Support the show:
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Charles and John examine the intricate and often contradictory rules established by William Branham for church conduct, drawing comparisons between his practices and those of the early Christian church. The discussion centers on how Branham's rigid church order contrasted sharply with his condemnation of the Catholic Church's formalized worship. The irony lies in Branham's creation of equally, if not more, restrictive rules for his followers, which transformed the church environment into one of strict control and limited personal freedom in worship.
As Branham's influence grew, he introduced church order as a framework to regulate church governance and behavior, ostensibly to address excesses in charismatic worship. However, this framework also served to consolidate power, limiting the roles and influence of other ministers and prophets within the movement. The enforcement of these rules by deacons, who acted as enforcers directly under Branham's authority, led to an atmosphere of fear and strict adherence to conduct codes. This structure allowed Branham to maintain control over his followers and ensured that his version of worship and church governance prevailed, even after his death, shaping the practices of the message churches that followed. This appears to be the primary reason that leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) admit that Branham "went astray."
Charles' Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Come-Out-Her-People-1930-1965/dp/B0CZRMM8WQ
00:00 Introduction
01:04 Comparison of Early Christian Worship and Branham's Church
02:29 The Establishment of Church Order
04:39 The Role and Influence of Church Order in the Message
06:04 Personal Experiences and Enforcement of Church Order
07:43 Transition from Latter Rain Movement to Strict Church Order
09:35 Introduction of More Rules and Control Mechanisms
12:09 Criticism of Ecstatic Worship Practices
16:17 Role of Prophecies and Control over Prophetic Practices
18:01 Examination of Historical Revivals and Prophecies
23:31 Irony of Branham's Church Structure and Control
27:28 Early Divisions in the Message Community
30:46 Evolution of Church Order and Leadership Structure
35:11 Impact of Church Order on Message Governance
42:52 Role of Deacons as Enforcers
48:15 Experiences with Church Discipline and Control
54:00 Analysis of Branham's Authority and Church Structure
58:31 Long-term Effects on Message Churches and Leadership
1:02:06 Conclusion and Reflections on Church Order
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
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– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Charles and John examine the intricate and often contradictory rules established by William Branham for church conduct, drawing comparisons between his practices and those of the early Christian church. The discussion centers on how Branham's rigid church order contrasted sharply with his condemnation of the Catholic Church's formalized worship. The irony lies in Branham's creation of equally, if not more, restrictive rules for his followers, which transformed the church environment into one of strict control and limited personal freedom in worship.
As Branham's influence grew, he introduced church order as a framework to regulate church governance and behavior, ostensibly to address excesses in charismatic worship. However, this framework also served to consolidate power, limiting the roles and influence of other ministers and prophets within the movement. The enforcement of these rules by deacons, who acted as enforcers directly under Branham's authority, led to an atmosphere of fear and strict adherence to conduct codes. This structure allowed Branham to maintain control over his followers and ensured that his version of worship and church governance prevailed, even after his death, shaping the practices of the message churches that followed. This appears to be the primary reason that leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) admit that Branham "went astray."
Charles' Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Come-Out-Her-People-1930-1965/dp/B0CZRMM8WQ
00:00 Introduction
01:04 Comparison of Early Christian Worship and Branham's Church
02:29 The Establishment of Church Order
04:39 The Role and Influence of Church Order in the Message
06:04 Personal Experiences and Enforcement of Church Order
07:43 Transition from Latter Rain Movement to Strict Church Order
09:35 Introduction of More Rules and Control Mechanisms
12:09 Criticism of Ecstatic Worship Practices
16:17 Role of Prophecies and Control over Prophetic Practices
18:01 Examination of Historical Revivals and Prophecies
23:31 Irony of Branham's Church Structure and Control
27:28 Early Divisions in the Message Community
30:46 Evolution of Church Order and Leadership Structure
35:11 Impact of Church Order on Message Governance
42:52 Role of Deacons as Enforcers
48:15 Experiences with Church Discipline and Control
54:00 Analysis of Branham's Authority and Church Structure
58:31 Long-term Effects on Message Churches and Leadership
1:02:06 Conclusion and Reflections on Church Order
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00You
00:00:30Welcome to another episode of the William Branham historical research podcast. I'm your host John Collins
00:00:39the author and founder of William Branham historical research at William dash Branham org and with me
00:00:45I have my co-host researcher minister and friend Charles Paisley the founder of Christian gospel church
00:00:52org and the author of come out of her my people and
00:00:56And together we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William Branham and other key figures that either
00:01:03Influenced or were influenced by the post-world war to healing revivals
00:01:09well Charles, it's kind of funny because today we're doing an episode on the
00:01:15Unreasonable rules that were established for having church
00:01:19and if you really think about if you go back to the way the early church was and
00:01:25the the way that people gathered together and it was a community and
00:01:30You know, I picture all of these happy new worshipers of Jesus
00:01:35Gathering together and they're you know, excited to be with each other and they're dining together
00:01:40you know, some of the churches now have what they call small groups or
00:01:45Group worship where they break out into the homes
00:01:48It was that kind of thing and then you compare that to the structure that William Branham established
00:01:54What and the irony Charles is that he solidly and firmly condemned the quote-unquote
00:02:02apostate church because they were becoming more rigid and more
00:02:06He used all kinds of different words
00:02:08but basically he was he was attacking the Catholic Church and he was
00:02:12Saying that they had this certain way of worship and it was wrong to put people in that kind of a box
00:02:18Well, then he created a box that was exactly the same
00:02:21But had different rules
00:02:24and in doing so just
00:02:25totally overturned Christianity in such a way that I look back at the way things were in the church then and compare it to
00:02:34The non cult churches and oh my gosh, man. It's like we had we had the Pope. His name was William Branham and
00:02:43The rules that he established for his church were far worse than even the Catholic Church. I
00:02:49Know man, John
00:02:50What we're going to talk about today is something we didn't really cover when we went through the main part of the historical research podcast
00:02:58and
00:02:59It's something that in the message is generally called church order. We generally called it church order and
00:03:06It's in some ways. I would call it a unique feature to the message. It's
00:03:11It's the closest thing the message has to a constitution
00:03:14I would say, you know, the message don't have a statement of faith that don't have a formal constitution
00:03:19It don't have anything like that. This would this would sit in the place where a typical
00:03:23Church would have a constitution document and church order. I
00:03:29Have I have the books right here. Look at this volume 1 and volume 2
00:03:34You know, they've got the beautiful eagle on the back
00:03:39And and the books themselves are called conduct order and doctrine of the church
00:03:43But we generally just call this church order right church order is what I always just heard it generally called
00:03:48and
00:03:50If you look, I mean this is thicker than the Bible itself
00:03:54But but that is
00:03:57essentially what would function as the constitution of the message that determined how
00:04:02leadership was structured how the church was more or less organized to function how you'd have deacons and trustees and
00:04:09How the pastor would fit into it how you'd have
00:04:12We it was not called a bishop in his systems called an overseer
00:04:16But would effectively in the position of a bishop, but basically the whole the whole outline of church governance
00:04:22In the Branham system and the message system is in these books along with how to conduct your church services
00:04:28How all kinds of stuff just beginning to end how the church would be?
