Marsha West
Gladiator-style takedown of demonic forces, Part 2
By Marsha West
It really doesn't matter whether or not people believe in angels and demons. And it doesn't matter if skeptics think those who do are wingnuts . The fact remains that a large number of educated, intelligent people believe in supernatural beings such as angels, demons, spirit guides, fairies, ghosts, poltergeists and whatnot.
It's no secret that Christians believe in angels and demons. Sadly, for many Christians battling demons has taken center stage. For example, the Spiritual Warfare movement (SWM) spends an inordinate amount of time dueling with demons. Google "spiritual warfare" and one of the first sites on the list is demonbusters.com which is one of many deliverance ministries. Following are a few spiritual warfare prayers the site recommends:
When entering your office, grocery store, anyone else's home, etc., pray this before entering:
In Jesus name, I cover myself and this place with the blood of Jesus. I bind up every demon in here, and I ask for giant warrior angels to protect me.
And,
After hanging up the phone, leaving work, grocery store, neighbors, or visitors leave your home, etc. pray this immediately:
In Jesus name, I command every demon that has followed me, was sent to me, or transferred to me, to leave now.
Lastly,
Any sharp pain that comes on you suddenly is almost always witchcraft. When this happens, pray this immediately as you use your index finger and thumb on the spot of the pain, like you were pulling out a voodoo pin:
In Jesus name, I pull out all fiery darts, pins, needles, spears, voodoo, all witchcraft and curses and anything else, and I return it to the sender, one hundredfold. (Then motion with your hand towards a window or door like you were throwing it out.) If it is witchcraft, the pain will go immediately. This is a highly effective Spiritual Weapon.
Why not just hold a rabbit's foot with your right hand, stand on your left foot, circle the rabbit's foot around your head 3 times and holler at the top of your voice, "DEPART MEAN EVIL SPIRIT!"
In Part 1 I promised to expose some of the false teachers who invented spiritual warfare prayer, so here goes. To recap, Kingdom Theology and deliverance/spiritual warfare prayer stem from the New Apostolic Reformation/Dominionists (NAR/DOM). NAR/DOM's leaders are highly suspect individuals. Even so, they have managed to weasel their way into high places through their involvement in politics. As a result they have credibility and a lot of clout.
I urge believers and nonbelievers alike to familiarize yourselves with the NAR/DOM because they have managed to mainstream themselves into the pro-family movement aka the Christian (religious) Right (CR). One quick example is "apostle" Rick Joyner who heads the Oak Initiative (OI), a "social justice movement" that is doing political action work with the CR. The OI is a member of the CR's "supergroup" known as The Freedom Federation. The "basic strategy of The Oak Initiative [is] to be a grassroots movement to find and help develop principled and effective Christian leaders who can mobilize and organize a cohesive force of activated Christians."
For a couple of decades Sarah Leslie of Discernment Ministries has been reporting on the NAR, which has gone by many different names over the years such as Latter Rain, Manifest Sons of God, Kingdom Now, and most recently the New Apostolic Reformation. According to Sarah,
"The NAR leaders are jumping on the bandwagon political Right issues, which neutralizes much of their potential opposition because people then are fooled into thinking that they are conservative Right. But they have a whole other agenda. They are a cult that descended from the old Latter Rain cult, and as such they have aberrant beliefs that make them very volatile political bedfellows. Cults don't accommodate pluralism and freedom, especially not religious freedom. They simply want to impose their view on society and turn it into binding law." (Used by permission)
The person we have to thank for the SWM/NAR is the "Super Apostle" of the International Coalition of Apostles (ICoA), C. Peter Wagner. This demon-battling gladiator has done enormous damage to the cause of Christ. He and his "apostles" and "prophets" have made a mockery of the good news of the gospel and are spreading a false gospel. A few of Wagner's fellow gladiators are: Cindy Jacobs, Chuck Pierce, Rick Joyner, Lance Wallnau (7-mountains), Lou Engle (TheCall), Samuel Rodriguez, Che Ahn, John and Carol Arnott, Bill Johnson, Dutch Sheets, Todd Bentley, Mike Bickle (IHOP), Patricia King, and Kim Clement. Remember their names. Flee from them!
