Deconstructing Kenneth Hagin

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Loan for Truth podcast. I'm Robin Long.
Join my husband Dan and I as we explore the
roots of the early Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, and we
shine a light on false doctrines and false teachers in
the modern church. Let's get started.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
So I opened the door and I stick out my
right hand, you know, and I say, good morning, brother Hagan. Whoa, whoa, whoa,
And they had already heard this stuff about you know,
the reason why you're not healed is because you don't
have enough faith. And they both have both of their
mouths that it's not because we don't have enough faith.

(00:39):
We are believing as hard as we possibly can. We
have the faith. Where is the healing at well, I
don't know how to answer this. I had, you know,
it was believing God for finances and none of this
stuff was working for me. And I was like the
guy that you know, the real thing where they say

(01:01):
never trust a faith healer who wears glasses, because because
if you can't solve a small problem, how can I
get God to believe that you're going to He's going
to heal your cancer.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
But you haven't seen the best yet. Sam, Hello, everyone,
Welcome along for truth. My name is Daniel Long. Today
we're going to be talking about Kenneth Hagen, and the
guest that I'm going to bring on has actually met Hagen.
He was shunned by Hagen, and he's going to be
telling that story. We're also going to be talking about

(01:34):
a book that he wrote called Deconstructing Kenneth Hagen, and
it's based on Kenneth Hagen's book I Believe in Visions.
Steve Johnson, thank you so much for joining me today.
I first found out about you because you are a
regular guest on Chuck Lewis's channel, aren't you?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yes? Indeed yes, And I think thanks my lucky stars
that I found that Chuck found me, wrap me off
the street, clean me up and put me on there.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Well, I'm glad he did. I'm glad he did. I'm
glad he did. So, Steve, we're gonna be talking about
this book. Let's see if I can hold it up here,
because your book, Deconstructing Kinnethagen is right now only in
Kendle format, but it is based on this book right
here by Kinnahagen called I Believe in Visions. Why don't

(02:29):
we start out by having you tell us a little
bit about yourself, a little bit about your background, and
and then uh, well we'll talk about Hagen.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Okay, okay, all right. Uh you know, my story, you know,
goes back. I'll put it this way. I'll try to
be brief here. You know, we won't give you the
war and peace version. But at any rate, I grew
up Baptist, for the most part, Southern Baptist, and it's
too bad that that denomination has kind of gone downhill.
You know. Now I consider myself and defended Baptists. But

(03:01):
at any rate, I you know, I'll shorten the story
here quite a bit. Well, I got saved when I
was ten years old in nineteen sixty two. And you know,
I attended this Baptist church in Kansas City, Kansas, and
I was there until my early twenties. And then when
I got into college, you know, I you know, college
can be a dangerous ground, as you know, you know,

(03:24):
I got to know some guys and there were several,
you know, we had kind of a group. There was
areas to study. I was at the Junior College, Kansas City,
Kansas Junior College, and there were areas of study where
we get together, and almost all these other guys except
for one, you know, went to the rival high school,
in fact, the high school my mom graduated from. But

(03:45):
at any rate, you know, there were several of them
who were Pentecostal. Me and one other guy. We were Baptists,
you know, and then we had a Mormon on our group,
believe it or not. But at any rate, so I
began to hear about the Pentecostal stuff, you know. And
so my friend who had called David c I know
a lot of David's, but you know this, this is

(04:05):
the guy that that I got to know at the time.
For some reason, however, he found out about it. We
found about this bookstore and it's actually Kansas City on
the Missouri side Kansas. Kansas City is divided between Kansas
and Missouri. God side is on the Kansas side, of course.
But anyhow, uh uh you know, uh the uh we

(04:27):
went to this bookstore and it was north of Midwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary. Uh. And you know, my church youth
group we had visited there a few times. And I
must say they serve a great state burger and fries.
So if you're going to select a seminary. That's a
good reason to pick down, you know, because they serve that.
But at any rate, we had we had we went

(04:49):
to this bookstore. It was called the Peraclee, real tiny
little bookstore. And we've been hearing about this Pentecostal stuff.
And I don't know how he found out about this bookstore,
but anyhow we got there and so these books by
this guy called Kenneth Hagen, and you know, I didn't
know who he was, you know, so now Hagen, he
never let me say this up front too, is that

(05:10):
he never actually wrote any books. That his books were
basically the the the transcripts of his audio messages and they,
you know, that they got off the tapes or messages
that he preached or taught, and then they put him
they put him in file. Because when I read the
first one that I read, I realized that right away,

(05:31):
because all of a sudden, he's you know, you're reading
along as I can out, and he says something about it.
And for those of you who are here tonight, blah
blah blah, you know, and these little these little booklets
were basically, for the most part, only about twenty five
pages roughly, give or take you know, whatever they were,
and they were only about sixty cents apiece, and so I,

(05:52):
you know, so I picked up too. I picked up
one called The Ministry of a Prophet and one called
Healing Belongs to Us because I was kind of interested
in healing and trying to figure out how, you know,
how to connect with God to get you know, healing,
because there were members of my family and friends that
I would like to see get healed, you know, and
so I was, I was very much interested in it.

(06:13):
He got a couple of books and so then you know,
we went home and read our respective books, and then
we changed books, you know, so that we each read
each other's books. But there was one book there that
I saw on that first trip that I went back.
We went back the very next week or so, and
I picked it up. And this was called I Believe
in Visions, And you know, because I saw it and
it was a thicker book than the rest. It was

(06:35):
like a pocket book that you would see hanging in
a drug store, you know, a wheel thing that they
used to have back in the day. And so I
got that and it was hot off the press. This
was nineteen seventy three when this book first came out,
because if you look at the original copyright in whatever
edition you'll have, you'll see it says nineteen seventy three.
So I got that. And so when I got that book,

(06:57):
like I say, my jaw dropped, you know, because it's like,
oh my gosh. You know all these these stories you
know about his life, his how he got miraculously healed
and you know, walked off the deathbit, he went to hell,
he went to heaven, all these visions that he had,
and then you know, he talked about healing. Well, like
I told you, I was interested in the healing. How

(07:18):
could I get that to help other people and everything?
So I had to know more about this guy, Kenneth Hagan.
So eventually I went back and I got all the
books or booklets that were available at the time and
read everything I could. And then I found out he
had a radio program called Face Seminar of the Air.
So they came on about eleven o'clock, you know, on
a local Christian station. So I made sure as much

(07:39):
as I could, I listened to that program, and eventually
I started giving a monthly amount, a pretty small amount
because I'm in college, so you know, I couldn't afford
very much, you know, like ten dollars or something, you know,
and so then I, you know, and of course when
you do that, you get on people's mailing list in
a hurry. So I was on their mailing list. And
then I saw where they had, you know, they had

(08:01):
you know, a camp meeting sort of thing, and then
they also had and then in seventy four they started
their school, you know, called Rama Bible Institute, and you know,
but I couldn't go. I was I was already committed
to the university, and so I did not go at
that time. But I thought I like to go to
the second year if I possibly could. So what I

(08:21):
did was I, you know, I worked towards that end,
you know, from from the rest of seventy four into
seventy five, and I decide, I'm going to Tulsa and
I'm going to go down to Raimond's Bible Training Center,
because you know, that sounded good to me. Now the
other odd thing of it is too. One school I
also considered was Gordon Lindsay's School Christ for the Nations

(08:42):
in Dallas. I considered them, but to me, KENNETHA. Haguen
was the man, you know, I mean this these stories,
you know that I read in this book that we're
going to talk about some of these stories and everything.
It blew me away. And I to me, Kenneth Haguen was,
like I said, dumb man. You know, he was somebody
I wanted to learn from. So anyhow, so the summer

(09:02):
comes around and I get down to Tulsa about two
weeks before school starts. Because I stayed first of all
at the YMCA downtown Tulsa, and so then, you know,
I wanted to find a part time job and then
also used the YMCA just as a base of operations
until I could find somewhere better to stay, you know.