00:04:34Managed and function is is in these books and we'd call it church order now
00:04:39We wouldn't say we're an organization, right? Although we have these books that tell us how to organize ourselves
00:04:46But most every most every sect of the message follows some or all of what's in these books and they're very
00:04:54It's an important thing in the message
00:04:55And I would say it's a little bit of a unique feature of the message the way that we pretend
00:04:59We don't have an organization yet. We are an organization, but otherwise it's not
00:05:05Typically too different from how any other church would would structure just having a constitution or organizing documents
00:05:11So, yeah, that's what we want to chat about today
00:05:15and
00:05:16You know John William Branham first introduced these things. He began to introduce him in 1958
00:05:22So after the you know
00:05:24I'd say the earliest stages of the message had happened and he had actually started to draw together his early
00:05:31cult following
00:05:33And a lot of people were starting to flock to Jeffersonville
00:05:36The the tabernacle had grown to several hundred people by this point. That is when he introduced
00:05:42this church order
00:05:44Idea and it started in 1958
00:05:47It was such an integral part of the church man, especially
00:05:51you know, I've been to different flavors of the message and the the larger churches, especially the ones who were
00:06:00led by ministers who
00:06:02Knew William Branham. Those are the most rigid the most
00:06:06Hardcore fundamentalist as as it concerns to this
00:06:11Constitution as you call it of the message when you go into those churches
00:06:14Well, I was some of the people who were outside of Jeffersonville
00:06:19for example
00:06:19they would come to the Branham tabernacle and the joke was made that it was like visiting a museum of wax figures because
00:06:27Everybody acted the same looked the same you walk in nobody's
00:06:32Nobody is gathering and talking and greeting each other and like like you would in a normal church
00:06:38It's like you walk in suddenly. There's this wax museum. Everybody's sitting there and they look at you as you walk in
00:06:44now I've been to some of the smaller churches, especially in rural areas by
00:06:49ministers who were assimilated into the cult and
00:06:52They came from normal churches themselves and had no idea that they were supposed to be a wax museum
00:06:58And you'd go into those churches and the people would greet each other. They were happy and it it felt somewhat normal
00:07:05So I have seen both sides of this. I've seen the normal ones and the really really not normal
00:07:12But the thing to understand here is that the ones that everyone ridicules who are in the cult
00:07:19That's the way that William Branham actually established it
00:07:22So when they're making fun of the Church of wax museum wax figures
00:07:26Well, they're actually making fun of William Branham's doctrine of how a church should be established
00:07:32You're exactly right John in I look forward in this episode to explaining how
00:07:36How the church has got different in this way how some observe more of it than others
00:07:41but
00:07:42If you think about it
00:07:44The message came out of the latter rain movement, right the let the message came out of a crazy
00:07:49hyper
00:07:50Charismatic kind of a revival right at latter rain. I mean people were rolling around on the floor
00:07:57They were you know foaming at the mouth
00:07:58they were running and jumping and shouting and dancing and screaming and being slain in the spirit and speaking in tongues and
00:08:05prophesying and you know
00:08:06I don't know if our average listener has been in church services like that. I have many many many times
00:08:12I know exactly what I'm describing
00:08:14That is what this whole thing was like at the beginning John the tabernacle used to be this way itself at the beginning
00:08:22It was like this everybody. It was a free-for-all ecstatic worship service beginning to end
00:08:28and as you come up to about 1958 that
00:08:33Church order is what actually starts to shift shifted away from that, right?
00:08:38So William Branham slowly starts turning the screws of church order and if you follow his church order sermons
00:08:44He preaches I believe it three or four times and each time he preaches it
00:08:48He's tightening the screws a little more a little more. He's adding a little more
00:08:54Structure to everything and when he first introduces church order, it's primarily focused at the the function of how
00:09:02Church leadership should be laid out and you know, we can talk about that a little bit more later
00:09:06But as he comes into the 60s, that is when he starts to introduce
00:09:11the rules that
00:09:14Basically ban, I would say completely ban all forms of ecstatic worship, right?
00:09:21You're no longer allowed to
00:09:24To do anything in church except sit on the pew and I think John the thing that I think the thing that really I
00:09:34Think the quintessential image of this is the picture of William Branham standing under the giant banner that says stand still and know that
00:09:42I am God, you know
00:09:44That I think if you wanted to sum up church order in one phrase
00:09:48It is that banner be still and know that I am God
00:09:52You went to church you be still and you know that you are in the presence of God
00:09:57Don't you make a peep or you're gonna get thrown out of this place? And so they went from this
00:10:02extreme ecstatic scream and shouting jumping yelling rolling around on the floor to
00:10:08Be still and know that I am God. This is the transition that happened through church order
00:10:15It's crazy, man
00:10:16And not just be still and know that I am God be still and know that God will smite you dead if you disobey
00:10:22I mean, he's you know, we've looked at like the man from Windsor and things like that
00:10:27He was more projecting the image of a sorcerer than he was either a prophet or Apostle, which is kind of odd
00:10:34But so I've been working on the manuscript of my new book and I actually recently finished it
00:10:40I don't know. It may the book may actually come out before this gets released
00:10:43I don't know the schedule off top of my head, but I've been studying the revivals and we started way back
00:10:51Studying the Pentecostal Azusa Street revival and I went through the the various ones, you know
00:10:56You've got the Toronto blessing and whatnot and people who have
00:11:01Immortalized these things as this holy experience
00:11:05they don't tell you things like
00:11:06the women were laying on the floor kicking their legs in the air and giving the men more of a display than the
00:11:12strip clubs did in 1907 and that the police had to come in or
00:11:17That they had the holy barking. I mean when you hear of Azusa Street Charles, do you think of barking?
00:11:23It's not it's not natural man, they spoke with the tongue of men and angels and dogs
00:11:30Dog was I was looking at I think it might be the is either Toronto blessing or the events leading up to it
00:11:37And I think it was John Wimber, but I'd have to go back and look but anyway this
00:11:42Significant religious figure who is in the development of the NAR when he got his experience
00:11:48It was the holy laughter and you know that started long back. They had holy laughter
00:11:53Back, it was at a B Simpson or one of the guys, you know before even Azusa Street was introducing. Holy laughter
00:12:01and
00:12:02the quote the quote directly from the guy was and
00:12:06Then I was laughing in the spirit and the guy next to me two people next to me were having holy oinking like a pig
00:12:14Like what in the world is this mess? So
00:12:18In Branham's defense this thing was getting out of hand
00:12:22So you had this wild and crazy movement that again the NAR
00:12:27Immortalizes as a movement by God and you've got people in it that are oinking like pigs. That's how weird this is
00:12:34So William Branham comes in and he realizes that this is ridiculous
00:12:39And so he wants to set established an established set of rules
00:12:43But what he did Charles if you compare it to you know
00:12:47Parents who are parenting their children and the children get a little unruly rather than telling them calm down
00:12:54You know act normal act right because we're in a church setting
00:12:57It's as though he poured concrete around the kids where they can't move. They can't do anything
00:13:03So he took it from one extreme, you know oinking like a pig to let's become wax figures and let's not do
00:13:11anything I
00:13:13know in
00:13:15It is something else John this church order business
00:13:19The way you're describing it. There's pretty good
00:13:22the the stories that come down from the old-timers about this is that
00:13:28there was a whole lot of
00:13:30Personal prophecy going on and all of this John and I think there's another angle of this
00:13:35We got to consider too. There was a whole lot of personal prophecy also happening at the Branham Tabernacle, right?
