DANCING AROUND THE GOLDEN CALF - PART 5

John S. Torell

(continued from previous page)

YOUTH FOR CHRIST

            The year was 1944. Twelve million American men and women served in the armed forces. Fierce battles raged in Europe and in the Pacific theatre with thousands of American soldiers killed on a daily basis. In Iraq we may lose one or more soldiers per day, but in World War II, thousands were killed in combat every day. The official U.S. policy during World War II was that no dead American soldiers were to be brought back to the homeland, but were buried where they died. This is how the huge American military cemeteries came into being in Europe and the Pacific. Hundreds of thousands of families in the U.S. grieved over killed fathers and sons but there was no grave for them to tend. Millions of Americans had been uprooted from the countryside and worked in the cities in factories and shipyards. Families were restructured since women made up a large portion of the labor force. Prostitution flourished around the many military bases and many of the young women working in the factories got drunk in the evenings at the local bars and nightclubs; sexual immorality became an epidemic. It was in this “hellhole” that a revival broke out among the young people in America.

            Pastors Torrey Johnson, Billy Graham, and evangelist Charles Templeton (1915-2001) were on fire for the Lord and founded Youth For Christ. They held huge rallies around the nation and young people by the hundreds of thousands attended the meetings. Many of them were born again and became very active in Christian churches. There was a revival fire sweeping the nation and Graham and Templeton rode the wave of revival and became famous throughout the land.

Four years later, Templeton attended Princeton Theological Seminary to get a degree, but instead of graduating from this seminary, the unbelief thrown at him by the “cemetery” professors caused him to lose his faith in Christ. As a result, he publicly renounced Christ, became an agnostic and was rejected in all Christian circles.

Torrey Johnson was one of the men who founded the organization National Religious Broadcasters, which became the governing watchdog in the United States over all Christian broadcasting from that time on.

In 1945 the leadership for Youth For Christ decided to change the name of the organization to “YOUTH FOR CHRIST INTERNATIONAL” and Billy Graham was hired as the first full time evangelist for the organization. As a result he resigned from his church and quit the radio program in the Chicago area. Torrey became the president of the organization, and for the next four years, Billy held youth crusades in the United States and war torn England. When Billy had launched out on his own, the famous Los Angeles revival meetings catapulted him into worldwide recognition and fame.

It is noteworthy to mention that Billy was asked to become president of the Northwestern College in Minnesota, with the campus in the city of Minneapolis. It was unusual for a young evangelist with just a bachelor’s degree to be offered a prestigious position with the ability to shape the policies of the school. He served as president for this college from 1948-1952.

WILLIAM MARRION BRANHAM (1909-1965)

            William Branham became a major player in Christianity and had a great impact on the Pentecostal Christians, not only in the United States, but in different parts of the world. Having studied his life and theology, I have come to the conclusion that Branham started out with Christ but was taken in by demonic powers and ended his life in a fiery car crash.

            He was born in 1909 in a log cabin with dirt floor in the hills of Kentucky. His father was a logger and an alcoholic. According to Branham, there was a light over him and his mother when he was born. At the age of 18 months, he claimed to have had a vision. He as an adult said, that at the age of three, he heard a voice speak to him, and that it was the angel of the Lord. As a young boy, his father had him to help out with distilling illegal alcohol in their backyard, and one time while doing this he had a visitation of an angel, who told him never to drink, smoke or defile himself immorally with women. Branham in later years told the story that as a teenager he was approached by an astrologer telling him that he was born under a special sign and that he was going to have an important religious ministry in the future. Interestingly, he was raised as a Roman Catholic but during his childhood he had very little contact with born again evangelical Christians. As a young man he became a boxer winning 15 fights.

            At the end of the 1920s, he had a “conversion experience” and joined the Missionary Baptist Church in Jeffersonville, Indiana. After some time he had a sharp disagreement with the pastor over women in the pulpit, so he left the church and started his own ministry. He held meetings in a Masonic hall until he had the funds to build his own facility in 1933, which was called First Pentecostal Baptist Church. Later the name was changed to Branham’s Tabernacle. By this time Branham was married and had one child.

