The Hidden Architecture Behind the NAR: Salvation vs. Sonship

Music 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 and friend, John McKinnon, author of the persuasive preacher, the gifted prophet, and the noble politician. John is good to be back and to talk about today's subject which I think is very important and very relevant. Probably out of all of the podcasts that you and I have done together, this might be the most important one that we have done. Because as you know and as I've tried to explain through the course

of this podcast series, there are so many connections linking what Branham laid as a foundation to the modern New Apostolic Reformation. And you've probably seen it in the comment feeds people say, you're trying to say all paths lead back to Branham and you know it's not that Branham came up with these ideas or I even think this but when you understand what he was doing and understand the architecture of what he was building and then combine it with operations like the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship who worked directly with Branham who always had a Branhamite in a leadership position in the organization who was co-founded

by a Branhamite. Charles and I went through that in the Revival History series and then think about that. Branham is the champion of this Full Gospel Businessmen for years and years. They would invite him when all other organizations had just completely rejected Branhamism had said that it was Heresy, the FGBMI led by Dima Shakerian would still invite Branham as often keynote speakers, right? Well as that foundation's being laid, you had people like Word of Faith leaders, T.L. Osborne, Kenneth Hagen, were Full Gospel Businessmen. They were in these conferences hearing these things and it would be very

difficult to say that the leadership of all of the movements that developed into the Charismatic Renewal into New Apostolic Reformation today, it would be very difficult to say that none of them had encountered Branhamism. And so whenever I talk about the foundation that's being laid, I'm talking about that but more specifically what you and I have are special insights into the language and that's really where it gets key. We're going to be getting into that some today.

but there are things that Brannum says as loaded language that if you understand what he's saying and then compare it to the modern New Apostolic Reformation movement, you'll say, well, wait a minute. They're saying the exact same thing and many of them have rejected Brannum, how openly rejected him, right? So when Brannum is saying things like the spoken word or read between the lines of the Bible, think about today's modern New Apostolic Reformation. You need fresh revelation, there's hidden wisdom, download from heaven. The language is different, the theological framework may be somewhat different, but at its root, at its core, they're saying

the same exact things, they've just repositioned it. Now enter into the idea of the manifested sons of God, which we have clearly shown Brannum was teaching, and think about Joel's army. There are people today who are historians I've read through some of their articles, and they kind of stop where the Joel's army ends in Latter-Rain, skip Brannum, and then come out in IHOP KC, International House of Prayer in Kansas City, and they've totally missed that what Brannum was laying was actually the roots of this, because Brannum taught a pre-tribulation rapture, and IHOP KC did not, they taught that we're going to go conquer the world. But if you understand

the language, Brannum is saying the same thing, so I'm excited to get into this today. There's so many things that I have wanted to say that I really needed a good overview, a good summary, and you know, through the content, through the course of what you and I have been laying down in the past few episodes, I think we've reached that point where we can kind of let this be the explosion. It's just going to rock the worlds of many of these people who have no idea where this doctrine comes from. Welcome back, John. It's great to be back here with you and going through these

wrap-up of what we're talking about with adoption, and you know, we've come a long way. We're now an episode eight, and probably got one more after this. We're just going through step-by-step, and I really took my time on this, because I want everybody to really understand, and I'm sure you can get down to the roots of it. I've just seen where you and Charles are going to cover the roots of the latter rain, where it all originated, and you know, William Brown's thought, you know, was right in line with latter rain, was right in line with their beliefs, and what they believe God was fixing

to do with the church and making her an invincible army, and to go out and conquer, and conquer everything in their path. So I'm just good to be back here discussing the subject, and because it's very important to today's world that we live in. And so what we're going to do is discuss here further how William Brown really had to twist the scriptures to make it say what he wanted to rather than what the scripture actually says line by line.

And I'm going to start with some, say, and some pretty hard things here in this episode, especially for those who follow William Brannum, or are still in the message. But I want to say out front, I've got nothing against brother Brannum, and I'd like to give him every benefit of the doubt, which I did as I was even coming out of the message.

I tried to give him every benefit of the doubt since he was seemingly a sincere minister. But I have no scriptural reason now to believe him, no matter if he could discern somebody's diseases.

And even if it was a God-given gift, that really proves nothing in regard to whether you're called to teach scripture or whether you are a prophet or not. We know for a fact that really none, if I can recall any of his prophecies were ever coming to pass, as far as we can tell.

And William Brannum may have done this as well as other ministers, made statements, which may have been revelations from God for all I know on things that would happen to ministry. And one thing I can say is maybe I've seen other ministers, I've even seen Paul Cain in one of his services.

I was actually in a service toward the latter end of his career, where he had wrote out some revelations from the Lord. And he read them off there about different people's diseases and sicknesses and called them out.

So these things aren't unique to William Brannum's ministry, other ministers seem to have some type of gift or maybe it was all not done legitimately, but whatever the reasons, he was not unique in doing that.

