Inside Christ Gospel Church: A Former Insider Speaks Out

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 very special guest, Harold Edwards, former member of Christ's Gospel Church. Harold is good to have you on. I have, I've mentioned quite a few times on the podcast. I've been wanting to get more people from Christ Gospel to come forward because that place is literally like three blocks from my house, right? And I grew up not knowing that we knew about the Christ Gospel

people here in Jeffersonville, but we did not know that they were a splinter group from the Branham church. And so whenever I was digging through the research and I found this, I'm scratching my head, think, wait a minute, I know these people. Only they were the other ones. We, we were holier than they were in our minds and they were holier than us and their mind. So it's this weird, weird thing. And yet they're both Pentecostal groups here in Jeffersonville.

So thank you for coming on to share your story. Maybe if you could start by telling everybody a little bit about yourself. Well, thanks for having me. And thank you for starting this podcast. I think at some point down the line, you'll see what work you're really doing. And, and I hope that I know God will definitely reward you for what you're doing. A little bit about me. I joined Christ Gospel in about 2005. I took a 10-year break. I was an army. And so that I, in about 2000, I believe 16, there was a split. And I

didn't go back to church to the physical building after the split. I think a couple of us did it like a little Bible study until they just fell apart. And I think about 2018 is when I became like fully into Christ Gospel. I mean, for about five and a half years, five and a half years straight, I was in the message.

It's so odd for me to hear you say the message because that's what we grew up with, the message. And rightfully so, it is a splinter group of it. And I have talked to other people and they have told me about the split. And they asked me, was anything like this happening in Brannemism? And my initial thought is, well, your group wouldn't exist if they're...

wasn't such a thing. That's the way the nature of this religion, it grows, it splits, it grows, it splits, and that's why you have splinter groups all around the world. That's literally the nature of the beast.

And when I say beast, speaking quite literally, this thing was a beast. Maybe for those who are unaware of what is Christ's gospel, maybe it would also be good if you were to explain, you know, what this is.

How is this different from normal Christianity? Good question. And now do my best to explain this. What makes Christ also different from normal Christianity? Number one, as what I thought was the Holy Ghost witness on how we should dress and how we should do, you know, how should we dress if we're on a floor amongst the popular kind of congregation, how we should dress where we're on the platform.

Number one thing that's separate from Christianity is legalism. There's this guy who's behind the Holy Ghost witness. For example, if you had a beard and you were administered, the most legalistic thing that I was told was, if you have a beard, you cannot teach the Word of God because your hair will interrupt you from preaching the Word of God, teaching the Word of God.

Yes. And I believe you've heard of something that similar. Yeah, I'm laughing. You can tell I'm laughing. I'm dying to interject because see, I did not know that this was a thing. I did not know that you were not supposed to have a beard.

You look at a picture of Jesus. Jesus had a beard, right? And so I grew up, I'm like, what on earth? I had no idea, right? So I come here. I come to Jeffersonville and it wasn't until I got married, I think whenever I grew my first beard.

And I'll never forget this. I walk around the back of the church and I'm not going to mention who, but I had family members that looked at me just disgusted. There was the first time they'd seen me with a beard.

And they said something to the effect. You know, whenever my husband and I got married, I almost said the name, I've got to be careful. When my husband and I got married, he also didn't know that it was ungodly to have a beard.

And so he grew a beard and I waited until like 2 a.m. And I snuck in there and I shaved his beard while he was asleep. And he looked at it and he laughed.

And he was all proud that she had done this. And the other bad thing, and I'm admitting that I fell into the bad way of thinking, but they were very demeaning towards women. It was a very misogynistic cult.

And I just looked straighter, looked at her straight in the eye and I said, well, if my wife had done that to me, I would have put her in her place. And you know, it's weird how the cult mindset think.

But it wasn't until later after I was telling somebody else about that. said, yeah, you weren't supposed to grow a beard, John. And I'm like, oh my gosh, really? Am I going to hell because I grew a beard?

Right, right. So it's not just, you know, it's not just a beard, you know, those are the things that, you know, like pants, for example, you know, and that's, and that's unfortunately, that's just not price gospel.

I mean, I think this is all across all pinocostal platforms that pants, you know, or forgotten. And pants are linked towards a male garment. Now, in the scriptures, there are no pants in the Bible days.

So how can that be now a male garment when neither one of them had pants back then? So, you know, it's, like I said, it's the biggest thing was legalism. But it's also, and legalism is, honestly, that is witchcraft.

There's no way to look at it, you know, because if you're adding to the description, you know, that's, and which God said, don't do, I mean, that is witchcraft. So you can't wake up one day and say, you know, we're going to dress like this, we're going to dress like this, we're going to dress like that.

And then we're going to put this in the name of the Holy Ghost Witness. And so that we scare you into doing what I want you to do. Yeah, the pants thing, I grew up in the same cult, same religion, I believe the same thing.

And you're right, it's widespread Pentecostal faith. And I'll never forget the shock whenever I, one of the exercises I did after I left the cult, I read the Bible over and over, just for what it said.

