Cultish: The Church of Wells Pt. 2

Apologia Studios

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

The rest of my Christian walk, I have been seeking to know how to walk with God like I met with him in those five days.

00:07

That's it. Everything I preach to you, everything I know, everything I've seen, has been with that pursuit in mind.

00:14

Because what I am telling you is what God has shown me on how I'm returning,

00:20

I'm trying to return to that place before his presence as I was then.

00:25

All right. Welcome back once again, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for waiting for an entire week.

00:32

We know you all have been chomping at the bit for part two of this episode of Cultish, where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.

00:38

My name is Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. My other co -host is Andrew, the super sleuth of the show.

00:44

What did you think about that first episode? That first episode, man, it was two and a half years in the making. I'm extremely excited to be able to tackle this topic, and I'm so happy and blessed that we have

00:56

Matt here with us to discuss this. So we couldn't have anyone better. Absolutely. So, Matt, thanks so much for joining us again and really appreciate you coming on.

01:06

And so one of the things we want to do is we jump into part two of this discussion. When a lot of the media coverage of the

01:14

Church of Wills happened, there was a lot of hype and misinformation. This is just one of the things that always bothers me sometimes with the different cults.

01:23

Documentaries you'll see on Netflix and Hulu, or even like the Dr. Phil episode that we'll talk about, is that a lot of times there's just hype and sensationalism and many times misinformation.

01:35

And as I said, just because someone is a destructive cult leader and is spiritually abusing and harming people does not give a precedent to bear false witness about them.

01:44

Two wrongs don't make a right. So the Dr. Phil episode, first of all, can you go ahead and just clarify in that some people who are listening may have watched that series.

01:55

They may look it up online because some people may hear our episode. They're going to look for additional information.

02:01

Can you just give your thoughts on the episode? What did they get right? But also, what were some things that were inaccurate about their presentation when they covered the

02:09

Church of Wills? Sure. And, you know, by nature, Dr.

02:14

Phil is sensational. I mean, the music, his whole approach. Now, I personally think he did a fairly measured job compared to, you know, what his show is typically.

02:26

And, you know, this issue here, anytime we have a,

02:32

I guess, a crazy situation. I mean, I described the wedding just a little bit, and there's a couple other experiences

02:40

I didn't even get into that are just crazy. If I were to describe it to you and say this happened, you would say, that sounds kind of sensational.

02:49

Like that's, are you exaggerating? And so back to the Dr. Phil show, there were things described that sound sensational.

02:58

And then people have taken those experiences and maybe expounded on them factually and gotten their facts wrong.

03:04

And I'll go over some specifics right now. This young man, Jordan, he believes he was drugged.

03:09

And I believe on the show he said he believes he was habitually drugged. I can't argue with that.

03:15

He didn't say he had 100 % facts. That was what he felt and believed.

03:23

I've seen the drug test. There is a factual drug test. Is it linked to the

03:28

Church of Wills? That has not been proven. But what has happened is, so on the

03:34

Dr. Phil show, that was fact. But what's happened since then is people go around all the time, and I saw it on your

03:40

Facebook page today, some people commenting, they drug people, they drug people, they drug people. Well, I've drank the water.

03:47

I've ate the food from a few members' houses. And that's just not true.

03:53

There would be a lot of people in prison right now if they were habitually drugging everybody. But I don't want to discredit

04:00

Jordan. He does have a positive drug test. I've seen the paper. If that came from his experience here, it was never conclusively proven.

04:11

There's a few other things on there that I think his brother described when he came to help hopefully rescue his brother out of this mess, when his brother came to Wells to get

04:23

Jordan out. And he talks about meeting the leaders and some of the people of the

04:28

Church of Wills, and he described their eyes being bug -eyed, big bug eyes, and disheveled, and just kind of a creepy description.

04:38

I've experienced that at the wedding of Michelle's wedding. I had 10 men in front of me with their eyes bugging out, and one of them literally growled at me.

04:49

Now, I don't know how that sounds to you, but I heard it, and I'm not the only one that has been growled at from these men.

04:57

It's Twilight Zone. It's crazy. It's demonic in many ways. I'll be honest, there wasn't a lot on the

05:03

Dr. Phil that I would say was false. There were some statements made by a pastor that was on that show that were inaccurate.

05:14

He talked about the women having to walk behind the men. That's not true. You see husbands and wives in the

05:20

Church of Wills walking side by side. That's a small detail, but it's not helpful to skew it like that.

05:27

The women, as badly as they may be treated, that's just factually inaccurate. That he's seen people be locked in sheds and not eat for 40 days,

05:37

I think, was the actual number, 40 days with no food. I've never seen evidence of that, and we know many, many people and their experiences.

05:49

We've been around this thing a long time. So what happens with those statements is they get expounded on, and suddenly they're drugging people and locking them in sheds.

05:59

That's not the fact, and it's not helpful because when someone as a new recruit comes to Wells, and that's what they've heard and been told, and then they find out, hey, that's not happening.

06:11

It only gives more credibility to the Church of Wills, and it only draws them in further. And I have to say,

06:18

Andy and Patty Grove, very good friends of ours, there was nothing on the

06:24

Dr. Phil show that I heard them say that I could say with certainty was false.

06:30

In fact, quite the opposite. Their story was sincere. We know them personally.

06:36

We were involved in much of that, much of the drama and the events with Catherine Grove personally.

06:43

We were there at many of the events they described. So maybe you can give me a couple examples of things you have heard or seen that you thought were sensationalized, and I can comment on that because there wasn't a lot.

07:00

Yeah, I think – I'm trying to remember that there's the one – I just remember that it's been a while since I've watched the

07:06

Dr. Phil series. I just remember all of – and this is the difficulty too that was challenging to kind of navigate through the fog as far as what was real, what was sensationalized.

07:16

It's just because you mentioned Dr. Phil. He's a sensationalist. He's a promoter that's kind of – there's a – he's resolving a conflict, but a typical psychologist or therapist, when they bring a client to treat them, their session, they're not going to have a bunch of dramatic music every single time they sit down for a therapy session.

07:33

So that's very different, and I think that was just one of the difficulties. And I think one of the challenges is that even if you're stating something that's true, like we're just talking and having a conversation.

07:44

If we were playing a bunch of hype, like a bunch of creepy sort of exorcist

07:50

Far Cry 5 music, that would be – I think people rightfully would have the ability to kind of like raise their eyebrow or kind of maybe question what we're talking about in many ways.

08:02

So I think that was one of the challenges if I remember. Yeah, I just remember that there was the drug. Did you watch the series with Dr.

08:09

Phil? Yeah. What were some things that came out to you that came across to you when you saw that? I think that you've already addressed some of – like pretty much all of it,

08:17

Matt. In terms of Catherine Grove, I think what would be helpful for listeners is just to hear your firsthand accounts of the story.

08:24

Just telling us the story itself from your perspective, actually being there and knowing them,

08:30

I think could actually help separate between the sensationalized version of it and just what happened.

08:37

Yeah, and one last thing real quickly too is that I remember watching the Dr. Phil episode. And the one thing that at least

08:42

I did identify with was, again, seeing Catherine Grove's parents and in many ways the cult characteristic of what cults will do is they'll take someone.

