The Six-Day War and the End Times: What Luke 21 Actually Says

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-Brandham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, General Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Chenot D. Ross YouTube channel. Chenot was having a conversation with Bob Scott yesterday and we were talking about a subject unrelated to this but we got deep into the midst of it and I leaned close to the microphone and said now I'm gonna say something that's

gonna probably upset a lot of people and then I went into that subject and we got to talking about it. I don't know, maybe 10 minutes later. I did it again because to tell the history you have to say things that really offend people and it's a sad truth but the history is offensive to those who don't understand the history. Well that was Bob Scott and I think there were three times that I did this. Well I'm gonna tell you right now and I'll tell the listeners right now this whole episode is going to offend a lot of people because we're gonna talk

about Israel. Israel is one of the subjects that you just don't talk about historically and talk about what actually is happening and we're gonna dive into some areas that not many people know of where some ideas came from but needless to say there will be people in the comment feeds who hate my guts. It won't be unusual or an anomaly though will it? No. So you know we did not get very far and what I wanted to talk about last week John with regard to Hobart Freeman's views on Israel in the last days. I was kind of setting it up and there were

just a lot of other things we were looking at but there were two events that happened during Dr. Freeman's life while he was alive that happened with regard to Israel. One was Israel became a sovereign nation in May of 1948. Now Hobart was not even a Christian at the time so that probably didn't mean much to him then he did not come to Christianity until 1952 four years later but I know and looking back on it it was significant for him. What was most important was what happened in June of 1967 known it was known as the six-day

war when Israel got her capital city of Jerusalem back because this happened literally just a year. after Hobart had entered into the charismatic movement and experience. So he's both a Christian and in the charismatic movement and to see these things happen in Israel were very, very significant for him.

And there is one verse in particular that he honed in on. Of course there are many passages that in my estimation do talk about a future restoration of Israel. So it's not that I have any objection to that.

And there's a large part of evangelical Christianity, not everyone, but a large part who would be in agreement with some type of view of the restoration of the nation of Israel. You know, if anyone knows just a little bit of history, they know that Israel went into the Babylonian exile and captivity in 586 BC.

And there were successive world powers that were in control, more or less a Palestine. You know, from then all the way down to a little brief period of Jewish independence under the Maccabeean era during the middle of the second century BC, but we all know by the time we open the New Testament, Rome is in control of the world.

And so Rome is in control of Israel. And there was a Jewish revolt that lasted for four years from AD 66 to AD 70, Vespasian came in and attacked to put down the rebellion of the Jewish people.

He ended up being the emperor and was called Rome and then his son Titus finished the defeat of the Jewish revolt and leveling of the city of Jerusalem in AD 70. And so since that period, Israel has been in a dispersion.

The Jewish people have been dispersed all around the world until the middle of the 20th century. So we're talking about 2000 years after the AD 70 time, 2500 years after the Babylonian captivity. So it does seem to be something fairly significant.

A lot of people agree with that. But what was different with Dr. Freeman was his take on a particular verse in the Olivet Discourse in Luke's account of it, which was Luke 21 and verse 24.

This is found in the middle of an eschatological section of Scripture where we're leading up to the Passion Week and the crucifixion. And you know the gospels, especially the synoptics Matthew, Mark, and Luke are made up of a lot of stories about Jesus' time on earth, his miracles, his healings, and a lot of the sangs or discourses that he had in their long section.

and where he's teaching, like the Sermon on the Mount or the Parable of the Sower. And one of these last discourses has been entitled by biblical scholars, the Olivet Discourse, because he is on the Mount of Olives having just left the temple in Jerusalem.

He's looking back at the temple in the city and he gives this great discussion of what's going to happen to Jerusalem in the temple. And you'll find it in Matthew 24 and in Mark 13 and Luke has his version in Luke 21.

And so there are a lot of opinions and interpretations of how to understand this discourse, mostly with regard to which parts of his sayings have to do with the first century and which parts are still yet to be fulfilled, you know, post-first century.

And so we come to this Luke 21, 24 verse, John, where what we read there is that Jerusalem will be compassed about with armies. The city is going to fall. The people will go into captivity and they'll go into foreign nations of the world, which does seem to have been fulfilled in AD 70, you know, just what, 30, 35 years after Jesus said this.

And then we have Luke 21, 24 B and Jerusalem will be troughted down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. That's the key part of the verse that was key in Dr. Freeman's eschatology.

So by virtue of the fact Jesus mentioned Gentiles, there is something about Jewish versus Gentiles. So you see the city has been taken and ransacked. The people have been sent out into captivity, another dispersion, not unlike the Babylonian one, except this went not just to Mesopotamia, but these people were predicted to go to the far ends of the earth in their dispersion until a certain time, until something happens, until the times of the Gentiles have been fulfilled.

And so obviously if you look at this in light of what happened in the six day war in June of 1967, what Hobart was arguing for is, look, that verse has been fulfilled. That Luke 21, 24 Jerusalem will be troughted down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, the Jews have their city back.