            In 1936 Branham was invited to speak at an Oneness Pentecostal Convention (a.k.a. Jesus only churches, apostolic churches, and United Pentecostal Churches). Branham became heavily influenced and mixed in the apostolic theology with his Baptist doctrine. The result was a disaster and a slide toward apostasy and spiritism.     

            In 1937 his wife and child died and Branham attributed the death of his family to God, who had punished him for not conducting meetings in “Jesus Only” Pentecostal churches. He became suicidal and tried to shoot himself but the rifle would not fire. He worked as a lineman for an electrical company and tried to electrocute himself several times but each time he found himself on the ground unharmed. Once he resumed preaching again, he told his audience that God would not let him die. He began to conduct revival meetings in 1941 and for the next few years he worked mostly in the “Jesus Only” Pentecostal churches.

            To show the historical networking, I want to introduce another evangelist by the name of Franklin Hall. Franklin and his wife Helen were part of a “fasting and healing center” in San Diego which was opened in the fall of 1946. The goal was that through prayer and fasting God would bring forth a revival with all apostolic signs. It is noteworthy to observe, that Kathryn Kuhlman’s husband, Burroughs A. Waltrip, still not divorced and sporting a doctor’s degree was a part of this group. Once this center took off during the first year it was open, Franklin claimed that about 1000 persons had been saved. Franklin wrote a book in the fall called, “Atomic Power With God Through Fasting and Prayer.” It became a bestseller in Pentecostal circles. Atomic power was hot topic in America at the time because the U.S. had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. Branham received a copy of the book and it greatly influenced his theology.       

Gordon Lindsey (1906-1973) was hired as the manager for the Branham campaigns in 1947 and was the founding editor of the magazine, “Voice of Healing.” When Lindsey started to report healings from meetings of other evangelists, he was fired by Branham in 1948. Lindsey and his wife Freda later founded the ministry known as “Christ for the Nations.”

            What is important for the reader to know and understand is that most of these men and women started out as firebrands for the Lord, leading thousands of people to Christ. But as they became successful, some of them succumbed to greed, others fell into sexual sins, while others ended up in occultism. Both Branham and Hall ended up embracing occult practices and this destroyed their ministries.

            Branham did not speak much of the Holy Spirit, instead, he stated in 1946 that there was an angel standing next to him who gave him supernatural knowledge and did the healing of the people in the audiences. I cannot accept this because it not scriptural since the Bible tells us that it is the Holy Spirit who represents Jesus on the earth.

            Toward the end of his life, Branham proclaimed that he was the angel spoken of in Revelation 3:14. In 1963 he went a step further and told his audiences that a revelation had been given to him that he was Elijah, the end time messenger of the last days. All true Christians were to leave their dead churches and denominations and follow him. This is the same teaching as Harold Camping of Family Radio; the only difference is that instead of following Branham, Christians are to follow Harold.

“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;” Revelation 3:14

            At this time of his ministry, Branham openly embraced the Pentecostal group of “Jesus Only” and rejected the concept of the trinity.

            Another damning doctrine Branham taught his followers was the Satan and Eve had sexual intercourse with Cain as the offspring. As a result, Cain’s descendants are known as the “serpent seed,” or as Arnold Murray puts it, “They are Kenites and there is no salvation for these beings.” This is a major doctrine in the “Identity Movement,” which teaches that only white people are the descendants of Seth and that all colored people are beasts (the serpent seed) with no salvation available for them. Interestingly, Judaism teaches that Jews are the only real people and that all Gentiles are “goyim” (beasts, that are not human). For an in depth teaching on this subject, see The Dove 1996, pages 20-36.

