Hank’s Monologue:

• Hank quotes from David Platt’s book, Follow Me concerning the Great Commission and the mandate to follow the Lord’s command to make disciples of all nations.

Questions and Answers:

• Is Kent Hovind a sound biblical teacher?
• Is Hebrews 10:26 speaking of losing your salvation?
• Do all Christians have the Holy Spirit?
• How do you listen to the Holy Spirit in prayer?
• In 2 Kings 17:32, how is it that the Jews are said to fear the Lord and worship other gods?
• Are there any examples of near-death experiences from the perspective of non-Christians in your book, Afterlife?
• Which translation of the Bible do you recommend; the KJV or NASB?
• Can you explain the different uses of “fire” in the Bible?
• Are dispensationalists false prophets?
• Can you address slavery in the Bible? I don’t see any command forbidding it.

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http://www.equip.org

• Is it permissible to vote for a Mormon?
• Have you been trying to say that we should not vote for Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon?
• Have you been saying that we should carefully consider the policy proposals of each candidate, not their religion?
• Should government be involved in the definition of marriage?
• Does the Genesis mandate to have children prohibit the use of birth-control?
• What does God think about organ donation?
• Were the Old Testament saints filled and indwelt with the Holy Spirit in the same way believers are in the New Testament?
• When did you come to believe in Christ and how did you come to be where you are?

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• What do you think of Kent Hovind and his views on creation and the age of the earth? What about radiometric dating?
• What are your thoughts on cremation? Is it taught in the Bible?
• Did angels and human women propagate and produce giants in Genesis 6?
• Did Jesus descend into hell?
• Why do we worship on the first day of the week instead of the seventh day? The Ten Commandments tell us to worship on the Sabbath.
• Are the days of creation longer than 24 hours according to Genesis 1:11?
• Who will be alive and during the Millennium. What is your view of Revelation 20?
• I struggle with passages that warn against grieving the Holy Spirit and I am worried that I may be a tare among the wheat. Can you help me?
• What does the Bible really say about women in leadership in the church?

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When I graduated from college in 1989, it looked like socialism was dead. The Soviet Union—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—was in its death throes. In comparison, the American economy was booming, and countries around the world were beginning to liberalize their markets. After a sophomoric flirtation with socialism, I had concluded that capitalism was probably the most workable economic model. I had not resolved my lingering suspicions, however, that capitalism was immoral and that socialism was still the Christian ideal.

Part of that impression came from biblical passages that seem to suggest as much: “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.…There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:32–35 ESV).

Many who have read this passage have wondered if the early church was communist and the Christian ideal is communism. After all, this was the first church in Jerusalem. They were “filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (Acts 4:31 NIV). If they didn’t get it right, who did?

On the surface, this looks like communism, but that’s a misreading. The details and context here are everything.

First of all, modern communism is based on Marx’s theory of class warfare, in which the workers revolt against the capitalists—the owners of the means of production—and forcibly take control of private property. After a while, Marx predicted, the socialist state would wither away and you’d get a communist utopia in which everyone lived in peace, harmony, and preternatural freedom. There’s none of this class warfare stuff in the early church in Jerusalem, nor is private property treated as immoral. These Christians are selling their possessions and sharing freely and spontaneously.

Second, the state is nowhere in sight. No Roman centurions are showing up with soldiers. No government is confiscating property and collectivizing industry. No one is being coerced. The church in Jerusalem was just that—the church, not the state. The church doesn’t act like the modern communist state. As Ron Sider notes, “Sharing was voluntary, not compulsory.”¹ In fact, sharing by definition is voluntary.

It’s easy to lose sight of this later in the text, though, when Peter condemns Ananias and Sapphira for keeping back some of the money they got from selling their land. If you don’t read it carefully, you might get the impression that he condemns them for failing to give everything to the collective:  “Ananias.…why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the lands? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to men but to God!” (Acts 5:3–4 ESV). But look closely at the text; Peter condemns them not for keeping part of the proceeds of the sale, but for lying about it. In fact, he takes for granted that the property was rightfully theirs, even after it was sold. So Peter isn’t condemning private property.

Third, the communal life of the early church in Jerusalem is never made the norm for all Christians everywhere. In fact, it’s not even described as the norm for the Jerusalem church. What Acts is describing is an unusual moment in the life of the early church, when the church was still very small. Remember, this is the beginning of the church in Jerusalem. Thousands of new Christians probably had come from a long distance to worship in Jerusalem at Pentecost. They would have had to return home soon after their conversion if not for the extreme measures taken by the newborn church to allow these Christians to stay and be properly discipled. Given the alternatives, a mutual sharing of possessions seemed to be the best course of action.

Compared to modern nation states, the Jerusalem church was a small community banding together against an otherwise hostile culture. The circumstances were peculiar. For all we know, this communal stage lasted six months before the church got too large. It’s unlikely that all these new Christians, many denizens of the far-flung Jewish Diaspora, stayed in Jerusalem for the rest of their lives. Many probably returned home at some point, and brought their new faith with them.

We know from the New Testament that other churches in other cities had quite different arrangements. For instance, Paul sternly warned the Thessalonian Christians, “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” and told them to “earn the bread they eat” (2 Thess. 3: 10, 12 NIV). Apparently some new Christians had begun to take advantage of the generosity of their new brothers in the faith. That’s not an especially surprising scenario, given the effects of the Fall. So it’s no surprise that the early communal life in Jerusalem was never held up as a model for how the entire church should order its life, let alone used to justify the state confiscating private property.

Communal living does have its place. Nuclear families live more or less communally. In functional families, however, someone is in charge, namely, the parents. So it’s not really a commune.

