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This article is one in a series on Allistair Francis' defence of the message - you are currently on the topic that is in bold:

Overview
The Message on Trial - Part 1 - The Initial Defence
The Message on Trial - Part 2 - The Counterattack
The Message on Trial - Part 3 - The Counteroffensive
The Message on Trial - Q&A - Questions & Answers
The Message on Trial - Part 4 - Finding the Balance

Q&A SESSION

Video: "Discouraged by the Message and the Prophet — Q&A" Date: February 11, 2026 Duration: Approximately 1 hour 57 minutes URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCtMtjpLIGA VIDEO SUMMARY The Q&A session represents a significant departure from Parts 1-3. Framed as a Q&A session responding to questions from a "press play" believer, Francis spends most of the video engaging in self-criticism of the Message movement, criticizing fellow ministers, and offering a surprisingly conciliatory tone toward critics. The video opens with an extended presentation of the "Trolley Problem" — a well-known ethics thought experiment — which Francis uses to argue that human moral judgment is inherently flawed, and therefore no one should presume to judge William Branham or declare him a false prophet. He then addresses four questions: 1. What causes people to leave the Message? 2. Were those who left real believers? 3. Why are Message churches so divided? 4. Does Francis play tapes, and is playing tapes biblical? Throughout, Francis makes remarkable concessions: he acknowledges that critics are sincere Christians who love Jesus, admits that Message ministers have covered up scandals and abused their authority, criticizes the "press play" movement as unbiblical, and even states that the fault for people leaving ultimately traces back to "William Branham and not even message people" ([1:20:57]). PRELIMINARY OBSERVATION: A REMARKABLE SHIFT IN TONE After three videos totaling over six hours of dismissing critics as "stupid," "silly," "pathetic," and "ignorant" — after calling them "turncoats" who "tuck their tails between their legs" and go to a "dark place" — the Q&A opens with an entirely different posture. Francis now states: • "I am not at all saying that people from Believe the Sign and other anti-Branham websites are ungodly men or who have turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. Nor do I claim that they are denying the Lord God. Far be it that I should say so. Who am I to judge?" ([4:02–4:38]) • "These people are not evil people. They literally feel spiritual justification to do so because in their hearts they are so convinced..." ([43:15–43:48]) • "They are sincere. They are not evil people who hated God or hate Christ. They believe in Jesus Christ. They love Jesus Christ. They love the Bible. They are absolutely truthful when they tell you that and they want to do what is best to serve him." ([1:17:50–1:18:02]) This is a remarkable reversal. In Parts 1-3, critics were portrayed as spiritually damaged, obsessed, trolling for dopamine, headed for atheism, and comparable to those who persecuted Christ. Now they are sincere Christians who love Jesus and want to serve Him. A fair consideration: Context-dependent communication is not inherently inconsistent. Francis was addressing a "press play" believer in the Q&A, not critics directly. One might speak charitably about an opponent when addressing internal audiences while being more confrontational in direct engagement. This is not necessarily hypocrisy. However, the shift remains significant for two reasons. First, if critics deserve charitable treatment when discussing them with internal audiences, why do they deserve mockery when addressing them publicly? The inconsistency suggests the attacks in Parts 1-3 were rhetorical strategy aimed at discouraging engagement, not principled response to bad-faith actors. Second, and more importantly, Francis's charitable description raises a substantive question he never answers: if critics are sincere Christians examining evidence in good faith, why is their evidence wrong? Six hours of dismissing critics' character does not become an argument against their evidence simply because you now acknowledge their sincerity. The question this raises is obvious: If critics are sincere Christians acting in good faith on what they believe is evidence, why were they subjected to six hours of mockery, dismissal, and character attacks in the previous videos? And more importantly — if they are sincere Christians examining evidence, might they be right? ANALYSIS: THE TROLLEY PROBLEM AND MORAL RELATIVISM THE CLAIM: From [15:54] to [36:45], Francis presents an extended version of the Trolley Problem — a thought experiment about a runaway train heading toward five people, where you can pull a lever to divert it to a track with only one person. He presents increasingly complex variations (criminal vs. innocent, child vs. serial killer, terminally ill mother) to demonstrate that human moral judgment is flawed and situationally compromised. His conclusion: "No matter how good a person you are and how good a Christian you are, you will always make the choice that benefits you or benefits those who are close to you" ([31:14–31:22]). Therefore, we cannot presume to judge Branham or those who follow him. REBUTTAL: The Trolley Problem Is Irrelevant to Prophetic Evaluation. The Trolley Problem explores moral dilemmas involving competing goods, uncertain outcomes, and forced choices between lives. Evaluating whether a prophet's predictions came true involves none of these elements. Did Branham say "Thus Saith the Lord" that Donny Morton would be healed? Yes. Did Donny Morton die? Yes. This is not a trolley problem. This is a simple question of fact. Francis Conflates Moral Complexity with Factual Uncertainty. The Trolley Problem demonstrates that ethical decisions can be complex. It does not demonstrate that factual questions are unanswerable. "Did the prophecy come to pass?" is not an ethical dilemma — it is a historical question with a verifiable answer. The Argument Proves Too Much. If human moral judgment is so flawed that we cannot evaluate prophetic claims, then we cannot evaluate anything. We cannot determine that Joseph Smith was a false prophet. We cannot identify cult leaders. We cannot apply Deuteronomy 18:22 to anyone. We cannot even trust Francis's own judgment that Branham was a prophet. The epistemological skepticism Francis deploys against critics equally undermines his own position. (A note on this argument: It assumes Francis would agree that Joseph Smith, David Koresh, et al. are false prophets. If Francis held consistently to radical epistemological humility — refusing to judge any prophetic claimant — this argument would not demonstrate inconsistency, only a different framework. However, Francis does not hold consistently to this position. Throughout Parts 1-4, he makes evaluative judgments: the press-play movement is "cultish," denominational churches lack the full truth, critics in Parts 1-3 are spiritually damaged. The inconsistency is not in the framework itself but in its selective application — epistemological humility deployed to protect Branham while freely evaluating everyone else.) Scripture Commands Evaluation Despite Human Fallibility. The Bible nowhere exempts prophetic claims from scrutiny on the grounds that humans are morally flawed. Quite the opposite — because humans are fallible, God gave objective tests: "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass..." (Deuteronomy 18:22). God anticipated human fallibility and provided an external standard precisely so we would not have to rely on subjective judgment alone. > Fallacy Identified: Red Herring / False Equivalence. The Trolley Problem addresses moral dilemmas between competing goods. Prophetic evaluation addresses factual questions about whether predictions came true. Francis uses an elaborate thought experiment about the former to avoid the latter. ANALYSIS: THE JUDE DEFENSE — "LET GOD BE THE JUDGE" THE CLAIM: Francis builds his central argument on Jude 8-11, which warns against those who "speak evil of dignities" and notes that even Michael the archangel did not bring a "railing accusation" against the devil. His application: "When you speak against ministers of God, prophets, apostles, prophets, teachers, whoever it is, and you speak about them in a way that you project yourself as having the absolute truth, you have a major problem. It doesn't matter what evidence you have" ([37:00–37:11]). He continues: "Your choice to kill the person's influence testimony leaves you in the unrighteous unlawful position of being and acting like God himself" ([39:59–40:13]). REBUTTAL: The Passage Is About Presumptuous Condemnation, Not Prophetic Testing. Jude condemns those who "speak evil of things they know not" (v. 10) — people who condemn without understanding. Critics of Branham are not condemning what they do not understand; they are presenting documented evidence of specific failed prophecies, changed stories, and historical fabrications. This is the opposite of speaking from ignorance. Michael's Restraint Does Not Prohibit Prophetic Evaluation. Michael declined to bring a "railing accusation" against Satan — he did not decline to identify Satan as the adversary. Similarly, critics are not required to bring "railing accusations" against Branham; they are simply presenting evidence that his prophetic claims failed. Documenting that a prophecy did not come to pass is not a "railing accusation" — it is an observation of fact. Scripture Commands What Francis Forbids. Francis argues that we should not judge prophetic claims regardless of evidence. Scripture commands the opposite: • "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21) • "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1) • "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken" (Deuteronomy 18:22) These are not suggestions. They are commands. Francis is teaching people to disobey them. The "Let God Be the Judge" Defense Protects Every False Prophet. If we cannot evaluate prophetic claims because only God can judge, then no prophet can ever be identified as false. Joseph Smith is immune. David Koresh is immune. Every cult leader who ever claimed divine authority is immune. This framework does not protect truth — it protects deception. > Fallacy Identified: Appeal to Humility / Misapplication of Scripture. Francis uses Jude's warning against presumptuous condemnation to prohibit all prophetic evaluation, including the evidence-based testing that Scripture explicitly commands. ANALYSIS: DEUTERONOMY 18:22 REVISITED — THE "DON'T KILL HIM" ARGUMENT THE CLAIM: At [44:53–48:02], Francis offers a new reading of Deuteronomy 18:20-22. He notes that verse 20 says the prophet who speaks in the name of other gods "shall die," but verse 22 only says "thou shalt not be afraid of him." His argument: "Verse 22, which is commonly quoted, only tells you that if a prophet prophesies and what he has spoken is presumptuous and it doesn't come to pass, you shall not be afraid of him. It says you shall not be afraid of him. It doesn't say you must go around shaming him and destroying his life and destroying his family. It's simply telling you don't pay attention to his prophecy" ([47:39–48:02]). REBUTTAL: The Verse Commands Non-Fear, Not Non-Evaluation. "Thou shalt not be afraid of him" means the prophet's failed prediction carries no divine authority — you need not fear the consequences he threatened or the future he predicted. It does not mean you should remain silent about his failure. The entire purpose of the verse is to enable identification of false prophets so Israel could disregard them. Francis's Reading Creates an Absurd Result. If Deuteronomy 18:22 only permits private non-fear (but prohibits public identification), then Israel had no way to warn others about false prophets. A prophet could make dozens of failed predictions, and the community would be forbidden from telling anyone. This interpretation makes the verse useless for its stated purpose — protecting Israel from deception. The Broader Context Commands Public Action. Deuteronomy 13:1-5 addresses prophets who perform signs but lead people away from God: "That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God." Israel was not merely permitted to privately disbelieve — they were commanded to act publicly. The "don't actively oppose him" reading contradicts the broader Deuteronomic framework. Critics Are Doing Exactly What the Verse Permits. "Thou shalt not be afraid of him" — critics are not afraid. They are presenting evidence that specific predictions failed, enabling others to exercise the same discernment. This is the verse functioning exactly as intended. > Fallacy Identified: Selective Reading / Argument from Silence. Francis argues that because the text doesn't explicitly command "go shame him publicly," public identification is forbidden. But the text also doesn't forbid it, and the purpose of the verse (protecting Israel from false prophets) requires that failed prophets be identifiable. SIGNIFICANT CONCESSIONS The Q&A session contains several remarkable admissions that significantly undermine the defensive posture of Parts 1-3. A note on interpretation: Francis could theoretically maintain that critics are sincere but wrong — that acknowledging their good faith does not concede the validity of their evidence. He could argue that ministerial failures do not implicate Branham himself, and that problems in the movement are distortions of the original message rather than its natural fruit. These are logically possible positions. However, the significance of these concessions lies not in what they prove directly, but in what they require Francis to explain. If critics are sincere Christians examining evidence in good faith — not spiritually damaged trolls pursuing dopamine — then the burden shifts. Francis must now explain why their documented evidence is wrong, not merely dismiss them as spiritually compromised. And that explanation has never come. 1. The Fault Traces to Branham "If I have to answer this brother's question directly, the reason for leaving the message would be the fault of William Branham and not even message people" ([1:20:44–1:20:57]). In context, Francis appears to mean that people's complaints ultimately trace back to Branham — they may leave over ministerial issues, but they eventually find problems with Branham himself. This is not quite an admission that Branham is at fault, but it is an acknowledgment that the prophet himself is the ultimate issue critics have — and that Francis has not resolved it. 2. Critics Are Sincere Christians "They are sincere. They are not evil people who hated God or hate Christ. They believe in Jesus Christ. They love Jesus Christ. They love the Bible" ([1:17:50–1:18:02]). "They are absolutely truthful when they tell you that and they want to do what is best to serve him" ([1:17:57–1:18:02]). This directly contradicts Parts 1-3, where critics were characterized as spiritually damaged, headed for atheism, "trolling for dopamine," and in a "dark place." 