            Branham also prophesied that by the year 1977, all denominations would become members of the World Council of Churches and which in turn would be controlled by the Roman Catholic Church. This and other strange doctrines became too much even for the Full Gospel Business Men’s International Fellowship (FGBMIF), which was well-known for its “sloppiness” when it came to Biblical doctrine, and as a result, Branham became unwelcome at the FGBMIF’s conventions, of which a large portion of the regional directors were practicing Roman Catholics.

            Branham caused great harm to the body of Christ and different parts of his false doctrine found its way into the future Charismatic Movement. Kenneth Hagin, the father of the “Faith Movement” called Branham “one of the greatest prophets in the 20^th century.”

            On December 18, 1965, William Branham and his current wife and children with the exception of his daughter Rebekah were returning to Indiana from Arizona to celebrate Christmas. They were on Highway 60 in Texas after dark, three miles east of Friona, when a vehicle traveling in the opposite lane crossed over and hit them head-on. The driver in the other car was drunk, both he and front passenger died at the accident scene; two people in the back seat were injured. Branham, his wife and a daughter were severely injured. It took 45 minutes to free Branham from the wreck and he was taken to a hospital. He was later transported from Friona to a hospital in Amarillo, Texas, where he died six days later on December 24, 1965. His body was transported to Jefferson, Indiana, where he was held for a number of days, while he followers were trying to raise him from the dead. He never was resurrected and his followers were forced to bury him.

            William Branham’s hardcore disciples continued in his doctrine and they are very evasive. They like to be called “Christians” and reject any denomination. They are nicknamed “Branhamites” and are also known as “Believers’ Church” or “Believers’ Assembly.”

            The largest amount of Branhamites can be found in Congo with an estimated half a million devotees. There are some large groups in Trinidad, Vancouver, Canada, Zimbabwe and a small group in Johnson City, Tennessee.

            Christians need to be careful when it comes to handling doctrine, knowing that it is easy to start false teaching and heresy, but it is almost impossible to clean it up once it has been spread like bacteria in the body of Christ.

THE CONDITION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH BY 1945

            It should now be clear to the reader that during the time period of 1900 to 1945, Christianity became very strong in the United States, and despite the depressed economical condition in the United States prior to World War I from 1929 until 1941, millions of people became Christians and church buildings popped up all over the U.S. During the depression years, the majority of pastors and evangelists lived and worked in poverty, while the Jewish leaders funneled money into certain well-known Christian preachers for their support of the Zionist work to establish a Jewish state in the Middle East.

            In this newsletter I have briefly outlined the major players in Christianity, who dominated the Christian landscape in the latter half of the 20^th century. The Christian playing field can be likened to the automobile manufacturers in the early part of the century. There were many different small automobile factories, both in Europe and in the U.S., but with time they either went bankrupt or were purchased by larger corporations, until all that we have left today is Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. If you look at the brands, you will find such names as Oldsmobile, Dodge, Chevrolet, etc., and most people born after 1970 do not know that these were all independent automobile corporations until they were taken over by one of the big three.

            In this day and age, it is very difficult to operate an independent Christian ministry, with much of the money going to mega churches and the Jewish directed television and radio networks, like the 700 Club and Trinity Broadcasting Corporation.

            Dispensationalism was not the only cancer in the body of Christ. Free Masonic lodges were able to penetrate deep into the classic denominations like the Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians and Baptists. Pentecostal churches were harder for the Masons to infiltrate, but by the end of the 20^th century, many large Pentecostal churches had Masons on their boards that included pastors and deacons.

            Mission work became strong in both the new Pentecostal denominations and the older Baptist denominations as young men and women fanned out all over the world and worked on old fields in India, China, Africa and South America. This pleased the Zionist leadership since dispensationalism and support for a Jewish home state was also exported to the mission fields around the world.

THE TWO-PRONG ATTACK BY THE ZIONISTS

            During the 19^th and 20^th century, no leading Christians could see and understand what the Devil was doing. The Zionist leadership knew that in order to establish a Jewish state in the Middle East, they must be in control of the media, the banking industry, the political system and the Christian churches.

