219. A Story Of Spiritual Manipulation - Jim Jones and Peoples Temple - Part 3

Hello, welcome back to the podcast today. Glad to be here. Such a beautiful day out. Great day to be recording with you, James. And let's see, how's your day going? Man, it's doing well. I think in North Carolina, the weather forgot what to do. Last week on Monday, it was like 30 degrees. There was snow. They canceled school. Tuesday, we had a ball game. It was still a little chilly. Thursday, we had another football game. And it was like 80 degrees. And yesterday, Tuesday, or Monday, we had a ball game, a football game outside. And it was like 70, nice, windy, a little good. This morning, I woke up. It was below freezing. And I've got my pants back on. And my kids are having to, like, pull out their winter clothes because it's getting cold again. I love the cold weather. Don't get me wrong. I am not one that complains when cold weather comes. I am one that when it begins to get warm and I break the shorts out, I want it to stay warm at that point. I don't want to go back to this cold weather thing. So schizophrenia with the weather, I'm ready for the spring to happen and be done. And, you know, I've got the mower out. I've been mowing. Like, those things are happening. So that would be where I'm at. I'm like, come on, man. What's going on? More safe for the kids, right? They got my youngest son. He dressed himself. He's five. He just turned five. He's like, Dad, I don't even know where my winter clothes are at. You're telling me to put pants on. I can't find them. I'm like, ah, what's going on? So, yeah. Exactly. I did the same thing. Like, I'll wear pants and sweat. And then the next day, I'll wear shorts today. And then I'll freeze. And the sun's not coming out. There's still that little nip in the air, the little chill in the air. But I'm like you. I'm like, I'm ready for it to get warm. I'm ready for it to stay warm. And I'm ready for that summer to get here. I'm more of a summer guy the older that I get. I used to like cold and winter and things like that. But not anymore. I'm definitely ready to be done with the cold weather. That's for sure. Yeah, I am ready for winter, summertime and springtime and vacation season. We've got spring break right around the corner. I think when this comes out, we've already had spring break. And then we've got end of the school year, our anniversary coming up, 15 years. Me and my wife. Not me and Brett. Me and my wife. And then the convention right around the corner in June. And so hopefully you guys will join us down there at the SBC 2026 in Orlando. What a wonderful time it's going to be. Brett, you guys have any big family vacation coming up that's the summer? Or what are you all doing as a family this year? We have a busy summer ahead of us. We have convention. We have the convention coming up. Then we have a mission trip to Nicaragua in July. And so our vacation is more or less going to be in the fall. And so we're, you know, this summer is going to be a busy summer for us. And so, I mean, I've got a little camp on the river. If we can get away for a longer weekend, we might go down there and swim over the weekend or something like that. But we are looking for them. We hit the mountains in the fall. And so that's when, you know, that's where our family vacation is. But just a busy, busy time. You know, convention, you know, it's church work. But it is kind of still a break. I mean, it is a time to recharge. Just kind of get away. And I kind of think that's the point of the convention. Not only to do business, but to just give pastors time to, you know, just breathe a little bit. And take a little break. And, yeah, it's hectic. And there's some things going on. But I look forward to that every year. And I'm really, really looking forward to it this year as we're going to Orlando. Got some other things planned down there. Excited to bring my boys down there. Definitely not going to Disney World because I take out a second mortgage on my house to go to Disney World. Yeah. We are going to do some things in Orlando. Absolutely. Yeah, we're excited about it. I can't wait. It's going to be a great time. It's one of those things I look forward to now more for the sake of what you said, right? It's that recharging time. We're constantly pouring out as pastors to other people, counseling and preaching. And it's a time to get away with other brothers and sisters, get really good preaching and teaching during the pastors conference. This year they've got some micro conferences they're breaking out with, with worship and youth and children and admin stuff. And, you know, it doesn't appeal to me. I'm going to go to the main preaching session and just enjoy the feeding of my soul during that time before the conference and convention time where we deal with the business of the convention. And Brad, this is going to be, it's starting to shape up like it's going to be a pretty dicey convention. I don't know if you saw the cross politics newest documentary of how the SBC got robbed of $13 million. If you have not seen it, you need to go and watch it. Our listeners need to go and watch it. We may do a breakdown of that. They talked through how the convention was tried to be retro hauled with the Rachel Dilhollander situation with the sex abuse task force and the report that came out. And how basically it got bamboozled out of $13 million to pay for a vast report. And they do a really good job over at cross politics. You can go and look that up. It's about an hour and a half documentary and chocolate knocks. And those guys do a fantastic job of walking through what that looks like. And I think the more people that see that, the more of the veil that's going to be pulled back of what actually happened between 2017 and over the last nine or eight years at the convention level. And so I think that if you would do your research and just watch a little bit of that, some of that's going to be addressed, especially from the founders ministry. I feel like they're