Transcript
God bless you all today. It’s time to begin our service. I am so glad to have you all here with us, and I send you all my greetings.
If this is your first time joining us and you wonder who we are and what we are up to, my name is Charles Paisley. I am, and most of our listeners here, are formerly members of the cult following William Branham known as the message. The message is a global doomsday cult with millions of members. It started right here in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and spread all over the world. I am formerly the associate pastor of the second oldest message church in the world, right here in the Jeffersonville area. And this is a little mission we operate to offer encouragement to those leaving the message and also to take a look at the plain reading of scripture as we seek to wash out of our minds what, for most of us, has been a lifetime of indoctrination.
And today, I do not actually have a sermon lesson for you. It’s been about six months since we last did one of these. But today, I am just going to give a little talk. We have been on a series working our way through the book of Ephesians for the past few months. And last week we finished up the first half of chapter 4. And that brings us to a little stopping point.
And the first half of chapter four is really foundational to the religion of the places we come from. And I feel a need to pause here and speak about a few things that are related. This is not part of the series on Ephesians. But our need to talk about this comes from passing through those verses. And, I think today I am going to tackle what you already have seen is the title of the lesson: What should we do with the ministry of the Apostle Raymond Jackson? And that is a question I hope to answer before we finish today. I have one opening verse of scripture I would like to read here before we begin. It is from Matthew chapter 10, and you are welcome to open your bibles and read it with me if you like.
And in this verse, we are reading the words of Jesus. And Jesus said:
“So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.”
Prayer
Lord, as I approach this topic today, you see what a challenging topic this is for people of my background. I pray you help us to see with spiritual eyes and to hear with spiritual ears and to discern with a spiritual mind. And Lord, let every word spoken be only that which will serve to set souls free. I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Introduction
Brothers and sisters, this is a heavy topic for me. I loved Raymond Jackson; I still do. He was, in many ways, like a grandfather figure to me. My entire life, he has been a personal hero of mine. And I wouldn’t be lying if I said he was one of the examples that I patterned my life after for a really long time.
He had a lot of good qualities. He taught a lot of sound things, and he helped a lot of people. And I still have, in many ways, a mostly positive view of him.
After I finish up today, you might wonder how that can be. But today, I am just telling part of the story, a part that not everyone knows about. And it is important for those in the places we come from, and especially for those who have exited. It’s important for them to know these things because it will help them.
And I am not trying to tell you Bro. Jackson is a lost soul. I believe he was a genuine Christian, even though he was in a delusion. You know they say, if you take a good person and put him in a bad system, the bad system will win. And, I really kind of think that is what happened to Bro. Jackson. And I have a lot of sympathy for that, and a lot of grace for that. Because, that is what happened to me. And I want grace, and I want mercy. And so, I want to make sure I am someone who also shows grace and mercy.
And I hope you will remember that as I go through everything I have to say today.
And before I begin, I want to explain the nature of my relationship with Raymond Jackson and Faith Assembly Church, and all the places which fellowshipped with us.
My family moved to the Jeffersonville area in 1990. That was about 35 years ago. And that was about 25 years after William Branham died. Before that, we lived in Canada. My mother’s family is from Indiana, and my father’s family is from Canada. And so, we moved here to be near my mother’s family, and also be near Jeffersonville.
My family is an old message family. They have been in the message since the days of William Branham. They knew him personally. My parents were very active in the church. Not long after we moved here, they took a role helping with the international conventions. And over time, they were doing a lot to help organize things for the conventions, and to do a lot of the work to get ready for them and clean up afterwards. My father was on the church board; he was a trustee of the church. And I was asked to help take care of things in the church office starting in the late ’90s.
And, when I was in the message – I was a very quiet person for the most part. And even after I became a minister – I am not someone who likes to talk about myself. And most people, I don’t think they really understood all the things I was doing behind the scenes for the church. And, I was happy for it to be that way. Because, I am not really someone who likes the limelight or to have attention. To be honest with you.
But I was in the church office a lot. Usually several days a week, for many years. I was in the back rooms of the church before and after service taking care of things. The church office was across the street from Bro. Jackson’s home back then. And I was around Bro. Jackson a lot too. I ate dinner with Bro. Jackson in his home many times. Bro. Jackson called me Charlie. And he always treated me very kindly and always made me feel special. I can’t say we were best friends or anything at all like that. But I was around very much; I saw many things, I heard many things.
Over the years, I ended up taking care of computer systems of the church, the websites, the digital outreach, the live broadcasts, the service recordings. If you go watch any church service from there online, I am the one who made those recordings. I am the one who converted all the old media to digital. I did a lot. Eventually, I became the third editor of The Contender after Bro. Turner retired. And if you don’t know what that is, The Contender is, I believe, the oldest and longest-running Message publication. It has been published since the ’60s; it has a huge number of subscribers. I think it would be fair to say it is one of the premier publications of the message. It has outlived Only Believe Magazine and all those others. And it has been very influential in spreading the version of the message that our churches believed in. And I was the editor for quite a few years.