So now we can know that the times of the Gentiles had been fulfilled and know that we're living at the very end of time. So this is the way he read that verse. This is the way he understood...

that. As you read on in the few verses after that, you have this very famous reference to the fig tree where Jesus said, let me give you a parable. He said, when you see the fig tree beginning to bud and produce foliage on it, you know that summer is near. So when you see these things happen, then lift up your heads, your redemption draws nigh, and this generation will not pass away until all things have been fulfilled. John, when I first heard this in 1976, you know, I'm not that many years removed from the six-day war either. And I'm being told that Israel is the fig tree.

And when you see Israel get her city back, then the generation living at that time would not die until the second advent. That's basically what he said, and that is definitely the way I interpreted it. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. And it wasn't just the people under Dr.

Freeman's ministry. It was people under a whole lot of other ministers, ministries, all of whom were hearing somewhere in the sixties or seventies or even up into the eighties that we have been born during the time when we can be certain, not just kind of assume, but be certain that the second advent was going to happen. And you can imagine the effects that had on all of our lives.

So let me tell you the parable of the cherry pie. A great prophet once said that he would bring his wife to Chennai Ross's house and they would have a great time together. And his wife would bring the most excellent cherry pie and everybody would enjoy the cherry pie. The way the Christian church has been infected with this cancer, you Chennai Ross could say that that prophecy is fulfilled because John and his wife came to my house. But the Chennai Ross who wants the cherry pie would say, but wait a minute, I didn't get any cherry pie. What about that part of the prophecy?

We have taken all of these scriptures and I'm saying we collectively who have been plagued by this ministry in such a way that we can apply it literally to any point in time. Because what they do is they say, look, these ten things were part of this prophecy and I see two of them. Do you not see it, my brother? It's happening right here and they ignore the other eight. And then what they'll do sometimes is they'll say, well, the other eight are spiritual. They're happening in a realm we can't see. Well, man, that cherry pie is in a realm you can't see. So you can enjoy that

cherry pie while it's often fantasy land and you're still missing the cherry pie. That's really the problem here. What I'm trying to say is I have looked at this backwards and forwards because when I left, I left.

the cult with a doomsday mindset. I know all of the passages they use. I know all of the ones that they use to apply to Israel. And here's where I'm going to step on a few toes, an upset a few people.

I have never yet really given my opinion on the Scriptures when I talk about theology. I usually say there are differences in ways theology is viewed. And I'm going to preface that with this now, but I'm going to also preface it with the cherry pie parable because we went to things like there's a passage in Ezekiel that talks about gathering from all of the country, you know, the dry bones passage. Gather all of you from your lands and take you. Well, when Laterane broke out, it's breaking out on the verge of this big event where Israel's coming back into this nation.

They're saying, look, I see these two things and they're totally ignoring not only the other eight, but like you said, what about the things that happened in the past that was actually part of the prophecy? It was not just Israel and Judah becoming one nation. That theme came from British Israelism. They were trying to say that the United States and Canada and England are the descendants of the lost ten tribes. Therefore, this passage is being fulfilled in your day.

But what about the one Davidic king ruling over them? What about God's covenant of peace? All of these things that are part of that prophecy, they just throw it into the spiritual and they say, look, it's being fulfilled because we see these two out of these 10, 15 things.

And what it has done, it has trained people to shut off all critical thinking, that's one of the worst things that they can do. But the second worst thing they can do, they just glaze over when they read the Bible and they say, I just can't understand this.

I remember when I left the cult, somebody actually told me, I'm explaining to them, there's no way that this is correct because the Bible is very explicit right here. And they said, yeah, I know I can read that and it doesn't make sense, but I just don't have the power to understand it. I'm glad that God sent a prophet and the prophet could explain it to me.

And you can't reconcile it. That's the point I'm trying to make. Yeah. And as I said earlier, John, there's a lot of discussion on how to interpret the all of it discourse because there do seem to be parts of it that were fulfilled in AD 70.

And there do, and then there also seem to be parts of it that you can't reconcile with AD 70. So, you know, you have to do a little bit of cherry picking, you know, from your cherry pie.

If you're a little cherry picking, I think this applies to AD 70 and I think this doesn't. But for my young 17 year old mind, you know, you got to picture me where I was.

I'd, you know, whenever, whenever Israel got her capital city back in 1967, you know, I'm eight or nine years old. So I'm not watching the news. I'm watching Batman and Robin on TV. I'm not, I don't know anything going on. And so when I learn this from Hobart and, you know, You go back and say, oh yeah, I see Israel did in the six day war.

It was somewhat of a miraculous victory for the Israeli people and pilots and army and nation. They got their city back. And then he brings in this verse that Jerusalem will be under Gentile domination until and then he shows you when that until happened, it happened in my lifetime when I was a young boy.

And then you would go into talking about the fig tree, Israel is the fig tree, everybody said Israel is a fig tree. And so for the first few years of my Christian charismatic life and experience, I definitely believe that.