So we don't regard those folks today as prophets either, because we've seen a lot of problems with their ministries. And I want you to listen to some statements on how William Brannum really read scripture, how he felt like he could interpret scripture.

In 1953, in Israel and the church number two, he said, if you read the word right like this here, it's all right, and he's talking about just reading the plain meaning of scripture, he said, it's all right, but you sure missed the meanings of it.

The word is written between the lines. And then he says in 1953, a couple of months later, he says, I can read between the lines. Now there's a whole lot of it, a lot of that.

So in this great love story of the Bible, he said, read between the lines. 1953, just a month later, he said, say, there's a little between the line, you have to read in the Bible, do you believe that?

And also in 1953 in November, he seemed to be really majoring on trying to read between the lines of scripture. And maybe that's why in 1953, most of the people were trying to leave him.

He said, you have to read between the lines to get the Bible a lot of times. to get the Bible correct a lot of times. He also said in 54 in January, he said, now you who are a spiritual read between the lines, and also a couple months later in 54, he said, now when you become in love with Christ, that's the way you read the Bible. It's in between the lines.

You get what he's talking about, the real spiritual meaning. In 1954, we, just a few days later, he said, do you believe the Bible is written so you have to read between the lines? As I've said, you read between the lines, not the lines is right, but there's between the lines.

And here's another one in 1956, two years later, he said, now if we open our Bibles, he said, we know this is text, which he's talking about, the very text of scripture. And he says, and God has a context, wrote between the lines, you see. So over and over again, we in Brantum really interpreted the scripture the way he wanted to interpret them. He didn't just say what God said in his word. He was always put in his own spin on things. And he felt like he had the authority to do that. He felt like he was infallible as we read in the Church Age book a couple of times back.

He felt like he had the power of infallibility and felt like his ministry was so prophetic that it fulfilled so many scriptures that he would bring out that this was God's timing to do all these things. And especially now is we're in adoption series that he's preaching on. He felt like it was God's timing to bring the Church to where he said he could place them in their adoption, which we know the Bible doesn't teach a future type of adoption other than the final culmination of our adoption, which of course is the body change. But it's not that God has taken us out and given us

some special powers to go back and unleash something upon the earth in that adoption. That was just the final culmination where we're going to be with the Lord forever. So I don't place too much faith in, you know, AI these days, but it is quite interesting. And I've posted pretty good questions to it such as these statements above here that I've just read. And listen to how AI after it's gone through its searches and all the things that it can access, how it interprets this. He said, what way in Brannum is really sane in plain English? He said, the Bible's actual words, the text, are not

enough. The true meaning is hidden between the lines. Only God, through a prophet, i.e. Brannum himself, can reveal the secret, the spiritual meaning. Normal grammar, history, and context don't matter. God will give you a private revelation that overrides the plain reading. And AI says, this is classic cult leader language. It is the number one way every false prophet neuters the Bible and replaces it with his own voice.

Historical red flags in the same line of thinking every major cult leader has used this exact same line. Joseph Smith used it said the Bible's translated wrong I'll give you the real meaning. Ellen G. White said I saw a vision and this is what the verse really means. Mary Baker, Eddie, Jim Jones, David Kuresh even all claimed the Bible has a secret layer that they can only unlock. So the bottom line here is Bradham Statement, the AI is saying is 100% anti-biblical, anti-reformation and the official gateway drug to every cult. Don't trust what you read. Of course, is what they tell you. Don't trust what you're reading in the

Bible. I only trust what I tell you. It really means. So I won't message believers who hear this series to know I'm not in any way trying to be little you know way in Bradham or anybody else's ministry but I feel so strongly that I have a duty to present these errors since I was caught up in it you know for so many years over 30 years and many of my family still remains caught up in the cult. I want to see all of them free so I've got a vested interest in presenting these things for the benefit of them either now or in the future.

It's interesting you say that a few weeks back I put out a little video talking about how you can use the power of AI to investigate some of these cult groups and was going to you know go through a series of training people how to use it.

I don't think people realize the power of what that is doing because not many people have an IT mind they can't really think through how a database works but if you understand that it's basically like using Google. Google indexes all of these different websites and it creates a database containing all the text of the website so when you do a Google search it's been using a form of AI for years they just kind of released it. People are familiar with Google and they they don't condemn it or think it's demonic but there's this fear of using AI the

power of it however is exactly what you're talking about. It has indexed and cataloged and introduced keywords and searchable context across all of random sermons. So if you are doing a Google search on random sermons you're going to find exactly what you're looking for. If you're doing an AI search you're going to find the same thing. The difference is because of the keywords it knows by understanding the words and phrases it can actually read some of the loaded language that I was talking about which is interesting and it's very powerful because if you weren't in the brand of movement and you are unfamiliar

with the loaded language you would read one of his sermons and you would not pick up on all of the many things that are being said today in the new Apostolic Reformation because it's not your loaded language. The NAR has introduced a new loaded language and when you understand the new loaded language and you leave it you think oh my gosh that's demonic.

do this to my head. Well, remember, they did the same thing in Brannemism. It is a cult that matches all of the cult structures. You can look at Dr. Stephen Hassen's bite model of authoritarian control. Brannem meets the exact criteria. Well, AI has indexed everything that matches that criteria. So it knows. So whenever you're trying to find out, manifest sons of God, how does it tie back to Brannemism? What is different between today and Brannemism?

