Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 220. A Story Of Spiritual Manipulation - Jim Jones and Peoples Temple - Part 4

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220. A Story Of Spiritual Manipulation - Jim Jones and Peoples Temple - Part 4 · 4-Freedom Podcast

0:03
The morning after the massacre, a few survivors emerged from the
0:06
jungle, people who had hidden during the chaos or been away on
0:10
assignments. Their testimonies are haunting.
0:13
Odell Rhodes states that there were mothers running, trying to
0:17
hide their children, but the guards brought them back.
0:21
Haitians, Thrash said. When I woke up, it was silent,
0:25
no voices. I stepped outside and the whole
0:29
world was dead, Tim Carter said. Jim Jones didn't just kill those
0:35
people, he killed pieces of us who survived.
0:41
Survival for many didn't feel like escape, felt like guilt,
0:45
confusion. And many reported and have said
0:48
today that trauma has lasted decades, if not their entire
0:53
lifetime. The world would ask, how could
0:57
this happen? How did so many follow one man?
1:01
But the survivors knew the truth.
1:04
It didn't start with poison, it started with manipulation.
1:14
For freedom set me free. Not for change, not for guilt,
1:17
not for Pharisee Grace. Lift the flame now I'm puffing.
1:21
Peace signals and victory justified.
1:23
Released. Welcome to the For Freedom
1:27
podcast. This podcast exists to bring the
1:30
freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with
1:34
everyday issues. I ain't.
1:36
Saved by dress codes, not by what I eat.
1:38
I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head
1:40
to feet. No tally of tradition.
1:42
No man made code. Blood bought my freedom.
1:45
Now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see
1:47
smoke rings rise, But my prey still ascends Past the legalist
1:51
cries. Christ plus nothing.
1:53
That's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws
1:56
and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting
1:59
with Saints. Slipping grace from the bottle.
2:01
No room for face. I like one for liberty.
2:04
Toast to the king. Every ash of sermon.
2:06
Death has lost its sting for freedom.
2:09
He set me free. Not for change, not for guilt,
2:12
not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame.
2:15
Now I'm puffing peace, cigars and victory.
2:17
Justified release for freedom. He set me free.
2:21
Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee grace.
2:25
Let the flame now I'm puffing beat cigars and victory.
2:28
Justified released let grace begin for freedom.
2:32
He set me free, not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee
2:36
grace. Let the flame now I'm.
2:38
Puffing now, here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett
2:41
Martin. Welcome back to the show today.
2:45
Thank you for joining us in this wonderful series that we've been
2:49
talking through. What a great day it is to serve
2:52
the Lord bread. At the time of this recording,
2:54
it is Holy Week. It is our time, as I'm sure you
2:57
have been reflecting of your Israel trip just as I have this
3:01
week. Thinking about the places that
3:03
we went as we lead up to Golgotha, Calvary, and the
3:08
Garden Tomb this weekend as we celebrate the resurrection of
3:11
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
3:14
Brett, how have you been doing? Today's April 1st as we're
3:18
recording this April Fool's Day. How are things with you, my
3:20
friend? Man, things are going great.
3:23
Things are going great. In fact, you're talking about
3:26
Israel and our trip. Of course, you know, I showed
3:29
some pictures this past Sunday of, you know, our trip and
3:33
things like that, Shared it with the folks.
3:36
And man, it's like you said, it's Easter time.
3:39
You know, we, we can, you know, got to be careful saying that
3:43
word. Easter.
3:43
We don't want people to think we're talking about Ishitar, but
3:47
but we won't have none of that junk.
3:50
But you know, Resurrection Sunday is coming up.
3:52
It's always my favorite time of year.
3:55
We've talked about this before, but on Palm Sunday, I do the
3:58
Lord's Supper. It's just I, I do the Lord's
4:01
Supper about four times a year. Palm Sunday is one of them.
4:05
Just a good time for our our church family to get together.
4:08
I messed up a little bit Sunday. My piano player, I sing the same
4:13
hymn after every Lord's Supper. And my piano player, she's used
4:18
to doing the doxology while I do the family of God.
4:22
And she played the wrong music and it made me forget what hymn
4:26
I'm supposed to sing. And so my wife had to remind me
4:29
from the Pew what song I was going to sing.
4:32
And so then we had to do acapella.
4:35
But bless God, it was a good day.
4:36
It was a good day in the House of God.
4:38
And so our Holy Week's, Holy Week's going good right now.
4:42
Yeah, we did. We changed some things up this
4:44
year. We did our Easter egg hunt on
4:46
this past Sunday, Palm Sunday, and just had a great time with
4:50
the kids. Normally we do it on Saturday.
4:52
We moved it to the Sunday before Easter just to alleviate some of
4:55
that hectic Easter weekend. Easter weekend can be crazy busy
4:59
anyways with our sunrise service and everything else, so we did
5:04
that. I think it was a good move for
5:05
us. It was really well.
5:06
We're going to be doing communion this week and it's
5:08
going to be a great time. Did, I don't know if we talked
5:12
about this on the podcast or off the podcast, but do you remember
5:15
telling me that there were some churches that had a tradition
5:20
where they not only did a graveyard service, but the
5:22
family stood on their family's graves.
5:25
Yeah, I don't know if we talked about that last week or not, but
5:27
man, that, yeah, I mentioned it today.
5:28
Yeah, they go and they stand on their graves at 7:00 in the
5:32
morning and they have a sunrise service and they're standing on
5:36
their dead in the graveyard. So our last choir practice, I
5:41
was, you know, I'm, I'm in the choir, so I'm a pastor that's in
5:44
the choir. And so we have little lull in
5:46
between songs. And I told everybody in the
5:49
choir of that and they looked at me and was like, Oh yeah, man,
5:52
we used to do that too. We got here, we go out here and,
5:55
and not on graveyard and stand on the graves and we was out
5:59
there one day we had an interim pastor and his son about 17
6:02
years old was standing on the grave and he locked his knees
6:06
and it passed out. And so they were sharing some
6:10
some war stories and standing on the graves at Rocky Point.
6:14
Wow, that is incredible. Brett, You're part of living
6:16
history there. I love it.
6:18
Oh, man. Hey, April Fool's Day is a day.
6:21
And so I was this morning getting ready in the shower and
6:24
I was, I had this idea that came in my mind and I said, Ally, I
6:27
want you to do this. I want you to walk into the
6:29
living room. Kids are getting ready for
6:32
school because I get up early on Wednesdays and go to the middle
6:34
school. I said, go in there, fall down
6:37
and act like you broke your leg and just start screaming in
6:39
pain. See how they react.
6:41
Are they going to act with empathy?
6:42
They can act with like laughter. What what are they going to do?
6:46
And she so I get out, I'm getting ready.
6:47
She said, James, I don't think I can do it.
6:49
I think I'm going to I would laugh too much, like I wouldn't
6:51
be able to keep a straight face. I said, OK, I'll do it.
6:53
So I get ready. I walk out there and they're not
6:55
in the living room. Like where are they at?
6:57
Where are these kids at? They're outside.
6:59
We bought them new bikes because we're about to go camping.
7:01
They're outside riding their bikes in the driveway at like 6
7:04
O clock in the morning. It was the coolest thing ever.
7:06
And so I'm getting my coffee ready and Jade comes in and she
7:09
said my steer, my my handlebars not working right.
7:12
So I went out there and I tightened up and I told Ali I'm
7:13
going to do it outside with them since they're outside.
7:16
So they're all standing there and I go to turn to walk up my
7:18
steps to the porch, to go into the house, and I just kick the
7:22
steps. So they hear the noise and I
7:23
just fall down. I grab my ankle and I'm
7:26
screaming. I'm hollering.
7:28
My ankle, my ankle. I think I broke it.
7:30
I think I broke it. Jade and Brody immediately.
7:32
And they run to me. They're trying to figure out
7:34
what's going on. Jade darts inside, straight to
7:37
Mom. Mom, Mom, Mom.
7:39
Dad's falling. He's hurt himself.
7:41
Brody's screaming in the background.
