Manifest Sons of God: The Seed Behind the Power

Hello and welcome to another episode out of 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, researcher and friend, John McKinnon, author of the Persuasive Preacher, the Gifted Profit, and the Noble Politician. John is good to be back and to talk about, I guess you would call this the foundation or the origin story of the manifested sons of God as it developed into what became the New Apostolic Reformation today. There are so many themes of John McKinnon

would call this the convergence of apostasy. There are so many different themes of apostasy and purely heretical teachings that came together in William Branham's theme that he started to introduce whenever he laid the groundwork for what would develop into the manifested sons of God and he really wrapped it up in what we'll you'll call it the seed doctrine. There's other different names that are used for it but if you really understand that William Branham took the words of Genesis and twisted them just a little bit to make them sound scriptural but to add things to it that weren't written in the

text and then understand that when he got that part wrong he literally changed and altered the course of what would become the theology for his creation, his creation story and literally the story for every human being that is represented by the numbers of people who were in his cult but I won't go too far with it yet we'll get into it as we go but there was the well Genesis clearly says in Genesis 1 that male and female humans were created by God but what William Branham did is he twisted this just a little bit to say that you

were in existence prior to this and he would say things like how can you be how can you have eternal life if you had a starting point if you had an origin and he really didn't understand the concept of what Christ did on the cross for salvation and if you read the gospels he gets into teaching how we were we were a thought that was conceived and therefore we must have always existed and very subtly if you understand that logic and fall it to its conclusion, it changes the nature of salvation itself. You are already saved to begin with,

you are already part of this thing that he is inventing, and therefore there's really no work that Christ needed to do on the cross. You just have to accept it and you have to take pride in your pre-existence, I guess. So with that, we'll get into it, but this is going to be an interesting one.

Welcome again, John, and here we are in another episode to talk about this subject of adoption, and we're going to talk about the seed doctrine again, and what is the seed doctrine, and this is about the seeds of adoption doctrine that William Brandham preached, and this is episode two.

So I'm looking forward to today's episode, John, as we explore this seed doctrine of William Brandham's, you know, just to get started, and to get us started off here, I want to read a quote here that I read last time as we ended, you know, the episode. So let me bring that up. It was in 1964, December the 12th, called Harvest Time, and here's what he said, was he just, was just he alone, see? So if we have eternal life, we were with God right then, a part of God, we were his attribute, and I want you to remember that, we are now his attribute, and because in the beginning

was the word, and a word is a thought expressed, so we were his thoughts, then expressed into word and become what we are. That's a very important quote as we get into this because there's a lot there, and there's a lot there to the undiscerning person that really doesn't understand, you know, what William Brandham was talking about here, you could, it could sound very biblical, and it could sound very scriptural, but we're going to find out how far off it is. And to begin with, I'm just enjoying getting into the subject matter because it's really at the very heart, you know, if what

William Brandham taught, and it may even be key inside information or the teaching of the message that he believed he was sent to deliver, you know, out of all the things that he taught, you know, this could be the key message that he was trying to bring. William Brandham's ministry was centered around convincing people of what he believed was truth, and Gordon Lindsay said this, and one of his publications, he said, William Brandham believed he was a teacher of truth, so I can break down his truth very quickly, but to grasp it really has taken me a long time, so we're not going to rush this,

and I may repeat some things, but it all helps in our understanding. I know this is not the usual for your podcast, so feel free to take it where you think it should go as well, John. Every time I began to look into one thing about this, you know, subject, something else just pops up, and I realized more of William Brandham's purposes or motives. He was all about supernatural for one thing, was built on doing things that seemed supernatural. It was all wrapped up in himself because we've shown that things he said he vindicated him, say, by

newspapers, what was in the newspapers about him, or by the clouds, or by prophecies, just did not happen. Even I would say that all of the miracles of healing that were very public, none of them really proved anything about himself. But he was a very unusual person, we would have to say, and could somehow have a strong influence upon people, and even you, if you let yourself be drawn into it, that he built everything in his ministry, the church, everything on supernatural manifestations, which is a large part of this as what was becoming a manifested

son of God, and his teaching of the manifest sons of God. In 63, I want to read this quote from Christ as a mystery of God revealed on July the 28th. He said, what is it? Is Christ been revealed, and he is the word? And when the word is revealed, it expresses itself. So I want you to keep that in mind as we talk about who Jesus is, because I think that's the very crux of the matter as we get into this, who Jesus is, who you are, and he's talking about attributes here. Now as we go into this, we'll see that he is putting Christ as an attribute of God

the same as you. And I want you to keep that in mind as you hear some of these quotes here. And then the attributes are thoughts, and then the thoughts have to be expressed as word to become real, or to become in manifestation, in other words. So he said, when the word is revealed, it expresses itself. See, that's God's purpose for Jesus Christ was to express himself to take his own laws and live by his laws, and fulfill his law by death. And Christ, God died in flesh in order to condemn sin in the flesh that he might bring to himself a glorious

bride, redeem back that will believe only the word of God, only in the word of God, and not swap it like Eve did for intellectual conceptions of man. You see it? That's Christ's idea. That's God's idea. He said, the new birth reveals this. So, and notice how he says this next statement here alone, the same lines, the very next sentence, he said, and this shows you how he, he, he depended upon the supernatural or how he said that that's how you recognize one of the ways you recognize that you're believing the word for your day. He said, in if a man says

born again and try to place these promises of Christ, which most of those were the scriptures surrounding his ministry, he said in this last days to some other age, making him Christ yesterday, but not today, like Christ, the miracle worker yesterday, but not today, then that man or that person has been in a delusion by Satan. And if that man says he believes that, and it doesn't manifest itself through him.

