Our Stories: Former CFNI - An Interview With Anthony Martin - Episode 183 Branham Research Podcast - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/branham   Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts: https://william-branham.org/podcast   Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K  John invites Anthony Martin, a former charismatic minister, to tell his story about leaving Charismania. They explore Martin's upbringing in Missouri, his conversion at 15, and his journey into the charismatic movement. The conversation highlights the influence of religious organizations, touching on personal experiences with manipulation and control within ministries. Martin reflects on how his radical conversion led him down a path of ministry despite eventual disillusionment with the charismatic movement's practices. He discusses attending Christ for the Nations Institute (CFNI) and the dynamics of church leadership, revealing how certain ministers manipulate congregants for personal gain.  As the conversation progresses, they examine the history and influences of figures like William Branham and Gordon Lindsay, the relationship between charismatic movements, and how many modern Pentecostal movements trace back to Branham. Both Martin and Collins critique the celebrity-like status ministers often hold and the pressure to maintain a flawless image, while behind the scenes, their personal lives may be falling apart. The discussion also highlights the challenges of leaving these religious movements and the healing process that follows, with many finding community and understanding outside of the charismatic world.  00:00 Introduction   02:00 Anthony’s Early Life and Radical Conversion   05:00 The Role of Dreams and Salvation in His Faith Journey   08:30 Beginning Ministry and Early Marriage Struggles   13:00 Reflections on Music and Secular Influence in Church   16:00 Connections Between Gordon Lindsay, CFNI, and William Branham   19:30 Experiences at Christ for the Nations Institute   23:00 Observations on Church Leadership and Manipulation   27:00 Analysis of William Branham’s Influence on the Charismatic Movement   33:00 Modern Evangelists and Manipulative Practices   38:00 Gordon Lindsay's Role in Promoting Branham’s Legacy   44:00 Critiques of Integrity in Ministry Leadership   51:00 Navigating Life After Leaving the Charismatic Movement   57:00 Advice for Others in Similar Situations ______________________ – 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 Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr – Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books

Transcript

00:00:00You

00:00:30Welcome to another episode of the William Branham historical research podcast. I'm your host John Collins

00:00:38The author and founder of William Branham historical research at William dash Branham org and with me

00:00:44I have my very special guest Anthony Martin former charismatic minister and currently on vacation

00:00:51So thank you so much for doing this Anthony on your vacation

00:00:55I can't think of anything more fun to do than sit here and talk to me

00:01:00Well to be honest when I when I sent you the email I was a little surprised you emailed me back

00:01:04So yeah, you know what you had

00:01:08I've actually been wanting to talk to somebody who has the experience you have I'm gonna let you introduce it

00:01:14not me, but I've been looking for somebody that had that connection because

00:01:18Charles and I discussed the

00:01:21organization that you mentioned in your email and we both

00:01:25Like we both kind of came to the same conclusion that you mentioned in your email about the people and you know, they're genuine

00:01:33Motivation even though they're they're kind of in the wrong place. Their heart was in the right place. We kind of came to that conclusion

00:01:41There's some interesting history that I won't discuss yet. But there there's also some you know

00:01:48Deception there too. So I want to talk about that

00:01:51But anyway, let's let's just start by maybe you could introduce yourself. Tell everybody a little bit about yourself. So

00:01:59introducing myself

00:02:01So, my name is Anthony Martin. I actually grew up in Sedalia, Missouri

00:02:06I

00:02:07Got radically saved when I was 15 years old

00:02:11I happened to go to a charismatic church that I had went to

00:02:16when I was a kid for Children's Church, and

00:02:20So my friend Rachel she invited me I went there

00:02:26They did the the salvation prayer and then they also did the baptism of the Holy Spirit

00:02:33Which I had no clue what that was my youth pastor

00:02:37He as he did the sinners prayer I did that and then the first thing he said he goes now you need to get baptized

00:02:43with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, but I'm like I'm just good with the salvation part and

00:02:50I can't remember

00:02:51how

00:02:53How he said it, but basically you weren't really saved if you didn't get that. So

00:02:58So I did because I was primed and ready

00:03:02to to get saved and so I did got baptized with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues and

00:03:09Then we were kind of off to the races after that

00:03:11So but I'll let you let you kind of ask questions and kind of see where to go from there

00:03:17Yeah, you mentioned Sedalia of Missouri I've actually been through there I lived a good part of my life was in Pittsburgh, Kansas and

00:03:26You know, it's I think it's what two hour maybe two and a half hour drive from yeah. Yeah pretty close to that. Yeah

00:03:32Yeah, I've been there the home of the State Fair. Oh, yeah

00:03:37Right now I live in Columbia, Missouri now, but yeah, that's where I grew up at. Yeah, so you're

00:03:44Experienced as a charismatic minister, I'm I'm curious to hear more about that. What was it?

00:03:50Like what how did you come to be a minister? And yeah, well, so so I kind of started out

00:03:56I'll start back with with my salvation story and then just kind of build it up a little bit from there

00:04:03So before I got saved I was

00:04:06Like my family like we believed in God

00:04:09I didn't really believe in God necessarily, but my mom like her her mother was a Pentecostal preacher

00:04:15So

00:04:17So I was a stoner kid. I had long black hair

00:04:20I loved Ozzy Osbourne like when I was 11

00:04:24I heard Iron Man for the first time and that's that's what really hit my my love for music and rock and roll and

00:04:31And all that

00:04:34But so I had watched the movie The Seventh Sign

00:04:37I think it was Demi Moore whoever was in that

00:04:41Well after that I started having these dreams about like the end of the world had come

00:04:45but I'm like standing in this scorched earth and I kept hearing a voice said that judgment of God has come and it's too late

00:04:51for you to choose and

00:04:54The voice was like so it's too late for you to choose

00:04:57Whoever chose to go to heaven is in heaven and whoever chose to go to hell is in hell

00:05:01So I would have this dream for like six months

00:05:05anyway, my

00:05:07My best friend Timmy his his sister Rachel was a Christian and so his house was the party house. So he started

00:05:15I've we used to go over there. Well, anyway, she started witnessing to me and all that kind of stuff

00:05:20I went to her church got radically saved

00:05:25And it really did completely shift the whole course of my life and

00:05:30And

00:05:31So anyway, I got so radically saved

00:05:34I was living with my sister at the time because my stepdad my mom were traveling for work

00:05:39And I didn't want to travel with them. It rattled my sister so much that she thought I joined a cult

00:05:46She wasn't too far off. But but at the time it was my genuine love for for the Lord

00:05:52Yeah, so anyway, my mom flew back

00:05:55They were in Massachusetts at the time

00:05:57she came to make sure I didn't join a cult and of course when I told her my

00:06:02Salvation story and literally everything I had done before that

00:06:07She

00:06:08You know, she supported it

00:06:10I had really long black hair at the time and she took me to get it cut off which

00:06:15like is now you're a Christian you got to look the part and

00:06:19So I was so radically saved that within a month of my salvation. My cousin got saved

00:06:26Because of me

00:06:28And then another month after that aren't one of our best friends got saved. I mean it was like

00:06:32Like the book of Acts was going on like in that time

00:06:36so anyway at 15, I felt like I I was literally praying on my my front porch and I

00:06:45Felt like like what do you want me to do with my life?

