EXCLUSIVE: Defecting From Bethel

all right welcome everyone to this long-awaited coltish exclusive defecting from Bethel my name is Jeremiah Roberts I've won I'm one of the co-hosts here with me is my trusted pastor friend and co-host urban what's that know each other for quite a while yeah and we are here with Lindsey Davis and you've got quite the story you're gonna share this how are you feeling right now like what telling this what's on your mind right now how're 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 administrator you know spending the past four months preaching the gospel and really trying to reveal truth to people through the word 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 Christ of Scripture let me ask a question what's your main concern right now in terms of you're gonna have people watching this episode that are very upset with you and yes for talking about things in this way what were you going to title the episode again defecting from Bethel affecting from Bethel so how very offensive of you yes to say something like defecting so it's giving we're giving a portrait of Bethel in terms of its its theological danger it is logically dangerous yeah and there are a lot of people that are gonna be upset with you and upset with us for doing that can't you guys just get along like why are you making secondary or a tea offer issues the main issue so what's your main concern in sitting down and dedicating yourself to actually exposing the dangers of Bethel yeah I think that when we use the word expose a lot of the times it has a very negative connotation like you said but when my own darkness in the past was exposed in the light God changed me and He healed me and he brought me and draw 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 you expose something to draw people to Jesus and so I really want people to understand that the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing is because I love these people I've spent the last year with these people and I know for a fact that if someone preaches a different gospel or a different Jesus it's a gospel and a 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 Christ and not having the eternal life that they think they have and I think that even more than a a theist or a Muslim or whoever it's 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 but it's even more heartbreaking to think about someone who thinks that they're going to heaven who thinks that they will you know be with Jesus one day when he returns 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 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 Jerry and I thank you for that Jerry and I truly want to hear your story 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 if there 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 absolutely Jones 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 so that's obviously concerned and that's very serious deadly serious in terms of worship but what you're saying is in this one of our great concerns it always has been is that the main if user or God in the gospel if you have the wrong God you have a god that doesn't exist there you have a if you have a false gospel you have a gospel a gospel that cannot save so would you say that that's the core issue for you is really the the God in gospel being propagated by Bethel Bill Johnson and others is not the God in gospel of Scripture yes absolutely okay yeah and I just want to say to 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 but and I was reiterate that so when we launched cultish right away we got tons of messages we were inundated talk about Bethel talk about Bethel and it's just interesting what they're positioning I saw in the sense okay this is this 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 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 and we yeah 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 yeah but we continue to get inundated with messages so we're looking at different angles to take it I know they have a ministry called Sozo which we're we're looking at that as being a possibility but it wasn't until and this is just as just funny I want to share with you the timing that I got connected to you because you became Facebook friends with me yeah and I was confused cuz I think I comment on someone's posts and I said hey we're looking at trying to figure out if we're gonna we have some ideas of what we may do at Bethel yeah I got a friend request from you and it said you're at the student of this Bethel school of supernatural ministry and I was thinking like is she she like just now she's like spying on me to find out what we're gonna say about the church you know right and it wasn't until you were posting content like paul Washer and all these things that were completely what i understood to be antithetical to what Beth was teaching and so I was I was I gotta get to the bottom of this yeah and so it was when I reached out to you you would you just said oh I literally I got kicked out of Bethel fifteen minutes ago which is just like maiming the timing of that so it's pretty cool that we're here like let's get into that story so you contact her 15 minutes after yeah the province of God her getting kicked out of that those school of supernatural ministries so take us through that Lindsay let help us to understand where were you how did you get there 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 I have to share a little bit about what happened before I came to Bethel I grew up Roman Catholic and then I became an atheist and when I got saved 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 Bible after going to that church and the gospel just was empowered by the Holy Spirit by 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 and I felt like I wasn't getting the truth that I wanted I wanted to be fed meat and not milk I wanted to graduate from from what they were you know propagating and so I found myself in a end times legalistic cult 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 and so over the course of the six months that I was in this cult I was preparing myself to die and so eventually I'm only 18 years old by the way and so how old were you when he told you those 17 and he's yeah I it was it was one of the hardest things that ever gone through I can't really describe what that experience was like it's it's an experience that's harder that's hard to describe