going to bring some of that up to light. And it just needs to be some accountability of what's been going on at the convention level. I'll tell you one thing that's, and I will have to check that out. That's interesting. I didn't know that. But I'll tell you one thing that's affecting our summer. And it's expressing a little bit of a frustration that a lot of parents and members of my church have is that our summers are getting shorter and shorter and shorter. And I have teachers that go to church here that are members. And our summers, and it's affecting our schedule. For instance, because our schools in Lake County are going to start back before July is over. And what that has done is it has moved the big, we have a big fair around us called the Neshoba County Fair. And it moved it to the week that we usually reserve for Vacation Bible School, which is the week of Father's Day. Because of that, we've had to reschedule our Vacation Bible School. And it's the week before we leave. It's the week of that we leave for convention. And so what we've had to do is we've had to shorten our Vacation Bible School. So it's going to go from Sunday to Wednesday. So a four-day VBS. And so Vacation Bible School, we're getting on that Wednesday. And then the next morning, Thursday morning, we'll leave to go down to convention. So summer is getting shorter and shorter. And it's pushing all the events that we normally do together. So that's a little frustrating, but we're going to work it out. Yeah, ours is the opposite. Ours is convention at the beginning. I mean, I get back on that Thursday. That Sunday kicks off for Vacation Bible School. And we go until Thursday. And then three days later, we leave for youth camp. And we have a week of youth camp. So it's boom, boom, boom. And then kids camp next week. It's just wide open the whole time, the month of June. This year, July, we sort of take a breath. And we step back and we breathe for a moment. We get our feet back underneath us. And then we leave at the end of the month for the mission trip. So it's a little backwards this year. But, hey, I don't mind. And while I'm young, I can do that. Still praying for someone in our church to help lead music and lead our youth. And that would be a blessing just to be able to take some of those things and aspects off my life. But, hey, the Lord's good. He's in charge. And we'll just continue to see where he leads. I don't know if y'all do this, but I do this because, you know what, they did it whenever I was a kid in EBS. It was kind of my favorite part of the Vacation Bible School. And I've done it in every church I've pastored is we always build a scale and we have a penny offering, boys versus girls. Well, that's an issue this year because we've done away with pennies. And so I think this is the last year you can get pennies. And so our options are, A, we can buy the pennies this last year and instead of turning them in, just reuse them every year. So that's an option. Or, B, get some kind of stand-in for the penny. Maybe they can buy bricks. Instead of a bucket, put a pallet down and kids can buy bricks and do it that way, do an offering that way, or just scrap it all together. You know, we're going to do one of those three things. But no more pennies, man. The pennies is over. No more pennies. Well, we, at our church, they don't like the competition of money. And so we have a couple people that are, like, fearful of it. We did it one year, and we did a pie in the face, and it was great. But since then, they've changed. They went back. They don't really like going. I'm good either way. I don't care. But to go back to your thought of what you said, to do away as the penny, I've seen it done this way, and it's really effective. And it's a change versus dollar battle. So the silver is for the person, but any green dollar bills in the bucket counts against them. And so the boys are trying to collect as much silver as they can for their bucket, but then putting dollar bills in the girl's bucket. And the girls are trying to put silver in their bucket and the dollar bills in the boy's bucket. And so if the boys had $45 in change, but $50 in $1 bills or a $50 bill, it would negative that. And so they would actually have negative five. And so whoever has the most money at the end after they negative it out is the winner. And so it's a way to not worry about the pennies, but go silver in dollars. Or you can do the other way. Dollars count for you and silvers count against you, however you want to do it. But it's a fun way to do that and still raise money. And every year, whatever the money we raise goes to some type of mission project, our pregnancy center, our mission trip, something in our community to help back out. So we're not like talking to the money or anything. Yeah, I've never heard of that. That is pretty interesting. Yeah. So what else we got going on, James? I don't think we got anything else going on coming down the pike. On our schedule, no. I do want to just, we haven't mentioned in a couple weeks, if you've never checked out our cigar page, go by and check it out at 689cigars4freedom.com. Backslash that. Links are always in the show notes here. And you can support us that way. Support the show by purchasing Sample Pack, one of our For Freedom Experience boxes. We've just got a couple of those left before we run out of soap and coffee, before we restock this summer. And so if you want to go and get some of those last ones, they're there and available for you. If you want to check out my newest book, From Brokenness to Freedom, me and John put that together. The link is in the show notes as well. And we've given away all of our free copies. And I think Brett may still have, I don't know if you gave away all of yours. I know John has a couple left as well. But we want to make sure that that can be a blessing to you. And I always appreciate any of the feedback from those things. And thank you again for just supporting the show and supporting what we've got going on. Brett, we are excited about the episode coming up. And let's jump right into our cold open today of the episode with Jim Jones and spiritual manipulation and what that looks like. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code. Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for fakes. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting. For freedom, he set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. For freedom, he set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. For freedom, he set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for Pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Now here are your hosts, James Saifert and Brett Martin. By the late 1978, Jonestown was becoming a major concern for the U.S. government. You may ask, why was this becoming a concern? Why did the government have any idea or thoughts or care about what's going on with this organization that's running about a thousand people in South America, in Guyana? Down here in this region. Well, what was going on was family members of the temple followers began writing to Congress. They began writing to the representative and saying things like this. My daughter is being held against her will in this organization. This idea, this thought of a cult was beginning to come up. Some were saying, we can't even contact our siblings. I can't reach out to my brother. There's no way to reach out to him. There's no phone. There's no radio. There's no email. There's nothing that I can do to get a hold of my brother. He's been isolated in this third world country. I fear for my mother's safety. I fear that something is going to happen to her and I can't help her or figure out what's going on. Former members like Deborah Layton published a sworn affidavit describing these type of living environments. This is what she said. She said we were being starved beyond recognition. Food was scarce. There was nothing there for us. We were being rationed down to very little amounts of food every single day. The labor was being forced upon us as we were in labor camps, it felt like. We were grueling day and night, 18 hours a day, working in the fields, taking care of each other, having to figure out medical ways to do this. There were armed guards all around the barricades. There were armed guards around the walls and they were patrolling us 100% of the time and we couldn't walk or move or do anything without them having their eyes on us. We were told they were there to protect us from the outside. But Deborah said that it began to be that we knew we were being protected to stay inside, not being protected from the outside. And then in the same affidavit, she went on to say that they were being staged to have these suicide drills. This is how we know that these white night events happened because of the recordings of the things that were there, but also from this affidavit from Deborah, who told us that she had these suicide drills in their life. When she ended her testimony with a chilling sentence, this was her sentence. If Jim Jones is not stopped, people will die. Congressman Leo Ryan, a man known for his hands-on investigation, decided to go to Guyana himself. He brought a group of reporters, concerned family members that were inside the organization, but also had people there that they were closely tied to. He brought legal aides with them and he brought a camera crew on the board this plane that he piloted down, that he didn't pilot, that he got on and went down to Guyana. They flew into the Port Kaituma in November 17th of 1979. They began to land and get there and he didn't know that what he was doing was he was stepping into a powder keg that was about to explode. You know, this was the first time someone with real authority had challenged Jones in his new territory. And, you know, James, that's that's the problem. When you have an entire system built on control and you've got someone come in who can't be intimidated. You've got someone that comes in that has some power, power enough to expose what's really going on and can shake things up. And that really threw a monkey wrench into Jim Jones's plan of what was going on. Yeah, the manipulative leader, Jim Jones and himself began to panic. He began to go into the spiraling of out of controlness because the outside truth was coming in and they were about to expose the control that he had and be able to expose the enemy's control. And you can if you watch some of that, there's a documentary out there on Hulu, I believe it is where they they document Leo Ryan's arrival and it was telegraphed. They had to ask him permission to come in and eventually they allowed him to come in. But in this whole time, like you can see people were on edge and we may get to it here, but people began slipping notes to Ryan. And then those notes began to get back to Jim Jones. And now all of a sudden, this whole thing that was going on, this whole control that Jim Jones thought he had his thumb on everyone began to slowly unravel and untie itself. And the panic in him and in his voice is very unsettling. Exactly. You know, Jones could control the narrative inside Jonestown, but he couldn't control a congressman with a camera. And when you have control over people like that, the probably number one thing that's important is that you control the narrative. And that was something that he could not do anymore. Brett, before you read this narration part, I want to set the scene for you as you walk into this. Most of our listeners have seen a Lester Roloff or a boys and girls home who comes to your church and they stand up and they sing and they give testimony. And you can tell the entire thing is rehearsed. The entire thing is memorized. They know exactly when to raise their hand. They know exactly when to say what they're going to say. Put that picture in your mind as Brett's about to go through this narration because Leo Ryan walks into Jonestown and he walks into a scene that was set up from Hollywood. Jim Jones is the director. He's the producer. And