Resurrection Theology Tested- The Night Hobart Freeman Died

Hello, 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, Chenel Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Chenel de Ross YouTube channel. Chenel, I hate to say it, but I am incredibly excited for this episode. There is a specific moment in time when you're looking at one of these destructive groups, when you reach the climax and then it's like this atomic blast goes off, and when the atomic blast

happens, you got this big nuclear fallout, there's this moment in time where you wonder what happened in between the fallout and the blast, and that's what we're getting into today. So Hobart, we've gone all the way through his death. Now he's dead. Well, what happens on the next day?

And I would love to go back in time. I wish I had your equivalent, and somebody out there I'm certain could do it, but in the Branham cult, the day after Branham died, what happened?

Yeah, it would be fun to be the man on the switchboard in the old days of the telephone company, right? And you could just listen in to all of the conversations that occurred after this atomic blast. The atomic blast was Dr. Freeman's death on December the 8th of 1984, and his death was a watershed moment in the history of his ministry and the history of faith assembly. It was a watershed moment in his life because he died. It was a watershed moment in that whole movement because you could feel that this is probably the beginning of the end.

The end didn't come soon enough, in my opinion, but it was at least the beginning of the end. And you know, prior to Dr. Freeman's death, they had their share of problems. We documented all of the legal and medical and state legislature problems that faith assembly was experiencing all during the calendar year from January through December of 1984. And people had already begun to leave the church. I mean, folks were filing out so many people had died. There were just pressure from every direction. From the me- from your neighbors and friends, from your relatives.

And if that's not enough, you have all of this pressure from the pulpit to line up and to be in one accord with faith assembly, regardless of everything that's getting ready to come down on them.

There just was a lot of pressure at faith assembly. If you would rewind just 10 years, I've often said, from 1984 to 1974, that whole church was a different church. Doesn't mean everything was good or right, but it was way better in 1974.

You're supposed to, as you age, you get better, but in religious cults, they just get far, far worse. They can start off with a leader who's a little bit arrogant and talks a lot about himself, but he also cracks a lot of jokes and everybody laughs.

And so you don't really see what there is to be seen. You're missing what should be obvious, but you can't quite see it because you still got fun times in the church. Things are happening allegedly, and the minister is not putting everybody under too much bondage or pressure, so you feel pretty good.

But by early 1984, things were not pretty good. You know, I actually had a conversation, John, two, three years ago, two and a half years ago now, in 2023, with Jeff Barnett, who a phone conversation, and Jeff was one of the main ministers, what I call tier one ministers at faith assembly.

He was not married into the family, but Hobart had prophesied over him early, like in 1970 maybe early, had given him a prophecy that he was going to be called into the ministry and blah, blah, blah.

And so Jeff had some clout. He became one of the teachers there. And so through a mutual person we know, I had wanted to talk to Jeff and this person let Jeff know, hey, Cheno wants to talk to you, here's his number.

And so Jeff called me in the summer of 2023. I don't think Jeff would call me today because I don't think he is probably happy with the progress we've made on the podcast and everything that's been said.

I think there'd be some differences of opinion and some disagreements. But anyway, when he called me, we were just talking about the last days of faith assembly. And Jeff said then, and Jeff should know, he was one of the top leaders there.

He said, well, Cheno, we were up to about maybe 2400 in membership at faith assembly, but he said, we'd lost several hundred members. By that last year, and no one counted, they didn't count.

you could kind of tell by the number of chairs, so many people sat in this section because it was divided up in sections and so many rows over here. He said we were probably down to about maybe 2000 people.

And then obviously after Hobart dies that this big watershed moment, you know that you're gonna have more dropouts after his death. And the reason that that was to be expected, although the number was not nearly as high as I thought it should have been, was because of the way Dr. Freeman died.

I think if he had, you know, died as a healthy person, you probably wouldn't have had, you probably would have seen growth in the church instead of fall off in numbers. But his death by multiple diseases, which we have talked about and which people can take a glance at the coroner's verdict, which is a legal document that the coroner, Gary Eastland put out, sign dated, sealed, gave his report.

You can see all of the diseases and the physical problems that Hobart had. So when you die by disease of all kinds and of in the worst possible fashion, when you have taught a message of 100% divine healing, then you have a problem on your hands.

I mean, you should have a problem on your hands or should be a very, very obvious contradiction here. So there is a clip, John. I want us to listen to from a very old message of Dr. Freeman's.

The original number of the tape was F120. That stands for was under the faith category 120. And they ended up with somewhere up in the 180s, I think I would have to pull out an old tape list and look.

But F120 is an old message that was done a long time ago and it was actually done in 1974 and it was done at the glory barn and the title of the message was this overcoming Satan for your healing.

And I actually have, this is my cheat sheet one of many from years ago, this was from the 1980s when I would hear these messages and I would type up the an old manual typewriter.

I would type up the actual verbatim quote because you got to remember back in those days, you can't push, you know, find on the transcript and it locate every word for you. You have to push pause and copy down and push rewind and then play again and pause and that's how you come up with all of this stuff.

