Is the New Apostolic Reformation a Cult with Amy Spreeman

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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The NAR teaches that after 2 ,000 years or so, God is now restoring the 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 God.

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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 movement of new apostles and prophets who will lead

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God's end times army in establishing his kingdom on earth by taking authority over earthly and spiritual realms.

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Welcome to the Wrap Report with Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is the Ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. 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. 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 you're going to have to deal with the fact that, well, we're going to deal with something that is rampant within Christianity, and unfortunately, not enough people are discerning enough to be concerned about it.

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Actually, I hope after this episode, you're scared. I hope that you're scared for your friends that are involved in the

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New Apostolic Reformation, sometimes referred to as NAR. No, not

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NRA, that's a totally different thing. That's from Jersey, I don't understand, National Something Association.

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That middle word, Jersey, we're not allowed to talk about those things, we're in a communist state of Jersey. But I have a special guest, and some of you may know of her, if not, we're going to have her introduce herself a bit, but it is

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Amy Spearman, and she's with a whole bunch of organizations that she's involved with now, bringing research, and she actually is a speaker for Answers in Genesis, so she has that.

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She has Bible studies for ladies, called Naomi's Table, and she also,

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Amy, if I'm not mistaken, you work for a group that rides the high seas, and traveling the high seas to steal

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Christians' radios, is that it? Yes, it's, hi Andrew, it's called

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Pirate Christian Radio, and, arrrr. Well, that's what it must be, right?

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Exactly. I mean, pirates, they travel the high seas and steal from people, right?

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So it must be you steal Christian radios, that's it. Well, no, I don't steal. How did it get to, because that's one thing, someone asked me today when

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I said I was going to be interviewing you, how did it get its name, Pirate Christian Radio, and I said, I don't know, I'll ask Amy, maybe she knows.

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I've heard this story many times, it's a, well, pirate radio, I mean, that's actually kind of opposite of the free radio that's sponsored usually by the public or by private companies, and that you can't really say what 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, but on the internet, and they can say what they want, so, there's a few other explanations, but that's one of them.

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They can say what they want, sure they can. Not in America for much longer.

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Let me put this another way, they can say what needs to be said without fear of retribution. 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 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 walkers, is how people, most people know who

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I am that way, but I would say that the discernment ministries get a bad rap, and probably for a good reason, but having said that, there is value to some of the sites that people, where people report on some of the movements in the modern church that are leading people astray, especially if people are just looking for answers about cults or movements, and so there are men and women out there who have done the legwork and their articles actually help establish a pattern 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 up here, and we're snowed in at the moment, so it's great, 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, 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. Yeah, and we met each other just recently for a first time at G3.

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Yes, we did. So that was kind of fun. 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 the third wave of the

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Holy Spirit from a book that was written by C. Peter Wagner. That was really, he was laying out a case that there was the second wave of the

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Holy Spirit was the charismatic movement, and now we're entering into a third wave, and there's going 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. In fact, in 2010,

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I was asked to help launch a radio program, and it was a discernment program, kind of a one -of -its -kind up here in Wisconsin, and I didn't even know what this was, but I called it the

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Signs and Wonders movement. And really, Signs and Wonders are just one part of what the

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New Apostolic Reformation really is. So this movement, and I always call it NAR for short, just because New Apostolic Reformation is quite a mouthful, but it's also known as the

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Apostolic Prophetic Movement, or Apostles and Prophets Movement, and there are many, many other names like Third Wave, which

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I can talk about, but I think it would be a really good idea 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

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I want to warn folks is that there's going to be terminology that you may hear from this group that the way they use terminology and the way the

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Bible uses terminology is going to be different, and if you don't ask for definitions, you don't pick up that they have a totally different meaning for the words they use.

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Exactly. I want you to first define New Apostolic Reformation, and then there's a couple key terms

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I would like to get into, how they define things like Apostles and Prophets. Yes.

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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 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,

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NAR, because really it's finally starting to get exposed, and they want to distance themselves from it, and so to define what it is and isn't really helps people who've been caught in a 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 will lead

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God's end -times army in establishing His Kingdom on Earth 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 of nondistinct traits embodies.

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So people who are leaders, again, they don't call themselves NAR. In fact, most will outright deny their participation, and that's really how hard this is to pin down for people.

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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. First of all, first and foremost, the

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NAR teaches that after 2 ,000 years or so, God is now restoring the 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 God.

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And it's really a global movement. It's not just in the United States, but it's radically transforming churches in their teachings and their practices.

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And I saw an estimate somewhere that three million Christians in America whose churches have 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. The first time that I got exposed to someone saying something similar like that was actually not the

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NAR or Third Wave. It was another group called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

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Saints. Ah, yes. They have almost the same type of governance, don't they? And they make the same argument that the

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Church needed to be restored. See, now they do it a little different. They restored the

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Prophets and the Priests. They go back to the Aaronic Priesthood and all, where the

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NAR has the Prophets and the Apostles. But the thinking is actually the same.

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It is—is it not? Let me ask it to you. Is it not that they're claiming a authority with a change or a restoration, and this group that is going to be the authority has the right to change things?

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Exactly. And we find that once a church kind of absconds its authority to an

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NAR system, it loses its authority. And so right down to the fact that these churches can't even hire new people because they don't have the authority anymore to do that.

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So it's really interesting that way. And, you know, the primary focus is the teaching that God has restored these lost offices of Apostles and Prophets to rule these

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Christian churches. So when Christians receive and obey these new words allegedly coming from the

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Apostles and Prophets, then they too can do miracles. And this is kind of strange. They want to establish

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God's physical kingdom on Earth and usher in Jesus' return. So it's not

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Jesus coming back on his own and no one knows the day or the time or the hour.

