October 8, 2024 • 48 mins
The New Apostolic Reformation is a movement that is leading people astray. Ray, E.Z., Mark, and Oscar discuss how this movement emphasizes personal experiences over scripture, mysticism over doctrine, and elevates modern-day apostles above the Bible. The movement’s founder believed the local church should be under the authority of apostles rather than God's Word. However, the era of apostles has passed, and constantly seeking after signs misleads believers. The NAR’s emphasis on miracles and healing often lures immature Christians away from the core message of the gospel.
The NAR promotes cultural dominance, contradicting Jesus' teachings of humility and sacrifice. Jesus chose the cross over earthly power, calling His followers to do the same. While Christians should influence society, this influence must come through service and humility, not through seeking power. The NAR’s emphasis on dominance distorts the gospel and leads believers away from Christ. The NAR gained significant influence in politics and they blurred the lines between God's kingdom and human governments, adding confusion to the church’s role in society. This blending of faith with political power undermines the gospel’s focus on Christ alone.
Believers are often drawn to the NAR because of its promises of miracles and personal power. The allure controlling one’s destiny is enticing, but it leads to false teachings that center on human desires rather than God’s truth. False apostles attract crowds by appearing close to God, yet their message is man-centered. This drift from the gospel prioritizes personal gain and worldly influence over spiritual truth. This creates opportunities for false conversions by promoting a watered-down gospel that lacks a call for repentance. Believers must be discerning, ensuring their leaders emphasize Scripture over personal experience and that their focus remains on the Bible. If a church prioritizes emotions and experiences over God's Word, it reflects unhealthy doctrine.
Ultimately, the NAR’s focus on power and influence leads believers away from the gospel. Its emphasis on experiences leaves many feeling inadequate when they don’t manifest spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues, contradicting the promises of the Holy Spirit. Rather than seeking authority through personal power, believers should repent and return to the authority of Scripture, trusting God’s Word as their guide.
Thanks for listening! If you’ve been helped by this podcast, we’d be grateful if you’d consider subscribing, sharing, and leaving us a comment and 5-star rating!
Visit the Living Waters website to learn more and to access helpful resources!
You can find helpful counseling resources at biblicalcounseling.com.
Check out The Evidence Study Bible and the Basic Training Course.
You can connect with us at podcast@livingwaters.com. We're thankful for your input!
Learn more about the hosts of this podcast.
Ray Comfort
Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have no mention of sin, judgment and
righteousness.
Well then you get to really dowhatever you want to do.
You get to be yourself.
You know, love is love.
Love wins, and obviously I'mnot saying that that's all
associated in the midst of thatwith the homosexuality angle
there.
But what I am saying is thatyou are now the master and the
(00:20):
commander of your own ship andof your own destiny.
I mean, who doesn't want to seeand experience perhaps miracles
if you go down that realm, billJohnson, right from Bethel.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Church.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
He has said some horrific things and done some
horrific things and elevatingexperiences over Scripture.
And then, when that happens,it's a terrible thing, and this
is what I mean by that, becauseyou have somebody on the outside
, in the outskirts, sittingthere inside the pew, who begins
to think to themselves well, Iwant to hear from God, how come
I'm not hearing from God?
Well, you have to try harder,you have to pray harder.
(00:51):
Your faith is lacking and thenit becomes so introspective and
you discard away from the Wordof God.
It becomes an overwhelmingpressure and you start elevating
man above Christ.
You'll have to, because youthink, boy, this person sure
does hear from the Lord.
And then you start elevatingthat person to a place where he
(01:13):
is never designed to be, whereonly Christ deserves to be right
.
So that's the danger when youstart seeking after experiences
and you listen to people whoshould never be behind a pulpit
because, quite frankly, they'rejust not saved.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Medicine cabinet opens, person removes tube of
something from medicine cabinet,snickers puts it back and then
you hear do you want to get away, guys?
Remember that ad?
No, come on, ray, I was a 70sSouthwestern Airlines.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
no, I don't remember that do you want to get away
dreams it's one of your dreams.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
No, these are you and I have talked about these
commercials multiple times Notthat one when someone does
something embarrassing and thendo you want to get away.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
No, you don't know.
Oh yes, that's.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Calgon, calgon, take me away.
No, that's Calgon.
I did see an interesting fact.
The number one thing thatpeople snoop into when they're
visiting somebody's house is amedicine cabinet inside.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And that's why I want to ask Ray Ray have you ever
opened a medicine cabinet atsomeone's house in the bathroom,
when you shouldn't have?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Just to see what was in there.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Look at the look, look at the nostrils are flaring
.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Give me more information.
Give me information Short-termmemory loss.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, when did I do that?
You happen to forget?
No, I'm just wondering if youever have.
I just figured you must have atsome point.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah Well, I've traveled, I've been in hundreds
of homes.
Oh, so you've opened hundredsof homes.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
You know, what I like to do is I like to put stuff in
their medicine cabinet duringparties, knowing that people
will open it up and just see themost random craziness.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh, wouldn't that be funny to put a note in there.
What are you doing?
Look at.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Kachi with a little camera phaser.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know what that would be a novelty item that I
bet would sell really well.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
There's an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry's
at the apartment of someone andhe sees that the lady has a rash
cream in there and he's likewhere's the rash?
Where's the rash?
The whole episode is him tryingto figure out where the rash is
.
Oh man.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Rash cream toe fungus .
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Fungus remover, yeah, all kinds of stuff Right next
to the toothpaste.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Leave the house Ray looks like a thot.
Leave before you get something.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh man, but yeah, those embarrassing moments in
life.
I think that those commercialswere so successful because
people can relate to it.
You know, something happeningthat it's just like you're
doomed, but something happeningthat it's just like you're
doomed.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, that's Ray's life.
Basically, do you getembarrassed easily?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Never, I've never been embarrassed.
I've never been embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Surprised.
Have you heard him sing?
He does not get embarrassed,he's immune to embarrassment.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
No, I've told you guys my most embarrassing moment
when I broke that denture.
Wait, I don't remember thiswhat.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I've never shared this.
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
You made dentures.
Well, I used to make dentures.
Believe it or not, I wasplanning.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Were they your own?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I was planning to serve you guys in the future.
That was what was you betterget the background, yeah, so my
family had a dental lab.
We made dentures and mybrother-in-law was mentoring
this guy, uh, who wanted tostart his own business, so he's
kind of teaching him how to makedentures.
So anyway, he came and he hadmade his very first denture and
he was like, I mean, this guywas like like he just won I'm
(04:35):
loving the story already olympicgold like this.
He was so excited so mybrother-in-law was looking at it
and then I go, okay, I see, youknow, and then they start
talking, you know, and I'm likeuh, and it snapped he snapped it
in my hand.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I was like 19 it didn't snap, you bent it no I
was just like testing it.
Yeah, there, you bent it.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, you can do it and well, I mean to be fair, it
shouldn't have done, it shouldnot have snapped.
Yeah, yeah, so it was aterrible.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It looked like he should have got fired.
It looked horrible.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, he didn't work for us.
He had his own, he was startinghis own lab, and that's why he
was so excited.
So these are false teeth.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
And how do they start ?
They make this individual 22teeth.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, you take an impression and then you do, you
do like teeth, the little teethin the things of the things and
those things, the Spence familyis known for not having their
own teeth Really False teeth.
Is that your future?
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Mark False teeth?
No, I floss at least twice aday.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I'm scared of losing my arm.
Flosser Dude, I flosseverywhere I go.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Yeah, that's correct.
What's?
Your name Dentures are like afalse convert.
Yeah, they're not rooted inNever the same.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Oh, like a false prophet.
Thank you, the spiritual one,always Spiritual right.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.
Like a false prophet.
They'll break when you bendthem.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh, today's episode.
You're on a roll, oscar, yeah.
So anyway, I stood there andtime stood still.
Man, I just was like because,you know, and the guy's still
like say yeah, and I'm like, I'mserious, I'm like I broke your
denture.
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Couldn't you say I found the weak point in here.
Ah, very wise.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And then, say thank you so much.
Yeah, I should have, just withauthority.
Hey, you had a week.
My ears is horrible.
Yeah, snap next time?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
yeah, next time.
Right, you're wise.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, beyond his years well, all right, friends,
time for a cool, classy comment.
This is from trinity.
I've been meaning to send thisfor a long time, but this Insta
story reminded me too.
My name is Trinity.
I sometimes use my mom'sInstagram account.
I'm a junior in high school andI just want to say thank you
for the podcast.
(06:54):
The podcast and YouTube videoshave been very influential in my
life.
My mom was the one that got meto listen to it.
I at first told her that shewas crazy and I would never
become a podcast listener.
But here I am.
Through this podcast, Irealized that I was not truly
born again.
I thought I was.
I had made a profession offaith when I was five, but I
(07:15):
didn't really remember it, norunderstood the meaning.
Two years ago is when I startedlistening to the podcast and
when you all talked about thelaw.
God started to convict my heart.
Ray's jumping up and down inhis heart right now.
A few weeks later, I went tochurch camp and the message was
about the gospel.
For the first time in my life,it clicked.
Thank you for all that theLiving Waters ministry does.
(07:37):
My life has been changed.
You didn't cry oh man, I know Imade it through this one.
I got that on Instagram.
Yeah, Did you get the same one?
I think you might have sent it.
I did.
I sent it to you.
That's amazing.
So, Ray, this right here to meis an example of the ultimate
fulfillment of your heart'sdesire with our ministry,
(07:59):
Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I mean, she came to realize yeah, but even more
people would be better.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, more please, but I'm saying that this example
of what she's saying happenedto her in light of coming face
to face with the Lord, and tothink there are multitudes in
the same bracket.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
They name the name of Christ, but they've never been
truly born again because they'venever seen their sin.
So it's wonderful to hear that.
And you know, she's going tobecome a laborer.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, a laborer?
Yeah, sure Amen.
I love that.
That's what we love to see.
Yeah, converts who becomeconvert makers, by God's grace.
Convertologists,convertologists and now a
radically revolutionary resource.
This podcast is brought to youby the Tract Sample Pack, or the
Pack of Samples of Tracts, orwhatever.
We should change the name onthings just to have fun.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
You're going to say what is this?
And I'm going to say samples oftracts.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Sample of it.
What is it Ray?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
It's all our tracts in one really nice box yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Whose idea was the box right?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Was it yours or mine?
Yours, oh, it was mine.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I wanted to accuse you of pride when you said yours
.
You didn't fall for it.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
My favorite thing about this is that on your notes
it says tracked sample pack.
Underneath it says blah, blah,blah blah, blah.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
No, you're not supposed to read my notes.
I do that so that I could.
If I wanted to put notes onthere, I'm going to punch you,
Oscar, no.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It actually is the absolute best thing to order if
you're undecided on what sort ofgospel track.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, one of everything.
It'll give you one ofeverything and you'll know what
we have.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Including the booklets.