Many monasteries and religious orders are more or less communal to this day. These are highly disciplined, voluntary communities that are self-consciously separate from the ordinary life of family and commerce. Many of them survive for centuries—and in fact, the productivity of some early monasteries helped give rise to capitalism in medieval Europe.²

There have been other voluntary, nonmonastic groups that have tried to live communally. The American Amish and the Jesus People USA live in communal or semi-communal groups today. And there were lots of examples of Christian communes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The ones that survived very long were small, voluntary, and intensely disciplined.³

The Pilgrims and Communism. In fact, even most private, voluntary communal experiments fail. American children hear the story of William Bradford at Thanksgiving. Bradford was the architect of the Mayflower Compact and the leader of a small band of separatists who founded the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1620. Most young students learn that the colony lost half its population during its first, harsh winter, but few know about the colony’s brief and tragic experiment with collective ownership. Because of an ill-conceived deal made with the investors who funded the expedition, the Pilgrims held their farmland communally rather than as private plots. They divided their food, work, and provisions evenly. This may sound nice, and the Pilgrims may have thought they were replicating the model of the early church in Jerusalem; but before long, conflicts arose among the colonists. Bradford reports in his journal what economists and common sense predict. In large groups, such an arrangement leads to perverse incentives, in which the lazier members “free ride,” taking advantage of the harder working. The other members grow more and more frustrated, and less and less productive. That’s just what happened in the early years of Plymouth Bay Colony.

To solve the problem, Bradford soon decided to divide the plots up to the individual families. Suddenly people had strong incentives to produce, and they did. Over the years, more and more of the land was privatized, and the colony eventually became a prosperous part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.⁴ If Bradford had not had the guts to divide the commune into private lots, our school children would not be making little cutouts of turkeys and Mayflowers every November, since there probably would have been few if any survivors.

The Early Christians Weren’t Communists—and We Shouldn’t Be, Either. The take-home lesson should be clear: neither the book of Acts nor historical experience commends communism. In fact, full-bodied communism is alien to the Christian worldview and had little to do with the arrangement of early Christians in Jerusalem. While there have been and still are small, atypical groups that manage to pull off some form of communal living, at least for a while, there’s no reason to think that communal living—let alone communism—ever has been the Christian ideal. —Jay W. Richards

 Jay W. Richards is the author of Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem (Harper-One, 2009).

 NOTES

1. Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 1997), 78.
2. See Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (New York: Random House, 2005).
3. For a detailed history of communism/socialism, see Joshua Muravchik, Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003).
4. Tom Bethell, The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), 37–45.

At the end of a long day at the newspaper where I was an editor, I was packing up to leave when I felt the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit. I sensed God leading me to go into the business office and invite my atheist friend to come with me to an Easter service at my church. The impression was so strong that I figured something dramatic was about to happen.

I walked into the office. The place appeared empty except for my friend, who was sitting alone at his desk. Perfect! I reminded him that Easter was coming and asked if he would come to church with Leslie and me. He turned me down cold. I asked if he was interested in spiritual matters, and he emphatically said no. I asked if he had any questions about God, and again he said no. I explained why the resurrection was so important, but he wasn’t interested.

With all of my evangelistic overtures being instantly shut down, I began to feel embarrassed. If God really had prodded me to talk with him, then why was he so uninterested? Finally, I stammered as I backed out of the office, “Well, uh, if you’ve ever got any questions, um, I guess you know where my desk is.”

What was that all about? I couldn’t understand why he was so resistant. I finally concluded that maybe I was going to be one link in a long chain of influences that would eventually lead him to Christ. Yet, as far as I know, he remains a skeptic to this day.

Skip ahead a few years. By this time I was a teaching pastor at a church in suburban Chicago. After I spoke one Sunday, a middle-aged man walked up, shook my hand, and said, “I just want to thank you for the spiritual influence you’ve had in my life.”

“That’s very nice,” I said. “But who are you?”

“Let me tell you my story,” he replied. “A few years ago I lost my job. I didn’t have any money and I was afraid I was going to lose my house. I called a friend of mine who runs a newspaper and said, ‘Do you have any work available for me?’ He asked me, ‘Can you tile floors?’ Well, I had tiled my bathroom once, so I said, ‘Sure.’ He told me, ‘We need some tiling done at the newspaper; if you can do that, we can pay you.’

“So one day, shortly before Easter, I was on my hands and knees behind a desk in the business office of the newspaper, fixing some tiles, when you walked into the room. I don’t think you even saw me. You started talking about God and Jesus and Easter to some guy, and he wasn’t interested at all. But I was crouching there listening, and my heart was beating fast, and I started thinking, ‘I need God! I need to go to church!’

“As soon as you left, I called my wife and said, ‘We’re going to church this Easter.’ She said, ‘You’re kidding!’ I said, ‘No, we are.’ We ended up going to your church that Easter—and my wife, my teenage son, and I all came to faith in Christ. And I just wanted to thank you!”

I was dumbstruck! This was a new form of outreach: ricochet evangelism, where the gospel bounces off a hard heart and zips around the room until it hits a heart that is more receptive. Who could have foreseen that—except the amazing God of grace?

There is nothing more exciting than letting God use you to reach out to others for Him. This is the antidote to a dry, boring, vanilla Christian life. When you’re living on the evangelistic edge, that’s when your prayer life is the most fervent, because you’re asking God for His help and guidance in talking to your friends about Him; it’s when your worship is the most heartfelt, because you’re praising the God of the Second Chance, who loves your spiritually confused friends even more than you do; it’s when your Bible study really comes alive, because you’re not just looking for abstract theological truths, but you’re searching for insights that might help you reach your neighbor; it’s when your dependence on God is at its greatest, because you know that apart from the work of the Holy Spirit there’s nothing you can do to bring anyone into the kingdom.

This is where the spiritual action is! So how can you participate in the unexpected adventure? Let’s examine three important elements: we need to be available, prayerful, and authentic.