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It's that they are going to make it happen. So let's start with some terms of—or distinctions of—Apostles,

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Prophets, because these are two 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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Sure. Well, Apostles and Prophets, we've read about them in Scripture and we haven't really had these offices 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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Apostle as sent one. So in Greek, Apostle means one sent forth. 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? We ought to all be sharing the good news. But that's not really how the

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NAR Apostles describe themselves. Today's new Apostles are appointed by other

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Apostles through the laying of hands, which is 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. Apostles and Prophets are to represent and speak for God here on earth and to raise an army of workers in these end times.

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So that army thing is very important to them. So again, these Apostles are equal in power to the original

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Apostles, they say, the ones who actually witnessed Jesus' life, death, and resurrection and were appointed by Christ himself.

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Now, that's how the Bible defines Apostles. But since these new Apostles claim to be commissioned by God too, their authority must not be quite questioned.

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Now, that doesn't really sound like a sent one, does it? It really doesn't. So in fact, you'd mention

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C. Peter Wagner, and he's got some very interesting things to say about Apostles. 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 they provide direct so -called spiritual covering, counsel, correction for those in their networks.

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And then there's the horizontal Apostles. 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. And then there's the workplace

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Apostles. And these Apostles provide leadership for Christians working in different sectors of society.

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So real estate, government, health care, media, that kind of thing. And then if you look at the definition for prophets,

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NAR also has its own description of prophet. So just like the prophets in the

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Old Testament, NAR prophets claim to receive direct instructions from God Almighty for the

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Church to advance the kingdom. Funny, they don't ever tell you to test the spirits. 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 into the word prophet, evangelicals have typically redefined it to mean something other than how the

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Bible describes it. So there's a little confusion there. 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 reconciliation.

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And the Israelites would have known that. So one who knows that judgment is coming. 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

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Scripture verse for a particular situation. So they get a word or something. 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 hearts.

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So the prophets in the Bible had to be 100 % accurate, but they were put to death. And NAR prophecies are often either unfulfilled or completely false.

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Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I heard one person state that the track record for the

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NAR prophets are anywhere between 35 % to 85%. 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. So kind of wrap your mind around that. I'm not really wrong.

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I'm just not right. Right. I'm just not right. But words are important.

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These definitions are so key. So if we're going to discern, we also need to know that the word apostle or prophet might make 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 apostle, especially if they're at a conference speaking to mainstream

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Christians who might be concerned if they heard the word apostle. 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 Prayer or IHOP.

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He is known as a general. In other words, he goes by his harvester. And prophets have been called secret intelligence agents who feed revelations to the generals who then develop a strategy.

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So it's really interesting once you dive deep into this stuff. 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 organization, and that is the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints or another organization, the Jehovah Witnesses.

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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 they use specific language when they're dealing with evangelicals, where they have a different meaning of the term than an evangelical would have, and they know that, but they're going to use that terminology almost to deceive, to say, we're

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Christian like you until you become part of us, and then we're going to tell you the real meaning of these things.

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Exactly. To me, it seems that they appeal to evangelicals to deceive and to pull them in and make it sound like they're

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Christian too, which always boggled my mind. I mean, the Mormon Church started because they said that the gospel needed to be restored and the

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Church fell away, and the Jehovah Witnesses started because they said that the Church had got things wrong and we needed them.

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And the Catholic Church, first, they were the ones to say that we believe in justification by faith alone.

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We got it wrong and needed to return to Mother Church, and now all three of those organizations want to say they're

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Christian like us. Exactly. Isn't that interesting? But that's how they get you to believe, or that's how they get the understanding to believe that they are 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. It pulls in the undiscerning, but what it actually does is this, and this is why

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I think it's so hard for family members that have people involved in NAR to deal with this, is because it gives the appearance that, hey, we're

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Christian too, we're just like you, we use the same language, or maybe we use some different words in some other areas, but it means the same things as what you mean, 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 purpose of it is to say, well, you shouldn't be evangelizing us because we're

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Christian just like you. Also, the other factor is, like the Mormons, a lot of these

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NAR teachers are the nicest, sweetest people that you'd ever want to meet, so instantly your defenses are down and you just want to love people, right?

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So it's very challenging for those who don't know what this is really all about.

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And Amy, you are the big meanie having to tell people that this is bad, right?

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Yeah, unfortunately. Well, I try to do it as gently as possible, but even if you put on your soft kitten voice and 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 about to fall over, a lot of people really like their teachers and their teachings, and they don't even like the sound of the word false teacher.

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And so depending on whom I'm speaking with, I even avoid that word, but I'll use other biblical 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. 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. I just can't. I have the open air preacher voice.

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My voice could bellow out, but the soft part I don't have. 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 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. Can you prove that God is a trinity? Can you prove that Jesus is God? Can you defend the

20:21

Christian faith? And what is it that Christians truly believe? The new book by Andrew Rappaport, What Do We Believe?,

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will answer those questions and more. Some people just don't understand what the church is today, but this book will go through the history and meaning of the church and what's more important than to understand man's sinfulness and God's salvation.

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 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. 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. There's many of us who struggles, whether it be within our marriage, whether it be with our children, whether it be with physical ailments.

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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. 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. The speakers will be Justin Peters, who if you know him, you know he struggles physically,

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Frank Mullis, Colleen Sharp, and Joe Suazo, and we will have this conference.