In the 2004 edition of The Dove, I laid out in detail how the Zionists got control of the above institutions and in past newsletters I have showed how the Christian masses, not only in the United States but around the world were educated and deceived to believe the propaganda from the Jewish Zionist leadership. Thus, by controlling the secular forces and the Christian churches, the Golden Calf was ready to be birthed and to begin to live its own independent life.

            World War II had destroyed the strong Jewish community in Germany, Poland and the other Eastern European nations. Since the Zionists controlled the Soviet Union and the United States, the stage was set to begin moving the masses of displaced European Jews to Palestine. Even though the Jews were in control of the British banking industry, they had not been able to corral the political leaders in England. The British Government put up strong resistance against the immigration of Jews into Palestine that from World War I until 1948 was under British rule. From 1945 until 1948 there was a bloody fight between Jewish “freedom fighters” that were heroes to the Jews but terrorists to the British; the only thing these Jewish underground fighters did not do was to employ suicide bombers. British soldiers were ambushed, murdered, buildings were blown up and there were many roadside bombs.

            Christian ministers railed against the British government and the opinion in the United States was that the Jewish people should have a homeland, even if that meant the expulsion and possible death of the many Arabs. After all, was not the land of Palestine given to the Jews at the time of Moses by God?

Working in the background, unbeknownst to the people in the world, the intelligence services of the United States and the Soviet Union worked hand-in-hand against the British government, smuggling Jews, guns, ammunition, aircraft, and other supplies necessary for the coming war when the British would give up their mandate over Palestine and turn it over to the United Nations. The Arab nations surrounding Palestine also armed themselves for the showdown that was coming. The Golden Calf was about to be born in violence and death with the land of Palestine drenched in blood.

HELL FOR THE BRITISH

            The strongest military force the Zionists operated in 1946 was the Irgun militia consisting of some 3,000 men. They were well trained and equipped and they viciously attacked British forces and Arab civilians. There was also the Hagana militia, which was formed in 1920, and from time to time cooperated with the British military command. The Hagana on Israel’s independence day became the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) while the Irgun was forced to give up their independence and join the IDF.

            Before Israel’s independence, Irgun forces kidnapped and killed British soldiers, massacred Palestinians because Palestinians had killed Jews and later murdered Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish peace negotiator for the United Nations during peace negotiations. They were responsible for ambushes, bomb attacks, including blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

            The political climate in England was very negative with the British economy in shambles after World War II and the people were weary of war. The British government early in 1947 decided to cut its losses and informed the United Nations that it was returning Palestine to UN control. The final pull out of British troops and handing the territory over to the UN was set to May 14, 1948.

COUNTDOWN

            On November 29, 1947 there was a vote taken at the United Nations by the Special Committee on Palestine. The draft drawn up to be voted on stated that Palestine was to be divided into two states, one for the Jews and one for the Palestinians. At this time, the Palestinians made up 70% of the total population in the territory, but they were to only be given 47% of the land even though Palestinian people owned 92% of the land. This was known as UN Resolution 181. Jerusalem was to be an internationally administered city.

            There were 33 votes for the resolution, 13 against and 10 abstentions. England was one of the nations which abstained. It is interesting that the Soviet Union and the United States, who by this time had moved from being allies to enemies with the advent of the cold war, presented a united front and ramrodded the resolution through the comittee. The State of Israel would not have come into existence if the communist Soviet Union and capitalist United States had not jointly pushed for it.

            The Arab states in the Middle East rejected Resolution 181 and Arab fighters began attacking Jewish positions in Palestine. The Hagana and the Irgun militias responded back and the blood flowed on both sides. The blood letting in Iraq in 2007 is the same as took place in Palestine in 1947, but instead of American troops trying to create law and order, it was the British Army that was bleeding and taking heavy casualties.

