When Healing Fails: Suffering and False Promises

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

Channel is good to be back and to talk about faith healing gone wrong. I think from my own experience in dabbling in this faith healing religion for 37 years, it seems like it works well for people that it works well for.

For people that it doesn't work well for, well they truly suffer. I grew up in a family where multiple members of the family had chronic illnesses in a faith that was supposed to heal them of those illnesses, but also at the same time it came with this insidious thing that was like, I don't know if you've got these packages for your car and it gives you this fine print that says, we will honor every single thing on this warranty except for the things that are your fault.

And they're basically putting a caveat so that they can get out of whatever, whatever happens as their loophole. Well, the thing about this faith healing religion was it gave a loophole to the faith healer. If it didn't work, it's your fault.

Just like some of the things that I've, you know, some of the warranties that I bought it, it's your fault. You did this thing, not me. And so that's what the ministers are doing. Well, it's all fun and games until you're that person because when you're that person, what it does to your mind, it just wreaks havoc because you think it's your fault. Oh my gosh, what did I do? I've done something wrong.

God doesn't love me. And so instead of a biblical God that loves you, what you end up with is what we're talking about today. Yeah. Well, good morning, John. I've got a sweater on. It's chilly outside.

We slept with all of our windows open last night. I think even, you know, misjumpers is even here trying to get warm. So that's why I'm bundled up in the sweater. We slept with the windows open.

They're still open. And what a nice cool fall morning. And two worlds are colliding because I'm wearing my shorts. It's not that cold. Man, come on. You're only 20. What? You're 30 miles from me, 45 miles from me.

Yeah. I just really cool. And it's windy and chilly out here in the country. So we've really, really, really been enjoying it. Yeah, this morning I would like to look at why Hobart Freeman's Master John Faith in Healing didn't work as he said it would.

Boy, it really came with a lot of promises. I think he had a lot of high hopes in his own mind and whenever he began teaching this early in the 70s and late 60s, there were high hopes in everybody's mind.

You can, I mean, he would just show up and it would be a Sunday evening or Wednesday evening or he was teaching on Sunday mornings back then and he would say, the Lord has given me another message on divine healing and everybody would be praise God.

They were so excited, you know, they're thinking, we're gonna learn more about healing and because they could tell they didn't quite have it figured out because they still couldn't see and they still couldn't pass their drivers test.

And so everybody is just trying to figure out what's going on? What is it about this message? Well, as you said earlier, what is it that's not covered with the warranty? What is it that I'm not doing right?

So, you know, Hobart had himself a fairly extreme view of faith in healing. He wasn't unique, there were people before him that had this, there are still people today that teach a relatively extreme view and what I mean by extreme view is it's just always God's will to always heal you if you're a child of his all the time and there are no exceptions to that.

Hobart felt that was the right view and any other view would be a compromise. Anything less than that would be a compromise. He always said that all the promises of God in Christ are yes and amen in first Corinthians.

And but you know, those verses were always out of context. We're not exactly for sure. Well, I do believe that whatever God has promised in Christ is definitely answered with a yes and amen but what actually has been promised.

You know, that's always the crux of the matter. And Hobart even to his dying day believed that message of always God's will to always heal the sick he would always say there are no exceptions to the promises of God.

He didn't, whenever it came time for his last breath he was still believing that as far as I know the only time Hobart ever really fudged on his teaching of extreme faith and healing was whenever and we've shared a little bit of this.

before, but it's interesting. He did fudge on it. Whenever it was time to talk to the judge in court, you know, he had been indicted and arrested and fingerprinted and booked over the death of Pamela Meeney, a 15-year-old young lady who had died of kidney problems in Hobart's church. This young lady did not want any medical treatment. Her parents did not want to provide her any medical treatment and all of this was done under the teaching of Dr. Freeman. You know, he had said, if you lean to the arm of the flesh, Jeremiah 17.5, you put yourself under a curse and he

interpreted that verse to mean if you went to a doctor or use any kind of medication, then you placed yourself under a curse. And if you do that, you're obviously in trouble with God.

And so it was, you know, no medicine as far as they were concerned. And that is what Hobart taught. He had, they had called a grand jury to determine what involved with a grand jury is the district attorney wants to figure out the legal system they want to determine is there probable calls to do what we are about to do. So they called a grand jury and they review evidence. They hear testimony and the testimony had to do with the death of Pamela Meeney, the withholding of medical hospital professional services for her. And even though she was in agreement with, she's 15

years old, she's a minor. So that doesn't really count. It's, you know, what were her parents doing and saying and her parents did not want to provide her any medical treatment because they wanted to follow Dr. Freeman's teaching. So the grand jury heard all of this evidence and they felt there's enough, there's sufficient evidence to indict Hobart Freeman as the one who had taught the parents who had taught the child this. So that's exactly what they did. He was arrested. And so just in a preliminary time before the judge, the judge before, you know, this is going to go to trial and

jumping ahead of myself as everyone I think knows Hobart died within a couple of months. So it never ended up going to trial as far as he was concerned. It did with the parents and they were in trouble because it broke in a new Indiana law. But Hobart did fudge on his teaching because when the judge asked him, what is your belief? What is your teaching on divine healing? Hobart said something along the line of, well, it is our, he always said hour. I want to include other people.

