Hebrew Roots and Pentecostalism: More Alike Than You Think

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 Melissa Hume, form a member of the Hebrew Roots movement. Melissa it's good to have you on and to talk about your story and your being in the Hebrew Roots. I'll start by saying I'm not an expert in Hebrew Roots although I'm not just enough to be dangerous but I did come across a lot of interesting information as I was studying Christian identity and specifically how the

restoration theology came into Pentecostalism and Laterane because there's a lot of crossover once you get into the restoration of the church and interestingly there's a lot of ideas that kind of fit together like a zipper but yet they're separate so anyway good to have you on maybe if you could begin by telling everybody a little bit about yourself. Hi I'm Melissa Hume and my husband and I live in Omaha and I was raised my mother raised me with the Christian faith and taught us the Bible and took us to church and I was a part of

an independent Christian church till I graduated from high school I came to Christ when I was 13 and I was involved with various churches and ministries and mainly pro-life ministry. I'm originally from Nebraska and my husband and I also moved to Arkansas Eastern Tennessee and then back to Omaha, Nebraska and I went into the Hebrew Roots movement in 2000 and came out in 2018. That's quite a journey and I'm like I am dying to pick your brain. The first person who has come on that is Hebrew Roots or was Hebrew Roots and there are just so many

themes that like I said overlap. I think the biggest thing for me is when I was researching how restorationism came into this movement. Both groups seem to pose the same question and I'm not going to say that the Hebrew Roots did this exactly. I'd rather you answer it for me but in the movement that we came out of they would ask what the church lost and what we need to restore and I want to say that both were very similar but I'll ask you the question whenever they were teaching theology and how God was going to return. What aspects of

restorationism did they teach and did they outright say that the church has lost something and it must be restored or how did they do this? Yes, 100% percent. They taught that the church lost the following the Torah or the Mosaic law, including the seventh-day Sabbath, the feast of dietary laws. And so they taught that the church lost those truths and that it's their job to restore those truths, that they're an end-time remnant, that it's been revealed to them.

They are Israel, some of them believe they're the part of the lost tribes of Israel, and that they are to restore the mission as the church. They don't convert non-Christians or non-believers or mission is the church to restore telling them that they must keep the Mosaic law. That is required for believers today. Got it. Because that was the very premise. They were saying that the churches lost a lot of things and we're going to restore it. Therefore come out of those churches and come into ours. And when I started studying cultists and that's basically every single cult is the same way. All those churches are

wrong. Come into our church because we're the right ones. And it's just it's so odd. So once I got into studying that, I did skim the surface at some of the theology. And I'm curious from your perspective because I read other articles that were saying very similar things. In Pentecostalism they focus on Acts 2.

That's where the gifts come to the church. The Holy Spirit comes. Pentecostalism is basically based off of that. And I think it's second chapter of Joel. Did your church have a heavy focus on the second chapter in Acts? The main focus was the Torah, the first five books of Moses, specifically the laws given to Moses at Sinai to the people of Israel. And so they believe that is to be restored to the church and that like you're speaking, many of them teach the churches Babylonian need to come out of the church that the Reformation didn't go far enough that the Catholic church throughout the

Sabbath, throughout the feast, took pagan holidays, Christmas and Easter, and Christianized them. And so they said that the church didn't go far enough. We need to throw those pagan things out and that we need to be restored to the Sabbath and the feast of the dietary laws into the Torah. The restoration theology as it exists exists in different ways. But they're basically saying that for us to for us to be enlightened, and I'm using that word very, very loosely for in each different branch, it's a different thing. But essentially for the good thing to happen, we must restore first. And then all of the

blessings come to the church. Am I saying that correctly? Absolutely. And so they teach that they are actually Israel. And they teach when a Christian Gentile comes to the knowledge of the Torah that we're supposed to keep the Torah, then they know they become part of Israel or they recognize our identity as Israel. And some of them believe their spiritual Israel and some believe that they're actually descendants of the Timoth.

tribes and so and the restoration there are some charismatic there's many many branches in the Hebrew it's movement so they're basically these people are coming out of Christianity and some will bring their charismatic with them so there's and some are not charismatic there's very wide branches in the Hebrew it's movement got it that makes sense and that is the crossover that led me down that path so I want to explore that a bit I began this journey when I started looking into British Israelism and this is the idea that came from Britain that the British Isles the

