Our Present Sufferings

Rick Becker writes in Famine in the Land:

Suffering is a sign that there’s something wrong in this world. What went wrong, is something called sin. Sin ruined creation, and one of the consequences is that suffering entered [the] world. Believers as well as unbelievers will share many of the same forms of suffering – physical, mental or emotional pain, dreadful circumstances, physical death etc. These serve as a stark reminder that we are a fragile vapor, susceptible to the pangs of living in a temporary and fallen world. In the light of eternity, unless they repent, the suffering of unbelievers is a waste. This is not the case for believers (continue reading article)

Perilous Times are Here: Lovers of Self

Christians have a responsibility and our responsibility is to God. In short, Christians have one job in spite of what is happening in society at any point in time. Our job is to preach Christ and Him crucified! The only real healing and justice that can happen in society is when it happens with one person at a time and that is only through Christ and the salvation that only He provides! There is NO other way and this is why in society there are many checks and balances with lower courts to higher courts to eventually the Supreme Court. Even there, true justice might not occur, but it has a far better chance of happening than if there was only one court and one group of judges…(continue reading Study-Grow-Know blog article)

Part 3–The Watchman and the Hunter

The watchmen who were set on the walls by God were to give His message. That also means they were His prophets, as they spoke God’s words of warning to the people. The walls were also His.

The modern watchman of today who is called by God to speak out and warn His people must be standing on the right wall. Continue reading…

The Nations That Forget God…Part 2

Pastor Randles writes:

But with the cultural Revolution of the last century, which had been long simmering, but which took off in the 1950s and 1960s, we lost sight of God, and of our religion, (Christianity in various forms), and secularized.

Eventually enough of us jettisoned the old Judeo Christian outlook, in favor of a secular humanist worldview. To put it in Deuteronomic terms, we would not listen to the voice of the LORD.

And things have rapidly been deteriorating ever since. I will highlight four notable examples from Deuteronomy of what it looks like when a nation forgets God; Continue reading…

Counterfeits within the visible church

Bill Johnson’s “kenosis” a bridge to New Age?

Bill Johnson of Bethel Redding has an interesting teaching about Christ that can be seen as a bridge between the two belief systems—New Age and biblical Christianity.

Johnson believes in a teaching called kenosis, an unorthodox heretical belief that the Incarnate Christ laid aside His divine attributes and walked the earth as a completely limited, human man.13 According to Johnson, Christ “performed miracles, wonders, and signs, as a man in right relationship to God . . . not as God. If He performed miracles because He was God, then they would be unobtainable for us. But if He did them as a man, I am responsible to pursue His lifestyle. Recapturing this simple truth changes everything.”14

In other words, Bill Johnson believes the miracles Jesus performed came about because He, as a man, and only as a man, had access to the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Johnson teaches that Christians should be capable of wondrous feats of healing and miracles due to our own relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Thus Johnson’s kenosis doctrine serves to reduce the biblical Christ and elevate man. As one apologist points out:

Jesus is no longer unique, but only a special enlightened one who could lead the way to many such enlightened ones in the future. Thus we have a New Age Christ.15

Kenosis comes from a faulty understanding of Philippians 2:7. It is proven false by the simple fact that Christ not only created the universe, but He holds it together. If Christ had given up His divine power and attributes and had operated only as a man until Resurrection, all creation would have come apart! (Colossians 1:17). Furthermore, when Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), He was making an emphatic statement to a claim to be both God and man—present tense!

A Second Pentecost and Quantum Vibrations
Bill Johnson further believes that select, end-times Christians will be endowed with great power to work miracles, healings, signs, and wonders. These super-powered Christians—the Elijah generation—will supposedly bring about an unprecedented revival. Johnson states:

[A] generation is now forming . . . that will walk in an anointing that has never been known by mankind before, including the disciples.16

Continue reading article…

Bonus: Reader, the best work you will find on Bill Johnson’s Christology (including kenosis) is over at the Crosswise blog. Start here and please be sure to scroll down to “Bill Johnson’s Christology Explained.”

Post New Apostolic Reformation Reflections

What is it like for those who have broken free from NAR influence?

