Waco: A Brief Overview W/@CharismaticCheetah | Cultish

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00:00

Hey, what's up, everyone? This is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here at Cultist. I know you've missed all of us on your podcast catcher on YouTube here on Tuesdays.

00:09

This conversation is going to be a fun one. It's with our good friend, the Charismatic Cheetah. We're giving a very super Skyview overview of the

00:17

Waco story. Eventually, we're going to put together probably a 10 -part series, because there's so many areas to it.

00:22

It's going to be a really fun conversation. Hope you all enjoy it. Before we start the podcast, I want to let you know that one of the reasons why we have been releasing episodes as much as we would like to is because our goal at Cultist is to be a 100 % crowdfunded ministry.

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As of right now, we only have an operating around 15 % to 20 % of what we need to operate functionally as a ministry.

00:46

If you go to our website, thecultistshow .com, there's a direct link where you can become a partner with us.

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We ask if you have been blessed by this content the last five years, and to get Cultist back to where we can release content on a weekly basis, we ask that we prayerfully consider partnering with Cultist, giving generously so we can get the gospel out into the kingdom of the cults, be able to bless people, and avoid any sort of paywall.

01:12

That way, that content can be for free, so we can have it be crowdfunded, and we can all be in this all together.

01:18

This is a conversation we had very recently with our good friend, the Charismatic Cheetah. It was an interview he did with us on his channel.

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We really enjoyed the conversation, so we thought we'd just reshare it with you all. A very sky overview of the whole

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Waco conversation, the event that took place 30 years ago. Eventually, we're going to make it our own 10 -part series, but there's so many interesting variables in play.

01:42

We hope you all enjoy this general overview of the whole Waco -David Koresh conversation, and enjoy the podcast.

01:48

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Charismatic Cheetah.

01:55

My name is Michael Young. Typically on this channel, I talk about biblical continuationism, how to think about those spiritual gifts, the charismata in a biblical way, how to not think about them in a biblical way, how to practice them, and how to not practice them.

02:12

Well, today, we have a very special guest on, or two of them, Jeremiah and the super sleuth,

02:18

Andrew, from Cultist, and we're going to be talking about the 1993 Waco siege of the

02:24

Branch Davidian compound, which was a cult led by David Koresh that ended in a disaster.

02:32

First of all, Cultist, these two guys, Jeremiah and Andrew, it's kind of full circle that they're coming on my little podcast because I've been listening to them for a few years, and I've really enjoyed their show and gotten a lot out of it.

02:46

I'll let them introduce themselves. Who are y 'all guys? Who's a super sleuth? Who's Jeremiah? Yeah, who is a super sleuth?

02:52

He is this strange super sleuth and inspector gadget that just sort of crawls around with a giant magnifying glass, all up somewhere in Utah, the super secret headquarters.

03:04

What's your location right now? Do you want to give us the location of the super secret headquarters, Andrew, or what's the super sleuth all about?

03:11

Yeah, let's say that I live southeast of a big lake that sprawls across a super LGBTQ affirming community.

03:25

How southeast? I'm not going to tell you. Wow. But if you want to use your mind muscles and flex them, you might be able to figure out where I'm at.

03:34

There's a target nearby as well. All right. So it sounds crazy, but that's where my super secret headquarters is.

03:43

And yeah, that's me. I'm Andrew Songkrant, and I'm blessed to be able to be on this podcast today with our brother in Christ here.

03:51

And I'm excited to talk about Waco, talk about David Koresh, aka Vernon Howell.

03:56

But Jerry, give yourself a little introduction, brother. Yeah. So if you've ever listened to the podcast, Coltish, you may have heard me say, my name's

04:02

Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here, which I am. I've been doing Coltish now. We launched back in October of 2018.

04:10

Mission and purpose of Coltish was to really kind of hone in and sort of emulate what the late

04:16

Dr. Walter Martin did with the Christian Research Institute many, many years ago, trying to equip the church to give a biblical answer for the world of the

04:25

Colts and help Christians give a reason for their faith. And so the podcast in some ways has just been a way to sort of emulate what

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Walter Martin did as a Bible answer man. I mean, we're nowhere near the walking library that Uncle Wally was back in the day, but this has just been a very privilege and a passion to be able to do this for the last five years.

04:43

And like the amount of people who've been able to listen and the people we've been able to talk to, it's just sort of, I never imagined like all these years later that to be in the position that we are, it's a huge blessing.

04:53

So it's really a portion, and there's a whole history too. Apology of Studios was initially

04:58

Apology of Christian Ministries way before Apology of Churches were planted. And that was intention though to even be a ministry to the

05:05

Colts. Just so you know, the original name for the Apology of Studios YouTube channel was Defend the

05:10

Faith, which was just strictly counterculture apologetics, talking to Jehovah's Witnesses, talking to Mormons, stuff like that.

05:17

And so just as, you know, Jeff's become a pastor, has had more pastoral responsibilities, and just while Apology Radio is sort of tackling the issues of like abortion and just a lot more political, moral issues as well too, they want to have a section that has really laser focus on bringing the light of the gospel into the kingdom of the

05:36

Colts, the world of the occult, and that's kind of where that is. And kudos to Jeff Durbin, our pastor, he is the one who gave us the idea for the name.

05:43

We were like wrestling, we were wrestling with the name, like we're putting the show together. We were trying to find a name, and I could not find one for the life of me.

05:51

And then Jeff said, Coltish. I'm like, oh my goodness, how have I not thought of that already? So yeah, here we are, and it's a huge blessing.

05:59

And I'm super, I'm really excited to talk about Waco. I've always wanted to cover it. The challenge is there's so, like, we're going to talk for,

06:06

Dave, maybe like an hour, an hour and a half. There's so many, like, angles to the story, like how can you even encompass this in an hour and a half?

06:17

And we're just going to let the conversation go where it goes. But, you know, this is something that for a lot of those sort of classic cult stories, you know, there's

06:27

Jim Jones, there's Warren Jeffs. The Waco story is a bit more personal to me because I'm someone who just lived through it, but I want to just not compare myself in any way to someone like David Thibodeau or anyone like that.

06:40

I'm someone, I'll just maybe, this is how we'll jump into the conversation. I'm 11 years old.

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I kind of grew up in a very conservative Christian household. I grew up where around guns, fired guns at a very young age was always at the gun range.

06:56

I went hunting, watched, you know, television shows, John Wayne movies, like shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

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So on television and on Clint Eastwood movies and the movies that my parents would allow me to watch,

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I saw people getting shot all the time. But I knew that, okay, this is something that there's a story being told.

07:17

This is cinematic. I'm not like watching actual footage. I remember seeing the news report on February 28th, maybe it was the day after when the initial raid happened.

07:30

And we'll talk about the raid. I saw the video, anybody who knows about Waco has seen this footage, the

07:36

ATF sold agent on the roof and you see him on the roof and all of a sudden you see bullet holes go out the side of the wall and pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

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And he gets hit and he falls down. As an 11 year old kid, I immediately like tensed up because I knew right away the fourth wall was being broken.

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I saw someone being shot for real. And I was being homeschooled. My parents were homeschooling us.

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And so every single day I would just kind of keep my tabs on, this is what's happening in the stand compound. There's a lot we'll talk about in regards to media.

08:11

51 days later, my dad yelled at me, he just yelled,

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Jeremiah, come to the living room. And so I ran in because he knew that I was really enamored. I was reading the newspaper, the

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Arizona Republic, that was our local newspaper here in Arizona. And again,

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I'm only hearing the media, the FBI side of the story, the government side of the story. And sure enough,

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I saw Mount Carmel on fire and I watched it burn down live on TV. I knew that there were men, women and children inside of there.

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And as an 11 year old kid, I was horrified. And so, yeah, it's just something that's very interesting looking back all these years later, there's a lot to learn from it.

08:51

So I'll leave it at that. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, kind of my, I guess history around Waco is, so I live,

09:00

I grew up in Grandview, Texas, and I'm probably, I'm just a few miles north of there now, actually, where I'm living currently.

09:08

But it's an hour drive from Grandview, Texas, where I grew up to my house or vice versa.

09:15

And so it's really close. We go to Waco pretty regular. Me and my dad used to race dirt track in Waco. I was four years old,

09:21

I guess, when it happened. I don't remember a lot. I remember the compound burning and seeing, like,

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I could see the compound when I was a kid. I remember that part. Yeah. But where it became, I guess, personal to me, is

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I just always kind of bought the narrative, like they're a bunch of Wacos, they killed themselves. They were, you know, cult leader, they, you know, he killed them all, blah, blah, blah.

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But when I was 19 years old, I had just became a Christian. I had moved to Gainesville, Florida.

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And my roommate, who was very much a conspiracy theorist and anti -government type dude, you know what

09:59

I mean? Cool guy, but just very, very libertarian, I guess. And he put me on to the

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Rules of Engagement documentary. And I remember watching that. And I was just horrified.

