HERESCOPE: PASSION OF THE PRESENCE & PURPOSE OF THE PASSION~NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION & INTERNATIONAL HOUSE OF PRAYER

We are republishing a six part post from Herescope at:
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-passion-of-presence.html, below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes; endnotes are not included,
but are listed after each of the six parts on Herescope's website.

The Passion of the Presence & 

the Purpose of the Passion 

Part 1 of 6:

Exhibit 1: IHOP's One Thing Conference 2013*

 I went to a John Wimber workshop…. He said he sees the next 20 to 30 years as the time when more signs and wonders will be done than ever in history and when the secular media will be overwhelmed and have to report it every day as great revival spreads. 
– John Piper[1]

Now we come full circle to Francis Chan’s appearance along with the aforementioned Jesus Culture at the International House of Prayer (IHOP) Young Adult Conference 2013 One Thing, which just wrapped up Tuesday, December 31st…. In my opinion IHOP is using Francis Chan’s comments at One Thing as propaganda in order to borrow Chan’s credibility within the wider evangelical community and promote their leader Mike Bickle. How foolish of Francis Chan to just gush enthusiastically: 

"I go, man, there’s a lot of great things going on [at IHOP].
And today was the first time I ever met Mike Bickle.
And, I love that guy. I do.
...there’s people who told me not to hang out with him. 

"Like, you know, words like “creepy” came up.
And yet, I get to know this guy and I’m going,
“Man, I love his heart.
And I just want to publicly say I love Mike Bickle.
(0:18-0:50)[2]

The children are the best of all the generations that have ever been upon the face of the earth.... those ELECTED SEEDS that will glorify Christ in the last days... they will move into things of the supernatural that no one has ever been in the Bible - They'll move in it consistently… they themselves will be that generation that's raised up to put death itself underneath their feet… a church that has reached the full maturity of the god-man! 
– Mike Bickle & Bob Jones[3]

IHOP In An Era of Celebrity-Driven Christianity 
Evangelical leaders are currently rushing to associate themselves with major youth events that are becoming increasingly popular in the Christian world. These mass youth rallies were developed over the course of several decades by Mike Bickle’s IHOP (International House of Prayer) movement, which is interconnected to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). IHOP and the NAR share both personnel and doctrine, with roots that go back into the Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God cult.[4] Previously we have extensively documented the history of the camaraderie of IHOP and NAR.[5] 

This rapidly rising youth movement in evangelicaldom is characterized by its emphasis on generating fervent passion. Why are evangelical leaders rushing onto this bandwagon? Why are Francis Chan, John Piper, Matt Chandler and other prominent teachers placing themselves on center stage (literally) of these IHOP-orchestrated mass rallies?[6]Superficially, one might assume that it is merely for the immediate stardom and pizzazz that comes with such celebrity status in a youth event rocking with fervor, bright lighting, and loud acclamations.[7]What an ego trip! But is it conceivable that these leaders also happen to agree with some of the IHOP doctrine? After all, it is impossible to separate the activities at these youth events without encountering the foundational beliefs that give rise to them.

Exhibit 2: Francis Chan with Mike Bickle at One Thing 2013

Of course, it can be argued that just because an esteemed evangelical leader shares the stage with adherents and promoters of these IHOP/NAR doctrines doesn’t mean he/she agrees with their teaching. However, it is important to note that an evangelical leader’s very appearance at these events lends legitimacy and credibility to this movement – a movement that has been aggressively attempting to distance itself from its former cult status, remake its image and become respectable.

The doctrine of the IHOP believes that these mass youth stadium rallies are for the “purpose” of invoking the “presence” of God through generated “passion.” These three terms – passion, presenceand purpose – are derived from some very strange esoteric doctrines that originated in the Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God cult.

“Presence” is popular. Recently Warren Smith published a book in which he made us aware of an increasingly popular belief that Christians can invoke the “presence” of “God” (or “Jesus”) by their contemplative activities.[8] But there is another practice of “presence” that is taking the evangelical world by storm. In the IHOP/NAR the passionate invocation of the “presence” (which they call the “Spirit”) isn’t just done via contemplative meditation. They believe that the “presence” is achieved via the elaborate staging of flashy lighting, noisy music and hypnotic manipulations in the context of what they call “worship.” The clear intent is to create an altered state of consciousness – a spiritual/emotive state in which the participant is susceptible to heretical suggestions, “feels” closer to God, and learns that he/she may even become a god.[9] Thus their “passion” is believed to invoke the “presence” of God.

[Ed. Note: Pastor Larry DeBruyn has written a solid theological apologetic for the biblical concept of “presence” which refutes all of these heresies.[10] His article is of great assistance to those who are confused by these popular “presence” teachings.]

Exhibit 3: A TOD event advertised on TheElijahList

Invoking God’s “Presence” via “David’s Tabernacle” 
A recently published article, “Love and Death In the House of Prayer,” explains IHOP’s history and beliefs, and describes their “passionate” form of worship:

At IHOP's frequent, frenetic conferences, attendees learn that they are "in the early days of the generation in which Jesus returns," as IHOP founder Mike Bickle puts it…. 

In 1983, Bickle says, God instructed him to "establish 24-hour prayer in the spirit of the tabernacle of David." The tabernacle was the tent erected by King David to house the Ark of the Covenant after the conquest of Jerusalem; it became a dwelling place of God and a site of ecstatic worship…. 

Bickle believes that unceasing, euphoric worship and songat IHOP and in prayer rooms across the globe, which should never close or be empty, will promote passionate intimacywith the Lord, revive the church and demolish demonic strongholds. And so IHOPers pray all day and night, through blizzards and blackouts, in hours-long sessions of mesmeric, musical worship, repeating the same phrases over and over, expecting to precipitate the Great Tribulation and the final battle between good and evil that precedes the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. 

This is IHOP's most alluring tenet: God needs IHOPers to effect the Tribulation and bring Christ back to Earth. "The church causes the Great Tribulation," Bickle has preached. Before founding IHOP, he argued that "God intends us to be like gods. God has conceived in his heart of a plan to make a race of men that would live like gods on Earth." …At IHOP, where prophetic experiences are endemic, the mortal and divine commingle liberally. 

The vanguard of God's End Times army, according to Bickle, will be made up of young people, or "forerunners," seersspecially attuned to the will of the Lord, "the best of all the generations that have ever been seen on the face of the Earth."[11] For seven years of Tribulation, they will battle the Antichrist…. 

IHOP is not the only charismatic movement in America to adopt this theology of aggressive prayer. A constellation of ministries shares its vision. Together, they make up what has been called the New Apostolic Reformation, a decades-old rebellion against traditional Christianity that counts millions of adherents worldwide; it has become such a force in evangelical America that Texas Gov. Rick Perry hosted an NAR prayer rally in Houston for his 2012 presidential campaign. As prayer rooms are established in ever more locations, according to NAR, the "seven mountains of culture" – government, business, family, educational systems, the media, arts and religion – will fall under its influence. [12] [emphases added] 

This allegorical “Tabernacle of David” (TOD), said to be the “dwelling place of God” by Bickle, is the key to understanding the rationale for these frenzied mass youth rallies.

30 years ago (in 1983) God spoke to [Bickle] to do 24 hour prayer with worship in the Spirit of the Tabernacle of David. For 16 years this word hung on their wall until they actually began to do it in 1999.[13][emphasis added] 

In 2002 Dr. Orrel Steinkamp authored a key paper on “The Restoration of Davidic Warfare/Worship,” which exposed Bickle’s beliefs.[11] Dr. Steinkamp explained how Bickle’s TOD teaching had its roots in the old Latter Rain cult:

The Tabernacle of David (TOD) teaching is not new at all but was clearly a part of the restoration scheme of Latter Rain teachers. George Warnock, writing during the hey day of the Latter Rain (early 50's), often referred to the Tabernacle of David. It was in the mid 60's however, that Latter-Rain restoration teachers… began to flesh out TOD teaching. [15][emphasis added] 

The TOD teaching is based, in part, on a faulty hermeneutic of Acts 15:16 and Amos 9:11. According to Dr. Steinkamp, “Those promoting the restoration of Davidic Worship/Warfare base everything on the assertion that this refers to the form of worship that was employed in David's tabernacle.”[16] In this Latter Rain cult teaching they believe that their TOD worship can manipulate power in the heavenlies:

Worship is taught as something which actually accomplishes something in the spirit world and is linked to prophetic revelation and spiritual warfare…. [They] are proclaiming that God is restoring to the overcoming end time church forms of worship that purportedly occurred in David's tabernacle.[17][emphasis added] 

Music is an essential component of this Tabernacle of David worship system. Mike Bickle of IHOP has written that “one key aspect of God’s kingdom being expressed on earth as it is in heaven will be in the realm of anointed music and singing.”[18] Another writer explains more of the theological construct:

“...Bible teachers of our day… have discovered God's anointed plan to restore the Tabernacle of David, which is theperfect pattern of praise and worship all New Testament believers are to follow. The restoration of the pattern of praise and worship that once prevailed in King David's day willrelease a prophetic stream of praise in our day that willenergize the church with new power and demolish the works of Satan. Believers will approach God in new ways such as singing in tongues to activate revelations, prophesying in song, dancing rhythmically in the Spirit and all the traditional charismatic methods (hand clapping, raising of hands etc.). Those who resist this restoration of worship will fall short of God's standard and will continue to operate in a faulty form of worship and will be in danger of the gloryof God departing from their churches.” [19][emphasis added] 

The above reference to the “glory of God” means God’s “presence.” They believe their frenzied worship activities will bring down “the glory of God.” In the 1990s, IHOP leaders took these Latter Rain cult teachings on the Tabernacle of David and put them into practice by launching a global prayer initiative (sometimes referred to as “Harp & Bowl” worship):

“The International House of Prayer [IHOP] is a 24-hours a day, citywide, worship and warfare, inter-denominational prayer ministry serving the body of Christ. This ministry is modeled after the tabernacle of David with singers and musicians being released to lead corporate intercession and worship 24-hours a day. This is an effective method for the churches in the county to come together and DWELL in unity so that God can unlock His commanded blessing…. This House of Prayer for All Nations ministry includes continuous praise and prayer dethroning the principalities and power over a region declaring Gods sovereignty. This… “Harp & Bowl” worship and warfare prayer gatherings… is at the heart of David’s Tabernacle.” 

“On May 7 1999, Mike Bickle and the IHOP ministry team dedicated a building to facilitate this ministry that began with 13 hours a day of intercession and spiritual warfare led by trained worship teams. In Sept. 1999,… they completed the full 24-hour a day schedule with singers and musicians leading each session. They believe that this model is the most effective context…. Their prayer goal is to see a 24 hour a day, citywide, House of Prayer (in the spirit of theTabernacle of David) established in every major city of the earth before the Lord's return….” 

“We along with all of creation are longing for the unveiling of Gods power as God waits in heaven for the bowl of the prayers of the saints to be filled up so He can show His power.” [20] [emphases added] 

This last phrase in the quotation above is a direct reference to the Manifest Sons of God (MSOG) cult belief that they themselves will manifest and become “the glory.” This teaches that there will be a

powerful endtimes revelation of believers as glorified, transformed and perfected, and possessed by Christ to such a degree that they become One with him and become a living corporate Son of God on the earth, ruling with him. This will be accomplished by the descent of "the glory" in a final overwhelming event that will transfigure all those who receive it.[21] [all emphasis added] 

Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God doctrine teaches that the “glory” of God (His “presence”) must descend upon the church, and that this “glory” will transform and perfect them so that they can become the “literal corporate Son of God on earth.” This core doctrine forms the basis of what is being taught by Mike Bickle and the other leaders in the IHOP/NAR.[22] There is an essential eschatological component to it – specifically that of dominion and rule over the earth. This Dominion is the “purpose” behind generating all of the “passion” about God’s “presence.” Adherents of this worship system explain how their militant prayer and aggressive praise will cause God’s “glory” (His “presence”) to manifest “in the church”:

• There is even a dimension of spiritual warfare andKingdom authority released during times of high praises to God.... 
• Praise is a weapon of war, because praise arouses the Lord to a place of zeal. Praise releases judgment against our enemies. 
• Wherever there is true worship, we also see a release of a dimension of authority that is characteristic of theapostolic. Heaven's authority visits earth....Restored dimensions of worship release restored dimensions of authority, out of which apostolic order is released on the earth. 
• Prayer is essential for the release of heaven's rule on the earth.... Prayer fuels the fire of God's manifested Glory in the church. [23][emphases added] 

This “manifested” Glory is God's manifested “presence” said to be operating in and through the church. The IHOP/NAR eschatology also teaches that there will be a “restoration” of Old Testament style “apostles” and “prophets” in the endtimes. The purpose of this “restoration” of this apostolic “authority” is so the church can become properly “aligned” to rule the earth[24]. This strategic apostolic alignment for dominion (networking hierarchical structures)[25] is embedded in their teaching about the Tabernacle of David:

David's rule on earth represented God's rule through man.... A restoration of David's fallen tabernacle is not only a return to worship, but a return to God's rule among men. [26] [emphasis added] 

There is an “element of judgment upon sinners and the rebellious who fail to conform to this Davidic Rule.”[27] This judgment is ominous – they believe that their extreme worship will jumpstart things in the heavenly realm to come down to earth. They look forward to an endtime scenario where they will act both “in and through” a “warrior” Jesus, implementing His will and “purpose,” so that they can become rulers and judges over the earth. For example:

When we are releasing the ministry of the harp… [and] of the bowls… we then see His rule as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah begin to happen in and through his people. We have known Jesus as the Lamb of God, our Savior, but soon we will see Him manifested as a Lion, a ferocious Warrior and the King and Judge of all the earth. ... He is about to be revealed asRuler and Judge. With that revelation will also come the realization that the last-days church is being called with Him and through Him into that same role of ruler and judge....[28][emphasis added]

Note the eschatology: “They believe that Christ must come TO His Church before He comes FOR His Church.”[29] They believe that through their “passion” they will embody Christ (the “presence”) and thus become the instruments for His dreadful judgment (the “purpose”).[30] This faulty theology puts the church in the place of Christ, reading into the book of Revelation as if it were an instruction manual for how the church can wreak judgment upon the face of the earth. Keep in mind that even though in recent years Bickle has tried to distance himself from the more aggressive military aspects of this judgment, his Latter Rain associates have continued with their violent prophecies and rhetoric.[31] 

A related IHOP heresy involves a corruption of a familiar Bible verse, Ps. 22:3 which states: “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” They teach that God’s “presence” actually “inhabits” their worship. The more fervent, frenzied and feverish their worship, the more God’s “presence” will come down and “inhabit” them:

the idea of God enthroned upon praise actually mean that when we praise and worship God long enough and strong enough he actually comes down in his manifest presence to "inhabit" the Church - sometimes as a visible glory cloud of blue smoke or an overwhelming sensation of heaviness, or whatever….[32][emphasis added] 

Dr. Steinkamp summarizes the concerns about these IHOP Tabernacle of David worship beliefs and practices:

Beyond the fact that “Tabernacle of David” teaching is simply wrong and an example of illegitimate restoration teaching, there are pastoral and practical concerns. Rather than worship directed to God, simply to express praise, Davidic worship/warfare is practiced in order to produce a so-called spiritual effect. It hints at a kind of spiritual formula or recipe. The teaching that restored Davidic worship somehow allows or even attracts the physical manifestations of God'spresence seems to border on spiritual magic.[33] [emphasis added] 

Next, we will examine this specific “spiritual formula or recipe” that is employed in order to invoke the “presence.” This formula involves generating a lot of “passion.” 

Exhibit 4: IHOP Prayer

Becoming Passionate about Passion 
Are you “passionate” about in your faith? The words “passion” or “passionate” have now become part of the “hip” language of evangelicaldom. The implication is that if you don’t have “passion” (however that is defined) that you don’t have “purpose” – that you are lacking in something substantive in your faith.

“Passion” can be defined as “any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling,” including a “strong amorous feeling or desire,” “ardor,” “fervor,” or even “strong love or sexual desire.”[34] Thus the word, by definition, is about a soulish emotion, feeling or attitude of the heart. However, the Greek paschō is usually translated “suffer” or “suffering” in the Bible (see Heb. 9:26; 1 Peter 4:1, e.g.). Note: “suffering” is not even close to the current usage of this term. “Passion” now means “euphoria,” and an experience of high exultation, even sexual excitement or “intimacy.” It can manifest as an altered state of consciousness in which the brain is not fully engaged. Thus “passion” can be the exact opposite of what the Bible calls “sober-minded.”[35] And, as shall be seen, this invoked “passion” can also imply violence.

“Passion” has an integral component of the well-choreographed “worship” service in evangelicaldom. This passion-filled worship involves more than simple singing of hymns or humble prayers and petitions. It incorporates various psychological and sociological techniques to affect the emotions. Key variables are stage-managed in order to create an “atmosphere” of heightened experiences, all said to be of God. Thereby this engineered “passion” claims that it can invoke the “presence” of God.[36] Below is a bit of history that will explain the agenda of the modern “passion” youth conferences.

Exhibit 5: Bill Johnson & Lance Wallnau practicing "passion"

The Formula for “Passion” 
John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard movement, and later a key force in launching the obscure “Kansas City Prophets” (now IHOP) into the mainstream, is the original architect of a formulaic worship method. Wimber’s method has gone on to become mainstream throughout all Christendom, and is even utilized widely in Catholic and Protestant denominations. His formula relied on five phases of passionate worship to “invoke” the Holy Spirit’s “presence.” In a 1995 article Wimber described his worship method as “Phases in the heart.” He described these phases as an “experience of God”:

To understand how we worship God, it is helpful to learn about our fellowship’s history, which goes back to 1977. At that time my wife, Carol, was leading a small group of people in a home meeting that evolved into the Anaheim Vineyard…. 

In the Vineyard we see five basic phases of worship, phases through which leaders attempt to lead the congregation. Understanding these phases is helpful in our experience of God. Keep in mind that as we pass through these phases we are headed toward one goal: intimacy with God.[37][emphases added] 

Readers will most likely recognize these 5 phases from their own experience in churches:

The first phase is the call to worship… through a song like, ‘Come let us Worship and Bow Down’…. 

The second phase is the engagement, which is theelectrifying dynamic of connection to God and to each other. Expressions of love, adoration, praise, jubilation, intercession, petition – all the dynamics of prayer are interlocked with worship – come forth from one’s heart. In the engagement phase we praise God for who he is through music as well as prayer. An individual may have moments like these in his or her private worship at home, but when the church comes together the manifest presence of God is magnified and multiplied.[38] [emphasis added] 

Notice the second phase claims that “through music as well as prayer” that the “manifest presence of God is magnified and multiplied.” There are doctrinal problems with this statement, as Pastor Larry DeBruyn has explained in his recent article “The Present of ‘His Presence.’”[40] Employing the language of “passion,” Wimber stated that as “we move further in the engagement phase, we move more and more into loving and intimate language.” And this passionate intimacy, Wimber asserted, results in “[b]eing in God’s presence.”[39][emphasis added] 

Wimber also claimed that there would be “a powerful corporate dynamic” at this point. This belief has now become a central tenet of much of the evangelical prayer movement. It teaches there is more power in numbers: that by collectively joining together a group has more potential to invoke the presence of God than a mere individual.[41] It also implies that God will only hear us when we reach critical mass in our shoutings, demands and decrees, and exhibitions of extravagant hoopla (contra Matthew 6:6 and James 5:16; see also 1 Kings 18:28).[42] There are a multitude of doctrinal errors with this teaching, but we note that it is a central tenet of many mystical religions and the New Age.[43] 

Phase 3 is called “expression” and here Wimber does make mention of “confession of sin.” But he defines this phase as having “been wakened to his presence,” meaning that the “expression” of worship will further invoke God’s “presence.” Wimber even suggests “physical and emotional expression” such as “dance and body movement.”

Phase 4 is “a zenith, a climatic point, not unlike physical lovemaking” – in other words, pure “passion.” This whipped-up sensual passion culminates in a “visitation” from God (i.e., His “presence”):

We have expressed what is in our hearts and minds and bodies, and now it is time to wait for God to respond. Stop talking and wait for him to speak, to move. I call this, the fourth phase, visitation: The almighty God visits his people.[44] [emphasis added] 

Wimber does offer this mild disclaimer: “This visitation is a by product of worship. We don’t worship in order to gain his presence. He is worthy to be worshipped whether or not he visits us.”[45] Of course, he gives no criteria for discerning whether some other spiritual “presence” might have been invoked through this frenzy (e.g., 2 Cor. 11:14). The 5th phase of worship is giving money.[46] 

Exhibit 6: Other student movements join with IHOP's One Thing

“Manifestations of the Spirit’s presence”
Why is all this significant? Wimber played a foundational role, along with C. Peter Wagner in the “Third Wave” charismatic movement, and Wimber’s “Power Evangelism” emphasized signs and wonders as a normative part of a visitation of God’s “presence.” Wimber even practiced a form of “psychic healing” in which he believed that sensations of “warmth” and “tingling feelings” and “trembling of hands in healing” were “spiritual phenomena” that were “manifestations of the Spirit’s presence on the person. By observing them you can begin to see what the Spirit is doing in and through the person.”[48] [emphasis added]

Pastor Bill Randles reviewed Wimber’s teachings and explained how Wimber believed that the church should adopt an eastern mystical mindset:

This is the new paradigm, a down playing of doctrine or "head knowledge" in favor of mystical experience. Another variation of this is, "God is bigger than His written word," translated, God wants to bring you into experiences that aren't in the limits of scripture. Just knowing God "doctrinally" is not sufficient, you now must have self authenticatingexperiences. All of these attitudes are the end result of the New Paradigm. This is the shift from primarily objective, to subjective thinking in our approach to truth!... 

Another Wimber contribution,… is mysticism. What is mysticism? Mysticism is the sensualization of our relationship with God and dealings with the spirit realm.By sensualizing, I am not referring to sexuality, but with the feeling realm. A mystic is someone who wants to know God intimately, but is not patiently waiting for the "beatific vision." He wants to see, touch, feel, and be one with God NOW. The mystic asks Why can't we feel God? See Him? Go deeper and deeper with Him, into deeper levels of intimacy? We can, but in His time and on His terms.[49] [emphasis added] 

Thus, via Wimber’s teachings, a feelings-based religion gradually began to encroach upon the evangelical church, replacing Bible doctrine with emotions as the new standard upon which to judge spiritual experiences. “If it feels good and looks spiritual it must be from God,” became the popular but undiscerning belief. Al Dager, who has written extensively about the history of this movement, summarized the multitude of problems associated with Wimber’s “Method Ministry” approach to worship:

The problem with Wimber's ministry was not only that he insisted that the [sign] gifts of the Spirit are still operable today, it was also the assumption that the gifts of the Spirit can be manifested through a particular methodology – also, that every supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit should be manifested in every believer on a regular basis. This, most often, leads to the abuses and excesses of human flesh masquerading as the work of the Holy Spirit…. 

There were many ways in which Wimber's attempts at signs and wonders differed from the simple, direct, and unfailing ministry of the Holy Spirit…. Their methods include inner healing techniques, visualization, meditation, and psychological integration.[50][emphases added] 

The evangelical world, desensitized by the allurements and attractions of this style of worship to their senses, was then ready to make adjustments to their doctrinal beliefs as well.

Mainstreaming the “Passion” 
John Wimber believed that conjured up “passion” could invoke God’s “presence.” This belief then merged with the heresies of the “Kansas City Prophets.”

Toward the mid to late 1980s, Wimber became enamored by the ministry team of the Kansas City Fellowship, or as they became known as, "The Kansas City Prophets."[51] 

Mike Oppenheimer of Let Us Reason Ministries describes how IHOP was then formed:

Mike Bickle was part of the Kansas City prophets that influenced John Wimber and Vineyard into numerous new ways to do church. We are told God called him to turn over his church in Kansas City to Floyd McClung Jr. who was formerly YWAM International Executive Director. Because he felt God calling him to start a prayer unit, a prayer house for the whole city of Kansas City, called The International House of Prayer (IHOP), modeled after the World Prayer Center. Mike Bickle is now part of Wagner's prophet and apostle movement (New apostolic Reformation) speaking in various churches to incorporate themselves into these new apostolic movement under their leadership.[52] 

Wimber’s simple 5-phase formula for worship combined with the doctrines of the Latter Rain cult, resulting in a powerful new synthesis of error. By the early 1990s the IHOP leaders were anxious to put a global prayer movement in operation. “Some of the main prophets and/or leaders in the movement included Paul Cain, Mike Bickle, Bob Jones, Rick Joyner, John Paul Jackson, Francis Frangipane, and others.”[53] As we have summarized previously:

There is a fascinating history of how these leaders have managed to mainstream their most controversial doctrines into evangelicaldom. The IHOP movement… is part and parcel of C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation and, in fact, helped to spawn the NAR and its foundational doctrines for Dominionism. Here is a brief synopsis of the IHOP/NAR history: 

• IHOP is just one arm of a multi-faceted group (with many names, entities and offshoots) known as the "Kansas City Prophets" that has been around since the mid-1980s. 
• These Kansas City "prophets" are leaders who track a direct lineage back to the old Latter Rain cult. 
• John Wimber became an overseer of the KC group in the late 1980s when their cult excesses became public and controversial, and set them up under his Vineyard denomination. 
• John Wimber was a mentor to C. Peter Wagner and vice versa, and the two of them have a history that tracks back into the mid 1970s at Fuller Theological Seminary where they concocted doctrines together. 
• C. Peter Wagner's "Third Wave" movement, the predecessor to the NAR, was founded on Wimber's signs and wonders mysticism. 
• C. Peter Wagner's "New Apostolic Reformation" was founded on the convergence of the mystical streams of John Wimber, the Kansas City group, and Fuller Theological Seminary.[54]

The above synopsis was written in the context of the IHOP movement (along with C. Peter Wagner’s NAR) taking a very public and political profile during the last presidential election,[55] particularly at Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry’s “The Response” prayer event.[56]This event gave great credibility to both IHOP and the NAR. They were attempting to mainstream themselves[57] as active players on the national political scene. Their “purpose” was Dominionism.[58] 

As events in the evangelical world gave birth to the emerging popular youth rally culture we again sounded the alarm about the mainstreaming of IHOP and NAR with evangelicals, writing:

We have been warning for a long time about the desire of the false apostles and prophets of the NAR and IHOP to mainstream themselves both into the church and American politics. The leadership hopes to gain legitimacy and credibility by piggybacking themselves onto credible-sounding causes and naive, gullible and/or like-minded evangelical mainstream leaders and groups.[59] 

This history of John Wimber’s association with IHOP becomes important because Bickle held a very specific view about the necessary “purpose” for generating extreme “passion” in an “army” of impressionable youth. This youthful army was destined, according to their Latter Rain prophets, to become the foot-soldiers for Dominionism on earth:

The Latter Rain prophecies about the necessity of a NEW BREED of youth for an endtime revival were given by Kansas City Prophets Bob Jones, Mike Bickle and Paul Cain in the late 1980s. Bob Jones, in a conversation with Mike Bickle, described a vision in which he saw “elected seeds” that would be an “end generation” that would be predestined to inherit all things." He claimed they would "set the church on the proper foundations.... They’ll birth the church.... be the leaders of the last day church.... [and be] the best of all the generations." He claimed they would "move into things of the supernatural" to the point where they would actually "put death itself underneath their feet."… 

This New Breed would be a "warfare" generation that would "take the promised land" and "possess it." In a sense of pure Gnostic heresy, Bob Jones claimed that this New Breed generation would reach the "full maturity of the God-Man!" He reiterated that this generation would be "coming into that divine nature of Jesus Christ." 

