Chuck Smith to Hobart Freeman: How Latter Rain Theology Kept Changing

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Chenle Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Chenle de Ross YouTube channel. Chenle as you know I try very hard to avoid theology but there are certain cases when the history is literally intertwined so thickly with the theology that you can't really separate the two. And what we're going to be talking about today is one of those cases. You almost can't talk about the

latter reign without talking about the theology if you're looking at it from a historical perspective. So people who see me put on my theology hat, I'm actually putting on my historian hat again, but there's a book. I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's called The Spirit and the Bride. It was written in 1907.

And in 1907, as the Azusa Street Revival is in its early stages, it's starting to break out, there was this notion that the former and latter reign mentioned in Julius prophecy was written in part to Israel and fulfilled on the day of Pentecostan Acts and then was all of that was a type for what was happening with Pentecostalism 1907. It gets a little bit murky when you study the details of this because later on, as Pentecostalism began to fade, the latter reign movement began to emerge, they started to claim that, well, the day of Acts was the day of Pentecost and that has continued forever and we've always

been in the latter reign. So there's this kind of, I don't know, I want to call it twisting, but it's this disturbance in the way that things were laid out historically that really, if you don't examine that, you can't understand how the movement evolved in the way that it did. So it's going to be a little bit difficult for me to walk through some of this, theologically I'll let you cover most of the theological parts, but historically, what I can tell you from the examination that I've been doing in the podcast, I've been doing a few of

them alone, untangling all of this mess. I can tell you that there's a lot more mess to untangle. And with that, I'll hand it over to you. Well, the lack of precision is certainly a part of the mess trying to figure out when did the latter reign fall? You know, if it's rain, it had to fall, when did the latter reign fall, when did the former rainfall. But you know, John, we are kind of at the beginning of what I wanted to discuss regarding Dr. Hobart Freeman's views on eschatology. Come on down, Miss Jumpers. Oh, well, there she is.

We've been looking at his views on eschatology, how they relate to the end times, how they relate to Israel. And so this will also come into play with what we're going to talk about today regarding the latter reign. I think last time we were looking at the restoration of Israel as a nation in 1948 and May of 1948, they became a sovereign country again, which is any way you cut it is a miraculous event, whether you see it as a predicted event in scripture. It's just it was before then unheard of that any nation had not existed for 2000 years and had no country and all of a sudden

they're back in their land and their sovereign state. So anyway, you cut it. That was a miraculous event for Israel. And then in 1967, she was able to get most of almost all of her capital city of Jerusalem back. And I just want people to understand, I'm not saying that those two events aren't in some measure, a fulfillment of biblical prophecy in some sense. You know, I tend to think that they are, but I don't think that we can use those two events to date things. And that's exactly what Dr.

Freeman did. And that's exactly what everyone else has done. They look at that phrase in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 and Mark 13 that says, this generation will not pass away. And then they're saying, okay, that means therefore that the generation of one or the other of those events, either Israel getting her country back or her city back, that is the last generation. And so you obviously start date setting. And that's exactly what was happening with Hobart. He was real clever in the fact he would say, well, the Bible says we can't predict the day or the hour, but that doesn't mean,

and you know, people go down that line. That doesn't mean we couldn't predict how about the week or how about the month or how about the year. People get real cute and fancy. And I think when Jesus said, no man will know the day or the hour, I don't think, I don't think he meant by that, but but you can know which week of the year it is. I think that's just a real precise statement saying that it's going to be an event that's not predictable, that you will not know when the son of man is going to return. What I didn't realize early on, even though I had been a part of

the charismatic movement for several years before I knew and heard of Dr. Freeman, what I did not recognize is how. much he borrowed from everyone else, because he came into my life early. I was only 17 years old when I first heard some of Dr. Freeman's tapes, and I did not realize that this business about the end times and Israel and being able to narrow it down to some time period in our life.

Actually had been taught by people like Derek Prince. Derek Prince was huge on Israel. He was big on deliverance. He was big on fasting. He actually lived, I think, with his second wife in Israel.

And Derek Prince carried a lot of sway, probably because he was English. So we had that British accent, which just always makes you sound way smarter than the rest of us in the world, who speak the English tongue.

And he was also educated in some colleges and universities in England. So he carried some credentials with him that made him a very popular speaker in the charismatic movement. And another one, he's been dead for what?

I don't know, 20 or 25 years. But another big name person that I've only barely mentioned, and I think you've actually done some podcast on, was the Calvary Chapel founder, Chuck Smith, who also, I think, has been dead for 10 or 15 years.

Chuck Smith, this goes way back to the mid 1960. So he's actually in the charismatic movement on the scene prior to Dr. Freeman. He founded this church, I believe, in Costa, Mesa, California, just like a little group of two dozen people in someone's home, probably, and that grew to a mega church.