7:43
No, no, 1110. No one one.
7:46
So they're screaming. They all come out.
7:48
They come to check on me. Allies, are you OK?
7:50
OK, I can grab my ankle. I'm like, I'm writhing in pain.
7:53
I go, I think I'm healed. April Fool's Day, all good.
7:56
And I stand up and Brody is just standing there.
7:59
Like, why does a ghost looking at me like, how dare you do
8:03
that? He's grabbing his heart.
8:05
He's like, I'm having a heart attack.
8:06
This is the greatest thing ever. So crew rule, Dad.
8:11
I don't ever do anything like that to my kids.
8:13
But oh, I just, it came to me this morning.
8:15
I had to do it. Bro there's a special place in
8:18
she hole for you for that when you when you get when you get on
8:22
the other side. You're going to have to spend 6
8:24
months in Tartars for that little stunt.
8:25
I'm. I'm sure I will, but it was well
8:28
worth it. Unfortunately my Ring camera
8:30
only got a little bit of it in all the audio, so I got I'm
8:35
going to clip that out and and send it to you here in a little
8:37
bit so you can see it so. Now you see I I forgot it was
8:40
April Fool so I haven't done anything cool like that but they
8:43
still young so. There's something.
8:45
There's something. Yeah.
8:46
I want to do it early, so I weren't even thinking about it
8:47
because I'm sure someone would have done something at school
8:50
and they hadn't known that it was April Fool's Day.
8:52
So I, yeah, I wanted to do that. So Brett, how are things other
8:58
than that, man? Are you doing well?
8:59
Man, things are going good. You just man, how are you liking
9:03
your tattoo? Man, I love it.
9:05
It's great. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
9:07
I was showing it to my buddy Bryson the other day and a
9:11
couple of my church members saw it and then they love it.
9:13
Man, it's been great. Yeah, I've been get, I've been
9:15
getting compliments. It's it's kind of opened up a
9:18
door, you know, it's kind of for me, it's, it's kind of like a
9:21
tool that people that wouldn't normally talk to me or come up
9:24
to me and ask me about it. And I'm got so if I see someone
9:28
with a tattoo, I can I compliment them, show me mine
9:31
and it opens up a conversation. I think it's been a a really
9:36
cool thing. I'll tell you this.
9:38
You know, JC just got that one on his on his arm to telesty the
9:43
three crosses and I I texted her, I'm messing on Facebook.
9:47
I said, man, you're not allowed to get no more cool tattoos
9:50
before me, so he's gonna have to stop that.
9:54
But yeah, I'm, I'm enjoying it too.
9:56
I can't wait for the next one one day.
9:57
Yeah, it's great. Love it, man.
9:59
Yeah, I'm excited about what we've got going on.
10:02
I had an interview just a couple of days ago from this, but weeks
10:05
ago from when this comes out about our book, the book I just
10:09
put out with From Brokenness to Freedom.
10:11
And my buddy Bryson, he runs a little radio radio place.
10:15
He's on staff there, radio station.
10:17
That's the word I was looking for.
10:19
And he had me come on and we just talked for like 30 minutes
10:22
unscripted. He's going to send me the audio.
10:24
I'm probably going to drop it on here as a podcast.
10:27
Just talking through a couple of things.
10:29
But yeah, it's it's a great time.
10:31
And I got to do that hanging out with him and looking forward to
10:35
hanging out with you, Brett, with the time of this recording,
10:38
man, we're like 2 months, less than two months away from being
10:43
in Orlando at our convention, the Southern Baptist Convention.
10:47
And what a great time that's going to be.
10:50
Wonderful time of fellowship the week before and then the week
10:53
of. Can't wait to go down there.
10:56
What is, let me ask you something before we move forward
10:59
with the show, something to just just just pop.
11:02
Can you think of the April Fools where somebody got you?
11:09
Let me, let me, let me. I'm going to give you a story,
11:11
give you time to think. If you think of 1 my, my youth
11:15
pastor growing up, he did this trick on us on April Fools.
11:19
He went into the boys bathroom. He was a trickster.
11:23
OK, This is in our Christian School at our church.
11:27
He went in to the boys bathroom and he drained the water out of
11:30
the toilet. He lined the toilet with Saran
11:33
Wrap and filled it up to the line with Mountain Dew and
11:37
dropped some Baby Ruth's in there and then brought the boys
11:40
in one at a time and pretended to grab them out of the toilet.
11:43
When I tell you, shock and awe was on the face of of me and
11:49
these other classmates who were like, we thought we were going
11:52
to have to commit him. You know, that was, it was, it
11:55
was the craziest thing trick I'd ever been played on me in my
11:59
life. I mean, I thought the dude had
12:01
lost his mind. Wow, no, I I've never been
12:04
gotten on April Fool's our first year of marriage, Allison
12:10
messaged her mom on April 1st. We were about to buy a house and
12:16
she'd been begging us to get pregnant and have a baby and
12:19
Allison just text her and said hey, I got some news for you
12:21
later. That's all she said.
12:23
Got some news for you. And her mom, like went crazy was
12:27
like, we're I'm going to get a pregnancy announcement.
12:30
Or maybe she told her we were pregnant.
12:31
I can't remember what it what it was.
12:33
And then she was like, yeah, we we just put an offer on the
12:36
House or something. And her mom was like all let
12:38
down because we weren't pregnant.
12:40
She thought we were pregnant. And she was like, you know, it's
12:42
April Fools. We expect I'm not going to like,
12:45
I think she just let her own that, but I can't remember
12:47
exactly. That was like 14 years ago.
12:49
But no, I've never never been gotten by one.
12:51
I'm sure someday someone's going to get me big slip on my desk or
12:55
something. And then, you know, maybe that's
12:56
not going to be an April Fool's Day there.
12:58
That may be real. I'll take well, Yep, Yep.
13:02
Well, I'll tell you what, another thing that we've got
13:04
coming up here in the near future is we're going to we're 4
13:08
Freedom podcast is going back to Nicaragua and we're going to
13:11
have a chance to put on a pastor's conference.
13:16
About 100 Nicaraguan pastors are going to be coming in and me and
13:20
you're going to be speaking to them and and teaching them some
13:22
things. We've got some gifts for them in
13:24
addition to the normal ministry that we do down there.
13:27
And our church right now is raising funds to go on this
13:30
missions trip, and it'd be really cool for us to get down
13:34
there again. I'm looking forward to it.
13:36
Yeah, right now it's me, my wife and my son that are going.
13:39
I had a couple that were going to go and their schedules just
13:42
didn't allow them to go. So it's just us going this year.
13:44
So it's going to be a great time.
13:46
Super pumped about that and I've been talking to Lee a little bit
13:49
and so I can't wait for that to happen.
13:53
And then as always, if you haven't checked on our cigar
13:57
line, check it out. Had been having some great
14:00
things going on there. Had a buddy of mine in Tennessee
14:03
that reached out to me and said, hey, I've been been dabbling in
14:06
it a little bit and I heard you got a line to let me know.
14:09
And so he said he did a one of the deacons of the lights of the
14:11
chocolate Maduro last night and it was great.
14:14
He said it was awesome. And so excited to hear about
14:17
that. Brett, there's one other thing I
14:19
was going to say, and I think it just lost it, and I can't
14:23
remember what it was, but it was on the tip of my mind.
14:28
But yeah, yeah, it was right there.
14:31
But yeah, other than that. Oh, here it is.
14:33
Next week, we've got a special episode coming to you.
14:37
We're going to be interviewing James Spurgeon, Charles
14:40
Spurgeon's son from Texas. Not Charles Spurgeon's son, but
14:46
from the Texas Baptist Crucible. We had him.
14:47
Come on, last year when we were talking about Bob Jones, Bob
14:51
Jones, Bob Gray, and he's going to come on and and he started a
14:55
podcast now. So we're going to talk about his
14:57
podcast. We're going to talk about Bob
14:59
Gray and Scott Gray and all of the crazy stuff that's going on
15:01
there. And so if you want to tune in
15:04
next week, that'd be great as well.