From book to book to book, just straight down, chapter to chapter. And I came across the passage, and I'm drawn a blank where it comes from, but it's, God looks, does not look on that word appearance, God looks at the heart.

And I'm scratching my head thinking, the whole religion was based on the outward appearance, the whole religion. And I say that because I remember every single sermon had that in it. You might have a different topic, but it always had that in it.

And then I was reading, and it just suddenly hit me whenever I understood the covenants, and you had the old covenant, and then you had the new covenant. And I'm reading through the old covenant, and it's things like, don't eat shellfish.

And I'm a person who doesn't eat shellfish. And I'm a person who eats shrimp. And I remember sitting in the sermons of ministers who were quite large, who avoided the whole sin of gluttony conversation.

And they loved their shellfish, man, right? And so there were parts of the law that they ignored, and the passage that says it's a sin for a man to put on the garment that pertains to a woman or vice versa.

That came from the old covenant law. But if you keep reading, it has things in it, right in that same chapter that's like, don't let an ox, and a mule plow the ditch together.

I mean, it's things that we don't even adhere to today. But what they did, they tried to pick and choose different things. And in the end, it comes down to something that you see.

that I think you use the word witchcraft. But I think what you really meant is spiritualism. This is spiritualism 101. They're trying to do things themselves so they can summon God. It's not that Jesus is coming.

It's that they have to summon God. My wife, my current wife, so funny, funny. When I met my wife, you know, God told me to marry outside of Christ's gospel and I didn't understand why.

So my wife comes to the church. And my wife was being mistreated. And since I still have this co-mind set, I'm not understanding why she's being mistreated. And sometimes I'm not even understanding the fact that she was being mistreated.

But in fact, she was being mistreated. And so since I was part of the co-mind, I was part of the co-mind set. I misread the mistreatment. And so I would tell my wife things that I was taught.

You know, they're doing that because God is looking for something in you. They're treating you like this because you know, you're treating God the same way. You know, those cult-like things. And sometimes that is true, but that is not understanding.

And that's something that, and that's one of the things that I have to be delivered up to. And the other thing is that it was definitely a super religious, it's not even a word, I'm going to use that because there is no way I can really put this into context without saying it was super religious because it was.

And battling with that religious spirit, which is why most things were done out of works. You know, that's the way it was. This is religious zeal that you have to have. And again, it comes back to the idea that you're summoning God.

And I'm fascinated with ancient mythology and ancient world history. So when I read the ancient mythologies and I look at the way that the ancient religions tried to summon their gods, and they're looking at the sun, moon, and stars.

They're looking at hidden meanings. You had the birth of what's called a mystery cult. It means basically we have the divine mystery and only our group has it. The others do not have the divine mystery and we're the holders of the mysteries and therefore we're the spiritual elite.

Well, it brought that elitist mindset. And I look, I never went to Christ's gospel church, but I've looked on the website, just read through, even just skimming the about page and some of the pages about Hicks.

You find out that she's, well, how did she phrase it? She phrase it something the fact that she was a Bible teacher emphasizing the hidden meanings of Hebrews, hidden meanings of the Jews. And what that means essentially is she's picking out the hidden meanings that were within the old cult.

And there's a problem there immediately because the old covenant wasn't for us. In fact, the book of Hebrews completely undermines that idea. It says we're now entered into a new covenant. So you've got all of these people like Hicks, like Branum, like the others I've mentioned on the podcast that are trying to build this secret, basically a secret society of a religion.

And if you're part of it, you're part of the elite and you have that religious zeal that you're talking about. Oh, definitely, definitely. And I'm, you know, Lord willing, I hope we get to the point where we get to the point where we link her to Branum.

Because I know he's on set up a doubt that she wanted to be, she wanted to distance herself far away from Branum as possible. And I'm going to get in there a little bit later, so, and I know why.

Well, and he mentions her on recording. So there's definitely a link. It's beyond the shadow of a doubt. What happened was as I've been able to piece the history together and the problem is neither group is honest about their histories.

So you can't really, you can only line up the histories and look at the chronologies. Branum was working with the second and command of the clan and that whole history has been erased. Almost nobody knows about it.

That, the leader, his name was Roy Davis, he was setting up a Pentecostal church here in Jeffersonville. And that Pentecostal church was going to, I don't know, it looks like their plans were eventually to just take over Pentecostalism in the state of Indiana, mainly because GT Haywood, who was a black minister, was spreading the idea of an interracial revival.

And that obviously doesn't work well with the clan. I don't know the reasons behind why he chose Pentecostal because he was a Baptist, but here in Jeffersonville is Pentecostal. Branum erased all of this history and he started claiming that he was instead Baptist, not Pentecostal.

And there's one publication that the Branum organization for a long time did not print. They may print it now, actually, but it's called, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. And Branum talks about exactly what we talked about earlier, a church split.

He said that the, how did he, he said he had a vision and an in the vision, the tabernacle people would no longer eat his bread or something like this. And what he's describing is, these people just won't listen to him anymore.