Jesus said in Mark 16, these signs shall follow them that believe in all the world and every age casting out devils speaking with tongues and all these great manifestations of gifts that would follow that they shall not, they may be, they ought to, they will.

And heaven's an earth will pass away, but his word won't. So you see, he was very highly cognizant of supernatural workings and that's what he was wanting to see and that's why he said the church had to manifest.

So he's forcing the people of God into something. That may or may not even be what God's will is. So in another one he continued on the same message here, he said, be in filled with his spirit, him having the pre-eminences, that was God's achievement, that's God's purpose to do that, that he might be in Christ and Christ in us and all of us together, together one.

The Holy Spirit, same thing, it revealed it to Christ, reveals it here, the supernatural creative power. So you see all these quotes here, he's all about the supernatural and he's talking about supernatural creative power and this is after he had so-called spoken those squirrels into existence and things we've talked about in previous podcasts.

And so here's another thing. So with this one quote from a really famous ceremony preach, he's focusing on signs and wonders, I guess we could say, and he condemns and downplays other Christians who are not focusing on it and warns people to stay away from those who've even studied the word and he called them intellectuals.

Well, if you're wondering, how can you tell when somebody is not a sound Bible teacher? Well, there are many different ways, the easiest of which is just simply to read your Bible. But one of the more obvious ways is if you have a Bible teacher who's telling you quite literally that if you study the Bible or if you listen to someone else who has studied the Bible, especially if they have gone to a school to study the Bible, don't listen to those people, well, usually you're listening to somebody who is in full disagreement with sound Bible theology and that's exactly what William Brannum was, yet at the same time

he would say things like, I don't know the book real well, but I know the author, referring to the Bible, he's saying literally, I don't understand the Bible, but I know Jesus and so it doesn't matter that I'm teaching you all of this doctrine and the question always remains, how can you teach if you don't understand the book?

But that's exactly what he's doing and it defies large sections of Scripture. In the Old Testament, they're very, very clear about the nature of God and the relationship between God and man. Isaiah, I think it's 40, says, before me, this is God speaking, before me, God, there was no God formed, nor shall there be any after me.

Yet, this manifested sons of God theology, large portions of the word of faith. movement teach that we are little gods, not fully understanding the literal, the literary styles for that phrase, did the Bible not say ye are gods. They simply do not understand sound Bible theology. And so those two passages can't go together. You can't have gods saying there are no other gods. And a group of people who are defying sound theology saying, yes God, I disagree with you, there were gods, and I'm one of them, which is essentially what they're doing. The most obvious, you know, contradiction is John, the first chapter

of John, when it says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Quite interestingly, this was often quoted by William Branham, but he seldom took it to the next phrase, which said, all things were made through him. So, in other words, we weren't these thoughts conceived, et cetera. We weren't a substance that was to be reborn or manifested, but that's what was being taught here. We were in existence from the beginning of time and we were manifested. So where the Bible teaches a clear point of creation for humans, William Branham, and literally the foundation that developed

into the manifested sons of God today, is teaching that every Bible passage talking about creation has been incorrectly written in the Bible and we must ignore it. You know, William Branham believed and caused others to believe that his ministry made the Bible come to life, mostly in miracles and signs, which was of great interest, you know, through the Pentecostal people. Even Gordon Lindsay said in the book, you know, man said from God that it was written very early on in the ministry before Gordon Lindsay, you know, left William Branham. He said, Bible days are here again. So people looking for power

and influence and those who were even sincere flocked to these things. And we saw it in the 1950s, healing revival. It was great big noise that attracted them, but it just took a few years for them to realize that they were being hoodwinked or in cases where healing was pronounced, you know, even as dust saith the Lord and given a divine gift of healing minister by an angel as it was spoken and then the person died even after that. So, but the supernatural was all that really William Branham had going for him and all of his

made up stories that he would create out of his mind and made up prophecies even like the bridge vision that he claimed he saw great meetings that he would exaggerate about or having a vision of seeing a killing a brown bear or a great tent meetings where something was going to happen in there that related to his third pool or using natural phenomena even, you know, it's like sealing lights in Houston, Coliseum or to say that was a pillar of fire or clouds that was made by a blown up rockets, you know, to say that it was supernatural.

And to get people really believing it, you know, he was able to do that. That's how his ministry was built. Basically, it was all these things that were not credible, but he would claim that they were supernatural, and he got people to believe that.

He did, and it just goes back to the question, you and I have been asking for several episodes now, if you're basing your entire theology on experiences, which is exactly what William Brannem is doing, and many men and women who came after him who were in these apostolic networks that developed into the NAR, they're building their ministries on the experiences of those that came before them.

That's why there are books like God's Generals, and these pathways of supernatural influence that these people are claiming is a movement by God. Well, when you study the origin stories of many of these trails of this so-called movement by God, you find that, yes, it's built on top of these experiences, but many times the experiences are in themselves, anti-scriptural, and more than that, some of the experiences like we've discussed are just outright fiction.

So if this is a movement by God, why is it built on fiction? And the question then raised is, are these people serving a real God, or are they serving a fictional God? And it all comes down to the root question that we're going to get to in this podcast.

If you're understanding that the creation story written in Genesis is incorrect, and that we were instead this foreknowledge, the seed, daughter, whatever you want to call this, if you're believing a different version of the creation story, are you even believing the same Bible?

So for me, this is the biggest question that I think needs to be asked. So I could go on and on about all these things, or so many things, but getting back to the subject here, we and Brandon believed that the elect people, or the people that believe in his message, were a thought of God in the beginning and dwelled with God.

So if you can imagine this, in God's mind, they were a real thought. And although God has blinded, he would say God has blinded you to that prior existence, that she was in God, but because you were a thought, then you could be expressed down here on earth as a word of God.