00:06:48And I felt that call to the ministry and all that so fast forward a little bit

00:06:53I met my ex-wife her dad was taken over a church that I had started going to

00:06:58we became best friends and then we ended up getting married at 19, which don't recommend anybody doing and then

00:07:07We yeah, yeah, we had a couple kept my oldest son and my daughter we had them and then probably about

00:07:1526 or

00:07:1725 or 20 it gets all kind of hazy there but

00:07:20About 26 we packed up and moved to Dallas and went to Christ for the nation's Institute, which is

00:07:28Gordon and Frida Lindsay's

00:07:31Ministry or school or whatever

00:07:34so yeah, so that's kind of where it all kind of began and then after that we

00:07:40we went back to our home church and

00:07:43we started a young adult ministry there and

00:07:46We grew up from like

00:07:49It was my ex-wife and me a couple other people young people and then we grew up from

00:07:55from three or four to fifty to sixty within a couple months and then not long after that we

00:08:01We had an associate pastor

00:08:04Tell us that we needed to start charging them tie or not. I hate to use the word charging

00:08:12Admission you got a charge admission

00:08:1610% from kids who don't have any money

00:08:18but okay and then it that pretty well killed that and then not long after that my my ex-wife and I were going through some

00:08:25Some things and we're still best friends now

00:08:27But at the time there was just some things that kind of our marriage kind of fell apart

00:08:32we went our separate ways and we got back together again, and then I

00:08:37Don't know. I guess we're not we're not live yet

00:08:40So probably we were divorced for like two years got back together had my youngest son and then about a year after that

00:08:47She had come out and told me that she was a lesbian again with all this stuff ties into your podcast, right?

00:08:53Yeah, you know because her dad being a preacher and all that kind of stuff

00:08:59You know that was very suppressed, you know, so she had have known her whole life and there were there were signs there but

00:09:06You know if I I had changed a lot of my that two years that we weren't together

00:09:10I changed a lot of my views on a lot of things and

00:09:15One of them was homosexuality

00:09:17lesbianism all that stuff I

00:09:21Went from being you know far to the right

00:09:24to

00:09:26at least in that aspect of things part of the left just because I had developed friendships with with gay and lesbian people and

00:09:34My friend Eric, I'll never forget we had this conversation because he's gay

00:09:40And I just listened to your podcast about your your best friend or your friend that had told you that he was gay

00:09:46That you guys were having lunch or dinner. Yeah, and

00:09:50Yeah, you know, it's kind of funny. You may he mentioned the rock and roll before your salvation and they cut your hair

00:09:56There's this I'm a big sci-fi fan. If you've listened my podcast

00:09:59You've heard me talk about it and I've got the Millennium Falcon in every one of my videos. So

00:10:05but um

00:10:07What I'm also I love fantasy and there was my one of my favorite books growing up was called a wrinkle in time

00:10:13And they've made a few different movies about it

00:10:15But there's this there's a scene when they make it to you know across the galaxy or whatever

00:10:20There's the scene where in there in this neighborhood every house is exactly the same every kid walk out

00:10:26they bounce the ball they walk back in and I don't know if you've seen it, but it that's what it felt like when

00:10:33Whenever you quote-unquote get salvation in these things

00:10:36They want to put you in this box that looks like everybody else

00:10:39And if you're not part of that box, you're you're not quote-unquote saved and I'll never forget when we left the cult

00:10:47and I went to I'm not gonna mention the denomination, but I went to a

00:10:51very very fundamentalist type church and and the minister took me to

00:10:56a rock and roll concert

00:10:59Which blew my mind. I was like what?

00:11:01And it's still to this day. There's songs

00:11:04They resonate with me because they're talking one of my favorite song by the group was called give it back and it was talking about

00:11:11Somebody does a good deed for you and you give it back to us by paying it ahead to somebody else, which is great

00:11:17I mean, it's a good concept, but you also mentioned Ozzie, which is what sparked this whole thought of

00:11:23I'll never forget after I think it was after that

00:11:26I first heard the song crazy train and oh my gosh, man

00:11:31And the fact that I mentioned Ozzy and mentioned crazy train all my podcast means I'm gonna get a hundred people saying I'm going to

00:11:39Hell because I because I heard Ozzy and I liked it, but that song was incredible and my son

00:11:45Picked up his guitar and I wish I had the gift that he has but he picked it up and he could play it flawlessly

00:11:52Start to finish Wow

00:11:54That's impressive. That's a hard song to play

00:11:57It is well, and it's funny because I on the web

00:12:01So we drove from Missouri to to Los Angeles on our trip

00:12:05and I stopped listen to you've been trying to catch up on your podcast as I've been driving and I heard the

00:12:11Podcast where you talked about the song highway to hell by ACDC. Yes, and it made me think of this is that

00:12:18that

00:12:20You you talked about you trying to fit everybody into a box. Like you can't listen to secular music

00:12:26You can't do this. You can't do that. And I remember

00:12:29like we did a CD tape burning thing and I had like

00:12:35Album like, you know vinyl albums. I had one of it was Ozzy Osbourne

00:12:40No rest for the wicked and on the record it had the actual record itself

00:12:45it's one of those collectible ones that had his picture on it and then on the back was the

00:12:49The album cover and like infused in this record and I remember I like I had a hard time

00:12:56Like throwing that away, but but anyway, like you said about highway to hell. There's more meaning to it than just that

00:13:03yeah, and

00:13:05The one song that I always thought that about with with Black Sabbath was war pigs and like oh

00:13:11Well, they're talking about Satan spreading his way. I remember having this conversation with one of my friends

00:13:16Yeah, but at the end Satan spread it spread in his wings and I was like, yeah, but the whole song

00:13:21I said if you take it in the premise of when it was written

00:13:24Which was during the Vietnam War right the war pigs are the politicians like it's in there in the song

00:13:30Yeah, they're getting there just do because they're sending innocent people like it's a whole anyway

00:13:36Yeah, it just you know songs have more meaning to them than that. It's such a ridiculous box

00:13:42They put you in because I know people that will and some of those people will probably comment on my page ironically

00:13:49But they'll go watch movies like Ocean's Eleven where the guys are planning a big heist. They're doing something

00:13:55That's really really bad and they love it

00:13:58But they listen to the song which actually is talking about the consequences of your like highway to hell

00:14:04you mentioned talking about the consequences of your bad choices in life the song actually has a

00:14:10Somewhat of a good meaning to it. Yes, and there's other songs like that. I remember so I remember reading an article

00:14:18It was a Christian article article about

00:14:20It was imagined dragons the demon song

00:14:24so basically

00:14:26The woman that was writing and said well see he's got demons

00:14:29He's glorifying his demons and I'm like, well, that's it and I did I couldn't hold my tongue on that

00:14:35I had to comment. I was like, have you listened to the song though?