These people are theological revisionists. All of them claim they're receiving "new revelation" from Almighty God. "We can hear God's voice," proclaims Peter Wagner. "He also reveals new things to prophets as we have seen."
"We" means modern-day prophets!
Wagner outright rejects the completeness of Scripture. How else can he tempt people into shunning historic orthodox Christianity but to dazzle them with "now" revelation? He knows perfectly well his belief that "super apostles" are coming to lay a new foundation is unorthodox. Moreover it's just plain fiction. Let me stress that there is no "new revelation" that can replace the revelations of Jesus and the legitimate New Testament apostles.
Contrary to God's truth, the NAR/DOM presents a man inspired fairy tale. For example, disciples are taught that God is pouring out "new wine." Why is God doing this? This is a humdinger.... the old wineskins (Scripture) must be replaced with new wineskins (new revelation). That way they can declare that every prophecy uttered by one of their self-proclaimed prophets supersedes Scripture. How convenient!
Take a moment to mull over in your mind the fact that for two centuries tens of thousands of followers of Jesus Christ have been persecuted and murdered in the most monstrous ways imaginable because they understood God's commanded to "earnestly contend for the faith (purity of the good news) which was once (not to be done again; nothing to be added to it) delivered unto to the saints." (Jude 1:3) (emphasis added)
That said, the old wine isn't intoxicating enough for these deceivers. They demand more, more, more of the Holy Ghost through supernatural experiences. They are intent on "experiencing God" even if it means becoming involved in "Christian spiritism" and all sorts of other occult pagan practices forbidden by God.
A big fad in some Pentecostal and Charismatic churches is getting "drunk on the Spirit" and for that you need the "Holy Ghost bartender" that serves up "new wine."
But even worse, false teachers are pushing the blasphemous practice of "toking the Ghost" which one Ghost toking pusher alleges "doesn't disturb the Holy Spirit."
Really?
Speaking of false teachers, Emerging Church leader Brian McLaren believes that the Church must change with the culture and the times. The way he sees it, what the Church desperately needs is a "new paradigm," "A New Kind of Christian." Christian apologist Sandy Simpson warns that the "emerging new heretics" are willing to make this happen "using fabrication, exaggeration, disinformation, misrepresentation, vilification, prevarication and even falsification to achieve a complete brainwash in their followers." (Online source)
Peter Wagner also believes the Church must change. Only his idea of a new paradigm differs from McLaren's. John F. Hart, Professor of Bible, Moody Bible Institute, explains it thusly:
Traditionally, Evangelicals have argued that experience and ministry ought to flow out of theology and Scripture. Wagner offers us a paradigm shift: theology must flow out of ministry (à la experience in exorcisms and healings)! Correspondingly, emphasis is placed on subjective experience over the objective Word of God. Personal experience becomes the verifiable proof of new doctrines about the spirit world. Theology is defined as "a human attempt to explain God's Word and God's works in a reasonable and systematic way." (Online source)
In a piece titled C. Peter Wagner's "theology" Herescope sheds light on the man behind the NAR/DOM curtain:
He has opened traditional orthodoxy to new words, new understandings, new doctrines, new practices, new eschatologies, and new gospels. For example, in his 1988 book The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit Wagner admits that he obtained his doctrines about spiritual warfare from extra-biblical sources outside of the Canon of Scripture. He cites the apocryphal Acts of Peter where he says there were highly vivid descriptions of "a spiritual 'shootout'" and "confrontational theatrics" in the forum, and the apocryphal Acts of John where there was a "power encounter... in the temple of the goddess Artemis" resulting in it splitting in pieces "and half of the whole temple" falling down. (pp. 80-81). He says that including such extra-biblical supernatural stories can be "used to bring people to conversion to Christianity."
Wagner has been at the helm of strategic level spiritual warfare since the 1990's. One of his Bible shredding cohorts, Cindy Jacobs, always seems to be drunk on the "new wine" as she utters false prophesies. Ironically this poor misguided woman "prophesies" without the foggiest notion that her utterances most likely come, not from the Holy Spirit, but from demonic spirits.
