Saturday, February 18, 2017

COMPETING NEW WORLD ORDERS - PART 4



God’s Trumpet: Trump-Pence

  
          While the ideas of the Reconstructionists can be seen in the popular magazine, Christianity Today, the place to read the dominionist views in the Pentecostal/charismatic tradition is Charisma Magazine. In its October, 2016 issue, Charisma carried an article called, “Why I Believe Trump Is the Prophesied President,” by Lance Wallnau. The writer believed he received a word from God as he met with Trump in Trump Tower alongside ‘notables’ like Franklin Graham, Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, and David Jeremiah all of whom were invited to meet with Trump and pray over him. Wallnau says that God revealed to him at that time that Trump was His chosen anointed, Cyrus.

            King Cyrus was a Babylonian king in the Old Testament that God used to assist the Jews in returning to Israel to rebuild the Temple that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Though Cyrus was not a Jew but a Persian, God still used him to fulfill His will and he returned to the Jews the Temple treasury that had been looted. The prophet Isaiah prophesied of him:

“Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron. ” – Is 45:1

In October, 2016 Charisma’s publisher, Stephen Strang interviewed Wallnau about his ‘word from God’ that Trump was God’s chosen leader. The 20-minute tape was widely distributed to churches across America. Steve Shultz, the founder of The Elijah List, (an umbrella group created for the propagation of so-called words of knowledge and prophecies by today’s popular prophets, apostles, dreamers, and seers) sent it to his millions of subscribers to rally them to vote Trump. In his intro to the interview he wrote:

“The encounter Lance Wallnau had with God and the things FROM SCRIPTURE that God told Lance is nothing short of shocking…PLEASE go out and VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE. But this time... THIS TIME... you can vote according to the WISDOM God has given to you through Steve Strang (owner of Charisma Magazine) and Lance Wallnau. Ready? Hold on to your hat.” [e-mail dated Oct. 5, 2016, emphasis in original]

The link to the podcast on Charisma’s Podcast Network (https://www.charismapodcastnetwork.com/shows/strangreport/950eca02f9c9b5e7eaa9882caabd3e73 ) still contains the discussion. 

Wallnau convinced Strang that God told him that Trump was to fulfill in our day the same prophecies in Isaiah 45 that King Cyrus did on behalf of Israel thousands of years ago. Wallnau had seen a facebook picture of Trump shown as the 45th President of the United States, which he interpreted as confirmation of the Isaiah 45 prophecies that dealt specifically with King Cyrus who lived 3,000 years ago. 

Many other pastors and leaders grabbed ahold of this ‘word from God’ and built upon Wallnau’s testimony. Well-known prophecy teacher Perry Stone posted his numeric spin on the Cyrus anointed Trump on his Facebook page dated November 3, 2016: 

“Donald J. Trump was born June 14, 1946 and is presently 70 years of age as of June 14, 2017. Going forward 7 months would be January 14, 2016, and adding 7 days brings us to Jan 21st, which would be Trumps first full day in office if he were elected. He would begin his first full day one day after his official inauguration on Jan. 20th. These three sevens - 70 years, plus 7 months plus 7 days are three sevens - which may be linked, from a rabbinical perspective, to the Jewish year we are now in, 5,777.”

Messianic pastor, Curt Landry, took it even further in his blog post dated November 20, 2016. He restated the Isaiah 45 and Jewish year 5777 ideas without attribution as evidence that Trump is God’s anointed Cyrus and spoke of the prayer circle around Trump that Wallnau participated in:

“I personally believe that Donald Trump found God during the election process. When the pressure was getting to him, he placed an Evangelical circle around him who laid hands on him and prayed for him, and it is reported that he accepted Yeshua as Lord!... Donald Trump is open to the prophets and the prophetic word. There are good prophets of God surrounding him and speaking into his life…

“George Washington had a vision and a prophecy in 1777 about this season of time. So isn’t it interesting that just as Isaiah prophesied that there would be someone like Cyrus from Persia raised up for that season; George Washington referred to a season of time when God would raise up someone like Donald Trump.” [https://www.curtlandry.com/is-donald-j-trump-a-cyrus-or-a-nebuchadnezzar/# ]

Wallnau is the co-editor of a 2013 book, Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate, with Bill Johnson, the infamous pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, most notable for their ‘fire tunnels’ and a prayer room inside a pyramid structure. Wallnau defines them as: “The 7 Mountain Mandate, in which Christians seek to gain influence over the "mountains" of government, church, education, family, media, arts, and business…this can be done either overtly or covertly, as ‘infiltration.’” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQbGnJd9poc ]

He attributes the idea for the mandate to a conversation he had with Loren Cunningham (founder of Youth With a Mission {YWAM}) who had bounced the idea off of Bill Bright (founder of Campus Crusade for Christ), which evolved into the thesis for the book, which featured chapters from like-minded leaders including C. Peter Wagner, Ché Ahn, and Patricia King.

