Hebrew Roots and the Search for Secret Biblical Truth

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-branham.org and with me I have my very special guest, Melissa Hume, former member of Hebrew Roots. Melissa, it's great to have you back. In the last episode that you were on, I hijacked the show because I get so interested. There were paths of research that I never finished and you were talking and they all came up back to my memory as we were talking.

So I hijacked your show and I never really let you share your story, which I apologize. So I'm inviting you back and maybe for people who didn't see that episode. If you could remind everybody who you are and let's talk about your story instead of what was in my head.

Thank you for having me on it. By the way, I think the last video turned out great, though, so that was great. My name is Melissa Hume. My husband and I live in Omaha, Nebraska and I grew up in a small Christian independent church. My mother taught me the faith and I came to Christ when I was 13 and then later I went to the Hebrew Roots movement in the year 2000 and I left in 2018.

So as we were talking last time and I hijacked the show, there were so many different things that I really wanted to ask you about yourself and about your story and let's just start with what it was like whenever you consider what a Christian church is today. People they might hear this term Hebrew Roots and they have no idea what it is. What was it like when you first started attending the church? What did you feel? What was your experience in the church? So I originally I loved it. It was very exciting. I was learning Messianic Jewish dance and I loved the worship

and I loved the fellowship and I loved celebrating the feast and it was I was having the time of my life for about four years until people started denying the duty of Christ. A lot of people started denying the duty of Christ not only in our congregation but it's a very prevalent thing in Hebrew Roots and also there were people that were actually renouncing Christ in our congregation and converting to Judaism. One of the things that really stood out to me as I was just skimming the surface of researching Hebrew Roots was something we mentioned briefly in our last podcast but we were

talking about the hidden truth dynamic. When you go to a Christian church that isn't extremist, there isn't really this hidden truth. concept. You read your Bible, and there's a passage in the Bible that says it's of no private interpretation. You can read it, you can understand it, it's written to you. In the group that I came out of, they actually twisted that phrase into the reverse, and they said it's of no private interpretation, so therefore you cannot privately interpret it, you need the prophet, which is so backwards and so wrong. But I began to notice that the two were very similar, and I wanted to talk about the dynamic

of hidden truth within the movement. When did you first encounter that, and what was that like? The hidden truth is a huge thing. It's very esoteric, and so first level would be they believe that the Torah, the mosaic law has been lost to the church for 2000 years, and they are the revelation has been given to them that these truths are being restored, and they're supposed to restore it.

There's also a very esoteric, so for example, one of the most popular methods of interpretation in the Hebrew Ritz movement is called Parties. They actually take it from Judaism, and the fourth level of Parties is the Stodelova, which is the esoteric mystical level, and that's the goal of the Hebrew Ritz teachers, and I remember reading my Bible and my friends, and I trying to figure out the deeper mystical esoteric level of the passage is not the literal, but what the hidden meaning was. They also talk about Paleo Hebrew, which is a prescriptive Hebrew. It's not an actual

language, the language Hebrew came out of that, but they say that every letter of the Paleo Hebrew, it's the secret hidden ancient language, and if you know it, every letter has a picture and a meaning, and once you know those meanings, you know it, the scriptural actually really teaches.

Like I said, it's just so backwards from some of the things that when you attend a real Christian church that is devoted to Christianity, I'll say it like that, when you are in one of these churches, you never really think about what do I need, a hidden meaning, Jesus died on the cross, and it says that he paid the price so that we can be saved. Whenever you're in this dynamic truth, what they what they try to do, and it's I'm laughing at the absurdity, I'm not laughing because of the pain that it causes, but they try to show you hidden truths of things that people are doing

that are causing them to be further away from God. In other words, it's all about the work that you do, it's not what Jesus did in these types of groups, and some of the things that you mentioned in the last episode, I think are really prevalent among many of the extremist groups that are built on the same type of foundation. For example, we were told that worshipping, that having a Christmas celebration was worshipping pagan gods, and I think you mentioned in the last episode that's something that you shared, but I want to talk about that, how far did that go? What about Easter?

What about all of the other celebrations? They consider them all pagan. They said that they have pagan origins, which actually if you look at history and church history, there is no evidence to back up their claims.

They're all based on myths that come out of like Alex Hisslops, two Babylonians and so forth, but most of them don't even know where the myths come from. But yeah, Christmas has pagan origins, Easter has pagan origins.

They're occult holidays that were Christianized by Constantine and the Roman Catholic churches. So that is what we're supposed to reject. And it's wrong and sin to celebrate those holidays. They often will chastise and condemn the Christian church and Christians for celebrating those holidays.

And we are only supposed to celebrate the biblical feast. Some of them will just say Christmas and Easter, some go even as far to say, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, but not all of them are that extreme, but all of them pretty much reject Christmas and Easter and so forth.