It'll give you a clear picture. Here's what Brannem taught. Here's what they teach today. Here's the intersection, which is my focus. But then it will go beyond that and show you. And here's how it developed so far worse built on top of his framework. This is a very powerful tool.

If you want to do it the hard way, which I did for the first, I don't know, AI was only recently coming out. So almost a decade. I went through and I just read through the sermons over and over and over again and tried to manually pick up indexes and keywords.

And you kind of get a feel if you read it enough, you kind of get a feel for, here's where he's telling the truth, here's where he's lying, here's where he's planting a seed that he's going to later insidiously come back in and inject a doctrine. And it's a lot of work.

You can do it manually, but using tools like AI or Google searches, you can speed this up. But in the end, the roadmap goes to the same place. If you understand the architecture of what was being presented by the leadership and the movement, not just Brannem. You're talking Gordon Lindsay, who is a Christian identity leader, who's speaking in Christian identity conferences.

At the time, Christian identity had turned racist. Look at Brannem's mentor, Roy Davis, part of also Christian identity, but a ranking leader of the clan. So you've got all these different influences, some of them good, some of them bad.

You have people in the United Pentecostal Church who, whether they want to admit it or not, in the early years, they were working with Brannem. So he's got influences of Pentecostals, influences of racist regimes. He's got influences of even some scholarly, respected people. You can go through the lineup of who he mentions in his sermon.

Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. Charles Fuller, a guy he's mentioned many times, founded the Fuller Theological Seminary. C. Peter Wagner was, you know, that's where he was teaching. And when he came in contact with John Wember, John Wember, or helped birth, the charismatic renewal, the Jesus people movement, all of this stuff, you can find these trails of history that lead back. And it's not that they all believe the same thing. But there was this cross-pollination that was going on. And if you understand the loaded language of that cross-pollination, which we're getting into in this podcast, you can see why these people chose the path that they

did. And if you really understand, stand the intersection of what Brandon was saying when he says, read between the lines of the Bible, that's the key. You learn, here's what is biblical, here's what is extrabiblical.

And then watch the extrabiblical thing as it progresses through time to basically turn into what is the New Apostolic Reformation's core foundation. So when you separate the two and you realize that the foundation of the NAR was built on extrabiblical theology, you have to ask, was this really a Christian movement?

Because Christianity would be built upon the Bible, not something that isn't written in the Bible. So true, so true, so John, to get into this today, we're gonna first explain probably how William Brownem got his teaching on adoption in his mind and justified it.

First, he was fully persuaded after he had encountered Roy Davis and all the old teachings from back in those days about the race issue. He was fully persuaded about the serpency to start with.

And then the manifest sons of God, doctrine and the latter-rained teachings that he got in contact with early on when his ministry just exploded on the scene. You know, second, he took secular adoptions in the Roman society.

You know, he used their process of adoption and some of the things within that in the secular society. And then he used that as a type of the Bible teaching and he believed the Bible teaching on adoption should follow the secular.

And I, he kind of got it backwards there because really secular usually follows what the Bible's teaching not the other way around. So we should never rely on secular society to try to explain a Bible doctrine to us or even to say it types a Bible doctrine.

But even then, William Brownem only understood the secular in a partial way as we're gonna see. His ultimate motive was really to energize the church in around his miracle ministry that he preached it to them with a belief that they, one day, would become God's with special powers on the earth.

You know, if we look back in the Old Testament, there's, brother Brownem always talked about, don't you know about the law of adoption, law of adoption? Well, in the Old Testament, it doesn't contain really specific laws of adoption, but described instances where adoption did occur.

But in Bible times, you know, adoption really had a twofold meaning. You know, the first people used the word adoption really Israel did to describe a stranger coming into the family and being recognized as a son, as part of the family as anybody else that was born in the family.

The second way they used the word was in the legal public ceremony with a son who was already adopted, you know, he was recognized publicly as an heir and adopted child became the legitimate heir to his father's estate.

And because there may have been multiple sons born in the family, but one was placed as the heir. So the family treated the... adoptee as if they had been born into their family, and then they had legal rights, same as biological children.

But the Bible doesn't show any difference between roles or responsibilities of an adopted child or a biological child. In God's eyes of the law, adopted families are just as real as biological ones.