(09:22):
And so the first I got down there on a Friday,
and it's about a five and a half hour drive
from Kansas City down to Tulsa. And so I got there,
and then that first Sunday, well, I when I came
to Tulsa. Back up just one second. Here I came
in and where it connected where I connected to I
forty four. I was east of Tulsa, and then I

(09:44):
saw Sheridan Avenue and that's where they they had their headquarters,
was shared an assembly church, and that's that's where that's
where Raymond was at. That's where Kinnethagan was headquarters, and
they were Assemblies of God Church and so anyhow, so
that first well, I couldn't do much that Friday, and
then that Saturday, I think that Saturday, I went out

(10:05):
to ru and saw the prayer tower with all the
gold on it, you know, with Oral Roberts University. And
I saw that, and then I went to church and
that first Sunday there was a senior pastor, and then
they had a younger man, Billy Joe Doherty. He preached
and he would later become kind of famous with Richard
Roberts and then he by the time of his death,

(10:27):
he had the largest church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was seventeen
thousand members. And he would go to Rama in seventy
eight and he would be like me. He didn't graduate either,
but at any rate, and he wrote some books on faith,
and I tell more at the end of my book.
I have a thing about him anyhow, but that's beside
the point. But I did shake his hand at the
end of the service, and I did that a couple
of times, not that he would remember me. There was

(10:49):
nothing memorable about that. So anyhow, so I went to
one of the things you also had to do before
school started, had to be interviewed with JR. And then
at that time you had doctor Ken Stewart, who was
the head of the academ academics part of the program.
They were basically the only two guys there was. Well,

(11:10):
they did have a third guy named Beth Ellis who
he was in charge of the music. But you know,
he wasn't really quite I don't think he was a
full time instructor, but he came in and he was
going to try to teach you how to lead music
if you ever needed to know how to do that.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
All right, So so you're you're there, and you've now
before you ran into Hagen, you read a bunch of
his books, including I Believe in Visions. Oh yeah, I'm
read already. So you were already enamored with him. Had
you already been listening and you listened to his radio station.
You had tapes and everything else I'm sure he didn't take.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
And yeah, he didn't have a lot of tapes. Yeah
they were cassette tapes and he didn't have a lot
of them out, but he had I had everything that
he had, and I always tried to buy every book
that he ever recommended. And I say this in the
beginning of my book, you know where I list all
the various authors and stuff that I know. I tried
to acquire every book that I possibly could that he

(12:07):
mentioned because I figured if he's mentioned it, I'm reading
and that's you know again, I held him in extremely
high esteem, you know, I'll put it that way. You know.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yes, Now let me ask you. You held him in
highestream esteem? Is that because mainly of the kind of
encounters that he claimed to have with Jesus and with
going to heaven and going to Hell or so. It
wasn't primarily just the teaching. It was the fact that
this man was like he met Jesus.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
I mean he exactly yeah, exactly yeah. And the teaching.
The teaching was powerful too, don't get me wrong, because
see the teaching, the faith teaching then told you how
you know, in my mind is like, this is going
to tell you how you can do some of these
things too. So to speak, well, you might not be
able to meet Jesus the way he does, but you know,
but how you can bring the power of God into

(12:59):
your life. And I was very very very interested in
that bringing the power of God into my everyday life
and to be able to help people out. You know,
this is what I wanted. So it's a it's a
twofold thing. But but but here's somebody who you go,
this is a modern day guy who's actually met Jesus.
You know, he actually going to have it in hell.
And I, you know, I didn't know anybody else like this,

(13:22):
you know, you know, it's like you know, like wow,
you know this, this was something else, you know, and
uh so anyhow so you.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Know, so so let me ask you this now in rama,
were you studying to become a pastor? Is that what
your goal was? You wanted to pastor?

Speaker 2 (13:38):
No? I I never And and see this is the
peculiar thing about me, you know, say, like when I
was in college, see I I I uh now not
at that time, because I left college early. I would
get it later on, is I I I was going
for a teaching degree in college. I have and I've
got a degree in teaching, uh you know, in history,

(14:00):
and you know I can teach. Uh. I'm certified in
in American history, world history, political science, psychology, UH anthropology,
and UH geography. You know, it's one of my certifications
are in But at any rate, uh So, I had
this idea, see can't because Kenneth Hagen, I thought, was
a pretty good teacher, and I had this kind of

(14:22):
fuzzy idea that somehow I could use my uh you know,
use a teaching gift, so to speak. I didn't see
myself as a pastor per se, but I did later on.
I would operate in kind of an assistant pastor role.
But it wasn't something that I, you know, I didn't
feel called to be quote a pastor, you know, per se,

(14:45):
if that makes sense. I saw it as an opportunity
to teach. And see when Kenneth Hagan talked about is
see he had the office of a prophet and an
office of a teacher. The teacher part is what drew
me to the to the thing, you know, and I
and I, you know, because I wanted to be a teacher,
and I guess I had this hazy idea. It wasn't

(15:06):
well defined, but I had this hazy idea that I
wanted to be this like an itinerant teacher or be
involved in some big church where I could be a
teacher of some sort you know, like, gotcha a support
uh deal?

Speaker 3 (15:20):
So okay, good, good good. So let's let's go ahead
and talk about your run in with Kenneth Hagen. That
wasn't it wasn't like you. It wasn't like this big,
gigantic conversation or anything like that. But it is interesting. Uh.
And once we get done with this, it does make

(15:41):
a lot of sense of why he shunned you. Just
from reading his book, which I did over the past
two days, it really makes a lot of sense why
he shunned you when when you tell your story. So
go ahead and go ahead and give us that, give
us the scoop out.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, all right, here's the inside too, right here. Uh,
I like I say, I like going into bookstores. I
love it. And they had, like I say, this tiny
little bookstore there at the church, and it was right
off this entryway where you came in off the south
parking lot. So I was there early this one morning,
bright sunshiny, beautiful day. And so I came out of
that bookstore and I looked out. There's a glass It

(16:22):
was a glass door. Uh. You know from top to bottom,
you know that, you know that you used there And
here comes Kenneth and Aretha Hagen, right, you know, they're
headed towards the door, and I'm like, oh my gosh,
you know, this is my now, this is my chance
to meet Kenneth Hagan, my hero, you know. And so anyhow,
so what I did was as he as they were

(16:43):
approaching the door, I held the door open for both
of them. I kind of swung the door out and
held it. There were two ladies in the hallway kind
of behind me. And this is you know, uh, everything
everybody's real close. I mean, this isn't like strung out
or anything like that. But there were two ladies standing
in there on the hallway. Now, they probably were people
that worked in the church, or they were there often

(17:05):
enough that, you know, if they seem like they belonged,
they belonged there. You know. I was only there because
I was a student, you know. So anyhow, so I
opened the door and I stick out my right hand,
you know, and I say good morning, brother Egan, and
and he just walks right past me. And I'm shaking
hands with the air, you know, with nothing. He doesn't

(17:25):
say one word. And here's the other strange thing. He
walked in front of her. He was about two or
three steps in front of her. Most men, you know,
get behind their wife and put their arm behind their
back or whatever. He didn't do. That was he was
clearly two or three steps ahead of her, like, and
he didn't seem like he really cared that much, you know.
I mean, hey, I'm sure he left his wife, don't

(17:46):
get me wrong, you know, but at any rate, so
I'm shaking hands with the air. He didn't say a
word to me. He didn't say a word to the
ladies who were standing in the hall, didn't say like
good morning ladies, or good morning anybody. He didn't say
nothing to nobody, you know. So you know, I didn't
know what quite what to make of that. So I
later on, and I told you this the other day.

(18:08):
See what the way I reacted to it was. I
felt bad. I felt like I had made a mistake.
That it was it was that I put him on
the spot, and that I felt like I had created
a bad situation for him, and I, you know, I
you know, it's it's just like when you're in a
relationship where hero worship or and you know, type of

(18:30):
thing where you make an excuse where you you say, okay,
that was my fault, you know. And I did not
blame him at the time, and I didn't hold anything
against it. And I know there's going to be some
people to see this video say, yeah, he got his
feelings hurt and that's the only reason why he doesn't
like Kenneth Hagen. It's like I had nothing to do
with it. I actually it didn't bother me for you know.
But the thing that does bother me that, like I say,

(18:51):
as time has gone on, this is such a common
thing in our society. I mean, I do this every day.
I'm sure you do this every day. You either hold
the door for somebody or somebody's held the door for you,
and you always say thank you, and you'll never see
this person again the rest of your life. And it's
just a common courtesy, you know. I was raised with
manners to say please and thank you, you know, when
somebody does a favor, large or small, and and he'd

(19:15):
and again it's neither one of them looked at me.
They didn't catch my eye. They didn't they didn't say
a word, and you know, and that and that to
me is like, when you think about that, how incredibly
rude that is. And like you said, we're going to
get into probably why he felt that way, because he
felt like he was a very special person. And I

(19:37):
was just on you know, so there you go.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, And the thing is it puts in you and
I were talking the other day and you said, how
it really just you know, made you beat yourself up
because you thought you made it. You you put the guy,
poor guy on the spot. So yeah, you weren't. You
didn't blame him at all.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
No, I don't put no blame on him whatsoever, you know.
And and and that's why, like I say, you know,
they're gonna be people who watch this video and say
that guy got his little feelings hurt, you know, And
it's like, no, that at all, you know. And there
are other things that we are going to get into.
That term makes kin of tag. But that wasn't it,
you know, that that really had It was immaterial. But