United States and Canada are part of the descendants of the lost 10 tribes of Israel and there were a number of different cults that branched off of this I started exploring some of them and they were just too many to count Pentecostalism interestingly I don't I can't say that branched off of it but it adopted some of that theology through Charles Fox Parham who was studying I think it was Frank Sanford who was big into the British Israel theology but then it kind of exploded in the 1920s there were a lot of a lot of different groups that were bringing this in how how much did they

how far did they go with the British Israel theology again you mentioned that they are they believe they were the lost 10 tribes what did they think about the overall descent of of of the bloodline as it relates to the Jews so they did they believe that regionally or just specifically to your church or your group well basically and not all the Hebrews people believe that is really a controversial issue but the the Hebrews is ridded in more white church of God in Herbert Armstrong and so when that cult which they embrace British Israelis in our form of it so when that cult broke up and splintered in the 1990s many of the leaders came

out of that and started Hebrew Ritz groups and so they have this theology where they go back to like the two sticks and these Eagle 37 and they say they talk about that when the House of Israel split and they the 10 tribes were scattered and so they believe that that they are the restoration is now in these last days that they are descendants of those lost tribes the Gentiles are scattered but they are really the Gentiles that come to Christ and come to the Torah are actually lost tribes of the descendants and so that's what they teach and believe and they also have a really interesting

some of them have a really interesting what they call the second exodus and so they believe that they're actually going to go through a wilderness like experience like the first exodus and that they are going to go back to the land of Israel during the tribulation and that they are preparing for the tribulation to survive it and they're going to go back to Israel and they are going to be reunited with the Jews and then that the two houses and the two sticks of these Eagle 37 will come back together and so they believe they're and they call it F-R-I-M they're F-R-I-M in Judah they'll

say the Christians need to come to the Torah the Jews need to come to the Messiah and and the Jews come to Messiah, and the Christians come to heaven, and they come one. It's so interesting because you're basically describing elements of what I came out of.

And I would say that a large majority of the Pentecostals did not adopt some of those elements. But we did, which is interesting because that developed into Laterane and eventually into the new Apostolic Reformation.

So the core of it is pretty much similar to what you just described. And you also mentioned Herb Armstrong. He's another guy that I've been researching, I still am researching, but he was bringing the idea that we needed to restore the lost truth, essentially.

And that concept, even though he was never really Pentecostal and you'll correct me from wrong, but I don't think he was either Hebrew roots, either. But the ideas that he was saying, the themes that he was bringing to the church, was adopted by many of these people, and they would just use his books or his literature as a breeding ground to spread it.

But anyway, I feel like I've hijacked your podcast, but I'm so fascinated to learn more, and that's why I'm picking your brain. Maybe if you could tell me a little bit about just simply what was it like when you were in it?

And I'm talking everything from the way that you were, the way that you're trained to believe the Bible, the way that you live your lives, what was it like being in the Hebrew roots?

So the first four years, I was in a congregation which I would label Hebrew roots quite, and I was having the time of my life. It was really great. I enjoyed learning the Messianic Jewish dance, the worship, the feast.

I was having a wonderful time. And then people started denying the deity of Christ, and that's when things started to not go so well. And we actually had two couples in the congregation that we are part of, renounce Christ and one couple.

So they were converting to Judaism. And so when that happened, the rabbi said that this couple had, and I had known this couple before I even gone to this congregation, and this couple, he said that they had studied and researched and they believed that Jesus was not who he said he was.

He was not the Messiah and Savior and Lord. And I had, this thought came to me, what if they're right? And I felt despair at that moment because I knew if they're right that there was no hope.

And so, but the Spirit of God rose up in me and I'm like, I know that I know that I know who he is. And so that led me to actually research out the Messianic prophecies that Jesus fulfilled.

And so that was very disturbing though because we see all these people denying the deity of Christ. I was a part of a Bible study, Torah study group and they stopped, the people stopped hosting it because all these people are denying the deity of Christ.

We're seeing people renounce Christ which is very, very disturbing people I knew. And so I... I thought that all these things bad things were coming into the movement, but I didn't know that the movement itself was bad.

And so I was part of various congregations, home groups in different states. We went to Feast of Tabernacle celebrations. We had a blast. We had a great time of fellowship and worship, but they did immerse us in the teaching.

We went to conferences. We were not supposed to buy and sell on the scabbard. So that was difficult at times. I remember one time my husband and I went to a Christian coffee shop on Saturday.

And I felt guilty because I was causing my husband to buy and sell on the scabbard. So I could not even enjoy a cup of coffee on Saturday with my husband. And so we also weren't allowed to celebrate Christmas.