he's setting the stage for what Leo Ryan is going to walk into. When Ryan reached Jonestown, the people welcomed him with rehearsed smiles. Music was playing in the background. Children were dancing all over. You could hear the laughter echo all over the compound. It looked like a paradise on earth. Jones had prepped his followers to say all the right things, to hit their marks, to be in their place. But cracks began to appear quickly. While the party was going on and happening and it looked like everybody was having a good time. One temple member quietly slipped a note into a reporter's hand. It read, help us get out of Jonestown. Then another family approached Ryan privately. Then another. And then another. People didn't want freedom for themselves. They wanted it for their children. And Jones began to sense the shift that was happening. As more members expressed desire to leave, he looked visibly shaking. His authority was slipping. The facade was coming off. The mask was being taken down. Tried everything he could. He tried to charm Ryan. He tried to intimidate him. He tried guilt. Every trick he had in his back. The congressman refused to back down. When Ryan announced the next morning, anyone who wishes to leave with me is free to do so, a collective gasp swept across the pavilion. Jones had lost control. Survivor Olita O'Neil recalled, you can see the rage in Jim's face. He looked like a cornered animal. Brett, in that moment, Jones' entire system began to crumble and to collapse and to become nothing. And all it was was for someone to offer a different reality. Someone to offer something that they thought wasn't possible. They thought I had sold my soul to the devil. There's no way I could leave. I have to stay here. There's no escape from where I'm at. I have to make it look like it's paradise, but on the outside. But on the inside, I am in a living hell. I am in something that I never signed up to be in. And now I have this guy who's coming, who is offering me a way out. Jones, in this moment, he knew and he began to feel that he was no longer the savior. At one point, and if you go back in the history, he was the savior of these people, right? He's faking healings. He's paying bills behind people's backs. He's going and he's doing things and he's feeding people. He was the savior that they thought they needed. And then all of a sudden, Leo Ryan steps into the scene and he goes, hey, you want out of this? I'll take you out. We'll take you home. We've got a plane waiting at the airstrip at Fort Ketuma. And we'll take you home and we'll let you be reunited. And all of a sudden, you'll be able to see your mom and dad. You'll be able to see your brother and sister. You'll be able to see your kids again. Because some of these were older people that were being basically put to slave labor. You know, and that's the power of truth. It doesn't need to overwhelm the lie. It just needs to exist long enough for people to see it. Because that's the thing about lies. Lies survive in isolation. They survive when people think, you know, I'm the only one that sees this. And everybody kind of keeps these feelings that you're saying that people are having. They kind of keep these things on the inside. They don't dare speak them out loud. They think they're the only ones like that. But then, you know, when Ryan comes up and the cracks start to show, they're no longer thinking, man, I'm the only one that feels this way. The truth shows up and it gives people permission to question everything. People begin to realize, I'm not crazy. And that reminds me so much of my own story. Because, you know, I was under the thumb of a man of God. And I was raised in a very cult-like atmosphere. Maybe not to this extreme, but definitely hearkening to it. And, you know, there's a little part of you that on the inside feels that this isn't right. You don't dare say anything until an event happens that leads you to question your reality. You've been told that your judgment is wrong for so long you believe it until something happens. Whoa, you know, I need to ask some questions. You have that awakening moment. And this offer to get on this plane with this congressman was an awakening moment for a lot of people here in Jonestown. Yeah, it reminds me as a study through history, it came to mind literally as you got to talk about that. And I looked it up just to make sure I was right. But it reminded me of like Martin Luther, right? Martin Luther, his 99 theses that he nailed to the wall. And part of his thesis was the truth will set you free. John 8, 32, the truth will set you free. And all of a sudden he began to say what is the Catholicist teaching is wrong. And all of a sudden the Catholic teaching of this moment in this time, they began to feel like they were losing that same control. And so they had to lash out and they excommunicated Luther and eventually, you know, the horrible things happened. But as you think through that, the truth in our life will begin to set us free as well. And Leo Ryan came with the real truth and said, you thought you were captured here. You thought there was no way to escape. I'm giving you a way out. And all of a sudden in this moment when the manipulator loses control, they all respond the exact same way. We've seen it in the IFB. We've seen it in our own lives. We've seen it in other individuals. But what happens is when they lose control, they escalate the situation. They escalate to how can I recapture and re-control and double down on what I've done because I am the Savior. I am the guy that's in charge. And they begin to escalate every moment of happiness. Exactly. Before you read your next section, in my story, you know, in my testimony, that's the same thing. I started sending out resumes. I started, you know, looking to go to other churches. And when that man who was in charge of me saw that he was losing his control, losing his grip, he escalated things, brought me in his office, screamed at me, hit his desk. I mean, I had never been screamed