Laodicean Messenger: Faith that Dehumanized

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, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of ChristianGospelChurch.org, and the author of come out of her, my people. Charles it's good to be back and to talk about the complete dumpster fire that is happening in the message right now. I am you know after we went through the series I started focusing more deeply into IHOP KC for the moment. There's many many different areas of focus that I have but I

wanted to there's some research I wanted to do in that area so I'm digging in that and I somebody had sent me a video and then you sent me one of them matured made and I'm starting to realize that there is just all kinds of things happening within the within the world that you came from so you know one thing led to another we decided to talk about it but let's talk about the dumpster fires that is the message called. That was pretty funny John oh yeah you know I've been so busy since we last recorded it's been a while now hasn't it

but I've been working on a couple other projects you know one one really interesting project I've been working on John I made a little video on it I tell your listeners about it in case they're interested and then maybe that will lead into our dumpster fire. We have created a newsletter here at the mission we called it the Leo DeCin Messenger and of course you know the people not from our background these phrases might not mean anything but this is the Leo DeCin Messenger it's addressed to the bride of Christ and we've been sending this out you know to different people and not only us or you know we

have limited resources but a lot of our friends have been printing them and mailing copies to their friends and you know it's a great little resource we've got some articles that rotated any month every month we basically made a years worth of them you can print out whichever one for the given month and you can mail it anonymously to all your friends and family in the message and it's wrote in a really inoffensive way right like you know John if you if you was in the message and you received the Leo DeCin Messenger to the bride of

Christ in the mail with this picture on it you're gonna want to read this aren't you John you're not gonna be able to put this down well when you first sent it to me I thought oh no Charles has gone back into the message and so all of the stuff in here John it Let's look at this. I mean, this is beautiful message, you know, remember, you know, everything in here is just designed to appeal to people in the message. And so this is just a great way to get the things about the message, the problems in front of somebody who's in the

message who wouldn't go look for it all on their own in a format that they are quite likely to pick up and be in gross to read and actually check it out. So anyways, I just wanted to tell everybody it's out there. It's on our website. If you go to the track section of our website, go to the very bottom. There's a message awareness literature section. You can just print out the one for the given month, mail it to your friends and family. Hey, nothing, you know, if it went anonymously there, they're going to think I sent it to him, right? So you go ahead, ladies,

gentlemen, send it to you. I'll take the blame. And yeah, have some fun with it. You never know, it might wake up, it might wake up one of your relatives. And for anybody who is never in the brand, I'm called to actually the lady, Leo DeCine messenger. I think that will resonate with more people than you realize. Chino was talking with me and I was mentioning some of the things that was going through my head as I had left the call. One of the things that I was reading was when I left the cult, I was reading the Bible over and over and I mentioned this with him. But I was reading

Colossians too. And it starts talking about to the church of Leo DeCine. Well, in our minds, we're programmed to think, oh, that is a letter that's written to me in this time, in this era, because we did not recognize or realize, because William Brannum had no clue, that these were actually letters to actual churches. And they went out to, you know, physical churches. But under dispensationalism, Leo DeCine means basically the last days. This is the last day as messenger. So Leo DeCine messenger is kind of a, it's a great name. I'm glad you chose that. The

verbiage and a lot of the things that are in it, if you weren't in the message, you might not catch it. But the power behind it is incredible because there are so many things that were woven through what, interestingly, and I hop KC, one of the things I'm going through, they call it their prophetic history. Well, we had the same exact thing we just had different names for. We've called it the life story. But essentially, the spoken word, you know, it literally, this is our legend. That's really what it comes down to. This is our legend. And when a person discovers that

not all of the legend was true, it creates a huge problem. What do you do with this? And so the Leo DeCine messenger, it's a messenger that the message was a false message. Boy, it really is a useful little news letter. And yeah, we use all of the message terminology in the right way. And, you know, and just kind of present things. There's nothing to, you know, it's, I think we did it as inoffensive as it can possibly be done. And as attractive as it hopefully can be done. So, anyways, I hope people enjoy...

