Israel in Prophecy: Did Old Testament Prophecy Really Point to Modern Israel?

Music Hello, welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org, where history proves that truth, or at least their version of it, is truly stranger than fiction.

Going to open this podcast with a question for people who are involved or have been affected by the Pentecostal Charismatic Movement. Some of you may not know that you have been, so this question is going to be for the broad scope of the audience.

However, the podcast itself is actually not intended for people who have been in that movement. But the question is this, did the Bible predict 1948? Most Christians who are outside of all of this mess that has developed into today's New Apostolic Reformation would say, no, the Bible did not predict 1948.

Because if you look back at 1948, what was happening in the religious realm, the post-World War II healing revival was already underway when the Laterane Revival broke out of North Battleford in 1948. In fact, William Branham's healing campaigns were one of the major influences on people at North Battleford, and Laterane developed within that larger environment.

What I have found in my church-going experience, when we left the movement that really was the heart of all of this, which was the Branham movement. William Branham was one of two catalysts for that Laterane movement, and Branham's destructive cult had broad, wide-sweeping influence across the globe.

What I found was this, there were elements of Branhamism in many of the churches that we attended, even some of the mainstream churches. And I'm not going to go too deeply into the theologies and how they've been impacted, because this is not a theological debate.

But I do want to talk to the history so that people who are not influenced by the Laterane movement or its consequences, I guess I'll call it, the things that developed after that are just, some of it is just really terrible stuff.

I want to explain why the terrible stuff. Why do so many groups spin off into destructive cults? Why is there such a end-of-days theme within the movements? And why the strong focus on Israel?

And the focus on Israel is the touchy subject, because it has invaded American politics. politics. There is this strong Christian slash political tie together for the nation of Israel and all of the themes that go with this. So I'm going to walk very delicately in that area. However, it is really important to understand because again, there are so many elements that I have witnessed myself whenever I came into the normal, quote unquote, normal church world. So I want to talk to you that, but the question really remains. Did the Bible actually predict 1948?

The reason why this question is important is not because of the laterane movement, but instead because of the modern state of Israel and not to focus heavily on the state of Israel because I'm going to also avoid politics in this. I want to talk a bit about the history leading up to the formation of the state of Israel. And to do that in a way that relates to the history and studies that I have been doing, this is a connecting the dots episode where I give you bits and pieces of some of my research, tie it all together and you can see how it all works

in the engine that's churning. But you have to go back to British Israelism. British Israelism was the belief that the Anglo-Saxon peoples, especially the British, were descended from the lost tribes of Israel. And as this expanded into America, it created a theological framework that said that the United States and sometimes Canada were the recipients of the promises of those modern Anglo-Saxon nations. Long before 1948, Christians had developed several different traditions that were expecting Jewish return to Palestine. And British Israelism was one stream intersecting that much broader restorationist expectation. And dispensationalism would become another eventually influential stream, especially within the Pentecostal movement. The question that I'm

going to get to the heart of is really this. Did the Bible predict 1948? When Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others spoke about Israel returning to their land, what did their original audiences think they were talking about? In other words, what did the Jews think they were talking about when they said, you people who are displaced will return to your land? For those who are not impacted by British Israelism, they would say, well, they were talking about in the ancient world, whenever they were displaced, they would be returning to their land. Historically, that is really the answer.

Theologically, it turns into a much bigger debate because you left with this question. We heard those prophecies frequently in the sermons that I listened to growing up. Were they predicting a return that is supposed to be twofold? In other words, it happened in the ancient world and it will happen again. Much like the what's the show, Battlestar Galacto.

This has all happened before. This will all happen again. That's the Christian theme that branches this into two different theological debates. And I'm not going to get into the debate. I just want to talk about that history sum.

Ezekiel 36 and 37, I believe it is, is probably the best example. It's the one we had songs about it, the old dry bones. I'm certain some of you have heard these songs. But that vision of the Valley of Dry bones is believed by those in the British Israel camp to be connected directly to Israel in 1948.

And when Ezekiel talks about the whole house of Israel that has been lost and Israel and Judah will be reunited, the British Israel people believe reunification of peoples would be the North American consents and the people of the Isles of England.

So they were believing that this would join into one people. And Israel as a nation was very important to this. And so within that realm of theological difference between mainstream Christianity, it was believed that many passages in the old covenant that were referring to the Jews are to be interpreted as though they were applying to the Jews, those passages.