But say he puts not only Christians in that category as being the word of God expressed, he actually puts Jesus in that category. And I think that's what we're going to see through this podcast today is where it is really dangerous because he said, because you're a word of God, that makes you a little God.

See, the problem with this, as I see, is you have to put Jesus in the same category as another son of God, just like he believed Christians were, because he even said Jesus was a thought that came forth as a word, because a word is a thought expressed, right?

So the same way you were a thought, and then when you came to earth and was born, you became a thought expressed and you are the word. So it gets pretty hairy when you get into this.

So if Jesus was God, then you were God to the extent that God is manifesting Himself. yourself and you as well. The heart of this doctrine promotes the people to Godship with actual Godlike authority on earth at some point, you know, whether like the NAR proclaims it'll be during this lifetime or as the message proclaim it'll be during the millennium.

And there's a lot of quotes that we can go through this and we will and also use material for message ministers. I've got one today in fact, a couple of them to back this up and I do think it will become clear to everyone listening here. So we just want to take our time and be patient with this and be patient as we explain this. And this will be episode two for those who are following the line of thinking here and go back and here number one, if you hadn't yet heard that, there's a lot of dimensions to this teaching too.

I'll have to say is bits and pieces other taken, you know, by other charismatic church world ministries and especially in the prosperity doctrine preachers and these teachings will take you all the way back to part of anything existing. We're only God existing in his being. You know, we brought him heavily focused on trying to tell people that they were literally gods or so much a part of God in the beginning that they always had eternal life sometimes. So I hear people say that a lot of times. They were just fallen as they came forth and bypassed their word body and born in these sinful flesh beings. But all

they needed was the light across their path. It's a lot different than what Christianity teaches about being truly repentant over your depravity and your should be mourning over your sin and realizing you're nothing and you're bankrupt before God and needing him.

And in the message, you tend to believe that you come from God as a thought. So you really always were and that's what made you elect. And all you had to do is see a manifestation of Christ, say, and William random doing miracles and then you just come to life. Well, that's how a lot of people believe it. But what I feel these teachings do is make Jesus's work on the cross really diminished. You know, the most important thing, the most important act in history that God ever did was allow himself to come down and live in a body of flesh

as the Son of God and then allow himself to be killed by people so that he could shed his blood. But that's the most important thing in history. And they tend to downplay that if you'll notice as you study this, but they put the emphasis on people believing that they're literally God's substance from the beginning, which puts them on a common equal standing with with Jesus Christ or God himself, because you're part of that that makes up God or makes up the being of God. I'll show this in a quote here shortly. But this start doctrine starts with a concept of a seed and that human beings who are the true

elite Christians, those that are believed in God. being, you know, William Bradham's message, were literal seeds or thoughts in God's mind, and that's what William Bradham calls the eternal thoughts, and who were eventually spoken to the earth.

So they put Jesus Christ on the same level though. That's the problem with this, and that he was a thought of God expressed in the same manner as easily Christians were, but he was the first born as it were.

Exactly, and there's one point that I want to stress that you brought up, that I don't think people really realize and recognize. Under William Bradham's theological framework, for you to be this manifestation of God, he had to change and alter the understanding of the scriptures that talk about God, especially in the New Testament.

And the reason why he did this was, whenever he was talking about Jesus, he wanted to point to Jesus as the ultimate manifestation of God. To this point in time, throughout history from the creation story, all the way to Jesus, there was only God the Father, and then what he wanted to say is, God the Father manifested himself in Christ Jesus, in the same way that we would be manifested gods in the end of the world.

Christ would return to earth through this manifestation. And what you have to do to do this, since he's talking about, we are humans and we're to become like God, well then by default, Christ was also a human, and the human had, human Christ had to become God.

And he would often say things like this, he would say Jesus could do, perform no miracles, unless he first saw a vision from the Father. And what he was saying there is, Jesus was not divine, Jesus was not God, therefore you too can become God.

And that's exactly what he was doing through this theological framework. The deeper you get into this, the more sick it makes you to your stomach, because what he is doing is, he is actually rejecting the idea that God sent his only son, and that his son Christ Jesus was divine.

If you're a Christian, this is the most insulting thing that can ever happen in a sermon. And people should have just got up and walked out. But as you said before, they weren't focused on the doctrine.

They were instead focused on the experiences. And that really turns out to be the root of all of this mess that we're in today. So yeah, John, this is gonna be a whirlwind of the trip here, as we dive into this.

We're just gonna take our time with these concepts, because it will take some time to develop the thought. And I'm sure you can show how these things that we're talking about are weaved into the movements that you're discussing in your podcast, such as the NAR, in the charismatic world.

So we'll take some time to develop these thoughts and go through all the twists and turns about it. It's a difficult subject to speak about, because there are beliefs on either side, and the church has really divided over Trinity versus Oneness over these things.

So I won't be trying to prove a doctrine or anything else or try to present a doctrine, say this is definitive. Other than... because I think most of the disagreements that we have over trendy verses one is or just semantics, except when they tried to diminish who Christ was.

So some of the oneness doctrines that was preached way back when, and this is some of the things that Stephen carried into the message, they diminish Christ, and that's what it tends to do.

It tends to put Christ as a lesser being or a created being in even. And so that's certainly not the case, because Christ existed or Jesus as the son existed with the Father from the very beginning, he wasn't a thought of God, he was God.

So it's just something I see that's happened here that the diminishing of Christ is a big deal, and we cannot do that, and we'll show this as we go through this. So the first major deviation from Christian doctrine found within the seat of God concept is how Christ is presented, and what I see in William Brownham's teaching is a departure from the gospel in more ways than one.

And Paul warned us about leaving the gospel that he preached from the very beginning, and that deviating from it does cause a curse to come to you. And so William Brownham's ministers haven't excused for teaching something different than Paul, because they've exalted William Brownham up to him par with with Paul as a man called of God.