Many in the NAR/DOM are clueless that their leaders hold that the enemies of God must be conquered and ruled over by self-appointed "super-apostles and prophets" associated with Wagner's ICoA. "Dominion has to do with control," says Peter Wagner. "Dominion has to do with rulership. Dominion has to do with authority and subduing and it relates to society. In other words, what the values are in Heaven need to be made manifest here on earth. Dominion means being the head and not the tail. Dominion means ruling as kings. It says in Revelation Chapter 1:6 that He has made us kings and priests — and check the rest of that verse; it says for dominion. So we are kings for dominion." (There's not enough space to explain the orthodox view of Rev. 1:6, so read Matthew Henry's commentary here.)
Now listen to what "Apostle" Rick Joyner said on July 19, 2007:
The kingdom of God will not be socialism, but a freedom even greater than anyone on earth knows at this time. At first it may seem like totalitarianism, as the Lord will destroy the antichrist spirit now dominating the world with "the sword of His mouth" and will shatter many nations like pottery. However, fundamental to His rule is II Corinthians 3:17, "Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Instead of taking away liberties and becoming more domineering, the kingdom will move from a point of necessary control while people are learning truth, integrity, honor, and how to make decisions, to increasing liberty so that they can. (emphasis in original) (Online source)
Here Joyner takes us from "necessary control" over people's lives to eventually giving them liberty — but only after they've been sufficiently brainwashed into the beliefs of the neo apostles and prophets who, by the way, are the "kings" over the Kingdom they've established here on earth.
The obvious question is will neo apostles and prophets set up the Kingdom of God on earth by using force which would include killing those who rebel against their authority?
Following is excerpted from The Destiny of Enforcing a Kingdom:
THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND APOSTOLIC GOVERNMENT — We serve a King who is advancing a Kingdom. The King has chosen to position His Kingdom within humankind. He sends those who have His Kingdom within them into every aspect of society's culture. The Kingdom of God is here now! The seven mountains of society are meant to be influenced and dominated by the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom has Jesus Christ as the cornerstone and apostles properly related to prophets' form the foundation of the Kingdom. Apostles create and execute God's prototype plan in the earth and through each nation of the earth until there is a house of prayer built for every people group. Jesus taught us to pray that God's Kingdom would come to earth as it is in heaven....
SPIRITUAL WARFARE — Because we represent a Kingdom, we are at war to enforce Kingdom principles and plans in the earth. We are at war and must be equipped to stand against the enemy. Accomplishing God's purposes on earth is not without opposition. . . . [emphasis added]
THE COMMISSION TO DISCIPLE and HEAL NATIONS — From the beginning of God's covenant with Abraham, His plan was to bless all the nations. One of the purposes of the nation of Israel was to show the other nations how they could relate to God. They were to live in such a way that the glory of the Lord would be on them and Gentiles would be drawn to them (Is. 60). His House was to be a joyful House of Prayer for all the nations (Is. 56:6-7). When the Jews rejected Jesus, they missed fulfilling this portion of their destiny.... Jesus sent His disciples out to fulfill this promise and commanded them to disciple the nations — helping whole nations to be disciples of the Lord. From generation to generation, the Lord develops His Church to disciple the nations until the fullness of His plan has been completed and all nations have been restored.
In closing, it is important to understand that the NAR/DOM's agenda. Their intent is to take "dominion" over societal institutions and government...and then they will take over the kingdoms of this world and build a literal Kingdom of God on earth. Peter Wagner boasts:
Once we have the apostles in place we will then bring the intercessors and the prophets into the inner circle, and we will end up with the spiritual core we need to move ahead for retaking the dominion that is rightfully ours.
HELPFUL INFORMATION
To learn more about conservative Christian groups that have united with the NAR/DOM as a way of furthering their political agenda, read my article titled Christian leaders: It's about time you test false teachers.