Yeah, oh yeah, the booklets.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Booklets Ray the booklets.
Was it White Christianity Overa million.
Yeah, over a million are sold,which is just amazing.
All to one lady trying to savea husband, which is just amazing
.
All to one lady trying to saveher husband.
Yes, all right, don't forgetthe Living Waters mug of the
Evidence Study Bible, all thatring, ring, ring, ring, ring
ring.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Dot ring, dot ring.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, ray, why is your phone?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
ringing.
That was background music forwhen you were speaking.
Oh, was it.
Yeah, it was just to enhancewhat you were saying.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, all right.
Friends, today we are talkingabout a subject that may be new
to some of you, but is inconnection with something that
has in some ways taken the worldby storm.
Sadly, a lot more of this isseen in countries around the
(10:19):
world, outside of America, thatare more impoverished, and I
guess I don't call them thirdworld anymore.
You guys informed me of that.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Is that true?
Yeah, Was?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
was that just something like politically?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Third world was for world war one and two.
When there was the access andthe allies, that was a world war
.
And the third world was theworld not in the war, which was
those impoverished nations.
That was not a part of theaccess or the allies.
This is really ridiculousinformation.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Have you done deep research on that?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
I don't know, it's just dumb stuff, that stick to
my brain.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Have you just made it up?
Yeah, what do they call themnow?
Developing nations.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Developing nations yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
That's a horrible thing to say Developing
Underdeveloped Nations inpuberty.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So yeah, we're talking today about the new
apostolic reformation.
What?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, what I thought we were talking about the error
of taking a vacation inAustralia.
That's what I got.
I thought it was the RAF.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Royal Air Force.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I thought we were talking about rifles, yeah, so,
anyhow, for those of you thatwere paying attention, the new,
oh the new, the heirs of the newapostolic reformation, you know
, when you hear that term, italmost sounds like something
solid.
You know, the new apostolicreformation?
That sounds like error to me,does it?
Yes, well, the reason I say itsounds like something solid is
(11:41):
because, you know, apostolicright, that's a term often used
by churches 're apostolic, wecarry on the apostolic tradition
and, uh, reformation, right,that's a, a buzzword in
christianity.
That's good for us evangelists,it's the word new, that's the
given, the new new testament.
Come on right yeah, let's donethis past, yeah, and that new is
old, but, uh, unlike what Isaid, it sounds like, um, this
(12:05):
is something that has very deep,grave error connected to it,
and today we want to explore it.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
I'm so pleased you're doing this one.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You're invited.
You are.
Ray's been jumping up and down.
He couldn't wait.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
I've been studying all morning, and what a mess.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Just horrible, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know, there's a foundational truth that is out
there, that I've heard for years.
If it's new, it's not true, andif it's true, it's not new.
We always need to go back tothe Word of God as our source of
authority, our foundation fortruth, and see if things line up
there.
We don't need to invent ordesign or create anything new,
and if somebody uses that wordnew, we just need to be hesitant
(12:42):
, especially in relation tobiblical truth.
Right, because the Bible is oursource of authority.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, and that's the thing right.
A lot of times, those that aresaying they're new are in many
ways declaring we're going backto what was original, and
oftentimes, when you explorethat, you recognize that's not
really the case, and that's whyit's important to challenge
things that come our way thatpurport to be biblical.
We need to be like the Bereansright Acts 17, 11.
They were more noble-mindedthan those who were in
Thessalonica.
They not only received the wordwith great eagerness, they
(13:16):
examined the scriptures to seeif these things were so.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I wonder if the Thessalonians were depressed
when they saw that.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
They're like what Are you dissing us For all of
eternity?
Speaker 4 (13:29):
World's biggest selling book.
And there you are, dissing usthe loser.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Thessalonians yeah, so, guys, let me read for us to
give us some kind of context.
I'll let you guys jump in, butthis is from gotquestionsorg to
give us a backdrop for the NewApostolic Reformation, or NAR.
The New Apostolic Reformation,or NAR, is an unbiblical
religious movement thatemphasizes experience over
Scripture, mysticism overdoctrine and modern-day apostles
(13:57):
over the plain text of theBible.
Of particular distinction inthe New Apostolic Reformation
are the role and power ofspiritual leaders and miracle
workers, the reception of newrevelations from God, an
overemphasis on spiritualwarfare and a pursuit of
cultural and political controlin society.
The seeking of signs andwonders in NAR is always
(14:18):
accompanied by blatantly falsedoctrine.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Boy, that's a great synopsis.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Is that a good summation?
Yeah, gotquestionsorg friends,great, great ministry and good
friends of ours.
Yeah, that's a great synopsis.
Isn't that a good summation?
Yeah, yeah, gotquestionsorgfriends, great, great ministry
and good friends of ours.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, they call on us Questions, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
You're the one right.
Yeah, all the answers.
Yeah, so jump in, guys.
I have a whole list ofdifferent things I want to look
at here, but I want to make sureyou guys have something to say
first.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Is there anything specific in the midst of that
Pandora's box that we want tostart off with?
I mean, there's so much there.
When we start talking about thenew apostolic, it kind of
reminds me of the Mormon church,right?
Yeah, that when Joseph Smithcame on the scene he was
restoring the church becauseeverybody else went kind of
anathema.
And here we have nar, right,they're redefining all sorts of
(15:05):
things that are happening here.
You like that?
Oscar Nar, nar Nar.
It's gnarly Like evangelism hasbeen replaced within the nar
movement, and that is, they goout and they pray for people to
be healed and there's, like, nomention of sin, judgment,
righteousness, hell, repentance,no salvific grace or mercy, no
ascension, no character ofChrist that is mentioned.
Let me just pray thatsomebody's leg grows back or
(15:30):
somebody's marriage is healed,and then they walk away saying
that this is evangelism.
Right?
There's a great danger in themidst of that.
There's nothing in scripturethat would illuminate and look
like that when it comes toevangelism, right?
So since we're at evangelisticmessage, I'll start there.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Ooh, very good, Mark.
When Mark speaks of Mormonism,I always sit up because of this
veritage.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I know man Don't even get me started on that.
Get that documentation.
Mark, descendant of JosephSmith.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
You really are a descendant of Joseph Smith.
That's what I'm told.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So when did it change ?
Speaker 4 (16:03):
I think we are all kind of Don't spread it like
that.
When does Smith become Spence?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's good, mark.
Yeah, extra biblical revelationand the whole signs and wonders
thing.
Oscar, you inhaled.
You were going to say something.
Sorry, andrew.
Yeah, I was going to saynothing important.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
You were gonna say something.
Sorry, I interrupted.
Yeah, I was gonna say nothingimportant.
One of the things that you, whenyou read it a key word that was
used there to help understandand also to recognize the
difficulty of identifying thenew apostolic reformation is
that this isn't a denomination,this isn't a organized gathering
(16:42):
always it is.
The word used was movement.
It is, it's a movement, and oneof the things that's, I think,
difficult let's let's talk aboutlike the difficulty of
identifying it, is that youmentioned more of like a
charismatic Pentecostal versionof new apostolic reformation,
where they're praying forhealing and not preaching the
gospel.
That's definitely a part of it,but it's not.
It's not centralized toPentecostal.
(17:04):
That's definitely a part of it,but it's not centralized to
charismatic Pentecostalism.
It's beyond that as well.
And so I think there's keymetrics that we can kind of key
in on.
You started to do that.
One of them is the authority ofthe individual over scripture.
That's key, and I also thinkthat one way of identifying it
is kind of going to its founder,c Peter Wagner.
(17:25):
He's known as being the founderof the New Apostolic
Reformation.
He was a theologian and ateacher at a local college here
actually in Southern California,but CW Wagner, in his own words
, said that the local church isshifting from being led or
governed by elders and pastorsto being under the authority
(17:47):
that's a key word and oversightof individual apostles.
So he saw this new reformation,this new great awakening, and
he believed that all of that wasgonna start with these super
apostles.
Essentially, yeah, that we'regonna have authority and
oversight not only over thechurch but over God's word.
(18:10):
That's a key indicator of thisnew apostolic reformation among
many others.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, and obviously the danger in that is that
scripture makes it clear thatthe apostles and prophets were
the foundation of the church andnow they're trying to build
another foundation, and sothat's a big part of it.
It's trying to usurp authority,but scripture is clear on the
fact that you know those.
And when we look at the book ofActs, when it talked about
(18:37):
replacing Judas as an apostle,they were talking about someone
who had been with them, who hadwitnessed the miracles of Christ
, who had seen the resurrectedSavior, who had seen the
resurrected Savior who wascalled by Christ.
There were certain things thathad to be fulfilled in order for
that to happen, and that erahas passed with the
(19:01):
establishment of the Word of God, which contains the foundation
of the apostles and prophets.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Mark, can I make an observation here?
In Mark 16, it says and thesesigns will follow those who
believe.
Then it says you know, in myname they'll cast out demons,
they'll speak in new tongues,they'll do these things In Nar.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Can I just call it that yeah, Is that okay?
Is that safe?
I?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
like it Nar, like gnarly In Nar.
These signs are not followingbelievers, but the believers are
following after signs, Right,Right.
And so, to validate the work ofGod, we are seeing works of God
, right or unexplained things,and interpretations and
(19:44):
prophetic words are very, veryvague.
There's nothing very specific.
It's not like on January 13th2026, this is going to take
place.
Instead, it's going to besomething along the lines you're
going to eat Mexican food thisweek, right, Because nobody
dares to step out of the boatand make these huge claims
because they never come to pass.
(20:04):
Right?
And remember, in Deuteronomy 13and Deuteronomy 18, it says
this is how you know that aprophet is sent from God, that
they're going to be correct 100%of the time.
That's how you know.
So very specific prophecies, aswe see inside of the Old
Testament, fulfilled inside ofthe New Testament.
We do not need to be seekingafter signs, because signs will
(20:25):
come after the believer.
Now listen, whether you're acontinuationist or whether
you're a cessationist, it'sirrelevant here, because
everybody believes that God cando whatever he wants.
God can have somebody's armgrow back If that's what God
wants.
What we need to do is we needto be careful in saying that I
have a gift of healing thatsomebody's arm can't.
(20:47):
I mean otherwise, just go toicu units.
No right, I see you, that'ssuperfluous intensive care unit.
Intensive care units, units icusicus, right, and you don't see
them doing that.
They they don't go tocemeteries and raise people from
the dead.
Yeah, well, I know right.
Yeah, why don't they?
You have something wrong.
Let me pray for your headache,right?
(21:08):
Something that we can neveractually fact check.
And we see that Justin Petersactually looked into this very
well.
In going to different faithhealing meetings, inside of his
wheelchair, he says, listen, Ihave the faith, I have friends
that have the faith for me to behealed, pray for me to be
healed.
