Emily Arndt: So you mentioned, that's challenging. And just kind of listening to this conversation here, and you've shared bits of your journey and the challenges of your own journey. And you have a passion for reaching out to message believers. You're very active. I know on Facebook and in other media and doing your local ministry in South Africa, and I'm sure you've had plenty of terrible things said about you and your wife.
And I just can't imagine [00:52:00] the stuff that you face because you are willing to be so vocal for the gospel. So given everything you've gone through, what is your advice to those that have left the message about how to start fresh 
James Manuel: Emily, yeah, that is probably one of the, one of the questions that gets asked the most. I've had this question, I've I, a lot of message pastors from the continent of Africa, now, have befriended me. And whereas, they previously were militant in their approach, they are now gentle. And, they know that there's problems in the message, but this question comes with everyone that I talk to... asks the same question, "If we leave the message, where do we go to, what do we do? What are you suggesting we should do?"
When we came out, we were [00:53:00] generally isolated and in my case, I was destitute and alone. I remember how I used to cry, Emily, and Crystal would put my head on her bosom and just rub my head gently and say, "Don't worry. Everything will be fine."
My best friend, who's now just passed away recently as well, he phoned me one day and he said to me, "Do you believe William Branham is the prophet?" I said to him, I don't believe he's a prophet anymore. And so he said to me, "If you don't believe it, that he's the prophet, then I'm not your friend anymore."
And he threw the phone... I had a couple of brothers that came to visit here.. They actually went to a funeral, and then the people that they were supposed to overnight with, those people disappointed them. And they had no choice, but to come to me, but they didn't realize at the time that I'd left the message.
And at that time I was like a tiger, any message believer, I'll go on the attack [00:54:00] immediately. And, and I'm sure a bit of it displayed itself as well, or manifested itself as well. And these are our ministers and I explained to them why I don't believe the message anymore.
And I remember this one brother, he decided to do a prayer for me, and his whole prayer was actually quite sad. In his prayer, he was asking God to take me away. He was asking God, to just destroy my body so that my soul could be saved. And I'm listening to this guy's prayer.
And I thought to myself, wow... In a nice way, he's cursing me. And, that is what we experienced at the beginning. And I had to find my way, but those were leaving now, at least, have some support from us, and others, who took the step before them. At least they have our experience to build on.
And so Emily, my advice to anyone leaving the message is simply [00:55:00] this. Start reading your Bible. You'll be surprised how many wonderful things we were robbed off. Message followers, they are strictly King James Version only, but I found it very refreshing to read versions that explained passages of scripture in today's English.
Some of the versions I love is the Modern English Version, which is basically like the King James Version, but it's translated into modern English. Then there's the easier read version or the Message Version that I enjoy very much. There's also the New Language Translation, which I love and a few others.
It is interesting to compare the different versions. I'll give you one example, message believers, love to quote, First Corinthians 11 verse one... Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. And that's their justification for following William Branham. But if you read one of the other versions, it makes it clear what apostle Paul was saying.
And [00:56:00] that is follow my example as I follow Christ's example. Secondly, I would say to these people, visit other churches and find a place of fellowship where you will be happy. And make sure that the church that you decide attend, have their teaching based solidly on scripture. Thirdly, I would say lift up your head and walk tall. Let the wolves howl.
You keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to teach, lead, and guide you. Be humble and be a witness of the saving power of Jesus Christ. And fourthly, and most importantly, don't lose your vision of Jesus. 
Rod Bergen: There's an old song, James, that says, "The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose. I will not desert to its foes. That's soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll [00:57:00] never, no never, no never forsake." 
And that's the important thing. Jesus will never leave you. If you're a child of God, the Holy Spirit has been promised to lead you. The job of the Holy Spirit is to make Jesus real.
And when he does that in a church, the result is revival. When we started looking for a church, we looked at a bunch of churches and people say, all the churches are... there's no good churches, only message churches are good. No. Most message churches are lukewarm. There are a few churches, and this is what I've looked for.
And there's a list that actually... a guy by the name of Tim Keller, I've got a lot of respect for, has said, "Look for a place where there's worship, where people sense the presence of God, where people are there to meet God. The purpose of worship is not, in churches, is not always teaching and evangelism or fellowship, it's to worship.
We worship God. And secondly, you want to find a group of people that's focused, as you said, [00:58:00] on a study of the word of God. Truth shines in their lives because of their focus on the word of God. And the other thing is... a third point, is that you want a group where there's love. There's intimate fellowship. There's community, and people love one another.