that. But as we sent that out, John, you know, we've had a lot of good success with it. And you know, the church that I'm from, you know, we would call Jeffersonville, we call Jeffersonville, the Jerusalem of Leodicea. That was actually our title for the city of Jeffersonville. And people would come to the Jerusalem of Leodicea from all over the world, you know, to the international conventions. And so Leodicea just played a whole lot into, you know, the terminology of where we come from. And I think all of our listeners, now I'm from the second oldest

message church, faith-sample church of Jeffersonville. It's actually right on the edge of Jeffersonville. And it's moved, it's moved location several times. And actually the border of Jeffersonville has changed. When the church was originally built as present location, it was within the Jefferson ville city limits. But they moved the city limits over like one street at a certain point. And now it's like it's on the left side of the street from Jeffersonville. So about the church, you know, they all still go by Jeffersonville. Because you know, if you throw a rock out the front window, you know, you're in Jeffersonville. So anyway, but yeah, the one thing I was thinking too, John,

is, you know, since the Brannum Tabernacle is more or less defunct, right? I mean, they don't have services there anymore. I think it might be fair to say the church I come from is the oldest continuously operating message church in the world now. I think it might be, what are your thoughts about that? You know, I've come across some of different just desperate groups that say that they have an older history. But what you find out is their history, even though it began with something that William Brannum started, William Brannum had different stage personas with different messages. So I would say that yours is definitely the oldest

if we look at William Brannum with the last versions of his stage persona. And you look at some of the earlier ones that he was involved with, you're like, yeah, you're old. But did you believe that he was the last messenger for the day? Do you believe he was the leo to see in messenger or the Elijah prophet for the day? I would say the church is the oldest one that has gone through all of the iterations. There are some in existence that still respect him. And, you know, for whatever reason, he's become part of their legend too, but not in the same way that he was our legend.

I would agree with you because that's kind of how I break down a message church. You know, a message church is one that has minimally accepted that William Brannum was the last day of Elijah.

And you're correct. There's definitely churches that respect William Brannum that are older than our churches, right? But as far as the churches that started to believe he was Elijah and went down the path of creating the message, yeah, you know, they're worse from the oldest ones. And, you know, one thing I find is a really interesting observation, John, is the oldest message churches are the craziest message churches, aren't they? And it seems like, you know, there's not a lot of the really old ones left anymore because at a certain point they get...

So crazy they kaboom, you know, they explode in the pieces, you know, scatter out in the debris cloud lands in different places and now it creates all these different offshoots. There's not been a whole lot of the really old churches that actually been able to hold together right to the present.

A lot of them that say they ended up like the brown tabernacle, right? I mean, it's a really weird sort of a situation or, you know, or some of the others that just kind of imploded at a certain point or split up five different ways.

Well, yeah, the oldest message groups are the craziest. And so if the church I come from, John, is the oldest continuously operating message church in the world, you know, maybe, you know, right there at the brown tabernacle, there's pretty good odds.

It's one of the craziest message churches in the world, too. There are so many varying levels of crazy. My family went from churches from Arizona to South Carolina everywhere in between. And I saw some real odd balls.

We did some, we visited some churches that had some just weird things. What's interesting is my family was really kind of aware who was crazy and who wasn't, but will refuse to look at the tree that produced the fruit.

So they would say, you know, we can't go to this guy because he's nuts. If you go, you're going to hear he's nuts. Well, you're growing up and you're going to all these churches from coast to coast.

We start to wonder, well, how many nuts are there? And why are there so many nuts in the message? And you could ask, if you go to one of the crazier ones, you would hear them just repeat what will your brand of said, well, it takes the nuts to turn around the bolts to keep the vehicle together and you're like, well, no, man, that's not what I'm saying at all.

You guys are crazy. But it's just something that is widespread and there seems to be a lot of, I don't know, the mentality that you're indoctrinated with is so destructive. I have come to the conclusion that it is like a disease that happens into the brain and the longer someone's in it, the more difficult they have, the more difficulty they have talking coherently to other people.

No, it's interesting how all the message churches were still kind of embedded in the broader ladder rain movement. If you go back to the 50s and even into the 60s and early 70s, you talk about Saskatchewan.

I mean, we had multiple families of our church that in our church here in Jeffersonville came from Saskatchewan, you know, a large part of the early message community here are Canadians. I'm part of my family's Canadian as well.

And we had message churches affiliated with our sect in Saskatchewan too. And what's very interesting that you've been interviewing the late, the really nice lady Laura Lynn a lot lately. And I know she talks about, you know, Reg, Lizelle's, Glad tidings, Tabernacle, one of the most prominent ministers in my sect of the message.

