F4F | Proof Mike Bickle Was Always a False Prophet

Mike Bickle, IHOPKC, and the Sexual Abuse Allegations

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ. This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word.

Of God.

So, we've been silent since the news broke in October of last year regarding the allegations of sexual clergy abuse by Mike Bickle over at the International House of Prayer. I've been waiting for all the shoes to drop and things like this, and for things to kind of pan out.

Because here's the thing. I'll be blunt. Just because there's an allegation against a clergyman doesn't mean the allegation is.

True.

There are people who make false allegations, so you have to wait for these things to kind of develop and for things to happen. That being the case, things have developed. Things have happened. And we're going to note then that IHOP has officially severed and permanently severed its relationship with Mike Bickle.

And we'll look at a portion of the official announcement as to why that is. We'll look at one of the allegations that's been made. It seems to be substantiated. Even Mike Bickle himself has admitted to doing something sexually wrong and vagaries regarding details.

But all that being said, I'm going to note, at no point did I ever consider Mike Bickle to be a sound teacher, a true prophet of God, or somebody that was rightly handling God's.

Word.

I've always considered him to be somebody to be marked and avoided as a false prophet, as a false teacher who traffics in false signs, false wonders, and false prophecies. And the things that he's said publicly, well, let's just put it this way.

People in the past have been unwilling to look with scrutiny and biblical Berean eyes at things that he's said in the past. And my hope now is that we can do a little bit of a postmortem and demonstrate that he was never, and I mean never, sound.

He was always a deceitful workman. He was always somebody who was a blight and a blemish and somebody who was a heretic. I don't say that lightly. So let's do this. We're going to whirl up the desktop.

And again, Sydney Opera House from back September of last year, alas. It's like sub-zero right now here in North Dakota. And it's like, oh, anyway, yeah, I'm just thinking about warm, warm thoughts. And Sydney, Australia was warm at the time.

Let's take a look at a portion of the official response. Leadership Transition and Community Update at IHOP Kansas City. This was put out two weeks ago and it's officially on the International House of Prayer YouTube channel.

And I believe this is Stuart Greaves here from the formerly of the leadership team. I think he stepped down after this. And let's listen to the official statement made by IHOP.

Here we go.

Since taking over management of the crisis, the executive committee has received new information to now confirm a level of inappropriate behavior on the part of Mike Bickle that requires IHOPKC to immediately, formally and permanently separate from him.

People will surely wonder about details, but IHOPKC does not have permission from those individuals to share details while they are being vetted further by an independent investigator. The privacy of any person impacted by misconduct is tantamount.

And this only amplifies IHOPKC's conviction that a complete investigation should be conducted into the allegations of clergy abuse by Mike Bickle. General Fuller will ensure that this gets done. Our current focus remains a thorough and complete investigation of the reported allegations.

And we pledge to then implement any and all changes necessary to church policies, procedures and culture to ensure that IHOPKC does not travel down this difficult road again. We have met and plan to continue to meet with the advocate group in an effort to establish trust and common ground.

We ask the community to pray for this process.

All right, so they've officially, formally, permanently severed ties and it's based upon actual evidence regarding the allegations of inappropriate sexual clergy abuse. I would note that one particular media outlet interviewed one of the Jane Doe's and Jane Doe said this, he, Mike Bickle, begins to tell me that the Lord has spoken to him and that Diane is going to die and that we are going to get married, she said.

It turns out this was a married woman at the time, too. So from 1996 to 1999, Jane Doe said Bickle put her up in an apartment by herself, gave her a key to his office, engaged in sexual interactions with her and told her about the dream again and again.

He also began establishing the International House of Prayer, Kansas City. That line that Diane, his wife, was going to die and that we're going to get married, he said at least, said that to me a hundred times, Doe said.

So Mike Bickle, one of the three of the Kansas City prophets, now all three of the Kansas City prophets have been publicly outed regarding egregious sexual sins. Yeah, Mike Bickle being one of the three, all three of them have all fallen.

