CONFUSION ON SPIRITUAL WARFARE: THE INEFFECTIVE PRAYERS OF NAR-INFECTED CHARISMATICS

This is a really good article on why NAR (NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION) infected charismatics pray “metaphors” instead of praying correctly.   Infected charismatics do this mostly by imitating those who have prayed over them in their churches or church groups and so, it is really done somewhat “innocently”.  

However, there are many dangers involved with this type of prayer, the most glaring is the unbelief it engenders, because over time, these prayers are not answered.   An almost humorous question we have to ask is “If a demon is bound, how long is it bound for?”  

NAR infected charismatics must then make up an entire universe of false doctrines to bolster this type of prayer and it puts them into a very dangerous sense of UNREALITY.   

If you or any of your loved ones know people who watch GODTV, were into Todd Bentley at Lakeland, enjoy Rick Joyner or believe Bob Jones, Paul Cain, Bill Hamon, or have attended the Kansas City Prophets’ iHOP, or believe in C. Peter Wagner’s “Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare” or think William Branham and his Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God doctrines are of the Lord, please read this article: 

The author of this article, Link Hudson, really expounds things well.  

Confusion on Spiritual Warfare
by Link Hudson

One of the major problems with the ’spirit of’ issue is that people mean different things when they say ’spirit of.’ For many Charismatics, Pentecostals and Third Wavers a ’spirit of fear’ is a demon with ‘fear’ written on his forehead or a demon that epitomizes fear. For others it is a demon that manifests itself as ‘fear’ in a particular instance. For others, the phrase refers to a spiritual condition of fear in a persons life. 

We need to keep in mind what kind of terminology we use. If one believer says to another ‘you have a spirit of fear.’ The one speaking may mean ‘You have a spiritual condition of fear.’ or ‘Your spirit is fearful.’ The listener may think, “I am demon-possessed and have a spirit of fear! How could this happen to me?” Many Christians think that ’spirit of’ refers to an actual demonic entity. 

A man may have an inclination toward fits of wrath. From Galatians we know this is a ‘work of the flesh.’ Evil spirits may goad and tempt the man to sin in the area of wrath, but he is not ‘demonized’ like the Gergazene demoniac. If you pray with the man and then start rebuking the ’spirit of wrath,’ he may think you are weird, or crazy. Or, he may believe you and think he is like someone in the movie ‘The Exorcist.’ Remember in I Corinthians 14, where we read that if all in a meeting speak in tongues, the unbelievers or unlearned will think we are mad. The same applies to rebuking spirits that aren’t there, or spirits that aren’t the root of the problem.

What Spirits Are There?

The scripture says that ‘God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.’ Does this really teach that there is such a thing as an actually entity called a spirit of fear? Or is the point, rather, that the Spirit God has given us is not a spirit of fear? 

Be careful when reading scripture. Compare the ’spirit of fear’ passage to other passage which mention spirits not given to us, such as the spirit of the world or the spirit of bondage. 

Some people teach and warn against ‘the Jezebel spirit.’ If we think about it literally, what would ‘the Jezebel spirit’ be? In scripture, Jezebel is a person. So, someone who thinks about ’spirits’ as always referring to actual spirit beings might conclude the spirit of Jezebel would be a dead woman’s spirit. Of course, the people who use the term ‘Jezebel spirit’ don’t mean it that way. 

The Bible mentions Jezebel, but doesn’t mention ‘the Jezebel spirit’ or ‘the spirit of Jezebel.’ Jezebel was a wicked Canaanite queen married to an Israeli king. She persecuted God’s prophets and promoted Baal worship. In Revelation, Jesus warns about ‘that woman Jezebel’ who was deceiving people in one of the churches. She was promoting fornication and eating meet sacrificed to idols. 

The term ‘Jezebel spirit’ is used by some to refer to a spiritual condition of opposing authority, and various other things. It is a convenient buzz phrase for making others afraid of those in prophetic ministry, especially women. Some throw this accusation around against believers whose ministries do not promote idolatry or fornication. Pentecostals used to use ‘Jezebel’ as a term for women painting their fingernails. 