So in their minds, William Brownham is essentially writing new scripture or anything he says, even if it deviates from the Bible, becomes new scripture or inspired word. Paul's teaching then gets put to the sidelines, as they'll say that was Paul's day, but this is our day, and even William Brownham said on probably two occasions that we have something different, because the gospel that Paul preached will not work in this day.

So that's a very dangerous statement to make. And that's what can you imagine that these people were preaching today, they've brought a curse on themselves because they believe this stuff. So once they make that leap, they no longer try to search out the scriptures and try to get a good foundation on what Paul and the other apostles were saying to the church.

They begin to use scriptures just to back up what William Brownham taught, but then they end up having to twist the plain meaning. I know we've brought out that in other podcasts that we've done recently with the 70 Disciples and also with Acts 19.

So here we have another quote from William Brownham in 1964, March the 4th called Serves We Would See Jesus. He says, he was the eternal, just the eternal one, he's speaking about God there.

There was no moon, no stars, no angels, no nothing. But in this being that we call God our Father was attributes, there we are again, in him was attribute to be a Father, in him was attribute to be God, and here's another important one in him was attribute to be a Son.

In him was attribute to be savior. In him was attribute to be healer. All these things that we see now is just displaying his attributes or thoughts. And he didn't say it in this quote, but he also means the same thing for the bride. The bride was in him was to be a bride. And we're going to see this in a quote from a well-known minister that's passed on now. But I did highly respect him. And he taught on the Godhead. And we'll hear what he says about these attributes. And I'll point that out later on. So in this quote,

we see how he diminishes the person of Jesus Christ by calling him an attribute. You know, instead of a person of God, instead of being God himself, he's just one of the attributes I've got places. Jesus has the attribute, not as the person. So being an attribute, then you're a thought. And that's the same as God's other thoughts. He did say thoughts or attributes as we saw earlier in the quote we just read. So when we speak of, say, the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit existing from eternity past, all three being the person of God and all being co-equal, no matter how God chooses to act, if he acts as the Holy

Spirit or as the Son or as the Father, they are all co-equal and they are fully God. They're not just attributes being part of God. They are full, fully God, no matter which one is doing the manifesting. So Christianity would say that when the Son came down into the baby Jesus, it was fully God, then. But in William Brownham's doctrine, he would say Jesus only became fully God when the Holy Spirit came down at the river Jordan at his baptism. Now, I know that's a lot to digest there, but that's really the truth of what he's saying. But he speaks to so many different groups. If you read through the

message or if you study it, you're not going to find it every time he says that, but that's really the core of the doctrine. Because sometimes he will say to other groups, you know, he would believe Jesus was God and he would say that, but deep down and when he's speaking to other groups, he would not confess that. So you just have to read through and discern.

William Brownham would say that God dwelled in Christ, but Jesus was not all fully God by himself. Now, I'll read another quote from a different minister who's also passed on, but he was one of the people that William Brownham called the theologian of the message.

So he knew and him and William Brownham conferred very closely together. So he knew what William Brownham thought is very interesting to hear what his statements are. So and the same message, Christ is the mystery of God revealed July 28th again in 63. He said, the God himself saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm pleased to dwell in God and man becoming one. So here he's saying he's modified the scripture a little bit because the scripture doesn't say I'm pleased to dwell in. He said in whom I'm pleased.

used to dwell. So by saying whom I'm pleased to dwell in, you're putting the son as being a different person than God. He's not God until God comes to dwell in him. He said, this is my son whom I'm pleased to dwell in. I'm just pleased to dwell in him. God had to come in dwell in Christ in order to be God. So and he said, that's God and man becoming one.

You see, Jesus was God all by himself, you know, prior to even the Holy Spirit coming upon him at the River Jordan. He was born Christ the Lord. He was fully God even as a baby.

He was fully God all the way through until his death on the cross. And that's the big difference. And that's where they diminished Jesus by not making him fully God from the time he was a baby to the time he died on the cross.

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.

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On behalf of William Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. You know, John, when I was leaving the message, cult following of William Brannum, one of the things that I did was I started reading the Bible over and over and over again to try to wash all of this nonsense out of my head. And it was actually fairly difficult because I started to learn that we had a lot of loaded language that in some cases was a loaded language Bible verse that meant a huge path of theology for us that was programmed into

our heads that was not actually from the Bible. And William Brannum would often, you know, when he's programming the heads of the people who are listening, he's often taking one verse and adding words to it or taking words away from it or sometimes even taking two different verses and blending them together to create a new Bible verse that doesn't exist.

And then he'll say things like the Bible says and he'll mention this new thing that he has created of his own invention. Sadly, there were not too many people sitting in the audience who actually went back to their Bibles to see, is this thing that he said really in the Bible?

And those who did, you know, they probably thought, well, he just messed this up, but when you understand that he built entire theologies based on his additions and retractions of scripture or combinations of scripture, this turns into a huge problem. And one of the phrases that really hit me was he added the words even in you. He said, the Bible says, I will be with you even in you until the end of the world. And, you know, to a normal Christian who's listening, they think, well, that's not so bad. God said he would sent the Holy Spirit. Maybe he's

talking about the Holy Spirit. But no, he's specifically talking about exactly what we're talking about today. He's talking about this manifestation of God. God will be even in you, and he will add this, he adds this phrase. There were some that were just really absurd. He, he took two passages, and I can't remember exactly. I think they're both from Psalms, but he would say that the Bible says we're born and sin, shape, and in an equity come into the world speaking lies. And it sounds good. It sounds like a Bible verse, and it sounds like everybody

can freely tell things that aren't true. But that's not really what the Bible says. The Bible has a verse that's talking about born in, you know, brought forth in an equity from the mother, and desiring truth, I think, is one passage from the Bible. I think it Psalms maybe 51, and then in Psalms 58, he says, the wicked are the ones, the Bible says the wicked are the ones who come to the world speaking lies. So he's literally taking two passages of Scripture, one talking about the wicked, one talking about the godly mixes them together and says, you are

this thing that I have invented, this Bible verse that I've invented. And really, when it comes down to it, the whole framework of Brannum's theology was this hodgepodge of mixing passages, taking words and phrases out of context, actually altering Bible text, and programming it into the minds of the people to make them believe this new thing that he's created. In essence, it's a new Bible. And he was very open about this. He said, today we believe the spoken word. And that was literally the recordings of William Brannum, which was to replace the written word, which was the