We'll note here, this is absolutely him claiming prophetically that he had been given a dream by God and that this was God's will for him to have this relationship with Jane Doe, which lasted from 96 to 99.

And there are other victims with similar stories. So we've got a problem here. And so at this point, I would say those who were unwilling in the past to actually look at the evidence, maybe you will be willing to take a look at the hard evidence regarding Bickle now.

And that is that y 'all should have seen this coming. And quite frankly, I wasn't surprised when I heard the story break. I wasn't surprised at all. I hate to say this, but enough people in the NAR who've left the NAR have sent me emails over the decades letting me know about the dirty laundry that takes place sexually in the NAR.

And I've heard so many stories like this that it doesn't surprise me. The thing is, is I can't go public with them because I'm not an investigative journalist. That's not my lane. So, you know, I do theology, apologetics and things like that.

But yeah, going in and actually doing the hard work of substantiating sexual allegations, that's not in the purview of fighting for the faith. It's not my bailiwick. But let's just say that I have hundreds, if not thousands of emails over the past couple of decades with stories similar to this.

And so this kind of stuff just doesn't surprise me anymore. And it definitely didn't surprise me regarding Bickle. So why would I say that everybody should have seen this coming? The reason why they should have seen this coming is because of Mike Bickle and the things he's said in his own public ministry.

And so we're going to walk through some things. We'll do some biblical comparison along the way as we consider Mike Bickle. So I'm going to note, we're going to look first at a teaching given by Mike Bickle.

I do not have the date stamp on when this was preached. But in this particular case, Mike Bickle is going to, oddly enough, work his way through a biblical text relating to false teachers, false prophets, and cult leaders.

And the biblical text is clear enough that he doesn't twist the text. But what he says, let's just say we'll be able to judge him based on his own words. Let's listen to Mike Bickle. This is not horrible, what he's going to say.

What he's going to say is correct. But given in light of what we're hearing now as coming out, this is interesting. Let's listen in.

False Teachers, False Prophets, and Cult Leaders

Tonight we're going to talk about discerning false teachers and cults, which is one of the enemy's number one attacks on intimacy with God, is to bring deception, to get people with a false devotion and a false loyalty in order to cut off the loyalty to Jesus.

Father, we come to you even now. We ask you for the spirit of truth. We ask you for the spirit of revelation. We ask you to exalt Jesus in our hearts and in our midst. In Jesus' name, amen. Matthew chapter 24, verse 5.

I mean, verse 4 is talking about the end times. And Jesus said in context to the end times, take heed that no one deceives you. And I'm going to take it a step further. It's not just that you would not be deceived, but you would be engaged in this for the people that you love, that they would not be deceived.

It's not enough just to avoid deception. We want others to avoid deception. Verse 5, for many will come in my name. And I want you to catch how many times the word many is used in this passage. They'll say I'm the Christ.

They will deceive many. So there's multitudes of people who are getting swept away.

Now, I would add to his exegesis. When Christ says there will be many claiming he's the Christ, there would also be many false Christ, pseudo Christoi in the Greek. And Christos in Greek means an anointed one.

So people claiming special anointings actually fall under the category of Christ's because that's actually what the word means. Just keep that in mind.

Deception. Again, it's the enemy's attack against intimacy with Jesus. And so, verse 11, many false prophets will arise.

And again, they will deceive many.

They'll get many people to follow after them. Verse 24, false Christ and false prophets will arise, and they'll show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. And the elect can be deceived if they're not careful, but it's not, it's not difficult to avoid deception.

Matter of fact, the primary way that we avoid deception, not the only way, I'll give you a couple of one, two, threes at the end, but they're really self-evident. Because the weakest and newest believer can avoid deception if they want to.

But the primary way is to shine the light of understanding, to expose the deception. It's going to get real specific here. I want to point out two different, two main characteristics of false teachers or false prophets.

All right.

So now he's going to focus on the characteristics of false teachers and false.

Prophets.

And he's going to speak correctly. It's just kind of ironic.