But the good news is it didn't end there. I had some time to continue to read my Bible. And as I read my Bible, you know, some of the things I saw John that I don't know even to this day, prophecy preacher still aren't telling anyone and yet they're right there in the passage itself.

I think the first thing, if I didn't know anything else, just say this young channel doesn't know anything else except what Hobart's told him. And I look at Luke 21, 24 and I think, okay, Luke 21, 24 has been fulfilled because now Israel has her city back.

I can't possibly know or think anything but that because that's all I've been taught. But within a few years, I'm reading my Bible and I get to the last book of the Bible, I get to Revelation, I get to chapter 11, I get to verse two and I find that same or a very, very similar phrase again that regardless of whether Israel did or didn't get her city back and she got most of it back in 67, there's still a future time where if people will read Revelation 11 and verse two, they will see that the city is going to be trotting down

given over to the Gentiles. So it's either going to happen again or Luke 21, 24b really was not fulfilled in the six day war. And so then I read other things and I came to realize that Israel is really not referred to in the Old Testament under the symbolism of a fig tree.

The nation of Israel is referred to as a vine or a vineyard. And so you go, well, I don't know if Israel is the fig tree because the prophecy preacher said Israel is the fig tree and when Israel begins to blossom, that's the way they would interpret that.

When Israel begins to blossom and the blossoming is then getting their city back, then you know that you're living in the last generation. But guess what, the same chapter, Luke 21 goes on to say, Jesus in Luke's version says, behold the fig tree and all the trees.

In other words, he's not tall. Israel is not the fig tree. He is giving a parable and the parable is so obvious and he's not just specifying the fig tree. I think down in verse 29 is where he says, and all the trees.

In other words, he's saying, this is what happens to all trees when you see them begin to bud. I mean, this doesn't take much sense at all to realize you know you're in spring and summer will be here soon.

That's all he's saying by that. And he's not saying Israel is a fig tree. He said, this is true of any and every tree that when you see trees, bloom and blossom, you know as summer is coming.

And so consequently he said, so the people that do witness some of these things happening can know that they are living in the end times, but which of those things? And so here is where it took another interesting path and that concerned the word generation.

Hope art didn't make a whole lot with this word, but everybody else did. This generation will not pass away. So there've been all kinds of books published and sermons preached on what is meant by generation.

Does it mean the people of Israel? Does it mean the people living when Jesus was speaking? That's the way the liberal scholarship would take it so that Jesus ends up being a false prophet because he said the people living now when he was talking wouldn't die until everything's been fulfilled and here we are two thousand years later.

The way that hope art Freeman took that and the way that probably most evangelical prophecy preachers took it then and now was that a generation referred to a certain length of lifespan of people.

And so it would be argued was it 40 years? Is it 70 years? And when do we date the beginning of that generation? Some people as we'll see here in a few moments when I share some information from some other preachers would say it began in 1948.

So depending on how long you want to make a generation, you've got either 40 years or 70 years to wait until the second advent. Or if you want to say that generation really needs to be jump started in at the six day war, then you've got 1967.

You add your however long you think a generation is. You add your 40 years, which is what most people would say. Your 70 years. And of course the problem is, as you can tell them.

The more time he lapses, the more you have to go back and revisit how long you think a generation is. If a generation is 40 years, then neither one of those times were 48 or 67.

So you have to start stretching that and say, well, I think maybe a generation is 70. And before you know it, people will be up to the lifespan of Moses of 120 years. And then once you get to 120 years, then all bets are all, you know, once you get to 121 years, all bets are all because people are just grabbing at straws, you can tell.

But this had a big impact on my life. And I hope people listening can understand how and why it was through Dr. Freeman's interpretation of this particular passage in Luke chapter 21. So now I'm going to go to the parable of the hundred messiahs, only it's actually not a parable.

This is history. I don't know if you have read Josephus antiquities of the Jews. He list all of the different messiahs that came and all of the different versions of the end time that was nigh whenever the people saw Rome invade.

If you read that history, there's a part of that history that most people that I have talked to who are in this movement and the movements that branch from it are fully unaware with.

And that is the abomination of desolation. And the Romans come in, they would actually set up to stay in the temple that was abominable to the Jews and it was truly the abomination of desolation for them because they just desolated Jerusalem.

Well, you had all of these people who were claiming to be the predicted messiah and knowing how this works, you have humans who are saying, look, there's a guy claiming to be the messiah.

He's coming to deliver us, well, then he doesn't. And then there's another one and another one, Josephus lists all of these people that are the messiah, the coming one. And then there's one page that says this is, I think it says this is the Jesus of Nazareth or something like this.

That was actually penciled in or written in, not penciled, but written with a pen and ink, I guess, on the scroll after the text was written, but a coppiest copied it and people today mistakenly think that was part of the original.

Josephus just listed all of them. He didn't really have a preference, which one was the Jesus that we know. That history exists because whenever people saw one or two of the, you know, the 10 or 12 things that are predicted, well, this must be it.