First, be available. In the story I just recounted, about all I had to offer God was my availability. Think about it: I didn’t even know who I was really talking to. I spoke as I sensed the Holy Spirit was leading me, but I did so filled with doubt and confusion about why my words weren’t connecting—yet God used me in unexpected ways.

My ministry associate Mark Mittelberg, coauthor of our book The Unexpected Adventure, tells about wanting to reach out years ago to Kyle, a friend he’d gone to school with. At the time Mark was new in his relationship with Christ, and he had not yet become a serious student of theology and apologetics. As a result, he felt intimidated in trying to share his faith with Kyle, who had been one of the smartest people in their class.

Despite his feelings of inadequacy, Mark made himself available. He sensed he was in over his head, but he did his best to explain the difference Jesus had made in his life. More than that, he invited Kyle for a long car ride, during which he played a tape of a teacher who made the gospel clear. And when the recording ended, you guessed it: Kyle understood the message and was ready to receive Christ. Mark pulled the car over to the side of the highway and led Kyle in a prayer of commitment— amazed at how God was working.

Again, the key was availability. If you want to be used by God in the lives of others, make yourself available to Him each day—and watch for the opportunities He’ll bring.

Second, be prayerful. I was reminded of the power of prayer a few years ago when I was just about to baptize a woman. Feeling a nudge from the Holy Spirit, I turned to the woman’s husband and asked, “Have you given your life to Jesus?”

What happened next shocked me: he burst out sobbing. “No, I haven’t,” he said. “But I want to right now.”

I was stunned—but right then and there, I prayed with him to receive Christ and then I baptized the two of them together. As I walked off the stage, another woman ran up, threw her arms around me, and kept sobbing, “Nine years, nine years, nine years!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but who are you, and what do you mean?”

It turned out she was the man’s sister, and she and the man’s wife had been praying for him for nine long years—seeing no glimmer of spiritual interest. But they persevered and kept praying, and look what God did!

Maybe you’ve been praying for a friend or loved one for a long time, but you’ve started to lose heart. Bring that person to mind. As those two women would wholeheartedly tell you— never give up hope, and never stop praying.

Third, be authentic. The importance of this became clear to me when a young nurse named Maggie, who had experienced abuse at the hands of people who claimed to be Christians, began attending our church. Soon she was part of a small group of spiritual seekers who were meeting with a Christian couple to investigate faith issues. Maggie ended up writing this poem about those two leaders:

Do you knowdo you understandthat you representJesus to me?

Do you knowdo you understandthat when you treat me withgentleness,it raises the question in mymindthat maybe He is gentle, too.Maybe He isn’t someonewho laughs when I am hurt.

Do you knowdo you understandthat when you listen to myquestionsand you don’t laugh, I think,“What if Jesus is interested inme, too?”

Do you knowdo you understandthat when I hear you talkhonestly about arguments andconflict and scars from yourpast that I think,“Maybe I am just a regularpersoninstead of a bad, no good littlegirlwho deserves abuse.”

If you care, then I think maybeHe cares—and then there’s thisflame of hope that burns insideof meand for a while I am afraid tobreathebecause it might go out.

Do you knowdo you understandthat your words are His words?That your face is His face tosomeone like me?

Please, be who you say you are.Please, God, don’t let this beanother trick.Please let this be real.Please!

Do you knowdo you understandthat you representJesus to me?

A few days after sending me that powerful poem, Maggie told me, with great joy and excitement, that she had given her life to Christ. When I asked her what prompted her to step across the line of faith, her reply was simple. “Well,” she said, “I just met a whole bunch of people who were like Jesus to me.”

Here’s the encouraging news: you and I can do this! We don’t need a doctorate in theology. We can make ourselves available, we can pray, and we can live authentic Christian lives. Do these things—and watch for opportunities to experience the unexpected adventure of a lifetime.

—Lee Strobel

Lee Strobel, the former award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune, is a New York Times best-selling author of nearly twenty books and has been interviewed on numerous national television programs. Lee Strobel and Mark Mittelberg’s latest book, The Unexpected Adventure, is a devotional designed to help people seize opportunities to talk with others about Jesus (www.theunexpectedadventure.com).

Basing each chapter on stanzas from the 1779 John Newton hymn, “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” the authors begin their work by stressing the overall authority of the written Scripture. Utilizing a presuppositional apologetic viewpoint, they propose that the Bible—“not our senses and our mental faculties”—should be the ultimate authority or “we will be forever confused and confounded with the issues that press in on us every day” (p. 32).

Once the Scripture is accepted as the foundation, the believer must understand that fulfillment in life only comes through following God. Those desiring the things contrary to God end up resorting to sins such as using drugs, drinking to excess, and even cutting parts of one’s own body with razor blades. “We must worship something,” the authors write on page 54. “And if our misdiagnosis of our felt needs leads us to pursue something created rather than the Creator, then we will attach ourselves to that created thing religiously. We will, in fact, worship it.”

One of the more challenging chapters of the book was titled, “We are not alone.” The authors believe there are too many distractions in life, including “time-saving technology” that ends up eating up more time rather than conserving it. Even too many church activities can get in the way. “Could it be that the church is no less guilty than the culture in its attempts to entice us into the programming whirlwind?” they ask on page 96. The result of a hurried lifestyle? Missing the opportunity to properly sit at the feet of the Savior and meditate on God’s truth.

In Chapter 4, a Calvinistic view of salvation is stressed because the work of Christ “was planned and agreed upon before time began.” When the Holy Spirit comes into the lives of the sheep (John 10), a struggle for holiness ensues. Two words are used—mortification and vivification—to explain how Christians live their lives warring against sin while partaking in life with the Holy Spirit.