10:10

I mean, I'm a 19 year old who just got some morals and just got some understanding of like, it was a very powerful moment for me,

10:18

I guess, looking back. I didn't know it was, but it's kind of shaped my political view since then.

10:24

So it's been a big deal. And then, but honestly, I had to quit thinking about it, because I remember being just so mad about it, just like, how could they let this happen?

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And there's no justice, you know, just really upset. So I kind of let it go. Well, then about two or three years ago, my wife's from Michigan, and her mom, my mother -in -law came into town to, you know, for Thanksgiving.

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And we went out to Waco, to where the site was. And of course, there's only like a church there with some pictures and the pool, the homemade pool that they made still there.

10:54

It's like a big empty cement, you know, tank basically. And there's still Branch Davidians living out there.

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I mean, still like ladies running around and not a lot, but a few denim, you know, long denim skirts.

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And I just remember the feeling, there's something out there. It's heavy. You know, it's really heavy.

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It's spiritually just like this was this was so bad. And it kind of reignited that. I can't believe this happened.

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Right. And, you know, so, yeah, it's always been, it's nothing that's like been major until now.

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Honestly, I'm really glad we're doing this, because I've been doing research kind of cramming the last couple of weeks to prepare.

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And I wake up like two or three times in the middle of the night, like the last couple of nights. My first thought is about Waco.

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So I'm really ready to maybe get this out of here, get it out of my head. Yeah. But yeah. Nice. What about you,

11:45

Andrew? Like, what was your first sort of like, what did you first hear about Waco, the story of David Koresh?

11:51

What was the first time you kind of heard about that? Because people tend to find out about this even when it's like later on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:58

Like, I was more familiar as a kid with Jonestown for some reason. My mom liked to tell me stories about Jonestown.

12:05

I think maybe she watched some documentaries on it or something like that. But in terms of Waco, I think the first time it really piqued my interest when

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I was watching an X -Files episode, I believe it was titled The Field Where I Died. It's either in like season three or season four where they're going to investigate this cult.

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I think it's like the cult of the seven stars. And there's a man who leads it called like Vernon Ephesian or something.

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And they get like a tip that there's abused children and things like that happening over there at this location.

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And they get there and eventually Mulder discovers that he's like reincarnated from a past life where a civil war took place at the same location.

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Anyways, I knew that that was kind of referencing Waco in a sense. And I think that's the first time where I was like, huh, that's interesting.

12:49

I want to know more about Waco. And then since Jerry and knowing that this has been such an integral part of his life and his even spiritual development, he's talked to me for years about Waco, being excited to start doing like an in -depth study on the theology of David Koresh of the

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Branch Davidians, which led us even into conversations with the Seventh -day Adventists and before that the

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Millerites and things of that nature. But it all circles around how people view current events, which is shaped heavily upon someone's eschatology, which is what they believe the book of Revelation would be talking about or certain parts of Ezekiel, Zechariah, you name it all over the place because David Koresh went all over the

13:36

Bible to try to say certain things. But it's important to understand that over time, a period of at least

13:44

I'd say 40 or 50 years, the theology that Vernon Howell adapted was growing.

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It didn't just come out of a vacuum. It didn't come out of nowhere. It had been growing for a while. But anyways, yeah, let's start unpacking this.

14:00

Let's get it out of your mind, Charismatic Cheetah. Where do you want to start, brother? Man, where I really want to start and I would like to maybe we should we do like a just a quick bird's eye view of what ways people there might be some people who live under a rock or maybe they're really young.

14:15

That'd be really good bird's eye view. And then I do have my first question. Yeah. So let me give a quick super aerial overview.

14:23

So you had 1993, the Clinton administration was brand new. They're just kind of getting things rolling and not too long into the

14:32

Clinton administration. You have the standoff is called Ruby Ridge, where you have the standoff that was incredibly botched, went bad.

14:40

It was just anyone can look that up. It just put the ATF in a very, very bad light. And they're kind of looking for some

14:46

PR improvement that led to them looking for some way to kind of make better the reputation and also try and get some additional funding, because whenever there's whenever there's a new administration, everyone tries to compete for funds.

15:00

Where that led to was Waco. The connection there was that there was word that Koresh was stockpiling weapons.

15:09

The ATF began investigating Waco. The ATF began investigating Waco because there was a delivery that was delivered by UPS.

15:18

The package broke up when there were some grenade casings. The ATF then began investigating.

15:24

That led to a raid called Operation Showtime, which was supposed to be just this kind of like a

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PR thing. It went incredibly bad. They lost the element of surprise.

15:37

And it was all it's very interesting. This shootout was all over the news. Typically, when you think about, you know, you watch you scroll through your

15:45

Instagram or your social media, and you'll see sometimes those like cop shootout videos that last maybe five, six seconds, like a shootout usually is very, very quickly.

15:55

And then someone draws, you empty your magazine, and it's over. This is something that took place for hours.

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It took place for hours. And it's the most of ammunition fire between two parties since the Civil War. There's a lot of nuance between who fired first and who started the fight.

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We can get into that. But after several hours of fighting, they came to a ceasefire.

16:16

That led to the FBI getting involved because six Branch Davidians were killed. You had four ATF agents that were killed multiple wounded on both sides, including

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David Koresh. There was a standoff 51 days when 51 days long at the very end to start on February 28, ended on the morning of April 19, where the

16:36

FBI tried to insert tear gas into the compound. The compound then caught on fire, which had burned down shortly thereafter.

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And I believe there were 76 that perished in the including men, women and children don't have the exact number of children that died off the forefront.

16:56

But yeah, it just was a lot that happened. And then there was a lot of fallout after that a lot of anti government sentiment, sentiment that happened.

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One of the people that was watching from, you know, the media area, there's a place where you can, where everyone was allowed to kind of observe what was going on way far away from Mount Carmel.

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One of those people was Timothy McVeigh. Not too long after that, I believe it was two years at one or two years after that.

17:22

He that's where the Oklahoma City bombing took place. And that was in many ways, a revenge tactic against what happened.

17:30

So yeah, it was something that really encompassed American history. When you think about, you know, in a social media age, we're looking at our phones and we're looking at, you know, we can get information so quickly.

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It used to be right around the 90s. That's when cable television was really kind of coming to fruition. And so you had stories like the

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Menendez brothers, the OJ Simpson trial, which took place later on. You just, you have these stories that really would capture people.

17:58

And they realized that when we would have these unique stories, they would out, the ratings would outdo anybody.

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So very, very quickly at this operation went bad. It just became this national story worldwide.

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And that became thing. And that just made things even more difficult and more pressure on the FBI to try and end this thing.

18:16

But there's a lot even to learn too about, you know, language between how the

18:21

FBI handled it, because they saw this as a typically a hostage negotiation that would last eight to 10 hours at the most.

18:32

And they were viewing it from very tactical standpoint. They weren't taking into account the religious convictions of the

18:40

Branch Davidians and them seeing this as fulfilled prophecy and their tests or faith. I mean, David Thibodeau, who's one of those prominent survivors, he says that one of the reasons he didn't walk out during the negotiation,

18:51

I would just listen to on the way here is that he saw that I said, why would I leave? I was seeing the scriptures being fulfilled right in front of my eyes.

18:58

That's something the negotiators didn't take into account. So yeah, that's a super very aerial view of case.

19:03

Anyone's living under a rock. But yeah, so that's, that's, that's kind of super aerial view. So I'll hand it back to you.

19:09

Yeah, man. So actually, I wrote the figures down, actually. So it's 86 people total, or were federal agents like ATF agents, 82 were

19:21

Branch Davidians. And out of those 82 Branch Davidians, 28 children perished in that in that fire.

19:29

But so speaking of religious, because that's the thing is, is, you know, looking into this, it's like the

19:35

FBI and the ATF, they didn't understand why they wouldn't come out, there was, you know, there's a lot more people like 120, some odd people,

19:43

I think a lot of them, a good portion of them came out. But they just didn't come out 51 days, they're not, they don't have running water, they don't have electricity, the only phone line they have is going to the feds for negotiations.

19:56

They're playing music outside the compound or the facility, with like, you know, dying rabbits, and, you know, boots are made for walking song on repeat, bright lights.

20:08

And so everything, they had every reason to leave. But it seems like the like the religious something was something about David Koresh's theology kept them there.

20:22

So, Andrew, I think you're probably the one that knows the most about his theology. And this is the question

20:27

I have the most, is who is David Koresh? And what exactly is I mean, obviously, we could spend four hours alone, just on his theology,

20:35

I'm sure. But who is David Koresh? And what can you kind of explain maybe his seven seals and exactly what his theological beliefs were in a general way, if you can?

20:47

Yeah, I'll do I'll do my best to explain it in an aerial view, just like Jerry did, because there's so many nuances, and so many complications, in terms of trying to understand a cult leaders eschatology, right?

