When Faith Healing Fails: The Tragic End of Hobart Freeman

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Cheno Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Cheno D. Ross, YouTube channel. Cheno this is going to be an interesting podcast for me. This is this is one topic that we're getting into that just fascinates me through all of the historical studies that I've done of the New Apostolic Reformation, the Charismatic Movement, Pentecostalism, the holiness sects as far back in time as

you want to go. Out steps a faith healer that says you can be healed of all of your diseases and then as they mature and they get elderly and with the old age comes all of the old age conditions that everybody has because we're all humans. Well they start to suffer of all of the things that they're telling all of these other people that they can be healed of and you just go right down the line descending from Hobart Freeman all the way back. Doway was the big one. It was really funny to me to read in the newspapers as he began to get older and

suffered with chronic pain. He was hiring a masseuse that would come and help alleviate his pain and they were preaching against the you know any medicine, any doctor, very much like Hobart had it. If you were taking a doctor you were the lowest form of evil basically until smallpox hit and as soon as smallpox hit and they're half the congregations dying well half of his income source is also dying and what happens is as a you know as a faith healer you you can't lose your source of income so you have to allow them the

smallpox medication and you can just go right down the line of people every one that I've examined as they enter into old age well they start to have old people problems and the doctrines are still there they're still preaching against it but they're going against their own doctrine in many ways and if they don't some of them just eventually die because you're not taking care of yourself and that leads us to Hobart Freeman. And your last scenario was of course what ended up with Dr. Freeman he never did go to the doctor and he did end up dying but

we've also talked earlier that this kind of message of healing and prosperity really fits a young audience who are in their 20s, and I didn't realize this when I got into it in my mid to late teens because you're just hearing some incredible stories and you've never heard anything like this in your Presbyterian for me, church or Baptist or Episcopalian church, and you're reading the Bible, and you see miracles in the Bible, and now you're hearing someone tell you stories that these are happening on an everyday occurrence basis, and it's very difficult not to fall into this,

and what I have fallen looking back as an elderly person, I will turn 67 here next month. So this is a whole part of my life, most of my life from when I first heard this kind of word of faith teaching, and in looking back on it, you realize that most of Dr. Freeman's followers early on, I mean 90% of them were young people, they were in their 20s, they were newly married or about to get married, and you know, what's going on then for most people, you don't have health conditions in, and the prosperity message, you're so young,

I mean, if you get an extra $100, you think you're living the abundant life, quote unquote. So it's, you know, you're just not thinking long term. So consequently, it works, quote unquote. It works because you've got a little cold or something, you claim you're healing, and you know, three or four days later you're healed, and so you go, oh, see, it works.

You don't have any of these serious conditions, but one of the benefits of listening to Dr. Freeman talk, and we've talked, talked a lot about the fact that Hobart liked to talk a lot about himself, and one of the good things about that is you just learn all kinds of personal details that you would not learn with your average pastor.

Hobart had 1,157 tape recorded messages, and so when you hear 1,157 of them, you learn a lot of information. Where, with the average pastor in the average church, you really don't, and early on, the things that I'm hearing about him personally were brand new to me, so they were really interesting.

You know, he's just telling stories how he had a vision, or God spoke to him, or this prophetess laid hands on him and predicted his future ministry, and you've never heard anything like this, so you're really swept off your feet, and it is all new, and therefore it is really interesting.

I do remember, however, that a few years into it, when I would get a new little batch of tape. Apes sent to me from John A. Build, who was the head of faith ministries and publications, responsible for sending out the material.

I'd be so excited, being a new series on faith or overcomers or something, and you're just really curious and wanting to see, well, what am I going to learn now, Lord? And then before you know it, what you're hearing is you're hearing the same verses and you're hearing the same stories.

The same verses used in the same way and the same stories he's telling about himself. And early on, you know, that doesn't bother you because it's still all new, but you work your way into it a few years.

And I can remember being disappointed. I can remember honestly and genuinely ordering some new tapes and I could hardly wait for them to arrive. And it would be on some other book of the Bible and you just want to learn more about that book.

Now, it's really not going to be about that book. It's going to be about pet peeves and he's looking for verses and he uses those verses just as a launching pad to go off on no doctors or no holidays or no denominations or something like that.

And then, you know, when you're you're up on a high, when you first plug the tape into the tape player and push play and as you get into it, you know, you're let down by the end of the message, it's like, I was hoping for something more.

I've already heard this before and I've already heard these stories. But in hearing these stories, you learn a lot about health issues and medical conditions. And I'm talking about more than just sneezes and sniffles that Dr. Freeman had.

And there were two conditions in particular that were particularly important. The reference them often, it kind of formed the bookians to his ministry. It kind of started his ministry because he was so excited himself to hear that maybe he could be healed from these and he had claimed his healing and then announced for the next 18 years that he was healed.

And then, of course, 18 years later, he dies of these very things. He was no better, no better, and he was definitely not healed. And so I want to take today to look at one of these conditions.

The first one we're not going to look at, but it was a long term. We're going to look at it later. He had long term issues with his feet because he was born in the pre polio vaccine era.

He had polio, he had contracted that when he was just a very small child. And so it severely affected one of his legs and one of his feet. He walked with the lamp, he had a very short leg and it was very noticeable.

to bull. When he was just a young boy, he was run over by a commercial heavy duty truck. It wasn't somebody backing out of the family driveway and accidentally hitting him was a commercial truck out in the road. And that truck ran over his other leg, which calls lifelong problems with his other foot. We're going to talk about that much more later.