00:14:38what he's saying is he doesn't know if he's good enough for the person that he's with because he's has these demons like the

00:14:45Our struggle inner struggle that entered more turmoils what the song is about not about actual deep

00:14:51It's that he's trying to hide from this person

00:14:55It's just like oh good lord. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I could talk for like five hours on the music

00:15:01Yeah, one of my favorite is painted black which is talking about please. Let me introduce myself

00:15:05I'm Satan and then talks about all through history all of the bad things that have happened, but

00:15:12Yes sympathy for the devil, I'm sorry

00:15:19Yeah, and you can tell how new I am to music because I got the name wrong

00:15:26It's crazy, yeah, but back to the CF and I so we um

00:15:31And I'll let this out now. I've actually never mentioned what happened. I don't think but

00:15:35Charles I've had this happen twice now since I've been doing podcast

00:15:40And the second time we went back and rerecord it

00:15:43But Charles and I recorded a really really good episode on Gordon Lindsay, and I forgot to hit record on the dang video

00:15:51So that was the first time it had ever happened to me we were like

00:15:55I don't know how many were like 50 episodes in when it happened

00:15:59so I went back and I added a bunch I kept the audio and I added all the pictures and did it as

00:16:04kind of a slideshow, but as we were talking through that, you know, we could see a clear transition in

00:16:13Gordon Lindsay CF and I now don't get me wrong

00:16:16They're part of the NAR and it gets really weird when you connect all of the dots

00:16:21But there's a period of time in which Gordon Lindsay is

00:16:26Working deeply with the Christian identity folks. He's speaking at conferences of

00:16:31Like the Anglo-Saxon Federation

00:16:34Back whenever they had just turned racist and anti-semitic that he was at those conferences

00:16:40He gets in bed with Branham and you know the history there

00:16:44But there's there's a period of time we discovered not long

00:16:49Or not shooting shortly before we did that podcast

00:16:52where we could clearly see that Gordon Lindsay had enough of Branham and he just kicked him out and

00:16:58Suddenly the Empire started to crumble because Branham was the headline show

00:17:03So they brought him back and then kicked him out again and then do the second or third time they kicked him out

00:17:10you could tell there's this clear shift in what Gordon Lindsay was doing Christ for the nation's and

00:17:16Branham takes a shift even further into destruction. So you've got a clear parting of ways

00:17:23So that's what really interested me to have you on here to talk through that a bit what were the what were the Lindsay's like

00:17:29Well, I'll tell you

00:17:31so I had no idea of what Christ for the nation's was or Gordon Lindsay or any of that and

00:17:38my ex-wife

00:17:41She absolutely

00:17:43Loved like CF and I she would go there when she was a teenager

00:17:47I can't remember what it was. They would have some kind of youth event or whatever

00:17:52and so when we

00:17:55Started discussing like hey, like we're not getting any younger here. So if we're gonna like do this, let's do it

00:18:02Like being ministers go to school all that

00:18:06so

00:18:07She brought up CF and I and Christ for the nation's we went down there

00:18:11we went down there for the college days or whatever and

00:18:15so in that that was my first initial introduction to

00:18:20Frieda Lindsay, which are you know, all the all those small schools

00:18:24They have the nicknames like mom Lindsay or whatever. I've heard at Rhema Bible Institute. That was Papa Hagan, you know

00:18:31So we were trying to figure out where we're gonna go

00:18:33So I went we went down there and of course CF and I also does really good praise and worship music

00:18:39so part of their little package that they sent out was

00:18:43Had a CD with the our CD and a video with their music and that specific year that they did it

00:18:50It was like the best album they've ever done

00:18:53so like I was already hooked when we watched the videos and all that so we go down there and

00:19:00they had the little dinner and all that stuff for the

00:19:03Potential students that are going to be there and I just happened to get to sit we sat down mom Lindsay Frieda Lindsay

00:19:11Dennis Lindsay and his wife. I think her name was ginger all sat down at our table. I'm like, oh

00:19:18Wait, like these are you know, that's you're famous because by now I've read up on you and I've read up about the ministry

00:19:25like what Gordon Lindsay at least the

00:19:29the

00:19:30the what's the word I'm looking for the professional whatever the the

00:19:34The

00:19:36I want to call it propaganda because it doesn't feel like they never seemed like they were a propaganda thing, but

00:19:42But I had studied their history and all that and how big they were in

00:19:46the 50s with Jack Coe and William Branham and

00:19:49Jack Moore like all the people that you have mentioned on your podcast a a Allen and all that

00:19:54Now they do whitewash that a little bit like you don't hear all the controversy

00:19:59And all like the way that it's painted is like they were all best buddies like yeah

00:20:03We're doing this wonderful outpouring of God and not a lot of and Dennis or Gordon really wasn't the preacher

00:20:10But he was recording all the wonderful miraculous things

00:20:14So so without the context of what was actually going on, you know

00:20:19The behind the scenes compared to the public you always use the the persona like our when you talk in your podcast

00:20:26So so the pictures painted like these were like the greatest revivalist of all time with a like they were all just hanging out

00:20:33You know oral Roberts like they were all the best of friends

00:20:37So so anyway, mom Lindsay at this point was 92 years old

00:20:42She sits down with me. She's trying to feed me her plate. She's like, do you want my chicken?

00:20:47Do you want this? So she was the sweetest little old lady ever and then

00:20:52She gave me a drink or a drink of her water because her water was out

00:20:59Or my water was out. She gave me a drink of her water, which I was like, okay, that's a little

00:21:05Don't drink on this side because that you can see where my lipstick is and I don't want your germs, but I'm like, okay

00:21:11That's not the way it works

00:21:13Right, right, right

00:21:14And then she was getting up to go use the restroom and she leans over to Dennis her son and goes

00:21:20Hey, make sure he doesn't eat my green beads

00:21:26So, but they were they were really nice down-to-earth people like I never

00:21:32Like coming from from where I got saved at I was it was a cold but not to the degree degree of what you grew

00:21:39up in I

00:21:42The whole time that I was there I never had that feeling there was no control no

00:21:47Whatever and of course Gordon was gone by that point and in Frida

00:21:51For CF and I what they really painted it was that it was Gordon's vision

00:21:56But Frida was the one that carried it out, right?