08:53

They'll take their own – they'll create a cult identity and give that to their person in the same way how

08:59

Steve Hassan will talk about that. They're given a unique cult identity in place of their personal identity.

09:05

And many times what will happen is that that cult identity suppresses the true self.

09:12

And many times when you're talking with someone who's been indoctrinated, you'll kind of see the cult identity and the true identity of that person sort of shuffle back and forth.

09:21

So in many ways if you've ever experienced a family member or lost a family member to a cult, that trauma of seeing someone that you've known your entire life and speak – and all of a sudden they're speaking like they're someone you don't even know.

09:37

It's almost like a different person speaking, almost like they have a host attached to themselves. It's hard to even explain to someone what that's like.

09:45

And so when they – when Catherine Grove's parents were talking, I felt like I really kind of identified with that.

09:52

So all that being said, I think one of the other important things too is that other podcasts that I saw when they were talking about Catherine Grove, their different – their narratives were contradicting each other.

10:04

And you had a firsthand account. You were talking about that in between the breaks. So, yeah, give us – just go ahead and just give us your perspective of being a firsthand witness to Catherine Grove and the – what – just, yeah, go ahead and jump into that.

10:17

So there's a couple points I want to bring out. We've had many interactions with – several interactions with Catherine and her now husband

10:28

Ronnie. And my heart goes out to them. It really does. I wish that we could just be neighbors and friends.

10:35

They live right down the road from us. But obviously that's not going to happen as long as they're members of this cult and under that influence.

10:45

There's a couple things that are very important for people to know. The Church of Wells – let me back up.

10:52

When Catherine escaped, I believe it was 2015, she called – she was walking down the highway,

11:02

Highway 69, leaving Wells. And she used someone's phone, someone stopped to help her

11:07

I believe. You can find all this – a lot of this online, but because there's so much mixed in, it's a little bit difficult.

11:15

She ends up at the sheriff's department in Angelina County, which is 30 minutes away.

11:20

Well, it just happens that I was with her father at an, I'll be honest, conference.

11:27

Tim Conway, there's a couple other names, but it's a conference in Dallas. So I was with her father.

11:33

He got a phone call that she was at the sheriff's department and had escaped the

11:39

Church of Wells. I heard her say – she was on speakerphone. He called her at the sheriff's department.

11:45

I was sitting in a car in a parking lot in Dallas with her father, Andy Grove. And I heard her say with her own lips,

11:53

Dad, I want to go home, but nobody can know where I'm at.

11:59

You cannot tell anybody. I want to go home to the farm in Arkansas, but you can't tell anybody.

12:06

You can't let them know where I am. She repeated that multiple times. Now, that's very important.

12:11

I wish I had that recorded because after she ended up – her dad took her home to Arkansas.

12:17

She ended up going to a hospital. They took her in and checked her into a hospital. Within a week or so, she contacted the

12:26

Church of Wells, came back here, and she was forced, in my opinion, coerced into making a video.

12:35

And you can go online. I believe it's called The Tragic But Honest Account of Catherine Grove.

12:42

It's on YouTube. She's wearing a green shirt with a black background. I call it the hostage video.

12:48

Yes, I've seen it. Yeah. The night before, incidentally, I had just watched an entire documentary on Patty Hearst, if you're familiar with her story.

12:58

Patty Hearst was basically – she was kidnapped back in the – I think it was the 70s.

13:04

And she was a young college student. She came out, guns blazing, a few weeks later, robbing a bank and was totally brainwashed into this army.

13:17

I forget the name of it. But she ended up going on TV or interview and having to tell – say,

13:25

I'm not doing this against my will, things like that. This video of Catherine, it's about an hour long at least.

13:32

It's clearly – she's clearly doing this under duress. And so I want to bring out the point because in this video, she says all she wanted to do was preach to her father.

13:44

She didn't want to go home. She wasn't escaping. That's not true. She was escaping, and there's at least four documented attempts with police records that she escaped and tried to escape.

13:59

And sadly, she's never been able to break free from this group. But the storyline of the

14:05

Church of Wells is always – it's false. They lie all the time, and they actually have manipulated her into lying against her own conscience.

14:16

So we were there. We were actually at the hospital. There's a lot of talk about how the

14:23

Church of Wells wants to say they kidnapped her and took her to a psych ward. But we were there because we were with her parents that weekend.

14:32

We were front row seats to everything, and we were getting daily reports from her parents.

14:38

We would meet and talk about what the nurses had found. And the truth is that Catherine has been severely damaged psychologically, spiritually.

14:47

I would even say physically from the toll that this cult has taken on her.

14:53

It's evil. It's evil what has happened. Catherine did not want to be here. At some point, she did not want to be here.

15:00

She has not been able to break free, and it's our prayer that she does. So I want to dispel that rumor that she's a happily married woman here.

15:12

She's married, and she's here. But this was just one more arranged marriage at the hands of the elders is what this was.

15:19

That's exactly what I was going to ask too. Why was she trying to escape in the beginning, and what's keeping someone like that there?

15:27

I think you just mentioned arranged marriage right there. Can you talk more about that?

15:33

Yeah. It's very common. Go back to the original meeting I had with the

15:38

Church of Wells, our friend Michelle. She was manipulated into marrying an older man.

15:45

And I'm not saying he's too old for her to marry, but it wasn't the person she wanted to marry.

15:52

And I hate to say this about a marriage. I would be the last person who would want to divide a marriage and say,

15:58

Oh, you know, I would hate for someone to come up to me and say, You know, your wife said she never wanted to marry you.

16:04

But considering the circumstances, it's a fact that she did not want to marry this man.

16:11

And as she said at the back of the chapel, I don't want to deny Christ. You see, if she were to deny the marriage because that was the will of God through Sean Morris and the elders, effectively in the

16:26

Church of Wells world, she would be denying Christ and be judged to hell eternally.

16:33

And that's exactly what happened to another woman we know. She refused a marriage. This is a woman that escaped probably 2012.

16:44

She refused a marriage and they condemned her immediately. And that woman told us, and I wish this woman could go on the record, but she hasn't exactly.

16:58

She told us that she remembers the day she was told who she was going to marry. And there was two other women that were also told who their spouse would be.

17:07

And I asked her, I said, well, who told, who said this? She said, of course it was the elders.

17:12

So three women were told this will be your spouse. And she rejected the other two were married.

17:18

And there's, I believe they're both still here to this day. One more issue about the arranged marriages.

17:25

There was a young lady that came here and was in Wells. They lured her here.

17:33

She was here for less than two days and they had already chosen. And when I say they, the elders had already chosen her spouse.

17:45

That's wild. So it is. And if you ask, if you could get Sean Morris or an elder to come on an interview, they would say, these are loving marriages.

17:55

You know, these people come into these willingly. But you tell me what that sounds like when a young lady who's never met a man comes here.

18:03

And day two, she overhears the elders saying, oh, brother, so -and -so is going to be so happy.

18:10

We found him a wife. Wow. It's interesting to me to think, too, that hearkening back to a vision that Sean had where God was telling him who he was going to marry, but it didn't happen.

18:20

And God changed his mind that now I'm assuming here. I don't know exactly what goes on between the three elders, but that that power in terms of now saying that this person will marry this person is almost a juxtaposition of what happened to him.