3. Message Ministers Have Failed "I've heard personally from some people that have left the message that what caused them to leave was disagreements with ministers. And these disagreements were not about preaching or teachings but rather about management of the church or covering up of scandals or abuse of code or harshly judging children or people" ([1:16:55–1:17:05]). Francis acknowledges the documented pattern of ministerial abuse that critics have highlighted. 4. The Message Movement Created New Traditions "We took people out of organized religion from denominations. We then brought them in this excitement in this buzz of the prophet... and then we created a new message system that killed the ability to have revelation. We forced people to comply to new message traditions. We subjugated them under human leadership... We took away their free will and we used the prophet and his message as a threatening stick to keep people in line" ([1:25:53–1:26:51]). This is a stunning admission. Francis describes the very authoritarian control patterns that critics have documented — and he agrees they are problems. 5. Branham Never Asked for What the Movement Created "He never asked us to print millions of pictures of him, put it up on our homes and churches. He didn't ask us to make pilgrimages to Sabino Canyon to take rocks from the mountains to make message paraphernalia and ornaments and clothes and these pictures on t-shirts and hoodies and watches and bracelets and necklaces" ([1:27:31–1:27:48]). Francis acknowledges that much of Message culture has no basis in Branham's own instructions. ANALYSIS: THE PRESS PLAY CRITIQUE AND INTERNAL CONTRADICTIONS Francis spends considerable time criticizing the "press play and obey" movement — Message believers who reject the five-fold ministry and listen only to Branham's recorded sermons. "Playing the tapes and isolating from the rest of the body of Christ damages you and does not give you more wisdom" ([1:48:41–1:48:43]). "Playing the tapes is only going to lead to cultish behavior" ([1:49:46–1:49:48]). "When you stay home and listen to tapes, you're never going to reach perfection and completion" ([1:49:10–1:49:15]). The Contradiction: Francis criticizes "press play" believers for isolating themselves and refusing outside input — but this is precisely what he has counseled regarding critical material about Branham. In Part 2, he stated: "I already know what I believe and I don't need to go and prove myself and my faith wrong with anything" ([10:33–10:43]). In Part 3, he dismissed examining evidence as something "nobody in his right mind" would do. If isolation from challenging information is "cultish behavior" when press-play believers do it toward ministers, why is it spiritually wise when Message believers do it toward critics? Anticipating the Counter-Argument: Francis might distinguish between rejecting biblically-mandated fellowship (press-play believers isolating from the five-fold ministry) versus rejecting non-biblical sources (Message believers avoiding critical websites). He might argue: "I'm telling people to stay in biblical fellowship while avoiding spiritually dangerous material." Why This Distinction Fails: The principle Francis invokes is that isolation from challenging information is unhealthy and leads to "cultish behavior." This principle does not distinguish based on the source of the challenge. If "iron sharpens iron" (Proverbs 27:17), the sharpening comes from friction — not from agreeable confirmation. The challenge posed by documented historical evidence is no less valid than the challenge posed by a minister's interpretation. Indeed, historical facts are more objective than ministerial opinions. If Francis believes isolation damages spiritual growth, he cannot exempt isolation from inconvenient facts while condemning isolation from inconvenient fellowship. The Deeper Problem: Francis's critique of the press-play movement inadvertently validates the critics' analysis. He acknowledges that: • The Message can produce "cultish behavior" • Isolation leads to unhealthy patterns • People use Branham "as a threatening stick" • Ministers have covered up scandals • The movement has "killed the ability to have revelation" These are precisely the concerns that critical websites have documented. Francis agrees with the diagnosis — he simply exempts Branham himself from any culpability. FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEMS WITH THE Q&A SESSION 1. The Concessions Undermine the Defense Francis's acknowledgments in the Q&A session effectively concede the critics' case: • Critics are sincere Christians acting in good faith ✓ • Message ministers have abused authority and covered up scandals ✓ • The movement has become authoritarian and tradition-bound ✓ • People use Branham to control others ✓ • The fault for people leaving traces to Branham himself ✓ If all of this is true, the question becomes: Why should anyone trust that Branham himself was genuine when the movement he spawned has produced exactly the patterns one would expect from a false prophetic movement? 2. The "Don't Judge" Framework Is Selectively Applied Francis argues that we cannot judge Branham because human judgment is flawed. But: • He judges the press-play movement as "cultish" and "damaging" • He judges critics' motives throughout Parts 1-3 • He judges denominational churches as spiritually inferior • He judges those who display Branham's picture excessively The epistemological humility is selectively deployed to protect Branham while freely evaluating everyone else. 3. The Central Evidence Remains Unaddressed Despite the softer tone, the Q&A session still does not address: • The failed "Thus Saith the Lord" prophecies • The documented changes in Branham's stories • The fabricated meetings with world leaders • The plagiarism from Clarence Larkin and others • The historically false claims (Municipal Bridge, etc.) The Trolley Problem and Jude 8-11 are interesting philosophical discussions, but they do not explain why the brown bear prophecy failed, why Donny Morton died, or why "tens of thousands times thousands" in India never materialized. 4. The Framework Still Protects All False Prophets If we cannot evaluate prophetic claims because only God can judge, then the framework Francis constructs would protect Joseph Smith, Sun Myung Moon, David Koresh, and every other false prophet who ever invoked divine authority. The "let God judge" defense is not a protection of truth — it is an epistemological fortress that makes identifying deception impossible.

Video Transcript

Once again, saints, greetings in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Certainly good to be with you this evening and to share God's word with you. Uh it's a great privilege as always to be serving the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like I always say, it is the greatest honor there is on earth to be a servant in the service of the King. Amen. So without much ado, we'd like to get into the word this evening and it's going to be um question and answers on um the short series that we did on the Wednesday night which was discouraged by the message and the prophet. And um so without much ado, let's get into it and read the scripture as we begin. We're going to read from the book of Jude. And um so like we said question and answers on discouraged with a message and our title is going to be why do people leave the message. That's one of the questions that has been asked. Uh but it's been asked in a specific way. So we'd like to um sort of uh discover what that is and perhaps allow the Holy Spirit to speak with us this evening. So Jude 1:8-11, the word of God reads like this. Likewise also, these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, do not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke thee." But these speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally as brute beasts. In those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them for they have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the era of Balum for reward and perished in the gain saying of Kora. Amen. The Lord add a blessing to his precious word. So as an introduction to this question and answer session, I would like to explain the importance and the severity of the scripture. The context of the scripture in Jude is about using our words to condemn things that we think are worthy of our condemnation. And I just want to say at the beginning of this, all of us are guilty of this. Everybody does this every single day to an extent depending on the circumstances. uh we feel like it is uh and I and I suppose it is a nature in man which was placed there in Adam at the beginning uh which is this nature of being the superior um mammal if you would on this earth and the ability to control and so on that we use our words to condemn things and we believe that the way we are speaking is Right? We even believe that um that our knowledge that we have in the moment is enough to allow us to pass condemnation. And the book of Jude in in the context is speaking of people who are bringing accusations against those who are of high officers in the ministry. Now I know that the context of this chapter is about if you read from the beginning it's it says is about certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained uh to this condemnation ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God. Now, so using that context, I am not at all saying that people from Believe the Sign and other antibrandom websites are ungodly men or who have turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. Nor do I claim that they are denying the Lord God. Far be it uh that I should say so. Uh who am I to judge? But what I want to draw wisdom from is in what verses 8 to 11 is telling us because I feel it is important for all of us to understand the most important thing of all that we are flawed sinners saved by grace. And most important we are limited in our knowledge on anything concerning God. No matter how much we know uh we come to realize we don't know enough to the point of almost knowing nothing. I always say this. Uh, one of the the memorable things of being with my dad was climbing a mountain together and uh, he told me, "Do you see as we get closer to the sky, the stars seem further apart uh, or further away from us?" And I said, and I said, "Yes, it seems like we're never getting closer." He says, "Sometimes I feel that that's how it is with God. the closer you get to him, the further you feel away from him um because of who he is and uh it's just it was an amazing thing to understand. So I want to even say this of brother Brandham which may confuse or anger some believers and I don't mean to do that but it's just the truth. Brother Brham did not mentally know or understand everything. Neither did he claim to. In fact, he was so humble literally telling us that uh he only spoke what he was shown. And so if he didn't mentally understand though he preached things and spoke about concepts and spoke about it here and there and probably didn't tie everything up as wonderfully as we would have expected him to. uh he did not claim to know everything and it is wrong for us as message believers to try to take things and claim as if he did. Then also neither do we know everything and neither do we claim to know everything. Neither should we claim to know everything though we know a lot. If I'm reading his messages correctly, he humbly pointed to Christ and claimed to know nothing except which he was shown. So if you believe him to be a prophet of God, then you must know that prophets are vessels used by God however it pleases him. And then he takes them away however it pleases him. Prophets are merely shown things to bring about a purpose. that is often unknown to men uh unknown to them and even unexplained. They are also unable to explain themselves or what they mean in a satisfactory manner to the public. From Moses to Samuel to all the prophets of the Bible, they made mistakes. They said things in error. They were irresponsible with their families. They were rejected by the majority and many were put to death. So this uh shows us that God's prophets were not uh pe men who were acceptable in society. They were not accepted. They were very often the true prophets were very often rejected. The false prophets were the ones who were accepted by everybody and loved by the public. But the true prophets were always sidelined and questioned and grilled and uh people were going after them to prove that they are wrong. They made errors. They said things in anger. Um they did things presumptuously. They they were even many times worthy of uh criticism. So we we literally have a scripture in Acts chapter 7 where Steven speaks to his accusers and those who are stoning him. And uh this is what he says in Acts chapter 7. Let's share that with you. He says which Acts 7:52 which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted. That that question is is like a statement saying your fathers that means Israel have literally persecuted every prophet that God has ever sent to you because the question said which of the prophets have have not your fathers persecuted right this is quite telling and they have slain them which showed before that means they prophesied of they killed those that prophesied died before of the coming of the just one that is the Messiah of whom you have now you have been now the betrayers and murderers. So that's quite a statement there made by Steven just before he is stoned. So if you think about it logically I want to I want you to look at the scripture and think about it logically with understanding. The fathers of Israel were not all terrible evil men who just chose to persecute the prophets of God without reason. They must have been there must have been legitimate reasons for doubting the prophets that God sent. And they must have had legitimate accusations against them for killing them. Surely these prophets didn't come and just please everyone and do everything right. and there were just these evil men there who just wanted to kill them. No. If they persecuted every one of the prophets, then it's indicative that