He was a Canadian. He passed her to, I think, the largest church of our sect in Canada. He came from Glad tidings himself, actually. And there was a point in time when, you know, all of this was...

Very connected and friendly, you know, if you go far enough back in time, but the splits and the divisions, you know, over time kind of obscure all those things. But yeah, I mean, I have to say John the lettering crowd that came from Saskatchewan, they were always the craziest of all.

Yeah, and then there's your church, Charles. I've been, so like I said, somebody sent me a couple of videos and I'll be honest, the first time that I looked at one of them, and I can't remember which one was the first one.

I was looking at it, thinking, man, they were really out there. And I went on, I continued doing what it was that I was doing, and I was just thinking about how crazy your church was.

But the longer I sat and waited doing other things, and you know, cognitively just remembering my childhood, the things that I've seen. I started to realize and recognize that there were similarities between what I'm seeing and hearing out of the things that you're exposing with your church.

And things that I have seen and heard in the churches that are in the main sect. So long story short, I came, I came full circle. I came to the first conclusion was, they were so crazy, I can't believe that Charles made it out and did not lose his mind.

And then I came full circle to, wait a minute, I can't believe that I didn't lose my mind. What I've been doing, John, here the last little bit is I have been trying to document and quantify the level of crazy at the church I come from.

You know, I've talked about it in the podcast and I've said it, but I think it's people that actually see it with their eyes. And here with the rears, it don't always register. I mean, just how bad it was.

And so I have been, you know, just I sat there basically every clip I've put out this past month. I was sitting there when all of those things were happening. And for quite a few of them, John, I was on the platform saying, a man, isn't that awful, John?

Isn't that awful? God have mercy. You know, what awful people, you know, we used to be in that cult. I'm sure you're the same way. You'd sit there and say, a man, do the craziest, most awful stuff that would happen.

You know, because when you're in there, you are so brainwashed, you cannot realize what is what's happening. It's like good versus evil and you don't realize that you are on the side of evil, right?

It's like you can't, you can't see all of this harm and pain and suffering that you're causing other people. And when you think that, well, I'm on the side of the truth and I'm on the side of the Lord and I'm on the side of the right, all of it feels like it's justified. But when you start to pull out the truth and realize the message was a false system of religion, then you realize, oh my goodness, what have we done? What have we done?

And the pain from waking up from that, I think, is something that traps so many people. people in the message, John, because to wake up from what happened in there, you have to admit some pretty bad things that you did in the past.

You did. You thought, you know, that's a really hard thing to do, isn't it? But you know, just the level of crazy in these groups, yeah, I've been trying to document it just in my church, the second oldest message church, which I think might be the oldest continuously operating message church in the world today.

You know, there's an old phrase that's really lost its value, but it's like a frog in slowly boiling water. And for those who are in the younger crowd who has no idea what this means, you put a frog into a vat of water and you bring it to a slow boil, what happens so gradually that the frog doesn't know and recognize that he's about to be boiled and eaten, which there also aren't too many frog restaurants unless you go down south, so it's probably a phrase that is lost due to time.

But I noticed the same thing, whenever a new preacher would come into the church, there would be this new doctrine that would come in. And the new doctrine, everybody might reject it at first, but slowly over time, if it was just gradually introduced, it would come to be established.

The irony of this is, as I was studying through William Branham's way in which he had a strategy in what he did. I was studying some of his strategy and the thing that hit me like a brick wall was the notes to leave ale when he's saying now, Mr. Veil, if you will drop this hint in there that W-I-L-L-I-A-M has seven letters, I'm going to follow up with, and what he was doing was, he was like a frog in slowly boiling water.

He was warming the crowd up to the idea that there must be something spiritually significant about the numbers in his name. And it has, that thought, that frog in boiling water has actually helped me in all of my research, because when I'm studying any of these people, I don't care if it's John Alexander, Dowie, Branham, Kenneth Hagen, John Wimber, any of these guys, I like to go through and systematically take the theology as it relates to a time period and watch how it shifts, and you can see which direction that it begins to shift.

Another conversation I had with Chino recently, which this one's kind of funny, the real power of the new apostolic reformation is all of the connected networked churches that are in the apostolic networks because of this cross-pollination of ideas.

Well, in the message, we had this, but to a much lesser degree, we would have these traveling preachers come, and you'd, everybody would be, you know, excited, we had a traveling preacher, he's coming on Sunday, well, then the Sunday after this, the preacher of that, you know, ran the church, he would preach about all the things that the other guy got wrong.