18:36

And there's like a weird, what is it, like a prideful thing, like this power you can get from actually making something happen that God to him didn't make happen.

18:50

And that's really weird to me. It is. And I believe

18:55

Sean is a typical narcissistic cult leader based on if you study that. What more powerful ego trip is there than to tell someone who they will marry and have children with?

19:09

I mean, and what better way to lock a woman into a group? You know, how much harder is it for a woman to leave a group when she's got children and a family and a husband?

19:21

That's just one more layer of control. And Sean has figured that out. And I want to add, not every marriage is like that.

19:29

But so I want to clarify, I'm not saying every marriage in the Church of Wells was dictated by Sean and the elders.

19:36

But there are at least one, two, three, four, I can count five on my hand that I know of personally.

19:44

And I'm going to go ahead and say it. Michelle, in a moment when she was, this is our friend that got married in 2013.

19:54

In a moment that she was being under what they call, she was under church discipline from the

20:01

Church of Wells. They said she was unclean. They call it being out of camp for whatever reason, lack of submission to something that they were wanting from her.

20:11

In that moment, she called us. We were now living in Wells.

20:18

And she called us and she admitted to us that she was in fact in an arranged, manipulated, coerced marriage.

20:25

She did not want it to happen. And she admitted she should have left at the wedding when God gave her the opportunity through us that day.

20:34

Sadly, she didn't. And she's still here to this day. So that's pretty common for people to have a moment of clarity and then to fall back in it.

20:44

And it's really heartbreaking to see that, especially when they're so close to leaving at some point.

20:52

Yeah, and that's one of the things too I noticed. In fact, some of the footage that you shared with us and it was, some of it was just some,

20:59

I think it was wedding footage of Catherine Grove when she was getting married. And you just see the, the eyes don't lie.

21:07

You know, sometimes body language is such a, it's such a unique thing with how someone's communicating.

21:14

And you just see on her face confusion and fear. And, and you think about it,

21:21

Andrew, when you got married and you're a beautiful wife, Casey, she's going to shout out some two shows. Shout out to Casey. Ooh, love you.

21:26

But when she came down, when she came down the aisle and she saw you and knew she's going to marry you, what was her countenance like?

21:37

It was great. Yeah. It was, it was a happy moment. Well, we got, we got shotgun married in Las Vegas.

21:42

So there was no coming down the aisle, but we wanted to go get married. So we got married in Vegas and it was actually, that's an interesting story for another time.

21:49

So I won't go into it, but, but it was great. It was a great day. But, but she was, my point is that usually the atmosphere in which any wedding that anyone's ever attended, when that bride comes down, usually with her, with her dad or whoever's escorting them.

22:04

I mean, the whole idea of the blushing bride, this is a time of reverence and emotion.

22:09

And this is, this is just, it's so representative of the relationship between Christ and the church is a beautiful, wonderful thing.

22:17

And just, you know, seeing that footage that you had mentioned and then, you know, your experience, Matt, when you first came to that wedding, it's so polar opposite of what it should be.

22:28

I mean, I just, yeah, that's what came to mind as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, absolutely.

22:34

It's, and I will add once again, same, same as with the music, the marriages and things, they've progressed a little bit.

22:44

I mean, there's some weddings, we see them next door because we live literally 20 feet from their church house.

22:50

We see weddings and, you know, they've gotten more modern. They've gotten less hellfire and brimstone.

22:58

I mean, they still preach a message that might have a lot of judgment, but what happened in our experience, you know, we've seen a progression with this group where they've gotten more, it's more deceptive.

23:10

And I think that's the devil's business. The devil is, that's his main game is deception. And so you get people coming down here.

23:18

There's a young man outside my house right now pacing back and forth. You've never seen him before.

23:23

He's a new recruit. I mean, he might be my neighbor permanently. He's right outside pacing back and forth right now.

23:29

Yeah, just 15 minutes ago. And he's new. He looks fresh.

23:34

I don't know what he's doing here. They won't let me step across and talk to people on their property because they know what happens.

23:43

We might share the truth with them. You know, Satan doesn't want light to shine on his dark ways.

23:49

And so, you know, we see these weddings and things, and I could see how people could get deceived into this group and think that, you know, they're just a zealous group of Christians here.

24:02

And that's why I wanted to dispel some of these things. They do arrange marriages. They do cause you to make medical decisions against your better judgment, as in the case of baby

24:13

Faith that died because the elders did not advise the parents to seek medical help.

24:22

They advised against it. They thought that God would, you know, raise this baby from the dead. It's sick.

24:30

It's evil what's happening down here. This is not a church. Wow. No, absolutely.

24:36

And I think one of the things we want to talk about, too, is that, you know, in the first episode, we talked about many of the psychological and sociological manipulation.

24:45

And these are characteristics and aspects that you would see that would be red flags and using our address of people like Steve Hassan or Rick Allen Ross.

24:54

And you could definitely check out both of their books. They're excellent reads. But yeah. But in many ways, given a biblical worldview and a

25:03

Christian worldview, ultimately, we would argue that the psychological and sociological manipulation ultimately comes from the theological distortion of the cults.

25:12

Because many a times that what they're the how they're coming about behaving in that way, whether and doing that psychological and sociological manipulation usually comes about via revelation from who they believe their deity is, whether it's the pastor interpreting the

25:30

Bible privately or believing that they're talking there. They're attached to a higher source, whether it's an angelic vision or the

25:37

Lord speaking to them directly after times of fasting. So what we played at the very beginning of the episode was that was

25:45

Sean Morris. And that's a small minute clip that we played from about two hour and thirty five minute sermon.

25:52

And that kind of summed up in a minute what he was talking about for two hours and thirty five minutes or so.

25:58

But what I want to do is maybe we could jump into Matt for a little bit. Just what are some of the theological red flags?

26:06

I think that's important because in many ways we have people messaging us saying, well, they seem like a typical reformed church.

26:12

And I know there's we have a broad audience from people from vast different denominations who listen in. But in many ways on their

26:19

Web site, they have what they call it, a cloud of witnesses. You know, the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews and you'll hear them on the surface level.

26:28

And you kind of hear the verses that they're saying and some of the things that seem accurate. They'll say things like salvation, repentance, typical

26:35

Christian terminology. That's something we always have to be careful of, because just like Walter Martin said, the cults always will.

26:43

They cloak their actual doctrine within Christian terminology and very bite sized pieces, if you're unsuspecting.

26:50

So how can we kind of pick apart what they believe theologically? And maybe if you could start off by just that clip that we played at the very beginning of that.

27:00

What did he unravel, what he meant by that, and how do we respond to that theologically? Yeah, so that clip you played was

27:09

Sean describing an experience he says he had in, I believe, 2006 when he was,

27:15

I believe he was in college still. And he refers back to this in multiple,

27:22

I've heard multiple sermons where he refers to this moment as his Mount Transfiguration experience.

27:29

And he sees this event as like many leaders we see, you know,

27:34

Joseph Smith, the leader of the Mormon Church, founder of the Mormon Church. The Moonies, you know, they've all had these experiences, many of these what turned out to be cult leaders.

27:46

And Sean Morris goes back to this event as basically the foundation for his entire ministry. And he went on a fast for several days, he says, no food, no water for five days.