So the point that I wanted to drive at with that question is how did it make you feel about people who did celebrate? We had varying levels of absurdity, how I'll just use that word.

There are many other words that come to mind, but in my family, we kind of, we didn't have the same rule as because my family was at the top of the group and the rules for the top aren't the rules for the rank and file members.

But I knew people who were in the rank and file who they didn't celebrate at all. And when they encountered somebody who did, they would actually be insulting to them or derogatory, they would speak derogatory.

How did you treat other people who did celebrate outside of what you believed? It depended who the people were. So certain Christian friends, I didn't really want them to know kind of that I didn't celebrate Christmas and because they saw that so weird, so we kind of just tried to downplay it.

I had a friend ask me one time if I'd had a Christmas tree up yet. And I said, oh, I don't do Christmas trees. Other times we tried to share truth. We thought somebody was open and I'd be like, let me tell you about the truth of Christmas and the origins.

But when I first found out, like when I first came across the information that Christmas is supposedly pagan, I was like zealous to share it with people then when people don't respond. Well, you kind of back off.

Some of them don't back off though. People will be a very hostile often to those who celebrate Christmas. And I think secretly, even if we didn't like anything to other people, we would be like, why are they celebrating pagan holidays?

They're ignorant or why if they know the truth, why would they do such a thing? But then later you find out that it was all based on this and there was no evidence to back it up.

As I understand it, they don't even use the word church in the Hebrew roots group. I'm curious to know about the feast, the celebration. What did that entail when you were in the movement?

We, like I said, we did not celebrate some of the holidays that were, they would say that the pagan holidays like Christmas, they're worshiping the sun, God, et cetera. The were things that we did celebrate such as Easter, we would celebrate Easter, but we celebrated it quite differently than some of the, other Christian churches. It was shrouded in mystery. That's probably the best and easiest way that I can say it. So we had some observances, but I'm curious what it was like inside Hebrew roots. What actually took place when you observed these feasts?

It depended on the particular feasts, but basically we would get together and have a celebration. A lot of times where biblical traditions would be brought in, so like for example Passover, we do a Passover stator, and the feasts of Tabernacles would camp out in tents with we go to different, they had feasts of Tabernacle celebrations. They have them all over the United States, and like there would be sometimes seven to 900 people at these celebrations. So we get together, we worship, we listen to a lot of teaching, there's a lot of teaching done especially at the feasts of Tabernacles, and just yeah, it's just a celebration. We did have some really

great times celebrating Sukkot, a piece of Tabernacles, because you know there was a lot of fellowship and worship and so forth, that they do immerse you in the teaching. And Yom Kippur, of course, is the day of atonement where we had to fast and not work, so that was not obviously a joyful celebration. You pretty much did not work and did not eat and pretty much that's, you know, did a bunch of liturgical prayers that that the basically that came from hergenical Judaism. And so people celebrate them a little different, they fight over calendars, they fight over how to celebrate, they fight over how to some people, we had a congregation

that split over how to celebrate Feast of Tabernacles, some embrace rabbinical

traditions, other people were rejected. So they kind of, they even argue for what date to celebrate it. So the feast. I know that there are probably some Pentecostal people who are at former Pentecostal people who are listening to this thinking, well, that just sounds so strange, that's too literal, that's too fundamentalist. And yet at the same time, they kind of do the same thing in different areas if you're Pentecostal. You have a very, very rigid view on what you believe and observe.

And interestingly, they point a lot of their rules back to the Old Testament, picking certain ones. And one of them, which I'm going to drive at, is kind of funny to me, now that I have left the group and thought about it, we believed in following the Sabbath, which we said was Sunday. And they would say, that's because in the Old Testament, we followed the Sabbath. Many Pentecostals are like this. It wasn't unique to what I was in. In fact, Chick-fil-A, it's closed on Sunday for religious reasons. But if you actually go back and read

the passages about this, the honor of the Sabbath was quite different than they're saying. It's totally different. And I wanted to know, so from what was it like for you for Saturday, Friday, Saturday, what were you allowed to do? What were you not allowed to do? We're not supposed to buy and fill. There are some that will try to- wiggle their way around that, but if you're really a practicing Hebrew writer, really trying to practice the Torah, you're not going to buy and sell on the Sabbath.