And they don't allow him to goanywhere near or even inside of
these meetings, these healingmeetings.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, near or even inside of these meetings, these
healing meetings, yeah.
And another one of the dangersis basically trying to say that
you only have authority assomeone appointed by God if
you're able to do these things.
And again, that's amisunderstanding of scripture
and the era in which God workedin the foundation of the church.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
I think the tragedy is that these guys that have a
quote gift of healing draw tothemselves people who are
immature spiritually.
Yeah, they want to see signsand wonders and it's grievous
that they'll get like 10, 15,000people come but the gospel's
not preached Right and, likeMark said, no preaching of sin,
righteousness and judgment andupholding of the cross.
(22:07):
It's all signs and wonders.
I've been through that.
When I was in New Zealand therewas just the charismatic quote
movement.
It ran right across the wholecountry.
I've been there, done that.
Coming to the US was awonderful refreshing for me
because I didn't feel right inthat whole thing.
Wow, you know, just to begrounded in the Word and hear
Christians say God speaks to usthrough his word, because when I
(22:27):
meet someone who says God toldme this, I want to get away as
quick as possible, because thatperson isn't open to reason or
open to correction, because Godtold them something.
Therefore it's absolute, it'swritten in stone.
What I've heard is not going tochange God told me you need to
give up your chickens.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well, God told me never to say that yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yeah.
And again to be clear, it's notso easy to say, okay, well,
it's going to only be in thesekind of charismatic Pentecostal
circles, Cause there's actuallya church in South Orange County
that is very much NAR andthey're not charismatic
Pentecostal.
And so here's another way,which is you'll often hear
people in this circle talk aboutthe seven mountains of
(23:13):
influence.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
This is very important.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
They see these seven mountains as family, religion,
education, media, arts,entertainment, business and
government.
Now this is where it gets kindof.
We need to chop it up a littlebit because from the surface
it's like okay, well, what'swrong with Christians wanting to
be influential in these sevenareas of the culture?
(23:37):
Go?
Speaker 4 (23:37):
ahead.
I was just going to say couldyou explain the seven mountains,
the vision of what they'resaying, rather than just name
them off and then move on?
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Right, yes, so um, one they they.
They borrow from two differentthings One that they borrow from
the seven hills of Rome, whichwe see in Revelation and other
parts of scripture, which was avery specific thing.
But they also borrow fromAbraham Kuyper's sphere of
sovereignty, and here's wherethe distinguishing difference is
.
Abraham Kuyper saw the sphereof sovereignty as the seven
(24:07):
areas of cultural influence, butwhen he talked about them, he
also recognized the heart ofChrist in the way in which
kingdom, god's kingdom, wouldcome on earth as it is in heaven
.
The difference between Kuyper'sview of sphere of sovereignty
and NAR's view of seven mountainmandate is that the NAR seven
(24:29):
mountain mandate is all abouttaking over through power.
That's the key difference isthat this is a, this is a
political like when it comes topolitics, like we need to take
the power back.
That's the kind of languagethat the seven mountain mandate
will use and that is veryantithetical to the New
Testament.
The New Testament does talkabout having an influence in
(24:50):
culture, but Jesus talks aboutthe meek inheriting the earth,
not the militant.
He tells us to pick up ourcrown I'm sorry.
He tells us to pick up ourcross, not our crowns.
He says it's not going to be bythe sword, or actually you
reminded me of it this morningand you did a little devotional
for the leaders here at theministry which is that Jesus
(25:11):
could have called down legionsof angels and yet he chooses to
die as a criminal on a cross andthat, from man's view, is like
the end of of his life andinfluence.
But that was the beginning ofhis kingdom on earth as it is in
(25:32):
heaven.
And so the key difference hereis are we to have influence in
these cultural areas?
Absolutely.
But as Kuyper pointed out whenhe talked about the sphere of
sovereignty, we do that throughhumble service, through meekness
and humility, not through power, not through political
persuasion, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
We just have to look at the book of Acts to see the
agenda of the church wasn't totake over Rome, amen.
It was to preach the gospelchange the hearts of men rather
than change the government.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, I mean, mark, that's what typically happens.
Right Is, whenever we pursuesomething whether it's power or
whatever agenda to bolster theinfluence of the church, we miss
the call to reach people withthe gospel.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, boy, that's very well put.
You know, in John 18, 36, jesussaid his kingdom is not of this
world, it's not of this place.
Now, he could easily haveestablished it during that first
century reign, but he didn't,right.
So we have to remember thatthere is a spiritual battle
going on and there are so manyChristian nationalists that are
just simply trying to establisha kingdom here, doing whatever
(26:36):
it takes to have righteousnessreign.
Now, listen, don't get me wrong.
Nothing wrong with that.
We vote, we occupy.
Until he comes, we will alwayshave a voice.
You need to go to studentcouncil meetings and being able
to have a voice at PTAs andthings of that nature.
Always do that, never give up.
(26:57):
But that's not our hope.
Our hope is not who is insidethe White House.
Our hope is in Christ alone.
We can sleep just as easy theday after the election knowing
that the enemy is inside theWhite House or the person we
voted for is inside the WhiteHouse.
We should rest just the same,because Christ rules and reigns
(27:19):
supreme and he doesn't need ourwisdom in the midst of it all.
So we occupy and at the sametime we are preaching about a
kingdom that is out of thisworld, amen, who will never end
and will always reign RightOscar, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Let me just say cause .
This is this is where therabbit trail for me ended up
going down.
Cause you brought up like thisnationalist view of of taking
over the government and and thisis where NAR is not like a
fringe organization with noinfluence it's pretty wild how
influential they actually are.
I mean, starting with SarahPalin, mary Glacier is her
(27:54):
church leader, he's a member ofthe Apostolic Council of
Prophetic Elders.
And then, in 2015, lance Wilmerhad a vision for the 45th
president of the United States.
Jw Wagner, the founder, in 2016, endorsed Trump, saying that he
already took over Two MountainsMedia and Business.
And if you remember, a fewyears ago, when Trump first got
(28:16):
office, there was all of theseChristian leaders around him.
Many of them were NIR apostles,so they have major influence.
Tim Sheets says I mean, this isthe language of an era apostle.
He says God combined and listento the way he he um loses this
the difference between God'skingdom in heaven and man's
(28:39):
governmental kingdom.
He says God combined civil andspiritual government when he
established America.
Okay, that's a problem.
That's red flags right there.
From a theological perspective,the war over planet earth is a
governmental war.
Who will rule the earth?
The battle for humankind isgovernmental.
Who will be their Lord, theirmaster?
The battle for the heavens isgovernmental.
(29:02):
Who will be the most high?
Guys like him and girls likePaula White?
These are NIR people who havemassive influence over a
cultural understanding of therelationship between your faith
and the government.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, and then you start seeing all sorts of
bizarre things happening.
I think, oscar, to your point,it does extend beyond the bounds
of the charismatic movement,but we often find it, with some
of the examples you just gave,prominent within that realm and
you start seeing insane thingshappening.
I mean, look, bethel Church isa part of that whole realm as
well.
Yeah, and they have the whole.
(29:38):
You know like what do they callthem Dusk clouds or whatever,
and there's gold, gold clouds.
Yeah, gold coming through andangels' feathers, and it was
discovered there's stuff they'reputting in the vent and stuff
coming out, but bizarre thingslike that they're more than
bizarre.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
They're embarrassing for the cause of the gospel.
Yeah, that's a good way to putit.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, yeah, humiliating.
It's like the world sees this.
We have enough of an uphillbattle, right with being sound
and just giving the pure gospel,and yet this stuff is all added
and it's heaped up on us asChristians.
And then you know thediscernment level.
I was watching a video thismorning.
You guys remember that guy,todd Bentley, mm-hmm, the guy
(30:21):
that kicks people, punches them,punches them, kicks them.
He was talking about kickingthis lady in the head, mm-hmm.
This guy was like as bad newsas you can get.
God told him to kick her in thehead.
Yeah, god told him.
And you had this apostle it mayhave been Wagner, I don't know,
but there was someone up on thestage with him, like
commissioning him that God'sgoing to.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
And Todd Bentley's standing up there and he's
shaking and you feel like sayingjust stand still, you're
embarrassing, Just knock it off.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
It's just stupid.
Yeah, still you'll get off.
Yeah, yeah, it's really.
It's really heartbreaking, butit's dangerous too, because,
again, there are ripple effectsfrom some of this doctrine and
theology.
You know the whole receivingnew revelation.
You have books like the one, uh, written by sarah young jesus
calling oh yeah, which isbasically, in essence, sold
(31:07):
millions of copies copies, bythe way, oh, big time, tens of
millions, but that's like newrevelation.
She's basically saying it'sJesus talking, this is what
Jesus told her to say.
I mean, that's like it'sinsanity, and believers need to
stand up and be discerning.
What do you think is theattraction to this, though, guys
?
I'd love to hear from you onthat.
What is it that's attractingmillions, tens of millions of
(31:31):
quote unquote believers to wantto be a part of this?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
What's the draw?
Well, there's no.
If you have no mention of sin,judgment and righteousness, well
then you get to really dowhatever you want to do.
You get to be yourself.
You know, love is love, lovewins.
And obviously I'm not sayingthat that's all associated in
the midst of that with thehomosexuality angle there, but
what I am saying is that you arenow the master and the
(31:55):
commander of your own ship andof your own destiny.
I mean, who doesn't wanna seeand experience perhaps, miracles
if you go down that realm?
You know Bill Johnson, rightfrom Bethel.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Church.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
He has said some horrific things and done some
horrific things and elevatingexperiences over scripture.
And then, when that happens,it's a terrible thing, and this
is what I mean by that, becauseyou have somebody on the outside
, in the outskirts, sittingthere inside the pew, who begins
to think to themselves well, Iwant to hear from God, how come
I'm not hearing from God?
Well, you have to try harder,you have to pray harder.
(32:27):
Your faith is lacking and thenit becomes so introspective and
you discard away from the wordof God.
It becomes an overwhelmingpressure and you start elevating
man above Christ.
You'll have to, because youthink, boy, this person sure
does hear from the Lord.
And then you start elevatingthat person to a place where he
(32:49):
is never designed to be, whereonly Christ deserves to be right
.
So that's the danger when youstart seeking after experiences
and you listen to people whoshould never be behind a pulpit
because, quite frankly, they'rejust not saved.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
That's really good.
I think, man, you hit it on thehead, mark.
I think there's a few thingsgoing on there and one of the
things I think you're saying ispeople have a desire to be close
to the people they perceive areclose to God.
You know, everyone wanted tolive near David, everyone wanted
to have a conversation withMoses, and so when you have an
(33:25):
air quote apostle out theresaying he's receiving
information from the Lord, he'sgot this direct contact right.
It's like man, I want togravitate towards that, and so
that's a way in which theymanipulate and take advantage of
the masses.
But I also think that themessage in itself is very
man-centered.