27:57

I believe five days, actually in one account he says three to four days, in another account he says five days. You'll notice he's a little bit imprecise in his stories, and that's something

28:07

I've picked up on. For someone who's not honest and actually might be lying about certain things, he'll say things like, it was something like that, something of this nature, something like that, if I recall correctly.

28:19

He does it all the time. So he went on a fast, he says God came to him and for five days gave him revelations and spoke in full sentences.

28:28

He claims that his entire life, his goal of his ministry, and by default what he's teaching his followers, is to get back to that glorious moment where he was in the presence of God like a

28:43

New Testament apostle would or an Old Testament prophet. And we can discuss if that event even really happened, if it was demonic, if it was an angel of light as Scripture says

28:55

Satan comes as, or what it was. But what's important to know is that event in his mind gives him the authority as the prophet.

29:07

And it gives him the authority to be the revelator to his group, and it also sets the stage for him to use shame and guilt on his followers when they don't experience

29:20

God's glory. It must be because of sin. It must be because they're not measuring up.

29:26

And that's the life of a member of the Church of Wells, is not measuring up, always being introspective.

29:33

What sin have I committed? Am I aching in the Bible? Am I the one that is causing the

29:41

Israelites to be judged? That's a common theme. And so if we look at it in terms of authority, that moment is what he preaches, the moment he got his authority to lead and to be

29:55

God's spokesperson for this time in this age. Wow.

30:02

In many ways, I'm just in awe listening to you because we've seen this before.

30:08

This is, I mean, Joseph Smith. He wanted his accounting.

30:14

One of the many First Vision accounts is that he went, or you'll see it just now in the book, in the quad right in front of the

30:21

Book of Mormon. You have history of the church, which says how Joseph Smith went out in the woods to pray to see what church was true.

30:27

And then you had Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ come down in separate physical form to tell him that he was to join no other churches and that all the other professors were corrupt.

30:37

All the creeds were an abomination in God's sight. I mean, you look at Islam and Muhammad. He had a direct and private revelation on how he was supposed to write the

30:47

Quran. And you have that in multiple, multiple examples. So this is just one of those typical cult revelations.

30:54

This is just, why are we surprised? I'm also thinking too, because you're in Texas, is the whole story of Waco, Texas.

31:02

David Koresh, his original name was Vernon Howell. He went over to Israel and he had on some level a private experience.

31:09

And his new unique identity and authority, he derived that and then he became

31:14

David Koresh. That was the unique name he gave to himself after having this unique spiritual experience when he visited

31:22

Israel. So, I mean, we've seen this. Yeah, we have. And I'm glad you brought up David Koresh's new name.

31:29

This is something I just learned recently. I told you I have several employees. Several of them have been involved in the

31:36

Church of Wells in some way. One of them, we actually helped him and his family escape a couple years ago. He works for me.

31:43

He told me recently, and I confirmed this through one of the Church of Wells members, that the three elders, and there's actually more than three elders now.

31:53

They've, I guess, chosen a few more men to lead. They used to call them junior elders, but now there's like,

32:00

I guess there's six or seven elders now. But the three elders and at least one other man

32:05

I know have new names. Rick Trudeau used to be a deacon.

32:11

There's a video of him on YouTube standing on the rooftop screaming at my family. He's now an elder. His name is

32:17

Tirshatha. And this man that works for me says they call him

32:22

Brother Tirshatha. Tirshatha, you can find it in the Bible, and I believe it means governor.

32:29

I think it comes from Nehemiah. And that's a question, I mean, number one, it'd be a question to ask, what's

32:37

Sean's new name? What's Jake's new name? What's Ryan's? But more so to look at that and say, wait, we have seen this before.

32:44

This is just one more step that's literally out of the cult playbook.

32:49

It's like they're following every other cult before them. Yeah. And their doctrines,

32:55

I don't know if you want to get into a couple doctrines maybe people ought to look out for that would define them as a cult as opposed to just a typical

33:03

Reformed church. Yeah. Well, one thing I want to bring up to their eschatology and will be their end times visions.

33:11

I mean, we went over some brief clips and what we might share this online just for the sake of time.

33:18

I don't want to play the entire clip. But what's in was very unique. And this is across. This was very relevant with David Koresh and really indicative of many cults.

33:28

And we had we kind of talked about this as well. Gary DeMar on shout out to Uncle Gary.

33:34

But anyways, with a lot of times what you'll see, and particularly with David Koresh, is that he believed he had a special a special interpretation of the

33:43

Bible that no one else had. He had the ability to interpret the seven seals of Revelation. And in fact, all the forces of the

33:52

United States government Armageddon was going to come upon them. So if you are believing that David Koresh is speaking and is a prophet of God or in some cases, the son of God or a manifestation of that, when you are there at Mount Carmel, I'm just thinking of that.

34:08

And all of a sudden you see the ATF agents sweeping in and the helicopters and everything that took place back.

34:14

And we're actually the anniversary of Waco. The initial shootout happened just a couple of days ago.

34:20

How much would that reinforce your identity as a loyalist to David Koresh and being a

34:26

Branch Davidian when you're seeing these forces of the government exactly as David Koresh said that it happened?

34:32

So it's a very unique experience. But in many ways, what I'm curious about, Matt, is that how does the

34:39

Church of Wales, how do they how do they view their eschatology? And also, is there anything that they're doing right now, especially in light of the last year?

34:47

I mean, when we talked last year, I mean, the world has changed so much. But just regards to COVID and the

34:53

Biden administration, where things are headed, how are they how are they dealing with all that? Well, you know, it's always changing as, you know, cults a lot of times will just use whatever situation is before them to their advantage to instill fear or shame.

35:11

And so, you know, they'll grab at whatever a couple of years ago is Russia, Russia, Russia. They were they were having visions of Russia within their members and saying, you know,

35:21

Russia was going to invade us and things. You know, they'll use the COVID crisis and say it's the end of the world and, you know, it's the last days.

35:30

So but specifically speaking, you know, that Sean, I think just about a year ago, he started going through Revelation.

35:41

And so he's now in the Book of Revelation with his people and he's really focusing on the tribulation.

35:48

His teaching is that and I think you have some audio of this you could play or I sent to you.

35:57

He actually teaches that the tribulation is not God's wrath on the world.

36:02

It's actually God's wrath on the church. And so he's he he actually teaches that the wrath of God in the tribulation is specifically for what he calls the backslidden remnant.

36:17

Now, the backslidden remnant would be you. You know, if you're a

36:22

Calvinist, it'd be it'd be those that profess salvation.

36:28

Maybe they are brothers. But see, that doesn't really matter in his world. Just because you're a brother doesn't mean you're going to heaven.

36:33

They don't they don't believe in election like the scriptures teach. So it's this constant fear that that God is going to judge the church, whether that's the tribulation or just right now today.

36:47

You know, if a two by four falls and hits you on the head, this really happened. Actually, one of the members had a two by four hit him in the head.

36:55

I asked him what the cut was, what the bump was. He said God judged him. I mean, so so it's it's day to day.

37:01

It defines their life. The fear that is instilled by Sean Morris and whether it's revelation or whatnot.

37:10

Yeah. Now, he hasn't he hasn't made any prophecies that I'm aware of of the end of the world.