The final chapter compares this world to C. S. Lewis’s Narnia, a place where Lucy and her siblings were not destined to spend the rest of their lives. The authors write on page 151: “As we know Christ here, more and more, we are preparing ourselves to know him better there, where he will have a new name. There we will see him face to face, and his presence, now invisible to us, will be visible in all its glory.”

Praise God for those things of God that cannot be shaken!

—Eric Johnson

As this age comes to a close and the world enters its most trying times, the Church and her message are going to change….There will be an increasing distinction between those who are on the path of life and those who are not. Churches and individuals who are on the right path will see increasing revival. Great and exciting new movements are about to be born all over the earth…. The Church is going through a radical transformation… Miracles will again be a main currency of the Church, verifying its message of the Kingdom, which will begin to be preached…. The whole Church should embrace new movements the way a congregation embraces new Believers.¹

-Rick Joyner, January 1, 2009

There is a disturbing movement in the church today that is posing a threat to Christians. Growing for the last sixty years, it is made up of self-professed apostles and prophets who are drawing an ever-increasing number of followers to themselves, claiming to have further revelation apart from the Scriptures. They claim that a new group of Christians will rise up, a part of the latter rain movement known as Joel’s Army, which will have the power to perform signs and wonders, and bring multitudes into the kingdom before Christ can return.

Bill Hamon, claiming to have been illuminated by the Holy Spirit, sums up what is to be expected:

During these final years of the mortal Church, there will be great restoration and revival….Christian groups will establish Christian communities.…Some of these communities will evolve into small Christian cities which will be a prelude and prototype of the Kingdom to come. Christians will invent many things which will make their cities self-sufficient and independent of government control….There will be greater miracles of quality and quantity performed than have ever been recorded in church history. This will cause hundreds of millions to turn to Christ.²

He goes on to say that a one-world (apostate) church “will martyr many members of the Body of Christ…. Angels of the Lord will deliver the saints out of prison.…When the true Church has demonstrated the Gospel of the Kingdom in all nations for a witness to the Lordship of Christ, then the end of this age will be brought to a close.”³

In a supposed heavenly conversation between Adam and prophet Rick Joyner, Adam told him, “Those who live in your times will prepare the earth for Him to rule….He will use them to release His judgments….What He is about to do, He will do through His people, and His people will stand as Elijah in the last days. Their words will shut up the heavens or bring rain; they will prophesy earthquakes and famines, and they will come to pass; they will stop famines and earthquakes. When they release armies in the heavens, armies will march on the earth. When they hold back armies, there will be peace. They will decide where He shows mercy and where He shows His wrath.”⁴

THE BEGINNINGS

In the late 1940s self-proclaimed prophet William Branham began preaching about the coming latter rain movement and the manifest sons of God. As Branham explained it, God “promised that there would be a latter rain in the church, the church spiritual. In the last days He’d pour out both former and latter rain.”⁵

He went on to say,

Tell me, my brother, tell me, my sister, when was the time that the sons of God was ever to be manifested outside of this time now?…Nature, the nature itself is groaning, waiting for the time of the manifestation….Now, all things has been brought, coming, shaping up to a headstone, to the manifestation of sons of God coming back, and the Spirit of God coming into these men, so perfectly, until their ministry will be so close like Christ’s, till it’ll join Him and His church together….Now, the world and nature is groaning, crying; everything’s a moving what? For the manifestation of the sons of God, when true sons, born sons, filled sons speak and their word is backed. I believe we’re on the border of it right now.⁶

According to Branham, healing will be commonplace. “Oh, waiting for the manifestations of the sons of God (Hallelujah), when God will make Hisself known, when they’ll stop sickness, they’ll stop cancer, they’ll stop diseases.”⁷

In response to a question, Branham made reference to the coming of Joel’s Army. “Yes, Brother Copp, I am sure that you are referring to Joel’s prophecy in the Old Testament, Joel 2:28, how that he prophesied that in the last days he would pour out his spirit upon all flesh, the sons and daughters would prophesy, the old man would dream dreams and the young men would see visions.”⁸

The modern-day Latter Rain Movement began in late 1947 and early 1948 in Saskatchewan. Witness George Warnock wrote, “Three buildings on the Airport at North Battleford, Saskatchewan, composed Sharon Orphanage and schools at its beginning in the fall of 1947. About 70 students gathered to study the Word of God, and fast and pray. After about three months, the Revival suddenly began in our largest classroom where the entire student body was gathered for devotional exercises.”⁹

During this meeting a prophetic word was received in which God said, “’These are the last days, my people….The gifts of the Spirit will be restored in my Church.’…Soon a visible manifestation of gifts was received when candidates were prayed over, and many as a result began to be healed, as gifts of healing were received.”¹⁰ Before we move on, it should be noted that William Branham, who is highly regarded today in prophetic circles, denied essentials of the faith such as the doctrine of the Trinity.¹¹ That alone is warrant enough to dismiss anything else he had to say.

Additionally, he held to the Gospel in the Stars teachings, the Serpent Seed doctrine (the belief that Eve had sexual relations with the serpent, resulting in the birth of Cain),¹² and the belief that God wrote in the pyramids.¹³ It’s hard to know for sure what Branham would have thought of today’s prophets given his strict extrabiblical holiness standards. He objected to people “calling themselves Christians” who were “smoking cigarettes and drinking and going to cocktail parties, wearing shorts, bobbing their hair, wearing makeup, manicure, ever what it is on their face, and walking right on.”¹⁴

The Toronto Blessing/laughing revival of the 1990s has roots in the Latter Rain Movement. The aberrations that can be found in this movement have been covered in Hank Hanegraaff’s book Counterfeit Revival (Word Publishing, 1997).