But they're also applying to us what we see in part, in shadow, we see in full today. So under that theological framework you believe that the ancient Israel and all of the passages referring to those, that was the shadow of things to come.

And we're in the new era. And so we can apply those to our kingdoms and nations. In that framework there are some historical issues, theological issues, and where I want to focus actually is the logical issues because there are some.

I had a conversation on this very subject with Chino Ross just yesterday. And we were talking about pretty much everything that I just said and beyond because Hobart Freeman of the faith assembly cult, the destructive deadly cult of Hobart Freeman, his theological position on this subject came actually directly from William Branham.

And I read the quote from Branham that was in the questions and answers that is talking about this very thing. There are many different groups that built upon this and that is not to say that it originated with Branham because British Israelism came long before Branham but Branham in the healing revival has helped to popularize it.

And that's really, I think the point to understand in all of this. But the logical flaw is this, I asked Chino if I were to have a prophecy that my wife and myself would visit him at his house and we'd have a wonderful time together and my wife would bake you the best cherry pie that you've ever had.

And we came to your house. house, which we actually did, you know, a few weeks ago or a few months ago, came to your house, and we had this great conversation, and then we left. You'd be wondering, well, where's the cherry pie, man? And that's really the problem here. When you read these old covenant prophecies, there are so many details of things that are to happen. The problem comes in whenever something happens, some modern event happens, and then it's declared to be the fulfillment of these prophecies, because one or two details seem to match. While

all of the remaining details are to be postponed or spiritualized or interpreted differently, that doesn't automatically make the interpretation wrong, but it raises this really good question, which rule determines which details belong to the claimed fulfillment, and which ones do not? Who is the one who gets to decide this? And some people will say, well, those details are happening in the future. Or let's say those details are happening in the spirit realm. We can't even see it. The logical flaw that exists with this is if you take that position, you can literally make them apply to anything from future political issues, future

wars to even issues that you have in your workplace. You can make it say anything that you want if you eliminate parts of what is being said. And for me, that is, that's a logical flaw. And again, I'm not taking either side of the theological debate. I'm just pointing out what it looks like to people who aren't on either side of that debate. So this podcast is more for people who don't have a dog in the fight, like me, I don't have a dog in the fight. But I want to talk about why there is such a theological debate among the same

people that have the same theological framework. So this is for the apologist who's on the outside looking in. This is for the Christian who's looking at this whole weird mess thinking, why is there such confusion? Well, all of it comes back down to this. And this is the very heart, in my opinion, the very heart of the confusion in the movement. I'll begin by taking Ezekiel's prophecy to explain why that confusion exists. But I do want to emphasize that there are many people in the movement, including pastors, evangelists, and theologians who have not really critically examined the context and the exact passages of Scripture

that built a theological framework. I know ministers who preach it because other ministers have preached it. And there are key verses that were repeated often in the movement whenever I was growing up. And some of these come from Ezekiel, some of them from other passages that are similar. In the movement, the futuristic framework is more often mentioned than the historical framework. I want to talk right now about the historical framework. Israel and Judah were under judgment, according to the context of Scripture, not just within this prophecy, but reading the entire Old Testament.

you get that context. And there was a prophecy that there would be a regathering. So they're exiled, they're under judgment, and then suddenly these prophecies are coming that I'll bring all of the people back.

When I do this, I being God according to the prophecy, there will be a spiritual revival. And I chose the word revival there specifically in my slide if you're watching the video presentation. I have the title, Spiritual Renewal.

Revival actually is talking about a spiritual renewal and many of the modern revival culture, theologians, will use these old passages talking about the actual spiritual renewal to Israel that was in the historical context.

So you can change those two words out. Spiritual renewal or revival, which will give you a new heart and a new spirit of cleansing from sin. In other words, you were under the old covenant law, you broke the law, and you're going to be restored.

God is going to restore you. So this vision of restoration goes far beyond simply returning people geographically to a land. Israel and Judah are reunited. There is a Davidic ruler, spiritual renewal, and everlasting covenant, and God is dwelling among them.

So Christians disagree over how all of this is to be fulfilled, either through Christ and the new covenant, or through a future restoration of Israel, or through some combination of the two. If you're not in this movement, and you've not been affected by it, you read everything much differently than you do if you were in the movement.

