They Promised I Would Walk Again, I Didn't: A Pastor's Story of Leaving Word of Faith

My guest, Chuck Lewis, grew up in the Word of Faith Movement. Over and over again, he was told that if he just had enough faith, he would be healed. But the healing never came. Now an Assemblies of God pastor, Chuck is speaking out — warning others about the empty promises, dangerous teachings, and false hope that define the Word of Faith Movement. In this interview, he shares his powerful story of disappointment, spiritual abuse, and ultimately, freedom in Christ.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
So I was one of the first, if not the
first person to go down for healing, right, And so
I go down and you know, you can just I remember,
I'm sweating, like the tension in the air and everything.

(00:22):
And I go down and he prays for me, and
nothing happens. And so they they man, they get themselves
worked up and they're you know, they're praying for me
and they're they're even trying to drag me up out

(00:43):
of my wheelchair and all of this, and it felt like,
honestly an eternity. I don't know how long this went on.
If I had to guess, it was probably about fifteen minutes.
This guy, so this guy, I mean, and here's the
thing with these with these faith healers and stuff like this,

(01:07):
You're nothing to them, you know. They they you're You're
just a face in the crowd to them. You're just,
you know, you're nothing to them. And that's really what
I felt after he did that, was just like, I
nothing to you, Like you don't care if I get
healed or anything.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Welcome to the Long 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 3 (01:44):
Hello everyone, welcome along for Truth. My name is Daniel
long Well. Today we're going to be talking about the
Word of Faith movement again. Now we've talked quite a
bit about the Word of Faith movement on this channel,
but today we're going to be coming at it from
a different perspective because I've got a special guest. His
name is Chuck Lewis. Chuck has a YouTube channel called

(02:06):
Sheep among Wolves, and Chuck is an associate pastor and
an Assemblies of God church in New Mexico. He is
going to tell you about his story, and let me
tell you it is a well, it's a sad but
it's also a fascinating story as well, because Chuck is
now speaking out against the Word of Faith movement and

(02:30):
he's doing a great job over there. So I'll put
a link to his YouTube channel, his Facebook page, and
his website all in the YouTube description. Let me bring
him on here. So Chuck, thank you so much for
coming on.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
Dan.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
I watch you, I watch you know, Steve, I watch
Mike Winger all those guys.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Well, let's start first of all with your faith, and
then we'll talk about your condition and what happened with
you with your word of former church, which was a
Word of Faith church, correct.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Right, Yeah, I was in the Word of Fate for
like ten years.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, And we'll talk about that. But I think the
first thing that needs to be discussed is your story,
So let's go ahead and start there.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Sure. So I was born and raised in Tularosa, New Mexico.
It's a very small town in southern New Mexico, and
I've lived here my entire life. I don't really have
any plans on leaving. I saw a lot of my
friends and stuff like when they would graduate and stuff

(03:41):
like that, they couldn't wait to get out of here.
But then by the time that they had spent a
year or two away, they wanted to come back. So
I'm like, I'll just save the middleman and I'll stay
where I'm at. But when I was born, so I'm
thirty nine, I actually just turned thirty nine on the
side seventeenth. So I was born with a birth defect

(04:05):
called spina bifida, and spina bifida is for those of
you who don't know, there's different degrees to it. Mine
was actually one of the more severe cases. What it
is is a separation in the spine. They found out
later that it's actually caused because they were kind of

(04:29):
messing around with the prenatal vitamins and things like that,
and they took out follic acid on some of them,
and it was a lack of fullic acid which caused
the birth defects. And so when I was born, they
really didn't know how to handle me. The doctors were

(04:52):
not very experienced in this. I was very blessed to
have one doctor who was just coming out of medical
school that was starting to study this stuff, and he
took me on. He was actually my primary doctor until
I was twenty five, and he retired twenty five years later.

(05:16):
You know, but they so I was born in Alamagordo,
which is a little bit larger than the town where
I live. It's about thirteen miles away. I was born
there and they immediately had to fly me to Albuquerque
because they just did not have the capability to do

(05:41):
anything with me here. They had to do emergency surgery.
I had like this sack of spinal fluid that was,
you know, like sticking out of my back, and you know,
so they just really weren't prepared for or the extremity
of my health condition and that so when I flew

(06:08):
to Albuquerque, or when they flew me to Albuquerque, they
put me in an incubator and my parents were gonna
drive up there later. And when my mom got there,
they had not they had not really done anything to
with me. They had pretty much just kind of left

(06:28):
me there, and she, you know, she raised a huge fit.
My mom has always been a fighter and all of that,
and she just couldn't believe it. And she actually got
a hold of my medical charts and they had put
in my medical charts that they were they were not

(06:48):
going to take extreme measures to save me or anything
like that because I would be a quote unquote useless
member to society. This is this was their professional medical determination.
And so I in the first two years of my life,

(07:09):
I spent a lot of time in Albuquerque going to
hospitals and having surgeries and things like this. One of
the major surgeries that they had done was they had
put pins in my back to try and correct the
you know, the separation and the spine. Well, the doctor

(07:31):
who did it botched the surgery and the pins started
coming out, and so he he actually came in the
next morning and he told my parents, I couldn't sleep
all night. I've got to go in and I've got
to fix this. And so they did another surgery to
remove the pins, and when they did that, they did

(07:53):
nerve damage. And so I don't really know how I would,
you know, how I would be if that hadn't happened.
But with that happening, like I cannot feel anything like
from my knees down. And I've had a lot of
problems with getting like sores on my feet, pressure sores

(08:16):
and things like this all throughout my life just because
I don't have any sensation there. I've burned my knees
a couple of times and stuff like this, you know.
So I had that stuff going along. And the thing
of it is, the doctors tried to convince my parents

(08:37):
that it would be best to just abort me, Like
I said, they they thought that I would be, you know,
useless to society. They actually thought that my health condition
was going to be a lot worse than what it
turned out to be. They thought that I would not
live past the age of eighteen. But like I said,

(09:01):
I'm I just turned thirty nine, so I guess, you know.
And so they they told my mom, you know, when
she was pregnant. They're like, there's there's going to be
a lot of problems in all of this. You you
should you should just abort him, because you know he's
going to have so many problems throughout his life. And

(09:24):
then they wrote, you know, you're going to be a
useless member of society and all of this. Well, my parents,
you know, they they were Christians, and my my mom
she had come from a Baptist background. My dad his
his background was always more Pentecostal and charismatic kind of

(09:46):
background and things like this. But at the time that
I was born, they were attending a Assembly of God church.
It's actually and I'll get to this a little later,
it's actually the church where I'm associate pastor. Now, you
had on the one side, you had people who were

(10:08):
in the medical profession that were telling my parents, you know,
you should abort and and things like this, and giving
all these really you know, bad reports of things that
could go wrong and should go wrong, and all of this.
And then on the other side, on the on the