Well, that's about the same time that Hicks, who was, I think Branum said he was his song minister or piano player, something like this. She was teaching Sunday school for him in the Branum tabernacle or the Pentecostal tabernacle before it became the Branum tabernacle.

She split off about that same time, so it looks like there was a church split. And if I read her side of the story, it gets kind of odd because she seems to be, she's wanting to do a power play.

So you have a church split, both people are wanting to have control. Neither one want to give control. You're right. So bitterly speaking, if crisis they had over the man, and a man is the head over the woman, why are you in control of men?

And that's normal. If you look at her history, nothing is linked to Brannum. Nothing is. But I know that you were to you two were together. And I found something else that was odd, that I know she was married, but there's no history of her husband linked to her, nowhere.

I can't find this obituary. I think I looked it up one time, and I found his name. But if you put in Hoover's husband today, I can't even tell you who he was. If you are teaching an organization that they had to be married to be pastors, but you are a single because you're widow.

And the jury's still out on how your husband died. Because like I said, I can't find an obituary. So and that's some mystery to me that in all of your documents, and we know you were married at one point, your husband is nowhere to be found.

Now, with that being said, it makes me look at the spiritual aspect behind what she has done. Since we know what God's natural order is, and you clearly violated that by being a single woman in charge of an organization that big, and the spirit of Jazz Bill not attached to it.

Because we know what Jazz Bill still stood for. And now, since you look at what Jazz Bill stood for in the Old Testament, and then we look at what you're doing now, well, not now, because obviously she's no longer here, but what she has done now is that she has an organization that's been remin.

And nobody can pass, you can even be a youth pastor without being married. Now, you're leading an organization while also being a hypocrite. And nothing under you is supposed to challenge that authority, nothing.

You know, and it gets even stranger, I've gone through the history, I don't want to distract from your story too much, but just to follow up, and then we'll go back to the women, because this actually is a pivot point that leads you back there.

You're right, the way that the religion has framed the hierarchy of the male and the female. Her being a leader just doesn't fit at all. Yet, whenever Brannum's campaign manager Gordon Lindsay left him, and he's trying to rebuild his new campaign, Jim Jones of People's Temple became a leader who sponsoring Brannum's meetings, I don't know if you know that history or not.

It was during that time, she actually, she meets Brannum, it's 1950. six. In fact, I pulled it up so I could read through it. But he talks about sister Hicks, who used to be a Sunday school teacher here at the Tabernacle. I met her in her husband.

And what's funny is he says, I met a name that you won't know, Ben Bryant, who went out from this Tabernacle out there to fellowship with them. I knew Ben, I did not know Ben Bryant personally. I knew of him because my family knew him well. And this was a crazy guy. He was literally but he was fellowshiping both churches and apparently went from the Brannum Church out to the Hicks Church. So they were still as late as 1956 in some sort of a collaboration. Now how far that goes and why, how you do this because seemingly she split off from him. But the one thing that

I've learned is a church split in this movement is not what it appears to be in all cases. In some cases, it's more advantageous for the church to split because now you have two bodies of people with two separate sets of revenue. And if you're looking at it from an authoritarian perspective, now you've got two big bodies of people that can now grow and you can govern those people. So it's a church split isn't always because from the public appearance, it looks like they're at odds with each other. But it's not necessarily the case in all all instances.

This message is built with so much mixture that is ridiculous. Now even a Bible teaches against I'm just going to bring up this point. I'm going to do that to this. But even a Bible teaches against astrology. But now you tell me that I can be holy, ambient Aquarius. I can be a Christian and still be and still believe in astrology. I can still believe in the stars. No, you can't.

So much of this message is mixed with so many things. It's the same thing that happened in the garden. And so what happens is that they'll give you a lot of truth, but they'll mix in so many other things. And then you'll get. And so I like what they now. This is I like what they did with this one. They said if you don't understand something, put it on the shelf. Now that actually became a problem because the problem is I did put it on the shelf. And now since I put it on the shelf. Now when I go back and study what you told me to put on the shelf, it comes to now with the

detriment of this message because for example, I'm not going to say what preacher. I'm not going to call him by name, but he is the lead preacher ministry. I remember he preached a message. And he was talking about the reasons before chapter and how we should endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit of peace. And he said that the unity of the spirit of peace means to lie and wait. That is completely false. When you look up and endeavor, it means to be diligent. It means to be quickly to restore peace. It does not mean lie and wait for an opera to me.

didn't know it means quickly to restore peace. And so these are some of the things that are being taught that is completely false. And so you have people in there. And I know that somebody has mentioned to you the Kudalini Spirit on this podcast.

And that's exactly what it was. You have this false Holy Ghost witness that's bearing the false witness to complete lies. And so when I left this message, I also need to be delivered from this Kudalini Spirit.

You know, one of the things that you've mentioned a few times is the Holy Ghost witness. And to somebody, this is loaded language for the Christ gospel called. We didn't even have an end-branamism.

