EXCLUSIVE: Defecting From Bethel

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All right, welcome everyone to this long -awaited cultish exclusive,

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Defecting from Bethel. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I'm one of the co -hosts here. With me is my trusted pastor, friend and co -host,

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Jeff Durbin. What's up? We have known each other for quite a while. Yes. And we are here with Lindsay Davis, and you've got quite the story you're going to share with us.

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How are you feeling right now? Like what's on your mind right now? How are you feeling? Well, I haven't shared my story in full with anyone before, and I'm just coming out of, you know, getting kicked out of Bethel School of Ministry after, you know, spending the past four months preaching the gospel and really trying to reveal truth to people through the word.

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And so this is definitely really exciting because I really believe that God is going to not only, you know, reveal truth to people, but he's going to be glorified, and many people will come out of the movement and truly come to know the

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Christ of Scripture. Awesome. Let me ask a question. What's your main concern right now in terms of, you're going to have people watching this episode that are very upset with you and us for talking about things in this way.

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What were you going to title the episode again? Defecting from Bethel. How very offensive of you to say something like defecting.

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So we're giving a portrait of Bethel in terms of its theological danger.

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It is theologically dangerous, and there are a lot of people that are going to be upset with you and upset with us for doing that.

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Can't you guys just get along? Like why are you making secondary or adiophora issues the main issue?

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So what's your main concern in sitting down and dedicating yourself to actually exposing the dangers of Bethel?

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Yeah. I think that when we use the word expose, a lot of the times it has a very negative connotation, like you said.

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But when my own darkness in the past was exposed in the light,

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God changed me and he healed me and he brought me and drew me to himself. And so when you expose something in the light, it's not just meant to be exposed for the sake of exposing.

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You expose something to draw people to Jesus. And so I really want people to understand that the reason why

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I'm doing what I'm doing is because I love these people. I've spent the last year with these people.

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And I know for a fact that if someone preaches a different gospel or a different Jesus, it's a gospel and a

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Jesus that cannot save. And that breaks my heart to think about the people that I've spent the last year with not truly knowing

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Christ and not having the eternal life that they think they have. And I think that even more than a atheist or a

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Muslim or whoever, it's heartbreaking and it's terrible to know that if they continue and they're unrepentant, that they won't be in heaven with us one day.

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But it's even more heartbreaking to think about someone who thinks that they're going to heaven, who thinks that they will be with Jesus one day when he returns.

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And on that day, they'll say, Lord, Lord, and he'll say, depart from me, I never knew you. And so that's why

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I do what I do, because I truly want people to know Christ and I want them to come to saving faith through the gospel of scripture.

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Jerry and I, thank you for that. Jerry and I truly want to hear your story.

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We want you to unpack that for us, help us to understand how you got here. But what you're saying is, well, what we're saying is, of course, there are concerns in terms of the worship practices and a lot of the things that are happening at Bethel, things that are really actually common in Eastern religion and mysticism in terms of how you can take a service and a lot of Eastern religions and the occult and see a lot of the same patterns, a lot of the same practices now actually coming to fruition within Bethel and worship there.

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So that's obviously a concern, and that's very serious, deadly serious in terms of worship. But what you're saying is, and it's one of our great concerns,

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Jerry, it always has been, is that the main issues are God and the gospel. If you have the wrong God, you have a

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God that doesn't exist. If you have a false gospel, you have a gospel that cannot save.

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So would you say that that's the core issue for you is really the God and gospel being propagated by Bethel, Bill Johnson, and others is not the

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God and gospel of scripture? Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. And I just want to say too, give an example, and I wanted, because I had done a long tailed post announcing we were going to be talking about Bethel, which got a lot of traction and exposure about this.

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But, and I'll just reiterate that. So when we launched Cultish right away, we got tons of messages.

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We were inundated, talk about Bethel, talk about Bethel. And it's just interesting with their positioning.

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I saw it in the sense, okay, this is, this is probably just, that's probably an in -house debate. There's probably, they're more on the extreme side of like spiritual gifts.

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And we have people who listen to our content, who are our brothers and sisters in Christ, who are, who believe in the spiritual gifts.

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And we like, let's have an in -house conversation about that. And so that was my perspective that this is, it doesn't really follow, fall into our realm, but we continue to inundate with messages.

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So we're looking at different angles to take it. I know they have a ministry called Sozo, which we're looking at that as being a possibility, but it wasn't until, and this is just, it's just funny.

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I want to share with you the timing that I got connected to you because you became Facebook friends with me.

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And I was confused because I think I commented on someone's post and I said, Hey, we're looking at trying to figure out if we're going to, we have some ideas of what we may do at Bethel.