00:21:59Like so they had bought all the property and all that stuff

00:22:02he had a heart attack like as they were open either if I remember correctly as they were opening the school or

00:22:10At least within the first year that school being open. He passed away and she carried that out

00:22:17And it's just a little tiny school down there and in Oak Cliff

00:22:21It's not anything like this massive campus like or you or or some of the other guys that have in my opinion

00:22:28Really have exploited

00:22:31Christianity and and

00:22:33Innocent people but no the whole time that I was there. It was a great

00:22:38Experience in some ways like I felt like it. I got free of a lot of the cultish stuff just because you have so many

00:22:46People from all over the world. Anyway, I'll I'll slow down and let you say what you need to say or what you want to ask

00:22:52so

00:22:53Yeah, I can talk forever

00:22:55It's such a weird history man

00:22:56Like when I sit back and because my family was at the top of the Branham cult, I have a lot of similar experiences

00:23:03I knew people that I have actually had guests on my podcast who would tell me that

00:23:10The and they don't give the names

00:23:11I try to keep the names out of it

00:23:13They'll tell me that the person and it's a person that I know very well that they're the most evil

00:23:20Violent person that they've ever met like this this minister totally ruined their lives

00:23:26Well, I have stories kind of like you where I sat with them at tables and they were they were genuinely nice people

00:23:33But there's this side of them that was really odd and and then you take a step back from that and you just look at

00:23:40The movement as a whole

00:23:42Started

00:23:43they only the best way that I can explain it when I'm talking to another person is it was as though that this were a

00:23:50traveling circus

00:23:51That made everyone a heck of a lot of money and some of the men who made a lot of money and women

00:23:59Decided to build church organizations from it and then those church organizations did good things

00:24:04So it started in this were very weird circus II way

00:24:08Yeah, and then suddenly now there's this big institution and they're kind of doing good but

00:24:13Now you bring in the NAR stuff and it turns weird again because now it's shifting towards politics in some of these cases

00:24:21Right. So what and how do how do you explain this mess? Right? Well, you know what from listening to your podcast with

00:24:29Like like we knew of William Branham, right?

00:24:32I mean we that was he's kind of like that the Elijah like they had even

00:24:37I'll tell you what that even in some of the books and stuff that they have

00:24:41that you've the gods generals and all that stuff were like curriculum for reading for

00:24:48The classes and stuff they have that picture of William Branham with the halo behind his head and all that kind of stuff

00:24:56Like they never painted him as a bad person

00:25:00Until the end of like they kind of were vague about

00:25:04Like yeah

00:25:05Him and Gordon had a split because William Branham was starting to get a little cultish

00:25:10But then God God took him away before he now if somebody might be like, well, that's not what they said

00:25:17At least that's what I heard whenever they told the story is that they split God took William Branham away

00:25:22that's why he had the car accident, but they never really spoke negatively of William Branham and I I think

00:25:29That's why people like you mentioned Benny Hinn and talking about William Branham anointing

00:25:34It's been smoothed over and then as I've listened to your podcast as you used to talk about the Brands

00:25:41I don't just take your word for it. You start researching all this kind of stuff. You're like, oh, man

00:25:46And you start to realize that all of the charismatic movement from from what I know

00:25:52Really can be tied back to William Branham and then it just kind of does this weird

00:25:57Like tentacles like as far and it's so far removed from that people who are charismatics now or

00:26:05tongue-talking whatever

00:26:07It can all be linked back to this one person

00:26:10And I mean, I guess you could do like John Alexander Dowey before that and then it kind of expanded out

00:26:15But really William Branham is kind of the main

00:26:19Source where everything else from then is spread out. So yeah, that's why I'm so intrigued by your podcast

00:26:26It's crazy, right, you know, you look back at Gordon Lindsay's entire Empire

00:26:32None of it would have existed without Branham Branham actually started the voice of healing. He was the the publisher

00:26:39Initially, he he handed over to Lindsay and I would give anything to know how that transition happened

00:26:46Whenever Lindsay took ownership, right because you don't just give this away. So what happened?

00:26:52How did he claim the entire Empire that was built but then take it a step further you mentioned the halo

00:26:59But that's just one of many many instances. We have identified

00:27:04actual instances where Gordon Lindsay would have been present when William Branham was caught as a fraud and

00:27:10Gordon Lindsay covered the whole thing up and that was early on like this was a there's a paper for example

00:27:17I want to say it's

00:27:191948 or 49

00:27:20where William Branham is having

00:27:23People come to his meetings pretending to be sick and in the same person is pretending to be sick in a another city in another city

00:27:30Well, they they catch him at it right and Gordon Lindsay's right there

00:27:34So he knows it and once you build your Empire on top of this

00:27:37You can't really say no that guy was a complete fraud because if you do your whole Empire topples and I kind of sometimes wonder

00:27:46because of the time

00:27:49Yeah

00:27:51Sometimes you want to believe something so bad

00:27:54You know and I almost kind of wonder if that's what happened with Gordon Lindsay's that it just kept building up

00:28:00Right, and maybe maybe the line in the sand was where William Branham's like I'm Jesus like me

00:28:06I don't know because it is clear that like a lot of the stuff that was happening

00:28:12Like it's in the more research that you do about any kind of move of God

00:28:16There's stuff like that happening. It's not it's not real, right?

00:28:21It's not real even if some healings and some sporadic little things happen

00:28:26I would say nine out of the ten aren't

00:28:30real healings or

00:28:32Miracles, there's not real signs and wonders going on and you realize

00:28:38The the narcissistic part of of

00:28:41Everything that is tied into this

00:28:44From one central figure and that's one one

00:28:48pattern throughout that movement charismatic movement

00:28:52there's always somebody that they talk about how cold they are how

00:28:57They're God's man, and they're meant to raise up like a the next generation

00:29:03except for they never raise up the next generation and that that's probably where I became the most disillusioned with Christianity and and

00:29:11Not cure Chris

00:29:12Let me rephrase that not Christianity the charismatic movement is

00:29:16Because there's more people that are like that and ministers who are like that than who actually create that next generation to go out

00:29:24In CF and I in the Lindsay's defense and in Christ for the nations. They actually seemed

00:29:31to encourage that like to actually like the according to CF and I

00:29:37That was Gordon Lindsay's whole vision because when he saw all the hippies getting saved and all this this was going to be that

00:29:43Ladder rained again. I don't know how many ladder rains we've had but good Lord. There's been a ton of them

00:29:50but this was gonna be that next generation and they they really seem to have held to that vision and I don't want to be a

00:29:59Devil's advocate advocate for Gordon Linds or yeah for Gordon Lindsay

00:30:04But because I'll be honest I'm agnostic now and it has nothing to do with anything that I've been through it

00:30:10It has more to do it the more that you I'm like you a very analytical person

00:30:15so the more that you study like it kind of just like okay, like I

00:30:20Have nothing against Christianity or any kind of religion at all

00:30:24But but in the like I said with it back to what I was said about

00:30:29Gordon Lindsay, at least it seems like their vision or what the vision was supposed to be for CF and I

00:30:36it feels like they I can't say now because it's been years since I've been there, but it feels like it's