And fourth, you look for a church where there's aggressive outreach and evangelism. That's rare these days, at least in Canada, where...and message churches are not focused aggressively on outreach and evangelism. And so where you find a church where they're constantly reaching out and trying to introduce people to Jesus, that's a wonderful church. 
And fifth, look for a church that's having an impact on society around them. We actually, at our church, one month of the year, all the money that comes into the church goes out to charities in our community. And we gave money to one group and they said, no church has ever given us money [00:59:00] before. And we said you're doing a really good job in our community.
We love what you're doing. And they were shocked that a church would actually think about doing something good in the community. So those kind of five things, deep teaching of the Word, worship, intimate fellowship, aggressive evangelism, a compassionate social concern for those around you. If you find a church that's strong in all those five things, the spirit of God is there.
James Manuel: Amen! Emily. You would remember we set in my lounge, and we had this conversation that I was telling you. That I wasn't really happy with what I see in churches in my neighborhood. And I don't know if you remember, you encouraged me to go and visit the Baptist church in the area.
It was so refreshing. When I walked into that church and I heard the music, the worship, and especially the word, it was solidly based upon scripture. And it was such an eye opener that, from our last [01:00:00] conversation, I now know that if you look for the right things, like Rod said, then you'll be well on your way serving God. 
Emily Arndt: Amen. That's great to hear that. I let's. I do. I do remember that conversation. Yes, I do.
Tim Kraus: James, I want to shift gears just a moment here now. The people that have left the message. And we see this a lot, where people will say, as an example, and you've voiced this or you articulated this before, where people did not treat you... they didn't treat you with respect ... or even, they basically turned their back or shunned you. People who leave the message that are searching, earnestly searching, oftentimes end up becoming atheists or agnostics. Now, it's really easy to understand why this happens. The way they're treated when they leave message churches.
There's a lot of people, at least here in the United States, say if this is [01:01:00] Christianity... If I walking away... if the message of William Branham is Christianity, as the message ministers claim, then I don't want anything to do with Christianity. Because of the way they behave toward the people that are leaving.
So how... and it's difficult, you can talk to those people about Jesus, and we've seen some remarkable instances where people actually come back to Christ, and recommit themselves to Christ, and Christ alone, without the need for a prophet messenger. But can you give us an idea, give us your view of what the proper approach to religion and faith is based on your experience since you've left the message.
James Manuel: Yes, Tim. It is sad to see so many wandering off into atheism or becoming agnostic. Personally. I don't blame anybody who would take such a radical step. Neither do I judge [01:02:00] anyone. However, we have to realize, it was not God who lied to us. It was not God who made us believe all this pie in the sky. It was not God who deceived us.
It was William Branham. So I don't have a problem with God. My problem is with one, William Branham. And therefore I don't see the logic in turning our backs on God or even believe that he doesn't exist. My approach to religion is simple. I don't know everything. And I don't believe I ever will. I don't understand everything.
I never claimed that I did, but there's one thing I know, even if atheists are correct, which they are not. And they say that God does not exist. And we know He does. [01:03:00] I still know that there is something that sturdy in my head. Even if He does not exist and all this Jesus stuff is false, at least I lived a life above reproach.
I was kind to my neighbors and I showed love to my fellow human beings. When I reach the end of life's journey, I could look back and say, I lived a good life. Also, I know that had I had to come from some where, that I came from somewhere and I don't live my life to disappear into nowhere. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
Without faith, it is impossible to please God. This is my simple approach to religion. Don't talk the walk, but walk the talk. Let your light so shine that others may see your good works [01:04:00] and glorify your Father in heaven. We'll meet them. Christianity is not what I can get out of God, but how useful I can be for him. 
And quite honestly, I just want to be humble. Be kind. Live in harmony with nature. Be honest and have integrity. If I do those simple things, I believe God will take care of the rest. 
Tim Kraus: That's an interesting, it's an interesting response. I remember one time on a podcast that we were doing, gosh, I want to say it was, oh gosh, it was quite awhile ago.
But Rod mentioned something that I thought was really interesting. And he mentioned that when you're wrong, at the moment that you're wrong, or that the moment that you feel like you're wrong, you don't feel like you're wrong. You feel like you're correct. And so message believers feel like they're correct.
There's no ultimate feeling that you're [01:05:00] wrong. When you're, when it's pointed out to you that you're wrong, the feeling that you have is, you're almost a little ashamed that you were wrong or you're defensive. And that creates a feeling that you were incorrect. But at the end of the day, realizing that you were wrong is part of getting back on track and getting back on the right path.