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I got a friend request from you. And it said, you're at the student at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

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And so I was thinking like, is she, is she like, just now she's like spying on me to find out what we're going to say about the church, you know?

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And it wasn't until you were posting content like Paul Washer and all these things that were completely what

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I understood to be antithetical to what Bethel is teaching. And so I was, I was like, I got to get to the bottom of this.

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And so it was when I reached out to you, you would, you just said,

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Oh, I literally, I got kicked out of Bethel 15 minutes ago, which is just like,

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I mean, the timing of that. So it was pretty cool that we're here. So like, let's get into that story. So you contact her 15 minutes after the providence of God, her getting kicked out of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministries.

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So take us through that Lindsay, help us to understand where were you, how did you get there?

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And then what got you to that place where you landed right here with Jerry? Well, I think that in order to understand the full context of my, my own experience and my own testimony,

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I have to share a little bit about what happened before I came to Bethel. I grew up Roman Catholic.

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Then I became an atheist. And when I got saved,

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I actually got saved in a word of faith church. And it really wasn't the church that, you know, they didn't really present the gospel, but I started reading my

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Bible after going to that church and the gospel just was empowered by the

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Holy Spirit, by God, and it changed my heart. And so I went from there and I kept seeking the truth through the word, but I was attending this word of faith church.

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And I felt like I wasn't getting the truth that I wanted. I wanted to be fed meat and not milk.

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I wanted to graduate from, from what they were propagating.

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And so I found myself in a end times legalistic cult.

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And just to briefly summarize the experience, the leader of this cult told me that God told him that I was supposed to be his wife, that we were going to move to Africa and that I was going to be martyred.

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And so over the course of the six months that I was in this cult, I was preparing myself to die.

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And so eventually, I'm only 18 years old, by the way.

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And so, how old were you when he told you this? 17. And he's, yeah, it was one of the hardest things that I've ever gone through.

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I can't really describe what that experience was like. It's an experience that's hard to describe unless you're actually in that moment, you know?

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And so it was really, really difficult. But eventually my mom pulled me out of the cult, praise the

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Lord. But after I got out of this cult, I felt so empty and so dead inside.

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And now that I didn't have what I thought I had in this cult, I was searching for meaning and I was searching for purpose.

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And I was searching for something to fill that void in my heart again. And so I had a friend at the church that I went to before the

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Word of Faith Church, and she was going to Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. And so I saw on Facebook, all of these pictures and videos that she was posting from the school, and it looked amazing.

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And the worship just seemed so beautiful. And I just thought, this looks amazing.

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I feel like maybe this is what I'm supposed to do. And so I actually ended up visiting

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Bethel School of Ministry before I applied. And when I went to go visit, it was a very confusing experience because I was witnessing things that I had never seen in my life before.

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A really distinct memory that I remember is being at the school and there's this beautiful, emotional music happening on stage, but I'm looking all around me and there's this girl in the corner who's apparently physically manifesting, like she's rocking back and forth on a horse.

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There's someone violently shaking on the floor. There's people crying, you know, there's nothing wrong with crying, but like, it was like uncontrollable crying.

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Almost like they'd be like in an altered state of consciousness. Correct. Okay. There was what they call holy laughter.

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I had never heard these terms before. I had never seen any of these things. And so I was very confused.

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And so I didn't want to judge unrighteously. And keep in mind,

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I was also very confused coming right out of this other cult. And so I didn't know what was true at this point.

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And I just knew that I wanted Jesus. Yeah. And just to comment real quickly, there's a lot of stories that people that we've talked to and just stories that we've read of people who go into a cultish movement.

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And most of the time, what sets the precedent for them to be susceptible to any sort of movement is there's typically some sort of life crisis that happens that just really takes the rug out from under them.

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And that's where they really go desperately searching for answers. And because whatever it is, say it's like a divorce or whatever the situation is, they're in that spot where they're desperately, they're in a moment, they're in a position of vulnerability, just specifically of whatever is that trauma that occurred to them.

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Yeah. There's also a tendency in the cults and as they get people within them and to follow, there's a lot of sociological manipulation in terms of when you're in the group, you're in, you're loved, you're accepted, there's love bombing that takes place.

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Was that present in that experience when you first were getting in? These things are very strange, holy laughter, uncontrollable crying, rocking back and forth like on horses and convulsing on the floor.

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This is stuff that's not normative in human experience. It is normative in the world of the cults and the occult.

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So did you experience that, the love bombing? Yeah. I remember the prophetic is what they call it.

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The prophetic is a big part of their culture. And what they mean by that is not what the

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Bible means by that. They call it, they say the prophetic is calling the gold out in people.

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And so if someone is one thing, you basically prophesy or declare the opposite to call something forward.