What I don't want to talk about today is a much more significant and potentially fatal condition. And that was a heart condition that Hobart had. This is nothing to play around with. This is not a cold. This is not an ingrown toenail. And this is not even having a short leg where you go around limping all the time. This is a heart condition that was long standing in Hobart's life. And so as time went on, we're going to look at some of his references to his heart condition. He talked about it frequently. And as time went on and

as I grew and matured, not only as a Christian, but just as an adult male, since I had gotten into this so early. And I simply did not have the wherewithal to deal with Hobart Freeman.

Nobody does. Whenever you get into any kind of movement, young in your life, you don't have the tools and you don't have the experience. You don't have the education. You don't have the knowledge. You just don't have any practical skills to be able to listen to someone up there saying, you know, making some incredible claims, somewhat outrageous claims. You don't have the skills to say, well, that may be or that may not be. Let's see if we can get to the bottom of it. No, you hear it. And whenever it's followed with a verse, Jesus Christ is the

same yesterday, the day and forever. So if he did something back then, Jesus hasn't changed. And he'll do the same thing today. You go, yeah, that makes sense to me. And you buy into it.

You've got a verse and you've got someone's story that they're telling you about something that happened. But as I grew older, I began to wonder is Hobart Freeman not preaching out of a deep personal need in his own life, not that that would be wrong in itself. I mean, if you have a need and you're preaching sermons that meet your need, that doesn't make it wrong in itself.

But it is something that we should take note of. It doesn't invalidate his faith and healing teaching. He could be the sickest person on the planet. And if the Bible did teach faith and healing the way he said that it did, then whether he's sick or whether he's not sick, doesn't change what God's word says. However, we You see someone who came from such a poor background and he hears this abundant life, his version of abundant life, this abundant life message that God is not as Hobart would often say, he is not in the used car business. He is not in the hamburger business. Your God is the God

who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He's in the stake, the filet mignon business, and he's definitely in luxury car business. Hobart was obsessed with these things. More than I would think an average person, an average minister, who had lived their life, who had held down a variety of jobs, and who had some level of middle-class America prosperity. So what kind of car are you drove? Does that really matter to you one way or the other? Probably not. But for someone who never had anything. For someone who was poor, he's even said his last year teaching at the seminary,

his annual salary was $4,000. That's not a whole lot of money in any era. And it definitely wasn't much for him. He had never had anything nice driving beater cars all the time. So when he hears Kenneth Hagen saying, all you have to do is name it and claim it. When you hear Kenneth Hagen saying from Mark 1124, it's what things so ever you desire. And Hobart would pound away on that. He would say, now, does it say what things so ever? Is there any exception to so ever? And is it something you need or something you desire? I desire to drop in comfort and luxury. So you've got a

verse, Mark 1124, and you've got Kenneth Hagen telling these stories about what faith has done for him. And because Hobart came from that poor background, he fell right into this. And what he also fell right into, John, was this healing message because he came from a very sick background.

I grew up hearing that phrase over and over again. Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever. And it sounds really good when you hear it. But when you put it into practical terms, it never really works out like you're expecting it to. And I've been thinking about that long and hard after reading all of these ministries that are doing the same thing, using the same passages, tricking the same types of people, I being one of the people that was duped by this. Well, we have, we have often, I think I shared this with you privately, we've supported people who are

not very privileged in the city. And we do things for them that we wouldn't ordinarily do just to help them to survive. Food, you know, sometimes they have supply, needs, etc. We try to help them out. Well, so we, We chose a family that my wife knows and is connected to this family and we help them.

But what about the other 50 families that are in the same neighborhood that need help? What about the hundred families that need help in the same city? I can't help every one of them if I could, I would.

But there are situations that cause us to want to help that particular family. I started thinking about the miracles Jesus did. Whenever Jesus was walking the earth, He did not go through the entire city and everyone in the city's healed.

They were specific people. But we don't really think of that when we hear that verse in this word of faith movement. You're claiming it, you're claiming something that Jesus is doing for this specific person and this specific example.

What about all the other examples in the city? They didn't, they could have claimed it. Many of them were believers and they could have claimed it. But we're trying to apply the situation to something that wasn't really applicable.

And you mentioned the car salesman and immediately my head is thinking, Oprah Winfrey, you get a car and you get a car and you get a car. Well, anybody who wants to say, Oprah Winfrey the same yesterday and today and forever try to go get a car from her and see what happens.

It is for a situation. You can't take it outside of that context. Yeah, so true, John. And the same is true with healing. As I said, Hobart's personal need for healing doesn't invalidate his message, but it does form the backdrop for the message.

And it's just like the FBI working up some psychological profile on someone. I would be very interesting. I would be very interesting to have a professional profiler work up a profile on Hobart Freeman.

And I just think it would be, it would be right down the path of a lot of the things we've talked about of his narcissism, his arrogance, the elitism, the isolation that he put himself in was something that was not normal at all.

I, there is a woman out on the West Coast. She's up in Washington State who was actually a member of Faith Assembly. I think she met her husband there on a visit, ended up marrying a Faith Assembly person and she was a Faith Assembly person, but she has long since departed from that.

And she over the past weekend just sent me the most interesting message. She said, after listening to several of these podcasts, I was reading in the book of Proverbs. And I came across this verse.

I'm gonna read this verse in light of what people have heard me say so many times that Hobart would say, I spent 14 to 16 hours a day in my study, seven days a week.