The statement that Brother Brown was making about the law of adoption is technically true in the Roman Greek adoption law, which is the cultural background that Paul was growing up in. But it's really dangerously misleading when it's applied to new testament adoption by God of his children.

And it's exactly the half truth, you know, that Brother Brown exploited to invent his two-stage adoption or placing of a sun error. So I'll break this down, line by line with what the Bible says.

The second way they used the word was in the legal public ceremony where the sun, who was already adopted, was recognized as an error. So I mentioned that above. And Roman law, you know, in some provinces, there was two steps for elite families.

First, first was step one, the private legal act of adoption that was adopted to you. The child was brought or transferred to the family. In step two, which was years later, around the age of 14 to 16, was a public ceremony called a Togo Verilis, where the boy was put on an adult Togo and was publicly declared air with full rights.

And that was in Roman society. But as we said, it was never in Bible, it's never in the Bible that way. The biblical reality here is Paul never uses this two-stage model that he even grew up in to refer to a Bible adoption.

You know, you would think Paul would use the same illustration, which he did, he used like running the race with patience. He used many ideas from Roman society in his epistles. But he never used that two-stage model when he's talking about God adopting the believer.

He only uses a single instantaneous, irrevocable Roman adoptio that happened at one moment with immediate full rights. So if Paul didn't use that two-stage version that Brandon was using, then I think neither should we.

And Paul certainly had the full revelation of what God was doing in the church and in believers at the time. I'm 100% sure of that. The proof here is that in Bible proof is Romans 8.15.

It says, you have received, now have received is in the aeorist tense. It refers to a one-time finished act. He says, you have received the spirit of adoption. All right, Galatians 4.5 is that, says that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Jesus Christ was crucified so that we might receive the adoption of sons. Again, in the Greek, it's the aeorist tense. which means a one-time finished act, nothing in the future to come. Ephesians 1.5 said, having predestined us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ. Now, what Jesus Christ did was complete it at the cross that, mixed with faith, produces an adopted son. Paul deliberately skips any public ceremony or later recognition because the moment you believe adoption is 100% complete and public in heaven recognized by God. An adopted child number two, point number two,

will go through this Roman ceremony. We could say an adopted child became the legitimate heir to the father's estate after he went to this public ceremony and legal rights, the same as biological children. Now, we can say that's 100% true, but that's Paul's whole point. In Roman law, the adopted son instantly erased his own family name and debt of the out. He instantly became co-equal heir with all rights and that could never be disinherited. You know, unlike biological sons, they could actually be disinherited. His past was legally obliterated. Paul screams this in Roman's 817 when he says, if children then heirs. You know, if we are already children of God,

we're heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Galatians 4.7 says, wherefore, once you believed in Jesus Christ by faith, there are no more servant, but you're a son. And if a son, you're an heir of God through Christ. You don't become an heir through some later public ceremony where you get the full rights and things that God's going to bestow upon you with some kind of ceremony. There's no waiting period here. There's no second ceremony and no probationary period that you've got to go through as we'll see William Brandham teaches.

So is there ever a later recognition as an heir after the new birth? We can say emphatically that no, not according to Paul or Paul's teaching. The only future event that Paul even mentions is the redemption of the body in Romans 823 as we mentioned. That's the resurrection of the glorification at the rapture. You know, that's not a new level of sonship there. It's not even a public ceremony. It's the public revelation of what we already are in Christ.

Romans 819 says this, the earnest expectation of the creature waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. This is the unveiling of the sons who were already adopted. It's not a second ceremony adoption. Here's how Brandham twisted the exact statement here. He took the provincial two-stage Roman custom. So he went back to Roman customs, which Paul we showed had ignored. And he said, you were born again. He said, that's the private adoption.

Then he said, now wait for the public placing of The Sun ceremony where God puts a robe on you and gives you authority. So he was taking something in the Roman society and bringing it into biblical, you know, to make it try to seem biblical.

But actually it's 100% unbiblical. Paul would even call it another gospel. And it's clear that the biblical timeline of adoption is, you have a past, present, and future. In the past, before you were adopted, you actually had to believe.

But instantly you were given full, irrevocable, adopted as adult sounds with full rights. In the present time, after you've been saved, you're now seated with Christ, you're a joint heir, and you already have full authority.

You find that in Ephesians 2, verse 6, or Romans 8, verse 17. In the future, your body, of course, is redeemed. The whole universe sees what you already were, and you will be changed in the moment and the twinkling of an eye at some point in the future.

Or you'll be raised from the dead if you're dead in Christ. And that's in Romans 8, 23, 8, 19, or first John 3, 2. So the final answer on all these things we've been talking about here is that the statement is a culturally half-right by what Brannum is saying is culturally that way, but theologically is 100% wrong.