Articles on the NAR — On Solid Rock Resources
Articles on Televangelists/Word-faith teachers — On Solid Rock Resources
Articles on Angels — On Solid Rock Resources
Scriptures on angels from Sola Scriptura Project website
© Marsha West
January 19, 2012
It really doesn't matter whether or not people believe in angels and demons. And it doesn't matter if skeptics think those who do are wingnuts . The fact remains that a large number of educated, intelligent people believe in supernatural beings such as angels, demons, spirit guides, fairies, ghosts, poltergeists and whatnot.
It's no secret that Christians believe in angels and demons. Sadly, for many Christians battling demons has taken center stage. For example, the Spiritual Warfare movement (SWM) spends an inordinate amount of time dueling with demons. Google "spiritual warfare" and one of the first sites on the list is demonbusters.com which is one of many deliverance ministries. Following are a few spiritual warfare prayers the site recommends:
When entering your office, grocery store, anyone else's home, etc., pray this before entering:
In Jesus name, I cover myself and this place with the blood of Jesus. I bind up every demon in here, and I ask for giant warrior angels to protect me.
And,
After hanging up the phone, leaving work, grocery store, neighbors, or visitors leave your home, etc. pray this immediately:
In Jesus name, I command every demon that has followed me, was sent to me, or transferred to me, to leave now.
Lastly,
Any sharp pain that comes on you suddenly is almost always witchcraft. When this happens, pray this immediately as you use your index finger and thumb on the spot of the pain, like you were pulling out a voodoo pin:
In Jesus name, I pull out all fiery darts, pins, needles, spears, voodoo, all witchcraft and curses and anything else, and I return it to the sender, one hundredfold. (Then motion with your hand towards a window or door like you were throwing it out.) If it is witchcraft, the pain will go immediately. This is a highly effective Spiritual Weapon.
Why not just hold a rabbit's foot with your right hand, stand on your left foot, circle the rabbit's foot around your head 3 times and holler at the top of your voice, "DEPART MEAN EVIL SPIRIT!"
In Part 1 I promised to expose some of the false teachers who invented spiritual warfare prayer, so here goes. To recap, Kingdom Theology and deliverance/spiritual warfare prayer stem from the New Apostolic Reformation/Dominionists (NAR/DOM). NAR/DOM's leaders are highly suspect individuals. Even so, they have managed to weasel their way into high places through their involvement in politics. As a result they have credibility and a lot of clout.
I urge believers and nonbelievers alike to familiarize yourselves with the NAR/DOM because they have managed to mainstream themselves into the pro-family movement aka the Christian (religious) Right (CR). One quick example is "apostle" Rick Joyner who heads the Oak Initiative (OI), a "social justice movement" that is doing political action work with the CR. The OI is a member of the CR's "supergroup" known as The Freedom Federation. The "basic strategy of The Oak Initiative [is] to be a grassroots movement to find and help develop principled and effective Christian leaders who can mobilize and organize a cohesive force of activated Christians."
For a couple of decades Sarah Leslie of Discernment Ministries has been reporting on the NAR, which has gone by many different names over the years such as Latter Rain, Manifest Sons of God, Kingdom Now, and most recently the New Apostolic Reformation. According to Sarah,
"The NAR leaders are jumping on the bandwagon political Right issues, which neutralizes much of their potential opposition because people then are fooled into thinking that they are conservative Right. But they have a whole other agenda. They are a cult that descended from the old Latter Rain cult, and as such they have aberrant beliefs that make them very volatile political bedfellows. Cults don't accommodate pluralism and freedom, especially not religious freedom. They simply want to impose their view on society and turn it into binding law." (Used by permission)
The person we have to thank for the SWM/NAR is the "Super Apostle" of the International Coalition of Apostles (ICoA), C. Peter Wagner. This demon-battling gladiator has done enormous damage to the cause of Christ. He and his "apostles" and "prophets" have made a mockery of the good news of the gospel and are spreading a false gospel. A few of Wagner's fellow gladiators are: Cindy Jacobs, Chuck Pierce, Rick Joyner, Lance Wallnau (7-mountains), Lou Engle (TheCall), Samuel Rodriguez, Che Ahn, John and Carol Arnott, Bill Johnson, Dutch Sheets, Todd Bentley, Mike Bickle (IHOP), Patricia King, and Kim Clement. Remember their names. Flee from them!