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This is a person I want someone who's listening to understand that could very easily twist you into a doctrinal pretzel, right?

21:10

Vernon Howell was known to preach for hours on end. But remember, his theology didn't develop in a vacuum.

21:19

Hey, to clarify, Vernon Howell is David Koresh, correct? Correct. Yeah, I like to use Yep, I like to use his, his actual name.

21:27

And in terms of the theology, it's right, it wasn't created out of a vacuum, it didn't come out of anywhere, or nowhere, it came from somewhere.

21:34

And there's a theology that developed, I'd say, starting with Victor Hudev, who was a

21:41

Bulgarian. He left Bulgaria, which is modern day Bulgaria free, it was called back then when he left, and he ended up joining the

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Seventh Day Adventist Church around the 1920s, but it was eventually excommunicated from the

21:55

Seventh Day Adventist Church. So it's just good to get a little overview of the history, right? Leading up to Vernon Howell, who is

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David Koresh. So yeah, he emigrated to USA from what is now called Bulgaria at the age of 22.

22:07

He joined the SDA church in 1919 in Illinois. Later, he moved to California to be closer to Loma Linda, which is like the largest

22:13

SDA community in the nation. So in the 1920s, he started rising through the ranks and he would teach more.

22:20

He became a Sabbath school teacher within the SDA, which is Seventh Day Adventism. By 1929, though, he finished his doctoral studies and he formulated a book from his studies called

22:30

The Shepherd's Rod. From this, it stirred up a quote, unquote, a great controversy within the

22:36

Seventh Day Adventist organization. And if you've done any research on the Seventh Day Adventist, hopefully you understand that pun.

22:43

But essentially what he taught was that there was an elect group of 144 ,000 followers that would form a truly

22:49

Reformed church. And that forming of his pure church was a prerequisite for Christ's return to earth.

22:55

So these people that we're speaking of are believing that the end times are happening imminently. It's going to be happening soon.

23:01

So just to give you an idea, we could think of Joseph Smith with Mormons. They're called the

23:07

Latter Day Saints for a reason, right? Joseph Smith believed, or at least he taught, that Jesus Christ would return in his lifetime.

23:14

And it was even taught with presidents and prophets after that, that when they interpreted

23:20

Joseph Smith's prophecy, yes, it meant within that generation, within that lifetime. They've now since recanted that position because it never happened.

23:27

But the point I'm trying to make is that this is a group of people that had an eschatological certainty that the end was coming soon.

23:37

Eventually, Victor Hudeff, he was excommunicated from the Seventh Day Adventists. And so what happens?

23:44

He founded the Davidians in 1929 as a small Adventist Reform movement.

23:50

And then in 1935, the establishment of Mount Carmel happened. But it wasn't the

23:55

Mount Carmel that was actually put on fire, right?

24:01

Well, the fire happens because of the gas. The gas was able to ignite because there was so much powder in the house, whatever, but from the gas.

24:09

So this is a different area. Anyways, Victor Hudeff, he finds the

24:15

Branch Davidians in 1929, small Adventist Reform movement. By 1959,

24:20

Mount Carmel, the community had grown to approximately about 90 members. So he was viewed as the sole interpreter of biblical secrets by his followers,

24:31

Victor Hudeff, okay? And he would lead his followers to Jerusalem and heavenly Canaan. These were some of the beliefs within the early

24:38

Branch Davidian movement, all right? He had a sudden death in 1955,

24:44

I believe. Yeah. And it shocked his followers. And it like kind of just his following, you know, there's like, whoa, oh my goodness, our follower died.

24:53

But his wife then took control, Florence. And I believe that even Florence had prophesied something with the imminent coming end of the end of the world, but it never happened.

25:06

So actually pretty early on in 1959, the Branch, well, they're not the

25:12

Branch Davidians yet, but the Davidians almost fell apart in 1959. So it was a failed prophecy from Florence on April 22nd, 1959.

25:21

Again, they had 900 members at this time, which is way more than the 90 Victor had earlier. But when this happened, when

25:28

Florence, her failed prophecy occurred, there was a man who saw the advantage of this because he was part of the movement already.

25:35

And his name was Benjamin Rodin. And he claimed to be the sign that the Davidians were seeking for.

25:41

And he discredited Florence and he ended up taking control. And then they bought a smaller 77 acre portion called the new

25:49

Mount Carmel and Rodin's teachings. This is what he essentially taught was he emphasized the significance of Israel's restoration as a precursor to Christ's return.

25:58

He established a community in Israel before his death in 1978, but he eventually dies as well. And his wife takes over.

26:04

Now, this is where we start seeing the most important influences on Vernon Howell in terms of how the theology worked with the modern day

26:11

Branch Davidians. So Lois Rodin, when she takes power, what does she do? Well, she has a revelation that the

26:17

Holy Spirit is actually a woman, is actually feminine. And we end up seeing a development of modalism in a sense where it's hard to explain again, guys, because when we think when we're listening to this, we're thinking in terms of biblical

26:35

Christianity. So to try to think like a Branch Davidian, we have to unlearn everything we've learned right about God and the

26:45

Bible and what the truth is. But eventually or essentially, the

26:50

Godhead would be father, son, and the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit would be the feminine aspect, right?

26:57

We're created in God's image, male and female. He created them. This is how they would explain this. If you ever talk to a

27:03

World Mission Society Church of God individual, they will use the very same passages to say that we have a heavenly mother.

27:10

So the Branch Davidians take a lot of these passages as well, the heavenly mother. And they say that this is the Holy Spirit who is going to manifest herself in the end times and marry the lamb.

27:21

Vernon Howell essentially taught near the end of his life in terms of the seven seals because he was interpreting these seals for the individuals while the end is occurring to them, right?

27:31

Because that's what he's telling the FBI agents, hey, don't do this yet. I'm still writing this book. I'm going to send you guys this book.

27:37

You're going to see it's going to be the interpretation of the book of Revelation, right? Essentially what happens is near the end,

27:46

I'm giving you guys an overview because we can get so much deeper into some of the intricacies. Trevor Burrus And it's hard, just so you know too, is that the biggest challenge, like how do we, if we covered in Waco in depth, it would have to be like, how will we fit into 10 episodes?

27:58

Like that's the challenge with us because there's, but again, the most important thing is to understand the theology because that's what they didn't understand.

28:07

That's why this standoff took 51 days. I think that's one of the things too, is that the FBI during the standoff, anything you know about it, they were dealing with this strictly from a tactical standpoint where they were seeing this as fulfilled, where from the

28:23

Branch Davidian side, they were seeing this as fulfilled prophecy. So a failure to understand that theology,

28:29

I mean, we always talk about scaling the language barrier, understanding this origination of their theology is key because that's when, and that way when we, even if you ever heard the

28:39

FBI, the negotiation tapes, you hear two people talking past each other. So yeah, anyways, back to you,

28:46

Andrew. Andrew Let me, yeah, okay, let me - Chris Real quick, real quick, Andrew, question, just to kind of get me caught up here. So with say the

28:53

Hudith, Victor Hudith, and then the rodents, correct? They, were they, were they considered like Messiah figures?

29:00

Were they considered just prophets? Like what exactly, how did they, how are they viewed? I'm trying to understand. Andrew Yeah, I would state that their followers believed that these individuals had the knowledge of, you know, specific end times teachings with regard to the

29:17

Bible. So they were devoted to these individuals and they wanted to follow these individuals. So when certain things happen within a cult framework, like the individual is saying that these things are going to occur and the end's going to take place and then they suddenly die, it's a big shock to them, right?

29:34

Because they believed these people to be almost infallible interpreters. So I'd say the standard by which these individuals are following them is because the individuals are charismatic in terms of the way they speak.

29:46

They have riz, right? I'm pretty low on the riz, but these guys got the riz and their teachings were gas for anyone out there who may be

29:53

Gen Z, but for the individuals, but let me try to break it down like this. I'm sorry. I was going off on a little rabbit trail.

29:58

Let's break it down on the nature of God, which was taught by Vernon Howell. And let's break it down on Christology.

30:04

Okay. And these teachings you can find from the book that Clive Doyle wrote. Let me see if I can grab that book real quick.

30:11

Let me see. Yeah. While he, while he's grabbing that, um, one of the areas too, is that within the history of cults, there's always centralization around a charismatic figure, but whenever that person dies, there's always this fragmentation that happens.

30:26

Uh, and so Andrew, I would just tell him about, you know, fragmentation when it came to leaders. So when, uh, when

30:31

Lois Roden took over, you know, you're looking at the, uh, Benjamin Roden and he passed and everyone kind of looked at him like he was the one who knew everything.

30:39

So when he passed away, there's probably this doubt and uncertainty. And so it, when all of a sudden, you know,

30:44

Lois Roden takes over, that's where, Oh, we need, there's this, there's a fragmentation, but there's, cause everyone's sort of shocked and shattered that the person they're looking to die.