When it's used to teach a later placing or recognition after the new birth, the Bible only teaches one adoption, and that's instantaneous, it's complete, and it's final the moment you're born again. So John, William Brannum's teaching an adoption in this instant clearly did not line up with scripture.

So we're going to go through some quotes here in just a minute and show that very clearly. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

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

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

And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

I remember the surprise that I had when somebody sent me a list of the collection of sermons that Joseph Matzen-Bose, who was a ranking leading member of the... Laterane movement from the Philadelphia Church in Chicago, from his office, from his desk, he had this collection of sermons of William Brannum and they were entitled something to the effect important sermons by Brannum or something like this.

And I never really had considered that because all throughout his ministry, Brannum says that he disagrees with Laterane, he has moved on beyond this. There was a point of intersection and even in the comment feed, you'll see people who say, Brannum was never part of the Laterane.

But it's more insidious than this because if you understand the history, there's a point of time in which Laterane and the healing revival is merged and you can find big Laterane names that are all working together, not just Joseph Mats and Bozay, but you're going to find oral Roberts and Allen, all of these guys are kind of coming together.

When there's this point where the lines get really blurred, Laterane is starting to separate and become its own thing. The healing revival is all the ministries have grown so big that one single movement can't really contain it.

Each one is wanting to create their own movement because there's more money in that if they're the head of the movement, Brannum being one of them. And they start to separate and all of these movements grow into this massive thing that turned in many of them spun off into cults.

Others, you know, oral Roberts went to found oral Roberts University has big influence in Charismania. So you've got this convergence, then you've got this separation. Well, what happens is eventually as the ministries outgrew the movement, they started to realize that there's so many different doctrines and many of the ministries weren't aligned in doctrine and they started condemning each other.

Brannum being one of the most condemned because he's one of the ones who preached so much between the lines that it became actually quite difficult to understand what was biblical teaching and what was just esoteric nonsense that he was saying.

And eventually Brannum gets condemned for his theology and for his part in sparking the Laterane Revival, the Laterane movement. And as he is condemned, he starts to get sanctioned by all of these different groups and they all snub him.

Well, Joseph Matz and Bozeh did not and in fact, Bozeh and Jim Jones of People's Temple, they started to try to work together to rebuild Brannum's ministry for a period of time till Jones saw that the whole thing was hogwash and he left it.

But Bozeh, Matz and Bozeh and AJ Rasmussen, who founded the independent assemblies of God, they continued throughout the rest of his Brannum's ministry to support and promote him. Anyways, this guy sent me this list of the important sermons that is now kept in the Fuller Theological Seminary. It's the only place you can get it and I have tried to get in there and it's very difficult for me to get in because I'm not a student.

If any of you listening are students at the Fuller Theological Seminary, I would love to have a little bit more insight knowledge on Joseph Mats and Bozé and his work with Jim Jones. But anyway, one of the most important sermons that Bozé felt was an important sermer of Brannum was the Palmer Worm, the Kanker Worm, the Caterpillar.

Brannum had the series of sermons like this and I didn't understand really the depth of how important that was until I started to understand International House of Pyrrhen Kansas City, the Joe's Army doctrine, Brannum is teaching Joe's Army and he's got a series of sermons that is the manifested sons of God, Joe's Army, future army.

But he is using loaded language that doesn't quite match up to what is the New Apostolic Reformation. New Apostolic Reformation would say it's the in-time church, the kingdom take over. Joe's Army, these kind of things, Brannum never really calls it that but he is suggesting that there is a future coming army and in Brannum's esoteric worldview, there is going to be a pre-tribulation rapture in which he himself is going to give people, be part of the giving people of their new bodies in a tent revival.

He mentions this to my grandfather. He doesn't really go beyond this, he doesn't really talk about what happens afterwards. What the New Apostolic Reformation have done, they have taken where Brannum left off. Brannum basically built you up to believe that he would have one last revival then Jesus would come in his tent in this little room, you would get your new body and from there to eternity.

That's kind of where it left off. Many are just picked up and ran with what happens in between this. They have like Brannum was injecting words in between the lines of the Bible, the New Apostolic Reformation leaders, many of whom were very familiar with Brannum's teachings, took what Brannum said as the end of day's roadmap and just injected their own theology in between where Brannum ended and where heaven begins.

That's where it gets really interesting because if you take away everything that Brannum taught on this, it's very difficult for New Apostolic Reformation leaders to inject it into that end of day's theology and yet at the same time because Brannum's theology is so different and because many of these groups have rejected him, well the historians look at it and they think there's no way they built on top of Brannum.

It's quite untrue if you understand that Brannum is speaking in these conventions for the rest of his life until 1965 when he dies, he is speaking in these conventions. When he dies, people like T.L. Osborne gave the address that William Brannum's memorial service and said we have just seen God, I can't remember how he words it, but basically God human flesh is what he says, and he prefaces with, you might think I'm sacrilegious if I say that God was in this little man here, but he's doing this in a four gospel businessman's convention.