00:13:41So when William Branham was out of town doing the revival shtick
00:13:46Well, guess what? There was other preachers at the Branham Tabernacle having services still right? They were still giving prophecies to people
00:13:53They were still practicing all of this stuff while William Branham wasn't there. I
00:13:58Don't wonder a little bit if William Branham wasn't a little bit jealous John
00:14:02That he wasn't the only one giving these people prophecies anymore, right?
00:14:06And Ormond Neville who became his assistant pastor
00:14:10was a
00:14:12prolific prophesier
00:14:13For everything I've ever heard. He was always giving people prophecies, right?
00:14:18I mean people would come for prophecies and I think William Branham might have been a little jealous because hey
00:14:23He was the dispenser of private interviews, right?
00:14:26He's the dispenser of prophecies and now these people are going to other people while he's out of town
00:14:31You know, he can't be having that
00:14:32I think that is a possible angle to this John and I don't know if you know this or not
00:14:38And I actually have some of this documented in my book with with the quotes from you know
00:14:43The different people involved right about that same time William Branham
00:14:49Privately confronted Ormond Neville and told him he was not allowed to give people prophecies anymore
00:14:55At the church, so it it's not I think simply that he is just shutting down ecstatic worship
00:15:02But he's also shutting down anybody else from competing with him with his cult
00:15:08Inside that's also part of what's happening
00:15:10I think because when he comes back to the Branham tabernacle, guess what you can have prophecies when he's there, right?
00:15:15He's doing it right when he's there. You can do it when he's not there. You can't do it
00:15:19that that's how it kind of a lot of it shook out because he kind of just went across the board and just shut all
00:15:25Of this stuff down and the way he did it is
00:15:29And part of the rationale I'll say this part of the rationale when they did it is they said there was this craziness going on
00:15:34There was there was people
00:15:36Rolling around on the floors and running and shouting and jumping and screaming and they were doing it and they were even doing it during
00:15:42the church services while the preacher was preaching right and
00:15:46That is what he used to lock it down, right?
00:15:49It's like well, you guys are doing this during the sermons
00:15:52So I'm gonna have to lock it down because you guys can't stop doing this during the sermons now from what I understand
00:15:57John is that was all a bit exaggerated and there was really only a couple people that were doing it during the sermons, right?
00:16:04But rather than deal with the couple people who were doing it during the sermons William Branham
00:16:12wrote church order
00:16:14Massive thing because of two people who like to speak in tongues while the preacher was preaching
00:16:19So that was his rationale for this, but he did so much more than just lock that stuff down
00:16:26This this is John I would say the initial
00:16:31Foray into the behavioral controls of the cult right here
00:16:34this is when the the framework of behavioral control began in the cult and
00:16:43it's
00:16:44It's something is it's important
00:16:46I think maybe to understand cult dynamics a little bit to know how this stuff works, which we'll talk a little bit more about
00:16:51It's also brilliant. You know
00:16:54The the latrine movement and Branham has been immortalized if you go listen to these NIR guys
00:17:00They're saying that he had the most flawless ministry. He was the most powerful prophet known to the United States
00:17:07I mean, there's all these quotes
00:17:09I've got a lot of them written in the book
00:17:11But they've immortalized it and the way that they project the image of Branham and those like him
00:17:17Is that he had such a powerful prophetic ministry that when you were around him
00:17:21It was spawning off new prophets and new prophecies and these people were prophesying and people were
00:17:29Getting filled with the Spirit and whatnot
00:17:31And that all sounds good
00:17:33But you know a biblical prophet wrote down the prophecy
00:17:37so after the event happened people could go back and see what the original prophecy was and
00:17:44Sure enough God had spoken through this person and if it didn't happen like the prophets
00:17:49Then they had it written down and they could compare and say that person was just full of it
00:17:54I mean, you know in the ancient biblical language. It was different than full of it
00:18:00But they have immortalized it and what William Branham did right here by introducing this just halting it
00:18:07it created this atmosphere where
00:18:11people were curious to know what was happening, but they would go into the services and
00:18:16There weren't people prophesying so those who were curious and who might otherwise be skeptical
00:18:21They had no evidence that this thing was ridiculous
00:18:25And that has been the case if you look at all of these revivals that are in the NAR history
00:18:31You go to the Toronto blessing
00:18:33You'll find all of these books saying it was this great wonderful thing and people were prophesying. Well, what are their prophecies man? And
00:18:41What's really interesting?
00:18:43Azusa Street was different because it was the first
00:18:46really documented chaos
00:18:49News reporters were so curious what was happening to the people that they were attending the revival and they were writing it down
00:18:55Well, they were actually writing down the prophecies
00:18:57And so when you read God's generals or any of these great histories
00:19:01They say and the Spirit came down as a in Azusa Street and people were prophesying
00:19:07And that sounds great. But what are the prophecies?
00:19:10Well, if you go back in the news and you find that the people were prophesying things that they really didn't understand none of it was
00:19:18true they were prophesying things like
00:19:21the railroad would one day the the rails would be
00:19:25Twisted and just twist and crumble and the the trains couldn't barrel down the tracks
00:19:30That was one of the prophecies that came in Azusa Street
00:19:33they were saying things like the these tall structures that we're seeing being erected in in
00:19:401900s all of these
00:19:42Skyscrapers that were being built etc. Their their structures would twist and the and just crumble
00:19:49well
00:19:50That didn't happen man. None of this happened and they were saying things like the automobile engines which were newly being developed
00:19:57They would suddenly stop the power that ran them when suddenly
00:20:01Ceased to exist because they didn't understand the gasoline engine
00:20:05Those were actual prophecies of Azusa Street, and so when you read all of these documents and they're saying
00:20:11People were prophesying. Well, yeah, that's great. But their prophecies they were just full of
00:20:17They were junk none of it made any sense man, so William Branham comes in he sees all the chaos
00:20:23He doesn't want the critics who were getting you know by the 60s people were really really critical of his ministry
00:20:30So he doesn't want people coming into his meetings to investigate this ridiculous thing that's going on and
00:20:37Find people oinking like pigs or saying that automobile engines the unknown
00:20:43Mysterious power that was running them would suddenly cease or the skyscrapers would just crumble across the United States
00:20:51No, he put a stop to it. You're not allowed to do this
00:20:54I'm the one who can give the prophecies and then what he did if you look at his prophecies
00:20:59They're so incredibly vague and they shift over time
00:21:03So he has full control of whether or not people can judge him by his prophecies
00:21:08Because he's rewriting him and he's paying Jean and Leo to rewrite his prophecies
00:21:14Mm-hmm. I think you're exactly right John and I think part of it too is you know, William Branham knew what was going on
00:21:21it was all a
00:21:22con I think for him in a lot of ways and these other people thought it was real and we're looking like fools because they
00:21:28Didn't know how to manipulate it in quite the same way that he did right and and that
00:21:33That I think set set a lot of it up
00:21:36And so as William Branham did that as he as he limited the thing down
00:21:41This is how he did it he and I'd be interested to hear if this was still happening when you were at the Tabernacle John
00:21:47He basically set aside a room in the back of the church and he said anybody who wants to
00:21:53Have an ecstatic experience anybody who wants to speak in tongues anyone who wants to prophesy any of this sort of stuff
00:21:59you can come to church 45 minutes early and you can go in this private room and you can do that and
00:22:06Then you can come out and be still and know that I'm God
00:22:10But he set this thing up where you could come to church 45 minutes early
00:22:14You go in this private room. You could do all that and and if there was anything
00:22:17Prophetic or whatever you could write it down on a piece of paper
00:22:21Take it to the Deacons
00:22:23And if the Deacons thought it was anything useful
00:22:25They could give it to the pastor and if the pastor thought it was anything useful
00:22:29He could read it to the church during the church service, right? So that's what he set up. So he didn't
00:22:35totally
00:22:36Kill it, but he put it in a room where him and his lieutenants
00:22:41Could effectively silence it if they wanted to write and and what what tended to happen here John is
00:22:48Everything crazy everything wild. Guess what?