these prophets did something to upset the status quo. They these prophets did things said things that uh angered the public. They must they must have and the people who persecuted them and killed them must have thought themselves justified because these men were not men who who didn't know the law. They knew you couldn't kill. Thou shalt not kill. They understood that. They knew you should not kill, you should not murder. So to blatantly go against the commandments and kill every single prophet, persecute every single prophet, either the children of Israel were all berserk or mentally insane, or they had legitimate reasons to believe they were righteous in killing the prophets and uh and holding these prophets to account. So when you consider the Lord Jesus himself and and I preached this in in several services in our church to to dramatize and explain to the people why they crucified Christ and how he he goed them. He uh provoked them to anger and knew that they had to kill him. Right? So because he was probably the only one who knew from the start compared with all the other prophets who knew what his purpose was and that it was to die. But when you consider him um uh those who persecuted him were the leaders of Israel. They all felt they had legitimate reasons. They they didn't just come out and kill him. They came and tested him like good believers. They questioned him. They questioned him on scripture. They questioned him on signs. They questioned him on healing. They they didn't just in one week come out and call him a false prophet and kill him. They listened to him. They went to his services. They um took reports from other people. They sent servants to sit and listen and bring back reports and he discerned all of them and gave them answers that deliberately angered them. The scripture even says so. And because it appeared to them in the things that he did that he might have been a charlatan and a fraud is the reason they persecuted him. And um they were men who also kept the law of Moses. And from their perspective, he did not meet the law of Moses. He did not match the law that they had lived for 1,500 years that they had kept for generations. And yet he was the Christ they looked for. So again for the naysayers you know against the message and the prophet I am absolutely I don't know how many times to say this not equating William Brham to Christ. I want so I want to draw your attention to the very common nature in man that occurs whenever God presents his servants in any age or any time. So, if God sends a true servant, I want you to search the Bible and tell me where I'm wrong. Whenever God sends a true servant, uh, true prophet, the people distrust him. He has to prove himself with signs. Uh, they try everything to disprove him from the very get-go. This is the history of the Bible. So that's the first thing I also want to draw your attention to and this is really what I want to speak about uh to the wisdom given in the book of Jude in that chapter which is a warning that we should tread carefully with our words against any individual that you don't know whether God sent him or not. Tread carefully. There are many people in scriptures which which tell us that including the great galial. So I often do a very exciting morality exercise with youth at meetings to make them understand how each of us are flawed in our thinking to prove to you whether you're a pastor, a deacon, a song leader, a prayer warrior, a preacher, an evangelist, an apostle, a prophet, whoever you are, you are a flawed individual in your thinking. You may even believe that you have the highest morality, but with the with some of these exercises, we can prove to you that your morality is flawed. There's a problem. You we have these errors. Okay? So this exercise is a manipulation and the young people of today who go to universities and uh probably in you know the highest levels of high school probably will know this uh exercise which is commonly called the trolley problem. The trolley problem or the um runaway train problem. Okay, for those who don't know this uh what it is, I want to explain it first, right? And I just want to say as a disclaimer, if you have children with you who are watching or listening to this, it can be a little disturbing. And if you feel that they are not old enough to handle this uh with some discretion and with you know or or if you feel they won't be able to handle it please handle it with your own discretion and with caution because it involves questions and statements and pictures on death and real life decisions. So that can be quite traumatic. So, I would urge you if you have little children or something that are watching this evening, just uh maybe ask them to leave the room or something like that for a little while. We'll just take about 15 minutes on this or so. So, that's all it will take. But if you feel they can handle it, that's up to you. Okay. So, I want to share with you the first slide uh of the trolley problem and we'll take it from there. All right. So this one is to explain the trolley problem. So what you are seeing there on your screen right now is a train which in I suppose North America and other places they would call it a trolley or a carriage or something. Right? So what you're looking at is a train that there's no driver. It's a runaway train. It's there's nobody inside the train to control it. And you can see it's running down a straight track and it's heading for five people who are on the track. You are the person at the lever. There is a lever uh that has the ability to turn the train and move it onto the other track where there is only one person on that track. Okay. Now um the original diagram, the original trolley problem presents a scenario where this runaway trolley or train is headed towards five people who are working. They are workers working on a train track and on the other track there is one person working and so you are the person at the lever. So so this one is just showing them lying down. You know it's not like they were wanting I have to explain the specifics. It's not like they were all lying down wanting to be killed or they were tied up. It's just a diagram to show you and test your motives and intentions. Now, so what you're looking at is the very simple dilemma in humans because we are all wired this way. So you are standing next to the lever or lever whichever continent you come from and and pronunciation you have. you have the power to pull that lever and move the train towards one person. The the original dilemma is well if you pull the lever you can save the lives of five people and but however if you pull the lever by your own free will you are condemning a one person to death who most likely was not going to die if you did not pull the lever therefore you become responsible for that person's death. So the question here is are you willing to save five people's lives and take the life of another one bearing the responsibility that it was your choice. Okay. Now bear in mind because we are we all feel good that we are good moral individuals and we feel like we can make these decisions. We uh we feel as if you know we are we are able to make these decisions and uh that we have good moral values that we are good Christians and we feel that we can make correct decisions in life in in everything and and I've I've done this exercise with many people especially with youth. I love doing this with youth because youth are always so honest. uh surprisingly on this they will be like you know no pull the lever save five people you are and you'll see them arguing and they'll say no brother Al it's better to say five than one and then I say to them hold on so you save five and one but are you willing to bear the responsibility for making that one person die because it was your choice and then you see their mind start to fill with questions and deciding Now wait, hold on. I didn't think this through. So if we are called upon to make this decision with other people around, it can be quite embarrassing. If I if we have a onetoone, we can have a nice philosophical discussion. But when there are other people, you know, there's family members, there's church people, there's other youth, and they look around and look at the other one. And many times when I when I do this with youth, you have like a 50/50 split. sometimes well you know it'll be a little bit more like 7525 split or something like that where some people and or you'll have uh a third split where some saying well we don't need to do anything you know you just let it be because it was meant to be. So um we have these different explanations right and um the questions are numerous when you when you look at this and it really questions your your moral fiber like isn't it better to save five but will you feel justified will you sleep knowing that you are the reason why that one person died right and um you know uh there there would be people that would say uh people who will consider morality will say but was it my choice to make anyway? What if the universe what if God meant for the five people to die? So then that begs the question why did God allow you to be at the lever with the choice? Because if God meant for the people to die why did he put someone at the lever? Why is there somebody who can make a choice, who can alter a situation? All right, so uh remember this is a hypothetical situation, right? So what I want to do now is to change things up. Uh and I want to uh I I want to challenge you in ways you probably haven't thought about using this um concept. Okay, hope you're ready for this. So, let's change this up. Let's say you are at the lever and the one person on the track or the person on the track where there there's only one person is a criminal and you know he's a criminal and then on the other track those five are regular good citizens. Now, what will you do? Right? The majority of people have the thinking in this society, well, it's only right that we we save the lives of the five good citizens and take the life of the criminal because he's not a good citizen. He's not a a help to society. So the fact that he's a criminal that means the fact that you can judge his person seems to give you a moral reason to say I am justified in pulling the lever. But the point is they are all humans with a life. Are you going to take that life? Right? So my question is, does it make it easier for you to uh to pull the lever? Okay, let's go to the next one. Now it gets worse, right? So here is you again at the lever. The one person on the one track is an innocent child and there are five people on the other track. Four of those people are good citizens and one of them is a serial killer, a known serial killer and a child molester. And you know it, you can see them. You know this guy has been hunted by the police. He's here in disguise. You recognize him. He's a serial killer, child molester. Now you have the opportunity to take his life. You have the opportunity to end him. At this point, will you let the train go? save the life of the innocent child and you know for the greater good let the good citizen those four good citizens die and end the life of a terrible terrible human being. Now I want you to see that most human beings are going to place more value on the life of the innocent child, no value on the life of the serial killer and are going to say it is acceptable to let the other four humans die and save the innocent child. This is exactly how human think humans think. My point is what is the right decision? What is the moral decision? Okay, think about that now because these are situations where we probably never encounter serial killers in real life or situations like this. So, let's bring it closer to home. Here is you. Okay, this is a real life situation and it's symbolic. It's not even about the train, right? You'll get what I'm talking about in a in a few minutes. The one person on the track is your terminally ill mother who you love very much. Sorry, it's spelled wrong there. Ill mother. She's got fourth stage pancreatic cancer and she's in absolutely unbearable pain and you cannot cope seeing her in pain. And the other five people are cancer patients who are undergoing treatment. And some of them uh will have treatment and probably survive. But you have the ability right now to pull that lever and end your mother's life. I know it's terrible to speak about this, but for some of you are sensitive, but this is real life situations. And many of you uh fall into these situations where you've got to make these choices. You know what I'm talking about. You go to a hospital and they tell you the the doctors tell you all hope is lost. your your parent, your son, your child, whoever is on a machine, we recommend you pull the plug because if you don't uh they are they are going to suffer and you are going to be the cause of the that's our medical decision and then you will have u other people who are Christians telling you no do not do it pray and believe by faith and what do you do right these are real situations that you face every day, you end up being the person and and you know the hospital makes you sign a document that you are going to be the person who makes the choice and so this looks terrible but this translates to an actual real life situation. Okay, what which will you do? Because inside you you're crying. You're thinking, "Lord, please don't let my mother suffer like this." If you're not going to heal her, and this can go on for a long time, right? And eventually, somebody caves. Somebody makes a decision, somebody bears the responsibility, and you have to live your life dealing with the fact that you made a certain choice. Okay? You say, "But okay, that's just for my mom. You know, I'm not going to make the choice for other people." I'm going to explain it to you in a little while. Here's another one. Um, there's you and there's one. The one person on the track is a on the one track is a delinquent drug addict teenager, right? And the other five are five good, well-mannered boys. The train is heading for the five boys. You can save them and you can take the life of the delinquent drug addict teenager. What do you do? Again, this looks like an easy decision because the human moral code will be save the good people. But I want to show you something. These are people you don't know right now. They're good, well-mannered boys. The drug addict teenager might, if you saved him, might grow up and give his life to Christ and become an absolutely wonderful person in society. And these five good, well-mannered boys could absolutely go off the rails and and and become terrible people. But