Is there a ’spirit of intellectualism?’ If you listen during ‘ministry time’ at enough Third Wave churches, you’ll hear about this spirit. If the ’spirit of intellectualism’ were an actual demon that manifests as intellectualism, what did it do for all those centuries before higher education was developed? Or does a ’spirit of intellectualism’ change hats and act as a ’spirit of pride’ or a ’spirit of alcoholism’ when afflicting other subjects. The intellectual you are ministering to may think about things like this, after all, if he is an intellectual. 

The idea that one demon specializes in one type of sin is actually quite common. Some people who read a lot of Kansas City prophets literature have read Howard Pittman’s _Placebo_ which recounts a near-death-experience in which Pittman saw the different ranks of demons. Other authors believe this as well. 

Many lay people in the pews repeatedly hear, ‘I come against the spirit of XYZ” in prayers. They pick up this type of prayer as a learned behavior. However, this precise type of prayer is not something we see in the scriptures. If someone gets a revelation from the word about a ’spirit of fear’ for example, he may wish to pray about it. But it may be wise to carefully weigh how he prays. 

Many believers pray against ’spirits’ of this that and the other without revelation. For some, praying against spirits is like lottery prayer. If you guess the write spirit and rebuke it, you solve the problem. Others may just see a problem, pride, for example, and rebuke the ’spirit of pride.’ 

Church leaders should consider discouraging praying against spirits as a technique, method or learned behavior. It causes confusion, because people have different ideas of what ’spirit’ means. It can cause fear if the person being prayed for thinks “Oh, no! I have a demon!” If there is no revelation from the Spirit of God that a spirit is involved, and no obvious manifestation, why bother rebuking spirits anyway? 

If you go to many Charismatic prayer-meetings and listen to people pray, some people spend over half their time, not praying to God, but rebuking evil spirits. If we compare this type of ‘prayer’ to the examples of prayer we see in the New Testament, we can see that many Charismatics have drifted far from the examples we have in the Scriptures. Doctrines and interpretations are formed, some of them based on proof-texts- scriptures taken out of context or interpreted allegorically. The interpretation gets taught as doctrine, and a few years later, a new doctrine is added on top of the previous doctrine. This phenomenon is very noticeable when we consider some of the teachings about finances that are being spread these days, but it is also somewhat true about Charismatic ideas of demonology and spiritual warfare.

Spiritual Warfare

Spiritual Warfare is a very important aspect of the Christian life. The Bible makes that clear. But many teachings on spiritual warfare being circulated these days is not rooted and grounded in the teaching of scripture. 

For example, some people believe that the way to win a city for God is to find out the types of spirits over the city, and then rebuke these spirits in Jesus name. This is supposedly based on Ephesians 6:12, which says,

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” 

But notice that this passage of scripture says nothing about struggling by means of casting out spirits. Verses 13 and following encourage believers to put on the whole armor of God, to take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and to pray with all manner of prayer and supplication, and to supplicate for the saints. 

There is no mention of doing the warfare by yelling at spirits up in the air. There is no mention of trying to guess the type of spirit to rebuke by looking at the problems in a city. There is no teaching in this passage which implies that if we rebuke the right spirit over a city, that the way will be cleared for us. 

If this type of ’spiritual warfare’ were so wonderful, why didn’t Jesus do it, or teach us to do it? Why didn’t the apostles practice it? Why don’t the scriptures mention anything about it? 

Consider the spiritual warfare passage in Ephesians 6. Paul told the brethren what they were fighting, and then told them to put on the whole armor of God. Look at the components: salvation, righteousness, truth, the preparation of the Gospel of peace, faith, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 

The weapon Paul mentioned was the word of God. Think about how Paul waged warfare, praying to God, preaching the Gospel. After mentioning the sword of the spirit, Paul urged his readers to pray. 

What damage can doing spiritual warfare wrongly cause? It can cause unbelievers to think we are crazy. It can cause other believers to think that we are crazy. There is also another serious problem that some people in the prophetic movement have begun to point out.

