Apostleship Today: Restored Ministry or Religious Scam?

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 we've had so much excitement talking about five-fold ministry and other topics that we've done and looking at today's world you know I get all of the comments and people say well the five-fold ministry still exists. It's right here in the Bible read it and I read through it you know I know the Bible

passages I grew up in this thing I know the doctrines but the way it's being applied today isn't quite right and it really ties to the upper tiers of that five-fold ministry which we can talk about today. The role of the Apostle and also closely related to this as it relates to the cult is the role of the prophet. Sometimes those two just kind of get interchanged and intermingled so wanted to get into that today but I know that people are going to be just up in arms about anything that we say pro or con so I'm going to be very careful in

this episode but let's digest the topic of the Apostle and today's world. Okay yes John well the last time you and I were together and talking about the five-fold ministry office I realized that we really struck a nerve that I had not intended or anticipated or realized until we looked at the viewership because my podcast with you normally or more narrowly confined to Dr. Hobart Freeman that was the group I was brought up in as a teenager so it's Dr. Freeman's views on these things that I have more in my mind. The circles that I travel in

now I'm in my late 60s or that I interact with or that I listen to or that I contribute to are their biblical and theological circles so you know I don't attend any prophets conferences or Apostles conferences I don't attend any of those things and I'm not that away of them until, you know, I like everyone else, I pick up my phone and look at YouTube.

And then I find out, oh, there's been a big apostles' conference or prophets' conference. And I just kind of smile and chuckle and go my way that day. But it is a big issue out there.

But I just had my sights the last time you and I taught, really said on Dr. Freeman's inconsistencies in this area. Because when I first heard Hobart in 1976, I was a newly saved believer in a Presbyterian church.

And a really good, reformed conservative Presbyterian church on the south side of Memphis in Tennessee. So when I heard that God was restoring apostles and prophets based on Ephesians 4.11, the five-fold ministry offices or officers or gifts, everyone wants to argue over, what do you call that?

You're welcome to call it whatever. I'm trying to cover all the basis. But those five ministries of apostle, prophet evangelist, pastor, teacher, whether you want to call it an office or a gift or a minister or ministry office, whatever you prefer to call it, I'm really fine with any of that.

When I heard that, you know, that was news to me. Because I was familiar growing up in church. I knew what a pastor was. We had an associate pastor. We had the chairman of the Deacon board, chairman of an elder board.

We had the youth minister. I knew what the Sunday school superintendent was and the choir director was. You know, I knew a lot of titles to positions in a local church, but we didn't have any apostles in our Presbyterian church and we didn't have any prophets.

And we didn't talk about them as though they were something that we should have in our church. So we definitely weren't longing for apostles or prophets. Today and in the environment in which we're operating, we have a whole different situation on our hand.

So you actually have, it goes by the acronym NOR, in AR, which itself is something new. That wasn't here in the 1970s or 1980s. I think in maybe the second half of the 1980s is when I began hearing more about a prophetic movement, that there was a prophetic movement that was sweeping the Christian church all around the world.

And you had to go maybe a few decades and then you have what they're now calling the NAR. new apostolic restoration or reformation or you can make the r mean a lot of different things, but what I see both of those movements, either the prophetic movement or the apostolic restoration movement capitalizing on are people's hunger in all the churches, people's hunger for God and hunger for truth. And I think maybe even more so, because Christians today seem to be so, I hate to say it, but so biblically illiterate, they know verses, but they don't know the teaching

of scripture. And so what they're looking for is a fresh word, a fresh word from God. And this is what these apostles and prophets have come to offer people. Rather than the old word of God, which should be the old and New Testament, how about a fresh word from God? And I can remember even hearing Dr. Freeman talking about the dead letter of the law. And that's an interesting passage in one of Paul's epistles, which we won't get off on now, but it's a it is an interesting passage in what people's perception of that was. Hobart's was very clear that what is simply,

this is important for people to understand what is simply written in the Bible is just the dead letter of the law. If it's written on a page of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, that is that is the letter of the law or the letter of the word. And it just sitting there by itself is dead. You know, that's contrary to everything the Bible claims about itself. It claims that every jot and title is the living word of God and will not perish even though the worlds will pass away. The word of God will not. What Hobart would say about that is you have to have the spirit come into your life

and into your mind in order to translate that message from the page into your heart. So you end up obviously with this mystical, gnostic, esoteric, super spiritual kind of approach to the actual scriptures. And I don't think that's the I don't think that's the way the early church approached the Old Testament, which was their Bible. I think they felt that the entire Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi or Genesis to Second Chronicles, which may have been the last book actually written in the Old Testament, that that was the very word of God. But anyway, you know, I just

went along after hearing Hobart saying that the five full ministry offices are valid for today. I just went off happily parroting what he said. And I have no idea what the church leadership and that Presbyterian church thought about me as a seven.

10-year-old talking about apostles and prophets. I mean, they probably just assume well, he's been reading his Bible, so he's thinking of those apostles and prophets. But no, I wasn't thinking about those. Those are dead and gone.