(10:29):
faith side of it, there was parents, There were there
was people. There were people who were telling my parents
that this is you guys fault. You guys have sin
in your life and that is the reason your child
was born this way, and just terrible, terrible things like that.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
So so with that, how did I mean, I can
only imagine I can only imagine how that must have
affected your mother when she heard that.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, So, I mean my mom, you know, she always
told me, She always tried to encourage me. She always
tried to tell me, you know, you're you're not a mistake.
God knew exactly what he was doing when he created you,
that God has a purpose for you, and all of

(11:24):
these things. But there was always this pressure. And it
wasn't as much at this initial church that we went to,
but there was always kind of this pressure of like,
we've got to see him heal, you know. I remember,

(11:45):
I don't even remember how old I was, but I
was I was probably somewhere around like i'd say, between
ten and thirteen. And my dad showed me this little
hard that he carried around in his wallet that I
guess was like, you know, like a faith card. Or

(12:06):
something he was carrying that said Charles will walk, you know.
And as as we get more into this, I'll share
more about some of the experience I've had with healing
lines and things like that. But I just want to
kind of wanted to kind of set the stage for you. So,
like I said, I started out in this Assembly of

(12:28):
God church, and there was you know, there was the
whole thing about them telling my parents. And it wasn't everybody.
It was it was those hyper charismatic people, you know,
telling my parents, trying to be like basically like Job's friends.
You know, you must be doing something wrong for this
bad to have happened. And so there was there was that.

(12:53):
The main thing that I remember at that church as
a child was they were really into deliverance stuff. This
was like the height of the Satanic panic, you know,
and there's there's demons behind every behind every door and

(13:15):
all kinds of stuff. I was told by the pastor there.
Uh my mom had him come and pray over the
house and uh he said that there was a spirit
of death that was hovering over my crib, that wanted
me to kill myself or wanted me to die. And

(13:37):
this is this is something that uh, all of my
growing up, like I believed this, you know, because it
came from a pastor and stuff like this. And as
as I've went through this process, and I hate to
use that word deconstructing because you know, it's it's got

(13:57):
such a stigma to it, but there there really is
a growing process, and there is a learning process, and
that to life. And there's just some things that I
have to look back on and say, you know, that
just wasn't right. That just you know, I get where
they were coming from, I get all of that, but

(14:18):
it just wasn't right. And then there was a church split.
So I don't want to get into a lot of
detail about it, but the pastor at the time, he
was very authoritarian, right like it's my way or the highway,
and he actually had become a judge in the town,

(14:43):
which was a terrible idea for the pastor to also
be a judge, and so he just kind of thought
that he was the rooster of the hen house, you know.
And so my mom took me and my sibling and
my grandma actually lived with us. Her mom took us

(15:05):
and we went to a Nazarene church. So this would
be like from the time that I was seven to
about ten years old. And so we only stayed at
the Nazarene church for about three years, and then we
went to a different Assembly of God church. Now this

(15:27):
one was in Alamagordo. It's probably about thirteen miles away
from us. And at the time, my dad is still
back at the first church. He is still not left there,
so there's been like three years that we've went to
church without him. He didn't come into this other church

(15:48):
until probably about the fourth year. So at this new
Assembly of God church, they had a lot more focus
on healing than like they did the whole deliverance thing.

(16:08):
But healing was more important to them than the deliverance thing.
And I will say this, none of the deliverance stuff
that I saw like as a kid and stuff, none
of them believe this this that you're hearing now, where
like Christians can have demons and things like this. So

(16:30):
so in this second ag church that I went to,
like I said, the focus was a lot more on healing.
I remember the first night that we went, we went
to an evening service and it wasn't really a service,
it was more of a prayer time. I guess this

(16:53):
is what you would call it. When we got there,
you know, they had the lights down low. It was
just a long room that they were all in the auditorium,
and everybody was just kind of like nobody was really
in their pews or anything. Everybody was just kind of
in their little corners or whatever, like praying and stuff.

(17:15):
So when I get there, you know, I'm I'm of course,
I'm in a wheelchair and all of this, And right
away a lady comes up to me and starts, you know,
prophesying over me that I'm going to be healed. And
I just saw I saw stuff like that happen a

(17:39):
lot there. And one thing that we have to look
at with and we can talk about it a little more,
is that the Word of faith itself. It's it's not
like a denomination, right, It's it can be in any churches.
This this teaching and stuff like it's infiltrating everywhere, and

(18:03):
and so it doesn't have like a formal structure that
it's it's just kind of more this uh, theological philosophies
and stuff like this that that infiltrate the churches, the
different denominations. Through throughout my time at this church, that
there was always a heavy like influence towards let's let's

(18:30):
let's keep praying for healing and stuff like this, which
I I believe that we should. You know, I believe
that there isn't it isn't a lack of faith or
anything like that to pray and ask God to heal you, you know.
But my, my, my views on suffering and healing and
all of that have have changed. And I'll talk more

(18:51):
about it as we get through this throughout the years,
to where it's like, sometimes God just doesn't heal us
on this earth. You know, sometimes we just have to
we just have to live with what we have, you know,
and we just glorify God with what we have. But

(19:13):
this this one, and I remember that lady like she was.
She was so sure, you know God, God told me, man,
you're you're gonna walk. And and so they're praying over
me and and they're you know, they're getting worked up
and all of this, and that was just kind of
the the initial you know, set off for this thing.

(19:34):
I remember there were several times when they would just
they they would have they they were they were always
having alter calls and you know, alter calls for healing.
And stuff, and someone would got me and come on,
you need to go up and stuff like this, and
I'm just a kid.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
There was another this, I mean I still remember this one.
This one uh happened to that same church. There was
a lady who this was. I mean, this must have
been like three or four years into it something like that.

(20:15):
But she bought me a pair of shoes. Okay, and
at this point I could not wear shoes. Well, no,
this would have been I probably was around like eleven
something like that, eleven or twelve when she did this.

(20:36):
So my feet when I was born, my feet were
just kind of pointed. Let me see if I can
get it in the camera here. They were just kind
of pointed straight like that, right. So when I was thirteen,
doctors went in. They took out ankle bone, They put

(20:59):
pins in my feet, and they brought my feet up
and fused my ankles to wear my feet are, you know,
kind of in a normal position. And I could wear shoes.
But at this point I couldn't even wear shoes. Okay,
So she buys me and now even now I have
to wear like custom, special made shoes for myself. But

(21:21):
she buys me this pair of SiZ seven because you
know that's God's magic number, SiZ seven shoes men's shoes.
And she tells me, God told me to buy you
these shoes and that if you thank Him every day,

(21:46):
you will walk and you will wear these shoes. So
I remember that my mom had put the shoes. This
is Lady Gabe and you know, said I would be healed.
She put them on a shelf in my closet and
I could see him every morning. And so she she

(22:07):
told me, you know you need to you need to
do what the lady said, you need to thank God
every morning for your healing. Well I I did this,
you know. I I woke up and God, thank you
that I'm healed. I thank you that I'm going to
walk and all of this. And she would she would

(22:27):
ask me, you know, did you did you thank God
for your healing and and and things like this, and yeah,
yeah I did. Well do you feel any different? Well?
I don't. I don't think so, but maybe you know
I don't. If I say no, then it's gonna seem
like I'm I'm doubting or I don't have faith or
or something like that. And I don't. I don't want

(22:48):
you know, I don't want to lose my healing. So
this went on for a while. I don't remember how
long it went on for, but there finally just came
a point where my younger brother was old enough to
wear the shoes, and so she was like, is it

(23:11):
okay if he wears the shoes so that they don't
go to waste?