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You can get all the details and register at strivingforeternity .org slash conference -on -suffering

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Get all the details, and I hope to see you there. I'll try to put in the show notes the links to the conference.

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I really encourage you to think about coming to that if you can. 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. So many of us struggle with anxiety, depression, physical things, marriage, kids, whatever it is, and we're going to have great speakers.

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For folks who may not know Pastor Mullis, he is one of Georgia's leading experts with dealing with sexual abusers, and so he has an expertise that none of us really want, but he 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 suffering and persecution to prepare, because America will be changing,

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I think, its views on Christianity, and we're going to see some persecution, I think, coming our way, and he's going to prepare us for some of that.

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So consider going to that conference. You can get the details at strivingforeternity .org It is the

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Sanctification Through Suffering Conference. So Amy, let me ask you.

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What I've noticed as I study NAR is this idea of taking 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? Well, it's about the power to be able to bring

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Jesus back. I mentioned activating His return. That's one of their key goals.

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And so dominionism, they hang their hat on this tower, and they want to bring

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Jesus back by taking dominion of our physical earthly realm and also the spiritual demonic realm.

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So here in our physical world, they've identified these seven spheres of influence, or mountains, 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? I've done a little bit of reading on it, but I'm not super familiar with it because I read an article on it and went, ow, my head hurts!

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It does, I know! But these seven mountains really to be conquered for Jesus before He can return are the government, 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. They talk about 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. They really do have these, and I don't want to sound all loony tunes, but they really do have operatives who have that as a goal.

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And they will convince people. Before we move on to the other, this is the importance that I think many of them see with Trump, because many of them support him, right?

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Well, absolutely, and if you look at Trump's, I'll have to pull up this article I did on Berean Research, I have this article that when

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Trump first established his advisory team, his Christian advisory team, the people that he included really came straight out of the

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NAR, I 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 people who pray over him regularly, and the people he consults.

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Do I think he's NAR? No, I just think that he doesn't know any better. He's like any politician, willing to do whatever to get elected.

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Exactly, that's true with both sides, I'm sure. So they convince people that all of this is biblical, and you can find elements of it in scripture, which makes it really hard for people to discern, but really, make no mistake, this seven mountain mandate thing is a new doctrine to usher in any physical kingdom of God, is not what the

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Bible says at all. 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 churches, well the

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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 the authority of the closest apostle near you in proximity, and they always point to the fivefold ministry, you probably have heard that before, and they point to Ephesians 4 .11

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that talks about the fivefold ministry. So while you may have evangelists and teachers and shepherds in your church, you have to submit all your 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 plan.

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So that's really truly what they teach about that. Yeah, and it's something that is so hard,

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I think, and you brought this up in the beginning, to really systematize the

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NAR. 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 Mormons, and when

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I got to Hinduism and Buddhism, I had to stop because you really can't— they don't have a central authority, in a sense, and yet they do, and this is what makes them a little bit different, they do kind of have the authorities of 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? 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 of books on different aspects of what they're trying to push on you.

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So, for instance, Dream Destinies. A couple years ago, I believe it was like 2016, a whole bunch of books by a whole bunch of teachers came out on finding your dream or achieving

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God's dream, and it was just crazy. I mean, we pinpointed like 25 new books that were just coming out at the same time.

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Bible studies, how -to books on finding the dream that God planted in your heart, and trying to make that come true so that you can have an influence in one of these seven spheres.

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It's interesting how that publishing works. So, I know your mind is probably just spinning right now.

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There's so much to this, though. Well, let me, I want to talk about one aspect of it that I've noticed, and that I notice is kind of there's, well, there's two aspects that they use to try to pull people in.

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Now, you know me, I'm big on evangelism, but one of the things I first came across was these prayer walks that people do.

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And I admit, walking around a town and praying for it is much more comfortable than actually evangelizing.

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Like, I mean, opening your mouth and having to talk to someone. It's much easier to get a whole bunch of people to just walk town.

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And I remember a group that wanted to do this in New York, and they just wanted to have a prayer walk. And I was kicked out because I had the nerve to not wear a shirt that they wanted, but to wear a shirt that would actually be more evangelistic, and to actually have gospel tracks and hand them out.

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You can't do that. What I ended up in talking to the folks there is that this is one of two ways that I see that they pull people in.

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So I want to talk about this one first, and then I want to talk about the music. Sure. Sure. What they're doing here is the spiritual realm.

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So we talked about taking dominion of the worldly realm. This is how you take dominion of the spiritual realm through spiritual warfare.

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Spiritual warfare is a real thing, but what they do is they've redefined the word again. So they engage in spiritual warfare by doing these prayer works of taking dominion and demanding that the demonic realm submit to them.

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And really, there's nothing wrong with walking and praying around your city or around a park or around a school.

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Nothing wrong with that at all. But when you start engaging with the demonic, trying to take over territories for Jesus, that goes across a line.

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That actually is not a biblical concept that you would find anywhere in scripture. And the other thing that they do is they have deliverance ministries to try to cast demons out of people.

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They have supernatural exorcisms, and that's another way that leaders control the demonic realm.

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And it's all tied together. If they can get a NAR apostle as a leader or a top influencer in any of the seven spheres or even in the spiritual realm, then they can cast these demons out who are influencing that sphere.

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And only then can they transform it and bring heaven to earth. Okay, so let's talk about the second way that I think they influence the most, and that is through their music.