We're looking for living ones today who can lead and who can guide the church. So what we were looking at last time, John, were the only two points really, and it just somehow struck a nerve in everyone.

I was just looking at what I had grown to see over the years were inconsistencies with Hobart's teaching. I wasn't really, and we weren't really trying last time to address Biblically or Theologically, I was just looking at my niche market in my life, and that's Hobart Freeman and Faith Assembly.

So he had championed this all along, but I, as I grew a little more in my life, and as I heard later messages and compared them to earlier cassette tape messages of his, then a couple of things really popped out as an inconsistency.

The first one was this, he had used other people whom he claimed to be in the 20th century apostles and prophets as part of his proof for, hey, I'm not as crazy as you think I am, because look, we have had apostles and prophets in our generation in the 1900s.

And so he would mention oral Roberts. You know, oral Roberts was a great healing evangelist and had healed tens of thousands of people, and he would use TL Osborne as an apostle that he would go to Indonesia and preach and raise the dead and people would walk on water and turn water into wine.

Hobart talked all the time on his earlier message about messages about the miracles in the book of Acts were being duplicated all around the world. I always found it, this is what I came later to see, I always found it interesting that all of these things were always happening in some far away place.

I was never in a meeting where anybody walked on water or turned water into wine or raised the dead. It was always in Indonesia or South America or Africa, it was always in some far away place.

But anyway, Hitzettia, Osborne was an apostle. Thought, wow, so we have the apostle Matthew and John and Paul and Tommy Osborne is also, we can put him in that group as an apostle. And you know, when I first heard that, John, I didn't, I didn't quibble with it at all because Hobart had a verse.

That's a problem with proof texting and cherry picking and stringing these things together and not studying your own Bible and knowing your own... Context of that passage didn't bother me at all. I just thought he's he's an apostle and then for a prophet Of course, he always used William Brannum. He said William Brannum was God's prophet So on the early tapes He would use all these and I just you know as you grow and age and mature in your ability to To do your own research and then you realize that in order to be fair

to Your sources, you know, you have to hold on to whatever you think the truth is regardless of whatever you can find or can't find What I found to be Disconcerting with Hobart and other charismatic people is they had this view first That I believe in the five-fold ministry office and then they went looking for proof for that And so then if you could find some people who call themselves that Or that were referred to by other people under those names or categories Then you just pull that into your wheelhouse as part of the proof

Well within a couple of years of hearing those claims by Hobart We've got healing evangelists and we've got apostles and prophets. He was going back and now Rejecting all of these men. So he'd go to all Roberts and say yeah All Roberts he used to believe in healing like we believe in it But now out there on the campus of oral Roberts University and Tulsa he's building this great Medical complex that he called the city of faith and that Hobart called the city of doubt And so he said so see he's going back He used to be one of God's healing evangelist and never used any medicine didn't believe in doctors

And now he's building a medical facility and then Osborne got off and then William Branham taught Serpent seed and all the other stuff he taught And so Hobart then rejected these these men and And that began to present a problem because now Now I have no one now. I don't have anybody in the 20th century that I can Go to my church leadership and the Presbyterian Church and offer up as a present day Case example of a healing evangelist or an apostle or prophet um and Hobart always said well they got off and their ministry and their message and so so then what

So they're no longer that so is it even possible to have ever been an apostle and end up with some erroneous or Heretical view or is it even possible to have been a prophet and then end up in heresy?

I couldn't find good biblical examples of that Whoever I found in the Old Testament as a prophet they remained a prophet the rest of their life and whoever was an apostle They remain and an apostle.

So if you brought that up as an objection, then some like Hobart would say, well, you remember even Peter got off and Paul had to rebuke him. Well, that's the Galatians 2 episode. Peter never got off and errors and deep, far flung heresy, you know, as an first century apostle.

He simply refused because he got under a lot of peer pressure to eat with Gentiles up in Antioch and Syrian Antioch. You can read the story in Galatians 1 and 2. Whenever Jewish believers came to that church from the church in Jerusalem, from James and the church in Jerusalem, so obviously Peter did make a judgemental mistake.

He made a personal mistake, but it was simply that where he had been having table fellowship with Gentile Christians, he got under pressure and at least his own mind from the Judaism people who had come from Jerusalem, so he stopped eating with him.

It was a mistake. Paul said he was to be blamed and I was stood him to his face. So he was definitely at fault for doing that, but it wasn't anything doctrinal. It wasn't anything erroneous or heretical in Peter's doctrine.

So when they would try to use that example or others, it just didn't make sense to me. So I'm saying the first inconsistency I saw with Hobart's teaching on this is those people he had earlier championed as apostles and prophets no longer were, so now we don't have any.

Then the second inconsistency I came to see, which just became hilarious, was in his own church and ministry. He didn't have five ministry offices. You would think that if God had given to Hobart, and this was Hobart's claim, the end time message of faith and that he was the only one who had been given this and that also is easily documented as a claim of his on his tapes.