you make choices like this every day. For example, you go to school, there's a bully there who's bullying several children and whatever, and you see something, something happens and something happens between the five good, well-mannered boys versus the delinquent drug addict, teenager, whatever. And you are called upon because you witnessed some incident and you alter the story because you feel it's right to condemn the delinquent rather than to get the five good men and boys in p in trouble. People do this all the time. Choose not to tell the truth but to make a moral decision based on what is acceptable in society. These are just four examples I've given you. Trust me, we could do a whole lot more. Okay. Now, where are we going with this? Brother Al, I would go on and show you numerous scenarios. As you hear each one, you will realize that life's choices are not as easy as they seem. And we make these choices um sometimes it feels like on the spur of the moment. um and with with what information we have that we are provided with. But we have to live with the consequences of our choices. We also have to prove to ourselves that we made the right choice and we try to condone ourselves with whatever evidence we have and we ask people their opinions and people who love us will give us favorable favorable opinions to make us feel better. Our friends will do that. Other people will criticize us. We balance it off. Eventually, we learn to live with it. What you end up realizing is the truth is when it comes down to the crunch. No matter how good a person you are and how good a Christian you are, you will always make the choice that benefits you or benefits those who are close to you. There are some people and I've encountered this on youth meetings and um other places where I've done this exercise with people u these are people who suffer with altruism like a hero complex and say instead of pulling the lever I will jump in front of the train and stop the train and save everybody you know and and as a believer or Christian you think well that's more Christlike it's better I die and let them all live That sounds heroic, but it's an absolutely stupid option because if you give your life without knowing whether you'll actually stop the train, then it was a wasted choice because then you killed yourself and five people and you produced no good outcome, right? But it is still a choice to sacrifice yourself for others. And it's one that many humans make. and sacrificing themselves in this altruistic way is actually a character flaw. Right? There are I want to I want you to understand there are thousands of people that have to make these choices. In fact, it's millions. But thousands of professional people that have to make everyday choices many times a day, every day of their lives. For example, medical doctors need ethics boards to guide them so they don't become corrupt to decide who gets a kidney, who gets a a vaccine. Paramedics at a car accident scene have to decide which person they must save first. So there's a lady whose husband is like 60 years old and there's a child. The paramedic is going to say, "I have to ch save the child first and leave the older man because he's lived a life. The child gets first preference." Or the paramedic is going to say, "Look at the situation and say, "Well, this person's injuries look really severe and I've got to make a choice. Even though I might be able to save him, it's going to take me longer. These ones I can save. it's these are going to take longer to die, but I can save more of them. So, the paramedic has a real conundrum. He's going to make that decision on based on how many to save, what are their vitals, um maybe uh what are their conditions uh and so on. And millions of people have to make these moral and righteous decisions that do not involve life or even do not even involve life or death situations. Like I spoke about the bullies at school or work situations some uh something in business uh if you're a businessman making all these decisions makes us live with so much of stress because we never know whether we are 100% correct when we make a decision. We always need something afterward to make us feel that we did the right thing. There are a lot of people who are not able to live with themselves for the decisions that they make. A lot of medical doctors are found to be taking substances to cope with these decisions. A lot of people um end up in really bad situations. Now, what's worse is as a Christian and a believer, when we bring God into the picture and the will of God, it makes things even more complicated because we all assume that we understand the will of God based on our thinking and our interpretation of scripture. So if you are a pure Calvinist, you may assume I am here at the lever. But if the train track is straight and the train is heading for those five, then it was the will of God and I do not need to step in. And if God wants to save them, he'll strike it with lightning. He'll do something. He'll cause something to happen. He will save them. It's not my business. I'm a Calvinist. I stand back. If you are Arminian, then you will believe my choice matters. I have to step in. I have to make some choice here. Right? And here's the problem with both Calvinist and Armenian. If you have a family member involved in the scenario, you will see a Calvinist turn into an Armenian at the drop of a hat and vice versa. The Armenian will become a Calvinist immediately. uh if it's reversed. So what does this prove to us? No matter how good you think you are or how much you think you have the truth on something, you are in no position to think that your choice is completely moral. That your choice is a completely moral choice and that is in line with the will of God. The truth is, you just don't completely know. And I'll say this, without grace, it's hopeless. Without faith, it's pointless. Without the Holy Spirit, your choice is perverted and your morality is just human weakness. So when you look at Jude 8:11, he is saying that when you speak against ministers of God, so this is where we are going with this. When you speak against ministers of God, prophets, apostles, prophets, teachers, whoever it is, and you speak about them in a way that you project yourself as having the absolute truth, you have a major problem. It doesn't matter what evidence you have. If you think for one second you possess the absolute truth on something based on evidence and whatever uh and you pass judgment in a certain way upon another person or a minister of God, you are putting yourself in a very dangerous position. You may criticize what's being done. There's nothing wrong with that. You can criticize the actions of a person, the words of a person, but to attack that person uh and state as a fact that you have the authority to decide based on your evidence and eyewitness testimonies whether that person was used of God or not is a very dangerous place to be in. Jude says they speak evil of things they don't understand. So when I consider things that happened in brother Brandham's day, I am easily able to say I don't understand. I wasn't there. I don't know the specifics. I don't know the eyewitnesses. I don't know anything. I don't know whether the eyewitnesses change their testimony over time because eyewitnesses always change their testimony. Right? So I don't know who to trust. I don't know whether I can trust newspaper clippings from then, magazine articles from then. I don't know anything. If brother Bham himself relayed a story in 194 and then relayed the same story 20 years later, do I really expect him to tell the story exactly the same way? No. It's not humanly possible unless you wrote it down, right? and then you read it out because every time you retell a story, your mind changes things and you use different words. So if your words are now recorded in book and tape 50 years later, it's that easy to say, look, he changed things here. He's irregular here and there. This is not the way of a prophet. It's easy to do that. And you might be right in even critiquing that, but are you right in condemning that man? That's the question. Nobody has the authority to do that. You simply have the choice to follow and believe that person or to reject and leave that person. That's good. That's a good choice, right? That's an actually a good thing to do. Like Galiel said, let it go. Don't do anything against them. If it be of God, it will prosper. If it is not, it it will not. But do not do something where you are going to be accountable to God for something that he has ordained. So your choice to kill the person's influence testimony leaves you in the unrighteous unlawful position of being and acting like God himself. That's what Jude is describing. Jude actually uses the example of Michael the archangel having all the right in the world to criticize the devil and bring a false or rather bring a full case. He's saying Michael had the right to bring a full case of what he calls railing accusation. He could absolutely do that. I mean it's Michael and the devil for crying out loud. Michael could start off with, listen, he is the devil, right? We know this. Jude is actually giving us a situation where you literally have a known angel and a known fallen angel already. Their credentials say who they are, but the angel of God will not even bring railing accusation against a fallen angel. This is what the scripture is telling us. And look at what Michael says. He chooses to say, "Let God be the judge." Now, that's that's where I find the problem with those who fight against brother Brandham and the message and those who fight for brother Brandham and the message. I find this problem with both sides. What ends up happening is each side is playing God to decide who is evil and who is not. We are all people. If you had a situation where you have an angel and a fallen angel and the angel is not bringing railing accusations, look at us humans. We are flesh and blood with souls and spirits and minds and families and jobs and we are all trying to live a good life. To try to decide and publicly shame one another to call the other side evil and serpent seed and Lord knows whatever other names and labels we can find, right? to attack individuals and people and naming them and labeling them not knowing the full truth or even having whatever truth you have. You can never be 1,000% right because you're human and God is the judge and you just don't know the truth or why God even chose that person that you are persecuting and for what purpose God chose that person. So antibrandom people have chosen by their own free will to pull the lever and kill the one person because they feel they have sufficient justification. They vilify and demonize brother Brandham and message ministers and other people openly without care for the consequences, without care that they hurt their families, whatever situation they're in, they do not care because they feel justified. And I want I want you to know these people are not evil people. They literally feel spiritual justification to do so because in their hearts they are so convinced that he is a false prophet and you are cult people and you are taking other people to hell and deceiving other people. Therefore they have the justification from God to vilify you, demonize you, shame you online, investigate you, take you to the police, do whatever they can to spoil your testimony. They feel justified in doing so because they have been tricked into thinking they are justified. They are right. They are 1,000% in the truth. Right? And yet Judah is saying you're absolutely using your own natural mental reasoning. Right? Um uh and uh because you are demanding evidence to the is literally the truth because you are demanding show me the evidence. Show me the contrary evidence as a justification for your argument that he is a true prophet. They satisfy their morality gauge by human standards and they even use the scriptures to do so. So let's have a look at Deuteronomy 18 which is one of the deciding scriptures um one of the main scriptures that they use to decide on whether someone is a false prophet or not. All right. Deuteronomy 18:20-22. But the prophet which shall we spoke about this last week as well. Which shall presume to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. Notice that. Even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, how shall we know the word which the Lord God hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him. Okay? Now, they have an argument there. Here's the morality problem. The scripture says if that prophet speaks something uh u that I have not commanded him and he speaks in the name of other gods that prophet shall die. There's the criterion for him dying. Then it says if a prophet speaks verse 22 in the name of the lord and something does not come to pass and that is the thing and it's not the thing which the lord had spoken him. It doesn't say he must die. It says that prophet had spoken it presumptuously. Thou shalt not be afraid of him. What does that mean? So did God say in there that that you must be the one to kill this prophet if he speaks presumptuously or where it says if he speaks in the name of other gods or or something I have not commanded him to speak that he must die. Does the scripture says you must kill him? Does the scripture say the priest must kill him? Does the scripture say Moses must kill him? Who is it that must do the killing? Or did God mean, I will take care of him? I will take his life. I will cause him to no longer serve and exist. I'll take him away. Right? Now, here's the morality question. Whose decision is it to take this prophet's life? Who's going to be responsible for doing so? The problem is it doesn't say. There are other scriptures where it says and they commit adultery, you you shall stone both the man and the woman. They shall be stoned to death. There's an indication that the judges must appoint people to do the killing. The scripture doesn't tell you what to do, right? Verse 22, which is commonly quoted, only tells you that if a prophet prophesies and what he has spoken is presumptuous and it doesn't come to pass, you shall not be afraid of him. It says you shall not be afraid of him. It doesn't say you must go around shaming him and destroying his life and destroying his family. It's simply telling you don't pay attention to his prophecy. In other when it says you shall not be afraid of him, it it means you don't have to respect the prophecy that is given or adhere to it or anything or even listen to him. You can just walk away. Right? So what does it tell you to do? It simply means