I was also a trustee of the church. I sat on the church board, which had, supposedly, oversight of the finance and decision making.
As the years went by, I was invited by James Allen to start preaching. I never asked to preach; I never hinted I wanted to preach. He asked me to preach after we lost some preachers, and I stepped in to fill the role.
Eventually, I was made the assistant pastor of the church. There was a board meeting when that happened. I was nominated by Dan Berta, and they all voted me in. And I was a little upset, to be honest when they did that. No one told me they were going to do that. No one asked me if I wanted to do it. And they didn’t really even give me a choice in the matter. And, I really didn’t like that. Because, by that point, I was actually having some problems with what was going on there. I had even told most of them privately I was planning to leave the church. I was already planning to leave at some point. And I had publicly stated several times I had no interest in being the pastor there. But anyways, they made me the assistant pastor of the church. And, there is a lot more I could say about that, but I won’t right now.
And so, I say all this so you can understand, I was very much near the center of things going at Faith Assembly for a lot of years. I say all of this just so you can understand, I was in a position to know everything I am going to talk today.
Who Was Raymond Jackson?
Now there are two things I want to share about Raymond Jackson today. And there are many things we could talk about. But, for me, personally, this is a very heavy topic. I think people who come from the places I did will understand. But we truly revered Bro. Jackson. He was my hero for most of my life. He was just, above reproach. And so, to talk about these things is very heavy for me.
So I am just limiting this to two things. The first one is about something he preached, and the fallout from it. And the second thing is something that he did.
And I believe these two things, if you will just consider them, that they are enough to let us see some things that will help us understand how to look at Raymond Jackson.
And, as we look at men like Raymond Jackson, I think it’s important to remember that just because they did some things that were negative, that it means everything they ever did or said was bad. Because that’s not true. The people in life are mixed. There is good and bad mixed together. And I still recognize the good; I never want to pretend it was all bad because it wasn’t. But it is equally important to recognize the bad too because that is an important part of being able to evaluate what has happened.
And, I assume everyone is probably already very familiar with Raymond Jackson. But it’s hard to realize, to me, but he has been passed away twenty years this year. So a whole generation has come that really has no memory of him.
And so, let me just take a minute to talk about his life story. Raymond Jackson is a native of Clark County, Indiana. Jeffersonville is the county seat of Clark County. Bro. Jackson was in WW II, and when he came back he went into farming. And not long after, he had a very terrible accident. He was driving his tractor, and a drunk driver hit his tractor and injured him really badly. He had a scar on his forehead that came from that accident. And, he never talked about this much himself, but you will find it in the newspaper articles from back then. He got a very large settlement out of that accident. And, just after he got that settlement, that was when he was invited to the Branham Tabernacle. And, looking back, I can’t help but wonder if that was related to why William Branham treated him so special back at the beginning of his time there.
Whatever the case, he started attending the Branham Tabernacle for several years, and he became a close friend of William Branham. And in 1955, the people at the Tabernacle helped Bro. Jackson start their very first sister church. And that church was Faith Assembly Church. Back then it was called Gospel Chapel, and it was in New Albany. The church moved a couple of times until it ended up there on the edge of Jeffersonville where it is today.
When Bro. Branham died, Bro. Jackson was part of a faction of ministers with Bro. Neville, and Bro. Ruddle, and Bro. Crase, Bro. Fulcher, Bro. Pederas – I could list them all. But about half the message ministers were in a faction that was opposed to church order. And that was really the first split in the message just after Bro. Branham died. It was over the preachers who wanted church order and the ones who didn’t. And so, they would say Church order was only for the tabernacle, and they didn’t have to follow it. But then the other half of the ministers, Pearry Green, Lee Vayle, Willard Collins, Earl Martin – that side of things went with putting church order in all their churches. And so, Faith Assembly started drifting away from the Tabernacle not long after William Branham died.
And it was about then that Raymond Jackson had a dream. And in his dream, he got an envelope in the mail. And in the envelope was a certificate. And it said, “This certain day, Raymond Jackson is hereby ordained to the office of an Apostle.” And the certificate was signed, William Branham. And so, that was the basis on which we all accepted he was an apostle.
And there were other men in our fellowship who were also considered by us to be apostles. But Raymond Jackson had this special position as the chief apostle. And he basically had all the authority, even over the other men who were thought were apostles.
And what I want to point out to you is that Raymond Jackson never claimed to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. There was never any indication that he was called to be an apostle by Jesus. His calling as an apostle came from William Branham – even the dream he had.
