OTS 89 Charles Paisley
Another Minister Leaves The Message
[00:00:13] Rod Bergen: I am very pleased to welcome Charles Paisley to the Off The Shelf podcast. Charles is a minister, was formerly , a lifelong message follower of William Branham. He was raised in Raymond Jackson's message. Church who was known or referred to by William Branham as junior Jackson in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
Charles became assistant pastor of the church in the years after Raymond Jackson died. Charles is senior manager of a large technology department in Louisville, Kentucky. He is a researcher and a writer on the subject of Indiana history. Charles was the editor of the contender magazine, which had thousands of subscribers in the message.
He has traveled international. Has visited dozens of message Churches. His family has been in the message for decades and attended the Branham tabernacle where William Branham, while William Branham rather was still living Charles personally knew and has been acquainted with many witnesses of William Braham's life and ministry, including personal friends and acquaintances who knew William Branham all the way back to the 1930’s.
Years before he gained international fame. And even before he was married and had children, Charles is currently a minister at the Gospel Church of Jeffersonville, Indiana, where he is working with other former message believers and former message ministers to help people leaving the message, find community and support as they exit the message.  And most importantly, to help people have a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ. 
Charles welcome to Off The Shelf. 
[00:02:05] Charles Paisley: Thanks for having me, Rod. I'm glad to be here and looking forward to having a good conversation with you today. 
[00:02:11] Rod Bergen: Charles, can you give our listeners a bit of background on yourself? When did you come into the message?
[00:02:19] Charles Paisley: So I was, I was born into the message. So, uh, there's a phrase I've heard before called a born on the bench. I think that about describes me rod. I was born on the bench. Uh, I was born to parents who are also lifelong message believers. My mother was born while my grandparents were still in attendance at the tabernacle during brother Braham's life.
Um, my father's family came into the message in the sixties. So, um, my great grandparents were in the message too. Uh, my, my entire family, aunts, uncles, cousins. So I'm just a, I'm a lifer. Um, I was born in Canada. I'm actually Canadian, uh, new Brunswick Canada. Can you sing the national Anthem Anthem, the opposite side of the country from you?
Oh Canada, right? oh boy. I don't even know if all the Canadians know what, 
[00:03:05] Rod Bergen: well, they keep changing our words to make them more. Our prime minister is one of the more politically correct people in the political sphere in the world. . They keep changing the national Anthem to.
More gender neutral to make it more inclusive. And you know, so we've lost all the history, but we do have a more politically correct national Anthem now. 
[00:03:28] Charles Paisley: Yeah. So I, as a, as a young boy, I lived in, I lived in Canada. I went to a church pastored by my grandfather, actually, who was also a message preacher.
And my great-grandfather was a message. Preacher. I got uncles that are message preachers. That lots of message preachers in the family. Uh, my, my parents moved to, uh, here in the Jeffersonville area back where my, my, my grandparents lived here, uh, in 1990. And so I've, I've lived here in the Jeffersonville area since 1990.
So that that's kind of, my background grew up at faith assembly, grew up at, uh, Raymond Jackson's church. Um, we had lots of old timers there knew lots of people loved the message. Just the message was my life. Yeah. Well, as it was mine, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's like a, like an, almost like an old friend now, you know, when I think back on it, there's so much about, in some ways you there's aspects of it, you miss then there's, uh, aspects of it and, you know, we're glad I've moved on.
Uh, but so just love the message and obviously enough to give my life to it. And the way I did, I, you know, preached the message. Took care of the contender just gave my whole life to the church and good works and such the, for all the years that I was. 
[00:04:40] Rod Bergen: So were you born into the message or did you come in or did your parents come in when you were young?
[00:04:46] Charles Paisley: No, my parents were my, I was in the message from birth. My parents, my was in the message from their whole lives as well. Cause your grandparents were in the message. Exactly my, my grandparents and my great-grandparents converted into the message, uh, at different times, but my, they, they came into the message, uh, my grandparents.