As already documented, the Post-millennial aspiration of the church taking global control over all earth’s institutions was the stated goal of the Reconstructionists in the mainline denominations. However, these ideas parallel the dreams and visions of so-called prophets that arose in the mid-twentieth century, from whom the charismaniacs got their inspiration. So it is hard to say which came first – the chicken or the egg.

Joel’s Army and the Coming Civil War

            Much has been written about the development of the “Latter Rain Movement” popularized in the 1940s-1950s by men such as William Branham and others in the big-tent “healing revivals” of that time. One of the best historical analyses of its development was written by Albert Dager, publisher of Media Spotlight, a quarterly that is still in print.

            “In the fall of 1946, a major teaching on fasting and prayer as a means to revival and the ‘restoration’ of the Church was spread throughout Pentecostalism. The principle textbook for this teaching was Franklin Hall’s, Atomic Power With God Through Fasting and Prayer. . . Hall’s book melded biblical concepts with occult methodology.” [Al Dager, Latter-Day Prophets, Media Spotlight Special Report)

            The Hall book is still available at Amazon. In its book preview, the original endorsements of two major names in healing revivals of that day demonstrate its impact of the time:

·         T. L. Osborn: “Brother Hall, we wanted you to know, we do appreciate your vision, and the tremendous way you have stirred the world with fasting and prayer. We are going to handle your books at our meetings.”

·         Gordon Lindsay: “We know of no writer whom God has so signally used to bring out Scriptural truth on fasting as Evangelist Franklin Hall. We feel that “Atomic Power with God” is the book of the hour for believers.

Others that said Hall’s book had a major influence in their ministries are Oral Roberts, A.A. Allen, O. L. Jaggers, and W. V. Grant. Yet did none of these men see the merger of the Bible with the occult? If they did, that didn’t seem to matter. Just the first chapter of the book says: 

“The writer shall endeavor to present a spiritual atomic power far greater than the physical force of all the atoms in the universe… In 1848 A.D. the Aquarian Age was introduced to the world. The era of invention began and the machine came into being.”

Dager quotes Hall’s book again making reference to astrology:

“In the zodiacal sign, ‘Scorpio,’ which is the eighth sign of the Zodiac, we have a picture of a scorpion with its stinger lifted ready to strike… Just before this sign in the heavens, there is a sign of the Judge, Jesus, who is the giver of LIFE. Jesus proceeds toward death and pulls the STING OUT OF DEATH. (Emphasis Hall’s)”

Dager records how anti-Trinitarian false teacher William Branham, took Hall’s book and added his own spin on it in 1948. The Latter Rain movement evolved into the teachings of “The Manifest Sons of God” popularized by John Robert Stevens, a cult leader in the 1970s of a group known as The Walk. The manifested sons played up Hall’s idea of the immortalization of believers who tap into this atomic power and then put it into an eschatological context. Dager lists the basic tenets of the Latter Rain that can be seen as foundational to many of today’s new apostles and prophets.

1.      The restoration of the offices of prophet and apostle in the last days;
2.      Perfection of the saints in stages leading to godhood;
3.      New apostles to rule Church under their covering;
4.      Signs and wonders would be wrought by them in a worldwide revival;
5.      Revival would result in the defeat of demonic spirits via prayer and fasting;
6.      Overcomers under apostle’s leadership will defeat death and become immortal;
7.      Church will become Christ on earth and rule the nations with a rod of iron.

The chain of groups that tapped into the ‘atomic power’ can be followed into the 1980s in the ‘ministries’ of the Vineyard churches and Fuller Seminary’s Church Growth Department in the School of World Missions. The late John Wimber headed up the former; Prof. C. Peter Wagner was the voice of the latter. The two teamed up to do a class called “Signs and Wonders” at Fuller, an apostate seminary that rejected biblical inerrancy in the 1960s.

Wimber had been an assistant pastor of Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel association of churches that arose during a true revival of the days of the hippies in Southern California. Wimber’s slogan was “doing the stuff,” as he developed formulas for reproducing healing results by studying true spiritual gifts that were present in that revival. He can be compared to Simon the Magician in the New Testament that was impressed by God’s power and wanted a piece of the action for his own selfish gain. Smith and Wimber went separate ways after dividing over whether the emphasis should be on the Bible or on the ‘power.” Wimber wrote several books on that atomic power, including “Power Evangelism” and “Power Healing.”