I know some people hate this. But if William Branham falls, then he takes Raymond Jackson with him. Raymond Jackson has no ministry and no calling for the church if William Branham was not who he claimed to be. Raymond Jackson’s ministry is in every single way built on the foundation of William Branham. And there is just no way to argue with that. And, with everything we know about William Branham now – the foundation is ripped out from under Raymond Jackson.
But through the years, Raymond Jackson established a large international fellowship of message churches. The people at Faith Assembly now, you probably really have no idea what we used to have. It’s been 20 years now. But we used to have dozens of churches all over the world. Our international conventions were big things. You can go back and look at the tapes. I think we had affiliated churches in probably 45 different countries. We mailed The Contender to more than ten thousand subscribers.
And, James Allen – and Bud Thompson – and Steve Yarhaus have a lot of blame too – they flushed all of that down the drain.
Faith Assembly is a tiny remnant of what it used to be. And in the wake of all that breaks up is a mountain of destroyed homes and families and lives.
And if you are there, and you are not aware of all these things, maybe because you are more recently joined. I can understand why you are not familiar with all those things. But that is all an important context to understand in all of this.
Now, Raymond Jackson. In a lot of ways, he was a very kind man. But there was a side to him that you didn’t. I remember one time, I had a conversation with Billy Cox. Billy Cox came from the Branham Tabernacle, he knew William Branham – he is a message old-timer. And this was after Raymond Jackson had died. And he was explaining something to me, I had not really thought much about. And when he finished explaining that situation, he said to me, “Raymond Jackson was a very proud man.” And, as that has stuck with me.
And, that, before I walk through these two things, I think that is really the answer and the explanation to why these things got so far out of hand. Bro. Jackson was a man who had a very hard time admitting he was wrong or had made a mistake. And, if he had one character flaw, that was it. And, that explains, very, very much, if you will take the time to think all these things through.
Because I want to assure you, Raymond Jackson knew there was something deeply wrong with the message by the end of his life. He absolutely did. I really have a feeling, if he were still living, he might well recant the whole thing at this point. Because he was a man who was reasonable. And, push comes to shove, Raymond Jackson is a man who loved the truth. And if you could show him the truth, he would take it. And, I do believe if he were still with us, people would probably be surprised. Because he is not like this current leadership at Faith Assembly. Not by a mile. I can assure you that – and everyone knew it.
I remember the conversations I had with Bro Turner. And there was so much sadness in most of the old-timers over what happened in the years after Raymond Jackson died. The people who took over after literally ran the whole thing into the ground. And I honestly don’t think they even care. And things have gone from bad to worse.
And, I am being very honest here. If you stick around for what comes when the next one takes over, you are in danger. You are in serious danger. And if that happens, I really think you need to run for your lives at that point. Very bad things are going to happen, far worse than what has already happened.
Faith Assembly has a very large multi-million dollar bank account. And you have a man coming in who has a history of stealing from church treasuries. And if you don’t believe that, then call up his last church and ask them.
I know it’s even true – because he actually confessed the whole thing to me; he told me he did. And he told me that Raymond Jackson told him to take the money out of their treasury. Which, I am not sure I believe that Raymond Jackson told Kevin Crase to take the money out of the Bloomington church treasury when he left that church. But maybe he did. That is Kevin Crase’s story.
And there are multiple ministers who have left the Bloomington church – I am in fellowship with them now. They left the message behind. And they told me the story from their side too. And it really is true, Kevin Crase was their church treasurer, and he took the money out of their treasury when he left to come to Faith Assembly.
There is a trail of dead bodies and missing money around that man. And you people are in danger. You have a psychopath on your hands. And I don’t say that lightly.
2004 1/2.
But that is not what we are talking about today.
Today, I am going to talk about these two things concerning Raymond Jackson. And the first thing I want to bring to your attention. You will probably be familiar with it if you have fellowshipped with our churches.
And this story starts in about 1992. And, this happened right around the same time that Raymond Jackson found out William Branham had made up the story of the cloud in Arizona.
And about that time, Raymond Jackson preached a sermon called “Looking Through Windows of Prophecy”. And I have a copy of the tape right here. And in this sermon, from the very first time he preached it, he began to tell us that the week of Daniel was going to start in about 2005.
Now, the people who tell you that never happened. They are absolutely lying to you. And a lot of them – they are very brainwashed. And they probably really believe it when they say it never happened. But it did. It’s in writing in black and white, in the Contenders. It’s on handouts they gave out like this. It’s also in the sermons on recordings. He flat out said, plainly and directly, many times – that the week of Daniel would start at 2004 1/2.
And, here is the thing. He was excited for the coming of Jesus. And, I can understand that. I think, all Christians can understand being excited for the second coming of Jesus. And, I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing to do – but some people will put out what-ifs. What if this, and what if that, and what if the other. What if. And, I don’t think that is an ok thing to do. But that is something that is more understandable to me. But that is not how this unfolded with Bro Jackson.