So you can be wrong, genuinely wrong and earnestly wrong. And you don't have to feel defensive and you don't have to feel like you're, like you're struggling with being wrong. What I hear you saying is, really part of that is to say, get on the path that just looks at Jesus Christ and make sure that you're emulating that as part of your Christianity.
And then by the way, even if you're wrong at the end of the day, you still lived as well as you could. And you're open to being corrected and you're open to being... for God to be able to lead you or the Holy Spirit to be able to lead you into the right way, into God. I really appreciate that.
[01:06:00] Particularly based on the information that Rod, the comment that Rod had shared some time ago, I think that your comment is directly in line with that exactly, James, and I really appreciate that. 
James Manuel: And, when it comes to... It's such a sad thing, Tim, when you look on someone and eventually they come out of the message. And it's such a sad thing to see them just wander off, into all these different directions.
The one thing that I've realized, and you must remember that when I came out, I just didn't want to have anything to do with religion for a couple of months. And, I remember so vividly. I couldn't pray, I couldn't read my Bible. I didn't want to go to any church.
But one Friday, Crystal and myself came from shopping, and we passed this Pentecostal church. It's about two minutes from where I live. And there was this brother standing on the steps of this church. And I actually, when I [01:07:00] passed, I thought he was busy breaking in, because it was like seven o'clock Sunday evening.
And it was just getting dark. And so what I did is I made a U-turn with my car and I drove into the car park of the church, and I called him and I wanted to know what he was doing there. And this brother said to me, "No, we have prayer meeting every Friday night." And I said, "Prayer meeting?" And he said, you could come and join.
I said, are you sure? I said, yes. I said, fine. I'm going to take my wife home and drop the groceries and then I'll come. So by the time I got to church, they would a few people. And everybody walked into the sanctuary, nobody talked to each other, they just started praying. And again, they, I felt like an alien, I just walked in there and I looked at everybody. Funny people... just praying, everybody in a corner, in this big church. And I couldn't pray. I didn't even know how to pray anymore. I was so devastated. And [01:08:00] then, as the night progressed, I started... with a simple, "our father, which art in heaven". And, before I knew I started confessing how I disappointed the Lord and how, I wasn't vigilant enough and how I allowed myself to be deceived.
And I asked God to forgive me and slowly the word started coming. And, eventually, I was the only one praying there, everybody kept quiet. I was the only one praying. And I prayed for about an hour and a half, and then it was all quiet and everybody came over and they greeted them, introduce themselves.
And then I went into this pastor's office and we spoke for a while and then he said a prayer for me. And that peace that came over me was indescribable. It was a peace that I've never experienced before. And that is when I knew that, it doesn't matter what, [01:09:00] God is always there. Watching your back, God is always there guiding you.
The Holy Spirit is always keeping watch over you. If you allow yourself to be taken, you will be taken. 
Rod Bergen: James, we're going to wrap this up soon, but I have one thing that kind of comes out of what you were talking about, with your approach to religion and faith. And this is a big negative.
You talk about this. We published your testimony on the BelieveTheSign website and I'll put a link to it on the podcast that people want to refer to it, but you talk about Voice Of God and others in the message, basically trashing the Bible. That they say, look, there are a lot of errors in the Bible and we don't have any issue with them, why should we have a problem with the errors in the message. And obviously, that approach is very negative to people leaving the message. What's your response to this kind of approach by Voice of God and others? 
James Manuel: Yeah, Rod, I don't think you can remember. I want sent you a letter that I emailed that I [01:10:00] got from Joseph Branham and basically, in there, he was telling me that, because the Bible is full of discrepancies, we have to accept the discrepancies of William Branham, because there's discrepancies in the Bible. And it was quite sad because, the examples Joseph Branham used was... he was talking about the resurrection, and the argument that one book of the Gospels talks about two angels and another talks about one angel.
And there's a bit of discrepancy there. And my approach is very simple. If you look at any story in the Bible, you look at the essence of the story. And when it comes to the resurrection, it is really... did Jesus die? Was he buried? Did he rise? And the answer to all those questions is yes. And that is the essence of the message.
You get the example. The other example we used was Paul on the road to the message. [01:11:00] And where some say they heard a voice and others did not mention a voice. And again, the essence of the story is that Paul, was Saul at the time, was on his road to Damascus, when he got struck by this light, fell off his horse.
And after that Saul was changed. That is the essence of the message. And my question is very simply, did it happen like that? And the answer is yes, it happened like that. The little details in there you have to check who wrote it. And if more than one person wrote the accounts, the different accounts, then you know, you're bound to have little, little details that's not the same. 