Sunday after, I don't know if your church did this or not. Multiple churches I attended did this, but I got to thinking about it after I left a message. That was so weird, number one, why would they do this?

But number two, what about the things that he said that the minister who ran the church was not fully aware that he got wrong? Those ideas become assimilated into the people's minds. The people just absorb what's being said.

Well, even the minister himself is being swayed by false doctrine. So as this false doctrine grows slowly over time, it shifts and morphs into something that it did not even really begin with in the first place.

And this is complicated by all of the different viewpoints in any occult, but in the message cult specifically. You've got all of these people fighting over what they believe was the true William Brannum, the true belief that William Brannum held.

Well, when there's so many conflicting beliefs, you can't have a true belief. So you've got these people going in this direction, these going in this other direction. And like I said, I was listening to the videos that you were putting out and I'm listening to the church and I'm like, oh my gosh, we were like that too, but in various different ways.

And I'll let you give some examples, but they're things that if people knew that many of the churches in the New Apostolic Reformation today kind of emerged from this weird mess that you and I came from, they would run screaming.

I know. And as I mentioned, it progressively gets crazier. They're just a couple decades behind, is all John. They'll catch up eventually. As it leads, it leads there. And you know, when you think about the message, how you mentioned, yeah, messages incredibly divisive, right?

I mean, if preacher A and preacher B, this preacher says Jesus had blue eyes and this preacher said Jesus has brown eyes, they're going to have to murder each other over that, basically, in the message, right?

There will be full schism. And I mean, it'll be, it's, I'm exaggerating just a tad, but it really is that serious. I mean, it basically will fight to the death over these things and become bitter enemies when curse each other to death from the platforms and schism, churches, and sex.

But what you have, John, and it was already that way. I mean, it was that way by the late 60s and certainly by the middle 70s. It was that they added, you know, in the message churches.

But what happened is you come into the 80s and certain people start leaving the message and joining the vineyard movement, such as Paul Cain, right? In that movement, they weren't divisive like that, right?

There was like a ecumenical sort of a thing going on there where there was sort of this way where they learned to tolerate each other's differences. And that is actually the melting pot, John, that allowed all of these different factions of the lateral...

who absolutely hated each other's bloody guts. You know, it was that bad. To come in and kind of start to influence each other again, right? You get the global missions branch coming in, doing influence, you know, build Britain, that crowd, you get the message coming in, you know, Paul Crane, that crowd, right?

You get these different factions coming in, you got the Shepardin crowd in there, you know, through Jim Watt and all that. You get these factions coming in and they start being polite to each other.

They start, oh yeah, maybe that version is a little more right than we thought. And what do you get? You get the NAR, John. And of course, they were back crazy and all got thrown out of there before the end of it was all said and done.

But, you know, that, I think one of the most dangerous things for this idea, it's actually more dangerous when they get along a little bit. It's actually better when they're schismed, you know, because then they can't recombine into this massive monstrosity that, you know, becomes dangerous.

There's much, it's much safer, you know, for society at large when they remain divide with little groups that all hate each other. But yeah, you know, yeah, John, I mean, the church I come from, there's a lot of crazy stuff that happened over the years.

And so I've just made some different montages. I took one of my favorite ones I did, John, is I took basically the preacher saying the end is coming two or three years from now.

And I started in the 70s. I played them saying, all the way up, you know, they're like two or three years ago. And the end never came. Surprise, surprise. You know, I was just kind of back to back.

I think that's my favorite one. But, you know, the message is a doomsday call, right? I mean, and they have made prediction after prediction after predict, and it never, ever, ever comes to pass, right?

I mean, the only thing they've really proven to us is they don't have a clue what they're talking about, right? And there, you know, not authorities that we can trust on those subjects. But yeah, I've been putting together just different little clips, you know, the different things.

Maybe I'll play, maybe I'll give you one, John, and you could play it here. Here's one I'll give you. Um, so I'm going to give you a clip about how they, you know, just viciously attack people who leave.

This is a clip here about, um, it's the Pat current pastor of the church, um, talking about someone who left the church and he ran into him at the local KFC. Y'all pay for it.

You, a group, you can sit there and eat your chicken. Get you a whole bucket of Colonel Sanders. Sit there and eat it. You own nasty looking mouth. You're mean and you're ugly. You're ways of the devil.