Maybe if you could talk a little bit about what that is to somebody who's unfamiliar with this. The Holy Ghost witness reversed back to the Old Testament. E5, the Euron and to me, what they teach is that one is the word witness, one is the Spirit witness.

There is no need for that. There's no need for all the way to me. We have the Holy Ghost, there's no need for it. And so they have a witness room, a Holy Ghost witness room that is dedicated to tell people about themselves, where there are streets of witness's arm in a spirit's realm.

Now my issue with this is that I know now that those are monitoring spirits. I'm not impressed by you knowing my past because any of you knows that already. I'm not impressed by you telling me something that your thing is gonna happen in the future because I do have a relationship with God.

All you can do is confirm or go against what he's told me already because of my relationship. Now let me stay on topic with the Holy Ghost witness. I'm trying to prevent her off.

So in a sense, that's what the Holy Ghost witness is. It's coming from the Old Testament which we don't even use anymore to over him into me because since Jesus came and died and sent the Holy Ghost, there's no need for over him to me because the Holy Ghost is that.

We no longer have to go put on a E5 in a quarter-mind of God, like David had to do. Oh my God. The irony of all of this is, it would be much more than I can do in a podcast and I don't even have the skillest to do it.

I'd have to bring somebody else on, but just to simply explain the culture of the ancient Jews and you really need to understand that culture to defy what these people like Hicks are doing because what essentially they're doing, they're taking the most obscure passages from the Old Testament.

The ones that you can't plainly read and they're saying, I have the mystery. I know what this is and the, we called it Euroman Thummum because of Brannum's Kentucky English. I don't know which is correct actually, but.

It's basically it was the it was the was the gyms, I think in the breastplate of the high priest and What this was biblically speaking, you know, and there may have been more to it that we don't know but biblically speaking It was a sacred way to cast lots and if you understand what that is they casting lots would be you would take You take something like sticks or something throw them down and see who had the longest one and it was essentially to make a decision When nobody could make a decision right well in religious matters you had to have a sacred way to do this because

For me for you and me it would be like let's flip a coin That's how you would say casting a lot. Let's flip a coin and see who goes well They're doing that kind of thing, but it's a religious thing Because of the way that the passage is written so obscured it sounds as though they've got I don't know if you're sci-fi fan. It's like they got some ancient alien technology in the breastplate, right?

And that's what she's doing. She's trying to mix in fact, I think this edges towards Kabbalah She's trying to she's trying to take Kabbalistic ideas if that's the correct pronunciation Injected into Christianity and say I have the secret mystery and oh by the way Everybody in the Kabbalah religions teach the same kind of things. No, you're right. So it is Kabbalism mixed with a little bit of Greek mythology mixed with what you said about the Old Testament and mixed with Books in the Bible that you told your people not even read

So a lot of the stuff that she talks about is actually the book of Enoch Which you said don't read because you use a scary tactic to say if you read the book of Enoch You're going to be visited by prehistoric spirits How is it that a lot of your teachings come from a book that you said don't read?

You have a book that is called the missing link That came from books that the older Bible that you said don't read Yeah With this Greek mythology stuff that goes back to the things that we talked about you talked about characters like mother wicket And father wicket these people aren't in scripture anywhere. You can't even find a Hebrew name for these characters Anywhere and then you say stuff like put this on the shelf. I cannot put divination on a shelf. I can't And And so it's Because I remember being on Facebook when I was because I'm on Facebook coming more

But when I was in Christ's gospel I remember this for um young lady Was studying and needed help and she posted in Christ's gospel chat And she said um, I was studying Um these Hebrew words and I cannot find where Reverend just got a answer from And another pastor I'm not going to call his name. He came and said oh that's because Reverend Hicks studied aces Hebrew Now you should have told the truth The blue letter Bible is written. He rules it or is the language It's not that she can't find it. It doesn't exist. I mean, you can't find if you look for it

Why don't you tell the truth? And so Since I was also a minister this message. I taught some of the foolishness that I'm talking about today Which is why I'm really so upset about it is because You know, I mean at some point I'm probably going to go publicly and I'm actually openly repent or some of people that I taught in era but there was so much mixture in This message that it is nauseating There is so much that it has nothing to do with the word God whatsoever like there's gonna be eight more creations after us

That's not in scripture I understand the book of Ezekiel is still not have yet not fulfilled itself Some of the who was taught came from Falling angels because that just doesn't exist. Like I don't even care But it's true God didn't give it to you. Don't speak it because you said don't add our takeaway from the word, but that's what you're doing Yeah You know, it's really interesting when you see how this movement develop you've got the laterane movement Which sprung late 1947 what happened two years right before this?