at like I had been screamed at that day. I had never seen him get that angry. And it was because he was losing control over me. And, you know, it took me about a week after that to see what was really going on. But you're exactly right. They escalate whenever the control starts to slip. Around two dozen Temple members chose to leave with Congressman Ryan that day. Jones allowed them to go at least publicly. And I want to interject during this moment and say there was one, you have this on video, I believe, if I remember correctly, there was one individual that gave his children over to Leo Ryan and said, take my children and save my children, but I'll stay back as sort of the sacrifice for my children because I don't want Ryan coming after them or me. If I stay here, he'll be happy if I just appease to that. So behind the scenes, Jones was absolutely crumbling in his authority. He was crumbling in what he was doing. And so what he did was he dispatched his armed guards. His guards were known as the Red Begrade to follow this group. They were going to follow this tractor that's going on this makeshift drive that was there. And you can see the pictures of these in the videos. And they began to follow this group that was leaving. And that Port Katuma airstrip, Ryan escorted the defectors toward two small planes. Most of them had gotten onto the planes. Most of them were there. Some of the camera crew was still outside recording these individuals getting onto the planes. And some of the individuals, like I said, were already on there and buckled and ready to go. And as they were doing this, the truck arrives and it comes around the corner of the two planes. Armed men jump out with their weapons drawn and nothing has been done. There's this moment of standstill. There's this moment of what's going to happen. And they began to see the cameramen lock eyes with the soldiers that are there, the Red Begrade that's there. And they begin to see the weapons and they begin to shout out, hey, get down, get down. And in that moment, the men jumped down and began opening fire. The ambush was brutal. Congressman Leo Ryan was shot over 20 times. Three news crew members were killed instantaneously. One tipple defector was murdered as she ran. Ryan became the first U.S. Congress member to ever be assassinated in the line of duty. Seven individuals took off running to the woods. As they got to the woods, they ducked under some brush. One man looked down and saw his leg was bleeding and had been obliterated by bullets and somehow made a tourniquet and was able to get safe and was able to actually make his way the next day back to safety because they hid in that jungle overnight fearing that they were going to come after them and kill them and execute them for leaving. Word of the attack began to travel back to Jonestown. Jones knew what it meant. He knew that the moment Leo Ryan was killed, there was no going back. There was no going back to the way that society was. There was no going back to the way that he had it. And one member, Odell Rhodes, remembered that when the word that Ryan was dead came across, Jim Jones said to him, it's over. They're coming for us all now. That is where the reality and the delusion collide. Jones had preached for years that the government was after them. We've got these guards, we've been practicing our white knights, we've been doing everything we've been told to do because if we're not ready for it, they're going to come after us. And now they've came. They broke through these walls. They took one of your own. Now they're coming after us. They're going to come, armed guards, the full-scale might of the military is on its way. I mean, you can just hear this rattling through their eyes and through their ears, right? They've came, they've taken one of our own. Now this congressman has been killed. They're coming for us all now. This is the moment. This is the linchpin of everything. They are going to come after us. And now because of his own violence, this fear became self-fulfilling. This was really, James, this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean, the very thing that he feared is the very thing he created. Now it wasn't paranoia anymore. Now it wasn't imagined anymore. anymore. Now the threat was real. The danger was real. The white nights that we had been preparing for this, this like sometimes when you're in school, you have a fire drill or a tornado drill. And you have so many that when the real thing happens, people say, this is not a drill. And the drill time is over. Now it's, now it's real. This is, uh, this, from here on out, this is not a drill. Yeah. Today, at the time of this recording, my wife texted me this morning and she said, James, it's like 830 or something. The fire alarms are going off at the school. It's not a drill. We're all outside and we don't know what's going on. The fire trucks are here. The alarms wouldn't stop going off. Apparently a smoke detector went faulty and kept tripping the alarm no matter what, but there was no fire there. And she said, I don't know if we're going to have to go home or not the fire drills. And this is not a drill. Get outside. And this is what it's building up to. The not a drill is happening. Manipulators create their own crisis to claim to begin to protect you from the crisis they created. Jones did the same thing. A couple of years ago, when I first took over the pastorate here, there was a church, a larger church. I'm not going to mention it, just right down the road from our church. And the pastor had been caught in a scandal, and there were some things going on, and it was the middle of the day, and he went out and had gotten drunk, and from what the stories that I know, and was in a moment of fleeting, because everything that he had built was sifting through his hands. And he stood outside of a school, a preschool, right between a preschool and an elementary school building across the street, and ran his car off the road and into a telephone pole, tried to commit