Now, they're of course, they come up with exceptions and they come up with a lot of their own Sabbath rules, but basically Friday night we would often light Sabbath candles, either ourselves or with a group, and they sing, you know, Sabbath songs and read some scriptures, and then Saturday we'd either go to a home group or a congregation, or if we didn't have a home group or a congregation where they worship and have preaching and teaching, then we would pretty much just set home and do nothing. You were allowed to walk and enjoy nature if you want

on the Sabbath, but not like buying or selling or anything like that. And one other thing I was going to go back to when you talked about the feast, one thing that came to me was the feast of 11 bread, for example. They take it literally. You're not supposed to eat bread, you're not supposed to eat yeast. You have to get everything out of your home, so there was very legalistic aspects to celebrate the feast that you can't do that. It's so interesting and fascinating. There are observances in Islam that have certain issues today. The funniest of which I was reading a news

article, the first time that a Muslim entered outer space, how do you pray towards Mecca? Which direction is it, right? I guess you pray towards Earth, but what if it's on the other side of Earth?

It actually created quite a conundrum for people who are Islamic. And yet Hebrew roots, and even some branches of Pentecostalism, they share similar issues because of the calendar problem. Have you ever thought through the calendar problem with the observance of the Feasts and the Sabbaths, etc.? The Hebrew roots people would say that the Gregorian calendar, of course, has pagan origins, and so many of them come up their own calendars. Some of them go by the traditional Jewish calendar to celebrate the Feasts, and some say, no, the Jews are wrong, our calendars are right. So, again, there's all this confusion of when to even celebrate the Feasts. And I remember always

thinking, at least the Christians get celebrate Christmas Easter on the same time. They at least are unifying a lot, but yeah, so they'll figure out, okay, so this was the date it was supposed to be on the Hebrew calendar, so now we'll just put an overlap onto the Gregorian calendar, and so that's kind of how they try to do the Feasts. And it's really interesting too, because according to the Torah, you can actually keep the Feasts, and there's certain Feasts where you're commanded them in to go to Jerusalem, and so forth. And so once again, there's

some of them will acknowledge that they're not keeping the Feasts, and they're just it's dress rehearsals for the end time, but others will actually try to like, we're keeping the Feasts, and you have to keep these, and like they're just memorials. You can't keep the Feasts, according to the Torah, it's not possible. Like I said, it's one of those interesting problems.

There are certain things that are written as code, ancient code, in the mosaic law, that might have applied then, but they really don't have the same concepts today. Things like,

and this is an interesting study. There was a program, I think it was on the history. channel talking about ancient Bible code, and part of the reason why it existed. One of the things that was fascinating to me, they were talking about, there's a mosaic law that says you can't mix two types of clothing, you can't wear a clothing that is of two types, and the people who were researching this, they believed, and there's no way to prove it, but they believed that it had to do with the provisions for whenever you conquered a people, and you took them captive, they had the option to become Israelite.

When you did this, however, there was a risk, because they, if another invading force came to get them, and they're in your camp, they can fight for the other side, and if they wear the clothing, it's like flag football, they know which ones are Hebrew, which ones are not.

So this turned into an issue, we won't let you do this, that it makes sense if you think of it from that point of view, but there are certain things that just simply do not apply in today's world, and I'm trying to picture a world where somebody comes up with the idea, well, Christianity isn't working, let's go back to the mosaic law, and just totally scrub everything that's said in the New Testament as to why we are under the New Covenant.

Right, and there's actually some people, some of the more extreme groups that will actually try to keep those laws where they don't mix clothing down, the majority of them won't, but there are some that do goes to that level and try to actually keep those particular commandments, like not mixing clothing and so forth.

It's fascinating. I've been doing a deep study into British's realism and into how that morphed into Christian identity, because that was really the precursor for everything that's in my research, and honestly, that is how I came across the Hebrew roots.

I was looking into all of this. I'm curious to know, maybe you can explain it better than me, but if you could explain what they believed about the tribes, how did they believe the tribes progressed, were you part of a tribe, do they believe that the Americas are part of a tribe, how did they teach this?

There's two different views, and the one view is that they call it the two-house theology or at least that's what I refer to. The two-house theology believes that they believe that they are descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel, and so it is a form of British's realism, and so they believe that some of them believe that what tribe has been revealed to them, some don't know.

They just believe that they're a part of that, and that's part of their whole in-time theology that when you come, if you're a Christian and you come to your knowledge that you're supposed to keep the Torah, you're now recognizing your identity that you are Israel, and those who believe in two-house, you now recognize that you are actually descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, and this is why you have been drawn to the Torah, because that's your identity, that's who you are, and so their whole teaching is that in the end.

Times, they're going to go through the tribulation, they're going to go through a wilderness period, they're going to, there's going to be a second exodus, and they're going to go back to the land of Israel, and they're going to reunite with the Jews.

So they believe that when the tribe split, that still hasn't been fulfilled, that's going to be fulfilled in the last days, and they're a part of that. So now that everybody has the full background of how different this is from Christianity, let's go deeper into your story.

What got you involved with this movement? Okay, so the first thing that actually got me involved is I had a friend that gave me a, showed me a video of how this man who supposedly grew up in a cult family and how Christmas needs to wear a cult holidays and how they celebrated it.