In Satan’s kingdom there is no truth, no integrity and no loyalty. While the British were trying to keep the parties from fighting, they were secretly building up the Arab Legion which was under the command of the King of Transjordan (now Jordan). The legion was trained and equipped by the British, including putting British officers in command of the troops. When full fledge war broke out later, the legion was sent into action, attacking the Jewish forces. What the British did not know was that King Abdullah did not want a Palestinian state and was actually in a secret league with the Zionist leadership and sabotaged his own army from winning.

THE GOLDEN CALF IS BORN

            As the countdown continued, Jews and Arabs were building up their weapons, getting soldiers ready and waiting for the day the British mandate would run out. The Zionists had positioned diplomatic agents in the United States and cashed in their Christian “lapdogs.” Enormous pressure was put on President Truman to be ready to recognize the State of Israel within hours after it had been declared. Looking at historical records, it is a shame what took place as the Zionist leaders were able to make the American president stand like a servant, and at the bidding of the Zionist leadership, he would sign a prepared document that legally recognized the State of Israel. 

            Both the Arabs and Jews knew the fight would begin on May 14. Early on that day in 1948, the provisional government of the Jews proclaimed creation of the State of Israel and within hours the United States and a number of other nations had recognized them as a legal state.

            The British government was angry and very hostile to the Jews for the losses they had inflicted on British troops. As they withdrew, they opened all the borders to Palestine, but set up a blockade of the coastline contrary to orders from the UN to keep one port open for the Jews to receive weapon supplies. Egyptian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian forces joined the Arab Legion from Transjordan and swarmed into Palestine. But because the Arabs were not united, each nation having its own agenda, the IDF forces were able to hold back the attackers and inflict heavy causalities on them. Despite the grim situation for the Jews, there was also infighting within the new IDF as a number of Hagana and Irgun fighters were killed before the leadership of Irgun was forced to surrender to the IDF and integrate its forces with them.

            In order to look good on the international scene, the United States ordered an embargo of weapon sales to the State of Israel, but secretly used the Soviet Union to continue the supply of weapons to the Israelis. Italy and Czechoslovakia were used to ferry in combat aircraft, tanks and other weapons and supplies to the Jewish state.

            It was not until July 1949 that an armistice was signed and the shooting war was over. 6,000 Israeli soldiers were killed, 30,000 were wounded and 600,000 Palestinian civilians had either fled or been driven out from Israel and set up in refugee camps. The Arab states refused to let them resettle in their nations because they wanted pressure to be on Israel as they planned future wars. How many Arabian soldiers were killed and wounded is not known to me, but in wars between Israel and Arabs, their losses were much higher.

THE DANCING BEGINS

            The nation of Israel came into being through deception, lying, killing, and stealing. Christian ministers all over the world spoke in glowing terms that prophecy had been fulfilled and that God once more had given the land back to the Jewish people. In the Bible we can read the following:

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:5-7

            There is no prophecy in the Bible predicting that a Jewish state would be established in the end times through man’s effort, nor is there a place in the Bible where God tells us that in the latter days He will establish a new temple in Jerusalem and go back to animal sacrifices again. God has specifically stated that if the people of Israel turned to idolatry, He would cast them out of the land. (Deut. 28)

Almost no one in the Zionistic leadership believes there is a God. They came out of communism and socialism. Their religion is atheism with a strong sense of being Jewish and having a homeland. Eretz Israel (the land of Israel) is their god, their golden calf. This is what they live for, this is what they worship, this is what they are willing to die for, and this is what Christian Zionists worship with them as they sing and dance together around it. God was not pleased with this at the time of Moses and He is certainly not pleased about it today.

            In my final segment of this series, I am going to expose the people dancing around the Golden Calf and the total deception they have embraced.

ARE YOU DANCING AROUND THE GOLDEN CALF?

“And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:” Exodus 32:1-9

To be continued…

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