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One of the things Justin Peters brought out when he and I did an episode on the charismatic Catholic movement, and we talked about charismatic movement itself, and he brought out the point that you couldn't have all of the word of faith stuff without the music.

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I argue the same is true with NAR. You could not have the NAR without the music, and yet for some of you listening, you sing some of the

31:09

NAR songs in your churches and don't even know it. So how do they use music?

31:15

What is the music behind them that's most known and used in many churches? 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

31:29

NAR type of theology. And so what music does is it conjures up this emotional high.

31:36

It goes on and on. There's a certain beat to it, and it brings people to tears. 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 floor with the pillow and soak in God's presence, but it's all emotion -based, designed to bring you to a higher plane of consciousness so you can hear directly from God.

31:56

And honestly, there's nothing wrong with having an emotional experience at all when you are praising and worshipping

32:02

God. But when you are using these tools that are designed to bring a different influence, it can be concerning.

32:10

There's one particular church, actually there's a couple of churches, the Hilfong brand, that franchise does this type of emotional high music and some of their music is fine, but there are a lot of songs that actually are 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 God is their own worship brand, and you will recognize that it's known around the world as Jesus' culture.

32:42

So again, these musicians play in a certain key. I've talked to people who've been on worship teams in these type of churches, so they learn to play a certain way with a certain beat, and it's all to bring you into the presence of God.

32:58

And once you hear it, you can't unhear it. There's an episode on Pirate Christian Radio that Chris Roseboro did with myself and a gentleman named

33:07

Steve Kozar. We listened to some of Hilfong's music and some of Jesus' 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. So fascinating episode, I'll have to send it to you.

33:20

Yeah, because one of the things that happened with the contemporary Christian music was that people used to try to argue that music is amoral.

33:27

It has no morality. It doesn't affect anything. It doesn't affect your 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 play in a horror movie than they're going to play in a

33:45

Hallmark movie. Why? Yeah, your heartbeat will change. You anticipate it. Music is key.

33:53

The reason I have a paper on the website, Striving for Eternity, about music because I think the reason it's more dangerous than the lyrics.

34:01

The lyrics affect our thinking. 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. The second is our emotions. But if something can get past your thinking, that's a little bit closer to getting you to sin with the emotions and then your volition.

34:20

And so what I see is here you have the music that affects the emotions. The lyrics could even be sound, but the music because that's going to the emotions has a greater opportunity to bring you into a sinful state than the lyrics could.

34:38

And people usually just look at the lyrics and think, oh, well, that's good. 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 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 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 seers in their realm, they actually had a worship service that lasted an hour and a 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 and it was unbelievable people were just lost in the music and by the time

35:36

Patricia came out, she could say anything and they pretty much do anything and after my report came out on that particular service, they never live streamed again, so but I wish

35:47

I would have taped it. It was very interesting. 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. I want to deal with that after a break, but I want to talk about the whole school of prophets and they have these camps for kids and to me, that's heartbreaking when you think about the kids.

36:17

So, let's talk about that after this. Looking for strategies that will help you engage in meaningful conversations with members of the

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You can also get that at strivingforeternity .org I'm one of the authors of that book and it's a great book even if you don't want to study

36:56

Mormonism it's a great book for evangelism because there's 20 plus different tactics to evangelize most of them are geared towards specifically

37:06

Mormons but most of them work for anybody 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 that Samuel got to be a prophet or actually any of the prophets,

37:23

Isaiah, Jeremiah I don't remember seeing them go to school I don't see any of the apostles

37:29

I mean, Paul didn't appeal to his certificate at some school and yet, this is what we see now that people are being taught to be apostles and prophets by obviously paying money to an organization and they even have camps for kids teaching young children in this stuff which boggles my mind

37:53

Yes, they do It really boggles my mind too and it's so sad because these kids will never be the same once they are brought into these.

38:02

I've done quite a bit of reporting on that as well The megachurch we mentioned, I believe, a Redding California Bethel and it's one of the biggest

38:10

NAR influencers in the entire world It's a church led by Bill Johnson and Christopher Lawton and they've got a ministry called the

38:18

Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, which to me sounds like hard work, but like you said, for adults, yes and they do spells, it's witchcraft, and I just have to call it like it is because it's so serious and egregious to me, but there is a curriculum for children on how to utter prophetic predictions from Jesus, and so they get these kids in and they practice this, and there are videos that you can see on YouTube of children going into these trances and uttering words in almost like a preaching style like you'd hear in the

38:51

Old South where kids would get up and do their street preaching, but these are allegedly words that they have just downloaded from Jesus and they spend time with him in these classes or these camps and it costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars for parents to send their kids to these, and the adult courses

39:09

I don't know if you've ever tried to register or see how much the classes are, but it's quite a money making extravaganza there their

39:17

School of Supernatural Ministry, they talk about how to conjure up glory clouds where glitter gold dust comes gemstones that appear on the floor, gold 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, that church that I mentioned that had the prophetess

39:42

Patricia King, well he was so upset with me about what I was reporting and he was one of the people who ran the technical sound boards during this very long hypnotic worship service and it was full of NAR prophets and prophetesses doing their thing, and during this glory school weekend that he was doing the sound board and the tech board he told me that right during that worship time, there was manna falling from the ceiling, he said and one of these pieces of bread, just like in the

40:12

Old Testament fell right onto his open bible in the back booth where he was, and he said he picked it up and he tasted it, and he said it tasted sweet, just the way they described it in the time of Moses he said, so to them though, these experiences these miracles, these going into a trance, going into the third heaven, being pushed down by forces, these are all real to them, and they say that they can actually feel hands on them that aren't there, spiritual things that are happening to them, and I just have to wonder,