So my grandfather, um, before my grandparents married, my grandfather had known of William Branham and had some contact. And when they got married in. 60. They sh my grandparents started attending the tabernacle very frequently, regularly, shortly after that. So, uh, that that's about the time my, my family, the oldest members of my family came into the mess.
[00:05:27] Rod Bergen: So you were not only a follower, William Branham, but you were also a follower of Raymond Jackson or junior Jackson years ago. And it is a long time ago cuz our kids, uh, I think we might have one or two kids at the time. We had a couple of young men from the Philippines who I actually visited in Manila, uh, just before the pandemic.
And they're now out of the message, but they were staying at our house and I remember them reading me a passage from the book of Daniel. And they looked at me and said, what do you think this means? And I said, well, what do you want me to think? It. And they indicated that something that William Branham had said about the 70 weeks of Daniel was, was incorrect.
And that they indicated that Godhead allowed William brand to say something that was incorrect so that it would fool people who were not really believers. And, and it was one of the stranger conversations I had with someone from. Say sub-sect in the message. And I remember that their logic completely escaped me, cuz I just figured if God is trying to fool me, it's gonna work.
So from your, from your perspective, what, uh, what are the distinctives of the Jackson movement? I, I don't know how you refer to yourselves. 
[00:06:52] Charles Paisley: So we, yeah, we called ourselves message believers. We were the, we were the heirs of the message. Um, we, we were the message, like we, we used the exact same terminology probably as your group.
Yeah. 
[00:07:05] Rod Bergen: Although we refer, we would've referred you guys as the junior Jackson followers. 
[00:07:10] Charles Paisley: yeah. We, we would call your group the Branhamites uh, and so we. Basically we believed, uh, you were the apostates. And we had the, of course 
[00:07:18] Rod Bergen: every group inside. I mean, it's strange, every sub-sect inside the message thinks the other guys are all wrong and they got the real truth.
Right, right. So, so how did, if you look at the Jackson movement, how did it differ? Or what are it's unique doctrines from their perspective, 
[00:07:41] Charles Paisley: Sure. So I guess kind of knowing the history of how we split off from all of the, all the rest of 'em kind of maybe helps explain that a little bit.
And, um, so brother Jackson had a, a dream very shortly after brother Branham died. Um, dreams featured very prominently in brother BR brother Jackson's ministry. Um, and they were. Of a sense of prophetic dreams, I guess, is how we look at 'em. And he had a dream that he got, uh, like an ordination certificate in the mail, uh, and ordained him as an apostle.
And it was signed William Maryam Branham. And so he believed he was, uh, the apostolic successor of William Branham. Uh, we believed in having a fivefold ministry and as time progressed, he was the, he was the head of. Uh, we, we would refer to him as the chief apostle of the fivefold ministry. And so he, so that was his position within the, within the group.
Um, so things we started actually separating from the main groups very early on brother Jackson, preached brother at brother Braham's funeral. He was one of the speakers at the funeral. We, he was still in quite tight, you know, right. When brother, when brother Jack, when brother Branham died. But, um, like at brother.
Braham's funeral Lee a and Raymond Jackson had a falling out right at the funeral over whether or not William Branham would race from the dead. Right. So the shortly after brother Braham's death, the divisions are kind of starting with us. And the other sec, um, so that happens then brother, brother Jackson does a lot of missionary journeys.
So, so just to go 
[00:09:19] Rod Bergen: back, Lee Vayle believed that William Branham would raise from the dead? 
[00:09:23] Charles Paisley: Yes at the time. And so obviously I wasn't there, but this is the story that's passed down to us. Yeah. Lee a was insistent at that time that William Branham would raise from the dead and Lee Vale actually preached a message at the tabernacle the week after the funeral.
Um, so we're told that the grace age had ended no more souls could be saved. Uh, Christ was off the mercy seat. And, you know, the rapture was basically eminent and all this kind of led up into the, the initial separation from us in leave A's group. Um, cause obviously we didn't brother Jackson didn't believe any of that.