These are the two things that cults are built around, these two tendencies in leadership. Verse three, by covetousness, they will exploit you. They will trick you and manipulate you by appealing to covetousness and by their own covetousness.

They'll exploit you with deceptive words.

Verse 14, they will exploit you with deceptive words. Note that phrase, they will exploit you with deceptive words.

Talking about the false teachers, they have eyes full of adultery. They cannot cease from sin. Their heart is trained in covetousness. Verse 18, when they speak, they speak great swelling words. I mean, great, grand words, but it's emptiness, Peter said.

Emptiness, correct. False teachers speak emptiness. They are windbags. They engage in windbaggery. They speak empty words, not the sound, wholesome words of Christ in the.

Scriptures.

They allure people through lust and through lewdness. It's talking about particularly sexual immorality. So the two most easily detected signs of a false prophet, not the only two, but the two that shout at you, is they, covetousness, money is a really important thing in their life for their own personal lives, and lewdness or immorality.

They find a way to preach the word in a way that actually allows and promotes illicit behavior among even the people in their group. And some of them are the saints, actually, because some of the saints get caught into this kind of stuff.

Right.

Like, you know, Mike Bickle telling Jane Doe that the Lord had spoken to him. Thus saith the Lord that his wife, Diane, is going to die and that they are going to get married. And as a result of that, they were engaging in sexual interactions, you know, like.

That.

But number five here, the dishonoring of the family unit, number one, the cult. Now, this is really, really perverse. But children in cults are taught to be more loyal to the leaders than their parents.

Yeah.

Equally perverse, even more intense, women are taught to be more loyal to the leaders than their husbands. And even more bizarre than that, husbands are taught to accept those two things as normative.

And the vast majority of ministry cultures, that would be so obvious. That doesn't even be worth, you don't even have to say it. But I've seen some good guys get close to that line. Number two, the first relational priority is to one's.

If they were good guys, why would they ever get close to that line?

Marriage, one's children and one's parents. Our identity in our family, it has to be more important than our identity in our ministry. I am first, Mike Bickle, I have a wife and I have a family. That is my first identity, not just the leader of a ministry.

It's an important reality. Identity meaning the way I see myself. I don't see myself first as a guy that gives Bible teachings. See myself first as a guy who loves Jesus. That's the first anointing or grace I want to operate in.

Then I want to be a faithful man in my family. And then I want to work with a diligent work ethic to serve others in the ministry here and outside the ministry here.

Well, we know he wasn't a faithful man in his marriage.

Top of page four. Coming to the end of this, number six. The crossing of biblical boundaries in behavior. Cults do this. And the two main issues, not the only two, but the two main ones, they really stick out, it's the two I mentioned earlier from 2 Peter, immorality and covetousness.

It's money and sexual immorality. This is the main issue. Cult leaders, it's typically only the top leaders, but it does trickle down some. They emphasize special revelation where God told me by special revelation, they can cross boundary lines of immorality.

You know, like telling Jane Doe, the Lord told me that, that his wife, Diane, is going to die and that the two of them were going to get married. This is, this is again, the biblical text is clear. You'll note that the God's word is judging him.

He's rightly identifying the problem, but this would have been a call for him to repent and he didn't.

And actually more of that's happening in the last couple of decades. It's kind of, it's on the increase where guys are, they're teaching the grace of God in a way where they're crossing boundary lines, morally.

Yeah, that, that's true.

All right.

So I think we get the idea here and you'll note that when you compare Mike Bickle's teaching and his actions to the word of God, he comes up really short. But I am going to point this out. He was never sound.

He never, ever sound. I think back to these videos that we covered on a previous installment of Fighting for the Faith that are 11 years old. And boy, when these interviews came out on YouTube, everybody was buzzing and talking about them because of the insanely nonsensical stuff that Mike Bickle was.

Saying.

So Mike Bickle being, you know, I, let's just put it bluntly. He's, he is definitely in the new apostolic reformation. There's just no, whether he denies it, that I don't care if he denies it, how it's, he's legitimately a leader within the new apostolic reformation.