And he always thought that was a good thing to say. And I think everyone who heard it for the first time, or the 50th time, back in the day, they thought, wow, whether Hobart intended that to intimidate or not, it does intimidate because none of us been 14 to 16.

And so what that does communicate to you is, there's no way I can be as smart as this man because I know I don't spend that much time in my study reading the Bible.

And he made that statement all the time. And when I first heard it, I was impressed. When I heard it for the 50th time, I was not impressed at all. Because by then, I was old enough to have worked my way logically through it and say, well, number one, I don't think that's true because you've got to do other things in life.

Number two, if it is true, it's something you should never tell anybody about. It's the same thing as what Jesus said about your prayer life, your giving life. He said, if you do that, do it in secret.

If you announce it to the world, barely I say it to you, you have your reward. And I had read Matthew 6 enough to know he's probably got his reward. And then number three, I thought, well, that's terrible to do to your wife and children, because you're not spending any time with them.

So in light of him saying, I spend 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week in my study, she said, I came across this verse in Proverbs. A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire and he rages against all self-judgment.

And I told I texted back to her and I said, excellent, find. I need to use this in an upcoming podcast about you know who. And she responded, she said, yeah, it's a very clear description of him.

She said, I found over the years as I read through the scriptures and as I come across verses that Hobart used to pound us with, I try to look at these verses from a different vantage point.

Especially since I am no longer a part of faith assembly. And it's really crazy how twisted the scriptures became and how totally taken out of context and misconstrued. I also recall reading Paul's writings back during faith assembly days and also the words of Jesus in the gospels and thinking to myself, it seems like we are far more strict and legalistic than Jesus and the Apostle Paul were.

But then I would just rebuke those thoughts and go on with my day, talk about brainwashing at its best. Yeah, I mean, that's that's what it's like being a part of one of these groups.

So with this being the backdrop to Hobart's teaching on faith and healing, that he ends up dying. from a heart condition and a condition related to his feet, makes this connection in my mind all the more important.

And so I just sat down and I just did a quick comparison here over the weekend of the ages at which some of these important faith ministers died. And listen to this Pat Robertson who was CB and Christian broadcasting network and founded Regent's University and you know a very influential person and his ministry through his son and the broadcast is still going to this day live to be 93.

Or Roberts died at age 91. Hobart often said that Or Roberts was the greatest healing evangelist of the 20th century. T.L. Osborne that Hobart said was the greatest apostle he called he said T.L. Osborne is an apostle you know on the order of the New Testament apostles.

Died at age 90 Jimmy Swagger down in Louisiana 90 more Cyrillo 89 Derek Prince shared a platform with Hobart on more than one occasion back in the late 60s and early 70s. Died at 89 Kenneth Hagen 86 R. W. Shambok 86 E. W. King the King and the the propagator of a lot of this stuff. Died at age 80.

And then we still have people living today Jimmy Baker from the gym and Tammy Bay Faker Empire 80 I mean Jim and Tammy Faye Baker Empire still living at 85 Kenneth Copeland is 89 years old.

And if everything goes as planned he's not going to die until 2056 when he will be 120 years old if everything goes according to plan we talked about him before. Look John if that happens I think I'm going to go ahead and go out on a limb right now and say I'm willing to give a thousand dollars cash to every one of our viewers.

Now I will be 97 then so it may be a little difficult for you to collect but if I live to 97 and Copeland lives to 120 you can you can hit me up for some money.

So here's this group of all of these people Hobart died at age 64 and the only person I could come up with of any significance that died any younger. was William Marion Brannum who died when he was 56.

So here we've got the two people we've been talking about so much William Brannum and Hobart Freeman and they die as kids. I mean, they just die as kids compared to the long lifespan of all of these other guys.

So I'm looking at all of this. As you said to start this podcast today, you're looking at the promises that these guys made everyone and of course made to themselves and they're not taking into consideration at least Brannum and Hobart old age.

And of all the people, Hobart raged against Jimmy Swagger and later, you know, Morse Cyrillo and Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagen and Kenneth Copeland. He raged against all of those as compromisers because they leaned to the arm of the flesh.

They went to the doctors. Yeah, and they lived a lot longer too. Some of them had 30 years on Dr. Freeman whenever they died. You know, it's funny because you're bringing back so many memories.

That's something that I've often thought about as well. There are so many of these people who are claiming all of these healings and all of this, all of these things and they're leading people down a dark pathway and some of them just live to crazy old ages.

And then you've got Brannum who, you know, you look at him and you think, well, he was taken off the scene so that he didn't further corrupt Christianity. Well, if you try to say that about Brannum, you have to say that about all of them and you can't because people are going to either live their full lives or not live their full lives.

But the faith healers capitalize on the people who do live longer than you would expect them to. They will use them. I don't know if you caught this. I don't know if Freeman would do this kind of thing but he would often call on, look at this elderly brother right here.

Are you doing good today, aren't you brother? Well, he's picking the oldest guy in the crowd so that everybody can look, oh my gosh, this guy is doing well. I hope to live to his old age, but he's not pointing to the guy that they just buried down the street, right?

And it all comes down to this. It's a numbers game. It's a numbers game for those that are going to live longer. You try to capitalize on those that die younger. You try to just kind of sweep that under the rug.

Don't tell anybody about it. And the sad part about that dynamic is this. The people who don't live longer, they're quickly forgotten in these kind of movements because your brain can't, you're cognitive dissonance.