I think, I will be real honest.
I think 2004 ½, that he intended that to be a what-if. A maybe. But, I think when he preached it, it came out as a certainty. And the people took it as a certainty. And he got stuck, and he could not backtrack on his words. And, this is where having trouble admitting you are wrong becomes a problem when you are at the top of the food chain.
He doubled down on it. And he preached it over and over and over. And people were so worked up. It got to a fever pitch. I would say three quarters of the people and the preachers totally bought into it. And we had a major, what we would call, an outpouring happen. A huge revival broke out just after he preached this. And it swept through all our churches. In Europe, and Canada, and Africa, and the Philippines. It just spread everywhere, very ecstatic worship services. All kinds of things of that nature.
And, Raymond Jackson told us all this came to him in a supernatural experience. He explained it, that he had a dream. And in his dream, he was sitting in a chair. And a light shined over his head – and he heard a voice say, “I will show you the order of my coming.” And he explained that is how he came to understand all these things. And he worked up this really elaborate scenario of what all was going to happen and he turned it into the countdown chart, which hangs up on the wall in all of our churches.
And, what has happened,
Is time has gone on to the point now, that is totally impossible that anything he said about that was right. The things he said had to happen in Israel – it’s impossible. The nations and the powers there have all aligned in a way that makes his scenario impossible. And of course, 2005 came and went and nothing happened.
Except one thing.
One thing happened.
And that was that he died. Raymond Jackson died at the end of 2004, and he never had to deal with the fallout of getting this all so wrong.
Now, there are two things I want to point out to you, to make sure you understand. By 2000 and 2001, it was starting to become obvious to Bro. Jackson that he was wrong. The things his end-of-days scenario needed to start happening about then, but they weren’t happening. The pope should have been making a big splash. Israel should have been talking about building the temple. There should have been big wars in the holy land. And none of that was happening.
And, it was not obvious to me, or most of us at the time. But Raymond Jackson and some of the preachers were already clueing in that the predictions were wrong. And, some of the preachers were hedging their bets. All that time, about a quarter of the preachers never really came out and endorsed what Bro. Jackson had said about 2004 ½. And Rolf Strommen was the most prominent one who had not. And, in our churches, he was another apostle. He was our most influential minister in Europe. And he was well known to our entire global fellowship.
And, as it came to 2000 and 2001, Raymond Jackson took notice that he had not endorsed 2004 ½. And he started to get concerned. And I want you all to know – the breakup with Rolf Strommen and that massive split – it was about 2004 ½.
I have copies of Bro. Jackson’s letters with Rolf Strommen. I have recordings sent back and forth. I have all that stuff. I am not guessing here. Bro. Jackson was worried that Rolf was going to get one up on him when the 2004 ½ didn’t work out. That is absolutely what happened.
And so we all lived through what happened in 2001 and 2002. Bro. Jackson split up with Stromen. And it split all of our churches down the middle. We lost half our churches. And almost all of us, we had family on both sides. And many of us, we ended up losing our family that ended up on the other side. Because they made up shun them, and break up with them. I think it would be fair to say over 100 families were broken up that way, when that happened.
And things got really ugly after that. Anyone who questioned anything about 2004 ½ – they were viciously purged out of the church. And that went on through 2002, 2003, 2004. And everyone who was left, they went around basically forcing everyone to get on the record supporting Raymond Jackson.
And then, he died.
And nothing happened.
We are still here.
And Raymond Jackson, and James Allen, and Bud Thompson, and others, they broke up our homes. They broke up our families. They even drove some people to suicide. And other ways people were killed. I think of the boy up in New Brunswick who was killed. From the Moncton church. All these terrible things that happened. That was directly connected to all of that fallout.
And Raymond Jackson was wrong.
He was dead wrong.
And, it’s not just that he was wrong and that he made a mistake. But, because of his pride, whatever it was, he was willing to let all of those terrible things of fallout happen. And, in some ways, I can excuse him being excited about the second coming of Jesus, and maybe rushing the gun. I can, in my heart, I can forgive that. But what makes the biggest black mark is everything he did to try and protect himself from the repercussion of being wrong.
He preemptively went after Strommen. He allowed a massive split to go through all the churches. All the terribly ways people were harmed. All because he was trying to avoid dealing with the fact that he was wrong with his 2004 ½ prediction. And, I look back now, and this is mighty hard for me to say, but I believe his death in 2004 was absolutely the hand of God dealing with someone who was going off the deep end. And we were just too much under the spell then to see what was happening.
And I could talk to you for four or five hours just cataloging everything that happened. All the lives and homes that were harmed through that period of time by all that. And we all swept it under the rug. All of us, on all sides of it all. We all just swept it all under the rug – and we went along like Bro. Jackson was perfect and infallible.
