December 8, 2017 Show with Doug Geivett & Holly Pivec on “A New Apostolic Reformation? A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this eighth day of December 2017.

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I'm delighted to have not only a returning guest who has not been on in seven years, but also a first -time guest today, and we are going to be discussing a very important topic that a lot of people in our audience may be unaware of.

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We are going to be discussing a new apostolic reformation, a biblical response to a worldwide movement, and we have to discuss this returning guest,

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R. Douglas Guyvet, who is a professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, and he is the author of Evil and the

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Evidence for God and co -editor of four books, Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology in Defense of Miracles, Faith, Film, and Philosophy, and Being Good, Christian Virtues for Everyday Life.

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We also have joining us for the very first time ever Holly Pivick, and she holds a master's degree in Christian apologetics from Biola University in Southern California.

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She is an experienced journalist and researcher, having served as a newspaper reporter, and she is a contributing writer to the

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Christian Research Journal, and as the university editor at Biola University for nearly 10 years, as well as the managing editor of the award -winning

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Biola magazine. She has more than 200 published articles, many related to the new apostolic reformation, church trends, and theological issues.

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She currently operates a popular blog that critiques the new apostolic reformation called

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Spirit of Error, which you can find at spiritoferror .org,

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and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you both to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Doug Guyvet and Holly Pivick.

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Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having us on. It's great to have you on, and let me right away give our listeners our email address if you have any questions you'd like to ask

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Doug Guyvet and Holly Pivick. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Only remain anonymous if this is about a personal or private matter over which you are asking.

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Perhaps you are involved in the new apostolic reformation. You don't want anybody to know that you are asking questions about it, or criticizing it, or whatever the case may be that would compel you to remain anonymous.

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If it's about a personal and private matter, we will respect your wishes, but please, if it's not about a private matter, give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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Well, Doug, it's been seven years since you've been on the program. I would like you to start, and also then

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Holly, to follow up right behind you. I'd like you to give your, an abbreviated version of your testimony of salvation.

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I'd like to know what kind of a religious atmosphere or upbringing that you were raised in, if any, and what circumstances and providential events that the

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Lord used to draw you to himself and also to save you. Well, Chris, that's a great question.

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I don't think I've ever been asked that by an interviewer on the front end of an interview about a completely different topic, so I want to thank you for thinking of that and being sensitive to that.

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My pleasure. I was born in Southern California into a Christian home, very active family of believers who participated in their church and the church that I attended with them, which was a

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Baptist Church in Southern California, until I was about 11 years old.

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And then at that time, I moved with my family to Mexico, where my father was a missionary pilot for six years, and then

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I came back towards the end of my high school years there to Redondo Beach, lived there for a year, and then went to Bible College in Portland, Oregon.

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And when I applied to attend that school, I had to give the same sort of testimony that you've asked for, and I asked my mother if she could remember the date of my conversion when

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I had prayed with her as a child, and she said, well, you were about four years old. I said, well, you're kidding me.

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Maybe I better do this again. I ultimately came to the conclusion that though you're saved once and forever secure, you can only be assured of your salvation if you're trusting

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Jesus Christ, and you know you are at a given time. And so I didn't have any doubt about that, and I don't today either.

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So that's the crucial thing, is who are you trusting, what are you trusting for your salvation to rescue yourself from peril as we live in this world today?

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So I don't know what more you'd like to hear from me about specific events in my life, but feel free to follow up.

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Well, I guess that would be a fine for now, and we can have Holly give her abbreviated testimony of what kind of upbringing she had and how the

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Lord drew her to herself and saved her. Sure. I grew up in a small town in California called

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Lake Isabella. It's in the high desert, and I was raised in a Christian home by Christian parents.

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I remember praying with my father when I was about five years old, you know, the sinner's prayer, and as I got older around junior high,

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I really started wondering if I just believed in, you know, the tenets of Christianity, because I had been raised in a

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Christian home, and I had friends who were Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons and different religious backgrounds, and I started wondering, you know, maybe

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I just believe this way because I was raised this way. And that really started to bother me, and I started to ask my dad questions about that, and he gave me some

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Josh McDowell books. At that time, I discovered apologetics, and I often joke that apologetics saved me.

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God saved me, of course, but apologetics really gave me what I needed to see that the

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Christian faith is objectively true, and you know, I believe it because there are good reasons to believe it, not just because I was raised that way or wishful thinking.

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And so that set me on a path of apologetics, and it is why I eventually ended up, you know, earning my master's degree in apologetics at Biola, and really have a passion for apologetics still today.

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Well, praise God, so do I. Not that I am personally involved in being an apologist myself, but I have arranged probably nearly 50 debates over the years, many of them with Dr.

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James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and also my friend Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary, and I love apologetics, and I love organizing debates and viewing debates, and it's in my blood, and it's one of the reasons

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I'm doing this program as well. By the way, do you do either or both of you know my friend

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Thaddeus Williams, who is a former teacher of literature at Saddleback College, but he is assistant professor of theology at Biola University.

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Yes, Chris, he is on the same floor in the same hallway where I have my office at Talbot. Oh, great.

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And I also have a friend, this would have been before your time, but I also have a friend, a very dear friend, who is a primary sponsor of Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Ron Glass, who was at one time on the faculty at Talbot School of Theology, but that was probably in the 80s, if I'm not mistaken, so I'm sure that was before your time there.

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Well, the issue at hand that we are discussing today is a new apostolic reformation and a biblical response to a worldwide movement.

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If you two could both let me know and let our audience know how you first became aware of this movement and who founded it, how long it's been around, and what is it really standing for?

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You know, I'll start off here, if that's okay. When I was working at Biola University as the managing editor of their magazine,

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I received a communication, an email, from a reader who was trying to alert faculty at the

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University of the existence of this movement and see if there was anyone at the faculty there who could write a response to this movement.

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She was very concerned. She lived in Colorado Springs and she saw the churches, as she said, were being taken over by this movement, by the new apostolic reformation teachings, and so she contacted the

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University looking for some kind of response or help with some kind of response to this movement. And at the time, it piqued my attention because I enjoyed researching cults and aberrant groups and, you know,

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I had my interest in apologetics, and so I started doing a little digging around on the internet, and I was shocked that I had never heard of this movement before, but it was obviously very large, very influential, and obviously many other people had heard of this movement.

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It was just, it was outside of my experience, but after that time, after I learned of this movement,

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I started seeing signs of it everywhere, and even realized that I had friends who were involved in churches that promote new apostolic reformation teachings, and so that's when

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I became very concerned about this movement, and that's when

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I became aware of it. Doug might have something to add to that. Yeah, Doug?

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Yeah, I became aware of it some time later, after Holly had already done quite a bit of research and some writing on the topic, and we had reconnected about some other issues and other projects, and she told me about this book that she had wanted to write.

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She had the semblance of a manuscript already done, but she wanted me to have a look, and I guess she was secretly harboring some hope that I would get on board with her with this.

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I said, well, I'd like to see the manuscript. I read what she had written, and like her,

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I was very surprised that on the one hand, I had not heard of the movement or knew very much about it, and on the other hand, it was already obviously in a very advanced stage of development, and as I read and then checked up on some of the references,

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I really became convinced that this was a serious problem, a serious challenge to the

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Church, and it had a dimension that concerns apologetics, the defense of the

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Christian faith, an area where I do a lot of research and writing and teaching. So as Holly and I spoke and talked more about this,

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I became persuaded that this was really worthy of my own effort as well, even though it's a slightly off topic from many of the things

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I've done before, and that's how I learned of the movement through Holly herself.