Look at Jude 8-10, which talks about the problem of false teachers: 
Jude 1:8-10 8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. 9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. 10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

Why would Michael not bring a railing accusation against Satan before the Lord. God is sovereign over all. God uses Satan, and many Christians believe that Satan has been given a certain realm of authority and power from the Lord. Though Satan will be punished in the future, we still need to realize that a certain sphere is given to him.

Spiritual warfare must be done according to the rules of combat of our Commander. Some call Satan stupid, or make insulting comments about him. Others make brash statements of rebuke against demon spirits over cities. We need to realize that when battling against the enemy, we must stay under the protection of Christ. We have no authority against them in ourselves. The authority we use is Christ’s. 

These early false teachers would brag and boast, and didn’t even know when to keep their mouths shut in speaking against ‘dignitaries.’ We should know better than to follow their example. What if Satan could get Christians spending their time rebuking spirits instead of praying to God, and could actually tempt some of them to become boastful against spiritual entities? Think of what a distraction that could cause?

The Word of God as a Weapon Another verse people use to support the idea that rebuking spirits over cities is the way to win a city for Christ is:
2 Corinthians 10:3-6 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds  5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; 6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. 

Consider the context of this passage. Paul is answering his critics, and dealing with the issue of false apostles who considered themselves to be the apostles of Christ. 

Paul’s warfare involved ‘casting down imaginations.’ Paul was a preacher and a teacher. He evangelized and the discipled believers. remember that in Ephesians, Paul taught about the ’sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.’ Paul wrote in II Corinthians 4:3-4 3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 

Satan blinded men’s eyes. Paul preached the gospel to open men’s eyes to the truth. 

The II Corinthians 10 passage mentions casting down imaginations and bringing thoughts captive, not with yelling at demon spirits that are not confronting us. 

Consider another passage which refers to ‘principalities and powers.’
Ephesians 3:8-11 8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; 9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. 

The passage goes on to mention ‘the eternal purpose.’ God is demonstrating something through the church. Principalities and powers were learning something through Paul’s preaching. The redemption of mankind and the forming of the bride is a great mystery. When all this is finished, we will know that all things are summed up in Christ Jesus. Principalities and powers will learn and know. 

So we see spiritual warfare being done with the Word of God, accompanied with prayer. It involves casting down imaginations and bringing thoughts captive to the knowledge of Christ. Christians should wear their armor for protection during the battle.

Rebuking Demons

There is a time to rebuke demons. We see Jesus and the apostles doing this. Christ cast out a lot of demons. In many passages, we read that demonized people would scream out when they saw him. These demons manifested themselves. It is conceivable that Jesus identified some of the spirits causing ailments by means of discernment. Satan came to Jesus on one occasion. Jesus rebuked Him using scripture, and Satan left him.

Paul cast a spirit of divination out of a slave girl in Philippi. Paul seemed a lot more reluctant to do this than a lot of preachers seem to be today for some reason. After he did this, persecution was released against him. He may have had some idea that there would be consequences. We do not see Paul spending three days to rebuke all the spirits out of Philippi before going in. 

Jesus said that when an unclean spirit is cast out of man, it walks through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. He ends up coming back to the man, whom he finds ‘empty, swept, and garnished,’ with seven more wicked spirits and dwelling there. This was a parable about that generation, but let’s focus on the literal meaning. 

The Bible doesn’t tell us to cast spirits out of the air. We see plenty of examples of evil spirits being cast out of people in the New Testament. If a spirit could be cast out of a city, even if it is not dwelling in a person there, could it return with seven worse spirits?

Collecting detailed information and praying about the problems in a city has some obvious benefits, considering Jesus great promises concerning prayer made in faith. Let us focus on God, and praying to him, rather than focusing on all the demons floating around.

Binding and Loosing

Many Charismatics will rebuke spirits (whether present or not) with “I bind you in Jesus’ name.” This may lead people to think that there are two options when dealing with evil spirits. One, binding evil spirits, and Two, casting out evil spirits. 

The concept of ‘binding’ spirits seems to be based on two passages of scripture. One passage often used to support this idea is:
Matthew 18:18. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

This verse in context does not refer specifically to binding demons. Yet it is used as a proof-text to say that we can ‘bind’ demons by saying ‘I bind you.’ 

Actually, many Bible scholars say this passage really means that whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall have already been bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall have already been loosed in heaven. They say that the Sanhedrin used the terminology ‘binding’ and ‘loosing’ to their legal decisions, and that they believed that the decisions they made had already been made in heaven. 

In context, Jesus is talking about the authority in the church. He teaches the disciples if a brother sins and will not repent after going through the proper steps, bring him before the church. If he will not hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. Then he tells them the famous instructions about binding and loosing, and where two or three gather together in His name, He is there in the midst of them. This passage is about the authority of the church, not about casting out demons per se. 

Another passage used to justify ‘I bind you’ is Matthew 12. In this passage, Jesus answers the Pharisees who accuse Him of casting out demons by Beelzebub. Jesus cast out demons by the Spirit of God. Look at the passage:
Matthew 12:27-29 27 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. 28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. 29 Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. 

Notice that Jesus is making an analogy. He doesn’t say that He would ‘bind’ evil spirits instead of casting them out. This passage does not teach that someone who is demonized will have one head demon that is the ’strongman’ either. Many teachings have evolved using a scripture here or there as a proof-text , but a lot of modern demonology has little to do with the teaching of the scriptures in context.

Let Us Examine How We Pray

We should carefully study how Jesus prayed and taught His disciples to pray. We don’t see Jesus spending valuable prayer time yelling at all the demons in the world in the scriptures. Demons are limited in power. Even if a demon is taken out of a wicked-hearted, the man still has a wicked heart, and needs to repent. Sin has to be dealt with, not just demons. Christ preached the Gospel. He told people to repent. 

We should consider how we pray. Do we spend time rebuking demons because that is how we were ’socialized’ in our church setting? Is this profitable? Are we speaking by revelation, or just guessing what spirits may be out there and trying to cast them out of the air? Is our ‘praying’ the type of praying we see in the scriptures? 

If the Holy Spirit removes you to rebuke an evil spirit, rebuke it.
Of course, a lot of people claim to have revelations about evil spirits. Remember that we are to ‘prove all things.’ We should not consider every supposed revelation to be true, and treat them with the authority of the teachings of the apostles that we have in the scriptures. 

Rebuking evil spirits should not be a catch-all technique for solving problems. Demons are not all-powerful. Even if you could cast a demon out of a city, a situation, or a can of spam, you still have problems to deal with. People don’t get saved just by having demons cast out of them. They need to hear the word of God and repent. 

God bless you all,
Link Hudson

Article on spiritual warfare by Link Hudson from here: http://www.spiritualwarfaredeliverance.com/articles-spiritual-warfare-deliverance-healing/html/confusion-on-spiritual-warfare.html

RICK JOYNER, THE APOSTLE PAUL AND THE ANTI-CHRIST

by Hollywood War Office (copyright 2008) Permission needed for reproduction.  

 

In March 2007 I heard someone at my church Bible group innocently read out loud one of Rick Joyner’s messages from the Elijah List.

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:mzLW88CKXgYJ:www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word/5039+Elijah+list+Rick+Joyner

Unfortunately for the person reading aloud, I became apoplectic at what I heard Joyner say. I flipped out in the class. I already was on the alert to anyone talking about prophecy or false prophecy because of things the Lord had recently spoken to me.

I had previously loved Joyner. I had even personally ordered The Final Quest  for the women in my Bible group at my previous church — (a sin I need to now repent of for poisoning them).

There was such grandeur in the way Joyner described spiritual warfare in that book. I frequently repeated his story about the homeless man “who did not kick the kitten” vs. the well-bred evangelist who led thousands to the Lord. (It took a man who had been through seminary to catch the lie in Joyner’s story for me — that it was a subtle attack upon the fact that the whole point OF spiritual warfare is evangelism!)

I remember taking some note when reading how Joyner said he “met Paul” and how Joyner’s version of “Paul” had been slightly disparaging about his own Epistles. Rick Joyner’s “Apostle Paul” in The Final Quest made the reader, ever so slightly, come into doubt about the veracity of Paul’s Epistles as being part of the sealed canon of Scripture.

But, I did not really question The Final Quest, and I did NOT really fine-tooth the book with the Word. I just did a sort of “weighing it in my heart” kind of confirmation. Big mistake.

So years later, when someone was reading Rick Joyner’s deconstruction of Our Lord’s Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, I went nuts in the class. My ears were on fire. Joyner was attempting to rewrite its meaning, that the Wheat and the Tares are not believers and unbelievers — they are “true prophets” and “false prophets!”

This was after I had been alerted by God to the problem of false prophecy by some Apostolic-Prophetic types — and Joyner’s reconditioning of the Word started to sound like more “cover your rear-end” theology on the prophetic.

Joyner had to know about the many false prophecies that had gone out with his fellow Elijah Listers. Joyner’s own false prophecies about Y2K were legend; but even those false prophecies he made he had already tried to cover up.

But now, in an Elijah List message, Joyner was saying that modern prophets are on a learning curve, basically, but woe to us if we do not “sow” into their ministries, even though, just like in the parable of the wheat and the tares, we will not know until the end of time who the true prophets are and who the false prophets are!

Joyner wrote:

“Young, immature prophetic people will often behave unskilled, and we will be tempted to think that they are really “tares” instead of “wheat.”

Joyner’s argument is so convoluted here, I again have to doubt his sanity.

First, he uses a new lexicon of the Apostolic-Prophetic by using the word “immature” and “unskilled” when he means to describe people who have given false prophecies. It is twisting the truth to say that people give false prophecies because they are “immature” or “unskilled”. What does human skill have to do with it?

And what does being immature — or even being a baby Christian have to do with it? In the book of Acts, Paul laid hands on John the Baptist’s disciple and the man was “immediately filled with the Spirit and began to prophesy”. I don’t see Paul discussing a learning curve for prophetic accuracy here. I don’t see Paul packing up this young man to a school of the Prophets.

Joyner defiles the word of God as he dares twist the meaning of the “wheat” to mean “true prophets” and the “tares” to mean false ones. But God was telling us that He would have to destroy the lives of Believers (the wheat) if He took vengeance upon Unbelievers (the tares) now, because wheat and tares grow so closely together. It is sort of an expansive analogy to how the Lord allows the sun to rise and set upon the righteous and unrighteous alike.

The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares is an answer to the believer’s cry when they “see the wicked prosper”. God is saying that if He destroyed the wicked now, (for example, Hollywood), the structures and institutions (for example, the studios) that support us believers in that industry would be destroyed. Our own abundant life would be threatened if unbelievers were taken out now! It is His mercy on us, in this parable, that He is patient and merciful.

But this parable has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the myriad warnings by Jesus against false teachings and false prophecies. Joyner is deceitfully twisting the Word of God for his own purposes. Because of the importance of prophecy, and its natural sway over people’s lives — Jesus, in contrast to Joyner, lovingly but sternly warns us to put prophecy to the test, to beware false prophets and avoid their heresies.

Joyner further twists the Word by saying that some people are accusing his prophetic friends of being “tares”. But this is a lie. The criticism against Joyner and Bob Jones and Paul Cain and other prophets associated with them is that they are “false prophets” not “tares”(unbelievers)

Big distinction there, Mr. Joyner.

And, despite Joyner’s claim, it is not a matter of “skill” or human dexterity that is the mark of true prophecy. Whether or not it comes from God is the mark of true prophecy. Joyner reconstructs the meaning of this scripture to give him and his pals an “out” for false prophecy by labeling it “unskilled” and from young prophets. What hubris. What pride to think that he can do this sort of thing to Jesus.