Mike Bickle replied that this "end-time army" would have "300,000 enlistment notices" for the "next generation." This "300,000... would be the main leadership over one billion converts in the earth" and they would "bear a distinctanointing." This army generation was referred to in racial terms as "the best of every blood line in the earth" and "superior" to every other "seed" on earth. Bickle explained that there would be a "time of war and transitioning of whole new orders in the body." These Latter Rain leaders teach that their New Breed of Elect Seeds will be an endtime Joel's Army.[60]

Thus, in one ominous sense, IHOP’s revved-up “passion” is necessary to create a heightened warfare mentality in the troops. This is the Latter Rain teaching that a generation of youth is arising that would become an elite, special army on earth who could achieve superior supernatural feats that no prior generation had yet done. One IHOPer has just publicly confirmed that this was the recent teaching that he and others received:

…over the next five years I saw a whole group of friends get pulled into a whirlpool of self-heroic narcissism. I witnessed at close quarters the devastating consequences of thinking that we can defy the natural laws of age and death. We were going to do what so many Christians before us had failed to do, because we were truly special. Bullets would bounce off of us; the devil would flee at our approach. A new world was about to begin, bathed in the glorious light of a cosmic revolution.[61] [original in italics]

This profound sense of spiritual elitism, of unique purpose and special destiny then becomes a central facet of the esprit de corps of the IHOP movement.[62] 

Exhibit 7: The "New Breed" birthed

Exhibit 8: "Joel's Army" birthed

Becoming the “Presence”
Mike Bickle developed an endtime scenario, called “Forerunner Eschatology,”[63] which teaches the Latter Rain belief that

“Prior to Jesus Christ’s physical return, His living presencewill companion the church in ever increasing power. During this time the visible glory of the Lord will rise and appear upon God’s people.” [64][emphasis added]

The “presence” according to Latter Rain eschatology, is when Christ will come to indwell the church, thus there “will be a special “glory” or “presence” anointing released for mobilizing the army of the Lord”[65] to take Dominion over the earth. This is not talking about the literal physical return of Christ Jesus:

The Glory, in the Latter Rain understanding, is the visible manifestation of the Spirit… [D]eceived Christians are being led to expect a manifested spirit and not the visible return of the Lord Jesus. I believe the way we are headed is into teaching about the return of the `lord` to his church, in glory, before (or perhaps even instead of?) the physical return of Jesus. [66] [emphasis added] 

Dr. Orrel Steinkamp explains the theology of this indwelling “glory” or “presence”:

…some Dominion teachers assert that Jesus can be an ongoing incarnation of God in His body (church) upon the earth. Consequently scriptures pertaining to Christ's ruling on earth are often seen as referring to the church rather than to Jesus. The church is viewed as a kind of Virgin Mary who must give birth to Jesus the indwelling spirit. Francis Frangipane teaches a similar message: 

"When the Spirit of Christ comes into the physical world, He must enter through a physical body. When Christ first entered our world as a child, it was Mary whom God chose to give Christ birth. Mary's life symbolized the qualities the church must possess to walk in the fullness of Christ. God is preparing us as He did Mary to give birth to the ministry of His Son. Even now, in the spiritual womb of the virgin church, the Holy purpose of Christ is growing, awaiting maturity, ready to be born in the power and timing of God. The virgin church is in labor and in pain to give birth….”[67][emphases added]

Francis Frangipane, a longtime associate of Bickle, has written extensively about this “presence.” In a recent ElijahList article, Frangipane explained his view of “presence” by mentioning a dream he had in 1973 where he was “overwhelmed by the intense fire of His presence.”[68] Frangipane stated that that this “presence” had to do with heaven coming to earth, an eschatological scenario:

…the emanation of Christ's presence was like a burning fire upon my consciousness. A great procession of heavenly beings was descending through a night sky; I knew that this was a glimpse of Heaven coming to Earth…. 

…the radiance of His presence was a living fire upon my consciousness. The energy was almost painful... 

Instantly I was utterly overwhelmed by the intensity of the Lord's presence. I felt that I could not... bear the increase of His glory. It was as though my very existence would be consumed by the blast furnace of His radiance…. 

The radiance of His presence will increasingly pour into the spiritual realms surrounding our world…. 

Simultaneously two events will manifest on earth, they will be the result of one, eternal source. The same increasingpresence that causes wrath to descend upon the wickedwill cause God's glory to be seen upon the righteous.[69] [some emphasis added] 

Notice the last sentence. That this “same increasing presence” will cause “wrath to descend upon the wicked.” This sort of “presence” is the dark side of the “Forerunner Eschatology” taught by Bickle. Joel's Army, a booklet published by Discernment Ministries online, which discusses the eschatology of the "Kansas City Prophets" in detail, explains that “The 'Day of the Lord' is re-interpreted by [these] false prophets to mean that Christ will come to His Church and incarnate (become God in flesh) an army of believers – thus giving them supernatural qualities to execute judgment on the Church.”[70]Obviously this sort of “passion” can be very violent. In fact, this teaching about a destructive endtime army is still current:

At the end of December 2008, Bickle ratcheted up his end-time enthusiasm by passionately announcing that IHOP’sOneThing Conference would mark a major defining moment within the IHOP prayer movement, and would primarily center around his interpretation and implementation of the Book of Revelation. Bickle declared that it was time for the prayer movement to realize that it will be the primary agent to transition human history to the age to come through “prayers of faith that not only heal, but also kill,” releasing the heavenly arsenals through intercession that will strike the Antichrist’s political, military, and economic power bases across the earth. The end times will reveal a “killing Jesus”who is covered with blood as He marches through Jordan to free Jerusalem while engaging the Antichrist’s army in physical combat. 

Based on Bickle’s end-time teaching, Jesus’ second coming has preconditions. He teaches that Jesus will not return until the global church is crying out “Come, Lord Jesus” with a full understanding of her identity as the Bride of Christ. Jesus will only return when the church is functioning in the unity of the Spirit and is anointed in prayer to release the destructive end-time tribulation judgments.[71] [emphases added] 

Notice how this “passionate” Bride of Christ is wearing combat boots.[72] 

Exhibit 9: The Warrior Bride

If one grasps that “Jesus” in Latter Rain eschatology means the church acting as His agent (or actually incarnating Christ), then this becomes a particularly disturbing scenario. Although most often couched in the language of prayer and worship, there is a continual reference to physical violence.[73] Most of the Latter Rain teachers have talked about engaging in a literal, physical violence, not just prayer warfare or hyper-spiritual passionate worship. Note Bickle’s endtime teaching:

Bickle envisions that the end-time forerunner church will be an advanced “apostolic” movement. They will experience “greater things” than the apostles themselves. They will function as the last day Moses who through prayer releases God’s plagues on the Antichrist, the end-time Pharaoh. Bickle emphasizes that during the end times, Moses’ miracles and the miracles of the Book of Acts will be combined and multiplied on a global level as the praying church looses God’s judgments on the earth. This is why Bickle calls the Book of Revelation the “End-Times Book of Acts,” meaning that the Book of Revelation reveals the acts of the Holy Spirit that will be demonstrated through the end-time praying church.[74] 

Bickle imagines that millions of praying Christians will one day be unified in prayer by knowing exactly how and when to pray next because the judgments and events in the Book of Revelation are numbered and in sequential chronological order…. [T]he end-time church will be able to loose or bind God’s judgments exactly as they unfold in history…. 

By praying Revelation’s Great Tribulation events into existence, this will result in billions of men, women and children being killed.[75][emphasis added] 

Exhibit 10: Invoking heaven to earth

Previously we have written about a high-profile NAR leader, Johnny Enlow, and his similarly radical endtime eschatology. Enlow is a bit more explicit than Bickle about exactly how the church is to implement its heavenly directives.

…Enlow claims that “Jesus is retained in heaven until Elijah’s Revolution…[which] will prepare for His final return.” This “revolution,” says Enlow “clearly entails the crushing of Satan here on Earth before He returns for His bride.” Enlow’s militant church is supposedly told by God that 

“Your body on Earth will crush Your enemies. The last generation will be the ‘foot generation and will rule over Your enemies. Until they do so, You are not going back to rescue, rapture, save, or anything else. Your body, in fact, will not be a beautiful bride until she has accomplished thiscrushing of Satan.” [76] [emphasis added] 

Mike Oppenheimer, in a report on the Manifest Sons of God doctrine, has observed the inherent Dominionism in their violent eschatology:

Some believe that the second coming of Jesus is to be “in the Church,” before he comes for the Church. That the Church, his body will actually become Christ on earth, glorious and triumphant. They will go Conquer the land and then rule the nations with a rod of iron. Some believe that after the Church has taken dominion over the nations, she will hasten the day that will call Jesus back to earth and hand the nations over to Him.[76][emphasis added] 

Likewise, Lance Wallnau, who has served as the chief marketing change agent for the 7 mountains of Dominionism in the NAR, has written:

God promised new clarity, decisiveness, and success to those who drew near to serve His purposes. He assured them, saying, “I am with you…. Behold, I will make you into a newthreshing sledge with sharp teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills like chaff.” I believe God is extending that promise to you and me as we join Him in what He is doing in the earth.[78] [emphasis added] 

Thus, observing how Wallnau takes an old Testament verse like this out of context, it becomes clear that the horrifying “purpose” of the frenetic worship and conjured up “passion” may be to desensitize an army of young people to take over the earth, wielding threshing instruments for a global harvest of violent judgment that they are deluded into thinking is their elite divine mission.

Exhibit 11: NAR leader Chuck Pierce conference promo

Passion and Intimacy 
In order to activate passion, there are no holds barred. Lust is considered a viable method of inducing an altered state of consciousness; and it should be noted that sexual lust is part of many occult worship systems.[79] There is considerable evidence that IHOP generated this sort of “passion” purposefully to excess:

One July day in 1988, Mike Bickle was sitting in his office, reading a wedding card inscribed with a verse from the Song of Solomon. "Jesus, seal my heart with your seal of love," Bickle spontaneously prayed. Unaccountably, he began to weep. The phone rang. A prophet had heard the "audible voice of the Lord" for Bickle: The Song of Solomon, a dialogue between King Solomon and his beloved, should become a focus of Bickle's ministry. It eventually came to Bickle that true believers must see Jesus "through the eyes of a bride with loyal, devoted love" – they must "feel loved and in love" with Christ. Without this intimacy in worship, Christ would not return to Earth. 

But the Song of Solomon is a paean to sexual desire. "Let the king bring me into his chambers" and "kiss me with the kisses­ of his mouth," the beloved says. "His fruit" is "sweet to my taste." IHOP's website states that one of its prayer guides, Bridal Intercession, "presents prayer as the joyful and romantic communion between the lover and his beloved. . . . Readers will find themselves . . . eager to encounter this lovely Lord who is their bridegroom." 

Many critics, observing that IHOP recruits post-pubescent youth, have wondered where, if they are to approach their Lord as Solomon's beloved approaches Solomon, theirimaginations are supposed to go. "[Jesus] is not coming until the people of God are crying out globally in intercession with a bridal identity," Bickle has preached. If the Second Coming depends upon "romantic communion" with Christ, and the alternative is satanic hegemony, then any error in worship should be made on the side of erotic intimacy – to lust and repent is surely better than abandoning Jesus in his hour of need. 

Bickle makes a point of warning his followers that bridal theology is not sexual. To IHOP's detractors, though, the introduction of any suggestion of sensuality into worship invites transgression. Aggravating the libidinal diciness, they argue, is the nature of that worship. IHOPers spend 20, 30 or more hours every week in the prayer room, often for three or four hours at a time. 

Across the IHOP complex, in cafeterias, hallways and the prayer room, music composed to enhance the ecstatic experience is "omnipresent," according to an ex-member. Among the lyrics to two popular songs: "God is a lover looking for a lover/So he fashioned me" and "Do you understand what you do to me? . . . How you ravish my heart with just one glance?" Some former IHOPers have talked of being addictedto it – they become nervous and irritable when they turn it off. Another IHOPer has written about addiction to the sedative atmosphere of the prayer room itself: "A common refrain around anxious, discouraged IHOPers is, 'I just gotta get to the prayer room.'" 

"Very quickly, there were sensual escapades with God," a former intern says, meaning that some people's private imaginings turned explicit after exposure to IHOP's "bridegroom" Christ. She says that an instructor told her, "God is using his word to kiss you." The intern heard stories ofIHOPers fantasizing about having "orgies with Jesus" and "sex with God." [80][italics in original, bold added] 

According to a previous report on Herescope pertaining to the “Bridal Paradigm”[81] of IHOP teachers, there are definitions of terms regarding this intense sort of intimate passion:

Spirit of burning — [IHOP–KC phrase] This is a cycle of maintaining a passionate desire for Jesus so that you are in a place of emotional pain whenever He is absent; hope and excited expectancy because of the knowledge that He loves to come to the hungry and thirsty heart; real experiential encounters with His beauty and presence causing you to have an even greater intense desire to be close to Jesus. 

Captivated/fascinated/ravished heart — [literal phrase] In the context of the Bridal Paradigm, this refers to someone who is wholeheartedly in love with God. In the natural, this refers to a heart moved with deep emotion and love due to the actions of their lover [82]

This type of teaching is rampant throughout the IHOP model of worship. Clearly the leaders are

creating lustful appetites for a sensual Jesus. Their Jesus is an imposter and the spiritual experiences they enjoy are not “intimacy with God” but spiritual fornication. Let us be clear; passions, desires, emotions, and feelings are sensual and creating an appetite for sensual spiritual experiences is the goal of IHOP’s Passion for Jesus Conference.[83]

Yet in the context of generating this lust, there is another equally efficient force at work: deprivation.

Contemplative Ascetic “Passion” 
One way in which to exacerbate the lustful intimacy of hormone-challenged youth is to advocate an ascetic lifestyle that deprives the flesh of even basic needs such as nutrition and sleep. Under this highly charged environment, emotions and passions become vulnerable to diverse intense stimuli, especially including the spiritual temptation to sin. Indeed, there is a “Wilderness Lifestyle,” a monastic-like component to the IHOP experience, which resembles much of today’s contemplative activities:

Bickle claims that “on May 7, 1997, the Lord spoke to me about believing Him to raise up 10,000 forerunners who live in the spirit of John the Baptist as friends of the Bridegroom…. 

…IHOP leader Lou Engle encourages young Christians to take Old Testament Nazarite vows based on Numbers 6:1–21, a practice not taught in the New Testament. 

To undergird his forerunner eschatology, Bickle exhorts Christians to follow the “wilderness lifestyle” of an Old Testament prophet, instead of modeling their lives completely on Jesus’ servant lifestyle as lived out by the New Testament apostles (Phil. 2:1–11), none of whom mention John the Baptist as a life example for Christians to follow.[84][emphasis added] 

In fact, this most basic deprivations of 1) natural human affection and 2) common everyday affairs of life can be a mark of a cult. And the most recent revelation about IHOP is that this organization clearly has troubles with cult-like atrocities, including the recent murder of one of its members. According to news accounts, Bethany Deaton was allegedly murdered by Micah Moore, who was having a sexual relationship with her husband Tyler and others in their house. 

Tyler had "groomed" him [Moore] to be part of their sexual group. The men said that Tyler was their "spiritual leader." He was "manipulative" and exercised "control over the members of the household." He characterized the sexual activity as a"religious experience." [85][emphasis added]

 Tyler Deaton, who reportedly battled homosexuality, seemed to have been taken in by Rick Joyner’s strange eschatological vision (written in a book), The Final Quest. Very quickly a cult-like oppressiveness settled over this group of IHOP young adults, some of whom self-professed to be “apostles” and were apparently not rebuked or discouraged by Bickle. It is reported that

Deaton often played IHOP music when he presided over worship, and the members referred to Christ as "the bridegroom" and to themselves as his "brides." For most, the worship experience was spiritual, not sensual, but Deaton and at least one other person were "really into the bridegroom stuff," according to an ex-member. Deaton pressed people to enter a prayerful state and "cuddle with Jesus," says an ex-member. 

But anything beyond holding hands was judged to be iniquitous. "Marriage prophecies" determined dating partners. According to members, such prophecies were explicitly discouraged by IHOP, but they cropped up in the group not long after IHOP theology sank in. Suddenly, everyone had a prophecy or was the object of one.[86][emphasis added] 

The story of this cult-within-a-cult tells of “passion” becoming unbridled in a climate of religious extremism. It ended up precipitating the “drugging and sexual assaults” and violent death of Bethany Deaton. Note this disturbing revelation:

Certain details in the confession suggest that the men may have understood the assaults described to be religious acts.[87] [emphasis added] 

Notice the unbridled spiritualizing that justified these violent acts described above. In this tragic story the “passion” of the “presence” culminated in a horrifying deadly “purpose.” This is the same scriptused by Bickle and the other IHOP leaders in describing their endtime eschatological scenario. It is any wonder that their followers used this script for their own personal passionate vendettas?


The Truth: 
It is time for a hefty dose of sanity and sobriety in the evangelical world. One must wonder if those seemingly naïve evangelical leaders (e.g., Piper, Chan) are associating with a well-known cult (which has an historical record of teaching Gnostic mysticism and advocating endtime punitive violence) merely for fame and fortune, or are they perhaps also drawn to the mystical experiences of the IHOP/NAR leaders in these youth movements. Either way, they are playing with fire – strange fire.

In their 1995 book Strange Fire: The Rise of Gnosticism in the Church, which exposed the esoteric roots and fruits of the modern-day IHOP and NAR movements, Travers and Jewel van der Merwe warned about their faulty teachings about God’s “presence”:

When a high value is placed on personal experiences or revelations, Scriptures are then unscrupulously twisted and misquoted. We find those who believe the feelings of a congregation must be hyped up in order to "feel" thePresence of the Lord or else the church is thought to be "dead". Instead of music being used to worship and glorify God, it is used as a means of "connecting" or "feeling" thePresence of God. If the "location" (or a feeling within) of God is not aroused and sensed, the Spirit is said to be either absent or bound. To counter this passive situation, worship is intensified, the devil is "bound" and certain forms of excitement are encouraged until "God's Presence" is "felt". Many times music is used as the conduit for the "feeling". A popular slogan to advertise a certain music company is: "Feel the Presence of the Lord". The church has been taken down this primrose path for so long that they equate the Presence of God with a certain feeling that they obtain by doing certain things. The "goose bumps" or the "warm fuzzies" or tears of comfort, is their way of "knowing" that God is present. So what this thinking boils down to is simply: "To know God's Presence you must feel Him." In actuality this is pure Gnosticism…. 

The Gnostic god is localised in a subjective experience, a soulish feeling of being in union with creation and God. It rejects the relationship with the Creator based on faith in His written Word…. 

[W]hen emotional feelings become the doctrine of God's Presence, then God has been reduced to a "gnosis" form of Presence. For many, the doctrine of "knowing thePresence of God" is sought in a subjective experience. An emotional experience, especially a repetitive one during a worship service, if not kept in proper perspective or check, can lead to an altered state of consciousness in which the capacity for rational reasoning is greatly reduced. At this point the congregation is open to delusion and can be easily led astray. In many charismatic groups an altered state of mind is explained as "getting into the Spirit" or as a manifestation of the presence of God. Uncontrolled spiritual feelings transcend sound scriptural rationalism and give rise to the doctrine of "the Presence of God" built on an experience.[88] [emphasis added]

If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled,
and be not moved away from the hope of the Gospel,
which ye have heard…. 
(Colossians 1:23a) 

__________________________________________________________________

Part 2 of 6:

Rick Joyner's Morningstar conference advertisement

   
…[W]hat if we changed our focus all together and our only focus was just to be in His presence?… This is what’sburning in the heart of the culture here at Morningstar,burning to be in His presence. We’re burning to stay in Hispresence, we’re burning to be in love with Him and we’reburning to know Him and not just about Him and so what we’ve decided to do, is take 90 days, starting January 10th, just to sit at his feet, just to spend time with Him anddevelop this intimacy with Him…. So please come and join us as we pursue His presence yet again.
—Rick Joyner[1]

We are enabled to partner with the Kingdom of Heaven and see it released here on earth! The Presence of God within us will bring reformation to the world around us—encountering a loving God! 
—Bill Johnson[2]

The radiance of His presence will increasingly pour into the spiritual realms surrounding our world…. 
Simultaneously two events will manifest on earth, they will be the result of one, eternal source. The same increasingpresence that causes wrath to descend upon the wicked will cause God's glory to be seen upon the righteous. 
—Francis Frangipane[3]

The Coming Spirit “Presence” 

What does the word “Presence” mean to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and International House Of Prayer (IHOP) teachers? There is unique eschatological significance to their use of the word “presence” and its companion term “glory.” These two movements, increasingly popular in the evangelical world, are teaching a different eschatology. This eschatology is the engine that drives the entire IHOP youth movement, and it accounts for many of the strange activities of the NAR. Because many evangelical leaders are now openly associating with the IHOP and NAR, it becomes necessary to more fully explain their aberrant doctrines.[4]

In brief, IHOP/NAR leaders hold to the old Manifest Sons of God/Latter Rain cult[5] teachings that “Christ must come TO His Church before He comes FOR His Church.”[6] They believe there will be a separate “Spirit” or “Presence” infilling in the last days, evidenced with many signs and wonders. They say their passionate worship will invoke a “Presence” which will “energize the church with new power and demolish the works of Satan.”[7] This Spirit of Christ (i.e., the “Presence”) will come first to indwell the church beforeJesus’ Second Coming. Thus there is a doctrine of a two-phased or progressive Second Coming.

NAR and IHOP leaders teach that there will be an “increasing” return of this Spirit/”Presence” which will release a special “glory” anointing on the church to equip the powerful mobilization of an endtime “Joel’s Army”[8] to take dominion[9] over the earth. There is considerable evidence that they believe that the Bride of Christ will actually become Christ, Who thus returns in the Bride's fleshly bodies. Dr. Orrel Steinkamp, who has researched this eschatology for the past several decades, asserts that these teachers are not emphasizing the literal physical return of Christ Jesus:

The Glory, in the Latter Rain understanding, is the visible manifestation of the Spirit… [D]eceived Christians are being led to expect a manifested spirit and not the visible return of the Lord Jesus. I believe the way we are headed is into teaching about the return of the `lord` to his church, in glory, before (or perhaps even instead of?) the physicalreturn of Jesus.[10][all emphasis added] 

There is a direct historical lineage of this eschatology. It originated in the old Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God cult[11] that taught a prior “Secret Coming for the Elite” before the 2nd Coming:

The neo-Gnostic believes the manifestation of the Sons of God comes about in a secret inner coming of Christ TO some Christians which would transform them into“Overcomers.” [George Warnock wrote] “Christ should visit the saints . . . and minister His life ‘in secret’ before He is openly manifest.” In doing this they reject the literal Resurrection and Rapture (the personal coming of Jesus Christ FOR His Church). It is interesting to note they will acknowledge Christ is coming, but His coming is off in the future. The emphasis is not on Christ’s soon appearance but on the great “power” or “new anointing” that is to be manifest in the Church.[12][bold added, italics in original] 

This eschatology is not classic Postmillenialism, nor is it the familiar teaching about the Rapture. In fact, it is essentially a form of Gnosticism.[13] Some of the teachers deny that Jesus Christ returns in the flesh at all (contra 1John 4:3, 2John 1:7). Others teach that the church will become Christ, incarnating Him in the flesh to rule and reign on earth. Some teach a murky middle ground that seems to say that the 2nd Coming will only occur after Jesus has first appeared to “inhabit” His church on earth with His “Spirit” (i.e., Jesus’s secret returning as a Christ “Spirit” or “Presence”).

This alleged event is sometimes referred to as a Second Pentecost.[14] The Second Pentecost is said to be a special secondary “outpouring” of the Spirit in response to the church’s obedience in the “restoration” of the “offices” of apostle and prophet to govern the church, a teaching also emphasized by C. Peter Wagner and his New Apostolic Reformation adherents.[15] Then will come an endtime allegorical “Feast of Tabernacles,” a recurrent theme amongst all who teach this eschatology:

The First Pentecost caused believers to be “clothed with power from on high”. The Second Pentecost is about theincarnation of Christ into His Body.... This is what Latter Rain teachers said we must expect in the final outpouring of the Church age![16][emphasis added]

Old Testament scriptures are spiritualized to see birthing as the return of the ark to the temple, that is the coming of Christ invisibly into His living temple the church. This will occur when the Feast of Tabernacles is fulfilled which celebrates the Lord dwelling among His people. “When this happens, no longer will it be the Head (Jesus Christ) in heaven and the body (believers) on earth - but one Perfect Man filling both heaven and earth.”[17][bold and italic added, underline in original] 

The belief that Jesus Christ will first come as a “Spirit” or “Presence” alters foundational doctrines about Christ and the Trinity (Rom.1:3-4).[18] It ignores (or discounts) that Jesus is coming again in His resurrected body (Rev. 1:7; Heb. 9:27, etc.). It is not unlike Docetism, a heresy in the early church that denied that Jesus Christ came the first time in the flesh. Pastor Anton Bosch informs us that this “is also a popular device used by cults and others that have set dates for His return and then when He did not return on that date the response is that He returned ‘in Spirit.’”[19] 

What does it mean when these teachers say that Jesus secretly orinvisibly returns first as a “Spirit” or “Presence”? They think that the Church (the Body, the Bride) becomes inhabited by this “Spirit”/”Presence” to the point of actually becoming Christ on earth. Note: This isn’t talking about the indwelling Holy Spirit in the life of an individual believer. Rather, they believe in a separate “filling” by a coming “Presence” that results in a corporate “God-man” or “Perfect Man.” Hence their misapplication of the phrase “manifestation of the sons of God” from Romans 8:19. One critic has summarized this theology:

In MSOG teaching this scripture is taken to mean a powerful endtimes revelation of believers as glorified, transformed and perfected, and possessed by Christ to such a degree that they become One with him and become a living corporate Son of God on the earth, ruling with him. This will be accomplished by the descent of “the glory” in a final overwhelming event that will transfigure all those who receive it. (Other less heretical versions have this event as aprogression into spiritual perfection and holiness in the endtimes.)[20][emphasis added] 

This faulty scenario discounts the risen Jesus Christ our Savior, the Son of God, sitting on the right hand of the Father (Acts 7:55-56; Heb. 1:3; 12:18, etc.). Instead, their “God-man” is the “manifest sons of God” – a corporate body (the “Bride”) manifesting itself as Christ in the flesh here on earth. Due to these fundamental errors many scriptures are misapplied to the church that pertain to Jesus Christ alone.