00:22:51Those pieces of paper just got crumpled up and put in the trash, right?
00:22:55But the ones that serve the purpose right the ones that make the leader look good the ones that they want to use
00:23:01For their propaganda whatever those ones come out and you'll hear about that occasionally in these churches
00:23:07And you'll hear about that occasionally in these churches. Oh, so-and-so had this experience in the back room and
00:23:13This prophecy came forth and it proves that yes, I'm God's servant to you, you know
00:23:19You'll hear it like that, right? But you that's generally all it's used for in the churches that observe this practice
00:23:27They will basically cherry-pick they can kind of repackage and tweak whatever is said and then the preacher can use it
00:23:34to
00:23:35Help set up whatever he's trying to set up at the moment
00:23:39you know channel Ross and I have been going through the similarities between the Branham cult and
00:23:46examining the full history of
00:23:48Hobart Freeman
00:23:49Because Hobart Freeman was if you look at his ministry
00:23:53he was almost a direct clone of William Branham's message and
00:23:57Also cloning Dowie who was really the framework for all of this
00:24:02And we came to this sudden conclusion during I can't remember as either the last episode we record or the one before it but
00:24:10We came to the conclusion that what happened in this movement
00:24:14Was a real irony because it started touting that there would be this return of the fivefold ministry
00:24:23You'd have
00:24:24Apostles prophets pastors teachers and evangelists that would rise on the scene because we're in the end of days and God's going to pour
00:24:32out a new book of Acts on the earth and
00:24:35then what happened was after all of the men started claiming these wonderful offices and
00:24:40Became authoritarian controllers of whatever was their sect
00:24:44They all got mad at each other and they all wanted to be the one because the fivefold ministry
00:24:50let's face it it is an authoritarian structure and the way it was presented in latter rain and
00:24:55it was designed so that a narcissist could control in a pyramid structure with the Apostle at the top and the Prophet and
00:25:03Then once everybody started doing this and they realized wait a minute
00:25:07I have lost control my authoritarian control of this you guys aren't allowed to do this
00:25:12So if you really think about what's happening with this conduct order doctrine or you know
00:25:17We called it church order what William Branham is trying to do is undermine the fivefold ministry
00:25:22And then it gets even more curious because after he dies
00:25:27Not a single church Charles not one
00:25:31Adopts this fivefold ministry structure. In fact if a person claims to be a prophet
00:25:36They're chastised in the message and most of its most of its splinter groups until you get into the NAR
00:25:43Because the prophets by example the ones who become this they usually go off and create their own cult and they become so
00:25:51excessively extreme
00:25:53That the ones who are in the main sect of the message think they're all just ridiculous crazy nuts
00:26:00And so they don't want any prophets
00:26:02They certainly don't want any apostles because William Branham has to be the Apostle so they've undermined the Apostle
00:26:09They've limited the prophet and then are you left with or evangelists and teachers and
00:26:15the pyramid structure that was created they've shifted it back to Branham and
00:26:20The whole this whole structure that was created and came
00:26:24After Branham died as a result of this book which fully undermines the fivefold ministry
00:26:30So what you're describing there is so interesting John. I want to dive more into that because
00:26:36When William Branham died
00:26:39The only church that was observing church order in the message was the Tabernacle
00:26:43There were about 35 churches at that point the Tabernacle was the only church that actually observed church order the other
00:26:4934 ish plus did not and the there was actually an attempt in the other churches to
00:26:56To establish fivefold ministry and they were still doing all of these ecstatic worship styles and everything at the time William Branham died
00:27:03And this is actually one of the main divisions that happened in the early message community was over this stuff and
00:27:09What you what you have happened is that?
00:27:13When William Branham originally preaches all these conduct order doctrine stuff. He tells
00:27:19Everybody this is for the Tabernacle only this is for the Tabernacle only you don't got to do it in any of your other churches
00:27:26and so that's in such a situation where
00:27:28The other ministers can still kind of accept it because you got to remember this that that whole
00:27:34restoration of the gifts of the Spirit that
00:27:37Establishing a fivefold ministry those ecstatic experiences. That was
00:27:43Central to the latter rain movement, right? And he could not say
00:27:49Hey, everybody, you got to stop all this everywhere. They would have kicked him out, right?
00:27:53They would have ran him in the ground
00:27:55Right, they would have ran him in the ground he can also he just says it's for my church only and
00:28:01I'm telling you he spun it the way he spun it to the other preachers is I'm doing this to correct an over
00:28:08An over hyper people at my own church. That's how he spun it. Like that's how he told it to Raymond Jackson
00:28:13That's how he told us the other ministers. I'm just doing this just for my church
00:28:16and
00:28:17so that's what he did and all of the other churches of the early message community continued fivefold ministry and
00:28:24Continued hyper charismatic practices and this actually he got some pushback even from the people in the tabernacle congregation
00:28:32So the people who didn't like it when he put this in guess where they started coming to church John
00:28:36They started coming to my church
00:28:38Up the street though. So the people who still wanted to practice all of this
00:28:44Charismatic hyper charismatic type stuff still wanted the fivefold ministry all of that
00:28:48They stayed in the message and they just moved to the nearest message church that still allowed them to do all of those things
00:28:55That's this is actually how my church picked up a lot of the early tabernacle congregation. John is when William Brown did this so
00:29:02And the more he tightened the screws, you know
00:29:04The more that happened and so as as as this is taking shape in the early message community
00:29:10You have two factions that exist that are after William Branham dies is going to end up creating
00:29:17If their first two sects of the message and and
00:29:21Church order here is one of the big dividing lines between the early two sects of the message
00:29:25So you've got the one sect which is farm stays far more latter rain oriented
00:29:32fivefold ministry lots of ecstatic experience lots of
00:29:35prophecy and speaking in tongues and gifts of the Spirit and the tabernacle which the truth is what William Branham does when he
00:29:42Introduces this is he sets up the main sect of the message to essentially become
00:29:47Cessationist when he leaves right? That's the truth
00:29:50so the the message the central part of the message the main sect of the message are
00:29:56Almost cessationist in one sense of the word, right?