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Yeah, I first learned of the movement, and I am still very ignorant of the movement, ignorant about a lot of things, but ignorant about the movement, but I first started hearing about it several months ago when people in the

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Iron Trupman's Iron Radio audience were submitting questions to my guests on various assortment of topics, and they were asking about the

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NAR, and I was baffled, what are they talking about, the NAR? And then I had guests say, oh, you're talking about the

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New Apostolic Reformation, and I'm like, what's that? So I've heard bits and pieces, but I've never done a full -length thorough interview on it, so tell us about who are the founders of this movement, and what theological background do they originally come out of that you that you know of, and of course then after we hear that, we're gonna need to hear some of the major tenets of this group that would sound off alarm bells in your minds to view this as something that was spiritually and theologically and doctrinally dangerous.

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Well, one of the most recognized leaders in this movement is

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C. Peter Wagner. He died in 2016, but he was at Fuller Theological Seminary for about 30 years, teaching church growth there, and he ended up writing six books on the topic of Apostles, and arguing that the office of Apostle is for today and needed to be restored to the church, and so he really formulated much, he did a lot of the heavy lifting for the movement theologically.

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Was he just at a curiosity, because I know that Fuller is known for liberalism, I'm not saying that everyone at Fuller on the faculty or in the student body is liberal, but it's known for that.

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In fact, my friend Dr. James R. White, who I mentioned, although he is a very conservative, theologically reformed apologist, he is a graduate of Fuller, but was

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Wagner a liberal, at least to start with? Well, so my understanding is that Wagner's, some of the things he was getting into while he was teaching at Fuller were controversial at Fuller.

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It was the idea of there being present -day offices of Apostle and Prophet.

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This was stirring up controversy there, so that's my understanding on that. Okay, and so I'm assuming he eventually got some people who were like -minded, and where did they come from, and who are these figures that are likely still with the movement,

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I'm assuming, in leadership? Right, he worked closely with other leaders in this movement, like Cindy Jacobs is a really well -known prophet in this movement,

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Chuck Pierce is a well -known prophet, and so I would not call him the founder of this movement. What he did was he saw that, basically, starting in the 1980s, many churches started embracing the idea that the office of Prophet is for today, and in the 90s, many churches started becoming open to the idea that the office of Apostle is for today.

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And so Peter Wagner observed this and put a label on it.

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He came up with the name, New Apostolic Reformation, and really became a leading proponent of this movement.

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But he was describing what he saw happening, and he would say in 2001, that marked the beginning of what he calls the

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Second Apostolic Age, and that would be when a fairly significant number of churches started embracing the idea of both

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Prophets and Apostles being for today. And I'm assuming what he meant by that is that the modern -day

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Apostles, and of course, correct me if I'm wrong, that the modern -day Apostles had the same gifts as the

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Apostles of the first century and of the New Testament canon, that they were performing miracles, or should

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I say are performing miracles, and that they are receiving new revelation, extra -biblical revelation from God.

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Am I correct on those things? Yes, receiving new revelation and giving it to the

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Church is the key function of an

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Apostle and a Prophet in the NAR, and they believe that's why those two offices must be restored, because without those two offices, the

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Church hasn't been receiving any new revelation just from the pastors. And so these offices must be restored so that the

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Church can take these new revelations that will enable them to develop supernatural powers, and with their supernatural powers, actually bring

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Heaven to Earth. And they would say that, you know, they would compare these Apostles and Prophets to the

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Christ's original Apostles and the Old Testament Prophets. The one distinction they will make is that, as they will say,

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Apostles are not supposed to write new scripture. But the revelations they give, they're often presented as, these revelations must be received by all

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Christians, they're binding on all Christians. Christians who don't receive these revelations will be outside of God's will, outside of His plans and purposes for the world, outside of His blessing.

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And so, in effect, their revelations are treated with an authority of scripture, it would seem, even though they would say that they can't, you know, physically add their

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Now, right now, so far, what you have described is not all that, what's the word

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I'm looking for, it's not all that strange, or it seems completely ordinary within Charismatic and Pentecostal circles.

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And, of course, most Charismatics and Pentecostals do not believe in modern -day Apostles, but there is a segment of them that do.

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There's apostolic denominations, and some of them are non -Trinitarian,

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I have come to learn. But, so, other than what would be not all that shocking to mainstream

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Charismatics and Pentecostals, what is unique about this group? Is there anything that they deviate from what would otherwise be biblically orthodox doctrine?

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For instance, do they believe in the Trinity? Do they believe in the deity of Christ, and His virgin birth, and His sinless life, and His atoning death, and His physical bodily resurrection, and His future return, and that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone?

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These kinds of pillar doctrines, do they deviate from any of that?

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And, you know, further explain how they would be something new, and not just another flavor of what we have already experienced in the

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Charismatic movement. Right, well, the key teaching of NAR that separates

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NAR from other Protestant Christians, including Pentecostals and Charismatics, is the teaching that there are governing offices of Apostle and Prophet today, and that these offices must govern the

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Church. And so, historically, Protestants would say, you know, elders, pastors, these are the offices that are supposed to be governing the

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Church today, you know, according to Scripture. But in the NAR, they would say, no,

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Apostles and Prophets are offices that are supposed to govern the Church, and that really, pastors are supposed to submit to the

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Apostles and Prophets. And so, it's the office, as opposed to the gifts.

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Historically, Pentecostals and Charismatics would believe in the miraculous gift of, say, prophesying, or that there's a gift of Apostle, even, which might be, like, a really effective missionary or church planner.

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But the idea that the Church is to be governed by Apostles and Prophets, that's what sets the

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NAR apart from all other groups. Now, do they fall in line with—go ahead,

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I'm sorry, Doug. Oh, Chris, if I may, I just wanted to insert briefly one other point.

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It's actually implied by what Holly was just saying, and that is that they presume to have a degree of authority that is comparable to the authority of Christ's Apostles and of the

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Old Testament Prophets, and that's something that would distinguish them as well. So, they're able to give leadership to the

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Church that I believe is heavy handed and authoritarian, and in many cases, it includes a networking of Apostles with a kind of hierarchical structure.

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Now, Holly can correct me if I'm, you know, misrepresenting anything here, but that's got to be stressed, is that they presume to have this level of authority, and that is something, too, that would distinguish them from the tradition of Pentecostals and Charismatics even recently.

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And right, and just adding to what Doug said, so their words, the words of the Apostles and Prophets are expected to be heeded and obeyed, and that's different.

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You know, historically in Pentecostal Charismatic churches, someone might bring a prophetic word to another individual or to a church, but the words of the

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Apostles and Prophets are seen as much more authoritative, and they are allowed to give directive prophetic words to individuals about where to live, who they should marry, where they should work.

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So, Doug is correct in the degree of authority that is attached to these offices.

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And going back to— Go ahead, Doug, I'm sorry. I was just gonna say, maybe something could be said here, too, about the nature of the prophecies themselves, what sorts of things are prophesied.

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In some cases, people are being told about how to order their lives in certain areas, in other cases, predictions are made about the future that have broader application at a national or global level, and that's not—that's rare in the

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Pentecostal and Charismatic context. Now, I would make one other point about this, because,

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Chris, you've detected a point of contact between historic

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Pentecostalism slash the Charismatic movement, on the one hand, and this new

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Apostolic Reformation, on the other. They're not equivalent. However, people can become very confused about the differences, and it's easy for the

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NAR to make inroads into the Pentecostal Church and among Charismatics, because it can sound like they're saying the same thing.