To go back to your question,which is a great question why do
people gravitate towards that?
(33:46):
It's a man-centered message.
They see the same problem wesee out there, in the culture,
in the world.
They see the issue of sin, theysee that something needs to
happen and instead of trustingthe Lord with his timing and his
sovereignty and his plan,they're trusting themselves.
They say let me take it's aworks righteousness thing, I'm
(34:08):
going to take over.
Here's what I'm going to do.
Here's what you need to do tobring this about.
And so it becomes a man-centered, you gain back control over the
kingdom the air quote kingdomof God, when really, ultimately,
what you're doing is justpropagating the kingdom of man
once again.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Wow, that's so, so good to highlight Oscar, the
kingdom of man versus thekingdom of man once again.
Wow, that's so good tohighlight Oscar, the kingdom of
man versus the kingdom of God.
And to me I firmly believe thatthat is evidenced in a drift
from the gospel.
I mean, we've already touchedon it lightly, but I do wanna
really hone in on this becauseanytime someone begins to drift
(34:49):
from God's agenda and God'smission, the gospel always goes.
Always Because the gospel isn'tbeneficial to the person who's
seeking power and authority andin many cases, sadly, financial
gain.
The gospel isn't helpful therebecause the gospel's offensive,
(35:09):
the gospel, is repulsive to thenatural man.
You're not going to draw massesof people with the gospel.
So anytime the gospel goes,it's evident you're building the
kingdom of man and you're afteryour own interests and man.
That's tragic.
So I think power is a big drawfor that.
Money is a big draw for that.
The sense of authority andpower is a big draw for that.
(35:31):
Money is a big draw for that.
The sense of authority andfollowing is a big draw for that
.
But another big error that Isee with NAR is also that NAR I
appreciate that yes Is theecumenical sort of element
that's been infused into it thatthey join up forces with all
kinds of other heretical groups,one being the Catholic Church.
And, ray, I just would love foryou to touch on that, ray.
(35:54):
How repulsive is that to Godthat we are in some circles that
are professing to beevangelicals, acknowledging the
Pope as being valid and havingbiblical authority?
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Yeah, it's a Pandora's box, whatever that is.
Yeah, it's full of worms.
Sound doctrine is so important.
It's like drinking fresh waterand just putting in a little
poison, and that's what'shappening.
We talked before about itappealing to the natural man,
the flesh.
I seem to beat the same drum,but it just seems to be the
(36:32):
influence of a gospel that'sbeen insipid, preached over the
last hundred years.
Instead of saying straight isthe gate and narrow is the way
that leads to life, and fewthere be that find it we've said
just give your heart to Jesus,and what we've done is opened up
the door of the church to falseconverts that have found
themselves in pulpits bringingin false doctrine.
What a good point.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Wow, yeah, oh sorry.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
No, I'm done.
You are not dumb, yeah, ohsorry, no, I'm done.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
You are not dumb.
Yeah, Done not dumb.
False converts.
We've talked about that on thepodcast many times.
But Mark Judas we talked abouthim again this morning in our
devotion with our leadershipteam.
But Judas, of all of theapostles, may have been the one
that would have appeared to havebeen the most genuine, and yet
(37:25):
he was the one that ended updoing the most harm in betraying
Christ.
And so how do we detect thefalse?
I mean, sometimes we can't, butwhat are some of the telltale
signs of maybe detecting thefalse convert?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yeah, and take it a step further.
How about somebody saying, well, am I part of this organization
?
Because there's people thatjust don't know, because there's
a little branch of doctrines ortheological things, that kind
of creep into the pulpitthemselves, or they're part of a
youth group and maybe the youthpastor is discipled not by the
(37:53):
senior pastor or the officialteaching of that church and
they're maybe going closertowards, maybe, what Bethel
teaches?
How do you know when do youbegin?
How do I know if I'm notsitting underneath somebody?
That's Well?
First of all, do they push apersonal experience more than
what the Word of God says?
Do you leave a teaching, agathering, a worship service
(38:17):
saying I wish I could worshiplike him, I wish I could play
and sing like him?
Look at the people that arelined up to talk to him.
I wish that was kind of me.
Right, the focus is kind of off.
I wish that I could hear fromGod the way he hears from God
Boy.
I wish I could be as happy ashim.
I mean, they're subtle.
They're subtle things.
So if you are part of a serviceand you're thinking to yourself,
(38:41):
well, what happened to justopening up God's word?
When are they going to open upthe word of God, or they open up
the word and they start offwith just a simple text, and
then you don't need the word ofGod next.
I'm saying now it's beginningto be a little bit unhealthy.
So that's the first thing thatI would just kind of throw out
there.
It's just are they pushing apersonal experience over just
(39:02):
the Bible, which is our ultimatesource of authority?
Glean from that, because textinterprets text and not just hey
, I have a great word for youtoday.
This is how you're going totackle whatever.
And then no text is evenbrought out in the midst of it,
and if they do, it's completelytaken out of context, or
somebody saying something alongthis lines.
(39:23):
Let me read this first, andthen I want to hear from
everybody what it means to you.
Instead of what the textactually says, let's exposit the
text.
I want to know what it means toyou Now.
What does it mean to you?
Because it could mean somethingdifferent to you than it does
to him.
Right?
Speaker 3 (39:32):
You know, something that I think I really enjoy, and
I think it's our hope, the fourof us is that we don't like
tell people what to think, butwe teach people what to think
because we all need to befaithful Bereans and have
discernment, especially witherrors like this, because, to
your point, mark, you're notgonna look at the statement of
(39:52):
faith of a church and knowthey're being influenced by NAR,
right, like it's not gonna bein there and they don't.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
And let me just say they don't necessarily carry
that label Like there are somethat would even say, no, we're
not.
What are you talking about?
But that's.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
That's how they're defined, based on what they
believe in, yeah and, and it'ssubtle, and sometimes you don't
catch it until later.
I'll tell you guys a story.
When our kids were, wehomeschooled for a few years and
then we found this school thatwe thought was really cool.
We really liked the way it wasset up, and so, you know, we
enrolled our kids in thiselementary school.
(40:26):
Our kids were like kindergarten, first grade and third grade or
whatever the case.
And so we show up day one ortwo, I don't know, first week or
whatever, and the principalgets up and they're giving their
vision for the, for the school,and then the principal goes.
You know, our, our biggest goalhere is that we would raise
kids up to infiltrate aspects ofthe culture.
(40:50):
And then they he goes on to namethe seven mountains and I was
like, I mean, it was like a redflag being right in my head.
I was like what?
That?
Like that can't be coincidental.
I mean it was the sevenmountains, back to back to back,
exactly how it's written out.
And so we, uh, again, nothing'son their website, anything like
that.
So I, I scheduled a meetingwith him, meet, my wife and I,
(41:13):
and we sit down and we'retalking.
It's small talk and so far,everything sounds good.
And then I asked him who arethe some of the people that are
influencing you most in yourlife right now, and the names
that came out were you know somesome of the names that we've
already named here.
And that was it was like, okay,that's, that's that you know.
And so the point, I guess, isthat we need to be faithful
(41:35):
Bereans, we need to listenclosely and learn to think and
test the scriptures with what wehear from from our schools,
from our leaders, from ourpastors, even.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
Did you quietly leave or did you correct them?
Speaker 3 (41:53):
I did try correcting him and it was right after we
did our what is the gospelseries, and so I gave him
actually those.
I gave them those CDs.
Oh, great yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah, and you know my heart is sympathetic toward
some of the believers that arecaught up in this Cause.
We're not saying there's nogenuine believers that might be
a part of some of this butthey're unsuspecting and that's
why we're doing this podcast,because you can hear the whole
Seven Mountains thing, you canhear about dominion, you can
hear about all the differentthings that they hold to, and it
can sound oh yeah, that soundsgood.
(42:23):
Yeah, we have influence.
And I just wanna be clear againwe're not saying, as Oscar
referenced, that we're not tohave influence as believers and
try to get into differentsectors, but it's the mindset
and perspective that's connectedwith that and the motive behind
it, and so so it is.
And the failure to preach thegospel and the failure to preach
the gospel Exactly.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Real quick, ray, just cause you asked um, I gave, I
gave him the CDs and like a yearlater someone ran into them and
they knew that we wereassociated and they were like
can you tell, Oscar, that thoseCDs radically changed my view of
the Bible?
And then a few years later theschool closed down.
Now I'm not saying it wasbecause of any of that, but and
(43:06):
I haven't talked to them aboutwhere they're at in their
convictions but hopefully theLord did something there and
that school's no longer around.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
God told me that you'd say that.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Thank you, yeah thanks, so yeah, so it is
important.
And then there are so manybizarre, different things that
start to happen in associationwith some of these things Like
what?
Well, there's something that'salmost hard to believe, but it's
something called grave soaking,and this is where someone is
(43:35):
trying to receive anointing fromthe graves of, like, deceased
saints.
So you'll get people that willgo to graveyards and they'll lay
on top of, like, the grave ofsomeone you know, on top of the
burial plot, ray, I think youshould do that?
Yeah, can we send you out to dothat, ray?
A test, a mission trip of grave, soaking but bizarre things
like that.
(43:55):
Holy laughter was alsoassociated at one time with this
sort of movement.
No, it's not funny at all, butthat's what happens.
All right, it's like yawningcontagious, and all these people
start laughing and everyonecatches on.
And so, again, when you makeexperience your focus, when you
drift away from the Word, whenyou put the gospel on the back
(44:16):
burner or throw it out thewindow, all sorts of bizarre and
weird and harmful anddestructive things are gonna
crop up.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
One of those destructive things I know you
guys have heard these stories aswell which is people will be
going to a church and they'retalking about the Holy Spirit
impacting your life, aboutdouble anointings, and some
people are sitting there in thepews and they're like man, I'm
not feeling what they're feeling, I'm not able to speak in
tongues, I'm not able to gethealed, and the reason air quote
(44:45):
, the reason why you're notexperiencing what everyone else
experiences is because you lackfaith.
That's right, and so manypeople are wounded because they
feel like there's somethingwrong with them, there's
something wrong with theirbelief.
There's something wrong.
They are the reason why theyweren't healed.
They are the reason why they'renot hearing from the Holy
Spirit.
They are the reason why they'renot speaking in tongues, et
cetera, et cetera.
(45:06):
They lack faith and man.
That is so antithetical to thepromise of the Holy Spirit that
God gives us in the NewTestament, the priesthood of all
believers.
It's so antithetical to what wecan cling, to knowing that we
are actually saved by gracethrough faith.
Amen.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
And that's why it's important for us to do a program
like this.
There are some that arelistening right now that have
the perspective that we'redivisive.
Why are you guys talking aboutthis thing?
We're all Christians.
Everything is great.
The difference between othersecondary issues or secondary
issues within the faith andthese things is that these
things are deeply destructive.