Um, then you kind of come down the road and brother, Jackson's doing a lot of his mission work. And so I. Late sixties, early seventies. He does especially a lot in north America and in Europe. And there was a man named, uh, brother Larson from the tabernacle who was from, uh, who was from Norway. And they partnered together to do a lot of, uh, church planning and spreading the message into Europe.
And what would happen is they, they would go around and they would have revivals and then Perry green would follow behind and kind of pick off the churches and bring them over. His sec so brother Jackson and Perry green start having they're following out, following out in those years, uh, as Perry green kind of trails behind him and, you know, steals churches, you might say keep stealing.
Uh, so yeah, so by the early seventies, you know, we, we fell out with Perry green in that lot. And so that kind of, you know, these things kept proceeding. And by the time you get, uh, into the eighties, early eighties, we had more or less kept peace with the tabernacle crowd. Um, and you know, the main group. But when sister Branham died, kind of all of the Goodwill between faith assembly and the tabernacle, a lot of that dried up, I think for sister Braham's sake, that's what held a lot of that together.
Cuz um, sister Branham still liked brother Jackson. They got along well and it kind of maintained peace between the two groups. Uh, but after that, basically there was almost a, a complete separation and we no longer even spoke to the tabernacle crowd. So by the eighties is when things have really separated.
Um, and a lot of the problems there was around. So I'm sure you know, about Fred Soman and the ones who believed William Branham was God incarnate. Uh, the, the Simpson family, the McGuire family. There's. So there's quite a few people actually here in the Jeffersonville who do believe that. William Branham is God incarnate.
And if you run into them, they, I mean, they'll, they'll, they'll say things like, uh, it's a beautiful day, brother. Branham has given us today. Isn't it? Right? Like you run into the post. So, wow. Anyways, that kind of stuff just kind of fed into, into our kind of division away from it. Cuz at the time we weren't as crazy as they were at least so that's, that's kind of how we spun it anyway.
But uh, Some of the distinctives coming out of that. And I, I look back, you know, we don't, we didn't believe that William Branham preached the Revelation of the seventh seal. Like that's one thing we just didn't believe he had the Revelation of the seventh seal and we didn't believe he ever preached the seven thunders.
So those are two huge differences from us. And the, and the rest, cause obviously all the other groups believe he preached the seventh seal, right. And the seventh thunders. And, you know, I I've, I've kind of, you know, having left, struggled, trying to understand how we arrived at that conclusion. Uh, but there's kind of this unspoken rule that we in our sec did not believe anything that William Branham preached after 1963, we didn't believe anything.
He preached in 60. Didn't believe anything. He preached in 65. We really don't even believe what he preached the second half of 63 after the seal. So it's a little strange 
[00:13:05] Rod Bergen: there. So, so you're kind of opposite to the way. Yeah. Cause there's this concept in at least in my sect, which we did, we, again, we said we were in the message, but I've, I've heard it referred to as the bride coming.
Subsect of the message, but we had this concept of progressive revel. So William, if you take where and William Branham often said two different things about the same thing, or he had two opinions, right? So he taught this, he taught this and then after the seals, you know, that was when you could say, okay, you could bank on this cuz he might have got it mixed up.
Cuz I mean, early in his ministry he believed in the Trinity, you could find references to, to him referring to the Trinity as being, you know, a good way to believe. So you're kind of the opposite of progressive Revelation, which I'm not sure what you call it, degressive Revelation? 
[00:14:01] Charles Paisley: So we would, we would say we believe in progressive Revelation.
Uh, but I guess only up to an extent, right? Um, so it, there there's this, uh, just this unusual thing that I, I never fully understood why it was this. Um, I, I think that brother Jackson may have started to have a little bit of fallen out with William Branham perhaps in the last year or two of his life that, that led to this.
Uh, but like we didn't believe marriage and divorce. We didn't believe the heavenly home. Uh, we didn't believe statue of a perfect man. Um, so you didn't really like Clarence larger. That was a big. He didn't, uh, he, he, he, he basically didn't uh, so brother Branham actually gave brother Jackson copies of clearance Larkin's book.