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And I think that this is a deliberate effort to disguise the real differences, but it makes others who are sympathetic with the gifts of prophet and apostle, it makes them vulnerable to the kinds of teachings that you encounter with the new

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Apostolic Reformation, even though they're not part of the historic tradition of the

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Pentecostal Church. So before we go into some of the things that would be vital differences from the ordinary

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Pentecostal or Charismatic denomination or church, going back to what

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I was asking earlier, from what you know, do they hold to what would be considered a historically

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Protestant gospel? Do they believe in the salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, and do they believe in the

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Trinity? And one important thing is, are they using the same vocabulary but a different dictionary?

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Because many cults, as you know, will seem like they're using the same language as we are, as evangelical

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Christians. In fact, many of them are using the same language. But what we don't know when we hear them is that they are defining terms differently.

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So I was just curious, from what you understand about this group, do they believe in the cardinal teachings of the and also of the

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Trinity and the person and work of Christ, etc.? Right, from what

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I've seen, the majority of NAR churches do hold to those cardinal doctrines.

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The one exception is leaders in the NAR, like Peter Wagner, will say that there's not as much, they don't put as much importance on all people in the movement holding to the doctrine of the

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Trinity, and that may be to allow one of those Pentecostals to take part.

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But that's one doctrine that, according to Peter Wagner, is not seen as... although most people in the

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NAR would say they hold to that doctrine, it's not seen as essential.

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I think the big concern in this movement is the teachings they're adding to it, and also that these cardinal doctrines are really not stressed very much.

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They're being overshadowed. The gospel is being overshadowed by the teachings that Christians are also supposed to develop these supernatural powers and be learning to prophesy and raise the dead so that they can become this miracle working army that will bring

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God's kingdom to earth. And so that really becomes the emphasis and the focus.

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We're gonna be going to our first break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we will be right back after these messages with Doug Guyvet and Holly Privick, and so we look forward to hearing from you and your questions.

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We are back now with our guests Doug Givitt and Holly Pivick. We are discussing their book,

36:29

A New Apostolic Reformation, A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement, and do these folks in this

36:37

New Apostolic Reformation claim that they are already performing apostolic miracles like raising the dead, or is this just an envisioned future that they hope for?

36:50

Are they claiming they are already doing that? Oh, I'm sorry,

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I had you unmute accidentally, I'm sorry. Oh, no, that's okay.

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I just said yes, definitely. Some of them are, in fact, there was a real popular revival,

37:09

NAR revival, in Lakeland, Florida in 2008. Todd Bentley was the leader of that revival, and he claimed that over 25 people were raised from the dead right on the stage there.

37:24

Right on the stage? Yeah, all types of miracles are being claimed.

37:32

So in other words, they are having people who are acting like their corpses and coming to life after they are...

37:41

I'm not totally sure what's going on there, but definitely those claims are being made, and the claims are often being made in faraway places that might be hard to document or verify.

37:56

Yeah, that's been going on for decades. It's always in the jungles of Africa or something that the people are being raised from the dead in mainstream

38:03

Pentecostalism. But I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Bethel Church, oh no,

38:08

I was just saying, Bethel Church in Redding, California, they claim the daily all kinds of miracles are happening over there through their church and their supernatural school of ministry there.

38:20

And so these claims are quite common, and the miracles are seen as authenticating their claims to be apostles and prophets.

38:29

All right, let's take some of our listener questions. We have Joe in Slovenia who says,

38:35

Dear Brother Chris, thanks so much for addressing this topic. It is very much needed in our day of widespread confusion in the church.

38:43

My question relates to the goals of the NAR. Do those in this movement really believe that they are going to take over the seven mountains of society?

38:54

Maybe Doug and Holly could explain what these are, and do NAR proponents really believe that fulfilling the seven mountains mandate is actually the correct way to go about hastening the

39:09

Lord's return? And I'll he has a couple of other questions, but I'll let you address those first.

39:16

The seven mountain mandate is a key revelation that many NAR or NAR apostles and prophets claim to have received, and one of those is

39:25

Johnny Enloe. He's one of the leading prophets who talks about this revelation.

39:31

But the idea is that the way for the church to take dominion, as in socio -political control of the world, is for it to take control of the seven major societal institutions, which they call mountains, and those institutions are identified as government, media, family, business, education, religion, and the arts.

39:54

And so what they teach is that apostles must cast out the high -ranking demons that they believe presently control these institutions.

40:03

And they find scriptural support for this revelation in Deuteronomy 7 .1, where Israel had to conquer seven nations before it could enter the promised land.

40:12

And so they kind of receive prophetic illumination into that passage and say, this is what it's talking about.

40:19

And so the seven mountain mandate is very popular in the NAR, and many NAR organizations are actively pursuing this revelation, and the idea is once the apostles rise to the top of these institutions, those high -ranking demons can be cast out, and then the church can take control of, say, the media or the government, and use that to bring

40:46

God's kingdom to earth. So the... Chris, let me make one more comment in relation to this.

40:58

I don't want it to be a distraction, but you asked Holly about the differences between the movement and, on the doctrinal level, between the movement and Pentecostalism and the

41:13

Charismatics. She noted, rightly, that they add things that are not part of the tradition.

41:21

This would be an example. They de -emphasize things that should be central to their mission.

41:27

And here is a very good example, where they try to fulfill the seven mountain mandate. You will hear them talk about going out into other parts of the world with the expressed purpose of identifying enclaves of demons who are in a region...

41:48

You cut out there, Doug. Doug, you cut out there. After you said enclave of demons, you went silent for about five seconds.

41:58

Okay, well I'll take another stab at it. Yeah, so they'll travel internationally looking for places where they believe there are extraordinary presences of these demons who have special control over society and in that region.

42:22

And so, rather than thinking of the mission of the Church and of their own mission when they travel overseas, for example, in terms of gospel proclamation and calling upon people to come to faith in Jesus Christ, this becomes a centerpiece of their mission.

42:41

That is to fulfill the seven mountain mandate in the way that Holly just described. And a part of Joe and Slovenia's question is also, is

42:54

NAR doctrine simply the word of faith heresy version 2 .0?

43:01

I'm not sure what he means by that. Because it expands that erroneous theology from the individual level to corporate church and denominational levels.

43:12

So in the NAR, they believe that God has been progressively restoring truths that have been lost to the

43:19

Church. And so over the last... in 1906 with Azusa Street and the

43:26

Pentecostal movement, tongues was restored, and then that goes through decade by decade, God has been restoring truths that were lost to the

43:33

Church, like the truth about the prosperity gospel, the truth about word -faith.

43:39

And so the idea that people, through their words, can create reality, through their words of faith, can create a desired reality, that is a key teaching in the

43:51

NAR, and they've adopted that teaching into their framework, into their theological framework.

43:57

And so a big part of the NAR is making apostolic proclamations, prophetic proclamations or declarations, whereby just with your very words you create reality.

44:09

You can use your words to bring God's kingdom to earth, or bring God's kingdom to specific situations, like someone's healing or finances.

44:19

And so the word of faith is one of the key teachings that has been incorporated into the

44:25

NAR theological framework. And I would say that this is reflected in the way they pray as well.

44:33

I've had people comment to me that when they hear people in this movement pray, it sounds like they're instructing

44:40

God even to perform miraculous acts. Now they might say, well no,

44:47

God has made promises and we're just expressing our dependence on his promises, but there's a there's a tone in praying in some cases that is, in effect, appealing to God to do something in very strong terms that they believe must be done, or they believe

45:07

God would have done, and it doesn't sound quite as submissive as we would normally expect biblical

45:16

Christian prayer to be. Do you have anything to add to that, Holly, that particular point? Right, well, in the

45:24

NAR they make a distinction between petitionary prayer, which is the more traditional, you know, making humble requests of God and allowing him to decide whether he answers those requests or not, and what they were called a proclamation form of prayer, where you they would refer to Job 22 -28, it says, you also declare a thing and it will be established for you, the light will shine on your ways, and so in the

45:53

NAR they would say that what God wants people in the church to do is move from just petitionary prayer to proclamatory prayer, where you actually use your words to declare things and create reality with your words.