He didn't just want to say my, it is our conviction in our church that Christ has provided healing for his people through his death on the cross. And if you just make that statement and nothing else, you know, you wouldn't be in any trouble.

And there is definitely some truth to that Christ has provided everything in the Atonement. Now, when are we going to realize all that He's provided? That is a separate question. But anything that we get, anything that we have has definitely been provided by Jesus' death on the cross.

But the judge was smart enough to know that's kind of a general and vague answer, and he wanted to know a little bit more. So he wanted to know, well, what is it you actually teach? What do you teach?

And you know what Hobart said? He said, well, I just teach people that they need to trust the Lord. And he said, well, but do you teach them that it's a sin to go to the doctor?

And Hobart wouldn't answer that question. And he definitely did teach that. And that's why people didn't go to the doctor. But he knew the kind of trouble he would be in. And he said, that's for every man to decide on their own.

We simply teach the general biblical doctrine from the pulpit. We lay it out there that Christ has provided your healing in his atonement. And it's up to every man and woman to decide on their own.

And I've looked back on that and thought that was very... Well, it was just cowardly on Hobart's part. And had that gone to trial, they had all of his tape recordings. They would have simply played the tape recordings and you could figure out who was telling the truth and who wasn't.

And Hobart definitely told that it was a sin to go to the doctor. So what was his view? His view, John, was that all sickness would be healed on all occasions for all of God's children at all times if they meet the conditions.

So it was a big blanket, all sickness. He said there are no exceptions to the promises of God, but there are conditions. So he'll heal all sickness all the time under all circumstances for all of his children without the use of medical science and drugs if you will meet the conditions.

And what are those conditions? Well, he provided those in his little faith pamphlet, five conditions that you've got to base your faith on the Word of God, then you've got to claim it, confess it, act on it, endure it.

It was, you know, a faith formula theology. It was definitely healing on demand that you had to base your faith on God's Word. You had to find a promise in the Word of God and claim it. Then you have to claim it. Then you have to confess it to everyone.

You have to go around making a positive confession. Then you have to act on it. You have to act as though you believe you have received. And then here's the big critical one. You have to endure to the end.

Endure to the end. in means waiting for however long of a period of time. And I don't know if people realize this. I'm not for sure if you realize this, John. But I want to say this because of your connection to William Brannum and that is guess who wrote the little forward or the little introduction in the original copies.

I don't know if the current editions of the book have the forward as was in the original ones that all of us have. But guess who wrote the little forward, Gordon Lindsay. So it shows right there we know Gordon Lindsay was tightly connected to William Brannum.

He was William Brannum's crusade director at some point in William Brannum's life. So I'm simply saying this to say the following that for Gordon Lindsay to have written the forward to the book that God will heal all sickness all the time.

No need for medical science. If you meet these five conditions means that Gordon Lindsay and that whole camp of the Pentecostal Charismatic movement had to have agreed with what Hobart was saying. It was a big movement and there were a lot of men and women who were in agreement in helping to spread this thing.

Whenever William Brannum started back in the, he started much earlier than the 40s, but whenever Laterane began in the late 40s, he was being mentored by FF Bosworth, who we've mentioned was out of the John Alexander Dowie's Zion city.

Well Bosworth had this book called Christ the Healer, which was very popular among the movement. It was basically the handbook on divine healing. It was a section, I think it's from that book. It's either that book or one of Bosworth's other writings.

There's a section of why all are not healed. And basically, it puts the onus of the healing on the individual who's seeking healing from the healer. And the way it spells it out is just so wrong because if you read his book just by the text, it's kind of okay.

But if you read it in the context of the movement, the movement is teaching you basically that you need to come into an auditorium to a so-called healer. And if you're not healed, then what's wrong with your faith?

Examine yourself. You must have something wrong in your life. Do you have sin in your life? Do you have something wrong that's causing you not to be healed? And Bosworth, like Dowie, like all of the rest, they were trying to say that salvation is part of the atonement.

And therefore, as part of the atonement, if you're not getting healed, you really have to question your salvation. Are you really saved? That's the bottom line that they're driving at with this. And where I'm headed with this, it's interesting because if you go all the way back and I've mentioned this before, go back to Dowie.

Dowie was doing the same thing. Here's the prototype for all of this. And he, like Hobart Freeman, went to... word over this had been preaching for, I mean, from coast to coast, that if you go to a doctor, you are, you have sin in your life. You're neglecting the Almighty healer God.

And so therefore you must not be a Christian. That's, that was his doctrine. And he was saying that you can't take medicine if you do. You're, you're going straight to hell. I mean, that was the doctrine that he was spreading. Well, the moment he gets in court and they ask him on this, well, no, I never said that. That's up to the individual, a same exact thing that Hobart Freeman did. Well, well, you know, and we documented this John that earlier in Hobart's ministry in the late 60s and early 70s, he had a friendly attitude toward medical science because he would bring on board as proof or support for

his view, medical doctors who were charismatic and who were friends of his. And he would do the same with the insurance agents and loan officers. And you know, whomever he could find because he would say, look, I've got medical doctors who are friends of mine. And they'll cut on you and they'll pollute your body with drugs. But they pray for their children and for their spouses and for themselves. In other words, that's, that's it. Like that would be a really great testimony to find a doctor who will practice medicine on people who have no faith. But for himself and for his own family, he would trust God. Hobart

was big on that early in his ministry. But as, as time went on, he took this really aggressive anti medical science position. And I have wanted people to see that Hobart did transition from a friendly attitude toward medical science to a very aggressive one later on. Now, maybe they would say, well, Hobart just got more light. I don't know what their explanation would be. But it's interesting that he did evolve. He did evolve on so many things. And so I've wanted people to see. It's not as though Hobart was some oracle of Delphi that he was the

mouthpiece of God that always spoke the truth. You know, he learned and fell short. And then, according to him, came into some additional knowledge and new revelation and the new revelation was just, you know, how bad drugs and medical science were. And he in his later years just became increasingly hostile. So hostile that people who had medical degrees and worked in the medical field in order to be a member of faith assembly and good standing, you had to kiss all that goodbye. Nurses had to give up their nursing certificate. It got so bad.