When you're in the movement, you're looking to a future covenant, a future everlasting covenant because all of this is happening in the future. Or there is sometimes a blend of this. If you're outside of the movement, you say, well, there was already a new covenant.

Jesus came and he gave us a new covenant. So when two people who are of different opinions because they're not part of that movement, one person's outside of the movement, one person has been influenced by it.

You can have a conversation and you fully do not understand each other, because one person is saying, wait, we've already had the new covenant. Jesus came, what else is there? And that was the everlasting covenant.

And then you've got the other people who are looking to make these prophecies futuristic. So there is a significant difference between the understanding of these passages. By the time that the modern state of Israel was established, Christians had already been discussing a future Jewish restoration for centuries.

What really changed in 1948 was that the expectation that had already long existed now suddenly received this dramatic confirmation in world events. Suddenly with the British Israel themes and the nation of Israel being formed, you have this now in time framework because if you take those old covenant passages and you read all of their discreet.

descriptions of what can happen with the in-result of failure to uphold the law, you have Doomsday, and that's how it gets interpreted, and that's why, if you're in the movement, you have a Doomsday focus.

If you're outside of the movement, you're thinking, well, why are you worrying about this? Jesus came, He conquered sin. He's going to return. We don't have to worry about this. So you have two polar opposite schools of thought, and it all comes back to this interpretation.

Now I want to remind people that not all Pentecostals were aligned. There were those who joined in the Latter-Rain movement, but Latter-Rain created this great schism, and there were those who were opposed to it.

So among the Pentecostals, you had really two restorations happening at the same time. On the one hand, you had Israel being restored. The state of Israel was established May 14, 1948. And the Jews were restored, many Pentecostals, and many who were in the restorationist mindsets believed that this was of prophetic significance.

And then on the Latter-Rain side, you have the what was developing into the Latter-Rain revival at North Battleford. So in 1948, they believed that they had the second outpouring of the Latter-Rain spirit. The church was being restored, so suddenly we're seeing the gifts, the prophecy, the laying on of hands.

And because of this, if you apply the themes that were flowing out of that movement with the British Israel themes, with the restoration themes, suddenly you have this preparation for an end time harvest.

And that is really the key to understanding how all of this began to develop in the way that it did in the New Apostolic Reformation. I can already tell what some of you who were never impacted by this movement are saying if they reshaped the context of Scripture for the restoration, what about all of the passages that were prophetic talking about the desolation that was coming?

And we must touch on that just a bit to fully understand this. So I'm going to go back to Daniel chapter 9. Daniel 9 is one of the most significant passages of Scripture. In fact, the entire book of Daniel, as it relates to the themes that were flowing through what happened in the Latter-Rain movement.

We heard sermon after sermon of Daniel 70 weeks, and this became a very popular theme because it's talking about imminent destruction and desolation. And whenever you're thinking of all of this in the context of the world wars, it would be very easy to apply what Daniel is predicting to the desolation that's happening in one of the world wars.

But historically, let's take a step back and see what Daniel is actually saying. Daniel described 70 weeks or 77s, which have traditionally been understood as a 490 year framework. And that passage is connecting Jerusalem to the transgression, the righteousness and anointed figure, a covenant, a sacrifice.

sanctuary desolation, exactly how all of those 70 weeks should be calculated and fulfilled has literally been debated for centuries. And different Christian groups have arrived at very different conclusions based on the theology that is driving that particular movement.

The problem is there were people like John Nelson Darby and others who were dispensationalists and they injected a large chronological gap by inserting this idea that the prophetic clock just stopped and the church age basically was 2000 years. That was a very popular theme.

It was very popular among Pentecostals especially and this dispensational idea began to spread like wildfire, especially among the scofield carrying Bible holders. So as this picture of Daniel 70 weeks turns into thousands of years, well now think about all of that context mixed with the previous thing that I said talking about the restoration and Israel is restored as a nation.