(20:18):
yet it's an interesting story because as they say, sometimes
the great people they're known by how they treat the
little people, so to speak, you know. And I'm a
little person compared to him in that sense, and uh,
you know, to completely ignore me, you know, so and.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
I think, as you know, I'm sitting yesterday, and this
isn't a very big book. You can see if it's
it's like you were saying, it's really super thin here. Okay,
so just between yesterday and part of this morning, I
went through it and read it. And just reading this book, Stephen,
it really I'm reading. I'm thinking, this is why the

(20:55):
guy did you know shun Steve? Because he really does
think he is, you know, God's greatest apostle, and I
really did. I came across when I got done with
this book. The only conclusion a person can have after

(21:15):
reading this book is that Kenneth Hagen is far greater
than any of the other apostles, any of the biblical apostles.
And if what he says in this book is true,
then this book should be cherished at least as much
as or even more than the Bible, because he says

(21:39):
some just far just amazing things. As a matter of fact,
he has had more and better experiences with Jesus than
the apostle Paul, than Peter, James and John on the
Mount of Transfiguration. You know, they got to see Jesus transfigured,
but you know the three of them, uh didn't actually

(22:02):
get to have Jesus come into their you know, to
their to their home and sit with them and disgust.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
All. And you can see why in my book I
call his apparent exceptionalism because because he in his mind,
you know, he created that he was somebody, super super special,
is what he did. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
So let's go ahead, Steve, and let's talk about how
you came out of the Word of Faith movement because
you were you were in it pretty deep, and you
had an experience that kind of just shocked you and
decided it caused you to think, wait a minute, wait, wait,
what is this? Why don't you tell us about that?

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Okay, Well, like I say, when I was at Raymond,
I have to back up there just to kind of
finish the off that story. Just that in my car
pumped out on me basically or I had serious car trouble.
It ate up a lot of my money. I couldn't
see how I could stay at RAMA, and so I left.
I felt like a total failure, you know. But when

(23:12):
I got back to Kansas City, I got together with
some people again, my friend David c and some others
that they had gone to Ernie Gruen's church, but they
wanted a smaller church. Ernie's Church was so big, and
then we started a kind of a Word of Faith church.
In fact, we used the building one of the buildings
that Full Faith Ernie's Church had used for a while,
you know. And so at any rate, what happened was that,

(23:36):
you know that the winner of seventy five and into
seventy six, well, one of the guys that went to
the church the name was Bruce, and Bruce's great guy,
and he wanted to become a minister, and so he
you know, he was going to go to melody Land
School of Theology. Doctor Ralph Wilkerson, David Wilkerson's cousin, you know,
I was in charge. And then Walter Martin, I know,

(23:57):
was there in the eighties. I don't know if he
was there in the seventies or I really don't know.
He may have been, you know, but at any rate,
what Bruce needed was, see, he had a wife and
three kids, and he needed somebody to get to California.
He wanted to go to southern California and get an
apartment and stuff for his family, and then and then
get back to Kansas City, you know, and try to

(24:18):
maybe put in some applications for a job and then
get back to Kansas City as fast as he could.
So what we did, the plan was we were going
to take terms driving, you know, to get to southern California.
So but we timed our first day that Monday to
be there. He wanted to go. You know, Kennethagan's camp
meeting started. This is the nineteen seventy six camp meeting,

(24:39):
and so so that way we could hear the first
session and then we would get back on the road
on our way to Southern California. So anyhow, so we're
we get there. Like I say, it's about a five
and a half hour drive, so we got real wee
hours of the morning to get down to Tulsa. So
we get to Tulsa and we walk into the civic
center there and this was the first, you know, this

(25:01):
is the first what I call stone in the shoe
or burr in the saddle or whatever term anybody wants
to use. And so we walked into the civic center
there and see, at this time, I'm still feeling pretty
good about Kennethy. I'm feeling great about the word to
face stuff, you know, because I've been teaching it. I've
been doing a lot of stuff with it. And so
then there's a banner that was up above the stage.

(25:23):
And I've been a couple of Billy Graham crusades, you know,
where they would have like John three sixteen up above
a banner up above the stage. We had a local
church I grew up in. We had we would have
revivals by Baptists are famous for having revivals, you know,
and you know, they would have a banner like maybe
John fourteen six you know, or John three sixteen, And

(25:44):
you know, I've been in other meetings and that's what
they would have. They would always have a scripture. But
we saw this ban I saw this banner and that's
this was the first real stone in the shoe. And
the banner said teach my people faith. And I think
you've got that quote. You've got the full quotation of
where that came from. Dr McConnell has that of exactly

(26:05):
where that came from if you want. Do you want
to show that now or yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, I'm showing. Can you see it there on the screen.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Yes I can, Yes, sir.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
It says the Lord said to me years ago, I
want you to go teach my people faith. I've taught
you faith through my word, and I've remitted you to
go through certain experiences. You have learned faith both through
my word and through experience. And now go teach my
people faith. Teach what I have taught you. I heard

(26:35):
a voice from heaven speak those words to me. And yeah,
so this this banner that had teach my people faith
on it is a direct revelation experience that Hagen had
from God. These are direct words from Christ to Hagen.
And that was on the banner, not scripture exactly.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
And that really bothered me. And as I mentioned to you,
I tuned in this summer, you know, and I took
a peek at the camp meeting that they had this summer.
They have that same banner up and I don't know
if it's physically the same banner, but they still had
a banner up over the stage twenty twenty five teach
my people faith. Well, like I say, this made me

(27:18):
real uncomfortable. And I never said anything to my friend
Bruce as we were worked our way towards southern California
when you know, uh, it just it just was rolling
over in my mind because number one is I thought
he's putting his Revelation on par with scripture. Right, this
is a different command than the than the Great Commission.
And there's no there's no scripture that tells anybody to

(27:40):
teach my people faith. And this is where I first
began to realize that they're you know, now, you know,
like I say, Kenneth Copeland had had a book. You know,
early on, he only had one book that was called
The Force of Faith. And I didn't understand it. I
read it two or three times. But now I began
to understand it. These guys were teaching faith as an
independent force, as something that's outside of God. It's a

(28:05):
it's a tool that God uses and you can learn
to use it too to get what you want. And
and that begin to Christ. Sorry, go ahead, Dan, No.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
No, I was going to say, and that's exactly what
it is, and and I it's it's Hagen. Basically, UH
admits that God can't do anything apart from UH, apart
from our faith. So this faith, that is that that
Hagen is putting on the banner where he says, teach
my people faith. This isn't the Great Commission kind of

(28:38):
faith where we are going to preach the Gospel and
the Holy Spirit grants faith to those who hear and
uh converts them. No, this is this is word of faith.
Jesus is telling Kenneth Hagen to teach word of faith
theology to his people.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
This is blasphemy, yes absolutely, And this is and and
it's it's a type of faith to teach you to
acquire physical material things, uh faith.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
And and that's that. And later on, when when I
began to really examine these things too, you know, they
always liked Hebrews chapter eleven, but they only liked a
couple of verses out of that chapter. Because if you
read the rest of Hebrews chapter eleven, the Hall of
Fame of Faith, those people weren't believing for camels and horses,
the cat, the cadillacs and the uh the driving equipment

(29:30):
of their day, or or fancy boats or yachts or
anything else. They were believing the promise of God that
God would send a savior. Or that's what they were
believing God for the promise, the future promises of God.
And and most of them lived and died without without
seeing that it wasn't about obtaining material goods. And then
and you know, and and that's another thing too, that

(29:51):
later on would drive me crazy. They say the just
shall live by faith, and their interpretation means that, you know,
this way you can get houses, cars, you know, jet aircraft,
you know, whatever, whatever it is. You can obtain material blessings,
you know. And so you know, again, all of these
thoughts were you know, some of them took a while

(30:11):
to evolve. But I I this was the first time
I saw the picture, and I didn't like the picture,
and this is one of those things I should have
walked away right then, but being human, we don't do that,
you know. We say, well, maybe maybe there's something I
don't understand fully, maybe I should stick with this a
little bit more because there's all these other people.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
Okay, so you that that was the stone in the shoe,
that was the first stone in the shoe? What actually
was it, Steve that finally where you just said I'm done.
I am, I am absolutely finished with with this and uh,
and what happened? Did you did you start going to

(30:50):
another church? Did you leave the faith for a little while?
What exactly what exactly happened?