You can't focus on the person that didn't get healed. You have to focus on those that did. So you start to forget those that didn't make it. And the sad truth is for the families, now they've lost a lot of...

of one will now they've also lost the memories of that love one without even knowing it because of the psychological effects of the cult. That is exactly true John. So let's go down, I want to do this and document it so that it's on record here for the people that are curious about Hobart and his health condition.

Let's go down this path and I want to document some of the big episodes in his life with regard to his heart condition and we'll tie them into some other things as well. So he had been fired, let go by grace theological seminary because they just couldn't handle the way he was going about things.

He bought out his contract. He had already started a little home church in his home in Claypool. They met under the water tower. It was always the church in Claypool under the water tower.

And I had been to that water tower. That water tower is still standing in the little village of Claypool, Indiana. He started a house church there in February of 1963 with just some people who were not content with the denominational system is what Hobart was always talking about.

So he started his own denomination, wrote his own creed, had his own little 50 page booklet of the creed of their particular church. It's interesting that anyone who ever separates from the denominational system always creates their own system.

It's never enough just to carry the New Testament or the Bible around. They've got the Bible but they also have their statement of faith. Hobart had rattle around in a living room of his own home for about three years in January of 1966.

He had preached a Sunday morning sermon in his home to a dozen people against the current neo-Penocal still move of the Holy Spirit that was just beginning to sweep through the United States. We had had the Pentecostal movement earlier that basically became denominationalized with denominations like your age, your assembly of God.

But with people like Dennis Bennett, the Episcopalian priest who wrote nine o'clock in the morning with Deema Shakerian, the founder of the Full Gospel of Businessmen's Fellowship International and some other significant figures. This Pentecostal movement had become the neo-carrismatic movement which was really going into a lot of the mainstream churches.

Dr. Freeman was aware of that but because he was from a Baptist, Southern Baptist, and then later an old German order Baptist. Grace Brethren background, he was not in agreement with it at all.

So he tells the story on many many of his cassette tapes where he actually preached a sermon against the movement of the Holy Spirit on a Sunday morning in his church in January of 1966.

The next morning, Monday morning, he had a massive heart attack. He ended up in the hospital for a several weeks day. Hobart was a tall fellow about 6'1 or 6'2. He got down to 158 pounds.

So you can imagine what 158 pounds looks like on a 6'1 or 6'2 frame. He's flat on his back in the hospital. But before he preached a sermon and definitely after the sermon and during his experience in the hospital, according to him, he had prayed for God to do a new work in his heart.

He always said, we were just at our ropes in and we're just preaching himself. He meant himself. We're just preaching dry doctrine all the time. We needed something in our life and we did not think that this move of the Holy Spirit was it.

And so he preached against it. But flat on his back, he's in the hospital, praying, Lord, what's next? Please do a work in my heart. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.

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This is where the story gets really interesting. He had a former colleague at Gray Seminary who had actually been his mentor, whose name was Dr. John Ray, R-E-A. Dr. Ray had been an Old Testament scholar at Gray Seminary.

He was an archaeologist. He was trained at Princeton University with a very educated man. His father, if I remember correctly, was also trained at Princeton. John Ray married a woman by the name of Elaine.

She had three brothers. All three of those were trained at Princeton. So this is a very, very educated family. And John Ray… had been Hobart Freeman's mentor. Dr. Freeman was earning his degree under Dr. John Ray.

Well, Dr. Ray had received the charismatic experience prior to 1966 and had left Gray Seminary. At the same time, Dr. Ray was an editor at Moody Press in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Freeman had been working on this particular book and introduction to Old Testament prophets, which is just that, an introductory book to the literary or to the writing prophets of the Old Testament.

And had submitted that manuscript prior to his heart attack and Dr. John Ray was the editor who was assigned to go over the manuscript. And of course, he recognizes the name on the manuscript as a former student of his, Dr. Hobart Freeman.

And so when John saw the manuscript, he contacted Dr. Freeman who was in the hospital having suffered this massive heart attack at the time and said these words, the spirit would have me come and talk to you.

Well, as Hobart tells the story later, he said, we didn't use terminology like that in our circles. The spirit would have me do anything. You just either do it or you don't do it.

He said, I thought that was really odd that the spirit would have me come and talk to you. So Dr. Ray visited Hobart in the hospital, barely talked to him about the manuscript. I think talked to him about it at the end of the visit just so he could say that I did what I came to do.

But really what he came to do was to share what he and his wife had experienced, a new charismatic experience. As soon as Dr. Freeman got out of the hospital, this was completely on his mind.

And so Dr. Ray and his wife, Elaine got Hobart and his wife, June, and took them to an old-fashioned, truly Pentecostal meeting. It was a full gospel business men's meeting, but the speaker was an old line Pentecostal guy, not any of the modern guys, old line Pentecostal with lots of shouting and lots of odd stuff.

And it happened up in Chicago on March the 19th, 1966 in McCormick Theological Seminary. And so I knew that Dr. Ray was a confidant and a mentor and a friend of Dr. Freeman's. And so over the years, I was able to track down Dr. Ray and here is a little handwritten front and back card received from Dr. Ray on December the 10th of 1990.

I was very curious if he could tell me some of what he knew and some of what his experience was with Dr. Freeman since Freeman went off the rails. And you see the date of this January, I'm sorry, December of 1990.

I was trying, this is when I was right in the middle of doing all my research on all of this. And he had just retired from being a professor at Regent University, which was in Virginia Beach, still is today, which was Pat Robertson's University.