you don't have to be concerned with the prophecy made. You don't have to pay attention to him. You don't need to be afraid of him. It does it tell you to go and destroy him, kill him, kill those who follow his word, destroy his friends and family? No, it doesn't. So those who do that on what authority of scripture are you doing what you are doing that's my question on the other hand and this is speaking to those people on the message side we have had ministers in the message some ministers in a message for decades demonizing denominational people by name calling people so seed demonizing those who leave the message, destroying their names and reputations publicly, condemning them to hell. You know that excommunicating somebody is not condemning them to hell. It's an act of love uh in the hope and prayer that they will reconcile themselves once again and come back into the body. It's it's not right to condemn them to hell. Now, these are what message people have done. And then these ministers and leaders of churches have this overall belief as if they can just say what they want to and get away with it. They can act like the elite people of God who have the final say in everything and that they are without fault. They feel they can say whatever they want without care or concern for the reputations of other people and the feelings of others. They can block families from meeting one another. They can do things which the prophet doesn't tell you to do, which the COD doesn't tell you, which the Bible doesn't tell you to do. Listen, if you have personal conversations with people you disagree with in the message and so on and you have words with them and it's meet in each other's house, call them up on the phone, one- on-one, family to family, brother to brother, and you have arguments and even heated arguments, YOU GET IT OUT. THAT'S FINE. That's human. But when you go onto public platforms and choose to speak with authority as if you speak for God to judge another person individually to shame them, their name, their church, their family, their ministry, whatever it is, you choosing to do that is you pulling that lever and thinking you are justified in doing so. I believe that the prophet taught us never to do that. He said in in every time where he spoke against something uh I speak against the system and not the person or the individuals. He believed that people are all good people even if they are influenced by something else. He even told us a story where he because of how he preached and because he was an evangelist and so on, he had this judgmental attitude and he went into this restaurant and there was a woman who was very ludely dressed and in his heart he was condemning her and the Holy Spirit showed him, man, look at your book of life. Here's all the things you did and and written across it is canceled, stamped in the blood of Christ. if I could do this for you, why could you not give mercy for that person? And it changed him, right? But it didn't change the way he was going to preach when he got on the pulpit. He was going to speak against sin. He was going to condemn unrighteousness, but never individually hurting and disgracing a person publicly. Right? Don't go do that. I believe the prophet never taught us to do that. He said, "I speak against the system and which is what we should be doing." So I would take a lesson from Jude that no matter what I believe in or how deep my conviction is, let God be the judge. While I welcome their challenges, I will challenge their beliefs. But I still hold to my honor and my integrity to not behave as if I am above them or or a worthy judge of their persons or characters. And like I said, if you do this individually with someone, have it out. Don't let the sun go down on your wroth. Understand what that means. Go speak your mind. Go speak onetoone. Go message them. Go phone them. Go get it out of your system. Go do that. and then repent of it or whatever it is. But don't go to the public because you are taking a fight between people who believe in Christ and then putting it out there to shame other people. This isn't right. This is why I hold on to everything I believe by faith and and I find no need to be an apologist for the prophet or the Bible. I will only answer things that I am asked about with honesty and the best of my knowledge to help a person who feels discouraged. But still, I will give them the choice gladly. I will tell them here's what it says. Here's what I believe. Here's what I believe the Bible says. But the choice is ultimately yours. Whichever choice you make, I am happy for you. Uh, and look, the truth is as a human, if you don't make the choice I would like you to make, I'm not going to be entirely happy. And if you're close to me and you're my friend and you do that, it's going to hurt me. But I have to respect your choice because man was thrown into sin because of free will choice. So the victory must be won by free will. Which means not one of us can take that free will victory from another person. You have no right to force someone to make any decision. The entire foundation of the of the gospel is John 3:16 that God had mercy on all mankind and became flesh in Jesus Christ that whoever believes in his word by faith shall obtain salvation from sin and achieve true life. Okay, here is my stand. I'm going to say something to encourage those who are sincere and I really want to know uh and and and those who really want to know God and who really want to find peace in God and break away from religious tradition. What I'm going to say to you now might anger both denominational Christians as well as message people. Okay? But it's not my desire to do that. I'm just telling you my perspective and from where I am coming from. And I also want to make it known for those people who are who hear what I'm saying and who are against the message. I want you to know I'm speaking from a place of never ever ever being obsessed with William Brham or being a Branomite or being someone who pushed the prophet above Christ. Never have I done this in my life. In 25 years of being a pastor of the message, that's since the year 2001, I have never had any pictures of Jesus Christ, brother Brandham, the cloud, or any religious paraphernalia or ornaments nailed on my walls in my house. I have never placed any great significance in crosses or angels or symbols. Some of you looking here now, you're going to see things behind me. This little yellow and black Lego cross was made by my little boy and he asked me to put it there so when he sees me on the screen, you know, he wants to see this cross. This is why it's there. It's sentimental. This eagle behind me was from my my late dad's desk uh which was given to me by my mom. Other than that, there's some gifts on my shelves here which were given to me by other believers. But by myself and by my own choice, I have chosen not to do any of this. And I want to explain why. I don't have a problem with other people having religious pictures, Christian pictures, or pictures that are considered message pictures. From childhood to adulthood, I grew up in a home and in churches where there were all kinds of religious Christian pictures and ornaments. So, I don't have a problem with it. I want to tell you a story that my church is familiar with. uh in the first year of being a pastor, I just moved into a place in a certain area and uh a beggar, what we call a beggar or well, it was not exactly a homeless man, but a really really poor man who goes from house to house begging for money or food. He came up to our door and knocked on my door. And when I opened the door, he greeted me and said, "Assalamu alaykum." Cuz he assumed because of the area that we were living in and because of the people around that were Muslims, he assumed I was Muslim. So I said, "I'm not a Muslim, sir. I'm a Christian." And so, of course, being um and this is the the kind of tradition of beggars here. They really want to work it, you know, they want to they want to get on your good side so that they can get something from you, some food or some money. So he said, "Oh, okay. That's a you're a Christian. Oh, that's wonderful." You know, and and then he told me, you know, I'm a Hindu and uh I believe in Jesus Christ and you know, we worship uh we worship all the gods and I pray to him, too. So he's I know what he's doing. He's trying to get on my side. He wants me to give him something. So look, in my heart, I'm going to give him something anyway, but I'm just humoring him to hear his story. So he starts making chitchat with me and uh and he tells me, you know, he asked me a question. So you know which church you go to? And I said, 'Well, we're not a denominational church. We're an independent church. So he starts asking me more questions and then he kind of is peering into my house, you know, to look at my walls and to kind of figure out who I am, you know, he's really a a good businessman working his craft. And um and then he I I I just said to him, "Well, he he wants to know like which church, but are you like Pentecostal? Are you Catholic?" He starts grilling me almost, you know, and I said, "No, we're independent." Uh and I and he said, "But like where is your church and you have churches?" You know, I know the next thing he's going to tell me and I want to come to your church because it's it's so often what they do. So I I thought I was getting a bit tired and I thought, well, you know, let's just give it to him straight. So I said, "Well, have you heard of William Brandham?" And he said, and I just thought if I mention this name and he knows who we are, he's going to just say, "Okay." And he won't give me any more long story. He because I really wanted to get back to my work, you know. So he said to me something so surprising. He said, "Oh, I know you guys. You are the people who worship all the eagles. You have eagles on your gates and your door and in your house and pictures of eagles and you have uh you have statues of eagles and and then he starts telling me about uh some relative of his who goes to one of our churches and there's just eagles everywhere and he says you guys are are eagle worshippers and uh your prophet is a white man. And so I looked at this man I realized I said no sir we don't worship eagles. He said no it's okay it's okay you know I know you know you guys say that uh you know you don't uh worship idols but you know those are idols and you have pictures if you are looking at a picture you know th those are idols. So we are all the same. Now, at this point, you know, if I was any other kind of person, I'm going to get a little insulted here and think, you know what, whatever I was going to give him, I'm going to half that. But I didn't. But what he said made an impression on me. And um this happened in the first year of me being a pastor and I was just 26 years old. That incident made such an impression, right? Uh and then earlier in my life when I was in school uh and I I think I was in grade 11 or grade 12 rather the last year uh of schooling and my parents both mom and dad were away dad was preaching overseas and he was away for 2 months and so my grandmother had come to live with us and she was uh she was a devout Hindu she was a really sweet fun old lady and uh she came to our home and uh she lived with us she cooked for us she took care of of us and uh she used to see us doing our family altar every evening, my my brothers and I. There were just three of us at home and we would do our family altars. We would read the Bible. We would pray together, each one of us, and you know, then pray together. And so she would watch us and in the morning she would go out with a brass container and pour out her drink offering to the sun and do her prayer and whatever and come back in. But after the first week, she would make sure she would tell us, she would remind us, "Okay, it's 6:30. All of you get to bath. 7:00 is prayer time." She would make sure we would be doing our family altar. Now, where this where this is going is um somewhere in the after we had prayed, she'd also do a prayer to Jesus. And then she would she would pray for her son, my dad, who is overseas, and that that he'd be safe. And and then she'd say, "Amen with us." And you know, so um then a little while later, she said to me, "You know what? I pray to Jesus too." And there were pictures in our house and I would see her standing in front and saying a prayer. And then she said, "Well, you know what? Give me a picture of your prophet and I'll pray to him too, you know." And uh and I said, "No, we don't do that." uh she said no I pray to you know uh ancestors people who died and you know other people and and your prophet has died so I'll pray to him too you know like what's the problem so it occurred to me very early in my life that if you're living in a certain area with a certain culture uh what you do affects people and if you're going to be effective among them you have to be better. So that was the reason why because of living in our area where there are so many people who consider that and you're living even among Muslim people they don't have pictures in their homes with eyes uh and for whatever reason they don't have it and if you do th those things you know it's just uh uh it's a problem for them. So this incident that happened with this beggar really made an impression with me because I determined in my heart that in my ministry I was going to break away from all tradition and just focus on the word and this incident solidified that for me. My children have never grown up like I did with pictures of God in their minds. They do not see Jesus Christ through the lens of painters and artists. They do not see God bound by any race or color of skin. They do not know brother Brandham as an idol or someone who we hero worship. They know God as the spirit of truth that lives in all of us who believe the word. And they know brother Brandham as the voice of the end time that God sent to make the written word plain to us. That's it. uh and of course being the prophet of the last age, it was a tough decision to make as a Christian home and a message home at the time, but we walk by faith in the word. The reason I say all this is to tell you young people right now that in my heart no matter what other people say, I have I know I have never been obsessed with the man William Brham or his life story or miracles or signs and wonders. Maybe they can make accusations against people or other people or whatever. I know in my heart that when I speak to you, this is the place I speak from. My family and church can all testify that I've always been sold out to the message