that if you worked in some type of medical supply field, or let's say you were just a receptionist at a veterinarian's office or a dentist's office, all of that came under the condemnation of Dr. Freeman because he said, you are supporting medical science and you are, you know, you're supporting what he would call, he always called it the arm of the flesh.

You know, cursed is a man that trusted in man and make it flesh his arm. That's Jeremiah 17.5. That was one of his favorite verses, cursed is a man that trusted in man and makes flesh his arm.

But that's a verse that has to be studied in his context and that has to be reasonably interpreted. A Hobart is a one who's stuck on there that the correct interpretation of that's medical doctors because when he said cursed would be the man that trusted in man, well, we all trust in man.

I trust that the grocery store be open when they say it's gonna be open. I trust that the milk they're selling me is certified and won't kill me. Everything I do in my life, I trust in a man.

You know, I trust in the stoplights that they will work when they're supposed to work and some man set all of that up. I'm constantly trusting in man. Most of my life is involved in trusting a man and leaning on someone's arm of flesh, which would include, if I were about to fall off the front porch and you were nearby, John, I would reach out and grab your arm of flesh and try to hold onto it to steady myself.

So are all of these things in opposition to that verse? Well, of course not, of course not. So it's just Hobart's standard proof texting method, find a verse and hang your head on it and ride on that until the cows come home.

Hobart's not the only one out there that believe this. There are other people. I think there's a minister in, I think there are a lot of ministers by the way that they will teach this.

I don't know that they will practice it in their own life. You know, whenever it comes time to die, you're probably gonna seek medical help. But Andrew Womack out, I think he's in the Colorado area.

He's a guy who spouts out this same kind of stuff. All the people who followed Kenneth Hagen and Kenneth Copeland over the years and there are still those people out there. They're still going to teach some form of this message.

They're gonna teach most of this message that healing 100% is in the atonement and it 100% is guaranteed for you and it will 100% work for you. Therefore, you don't need doctors and medical science.

I know with someone, let me just share a couple of stories to show you how and to alert. people to the fact that it is still happening under the influence 40 years later of Dr.

Freeman's ministry. But I have a friend, let's say, and I won't name any of these people's names who had a relative who just died in the last few weeks. This relative died of some conditions, some of which none of which were medically treated because this person absolutely refused to his last breath to, on his own initiative, seek any kind of medical help or aid at all, even though this individual went through extreme pain and suffering.

This individual was still saying, I believe that I'm healed, and this individual actually died of several things that had they been treated years ago when they were first discovered. I'm not saying the person wouldn't eventually have died or eventually have died from something or from one of these, but would not have gone through the pain and probably would have lived longer.

And I know another person, this is an entirely different person, a friend of mine, who also has a relative, who also was going down that same path of refusing any medical treatment at all, and were they getting any better, no, they were getting worse.

And their prayers had been to no avail so far, and they were down to death's door and they probably would not be alive today, but family members were finally able to convince this individual that you're going to die if you don't go to the doctor.

And so they end up going to the doctor. And I don't even know, John, exactly how all of these people process that because you have stood firm by faith for years, I'm talking about a decade waiting for the manifestation of this healing.

And it's not coming. And now you end up at the doctor, and I think people process it differently. I know of some people who processed it. It's in this weird somehow they're able to compartmentalize everything that were this same person who had been very critical of other friends and relatives around them who had ever gone to the doctor.

I mean, very critical. Like, well, we'll pray for you because we know that you sinned and we'll pray for God to forgive you. Now this person is at the doctor's office, how are you going to deal with that?

You have so judged everyone else around you, critically saying, we'll pray for you because you've seen it. and how are you gonna process this? Seems like they're able to somehow compartmentalize it. I don't know exactly how this works psychologically because they don't really see themselves as a great center, as they did everyone else who went to the doctor.

Now it's their turn to either die or live, and in order to live, you've got to go to the hospital, and so they go to the hospital, and somehow I don't know how they're able to do it, but they're able to rationalize it.

So how do we approach these people? How do we approach the people who are still following Freemanism, who are still following Brandemism, who are still following Andrew Womack? How do we approach them in our objection to what their belief is?

Well, there are two ways to do it. There are two ways to do it. Biblically and experientially, look at the experience of the people. And I don't think that we really should separate these.

I think they really need to go hand in hand. I think they should be used together, but let's start with the biblical side. So this involves biblical interpretation, and so what happens when we attempt to approach them, if they'll listen at all, and most of the time they simply will not listen, is you end up having two parties who simply disagree over how to understand a certain passage in Scripture.