We were caught that it had pagan origins. There are times I secretly missed Christmas. And we did at the end start celebrating it again, but very quietly. We didn't have Christmas trees or anything like that because they were considered pagan and so forth.

And so there was good parts of it, but there were parts that were legalistic and that brought bondage. And there were parts that were joyful. And there were parts that were very disturbing when we saw Kabbalah keeman, which is Jewish mysticism.

I had, I don't know if I can keep going, but I was a part of, sometimes we're very isolated when I was living in Arkansas. We couldn't find any Messianic Hebrew, Christian fellowship, anything.

And I was very, very depressed. And I reached out to a Hebrew rich friend and she basically told me that Yeshua reviewed me. I'm denying the presence of God that I choose depression. That was very disturbing.

And I think that is what planted a seed in my heart that started recognizing the bad fruit of the movement, that started turning me away from the movement. And so it was a mixed bag, honestly, and it depended where we were at, where I was at.

And it was a mixed bag. You just described most of my upbringing. It was, there were a good and bad in what I had, but most of, from a theological standpoint, you matched a lot of what I grew up believing.

And that's the other interesting part. Again, I'm still skimming the surface of Hebrew roots, but I'm going there specifically because of something you said. They began to reject the deity of Christ in certain groups.

And you also mentioned the Feast of Tabernacles. So if you study Laterane and how it developed in the Keres Mania into New Apostolic Reformation, they will also trace back to this book called The Feast of Tabernacles.

And that was the origin, many consider it to be the origin of the manifested sons of God theology, which I don't know if you've heard me mention this. But essentially where that evolved, people like Brannum, and Brannum was just one of many in the movement doing it, began to say things like, Jesus could not do anything on earth unless he first saw a vision.

from the Father, so therefore Jesus was a prophet. So He demoted Jesus from God down to a prophet, and what that did was it eventually drove people to take the next step. Okay, if Jesus was just a prophet, well, and we have a prophet today too, then that prophet is equal to Jesus, and people would make that leap, and eventually some would abandon the faith, some would just, you know, they went all kinds of different directions, but that was the theology that went awry.

Did you have, whenever you're studying the theologies that led people down that path, was there anything similar to what I just described? Well, yes, the first, the slippery slope is denying the deity of Christ and the Trinity, and then the people who continued down the path, there are many people in that movement that actually renounced Christ and said that he was no longer than Messiah, and it's much more prevalent than people realize. Not everybody, of course, goes down that far, but it's very much a very, it leads people away from Christ in another gospel.

Like I said, I'm fascinated and I'm filled with questions that I want to ask. So for me growing up, I didn't really think through many of those things. I actually read the Bible and I understood it.

There were things that I didn't understand very clearly because I was being told false doctrines about what it said, and so I had to put those off to the side, but I knew the core of Christianity, just simply from reading the Bible, said that Jesus is God, and you can read multiple passages that say this. So in my mind, I did not really reject it as did some others, and I never would have ever considered, if I had have known that Brannum was saying these things, I would have never considered even staying in the movement. However, there were people that did, and I'm thinking through

the problems that it causes, whenever you're in that type of environment, whenever you don't have a solid foundation for your faith, then you begin to question everything, and I watch people go down that path, they question every single thing, and some of them try to find answers outside of the church, because if the church is telling me this thing that I believe is false, where do I find the truth? What was it like for people who were under that type of leadership? You mentioned some lost the faith, but were there people who were actively seeking other religions when they're

in Hebrew roots, or what was that like? Some of them added to follow, which is Jewish mysticism, so some dabbled with the Jewish mysticism, and they're very big into conspiracy theory, and so the whole thing with the, like, they basically, like you said, people questioned like, okay, the church was wrong about, they were wrong about Christmas, and they're wrong about Easter, and they're wrong about, question everything and so some of them believe the church basically everything that taught was a lie in their mind and so they become very distrusting of the church and everything they were taught so they go to a lot of conspiracy theory

type stuff to like kind of search for the truth and they begin to get in this very big conspiracy world and they kind of live in that well some of them and you've just hit on the other thing that I didn't know if I was gonna bring that up or not I'm some glad that you went there I began studying this like I said mainly for the British Israel doctrines but I began to see so many similarities that it was it was like both sides are separate but they're fitting together like a zipper and you can just zip it straight up and what you just described

is what I found when I was studying Jones down at people's temple Jones emerged from all of this and it went catastrophic if you know that history well Jones began to say things like that that you can't trust the Bible you can't trust anything in this he's going down the path that you just described but if you listen to the death tapes which I have in there it's it's horrific it's it's a hard thing to listen to he's making statements that point back to the manifested sons of God doctrines so he hasn't fully rejected manifest