40:48

I know it's not from scripture, I know it's not God could it be demonic, or could it be something else that their emotions have conjured up,

40:55

I don't know. That's going to get a lot of people upset when you say could it be demonic, they really get upset with that, but you have to wonder, because when you think about this

41:03

Justin Peters had a woman that came to faith he met with her her job, you mentioned the gold dust her job was to put the dust in the ventilation systems so that when they would push the ventilation it would be like, oh gold dust her job was to do that she would get up there every

41:25

Saturday and put it in, and yet she still believed it was a miracle from God at the time she was so bought into all this even though she and her husband were putting it there she was really believing

41:39

God was doing something that's how deceptive this could be, and so yeah,

41:45

I think you have to eventually wonder, could it be demonic? Well, I've had similar testimonies come to me that way, a couple years ago

41:53

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 and I tell you within 5 minutes

42:04

I had like 9 people who private messaged me saying, oh me, me, and they had some of the same experiences where they were behind the scenes and business stuff, and so they knew it was wrong, and they knew it wasn't right that they were conjuring this up, and I tell you by the next morning after I'd posted that I had 20 messages and I've had many responses ever since so I've published like 55 stories of people just in their own words telling about what happened in their churches with these prophets who had come, and all these different miracles and all of the disillusionment that they suffered and I put them all together in a series called

42:38

Leaving the NAR Church and it's just, they're on the website at bereanresearch .org

42:43

where you can just go read some of these and those, I always tell people who share their testimonies, you're actually helping more than I ever could by just, you know,

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 through these things who really are evangelizing because they're telling people, hey, this is not the truth, this is not true biblical

43:07

Christianity, but this is what I experienced and sure enough, somebody will say, I read one of those stories and that was my story too 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 you don't do self -help, you do the

43:23

Lord's help because you bring each other to the cross and the real hope is in Christ. Okay, so who are some of the leaders, so if people are in a church and they're hearing these names they can identify and say, oh, wait, wait, okay that's

43:36

NAR. 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 this is who and they are

43:44

NAR? Sure, and there are so many that you've never heard of, so I'll just name some of the others 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, so it's not gossiping or slandering,

44:02

I promise it is not, 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 deceptive in their teachings they're using language to sound like they're evangelical when they have a totally different theology they're not looking to bring people to Christ to a future kingdom, they're looking to bring a kingdom here on earth, they're not looking to be like the prophets of old who gave up money and had very little, they're looking to make it all

44:37

I mean, it's very different so we do need to name the names because of the deception that they offer

44:44

Exactly, and they are shipwrecking the faith of so many sheep with their counterfeit, so here we go

44:50

Shipwrecking, is that someone, someone that would be a pirate would use shipwreck, okay got it It's coming out, isn't it?

44:58

Well, you know, I mentioned Bill Johnson of Bethel Redding in California Mike Bickel I mentioned also he's a true apostle in fact, many churches send their youth to International House of Prayer to learn how to operate in the prophetic, especially interns and I've seen interns come back from IHOP just changed completely their bodies do these strange jerking movements and it's incredibly sad and they call it an infusion from the

45:25

Holy Spirit but those who know better call it a different spirit and that's the spirit of the age other true apostles that you need to mark unavoid

45:34

Chuck Pierce, Bob Jones Cindy Jacobs Rick Joyner, Todd Bentley Lou Engel, and I could talk about him because he's got some very current news coming up Brian and Bobby Houston of Hillsong Church in Australia, and of course

45:50

Rod Parsley, and like I said there are so many more, so many Let's specify because Bob Jones is a well known name in Fundamentals Baptist Circle, so it's a different Bob Jones, this is from the

46:00

Kansas City Prophets Exactly, in fact that's where really the whole

46:05

NAR movement came from was that Latter Rain, Kansas City Prophets Toronto Blessing, Slain in the

46:12

Spirit type of ministries Brownsville, you can name all of these movements allegedly of the

46:18

Holy Spirit and the Latter Rain movement was formed from those Bob Jones did these prophetic declarations that people still believe that his prophecies are just time tested and true, but they're really not and it's frightening because so many people are deceived

46:35

I would say that the number one place where these people are being promoted is

46:41

Charisma News it's an online magazine and it has hundreds of thousands of followers who are amening everything that they see on Facebook and in the comment section of their blog, they talk about making squid spirits and the spirit of Jezebel and all these spirits that are taking over our bodies, it's not our sin nature doing it, it's something or other spirit that's doing it, 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, the all this stuff that affects the emotions, it does have a play,

47:22

I had a friend of mine we were at a missionary housing center, we're in the lobby and we were just talking about the cadence of the

47:32

African American preachers, he was African American, and he was explaining to me that that cadence is designed to get you in a hypnotic state where you say amen, no matter what you're saying, he said

47:43

I could be preaching a nursery rhyme and people would amen

47:49

I'm like, what? How would you do that? Literally, here we are, we're in the lobby and he is going little

47:57

Miss Muffet, oh say it not her tough, and he's doing this whole cadence thing, no joke, there's a woman who walks in, she's walking past us and goes, amen brother, preach it, and I just,

48:08

I put my head in my hands and shook my head like, he literally was preaching a nursery rhyme and she's like saying amen to this, like, it becomes so hypnotic you don't realize and that's why

48:19

I think it could be dangerous now let me ask you this, if you have someone that's in an NAR church, do you think they should leave, and if so, why?