unless you're actually in in that moment you know and so it was really really difficult but eventually my mom pulled me out of the cult praise the Lord but after I got out of this cult I felt so empty and so dead inside and now that I didn't have what I thought I had in this cult I was searching for a meaning and I was searching for a purpose 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 Word of Faith Church and she was going to Bethel school of supernatural ministry and so I saw on Facebook all of these you know pictures and videos that she was posting from the school and it looked amazing and the worship just seemed so beautiful and I just thought you know this looks amazing I feel like maybe this is what I'm supposed to do and so I actually ended up visiting Bethel school of ministry before I applied and when I went to go visit it was it was a very confusing experience because I was witnessing things that I had never seen in my life before 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 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 just like uncontrolled control like they're like a little crying almost like they'd be like in an altered state of consciousness correct okay there was what they call holy laughter I had never heard these terms before I had never seen any of these things and so I was very confused and I didn't want to judge unrighteously and keep in mind I was also very confused coming right out of this other cult and so I didn't I didn't know what was true at this point yeah and I just knew that I wanted Jesus yeah and just a comment real quickly you know there's a lot of stories that we people that we've talked to and just stories that we've read of people who go into a cultish movement 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 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 there in a moment they're in a position of vulnerability just specifically or whatever is that trauma that occurred to them yeah there's also a tendency in the cults and as they as they get people within them and to follow there's a lot of sociological manipulation yeah in terms of when you're in the group you're in you're loved you're accepting look there's love bombing that takes place yeah was that was that present in in 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 this is stuff that's not normative in human experience it is normative in the world of the cults and the occult yeah um so did you experience that I loved I loved bombing yeah I remember the prophetic is what they call the prophetic is a big part of their culture and what they mean by that is not what the Bible means by that they call it and they say the prophetic is calling the gold out in people and so if someone is one thing you basically prophesy or declare the opposite to call something forward and so I remember like going to Bethel and just having a ton of people say you're amazing oh my gosh I love you so much you have such a calling on your if you know really just like this and this amazing ego boost yeah but then I had moments where I was like you don't even know me yeah like what do you mean I'm amazing and you love me so what it really is is flattery right which is a sin yeah um so it's it's it's saying things over people that you don't necessarily mean great okay yeah no you um now you're at the spot we talked a little bit about this before so you go and you enroll you enroll in Bethel hmm and at that point they are you're seeing these things yeah and you're having doubts if you could if you can elaborate on our conversation when I hand back to you but talk to them talk them about there's moments how do they deal with you in some level questioning or trying to make sense of it because there is it wasn't a speck because you know you are a Christian at the time you're a baby Christian you went through this traumatic experience with this previous cult yeah but what was the process of how do 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 be SSM is part of right um well like I was saying before I think that it started when 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 and I thought I think so I you know I've trusted in Christ and what does that mean and they're like well happy sometimes you just have to let go all right well what does let go me and 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 and I thought oh my gosh what if there's something wrong with me and after that conversation I went to a student's house and she was with her roommates from be SSM and they told me that they could bring me into this encounter with my angel and I didn't know what that meant either and they said well you can visibly see your angels 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 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 a special a special and we've seen it - with all the coals that we've dealt with there's always a special secret now it's knowledge I mean the same thing - with all our conversations with people who come out of Mormonism out of them don't really get the full scoop of what's going on we need to go deeper we need to do these things so you can become temple worthy so that's good that's where it's really at yeah where the source is so essentially you on one hand you're you're told the recondition to say that any questioning or if it goes against you know what the Bible says that oh that's my religious spirit no it's almost your precondition to in a such a way to say no I don't want to have I don't want to have the religious spirit cuz that's bad well it's it's it's interesting because this is it's not in God praise God for protecting you from all this but you'll see this is common form really throughout all false religion the world of the occult and and you know in a number of different realms you can see this sort of pattern it's where they are they will try to work on somebody to disengage from reason yep and discernments specifically in the case of Christian disengage from spiritual discernment like really engaging with the minds and of course 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 you know that's a religious spirit or they're condemned it in some way the idea of reason and discernment what's amazing is that throughout scripture you don't ever see God calling on people to disengage from reason or discernment you see the opposite you see God calling on people to actually use their reason and discernment when