30:53

Cause they almost seem like they're like an immortal God, but then they're also desperate to have that vacuum filled.

31:00

And that's usually where the new person will kind of fill in that power vacuum, but also bring in new revelation. Uh, go ahead with, uh, would you show her in the book so you can see.

31:08

All right. So this book right here is called a journey to Waco. And let me give you just a brief summary of who

31:13

Clive Doyle is and why he has authority on teaching us what Vernon Howell, who is David Koresh taught.

31:19

Okay. Clive Doyle is a native Australian who worked as a currency printer, became a branch Davidian in 1964, two years later, he, uh, and others in his group were asked to come to Mount Carmel from Australia.

31:31

Uh, 1984 Doyle and other branch Davidians left Mount Carmel during the power struggle between David Koresh and George Roden.

31:38

So George Roden is the son of Ben and Lois Roden. Very important. Okay. Doyle returned in 1988 after escaping, uh, after escaping

31:47

April 19th, 1993 fire Doyle was one of the 11 branch Davidians tried for murder and conspiracy.

31:53

He and two other defendants were acquitted on all counts. Okay. Doyle returned to Waco where he awaits the resurrection of David Koresh, as well as the his daughter,

32:02

Sherry, who was 18 when she died in the fire. Sherry was one of the several women who called themselves wives of Koresh.

32:07

Clive Doyle is involved in the Mount Carmel, uh, survivors Memorial fund, which offers books, videos, and things of that nature.

32:14

But Clive Doyle himself, he passed away on June 8th of 2022. So Clive Doyle is an authority.

32:19

And when it comes to the terms of the teachings, theologically what they believe, because he was actually one of the editors for Lois Roden's, uh, publications, which was called

32:30

Shekinah, right? Like the Shekinah glory of the Holy spirit, some of the feminine, feminine teachings. So in this book, he goes over, uh, the nature of God into what they believed and also

32:41

Christology. So let me still try to, let me explain this to you guys as simply as possible. Okay. One God unified, but in two parts, male and female.

32:49

So it's not modalism, but there's something unique within David Koresh's view where God, when he wanted to live and experience his creation would extend himself to humanity in which he did in various forms.

33:02

One form would be Melchizedek, right? Or the youngest of Job's friends was also an extension of God, the father specifically, where then he would return back to heaven and be the father again in Jesus Christ himself, according to their

33:18

Christology is the same, but he's a little bit different because he's the full embodiment of the dual natures of God.

33:24

He is projected from both the father and the mother in him, the fullness of the deity dwelt bodily a butchering of Colossians chapter two, right?

33:33

Jesus Christ in a sense would be eternal as the dual nature of God, but not as a separate personage, which is a

33:41

Trinitarian belief, right? There was one point in time where the human nature of Jesus Christ took on the dual nature of both the father and the mother.

33:49

So Jesus Christ, David Koresh was not eternally existent as a separate person from the father and the

33:55

Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ was merely a suit of God as an extension for God to come into humanity for a reason and purpose in that age.

34:03

And that's very important when it comes to interpreting the book of Revelation. And that's why the lamb is separated from the father in terms of Jesus, not being the lamb in the book of Revelation, but it actually being

34:13

David Koresh. Because when Jesus goes back to heaven, what does he do? He goes back into the father, right? Into that extension.

34:18

Okay. So in, in terms of the way they think, why let's say

34:24

Clive Doyle stayed at Waco or why you say it was David Thibodeau, Jerry?

34:30

David Thibodeau is one of the other survivors. Yeah. Why they stayed, right? Yeah. The reason I would just listen to the interview on the way here.

34:38

And he was saying that the reason why, why they're out, he was asked, he was going to be asked in this interview that David Thibodeau was on saying, well, why didn't you leave?

34:46

And he said, I was seeing the scripture fulfilled right in front of my eyes. And so this was,

34:51

I was really seeing this as being a test of my faith. Like everything is like everything in my life had built up to this moment.

34:59

I mean, that was his mindset that he wanted to be there till the end. So, so David Koresh taught that within the end of the world, within the coming judgment of man, uh, only the ripest of the ripe fruit would be the ones who would be resurrected first and they would judge others.

35:18

So from Cain to Abel or from, uh, Abel to Christ, there was the ripest of the ripest of the saints.

35:26

And they were the ones who are resurrected in Matthew 27. When Jesus resurrected it states that the saints came out of the ground and they walked around the earth, uh, not the earth, but around Jerusalem, David Koresh taught that that was the ripest of the ripe martyrs, specifically from Abel to Christ.

35:43

Okay. And that they're waiting another one to occur from everyone after Christ until now.

35:49

So they would essentially be in a form of soul sleep. They wouldn't be in heaven. You can see where they get, uh, where even

35:54

Jehovah's witnesses get some of their soul sleep ideas from coming back from the days of super early post, uh,

36:02

William Miller, the great disappointment of failed prophecy that occurred with trying to calculate, uh, when

36:08

Jesus Christ would occur in the late 18 hundreds. Uh, you can see where some weird theology started developing and it made its way, uh, from the

36:16

Miller rights into the Jehovah's witnesses, but it also made its way into the branch Davidians. Right. So essentially why would he want to stay?

36:22

Well, he wants to be the ripest of the ripe, you know, he wants to be part of the wave sheaf that's going to be resurrected first.

36:30

You know, uh, the seven seals, I haven't gone through all of it yet.

36:36

Uh, it's, there's a lot to go through, but the first seal would be the marriage of the lamb.

36:41

Uh, the woman in revelation 12 one is supposed to represent the Holy spirit.

36:47

Uh, it's, it's interesting guys. Uh, there's a lot there. I think maybe we could focus on an episode, uh, another episode going specifically through the seven seals.

36:57

Cause there's a lot there, but, but, but understand that David didn't teach.

37:02

He was Jesus. Okay. He taught he was the lamb. Remember Jesus was an extension of the father.

37:08

Uh, remember God according to them, uh, is dual nature, father, mother, uh, but unified in purpose.

37:15

Uh, and David Koresh would be the lamb that ushers in the end of the world, uh, in terms of the book of revelation.

37:24

So when the ATF is surrounding Waco to try to help you guys put this in perspective, uh, they're looking at Ezekiel, uh, nine or even in Zechariah, when

37:35

Babylon comes to destroy Jerusalem, they're seeing the full fulfillment of that is happening then.

37:41

Right. And they want to be the ripest of the ripe fruit for God. They wanted to follow God and his commandments so that they could have salvation.

37:49

So that's the eschatology. That's the mindset. The end is the end is coming. I mean,

37:54

I just read part of the, the autobiography from Clive where he was awaiting the resurrection of who of David Koresh.

38:02

Yeah. Yeah. Right. This is the mindset of these individuals. This is why bad theology hurts people again in the future.

38:08

I would love to devote one, two, or three episodes going into specifically the seven seals and how

38:14

David Koresh interpreted them, but we wouldn't have the time today, but hopefully, uh, I gave you guys a little package of some of the teachings of, uh,

38:24

Vernon Howell, just to help you understand that when these people were thinking, uh, they weren't thinking like you and I do.

38:31

Right. Um, there's supposed to be 24 elders in the book of revelation. Who are those 24 elders according to David Koresh?

38:37

Oh, the children of his offspring. Yeah. Right. His literal offspring, his literal offspring.

38:43

So we're talking about people who sat under hours and hours and hours of isolated teaching from an individual who was not challenged by any outside influence.

38:57

Right. Uh, and sadly, this is what happens. This is what happens when an individual becomes your soul interpreter, your soul infallible rule of faith and practice, uh, and not the word of God, bad things happen.

39:12

Like our pastors would say, or me, I'm a, I'm a pastor at our church and apology of Utah. I'm corrected by God's word and I'm held under judgment to God's word.

39:22

Right. Um, some people instead think they're the lamb. It really is.

39:30

I mean, it's, uh, you know, y 'all say all the time, bad theology hurts people. And in this case, it's not just like a spiritual hurt or a emotional hurt.

39:40

Like this is the, these people die. These kids died, women, uh, the dogs that, you know, they had pets.

39:47

They, they died. ATF agents died. And there's still people who still to this day, like I said, you can go out to the, the, the quote unquote compound.

39:57

I don't want to call it compound. That's all. It's the only way I know how to relate it. Uh, the quote unquote, you know, Mark Mount Carmel center, you can go out there today and you will still see a branch

40:06

Davidians out there. And they are a direct, uh, uh, descendants of the seventh day of Venice, which

40:12

I didn't know, honestly, uh, is actually all's episode on the seventh day of Venice. That really helped me a lot because in my area,

40:18

Johnson County, Texas, it's seventh day of Venice is huge. I mean, in fact, there's a town 20 minutes

40:24

West of here called Keene, Texas. It's only, it's one of only two cities in the entire United States that doesn't get mail on Saturday because there's seventh day of Venice.