And I've never been a part of the Calvary Chapel movement, I've never even attended a Calvary Chapel Calvary Church service that I can remember in all of my 50 years. But I know there are hundreds, if not several thousand of them, spread everywhere.

So I just wanted to read something that came from Chuck Smith. This all relates to what we're saying with Dr. Freeman. This is something that you can just go online and find. And so here it says that in his 1978 book,

entitled The End Times, Chuck Smith was convinced that the generation of 1948 would be the last generation. See, this is nothing new with Dr. Freeman. This has been something taught by a lot of different Pentecostal and charismatic people.

So keep the dates in mind. He's writing this in 1978. And He's saying that the generation of 1948 would be the last generation, and that the world would end by 1981 at the latest.

He said this goes on to say that he further supported his convictions again in a 1980 manuscript entitled Future Survival,

in which he said that his understanding Biblical prophecies has convinced him that the Lord will come for his church before the end of 1981. Hobart was saying this in the late 60s and in the early 70s, Chuck Smith writing a book in 1980, saying, by the end of 1981, the Lord's gonna come, if that's not date setting, I don't know what he is.

I know he did not say a day, week, month, year, but he is still setting a date by the end of 1981 that the Lord's gonna return. And I just, you know, I was a part of all of this.

I wasn't that familiar with Chuck Smith back then, but I was a part of this movement, this whole movement that was date setting. You know, these were the days of Hal Lindsay, late great planet Earth, Satan's alive and well on planet Earth.

These were the days of Salem Kerbin, who wrote the very popular book, 666, that, you know, just had all kinds of speculation about the last days. And I think that a lot of this was connected to Israel.

It was, Israel was a huge deal getting their country back and getting most of the city of Jerusalem back. So Chuck went on to say that he could be wrong, but in the same sentence continued, it's a deep conviction in my heart and all my plans are predicated upon this belief.

I don't know if he really lived that, but taking him at his word, if all of your plans are predicated upon, you've got one year left, you know, you're probably selling all your goods and giving to the poor, you know, and quitting your job.

As long as you got enough money last year, that's all you need. And this is the way some people took it. And so they lived accordingly. Of course, we're in what year, John, 2026.

So that didn't happen, right? We know that that didn't happen in 1980 or 1981. So when it didn't happen, then he looked back later and just shrugged it off as maybe a possibility that he had raised in the past.

And it wasn't a possibility. He had written a book about it. Later, he said that setting dates for the end of the world was wrong. And he said that he came close to doing that earlier in his life.

Well, you know, and Chuck Smith is dead and gone. So, and I'm not a Chuck Smith hater or opponent or anything. I'm just saying that he, Dr. Freeman, all of these people were a part of this incredible thing after the six-day war.

And Israel got Jerusalem back in June of 1967, just pulling their hair out, saying, I know now Luke 21, 24 has been fulfilled and it wasn't. But it's been fulfilled and Jesus is coming back any day.

And I just wonder the people listening to the podcast, who remembers this, who was alive back then and how did it affect their life? You mentioned earlier that Derek Prince had the English accent and he was so readily adopted as educated because he was educated, but he got a lot more mileage out of his education because of his accent.

I'll say it like that. I wish that I had more eloquent speech and I had the British accent because I could do this too. Because what I'm about to say will cause all of the hate mail in the comments.

I can tell you, I have done extensive research on Chuck Smith, not just because he was a mentor to various people, teaching them the latarine doctrine, but also because of the strong ties that he had to all of this.

Chuck Smith has ties to people that are in my research and you can't really make the transition from latarine to charismatic movement without Chuck Smith as one of the lynch pins. He is one of the lynch pins.

And yet at the same time, as you mentioned, he has Doomsday prophecies like William Brannum. He has, and Brannum was not the only one that did this. He was strongly influenced by people like Gordon Lindsay who was also writing all these timetables in these charts that had Doomsday predictions.

And they would all say the same thing. It's, no man knows the hour, but look at these calculations. And they're doing it exactly. I'm doing exactly the thing that they shouldn't be doing. But Chuck Smith was also the, I believe he was the campaign manager for Paul Cain.

Paul Cain mentions this on recording. I've got a clip of that recording. Chuck Smith also carried forward into the charismatic movement, the Moses model. And this is probably the most significant thing that I'll talk about with regards to Chuck Smith.

The Moses model is important because of what you said earlier. It is a British Israel tie. They are bringing forward the idea that the Old Testament was written to the ancient Jews and we read it in two parts.

Yes, it's written to them. It's also written to us today. And we heard these passages. I can't tell you how many times I heard this one passage from Matthew 24. It says, let those who enjoy Judea flee to the mountains, let no house, no one on the house top go down, pray that your flight might be in winter or not the Sabbath.

We were taught that that was us. We have to be prepared. to flee, we have to be prepared, and no one seemed to catch that it said, those who are in Judea. To the average listener today, you read that, and you would never tie those two together, those that statement to the body of Christians today.