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Okay, there are basically there are three more stones. Real quick,
I won't try to dwell on them. Too long. But
at any rate, stone the next big stone. There's some
little ones that happened here or there is when I
got back to my work, my my church, you know.
The next year or so, we had this couple come
to the church, and it turned out that I'd gone

(31:16):
to grade school with their son, you know, and I
knew them. And so the lady she had some sort
of condition where it seemed like her her hands or
her joints were was very painful for her. And somehow
they had heard that we were preaching the word of faith,
and so they came and so they so me and
the pastor went out to visit them one night because
and I told the pastor, well, Kenneth Agan, I had

(31:38):
always taught, you know, teach people a little bit about
faith and about healing first before you before you pray for,
especially something this complex, you know. So that sounded like
a good plan. So we went out there. So my
jaw dropped because when we went out there to talk
to them, they knew the Word of faith just as
much as I did. They. In fact, I could have
sat there like this, but my hand I said, okay,
really teach me, you know, because they they knew they

(32:00):
knew everything I knew there they didn't. There was nothing
I could tell them that they didn't already know. So
we we prayed for them, and so nothing happened. So
then the next week we visit them again in their home.
They invited us to their home. Well, now, mister L,
I'll have just call him mister L. He was mad,
and it's an anger that I would share in just

(32:20):
a few years. He and he said, I want to
know why she's not healed, and you know, and then
and then came the real, the real jaw dropper. He says,
we've gone down to Tulsa twice and Kenneth Hagen has
laid hands on her twice and she's still not healed.
And they had already heard this stuff about you know,

(32:41):
the reason why you're not healed is because you don't
have enough faith, And they both had both of their
mouths said, it's not because we don't have enough faith.
We are believing as hard as we possibly can. We
have the faith. Where where is the healing at? Well?
I didn't know how to answer this. I mean, this
was this was like, Okay, here's somebody, here's a primary example,
and this is somebody who Now I know that I've

(33:02):
met personally who's been prayed for by Kennethagon. They didn't
get healed. Now, I know Knnathagon didn't guarantee healings for everybody.
I get that, But you're still thinking, they know this
face stuff I like to say as much as I do,
so I, oh, jeez, you know that. You know. I
didn't know how to handle that, and it really bothered
me because I really wanted to help people, you know,
that was that was my whole goal. Here's somebody I

(33:25):
can't help them. I don't know what to do or say. Well,
then the two other stones in the shoe real quick.
One is, you know, one of the members of our
church was splitting time between Kansas City and a place
down in the Ozarks in Camdenton, Missouri. They had a
house down there, and they also went to a church
down there, a Word of Faith church, and the pastor

(33:46):
knew Charles Caps. So he said, you want to meet
Charles Caps. I said sure, So I went down there
to meet Charles Caps and so I met. I met him,
you know, and he was he was very business like,
I mean, no big deal one way or the other.
And I told him. I was with a small church
Kansas City, and he gave me his business card and
I told him I'd have to talk things over with
the pastor. I said, maybe we can have you come
up and speak, and he said, well, just call that

(34:07):
number there, that's my secretary. He said, okay, fine. You know,
nothing came of it because we shut the church down,
you know, not too long after that. So but at
any rate, what I discovered on that trip. I always
had a problem with motion sickness, especially you take too
many curves too fast and you get down to Missouri
and the ozarks where the hills are at, and it

(34:28):
was it was a problem for me as a kid,
and you know, and everything else is still can be
a problem for me. Had too many curves too fast
and I can't hold it. And so I had that issue.
I had allergy issues. And I also I had you know,
it was believing God for finances and none of this
stuff was working for me. And I was like the
guy that you know the propbrial thing where they say

(34:50):
never trust a faith healer who wears glasses, because because
if you can't solve a small problem, how can I
get God to believe that you're going to He's going
to heal your cancer or like in the case of
Chuck's fine Biffita, or in the case of Justin Peters,
you know, uh, cerebral palsy. You know how if I
if I can't get something small like that, but I

(35:12):
want you to believe for God for something super big
like that. Well you know that, Yeah, you know that
really creates a problem. And I felt like a hypocrite,
you know. But the final the one of the final
Straws came in seventy eight and went to Camp Meeting
seventy eight. And by the way, I saw a lot
of the speakers there, you know, over the over the years,
I saw Paul and Jen Crouch up close and personal

(35:34):
because they were there broadcasting. I saw Jerry Saville and
Norvile Hayes and uh Kenneth Hagen son in law. Now
those two they weren't coping. Yeah, yeah, I coupland and
I called. I saw Copeland that rama up close and
personal there. Uh you know, I was. I was just
a few feet away from him. He we we locked eyes,
you know, a couple of times, you know, but at

(35:56):
any rate, uh, you know, I saw, I saw and
John O. I saw him, you know, Joel's dad, and
he was he was a very good speaker. A lot
of these guys were very entertaining, good speakers, you know.
But at any rate, the thing of it is what
really burned me in seventy eight was, uh, I you know,
Kenneth Hagen gets up there, and so you had a

(36:16):
morning session, an afternoon session, and an evening session, and
so every session and this was unusual. This was different
than in seventy seven because in seventy eight every session
Kenneth Hagen got up there and he I think he
was offering this Bible you know that had his personal
notes in it, and he says, now we're offering this
Bible for you know, one hundred dollars, and you know,

(36:38):
he said, now you can buy this, you know. Yeah, wow,
Well now.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
One hundred dollars in seventy eight, that's a that's a
good chunk. And especially as being a student, you know,
that's that's what took a change.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Well, I was I was working a job at this time,
you know, so okay, you know, but it's still was
a lot of money, you know, I mean, like you say,
you know, this is fifty years ago, you know, or
a little less than fifty years ago now, but at
any rate, so he you know, he's offering this Bible,
and he said that, you know, there the he said,
now you can buy this Bible in a bookstore for

(37:11):
you know, fifty or sixty dollars. But with the reason
why that it's one hundred dollars is because we're trying
to raise money to build the campus for RAMA, you know. Okay, no,
you know, I understood that. You know that, you know
that to me wasn't a big deal, you know. And
so anyhow, so I got you know, I decided I
couldn't afford it, even though I was working at the
time and everything, so I couldn't I couldn't afford. I

(37:32):
just said, I'm just gonna have to, you know. And
Hagen kept emphasizing, once this camp meeting is over with,
you will never ever see this Bible again. We're never
going to offer it again. This is a one time deal.
This is all there is. You're not going to get
a second chance at this. And I just thought, well,
I just have to do without them, because I can't
afford one hundred dollars, you know. And so lo and

(37:54):
behold about six months later, I don't remember. It was
December of seventy eighth or January seventy nine. It was
somewhere in that vicinity. I get a letter on the
mail because I was always getting stuff from Hagen and
Copeland and TL Osborne and you name it. You know,
I was on everybody's mailing list. And so anyhow, you know,
all of a sudden, here's that Bible now being offered,

(38:16):
and you talk about being angry. I mean, you could
have lit a match on my forehead because I was
angry because I walked around and I read that letter
again and again, here's that same Bible now being offered
again that he said would never ever be offered again.
And I said, out loud as if Kennethagon were standing

(38:36):
right there, I said, you lied to me. And I
threw that letter in the trash, and I never gave
another dime to the Kennethagen organization ever bought anything else
from then again after that point on, you know. And
so then, like I say, I attended a four square
the church we had, you know, closed down. I attended

(38:57):
a four square church for a while. I did teach
a little bit of the Word of faith, it's hard
to let go of some of that stuff because I
was so ingrained with this. And then I went to
Ernie Grun's church again for a little bit, and I
was in a Sunday school class with with one of
with his daughter, and I went to Ernie's house for
a party one time, you know, very nice house, you know,

(39:17):
back and this was about eighty two or so, you know.
But then I decided, you know, and I'm sitting there,
even though I'm listening, I'm being very cynical about stuff.
I was very cynical about the whole thing. And then
I decided I was going to walk away from church
for a while. And then I moved to southern California
and then I went my sisters went to a Word
of Face church. I went with him more out of

(39:39):
purvacy than anything else. But I would sit there with
my arms folded, and I didn't want to hear this stuff,
you know, because you know, nice people. There were a
lot of nice people in that church, great great people.
Don't get me wrong. It was nothing to do with
the people themselves. They were super super great people. But
at any rate, then I came back to Kansas City,
and that's about I hadn't been back very long, and
my friend David C contacted me, and that's when learn

(40:00):
It preached that famous message about Mike Pipple, and so
he said, you know, but I wasn't there in church
that Sunday. I wasn't in any church. And then I
started working jobs. I worked, as I told you, I
worked two full time jobs, eighty hours a week for
almost twenty years, you know. And you know, I had
very little time to go to church because I had

(40:22):
to do laundry and everything else on the weekends. I
didn't have time for much anything. But I was still listening,
and I listened to the Bible answer Man when Hank
Hendergrath was on there in the nineties and he came
out with that book, Christianity and Crisis. Like I told you,
I'd be the listener. Thought, hey, Hank, I could help
you out just a little bit. I know some of
that stuff, you know. But at any rate, I sat

(40:43):
out for a while, you know, And I and it
took me a long time to decompress from it. Even
though I no longer believed in it, that stuff is
still in your head. And so I can sympathize with
anybody who's been in a cult. And I consider Word
of Faith a cult. It is a cult of the
mind and and you and when that is your lens
by which you view the Bible and stuff. And it

(41:04):
was hard to look at Bible verses and some Bible
verses and not here Kenneth Agen's voice, you know. And
then when I wrote my book, my book that that
you have, that was therapeutic for me because I was
able to go back reread. I hadn't read that book
for years. I believe in visions. And then I, you know,
and when I reread my jaw dropped the other way.