Speaker 3 (23:14):
And I was like, yeah, So let's transition now into
your experience with the Word of Faith movement. How did
you get involved with the Word of Faith movement?

Speaker 1 (23:26):
So we actually first went to the church when my cousin.
Now this church was back here in Tularosa where I'm at.
It was actually at the community center at the time,
Like they didn't have a brick and mortar building. They
were just using the community center. And I first went

(23:51):
to it because my cousin was in a cowboy Christian
band and the band was going to play at that church. Okay,
so when I got there and my mom and dad
everybody went because you know, it was a go see
our cousin and that sort of thing. When we got there,

(24:14):
there was actually a friend of mine who I had
known at this last ag church was going to the
youth group here, and there were not at this point
at the Assembly of God Church, there were not really
any young people. In fact, me and my younger brother
and sister called it the old folks Home, you know,

(24:36):
because it was it was basically us three were the
youngest and there wasn't any other kids or anything. So
initially me and my younger brother and sister wanted to
go because there was some kids there. You know, there

(24:57):
was there was, and there was, like I said, the
kid that I knew there. And this was actually also
during a very kind of turbulent time in my family.
My parents were on the brink of divorce. They did
end up divorcing, but they were on the brink of

(25:19):
divorce at this time, and they were kind of both
just doing their own thing. And so this was just
right down the street from us, and it was you know,
it was close. They were friendly, they were they were welcoming,

(25:41):
and and so it just seemed like, you know, this
is where we need to go. And so me and
my brother and my sister would walk over there. Well
I wouldn't walk, but they would, and so then you know,
we we start going and the you know I knew

(26:02):
about like non denominational churches and stuff like this. I
knew that was a thing. I knew they weren't Assembly
a God because there was just certain things that you
see in Assembly of God churches that you didn't see
there and that, And so I asked them one day,
I'm like, so, like, what kind of church is this?

(26:26):
You know, we have been we have been going probably
for maybe three weeks or so, going to the youth
group on Wednesday night, and you know, like my parents
weren't going or anything. I was like sixteen, almost seventeen,
and so my grandma was actually asking like, well, what

(26:47):
kind of church is it? You know? And so I
asked them, I'm like, what kind of church is this?
And they said, well, we're Word of Faith. And I
had never even heard of Word of Faith before, Like
I didn't even know what it was. And I'm like, okay,
that's cool, you know. I was just I was just curious,
like I didn't and this was like the early two thousands,

(27:11):
you know, like two thousand two something like that, early
early two thousands anyways, and so I was like, I
hadn't There isn't all the stuff on Word of Faith
that's on the internet at that time, you know, all
the stuff that's on there now. So I was just like, okay, cool.

(27:32):
You know, it's it's a friendly church. It's it's a
welcoming church. Things are pretty chaotic at home, so sure,
why not. That's kind of how I got into it initially.
And I do want to say this. I mean, I
spent ten years at this church, and the biggest thing

(27:56):
that was the hardest thing for me to do was
leading because these people had become family to me. I mean,
I love these people, you know. They they had been
there when all hell broke loose in my house, you know,
and and stuff like this. So it was it was
very hard to leave it. But yeah, that was my

(28:17):
introduction to it.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
So that's where you were first introduced to or of Faith.
Now I'm assuming that that's also where you were first
introduced to Kenneth Hagen.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Right, So he was he was known as Dad Hagen
at this church. Both the pastor and the pastor's wife
were RAMA graduates. They had both went to RAMA. One

(28:50):
thing I want to say, so, I didn't know you
know a lot about Kenneth Hagen and that back then.
I have in recent years, especially in the last couple
of years, read through a lot of his writings and
things like this, and I find it very hard to believe.

(29:12):
I think most of it he made up.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah, and you've got an entire playlist on your YouTube
channel that deals with Kenneth Hagen. So you've done a
lot of work on Kenneth Hagen, reading his books and
refuting his teaching. So that's a really that's a really
good place to start if you're going to go, if
people are going to come over to your channel, you've
done a lot of work there.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah. So, I mean, he was always I didn't know
much of anything about him. He was always held in
very high regard. I remember, so I don't remember what
year he died, but I remember them talking about, oh,
Dad Hagen died, and you know all of this. So
I had been going for probably about a year a

(29:59):
year and a half when you know, he died, and
they were talking about him and stuff like this. But
they always just held him up as this like perfect
saint kind of you know figure. And I I want
to say that if I had actually read his stuff

(30:21):
back then, that I would have ran from the place,
you know, But I don't know. But reading his stuff now,
it's like it is so far out there. Like I've
got this one video where Steve and I are talking
about a trip to the Throne Room of God that

(30:44):
Kenneth Hagen makes, and he said that he goes in
there and there's there's the angels and that they're saying something,
you know. But then when he goes into the Throne
Room of God, so.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
They stop saying holy, holy, Holy. Where they're where the
Bible describes them as they are constantly around the throne
saying holy, holy, Holy. But when Kenneth Hagen comes in, silence.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
Right, So what I what I was getting at is
he's got these grandiose stories. Right, Well, I have to
question the stories of my former pastor and his wife,
just because I know the culture that they're in. Did

(31:35):
they just make up grandiose stories? And so he had
this story of you know, uh, he was in prison
when he got saved and he was a drug addict
and all, and it could be true.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
But I'm sorry to interrupt. You're talking, just just to
let people know you're talking about your pastor. Now we're
not We're not on Kenneth Hagen. This is your pastor, right.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Right right. So my aster at the time he you know,
his story was that he uh was a drug addict.
He he had been in prison and and all of this.
And then her story was, you know, she had crippling

(32:20):
anxiety and she would he would come home. This is
this is after you know, they got married. He that
he was saved in all of this and he would
come home and she would just be sitting on the
floor in the bedroom. Uh can't do anything, you know,

(32:42):
crippling anxiety and all of this. And so they got
into the word and they started confessing the word over
themselves and and claiming the promises and and all of this.
And so they they presented it as that like this

(33:02):
is how you need to fix your problems, you know
in life, is you need to do what we did.
You need to you need to find the secret that
we found. You need to get into the word, and
you need to confess the word and declare the word
over yourself and all of this.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
How often, Chuck, did you hear that kind of thing?
I mean, because the videos that you critique, the videos
that I critique, there's a lot of stories involved.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
All the time, it was, it was all the time.
In fact, you know, I was talking to my brother.
I live with my brother uh here in our house.
We share a house. But I was talking to him
last night about how each of the Word of Faith

(33:56):
pastors or you know, quote unquote past they have their
their story or whatever, and that's pretty much what they
stick to and that's pretty much what they preach all
the time, is just their story. And you know, he
would he would say, you know, my wife had crippling

(34:19):
anxiety and she got into the Word and you know,
I'm tired of Cole Dead religion and uh, you know,
all of these things. And and he would give examples
of John G. Lake that was one of his favorites.
Was John G. Lake and and Smith Wigglesworth and and
all of this, you know, and we need to be

(34:40):
seeing this stuff and and all of this. And it
was it was always just a lot of height and
no no real substance. I remember that there was there
was a guy who came in. His name was Marty Blackwelder.