46:11

There's a creative power to them, and so they have a theology of prayer that's very different than the more historic view of prayer.

46:21

Well, thank you Joe in Slovenia, and guess what, you have won a free copy of A New Apostolic Reformation, A Biblical Response to a

46:28

Worldwide Movement, compliments of our friends at Weaver Book Company, and also compliments of our friends at CVBBS .com,

46:36

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, so make sure we have the full mailing address.

46:43

I understand that your daughter lives in Georgia, which makes it a lot more affordable for CVBBS .com

46:49

to ship that out to you, so please make sure that we have that full mailing address.

46:56

We have another listener who has a question for you. We have

47:03

Carrie in, I have to enlarge Carrie's email because the font is microscopic and I can't even read the city and state where she's writing from, in the meantime

47:17

I'll give our email address again, chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com if you have a question of your own.

47:24

Hi Chris, I'm so happy your guests are knowledgeable in the ways of the NAR, and by the way this is

47:30

Carrie in Manteca, California. I have a very good friend who is caught up in this.

47:39

Please ask your guests to comment on Mike Bickle and the International House of Prayer and their part in this heretical movement.

47:47

IHOP and Mike Bickle etc. are as involved as Bethel Reading is.

47:53

Also Bethel Reading's music, Jesus Culture, is luring kids into these heresies.

47:59

So if you could comment on Carrie in Manteca, California's questions slash comments.

48:06

Yeah, regarding Mike, you know, his promotion of the present -day governing offices of apostles and prophets goes way back during the time of his involvement with the

48:17

Kansas City Prophet when he pastored a church back in the 80s and 90s.

48:25

He was a pastor there and there were a number of prophets who gathered around him in that church and really that's when the idea that the office of prophet was being restored to the church really started taking off in recent times.

48:39

And many of those people that were Kansas City Prophets are now leaders in the

48:44

NAR movement, like James Gould and Lou Engle, and so his involvement with these teachings goes way back.

48:54

He himself has claimed over the years that he has received revelation directly from God, from heaven, from like, he's gone to heaven and received revelation that out of the

49:08

IHOP movement, 35 most eminent apostles will arise in the end time and that if he's faithful he would be one of those.

49:18

So that was some years back. He shared those revelations that he received and to this day

49:25

IHOP still, Mike Bickle will still say he believes that the offices of Apostle and Prophet are for today and many of his teachings about the end time indicate that that he believes these

49:41

Apostles and Prophets, NAR Apostles and Prophets will play a key role in the end time.

49:47

He would probably not call them NAR Apostles and Prophets, but he believes they will play a key role in that.

49:54

And what's going on there at IHOP, the International House of Prayer, is preparing the Church to grow in miraculous powers and so eventually they will be able to call down God's judgments on the

50:10

Antichrist kingdom through their proclamations, like I was, we were just talking about, with their words, with their prayers, their proclamatory prayers, they will call down God's end time judgments on the

50:22

Antichrist kingdom, and so he believes that the judgments described in the book of Revelation will actually be the result of followers of this

50:34

IHOP movement calling down these judgments of God. And so IHOP has been steeped in all of these teachings ever since its inception.

50:44

Well one positive thing I can say about IHOP is that their assortment of pancakes and syrups are absolutely phenomenal.

50:52

Sorry about that. I just couldn't resist that. Well thank you, let's see,

50:59

I already forgot who wrote that. Oh, Kerry. Chris, I don't think we spoke to Kerry's question about the music.

51:10

Oh yeah, right, exactly, Bethel Redding's music, Jesus Culture. I've been hearing a lot of negative things about Jesus Culture from Todd Friel of Wretched Radio, who has been exposing the heretical elements of that, but if you could comment.

51:27

Yeah, well I don't want to say too much about this, but I would say that this music is chiefly used as a recruiting tool, and it raises awareness of the existence of ministries like Bethel Church.

51:45

So whereas it doesn't overtly advertise Bethel Church, you can be hearing the music played and be led in worship in church or in your youth group with this music and feel tremendously edified.

52:00

You might not know where it springs from, and even if you analyze the lyrics, you might not be especially concerned.

52:09

But young people and others in the church do know the source of this music, and it is a conduit to what you might even call a pilgrimage to Bethel Church, because everywhere you look, you meet people who hope one day to be able to visit that church, or will come back and say they have and they want to go back and they want to study in their

52:33

Institute. And for many of them, an entry point is through this music, which is actually being used all over the

52:41

Christian world, across denominations, not only in the U .S., but globally.

52:48

So a person has to ask, and I'd say a youth pastor or a music minister in a church has to ask, do

52:56

I want to run the risk of sort of encouraging our people, indirectly, inadvertently, to explore this movement for themselves and maybe be drawn in because we use the music, or would

53:12

I rather poke around and find other things that are equally edifying so that we don't take that chance?

53:20

And I've heard of people who were using the music for those purposes, learned about its relationship to a ministry like Bethel, and have decided no longer will they do so.

53:34

Thank you so much, Kerry, in Manteca, California, for your excellent questions and comments.

53:39

And not only have you won a free copy of the book we are addressing, A New Apostolic Reformation, A Biblical Response to a

53:47

Worldwide Movement, since you are a first -time questioner, you also have received a brand new

53:53

New American Standard Bible. So please make sure that we have your full mailing address in Manteca, California, and we'll have

54:00

CVBBS .com ship those out to you as soon as possible. We're going to our midway station break right now.

54:07

This is a longer break than normal because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires that we take a 12 -minute break between our two -hour segments, so I hope you'll be patient.

54:19

I hope you will be patient with us as we go to these commercials, and take this time also to write some questions.

54:27

We also have a number of you already waiting to have your questions asked and answered, and we'll get to as many of you as time will allow.

54:35

But if you'd like to join them and get online, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

54:41

Don't go away. We'll be right back, God willing, with Doug Givitt and Holly Pivick to discuss

54:46

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01:03:52

Before we return to our discussion with Doug Guyvet and Holly Pivick on a new apostolic reformation, a biblical response to a worldwide movement, we have some important announcements to make.

01:04:05

First of all, the upcoming G3 conference that is returning to Atlanta, Georgia from January 17th through the 20th, and I am so excited that I'll be heading out there to Atlanta, God willing, to man an

01:04:22

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth once again and meet many more of you who are either already listeners to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, as I did last time so many people for the very first time from all over the world who have been listening for years to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, but also

01:04:40

I've been meeting people that are discovering for the first time the program and getting a chance to also interview people that I have interviewed before but never met face -to -face, doing on -site remote interviews, and I'm just looking forward to it so much.

01:04:57

On the 17th of January, the conference begins with an exclusively Spanish -speaking edition of the conference in the daytime, but in the evening at 7 p .m.

01:05:10

on the 17th of January, Dr. James R. White will be debating a Muslim apologist, and I'll be getting you more details on the name and topic of that Muslim apologist and the area that they are debating on.

01:05:24

Then from the 18th through the 20th, the conference will be exclusively in English, and the speakers include

01:05:34

Stephen Lawson, Vody Baucom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .P. Charles Jr., Tim Chalies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, Justin Peters, and Stephen Nichols.

01:05:51

It seems that there are new speakers joining the roster here. Very excited about that.