(41:26):
This time, instead of being awed and being impressed, I
was like, oh my gosh, I missed so much stuff.
There's so much heresy in here. It is unbelievable, you know.
And that book helped pull me, you know, whatever vestiges
of Word of Faith was in the back craters of
my mind, it got rid of it.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
Hagen's fifteen years old. This is what nineteen thirty three
maybe is this right around n And he's laying in
his on a sick bed, his deathbed, and his mother's
on the porch praying. His grandmother's there by his side.
His grandfather is off. I don't know where his grandfather is.
His father isn't there, and he's he's he's dying, and

(42:07):
he's he's already been the first. He's already been to
hell twice, you know. So he goes down, and I'm
talking about in this in this timeframe, when he's on
his deathbed. First time he goes down, he hears a voice.
He's you know, he's going he's dropping into hell. He's
feeling the flames, he's seeing the flames. He sees this creature,

(42:27):
and this creature grabs a hold of him, and he
hears a voice and he can't make out what the
voice says, and maybe it's a different language or something,
but it's so loud that it shakes the place. The
creature lets him go, and he shoots right back up,
and he's outside, you know, of his body still, but
he comes, I guess through the porch, you know, and
he and he goes back into his body, and he

(42:48):
has two He has another experience the same exact way.
But the third time is when uh, he he is
he's converted. He says, as I was going up through
the darkness, began to pray, my spirit the man who
lives inside the physical body is an eternal being, a
spirit man. I began to pray, Oh God, I come

(43:08):
to you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I ask you to forgive me of my sins and
to cleanse me from all sin. When I said that prayer,
asking Jesus to save me, I looked at the clock
and saw it was twenty minutes before eight o'clock. That
was the very hour I was born again due to
the mercy of God, because I asked Jesus Christ to
be my savior from uh, to be my savior and

(43:32):
save me from my sins. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah, several here I got. See he makes, like you say,
there's three trips to Hell that he makes. And I
know you know, and I break that down in my book.
You know, the various trips, because trip one and two
are pretty much the same. It's the third trip that's
a little bit different. But he does mention, as you said,

(43:55):
the creature that puts his hand on his shoulder. Now see,
this is where popular imagination has made it so that
people think that that the demons and the devil are
going to be jailor's in hell. Bible doesn't teach any
such thing. This is, as I say in the book,
this is more like Dante and Milton Paradise Lost than
it is than it is the Bible, because they're going

(44:15):
to be suffering their own torment. You know, we we
have that popular image of a demon jabbing somebody in
the hind quarters with pitchfork to shovel hoe faster. You know,
you know that's not true. That's not that's not that's
not the reality of hell. Now, as I say, you've
got to be somebody pretty special. He is, by his
own admittance those three trips until the very last, until

(44:39):
the very last part of trip number three, he is
a lost sinner. And yet God is speaking, you know,
and shaking Hell. Heaven and Hell are shaking, you know,
to get Kenneth Hagen out of there. Now, you you've
really got to be somebody special for for that to happen,
you know. And you know there's nobody there is nobody

(45:00):
else that I know of, has like you say, that
has any anything like that, you know. So so he's
he's gone way. I mean, this goes way beyond the
experiences of anybody else and and as I say in
the book, you know, yeah, there's there's no post mortem
uh salvation at all, because he begins the prayer and
the other thing too. As like I say, it's symbolic

(45:20):
that I don't think he it's because I I don't
believe his story at all. I did when I first
read the book. But I don't believe his story at all,
because I think he picked the number three to these
three times on purpose, because, as I quote the scripture,
you know about you know, you know about Jonah and
the whales, so you know, sociall the son of Man
be three days and three nights. Well he wasn't there

(45:41):
three days and three nights, but he had three trips. Okay.
And they also believe that Jesus was born again in hell.
He's also born again in.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Hell again in hell. And but no, no, I'm just
gonna interrupt you really quickly. This kind of thing is
throughout the book where he is comparing himself to I mean,
I'm reading it, Okay, there he is like Moses. There
he is like the apostle John. There he is like
like you, like you said, like Jesus three days and

(46:11):
three nights, And you can just see this throughout the
book where he is making himself out to be just
like these popular Bible characters.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Right, yes, yeah, he does this throughout the whole book.
I mean I never caught that the first time I
read the book. But it's like I said, once you
see this, once you see what I point out, it
hits you in the face over and over again. And
I probably missed a few, you know, you know, Chuck
picked up a couple of them that I missed, you know,
and uh, you know, the thing of it is, this

(46:42):
is this is a guy who he has that that
image of being this grandfatherly type guy. This you know,
his stage appearance is you know, he seems like the
sage old preacher, grandfatherly type, you know, a kindly old guy.
But when you read this book, when you really look
at what he's really saying, he's one of the most
arrogant men I've ever read about him my life. Because

(47:06):
he you know, because again he puts himself on park
and I go through and that's one of the things
we go through the and I go through this book.
It's like I say, he's like Moses Jesus, He's like
you know, Paul he's like, you know, Jeremiah, he you know,
I mean, the list goes on and on John and
everybody else. There's a lot of people that he compares to.
And this is done deliberately because I, you know, this

(47:29):
story is is totally made up. And this is why
I wanted to be clear too. And I use the
term and you've seen it in my book where you
know I I you know, I call it the counterfeit
Jesus because see, I don't want people to think when
I talk about Kenneth Hagen and Jesus told him, this
is Jesus didn't talk to him at all. You know,
this is a counterfeit Jesus. This is either Satan posing

(47:52):
as an angel light or this is a or this
is an invention of Hagen's mind. That's what I think
it is, because I think that since he lack the
education that a lot of people had to be in
the ministry, this is his ticket because see, you know,
and it's also like, see if you can have your
your commentaries all you want and and look at all

(48:12):
all the all of those things, but see he has
Jesus' commentary on things, you can't top them. You know,
when he says, this is what Jesus told me. Well,
I'm just a regular guy. You know. It's like I
can't well, I I could quote you know, uh, you know, uh,
some some common deal that doesn't compare to what Jesus said.
You know, it's kind of they got it straight from Jesus.

(48:32):
So that that puts him on a very very high
pedestal where it's hard to argue against him, you know,
and and you know and and you know and uh
that that's one of those things like like I say,
that's where it was hard to to pull away from
the stuff at first, because if you accept his premises,
then you're you're in trouble. You're in very big trouble.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Well, you're absolutely right. Word of Faith, the Word of Faith,
Jesus is a different Jesus than Scripture. It just is
not the same Jesus. It is a different Jesus. It's
an idol. And anyone who has a different Jesus is
worshiping an idol. And that that is why I really
hope that this video will reach people who are in

(49:16):
the Word of Faith movement, because one of the first
things that uh that has to happen coming out of
false teaching is repentance. You know, we you know, because
it even though we are and we were, we were deceived, Yes,
we still wanted to be there and we still wanted

(49:37):
you know, what they had. And so there is that
the idea of repentance. But it's a different Jesus, Steve,
it's a different God, it's a different Jesus in it.
It's just incredible. What were you gonna say? I'm sorry
I interrupted you.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
I are going to say. The other thing that I
caught Hagen on too, is he's supposed to have this
phenomenal memory, and I caught him where he forgot stuff,
you know three you know, just a few years later,
and so did so did counterfeit Jesus counterfeit. Jesus didn't
have a very good memory. Counterfeit Jesus didn't know the
scriptures very well either. And you know he uses you
know that, you know, he uses proof texting or as
I told you the other day, you know, uh, grasshopper