15:07
I'm looking forward to, we've just got a couple of weeks left
15:09
As for this season before we take our summer break.
15:12
And we've got some great couple of episodes lined up before we
15:16
break for the summer. But man, we are excited about
15:19
this season of the podcast and what Lord's doing.
15:22
Absolutely. I would rather be anywhere else
15:25
than here with it, with James on the podcast, and we got a lot of
15:29
exciting things coming down the Pike.
15:31
Stay with us. Yeah, absolutely.
15:33
Let's jump into episode today. Brett, I opened up with some
15:36
quotes from survivors. Man, as you listen to those
15:40
quotes and as people, as our listeners have listening to
15:43
those quotes as well, you can see and feel the cost of
15:48
manipulation. You can understand these are not
15:51
just victims, but these are people who lived their lives in
15:55
this area, in this moment, man. They've got stories, they've got
15:59
hurt, they've got difficulties, trauma that they're going to
16:03
deal with for the rest of their life.
16:06
Some of these people were young babies and children, but some
16:10
were in the problem of their life that were, I mean, just
16:12
ready to fight the world. And now all of a sudden through
16:15
this manipulation that we're going to look at here in a
16:17
little bit, was just devastating to see what what this one man,
16:23
Jim Jones, was able to do with the authority that he had taken
16:27
from these people. James, manipulation is just it.
16:31
It isn't just harmful. Manipulation is just absolutely
16:36
devastating. Manipulation actually rewires
16:40
people's identities. It takes years and years to
16:45
recover from it and some people never ever fully recover it.
16:49
You're you're from it, you're completely changed.
16:52
You're different person because one of the reasons why it's so
16:56
devastating is because. You have to.
16:59
Relearn what's true. You have to relearn what's safe.
17:05
People have to find themselves. I have to learn who they really
17:09
are. You know, I've, I've, I've had
17:12
this journey in, in manipulation, not to this extent
17:16
of Jim Jones, but you just have to it.
17:18
It just rewires your brain and you have to come out the other
17:23
side and take some time and untangle the tangled mess that
17:27
is your mind and it's it's a devastating process.
17:32
Yeah, when you said that, it reminded me of the picture that
17:35
you've seen. I think it's Charlie Sheen where
17:37
he's got all the the the whiteboard with the different
17:40
lines going to all the different things, trying to prove the
17:42
conspiracy. That's how your mind begins to
17:45
happen, right? You, you're thinking one way and
17:47
all of a sudden it just gets jumbled up and and you're having
17:49
to reprogram how everything works and how everything goes in
17:53
your life. And and you know, that's why we
17:55
have to understand what manipulation is, not just
17:57
understand the historically right, not just taking a an
18:00
example of something that happened back in the early
18:03
eighteen 1900s, I'm sorry, later 1900s and taking this example or
18:09
the examples that we've used from Jack Howes and other
18:11
independent fundamental baddest movement people.
18:14
But we have to understand in our in our own relationships that
18:17
understand that our churches in the leadership that you're
18:20
around in the environment that you're in and begin to see, OK,
18:24
is this person manipulating me or do they really just care
18:28
about what's going on and it and they just want to to see what's
18:32
best for me. Oftentimes when we go down these
18:35
rabbit holes, it's like this with anything, right?
18:38
Once you see something is the enemy, it's always the enemy.
18:42
Everything is manipulation. When you see manipulation done
18:45
wrong, right? Once, when people begin to see
18:48
that Israel is the enemy, everything is Israel's fault,
18:50
right? 911 was Israel.
18:52
These things happened. It was because of Israel.
18:54
Like it's always going to be Israel's fault.
18:57
Killed Charlie Kirk. That's the new thing right now.
19:00
Yeah. So, So what happens is we get
19:02
this tunnel vision and we see everything to that one lens.
19:05
Now, not everything is manipulation, but we need to be
19:09
aware of what it looks like and how that begins to affect our
19:12
life, not just from a historical idea, but from a broader
19:18
perspective. And so we're going to sort of go
19:20
through this pattern and, and walk through today this, this
19:24
sort of 10 phase that that Jim Jones used and look at this and,
19:28
and give some, some good feedback for, for how you can
19:31
recognize these things. Here's what our audience needs
19:34
to understand is that Jim Jones didn't just pull this off in one
19:38
singular moment. There wasn't one big thing that
19:41
happened. He followed A predictable,
19:43
repeatable pattern of manipulation.
19:47
This is 1 used by narcissists, abusers, corrupt leaders
19:52
everywhere. Use this process.
19:55
And here's the pattern. Number one, the first step is
19:58
love bombing. We've heard this term before
20:01
love on me. And this is what Jones did.
20:03
Jones offered belonging. He offered family, he offered
20:08
purpose. He he made marginalized people
20:11
feel sane. It's, you know, the classic, you
20:14
know, you're, you're safe with me.
20:18
And, and it kind of felt like unconditional love, but actually
20:22
it was a hook. That's how people get their
20:25
hooks into you. They, they, they create
20:28
dependency with love bombing. And I've heard this term many
20:32
times. If you ever want to jump in,
20:34
just please do so. The next one is isolation.
20:37
Yeah, for love bombing, I'd love to, I'd love to talk about that
20:40
just for a minute, because love bombing it, it looks great on
20:45
the outside, right? You, you want to care for
20:47
people. You want people to care for you.
20:49
And so just because someone loves you doesn't mean they're
20:52
love bombing you. Love bombing is simply the
20:55
explanation that they are using this love as a tool to take over
21:02
what you see valuable. And So what did Jim Jones do?
21:06
He said you don't have a family, let me give you a family.
21:09
You don't have a means of income.
21:10
Let me give you a means of income.
21:11
Let me allow you to work for the ministry and I'm going to pay
21:14
for you. But now you're going to have to
21:16
do everything for me. And all of a sudden the person
21:19
began to disappear. And so love can turn into this,
21:25
but love does not equal manipulation.
21:27
Oftentimes people, because someone made them feel
21:30
appreciative, now all of a sudden they never want to be
21:32
feel appreciative because they're afraid that they'll be
21:34
turned into a manipulated person.
21:36
And so it's drawing this boundary going back to our very
21:40
first episode in this series with Jim Neuheiser having those
21:45
good boundaries to still accept the love but not allow the love
21:49
to control you. And that's what Jim Jones was
21:51
able to do through this love bombing, was allowing this love
21:54
to control every aspect. Do you not care that I, I'm
21:57
taking care of you? Do you not care that I've taken
22:00
care of your family? Look what I've provided for you.
22:02
You had nothing. You have no one.
22:04
And so now love is the tool that he's using to manipulate every
22:09
action that they're going through.
22:11
So. Right, exactly.
22:13
You know, true, true love as Christ describes is selfless,
22:19
selfless love. You actually love the other
22:21
person more than you love yourself.
22:23
That's the new commandment he gave us this type of love and
22:28
the love bombing, it's, it's self-serving love because it's
22:32
not genuine. It's a means to an end.
22:35
It's a method of control. People are aware of what they're
22:39
doing when they're doing it. And you got to be really careful
22:43
because that's one of the, you know, this is this is an easy
22:46
way to get pulled into this process of manipulation.
22:50
And so you just always have to be.
22:52
And it's a shame. You have to, you have to do
22:54
that. You have to be weary of somebody
22:56
showing you affection. But you do have to just go into
22:59
every situation with your eyes open.
23:02
The next step is isolation. OK, at first it's emotional
23:07
isolation. Then it turns to physical
23:10
isolation. You separate people from
23:13
dissenting voices and then they cling to the manipulator and,
23:18
and the point is, you know, you, you take a person and you make
23:23
their world smaller and smaller and smaller, and it prevents
23:28
anything that goes against the narrative from reaching that
23:32
person. And, you know, and when you
23:35
isolate a person and they have no other voice to listen to,
23:40
then they're going to depend on the only voice that's speaking
23:43
to them, and that is the manipulator.