Maybe it's first Peter 2 with his stripes we are healed. They believe that that means that this is divine healing, always promise for all believers all the time right now with his stripes, first Peter 2.24, by his stripes we are healed.

So one way to approach these people is to try to engage them

in the correct interpretation of Bible passages. And it doesn't always work.

What I would encourage everyone, and that's including me, we all have to be open to listening to another person if they can present a reasonable interpretation or a reasonable explanation of a passage. For some reason, people just think you either have to know all the truth today, or if not by today, you need to at least know it by tomorrow.

And there's just a whole lot in the Bible to learn. There are, we've got what, 66 books of the Bible, there's 1,000 pages in anybody's normal size Bible, there's a lot of material there.

There's a lot of information there. There's a lot of stories about people being healed. There's a lot of teaching about healing. There's a whole lot of information about... faith in healing. And hope our thought he had it sewed up by stringing together just some Bible verses. Yeah, it reminds me the way he would do Bible verses. When we were kids, my mom, we loved to feed the birds in the backyard. We'd cook a big bag of popcorn and then you'd take a needle and thread and thread all that popcorn through the needle onto the thread and

then go hang the thread on the tree in the backyard. We would thread the popcorn on there and you have all these pieces of popcorn and the birds would just fly into the branch and they would pick off their pieces of popcorn. That's almost the way proof texting works. You just run the needle and thread through all of these verses. In other words, you've pulled the verse out of whatever the context is in which they're found and you just line them up side by side. And when you do that, you have a whole lot of verses. You know, you can end up with dozens of verses that make some

claim about faith or healing. But it doesn't mean that you understand any of those verses. You know, John, last week you and I interviewed a lady, Liz Shella, who is a survivor from earlier days at Faith Assembly. And I know you're going to air that sometime in the future.

But one of the things we were talking about, one of the problems that she had had years ago, and that I had as well, was Hobart's understanding of Hebrews 111, where he said, Faith is the substance of what you're praying for. We just thought that that was that his understanding of that, that the writer of Hebrews did not mean to give a formal, full, complete, I've got all my bases covered, all loose ends tied up, theological definition of the concept of faith or the Greek word faith, that it is simply a statement that he then

goes on to illustrate. But Hobart would put that on that thread, on that fishing line with all those other little pieces of popcorn, and you would just look at it and go, wow, so it must be true. But that's not the way these things work. And we have spent a little time earlier, John, just trying to look at the healing message, the way it was taught by Hobart as compared with and contrasted with the way we see it in the Bible. And we spent some podcasts earlier along the line of, look at the types of things that were healed. Hobart was always praying for the soreness in someone's back

or the stiffness in their leg. It would be all of these invisible, internal, small issues, or if they were big issues, they were issues, we couldn't get our hands and eyes on, we couldn't verify.

And I said, just take that approach and just lay it side by side with the gospels in the book of Acts. And what we see in the gospels in book in the book of Acts are just absolutely astounding type of healings of blind eyes. Not people who have a little bit of fuzzy vision because they still have a sleeper in the corner of their eye. They are blind from birth.

We just have outstanding miracles happen. And when they pray for these people, how long this is my big question it has been for years, how long did it take before those people were healed?

Well, as we discussed earlier, John, either instantly or immediately. If it didn't happen like that, it happened as they went and washed, then they came seeing. As a 10 lepers went to show themselves and present themselves to the priest for the verification of the cleansing of their leprosy with somewhere between when Jesus said, your heal, now go show yourself to the priest, somewhere between where he was and where the temple was, somewhere in that, on that path between where he was standing and where the temple was, that's where they were healed.

Hobart love to pull those verses out of context and say, see, sometimes there's a delay in healing. And I just laughed and I thought, yeah, there's a delay of like five minutes or 10 minutes, but there's not these years of delay. The years of delay that these people have that Hobart had built into his view of divine healing because he knew it wasn't going to happen the way it happened in biblical days. So we've already looked at that and I think those are some pretty good things people need to consider. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the

progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. Where this divine healing cult went from Dauy, was so unusual because after Dauy's many, many complications with the legal system, people began to realize that you can't deny people going to a doctor. That's not only is it a

equal to the United States, it's just completely wrong. You should never do this. And many of the branches of the Dowie sect started allowing this, but discouraging it. And if you study the ancient Bible verses about healing,

which you and I've talked about this some, Paul says drink a little wine for your stomach. Back then that was the medicine, right? They did not have Tylenol or all of the, you know, Tylenol for your headache and medical medicines for your stomach.

The way that it progressed is so odd because they tried to enforce many of the old covenant laws and they tried to read that through the new covenant. But as they're doing that, they tried to bypass anything that talked about the healing of the ancient world.

So it got a little odd, fast forward to, you know, years later, after this cult started to allow people to, to have medicine. It's really odd because I was around some of those people.

And if they had a condition and they were allowed to go to the doctor, they would go to the doctor. And if the condition did not get better or worsened, well, the doctor was a quack.

And so then they go try another doctor and not understanding the medical profession and medical science, how treatment sometimes takes years or sometimes even decades to go through the treatment process. They want an immediate thing.

And if the doctor can't give it immediately, it doesn't match their religion, which is teaching the immediate healing from Almighty God. So now they're trying to put both of those, they're trying to equate, well, if I can't go to Almighty God for my healing and I'm going to the doctor for my healing, well, the doctor needs to be as powerful as Almighty God or I'm going to go back to Almighty God.