(35:05):
Now they knew Marty Blackwelder because they went to Rama
and he went to Rama. You know, he was he
was a leader on the worship team.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Hm hmm.

Speaker 5 (35:36):
Okay, well, okay.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Where.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
How an I'm gonna do it here? Who where?

Speaker 4 (36:46):
Who? H m.

Speaker 6 (37:31):
M hm.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
M hmm.

Speaker 5 (37:35):
Yeah, I feel better now, hm hmmm. Well, just one
don saw the Holy Ghost not enough.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
And so Marty's whole thing was he taught Holy Ghost laughter,
which if if you haven't seen it, it's it's ridiculous.
I will say this. When you get a bunch of

(38:14):
people in a room laughing like idiots, they're all going
to start laughing like idiots. I mean, it's it's just
kind of a chain effect. It's not the Holy Spirit though,
it's it's just not So Marty Blackwelder came in. He
he actually came twice, I think that in the time
that I was there, and he he his whole thing

(38:39):
was like you have to laugh your problems away, okay,
so you have to laugh yourself into being healed and
and things like this, because you know, the joy of
the Lord is our strength. And what's the one is
like a Mary Hart is good, like a medicine, you know.

(39:02):
And and so this was his whole thing. He took
those those two verses, you know, ran wild with them
out of context and got people to laugh and act
like idiots. And his story and I asked my brother,
I had mentioned this to you when we talked the
other day, but I asked my brother just to make

(39:24):
sure I was right. I was like, did he really
say that? Or am I just remembering him saying that
he said that his wife and him could not conceive
a child. Okay, And so they they started tapping into
this holy ghost laughter thing. And so when they were

(39:48):
told that they could not conceive a child, they just
went home and laid on the bed and just laughed hysterically.
And they just kept doing that until they were able
to conceive a child.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Oh God, that is boy. I tell you, the stories
that I have heard from some of these folks are
just so absolutely wild. That is just I don't even
I don't have words. That's that's the That's one of
the most ridiculous stories I think I've heard so far.
That they just laid in bed and laughed until they

(40:29):
were able to conceive.

Speaker 6 (40:31):
Why.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, I don't think that's how it works.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
I don't think that's how it works either.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
So the next, uh, the next hype, the next you know,
take it to the next level. That they wanted to
do was they wanted to bring a guy named Jim
Hockaday in for a healing revive, which I don't know
if you're gonna put a picture of him or anything

(40:59):
during this, but to me, your hiday looks like I
used ourselves.

Speaker 6 (41:04):
You're in pain in the hip, stay right there. Where
are you in pain in your back? Okay? Now, let
me ask you a question. Have you ever had an
IV and it drips down into you? Do you know
the significance of jumper cables? One car the battery doesn't work,

(41:28):
and you hook up cables to a car where the
battery is full and it's on, and when you hook
it up, the voltage goes into the other car. Right now,
our hands are jumper cables and there's an IV going
into you in the matter of seconds. Let me know
when all the pain leaves, because right now we're driving

(41:49):
it out in Jesus' name, Keep moving yourself around and
see because in the name of the Lord, all the
pains leaving you. That's exactly go ahead, It's okay to
move around. It's all leaving you. This isn't psychosomatic, this
is spirit. Thank your Lord for the life of Jesus.

(42:09):
What a wonderful opportunity for people to see what God's
doing in you. Right here, right now, Adelijah, get your
mind quiet. Watch God just work a miracle in your life.
Thank you Lord for wonderful strength.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
That's it.

Speaker 6 (42:27):
That's it, hey man, Praise the Lord. Now on the
counter of three, we're gonna lift you up. And when
we do, you're gonna feel amazing. Are you ready for that?
Can I ask you a question? Can you just give
me two little ounces of faith that when we lift
you up, you're gonna feel amazing? Can you give me
two ounces? You've got that belief in you, don't you?

Speaker 1 (42:47):
You give me forth?

Speaker 6 (42:48):
There you go and one, two, three? Here we go. Wow, Wow,
Walk with me, Come on, walk with me. You can
lean on my arm.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
Here we go, you.

Speaker 6 (43:00):
Can like, here we go, each little step. Thank you
Lord Jesus. Oh, I know, yeah, Now, you weren't hurting
like that when we minister it to you. That came
when you were on the floor, didn't it. Yeah, Devil
can't have you. You know that. Do you know he's

(43:24):
afraid of you. He's afraid your testimony might get up.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
He uh, he's kind of got that vibe like he's
just trying to sell you something, you know. So they
they were telling me and and they again, they're they're
really hyping this up. In all of this, They're saying,
you know, Jim Hockaday, he runs the Healing school at

(43:52):
the time, he ran the healing School at Rama, and
they're like, this guy has seen so many people full healed,
instantly healed, and this guy has seen you know, so
many people get out of wheelchairs and stuff like this,
and so they're they're building it up. And again at

(44:12):
this time, I'm like, I was like sixteen when I started,
so I'm probably like maybe nineteen or so when this
is taking place. And so then they're like, you know
he's gonna come. You know, you really need to be
in faith that when he comes, you know you're going

(44:34):
to get your healing. And so I was like, okay,
And I'll tell you there was times during this whole
being in the Word of Faith and stuff, there was
times I had convinced myself that God had told me
you're going to walk, you know. There was there was
times where I had just I had convinced myself of it.

(44:57):
You know.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Yeah, So when you when you were a child, you
were talking about how you kind of doubted and as
you went to this Word of Faith church, and the
hype was being built all the time, and you were
constantly getting told that you were going to be healed.
That kind of increased this anticipation for you to be healed. Then,
is that what you're saying, right?

Speaker 1 (45:19):
And so because they had said this about like you
know how his wife had gotten hold of the scriptures
and read the scriptures and got rid of her anxiety
and stuff like this, well I started going in and
I started confessing like every day, like by his stripes,

(45:42):
I am healed by his stripes, I am here by
his stripes, I am healed, you know, like repeatedly doing this.
There was a book that my grandma had bought from
Joyce Meyer that was called The Secret Power of Speaking
God's Word.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, so you've got you've got the one here on
health and Healing. And it looks as if she is, uh,
basically just quoting scripture here? Is this? What is this
what you wanted to show here?