To this day – to this day – I have not heard a single preacher in the places we come from say Raymond Jackson was wrong. Not one of them. And they will even deny, totally deny, that what I am saying even happened at all. They will flat out deny it. And if you have enough common sense, that should scare you. Something is very terribly wrong.
Now, there is one other thing about this 2004 ½ I want you to know about.
Raymond Jackson told us this came to him supernaturally. But, I want you to do something. I want you to look up the math on the Countdown Chart. And then I want you to go get a book from the library. The book is called The Coming Prince. It is by a man named Robert Anderson. And it was written in the 1800s. And Raymond Jackson has a copy of that in his library, if you will go look for it. And that is an important book. Raymond Jackson used it when he preached some of his sermons. William Branham used it when he preached some of his sermons. And if you will go to page 128, at least in this copy I have, you will find some of the math off the countdown chart. And I want you to know, that countdown chart math comes from this book. This is the basis Raymond Jackson used to get to his 2004 ½ calculations. And, it wasn’t a light shining over his head. It wasn’t a dream. I am afraid he was misleading us a little bit when he told us that story.
And so, that is the first thing about Bro. Jackson I want to share.
These things about 2004 ½.
And when we consider his ministry – this story about 2004 1/2 is enough to let us know we can’t just take what he preached and go forward with it. There was something wrong there. And it was very very wrong. We cannot lean on him as an authority when it comes to the gospel. Now, when it comes to the message – he is an authority. He is an apostle of the message. And we can rely on him, as it relates to the message.
But for the gospel of Jesus Christ, for having a solid foundation of understanding the truth of the Bible, he is not an authority we can depend on. He is not, nor was he ever, nor did he even claim to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. He was an apostle of the message of William Branham. But William Branham was a false prophet with a false message. And that makes Raymond Jackson a true apostle of a false message. Which is a dead-end road. And I can’t travel that road anymore.
Embezzlement
Now I want to talk to you about the second thing.
And, as hard as that first one was, this second one is much much harder. I have wrung my hands, I have gone back and forth, I have questioned to all ends if I should even tell this.
And, before I tell these things, I want you to know, I have checked into this. And there is a statute of limitations on things like this – which I will explain to you. And, enough years have passed, there is no chance that anyone can be put in jail, or anything like that. And, that has been part of why I have not said anything about this.
Because, there are people I really do love. I really do care for them. And, they have done things that, truth is, people go to jail for these things.
And I want to remind you, I worked in the church office for many years. I was a trustee of the church. My father was a trustee before me. And through my work with the church office, I have copies of many of the church’s financial records – going back to the 1990s. And I also have copies of the reports that they showed to the church board over the years.
I have things the rest of the trustees do not. Because these things are not shared with the trustees. The church does not actually give a detailed financial accounting to the church trustees. They don’t get a full list of expenses and salaries or things like that. And they really have no vote on anything that is spent or bought or paid. There is nothing like that. And if you think that happens in the business meetings – I want you to know it’s not like that at all.
About once a year, the trustees are told, these are the top-line items of what was spent here and there. And that’s it. They don’t vote on a budget. They don’t see what is in all those line items. The trustees don’t get to see anything like that.
And if the trustee were to ask for a detailed itemization of where the money goes, they probably wouldn’t get to be a trustee for much longer.
Now I worked in the church office, I was an assistant pastor, I was a trustee over the church finances. I do not feel bad for having a copy of their financial records. I am legally entitled to have those records, and I obtained them in a perfectly legitimate way, as part of my regular work at the church.
And besides having the actual records themselves, I was also working in the church office, and I heard from Bro. Jackson’s own mouth how he wanted the accounting to be done. I saw with my own eyes how the accounting was done. And what I am about to tell you, every single person involved in this situation has given me a long detailed explanation of the whole thing.
Steve Yarhaus, James Allen, David Jackson, Arlene Marshall, Jack Marshall.
I could keep going.
But every last one of them told me the whole story, from their side.
And I know everything.
And I know there are going to be people who are very upset that I tell these things. But we need to put the light of day on this. Enough time has passed.
And to my friends who involved in all this, I know you are going to be very upset about this when I tell it. But this thing, this is a chain. It is something that has you all burdened, and you don’t even realize how much it has harmed you all. And I know it’s not going to seem like it. But I am taking this off the table, if you will let me. No one is going to hold this over your heads anymore as blackmail. And I know, that is absolutely what has been going on the past number of years. Some people have used this as blackmail on the Jackson family. To control them. And that only works as long as these things are a secret.
And as I tell this to you, you are going to understand why some people were so desperate to destroy my reputation and credibility when I first left the message. It’s because of the things I know.