engaging with spiritual things warning is actually the other direction yeah don't let go of your reason and discernment that's true biblical faith in Christianity yeah is to be discerning and to use your reason and not disengage from it yeah and well one thing I think that we have to touch on is like they say that basically God is bigger than his book and the challenges is that I believe that first of all I believe that God is bigger than the church I believe that God made everything I even believe that God is bigger than his book that's at least what Chris Balaton says and a lot of people have the conception that discernment is a feeling I feel this is of God or I feel this is not of God of God but the way that we discern is by the Word of God right 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 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 or don't put on the box right don't put God in a box that's probably their most famous line 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 religious Pharisee right and Jeff we've talked about this too it comes to a position of authority and this is another cult ish characteristic that you see and this is this is across a spectrum there's always a point where they pay lip service to the Bible and they buy but ultimately the Bible serves as a means to an end yeah where on one hand they'll pay they'll pay credence to the Bible I mean we have but you have a couple books over there which will probably which we're gonna go through yeah there's scripture verses that they'll refer to as points of reference but at the same time they'll undermine the Bible and I'm gonna paraphrase that a Bill Johnson quote right away that was very concerning to me where he essentially said we don't it's the Father Son and Holy Spirit not the Father Son and Holy Bible and almost talking in someone I've seen this level of condescending attitude towards the Word of God and that and that objective standard and it's almost a precedent then to set them up then as you know the apostolic Authority yeah it's private revelry and then then also not only that within private revelation and that's a commonality that all cultish movements have yeah and it shows the difference between a cult in the world of the occult and false religion man-made religion and biblical faith yeah is say for example even in a local church context that God has condescended and spoken to in in His Word for example even in terms of what Bible says about elders and pastors over over a church the pastor an elder has an under shepherd authority under the great Shepherd 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 his word Christ and his words so that even the church itself well there's a biblical Authority for a pastor it's not an Ultima see there's not an ultimate authority where the church actually can say to the pastor I reject your words 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 última see ya the Word of God is the ultimate and truly even with biblical authorities a pastor the church body has the obligation before God to say what your teaching is against what he says therefore you're out yeah and you don't have any special privileges in terms of being able to speak for God above what he's already disclosed and it's it's interesting I just find it so so powerful that that that's the common manipulative tactic within the world of the cults is to say well let's put it this way watch 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 what was the other wording that was used go off the map don't book on the box right now imagine now you had a a pastor who you somebody found was in a manipulating relationship with young girls in the congregation and you found out behind closed doors as he was telling these girls things like um God told me I want to marry you and we're gonna go you know away to some foreign country together and you found out that he was saying things like you know what the girl says well I think that violates what God says in his word and he says no sweetie you just gotta be willing to go off the map here and let the Lord lead you you just 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 every person even at Bethel supernatural school of ministry would recognize that isn't biblical you can't do that but we picked these specific categories where we say it is acceptable to actually go outside of God's own disclosure and you'll see that mm-hmm and it's dangerous yeah and in fact knowing their lane I want to try and speak because there's people 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 but they would believe that they on some level are emulating what the Apostles did in the book of Acts right or their believe they're following the apostolic tradition well what I would say is that if you look at what is the apostolic tradition say as far as how they measured truth right did it say that so Paul one of the very first verses I ever memorized when I was doing outreach to the Colts was Acts chapter 17 verse 11 yeah talking about the Bereans yeah and what it said and it says when they heard Paul's message did they say that they were looking for signs and miracles they looked for private revelation with angels to see if these things were so or do they just take it or did the Paul just say oh I'm in a past life I have apostolic Authority which he did he did he met the risen he saw Ian calendar is Lord on the way to Damascus yeah what happened it says but it says these people were more noble minded and those were in Thessalonica what did it say it says they searched the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so so if you look at the apostolic tradition and this is what 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 and what I would want it really challenged 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 jesus said specifically to the father in John 17 he said sanctify them by thy word yea thy Word is truth so Jesus set the standard in fact in your sermons jat that you've been teaching talking about you know Jesus and his authority that he appealed to he never appealed to it wasn't just he never just appealed to his own authority he always appealed to the law of God it's been said unto you do not commit adultery but then 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 yeah if he and in there's two different ways yet when he was in conflict with religious authorities and people who were to who were misinterpreting the