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And so I remember like going to Bethel and just having a ton of people say, you're amazing.

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Oh my gosh, I love you so much. You have such a calling on your life. Really just like this amazing ego boost.

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But then I had moments where I was like, you don't even know me. Like, what do you mean?

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I'm amazing and you love me. So what it really is, is flattery, which is a sin. So it's saying things over people that you don't necessarily mean.

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Yeah. Now you're at the spot. We talked a little bit about this before. So you go and you enroll in Bethel and at that point, you're seeing these things and you're having doubts.

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If you could elaborate on our conversation, I want to hand it back to you, but talk to them about there's moments, how did they deal with you in some level questioning or trying to make sense of it?

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Because there was an aspect because you were a Christian at the time, you were a baby Christian, you went through this traumatic experience with this previous cult.

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But what was the process of how did they deal with your doubts or concerns? And then talk about how long did it really take before you really became a true believer in everything that BSSM is part of?

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Right. Well, like I was saying before, I think that it started when

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I came to visit, because when I asked about what these manifestations were, what's going on in the room, someone said, well, have you fully surrendered to God?

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And I thought, I think so. I've trusted in Christ and what does that mean?

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And they're like, well, sometimes you just have to let go. All right. Well, what does let go mean?

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How can I let go to experience God in this way that you guys are experiencing God? And she said, well, do you think that it's possible that because of your past experience, you have a religious spirit?

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And I thought, oh my gosh, what if there's something wrong with me? And after that conversation,

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I went to a student's house and she was with her roommates from BSSM and they told me that they could bring me into this encounter with my angels.

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And I didn't know that meant either. And they said, well, you can visibly see your angels.

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And for maybe two hours, they were trying to get me to visibly see my angels. And I found myself on their couch, just bawling my eyes out because I was breaking down over the fact that I couldn't see my angels.

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And after that moment, I think I had this, you know, it was obviously a false realization, but I came to this point where I was like, these people have something that I don't have.

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A special, and we've seen it too with all the cults that we've dealt with. There's always a special secret knowledge.

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I mean, the same thing too with all our conversations with people who come out of Mormonism. A lot of them don't really get the full scoop of what's going on.

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We need to go deeper. We need to do these things so you can become temple worthy. So that's where it's really at, where the source is.

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So essentially, on one hand, you're told, you're conditioned to say that any questioning, or if it goes against what the

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Bible says, that, oh, that's my religious spirit. So it's almost, you're preconditioned in such a way to say, no,

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I don't want to have the religious spirit because that's bad. Well, it's interesting because this is, it's not, and God, praise

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God for protecting you from all of this. But you'll see this as common form really throughout false religion, the world of the occult, and in a number of different realms, you can see this sort of pattern.

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It's where they will try to work on somebody to disengage from reason and discernment.

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Specifically in the case of a Christian, disengage from spiritual discernment, like really engaging with the mind and of course,

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God's objective standard to say, let me discern if this is actually from God or not. You'll see people saying, no, depart from that, block that, that's a religious spirit or they're condemned in some way.

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The idea of reason and discernment. What's amazing is that throughout scripture, you don't ever see

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God calling on people to disengage from reason or discernment. You see the opposite. You see

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God calling on people to actually use their reason and discernment when engaging with spiritual things.

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And the warning is actually the other direction. Don't let go of your reason and discernment.

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That's true biblical faith in Christianity, is to be discerning and to use your reason and not disengage from it.

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Well, one thing I think that we have to touch on is they say that basically

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God is bigger than his book. And the challenge is that I believe that, first of all,

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I believe that God is bigger than the church. I believe that God made everything.

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I even believe that God's bigger than his book. That's at least what Chris Vallotton says. And a lot of people have the conception that discernment is a feeling.

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I feel this is of God, or I feel this is not of God. But the way that we discern is by the word of God.

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There's no way to discern if something is good or evil or God or not God, other than by using the word of God.

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But they say things like God is bigger than his book, or we need to go off the map, which means we need to go beyond scripture, go beyond what we know.

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Or don't put God in a box. Right. Don't put God in a box. That's probably their most famous line.

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And so when they say things like that, it makes, if you're doing that, or if you're questioning something, it makes you feel like you're a religious pharisee.

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Right. And Jeff, we've talked about this too. It comes to a position of authority, and this is another cultish characteristic that you see.

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And this is across a spectrum. There's always a point where they pay lip service to the

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Bible, but ultimately the Bible serves as a means to an end, where on one hand they'll pay credence to the

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Bible. I mean, you have a couple books over there, which we're going to go through. There's scripture verses that they'll refer to as points of reference, but at the same time, they'll undermine the

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Bible. And I'm going to paraphrase a Bill Johnson quote right away that was very concerning to me, where he essentially said, it's the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not the Father, Son, and Holy Bible. And almost talking into someone,

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I've seen this level of condescending attitude towards the word of God and that objective standard.