sons of God he has rejected either the Bible or parts of the Bible and the movement is more centered around him than it was anything else he became basically the central figure that led them to their death did you witness groups that did this where there's splinter groups that merged off of the main sect whenever you were in it absolutely there are some really extreme radical groups and there's there's many many groups in Hebrew and some are more extreme illegal stick than others some are very bizarre and so that is very much a case there the one thing they'll agree on is Sabbath feast dietary

laws their Israel the church is wrong Christmas and Easter are pagan and that's basically the similarities and after that they split off many different ways and one of the things that I've noticed about these groups that try to claim some sort of restorationism they they try to put it on their own shoulders in other words we're going to we're going to be the ones that cause the end to come and the end will be in our favor so therefore we must do x y and z different groups will go off into like international house of

pray in Kansas City they started the fasting and we will fast and pray until Jesus comes and we will bring forth the Joe's army the manifested sons of God in these extremist groups that you're talking about and even in the main sect did they feel like the burden was on their shoulders or did they feel like God was in full control it was absolutely they feel like they were called written it in the end times to restore the Torah to the church and that is very much that it was very they believe that they're sanctified through the law, righteousness is kind of like Jesus plus the law,

and so that they were supposed to live like this and then bring it to other people and to bring that to other Christians. I'm also realizing, as we're talking through all these terms, that there are things that I'm familiar with just simply because I've read a lot, but our listeners may not be aware. So let's define what some of these are. Let's talk about messianic Judaism, how does it differ from Hebrew roots and how does that differ from Pentecostalism?

That's a great question. So many Hebrew writers, they don't label themselves Hebrew rits they used to. It was actually coined by their own person, Dean Wheelock, but then when it started getting negative connotations, many of them would drop the terminology. Some of them called themselves Torah observant or messianic. I'm hijacking the terminology, but their theology hasn't changed. Messianic Judaism is basically Jewish believers who come to Jesus Christ, trusting him as Messiah, and they hold onto the cultural traditions. They believe in the new covenant. They do not believe that the Torah is binding, especially not on Gentile Christians,

and so they would be more similar to the Christian belief. Hebrew roots people are mainly Gentiles who believe that they're Israel and that they are required to keep the Torah, the Sabbath, peace, dietary laws, and so forth. And so many of them call themselves messianic, but they are Hebrew rits in theology, and so it's very deceptive, and that's why it's very hard for people to recognize the Hebrew rits theology, and they mix in with these other groups, and so it's yeah, that happens often. It's kind of funny because as you were talking, I was picturing me being as a

listener to this podcast, and they would say, well, Protestantism isn't like this. Pentecostalism isn't like this, you know, and they'll go down that path, but I'm thinking on the other side of that, looked at all the different splinter groups that have emerged. Each one thinking they're the right ones, the other guys are the wrong ones, and in the end, what you have is the spider web mess of chaos that it's really hard to connect all of these dots, and each one thinks that they're specific dot that you would connect is the only one that makes it, you know, but all of them,

on the Pentecostal side, all of them share this fervor for, I don't know, that they look at the end times, they're so focused on the end times that that's all they want to talk about is the end times, the end is coming, the end is nigh, and interestingly, if you watch movies, it's usually those guys that are in the cults that are at the airports with the signs saying, join our cult, the end is near, right? But I grew up in that environment, and it wasn't until I left that I realized why the the movies portray it like this, usually in times energy ends up into destructive

natures. What was that like? Did you focus on the end times, or was it a trivial thing? One of the congregations I was involved with is obsessed about the end times, it's only talked about, again, their whole goal was preparing for the tribulation. They thought they could actually physically make it through the tribulation. And they were preparing to go through the tribulation. The well-known is the second exodus. And we go to these feasted tabernacle

festivals. And they would have all the focus was often on intimes. And I actually had a book, one of the books was that Prince Charles was the Antichrist. And there was a whole teaching on that one of the secote festivals. And so yeah, they're very obsessed with intimes, doctrines.