C. Peter Wagner, a church growth expert at Fuller, saw the potential in Wimber, a former producer of popular musical artists that included The Righteous Brothers. Their partnership at Fuller was very successful as their co-taught classes became the most popular ones in the catalogue among the students for many years. They furthered Franklin Hall’s ideas that through spiritual exercises, which included fasting and centering prayer, they could ‘do the stuff’ themselves by their own supposed authority. God was no longer the Healer; they were -- if they could just tap into the power.

Enter: Mike Bickle. At the same time the Vineyard movement was becoming popular under Wimber’s leadership, many so-called prophets were showing up at conferences and crusades. Names like Bill Hamon, Paul Cain, Bob Jones, and Rick Joyner would show up in ads in Charisma Magazine, promising to astound the crowds with revelation knowledge and testimonies of visions, dreams and disembodied heavenly voices. One of those voices inspired a young man, Mike Bickle, to launch a ministry to combine forces with the prophets “to touch the ends of the earth.” Kansas City Fellowship was born.

 “In 1986, the leaders of Kansas City Fellowship formed Grace Ministries, described as a ‘ministry team of men committed to seeing the church fully restored to the glory described in God’s Word.’” [Dager, Latter-Day Prophets]

Bickle’s para-church group became known as “The Kansas City Prophets.” They published a newsletter called “The Shepherd’s Rod” and when some of the ‘prophets’ were discovered to be living in immorality – not immortality – they invited John Wimber to be their ‘covering.’ Wimber and his associate Jack Deere provided some twisted doctrine for the false prophets in order to stop the mouths of those warning of their collective false prophecies. Wimber wrote articles claiming that New Testament prophets did not have to have the same 100% accuracy as required in Deuteronomy 18 for Old Testament prophets. He said that today’s prophets were like babies, needed to practice to get better at it, and were just “messy” like all babes.

            One of Bickle’s favorite ‘prophets’ was Bob Jones, a man that convinced women to disrobe for his sick pleasure by tacking a ‘thus saith the Lord’ onto his requests. Jones was considered to be a super-prophet that supposedly had instant access to the heavenlies at will.

            The Kansas City Prophets were thought to be a fulfillment of Hall and Branham’s Joel’s Army, the new breed.

            The KC prophets were seen as “the ‘new breed’ an elite group of believers endowed with supernatural power that would enable them to be a part of the army of dread warriors that God was said to be raising up in our generation. According to John Wimber, this is a type of ‘Joel’s Army’ who will overcome all opposition to the gospel and eventually subdue the nations. This teaching is part of what is known as ‘dominion theology,’ which teaches that an elite army of overcomers will either destroy or subdue all the enemies of Christ until they eventually gain power and authority throughout the world. The government of the nations will be upon their shoulders and when all the secular authorities, governments, princes and kings have finally submitted to them, Christ will return and they will present the kingdom to Him.” [Clifford Hill, ‘Kansas City Prophets, Prophecy Today Magazine, quoted from www.geocities.com/Bob_Hunter/8.htm]

                        The biggest obstacle standing in the way of these ‘prophets’ are those in the church that expose them for what they are. The new apostles/prophets refer to their critics in the church as the “old paradigm,” and they are the “new paradigm.” The discerning people are old wine skins; while they are the new wine. The old has to make way for the new, join up with them or be cast away and out of the limelight.

            “I believe that God is going to renovate the entire understanding of what Christianity is in the nations of the Earth,” said Bickle on a tape entitled, “Overview of Corporate Long Term Vision,” 1/5/86. “In twenty years there will be a totally different understanding of what Christianity is from what it is right now. . . I believe God is going to restore it and change it in the Earth in this generation.”

            Wimber cut ties with the Kansas City Fellowship when he could no longer defend their long stream of false prophecies given by poo-poo baby prophets. The same mantle was picked up by C. Peter Wagner who was seen as the leading apostle of those following the views of the Latter Rain. His new venture was named the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), and became an umbrella group for the movement. The false prophets had a new defender in Wagner and under the NAR banner they continued to operate alongside Word/Faith churches around the world.

            Renowned false prophet Rick Joyner, pastor of MorningStar Ministries, located in North Carolina on the grounds of the former PTL Club of Jim and Tammy Bakker, has written about a coming “Civil War” against all opposition to the “New Breed.” Charisma Magazine ran a cover story on Joyner in the April 2001 issue, called “God’s Lightning Rod.” It pointed out Joyner’s record of delivering prophecies that failed. Joyner responded angrily to the article in a letter to the editor. He said that God told him that now was the time for Matthew 13:41-42 to be fulfilled.