23:45
And that's how isolation works. Yeah, that's that's one thing
23:48
that you know, isolation does. When you when you don't have
23:53
someone to bounce ideas off of and you don't have an outside
23:56
voice or an opinion, all of a sudden you begin to only trust
24:01
the one and singular voice that you have, which is what Jim
24:03
Jones wanted. He wanted them to only go to him
24:06
and trust him. He was the God like figure on
24:09
the throne sitting there like that.
24:11
Moses, right? Moses, when you look at Moses in
24:13
the Old Testament, he, he enjoyed everyone coming to him
24:17
and asking him for advice and his father-in-law can and said,
24:20
you can't do this. You're going to kill yourself.
24:22
You need other people, you need other voices.
24:24
And there was some resistance, but he listened to his father.
24:27
He understood that there was valued in that shared
24:29
leadership. And we can oftentimes get stuck
24:33
in that. Like I said before, tunnel
24:34
vision and only having one voice or one idea.
24:38
Brett #3 is the destructive empathy.
24:41
And often times this is what happens is Jones appears
24:44
compassionate while slowly gaining emotional leverage.
24:48
He begins to use the things that he's done.
24:51
Have not not cared for your parents?
24:53
Have I not cared for you? And all of a sudden he uses
24:56
empathy or sympathy to destroy everything that's around them so
25:02
that he can have more and more control.
25:05
And so he, like I said before, in one of the cold openings, he
25:10
would actually be able to like make himself hurt and feel bad
25:14
in front of people. And he would, even when he would
25:18
sense the one, one person said this when he would be preaching,
25:22
if he, since the crowd wasn't in it, he would have this ability
25:25
to fake a heart attack or to fake an injury just so people
25:29
would feel sorry for him, so that he would gain more
25:32
emotional credit with them. And so he uses his empathy to
25:37
destroy people. Right.
25:39
And he would, he would even, and this is another way of looking
25:42
at it, but he wouldn't make people feel grateful for his
25:46
attention. It's like, and he would, and
25:50
that's just twisting, heightening his grip on their
25:54
loyalty. Next thing he would do would
25:57
would instill fear. He would instill fear into
26:00
people, and this came in the form of threats, perceived
26:04
enemies. Imagine conspiracies and
26:07
punishments. And that's what fear does.
26:10
Fear binds people tighter than affection.
26:13
Fear is the glue. And, you know, fear makes us,
26:19
you know, throw out love and reason and things like that.
26:23
And he was a master at creating fear in someone.
26:28
And. And as the guy standing behind
26:29
the pulpit, as the guy standing with the mic, he could tell the
26:33
stories to manipulate people to fear him.
26:36
And that was like his greatest tool that he used.
26:39
Yeah. And.
26:40
You got to remember this was before Google Chad GBT.
26:43
He, he didn't have the ability to say something and be fact
26:46
checked on the moment. And so he could say whatever he
26:49
wanted, right? The Nazis are coming after us.
26:51
They came after the Jews. They're coming after us.
26:54
You know, whatever he wanted, he could say.
26:57
And there was no ability that they didn't have any Internet.
26:59
They were isolated. They didn't have TV there in
27:02
Guyana. And so that in Jonestown, they
27:04
were completely isolated from everything.
27:06
So he was able to instill whatever fear he wanted.
27:09
And then on top of that, after he's got the fear, after he's
27:13
isolated them, he now begins to overload their brain.
27:16
We call it cognitive overload, where he begins to give them
27:19
long working hours. He begins to give them sleep
27:22
deprivation, constant noise, information control, and people
27:27
stop thinking critically when they're exhausted.
27:29
When I read through that, when I begin to think through that, my
27:33
mind goes to The Walking Dead, right?
27:35
I don't know if you ever watch The Walking Dead, but me and my
27:37
wife, we watched every episode. But when they they take, I mean,
27:43
I forgot the guy's name, but when they take Darryl and they
27:46
lock him up and they play the noise, they're in the place and
27:50
they turn the lights on, they leave everything on and they
27:53
sleep. Deprive him to break him.
27:54
That's what this is doing without necessarily breaking
27:57
them. He's just commanded them to work
27:59
and he's overloading everything that they ever think or can
28:02
imagine in their life. Was that before after terminus?
28:07
That was after Terminus. OK, so I really, I really watch
28:11
it up until Terminus. I really, I really, I quit
28:14
watching after Glenn died. I'm, I'm, I'm one of those on
28:18
that bandwagon. It was after Glenn.
28:20
It was after Glenn died. OK, yeah.
28:22
So you know, but this is you're, what you're saying is true about
28:25
cognitive overload. You know, when you're too tired
28:28
to question, too tired to resist, too tired to analyze the
28:33
situation that you're in. You know, why do you think at we
28:38
see these Colts, these caricatures, they got these guys
28:42
out there working in the field, working in a garden, you know,
28:46
making jams and jellies and stuff like that.
28:49
And it's to wear them out. It's to keep them exhausted, to
28:51
keep them, keep them controlled. And man, I know we're going to
28:57
talk about this a little later in the episode, but when you
29:00
bring this in the modern context, especially what me and
29:04
you have been through, I mean, with churches keeping us, you
29:08
know, at own the church property seven days a week, every day
29:12
you're going to the church, Sunday to Sunday, you're own the
29:15
church property. And it's just really shows these
29:21
tactics across the board. Next, we've got public
29:25
confession and shame. Every weakness confessed became
29:29
a tool for control. And when you when you, when you
29:34
turn people's vulnerability into leverage and, and, and shame
29:39
them into submission and shame them into obedience, it can also
29:43
be a great tool of manipulation. Yeah, And if you listen to it's
29:48
a very long podcast, but it's if you listen to The Martyr Maid by
29:51
Darrell Cooper, he goes into depth in one of his episodes
29:55
where he talks about how Jim Jones really uses this control
29:58
method. And one guy, I think he got
30:01
caught raping a little girl or something inside the compound.
30:05
They brought him in and they began beating him black and
30:08
blue. They began using this as a
30:10
public shaming, as a public confession.
30:13
And Jim Jones is sitting on his throne allowing it to happen.
30:16
And then all of a sudden Jim Jones steps in.
30:18
Jim Jones is the savior who stops the beating and said he's
30:22
had enough. Now we're going to allow him to
30:25
have restoration. And so he used the public shame.
30:28
He used the confession that was made or the act that was called.
30:32
But then now he is the guy that comes in and he's the savior.
30:35
He's I just took care of you. Now remember this, Remember
30:39
this, I took care of you. I, they could have killed you,
30:42
but I allowed it to stop. Now be loyal to me and all of a
30:45
sudden, and then there will be times where he would be the one
30:48
that would bring things up and then he would be the one that
30:51
would allow the persecution to happen and then he would be the
30:54
one to stop it. So he's controlling everyone of
30:56
the narratives. He's the judge, jury,
30:58
executioner, the the person that's given the, the, the
31:01
president is giving the pardon like he's all of it wrapped in
31:04
one. And so he uses these confession
31:06
and shame moments to even drive home even more how much he can
31:10
control everything. Then he goes into this US versus
31:14
them rhetoric, right? We are the right ones.
31:18
The world is evil. They're coming after us.
31:21
We're righteous. The if you leave, you're
31:23
betraying me. You're betraying your family.
31:26
Have we not cared for you? Have we not loved you?
31:29
All of a sudden? This is the constant feeling and
31:31
the constant preaching that's given is this family is the
31:35
greatest thing ever. Why would you leave this?
31:37
Right. And when you frame loyalty is
31:39
righteousness and departure's betrayal, you make leaving feel
31:44
not only dangerous, but you make leaving feel morally wrong.
31:48
And you know you're guilted into in disdain.
31:52
And that's what this this rhetoric does.
31:54
Next step is dehumanization. Dissenters were traitors.
31:59
Reporters were enemies. Children belong to the cause.
32:04
And, and this is just a way of, of stripping people of their
32:08
individuality, stripping people of, of their humanity.
32:12
You look at other people not as humans, but as less than you as
32:18
as less than the group, and it's very dangerous.
32:22
Yeah, anytime someone takes away our humanity and makes us
32:26
robots, basically is what he's doing.