So brother Jackson had always known what he did. Yeah. Um, which I, which I eventually found out. Maybe we'll talk more about that, but, uh, so what, the way we did it, or I should say the way brother Jackson did it, and this kind of goes back to that initial comment. You talked about those brothers from the Philipp.
So brother Jackson from very early on, he had this doctor in this teaching. He called it, the fan is in, in his, the fan is in his hand. And brother Jackson took a prophecy of John the Baptist, where, where John the Baptist said, um, speaking of, of Christ said his fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly purge his floor, referring to how Christ would separate, you know, the CHF and the.
So brother Jackson takes that prophecy and he applies it to William Branham. And he says that, uh, the way this will work is that William Branham will preach doctrine. And this doctrine will be used to separate people. Some of the doctrine will be good doctrine. Some of the doctrine will be bad doctrine and the good doctrine, you know, will blow the good seed.
Right. And then the bad doctrine will blow. Chaff away. And so of course, brother Jackson could then, you know, explain to us what was, you know, what was good doctrine and what was not good doctrine. And so he used this, um, this is, this is the glue that held the message together for us. This is how, you know, we could, we could selectively say, well, we don't believe church order.
We don't believe heavenly home. Right. But we do believe the first five seals, right. Or this or that. And. That kind of set up this, this weird thing where we selectively accepted parts of the message and rejected other parts. But, but, 
[00:16:35] Rod Bergen: and, and the person who decided whether, what you accepted or rejected was Raymond Jackson.
[00:16:43] Charles Paisley: That's right. 
[00:16:44] Rod Bergen: Yeah. But there's nothing I'm aware of thinking in the gospels that John the Baptist ever. That you could say, well, this is, this is what happened to John, the Baptist. He confused people. And that's very, that's a very bizarre way of thinking. 
[00:17:02] Charles Paisley: Yeah. So, so we had, so looking back, of course, obviously this makes absolutely no sense, right?
Cuz God can't inspire someone to preach both right and wrong. Right. If, if somebody's preaching wrong well, clearly, you know, that's not divinely inspired. It kind of breaks down cuz you know, the apostle Paul even talked about, you know, if the gospel would profit because of my dishonesty, then God, how can God be just right.
Yeah. So there's no way that God really could work that way. That, that was just our, you know, that was just his way. I think of making sense of, of all of the dual statements and deciding what he would reject and what he would keep and try to keep everything into a sensible package. Um, yeah, that, I think that at the end of the.
That, that really kind of gave us a kind of a distinctive set of doctrines and teachings as a result. That's a little bit different from, from the rest of the message. And it, I think that in brother Jackson's mind that blowing people away and making them go off into strange doctrines, turned into overdrive in the last years of William Brando's ministry.
[00:18:13] Rod Bergen: So as the preeminent apostle, and according to the New Testament, the gifts are first apostles, then prophets, so did he effectively set himself up above William Branham? 
[00:18:30] Charles Paisley: so we, we did not believe William Branham had a New Testament ministry. So we believed he had a, uh, an Old Testament, profit type ministry. So we, we completely separated him from the New Testament ministry.
Uh, and so he, we believe that when he came back to restore the hearts of the father, he came back to restore a true ministry, right. So he accomplished this in his prophet prophetic role. And now. Now these people who've had their hearts turned back to the father are now a, a, a re a second generation, a new generation of original apostolic quality leaders, you know, ordained by William Brad.
So 
[00:19:11] Rod Bergen: that's, that's very bizarre cuz they're basically, and this is of course, one of the big problems I have with the message and certainly with significant bits of evangelicalism in, as it currently exists world. Which is people take bits of the old covenant and bring them into the new, where Paul was very clear in a book of Galatians and the author of Hebrew saying, you know, when he calls it new, he makes the old one is old.
And what is old is obsolete and will soon disappear. So it's not that it's wrong. It's not that it's not true. You know, I like to use the example of my, of the iPhone. I had an iPhone one and, but I don't use it anymore. Was the iPhone one. Good. It was wonderful. It did stuff that nothing else could do at the time, but now I've got, you know, a new, I've got an iPhone 12.