That being the case, he's big advocate for signs, wonders, miracles, and prophecies and stuff like this. But when he did these videos, okay. One of the, one of the interviews was on Ask Mike Bickle. Are dreams and visions and visitations higher than the word of God?

That was the name of the video. The things that he said can't be squared with scripture at all. And unfortunately, it's far too many people who are charismatics just don't know their Bibles. That's just the reality of the situation.

They, they absolutely think that he's speaking pious truth to them. But we're, we're gonna, we're gonna tear this apart here shortly. And we're going to tear a few things apart in, in ways that people may not expect.

Let's, let's kind of let Mike Bickle spin a few things out here.

Here we go.

A False Holy Spirit and a False View of Prophecy

And I believe that a whole lot of the dreams and visions aren't even real. I mean, even though the people are genuine lovers of God.

Note, he's saying that within the charismatic movement, even at IHOP, the vast majority of dreams and visions that people are putting forward as prophecies from God, he says they're not real. They're not real.

So, this sermon where we listened to a portion of, you know, Bickle talking about 2 Peter and Matthew 24, talking about false teachers speaking emptiness. By Mike Bickle's own admission, the vast majority of prophecies, dreams, and visions being spoken about in the charismatic movement are not real.

They are empty words. According to the biblical standard, that would mean that these are deceivers and false teachers and false prophets. Let me back this up just a little bit.

Listen, listen again.

Well, the great commission to love the Bible more, not to have some category outside the Bible. And I believe that a whole lot of the dreams and visions aren't even real. I mean, even though the people are genuine lovers of God, and even though they might have a history of having some dreams and they actually came to pass the things they saw.

I have, I know many people that have had, you know, seen some things in dreams. And then had hundreds of dreams. I don't know the number, of course, multitudes of dreams that were not prophetic at all.

They were just pizza and they were not helpful. They were actually, and, but because they had two or three or four or five or 10 dreams where there were helpful information that ended up being valid. And from God, that doesn't mean the next hundred are right.

You know, you know, there's a versity.

10, correct. A hundred wrong. That's like 90 plus percent wrong.

What? How?

How does this square with scripture?

Ecclesiastes chapter seven, I think it's chapter seven that says, or chapter five, that with many dreams, there's emptiness and vanity. I don't take my direction by dreams. I'm open to a dream giving me direction, but it has to be confirmed.

Without meaning I have to have the dream. You have to have the dream. Another guy have the dream and they tell me, and I haven't even told them I have to have that dream. Then I pay a little bit more attention.

It has to honor the biblical principles. I get probably, uh, I don't know how many dreams or visions sent to me because of the internet around the world, email, or even people from our city that aren't a part of IHOP and people part of IHOP.

And most of them I don't pay attention to. I just think they're distraction. I think they're not real. I don't mean the people aren't real. Some of them are faking it. Now there's a lot of people faking it, but even good people just have dumb stuff.

It's just dumb.

A lot of people in the charismatic movement faking it. And by his account, we're talking to like 80, 90%. Which means 10 to 20 by his admission of dreams, prophecies, and visions are real. The remainder are not.

Does that make a lick of sense? How is Christ glorified, um, by a 90 false prophecy rate? How does this enhance the gospel? How does this help the gospel to be proclaimed? This doesn't make a lick of sense.

Let's do a little biblical work here.

All right.

So we're going to note here, and this is where I'm going to make a big, uh, let's just say a big statement, and I'm going to make the statement that Mike Bickle is a heretic and he is a heretic by virtue of the fact that he has a false Holy Spirit.

Now work with me on the categories here. In the history of the Christian church, there has been heretical controversies related to Christology. So you would think back to the Arian heresy, right? Arius was a heretic.

Arius taught that Jesus isn't God in human flesh, but, and that he isn't eternal, but that Jesus is the greatest creation of God, that he's a God-like divine-ish being, but he isn't second person of the Trinity in human flesh.

