom told me who it was, it wanted to come. He said, oh, that's fine. That's fine. That's fine if they join. So whenever they did come and want to

become a part of the church, well, then the young man told me he was a prophet. And I'm just like, oh, my. And he didn't last a week or two. You know, he was not a prophet. He was just one of these, you know, vague migrant church travelers that just traveled around. Hope that a group would give him an audience so that he could deliver his prophecies to him. But I just found, and I'll say this in conclusion at the very end of Hobart's book on body ministry. It's almost like the very last paragraph, John, it's almost like, even though he's talking about restoration, restoration, restoration,

the very last paragraph of the book, he says, we believe that these care charismatic housegroups, which meet regularly for worship, will either be directed by the Spirit to become full New Testament churches, or the participants of such groups should also be a part of a ministry of the ministry of charismatic churches already functioning.

Paul Hart never gave his ministers a freedom to go establish churches, and that's what it's all about. It's a restoration of everything. And in the very last paragraph, he's almost holding on to the fact that maybe you'll never, maybe you will never become a fully functioning New Testament church. But what you can do is you can keep listening to our tapes and reading my books, because we're a functioning church. And as long as you stay a part of us, then you'll be okay. The inconsistencies, I know we don't deal with this biblically here exegetically, John, but the inconsistencies were just so big in my mind. The only way I

could possibly have gotten out of that is to say, well, so far everything they have said has not been true. And so far, every apostle that I have been told about and every prophet I have been told about, they're all false. The only way you could continue to hold onto it is say, but maybe God is still going to restore those two offices of the church. That's when I would say, please go back and look at Ephesians 220, where Paul clearly says that the foundation of the Christian church of the first century, the foundation, not all the rest of it that's been

built down through the centuries, the foundation of it, he said, is built on the apostles and on the prophets. And had we just had guys floating around in the first century, you didn't know what they were talking about, Christianity never would have lasted. But because we had the apostles and the prophets of the first century, which I think that was their role to get the church established to write scripture. And now that we have a closed New Testament canon, you know, I'm very suspicious of anyone who claims to be an apostle or a prophet today. Well, in my opinion, they would have a

much more solid ministry if we were able to pass out Balam's donkeys to each of them. That's that's about all I'll say about it. Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having me, John.

Well, if you've enjoyed our show and 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, have the New Apostolic Reformation. You can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

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