But if you bring in British Israelism, you can. Because it's written partially to the Jews, partially to people today. This was a strong latter-rain type theology. And historically speaking, when you bring that type of theology, you can make any passage turn into anything that you want it to, and you can literally make the Bible say whatever you want to.

Because I'm actually taking it out of the Bible context, and I inject it into any context that I want. The point I'm trying to make is this, it wasn't just a random that did this, it wasn't just Hobart Freeman, but this was an entire system.

Once the system was built, it enabled people like Hobart Freeman, like William Brannum, like all of these other very destructive cult leaders to hijack the minds of the people and try to teach them something the Bible said that it actually did not say.

And I've always been amazed, John, how Hobart was very successful in doing just what you said, although he didn't do it with that verse in Matthew 24, but he did it with many others, where there's an actual verse in the Bible, and the verse actually contradicts what they're about to say, because it says Judea, and come down from the top of your house, look, I don't ever hang out on the top of my house, because my house has a sloped roof like this, the houses in Israel had a flat roof, and they spent time up there.

So if he told me to come down from the top of my house, there'd be a problem, because I don't ever go up there, except to check a shingle after a storm. You know, I live in my house.

But the point is, you're right, they actually use the verse, and somehow we're just able to slide right through that reference to Judea and the top of the house. And even the Sabbath day, it's obviously a Jewish context there, because it's okay if you travel in other parts of the world on Saturday or Sunday.

It's just that was a problem for Israel that they could only travel so many furlongs on the day of it. They could only get over to like Bethany or the Mount of Olives. And beyond that, the rabbis had figured out how many steps were involved in work.

And once you went beyond the number of steps the rabbi said, that would have constituted work on the Sabbath day, and you weren't allowed to do that. But it's amazing that, yeah, it says Judea.

So somehow that must apply to Israel and Judea and not apply to me in Kentucky or you in Indiana. And yet these ministers, because they're crafty in the way they speak, and they have an agenda.

They're not, I hate to say this, but Dr. Freeman did not read the Bible the way that we are supposed to read it. And that is to see what it... says. In other words, let the Scriptures inform us of it's theology. We take our theology and we go to the Bible and try to find a verse to support it and back it up. I guess theoretically, we all know that's an improper way to read the Bible and yet that's the way these false ministers definitely read the Bible and the way they have trained their followers to read the Bible.

And it's simply not a valid way to do it. But yeah, it's it's doomsday. In the 1970s, it was doomsday. In a happy way, I mean, they weren't thinking at the glory barn drink the Kool-Aid. They weren't thinking that. It was a happy doomsday. You know, Jesus is coming back.

So you you need to prepare for for his soon return. You don't need to prepare for the rest of your life in the situation where he might not return. You know, they just weren't taught that because Hobart was convinced. The people before him were convinced and the people after Hobart, he convinced them, hey, the Jews got their city back and that full in 1967 in June in the six-day war. And listen, that fulfilled Luke 21, 24. So and if we're that generation, you go talk about the fig tree which we did last week. Israel is a fig tree and Israel is no such thing and it never

says that there. It never says if if something happens in Israel, it's like leaves budding and you can know that you're going to be living in the last days. That is not at all what it says, but it's definitely what Dr. Freeman taught the people and and that's what I learned. You know, obviously early in my life, that's the way I saw things. So I wonder, John, if we can play a clip, it doesn't really relate yet to former rain, latter rain, but what it does relate to is this whole idea of eminency and urgency. And it just put the people in the state of mind where they were no

longer in touch with reality. And it's, Jesus is coming again. There are, you know, dozens of predictions of the second advent and we should happily and willingly be able to talk about it and discuss it and study it and pray for it. But it doesn't mean that we can know with any certainty that he's coming back during our lifetime. So in a message during his study of the book of Romans, and we're going to, we're going to actually need this message, not this clip in it, but this one we'll use later on because it was taught in 1975.

It was when he got to chapter eight, which talks about the manifestation of the sons of God. That is something you and I still will talk about in the future regarding Hobart's views on that.

They are simply incredible and incredibly unscriptural, but because he would always say, don't be afraid of the manifestation of the sons of God, the Bible teaches it. That was just another way. The other Bible does use that terminology.

All of these teachers just have a way of using biblical terminology, but using it out of context. So in any event, in part one, a preparation for manifestation, let me just set the scene.

It's from the 31 minute, 22nd time stamp to 33 minutes and 46 seconds, but what he's talking about are just the trials, small trials that everybody goes through and he's kind of leading up to saying, don't be complaining about these little small things. Some of you are getting upset over these small things because God has big things in store for us. So we'll start with 31 minute and 22nd March.