That being said, so if they were interested, I'm curious about the feasts. How did the feast connect to their intimes theology? They believe they're the rehearsals for their dress were rehearsals for the coming of the preparing for Jesus to come. They're the bride. And that he gave us these feasts and they're the appointed times were supposed to be keeping them their shadows of Christ coming. And they don't see it really as they they recognize that the spring feast were fulfilled in Christ birth and death and resurrection. But they said the fall feasts have not yet been fulfilled. Those

are going to be fulfilled in the second coming or in the end times. And so that they were still waiting for those fulfillment of those particular feasts. And feasts of tabernacles was a preparation for going into the wilderness and camping and what you're going to be doing in the end times. The second Exodus like Israel lines came out during the wilderness Exodus they celebrated the code. And so that is one of the things that they're preparing for when they're doing the feasts of tabernacles preparing for that period of time.

So how did the how did the Hebrew Roots movement view the new covenant? They mostly believed that it was the most say it covenant renewed. That it was not a brand new covenant. Some believe that the new covenant doesn't happen until Jesus comes back with the majority is simply the most say it covenant renewed. And so what is the new covenant? It's the most say it go all ring up on our hearts minds. And therefore we are supposed to keep them as believers and be obedient to the Lord.

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 Brandham historical research is website William-brandham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven 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

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So let's talk a bit about theology because you seem to know a lot of the questions that I'm asking you seem to know them pretty well. I have been studying and trying to grasp this concept because we came out of a movement that was clearly marked by elements of white supremacy and some of those elements mixed with Christian identity and there was this distrust of church history.

I'll just sum it up like that. They were solidly, firmly, adamantly against anything Roman Catholic. Yet if you study church history, actual church history, it's the Catholic church that has most of that history up to a certain point.

Then Protestantism splits off and then obviously you can study a divergence in history. But there is a point where the church is being developed in the Catholic church and while I'm not Catholic and I'm not promoting Catholicism by me saying that, it is history and you can't erase history and try to come up with something that's accurate.

It just simply doesn't work. But we distrusted history. We looked at the Catholic church as though everything that they have written, everything that they've recorded is incorrect. We can't believe any of it. I started reading and studying some of the early church fathers and I was surprised to learn that much like me, they were on a journey to truth.

Some of them went grossly into error, I'll admit. But there was a process of refinement as you went through and they started to emerge different doctrines and theologies to better explain what they read in the Bible.

Until a certain point, whenever things got nasty, I'll just say like that, Martin Luther said, I don't want your nasty. There was a point in time like this where I'm headed with this is most groups that are in this Reformation mindset.

They'll tell you, do not trust the history, trust us instead. We're the ones who hold the absolute truth because we know what happened. But yet there's no way really to erase any of the written history.

They have to invent new histories to get past this. I started looking at the Hebrew roots movement and trying to understand how they viewed history. That's where I'm headed with this question. I want to ask you, what was their views on Catholicism, on church history, on the evolution of Christianity as it relates to the world today?

Most Hebrew writers are very ignorant of church history and so they believe the myths. They believe everything started at Council of Nicea that's been Constantine, started the Roman Catholic Church. That's when Constantine Christianized pagan holidays, that's when he threw out the Sabbath and peace.

He threw out books of the Bible. He invented the deity and the Trinity. That's what they teach. Well, that's not actually what happened. council of NYSEA. So many of them are very ignorant. The ones that are not ignorant would be more of some of the teachers and they just, they leave things out that they don't want you to know about or don't want their followers to know about. But the Catholic Church is actually absolutely the double according to the Hebrew Ritz movement. Like they, everything evil and bad came out of the Catholic Church and even though I, again, don't agree with Catholic theology either on many things,

they say the Catholic Church did things they never actually did. And so I actually had a friend in the Hebrew Ritz movement who became Catholic. He left the Hebrew Ritz movement and they, they were horrible to them. They're not really kind to anybody who leaves Protestant or Catholic.

I mean, those who go back to the Protestant Church or Catholic. But they just, yeah, the Catholic Church is like the devil. It's evil. It's just horrible. They call Protestants are basically protesting Catholics. And so yeah, the Church history, they, they basically embrace Church history because most of them have never studied Church history. They just believe what they're taught, the myths that they're taught from their Torah teachers. That's what I assume. But I wanted to ask you and what's interesting is you literally, again, just described everything that I grew up with.

That's exactly how we would say it. And I can't tell you how many times I heard Council of Nicea in a sermon in a non-Catholic sermon. We were listening to these guys. They were just so against it. And they, they would often tie it to Babylon. They would say that the Catholic Church is Babylon. It's rising. It's going to become mystery Babylon. So they would tie it to Revelation and all of these in-time themes. And again, I'm not, I'm not saying that, you know, the Catholic Church is the way to go. I won't make that distinction. But many of the things that

they're saying, like you said are absolutely false if you study history. In fact, many of the things that I have learned about church history came from websites where they have clearly just documented. Here is the history. These are the heirs we made. This is the good, bad, and ugly.