He said God has revealed the end time message only to one man and we are like a hub of a wheel and the spokes go out from faith assembly all over the world. He believed that this, his church, his ministry was really the only completely valid one in the world of his day.

Well, surely if that's true and surely if apostles and prophets are for today, you would be overrun with him in your ministry because you are the one who has this end time message, but did they have them?

No. And it became, it became comical when you looked at the satellite groups. Satellite groups in Illinois and Wisconsin and Michigan and in Ohio and in other parts of the United States for sure, especially in those surrounding groups, they would talk about, they would tell one another, they would call brother, sister, so and so on the phone, Monday morning and say, oh, be sure you're there at the meeting tonight, Monday night, because we're gonna have a fivefold there tonight.

We're gonna have a fivefold. And you know, you had to learn the cult, Lingo, that was part of their terminology. Somebody else, if you called and said we're gonna have a fivefold, you'd say, what in the world is that?

Is that some kind of cake mixture where you're folding ingredients inside of themself? What would that even be if you're not in this group? But in this group, they knew what a fivefold was.

That's one of the fivefold ministry offices. But every time they said we're gonna have a fivefold, guess who came, a teacher, the last of the five ministry offices, the pastor never came, an evangelist, a prophet, and a apostle never came.

I just would sit back and almost laugh, even though I believed early in my ministry in the fivefold ministry offices, we didn't go around using that terminology. I was the local pastor of my church in Minnesota and I was the dominant teacher in that church.

I also had later a church in Vermont. I was a pastor of that church and I was the primary teacher. But no one called me a fivefold. They'd call me pastor, Ross or teacher.

They'd never call me fivefold because I'm not fivefold. I'm either one or two. I'm either the pastor or the pastor and the teacher, but I'm not those other three. So we just became comical how cute these people were in their terminology, how desperately they wanted to follow Hobart's teaching.

If they had somebody in that local group who lived locally and would maybe teach if a minister from faith assembly was not coming that particular evening, then I don't know what he was. He was just the local brother.

He wasn't really anything. But if you were going to have coming to your assembly or your home church, your satellite group on that particular day, if you're gonna have someone sent out from faith assembly, then you were going to have a fivefold.

And I tried to get them to say enough of all this nonsense. Stop calling them a fivefold because they're not, they're a onefold. Just say we've got a teacher coming from faith assembly to teach us in our meeting tonight.

You know, whenever I had the conversation with you last time, there's a lot of assumptions that I make just because it's so much embedded into my being, but all of the theology that Brannum had, if I were to...

sum that up. And remember, this is a movement with hundreds of ministers, evangelists who are claiming to be apostles, prophets, teachers, all of these things. They're all gathering around William Brownham, who spearheaded this movement. And they're all eating up whatever it is that he said because he was the prophet for their day. T. L. Osborne, who you just mentioned, basically said he was God in the flesh. Well, there's a reason why he said this. And if you understand that reason, then you understand how wrong the fivefold ministry is that these guys were touting. And also,

how wrong it is, this whole tear of apostle that they've created. So let me read you a quote, but let me preface it by this. If you go on to Brandham sermons and you just type in apostles, calma prophets or anything that would bring up the fivefold ministry, they're going to find hundreds, not just one or two hundreds of these things. Because this is what he is teaching. This is what everybody's eating up. While he's teaching it, he's saying things like this. This is one of many examples that I've come across. We believe that God is to be manifested in the last day among his

people. Every Christian believes this. But he goes on to say to the elect seed according to the Bible, he'll be manifested in the form of a prophet. That's exactly what the word says. And that's 1964. That's a sermon called the oddball. He's got many of these sermons. He always will tell you that there is a fivefold ministry in effect today. But within that fivefold ministry, the prophet is the one that's going to be manifested as God. God will be the prophet. And so if you understand, well, if God's the prophet, well, what do we need the Apostle four? The Apostle is not going to

lead us. God's got to lead us. But he's saying at the same time in the same breath, man. He's saying we need apostles and prophets and teach. We need all of these things. Oh, but by the way, I'm a prophet. I'm God. Though there were all kinds of being consistencies there. Absolutely. I mean, you can't really, there are, there are entire theologies that I don't mention just because like I almost take them for granted, they're so deeply buried and rooted into my head. I tried to wash them all out. You can never get all of this stuff out of your head. But he says things like for every age,

there was a prophet, not plural. There was a prophet, a single prophet. And he would say that things like this, God never, ever sent more than one prophet to any age. You go back through the Bible, the pages of the Bible. Well, the first time I'm reading through the book of kings as I'm washing all these things out at not kings, but some of the Old Testament prophets. And I'm reading the book of kings as I'm reading through the book of kings as I'm reading through the book of kings.

days of King Darius. And I'm reading another prophet in the days of King Darius. And I'm like, wait a minute, this guy lied to me. What he was trying to say was that the prophet is how God manifests himself to the people, not by God, not through Jesus. It is a prophet.