Some people are still crying that there isn't enough seats or not enough room in the nursery or not enough air conditioning or whatever. Well, I could hope we have all this, but the point is, don't let the devil defeat you because of some little physical thing about you had to stand an hour to get in to get a seat. As I said before, God may be separating the men from the boys just for that. I don't know what the answer is. I know we need more space and when God provides it, we'll have it. But there can be other things you don't understand about. Maybe this way he's

dealing with this may have an answer to that. You never know, six months from now, you may not be allowed to meet here. When are these things going to happen that we've talked about for years?

They can't just all of a sudden, or they can't happen out there 50 years after you've gone persecutions and ministries. God may catch a third of your way somewhere to minister. I mean literally just transport you. So we won't need all those seats. Or he can catch me away to ministry which he's shown in vision and prophecy and it's just, I don't know where it is or when it is.

Maybe that's what that's staring at my spirits about. Maybe there are reasons we won't need as many seats as we didn't need. I don't know the answers to these things, but I learned one thing, not to be pressured by men.

Well, meaning people, let's do something. We got to do something. I do this. If you can show me what to do, or if you know what to do, go ahead and do it. I said before, if they want to put $100,000 building out there, go ahead, have the faith for it.

I don't see that of the Lord. If there's another place to go, I'd be there. I don't know where it is if it is, because I've certainly held it before the Lord. And I know when he's talking to him and I know when he's purposely being silent and he hasn't sent a word for a couple of years about that, I mean about that, because I've certainly sought his mind on it.

But there just may be things we don't know about, you see. And you have to learn, friends, that the way God deals with you may not be the way He deals with me. God may want all the Roberts say on television ever Sunday, that doesn't mean He wants me on television ever Sunday.

In the future, John, we're going to play the very beginning of that message when it's really interesting. But this is halfway through this sermon of his preparation for manifestation. It was taught in 1975, let me just give the context of that.

They moved into the glory barn in the fall of 1972 and moved out just because they had outgrown it in the spring of 1978. This message is 1975. So this is right in the middle of that time period of the six year time period they spent in the glory barn.

And by the mid seventies, things had just exploded there. When they moved in early on, they had a couple of hundred members by 75. They probably have five, 600 members, maybe 700 members, maybe even more.

They're meeting upstairs downstairs as you heard in the clip. People are standing in line for hours to walk up the steps to get to the second floor. That's where the main meeting hall was and where where the pulpit was and where Hobart spoke.

The clip also said, you know, there's not enough seating. Some people are complaining about that complaining about getting here too early, complaining about not enough AC. But here's the thing that I want to highlight in that particular clip.

He's trying to explain how we don't know how and why and when God's doing the things that He's doing. And He says in the middle of that clip, maybe God is going to catch away.

And He means literally bodily, like Philip in the book of Acts. God's going to catch away a third of you people and take you to other parts of the world to minister. He said, because when is this great end time ministry going to break forth like we're always preaching and preaching about and believing for?

He said, maybe that's why. We have grown so big, God's gonna solve the problem of overcapacity by catching away a third of the congregation. And I'm telling you, John, they literally believed that that was a viable possibility.

You know, we're, we're our 50 years from then. Did that ever happen? No, none of them are caught away. Let alone a third of them. And then he goes on to say that that's been shown in vision and prophecy to God saints all over the world.

That this is, you know, the, gonna be the manifestation of the sons of God and he's gonna catch us away. And he said, and he's gonna catch me away because that's been shown. That never happened, you know, he, he, he died and they put him in a pine box and buried him.

And he also talks about because it's the crunch of the people there about needing a new building. And he said, you know, if you, if you have the faith for a hundred thousand dollar new building, you know, go ahead.

He said, I don't have the faith for that. And he said, I don't believe that's God's will. What is so interesting is that two years later, they're building their hundred, 200 thousand dollar building.

So I don't know where that idea went that he didn't have the faith for it and it wasn't God's will because that's exactly what they found out in their mind was God's will. And they went on to put up a new building.

But the main thing I wanted to show in that clip was this high percent of supernaturalism. Don't worry about being overcrowded here because maybe next Sunday when we all show up, just like that, God will catch away a third of you and send you to far places of the world so that you can minister.

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Chino, I'm a father and I love all children. We work with some families who are some families Actually, homeless, we take care of as much as we can. We give them things. And I've worked with children who need a lot.

And I've been with children who don't need a lot. And I treat everybody the same. They're all equally and equal in my mind. I like to give gifts. That's one of the ways that I show that I love people.

And sometimes I will give a family a gift who their children doesn't really have much. And say that I give one child a ball. And this child just really loves this ball because he doesn't have a ball.

And I go to another child and another family. I give them a ball. So you've got two families, both of which got the same gift. But say the one family says, look, I'm special because he gave me that ball.

Knowing that the ball was given to all of these other people, I've given, I can't tell you how many gifts I've given to people. That's kind of what has happened here. I did this podcast recently on who owns the revival.

Because when Pentecostalism emerged, they started to say that we're it. We have the revival. But the revival had been going on. You can go decades back in the past, go back to the Wesleyans.