I wouldn't go back to my iPhone. One. Why? Because the iPhone one is obsolete. So the writer of Hebrew really says, look, if you're looking to the old covenant, it's obsolete, it's disappear. It should be completely gone by now, but we keep seeing people wanting to take the old covenant and bring it into the law, into the new, which we see in the message, you know, as far as dress we see it in, you know, references that William Branham made to to tithing, to references that ministers had to marry a Virgin.
 Where do you get that in the new covenant? It's all of the old covenant and you get it by saying ministers now are the same as the Levitical priesthood it. And all of those rules apply, which is a very bizarre way of looking at things. 
[00:21:03] Charles Paisley: Yeah. You know, it it's a. As a, a mouthful there. So you've, you've got definitely issues when you try to bring the law into grace.
Right. Uh, and issues that obviously we probably can't talk through in, in this amount of time, but, uh, there, there's definitely, we have a new covenant. We have grace under the new covenant and, uh, we've got a new, a new paradigm that we live by rather than the law. And you're you're right. Uh, the way that they go back and.
Would bring an Old Testament style profit into the New Testament. Uh, it's hard to see how they can do that and justify that really in a scriptural way. And of course we know the way that they manage to do that is through the Malachi prophecy. Right? So, 
[00:21:46] Rod Bergen: so which, you know, people wanna look, all you have to do is look at Malachi one verse one, which says, uh, the word of Lord to Israel and not to Gentiles, but you know, that's easily overlooked.
[00:22:02] Charles Paisley: Brother, brother Jackson, on that, on that topic. So one of brother Jackson's claims to fame was he knew William Branham was Elijah before anybody else or pretty well, you know, that was the implication. Um, that was one of brother Jackson's kind of boasts, I guess you might say DOIs cuz that was, he believed, he recognized William Branham was the Elijah from, you know, from.
From the first time he heard his name and it was actually based on that scripture. And so that was a big part of his, his testimony and, and, uh, basis that he went on. So we got to hear that quite a bit, uh, during our lives 
[00:22:37] Rod Bergen: and, and the way, which I think you said earlier, the way you looked on everybody else in the message was that basically they're apostate, um, Because they didn't have the right revelation of the message as you guys who were properly revelated. 
[00:22:57] Charles Paisley: Exactly. We, we believed you were, you know, it's very gnostic, right? We believed you were saved. And by your, your Revelation, your Revelation is what made you the bride of Christ versus. A loss center or, or another category. And, and, you know, our, our sec brother Jackson sect at the, at the large, at the high point was a, was a good sized group of people.
But yeah, we, we were never in any ways, the majority of the message and, uh, we did tend to look at all the rest as people who had been confused. And we believed that they were purposefully confused by God and that William Branham had did it on purpose by preaching wrong things to them. Wow. 
[00:23:37] Rod Bergen: that is, that is hard to get one's head around
So you knew Raymond Jackson, what kind of a man was he? 
[00:23:44] Charles Paisley: Oh, you know, in, in a personal sense, Raymond Jackson was. Who he was off the platform and who he was on the platform were two very different personalities. I, I don't know if you noticed that with most message preachers, but with, with him, that was, it was very much the case, you know, on the platform.
He was a very bold speaker, uh, and. He could do a lot of things that looking back now is a bit unusual, but in, in private, in person, he was a fairly nice person, easy to get along with a fairly gentle man. Um, and he definitely had a lot of good, good personal qualities to him. Right. So I, I certainly wouldn't, uh, you know, spur him.
I, I think he lived in many ways, uh, uh, a life that in, in a personal sense you could say is, is a good life to look to as an example, right? Like there was no kind of. Unclean living or anything like that, that, that ever really could be attached to him. Uh, but in, in terms of his preaching, he, he got to the point towards the end where he could be, um, He could cut people off and, and tear people down pretty quick and pretty easy.