And so, you know, his prophecy against Bruce, his beef he had with me on the... He conflicts between Christ and Satan, tape 905, I just have all kinds of things. On this one, I also have the second side of the second tape he did on the restoration of biblical roles of husband and wife where he makes crazy statements like, he said Eve was came along two or three days after Adam was created before Eve ever came along.

You know, he's got just silly statements like that. And then he has really dangerous statements. That's a silly statement. I mean, we all know from Sunday's school, God created the world in six days.

And on the seventh day, he rested. Well, Hobart's got Eve come along somewhere later in the next week. But that's not what I'm wanting to talk about. That's just weird. He has lots of weird things.

He has Jesus with speaking in tongues, just like the early church spoken tongues. I can give you the exact place where he said Jesus spoken tongues. He has weird stuff that, you know, doesn't bother me.

You know, I wouldn't do a podcast over somebody making some weird statement. It's these dangerous ones where he's saying, God will always heal you if you pray 10 times for the same thing, favorite statement of his.

You've prayed nine times in unbelief. You'll never die believing, only doubting. We're gonna hear that in this clip. When you had, those are big claims. And then when you have it not fulfilled in your own life, then we have a huge problem.

So again, overcoming Satan for your healing from, it's a really short clip, 41 minutes and 15 seconds to 41 minutes and 50 seconds. Yeah, if you keep up your confession, the word of God, even if you go down to death's door, God will set you free.

He will honor his word. No one ever died believing. Don't you ever take anything congregate about to say, call confront Jesus with all confidence that I have not overstated the case? Amen. I can say that with all confidence.

That's a commended responsibility to make statement like that. That no one ever died believing. Amen. You only died doubt it. Don't you sit out there and try to think of people you know they got prayed for and died?

Then you're charging God with unfaithful. So that's one of these that I actually have from 40 years, 35 years ago, at least. The transcript typed up by my own little fingers back when I was in my 20s.

And so here's what he said. People heard it, but let's go over this. And think of this in light of the fact that he has just died last night. As you keep up your confession of the word of God and he's saying this in 1974, 10 years before he died.

Even if you go down to death's door, God will set you free. He will honor his word. No one ever died believing. Don't you ever take anything contrary to that statement? I'll confront Jesus with all confidence that I have not overstated the case, amen.

I can say with all confidence, and that's a tremendous responsibility to make such a statement like that that no one ever died believing you only die doubting.

Don't sit out there and try to think of people you know that got prayed for and died, then you're charging God with unfaithfulness.

So here's a man that said, you don't die believing only doubting and he died. So what in the world are we supposed to make of that? It's very good that we do have these recordings and that we can pull these statements off of them.

I wouldn't have to have it myself because I heard that over and over. That famous phrase, you never die believing only doubting. He says it on countless tapes, you never die believing, you only die doubting.

And yet he died. And so what in the world are the people going to be able to do with that? It's interesting to me that the word of faith movement, they don't really teach that by default because they know if you go down that area, you're gonna have people that talk negatively about you.

But many of them who go into the extremes, they get to that level where they think we're going to defeat death. We are the overcomers. And when you hear the overcomer doctrine being preached, nine times out of 10, if it's a destructive cult, they're gonna take it to that level eventually.

We're gonna overcome everything. I mentioned this in a podcast recently, but I first came in contact with all of this weird nonsense when I was reading and trying to understand your NAS against heresies, reading how the Nostics were taking Christian ideas, mixing them with ancient mythologies, and they were coming up with off-the-wall things like this.

One specific group, I had to laugh because they were gonna be overcomers as well. They were going to defeat death, all of this stuff. But the way that they were gonna do it is they weren't going to have sex.

And eventually, as you can expect, that cult died out because there were no offspring and nobody wanted to join the cult with no sex. So I got a little bit of laugh out of that, but at the same time, I was kind of sad because it shows to me that psychologically, there's an issue that happens when you become a cult leader.

You tend to believe your own nonsense and then you start spiraling out of control. And anybody who's had any sort of mental health experience or has mental health issues, you understand the spiraling out of control, how that can work.

You will go down pathways that is so far destructive that it's destroying your own head. Now picture a central figure who's doing this spiraling out of control and there's a whole audience of people going with him.

And that's... where for me it just gets really sad. And I would have expected whenever he did die and whenever he did die of all these diseases, that this would have been, this would have been a moment of reckoning for the whole church, a time of great eye opening where everyone can pick up their Bible and notebooks and leave the church.

But, you know, we know, we know, we know this is not the way these cults work. It's just not the way, I don't think it's the way our mind works. When you've already been in something so long, even when something is tragic like this happens, then you, you either find, you either are just dishonest about it or you find some way to rationalize or cope with it.

And so I think there was some dishonesty. At least, if not in commission and omission because the people that were there, Mrs. Freeman was there in the home. Pam and Kathy, the two daughters were there in the home.

The top aides and ministers like Jack Farrell and Stan Hill, the Sun and Law, Steve Hill, they were there. There were other ministers. I don't know the names of all of them. I only know of some of them.

They know the ministers who were there. See, the family who was there, they know who was there. And that's the time to, it's incumbent upon them to be honest with that congregation, a group of people who had loyally followed Dr. Freeman's ministry and message for years.