40:32

So it's really big around here. Uh, Texas conference is literally, I could throw a rock and almost hit the, hit the building. Uh, seventh day of Venice, Texas conference.

40:40

And so we see this theology just going sideways with, uh, you know, we got Jehovah's witnesses, we got

40:46

Mormons, we got seven day of Venice. Now we have branch Davidians and you can just keep following the line of, of really, it boils down to a messed up Christology, a messed up view of the

40:57

Godhead and, and you get away from the Trinitarian view of scripture. And then this, this type of stuff happens.

41:04

And so it's really complicated. I mean, yeah, because like I'm sitting here listening to David Thibodeau, one of the survivors who was, it still seems like he's very much devoted to the teachings of crash as well.

41:14

And it's been, you know, almost 30, 30 years now or so. Um, and I'm trying to, trying to like understand where he's coming from.

41:23

I was listening to his book on, on audio and I'm trying to like pay attention, but I'm like, dude,

41:28

I don't like, I know you're talking about the seven seals are talking about the lamb. And I'm like, that's not when you say those words, when you say the word lamb,

41:35

I think of Jesus Christ, that's the lamb of revelation, you know, but he's talking about something totally different.

41:41

And when Drake David crush it, so it's all very complicated. That's why I totally understand now why y 'all haven't done anything on this because, um, it's just, there's so much to cover there.

41:52

It's such a complicated, uh, issue, complex issue. And that's really when, you know, in my studies, what, what struck me the most was how complex the whole thing is because, you know, the, the media and the, the federal government wanted to make

42:08

David crush out to be very black and white figure, just, uh, he's bad. He's a, he abuses children.

42:14

He's a, a false Messiah. He's a cult leader was Brandon is that all his followers are fanatics.

42:20

And then, you know, paint the feds as the good guys coming to save them. So we can now do whatever we want.

42:25

Right. Even on, you know, my, my research, watching the documentaries and listening to the books and stuff like that,

42:31

I was getting really mad at the federal federal government for what they did. And I think rightly so, but even on their end, there were individual agents who, who lost their lives because of that.

42:42

And there were agents who disagreed with the way they handled that whole situation. So it's such a complex issue, um, that it's hard to even, it's hard to cover it.

42:53

And, you know, even, I think even 10 hours, you know, so, um, yeah, I, so like one of the areas

42:59

I feel at this point, I've listened to nearly every podcast I could find on Waco.

43:05

I mean, I lost count of how many times I've gone on Waco and I'll just, I'll just type on, on Spotify to Waco and see, is there one that I miss?

43:12

Is there a new one? And most of them have the check Mark that green check Mark. Oh, you've already listened to this one. I'm like, Oh, I need to listen to it again.

43:18

And it's most of them either tend to sort of tell the side from us, like who almost like the star was who shot for his honor.

43:24

Greedo, like whose fault was it? Was it the, it was the age, it was the government justify was correct.

43:30

Caress this maniac cult leader. Uh, we're actually where the brands of videos, where they justify in their defense, that tends to be what it focuses on.

43:37

So there's almost a parallel between that. They'll talk about all the physical elements of what took place in the car, like all the evidence that shows who shot first or whose fault it was and all that.

43:48

But there's only caresses beliefs is only really mentioned in passing.

43:54

And so they don't really go into like what made this standoff last 51 days when typically a hostage crisis is eight to six hours.

44:02

And so like one of the points too, is that it really became an issue when it comes to, uh, by what standard, where do you get your revelation from?

44:10

So one of the areas in which cult leaders would do, and then you also, you have to make a distinction because categorically, like Theo theologically caress would have fallen under the category.

44:21

Theologically speaking, as a cult leader, he probably would. And there's a lot of people, Andrew, you'd say like up in Utah, who are just, you've talked to some interesting people out in the street who definitely have some really, really wacky theology.

44:33

You know, Utah is known to, for just having different cults and groups that have really weird restrictions with, uh, you know, who you, who you can and can't have sex with or who you can and can't be married to.

44:45

Um, and so there's nothing really new with having a group like that. So caress would have fallen under that category.

44:52

Theologically speaking, even some of the things he did sociologically, but it wasn't that we usually will look at caress the lens of the government, the government perception of caress.

45:05

And so like one of the reasons, if you actually look at our logo, when we have like the four people up there, the picture of caress on the right hand side is not an actual picture of caress.

45:14

It's a picture of the actor who portrayed David Koresh in this CBS television show called ambition

45:20

Waco in the line of duty, which was a propaganda film that came out about a month or two after the, uh, the, uh, compound burned down.

45:30

And it was really, if you watch it, it was to paint the ATF as these really good people who just want to rescue the kids.

45:37

And he just painted all the brands of idiots at the, as he's maniacal psychopaths. I mean, it just, it's so over the top.

45:45

In fact, that one of the memorial services, a couple of years later, the guy who produced the film, uh, for CBS actually came out and like, apologize and said, this is wrong.

45:53

I should not have done this. This was false. This was a propaganda film. I shouldn't have done this. Um, and so you really have the government portrayal and the media portrayal of Koresh and what was going on as a way,

46:07

I believe to cover up the mistakes that the FBI have made. So, and I'll, I'll say one more thing. I'll hand it back to you is that shortly after the, uh, shootout happened.

46:19

Uh, one thing is that I believe Thibodeau is sort of known for saying that we are all sort of a static because we had driven back the forces of Babylon.

46:27

That was the mindset inside Mount Carmel and understandably. So, I mean, their theology had these implications and this was a failure on the

46:36

ATS level to say, Hey, this is not a weird group. Their theology actually teaches that Babylon, the forces of Babylon are going to come against them.

46:46

And that's going to be the culmination of the end of all things. So what if, is it maybe a better idea to maybe arrest

46:53

Koresh on the street and to maybe like pull him aside and kind of do this in a different way than having it this way rather than to create this conflict that never took that into consideration.

47:04

And then after the FBI got involved because a government agents were killed, you had, you know, the initial negotiations began.

47:13

Gary knows her and his book stalling for time talks about this extensively. I think that the negotiations actually started off well.

47:21

I think they understood right away that this is somebody who has deep religious convictions. And you listen to Koresh even prior to this,

47:31

I've listened to just a couple of the sermons. You can tell this is somebody who genuinely believe what he believes.

47:38

And there's a saying goes that everyone has a plan until they get punched. So when you're hearing

47:44

Koresh in the negotiation tapes, you know, everyone talks about how being shot, anybody who has ever been shot changes you.

47:52

You know, Koresh was one of the people, you know, he had four Davidians and six Davidians who were killed, multiple were injured, including

47:59

Koresh, who is, I believe he was shot in the hand. And he has also was shot in the eye, came into the abdomen and went out the buttocks.

48:06

So it was a pass through wound. And that reinforced him to the nth degree.

48:13

So you're looking at someone who's been shot, who now is just believes it even further and even more.

48:19

And so it gets to a point where they are starting to convince some of the people to come out.

48:26

And he agrees to preach a sermon and release a tape that they're going to play in the 700

48:32

Club and said, if you release this sermon, if we let you, if we give you national air time to get out what you want to say to the world, will you end it?

48:41

And he gave his word that he's going to end it. They're all going to come out and surrender. And so I think it will leave us day eight where they, he had this sermon play,

48:49

I believe it was on a Sunday evening and they had this certain message. I believe you can look it up on YouTube. You can listen to it. And he's just talking about, you know, eschatology, the end of all things, the seven seals, and they, they portray it.

48:59

And now they're waiting for him to come out. And so Koresh's second hand man was

49:04

Steve Schneider, who is also in a lot of the negotiation tapes. He was also portrayed very accurately in the, in the television series

49:12

Waco. And he basically, he kind of came to,

49:17

I believe he came to the negotiation of, to the phone and told them that Koresh basically said,

49:24

God told him to wait. Yeah. So that's where things went into a damn world spire, a spiral, because now you have, there's mounting pressure.

49:34

This is also becoming a media frenzy. Uh, this is just, you know, cable news network is just in its infancy and now they're pissed off because they feel like they've just been played.

49:47

Um, there, he's just, you know, he's just, they're dancing to the tune of his flute.

49:53

So they're not very, very happy. Um, you know, and so that, so that what you end up seeing though, is that in that moment, this is a primary, this is a theological issue.

50:05

It's a theological conviction that turned it from going into day eight, uh, into day 51.

50:13

And rather than dealing with it theologically, I think there's ways they maybe could have done that.

50:19

They decided to do a tactical strategy, um, to make their environment more uncomfortable rather than deal with that at his, at his fundamental root.

50:31

And so I think, you know, with Andrew giving all that background, you know, if, and when we do a 10 part series, if we're able to pack everything into 10 parts, it would really be understand the theology because they didn't.

50:43

And so you're, you're looking at, this is a, an idea of like revelation, who, how does

50:48

God communicate? Like they're just understanding and defining terms. How did David Crest view that?