In more recent times have come the prophetic and apostolic or “fivefold ministry” movements, made up of such luminaries as Kim Clement, Rick Joyner, C. Peter Wagner, Bill Hamon, Cindy Jacobs, Bob Jones, two now-disgraced men, Todd Bentley and Paul Cain, and numerous others. A Web site called The Elijah List has become the melting pot for most of today’s prophets and apostles.

Todd Bentley admits the influence of William Branham. He writes that Branham “was a forerunner of this type of signs and wonders ministry. In 1946 an angel visited him and ignited what we call The voice of Healing revival. This revival really took off in the 50s and 60s with Oral Roberts, Jack Coe, A. A. Allen, R. T. Ritchie, Gordon Lindsay and The Voice of Healing newsletter….It all started with this poor, uneducated, stuttering man who had an angelic visitation and received a healing anointing….He moved in more accurate realms of revelation than almost anybody else that I know of, other than Jesus.”¹⁵

Prophetess Jill Austin, who died this past January, wrote on The Elijah List, “William Branham, a prophet who moved in a very unusual signs and wonders [sic] during the great healing revival of the fifties did not merely minister with an angel. Rather, the Living Word would stand on stage with him and release a razor-sharp revelatory anointing of discerning between thoughts and intentions.”¹⁶

PROPHETS FOR TODAY

Today’s prophets and apostles are expecting to play a leading role in the formation of Joel’s Army. Unfortunately, to do so they must undermine today’s churches and doctrines. Bill Johnson, in an article on The Elijah List, refers to apostles as fathers and says,

For centuries the people of God have gathered together around specific truths. Denominations and organizations have been formed to unite these groups of Believers. Having common belief systems…has helped to build unity within particular groups and define their purpose….

Unity based on common doctrines has a measure of success. But there is an inherent problem with this approach—unity of this nature is based upon uniformity. When God is saying something new…those who are listening are usually asked by their leaders to leave the group they were a part of….Their newfound convictions and beliefs are considered threatening and divisive….While doctrine is vitally important it is not a strong enough foundation to bear the weight of His glory that is about to be revealed through true unity….For the last several years people have started to gather around fathers instead of doctrine….Apostles are first and foremost fathers by nature….The Apostle Paul calls them the Church’s foundation (see Ephesians 2:20).¹⁷

Yes, the apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church. Paul, however, was referring to the Old Testament prophets and the apostles of his day, who were to write the New Testament. What today’s apostles and prophets are trying to do is wait two thousand years and then stick a few more apostles and prophets into the foundation that has already been laid!

Johnson continues, “Jesus is returning for a Bride. For this to happen, the harvest must be brought in and must be ‘cleaned.’ He’s not returning for a Bride that He has to heal up and put together like a puzzle in Heaven. He is returning for a Bride whose body is in equal proportion to her head, and whose parts work together in coordination. It’s called a ‘glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle’ (see Ephesians 5:27) in Scripture.”¹⁸

A reading of Ephesians 5:25–27 in context shows the past tense of this passage. The church is made spotless not through the efforts of modern-day apostles and prophets, but through the shed blood of Christ.

We will discuss a few of today’s apostles and prophets, concluding with Rick Joyner, who has done the best job of outlining what they believe to be in store for the church. Some will receive brief mentions because Hank Hanegraaff has written extensively on them in the aforementioned book.

C. PETER WAGNER

A key person in this new movement is C. Peter Wagner of Global Harvest Ministries. Wagner says, “Back in the 1990s we began hearing the Holy Spirit speaking about restoring apostles and prophets as the foundation of the church as God originally designed (see Eph. 2:20)….I gradually came to the realization that God had given me the gift of apostle, and that certain spheres of the body of Christ were recognizing that I had the office of apostle as well.”¹⁹

Wagner writes that the wealth of the wicked is coming to Christians. “I think the time is ripe for those of us who are apostles to begin to understand the crucial role we have in God’s plan to release the wealth of the wicked for the advance of the kingdom of God.”²⁰

Wagner’s contention is that the church has been in the process of restoration since the Reformation.

My hypothesis is that the bride of Christ, the Church, has been maturing through a discernible process during the past few centuries in preparation for completing the task of the Great Commission. My starting point is the Protestant Reformation in which the theological underpinnings were firmly established: the authority of the Scripture, justifica tion by faith and the priesthood of all believers. The Wesleyan movement then introduced the demand for personal and corporate holiness. The Pentecostal movement later profiled the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in a variety of power ministries. The office of intercessor was restored in the 1970s and the office of the prophet was restored in the 1980s. The final piece came into place in the 1990s with the recognition of the gift and office of apostle. This is not to say that the Church is perfect. It is to say that the infrastructure of the Church, so to speak, may now be complete. The Church is much more prepared to advance the Kingdom with a speed and intensity that has not been possible in previous generations.²¹

KIM CLEMENT

Kim Clement is a South African–born prophet who is a frequent guest on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Although he claims remarkable accuracy as a prophet, the fact remains that he predicted that Saddam Hussein would be captured in October of 2003, along with the discovery of weapons of mass destruction,²² that Osama Bin Laden would be captured by Easter of 2004,²³ and that hundreds of thousands would be converted to Christianity in February of 2001, making news on Jay Leno and David Letterman.²⁴

BILL HAMON

Bill Hamon is one of the best-known names in prophetic circles. Echoing Wagner’s words, he claims that the church has been progressing ever since the days of Martin Luther. On Praise the Lord he said:

And men of God like that was progressed, and we had the Protestant Movement in the 1500s, the Evangelical Movement in the 1600s, Holiness Movement in the 1700s, Divine Healing Movement, 1800s, Pentecostal Movement, 1900s; then the Latter Rain Charismatic Movement in the 50s and then the Charismatic Renewal in the 60s, then Faith in the 70s. But now the Prophetic in the 80s, Apostle in the 90s, and now we have all five, Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher, who are going to equip the saints, and then the saints are going to demonstrate the Kingdom.²⁵