I mean, you can go all the way back as far as you go. They all claim, I got the ball. God gave me the ball. All your other Christians don't have the ball. And the question just formed in my head one day, well, who really owns the ball?

Who's the one who can say God shows us as the elite, the special ones? Pentecostalism for me, I know people think that I'm making this comment against Pentecostalism. It isn't that. It's just that the mindset, people need to realize that there are other Christians out there.

And whenever you try to make it such that we're the only ones we've given the special doctrines, we have the special gifts, et cetera. When you recognize that those gifts actually existed in other places too, it's not really that special.

You're just in a situation where the father loves you and everybody else, you can't claim exclusivity. The problem, as it continue to develop, however, is they did. And as it goes through this Moses model, or if you think of the Moses model, Moses is the one who led God's children out.

He was the big figure back then, back in the Old Testament. So if you look at it in that type of model, this creates a problem because you're now more exclusive. Tie that to the British Israel doctrine where you're trying to say that these old, these blessings from these old covenant passages belong to us as a group collectively.

And all the other Christians who don't have what we have, they don't get those same blessings. That's really the problem because you've drawn this line in the sand that says, God who gave us the ball, even though he gave all these other people the ball, he doesn't love them as much.

And you know where Hobart ended up, he was the only one who had the whole ball, John. I mean, I don't know that most people end up there. I doubt Chuck Smith felt that he was the only one who had the message.

Hobart took it to its logical conclusion. Lusion, God loves me and us so much that I am the only one to whom he has given the full end-time message of faith, whatever that is.

That's what he always called it, the end-time message of faith. He was the only one who had been given that. And you're so right, John, that we've all received things from God and anything that is a true gift from God, which we have all received, it should humble us.

It should not make us proud, we should be so thankful that we have anything from God. And you're so right, every movement thinks that they are it to the exclusion or if not exclusion to the relegating to the background, any other people around them or any other people for them.

So let's come, John, with the time we have left and talk about this subject of rain, the former in the latter rain. Maybe one thing I better clear up in the beginning, and this is going to be elementary probably for 99% of the people, but believe it or not, I've actually seen brochures and sermon titles and things printed up where this is a little humorous, when people heard the latter rain, they thought it was R-E-I-G-N, that kind of rain.

And I guess in one sense, it kind of could be, that's not what we're talking about, but I have actually seen people talk about, they're part of the latter rain, R-E-I-G-N. So they're probably talking about how we're going to rule the earth or control the earth, so rain in that sense.

But that's not what most of us mean when we talk about the former in latter rain. It is R-A-I-N as in moisture. Look, we need to start by saying that imagery related to rain or water, especially running water versus a pond or a pool of water that can tend to be stagnant, but imagery related to those things is definitely used of the Holy Spirit in the Bible. It's used in the Old Testament, it's used in the New Testament, and that shouldn't be a surprise. That is a natural symbol or a natural connection because of the fact that when we read the day of Pentecost experience,

the Holy Spirit was what, poured out. So to use imagery of rain would not be unbiblical and not be out of the ordinary at all. So for instance, Isaiah 44-3 mentions God pouring His blessing on His people, and the rest of the verse says that He will pour His Spirit on His people. So you can see pouring out of rain.

Pouring out of the Holy Spirit are in the same passage and in the New Testament in John on the end of the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7 verses 37 to 39 Jesus is talking about Out of a man's belly will flow rivers of living water So it's not rain, but it is still water living water and the last verse verse 39 says that he said this in reference to the Holy Spirit which he was going to give but he had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified So I am a hundred percent okay and on board with the fact that rain and life giving water are often used as symbols or

images in relation to the ministry of the Holy Spirit However, what is interesting and I don't know if people in this ladder rain movement have ever realized this but even though rain and water are used as images of the Holy Spirit to my knowledge former and ladder rain is never used in either the old or the New Testament in the immediate context of something to do with the Holy Spirit So for instance in Deuteronomy 11 and verse 14 God says he'll give you the former and the ladder rain James in the New Testament 5 James chapter 5 and verse 7 also talk about the husband men

waiting for the former and ladder rain and the context of the passages We'll probably need to make a comment about this in Israel because it is a semi-airid climate The rainy seasons were incredibly important Here in Kentucky for the last few months it has not stopped raining We just have rainy season all the time. It's not true in Israel The former rains would fall in the fall and the ladder rains in the spring And when the former rains came down in late fall early winter it was to help germinate the crop And then the ladder rains once the crop has now broken through the surface and is beginning to grow would bring them to

maturity and bring them to harvest So one of the rains was not going to be sufficient. They really needed both of the rains And if you look in the context of Deuteronomy 11 Um, that's what it is talking about. It is always in the context of agriculture And agriculture was incredibly important. They would die of starvation if they didn't have rains Which would produce the crops which would feed the Israelites But it's always within the of agriculture and the promise of both of the rains, the former and latter rain meant that Israel wasn't right standing with God. If you look at the blessings and curses chapters, Deuteronomy 28,

Leviticus 26, if you obey me, here are the blessings, if you disobey me, here are the curses, and the blessing for them, if they were within good standing with God, was that he would bless them with both of the rainy seasons, the former rains in the fall, the latter rains in the spring, and they would have agricultural production and abundance, and it was very, very important for them.