But then when they did, some of the conditions they went back for, they still didn't get healed. So it turned into this weird, vicious cycle where they don't trust the medical science of the world.

But if you really think about what's going on in their heads as they make that circuit, then they also must not trust the healing of Almighty God because then they did go back. And in that, you've got Hobart Freeman slightly more, I don't know what the word, he's a little bit more upright and well, we can't keep doing this.

We can't keep making this vicious cycle. Nobody who was in the movement and remained in the movement thought about it long enough to think about and critically examine themselves. Am I reading these medical passages correctly?

Am I really to expect God to do this? If so, why did Paul say take a little wine for your stomach? Why do the Bible passages talk about all of the different things that you can do for healing of mind and body?

And if you study the ancient customs and the... ancient world, why did they allow some of the things that they did, which was the medical science of their day, not to be matched with the medical science of today?

So where you end up is you're in this weird place where you really don't trust God when you're in the movement. Otherwise you would never go to a doctor because you're supposed to be healed.

You go to the doctor because you're not getting healed and therefore you must have sin in your life. The doctor fails rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat over and over and over again. And in the end, you know, people on the outside are looking at it at all of this saying, you know, the real definition of insanity is when somebody keeps trying the same exact thing and expecting a different result.

Yeah. There is a level of craziness to this and that's why I say, as you just said, John, I think there's a wrong interpretation of these Bible passages. So as I'm saying, there are different ways that there are two different ways to approach our objection to Dr. Freeman's extreme view.

One is through the scriptures and I think that is critical because it is the Bible that is our handbook. I think these passages have definitely been misinterpreted. And but, you know, people want to squabble.

I think my interpretation is right and you think your interpretation is right. And I say, okay, we can just lay that aside for the moment. We can lay that aside for the moment and then let's go to plan B.

Let's look at the experience. Let's look at the experiential side and what do we see? It didn't work and it hasn't worked for all these years. Now, I'm not saying that some people weren't healed.

I'm not saying that. I believe some people were healed. I have never said that God doesn't heal today. I believe God still does heal today. I believe God still does heal miraculously today. I just don't believe it's the healing on demand as the faith preachers have taught it.

And so one of my biggest proofs, and maybe my biggest proof, we can, here's my Bible, we can take our Bible and close it and lay it down because we have all these arguments over Bible interpretation for the moment.

For the moment, we can close our Bible and lay it down and we can just turn to experience. We can turn to the statistics. And you know, Hobart was big. He loved, you know, it's interesting.

Hobart loved to quote statistics. He loved to quote. I don't even know where he got these either newsweek or time or readers digest because those were his three go to sources for research. But he loved to quote medical research statistics that would say he did this, John, over and over.

He would say, now, it's just come to my attention or he'd say it like this. Well, it's just come across my desk recently or he'd say this, you know, I have in my file some articles that give the miserable track record of medical science and he would read a story of someone who had gone to have something done to their left arm or their left leg and instead they got their right arm or their right leg operated on and he would say, you know, that's the track record of medical science.

You can't trust those people and everybody would be saying, hey man, that's right brother Freeman, preach it. And can you believe you went to the hospital and they operated on the wrong limb? Or they would get, a person would get sewed back up after surgery, Hobart would tell stories like this and some foreign object, you know, a scalpel or scissors or gals or something was sewed up inside them and he would give that as his statistic, his proof against medical science.

And come on, you know, look, has that happened? Well, I'm sure that's happened. Have you ever gone to a mechanic shop? Actually, this has happened for me to go into a mechanic shop to have your oil change and they forget to put the drain plug back in.

Has that ever happened? That has actually happened to me. You had to set a tire, a new set of tires put on and did they forget to tighten down the lug nuts on one of those tires that actually happened to my mother when she was driving one of my vehicles down a highway and the front left tire literally came off and just took off, beat her down the highway.

But how many times does that happen? You know, probably that happens more often than a surgeon operating on the wrong limb. So has it happened? Of course, you went in to have the left leg operated on the doctor operated on the right but one in several hundred thousand, right?

I mean, that would be the statistics. So those aren't statistics you can bring against medical science. I mean, you just can't. That's one in several hundred thousand where those things have happened. Are doctors human?

Yes, and humans make mistakes. They will always make mistakes. But they have a pretty good safety net and safeguard system around medical science better than your mechanic tightening down the lug nuts on your tire, I'm for sure.

But let's compare Dr. Freeman and his group statistics on people who've gotten their healing after their prayed for. It doesn't even compare with the... medical statistics. The medical statistics of being of going in and having an operation performed on the wrong limb are one in hundreds of thousands. I don't know what the statistics are.

Someone can Google that. Let's go look at the faith assembly statistics and they are very, very poor. How many of those people were prayed for for healing of their eyes or kidneys, it's cancer, it's a lump, it's it's this out of the other and they walked away from the prayer line with that condition still there. That'd be the vast majority, the vast majority.

So let's look at this. This is what I'm asking people to do. Lay your Bible aside for a moment and let's look at the actual statistics and what do we have on our hands. Let me just read, I got to text this week from a dear brother. He's an ex-faith assembly person. He's actually an ex-faith assembly minister. So it makes it even better in my book. He was a a minister if I remember his story correctly of three separate groups at the same time that this brother would travel and minister to. He was what I call an all-inner. He was all-in. If Hobart taught it, he was all-in.