Speaker 1 (46:12):
Yeah? So it was it was she would take a verse,
maybe sometimes a couple of verses, and again it wasn't
like in the context or anything, but it was it
was just like you were to claim these things over
yourself every day. You were to read these things every day,
and so you know, I cry out to the Lord

(46:34):
and he heals me. The Lord forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases. He sends his word and
heals me and rescues me I from the pit and destruction.
You know, I would I was doing this stuff right.
And I had, like I said, I had convinced myself
that if I did this enough, And they always had

(46:56):
this thing like so many people miss out out on
their healing because their breakthroughp through is right there and
and and then they give up and you know, then
they lose out on it or and so I was like, well,
I don't want to do that, and and so I was.
I was Now I wasn't reading like the scriptures in

(47:17):
context or anything like that at this time. I was
just reading them from this book and uh, you know,
taking Joyce Meyer's word for it and my my pastor's
word for it and things like this. So when they
bring this guy, Jim hockeyday in, I'm like, well, maybe
this is it, you know, maybe this is this will
be my break my breakthrough. We'll talk about buzzwords here

(47:40):
in a little bit if you want, but this will
be my breakthrough.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
And.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
So they you know, they promoted it for a while.
There was actually quite a few people. I remember the
place was pretty cool when he came there was there
was a lot of people I didn't know and stuff there.
So I I was one of the first, if not
the first person to go down for healing, right, And

(48:10):
so I go down and you know, you can just
I remember, I'm sweating, like the tension in the air
and everything. And I go down and he prays for me,
and nothing happens. And he says, now, sometimes healing, and

(48:36):
I've seen this a lot. He says, sometimes healing is instantaneous,
but sometimes it's progressive, and you just have to you
just have to keep believing. You just have to keep claiming.
You just have to keep thanking God that you are
healed and and it it'll manifest.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Chuck, did you ever think, Okay, So when I look
in scripture and I see miracles being performed, especially healing miracles,
and when it happened, it happened instantly. There was no progression,
there was no you know, well, you got to claim

(49:18):
your healing and you got to make sure that you
you know, say thank God, I'm healed every single day.
It was instantaneous. Did you ever compare that and just
kind of say, wait a minute, when Jesus did it,
it was instantaneous. When the disciples did it, or the
apostles did it, it was instant instantaneous. Did you ever

(49:39):
kind of put those two together or did you just
kind of take the word of faith healer's word for it.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
I just I mean, for the most part, I just
kind of took their word for it. One thing that
they are very big at saying is don't believe me,
check the scriptures, check for yourself. And I think the
the ain reason they do that is to throw you
off so that you won't do it.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Yeah, because because if you do do it, you're going
to see that. There was none of this talk of
progressive healing. It was something that happened. It was a miracle.
It was a genuine, bona fide miracle. There eyewitnesses. Yeah.
So that, yeah, that's that's a trick. That's exactly what
that is.

Speaker 6 (50:25):
Right.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
So they would they would they would give the like
the story where I think it's the maybe the lepers.
Then he says go and it says like as they went,
you know, they healed or or something like that. They'll
take stories like that, right.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
But.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
You're just like, yeah, yeah, I know even that. You know,
they were healed like almost instantaneously as they were walking.
It wasn't like they had to wait six months for
their healing. And that's it.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
He was like when name and when name and dipped
in the river the seventh time he came up healed,
you know, that's what happened. He didn't he didn't have
to go back home and wait for his healing to manifest.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Exactly. You don't see progressive healing in the scriptures at all.
You see instantaneous uh healing in the scriptures.

Speaker 7 (51:24):
So yeah, this guy, So this guy, I mean, and
here's the thing with these, with these faith healers and
stuff like this, You're nothing to them, you know.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
They they you're You're just a face in the crowd
to them. You're just you know, you're nothing to them.
And and that's that's really what I felt after after
he did that, was just like and nothing to you, Like,
you don't care if I get healed or anything. You know,
I could I could die tomorrow, you wouldn't care. And

(52:01):
so you know, he tells me, well, you just you know,
now he puts the burden on me, like you have
to keep your healing, you know, because I've given it
to you. Now you have to keep it. And here
I am. I'm a teenager, right so so then again
I'm kind of having this struggle at this point of like, well,

(52:23):
nothing happened. But if I say nothing happened, then am
I gonna lose it? Or what? You know, what's gonna happen?
So that Wednesday, then uh go into youth group and
and the youth pastors. He's all fired up and oh,

(52:44):
Chuck got is healing. You know, we're gonna see him,
you know, walking and stuff. And I'm just like, I'm humiliated,
I'm I'm angry. I I'm confused. You know all of
the above.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
You were talking to me. I think it was a
week or so ago we were talking about the Lakeland
Revival and how that also was something that was brought
into the church I guess through live stream. Is that
how that is?

Speaker 6 (53:13):
That?

Speaker 3 (53:14):
How that happened?

Speaker 1 (53:16):
Right? So, so one thing that you have to see
and I think I think you see this in uh
you know cults and stuff like this as well, is
they don't throw everything at you at once. It comes
in progression and you start to you start to see

(53:38):
more and be indoctrinated more in that improgression.

Speaker 4 (53:43):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
It's it's like scientologists if if they would tell them,
you know, about xenu and all of that from the beginning, well,
they'd all run away and say, you guys are crazy.
But it comes in little little bits, and along with
those little bits is some true That's the thing. It's
not all faults. They mix in truth with it. So

(54:07):
I definitely saw at my time in the word of
a church, I definitely saw a progression of these teachings
and stuff like. It started off very you know, mild,
I would say, and it just escalated. And so in
two thousand and eight is when it really started to

(54:30):
take off. Like I mean, they they had Marty Blackwelder
come do his thing. They had Jim pocket A come
do his thing. Those guys came and went. Todd Bentley
started the Florida the Florida Outpouring and it was aired
all the time on god TV, which is a terrible

(54:52):
TV station, but it was aired all the time on
god TV. And so my pastor during this time, he
took his satellite dish from his home to the church,
had it hooked up at the church and showed Todd

(55:14):
Bentley all the time, Like we didn't have like normal
services during this time we were in revival.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Okay, so so it lasted. You guys were doing this
throughout the entire Lakeland Revival, having that that was your
regular services then.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Yes, And and it was like we could we could
pretty much go in there all the time. And they were,
you know, they were running it pretty much. The doors
were pretty much always open. They were pretty much had
it going all the time, as best as I can remember.
And so now my my pastor, I think he actually went.