37:16

He hasn't quite gone that far yet. But, you know, you talk about David Koresh.

37:22

And before I forget, I want to bring something up. You mentioned how when the

37:29

ATF agent showed up, how that would have reinforced what David Koresh had prophesied literally was happening.

37:36

You know, they were going to be swarmed and and the enemy was going to attack. Sean is doing the same thing here.

37:42

Let me be really careful here. They're they're not stockpiling weapons. I don't want to I don't want to say that they're not.

37:48

Absolutely not. They're not practicing polygamy like David Koresh was. They're not doing that.

37:54

But he has a sermon where he's already preparing his followers for bloodshed. And you can you can hear it.

38:01

I've listened to it. He has a sermon that he says to his followers, if they go out and evangelize

38:09

Wells in the way they should. That we will set the town of Wells will most likely set their church house on fire.

38:17

There will be bloodshed. And it's going to take all the men, all the women and all the children in this evangelistic event.

38:26

I'm quoting now almost from memory. He says, if God tells us to go to the

38:32

Wells basketball game and preach, we're going to go and we're going to fight with these beasts.

38:39

So he's prepping them in the same way that David Koresh did. If there is bloodshed in this town, and I pray it never ever happens.

38:46

He's not prepping them that they will cause it. He's prepping them.

38:53

If someone were to be antagonized to the point that they do physical violence to one of these members, God forbid.

39:00

It's going to be all prophesied and Sean already. It's going to reinforce him in their eyes.

39:06

And that's a really serious issue I want to bring out. No, that's very, very important because,

39:13

I mean, history has a strange way of repeating itself. And I think from, I mean, I was an 11 -year -old boy as watching the whole

39:20

Waco standoff that happened over the 51 days. And I believe there's so many important things to learn, especially from even back then.

39:27

Because, like I said, those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

39:33

So in many ways, I couldn't agree with you more. And I think, and this is one of the things, too, is that you have to think in regards to, well, they're not stockpiling weapons.

39:42

And while we don't want to misrepresent them, what I do think is indicative across the cults and many times will make a cult dangerous and destructive.

39:52

Whether it's what happened with the Branch Davidians, both on the side with the feds and the

39:58

Branch Davidians. But also even with Jonestown is that there's a level in which people are conditioned.

40:05

And in many ways, even boiled like a, psychologically and sociologically, you're sort of, your ability to think critically is sort of, you're boiled like a frog.

40:15

In a sense where it's just a slow, methodical process where you have this unquestionable allegiance to a particular charismatic leader.

40:24

And it gets to a point while they're not doing that, if they got pushed sort of into a corner where all of a sudden they gave a command to do something of that nature that might be congruent with how that sermon was preached.

40:40

That would, who's to say, would you say they would act in accordance if they were told to act in a way with violence against another?

40:48

I mean, given their loyalty to Sean Morris? Well, based on history and based on the level of control that I see here,

40:59

I'll put it the same way that a former member would put it. He said to me, if Sean says jump, they jump.

41:08

And just like Jonestown, just like Koresh and Waco, not everybody went along with it.

41:13

There's people that fled, there's people that left, there's people that tried to save their child or whatnot. That would happen here too if there was ever a serious event.

41:21

But the part I want to stress is the level of control is there. Just like a small matter that I brought up of them waving to us, giving us sodas, on command.

41:32

On command, because of a text message. The level of control is there.

41:39

And that's the dangerous part about the Church of Wells and this cult. If they say marry this man, they marry.

41:46

If they say talk to Matt Meyer today, be kind to them today or shun him tomorrow, they listen.

41:54

And if they put you up to making a video like they did with Catherine Grove with the hostage video, she did it.

42:01

There's that level of control here. It's no different than David Koresh, in my mind. And it makes sense too because it all derives from the authority that he claims to have through a vision in a meeting with God.

42:16

I find it very worrisome too that there are certain people in the world that think that there's this type of regimen that they can do to have a meeting with God.

42:25

Fast this amount of hours, do this, do that, and then you're going to have a meeting with God. We know Jesus fasted in the wilderness.

42:32

He fasted for a long time, longer than any human can possibly do. We've got God fasting on earth.

42:38

Who was the first one to show up to Jesus when he was fasting? Think about this. Who was it?

42:43

It was Satan. Satan himself tempted Christ. And we know Christ was to succeed in all areas where Adam failed.

42:51

But think about this for a second. If you think that you can sit there and fast to get a meeting with God, I'm sorry.

42:57

As a Christian, we have his word. We have the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. We have what we need to be in fellowship with God already through the blood of Christ.

43:05

Fasting will not get you a meeting with God. More than likely, in precedence of Scripture, I think you'll probably meet someone else if your heart is not in the right place.

43:16

And I think he did. I believe he probably had a vision. I'm not going to doubt his experience. But what I'm going to do is test it to Scripture.

43:22

Number one, a revelation that he was given from quote -unquote God was wrong.

43:27

It didn't happen. Scripture says false prophecy. Right? I must reject the authority from the assumption that he has through this vision.

43:35

Number two, we need to test the spirits like it says in 1 John 4. How would I test them?

43:40

I've got the law of God on my side. You know what I mean? That's a big thing that I worry about.

43:46

And I think we have Scriptural precedence that we should be aware. Even in Galatians, even if an angel from heaven comes to you, but they preach a different gospel, let them be accursed.

43:56

Right? Yeah. Amen. Go ahead, Matt. Amen. And I want to say on that note, on terms of a false prophet,

44:03

Sean and others within their group have made many, many false prophecies that God was going to kill people.

44:10

They've given—and this is all factual. You can talk to these people. They're still alive. Wow. These did not come true.

44:16

You know, there's a recording of Rick Trudeau telling the mother of his child before he was married, his ex -girlfriend, that God was going to kill her if he did not hand over their child to him and let him come to Wells.

44:31

And he said he knew the date and the time. But he wouldn't tell her, of course.

44:36

Well, that didn't happen. And these type of false prophecies happen all the time, and many of them are threats of death.

44:42

God's going to kill you if you don't do this. You know, God's going to kill this person because they sinned.

44:48

And, you know, even if you give Sean the meeting with God, let's just say you say, okay, you met with God.

44:54

He came down to you and you met with him. Well, he's beyond any shadow of a doubt.

44:59

He's proven he's a false prophet by all of these prophecies that have not come true within his ranks and from himself.

45:08

And I think he did meet an angel of light. You know, he met Satan cloaked in a disguise just like we've seen before historically, whether it's

45:19

Joseph Smith or whoever it is, because the fruit of the Church of Wells has proven not to be of God.

45:26

The deceit, the lies, the lack of joy, the depression, the death of an innocent child due to the coercion of the elders,

45:38

I mean, it's all there. You can't deny it. And I want to say to the listeners, if you look at their website and you see that cloud of witnesses, they've got

45:49

Spurgeon up there, they've got Whitefield, they've got Wesley, they've even said they don't think Spurgeon, well, they think he went to heaven, but he barely made it.

45:58

You know, they've even condemned Spurgeon. So, I mean, these guys, they put those up there in a deceptive manner because they know that it makes them look like they've got some credibility.

46:10

Yeah, that's a huge thing. And also just jumping back to the aspect of fasting is, while we're talking about the emphasis of the spiritual, but you also have to realize, too, that there are physiological things that are going to happen to you if you go five days or so without food or water.