So, where does this idea then come from that former and latter rains have to do with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? It probably comes from Joel chapter 2 and verse 23, so I'm just going to read that verse and we can make a few comments on it. Joel 223, be glad you children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he had given you the former rain moderately, and he will calls to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month, and then look at what the next verse is say, so that your floors will be full of wheat.

This verse is actually speaking in its own context, we're not making this up of literal rain. What he's saying, if you read the verses preceding this, if Israel comes to a state of repentance before God, then they'll be meeting the conditions of Deuteronomy 28 and of Leviticus 26, and God will give them these rainy seasons in abundance so that their storehouses will be full.

They can make up for the lost years that the locust has eaten when they were living in a state of disobedience. It is a wonderful physical, material, agricultural promise for abundance within the land of Israel. We have to get down to verse 28 before we read, and it will come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit. That's not in the context in verse 23, and for the people more technically inclined, there are several different words that are very debatable how you should translate them in verse 23. One has to do with the word moderately, and we're not going into

that, and the other has to do with the end of the verse, which in the King James, it has simply, they have simply italicized the word month that the former and the latter rain will come down in the same month. Other translations, I think they will say that it will come down as it did at the first.

In other words, you will be experiencing what you who were accustomed to experience when you were in right standing with God. He's simply gonna give you a great rainy season, both former and latter.

But there are other people that actually believe that what he's saying is this is gonna be in such abundance that it's gonna be as though they've got all the rain they need at one time and the crops are super productive.

And that's actually born out in some other prophetic passages, John, where it talks about that the reaper will overtake the sower and vice versa. That the land of Israel will be so productive because of the right standing, the nation enters into with God, that it's just a bumper harvest from beginning to end.

So this is the context of Joel 223 and this is what they're talking about. This is what Joel is talking about right there. It's interesting because you beat me to my climax again. I was going to talk about that, but I was going to go specifically to the 28th verse.

They're separating the rains, which were the blessing for the drought that had been and the locust, the army of destruction that had destroyed the crops. I will give you this agricultural rain, but there's a clear separation between the blessings and the rain part in the latter rain movements and many of its preceding movements.

They tried to say that that verse was combining those two and it's really not, if you take that chapter, it's not combining them too. That chapter is a prophecy and when you look at the prophecy, it gets even a little bit more fuzzy when you try to apply what the latter rain movement did because the latter rain movement and the subsequent movements that were built on top of it tried to say, behold, your apostles will dream dreams and your prophets will see visions and this leadership tier that we're going to create and establish will be the blessing to you

that you can come to us for all of your spiritual needs and you yourself don't need them at all, which is not what that says. It says, your sons and your daughters and not even you, but your sons and your daughters will be the ones who are getting the spirit.

It wasn't the hierarchy that was created, but what happened, in my opinion, there were people who saw how much money could be made by saying that this is the latter rain and we're the elite and we are the leaders of the elite.

Once you're a leader of the elite and everybody wants to be in the elite group, suddenly you've got this thing where, oh my gosh, I can come and get my blessings from this guy and remember all of this came on the heels of the spiritualist movement where you could go to the spiritualist and they could tell you your fortunes.

So the prophecy and the fortune telling was one and the same. It also came on the heels of the restoration movement which said we will restore, so they would say we are restoring the firefold ministry where we will create this hierarchy for you and forget all about your sons and your daughters.

We're gonna be the ones that you go to for the example. I would say John that Joel... to 28, not 23, that Joel 228 was probably, it's one of the most often quoted verses by Dr. Freeman. Mark 11, 23 to 24, you know, would be in there. But he talked about Joel 228 all the time saying, you know, we are seeing that fulfill. God said he would pour out his spirit on all flesh. And here we are in Indiana and God has poured his spirit out on us. And of course, when I, when I first listened to Dr. Freeman, that's what I believe, John,

because, you know, they have a way of telling you, listen, this is what the verse means. And so you just say, oh, okay, that's what the verse means. But as you just said, that is not what the verse says. The verse is a, is a prediction to Israel. This is a Jewish prophet Joel saying, unlike in times past, when God would give his spirit to a king or to a prophet, or think of the book of judges, where those judges were anointed temporarily, was very select people in Israel, and only a small handful, whoever had the spirit. And what we're reading in Joel 228 is when he

says, I'll pour my spirit out on all flesh. He's not saying they're Jew and Gentile. He goes on to define what he's saying. He's saying, I'll pour my spirit out not only on you prophets, but on your sons and your daughters. So it covers male and female. It covers a younger generation.