Suddenly it's very easy to apply everything that you see to the world geopolitical landscape, especially when you consider again the world wars. We just had this massive desolation. We had several people die and now Israel's being restored. So it's very very easy to interpret this as a re-application of that prophecy. So it wasn't just that they were applying the prophecies talking about restoration. They were also going back and they were changing the context of those predicting the judgment that was coming for failure to uphold the Mosaic law. And for those who are unfamiliar with the Mosaic law who are listening to this, according to the old covenant, there were

a number of curses that would come upon Israel and a number of blessings depending on whether they upheld the law or they rejected or failed in the law. And what happened is you can read through the book of kings and you can see a king rises up and falls into idolatry. When this happens, there are these prophets who rise up and they prophesy. You have not withheld. You have not upheld the law and this judgment is coming upon you. So Old Testament prophets are quite different than what modern NAR Pentecostal Charismatic prophets claim to be. They weren't really predicting

future events as a futuristic prophecy. They were predicting futuristic events as a prophecy looking back at a failure to do something. In other words, God is using them as a mouthpiece to say, okay, you failed, you messed up. Now this is the curse that I promised you. So it was a promise that was being presented to the people under the context of the Old Testament.

When you look at the prophecies like Daniel and you have this prophecy of desolation, well, to apply it into the modern terms, you have to take bits and pieces of it, much like the prophecies that are from the restoration side.

And you have to say, well, this piece fits. I can see it happening with whatever country, whatever war. This one piece fits. We're going to use it. But you also have to exclude all of the others. All of this leads back to the question that I originally asked was 1948 predicted in the Old Testament.

It gets really interesting when you bring dispensationalism into this picture, because while it's not the only theological system that would allow this prophetic significance to 1948, within classical dispensationalism, 1948 opens the door because of this gap between Daniel's 69th week and the 70th week.

You have this huge gap that actually allows a framework in which national Israel can return to their homeland and it injects them into the prophetic timetable that is within the church ages. The reason why this exists is because there are two prophetic streams. You had those who believe the Israel prophecy, that prophecy stream, so they saw the dispensational ization, the future Israel, the future 70th week, the end times anticipation.

And this is outside of the Laterane movement. So it was influencing churches who were not influenced by Laterane. But on the Laterane side, you came to the same conclusion. So they had one shared conclusion. You had the 1948 revival, which was the Laterane. You had the restored gifts. You had the mature restored church while all of the other churches were apostates or were corrupt.

And then suddenly we're going to have this final harvest, this billion-so-harvest is how they would frame it sometimes in both Laterane and today in the Charismatic movement. But the interesting thing for me is that you have these different prophetic systems that could actually arrive at similar conclusions without actually sharing the same theology. Dispensationalists could see restored national Israel as the prophetic clock that's beginning to move again while Laterane restorationists could see 1948 as evidence that God is simultaneously restoring Israel and restoring the church.

So they arrived at the same end time urgency, but they both went through different pathways. For me, it really changes the landscape of what happened. 1948 was the state of Israel being established. You cannot argue that.

The Jewish state does exist, but the question becomes, was a future Israel-centered prophecy predicted in the Bible in the way that it is being taught? And if not, why the focus on Israel that we have to do?

Why is Israel the milestone for every single thing prophetic in the church? Today, you have to go back to everything that I'm talking about here to understand why that is. And one of the logical issues that exists for me, which I'll get into in a bit, if you go down that road, you can't just take pieces of it.

In other words, like I mentioned before, you can't predict that you're going to come with your wife and she's going to bring you this wonderful cherry pie and then come and leave in your anticipation of that cherry pie.

That was part of the prediction. So either it's all true or it's all false or you have a reinterpretation that's invalid. Well, in this way of interpreting the Bible, you really have to do that because when you apply all of the prophetic things that were included in that overall vision, not just Daniel's prophecy, but everything else that is said about this event, well, you have to think about Daniel's people, you have to think about Jerusalem, you have to think about the sanctuary, you have to think about the covenant, the sacrifice, the temple.

All of these things are part of that prophecy and that prophecy is spanning multiple prophets because it's part of the old covenant. These prophets are speaking as a mouthpiece from God and God is talking about the same event to Israel if you are to understand that context.

So it really comes down for me to a contextual issue. Do you believe the context of the Bible? Do you believe that to be complete or can you take bits and pieces of that context and try to fit it into today's world?

And the only question that I would ask with that, again, I won't get into that debate. If you do this, what prevents somebody else from doing it to a future event? Say there's a future world war.

What makes the people not create a new ladder rain? In other words, you could say there's the original ladder rain with Pentecost, ladder rain with the ladder rain movement. It's arguably a consistent theme if you understand the context of it that international house of prayer in Kansas City was an attempt for another ladder rain.