46:27

I mean, even if you make an adjustment with any sort of diet, usually what will happen is your sleeping patterns get affected.

46:36

And so in many ways, you're not just dealing with the food and water deprivation and not having that, but you're probably, because your body is sort of going through a shock phase of not getting the food and water that it's used to, it's affecting your sleeping patterns.

46:51

So you're also going to be sleep deprived, which is going to make you almost in a self -suggestible sort of state.

46:58

So that's why God's law states that in order to establish a claim, there has to be two to three independent lines of testimony and witness, which completely,

47:09

Sean Morris, you need to look to the law of God and you need to repent because you're making a claim and you're stating your authority off of something that the very revelation of God states that in order to be a claim, even an accusation across the board, there needs to be two to three independent lines of testimony and witness.

47:31

That's one of the reasons why we have four Gospels. Even in thinking of the nature of the triune

47:37

God, the Father testifies to the Son, the Holy Spirit testifies to the Son. We've got two to three independent lines of testimony right there.

47:44

Christ testifies to the Father. Christ testifies to the Spirit, sending a helper. This is real.

47:50

And it's a beautiful thing to think about that we have these safeguards in Scripture to protect us from error.

47:56

And I find it funny if Sean listens to this, that someone who's supposedly to be the master of discernment, where he can weigh the scales and whether or not if someone is eternally saved, didn't have the discernment at the time to recognize an enemy of God.

48:11

That deceived him. You can come to Christ, Sean. Repent. Put your faith in the true and living

48:17

God and rest alone in him and his perfect sacrifice to cover your sins. Amen.

48:23

If I can add to that, I think it's important. One thing people need to look out for, you mentioned

48:29

Sean, his revelations and whatnot. And he is the one that decides if you are saved or not.

48:38

So for anyone who's rubbing shoulders with this group or thinks maybe they're not that bad, you have to understand something.

48:48

Sean will tell you if you're going to heaven. No one else can. Well, the other elders under his leadership, of course.

48:54

But you cannot come here and say,

48:59

I'm saved, and that's the final word. It's not based on your faith. It's not based on your belief in the gospel.

49:05

It's not based on your faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You have to be examined. And they have snared many, many young people that have come here and they've been convinced that they're not saved.

49:15

And they go through this whole indoctrination process. And finally, when Sean sees that they are, in my opinion, submissive enough and indoctrinated enough, he will declare you saved.

49:29

And that is obviously not biblical teaching. Sean is not the arbitrator of salvation.

49:35

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And nobody comes to the Father but by Him.

49:41

Sean has nothing to do with that. It has to do with your faith in Jesus Christ and His Son and the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

49:52

Amen. Yeah, absolutely. And so this is one of the things, too, what makes a cult leader like Sean Moore so dangerous.

49:58

Because while he might use and peddle the word of God and twist it and even articulate

50:06

John 14 .6, if he's talking to someone about salvation, he'll pay lip service to that.

50:12

But ultimately, he's the only one who has a special insight and authority to see if you do really truly believe

50:20

John 14 .6, that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. So that's just something you have to be very, very wary of.

50:27

I mean, cults will always take the basic fundamental language of Christianity 101, but they always take it and twist it into their own form of that.

50:38

I mean, the Bible warns about this. People will have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. It's so incredibly dangerous.

50:45

I do have one other question, Matt. As far as Christology and as far as their belief about the nature of God, what do they believe as far as that goes?

50:56

I mean, most cults typically will, on some level, will either question or deny the deity of Christ or also question and deny the trinity.

51:05

Is that something that Wells does, or what does that look like as far as that's concerned? Well, that's an interesting question.

51:13

So on the surface, of course, they would affirm the trinity. They would affirm, absolutely affirm the deity of Christ.

51:19

But where it gets cultish, where it gets heretical, is they have a doctrine that Christ is in them.

51:28

And when I say in them, pretty much exclusively in them, they are the only lampstand that Christ is dwelling in in the world.

51:38

Okay, now they've got a couple branches. They've got one in Lima, Peru. They've got one in Australia. But that's still the

51:43

Church of Wells. That's still under Sean's authority. And so, you know, they will, on the surface, affirm the same things we would believe.

51:54

But where this becomes a problem is if Christ is in them, and you disagree with them on, let's say, doctrine or maybe who you want to marry, let's say, or your freedom in Christ, you know, how can you argue with Christ?

52:11

And so I've actually heard them, you know, there's a video of Jake Gardner and I having a confrontation where I'm telling him, get away from my children.

52:20

Stop yelling at my children. He was bothering my children. And at a moment in this video, he says,

52:27

Matt, I'm not a man. I'm Christ. Now he tries to wiggle out of it and says, you know,

52:34

Christ in me, and I'm crucified with Christ. But he said it. You can't say, and I can't say,

52:41

I'm not a man, I'm Christ. That's blasphemy. I don't care how you frame it. Right. I've seen the video too.

52:47

Yeah, me too. Yeah. And so in that regard, if Christ is in them, if you don't listen to them and their authority, you're, as our friend

52:57

Michelle said at the wedding, she didn't want to deny Christ. She had to do what they said. She had to do what they had shown was

53:03

God's will. That's where you get into the danger. That's where it's a cult. Yeah. And one of the things too is that cults are always about us versus them dividing people against each other.

53:13

Anyone who questions the group. And one of the things that's actually, we may post this on our social media.

53:19

We might have even posted by the time we might do the full video by the time we drop this episode. But if any of you are listening in for the first time in part one, we played the initial video of that confrontation.

53:30

And what's the gentleman, what's the member's name who is speaking to you in that video? Remind me again. That's Mark Daraville.

53:37

Yeah. Mark Daraville. And in it about maybe two or three minutes in, he looks past you and starts talking to your wife,

53:44

Jody, and is warning, starts warning her that essentially she needs to leave you because her and her children's salvation, your children's salvation are now in jeopardy because you're confronting them.

53:59

So there's almost this immediately dividing people against each other in a very spiritually abusive, evil and manipulative way.

54:08

I mean, I'm at a loss of words of even how to describe that. I mean, this is what sociopaths and abusers do.

54:17

I mean, on every level. They say over and over again, has he hurt you? Has he hurt you, Jody? And that's twisted, man, to do that.

54:26

Yeah. And I'm glad you brought this up because the dividing of spouses is so common with them.

54:32

It's so destructive. They have asked my wife to leave me.

54:38

Of course, she wouldn't even have a thought of that. I mean, it's foolish for them to even think that would stick, you know.

54:44

They have said she should leave me. They've actually told my children they should flee from me.

54:50

What? So, no, they've actually shouted out on the street, flee from your father. He's a false prophet.

54:56

Where are they supposed to go? Well, I guess they'd have to run across the field and go live with them. Wow. It's utter insanity and evil, the things they're doing.

55:06

And they have a long history of this. And I know people that almost lost their marriage because the elders of the

55:15

Church of Wells said, hey, your spouse is unclean. They're going to influence you in a way that you will lose your salvation.

55:25

So basically, don't talk to them. Stay away from them. It's the division of families, division of father and mother from children is a fundamental issue that is destructive.