Latter Rain teachers emphasize this “Bride” will become the flesh of Christ incarnate on earth; that this Corporate Bride will become filledor inhabited with the “fulness” of this “Spirit” of Christ, a “Presence.” This indwelling “Presence” is thus said to equip the Corporate Bride to walk out (literally) the judgments of the book of Revelation—as Christ’s incarnate body—and she is charged with the mandate to subdue the earth and put all things under His feet.[21]Thus many Scriptures that pertain only to Jesus in the book of Revelation, are misapplied to the Bride as her duties and responsibilities. There are many variations on this theme, and many teachers contradict their own statements.[22] But this is the belief that forms the foundation for the extreme Dominionism that is being taught.

There is actually quite a bit of confusion in IHOP and NAR documents about the “Spirit of Jesus” and the “Holy Spirit.” When they talk about the “Spirit” they often mean this secondary “Presence” that they are trying to invoke by their 24/7 prayers. Ironically, they downplay the actual Holy Spirit—especially His indwelling presence already promised to believers.[23] Instead they insist that their followers must perform all sorts of extrabiblical exotic rituals, frenzied antics, pronounced decrees and shouting declarations in order to summon more of the “Presence” of this “Spirit.”

Their “Spirit” is not the Holy Spirit.[24] And Jesus Christ is not returning as a “Spirit.” As Dr. Steinkamp has astutely observed:

Jesus has not become the Holy Spirit. It is rather the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer. The Resurrected Jesus is at the Father's right hand and in His glorified resurrected body He will return bodily to the earth. Obviously an indwelling spirit would not need to return from heaven. It is on this basis that some Dominion teachers assert that Jesus can be an on-going incarnation of God in His body (church) upon the earth. Consequently scriptures pertaining to Christ's ruling on earth are often seen as referring the Church rather than Jesus….[25]

The old Latter Rain/MSOG teachers used their own unique terminology to describe their unorthodox views. Likewise, the IHOP/NAR has its own special “in-house” (pun intended) language. It can be very difficult for the “uninitiated” to wade through their gilded spiritual-speak. Nevertheless, once one understands the complex verbiage, it becomes clear that the original heresies about the “Manifest Sons of God” have been modernized for popular consumption.

The History of “Presence” Eschatology
It all began in 1951 when George Warnock, who had been at the Latter Rain Sharon Camp Meetings in Canada and who had been the personal secretary of Ern Baxter (an associate of William Branham's[26] ministry), took up residence at the Sharon Orphanage and School doing office work. He then proceeded to write a book titled The Feast of Tabernacles, which is “based on an allegorical interpretation of the feasts of Israel that has the Feast of Tabernacles standing for a glorious end-times church that would arise before Christ can return.”[27] In this book he laid out a systematic doctrine for this movement calling itself the New Order of the Latter Rain. Warnock stated the premise as:

"Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles typify the whole church age, beginning with the death of Jesus on the cross, consummating in the [the Feast of Tabernacles] theManifestation of the Sons of God. These 'Overcomers' will become perfected and step into immortality in order to establish the kingdom of God on the earth."[28] [emphasis added] 

“This will come about by a secret inner coming of Christ to some Christians which would transform them into ‘Overcomers.’”[29][all emphasis added] 

When Warnock talked of a perfected church he meant the endtime church would—by this “secret inner coming of Christ”—mature into “fullness” to become Christ (i.e., “incarnating Christ”). In other words, the church would become intrinsically one with Christ—not the biblical one in union/communion with Christ— but one in essence.[30]This corporate group of “Overcomers” believed they would then become imbued with both perfection and immortality. Bob DeWaay, in his groundbreaking report on the NAR titled “The Roots and Fruits of the New Apostolic Reformation,” summarized the eschatological significance of Warnock’s teaching:

One of the most heretical teachings associated with the [New Order of the Latter Rain] was called “the manifested sons of God” that claimed that certain elite Christians would obtain the promise of immortality (as promised in Romans 8:19)now rather than at the parousia. Warnock taught that all enemies, in which he included death, the “last enemy,” had to be conquered by the church before Christ could return: “God says Christ is going to stay right where He is until all His enemies are under His feet. And His enemies include the “last enemy,” which is Death. There must arise a group ofovercomers who shall conquer and become absolutely victorious over all the opposing forces of the world, the flesh, and the Devil—before this dispensation draws to a close.” The “overcomers” is another term used by the Latter Rain to describe elitist Christians who are to be distinguished from the rest of us.[31] [emphasis added] 

There are several interrelated teachings that form a further basis for this radical departure from orthodox doctrine. Note the unusual language in this summary of this eschatology:

• MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD which is the fullness and glorification of the Church on the day that “Christ is formed in his people”. They are a mighty Army of the Lord (Joel's Army). This is sometimes described as the Birth of the Manchild—i.e. the overcomers of the Church are brought (literally) to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”, and become the Glorified Christ—the “many-membered Body of Christ” on earth by means of the infilling of the Glory of God…. 
• THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, understood spiritually as the Harvest Festival of joy and gladness, when the Ark returns to the Living Temple, the glory cloud returns, and Christ appears in the midst of His people. Christ is incarnated in His Body—the Coming of Christ understood as invisible and spiritual (i.e., “The Kingdom of God is within you”). Also known as “The Latter Rain” outpouring of Joel's prophecy—the Second Pentecost in which Christ indwells his entire [corporate] Body, as opposed to the first Pentecost, when he indwelt individuals. 
• ASTONISHING SIGNS AND WONDERS will take place at the hands of the Manifested Sons of God. Their campaign will lead to a glorious worldwide Endtimes Harvest—as the manchild overcomers go forth to reap [the harvest, ed.].[32] [some emphasis added]

As noted earlier, this movement also taught the necessity of the “restoration” of the “office” of apostles and prophets, a facet which is emphasized nowadays by the NAR. This restoration of a hierarchical pyramid of dictatorial power, reigning over both the church and the world, is envisioned as the powerful enforcement mechanism to “reap” (“harvest”) the nations.[33] More will be said on this later.

Earl Paulk, an early influential teacher, claimed that Jesus has “entered a higher realm of restoration and love by becoming an indwelling Spirit.”[34] Note: Paulk was not referring to the Holy Spirit here. Paulk’s message of “Christ in us” was one of achieving both dominion and immortality:

Christ in us must take dominion over the earth.... The next move of God cannot occur until Christ in us takes dominion.[35][all emphasis added] 

Jesus Christ, as the first-fruit of the Kingdom, began the work of conquering death on an individual basis, but we, as His church, will be the ones to complete the task…. Death will not be conquered by Jesus returning to earth. It will be conquered when the church stands up boldly and says, “We have dominion over the earth.”[36] [emphasis added] 

Paulk believed that Christians must release this “Spirit” into the kingdoms of this world through prayer. The prayer-induced release of this “Spirit” would cause worldly kingdoms to crumble as the church becomes empowered as overcomers to take dominion.[37] Paulk taught that the church was the “incarnation” of Jesus:

“Jesus was God in the flesh. We must be as He was in the world, and even greater in volume and influence.” 

“The completion of the incarnation of God in the world must be in His church…. Jesus Christ is the firstfruit, but without the ongoing harvest, the incarnation will never be complete.”… 

“We are on earth as extensions of God to finish the work He began. We are the essence of God, His on-going incarnation in the world.”[38] [emphases added] 

If this sounds similar to the New Age teachings about the “god within” it is because both have roots in Gnosticism.[39] Evangelical postmodern teachers have adopted similar “incarnational” language.[40] Thus, their shared belief about “incarnating Christ” may explain why certain evangelical leaders seem to have no difficulty finding common ground with the current teachers in the IHOP and NAR.[41] 

Bill Britton, a prolific writer and Latter Rain teacher, similarly taught Jesus’s return through a corporate body of flesh. Again note the unique terminology:

Suddenly the world sees Jesus again in the flesh, as He manifests Himself through these thousands of saintssimultaneously around the world…. God was manifested in the flesh, in one body [Jesus Christ], then think what it will be when He manifests that same Life through thousands at the same time. 

Beloved, it is people in human, flesh bodies who shallconquer this world and defeat Satan…. Jesus defeated Satan and overcame him for us and put all of hell’s forces to an open shame. And He did this in a flesh body. Since He is the Head of the Body, it is now in order for the Body to follow in the pattern which He has set for us…. This Body of Christ, the Overcomer, shall come forth in mighty power tomanifest the fullness of Christ in the earth. They are known as the Manifested Sons of God….[42][emphases added] 

I see the great year of Jubilee, when we shall pass through the veil into the very Presence of the fullness of God, to befilled with this fullness and go forth proclaiming liberty to all of creation. [43][emphases added] 

Notice how Bill Britton's teaching about a simultaneous manifestation of this “Presence” is remarkably similar to Barbara Marx Hubbard's proposed “Armaggedon Alternative” to bypass God's coming Judgment. This prominent New Age leader teaches a “Planetary Pentecost” that resembles the Second Pentecost taught by the Latter Rain/MSOG. Hubbard wrote in her book The Revelation of an endtime “great Instant of Co-operation which can transform enough, en masse, to avoid the necessity of the seventh seal being broken.” (See Warren Smith's book False Christ Coming, p. 100-103, to recognize the other similarities in these eschatologies.)

These older Latter Rain/MSOG doctrines about the “Presence” would go on to have a second life in the 1980s and 1990s as leaders began to revise and update these teachings for more widespread appeal.

The Kansas City Prophets & the Presence 
By the late 1980s the Latter Rain teachings became fully embedded in the doctrines of the movement that has now become widely known as IHOP and NAR. In 1990, just as the “Kansas City Prophets” coalesced with John Wimber of Vineyard and C. Peter Wagner of Fuller Seminary (who later set up the NAR[44]), Discernment Ministries published an astonishing report about a 1989 Vineyard Conference[45]where these old Latter Rain cult doctrines were being resurrected. The report summarized what was being said:

1. They believe they will become Christ corporately and individually. When you hear someone say, as Mike Bickle (from Kansas City Fellowship speaking at a Vineyard Conference in 1989) said, “Christ is the Alpha and we are the Omega,” you immediately realize this is not Scriptural—only Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. What is it then? Manifest Sons of God… i.e., we are Christ corporately.… 
2. They believe the Church is the Ongoing Incarnation of Jesus. This is the cornerstone of Manifest Sons teaching. Instead of us partaking in the divine nature of Jesus, we become EQUAL TO and EVEN ASSUME the ROLE OF JESUS CHRIST.[46] [bold added, underline in original] 

This is a subtle deception. While acknowledging that Jesus came in the flesh, they then say that the CHURCH incarnates Jesus, becoming Christ in the flesh. They even use the term “Rapture” to refer to the “Christ within”:

The RAPTURE as looked for by the Manifests Sons of God is a coming forth of the “Christ within” every saint after the order of the Pattern Son. He made it as a divine, immortal and sinless Son of God. This can be duplicated by each individual, who by following Jesus as the Pattern Son, becomes a Manifested Son. This company is known as “The New Breed” or “Joel’s Army” etc. They will take dominion (establish a theocracy) and execute judgment on those they deem ungodly.[47][bold added] 

The infilling “Presence” was often described as the “glory.” At the same 1989 Vineyard “Prophets Conference,”[48] the now-disgraced “Kansas City Prophet” Paul Cain[49] stated: “If you get close enough to God, you can extract the very breath of God, you can extract the very glory of God right out of Him and then pass that on to your generation.”[50] Another speaker at the conference twisted Scripture to state that we “become” the Word:

“…the Lord has well planted this seed of the New Bride and the New Breed…. He’s about to open the womb and He’s about to give birth to this New Thing…. When the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us we beheld the glories of the only begotten of the Father and when YOU begin to becomethat Word, I want you to know that the world will behold theglory of the Father and that’s what we’re waiting to see…. I want you to know that we’re going to have some channelingone of these days, but it’s going to be channeled right out of the throne room of heaven.”[51][emphases added] 

This “Presence” was also referred to as “fire” during the 1990s. There is a history to this. Franklin Hall, responsible for many of the teachings that came into the Latter Rain and the Manifested Sons of God in the 1940s and 1950s, taught a “fire baptism.” This “fire baptism,” he claimed, could be “passed on through the laying on of hands, (impartation) and other extremes imparting the Holy Ghost fire into people's bodies, through fasting and prayer.”[52] Hall’s old teaching was revived in the 1990s during the Toronto and Brownsville “Laughing Revivals,” with many reports of a “Spirit” descending on people like “fire.” According to an in-depth report on this phenomenon, Benny Hinn specifically described it as “the fire of God’s presence”:

the day will come when the fire of God’s presence will visibly appear in public meetings. You may have never heard that before - it’s biblical.... We’ve known the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but we have not yet known the fire. And I’m here to tell you in Southern California, God is about to visit you and the whole Church with fresh fire.”[53][bold, underline added, italics in original]

A few years later, in May of 2000, at the C. Peter Wagner’s National School of the Prophets,[54] IHOP leader Mike Bickle explained how the “fire” coming down was a second Pentecost experience that would anoint the church with a “forerunner’s spirit” for judgment:

“In Daniel 7:10, the fiery stream, or the river of fire that breaks fourth out of the throne of God, I believe is the person of the Holy Spirit. And when the fire comes forth, the fire is not just judgment. The fire is the revelation of theburning desire of God's heart for people. Now, with that burning desire, when rebellion rises up against it, the fireremoves that which hinders love, and we call it judgment. But the fire breaks forth. His name is the Holy Spirit, and when this fire comes through history, Malachi 3 says, “The forerunners at the end of the age are going to loose the burning fire.” The spirit of burning is the manifestationthrough the House of God in prayer, of this river of firecalled the Holy Spirit…. It's the anointing of the forerunner's spirit… the river of God, the Holy Spirit, clothing us with fire, bringing us into that kind of union, that intimate bridal partnership that we call intercessory worship.”[55] [italics in original. bold added] 

Bickle is saying that this “fire” is a “manifestation” of the “Holy Spirit” that can be summoned by IHOP style fervent prayer. NAR “apostle” Cindy Jacobs, immediately jumped in to reinforce Bickle’s remarks, by admitting, “We don't understand this part of Pentecost.”Thus she provided a clear indication that Bickle’s remarks were in reference to the old Latter Rain idea about a Second Pentecost. Jacobs further underscored Bickle’s statement by claiming that a “fire of the Holy Spirit” is “coming…. And it’s going to issue out from us into the nations of the earth.”[56]

“The Days of His Presence” 
Francis Frangipane, one of the original “Kansas City Prophets” along with Paul Cain, Rick Joyner, Mike Bickle and others,[57] published an influential book The Days of His Presence in 1996. In this quasi-theological treatise, Frangipane uses the same terms “glory” and “presence” in the same way as the old Latter Rain/MSOG teachers. Notice he uses the word “Presence” with a capital P:

…God’s plan is that here on earth, in us, the glory of the Lord will be revealed! The luminous, radiant light of HisPresence, as it shone from Moses’ face and flooded Solomon’s temple at its dedication, as it radiated from Jesus and bathed His disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration—that light of God’s Presence shall arise from within us at the end of the age! This same divine glory shall, in ever-increasing degrees of brightness, appear upon us in the years prior to the Lord’s actual second coming.[58] [italics in original, bold added]

Frangipane bases his mystical eschatology in part on personal visions and spiritual experiences with this “Presence.” After seeing a vision of a “glorious, heavenly procession” of angelic beings, Frangipane says he “gained an understanding of Christ’s expansive Presence and the impact His glory will have on the church at the end of the age.”[59] He writes, “the Lord’s Presence emanates from His glorified body in heaven,”[60] a statement which sounds similar to the Gnostic idea of “emanations.”[61] He then states this “Presence” would increase:

So also will this world change as the person of the Lord Jesus and His millennial reign draw near. The radiance of HisPresence will increasingly fill the spiritual realms surrounding our world. And not only will the world as we know it begin to experience dramatic changes as demonic strongholds are confronted and toppled by the Lord, but among those whose hearts are open and longing for Him, a great transformation will occur!... The Presence of Christ will be all that fills our minds.[62][bold added] 

Nowhere in Scripture can we find any basis for a doctrine of an increase in a “Presence of Christ.” Yet, according to Frangipane, this “Presence” will appear “prior to” the second coming of Christ and will both intensify and increase:

Yet, before He appears, while He is near but still invisible, that same radiance of glory will be poured out on “all flesh”…. For as He is in power and glory when He appears, so He is beforehand though unseen! And it is this out-raying Presence which will grow ever more resplendent in the church prior to His second coming.

With surge of His glory many things will be quickened on earth…. 

 [W]e who are open and yielded to Christ will watch in amazement as His Presence in us also intensifies and increases…. He will present to Himself a bride without spot or wrinkle…. 

The church will be beautified with His glory and filled with His radiance before He physically comes for her! 

He must increase and we must decrease until His Presence fills everything, everywhere, with Himself.[63] [Italics in original, bold added] 

This last statement sounds like Panentheism, which teaches that God is IN everything.[64] Like the other Latter Rain teachers, Frangipane believes there is a “Transcendent Purpose”[65] for this indwelling corporate “Presence.” The church has a mission, and it is dominion:

…[T]he church at the end of the age is to be given a stewardship, a mandate from heaven. At the bidding of the Sovereign King, we are called to participate with God in the process of divine consummation. 

For the unrepentant world, the apostate church, and the demons of hell, this will manifest as a period of God’s judgment and wrath. However, for those who are yielded to God, the same Spirit which comes to judge the wicked is alsocoming to inhabit and transform the righteous! [66] [emphases added] 

Note that Frangipane states that a “Spirit” would come to judge the wicked, and that this same “Spirit” would “inhabit” the righteous. Scripture does not say that a “Spirit” will judge the wicked, nor does it say that the church will be indwelt by a “Presence” to judge the wicked. The Bible specifies that it is “the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead” (2Tim. 4:1). The church is not Jesus. This is yet another teaching that has the effect of corrupting the doctrine of the Trinity.

Frangipane explains his view that “the church” would be “entering Christ’s glory in successive stages of spiritual fulness.”[67] He alleges that “during this last great time of fulness, the Presence of Christ will expand in the lives of those surrendered to His Lordship….”[68] This progressive return of the Lord via His “Presence” is said to be as an inner coming: “before the day of the Lord breaks, the morning star shall rise in our hearts!” and there shall be an “unveiling of Christ rising in His people… the glory of God shallrise within us” which is said to create a “harmony” and “unity” that “is the consequence of Christ’s Presence.”[69]

Frangipane focuses on the Greek word parousia which can mean “presence.” Based in part on another vision he experienced, he believes that “the entire sign-period is activated directly by Christ’s increasing Presence, the Parousia, at the end of the age.” He clearly states his belief that “the Lord will increasingly manifest Himself in His Presence before He physically returns.”[70] To underscore this point, he asserts that “there is a difference between the calendar day of Christ’s return and the season of spiritual fulness introducing it.” Thus, as like the early Latter Rain taught, the return of Christ is split into two parts beginning with the “arrival of Christ’s Presence.”[71]In case there is any doubt, Frangipane reiterates:

…I am not saying this time of Christ’s Presence will take the place of the rapture; only that it will precede it.[72] 

Our destiny is not just to carry Christ inside but to reveal the fulness of His glory in this world…. 

As Jesus was both God and man, so the church is actually the dwelling of Christ in the temple of man. There is not a different Jesus in us than He who dwells in heaven. He is Christ wrapped in glory in heaven. He is Christ wrapped in our human flesh on earth…. 

He has chosen to hide His glory not from us but in us [73] [Italics in original, bold added] 

It is at this juncture that Frangipane introduces the ominous doctrine that explains the purpose of this “fulness” of “Presence”—“a finalcleansing would occur during the last years of the age.”[74] This is a thinly-disguised reference the Latter Rain’s oft-prophesied endtime “harvest.” “Harvesting” the earth is synonymous with the idea of “cleansing” the earth.[75] Those who “cannot accept God’s promises of a glorified church at the end of the age” are categorized with the warning “beware of the dogs.”[76] Lest there be any doubt, he reiterates, “At the end of the age, everything short of oneness with Christ will appear as sin.”[77] Does this mean that sin will be defined as anything short of experiencing this Christ “Presence” within? One can only wonder.

These unorthodox ideas would go on to become an integral part of the doctrine of both IHOP and the NAR. The next sections of this article series will examine the evidence.

Stay tuned for Part 3. . . . 

Due to inclement weather the Presence could not show up and needed to be rescheduled.

THE TRUTH:
Pastor Larry DeBruyn recently published an article “The Present of ‘His Presence’” which is very germane to the issues brought up in this current article series. Below are a few key excerpts:

The Bible teaches that the risen and glorified Christ has a corporeal presence, not on earth, but in heaven. According to the apostle Peter, Jesus Christ “has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand–with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him” (I Peter 3:22, NIV). The author of Hebrews agrees (Hebrews 4:14; 8:1). Jesus said He was going to that place (John 14:2-3). 

The Bible promises Jesus’ spiritual presence with believers on earth (Matthew 28:20), but precludes His earthly physical presence until His Second Advent, which will be personal, physical, visible, and public. At the time of His ascension, two men in white assured the disciples, “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven”(Acts 1:11)…. 

• On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit (the “Comforter”) descended. “…in His goodness the Lord offered to them His presence again as He came to dwell not just with them, but in them, both individually (as saints) and corporately (as the church).” 
• “As such, the divine presence with people would no longer be associated, as during the Old Testament Era, with a place (i.e., a land, a city, a mount, and a building)….” 
• “Although Jesus would no longer be physically present with His faithful followers, the Spirit, whom He would send to take His place, would, and by faith we have that presence NOW! The Spirit of Christ is both with us and in us! (Romans 8:9b)” 
• “The error of the new spirituality is that it assumes that God’s presence can be ginned-up via the exercise of human passion…. Rather, Jesus’ presence in us depends upon our acceptance of His propitiation for us—that He died for our sins to make us fit vessels to be in (Romans 6:3-11). Christ graces sinners with His presence when by faith they receive the cleansing that can only come through His blood and new birth from above (John 3:3, 7).”[78] [underline added] 

When will we see Jesus again? Not as an invisible “Presence” sneaking in the backdoor. Rather Scripture is clear:

“So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;
and unto them that look for Him
shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”
(Hebrews 9:27) 

An old commentary on this verse from Hebrews states:

The Scripture is express unto a double appearing or coming of Christ. The first was His coming in the flesh, coming into the world, coming unto His own,—namely, to discharge the work of His mediation, especially to make atonement for sin in the sacrifice of Himself, unto the accomplishment of all promises made concerning it, and all types instituted for its representation; the second is in glory, unto the judgment of all, when He shall finish and complete the eternal salvation of the church. Any other personal appearance or coming of Christ the Scripture knows now, and in this [verse] expressly excludes any imagination of it. His first appearance is past; and appear the second time He will not until that judgment comes which follows death, and the salvation of the church shall be completed…. 

There shall be a public vision and sight of Him. He was seen on the earth in the days of His flesh: He is now in heaven, where no mortal eye can see Him, within the veil of that glory which we cannot look into…. 

The present long-continued absence of Christ in heaven is the great trial of the world…. The promise of His coming, recorded in the Scripture, is the ground of our faith herein…. In the continual supplies of His Spirit which believers do receive… is the great pledge of His mediatory life in heaven, of the continuance of His love and care towards the church, and consequently the great assurance of His second coming.[79] 

_______________________________________________________________

Part 3 of 6:

Read Part 2 

Joel's Army

IHOP-KC sets an emotionally charged grand vision before their students that they are unique from every other generation and that God will use them for great end-time exploits…. The [IHOP] vision seemed attractive. We were to be used by God when His end-times plan began to unfold. Until then, we were preparing for that time.[1]

“Simply put, the revelation of Jesus as the Bridegroom is the revelation of Jesus' burning desire for His people,” Bickle says in an IHOP brochure. “As a Bride of Christ, we are to walk in revelation of Jesus' emotions for us, to understand and rejoice in His commitment to share His heart with us, and to respond with wholehearted love and obedience to His will as we enter into partnership with Him….”[2]

The house of prayer is a house of His Presence where worship prepares the way for His eternal reign on the earth.[3]

  

IHOP and the “Presence” 
IHOP is on the rise in the evangelical world. Once an obscure church in the Kansas City area on the fringes of the Charismatic movement, it has now become a youth movement. The IHOP (International House of Prayer) is on the verge of engulfing youth ministry in this country with its methods and its doctrines. Through its aggressive recruitment efforts it is playing a leading role on college campuses. It is listed as an equal partner in many collaborative evangelical prayer and mission efforts. IHOP leaders are now openly associating with the upper echelons of evangelical leadership, including engaging in political activism.[4] And the leaven of IHOP doctrine is quietly seeping into the entire church world.

Few parents who send their kids off to IHOP-sponsored or connected events know what IHOP really stands for. This is because IHOP and its many associated offshoots market themselves as revivalists. Everyone wants youth to experience revival. But is this “house of prayer” experience a true revival? Is this a revival based on the Gospel of Salvation? The IHOP conferences and events are stage-managed to produce the maximum amount of visual, aural, psychological, sensual and spiritual stimuli—all of which can superficially appear to be revival. But is it biblical revival? When this movement began 25 years ago, one critic noticed its faulty framework:

What is perceived as spiritual is in reality soulish, contributing to a euphoric state of altered consciousness from repetitious choruses that follow one upon the other. The mesmerizing effect of the music creates a frame of mind open to suggestion by the subsequent preaching of dominionist teachers who build on the fervor of the moment with messages of future power and glory.[5]

The orchestrated commotion at youth events serves as fertile ground for inculcating a strange and different doctrine—a doctrine that has been taught by IHOP leaders for decades.