So this would actually be yet another ladder rain on top of all of those if you try to go down that pathway and to believe that at all that there's a coming ladder rain, you have to reinterpret Joel's prophecy and try to say that parts of it were for days gone by in the ancient world and it's to be repeated again today.

In other words, you can take a prophecy and you can repeat it in any way that you want. The problem is they have done it continually and each time it turns out to be demonstrably fault.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the ladder rain, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website.

site, William-Branum.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-Branum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. If you like me and you have an analytical mind, and you understand that there are two different branches of people who have two different sets of theologies based on 1948 that both develop into the same conclusion.

On the outside looking in, you can see why there would be confusion and why misalignment of doctrine, because two groups of people are coming to the same conclusion, but in very, very different ways.

I want to add to this one of the strangest wrenches that can possibly be thrown into this mix, and that is Christian identity. It's something that I talk about frequently because it is significant to understanding this whole ball of mess, but a lot of people kind of glaze over and they tune it out for this reason which complicates the system.

In the Christian identity movement, most of the leaders are anti-all of the leaders, are anti-Jew, and meaning that they believe that the Jews that are in Israel are the false Jews, and many people who view the latter-rain movement, or Branumism, or any of the branches that develop from latter-rain, or charismatic movement, they believe them to be different than Christian identity, and that those are not anti-Semitic movements.

I have people who are Branum followers, who will argue with me to know in that William Branum was not anti-Semitic, overlooking large glaring statements that he said that was actually anti-Semitic. I want to talk about that just a bit because it is one of the most complicated pieces, because as you see, we have these two different streams of people with two differing theologies.

We'll now multiply that by another two, because each one of those has a British Israel thought or a Christian identity thought, and I want to separate those two just a bit. To remind you from the earlier part of this, British Israelism was the idea that the United States and Canada were part of the descendants of the lost tribes, lost 10 tribes of Israel, and the British Isles were also this.

As such, they are the inheritance of all of the blessings to Israel. the new Israel, the new modern Israel is how they framed it. When this idea came to be, the Jews, the actual Jews moving back into Israel was a good thing. They saw this as a movement towards fulfilling of Bible prophecy, and they viewed the Jews very favorably.

They're moving into their homeland, now we can rejoice. Now in the United States it's slightly different because of the racism that flowed through the entire nation. At one point, the Ku Klak's clan was a very popular organization.

And think of this, one of the two leaders of the people who spearheaded the whole healing revival, one of two catalysts for the Laterane movement itself, was mentored by and admitted to having learned the Christian identity doctrine by the second in command of the Ku Klak's clan.

William Branham's mentor was the second in command and was an official spokesperson for William Joseph Simmons, who spearheaded the 1914 clan. Branham himself admitted that in Davis's church, he learned the Christian identity to see doctrine.

He was marketed by, led by, organized campaigns by Gordon Lindsay, who would later found Christ for the nation's institute. Gordon Lindsay was a frequent speaker at Christian identity conferences. We've talked about it in the past. I won't rehash that history.

You can look it up on my website. I have the newspaper articles and more talking about this. But Christian identity was a significant distraction to the overall agenda of this 1948 prophecy, because now with the two streams of doctrines leading to the 1948, you have the complicated effect of yes, we see it as fulfillment of prophecy. But now we have a question, are those people who are going into Israel, the actual Jews, or are they the false Jews? Because Christian identity believed that they were the false Jews. He was turning very anti-Semitic and the point of time

in which Gordon Lindsay is speaking at the Anglo-Saxon Federation is the time at which it had already turned anti-Semitic. This was one of the most racist and anti-Semitic organizations in Christian identity. So we see the history tells us that there were people who were aligned with that school of thought who were helping to lead the revival. And that is probably one of the most significant things that you can understand from all of this confusion. But let's go deeper and understand what that actually means, because British Israelism laid that theological foundation. The Anglo-Saxons were the descendants of the 10 tribes of Israel. But Christian identity made the problem

racialized. And in the 1930s through the 1960s started to develop doctrine. that were increasingly argumentative, that Israel is being inhabited by somebody that we need to kick out. We need to eject these people, because this is our kingdom, we're going to take it over.

Why? Because all of the passages of Scripture that I mentioned in the previous part of this were applying to the modern day church. The kingdoms, the kings, the monarchy, all of that is to be established.

Well, how do you establish it if the regions filled with these false Jews? And I'm laughing at the absurdity, not that it's funny. This is horrific that they were teaching this, but that was something that was significant.