“Post New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) you can expect a shift (excuse the pun) in your understanding of scripture, and consequently of God and self. In this article I share various stages, or moments of awakening to certain truths that many experience after their exit from the NAR,” writes Rick Becker of Famine in the Land.

Click here to read article.

Mike Winger’s concerns about The Passion Translation

Really, really good and thorough work by Mike Winger. Includes Brian Simmons’ claim of Christ “breathing” on him in commissioning him to produce The Passion Translation. Simmons also claims he named The Passion Translation after an angel he encountered.

Scholar of biblical Greek exposes The Passion Translation

Below is a link to Andrew Chapman’s communications with the publisher of Brian Simmons’ The Passion Translation. This “Bible” is just as bad as The Message, and you know that is saying something.

Chapman is a scholar of biblical Greek, and he examines a number of passages in The Passion Translation. He is kind; he is polite; and he is thorough.

At one point Chapman concludes, “It has become clear to me that Brian does not know Greek.”

Please read these when you have time. The Passion Translation will be coming your way, if it hasn’t already. This “Bible” is custom-made for the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement that is flooding into the Body of Christ.

And please take some time to pray for Andrew Chapman. The enemy can’t be happy about this.

The series of email correspondences starts at the end, and as you go through them you will see that Brian Simmons, author of The Passion Translation, has much to answer for: Read

Some very sweet deception

Mike Bickle of IHOP calls it contemplative prayer. (Another contemplative form is “soaking” or “soaking prayer.”) Contemplative prayer is essentially the same as New Age or Eastern meditation, but disguised with Christianese terminology. Those who participate and enter the silence, as it is called, open themselves to great deception.

As Ray Yungen has explained, our minds are like rushing rivers. Our thoughts go here, go there, our thought process is active and continuous. In contemplative prayer, Eastern meditation, and New Age meditation, all thought is stilled. The active river of our minds is dammed up–the rushing river is now a still pool of water. This can be done by repeating a word or phrase over and over until thought ceases and one enters the silence.

But, this repetition of a phrase or word is exactly what the Bible says we should not do:

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. (Matthew 6:7)

Contemplative teachers in the Christian camp will not advise believers to focus on a repetitive Eastern style mantra like “Ommm” (for example), but rather on a word or phrase like “Jesus” or “Abba Father,” or a scripture verse. In this way, the contemplative prayer appears “Christian” but nevertheless serves as entrance to the silence.

The silence of contemplative prayer is rich ground for false visions, lying “Christs,” and supernatural experiences. This practice can addle or alter theology, and often seems to lead to an inability to distinguish or be concerned about the difference between Catholic teaching on Salvation and the Truth of the Bible. A strong case can be made that Mike Bickle’s desire to unite Catholicism with biblical Christianity is the result of his long term involvement with this dangerous meditative practice.

According to Mike Bickle:

“Every one in the Body Of Christ is called to live lives of contemplative prayer…” [1]

“Everybody is called to live in the contemplative lifestyle. Everyone! Everyone! Everyone!” [2]

It is important to understand there is a biblical meditation, and we read of it in the Bible. In fact, we are instructed to do this. (Joshua 1:8) In biblical meditation, the Word is pondered and the mind is active and thinking. This can be a wonderful experience with our God.

So, contemplative prayer, New Age and Eastern meditation means ridding the mind of all thought and entering the silence. Biblical meditation means the mind is active and thinking as we ponder the Word of God.

I will meditate on Your precepts And regard Your ways. (Psalm 119:15)

And I shall lift up my hands to Your commandments, Which I love; And I will meditate on Your statutes. (Psalm 119:48)

Some years ago, the contemplatives came up with a brilliant answer to Christians who saw that contemplative prayer was essentially the same as Eastern and New Age meditation. It was explained that New Age and Eastern practitioners strive to empty the mind whereas Christian contemplatives, on the other hand, seek to fill the mind with God.

This clever marketing ploy has drawn many into the deception of contemplative prayer–which is really not prayer at all.

Source Notes:

1. Contemplative Prayer Part 1 (audio message) by Mike Bickle

2. Ibid.