Some of them, more than a decade, 15 years, maybe even close to 20 years for a handful of them. They knew his condition and it was their responsibility to be forthright with the church members and to tell them the truth.

I think I mentioned last time that in a defense that was put on YouTube, it's been a little over a year ago by someone who was listening to these podcasts and is none the happier for having heard what you and I've said, made his own defense and said, I think Chen O, Ross is not telling the truth.

He's telling lies about Dr. Freeman and this is really not what the truth was. And he was the one who said that one of the Brennan brothers, the elder Joe Brennan had told him that Joe had seen the medical report and that Hobart died peacefully in his sleep and that Hobart didn't have any problems.

I don't know if Joe told him that or not. It sounds like what the leadership would have said there. They were definitely covering. This was a major cover-up. You know, I don't know which ones to accuse of knowingly covering up and which ones to accuse of.

They're simply repeating what someone told them who knowingly covered it up. But from the very beginning, after Dr. Freeman died, this much we know that the people who were in that room and saw a man who weighed between 125 and 128 pounds dead in his bed, not healed of anything that he had claimed healing from, they knew that it didn't work.

They knew 100% that it didn't work, that at least it didn't work with him. And so it's incumbent upon them in the name of transparency and Christian honesty and Christian truthfulness to be honest with the people now who in there went and told a lie about it?

I don't know. But you know, they're different ways to cover up. You know, one way of covering up is just kind of ignoring it and just going on as though nothing happened. That's a cover-up.

Did you actually come and lie and say, hope art was healed? No. But that is a cover-up. After our last podcast, we did, John. I was contacted by a member of Faith Assembly who joined in 1978.

His name was John Schell. You actually interviewed John in one of your early interviews of Faith Assembly survivors. He was there right after they had moved in the new building, even before they had the heating and air conditioning system set up.

He was there, one of the people shivering in the late 1978 time period, and stayed all the way until 1987, four years after hope art died. He told me that in a 2013 conversation with Joe's brother, Jim Brennan, that Jim's told John Schell that heath was healed of all of his issues and conditions before he died.

Now, I don't know whether Jim told John that or not. John said that he did. I go back to JB Phillips, the Ring of Truth. Just something have a Ring of Truth as it sound like it could be possible.

It could be possible that he did say that because those ministers, and it was the majority of them, who stayed rabid freemenites for X number of years. They can fill in the blank for however long they stayed a freemenite, but they most certainly did.

And Joe and Jim Brennanmen most certainly did. Anything to the contrary would be an absolute falsehood that they remained committed to freemen's teaching for a number of years afterwards. So for one of them or for one of the other ministers to say...

That Hobart was healed of all of his issues and conditions before he died. I'm telling you, these poor people at Faith Assembly were just, they were living in what I call before wilderness of mirrors, you know.

They just, anywhere you turned, you're seeing some reflection of something somewhere else. It was just a difficult time for the people in the church. And a cover-up story, like the ones told by the leadership, remind me, John, so much as I have thought about that, remind me of the cover-up story involved with the Jewish authorities after Jesus died and was resurrected from the dead, where they went around spreading this idea that Jesus didn't rise, but he did, where Faith Assembly ministers went around saying, Hobart was healed, but he wasn't. It's a cover-up story. There was a cover-up story by the Jewish

authorities in Jesus' day. They did not want people to hear from the tomb guards that they had stationed there themselves, that the tomb was empty. They did not want that new spread. They paid those soldiers a great deal of money to say, well, his disciples came and stole away his body.

They did not want people to believe that Jesus rose from the dead when, in fact, he did. And I'm saying, what we have with Faith Assembly and its leadership, the deception by the leadership at Faith Assembly was, they were going around either saying or implying that Hobart was healed when he wasn't. So whether you directly stand up and tell a lie, or whether you simply are involved in the cover-up, my point is the net results are still the same. There's a common phrase, which you've probably heard before, but in the software world, I get upset with this phrase,

there are people that say that you're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. And that's works very good in a black and white world, right? But in the software world, you have so many different variations of problem and solution that not every problem can be solved by the same solution. And therefore, you may be part of the problem in a different way. And I get frustrated with the whole thing. But where that actually does apply is something that is black or white and a cult teaches a very black or white mentality. So there's very few instances in this

world where that actually applies with a cult that actually does. You're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. Whenever people could have done the right thing and they didn't, for me, that's it, you're part of the problem. You could have stood up, you could said, okay, this whole thing was false. We have people who have died for this and we were all in error. Let's fix the error. I don't even care if they stayed in the same church, stayed in the same community group. Maybe they stayed in the same cult. It doesn't have to be a destructive cult. You

could have the cult following of Hobart Freeman. That's not a destructive cult. So for me, they're part of the problem if you if you did this. But then like you said, it goes a step worse whenever you go into the cover-up mode. I'll never forget, and this was the most painful thing that I did, but we've mentioned a couple times on the podcast. After I left the cult and I discovered that there were a lot of questions surrounding the stories told about William Brannum's death. I wanted to know more about it. And I went back through all of the newspaper articles and found that there was

this flood of people coming to Jeffersonville, some of them famous people, some of them televangelists that became excessively famous. And they're coming in to Jeffersonville, claiming that William Brannum has got in the flesh, just like my grandfather did. My grandfather and a few other people were claiming that not claiming outright, but saying in other words, he was going to rise from the grave.