01:05:57

The theme is, Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship, and if you're wondering what the

01:06:03

G3 stands for in the G3 conference, that's Grace, Gospel, and Glory. If you would like to register for the

01:06:09

G3 conference, go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com, and please, please, please mention that you heard about the conference from Chris Arns on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:06:19

You can also register for an exhibitors booth if you have a business or a ministry that you would like to promote, just like I am doing with Iron Trip and Zion.

01:06:28

I would love to be right near some of my listeners if they are manning exhibitors booths, so I look forward to hearing good news about that as well.

01:06:38

And now I have to do what I consider to be my most uncomfortable task during Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and that's beg you for money.

01:06:47

It especially is uncomfortable because of the fact there are so many charlatans out there, even like those we are discussing today, televangelists and phony fake faith healers and all kinds of people who promise all kinds of things by the donations that you send in.

01:07:10

Well, that obviously makes it more uncomfortable for people like me to ask you for money, but I am going to make no miraculous claims in regard to your donation.

01:07:20

The only thing your donation is going to do is, God willing, it will help us keep on the air, it will help us remain on the air.

01:07:27

And if you love the program, if you love the guests and topics that we have here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio and you don't want this program to disappear from the airwaves, please go to irontripandzionradio .com,

01:07:38

click on support, you will be given a mailing address where you can mail a check made payable to Iron Trip and Zion Radio for any amount that you can afford.

01:07:46

And please always remember that I never want anybody siphoning money out of the regular giving to their local church that you are accustomed to giving them.

01:07:57

Please don't do that and please don't take food off of your family's dinner table if you're struggling to make ends meet.

01:08:03

But if you are financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, because those are commands of Scripture to provide for your family and your church, providing for Iron Trip and Zion Radio is not a command of God at all.

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But if you don't want us to go away and you love the program, please if you can afford to do so without sacrificing anything in regard to the two commands of Scripture that I'd mentioned, then please send us a check and send them as often as you can if you don't want us to go away.

01:08:35

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and put advertising in the subject line, whether it's your church, your parachurch organization, your business, your professional practice, if you're a lawyer, a doctor, a dentist, a chiropractor, perhaps it's just a special event you're having.

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As long as whatever it is you're advertising does not militate against the theology expressed on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, we would love to help you launch an ad campaign because we surely could use the advertising dollars.

01:09:07

So send those emails to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

01:09:13

And that's also the mailing address or email address I should say to ask questions of our guests Doug Guyvet and Holly Privick.

01:09:20

And once again that email is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:09:29

And we have a couple of more, we have a few more actually, questions from our listeners.

01:09:37

We have David in Ada, Ohio. Is the NAR as money -hungry as the

01:09:43

Word of Faith is? That's kind of interesting on the heels of my plea for donations. Please give us some examples of the heavy -handed and authoritarian ways of this group.

01:09:54

Thank you. So there's two questions for you about the money -hungry attitudes and also the heavy -handed authoritarianism that you you touched on but you didn't really give us

01:10:06

I guess too many specific examples of that. So if you could. Right, well as far as money goes, what leaders in the

01:10:17

NAR will say is it takes money to bring God's kingdom to earth, to build

01:10:23

God's kingdom, that that takes money. So they're very unapologetic about that and also they, as the teachings that have been restored to the church

01:10:32

I mentioned before, one of those teachings they would say is the prosperity gospel, that God wants his people to be blessed, he wants his people to be financially prosperous.

01:10:41

So they would not see it as shameful that their leaders have nice houses and a lot of money and beyond that though they would say that the purpose of God blessing his people with money is ultimately so they can build his kingdom.

01:10:57

So it's money with a purpose is what they would say. So does that adequately address the...

01:11:05

I will mention the Apostolic Networks. Apostolic Networks are networks of churches and organizations that are governed by a single apostle or a group of apostles.

01:11:15

One of the largest Apostolic Networks is Harvest International Ministry, it's governed by Apostle Chaon and a team of apostles and prophets who work under him and they govern 25 ,000 churches and organizations in like 55 nations, something like that, and each church is expected to give financially to Chaon's network to support it for their participation.

01:11:43

So there obviously is a lot of money that is going to the apostles in this movement.

01:11:51

Now they would say in their defense that they're using this money to build God's kingdom, that that takes money to do.

01:11:57

And then as far as the heavy -handed, I'm sorry were you going to ask something? Oh well before you get to the heavy -handed authoritarianism again because you did mention it before, but obviously there's nothing wrong with a congregation wanting their pastors to live in nice homes.

01:12:19

There's a difference between a nice home and a lavish lifestyle that suits royalty while there are people you know on the border of starving in the congregation.

01:12:35

You know that there is a line that is crossed when you have wasteful and really ridiculously lavish lifestyles.

01:12:44

Are the people in leadership in that latter category of just you know living ridiculously lavish lifestyles?

01:12:52

I would say that some have noted that the leaders in this movement, many of them don't seem to be flaunting money in the way that you would see you know maybe

01:13:03

Benny Hinn or some of these prosperity gospel televangelists do. So they're not known for wanting money in that way.

01:13:14

Although I have run across statements by certain NAR leaders where they did seem to be boasting about the amount of money they have and their nice homes.

01:13:26

And again that would fit into their framework for God wanting his people to be blessed. Now you could point...

01:13:33

They also produce materials, Bethel Church produces materials and has ministries on their campus there that also raise money for them.

01:13:48

And people might be a little surprised by the amounts that are taken in for these materials.

01:13:56

That doesn't mean that we can ascribe to them ulterior motives or say that this is some sort of scheme.

01:14:04

But it is noteworthy that for example I think it was in 2013 their

01:14:12

School of Supernatural Ministry had about 1 ,900 students, almost 2 ,000 students, and they took in seven million dollars in tuition.

01:14:22

That's my understanding anyway. Now that's the sort of thing that could be documented. But again it doesn't follow from that that the money is being abused, but it does indicate that the movement is being pretty well supported financially by people who are involved.

01:14:43

And now the authoritarian, the examples of authoritarian control.

01:14:49

You already mentioned about, I don't know if you would call it arranged marriages, but you seem to be hinting at the fact that they very often are receiving, and of course they are receiving according to what they are saying, or in their own minds receiving revelation.

01:15:09

But sometimes these revelations involve who people are to marry and all those kinds of things. Give us some more examples of how they are in an authoritarian fashion, in a heavy -handed fashion, ruling the congregation beneath them.

01:15:25

Right, so it's important to understand how prophets are viewed in this movement.

01:15:32

Bill Hammond, he's very highly regarded in this movement. He's often featured in Charisma magazine as one of the most esteemed prophets alive today.

01:15:42

He's very respected, and he says in his books, like Apostles, Prophets, and the

01:15:49

Coming Moves of God, that it is almost impossible for individuals to humble themselves under God without humbling themselves in submission and relationship to Christ, delegated representatives of Him to His Church.

01:16:03

And he goes on to say in his books that to reject the words of a prophet is to reject

01:16:09

God. And so you really have to get into the mindset and to understand that to receive prophets is to receive blessing from God.

01:16:19

To accept the NAR prophet, you will receive actual blessing from God in forms of financial blessing, good health, good relationships, and if you reject the prophets, you're rejecting

01:16:31

God, you will be outside of His blessing. And so when you get into that mindset, then you can see that in these church settings, when people receive prophetic words from a prophet, they really, there's high pressure on them to accept those words.

01:16:48

And one example, a specific example I can think of, is a couple

01:16:53

I know of who, every time they make, they're a business couple, they're high up in business in their community, and every time they need to make a business decision, they will fly a prophet from another state to their state, and to receive revelation from Him about what they should do.

01:17:14

And so, or several people in the same community follow this particular prophet, and so they will, if they need advice for their marriage, business decisions, whatever it is, they will actually fly this prophet to them to consult

01:17:32

Him before they make any moves. And this is very common, actually, and so it plays out in all kinds of ways.