And he would go on to further say, God sent a single prophet to an age as his manifestation of God. He would say that the angel who appeared to Abraham was the God. He would say that Moses was the God before the people. And Moses's law was the spoken word for the day. And the people, if you had Moses spoken word, you had to get in through Moses. You had to get into heaven through Moses. And if you had Paul, who was the manifested prophet for the age, the God for the age, Paul's people had to have Paul's gospel, which wouldn't work for today. You need my

gospel. He would say things like this. So he would divide it into these weird things. Well, what he's essentially saying is that he is not just a prophet. He is this bundle that includes prophet, teacher, the whole thing, the whole five-fold ministry. If you understand that that's what he was teaching and understand that all of these other people who are with him are just cheering him on when they say that you go listen to the recordings. You're like, hey, man, brother, you're God before us. I mean, they're all saying those things, right? So if you understand that,

you understand that these people did not have a clue what was a apostle or what was a prophet. No. Okay. So let's just raise that question and talk about it for our podcast today. Are apostles and prophets for today? I don't even know what kind of phrase you valid for today? Are those valid ministries? Are they valid ministerial offices? I looked at the comments people made from the first podcast and everybody wants to use a certain word. So fill in whatever word fits your theology. I don't have a particular one. I'm just saying, are they valid for today? Are

apostles and prophets valid for today? I don't know if you've noticed this, John, but one thing I have noticed, and I have told the people that are under my ministry today that listen to me, there has been such a reluctance, not across the board. There are exceptions, but overall, there has been a hesitancy for anyone to call themselves an apostle or call themselves a prophet.

What I have noticed is this great tendency. They will say they have an apostolic ministry. Or they have a prophetic ministry. And I think they're trying to have their cake and eat it too.

They're scourting the issue or the question of, is the office of the apostle valid today? And the office of the prophet for today, they're scourting that by not using the actual designation apostle, I, John Doe, am an apostle, but they're saying, I have an apostolic ministry or such and such has a prophetic anointing. And I think, yeah, you're a little squirmy on me right there. The prophets of the Old Testament never hesitated calling themselves a prophet and the apostles of the New Testament never hesitated calling themselves an apostle. They just came right out and said it. If you look at Paul's epistles, I know in Romans, the

correspondence to the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, the pastoral epistles, that I can think of off the top of my head. He does not begin every epistle, but the majority of them, how does he begin his epistles, Paul call to be an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So he didn't meant words. He didn't say, I'm Paul with an apostolic calling because see if a person says that, then then on the one hand to their followers, they're an apostle, but if you challenge them, they will say, well, I never said I was an apostle. I just said I had an apostolic ministry and I want to say, what's the difference? You know, what's the difference?

I think what these people are waiting on, they're waiting for other people to call them that. So they will say, you know, come to our apostolic conference and then you'll have an apostolic person behind the podium and then he'll talk about apostolic anointing and then everyone leaves the conference talking about brother so and so who was an apostle. And he never called himself that, but see, he didn't need to. If you if you play the game the right way, you can escape the penalty phase of being that and then proving to be false, but still enjoy the benefit

part of it because they will call you an apostle or prophet and you don't have to. So if I go back to Hobart's ministry, I don't know if you noticed that, but I just see a reluctance in people. They want to, they're calling themselves that without calling themselves that. Hobart certainly felt he was a prophet. I've heard all of his tapes. He never ever said, I am Hobart Edward Freeman, the prophet of the Lord. Never called himself a prophet. Always called himself a teacher, but always called himself a prophetic teacher. And you know, I think Hobart was

biblically literate enough to know what comes with the calling of a prophet and to ever utter a false prophecy. The Old Testament penalty was you were stoned to death. and who wants to run the risk of that.

So I think this probably anyone who has maybe a little bit of biblical literacy in their theology doesn't want to quite go that far and say they're a prophet. But I mean, take Jeff Barnett. Jeff Barnett is one of these tier one ministers that is still around today. I think he's up in the Northeast somewhere, but he came out of Hobart Freeman's ministry and he always for years. I have a text message from him from this year. I may read from on the later podcast where he said, Oh, channel, I've operated in the prophetic realm

for the all 50 years of my ministry. And I want to say, what does that mean? You know, you know, don't don't be a coward. Don't beat around the bush. If you're a prophet, just say you're a prophet. Paul said he was an apostle. He didn't. He just stood up and said it. The prophets just stood up and said, I'm the prophet Isaiah. What do you mean you operate in the prophetic realm? You know, I don't believe that for a minute. I think that someone who wants to be a prophet, but God has never called them there yet. But they really want to be one. They want you

to think that they are one. And so they say I'm operating in the prophetic realm. You know, and speaking of Jeff Barnett, he had this woman, a prophetess in his church by the name of Michelle Sidler. You can find Michelle Sidler stuff all over YouTube. And I just screenshot what she said on her own Facebook page the other day. Here's what she said. I'll just read it. I've heard people say that the enemy can't read your thoughts. I don't believe that's true at all. Listen to her claim.