And he did quite a lot of that in the later years, uh, in his life. But he was very, he was a person who was very deeply committed to his faith. Um, and, and for the message, he loved it. I mean, he gave his life to it and he thought, but 
[00:25:08] Rod Bergen: he thought he was right. And everybody else is wrong 
[00:25:12] Charles Paisley: pretty much. Yeah.
And if you're wrong, you're uh, you're uh, you're in trouble. so. 
[00:25:20] Rod Bergen: Fear... fear is something that is an underlying theme in all of the various subcultures in the message. I don't know one where fear, isn't predominant. It's the way that people are held into the message to some extent, how did fear play out amongst the Jackson in the Jackson movement?
[00:25:44] Charles Paisley: So. Uh, it took a lot of different levels, honestly. Um, so I mentioned, we, you know, we didn't believe that Raymond or William Branham had the Revelation of the thunders or the seven seals. Um, you know, even though ironically, he said he had them in, in the later years, somehow, you know, looking back now, it's still hard for me to wrap my mind around how we, how we arrived at that.
Uh, but we, we believed that we. On the edge of our seats waiting to hear the Revelation of the thunders was coming any moment. And once we heard those thunders, they come at any minute and when they came, it was gonna be the end of the world and we were gonna have the rapture. And so I. We lived in constant anticipation.
Right. And you didn't wanna miss a church service. You didn't want to be on the outside. Right. And that, that was used as a, something really to keep everybody on the inside. You don't know what you're gonna miss. If you don't get to church, you know? And so. We never, never missed church. We always went to church cuz you know who that could be.
The service at the seven thunders, you know, was made known to us. So we never knew. So that, that kept everybody super in. And, and if you didn't hear the thunders, um, you weren't gonna make it right. We, if you didn't hear the thunders, you weren't gonna make it. That's that's where we, 
[00:27:05] Rod Bergen: so if the thunder were revealed and you happened to have to work that night, that you were out, you were gone.
[00:27:12] Charles Paisley: You're in trouble. Right. And we believe there might be like a little space of time there between the thunders and the rapture, right. Where. You know, maybe the people who were out sick that Sunday, they could hear it and it'd get around a little bit, but you didn't have a whole lot of time, right. You from the time those thunders happened to getting outta here, it was gonna have to be, so you better show up to church, right?
so, so that kind of kept everybody, you know, on edges seat. And so the other piece of it though, is towards the end of his life. About 1993, brother Jackson started preaching that the, uh, that the rapture would happen. Um, well, the, the week of Daniel would happen in the year 2005, the week of Daniel was supposed to start in 2005 and we of course, was taught and believed that the rapture would happen at the start of the week of Daniel.
So, so we, we for years went through, believe in, you know, the end of the world is coming. Roughly in this timeframe, uh, I should pull off my Shelf. I got some of the charts and the actual printouts of some of that stuff where he, where he had said that. And, uh, so, so as that gets closer, right, we have this, this criteria that we've gotta meet to make the rapture, right.
And we've got to be ready by then, or we are gonna be left behind, you know? And so there's, there's different things we have to do in our lives to get ready. So it's all about this. You know, I, I grew up, you know, always paranoid. Do I have enough of what it takes to go in the rapture? Right. And I sure better be here when we have the thunders and, and brother Jackson had this dream, like prophetic dreams, kind of really featured in a lot to his stuff.
He had this dream where, um, We're in a, he's in a big room and like a auditorium. And to get into this auditorium, you had to have a little bottle of anointing oil, which represented, you know, you had to have just this right. Holy Ghost experience and all of the criteria met. You could only get in there if you had the right stuff.
And then once we were in there, brother Branham appeared on stage and. Gave us this wonderful something, which he couldn't remember what it was, but whatever this wonderful thing was, what was gonna more or less take us outta the world. And so we, more or less, that was always interpreted that you had to have this, whatever this perfect thing was in order to get in, to hear the thunders.
And if you didn't even have this, then you're gonna be knocked out before the thunders come and you're gonna miss everything. And so we just lived our whole life. Trying to make sure we were in this state where we could get the thunders and we could get the rapture. It, it was really unusual. And so towards the, towards about the year 2000, um, It did it wasn't apparent to me, but it's parent, it started to become apparent to other people, especially some of the other key me ministers in our sec of the message that, uh, the world was not going to end by 2005.