55:43

And it's indicative of all cults. I shouldn't say all cults. Many cults where the authority of the leaders always gets in between, and the authority and the family structure gets divided.

55:55

And it's so, so destructive. It's ended in divorces. It's ended in so much pain.

56:01

And it's really – I just – I would love to see

56:07

God intervene and this whole thing shut down one day. You know,

56:13

God's will be done. And we'll do what we can to speak the truth. And people that want to leave, we're here to help them.

56:20

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things too that just really terrifies me. I remember thinking back when

56:26

I first saw that video and even thinking about it now. That in that video, if he's willing to go above and beyond publicly to your face out in the open with a camera, knowing he's being recorded, and trying to divide you and your wife apart from each other, and even give out allegations of abuse with no evidence, which, again, you're acting sinful and wicked.

56:51

The Lord detests the acquitting of the guilty and the condemning of the innocent. So you're entertaining an accusation, which either – what it says, don't even – it says in Timothy, do not entertain an accusation against an elder or against anyone unless you have two to three independent lines of testimony and witness.

57:10

So, I mean, if they have that audacity to make that claim publicly with a camera recording, which we've already posted by this time, who's – what are they even – it terrifies me to think of what they're doing in private or what someone is doing in private in their home with their wife when there's no camera on them and there's no accountability.

57:33

That terrifies me. Absolutely. I just want to point out that that incident with Mark on the video harassing me and accusing me of being – he actually says

57:45

I'm acting like at one point a sex offender, a violent man. He gives all sorts of these defamatory statements.

57:53

That video has been justified. His actions were justified by the elders. I want to get back on the elders and on Sean Morris a little bit on that issue because in a certain sense,

58:01

Mark, even though he's a perpetrator of these things, he's also under the – he's a victim in some sorts of Sean.

58:09

And you can go online today and find it. They justify that behavior.

58:15

There's never been repentance. There's never been apologies. There's never been anything saying that that was ungodly and uncalled for.

58:24

And again, this is more evidence and fruit that this is not a church. These are not godly men. This is a dangerous, dangerous cult.

58:31

You're right. The Bible says you cannot serve two masters. You can't – in this position, you can't expect someone to obey the law of God when they're having a conversation with somebody if the foundation of the visions of their, quote -unquote, authoritative leader already contradicts the law of God, right?

58:54

You cannot serve two masters in that conversation. So either they'll – you know, Jerry has a very high view of the law of God, which we should as Christians, right?

59:04

We should store the law of God in our hearts so we're not sinning against him. The Holy Spirit takes off our heart of stone and replaces it with the heart of flesh and causes us to observe his statutes, right?

59:13

Like it's very important to us as Christians, but you cannot serve two masters.

59:19

And like Matt has been talking about, the fruits will make it known who your master is, where your authority is derived from, right?

59:27

So, I mean, it's just like that. Right. And one thing, you know, is also indicative of the –

59:33

I see Satan's hand in this group is that, you know, Satan works in the darkness. And we're called to expose the darkness and bring things into the light and have nothing to do with the wicked deeds of darkness but rather expose them.

59:46

That's what the scripture says. Amen. You know, I just saw Sean Morris. It was a week ago.

59:52

He won't talk to me. It's been a while since he's spoken to me, even though he's my next -door neighbor. But I bumped into him coming out of a pathway on the street across from my house.

01:00:00

Just walked out and we locked eyes. We were right there five feet away from each other. And I said,

01:00:06

Sean, I want to talk to you still. It's been about five years I've been trying to talk to him. He said, about what,

01:00:12

Matt? I said, I want to talk about this defamatory webpage you've written about my wife and I where you call me a sex offender and a violent man or at least the people that write it.

01:00:24

There's several people that he had write accounts of their accounts with me. It's all under his authority, of course.

01:00:32

And he said, you know, there's many things I want to talk to you about, Matt, but God willing, God willing. And so he won't come into the light.

01:00:39

He won't come on this show. I'd love if he did. I'd love to have a sit down and let him talk. Let us question him.

01:00:45

You talk about two or three witnesses. He won't. Now, that's another indication that this is not

01:00:53

Jesus at work here. This is not the spirit of truth. This is the spirit of darkness.

01:00:59

And whenever you find cowardliness and darkness and other evil things, it's the work of the devil.

01:01:07

And you need to stay away from it. And if you're in a situation like we are, praise

01:01:13

God. You know, we've been able to call it out and call it what it is. And I'm thankful that you're doing the same thing and trying to get to the heart of the matter here.

01:01:22

Because there's a lot of young people and older people, but a lot of young people being led astray by this group.

01:01:28

No, absolutely. I could not agree more, brother. And then and also just there's nothing new under the sun.

01:01:34

And we've seen so many examples of this before. And the one thing that comes to mind about this defamatory Web site that was written about you.

01:01:40

We've seen this before. If you've got if any of you listening in and watch Scientology, the aftermath are going clear.

01:01:46

Scientology in the prison of unbelief. One of the things that Scientology has is their practice of fair game, where they they're they justify the unjustify the means as far as their doctrine.

01:01:57

Being able to destroy anyone's reputation who speaks out against Scientology. So, yeah, it is.

01:02:05

We've always seen this before. And again, the fact that you're going out of the way to defame someone. I mean, basic.

01:02:12

You're supposed to be Sean Morris. You're a minister of the gospel. We listen to the words of your alleged master that you claim to be a follower of.

01:02:20

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. And and even like the attributes. Bless her. Bless her.

01:02:25

Blessed are you when people speak ill of you. This is common. This is gospel.

01:02:31

This is children's catechism. This is Sunday school Christianity. And they're so he's so far detached from it.

01:02:38

And I think in all this, our goal isn't ultimately that we want to wish Sean Morris ill will.

01:02:45

Our goal is that hopefully maybe with this podcast, eventually God would grant him repentance of just the dam of all the damage of spiritual abuse that he's caused.

01:02:56

And God would open up his eyes. And this is one of things I really appreciate, Matt, as we wrap up here. One of the reasons that why

01:03:02

I initially even reached out to you is in many ways we don't we're not just doing this show from neutrality.

01:03:10

We don't just want to make good content to content to create a bunch of hype just to get a bunch of people to listen and get all the downloads and move on to the next thing.

01:03:19

These are real souls that need the gospel, that need salvation, that need to know the true gospel of Jesus Christ and an eternity is on the line.

01:03:29

And so one of the things I think that just made me reach out to you above everything else is one, your commitment to accuracy and truth in the matter as a

01:03:38

Christian. But you have in this one video and it really moved me back when

01:03:43

I watched this two years ago when it was really just talking about praying for the people in the

01:03:48

Church of Wells sitting on the bench. Yes. When you're sitting on the bench that I remember just being so moved and touched by that.

01:03:54

And I think in many ways that's indicative of both our heart here at Cultist with any topic that we discuss and even you with how you got placed there and really your mission.

01:04:04

Can you just maybe explain your heart behind that video and how it resonates with and even being on a podcast like this?

01:04:14

Yeah, you know, as a follower of Christ, you go where God puts you and that's not always where you think you're going to be.

01:04:27

And I had no – I mean if you asked me 20 years ago, do you think you're going to live next to this – could you imagine living next to a cult and helping people escape in the middle of the night?