So they were building this this hype that he was going to rise up out of the grave. But then when confronted by the newspaper reporters, outright denied it. And it hit me because after I had left the cult and my grandfather confronted me, he was talking in those terms that William Brannum was still going to rise from the dead. He got confronted, I don't know if you know this, but he got confronted by the newspaper articles, newspaper reporters again, after I went public, because they interviewed me. And so they go interview him and he outright denied the fact that he believed that this was going

to happen. So from his own words, he's lying to the newspaper reporters. Not to speak ill of my grandfather, it's he's dead and gone. But he was part of the problem, not part of the solution. He could have done the right thing. And he didn't. And for me, you know, I love my grandfather. I'm sad to have just said everything that I did. But if you don't do the right thing, look at the lives that you destroy when you don't do it. And a lot of people get pretty angry at what I do. I even have

people who are ex cult members that say, John, you've just taken this too far. Just walk away. Be quiet. Let the dead log dogs lie, right? But the problem is there are so many people that did that.

If everybody does it, then they too become part of the problem. So somebody has to stand up and say, look, this is enough. We have destroyed lives. And even if not outright destroying the lives, you've kind of messed with people in such a way that they can't have a normal, healthy life.

So they don't enjoy life like the average person. They live the cult mentality. More people need to stand up and say, this is enough, let's walk away from this. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

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

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.

So Hobart died somewhere around eight or nine o'clock as far as we know, John, on Saturday evening and there's a 12-hour delay before his death has reported. It's early 8.39 o'clock the next morning before Titus Futural Home is called.

What's up with the 12-hour delay? Well, the Freeman home on shoelake, on that evening and that afternoon of December 8, 1984 was not a place of faith. It was a house of fear. And you can only imagine what was going on in the minds of the people that were there.

I'm gonna read what someone said who was there that night when they later gave an interview with the newspaper. So this was one of the ministers, Jack Farrell, who was there that night. And there are just, there's so many more things that could be said.

But it's easy to glean from the information that we have. What was happening there, one thing we know is that because they had this very unbiblical view about Satan and demons and demonology, that they were trying to rid the residents of any avenue that Satan could use to somehow get in there and prevent Dr. Freeman's healing.

And hopefully we can have some time, maybe on a later podcast, John, we'll talk a little about Dr. Freeman's views on demonology and demon possession. But people can already guess what my opinion would be.

I don't think Hobart's view on divine healing has any basis in the gospels or the book of Acts. And I don't think his understanding of demons is has good sound biblical foundation. He had been taught himself and had taught them to be so afraid that demons and Satan can just about get in any way possible into your life. They somehow have forgotten about the almighty power of God and the love of Jesus for his people and the protection of the Holy Spirit was a very sneaky and dark negative attitude they had. So because he had done a lot of research

on the occult, there was a lot of occult material not that Hobart was over there in the corner playing with the Ouija board, but he had the the reference materials for a lot of this stuff. And so they came in there and said, we got to get all this stuff out. Once we get all this stuff out of the house, either by burning or by bearing or by hauling away, then that will get Satan out of the Freeman home and it will allow God to heal Dr. Freeman of these illnesses that he had. Well, you know,

he's in a critical situation. He is literally hours away from death. And so one of the ministers who was called to the Freeman residents that night was one of the two assistant pastors there.

There were the mainline younger ministers like Bruce Kinsey before he left and Steve Hill and Jeff Barnett and and some other people. But Dr. Freeman had a couple of older men who were born back in the 20s and 30s like when he was born. And they were the associate pastors. One was Stan Hill and we'll talk about him in the future podcast. I'm sure Stan Hill was Steve Hills father who had been a minister himself prior to coming to faith assembly. And the other was Jack Farrell who also himself had been a part of ministry in the brethren denomination. But then he joined

faith assembly early. I would say 1974 Jack Farrell. So way back early in the glory barn days when it was a place worth going to back in 1974. But not a place worth going to in 1984. We'll talk more about Jack's story because he tells his story in this newspaper article and I've got other accounts of it as well. Jack ends up thankfully leaving faith assembly not that long after Dr. Freeman's death.

But here in this newspaper article where he gave an interview to a reporter from the Warsaw Times Union. I want to read just a few things of what he had to say because this isn't an opinion of someone who is simply trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together which would be a person like myself. This is someone who was actually there. And here's what Jack said.

He said, I walked in and I could tell he was dead," said Farrell. He and others from the church made a rare visit to the Freeman's shoot-like home where they prayed for their leader.

Freeman's wife, June, had called Farrell and others to the home. She knew he was getting worse, Farrell said, about that December 8, 1984 visit. He couldn't even talk. When she would put liquid in his mouth, she had to use a straw.

He wasn't able to communicate. So, I mean, the guy is literally hours away from death and Jack saw it, June saw it, every other person there saw it. They know that he died. Jack, to his credit, you know, you can't throw Jack under the bus with the rest of him.

I mean, he was there for 10 years, but I was there, not at that building, but a part of Freeman's following. I was a part of that following for several years. But when Freeman died, as I said, that's a watershed moment.