[00:30:24] Rod Bergen: So , when did junior Jackson pass away? 
[00:30:26] Charles Paisley: Yeah, he died... He died in December of 2004, six months before right. Six months before his, uh, his date came. That was, that was, uh, really something . And so, uh, so about 2004 or other 2000, some of the people, certain ministers started to distance themselves a little bit from the prediction and looking back now, I, I realized what, what started to transpire at this point, brother Jackson started having this, uh, belief that if you wanted to hear the thunders and you wanted to go, we all had to be imper.
Unity. And this, this is when things really started to get, get very tough. And at that point that was used to target at first, the preachers who had harbored doubts. About 2004 and a half. Uh, and you know, they found different reasons that they weren't in unity with them and they were, you know, ran off for that.
Cause, and this just kept going though. Right? So we're set up now, unless we're in perfect unity, we're not gonna be able to hear the thunders. We're not gonna be able to go in the rapture. And so it just, it starts to get really terrible at, at that point in our part of the message and things start to get very divisive.
You know, people are being basically scared. They're gonna go to hell thrown out of the church, family separated, you know, it gets really people were thrown outta the church. Oh yeah. I mean, we, we probably, so in, in those years, between 2000 and 2004, about half of the global fellowship was, was done away with this 
[00:32:18] Rod Bergen: Disfellowshipped... they either left or they were asked to leave 
[00:32:21] Charles Paisley: Disfellowshipped... Exactly. So in just those few years, about half of the global fellowship, uh, fell, fell off at that point. And then when, when brother Jackson died, you know, we had. We had a few years there. Well, we had, we had six months to his date came and went and he had, he had put in there a couple years of leeway.
She said, oh, I could be off a year or two. Right. And so 2005 ended, nothing happened 2006 ended, nothing happened 2007 ended nothing happen. And now it's 2008 and everybody. At that point, realizes something is wrong with, you know, brother Jackson's math. And so all, all the preachers that are left, they start coming up.
You come up with different ways to try and fix the problem. Right? So, so like one, one preacher in Canada comes up with one way to fix the calculations. Uh, you know, a preacher in Alabama comes up with another way to fix 'em preacher in Arizona comes up with another way. Preacher, in preachers, in Africa come up with different ways to fix it.
Preachers in Europe, come up with different ways to fix it. You know, just EV every preacher is coming up with a different way to fix the calculations. So there, there, and our pastor, of course, that took over after Raymond Jackson died, he's come up with his way to fix the calculations. The problem is, is everybody has a different way to fix it.
Okay. And now they all come back together and we all gotta be in perfect unity or we're not gonna make it. And everybody has the right answer, but nobody agrees. And, and it, it was like an atomic bomb. And. You know, I, I can chuckle about it a little bit, but it was, it was a horrific experience to live through.
Um, through that time. What, what, what fell out? I can't imagine. 
[00:34:15] Rod Bergen: I know how bad it was when our church started to implode it just, I couldn't sleep. I didn't sleep for months and months. It was just very cuz you knew something terribly wrong. And I mean, with us it was sin and, and sin that, you know, you just kind.
This is not possible. This happens at the Catholic church. This happens in denominations, it doesn't happen in my church. We're the, we are the last voice. William Branham was the last voice. The last age, we believe his message. And how does this happen? It's just messed up. And yeah, it's. 
[00:34:53] Charles Paisley: For for me.
So at this point and me and most everyone, I know we still believe brother Jackson somehow had to be right. Right. Like we cognitively dissonance dealt with that somehow. And, but the way that we got through it was by. Basically mass division, the, the, the group broke into about seven different sec at that point with different, all different men claiming to be the leaders.
Um, you know, a lot of our families were broken up and for us that means you can never see or speak to these people ever again. And so we, we lost a whole lot of our, I mean, I lost most of my family at that point, as far as relationships, uh, when we went through that period, um, a. Marriages were broken up.