He had left grace, think he had taught out maybe at Melody Land in Anaheim, California on the West Coast, had ended up on the East Coast, then had retired in May of this year of 1990 and is now living in Santa Ana, California.

And he responded and said, dear brother Cheno, yes, Hobart Freeman was a student of mine at Grace Seminary in his doctoral studies. My wife and I were instrumental in introducing him to the baptism in the Holy Spirit in 1966.

Later, we were saddened to see him become so extreme in his faith teaching. And by the time he moved from Claypool, Indiana, that's the church under the water tower, to found and lead the glory barn in Northwestern, we no longer were having fellowship with him.

In many ways, Hobart was an excellent Bible scholar and careful teacher, but dot, dot, dot, dot, exclamation point, you know, you can fill in the blanks, in other words, whether the term cult, quote unquote, which is what I was using is a fair description of his group, only the Lord knows.

But as far as I know, he remained mostly orthodox in his teachings concerning the person and work of Christ. So Dr. Ray just had a big influence on Hobart Freeman's life by introducing him to the baptism in the Holy Spirit and reading the book, the book was published.

I think this book may still be in print today and it's not great, but it's not bad. You know, there are, I think books better than this, but even though it's not great, it's definitely a good book for people wanting to study the literary prophets of the Old Testament.

What was also interesting that I want to make this direct connection because I don't know if you guys in any of your other podcasts, John, have talked about Mel Tari's book, Like a Mighty Wind.

This was published in 1971 by Creation House. have a new edition published by some other company. Maybe Creation House isn't even in existence anymore. But this book came out in 1971, and I'm mentioning it in two regards.

In the first regard, look who wrote the forward to the book, Dr. John Ray, THD. The same Dr. John Ray who introduced Hobart Freeman to the charismatic experience was friends with Mel Tari, who was a Presbyterian, evangelist, missionary in Indonesia, and who told this book, and it was written by Cliff Dudley, who was someone who would write books as told to him by some of your important charismatic people that were coming out back in the day.

This book just had a profound influence. Whenever I entered the charismatic movement just four years later, this was on everybody's coffee table. And it was just an incredible narrative of what they said were just stupendous book of acts events happening through Alfie Islands of Indonesia, but primarily on Timor, that was the island in the group of Indonesian islands, where these events broke out, and they were carried by those missionaries from island to island.

I've got a quote we're gonna listen to from Dr. Freeman here in a moment from the book, just to show that this was a book that was famous and this was a book that was popular for everyone.

In this book, John, you're gonna find stories of walking on water, raising the dead, feeding the multitude with no food, turning the water into wine. Miltari, according to him, experienced all of these on multiple occasions.

The water into wine, which is beginning on page 79 and goes through page 84 in here, they did, according to him, at least 60 times.

The reason I'm highlighting this book is in my opinion, having looked back on this, this is more than 50 years ago, this book, maybe more than any other book that came out in the charismatic movement, was the one who set the tone for a certain type of hermeneutic, and that hermeneutic was that if anything happened in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, any type of miraculous event occurred because Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and because God is no respecter of persons, And the miracles of the Bible can be expected by any child of God pretty much on any occasion.

And so this train to people to read their Bible in such a way that if you come across some story where some incredible feed happened, then you internalize that and you say, well, why can't we pray for these very same things today?

And so in this book, people, if they haven't read it, should read it. It is a fascinating narrative of some of the most incredible alleged events. But the alleged events, so many of them are in a really odd situation.

So for instance, they claim to have gone through all of these rainforests, preaching the gospel, spreading the good news during terrific rainstorms and never get wet. But the way that they did it, they said before us, 10 feet behind us, 10 feet to the left and to the right of us, 10 feet, it was pouring down rain, but we never got wet.

And we would arrive at the village to preach and they would look at us and they would say, how is it your feet are so muddy and sloppy, but you're all dry? Well to me that whole, that is a weird situation, how your feet are muddy, but yet your body is dry.

Of course, that was proof of some kind of miracle. When they would go through the forest at night, they would have a light shining before them, just like the children of Israel had a cloud of a pillar of fire.

And they would go through the heat of the jungle. They would have this cloud hovering over them, which would protect them from the sun. They raised the dead multiple times. They have story after story.

We're going to hear about one of these because Hobart is referencing it on turning water into wine, which was an everyday event. Whenever they needed to have wine for a communion service, they simply performed a miracle.

And I don't know John 50 years ago what my reaction was when I first read this book, but I'm sure it was just over the top in love with the book and over the top, believing everything.

I never tried walking on the water. I never tried turning water into wine. I probably didn't because I probably thought I didn't have enough faith to do it. And I couldn't do it. And so therefore I would fail.

But it would, but it's true. It's just I didn't have enough faith to do it. I've got to just tell one side track story because I saw on Facebook just the last week, a friend of mine.

and we are acquaintances of metting face to face. He is newly converted and oh my John, this goes to the heart of how people read the Bible. This was 50 years ago, nothing has changed today.

This is a young man with a wife and a couple of children. He lives in Eastern Kentucky. He even talked about, I'm gonna hop on my motorcycle, Chino, and drive over to your Book of Revelation study one night and listen to you.

I mean, I know him well enough, he would probably do that. But I watched a Facebook video he put up last week where he was up at three in the morning, reading the gospels and reading how Peter walked on the water.

And he is a very sincere and honest young man who doesn't know very much at all, but this almost is the tendency of people if they don't get in a good church that grounds them and how to read God's Word.