suicide. And in this moment, he was unsuccessful, and so he rolls out of the car, and the police show up, and he's out of his mind, and he's going crazy, he's waving a gun around, and said that he was on the scene, the cops were on the scene for 45 minutes trying to get him to talk him down. And in one moment, he actually discharged his gun toward a laundromat, and went through the glass window, and almost hit somebody, but it didn't, and he did this because in the world of a cop, they say that this is suicide by cop. I tried to commit suicide, I'm going to do everything I can for the cops to kill me so that I don't have to live anymore, but I didn't kill myself, the cops did. And so in this moment, one of the officers that I talked to later was a church member, was a deacon at his church, and he said I had to stand there with my firearm pulled toward my pastor, and for 45 minutes I had to talk him off of the ledge, and he was wanting me to shoot him to kill him, but I couldn't do it. He said finally we got him to put his gun down, and we cuffed him, and we took him to the hospital, and we put him in the psych ward, and we put him under suicide watch, but all of that was done to create this moment because he no longer had control, and he was trying to set the narrative that the cops were the bad guys, and they're the ones he would be set free and justified in what he was doing, and this is what was happening in this situation. Jones knew that he was called. Jones knew that now people were talking about this, and now Jonestown has unleashed this attack on the congressmen, and now they're coming after us, and so the only thing we can do is end our own lives before they end our life, and so this is the evening here that we begin, the final meeting that happens, and we may play some clips here of some things while Brett's reading to sort of set the tone of what's going on, but we'll see how it goes. On the evening of November 18, 1978, Jim Jones stood before the community for the last time. a recording later called the death tape captured the moment. Jones told his followers the U.S. military would invade. happened here in a matter of a few minutes, is that one of those people on that plane is going to shoot the pilot. I know that. I didn't plan it, but I know it's going to happen. They're going to shoot that pilot, and down comes that plane into the jungle, and we had better not have any of our children left when it's over, because they'll parachute in here on us. I'm telling you, just as plain as I know how to tell you, I've never lied to you. Their children would be tortured. They would be taken as slaves. Death was their only escape. This was revolutionary suicide. People begged. Some cried. Some screamed. But others, too tired, too conditioned, too afraid, accepted that their leader's words were absolute truth. The bravest voice that night belonged to Christine Miller, the only member who stood up and publicly challenged Jones. Out of almost a thousand people, she was the only one that stood up. She said, I feel we have a right to choose our own life, and I don't think it's right to take the life of those children. Too long together. I know that, but I still think as an individual, I have a right to what I think, what I feel, and I think we all have a right to our own destiny as individuals. Right. And I think I have a right to choose mine, and everybody else has a right to choose theirs. in the homes. I'm not criticizing. I'm not doing that. What's that? Go ahead. Jones dismissed her, talked over her. He began to mock her. This is the moment manipulation became murder. And you know, this is just a heartbreaking scene. She's the only one brave enough to stand up and speak truth in a room full of fear. And like we said, out of almost a thousand people, she's the only one that stood up and spoke out. everybody else just kind of was too afraid or had accepted the fact that what Jim was saying was true. Yeah, we see this over and over and over again. Manipulators always try to silence the most honest voice they can find. They don't debate it. They don't try to destroy it. They try to silence it. They try to destroy it by any means necessary. There's a, I've been listening to Jason Whitlock. I'm a sports guy. I love sports. And him and Stephen A. Smith have been going back and forth over this debate back and forth of who's right and who's wrong and who's telling the truth and who's not. And the one underlying thing continues to happen. One person, no matter what, is telling the truth and one person is telling the lie. I don't know because I'm not there. I don't know each of these guys personally. But what happens is in this moment that one person is trying to manipulate and silence the other person. They're trying to discredit them. They're trying to destroy them. They're trying to say that everything they've ever said is wrong and they can never tell the truth in any way possible. And this is what manipulators do. They get up and they say, you know what, I'm the honest voice. I'm the one that's right. Why would you begin to even trust these guys? The news media takes over, you know, recently in the news, the Duggars, right? The son and his wife have been taken in custody and there's a court proceeding going on and all the things that are going on. Well, someone's going to get up and say, hey, hey, this is all lies. This is all made up. You know, these guys were innocent and one side's going to have a story to tell. And the side that begins to try to destroy and silence and kill everything off is typically the side that's trying to manipulate things versus laying out the facts. Right. And, you know, this lady's courage, Miller, her courage should be remembered. She stood up for hundreds of children. But, you know, you listen to the tapes and go back and you hear what was going on. They had not necessarily an objection. A lot of people had not necessarily an objection to the suicide. They had an objection to hurting the children. That, for some of them, that was