So he is not all-in anymore and he's not all-in and by the way he is and I appreciate him doing it. He's listening to these podcasts and I think I don't know that he's learning anything, maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But I know it's confirmation and verification for some conclusions that he probably reached at an earlier point in his life. But we were talking earlier this past week about Freeman and his healing message and here's what he texted me. He said, yeah, we were told this line, I'm healed but I'm waiting for the manifestation. What in the name of the Lord does

that even really mean? Well, it's done. I'm healed. You just can't see it yet but you have it by faith. Here's his testimony, John. He said, Cheno, I went 25 years without glasses waiting on my manifestation. My bosses at work along with a lot of my family and others thought I was nuts.

And he says himself, now I was nuts. They were right. Waited 25 years, that's a third of your life. You want to talk about someone who believed what Dr. Freeman taught? He didn't believe this way anymore. But someone who believed what he taught, there goes a of your life not being able to see because according to Freeman's doctrine, when you pray, that's when you receive. When you believe you receive and you're just waiting for the manifestation.

He said, Cheno, I was driving around with 2100 vision and 2200 vision and at first with no insurance because you know insurance. That's leaning to the arm of the flesh. So these poor people put in a situation where either they can't drive at all or they're going to drive illegally because they can't see, they can't pass their driver's test, they can't have a license but I need to get to work. They're going to drive in another illegal fashion because it's a sin to trust in man and that's all insurance is is confessing something may happen. So I've got to buy insurance

to protect myself in the event something does and so I can't do that because that would be sinning but I need to drive to get to work and so I drive with no insurance and these people had homes with no insurance on them at all because insurance is a lack of faith, insurance is saying well something might happen. They never saw that in Hobart's teachings even the Hobart didn't have insurance. He was broken into, he was robbed, his car, he had many wrecks, his car was totaled.

His claiming Psalm 91 didn't prevent those events from happening. The difference between him and them was he had plenty of money so he could just go out and buy a new car. I heard of some ministers who came into some money and the first thing they did is they went out and bought a big lead sled you know because that was back in the 70s that's the big Lincoln or a big Cadillac or a big old 98 a big lead sled that was proof that you were God's man of faith and power for the hour because you're driving around a big luxury car. I know one minister who bought it he didn't

have it a month and he wrecked it. He had no insurance so whoever the people were that gifted him with the money to go buy that now everybody's out the money. They're out the money and he's out the car so look you know you can debate all you want to over Bible verses but right now what we're telling you are the facts that the message didn't work hasn't worked, won't work but you know what Hobart was clever. This goes back to how you started this podcast today John Hobart was clever. He built into his faith for healing theology a neat set of backdoor escapes and his backdoor escapes would

work like this. He would tell you now you've you've you've prayed you've received it by faith now go his crazy five steps now go okay confess it and act on it and endure it.

It's just you've got to do the steps. You've got to do the steps. One, two, three, four, five. You've got to go do the steps. And so what? People would go do the steps.

And all men would they confess it. They confess it to their dying breath. And they would act on it by canceling their insurance and throwing their medicine away. And they would endure by faith.

And how long do you expect them to endure? This man waited 25 years. His vision was no better. Because I don't think there's anywhere in the Bible that God promises he's going to correct your 2100 vision or your 2200 vision.

So they've endured as long as they can. And so now what do they do? Guess what happens? Now the blame game kicks in. Hobart built into histiology just in case because he had seen in his own life, it didn't work.

But just in case, he's got people coming saying, I've done it all. Brother Freeman, I have prayed. I have fasted. I have confessed. I have acted. My actions correspond to my faith. I'm not living in some way that's, I'm not wearing glasses while I'm believing God to heal me from my poor vision.

My actions are corresponding to my faith. And I have endured. So shouldn't this invalidate the message? To me, it should invalidate the message. But oh no, now the blame game kicks in. And so Hobart had in his back pocket his little list.

And his first one, you mentioned it earlier in this podcast. His first one is he would simply tell the people, the reason you have not received is you lack faith. So here, these people have listened to the faith message from Hobart Freeman for years.

And they've never received the answer. They've never gotten the new house or the perfect 2020 vision or the hernia has disappeared or the cancer has gone or the kidney disease has now evaporated. My kidneys are well and whole and healthy and functioning normally.

Now they're told, however, you just don't have enough faith. And people have struggled for years with this thought of guilt. Why is it God hasn't healed me yet? Rather than question the message, which is what they should be doing, it's what they should have done all along.

Rather than question the message, Hobart train them to doubt themselves. Rather than doubt him and doubt the message, what he trained them to do was to doubt themselves. And if people ever get to the place where they finally do end up going to the doctor, They only do so with great guilt and with great condemnation.

He linked this faith for healing to faith for salvation. He most definitely did. And you've mentioned this before and you said it again earlier today. He would reason something like this. If you can't believe God for the healing of your two eyeballs, then how do you know you can believe God for your salvation?

And people will go, hmm, yeah, that does make a lot of sense. How can I know that? You know, he would throw out these things like God who created the universe. Surely God can heal your eyes.

Don't let's don't limit God. God who created the universe. Well, you know, that, of course, that's true. That God can do that. It's not can he do it is, is this his will to do that?