00:30:43They kept to it now. Yeah minus what happened way back then

00:30:47That's kind of it feels like everybody was fighting for their place back then. That's what it seemed like

00:30:52Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism

00:30:59transition through the latter reign

00:31:01Charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation

00:31:06You can learn this and more on William Branham historical researches website

00:31:11William dash Branham org on the books page of the website

00:31:15You can find the compiled research of John Collins Charles Paisley

00:31:19Stephen Montgomery John MacKinnon and others with links to the paper audio and digital versions of each book

00:31:27You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements

00:31:33if you want to contribute to the cause you can support the podcast by clicking the

00:31:39Contribute button at the top and as always be sure to LIKE and subscribe

00:31:43To the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching on behalf of William Branham historical research

00:31:49We want to thank you for your support

00:31:52You know, I've reached the place where I don't even view it as Christianity. So

00:31:57any comment you make is fine with me because

00:32:00Even though their heart may be in the right place and they may think that they're writing good things

00:32:05Christianity for me and from what I read in the Bible is that you have a community of people that love each other

00:32:11Love God help each other if a person gets sick

00:32:14Let's go help the sick person and then if God were to heal the sick person and they would all praise God and say wow

00:32:21That's wonderful, but we're still gonna love the ones that didn't get healed that for me that view would be Christianity

00:32:28But it's like that

00:32:29They took one person who might have gotten healed and then turned it in turned that itself into a religion

00:32:37Where now everybody has to come and they all try to get healed

00:32:40So it

00:32:42It it's just so weird when you think about the theatrics of it because you can't really generate healings like they claim they do

00:32:50so you've got the examples like I mentioned where you plant the people and one of the gimmicks that was used in the

00:32:57Not just William Branham's but I found this and I think Katherine Coleman was doing it

00:33:02Maybe Amy Simpleman Pearson, but they bring in all these wheelchairs

00:33:06And if you're standing if you're tired

00:33:08Well an usher will put you in a wheelchair and they'll wheel you up because your legs are tired

00:33:12Well when when they get to stage, they don't literally say this person was crippled and they're raising up

00:33:18But when the audience sees them raise up everybody's going. Oh my gosh

00:33:22We have a we have a genuine healing of a crippled person, right? And it's all it's all for show. It's all up

00:33:30Well

00:33:32You've said in your previous podcast, I think it's very accurate in today's world. Most people aren't gonna go

00:33:41But if you look at the 20s the 40s the 50s superstition and all that kind of stuff

00:33:49It makes sense that more people are more willing to buy buy into that at that time

00:33:55I

00:33:56don't think you could get away with it in today's world, although it does seem whenever the

00:34:03The next move of God like whoever

00:34:05This guy got visited by an angel and they got gold dust coming down from the heavens and all that

00:34:11It typically seems like those guys get cut short pretty quick

00:34:16Because as it was that guy's name Todd Bentley, I think

00:34:21Yeah

00:34:23He was gonna be the next move of God guy

00:34:26I remember seeing this guy and so I remember seeing him and being like something's not seeming right and

00:34:33Lo and behold he was before he even got famous. He was already doing things

00:34:38He shouldn't be doing you know, and so so stuff like that

00:34:44Yeah, anyway, I just

00:34:46It seems like they get cut down and a lot quicker than what they did back then and and maybe because we have more

00:34:53We're in a social media world, it's easier to get caught right you get caught dead to rights

00:34:59It's not just somebody else saying something over here there and all that

00:35:03We're probably in those days

00:35:06You just you you had more men more

00:35:09Yes men who were covering things up and then you're moving on to the next place

00:35:12So you can't it doesn't spread like wildfire, you know, and yeah

00:35:18It's like the snake oil salesman from Bodanza you go you go use one town till you get all the money you can get out

00:35:24Of that town and then I figure you out you go to the next one. What's a new town?

00:35:28They don't know what's happened and what's going right? They have no idea what's going on

00:35:32And the irony is, you know, we've got because of William Branham's

00:35:38Sales strategy. I don't know what you call a strat. I don't I really don't understand why he did all the recordings

00:35:43I know they made a lot of money at it

00:35:45but there's some there's some weirdness there too with the money in the sales because he

00:35:51in 1947 all of the predated

00:35:56Recordings they you can't find them. They no longer apparently exist

00:35:59But all that aside if you go back to those early recordings

00:36:04You can kind of see where he's going from town to town to town and he'll tell the same story again

00:36:10And it's a new audience

00:36:12so he'll use things like

00:36:14Claiming his memories poor he'll say who was that girl Marilyn Monroe

00:36:18I prophesied and and yada yada when he goes to the next town and it might be a week later

00:36:24And he says now who was that girl?

00:36:26What was her name again brother and and it happens again and again you can tell that it's a it's very staged

00:36:32The whole thing is staged telling the same story. It's just at a different. Yeah different

00:36:37It's like giving a speech and you're giving the same speech to a different class, right?

00:36:41Well, our committee well, I like if you look at a comedian they have their own

00:36:45It's the same jokes. They tell from town to town. All right, if you go see a special it's the same jokes

00:36:52Well, it's the same thing. You're not

00:36:54You're not like I'm a big professional wrestling fan. So like I used to watch I used to watch it all the time

00:37:01But they'll do they're called house shows and what they're doing at the house shows is they're doing the same

00:37:07The same choreographed moves over and over over again

00:37:10So like in the old magazines you would read like well

00:37:13they were in New York's here in New Jersey and

00:37:16The cards exactly the same in both places and the win-loss is the same like and they're doing the same thing over and over again

00:37:23So you kind of have that with the preachers, right? They're going from town to town to town to town town

00:37:29You're just preaching the same message and like it like a comedian like a joke it might hit it might not and they're like well

00:37:35That was not hit anymore. So we'll change up that story

00:37:40Exactly, and I think that's actually a better illustration of what I was trying to say

00:37:45If you go back in the early years in Branham's ministry, he's only got like ten sermons

00:37:51They all have different titles, but he's saying the same thing and telling the same stories

00:37:56Many of them are called my life story or some variation of that

00:37:59Well, Gordon Lindsay is one who is sponsoring these things so he is seeing that same story told from town to town to town

00:38:08Well where it gets weird for me trying to understand the mindset of Lindsay

00:38:13the way that the the theatrics of this the way that they tell the stories is there's always this supernatural element God gave me a

00:38:21vision an angel came down from heaven and said such-and-such and

00:38:26Then they watched the audience's reaction and they might have a they might have said some variation of the word and watched the audience get

00:38:33Excited. Well that variation gets introduced into the stage persona

00:38:38Now the stage act begins to shift and over time you can watch from town a where it's an angel, you know

00:38:46Like one of Willie Nelson's angels in blue jeans to angels in a white robe

00:38:52Shifts that much right? Well, Gordon Lindsay is there and he's watching the shift. Yeah, so he knows it's not supernatural

00:39:00But it is a it is a stage act that is selling and he doesn't stop it

00:39:06So when I see him not stopping it, that's where it gets right for me

00:39:11well, you have to question the integrity a little bit, you know, it's and then I'll tell you that's probably the been the I

00:39:19I don't struggle with anything now with all that kind of stuff

00:39:22but the thing that I really struggle with with the charismatic movement that the spirit spirit filled tongue-talk and

00:39:29Whatever laying on of hands

00:39:32Is the lack of integrity and also seeing it from on the inside, you know

00:39:40I'll try to be more diplomatic but seeing seeing a pastor and his wife

00:39:48Where they hate each other's guts and the only reason that they're together is because they're ministers, right?