That's whenever they discovered the caves the Nagamai scrolls the We we had to lost the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc Those did not get Republished till later, but there were people who went there because oh my gosh We've got all the secret knowledge that now if you're in a mystery cult This is like the gold mine man. You've got the gold mine for the secret knowledge and And they they went back to book Branum went to there was a fragment of the book of Noah that said that Noah and Enoch walked together and Noah's life on or Enoch's life on earth was 500 years and he repeated this over and over throughout

His ministry. I'm reading the Bible and I'm saying I'm seeing 365 years and I'm like where'd he get that from? I finally found out he's doing that. He's he's going to those ancient scrolls that aren't biblical that if you study their history And he's not the only one doing it. So I think what happened is there was a collaborative effort among many of the different people to say Now we have the ultimate mysteries. We can summon God. We can bring heaven down Let's do it and they got together and they tried to do it What I don't yet know was it a sinister plot or what did they really think that they could summon God and I go back and forth on what that is

No, and I don't you're right to go back and forth on what it is and so that's one or thing that Christ was up to and they'll they'll say, you know that they're doing spiritual warfare We know that the name of Jesus is above all names and every needs to bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord There is no need to chant the father's name over and over that is something God and that's the that's actually as I'm glad you do that and it must have been God that read it back to you remember because we had left

that subject and I was going to ask you about that because you know like they go off when you say that there's summoning God and that's exactly what's going on here once again I used to be in charge of some of these spiritual warfare bird meetings I wasn't even aware that I was trying to summon God and so you know I'm up there you know spelling the father's name you'd have a head that's not even billacle now the Bible does say you go see a call upon him Lord shall be saved we'll talk about the name of Jesus there

is no under name under there and where we might be saved but the name of Jesus 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 books 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. As you were talking I got to thinking I haven't fully dissected Bernice Hicks' sermons but I have actually listened to and watched quite a few of them and what I'm learning is the Christian identity framework more specifically the British Israel

but there were elements of also Christian identity that was augmenting her teaching she was coming up with different things that you can only get from British Israel or from the Christian identity one of the thing is the manifested sons of God which was widespread throughout Laterane she was teaching that you as a minister how far did you go and that did you actually teach the Joel's army theology or did you stop at just simply manifested sons no I never even taught that and it's it's amazing you asked me that question and I thank God that he did shield me away from

a lot of things even though I was there teaching increasing for five years he shield me away from so much and I will always be worthy for that so I never got to risk that because I started a lot on my own and I never really brought up a bunch of Reverend Hicks notes to the quote here when I know I never did that but I know plenty of preachers some preachers nothing but her notes. And I always thought that was my body. You didn't do you just study anything on your own. You used to go to get up here and look to a bunch of her paste

notes and say, you know, this is the word of God. No, I never did that thing. God. So I cannot speak to that extent because I never did that. God was just with me. But I do know what you're talking about as far as a letter rain and a manifest of sons of God that is a real teaching there. And that is definitely popular because they do teach that. And when Jesus comes back, we have to be manifest as sons of God a word not going. That is a real teaching. I would not teach that

because God would allow me to, but that is a real teaching a real teaching. Now the Bible does say that he gave us a power to be meant son of God. He never said a manifest of son of God. That will be equivalent to me. That will be equal to me calling myself Jesus. I need to be Jesus when he comes back.

That would never happen because if I had to be Jesus, why would he say being confident in this very thing that he had with me? He had with me going to go for you, we'll go for me to the deal. Jesus Christ. Why would he say that if I had to be him? You know, that's one of the things that really hit me hard because I was asked to do a research article paper for the Jones Town Institute. And I've actually done almost every year. I did not want to do one last year, but a research on

into how Jim Jones was tied to this movement. One of them, it was the most difficult thing I ever had to do, but I actually had to go through and listen to the death tapes. This is when all of the people from Jones, from people's temple, they went to Jones Town, Guyana, and they committed mass suicide. And they have audio tapes of this. It's horrific. As I'm listening to those audio tapes, I'm starting to hear things that I heard in church. And it, it just made me sick to my stomach because we were in the same type of movement. We just

did not realize it. And so I started to go back through some of his earlier sermons and try to piece together, well, how far did this go, right? And suddenly I come across the statement, he is making it. And I'm paraphrasing greatly, but he says something of the fact, I'm a manifested son, you're a manifested son, my manifestations just a little bit higher than yours. That's exactly the way it works in this movement.

The central figure has a higher manifestation. And then each person underneath has a different level of manifestation. And it changes the dynamics of what they believe when they summon God. If you really follow that out to its logical conclusion, the manifestation of the central figure is such that they become the God. And there's this weird union, we would talk about the mystical union of the bright of Christ. I never really thought about it, but that mystical union that they're talking about really is that God is coming down in the leader and the leader is still human, but the

leader becomes God before the people, and that's their highest level of manifestation. The people under it, they're achieving also levels of manifestation, but they can never make that final leap to become like the God because there's only one God, and that's the central figure.

Once I understood that, and I'm listening to these people who are literally giving their lives for the religion, I became so sick I almost couldn't finish the article. I did, but it was really hard, and to think that that has grown into what became the New Apostolic Reformation today.

You've got people who are teaching this manifestant sons of God, theology widespread throughout the United States, and abroad, and it all comes back down to this that we're talking about. This is summoning God, but summoning it into a human.

Good Lord. And I know that it had to be hard, man, but I couldn't imagine researching that and not trying, and just not just bawling out in tears to see what's really going on.