32:28
It allows any little thing to happen, like what we're going to
32:31
look at with the big ask in the very moment because it you're
32:35
just a you're just a palm. You're you're nobody, you're
32:37
there's, there's no value to your life.
32:39
And so, you know, everyone's either an enemy, a traitor, or
32:43
you're here for the for the long haul.
32:46
Then he began to create crisises, creating crisis.
32:50
This was something that he did to create these imaginary
32:54
made-up emergencies to justify the extreme measures.
32:58
We talked about it in depth with the white Knights and he
33:01
prepared them to prepare themselves for their very own
33:05
death. Whether that be death by the
33:08
people coming in to take away the town or the way that he
33:14
installed it with the drinking of the different drinks in order
33:18
to say it was poison. But I saved you.
33:20
You guys passed the test. The ultimate test of loyalty is
33:24
is what he is basically doing in this moment.
33:27
You, you actually normalize extreme obedience, you take, you
33:32
make these fake crisises and you just get so used to it and you
33:36
get calloused to it and it just becomes a normal way of life
33:41
after a while. And, and that's one of the ways
33:44
that he controls you. And then 10, we've got the final
33:48
ask. After years of conditioning, the
33:51
unthinkable becomes obedience. This isn't insanity.
33:55
It's just strategy. He this whole time, it's not
34:01
random. The things that he did, they
34:03
were, they were, they were calculated, they were thought
34:06
out. It was processed.
34:08
He knew what he was doing the whole time, all leading up to
34:12
that fateful day when the when the when the Kool-aid came out.
34:17
And that's what it all been leading to.
34:20
And Jim Jones knew what he was doing the entire time.
34:26
So this is where it hits home for us, like Jonestown that
34:31
we've talked about. It's it, it's an extreme example
34:35
of the pattern, but the pattern isn't.
34:38
It's like the pattern's normal that we see this pattern all the
34:43
time. These are the same tactics used
34:46
today by narcissists, by abusers, by corrupt leaders
34:51
everywhere to control people. And reading through this and
34:55
listening to us speak about them, especially if you come out
35:00
of a cult now, if you come out out of an extreme IFB type
35:04
background, you can see where your leader, your man of God,
35:10
used these in your life. Yeah, one of the things that Jim
35:18
Neuheiser said in his book and, and, and How to say no is, is so
35:23
valuable because manipulation thrives anywhere that truth is
35:28
taken away, right, Luther, Martin Luther said the truth
35:32
will set you free. That was what led him to lead
35:35
the Catholic Church. The truth is what sets us free
35:38
in our lives. And anytime we are in a in an
35:41
area of our life where truth is replaced with something,
35:45
manipulation will quickly follow, right when when truth is
35:49
replaced with a personality. Look at this big shiny figure
35:53
who's bombastic, who's in energetic, who's leading people
35:57
and all of a sudden he's the one leading everything.
36:00
Truth doesn't really matter, right?
36:02
We're we're throwing truth out the door.
36:03
You can take this example not only with Jim Jones, but with
36:07
LDS and the, with Joseph Smith and, and any of these, these big
36:11
figures who take over the personality relationships that
36:14
we go through, friendships, families, when that is the main
36:18
priority and truth is thrown out the door and it doesn't matter
36:22
what the truth is. These are the things that
36:23
matter. Manipulation begins to follow
36:27
spiritual leaders or even church systems, right?
36:30
When the system of the church is the main priority and the truth
36:34
of scripture is not the main priority, all of a sudden
36:37
manipulation can happen. But I'm going to tell you a
36:39
story real quick of a church at a guy up in Batcave, North
36:45
Carolina. In Batcave, I, I heard this
36:49
story second hand from one of my former pastors.
36:51
He was with a, a mentoring group and the, the pastor had been
36:56
there about a year and they had been working through some
36:59
things. And there was a message.
37:02
He was sitting at a table at deacons meeting and Deacon was
37:05
sitting on the other side of the table.
37:07
And he was sort of had his arms crossed and wasn't really paying
37:10
attention to anything. And the pastor finally looked at
37:13
him and said that brother soon. So, you know, is everything OK?
37:15
He said he reached into his shirt pocket and he pulled out a
37:19
a CD or DVD and slid it across the table and said this is what
37:23
our church needs to get back to. It was a preaching video from
37:26
like 10 years ago or something. And he said, well, you know,
37:30
we're doing things a little different now.
37:31
And the Deacon stood up and said we need to do things the way the
37:36
bylaws say we need to do it. And he goes, well, that's good.
37:41
But he said, I just want to do things the way the Bible says we
37:45
should do it. And out of the deacon's mouth,
37:48
that's what he said. I don't care what the Bible
37:50
says, I care what the bylaws say, right?
37:54
The church system, the church system of how we do things is
37:59
now the most privacy thing. The truth doesn't matter anymore
38:02
because we've got a system that's going to tell us what to
38:04
do. They looked at it and said, if
38:06
that's what we're going to do, if we're going to follow the
38:08
bylaws more than we're going to follow the Bible, I'm probably
38:11
not the best pastor for you. And, and a couple months later,
38:14
he resigned and was out of there.
38:15
But that's what can happen, right?
38:17
The the men create the bylaws to create what they want to be
38:21
done. And that's going to dictate
38:23
everything. The system now replaces the
38:25
truth. I'll tell you one of these
38:29
tactics was used on me. It was the public confession and
38:34
change. And what had happened was I was
38:38
on staff at the church and I was told to lead the choir.
38:42
I'm not a music guy. I've never claimed to be a music
38:45
guy. I can't carry a tune in a 5
38:47
gallon bucket. But I was told to be the choir
38:50
director and I obeyed. And so I'm I'm leading the choir
38:54
and when prior practice is before the evening service, so
38:57
I'm up there leading the choir while people are coming in and
39:01
out of the back door, standing at the back.
39:03
So the choir practice has an audience.
39:06
And I have been struggling. But on this particular day, I
39:10
felt that we had hit a stride. I was asking opinions, people
39:16
were talking back, they were laughing, they were having a
39:19
good time. People were interjecting with
39:21
their ideas, they were talking to each other.
39:24
It was the first time in choir practice I had ever actually had
39:28
fun. Now, unbeknownst to me, the,
39:32
the, the pastor was standing in the back with the men of the
39:36
church. He couldn't have any deacons
39:38
because they were all divorced. And he was, you know, because
39:41
that was the rules of that church.
39:42
And so he's standing in the back at, at, you know, talking to the
39:46
men. And he was like, what do you see
39:48
up there? It took the men a minute to get
39:51
what he was getting at, but they caught what he was, what he was
39:54
trying to get them to say. And they said no control, right?
39:57
No, there's there's no control up there.
40:00
There's these, these are letting them do whatever they want to
40:02
do. So he called me into his office
40:05
later after the evening service or sometime that we can't
40:08
remember. And he said you're losing
40:11
control with that choir. And you, you, you know, we was.
40:15
And he told me about the men in the back standing back there
40:17
judging me and said, you need to go into that choir, stand in
40:21
front of them and you need to apologize for doing that and,
40:25
and you need to crack down on them.
40:28
And the next choir practice, it was the IT was awful.
40:31
I had to go in front of that choir.
40:33
I had to say, look, last time, let y'all talk, have fun.
40:37
Can't do that anymore. I'm in charge.
40:40
I'm the choir director. You need to listen to me.
40:42
These are the lines he told me to say and just sucked all the
40:46
air and all the joy out of the room.
40:49
Just being controlled, being shamed, being made to get up in
40:53
front of people, confess your sins.
40:56
And it was just an awful, awful situation.
40:58
So I can see glimmers of this in what I went through.
41:04
And you know, The thing is when we see people using thing using
41:07
these tools like guilt and fear and isolation, shame, emotional
41:12
leverage, spiritual authority, these tools are just used to
41:16
keep others dependent. And and the point is to bend
41:20
people's choices to someone else's control.
41:25
Yeah. And you know, Brett, I would
41:26
dare to say that there is not one person that if they could
41:30
stand today from Jonestown, they would say we saw what happening.