We're not questioning his ability at all. And he would do it with a rapture. He would say, are you sure you have enough faith for the rapture? He talked about rapturing faith. Are you sure you have enough faith for the rapture?

If you can't believe for a simple headache, how do you know that you're healed? Or how do you know that you're saved? And how do you know that you'll go up in the rapture?

I just want to point this out when it comes to him, John, saying a lack of faith, that unfortunately for Hobart, in his own teachings, he also contradicted himself here. And he made some major mistakes in his theology because he would tell the story of people who would come to him and who would genuinely say, Brother Freeman, I'm listening to all these messages of faith and I just don't know if I have enough faith to believe.

And here goes Hobart to his own chagrin with his proof-texting method. He would take him over to Romans 12 and verse 2, is it 12 or 14 to one of the other, that God have dealt to every man the measure of faith.

And he would say, God has given to every Christian the measure of faith. And then he would work his way along in this reasoning here. Well, how much is a measure? How can I be sure if my measure is big enough to accomplish the task at hand?

And then he would work his way in his theology to his next point he would want to make. And he would say, well, remember, Jesus said that the smallest amount of faith you could possibly have is a mustard seed that's the smallest of the seeds that you had planted in your garden.

And what will that amount of faith do? Well, if you only have a mustard seed of faith, you can say to this mountain, depart and be thou removed and it would obey you. So that was good news.

So the person that came to him was it not the person who said, I don't know if I have enough faith, he would say, well, God's dealt to every man the measure of faith.

And even if your measure of faith is only so small as a mustard seed, it would do the impossible. So now how can Hobart then turn around to this same person and say the reason that you don't have your healing is you don't have enough faith?

You know, it just doesn't work this way. Hobart, he had built in some escape routes for his faith formula theology, but unfortunately he had also contradicted himself in some of his earlier teaching. And it put people in a tremendous state of condemnation and of guilt and of questioning themself.

How can I not have received my healing when he has said, if you have enough faith, you will. I would go on to also say, John, and I'll be quiet and let you say what you want to say.

I would go on to say they need to keep their eyes on Dr. Freeman and his lack of ever having been healed of anything that he claimed that he was healed from. His leg was still short.

He couldn't see any better. His hair was graying and thinning and he was never healed of his heart condition. And the one thing that really bothers me above and beyond all of this is the effect that it has on the children.

Whenever the children are taught the absence of self-esteem and they're raised like this, their ambitions become very, very low. And I have had the opportunity of being around some of the cult people since we've left.

The adults take it okay. They usually, eventually they build up self-esteem through experiences. But the children are like wandering, struggling, trying to open up and just can't when compared to other children of their same age.

And so as though their growth gets hindered by decades raised in this type of environment and at the same time, the adults who suffer with the health issues, whether it's physical, mental, whatever it is, and continue not to be healed.

But be continually told that it's your fault, you should have low self-esteem because this is on you, this is your fault. That's the doctrine they're in. Well, those people get set back even further.

And I know adults who have not really progressed much beyond where they should have been at around age 18, mentally, they just can't progress because they're in that state. They'll never get the same chances itself a steam that other people raised outside of the cult get.

And when you compare the two, yes, both can have good lives. Yes, the... adults can eventually learn and grow past this, but why would you hinder people of a fulfilling life when they could have it, even if they're sick?

For me, that's the big deal. There are people who have chronic conditions, but could at least have a better life than they currently have, and the cult robs them of that. At the same time, I'm like you, there's nothing that says that God stopped healing in the Bible, I don't find this anywhere, but also there are people in the Bible who did suffer and who someone who did die, and there's nothing in the Bible that says God doesn't use that for the benefit of other people, and why would you rob people around them of the experience if that is to be the experience?

I don't understand how it works, I don't understand why this would be, but you have to take a step back and say, I'm not thinking about this correctly, there's something wrong with my worldview, if I think that every time I rub the rabbit's foot God, I get healed, and that's in the end, that's all it is, it is a rabbit's foot God.

You do have to step back and look at this from, you just have to look at the bigger picture, and so I'll close with a second reason Hobart would give. He had two really famous ones, one you lack faith, the other one you've already mentioned as well, because this is just what you see in these circles.

It's very evident that the message doesn't work, and so since the message doesn't work, you have to have excuses. And the second one, if the person says, no, I have faith, and I can check off all those boxes, I've confessed, I've acted, I've endured my faith, well, then you must have sin in your life.

He would go to a verse like, I think it is Psalm 66 18. Again, Hobart was an expert at proof texting. He had a great and an unusual ability

to string together a vast host of Bible passages to support whatever his theory, not just faith and healing, whatever it was, but the verses are always out of context, and not always, they are most of the time out of context, and they just can't be put together to fit a complete biblical picture.

So the verse in Psalm 66 18, I think says, if I regard aiquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. And so Hobart would use that verse to say, if you have sin in your life, then that could be the reason God has not manifested your healing.

And again, think of the guilt that this puts on people. Think of the condemnation, this puts on people, and it is not a bad thing to encourage people to pray. actous introspection. We should. We should look at our own life and look for any shortcomings in our life. There's nothing wrong with that. The Bible encourages that. But what Hobart is doing is he's wanting to tie immediately together some sin in your life and your lack of being able to drive without glasses, being able to go past the vision test.