48:29

I, yes I do, I believe that they, but they can't leave until their eyes are opened and really only

48:36

God through the Holy Spirit is going to in his timing, open their eyes but our job is to come alongside and help them understand that what they are into is something very different than biblical

48:46

Christianity and let me just say that there are some churches that are embracing some of the practices, and you know, every denomination, every branch of what we would call

48:57

Christianity is falling under this spell, it's a huge movement that has a lot of chemicals but I wouldn't necessarily call all of them

49:06

NAR, again the true distinctives are if a church embraces the modern restoration of apostles and prophets, then yes they are

49:14

NAR, but if they're adopting some of the teachings that we've talked about, then I would say that they are under a dangerous influence and I found that once churches begin to embrace these paradigm shifts, it's very difficult for members to try to steer that ship back on a biblical course very difficult, and you talk about these meetings that they've had with pastors and with elders and their apostles it's almost impossible, the meetings that they have to try to bring some biblical truth to what they're seeing in the sermons and in their programs are almost more painful than what's actually happening on Sunday mornings, 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 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, 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 Moore that are known for being conservative but yet they're starting, and I think that branch out for a lot of them is, look, this is a big money maker and the publishers will push this because this is where the money is, so if you want to be big in publishing, you've got to be involved with these people, and I think that's how they get involved with them, but Son, you said at the very beginning, they're very nice people and when they get to know them, they really genuinely like them and they consider them friends and so that friendship

50:55

I think kind of blinds them to the danger of what they're doing, so what do we do with these people?

51:02

Well, you're absolutely right and Dr. Michael Brown is an interesting one because you are right, he is one of the nicest people, very reasonable, fun to talk to, however he talks with and is friends with some of the biggest leaders in NAR history and so he really seems like he's trying not to be but he is, and so he has been talked with privately and publicly on his radio program, people have called in to challenge, but he doesn't budge because he believes in his heart of hearts that anybody who is a cessationist, who believes that the gifts of tongues and prophecy are over for today, well they're just not qualified to even talk about the

51:46

Holy Spirit, so he kind of puts people in camps and doesn't listen to anybody who's not in his own camp, and so that one's a very hard one, but with these leaders,

51:56

I would just say if they've been talked to privately, and most of them have, then you can mark and avoid them safely, and just don't buy their books, don't go to their conferences, don't invite them to your church, that's what

52:09

I would initially say, most of these people have been talked with privately if they're teaching publicly it's okay to tell your congregation, look, you know,

52:19

I have some concerns, this person is not a trusted leader or he's hanging with untrustworthy people and here's why, and it takes more than just 10 minutes to talk about it you almost have to do a whole lesson on it, because, and John MacArthur does that, he'll protect his flock, he'll tell you why these teachings are unbiblical, he'll take you to scripture, and so don't just give a 10 minute lip service, 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, then it shows a lack of discernment on their part or maybe they've been influenced by the culture or the publishers or whoever, that hey, this is what you have to do to get a big platform, a big ministry and you gotta keep paying your staff and therefore you gotta do this and it can be very, very deceptive it can be very, very seductive, and once they start showing that lack of discernment

53:17

I think you have to start saying, hey you may have produced some really good stuff in the past, and maybe even producing some really good stuff now, but can you trust it if they're not being discerning about what they're taking in?

53:31

Yeah, and for the local church I always say it depends you have to give grace and the benefit of the doubt at times when pastors are so busy these days doing what they need to do just to get

53:45

Sunday morning ready, and you know, just to get their sermons and their teachings ready to go, they've gotta be in study, they've gotta shepherd people, they don't have time to research every teacher that comes along, and there's so many dangerous roles out there, 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

54:09

I have some concerns, would you at least take a look at this? You can do that gently, and ladies if it's you, do it with your husband, just make sure that you're being biblical about it, and many of us have loved ones who are just stuck in this bondage, you know, it might not even be our own church, but it might be just friends, you know, meeting for coffee and they tell you that they've been following an apostle, you know, or you may recognize some of these hallmarks coming into your own church, you have to figure out a game plan, what do you do about that?

54:39

And I always tell people, first you have to pray, pray for strength, for wisdom, discernment, pray for yourself and your loved ones, and know that God is sovereign because he's allowing this for some reason, but bring scripture, don't come into it with an open mind, come with an open

54:55

Bible, 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 faith.

55:04

And then I always say, do your homework, just don't use discernment blogs to get your daily discernment, but do rely on some of 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 buck or just trying to be right, they're actually very discerning people, they're excellent, 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, you might be called a

55:37

Pharisee for doing this, speak up anyway, you might even be asked to leave your church because you're too discerning, but don't leave without speaking up.

55:45

I think that's our responsibility to do so. We really can't say we love the church if we're going to let them be deceived.

55:52

That's just the reality. 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 a pastor of everyone with their pet ministry, their parachurch ministry they're really involved in, and everyone wants the church to be involved in everything, and the pastor has to deal with all that.

56:09

And you're right, the pastor doesn't have time to sit and research all this stuff. I have so many people come to me what about this, what about that, and really my feeling has always been if someone in my church comes to me when someone came to me with Don Piper's book 90

56:23

Minutes in Heaven, I heard about it, 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. Now I started to read it. When someone said, Pastor, what about this book

56:36

I'm reading? Now I read it so that I can talk intelligently with him about it and help guide him out of reading things like that.

56:43

But other than that, I don't have time for that. I really don't. Unless someone in my church is involved in it,

56:50

I don't. So after this, I want to play a commercial and then after that I'd like to play a game where all the pressure is on me and not on you.