Word of God he always appeals to the objective standard of God's Word and even when there's a modern in his day a modern conflict between two schools of thought over over adultery sorry not adultery divorce yeah the Hillel i'ts versus the Shiites the conservative school versus the divorce for any cause as long as there's a certificate of divorce what he responds to is have you not read what was spoken to you by God so he brings that controversy down to well what did God say yeah 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 but when in a conflict with religious authorities he points them to scripture as the objective standard he doesn't try to reason through rabbi Hillel reasoning process and say well let's let's just think about that and let's let's work through that he says have you not read was spoken to you by God yeah he created a male and female come together leave your father and mother and become one flesh and so that's 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 right oh yeah well I think that another important thing to talk about before you know share the rest of the story of you know how I what my experience was at Bethel during the school year and then how I got kicked out and all of that is without you know going into continuation ism or cessationism we know that signs and wonders were given to the Apostles to confirm their message yes 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 or someone who has wronged me 13 okay comes to you and performs a sign or a wonder and it comes to pass but they lead you after other gods little 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 all of your mind yes and so someone can't look at signs and wonders as the fruit of a true teacher of God or not you have to look at the message because a sign or Wonder is given to confirm if their message is true right right so so yeah then it's Deuteronomy 13 verses one through five yeah can read through there and exactly right God says even if there are signs and wonders but they lead you after another God that that's how you know they're a false teacher yeah is and how do you know here's the key thing how do we know that this person is leading me after a false 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 and so we're supposed to take that previous revelation and disclosure of God and line it up against what somebody's claim yes about God and so history is replete with examples of people giving signs and wonders and amazing even in Mormonism early on Mormonism in early on if you read no man knows my history by Shawn Brodie one nation under God you'll see the early Mormonism came to life in the context of an American experience where there was the Shakers yeah you had all kinds of different religious movements and happening at that time people were exhibiting all these crazy signs and all these miracles and some of that actually eked its way into early Mormonism and you saw Joseph and others trying to engage in that kind of behavior trying to raise a dead kid and and nothing happened and other times where other miracles were claimed it's like well you know Mormonism also had its signs and wonders early on yeah is this myth a prophet of God right in fact even Jim Jones for example he used miracle services and I share with you some of the footage from the 1970s where he affirmed his movie he tried to appeal to the supernatural movement to appeal to affirm his movement but what I am really fascinated about because you shared this with me too is you know there's a moat like Steve Hassan and I you listen to some of his talks yesterday 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 there's that conditioning and they call like undue influence but what would you say describe if you can what we were talking about yesterday like whoa like kind of like your conversion moments when you had now enrolled at Bethel you have this experience about not getting these angels so and not to have that religious spirit what was kind of like explaining to the audience like that tipping point where you really became what I would say like a true believer into everything at the SS mm-hmm I honestly would say that it was more progressive than it was just one moment but it was more of a progression of throwing aside any reservations that I had because I wanted what they seemed to have so badly that I would throw off any doubt and I would throw off any questions 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 and the class was called developing intimacy with God and basically the entirety of the class is about how to hear God's voice and so in this class they you know tell you what God 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 and so in this class it was like this progressive I 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 God's voice and I began to ascribe my own thoughts to things that God is saying and I wrote this post about on Facebook about all of these things that God had said to me and looking back on it it's you know super embarrassing it has no foundation in the word but I was taught I can have God thoughts God is going to tell me about other people it's almost like this weird divination in a sense yeah yeah and in fact you know use term like brain what is important to define our terms because the just from a psychological aspect brainwashing kind of has that idea that like a prisoner of war like you're being broken down you're being forced against your will what I think is more particular just from the psychological standpoint is what's on talked about the undue influence where you are given a kind of like a leading thought 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 yeah and then you have someone there teaching it as a position of authority and if you could this fascinated me because you have it you we're talking about just cult ish characteristics 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 a single time they spoke you were required to stand up yeah and clap for them every single period yes so in in a main session when well the first hour of school we would have Bible class but keep in mind all of the Bible interpretations were more so through Bethel's perspective and if any other perspectives were given like Calvinism they weren't regarded or respected very much 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 and then we would have an hour of worship and then after that bill or Chris peloton would come in and