That should be the time when your eyes are opened. It didn't take Jack long within a few months. And well, as I said, we're going to cover his story later on. But it didn't take him long before he decided I've got to leave this place as well.

But there's this 12 hour delay. What's going on during this 12 hour delay? They are trying to bring Hobart Freeman back to life. I said last time one of the ministers followed Elijah and Paul's practice of stretching his self upon the dead body and trying to bring life back into the body.

Dr. Freeman was a very, very frail man at the time of his death. We gave all these statistics last time, John. Whenever he went in for his arrangement after he had been indicted and he was going in to be booked in the county jail, it strivers life since having weighing 180 plus pounds.

When they weighed him, only weighed 158 pounds at that time. And on the Corners report, he weighed between 125 and 128 pounds. And I know people are probably mortified that we're even talking about these details.

But you have to. If you don't, it's just what you said a few moments ago, John, everybody just, that you become a part of the cover up. And you say, well, it wasn't as bad as, you know, someone thinks that it was.

It's not as bad as that person is reporting it was. It's probably worse than what we have been reporting that it is. When you're dying with 125 pounds on a six foot or six one frame, there's not much meat on the bones there.

I just know there was so much suffering. and what happened is Dr. Freeman died, but then once he's died, I mean, they look at him, there's no pulse, there's no respiration, there's no breath.

The man has died. What are we going to do? I just would ask people listening to the podcast to take a moment and put yourself in their position as family member, as top minister, as top aide, a part of this group that has always said, you don't die believing, you only die a doubting.

I'm going to live to be this age. I'm healed of all this. I have all these visions that showed me meeting Jesus by will and walking in an airport and I'm going to preach to 50,000 people in this auditorium and all the seats have this red upholstery on them.

I remember all the stories Hobart told. These are future events that are yet to happen in his life. Guess what, they're not going to happen to a dead man. You've got to get this man alive again.

And so yes, it was a big part of Dr. Freeman's teaching, especially early on, we'll say a few things here in a moment where he had to tone it down and back off a little after reality set in, but early on, Dr. Freeman was all about, why should you, I mean sickness is just temporary and death is just temporary.

You can get rid of sickness and you can get rid of death. That's what the end time message of faith in his mind was all about. And so in another clip, John, this was from a tape entitled Sunship Faith.

It has the number F110 on it. The previous one was 120. F110 is a very early tape. It actually goes back to 1969. So he is, the glory barn doesn't even exist. We're long before the glory barn.

We're back when they are still meeting in Dr. Freeman's living room in the house in Claypool, Indiana, underneath the water tower. But this is not where this message was preached. He also preached in a message, he preached in a meeting in Muncie, Indiana.

He had a big group of people in a lady's basement in Muncie, Indiana. And this is where this message, Sunship Faith was preached. And Sunship Faith, to tell people what he meant by that, is we, because we're little gods, it all ties into that same theology, because we're little gods, we are supposed to have the same faith that Jesus had.

So you could just have kind of nominal charismatic faith, or he said you can come up to a higher level, and you can enter into the realm. So all of these things, John, just, they're just so bizarre, just all these different measures of faith, and a little faith, and a lot of...

faith and Sunch, everything was just so mysterious and everyone was just glazed eyes as you would listen to. I can go from just normal faith to Sunchip faith. Sunchip faith is you have the same faith that the Lord Jesus Christ had in his earthly ministry. 100% he taught that.

Now that is a higher level of faith and that's only for the consecrated few who will pay the calls to get there but if you'll do it you can get to Sunchip faith. So on this message it's kind of a long it's about a three minute clip but it's from 45 minutes and 35 seconds to 48 minute and 33 seconds but before you play that let me just introduce it. He's going to talk about people who died and been brought back to life and so the first example he's going to give is Smith Wigglesworth and you know Smith Wigglesworth is I mean he's on he's part equal with the

Apostle Paul I think in the charismatic movement. The Smith Wigglesworth stories are just you know incredible phenomenal late 1800s early 1900s of course you can't document any of that it's been 150 years ago but Smith Wigglesworth was the person. He loved talking about Smith Wigglesworth.

So in this case Smith has a young lady who has TB tuberculosis and going to end up dying of it dies of it and Smith after praying for like four hours I think he says 3 30 in the morning Smith Wigglesworth the the girl died he's been claiming her healing she wasn't healed she died Smith says Lord I won't take a note and so God said okay then it's a yes and the girl came back to life so that is the beginning of this clip from Sunchip faith. As I like to say if you gasp with your

last breath I am healed God will have to raise you from the dead if it was faith God.

It's always quiet after you make those statements. There's the rest. I say it with all the authority of the word of God that if you say by his stripes I'm healed and say it and gasp the last breath saying it God will honor your faith. He'll have to honor your faith and send somebody to raise you up. Now I know the case I mean I know there are more than one but I know the case where he told the girl I'm going to heal you. Bedroom all sorts of diseases twisted deformed terrible pain I'm going to raise you up. Told the mother the same thing she was over

in the bedroom the girl was really dying God said I'm going to heal you. While she was dying I told the mother in the bedroom, praying, Lord, I want my daughter, I'm claiming her.