(45:46):
Like Oscar shared, I'm talkinglives ravaged where people have
been so disillusioned and sobroken for years.
And, having pastored, I'veencountered some of those people
Like I went to this church andthis is and for years they were
wandering aimlessly and thenthey come under sound doctrine
and it's like a spring in themidst of a desert, you know,
(46:07):
it's like an oasis, and so wejust wanna say to those of you
out there to open up God's wordand look into it and know that
our hearts, behind what we sharetoday, is one of love.
We care about you and for thoseof you who may even be leaders
caught up in this movement andmaybe you didn't even have that
name attached to it, but you canassociate some of the things
we're talking with with what'sbeing taught there.
(46:29):
Listen, we're not.
You know, we laughed a littlebit, we said some different
things.
We don't mean to be mocking,we're not making light of this.
We have compassion toward youand our encouragement is that
you repent of these falseteachings and come out of that
realm and walk under theauthority of the Word of God,
which is absolutelytransformational.
Amen.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Amen All right.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Thank you for joining us, friends.
We'll see you here next time onthe Living Waters Podcast.
You have no mention of sin, judgment and
righteousness.
Well then you get to really dowhatever you want to do.
You get to be yourself.
You know, love is love.
Love wins, and obviously I'mnot saying that that's all
associated in the midst of thatwith the homosexuality angle
there.
But what I am saying is thatyou are now the master and the
(00:20):
commander of your own ship andof your own destiny.
I mean, who doesn't want to seeand experience perhaps miracles
if you go down that realm, billJohnson, right from Bethel.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Church.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
He has said some horrific things and done some
horrific things and elevatingexperiences over Scripture.
And then, when that happens,it's a terrible thing, and this
is what I mean by that, becauseyou have somebody on the outside
, in the outskirts, sittingthere inside the pew, who begins
to think to themselves well, Iwant to hear from God, how come
I'm not hearing from God?
Well, you have to try harder,you have to pray harder.
(00:51):
Your faith is lacking and thenit becomes so introspective and
you discard away from the Wordof God.
It becomes an overwhelmingpressure and you start elevating
man above Christ.
You'll have to, because youthink, boy, this person sure
does hear from the Lord.
And then you start elevatingthat person to a place where he
(01:13):
is never designed to be, whereonly Christ deserves to be right
.
So that's the danger when youstart seeking after experiences
and you listen to people whoshould never be behind a pulpit
because, quite frankly, they'rejust not saved.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Medicine cabinet opens, person removes tube of
something from medicine cabinet,snickers puts it back and then
you hear do you want to get away, guys?
Remember that ad?
No, come on, ray, I was a 70sSouthwestern Airlines.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
no, I don't remember that do you want to get away
dreams it's one of your dreams.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
No, these are you and I have talked about these
commercials multiple times Notthat one when someone does
something embarrassing and thendo you want to get away.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
No, you don't know.
Oh yes, that's.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Calgon, calgon, take me away.
No, that's Calgon.
I did see an interesting fact.
The number one thing thatpeople snoop into when they're
visiting somebody's house is amedicine cabinet inside.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
And that's why I want to ask Ray Ray have you ever
opened a medicine cabinet atsomeone's house in the bathroom,
when you shouldn't have?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Just to see what was in there.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Look at the look, look at the nostrils are flaring
.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Give me more information.
Give me information Short-termmemory loss.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, when did I do that?
You happen to forget?
No, I'm just wondering if youever have.
I just figured you must have atsome point.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah Well, I've traveled, I've been in hundreds
of homes.
Oh, so you've opened hundredsof homes.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
You know, what I like to do is I like to put stuff in
their medicine cabinet duringparties, knowing that people
will open it up and just see themost random craziness.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh, wouldn't that be funny to put a note in there.
What are you doing?
Look at.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Kachi with a little camera phaser.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know what that would be a novelty item that I
bet would sell really well.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
There's an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry's
at the apartment of someone andhe sees that the lady has a rash
cream in there and he's likewhere's the rash?
Where's the rash?
The whole episode is him tryingto figure out where the rash is
.
Oh man.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Rash cream toe fungus .
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Fungus remover, yeah, all kinds of stuff Right next
to the toothpaste.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Leave the house Ray looks like a thot.
Leave before you get something.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh man, but yeah, those embarrassing moments in
life.
I think that those commercialswere so successful because
people can relate to it.
You know, something happeningthat it's just like you're
doomed, but something happeningthat it's just like you're
doomed.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, that's Ray's life.
Basically, do you getembarrassed easily?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Never, I've never been embarrassed.
I've never been embarrassed.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Surprised.
Have you heard him sing?
He does not get embarrassed,he's immune to embarrassment.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
No, I've told you guys my most embarrassing moment
when I broke that denture.
Wait, I don't remember thiswhat.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I've never shared this.
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
You made dentures.
Well, I used to make dentures.
Believe it or not, I wasplanning.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Were they your own?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I was planning to serve you guys in the future.
That was what was you betterget the background, yeah, so my
family had a dental lab.
We made dentures and mybrother-in-law was mentoring
this guy, uh, who wanted tostart his own business, so he's
kind of teaching him how to makedentures.
So anyway, he came and he hadmade his very first denture and
he was like, I mean, this guywas like like he just won I'm
(04:35):
loving the story already olympicgold like this.
He was so excited so mybrother-in-law was looking at it
and then I go, okay, I see, youknow, and then they start
talking, you know, and I'm likeuh, and it snapped he snapped it
in my hand.
Speaker 4 (04:51):
I was like 19 it didn't snap, you bent it no I
was just like testing it.
Yeah, there, you bent it.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, you can do it and well, I mean to be fair, it
shouldn't have done, it shouldnot have snapped.
Yeah, yeah, so it was aterrible.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It looked like he should have got fired.
It looked horrible.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, he didn't work for us.
He had his own, he was startinghis own lab, and that's why he
was so excited.
So these are false teeth.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
And how do they start ?
They make this individual 22teeth.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, you take an impression and then you do, you
do like teeth, the little teethin the things of the things and
those things, the Spence familyis known for not having their
own teeth Really False teeth.
Is that your future?
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Mark False teeth?
No, I floss at least twice aday.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I'm scared of losing my arm.
Flosser Dude, I flosseverywhere I go.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Yeah, that's correct.
What's?
Your name Dentures are like afalse convert.
Yeah, they're not rooted inNever the same.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Oh, like a false prophet.
Thank you, the spiritual one,always Spiritual right.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.
Like a false prophet.
They'll break when you bendthem.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh, today's episode.
You're on a roll, oscar, yeah.
So anyway, I stood there andtime stood still.
Man, I just was like because,you know, and the guy's still
like say yeah, and I'm like, I'mserious, I'm like I broke your
denture.
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 4 (06:13):
Couldn't you say I found the weak point in here.
Ah, very wise.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And then, say thank you so much.
Yeah, I should have, just withauthority.
Hey, you had a week.
My ears is horrible.
Yeah, snap next time?
Speaker 4 (06:33):
yeah, next time.
Right, you're wise.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, beyond his years well, all right, friends,
time for a cool, classy comment.
This is from trinity.
I've been meaning to send thisfor a long time, but this Insta
story reminded me too.
My name is Trinity.
I sometimes use my mom'sInstagram account.
I'm a junior in high school andI just want to say thank you
for the podcast.
(06:54):
The podcast and YouTube videoshave been very influential in my
life.
My mom was the one that got meto listen to it.
I at first told her that shewas crazy and I would never
become a podcast listener.
But here I am.
Through this podcast, Irealized that I was not truly
born again.
I thought I was.
I had made a profession offaith when I was five, but I
(07:15):
didn't really remember it, norunderstood the meaning.
Two years ago is when I startedlistening to the podcast and
when you all talked about thelaw.
God started to convict my heart.
Ray's jumping up and down inhis heart right now.
A few weeks later, I went tochurch camp and the message was
about the gospel.
For the first time in my life,it clicked.
Thank you for all that theLiving Waters ministry does.
(07:37):
My life has been changed.
You didn't cry oh man, I know Imade it through this one.
I got that on Instagram.
Yeah, Did you get the same one?
I think you might have sent it.
I did.
I sent it to you.
That's amazing.
So, Ray, this right here to meis an example of the ultimate
fulfillment of your heart'sdesire with our ministry,
(07:59):
Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 4 (07:59):
I mean, she came to realize yeah, but even more
people would be better.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, more please, but I'm saying that this example
of what she's saying happenedto her in light of coming face
to face with the Lord, and tothink there are multitudes in
the same bracket.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
They name the name of Christ, but they've never been
truly born again because they'venever seen their sin.
So it's wonderful to hear that.
And you know, she's going tobecome a laborer.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, a laborer?
Yeah, sure Amen.
I love that.
That's what we love to see.
Yeah, converts who becomeconvert makers, by God's grace.
Convertologists,convertologists and now a
radically revolutionary resource.
This podcast is brought to youby the Tract Sample Pack, or the
Pack of Samples of Tracts, orwhatever.
We should change the name onthings just to have fun.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
You're going to say what is this?
And I'm going to say samples oftracts.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Sample of it.
What is it Ray?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
It's all our tracts in one really nice box yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Whose idea was the box right?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Was it yours or mine?
Yours, oh, it was mine.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I wanted to accuse you of pride when you said yours
.
You didn't fall for it.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
My favorite thing about this is that on your notes
it says tracked sample pack.
Underneath it says blah, blah,blah blah, blah.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
No, you're not supposed to read my notes.
I do that so that I could.
If I wanted to put notes onthere, I'm going to punch you,
Oscar, no.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It actually is the absolute best thing to order if
you're undecided on what sort ofgospel track.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, one of everything.
It'll give you one ofeverything and you'll know what
we have.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Including the booklets.
Yeah, oh yeah, the booklets.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Booklets Ray the booklets.
Was it White Christianity Overa million.
Yeah, over a million are sold,which is just amazing.
All to one lady trying to savea husband, which is just amazing
.
All to one lady trying to saveher husband.
Yes, all right, don't forgetthe Living Waters mug of the
Evidence Study Bible, all thatring, ring, ring, ring, ring
ring.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Dot ring, dot ring.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, ray, why is your phone?
Speaker 4 (09:52):
ringing.
That was background music forwhen you were speaking.
Oh, was it.
Yeah, it was just to enhancewhat you were saying.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yeah, all right.
Friends, today we are talkingabout a subject that may be new
to some of you, but is inconnection with something that
has in some ways taken the worldby storm.
Sadly, a lot more of this isseen in countries around the
(10:19):
world, outside of America, thatare more impoverished, and I
guess I don't call them thirdworld anymore.
You guys informed me of that.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Is that true?
Yeah, Was?
Speaker 2 (10:26):
was that just something like politically?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Third world was for world war one and two.
When there was the access andthe allies, that was a world war
.
And the third world was theworld not in the war, which was
those impoverished nations.
That was not a part of theaccess or the allies.