41:35
We knew what was going on. We knew.
41:36
We knew this was was the end game.
41:39
We knew this is what he had decided to do from day one when
41:42
he recruited us. They would all say to you, we
41:45
didn't know what was happening and the tool was too far gone
41:48
till we were too deep into it, until we were hundreds of
41:53
thousands of miles away in South America, Guyana, in this new
41:58
town with no communication, with no way to reach home.
42:02
There was no other people there. Jim Jones was getting all of my
42:07
Social Security, so there was nothing I could do.
42:09
I'd already signed my confessional way saying that he
42:12
could do or say whatever I wanted.
42:14
If I left, people would get would would leave and they would
42:17
get brought back and they would get beat.
42:18
And I don't want that to happen to me.
42:20
And they would all say they didn't see it happening until it
42:24
was too deep, until I was too far in, until it was too far in
42:27
to leave. And I didn't know another way
42:29
out. Right.
42:30
This is the, what we call in the theological or in the
42:34
psychological world, the Stockholm syndrome, right Where
42:37
the, the lady gets kidnapped from her family and the, the man
42:42
begins to abuse her sexually. And now all of a sudden she
42:45
becomes almost like I'm, I'm his wife.
42:49
I, there's no way out. This is my purpose in life
42:52
because they have been bought into the system of what's going
42:55
on. Exactly.
42:57
Jones didn't fool stupid people. He fooled trusting people who
43:01
are caring, loyal, willing to trust.
43:06
These are the people that he ended up pulling the wool over
43:09
and it's just really a shame at the end of the day.
43:13
What we want to do is we want to compare some of these things to
43:16
some scripture biblical parallels bring this into the
43:20
the the biblical realm and Scripture gives clear warnings
43:24
about leaders who manipulate In second Peter verses chapter 2
43:28
verses one through 3, it says there will be false teachers
43:31
among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies
43:36
and through covetousness. They will with feigned words,
43:41
with nice words, make you merchandises of you.
43:46
And so he begins to talk through second Peter says beware of
43:49
these things. Know that they're going to come
43:51
in. Know that there are false wolves
43:52
among you. Ephesians 414 says this carries
43:57
about with you every wind of doctrine, but the sleight of men
44:00
and cunning craftiness right there is this.
44:03
He's telling us. Paul is telling us there is a
44:05
craftiness of man that's going to come in and pull you away.
44:09
Romans 618 says by good words and fair speeches deceive the
44:15
heart of the simple. Jesus himself warned of this in
44:20
Matthew Chapter 7 verse 15. He says this.
44:23
Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing
44:29
but are truly wolves on the inside.
44:31
And we have to ask ourselves, we have to meditate in our hearts
44:34
and say, does the person in front of me truly care about who
44:37
I am and what I'm doing or they just using me for the sake of
44:41
what I can give to them? You see, Jones came and he used
44:45
the Bible in the beginning as a tool, as a tool to say I'm going
44:49
to be a preacher of truth and justice in the American way and
44:53
I'm going to rescue you. And by the end of his life, the
44:57
if you look at it, that was portions where he would take the
45:00
Bible and he would throw it against the wall and he would
45:02
jump on the Bible because he used it as a tool and there was
45:05
no value to it other than manipulating people.
45:08
Jesus, on the other hand, he came in and he used Scripture
45:12
from the Old Testament as truth. He looked at the Pharisees in
45:15
Mark Chapter 7 when they came to him and said, you, what are you
45:20
and your disciples doing? Why are you eating without
45:22
washing your hands? Didn't the law tell us to wash
45:24
our hands? And he would look at them and he
45:26
would say, Isaiah says that there are going to be some among
45:29
you who take the scripture and twist it.
45:31
But I'm telling you that nothing enters the body that's been
45:35
defiled. And, and so all of a sudden he
45:37
uses Scripture not to twist it or to manipulate it, but he uses
45:40
it as truth. And the difference between the
45:43
two, it may seem subtle, but it is so vastly different and it
45:49
changes everything that we can think or say or do because we
45:53
begin to use truth and the scripture versus the Scripture
45:57
as a tool. So Brett, let's contrast this
46:00
with Christ where Jones isolated people.
46:03
Jesus sent them back to his relationships.
46:07
Jones demanded loyalty. Jesus pushed them back to the
46:11
Father. So don't, don't just follow me,
46:13
go to the Father. Go and pray yourself.
46:16
Where Jones uses fear, Jesus looked at them and to his
46:19
disciples. And one of the most common
46:21
statements that Jesus says was do not be afraid.
46:25
Where Jones says fear, fear, fear.
46:27
The people were coming after us. The government's coming after
46:29
us. Everything's going to happen.
46:30
We're going to all die. Jones, he uses shame and he uses
46:35
this way to shame and and guilt them for Jesus looks and he
46:39
gives grace, right? I want you to imagine Jesus in
46:44
the moment where the woman was caught in adultery, she gets
46:46
brought to him and he takes the method of Jones that he begins
46:51
to shame this lady and, and join in with the Pharisees and say,
46:54
yeah, let's, let's stone her, let's kill her.
46:56
Let's get rid of this woman. We don't need her on the streets
46:58
anymore. But instead, Jesus looks her
47:00
with grace and compassion and care and begins to lovingly care
47:05
for her with grace. Where Jones made himself the
47:08
Savior, Jesus looked and said, I am the true Savior and I'm going
47:13
to lay down my life for you, Where Jones says you lay down
47:17
your life for me. Manipulation imprisons people.
47:21
And yet Jesus through the Gospel, sets us free, and to be
47:25
free indeed. Exactly.
47:28
You know, and while you were speaking, I thought about this,
47:31
I did a study on false teachers not too long ago.
47:35
And one interesting factoid that popped up in my research is it
47:39
every single New Testament book except for one warns of false
47:44
teachers. It is that prevalent false
47:47
teachers, false prophets. Every single book except for one
47:52
New Testament book warns of false teachers.
47:55
So we have to be aware of that. And Jesus does need to be our
47:59
example of what a true teacher is.
48:02
Jesus never manipulated anyone into following him.
48:06
He he confronted, he corrected, he loved man.
48:09
He never controlled his followers were trapped by guilt.
48:15
They they chose him freely. And James, I'm even reminded of
48:19
the story where all these people were following Jesus.
48:24
And then one day he up and said, you know what?
48:27
I got too many people following me because he knew their true
48:31
intention. He knew the heart of man.
48:32
He knew what was in them. He knew they followed him not
48:35
because they loved him and wanted to serve the Kingdom of
48:38
God, but because they ate the fish and they ate the bread and
48:41
they, you know, because they, they got the free filet of fish
48:44
sandwich. That's what they wanted.
48:46
They wanted more handouts. So he looked around them and
48:49
said, OK, you want to eat some bread, eat my flesh, drink my
48:53
blood. And people started looking
48:55
around like, man, what is what is going on here?
48:58
To the point it got it got so many people left that he turned
49:02
around and saw that it was only the 12 disciples left.
49:06
And he asked him, will he also leave me?
49:09
And, and Peter said, Lord, where else are we going to go?
49:12
You have the words to eternal life.
49:15
And, and so that was the thing about Jesus.
49:18
He didn't try to manipulate and guilt people.
49:21
He wanted people to to to follow him freely.
49:26
And if if somebody left, you know, they went out from us
49:29
because they were not of us that and that was his, you know, that
49:33
was Jesus's MO and he didn't try to force followers.
49:38
They followed freely of their own will.
49:41
Brett, I'm proud of you. You used the King James when you
49:43
quoted that just now. I really felt great.
49:45
I felt like the Spirit was really coming down.
49:48
We get the power of God, brother.
49:50
That's right. Yeah, Jesus, He appeared to the
49:52
conscience. He he looked at him and he said,
49:54
this is what I want you to do. He never used emotional
49:58
cohortion that we see often times in even modern day people
50:02
and preachers. Jim Jones, as we're looking at
50:05
his life, they, they used emotional manipulation or
50:08
emotional cohortion to say I want you to do this because it's
50:13
going to benefit me. Jesus just simply said, if you
50:17
want to follow me, sell everything you got.