I'll heal her if she says. And just about that time she died, and the mother, for five hours, looked in the face of a corpse, waiting for God to keep his word. Believing that he would, five hours later, she sat up in bed perfectly whole.

Now, that's not some story, often, some fennecostal journal, vintage of 1918 or something. You know, that denomination of people don't like to believe because it's fennecostal. I don't have any problem with myself anymore, but, you know, this made the headlines, friends.

A husband of this woman is a PhD. Not that that means anything, but I mean, it's not somebody I think it is. Somewhere that you've never heard of, but this actually happened. It made the headlines, the newspapers.

Reporters came from all over because this girl had died. And there were too many witnesses, doctors and others. Five hours, a corpse. But God said, I'll heal her, and he had to raise her up to do it.

Don't take no, if your loved one died of disease, you don't have to call the undertaker. I hope some of us some time get a hold of this kind of faith.

That's right. I can't conceive a loved one mind dying now in this end time. The faith that he's worked in my heart through just the things I have seen new. And just resign yourself to it, say, call the ambulance, call the hurts, take him to the morgue.

Oh, I mean business friends. I'm gonna stay with that corpse. I don't know about you.

Oh, why shouldn't I? It wouldn't be anything new that God would raise the dead, and so then, for anything less than the dead, why can't you believe for that? I'm willing to believe the God will raise up the dead.

Hold to it, say, Lord, I won't take no, you promised it. He won't give you no. He's wanting you to do this, to stay with him. This is bold faith. So we're talking why the 12 hour delay in reporting the death.

They're obviously trying to resurrect Dr. Freeman from the dead. You know, he tells another story of someone who is resurrected from the dead, and then in the end of this clip, what he goes on to say is he said, look, faith assembly members who are meeting in the basement in Muncie, Indiana, look, God has brought me to such a place of faith in my life.

And this is only three years after he entered the charismatic movement from 1966 to 1967, but he said, God's brought me to such a place of faith in my life. I just can't see myself if I have a loved one who has died

turning them over to the authorities. That's what he said. He said, I can't see myself doing that. at, I'm going to be just like Smith. I'm not calling the harsh. I'm not calling the funeral home. So that is the background that these people have been indoctrinated with. They've grown up believing that we are not supposed to accept death. We need to rebuke. Death is a spirit.

Rebuke that spirit of death and command the spirit of life to come back in this body. I guarantee you, John, that was happening left and right. There were all kinds of praying and tongues happening in that bedroom that night. There was shouting. There was claiming. There was commanding. There was rebuking. There was decreeing. I mean, they pulled every verse out of the Bible. I'm sure and used it on Dr. Freeman to get him back to life. Now, I'll be quiet here in a minute, John.

But let me just say for a little more of the background. That's what he said in 1974 or rather 1969 when this message was done because they weren't having anybody die in the church back then.

When people began to die, Dr. Freeman took a different tone because he actually did a message in 1976 that was involved various subjects, but it said now concerning natural childbirth because it had all kinds of problems with childbirth and now concerning raising the debt. He rebuked the congregation for holding on to dead bodies and not calling the authorities. Again, if I was a part of the church, I'd say, but wait a minute, that's what you encouraged me to do on those earlier messages. You're the one who said, God's brought you to such a place of faith. You wouldn't be

turning loose of any dead body of a relative to the authorities. You'd be praying for them to be resurrected. But when Bruce and Kathy's first child died, Brent, who was born with respiratory problems and only lived 36 hours, Dr. Freeman was called over that. And I don't know whether he prayed for the child or not. I've heard that he did pray for the child, but the child did not come back to life. And so, you know, then with what's the advice, it's normal advice. You need to call the funeral home. So as time went on, he toned it down, but whenever he experienced death himself,

I just think there was no way those people were going to let that go without a fight, without a try. Because if our leader has died under these conditions, it is going to be a new moment in the history of faith assembly. So let's all hold on, rebuke, command, decree, claim, confess, sing, dance, pray, and tongues. Do whatever we have to do. Get rid of all the occult literature.

Let's do whatever we've got to do to bring this man back to life. However, by daylight the next morning He had not come back to life and so they called the authorities. I've mentioned it before, but all through my time in the Branham religion we were supposed to have such an elevated faith that I could speak Animals into existence because our profits spoke a squirrel into existence for the sole purpose of blowing its head off Which is a crazy funny story for another day But I was raised in that mentality so I understand exactly what these people are going through the problem is

I did it over and over and over again or I should say I tried to do it over and over again not speaking animals But doing other things that I should be able to speak to the rock right the problem is it never ever worked But you would want you would want it to work like you would pour your whole heart and soul into this voice that I'm speaking and It's still never worked But that one time you said Lord I lost my car keys make them appear and you searched the house for like two hours and suddenly you found them

God God helped me with those keys brother You start to get that mentality so understand how it works the mechanics of the faith and You know who's to say God didn't help me find the keys in the two hours I I turned everything over in the house. Maybe he did maybe he didn't The point I'm trying to make is you get yourself so hyped up But there's a difference with the death because death is final so whenever this happens Hobart inwardly that has to have hit him like a brick wall hitting his chest and The people the man who laid on his body and it didn't work that's whenever you really

You're shaken so badly because it is final there is nothing There's nothing you could do once the person's dead Now you're you're coming to the terms with the fact that the word of faith doctrine have been taught Doesn't really work that is it biblical or not and you run through the scenarios in your mind You start thinking of all the verses that you've been indoctrinated and in the end Like me you you just go deeper into it you believe it even more than you did before it didn't work Because that's how the cult mentality works

So each time that it failed for me I believed it more than then before it failed which is really interesting if you think about it But then a death what do you do with this because now this is the ultimate test Can the person be raised from the dead or not and when it doesn't happen now?