Unless you get something in your heart, God not going to forgive you for what you're doing. Men, old men, great headed old men. You're ugly. I'm talking about people left here. You're vulgar, you're ugly.

Charles, I'm laughing so hard. I'm having a hard time responding to this. But there's part of me that thinks it's funny because this this is like the this is material for the worst comedy movie. This is something that you just don't you don't go to a church expecting to hear the gospel and hear the minister saying you're ugly and you're eating at KFC. That's just not that's not what you normally hear in a sermon. But there's another part of me that feels really sad because think about the children that are growing up in this environment. The children are being raised

to ridicule other people. And I one of the things that really plagued my mind when I was leaving the cult is the the lack of humanity that I was seeing in the cults. I would there's a point in time when I was I was deep in depression as I was coming out of this and I could drive down the road and just seeing a father and a child holding hands and walking down the street would just I just swell up and I couldn't my my eyes would swell shadows. I was really emotional about the the way that they were raising children. It's really wrong to children who even of different races

different religions different faiths if they've never been trained to hate each other they will play with each other they will love each other and you know that by by their own human nature they're they're humans and they want to help and be good to other humans. But then you bring in this predatory element these these ministers are predators and what they're doing is they're praying on the minds of the young people to train them to hate other people. So there was a point in time in which I was really coming to terms with the fact this was before I even knew that the message

was tied to the Ku Klux Klan before I knew this I had recognized that the message itself had evolved into a hate group and I'll be honest learning that I was in a hate group and that I was raising my children in a hate group was very hard for me. So one of the many deciding factors of why we left but that was one that really hit me hard learning that I was in a hate group.

That's true you know I've never really thought of it that way before but it's true you know especially you know I won't say every message church is this way or every message person but certainly a large faction where I come from they are a hate group and you know and they engage in all kinds of just hateful stuff. I mean you just hear I mean you hear the hate in their voice you know with different things and I know what you mean about the children you know it is it is really hard growing up in this thing and it it seems like it's progressively worse for

each generation you know because the movement gets worse and worse. I know the group I come from you know by the time I before I left a pretty large percentage of the people who grow up in it are

almost debilitated by it. I would say I mean it might be fair to say a quarter of the young people have severe anger. anxiety problems, you know, that is very common where I come from and a lot of them, you might say they failed a launch, you know what I mean, like they never are able to really grow up and mature, they never are able to really get a self-sustaining job, they're never able to move out of their home, they never get married, they never get a lot, you know, it's, they never, they failed a launch and that rate is also incredibly high in the message,

you know, again, I would say maybe close to half in my generation, you know, failed a launch in that way, and the people like that, they're just stay more or less prisoners to the message, their entire life, there's never, they couldn't get away if they want to, you know, they're utterly dependent on, on, on the system, you know, it's really unfortunate, and you know, when it comes to the anxiety problems that a lot of them have, you know, I, I think going to church and being screened at for two or three hours, several times a week probably plays a role with that.

That's another thing, I pulled out one clip, and there's so many clips I had pulled out, John, I might give you one more, but we had a preacher who, there was a girl in the church, this is a minor child who had her parents have got her or allowed her to get a pet dog, like an emotional comfort animal maybe, right?

I don't even know if it really was or not, but he thought it was, and, and in this clip, John, we can play it, he basically is screaming and ranting and raving at a child for getting a pet dog, which might help with her nerves, and what, what do you think that does do a person when they, when they hear a thing like that?

But that's foolishness, that is foolishness, emotional support animals is garbage. Shouldn't go there, brother Kevin. Emotional support animals is garbage. I want to say it, that's not in the body of Christ. We don't need emotional support animals because we have God, that means with me, that means with me on this, I, you don't have to feel the way I feel, you don't have to agree, and nonetheless it's the truth, changing it.

But I can't be around dogs and cats, they'll, they'll, they'll tell me up. They wouldn't be no, they'd be emotional disaster for me. You know, I have friends who have support dogs and support animals.

I never really understood it whenever I first started watching them do it, and especially like I was in a restaurant the other day, and the support animal was putting its paws up onto the counter where you get your food, and I was like, you know, I don't know about all that.

But the more I stopped and thought about it, whenever I was leaving the cult, I was suffering deeply with depression. We've talked about this before, and there, there's very little that you can do when you're in the depths of depression.