I mean, I'm just reading her claim. I didn't say she said this. This is on her own Facebook page. I've always been able to hear people's thoughts. My daughter has the same gift. Before being filled with a Holy Spirit, and after being filled with a Holy Spirit, of course, it's not all people all the time, but it's very often. And it's extremely challenging for me having a gift like this.

She has written a book called From Psychic to Profit. And really it should be called since she's a female from psychic to prophetess. But anyway, the name of the book is From Psychic to Profit.

And she was a psychic. And her female heritage is a heritage of psychics. Well, she allegedly got converted. And now she's a prophetess in the church. And Jeff Barnett, a long time follower of Hobart Freeman, has had her multiple times in his meeting, her up there with her cup of coffee wanting to give person So no prophecies to people.

She doesn't know the Bible. She doesn't teach the Bible, in my opinion. You know, we're out there in video land. So in my opinion, she doesn't know the Bible. I don't know that any of these people know the Bible much better than Baylums asked knew the Bible.

But Baylums asked was able to speak and give an accurate word, you know, because you can speak or because you can talk or because you can say anything. Does it really mean anything to me?

The only thing that means anything to me is if you know the Scriptures, if you know God's Word, but back to her post John, she can read your thoughts. I think what these, I don't think she can read my thoughts as much as a man in the moon.

And I think we could demonstrate it. You and I could go, I'm gonna tell you what my thought is and we're gonna ask her, you say, what's Chenot's thought? And I just told you what it was and what she says, it won't be because my thought will probably be something along the line of how is Dick Van Dyke able to say supercatch a fragilistic espialadocious backwards?

How is he able to do that? No, I don't think Michelle would know what my thoughts are. But what do these people use that for John? They use that to manipulate gullible people. Hobart used it, I'm a prophetic teacher.

I mean, literally I've had people from faith assembly say I was scared to be around Dr. Freeman because I was afraid he would know my thoughts. He doesn't know your thoughts and he more than Baylam's ass knows your thoughts.

He's just a man, it's just a donkey. There's only one God in heaven. Don't be afraid of all these people, but they use that to manipulate people, to intimidate people and they use it definitely to solicit a following.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William 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.

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So real quick, I'm going to have to correct you because I know that I will get feedback on this one. This one is important. probably the most important thing we did in the podcast, it is super califragilistic expialadocious.

Thank you. I can't even say it straight forward, let alone backwards. Well now we've got that out of the way. You know, speaking of movies, you were talking about how these shysters is the word that I would use for them. They will use these dodgy words so that they can lead you to believe something until they're challenged on it and then they can just become a shyster and go away from it. It reminds me of the movie O'Brother Horato, where John Goodman is the Bible salesman, and he's saying, I operate in the spiritual thing.

I can't remember exactly how he said it, but he's being really dodgy in the same way that they are. Well there's a reason why the movies portray these guys in the way that they do whenever they're portraying a con man, because there are enough religious con men that it's very easy and very evident. If you're not under the con man's spell, you can see that this guy clearly is another John Goodman, and he's going to beat you over the head with a stick if he can sell your Bible and steal your money. That's what these guys are doing. And to further that point,

there was a point in time at which if you were proclaiming this fiefold ministry thing, you were associating yourself with Laterane. It isn't that Laterane movement had any sort of copyright on the fiefold ministry. There were other movements that used the same kind of terminology, but the Laterane version of the fiefold ministry is different from what's described in the book of Ephesians, and also different from what the other movements had. The fiefold ministry within this movement created a pyramid scheme. And the assemblies of God began to sanction these guys if they were, if they had any part with Laterane, and many of them did. That's the funny thing.

Even within, I've talked to people who have been with old timers in the United Pentecostal Church, and they said, even their church, which wasn't even a part of this thing, they were entertaining these Laterane guys, because you bring them in, and suddenly you've got this massive crowd, with a massive tithe basket to come with it. But whenever the assembly started sanctioning the guys, other groups began to do the same thing. They were sanctioning them. Well, the crowd started to diminish. And if you openly advertise that, I am a fiefold ministry guy, I'm a Laterane guy.

Well, suddenly your pocketbook got a lot thinner. And like John Goodman, who wants the pocketbook to be thick, these guys do not want their pocketbooks to be thin. Wasn't there another movie, John, that starred Bert Lancaster called Elmer Gantry? Yes.

Here, I don't know when that came out, maybe in the 1950s, or maybe 1960s. But you've got, you know, Traveling medicine, man, all under the name of Christ, a religious huckster who was out there selling snake oil to heal everybody. And as you're saying, this is a big, big problem. And it did not go away with Bert Landcaster, Elmer Gantry. It is more in vogue today than it's ever been before. Okay, so people say, well, I believe they exist. Well, okay, this is what we saw in some of the comments from the last podcast. Okay, if they do exist, where are they? If they do exist,

where are they? So Hobart had a couple of answers to that question. He had a couple of really interesting answers to that question. If you would say, okay, where are they? One answer would be that, you know, and you have to follow this train of fault. What Hobart argued? And it's in his, it's in his little book, Charismatic Body Ministry, the pink book. We always call it the bubble book because it's got all these bubbles on there. There is an old ancient picture of Dr. Freeman.