Bible. So this whole mess that we're in today literally comes down to, this is a person who's not only telling you don't go listen to the theologians or people who actually know sound theology, listen to me because I will invent new Bible verses and you will listen to these new Bible verses and become gods. You'll become just like God. So the same way, God's other children are born as Jesus was. They become God in the same manner because God is pleased to dwell in them as well. So this teaching lies up lines up perfectly well with a serpent's seed doctrines and believing

that a certain group of people were the seed of God, thoughts of God in the beginning, while others were not on account of election, predestination, and even Noah's sons, which brings in the racial element to this.

So to be fair, not all message ministers will stay on the racial element, but some do. And those who don't stay on that racial element still believe in the seeds or thoughts of God coming to earth in their time, but admit the seed can come through any race at this time.

I know this is very deep teaching. We're going on here, but we're zeroing the end on the foundations. And I hope this is really helpful, but going on, you know, we in Bram said he only followed what Paul preached, but we've already shown many places where he really didn't preach what Paul preached, but then he also said Paul's gospel won't work in this day.

Now that's such a contradiction. I don't think you can have it both ways. Of course, you can either stick with Paul or you can make up your own gospel, which is what I believe, you know, message ministers have done and William random is done.

And it's really all shameful. So if you're not convinced of what I'm saying, I want you to listen to this quote here. This is in the Messiah in 1961, January to 17th, William random said man was made to be a God.

God was made to be man, old Messiah, the great Jehovah dwelt in a human body. He made that body like his so he could be a human body, a Messiah it to govern his earth and control it.

Amen. The works that I do, shall they do also, oh, I like that. Jehovah walks back and forth over his throne, says this is my, them is my eglets. They are. They are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.

They are born of my spirit and washed in my blood. Amen. In their mind, anything I tell them, they believe it. Why are there eagles? That's what they are. They're eagles. Just the same as I'm an eagle.

They're little gods where I'm big God. That's right. I'm Jehovah Papa and they're my children. There you are. So you see in this very quote here, he's declaring that God in these thoughts and these attributes, these people were God from the beginning.

All that happened is as they became expressed on earth and then Jehovah God in the form of the Holy Spirit came and dwelt in them and now they're Messiah's. Now they're little gods and that's, he puts Jesus on the same level as that because he said, you know, I wanted to dwell on a human body called Jesus Christ so I could, you know, die for them.

Well, it's a little different than that. See, Jesus was fully God. You know, yeah, the Holy Spirit came down and anointed him. But that was a sign to John the Baptist that this was the Messiah.

He was fully God when he was born as a baby because the Bible said he was born Christ, the Lord. He was already God and flesh. Remember, let's see in the message why. In 1961, January 28th, William Brownam says this, remember when a man is saved this much, like this button here becomes eternal life in your heart.

That's God. As you're able to push out all the roots of bitterness then God begins to spread in you. And see, that's a little bit of works doctrine put in there. He said, then you become a son of God.

He said, a man was made to be God, to be a God. Do you know that? He's in the image of God. He's a son of God. He's like him. He was given a domain, dominion over the whole earth.

That's right. He ruled the earth. He ruled the animal kingdom and all the other kingdoms. But all the kingdoms of God above, all but the kingdom of God above. He was God. He was an amateur God.

Now, I can say that Adam was a son of God and Adam had powers probably that we don't possess today. But to say he was God, and the way William Brannam is describing it, it's a leap.

And I'm not surprised when I see people going to some strange practices in this message and condone many things that should not be in the church because he's telling you you're a God. So if I'm my own God, which is what Satan told even the beginning that you're gonna be like God's knowing good and evil, when you think you're a God, you begin to think that you're invincible.

And we've seen what happens to these groups, what continues to happen even today when they've embraced teachings like this. Men obtain absolute power over the congregation. Their teachings put the people in bondage instead of Christian liberty.

And the people don't even realize it. Some of the most extreme groups eventually result in death of their members, whether it's withholding medical treatment or starving themselves that we've seen recently. Or even committing mass suicide.

People within these groups see rules that they live by as safe spaces. And their consciousness have been trained for many years to stay within certain boundaries. They perceive any departure from the rules as defilements such as having Christmas trees or some condemn giving presents or having a small slit and a skirt or condemn by it, trimming the hair, having a beard, having a TV in the home.

All these things we've seen in any one or more message churches. All these rules work on the outside of the person instead of the heart. And if a person gets out of line, the peer pressure is so strong to push people back in line.

Ministers tend to hide this fact before the public as new people come into the church. But these new people quickly find out what they're allowed to do and what they're not to do, what's acceptable and what's not acceptable.

Generally after the first service. And those who don't measure up, they'll feel embarrassed and eventually probably leave, which is what core members really want to have happen. You know, they would rather see people leave and who won't comply with their rules than really caring for their souls and really find out if they really know and believe the gospel because they don't preach the gospel in these churches, they just preach rules.

These outward things they push for extreme holiness standards have nothing to do with the gospel because the gospel is simple as faith in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross John. As I said, whenever I was going through the process of deprogramming all of this nonsense from my head, and I was reading the Bible over and over, there were things that stuck out to me.