The original IHOP blueprint is still in effect.[6] The extreme praise and worship music is an essential component of their whole plan. It is based on the old Latter Rain cult “Tabernacle of David”[7] (TOD) heresy that taught that “before the Church can be perfected and establish dominion, it must restore praise and worship as a means to enter into the presence of God.”[8] TOD is based on an “endtime revival”[9] scenario in which the church will progressively become mature, sinless and perfect, culminating in a final generation of “New Breed”[10] youth of “elect seed”[11] who will possess superior spiritual abilities. These youth, as “the manifestation of the Sons of God,” will evolve/emerge into “overcomers”—“and step into immortality in order to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.”[12]As a perfected corps of elites they will become “the ‘man-child’ of Revelation 12” (also referred to as “the many-membered man child”).[13] A summary of these teachings explains:

Central to Manifest Sons of God doctrine is the belief that sonship to God comes through higher revelation. The Christian life, it is believed, is fragmented into stages of maturity… to become a son of God and, ultimately, gods ourselves.[14][bold added]

Some who have been infected by the Manifest Sons of God teachings even believe He will not return physically, but rather that Christ and the Church are becomine one in nature and essence, and that the Church, as the ‘on-goingincarnation of God,’ is Christ on earth. [15][bold added] 

This doctrine of being able to attain spiritual elitism is both alluring and intoxicating to a generation raised on the witchcraft powers of Harry Potter. Youth are being told that they will be specially anointed with higher-order spiritual gifts that no generation on earth has ever attained previously. Possessing these superior powers, they are being told, will give them secret knowledge to become immortal. They will gain the ability to subdue their enemies and “rule over the nations with a rod of iron.”[16] They believe they can wield this spiritual power, much the same as is taught in the occult.[17] 

Before they can gain this supreme ascendancy, though, they must first undergo zealous works of purification and deprivation—activities which seem super-spiritual at face value, but which have nothing to do with the Gospel of Salvation. The IHOP call for extreme asceticism (referred to at times as the “Nazarite”[18] and/or “wilderness lifestyle”[19]) is held up as the exemplary model for becoming “mature.”[20] This model can best be performed by unencumbered youth. It cannot be replicated by those who are living typical lives in Christian families, nurturing small children, caring for the elderly, visiting the sick, working at normal jobs, doing mission work and attending church regularly. Rather, the most demanding rigors of this 24/7 prayer work can only be performed by those who have left behind“natural affection” (Rom. 1:31; 1 Tim. 3:3) and chosen a radical manner of life akin to monasticism.[21]

It is not a matter of IF the IHOP is teaching the old Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God (MSOG) doctrines. It is HOW they have repackaged them for mass-market appeal. Before getting bogged down in their semantic gymnastics, keep in mind that IHOP uses inventive spiritual-sounding terminologies laden with secret theological meanings known only to their initiated elite. One IHOP critic cautions:

You don’t have to be around the IHOP movement very long before you are exposed to a large glossary of insider terms and phrases…. A cautionary red light should go on whenever we discover any church or Christian movement creating, and extensively using, their own exclusive language.… This becomes especially disconcerting when most inside a Christian movement begin to “talk alike” and parrot the same terms and phrases in their prayers and songs….[22]

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this report, we examined the history and context of this “Presence” theology. What follows is an in-depth examination of IHOP’s specific teachings, methods and practices as they relate to the eschatology of a coming “Presence” that will indwell and empower the IHOP “Bride” to “to contend, to wrestle with and throw down [her] spiritual adversaries.”[23] 

Exhibit: IHOP's Blueprint:http://beyondgrace.blogspot.com/search/label/Joseph%20Company

Fleshing Out the “Presence” 

Mike Bickle, in 1982, received a prophetic word that said “I (the Lord) will change the understanding and expression of Christianity in one generation.”[24]

In what Mike Bickle has called his “Forerunner Eschatology”[25] we can see evidences of the early Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God cult teachings. Bickle alters the doctrine of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to focus on the preparation of a corporate “Bride” for a “last-day divine war to drive evil from the earth and cleanse it.”[26] The term “forerunner” itself implies an elite role. It is linked to John the Baptist and preparing the way. Preparing the way for what? The coming “Presence.”[27] Forerunners act in a manner similar to change agents, functioning as early adopters who are marketing IHOP’s doctrines and practices.[28] Similar to the old Latter Rain teachers, Bickle’s eschatology differs from both Premillennialism and Postmillenialism:

Bickle distinguishes his apostolic premillennialism from dispensational premillennialism by rejecting a pretribulation rapture for a conquering church that prays and ministers through Revelation’s Great Tribulation…. 

He believes he is preparing an army of Christians who will triumph during the soon-coming crisis of the Antichrist’s global rule and the Great Tribulation. He preaches a self-identified apostolic Christianity characterized by intimacy with Jesus as bridegroom…. 

He declares that… Jesus is waiting for the church to prepare itself as the pure Bride of Christ and to ready itself to launch the last-day divine war to drive evil from the earth and cleanse it so that it can be filled with God’s love and glory.[29][emphasis added] 

Bickle’s “Forerunner Eschatology” teaches that the endtime church will experience an infilling of the “glory,” thus manifesting itself as a corporate Bride who is “mature”[30] in the faith. This “Bride” must rev up passion.[31] She must “possess the keys of the kingdom through prayer that will drive hell off the planet”[32] :

Based on Bickle’s end-time teaching, Jesus’ second coming has preconditions. He teaches that Jesus will not return until the global church is crying out “Come, Lord Jesus” with a full understanding of her identity as the Bride of Christ. Jesus will only return when the church is functioning in the unity of the Spirit and is anointed in prayer to release the destructive end-time tribulation judgments.[33][emphases added] 

The IHOP “Harp & Bowl” radical worship style is the approved method for increasing the Bride’s perfection. “Harp & Bowl” is based on the old George Warnock “Tabernacle of David” teachings:

“In May 1983, [when Bickle met Bob Jones] the Lord gave a promise to the church at Metro Christian Fellowship that He would release in the midst of their city, a 24-hour a day, citywide ministry to the Lord in the spirit of the Tabernacle of David (Acts 15:14-18). This prayer ministry now includescontinuous worship, intercession and warfare.”[34][emphasis added]

IHOP’s plan has been to establish a 24/7 “citywide, House of Prayer (in the spirit of the Tabernacle of David) established in every major city of the earth before the Lord's return.”[35] They believe that their radical fervent prayer will “release God’s power” to transform the church into a “living corporate Son of God on the earth.”[36]

This will be accomplished by the descent of "the glory" in a final overwhelming event that will transfigure all those who receive it.[37][emphasis added] 

An IHOP document explains their particular eschatology of creating a “dwelling place” for the “habitation” of “His presence”:

God wants to establish a dwelling place or habitation of His presence on the earth in His Church…. More than a spirit of revival. God’s looking for a place to manifest His presence. 

This expression of God’s manifest presence transforms the Church, thrust [sic] workers into the harvest and brings God’s power to work through His people on the earth in a way few have experienced in history. This has been reserved for the End Times church.[38][emphasis added] 

This isn’t talking about the indwelling Holy Spirit in the life of an individual believer. Rather, they believe in a separate “filling” by a coming “Presence.” God’s sovereignty is diminished as He is portrayed as waiting helpless in the heavenlies until their “bowl of prayers” reaches “fulness.” It has been described as:

“We along with all of creation are longing for the unveiling of Gods power as God waits in heaven for the bowl of the prayers of the saints to be filled up so He can show His power. Prayer is directly related to the release of Gods [sic] power in scripture….”[39][emphasis added] 

Exhibit: IHOP's attempt to set up the Tabernacle of David in Washington, D.C.

IHOP teaches that “God will again raise up and restore the fallenTabernacle of David” based on 24/7 “music, praise, worship, dancing, and prayer.” Why David’s Tabernacle? They believe there was “NO VEIL separating the manifest presence of God” from the people in the tabernacle that David built for the ark in Jerusalem. Therefore, they believe that just as “the church established these ‘prayer/worship furnaces” of IHOP that “the glory of God will begin to emerge in our region and within each local fellowship” and “the power of God” will be “released in fulness.”[41] In other words, resurrecting the Tabernacle of David music worship system will permit them access to God’s Presence without a veil. But we already have access to God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross:“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh” (Heb. 10:19-20). Nevertheless, they believe that a fully operational David’s Tabernacle will “draw His manifest presence into our midst” for “tremendous authority and anointing.”[41] Similarly they believe their continual aggressive prayer interacts with the heavenlies to change things on earth; that their prayer “opens up a fountain of life, an open heaven, a Jacob’s ladder.”[42] Thus again they discount the shed blood of Jesus Christ whereby we can draw near to God without the necessity of performing works and rituals: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).

Bickle’s “Forerunner Eschatology” teaches that the church will release endtime judgments. IHOP’s passionately praying “Warrior Bride”[43]is said to be readying herself to literally walk out the book of Revelation “to release the destructive end-time tribulation judgments.”[44] She has been referred to as “Joel’s Army,”[45] a Latter Rain army charged with wreaking a literal judgment on earth asChrist.[46] IHOP teaches:

The Book of Revelation gives us a stunning picture of the dynamic relationship between the intercession of the end-time church and the release of the judgments of God. There is a clear picture throughout the book of agreement in heaven and on earth as the purified, mature Bride interacts with the heavenly realm and a God stirred in His zeal to judgewickedness and reveal His delight in righteousness.[47][emphasis added] 

…The coming global harvest will have more than uncountable numbers but unmatched corporate devotion, purity, and depth of commitment to Christ before His return.[48][emphasis added] 

They believe their corporate Bride is able to interact with the heavenlies to release judgments, and that the “harvest” (or “cleansing”) of the earth takes place before Jesus returns. According to these doctrines the “Bride” wields the sickle and is in charge of the harvest.[49] This despite Jesus’s clear explanation in Matthew 13:39 that “the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.” This explains the purpose of the radical 24/7 worship style in evidence at all the IHOP prayer furnaces across the world—their “Bride” plays an essential role in the coming judgments! The more fervid and frenzied her prayers, the closer the judgments are to being actuated. An IHOP document asserts:

The interplay of the prophetic church participating in thegovernment of God and His judgments through intercession in the ultimate concert of prayer is vital for us to understand if we want to grasp the critical role of the Bride on the earth at the end of the age. The heavens shift and angels move in response to an anointed Bride united with the heart of Jesus partnering with Him to release judgmentthrough prayer. [50][all emphasis added] 

There is an elitism that comes with this kind of theology. Faithful followers believe they will gain great personal spiritual power—quite an intoxicating idea.[51] History teaches us that anytime someone claims divinity (becoming Christ incarnate, e.g.) it serves to legitimize their grab for absolute power.[52] Note the elite sense of superior spiritual power evidenced in the following statements:

Bickle envisions that the end-time forerunner church will be an advanced “apostolic” movement. They will experience “greater things” than the apostles themselves. They will function as the last day Moses who through prayer releases God’s plagues on the Antichrist, the end-time Pharaoh.

Bickle emphasizes that during the end times, Moses’ miracles and the miracles of the Book of Acts will be combined and multiplied on a global level as the praying church looses God’s judgments on the earth. This is why Bickle calls the Book of Revelation the “End-Times Book of Acts,” meaning that the Book of Revelation reveals the acts of the Holy Spirit that will be demonstrated through the end-time praying church. 

Bickle imagines that millions of praying Christians will one day be unified in prayer by knowing exactly how and when to pray next because the judgments and events in the Book of Revelation are numbered and in sequential chronological order…. [T]he end-time church will be able to loose or bind God’s judgments exactly as they unfold in history…. 

By praying Revelation’s Great Tribulation events into existence, this will result in billions of men, women and children being killed.[53][emphasis added] 

According to its own training documents, IHOP arrogantly believes it will “be a central reality in the age to come as the primary governing strategy of Jesus as He interacts with both heavenly and earthly realms simultaneously.”[54] This IHOP Bride will receive special revelation. The Bride will be informed by the “prophetic messenger” in the “unfolding of the Word” as Jesus “imparts deeper truths and understandings of His heart” to them, proclaiming “His desires and intentions.”[55] As a result, the Bridal church[56] then become empowered “with great signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth” that will “authenticate the message.”[57] What astounding claims! In sum, IHOP believes it plays an exclusive powerful role in orchestrating the endtime judgment states:

God is continually calling IHOP to “do IHOP” because He longs for an active partnership with human beings in full agreement with His methodology to bring about change and transformation.[58][emphasis added] 

What is this “methodology” being spoken of? Below we will examine several key methods employed by IHOP to purify and perfect the “Bride” for this coming elite role.

Exhibit: An advertisement for the David's Tent DC event

How to Manifest the Presence 
“Pray-Reading (Meditating)”[59]
One of the primary methods of inculcating IHOP doctrine is called “Pray-Read.” This is a method of reading Scripture and talking it back to God by “praying promises from His Word that we are to believe.”[60] Bickle explains: “Using the Bible and speaking the Word back to God…. Simply speaking its truths back to Him as we read it.”[61] He also describes this technique as “spiritual disciplines of prayer and meditation.”[62] This rote repetition of verses “back to God” is essentially a form of Word Faith, i.e., name-it-and-claim-it. It is a scripted method of “encountering God.”[63] Bickle says, “We actively dialogue with God by praying truths back to Him that exhort us to obey His Word.”[64] While it is commendable that the person praying is committing themselves to obey God, this whole effort can become a formulaic ritual. In fact, it seems to have a bad case of tunnel vision— parroting words back to God is a one-dimensional way to learn the Bible. Bickle asserts,

It is not enough to study the Word, we must give our heart to God and receive from Him as we read it. We allow it tocreate an active dialogue with God as it gives us the “conversational material.” We must actually speak the Word back to God and against Satan’s attack on our lives.[65] 

Note: reading God’s Word isn’t just in order to claim promises for one’s self. This seems self-centered. Studying the Bible is an intellectual exercise of the sober-minded believer that will stimulate further knowledge of God and His holiness.[66] Various methods of Bible study can be profitable. Believers can study words in a passage and delve into related Scriptures for context. Through studying the Bible they receive edification, become convicted of sin, learn how to walk with the Lord in closer obedience, and apply the Word to their various life circumstances. God’s Word is alive, a two-edged sword, that reaches deep into the heart of a believer (Heb. 4:12). The Word is part of our spiritual armor, equipping us to stand in adversity (Eph. 6:17). It has the power to convert an unbeliever (Luke 8:11; John 4:41)). It also permits the believer to have a close and intimate relationship with the Lord (see “word” in Psalm 119, e.g.).

Passionate Praying 
An IHOP document asserts that “Sustained, fervent prayer is necessary to bring about an awakening and to sustain [sic] revival.”[67] This is heady stuff. “The prophetic song” is said to be “one of God’s most powerful weapons.”[68] And “Prayer Rooms” are said to function as a “Special Ops unit.”[69] The IHOP passionate prayer is a vehicle to attain the high level of spiritual power necessary “to establish justice in the earth” and a “breatkthrough in authority to change a nation,” as well as to “change the spiritual atmosphere of cities and nations.”[70] With such extraordinary promises as this, prayer becomes more than direct communication with God. It has nothing to do with humble petitions. Rather, prayer is viewed as a powerful weapon wielded for warfare over the spiritual (and physical) world. In this sense, prayer is a dagger to wield against anything construed to be an “enemy” (is this anything like a curse?). Thus the mercy inherent in the grace of the Gospel of Salvation message is completely lost. IHOP prayer is based on an “us vs. them” worldview in which anything deemed to oppose itself to Christ must be conquered, not saved.

Love is redefined to mean emotional passion. It is far removed from its biblical context of mercy and kindness. As a result, there is often very little difference between IHOP’s “passionate” love and carnal “passionate” lust—both are emotion-centered. Mike Bickle teaches that God passionately will release “the Presence of the Holy Spirit working in us to tenderize and exhilarate our spirits in love.”[71]Thus there is a stated goal to “experience godly emotions” which will provoke a “divine encounter” of “Jesus manifesting His presence (dwelling) in us.”[72] This is speaking of a separate experience from the Holy Spirit indwelling the believer promised in Eph. 3:17 (“that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith…”).

Rather Bickle asserts there is a secondary indwelling experience that “had not yet happened to the Ephesian Christians”—where “Jesus will release His Presence.”[73] The person praying must “profoundly encounter God’s affection” so that they can realize that “God has ‘volcanic desire.” They need to become “exhilarated by God’s affections” and “lost in love.” Such vivid passion language is common throughout IHOP documents.[74] The simple Gospel love message of salvation in 1John 3:16 has been lost: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 

Decrees and Declarations
The IHOP movement issues “decrees” and “declarations”[75] in the same way it is practiced by C. Peter Wagner and his associates in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). These decrees are essentially demands, assertions or pronouncements. These are based on a belief that it the church must emphatically and forcefully state that God will accomplish something. It is believed that fiercer their assertions, the more God will be “released” to act. This practice encompasses “binding” and “loosing” spiritual warfare.[76] The implication is that God is stalled and stymied in heaven, totally helpless to act until they utter their “prevailing prayer” with enough collective fervor, zeal and repetition.[77] Hence their propensity for 24/7 prayer and huge stadium rallies.[78]  

IHOP cohort and Nazarite advocate, Lou Engle, insists on a re-definition of ekklesia that makes the church “responsible for declaring war, developing military strategy and electing military generals, chief magistrates and other officials.” He said that when Jesus said he was going to build His church, “He meant He was going to establish His governmental center, His house of prayer to contend with every other house.”[79] Engle explained the practice of decrees and declarations in this context:

The ekklesia does not just ask God for answers; it makesauthoritative declarations at His direction. As His house of prayer—those who send the “rod” of Christ’s authority forth in the midst of His enemies (see Ps. 110:2)—we do not pray as if we are beggars but decree the Word of the Lord as priests.[80][emphasis added]

In fact, this whole scenario of a “house of prayer” contending with other houses was inspired by a dream Lou Engle had in 1996 in which he saw a Christian church “flipped from its inferior position to dominate [a] Buddhist house of prayer.”[81] Engle explained the significance of this dream in terms of Dominion:

The Lord gave me my marching orders through this dream: to join Him in establishing His church as a house of prayer contending with every other house that exalts itself above the lordship and supremacy of Christ. 

A threat to every corrupt government, institution of oppression, rebellious leader and demonic stronghold, theekklesia of Jesus is a council of war at the highest level. With Christ as our Head, we are bringing heaven down to earth and barring hell’s invasion.[82] 

Notice that nowhere is there a mention of reaching out to Buddhists with the Gospel of Salvation. Rather the focus is on supremacy over them. In the Dominionist worldview it becomes more important to wield power over one’s foes than it is to share the message of the forgiveness to sinners that is freely offered by Jesus Christ. How sad! What a missed opportunity!

Fasting For Fullness 
In 1946 Franklin Hall wrote a book titled Atomic Power With God Through Fasting and Prayer. It had a significant impact on the Latter Rain movement, Pentecostals and the later Charismatics. Hall taught that fasting was a “means of bringing about revival and the ‘restoration’ of the Church.’”[83] Hall’s teachings have now gained a second life in the IHOP movement. IHOP fasting is done for the purpose of “a greater release of power” and “for an open heaven” that will “release angels” on earth. The IHOP “Bridgroom Fast” is taught as a way to “encounter the Bridegroom God” and attain the “nearness of God’s presence.” Significantly, those who fast are promised “greater measures of revelation at an accelerated pace.” All of this fasting is believed to be “preparing the Church for the greatest revival” coming in the endtimes.[84] 

Fasting exacerbates the spiritual elitism that is being taught by promising the “experience” of “deeper encounters with God’s power and presence” and a “new ability” and “new level” of “fullness.”[85]This “extravagant fasted lifestyle… fuels passion for Jesus and justice for the poor.”[86] Thus fasting is seen as a method of gaining great spiritual power.

But only the healthy need apply. Even though there are disclaimers for those who cannot fast, the peer pressure is on. This fasting isn’t done in the context of a quiet sedentary life. In addition to normal life duties, there is a heavy expectation of commitment to a “wilderness lifestyle.” So what little physical strength remains after extended periods (up to 40 days) of food deprivation is spent in activities such as described below:

Of the 75 departments that make up IHOP, more than three-fourths are dedicated to action outside the prayer room—everything from orphan care to crisis response to inner-city ministry to training marketplace leaders. This is in addition to a thriving worship label, music school, conference ministry, media institute, Israel initiative, children’s and high school ministries, and an ever-increasing list of other ministries making their mark.[87] 

100% Perfection 
“100-Fold Obedience” is a frequent phrase in most IHOP documents. Bickle teaches that believers must be 100% obedient in their Christian walk.[88] He says Jesus is not happy with those who come up short by 2%. Only 100% will please Him. Bickle asserts, “The 98% pursuit of obedience has a limited blessing on it. The last 2% is what positions us to live with a vibrant heart.”[89] Only the mature IHOP Bride will master this level of perfection.[90] Bickle teaches:

Jesus promises to manifest God’s presence to those who obey His commandments… the Father loves everyone in the sense of valuing, caring for and pursuing them. However, He only loves the lifestyle, choices, sacrifices and fruit of those who pursue 100-fold obedience.[91]

Power in our Christian life is found only in pursuing 100-fold obedience. There are powerful dynamics that occur in our heart when we soberly aim at walking in total obedience. The98% pursuit of obedience has a limited blessing on it. The last 2% is what positions us to live with a vibrant heart…. The call to be perfect… is a key to living vibrant.[92]

This 100% perfection teaching is simply an updated version of the old Latter Rain teachings about the “perfected” body on earth. In 1988, Bickle’s associate, Bob Jones, stated this teaching as a prophecy:

…There is a ministry after the five-fold called the ministry of perfection—the Melchisedek Priesthood… your children will be moving into the ministries of Perfection… coming into that Divine Nature of Jesus Christ… they themselves will be that generation that’s raised up to put death itself underneath their feet…. because the Lord Jesus is worthy to be lifted up by a church that has reached the fullmaturity of the GOD-MAN! [93]

Sleep Deprivation
When sleep deprivation is thrown into this mixture of fasting, along with hefty ministry obligations, the psychological and spiritual vulnerability of IHOP members is substantially increased. The 24/7 prayer furnaces require personnel to man their midnight-6 am shift. This means sacrificing sleep. Sleep deprivation can create disorientation, even leading to an altered state of consciousness (just ask any mother who has stayed up through the night with a sick child). In fact, sleep deprivation is a proven effective torture method.[94] It has often been used by cults as part of their brainwashing, indoctrination and training.[95]

Sexual Deprivation
No, we are not advocating sexual sin by including this as a sub-category. Rather, we wish to point out that Mike Bickle has developed his “Bridal Paradigm” based on his own allegorical rendition of the Bible’s Song of Solomon. As such, Bickle has ignored this book’s plain meaning in favor of an extraordinarily evocative endtime scenario. This “Bridal Paradigm” scenario requires that IHOP youth generate passion—extreme passion. Bickle's  “Bridal Paradigm” is a graphic portrayal of a sensuous Jesus encountering a passionate Bride; they develop an intense intimacy with each other which is spelled out in vivid detail. This prurient imagery is being taught to a hormonally-challenged age group, which is already attempting to abide by the rugged demands of an ascetic lifestyle. This voluptuous, and sometimes salacious, teaching obviously creates a pressure-cooker situation. It even became necessary to issue a disclaimer about the “passion” that is being generated.[96] As one critic has noted:

I am not claiming that IHOP intends to promote a sexual Jesus, their motives may be pure. It is inescapable, however, that Mike Bickle paints such a sensual picture of Jesus through his allegorizing of the Song of Solomon that he feels obligated to warn us saying, “We are not to think of kissing Jesus on the mouth.” This warning is like the legal statements following television drug commercials – this may cause death or injury and the cure may be worse than the disease. The warning itself paints the picture. The Bible doesn’t need to warn Christians “not to think about kissing Jesus on the mouth” because the true teaching of Jesus doesn’t provoke these lusts. True biblical intimacy with God doesn’t provoke these lusts either. The fact that IHOP feels it necessary to give this warning is proof that their teaching is doing exactly that – creating lustful appetites for a sensual Jesus. Their Jesus is an imposter and the spiritual experiences they enjoy are not “intimacy with God” but spiritual fornication. Let us be clear; passions, desires, emotions, and feelings are sensual and creating an appetite for sensual spiritual experiences is the goal of IHOP’s Passion for Jesus Conference.[97]

Shaming for Obedience 
All of this drummed-up passion is in reality a works-oriented focus. Indeed, this is exacerbated by the emphasis on spiritual levels (stages) supposedly attained by those practicing these methods. One eyewitness account admits that

…IHOP leaders urged the students on to the grand vision by any means possible; and that includes shame. In the instances I have outlined above, shame was used as the motivator for us to stop what we were doing (theology, biblical languages) and comply with their vision. “Become like us or we will shame and ignore you,” was the message.[98]

Notice that this shame is based on a fear of man. It has nothing to do with biblical shame leading to godly sorrow. “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” (2 Cor. 7:10).

Exhibit: from article "What Rolling Stone Didn't Tell You About Tyler Deaton."

The Violence of the Passion 
The IHOP movement frequently uses the words “violent” or “violence” in the context of their prayers. In addition to ramping up fervor and zeal, this “violence” language acts as a way to shore up the community so that they all members act in one accord:

• There is a violence that goes with keeping our word…. 
• Keeping our word is violent, and difficult! 
• We must be violent about presenting ourselves truthfully to one another when we stumble on a commitment…. 
• We are going to war against the pride that would look to justify or excuse our unfaithfulness to our word, or treat it like it was not a big deal. Lack of follow through is a big deal – it hurts the integrity of the team and its commitment to one another.…[99][emphasis added] 

The Bible admonishes us to “flee” temptations such as fornication, idolatry and youthful lusts (1 Cor. 6:18; 10:14; 2 Tim. 2:22), and to“resist the devil” (James 4:7). But in IHOP documents resisting sin is referred to as a “violent war” and a “violent clash.” The flesh is said to be in “violent opposition to the Holy Spirit.” Therefore the believer must “declare war on everything that quenches the Holy Spirit” by putting their “cold heart before the bonfire of God’s presence.”[100]This strong language belies the simplicity of the Gospel message of grace (See: Rom. 12:8; 2 Cor. 1:12; 2 Cor. 11:3.).