(55:54):
I know my associate pastor and his wife actually went,
and man, they just when they got back, they started
getting so weird. They they started claiming to see like
I remember this one time, my my associate master's wife

(56:15):
and she she got all excited because there was a
lady had set on the pew who was wearing like
a sparkly dress and she thought it was gold dust,
you know, just like they were they were just looking
for I don't know if you remember that documentary that

(56:39):
was done, The Finger of God. Do you remember that? No,
So it was it was a thing that was supposed
to be going around and showing miracles and stuff, but
it was just showing like this gold dust and angel
feathers and stuff like this, but it was propagating them

(56:59):
as you and signs of God.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
So did did you buy into any of this? Did
you buy into any of the gold, gold dust feathers
and all that stuff like the like like they were claiming.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
I I didn't, not as far as that. And and
this I think, I think really the Florida outpouring was
was where I was really starting to see like this
is just getting weird. You know, this is just getting
very very strange and very off course. So you know,

(57:32):
the whole Florida outpouring is going on and all of that,
and then all of a sudden it comes to an
end because Todd Bentley is having a affair with his
secretary or someone I don't remember who, but he's you know,
cheated on his wife and you know all of.

Speaker 6 (57:49):
That, and.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Uh he it ends, and and so we start kind
of going back to normal, but we start incorporating things
from Bethel Church. You know, it goes back to chasing
that high and wanting that next big thing, wanting more

(58:15):
you know, and not being satisfied with the Bible or
the Gospel or any of those things, but wanting to
seek these experiences and stuff like this. And at this
point Bethel was starting to get on the radar. Bethel
Music was starting to become a thing, Bethel Church was

(58:38):
starting to become a thing. This was really before like
the whole fiasco with the grave soaking and the wake
up Olive and all of that. You know, it was
before they really started getting some criticism. And they were,
you know, saying that there was gold dust that was

(59:01):
appearing in the services. They were saying that there was
angel feathers that were appearing, and so it was like
we started incorporating some of their things. Like one of
the things that we incorporated was their offering reading, which
again this is a very word of faith thing. This

(59:24):
is a lot like Joel Ostein's this is my Bible things.
It's taking a lot of Christianese terms and declaring these
things positive affirmations and stuff like that, you know, to
confess stuff to make it happen.

Speaker 8 (59:42):
We're firm believers here at Bethel, not just a Bethel,
but in the Kingdom. Nothing happens still as first a declarations.
So we're going to make a declaration together offering reading
number one, and let's say it with some faith. Amen.
Here we go. As we receive today's offering, we are
being leaving the Lord for good popes, benefits, sales and commissions,

(01:00:09):
favorable settlements, estates and inheritances, interests and income, rebates and returns,
checks in the mail, gifts and surprises, finding money, debts,
paid off, expenses, decrease, blessing and increase. Thank you Lord
for meeting all of my financial needs, that I may

(01:00:32):
have more than enough to give into the Kingdom of
God and promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah.

Speaker 5 (01:00:41):
Come on.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
So we would do that offering thing every every time
we took offering. We started, I think it was the
associate pastor actually started having us do the jolo. This
is my Bible thing. We had a lady who began

(01:01:09):
to teach in Sunday School and she was really into
Kenneth Copeland, you know. And so during this time I
actually start kind of preparing for ministry. I took on

(01:01:35):
the position of the youth leader in two thousand and nine. Now,
the Lakeland thing happened in two thousand and eight. So
there's about a year here where things start to get
pretty weird, you know. And so I in two thousand
and nine, I took on as the youth leader. And

(01:01:59):
it was at that point that I actually began to
start reading the Bible for myself, and I didn't just
take their word for it. And as I'm reading it,
and as I'm seeing all this stuff going on, and
as I'm hearing all these outlandish claims and all that,

(01:02:23):
I'm like, that's not that's not what that means. The
first thing that I saw was scripture has context to it,
you know. It's it's not just a verse. It's not
just a verse. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
Isn't it amazing that when you start reading scripture within
its context, all of a sudden, that takes care of
about seventy to eighty percent, maybe even ninety percent of
the false teaching that you're hearing because you're looking at
the scripture. Go wait a minute, that's not what that
first means. It takes care of a big chunk of

(01:03:05):
the false teaching that you're hearing. It's it amazes me.

Speaker 6 (01:03:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
And it's like I said, they am I my pastor
said this all the time, don't take my word for it,
read it for yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
And you did, and that's when your eyes started to
open up.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
So so as my eyes start to open up, this
is like a This is like a two year process,
two to three year process of me just questioning, like
things are not right here. I'm not sure what exactly
is wrong, but there's something that's definitely not right. As

(01:03:46):
I was doing that, as I was reading the Bible more,
it just it just started getting weirder.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
At this time, were you questioning all of the teachings
of the Word of Faith movement? Were you questioning the
stuff from not just Hagen and Copelan and your pastor,
but the Word of Faith teaching as a whole.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
So, I mean still at this point, other than reading
the scripture, I had not really looked into these guys
a lot or done a lot of like investigation into
that that has all come later. There was there was
a bit of time there where I was just kind
of trying to figure out what went wrong over there,

(01:04:35):
you know, and just trying to figure out, like this
was the conclusion that I had come to when I left,
Like because I had seen a lot of people who
would get like disgruntled with the church or you know,
different things would happen and they would just totally abandon
the faith altogether. And I was like, I can't do that, Like,

(01:05:00):
I know there's truth here, but I have to separate
the truth from the lies. I have to figure out
what to hang on to, and I have to figure
out what it's just just lies, you know. And so
I felt like, you know, I never questioned like leaving

(01:05:24):
Christianity or I wanted to get right back into another church,
because I had seen like family members and stuff who
had left the church and they never went back to church,
you know, they got hurt or whatever, and they never
went back. And I was like, I don't want to
do that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
Did you did you still think you were going to
be healed eventually? Did you still think you needed to
hang on to your healing as all of this is
coming undone?

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
So here's the thing. There was a couple of times
when all this is taking place, and like my my sister,
this was, this was like still, this was back in
two thousand and nine. This was I had just gotten

(01:06:09):
into youth ministry. I was actually going and helping another
youth past get stuff started with his youth ministry at
the Second Age church that I had went to. We
were sitting there one night and my sister tells me,
she's like, God told me that if if we all

(01:06:31):
pray for you tonight, you're gonna walk and you're gonna
be healed. And at that point I was just kind
of like, why do I have to lose? You know, sure,
why not? And so they they man, they get themselves
worked up and they're, you know, they're praying for me

(01:06:53):
and they're they're even trying to drag me up out
of my wheelchair and and all of this, and it
felt like, honestly an eternity. I don't know how long
this went on, If I had to guess, it was
probably about fifteen minutes that they were just working themselves

(01:07:14):
up and all of this.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
When you say working themselves up, what can you elaborate
on that a little bit?

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Yeah, just like you know, like one of them would
you know, just declare healing, and then the other one
would try to outdo that one, and all of this,
and you know, they're trying to do the whole silver
and gold, I have none but what I give you,
and all of this and it's just it's complete chaos,

(01:07:46):
and it's finally i'd say probably about fifteen minutes into it,
my brother was just like, let's just stop. If God's
going to him, he'll hell, let's just stop, you know,
and and so we just kind of and and the

(01:08:07):
thing of it is like there was always this this shame.
I guess that that went along with it every time
that something like this happened, Like again, like, is it
my fault? Do I not have enough faith?