I can't imagine doing that, and that's all the pieces, but no, it's difficult to know that until I've been a part of that, and to know that there are so many good people that are still there, and all I can do for the most part is pray that God will open their house and just walk away.

But that is definitely a real thing there. I know because I was talking about that. See, this is what they do. They don't tell you that we're summoning God. They don't tell you that.

They do what Satan did in the beginning. They don't tell you the truth, but not the consequences of what you're doing, what Satan did. He told Adam and Eve the truth. When you eat of this forbidden fruit, your eyes are going to be like God, they're going to know they're not doing good and evil.

Now he told them a complete truth, but didn't tell them the consequences of eating this fruit, and just like what's going on in the message, they don't know the consequences of what they're eating.

And it saddens me because everybody there thinks that they're part of the 144,000. The 144,000 don't even know who they are. You know, you said something that I've been trying to frame into a thought.

In fact, I intended to do a full podcast on it at some point, but the idea of the original sin, Brannum twisted what was the original sin. For us, we believed it was sex between Eve and the serpent, which created two bloodlines, which is Christian identity.

The irony of that is, I'm seeing Hicks teaching Christian identity. So at some point, she had that doctrine. It also had the zodiac things in it. I've skimmed through some of her sermons, and she's teaching weird things about the signs in the heaven, right?

Well, that's part of Christian identity. British Israel doctrine, they're teaching... that the signs of the zodiac are an ancient Bible, the pyramids of Enoch are an ancient Bible. She's teaching the same exact things, but it all goes back to what you said.

The original sin wasn't a sexual problem. It wasn't even in the way that they describe it, it's not even close to the theme that they're saying. It's literally that you can become like gods and you can know good and evil.

And if you do this, this is the evil. It doesn't matter what is the fruit that they ate that caused this. It does not matter that. The problem is the manifest sons of God, framework, and the mystery cult, that union is exactly this.

If you look at all of the central figures of these mystery cults that have sprung up off of this framework, they're teaching that they know the secrets of the Bible and they know both good and evil if you understand what it is they're saying.

They are saying that basically they have eaten the fruit from the garden. And so the people who are coming to listen to this, they're rejoicing in the fact that this person has done exactly what God said was the original sin.

So forget all of the sins that they're doing beyond this. They go back to the very original sin and get it wrong. Oh man, right, right, right. It's, oh, that is so true.

It's kind of like, and I've heard this on your podcast before, they major in minors, but minor in majors. That's as lead through, you know, the major thing is me producing good fruit. The minor thing is what I know.

And that's all I look. It's very trivial. The other, I meant to say this early, and so I'm glad you brought it up again. So I can say here, the other thing that shocked me because I'm learning how the ancient cultures worked.

That was the one key that I was missing. I would have just walked away from this long ago. And so we had the Pentecostal thing. I could only wear pants. Man, it might be 110 degrees outside, and I'm out there sweating, building a deck, and I'm wearing blue jeans, and sweat, I can remember nearly injuring myself because I was sweating so heavily and all of the problems that go with that.

The moment that I read what it meant when the Bible said to gird up your loins, I was so angry, gird up your loins means take your robe, which is a dress in today's world.

So the men were wearing dresses of today. Because you need to run fast, gird it up, take it, roll it up, tie it, and basically make shorts. And we weren't allowed to make short.

We weren't allowed to gird up our loins. And it was a biblical thing to do this. So the moment I found that, and like I said, I'm angry, I'm just evaluating everything, and I came to realize that they really don't care what the Bible means.

What they care more is how can the leader present it in such a way that's a mystery? And they're just enthralled with what is that mystery? I like how you put that because it's operated like Hollywood is operating like Hollywood versus telling me something that So they will say the goal is would be to preach this message to change your life um If that were true This organization would be amazing It would be perfect and for all these already Everybody in it would be who would have been raptured up like Enoch already and like Elijah

They would be going already if that were true Well since then it's not the case And I like how you said uh grid up your loans. That's the same thing that god told you go to grid up your loans like a man

I had that same conversation with this guy who's an older gentleman and he was he was from the UK Wasn't from around here and he just looked at me and he started laughing He said john have you ever seen the Irish army uh or the Scottish army and I said no and he said these are the most and he may have used a word that That I can't use on here, but basically these are the most bad people that you have Ever tried to encounter that bad meaning they're That these are very militant group of people and they're wearing kilts

And which is basically a little mini skirt right and we were taught that anybody who wore who showed showed any part of the leg was a sissy That that was one of the doctrines that we had and I got to thinking about it and throughout history That's not been the case throughout history is not been the case And god is saying things like grid up your loans and go do my work He's what you're referring to he's talking to a prophet. He's telling a prophet go do what I tell you go say what I say

Grid up your loans to go quickly to get there That's not the that's not what you would call a sissy that's somebody who's doing gods will Yeah, and that once again that is legalism um we were taught not the where it starts to However, am I gonna go to the and I play a lot of basketball am I gonna go to the gym and play basketball in blue jeans or sweat pants?