50:54

Well, his views extended it. And so that like that could have, it could have ended.

51:00

Now there's all the question about what would have happened with it. Would they have gotten a fair trial? Um, if they had all come out, they definitely would have lived, um, arguably, but not, uh, yeah, it, and it ended, it didn't end at that moment because of, uh, you know,

51:15

Crest saw otherwise, he believed God told him otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I feel like,

51:23

I mean, again, we've only scratched the surface here of this. Um, but maybe let's, uh, let's try to maybe land the plane a little bit.

51:32

There's a question that I have, I would love to know what y 'all's thoughts are, are on it. So kind of, you know, after 51 days of the standoff and, uh, things are going bad, there's still not a few people come out here and there sporadically, uh, towards the end, he's getting ready.

51:48

He's, he's writing his seven seals and he tells this really, uh, really big name lawyer out of Houston that gives him his word.

51:54

I will, I will write as soon as I'm done, write my seven seals, my manuscript, I will, we'll all come out.

52:00

No, it'll be over. And in the middle of writing the, and people have, you know, testified that he actually was writing it.

52:07

He wasn't just stalling, but it may have been, may have been both. You know, he, uh, after writing it for a few days, the, on April, uh,

52:16

April 19th, 1993, about, uh, you know, in the early morning, the

52:22

ATF and the FBI who were surrounding the, the, the place with tanks and helicopters and barbed wire, and again, floodlights and sounds and all this stuff going on.

52:32

They, they decide to, you know, punch, punch all these holes with their tanks into the side of the building on multiple angles.

52:39

And they pump in tear gas, which is actually CS gas, which is known, a known combustant and flammable, and especially in confined places.

52:47

And what's the, what makes me the angriest about it is, is when it, when a, uh, a child that basically contorts their body so bad, like it just kills them, um, that they, they're, you know, um, it, it's just gruesome.

53:01

I can't even, I can't even, like, think about it, but, um, and they knew this. This isn't like, like, uh, countries have decided to not use

53:07

CS gas, even in warfare, but our, our, our government decided to do that on women and children and U .S.

53:13

citizens. But they, they pump it into the place and their, their idea is like, oh, they'll, they'll get sick of being in here and they'll come out.

53:20

Well, they don't come out. Nobody comes out because, well, first off, there's, there's obstruction to their view of getting out of the, out of the place because they've punched all these holes and, you know, with tanks into this, this building.

53:33

And it's very, you know, it's very rickety building. It's basically plywood and two by four is what it looks like.

53:39

And anyway, so a fire breaks out, long story short, fire breaks out on one end of the place and the whole place just goes up in smoke.

53:47

So there's a big, there's a big debate between, you know, the feds and people like David Thibodeau, survivors of the

53:56

Branch Davidians that the, that, you know, the ATF and the feds say that basically

54:01

David Koresh commanded his people to, to burn themselves alive and to commit mass suicide.

54:09

And the, you know, David Thibodeau is like, it's been said the last 30 odd, you know, years that the, the

54:17

CS gas is what caused the fires because they had like propane, you know, propane heaters and stuff like that because they didn't have electricity.

54:25

And so what do you all think there is that the, the feds have claimed that there's actual audio where they had like a listening devices that they were sending in kind of like low key.

54:34

And that there's, they, they allegedly have like audio clips of them basically proving that they killed themselves.

54:40

And I remember that the documentary I watched on Netflix, American Apocalypse, there's like a little clip, it's like a couple seconds.

54:46

And I, it's like, get the hay or there's not enough hay or we need some more paper. And then the fire breaks out.

54:51

So what are your thoughts on, did the Branch Davidians maybe, maybe just David, David Koresh and a couple of people around him, maybe they decided to burn themselves alive, which doesn't make sense to me because they have a, they allegedly have a million, 1 .1

55:05

million rounds of ammunition and they have guns. Why not just shoot yourself? Why burn yourself alive when you're already getting tear gassed?

55:13

So did, did they kill themselves or did, do you think it was the, the CS gas combusting and yeah.

55:20

So when it comes down to it, there's a, the only real evidence that is sort of used to say that there was intent for them to like start the fire and to kill themselves is this brief audio where there's a talk within the compound because during, during the negotiations that were supplies given as far as negotiation, they gave milk to the kids and I believe they gave a medical kit for Koresh to tend to his wounds in exchange for some of the children being released.

55:49

And so they had recorded audio inside. Now, is there legitimacy to that audio?

55:56

It's hard to even say because a lot of, there's a lot of stuff that's, that was redacted. You know, they had the, they had the, for example, the footage that we have of the shootout.

56:06

If you watch it, it's only maybe five minutes of a shootout that lasted for hours. The rest of the tape disappeared at, you know, quote unquote malfunctioned.

56:14

And so you have a lot of, when you get into, you've gotten, and again, you've watched Michael, the different documentaries, there's a lot of evidence that gets redacted.

56:22

So I think when it comes to the fire, you have a, you have multiple different things. You have the time of the fire when it took place.

56:30

So on February, on April 19th, the raid started right around six o 'clock in the morning. There was a plan to surely, but slowly release the gas into the compounds who would be irritable.

56:42

So you would do that, which is incredibly ill -advised because the purpose of that tear gas was to get somebody to move, to control a riot in an outside environment.

56:55

It's not meant to be done within it. So the fact that that got used in the first place was madness.

57:01

And then when they didn't come out right away, they just lost, it was supposed to be a three -day process.

57:07

So rather than wait for people to come out and be irritable, they lost patience. And so they pumped in with a short amount of hours, all the tear gas,

57:16

I think that was supposed to be used for three days. So you have that, they had shut off the Branch Davidians power.

57:23

So more than likely they were utilizing lanterns, kerosene lanterns and things like that, because they just had a lot of proper stuff there.

57:32

So more than likely, what you're just dealing with is at some point, it was a very windy day as well too.

57:38

And you had the tanks that came in and punched large holes in there.

57:43

But according to Thibodeau's testimony is that when those tanks came crashing in actually blocked a lot of the hallways for them to come out.

57:51

So they couldn't, a lot of them actually couldn't come out. That was the issue. And so more than likely, and this is depicted in the show, no one truly knows, but more than likely it was just something to where that material, that tear gas and that is incredibly flammable.

58:08

So that's there as well too. And more than likely you had a kerosene lantern or something of that nature that just got knocked over.

58:16

And so you had a lot of people who are in a situation just very similar to 9 -11, where what do

58:21

I do? Do I burn alive? Or do I die of gosmonylation? Or do I just jump off this balcony and die instantaneously?

58:29

What do I do? And so when it comes down to it, that's the choice that they have.

58:35

And so Clive Doyle and David Thibodeau, they just solved this for a brief second what they thought was the entry point.

58:42

I believe there are nine total people who survived that morning in contrast to all those who perished. So no,

58:48

I don't think it points to that. I think that any of the information the government has given to sort of coerce their side of the story is highly questionable.

59:01

I'll give you an example. They claim that Branch Davidians fired first.

59:07

When you look at the pictures of the initial raid on April 28th, all of the pictures that you see shows bullet holes from the outside, not coming from the inside of the compound of them shooting through.

59:20

They shot back through the window specifically, if I remember, from the upper balcony. And so all that shows that.

59:26

And then the two doors at Mount Carmel, those were metal doors. The majority of where the bullet holes took place was in the door on the left side.

59:37

So there's an infamous picture that shows the ATF agents hiding behind cars, facing the compound.

59:44

And you see all the bullet points, which are entry bullet points all over. And then so one of the doors, the left door in as they're cleaning up the crime scene, just it got it went missing.

59:56

No one knows where it's at. So they're just there's a whole line of receipts of just things that were cover ups and those sorts of things.

01:00:05

And so, yeah, it's highly questionable. They did have this view of the forces of Babylon and sort of being this this there's this apocalyptic language that happened in an apocalyptic way.

01:00:19

But it it was just the perfect storm of somebody who people who truly believe what they believed in a disorganized, dysfunctional government agency that had just lost all patience and had to cover their trails and just didn't have that.

01:00:36

I think honestly, when you think about it, they were just at their wits end. This was they probably had pressure from their higher ups just to end this thing no matter what.

01:00:45

And I think they lost patience when they didn't come out right away. They're like, screwed.

01:00:51

Let's just we're just going to pump it even harder. They just were so have been there 51 days. They had been away from their families and all this sort of stuff and not in any way, you know, justifying it.

01:01:02

But like everyone, everyone at wake on that day, every single person was having a human experience trying to figure out what to do.

01:01:10

Some people, unfortunately, were just following orders. And it just it happened the way that it did. But I don't it doesn't

01:01:16

I don't think any of the evidence shows that that indicated they're they're advocating for mass suicide.

01:01:21

There's one small tape about, hey, can you give me some gasoline to pour down here? But I think just the context, that's only a small little five second clip that's played.