Remember, William Brannum is spearheading the revival. He's by many historians, the leader of the post-World War II healing revival. The leader was being led and managed by Gordon Lindsay, who's speaking at these conferences.

And William Brannum is saying things like this. Stay away from Israel. Stay away from it all you people talking about converting the Jews. Before the message is over, meaning this movement, you'll see it's thus say at the Lord, by word and spirit, Israel will be converted one nation overnight.

The Bible said so, but the gospel is not even to them. There's a group of renegades out there and so forth that will come in outside of the main body of Jews. Jews will come in and get saved.

So breaking down what he's saying, he is saying that the gospel is not to these people, yet at the same time William Brannum frequently talked about the gospel written to the Jews and the Gentiles.

So he's making a distinction. The people in Israel are not the ones that the gospel are to. There are some renegades outside of this that will come in and get saved. He's declaring basically the Anglo-Saxon federations views on who is in the kingdom of the Jews.

And he frequently, you can look it up, just type in anti-Semitism on my website. You can see many of the things that he's saying that is in full alignment with the anti-Semitic views of the Anglo-Saxon Federation.

But this is a movement that's being led by people who believe that the nation of Israel is formed and it's prophetic, which I'll get into that just a little bit. It's prophetic, but we have the false Jews in and those people, the gospel is not even to them.

So don't try to go witness the gospel to them. We're waiting for the time whenever all of Israel will be saved, but not the renegades. Not the people who are there, the renegades to those people will be saved.

That was the theme that was flowing through the Latter-Rain movement, through William Brannum. Did everybody adopt it? Absolutely not. There were people who thought him to be a crazy wacko. He mentions this often, interestingly enough, he mentions it during the time that Jim Johns became a leader in his movement.

And Brannum's views were so extremist that even Jim Jones broke away from Brannum and said, I'm not dealing with this. And Jones prophesied his death as did many of the other evangelists over what Brannum called his serpent seed doctrine, which was the Christian identity doctrine.

So there was a schism and there were multiple levels of schisms based on this. So fact still remains that even among all of the schisms, you had people on both sides and you had multiple divisions over Israel in 1948 that also had two sides.

So for every split that happens, you have another split within a split over the views of what's happening in Israel. So to the mainstream churches who are on the outside looking in, they're thinking, this is nothing but mass confusion.

They don't even know what Israel is, yet they say that Israel is part of their prophecy, and yet they can't even agree what the prophecy is. That's what mainstream would say. Among the Pentecostals, they would say, we have the better interpretation because we have thus say at the Lord, or the spoken word, or the ramah, whatever they wanted to choose, our version is better than the next guys.

And so we cause a split, and then the split would develop into its own destructive movement. That's how this thing began to spiderweb in the way that it did. The next logical flaw that I want to get into comes from Joel 2, and this is the basis for modern Pentecostalism, the basis for the latter reign movement, and interestingly enough, the basis for the New Apostolic Reformation.

This prophecy of Joel begins with this catastrophic invasion, infestation of locusts, caterpillars, and it's coming with this day of the Lord imagery, using a language that is a terrifying, invading army of bugs, basically.

And there's some debate over what exactly this literal locust infestation means, but the context is unmistakably one of judgment, of devastation, repentance, and eventual restoration. Here's where it gets interesting. The interpretation of that scripture, like I said was twofold, it was written to the ancient Jews, but the movement tried to interpret it such that it is also applied to us today.

And the logical fallacy is that this terrible thing, where the harvest is completely demolished by these bugs, it says, the day of the Lord is great, it is dreadful, who can endure it. So the day of the Lord in Joel, it's described as great and terrible, or in today's language it would be awesome and fearsome.

The important question really comes as to how can you take something that is terrible and turn it into something positive? In other words, how can you have a passage that is describing divine judgment and calling people to repentance through that divine judgment?

eventually becoming the source of this triumphant Joel's army theology, where we're coming out to invade nations because we are the army of caterpillars or however you want to twist that. And remember that if you read in Acts 2, Peter says this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.

So he's connecting Joel with Pentecost, not something that would be years later in the Laterane movement. That same mistake was made with the book of Malachi, where it says that behold before the great and terrible day of the Lord, I will send you a light of the prophet to the Pentecostal movement.

And those basically who developed their theologies from John Dowie and Frank Sanford interpret it such that this great and terrible day means the end times. And I will send you a light before the end times and I'm it. I'm the big guy.