That's what Arius taught. And, uh, and so his heresy called the Arian heresy, uh, was a Christological heresy and the church argued that Arius was a heretic on the basis of texts similar to the ones I'm going to read here.

Uh, so for instance, second Corinthians chapter 11, the apostle Paul says, I wish you would bear with me a little foolishness. Do bear with me. I feel a divine jealousy, jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ, but I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

For if someone comes to you and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different Heteros, Heteros spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

And so Paul's not commending them. He's condemning them. And this then kind of creates, you know, at least a basis then for looking at how we distinguish not just error, but heresy from Christianity, different Jesus, different spirit, different gospel.

Okay. Any one of those would knock you out of the park.

All right.

And in Bickle's case, we're going to note, I'm going to document that he not only has a different spirit, he has a different gospel. I know that's going to sound crazy, but I'll show you.

All right.

And so Paul here in 2 Corinthians then goes on to condemn the Church of Corinth and basically make it clear that the end of the people who are these so-called super apostles who have a different spirit, a different Jesus, a different gospel, he says that such men, verse 13, are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it's no surprise if his servants also disguised themselves as servants of righteousness, their end will correspond to their deeds. Galatians chapter one, Paul writing against the Judaizing heresy, writing against the Judaizers, says to the churches in Galatia, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. The Greek word for accursed is anathema and another valid translation of anathema is damned.

So if you believe in a different gospel, that different gospel not only cannot save you, it damns you. You believe in a different Jesus, that Jesus cannot save you, that Jesus will damn you. You believe in a different spirit.

Again, second Corinthians 11, that's Holy Spirit is that that is a pneumatological heresy and like Christological heresies, second Corinthians 11 argues that that makes you a heretic, not a Christian brother.

And so we've got a big problem here with Mike Bickle and that is this, he is claiming that the Holy Spirit that he believes in will give valid prophecies 10 of the time in a culture where 90 of the words spoken in the name of God, thus say it, the Lord are false.

Yet the scripture is clear that that is a breaking of one of God's commandments. Exodus 20, verse seven says, you shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

That means to carry God's name into emptiness or false prophecy. That's what that means. And so in the culture of IHOP by Mike Bickle's own admission, in the culture of the wider charismatic movement, 80 to 90 of the words that are given in the name of the Lord as prophecy are false.

This is a culture where people are taught to break this commandment in Exodus 20, verse seven with no conscience, with no ramifications, with no accountability. And he then believes that God, the Holy Spirit will still in that culture where they are constantly habitually and incessantly breaking this commandment, that God, the Holy Spirit will still give valid prophecies.

That makes no sense. That's a different Holy Spirit altogether, completely different spirit altogether. And that's not the Holy Spirit of scripture. That's a different spirit.

And I'd say probably 80 of what I hear, I throw it away. Does it move me at all? Does it bear witness to me? I still like the guy, believe in his walk with God, but I don't believe what he says from God, you know, the dream.

Same with healings. I think...

So you still think he's a Christian brother, but he's impenitently breaking one of the 10 commandments. How do you figure?

A lot of healings out there that are really real. I've seen it with my eyes. A lot of people report healings and you look back a year later, it wasn't real. Was it a lie? Some people lie. They just lie.

Yeah.

Like the show me the toes lady that, uh, Bill Johnson promoted.

About healings. Other people feel pressured. So they say they're healed when they're not. Other people genuinely feel good. They feel better.

Two days.

And then you check in a month or two later. Well, what was that? I don't know, but there are real healings. It's exciting. So every healing testimony that I'm from our own people, do I believe it?

No.

Do I feel pressured to believe it?

No.

Do I throw out all healing?

No.

Does this sound like a guy who's grounded in the scriptures? Who's rightly handling God's word. He you'll note that when he preached from the text here, he identified what the text said and gave the real standard and talked about how false prophets speak words that are empty.

Then he cannot even make the connection to the people in his own movement at his own church that he's supposedly pastoring.

Huh.