And so I was very shocked over that information. I had grew up celebrating Christmas. I loved Christmas and emotional, good memories, attached to Christmas. And so at the time I was young and it never occurred to me that I should like do research and see if there was actually evidence to back up those claims.

And so I just prayed for confirmation, and then I felt like I got my confirmation. So I stopped celebrating Christmas, and then I was very interested in the feast and that of course made me more interested in the feast because I needed to replace Christmas and so forth.

And so I ended up, our pastor took a 12-week class called Hagusod, which means the foundation in Hebrew. In Hebrew, and it is, the materials from a group called Fritz Azain, which claims to be a Messianic ministry there are actually Hebrew roots in theology.

And he took this 12-week class. And after the 12-week class, he was convinced that we are supposed to keep the Torah or the Musaic law as believers today, and he wanted to teach it to the church.

But he was humble, and so he called the meeting and said, basically, I took this class, this is what I believe now, and I teach this to you. And so it caused quite a stir and controversy in the church.

They eventually decided, no, we don't want you to teach this. And so I ended up moving in with some friends later the next week and I was looking for a different job and I was looking for a different place to live and they said, you can stay with us until you can find a job in a different place to live.

And so I just went to church with them and they actually, I ran into a girl that I knew through per-life ministry afterwards, who told me about this class that I would be interested in, called Hiasod, it was the same exact class.

And so she gave me the name and the number of the particular individual teaching the class. And so I took the 12-week class and after this 12-week class, I was completely convinced that we are supposed to keep the Torah, the Musaic law, the seventh, they sat at the feast and so forth.

I wanted to do these things. And so I thought the best way to do that was to stop going to church ascending and join the Messianic Hebrew Ritzleip congregation. And so that's what I did.

And that's how I got involved. So that's... Quite a change in life to be Christian and then suddenly go to this conference and learn these things and then change significantly to where the deity of Christ is actually in question.

I'm looking at this from a, in my research, I'm looking at this from the same perspective as I am some of the conferences of the New Apostolic Reformation. People who are hearing this, they'll say, well, that's out there. That's so far different. But look at some of the core beliefs that exist in your movement that are also existing in some of these apostolic networks. And they have the same types of conferences and so same kind of books. Most of them would probably not deny the deity of Christ. But where I'm headed with this is the fact that when you allow this type of

structure, you're allowing people to create divisions that can go to very extreme. And that's kind of what has happened here. And the interesting part for me is this. I started thinking through this when I was reading Hebrew roots. The idea was very similar to what Brannum was proposing in Laterane that we can't trust these pastors. The pastors have gone astray. They're teaching us the wrong doctrines. We need the secret mysteries, the hidden truths, so on and so forth. And so therefore, we can't trust the elders and leaders of Christianity. And what they did was they created their own

elders and leaders of the Hebrew roots. So they basically, instead of, instead of getting rid of that structure, they basically just replaced that structure, but replaced it with extremist ideas. Yes, I was a part of that congregation for four years. And I had a blast for four years. I was enjoying the worship and the dance and the feast and the fellowship. And then people started denying the deity of Christ in our Torah study group. And they started renouncing Christ. And one thing that really struck me, and I shared this a little bit on the other video, but I'll share again just

for those who haven't seen it. But when a couple, I knew actually, before they even started going to this congregation, they had been Christians previously. And they actually renounced Christ and said that they were going to convert to Judaism. And there was an audible gasp in the congregation.

And people were shocked and started crying. And it was very, very disturbing. These people, my first quote, Passover Seder was with these people at their home. And the rabbi had said that they had studied and done research. And after their research, they really said Jesus wasn't really who they claimed him to be. And so I, for a moment, had this thought, what if they're right, what if it isn't who he claims to be? And I had despair. I felt despair and for a short time. And then because I knew if Jesus wasn't who he claimed to be, then there was no hope. And I, but then

the Spirit of God rose up in me. And I knew that I knew that I knew that Jesus is the Messiah. He is Savior. He is Lord. He is God. And so, and that caused me to dig more into the Messianic prophecies to see how Christ fulfilled the Messianic prophecies. But this was something very prevalent in the Hebrew it's movement.

more prevalent in the people, think people denying, no, it's a slippery slope. First they deny Christ, the deity, the Trinity, then they deny Paul's, the Apostle, they deny the New Testament, they just call it commentary and then they will go all the ones who go completely down the path actually end up renouncing Christ.

They don't all go down that path, but if they do, it's a slippery slope that leads away from Christ. And we are taught that the law sanctifies. And so anyway, after that happened, it was very disturbing.

And then the congregation split over how to celebrate Feast of Tabernacles. And so I went with a different group and the other group was full-fledged Hebrew roots. And they are the ones that lead in the two-house theology and the second exendous.