They would even pressure, you know, if a husband went one way at a wife, another they'd pressure divorces. So it was really awful. 
[00:35:52] Rod Bergen: Ministers are gonna be held to account for this. As James says, I think it's James chapter three. He says, brothers, not many of you should seek to be teachers because, we will be held to a higher standard.
There's gonna be much more strict judgment. And we saw it, uh, pastor breaks up a marriage cause for a whim. And then even in the same family you have, okay, this guy was divorced. The woman was divorced, the man was divorced, they got married. So they, that shouldn't happen.
But then, wow, you got in the same family, man, divorced woman divorced, they get married and it's. It's just, it's all based on opinion. It's not based on any kind of 
[00:36:33] Charles Paisley: standard. Yeah. It, it, it's just whatever, you know, makes the leader happy at that moment. Let me look on my Shelf real quick. I think I have, uh, let me look real.
If I got that tape, I could, I'll just pull it out and show you. I think I've got it here somewhere. I'll. Sorry. If I step away for a second, I, I don't see it. No, we can still hear you. I wish I did. I I'd pull it out. I'd pull it off and show you the, the tape that has the, uh, that has those charts and some of those things on it.
But for the end, I can't remember right where I have it filed. 
[00:37:05] Rod Bergen: Maybe what you could do is if you find them, send me a copy and I'll post it on the website so that people who listen can download and take 
[00:37:12] Rod Bergen (2): a look 
at 
[00:37:12] Rod Bergen: it. 
[00:37:14] Charles Paisley: Yeah, let me do that. I know I have a, I know I have a photograph of it I can share, but the thing is the, the chart, the chart with this date and stuff, we posted it in our churches for years, right?
Like it's still, it's still in the, there's still a chart in the church at faith assembly. That points the end of the world 2005. yeah. Hanging on the wall in the church, right? Like it they're, they're everywhere in, in our churches. Yeah. So it it's a crazy. Wild thing. And you know, the, the desperation to try and fix that really led to a lot of the current problems that are in the, in the Jackson groups.
[00:37:48] Rod Bergen: It sounds like any kind of rebellion against junior Jackson while he was alive, got nipped in the bud and he would just show them the door.
[00:38:00] Charles Paisley: Right. You you're you're you're exactly right. You know, there, there wasn't really much that I would call rebellion more. What I call, I guess, division.
I mean, there was a few times there was, uh, you know, there was a time Brad Burgess. I don't, no, I know Brad. Yeah. Never heard Brad Burg. He's got a message church over in Louisville. There was a time he came and like they had different holiness standards than faith assembly did. And he ripped brother jacks and, you know, up one side and down the other on the platform.
Uh, and so, you know, there was a few times there was direct challenges like that. And of course he, he ended up showed the door, you know, so there, there was a few times things like that happen, but it was more, you know, as soon as brother Jackson found out. There was even something possibly going on. Yeah, they, they were dealt with really quick, um, one time, uh, one maybe you're familiar with, so we, some of the, there were some ministers that we financially supported in India, for example.
And we found out that they were also taking money from, uh, Cloverdale . So they were on, uh, both of our dimes. Right? Well that's and, 
[00:39:04] Rod Bergen: That's not uncommon when you go offshore. People are, they'll ask these cash for money. These guys for money. And yeah, they just, they're interested in the money.
They're not necessarily interested in what you have to say or what you believe. Yeah. 
[00:39:18] Charles Paisley: And so anyways, you know, once brother Jackson found out that these people are possibly double agents, right. You know, they're immediately, they're immediately dealt with right. That way, because, you know, he didn't want, you know, any connection back to yeah.
Cloverdale Bible way. Right. So, yeah, it was always dealt with right on the spot, as soon as he found those things out. 
[00:39:36] Rod Bergen: So moving ahead. What caused you to start asking questions about the message? And I know these things, certainly with me, it's not suddenly you woke up and say, oh, the message is false. You got a question, right?
And you have a difficult time getting answers to the questions and you talk to people, and they don't want you to question. So what started your questioning the message?