My copy of this, I bought on May the 10th, 1976. We're talking about almost. We're going on 50 years that this has been sitting there in my library. So Hobart's reasoning would go something like this. And it was very convincing for new Christians and for people who want to believe this kind of thing. He said that everything that we witnessed in the pages of the New Testament, the raising of the dead, fill up being bodily transported from one city to another, Peter shadow falling on people, people being healed, the five-fold ministry offices, everything that we witnessed in the New Testament continued uninterruptedly through the first

three centuries of the Christian church. And he'd tell you a little, you know, church history story. He said whenever Constantine in the early part of the four century AD became the Roman emperor, he wanted to Christianize the whole Roman Empire. So he offered to give everyone who would convert to Christianity a white robe and 30 pieces of silver. And if you would do that, you can be a Christian.

And Hobart said it was at that point because you have so many of the heathen and the unregenerate entering the church that the Holy Spirit went away. And the only place you could find these five-fold ministry offices is they were in just secret tucked away pockets here and there, all over the world, all through the centuries.

And it's a really, it's an interesting idea, you know, basically everything went underground. It's an interesting idea. I have to say it's also very convenient because if everything's underground, then we can't find it so you can neither prove it or disprove it.

And that's one thing I would say that I don't think that, I don't think that's good church history research. I don't think that people like Dr. Freeman knew how to do church history research.

I think if you look for primary sources for this kind of view, I don't think you're gonna find them. It's more legend than it is anything. And I've often said, I said the same thing, John, when it comes to Bible verses, you know, you and I read a Bible verse, we think it means, you know, ABC and then one of these people, they'll say, no, you miss the whole meaning.

The meaning is secret and it's hidden in the verse. And that's a very popular view. That's a very popular view. That's a popular view among late people today that simply by reading the text, that's not enough.

Reading the text, reading the context prior and the context following, understanding the authorship, being a Christian, being a desires to know God's word, having, you know, the spiritual qualities to understand the Bible, none of that's enough.

You have to be one of the secret initiates in order to know what that verse really means. And it's kind of the same thing, I think, with these five full ministry offices. They say that they've existed, Cheno, all through the last 2,000 years.

You're just not looking in the right place. You know, you wouldn't find them in the Roman Catholic church. You're not gonna find them in the Lutheran church or the Presbyterian church. You know, they were in secret, they were tucked away all through the centuries in countries all around the world.

But I don't think that Hobart could prove that any more that I could disprove that. I don't think anyone could prove they have existed down through the centuries. I'm welcome to look at your primary source evidence for that.

I don't think they could prove their existence any more than I could disprove it. I think actually it's easier to disprove it because if they don't exist, there's nothing there to prove or disprove.

It's just empty air. I think the reason that they are hidden so well in church history is because they don't exist. I've said the same thing about various interpretations in the Bible. The reason that meaning is so deeply hidden is because it's not there.

And that's why it's very difficult to see. Now, Hobart would go and try to find things down through history like he would go to... the reformers like Martin Luther. And I can remember hearing tapes, I was assured by Hobart that John Calvin, had the baptism of the Holy Spirit and spoken tongues and that Martin Luther did, that all the great church people did.

And his proof of that would be in some of the hymns like Luther wrote, a mighty fortress is our God. And in one of the, I think maybe the fourth verse of Luther's hymn, a mighty fortress is our God.

He said the Spirit and the gifts are ours. So he believed that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit and the gifts are ours, but we don't know what he meant by the gifts. He did not enumerate what gifts are you talking about?

And in what way are they ours? And in what way is the Holy Spirit ours? I believe that Martin Luther did believe that, but we don't know in what way he believed that. But here, Pentecostal and Charismatic people are just too quick to try to find support and justification.

And you don't need to, if it's biblical, it's biblical. You don't need to find justification anywhere else. Somewhere else Hobart would go would be to the Wesley brothers. We know that John Wesley was basically the founder of the Methodist faith and his brother, Charles Wesley, you know, was a great hymn writer.

He wrote a lot of hymns. And so Charles Wesley wrote a hymn entitled, oh, four thousand tongues to sing my Redeemer's praise. And so Hobart would say that's proof for the fact that Charles Wesley spoke in tongues.

I don't think that's proof of that. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but I would have to have some other evidence in that. I think that simply a hymn writer in his thoughts of adoration towards God saying, I wish I had a thousand different languages that I knew so that I could praise God in a thousand different languages.

And if he had a thousand different languages, you know, more power to him. But I don't think that you can prove that from that hymn or from Martin Luther's hymn. So my point so far in this part, John, is that Hobart would say that if we're asking, where are the prophets and the apostles?

He would say that they are secretly tucked away throughout the centuries, throughout the countries, and they've always been there. For me, it's this simple. And I'm going to agree with the people that say, after Paul, we still had apostles, but I'm going to agree with it in this way.