No, I'm not I'll overheat I'm not gonna do that. You're not gonna rob the autonomous sense to be some kind of religious perspective And um and and that's that's it's crazy because that's such a control There's just ridiculous now I remember a particular um youth convention where Several of the youth passed out Because they were dancing in shadow and they overheated and passed out You mean to tell me that the holy ghost Is going to tell you to dance at a point to where you are unconscious And that is god that did up I can't find nowhere but they were dancing till he passed out

Nor can I find that anywhere in skirts with somebody dancing till they passed out I remember looking at Some things that you could vision look like moss pits And I was just looking at it from a distance like I was And I hate to say this kind of stuff because I'm not saying it too bash, you know, of course I'll go that's not my intentions. My intention is to shed light, you know, so that people will wake up and walk away. So I'm definitely, I'm not angry or bitter towards it. I'm just like, you know, um, it's kind of like sounding your alarm. Like you're in, you're somewhere

as you know, you should not be, or you don't even think you should not be, you should not be there. So, um, but no, I remember watching these young people shout and dance until they pass out. Well, and that's just it. We were actually taught that if you were to be a Christian, you had to defy what is logical, defy what is common sense because you're part of the mystery call, right? So the way that the doctrine is set up, it's basically to deny yourself your humanity. And if you can deny yourself your humanity and submit

fully to the leader, which is basically describing many of the ancient religions, you submitted fully to the, to the deity, which is standing there in the temple of Baal. If you can do this, you can summon God, you can be like God, you can become immortal. We had doctrines where there were people who would, you know, bypass death and go straight to heaven through this little, uh, random taught that he would have this tent and there would be this little room that you would get your new body. So actually, you're defeating death in that instance.

And that became widespread in the movement. What it is, they're distracting people from God. If you can focus on me, focus on me, the leader, don't focus on God. I'll give you your new body. That kind of doctrine and variations of that were very common in the movements.

The problem is, as people adopt us, they kind of forget about God when you do this because why do I need God? I can come to this leader. He's going to take care of me or she's going to take care of me. This becomes my new God. Oh, definitely. That's, um, but it's being master rated into, you know, teaching that that is God's doing, but it's really not. Yeah.

I mean, it's definitely masked. Um, something else there is masked is, you know, her legacy. You know, it's, and I'm only saying it because she would lead you to believe that this message, oh my God, because that's what she called it. It was founded on Bill of a principle and it wasn't.

You know, it was founded because you wanted to be on your own because of what happened with you Brown. You know, you didn't want to, you didn't want to submit to another man, which you should have submitted to him either, but, but, but you didn't want to submit to another man. So you want to be, you know, over an entire rotation. Now, if you were married, when you came over Christ gospel, why, or you don't founder without a co-founder. So now, why do you need the credit for every if you were married. Now, if, now, if you want to say that God used women that were in charge

before, but even in a Bible, they were married. The, the, the female judges in the Bible were married. They were not single. They, they just Israel, but they were married. So God is not going to tell you to be a woman and lead an entire organization. And so, by the judgment will, because she wants to be, she wants to exhort or exert authority over a man. And, and I'll tell you, man, since I love Christ gospel, just about once one of the spirits that I had to deal with. And I had to deal with that within myself first, because I didn't know

how bad it was within myself. And I'm going to honestly tell you I had to be delivered from the spirit of Jezebel after leaving Christ gospel, because that is the most prominent spirit in his organization. Let, let me pause you right there, because I think this is actually really important. The spirit of Jezebel, we were taught that the spirit of Jezebel was basically disobeying the dress code or things like this. But that is actually much, much deeper, if you understand the biblical meaning, describe that first and then get into the story. The spirit of Jezebel, or you want to describe the meaning of Jezebel first? So we were taught that the spirit

of Jezebel was if you wore makeup, if you, you know, if you wore pants. But the spirit of Jezebel is actually a much more sinister thing in the Bible. Yes, yes, yes. And the reason why it was taught like that is because it was the hat. It was to keep us from looking at what Jezebel really was.

She was cunning and a lot of things that were against what God was or wanted, you know, even, even in her name is Bill, which is a false prophet. So the Bible did say that she would call herself a prophet, but she's false. And so it's actually in her name, Jezebel, that she is a false prophet.

And so of course, they're going to conceal the real meaning of Jezebel to keep people from knowing what Jezebel is. Now, at them, going through the leverage from Jezebel, I know that she has a very large sexual appetite. And so, and when you look at Christ's gospel, and I know in this air is that I don't care who get mad, but it's true. 95% of the youth in Christ's gospel are dealing with sexual and lustful things. It also explains why the divorce rate is so high.

You cannot stay married if you have Jezebel. I can tell you, man, I was heading to divorce in this marriage if I wasn't a living front Jezebel. But this spirit is so dangerous there.

Like I've been, I've been flirting with my married women in the message.

I've been cornered by women or almost cornered by women who knew I was married in the message. You know, to tell me what spirit that is because the jacuzzi was comfortable coming to me because I had to spear within myself and they realized why I was having these issues, but my eyes were not going to open until I left the message because no, the message does not teach you.