And that, as a historian, that's what you want. You want the good with the bad so that you can learn from the bad and not make mistakes. So there was this idea that began to emerge as I was doing my research. This idea that something that is trying to become true, they will preserve their history both good and bad. Learn from their mistakes, move forward. Yes, they did some bad things.

Yes, it was awful, but now we're correcting. Let's move forward. What I found with the Pentecostal movement is, man, I do this almost every podcast. There are large portions of history where it's just omitted. And people have no idea because there's no record. And so it repeats itself. All of the mistakes. Did the Hebrew roots movement preserve histories? Like could you go get a history that's fully documented? Here's the doctrines. Here's why we had the doctrines. What was that like? Did they preserve our...

We're talking about church history or their own history. Their own history and as it relates to church history. Not really. They don't, they just have their conspiracy myths and like a lot of it comes from like two Babylon's, Alex Kislop.

And so, but they don't know, most people don't know. They just read on the internet. They read about, they hear a teacher tell them these myths, Constantine, started the Catholic church. He threw out, I mean, that's basically what they're taught.

That's basically as far as it goes, Constantine, started the Catholic church at the council of NYSEA and he Christianized the pagan holidays and throughout the Sabbath and all these things that were supposed to be keeping.

And that's basically as far as it goes. And no one really studies church history. And most people are ignorant. And many people, when they start studying church history, they come out, one of the things I did was start studying church history which brought me out of the, oh, Christmas has pagan origins and all of these different things.

And when I studied the council of NYSEA in the area in Heresy and found out what the council of NYSEA was actually about, I released that it was missing conspiracy theories and they really had a different history that was just passed on and no one really actually did the research.

And there are a few in the Torah movement that have actually come out and said, Christmas isn't pagan, we don't celebrate it. We shouldn't condemn Christians from celebrating it. And they would, because they actually did some history research and they were very actively opposed by their own people.

People are very upset over those who actually did do history and tried to share truth. I was taken aback just then because you mentioned Hislop's two Babylon's. That's a book that I grew up with.

We went to that book. And surprisingly, when I began my research into Christian identity and white supremacy, I kept finding references to that book everywhere. All of the white supremacists favored that book. And I don't know full, the full reasons other than the fact that it is a conspiracy theory.

There's not a lot of, I want to say there's not a lot of truth in the book, but there's a lot of things that are taken out of context of true history. I'll say it like that.

So I rejected the book, but I wanted to know why is this? Why are there so many white supremacists using this book? And that led me down the path to find exactly what you found.

Counseled and I see it was not at all what they told us that it was. And it's a strange thing. The interesting part about that is all of the different groups that I found that used that Hislop's two Babylon's, our group included, they would all reject the power structures of the Catholic church and say that it's wrong to have a pope.

It's wrong to have this hierarchy of these bishops. And they just condemn it outright, but then they would do the same thing. And usually whenever one of them went extremist, they would break off into their own sect from Pentecostalism.

The extremist group would have their own pope, they would just call it a prophet, or an apostle instead of a pope. Did that happen in the groups that you left? There are many different teachers.

There's not like a one-man profit, or there's various, various different teachers. Now there's certain ones that are very popular, but you hear the same things being spread by even though they're different teachers. And so there's not like just one individual, but there are a lot of internet.

There are certain people that have their favorite pet toward teachers that they follow online. And different ministries. And often I'll ask people, like, they'll often claim, oh, we just came to this knowledge by reading Bible Holy Spirit.

If you talk to them long enough, and sometimes the religion come out, no, you're actually getting it from this ministry, you were taught it from this ministry or that ministry. But it's much, it doesn't have like a headquarters, like a lot of culture, one man or one profit.

So that is one way that the Hebrew its movement is different. There's also a difference between Hebrew roots and Pentecostalism that I probably should mention. And it's an interesting split. There's this clash between Pentecostalism's work of the Spirit, move of the Spirit.

And the Hebrew roots from what I can tell, it's more of a law, workspace, tour obligation. That is a clash where I would say movements like the word of faith, where we're speaking new revelations from our mouth, from behind the pulpit, and these new revelations are new words or reima.

That really couldn't exist in what you came out of because they're going back instead to the Torah and trying to uplift the Torah. That being said, what I find interesting is, in Pentecostalism, they will pick and choose different verses from the Torah.

And they'll say, we must uphold this one, this one, and this one, and totally overlook things like Donutchellfish. And so were there groups in your movement that would take parts of the Torah and say, we must uphold these and then ignore some of the others?