There's a phrase, you're from Kentucky, so you'll understand this. All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon. And if you understand what that means, that bourbon is the highest quality whiskey, but it is yet still whiskey.

You can only call it bourbon because it comes from Kentucky. And you can really... only say that it's the highest quality if you come from Kentucky. I think the people in Scotland might disagree that their scotch whisky is better. Well, the word apostle means in Greek, the language, and I'm no Greek theologian, but this is common knowledge. This is not something that I have to really study for. The word apostle means to send out somebody who's dispatched with a mission. That is, it's essentially the same thing as a missionary. In fact, the words, the Greek

words, if you go look up the meaning of each one, the basically the only difference between the apostle and the missionary, both are sent, both are sent as missionaries, but the apostles were the ones who had common contact with Jesus. Therefore, the people were more interested to hear from them because they were a direct channel. There was no third person, fourth person, fifth person between them and Jesus. We can hear the closest thing to what Jesus said because we're talking right to this apostle who talked to Jesus, but he's basically the same thing as a missionary if you understand

the meaning of the word. So not all missionaries are apostles in the same way that you can use the same phrase with the whisky and the bourbon. If you compare that to what the people are saying we had apostles after Paul. Absolutely. You had missionaries after Paul. However, not a single one of them had seen Jesus. So you really can't say that they're the same type of apostle. Yes, they were sent out. They did not have the same authority. Maybe they had some authority because maybe they were working closely with scholars. So you had a variation of the word apostle, but you did not have

the biblical apostles. In today's world, this NAR, NAR, New Apostolic Reformation, however you say it, not a single one of these guys are a missionary. They're wanting you to become the one who sent out to go into their congregation and give them your money so they can buy their fancy cars. That's the role of the apostle today is so that they can receive like John Goodman beating you over the head with a stick. They want to beat you over the head with a Bible and give you give them their money.

That is not a biblical apostle. They're using the phrase the term apostle yes, but it is no way shape or form the same thing. Speaking of bourbon, we are proud in Kentucky of our bourbon.

So for it to be bourbon in Kentucky even, it has to be made of at least 50% corn base and it has to be aged for at least two years. It can be longer, but at least two years in a charred white oak barrel. And then if you've met those requirements, those are bare minimum, then you can be bourbon in Kentucky. If you want to really good stuff like Pappy Van Winkle, 23 Pappy, Van Winkle, then you've got to sit in that charred white oak barrel for 23 years.

Yeah, John, I think these guys are fighting an uphill battle, biblically and theological. At least as far as the apostles are concerned, they're fighting an uphill battle because probably the best chapter in the Bible to for a person to study concerning the validity of a apostleship would be Acts chapter one where we know that Jesus started with twelve apostles. Judas Iscariot is now off the scene and they need a 12th member to complete the Apostolic band of the twelve apostles and they they select two men but they have a larger group from which to choose. Remember Jesus not only had twelve

apostles, he had 70 disciples in Matthew 10 that he sent out with power to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper and cast out demons. He had 70 in addition to the twelve. So the 11 apostles remaining in Acts 11 have a large pool from which to choose but here were their very important conditions. Not only did they have to not only did this new potential apostle have to have seen the risen Lord and he did but it was it went back much further than that. They said this man has to have been a part of

everything that Jesus said and did beginning from the baptism of John. In other words, they had to have been there for the entire three and a half year public ministry of Jesus. They didn't have to know him as an infant or a twelve year old in the temple but from the baptism of John, this is in the end of Matthew 3 all the way through to his death burial and his resurrection. They had to have been a part of that. That's what we're going to make you an apostle. You know, if you don't meet those qualifications, you couldn't be an

apostle. And so that's the particular problem that the apostle Paul was facing because of all of the apostles in the New Testament. He was one who was not there from the baptism of John. And I think that is why I fully believe Paul was an apostle. I fully believe he was an exception to that Acts 1 requirement.

And the reason I think that Luke who is the church's early historian and wrote the book of Acts gave us three separate accounts of Paul's conversion and calling experience, chapter 9, chapter 22 and chapter 26, when one would be enough, you know, you're trying to write the first 20 years of the church's history where space is at a premium here. And he repeats Paul's conversion experience three times because it was that important.

to the early church to know that even though this man did not fit the bill according to Acts 1, the Lord Jesus had personally directly appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul was converted and he was called to be an apostle.