Well modern Pentecostalism not everybody subscribed to that level of destructive thought, but they did take that word great and terrible and they tried to interpret it in many different ways that applies to the ancient Jews and to us today.

An example of this like I said is Joel to this army, this Joel's army manifested sons of God theme that flowed through the Laterane. It was basically the basis for what would happen at IHOP KC and would develop into the new apostolic reformation. So it is significant.

But I want to take a step back before this and talk about how that developed because earn backster secretary earn backster who was William Brannum's mentor and later he was one of the heads of the Shepparding movement.

His secretary wrote this book called the Feast of Tabernacles. So the movement like I said interprets part of the passage part of the prophetic passage picking and choosing details that we say happened to us today and then taking the rest of it and putting it off somewhere else.

Either it's in the future or it's spiritual, etc. The Feast of Tabernacles did the same kind of thing by turning this biblical feast into a church age timetable without the text actually saying so.

If you read what is being said in this it's assuming that there's a Passover then Pentecost then Tabernacles and it's essentially dividing the church history into three eras and it's saying that basically these Tabernacles will be fulfilled again we're seeing it happen in Israel and we're going to restore these feasts.

The problem logically or historically I should say with this is that the feasts were talking about actual feasts where people would come and they would eat and they would celebrate in the ancient world.

They tried to take the feasts because they were to the people of the ancient world and they're part of this prophecy. They tried to spiritualize it into an era and that's really where when you do this you go into grave error.

because literally this happened, literally there were feasts, and now we're saying, well the feasts are now spiritual. It's talking about something that is not of our earthly realm. So the feast itself basically becomes church maturity. And that's really the point of the book, if you understand it, and the point of the movement. We're part of a restoration movement.

God is coming to restore the church because the church is in this apostate condition. We disagree with God's handling of every one of the denominations until now. They were in spiritual blindness. We are the elite. We're the ones who have the maturity. All other churches are immature. That's one of the fundamental elements of a destructive cult when you see an us versus them mentality. But essentially what it did was it took the restoration and tried to present it in such a way that anything that was referring to Israel's restoration, whether it was a tabernacle or a feast, or any of the blessings that God gave in the old covenant,

those blessings can be spiritualized into either eras or events or modern prophecy or modern predictions, and modern prophecies and predictions can be on top of these. That's the part to get scary. What they were trying to say is we today have what is called the spoken word or the ramah.

We take these predictions. We don't understand them at all, but combine them with a new prophecy, and now we have a key that unlocks this mystery. So the movement itself turned into a mystery cult.

We have these new modern keys, Brandon claimed to be one of them. His prophecies would unlock a mystery of the Bible, and now the mystery is revealed to the people. So people were coming to these meetings, trying to understand the mystery, and it became like a find your own adventure game, because as you're finding these adventures, well, one prophecy is coming from one direction of theology that doesn't match the other guy's prophecy coming from his direction of theology.

And so both prophecies are playing tug of war, and for that reason, the movement never really got to be cohesive. Instead, what you had were break-off cults, some of which would go their own direction, and each one being just violently opposed to some of the theology by the other guys, yet both people saying God spoke to me. So you're faced with the question, well, if God is speaking to this guy, whose doctrine is polar opposite from this other guy, can we say that God is speaking to both? Obviously, the answer is no, so they started fighting to say whose one was actually God,

and whose one was actually the man being full of it or being mistaken, whatever. So restoration did not look much like you would expect from a church standpoint, from the outside looking And you're looking at this mass and you're thinking, I don't see God in any of it because it's mass confusion.

To the people on the outside, it's mass confusion, but to the people in a mystery cult, they have the secret that nobody else has. The other guy who's wrong, he's only partly right. His secret is not in full.

He needs to come into our understanding and he can understand it better. So the movement was creating divisions based on mysteries. Fast forward to the Sixth Day War, which happened in 1967. Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan all began fighting and Israel eventually occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria.

So this turned into very quickly a war of biblical proportions for those who were in the biblical school of thought that Israel was the fulfillment of in-time prophecy from the Old and New Testament, especially the Old Testament.

So every single aspect of the Old Testament that is referring to wars, to famine, to conquering, to invasions, et cetera, were starting to be framed in such a way that it happened to the ancient world.