So what happens is they're teaching the same thing, they're believing that William Brannum was God's voice to the church, but then Brannum died. And so what happens next, you have to figure out, well, what do we do?

This man who's telling us all of the hidden esoteric knowledge of God that's written in between the lines of the Bible, he's died. We have to figure out what that is or our movement's dead.

So they started injecting their own ideas, and that's kind of how it gets into where this is heading. That's right, John. And this doctrine has been proliferated in the message, and people are actually believing it.

And it's fallen in, of course, in the Laterane, New Epistock Reformation, they're believing in some great future army to rise up and take control through God. They're doing it a little different way than William Brannum teaches it.

But it's all, this doctrine is just polluted, and it's dangerous for Christians to believe. But as I've read, we'll see how pervasive William Brannum is in his teaching, how he explains it, how he invokes scripture, which is a twisted thought about how the scripture, what it's really saying, and then makes it sound plausible to the people.

And in this sense, it's something to read here, he even evokes his good friend, he calls him, Dr. Bosworth, to agree with him. So we'll read this quote. It was a 1951, and that's one of the first places I've seen where William Brannum talks about this adoption.

He says, I believe that we're all baptized with the Holy Spirit brought into the body. And then we become sons, but after then we become sons, there's placing of sons, or the adoption of sons.

He was born in Israel, then after eight days he was circumcised, becoming Israelite, but he was born of the father. And then if that child was given a tutor, and they're here, he invokes scripture, he says Galatians teaches us, then after he was raised up to a certain age and become very faithful to the father's work and everything, he was a very fine boy, eligible to follow air.

You see how he's having to do works to get to that point where he can be in here. He said, now the father didn't know what he would be when he was born. He might be a gangster.

He might be a slothful in the father's business. He couldn't turn to kingdom and his things. His work over to that boy, but when that boy proved to be a right boy and the tutor, which is our case, is the Holy Spirit.

So here he's now changed scripture calculations as only saying the law was the tutor and the governor given to Israel to really bring us to Christ. The Gentiles were never given as such a tutor as that.

The law was there, but in the Gentiles it didn't even exist. We become adopted by God by the new birth. Israel polished just a looting that the law was given as... the tutor and the governor until Christ could come, so they could be adopted.

So he says, Galatians teaches us that, which is, you know, totally not true, all right? He said, which in our case, the Holy Spirit takes the Word to the Father, then if we found to be faithful, he said, the Holy Spirit takes the Word to the Father and gives a report of what we do, then if we be found faithful for so long, now how long a time climb that will be, we don't know, like the child was, then it was taken out in a public square and a purple robe was put on him.

And there was a law of adoption. Now, in Israel, that wasn't the case. You know, they did have a bar mitzvah, maybe the coming of age, where the child was recognized to be a son of the law, but it was never a law of adoption.

That was only enrollment society where they possibly would do that. And then that boy was adopted the same as his father who gave him birth, and he was brought into the family. And then he wasn't only a son, he was an heir, a co-ear with the father of every possession that he had.

He said, did you ever study that, Dr. Bosworth, now he only evoked Dr. Bosworth there to try to get people to see that he was, we're trying to get them to believe that he was actually teaching a Bible doctrine here, but he was so far off a scripture, and this was 1951, and he carries this all the way to 1965.

He never stops believing what he does, but I think even he stops preaching this around 62 in this way, because he had preached so many sermons called, like, here you him, and the voice of the sign, all these things that talked about Mount Transfiguration, and after he preached so many messages on that, he referred to it over 100 times, but he actually stopped that, and he eventually started preaching the full manifestation toward that time when he said, it's bride time.

So here's another quote we'll read, and this is in 1953, he said, across the river they went, he said, what will you ask? I wish we had time to take up, before this, the law of adoption.

Pentecost was born, that's right, like the son, but the same son born in the family had to be adopted also, that's right, and there he goes back to the Roman society rules. He said, and there were you Mr. Calling, friend, when the adoption time come, if the tutor that raised the child, found the child not worthy, they actually still remained a son, but missed their adoption.

But if they was adopted into family, then they was in full fellowship with any check that they wrote, just as good as what their daddy wrote, that's what's the matter today, brother. The church ought to be in adoption right now, bringing into the full favors of God, but the thing were ups and downs and ins and outs and ups and downs and ins, and out till God can't trust us with nothing hardly.

So here you go, you got to be an adopted son, you've got to really show yourself trustworthy to the father, otherwise he can't take you out to that second stage. We got another quote in 1954.

or he said, God adopted his own son. Now, here's where he's getting in to trying to relate this to Mt. Transfiguration. When Peter, when he took him up, he took Peter James and John as a witness in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established.

He went up there and God overshadowed Christ, the Holy Spirit, overshadowed Christ, and his raiment, shine like the sun, is that right? And God said, this is my beloved son, here he is. In other words, there he is.