01:17:41

I mean, you know, another young lady I know would tell me that, you know, she would see prophetic words about what she needs, why she hasn't found a spouse, and what she needs to do to start doing in order to find a spouse, and these kind of prophecies really put people in bondage.

01:18:00

One man shared that he was afraid, his son lived in a, he and his wife were separated, his son lived in a faraway state, but prophets kept telling him that if he stayed where he was, that he would end up with this really influential ministry, like impacting thousands of people, and now in hindsight, he realizes what a mistake that was.

01:18:20

It kept him from moving back to be with his young son, living near him as he should have been, because he was afraid of missing out on God's will, which he thought he was supposed to stay where he was, in that location.

01:18:32

So there's all kinds of fallout from prophetic words people have received like these.

01:18:41

And let's see here, oh, oh, by the way,

01:18:48

I forgot to tell David that you have also won a free copy of the book,

01:18:54

A New Apostolic Reformation, and so make sure that we have your full mailing address there in Ada, Ohio, and we'll have

01:19:00

CVBBS .com ship that out to you at no cost to you or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and once again we thank

01:19:07

Weaver Book Company for providing us these free copies of the book. We have

01:19:12

Casey in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and Casey has a couple of questions.

01:19:20

First, Casey asks, how can reformed charismatics join in denouncing the craziness and bizarre doctrines of the

01:19:31

NAR? Well, I don't even know if my guests today are theologically reformed as I am.

01:19:36

I'm a reformed Baptist. I'm not a charismatic, but I'm a reformed Baptist, and apparently our listener

01:19:42

Casey is a reformed charismatic or a theologically Calvinistic charismatic, but if you want to just make it a general question, how can charismatics that are more in the mainstream of evangelical

01:19:57

Christianity join in in denouncing the craziness and bizarre doctrines of the NAR? Doug, do you want to start with this one?

01:20:08

Okay, sure. Yeah, I think that the question can be put more generally, because this is a concern for anyone, regardless of denomination or theological orientation that happens to be historically

01:20:25

Orthodox, because NAR and the movement and its teachings and its practices are making inroads into the churches across denominations and in non -denominational churches, not just charismatic churches or Pentecostal churches, and of course this is happening in various ways and for various reasons, but in our books we talk about ways that you can identify the emergence of NAR tendencies in your own congregation.

01:20:58

There are ways that you can pick up an awareness of the intrusion of NAR ideas at a very basic level, even before it grows into a major movement in your church, and we've also given some specific suggestions to pastors and parents who want to respond graciously and gracefully to people they know in their families or their congregations that are vulnerable to this or participating in this movement.

01:21:34

Now maybe Holly would like to speak to some of those specifics and say what sorts of things that we've recommended for this purpose.

01:21:43

Right, well we really do, you know, as you mentioned, we really do encourage pastors to learn about this movement and to educate people about it from the pulpit.

01:21:54

I really believe that if that was happening more often, this movement would not be able to grow as big as it has.

01:22:05

We developed a resource, a study guide, to go with our... we have a smaller book called

01:22:10

God's Super Apostles, which is a more, it's a shorter version of a New Apostolic Reformation, and we developed a study guide to go along with this book, and we really are urging people in churches and small groups and Sunday school classes and just to gather and use the study guide to help educate other people, larger groups in their churches, about this movement.

01:22:36

So those are... and then talking with children or young people who might be being drawn to the...

01:22:42

more young people, high schoolers, college -age students who are so often drawn to this movement.

01:22:50

It's really important to, when you talk with them, to be very gentle and not get too worked up.

01:23:01

One thing that we found is, unfortunately, the leaders in this movement will often kind of vilify the critics of this movement and say that the critics of this movement are just mean -spirited and lack the

01:23:18

Holy Spirit and these kind of things, and so if we respond with gentleness and grace and then

01:23:30

I think that the young people will be more likely to listen to our concerns than if we just maybe get overly alarmed when they start getting drawn into these teachings.

01:23:44

Those are a few things. There's one other shorter resource that we provided.

01:23:49

I think that study guide that Ollie just mentioned could be really valuable to somebody like Casey and others who have this concern.

01:23:57

We have heard from pastors who have asked us if we have any information that they could circulate in their church, and one in particular asked us if we had drafted anything that could be distributed to the elders or the deacons of the church and then provide a point of departure for discussion in the congregation, and so we didn't have anything like that until we were asked, but we put the pen to the paper and we came up with something and sent it to them, and now

01:24:34

Holly's made that available at her blog, her website, spiritoferror .org,

01:24:41

and Holly is there some other place they need to turn to be able to get their hands on that short document?

01:24:49

No, they can go to the blog and if they have trouble finding it, just contact me through my blog and I would be happy to send a copy of that position paper, and we've had other organizations, even some large organizations, contact us and are considering adopting something like that position paper because they've seen the influx of NAR teachings into their their own organizations, so I think that would be a really good thing for people to take a look at.

01:25:23

And finally, Casey asks, are you working on any documentaries or DVD seminars and things on YouTube?

01:25:38

We've talked a lot about it. Do you have anything to say there,

01:25:44

Doug? Well, and not only have we talked about it, but we've had people that we don't really know approach us about doing some sort of production along these lines, and I think we both would be a little reluctant to partner up with people that we don't know much about.

01:26:04

I teach at Biola University in Talbot School of Theology and we have film students and a production center, and it's possible that we could connect up with people through them or others who affiliate and do this, but there's a cost involved.

01:26:24

We wouldn't want to do anything that wasn't really of quality, and we have been praying that we would, that God would bless this effort to get the word out by other means, too, so in various, you know, through various media like your show,

01:26:42

Chris, on the radio and even television, if that might happen.

01:26:48

So, you know, it's something that's crossed our radar, but not something we've actually put together yet.

01:26:54

I think it's more realistic at this moment if we could develop a, like a weekend seminar that might be presented at a church where they really wanted to focus and hunker down and deal with these issues, and we could go, we could be a resource for that.

01:27:17

So those are really two different things we've thought about doing something on media, but also doing something through some seminar conference work as it might fit into our schedules.

01:27:30

All right, well thank you, Casey, and guess what? You have also won a free copy of the book that we are addressing today,

01:27:37

A New Apostolic Reformation, compliments of Weaver Book Company and also compliments of CVBBS .com.

01:27:43

We'll be shipping that out to you at no charge to you or Iron Shepherds Iron Radio, so please make sure we have your full mailing address in Kannapolis, North Carolina.

01:27:53

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01:34:58

Well, we are now back to our discussion on a new Apostolic Reformation, a biblical response to a worldwide movement with our guests

01:35:07

Doug Guyvet and Holly Pivick. And if you'd like to join us on the air before we run out of time, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:35:16

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And we have a

01:35:21

Christian in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks, does this movement discourage members from using medicine and seeking the medical aid of physicians, doctors, and hospitals like some other cults do who believe in miraculous healing in our day and age?

01:35:45

What I would say about that is, from what I've seen, people in this movement are usually encouraged to use medical aid and to, and faith.

01:36:00

And so, it's, how individual people take these teachings can play out differently, but some people, they'll say that it's left up to the individuals sometimes to decide that they should have faith that God will heal them.

01:36:21

And of course, making negative confessions is seen as very dangerous in this movement.

01:36:27

If you say, I'm sick, I have cancer, something like that, then you, that makes it so that you can't be healed.

01:36:37

And so, but at the same time, people in this movement do often go to doctors and are encouraged to pursue medical treatment as well.

01:36:49

So, there's, I don't know how to explain it other than there's sometimes a real schizophrenia in this movement.