Some of them was the loaded language, the phrases that I mentioned before, but other things were letters written from Paul or things written in the prophets that were a clear contradiction of the very foundation that William Brannum's ministry was based upon.

One of them, like you mentioned here, was the works doctrine. This is exactly in contradiction to the things that Paul was correcting the church for, and one of the passages that really hit me hard was Colossians 2.

There's a, towards the end of the passage, there's a place where people are familiar with talking about the food, sacrifice to idols, the drink. And if you're a literalist, you apply that in a literal way.

Maybe now I could go drink drinks that were, or eat food that was sacrifice to idols. But where are you going to find this today? You have to really apply it to the things that Paul is saying fundamentally, not just the literal phrasing.

But if you read it in some of the modern translations that is very, very much easier to understand, it gets into asceticism, which is literally trying to deny yourself the things that you would rather enjoy just to make yourself feel and become as though you're more holy.

Paul says this is of no value in several places, but Colossians 2, it's very clear. He says that, let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his own sensuous mind.

I mean, that phrase just hit me really hard because we were focused on demons. We were listening to people who were really puffed up, who were really boastful. They were filled with pride. And I started examining myself, and I too was in that same category, believe it or not.

So I'm sitting here thinking, Paul is writing this as a correction to the church. Yet this is exactly what the message was built upon. When I left the message, I started examining all of the churches that really kind of developed from this, and I noticed that they're all following that same pattern.

They're all doing exactly what Paul would be preaching against. So again, it come down, you know, for me, I'm looking at this thinking, it's not even really the same Bible to reading. Yes, it is physically the same Bible, but they have been taught to read it in such a way that they're ignoring the commandments and the advice that's given by Paul, and in doing so they're turning it into a different religion altogether.

So in William Brownham's teaching, you know, Jesus Christ, the man, is also not seen as eternally existing, you know, with the father, as father, son, Holy Spirit. This is in the message, water baptism in 1961, January the 20th.

He said, it's just like the Catholics say, eternal sonship, the eternal sonship of Christ. How can the word make sense? How can he be eternal and be a son? Son that was born off of, eternal had no beginning or end.

He also said, and the word became flesh, 1954, October the 3rd in the morning. He said, if he was the son of God, he had to have a beginning of time. Now that's very interesting that he said that, you know, he had to be born off of it.

He said to be a son, is that right? If he was the son of God. So that's what we're going to see that he believed here in the beginning. He believed that Jesus had to have a beginning.

The son had to have a beginning. And we'll see that in these two ministers teaching as we bring it out. Now that's so dangerous of a teaching because now you've diminished Christ. You've taken him, yeah, God dwelt in him.

And you could say, well, he was God because God dwelt in Christ and because God manifest himself in this son that came out from God. But what you do is you take the son away from God in the beginning.

You don't have them dwelling together in the beginning. And so therefore you can say, Jesus is not God. And I've got a quote here where the ministers actually said, Jesus was not God. Now here's another quote, 1954, and October the 3rd, a same one where it became flesh.

He said, I'll send my fourth my son, Christ Jesus. There was the word. He said in the beginning, before it was a word, it was a thought. So right here is what I've been saying all along.

He believed Jesus was an attribute of God, but not very God. Just like where he puts us in the same category, be it an attribute of God. And therefore we can become God because as Jesus became God, we do the same thing.

He said in the beginning, before it was a word expressed from a thought, it was a thought. And notice how he often does this for self-deification. A lot of times it's not really so much that the follower, the person who's a rank and file member sitting out in the seat, can become this manifestation of God.

He wants to make sure that his manifestation, as William Brannum, is far greater than their manifestation, which is just the rank and file member. You can never become as powerful or as having a great of a manifestation, I guess I'll call it, as what William Brannum claimed to have.

And he would say, like the thing that I mentioned earlier, he says that no miracle could be us, he first saw a vision from the Father, and then he proceeds to tell the people about all of his visions that he had received from God.

So he's comparing himself to Jesus in those cases, and in some cases, he outright claimed that the Elijah of today, which he's referring to himself, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's literally saying that he William Brannum is Jesus in the same way that Jesus was Jesus.

They were both manifestations of God, and you too can become a manifestation of God, not as much of a manifestation as me, William Brannum. So here's another quote. Word became flesh, same one. He said, God's Word is eternal in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

I want to take that. That's John 1-1. Now I'll tell you this minister that I'm going to quote from in this podcast here today. He stumbled over this over John 1-1. It's so funny in his messages on the Godhead.

He would stumble over that, and he has a quote from William Brannum, even saying, you can't make the Word be in the beginning with God before when God existed eternally alone as a self-existing one, because he said you'll have three gods, but see the Word always existed.

Always existed with God in the beginning. It was Father, Word, and Holy Spirit. Now the Word was the Son, but they were in there in the beginning, even before anything was created. So it says, he said, I'll carry on here in his quote.

He said, God in the beginning, back there when he's seen the world, he's seen you, and I hear this morning. He's seen my baby sitting back there, John, or he's seen every hungry person in India.

He's seen every preacher in the pulpit. He's seen every hip-cret walking. He's seen the whole thing. The infinite mind of God first saw it, and he said, now to redeem that following race, I'll send him forth my son, Christ Jesus.

There was the Word. In the beginning before it was a Word, so before he was a Word, it was a thought. So he said, Jesus was a thought before he became a Word. He said before it was a thought, it was expressed in a Word before, okay, here he goes, before it was a thought.

It was expressed in a Word, and the Word became material in dwelt among us. The Word became flesh. So you see how he's got Jesus coming down? Jesus was an attribute. Then God spoke the Word, and Jesus was born.