Because IHOP focuses on “prayer furnaces” as a literal location where they believe this “Presence” can descend (thus recreating the Tabernacle of David) there is an emphasis on “keeping charge” of the sanctuary. This is referred to as “the violence of the charge”[101]:

It is a daily fight to do this, and we have signed up for something that is unbelievably hard – a lifestyle of prayer in conjunction with building this house in an hour in which the nations are going astray. 

This is our sacred trust from the Lord and our commitment to one another. It is about location – we as a community are committing to one another in regards to coming to a sanctuary and a prayer furnace.[102] [emphasis added] 

Even the term “prayer furnace” is an example of violence in IHOP language. The prevalence of “violence” language, in combination with the “warfare” language about “enemies” could be dismissed as symbolic rhetoric. But maybe it isn’t. What if this aggressive rhetoric turns into real military zeal? What if some leader turns on the switch and announces that there are real enemies that need eradicating? Such events have historically occurred with destructive and doomsday cults.[103] 

IHOP believes their weaponized music[104] can “release new levels of power” in the spiritual realm as “a new song at the end of the age”[105] for judgment:

1. The prophetic song is one of God’s most powerfulweapons He utilizes to release His power on the earth, particularly in the end of the age…. 
2. The key feature of the new song at the end of the age to understand is that believers are standing in unity with the heart of God, singing in agreement about Him as a judge preparing to loose judgments. This is profound – the end-time church is led by prophetic singers (in concert with the Holy Spirit) to sing about the coming judgments of the Lord in full agreement with His methodology and leadership…. 
3. Anointed prophetic singers… usher in a new level of union with the heart of God and the people of God, which is directly related to a release of new levels of power to usher in the Great Harvest of souls at the end of the age.[106] [emphasis added] 

Passionate worship is a weapon wielded as a weapon by this militant Bride who is charged with singing in the coming judgments of the Lord. What an odious job! It is insanity to sing in the horribly violent deaths and judgments described in the book of Revelation! In order to master the cognitive dissonance required for this dastardly duty, IHOP redirects focus to the passionate sensual intimacy of the Bride with evocative music and lyrics.[107] 

Monitors show a band playing under undulating lights. The acoustic guitarist raises an arm in praise, barely strumming when the camera focuses on him…. Misty Edwards stands behind a keyboard and belts out praise with impressive range…. 

The repetitive choruses — really, the songs are nothing but choruses — show up on the monitors like a karaoke machine as images of young people in the crowd, with eyes closed, air-drum and raise their hands. And they sing: I'm in love with God/And God's in love with me. 

 Edwards uses a break in the music to preach. 

"Our God is an all-consuming fire," she whispers. "He burns with desire."[108]

Exhibit: from article "What Rolling Stone Didn't Tell You About Tyler Deaton."

The “Manifest Presence of God”[109] 
Mike Bickle heard an audible voice from the Lord in 1988. This voice told him that the Bible’s Song of Solomon was the key to encountering Jesus and develop a “mature love for God.”[110] Bickle developed his own unique allegorical interpretation this book, creating an endtime template he calls the “Bridal Paradigm.” This paradigm is about a spiritually superior race of “mature” believers who “will be like Jesus.”[111] Bickle’s “Bridal Paradigm” is about the “Manifest Presence of God.”[112] It is only within the context of the “Bridal Paradigm” that we can understand their insistence upon generating “passion.” The following description and quoted excerpts come from Bickle’s 149-page treatise “Studies in the Song of Solomon: Progression of Holy Passion (2007)” at the GOD School with the Forerunner School of Ministry (IHOP).[113] 

First, it must be asked: who is the Bride? In Bickle’s allegory, the Bride is defined as “all those who are mature in love.” How is “mature” defined? “Maturity” is defined as “the revelation of His glory and His ravished heart for us.” In his Song of Solomon allegory Bickle says this mature Bride will be blameless (perfect) in the Endtimes:

I define the Bride as the Church becoming mature in love for God and people. This has never happened. The Church in the Book of Acts was not fully mature. It had moments of glory in several cities. Before the Lord returns the worldwide Church will be mature or spotless and blameless…. TheEnd-Time Church that survives the Great Tribulation has a unique honor in history being the only generation to walk blameless before Jesus returns…. 

The End-Time Church will enter into the measure of the stature of maturity that belongs to the fullness of Christ…. 

The Church throughout all history did not walk in maturity. The redeemed through history will praise God for the End-Time Church as it prevails in love while still on earth… God has brought to pass a people that are mature on the earth. 

So Bickle’s definition of Bride does NOT include all those who are born again! His Bride is the only those perfected mature believers who are sold out to the requirements of 100-Fold (100%) Obedience: “A life of total commitment is foundational for all who are to be mature in ministry.” In Bickle’s allegory, the mature Bride is contrasted to the “Daughters of Jerusalem” who, according to Bickle, “personify immature believers.” So immature believer are not included in his definition of the Bride. These “less spiritual” ones don’t quite measure up to the high standard of 100% obedience. Even though it is denied that this is teaching the doctrine of “sinless perfection” it is hard to see any difference.

This perfected Bride will rise as “the generation in which the Lord returns,” which Bickle believes is now. She will possess “a greater measure of power” in her maturity—she will become the Tabernacle in which the Presence can dwell. She will host and manifest the Presence in her corporate body. She is quite full of herself, too—“The Bride has a revelation of her own spiritual maturity before God.” It is easy to see how a sense of spiritual elitism can accompany a teaching that promises such extraordinary perfection and power. It is utopian to think that we can overcome our base sinful nature and attain 100% obedience. This teaching ignores the biblical reality that while we remain in our carnal fleshly bodies we are continually tempted to sin (see Romans 7 and 8). In 1988 Bickle and his cohort Bob Jones taught the beginnings of this endtime sinless generation template:

The children are the best of all the generations that have ever been upon the face of the earth.... those ELECTED SEEDS that will glorify Christ in the last days... they will move into things of the supernatural that no one has ever been in the Bible - They'll move in it consistently… they themselves will be that generation that's raised up to put death itself underneath their feet… a church that has reached the full maturity of the god-man! [114]

This is a very esoteric teaching. Bickle’s allegory of the Song of Solomon requires indoctrination (as opposed to simple Bible teaching). Each lesson builds on the previous lesson, and is repeated over and over again until it becomes ingrained. As decoded by Bickle, the hidden messages in Song of Solomon will only be revealed in this last generation. Unfortunately this mystery is not about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While Jesus is a major player in Bickle’s interpretation, He is not portrayed as the Savior who died on the cross for our sins. Rather, he is reduced to being the focal point of the Bride’s evoked passion. This is all about the Bride.

Bickle’s Bride is a needy creature who must generate extreme emotion. She does not worship with her mind, but with her heart (Contra Jer. 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”). The Bride must pray “Jesus, show me more how I have ravished Your heart.” She must become “lovesick.” She “longs to be drawn close to God’s heart in deep intimacy as an extravagant worshipper.” Below are some examples:

• The goal of her life is her own spiritual happiness. This happens best when she experiences God’s Presence. 
• [T]he Bride’s destiny is ensured by God’s ravished heart for her. 
• Jesus’ manifest presence returns in response to her obedience. 
• Jesus is “conquered only by His Bride’s extravagant love. 
• We are called to live lovesick for God. 
• Our primary focus is to be on God’s emotions…. 
• A working definition of a ravished heart of God is: To be filled with emotions of joy or delight because of one who is unusually attractive. The revelation of Jesus’ ravished heart equips us for 100-fold obedience. 
• Her greatest desire is to experience God’s presence. 
• The Holy Spirit is raising up lovesick messengers who know Jesus in a way that will change the expression of Christianity in the whole earth and prepare the Bride to be strong in love in the End-Time pressures…. 
• Jesus is “conquered” only by His Bride’s extravagant love. [all emphases added]

Exhibit: IHOP influences an entire youth movement. Ad from TheElijahList.

This endtime Bride must establish a “deep mature partnership” with Jesus. Partnership for what? Dominion. Below are some examples of this Bridal eschatology from Bickle's Song of Solomon allegory. Note that conquering the mountains (a dominion motif)[115] is mentioned:

• The greatest revival in history is around the corner. 
• The maiden [Bride] receives a new revelation of Jesus as the sovereign King. She sees Him as the “Lord of all the nations” who effortlessly conquers all of the difficultmountains or high places…. 
• Jesus is ready for action and deep partnership with the maiden [Bride]. Therefore, He calls her to arise from her comfort and security to come away with him toconquer the mountains of this fallen world. Jesus commissioned His Bride to work with Him as He brings the nations to obedience. 
• [Jesus] proclaims that she is as awesome as a victorious army with banners. 
• We are created to live in the high places with Jesus in the extravagant devotion of bridal partnership. 
• The only safe place for our hearts is in the revelation of Jesus as the Bridegroom King who enables us to walk in100-fold obedience and faith in facing themountains. This will be an essential revelation during the Great Tribulation. 
• Being His perfect one means she has matured spiritually. Jesus’ End-Time Church will become maturein love as she is filled with God’s glory without any spot or wrinkle…. 
• The Bride’s ministry in the age-to-come is as one “who shines forth as bright as the sun”. Her full glory is the brilliant light of Jesus’ glory. 
• The Bride’s ministry in the culture is as one “who looks forth or shines forth as the morning”… This emphasizes the impact that God’s people will have on individuals and society (political, military, economic, educational, family, media, arts, technology, social institutions, etc.). [i.e., the 7 mountains, Ed.]
• The Bride’s government is as one “who is as awesome as a powerful army with banners:. TheBride will rule in the governmental administration of Jesus’ Kingdom forever… she rules as God’s weapon in His government forever…. She is like God’s army withgovernment over all things. [all emphasis added]

There are several other IHOP teachings from Bickle's Song of Solomon allegory that bear mention as aberrations of historical Christian doctrine. 

• ECUMENISM: This will be the first time in history, that the church worldwide will be in dynamic unity with the Spirit and therefore, the Spirit will be resting on and moving through the Church in great power. 
• RESTORING PARADISE: An aspect of His inheritance involves the mandatory obedience of all creation. 
• CATHOLICISM: The Church from history is our mother. The favorite work of the historical Church is the great End-Time harvest of souls and its full maturity…. The redeemed from history are represented as a “mother” that gave birth to Jesus (manchild) and as well as the believers that come after her…. The agency He uses for our spiritual birth is the witness of the Church, our spiritual mother. 

In sum, it is readily apparent that the IHOP movement is literally walking out the Latter Rain eschatology through its mandate for 24/7 corporate prayer and worship to re-enact the Tabernacle of David. These teachings cited above are decades old. They form the foundation of the modern NAR and IHOP movements. Some of the more controversial teachings about becoming Christ have now been submerged or denied. Yet the question remains: Without these key doctrines, what could possibly the PURPOSE for generating so much PASSION? The only logical answer is that these leaders are still following the old Latter Rain script of invoking a “Presence” in order “manifest” as Christ’s Corporate Body in order to wreak judgment on earth.

The Truth: 

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
(1 John 1:8-9) 

In 1846 the esteemed J.C. Philpot delivered a sermon in London, “A Confessing Sinner, and a Forgiving God,” based on the verses cited above. His remarks effectually refute Bickle’s idea of a perfect Bride:

Perfection in Christ the Scriptures are full of; perfection in man the Scriptures know not. The whole testimony of God in his word is to perfection in Christ. Every Scripture that speaks of his Godhead declares his perfection: for what is there but perfection in Godhead? And every passage that speaks of his humanity declares his perfection: for if he had not had a perfect human nature, he could not have offered that nature a sacrifice for sin. As the Lamb of God, without spot, or blemish, or any such thing, he is “holy; harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens,” (Heb. 7:26). If there is any perfection in the church, it is only found in Christ; by her having an eternal and vital union with him. But as to man, that fallen creature, the whole testimony of God’s word is to the depth of his apostasy. The Scripture positively declares, “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God: they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one,” (Rom. 3:10-12). “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,”(Jer. 17:9). And lest we should fancy, that when the blessed Spirit had regenerated and taken possession of a man, making his body his temple, then there was some perfection to be found in his heart, the Scripture brings before our eyes the awful falls and sad departures of God’s most highly favored saints—Noah, Lot, Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon. These blots are recorded against God’s eminent saints, to put down that false notion, that there is anything like perfection in the creature. 

And yet there are those who indulge in the wild dream of human perfectibility. There are those who even boast that they have attained to perfection. And there were such doubtless in John’s day. There were, in his time, proud, ignorant, blind, deluded wretches, who said that they had cleansed their heart from all evil, that perfection dwelt in them, and that sin was no more to be found in them. Some of these were Pharisees, completely ignorant of the requirements of God’s holy law, thoroughly unacquainted with the depth of man’s fall. And others were dry doctrinalists, who could speak much about Christ; but, knowing nothing of the workings of depravity in their own nature, overlooked all the heavings and boilings of the corrupt fountain within; and because they read of the church’s perfection in Christ, claimed unsinning perfection to themselves. 

Against these characters John deals this heavy blow; against those who claim this perfection he brings out this sharp sword, and cuts them down with this overwhelming stroke, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Talk about your Christianity—talk about your religion—talk about your standing—and say, “I have no sin,” you are a deceiver, John boldly declares: “so far from being, as you think you are, a perfect Christian, the very truth is not in you; you are nothing but a deceived, awfully deceived character.” But he brings out, with the other hand, consolation for the people of God, who feels distressed on account of their inward guilt and sin. Thus whilst, on the one hand, he cuts down the perfectionist, legal or evangelical—on the other, he raises up the poor, condemned, drooping saint, who is bowed down with a sense of his guilt and shame; and opening the rich cordial of gospel consolation, says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” [116]

Author’s Note: 
Over 40 years ago I was saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. I was saved out of the hippie movement and became an active part of the Jesus movement. At that time, and for the next decade, I experienced real revival. What did real revival look like? Our focus was on Jesus, his death on the cross, dying for our sins. When we heard the Gospel of Salvation message from the Word of God for the first time it struck at the core of our being. We repented and confessed our sins. God marvelously delivered us from our sins, sometimes in awe-inspiring ways. We experienced great joy in being cleansed from our prior filthy lives. The power of the Holy Spirit enabled us to become free from our former occult bondages. The Word of God ministered healing to us. We devoured it daily to learn more about Jesus. We learned how to use the sword of the Word to defend ourselves from the attacks of Satan. We were excitedly awaiting Jesus’ soon return. And we were fervent in our desire to be ready for Him. We turned away from rock ’n roll and began to sing beautiful praise melodies and hymns with lyrics based on the Word. We didn’t have to “invoke” the presence of the Holy Spirit. As we were cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, we were filled with the Spirit. 

What I just wrote about in this article bears no resemblance to the true revival I experienced.[117] 

___________________________________________________________

Part 4 of 6:

Jesus promises to manifest His presence to those whoobey His commandments.

-Mike Bickle [1]

 Jesus promises to manifest God’s presence to those whoobey His commandments… the Father loves everyone in the sense of valuing, caring for and pursuing them. However, He only loves the lifestyle, choices, sacrifices and fruit of those who pursue 100-fold obedience.
- Mike Bickle [2]

Exhibit 1: IHOP is an international youth movement

Herescope has been running an article series about the International House of Prayer (IHOP) movement and its endtime teachings. In the previous articles we examined how IHOP’s Mike Bickle has been preparing his group to become an elite “Bride.” Bickle’s IHOP movement is founded upon his “Bridal Paradigm.” This is his unique allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon that is used as an eschatological roadmap.

This IHOP Bride is taught that she can become “mature” by practicing “100-Fold Obedience.”[3] In the current IHOP teaching, an endtime “mature” Bride is juxtaposed against the rest of Christian believers who, Bickle asserts, are merely the “daughters of Jerusalem,” i.e., less mature than this perfected Bride.[4] She believes she will play a a pivotal endtime role to walk out (or pray in) the judgments in the book of Revelation.[5] She must exhibit “100-Fold Obedience.” What does Bickle mean when he uses this term? How does this relate to the rest of his teachings?

Given Bickle’s recent acceptance into the mainstream evangelical world via leaders such as Francis Chan,[6] it behooves us to examine Bickle’s beliefs. This isn’t easy to do because Bickle has invented his own unique terminology. He appears to be teaching retooled Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God doctrines to a new generation of youth. In this section of our article series we will examine his old teachings and compare them with what he is teaching now.

Exhibit 2: Call2All ad for training at IHOP

The Vision for an Endtime Elite Generation 
IHOP’s intense focus on this generation originated with some prophecies delivered in the 1980s by Mike Bickle and his associates who were called the “Kansas City Prophets.” They taught that a “New Breed” of “elect seed”[7] generation would arise as an endtime “Joel’s Army”[8] to fulfill a destiny of subduing and ruling the earth.

In an interview with Mike Bickle in 1988, fellow “Kansas City Prophet” Bob Jones related a vision he experienced. Based on this vision, Jones prophesied that the current generation back then was important, but that the next generation (their sons and daughters) would be unique. Here is what he believed that God showed him in the vision:

This will be the end generation that is foreknown and predestined to inherit all things…. 

You are to write into their minds – as they write into the children’s minds. You’re to bring them to a place to allow my Spirit to rule in their life where they can begin to set the church on the proper foundations – as they will. 

They’ll birth the church, but their children will attain levels of the Holy Spirit that they will not. Although their parents will reign over them and be the leaders of the last day church – their children will possess the Spirit without measure – for they are the best of all the generations that have ever been upon the face of the earth. 

And the best of all generations are those elected seedsthat will glorify Christ in the last days. That’s the purpose so that Jesus in the last days has the seeds that will glorify Him above any generation that has ever been upon the face of the earth. 

They will move into things of the supernatural that no one has ever moved in before. Every miracle, sign and wonder that has ever been in the Bible – they’ll move in it consistently, they’ll move in the power that Christ did. Every sign and wonder that’s ever been will be many times in the last days. 

They themselves will be that generation that’s raised up toput death itself underneath their feet and to glorify Christ in every way. And the church that is raising up in the government will be the head and the covering for them. So that that glorious church might be revealed in the last days, because the Lord Jesus is worthy to be lifted up by a church that has reached the full maturity of the God-Man![9][bold added] 

The endtime church can reach “the full maturity of the God-Man”? There is no Gospel of Jesus Christ here, just the idea that the church can become divinized. Note that Jones actually claimed that this special generation would “put death itself underneath their feet.” Likewise, the old Latter Rain/MSOG teachers believed that the endtime saints could attain immortality (the same lie Satan told Eve in Genesis 3:4). They also believed that they could conquer not only sin but also death itself (contra Romans 5:21 and 1 Cor. 15:25-27).

In this taped interview, Mike Bickle replied, not by refuting any of Jones’ vision, but by relating more of Jones’ vision. He described the formation of an end-time spiritual army:

The Lord came to Bob and said… “Put your hand in here.” He pulls it out and he sees this box full of draft notices for the end-time army. And he said the Lord told Him there was300,000 enlistment notices that he was going to send out across the nations in this next generation. It wasn’t all going to be sent out then. 300,000 that would be the main leadership over one billion converts in the earth.[10][bold added]

Bickle stated the purpose of this elite 300,000 unit army—they will lead one billion. Jones then replied that God told him:

“I’ll cause 300,000 to bear a distinct anointing of leadership over the one billion…. I’m going to cause300,000 like Gideon’s 300 in Israel. I’m going to have300,000. That will be a small number for the nations of the earth. But they will have like that apostolic anointing and the signs and wonders of the early church will be on 300,000. The Earth will have it. The rest will move in the miraculous, but I will have 300,000 that will have a special measure of the Spirit like the leaders of the New Testament.” [11] [bold added]

These men believed that this elite 300,000 army of leaders would possess “a special measure of the Spirit.” These would be the “chosen generation”—the “one generation that will enter into that which is beyond all the others in power.” Bob Jones also claimed that God told him that this would be “the best of every blood line in the earth” and the “best of their seed”—“They will be superior… the elect generation.”[12] This vision became their foundational ideology and guiding force over the course of the next several decades as these men began to establish the house of prayer movement.

There was one more key element to the vision. It contained a theology about “maturity.” Jones made the amazing statement that

There will be maturity – what God is seeking. And He will be raising the saints up – to that level. First He will bring the five-fold [ministry], but there is a ministry after the five-fold called the Ministry of Perfection – the Melchisedek Priesthood. 

[Y]our children will be moving into the ministries of perfection… coming into that divine nature of Jesus Christ…. It is the last day generation…. [13][bold added]


Does the Bible teach that there will be an endtime special generation that has attained a superior level of “maturity” or “perfection”? (See 2 Tim. 3:1-5, 2 Thess. 2:3 and 1 Tim. 4:1.) What is this coming “Ministry of Perfection”? What is “ministries of perfection… coming into that divine nature of Jesus Christ”? Does this mean that they will “be like gods”?[14] What does Scripture say about this? Pastor Anton Bosch, refuting Jones’ vision, wrote:

Jones continues that they will: “Not having to come out of the wilderness, but being birthed natural into the Spirit… All their days movin’ with the Spirit” (sic).” He thus claims that these individuals will not be born sinners but will be born saved and be led by the Spirit all their lifetime. So what happened to the Scriptures that say: “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10) and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and “the scripture hath concluded all under sin” (Galatians 3:22)?[15]

The old Latter Rain/MSOG theology taught that the last days church would become divine or “glorified,” actually incarnating the “glory” or “Presence” of Christ. Does the Bible teach that this level of “perfection” or “maturity” can be achieved by an elite force of specially trained endtime youth? Can they even go so far as to claim to be part of the Melchizedek Priesthood? Pastor Bosch refuted this also:

According to Jones “there is a ministry after the five-fold called the Ministry of Perfection, the Melchizedek Priesthood” and this new generation “will be moving into the ministries of perfection.” Yet the word says that “Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:20). So these people are going to replace Jesus who alone, and forever is the Priest after the order of Melchizedek?[16]

Actually, as we have written previously, the old Latter Rain/MSOG teachers believed that the church must fill the role of Jesus. In their view the church replaces Jesus, especially in the endtime judgment. So many of the Scriptures about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, are either ignored or twisted, or misapplied to the church. (See Romans 8:4; Hebrews 1:3, 8:1, 12:2, e.g.)

In his allegory of the Song of Solomon, Bickle develops an endtime scenario in which a “mature” Bride will become an “overcomer” who rules over the “weak and immature ones” referred to as the “daughters of Jerusalem.”[17] Is this teaching of Bickle’s based on Bob Jones’ vision of an elite corps of 300,000 who will rule over the 1 billion converts? Does Bickle’s allegory teach other things found in Jones’ original prophecy, albeit with updated and symbolic terminology?

One phrase in Bickle’s allegory sticks out as a key doctrine. Bickle teaches something he calls “100-Fold Obedience.” What does this phrase “100-Fold Obedience” mean? Below is an analysis.

Exhibit 3: Mike Bickle teaching 100-Fold Obedience

“100-Fold” = “100%”

“But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the Word,
and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth,
some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” 
(Matthew 13:23) 

In the well-known parable of the sower Jesus Christ explains what happens when the seed of the Word is sown into people’s lives. Jesus interprets this parable for his disciples, and concludes with the explanatory words above. Here Jesus explains what happens to those who receive the Word into good ground. This is the verse that Mike Bickle focuses on in his teaching on Matthew 13 in his online talk titled “The Wisdom of Pursuing 100-Fold Obedience.”[18] Bickle says, “But within the group that responds right, there’s even three different categories in that group, and that’s what I want to draw attention to.”[19] He focuses on the hundredfold group and says this parable is about our obedience and our percentage of faithfulness:

The parable is about heart-faithfulness…. The Lord says, “Mike, I’m going to measure you by what percentageyou’ve answered at the heart level of faithfulness.”[20][bold added] 

Bickle interchanges his term “100-Fold Obedience” with the phrase “100% Obedience.” So “100-Fold” = “100%.” Bickle says that only those who pursue “100-Fold Obedience” will attain a 100% return. Below is a summary statement of his teaching from notes posted online:

Jesus used a familiar agricultural illustration to teach them how the Kingdom of God operates. It is parallel to a farmer who works for months to cultivate his fields that he might harvest the crops to sell in the marketplace. It was common for a farmer to discover that a portion of his field did not yield fruit that was good enough to sell in the market. His neglect in cultivating the land impacted how much return he had at the harvest. It was rare that one would yield fruit from100% of the ground. It was a wonderful, but rare thing for a farmer to receive a 100-fold return on his labor in the field with no waste or loss of the potential fruitfulness of his land.[21][bold added] 

Bickle’s basic premise is that this Scripture has to do a “return” based on the percentage of obedience.[22] He teaches that when believers pursue 100% obedience in their Christian walk God will reward according to the “percentage” or “fold of return” that will “last and count on the last day.” Bickle’s eschatology of when and how the “last day” takes place can significantly alter the meaning and the timing of this reward.[23] 

The “payback” is said to be in the measure of our faithfulness at the heart level. This is a reference to Bickle’s emphasis on passion, i.e., creating and maintaining a state of passionate emotional fervency which gives the Bride an edge over other believers.[24] In his allegory of the Song of Solomon, Bickle explains his view of an elite Bride who is 100% committed, in contrast to other lesser believers:

The virgins speak of the daughters of Jerusalem in the Son. They are genuine yet immature believers who seek Jesus throughout the Son but are never fully committed as the Bride is.[25][bold added]

Again Bickle interchanges “100-Fold” with “100%.” He claims that 100% pursuit of obedience will result in a 100-fold return (reward):

Jesus goal in this parable is to present the wisdom of pursing a lifestyle of 100% obedience. Because Jesus wanted the people to get a 100-fold return on the potential of what God gave them.[26] [bold added] 

He explains this is a heart-felt obedience that “the Lord will measure.” What does the Lord require? According to Bickle it is 100% perfection, based on his interpretation of Matthew 5:48 (“be perfect”). He qualifies this specifically with the statement, “…or in our context ‘be mature.’”[27] So mature = perfect. As we discussed earlier, “maturity” and “perfection” are connected. These two words have special meaning in the original Kansas City prophecy. Like a coach, Bickle urges, “Go for 100% obedience in every area of your life. Don’t go for part of the way. Go for 100%....”[28] 

Although Bickle admits that he will never attain 100% obedience, he says he is concerned with pursuing it. And God will measure our “100% pursuit of obedience.” He says Jesus is not happy with those who come up short by 2%. Only 100% will please Him. Bickle asserts, “The 98% pursuit of obedience has a limited blessing on it. The last 2% is what positions us to live with a vibrant heart.”[29] 

He even promises a double power for those who pursue it 100%.[30]He claims “there is very little power in the 95% obedience.” The “power is in the last 2%.”[31] Thus those who feel like they gave it the “old college try” may end up discouraged when they don’t reach the 100% mark. Anything short of 100% mark is deemed a failure. What are the measurement criteria, standards, or assessment mechanisms to determine when someone has hit the 100% mark? Scripture informs us,“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). So does anyone ever meet this mark? Can anyone honestly assert that they have attained 100% obedience? Or, is Bickle saying, like Bob Jone in his vision, that only this endtime generation will uniquely enabled to attain 100% obedience?