00:39:54that's their income and

00:39:56Seeing that it's very disheartening because here we're supposed to be the pinnacle. Well, we're not pinnacles

00:40:03But we're charismatic. We got the gifts of the spirit. We have discernment. We have prophecy

00:40:07we have healing and yet you guys the only reason you're together is

00:40:13because

00:40:14This is all I've done for 30 years. This was literally what was said

00:40:18He goes, I guess I I could be a greeter at Walmart because you have no other skills

00:40:23You can't do anything else. But yeah, and then your wife won't leave because she doesn't know what she's gonna do

00:40:29But then she really is trying to be a devout Christian and there's no affair that's happened

00:40:36You know, it's just this it's all about control, right?

00:40:39It's all about that and but it's like how you speak about the public

00:40:45that's probably where I got most disillusioned with everything was is

00:40:49that the public who they are in public and who they are in private is two different things and

00:40:55part of my getting radically saved was

00:40:59You know, I believe that you got to be the same guy

00:41:02I'm not saying you don't have to have struggles and that sort of thing. It's easier to

00:41:07Empathize with somebody who is having struggles and they're honest about it. Then somebody's like I'm the man of God

00:41:15I'm the guy and you got to submit to my authority. Meanwhile over here. My wife hates my guts. My kids hate my guts

00:41:24I'm looking at things. I shouldn't be looking at you know

00:41:28All that part of it. It's just like that's where my disillusionment comes in

00:41:34And it's all created off that

00:41:36If we

00:41:38The way it all ties back is it's been perpetuated ever since its beginning the you act like this out here

00:41:45But back here as long as they don't see past that persona

00:41:50This is okay. We just keep it up and

00:41:53being

00:41:54Married to a pastor's kid. You see a lot of that and then

00:41:59Just the further that you get in the ministry that it's very common. It's very that's a normal thing and

00:42:06I

00:42:07Yeah, like I said all it just again. It kind of all ties back to that

00:42:11That's everybody's trained to do that and you can train it all the way back to William Branham

00:42:16You can train it back to ministers back then

00:42:19Because you have to be that celebrity superhero

00:42:22Man of God, right? So yeah, and the irony is whenever you and I began emailing back and forth

00:42:29That was the point

00:42:30I was actually wanting to drive home and I knew if you had gone to CF and I you probably

00:42:35Would be able to do it

00:42:37see I grew up in a world where I

00:42:40knew pastors children, I was the grandson of one of the headmasters and Branham ism and

00:42:47Looking back, you know, there's a lot of falling out. They call it falling away

00:42:52There's a lot of falling away

00:42:54Pastors children and the reason for this isn't because they're bad kids as the girl would like to like to know

00:43:01But they see the fact that it's all theatrics. They watch

00:43:06One of my favorite cartoons in the Sunday papers was the Lockhorns

00:43:10You see a minister and his wife that fight like the Lockhorns

00:43:15But then they get into the public and oh, they're so happy and not a problem. Well, they're not genuine

00:43:21And so the children can see they're not genuine

00:43:25They have struggles like every person on this earth has struggles

00:43:29But they pretend they don't and the problem that I see with all of this

00:43:35even that I can give them a little bit of grace because they they have a ministry, but

00:43:40when you create that

00:43:42Perception of yourself that isn't even human now you've entered into where you're becoming superhuman

00:43:48I have no problems. I have the perfect life at home. Nothing's wrong

00:43:52Well, you've got a church filled with people who are people and they have people problems and now they're thinking well

00:43:59What what am I doing wrong that I have all of this in my life. That's problematic

00:44:03I must be a sinner and then over time that

00:44:08Transition because they're going to the pastor saying these things and then the pastor gets this

00:44:12Elitist complex like he's above all of that when he's not and the whole thing for me

00:44:18I can see why people become disillusioned because the whole thing is an illusion

00:44:25yes, well and

00:44:29You know, I guess I guess we're just gonna be honest, right I think I think the

00:44:38part of my disillusioned to is

00:44:40Being a minister

00:44:42You can be a master manipulator, right because you have the ability

00:44:47You you catch people in a position of their vulnerable, right?

00:44:51and so you can manipulate people I I can tell you an instance where I saw a

00:45:00I

00:45:02Tried to put a little distance but where

00:45:05The pastor needed money for a car. Well, actually his car broke down

00:45:10so

00:45:12Subtly and I see this happening suddenly

00:45:14He starts to weave in this thing like all this car cost. I think it was ten thousand dollars to repair, right?

00:45:21And he suddenly like but I'm praying for God to you know to provide right who he's talking to this person

00:45:28Who has money?

00:45:30But it's it's so subtly

00:45:34Like you become a master manipulator, right?

00:45:37He's subtly dropping those hints to the point that it's interwoven in the conversation

00:45:42to eventually that person ended up giving him the ten thousand dollars that he needed to fix the car and

00:45:50then

00:45:51there's just different instances like that like where they

00:45:55Because

00:45:57They have people's trust and they're viewed as this not just as a super God or superhuman person

00:46:03But also God's man the anointing and all that kind of stuff

00:46:08the preacher can manipulate the the parishioner into giving them whatever they want or

00:46:16That I can tell you of another instance where somebody's TV broke and in the conversation

00:46:21They had mentioned it that their TV had broken and guess what after church that day here comes

00:46:27Five people with this brand new TV to get it set up in the pastor's house like that's the kind of stuff

00:46:34It's just like and now this particular person that I'm talking about

00:46:39He was not a forceful like

00:46:42Like some some ministers are like that demanding forceful like you serve the pastor and all that he

00:46:49On a interpersonal level he was a very soft-spoken very gentle very kind any and

00:46:55Aside from that. He's a very gentle kind person

00:46:58But he learned how to master that to still manipulate people and get what he wanted

00:47:04He just didn't do it with force. He did it with a soft hand. So yeah, it's just any solution with that, too

00:47:11So yeah, I have a real problem with that. I am. Yeah

00:47:15In fact, I think it was the podcast that are recorded just before this one last week, but had the same exact discussion because I

00:47:24I'm nowhere near the level that they are and I don't ever see myself to be a minister or anything like it

00:47:29but I've noticed that I can say things and I can watch the reaction of people and

00:47:34after you do this a bit you kind of get a feel for

00:47:38the power of your words and how to use them and so if you want people to

00:47:43Understand a certain topic you say it a certain way

00:47:46Well, if you want them to do a certain thing

00:47:48You can also say thing in a thing in the right way and I'm watching all of these ministers in this

00:47:54NAR and all of its

00:47:55apostolic networks

00:47:57they're saying things that

00:48:00Honestly, I can go back in the 60s and I can find white supremacy groups saying the same kind of politically charged statements

00:48:07And it resulted in riots and people died

00:48:10they were people who assaulted other people because of words spoken in a sermon and I'm saying the same thing today and

00:48:18These men like I'm I'm amateur at all of this

00:48:22I'm a little shocked that I'm doing it if I have the power to

00:48:26Understand that my words can have that kind of an effect. Well think of a minister who does this every single Sunday?