And so, here it is really plain.
Raymond Jackson and his family were doing something, that, my opinion of the legal term here would be embezzlement. And it was going on for at least fifteen years. Maybe more than that. But at least 15 years for sure.
And this is how it worked.
The church kept two accounts – they were both at Regions Bank. There was one account that they reported to the church board. And another account that they never told anyone about. And when the tithes and offerings came in, Bro Jackson would say how much to put in each account. I was in the church office. I heard these things with my own ears. And he was at times very plain in saying why he wanted so much in which account. I remember one time, he said, Steve Yarhaus had given a big check, and he said make sure you put that in the one account, because Steve will notice when they do their report. And I heard and saw a lot of things brothers and sisters. And you, I really think it was because they saw I was a person who kept my mouth shut. That is how they trusted me and kept giving me more and more responsibilities. I never told the things I saw to anyone. And back then, I remember thinking to myself, it’s Bro. Jackson. This thing is all of the Lord.
And what were these two accounts the church kept?
One account was money that went to the church, for paying bills and things like that. And that is what the board got to see. But the other account, that was for Bro Jackson and his family to live on. They all drew an income out of that account. And, I can’t say it was every last one of them. But, during the 1990s and early 2000s, it was most of them. His kids. Most of his adult grandkids too. And, some of them did degrees of work for the church. I am not even saying the family all knew how it worked. But that is what was happening. Raymond Jackson diverted money to the other account for the entire family to draw income from. And none of it got reported to the church board.
In 1997, Glen Funk figured it out. I am not sure just how he figured it out. He was a cousin to Sis. Jackson, and maybe somehow visiting the family he figured it out. But whatever it was, he figured it out. And Glen Funk told some of the deacons and trustees about it. And the deacons and trustees called a meeting to discuss it – but they didn’t invite Bro. Jackson. They didn’t even tell him.
And, if you all were around back then, you all remember what happened. And this is all on tape. You can go get the tapes, they are online. And I have copies.
Raymond Jackson dismissed the entire church board before they could do anything. He preached a sermon. And, I remember clear as day, he said: “You never heard of the apostles in the scripture giving our financial statements.” And he was upset, he was even angry, that the deacons and trustees had raised a question. And he basically swore on the Bible to us, that we could trust him. That it was all above board. That there was nothing to see. And he told us, basically, that the church board wanted to nickel and dime everything. And they were a contrary thorn in his side. And he was going to put in a new board, who shared his vision for spreading the message.
And that is what he did. He put out the entire church board. And he put in a new church board. My father became a trustee at that point.
And through that – Raymond Jackson was lying to us all. He was outright lying. You can go back and listen to the tapes. He told us, he practically swore to it, that he and his family were not diverting tithe month to themselves. But he was bold faced lying. And he was absolutely abusing all the respect and love and position he had among the people to do what he did. And the worst thing is how he besmirched the old members of the church board.
And I think of the men like Nathaniel Smith – he never got over it. That hurt him so bad. And then James Creech and Billy Cox, and those other men. Raymond Jackson hurt their reputations so bad with all that. Among all the other people.
And he did just to protect himself. And that is so ugly. It’s so so ugly.
And, I know on me first telling all this. If this is the first time you have heard this – which it probably is. This is just too unbelievable for you. But I am telling you the truth. I can lay my hand on a Bible, and tell you, I am telling you the truth.
And this is not all of it. The truth is, it gets worse.
So, Raymond Jackson put in a new church board. And he kept on going like he always had, running things with the two accounts. And then of course he died. And in the last couple years of his life, he caused a massive split, and half the church broke away. And, a lot of the money was coming from the overseas churches. They would tithe back to Faith Assembly. And, that money always went into the secret account. But as that money slowed down, and then other splits after he died, the income of the church really dropped.
And you might ask – how much money are we talking about brother Charles. And we are talking about millions of dollars, brothers and sisters. When I left the church, we had annual income of about $750,000 a year – that they told us about anyways. So we are talking about millions of dollars over the years.
And so after the income dropped in the early 2000s, and Raymond Jackson died. Raymond Jackson’s family continued the same practice. Except, other members of the family began to decide how much went into the secret account.
And that went on until 2007. And in 2007, James Allen wanted to take a trip to the Philippines. And he asked for it to be paid from the church treasury. And he was told there was not enough money. They didn’t have $5,000 or so dollars to pay for the trip. And so, he asked at that time for the financial records, so he could understand where all the money had went.
And that is when he found out the same thing Bro. Glen and the old church board found out in 1997. They found out there was a secret account the family was drawing their incomes from. Over and above the salaries the church board had approved from the main account. And not only had they spent all the church’s money by 2007 – they had also run up and maxed out all the church’s credit cards. They spent all the money, and they maxed out all the credit cards.