And what sort of added “power” is Bickle talking about? What is the purpose for this double power? In one of his IHOP teachings on “100-Fold Obedience” he explains his belief:

Power in our Christian life is found only in pursuing 100-fold obedience. There are powerful dynamics that occur in our heart when we soberly aim at walking in total obedience. The98% pursuit of obedience has a limited blessing on it. The last 2% is what positions us to live with a vibrant heart…. The call to be perfect… is a key to living vibrant.[32][bold added] 

Another IHOP training document explains what is meant by this power. It seems to reflect the same eschatology promised in Bob Jones’ vision—more power to do “signs and wonders” and “no disease.” If there is “no disease” is he alleging that these “mature” ones can overcome the effects of the Fall? That’s what the Latter Rain/MSOG cult believed. Here is what is being taught:

The prophetic church will move in the highest degree of authority and unity at the end of the age while functioning as a witness to the nations, delivering the gospel of the kingdom with great signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth (particularly through the seal and trumpet judgments)…. 

His plan for this house is to give us a spirit of prayer… as well as a simultaneous impartation of authority for signs and wonders—“no disease known to man will stand before these people”. He will give us this according to His promise to the degree we are willing to turn to Him….[33] [bold added] 

Regarding this promise of being enabled to perform extraordinary signs and wonders, this was earlier prophesied in Bob Jones’ vision. Pastor Bosch commented on Jones' claim:

About the only Biblical statement Jones made during this discussion is: “Every sign and wonder that’s ever been will be many times in the last days.” (sic). This is confirmed in 2Thessalonians 2:9: “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders.”[34]

Fasting is presented as a means to gain mastery over the “100-Fold Obedience” requirement. Bickle connects the reason for delivering his message to a “21-day fast that is coming up… I want to gain the 100%... I have lost the fullness of that spark in my spirit….” Again he claims, “There is power on the heart” when one commits to 100% obedience.[35] IHOP over-emphasizes fasting, as was documented in the previous article in this series. Dr. Orrel Steinkamp notes how this call to fasting is a repeat of the old Latter Rain/MSOG teachings:

Who needs a cross and redemption if you qualify for ‘everything’ by fasting, etc. to gain the 100%? Fasting will do it. Sounds like [MSOG teacher] Bill Britton to me.[36] 

There is significant eschatological deviation evident in Bickle’s interpretation of the verse “For many are called, but few are chosen”(Matthew 22:14).[37] Bickle, commenting on these verses, says it means that only a few elite believers will be chosen, but not the rest of believers. So he takes this verse out of its context of salvation and uses it to create two categories of believers – the mature Bride (who is “chosen”) and the immature daughters (who are not one of the “chosen”). Bickle’s written commentary expands on the plain meaning of this verse by adding words to the text:

For many are called (invited by God), but few are chosen(found faithful by God) (Mt. 22:14). 

Many people are called (invited to inherit great things) yet only a few are chosen or esteemed by God as faithful or worthy of ruling with Jesus when He comes. Jesus taught that only a few will have a sufficient maturity in their obedience so as to receive ALL that God called (invited) them to in being in His Millennial government.[38][emphasis added] 

To reinforce this idea that being “chosen” makes the Bride fit for “ruling with Jesus,” Bickle states, “Our role in the kingdom age… is dynamically related to our faithfulness….”[39] Note that he says this is “when Jesus is glorified in His saints.” This is precisely the Latter Rain eschatology that teaches that Jesus returns via “Presence” Spirit, descending to “glorify” the endtime church with divinity. This is not talking about the literal Second Coming of the resurrected Jesus (Acts 1:11). To verify that this is what Bickle is teaching, observe how he inserts his own eschatological interpretation into the following Scripture verse (his comments are in the brackets):

When He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints… therefore we pray always for you that God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all (fullness of our calling as seen in the Millennial Kingdom)the good pleasure of His goodness…(2 Thes. 1:10-11)[40][italics added, bold in original] 

He reiterates with a discussion of a similar passage, Matthew 20:16b (“for many be called, but few chosen”), which he says means: “Many are invited, but only a few of them are commissioned to enter into what they are invited to.”[41] In the context of the overall teachings on the Bride, this means that only some are chosen for the elite position of the Bride in the endtimes. Thus, there is a high motivation for fasting, and to fulfill all of the other stringent IHOP requirements—the end goal is to become a “chosen” Bride who can rule and reign. The stakes are high. 100% effort is required.

The reason the Bickle’s Bride must be specially “chosen” is because he believes that she plays a role in ushering in judgment. She has a critical assignment “partnering with” Jesus for judgment. In Bickle’s teaching below, it is easy to spot the similarities with the eschatology that was taught by Bob Jones in his vision:

There is a clear picture throughout the book [of Revelation] of agreement in heaven and on earth as the purified, mature Bride interacts with the heavenly realm and a God stirred in His zeal to judge wickedness and reveal His delight in righteousness….  [bold added]

The interplay of the prophetic church participating in the government of God and His judgments through intercession in the ultimate concert of payer is vital for us to understand if we want to grasp the critical role of the Bride on the earth at the end of the age. The heavens shift and angels move in response to an anointed Bride united with the heart of Jesus partnering with Him to release judgment through prayer. “We agree with what You want to do, O judge of the earth!” [42][bold italics in original] 

Many of the pursuits of 100-fold obedience are commendable. The desire for moral excellency, for example. Bickle specifically tailored his taped message to a 20-something age group. He reminisced about his own early beginnings when he fervently desired to serve the Lord. He admits honestly that it is difficult and that he has failed. But his message is clear: to fail to attain this measure of excellence is to be less than the “chosen” one, the Bride. He sets a very high bar. Who can master it?

What effect does this type of teaching have on young people? To be promised that if they fulfill the onerous requirements of 100% obedience they will be commissioned as the elite Bride who will rule and reign on earth? This is heady stuff! It offers youth the intoxicating promise of exclusivity and spiritual superiority over all other believers on earth. To believe that one can attain a state of perfection, equipped with the supernatural ability to perform signs and wonders! This teaching must seem especially attractive to seeking youth. The spiritual formation[43] exercises and rituals that IHOP members endure are motivated by this promise of spiritual superiority.

The point must be made that “100-Fold Obedience” teaching an invented system of legalism. It is added works. It puts onerous requirements on youth that are not found in the “simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3), God’s grace in Scripture. Life in the flesh is still present after salvation, and we cannot attain a state sinless obedience or perfection (1 John 1:8-10). Believers can choose to walk by flesh or be led by the power of the Holy Spirit. But there is no biblical promise of an extra-powerful dose of an endtime Spirit that will make us 100% obedient, or give us the ability to overcome death. This is pie-in-the-sky utopian mysticism. But it is not what Scripture clearly teaches in Romans 7-9 and Galatians 3. A man-made system of legalistic requirements, no matter how ingenious or creative, enticing or promising of reward, is still works (Rom. 11:6; Gal 3:1-10).

One final obvious question remains. What is the measurement criteria for the attainment of 100% obedience and/or perfection?[44] 


The Perfected Bride vs. the Immature Daughters 
In his exhaustive allegory of the book of Song of Solomon, IHOP founder Mike Bickle expounds on the idea that only the “mature” Bride will master a level of perfection he calls “100-Fold Obedience.” Bickle defines this “mature” Bride in terms of eschatology:

I define the Bride as the Church becoming mature in love for God and people. This has never happened. The Church in the Book of Acts was not fully mature. It had moments of glory in several cities. Before the Lord returns the worldwide Church will be mature or spotless and blameless…. 

The End-Time Church that survives the Great Tribulation has a unique honor in history being the only generation to walk blameless before Jesus returns…. 

The End-Time Church will enter into the measure of the stature of maturity that belongs to the fullness of Christ…. 

The Church throughout all history did not walk in maturity. The redeemed through history will praise God for the End-Time Church as it prevails in love while still on earth…God has brought to pass a people that are mature on the earth.[45][bold added]

Notice the similarity in this eschatology to the vision of Bob Jones—this is claiming that the church in the church age has never been “fully mature” before, but that some will become “spotless and blameless” in the last days as “the only generation to walk blameless before Jesus returns.” Bickle outlines a “4-fold progression” for the Bride to attain this elite level of maturity. Not surprisingly it requires “100-fold obedience”:

• Stage #1: prayer with fasting for God’s strength to preserve in our pursuit of 100-fold obedience….
• Stage #2: breakthrough of Jesus’ powerful presence….
• Stage #3: new ability to perceive and comprehend God at a new level….
• Stage #4: equip to fulfill God’s full purpose without being distracted….[46][bold added] 

In a discussion of Ephesians 3:17a, Bickle again adds some extra language to the verse, and then he adds an “unspoken premise” to the passage. In this interpretation can be seen the connection between “100-fold obedience” and the “presence”:

THAT Christ may dwell (release His presence) in your hearts(mind, emotions, will) through faith (confidence;) 

Paul’s main prayer is that the saints at Ephesus receivestrength to embrace a life of obedience required before they experience deep encounters with God (sic) power and presence (Eph. 3:17) 

The unspoken premise in this passage is the previous teaching of Jesus revealing that God requires 100-fold obedience before the breakthrough of His presence in us…. 

We desperately need strength to walk in God’s requirement of 100-fold obedience. Jesus urged His disciples to pray for strength to overcome temptation. In other words, to receive strength to obey God.[47][bold added] 


The message is clear: one can’t experience the “breakthrough” of “power and presence” without first attaining “100-fold obedience.”

Teaching this lesson backwards, Bickle then discusses verse 16 where Paul is praying that the church would “be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.” Again, Bickle says there is also an “unspoken premise in this passage”—that of “Jesus’ well known teaching that God requires 100-fold obedience before releasing the breakthrough of His presence in us.” Did Jesus actually teach this? This “unspoken premise” puts words in Jesus’ mouth that He didn’t say. The promised “strength to obey”is explained by Bickle as power “to equip our heart” for the “greater experiences of God’spresence…. Only as we pray and receive God’s strength can we live in the spirit of love and 100-fold obedience that is necessary for God’s abiding presence to rest on our hearts.”[48] Thus, his message is clear: Obey 100% and you get the “Presence.” Don’t obey and you forfeit the chance to be an elite Bride that will rule and reign on earth.

Keep in mind that this is not talking about the indwelling Holy Spirit promised to all believers. It is talking about a separate “Presence.” To document that Bickle is teaching about a separate infilling of a “Presence,” not the indwelling Holy Spirit that we receive upon salvation, examine carefully at how Bickle interprets the meaning of the Eph. 3:17 phrase, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts”:

Paul is showing us the possibilities of where God will bring a committed Christian in this age. Most Christians never touch this reality. 

Paul’s main idea in this verse centers around Jesus “dwelling in their hearts.” This speaks of Jesus “living in them” ormanifesting His presence. This speaks of more than being forgiven of sins at the new birth. There is a vast difference between being a born again believer and having Christ dwelling in our heart…. 

Paul had earlier in this epistle established the idea of believers being the “God’s dwelling place in the Spirit.” This had not yet happened to the Ephesian Christians. 

Paul reveals that Jesus will dwell in their heart. In other words, Jesus will release His Presence in our heart…. We must not minimize this passage. We were not made formediocrity in the Spirit. We seek to excel in the Spirit.[49][bold added] 

“Jesus ‘dwelling in their hearts’” is re-stated by Bickle as “manifesting His presence.” Is Bickle asserting that the born-again Ephesian Christians had not yet received the Holy Spirit? This runs completely counter to Ephesians 1:23 which describes the church as:“Which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.” This verse cross-references to John’s statement that “And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16).[50] 

Or, rather, is Bickle saying that the Ephesians hadn’t received the manifestation of the “presence” of Jesus? If this is what he is saying, the implication is that most of the church age was the inferior, immature “daughters of Jerusalem” who hadn’t yet attained to the superiority of the elite endtime generation—precisely the two-tiered church that was taught in the vision of Bob Jones.

In fact, the Apostle Paul earlier refers to the Ephesians as “blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly placed in Christ” (vs. 3),“chosen… holy and without blame before Him in love” (vs. 4),“made… accepted in the Beloved” (vs. 6), and “In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (vs. 7). Paul even informs the Ephesians that they have “obtained an inheritance” (vs. 11). So how can Bickle assert that the Ephesians weren’t “mature”? The only way he can do this is by relying upon his own definition and eschatology.

In order for the Bride in Bickle’s allegory to attain to a perfect “level” of “maturity,” she must walk in “100-fold obedience.” Bickle reiterates his belief that God is going to do a new thing, that “God isawakening in His Church to empower our obedience through all eternity.”[51] 

But why the emphasis on “100-fold obedience”? Why is this so important for an endtime Bride? Probably because this Bride is also a “warring Bride.”[52] All newly recruited troops must go through the rigorous discipline of boot camp to learn to march in lockstep and follow the command-and-control authority structure without question.[53] The Bride in Bickle’s Song of Solomon allegory is described in a manner reminiscent of a military bootcamp:

Jesus reveals Himself as one who is safe to obey 100%. She believes that “100% obedience” is the only safe place in life…. 

A life of total commitment is foundational for all who are to be mature in ministry…. Initially, she refused His call to come to the mountains…. However, in this season she commits to go to the mountain. She is in only in the initial states of her obedience. Later she becomes mature. 

We can only fulfill our highest calling and destiny in this age and the age-to-come by walking in faithful obedience and with a history of diligently seeking God…. The Spirit calls us to diligence that we might enter into our fullness of authority in this age and the age-to-come…. 

Spiritual disciplines (prayer, fasting, meditation, etc.)are ordained by God as a necessary way to posture our heart to freely receive more grace…. The power is in the “bonfire of God’s presence….” 

God loves us all yet He entrusts a greater measure of power to the mature…. Our obedience positions us to walk in whatever that full measure is.[54] [emphasis added] 

Bickle even takes this military-style obedience a step further and claims, “An aspect of His inheritance involves the mandatory obedience of all creation.” He adds, “The Church as His Bride will be prepared in this age before the Second Coming.”[55] Lest the reader think this is pulled out of context, a few paragraphs later Bickle teaches:

Jesus is ready for action and deep partnership with the maiden. Therefore, He calls her to arise from her comfort and security to come away with Him to conquer the mountainsof this fallen world. Jesus commissioned His Bride to work with Him as He brings the nations to obedience.[56]

The purpose of the passionate obedient Bride? Dominion. Note the reference to the “mountains,” a common theme in the Dominionism taught by IHOP and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).[57] Bickle touts a Bride who will “obey Him 100%.” He lists seven ways for the Bride to go into “deep” or “mature partnership” with the Lord. This means obeying “Jesus’ command to arise to join Him on the mountains.” Thus in Song of Solomon the phrase “leaping upon the mountains” in verse 2:8 is cast into a Dominionist mold where she must be “embracing new assignments that require a new measure of faith and obedience.”[58] There are many more references to the mountains in this allegory.

The Song of Solomon allegory concludes with the “mature” Bride who has been “filled with God’s fragrant Presence.” This is when “Jesus comes to take full possession of her life as His inheritance.” Eschatologically this is when she has “mature obedience” and is “perfect.” Bickle refers to the Catholic mystic, St. John of the Cross, and his allegory Dark Night of the Soul, as a model for when the Bride doesn’t especially feel the “presence.”[59] She is informed she must obey even when she can’t feel this “presence.”

The overcoming Bride is described as an army. Is Mike Bickle is still following the template of Bob Jones’ vision? Read for yourself. Below are some concluding statements in his Song of Solomon allegory:

There are always two extreme positions in the Body of Christ. Those who pursue Jesus with great fervency and those who do not....

Jesus brought division between the sincere and the insincere... The Lord will unify the Church after He purges it of compromise.

The daughters of Jerusalem represent believers who lack discernment of the various operations of the Spirit and the different seasons in God. 

The enemy wants to silence our voice.[60] [bold and italics added] 

Bickle presents a summary of this teaching:

Summary: the Bride’s 4-fold glory is seen in three progressive stages in the glory of God. First, she experiences the dawning of God’s light to bring salt and light to the culture…. Second, she shines forth as a beautiful moon inwarfare and evangelism in this age. Third, she shines forth as the sun in the age-to-come. In all this she rules as God’s weapon in His government forever.[61]

The conclusion is inescapable. The IHOP movement appears to be re-teaching the old Bob Jones’ prophecy about an elite endtime generation that would be superior to all previous generations on earth. Mike Bickle has simply re-cast Jones’ vision into his own vision—his allegory of the Song of Solomon.

The most disturbing part of this vision—and there are many disturbing elements—is the false teaching that God is putting extra heavy-duty requirements upon this current generation of youth to become 100% obedient. The truth is that each believer is challenged in their own walk to obey God with their whole heart. This is nothing new. What IS new is that Bickle has promised this generation that 1) they can uniquely attain 100% obedience (or perfection), and 2) that they will be powerfully rewarded with superiority over all other believers on earth past, present and future. How sad that so many believe this message and devote their precious lives to attaining a fool's gold reward. What is missing from this message? The power can only be found in the Gospel of Salvation:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh
I live by the faith of the Son of God,
Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.(Gal. 2:20)

The Truth: 
Pastor Larry DeBruyn wrote several articles refuting these teachings of the IHOP and the NAR, especially their belief that they could attain divinity. He explained:

Yet we believers ought to rejoice in our union with Christ, a togetherness that, for reason of our being baptized in/with and by the Holy Spirit, is spiritual (1 Corinthians 12:13; See John 17:22-21). But while Christ’s dwelling in believers isspiritual, it is not substantial. It is a union and communion facilitated by the Holy Spirit Who sovereignly incorporates God’s presence, not essence, in us, this grandest of all unions being activated by faith in the atonement for sins by the Lord Jesus Christ. This hidden mystery (this musterion) then becomes, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).[62] 

Galatians 6:12-14 warns all believers of an ever-present threat of glorying in works, not in Jesus Christ.

 “As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
(Gal. 6:12-14)

For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.(Matthew 11:30)

God’s Word tells us many times what God actually requires of us. It is full of love, mercy and grace:

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
(Micah 6:8) 

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God,
and keep His commandments:
for this is the whole duty of man.
(Ecclesiastes 12:13) 

And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee,
but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all His ways,
and to love Him,
and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
To keep the commandments of the LORD, and His statutes,
which I command thee this day for thy good?
(Deuteronomy 10:12-13) 

But without faith it is impossible to please Him:
for he that cometh to God must believe that He is,
and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
(Hebrews 11:6) 

For by grace are ye saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
(Eph. 2:8) 

But unto every one of us is given grace
according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
(Eph. 4:7) 

That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you,
and ye in Him,
according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
(2 Thess: 1:12) 

_____________________________________________________________

Part 5 of 6:

We’ll have the power to raise people from the dead,
that even death won’t stand before the power of the Church.
—Mike Bickle[1]

I don’t know what the Second Coming is to you, …but let me tell you he’s coming to you, he’s coming to his church, he’s coming to abide in you, to take up his abode in you…. I want you to know he’s coming to the Church before he comes forthe Church. He’s gonna perfect the Church so the Church can be the Image, be Him, and be his representation.
—Paul Cain[2]

God spoke to the children of Israel to build Him a tabernaclebecause He wanted to come and dwell with them. If you don't build it He won't come and stay. You won't have ahabitation without it. We are talking about creating an atmosphere so He can dwell and linger, a sanctuary, a place reserved. A place where the heavens open and we keep going back to keep it open. 
—Todd Bentley[3]

Now, in this age, there are people being transformed
from natural earthly spirit beings into supernatural spiritual sons of God – 
literally becoming as Christ is in this world today. 
—Ron McGatlin[4]

The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) teaches the same basic doctrines as the IHOP movement. This is because they both have the same historical roots that track directly back the old Manifest Son of God/Latter Rain cult. There is a noticeable difference, however. Mike Bickle invented his own unique verbiage in his “Bridal Paradigm” in order to update the old Latter Rain doctrines with the prophetic visions of his group of “Kansas City Prophets.” It takes some in-depth indoctrination to grasp the gist of Bickle’s message. But it is somewhat easier to figure out what the NAR is teaching. Both groups rely upon the old George Warnock “Feast of Tabernacles” allegory[5]for their eschatology. And both are eagerly anticipating a “Second Pentecost” experience of a coming “Presence.”

A Second Pentecost? 
Charisma magazine recently published an article about this titled “Spirit-Empowered Believers Praying for Second Pentecostal Outpouring.” The article reveals a meeting of a group calling itself “Empowered 21” (E21),[6] featuring Bethel Church’s Bill Johnson, Oral Roberts University’s President Billy Wilson, and top-ranking NAR “apostle” Cindy Jacobs. These leaders met together to plan their long-anticipated “Second Pentecost,” a key component of their Latter Rain endtime beliefs. Charisma reported:

Could the world experience a second Pentecost? That's the hope of a global movement called Empowered 21, with organizers setting their sights on Jerusalem, where the first Pentecost took place.[7][bold added] 

Billy Wilson stated E21’s vision of a secondary Pentecost in terms of this coming “Presence”:

“And the big vision is that every person on earth will have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit by Pentecost 2033….” [8][bold added] 

Not only are these leaders planning and working on a “Second Pentecost,” but they have set a date, a deadline of 2033 to accomplish this event. One might ask how it is possible that man, through his own planning and endeavors, can orchestrate a Second Pentecost. The first Pentecost was a sovereign act of the Triune God! There is no need for a second! The biblical truth of the matter is that the Holy Spirit already indwells those who believe in Jesus Christ—

"If a man love Me he will keep My words: and my Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him" (John 14: 23). This promise was fulfilled at Pentecost, and the first two Persons of the Godhead now hold residence in the church through the Third. The Holy Spirit during the present time is in office on earth; and all spiritual presence and divine communion of the Trinity with men are through him…. The Holy Spirit, in a mystical but very real sense, became embodied in the church on the day of Pentecost.[9]

However, Bill Johnson, on the planning committee for E21’s “Second Pentecost” made the claim that “God has raised up” leaders “topartner with the goal,”[10] thus admitting that this is an initiative arranged by man. It sounds very much like the New Age philosophy, “If you build it, he will come.”[11] 

The Charisma article contains an audio report HERE. This E21 project is founded upon the faulty belief that man can “shape the future of the Global Spirit-empowered movement.”[12] E21 will be using “an outcome based model.”[13] An outcome-based Second Pentecost?! How will an “encounter” with the “Presence” be assessed? How can these leaders claim that “every person on earth” will have an “encounter” with this “Presence”? Are they asserting that every single person will be born again? Is this about compulsion? Revelation 1:7 does mention one event that every human on earth will experience in common: “Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” But this isn’t what these leaders are talking about.

The Latter Rain’s “Second Pentecost” 
The “Second Pentecost” is an old Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God (MSOG) eschatological allegory. It was based on the following:

The “latter rain” was contrasted to the “early rain” that fell on Pentecost when the Church was born. Thus, all of the gifts and ministries of the “early rain” would be restored during the “latter rain,” giving Biblical justification to their new revelations and interpretations of Scripture.[14] 

Dr. Orrel Steinkamp, an expert on the history and theology of the Latter Rain, summarized their aberrant theology in its full context:

 …[A] second and final Pentecost was… bringing the church into a new and final dispensation. This second Pentecostwould bring a final world revival…. 

To Latter Rain teachers it seemed obvious that if there was to be a repeated apostolic Pentecost that Apostles and Prophets must be restored as well…. The endtime body of Christ must go on to maturity and restore the apostles and prophets and these restored ministries must lead the church to a new and final dimension of power and authority not only bringing in the final harvest but establishing the Kingdom of God upon the earth…. 

This dominion mentality is conceived as a gigantic end-time revival that will sweep the whole earth in its wake…. An elite company of overcomers from out of the larger church will subdue all things and will be so endued with supernatural power that the first church apostles will be envious of the latter day apostles…. 

…[N]ow the only remaining feast is that of [an allegorical Feast of] Tabernacles to be fulfilled in the last days church. [This will be] a second Pentecost with restored apostles and prophets. This endtime spiritual army will put all God's enemies under its feet, yes even the last enemy death itself.[15][bold added]

Thus the purpose of this expected “Second Pentecost” is wrapped up in Dominionist beliefs.[16] The “Second Pentecost” is believed to be the key event that will equip “Joel’s Army” with supernatural power to rule and subdue the earth.[17] 

“Presence,” “glory” and “spirit” are carefully selected words that describe this much-anticipated eschatological event. These code words refer to a descent of a spirit that returns IN people, to fill them with a “Presence” that will “glorify” (indwell, transform) them to rule and reign on the earth (dominion). This isn’t about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. And it isn’t about the Holy Spirit of the Trinity. The old Latter Rain doctrine teaches a separate coming and filling by a “Presence” spirit to equip the body to do great signs and wonders (i.e., experience a “Second Pentecost”).

One of the key teachings that submerges and then re-emerges throughout Latter Rain history is their belief that this event will endue them with both immortality and divinity.[18] One critic observed how this began when they over-identified with Christ:

…[T]he Latter Rain identified with “manifestation” direction with the Second Coming of Christ, the “transfigured” saints themselves actually becoming inseparably identified with Jesus Christ Himself, there being no distinction between the two…. [including] the idea of a literal “transfiguration” this side of the First Resurrection.[19] 

From this fundamental error, George Warnock then leaped to a new revelation:

...that Christ is the Body—the whole Body, and not just the Head…. The Son of man in Heaven is not complete without the fulness of the Son of Man on earth, even the Body…. [20][emphasis in original]

Earl Paulk also wrote much of the early doctrine about this belief they could attain immortality and divinity:

We have been foreordained of God to become that people who will be so glorified that we can bring Christ back to the earth. This glorified Church must make the earth God’s footstool before Jesus can come again…. 