Are you starting to see it now? Is it any wonder that this man was using prophecy for the purpose of sexually exploiting women, plural, at IHOP? The Lord spoke to me and said, Diane's going to die and we're going to get married.

Uh huh.

Maybe that should be chalked up. You know, the women should have said, Oh, sorry, Mike. I mean, that's probably in the 80 of false prophecies that, but we still consider you a Christian brother, different spirit altogether.

There are healings. So I believe in prophecies, dreams, visions, healings. I've seen the manifestations of the Holy spirit. So powerful, so real. Some of them bizarre, but real. I've seen a lot of people fake them in our community, healings, dreams, visions, all that stuff.

But you know what I do? I am so zealous for the real. I'm so hungry for the real.

Why would God, the Holy spirit, give the real in a culture that is incessantly breaking one of his 10 commandments about taking his name in vain, why would God give real manifestations of the Holy spirit and real healings in a context of a bunch of people faking it and lying?

That makes no sense because then God would be giving validity to a church where 80 to 90 of the things spoken and done in the name of the Lord are lies and fake. That makes no sense. That doesn't sound anything like the God of the Bible.

That I don't get offended by what I call the hamburger helper, the added extra, some people fake them blatantly. Some people don't fake them. They're genuinely seeking them, but still the experience isn't real, though the people are genuine.

There's all kinds of categories, but I am not throwing away the real because humans are involved and there's some of that other stuff. And so I tell people the, I think the wrong approach is it's either a hundred percent right or a hundred percent wrong.

I go, I wish it was that easy.

It is. It's either the word is from God or it isn't. And if it's not from God, the person has broken one of God's 10 commandments and needs to repent. It's that simple. When you give false words that you claim are from God, God condemns you as speaking presumptuously and will judge you accordingly if you don't repent.

But he just glosses it over. Does this sound at all biblical to you? Oh, you know, humans are messy and stuff like that. What on earth? You see, you can see this now through a different lens because the facade has broken off and we can see the true Mike Bickle.

We continue.

So I tell the charismatic guys who believe every healing, every dream, every vision, every prophecy, every manifestation, every, you know, gold dust is in the room. They believe every single one of them.

I go, I go, don't be so open minded. Your brains fall out. Use some discernment. A lot of that is fake.

Did you tell that to the women that you said that God told you that your wife was going to die?

False meaning and not even real. The guys are lying and other guys are more meaning, but they're exaggerating or they're trying to make it work and it's not real. I go, don't be so open minded. Your brains fall out.

Use some discernment. A lot of that's fake, but you know what? I tell the other guys who can see the fake, don't throw all that away because I.

Tell you there's real visions, real dream, not really from the Lord, not in a place where 90, 80 to 90 of it's all faked in his lies. Why would God, the Holy Spirit give any validation where his name is being dragged through the mud and taken in vain day after day, week after week, year after year?

It's real healings, real manifestations. And so in our community, we try to value the real use discernment to the fake, but without a critical spirit.

And when we see the fake, no critical spirit, despite the fact that Christ says false Christ and false prophets are end up in the, in the fires of hell and that we are to mark and avoid those who do not stay within the bounds of scripture.

Yeah, that's, uh, that's what the scripture says about it.

Just be soft and kind about it.

Where in scripture it says to be soft and kind to people who are faking words from God and faking miracles.

Make a big point about it. And so we try to live in the tension because we're so hungry for the real and we see the real, we see it regularly and I love it.

I don't think you saw the real ever there.

Because it makes people love Jesus more, obey the Bible more, obey, not just love.

Yeah.

Did you obey Jesus more because of your love for the real? I mean, you know, I mean, what did you say? The Lord told you Dianne was going to die and that this woman that you were sexually engaged with in some degree or interacting with.

Um, yeah. Did, did, did, did your love for the real help you obey Jesus more in that regard?

Jesus obey him more effective in the gospel and the great commission and missions, giving their money away, more generous, more steadfast under persecution, more steadfast under trials.

I like that.

That's what I call good fruit.