But THEN as this person read on, Joyner defiled Paul! Again, it was a subtle attack. He made a false statement that Paul had gone from “pride to humility” based upon his salutations in his various letters. And again, it was to cover up the false prophecies done by his friends in the Apostolic-Prophetic movement. Note how Joyner inserts this phony idea of “maturity” in regards to prophecy into the argument:

One of the great examples of how the wheat matures is the Apostle Paul. In one of his early letters, he stated that he was not inferior to even the most eminent apostles (see II Corinthians 11:5). He wrote about five years later that he was the “least of the apostles” (see I Corinthians 15:9). In a letter he wrote about five years after this, he stated that he was “the least of the saints” (see Ephesians 3:8). In one of his last letters, he declared himself to be “the greatest of sinners” (see I Timothy 1:15). He kept seeing himself as less important, though he was obviously growing in spiritual stature, and actually was one of the most important first century apostles.

We need to also consider that Paul may have been quite arrogant as a young apostle, but he was still an apostle!

Joyner attempts to make the argument that, like Paul, his prophet pals were making false prophecies but that, like Paul, they would improve!!! And even Joyner’s chronology is incorrect – 2 Corinthians was not written before 1 Corinthians.

But these self-descriptions by Paul do not indicate a “confession of sin” or a statement of where Paul was with personal sin at that time. They were simply greetings and ways to put himself into the context of what each letter was about. It is a bad argument to draw a conclusion about Paul’s personal sin from the way he describes himself in the Epistles.

But it is a worse argument to draw any conclusion from Joyner’s conceit about Paul’s sin that modern false prophets are learning to be “accurate” just as Paul “went from pride to humility”! Joyner’s own pride is outrageous in its attempts to denigrate Paul in order to cover up the false prophecies of his friends. As this person finished reading, I almost exploded.

So I started to research Joyner. I wanted to understand why he would try to cover up the false prophecies of fellow Elijah Listers by attempting to “redo” the Word in the Parable of the Wheat/Tares. Certainly it was sick self-preservation of his friends; a despicable, but understandable motive. But this was the second time I knew of that Joyner making an attack upon Paul. I just could not understand why he would attack the veracity of Paul and the epistles.

Then I remembered an odd argument I once heard. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, but Paul did. Some people have tried to scissor Paul out of the Bible, and Peter to a lesser context, simply because they named that sin. The argument goes: Paul was just a man, Jesus was the Lord, so Paul’s writings are not valid against homosexuality. The Synoptic Gospels were the real “Word” and they never mentioned homosexuality! I remembered this argument when I was thinking about Joyner’s attack on Paul.

Why would Joyner make a subtle attack on Paul’s letters as not being the Word of God? Which is exactly what he was doing in The Final Quest. I could not understand Joyner’s motive. So I remembered the homosexual argument that dismissed the Epistles as not being on the same level as the Word as the Synoptic Gospels.

So I looked up practicing Gay “Christians” to see what they believed about Rick Joyner.

http://www.gaychurch.org/The_Word/Prophetic/red_vs_blue_states_and_prophecy.htm

I was shocked at their arms-length acceptance of Joyner and Bob Jones. Arms length — meaning that these people believe it is okay to be gay in Jesus’ eyes and that Joyner might be okay. In that community, this means that they really really really LIKE Rick Joyner. Strike one.

Then I thought: Well if these deceived people are okay with Joyner, how about the Mormons? Joyner is doing exactly what the Mormons did by questioning the veracity of the Word, with their “adding to the gospel” with revelations by demonic beings (by which the Mormons are saying that there is “something wrong” or “something insufficient” with the Bible) Joyner is conversing with angels, small “j” jesus, etc., just like Joseph Smith did in his abominations.

I found my answer from one of the nuttiest “prophets” of modern day Mormonism. This man prophesied that: the same spirit that raised up the Angel Moroni, of Nefti and Alma and Joseph Smith and Brigham Young also called forth Rick Joyner and his vision of the End Times in his book The Final Quest.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,465033465,00.html

I just about fell over. A demonic spirit was claiming Rick Joyner? And it became apparent to me as I googled that already many scholars had compared Joyner with Mormons. It started to click. Then I recalled that after I digested THE FINAL QUEST I purchased Joyner’sThere Were Two Trees In the Garden.  I could not understand anything Joyner was saying in that book.