50:20
Hey, look at the rich young ruler.
50:22
They said, if you want to come follow me, go and sell
50:25
everything and come back and and the man looked at him and said,
50:28
I can't do that. He he appealed to his
50:30
conscience. And yet Jesus is, is using this
50:33
in a way to say, I'm not going to manipulate you.
50:36
I just want you to come and follow me for your true motives
50:39
as you just said. If we learn anything from
50:48
Jonestown, it's this manipulation grows in shadows.
50:54
It grows in the dark. It thrives where there is no
50:59
accountability, no transparency, no honest questions, no dissent
51:05
allowed. If none of these things exist,
51:09
even the most well-intentioned people can get swept up into it.
51:14
Here are the red flags of a manipulative system.
51:20
Number one, you're told not to question leadership.
51:24
Next, your identity becomes tied to the group.
51:29
Then leaders claim exclusive truth or special revelation.
51:34
Information is then controlled. Fear is used to keep you
51:39
obedient. Leaving is considered betrayal.
51:44
The leader becomes the moral center and compass of the group.
51:49
Jonestown is the extreme form of these, but the seeds show up
51:55
everywhere, not just in cults, James, but people use these
52:00
tools in the workplace, in church and friendships and
52:06
families and every facet of life.
52:08
Somebody is always looking to control you.
52:11
Somebody is always looking to manipulate you, and you have to
52:15
be able to see the signs because it's very easy to slip up and
52:19
get wrapped up in this and get too deep before you realize
52:23
what's happening. Now we're pastors, and as
52:28
pastors we have to say this plainly.
52:31
Any leader, and now you listen to me, any leader who demands
52:36
loyalty to himself instead of Christ is dangerous.
52:41
True leaders point to Christ, not one's own personal
52:47
authority. We have seen too many pastors
52:50
stand behind a pulpit and make themselves the center of
52:53
attention, put themselves on pedestals, have hymns sung about
52:59
him. I'm looking at you, Jackie Boy
53:01
House. So, so much so that when after
53:04
he dies, people pray to him. I've heard that.
53:06
And so, you know, we, we've got to be careful with this because
53:10
it's everywhere. Come in.
53:14
That's exactly right. And you know, Brett, any church
53:16
that disciplines honest questions is not a biblical
53:20
church. I'm preaching through the
53:22
Abiding Me passage right now with Jesus and his disciples in
53:26
the upper room and John chapter 13 through 17 and Jesus in this
53:30
time, in this short little passage, I mean in like 2
53:34
chapters, there's like 10 questions that are asked to
53:37
Jesus as he's teaching. And never one time did Jesus
53:40
look at him and say, Thomas, what a stupid question you gave
53:43
me. How dare you even think about
53:44
asking me that? He looked at him and he said,
53:47
I've told you this and I'm going to tell you again.
53:50
And with compassion, with grace, with love, he helps his
53:54
disciples understand this. And this is what a biblical
53:58
church should look like. Someone who takes the honest
54:01
questions and takes the time to talk through them and begins to
54:04
break out Scripture and say this is what we need to do for each
54:08
other and for one another, and this is how a biblical church
54:11
should look. One of the hardest things for me
54:14
coming out of the IFB and being a pastor of a non IFB church is
54:20
the desire to to tant down this, this desire to dominate because
54:28
that's how I grew up. I grew up my pastor was the
54:31
dominator. He was the he was the final say.
54:34
He was the law. What he said goes every question
54:39
flowed through him and when I had to teach myself whenever I
54:43
got into pastoring in non IFE church is that you're not a
54:47
dictator. You're a leader.
54:49
A leader is not a dictator. And you know, we ask pastors
54:54
James, you know, we we shepherd, we don't control, we guide, we
55:00
don't coerce, we correct. But we never crush.
55:04
We serve, we don't dominate. We we, we guide hearts.
55:09
We don't dictate wills. We correct not with fear, but we
55:15
correct with love. We never ever crush a spirit
55:20
that God has entrusted us with. And this is a line that we don't
55:26
need to cross as pastors. Yeah, and, you know, authority
55:30
without accountability becomes tyranny.
55:32
This is why it's so important as pastors, as leaders, to have
55:36
yourself accountable to someone or something that's around you.
55:39
A pastor friend, a group of pastors and elder board, even
55:43
your deacons, even your fellow people.
55:46
I even put myself in the position where I try not to
55:50
teach Sunday school classes because I want to be in the
55:54
class learning with everyone else.
55:56
I'm not going to be the one that always gives the answer.
55:59
I'm going to be there to get the help, fellowship, and facilitate
56:02
the questions and answers because I wanted to people to
56:05
know that I want to learn as well.
56:07
And if I'm never submitting myself to a teacher, then I'm
56:11
going to show that I'm the tyranny.
56:12
I'm the one in charge. Jones shows us what happens when
56:16
one man becomes the voice of God instead of pointing people to
56:20
the ultimate source of life, the word of God.
56:23
And we must be people, pastors, if you're listening to this
56:27
church leaders if you're listening to this, we must be
56:29
people pointing people to Jesus, the source of life, not the
56:34
source of what we have to give them.
56:35
Let. Me say, let me interject real
56:37
quick before you continue. I also have to train myself to
56:42
allow people to disagree with me.
56:45
Yeah, you know, because some of these issues are not, you know,
56:49
top tier spiritual triage issues or second tier, the third tier,
56:53
the 4th tier. And I have to be able to rest
56:56
when somebody doesn't agree 100% with me.
56:59
There are people in my church that don't agree 100% on my view
57:03
of eschatology. They don't agree 100% with my
57:07
view on things like free will and, and predestination.
57:11
And, and I'm OK with that. The we can still fellowship
57:14
together. We can be, we can still serve
57:17
together. This that.
57:19
But that would have been unheard of.
57:21
Disagreeing with something the pastor said that would have been
57:25
unheard of in the church I grew up in.
57:27
And it would not. It would have seen as disloyal
57:30
and it would not have been allowed.
57:32
Yeah. Well, Brett, as we begin to
57:34
close this episode down, we're going to give some gospel hope
57:39
and some correlations here in just a minute.
57:41
But the hope that we have is that manipulation destroys, but
57:46
Christ restores. Maybe you're sitting here and
57:49
you say, you know, I'm in a manipulative relationship or
57:53
I've been manipulated in the past, or I don't have boundaries
57:56
like I needed to. Christ comes in and he restores
57:59
us and brings us back to the new life and hope that we have in
58:05
Jesus. And we can know and trust in Him
58:08
and know that He is the one, the source of power that He has
58:11
given to us. As one of my friends recently
58:14
said, as we take communion and we go through communion, it's a
58:18
moment of renewal to begin every single day as a new day.
58:23
It's a time to remember that as you leave that time, you get
58:27
another fresh start, another beginning, another new beginning
58:30
that begins to happen in your life.
58:33
And when Christ brings truth in to your confusion, freedom is
58:39
there to break the bondage of manipulation or whatever may be
58:42
happening in your life. Identity begins to mend that
58:47
brokenness and healing begins to happen when the trauma, where
58:51
the trauma was at, Jesus said in John 832, you will know the
58:56
truth and the truth will set you free.
58:59
And we must understand that the gospel frees us from our fear.
59:02
It frees us from our shame. It frees us from the emotional
59:06
control that we've been in. It frees us from the abuse of
59:09
authority, and it frees us from the spiritual coercion that we
59:13
have in our life. Freedom doesn't come from a
59:16
leader. Freedom doesn't come from a
59:18
pastor. Freedom doesn't come from
59:20
checking a new box on a piece of paper.
59:23
Freedom doesn't come from a new job.
59:25
But freedom simply comes from the Savior, the one who came to
59:30
die for our sins, to live forever more in heaven, to make
59:33
intercession for you and me. That draws us to the Father
59:36
through Him. Jim Jones is the extreme case.