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And it's almost a precedent then to set them up then as the apostolic authority.

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And then also not only that, but then private revelation, and that's a commonality that all cultish movements have.

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Yeah. And it shows the difference between a cult and the world of the occult and false religion, man -made religion, and biblical faith is say, for example, even in a local church context that God has condescended and spoken to in his word.

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For example, even in terms of what the Bible says about elders and pastors over a church. The pastor and elder has an under -shepherd authority under the great shepherd.

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The pastor has a biblical teaching authority, a biblical authority in the local church. However, that authority is underneath the authority of the disclosure of God, Christ, and his words.

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So that even the church itself, while there's a biblical authority for a pastor, it's not an ultimacy.

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It's not an ultimate authority where the church actually can say to the pastor, I reject your words.

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I reject what you're saying because it goes against God's own self -disclosure. It goes against this. So the pastor, while he has a biblical authority in the local church as an under -shepherd, it's not a position of ultimacy.

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The word of God is ultimate. And truly, even with biblical authority as a pastor, the church body has the obligation before God to say what you're teaching is against what he says.

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Therefore, you're out. You don't have any special privileges in terms of being able to speak for God above what he's already disclosed.

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It's interesting. I just find it so powerful that the common manipulative tactic within the world of the cults is to say, well, let's put it in this way.

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Watch how it doesn't work. Say, for example, you had somebody that was under this kind of training and thinking to say, you got to go off the map.

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What was the other wording that was used? Go off the map. Don't put God in a box. Now imagine now you had a pastor who somebody found was in a manipulating relationship with young girls in the congregation.

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And you found out behind closed doors as he was telling these girls things like, God told me

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I want to marry you and we're going to go away to some foreign country together. And you found out that he was saying things like, the girl says, well,

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I think that violates what God says in his word. And he says, now, sweetie, you just got to be willing to go off the map here and let the

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Lord lead you. Let's not put God in a box. God can speak to us. And if he told me that it's okay for me to touch you, he told me that we're supposed to be in a relationship.

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Every person, even at Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry, would recognize that isn't biblical.

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You can't do that. But we pick these specific categories where we say it is acceptable to actually go outside of God's own disclosure.

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And you'll see that. And it's dangerous. Yeah. And in fact, knowing their lane,

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I want to try and speak because there's people are going to be watching this who are from Bethel. So I want to try and articulate this in their native tongue to the best of my ability.

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But they would believe that they on some level are emulating what the apostles did in the book of Acts, right?

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Or they believe they're following the apostolic tradition. Well, what I would say is that if you look at what does the apostolic tradition say as far as how they measured truth, did it say that?

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So Paul, one of the very first verses I ever memorized when I was doing outreach to the cults was Acts chapter 17 verse 11 talking about the

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Bereans. And it says when they heard Paul's message, did they say that they were looking for signs and miracles?

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Did they look for a private revelation with angels to see if these things were so, or did they just take it? Or did

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Paul just say, well, I'm an apostle. I have apostolic authority, which he did. He did. He encountered the risen

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Lord on the way to Damascus, but what happened? But it says these people were more noble -minded than those who were in Thessalonica.

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What does it say? It says they searched the scriptures daily to see if those things were so.

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So if you look at the apostolic tradition, and this is where we want to have this conversation, is that the apostolic tradition is about taking what someone's claims are and pointing it to the word of God.

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And what I would want to really challenge anyone listening to this, if you have the mindset of that, you need to look outside the word or think outside the box and using that language, which you articulated,

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Jesus said specifically to the father in John 17, he said, sanctify them by thy word.

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Thy word is truth. So Jesus set the standard. In fact, in your sermons,

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Jeff, that you've been teaching, talking about Jesus and his authority that he appealed to, he never appealed to his, it wasn't just, he never just appealed to his own authority.

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He always appealed to the law of God. It's been said unto you, do not commit adultery, but then

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I say unto you. So it was never just his authority, but he always had a standard that he himself had to adhere to as well.

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Yeah. And there's two different ways. Yeah. When he was in conflict with religious authorities and people who were misinterpreting the word of God, he always appeals to the objective standard of God's word.

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And even when there's a modern, in his day, a modern conflict between two schools of thought over adultery, sorry, not adultery, divorce.

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The Hillelites versus the Shemites, the conservative school versus the divorce for any cause, as long as there's a certificate of what he responds to is, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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So he brings that controversy down to, well, what did God say? What does the father say? And there were times, of course, that Jesus did appeal to his own authority as God in terms of making statements, calling people to something he absolutely did, but that's the authority of God himself.