The glorified Church will be a mature Church…. 

The last enemy to be conquered is death. Who will conquer it? A mature Church…. When the Church becomes so mature that as a Body we achieve the unity of faith, God will find her pleasing and say, “She is mature enough now. She doesn’t have to die….” [21] [all emphasis added] 

The late John Wimber of the Vineyard movement, who was closely associated with both C. Peter Wagner (NAR) and Mike Bickle (“Kansas City Prophets,” now IHOP), taught this Latter Rain doctrine. Using similar language of the commonly understood “Rapture”—but meaning something entirely different—he spoke of a separate filling or “anointing.” Note how cleverly he changes doctrine by secret hidden revelation that he claims has just been unearthed:

There will be a time where… the Lord came and with an anointing beyond anything; that has ever been given to man before. Something so astounding, something so marvelous, that God has kept it as a mystery, as it were, behind His back; and He is about to reveal it to the ages. He is about to reveal it. With the judgment of all mankind will come this incredible incarnational enduement of God’s Spirit and we will see the Elijahs… This Endtime Army will be made up of the Elijahs of the Lord…. Suddenly, immediately right-away a change—in a moment—without notice—the twinkling of an eye the Lord will fill His temple and the anointing of God, the power of God will come.[22][emphasis added] 

In sum, there is now an entire block of the church world, NAR and IHOP especially, expectantly awaiting a “Second Pentecost” that will be an infilling of a “Presence” spirit to equip them to rule and reign. There are fundamental flaws with these beliefs that significantly alter doctrine of Christ, the Holy Spirit, God’s sovereignty, and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. These teachings also ignore what Scripture says about man and his sin nature. Their belief that man can be an “overcomer,” and even conquer death itself, is contrary to basic doctrine found in such Scriptures as Romans 5:

“Wherefore, as by one man [Adam] sin entered into the world,
and death by sin;
and so death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned:” 

(Romans 5:12) 

A Second Infilling? 
A “breakthrough” is imminently expected. In recent months the NAR has been escalating its proclamations about being on the verge of this Second Pentecost/Feast of Tabernacles event. Ron McGatlin of OpenHeaven, an NAR-connected apostolic group that boldly teaches Latter Rain theology, recently issued a “Special Edition” of hisOpenHeaven Digest newsletter to announce that the “glory of God is arising”:

This is the most significant change from heaven on earth since Pentecost. It is the time of Tabernacles as God is now dwelling with man individually one on one with us and in our small separate gatherings and in occasional large unified gatherings with other just ones made perfect in God along with the corporate manifest presence of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit and multitudes of holy ministering spirits, holy angels and ministers as a flame of fire.[23] [emphasis added] 

This secondary Pentecost is equated with the “time of Tabernacles,” an allusion to George Warnock’s allegorical “Feast of Tabernacles.” In the same OpenHeaven Digest it was also announced:

This weekend we truly had a Holy Spirit Invasion as we gathered to seek His face and His heart. We were so blessed as He revealed His Manifest Presence in our midst to lead us, guide us, equip us, direct us, and just be GOD![24][all emphasis added] 

The last phrase above is a brazen reference to the Latter Rain expectation that man can achieve godhood. Part of this pending “Second Pentecost” experience is the imagined divinization of believers.[25] 

TheElijahList, chief purveyor of New Apostolic Reformation events, prophecies and doctrines, has also been pumping up the rhetoric. In a recent advertisement for an upcoming conference, leading NAR “apostle” Barbara Yoder stated:

One prominent ongoing occurrence this year will be the increasing release of realms of glory. And glory is directly connected to the intensity of God's presence with us. And God's presence is linked with worship. Glory releases the supernatural realm in our midst where healing, deliverance, miracles, signs and wonders break out…. 

Don't miss this door to the glory that is exploding open over us. It is the door of Heaven, releasing God's Kingdom on earth…. [26][emphasis added] 

Another NAR “apostle” has just announced the arrival of a “Glory Revival Awakening”—“ a revival break out from the presence and power of the Lord.”[27] And yet another “apostle” has heralded a “Third Reformation” where “the tabernacle of God is bringing God'spresence fully into man.”[27] He continued:

Right now, the Church is experiencing a great reformation, and worship is being reformed as well. Understanding the Tabernacle of God, from Revelation 21:3, is the key to discovering that next dimension as well as the result of the reformation itself. The Tabernacle of David is the framework from which we will discover this next dimension, and God is calling forth a new army of worshipers who are willing to join Him in this season of discovery.[29][emphasis in original] 

The implication of these statements is that the indwelling Holy Spirit promised to all believers upon salvation is insufficient or inadequate. A secondary infilling event is deemed necessary. An elite level of spirituality is foretold—that there will be a “great reformation” when this “Presence” comes. This promise of a great revival is how the NAR ingratiates itself to mainstream evangelicaldom, desperate for a revival that does not require repentance.[30] But peel back the veneer and the Latter Rain doctrines are discovered, embedded in the very fabric of this much-touted coming “revival.” With roots like these, what sort of fruit will be produced?

“Worship Violently”
George Warnock’s book, The Feast of Tabernacles, laid the groundwork for the Latter Rain cult allegory of a Second Coming in the saints. One historical scholar has observed how Warnock's teaching connected with the “Presence” heresy:

There was widespread agreement that the “latter rain” was, in fact, the spiritual parousia of Jesus in His saints (i.e., a spiritual Second Coming)—a first stage of His Second Coming, followed by the second stage, the physical return of Christ. This parousia in His saints would bring forth the “manifestation of the sons of God”… also associated with the Manchild of Revelation… and the Elijah-Moses ministry….. This End Time Army of God would be “the fullness of God in the midst of His people, to do away with the old and to establish the new.” While it is not exactly made crystal clear by Warnock, it is strongly suggested that the “manifestation of the sons of God” implied a literal appropriation of the resurrection body in this age, this side of the First Resurrection, if, in fact, it is not meant to be the first stage of the First Resurrections….[31][italics in original, bold added]

This “parousia in His saints” event would be a “’transfiguration’ this side of the First Resurrection”[32] which, according to George Warnock, believed that “Christ is the Body ”and vice versa.[33][italics in original] 

From this the IHOP and NAR glean their teaching that the Body here on earth must “manifest” Christ and “fulfill” Him during the church age, even throughout the book of Revelation. Thus the hope of Christ’s literal and real Second Coming takes a back seat to the vaunted Second Pentecost. And they believe that man’s efforts will induce it, especially via frenzied worship that can create an altered state of consciousness.[34]

Chief NAR “apostle,” Chuck Pierce, has written how “violent praise”worship is an integral component of interacting with this impending “Presence”:

How will His Presence move in the earth in this hour in history? How will we move with His Presence? How will leaders lead?... 

We have entered a season when the sound of violent praisemust fill the earth…. [bold added, italitc in original] 

Celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles! 
This is a prophetic Feast for God's people in every nation. This is how the sheep and goats will be determined in the future. The Feast of Tabernacles is filled with feasting and celebration. We must begin with Praise, move into Presence and then end with JOY and celebration! [35][all emphasis in original] 

Pierce evidently is claiming that “His Presence” can “move” in present time and place, and the church must “move with His Presence.” How? Via “violent praise.” Pierce said there is a heavenly “blueprint” that must be followed. Note that one of the stated purposes of this Tabernacle event is to separate the “sheep and goats.”[36] It can be supposed that those who don’t experience the separate “infilling” of this “Presence” spirit might be considered to be the goats. 

What does this have to do with normal Christianity and the Gospel of Salvation? Sadly, very little. This teaching demotes Jesus Christ, Who died on the cross for our sins, and Who was resurrected and now sits on the throne at the right hand of the Father, to an incomplete and unfinished work. Jesus didn’t get the job done; they believe that the Church must finish the task. Thus their “glorified” church claims to be “literally Christ on earth.”[37] 

Chuck Pierce also wrote a piece for TheElijahList titled “This is NOT a Time to be Passive but to Go to War and Worship Violently!” In this article he stated his belief that the “restoration of David's Tabernacle is advancing in the earth realm in this generation,”explaining the new theology:

…we, as God's army in the earth, will co-labor with the Host of Heaven to express a Holy God's overcoming power throughout the nations of the earth. This will unlock a global harvest. Your violent praise is preparing a storehouse for Kingdom harvest…. 

Do not resist the major shift that is re-creating the way we worship and acknowledge God corporately.[38][bold in original] 

Don’t miss the significance of Pierce’s next claim. In an eschatological twist, he believes that he can “sit next” to Jesus in the heavenlies right now, and that we will “walk” the earth “clothed in His glory” for “dominion.”

Then, from our seated position, we can walk in the earth clothed in His glory and dispel darkness. He came to overcome the works of the devil, and we can do this as we remain in Him…. 

…what you are really contending over is your Garden or Promised Land dominion. [39][bold in original, underline added] 

Below is yet another example of how the NAR believes that “radical praise” can invoke the “Presence”:

 …the Kingdom of God in the earth realm becomes coveredby prayer, causing an overshadowing of the Holy Spirit'spresence. The overshadowing… is being released by prayer all over the world…. The manifestation of spiritual gifts are exploding on the earth…. 

Yet, a new realm is merging with this one. It is the passionate power of radical praise that shakes the Heavens and enthrones the King, a place of habitation for Him to dwellin. 

A tangible presence of God Almighty will be known.[40][all emphasis added] 

Many others have also taught this, fervently believing that there will be an “overshadowing of the Holy Spirit’s presence” when the earth “becomes covered by prayer” like a canopy. They claim that this “overshadowing” is actually being “released by prayer all over the world.” They believe that “the passionate power of radical praise” will shake the heavens and “enthrones the King.”[41] Since we know from Scripture that Jesus is already sitting on the throne on the right hand of God the Father, what is their teaching really saying? It refers back to their idea of the church becoming a “habitation for Him to dwellin.”[42] Once again, this is evidence that Latter Rain teachers are awaiting a return of a spiritual “tangible presence” to dwell in(inhabit) the church – not the literal physical return of Jesus. For example, here is one such “prophecy”:

Yet, a new realm is merging with this one. It is the passionate power of radical praise that shakes the Heavens and enthrones the King, a place of habitation for Him to dwell in. Places of manifestations will emerge as saints radically join in the celestial praise of God's own throne room—crying in unison with the redeemed, the elders, the moving Holy Spirit from dimension to dimension. …[P]raise… will transform any ordinary service into a radical out-of-the-box worship. A tangible presence of God's own Glory will be seen, smelled, felt, heard and tasted. It will change the hearts of men forever! The lost will run to this place of habitation…. 

The land will shake and the people will breakout in radical praise…. A tangible presence of God Almighty will be known….[43] [all emphases in original] 

These examples above evidence the obvious parallels to the IHOP 24/7 model of “violent” prayer discussed earlier in this article series.[44] 

The Handicapped Spirit 
The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) sincerely believes they are on the threshold of a great endtime revival in which there will be a huge outpouring of supernatural power.[45] They also believe that the Holy Spirit has, until now, been handicapped or “limited.” In their view, the Holy Spirit is a spiritual “force” that has been bound up by man, but will soon become unrestrained. For example, some believe He is an anthropomorphic spirit that hasn’t been “powerful” enough in the past:

The latter rain is historically known as the belief that latter-day or end-time Believers will have a greater release/outpouring of God's Holy Spirit on the earth…. [bold added] 

He [the Holy Spirit] started to prance around in a fun, graceful manner and, with His arms outstretched, He would literally shower people with Himself. He was so happy and free, because He could finally pour Himself on mankind like He had always wanted to. And I heard Him joyously singing as He did, "The latter rain, the latter rain, the latter rain!"…[bold in original] 

Holy Spirit was so happy and relieved to finally be releasing His latter rain on the earth, because He has endured much alongside of us through the centuries. Of course, He's simply overjoyed to have finally come to the time in man's history when He can unleash everything He's been anticipating….[bold added] 

He will get to shower you with the power necessary for you to become the Kingdom Bride that Jesus' prophesied you would become. He will finally be able to zap our unbelief, destroy strongholds with His powerful truth, and raise up the Bride that Christ is anticipating….[bold in original] 

For centuries, Holy Spirit has been so limited, not because He wasn't powerful, but because we were limited in our experience/knowledge of Him. With the new release of the LATTER RAIN, He will finally get to act on our behalf! [46] [bold added] 

How does this sort of errant teaching mangle the doctrine of the Holy Spirit? The truth from Scripture is plain—

When in turn Christ had completed his redemption-work by dying on the cross for our sins, and rising again from the dead for our justification, and had taken his place at God's right hand for perpetual intercession, then the Holy Ghost came down to communicate and realize to the church the finished work of Christ. In a word, as God the Son fulfills to men the work of God the Father, so God the Holy Ghost realizes to human hearts the work of God the Son.[47] 

Yet this finished work of Christ doctrine is murky to those caught up in Latter Rain (IHOP and NAR) heresy. Plain truth becomes confused and garbled when mixed with their revelatory errors. They see everything through the lens of their own imminent “glorification,” to be experienced here on earth, in order to rule and subdue the planet. They anticipate this secondary spiritual empowerment to enable them to perform powerful signs and wonders, even achieve divinity and immortality. How can they justify this new doctrine? Because they believe they are receiving “new revelations and interpretations of Scripture” during this “latter rain” period.[48] 

In an ElijahList article titled “Entering a New Season,” Wade Taylor presented classic Latter Rain/MSOG eschatology that Jesus will come again secretly “within,” with his “presence” to empower. This is stated quite explicitly:

This speaks of a present increase in the Lord's manifested presence and glory in the Body of Christ…. 

Before Jesus comes to appear "outwardly," He must first come "within" us so His glory can radiate out from us to affect the nations…. 

…as a part of His second coming, there will be a powerfulmanifestation of His glory through a corporate Body….[bold and italics added] 

There is a present urgency and need to present ourselves as being available to become a "place of habitation" for the presence and glory of the Lord, beyond anything that has previously been experienced or seen. This manifestation of His glory will impact the nations.[49] [bold in original, underlining added] 

 NAR “apostle” James Goll has written quite a bit about the coming “Presence.” Below is an example. Clearly this is not speaking about the indwelling Holy Spirit that is promised to all believers. This is talking about a separate “Presence”:

This I know – He wants us to cherish and care for His Presence. Pray for His presence. Love His presence. Nurture His presence. After all, isn't this what you have longed for all your life? Isn't this what you were made and created for – to be a carrier of the most brilliant presence?!... 

Let His presence come forth! [50] [emphasis in original] 

The NAR differentiates between God’s abiding presence—the Holy Spirit promised to all believers upon salvation—and something they call “His manifest presence,” which is experiential. This is the “presence” which they are expecting. They look for signs and wonders or, as in the case below, evidence of a sensory (even olfactory) experience:

When He manifests His presence, there is absolutely no doubt that we are experiencing Him at a higher level. Duringdivine visitations we can hear Him speak, witness His gloryand sometimes even smell His fragrance…. I have been in meetings before when the fragrance of myrrh filled the room…. 

His manifest presence… We will sense it and have knowledge of Him. Remember that our senses involvetouching, smelling, hearing, seeing and feeling. Isn't it great to know He really desires that we "feel" His presence?[51][bold added] 

This explains much of the Toronto and Brownsville “revival” phenomena of the past few decades, where there were many reports of strange signs and wonders such as “gold dust” falling upon people (a clear allusion to the “health and wealth” promises that usually accompany these endtime teachings). The examples are too numerous to enumerate, but all of these incidents were viewed as a manifestation of the soon appearing “Presence.”

“Rodeo Angels” & “Circuit Riders”
This “Presence” may manifest as an apparition. It is often preceded by bizarre-sounding angelic visitations. Bill Yount recounted a vision on TheElijahList of a “Rodeo Angel” who promised to “Shake My People onto the Field of Their Dreams!” Younts’ “Rodeo Angel”

proclaimed, "It's time to grab the bull by the horns...It's time to get back on your bull that threw you off!" Many who had been thrown off course of their God-given dreams and visions by wild, furious circumstances and situations stomping on them were now seeing and sensing the presence of "rodeo" angels now with them, strengthening them to do all things through Christ... even riding broncos and bulls![52][emphasis in original]

The late “Kansas City Prophet” Bob Jones reported that he had seen a vision of “circuit-riding angels,” which he interpreted as an electrical circuit to equip the church with supernatural power:

As Bob and I discussed the circuit riders revelation, it was quickened to us that a circuit is an electrical device that provides a path for electrical current to flow. We believe these circuit riders are being released with power. That was like the line coming out of Heaven. It's the breaker anointing being released with the power of the Word. And it was like a direct power line coming straight out of Heaven…. Get ready to see the power of God revealed![53] [emphasis in original]

Jones connected this with the idea that God will be “welcomed into His temple now,” meaning the indwelling of this “Presence,” especially because of the foundation that has been laid by NAR’s “apostles and prophets.” Note that he says the “purpose” is for “cohabitation” with God! 

The purpose is for cohabitation with our Father. That temple is coming into place now with living stones. It's a round temple that no wind can get hold of to harm in any way. There the Father will cohabitate with us in the spirit. Get ready now for the living stones to be built into a living temple of relationships and intimacy joining together the Body of Christ in a common purpose.[54][emphasis in original]

It is outside the scope of this article to review the extent to which the NAR has built its empire of downline networking apostles and prophets, as part of the fulfillment of the Latter Rain/MSOG mandate to “restore” these offices in the church.[55] We have examined this issue in detail previously. Suffice it to say that since the NAR has built its global network that they believe that now is the time for the promised “Presence” to “manifest.” They had a timeline and it is on target.[56] 

An “open portal to Heaven” 
During this “Presence” experience, many believe that heaven and earth will meet together, “as above, so below.” They believe that they can touch heaven, and that heaven can touch earth. So one leader prays as follows:

Father, I pray for these precious readers today and ask that You empower each one with zeal and determination to seek Your presence. I am confident that each of them desires to witness Your manifest presence in their lives. We want totouch Heaven and see Your glory! [58][italics in original, bold added] 

Julia Loren wrote on TheElijahList about generating passion and intimacy, so that “His presence” could equip her with supernatural gifts to “release the realm of Heaven on earth.” She claims that passion creates an “open portal” between heaven and earth so that “God infuses us with His presence”:

Recently, the Lord revealed to me that we are entering into a season of sweetness and awe. He showed me how we can position our hearts to become an open portal to Heaven – where God infuses us with His presence and revelation abounds – flowing to us and through us in naturally, supernatural ways…. [emphases in original]

…I changed the language of my prayers, calling Jesus "My Love". Immediately, I felt His presence drawing nearer…. 

Let your heart become an open portal of His love. It won't be long before the awe of His power thunders around you and you find yourself walking IN THE FULLNESS of Him, not just alongside of Him; carrying His authority to release the realm of Heaven on earth. [59][bold added] 

Pastor Larry DeBruyn has critiqued this “as above, so below” worldview, which perhaps not coincidentally means the same thing as “open heaven.” This is a New Age worldview. He wrote:

The things of earth lie within our ability to observe and understand. But heaven lies beyond our ability to observe and comprehend. While some things on earth below might be considered the shadow of things in heaven above, the one is not the replicate of the other (See Hebrews 8:5.). The reality of earth may infer the reality of heaven, but the realities are separate, not “one.” 

New Age spiritualists reject this understanding of the two realities. They suppose that reality is one unified sphere (as above, so below), that “here-is-there” and that “there-is-here.” In their view, two different realities do not comprise the universe. The cosmos is but a divinized “One.” Science and spirituality are viewed to be but two aspects of the same cosmic One. This humanistic holism ends up believing that whether in a pantheistic or panentheistic sense, nature is God.[60] 

THE TRUTH: 
Jesus Christ Himself warned that in the last days there would be a marked increase in “signs and wonders.” Especially because these current Latter Rain teachers believe they will become divinized as Christ, the following verses seem appropriate to cite:

“For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets,
and shall shew great signs and wonders;
insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” 

(Matthew 24:24. See also Mark 13:22) 

 Professor Johan Malan has recently issued a paper warning about aberrant endtime eschatologies. His comments are relevant to the issue at hand:

When biblical prophecies are shrouded by denying their primary meaning, the way has been opened to also degrade and undermine other biblical principles. In this way, man takes the liberty to enforce his own ideas on the Bible in order to avoid unpleasant realities, invent an easier way of salvation, adopt a more tolerant approach to sin, thereby effectively deviating from the narrow way of the Lord and joining the broad way of sin. In this manner, self-justifying man establishes his own kingdom and does not look forward to the future kingdom of Christ which will be revealed after His second coming…. 

The fifth and most important foundation of the Christian faith is the Rock, Jesus Christ, with full recognition of biblical facts on His virgin birth, deity, atoning death, bodily resurrection, and ascension. He is the incarnated Word – God who became flesh and dwelt among us. When the Bible is no longer recognised as the inspired Word of God it stands to reason that Jesus Christ will also not be regarded as the perfect God-man. Consequently, Christianity will no longer be perceived as unique and will be relegated to a position of equality with the other world religions. 

It is important to determine how far the rejection of the biblical Jesus has already taken place within backslidden churches, and how members react to these views. It undeniably amounts to treason against the true Christ if confessing members remain within a church in which these serious errors are condoned and accepted without protest. The Lord Jesus says that if we deny Him He will also deny us: “But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:33). 

Nobody will get away with spiritual treason of this nature without incurring eternal damage to his soul, while at the same time deceiving many other people. When people turn away from the true Jesus, “another Jesus” is proclaimed to them under the guidance of the spirit of error (2 Cor. 11:2-4), and in this way people are conditioned to accept the Antichrist instead of the true Christ. The warning of Jesus in Matthew 24:4-5 refers to the seriousness of this form of deception….. 

The time is now ripe for the appearance of the false christ of all faiths, as the world is in such an advanced stage of delusion that the vast majority of people will follow him in amazement and also worship him (Rev. 13:3-4, 8). 

However, before that will happen, the true Christ will secretly come as the heavenly Bridegroom to catch away His bride to heaven (1 Thess. 4:16-18). These believers were not involved with the destruction of the foundations of the Christian faith, and for that reason Christ will say to them: “You have kept My word, and have not denied My name” (Rev. 3:8). Because they have accepted the Lord Jesus with the full recognition of His divine attributes and the great significance of His crucifixion, and have honoured the Bible as the inerrant and inspired Word of God, they have seriously regarded the command to be born again and also trusted the Lord for the further work of grace to be filled with His holy Spirit. In this spiritual state they eagerly look forward to the second coming of Christ. This is a sanctifying hope, as “everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:3).[61] 

________________________________________________________________

Part 6 of 6:

Exhibit 1: Warrior Bride artwork advertised on TheElijahList

The Church is called to be the Bride of Christ as well as an army. As we approach the end of this age, we will begin to take on more of the nature and demeanor of both…. 
—Rick Joyner[1]

In this time, God is moving again with fire – holy fire – and the fire of His manifest presence is coming upon the priesthood… to bring restoration of all things and purify our offerings…. The mature sons, the priesthood, are being birthed. 
—RandyDeMain[2]

The Earth and all of creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, the time when they will come into theirmaturity and immortalization…. Earth and its natural creation is anxiously waiting for the Church to reach full maturity and come to full sonship. When the Church realizes its full sonship, its bodily redemption will cause a redemptive chain reaction throughout all creation. 
—Bill Hamon[3]

The passionate love of God manifesting now in the hearts of God’s people by the Holy Spirit is birthing the full grown body of Christ. There is a time of birth without tolerance.At the precise moment, in the thousands of years of God’s dealing with man, when it is time birth comes. Anyone who would stand against the birth of the fruit of God’s passionwill meet the passion of God’s flaming sword in the hands of His powerful angels.
—Ron McGatlin[4]

The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and IHOP serve together as the chief mouthpiece for the old Latter Rain/Manifest Sons of God (MSOG) teachings. IHOP spreads the leaven via its broad scope of interrelated ministries and youth organizations, including an expanding outreach into the mainstream evangelical world. The NAR spreads its leaven throughout the charismatic world, and reaches a much broader audience via their many media outlets. Both movements teach virtually the same thing. IHOP and NAR both proclaim that it is the time for their followers to be armed, trained and ready for battle. This is about a holy war.

The NAR is boldly announcing that NOW is the time for the army of God to arise. With this coming “Presence” they say there will be a militarization of the church. This army is often referred to as “Joel’s Army” or the “Warrior Bride.”[5] Their esoteric artwork has depicted a masculine bride ready to wield a sickle (for “harvest”) or carry a sword (for judgment/“justice”) to subdue and rule the earth (Dominionism). The homoerotic images are disturbing:

Exhibit 2: The Warrior Bride with combat boots.

The advertisement accompanying this graphic stated that the purpose of this “Warrior Bride Awaken Conference” was to awaken passion for warfare:

Christ is calling to His bride to awaken in this hour! To awaken from her slumber, complacency and to awaken to her place as a mighty warrior in the body of Christ! 

"Warrior means a person engaged or experienced in warfare while Bride speaks of a very intimate partner. Isn't it interesting? This paradox God has set before us? To be warriors of warfare while being intimately in love with our Bridegroom.[6]

"Bishop" Bill Hamon, a NAR leader with roots in the Latter Rain cult, spoke about the Warrior Bride at the New Life Church in South Africa on November 13, 1997. His comments seem to exactly describe the conference advertisement depicted above.  Hamon explained that this was based on a timeline he was calling “The Army of the Lord Movement.” It would come after the New Apostolic Reformation first raised up its self-anointed, self-appointed networking legions of apostles and prophets. Note his mocking tone: 

The Bride [of Christ] has combat boots on. I said, the Bride of Christ has combat boots on under her wedding dress…. How many want to be the Bride of Christ? Then you gotta put your combat boots on. Get off your little golden slippers.... 

Jesus is raising up a Church and the Apostles and Prophets are coming to equip the saints, give 'em weapons in their hand and make an army of soldiers and take 'em out of the nursing home, take 'em out of the old folks home, take 'em out of the baby nursery and get 'em out of those churches and places where they've just been lullabied till Jesus comes, and put 'em in their armories and in their training camp and make soldiers of the cross, make warriors out of them!... 

The Army of the Lord's Movement,' coming right after the saints movement after the apostles and prophets. Apostles and prophets are preparing us for something more than going to heaven to be good for nothing. Hello saints. Apostles and prophets are not going to be your nice little evangelists, pastors and teachers—they've come to revolutionize and bring restoration and bring the King back....[7]

Hamon then published a more complete timeline, which seems to be the “blueprint” that the NAR and IHOP are using in their eschatological countdown:

2003 the Church will begin moving into Phase 3 of the 3rd and Final Apostolic Reformation. This Final Apostolic Reformationcontains 5 movements or they can be called 5 phases. The Church which is walking in present truth is moving into Phase 3 in 2003 which is the Saints Movement. 