You're really shaken to the point where there are a lot of people that could wake up if in that moment If not for other people who are being just a little bit dishonest and trying to corral the people and keep them into the same fold So that's where for me I hate to use the word predator, but if you're thinking of a pack of a flock of sheep And then you've got these wolves that are trying to keep them packed into the corral for the feeding There's not many words that I can use besides predator you and I both John hesitate to

cues people of things, you know, we really do. I mean, most of my life I lived pretty innocently and naively and I just did not know that people would knowingly deceive other people. I mean, we've all been deceived about something myself included and I thought I was right and I thought this verse meant that and I went and taught it and I was as wrong as a summer day is long, but I didn't know I was wrong, you know, that comes with more study and time.

I don't, I can't think of a time when I knew that this was not true or I knew that this was wrong or I knew that I'm completely butchering this verse, but I don't care, I'm going to do it anyway.

I can't think of a time that I did that and maybe I did, maybe rare and few and far between and so it's hard for me that you were just saying there to use the word predator, but you know, I'm not saying you're wrong at all. I don't know. I don't know what's in the minds of these people, the the ones in leadership, you know, I think some people I'm willing to call a predator because it's just so obvious and some people, I don't know, they're, they just have enough sneakiness to them. But look, none of these guys are willing to come on here and talk about this.

None of the guys have been willing to talk to me about it. None of them, none of the top ministers, what do you have to hide? None of them have been willing. So it does make me wonder.

And you know, the people in the know knew exactly what had happened that night. Don't you know that the phone lines were burned up in northern Indiana late in the evening of December 8, 1984? I mean, I bet that was an overload on the switchboard because the people that knew were calling the closest people they could trust, family members, close, close friends and associates and say, Dr. Freeman died, Dr. Freeman died, Dr. Freeman died.

But that would only, that would be a little small core group of the higher up in the church. And so what happens when you go to church? Yeah. Church is next morning. He died on a Saturday night.

Sunday morning is church. December the 9th, 1984. Church is usual. They had been on a fast three days for the church earlier in that week from Sunday to Wednesday in that week. And now they're just everyone is just, you know, with baited breath holding on, wondering what's going on. Now June on Saturday calls, some of the major trusted people to please come over and help me and pray. And she didn't know what to do. I mean, I feel so sorry for the lady. This is her husband who is literally wasted away, suffered agonizing.

thing, Hobart Freeman, when you look at his medical condition in the medical reports, Hobart Freeman died the death of the damned. I'm not saying he was damned. I have no idea about his eternal well-being, but I'm saying he died the death of the damned to have suffered as much as he did and to be weighing under 130 pounds whenever he died.

So when you show up at church the next morning, it was a very somber time. Here are just a few of the details, and we may not have enough time to cover much more of this, John.

But here are a few of the details. One of the people who were, and I've heard from so many people who were a member of faith assembly, so they were there Sunday morning. And then you, well, I'll talk about that here in a moment.

So one of the members that I know to this today, his name is Mark Harness, and Mark, as he was telling me, when he showed up at faith assembly on Sunday morning, he ran into a woman by the name of Melody Powers.

Melody Powers was, she had a really good singing voice, so she ministered in song there. She was obviously because she was a woman and was not in any kind of church leadership, but she was some of, she was a part of the people in the know, let's say it like that.

You know, every group unavoidably has this. You've got the very top people, the people under them. You have the people in the know, and finally you get down to people like me and you, and we're just rank and file members.

But Mark went up to Melody, and Melody Powers said that announcement was going to be forthcoming that morning. So you've got these people, I mean sitting on the edge of their seat, not knowing what to expect.

The message that morning, which I have a list of messages at faith assembly that were happening at that time, the message that morning was supposed to be given by Jack Farrell. He's one of the two, he and Stan Hill, one of the two associate pastors, the one that I read the interview by the reporter here a few moments ago, and the one that we'll find out later is going to soon leave faith assembly.

He was, he was scheduled to preach on December the 12th. Let me just back up on December the 5th, which would have been a Wednesday night of the week Hobart died. The preacher that night was Harry Albright, and Harry Albright preached a message in title confidence and courage and conflict.

You know, a lot of faith assembly, faithful from back in the day, aren't going to believe

actually know the titles of the messages and who was scheduled to preach, and it'll probably bring back a lot of memories in their mind. The previous Sunday morning would have been December the 2nd, and that message was preached by Jeff Barnett, and it was entitled Declaring the Atonement.