People look, here's a messiah right here, he's claiming to be it and then he's not. Well, what happened with 1948, whenever Israel comes to be a nation, you had all of these people who were giving a lot of credence to the restoration theology.

They were saying that God is coming to restore the church and they were already looking for the Jews to come into a location. So you had, people who were heavily influenced by that type of theology, who were in politics, helping to form the nation of Israel. So there's a politics angle that comes to it.

There's a Christianity angle, Protestantism, etc. Well, what happened was, when it did happen, suddenly everybody who's in the restoration mindset, and especially those in Laterane, they just went nuts because, look, there it is. It's right here. We see it politically.

The problem is, again, not all of the things were fulfilled, and they were starting to look at grasping at straws, trying to figure out, well, how do we, how do we say this is the rest of it?

But within the movement, that started the heightened urgency to predict the Doomsday. If you open up the very first few issues of the voice of healing, they've got these countdowns of dates, and they've got, here's where the Jews were invaded, here, you know, they're walking through Germany, all of this, and they're doing all these mathematical formulas to predict it. And in the midst of all of this hype, 1954, William Brannum publishes this, or it's a recording actually, but it's published later in a book, Questions and Answers. Question number nine, in the 1954, Questions and Answers number one, what position will the church be in when the gospel returns to the Jews?

And he lays it out very plainly, that's in Luke 21, 24. And then he goes on to explain his reasoning why, which is exactly what you're describing. The reason why that caught my attention when you said that passage, that's one of the loaded language phrases in my head. Every time I hear it, I know exactly you're talking about Israel. And that's because we were programmed to believe this.

The sad part of it is, there are different views of how all of this theology is to come to be. I understand that, you may not believe like I do, I won't tell you what I believe, but there are so many people that are influenced by that, that the theology is actually swayed, and you have to ask the question, is it swayed in the right direction?

And in my opinion, if it sways towards a Doomsday thought, you're probably in a destructive group. So what I find surprising, John, is what you just said about Brannum, because I've often wondered how much of Hobart Freeman's theology came from William Brannum.

And the longer you and I have podcasts together, the more we realize a whole lot came from William Brannum. And Hobart, too, is dying day, says his famous quote was, I don't care what anyone says, I believe William Brannum was God's prophet.

And that was to deflect some of the weird stuff that Brannum taught like Serpent Sea, which Hobart did not agree with that. He somehow, in his pipe, could tolerate a genuine biblical prophet, i.e. William Brannum, you know, holding to crazy and heretical stuff, which is a whole nother...

Dorian itself. But you know, it was just, it was a really powerful part of the first few years of me listening Dr. Freeman. I was just amazed because, you know, we all want to live in the last days. I mean, maybe we don't. I mean, I don't even think that way anymore for some reason. That was the way of angelicalism was set up. Charismatic and non-charismatic.

You know, there's plenty of non-charismatic evangelicalism where people just say, Jesus is coming back any day. I think he's coming back in my lifetime. And I don't know why it's important to believe that or think that or even want to believe that. Is he coming back? Absolutely.

The Bible says he left and he will return. Why it has to be important that he's coming back during my own personal lifetime. I haven't really figured that out. It seems like there's a lot of bad things that will be happening in conjunction with the second advent. Maybe you don't want to be alive then. Maybe it would be better that you had already died and gone to heaven. But in looking at Luke 21, 24 B, the second half of that verse, I just thought it was slam dunk. It was just he had made the case. We're living

in the last days. You know, it took me a little while to figure out the fig tree and find revelation 11 in verse two. But something that did not take me as long to figure out John was that says that Jerusalem will be troddened down until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. That is a particular specific phrase. And Hobart had even taught on that that phrase referred to Daniel's prophecy, where Daniel with his own vision, he has in chapter seven. And with the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had in chapter two, seems to picture future history with regard to Israel in relation to four world powers, Babylon,

then Mito Persia, then Greece, then Rome. And then those are all Gentile nations. That Jerusalem will be troddened down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And the only thing that happened after the times of the Gentiles is the fifth kingdom, the Messianic kingdom. And it didn't start in July of 1967. You know, so the way Hobart worked that out, he fudged on that. And he said, well, he would use this analogy. He'd say, well, remember in the second world war, the war officially can come to an end. And the Allied forces have defeated the Axis powers. But you know, there's still a little skirmish

going on. A little flare-ups over here and over there. Because I was wondering, well, at the time to the Gentiles had been fulfilled, I.E. Luke 21, 24, then that should be the second advent.

But he would hedge on that by saying, well, there are just a few more details that have to be taken care of. And so you're fine with that, as long as you were in the early to mid to late 1970s.

You know, and he died in 84. What would he be saying now? You know, you have to start reinventing things. So to me, it began not to make so much sense. Just the way, you know, he would say, well, the times of the Gentiles had been fulfilled because they got their city back.

He never mentioned Revelation 11 and verse two. But they got their city back. So the time to the Gentiles, well, according to his own teachings on Daniel, then once the fourth kingdom, which was Rome, once that comes to an end and Jerusalem and Palestine are in the possession of the Jewish people, there's nothing left that's the messianic kingdom.