that he preached, to the word. It has been the guiding force of my life and the wisdom that I live by. I have read and read many books, studied many religions and philosophies, admired many words of many wise men of history, but this message is the one that resonates the most to me that can guide my life towards Jesus Christ in this modern world. The reason I'm saying this is because if I don't keep pictures in my house, it doesn't mean that I don't that I'm not serious about the message. In fact, I am so serious about the message, right? It is to me, this is why I'm telling you, it is the only wisdom I see that can guide humanity to true righteousness. I wholly believe that uh to true holiness and the morality that lies in the word of God, I believe comes from the message. I believe it's the same message that keeps me humble while revealing to me that I can be Christ in me the hope of glory to my small world. I only said this and explained all that about the pictures and everything to assure you that I do not speak from a place of bias because I'm obsessed with the man or because we hero worship William Brandham. We don't. I believe so much in this message that I believe it is his message, his words that caused me to live my life the way I do and brought me salvation to Christ. for this. I take heat and criticism from the press play groups because I don't display pictures of the prophet. They've they've said that. They accuse me of being ashamed of the pillar of fire picture. I'm not I'm not ashamed. I have those pictures here in my files and so on and in the books. If I needed to show somebody, I will do that just cuz I don't display it in our church. And anyway, we we at our church, we rent a place. We're not allowed to put any pictures up. So now that I've told you who we are, they will say, "Oh my goodness, he doesn't even have pictures of Jesus Christ." You know, in the house I grew up in, my mom and dad had every single picture you could think of of Jesus Christ. We had this massive uh like almost like a Persian carpet framed massive one with Jesus Christ on it. And the whole thing was the peace be still where he's on the boat and the wind and the seas obey him. We had that in the landing on our staircase and we had drawings. We had drawings of believers. We had uh uh the picture of Christ with the golden candlesticks and the messengers and all of that. We had all that. I don't have any aversion to that. I made a choice because of the place I was staying in and for a specific reason to make sure that those who walked into my home would not perceive me as an idol worshipper. And I've done that for 25 years. I sincerely believe that Christians worldwide are becoming a bond woman trapped by men's traditions that is diluting the word causing men's hearts to fail and to lose their connection with God. Traditions makes the word of God of none effect. My question is, how far are you willing to go to break from traditions that make the word of none effect to know God and worship him in spirit and in truth? Once again, please do not get offended with my words. I am not at all saying you should not have pictures of Jesus Christ or anything. That is completely your choice and there's nothing wrong with that. My choices were made because of the area I live in and among the people uh and the culture that I live in to make sure I present to them that I'm not someone who worships eagles and who worships uh or prays to a white man or something like that because of the culture of the place that we live in. Other people don't care. I do because I like to have a good dialogue with people. And so with that as our background, I want to get to the questions and it shouldn't take too long. So the following questions I'm going to read to you were sent through someone to me from a believer who follows the press play and obey persuasion. So I want to say this from the start. This person from the press play persuasion is a wonderful person who asked these questions with the greatest spirit of respect. I love that. That's real fellowship. I also feel that his questions were important to discuss because they are important to our children's generation which is why we are doing this. Those of you who may have heard a teaching I did some time back. It was in 2025, the second half on doctrines of the message and doctrines in the time of Christ and the sim similarities of how people reacted to it and so on and how they built up. You would remember that I said I believed that God allowed all these things. I believe there is a balance to be found that everybody needs to just calm down. I told you that all ministries had a place and a purpose. All the doctrines that rose and fell and movements that came up and died, they all had a purpose to bring us to where we are now. Right? I believe that antibrand movements and websites have a place and occurred because of situations that should not have been. and they are here to challenge what was going on to shake people out of new man-made traditions. That's my firm belief. That's why I wouldn't stop them. And um that were these things, these traditions that came up in the message that were hindering the truth of the word. I firmly believe this. I also believe that those who were discouraged by churches and ministries who then started a tapes only movement or movements. I believe they also had legitimate reasons for doing so because they had no more trust in uh the five-fold ministry and God permits it. Okay, that's my firm belief. That's where I want to start with. So this is the foundation and spirit with which I will answer these questions or respond to these questions which were directed to me. The the the questions said questions for brother Alistister. Okay. So I just want to say even though my name is mentioned it's who I am is not important. I don't count myself worthy of that, but I'm responding to it because I believe it is going to be of help to our young people who are discouraged. Okay. So, let's uh share the screen and read the questions. So, the first question, so the questions came to me in a voice note. So, I've kind of uh taken them and did the best I could to put them into words for the screen. uh and stay as close to the question as possible. So it he says these anti- Brennanom people who left the message who are publishing things and attacking the message and ministers of the message, what is the cause that's leading those people to leave? I love the question. I love the wording of the question. What is the cause? Is it the word of God that God preached through his prophet William Marian Brham or is it the five-fold ministry that is putting too much pressure on people and preaching other gospels? Question two, those who left, were they real believers or were they not real believers because they are against the message and they are discouraged with the message. So I think the premise is if they left the message were they real believers when they were in the message right and I suppose the the premise is also why should we care okay question three regarding what brother Alistister said about these other churches like Jehovah's Witness Mormons and Adventists 7day Adventists that are so united but you can't find many message churches that can agree together. Everybody has his own teaching that differs from other message ministers. What is causing the message churches to be that way when we have one message that we have received? We have been told in the Bible that we have one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Why are we so divided? Okay, that's a good question. Question four. Is brother Alistister a person who plays tapes? Is he anti- Brennanom or he is he against the message? Or is he contrary to God's word in playing the tapes? Is the tapes the word of God? And is it good to play the tapes and to listen to what brother Branham has preached? is playing the tapes according to God's word or against God's word. All right. So those are the questions. Uh and I hope this is going to be of help to us. So question one, the antibrand people who left the message publishing things attacking the message ministers of the message. What is the cause that's leading those people to leave? Is it the word of God that God preached through his prophet William Brandham or is it the five-fold ministry putting too much pressure on people and preaching other gospels? So I would venture to say that the premise of this question is that most people I think the brother is trying to to ask the question while making the point that there's no fault in the word. The fault is actually in the five-fold ministry. Most of the people who leave the message leave because of message ministers, not because of the message, not because of brother Brandham. It certainly seems like that's where the question is leading to. Now, there could be some truth to this. I and I've heard personally from some people that have left the message that what caused them to leave was disagreements with ministers. Uh and these disagreements were not about preaching or teachings but rather about management of the church or covering up of scandals or abuse of cood or harshly judging children or people or uh harshly judging and correcting members of the church or things like that. Uh and some of them of course would have left because of certain preaching or the way a doctrine is presented or something to that effect. And then these people who left did not initially leave because of teaching, right? Those who did not leave because of teaching. And then many of them left and thought they'd go to another church. And they were many of them were very happy followers of the message for many years. But then after they left, they began to question the message. And it makes sense because they respected those men that were their ministers and deacons and whatever and uh the question in their heart is I've respected these men for so long. I saw God's work in their lives. How could they blatantly lie about things? How could they so have such anointing in their lives and then compromise so much when it comes to things that are favorable to them? And so these people were hurt and the what happened was in their disagreements with the church leaderships what happened was a breakdown of brotherhood. Things were said that hurt each other. Uh even uncchristian things were said and that was the catalyst for them leaving the message. But then when they turned their attention after having left the the church to go and maybe find another message church in that time in considering what happened they turned their focus to the message and then begin to question and research and then found things now against the prophet against the message uh which for them answered the question as to why their ministers behaved in the way they did. They then became convinced that the message does not produce the true character of Christ in people. Uh and that is what they see and what they believe. They are sincere. They are not evil people who hated God or hate uh Christ. They believe in Jesus Christ. They love Jesus Christ. They love the Bible. They are absolutely truthful when they tell you that and they want to do what is best to serve him. Of course, I cannot answer for all of them to say why exactly each person left. But then in recent years, what we've been seeing and especially in the past 5 years or so is we've seen ministers who have left the message not because of the five-fold ministry. Not because of uh issues they have with other ministers or other people. These these are ministers. These are deacons. These these are leaders. These are preachers who have left. And there not a lot of them. But it seems to be happening which we didn't uh see before. And um so these these ministers and leaders who left uh left because they have said publicly they have found too many irregularities, inconsistencies, things they feel the message does not answer as well as unfulfilled prophecies failed thus sayeth the lords. and basically saying they find that nothing in the message helps a person actually uh be led to the Lord Jesus Christ and that the the basic overall theme of the message is leading people to William Brandham. That's how they feel, right? Uh you you cannot tell these people you're lying, you're being a fool and all we don't do that whatever. No, they have definitely had experiences with people that prove to them that this is what was happening in their world. Right? So if one had to answer the question, if I have to answer this brother's question directly, the reason for leaving the message would be the fault of William Brandon and not even message people. Because you can leave a church and you have a problem with the church, but eventually you get to it and they find an issue with William Brandham. This is where it comes back to. So because the person asked me the question, whose fault is it? Is there something wrong with the word of preach through William Brandom or is it the is it the the me the message ministers putting too much pressure? It may start with that but it ends with them having problems with the message. But the question is what is the cause? I like that that part of it. What is the cause, right? And they gave me only two options. The word of William Brandham or the individual gospels preached by message ministers preach their own gospels. Okay. The answer that I'm going to give you is not one you're going to like, but every true believer who searches his heart will know this to be the truth. We literally have a prophecy in the Bible that says in the last days perilous times shall come and men will become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. And you know the rest of the scripture before it is said I am not saying that those who left the message are not lovers of God and that they are lovers of pleasure and that's the reason why they want to go. No, no, no. In fact, I am saying all people including people in the message are becoming lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God and have uh and it's basically a condition that is taking over the whole planet right now. What I'm saying is there is a spirit upon the whole world that is causing people to leave the truth on anything. Just look around you. People can read things in the newspapers, in the in the in the media. The media is lying. The televisions are lying. The internet is lying. People are starving for truth. You've got educated people who don't know the difference between a man and a woman. Just just think about that. Look at where we are. The craziness that is taking place upon the world is where people because of being lovers of pleasure