a line not even they wanted to cross. But Jim Jones was heartless, man. Heartless, ruthless, crazy. And he did not care anything about the children. I know some about this story and I forget who it was, but there was one lady who did not drink. We'll get to that in a minute. They did not drink the poison because she wanted to make sure the children were, quote unquote, okay. And she wanted to make sure all the children were taken care of before she partook. And it's just a heartbreaking scene. As we jump into this last two narrations, this one, if you've got children listening, again, like we said last week, this is some graphic parts here that we go through. And so, just a forewarning beforehand as we walk through this next to last narration. A large pot was placed on a table inside the pavilion. Jones ordered all to come to the pavilion for this sermon that he was going to preach, this instruction that he was going to give. And he instructed all of his followers to place inside of this large pot. They could not afford Kool-Aid, and so they had what was called Flavor-Aid. Flavor-Aid was there mixed with water to have a Kool-Aid drink, just as they had done before. Right? They had practiced this over and over and over again. Another white night is happening. Yet this time, the Flavor-Aid and water were mixed with cyanide, chlorohydrate, and tranquilizers that you would give horses and large animals to put them down. Nurses and guards filled syringes. They had cups prepared on the tables. And Jim Jones got up and he commanded the parents to bring their children first and to bring them forward. Screams echoed throughout the pavilion. Some resisted. His own wife resisted. Some were forced. Some were even held down and force-fed with this syringe. There's one recording where a young man, you can hear him coming forward and he's yelling at Jim Jones. He's cursing at Jim Jones. How dare you do this? Jim steps up to the mic and he says, Son, drink it. In that moment, he stops. He turns around. He picks up the cup and he drinks. That's how much control and power he had. And in this moment, as children are being watched and as Jones is standing from his throne-like chair and cups were handed to the adults and syringes were pressed into the mouth of the infants, Jones sat there, quiet, almost somber-like. His final words as children were dying all around him. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Death is just stepping over. I was to respect, die with a degree of dignity. Lay down your life with dignity. Don't lay down with tears and agony. There's nothing to death. It's like Max said, it's just stepping over to another plane. Don't be this way. It took about 20 minutes for the children to die. Less than that for the adults. As they began to take through this and as they began to walk through this time within about an hour, around 900 people had drank the Kool-Aid and about 900 people took their lives on this day. You know, people always ask, how could they do this? But the better question is, how were they conditioned to do this? We have to remember from the White Knight episode that this wasn't sudden. This was months and years of reinforcement and conditioning. And little by little their minds were shaped and brainwashed to follow without question. These people were being manipulated and they were being taught not to trust their own judgment. And, you know, this is a really sad situation, but it just goes to show you the power that someone can have over other people's minds. Yeah, this is exactly what you're saying right here. How were they conditioned for this? We as a society are conditioned for multiple different things. You look back on history and even just a couple of years ago with the COVID, right? As the government said, well, hey, we're going to slow the spread and we're going to mask up and everyone universally did it. We didn't question the science. We didn't question anything until years later. And this is the same thing here, right? We had been, they had been manipulated that what Jim Jones says is truth. I want you to really put yourself in this picture. I want you to really put yourself in the idea of what Jim Jones was preaching and saying. He would get up and he would say, I'm your savior. The government's the enemy. One day they're going to come through these gates and they're going to come for you. And he preached that time and time and time again. And now all of a sudden, while they were in Los Angeles, some conflict was happening. The government was investigating them. Hey, we've got to go to Guyana. Now we're down here. They know we're here. They're coming after us. They're going to come after us. They're going to do it again. And all of a sudden, what happens? A congressman walks through their gates. Jim Jones, he's right. They're coming after us. They're coming after us. And now he's gone. And now he's been killed. And they're going to blame it on us. They're going to come after us as well. The day of reckoning is coming. The government's coming after us. I told you this. This has been going on for years. I've been telling you. I've been warning you. Why do you think we've been practicing? Why do you think we've been doing all these things? And the years of manipulation, the years of fear, the years of isolation, the years of brokenness, the years of the identity in the people's temple movement, and the years of dependent on Jim Jones led to this moment where, well, Jim was right about everything else. He has to be right about this. Why would I question him? He's been right all along. This is how this manipulation of madness, this moment of madness, brings us to this moment. If you break a person's sense of self, you can fill it with anything, even death disguised as loyalty. All it takes is convincing someone to stop trusting their own judgment, and then you insert somebody with power, you insert somebody with charisma, and that's a deadly combination. Let's talk about the final scene. Yeah, before we do that, there was a