00:29:59But not like a traditional sensationist that says well it all stopped with the Apostles. No, they say no it all stopped with William Brown
00:30:06Right
00:30:09Because when William Branham came and he had all of the stuff that he did right
00:30:14There's no we don't there's no more prophecies here. You know, there's no more. All of this stuff now is subdued
00:30:20We don't need no more Apostles. We don't need no more prophets. The perfect has came right? That's what they'll say
00:30:26We have the perfect message. We no longer need more and so the central
00:30:32Sect of the message is I
00:30:34Would say a semi cessationist group, but not that it stopped with the Apostles
00:30:39it stopped with William Branham their cessation stops at William Branham and
00:30:43and
00:30:44What you had happened John is after William Branham died
00:30:51You had a number of ministers Earl Martin, I'm sure you've probably heard of Earl Martin the Martin brothers
00:30:57They kind of spearheaded an effort to expand church order to all the other message churches
00:31:04And after William Branham died, they picked it up
00:31:07It got picked up by Perry green a lot of the churches in the south picked it up
00:31:12And you basically see this split where half the churches in the early message community adopt church order and the other half
00:31:20Say no William Branham says that's only for the tabernacle
00:31:23We don't want church order and this is one of the parts of the fissures that divides the early message community into two halves
00:31:32After William Branham dies, it's fascinating, isn't it?
00:31:35Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism?
00:31:42transition through the latter reign
00:31:44Charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation
00:31:49You can learn this and more on William Branham historical researches website
00:31:54William dash Branham org on the books page of the website
00:31:58You can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley
00:32:02Stephen Montgomery John McKinnon and others with links to the paper audio and digital versions of each book
00:32:10You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements
00:32:17if you want to contribute to the cause you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top and as always
00:32:24Be sure to LIKE and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching on behalf of William Branham historical research
00:32:32We want to thank you for your support
00:32:35It is fascinating and here's where it gets interesting
00:32:39I have you and I have gone through the complete and entire history of William Branham
00:32:44So what I'm about to say
00:32:46I'm not going to go into great details if you're curious to learn more go back and listen to the other podcast that Charles and
00:32:52I did but
00:32:54So in today's world, like I said, William Branham is totally revered as the next thing to God actually
00:33:01Tommy Osborne who was deeply embedded into the word of faith movement the prosperity gospel
00:33:08He said that God he was God in the flesh William Branham was God in the flesh
00:33:13And he openly said this in the full gospel businessmen's
00:33:17Convention right after William Branham died. So he was speaking to groups of people who didn't care that he said this
00:33:24Think of that and let that sink in you've got you've got all of these names that I'm sure you know
00:33:29Who would have been in it in?
00:33:311965 and all the ministries that that emerged from these guys who were there
00:33:37They're all sitting there listening to Tommy Osborne say William Branham was God in the flesh
00:33:43But if you listen to any of the NAR today, you've got all of these in their clips out there
00:33:49You can find them on YouTube. You've got Benny Hinn saying that William Branham was
00:33:54Literally, if you take what he's saying out to its logical conclusion, he was also saying that William Branham was God in the flesh
00:34:02But with a caveat in the last years William Branham went astray
00:34:07You've got Paul Cain you got Bob Jones Mike Bickle
00:34:12You've got Bill Johnson and all of these guys listen to what they say
00:34:16Take it out to its logical conclusion
00:34:19They are literally saying that God was manifested in human flesh and William Branham and gave him the most powerful
00:34:27Prophetic ministry because that was God embodied in that flesh. They don't come out and say it in a deity way
00:34:33They stop before it goes there, but take it out to its logical conclusion
00:34:38But with the caveat that he went astray
00:34:41Now think of the timeline that you and I have fully established in the podcast Charles
00:34:47starting in the 50s Branham made this boisterous claim that back in the 30s and
00:34:54You know, maybe even earlier depending on which version of the timeline you listen to
00:34:5920 years ago or greater. I had the series of seven or twelve or fourteen or I
00:35:05Think the last count I found 18 variations of the so-called seven prophecies 20 years ago
00:35:12These men were there. They heard the boisterous claim. They were there as he revised the claim
00:35:17They were there when William Branham would take one of the seven out and replace it with a different one of the seven
00:35:23They knew it. We've played the clips where Billy Paul is
00:35:27Approaching William Branham while Branham's got everybody you had to bow your head and close your eyes
00:35:33You can't look at the healer on the stage
00:35:35And you got his son Billy Paul walking up and whispering in his ear during the prayers during the healing lines
00:35:42We're slipping in pieces of paper. We've got videos of videos of this
00:35:46These men sat there on the platform. They watched the scam. They knew the scam that was going on
00:35:52They watched as his prophecies failed they watched as he admitted William Branham admitted that his prophecy failed
00:35:59All of this happened before this book conduct order doctrine was published
00:36:04I have come to the conclusion that when these men say that he went astray in the end. It's not because he was
00:36:12misogynistic or white supremacist white supremacy
00:36:15It's because of this book
00:36:17He was limiting their power to become an apostle or prophet and that's what they say was the reason he went astray
00:36:25That's my opinion. I think you're exactly right John
00:36:28And you know why I think that is because while he was still living like my pastor Raymond Jackson formerly rejected church order
00:36:35William Branham was still living when my church rejected this stuff, right?
00:36:38And my church continued to have a lot of affiliation with these people, you know
00:36:44This this sermon the way William Branham justified this to everybody else was by saying this is only for my
00:36:52Tabernacle congregation the rest of you don't have to follow it because and if he had rigidly done that the rebellion would have been so
00:36:59Big against him because that that was the main thrust of everything, right? I mean
00:37:05You tell people they can't have ecstatic experiences anymore or prophesy and all this
00:37:09I mean, you can just shut the latter rain down, right?
00:37:12I mean that was the latter rain movement was you know
00:37:15So what he did here was on one hand extremely radical right within this movement
00:37:21this was very radical move to start to put the kibosh on this stuff and
00:37:27The fact and you think about this the fact that there is people in this movement
00:37:34Who went along with him doing that? So basically a night and day shift
00:37:41That
00:37:42kind of
00:37:43Speaks to the level of control he already starts to have over these people right the fact that he can go to this group
00:37:49That's following him and take away this thing that has been a central part of their religious experience
00:37:55Take it away from them and say you can't do that anymore guys
00:37:58The fact that he could do that demonstrates the level of control. He already has over the minds of these people, right?