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But when in a conflict with religious authorities, he points them to scripture as the objective standard.

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He doesn't try to reason through Rabbi Hillel's reasoning process and say, well, let's just think about that and let's work through that.

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He says, have you not read what was spoken to you by God? He created a male and female, come together, leave your father and mother and become one flesh.

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And so that's where Jesus rests. His authority is on the objective standard of the word of God, the standard of God's own self -disclosure.

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So, yeah. Well, I think that another important thing to talk about before I share the rest of the story of how

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I my experience was at Bethel during the school year and then how I got kicked out and all of that is without going into continuationism or cessationism, we know that signs and wonders were given to the apostles to confirm their message.

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And also it says in Deuteronomy 18 or 28, I can't remember, you would probably know, but where God says, if a dreamer of dreams

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Deuteronomy 13 comes to you and performs a sign or a wonder and it comes to pass, but they lead you after other gods, little

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G, idols, then do not follow them because I'm testing you to see if you love me with all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your mind.

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And so someone can't look at signs and wonders as the fruit of a true teacher of God or not.

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You have to look at the message because a sign or a wonder is given to confirm if their message is true.

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Right. So, yeah. Then it's Deuteronomy 13 verses one through five. You can read through there.

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And exactly right. God says, even if there are signs and wonders, but they lead you after another God, that's how you know they're a false teacher.

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And how do you know? Here's the key thing. How do we know that this person is leading me after a false

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God? Because God has disclosed himself and revealed himself to us in history. He's laid down for us who he is, what he's like, what his message is.

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And so we're supposed to take that previous revelation and disclosure of God and line it up against what somebody's claim is about God.

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And so history is replete with examples of people giving signs and wonders and amazing, even in Mormonism early on.

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Mormonism early on, if you read, No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brody, One Nation Under God, you'll see that early

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Mormonism came to life in the context of an American experience where there was the shakers.

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You had all kinds of different religious movements. And happening at that time, people were exhibiting all these crazy signs and all these miracles.

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And some of that actually eked its way into early Mormonism. And you saw Joseph Smith and others trying to engage in that kind of behavior, trying to raise a dead kid and nothing happened.

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And other times where other miracles were claimed, it's like, well, you know, Mormonism also had its signs and wonders early on.

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Is Joseph Smith a prophet of God? Right. In fact, even Jim Jones, for example, he used miracle services.

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And I share with you some of the footage from the 1970s where he affirmed his move. He tried to appeal to the supernatural movement to affirm his movement.

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But what I'm really fascinated about, because you shared this with me too, is there's a moment like Steve Hassan, and you listened to some of his talks yesterday.

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He wrote an incredible book called Combating Cult Mind Control. But he talks about there's typically when someone goes into a movement, there's the conditioning and they call it undue influence.

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But what would you say, describe if you can what we were talking about yesterday, kind of like your conversion moment when you had now enrolled at Bethel, you have this experience about not getting these angels and not to have that religious spirit.

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What was kind of like, explain to the audience that tipping point where you really became what

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I would say, like a true believer into everything at BSSM? I honestly would say that it was more progressive than it was just one moment.

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But it was more of a progression of throwing aside any reservations that I had, because I wanted what they seem to have so badly, that I would throw off any doubt, and I would throw off any questions.

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And I would just go and, you know, chase this thing. But I think that one of the defining moments going into school was a class that I had with the overseer that actually kicked me out of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

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And the class was called Developing Intimacy with God. And basically the entirety of the class is about how to hear

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God's voice. And so in this class, they, you know, tell you what

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God's thoughts are and how to hear God's voice and what he's saying to you, what he's speaking over you, what he's saying about other people.

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And so in this class, it was like this progressive, I don't know if brainwashing would be the right word, but I started to subscribe to their school of thought about how to hear

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God's voice. And I began to ascribe my own thoughts to things that God is saying.

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And I wrote this post about, on Facebook about all of these things that God had said to me.

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And looking back on it, it's, you know, super embarrassing. It has no foundation in the word, but I was taught

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I can have God thoughts. God is going to tell me about other people. It's almost like this weird divination in a sense.

31:55

Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, you know, use a term like brainwashing. It's important to define our terms because just from a psychological aspect, brainwashing kind of has that idea that like a prisoner of war, like you're being broken down and you're being forced against your will.

32:08

What I think is more particular just from the psychological standpoint is what Hassan talked about, the undue influence where you are given a kind of like a leading thought.

32:18

Well, this is what God says, but not only that you have like the social pressure because everyone is probably in that class nodding and agreeing with you.

32:26

And then you have someone there teaching it as a position of authority. And if you could, this fascinated me because you have, we're talking about just cultish characteristics.