56:59

So you can relax, all you're going to have to do is think of an object. That's all. So we'll do that right after this.

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Let me correct that. Go to .com. christianpodcastcommunity .com will get you to the one for podcasters.

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Some of the things we have available that your support helps make available. And so Amy, would you like to play a game?

01:01:44

I love games. You said the pressure's off me though, right? That's right.

01:01:49

Okay. Let's play a game. Okay. It's time now to start the spiritual transition game.

01:01:58

Okay. Amy, I am going to ask you to give me something, whatever it is that comes to your mind, and the pressure is on me to transition from whatever you give me to the gospel.

01:02:09

And I'm going to tell you why we play this game. We play this game because most people find it easy to evangelize once the conversation gets spiritual.

01:02:17

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.

01:02:23

And so this is something my pastor taught us to do when we were training to be deacons and pastors in our church.

01:02:30

We had to be able to transition anything to a spiritual conversation so that we would have illustrations in our sermons, that we would be able to navigate conversations.

01:02:39

And I have turned that up to say, well, let's do that specifically with gospel conversations.

01:02:45

And so I'm going to have to take whatever you give me and transition it to the gospel. There will be no editing. Therefore, if there's long pauses, it's because Amy stumped me.

01:02:54

I'm sure she won't stump me as bad as Matt Slick did, because he just gave me words. I don't even know if they were real words, but that's

01:03:01

Matt. So, give me whatever you have. So, I've got to find something that challenges you to make this something into the gospel.

01:03:10

You don't have to make it difficult. Everyone seems to want to. Yeah, yeah.

01:03:17

Okay, how about a tape dispenser? A what? A tape dispenser.

01:03:22

You know, you pull the tape and you tape. Oh, a tape. I thought you said a pez. Okay, a tape like scotch tape.

01:03:29

Yes. Okay, a scotch tape dispenser. 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 certain things.

01:03:41

Do you know that most of your tape dispensers are weighted down with sand? Yes. Yes, most people don't realize that.

01:03:47

They don't think about it like that. 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, basically what's going to happen?

01:03:57

The tape dispenser's going to follow your fingers across the desk. Exactly. So, you need something to weight it down.

01:04:04

It needs a foundation, because if it doesn't have a solid foundation, it just goes any which way that you pull it.

01:04:12

This is true for us in life, because you know what? 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 culture in any which direction it goes.

01:04:23

But we do have a firm foundation in this life, and it's God's Word, the Bible. And what it tells us is that you and I break

01:04:30

His law, and we violate it. We're criminals in His sight. But here's the amazing thing. God Himself came to Earth as a man to die on a cross, to become the sin punishment that we owe in our place, that we could be set free.

01:04:44

So even though we did the crime, He did the time. He sets us free, so that though He became sin,

01:04:50

He who knew no sin became sin, that we could be the righteousness of God. Isn't that a good firm foundation?

01:04:55

Isn't that good news? That is the best news I could ever hear. Thank you, Andrew. I love that you turned the tape dispenser into the foundation of our faith.

01:05:06

No, I used to do this when I used to teach the junior church. I used to let them start, and every week when

01:05:13

I started, they loved when I was there because it was like, Oh, we get to try and stop Pastor Andrew! And I would come in and they would give me any kind of crazy thing, and I had to take from whatever they gave me, and I had to transition it to my message, whatever it was

01:05:29

I had for them that day. 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 pray anymore.

01:05:36

God, give me an opportunity to share the gospel. I don't need to. I can take any conversation and maneuver and look for ways to transition to the gospel.

01:05:45

It just takes practice. That is so cool, Andrew, and it's so much better than teaching kids how to have prophetic dreams.

01:05:51

It really is. Oh, it's much better. I want to do one final thing with you, and then I'm going to let you wrap up.

01:05:58

Okay. As I've studied NAR, my background of studying world religions and cults,

01:06:04

I have noticed some things about different groups that I define as a cult.

01:06:10

And this is going to come right from my book, What Do They Believe? Right in the beginning of the intro, I define a cult, and I have five elements of a cult.

01:06:18

And my question is going to be for you as I go through these things. I want to see whether you believe any of these or all of them fit the definitions for NAR.

01:06:30

So the first one, scripture twisting. And I define that as the de facto assertion of extra -biblical revelation.

01:06:38

So do you think that they would fit under that definition? Absolutely. Okay. Authoritarianism.

01:06:45

Now this is going to be different. This is not just an organization, but this is going to be, I define as individual interpretations on subject are not allowed.

01:06:54

Only cult leaders can interpret and they are accountable to no one.

01:07:00

Would the NAR fit under that? Yes. I would say NAR is very much like that. Okay.

01:07:06

Exclusivism. And I define it as only the organization or group has the truth and all others are excluded from the truth.

01:07:16

Yes, that is true, and it's amazing how they are out in the world believing that and preaching that.

01:07:22

But they can blend in with anyone, but yes, they alone have the truth. Number four is isolationism.

01:07:29

Members of that organization or group are not able to speak to outsiders about doctrine unless to convert them.

01:07:36

The organization often states that it has the truth and wants to protect its members. To a point,

01:07:42

I would say that that's probably true in many of the NAR churches, yes. Yes, I think it's somewhat true with them because they use that, as we said earlier, the two different languages.

01:07:52

They use the language but have different meanings. Exactly, and it's very deceptive.

01:07:58

And then the fifth one, the fifth definition I have for a cult is endangerment. And this is not just physical, but it can also be spiritual or emotional endangerment.