But the essence of the story when it's the same, you can't argue. When it comes to William Branham, when he says he was standing right under the cloud, when they took the photos. If we go back, we'll look at the essence of that story. William [01:12:00] Branham didn't even know about the cloud.
He only got knowledge of the cloud after he was shown the magazine by his friend. So none of those things you can reconcile, whereas with the Bible, we have a problem with translation. We have a problem with language. There's a whole lot of stuff that comes together before you can talk about the discrepancy.
So my advice to anybody is look at the essence of any Bible story and then decide whether there's been a discrepancy. 
Rod Bergen: I don't mean to interrupt you, James but what you're touching on, I think is really important. I listened to a guy by the name of James Wallace. James Wallace is a well-respected cold case detective.
So he's a guy, and he was actually on 60 Minutes, a CBS program. And he wrote a book called Cold Case Christianity. He became [01:13:00] a Christian by examining the testimonies that he found in the New Testament. And he actually wanted to disprove it, and prove that this couldn't have taken place. What he found out was that there were similarities between investigating cold cases and investigating the claims of Christianity. Because cold case homicides, murders are events from the distance past, for which there's little or no forensic evidence left.
And these kinds of cases are sometimes solved on the basis of eyewitness testimony, even though many years have passed between the point of the crime and the point of the investigation by the cold case examiner. And so he found that there might not be any surviving eye witness to the actual murder.
There are often witnesses available who can help puzzle together the events that led up to the crime or the behavior of a suspect following the crime. And those witnesses can be evaluated in a number of ways [01:14:00] to confirm the reliability. And in the end, a strong circumstantial case, which can be accepted by the courts can usually be made by collecting the witness statements and verifying their observations, even though they don't have any forensic evidence. 
And James Wallace, by taking this approach, he arrested and successfully prosecuted a number of cold case suspects who thought they'd gotten away with murder. 
And I want to read this quote from his book, Cold Case Christianity. He says, "Christianity makes a claim about an event from the distant past, for which there is little or no forensic evidence. Like cold cases, the truth about what happened can be discovered by examining the statements of eyewitnesses and comparing them with what little additional evidence is accessible to us. If the eyewitnesses can be evaluated and their statements can be verified by what we have available, an equally strong circumstantial case can be made for the [01:15:00] claims of the New Testament.
And he said, "Are there any reliable eyewitness statements in existence to corroborate in the first place? This became the most important question I had to answer in my personal investigation of Christianity. Were the gospel narratives eye witness accounts, or were they the only moralistic mythologies? Were the gospels reliable or where they filled with untrustworthy, supernatural absurdity? The most important questions I could ask about Christianity just so happened to fall within the area of my expertise."
And he says, "I was a committed atheist. When I first heard a pastor preach a sermon that described the resurrection of Jesus." And he went and dug into the rules. And he said, "I decided to investigate the resurrection as I would any unsolved case from the distant past. My journey led me out of atheism to the truth of Christianity. As I [01:16:00] applied my skills as a detective, I became more convinced that the New Testament gospel accounts reliably describe the life ministry, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus." 
James Manuel: Wow. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? That's amazing. And with all these things, I believe that if we are sincere and we look at these things at the end of the day, you will realize that the message does not compare with the Bible.
And therefore you cannot use the Bible to justify all the lies, the deception, the fraud and corruption that we see so rampant in the message. 
Rod Bergen: Yeah exactly the truth. Thank you very much, James. We have really appreciated having you on again, to talk about the experiences we didn't get a chance to talk about in our first interview.
And so I [01:17:00] really know that our listeners will really enjoy hearing what you have to say. I hope you could come back again at some point in time in the future, and we can talk about things as they are unfolding. And I know there are a lot of things that are unfolding with respect to people continuing to come out of the message, which is simply an answer to prayer.
James Manuel: Thank you, Rod, Tim and Emily. This was really an honor and privilege to chat with you guys. And Rod, you are most welcome anytime, just tell me when, I'll be too willing to share, what would I pick up? 
Rod Bergen: Appreciate that very much. God bless you. 
Tim Kraus: Thanks guys. And James, thanks for coming on.
James Manuel: Thank you, Tim.
Emily Arndt: Yeah. Thanks, James. Greetings to your wife and to your daughters and yeah, hopefully our paths will cross again this side of heaven sometime. 
James Manuel: Yeah, I hope so. I sincerely hope so, Emily. God bless you, Rod, [01:18:00] and thank you for all the hard work you do. And for your sacrifices, I just want you to know that we appreciate it and that we support you 100% in your efforts.
Rod Bergen: Thanks very much. God bless 
James Manuel: God bless.