documentary that I watched a couple of months ago, and it talked about how someone was able to break someone's will, and they said it's actually easier than what you think. The way you break someone's will is really three steps. You isolate them away from everyone else, you control everything they do and say, and then you deprive them of sleep and food. The guy actually in this documentary, he said within 24 to 48 hours, you can break someone's will by simply sleep depriving them, controlling their food and water intake, and isolating them from everyone else. He said most people within 36 to 48 hours, when you do that, if you starve someone, you put them in a room by themselves, and you control everything they hear and think, and play loud music on the wall, you can come in and you can empty out that person's will within that much time. So think about that. Jonestown had done this on a larger scale with 900 people, right? He's making them work 18 to 20 hours. He's controlling their sleep schedule. He's making them listen to him all the time. And now all of a sudden, he is the one that has broken their will and rebuilt it the way he wanted it to be. Jim Jones was found dead on the pavilion floor, not by poison, but from a single gunshot wound to the head. Now there's a debate on whether he shot himself or he had someone else do it. But either way, he escaped the agony that could be forced on hundreds. In the jungle humidity, the body swelled and bloated. The bright clothing created a mosaic of death. Photographs the shock of the world. America learned the word Jonestown. And phrases like, drink the Kool-Aid, became a part of the culture, a glib slogan, born from unimaginable pain. Now I'll tell you, growing up, I heard the phrase, drink the Kool-Aid, before I ever knew anything about Jonestown. I had always heard that. But whenever you hear this story, you see the result, you see the hypocrisy of Jim Jones, making everyone else jump through hoops that he himself was not willing to jump through. And I've saw many different documentaries on this. I've read many different things on this. I'm convinced he had someone else shoot him. And having someone else shoot him was the ultimate act of cowardice. and it says more about him than a thousand words ever could. And while he didn't mind killing these children, for instance, his child was off playing basketball and wasn't here for this. And so Jim Jones was just a coward. And like I said, I've always heard the phrase, drink the Kool-Aid, man. Before I knew anything about Jonestown, I'd heard that. Yeah, I agree. I agree with your statement. I believe the more I've investigated this and looked into it, I think that Jim Jones commanded one of his guards to shoot him. And right before he told him that, he told them to drink the Kool-Aid after they shot him. And they were so sold out to believing every word that Jim Jones said that they did that and then they went and drank the Kool-Aid themselves because he wasn't man enough to own up to what he was telling these other people to do. You know, this is, this story is so heartbreaking. I've watched documentaries, like I said, I've read after them and every time it breaks my heart. And so we've covered the story, we've covered what's happening and now we need to talk about what it means. and so we're going to continue this with one more episode and we're going to continue talking about sort of how you can recognize these things, but also some things that we can begin to walk through. Brett, what is that? We're going to talk about manipulation tactics. We're going to walk through how Jones controlled people's minds, how people lost themselves, how these patterns still show up today because we need to recognize when somebody's trying to manipulate us. Jones is an extreme example, but there's always going to be someone out there that's trying to manipulate you and you need to be able to see the signs and recognize what's going on before it's too late. Yeah, and the more we can know, the more we can arm ourselves, the more we can begin to recognize these things before it gets out of hand like it happened here in Jonestown. More importantly, we want to walk through how scripture gives us the tools to see and even resist the manipulation that happens. You know, it's one thing to know about it, but it's another thing to be able to actively fight against it once we know about it. We know the wiles and the tricks of the devil. Now we have to have the tools in order to fight the devil and to fight the demons and to have our minds and our hearts right so that he doesn't overtake us. The Bible says that the devil reaches for a toehold that goes to an ankle hold that eventually pulls us into the pit. And so we want to recognize when the toehold happens so that he doesn't have any more grip on us. And so as we walk through this in this last portion in this last part next week, we want to give you the tools to be able to do that and biblically align with how you can be. And we're also going to talk through what the survivors saw. there were some survivors, there wasn't many, but there were some that were there and that lived through this. And one individual, a man, I believe we're going to talk about, who was asked to leave to deliver some money. And so he saw what was going on and he left and he gives some of his story as well. So stick tuned for us next week as we close this series down as we look at that. And then we're excited about what we've got coming up in the next couple of weeks as well. We hope you'll continue to be with us. So until next time, to God be the glory, great things he has done. I found my new name, I found that good grace, I found that healing, and the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no ending, I found that second chance, found my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness, I've been singing ever since, I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. For Freedom

Auto-generated transcript · 9,315 words. May contain errors.