This is really ridiculousinformation.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Have you done deep research on that?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
I don't know, it's just dumb stuff, that stick to
my brain.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Have you just made it up?
Yeah, what do they call themnow?
Developing nations.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Developing nations yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
That's a horrible thing to say Developing
Underdeveloped Nations inpuberty.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
So yeah, we're talking today about the new
apostolic reformation.
What?
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah, what I thought we were talking about the error
of taking a vacation inAustralia.
That's what I got.
I thought it was the RAF.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
Royal Air Force.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I thought we were talking about rifles, yeah, so,
anyhow, for those of you thatwere paying attention, the new,
oh the new, the heirs of the newapostolic reformation, you know
, when you hear that term, italmost sounds like something
solid.
You know, the new apostolicreformation?
That sounds like error to me,does it?
Yes, well, the reason I say itsounds like something solid is
(11:41):
because, you know, apostolicright, that's a term often used
by churches 're apostolic, wecarry on the apostolic tradition
and, uh, reformation, right,that's a, a buzzword in
christianity.
That's good for us evangelists,it's the word new, that's the
given, the new new testament.
Come on right yeah, let's donethis past, yeah, and that new is
old, but, uh, unlike what Isaid, it sounds like, um, this
(12:05):
is something that has very deep,grave error connected to it,
and today we want to explore it.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
I'm so pleased you're doing this one.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You're invited.
You are.
Ray's been jumping up and down.
He couldn't wait.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
I've been studying all morning, and what a mess.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Just horrible, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
You know, there's a foundational truth that is out
there, that I've heard for years.
If it's new, it's not true, andif it's true, it's not new.
We always need to go back tothe Word of God as our source of
authority, our foundation fortruth, and see if things line up
there.
We don't need to invent ordesign or create anything new,
and if somebody uses that wordnew, we just need to be hesitant
(12:42):
, especially in relation tobiblical truth.
Right, because the Bible is oursource of authority.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, and that's the thing right.
A lot of times, those that aresaying they're new are in many
ways declaring we're going backto what was original, and
oftentimes, when you explorethat, you recognize that's not
really the case, and that's whyit's important to challenge
things that come our way thatpurport to be biblical.
We need to be like the Bereansright Acts 17, 11.
They were more noble-mindedthan those who were in
Thessalonica.
They not only received the wordwith great eagerness, they
(13:16):
examined the scriptures to seeif these things were so.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
I wonder if the Thessalonians were depressed
when they saw that.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
They're like what Are you dissing us For all of
eternity?
Speaker 4 (13:29):
World's biggest selling book.
And there you are, dissing usthe loser.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Thessalonians yeah, so, guys, let me read for us to
give us some kind of context.
I'll let you guys jump in, butthis is from gotquestionsorg to
give us a backdrop for the NewApostolic Reformation, or NAR.
The New Apostolic Reformation,or NAR, is an unbiblical
religious movement thatemphasizes experience over
Scripture, mysticism overdoctrine and modern-day apostles
(13:57):
over the plain text of theBible.
Of particular distinction inthe New Apostolic Reformation
are the role and power ofspiritual leaders and miracle
workers, the reception of newrevelations from God, an
overemphasis on spiritualwarfare and a pursuit of
cultural and political controlin society.
The seeking of signs andwonders in NAR is always
(14:18):
accompanied by blatantly falsedoctrine.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
Boy, that's a great synopsis.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Is that a good summation?
Yeah, gotquestionsorg friends,great, great ministry and good
friends of ours.
Yeah, that's a great synopsis.
Isn't that a good summation?
Yeah, yeah, gotquestionsorgfriends, great, great ministry
and good friends of ours.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Yeah, they call on us Questions, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
You're the one right.
Yeah, all the answers.
Yeah, so jump in, guys.
I have a whole list ofdifferent things I want to look
at here, but I want to make sureyou guys have something to say
first.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Is there anything specific in the midst of that
Pandora's box that we want tostart off with?
I mean, there's so much there.
When we start talking about thenew apostolic, it kind of
reminds me of the Mormon church,right?
Yeah, that when Joseph Smithcame on the scene he was
restoring the church becauseeverybody else went kind of
anathema.
And here we have nar, right,they're redefining all sorts of
(15:05):
things that are happening here.
You like that?
Oscar Nar, nar Nar.
It's gnarly Like evangelism hasbeen replaced within the nar
movement, and that is, they goout and they pray for people to
be healed and there's, like, nomention of sin, judgment,
righteousness, hell, repentance,no salvific grace or mercy, no
ascension, no character ofChrist that is mentioned.
Let me just pray thatsomebody's leg grows back or
(15:30):
somebody's marriage is healed,and then they walk away saying
that this is evangelism.
Right?
There's a great danger in themidst of that.
There's nothing in scripturethat would illuminate and look
like that when it comes toevangelism, right?
So since we're at evangelisticmessage, I'll start there.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Ooh, very good, Mark.
When Mark speaks of Mormonism,I always sit up because of this
veritage.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I know man Don't even get me started on that.
Get that documentation.
Mark, descendant of JosephSmith.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
You really are a descendant of Joseph Smith.
That's what I'm told.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So when did it change ?
Speaker 4 (16:03):
I think we are all kind of Don't spread it like
that.
When does Smith become Spence?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, yeah.
No, that's good, mark.
Yeah, extra biblical revelationand the whole signs and wonders
thing.
Oscar, you inhaled.
You were going to say something.
Sorry, andrew.
Yeah, I was going to saynothing important.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
You were gonna say something.
Sorry, I interrupted.
Yeah, I was gonna say nothingimportant.
One of the things that you, whenyou read it a key word that was
used there to help understandand also to recognize the
difficulty of identifying thenew apostolic reformation is
that this isn't a denomination,this isn't a organized gathering
(16:42):
always it is.
The word used was movement.
It is, it's a movement, and oneof the things that's, I think,
difficult let's let's talk aboutlike the difficulty of
identifying it, is that youmentioned more of like a
charismatic Pentecostal versionof new apostolic reformation,
where they're praying forhealing and not preaching the
gospel.
That's definitely a part of it,but it's not.
It's not centralized toPentecostal.
(17:04):
That's definitely a part of it,but it's not centralized to
charismatic Pentecostalism.
It's beyond that as well.
And so I think there's keymetrics that we can kind of key
in on.
You started to do that.
One of them is the authority ofthe individual over scripture.
That's key, and I also thinkthat one way of identifying it
is kind of going to its founder,c Peter Wagner.
(17:25):
He's known as being the founderof the New Apostolic
Reformation.
He was a theologian and ateacher at a local college here
actually in Southern California,but CW Wagner, in his own words
, said that the local church isshifting from being led or
governed by elders and pastorsto being under the authority
(17:47):
that's a key word and oversightof individual apostles.
So he saw this new reformation,this new great awakening, and
he believed that all of that wasgonna start with these super
apostles.
Essentially, yeah, that we'regonna have authority and
oversight not only over thechurch but over God's word.
(18:10):
That's a key indicator of thisnew apostolic reformation among
many others.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, and obviously the danger in that is that
scripture makes it clear thatthe apostles and prophets were
the foundation of the church andnow they're trying to build
another foundation, and sothat's a big part of it.
It's trying to usurp authority,but scripture is clear on the
fact that you know those.
And when we look at the book ofActs, when it talked about
(18:37):
replacing Judas as an apostle,they were talking about someone
who had been with them, who hadwitnessed the miracles of Christ
, who had seen the resurrectedSavior, who had seen the
resurrected Savior who wascalled by Christ.
There were certain things thathad to be fulfilled in order for
that to happen, and that erahas passed with the
(19:01):
establishment of the Word of God, which contains the foundation
of the apostles and prophets.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Mark, can I make an observation here?
In Mark 16, it says and thesesigns will follow those who
believe.
Then it says you know, in myname they'll cast out demons,
they'll speak in new tongues,they'll do these things In Nar.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Can I just call it that yeah, Is that okay?
Is that safe?
I?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
like it Nar, like gnarly In Nar.
These signs are not followingbelievers, but the believers are
following after signs, Right,Right.
And so, to validate the work ofGod, we are seeing works of God
, right or unexplained things,and interpretations and
(19:44):
prophetic words are very, veryvague.
There's nothing very specific.
It's not like on January 13th2026, this is going to take
place.
Instead, it's going to besomething along the lines you're
going to eat Mexican food thisweek, right, Because nobody
dares to step out of the boatand make these huge claims
because they never come to pass.
(20:04):
Right?
And remember, in Deuteronomy 13and Deuteronomy 18, it says
this is how you know that aprophet is sent from God, that
they're going to be correct 100%of the time.
That's how you know.
So very specific prophecies, aswe see inside of the Old
Testament, fulfilled inside ofthe New Testament.
We do not need to be seekingafter signs, because signs will
(20:25):
come after the believer.
Now listen, whether you're acontinuationist or whether
you're a cessationist, it'sirrelevant here, because
everybody believes that God cando whatever he wants.
God can have somebody's armgrow back If that's what God
wants.
What we need to do is we needto be careful in saying that I
have a gift of healing thatsomebody's arm can't.
(20:47):
I mean otherwise, just go toicu units.
No right, I see you, that'ssuperfluous intensive care unit.
Intensive care units, units icusicus, right, and you don't see
them doing that.
They they don't go tocemeteries and raise people from
the dead.
Yeah, well, I know right.
Yeah, why don't they?
You have something wrong.
Let me pray for your headache,right?
(21:08):
Something that we can neveractually fact check.
And we see that Justin Petersactually looked into this very
well.
In going to different faithhealing meetings, inside of his
wheelchair, he says, listen, Ihave the faith, I have friends
that have the faith for me to behealed, pray for me to be
healed.
And they don't allow him to goanywhere near or even inside of
these meetings, these healingmeetings.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, near or even inside of these meetings, these
healing meetings, yeah.
And another one of the dangersis basically trying to say that
you only have authority assomeone appointed by God if
you're able to do these things.
And again, that's amisunderstanding of scripture
and the era in which God workedin the foundation of the church.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
I think the tragedy is that these guys that have a
quote gift of healing draw tothemselves people who are
immature spiritually.
Yeah, they want to see signsand wonders and it's grievous
that they'll get like 10, 15,000people come but the gospel's
not preached Right and, likeMark said, no preaching of sin,
righteousness and judgment andupholding of the cross.
(22:07):
It's all signs and wonders.
I've been through that.
When I was in New Zealand therewas just the charismatic quote
movement.
It ran right across the wholecountry.
I've been there, done that.
Coming to the US was awonderful refreshing for me
because I didn't feel right inthat whole thing.
Wow, you know, just to begrounded in the Word and hear
Christians say God speaks to usthrough his word, because when I
(22:27):
meet someone who says God toldme this, I want to get away as
quick as possible, because thatperson isn't open to reason or
open to correction, because Godtold them something.
Therefore it's absolute, it'swritten in stone.
What I've heard is not going tochange God told me you need to
give up your chickens.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well, God told me never to say that yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yeah.
And again to be clear, it's notso easy to say, okay, well,
it's going to only be in thesekind of charismatic Pentecostal
circles, Cause there's actuallya church in South Orange County
that is very much NAR andthey're not charismatic
Pentecostal.
And so here's another way,which is you'll often hear
people in this circle talk aboutthe seven mountains of
(23:13):
influence.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
This is very important.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
They see these seven mountains as family, religion,
education, media, arts,entertainment, business and
government.
Now this is where it gets kindof.
We need to chop it up a littlebit because from the surface
it's like okay, well, what'swrong with Christians wanting to
be influential in these sevenareas of the culture?
(23:37):
Go?
Speaker 4 (23:37):
ahead.
I was just going to say couldyou explain the seven mountains,
the vision of what they'resaying, rather than just name
them off and then move on?
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Right, yes, so um, one they they.
They borrow from two differentthings One that they borrow from
the seven hills of Rome, whichwe see in Revelation and other
parts of scripture, which was avery specific thing.
But they also borrow fromAbraham Kuyper's sphere of
sovereignty, and here's wherethe distinguishing difference is
.
Abraham Kuyper saw the sphereof sovereignty as the seven
(24:07):
areas of cultural influence, butwhen he talked about them, he
also recognized the heart ofChrist in the way in which
kingdom, god's kingdom, wouldcome on earth as it is in heaven
.
The difference between Kuyper'sview of sphere of sovereignty
and NAR's view of seven mountainmandate is that the NAR seven
(24:29):
mountain mandate is all abouttaking over through power.
That's the key difference isthat this is a, this is a
political like when it comes topolitics, like we need to take
the power back.
That's the kind of languagethat the seven mountain mandate
will use and that is veryantithetical to the New
Testament.
The New Testament does talkabout having an influence in
(24:50):
culture, but Jesus talks aboutthe meek inheriting the earth,
not the militant.
He tells us to pick up ourcrown I'm sorry.
He tells us to pick up ourcross, not our crowns.
He says it's not going to be bythe sword, or actually you
reminded me of it this morningand you did a little devotional
for the leaders here at theministry which is that Jesus
(25:11):
could have called down legionsof angels and yet he chooses to
die as a criminal on a cross andthat, from man's view, is like
the end of of his life andinfluence.
But that was the beginning ofhis kingdom on earth as it is in
(25:32):
heaven.
And so the key difference hereis are we to have influence in
these cultural areas?
Absolutely.
But as Kuyper pointed out whenhe talked about the sphere of
sovereignty, we do that throughhumble service, through meekness
and humility, not through power, not through political
persuasion, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
We just have to look at the book of Acts to see the
agenda of the church wasn't totake over Rome, amen.
It was to preach the gospelchange the hearts of men rather
than change the government.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, I mean, mark, that's what typically happens.
Right Is, whenever we pursuesomething whether it's power or
whatever agenda to bolster theinfluence of the church, we miss
the call to reach people withthe gospel.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, boy, that's very well put.
You know, in John 18, 36, jesussaid his kingdom is not of this
world, it's not of this place.
Now, he could easily haveestablished it during that first
century reign, but he didn't,right.
So we have to remember thatthere is a spiritual battle
going on and there are so manyChristian nationalists that are
just simply trying to establisha kingdom here, doing whatever
(26:36):
it takes to have righteousnessreign.
Now, listen, don't get me wrong.
Nothing wrong with that.
We vote, we occupy.
Until he comes, we will alwayshave a voice.
You need to go to studentcouncil meetings and being able
to have a voice at PTAs andthings of that nature.
Always do that, never give up.
(26:57):
But that's not our hope.
Our hope is not who is insidethe White House.
Our hope is in Christ alone.
We can sleep just as easy theday after the election knowing
that the enemy is inside theWhite House or the person we
voted for is inside the WhiteHouse.
We should rest just the same,because Christ rules and reigns
(27:19):
supreme and he doesn't need ourwisdom in the midst of it all.
So we occupy and at the sametime we are preaching about a
kingdom that is out of thisworld, amen, who will never end
and will always reign RightOscar, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Let me just say cause .
This is this is where therabbit trail for me ended up
going down.
Cause you brought up like thisnationalist view of of taking
over the government and and thisis where NAR is not like a
fringe organization with noinfluence it's pretty wild how
influential they actually are.
I mean, starting with SarahPalin, mary Glacier is her
(27:54):
church leader, he's a member ofthe Apostolic Council of
Prophetic Elders.
And then, in 2015, lance Wilmerhad a vision for the 45th
president of the United States.
Jw Wagner, the founder, in 2016, endorsed Trump, saying that he
already took over Two MountainsMedia and Business.
And if you remember, a fewyears ago, when Trump first got
(28:16):
office, there was all of theseChristian leaders around him.
Many of them were NIR apostles,so they have major influence.
Tim Sheets says I mean, this isthe language of an era apostle.
He says God combined and listento the way he he um loses this
the difference between God'skingdom in heaven and man's
(28:39):
governmental kingdom.
He says God combined civil andspiritual government when he
established America.
Okay, that's a problem.
That's red flags right there.
From a theological perspective,the war over planet earth is a
governmental war.
Who will rule the earth?
The battle for humankind isgovernmental.
Who will be their Lord, theirmaster?
The battle for the heavens isgovernmental.
(29:02):
Who will be the most high?
Guys like him and girls likePaula White?
These are NIR people who havemassive influence over a
cultural understanding of therelationship between your faith
and the government.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, and then you start seeing all sorts of
bizarre things happening.
I think, oscar, to your point,it does extend beyond the bounds
of the charismatic movement,but we often find it, with some
of the examples you just gave,prominent within that realm and
you start seeing insane thingshappening.
I mean, look, bethel Church isa part of that whole realm as
well.
Yeah, and they have the whole.
(29:38):
You know like what do they callthem Dusk clouds or whatever,
and there's gold, gold clouds.
Yeah, gold coming through andangels' feathers, and it was
discovered there's stuff they'reputting in the vent and stuff
coming out, but bizarre thingslike that they're more than
bizarre.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
They're embarrassing for the cause of the gospel.
Yeah, that's a good way to putit.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, yeah, humiliating.
It's like the world sees this.
We have enough of an uphillbattle, right with being sound
and just giving the pure gospel,and yet this stuff is all added
and it's heaped up on us asChristians.
And then you know thediscernment level.
I was watching a video thismorning.
You guys remember that guy,todd Bentley, mm-hmm, the guy
(30:21):
that kicks people, punches them,punches them, kicks them.
He was talking about kickingthis lady in the head, mm-hmm.
This guy was like as bad newsas you can get.
God told him to kick her in thehead.
Yeah, god told him.
And you had this apostle it mayhave been Wagner, I don't know,
but there was someone up on thestage with him, like
commissioning him that God'sgoing to.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
And Todd Bentley's standing up there and he's
shaking and you feel like sayingjust stand still, you're
embarrassing, Just knock it off.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
It's just stupid.
Yeah, still you'll get off.
Yeah, yeah, it's really.
It's really heartbreaking, butit's dangerous too, because,
again, there are ripple effectsfrom some of this doctrine and
theology.
You know the whole receivingnew revelation.
You have books like the one, uh, written by sarah young jesus
calling oh yeah, which isbasically, in essence, sold
(31:07):
millions of copies copies, bythe way, oh, big time, tens of
millions, but that's like newrevelation.
She's basically saying it'sJesus talking, this is what
Jesus told her to say.
I mean, that's like it'sinsanity, and believers need to
stand up and be discerning.
What do you think is theattraction to this, though, guys
?
I'd love to hear from you onthat.
What is it that's attractingmillions, tens of millions of
(31:31):
quote unquote believers to wantto be a part of this?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
What's the draw?
Well, there's no.
If you have no mention of sin,judgment and righteousness, well
then you get to really dowhatever you want to do.
You get to be yourself.
You know, love is love, lovewins.
And obviously I'm not sayingthat that's all associated in
the midst of that with thehomosexuality angle there, but
what I am saying is that you arenow the master and the
(31:55):
commander of your own ship andof your own destiny.
I mean, who doesn't wanna seeand experience perhaps, miracles
if you go down that realm?
You know Bill Johnson, rightfrom Bethel.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Church.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
He has said some horrific things and done some
horrific things and elevatingexperiences over scripture.
And then, when that happens,it's a terrible thing, and this
is what I mean by that, becauseyou have somebody on the outside
, in the outskirts, sittingthere inside the pew, who begins
to think to themselves well, Iwant to hear from God, how come
I'm not hearing from God?
Well, you have to try harder,you have to pray harder.
(32:27):
Your faith is lacking and thenit becomes so introspective and
you discard away from the wordof God.
It becomes an overwhelmingpressure and you start elevating
man above Christ.
You'll have to, because youthink, boy, this person sure
does hear from the Lord.
And then you start elevatingthat person to a place where he
(32:49):
is never designed to be, whereonly Christ deserves to be right
.
So that's the danger when youstart seeking after experiences
and you listen to people whoshould never be behind a pulpit
because, quite frankly, they'rejust not saved.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
That's really good.
I think, man, you hit it on thehead, mark.
I think there's a few thingsgoing on there and one of the
things I think you're saying ispeople have a desire to be close
to the people they perceive areclose to God.
You know, everyone wanted tolive near David, everyone wanted
to have a conversation withMoses, and so when you have an
(33:25):
air quote apostle out theresaying he's receiving
information from the Lord, he'sgot this direct contact right.
It's like man, I want togravitate towards that, and so
that's a way in which theymanipulate and take advantage of
the masses.
But I also think that themessage in itself is very
man-centered.
To go back to your question,which is a great question why do
people gravitate towards that?
(33:46):
It's a man-centered message.
They see the same problem wesee out there, in the culture,
in the world.
They see the issue of sin, theysee that something needs to
happen and instead of trustingthe Lord with his timing and his
sovereignty and his plan,they're trusting themselves.
They say let me take it's aworks righteousness thing, I'm
(34:08):
going to take over.
Here's what I'm going to do.
Here's what you need to do tobring this about.
And so it becomes a man-centered, you gain back control over the
kingdom the air quote kingdomof God, when really, ultimately,
what you're doing is justpropagating the kingdom of man
once again.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Wow, that's so, so good to highlight Oscar, the
kingdom of man versus thekingdom of man once again.
Wow, that's so good tohighlight Oscar, the kingdom of
man versus the kingdom of God.
And to me I firmly believe thatthat is evidenced in a drift
from the gospel.
I mean, we've already touchedon it lightly, but I do wanna
really hone in on this becauseanytime someone begins to drift
(34:49):
from God's agenda and God'smission, the gospel always goes.