And the most of the family was taking income this way. I don’t think they all necessarily understood how it worked. But they were most all taking income this way.
And when this was discovered in 2007, they called a meeting. And, most everyone at that meeting has related to me everything that happened. And at the meeting was some of the Jackson family, and James Allen, and Bud Thompson, and Steve Yarahus, and Dan Berta, and David Jackson – who were deacons. The trustees were not invited – and to the best of my knowledge – the trustees know nothing about any of this. I only know about it, because after I was made assistant pastor, everyone involved came and told me about it. Because they all wanted me on their side. And to hear their story.
And at the meeting, David Jackson excused himself, he said he was in the family, and didn’t feel right to be involved, and he told the rest of them to make whatever decision they wanted without him. And Dan Berta, I had several of them tell me this, he had some sort of a breakdown when the meeting started. He started shaking and lose self-control, like a panic attack or something. And he had to excuse himself too. And I was told that happened, because James Allen was yelling and screaming, and it got to Dan Berta’s nerves, the way he was behaving.
And so that left thee people – Steve Yarahus, James Allen, and Bud Thompson – to deal with the situation.
And here is how it went down. Steve Yarhaus wanted to turn them into the police for embezzlement. And the family swore up and down that they were just doing it the way Raymond Jackson told them to. And when they saw that was how it would go, James Allen said they could not turn them in. Because it would destroy Raymond Jackson’s reputation and legacy.
And so, what happened is that the three of them, and most of the family decided to pin all the blame on the treasurer and their family. But I am here to tell you, I heard it with my own ears from Raymond Jackson’s lips. They were doing exactly what he told them to do.
But they decided to pin it all on the treasurer. And the deal they made was this. They would not turn them in to the police. They would not tell the church board or the trustees. They would cover the whole thing up, and forgive all the money they took. But the family would have to pay back all the money owed on the credit cards. And the treasurer would lose their position. But the rest of the family would keep their positions, and they would give them formal salaries and it would be reported in the salary line item to the church board.
So keep that in mind – some of them still get salaries. The trustees still don’t know who all gets salaries. But they see the dollar figure since then. And so, that was the deal.
And of course, they didn’t have money to pay for the credit card bills. So back at that time, they had basically a barn burner yard sale. And they sold off anything people would buy in order to raise money.
And you all, if you were around then might remember. They sold their cars, and their campers, and instruments, and equipment, and tools, and guns, and all kinds of stuff. And they were doing all that to raise money to pay off the credit cards.
And I think I should point out to you, that Bud Thompson bought a whole lot of it from them. Pennies on the dollar, he bought all kinds of stuff from them – because he knew how bad they needed the money. And – I really still am not sure how to feel about that. I think it’s not good. You can decide for yourself. But, I think that was filthy mammon, filthy lucre. It was really ugly for him to do that. And, it’s hard for me to find a way to excuse him doing that.
And so, that was happening. The rest of them were covering up the embezzlement. But the family could not come up with enough money to pay off the credit cards. So, they got the idea to sell Bro. Jackson’s house. But they didn’t want it going to unbelievers. So they ended up selling the house to the church.
And so, I want you to think about this now. James Allen, Steve Yarahus, Bud Thompson. They know about the embezzlement. And they all agreed to buy the house in order for them to raise the money to pay off the credit cards. And, at this point, they are all accomplices. They are doing really shady things to cover up what happened.
And, to this day – you all might not know it, but the church owns Raymond Jackson’s house. And they rent it out in order to recover the money. And, so, that is how it stands.
And once the house was sold, I believe they finally were able to pay off the credit cards.
Now, all that happened. And, my father was a trustee on the board that whole time. They never reported that to the board. I was a trustee after him. They never told it to the board.
So not only was there a major embezzlement, the deacons and the ministers and the pastor oversaw the coverup. And brothers and sisters – that is all criminal. Every stitch of that is illegal. And if the statute of limitation was not up – they could all go to jail for that. And, I am real honest here – that is part of why I never said anything since I left about this. Because I want you to know the truth. But I don’t want them to go to jail – because I do care about them. Especially the Jackson family. I counted Jack Marshall one of my best friends. I miss our friendship. And I really do hope the best for that entire family.
And now, here is the thing. You all can’t be blackmailed over this stuff anymore. Because everyone knows. And you can break free of this thing now, if you want to.
Summary
But now, as I reflect on back on what I have said here, with this embezzlement situation. I don’t believe Raymond Jackson was getting rich off the church. I don’t think any of them were. And I believe Raymond Jackson wanted to do things to reach more people with the Message, and he didn’t want to have to deal with a church board to do it. And his family was willing to go along with him. And he probably felt he was within his rights as an apostle to do those things. I think that is all true.