What he says is all of it. And he was given equal, of course. It was God, but God in the flesh of Jesus Christ manifested himself to the people, and there God adopted his own son.

So, it's like God had to give Jesus something so he would have full authority. But I'll tell you straight out, that word logos, which was God himself, was born in Christ as a baby.

So, he wasn't needing to give full authority. You know, the logos, when he grew up and he was found in fashion as a man, he chose to humble himself and become subject to his parents, subject to being in humanity.

But it was fully God. So, God didn't have to adopt that son. The son was already the son with four rights. Now in 1955, he said, now under the law, order the Old Testament, which is a type of today, this, the new God in a family of man, when a child was born in the family, as soon as the boy was born, he was the son of the family.

The father loved him, of course. And then if you get over in Galatians and so forth, see, he really didn't take time to explain it and read it. He just says, go see Galatians.

But if you read Galatians, you can't get this out of Galatians. He says, you can read, what are the adoption and so forth, the placing of sons? So, he's alluding the scripture, but he really obviously never really studied on the scripture.

He's trying to take the scripture where it does talk about adoption and try to prove his point here. But he only takes scripture. And as we said, he's trying to say, you gotta listen to what I say.

I've read between the lines. I understand what it means, but we don't find that in the plain reading scripture neither did Paul write it that way. So we see how William Brennan over and over in these early quotes in 1951, and it was only four years after he started his ministry all the way up where I can find the last time where he spoke of it in November of 62.

He never stopped believing it that way, the way he taught it. In the exposition of Seven Church Ages, which came a little after, he said, Jesus Christ came forth, died upon the Christ, accomplished redemption, restoring to the original owner by means of a purchase or paying the price, and thereby placed us as a son.

He did not make us sons, for we were already his sons, but he placed us his sons. That's just another illusion to say that, you know, we were already sons of God in the beginning when we came out and lived upon this earth, and all Jesus did was buy us back to place us as a son eventually.

It kind of downplays to cross. It's quite interesting quote. here because William Bram is saying that believers were already sons prior to Jesus dying. And what Christ did on the cross, of course, was just to place us, not to make us God's sons, which Christ actually did, because we were not sons prior to the new birth.

We were children of wrath, as everybody was. I want to pause right there because that's one of the things that I'm talking about exactly. When I talk about the foundation, the architecture that was laid, this is what the NAR built upon.

We were children of wrath. You don't have to be a theologian. You can read the Bible yourself. If you read the New Testament, you find many passages talking about that exact language. And what is it saying?

It's saying we were children of wrath. We needed a savior. Jesus came and the gospel. That's the sequence of events. We needed a savior. Jesus came and that's the good news. That is the gospel.

But in Branamism, in the foundation he was laying, it isn't that. It's that we were not really recognizing who we were. We were more than this. We were not children of wrath from the beginning.

We were like gods. We were, when he talks about the spoken word, the manifestants of God, he's saying in the beginning was the thought that was expressed. Well, we were in that thought that was expressed.

Therefore, we were more than this. And so he completely rejects the idea that we're children of wrath. And instead, what he tries to say is that we were like Jesus in the beginning. Jesus came and he was less than a deity when he came to earth.

And therefore, we are the same equal in deity as he was. And he won't come out in explicit terms and say that, because he real recognizes that's heretical. But what he does is he leads you to believe this, over and over again throughout his manifestants of God teaching.

He's trying to say you are like gods without actually saying you are like gods. It's maybe a couple of places he does say it. But in the end, what he's doing is he's building this up.

And then he projects himself as the greater God before the people. He says, the Elijah of the last days is the Lord Jesus Christ, not a man but God in the flesh. And he tries to project the superiority of this Elijah figure who he has taught his people to believe is himself.

So in the New Apostolic Reformation, that's how this fits like a glove. Because it isn't that you needed a savior. It's that you needed to, you needed this adoption. You were already part of being this elite body, this Joe's army.

You had forgotten who you were. You needed Jesus to come to remind you who you were. So what they've done is they've changed the word children of wrath. They've changed it to deities from the beginning.

And taken the gospel where you needed a savior, savior, salvation. Salvation becomes not salvation. It becomes instead a memory that was lost. who you were. I'm going to quote a scripture here is found in Ephesians 2, 11 to 13.

Remember that you being in past times Gentiles in the flesh, that at the time you were without Christ being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus, you are sometimes a far-offer made nigh by the blood of Christ. So now if the Bible says you had no hope, and that's what it means, you had no hope.

You were not a son waiting for a manifestation of Christ. You were actually dead. And there was no eternal seed in you at that time. But when God performed that resurrection on you and you became his adopted son into the family, then you became a seed.

And because at the new birth, the Word of God comes through you, through the spirit of Christ coming in you. Then you can say you were his child, but you know, you can't really say that before you were born again.