And so then I realized, well, when I wait a minute, Jerusalem is primarily under control of the Jews, but even to this day in which we're speaking now. They're not in control of the whole city.

There is a Muslim mosque, the dome of the rock, right on the temple mound. The Jewish people are not in control of that part of the city. And that seems to be a very important part of the city.

So all of these things just create problems in a person's mind. You're wondering, how can this person teach what he has taught on the times of the Gentiles and be teaching this? You know, John, it reminds me, there is a famous quote, this is a non-Christian background in writing completely, but you remember Lewis Carroll, who wrote those fascinating children's novels about Alice's adventures in Wonderland.

And then I think there was a subsequent look through the looking glass, and then through the looking glass. I'm just thinking about that right now in light of what I just said regarding Dr. Freeman's contradictory views about so many eschatological things.

Through the looking glass, introduced us to all these interesting characters like Humpty Dumpty and The Rabbit and Twiddly D and Twiddly Dumb. But there was another character called the white queen, I think was her name.

There was a red queen and the white queen, and the white queen, who was supposed to be over 100 years old, the white queen, who Alice could never figure out.

She made this famous quote where she said, sometimes I have, leave six contradictory things before I've even eaten breakfast in the morning. And that is just an expression that was I thought brilliantly done by Lewis Carroll, how people can, before breakfast, believe six contradictory things, have all of these different things in their brain, firing like, you know, pistons in a car, but yet they don't line up with each other.

So when you look at the fact that Israel's not the fig tree, he's not talking about Israel as a fig tree because he's just saying all the trees have followed this same pattern of producing leaves and buds before they actually produce fruit.

The fact that Israel didn't get her whole city back, she doesn't have it to this day. The fact that the times of the Gentiles must not have come to an end because they're still going to overrun the city at a future date in Revelation 112, just tells me I think Dr. Freeman's interpretation of Luke 1124 rather was wrong.

And I better just put the breaks on all of this stuff, concerning what you just said of this urgency that we can be certain that the second advent is gonna happen any day. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.

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When I'm talking to somebody and I'm talking about something really important and my wife is with me, she's the one who corrects me and say, no, John, your memory's wrong. This happens slightly different and she'll make sure that the other party's aware that she's trying to keep John honest.

And it just has to do with people's memories over time. They kind of change and they have this way of remembering things in the way that they want to rather than the painful parts that might make them feel uncomfortable later.

That's just human nature, that's part of psychology. The reason I like history is because it's like my wife. When I- Richard's documented, it keeps people honest. And I have made the statement a few times, and now is the good, goodest time of any to qualify it, that the early Pentecostal movement was really laddering 1.0, laddering was laddering 2.0, IHOPKC was laddering 3.0 and beyond.

Well, there is a book, which I'll admit I've not read it, but I have read many scholars reference it in some of my research, written by D. Wesley Myland, it's called the ladder rain covenant and Pentecostal power.

And what this book did was it took what it considered to be the early rain, it's taking that passage from Joel 2, says the early rain was Pentecost Acts 2. That's what it was predicting.

So it's already ripped Joel's prophecy out of context. And then it says, he went on to try to say that the long dry period was actually what we call church history, that's when the church had this long dry period.

And then the ladder rain is whenever the Lord came and restored the Holy Spirit power, and he's referring to as it is straight obviously. Well, he goes on to say that the harvest is going to be this final worldwide evangelism.

And that was a theme that was flowing in the early Pentecostal movement and the movements prior. And all of this to sum up his main thesis, which is the second coming is imminent. Now this book was written in 1910, long before any of this.

So every Pentecostal is looking at this book, thinking, wow, when Israel comes, this is it. It's imminent. So when you look at Voice of Healing magazine or any of the other people who are doing all these calculations, when's it going to be?

It's tomorrow. It's next year. It's all going back to this theme, which wasn't unique, that we're going to see Israel restored in their nation and then boom, that's it. It's happening. And so everybody thought Doomsday was right here upon us.

Well, what happened was, it kind of fizzled out because Doomsday didn't happen. So then the ladder rain movement breaks out in North Battleford. Well, suddenly it's reunited because not long after Israel actually becomes a nation.

So they get really excited. And I think, okay, well, we thought it was going to be that other one. Well, it's this one. The point I'm trying to make in all of this is, history keeps us honest.

You can look back through time long before this and you're going to find people who find a political event. They're going to find people who have some sort of a move in the church or whatever it is.

And they'll pick two or three things out of context and let's say this passage of Scripture means us. And the worst error that I see in all of this really is the Joel 2.

Joel 2's prophecy wasn't talking about this at all. And if you understand that prophecy, it's actually not that good of a thing. It's talking about a plague that's coming to the land. It's not talking about a great coming thing.

So whenever I'm looking at all of this mess, yes, I understand that there are different theological... I'm not going to say that those are right or wrong, but the error is trying to say that we know for certain what it is.