01:36:55

And I've seen this in people I know in my own life who've been caught up in these teachings, where they could be suffering from cancer, but at the same time, they feel like they can't even acknowledge that they have cancer, because by acknowledging that they have cancer, that's making a negative confession and God won't heal them, because that's a lack of faith.

01:37:18

And so, I hope that answers the question. Let me just say, too, that some

01:37:24

I know may have, I think, an unusual expectation, maybe an unrealistic expectation that they will be healed.

01:37:36

These would be people who are getting medical aid, but they are also praying and expecting, really, to be healed, rather than thinking that this is a decision that God will make, and will do so without actually revealing to you what his intentions are in advance.

01:37:56

So, I've seen that as well. Thank you so much,

01:38:02

Christian. Please make sure you give us your full mailing address there in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, because you have also won a free copy of the book,

01:38:10

A New Apostolic Reformation, and that will be shipped out to you by cvbbs .com

01:38:15

as soon as possible. We have Bibi in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, is this movement primarily made up of believers in that theology and system of religion who plant their own churches, or are they more involved in infiltrating existing congregations who do not already share their perspective, which seems to be what the

01:38:42

Apostle Paul was warning Timothy about in the New Testament? I know that a criticism

01:38:54

I have heard of this movement is that they do seem to gain many of their people just from taking them from other, more conservative churches, and I do think there's a lot of truth to that, that what you have a lot of times is you have people that grew up in more conservative, say, a

01:39:14

Baptist Church or something like that, and then they discovered

01:39:19

NAR teachings, and suddenly the idea that they could become miracle workers and bring

01:39:26

God's kingdom to earth, these teachings were very exciting, made their faith feel alive, and so they got drawn into the

01:39:35

NAR movement in that way, and that's a very common testimony of people in this movement. But I do know of people who are caught up in these teachings as well, who do serve as missionaries in third world countries and that kind of thing, too.

01:39:55

And you know, I think it's true that both are happening, there are church plants, and then there is infiltration, which is actually a pretty good word, but the word infiltrate also suggests that it's happening sort of under the radar and under the noses of the leadership, and then they get kind of caught off guard by it when it grows.

01:40:21

And that does happen, but it's also true that some of the NAR leaders will host large events, and they'll invite churches to come and participate, and it'll be an event that's supposed to be edifying, there'll be some good

01:40:38

Christian teaching involved, and you know, pastors will encourage their people to go.

01:40:45

It looks innocuous, it looks like a safe thing to do, and they might go and then something has spawned there that they didn't expect.

01:40:54

Another thing that'll happen is that people in the churches might try to persuade leadership to invite somebody to come and speak.

01:41:02

It might be a Bill Johnson or somebody else that's a pretty significant figure in the movement, and then the seed is planted that way.

01:41:13

And then there are a lot of people who will just make the trek to Redding, California, and to Bethel Church, and then want to bring back what they've learned, and bring back their zeal and the enthusiasm, and try to see it realized in their own churches, and bring other people, you know, into that same spirit of things, and bring them, if they can, up to the church, the

01:41:44

Bethel Church, and experience firsthand some of these same things. So there are a lot of ways that this can take root in churches.

01:41:50

It could be a new church plant, it can be infiltration, or it can be over really visible ways, but still ways that are not really fully understood, so that it grows up, but the outcome was not perhaps what was intended in the beginning.

01:42:13

Thank you. B .B. in Cumberland County, you have also won a free copy of a new Apostolic Reformation.

01:42:18

Please make sure we have your full mailing address in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. We have

01:42:24

John in Bangor, Maine, who says, does the new

01:42:30

Apostolic Reformation adhere to some of the more blasphemous notions that word -of -faith adherents are known for, such as Jesus Christ becoming a demonic entity on the cross,

01:42:45

Jesus Christ becoming the first born -again man in hell, and that Jesus Christ performed his miracles and conducted his ministry on earth as a hundred percent man, but not as deity.

01:43:03

So the teaching that Jesus conducted his miracles a hundred percent as man, relying on the power of the

01:43:12

Holy Spirit, and did not access his divine deity to do that, that is a teaching that's very common in the movement.

01:43:22

It's promoted by Bill Johnson at Bethel Reading, and in my understanding, you know, he's made some statements that people have understood as that he didn't believe

01:43:35

Jesus was God, that he actually gave up his deity when he came to earth, and then, you know, maybe regained it after he died and rose again, but in my understanding of Bill Johnson's teachings, when he clarified them more, he seems to believe that Jesus was a hundred percent divine when he was on earth, a hundred percent deity and fully

01:44:01

God's holy man, but that he did not, he chose not to access his divine powers when he was on earth, so he could set a pattern for all other people to learn to work miracles like he did in the power of the

01:44:13

Holy Spirit. And as far as the other Word of Faith teachings, the N .A .R.

01:44:19

again has all of these teachings, Word of Faith, Prosperity Gospel, all of these other teachings, they see as lost truths that have been restored to the

01:44:27

Church. So I'm sure that you could find people within the

01:44:33

N .A .R. who hold to those particular Word of Faith tenets, but I'm sure not all do.

01:44:41

Well thank you, John, in Bangor, Maine.

01:44:46

Make sure you give us your full mailing address because you've also won a free copy of A New Apostolic Reformation Compliments of Our Friends at Weaver Book Company.

01:44:54

And we have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and Susan Margaret says, do these congregations that adhere to the

01:45:07

N .A .R. heresy openly identify themselves as a

01:45:14

New Apostolic Reformation congregation in their literature, in their signage, etc., or are they more cunning and secretive about this?

01:45:24

I'd say definitely not. It would be very unusual to find a church that had the words New Apostolic Reformation up on their sign in front of the church, or even on their website, perhaps.

01:45:36

So the way that you know that a church is part of the N .A .R., sometimes you have to dig a little deeper, because they may have fairly standard statements of faith on their website, they often do, but if they promote the idea that there are present -day governing offices of Apostle and Prophet, and that's the correct biblical church government, then that's a ministry known as bifold, or teaching known as bifold ministry, that's a buzzword you can look for.

01:46:08

So you need to pay attention and be alert for specific N .A .R. practices, like SOZO, which is kind of a counseling type of N .A

01:46:21

.R. counseling session that's really popular in churches now, or 24 -7 prayer rooms being established, or healing rooms, or the practice of treasure hunting, which is a particular

01:46:33

N .A .R. form of evangelism that's popular in this movement. You need to be on the lookout for their use of words like apostolic or prophetic, of course

01:46:42

Apostles or Prophets, you know, if you see these things, these are clues that you may need to dig a little bit deeper in that.

01:46:50

Of course, if they promote Bill Johnson, Bethel Redding, Mike Bickle, the

01:46:55

International House of Prayer, some of these big N .A .R. organizations and leaders, those can be clues too that a church may have, be caught up in N .A

01:47:05

.R. teachings. I'd like to jump in here on this as well. You know, if you think that you can just ask the question, is your organization part of the

01:47:18

New Apostolic Reformation? It's most likely they'll say no, and sometimes they'll say, what are you talking about?

01:47:25

I don't even know what that's supposed to be. You could go to Bethel Church Redding and ask that question, and be told by a leader there, who knows what the

01:47:38

New Apostolic Reformation really is, but we're not affiliated officially with any group like that.

01:47:44

And so you might walk away and think, oh well then, what's going on here? They're not part of that at all.

01:47:51

And this is a problem. This is a problem for people who don't have time to do a lot of research and study, because the only way you can really know is if you know more about the movement, and you know other questions that you can ask, so that you can get a description of what they're doing, and not just a label.

01:48:13

So this is one of the reasons why we've done two books. We've got one that documents in a very thorough way, by quoting all their sources, the things that we say, and the arguments that we make.