At a conference in 1999 Hamon had the nerve to give orders to the archangel Michael, resulting in a supposed flood of angels filling the room: “God says ‘From this day forward I give you authority. When you call for Michael, he will bring a legion of angels and they will fight and war and I give you comradeship and I give you cooperation, and I’m adjoining you to join angelic hosts and the army of the Lord of the saints to win My battle’ and God’s raising up angels, and we’re going to call them in right now….Jesus, Commander-in-Chief, I call for General Michael and the host of war angels, come and appoint yourself companions now, now, now! Whoosh! Yeah! Yeah, here they come! Here they come! Yeah. Accept them! Accept them!”²⁶

BOB JONES

Bob Jones is considered one of the legends of the prophetic movement. Hank Hanegraaff has written about him and his involvement in the Kansas City Prophets movement in Counterfeit Revival. According to a conversation Jones had with none other than the apostle Paul, “Paul was anxious to talk to the endtime apostles and prophets more than the endtime apostles and prophets would have been to talk to Paul…and the saints in the New Testament would wait in line to greet the apostles coming from this generation.”²⁷

RICK JOYNER

Perhaps the most respected prophet in this movement is Rick Joyner, founder of Morningstar Ministries in Fort Mill, South Carolina.²⁸ He has written three books describing a series of visions he claims to have had of this upcoming movement, The Harvest, The Final Quest, and The Call.

He is quick to state that his revelations are not on a par with Scripture, but when he says of his revelations, “I guess that’s what Ezekiel experienced, and John in the book of Revelation,”²⁹ it’s hard to imagine that his followers would take them any other way than to be equal with Scripture. As Cedric Harmon in Charisma Magazine stated, “After all, it’s never easy to question someone who claims they took direct dictation from God.”³⁰

Joyner sets the tone for his series of revelations when he writes, “What is about to come upon the earth is not just a revival, or another awakening; it is a veritable revolution. This vision was given in order to begin awakening those who are destined to radically change the course, and even the very definition of Christianity.”³¹

Change the very definition of Christianity? That alone should set off alarm bells in the minds of Christians. If the definition of Christianity needs changing, then our current definition has been wrong for the last two thousand years.

He claims that, “Some of the understanding shared in this book came in literal conversation with the Lord.”³² Who then are we to question Joyner, if he had literal conversations with God?

He continues, “I do not believe I would have understood many Scriptures the way I do now had I not received the vision.”³³ So, rather than using Scripture to interpret Scripture, we can see that Joyner is using his visions to interpret Scripture.

He makes the same claim that other so-called prophets make, namely that, “As we have been promised, ‘Surely the Lord our God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets’ [plural] (Amos 3:7).”³⁴ The writer of Hebrews answers this when he writes, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe” (Heb. 1:1–2). And today Christ speaks to us through Scripture. If, as Paul tells Timothy, “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17), what need do we have for modern prophets?

So what does Joyner see for the future? “In the coming days, the most powerful army ever assembled will be mustered. The army will not be equipped with guns or swords, but no power in heaven or earth will prevail against it….This is the army of God envisioned by the prophets, soon to be a reality.”³⁵ This is Joel’s Army.

Joyner echoes the words of Bob Jones: “The most glorious times in all of history have now come upon us. You who have dreamed of one day being able to talk with Peter, John and Paul are going to be surprised to find that they have all been waiting to talk to you!”³⁶

Such a claim appeals to the very worst in our natures. Imagine being so great that Peter, John, and Paul will want to talk to us! It’s little wonder that this movement attracts so many.

Joyner continues to describe their exploits:

Meetings which begin spontaneously will stir entire cities, continuing until they fill the largest stadiums night after night. Previously popular sports events will be abandoned in many regions for lack of interest….News teams will follow apostles like national leaders, recording great miracles.…Miracles which exceed even some of the most spectacular Biblical marvels will cause whole nations to acknowledge Jesus….The appearances of angels will be so common that they will cease to be related as significant events. The Lord Himself will appear to councils of apostles and elders to give them directives….Young children will cast out demons, heal the sick, raise the dead, and divert raging floods with a word. Some will actually take dominion over entire hospitals and mental institutions, healing every patient in them by laying hands on the buildings.³⁷

Jesus will appear to these apostles to give them instructions? Jesus said, “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it” (Matt. 24:26).

According to Joyner, Joel’s Army will be completely without sin. In a conversation with none other than Adam, Joyner was told, “During the times of the greatest darkness and evil that are about to come, His people will stand as a testimony for all time that He not only redeemed His people from sin, but He also removed sin from them. Through them, He will remove sin from the whole earth….He is returning for a people who are without stain from the world.”³⁸

Joyner expects bloodshed during this time. “Large cities will be under almost the complete dominion of the Lord. Others will be almost completely in the grip of an evil more terrible than we may presently be able to comprehend….We must be prepared for this conflict. There will be martyrs during the harvest. In places, the church will be almost completely wiped out.”³⁹

What about those of us who don’t think this is a move of God? “This is a move of the Holy Spirit that cannot be stopped. The pastors and leaders who continue to resist this tide of unity will be removed from their place. Some who are presently in leadership that resist this move will become so hardened they will become opposers and persecutors of those who are accomplishing the Lord’s purposes.”⁴⁰ Joyner later warns his readers, “Do not resist the Lord in this work.”⁴¹

Planting this idea into the minds of Christians ahead of time succeeds in instilling fear in the hearts of his listeners so that they will not resist this movement, and when they do see people speaking out against them, it will reenforce the idea that those who disagree with them are opposing God.