But as a matter of the law, as a matter of what is ethical and right. He was off the mark. And while I can, in a sense forgive that he was trying to just spread the message, and marshal the finance the way he thought best. While I can forgive that. It’s much harder to ignore what he did to the old deacon board. He harmed Nathaniel Smith, and James Creech, and Billy Cox, and others. He told lies when put them off the church board. And I think that tells us that Raymond Jackson knew what he was doing was wrong. Because if there was nothing wrong with it, why didn’t he just tell the church board in 1997? Why didn’t he just come clean, and trust them to do the right thing in 1997? And the reason he didn’t do that is because he knew he was doing something wrong in the eyes of the law. And he knew it would be wrong in the eyes of some of the deacons and trustees too. And he didn’t want to pay that price. Like Billy Cox told me, he was a proud man.
He was a good man to his friends. He was kind man to many people. But when it came to his survival, he put himself first. When it came to harm to his reputation, he would do things that were not above board. He did this with the 2004 ½ church splits. He did this with the 1997 church board replacement.
And, as we evaluate Raymond Jackson’s ministry, and being an apostle. We have to consider these things.
And as I end this explanation, this has been very painful and hard for me to say these things. And I know, a lot of people are going to say I just made all this up. And that is ok. Because I know the truth. And I know those people I have talked about all know the truth. And when they deny the truth – I am going to continue to show me just how big of a liar they all are. And it helps me know that I have made the right decision. You cannot trust the leadership at Faith Assembly Church. They are hiding really bad things from you.
And as I end this entire lesson. I want you to also know. This is not the worst of it. There are even worse things than this that have gone on, and are still going in. The leadership of the church is held together by this sort of dirt. They have dirt on each other, and anyone who makes a wrong move, they will unleash the dirt. And this sort of thing is what keeps a lot of the leaders trapped in there. Even though they know it’s all going sideways, it’s all gone to pot. They know it. But they are trapped.
And maybe as time goes on, I will continue to share more of these things, and let out the dirt they are holding over each other. Not to destroy them. But so they can go free of that burden. You don’t need to be keep these secrets anymore.
And I want to end by coming back to the title of this little talk. What do we do with the ministry of the Apostle Raymond Jackson? And, on some level, I think you have to decide this on your own. But I will tell you what I have done.
I have come to realize he was not an apostle of Jesus Christ. He was an apostle of a false message. And he was very good as an apostle, in that sense. But a good apostle of a bad message is someone we should not look to as an authority. There are correct things he preached. But you are never going to hear me appeal to him as an authority. If it’s in the bible, it will come across the pages of scripture. I will not need to say, Raymond Jackson said. I will be able to say, the bible says. Raymond Jackson’s legacy was being a good apostle of the message. And he was good at it. But the ultimate way it turned out is not good. And when I look at things like 2004 ½ or the embezzlement I have talked about today. I realize that Bro. Jackson was not really the mythical figure we thought he was. He was a man who had some character flaws, that harmed a lot of people. He helped a lot of people. But he also harmed a lot of people too. And we are unwise to ignore that.
And the same is true with the so-called preachers in these places today. There are people who are helped and benefited at times. But you also have to look at all the people who are harmed and damaged by them too. They are equally responsible for that. And they need to be accountable for that too.
They need to take responsibility for their actions, and they need to change their ways. And we see that is something they are unwilling to do. And, as for Faith Assembly. I really fear that is why God is giving them over into the hands of a psychopath. It breaks my heart to say it. And Bro. Jason – when you listen in. Watch out brother. Be very careful brother. Things are not as they seem. It took me a few years to figure it out. And I know, I know what dirt they have on you brother Jason. Be careful, because he will use it against you eventually. Look very closely, watch very closely. Be wise about it. And most of all, don’t compromise your soul with evil.
Brothers and sisters. I love you all. I appreciate you all. I am so thankful for all the different ones at Faith Assembly who are still there and still reach out regularly. I am praying for you all. You are not alone. And whether you can find a way of escape, or whether you have been called to be a Daniel in Babylon. God knows all about it.
I you have my love and prayer whatever your circumstance is. Come back next time, I have one more lesson before we resume our way through Ephesians. But I will end here for now.
Prayer
God bless, and let me close here in prayer.
Lord, you see how heavy it makes my heart to talk about the people I have loved so dearly. I look forward to meeting Bro. Jackson in glory, I believe he was one of yours. Sometimes we make mistakes in life. Sometimes we can be blinded by our pride. Sometimes we can fall into religious delusions. But, when you are our savior. There is a way of escape from our own sins. Even sins we didn’t know we committed.
Lord I pray now for all my friends. Not just here in the area of Jeffersonville. but around the world. Give them strength for the days ahead. Give them strength for the journey. Lead us all, because you are our shepherd. And we are the sheep of your fold. Heal our hearts we pray. In Jesus Name. Amen.