And so I picked up very strange theology from which I later rejected later on. And I was with that congregation for about a year. We went to Big Feast of Tabernacle celebrations. We had a blast.

I was immersed in their teaching. It was overwhelming at times because of all the teaching, but it was also exciting being an in-time remnant and being part of the lost tribes and so forth.

And so after that congregation, I went with a home group that was legalistic. And then we found another home group that I actually loved. And they had really great community and really great worship.

And we really, really, really enjoyed it. And so then later, I moved out of Omaha and I eventually met my husband at a church because I would still go to church if I was living, I'm a very big people person.

So if I'm living in a, I would not go to church if I had a congregation or a Hebrew roots home group where I lived, but if I had to travel on Friday nights or Saturdays, then I would find a church to go to on Sundays and Wednesdays in the community where I lived because I really wanted fellowship.

And so I started attending a church where I actually met my husband and we got married in 2012, a year and a half later we moved to Northwest Arkansas. And that is where a lot of the unraveling began to happen in my life.

We were very, very isolated. We couldn't really find any community there. We had one group we met with for feasts who lived about an hour away, but basically all my Hebrew roots theology was now online.

So it is a very isolating and lots of Hebrew roots people. If they don't have a congregation or a home group, they do online stuff. And it, which really leads you more astray because you have no accountability.

You have no people to bounce ideas off. You're just isolated watching Hebrew roots videos online. And so that's basically what my life was. I got very, very depressed from being isolated. I ended up meeting one person through the Hebrew roots, through Facebook.

I actually found a Hebrew roots friend that I started meeting with once a week. And I was very excited. And then like three or four months later, she moved to Eastern Tennessee. And so I was very devastated.

I lost my only Hebrew roots like mynded friend. So I basically told my husband and we have to move out of Arkansas. We either have to go back to Nebraska or go somewhere else I just said I was very depressed and so we found a Hebrew its congregation in Eastern Tennessee and I started touching base with the pastor's wife online and We visited and stayed with my Hebrew its friend in Eastern Tennessee and we liked Eastern Tennessee And we decided to move there and join this congregation So approximately a year later we moved to Eastern Tennessee and

But my husband's job didn't land as close as we wanted to he transferred to where the congregation was at So we were literally driving over two hours every Saturday morning to go to the Hebrew its congregation So once again, we don't have any community where we live and I was still Very depressed and isolated because of this and so I actually reached out to my Only Hebrew Ritz friend who lived about 45 minutes away from me and You know told her I was depressed because I've been isolated for too long and she said you're denying God's presence

You choose depression and Yeshua review you and that was very hurtful But and she ended up cutting me off and but that Finally the seat of my heart where I personally experienced the bad fruit in the Hebrew its movement And so then I actually started attending a church on Sundays Really close to where I live trying to find community I was still going to the Hebrew Ritz congregation on Saturday mornings and I met an older lady there Who I reached out to and she began to meet with me once a week Just to listen to me pray for me pray with me love on me her fruit was completely opposite her response was

Completely opposite than my Hebrew its friend and I remember thinking wow this older Christian woman Who supposedly is ignorant to the truth of the Torah as the fruit of the spirit in my Hebrew Ritz friend who supposedly had this truth Had zero love or compassion or grace towards me in a time of suffering and need and so I began to see just really this bad fruit And even people from my congregation were saying really bad things about Christians on Facebook people I knew in our congregation now I'm not all of them were that way some of them were very gracious and kind

But I and I kept seeing all this really bad stuff coming into the Hebrew Ritz movement Kabbalah, which is Jewish mysticism again more people denying Christ denying the deity of Christ But I always thought oh this bad stuff is coming into the movement Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism Transition through the latter rain care is mad at and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website William-brannum.org on the book's page of the website

You can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley Stephen McCummery John McKinnon and others with links to the paper audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.

If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.

On behalf of William Brannem Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. Okay, so for people who weren't in Hebrew roots who are listening to this, I'm going to try to break it down in a way that they can follow.

But interestingly, I'm going to talk about all of the things that you have talked about and I'm going to instead talk about it from the Pentecostal side because they're almost exactly the same to this point.

You have a group of people who are starting to say that the church has become apostate and they're starting to teach things that are pagan, pagan ideas have entered into the church, they're bowing down to the pagan idols as kind of the way that they would say it.

And because they have become like this, they're cold and formal and you need to come out and you need to get a church that has the truth. That's usually how all of this starts.

In fact, that statement can almost apply to any cult. But what happens next is they start to interpret the truth. They start to say, we have the secret mysteries, we have the hidden mysteries, we know how to unlock the truth.

And so they start going down that pathway and where they actually ended up is ironically the Feast of Tabernacles. In the when the latter reign broke out and whenever Ern Baxter, who was William Branham's campaign manager, his secretary published a book called The Feast of Tabernacles.