And so on the morning after Hobart's death, which is December the 9th of 1984, Jack Farrell was scheduled to preach a message entitled, Obstain From All Appearance of Evil Part 2. He did not teach that message, the message was canceled, and they simply had a time of prayer and intercession.

Jack was able to come back later on January the 2nd of 1985 and teach that message, Obstain From All Appearance of Evil Part 2, you know, first message in the New Year in January of 1985.

So this is when the rank and file members hear what's going on. Our pastor died. I mean, at least they did come and tell everyone Dr. Freeman died last night. So they just had a time of prayer.

So if you think the phone lines were burning up Saturday evening when only a handful of people knew to call, now everybody at Faith Assembly knows, and it spread like wildfire. I mean, as soon as people got home, in those days you had to go home because your telephone had a wire on it that was connected to the wall, and that's the way you made your call.

So everyone is racing to get back home because this is the news of All News for any Faith Assembly member that Hobart Edward Freeman died last night. He died of all of these diseases.

Now whether they said he had all those diseases, it remains to be seen. I think they did not say that. It's just that he our pastor died. Maybe he died peacefully. I don't know what they said, but immediately that began to spread.

And so I know this from the studies online that a man up in Canada whose name is Tom McLaughlin, who did a whole lot of work as far as positively in favor of Freeman and his beliefs and his teachings and everything.

He was called Sunday afternoon, December the 9th, 1984, by Mark Yotter, who worked in the tape part of the ministry and who was also the man upon whom's arm Hobart leaned whenever he had to go and make his court appearance.

Mark Yotter called Tom with the news, Tom flew down a month later, flew down from Canada because Tom's has said he did this, flew down from Canada a month later, and this is and all the satellite people began trying to get more information pouring in to find out all the details that they could and Tom said that whenever he was there he spoke with Steve Hill married to Pam Hill, Dr. Freeman's oldest daughter, and that Steve Hill told Tom that the church is believing for Dr. Freeman to be raised from the dead. That was the belief that they were holding

and so as you can see here in conclusion today, John, that I don't know at faith assembly nothing was a reality. Everything was a mirage, everything was a trial, they called everything a trial. You literally could not show up at church and ask your brother, sister, how are you doing today and not get God is faithful. God's Word is true and God is true to His Word. Even if He's sick, the wife is left, and the kids are out on drugs, it wouldn't matter what's going on, you're not ever going to hear reality. You're going to hear some type of faith confession,

and that's just the world they lived in, that nothing at faith assembly was a reality, everything was a trial. If your washing machine is not working, it's not because you have failed in your maintenance of your washing machine, it's because you're going through a trial.

If you don't have enough money to pay rent that month, it's not because you haven't held down two jobs like you should have as a husband to provide for your family. We're going through a trial brother. Everything was a trial, nothing was a reality, and so in the end, even when Hobart dies, this isn't a reality, this is only a trial because the church is believing for him to be raised from the dead. Sitting out by my road at this moment as a dishwasher that was going through a trial, somebody of my family, I'm not going to say who, put regular hand-dishwashing soap in it,

and it is just like the television shows, the comedy shows, where this big block of foam comes out and just destroys everything in your kitchen. That's what it is like. I will admit, and yes, it was a trial, but it was a different kind of trial than you're talking about.

The thing of it is, we're having this conversation because people didn't stand up and do the right thing. I will soon be putting out a podcast. I've been asked several times to talk about a zoosistreet revival, and there's one thing that you just said that I want to mention that is similar, and when you think about Pentecostalism, how it grew, it's actually a result of this.

If you read through any account of the zoosistreet revival, whether it's newspapers, Pentecostal historians, A focus is always on the speaking in tongues. This is where we spoke in tongues. And this is the event people.

This is Pentecost came down. We spoke in tongues. You don't find too many instances where they talk about, and this is where the gospel was spread. This is where the gospel was shared. I don't think, I've read several of the histories.

I don't think I've read one that actually mentions the gospel in combination with this. It's always about the greater thing. We have a greater thing. The other churches have the gospel. We have a greater thing.

Well, FF Bosworth is one of the people that split off from this belief that speaking in tongues was the initial evidence, but what he did was he twisted it. The healing is the initial evidence.

So it's the same doctrine, just different form. That's what Branum ran with. That was all through the revival. So that's what spread into Hobart Freeman's doctrine. The focus really, and Hobart may have preached the gospel.

I'm not saying he didn't, but the focus was somewhere else. And that's really the problem. The gospel becomes diminished in that mentality, and it's the other things that get really the primary focus. And in the end, I could not faith my dishwasher to be well.

I had to take it out. It was a heck of a lot of work, and it was a lot more work that I remember doing the last time I did it. It just doesn't work, man.

Sometimes you have to get a ranch and a screwdriver and a drill, but in the end, I can't say that, I have, in my life, I was in it for 37 years. I can't say that I benefited from one single thing that they topped on to Christianity and said, we have this extra thing.

I can't say that there's one single benefit. My body, I have health problems, as you know. My dishwasher is out by the road because I couldn't cure it. I did find my keys. So I guess I could say, in 37 years, I was able to get something out of it because I did find my keys in my house.

So thank you for doing this. Thanks for having me, John. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-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.

Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye.