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The NAR teaches that after 2 ,000 years or so, God is now restoring the
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lost offices of apostles and prophets to govern and rule all
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Christian churches in these end times, giving churches these new marching orders directly from
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And it's really a global movement, it's not just in the United States, it's a fast -growing dominionist
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movement of new apostles and prophets who will lead God's end times army
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in establishing his kingdom on earth by taking authority over earthly and spiritual
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Welcome to The Wrap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretations
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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community.
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For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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All right, I am having to give a warning.
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That's right, today's topic is going to be one of those ones that will upset most of you.
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Well, maybe not most of my listeners, but most of your friends, some of your family, and
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you're going to have to deal with the fact that, well, we're going to deal with something that is rampant
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within Christianity and, unfortunately, not enough people are discerning enough to
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Actually, I hope after this episode, you're scared.
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I hope that you're scared for your friends that are involved in the New Apostolic Reformation, sometimes referred
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No, not NRA, that's a totally different thing, that's—I'm from Jersey, I don't
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understand—National Something Association, that middle word, I'm a Jersey—we're not allowed to talk about those things, you know,
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we're in a communist state of Jersey.
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But I have a special guest, and some of you may know her, if not, we're going to have her introduce herself a bit,
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but it is Amy Spearman, and she's with a whole bunch of organizations that she's involved with now,
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bringing research, and she has—she actually is a speaker for Answers in Genesis,
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She has Bible studies for ladies called Naomi's Table,
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and she also—Amy, if I'm not mistaken, you work for a group that
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rides the high seas and traveling the high seas to steal Christians' radios, is that
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Yes, it's—hi, Andrew—it's called Pirate Christian Radio, and—argh!
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Well, that's what it must be, right?
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I mean, pirates, they travel the high seas and steal from people, right?
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You steal Christian radios, that's it?
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How did it get to—because that's one thing—someone asked me today when I said I was going to be interviewing you there, how did it get its name Pirate Christian Radio?
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I said, I don't know, I'll ask Amy, maybe she knows.
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I've heard this story many times.
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It's a—well, pirate radio, I mean, that's actually kind of opposite of the free radio
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that's sponsored usually by the public or by private companies, and that you can't really say what
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you want, just the normal airwaves.
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So, pirate radio is privately owned and not really on FM radio or AM radio,
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but on the internet, and they can say what they want.
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So, there's a few other explanations, but that's one of them.
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They can say what they want.
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Not in America for much longer.
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Let me put this another way.
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They can say what needs to be said without fear of retribution.
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Okay, well, that's a good way to do it.
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So, Amy, tell folks a little bit about yourself and the ministries that you
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have, so folks know a little bit about you.
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Well, I guess you could say I'm one of those dreaded discernment bloggers.
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Most people know who I am that way, but I would say that discernment ministries get
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a bad rap, and probably for a good reason.
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But having said that, there is value to some of the sites where people report on
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some of the movements in the modern church that are leading people astray, especially if people are just
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looking for answers about cults or movements.
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And so, there are men and women out there who have done the legwork, and their articles actually help establish a pattern
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so that you can research some of these things, like the topic we're going to be talking about today.
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But I'm a small -town Wisconsin girl, and my husband and I live on a little hobby farm
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up here, and we're snowed in at the moment, so it's great.
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And so, I'm a non -drama queen.
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I just enjoy doing my writing and just letting people know who Jesus Christ is,
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because really discernment does not come from a blog.
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It comes from spending time with our Lord in His Word and abiding in Him.
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I always point people to Scripture first and always.
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Yeah, and we met each other just recently for a first time at G3.
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So, that was kind of fun.
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So, let's talk, I mean, New Apostolic Reformation may be new to some folks.
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I first really got tuned into this under a different name, and that was
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The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit from a book that was written by C. Peter Wagner.
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That was really, he was laying out a case that there was the second wave of the Holy Spirit was
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the charismatic movement, and now we're entering into a third wave, and there's going
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to be these apostles and prophets and things like that in this next phase.
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Yes, it's actually, that's kind of how I heard about it first, too.
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In fact, about, gosh, in 2010, I was asked to help launch a radio program,
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and it was a discernment program, kind of a one -of -its -kind up here in Wisconsin.
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And I didn't even know what this was, but I called it the Signs and Wonders Movement.
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And really, signs and wonders are just one part of what the New Apostolic Reformation really is.
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So, this movement, and I always call it NAR for short, just because New Apostolic Reformation is quite a
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But it's also known as the Apostolic Prophetic Movement or Apostles and Prophets Movement,
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and there are many, many other names like third wave, which I can talk about, but I think would be a really good idea
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to kind of define what it is, because a lot of people have never even heard the term before.
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Yeah, I wanted to start with definitions of terms, because this is the one thing I
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want to warn folks, is that there's going to be terminology that you may hear from this group that the
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way they use terminology and the way the Bible uses terminology is going to be different.
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And if you don't ask for definitions, you don't pick up that they have a totally different meaning for the
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I want you to first define New Apostolic Reformation, and then there's a couple key terms I would like to get
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into, how they define things like apostles and prophets.
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Well, first we need to understand that the NAR isn't really an official organization, and it can't be really characterized
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by a common creed, which really throws people off.
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People who are actually in it or readers in it don't really even like or adhere to that title, NAR, because
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really it's finally starting to get exposed and they want to distance themselves from it.
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And so to define what it is and isn't really helps people who've been caught in its snare.
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So here's the definition that I have kind of come up with, just based on all of the elements that I've seen.
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It's a fast -growing, dominionist movement of new apostles and prophets who
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will lead God's end -times army in establishing His kingdom on earth
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by taking authority over earthly and spiritual realms.
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Now, that's quite a long definition, but each part of it contains all of the elements that this group
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of nondistinct traits embodies.
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So people who are leaders, again, they don't call themselves NAR.
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In fact, most will outright deny their participation, and that's really how hard this is to pin down for
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So we have to look at not what they deny, but at the fruit, at what they teach.
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And I've got a couple of key things here that they teach.
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First of all, first and foremost, the NAR teaches that after 2 ,000 years or so, God is
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now restoring the lost offices of apostles and prophets to govern
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and rule all Christian churches in these end times, giving churches these new marching
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orders directly from God.
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And it's really a global movement.
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It's not just in the United States, but it's radically transforming churches in their teachings and their
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And I saw an estimate somewhere that three million Christians in America whose churches have
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overtly embraced and are governed by apostles and prophets.
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So that's a real key thing, the governance part of it.
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The first time that I got exposed to someone saying something similar like that
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was actually not the NAR or Third Wave.
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It was another group called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints.
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They have almost the same type of governance, don't they?
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And they make the same argument that the church needed to be restored.
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See, now they do it a little different.
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They restore the prophets and the priests.
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They go back to the Aaronic Priesthood and all, where the NAR has the prophets and the apostles.
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But the thinking is actually the same.
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Is it not that they're claiming a authority with a change
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or a restoration, and this group that is going to be the authority has the right
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And we find that once a church kind of absconds its authority to an
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NAR system, it loses its authority.
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And so right down to the fact that these churches can't even hire new people because they don't have the authority
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So it's really interesting that way.
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And, you know, the primary focus is the teaching that God has restored these lost offices of apostles and prophets
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to rule these Christian churches.
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So when Christians receive and obey these new words allegedly coming from the apostles and prophets,
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then they too can do miracles.
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And this is kind of strange.
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They want to establish God's physical kingdom on earth and usher in Jesus' return.
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So it's not Jesus coming back on his own and no one knows the day of the time or
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It's that they are going to make it happen.
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So let's start with some terms of or
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distinctions of apostles, prophets, because these are two
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new positions that they would hold.
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I'd like you to go through how they define it compared to how Scripture defines it.
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Well, apostles and prophets, we've read about them in Scripture, and we haven't really had these offices
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for, you know, centuries.
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So when we hear apostle, maybe in our churches today, maybe your pastor defines
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So in Greek, apostle means one sent forth.
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So that sounds about right, right?
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We often hear missionaries being described as sent ones who bring the good news of the gospel to people around the world.
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So in a sense, we're all apostles, right?
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We ought to all be sharing the good news.
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But that's not really how the NAR apostles describe themselves.
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Today's new apostles are appointed by other apostles through the laying of hands, which
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it's actually passing a mantle.
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So if you hear someone talk about passing a mantle, it's not just a leadership role.
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Apostles and prophets are to represent and speak for God here on earth and to raise an army of
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workers in these end times.
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So that army thing is very important to them.
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So again, these apostles are equal in power to the original apostles, they say, the
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ones who actually witnessed Jesus's life, death, and resurrection and were appointed by Christ himself.
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Now, that's how the Bible defines apostles.
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But since these new apostles claim to be commissioned by God too, their authority must not be questioned.
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Now, that doesn't really sound like sent one, does it?
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So in fact, you'd mentioned C. Peter Wagner, and he's got some very interesting things to say about
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But he came up with three different types of apostles.
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There are the vertical apostles who lead organizations such as apostolic networks, and
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they provide direct so -called spiritual covering, counsel, correction for those in their
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And then there's the horizontal apostles.
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Now, these apostles lead groups of peers, such as all the pastors in the city or all the
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apostles in the nation, and they work together to accomplish some sort of specific purpose.
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And then there's the workplace apostles.
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And these apostles provide leadership for Christians working in different sectors of society, so real
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estate, government, health care, media, that kind of thing.
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And then if you look at the definition for prophets, NAR also has its own description of prophets.
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So just like the prophets in the Old Testament, NAR prophets claim to receive
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direct instructions from God Almighty for the church to advance the kingdom.
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Funny, they don't ever tell you to touch the spirits.
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In fact, the prophetic predictions are so vague, there's really no way to test them.
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But here's how we define it, and this was a huge challenge for our churches today, because when we run
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into the word prophet, evangelicals have typically redefined it to mean something other than how the Bible
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So there's a little confusion there.
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The real prophets that we read about in Scripture actually spoke for God, right?
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So he would tell them to speak an oracle to a certain group, and it was always God's words, not the prophets.
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A real prophet of God in Scripture is one who warns and leads you to repentance and
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reconciliation, and the Israelites would have known that.
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So one who knows that judgment is coming.
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So the prophets that we should be following are the ones in Scripture.
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But today in modern evangelicalism, a prophet has been redefined as someone who can recall a Scripture verse for a
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So they get a word or something.
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So is that really the gift of prophecy?
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I don't know, Andrew, I would call it wisdom as we grow in maturity and we bury Scripture in our
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So the prophets in the Bible had to be 100 % accurate, but they were put to death.
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And NAR prophecies are often either unfulfilled or completely false.
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Yeah, it's kind of interesting.
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I heard one person state that the track record for the NAR
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prophets are anywhere between 35 to 85%.
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Yes, I've heard that same teaching.
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And these teachers will tell you that their prophecies that didn't come true aren't necessarily false prophecies.
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They're just prophecies that were false.
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So kind of wrap your mind around that.
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These definitions are so key.
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So if we're going to discern, we also need to know that the word apostle or prophet might make
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people feel uncomfortable.
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And that's why apostles are often also called generals, which if you hear that, that's a code word for
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apostle, especially if they're at a conference speaking to mainstream Christians who might be concerned if they heard
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Every once in a while, I name names, but it's only because we need to mark an avoid.
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And so one of the key leaders is Mike Bickle, who founded the International House of
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He is known as a general.
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In other words, he goes by his harvester.
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And prophets have been called secret intelligence agents who feed revelations to the generals who then
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So it's really interesting once you dive deep into this stuff.
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You get to know a whole different lingo.
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Well, that's the thing that actually is concerning to me because, again, I'll take it to another
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organization, and that is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints or another organization,
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When you look at the Watchtower, you look at the Latter -day Saints, what you end up seeing with both of them is
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they use specific language when they're dealing with evangelicals where they have a different
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meaning of the term than an evangelical would have, and they know that, but they're gonna use that
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terminology almost to deceive to say, you know, we're a Christian like you
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until you become part of us, and then we're gonna tell you the real meaning of these things.
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To me, it seems that they appeal to evangelicals to deceive and to
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pull them in and make it sound like they're Christian too, which always boggled my mind.
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I mean, the Mormon Church started because they said that the gospel needed to be restored and the church fell away,
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and the Jehovah Witnesses started because they said that the church had got things wrong and we needed
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them, and the Catholic Church first, they were the ones to say that we that
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believe in justification by faith alone, we got it wrong and needed to return
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to Mother Church, and now all three of those organizations want to say they're Christian like us.
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But that's how they get you to believe, or that's how they get the undiscerning to believe that they are
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just like us and we've got a better way of doing things.
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Well, I think it has a dual purpose.
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It pulls in the undiscerning, but what it actually does is this, and this is why I think it's so hard for
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family members that have people involved in NAR to deal with this, is because it gives the
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appearance that, hey, we're Christian too, we're just like you, we use the same language,
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or maybe we use some different words in some other areas, but it means the same things as what you mean,
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and it gives the idea that you can't judge them, you can't attack them.
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If you look at the Mormons, we're Christian too, or I am Christian thing that they were doing, the whole
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purpose of it is to say, well, you shouldn't be evangelizing us because we're Christian just like you.
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Also, the other factor is, like the Mormons, a lot of these NAR teachers are the nicest, sweetest
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people that you'd ever want to meet.
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Instantly, your defenses are down, and you just want to love people.
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It's very challenging for those who don't know what this is really all about.
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Amy, you are the big meanie having to tell people that this is bad, right?
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Well, I try to do it as gently as possible, but even if you put on your soft kitten voice, and
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you say it gently and sweetly, and you put your arms around them and try to guide them away from the cliff that they're
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about to fall over, a lot of people really like their teachers and their teachings, and they don't even
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like the sound of the word false teacher.
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Depending on whom I'm speaking with, I even avoid that word, but I'll use other biblical
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texts or just examples of what others have gone through.
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It is a challenge to try to reach people, but reach we must.
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Well, see, you have that advantage of having a sweet kitten voice.
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I can't pull that one off, so let's talk.
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I have the open -air preacher voice.
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My voice could bellow out, but the soft part I don't have.
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Listen, I want to play a commercial after that.
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What I'd like to do is I would like to talk to you about dominionism and their whole view that they
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have of taking dominion, because it seems to be central to their thinking.
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Let's talk about that right after this.
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The new book by Andrew Rappaport, What Do We Believe?, will answer those questions and more.
20:30
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20:40
Get your copy at whatdowebelievebook .com or at the strivingforeternity .org store.
20:46
So many Christians struggle with suffering, and yet they do it alone because most of
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us are too ashamed to let others know that we're struggling.
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We struggle alone because we think that there's something wrong.
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As Christians, we shouldn't be struggling at all.
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We should just have the answers, and yet that's not the case.
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There's many of us who struggles, whether it be within our marriage, whether it be with our children, whether it be with physical
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I want to let you know of a conference coming to Freehold, New Jersey to help with this.
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It is called the Sanctification Through Suffering Conference.
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It is going to be held at Chinese American Bible Church in Freehold, New Jersey.
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You can get all the information and the speakers.
21:30
The speakers will be Justin Peters, who if you know him, you know he struggles physically, Frank Mullis,
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Colleen Sharp, and Joe Suazo.
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And we will have this conference.
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You can get all the details and register at strivingforeternity .org slash
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conference dash on dash suffering.
21:50
Get all the details, and I hope to see you there.
21:53
And I'll try to put in the show notes the links to the conference or link to the conference.
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I really encourage you to think about coming to that if you can.
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The thing with that conference is really this simple.
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Most of us are ashamed to let anyone know that we struggle, and so many of us do.
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So many of us struggle with anxiety, depression, physical things, marriage, kids, whatever it
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is, and we're going to have great speakers.
22:19
For folks who may not know Pastor Mullis, he is one of Georgia's leading experts with dealing with
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sexual abusers, and so he has an expertise that none of us really want, but he
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has an expertise to really help people in the areas of sexual abuse and dealing with those struggles.
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But what he also is going to do a message on, which I'm looking forward to, is he is going to do a message on dealing with
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suffering and persecution to prepare, because America will be changing, I think, its views on
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Christianity, and we're going to see some persecution, I think, coming our way, and he's going to prepare us for
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So consider going to that conference.
22:58
You can get the details at strivingforeternity .org.
23:01
It is the Sanctification Through Suffering Conference.
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There is, what I've noticed as I study NAR is this idea of taking
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dominion, and there's a lot of talk of kingdom within this movement.
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Why is that so central to their thinking and their theology?
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Well, it's about the power to be able to bring Jesus back.
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I mentioned activating his return.
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That's one of their key goals.
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Dominionism, they hang their hat on this tower, and they want to bring Jesus
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back by taking dominion of our physical, earthly realm, and also the spiritual,
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So here in our physical world, they've identified these seven spheres of influence, or mountains,
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and that's where the so -called seven -mountain mandate comes from.
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Are you familiar with that, Andrew, the seven -mountain mandate?
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I've done a little bit of reading on it, but I'm not super familiar with it because I just went, I read an article on it and
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But these seven mountains really to be conquered for Jesus before he can return are the government,
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media, entertainment, education, business, family, and religion.
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You might see it more, and I know the secular world sees it more in government.
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They talk about, you know, this right -wing conspiracy to take over the government.
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Well, they wouldn't be too far off in some of the goals of these networks.
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They really do have these, and I don't want to sound all loony tunes, but they really do have operatives who have
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that as a goal, and they will convince people.
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Before we move on to the other, this is the importance that I think many of them see with Trump, because many of them
24:53
Absolutely, and if you look at Trump's, I'll have to pull up this article I did on Berean Research.
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I have this article that when Trump first established his advisory team, his Christian advisory
25:04
team, the people that he included really came straight out of the NAR, I
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will say, and I'll put that on, I'll send that to you, and maybe you can look it up, but it's really fascinating, the
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people who pray over him regularly and the people he consults.
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No, I just think that he doesn't know any better.
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He's like any politician, willing to do whatever to get elected.
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You know, that's true with both sides, I'm sure.
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So, they convince people that, oh, this is biblical, and you can find elements of it in scripture, which makes it
25:39
really hard for people to discern, but really, make no mistake, this seven mountain mandate thing is a new doctrine.
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To usher in any physical kingdom of God is not what the Bible says at all.
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But they also, and I kind of touched on this before the break, they also take dominion in church leadership.
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So, most churches, maybe yours does, has pastors and elders overseeing local church.
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Well, the NAR would say that those churches, your church, would be disobedient and displeasing to God.
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So, if you want to be obedient to what God is doing right now, your churches and pastors must submit to
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the authority of the closest apostle near you in proximity, and they always point to the
26:18
You probably have heard that before, and they point to Ephesians 4 .11 that talks about the fivefold
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So, while you may have evangelists and teachers and shepherds in your church, you have to submit all your
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authority to your local apostle and prophet if you don't have one.
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And if you don't do that, you are outside of authority, Andrew, and you will not be part of his end time plans.
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So, that's really, truly what they teach about that.
26:44
Yeah, and it's something that is so hard, I think, and you brought this up in the beginning,
26:52
to really systematize the NAR.
26:54
I mean, I found this when I wrote my book, What Do They Believe?, I started to systematize different world religions.
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So, I started with my background in Judaism, and I did it with Catholicism and Islam and Jehovah Witnesses and
27:06
And when I got to Hinduism and Buddhism, I had to stop because you really can't—they don't have a
27:12
central authority, in a sense.
27:15
And yet, they do, and this is what makes them a little bit different, they do kind of have the authorities of
27:21
these prophets and apostles that you can't question.
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Well, do you know of any systematic theology books for the NAR?
27:31
No, I mean, everybody has a book.
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In fact, a lot of them will write the same type of book at the same time, and you'll get this slew
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of books on different aspects of what they're trying to push on you.
27:45
So, for instance, Dream Destinies.
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A couple years ago, I believe it was like 2016, a whole bunch of books by a whole bunch of teachers came
27:54
out on finding your dream or achieving God's dream, and it was just crazy.
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I mean, we pinpointed like 25 new books that were just coming out at the same time, Bible studies, how
28:05
-to books on finding the dream that God planted in your heart and trying to
28:11
make that come true so that you can have an influence in one of these seven spheres.
28:16
It's interesting how that publishing works.
28:19
So, I know your mind is probably just spinning right now.
28:22
There's so much to this, though.
28:24
Well, let me—I want to talk about one aspect of it that I've noticed, and that I notice is kind of
28:30
there's—well, there's two aspects that they use to try to pull people in.
28:35
I'm big on evangelism, but one of the things I first came across was these prayer walks that people do.
28:41
And I admit, walking around a town and praying for it is much more comfortable than actually
28:47
evangelizing, like, I mean, opening your mouth and having to talk to someone.
28:51
It's much easier to get a whole bunch of people to just walk town, and
28:58
I remember a And I was kicked out because I had the nerve to not wear
29:04
a shirt that they wanted, but to wear a shirt that would actually be more evangelistic, and to actually have
29:10
gospel tracks and hand them out, and you can't do that.
29:14
What I ended up in talking to the folks there is that this is one of two ways that I see that they pull
29:20
So, I want to talk about this one first, and then I want to talk about the music.
29:24
What they're doing here is the spiritual realm.
29:27
So, we talked about taking dominion of the worldly realm.
29:30
This is how you take dominion of the spiritual realm through spiritual warfare.
29:34
Spiritual warfare is a real thing, but what they do is they've redefined the word again.
29:38
So, they engage in spiritual warfare by doing these prayer works of taking dominion and demanding that
29:45
the demonic realm submit to them.
29:48
And really, there's nothing wrong with walking and praying around your city or around a park or around a school.
29:54
Nothing wrong with that at all.
29:55
But when you start engaging with the demonic, trying to take over territories for
30:01
Jesus, that goes across a line.
30:04
That actually is not a biblical concept that you would find anywhere in Scripture.
30:09
And the other thing that they do is they have deliverance ministries to try to cast demons out of people.
30:14
They have supernatural exorcisms, and that's another way that leaders control the demonic realm.
30:20
So, and it's all tied together.
30:22
If they can get a NAR, N -A -R, apostle as a leader or a top influencer in any of the
30:27
seven spheres or even in the spiritual realm, then they can cast these demons out who are influencing that sphere.
30:34
And only then can they transform it and bring heaven to earth.
30:38
Okay, so let's talk about the second way that I think they influence the most, and that is through their music.
30:44
You know, one of the things Justin Peters brought out when he and I did an episode on the charismatic
30:49
Catholic movement, and we talked about charismatic movement itself, and he brought out the point that you
30:55
couldn't have all of the Word of Faith stuff without the music.
30:59
I argue the same is true with NAR.
31:01
You could not have the NAR without the music.
31:04
And yet, for some of you listening, you sing some of the NAR songs in
31:10
your churches and don't even know it.
31:13
So how do they use music?
31:15
What is the music behind them that's most known and used in many churches?
31:20
Well, it's interesting because you are absolutely right.
31:23
So many people in mainstream churches have brought in music that is written for the
31:32
And so what music does is it conjures up this emotional high.
31:37
There's a certain beat to it, and it brings people to tears.
31:41
And it's the same kind of music used in something called the soaking prayer, where you play this hypnotic music, you lie on the
31:46
floor with a pillow and soak in God's presence.
31:49
But it's all emotion -based, designed to bring you to a higher plane of consciousness so you can hear
31:56
And honestly, there's nothing wrong with having an emotional experience at all when you are praising and worshiping
32:03
But when you are using these tools that are designed to bring a different influence, it can be
32:10
Actually, there's a couple of churches.
32:13
The Hilfong brand, that franchise does this type of emotional high music.
32:20
And some of their music is fine, but there are a lot of songs that actually are
32:26
talking about bringing heaven to earth in a way that you can manipulate.
32:30
And so another one is Bethel Redding's main tool for bringing you into the presence and glory of
32:36
God is their own worship brand, and you will recognize that it's known around the world as Jesus's culture.
32:42
So again, these musicians play in a certain key.
32:46
I've talked to people who've been on worship teams in these type of churches.
32:50
So they learn to play a certain way with a certain beat, and it's all to
32:56
bring you into the presence of God.
32:58
And once you hear it, you can't unhear it.
33:01
There's an episode on Pirate Christian Radio that Chris Roseboro did with myself and a gentleman
33:08
We listened to some of Hilfong's music and some of Jesus's culture music, and then we compared it to scripture.
33:13
And Steve was that musician who learned how to play in a different beat.
33:19
I'll have to send it to you.
33:20
Yeah, I mean, because one of the things that happened with the contemporary Christian music was that people used to try to argue that
33:26
music is amoral, it has no morality, it doesn't affect anything, it doesn't affect your
33:31
emotions, there's nothing that doesn't matter what style of music.
33:36
And yet, you watch any horror movie, and there's a different type of music that they're going to
33:42
play in a horror movie than they're going to play in a Hallmark movie.
33:47
Yeah, your heartbeat will change.
33:53
And the reason I have a paper on the website Striving for Eternity about music, because I think the reason it's more dangerous
33:59
than the lyrics, the lyrics affect our thinking.
34:03
And what James ends up telling us is he lays out for us basically a path of sin, and it starts in our thinking.
34:08
Our thinking is our strongest defense against sin.
34:11
The second is our emotions.
34:13
But if something can get past your thinking, that's a little bit closer to getting you to sin with the emotions and
34:20
And so what I see is here you have the music that affects the emotions.
34:26
The lyrics could even be sound, but the music, because that's going to the emotions,
34:32
has a greater opportunity to bring you into a sinful state than the
34:38
And people usually just look at the lyrics and think, oh, well, that's good.
34:41
And yet, like you said, so much of this music is hypnotic.
34:45
I think that one of the things that you end up seeing is that they need that to get you to
34:51
buy into the rest of what they're going to end up teaching, because it's so out there you almost have to be hypnotized first.
34:58
Well, I'm glad you said that because we have a church up in my neck of the woods that regularly
35:04
brings in prophetic teachers, signs and wonders, very interesting types of things.
35:09
In fact, right before they brought in Patricia King, she's known as one of the top psychic
35:15
seers in their realm, they actually had a worship service that lasted an hour and a
35:21
half of this hypnotic music where everybody was just swaying mindlessly.
35:27
And I watched it via live stream, and I was kind of doing this, comparing the scripture while I was watching it.
35:34
People were just lost in the music.
35:36
And by the time Patricia came out, she could say anything, and they pretty much do anything.
35:40
And after my report came out on that particular service, they never live streamed again.
35:46
But I wish I would have taped it.
35:50
Now, I want to talk about some other things that they end up doing.
35:54
They have their School of Prophets, and they do something I think is really scary.
36:00
I want to talk about what they do with their School of Prophets and teaching even young children.
36:05
I want to deal with that after a break, but I want to talk about the whole School of
36:10
Prophets, and they have these camps for kids.
36:13
And to me, that's heartbreaking when you think about the kids.
36:17
So let's talk about that after this.
36:49
You can also get that at strivingforeternity .org.
36:51
I'm one of the authors of that book, and it's a great book.
36:55
Even if you don't want to study Mormonism, it's a great book for evangelism because there's 20 -plus
37:01
different tactics to evangelize.
37:03
Most of them are—all of them are geared towards specifically Mormons, but most of them work for anybody.
37:09
Okay, so let's talk about their School of Prophets.
37:12
I've gone through the Old Testament, Amy, and I don't remember seeing a certificate
37:19
that Samuel got to be a prophet or actually any of the—Isaiah, Jeremiah.
37:24
I don't remember seeing them go to school.
37:27
I don't see any of the apostles.
37:29
I mean, Paul didn't appeal to his certificate at some school, and
37:35
yet this is what we see now that people are being taught to be apostles and
37:41
prophets by obviously paying money to an organization, and they even have
37:47
camps for kids teaching young children in this stuff, which just
37:56
It really boggles my mind, too, and it's so sad because these kids will never be the same once they are brought into
38:02
I've done quite a bit of reporting on that as well.
38:05
The megachurch we mentioned, I believe, Reading, California, Bethel, and it's one of the biggest NAR
38:10
influencers in the entire world.
38:13
It's a church led by Bill Johnson and Christopher Lawton, and they've got a ministry called the Bethel School of
38:19
Supernatural Ministry, which to me sounds like Hogwarts, but these classes, like you said, for adults, yes,
38:26
It's witchcraft, and I just have to call it like it is because it's so serious and egregious to me.
38:32
But there is a curriculum for children on how to utter prophetic predictions from Jesus,
38:38
and so they get these kids in and they practice this, and there are videos that you can see on YouTube
38:44
of children going into these trances and uttering words in almost like a preaching
38:50
style like you'd hear in the Old South where kids would get up and do their street preaching, but these are
38:55
allegedly words that they have just downloaded from Jesus, and they spend time with him in these
39:01
classes or these camps, and it costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars for parents to send their
39:08
And the adult courses, I don't know if you've ever tried to register or see how much the classes are, but it's
39:14
quite a money -making extravaganza there.
39:17
Their School of Supernatural Ministry, they talk about how to conjure up glory clouds
39:24
where gold dust comes, gemstones that appear on the floor, gold
39:30
teeth that people say they have, and even manna, bread from heaven.
39:35
I had a gentleman come to the radio station where I was working a few years ago.
39:40
That church that I mentioned that had the prophetess Patricia King, well, he was so upset with me about what I
39:45
was reporting, and he was one of the people who ran the technical soundboards during this very long
39:51
hypnotic worship service, and it was full of NAR prophets and prophetesses doing their thing,
39:57
and during this glory school weekend that he was doing the soundboard and the tech for, he told
40:03
me that right during that worship time, there was manna falling from the ceiling, he said, and one of these
40:09
pieces of bread, just like in the Old Testament, fell right onto his open
40:15
Bible in the back booth where he was, and he said he picked it up and he tasted it, and he said it
40:21
tasted sweet, just the way they described it in the time of Moses, he said.
40:25
So, I just, you know, and to them, though, these experiences, these miracles,
40:31
these going into a trance, going into the third heaven, being pushed down by forces,
40:38
these are all real to them, and they say that they can actually feel hands on them that aren't there,
40:44
spiritual things that are happening to them, and I just have to wonder, I know it's not from scripture, I know it's
40:50
not God, could it be demonic, you know, or could it be something else that their emotions have conjured up?
40:56
That's going to get a lot of people upset when you say, could it be demonic?
40:59
They really get upset with that, but you have to wonder, because when you think about this, Justin Peters had a woman
41:05
that came to faith, he met with her, her job, you mentioned the gold dust,
41:11
her job was to put the dust in the ventilation systems
41:18
so that when they would push the ventilation, they'd be like, oh, gold dust.
41:24
She would get up there every Saturday and put it in, and yet she still believed it was a miracle from God.
41:30
At the time, she was so bought into all this, even though she and her husband were
41:36
putting it there, she was really believing God was doing something.
41:41
That's how deceptive this could be.
41:45
And so, yeah, I think you have to eventually wonder, could it be demonic?
41:49
Well, I've had similar testimonies come to me that way.
41:52
A couple years ago, Andrew, I put a post out on Facebook just for my friends, and I asked if any of them had come out of the
41:58
NAR, and if so, if they'd be willing to share their story with me.
42:02
And I tell you, within five minutes, I had like nine people who private messaged me saying, oh, me, me.
42:07
And they had some of the same experiences where they were behind the scenes and did this stuff.
42:13
And so they knew it was wrong, and they knew it wasn't right that they were conjuring this up.
42:17
And I tell you, by the next morning after I'd posted that, I had 20 messages, and I've had many responses
42:24
So I've published like 55 stories of people just in their own words telling about what happened in their
42:30
churches with these prophets who would come and all these different miracles and all of the disillusionment that they
42:36
And I put them all together in a series called Leaving the NAR Church, and it's just there on the website at
42:42
bereanresearch .org, where you can just go read some of these.
42:46
And I always tell people who share their testimonies, you're actually helping more than I ever
42:53
I could give you the textbook version of what the NAR is and what they believe, but it's the people who actually go
42:59
through these things who really are evangelizing, because they're telling people, hey, this is not
43:06
true biblical Christianity, but this is what I experienced.
43:10
And sure enough, somebody will say, I read one of those stories, and that was my story too.
43:16
And so it's kind of become a little self -help organization that we've put together, because it's, you know, and of course,
43:22
you don't do self -help, you do the Lord's help, because you bring each other to the cross, and the real hope is in
43:29
So who are some of the leaders?
43:31
So if people are in a church and they're hearing these names, they can identify and say, oh, wait, wait, okay, that's NAR.
43:36
You mentioned some, but could you give us a list of some of the people who, if we hear these names, we could now know
43:43
this is who, and they are NAR?
43:46
And there are so many that you've never heard of.
43:48
So I'll just name some of the others.
43:50
And before I do, you know, as I said earlier, there's times when you and I have to name names.
43:54
Jesus did this, Paul did this, and the Bible does tell us to mark and avoid those false teachers who bring division.
44:00
So it's not gossiping or slandering.
44:04
And we should take no joy in what awaits these false teachers who teach these things for shameful gain.
44:10
But we do, I do think we have to name the names, because as we said earlier, these are people who are being
44:16
deceptive in their teachings.
44:18
They're using language to sound like they're evangelical when they have a totally different theology.
44:24
They're not looking to bring people to Christ to a future kingdom.
44:29
They're looking to bring a kingdom here on earth.
44:31
They're not looking to be like the prophets of old who gave up money and had very little.
44:36
They're looking to make it all.
44:38
I mean, it's very different.
44:40
So we do need to name the names because of the deception that they offer.
44:45
And they are shipwrecking the faith of so many sheep with their counterfeits.
44:51
Is that someone that would be a pirate would use shipwreck?
44:55
It's coming out, isn't it?
44:58
Well, you know, I mentioned Bill Johnson of Bethel Reading in California.
45:02
Mike Bickle, I mentioned also.
45:06
In fact, many churches send their youth to International House of Prayer to learn how to operate in the
45:12
prophetic, especially interns.
45:14
And I've seen interns come back from IHOP just changed completely.
45:18
Their bodies do these strange jerking movements.
45:23
You know, and they call it an infusion from the Holy Spirit.
45:26
But those who know better call it a different spirit.
45:28
And that's the spirit of the age.
45:30
Other true apostles that you need to mark on a void.
45:34
Chuck Pierce, Bob Jones, Cindy Jacobs, Rick Joyner, Todd
45:41
And I could talk about him because he's got some very current news coming up.
45:46
Brian and Bobby Houston of Hillsong Church in Australia.
45:49
And of course, Rod Parsley.
45:51
And like you said, there are so many more.
45:54
Let's specify because Bob Jones is a well -known name in fundamentals circle.
45:58
So it's a different Bob Jones.
45:59
This is from the Kansas City Prophets.
46:03
In fact, that's where really the whole NAR movement came from.
46:07
Was that Latter Rain, Kansas City Prophets, Toronto Blessing, Slain in the Spirit type of
46:15
You know, you can name all of these movements allegedly of the Holy Spirit.
46:20
And the Latter Rain movement was formed from those.
46:22
Bob Jones did these prophetic declarations that people still believe that his
46:28
prophecies are just time -tested and true.
46:32
And it's frightening because so many people are deceived.
46:36
I would say that the number one place where these people are being promoted is Charisma News.
46:44
And it has hundreds of thousands of followers who are
46:50
amening everything that they see on Facebook and in the comment section of their blog.
46:55
They talk about meekie squid spirits and the spirit of Jezebel and all these spirits that
47:01
are taking over our bodies.
47:03
It's not our sin nature doing it.
47:05
It's a something or other spirit that's doing it.
47:07
So we need to be very, very discerning and careful when we go through those.
47:13
Yeah, like we've talked with the music and with this, how the cadence, all this stuff that
47:19
affects the emotions, it does have a play.
47:23
I had a friend of mine, we were at a missionary housing center.
47:28
And we were just talking about the cadence of the African -American preachers.
47:33
He was African -American.
47:35
And he was explaining to me that that cadence is designed to get you in a hypnotic state where you say
47:41
amen, no matter what you're saying.
47:43
He said, I could be preaching a nursery rhyme and people would
47:52
And literally, here we are.
47:55
And he is going, little Miss Muffet.
47:58
Oh, say it louder, Tuffet.
47:59
He's doing this whole cadence thing.
48:01
There's a woman who walks in.
48:03
She's walking past us and goes, amen, brother, preach it.
48:07
And I put my head in my hands and shook my head.
48:10
He literally was preaching a nursery rhyme.
48:13
And she's saying amen to this.
48:15
It becomes so hypnotic you don't realize.
48:18
And that's why I think it could be dangerous.
48:20
Now, let me ask you this.
48:22
If you have someone that's in an NAR church, do you think they should leave?
48:31
I believe that they, but they can't leave until their eyes are opened.
48:34
And really only God through the Holy Spirit is going to, in His timing, open their eyes.
48:40
But our job is to come alongside and help them understand that what they are into is something very
48:46
different than biblical Christianity.
48:48
And let me just say that there are some churches that are embracing some of the practices.
48:53
And, you know, every denomination, every branch of what we would call Christianity is
48:59
falling under this spell.
49:01
It's a huge movement that has a lot of chemicals.
49:04
But I wouldn't necessarily call all of them NAR.
49:07
Again, the two distinctives are if a church embraces the modern restoration of apostles and prophets, then
49:15
But if they're adopting some of the teachings that we've talked about, then I would say that they are under a dangerous
49:22
And I found that once churches begin to embrace these paradigm shifts, it's very difficult
49:28
for members to try to steer that ship back on a biblical course.
49:33
And, you know, you talk about these meetings that they've had with pastors and with elders and their
49:39
apostles, it's almost impossible.
49:42
The meetings that they have to try to bring some biblical truth to what they're seeing in the sermons and in
49:48
their programs are almost more painful than what's actually happening on Sunday mornings.
49:54
So a lot of people are being incredibly damaged by these things.
49:59
So the final question before we maybe get to a game, but what do we do
50:05
with these well -known leaders that dabble with these people?
50:10
So there's plenty of people who are kind of in the middle.
50:14
They're considered conservative, but they are also involved with these people.
50:20
I'm thinking specifically of people like Dr. Michael Brown or Beth
50:26
Moore that are known for being conservative, but yet they're starting, and I think that
50:32
branch out for a lot of them is, look, this is a big moneymaker and the publishers will push this because this is
50:39
So if you want to be big in publishing, you've got to be involved with these people.
50:43
And I think that's how they get involved with them.
50:44
But, Son, you said at the very beginning, they're very nice people.
50:48
And when they get to know them, they really genuinely like them and they consider them friends.
50:53
And so that friendship, I think, kind of blinds them to the danger of what they're doing.
50:59
So what do we do with these people?
51:02
Well, you're absolutely right.
51:03
And, you know, Dr. Michael Brown is an interesting one because you are right.
51:06
He is one of the nicest people, very reasonable, fun to talk to.
51:11
However, he talks with and is friends with some of the biggest leaders in
51:18
And so he really seems like he's trying not to be, but he is.
51:22
And so, you know, and he has been talked with privately and publicly on his radio program.
51:28
People have called in to challenge, but he doesn't budge because he believes in his heart
51:34
that anybody who is a cessationist, who believes that the gifts
51:40
of tongues and prophecy are over for today, well, they're just not qualified to even talk about the Holy
51:46
So he kind of puts people in camps and doesn't listen to anybody who's not in his own camp.
51:52
And so that was a very hard one.
51:55
But with these leaders, I would just say if they've been talked to privately, and most of them have, then
52:01
you can mark and avoid them safely and just don't buy their books.
52:05
Don't go to their conferences.
52:06
Don't invite them to your church.
52:08
That's what I would initially say.
52:11
Most of these people have been talked with privately.
52:13
If they're teaching publicly, it's okay to tell your congregation, look, you know, I have some
52:20
This person is not a trusted leader or he's hanging with untrustworthy people, and
52:27
And it takes more than just 10 minutes to talk about it.
52:29
You almost have to do a whole lesson on it.
52:32
And John MacArthur does that.
52:35
He'll tell you why these teachings are unbiblical.
52:39
He'll take you to Scripture.
52:40
And so don't just give a 10 -minute lip service.
52:43
Actually take people into Scripture and tell them why some of these leaders are going off track.
52:48
Yeah, because I think if these leaders can't discern the problems, if they can't see it,
52:54
then it shows a lack of discernment on their part, or maybe they've been influenced by the culture or
53:00
the publishers or whoever that, hey, this is what you have to do to get a big platform, a big ministry, and you've got to keep paying your
53:06
staff, and therefore you've got to do this.
53:09
And it could be very, very deceptive.
53:11
It could be very, very seductive.
53:15
And once they start showing that lack of discernment, I think you have to start saying, hey, you may have produced some really good stuff
53:21
in the past, and maybe even producing some really good stuff now, but can you trust it if
53:27
they're not being discerning about what they're taking in?
53:31
Yeah, and for the local church, I always say it depends.
53:36
You have to give grace in the benefit of the doubt at times when pastors are so busy
53:42
these days doing what they need to do just to get Sunday morning ready and just to get their sermons and
53:48
their teachings ready to go.
53:50
They've got to be in study.
53:51
They've got to shepherd people.
53:52
They don't have time to research every teacher that comes along, and there's so many dangerous roles out there,
53:59
and that's why they need to rely on people who can do that kind of work for them in their congregations.
54:04
Listen to the people who are coming in your office and saying, you know, I've done some research, and I think I have some concerns.
54:10
Would you at least take a look at this?
54:15
And ladies, if it's you, do it with your husband.
54:18
Just make sure that you're being biblical about it.
54:21
Many of us have loved ones who are just stuck in this bondage.
54:25
It might not even be our own church, but it might be just friends meeting for coffee, and they tell you that they've been
54:33
Or you may recognize some of these hallmarks coming into your own church.
54:36
You have to figure out a game plan.
54:38
What do you do about that?
54:39
And I always tell people, first you have to pray.
54:42
Pray for strength, for wisdom, discernment.
54:45
Pray for yourself and your loved ones.
54:47
And know that God is sovereign because he's allowing this for some reason.
54:52
Don't come into it with an open mind.
54:56
And ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate scripture so that you can put on that full armor of God when you're contending for the
55:04
And then I always say, do your homework.
55:05
Just don't use discernment blogs to get your daily discernment, but do rely on some of
55:11
the trusted ones for specific topics that you can research.
55:16
There's researchers everywhere that are actually solid biblical people that aren't trying to make a
55:22
buck or just trying to be right.
55:24
They're actually very discerning people.
55:26
So find those and carefully consider speaking up.
55:31
That's my advice for people if they're trying to come alongside and help.
55:36
You might be called a Pharisee for doing this.
55:40
You might even be asked to leave your church because you're too discerning.
55:44
But don't leave without speaking up.
55:45
I think that's our responsibility to do so.
55:48
We really can't say we love the church if we're going to let them be deceived.
55:53
I'm glad you brought up about the pastor because on a recent episode I did with Virgil Walker, we talked about the pressures put on
55:59
a pastor of everyone with their pet ministry, their parachurch ministry they're really involved in, and
56:05
everyone wants the church to be involved in everything.
56:07
And the pastor has to deal with all that.
56:10
The pastor doesn't have time to sit and research all this stuff.
56:13
I have so many people come to me.
56:16
And really my feeling has always been if someone in my church comes to me, when someone came to me with Don Piper's
56:22
book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, I heard about it.
56:25
I didn't care about it until someone in my church had it and was reading it.
56:31
Now I had to care for it.
56:33
Now I started to read it.
56:34
When someone said, Pastor, what about this book I'm reading?
56:37
Now I read it so that I can talk intelligently with him about it and help guide him out of reading things like that.
56:44
But other than that, I don't have time for that.
56:47
Unless someone in my church is involved in it, I don't.
56:51
So after this, I want to play a commercial, and then after that I'd like to play a game where
56:57
all the pressure is on me and not on you.
57:00
All you're going to have to do is think of an object.
57:03
So we'll do that right after this.
57:05
Would you consider donating to Striving for Eternity?
57:10
This ministry is one that tries to reach out to some of those smaller churches that most people,
57:16
most speakers, want to avoid.
57:19
But by our monthly donors, it allows us to get into smaller churches and provide for them the seminars and
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conferences that usually only larger churches can do.
57:29
We can do that because we have monthly supporters who on a regular basis support us so we can
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Would you consider being one of our monthly supporters today?
57:41
You can go to strivingforeternity .org and set up for a
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Your donation helps us to be able to spread the gospel around the world, to be able to
57:54
disciple others, and to provide resources for churches and people who are
58:00
struggling to grow deeper in God's word.
58:04
Consider donating today at strivingforeternity .org and we thank you
58:10
very much for your consideration.
58:13
And if you want, we're going to continue what we offered at G3.
58:16
I mentioned this before, but we are going to be continuing our donations for monthly supporters
58:23
If you go to our Patreon page or to our PayPal page for $2 a month, you're going to get, it'll take about three months
58:29
before we can ship them out, but you will get the book, What Do We Believe?
58:32
If you donate at a level of $5 a month, you'll get What Do We Believe? and What Do They Believe?
58:38
For $10 a month, we're going to add the book On the Origin of Kinds.
58:42
On $20 a month, we'll add the book Sharing the Good News with Mormons, and it goes up from there.
58:47
But here's the thing about the $25 a month pledge.
58:50
If you can give $25 a month, here's what we're going to do with that.
58:54
What we want to do is try to use the Striving—Striving for Trinity has started up its Christian podcast
59:01
What we want to do with this, this is a crazy idea we have.
59:05
We want to help missionaries be able to better communicate with their
59:11
And so what we want to do is we want to buy missionaries podcasting equipment,
59:17
buy them a microphone, get them a microphone, and be able to set up the hosting for them so that we could
59:23
cover their hosting costs.
59:25
That way, they could do a podcast instead of sending an email that no one actually reads anyway.
59:31
So we want them to be able to set up their own podcast to better communicate because this is the way most of the people nowadays are
59:38
They're not going to read the emails.
59:40
They're not going to read the missionary reports.
59:42
And this becomes a better way they can hear the missionary's voice explaining what happened,
59:48
so -and -so got saved, how they're discipling someone.
59:51
That will help them when they get to that church.
59:53
Those people are going to know the missionary a lot better.
59:55
And the reality is when a missionary says, go pick up my report when they're visiting the church, everyone picks up the report then.
1:00:01
But if they say, go subscribe to my podcast, now they're subscribed and next week or next
1:00:07
month or whenever the missionary does that, they're going to get more.
1:00:10
So that's one of the things your support can help us to do.
1:00:13
The more you give to us, the more we're going to give away.
1:00:16
That's how we kind of do ministry here.
1:00:18
And so if you could help us, that would be great.
1:00:21
And what we're going to look to do is also be opening up the Christian Podcast Community
1:00:29
We have the applications ready.
1:00:31
So if you are interested, you can go to ChristianPodcastCommunity .org.
1:00:40
ChristianPodcastCommunity .com will get you to the one for podcasters.
1:00:45
And there you could get—you'll see a link to find out more information to fill out
1:00:52
If you want to find out about the different podcasts we have, well, then go to the .org one.
1:00:56
ChristianPodcastCommunity .org gets you all of our podcasts.
1:00:59
We have Theology Gals, Theology Answers, Dida K with Justin Peters, Andrew Rapport's rap report.
1:01:05
You should know about that one.
1:01:06
That's the one you're listening to.
1:01:07
But you may not know about my daily one, the Monday through Friday, two minutes a day.
1:01:11
You can handle two minutes a day.
1:01:14
Right now we're going through the overviews of every book of the Bible.
1:01:17
Give you quick overviews so you know what every book is.
1:01:20
And we also have So You Want to Be a Podcaster if you're interested in podcasting.
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So you want to be a podcaster.
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Our mission is to encourage and equip you for excellence in podcasting.
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Some of the things we have available that your support helps make available.
1:01:40
And so, Amy, would you like to play a game?
1:01:46
You said the pressure's off me, though, right?
1:01:52
It's time now to start the spiritual transition game.
1:01:59
Okay, Amy, I am going to ask you to give me something, whatever it is that comes to your mind, and the pressure
1:02:05
is on me to transition from whatever you give me to the gospel.
1:02:09
And I'm going to tell you why we play this game.
1:02:11
We play this game because most people find it easy to evangelize once the conversation gets spiritual.
1:02:17
But I have found over the years that the thing that most people have a difficulty with is getting from the natural world to the spiritual.
1:02:23
And so this is something my pastor taught us to do when we were training to be deacons and
1:02:30
We had to be able to transition anything to a spiritual conversation so that we would have illustrations in our sermons,
1:02:36
that we would be able to navigate conversations.
1:02:40
And I have turned that up to say, well, let's do that specifically with gospel conversations.
1:02:45
And so I'm going to have to take whatever you give me and transition it to the gospel.
1:02:49
There will be no editing.
1:02:50
Therefore, if there's long pauses, it's because Amy stumped me.
1:02:54
I'm sure she won't stump me as bad as Matt Slick did because he just gave me words.
1:02:58
I don't even know if they were real words, but that's Matt.
1:03:02
So give me whatever you have.
1:03:06
So I have to find something that challenges you to make this something into the gospel.
1:03:11
You don't have to make it difficult.
1:03:13
Everyone seems to want to.
1:03:17
OK, how about tape dispenser?
1:03:22
You know, you pull the tape and you tape.
1:03:24
Oh, I thought you said a pez.
1:03:26
OK, a tape like like scotch tape.
1:03:31
OK, a scotch tape dispenser.
1:03:34
Well, there's a lot of things we could talk about with tape dispensers that most people don't think about because people take for granted
1:03:41
Do you know that most of your tape dispensers are weighted down with sand?
1:03:46
Most people don't realize that they don't think about that.
1:03:48
And it's got to be weighted down because if you think about it, if you go to pull the tape out and it's not weighted down,
1:03:55
basically what's going to happen?
1:03:58
The tape dispenser is going to follow your fingers across the desk.
1:04:02
So you need something to weight it down.
1:04:04
It needs a foundation because if it doesn't have a solid foundation, it just goes any which
1:04:13
This is true for us in life because you know what?
1:04:15
If we don't have a firm foundation, something that we could say is absolutely true, we're going to follow any whim of our
1:04:21
culture in any which direction it goes.
1:04:23
But we do have a firm foundation in this life.
1:04:26
And it's God's word, the Bible.
1:04:27
And what it tells us is that you and I break his law and we violate it.
1:04:32
We're criminals in his sight.
1:04:33
But here's the amazing thing.
1:04:35
God himself came to earth as a man to die on a cross to become the sin punishment that we
1:04:41
owe in our place that we could be set free.
1:04:44
So even though we did the crime, he did the time.
1:04:46
He sets us free so that though he became sin, he who knew no sin became sin, that we could be the
1:04:54
Isn't that a good, firm foundation?
1:04:57
That is the best news I could ever hear.
1:05:01
I love that you turned the tape dispenser into the foundation of our faith.
1:05:07
No, I used to do this when I used to teach the junior church.
1:05:11
I used to let them start.
1:05:12
And I mean, every week when I started, they loved when I was there because it was like, oh, we get to try and stop Pastor Andrew.
1:05:19
And I would come in and they would give me any kind of crazy thing.
1:05:23
And I had to take from whatever they gave me and I had to transition it to my message, whatever it was I
1:05:30
And the thing about it is, it's the constant training that gets me where I can sit on the street and I don't
1:05:36
God, give me an opportunity to share the gospel.
1:05:40
I can take any conversation and maneuver and look for ways to transition to the gospel.
1:05:48
And it's so much better than teaching kids how to have prophetic dreams.
1:05:54
So I want to do one final thing with you and then I'm going to let you wrap up.
1:05:59
As I've studied NIR, my background of studying world religions and cults, I have noticed
1:06:05
some things about different groups that I define as a cult.
1:06:11
And this is going to come right from my book, What Do They Believe?
1:06:14
Right in the beginning of the intro, I define a cult and I have five elements of a cult.
1:06:18
And my question is going to be for you as I go through these things.