And it started to spread through the movement. This was the precursor to what today the New Apostolic Reformation movements have as their manifested sons of God theology. That's how it really evolved. And what I've just described is exactly what you said as to Hebrew roots kind of evolved.

Was there any place along the way in your story of going through this where you started to suspect that I'm not certain that this is correct theology? I think this might be destructive. Right.

So when I was in Northwest Arkansas, a friend of mine and my friend and I went up to this woman's Hebrew conference in Oklahoma City. And I was super excited because I'm like, oh, I've been out of the loop and I had no fellowship.

So I had gone to conferences and sit coke festivals in the past and loved it. So I was super excited. So we went to this conference and the worship and dance was great. But the teaching was very disturbing.

And at this time, remember, I'm still Hebrew roots. I had this theology that we're supposed to do Sabbath feast and all of these things. But it gotten so far off like they're teaching Kabbalah, which is Jewish mysticism.

And people were teaching traditions, rabbinical traditions or actually the fruit of the Torah. And they were teaching passages that were literal, but they weren't actually literal. And so I was very disturbed about the information and I remember thinking, wow, this movement has really gone off the, starting to go off the rails.

And another guy talked to us saying the same thing, another Hebrew Ritzgaon, we talked about parties. And where does that come from? Again, that's the mystical, the fourth level is the mystical esoteric teaching. Well, it turns out that's the most popular method of interpretation in the Hebrew Ritz movement. Well, it turns out it comes from the Zohar, which is the main writings for Kabbalah, which is Jewish mysticism. So it goes straight back to Jewish mysticism. That's their main source of interpretation. Well, when you have a mystical interpretation, your interpretation is going to be faulty. And that's one of the things that's really so scary about this. Whenever

you have that esoteric type of religion, you can't get two people to come up with the same esoteric ideas. In other words, one person's mysteries is not the other person's mysteries. And so what happens is you start to see the friction evolve, and then the friction evolves into a splinter group, and that splinter group evolves into a sect. Did you ever witness any groups splintering off and creating new groups? Oh, yeah, there's so many groups in the Hebrew Ritz movement. So there's lots and lots of groups in the Hebrew Ritz movement with various beliefs and views. Absolutely.

So back to Tennessee. So I'm in Tennessee, and I'm a part of the church, and I'm a part of the Hebrew Ritz congregation. And you know, I am, you know, just living my life. And so one morning, you know, I'm seeing this bad fruit, and I'm seeing of Hebrew Ritz and all this bad theology that I think just bad stuff is coming into the movement, but I didn't realize that the movement itself was faulty. And so one morning, we are going up to, we go up to the Sabbath service at the congregation in eastern Tennessee. And it was really tired that day. I remember being really tired. I'm not a

morning person. And like I said, we're getting up early to drive to, you know, this congregation over two hours. And I remember the, when I first started going to this congregation, they had a lot of good cultural studies into like the culture of the Bible, which it was really interesting. I learned a lot. But after a while, they got involved with some mainstream Hebrew Ritz teachers who were leading them more astray. And after a while, it's just, it was constantly the law, the law, keep the Torah, keep the commands, keep the commands, keep the commands over and over and over and over again.

And I remember just being really tired. I remember the preacher preaching, keep the commands, keep the commands, keep the commands, the Torah, the Torah, the Torah. And I remember it's just like the spirit of God rent a veil, and I could see clearly that they are resulting. These are the thoughts that came to me. They're exulting the Torah above Yeshua. They're out of balance. You don't need to come here anymore. And so I went home that day. And I felt like the insight I received from the spirit of God was that it's not just bad things coming into the movement. The whole movement,

the foundation is based upon the Torah, not the gospel, not the Jesus, not Jesus Christ. And therefore the foundation of the movement is faulty and cracked. And so I felt like I was in this box. And my whole identity was being shaken. And I'm in this box. And this being shaken. And I feel like I'm supposed to get out of this box. You know, this train track that's going to derail. And so the next morning I go to church and they sing the song, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. And at that moment,

again, I felt like the spirit of God revealed to me that I had lost sight of the righteousness of Jesus Christ in the Hebrew its movement because it's Jesus' plus. They teach the Torah sanctifies.