He said, your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will have visions, two different generations of people. And then he goes even a step further to cover other economic and social classes of people. He said, even on your servants and your handmaidens, I will pour out my spirit.

It's a Jewish prophecy. It is not a Gentile prophecy. It is a Jewish prophecy. And the all flesh is further defined in that context by saying it will not only be restricted to prophets and kings and judges, but it will be on everyone. Hobart had this little tract. We've already shown this one, John, his little occult oppression and bondage, how to be set free. And he was so proud of that little thing. And it's just ridiculous.

Telling Christians, if your mother went to a fortune teller, you need to go through occult deliverance because you've opened a door. He had another little one in this, I don't know what color that is, maybe apricot. I've never figured out what color this tract was, but the purpose of Pentecost. And he was so proud of this tract. This tract was a prophecy. Let me read the beginning of it. The following prophecy was given by of the Holy Spirit through Pastor Hobart, E. Freeman, Claypool, Indiana, February 1, 1967.

So he is getting ready to preach a sermon. He's doing sermon prep. As we know, he was prone to do. He sits in his study and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit falls on him and he has a prophecy. And that's what the end of the first paragraph says, the power of God fell heavily on Pastor Freeman and he began to prophesy. And the Lord commanded him to write what he was about to give him, which was a prophetic admonition to the churches in these last days. There we go again, thinking these last days. See, Hobart had not even

been charismatic for a year. We're talking about 11 months into his charismatic experience. And he was just as wild as a march here, getting prophecies all the time, thinking that the Holy Spirit had fallen on him in his study. He's writing out or typing out this whole prophecy. I don't know how long it took him to do that. And it is an admonition and a warning. Yes, I could probably even include thread because he said that if you do not receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, God's going to hold you accountable on the day of

judgment. So rather than the Holy Spirit being a blessing, you know, if you don't receive the Holy Spirit, you're going to be judged. But to your point, what you said a few moments ago, John about the apostles and prophets, and I'm not going to read this prophecy, it's Hobart 100% just talking. I know his terminology. I know his words. He says he's the exact same sentences all the time back then. It's the same way Hagen prophesied. They all prophesied the same way. They have a certain certain cliches in their mind. They have, you know, a certain

collection of statements and thoughts and ideas. And they just put them all in there with the say of the Lord, the say of the Lord in between. But here in the middle of this prophecy, he said, not let no one therefore hesitate, but seek to learn my will in my word, which teaches, here's what his word teaches, which teaches that the days of the apostles and the signs that follow them are upon the earth again. Yeah, it's a restoration of the five full ministry, restoration of all the signs. You know, he fully believed this manifested

son's five full ministry stuff. I mean, he was all about that, even though what is so remarkable, even though they didn't have any apostles or prophets in their church, they couldn't even name any. If he named one, it'd be someone like T. L. Osborne as an apostle or hagan as a prophet, and then he'd have to take that back when he found out the heresies they were teaching and believing.

So it's just so remarkable that they continue to talk about fivefold, fivefold, fivefold. Although as I've said, they were simply onefold. And I will do great signs and wonders once more in the earth like as have not been seen before.

That was in his little prophecy. You know, what I say about prophecies like that, John, is he had heard prophecies and teachings along that line. And these people simply believed in prophesied, they believed what they wanted to believe.

They heard what they wanted to hear. They prophesied what they wanted to believe. He's saying God's restoring the days of the apostles and signs, well, you know, that's Smith Wigglesworth from Smith Wigglesworth to Paul Cain to the NAR is going to continue I think going on all these people talking about these great signs and wonders.

None of them had any sign or video, any sign or wonder on a video, you know, it happened in another country. It had my mother told me that her aunt saw this, you know, all of these people were born into some gifted family and angels appeared to their mother or their grandmother or their grandfather.

You know, we don't, we're not privileged to get to see any of these things. And they haven't seen them either. And yet they continue to hold on to them. It's just like it's so embedded in their brain, they will not, they just refuse to practice any critical thinking and just just take a pause and say, I believe in the restoration of apostles.

I believe, okay, now I'm going to take a pause. Where is an apostle? Have I seen an apostle? I believe in that God said we can raise people from the dead. That's my belief and heal the blind and open deaf ears.

That's my belief. Now let me suspend that for just a moment. Where have I seen the dead raised in my life or church or blind eyes open? They want to hold on to this belief and yet they refuse to practice any critical thinking.

And as you know, what led me away early on was not only Bible study, but a little bit of critical thinking. And I kind of felt foolish talking about telling everybody about fivefold ministry when I didn't know any apostles or prophets.

I thought, you know, I need to stop saying that until I know a half a dozen. And I never found a half a dozen, so I just stopped saying that. And early in the episode, I gave the kids a ball and here at the end of the episode, I'm going to give you a ball and 365 days from now, you're going to get a ball.