00:48:32Yeah, these people know what they're doing. They know what they're saying

00:48:36They know the result that's going to happen

00:48:39and like you said it can be used to get the money I

00:48:43My family has struggles too

00:48:45I'm very cautious not to mention my struggles because people will send me money and many of the people who would send it are very

00:48:52Like the cult has robbed them blind. So I'm careful not to

00:48:56But these ministers I know I can name names. I'm not gonna do it

00:49:01But ministers who have done exactly what you've said and people who did not even have the money to give them

00:49:07Who couldn't even get food on their own table was giving them their money?

00:49:11well, and

00:49:13And I know I don't want to speak. I feel like we're going like we've kind of nailed some I'd have friends who are ministers

00:49:20Who are legitimately?

00:49:22Doing God's work, you know

00:49:24So but the problem is for I feel like for every one good ministry you have

00:49:30Now some people like well, you just have that one bad minister and then there's ten good ones

00:49:34I would beg to differ. I would say for every one minister who's doing the right thing

00:49:39there's ten of them whose lives are on the verge of falling apart and

00:49:43That's from just seeing it. That has nothing to do with like, oh, I'm just disillusioned with the thing

00:49:49It's sad and it's a sad state of affairs

00:49:53Because right there for everyone you have ten that have an agenda

00:49:58Whatever it is to feed their ego to fill their pocketbook

00:50:02sometimes all of it together, you know, it all ties in together and it's sad because I think I

00:50:08Think again if it sounds so weird to say but it all ties back into that's been the ebb and flow of this thing

00:50:16Ever since its inception, even if you look at John Alexander Dowie, it's the same thing

00:50:22Perhaps they started out good, right?

00:50:25perhaps

00:50:27But I think most of it. It's either to feed ego. It's either to feed their finances or stupid

00:50:33the other thing is is

00:50:36Are we allowed to say sex on here? Is that allowed depends on how you say it?

00:50:41Well, but it's allowed to to get the girls. I mean all that stuff's all tied in or the guys

00:50:47I guess it depends on the person. Yeah, but it's all tied in

00:50:51It's it's sex money and power and fame and control. It's never

00:50:56Really what the gospel is about or what Jesus taught about

00:51:00There's very few

00:51:02Churches that are concerned about the poor not really even though that was like the most important thing that Jesus talked about

00:51:09you know in

00:51:11at least from my perception in the view of

00:51:14The charismatic movement and kind of how that all splintered out

00:51:19As long as I can remember

00:51:21There's not been a church. I've been to that

00:51:25That poor was important or the

00:51:28The community was important. It was about the church and about the building and about

00:51:34How are we gonna get a new steeple or of a pave the parking lot not?

00:51:39You know or pastor needs a new car, you know

00:51:43So, yeah

00:51:44Yes

00:51:45The irony is that the ministers who are preaching the hardest against sex drugs and rock and roll are usually after sex money and power

00:51:52so

00:51:53But you always find that. Yes. Yeah

00:51:56Like you I know some really good ministers who have their heart in the right place even in the Branham cult

00:52:01I know some really really good guys, and I wish they could escape though

00:52:05They may never escape but they're really really genuinely good guys

00:52:09But like you say, I'd probably say one in twenty

00:52:13But my my experience is tainted by being in a cult, but like you said, there are good people

00:52:19I've also after leaving the cult. I have been to different a variety of different churches

00:52:25I have seen some who were really genuinely good people. I've also seen some that I

00:52:32You know real churches normal churches. They publish their finances

00:52:36So you can go pick up the papers and see where the money's gone. Well, look at some of the some of their

00:52:43Astronomical expenses and watch as they come in and then watch the God has given me the inspiration to have a money drive

00:52:50And then that follows up. Well, I know exactly why they're doing it. I'm a businessman. I know how this works, right?

00:52:57Right, right

00:52:59Why in church today? I it probably has always been run like a business, but even more so it seems like it's you know

00:53:06again, that's

00:53:08The disillusionment that you get because then you read like in the book of Acts and like, you know

00:53:14It's I get the Apostles are getting the money. They're redistributing the wealth and

00:53:21It seems like the Apostles today are getting the money, but they're not redistributing it back out

00:53:29Other than to fix up the building right that's that's kind of the extent of it the rest of it and and I

00:53:36I'm sure you'll probably get comments and all that. Well, not in our little country church

00:53:40We don't have that kind of resource

00:53:42But but even a church with a hundred and fifty people in it if you have them given ten percent of their income to it

00:53:49There's enough money there to fulfill a lot of things. Oh, yeah

00:53:53Yeah, just from seeing it like you anyway

00:53:58Oh

00:54:02Yeah, you know

00:54:04Ten ten people all it takes is ten people to make one salary

00:54:08So if you have a church of ten people that that pastor is making a pretty good living now

00:54:13You had 20 people he's better than every single one of those 20

00:54:16And so I guess the whole premise of me emailing like it was one

00:54:22It's a it's almost like a like new revelation not really new revelation

00:54:27But more like confirmation of everything that you kind of already knew in a movement

00:54:31But it brings it solidifies it and you don't realize how

00:54:36How connected all it comes back to one human being?

00:54:42And and his surrounding partners that we're all kind of but he's really not just a central fit

00:54:48Figure in the message, but in all of care at the charismatic movement

00:54:54And you don't even realize it and I'm sure there's people that don't even realize it now

00:54:58But it just kind of solidifies even things that we do in that

00:55:01Didn't the charismatic church can all be tied back to them, you know, it was specially with the control the all that stuff

00:55:09So anyway, yeah, I guess that's that's what I have to say with all that

00:55:12But there are a lot of ministers that got in boats in the stream, but Branham was the stream that carried them basically

00:55:18Yeah, he's kind of like when you know

00:55:22Living in Missouri. We got the Mississippi River that comes through it

00:55:25Well, if you go far enough up you can get to where the Mississippi River starts, right?