Now some of them will go so far to say the law says most of them will say we're saved by grace but you got to keep the law to be saved to stay saved or at least to be sanctified. Some Christians will make it into the kingdom but you're going to be at least in the kingdom or some say you're not going to make it at all. So it really is Jesus' plus it's not the imputed righteousness that Jesus gives to us. I actually listened to the pastor say the Torah is our righteousness. I heard

him say that over and over again many will deny that's being said but that actually was being said. They would say the Torah is God's righteousness. Therefore if we do the Torah that's God's righteousness and then we have his righteousness so that's how they twisted it. And again they taught the Sabbath to feast the dietary laws are set apart, they're holy. So therefore if you keep them, you're set apart, you're holy, you're sanctified through these things. And so I was still involved after that with some home congregations. I still thought the Sabbath was somehow part of the

new covenant which at one time I believe that's Israel because they tired Israel and they believe that the new covenant was just a mosaic covenant renewed. And I realize that it's a brand new covenant but I still thought the Sabbath was a part of it. So we're still trying to do the Sabbath thing. And anyway so we went with some home groups and we went with another couple and then after a while we're just sitting at home and we're bored to tears and so you come up with your own Sabbath rules. So when I move back to Nebraska I'm like you know what it's okay we can eat

out or we can go for coffee on the Sabbath because the Sabbath is made for man and that's a good thing if we have fellowship but I can't shop. I can't grocery shop. My husband said one time let's go to the gym. You can't go to the gym on the Sabbath. So they come up many times with their own Sabbath rules and so I remember just crying out to the Lord because I knew in my heart of hearts if the Sabbath is still binding I'm breaking it willfully every week and I knew that because there's

places in scripture that you know talks about them not buying and selling on Sabbath and in the my own so forth. And so I like Lord please I need to know the truth. Are we supposed to keep the Sabbath or not? It was as cognitive dissonance as intertention that I could no longer live with and he took me to the scripture in the Torah that Sabbath was a sign between Israel and God. I no longer believe that is Israel and it was like the light bulb came on. Sabbath was a sign between Israel and God under the temperate mosaic covenant that was fulfilled in Christ. It was never binding.

It was never given to Gentiles. We never see anywhere in scripture where anybody embraced the seventh day Sabbath except for the ancient Israel who under the mosaic law covenant. And so then it was funny because I went through this you know I was disappointed.

And when I had to stop celebrating Christmas, we started embracing Christmas again, but now I have to stop celebrating Feast of Tabernacles because it wasn't that it was inherently wrong to celebrate a memorial feast.

But I knew I couldn't, we tried to keep it with the Heberwaters. And I realized when you came out like it didn't work, I couldn't keep it with these people. I can't celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

We had tried doing a trumpet celebration and didn't work well. And so then I was disappointed because I no longer can celebrate Feast of Tabernacles. So we went through that kind of strange thing again, but we embraced Christmas again from the Christmas tree.

You know, I had to unravel from a lot of this stuff. So it did church history, like Christmas isn't pagan, Easter isn't pagan. There's no pagan origins attached to the Christmas tree. That was a huge thing.

Like I was celebrating Christmas, but there's no way we're having a Christmas tree in my home. And we eventually, when I did the research, I'm like, they lied. And maybe it wasn't intentional because there were many of them just passing along this.

But the Christmas tree is a cultural tradition. You can take it or leave it, but there's nothing inherently evil about having a Christmas tree. And so we finally got a Christmas tree. We could enjoy Christmas fully, how we chose to celebrate it.

And then, you know, just unraveling from these different things. But the dietary laws, I still can't eat pork because of the fear tactics used in that movement. I don't believe that the dietary laws are still binding, but because of the fear tactics that were used in that movement, you were taught that you would get sick if you eat pork, if you eat the unclean, it's going to ruin your health.

Christians are getting cancer because they're eating pork, even though I knew more he brooders that died from cancer than Christians. And so I literally still cannot, when my husband first started eating pork and shrimp again, I was like, oh my gosh, he's going to get sick.

And you know, I had that fear, I had to literally like wrestle through and I moved past like, okay, he can eat it, he's not going to get sick, but I still can't eat it.

So you have those kind of effects because again, there's like guilt, not just guilt tactics, but fear tactics and ball that many people aren't aware of that goes on in those circles. You know, that actually leads to other problems that people deal with for years.

So when you have a group where the leader is believing that they have found the mystery, they've identified the mystery, then suddenly there's this superior already complex that happens to them. They start to think, well, I've got the mystery, it's our mystery, it's our secret.

It almost evolves into like, a column with a ring, they're sitting there, my precious secret. And then those who aren't part of the congregation, they don't have that same secret. So I grew up hearing these sermons where they would say things like, those church down the street and they might even name the church, they're sincere, but they just don't know.

And in other words, I've got the secret ring and they don't have the secret ring. What happens is, when you're under that mindset, you're being indoctrinated, will you get indoctrinated with that superiority complex?