01:04:37

And, you know, exposing their – the evilness of it and helping people to see the error of their ways.

01:04:44

I would say I didn't even know what a cult was to be honest. And so we've ended up here and we've seen

01:04:52

God's hand in it and I just want to be faithful to Him. And it's been a struggle to be honest. It's been a little bit of a tough go living here.

01:05:00

I mean that's no question. But I see God at work. I see the fruit of the gospel. I see the fruit of speaking the truth and calling people out and trying to call them to a place of truth and honesty.

01:05:16

And then, of course, there's physical aspects when you leave a group like this. People need a place to live.

01:05:21

They need, you know, money. They need a vehicle. A cult and the

01:05:28

Church of Wells included strips people of their financial well -being.

01:05:33

It leaves them destitute. And that's one of the reasons people don't leave is they have nowhere to go. So we've been able to, with the help of some other churches and some individuals, be a place that's provided housing, some legal help, things like that.

01:05:47

So that's a really practical way. And so, yeah, my heart and my wife's heart and our children's heart.

01:05:52

You know, I've got multiple teenagers, and they have been very blessed to live here next to the

01:06:00

Church of Wells. People think we should move. They see our videos. They think, what are you doing there? Why would you stay there?

01:06:06

Wouldn't you – you should build a 40 -foot tall fence. And I understand.

01:06:11

I get it. But God, for whatever purpose, has put us right here, right now, and we see the fruit.

01:06:17

And it's actually – it's a blessing. And it keeps us on our toes. Scripture talks about mature food being for those that have, by constant practice, have exercised their powers of discernment to discern between good and evil.

01:06:33

And I tell you, we've ate a lot of food here in that regard. We've had a lot of practice in that regard, and I'm thankful for that.

01:06:40

So we – our heart is for, first off, the gospel eternally, that people don't follow another gospel, but they follow the gospel as proclaimed by the apostles, the

01:06:55

Lord Jesus Christ. And just for reference for our listeners, go to 1 Corinthians 15. It's right there.

01:07:01

Read 1 Corinthians 15. Paul the apostle says it's death, burial, resurrection, and the forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ alone.

01:07:10

And on a practical level, we're available and will continue to be as long as God gives us opportunity to help physically and spiritually to those that He puts us in contact with.

01:07:25

Wow. So if anyone needed to get a hold of you, say someone from the Church of Wells listened to this, how could someone get a hold of you?

01:07:32

Well, they can walk across the property line. I was thinking that. They probably already know who you are.

01:07:38

That was a weird question. It's not that simple. I know what you mean.

01:07:43

We actually got a message on Facebook just two days ago from someone in Peru needing help.

01:07:50

So it's not just Wells, but there are branches around the world. There are two other branches. And they found us on Facebook.

01:07:57

I don't use Facebook a lot. I just opened it back up. So you can find me on Facebook, Matt Meyer in Wells, Texas.

01:08:04

My email is the letter R, as in Richard, r .mattmeyer at Gmail.

01:08:11

Or you can go to my YouTube channel, Grace and Truth for the Church of Wells. Or just search Church of Wells cult on YouTube, and that should be one of the first videos that pops up.

01:08:20

Grace and Truth for the Church of Wells in the description of every video is my email address. And my phone number is listed there also.

01:08:28

So I don't care if it's 2 in the morning. We've had calls at 2 in the morning. If you need something, whether it's a family member in Wells or you're in Wells, and you're someone looking for help, call us, email us.

01:08:43

We'd welcome that. No, that's really important, man, because even some of the comments we had too were just people that were distraught and probably saw or have lost friends who have been – they've been cut off from them just because they're in Wells.

01:08:57

And they want them to get out. So I think that's just very important to have that contact info. So, yeah,

01:09:02

I'm really – trust – and like I said, we talked about it two years ago. And I'm just so blessed that you were able to come on.

01:09:11

And I think all the people are going to be really encouraged and blessed by this. In many ways, we've covered a broad variety of topics.

01:09:17

But in many ways, conversations like this really puts fire underneath me to do stuff like this.

01:09:26

Because this is really indicative of Walter Martin, what he would do, what he did during his time, and especially

01:09:34

I think if a cult like Mormonism or Charles J.

01:09:40

Russell or any of those groups had a media outlet where they could get exposed and save people from having that deception, it would have been so important.

01:09:49

So this is just such a blessing. And I just – I feel so undeserving even to be able to have this platform.

01:09:54

But like I said, my pastor sought me out and said, hey, do you want to do this? And here we are with Andrew into our third year, and it's just been such a blessing, man.

01:10:04

So, again, thank you again for just taking the time to come on. I know you probably want to get to dinner with your lovely wife and your nine kids.

01:10:12

So, yeah, man, thank you so much for coming on. Did you have any last things you want to say before you wrap up here?

01:10:18

No, I just want to say my heart's with you on this issue of the gospel, and I'm glad that you've got a platform to expose the danger of these cults.

01:10:31

And I'm just thankful to be on here. It's been almost – I think you said a decade.

01:10:37

Did you say a decade earlier in the show that we've been involved in this? I'm looking at 2012. Yeah, almost a decade.

01:10:43

It's hard to believe involved in this Churchill Wells situation. And I'm thankful for it, but I haven't really had a platform to share so many of these things.

01:10:56

And I want to do this more. It's been difficult for us as a family, just as you can imagine, with the drama and the neighbors and the police, so many police calls over the years, between us calling or them calling.

01:11:09

It's just a lot of difficult things. It's a really spiritual, dark, dark environment to work in.

01:11:18

But we're committed to Christ and to be a light wherever He puts us, and here's where He's put us right here.

01:11:27

So thank you for letting me share a little bit of our story, and hopefully this helps some people cut through some of the things they've heard and get a better understanding of what's going on down here.

01:11:39

Excellent. And then also I know there's a lot of – the whole world's unpredictable right now, and you're in a very unique place.

01:11:46

And so if it allows for it or if it calls for it, we'd love to have you on again at some point if that's something you'd want to do.

01:11:54

And so for now we're going to drop these two episodes. We have these two episodes here that people can get, and hopefully by now you've enjoyed.

01:12:02

If you've listened in, you've really taken a lot of information. Just given the initial comments, the nearly 250 comments we had just when we made the post that we're going to do this episode,

01:12:11

I know there's going to be a lot of people who are going to message us. There's going to be a big ripple effect from this. So if you enjoyed this series, please comment on our social media.

01:12:20

Let us know what you thought. Reach out to us if you want to talk to us privately. We have Facebook Messenger if you want to reach out to Matt.

01:12:26

If you've been affected by the Church of Wales, if you have a loved one that's stuck in there, that you have suggestions of how to reach out to them, reach out to Matt.

01:12:34

It is contact info that he provided. And as always, a program like this cannot— for us to be able to have this platform and to be able to create content like this is only a byproduct of all of you who've donated and have supported us financially.

01:12:51

So if you feel led to partner with our ministry, you can go to our website, thecultistshow .com.

01:12:56

You can go to the Donate tab. You can donate one time, or you can become a monthly partner with us.

01:13:02

Be part of the Cultist crew. And so we really appreciate you listening and supporting our ministry. So all that being said, we will talk to you all next time on Cultist, where we enter into the kingdom of the cults.