And I think among other things, this just severely underestimates the pervasive nature of sin in our own life in all of our lives. Because the way Hobart had it, it's almost as though if you can get all sin out of your life, then you can be healed. Because he's sending you down these endless trails of trying to determine what have I done wrong. What sin is in my life that's preventing this healing from happening. Now, is it occasionally possible that a person could have something wrong in their life? And why God has not answered their prayer? Well, yes, that's possible. And there are biblical examples of that.

But this was a, this was a constant practice of faith assembly people to check. Am I prayed up today? Do I have enough faith on the one hand? And on the other hand, do I have any sin in my life? I can answer that question. Yes, you do have sin in your life. Do I have sin in my life today? As I'm sitting here, my answer would be yes. And if you don't say yes, you don't understand the pervasiveness of sin, even in the Christian's life, go read Romans chapter 7 where Paul said, the things that I would do, I don't do, the things

I don't want to do, I do. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Go read Romans 7 and you see there is a real struggle happening in the Christian's life. And yes, you're not supposed to be out robbing banks and committing adultery. If you're doing those things, you're sending and you need to bring those to an end. But sin is more pervasive than that. If you go to things like the Westminster Catechism and confession of faith, I think it might define sin something along this line that it is any want of conformity to the law of

God. It's any want of conformity to the law of God, to the law of God. That is in commission, things we commit and omission, things we fail to do. Just go to the Bible and what does the Bible tell you to do? And then ask yourself, am I doing this? If you're not, then you're probably got some sin in your life. Does the Bible say to always rejoice? I think there's a voice verse that says rejoice ever more. Do you do that? Do I do that?

Probably not. So there's one sin in my life. There's one commandment I'm breaking. Does it say to pray without Seacing. Without Seacing, does it tell you to do that? Is that an apostolic commandment? Yes, do you do that?

Probably not. So there's another sin in your life. Look John, sin is pervasive in the Christian's life. We don't get to the place in this life. And this could, and probably will, by the way, take us to additional podcasts of Hobart Freemannism where he did have a very weird view on Christian perfectionism where he would say in so many words that you can get to the place where you don't have sin in your life. Look, that's greatly overestimating our own piety and it's greatly underestimating the power of sin and Satan and the world.

In the Christian's life. And that is definitely for another podcast. But if he is telling people, maybe you're not healed because you've got sin in your life, he's obviously by implication expecting that you can ascertain what that sin is or those sins are and you can root them out of your life.

So in other words, maybe he's saying you can't be healed until, until what? Until you don't have any sin in your life? Come on, that's not the biblical message for divine healing at all.

The one thing we can say about Jesus is, no, Jesus did, Jesus did not heal every person, but every person that Jesus prayed for got healed. You know, and I think we could say the same thing about the early church. Did the early church? Did the early apostles?

Did the early sub-apastolic ministers, people like Philip over in Acts 8, who was not an apostle, but he was an evangelist, did the early church and its ministers? Did they heal every single sick person? No.

But according to the record, we have every single sick person they prayed for got healed. And we do not see that with faith assembly's message. We do not see that with Hobart's message. They not only do they not heal everyone, we wouldn't expect them to, but they don't heal hardly any of the people that they pray for.

So let's keep this in mind. I don't think that it's a lack of faith why people haven't been healed. I don't think it's because there's some uncovered yet to be uncovered sin in their life.

And God is not going to heal them until they eradicate all sin in their life because I don't think that's going to happen on this side of heaven. And I'll close. With this, John, I remember hearing Dr. R. C. Sproul, Dr. Sproul, senior, not junior.

Dr. Sproul, senior, has always been a favorite biblical scholar and pastor in theologian. Alistair Begg was another one, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, who still alive, a Scottish theologian, is another one because of their vast and deep theological and biblical knowledge and also because of their personal piety.

You know, you can have a lot of theological knowledge and, you know, live like the devil. I'm not really interested in following somebody like that. Or you can have a great personal private walk with the Lord and know nothing about theology in the Bible.

And then I'm not too game for that. I would like to see both of these. And so, you know, one thing Dr. Sproul would talk about when it came to sin in the believer's life, he would ask his listeners, what is the greatest commandment according to Jesus?

And, you know, we would all respond because we know that it's in the gospels that's to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. That's the greatest of all the commandments.

All the commandments could be summed up with that and its fellow commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. But Dr. Sproul would then ask people to consider have you done that or you doing that.

And I would look at myself and say, there's not even a consecutive 24 hour period of time. I'm sure that I have ever loved the Lord Jesus with all of my heart and soul and mind and strength.

And so, you know what, if I have it, I failed, I failed God. That's the whole message of grace and Christianity and the whole message of the cross. There's no way we can earn our way.

Pre-being born again, post-being born again. There's no way we can earn or curry good favor with God. We are who we are and he accepts us through the death of his perfect, sinless son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we just have to cast our life and our faith and our cares and our concerns on him knowing that God accepts us through him, not for own sake, but for the sake of his own son.

So I don't have to go through my life worrying, do I have enough faith and have I rid myself of enough sin so that I can be pleasing to God? The answer to both of those questions is probably I don't have enough faith and I probably still have too much sin, but what I can do is constantly cast myself on the mercy of God and say, Lord, please be merciful to me, a sinner, through you.

son the Lord Jesus, and I believe that he will accept us on that basis. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-Branum.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 Arbor. www.William-Branum.org www.William-Branum.org