speak or a guest speaker and we would all stand up and clap and so you know this would happen every single day so yeah I mean 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 I'm clapping for them everyone else is saying amen to them so they must be saying something they just have something you know yeah so I want to hear more about the experience and sort of like the peak of it and then how you you finally the 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 bill Johnson mm-hmm his house he treated like what's it like in terms how is he viewed among among the the students and the people who are at Bethel or how is how is he titled yeah well he is titled as an apostle 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 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 but people want a spiritual experience and people want these secrets of God that you know Bethel is perpetuating so he keeps people drawn in like that and Chris valeton is the associate pastor of Bethel but he's also known as the prophet of Bethel 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 you know you never see in scripture anyone being taught how to right or being taught how to heal right that's a big thing how are they tied we were talking with Starbucks what are they on where did they hit it really call Bill and Kris I don't [Music] yeah I was just telling you about like this you know this false bond that the students have with Bo and Kris 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 dishonor your father your grandpa or something you know but you don't even know Bill Johnson you don't know anything about Bill Johnson or Chris ballots and apart from what you see on stage and you know even if we were dressed to test Bill Johnson or Chris Balaton 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 we're gonna do that in Episode two yes so let's let's let's hear about now you get to tell us about the peak of the experience yeah yeah and when it started coming down yeah peak of the experience to when we want to set this up to peak at the experience but also just include some examples of some of the most odd or you just say like things that UCI culture sky no this controversy right now you used when you announce publicly you shared videos you and again when I had saw the footage I mean really I'm usually like various I'm like the king of skeptics when it comes to this stuff it was extraordinarily disturbing right what was things that you without question like witnessed 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 yeah I remember in the beginning of the year there was a school-wide deliverance which I can't even describe it was like something from a horror movie the man who was speaking on stage was apparently casting demons out of everyone in the school everyone screaming people are violently shaking and I had never seen anything like it before in my life they also you know have this honey barrel and I don't know if people look at my facebook they've seen the picture seen the picture yeah and people stick their head in this honey barrel or other people stick their heads and honey barrels and they apparently fall over and get drunk in the spirit and really honey in it no oh it's just it's just a barrel just named honey barrel yeah 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 Holy Spirit yeah very very strange but at the time before my eyes were open to the truth I thought you know they are having this experience with God that I'm not having 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 holy laughter [Applause] and I thought 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 I need I need God to touch me like they're touching like he's touching them later like that's what I thought at the time 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 it was very strange so I've had a lot of really crazy experiences at Bethel but ultimately I thought you know they're just having these experiences with the Lord that other people aren't having 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 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 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 or even other Christians don't have exactly yeah and it gives you access to a new realm to a different kind of spirituality and a different level of spirituality and so I wrote this post on Facebook about all of these things that I claimed that God said to me and at the time I literally thought that God said these things to me when they were my own thoughts but I was taught in this class that I had God thoughts that I had the mind of Christ and so I could literally think what God is thinking and so I put this Facebook post up and over the course of a few days it got over a hundred thousand shares it went viral and that made me feel really good I was writing you know this pride wave for for a minute but I had you know I had a lot of people who supported me and wanted to know how they can hear God's voice too and but there was one girl that came on and she was rebuking me for a month and one day she messaged me on Facebook and she sent me a film called American gospel and she asked me if I would watch it and I said yeah absolutely and in my prideful and arrogant heart I said you know I'm going to go in and watch this movie with the intention to rip it apart and I went in and I was going to rip it apart and 15 minutes into the movie I set down my pen and paper and I just began to listen 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 that took a hold of my heart and then it was like God just opened my eyes to the rest and after I was done watching the movie it literally felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest in the best way possible and at the same time I was sick to my stomach and remorse for my own sin but also the sin in the sinful lifestyle and beliefs that this movement not just Bethel but this movement as a whole yeah is leading millions and millions of people in the world all over the world into and so I was just so grieved 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 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 I don't know anything I felt like maybe I don't even know God am I really saved because this whole time 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 and so it was one of it was a moment in my life where I really other than my initial salvation I repented before God that night more than I have ever