Because he reads that and in his simple mind, he said, Lord, I just wanna be like Peter. I wanna walk on the water. And I believe if Peter did it, then there's no reason I can't do it.

So he tells this story in this video on Facebook and I watched it and my heart went out to him. It is a dramatically and honestly toll story. So he said, I got up out of bed, my wife's still asleep, it's three in the morning.

We have a pool in our backyard. So he said, I went out and I got up on the steps and he said, I'm just praying, Lord, I just know that I have the same amount as a faith as Peter had.

And if Peter did it, why can't I do it? Aren't you the same today as you were back then? So I'm just going to know, Lord, that you're bidding me like you bid, Peter, please come to me on the water.

He said, Lord Jesus, I'm gonna come to you on the water. And he is not a professional preacher or speaker at all. He's got a day job and he puts these little Facebook videos up just to encourage people.

But he tells the truth, trust me, he tells the truth. So he said, I put my foot out and he said, I've decided I can't just put a foot out because maybe it goes an inch under the water and then I am afraid and then I pull my foot back so I'm just going to step out on the water.

And I'm listening to this video, watching him tell the story and I'm wanting to know, okay, what happened? What happened? He said, I just put both feet out on the water. And there I was and he said, and I just sank, right, to the bottom.

And I kind of figured that's where he was going with this. If he told me anything else, I was going to pick up the phone and call him and say, you know, I need to come down there and watch this happen because I want to verify.

This and he said he was so disappointed and so he got come back out of the pool got back up on the ladder prayed again Did it again Same result and he did it five times and he sank to the poop bottom of the pool every time and he was Heartbroken over it. He was actually crying on the video wondering where is my faith that I don't have enough fate And I I sent him a private message saying dear brother This is not the way we read the Bible just because Peter did that does not mean we have the license to

Go and tempt God and see whether it will work for us and it doesn't mean your faith is any less than Peter's Just means that's a different circumstance and that's a different situation and so as you look through Miltari's book you're reading of them going across rivers swollen that are 30 feet deep and they said it only came up to I think about their Knees or their thighs which does it seem to be exactly what happened in the gospel accounts But of course they said they did it over and over but John there are also weird stories

They always have angels within wherever they go They see the angels most of the time but not always and so one time here's another story when you hear these stories You know, you just have to Withdraw yourself from the narrative and say why is it?

These things always happen on some South Sea island Where there are no movie cameras no photography No eyewitnesses that I can trust and verify this from they're always in Africa or Indonesia or somewhere where There's just no way to document it or prove it and of course their argument would be well You're just doubting Thomas where you have to see to believe but Jesus said you got a reverse that you had to believe in order to see I'm fine with the believing as saying but the things that are being told here I just don't think that's the way God operates and I don't think that's the way we're supposed to read our Bible and if and when these things happen

I think that they are the exception and they are definitely in an emergency case They're not just hey, we've we don't have any Wine and it's time to have a communion service Let's just lay hands on the cup of water and turn it to wine But there's one particular story in here that stood out to me and that is when these young children were traveling around as evangelists in the islands then the angels were always with them and They saw some fruit in a tree and they wanted to go get the fruit and the angel told them don't go get the fruit

But go on your mission and preach to the next village the Children disobeyed the voice of the angel they took their clothes off for whatever reason and climbed up this tree to get this fruit, and when they came back down the tree, their clothes were gone, and they couldn't find their clothes anywhere.

And they look around, and they look over on one side of them, and at the top of a 70-foot tree, there are their clothes. And so the children pray, Lord, what are we gonna do?

The Lord tells them, it's always the Lord spoke to everyone in the book, the Lord's talking to everyone. The Lord said to the children, where you were disobedient to me, I said, don't get the fruit, go to the village, but if you will repent, I will help you get your clothes.

So they repented, and the Lord told them this, I will make your feet and your hands stick like lizards. So all you have to do is just climb up the side of the tree, which is what they did, 70-foot tree, stuck like lizards, got their clothes, and came back and then went and preached to the village.

Those are the kinds of events that you find here in like a mighty wind, and I just don't think that there are true. Well, unlike you, I have tried to walk on water, and it doesn't work, I can assure you, it does not work.

I've, you know, that's one of the things about this type of movement. It becomes a actual worship of the miracle itself, rather than the creator who can perform set miracle. You start focusing on it, trying to replicate these miracles, and that's what the movement's all about.

It was a faith healing movement. We want to replicate the miracles that Jesus did in the Bible. So let's go see a healer who can teach us how to replicate these. And in the end, nobody can replicate it.

In the end, I can't walk on the water. I have tried when I was a kid. You get in that mindset. And I will give some advice when you try this, and you do try with both feet.

Make sure your head is far enough away from the boat, because there are some problems there that I won't get into. But you get in that mindset, and you start doing these things. And, you know, I just, for me, I'm just glad I don't have to think like this.

I really, people try to corner me, do you believe in miracles? Do you not? I just really don't care. You know, maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. Maybe some of the things in that book are real.

Maybe they're not. But if you mention them that frequently, are you not worshiping the miracle over the creator? That's really the problem that I have with it. Yes, and I like your answer, John.

I don't deny miracles or healings at all. And I really probably need to backtrack and say what you did. Maybe some of these miracles happen. Maybe they didn't. But if you'll read the book from cover to cover, the types of miracles in there are just their repetition.