And I think that's where Hobart Freeman wandered off into error, because he spoke with certainty. Yes, I know this is it. And look, you have to obey me. Yeah. I don't know if you'll be up for it in the future, but we could do a podcast together on the former in ladder rain.

That would, I don't know if you've done one, but that would be an interesting one. You know, it's definitely true, John, that the New Testament does teach that the second coming will be sudden, that it will be unexpected.

You know, it's many times couched in the form of a thief in the night. Those aspects of the second coming are definitely there in the New Testament. What I have always, what I have wondered for the last 40 years is where did modern Christianity come up with the idea that the second coming of Jesus could happen at any moment?

That's not the same as saying it's going to be sudden or unexpected. Those are two entirely different philosophical concepts. Where did this idea come? Where did it begin? What was the date? The first date where from that date forward, the second coming of Jesus could happen at any moment, because I've simply just stopped people and said, wait a minute, let's analyze that.

Do you believe, do you believe Jesus could come at any moment? They say yes. I said, okay, how long has that doctrine, let's call it the eminency of the return of Christ? How long has that been a true doctrine?

How long has it been true? They'll say, well, that's always been true. And I'll say, okay, I was hoping you would say that. So the day after Jesus ascended into heaven, this is Acts 111, the day after he ascended into heaven, could he have come back that day?

Well, no, because he had to pour out the Holy Spirit first. I said, yes, exactly. That was going to be 10 days later. So he could not. Could he theoretically, literally, technically, theologically, in any way?

Could he have come back prior to Pentecostal? No, because he had predicted the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Well, then what about four months after Acts 2? Could Jesus have come back? And they say, well, yes, the early church thought he could come back at any moment.

I said, no, they actually did not think that because he had predicted the gospel would be spread after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

If he comes back, there's no time for that to happen. You just work your way through early, first century church history, asking the person the question... So when did this doctrine of eminency become a valid Christian doctrine?

What about 10 years, 15 years after the day of Pentecost? Could he have come back at any moment? And they say, well, yes, and I say, no, because he appeared to Paul in a vision and said, Paul had to appear before Caesar in Rome and testify about Jesus. So he can't come back until at least Paul gets to Rome. You know, and you keep working your way through what the what the New Testament actually shows about early church history and their belief about the second advent. And then you get all the way to the end of John's gospel, which is a in John 21, there's this remarkable prophecy

where it had to do with John the beloved disciple and Peter. And Jesus says to Peter, when you were young, you know, you did what you wanted to do, basically, when you were old, when you will become old, you'll stretch forth your hands and someone else will carry you whether you don't want to go. And John goes on to tell us that was a prediction of Peter's death. So Jesus is saying Peter's not going to die as a young man or as a middle-aged man. That is an absolute prediction that he is going to die and glorify Jesus in his death, but he's going to die at an older age. So

again, the second coming couldn't have happened until then. So, you know, once I just sat down and just thought, it's not deep, it's not theological, it's not philosophical, it is logical. Could he have come back at any moment during the first century? No, certain things have to have happened.

And then, John, when you put with that, all these parables that Jesus himself taught, where he taught a parable about a nobleman who was going to go into a far country and receive a kingdom.

And this far country implies distance, which implies time. And then he comes back. You have other parables like the parable of the 10 virgins, the five foolish, the five wise, even the five that are wise. Once this person has gone, they have fallen asleep. You know, they are asleep. And then the bridegroom comes back. All of these parables imply what? A long period of time. We don't know how long. That's the whole thing. We don't know how long. So, could he have come back in AD 50, no, and AD 60, no, and AD 80, no? Could he come back today? I don't know if he could come back today.

You're not. That's the whole point of this. It's going to be a long time. And those parables tell us occupy until I come. That's your responsibility. And so I really don't know where this came from. I honestly don't know why everyone seems to think, you know, some of it's connected to Israel 1948 and 1967 for sure. But there are probably people that don't even know Israel's history. And maybe people who don't believe that Israel has any role that they are not God's clock and calendar, that they don't have any role in eschatology. I think there are people in that camp who still believe,

oh, I think Jesus will probably come back in my lifetime. I'm not, I mean, I think we should all pray as the New Testament closes with Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. We want him to come. We want there to be the establishment of the kingdom of God. We want the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven. But why that is necessary to happen during my lifetime? I just don't understand.

I think when when everyone first becomes a Christian, maybe you are so excited and enthusiastic about your relationship with the Lord and your walk with the Lord that you're just, you just want all things to be fulfilled. But as you spend some time in your Christian life, you realize a Christian life is, it is not a sprint. It is a long distance journey. And the odds of the Lord coming back during my lifetime, I don't even know how to predict what the odds are, but I would assume, I would just assume, you say, assume based on what channel with what I'm getting ready, I would

assume based on 2000 years of church history, I would assume that he probably will not come back during my lifetime. It's kind of arrogant. It's a little, it does, John, does it not border a little bit on selfishness and arrogance to think that somehow me and you, we are, we're more important than the people that live 500 years ago. And so surely he's got to come back during my lifetime.