00:38:06It's really unbelievable because he's taking the power of all of the other men who wanted to create their own
00:38:14Authoritarian structures and he's saying no my authoritarian structure is the only one
00:38:20Because you know in the late
00:38:231964 he was saying because there is only one
00:38:26manifestation of the Elijah this manifested Sons of God
00:38:30Theme and the the Elijah today is Jesus Christ and God in the flesh God in the form of a prophet
00:38:37Let that sink in so he
00:38:40Because of the Christian identity themes that were embedded in the latter rain
00:38:45That developed into the manifested Sons of God theology what you know what they called Joel's army
00:38:51Well, think of that. You've got the International House of Prayer Paul Kane Bob Jones
00:38:57Introducing the manifested Sons of God and they're saying that Branham was
00:39:03100% sent by God to send us the end time message and then he went astray
00:39:09Well, what they're saying is he brought manifested Sons of God because that came before
00:39:14Conduct order doctrine, but then whenever they develop it into what became I hop
00:39:20They developed it in such a way that they totally ignored the original version of this
00:39:26Where you know
00:39:28Where William Branham was introducing the authoritarian structure for himself
00:39:32But what they did was they ripped out conduct order doctrine the part from which he went astray so that they could create individual
00:39:40pyramid structures of authoritarian control and
00:39:43In effect, that's what put Mike Bickle at the top of the IHOP cult now as you think about this
00:39:50You know when when people in the message think of church order
00:39:55We tend to think about all of the rules that come with it and we think that's the the big feature is all of the
00:40:00Rules that come with it
00:40:02But I would suggest John there's actually something far more important about church order than just all of these rules
00:40:08So William Brown has made all these rules the things you can and cannot do but what's more important is the enforcement
00:40:15Structure that he created on these rules, right? He didn't just make rules with all of this
00:40:20He created in these sermons the structure to have these rules enforced on the people
00:40:26and so to do that he had to empower people to enforce the rules, right and
00:40:31so
00:40:32we'll talk about exactly what that structure is, but when you when you came to church John and and you you probably know that I I
00:40:40Have heard so many stories about these things if you came into the Branham tabernacle
00:40:45Or any of these other churches that observe this and you did not be still and know that he was God
00:40:53If if the children wiggled too much in the seats
00:40:57If somebody whispered to somebody else if somebody God forbid
00:41:03Open a piece of candy John God have mercy
00:41:08The deacons came and got you right there in the middle of the church service
00:41:12You would be ejected from the building in a in a public, you know humiliating spectacle, you know
00:41:18You were singled out you were told get that child under control
00:41:22You know things like that in you are
00:41:27Ejected from the building right in a very humiliating way and when William Branham was alive
00:41:34It was even even more severe John I would have
00:41:38So again, all my family came from the tabernacle we were there in all those days John my family was there
00:41:43I've heard all these stories directly from all kinds of the families that were there
00:41:48the deacons right if it got really bad they would the deacons would lock the bathrooms and
00:41:54Shut off the water fountain to punish them
00:41:57The deacons would lock out the bathrooms and shut off the water fountain, right?
00:42:02Because the people weren't being quiet enough or whatever
00:42:05And that even got to the point one time where Doc Branham was like he had to go to the bathroom, right
00:42:11Brother Brown's brother and he says I'm gonna call the Health Department on you guys and they you know me
00:42:18But this kind of stuff was going on they were getting like that and you know
00:42:22And if kids were kids were not sitting in their seat wiggling a little bit or turning around and see the kids had to be
00:42:28Taken out and whipped, you know punished
00:42:31It got very very very harsh
00:42:34I mean the way that they did it and not necessarily always in physical punishment
00:42:38But just imagine you're sitting surrounded by hundreds of people and the deacon or the preacher whoever points at you and says hey you
00:42:46Stop that and everybody's head turns and looks at you and you're the center of attention
00:42:50Singled out and then they kick you out of the church until the next service because you know
00:42:55God forbid you you pulled a piece of candy out of your pocket, right?
00:42:58but that is what was going on and this is how they enforced that and it did and it wasn't just that I mean if
00:43:04one of the funniest stories I heard one time John is there was one fella at the tabernacle and
00:43:10Whenever William Adam would say a man you're allowed to say a man. So if he said a man you're a man a man
00:43:16But if you said a man when he did not solicit an amen
00:43:20He would
00:43:22So that one church services is a story I heard from multiple people one church service William Branham is preaching and someone says a man and
00:43:30Out of order right and the whole church turns and looks at him
00:43:40But this is how it was they'd use this peer pressure more or less
00:43:43Do you said a man at the wrong time you fool, you know and you feel the pressure and this is what's happening
00:43:51In the atmosphere of this service that's forcing these people into into conforming. It's crazy, man
00:43:57You know and so I wasn't there when William Branham was there and I have heard similar stories and I won't go into him
00:44:04I think you've covered it pretty well
00:44:06But think of what this would be like to a person who was never in the cult
00:44:11You know when I was in it, I never really thought about how silly it was and and just how ridiculous it was
00:44:17But so picture this Charles you're a person who's never experienced a cult
00:44:23you don't know that it's a cult and you walk into the Branham tabernacle back whenever I went and
00:44:28The first thing you hear when you walk through the doors, you're gonna hear to your right
00:44:33You're gonna hear some woman that has beaten the tar out of their child
00:44:38To the point where the child is screaming bloody murder. No mom. Stop. No mom
00:44:43That was a frequent occurrence every time I got up to the bathroom
00:44:47There's some kid that's being beaten because the kid might have wiggled too much in church
00:44:54He whatever was the conduct order doctrine rules and you can read it yourself
00:44:58Any single thing like you mentioned the candy wrapper, but you know when I was growing up
00:45:04We weren't allowed to even bring it in our pockets man. No, no gum no candy
00:45:08But picture some person who's outside never experienced a cult and they walk in and hear the kid being beaten next door and thinking oh
00:45:15my gosh, should I call the police and then they go in and
00:45:20maybe maybe it's a female and the deacon suddenly swarm her and
00:45:27Give her these cold stares because William Branham set up the the deacons were the Gestapo of the church
00:45:34He called him God's policeman and for those who've never experienced a cult, you know, a deacon is a servant
00:45:41He's the one who helps the pastor care for the poor and needy you're sick and afflicted who goes in
00:45:48You know, maybe maybe their house is breaking down
00:45:51They need some help or something to help the community or whatever the word literally means
00:45:57Servant waiter helper. It's it's that kind of phrase
00:46:01But no in the Branham Tabernacle, they're the Gestapo so family enters and you've got a woman who's never experienced a cult
00:46:09With her children and her husband, but she's wearing pants or slacks
00:46:14Suddenly the deacons put their hand on her shoulder and start escorting her out of the building. No lady
00:46:20You're not allowed to come into this building because you're wearing
00:46:24Slacks and carry her out and the husband and the children like what just happened to us
00:46:30I've seen this happen Charles or
00:46:33Some person who gets a little excited in the worship and get you know
00:46:37Claps their hands or as as the tape for me. It was a recording of William Branham in this ridiculous
00:46:43Nonsense, but they're listening to the tape and the person gets a little excited and praises God out loud
00:46:50Gestapo comes grabs a man takes him outside forcibly ejects him from the building. I have seen this happen, too
00:46:57It's so ridiculous and when you think about this was supposed to be God's place of worship
00:47:04Well, the person who's sitting there is actually trying to worship God not William Branham
00:47:09But because it has shifted to Branham worship if they interrupt the voice of Branham
00:47:15They're interrupting the voice of God for which the organization was named or the spoken word for which the other
00:47:23organization was named and
00:47:25It what it is. This is a deity called pure plain and simple
00:47:29So for that I will say that in some ways the NAR had it, right?