Always Because the gospel isn'tbeneficial to the person who's
seeking power and authority andin many cases, sadly, financial
gain.
The gospel isn't helpful therebecause the gospel's offensive,
(35:09):
the gospel, is repulsive to thenatural man.
You're not going to draw massesof people with the gospel.
So anytime the gospel goes,it's evident you're building the
kingdom of man and you're afteryour own interests and man.
That's tragic.
So I think power is a big drawfor that.
Money is a big draw for that.
The sense of authority andpower is a big draw for that.
(35:31):
Money is a big draw for that.
The sense of authority andfollowing is a big draw for that
.
But another big error that Isee with NAR is also that NAR I
appreciate that yes Is theecumenical sort of element
that's been infused into it thatthey join up forces with all
kinds of other heretical groups,one being the Catholic Church.
And, ray, I just would love foryou to touch on that, ray.
(35:54):
How repulsive is that to Godthat we are in some circles that
are professing to beevangelicals, acknowledging the
Pope as being valid and havingbiblical authority?
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Yeah, it's a Pandora's box, whatever that is.
Yeah, it's full of worms.
Sound doctrine is so important.
It's like drinking fresh waterand just putting in a little
poison, and that's what'shappening.
We talked before about itappealing to the natural man,
the flesh.
I seem to beat the same drum,but it just seems to be the
(36:32):
influence of a gospel that'sbeen insipid, preached over the
last hundred years.
Instead of saying straight isthe gate and narrow is the way
that leads to life, and fewthere be that find it we've said
just give your heart to Jesus,and what we've done is opened up
the door of the church to falseconverts that have found
themselves in pulpits bringingin false doctrine.
What a good point.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Wow, yeah, oh sorry.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
No, I'm done.
You are not dumb, yeah, ohsorry, no, I'm done.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
You are not dumb.
Yeah, Done not dumb.
False converts.
We've talked about that on thepodcast many times.
But Mark Judas we talked abouthim again this morning in our
devotion with our leadershipteam.
But Judas, of all of theapostles, may have been the one
that would have appeared to havebeen the most genuine, and yet
(37:25):
he was the one that ended updoing the most harm in betraying
Christ.
And so how do we detect thefalse?
I mean, sometimes we can't, butwhat are some of the telltale
signs of maybe detecting thefalse convert?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yeah, and take it a step further.
How about somebody saying, well, am I part of this organization
?
Because there's people thatjust don't know, because there's
a little branch of doctrines ortheological things, that kind
of creep into the pulpitthemselves, or they're part of a
youth group and maybe the youthpastor is discipled not by the
(37:53):
senior pastor or the officialteaching of that church and
they're maybe going closertowards, maybe, what Bethel
teaches?
How do you know when do youbegin?
How do I know if I'm notsitting underneath somebody?
That's Well?
First of all, do they push apersonal experience more than
what the Word of God says?
Do you leave a teaching, agathering, a worship service
(38:17):
saying I wish I could worshiplike him, I wish I could play
and sing like him?
Look at the people that arelined up to talk to him.
I wish that was kind of me.
Right, the focus is kind of off.
I wish that I could hear fromGod the way he hears from God
Boy.
I wish I could be as happy ashim.
I mean, they're subtle.
They're subtle things.
So if you are part of a serviceand you're thinking to yourself,
(38:41):
well, what happened to justopening up God's word?
When are they going to open upthe word of God, or they open up
the word and they start offwith just a simple text, and
then you don't need the word ofGod next.
I'm saying now it's beginningto be a little bit unhealthy.
So that's the first thing thatI would just kind of throw out
there.
It's just are they pushing apersonal experience over just
(39:02):
the Bible, which is our ultimatesource of authority?
Glean from that, because textinterprets text and not just hey
, I have a great word for youtoday.
This is how you're going totackle whatever.
And then no text is evenbrought out in the midst of it,
and if they do, it's completelytaken out of context, or
somebody saying something alongthis lines.
(39:23):
Let me read this first, andthen I want to hear from
everybody what it means to you.
Instead of what the textactually says, let's exposit the
text.
I want to know what it means toyou Now.
What does it mean to you?
Because it could mean somethingdifferent to you than it does
to him.
Right?
Speaker 3 (39:32):
You know, something that I think I really enjoy, and
I think it's our hope, the fourof us is that we don't like
tell people what to think, butwe teach people what to think
because we all need to befaithful Bereans and have
discernment, especially witherrors like this, because, to
your point, mark, you're notgonna look at the statement of
(39:52):
faith of a church and knowthey're being influenced by NAR,
right, like it's not gonna bein there and they don't.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
And let me just say they don't necessarily carry
that label Like there are somethat would even say, no, we're
not.
What are you talking about?
But that's.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
That's how they're defined, based on what they
believe in, yeah and, and it'ssubtle, and sometimes you don't
catch it until later.
I'll tell you guys a story.
When our kids were, wehomeschooled for a few years and
then we found this school thatwe thought was really cool.
We really liked the way it wasset up, and so, you know, we
enrolled our kids in thiselementary school.
(40:26):
Our kids were like kindergarten, first grade and third grade or
whatever the case.
And so we show up day one ortwo, I don't know, first week or
whatever, and the principalgets up and they're giving their
vision for the, for the school,and then the principal goes.
You know, our, our biggest goalhere is that we would raise
kids up to infiltrate aspects ofthe culture.
(40:50):
And then they he goes on to namethe seven mountains and I was
like, I mean, it was like a redflag being right in my head.
I was like what?
That?
Like that can't be coincidental.
I mean it was the sevenmountains, back to back to back,
exactly how it's written out.
And so we, uh, again, nothing'son their website, anything like
that.
So I, I scheduled a meetingwith him, meet, my wife and I,
(41:13):
and we sit down and we'retalking.
It's small talk and so far,everything sounds good.
And then I asked him who arethe some of the people that are
influencing you most in yourlife right now, and the names
that came out were you know somesome of the names that we've
already named here.
And that was it was like, okay,that's, that's that you know.
And so the point, I guess, isthat we need to be faithful
(41:35):
Bereans, we need to listenclosely and learn to think and
test the scriptures with what wehear from from our schools,
from our leaders, from ourpastors, even.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
Did you quietly leave or did you correct them?
Speaker 3 (41:53):
I did try correcting him and it was right after we
did our what is the gospelseries, and so I gave him
actually those.
I gave them those CDs.
Oh, great yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah, and you know my heart is sympathetic toward
some of the believers that arecaught up in this Cause.
We're not saying there's nogenuine believers that might be
a part of some of this butthey're unsuspecting and that's
why we're doing this podcast,because you can hear the whole
Seven Mountains thing, you canhear about dominion, you can
hear about all the differentthings that they hold to, and it
can sound oh yeah, that soundsgood.
(42:23):
Yeah, we have influence.
And I just wanna be clear againwe're not saying, as Oscar
referenced, that we're not tohave influence as believers and
try to get into differentsectors, but it's the mindset
and perspective that's connectedwith that and the motive behind
it, and so so it is.
And the failure to preach thegospel and the failure to preach
the gospel Exactly.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Real quick, ray, just cause you asked um, I gave, I
gave him the CDs and like a yearlater someone ran into them and
they knew that we wereassociated and they were like
can you tell, Oscar, that thoseCDs radically changed my view of
the Bible?
And then a few years later theschool closed down.
Now I'm not saying it wasbecause of any of that, but and
(43:06):
I haven't talked to them aboutwhere they're at in their
convictions but hopefully theLord did something there and
that school's no longer around.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
God told me that you'd say that.
Speaker 2 (43:14):
Thank you, yeah thanks, so yeah, so it is
important.
And then there are so manybizarre, different things that
start to happen in associationwith some of these things Like
what?
Well, there's something that'salmost hard to believe, but it's
something called grave soaking,and this is where someone is
(43:35):
trying to receive anointing fromthe graves of, like, deceased
saints.
So you'll get people that willgo to graveyards and they'll lay
on top of, like, the grave ofsomeone you know, on top of the
burial plot, ray, I think youshould do that?
Yeah, can we send you out to dothat, ray?
A test, a mission trip of grave, soaking but bizarre things
like that.
(43:55):
Holy laughter was alsoassociated at one time with this
sort of movement.
No, it's not funny at all, butthat's what happens.
All right, it's like yawningcontagious, and all these people
start laughing and everyonecatches on.
And so, again, when you makeexperience your focus, when you
drift away from the Word, whenyou put the gospel on the back
(44:16):
burner or throw it out thewindow, all sorts of bizarre and
weird and harmful anddestructive things are gonna
crop up.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
One of those destructive things I know you
guys have heard these stories aswell which is people will be
going to a church and they'retalking about the Holy Spirit
impacting your life, aboutdouble anointings, and some
people are sitting there in thepews and they're like man, I'm
not feeling what they're feeling, I'm not able to speak in
tongues, I'm not able to gethealed, and the reason air quote
(44:45):
, the reason why you're notexperiencing what everyone else
experiences is because you lackfaith.
That's right, and so manypeople are wounded because they
feel like there's somethingwrong with them, there's
something wrong with theirbelief.
There's something wrong.
They are the reason why theyweren't healed.
They are the reason why they'renot hearing from the Holy
Spirit.
They are the reason why they'renot speaking in tongues, et
cetera, et cetera.
(45:06):
They lack faith and man.
That is so antithetical to thepromise of the Holy Spirit that
God gives us in the NewTestament, the priesthood of all
believers.
It's so antithetical to what wecan cling, to knowing that we
are actually saved by gracethrough faith.
Amen.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
And that's why it's important for us to do a program
like this.
There are some that arelistening right now that have
the perspective that we'redivisive.
Why are you guys talking aboutthis thing?
We're all Christians.
Everything is great.
The difference between othersecondary issues or secondary
issues within the faith andthese things is that these
things are deeply destructive.
(45:46):
Like Oscar shared, I'm talkinglives ravaged where people have
been so disillusioned and sobroken for years.
And, having pastored, I'veencountered some of those people
Like I went to this church andthis is and for years they were
wandering aimlessly and thenthey come under sound doctrine
and it's like a spring in themidst of a desert, you know,
(46:07):
it's like an oasis, and so wejust wanna say to those of you
out there to open up God's wordand look into it and know that
our hearts, behind what we sharetoday, is one of love.
We care about you and for thoseof you who may even be leaders
caught up in this movement andmaybe you didn't even have that
name attached to it, but you canassociate some of the things
we're talking with with what'sbeing taught there.
(46:29):
Listen, we're not.
You know, we laughed a littlebit, we said some different
things.
We don't mean to be mocking,we're not making light of this.
We have compassion toward youand our encouragement is that
you repent of these falseteachings and come out of that
realm and walk under theauthority of the Word of God,
which is absolutelytransformational.
Amen.
Speaker 3 (46:50):
Amen All right.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Thank you for joining us, friends.
We'll see you here next time onthe Living Waters Podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.