I believe he is literally bodily, visibly coming back, but I just don't know when. You probably didn't catch it in the comments, but I've had a few people who tell me, John, you have a wonderful gift of discernment to which I always respond, no, man, I just simply ask questions. I like to ask questions and figure things out. It doesn't mean I have a gift of any sort.

Look at it like this. I'm standing in my room. My five-year-old runs up to me with a tool for my garage and looks at me and the minister who's standing next to me and says, and my son is five years old and he says, Dad, I found this hatchet. I want to go outside and play with it. And the minister says, well, he's old enough. He's strong enough. He can hold it. So therefore he must be able to go out and play with it. And I'm thinking as a dad, I know the conclusion of what will happen if he does this and we'll be going to the hospital because I'm looking

beyond what I see presently to the consequences that can happen later. The problem is people have given just handed over the reins to the minister in the room, whatever he wants to say, looking at the here and now and not looking at its logical conclusion.

The reason I say that is this, whenever the Laterane Movement broke out, not long after this, they started taking all of these doctrines to their logical conclusion. If you're going to go back to the book of Joel, well then you have to put us back into the Old Testament.

If you're going to put us back into the Old Testament and this British Israel theme and restoration theme is part of it, well, what's he going to restore? The Old Covenant Jews had the feasts, so they published the Feasts of Tabernacles which led into all kinds of confusion.

And if you continue down that trail, I'm going to stop there because you can go wander off into extremes, but if you follow that trail out, look at the way the Jews worshiped in that old system. It didn't, it was different than some of the other religions of the ancient world, but in many ways there were similarities that nobody's going to do today. You're not going to carry birds up to an altar and burn it and there are passages that says God just really likes the aroma of burnt flesh. What Christian is going to go do this? But if you follow that

out to its logical conclusion that we're going to reestablish everything that they did in the Old Covenant, well yes, you're going to have this. So what they had to do was they had to nuance it.

We're going to take these specific things from the Old Covenant and we're going to restore those, but we're under a new covenant, so we're going to exclude these others. Well, who gets to decide?

It's the minister in the room that decides what of the Old Covenant you keep and what are the new covenant you keep. So you've literally just handed the hatchet to the other guy in the room and said, yes, give it to my son. Go play with it. For me, I can't do this. I have got to think about things, not just the here and now what we see, but where does that lead us? And if you're not looking ahead, then you're looking either at the minister who's telling you where to look or you've got a mirror

and you're looking behind you, neither one really works. You're going to run into a wall. And so what happens when these things don't happen? I mean, we've been a generation plus since 1948. We've been now another generation plus since 1967. What happens is disillusionment sets in often, not with everyone. Some people are able to be like the white queen and tolerate six contradictory things in their mind, even before breakfast in the morning. But for a lot of people, disillusionment sets in, especially, I think, John, for those people who were converted under these ministries. Thankfully, I was already a believer several years before I've heard Hobart Freeman.

It's not true with everyone. Some people have actually come to faith in Christ in a random setting or in a Freeman setting. And so then, wow, I feel sorry for those people because so much of their Christian life and belief system is tied to that particular ministry.

And so disillusionment sets in. What happens with the people who have taught these things? Well, I think they do several things, but they do everything they can to minimize the damage, you know, as time goes by and as the clock continues to tick to deflect the spotlight.

And so one of the things they will do and you can trace this out in history, they'll simply stop talking about it. If you listen to Hobart's taped messages from 1983 versus 1973, guess what he's not talking very much about.

He's not talking about Israel getting their city back. Now he did mention it occasionally, but it's not on the top of his mind because one of the ways you deal with the fact that a lot of time now, his elapsed since 1948 or since 1967 is you stop talking about it.

Another way that many false prophets have handled it is they simply go back and recalculate the dates, you know, and then, oh yes, I missed that because of this thing, I forgot about that.

And so, you know, that's what the Jehovah's Witnesses did, you know, with Christ entering coming back to earth. They said, well, really, he didn't come back to earth, but he entered the heavenly sanctuary at that time.

And you know, that is just, that's just false prophecy 101, you know, anytime something doesn't come to pass, I don't know that I even know anybody. I really don't know that I know anybody who gave a prophecy, didn't happen, and they just stood up and said, I'm flat out wrong, don't ever trust a prediction of mine again.

I don't know that anybody's ever done that. They will recalculate the dates or they will suggest that the listeners misinterpreted what they meant by what they said, you know, it's just this never-ending stream of attempts to minimize the damage and to deflect the spotlight.

Or they will, I've seen some do this, they'll cast their prediction in some new form. You know, it's kind of like it's gone through a metamorphosis process, or they'll come along and tell us that, and this is maybe the worst of all, but this is the easiest way to do it.

You know, stop talking about it, recalculate the dates, cast it in some other form, they will, they will come and say that God has changed his mind or his plans because things on Earth have changed.