Those who stand up for correct doctrine face the biggest condemnation from people such as Joyner. He writes, “Some who were greatly used of God in the past have become too rigid in doctrinal emphasis…Those who are linked together by doctrine…will quickly be torn away.”⁴²

He compares this change in the church to childbirth: “During childbirth the mother can complicate and endanger herself and the emerging child because her natural tendencies are to do the opposite of what she should be doing to aid the process….If the church is to flow with the birth process we too must resist some of our natural tendencies….She must become obedient to the instructions of her husband, Jesus.”⁴³ The natural tendency of a good pastor or shepherd is to protect the flock. Supporters of this movement would have pastors turn control over to this new breed of apostles and prophets.

So how are we to know a true shepherd? “We cannot recognize a teacher by how well he can expound the Scriptures or articulate sound doctrine but we must see our Teacher in them. We cannot recognize a true pastor by his degrees, or even by who may have commissioned him, but only by seeing our Shepherd in him….There is only one way to discern those who are true servants: by their fruit.”⁴⁴

Joyner and others repeat this theme often. However, this means of testing replaces the objective testimony of Scripture with the subjective testimony of one’s own fallible feelings about a teacher. Teachers who do not even know Christ can appear Christlike to the undiscerning. For example, the Dali Lama appears to be a very humble person, anxious to help others when he can, but this does not make him a Christian leader. A true shepherd of the flock not only seeks to provide a Christlike example but also expounds Scripture accurately and defends sound doctrine, just as Scripture tells us to do.⁴⁵ Furthermore, he always points us to Jesus, never to what we can do or how great we can become.

Joyner foresees that “there will be one great and significant movement which will ultimately become the greatest persecutor of the advancing church. This movement will be a marriage of Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Charismatics and Third Wave Christians….It will have all the appearance of being God’s vehicle for reestablishing the respectability and credibility of the church when in fact it will be the primary vehicle for anti-Christ forces trying to thwart the harvest.”⁴⁶

One can see Joyner’s animosity toward the rest of Christianity that does not go along with his predictions. He says, “Jesus came as a humble carpenter from the most humble town in the most despised nation on earth. Most of those who were called to preach His gospel were ‘untrained and untaught.’ This has never changed, and it will not be changed until the end. The Lord is about to correct the church’s tendency to know men according to their credentials, which seminary or Bible school they attended, or even by who laid hands of them, instead of by their fruit.”⁴⁷

I would venture to say that the apostles had the best training possible, a three-year seminary course taught by Jesus Christ Himself. But a thorough grounding in Scripture does tend to put a damper on the teachings of the apostolic and prophetic movement. This is why Joyner has to downplay the importance of the clergy and, as we see here, Scripture: “The Bible is a most wonderful and precious gift; it is God’s personal letter to us written by the blood and tears of the best men this world has ever known. However, He never meant for it to take His place in our lives. The early church did not have the Bible…They were dependent on a living relationship with the Lord for their guidance…. Jesus did not say that when He went away He would leave us a book to lead us into all truth; He said that He would send the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit can never be taken away from us, even when books can.”⁴⁸

First of all, the early church did have the Old Testament Scriptures and the Gospels and letters of the New Testament writers as they became available, albeit not collectively in the form we have it now. Second, when the Scriptures take a back seat to a subjective experience and we fail to judge that experience by the infallible Word of God, that is the time when we will fall for anything that “feels right,” often mistaking that feeling as the leading of the Holy Spirit.

In Joyner’s book, The Final Quest, he tells the story about a man he met in heaven during one of his visits. The man told him, “’I began to touch the Lord’s anointed, and to do His prophets harm….I did not do it myself, but I incited men under me to investigate others and do my dirty work…. We sowed fear and division throughout the church, all in the name of protecting the truth….And we always comforted ourselves by actually thinking that we were doing God a favor when we attacked His own children…They really do not understand that they are doing the work of the Accuser.’”⁴⁹

Of course, when people claiming to be apostles and prophets begin drawing people to themselves and teaching unbiblical doctrines, those assigned to protect God’s flock should be expected to rise up and speak out. Joyner, however, turns the tables, presenting his supporters as being the real heroes of the battle. “A great spiritual civil war now looms before the church…The church will not be destroyed, but the institutions and doctrines that have kept men in spiritual slavery will be.”⁵⁰

DECEPTION ON A LARGE SCALE

What we are seeing today in much of the Christian world is deception on a large scale. In our postmodern society, Christians are abandoning churches that teach sound doctrine and the pure gospel in favor of gatherings that offer experiences and false hopes.

Today’s false prophets and apostles take care to warn their followers not to be concerned about false doctrine. In a supposed conversation Joyner had with Stephen, the first Christian martyr, Stephen told him, “But don’t be overly concerned about being deceived. That is actually one of [Satan’s] biggest traps. He sidetracks many by having them fear more in his power to deceive than to have faith in the power of the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth.”⁵¹

In reality, Christians who are being drawn into these movements aren’t concerned about being deceived at all! They are being taught not to rely so much on God’s Scripture as on God’s new revelations, His new truths, as presented by His new generation of apostles and prophets. Christians are being attracted by the promises of power, wealth, the ability to execute God’s judgment on the earth, and being one of a select number of Christians who are going to be held in higher esteem than Jesus’ apostles.

Much of the church today has strayed from the pure and simple message of salvation. They are no longer satisfied with reaching the lost through the presentation of the gospel, preferring instead an emotional form of Christianity that relies on subjective experiences that ultimately don’t satisfy.