Absolutely, they completely do that because their main focus is Sabbath, feast, and dietary laws. And we try to point out, well, what about all these other commands that they claim that we're following the Torah?

They'll usually say, well, there's no temple now, so we can't do that. But there's a lot of commandments they could actually do even with no temple, but they just, they cherry pick. But they will claim to follow the Torah, even though it's mainly Sabbath, feast, dietary laws.

And they ignore the ones that they don't want to do, basically, yes. So, yeah. And there is a charismatic, there are charismatic Hebrew roots that came out of charismatic. But again, it's, you'll have some there, anti-carismatic, some that are charismatic.

It's a very bad thing actually. The charismatic Hebrew roots is a very bad one. And so we do have that in the Hebrew roots movement. But again, there's a wide branch, lots of branches in the Hebrew roots, umbrella.

That's interesting because I was thinking there are certain elements about the Hebrew roots movement that would actually be appealing to a charismatic, especially when you get back into some of the, some of the law-biting works.

righteous types of faith. Many of the groups that spun off of Pentecostalism have a works righteous element to it. Which leads me to one of my funnier questions that I'm going to ask you.

This really fascinates me because of multiple reasons, which I'm going to talk about in a few podcasts and I guess it'll come out before this. There is a passage in Old Covenant Law that talks about what happens when you have mold in your hut and it talks about how you stack the rocks and when the rocks get what is it the word they use I think as leprosy is how it's translated.

When the rock gets leprosy you bring the priest to pray for the rock and if the praying doesn't work for the rock then you need to get it out and get some new rocks. I'm paraphrasing but essentially what they're describing is mold is bad. You don't need to be living with mold in your hut.

How do things like that translate into Hebrew roots today because some of the mosaic law was so specific to things in the ancient world that just don't at all relate with today's world. What do they do when they come across something that's unrelatable? They basically say well it's not something you have to deal with today it's not you know relatable today's that that was specific at that time. Again they always go back to often they'll say we're just doing the best we can we're keeping the commandments applied to us that we can keep and but they think God's

going to restore all and so they think there's going to be a temple again there's going to be sacrifices there's going to be most a lot of them teach they'll be animal sacrifices so they think that when Christ comes back is all going to be restored. It reminds me I was listening to um I can't remember where this was some some documentary was talking about there was a problem the first time that they had Muslims in space because Muslims are supposed to pray towards Mecca what what is it three times a day well when you're outside of the orbit which direction is Mecca and well

the spinning which direction is Mecca it does it's hard to apply that because things have changed things have evolved I I came to realize that there were certain passages that I read from both the Old Testament and the New Testament that really does not have an applicable concept for today but yet I've heard sermons where they try to try to find some way to what what is the phrase um squint at a net or something like this they try to make it fit and they can't really make it fit what were the sermons like whenever you were hearing a sermon and they're preaching some of

these things that just really didn't quite fit did they try to make the context of the sermon fit the passage or did they try to read the passage in context they basically their whole focus was sat at feast and they just basically stuck to the ones that they embraced and they would have Torah studies sometimes where they would discuss these different things but they like for For example, I would point out to the people who claim like, oh, we're keeping the dietary laws.

And I'm like, okay, do you ever eat out? Because if I'm cleaning food is made into oven, with clean food, you're still not supposed to, according to the dietary laws, eat that food, or if you go to someone's home.

So again, they just want to wiggle their way out of those particular commands and they'll come up with, oh, that's a particular kind of oven, and they just come up with different excuses of why they can't keep certain commands, all the why planning their Torah keepers and that, that churches will listen, and we need to do these things.

And I think the last theological question, I feel like I've hijacked your podcast, the last theological question that I'm really dying to know, there's this concept in Pentecostalism, where there's, it takes different names in different forms, depending on which sect or flavor you're in, but basically it's this idea of the final move of God.

If you're in the New Apostolic Reformation, it's the final billion soul harvest revival. There's different ways that they talk about this, but essentially there's this, there's gonna be this final thing. And for me, whenever I hear this said, it usually sets off all of these alarms, because no man can know the hour, you know, the time that this thing is gonna happen, but they all try to predict it.

What was that like in Hebrew roots? Did they have this type of final thing that's coming and did they have predictions of when it's gonna happen? There was a last big thing that after the third wave of the Holy Spirit being restored to the church, now the Hebrew roots and the Torah will be restored to the church.