Any little help you can get in any direction is something that if you have any ounce of humanity in you, you will allow the person to carry forward and to try to... lift themselves back out of it. In fact, if you know the person might be helped by a support dog, support animal, you would give them a support animal just to help lift them out. And that's really the difference between what I have seen in the cult churches. And I don't care if it's one of the ones that's more benign or the ones that is just really destructive like the one the one you're

talking about. In that type of religious system, whenever somebody needs help, it is a faith healing based system. And the first thing that comes in your head because you're indoctrinated to think like this is, well, if they would just accept their healing, they would not need to support animal.

And yet at the same time, if you are, you know, if you're suffering with something diabetes, I've got diabetes. So if you're suffering with diabetes and you're struggling to live many of these same churches, they're okay if you go to the doctor, you know. But when you're in that type of mentality where you're putting your religious system above the humanity, the above the genuine human nature to help another human, it shows you how destructive it is. This is a movement that literally takes the humanity out of a person. I can't think of any, and I'm thinking through all

of the destructive churches that I've been to and I've been to a lot at this point, I can't think of a single one that would have said something like I just heard. It's especially evil when it is that very same minister that's causing the nervous breakdowns that makes, you know, them have the need to have the animal to begin with. I mean, how it's evil, isn't it? I mean, it's just so evil. And, you know, I feel so bad for the children that grow up in it. John, I mean, that's you and me, right? I mean, we grew up in it. And absolutely, I would say the churn rate is about 50% where I come

from where just absolutely destroys their lives, you know, and it's really very unfortunate. And when you got another, the sad thing is it takes time. When you grow up in this, you don't know any different. It just seems normal. You think this is how it is. Yeah, going to church and letting the preacher scream his head off at me for a couple hours several times a week, that's normal.

That's what I need in order to go in the rapture, right? And different things like that that happens and they take control of your life and they kind of point you at who you end up marrying. They point you down whatever career choice you have. If you can even get that far, they dictate what, you know, what basically they dictate the outcome of your life. And by the time you're in your 20s or 30s, I'd say a lot of times it's too late to start over, isn't it, John? And some people never are able to recover from that. And even then they reach a certain point in life too,

that they decide they do want to try to get out or they run a foul of the preacher, they throw them out like a piece of trash. And there is a lot of people who simply don't survive that.

You know, that's another thing that I tried to document in some of the different instances that I put videos out. I tried to talk about some of the suicide cases, you know, where the preacher's harassed people in such a way that then they go home and they kill themselves not long after the sermon.

I've tried to put a few of those together into the videos. And I mean, the level of horrendous stuff is, I mean, it really is massive, John. And yeah, we certainly laugh about it.

I mean, that's where we're at. Sometimes you got to laugh or you got to cry, right? But I mean, it really is absolutely horrendous, you know, the toll of this sort of thing takes on the lives of people and the people on the inside, some of them, they're so brainwashed they can't even see what they have done or what they're doing.

And you know, that's why, you know, we talk about being bold in some, you know, Naomi Wright's group. That's why groups like that are so important, John. I actually was down at a conference with Naomi Wright and the being bold in team back in September.

They had a terrific conference down there, John. I'm sure you would enjoy it if you've been there. Lots of great speakers, just a great turnout. I mean, it was, it surprised me just how many people there were, John.

There was lots of people there from the message community, quite a few that I had a good opportunity to meet. Hey, guys, I won't say your name, but God bless you all if you're listening in.

I don't like to say people, we don't like to say people's names, John, because we know they will be like mercilessly harassed if we give out their identity. So we're, you know, we're careful never to say anybody's name, but we're, you know, glad that, glad that people are making their getaway.

So that's just a great group. We had a great time down there too, John, down with being bold in and Naomi Wright. They're just doing a, you know, a real terrific work to help, especially those abuse cases, you know, the people who really come through the, you know, the heart and think of it to get out of these calls.

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 McCummery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

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You know, one thing, John, someone sent me a clip and I thought it was a really sad clip, but it was a clip of us, a particular message preacher, and he was saying that we have nothing to offer the people who leave the message.

So sad that you got nothing to offer the people, right? You just tear, tear down, tear down, tear down, you got nothing to offer. I thought that was really sad, because you know, the one thing I think, I'll say two things.