And when you leave, I'll be the first to admit, it's really hard to get rid of that. Did you have to go through any of that? I think the hardest thing for me was speaking out.

the truth and so like when we first got there and that what he said very much exists and i think you have to and it exists on levels it's like it really breeds pride and self-righteousness and so and even if you don't think you have that mentality you do on some type of level so i think you know i'm dealing with that by the time i came out of it i don't feel like i had that mindset but i did it i want to just you know i could just go on my like go on with my life

but i felt like really convicted that truth and love go together and that i need to speak out about the Hebrew Ritz movement on Facebook which i had hundreds of Hebrew Ritz Facebook friends including people i knew personally and so there was a cost to speaking out because i know like i told my husband when we first had a christmas tree don't put it on a Facebook i don't want to deal with the anti Christmas tree people later on i he was allowed to post it and i posted pictures but just going through that like having to deal with we're going to lose

people are going to be upset with us and we're going to lose people over this by just standing on the truth and that there is a we can do the remains silent or you can speak truth and try to warn people educate try to reach people in the movement which is part of what i do now is trying to reach people in the movement challenge them also people who have loved ones in the movement who are trying to encourage them and so forth because i think people do need to be warned and but again there's this veil of blindness and it's really hard because you know that veil of

blindness experienced in people in this movement often have that veil of blindness and that superiority complex keeps them from you really have to have humility to be teachable and so if a person is not teachable and they have that superiority and like we which is a huge thing in the Hebrew its movement very a lot pride and condescending manner towards others and self-righteousness based on like being you know having these this revelation and being more obedient to God that we're more holy than other people and so it's really hard to reach people unless they just like humility

and be willing to be wrong and love truth and be willing to research out of matter when the information is presented to them i'm also really curious to know so you're a Christian before you went into the movement and you discovered that there were issues with it and then you became Christian again i'm curious to know along that journey what beliefs that you had before you joined the movement survived and what did you have to reconstruct or re-learn the gospel survived and the deity of Christ survived so yes that i was say by grace through faith in Jesus Christ even

though i hadn't worked some righteousness to it to be sanctified like i still had the my salvation was secure even though i never doubted my salvation but again it's about like being more righteous before the Lord and somehow trying to earn his favor or whatever So the gospel survived and the deity of Christ, that survived. I never rejected the deity. I was confused at one time on the Trinity, which I had to, that's why I'm very, I did a lot, a lot of research on the Trinity after I came out to be really, really grounded and that's a very precious

truth to me because of the confusion in the Hebrew its movement over the Trinity and the confusion that I had at one time. Also, the, again, embracing Christmas again, Easter and so forth and basically the unraveling of these dietary laws are not required. And you mentioned what had to be reconstructed. I think just, you know, that we have freedom in Christ in that he doesn't. We're not under a new covenant. You know, we're not, I mean, we're under a new covenant. We're not under the mosaic law. And so that's basically, I'm glad I was given a foundation because I see

people who come out of the Hebrew its movement who were not given that foundation and then they go off into some other weird thing because they never had the foundation to go back to. I had a foundation to go back to and so that really made a huge difference to have the foundation.

Did the restorationist mindset stick with you after you left? No, I think that I came out of that whole esoteric. I do remember having to re-scripture and like you were taught to like when you saw the word law, if it wasn't a positive sense in the New Testament, I mean, if it is laws, commandments, whatever, it always means mosaic law regardless of context. And if it's in the negative light, it always means like it's oral law. So I had to like learn how I actually had been trained to redefine scriptures and you had to unlearn that. Like, okay, I have to look at context here.

Context is huge and so there's passages in the New Testament or in like even proverbs and so forth. Like where it talks about fathers' instructions. Well, they say that's the mosaic law. Well, no, actually it was talking about Sullivan's instruction to his son. And the New Testament is not when they're talking about like, for example, sin is lawlessness, they'll say, well, that's mosaic law.

Or they'll say those who are being cast out of the kingdom because of their lawless, well, that's the mosaic law. Or when they talk that Jews said, if you love me, you'll keep my commands. Well, that's the mosaic law. So that always equated. So I had to unlearn how to not read the redefined definitions, but like, actually, let's look at context here. So context is huge. So I always say the Hebrew Ritz movement is built on the other context scriptures, reading context in the House of Cardius of humble. What advice would you give people who are still in Hebrew roots? I would say they

need to be teachable. They need to be humble. They need to be able to look at other viewpoints and be open-minded to at least research out of matter. And that humility and the fruit of the spirit is very important.

And that when we're called a love, be like Jesus, it was a command to be to embrace his Jewish cultural traditions, but to reflect his character in his heart. Jesus is our righteousness. He imputed his righteousness to us and the law does nothing to add righteousness to us.

It does not make us more holy or set apart or sanctified. We are under a brand new covenant. We have freedom in Christ. It doesn't mean we have freedom to just go and live however we want, but freedom to walk in the spirit, to walk in love and to grow in a relationship of Christ through the spirit and the Word of God.

I'm so glad that you came back to do this. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you so much for having me on. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available in Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Available in Amazon, Kindle. Available in Amazon, Kindle.