Now we're seeing Israel is in their homeland, 1948. And we're starting to see 1967 this big movement. So it began to intensify into what would be a strong recurring theme within the charismatic renewal as it starts to break out.

1967, if you look at the way these dates align, it all revolves around Israel. Israel is the key linchpin that ties it all together. And to tie it all together, you have to understand the interpretation by those using those theological themes about Israel.

So in other words, if you're part of this movement in 1967 and you're starting to say that this is fulfillment of end of day's prophecy, you also have to believe that 1948 was prophetic and that the Old Testament prophecies talking about Israel, the restoration, et cetera, you must believe that those are to be applied to today as well as it was applied to the ancient world.

So Israel basically strengthened the pattern in 1967 with that capture of these territories and the Six Day War became enormously important to Christian Zionism, which is another element of ideology that's coming into this movement.

So you had charismatic people interpreting this as the end time coming. We must have the billions so harvest, we must have the revival. So if you go back to those different themes of movements leading to the same conclusion, now add to this the 1967 war and you have even more themes of different theology.

that are also coming into the movement with Israel being the linchpan. So Israel becomes this hub for theology, sometimes opposing theology. The Carious Matic movement carried that restoration theme from classical Pentecostal denominations, from non-Pentecostal denominations, all of the gifts of the Spirit, healing, etc.

They carried that theme forward and started to eventually create large churches and large international ministries and inter-denominational ministries to push those themes and agendas forward. So what happened was suddenly there's this mass cross-pollination of ideas that are getting into mainstream Christianity.

So you can talk to a mainstream Christian and they will believe much like the Carious Matic or Pentecostal world, Israel is the fulfillment of end-of-days prophecy. And not many of the people, like I said, not many of the people who are of that mindset, go back to look at the prophecies that they're referring to and try to identify what parts were for Israel and what parts were for 1947.

But you must do that exercise if you're going to build on top of that theology. Now bring it past the Carious Matic movement into the New Apostolic Reformation. International House of Prayer in Kansas City is one of the key examples of exactly what I'm talking about in this podcast.

Mike Bickel, his Israel mandate was tied specifically to Israel and Messianic believers to Israel's in-time destiny. Ezekiel 16, the outpouring of the Spirit, all of these themes that I've mentioned for the Laterane movement is now coming into modern Carious Matic movement through Mike Bickel and his Israel mandate.

But it's coming in a new modern way where the Joel's Army focus has a heavier presence in the prophetic than it did even in the Laterane movement. Mike Bickel is quoted by some of his followers as saying we're going to see bloodshed and he seems to be very happy that they will engage in this battle.

So Joel's Army is not only militant, it is eager to become more militant if that makes any sense. And combine that with everything leading up to Mike Bickel and the Kansas City International House of Prayer, such as the spiritual warfare, the intercession.

Israel is no longer just simply a prophecy to observe. It's more of a focus of the prayer and fasting spiritual warfare. If we can all come together and do this, we will see Israel blossom into the end of days and how this occurs and how this, how this end of days looks, differs depending on which New Apostolic Reformation Leader you're talking about.

And some of them, if you follow out their paths of prophecy to its conclusion, some of them kind of contradict each other. If you look at, for example, Mike Bickle, his fulfillment of Joe's army.

Paul Cain was saying, you'll see in Kansas City and Arrowhead Stadium, Joe's Army and training and you'll see all of these people and all the news media will be coming here. Well, what about the Christians across the ocean?

Are they all gonna come to Kansas City and can the stadium even hold the number of Christians we're talking about? There's some logical flaws with that type of interpretation, but the point I'm trying to make here is the logical flaws don't stop there.

To believe that, you have to also believe 1948 was spoken about in biblical prophecy. Then you have to go back to the biblical prophecy and you have to pick and choose which details of those original prophecies you're going to say is coming to pass and which ones we're going to say are not part of the fulfillment of that prophecy.

The question that I have building up to, if you can't tell already, who gets to decide which ones we're going to include and which details coming from God, by the way, we're going to exclude.

It really comes down to the level of authority that is given to the ministers, the apostles and prophets of this movement. They actually have the authority to decide for God what God will do and what God promised to do that we're going to ignore and let that sink in.

We're going to let these people decide what God said that we're going to ignore. So if that's not confusing enough, I'll leave you with this final question. If a messenger from God tells you to ignore God, is it truly a messenger from God?

And with that, I'll let you think about that. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org.

From more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

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