Martin Luther, who these prophets credit with starting the “restoration” of the church, had this warning for all Christians taken in by these teachers: “We are not free from blame if we have a wrong faith and follow false teachers. The fact that we did not know will be of no help to us, for we were warned beforehand. Besides, God has told us to judge what this or that person teaches and to give an account. If we fail to do this, we are lost. Therefore the soul’s salvation of each person depends on his knowing what is God’s Word and what is false teaching.”⁵²

Bob Hunter is the former Coordinator of Research for the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL. He is now a seminary student at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

notes

1 New Year message by Rick Joyner posted at the Elijah List Web site at http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word/7214 (accessed January 1, 2009).

2 Bill Hamon, The Eternal Church (Point Washington, FL: Christian International Publishers, 1986), 388–89.

3 Ibid., 390.

4 Rick Joyner, The Call (Charlotte: MorningStar Publications, 1999) 73–74.

5 William Branham Web site, http://www.williambranham.com/former_and_latter_rain_600303__2.html (accessed November 19, 2008).

6 William Branham message, Adoption, 60-0522E, http://www.williambranham.com/adoption_60-0522e_.html (accessed November 19, 2008).

7 Ibid.

8 Video broadcast on William Branham Web site http://www.williambranham.com/ (accessed November 19, 2008).

9 George H. Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles the Hope of the Church (North Battleford, Saskatchewan: Sharon Publishers, 1951), as quoted in Bill Hamon, The Eternal Church (Phoenix: Christian International Publishers, 1986), 250.

10 Ibid., 251–52.

11 In an undated YouTube video Branham can be seen repeatedly declaring that “Trinitarianism is of the Devil. Thus saith the Lord.” (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=w_bvvSOLW7Q, 41 second mark, accessed May10, 2009.) 12 See “The Ephesian Church Age,” in An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages, by William Branham, found online at http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/7ch013.htm#The%20Reward%20Promised, accessed May10, 2009.

13 “God wrote three Bibles. One of them was the Zodiac in the skies….Then the next Bible was written, was in stone, called pyramid. God wrote in the pyramids.” (Sermon: “Adoption,” May 22, 1960, http://www.williambranham.com/adoption_60-0522e_.html, accessed November 19, 2008.)

14 William Branham Web site, http://www.williambranham.com/former_and_latter_rain_600303__2.html (accessed November 19, 2008).

15 Todd Bentley, Elijah List, http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=1512 (accessed November 17, 2008).

16 Jill Austin, “Elijah List,” http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word/1807 (accessed November 17, 2008).

17 Bill Johnson, “Apostolic Teams—A Group of People Who Carry the Family Mission,” posted November 21, 2008, at http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word/7083.

18 Ibid.

19 Arise Magazine Article: New Apostolic Reformation, posted September 1, 2000, http://www.globalharvest.org/index.asp?action=apostref, accessed November 21, 2008.

20 C. Peter Wagner, “Releasing Wealth in Apostolic Times,” http://www.globalharvest.org/index.asp?action=wealth (accessed November 21, 2008).

21 Excerpts from “Churchquake!” C. Peter Wagner, http://www.globalharvest.org/index.asp?action=churchquake (accessed November 21, 2008).

22 Behind the Scenes, Trinity Broadcasting Network, September 9, 2003.

23 Praise the Lord, Trinity Broadcasting Network, January 12, 2004.

24 Ibid., December 31, 2000.

25 Ibid., November 17, 2003.

26 National School of the Prophets Conference, January 29, 1999, audio on file at CRI.

27 Counterfeit Revival CD Series, in a conversation reported by Mike Bickle.

28 I contacted MorningStar Ministries to see if Joyner could answer some basic questions for this article, but he refused. E-mail from Deborah Williams, Ministry Assistant, January 5, 2009.

29 Cedric Harmon, “God’s Lighting Rod,” Charisma Magazine, http://www.charismamag.com/ articles/index.php?id=1017.

30 Ibid.

31 Rick Joyner, The Harvest (Charlotte: MorningStar Publications, 1993), back cover.

32 Ibid., 10.

33 Ibid., 12.

34 Ibid., 13.

35 Ibid., 22–23.

36 Ibid., 26.

37 Ibid., 32–34.

38 Rick Joyner, The Call (Charlotte: MorningStar Publications, 1999), 78.

39 Joyner, The Harvest, 34.

40 Ibid., 36.

41 Ibid., 221.

42 Ibid., 37.

43 Ibid., 42.

44 Ibid., 57, 115.

45 Paul instructs fellow pastor Timothy, “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer” (1 Tim. 2:3), and he exhorts him to “watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (1 Tim. 4:16).

46 Joyner, The Harvest, 62.

47 Ibid., 132.

48 Ibid., 152.

49 Rick Joyner, The Final Quest (Charlotte: MorningStar Publications, 1996), 107–9.

50 Ibid., 37.

51 Joyner, The Call, 130.

52 What Luther Says, comp. Ewald M. Plass (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), 636–37.

I address this at length in The Complete Bible Answer Book; here’s a portion of that answer.  

It has become increasingly common for Christians to suppose that the full gospel includes the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, but that is not what the Bible teaches. The apostle Paul makes this plain. Believers are “all baptized by one Spirit in one body (1 Cor. 12:13) yet not all who believe speak in tongues (vv. 10, 30). I don’t know if you can get any clearer. So tongues can be a manifestation, it isn’t the only manifestation.

Furthermore, even if one does speak in tongues, it is not a guarantee that they been baptized in the Holy Spirit. Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 13; “If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging symbol.”

Also, Scripture makes this point clear, the normative sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit isn’t speaking in tongues, it’s the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord, repentance from sin, and obedience to God. (Rom. 8:1-17; 1 John 4:12-16; cf. Eph 1:13-15). In sum, righteousness, not tongues, is the core of Christianity compressed in a single word.

To check the full portion of this answer and hundreds more check out The Complete Bible Answer Book by visiting our website at www.equip.org or by calling us at 1-888-7000-0274.

Recommended Resources:

The Complete Bible Answer Book