00:47:34He did go astray. They just put the date at the wrong side of it
00:47:37He went astray back in the 40s not not in the 60s. You're right John in my church. So every church
00:47:46Implemented some element of church order John
00:47:48So so our churches which didn't ban ecstatic worship and so forth
00:47:53We didn't we didn't take those rules, but guess what? We did implement John
00:47:57We implemented the deacons and all of this other stuff and all this power. Oh, yeah, we definitely did right so, you know
00:48:05Every message church implemented at least implemented those aspects of church order the aspects that give this
00:48:13incredible power to the leaders in this
00:48:16Really dramatic way and I want to talk about that some more too
00:48:21But I have the same thing sit in church service at John now
00:48:25Here's the thing I would at my church. I tended to get there like an hour before church started
00:48:29I was a minister for for a lot of years in it, but even before that
00:48:33I mean I I helped set everything up for church, but for most of my life probably the last 20 25 years
00:48:40I would get there at least an hour before church started and
00:48:45That's when you go to witness these things right and I saw quite a number of times where someone would come in
00:48:51That the deacons didn't want there and guess what? They are pitched out, right?
00:48:55They're ejected from the church and even if they sneak in and they somehow get in the congregation because you know
00:49:00Our church hundreds of people
00:49:03Some somehow they snuck in and they kind of notice them. Oh somehow they got past us, right?
00:49:08They'll go to them in the benches and yeah, and they'll hey, you got to go up escort
00:49:14You're not dressed right or this that or the other and you got to go or you're someone we've excommunicated in the past
00:49:19You got to get out of here
00:49:20I've seen that happen lots of times and I've even in the middle of church services John
00:49:25They stopped the church service and say hey you stand up. What are you doing here? You know get out of here
00:49:31I think they will do this in the church services John. I mean, it's on be
00:49:37believable
00:49:38You know you look back but when you're in there, you're like, yeah get rid of them
00:49:42They deserve like everybody's like yeah, how dare they come to church that how dare this happen, you know
00:49:46They disobey the pastor, you know, you're in there you're like all for it, but oh my goodness John looking back now
00:49:53Like what in the world?
00:49:56Were we doing? What were we thinking John? I mean, it's
00:50:00Crazy, it's crazy. You know, I don't think that with his
00:50:06Wonderful imagination that Stephen King could even come up with the church designed like this where the people are
00:50:12So demon-possessed that they eject people out of the church for wearing slacks or for praising God
00:50:19I don't think Stephen King could even come up with this in his mind, but that's what we had
00:50:24We had the church from hell. I mean pure plain and simple. It was the church from hell
00:50:32This is
00:50:33This is the start, you know, if you want to put on the bite model John
00:50:37This is the start of the enforcement mechanisms on behavioral control in the message when William Branham made these things
00:50:44Which is why in my book. I got a whole big section on these because this is such an important thing
00:50:48this is when William Branham created the
00:50:52enforcement mechanisms on behavioral control in the cult pay in the message cult and so
00:50:58What he did I want to just talk about that structure a little bit John because he didn't just
00:51:05He didn't just introduce all these rules
00:51:09But he created a structure to enforce it and at the same time that he's creating this structure to enforce it
00:51:14This is the same time that he's unrolling the man from Windsor story
00:51:19He's unrolling all of these stories that if you question the authority
00:51:24You are gonna be cursed with cancer. You are gonna be cursed with paralysis
00:51:29You might drop dead before you get out of the church
00:51:31How dare you not listen to the preacher God is gonna curse you with the most horrendous things you can imagine
00:51:38This is when those stories start rolling out. They are rolling out alongside of these in
00:51:43Enforcement mechanisms and everything that's happening as he creates church order, right and that these things are not the coincidence, right?
00:51:50He's doing all of this together. And so the first thing he does John and I think this is incredibly clever
00:51:58So and and this is I think this might be a little bit unique to the message
00:52:03I'm not really aware of any other church John that is structured
00:52:07The way the message churches are I have not encountered it. I have not saw it anywhere else in everything
00:52:14I look William Branham basically broke everything up. So you have these
00:52:19Independent factions, so he took the Deacons and he made the Deacons more or less this independent police force that reported directly to him
00:52:28They don't report to the assistant pastor. They didn't report to Orman Neville. They don't report to the trustees
00:52:33They report to no, but they report directly to him
00:52:35Okay
00:52:36And in his and in this as we go through it William Branham is not really putting himself into the pastor position in here
00:52:42What he does is he creates a bishop position that he calls the overseer and he puts himself into the overseer position
00:52:49Hey, do you remember anyone else in there? That was called an overseer John wasn't that the title Roy Davis went by?
00:52:54Absolutely, I don't wonder if this is not where he got all this from as he got this from Roy Davis
00:53:00So he puts himself into the overseer position, right? The Deacons report directly to him and they are the
00:53:06Policemen they're the enforcers and it's their job to if he's not in town, right?
00:53:13It's their job to ignore the pastor and to ignore the trustees and to enforce the rules at any cost
00:53:18Yeah that history which we covered again, you know back in the back in the other podcasts that we have done but this was a
00:53:26Cult that was generated from the second-in-command of the Ku Klux Klan
00:53:30Pure plain and simple William Branham was appointed as a bishop Roy Davis the general overseer
00:53:36And we have I can't remember the date Charles, but it's like
00:53:401951 ish William Branham is still admitting that he's holding revivals
00:53:45It's advertised in the newspaper actually as holding revivals as the Pentecostal Baptist sect
00:53:51So I think you're right. I think all of this probably came from Roy Davis
00:53:55So he sets the Deacons up as this independent group that reports directly to him to enforce everything
00:54:02He then sets up the trustees as just being over the finances. So the trustees have
00:54:07Oversight of the finances and these are the ones that are legally responsible to the state the trustees
00:54:13So the Deacons don't have control of the money
00:54:15They just have control of enforcing all of his rules. The trustees have control of the money, but they don't have any enforcement power
00:54:21okay, and
00:54:23He sets himself up as the treasurer
00:54:27Alright, so he's actually the one with the control of all of the money and you can miss this if you don't listen to his
00:54:33Sermons carefully, but William Branham was the treasurer. He was the treasurer of the church
00:54:38So the trustees had oversight of the money and they were supposed to have these certain responsibilities towards the treasurer
00:54:45But William Branham was himself the treasurer and you see this in most all of these groups the preacher himself
00:54:51the overseer tends to also be the treasurer or
00:54:55Someone like his wife or his son or his daughter right is the treasurer. So they always keep
00:55:01They're the head that the Deacons are reporting to and then they keep all of the money very close to them
00:55:06So that that's really important to catch that he did that too
00:55:10the other thing that he did is that
00:55:15He basically just totally disempowered the real pastor of the church
00:55:20So at this point in time
00:55:21William Branham was not actually the pastor of the Branham Tabernacle the pastor what this point in 1958 was Ormond Neville
00:55:28Ormond Neville was actually the official
00:55:30Pastor of the church and William Branham had left for some years as he was doing all of his revival stuff
00:55:36and
00:55:37What he did though is as he created this structure
00:55:40He basically made the position of pastor at the tabernacle
00:55:44Which really more like assistant pastor a totally powerless position. They had no power. They couldn't control the Deacons
00:55:49They couldn't control the trustees the trustees and the Deacons reported directly to him as the overseer
00:55:55Right, and now you've got this pastor who really his only job is to get in there and preach, you know on Sunday
00:56:01right, and that's it, but no real control in the church in any other way and
00:56:07That basically allowed him to control everything even though he was no longer the pastor of Branham Tabernacle and
00:56:16What he does is he actually
00:56:19personally owns all the property of the church right and
00:56:22He is still the the position the one in a position of power over all of this thing
00:56:27even though he's kind of set up Orman Neville as a figurehead at this stage and
00:56:33He also does this other thing John where he they have elections
00:56:36I think roughly every year at the tabernacle to elect all the people into their positions, right?