01:01:31

And I think we've seen in the media is very easy to take any portion of media to take it out of context to make us say you say what it wants to say.

01:01:40

So but anybody, whether it's David Tibbett or Clive or Clive Doyle, who's passed, anybody who's an active branch civilian adamantly, adamantly denies that.

01:01:48

So something that I kept thinking about is like, what does this stuff look like on like in the spiritual in a spiritual sense?

01:01:58

So, you know, I think, again, I was saying a couple of minutes ago that it's a very complex thing.

01:02:05

And you just said that everyone was having a human experience. And one of the things I really appreciated about David Thibodeau's book is that he paints this picture of Koresh and also the other followers as being human beings, complex human beings.

01:02:22

And he makes it a point to say David Koresh was a very complex person.

01:02:27

And so he said he also he felt he was a very genuine person. So I think about the fact that like, you know,

01:02:34

Koresh had these visions in Jerusalem. That's what started this whole thing was what he claims. But it seems like he was very, very genuine in his beliefs, like maybe he actually did have some visions and really thought that the seven seals that he was the only one that could interpret this stuff.

01:02:50

And he really was a prophet or a messiah like figures or the Lamb of Revelation, you know, so I think about that a lot too.

01:03:00

And I what I hope people get from from this episode is that it's a much more complex situation than just a bunch of crazy cult leader cult, you know, cult members and cult leader got together and they killed themselves because the feds surrounded him.

01:03:15

It's so much deeper and much more complex than that with, you know, 50 years, at least of history before that, that kind of led up to this.

01:03:22

And so I think about it in like the spiritual sense of, I wonder how much damage this does to the gospel at the end of the day, because, you know, people painted on the news, a

01:03:32

Bible babble guy who is wants to talk about his interpretation of Revelation, which automatically refers that he's a

01:03:42

Christian. I wonder how many people will never even consider looking at reading a

01:03:48

Bible now because of David Koresh and what happened at Waco, you know? Yeah, absolutely, man.

01:03:54

I think what you're saying is right. Deuteronomy 13 gives us the precedence, the word of God that tells us, it says, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and produces miracles, signs and wonders, but leads you after other gods, gods of which you have not known, do not believe them.

01:04:12

So in God's word, we do find that there are people that are influential, who can produce something that we would call miracles, maybe signs or wonders, maybe even interpret dreams, maybe even have visions.

01:04:24

But if they lead you after other gods, don't believe them, right? And that's the reality with David Koresh.

01:04:32

He led them after other gods. It says there's a way that seems right to a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.

01:04:38

It says that in Proverbs. And that's the fruit of what we see. And my heart breaks for all of the people who are survivors of the

01:04:46

Waco tragedy, to be honest. If we think about it in terms of whose fault it is,

01:04:51

I think we're thinking about it wrong. Is it the government's fault? Yes.

01:04:57

Is it David Koresh's fault? Yes. Why do I say that? Well, James tells us not many of you should be teachers because you're judged with stricter and harsher judgment.

01:05:07

And for how he led his people to believe that the chariots with flaming torches in Nahum chapter two, verses three through four are the tanks outside, right?

01:05:19

That the Mount Carmel, the siege that was occurring was the siege that's referenced in Zechariah 14 two.

01:05:27

He led them to believe that they are to fight essentially to their death. They are to be the ripest of the ripe fruit.

01:05:36

The question that we should be thinking to ourselves is how ought we, when faced with tyranny, respond as Christians?

01:05:49

That's the question, right? Because what happens when the ATF goes over their jurisdiction and the power that they ought to have given to them by God in terms of even if they should exist or not, that's a question we can even ask if that branch of the government should even exist.

01:06:05

How should people who believe in Christ respond? Well, the fruit of the response shows the genuineness of faith,

01:06:13

I'd say. And if I'm thinking about that, I'm thinking even in terms of the American revolution, right? The Presbyterian revolt, the black robe regiment.

01:06:20

We had the King of England going against English common law, which is based off a biblical law. And then we have the people of the

01:06:26

Americas sending a letter to the King saying, you need to repent and stop doing these things because you're going against God and you're going against even your own law.

01:06:32

That's why it's called a revolutionary war, not a rebellion. They weren't rebelling from a system. They were doing a revolt, trying to revolve back.

01:06:41

And how did people who believed in Jesus through faith during that time actually resist a tyrannical government?

01:06:48

Well, they did it in such a way where people had freedom, right? What we find with false prophets, people who lead people after other gods, freedom is never found, right?

01:07:02

Salvation always comes at the sacrifice of yourself, denying the sacrifice of Christ. And that's the fundamental reality of Waco.

01:07:10

And that's why my heart breaks for the individuals who are survivors who still believe the twisted doctrinal pretzel of David Koresh's eschatology.

01:07:19

They don't know the lamb. They don't know the lamb. But if any of them are listening to this today, you can know

01:07:26

Jesus. He's not an extension of the father. He is the second person of the

01:07:32

Trinity, the eternal God, El Gabor, El Shaddai, the God of the mountain who took on flesh.

01:07:39

Philippians chapter two, right brother? In his great humility, humbled himself, became a servant, was obedient to the point of death, death on a cross.

01:07:49

It's beautiful. The gospel is not that you need to obey external principles and thoughts and philosophies of men.

01:07:59

No, it's that Christ came to fulfill all righteousness. And it's the same covenant that was given to Abraham in which

01:08:06

I'm grafted in to the children of God through that very covenant ratified by the blood of Jesus Christ through my faith alone and my accredited righteousness.

01:08:15

God is consistent. God is not confusing. And God is the covenant keeper. And Jesus says, when the sun sets you free, you're free indeed.

01:08:24

And that's the call for anyone who's listening, right? Repent and believe the gospel be set free. It doesn't mean you won't suffer, but your sacrifice of your own body doesn't save you.

01:08:34

It won't make you the ripest of ripest fruits actually is a denial of the gospel. It's a fundamental denial of the gospel.

01:08:40

The gospel is life. Amen, dude. Yeah. And maybe one last thing I'll just say to you as we are up here and land the plane.

01:08:48

I know you mentioned earlier, but so fascinating. I guess we're landing the plane again for the second time. But yeah,

01:08:54

I think like the takeaway as far as like what impact does this have on the gospel? I mean, this is something that took place back, you know, 30 years ago.

01:09:02

It's been a while. And most of the time, you know, every single year on April 19th, Thibodaux leads a memorial for those who lost their lives.

01:09:11

And I've attended a couple of the meetings and it's just, it's just hard. Like my heart just sinks seeing these people.

01:09:17

This is such a significant part of their lives. But at the end of the day, you know, David Koresh, he was a false prophet.

01:09:23

He was a false teacher. The ATF bears the responsibility for doing an,

01:09:29

I believe in a very unjustified raid. We could have a whole conversation between you know, the biblical case for self -defense and like whether or not the

01:09:37

ATF is really even a just organization that should exist. But you know, David Koresh, slowly he privately talked to God and had a private revelation and told him that God laid, told him to wait, which made things not go well.

01:09:52

And I think honestly, like one of the big takeaways from this too, is understanding like who gets to define the terms when it comes to cult.

01:10:00

When you look at one of my favorite theological heroes is the late Francis Schaeffer, you know, he, one of my favorite books by him is the

01:10:07

Christian Manifesto. And he said, the biggest issue, the biggest, like the predominant worldview that we're fighting against is secular humanism, where it says the final reality is that man is the measure of all things.

01:10:22

And so what you were really dealing with, with Waco is that there's this unholy war between secular humanism that said the state is the measure, is the final measure of all things.

01:10:34

And we are going to act accordingly. And the head of the FBI, who was doing the press briefings,

01:10:40

I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but he said, we wanted to show the Branch Davidians every single day that their land was ours.

01:10:48

Everything that we, that they had, we owned. So they want, so in other words, he's saying, we want to show them that we were

01:10:55

God. And then you have somebody who on the other side, who believed he didn't say he was

01:11:02

God, but he was right and very much attuned to having a special path, which is why when he said,

01:11:09

God told him to wait, everyone else stayed there. And as they, as David Thibodeau said, they saw the scriptures being built, fulfilled in front of their eyes.

01:11:19

And so what you really see is a question, you know, by what standard, who gets to define what cult is.

01:11:24

The depiction of Koresh the last 30 years has been the depiction that the state has given him, which is in many ways, a very inaccurate one, because it was, it was doing it, it was that betrayal to cover up for their

01:11:39

God's failings, which you, which you end up really seeing. And that's why I think whenever we actually, you know, tackle this, we really want to unravel and unpack

01:11:50

Koresh's theology because that was the very beginning of what led to the

01:11:56

Waco siege. That was made last 51 days. And that was, you know, attesting to be the very, very end when it, when the, when everything accumulated, because the

01:12:08

Koresh had written the doc, the document to the final seal. One of the survivors that got out actually had like the floppy disk back then.