Now he used that Word to bring that Word down in the flesh, and then he dwelt in that body. God himself came down in dwelt in the body. That's the only thing that made him God, according to William Brownham's doctrine.

But William Brownham in front of various audiences would never let on to the people what he really taught, or he would have lost a lot of supporters to begin with. He always taught that sons have beginnings, though.

So Jesus was not eternal with the Father, because he had a beginning... Everything. Jesus was the Word, which is a thought in his teaching. He would say the thought of God is eternal, but when you get down to it, the thought is part of God but not fully God, because we were thoughts of God according to Him, but then we're not fully God, right?

I could be in agreement that the Son, being that we're talking only about the flesh of Jesus, was not in manifestation in the beginning until Christ was born in the manger. I could go along with that.

This does not mean that the Son being called the Word was just a thought of God and not really God from eternity past. The Bible teaches that Father, Son, Holy Spirit all existed in eternity past.

One or more of them were not just thoughts of God, but these three were God Himself and what makes up the person of God. Now if you looked at God, of course you wouldn't be able to see a distinguishing feature of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, He's Spirit, but yet it was there.

All of these three made up the one true God and all were in existence together from eternity past prior to anything else. Jesus didn't just come into existence as a thought expressed. So I'll be able to show that we in Brown do not believe this, as I just said, as we'll see as we go through this.

But the root of this teaching is in the teaching about God's attributes, God's thoughts, materialization, as God's thoughts became real, is called logos, expressed in word form. And when Brown's teaching all the elite, Brad Christian were in God's thoughts in the beginning, they were eternal.

When Brown's teaching does not include other denominations in this group, however, somehow, though according to him, those other denominations other than his group will be saved, but they were not God's thoughts because if you were in God's thoughts, you were the Brad.

Exactly. In us versus them mentality, one of the things that also hit me, I mentioned as I was reading the Bible, Romans 16, I think, it talks about those who would come and create divisions in the church.

And that's exactly, if you understand what he's saying, that is exactly what he's doing here. We're creating a dividing line in the sand. There are those Christians who don't believe me and accept me, William Brannum, as God's prophet, and then there are us.

So we have a dividing line. And Paul to the Romans said, avoid those who create such divisions. He said, they don't serve the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites. And he says through smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.

So if you understand what William Brannum is doing here and understand what Paul is saying, the two cannot coexist. And like you said, William Brannum would often say, I'm preaching the same message that Paul preached.

Well, William Brannum is preaching division and Paul is preaching to avoid those who are creating divisions. Okay. This is a serpent seed, 1958, September 28th. Yeah, this is a... A message after he preached this, he lost a lot of support.

So listen to this. God hit it from the eyes of the wise and prudent and promised to reveal it to the sons of God in the last days. When the sons of God will be made manifest, when God's sons that rejoiced ever before the foundation of the world, when the great revelation of the Godhead and things would be brought down in the last days, he would manifest these things through the sons of God.

You know the scriptures teach that? And here we are. And that's the reason God is opening these things to us. God is bringing his sons into manifestation. So you see what he's saying there?

He is going beyond the limitations of any human knowledge way into the spiritual revelations to bring it down. Haven't we been teaching in this Bible? Here is to him as wisdom. Not that he learned of some seminary, but what he learned on his knees before God.

What please God to give him? Sons of God may manifest. So now we're going to go into this video here we have from the minister. I won't name his name, but he's passed on, but it'll be explaining some of the things that we've been talking about.

In this invisible God where these manifold attributes, and since he is Jehovah God that wants to unveil himself, then we find that this unveiling has to take place. It's been going on for thousands of years.

So this invisible God making a way for manifestations such as judge and redeemer and healer and guide and comforter all these various attributes. God has laid out a plan through which he can unveil himself.

Now this invisible God, these attributes are in the invisible God. So we're going to shrink the invisible God back because that's not what we're interested in. We're trying to show the manifestation of the invisible God.

So this invisible God recedes back and is not the one that we're interested in. We're interested in this manifestation. So out of the invisible God comes a form called a theophany and the biblical term, excuse me, theological term, which means a word, foreign body.

And so this theological form now comes out from God because God is going to declare himself. This is the beginning now of the declaration of the thoughts of God, the attributes of God, which is in him.

So now this invisible God begins to pour himself and his attributes into this theophonic form, which we'll find and we showed you last time that this form is Christ before he ever came to flesh.

It's Christ, the very power through which all of heaven and earth was created. So all that God was now, he pours into this Christ form. Now this is a body form as the invisible God is moving from the invisible down eventually to meet his creation and flesh as a savior.

So he's moving from... invisible down, down, down in dimension wise coming closer and closer down to us. So it doesn't finish when God actually pours his attributes into him, the God Himself steps into this tabernacle. And then now this is the son of God in a prefigure.

As you see, this minister of the message who I have a lot of respect for, but he was never able to see this error because he fully believed it. It starts with his concept of God's attributes. He's very articulate, you know, in these beliefs of the message I use as material to help us understand, you know, what the message believes. And I want you to notice as he was going over the attributes or the thoughts of God in the beginning, you know, he skipped over the word family. The word family is there, but he skips over it.