01:08:09

Do you think that that could fit under the definition for NAR? Absolutely. It is incredibly, incredibly damaging.

01:08:18

A lot of carnage from this movement is causing not only division, churchless, very painful.

01:08:25

It's like going through a divorce and people who've been in these churches for many decades as they start to have a paradigm shift toward the

01:08:32

NAR are forced out. There's division within families, marriages if one spouse embraces this and the other doesn't.

01:08:41

Children oftentimes are estranged from parents. And the other part of the damage is people are distracted from the true

01:08:47

Bible, the true word of God and its practices. People will tell you I feel like I've wasted years of my life chasing this down.

01:08:55

There's no growth or maturity and they become disillusioned with Christianity altogether.

01:09:01

And many, unfortunately, who have shared their testimonies with me have left churches altogether.

01:09:07

And you might ask well, were they really saved in the first place? I don't know. But I find it incredibly sad the damage that's being done.

01:09:16

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 you have.

01:09:24

I'm sorry, the NAR fits the definition of a cult. It seems harsh because they're coming at it from within the realm of evangelicalism and therefore people think no, it can't be because when you think of Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, they're on the outside.

01:09:39

But remember, they didn't start on the outside. Many of them started on the inside. The difference is they ended up leaving.

01:09:47

The thing with the NAR is they're not seeking to leave. They're seeking to continue to influence the church with their cult.

01:09:54

And so I believe the NAR is a cult. And that sounds so hard.

01:10:01

I'm so mean, I know. But should we not warn those from that?

01:10:07

So Amy, I'm going to leave the last couple minutes for you. Anything that you want to share? Anything you want to let folks know?

01:10:13

Any encouragement for folks who may be stuck in this or a family stuck in this movement? Oh, absolutely.

01:10:19

And the first thing is just to pray for wisdom when doing this. If you find that maybe you recognize some of these trends in the church,

01:10:27

I would just encourage you to listen to the sermon messages if you believe your church is an

01:10:33

NAR church. And here's kind of the litmus test. How do they differ from a biblical solid church?

01:10:40

And maybe you've never been to a biblically solid church, and this is all you've known. You need to know that a pastor who rightly handles the

01:10:47

Word of God understands that he needs to deliver the good news of Jesus Christ, like Andrew just did, which includes the law and the gospel.

01:10:55

He'll talk about the sin that Jesus died for and our need for repentance, and he'll point his flock to the cross and the hope of the resurrection and of Jesus' return.

01:11:06

And everything that he does stems from the Word of God. And so, I want you to compare what your pastor teaches to what you're hearing from the pulpit.

01:11:16

And I'm going to give you a few key words that, in contrast, NAR apostles and prophets in their sermons preach not so much about the gospel of the cross, but about taking dominion of the kingdom.

01:11:29

Not a future kingdom that God builds, but a kingdom right here on earth that we must create and advance.

01:11:35

They don't preach about Jesus having the power to overcome sin, but about the church having the power over us and to take dominion.

01:11:43

Everything's about the church. They refer to this as being mission -focused, with their mission being the message of the apostles and prophets, rather than being

01:11:52

Christ - centered, where the mission is the gospel. And so, we need to know our Bibles.

01:11:57

We need to know what the Bible says about the gospel, what the gospel actually is, and then we need to compare that to everything that we consume as Christians, whether it's podcasts, whether it's books, whether it's your pastor's sermon on Sundays, whatever it is, we need to constantly be holding everything up to the light of Scripture, because there is no error in Scripture at all.

01:12:22

Yeah. Now, is there anything you want to share with folks about some things you got going on, or anything with the ministry that you're involved in?

01:12:31

Well, when you introduced me, you mentioned a couple of ministries that I have, bereanresearch .org,

01:12:37

that's just a place where I've done a lot of research, so I've got these white papers on different topics like NAR, dominionism, the word of faith,

01:12:47

Roman Catholicism, all of those things, if you want just kind of the bullet points on what these are.

01:12:52

Naomi's Table, ladies, is a place to do Bible studies for women. If you're looking for materials, maybe, that you'd like to bring into your women's ministry that isn't somebody's thoughts and feelings, but it's really

01:13:03

Scripture based, I just encourage you to go download the free resources there.

01:13:09

And then I'm going to be speaking again at Answers in Genesis next year, in 2020, and I'm very excited because we're going to be talking about the sufficiency of Scripture, and that is really key in all of these movements that seem to lead people away from the truth.

01:13:24

That's the common thread, Andrew, is that all of them really get away from the sufficiency of Scripture.

01:13:30

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 they kind of go astray there, so look at those resources and connect with me on social media.

01:13:42

Well, thanks for coming on, and the last thing you said was probably maybe the most important is because when people give up on the sufficiency of Scripture, when they're looking for a prophet or an apostle or an emotion or anything else to validate the

01:13:59

Word of God, then the Word of God isn't enough for them. It's not sufficient for them. They need something else. And that's when danger is present, because when you're not satisfied with God and His Word, then you're in a realm where you can be influenced by anything that's not from God and His Word.

01:14:19

So let that be a warning. And until next week, I'm not sure what we have coming up next week.

01:14:26

We do have coming up an interview with Alan Nielsen on the topic of his book on salvation that may be coming up next week.

01:14:34

I've got to check the schedule, but if not, it will be coming soon, and I really appreciate

01:14:40

Amy coming on here. This is an important, important topic, and it's one that we really do need to spend some time studying, because this influences so much of Christianity.

01:14:51

And so until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.