32:37

What was the view that you were taught about people who are, as far as like authority goes, because you mentioned that, first of all, you said every single class or every single time they spoke, you were required to stand up and clap for them every single period.

32:54

Yeah. In a main session when, well, the first hour of school, we would have

33:00

Bible class, but keep in mind all of the Bible interpretations were more so through Bethel's perspective.

33:06

And if any other perspectives were given, like Calvinism, they weren't regarded or respected very much.

33:16

So we had that class and before the teacher would get on stage, we would all stand up and we would all clap for him.

33:23

And then we would have an hour of worship. And then after that, Bill or Chris Vallotton would come in and speak or a guest speaker, and we would all stand up and clap.

33:33

And so, you know, this would happen every single day. So yeah, I mean,

33:38

I think that once you stand up and clap for someone a hundred times, you're probably going to have something psychological that happens that makes you think, okay,

33:47

I'm clapping for them. Everyone else is saying amen to them, so they must be saying something.

33:52

They must have something, you know? Yeah. I want to hear more about the experience and sort of like the peak of it and then how you finally, the

34:01

Lord sort of delivered you from this. But can you just maybe give us a picture of what it's like in terms of the students and the people who are at Bethel who prescribed to all of this.

34:13

Bill Johnson, how's he treated? Like what's it like in terms of how is he viewed among the students and the people who are at Bethel?

34:25

Or how is he titled? Yeah. Well, he is titled as an apostle.

34:32

And he's really looked at as like a gatekeeper of wisdom. And he's sort of the guy that keeps you on the edge of your seat and you're waiting to hear what message he has to deliver from the

34:43

Lord. And he very rarely uses scripture. All of his messages are essentially, if you listen to them, private secret information that he has received from God, testimonies, encounters with God, stuff like that that can't be verified.

35:03

But people want a spiritual experience and people want these secrets of God that, you know,

35:09

Bethel is perpetuating. So he keeps people drawn in like that. And Chris Vallotton is the associate pastor of Bethel, but he's also known as the prophet of Bethel.

35:20

And so he also has these secret messages from God and he's going to teach you how to prophesy, teach you how to prophesy.

35:28

You know, you never see in scripture, anyone being taught how to become a prophet or being taught how to heal.

35:35

That's a big thing. How are they tied? When we were talking at Starbucks, what do they habitually call

35:41

Bill and Chris? Apostle and prophet.

35:47

Oh, the students. Yeah. I was just telling you about like this, you know, this false bond that the students have with Bill and Chris.

35:57

They call Bill, Papa Bill, and Chris, Papa Chris. And when you say it enough, it almost makes you feel like you know them because that's something, that's like a family name, like someone you would, like your grandpa or something, you know, but you don't even know

36:16

Bill Johnson. You don't know anything about Bill Johnson or Chris Vallotton apart from what you see on stage.

36:22

And, you know, even if we were just to test Bill Johnson or Chris Vallotton upon what we see on stage, we do it by the word of God and we can see, you know, that what they're perpetuating is not found in scripture.

36:36

We're going to do that in episode two, probably. So let's, let's, let's hear about now you get to, tell us about the peak of the experience and then when it started coming down.

36:45

Yeah. Peak of the experience too, when we want to set this up too, peak of the experience, but also just include some examples of some of the most, um, odd or you'd just say like things that you see, like hold your sky.

36:56

I know there's controversy right now. You, when you announced publicly, you shared videos, you, and again, when

37:02

I had saw the footage, I'm usually like very, I'm like the king of skeptics when it comes to this stuff.

37:08

It was extraordinarily, uh, disturbing, but what was things that you without question, like witness things that you saw and then talk again about what led you to kind of having that you know, moment where, of what happened from there?

37:25

Yeah. Um, I remember in the beginning of the year, um, there was a school wide deliverance, um, which

37:32

I can't even describe it. It was like something from a horror movie. Um, the man who was speaking on stage was apparently casting demons out of everyone in the school.

37:44

Everyone's screaming, people are violently shaking. Um, and I had never seen anything like it before in my life.

37:52

Um, they also, you know, have this honey barrel. Um, and I don't know if people look at my

37:58

Facebook, they've seen the picture. I've seen the picture. Yeah. Um, and people stick their head in this honey barrel or other people stick their heads in honey barrels.

38:09

Um, and they apparently fall over and get drunk in the spirit. Um, and really honey in it?