He doesn't say a lot about it because he's just beginning to bring this out. He doesn't want to let on what he's talking about. But the family represents Christians who were the thoughts of God as well as Jesus being in God representing the thought of God. And then the thought was expressed and became a son in a prefigure. You saw how he explained that, how the thought came out from God. And that was like the son of God in a prefigure as a theophany. And then he said God stepped into that and that made him God. When he came

out from God, he really wasn't fully God see. And see, that's to me, that's error because the son was in God from the beginning fully God. He wasn't just a thought of God or an attribute. He was fully God, just the same as the Holy Spirit was, the same as the Father is. So this gets to the root of the teaching and really lets you know what they think about the Son of God. There's more to come on that. Lots more. But for now, you know, God to them in the beginning is not just Father, Son and Word and the Holy Spirit, who is what

the church has decided to use as terms for the persons of the Godhead is what makes up the person of God. But God to them is full of thoughts, you know, with the Son being one of those thoughts, but not really all of God. That's the difference in the Orthodox Christianity and the message. That's the huge difference. The Word didn't really dwell with God from eternity past in the way we in Brennan preaches it. The Word or Christ came into existence. And you saw when the minister showed how it came out from God, came into existence, but only as a thought in the beginning not as a person. And certainly

could not be called God at that time. You know, Orthodox Christianity has always said the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, dwell together in eternity past. They were all the full attribute of God. They were all fully God, but they were not the same. All were the person of God except they're not the same, but all had the same mind and will. So some of what this minister does say, though, as he goes through, will sound very orthodox as William Brannum did at times. And scriptures will be used to describe, you know, what he's talking about. I want you to listen to this.

spoke to in 1950 in August 15th when he preached a sermon called Who is God? He said, so he first was God Jehovah, and you can picture this as a spirit. And out of him, let's see coming out of space where there's nothing.

Let's make it a little white light, like a mystic light, like a halo. And that was the logos that went out of God in the beginning. That was the son of God that came out of the bosom of the Father.

That was what was in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh, and what among us in the beginning was God.

And then out of God came the logos, a part of God that went out of God, listen to that, a part of God, just a part of God that went out of God, not fully God.

Now we see this is like a child playing before the door. It was the son of God, the logos. But you see, William Brown's teaching before it could be the logos, which is a word, it had to be a thought, because this other minister I just played the video of, he'll say this again, he'll say, keep this in mind through this whole series, a word is a thought expressed.

It's such a twisting. And if you understand what he's trying to do with first John, he's trying to say in the beginning was a thought expressed, and the thought expressed was in God, and the thought expressed was God.

You too can become a God, because you are also a thought in God's mind. You are this thought expressed. It's just a subtle twisting of what the Bible says, and it reminds you very much of what, you know, exactly, actually exactly what the serpent was doing in the Garden of Eden.

You too can become just like God. You can know this knowledge between good and evil. William Brown was bringing that as literally his framework of his entire message. You can know the secret mystery, you can know more, and you can become just like God.

So in effect, he is not teaching the same message as Paul. He's teaching the same message as the serpent from the Garden of Eden. I'll say a few more words here about these teachings, but the teaching begins, you know, with Christ being born out of God, you know, we've seen that, not that he was God in the beginning as the sun with the Father and the Holy Spirit, but that Jesus was just a thought of God, which came out of God.

And then that being God being family, one of the attributes being family, the same as with you and me. So this puts us on a somewhat equality with Jesus Christ. Jesus is just another son of God like you and me, although he's a much greater son, but he's still just a son.

Jesus is only God to the extent that God dwelt in Christ, you know, on earth. That's what made him God on earth was when Christ came down at the river Jordan, according to the teaching.

Jesus then became a manifestation of God. And that is how William Brannum's teaching makes that leap of him being God, or you being God, own an equality with God and being able to... through these miraculous things that he says is going to come to the church.

And this just exalts human beings and leads believers to say things like, well, I always was a son of God or I always had eternal life. So then the human becomes less destitute and he really always was God from the beginning because he was made to be a God, right?

So by him teaching this and allowing people to believe that, then they don't realize how destitute they really are. They never come to that realization of total depravity and repentance that should be there.

It only takes William Brandham's life to strike the seed for you to come to life instead of a life of real repentance. So the light is the message of the hour or the signs and wonders being done through the ministry of William Brandham.

That is all that is needed to water the seed to come to life according to the teaching. And so that's how it's all explained and taught. The beginnings of his teaching starts with how they teach that a person becomes a child of God.

William Brandham's movement believes that they were a child of God from the very beginning of the existence and the mind of God and his thoughts and attributes just as, and they were just as eternal as God is since God's thoughts were eternal.

But you know, God did have the predestinated ones in his mind, of course. Of course he knew the end from the beginning. He knew what was going to happen and he had to ordain it.

But it was God choosing those that he wanted to save. People are born on the same basis. Everyone has a choice to make. The people are born with the same depraved nature as anybody else, through any human being and any race of people.

But they need the gospel. And that's how we become sons of God by believing the gospel, not because we were always the son of God in God's mind from the beginning as they thought that came down here as a seed.

But because we're a seed of God because he put his word in us through the new birth. So John, I really enjoy getting in the subject matter because I think it's at the very core of the belief system.

I think what we're hitting out is the very core, especially of the message of William Brannum and parts of it, of course, let you weave it into how it's migrated into the NAR. There's just so many angles to focus on.

I've got to try to keep as simple as possible to avoid getting lost in the weeds and confusing anybody. William Brannum managed to weave all this together and I'll have to say it's confusing as his teaching is and scattered like it is.

If you take the time to put it together, there is a picture that he's creating with it. It is far off the word, I believe, and I've already shown prior episodes how he takes passages of Scripture and then takes his own interpretation of it to fit his belief system to try to weave it into there.

And that's not the right thing to do. will bring out how he thought God meant for us to reproduce, even instead of by sex in the beginning, how he was thinking we could reproduce just by spoken word of God. And he even weaves that into the belief that the bride was eternal with God in the beginning just like Jesus was, but we just bypassed our original word body we were supposed to be in by having children through the spoken word. And that's going to be something we'll get into when it comes up at some point. I don't know how many episodes it'll take to get there, but

we've got a lot more cover on this subject and we just need to stop here and pick it up the next time, John. Sounds good. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about Roy Davis and William Brannum, you can read the persuasive preacher, the gifted prophet, and the noble politician. And 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 Automal.