(50:14):
exe Jesus, you know a term that I picked up
the other day, you know, and uh, you know, and
and and all this kind of stuff. And so it's
like I say, you know, I I believe you know
that that I can prove that that again in no vision,
at any time that Kenneth Hagan ever talked to the
real Jesus period. This is a different Jesus.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Absolutely, yes, absolutely, let's uh, let's talk now about the
prophecy that uh, that Hagen had, because that's right around
in the middle of the book. His mother. His mother
had a prophecy. He had a prophecy. And you know,
it's really curious is in my study of a lot

(50:56):
of the early Pentecostal leaders, it seems like every body's
mother had a vision about them before they were born. Yeah,
or they almost died, they almost died, and and were
told that, uh you know, and the mother praised and says,
if you just do this, you know, I'll dedicate my
child to you throughout his life. And so so it
sets these these leaders up to be these great men

(51:19):
of God. But it seems like everybody's mother had had
that's right, tell a story telling. Kenneth Hagen's mother is
no different.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Yeah, It's like what I what they call in politics,
the log cabin story. Everybody had a humble beginning, they
had a log cabin, and you know, and and these
guys they had they had something that they were sick,
and then they also were so poor. God helped him
out somehow. Now and you can find out that story
if you find my latest CD.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely. All right, Well let's look at
this prophecy I've got. Let's see, this is uh the one,
two three four, So this is going to be this one,
I believe. A week after this vision, this first vision,
my mother visited me and I related the vision to her.

(52:09):
I told her that the that the Lord had said
to me, I called you before you were born. There's
there's like Jeremiah. I separated you from your mother's womb.
Like Jeremiah, Satan tried to destroy your life before you
were born and has tried many times since. But my
angels have watched over you and cared for you until

(52:32):
this present hour. I appeared to your mother before you
were born and told her to fear not the child
would be born and would bear witness concerning my second coming.
So Kenneth Copeland was to bear witness concerning the second
Kenneth Hagen was to bear witness concerning the second Coming

(52:56):
of Christ. So what are what what are your thoughts
on that? Steve?

Speaker 2 (53:01):
Can we go back one second. Put that quote back
up there.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
I want to put there again. Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Okay. Now I want you to know one thing before
we get to the before we get to the second coming. Now,
I noticed there he says, Satan tried to destroy your
life before you were born. Now that implies that somehow,
between you know, Heaven and Hell or God and the devil,
it was announced somewhere that Kenneth Hagen was going to

(53:28):
be born. He's truly a special guy that that. You know,
this is this is somebody who and Satan is going
I got to get rid of this guy, and so
he tries to kill him. You know again, you know,
like I say, Moses and Jesus at their birth, Satan
tried to kill but it started with Hagen before it
was even born. Now that tells you at what level

(53:51):
I mean this, This this is arrogance above anything I've
ever seen. Because this is a guy who's saying Satan
tried to kill you. You know, he knew, he knew you
were going to be born. You know, I was like, whoa,
you know, I mean, this is that's being okay, So
if you want to comment on that, and then we'll
get to the other part of it.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
No, I mean no, no, I mean it's it's it.
I didn't even catch that. I didn't even catch that.
So thank you for pointing that out. That is that
is really something there. I I was more looking at
the fact that he was supposed to usher in, usher
in or not usher in. Now, how did he say it?
He will uh let me let me put the slide

(54:30):
up because I can't remember exactly what he said there.
He said, uh, fear not. I appeared to your mother
before you were born and told her to fear not
the child would be born and would bear witness. There
you go, bear witness concerning my second coming. Well, Kenneth
Hagen is dead and uh so I don't think he

(54:51):
uh bore witness concerning Christ's second coming there, do you?

Speaker 2 (54:55):
No, I don't think so, because unless unless we missed it, Dan,
it didn't hasn't happened.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
Yeah you know, yeah yeah. The only thing I the
only thing I can think of that they could that
they would say, is well, it doesn't say he's gonna
see christ second coming. He just says he's gonna be
a witness concerning and he certainly did in this case.
And in this case. But but one of the things also,
and I don't know if I kept I'm gonna put
this slide back up one more time. I did not

(55:22):
put that there, did I? Something about this being the
great the Final Revival. Basically he says this is the
Final Revival. And what's really interesting is Katherine Coolman said
that said the same thing.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
You know.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
Finally it's this is this is the Great End Time Revival,
before the Youth Revival, before the before the Coming of Christ.
So yeah, I mean, how many revivals have these got
to have? I mean, I think this must disappoint Katherine
Catherine Krik because Kevin seems to think that in the
UH in the Great End Time Revival. So somebody's got

(55:59):
to tell her something there.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Man, everybody thinks they are you know, everybody thinks that
they are They're it, you know or whatever. But I
talk about his mom just for a second there, because
in that big vision of nineteen fifty it was I
can't remember the exact date, I want to say September
second or something in nineteen fifty or whatever. This is
part of, you know, part of the vision about his mom,

(56:23):
you know, because he goes in uh Hagen's part of
the vision and his mom's part of the vision. I
go into this in the book and Jesus, you know,
a few weeks before Hagen is born, she's headed towards
her parents' house and she's walking down the street and
there's a clear blue sky. There's not a cloud around,
and there's no trees around. And she suddenly hears the
wind rustling around like in trees, but there's no trees,

(56:47):
and then she sees finally, she sees this small cloud
and he gets bigger and bigger, and there's Jesus and
he burst out of this cloud and he tells her
and he tells her this that that you know, he says,
he said, not, your son is going to be born,
and he's going to preach the gospel, and he's going
to bear witness to my second coming. Now, when you
think about this, you go back to his early story.

(57:10):
You go back to chapter one, and you read about
his mom. His mom is a nervous wreck when he's dying,
you know, when he's at you know, age fifteen or so.
And in fact, he says in there, she was crying
so loud she stopped the traffic, you know, and he says.
He says, I know we don't have as many automobile
or as we you know, then, as we do now.

(57:31):
But she stopped traffic going down two streets because she
was crying so loud. Now, if you had had Jesus
appear to you out of the clear blue sky, you know,
with nothing else around, and tell you this very thing,
she should have been the coolest cucumber of the bunch
when he was quote dying. He should have she should

(57:52):
have said, he's not dying because I saw a vision
of Jesus and he told me my son is going
to live, and he's going to be a part of
the he's going to be around preaching when the Second
Coming happens. But she's not. She's an emotional mess at
that time, you know, and you know she can't even
be used. So this tells you right that there's a
huge incongruity here between what he says here and what

(58:14):
he says at the beginning of the book. You know,
I mean, it's all in the same book, and this
is like, you know, it's like how nobody notices that
you know.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
There's there's also no there's other contradictions too, Like he
he talks about him wanting to see a pastor and
because he had found this verse, the verse that changed
his life, which is Mark eleven, twenty twenty four, that says,
whatever he asked for in prayer, believe that you received
it and were yours. And he wanted to see a pastor.
But he said he he you know, the finally his mother,

(58:45):
I guess it was his aunt's pastor or somebody came
after a couple of passages, didn't And he said he
was paralyzed in the throat, you know, this paralysis was
up in his throat and he couldn't talk, you know.
And he so he was trying to ask the pastor
about the about the verse and trying to get him
to explain the first but he couldn't get it out.
And so the pastor just put patted on on his

(59:06):
hand and said, there, their son, don't worry. You'll be
in heaven before too, before long. Don't don't you worry.
It's gonna be and he walks out of the room.
Now here's my question. Earlier in the book, when he's
on his deathbed, he's got his grandmother there and he's
just carry on a conversation. Oh, my grandma, thank you
so much for all you've done for me. Tell Mama,

(59:27):
thank you mama for all that you know, tell her
she's the greatest mom in the world. And I just yeah,
he's just carrying this conversation in between his his trips
to hell. So you know, was it was he paralyzed
his throat and couldn't talk or or you know exactly. Yeah,
I'm reading this, I'm like, wait a minute, but but
wait a minute, you know, so anyway, I digress, but

(59:49):
I did find the quote. Anyway, go ahead, you're gonna
say something.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Before you before you read that. It's just back to
his sickness. He had five doctors. There's no testimony that
I know of by any of these five doctors. He
was in position to verify one of the greatest healing
miracles of all time. And if you look in my
edition of the book, and page numbers may vary by editions,
all of a sudden, he says in my edition of

(01:00:14):
the book, the two thousand and five editions, he says,
and a doctor pronounced me well of heart trouble. It's like,
wait a minute, a doctor who's a doctor? You know?
After he lists all these other doctors. There's he names
the family doctor, and these other doctors pretty much remained mainless,
remain nameless. But the thing of it is, it's like
you would think that, okay, he mentions this one guy