38:17

No. Oh, it's just, it's just, it's just a barrel. It's just named honey barrel. Yeah. Um, but when this stuff starts happening, they claim that the anointing or the glory in the room is so thick that they're just being touched by the

38:32

Holy spirit. Um, yeah, very, very strange. Um, but at the time before my eyes were open to the truth,

38:40

I thought, you know, they are having this experience with God that I'm not having,

38:46

I need to have this experience. And I remember being in an evangelism meeting and people are falling out in the spirit and whatnot, but there's a group in the corner who are breaking out in this

38:58

Holy laughter. And I thought,

39:11

I'm going to go over there and I'm going to sit in the middle of them and I'm going to break out in this manifestation.

39:17

I need, I need God to touch me like they're touching, like he's touching them. Like, or like, that's what

39:23

I thought at the time. Um, and I went over there and I just sat in the middle of them for 45 minutes and they all were cackling and pointing at me like in a mocking way.

39:33

It was very strange. Um, so I've had a lot of really crazy experiences at Bethel, but ultimately

39:41

I thought, you know, they're just having these experiences with the Lord that other people aren't having.

39:48

And maybe I'm not fully surrendered. Maybe I haven't let go yet, but really the peak of this whole thing was learning how to hear

39:55

God's voice. Because if you really think about it, and if you're honest, if I'm honest with myself, if I'm honest with you guys, the thought of being able to hear

40:04

God's voice made me feel powerful. And I think that it makes other people feel very powerful. It makes them feel like they have something that other people don't have.

40:13

Yeah. Or even other Christians don't have. Exactly. Yeah. And, um, it gives you access to a new realm, to a different kind of spirituality and a different level of spirituality.

40:24

And so I wrote this post on Facebook about all of these things that I claimed that God said to me.

40:30

And at the time I literally thought that God said these things to me when they were my own thoughts.

40:36

But I was taught in this class that I had God thoughts, that I had the mind of Christ.

40:42

And so I could literally think what God is thinking. And so I put this

40:47

Facebook post up and over the course of a few days, it got over a hundred thousand shares.

40:53

It went viral. And that made me feel really good. I was riding, you know, this pride wave for, um, for a minute, but I had, you know,

41:04

I had a lot of people who supported me and wanted to know how they can hear God's voice too.

41:10

And, um, but there was one girl that came on and she was rebuking me for a month.

41:17

And one day she messaged me on Facebook and she sent me a film called

41:23

American Gospel. And she asked me if I would watch it. And I said, yeah, absolutely. And in my prideful and arrogant heart,

41:31

I said, you know, I'm going to go in and watch this movie with the intention to rip it apart.

41:37

And I went in and I was going to rip it apart. And 15 minutes into the movie, I sat down my pen and paper and I just began to listen.

41:45

And in the first part of the movie, the gospel was represented to me. And I can't even explain like what the feeling was like to have the true biblical gospel presented to me.

41:55

That took a hold of my heart. And then it was like, God just opened my eyes to the rest.

42:01

And after I was done watching the movie, it literally felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest in the best way possible.

42:08

And at the same time, I was sick to my stomach and remorse over my own sin, but also the sin, um, in the sinful lifestyle and beliefs that, um, this movement, not just Bethel, but this movement as a whole is leading millions and people in the world, um, all over the world into.

42:30

And so I was just so grieved. Um, and I remember calling my mom at five o 'clock in the morning and saying, mom, like everything that we've believed here, it's all a lie.

42:42

And it really was the grace of God that allowed me to humble myself and admit that I was wrong and that I needed to learn and that I needed to get back in the word because I felt like, oh my gosh,

42:56

I don't know anything. I felt like maybe I don't even know God. Am I really saved? Because this whole time

43:02

I've been believing a very watered down gospel at the very least, but I've also been partaking in things that are not of God at all.

43:12

And so it was one of, um, it was a moment in my life where I really, other than my initial salvation,

43:19

I repented before God that night more than I have ever repented in my life.

43:25

And, um, after that moment, I, I was at a crossroads because I had to make a decision. Am I going to leave?

43:31

Because now I know the truth and I would be justified in leaving and people would support me if I left.

43:37

Or on the other hand, am I going to stay? And am I going to do my best by the grace of God to bring the true gospel of Jesus Christ to these people and call people to repentance?

43:51

I had those two options in, in, in this one option of staying, it wasn't going to be pretty.

43:58

And I knew that. And if I left, I could take the easy way out, but I prayed about it and I really felt led by the

44:08

Holy Spirit to stay because I think that I could have departed peacefully and maintained the image of love with the people at Bethel.

44:18

But I had to reach a point where I didn't care about my image and I was willing to step out and love biblically.

44:25

And the most loving thing that you can do for someone is rebuke them, you know, with biblical truth, expose, um, you know, the darkness in the light, in the light of scripture and show someone who

44:39

Jesus really is, what the gospel really is, because it's the power to save. Amen. Amen.