Speaker 6 (01:08:23):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
What's wrong with me? Kind of just like it puts
the blame on you. You're You're the problem. You're there. It
can't be God. God can't meet a blame for it.
It's you. And so there there was There was that time.
There was another time where she called me at my
house and she, uh, she says, God told me that

(01:08:49):
if I would come over and anoint your feet with
olive oil, that they would they would be healed. You
would be healed. And it was at that point where
I told her, you know, God didn't tell me that,
So I think I'm good. I think I'm good. And

(01:09:11):
that was kind of when I came to the point
and I had been reading a lot I had been
reading the story of Shadrack Meshek in a bed and
I had pretty much come to this conclusion with you know,
with my health and all of this is like, God,

(01:09:32):
you can heal me. I have no doubt that you
can heal me. But even if you don't hell me,
I still want to just serve you, like I still
want to do what I'm doing, Like I don't want to.
That's not going to change what I want to do.
So whether you heal me or not, that's that's you,
that's not me, you know. But I did stop at

(01:09:56):
that point. I stopped, you know, claiming my heat. And
I actually got a book by Kenneth Boa that was
kind of an alternative to that Joyce Meyer book. It's
it's more of a very actually biblically based prayer book,

(01:10:18):
and it walks you through different you know, like praise
and confession and stuff like this, using scripture in that.
But I actually got that, and I just you know,
it helped me to learn how to actually pray, because
for so long in this movement, they don't really teach prayer.

(01:10:39):
They teach declaring and decree and claiming.

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
Yeah, I've heard I've heard that from people as well.
It's it's like when they come out of the movement,
they they don't they have no idea how to pray.
And that is just such a man, that is such
a sad thing that you've been in this in the
Christian Church or I said Christian Church for so long

(01:11:08):
and you don't know the basics of simple just praying.
You you're so used to decreeing and declaring that and
and even praying in tongues that that that that becomes
your way of talking to God. And uh so, so
when did all of that change for you? When when

(01:11:30):
you bought you say, you bought the book and then
you started to learn there? What what? So you're you're
you're moving out of the Word of Faith movement. You're
seeing it for what it is. So let's talk now
about how did you start, uh how did you get
your your theological training or and you know, and and

(01:11:51):
become an associate pastor there at the church you're at now.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
So the week that I left the Word of Faith Church,
we just had at that point, we just had a
Sunday morning service. It was very unorganized. People were pretty
much just kind of taking turns preaching because you know,

(01:12:17):
the pastor's gone. They fired the associate pastor, and so
I tell the pastor's wife, I'm like, you know, I
love you guys, but I cannot stay here. I just
I have to go somewhere else. I don't know where

(01:12:38):
I'm going to go, but I have to go somewhere else.
And so then that Wednesday, I was going to do
my last youth group, and my old youth pastors who
had been my youth pastors while I when I was
a team in there, they came and they basically tried
to do an intervention, right, and I had to tell

(01:13:00):
me this is not of God, and and you need
to stay and you know, we'll get through this and
and all of this. And finally, I don't even remember
what I said, but finally the UH, finally the hasbend
told her. He's like, just let him go. They're they're

(01:13:22):
gonna go there. We can't keep him here. So I
left and the next week I went to UH the
church where I'm at now. And you know, during during
that time, there was probably about two years. Like I

(01:13:44):
had talked about earlier, there was probably about two years
where I was really just struggling with staying there and
and praying and like, you know, God, what do you
want me to do? Where do you want me to go?
And one of the things they told me at the
intervention was They're like, well, you know that some pastor's

(01:14:05):
not just gonna pick you up off the street and
let you be a youth pastor. And I'm like, well,
you're probably right, but I still can't stay, you know.
And so when I got to this church, it was funny.
My sister, I mean, I don't want to I don't

(01:14:26):
want to speak ill of her that she she has
a lot of like mental health issues and stuff. So
she she sometimes like if she's in a hyper charismatic circle,
she'll act hyper charismatic, and you know, she kind of
just fits in with whatever's going on with the environment.
But she, uh, she had gotten very mad and wrote

(01:14:51):
a real nasty letter to the pastor's wife at the
Word of Faith church, telling how, you know, all the
things they've done wrong and how she was going to
leave in all of this. Well I didn't. I went
and talked to him, you know, told her that I
couldn't stay in all of this. And uh so, the

(01:15:14):
my sister goes to the church that I'm at now.
Before I do, she goes and visits there and she
tells the pastor, yeah, I got you know, I got
fed up with what they were doing. And my my brother,
he's a youth pastor, and he's getting fed up. He's
getting ready to leave too, and you know, maybe you
he could come be your youth pastor and my my

(01:15:37):
pastor here. He's like, I don't think so, you know,
not if I don't want somebody who's fed up with
where they're at. And so when we're doing this intervention
and they're telling me like, nobody's just going to pick
you up off the street, I'm like, yeah, you're probably right,
but you know I can't stay here. I have to

(01:15:57):
I have to go. And so when I go over there,
he's got it in his you know, he's heard that
I just got fed up with them and and that's
why I left. And so he's like, well, we need
to we need to talk.

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):
You're talking about your new you're talking about the pastor
of the church. You're going to now.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Right right? Because he had heard from my sister. He
had heard from my sister that I was mad at them,
and I'm like, I have fought for two years to
stay and I just couldn't stay anymore. And and so
he was like, yeah, well he's like I get that.
You know, that's a totally different story. So it was

(01:16:40):
funny because that was in October of twenty twelve. In
January of twenty twelve, I started a youth group there
at this church. So it was just kind of one
of those funny things where they told me, oh, that's
never going to happen, but it did happen, you know.
I guess they didn't decree it, right, I don't know.
But then in twenty eleven, so I had, you know,

(01:17:08):
kind of got my bearings a little bit with what
I was doing with the youth ministry and stuff. But
I was just like, I really I really want some education.
I really want to really know what the Bible says
and that so that I don't fall into this again.

(01:17:32):
And so I started going to the Borean School of
the Bible. It is a assembly, a God correspondence school, and
it has if you do it, you you get their credentials.
You know, that's the school, that's the schooling you can

(01:17:53):
do to do to get credentials through them. And so
I was like, you know, I had heard of like
a lot of these Word of Faith teachers and stuff.
They are real big on like education is bad and
you just need to be led by the spirit and

(01:18:13):
all of this, you know, like Joel Ostein, you know,
he never went to seminary or anything like that, And
I'm just like, I think that's part of the problem.
I think I actually need some schooling. So I started
taking classes and that actually opened me up more to

(01:18:33):
like learning apologetics and things like this. I started listening
to like Frank Turk. I started one of my favorite websites,
Got Questions. Got Questions was just an amazing resource for me.
So that's kind of where I started working my way

(01:18:57):
into like learning what the Bible is actually says and
being able to defend against this kind of teaching.