And that's what Mel says that the Book of Acts are the experiences in the Gospels and the Book of Acts are being duplicated today. All you have to do is just believe. And yet when I look at some of the miracles that they're claiming happened, like, up the side of a tree like a lizard. Just none of that makes any sense to me. I just don't think that's biblical and walking through a rainforest with it pouring down rain and you don't get wet, but yet your feeder muddy because the ground below you is always wet. None of that makes any sense.

Turning water into wine on 60 occasions. I don't think we're going to have time to listen to what Hobart said but it's on pages 79 through 84 in the book. So because I'm running short on time because these stories are so fascinating and I spent too much time with them. Let me jump ahead from 1966 in Dr. Freeman's life to 1968. Now he has claimed his healing. He has thrown away his heart medication. They are still in the little church in the home in Claypool and in 1968.

And he tells this story of all places on his Psalm 91, our assurance policy tape. There was a car wreck outside the home and he said I didn't realize that I'd maybe gotten a little worked up but someone ran to the door knocked on Dr. Freeman's own front door and said can you call the sheriff and to report this car accident and he got all worked up over that and had another small occasion of a heart attack. We're not going to listen to this but this was played if anyone wants to go and hear it for themselves on the Psalm 91 tape from the 34 minute, 25 second to 36 minute,

19 second mark. He simply tells you know I didn't think I was getting all worked up but he goes on and has another heart attack but he does not go to the doctor. He does not go to the hospital and everything is fine. During the 1970s I think he had several occasions where he had issues with his heart. Those were really exciting times at the glory barn. A lot was happening at the glory barn. Hobart was traveling a lot. If you listen again to the 1157 messages as I have you learn some things about his diet. He had a particular belief based on 1 Timothy 4 that nothing

that you eat will harm you if you pray over it. So he had people that would watch him you know eat his bacon and eggs for breakfast when they were out and say don't you know cholesterol is bad and he would say don't you know 1 Timothy 4 is in the Bible. So we just had an interesting view on praying over your food that if you do it you literally can eat anything and nothing can harm you. I think that's a way out of balance approach to eating and you know diet you know hundreds of

years ago people ate everything because there was no processed food. Things are a lot different today. Hobart boasted about the bacon and eggs and you know he would just eat anything and when we get to his autopsy report you will see that he had some serious conditions on the inside of himself probably due to his diet. But anyway during the 1970s he had minor issues but if we can fast forward to the fall now we're getting toward the end of his life, the fall of 1981.

He's teaching in 1 Corinthians in a message entitled The Gifts and Love. So he's somewhere around 12, 13, 14 in 1 Corinthians. He's talking about the gifts of the Spirit but you've got to have love of the 1 Corinthians 13 as well in order for the gifts to be functioning the way they should.

This was a message which went originally by the number 826 if anybody has tape 826 but the title of it was The Gifts and Love Part 1 and before we play this little clip let me just introduce it.

Hobart has just had a severe heart attack. He's had it he had it a couple of days before he is having a recurrence of it right before he stands up to speak. So this starts at the very very beginning of this message and it goes to one minute and 11 seconds and before I have you play that John let me just make this comment you know I am not poking fun at all of Dr. Freeman's heart condition.

I'm not poking fun at anybody's health condition. My only point in even using these is when you preach that you can be healed and you watch people in your church dying try to be healed and then you yourself a few years later will die of this same condition that you've said for 18 years you're healed from we just have a huge problem of contradiction and that's the only reason I'm looking at this but as far as his own health and his feelings I don't have a heart condition I probably had you know something feel funny before and you know you feel maybe it's in digestion

and you feel that stabbing pain but I'm sure it's not the stabbing pain that comes with the heart attack. Before I even did this I read a little about it so I could try to understand and appreciate how frightening this is for someone who does have a history of a heart condition and whenever a hard attack happens, it's a shooting pain down your left arm.

It's this constriction where you can barely breathe. I'm sure there's panic and fear that comes with that. So I'm not making fun of that at all. But he has just experienced this and if you could play that one-minute clip from the very beginning of this message.

Thank you very much. Have a nice day. Have a nice day.

God is faithful. Praise the Lord. We had a relapse after Saturday. I confess that I'd be here. So if you turn to 1 Corinthians 13, I may get shot in a little later, but it's all I've got right now.

If you can't act your faith, there's no point in teaching it. You know, it's really frightening to hear and sad to hear that. And I don't rejoice in that at all. The pain and the fear that that man was going through.

He is barely at a whisper. He is going to practice what he preaches. And that's what he ends up saying. You know, no point in teaching it if you don't live it. And as I've said before, Hobart did not use medicine.

He did not go to the doctors. Hobart lived by what he preached. And he, unfortunately, and eventually died by what he preached. But he wasn't too faced when it came to this. He didn't speak out of both sides of his mouth.

He preached no doctors, no medicine. I was healed at Calvary. I'm still healed now was his confession. Of course, that was not true because he was never healed from that. But the people who just listen to that clip, it's, I mean, it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

This is a man who's just gone through a heart attack. And he is going to stand up and collect his senses and get on about it. And that's exactly what he does. And he goes on and preaches this message.

And then I've got one final clip here, John. because this happens one year later. It's late in 1982. It was tape number 864. He was through with first Corinthians, and he was preaching second Corinthians.

This was in a message entitled Proof of Endurance. Number two, so it's at the very end of this series. I don't care what your trial. God is bigger than your trial. God is bigger than the devil.

I've been down to Death's door, so I'm not an armchair theologian about this matter. And I still walk by faith. If I feel a little tightness and pain in the chest, I just go right on, whether it's ride the bike or prepare a message or whatever.