These people are theological revisionists. All of them claim they're receiving "new revelation" from Almighty God. "We can hear God's voice," proclaims Peter Wagner. "He also reveals new things to prophets as we have seen."
"We" means modern-day prophets!
Wagner outright rejects the completeness of Scripture. How else can he tempt people into shunning historic orthodox Christianity but to dazzle them with "now" revelation? He knows perfectly well his belief that "super apostles" are coming to lay a new foundation is unorthodox. Moreover it's just plain fiction. Let me stress that there is no "new revelation" that can replace the revelations of Jesus and the legitimate New Testament apostles.
Contrary to God's truth, the NAR/DOM presents a man inspired fairy tale. For example, disciples are taught that God is pouring out "new wine." Why is God doing this? This is a humdinger.... the old wineskins (Scripture) must be replaced with new wineskins (new revelation). That way they can declare that every prophecy uttered by one of their self-proclaimed prophets supersedes Scripture. How convenient!
Take a moment to mull over in your mind the fact that for two centuries tens of thousands of followers of Jesus Christ have been persecuted and murdered in the most monstrous ways imaginable because they understood God's commanded to "earnestly contend for the faith (purity of the good news) which was once (not to be done again; nothing to be added to it) delivered unto to the saints." (Jude 1:3) (emphasis added)
That said, the old wine isn't intoxicating enough for these deceivers. They demand more, more, more of the Holy Ghost through supernatural experiences. They are intent on "experiencing God" even if it means becoming involved in "Christian spiritism" and all sorts of other occult pagan practices forbidden by God.
A big fad in some Pentecostal and Charismatic churches is getting "drunk on the Spirit" and for that you need the "Holy Ghost bartender" that serves up "new wine."
But even worse, false teachers are pushing the blasphemous practice of "toking the Ghost" which one Ghost toking pusher alleges "doesn't disturb the Holy Spirit."
Really?
Speaking of false teachers, Emerging Church leader Brian McLaren believes that the Church must change with the culture and the times. The way he sees it, what the Church desperately needs is a "new paradigm," "A New Kind of Christian." Christian apologist Sandy Simpson warns that the "emerging new heretics" are willing to make this happen "using fabrication, exaggeration, disinformation, misrepresentation, vilification, prevarication and even falsification to achieve a complete brainwash in their followers." (Online source)
Peter Wagner also believes the Church must change. Only his idea of a new paradigm differs from McLaren's. John F. Hart, Professor of Bible, Moody Bible Institute, explains it thusly:
Traditionally, Evangelicals have argued that experience and ministry ought to flow out of theology and Scripture. Wagner offers us a paradigm shift: theology must flow out of ministry (à la experience in exorcisms and healings)! Correspondingly, emphasis is placed on subjective experience over the objective Word of God. Personal experience becomes the verifiable proof of new doctrines about the spirit world. Theology is defined as "a human attempt to explain God's Word and God's works in a reasonable and systematic way." (Online source)
In a piece titled C. Peter Wagner's "theology" Herescope sheds light on the man behind the NAR/DOM curtain:
He has opened traditional orthodoxy to new words, new understandings, new doctrines, new practices, new eschatologies, and new gospels. For example, in his 1988 book The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit Wagner admits that he obtained his doctrines about spiritual warfare from extra-biblical sources outside of the Canon of Scripture. He cites the apocryphal Acts of Peter where he says there were highly vivid descriptions of "a spiritual 'shootout'" and "confrontational theatrics" in the forum, and the apocryphal Acts of John where there was a "power encounter... in the temple of the goddess Artemis" resulting in it splitting in pieces "and half of the whole temple" falling down. (pp. 80-81). He says that including such extra-biblical supernatural stories can be "used to bring people to conversion to Christianity."
Wagner has been at the helm of strategic level spiritual warfare since the 1990's. One of his Bible shredding cohorts, Cindy Jacobs, always seems to be drunk on the "new wine" as she utters false prophesies. Ironically this poor misguided woman "prophesies" without the foggiest notion that her utterances most likely come, not from the Holy Spirit, but from demonic spirits.