And that's what makes God so great and a salvation so special and what Jesus did for us so glorious. And we should all say it's all to the glory of God. Ephesians 2 1 said, and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, among whom we've had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling desires of the flesh and of the mind.

And we were by nature children of wrath even as others. But it was God who was rich and mercy. For his great love were with he loved us. Even when we were dead in sins, he quickened us together with Christ by grace you were saved.

He raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And that's exactly it, right? What Brannum robbed from other heretics of days gone by, the leaders who were developing into, you know, the charismatic movement that what would become the New Apostolic Reformation, they're abusing passages like this, because Paul isn't talking about a future promotion or a special class of believers who will suddenly earn authority.

He's talking about a present spiritual reality that really belongs to every believer in the moment that they're in Christ. It isn't this us versus them where the elite group were the chosen ones. The chosen ones theme, you can only find this in a destructive cult.

In the body of Christ, there's one body. There's not multiple bodies with multiple different ranks of who's important and who's more spiritually elite. But that's what Brannum was building. This concept that teaches people to believe that they are the chosen ones, the spiritual elite.

So therefore, John, I think we see the Bible clearly says that, you know, we can't really claim that we were a child of God prior to our new birth, because we were dead. And a dead person can't raise himself up.

A dead person, God has to act on a dead person and put his life in them so they... come a child of God. This whole teaching about being children of God and having eternal life prior to coming to earth is totally out of line with Scripture.

Scripture over and over again will never say that. You never will find that in Scripture. But it's only because of the grace of God, God's mercy, God's choosing us. Jesus has worked on the cross that it all happens.

And therefore men, the Lord's our pride level. We can't come out with pride and say, we were always in God and we can claim Christ because of our pride. We have to humble ourselves and say, we were destitute, bankrupt, and had it not been for the grace of God.

We would never have chosen God ourselves. We would never have had the ability to choose God and to want to even be a part of his kingdom. But John, I think that says a lot right there and that's a lot of meat to digest at one time.

So I believe we'll stop right there, but the next one will be the climax of this whole thing and we'll continue on with our next episode and we'll try to finish this thing out.

But I think we've shown very clearly how this teaching and its origins, its roots is totally unscriptural. And we're gonna continue showing that through the next episode, John. Sounds good. The one thing I want to add to this is for the survivors who were part of this movement.

There's an aspect that not many people think about whenever they're looking at how this developed into the New Apostolic Reformation and that's from the survivor's point of view. When you escape this, you're part of a system that's teaching you that before the foundation of the world, you were this great thing.

You were perfect, you were like gods. That's really what this is trying to teach you. And then suddenly you forgot who you were, you've lost your way and Jesus came to remind you not to save you but to remind you of who you were.

That, if you follow all of this theology out to its logical conclusion, that's where it is. You did not need a savior, you needed a reminder. Well, the problem with this is, as humans, we have human flaws.

We have things that we, sometimes we can't even help but we do things that if you understand who you are as a human, you understand you have human nature and you're going to make human mistakes.

Well, as a deity, you shouldn't make those mistakes. And so what happens, especially in the youth that's growing up under this type of leadership, the youth begins to believe that they must not be part of this thing from the beginning because they're flawed.

They're flawed humans, like all humans. And the adults are so wrapped up tight into this theology and so hardcore adamant that before the foundation of the world you are God, so don't do these human things.

They totally forget the human element. And so the people who are... Listening who are adolescent teenagers, they're listening to these adults who are pretending that they're not humans and they're thinking, oh my gosh, how are they doing it?

And I'm not doing it, I must be lost, I must not be worth anything. I have known people like this and I've known people that they left religion all together because they thought they weren't good enough.

That's the type of mentality that this type of religion brings and it really comes down to this. It's because they're teaching something that isn't the salvation plan of the Bible, the one where you were nothing and Jesus came to pick you up, to adopt you, to save your soul.

It's not that, it's a, again, it's a reminder of who you were and if you don't believe that inwardly you can't live this life that nobody can live because we're all humans. Inwardly you start to think, well I must not be part of this so I must not be part of this body of Christ, I must be of the evil kind.

And it leads people down paths of destruction that I have seen the consequences in some people that they were close friends to me and I watched what their life became because of this. Thankfully some of them have actually now started to enter into Christian churches and they're starting to hear the real thing, not the fake thing that's being taught and that's really the highlight of this entire episode that I want to point out.

It is the fake thing that's being taught and it's like fool's gold. Yes it shines like gold, yes it may look like gold but it's not actually gold. It's something fake and it's meant as a distraction to you.

So my point in all of this is don't listen to the description. This is a very unhealthy distraction and we'll pick up and we'll go a little bit deeper next time. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of Roy Davis and William-Branum you can read the persuasive preacher, the gifted prophet and the noble politician and for more about the new apostolic reformation and Christian identity you can read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR.

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