So... I mean, that's an easy one. I mean, we could, I could predict the second advent tomorrow. And then when that doesn't happen, just do it for the next day. And when that doesn't happen, do it next week. And say, well, it's because the Ukraine, the Soviet Union, or communist China, or just whatever you want to say.

And it's so interesting with with Hobart Freeman. He did not continue to talk about the six day war, like he did in the late 60s and early 70s because you know, the clock is going tick, tick, tick. You've got all this time. When I look back on other prophecies, he gave, we have played the prophecy that he gave John over his son-in-law, Bruce Kinsey, in the early to mid 70s that Bruce Kinsey was going to be a prophet. And he was going to preach to the Gentile, yay, say it's the Lord, even unto the Jews, you will be a prophet.

You know, Bruce was never a prophet. You know, Bruce and Hobart ended up on opposite ends of the of the theological issues. And we're at odds and at war with one another. You know, I'm sure that would be a case where Hobart would use the ladder of the ways to change matters and say, well, God changed his mind because Bruce no longer accepts me as God's prophet. You know, just whenever people come out with these prophecies, everyone should, I wouldn't even say be where.

I would just say discount them. Just discount them. Why aren't we, after all these years, we, I say, we Christian people, why aren't we immune? We should have some type of built-in immunity to this kind of garbage. And I'm not saying that someone can't have some word, some prediction, but I will guarantee, or let me just say, this is what I believe.

No one's going to know the second advent. No one's going to be able to predict that. That's not going to happen in my opinion. I would say I'm definitely 100% immune to any article or any book or any sermon that comes out where this brilliant person has figured anything out.

Or even if it's not so obvious as that, John, let me just close with one other

part of Luke 21 that just came to my mind. Something I didn't see way back when I was young in my Christian life. We know in the all of the discourse, Jesus predicts that there will be people who come claiming to be him, claiming this, claiming that he said, they'll all come claiming these things.

And what does he say? He said, ignore them all. He said, it will happen, but ignore them and don't believe them. There is another thing that is not seen because it's in Luke's account. It's in Luke 21, and I think verse 8, where he said, beware of those not only who come and claim that they're Christ.

He said, beware of those who come and say, this is the time. That's in Luke 21. Beware of those. It's not just those who claim, Hobart would never have claimed that he's Christ or claimed this, but he did come and say, what?

This is the time. What time? This is the time of the second Advent. This is the time of the end days. We're living in it. This is it. This is it. And that's one of the things in Luke's account of Jesus' discussion where he warns us, beware of people who come and say, this is the time.

That's right in the all of it discourse. So it's always so amazing as you and I often discuss together, John, how they just cherry pick, Luke 21, 24, take it out of his context, don't even interpret it correctly, don't even interpret it in light of Daniel, don't even read Revelation 11, too, misinterpreted, but right there before he even gets into the discourse, he warns us of people who come and say, now is it.

It's now or never. This is the end. This is the time. So that would be my warning to everyone that we should all take heed to Jesus' warning and just be careful of any minister, even in our own local church, who stands up and said, I just want to tell everyone that I believe now is the time.

Jesus said, beware of those people. All in, by stepping on some mortos and making everybody else who's not yet mad at me, a little bit angry, I'm a big fan of satire because I understand it.

And there are people who are just so uptight, they don't understand the purpose of satire. But satire is a comedy that really makes you think. And sometimes they will put a comedy around things that you're uncomfortable thinking of it as comedy, such as the movie Life of Brian.

Life of Brian is talking about a person who's continually, he's contemporary to Jesus and he's continually being branded as a Messiah, and he doesn't want it. But it walks you through all these biblical scenes and what's funny is, when I first watched it, I was so uncomfortable because I thought that's sacrilegious.

But the more I got into the movie, I started reading as I'm watching some of the history, and I'm learning things that I just simply didn't know, and the satire was causing me to think.

Because that's how satire is intended, it causes you to think. Well, there's this one scene that I'll end with. It's this sermon on the Mount, and Jesus is saying, blessed are the peacemakers. Well, it gives you the big broad scene, so if you scope out how many thousands of people would have been there, and then Jesus is this little figure in the distance, well, the people in the back, the guy in front of him didn't hear peacemakers, he heard cheese makers.

And he turned and he said, blessed are the cheese makers, why are they blessed? And the point I'm trying to make is... What if that person, cheese makers, went off and made a doctrine of the cheese makers?

That's kind of what's happening here when you really think about it. Somebody misunderstands something, misinterpret something, goes and make a doctrine off of it, and they totally missed the mark. And that was really the purpose of that satire.

It was making fun of politics and religion and the merger of politics and religion. And it was really making the point, if you understood what that movie was about, that we're getting so uptight not thinking about things, that we're totally missing the mark, and you totally miss the Messiah looking at the life of Brian.

That's, it's a great movie if you can get past the part where you feel uncomfortable. But I'll end with that. Blessed are the cheese makers, but don't make a doctrine off of it. Thank you so much for doing it.

All right. Thanks, Sean, for having me. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.Williamdashbrandom.org. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

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