01:48:27

And then we have a shorter book that is really intended for people who have less time to devote to that kind of close study, but it would educate them to the more specific things you'd want to know, so that you could be discerning and be able to tell what is really going on, even if they go so far as to deny that they're

01:48:50

NAR. Thank you, Susan Margaret. Make sure you have, or give us,

01:48:55

I should say, your full mailing address in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, because you've also won a free copy of the new

01:49:01

Apostolic Reformation. We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, are there a significant number of people who have discovered while in the

01:49:17

NAR that this is indeed a dangerous and heretical organization, who have left, and who have maintained a biblically solid theology afterwards?

01:49:31

Also, I know that it is quite frequent, sadly, that people who have been burned by cults and abuse of churches abandon

01:49:40

Christianity and religion altogether. Can you discuss both instances with regard to NAR?

01:49:50

I would say I've come across many people who have left

01:49:56

NAR teachings and churches, and do now have a very sound theology, and you can find testimonials like that from people all over the

01:50:07

Internet, and just people I've personally known and encountered.

01:50:13

I did want to make one clarification. We would not refer to the NAR as a single organizational entity.

01:50:20

The NAR isn't a single organization. It's a movement made up of churches and organizations that believe that there are present -day governing offices of Apostle and Prophet, and so it's not a single organizational entity, which is one reason it makes this movement so hard to pin down, is because you can't just go online and find a website of a list of all of the participating leaders in churches.

01:50:49

It really is that they're united by this defining belief in offices of Apostle and Prophet.

01:50:57

Yeah, just like the word of faith. I'm sorry, Holly, were you?

01:51:04

No, no, go ahead, Doug. Oh, so I was going to speak to this question about people who might actually leave the church and leave the faith because of getting burned or becoming disillusioned through their experience with an

01:51:20

NAR church, and that does happen, and it's one reason why

01:51:26

I became very interested and involved in research and study of this, and I use one of our books as a course book for a class that I teach at the seminary in Christian apologetics, because I think of this as an apologetics issue, and I see it on more than one level.

01:51:47

There are people with a clear knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they need to be reasonable in holding the beliefs that they do, and it's very easy to be lured into a movement like this that understates the value, or even denies really, the value of critical thinking when you decide what you're going to believe.

01:52:10

The second is that there are people who become disillusioned. They become, you know, they make decisions and things go sour because they've received some sort of word from a prophet, and they just want to walk away, and rather than finding another church that is found in doctrine and faithful to Christ and a loving community, they might just wash their hands of Christianity all together and move on in their lives.

01:52:38

And then the third is the media and the broader culture. You know how it is with the media,

01:52:45

Chris, the secular media. They see something that has this visible, spectacular aspect to it, and a lot of people are talking about it, there's a lot of buzz around it, and so they direct attention to it, and consequently people who are paying attention to the media are hearing about this movement, and oftentimes in the secular media it's just being ridiculed at the same time that it's being associated with what

01:53:17

Christians in general believe. And so we need to be wary about that as apologists.

01:53:23

We need to be helping others realize that this is not the Church, this is not historic

01:53:30

Christianity, and it's not the authentic. It doesn't reflect the authentic experience of the

01:53:38

Spirit of God in the life of the Church, but that's just not as well known in the secular world, because attention there is drawn to it, gravitates to the spectacular.

01:53:52

Well, I want to make sure that you each have about two minutes to speak uninterrupted to give a summary of what you each most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:54:08

Go ahead, Doug, you can start. Okay. Well, I have, of course, several concerns, but they can be summarized in terms of just a handful of key words.

01:54:22

One is, I believe that this movement brings with it dissension.

01:54:28

Now this is ironic, because people like ourselves who try to open the

01:54:35

Scriptures and make clear what God teaches about such things, accused of being divisive and causing dissension in the

01:54:44

Church and being overly critical, and we're being, you know, maybe accused of these things by people who are themselves operating in this way.

01:54:55

And so that's one concern that I have, that it is truly divisive.

01:55:01

And another is, it's deceptive. Either passages of Scripture are interpreted in a very sketchy fashion, or Scripture is ignored, and doctrines or teachings are presented that are coming out of their own prophetic tradition, but can't be grounded in Scripture at all.

01:55:25

Or if you try to reason with them from Scripture, they will pretty much ignore what you have to say, rather than entering into the details of close study of what the

01:55:36

Scriptures teach. We emphasize in the books the practice and the example of the

01:55:43

Bereans in the Book of Acts, who were careful to study the Scriptures to see if what they were hearing, even from God's own

01:55:51

Apostles, was to be trusted. So those are two things I'm concerned about, would be the divisiveness and the deception.

01:56:01

And before you give your own summary, Holly, we have Joey in Clifton, New Jersey, who says, are people in the

01:56:09

NAR movement self -aware of themselves as a movement? Do they actively promote themselves as a movement, or are they simply more simply, he used the word simply twice there, are they simply more zealous for their own gospel?

01:56:26

You know, I would say that many people in the movement are not aware that it's a movement, for sure. I know that from talking with people, they are sometimes surprised to learn they're part of a movement.

01:56:37

But some are aware that it's a movement, the ones that keep up more with these type of things.

01:56:45

So I would say both is true. All right, Joey, thank you so much, and give us your address, because you've won the last copy of the book that we are addressing,

01:56:53

The New Apostolic Reformation. And if you could, Holly, now summarize what you most want our listeners to know before we go off the air.

01:57:01

Sure, and right before, I just wanted to mention the movement being divisive, and on my blog,

01:57:08

I get contacted by people all the time whose families have been really harmed by this movement, children and spouses are divided over these teachings, many churches split over this movement, you know, it's the

01:57:23

Apostles' way or the highway. And so these teachings are inherently divisive, and it's brought a lot of destruction.

01:57:30

But my thing I really wanted to mention is NAR is an undoing of the

01:57:36

Protestant Reformation principle of Sola Scriptura, and this despite the fact that NAR leaders frequently try to portray their movement as an outworking of the

01:57:46

Protestant Reformation, but they teach that their new revelations are necessary if the church is going to finish the

01:57:52

Great Commission, which they've basically redefined as bringing Heaven to Earth. Yet Protestants, you know, as you know, have historically believed that Scripture is sufficient, and it contains every teaching the church needs for its belief and practice, from 2

01:58:06

Timothy 3, 15 through 17, and that's something that really concerns me, is the attack on the principle of Sola Scriptura, and going along with that, there's an

01:58:20

NAR translation of the Bible. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's called the Passion Translation. It's very popular, being used in many churches, promoted by many

01:58:29

NAR leaders, including Bill Johnson and Cheyenne, and it's produced by an Apostle named

01:58:34

Brian Simmons, who claims Christ visited him personally, commissioned him to write this new translation, and yet he lacks the credentials and skills required to produce a reliable translation of the

01:58:46

Bible. It just basically takes verses and rewords them, so it makes it sound like they support

01:58:51

NAR teachings, and very troubled by the popularity of this

01:58:59

NAR Bible, and I think it's something that should be on people's radar. Well I know that your website or your blog is spiritoferror .org,

01:59:07

spiritoferror .org, and I want to thank you both for being on the program.

01:59:12

Doug, do you have any contact information that you care to give? Well I can get information through Biola University, and if anybody wants to be in touch with me, then they can contact me at the general phone number there, or through the

01:59:34

Office of Philosophy, the Department of Philosophy, and the Taoist School of Theology. And the website is biola .edu,

01:59:43

b -i -o -l -a .edu. I want to thank you both for being on the program. I look forward to you returning to the program at some point in the future.

01:59:51

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.