and rather than lovers of God that truth is being eroded. There is a spirit over the whole world. Right? So what happens when the spirit covers this world? Faith is diminishing. Faith in our communities in all our communities is diminishing because of reasoning intellectualism which is on the rise. Societies are becoming restless and no longer peaceful. People are leaving faith because doubt is increasing. Depression is increasing astronomical astronomically anxiety. Uh and the Bible tells it it has to be this way. So why are they leaving the message? Because here's the simple answer. Because the system of church is failing. Not just message church. The system of church is failing. It is no longer satisfying the human soul. Church is getting boring. Church is getting traditional. Church is getting same old same old all over. Not just Christian churches, but message churches, too. Why? Because of the system, right? I told you you're not going to like it, but it's the truth. Listen, if you feel I'm speaking incorrectly, I'm telling you, I speak to so many young people. Everything I'm telling you is what they tell me. Many believers who who write to me and speak to me, this is it. They they want something that feeds their souls that quenches their thirst and churchianity and church tradition is killing them. They don't know what to do. That is actually the reason why these things are happening and why movements are even changing. And here's what the problem with is what happened in the message. We took people out of organized religion from denominations. We then brought them in this excitement in this buzz of the prophet and God sent a prophet and do you know what triple six and the antichrist and the end of the world and the rapture is taking place and we brought them into this hype and then we created a new message system that killed the ability to have revelation. We forced people to comply to new message traditions. We subjugated them under human leadership thinking that we were doing what is best for them. We took away their free will and we used the prophet and his message as a threatening stick to keep people in line by saying we I'm taking accountability for everything that has happened. It's as if we didn't learn from the church ages teaching. I believe that on the contrary, the message came to set us free from organized religion. If people get the message for what it is, you become the free woman while the rest go into and become the bond woman. I believe the prophet did not ask us to evangelize the world by starting off with the golden question, do you know God's a prophet? Have you heard of William Brham? He never tells you to go and reach people and bring them to Christ by asking them if they've heard of William Brandham. He never said that. And yet that's what you may have been taught to do. He never asked us to print millions of pictures of him, put it up on our homes and churches. He didn't ask us to make pilgrimages pilgrimages to Sabino Canyon to take rocks from the mountains to make message paraphernalia and and ornaments and clothes and these pictures on t-shirts and hoodies and watches and bracelets and necklaces and all kinds. He never asked us to do that. I don't believe he would have agreed with any of these things if he was still alive. To me, his message pointed to the revelation of Christ in you and Christ in me. That if we could become one with the word, we could be him, be Christ to this generation. That's what I believe the message is. When we lose focus on that truth and follow the same mistakes as our forefathers of the church did, it causes the exact symptoms that broke up all the churches of Christians in history. You want to know the cause of why people are leaving the message and leaving Christian churches? That's it. The system is failing and God has purposed it for the system of church to fail. If you want to know what the cause is, it is the spirit of religion and preaching for the word as traditions of men like he told the Pharisees which makes the word of God of none effect. Amen. That's the answer. Question two, those who left the message, were they real believers or were they not real believers? Because they are against the message and they are discouraged with the message. Okay, this question is always seen as a common deflection of message people to dismiss people who leave the message. It's not right. Okay, it's not right to dismiss people like that using this this uh reasoning. We have all become very used to using the terms true believer make believer unbelievers. I know the reality of this. I know that there are true believers, makeel believers, unbelievers everywhere. There are true believers even in denominational churches, make believers and unbelievers. There are true believers, make believers and unbelievers in every church. Right? Uh the prophet said that in messages where he was preaching in denominational churches. Now, so I know the reality of this. Even though the prophet preached three kinds of believers, if you understand what I showed you with the trolley problem, you must know that when you judge, your judgment is biased and your judgment is compromised. You just don't know. So don't do it. You don't have the right to say that people who leave the message were not real believers. Do not do that. That is so immature. They are on an individual path with God. Who knows how God is going to turn them around? And are you going to account one day? They come back to the message, put whatever they want to write and is reconciled. Are you going to be able to say to them, "I am sorry. I treated you as an unbeliever and I called you names and I are you going to do that?" No. I tell you what I've seen. Most people just fold their arms, look at the person, and say, "Welcome back." you know, we missed you. And don't account for any of the bad things that you said about them. Just because people leave the message does not make them unbelievers. They are individuals on a path toward God. You may label people who leave the message and and this is why I know it's hypocrisy because those of you do that and people who leave the message and speak against brother Bham and you call them unbelievers and label them with names. But I guarantee you if your son or daughter living in your own house, does not follow the message, becomes a rebel, does not come to church, puts up a fight with you all the time, gives you absolute hell at home, you would be absolutely offended with someone calling them an unbeliever, or say they were never seed to begin with. You, the same person who would judge other people, would not want people to pull the lever on your child. The reason you believe that way is because you love them and they care for you and you care for them because they're your family. My point is why can't you give the same grace for others who are not your family? No matter how much Holy Ghost you have or how right you feel you are based on quotes and scriptures and this and that. Do not think that you know how to identify or label others. Do not label people. Let God be the judge. Love them all. Respect them all. Is not Is this not the words of Christ? Is this not the words of Christ to love your neighbor as yourself? Is it not the words of Christ to love your enemies who persecute you and to pray for those who persecute you? Where is that disappearing to? These are the fundamental pillars of Christianity which seem to be flying out the door when you take the message and create another organized religion. Stop doing that. To answer the question, I don't know who true believers are and who are not. I don't even know what my children are going to turn out to be. I don't care to label people or call people or look in my church and and and see who are true believers and who are not. I just don't care. It's not my place. I must preach the word. I must treat everyone with as if they are soulsearching for God. God is the judge. I must preach the word and let his holy spirit do as he pleases with my work and the work of all my brothers in the ministry of Christ. That is my answer. Question number three, regarding what brother Alistister said about these other churches like Jehovah's Witness, Mormons, Adventists that are so united, but you can't find many message churches that can agree together. Everybody has his own teaching that differs with other message ministers. What is the cause the message churches to be that way? So once again this question number three which we have read already uh is again seeming to place blame upon message ministers. And the premise here looks to be like if we just stayed with the prophet we and not speak things that God reveals to us privately we would all have people united. all of us would be united and we'd be the the bride church that is delusional. Okay. And uh uh the the person says one Lord, one faith, one baptism. That's correct. That was spoken in the church of Ephesus. We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And then look at what happened with the Christian church over time. I mean doctrines came up, beliefs changed, baptisms became uh I mean so divided it's not even it we don't even have enough time to explain the different baptisms there are the different faiths there are the question is why are we so divided okay this is a very simple answer and I want to make this statement so you can understand this very clearly When people are united in understanding, it is evidence of brainwashing. When people are united in faith, it is evidence of revelation. Okay, I appreciate that message churches have different understandings. I love that my ministering friends, my friends in a ministry, that we don't all see everything exactly the same way and that we approach every subject from an individual way and a unique way. I love it. Okay. I love that we don't all see things exactly the same. That proves to me that we are not an organized religion. I breathe out and I'm stress free knowing that we are not an organized religion. When message churches get together and form a movement where they only associate with those who have the same understanding, it becomes an organized movement. It will reap the symptoms of an organized movement with time. The truth is if we can love one another, hear criticism of ourselves and of our understanding and still push on and preach our convictions and show respect for everyone, then we are getting it right. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, but we are a many membered body with many diverse gifts and different understandings of the same faith. Same faith, different understandings. How do we know this? It's literally in the Bible, there are four anointings of the Holy Ghost. The lion, the ox, the man, the eagle. Four living creatures with four different views of the same throne. The full picture is to bring all the views together. Neither view is wrong. It's just different. But one view isn't the complete revelation. To believe that your view is the ultimate and correct and only right view, I'm sorry to say this, is just hubris and will lead you to believe you can pull a lever based on your own understanding. To answer the question why we are divided the way we are is because God has intended it to be so so that we do not become united the way others are. See again the premise of the question is that the problem in the message is the five-fold ministry. We pastors and preachers, evangelists and so on, we are the problem. The prophets not the problem. The tapes are not the problem. We are the problem. And this premise is being pushed by the press play and obey movement as a direct protest against the five-fold ministry and to encourage people to leave the ministries and join their movement. The problem with this is it is in direct contradiction with the Bible. There is no foundation for or anywhere in the Bible that encourages you to stay home and listen to tapes. Just because you feel it is safer because you can't trust ministers does not mean it is right in the word that it is right with the scriptures. You literally have a scripture that tells you that the five-fold ministry is given for the completing of the saints. Perfection for calling out to the world and bringing them in. for setting up of churches, for establishing ministries, apostles, giving answers where written word does not. Teachers, warnings of things uh to come through spiritual gifts, doing the uh uh prophets, doing the baptisms, marriages, bearing of the dead, dedication, ordinance of the church, prayer for the sick, casting out of spirits, the um pastors, and for teaching of the word to edify the body of Christ. You have a scripture. Let's read it. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11-12 and then we'll also read verse 13. Okay, here we go. 4:11 to2. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and some and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. That is the completing of them to complete them. Perfecting for the work of the ministry that is pastorship doing what is necessary for the church body for the edifying of the body of Christ that is all the ministry teaching preaching evangelizing everything apostilhip right and then we have verse 13 which tells us that the five-fold ministry is given till we all come now watch this in the unity of the faith Not the unity of understanding, the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Look saints, who knows, one day we may all come to uh a common understanding of things. It may happen and that we will all be able to read and say the I don't know. I really don't know. To me, if it does, it's going to be a little bit boring. I like the fact that we each have different opinions about things and we can learn from each other. Verse 13 literally tells us that the five-fold ministry is given to bring us to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of Christ. The idea that is being pushed here is that William Brham is the full five-fold ministry and that there is no more need for pastors, prophets, teachers, preachers, evangelists, whatever. All the five for ministry is in him and therefore you don't need any processes or anything and you just need to listen to the tapes. This is not in keeping with the Bible. He that prophet did not say that in all things. So if you're doing that you are going against the very prophet you claim to follow in all things. So we understand things the same way. uh though we don't understand things the same way in all things let us keep the faith. Young people you don't need to be discouraged because your ministers don't see the same way don't see things the same way as another minister. That is a good thing. Stay with your pastor even if he doesn't preach like somebody else or doesn't see things the same way. That is a good thing that man is not stuck in an organized religion and God is working with him. God has given him independent revelations every day showing him, letting him grow in the word and he's sharing what God is revealing to you uh to him to you. And God knows what you need in that time. So don't be discouraged if they're not all seeing things the same way or that one person is preaching this. We are learning from each other. We are all stubborn. That's the truth. We're all We're all made that way to safeguard our souls, to make sure wrong seed doesn't get in. We're all stubborn that way and protected that. It's a good thing, right? We don't want to be a womb that just accepts any old seed. So, that's the reason why God designed things that way. Don't be discouraged. It has to be that way. This prevents us from becoming a cult and from group think. But still let us keep the faith. The same prophet who everyone rejects said, "If one man believes Christ is coming on a cloud and another one believes he's coming on a white horse, at least they both believe he's coming." That should be our attitude. Whether one message believer believes the seventh seal is open but Christ is coming and the other one believes he the seventh seal is open and Christ is coming. Whether one believes that that the bride will be Christ uh in the future or the other believes the bride is becoming Christ now at least they believe the bride is becoming Christ. Let's just keep the faith. Let's not demonize each other and fight one another. Let's bear with one another and share our thoughts. Right? That should be our attitude. We can still have discussions privately as ministers or people. We can have debates. We can have arguments. I love it. I love arguments and debates so long as it's with the right atmosphere that it tests our understanding. It it shouldn't shake our faith. It should make us have a better understanding. Right? Just uh be committed to the Holy Spirit and follow your heart. while you keep the faith. Amen. The last question, question number four is a funny one. Is brother Alistister a person who plays tapes? And this is about brother Alistister. It really I shouldn't even be answering this question here because it's like a personal one to me. But there's just something in there that I want to speak of, right? Is he antibrand or is he against the message? Is he contrary to God's word in playing tapes? Is the tapes of the word of God? Is it good to play tapes or is it not? Is it good to listen to what brother man preached or is it not? Is he playing tapes according is playing tapes according to God's word? You can see all this is about playing the tapes and whether I agree with it or not. The brother who asked this question thought that this would be a controversial question and that it would be something that would cause strife or so I want to assure the brother uh it absolutely does not. I am not afraid of questions or insults or anything. And I know you didn't mean that as an insult to me. I I have yet to meet one person in my life till this day that has offended me because since I met Christ as a young man, I see all people as souls needing the Lord Jesus Christ the way I do. Some of them annoy me. I get annoyed and sometimes I annoy them. Sometimes we are impatient with one another. But the Holy Spirit corrects us and I realize I'm always in need of correction. So no, this is neither controversial nor offensive to me. Rest easy. It's also very easy to answer for me, right? Am I a person who plays tapes? Yes. I grew up with the voice of the prophet in my home from the time I'm a child. I've been to so many tape services. When I whenever I drive to preach in other places and I drive long hours to preach, I can listen to three messages back to back. I love it. so much that it sometimes make me lose concentration on the road and forget where I am. Um I believe that it that you know answers also whether it's good to play the tapes and to listen to the prophet. I believe it's good to listen to the prophet. Am I anti Brandom or against the message? I'm not sure where this is coming from. Uh absolutely not. The message is my life and the guiding voice that shows me the path to Christ in this world. I lead my family with the wisdom of this message. I see the message as a continuation of the Bible and the expansion of the Bible. I do not separate the message from the Bible. Uh to me they are one. I believe that if the Bible was still being written today that there would be a book of Alistister. I believe that if the Bible still be uh and I and I don't care if that offends you. I I believe that that's just how much I believe I am part of this book and a part of this word. That also makes me believe that whoever you are listening to this, there would be a book of your name uh that would be a part of this Bible because we we were in him before the foundation of the world. And because there is a book of Ruth, there is a book of Joshua. There is a book of Samuel. There's a book of uh books of David. There are books of every single one of them. And uh so why not why wouldn't there be a book of Alistister? Why wouldn't there be a book of John, Mark, whoever you are, right? Uh so to me when I look at the books of the Bible and I see all these people they made terrible mistakes. It's a record of their mistakes. The horrible things they did in their life. The how God judged them harshly in life. How they were rejected how they were spurned. How they were even killed. But one common thing exists in all the books that in their lifetime they fulfilled the purpose that God chose them for. That's how I know if the Bible was still being scribed today, there'll be a book about me. I would write one. The last part of the question is uh kind of sneaky and uh one we can discern where it comes from, right? I know the prophet said stay with the tapes, but he didn't say stay at home with the tapes. He didn't say stay at home and play the tapes only and don't listen to the five-fold ministry. There is not one place where he says that. He also did not say that you must now make a movement to follow the prophet's son who has the responsibility of putting you into the ark to prepare you for the rapture. And if anybody else does not do that, they're all lost. That is just not in the message. It is not the message. Don't give me that. Playing the tapes and isolating from the rest of the body of Christ damages you and does not give you more wisdom. It's as simple as socializing people. You take a child and if you don't take that child and socialize him in public, he becomes a person who cannot handle conflict, who cannot handle arguments, who cannot handle challenges. He becomes a person who can be a bully in public or over sensitive. You have to socialize children. You have to socialize people. You have to meet with people of like precious faith. You have to meet with people who challenge you, not just people who agree with everything you say, who sit with you and link their arms and sing kumbaya. There's no challenge in that. There's no arguments among the body. There's no differences of opinions and differences of character that rubs you up the wrong way and makes you say wrong things and come and put it right in church. There's there's no there's nothing like that. When you stay home and listen to tapes, you're never going to reach perfection and completion. Playing the tapes isolates you and isolation brings depression. The tapes will not do your wedding even though you can wing it with a place where the prophet does a wedding. That's not what it's about. The tapes cannot lay hands on you or counsel you or according to modern-day challenges. The tapes cannot bury you or dedicate your babies or baptize your children. It's always going to take somebody. It's going to take the body of Christ to do this. They are ordained of God to do that. Playing the tapes is only going to lead to cultish behavior. You should not be afraid of ministries in your area taking the message ministries who are taking the message and the Bible and telling you what God reveals to them through it. You should not be afraid of it. What is the problem? Don't you trust the Holy Spirit inside of you to discern both good and evil? Sometimes they may even tell you something in error and that is good. It keeps us grounded and human while handling the things of God. You should not be afraid of the ministry telling you what is written between the lines. You should believe the Holy Spirit that is in you. You should trust the Holy Spirit. You should trust he that is in your heart. When he tells you something, you even need to experience this that if your pastor preaches something that is not in the way it is written in the message or in the Bible, you should have that experience where you can approach him with maturity and have your maturity tested on how you are going to question this man of God. And he needs that to know how he needs to deal with your question with maturity. Not to shut you down, not to demonize. We need each other. You are never going to make the rapture without me. I don't care who you are. I'm going to be there. You isolate yourself from me. You are putting something wrong with you. Okay? I'm going to be there. So, you better get used to me while we're here. So if you are a son of God, you must know that he is bringing you to a place where eventually everything God is bringing you to a place where everything falls away. Okay? You are all playing tapes because you are afraid to be wrong. You are playing tapes because you think it's safe. That's why you are leaving churches because you are afraid and you are searching for safer places to put your faith in. But if you are a son of God and look through the Bible, you must know God is bringing you to a place where eventually everything falls away. The prophet told you that there's going to be a squeeze. You are going to be asked and required to answer. The question is not going to be what does the Bible say or what does the message say or what does your pastor say or what does the prophet say. The question is going to be what do you say? That's where we're heading. What the question is not going to be what does the tape say, right? It's not going to be any of that. That and the time is coming and now is almost upon you where you can no longer hide behind safe venues. You can't hide behind your churches, your mom and dad, your pastor, your preachers, your prophets. You cannot hide behind the written word. You cannot hide behind the Bible or the message or the tapes. You have to have an answer that you will not find anywhere else except within you. You have to have the person of Christ, the person of the Holy Ghost, or you shall fail. Adam and Eve failed because they stopped at what God said. Eve answered the serpent according to what God said. She repeated what God said. She told the serpent, "God told us, we are not allowed to eat of that tree. We're allowed to eat of every other tree." which means she quoted the message. She quoted what God said and then the the serpent took the written word and interpreted to her what God said leaving it open for her answer for her answer and she failed. Are you getting what I'm telling you? She knew what God said. So you listen to the tapes, you read the message, you read the Bible, you get to be good at it, you can quote it here and there. That's fine. The devil knows it all better, right? You are going to have to answer without all of that. That's what's coming. And you running for safe places is not going to help you. When the tempter came to Christ and said, "Do this." He said, "It is written. Do that. It is written. Do that. It is written." Eventually, enough is enough. Right? until the point came. It's no more telling you what is written. He says, "Get the behind me, Satan." That's where you're heading, my friend. There are going to be things that are going to come against you in your life. And the written word, the spoken word, the tapes, all the fellowships you had with your pastor, all the messages preached by message ministers, everything you ever had must become the person within you that when you are faced with your enemy, you must prophesy, you must speak, and the battle must be won. There are things coming in this world where there are no quotes for it. There are things where there are no no scriptures in the Bible for it. There are challenges of this day that is coming and you need an answer within you for it. And you're not going to you're not going to have any safe space to hide because this enemy is following you right to your home, right to your household where there's nobody, right to your bedroom where you are alone, right to your office, right to your workplace, right to your school in your university. It's following you right there. You don't have pastor church tapes or anything. You need an answer within. That's where we're going. That's where we need to find God. And if the message in the Bible and the tapes and all of that is not doing that for you, if you're still hiding behind cloaks of religion and organized religion, you're never going to have that answer within when the time comes. Amen. Saints, I trust that I hope that this is going to be the end of it like I said last week, but I trust that uh the word of God is going to be of some encouragement to you. And I trust that we can find ways to help one another, to edify one another, not to break one another down. Uh to understand that we are just humans and that our our choices and our authority and our morality without the Holy Spirit is flawed. We don't have it. We cannot do this by evidence. We cannot do this by any other means. We have to know that whoever we are passing judgment upon another person is wrong. Let God be the judge. Do not bring railing accusation against one another. Even if you have to have arguments with people, have the arguments, say your peace, but never condemn them to hell. Never say they are not worthy of the blood of Christ or the saving grace of Almighty God. It's not your place to say so. I don't care what it is. I will never do that. I will never teach that to my children. And uh above all, we must have the spirit of Christ in us that will have the answer to the devil's question. The Lord bless you. Have a wonderful evening. Have a wonderful week further. Until we meet again, God be with you. Amen.

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The Message on Trial - Q&A

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