repented in my life and after that moment I was at a crossroads because I had to make a decision am I going to leave because now I know the truth and I would be justified in leaving and people would support me as I left 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 I had those two options in in in this one option of staying it wasn't going to be pretty and I knew that right and if I left I could take the easy way out but I prayed about it and I really felt led by the Holy Spirit Tuesday because I think that I could have departed peacefully and maintained the image of love with the people at Bethel 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 and the most loving thing that you can do for someone is rebuke them you know with biblical truth expose you know the darkness in the light in the light of Scripture and show someone who Jesus really is what the gospel really is because it's the power to save amen amen and in fact you know the same the same G the real Jesus Christ who said suffering out the little children for such as the kingdom of heaven yea also said to the Pharisees you generation of slimy snakes who warns you to flee from the wrath to come right yes so forth and so forth and you also know who are paraphrasing here yeah but so this is the part where it's important to kind of talk about your story just in the context because them again when you look at different culture structures whether it's the Trisha Jesus Christ of latter-day saints or Jehovah's Witnesses they have a policy for example of like disfellowshipped being where you're taught not to look at materials outside of you know what is taught and essentially you know you're taught there's a Thorat Arian structure in which they want to control their members and once you start asking questions that's where you get in trouble before I jump into that I just want to comment like your Testament what you're talking about is incredible just because there are so many people I've seen who are like we watched a documentary holy hell that was it was heartbreaking because there is these people who probably coal for 20 years and you saw them like their lives were just like destroyed and 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 they don't have the hope of Christ but what's amazing to see is that what others intend evil got for evil God meant it for good and you 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 but going into what happened when you obviously you started posting stuff yeah you know I was talking about earlier I was trying to make sense of it you're going to Bethel you're posting paul Washer stuff how near houses compute what was the whoo things you don't use this eat together washer in Bethel yeah explain to me like go into like what happened when you started sharing this stuff whoa what does it mean as a Christian yeah it talks about you giving in you know be able to give a reasonable defense be able to give an answer to those who ask and you know you were you're trying to figure this out and like you weren't you were genuine and just like what was talked about the attitude that was portrayed and or how did they deal with your situation 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 be SSM and then I think maybe a thousand people in third year and how many how many countries argue would you say because people it's not just America not just the United States yeah but all of the world talk about that real quickly yeah there's people and families that come here from all over the world just to go to Bethel and there's I think if I'm I could be wrong i think that there's about 50 countries represented just at the SSM which is unheard of I mean 50% of be SSM 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 mecca of Christianity and so people leave everything just to come to Bethel so yeah it's it's super crazy but did you want me to talk about you know their how I got kicked out or like the maybe we should rent this episode up and then get people prepped for the second episode we're gonna be more of a theological yeah yeah well we'll do is we'll do the fight well kind of talk about that and then we'll go in because it's including it's really important to because our show is cultish you deal with cults but it's extraordinarily important to define terms yeah just because it can be it's something that's very very misunderstood I want to make sure people we give instruction we're talking about cult ish characteristics kind of in relation to our show but we'll definitely get into that yeah I think it's a good segue well we'll end this episode in 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 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 and then now realizing based upon the documents themselves the testimony being given up there how did you start start to work through that theologically yeah well how do you start to see that there's something really really wrong here yeah all right cool so we'll do that so this is the end of cult ish episode one defecting from Bethel and so if you guys are we want to get your feedback and what you thought you know we're gonna get a lot of interesting follow up I'm sure for more you guys can go to apology of studios.com apol ogi a studios.com tons of other content there that's we can get all the other cult --is-- episodes and all the rest and find us on Facebook as well awesome Lindsey 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

Channel: Apologia Studios

Views: 638,247

Rating: 4.3634186 out of 5

Keywords: jeff durbin, apologia studios, cultish, cultish podcast, jeremiah roberts, bethel, bethel music, bethel worship, bethel tv, bethel kids, bethel exposed, bill johnson sermons, bill johnson 2019, bill johnson healing, bill johnson the war in your head, bill johnson holy spirit, bill johnson examined, lindsay davis, lindsay davis interview

Id: -TlYGF1_kJg

Length: 50min 6sec (3006 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/NomadicXian]

This is a solid podcast when they have good people on it

[u/confusedobelisk]

Inreresting to hear cults discussed by such religious people, they have a very different view of cults than I and seem to feel the same about them, but for different reasons

[u/Blueskybreeze94]

Cultish is SUCH a good podcast. I recommend all of their episodes on Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, the New Age movement, and their latest ones on the Word of Faith and New Thought.