01:12:16

Back then, we didn't have, we didn't have uploads or hard drives or any of that, any of that modern software stuff.

01:12:22

We had floppy disks back then, like 30 years ago. So like the, you can actually read the transcript of the first unveiling of the first seal.

01:12:28

But again, that was a special access that Koresh claimed to have to the interpretation of, of the

01:12:34

Bible, specifically of the, of the seven seals. And so really what you're looking at is there's a lack of within the whole

01:12:43

Waco conversation to have a definitive standard was like, how do you define what a cult is?

01:12:49

And when you're looking at a world that's created by God's, you look at this as the world that God created. We have to define, we have to define cult by, you know, by what standard.

01:13:00

And that's why we had always adhered to Walter Martin's classic definition, you know, in a group or polarized around an individual or organization organization's interpretation of the

01:13:11

Bible, who they'll adhere to the fundamental, they'll try and adhere to some tenet of Christianity, but they'll deny its fundamental tenets.

01:13:20

And so the very things that would make someone a cult salvation by works redefinition of the

01:13:26

Trinity of the nature of God, they were all about that. So again, theologically, they would have fallen under the category of cult leader of cult.

01:13:35

That doesn't justify what the government did to them. And that's honestly one of the reasons we had reached out to David Thibodeau a couple of years ago, he declined.

01:13:46

I think one of the challenges is that our podcast is called cultish. I think that just because of how the state treated them, they have a lot of reservations like with that term.

01:13:58

And the reason why is because the state, they wanted to play God and define cult how they wanted to.

01:14:05

But what we need to do, the only thing we can do as a response is to define cult by the way that God does through his word and realize that the existence of a counterfeit predicates the authenticity of an original.

01:14:18

And so that's why, you know, if you know Walter Martin story of the counterfeit dollar bill, that's really my takeaway is that you like by what standard, how do you actually measure this?

01:14:28

So when we do, this episode has been sort of like a sneak preview for when we do this.

01:14:34

So when we do our extended series on Waco, I think it's a matter of being able to look holistically on both sides without partiality and show where they fell short, rather than just saying,

01:14:48

Hey, this person's fault is that person's fault, because it does become very, very political.

01:14:53

It's a very, very politically charged conversation, even all these years later. Yeah. I think the way to look at the story, you know,

01:15:00

David Koresh, they saw it as Babylon versus Jerusalem. But with the vantage point of biblical

01:15:07

Christianity, I think it wasn't, I know it wasn't Babylon versus Jerusalem, it was Babylon versus Jezebel, right.

01:15:14

And both face judgment from God. And that's the reality. And we just have to look at it from the, from that point of view with broken hearts, as Christians who want people to have a relationship with Jesus Christ through the power of the gospel.

01:15:30

And that's how you truly love your neighbor who's stuck in a cult, right? You get to know them, understand them, give them the gospel, and do it with truth and love, but don't sacrifice the truth.

01:15:42

So that's the conversation that we have to dissect, right? Babylon versus Jezebel, Waco, an American tragedy.

01:15:49

That's the truth. Absolutely. All right, Chita, any last thoughts from yourself as we wrap up here?

01:15:55

I feel like this is just flown on by. Yeah, seriously. My final thought is, is there's a lot of people, especially, you know, in my own side of the aisle,

01:16:05

I guess, with, you know, charismatics and continuation is to, you know, and understand where they're coming from, where they're like, theology isn't important.

01:16:13

And we need to focus more on doing what Christ told us to do and being like Jesus and be in the hands and feet of Jesus and understand where they're coming from.

01:16:22

Because what they're trying to say is like, if we focus only on theology and doctrine, then we have a dead religion.

01:16:29

You know, really, we do. If we put doctrine and theology above everything else, and that's all we do, we don't go out and do the stuff that Jesus commanded us to do, like, you know, the

01:16:41

Great Commission being one of them, then all we have is a stuffy dead religion. And I understand where they're coming from, but I still highly disagree with that statement, because bad theology hurts people.

01:16:53

If we don't understand that, if I don't, if I don't understand theology for myself, what orthodoxy is, what it isn't, what heresy is, what it isn't, what the historic church has historically held on to as its main fundamental tenets, and that if you're outside of this, then you are, you know, you're outside of orthodoxy.

01:17:14

If I don't understand that individually, not just relying on my pastor or some teacher or some person to do it for me,

01:17:22

I just sit back and I just do what he tells me to do, yada yada. If I don't understand that for myself, then

01:17:28

I am very susceptible to being led into a situation like a cult. A lot of people think that they aren't, like, that would never happen to me.

01:17:38

And, you know, I wasn't in any full -blown cults or anything like that in my own history, but I was very close to being in one.

01:17:46

Very interesting situation, but, and I knew the Bible. I mean,

01:17:51

I was, you know, in my early 20s, but I knew the Bible really well. I knew theology really well. I loved Jesus. My intentions were good, but I almost got swept up into a cult -like situation, and very culty situation, actually, and it ended badly.

01:18:06

Luckily, I didn't burn alive in a building or commit suicide or anything like that, but it did end badly because the

01:18:13

Lord pulled me out of that, thank God. But that bad theology hurt me for six more years.

01:18:19

I was in and out of, you know, rehabs, in and out of church, in and out of 12 -step meetings, and I finally got back on the wagon in 2019, and here

01:18:27

I am. So, I think it's important. We have to learn what good theology is, and we have to know what the real dollar bill looks like so that we can spot the counterfeits, and, you know, the term

01:18:41

Antichrist is, you know, in English, it sounds like it's the opposite of Jesus, but really, it means something to come alongside of Christ.

01:18:50

So, something that's a false messiah is something that looks a lot like Jesus, the real messiah, but is a little bit off, you know what

01:18:59

I mean? Like, David Koresh had some attributes that made him look, he's really, you know, he's really cool and smart and this and that, but he's, you know, he's just a little bit off, and we have to understand what the real looks like so we can avoid the counterfeits, because this can happen to anybody.

01:19:16

So, that's kind of my final take on it. Cool, and I just wanted to give you, just to give you some, just sort of a shout out, just some good, just maybe some encouragement, if you want to call it that, is that, you know,

01:19:27

I kind of got a hold of you just by way of, like, you were just sharing a lot of good dank memes. You're always good to the meme game, and maybe just the name,

01:19:36

I thought it was just hilarious, and you sort of had the cheetah just sort of showing up. Super creative, I super like it,

01:19:41

I love it, but I've just been really encouraged by what you're doing with your channel, because I think one of the main issues is that, you know,

01:19:48

I've, Andrew and I have been in the game for a while, you know, since 2018, and we've kind of seen the whole conversation about, you know, cessation versus continuation, hypercharismania, all that stuff.

01:19:57

I think when it comes down to, okay, what's the actual, like, solution, and I'm convinced at this point that, hey,

01:20:03

I love brothers on both sides of the aisle in this conversation, but I think the area for where, like, real reform happens is that on the charismatic side, to have, like, a real, like, love for, like, have more discernment on the charismatic side of things.

01:20:16

Yeah, whole, you know, believe in the gifts, you believe in those areas, you know, that, you know, Sam Storms talks about, great, but you need to have a love for theology and testing all experience, like, let's, hey, we love the experiences, we love to feel closer to the

01:20:31

Lord, we love that worship, we love all that stuff, that's great, but let's not compromise, like, let's just, let's not go after that experience at the expense of compromising on what does

01:20:43

God say, what does God standard, so I think, like, what you're doing, brother, is a huge, huge encouragement, and even though you got a small impact, like,

01:20:50

I've been watching you for a while, so just keep on doing what you're doing, and, you know, I think it's going to continue to bless a lot of people, and so I just hope that you keep on doing that, and hopefully we'll see you and more brothers, more charismatic cheetahs, and I know there's, you got tons of people who call themselves different names and stuff like that, it's hilarious, but I just hope you and other people on that side keep on doing what they're doing, because I think that's where the real reform in the charismatic movement's going to happen, so, yeah, keep on doing what you're doing, man.

01:21:21

Amen, bro, appreciate you, thanks for coming on, and yeah, please like this video, subscribe, share it with your friends, go follow, if you're not subscribed to Cultish right now, or Apologia Studios, either one of those two, go subscribe, go like them, they're on Instagram, Facebook, all that good stuff, thank, guys,

01:21:37

Jeremiah, Super Sleuth, thanks for coming on, man, it's been a real, it's been, fun,

01:21:42

I think we touched a lot of different topics, just barely, like a stone skipping across water, but maybe it'll be like, yeah, like a prelude to y 'all's 10 -part series on it.

01:21:55

Yeah, we'll try to make it 10 parts. Awesome, all right, bless you, brother. Hey, guys, thank you for listening to this episode, if you want more content just like this on a weekly basis, please go to thecultistshow .com

01:22:12

and consider partnering with us, we need your support in order to create this consistent content, guys, please, again, go to thecultistshow .com