3rd Apostolic Reformation 

1988 – 40 years – 2028 

• Phase 1 Prophetic Movement 1988 
• Phase 2 Apostolic Movement 1998 
• Phase 3 SAINTS MOVEMENT 2008 
• Phase 4 Army of the Lord Movement 2018 
• Phase 5 Kingdom Establishing Movement 2028[8]

Hamon described these movements in terms of progress towards Dominionism, i.e. ruling and subduing the earth:

We’ve crossed over the Jordan. The moment you cross over Jordan you’re going into warfare…. In this movement, it is constant warfare and you don’t stop until all of Canaan issubdued and the children of God are ruling and reigning. 

As fanatical as it may sound to fundamental evangelical Christians, the Church is destined to subdue all things andput all things under Christ’s feet before He actually literally returns from heaven.[10][all emphases added] 

Hamon presented the classic Latter Rain twist on the 2nd coming—the belief that human immortality is attained here on earth. This transformation is what the Latter Rain means when they use the word “Rapture.”

The Church is being prepared now for the next moves of God. After the Saints Movement will be the Army of the Lord Movement. The next movement after that will be theKingdom Establishment Movement. 

So we have three more movements yet to take place. So we are right now in the Prophetic-Apostolic Movement but then somewhere along 2012 or 2010 the preachers will start getting on the ball and teaching and training the saints. Then we will have the Saint's Movement that will demonstrate to every nation the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Then we are going to have the Army of the Lord demonstrate the power of God and go forth as mighty warriors and shake whole nations. Then we will have the Kingdom Establishment Movement. The Kingdom will be established and Jesus will return and change us in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye so we can finish the job with our immortal bodies.[11][emphases added] 

To underscore this point, Hamon asserted that the classic premillennial or “Rapture teaching is one of the most faith deadening teachings ever preached.”[12] Note that Hamon also claims that the NAR hierarchy of apostles and prophets in this army are on a par with Jesus:

We are all on the same level with Christ but there are positions of honor and respect. It's like an army. We are not a loosey goosey Jesus people floating around here. We have commanders and lieutenants. We have colonels and sergeants.[13][emphasis added] 

The prophecies about an army have been around for awhile. In a 1996 article by discernment researcher Ed Tarkowsk titled “The Significance of Filled Stadiums,”[14] he detailed a key Latter Rain “prophecy” about the coming of an endtime “Joel’s Army.” This was given by Paul Cain[15] of the Kansas City Prophets (now IHOP). In November 1988 at Mike Bickle's Grace Ministries,[16] Cain proclaimed that large stadiums would become the training ground for this coming army:

Joel's Army [is] now in training… I believe one day soon Joel's Army will be in training... until it graduates into the stadium….[17] 

Twenty years later, in 2008, Stacey Cambell, a leader in the NAR, wrote ominously on TheElijahList that she was hearing “SICKLES—God is Preparing to REAP NATIONS.”

When the prayer bowls fill in Heaven, the result on earth is the acceleration of harvest and judgment…. [18][emphasis in original] 

But who is in charge of the sickle of judgment over nations? According to some NAR eschatology, the Warrior Bride wields the sickle and is in charge of the harvest as the agent (or incarnation) of “Christ” on earth. As “Joel’s Army” she will begin wreaking judgment on those nations (and individuals) assessed as goats. What is holding her back? She is awaiting the imminent return of the “Presence” spirit that will outfit her in full military regalia, dress her in combat boots, arm her with weapons, and equip her with supernatural powers—even immortality.


The Bridal Army
In 2007, Rick Joyner, one of the original “Kansas City Prophets” described a mystical vision he had of a “glorious” bride getting dressed for battle. (“Glorious” or “glory” refer to the much-anticipated “Presence” transformation.) Joyner said:

True warriors always run to the sound of battle, not away from it. This is the time when the true soldiers of the cross are mobilizing. We must each take our place in His army…. 

When I was praying this morning, I saw a large ball of fire come out of heaven. It came right at me and I knew that there was no way I could avoid it, so I didn't even try. It hit me right in the chest. I was then shown the most beautiful bridal dress I have ever seen. It was truly from out of this world, supernaturally beautiful. Then the voice of the Lord came to me and said, "Help My bride put on this dress."

 

…I know with a supernatural knowing that the bride is about to get ready.[19][emphasis in original] 

A year later, Joyner announced:

The great army of God is now being mobilized in thousands of locations. It is going through basic training…. 

The Bride is also an army…. 

The spiritual drill sergeants are being released to get the army ready for battle.[20] 

Over the years Rick Joyner has written much about this coming “divine militancy.”[21] 


A “Dread Champion Army”[22] 
The arrival of the “Presence” is not going to be peaceful. It means war! Many of the NAR prophets write about an upcoming “Harvest” in which the earth will be subdued and purged of its enemies. Here is an example from Bobby Conner, titled “Dread Champions Arise to Contend and Defend! We are Now in the Age of the Great Harvest!”:

We are called to take the promised land of the Kingdom by force—without compromise or retreat. This war between King Jesus and His enemies of this world is going to be much, much more militant than we expected and we must prepare as serious soldiers of the Cross. Don't misunderstand me—our weapons are not knives and guns, bombs and bullets, but eternal weapons of power….[23][emphasis in original] 

The military language is often tempered with a statement that this is just spiritual warfare. But how else can we interpret these violent words—“by force,” “enemies,” “much more militant,” “without compromise,” and “soldiers”? How many in the NAR believe that the coming war will be both literal and physical? Like Mike Bickle’s teachings in IHOP, Conner calls for intensive training in “spiritual disciplines,” “unquestioned obedience” and “passionate love”:

…we need to come into agreement with the Spirit through the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, purity, revelation of the Word of God, faith working through love and, above all, radical, unquestioned obedience. These are the characteristics of God's "dread champions."… 

…you are called to burn brightly with passionate love and radical obedience, true to the King….[24][emphasis in original] 

C. Peter Wagner’s top lieutenant in the NAR, “apostle” Chuck Pierce, wrote an article, “This is NOT a Time to be Passive but to Go to War and Worship Violently!” Not surprisingly, he wrote about it in the Latter Rain context of “David’s Tabernacle.” They believe they will be in charge of the “harvest” mentioned below:

The restoration of David's Tabernacle is advancing in the earth realm in this generation…. [The book of Revelation] reveals to us the present expression of the war in the Heavens. When you read more closely, you see how we, as God's army in the earth, will co-labor with the Host of Heaven to express a Holy God's overcoming power throughout the nations of the earth. This will unlock a global harvest. Your violent praise is preparing a storehouse for Kingdom harvest. [25][bold in original, underline added] 

Chuck Pierce, who has been known to publicly roar like a lion on many occasions,[26] exhorted the his readers to do so also:

As you praise "violently," you are releasing the Roar of the Lord that has been held captive in God's people. Let me explain the "Roar of the Lord." God's sound permeates from Heaven and orders much of what goes on in the earthly realm. When He is ready to bring restoration to Earth, He releases His sound…. Do not resist the major shift that is re-creating the way we worship and acknowledge God corporately.[27][bold in original, underline added] 

Exhibit 3: Advertisement for a Chuck Pierce CD

Notice below that Pierce’s eschatology that says we are sitting in the heavenlies like Jesus. The only way Pierce can claim this is by taking verses about Jesus and applying them to the church in this age. His words reflect an old Latter Rain heresy (the “Manchild Company”[28]) based on Rev. 12:5, that a “manchild” will “rule the nations with a rod of iron.” This verse, taken out of its context, gives them their Dominion mandate. The NAR believes that in this position in the heavenlies they will wield judgment on earth. Like Mike Bickle, they believe they will literally walk out (or pray in, or both) the judgments of the book of Revelation. Especially as they are “clothes in His glory (i.e., the “Presence”):

Warfare is conflict. The concept of war is simple—we are seated next to a risen Messiah. When He arose from the dead and ascended to His Heavenly position to rule and reign, He prepared a place for us to sit next to Him. Through His Blood, we can enter into the Throne Room and gain Father's heart over any matter. Then, from our seated position, we can walk in the earth clothed in His glory and dispel darkness. He came to overcome the works of the devil, and we can do this as we remain in Him…. 

When you are warring for your inheritance, which is a reality, what you are really contending over is yourGarden or Promised Land dominion.[29][bold in original, underline added] 

So dominion is the goal. But also note the reference to “Garden” dominion. This has to do with their belief in “restoration” of creation – that they can restore paradise conditions here on earth.[30] They even believe they can bring heaven to earth.[31] 

Exhibit 4: The Bride donning her combat boots

  

The Bridal Armory
Ron McGatlin is an “apostle” who boldly proclaims the Latter Rain endtime eschatology. He is very sincere, but he teaches a kingdom gospel. In his regular e-mail newsletter he talks about an endtime cleansing or harvest of the earth. His theology closely approximates that of the New Age Movement.[32] Like his NAR and IHOP counterparts, he is expecting an indwelling “Presence” for endtime supernatural powers. In his statements can be seen the dialectic conflict between “love” (the Bride) and a terrible-sounding cleansing (the Army) of the planet.

God is preparing a people who will work in conjunction with myriads of powerful holy angels to cleanse the earth with the fire of God. After all that exalts itself against God is dissolved, the holy sons of God will shine forth as the sun replenishing and restoring the earth to the kingdom of our God on earth as it is in heaven.…. 

In His presence, His pure love covering us and filling us will melt away all other allegiances and pure love will rule our hearts and minds. Supernatural love and power will flow easily without effort as we follow His direction only saying and doing what we see and hear Him saying and doing. [33][bold and underline added] 

The late Bob Jones, an associate of Mike Bickle and an original “Kansas City Prophet,” described a vision in which “The Lord has opened His armory, and has brought out the weapons of His indignation.” Jones wrote:

God is arming the Body of Christ with weapons of His divine love that the enemy has no defense against. We'll begin to see the army of God come together in unity, a common union, to where the enemy will have to leave entire cities. This army is getting ready to take entire cities and eventually entire states. In certain places in the world, they'll take entire nations. 

This is the year the army of God comes together with angels beyond number and weapons that cannot be defeated by the enemy. Angels are here now preparing the Body for the harvest and there will be a mighty victory…. 

…the armory of God… is now open and the Father is releasing weapons of warfare that has never been available to man before. In this vision there were weapons put into my hands that terrorized me to even touch.[34][emphasis in original] 

With the recent passing of Bob Jones, Paul Keith Davis upped the military rhetoric to a whole new level with a “prophecy” published onTheElijahList titled “A New Season - The Church is Entering an Age of Militancy and Spiritual Confrontation.” It says, in part,

The Church is entering an age of militancy and spiritual confrontation. The "end of days" is characterized with great conflict. The struggle between "light" and "darkness" will continually escalate. We are entering days that will introduceamplified revelations of God's Kingdom and Heaven's spiritual economy. The Bible plainly foretells this battle as violent and spiritually bloody. 

The Kingdom of Heaven truly suffers violence and God's army must take it by force…. 

It is the destiny of this generation of overcoming saints to enter the "fullness of the stature of Christ." 

Great warriors will emerge in this hour. The Holy Spirit is preparing a body of people to expose spiritual gates and open everlasting doors that the King of Glory may come in. He will reveal Himself as the awesome man of war Who is strong and mighty in battle…. 

Substantial authority will be given to this warring band to sever the head from spiritual influences that have successfully stolen the inheritance of God's people…. 

God is about to download, through His government, messages that teach and preach Calvary's Cross in profoundly powerful ways… these will prepare the Bride for her union with the Bridegroom.[35][bold in original, underlining added]

Exhibit 5: The sword and the Presence

The graphic above accompanied the Davis article. Like Davis, many in the NAR teach that God is “downloading” new strategies and revelations.[36] In other words, they can teach new doctrines.


“Cleanse the earth with the fire of God”[37] 
The Bridal Army believes it is charged with cleansing the planet.[38]Ron McGatlin of OpenHeaven articulates the Latter Rain belief that the “Holy Spirit” will return, not Jesus in the flesh, to restore and redeem the planet. Note that he believes that Jesus's saving work on the cross was incomplete. This is a typical NAR teaching: 

He is the One who returned to earth in the Holy Spirit tocomplete the work of redeeming and restoring the world to God’s design and desire…. [39] [emphasis added] 

McGatlin believes that the “mature” Bride is becoming empowered for coming “cleansing judgments”:

You and I are alive in the time of these fulfillments beginning to come to pass in our world. And as hard as it might be for you to believe, we have a part in this sovereign move of God. There must be pure and holy mature sons of God in whom Christ Jesus fully dwells to bring forth, beyond the cleansing judgments, the new world governed by God. You and I are the seeds of Christ sown into this world for such a time as this. 

Under the cover of darkness, the Holy Ghost is nowinvading our lives and our world with the life of Christ Jesusempowering His pure holy sons and daughters with His love, power, and wisdom to fulfill His works in this world. Christ living in our bodies where we once lived is indeed the hope of glory on Planet Earth.[40][emphasis added] 

This statement about “cover of darkness” does not agree with any Scripture. Jesus Christ professes that He is the Light and His Gospel gives light: “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12), and “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:6). See also John 12:46, Acts 26:18, Rom. 13:12, 2 Cor. 6:14, Eph. 5:8, 1 Thess. 5:5, 1 Pet. 2:9, 1 John 1:5, 2:8. If a spirit is coming in darkness it cannot be the Holy Spirit. 

The reference to “seeds” above correlates with the teachings of the “Kansas City Prophets” that God will raise up a “new breed of elect seed,”[41] meaning a superior race of elites empowered for rule.[42]In keeping with his belief that Paradise can be restored, McGatlin urges on his readers to abandon “NATURAL HUMAN COMPASSION” because it will almost always “MISS THE MARK AND TAKE US ASTRAY.” This comment brings to mind the Scripture warning:

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be… Without natural affection….”
(2 Tim. 3:1-3) 

This Army Bride must be passionate, but not compassionate. The “passion” of the “Presence” appears to be for the “purpose” of getting the Bridal Army revved up for its violent mission. McGatlin states this is in preparation for ruling:

This is why mature sons of God had to be coming forth before the reality of the kingdom and the ruling city of New Jerusalem could begin to be formed on earth…. 

Only the pure holy love in the presence of God can lead us and strengthen us to move through the significant changes taking place in our world as the great transformation from the past age into the age of the kingdom. The move from the spiritual fulfillment of the symbolic feast of Pentecost to the spiritual fulfillment of the symbolic feast of Tabernaclesis a great and very significant change that we are now enduring.[43][bold added] 

Thus McGatlin is yet another leader teaching the Latter Rain doctrine about a Second Pentecost and Warnock's allegorical Feast of Tabernacles. 


“Bridal Intimacy” for “Bridal Rule”[44] 
James Goll, one of the leading NAR “apostles” issued a “prophetic” word to his troops that proclaimed the “bridal rule”:

Prophetic evangelism has grown stronger as the Church has matured into a clearer understanding of her bridal intimacy with her Bridegroom Jesus, along with the governmental empowerment (the “bridal rule”) of God's people.[45] 

Goll said this had to do with the “restoration of David’s Tabernacle” (thus indicating his Latter Rain foundation) and listed many of his “prophecies” of a coming revival:

• The restoration of David's Tabernacle… shall escalate resulting in authentic 24-hour houses of prayer and praise, worship and intercession sprinkled across the nations. New creative songs and sounds shall emerge…. 
• A new Signs and Wonders Movement is growing…. 
• This move of God will be so powerful that the Church will gather in stadiums to worship…. 
• A renewed Quietist Movement will emerge as Believers in Christ find the "secret place" of the Most High to truly be their dwelling place…. A fresh revelation of intimacy with God, communion with their lover/husbandman and Master will come forth…. 
• An extravagant Youth Movement is coming to the global Body of Christ that will "rock the nations". Public events will be led by youth to pray and fast for revival, which will spread rapidly around the nations…. 
• A "Convergence of the Ages" shall come upon us…"The Great Revolution in the Church".[47][emphasis in original]

Goll promised “warrior praise” in foretelling this “Revolution.”

Radical deeds of identificational repentance, acts of mercy to the poor and the oppressed, presence and power encountersto the sick and the demonized, warrior praise and intercession arising over cities will mount as a Revolution comes upon the global Body of Christ and creates a great societal awakening! If history books are written of the years that lie ahead, they might be termed "The Days of His Glorious Presence". [48][bold in original, underline added] 


“A New Breed of Marys” 
The NAR and IHOP allegorize many Scriptures. This is why you read about a “Joshua Generation” and “Marys” and “Annas” and “Elijahs.” All of this is talking about the role of various people and groups and generations in order to rule and reign upon the earth with supernatural powers (“glorified” by the “Presence”). A year ago onTheElijahList there was an advertisement for a “Woman of the Presence” conference, which said:

A "Mary Company" of God lovers is being raised up in this hour. It's a company of men and women who cannot and will not do anything outside of the presence of God. 

True intimacy with Jesus, time in His Presence, unfolds our identity. Who we are frames our purpose leading us into destiny. As this process continues, we begin to find ourselves transformed. Suddenly we find ourselves a powerful apostolic people. It all began with the PRESENCE, being people or women of God's Presence. This is what we all long for. We are lovesick for Him.[49][bold added] 

Exhibit 6: Advertisement on TheElijahList for the "Women of the Presence" conference

One NAR “prophetess” has written that there will be a “new breed of Marys” that will be “an army of Warrior Brides” who will facilitate “a supernatural move of the Spirit to accomplish His will on the earth as it is in heaven.” The Spirit’s “presence” will deliver “divine impartations. ”Note the reference to “Warrior Brides”:

Like a new breed of Marys on the rise, God has implanted His divine seed in the hearts of many women around the world who hear His voice—who are being trained, who mother in the natural and in the spirit, who have nurtured, who have fought like an army of Warrior Brides, who have been faithful in times of persecution and times of hardship. 

They are making room and preparing the way of the Lord for a supernatural move of the Spirit to accomplish His will on the earth as it is in Heaven. 

There are specific whirlwinds of the supernatural presence of the Lord where prophetic women of all walks of life are being "caught up" into the glory cloud of God and receiving divinevisitations, divine impartations, divine healings, divinedirection, divine strategies, divine wisdom and divine favor as they realize this is not the storm of the enemy, but the veryhigh wind velocity of the Spirit of God.[50][bold in original, underline added] 

This allusion to Mary is not new. Francis Frangipane, one of Mike Bickle’s associates, first taught this doctrine in the 1990s. Like mother “Mary,” a virgin church would “birth” the corporate “Bride of Christ.”

Secure this thought in your mind: when the Spirit of Christ comes into the physical world, He must enter through a physical body…. When Christ first entered our world as a child, it was Mary whom God chose to give Christ birth. Mary's life symbolized the qualities the Church must possess to walk in the fullness of Christ…. [God is preparing us] as He did Mary to give birth to the ministry of His Son. Even now, in the spiritual womb of the virgin Church, the holy purpose of Christ is growing, awaiting maturity; ready to be born in power in the timing of God… the virgin Church is 'in labour and in pain to give birth'… even now, hell trembles and the heavens watch in awe, for I say to you, once again, the virgin is with child. Before Jesus Himself returns, the last virgin Church shall become pregnant with the promise of God. Out of her travail, the Body of Christ shall come forth, raised to the full stature of its Head, the Lord Jesus.Corporately manifested in holiness, power and love, theBride of Christ shall arise….[51][emphasis added]

There are no Scriptures that teach this. But this is an example of the classic Latter Rain belief about a coming “Presence” spirit that will indwell and equip an army of “overcomers.”    

Exhibit 7: The Bride's Revival advertisement on TheElijahList

The Intimacy of the “Presence”
Below is a classic example of the “Presence” doctrine as it is communicated throughout the NAR as a prophecy. First, there is a new “season” announced. This means they believe that God is doing new things on earth right now, including opening portals for heaven to come down to earth, performing signs and wonders, and receiving new revelations. Scripture is not the final authority. Experiences are deemed sufficiently authoritative, especially if others confirm it. The NAR uses the same sort of intimate romance language as Mike Bickle does in his “Bridal Paradigm”—reiterating the importance of the Army Bride generating passion. Below is a sample of the type of dreams and visions that many are reciting:

Recently, the Lord revealed to me that we are entering into a season of sweetness and awe. He showed me how we can position our hearts to become an open portal to Heaven – where God infuses us with His presence and revelation abounds – flowing to us and through us in naturally, supernatural ways…. 

I changed the language of my prayers, calling Jesus “My Love”. Immediately, I felt His presence drawing nearer…. 

Lovers see the signs of love wherever they travel. Paying attention to these signs and wonders cause you to tune into the personal, intimate ways God speaks to His beloved – you! And it positions your heart to receive greater revelatory encounters with Him and walk in a supernaturally, natural way…. 

Let your heart become an open portal of His love. It won't be long before the awe of His power thunders around you and you find yourself walking IN THE FULLNESS of Him, not just alongside of Him; carrying His authority to release the realm of Heaven on earth.[52][emphasis in original, underline added] 

This seductive language creates a mood. It amplifies passion. It is also an essential way to inculcate the Latter Rain doctrines.

Exhibit 8: "Women of the Presence" conference advertised on TheElijahList

The “Bride’s Revival”
Similar to IHOP, the NAR also teaches that the Bride must attain an unprecedented level of “maturity.” This means she will experience a “breakthrough” that will equip her to be “a spiritual habitation of God’s presence and the Sevenfold Spirit of God.” Huh? Well, while walking out the book of Revelation literally and spiritually they believe they “will be filled with power of the Spirit from the 7 fold Spirit of God found in the Book of Revelation chapter 4 verse 5.”[54] It is yet one more example of how they strangely allegorize Revelation to fit their own endtime eschatology. A “prophecy” about revival claims:

We are now entering a season of harvest and a time that will be known as the Bride's Revival… when the Bride of Christ emerges in maturity and surrendered devotion to the Bridegroom…. 

Following that, the greatest harvest of souls throughout the earth will transpire in the Bride's Revival…. 

In essence, there will be a deposit of the "spirit to overcome" delegated to Believers who have yielded their hearts and souls with unwavering desperation for the person of Jesus; that is what it means to be the Joshua generation. The Joshua commission is the anointing to "overcome."[55][bold in original, underline added] 

The Joshua generation reference is yet another of many biblical characters whose name is borrowed as a way to communicate the various roles for endtime dominion. All of this is in preparation for an endtime harvest. In 2008, NAR leader Stacey Campbell declared: 

For 2008, prophetically, I hear "sickles." They are swinging over nations, and they are set to reap....

Prayer is the tipping point. Prayer will release both the judgments of God.... The wealth transfer has begun, the miracles are happening, the leadership has crossed over and stadiums are already being filled with tens of thousands of believers who are gathering in solemn assemblies of fasting and prayer.[56][all emphasis in original]

Who is in charge of this sickle of judgment over nations? According to Latter Rain doctrine, the Army Bride wields the sickle and is in charge of the harvest as an agent of "God" on earth. Note the reference to wealth. The NAR believes they will get rich from the spoil of this harvest. 


The Bride’s Final Harvest
Bob Jones, who passed away on Feb. 14, 2014 reported a “Vision of God’s Armory” where God was “releasing weapons of warfare” that “cannot be handled by one person,” but rather teams who will “go to war” and “make decrees and declarations.”[57] His “prophecy” stated:

God is arming the Body of Christ with weapons of His divine love that the enemy has no defense against. We'll begin to see the army of God come together in unity, a common union, to where the enemy will have to leave entire cities.This army is getting ready to take entire cities and eventually entire states. In certain places in the world, they'll take entire nations. 

This is the year the army of God comes together with angels beyond number and weapons that cannot be defeated by the enemy. Angels are here now preparing the Body for theharvest and there will be a mighty victory.[58]

Reading through this confusing maze of violent rhetoric, it seems plausible that at some point the apostolic leaders may trigger a switch and call for a real war with real weapons in their passionate zeal for taking over the earth. One must always keep in mind that in Latter Rain eschatology there is only talk of enemies and war. It is us vs. them. The Gospel of Salvation is missing in action. 

The Truth: 
Professor Johan Malan of South Africa published a comprehensive paper warning about the dangers of these type of Dominionism teachings. One section of his article particularly addresses the excessive hoopla surrounding the spiritual formation of this global Bridal Army:

Deception through signs, wonders and extra-Biblical prophecies 
The inclination towards signs and wonders is a breeding-ground for kingdom now deception. Those who expect a visible kingdom during the church age are strongly bent towards the idea that this kingdom must demonstrate its power through various supernatural signs and wonders. There should, according to them, be mighty prophets and apostles who receive important revelations from God, who can speak on behalf of Him to the world, and also have the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, make people fall in the Spirit, and perform many other dramatic signs. 

But the Lord Jesus says, “A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah” (Matt. 16:4). The sign of Jonah was that he was three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish, and also that an entire pagan city repented in reaction to his preaching. This sign was fulfilled during the death of Jesus when He was in the grave for three days and three nights and rose on the third day (Matt. 12:4). After that, thousands of people repented when they heard the gospel of the atoning death and resurrection of Christ. Agnostic Jews who did not want to accept this message, learned how thousands of Gentiles (as earlier in Nineveh) turned to God with repentant hearts. We must have faith in the great sign of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus – not in other signs and wonders. 

Signs and wonders play a very minor role in the church dispensation, as the Lord wants us to live by faith in Christ, and not by virtue of physical signs. Any emphasis of this nature usually leads to deception, and the devil will use such signs to prepare the way for the acceptance of the Antichrist and false prophet: “For false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:24). The Antichrist and false prophet will excel in this regard (2 Thess. 2:8-12; Rev. 13:11-15). 

As far as prophecies are concerned, we should guard against the possibility of being deceived by specially “anointed” but self-imposed prophets and prophetesses. We must be guided by the Bible, and not by the extra-biblical prophecies. The prophetic revelations which the Lord gave to the church were concluded with the writing of the Book of Revelation. Should anybody dare to add any further prophecies to it, God will add to him the plagues revealed in His Word (Rev. 22:18)....

Do not make the mistake of brushing aside the Bible for the sake of dramatic kingdom manifestations, and start pursuing the false revelations of self-imposed prophets and prophetesses.[59] 

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