(01:00:34):
who was from the Mayo Clinic or whatever. You would
think they would stand in line to write, now we
saw this amazing healing of this young man, you know,
And yet there's no testimony. And I say in my book,
I contacted the Hagen organization, you know, to try to
find out, you know, where can I find the testimony
of these doctors. But since I didn't include an offering,
I never got an answer. So at anyway, yeah, there

(01:00:59):
you go.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Yeah, so let me let me just let me just
read this quote here from from from the book. Uh,
this is what it says. This is Jesus talking to
him about telling him about Judgment coming to America, you know,
and he says, uh warned this generation, as did Noah,
his generation for Judgment is about to fall, and these

(01:01:22):
sayings shall be fulfilled shortly. For I am coming soon,
Jesus repeated, repeated, because he had said this before. This
is the last revival. I am preparing my people for
my coming so I mean, this is this is something
that you hear over and over and over again within

(01:01:45):
you know, this kind of this kind of word of
faith and charismatic theology, especially hyper charismatic theology. You know, yes,
And we're not saying that all charismatics are believe this
or or or teach this or what even you know,
embrace Kenneth Hagen, but you do you do hear this

(01:02:06):
when you're you're looking at the videos of you know,
I like I mentioned Kathyn Kreick talking about the Great
Revival and and all of these others, but revival, revival,
revival is what you hear all the time. But Kenneth
Hagan's revival was the last one.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Yes, absolutely, yeah it was. It was. I mean we
you know, according to that prophecy right there, it was
right around the corner. I mean it was. It was
going to happen really soon. It didn't happen.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
And yep, I've got a couple of other slides I've
got uh. I want to talk about the scroll because
we mentioned that Hagen makes himself out, or at least
compares himself to to other Bible characters, and see who
this reminds you of we're gonna I've got too. This
is a part one and a part two slide here

(01:02:54):
and now, just just really quickly background, He's I can't
remember where he's at. He's in he's in some kind
of church service maybe, and he's on his knees and
he's taken away in the spirit.

Speaker 4 (01:03:07):
And yeah, everything around the story.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
But I'm like you, I can't remember the exactly where
he was at. A.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
Yeah, he's he's looking around. Everything's dark, and he sees
this little dot coming towards him, and he begins to see,
oh wait, this is a horse and a rider on
the horse, and so he uh, yeah, let me, let
me just pop it up that that's kind of the context,
he says. Soon, I could see it was a horse.

(01:03:35):
As it came closer, I could see a man upon
the horse. He was riding towards me at full speed.
As he approached, I could see he held the reins
of the horse's bridle in his right hand, and in
his left hand, high above his head, he held a scroll.
Now what does that sound like? Sounds like Daniel in
the Book of Daniel. Sounds like the Apostle John and Revelation.

(01:03:59):
He held a screw roll of paper. When the horseman
reached me, he pulled on the reins and stopped. I
stood on his right. He passed the scroll from his
left hand to his right hand and handed it to me.
So there we see a horse like in Revelation, a
rider on the horse, an angel on the horse like Revelation,

(01:04:19):
the scroll like Daniel and John. So that's just an
example of just the arrogance of this guy. So any
thoughts before we moved the next light?

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Again, there there is and if if you wanted to,
I got a few more thoughts about his being present
at the second Coming.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, please please have more Okay, Yeah, which.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Is this is you know, and I know you texted me,
you know, and said this is this is really huge
because see one of the things I say in my book, Okay,
because Hagen says this several times that he would bear
witness to Jesus' second coming. And he doesn't mean that
he's going to be watching from happening. He means he's
going to be in this life right here, all right,

(01:05:04):
if you know the thing of it is, here's the
key questions, which is, we know that Jesus cannot lie
all right, Hagen didn't make it to the Second Coming.
He's dead, you know he And of course, and he's
also told apparently the same this counterfeit. Jesus also told
Kenneth Hagan's mother that that Hagen would live to see

(01:05:26):
the Second Coming. It didn't happen. So the thing of
it is, Jesus cannot lie. Somebody's lying here, because you know,
Kenneth Hagen didn't make it to the Second Coming. And
those of you who are following Kenneth Hagan, you've got
to decide. You know, this shows you right here, this
is a false Jesus. This is a counterfeit Jesus, because

(01:05:49):
you know he Since Jesus cannot lie, somebody's lying here.
You know that if there's nothing else, if you don't
get anything else out of my book or out of
this discussion, you have to under stand that when he
was prophesied to be here, be present at the Second Coming,
but Kenneth Hagen died in two thousand and three, didn't happen.

(01:06:09):
He as a false prophet. You know, capital letters all
across the sky, and you know, I don't know how
I have to say it much plainer than that, And
some of the people who are followers of Kenneth Hagen
or whatever. How do you deal with that? Because again,
you know, this is you know, that is not the
real Jesus. It can't possibly be.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
No. The only like I said, the only way I
could see anybody even trying to make an excuse for
this would be again them saying something like, well it
was concerning his second company. He did all that with
his ministry, you know, uh, but we don't see Christ.
Christ has a come and this was the last revival.

(01:06:54):
And yet what did you what did you? What have
you had sover you You've had all kinds of different
revivals going on. You know, this is this vision was
in nineteen fifty I want to say fifty. No, nineteen
fifty wasn't it nice?

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Yeah? Yeah, he had that. Yeah. I think I was
going to say, I think it is nineteen fifty on
the money. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
But yet we've had we've had and I don't believe
these are revivals. But we've had Toronto, the Toronto Blessing.
I don't believe that was a January revval. We've had
We've had Brownsville, which is which was supposed to be
this this greatest rival We've had Lakeland, which was proven
to be a fraud, and then the little pockets of revivals. Yeah,

(01:07:36):
little little pocket revivals like the Asbury Revival and things
like that. But uh, you know, and that's the thing,
I mean, the stuff in this book, it's so easy
to disprove. And so I'm hoping that that's what people
will be getting out of your book. But you can
you can also see, like we were talking about, you

(01:07:58):
can see the how he elevates himself to be this
great great man of God. Let me let me let
me hit slide part two of that scroll slide and
just look at that he says, Uh. Then in larger print,
this is what he says. Then in larger print it

(01:08:19):
said on the scroll, the time of the end of
all things is at hand. What does that sound like?
Doesn't that sound like John? In Revelation? This statement, this
statement was repeated four or five times. And let me
let me just give a significance there. You talked about
the number three. When something is repeated in scripture, especially

(01:08:41):
in the Old Testament, over and over, there is emphasis there. Okay,
the the author is making an emphasis. So you think
of Isaiah's uh vision in Isaiah chapter six, where the
seraphim and are flying around and they're saying, Holy, Holy,
Holy is the Lord. There's this this emphasis there. Now,

(01:09:02):
I do also believe that has you know, it points
towards the Trinity as well. But there's still that significance
of the repetition of a phrase. They didn't put things
in bold, they just you know, over So there's significance
in that. And so when he when he you know,

(01:09:23):
repeats uh, it says that this thing is it happened,
you know, four or five times. When he said the
statement was repeated four or five times, Jesus, you know
that that means that this is significant. The time of
the end of all things is at hand. Jesus also
said this was the last great revival. Say there it

(01:09:43):
is again. So he mentions that two or three times
in in in this chapter. He went on to say,
all the gifts of the Spirit will be in operation
in the church in these last days, and the Church
will do greater things than even the early Church did.
It will have greater power, signs and wonders. Then we're
recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. He said that

(01:10:04):
we have seen and experienced many healings, but we will
now behold amazing miracles that we have not seen before.
And when I read that, I asked the question, what
like leg growing, like like fake leg growing? Is that
the kind of great miracles that we're going to sign
from from the church today? I mean, yeah, so what

(01:10:25):
are your thoughts?