However, some smart Pastor already figured it out the real motivations behind Joyner in his critique:

MANIFEST SONS OF SATAN

It is chilling to hear Joyner (in There Were Two Trees In The Garden) use words that apply to and are addressed to Satan and address them to believers. Isaiah reveals the awful pride and arrogance of Lucifer:

“I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the sides of the north. I will ascend the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Isa.14 13-14

To be like God was the delusion held out to Eve by the serpent in the garden. Yet, Joyner, after having addressed the prideful inclinations of Satan and the deception of Eve, without a blush says:

“Let us understand, the Lord wants us to ascend to heaven; He wants us to sit on the mount of the assembly; He wants us to be raised above the heights of the clouds, and He wants us to be like Him (to have His nature).”71

Here Joyner gives away his orientation toward Manifest Sons and Little God doctrines. Why was what was off-limits to the devil any less off-limits to us? Ezekiel 28 gives God’s answer to Lucifer — and the five “I wills” of Isaiah 14 are responded with the five “I wills” of God’s judgment for wanting to usurp the very throne of God and become like God.

DENIAL OF THE BODILY RESURRECTION OF JESUS

Joyner’s false teachings abound and multiply. It may be sloppy writing or unclear theology but it becomes even more serious as Joyner slips into teachings that would be welcome in a Kingdom Hall.

How should we view Jesus? We should view Him as the Bible does. John 2:21-22 and Luke 24:39 make it abundantly clear that Jesus arose in His physical body. The bodily resurrection is a foundational truth in the Christian faith. Jesus, as our mediator, exists in a glorified resurrected body. He is forever the God-man.

This truth of the two natures of Christ is called the hypostatic union and has always been defended by the Church. Christ exists in two natures, human and divine (Philippians 2:6-7).

Apparently, Joyner either denies this or simply does not understand it:

“There is a tendency to continue relating to Him as ‘the MAN from Galilee.’ Jesus is not a man. He was and is Spirit. He took the form of a servant and became a man for a brief time.”72

71. There Were Two Trees in the Garden, op. cit., pg. 54, italics in original.
72. Ibid., pg. 59, bold in original.
73. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1976, pg. 322.
74. There Were Two Trees in the Garden, op. cit., pg. 64, emphasis added.

Joyner couldn’t be clearer in his declaration: “Jesus is not a man. He was and is Spirit”. Joyner finds himself closely aligned with Gnosticism, one of the most threatening heresies of the early Church. More specifically, he is bordering on a form of Docetism, a view which denies Christ’s true humanity by saying that Christ only “appeared” to have a physical body. However, based on a multitude of Scriptures, Louis Berkhof summarizes the view of historical orthodoxy:

“The incarnation constituted Him a complex person, constituted of two natures. He is the God-man… the one divine person, who possessed a divine nature from eternity, assumed a human nature, and now has both.”73

Surely no true prophet of God would deny the human nature of Christ or that Jesus is in a resurrected glorified body. Paul reminds us in 1 Timothy 2:5, “There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” How can Joyner say, “Jesus is not a man”? If we accept Prophet Joyner, then we have eroded the doctrinal truths that separate Christianity from the cults.
http://www.pfo.org/r-joyner.htm

 

As shown, Joyner has a strangely simplistic view of the spiritual realm. It is almost like taking your understanding of ghosts and demonic possession from Hollywood movies. Or, how the Mormons misrepresent Jesus as being Satan’s brother, as if their idea didn’t shatter any notion of the Godhead or of Christian salvation.

By Joyner saying that “Jesus was and is Spirit” and just sorta slipped into an earthly body for a short stint on earth, then — with the same conviction — one could say that “when people are possessed, a demon just slips into that person’s body for a short time” -not unlike the ridiculously simple theology of a Hollywood ghost film. But there is more to the Trinity — and to possession — than Joyner’s GHOSTBUSTERS mentality.

A final objection to Joyner is this:

Why would any Christian teacher, any Christian author of importance, any preacher of any merit, or any Christian, period, go out of their way to pen such a distressingly obvious sentence: Jesus was and is Spirit? This is precisely what Jesus warned us to look for:

“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Anti-Christ, that denieth the Father and the Son.”