00:56:42This is another important thing to catch. So
00:56:45It it appears right on the surface that William Branham implements this
00:56:49Congregationalist model where the congregation is electing the Deacons and electing the
00:56:55Pastor and electing the trustees, right? That's what it looks like
00:56:59But not really
00:57:02Because
00:57:03You you don't the slate of candidates your options to choose from are picked by Branham, right?
00:57:10Branham gets to pick the people you get to vote for in this in this thing, right?
00:57:14It's like somebody just can't come say hey, I want to be pastor
00:57:17I want to be trustee now
00:57:19They have to get Bram's blessing and they have to get his permission to be an election candidate
00:57:24You put it like that
00:57:25And so he's basically puts himself in in the position of total control and he gives it this veneer this
00:57:32Appearance that it's a congregational that is kind of Democratic that you're kind of electing your people
00:57:38But really it's all the people that he chose and gave you an option to vote for right?
00:57:42It's kind of a fraud mock election, right to get all these people into their positions and ultimately
00:57:48Everyone serves at his pleasure
00:57:49He also sets it up so that he can dismiss any person at any time in his position, right?
00:57:54Everybody holds their position at his at his leisure and his pleasure
00:57:58So anybody can go at any time you got your position because he lets you stand for election
00:58:03The deacons report directly to him the trustees report directly to him and the and the minister doing the preaching
00:58:08It really has no power. This is the structure that he created and the thing that's not said in any of these books
00:58:16I know this because my family's at the top of this not everybody's vote counted Charles
00:58:21you had people who if there was some sort of a weird rule that William Branham established that if
00:58:28You if they were not considered in regular attendance quote-unquote regular attendance
00:58:34Then their vote wouldn't be counted, but they didn't stop it when the person was submitting their vote
00:58:40They just silently removed it from the basket
00:58:42So
00:58:43he had the power of going even further than this if if they felt like this person wasn't going to vote in favor of
00:58:50whoever he chose he could pull their vote out and say well you weren't in regular attendance and
00:58:56You know the whole thing from start to finish is just a scam
00:59:00So that the scam artists can continue scamming the people if you think about this structure that William Branham created
00:59:07Where you have a powerless pastor?
00:59:10The deacons report straight to the overseer the trustees report straight to the overseer
00:59:15William Branham created a
00:59:19Framework which would allow him to make as many churches as he wanted with a powerless figurehead pastor
00:59:25Where he is the overseer actually held all the power in the church and John
00:59:30I think that's exactly what he was creating right and it wasn't until you get into
00:59:351962 or three that he finally
00:59:37Really finally takes this full form that I'm describing you got to go through all the church order sermons
00:59:42And you can see how he evolves it over time, but by the time you get to that stage of his death
00:59:46He's created this framework where you have these powerless figurehead preachers
00:59:52Who are actually the church, but the churches are really controlled by the deacons and the trustees
00:59:57That's really what he set up and the deacons and trustees reported to him not to the pastor of the church
01:00:03And what happened after he died is most of the churches that implemented this well guess what William Branham is dead
01:00:11Right and the pastors put themselves into what William Branham called the overseer position, okay?
01:00:17So they take the overseer position right and they tend to call that the pastor now
01:00:22And then the position that he created that was this powerless figurehead is more like your assistant pastor
01:00:27And so this is what William Branham set up and most of the people are putting themselves into his bishop
01:00:33Overseer pastor today in the message in the pastor
01:00:36They're putting themselves into that position and then they have control of the deacons and they have control of the trustees in that way
01:00:43And this John is the very widely implemented structure of message governance almost every message church
01:00:50I have ever known or heard of is governed in this way
01:00:54The power the the leader at the top of the preacher at the top is absolutely authoritarian
01:00:59Every position in the church serves at his pleasure
01:01:02They got their position because he more or less let them have it
01:01:05And he can get rid of him anytime they do something he don't like and he has this power to enforce
01:01:11Whatever he wants on anyone in the congregation at any time he wants, right?
01:01:17This is the mechanism of control that message preachers have and use and it all derives from William Branham
01:01:24Church order sermons. It's crazy when you think about it Charles
01:01:28so to sum this episode up William Branham created and helped create the framework for
01:01:34Establishing authoritarian cults and when men and women began to use that structure and created their own authoritarian cults
01:01:43William Branham wanted to reel back and say no. I have the only
01:01:47Authoritarian cult you will submit to my leadership
01:01:50and then
01:01:51Touted himself as this quote-unquote in time messenger the one who's bringing the church
01:01:57Back to the truth the hearts of the fathers hearts of the children to the fathers, etc
01:02:02And what he essentially did was he took all of the bad aspects that Martin Luther
01:02:10Left the Catholic Church for you had men who were predators against children
01:02:16You had men who were worshiping William Branham and women who were worshiping William Branham
01:02:21as God in the flesh you had all of these things that
01:02:27Martin Luther when he started the Protestant Reformation
01:02:30He knew that the Catholic Church was evil and there were a set of criteria
01:02:33You can go look him up that he judged the Catholic Church by William Branham comes along
01:02:39Has created the structure and then what happens is it evolves back and becomes worse
01:02:46Than the Catholic Church that Martin Luther left all while William Branham is condemning the Catholic Church
01:02:51so
01:02:52The whole thing is so absurd. I said it before the NAR did get it, right? William Branham did go astray
01:02:59They just totally missed the date
01:03:01But this that he created this church order conduct order doctrine. It is pretty bad
01:03:07I'm not gonna I'm gonna give the NAR that it is pretty bad
01:03:12So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web
01:03:16You can find us at William dash Branham org and Christian gospel church org for an overview of the historical research of William
01:03:24Branham and the healing revivals read preacher behind the white hoods a critical examination of William Branham and his message
01:03:31available on Amazon Kindle and audible and
01:03:34Read Charles's book come out of her my people also available on Amazon and Kindle
01:03:46You
01:04:16You
01:04:41You
01:04:46You