And this is for the young people. The message does not teach you. Before you get married, you need to deal with, you know, your bloodline and also your spouse need to deal with theirs.

And maybe there is some level of deliverance that you both need to go through so that you don't bring both of you, both of, you know, all of your issues into a marriage. And so the message will not teach you that they'll teach you the message, which will not help you. They won't teach you about spiritual spouses that will tear your marriage up because that's not taught.

What's being taught is the message. And so, and one of the biggest things that I always thought about while I was in a message was this is always in the back of my mind. I never told anybody, it's something I like. I said the Bible says he gave you some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some preachers, some teachers, some pastors, some teachers for edifying in the body of Christ. Now, why is the only thing that is in this message is pastors? What happened to the residential fivefold ministry? You know, that's surprising too because it was the same way in our

group. We had, we taught that we were teaching the fivefold ministry, but they're pointing everybody to the leader, which claimed to be a prophet. So in essence, we had a onefold ministry. I'll never forget whenever I was studying Jezebel and studying the ancient mythologies because I really didn't understand the passages from the Old Testament until I understood the ancient cultures of the world.

It wasn't just that she was a bad person, and that's kind of when you hear the Pentecostal version of what is Jezebel, it's a really, really dumbed-down version that you might tell a two-year-old, or a five-year-old, you're not going to tell the true story. She was creating political alliances with other domains, which were worshiping other gods, which had human sacrifice, sexual rituals in the temples, to an order of their god, mystery cults, all of these other things. She created political alliances with all of these other kingdoms, then brought that into the the houses of Israel. So

Israel became a worship-wide spread of these things, and where they were worshiping Yahweh at one point, now they're worshiping these ancient deities through sex and human sacrifice, and who knows what all else. In fact, I was studying some archaeology at the same time, and they found all of these ancient, ritual places where in the heart of Israel, they found these ancient places where they were the phallus, the phallus was being worshiped in all of these places.

That's exactly the kind of religion that Jezebel was bringing to the kingdom. So her sin was actually bringing other gods and other deities and other forms of worship that were purely evil into the nation.

You can't say that wearing a little bit of makeup or wearing pants or doing something like this is even close to a human sacrifice. You just can't do it. So I'm glad I came out of that. I realized that I don't want to dumb down religion that is, I mean, I hate to say it, but it's very similar to what Jezebel was doing. It's just doing it in modern times and Christianity today. It's not for me.

If you could give some advice to people who are in Christ gospel and they're thinking about coming out, because I know I've had people contact me who are watching and they're curious about what we're talking about. What advice would you give them?

My advice would be to number one, really consecrate. And if you, if you're wondering whether or not you're in a cult or not, I challenge you to really consecrate. Go to another organization for about at least a month and let God really minister to your heart. Put down all of these satanic books. And I call them satanic because they're mixed with all kind of other stuff that's not even political.

And it would really be to like study the Bible for yourself. And when you feel something that is off, go to God with this request, because if you, if you listen to what what they'll tell you is that, you know, put it on the shelf and got over your ass to it. That is not true. If you question something is all questioned, that is all because nine times out of 10, that is the Holy Ghost telling you that something is offering. Please listen to that.

I remember, I was after I left Christ gospel and I was getting ready to open the book, Mastery for Nature, by the way, which she also still never wouldn't bring him, bring him to, she stole that too, because I seen some of the covers of his books and he wrote the same books. There was nothing of plagiarism still. And she's plagiarized so many things. And, and also my advice would be to research your leadership.

Research your local pastors do research on the history of Christ not what it is not what you think it is. I remember Reverend Higgs talking about eight off Hitler had the message. She said, and wow, I don't forget anything. And if I can put up a service study, I'll, I'll share with you, but she said it for me.

She said the eight-off Hitler had a message. It's also said that the Catholic church had the message and we both know that we Catholic is a coat They've venerate Mary and exalt her over Jesus. So you don't help Mary any things But that's a whole other thing, but that links this message to racism and I don't that's I'll we may never be into that

Um, but no my advice is that it's a really sick before game And I mean really see before if you question something that's being talked Listen to the Holy Ghost Listen to the Holy Ghost. It feels wrong. It is wrong They're gonna tell you that that that you're fighting a dragon spirit that is not sure if the Holy Ghost Convicting you that you what you're hitting is fast and pay attention to that because I Was one of those people question things and they told me I was dealing with a dragon spirit because something was coming

Against it's truth. No If it feels off it's off Because I listen to my wife and she says something feels off and so yes

At first since I was so big in Christ God, but I want to listen to her What God hung me you said no listen to you wife Something is off And so if you feel that is off listen to the Holy Ghost don't ignore Listen to the Holy Ghost And always study For yourself Because if you don't you remain to see and God doesn't want that for you Well, it's very good advice. Thank you so much for doing this Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story You can check us out on the web you can find us at William-Branum.org

For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation You can read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR available on Amazon Kindle and Audible

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