By saying that Jesus “was and is” Spirit, Joyner is denying there is a difference between the Father and the Son! The Father is Spirit, and the Son is the Pre-existent God Man*, the Word Made Flesh. Joyner has identified himself as Antichrist.

But Joyner may have thought he was getting around a more popular Bible definition of Anti-Christ here:

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

… because Joyner does say “Well, Jesus was in a body on earth for a while”, he would seem to avoid the Anti Christ label. But this plays on Christian ignorance of who Jesus is and WHY:

Instead, God the Word, in His grace, added to Himself human nature (Phil. 2:5-8] in order to bear our sins in His body on the cross (1 Pet. 2:24) so that He might become sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21).

Jesus preexisted with the Father as God-With-A-HUMAN-NATURE in order that mankind would be saved.

By Joyner saying Jesus was and is Spirit, we lose our salvation!

Still, Joyner had to know that his words could be construed in this manner. He is playing with “anti-Christ” fire. But why even bother opening this huge door for criticism?

That’s the head-scratcher on Joyner. Why write anything in this realm of “anti-Christ” at all? What would make Joyner so… blind?

The only answer is found in his own book THE FINAL QUEST about the Christians in “Pride” who got shot in the rear-end because they are too “proud” to admit there is no armor there. And it certainly explains Joyner’s false attack on Paul for Pride (Joyner is projecting his own sin upon the Apostle Paul.)

In the over-wordy and unreadable Gnosticism of Joyner’s book THERE WERE TWO TREES IN THE GARDEN, we find an entire landscape of Joyner’s own pride in his knowledge about religious things without Christian wisdom — the fear of the Lord. “Knowledge puffeth up” and Joyner has shot himself in his own rear end.

Joyner fails the Biblical test. He has shown that he dares, in his pride, to rewrite Scripture for his own reasons, something that God forbids anyone to do. He unwittingly has identified himself as Anti-Christ.

But, again, what is the motive here? If this is an Anti-Christ situation, what is happening? And why, besides trying to create a false doctrine for the false prophecies of his friends Bob Jones, Paul Cain, Chuck Pierce, C Peter Wagner, what is the specific motive behind it? So how does all the stuff about Mormons and Gay “Christians” claiming Joyner fit in?

This is the scary part. It is known that the Anti Christ one world governmental religion will be a totalitarian theocracy that kills Christians. Emma, the angel Bob Jones claims started the whole Kansas City Movement means: embracing everything…

Emma (really the name of a demon of Hell on Satanist’s websites named Emma O who inspires fear in anyone who does not believe in Satan!) Emma, the angel given by Bob Jones to Todd Bentley in 2000. Emma the angel who Bob Jones said started the Kansas City Movement/Toronto Blessing/Pensacola outpouring. Her name means “embracing everything”. Every religion. Every creed. Mormons, Catholics, Moslems, Protestants, Gay “Christians”.

Thus — the attack upon the Apostle Paul’s writings as the Word of God. If one can scissor Paul out of the Bible, you have a whole new group of “Gay Christians” that you can welcome into your “church”. Thus, the Mormon “prophet” that said the same God who wrote the Book of Mormon, the same Angel (demon) Moroni who brought it, is behind Rick Joyner’s THE FINAL QUEST. There are millions of Mormons now welcome into your Anti-Christ apostasy.

So what team is it that Joyner thinks true Christians are playing on in his coming Civil War in the Church in the Final Quest? Sounds like Satan’s own prophecy about the rift now of the Apostolic/Prophetic Kansas City Movement against people who know the word of God — even Charismatics who know and believe the Word of God over experience, signs and wonders and false prophecies of false prophets.

Finally, of course, Joyner, like Bill Hamon, mixes up Old Testament ideas and New Testament ideas — just like the Mormons do. The most terrible idea that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young had was that they could murder unbelievers in the name of Mormonism. (Their next Old Testament idea is of course, polygamy.) The Anti Christ will inspire his church to murder Christians, and believe they will be murdering people for Christ.

Rick Joyner is, to my knowledge, part owner of GODTV.