So like this is the last, there was like technically so-called prophecies given I think in Colorado to a Hebrew roots teacher in the 90s, there was also a thing years ago called the Daniels Timeline, where they actually predicted when they believed that the tribulation was going to begin, and they believe it's the great tribulation for an afternoon, so they actually prophesied this man, and actually prophesied when he believed that Christ was gonna return.

And so it was a very popular DVD, and for a time and then of course the date came and left and it never happened. So there is some of that happened, certain teachers will make false prophecies, and a lot of them won't make specific dates, but they do think that the Torah being restored is an in-time movement to restore the Torah to the church.

And I guess the last last question that I'll ask you whenever a group has that type of theology, usually it turns isolationist after a while because they start to see the world closing in on them, people just don't agree with it.

And what happens is they start using phrases like we use the remnant as what we would say. In Pentecostal Ceres Mania, you would say, we're the spirit-filled remnant, in New Apostolic Reformation, we're the, I don't know, prophetic army, Joel's army, I think Armstrong said, we're the true church with the restored gospel as the way he would say it.

What did the Hebrew- roots say, did they use Remnant or any any type of theology like this? They would use Remnant sometimes, but mainly that they were Ephraim, which was symbolic of the descendants of the lost tribes that they had discovered their identity of being the descendants of the lost tribe that they were Israel, which restored, you know, that part is being restored.

And so again, the final restoration was when they went back to the land and they are reunited with the Jews. And so some of them taught that. That was like such an emphasis that sometimes they were particularly teachers that would say, yeah, Jesus came to die, but that was the main reason for dying first in.

He actually died so that the lost two tribes could come back together. And that was one of the big teachings to bring the two tribes back together, which, of course, they were Israel and then restored with Judah.

So earlier you talked about the final things that were happening in your mind and your theology that were making you decide to leave. What did it look like after you left? Some of these groups that have this isentilationist mentality, they don't treat former members very well.

I'll just say it like that. How were you treated when you left? Most of them cut me off. And so I want to share a little bit how God brought me out. So I was very jealous.

I believe this 100% that God had revealed these truths to me. And I was sitting in a heberish congregation and the spirit of God's rent available. And I could see the thoughts that came to me that they were insulting the Torah above Yeshua.

They were out of balance. And I didn't need to go there anymore. And I went home that day. And I thought all these bad things would come into the movement. But what the Lord, the insight I received from the Lord was that they're the foundation and of the Torah, but the heberish movement is faulty and cracked because it was not based on Jesus and the gospel, but based on the Torah.

And so the next day I went to, and I felt like I was in this box in my identity as being shaken and get out of the box. And I went to church the next day and I was seeing this song.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And I realized at that moment that I had lost sight of the righteousness of Christ while in that movement. So that's when my eyes were open.

It took some time to unravel from some of the doctrines of Sabbath and so forth. But I kind of just went on with my life after I came out of these things. But I felt that the Holy Spirit kept impressing me through them of go together.

They can't be separated to speak out and share truth on Facebook. I had many, many Hebrew, it's Facebook friends, many Hebrew, it's friends. Not only where I live, but all over because I'm living in different states and going to Tabernacle celebrations all over.

And the majority of them would speak very harshly and cut me off. So yes, most of them cut you off and they think worse. They think Christians are ignorant. And some of them believe that Christian will be leased in the kingdom for not keeping the law and some will be cast out of the kingdom.

But someone who was in the Torah movement, the Hebrew movement that came out, they actually think we are just completely apostate because we knew the truth. And we're well-fully rejecting it, we are rebelling.

and they are very, I guess very harsh, and most of them get very upset, and they absolutely, many of them, people who I stayed in their homes, like overnight, people who I went camping with, we celebrated the feast together, knew them for years, cut me off, and so that is very much a reality in the Hebrew its movement, newly.

What advice would you give to people who are still in the Hebrew roots movement? That Jesus is our righteousness, that his righteousness is imputed to us, that the law does not sanctify the law, does not add to the righteousness in Jesus Christ, and that our is just about Christ in a relationship with Him, being filled with this spirit, and being transformed by the Spirit of God, and that just be humble, be open, be teachable.

Love truth, research out truth, read scripture in context, that is huge, because many of the scriptures in the Hebrew its movement are built out of context scriptures, and just have a love for truth, and that our God is a good God, and he's not this nitpicky God that expects us to keep the laws that were never given to us, under the mosaic. While we are under a brand new covenant, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, and we have freedom in Christ through the new covenant, and through his blood that was shed to us.

Well, it's very good advice, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much. 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-Pranum.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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