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
Well? The other thing too that I think of, And
it's very clear that you know, he's saying, this is
the end of time. And go back to the nineteen
fifties just for a second. You just come out of
World War two. The nuclear age, you know, is upon people.
Now you've got nuclear missiles, you've got to worry about Russia,
and there's all you know, there's talk of World War
three all the time, you know, and everybody's worried about

(01:10:48):
if somebody punches presses the wrong button, we could be gone.
And people lived with this air of expectancy that at
any moment, nuclear war something could break out, that this
could be the end of time times, you know, et cetera.
So there is that air of expectancy that goes beyond
church related matters. So people are looking towards this, you know,

(01:11:09):
and there's there's another move that comes on in the
seventies with how Lindsay's book like Great Planet Earth and
all that. We won't get into that, but anyhow, the
thing of it is, you know, so so he's not
talking about a far off time. He's he's talking about
right then and people people are worried about that. And
I would I would dare say if you could travel

(01:11:30):
back in time and ask the people how they felt
that they probably thought that they would probably see the end,
the end of the world in the next ten to
fifteen years after after this prophecy. You know that that
I think that's what he's really talking about. That you know,
he didn't give it an exact timeframe. I understand that,
but but they were probably looking for it to be
right around the corner, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we could talk. We've been on here
for almost an hour and a half and we could
we could just keep talking and keep talking about this
book because there's so many crazy things. But there was
one there was one statement in this book, Steve that
really it really made my jaw drop, And that is

(01:12:14):
what Jesus told Kenneth Hagen about other religions. I want
to put that slide up and now I want to
read that. This is what he said. The Lord said
to me, these people this is now keep in mind,
this is Kenneth Hagen in a vision talking to Jesus.
Jesus has appeared to him and is talking to him

(01:12:37):
right now. These people whom you see because because okay, Kenneth, Kenneth,
Kenneth Hagen is seeing this vision like a river or
like this ocean, and the ocean turns into people. Okay.
Then the Lord said to me, these people whom you
see flowing like a river into this garden, because he
was in a garden when he had this vision, are

(01:12:58):
what you call denominational people or denominations other than full Gospel.
And this day, he says, Jesus says, I am visiting
hungry hearts everywhere. Wherever I find hearts that are open
to me, in whatever church they may be, I will
visit them in this hour. I will also visit places

(01:13:19):
you never would have thought I would visit not only
what you call denominational churches look at what I've gotten read,
but I will also visit other religions where hearts are
hungry and open to me. I will bring them into
full salvation and into the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

(01:13:40):
So I guess maybe then Jesus actually did go and
visit Joseph Smith. I mean, could it could it have
been possible? I mean, if you think, if you think
Jesus is actually speaking to Kenneth Hagen there and he's saying,
I'm gonna visit other religions, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
It's something else I want to Yeah, yeah, it really does.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
Something else I want to point out too. If we
go back and look at that slide, he says, I'm
visiting hungry hearts everywhere wherever I find hearts that are
open to me. So biblically, what heart is open to Jesus?
We are all born dead in trespasses and sins. We

(01:14:30):
have no desire for God, were born with no desire,
and Romans chapter three makes us very clear no one
is seeking after God. So it is God who seeks us,
and he doesn't and gives us the gift of faith
to believe the Gospel. So I mean this whole idea

(01:14:53):
that you know, these poor hungry hearts, even in false religions,
are they're they're hungry for me. They just don't know me.
But I'm gonna go and I'm gonna grab them and
I'm gonna I'm gonna reveal myself to him. So again,
you know, I got to ask, does Jesus come to
other religions and appear there and reveal himself there? So

(01:15:14):
anyway thoughts?

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Yeah, now exactly. And again, just when you think you've
heard enough heresy and stuff, you know, he Kenneth Hagan
just keeps auditioning it up. And I just want to
say the other thing. It is too to the folks
out there who support Kenneth Hagen, look at what look
at what you're doing right here. You're giving the actual
words of Kenneth Hagen. We're not we're not short changing that.

(01:15:38):
We're not. We're not you know, giving half quotes or
anything like this, giving you page numbers. You can go
look this stuff up yourself. And like you say, does
this mean that he's searching out people and under other religions,
the Hindus and the Muslims and all that. And I
know people are going to say about the muslim They're
gonna say, well, there's these people out there where they're
getting these strange dreams of Jesus that's coming to I

(01:16:00):
don't know, you know, that's that's possible, but I don't know.
I wouldn't count on it, you know exactly, I you know,
type of thing. But uh but you know again, you
know there there is uh you know again, Hagen, just
every time you turn around in this book, there's just
one heresy after another after another after and I and
to me, it's like what we talked about, I was

(01:16:22):
ultimately responsible because I missed a lot of this stuff
the first time, you know, And and you know, and
I I did, like what you said, I repent it,
you know, because I I, you know, and I you know,
I was sorry that I taught this stuff and that
I taught it to people, and it just really bothered me,
you know, and I I, you know, I it was
it was tough, you know, to admit that, you know

(01:16:43):
that I I did, you know so.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
And and and that's and that's what's the beautiful thing
is God God delivers his people from this this kind
of this kind of heresy. I always go back. I
think about I think about down Hill, who I don't
know if you've ever watched her or listened to Don Hill.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
Yeah, absolutely, I subscribed to her channel. I saw her
on your on your show, man, you know, a long
time ago, and I subscribed to her right away since
I saw her on your show a long time ago.
And and I've used no go ahead, I got to say,
and I used some of her stuff with John G.
Lake about the uh about her, you know, his thing
in Africa, you know, my microscopes and all that. So

(01:17:26):
I go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:17:27):
That was really good. That was a really good episode.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
But uh, but yeah, she was a prophet in the
New Apostolic Reformation. She was a false prophet in the
New Apostolic Reformation. And when she came to realize that,
she publicly repented. And wow, it's just just amazing what
God has done. And and I wasn't. I hope people
don't think I'm saying I said that to be harsh,

(01:17:51):
because we've all had to do that, you know. We
we've come to the realization, Wait a minute, I was
in either in a cult or I was uh part
of this this this na Ar church or this Word
of Faith church or whatever. And now I'm realizing this
stuff isn't true and I believed it. And there's this shock,

(01:18:12):
I think that comes, and then after the shock wears off,
there's this sadness and grief and then it's man, I
gotta repent and it's just you know, asking for forgiveness
and and then just it take And like you were
saying to Steve, it takes time to heal. It takes

(01:18:32):
a long time to heal. I would advise somebody coming
out of Word of Faith, the Word of Faith movement,
like you said, it was so ingrained in you, right,
and it just is. And that's not just Word of Faith,
that's any that's any false teaching.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
That's any false Yeah, it's so.

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
It's so ingrained that you know, you should just take
time to heal. Don't get involved in any kind of ministry,
don't get involved in any kind of teaching. Take time
to learn and take time to heal, because it's what
I does. Take a long time. Here he is, Steve Johnson.
I will put a link to your book uh D

(01:19:15):
Deconstructing Kenneth Hagen in the uh YouTube description link and
uh uh Also I'll put a link to Chuck's channel
Sheep among Wolves, because that's where you are a regular guest.
Now are you a co host to Chuck's pod hack
cast or are you well a regular guest?

Speaker 2 (01:19:34):
Uh? You know you might say I'm a regular guest.
I mean in the sense of, uh, you know, he
does some stuff on his own. He's a pastor, you know,
he does some stuff, but we do do a lot
of things together, and uh, you know, and I certainly
appreciate Chuck and everything he's done. He's got a medic
entergy tremendous and and I'm very thankful that you put
his story on as well. And he's got a great Yeah.

(01:19:57):
If people haven't seen that, they need to see that.
And Chuck is a great guy. And like I say,
I thank him for giving me a platform and wish
to speak, because otherwise you might not have ever heard
of me, you know, because I you know, as I say,
I'm on the trailing edge of technology, not on the
cutting edge of technology. So I don't know about all
this camera stuff and everything. But you know, and I know,

(01:20:21):
you know, a while back, you talked about what you
went through when when you you know, you know, hooked
up with stuff. And I know that was a hard
video for you to do, and I appreciate sharing that,
you know, because you know, you almost lost your family,
you know, and that's a hard thing, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
So yeah, I will put yeah, I appreciate that. I
will put a link to Chuck's video that I did
with him, the interview that I did with him, and
and that that he's got a fantastic story. I'll put
that in the link YouTube link too. Steve, thank you
so much for joining me. I really appreciate this. We
could talk for another couple of hours over the this book.

(01:21:00):
It's so crazy. Yeah, and I do want to have
you on again and talk about some other things. But yes, folks,
got lot, but yeah, we do, we do. So thanks
again Steve for coming on.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
And thank you Dan very much from the bottom my
heart for having me on. After watching and admiring you
and Robin for years, it's like here, I am all right.
I really appreciate I really appreciate your ministry and your
videos that you've got and and again just thank you
from the bottom of my heart for having me. I

(01:21:32):
really do. My pleasure, privilege, privilege, and an honor, sir
to meet you and to be a part of thanks
here and so well appreciate.

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
What It's my pleasure and I'm looking forward to have
you on again. Okay, folks, I hope this video has
been helpful. If it has please pass it to some
along to someone who might need to hear it again.
All the links down in the YouTube description, Lord Willing,
we'll see you next week.

Speaker 2 (01:22:11):
Neverthing

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