I think we have to offer people who leave the messages. One, John, we have the truth. And the truth is worth a whole lot, isn't it? The truth is worth a whole lot. And the second thing I think that we have to offer people is we've got Jesus to offer the people.

You can leave the message and you can have Jesus, ladies and gentlemen. And he will save you. The message can't save you. William Brown can't save you. End time mysteries can't save you, but Jesus, you can save you.

So I mean, we have Jesus to offer the people. And that's certainly what we do with the mission that I operate. We offer the people Jesus. And so it's pretty awful to hear message preachers say we got nothing to offer people.

I mean, is Jesus nothing to them? I think the sad thing is, John, for a lot of the preachers in the message, Jesus isn't enough. Jesus isn't enough. And he really is nothing to a lot of them.

Isn't that sad? It is sad. This is one thing that I really, I should probably address more than I do. I purposefully do not talk about this. My family, when we left, we did attend Christian churches.

And one of the churches that we attended, I think I did mention this on the podcast, there was a high ranking member of the cult who was driving there to intimidate us every Sunday.

And I had another family that was going to that church with me who had also escaped the cult. It was intimidating to them. For me, I just looked at it like this person is ridiculous.

And I kind of laughed because they had to get up earlier on Sunday morning to go sit and stare at us and glare at us as we're walking into the building of our new church.

So it was actually more difficult on them than it was on me. However, the other family who had escaped, it was really hard on them. And what I have learned over time, almost every case, whenever I see that type of comment, you're not giving them Jesus, you're not telling them what church to go to, if you have the truth, what is the truth.

Every single time they're asking this, they're trying to probe so that I can give a hint at what my family is doing so that then they can in return attack it. And worse than that, you know, I don't care.

People attack me, you left and right. But if somebody else who is listening or is in the comment feeds has made the same decision, like if I were to talk about the denomination of faith that my family goes to right now, anybody else who goes to that same denomination, well, whenever this person attacks it, he's not just attacking me, he's attacking the rest of the comment feeds.

So I just walk away from this question, it's none of their business. You know, like you said, if we are recommending Jesus and that's not good enough for them, it really begs the question, are they even Christian?

Because if they were Christian and they're following Jesus, that should be enough. off. But apparently that's not enough for many of these people. I know, John. You know, all through our podcast series, for the most part, we generally avoided talking very much about our faith or really recommending any, any specific direction within Christianity other than, don't go through a ladder rain church. Like that is, that is kind of, I think, been our, our theme. Do not go to a ladder rain church or anything that branched out of that. Run for your life, ladies and gentlemen. But, you know, I mean,

otherwise we, you know, haven't talked too much about our faith. And I think that you're exactly spot on. I mean, part of it is when we are in this cult, you are not allowed to think for yourself. And one of the most important things on this side is that you think for yourself and you decide what you want to do because you wanted to, not because somebody forced you or not because somebody pressured you or not because somebody, you know, influenced you in that way. But because you thought through everything through and you decided on your

own, and I know we're very big on encouraging people to think critically through it. And so go do your homework and decide, you know, what you want to do when you leave. I mean, I'm all for stick with Jesus. I mean, I'll say that. But beyond that, I think that it is best for the people leaving to go find what's best for them and go through that journey themselves, not because we recommended or pushed or shoved, but because they arrived at it as a result of their own convictions and beliefs. I think really that's the key. You know, I had

a person sit down with me when I was early doing this. I was working with the support groups. And they were saying, well, you're allowing them to make their decisions and they're going to make the wrong decisions. And it might cost them their salvation. And my immediate question was, well, are we not serving a God that's big enough and strong enough and powerful enough to lead them on the course? Are you trusting the Holy Spirit to lead and guide the people or are you trying to become the Holy Spirit that is guarding their pathways? And again, it comes

back to the fact that many of the people who are saying these things have just never experienced the gospel don't really understand what's in the text. And many of them sadly are just parroting what they've been heard because they're afraid themselves to look at the Bible and actually read it for what it says. They're afraid that it might not match what they have been trained. Because if you have read the Bible and you do understand it, to become a mediator between God and man and be the one who's making these decisions is actually anti-scriptural. This is not

something that a Christian should do. So each person has their journey and sometimes that journey is actually away from the faith. I have actually read really, really strong testimonies. I think one of them was in even one of the books or magazines that I've subscribed to where somebody chose a pathway, went to the depths of despair, left God, left religion, left everything, and then came back and you have to ask the question, Well, if it is required for a person to instruct them every step of the way, how does that play out in this person's testimony who came back? And I just, I came to the