And fast forward in time, it gets to be a few months, we're nearing the end time. And then what's it gets down to? I don't know, 360 days, you've got five days left, you're almost at the end time, where I'm going to give you a ball.

And then when I give you the ball, you can say, here in these last days, I have gotten the ball. And on the context of last days, it's the last days for me promising you a ball.

The biggest problem that I have with all of this, and this is worthy of an entire podcast, is that people who are in this type of movement that springs out of this destruction, doomsday, under the world, last days theme, they don't properly apply what last days meant in the context that it was given for the passage that is containing the last days.

There's last days talking about, we're in the last days of the old covenant, there's last days talking about, the last days before Jesus will return again the second time. There are different last day period, and you can go through, actually, you can type in last days and the internet, and you can search this and find it.

But what they have tried to do is they've tried to make it one passage fits every scenario, every situation that leads to doomsday. And in doing so, all paths lead to doomsday. But that's not really how it reads if you know the history and the context of the scripture.

I was fully surprised at this, I've mentioned this a few times. Once I learned what the covenants were and how they worked and what actually that implied to the passage in its interpretation, I came to the conclusion that not a single doomsday minister has actually read the Bible and thought about what it meant.

Because you can't do that. You've got Jesus who's coming to fulfill the old covenant law. So all of the passages talking about the fulfillment is, that's exactly what he's talking about. And he's talking to the Jews, I will restore you.

But they were trying to say that that was restoring us and that that was something that was happening right before the end time, and they would try to focus it generally to the person who is the central figure.

He is the one who's going to do the stuff that Jesus said he would do. Some of that goes back to theology. I've heard outside of the movement, and so there is this great theological area, but I would say by and large, every last day's scripture that's in the Bible that they can use to point to doomsday, they're going to do it because they get more advantage in how they manipulate the heads that way.

I don't read it that way any longer. I'm sure you and I could probably debate for an entire podcast on this, but there are those passages that very clearly are talking about the last days before Jesus returns.

But there's also some very clear examples, and you can probably give some, talking about the last days where I will restore Israel. And John in conclusion here, what was so problematic to me regarding the former and latter reign was anybody dating.

When is the former and when is the latter? When did the former reign happen? When is the latter reign happening or going to happen? It became it became. something that they could massage and they could teach on on one tape this and on another that.

So I think sometimes I heard Dr. Freeman say, and you know this made sense originally, oh, the former rain was Pentecost. That's when, you know, the former rain, the early rain, that was Pentecost when the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 was actually poured out. And so, oh, okay, you know, I'm forgetting Joel 2.23 right now. I can follow what you're saying. So, when's the latter rain? Well, then that became a little complicated. Sometimes, in most of the time, it was 1901.

It's Topeka, Kansas. It's Azusa Street in Los Angeles. It's Charles Fox Paron. It's Amy Simple McPherson. It's William Seymour. It's all of that stuff. And I didn't know anything about those names. You know, I had to buy books from Gordon Lindsay to find out who these people were.

And then later on other tapes, so, you know, I would hear Hobart say, he'd be talking about, you know, these ministers just get preaching. And, you know, it's open to every minister's interpretation when you want the former rain to be in the latter rain. And so, he'd get preaching and he'd talk about the former rain that came down in the beginning of this century. He was talking in the 1900. So, in 1901, the beginning of this century, in 1901, we saw the former rain. And now, we, in this post-World War II, Pentecostal revival, are experiencing the latter rain. And on other

occasions, John, he would say that the former rain was what was coming down then in the 50s and 60s, and he was experiencing. And the latter rain was going to be the greater works ministry, and the manifestation of the sons of God. Well, they can't be all of those. The former rain in Israel came down in like October, November, December, and the latter rains came down. They came down in a definite period of time. And of course, we're talking about real rain. If you're going to spiritualize it, which I don't think you can do, not based on any passage I'm aware of in the

Bible, but if you're going to try to spiritualize it, which they did spiritualize it, at least give me when the former rain was and when the latter rain is or will be, so that I can know what you're talking about. The reason they couldn't do it is because I mean, the Bible to them to use a quote from, I believe, Martin Luther back in Reformation days, the Bible for them became a wax nose, where you can just massage it and make it take any shape or form you want. That was Luther's complaint with the way some people handle the Bible. He said they turned the scriptures into a nose of wax,

soft wax at that, where you can massage it, make it take the shape you want to. And that's what they did with former and ladder rain. So here I am 50 years later after my conversion experience.

And no one has told me, Cheno, here is when the former early rain happened and here is when the ladder rain happened. So I've just given up on that. And it all comes back to that same reason.

If you try to save the last days, is every single day that you can possibly have, you're always in the last days. So it's never going to, never going to end. And if you're in the doomsday mentality, it just keeps people oppressed.

So so much more we could get into, I guess we'll save it for next time. Thank you for doing this. Yeah, sounds good. Thanks, Sean. 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.