1:06:21
I want to see whether you believe any of these or all of them
1:06:27
fit the definitions for NIR.
1:06:30
So the first one, scripture twisting.
1:06:32
And I define that as the de facto assertion of extra biblical revelation.
1:06:38
So do you think that they would fit under that definition?
1:06:45
Now, this is not just an organization, but this is going to be, I define as
1:06:50
individual interpretations on subject are not allowed.
1:06:54
Only cult leaders can interpret and they are accountable to no one.
1:07:00
Would the NIR fit under that?
1:07:01
Yes. I would say NIR is very much like that.
1:07:07
And I define it as only the organization or group has the truth and all
1:07:13
others are excluded from the truth.
1:07:17
And it's amazing how they are out in the world believing that and preaching that.
1:07:22
But they can blend in with anyone.
1:07:24
But yes, they alone have the truth.
1:07:27
Number four is isolationism.
1:07:29
Members of that organization or group are not able to speak to outsiders about doctrine unless to
1:07:36
The organization often states that it has the truth and wants to protect its members.
1:07:41
To a point, I would say that that's probably true in many of the NIR churches.
1:07:47
Yes, I think it's somewhat true with them because they use that, as we said earlier, the two different languages.
1:07:52
They use the language but have different meanings.
1:07:58
And then the fifth one, the fifth definition I have for a cult is endangerment.
1:08:03
And this is not just physical, but it can also be spiritual or emotional endangerment.
1:08:09
Do you think that that could fit under the definition for NIR?
1:08:14
It is incredibly, incredibly damaging.
1:08:18
A lot of carnage from this movement is causing not only division, churchless,
1:08:25
It's like going through a divorce.
1:08:26
And people who've been in these churches for many decades as they start to have a paradigm shift toward the
1:08:34
There's division within families, marriages if one spouse embraces this and the other doesn't.
1:08:41
Children oftentimes are estranged from parents.
1:08:44
And the other part of the damage is people are distracted from the true Bible, the true word of God and
1:08:51
People will tell you, I feel like I've wasted years of my life chasing this down.
1:08:55
There's no growth or maturity.
1:08:57
And they become disillusioned with Christianity altogether.
1:09:01
And many, unfortunately, who have shared their testimonies with me have left churches altogether.
1:09:07
And you might ask, well, were they really saved in the first place?
1:09:12
But I find it incredibly sad, the damage that's being done.
1:09:16
And so this is where I know people get upset with me because I sound so strong and I don't have the nice kitty voice that
1:09:25
The NIR fits the definition of a cult.
1:09:28
It seems harsh because they're coming at it from within the realm of evangelicalism.
1:09:34
And therefore, people think, no, it can't be because when you think of Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, they're on the outside.
1:09:39
But remember, they didn't start on the outside.
1:09:42
Many of them started on the inside.
1:09:44
The difference is they ended up leaving.
1:09:47
The thing with the NIR is they're not seeking to leave.
1:09:49
They're seeking to continue to influence the church with their cult.
1:09:54
And so I believe the NIR is a cult.
1:10:04
But should we not warn those from that?
1:10:07
So, Amy, I'm going to leave the last couple minutes for you.
1:10:09
Anything that you want to share?
1:10:10
Anything you want to let folks know?
1:10:13
Any encouragement for folks who may be stuck in this or a family stuck in this movement?
1:10:19
And the first thing is just to pray for wisdom when doing this.
1:10:23
If you find that maybe you recognize some of these trends in the church, I would just encourage you to
1:10:29
listen to the sermon messages if you believe your church is an NIR church.
1:10:34
And here's kind of the litmus test.
1:10:36
How do they differ from a biblical solid church?
1:10:40
And maybe you've never been to a biblically solid church, and this is all you've known.
1:10:44
You need to know that a pastor who rightly handles the Word of God understands that he needs to deliver the
1:10:50
good news of Jesus Christ, like Andrew just did, which includes the law and the gospel.
1:10:55
He'll talk about the sin that Jesus died for and our need for repentance, and he'll point his flock
1:11:01
to the cross and the hope of the resurrection and of Jesus' return.
1:11:06
And everything that he does stems from the Word of God.
1:11:10
And so I want you to compare what your pastor teaches to what you're hearing from the
1:11:17
And I'm going to give you a few key words.
1:11:19
In contrast, NIR apostles and prophets in their sermons preach not so much about the
1:11:25
gospel of the cross, but about taking dominion of the kingdom.
1:11:29
Not a future kingdom that God builds, but a kingdom right here on Earth that we must create and advance.
1:11:35
They don't preach about Jesus having the power to overcome sin, but about the church having the power
1:11:41
over us and to take dominion.
1:11:43
Everything's about the church.
1:11:45
They refer to this as being mission -focused, with their mission being the message of the apostles and prophets,
1:11:51
rather than being Christ -centered, where the mission is the gospel.
1:11:55
And so we need to know our Bibles.
1:11:58
We need to know what the Bible says about the gospel, what the gospel actually is.
1:12:03
And then we need to compare that to everything that we consume as Christians, whether it's podcasts,
1:12:09
whether it's books, whether it's your pastor's sermon on Sundays.
1:12:12
Whatever it is, we need to constantly be holding everything up to the light of Scripture, because there
1:12:19
is no error in Scripture at all.
1:12:23
Is there anything you want to share with folks about some things you've got going on, or anything with the ministry
1:12:31
Well, when you introduced me, you mentioned a couple of ministries that I have.
1:12:36
Bereanresearch .org, that's just a place where I've done a lot of research.
1:12:40
So I've got these white papers on different topics like NAR, dominionism, the word of faith,
1:12:47
Roman Catholicism, all of those things, if you want just kind of the bullet points on what these are.
1:12:52
Naomi's Table, ladies, is a place to do Bible studies for women.
1:12:56
If you're looking for materials maybe that you'd like to bring into your women's ministry that isn't somebody's thoughts
1:13:02
and feelings, but it's really Scripture -based, I just encourage you to go download the free resources
1:13:09
And then I'm going to be speaking again at Answers in Genesis next year in 2020, and I'm very
1:13:15
excited because we're going to be talking about the sufficiency of Scripture.
1:13:19
And that is really key in all of these movements that seem to lead people away from the truth.
1:13:24
That's the common thread, Andrew, is that all of them really get away from the sufficiency of Scripture.
1:13:30
They'll tell you it's inerrant, they'll tell you they believe in it, but when it comes to is it enough, that's where
1:13:36
they kind of go astray there.
1:13:37
So look at those resources and connect with me on social media.
1:13:43
Well, thanks for coming on.
1:13:44
And the last thing you said was probably maybe the most important is because when people give up on the
1:13:49
sufficiency of Scripture, when they're looking for a prophet or an apostle or an emotion or
1:13:55
anything else to validate the Word of God, then the Word of God isn't enough for them.
1:14:01
It's not sufficient for them.
1:14:02
They need something else.
1:14:04
And that's when danger is present, because when you're not satisfied with God and His
1:14:10
Word, then you're in a realm where you can be influenced by anything that's
1:14:16
not from God and His Word.
1:14:20
So let that be a warning.
1:14:21
And until next week, next week I think we—I'm not sure what we have coming up next week.
1:14:26
We do have coming up an interview with Alan Nielsen on the topic of his book on
1:14:32
salvation that may be coming up next week.
1:14:34
I've got to check the schedule, but if not, it will be coming soon.
1:14:38
And I really appreciate Amy coming on here.
1:14:41
This is an important, important topic, and it's one that we really do need to spend some time
1:14:47
studying because this influences so much of Christianity.
1:14:51
And so until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.
1:14:57
This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry.
1:15:00
For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.