59:41
He's the case that we can look at and say this is the the
59:44
extreme case, that that can happen when it goes unchecked.
59:49
But it's not an isolated one. There's others that we could
59:51
look at. We wanted to take this one
59:54
simple case and look at it to break it down for you.
59:58
But manipulation takes many forms and manipulation steals
1:00:02
lives. Sometimes it's slowly, but
1:00:05
sometimes. In in many of our cases, it's
1:00:08
sudden. We were born into it.
1:00:10
We didn't know any different and we were born into this
1:00:12
environment that we just thought was normal.
1:00:15
Exactly when? But the good news from all this
1:00:20
is when we walk in the truth of Christ, when we stay rooted in
1:00:25
Scripture, when we surround ourselves with accountable,
1:00:29
humble leadership, manipulation loses its power.
1:00:33
I mean when truth is spoken, when when questions are
1:00:38
welcomed, when hearts are free to discern, commute, that
1:00:42
community is built on honesty and humility and Christ centered
1:00:48
love. It is just a breath of fresh
1:00:50
air. It's experiencing true freedom.
1:00:55
You're not free unless you're in that type of a system.
1:00:59
And that's just what what we want.
1:01:01
We want people to experience freedom that we have experienced
1:01:05
and the freedom that's available.
1:01:08
Debra, as we begin to close, as we begin to finish up and and
1:01:11
and finally wrap this series up, I want to take a moment for you
1:01:16
to answer, for me to answer the simple question of.
1:01:20
Which? Or how did we see this spiritual
1:01:23
manipulation like the Jonestown? One of the things that I have
1:01:27
been getting over and over from emails to comments on episodes
1:01:30
is I never realized the correlation between the
1:01:34
independent fundamental about this movement and Jim Jones and
1:01:38
the I mean, you know, he was charismatic and he was
1:01:41
prophesied and he was doing some of these things.
1:01:43
And, you know, I wasn't doing that.
1:01:45
But man, the correlation between the two, it's phenomenal.
1:01:49
Brett, what are some of the things that we've seen as we've
1:01:52
looked through the Jim Jones story of his life and what he
1:01:55
did that is so parallel to what we have seen in our own movement
1:02:00
that we were part of? Oh man, where do I even begin to
1:02:04
start? I mean that's that's a loaded.
1:02:07
Top two things. That's a loaded question.
1:02:09
And oh, man, to think through that, I would say #1 is the US
1:02:14
versus them. You know, that was one of the
1:02:17
tools that was really used to really kind of isolate us.
1:02:22
It's US versus them. Even other Baptist churches, if
1:02:27
for some reason we didn't go to our church, we have to drive 50
1:02:30
miles down the road to go to the next to go to the next
1:02:36
independent Baptist Church. Because the Southern Baptist
1:02:39
churches around us weren't, weren't speaking the truth.
1:02:41
They were sending people to hell with their, with their devil,
1:02:46
with their Satan Bibles and their other translations.
1:02:50
And you know, we were the only ones preaching truth.
1:02:54
We were the only ones who are going to be a bride of Christ.
1:02:58
Everyone else that saved is going to be a going to be a, a
1:03:01
guest at the wedding. But only, only, only the
1:03:04
independent fundamental Baptist is going to be this.
1:03:08
That is going to be the bride of Christ.
1:03:11
And it just came to the thing where you didn't leave because
1:03:14
you didn't have anywhere else to go.
1:03:17
You know, you just thought, man, if, if this is the only thing
1:03:19
that's true, then I have to endure this abuse that I'm going
1:03:24
through because I've got nowhere else to go.
1:03:26
I'm, I'm afraid I'm going to go to hell if I leave.
1:03:29
So I'm getting threatened with a Hellfire.
1:03:32
Not that I believe I could lose my salvation, but if I left, it
1:03:36
would prove I wasn't saved in the 1st place.
1:03:38
And that's the mentality that's drilled into you.
1:03:41
Is this US versus them rhetoric? And then you know what's
1:03:47
thinking through it? I mean, I'll.
1:03:49
I'll give you mine because I think that's that's great.
1:03:52
And that's one of the things I was going to say.
1:03:53
The one for me is I think you nailed it on the head a minute
1:03:56
ago, is the finding ways to get people on the property every
1:04:00
single day of the week. It's the the idea that I'm going
1:04:03
to isolate you so much that every single day, everything
1:04:07
that you're going to do is going to be at the church seven days a
1:04:11
week school. So when in church Sunday night,
1:04:16
Wednesday night, whatever it may be, we're going to get you in
1:04:19
the doors, we're going to get you on the property to control
1:04:21
everything that you think, say and do.
1:04:24
And so that is the idea versus allowing Jesus to control
1:04:27
everything they think, say, and do.
1:04:29
I'm going to manipulate you, brainwash you into doing
1:04:32
everything that I want you to think they can do.
1:04:34
Exactly. And for me, I think the second
1:04:36
one is instilling fear. You know, my pastor was a great,
1:04:42
he was a good preacher. I would say great, but he was a
1:04:45
really good preacher. He was interesting, he was
1:04:47
funny. He can make you laugh.
1:04:49
You know, looking back, it's, it was just the same 3 messages
1:04:53
over and over the different package, different packages.
1:04:57
But The thing is, is he would get up every once in a while and
1:05:00
he would tell you a story that would keep you in line and and
1:05:03
and keep you in check and tell you the story about the woman
1:05:08
who said a crossword. Then her, her son died and she
1:05:11
got thrown in in a saying asylum and, and preach the messages on
1:05:16
He would, he would sometimes he wouldn't do it.
1:05:18
He'd bring his buddy in to preach a message on obeying a
1:05:21
pastor. And you better do what this man
1:05:23
says and you better obey him. You never, never say 1 crossword
1:05:28
against the man of God. Well, these are some of the
1:05:31
things that I experienced in my in my life.
1:05:34
Yeah, I would say the only one other one and and this was a
1:05:38
more of a broader statement, but the the dehumanization, right?
1:05:41
The, we had a pastor and I love this guy growing up and Ron
1:05:45
Banks. And then he, he went with Lord a
1:05:47
couple years ago and he, he would always say he would refer
1:05:51
to women as heifers. And it was a joke.
1:05:54
And, and you know, it was, it was always, you know, you know,
1:05:57
a good old barn needs a good paint job every once in a while.
1:05:59
And so it was the dehumanization of women, but it was a joking
1:06:03
manner, but there was some truth behind what he was saying.
1:06:06
But then even the when we would go to the camp meet and
1:06:08
preaching circuits and they would say, you know, bless God,
1:06:11
if if you don't agree with what I'm saying, don't let the door
1:06:14
hit you where the good Lord splits you, right?
1:06:16
And all of a sudden they dehumanize people to this effect
1:06:19
of this just another number. And if you don't agree with me,
1:06:22
you're going to get out. And so those are some things
1:06:25
that we can be aware of. Man I I you are so right.
1:06:29
I never thought about that. How is the the talking down
1:06:33
about women and and and dehumanize them making them less
1:06:37
than That was also a big part of what we went through.
1:06:41
Absolutely. Well, thank you guys for joining
1:06:43
this extended episode and the series that we've been doing and
1:06:47
what a great time it's been and just learning and trying to
1:06:51
educate yourself on when you're in those environments.
1:06:53
If there's anything we can do for you, please reach out to us
1:06:56
and let us know. And as we said at the beginning,
1:07:00
join us in Orlando or one of our meetups that we get to and
1:07:04
looking forward to what the Lord's going to be doing in the
1:07:06
future. And so, until next time, to God
1:07:08
be the glory. Great things he has done.
1:07:11
Found my new name, Found that good grace, found that healing.
1:07:16
And the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning and
1:07:21
has no ending. I found that second chance.
1:07:22
Found my best friend, Found my forgiveness, Found my happiness.
1:07:25
I've been singing ever since I found my friend on me.
1:07:42
Thanks for listening to the Four Freedom Podcast.
1:07:45
If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking,
1:07:48
subscribing, or sharing our podcast or whichever podcast
1:07:52
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1:07:56
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