Speaker 3 (01:19:07):
Let's talk about sheep among wolves. What is it that
made you decide to start a YouTube channel and a website?
And talk a little bit about your YouTube channel what
you're doing there.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
Sure, So, I've always been kind of a nerd. I've
always loved computers and stuff. I always like, when MySpace
was a thing, I loved going in and editing my
MySpace and stuff like this, And so that was just

(01:19:41):
something that I kind of always had a connection to,
was computers and things like that. But in two thousand
and sixteen, I was diagnosed with stage four or kidney failure.

(01:20:02):
And stage four kidney failure that's as far as you go,
that's it, they they told me. And I had been,
you know, feeling symptoms and stuff for a while that
I just ignored. One thing with with kidney failure is
there isn't really like one certain thing that really kind

(01:20:26):
of tells you this is it. There's there can be
a lot of symptoms. But for about two weeks I
had a pain in my side, in my right side,
kind of in my lower back, and I thought I
had maybe just over exerted or pulled a muscle for something,

(01:20:47):
you know. I just ignored it, and progressively I started
to just become very fatigued and just very ill. I
had been bedridden for a couple of days, and that
when I when I finally went to the hospital and

(01:21:09):
they said that if I had not been taken in
the hospital that day, I would have died that night.
I was. I was that close. So I was put
on dialysis. I don't qualify for a kidney transplant. Because

(01:21:31):
of other health issues. But I was I was put
on dialysis. And normally dialysis is done three times a
week and it's done for like four hours. It's either
usually like Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Okay,

(01:21:57):
I actually only have to go twice a week. I've
been on dialysis for nine years now, just this last
March was nine years. But what happened was that that
first year of being on dialysis was very very hard.

(01:22:18):
It's hard on your body, it's it's very emotionally hard.
It's just everything is draining. You know, everything is changing,
and there's there's all these life changes and stuff like this.
And so around the end of twenty seventeen, I was

(01:22:39):
kind of starting to, you know, get used to this
new lifestyle and things like this. And I was still
doing ministry at the church all this time. I never
had quit that other than that I was in the hospital,
other than that time, which was from March twenty six

(01:22:59):
to eight ten. So I when I started to kind
of feel better and come around and all of that,
I really was just like, I want to I want
to do something that isn't going to physically exert me

(01:23:23):
too much. But that can really make a difference. And
so that's when I decided. I was actually listening to
an album by a band called Project eighty six. They
are a like a heavy Christian band, and they had

(01:23:45):
put out an album called Sheep among Wolves, and the
whole purpose of this album was the whole thing behind
it was talking about coming out of a cult and
coming out of false teaching and stuff like that. And
I thought, you know, that's a good name, and I

(01:24:06):
right away, before I even had anything started or that,
right away, I went and bought the domain name from GoDaddy.
I was like, I want to I want to get
on this, like you know, I want to start actually
making some steps forward with this. So I've done it.
I first had started doing, you know, just kind of

(01:24:28):
trying to figure out what I wanted to do with
the channel. But then, really, like I said, it was,
it was after watching that micro Winger video that he
did on Bethel. It was after watching American gospel and
stuff like this that I was like, I really need

(01:24:48):
to just lean into this and I need to just
teach against what I know is false. And so I
I focus really on the big I focus on Kenneth
Copeland I focus on Kenneth Hagen. I focus on Bill
Johnson because if you see this stuff in them, and

(01:25:11):
you see it and the other people, well it's the
same thing, you know, they're just they're just copies of
these guys. These guys are the masters at it. So
I really focus on them. But that's that's where I
got started with Sheep among Wolves.

Speaker 3 (01:25:27):
Well, and you've also done you just did a video
recently about Catherine Crick. So you're you're moving out there,
You're you're branching out a little a little vent out there,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):
Well, and see one of the things that I want
to do is uh so, so we did a series.
A guy named Steve who also came out of the
Word of Faith. He emailed me, he sent me his
story and I'm like, hey man, you've got a lot
of good information on Kenneth Hagen that if if you

(01:26:00):
would share it like, I would love to do this.
So we started going through some Kynetic Hagen books. We
did that. I then wanted to look at a couple
of the statements, the official statements from the Assemblies of God.
I looked at one on positive confession, which I'm going

(01:26:22):
to have a teaching on positive Confession coming up soon.
But I also looked at one on apostles and prophets,
and the thing I want to show is a lot
of times all charismatics and Pentecostals get just thrown into
one box kind of like it's like you're either charismatic

(01:26:42):
or you're Calvinist, right like that. That's kind of where
people see everyone, and it's like, no, there are other things,
and there are so many variations in these things that
you know, don't put everybody in the same box. And
so I did those two stayss, you know, to show
where the assemblies of God stands on those two topics.

(01:27:05):
I'll probably do more later on down the road on
other topics. I also that led me into right after
I did that, the statement came out on Sean Bolts,
you know, and Bethel breaking away from him and all
of that. So I did a video on that, and

(01:27:27):
then that led me to this video on Catherine Prick,
which it hasn't come out yet. It'll come out I
think next maybe next Sunday. But she again, she does
the same thing that I saw so many times in
the word Fate. It's this eleven minute video twelve minute

(01:27:48):
video that's a prayers and declarations for your healing and deliverance.
And at the end of it, at the end of it,
she not only puts the blame on you and put
that's the responsibility on you, like you have to you
have to keep this, you have to maintain it. If
it didn't happen right away, you maintain it. But then

(01:28:08):
she also was just doing it to promote her new book.

Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
Yeah, well, Chuck, I got to tell you, you are doing
some great work over there, and your story is just well.
When I when you sent me that, when you first
sent me the email and I read it, it was
really just heartbreaking to hear that you had to go
through what you went through. But the Lord does that,

(01:28:35):
you know, He puts us through these things, and he
allows us to go through these things to help others
that are in similar situations or are you know, maybe
not so similar, but can identify with what you're going
through and how you're you're feeling and how you had
to suffer through that kind of thing. Anyway, Chuck, I

(01:28:56):
appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much for doing
that with me. Buddy, and Lord willin we can get
it together and do this again.

Speaker 1 (01:29:05):
Yeah, if I could just say one thing to encourage
people who are you know, maybe maybe you know, you're
caught up in this movement. Seriously, do what they tell
you to do, don't take their word for it. Read
the scripture for yourself. That is the only way your

(01:29:29):
mind is going to be changed, and that is the
only way that you're going to see the truth is
by reading the scripture for yourself.

Speaker 4 (01:29:38):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (01:29:39):
Amen, Chuck, Thank you so much for joining me. Folks.
I hope that this episode has been helpful. If it has,
I would ask you to please pass it along, share
it with as many people as you can, and Lord Willan,
we will see you next week.

Speaker 6 (01:30:00):
Both Linden Lidingteam