44:44

And in fact, you know, the same, the same, the real Jesus Christ who said, suffer not the little children for such as the kingdom of heaven, also said to the

44:52

Pharisees, you generation of slimy snakes, who warns you to flee from the wrath to come and so forth and so forth.

44:57

And you obviously know who we're paraphrasing here, but, um, so this is the part where it's important to kind of talk about your story just in the context.

45:07

Cause again, when you look at different culture structures, whether it's the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints or Jehovah's witnesses, they have a policy, for example, like disfellowshipping where you're taught not to look at materials outside of, um, you know, what is taught.

45:21

And essentially, you know, you're taught there's authoritarian structure in which they want to control their members.

45:27

And once you start asking questions, um, that's where you get in trouble. But before I jump into that,

45:32

I just want to comment like your testament, what you're talking about is incredible just because there are so many people

45:39

I've seen who are like, we watched a documentary, holy hell. Um, that was, it was heartbreaking because there is these people who are part of this cult for 20 years and you saw them, like their lives were just like destroyed.

45:50

And all of them were not Christians, didn't know Christ, but you've seen it so many times where they, they have like that moment of cognitive sobriety where they realize what they're believing is a lie, but there's always this, just this level of shame where they don't know how to think, they don't know how to operate and they don't have the hope of Christ.

46:11

But what's amazing to see is that what others intend to evil got for evil.

46:17

God meant it for good. And you see that as like, okay, well this happened to me, but it happened so that God could work it out for good, which is awesome.

46:26

But going into what happened when you obviously you started posting stuff and I was talking about earlier,

46:33

I was trying to make sense of it. You're going to Bethel where you're posting Paul Washer stuff. How's this compute? Two things you don't usually see together,

46:41

Paul Washer and Bethel. Yeah. Yeah. Explain to me, like go into like what happened when you started sharing this stuff?

46:49

What, because I mean, as a, as a Christian, it talks about, you know, give an answer, you know, be able to give a reasonable defense, be able to give an answer to those who ask.

46:57

And, you know, you were, you're trying to figure this out. Like you were, you were genuine and just like, what was, talk about the attitude that was portrayed and, or how did they deal with your situation?

47:09

Yeah. Well, first things first, I think that people, I really want people to understand that the reason that I went public is because there's 1 ,500 people in first year, 1 ,500 people in second year of BSSM.

47:25

And then I think maybe a thousand people in third year. And how many, how many countries are you, would you say?

47:30

Because there's people that it's not just America, not just the United States, but all of the world. Talk about that real quickly. Yeah.

47:35

There's people and families that come here from all over the world just to go to Bethel.

47:43

And there's, I think if I'm, I could be wrong. I think that there's about 50 countries represented just at BSSM, which is unheard of.

47:53

I mean, 50 % of BSSM are people from other countries. And so people are literally leaving their lives behind to come to Bethel because Bethel in the, you know, the charismatic movement and charismatic is a very general term, but in the charismatic movement can be seen as like the

48:11

Mecca of Christianity. And so people leave everything just to come to Bethel.

48:18

So, yeah, it's, it's super crazy. But did you want me to talk about, you know, the, how

48:26

I got kicked out or like the... Maybe we should wrap this episode up and then get people prepped for the second episode.

48:32

We're going to be having more of a theological examination. Yeah. We'll go, yeah. What we'll do is we'll do the, we'll kind of talk about that and then we'll go into, because it's, because again, it's really important to, because our show is cultish, we deal with cults, but it's extraordinarily important to define terms.

48:49

Yeah. Just because it can be, it's something that's very, very misunderstood. So I want to make sure people, we give a structure.

48:56

We're talking about cultish characteristics kind of in relation to our show, but we'll definitely get into that. So I think it's a good segue.

49:02

We'll, we'll, we'll end this episode and second episode. We want to hear about the experience of now that you're aware that something is wrong and you're starting to actually investigate it.

49:11

Now you're being challenged. That'll lead us into let's hear that story and then lead us into what sort of things were you saying?

49:17

And then now realizing based upon the documents themselves, the testimony being given up there, how did you start to start to work through that theologically?

49:26

How do you start to see that there's something really, really wrong here? Yeah. All right. Cool. So we'll do that.

49:31

So this is the end of cultish episode one. Defecting from Bethel. And so if you guys are, we want to get your feedback on what you thought, you know, we're going to get a lot of interesting followup,

49:40

I'm sure. For more, you guys can go to apologiestudios .com, A -P -O -L -O -G -I -A studios .com.

49:46

Tons of other content there. That's where you can get all the other cultish episodes and all the rest and find us on Facebook as well.

49:52

Awesome, Lindsay. Well, I appreciate you coming on for part one and we will be back in part two of defecting from Bethel and we'll talk to you guys next time on cultish.