00:55:30And there's nothing there except for that little trickle that comes down and then it flows out into this massive River

00:55:37from the podcast just

00:55:39Like I said, I knew a William Branham and the way that he's talked about is this powerful man of God

00:55:45But you realize everything flows back to this one central point, you know, maybe John Alexander Dowey before that

00:55:53but I don't think any he would have been like the

00:55:57the Abraham to

00:56:00Jacob yeah that kind of you know, that's that's kind of what it feels like but you just realize that it's all connected

00:56:06But that's why I reached out to you

00:56:08To start with was because it's just like wow, you realize that this is all tied together. So yeah

00:56:15Yeah, I refer to him has as the prototype con man, basically

00:56:22Evangelist and everything's kind of attached to that with I don't care Benny in TL Osborne

00:56:31Joel Osteen's dad John, you know, even Jimmy Slatt like all those guys

00:56:36You can kind of base it all the way back to this again. Same guy same central person. So anyway, yeah, it's crazy stuff

00:56:43Well, I'm so glad you did contact me if you had

00:56:46Some advice that you would give to other people who are trapped in the charismatic movement. What advice would you give them?

00:56:53well for anybody

00:56:56Not even just the charismatic movement probably even your listeners and all that there is a life after that there is and I

00:57:04Think probably in my struggle was was fear like trying to get out of that because even hell is always that thing

00:57:10That's always a threatening thing. Like if you don't do this and you don't do that, then this is the case

00:57:16for anybody who's a believer

00:57:19Read the Bible like the Bible will set you free from all the stuff that doesn't line up with the cult and it fits

00:57:25I will say that the more

00:57:29The more that you're starting to come out of that the more resistance and the fighting than the barking that you're gonna get from everybody

00:57:35Else just telling you you're wrong or you're whatever

00:57:39Trust your instinct. I

00:57:42Guess I would start from that trust your instinct what you feel inside of you

00:57:47That's telling you to get out and get out and walk away from it

00:57:51Reconnect with God. I think the biggest thing that the problem is in any movement is

00:57:57People don't read the Bible, right?

00:58:00They take everybody else's word for it

00:58:03I think the more that you get in more and read the Bible that it will start to kind of push you in that direction

00:58:08To go and if you're probably feeling that already if I'm talking to like your audience

00:58:15If you're feeling that direction to push you out

00:58:18I would even say that this podcast is one of those things that's trying to push you out

00:58:23telling you it's okay to go out that way and

00:58:26I don't

00:58:28Everybody believes different things

00:58:31But I do think that God does kind of

00:58:35It's trying to put you in it push you in a direction to move that way and don't be afraid

00:58:39It is hard because what happens when you do walk away from stuff like that or a church or a body of Christ

00:58:48And I don't mean the actual body of Christ like real Christians, but that body of Christ

00:58:53They will turn your backs their backs on you. They will ostracize you

00:58:57They will threaten you that you're gonna go to hell that you're gonna die and all that kind of stuff, but you won't

00:59:02It's it's just like the Oz the great and powerful. Don't look behind the curtain. Don't do that

00:59:08And what I found is later on

00:59:11They were scared and just as wanting out as you were

00:59:15But they were afraid and that's why they act the way that they act

00:59:19So that I guess I don't know. I kind of went all over the place with that, but truthfully

00:59:24There is a way out just keep moving forward if you feel like that's what you need to do then do it

00:59:29And I think in today's society you have more support groups and more people that have been through that and have gotten out of that

00:59:37That you're not alone, and I think that's probably one thing that your podcast does too

00:59:42It kind of brings to light that you're not by yourself like you're not gonna be

00:59:48There's other people that have walked out of that, you know

00:59:51And that's one thing I'll say about your podcast

00:59:55So the back to the first church, I know we've been all over the place but back to the first church that I went to

01:00:02At the time when I left that church

01:00:05Like they all turned their backs on me

01:00:07And I remember one of the girl that I was dating or kind of singing at the time

01:00:11She said well if you don't love your pastor that my pastor then you can't possibly love me

01:00:17Right and then I remember seeing I was like 16 years old

01:00:22And that was my first Christian experience ever

01:00:25I remember seeing those people in Walmart and them about facing and walking away from me and so

01:00:33So I think the biggest thing is you realize is that you're not really alone and even this podcast

01:00:39Like you feel like you're by yourself at the time, but there's just more

01:00:45There's more people there's more community more groups out there that have been through stuff like that than what their habit

01:00:52I don't I don't know. I guess that's kind of how I would

01:00:55Finish it up and say it that way. Yeah, that's a good advice

01:00:58I had a lady recently contact me and she had her first experience where she had went into a place and that she got the

01:01:05Scorn the the nasty eye I call it from the cult members and right. She was like, well, what do you do?

01:01:13And I said, I don't know that's that's like average Tuesday for me. I

01:01:17Go into any story that happens for me

01:01:20but that initial fear that that's really the weird part of this because

01:01:25You're in it and part of your fear of leaving is because you know

01:01:30Deep down inside that you've done that to other people and that you will write that

01:01:34So then when you leave, you know, what's gonna happen because you were part of it

01:01:38You know, they're all gonna be like that and so it kind of keeps you in that fear then after you leave you're like

01:01:44Oh, no, it's gonna happen

01:01:46But after you're away from it for a while, you're like, yeah, that's kind of childish. That's what a ten-year-old. Yeah, I do

01:01:53It's not what adults usually do

01:01:55Well, you know, it's funny and I know we've probably got a little longer than we should but you know

01:02:01It was funny is that after I had left I left with my youth pastors

01:02:05But

01:02:07After I left what you find is it starts to trickle like years, you know months to years later

01:02:15Those same people that ostracized you that are out of it

01:02:19They come they do come to you with their tail between their legs and apologize

01:02:24But and I and I don't mean I didn't mean to sound like well, they're coming with their tail between their legs

01:02:30They just need somebody to be like, it's okay like yeah, they need a hug, you know

01:02:35yeah, they do and I and so a lot of the relationships, you know, you get older and they kind of go everywhere, but you

01:02:43there's a healing in that once you get through that and then those people that were your

01:02:49Your per lots of their put your persecutor. Yeah, they're not really persecuting like in that, you know

01:02:56But the people that were treating you bad

01:02:58They're just looking because now they feel like you did at that time. They just need somebody to say hey, it's okay

01:03:04Like we're good. Yeah

01:03:07so and I don't know too many people that have gone through that that are not become calloused and

01:03:13Unempathetic towards that. So yeah, anyway, yeah people are people and they all want to like other people at heart

01:03:20They've just kind of been manipulated against it. So well, thank you so much for doing this

01:03:25I could probably go for the next three hours. This is incredibly fun

01:03:35Well, they were all good

01:03:40Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information you can check us out on the web

01:03:44You can find us at William dash Branham org for an overview of the dark side of the NAR

01:03:50You can read weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR

01:03:55available on Amazon Kindle and soon audible

01:04:19You

01:04:49You

Our Stories: Former CFNI - An Interview With Anthony Martin - Episode 183 Branham Research Podcast

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