Many in the NAR/DOM are clueless that their leaders hold that the enemies of God must be conquered and ruled over by self-appointed "super-apostles and prophets" associated with Wagner's ICoA. "Dominion has to do with control," says Peter Wagner. "Dominion has to do with rulership. Dominion has to do with authority and subduing and it relates to society. In other words, what the values are in Heaven need to be made manifest here on earth. Dominion means being the head and not the tail. Dominion means ruling as kings. It says in Revelation Chapter 1:6 that He has made us kings and priests — and check the rest of that verse; it says for dominion. So we are kings for dominion." (There's not enough space to explain the orthodox view of Rev. 1:6, so read Matthew Henry's commentary here.)
Now listen to what "Apostle" Rick Joyner said on July 19, 2007:
The kingdom of God will not be socialism, but a freedom even greater than anyone on earth knows at this time. At first it may seem like totalitarianism, as the Lord will destroy the antichrist spirit now dominating the world with "the sword of His mouth" and will shatter many nations like pottery. However, fundamental to His rule is II Corinthians 3:17, "Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Instead of taking away liberties and becoming more domineering, the kingdom will move from a point of necessary control while people are learning truth, integrity, honor, and how to make decisions, to increasing liberty so that they can. (emphasis in original) (Online source)
Here Joyner takes us from "necessary control" over people's lives to eventually giving them liberty — but only after they've been sufficiently brainwashed into the beliefs of the neo apostles and prophets who, by the way, are the "kings" over the Kingdom they've established here on earth.
The obvious question is will neo apostles and prophets set up the Kingdom of God on earth by using force which would include killing those who rebel against their authority?
Following is excerpted from The Destiny of Enforcing a Kingdom:
THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND APOSTOLIC GOVERNMENT — We serve a King who is advancing a Kingdom. The King has chosen to position His Kingdom within humankind. He sends those who have His Kingdom within them into every aspect of society's culture. The Kingdom of God is here now! The seven mountains of society are meant to be influenced and dominated by the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom has Jesus Christ as the cornerstone and apostles properly related to prophets' form the foundation of the Kingdom. Apostles create and execute God's prototype plan in the earth and through each nation of the earth until there is a house of prayer built for every people group. Jesus taught us to pray that God's Kingdom would come to earth as it is in heaven....
SPIRITUAL WARFARE — Because we represent a Kingdom, we are at war to enforce Kingdom principles and plans in the earth. We are at war and must be equipped to stand against the enemy. Accomplishing God's purposes on earth is not without opposition. . . . [emphasis added]
THE COMMISSION TO DISCIPLE and HEAL NATIONS — From the beginning of God's covenant with Abraham, His plan was to bless all the nations. One of the purposes of the nation of Israel was to show the other nations how they could relate to God. They were to live in such a way that the glory of the Lord would be on them and Gentiles would be drawn to them (Is. 60). His House was to be a joyful House of Prayer for all the nations (Is. 56:6-7). When the Jews rejected Jesus, they missed fulfilling this portion of their destiny.... Jesus sent His disciples out to fulfill this promise and commanded them to disciple the nations — helping whole nations to be disciples of the Lord. From generation to generation, the Lord develops His Church to disciple the nations until the fullness of His plan has been completed and all nations have been restored.
In closing, it is important to understand that the NAR/DOM's agenda. Their intent is to take "dominion" over societal institutions and government...and then they will take over the kingdoms of this world and build a literal Kingdom of God on earth. Peter Wagner boasts:
Once we have the apostles in place we will then bring the intercessors and the prophets into the inner circle, and we will end up with the spiritual core we need to move ahead for retaking the dominion that is rightfully ours.
HELPFUL INFORMATION
To learn more about conservative Christian groups that have united with the NAR/DOM as a way of furthering their political agenda, read my article titled Christian leaders: It's about time you test false teachers.
Articles on the NAR — On Solid Rock Resources
Articles on Televangelists/Word-faith teachers — On Solid Rock Resources
Articles on Angels — On Solid Rock Resources
Scriptures on angels from Sola Scriptura Project website
© Marsha West
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