“The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

            Joyner says that God revealed to him that he is one of those angels and “this is a special assignment that is now being given to some who are about to arise.” He referred to his critics as “illegitimate authorities in the church who are in jeopardy of being stumbling blocks, which the Lord said was worse than not having been born.” He and other false prophets say that their critics will soon drop dead just like Ananias and Sapphira did when lying to the Apostle Peter in the fifth chapter of Acts. “The end-time spiritual seals unit will be an invincible band who lead the church in dominion on the earth,” said KC Prophet Paul Cain. “A purging of the wider church of those who will not follow the new order is necessary to constitute a unified global church.” [Quoted in an article by Orrel Steinkamp, “The Second Pentecost Leads to the World Church, March 2000]

            In the past ten years or so, the political aspirations of the NAR and their global agenda began to take center stage. They would latch onto Christian politicians such as Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin who would participate in their dominionist/political rallies or speak at their churches. They seemed to be looking for a political leader to carry their own mantle to take back America. If they failed, they would be forced to admit that all the ‘prophets’ of the past century were indeed speaking with forked tongues. Their very reputations were on the line.

            Washington D.C. became a favorite locale for their rallies. In November 2010, one such rally featuring an array of false prophets such as Rick Joyner, Bob Jones, Chuck Pierce, Dutch Sheets, Heidi Baker and representatives from ministries such as Bethel Church Redding and CBN, Pat Robertson’s ministry, gathered under the title: “The Shift; Can a Nation be Re-Born in a Day”?

            The promotional material for the event laid out the aims of these NAR affiliated speakers:

            “The Shift is a call to the Bride of Christ who solely contains the power of God to rescue the nation from the spirit of greed that is destroying our nation, and realign our country with her destiny course… History has witnessed the Ancient of Days who used His prophets to change entire nations overnight and turn captivity into triumph time and time again… Extraordinary economic miracles are ready to explode upon our nation as we gather around the Throne of God in holy assembly. New signs and wonders of unprecedented proportion will become the clear guideposts on the road to recovery.” 

            All efforts to find a political leader to head up the take-over of America for Christ seemed to fail until Donald J. Trump put his hat in the presidential ring. The NAR, like the other streams of Christendom, saw Trump as their long-awaited leader. Through one of their own, televangelist Paula White, NAR false prophets like Sammy Rodriguez and Lance Wallnau were invited to lay hands on Trump in prayer for his success. Trump no doubt is totally in the dark about their agenda, but he received them as religious names with big followings that could bring in the vote.

            The Trump fever has caught on with the rest of the Pentecostal/charismatic Americans. The Elijah List online TV network aired a recent church service on November 20, 2016 with Messianic Pastor Curt Landry, in which he had his large congregation stand and repeat a decree after him. A loud shofar was blown before and after the stated affirmation. I’ll end this section with a portion of that ‘prayer’ --

            “We agree with the decrees that Donald John Trump, president elect of the United States of America – we agree with his proclamations and we decree he is sent to the United States in 2016, biblical year 5777 as an anointed Cyrus. We receive him and we set him in place in Yeshua’s name. And we agree out of Zion and out of the courts of heaven that you would release new angels and Michael the archangel and the heavenly hosts of Israel around him his family and all his administration. We decree they are off limits to the attacks of the enemy. We cover them in the blood of Jesus. We thank you Lord. There is a wall of protection around their life and everywhere they go. Father, God, in the name of Jesus, we receive the Cyrus anointing into our life into our mountain. We touch and agree that this next 8 years be a season of prosperity, a season of great health, a season of revival and a wakening blast… and we as the one new man, as the inheritance of God decree and declare that President elect is a Cyrus, sent to the United States and to Israel and to the nations to bring alignment with God’s ways, to bust open the gates of iron. Father God, this 45th president will break open the gates of bronze. Father God, this Jubilee year, he will subdue the nations; he will loose the armor of kings; he will open the double doors so that the gates will not be shut. We as a nation will go before and make a way to make the crooked places straight again so other nations might align with the United States and not make war but that we would prosper. . . We release the key of David and the sure mercies of David over President-elect Donald John Trump... and we put a demand on the treasures of darkness and hidden riches in secret places, come forth now in Yeshua’s name. We decree in the courts of heaven that the transfer of wealth with the Cyrus anointing (King Midas?) sitting in the highest place in the land, that the economy… will recover, with exponential growth, witty inventions, and Cyrus will prosper and the remnant of God, following God’s ways will prosper for God’s kingdom, in Jesus’ name. Father God, we seal it in Yeshua’s name…”

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