I absolutely refuse it. What I'm saying is, friends, it isn't a walk like, well, he got healed way back in 1966 of a heart condition, and it's roses from then on no more trials.

I just don't talk about those things. I just lay my hand there, the blood of Jesus. I'm healed. I was healed at Calvary. I've had mild little touches along the way occasionally, since that real bout, what is it a year, two years ago?

I don't even try and remember how long ago because it's past tense. But God is bigger than any trial. I said it before, I'll say it again. And if you can't receive it, you have no place in faith assembly.

I'm not going to die of a heart attack. That's utterly ridiculous to think that I would ever even doubt our question the matter when healing is in the atonement. And I have had the atonement applied to me, body, mind, soul, and spirit.

So he doesn't know it, and no one else knows, and he's two years away from dying. Hindsight's wonderful. You can look back on this and put all the pieces of the puzzle together. But one of the things that I have said before about Dr. Freeman, and I will say again now, is he was happy with a healing message in the 60s and early 70s.

He was never healed of anything. He claimed he was. And as he got into the late 70s and early 80s, his happiness became anger and frustration. No one else was teaching. This doctors are evil and demons and drugs go together.

No one was teaching that, but him. People were dying left and right around him. He wasn't healed. And I can't help but see and hear frustration in his voice of what he was saying going on around him.

And of what he was not experiencing in his own life. And so he's mad. He's just mad about. everything. And so in this clip, here's what we hear. Here's his, you know, his anger against the people, his frustration. I won't say with God, but his frustration with his own situation where he had not experienced this healing from this serious heart condition that he'd had for his entire adult life. And I'm just reading a sentence of that quote, but he's mad and he says, I've set it before and I'll say it again. And if you can't receive it, you have no place in faith assembly.

I'm not going to die of a heart attack. End of quote. You know, if you don't agree with his faith for his own condition, he said, you're not even a member of faith assembly. You need to leave.

Not only do you have to believe for yourself, you have to believe me when I'm telling you about my condition. I'll, I'll read it again. I've said it before. I'll say it again. If you can't receive this, you have no place in faith assembly. I am not going to die of a heart attack. And what did he die of? He died of a heart attack. You know, the whole thing makes me sad. And as a, as an adult who I will turn 50 next month, as an adult that's turning 50. And as I'm starting to get older and

all the things that old people get, I'm getting them, you know, as things happen. It's sad because I have friends and family that if I mention it publicly, they're going to point to it and say, look, he's getting that thing. He's not accepting the faith. He's left the faith. He could just be healed of that. He could prevent that if he would stay in the cult. Well, the sad truth is a majority of people who are elderly in these types of movements, they suffer the same things, but they're trying to block it in their head. And so they don't, they don't really accept it kind of like Hobart

Freeman. They're not accepting it. And yet they still have it. And yet they're condemning people outside the group whenever they have the same exact things. That part makes me really sad. I used to get people who would send me, and I still get all kinds of hate mail, but specifically the hate mail regarding publishing facts about somebody who died. They just take issue with this because this part of the religion, man, you can't attack our religion like this. I'm actually working. Right now I have some documentation up on one of Brandon's most famous healings was

this child by the name of Donnie Morton. This is really one of his biggest strongest claims to fame. And when I left the cult, they said, well, what about Donnie Morton? They literally said this from this from the 1952. Everybody in the cult had this reader's digest book talking about the miracle of Donnie Morton, how the child was taken from, I don't know, Saskatchewan, I think Canada, all the way to LA to meet with William Brannum, the faith healer, the mighty faith healer that's going to heal, and the article sadly in reader's digest was called The Miracle of Donnie Morton.

And so that was one of the big things. Well, so the kid comes, he gets prayed for, he goes back to the doctors, and he dies of the very thing that he traveled all this way. The miracle was that there was so much faith and love in the family's heart. That was, it was a poor choice of a title, but that's the kind of mentality you get. And when you publish information like this, and William Brannum's telling this child that it's healed, telling the father that it's healed, the whole family gets their hopes up, and then their hopes are crushed. It's like a predator. It really

is like a predator. I have started to look at it much differently now. If somebody sends me this hate mail, instead of thinking of it from a religious standpoint, I think, well, what if this was a you're driving down to Disney World, and there's this guy on the side of the road that says, come let your kids play with the alligators. I'll go down there and play with them. It's safe, trust me. It's safe. Well, you're you're going to want everybody to publish information about this guy that's doing this because people might die. And sad truth is, this type of movement,

this type of mindset still exists today. So the guy who's luring children to play with the alligators, it exists in these faith healing ministries and people are dying. So for me, I kind of separate the religion from the predatory nature of it. And then I can look at Hobart Freeman.

Yes, he was a religious leader. Yes, he may have started with good intentions, but he was also a predator. That's how I look at it. Yeah. And I wish that the miracles were true. You know, I don't take any, it doesn't, I don't take any joy in the fact that all these people have died. I wish none of them would have died. I wish they would have all been healed, but the facts are. That's what I keep coming back to. The facts are that they weren't healed and that they did die and that people are still dying today. And so to not, I mean, it's like a public service announcement to not

say something about it would almost make me feel guilty of not having warned people because people go into this at a young age and they are so enthusiastic and they are expecting these results in this word of faith movement to happen. And when they don't happen, then they often end up with a shipwreck of their faith and that's just very, very tragic.

It is tragic, but there's many more tragedies that we can explore next time. Yes, indeed. Thanks for doing this. Thanks, Sean. 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. From 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 Audible.