conclusion that many of the people saying these things, they have just never really experienced Christianity. I've heard the same thing too, John, with different people that I have talked to. There's been a lot of people that left the message and went atheist or agnostic or, you know, basically not Christian in some way or another or barely Christian, you know, in some way or another. It's a fairly, I hate to say it, it is a, it's something that's happened to a fair number of people. Now, overall, I would say the overwhelming majority of people, John, that I know

that it left the message remain Christian, you know, despite what people in the message say, but those who do leave and go different directions, you're right. I mean, how many I've talked to quite a few of them. And many times they'll explain that, you know, with the passage of time and things settling down, they do come back to their faith in Christ, you know, and it wasn't because anybody pressured them, it was because they actually genuinely came to it of their own volition or their own conviction. And how else can it be? I mean, the message, John, the message forced people

to be message believers, whether they wanted to be or not, but, you know, you can force people to be a Pharisee, but you can't force people to be a Christian. You know, by definition, you have to voluntarily choose it and voluntarily want it from your own heart. If they didn't voluntarily choose it, but it's something that's happened as a result of anything else, pressure, trickery, then generally, actually, they're not really an authentic Christian, are they? And so that's something that I really believe. And if you haven't come to it by your own thinking, by your own thought, you know, by your own genuine conviction, and it's been brought on you by

some external pressure, then I don't think you're really a Christian, right? But if you have come to it, you know, from a genuine thing from your own heart, then that's when it's real. And so, you know, you can't, you can leave a horse to water, but you can't make them drink, right? You can pray for the horse, but you can't make them drink. And so that's certainly, that's certainly been my method, John. And, you know, things are moving along well, I think, with a lot of people in the ex-message community. There's so many people that have got away from the message, John. I mean, I feel like

there's a pretty strong community of people out here. People that have been here before us, people that have joined, you know, in recent years. And I'm just really thankful for how well things are going and all the friends we have on this side of things, aren't you?

I am. And many of the friends that I have made who are in various stages of their journey, I'd never look down on their journey. In fact, that's one of the things that I think makes my platform a little bit different from some of the others. There are people who are really hurting and need to express the pain that they've had, need to share their story. So I let them share their story. And their story, the way I look at their story, that's their story that is a snapshot for now. That doesn't mean that that-

it's the story for the rest of their life. So I enjoy whenever I hear somebody, no matter what pathway they have chosen, I enjoy hearing how they came to those conclusions and hopefully I can say something that helps them on the rest of their journey.

I've really enjoyed a lot of those podcasts you've been doing too, John. I've been listening here and there and keep up the good work, things are moving along and maybe one day we'll get a chance to record another one, right?

Yeah, I look forward to the day when we can come up with another series that hits it out of the ballpark like the last two that we did. There's so many more avenues that we could take and different trails of research we could follow.

But in the end, I don't know if you've noticed this, but it all starts to become repetitive. You have some guy who thinks that he's the next thing to God, he's the messenger of the age or the hour or whatever it is.

And then he goes destructive or she goes destructive. The people realize that, okay, this was a destructive movement. Let's leave and let's create another destructive movement or let's join another one. And it just grows and splinters and grows and splinters.

So I came to the conclusion when we finished the last one that you could actually apply the concepts that we have taught in both of those series. And then when the next cult forms, you could actually apply those same concepts and denounce the whole thing just simply by the work we've already done.

That's pretty funny, John. I mean, it's true, this ideology is an endless cycle of repetitious loops, isn't it? I mean, it just is boom and bust, boom and bust, boom and bust, repeat, repeat, repeat, rinse, recycle, repeat.

That is this ideology, John, for about 300 years now. I hate to say it, but you have gotten me hungry for KFC. And I hope that I don't run into somebody there who thinks I'm ugly.

So thank you so much for doing this with me. That's pretty funny, John. Ladies and gentlemen, you get to see the harassment we experience here in Jeffersonville on a regular basis. So signing off, thanks, John.

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-Brandom.org and Christian-GospelChurch.org. For the tracks that Charles held up at the beginning, you can find them on the tracks page of Christian-GospelChurch.org.

For more about the history of William-Brandom and the healing revivals, you can read come out of for my people. And for more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

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