And if you look in the New Testament, you've got the original 12. You've got Judas' replacement, whose name was Matthias in the end of Acts 1. So now we have 13. You have Paul, who was 14. The only other one called, actually called an apostle was Barnabas and Luke calls him this in Acts 14, verse 14. So at maximum, people called an apostle by the New Testament would be 15 people. Hobart loved to play gymnastics with that because he's always looking for more justification for his belief. And he would say, oh, you can find at least 19 apostles in the New Testament if you just look. Well, really, you can't. He would

include people like Andronicus and Junius, who are mentioned in the last chapter of Paul's epistle to Rome, Romans 16. And it simply says of those two particular people, one of them who is evidently a female. It says that they were of note among the apostles and they had come to Christianity come to Christ before Paul had. So it doesn't call them an apostle. They were just noteworthy among the apostles. These were two very important early Christian believers. And the same could be said of a Paulus. He's never called an apostle. I mean, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't,

but he's never called that. And the Ananiacensifier, I started to say no, they were killed. They definitely weren't. But the other people that you see there in the New Testament in the book of Acts, none of them are called an apostle. So I think you're fighting an uphill battle. I think that the apostolic band was important for founding Christianity. I mean, they were foundational in the establishment of Christianity. And they were foundational in the writing of scripture. When we come to prophets, I think that's just a secondary consideration. There were definitely prophets in the New Testament.

Some are mentioned by name. Silas, who travel with Paul in Acts 15 is mentioned by name as a prophet. When Luke tells us the ministers who were at the church in Antioch in the first couple of verses of Acts 13, he said there were in the church at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, prophets and teachers. He goes on to name five. He begins with Barnabas and ends with Saul, whose name had not been changed to Paul yet. And there three in between.

those two men. So they were either prophets or teachers or both. So you can get that from scripture. But I think it's a secondary issue that is worthy of further discussion if people wanted to. I don't think there's just any way that you can make a claim biblically for there being apostles today. I think they were foundational for the church. I think they did the writing of scripture.

Those books written by people that we don't think were apostles such as Mark, his gospel, and Luke's gospel, James's epistle, Jude's epistle, everything else is written by a recognized apostle. Matthew and John wrote two gospels. We know they were apostles. John wrote his three epistles in the book of Revelation. Peter wrote two epistles. Paul wrote so much of the New Testament as far as the number of books. We know he was an apostle that only leaves us with a handful of books. One being Mark, the other being Luke, and then the two little epistles, James and Jude. Well, James and Jude were

half brothers of Jesus. So they were with him from birth all the way through death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. The New Testament never calls them apostles, but they obviously were familiar with everything that had happened in Jesus' earthly ministry, and they had apostles around them. Only leaves us in with two other New Testament books, and that's Mark that I can think of.

Well, Hebrews, we don't know exactly who wrote Hebrews, either Paul or someone else under apostolic authority. But we have Mark and Luke as two other New Testament books. Well, Mark was a traveling companion of the apostle Paul. He was with him on his first journey. He was a cousin to Barnavus who we saw earlier was an apostle. Acts 14, 14 calls him that. Mark's mother Mary had a house church in Jerusalem. We learned that in Acts 12. Mark was a son in the faith to Peter. Peter calls him that in the end of first Peter, chapter 5. Mark is so valuable to Paul that even though

they have a little falling out because Mark goes with him part of the way on Paul's first journey and wants to go back home after that. He and Barnavus end up separating on the second journey because Barnavus wants to take his cousin, Mark, and Paul said no because he wasn't up for it, and I'm going to take Silas with me. Well, if you read in 2 Timothy 4 at the very end of Paul's life, he said, bring Mark with you. He is much prophet. He's very profitable to me and my ministry. So I'm just saying he was under complete apostolic care and ministry and authority his

whole life. And the same is true with Luke. Luke who wrote his gospel and who wrote the book of Acts was a traveling companion of Paul through much of Acts. And you can see that when you can see when Luke comes on the picture in chapter 16 because the pronouns go from him telling the story about they and them to in Acts 16 him telling the story about us and we because he's now traveling with Paul. So I said all of that to say this that I think one of the most important roles that the

apostles were to fulfill not only the twelve but Paul as well was the foundational establishment of the church and the writing of the New Testament canon of scripture. And once we have those 27 books which we have I think the need for that kind of foundational authority and the inscripturation of God's Word has passed off the scene and is no longer with us today. I would absolutely agree and I would also emphasize we don't need more John Goodman's behind the pulpit with sticks to beat you over the head and take your money. And the sad truth is after you've been out of this

type of thing for any period of time you look back at that and that's really all you can see in most of these men. And you begin to wonder what on earth did everybody else think about you who wasn't in this who was in a normal Christian church they could see it too it was it was plain as day they're not going to go behind the tree with John Goodman and get beat over the head with a stick they can see that you're willingly submitting yourself to this so I have to wonder what people thought about me when I was in it fortunately I'm no longer in it and I wish that

everybody else could escape this you don't need an apostle that the way that they have presented the apostle I'll end with this if you understand the way that they're teaching you the need for the apostle they're basically usurping the role of the Holy Spirit you don't need the Holy Spirit because you have me the apostle and if you do have the Holy Spirit it's more to the point that you can become more you can become closer to your apostle if you have the Holy Spirit that's not the way this works but that's what they're essentially that's what they're teaching if you

follow all of their paths out to the it's logical conclusion so you don't need this I no longer have it and hopefully people can wake up so thank you for doing this thanks for having me John if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information you can check us out on the web you can find us at william-branam.org for more about the dark side of the new apostolic you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Autable.