Posts tagged ‘new apostolic reformation’
NAR’s Call for Restoration of the Church
I clearly recall the new worship leader inviting people to clap and even dance in the aisles of the sanctuary during morning service. He wanted people to worship God in the way he thought was appropriate, through emotional displays. Where is the self-control? Where is the decorum that is so often spoken of in Scripture? Too often today, love for God is relegated to our emotions. While we certainly should be glad for what God has done for us, with hearts filled with genuine praise, the reality is that love is best seen in our quiet, submissive obedience to every aspect of His will. Anyone can dance in the aisles and shout “hallelujah!” However, it means nothing if our lives do not conform to His will in obedience.
Knowing God’s Will: Context Means a Great Deal
Taking this verse out of its natural context, it’s not difficult to see how it can be twisted to mean something it does not mean. The idea here is that meditating on God’s Word will pave the way to success and prosperity, so we’re told. But is this what Joshua meant when he spoke those words? Hardly. The context fleshes out the full meaning.
New Age, Dominionism, and NAR – Twisting Truth
What many Christians fail to realize is how much Satan has counterfeited the things that are very much patterned on Scripture, with a twist of course. Jesus spoke of the “beginning of birth pangs” in His Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), and the New Age speaks of a great upheaval prior to the “birth” of the new age, what they believe is the Age of Aquarius.
Common Bonds of New Age, Dominionism, and NAR
As the climax of this age occurs, those in the New Age, Dominionism, and NAR will find themselves strange bedfellows, but will then realize that they have more in common than they ever previously understood. NAR will become much more New Age like and this has been verified by many people who have come out of the New Age movement only to realize that the New Age has infiltrated the visible Church!
Voice of Healing Movement of the 1950’s…
Branham stated he was commissioned by an angel in 1946 and shortly thereafter began his healing ministry with included revivals. Interesting that it was not God who commissioned Branham.
Numerous photos were taken of Branham where either a light (“fire”) above his head or over his shoulder exists. Branham believed that these occurrences were God’s stamp of approval on him and his ministry. So rather than go to Scriptures, he assumed the “sign” as being of God.
Signs, Wonders, Bells and Whistles
The only “ecstatic” experience witnessed as a direct result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit onto believers in prayer, was the presence of “tongues.” While this subject is hotly debated still today, the truth is in that particular case, the believers were actually speaking in a known tongue (though unknown to them at the time). We know this simply because of the way people responded. While some referred to them as being “drunk,” it wasn’t necessarily due to their actions or the way they walked. It was due to the fact that it seemed to some that they were simply babbling like a drunk person would do. Kenneth Hagin has stated that if people thought they were drunk, they must have been acting drunk (my paraphrase). That’s absolutely not true if we consider the context of those verses.
What is New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)?
But it needs to be stated that there truly is nothing new under the sun. Things come around again with different names and a slightly different emphasis, therefore they are “new.” The problem with NAR, as with the Emergent Church (they’re more alike than many realize, with the exception of the “signs and wonders” in NAR), and many aspects of the Charismatic Movement has to do with the fact that these groups are really offshoots of other groups from previous times in history. They’re given a modern-day look and feel in an attempt to reach youth especially, but in reality, it’s all been done before.
A Personal Story of Deception
The torment eventually began to subside through the process of fully submitting myself to Jesus again. I could do nothing else but to throw myself into the verse, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) In my efforts to make that happen, I made a conscious decision to resist the devil by literally ignoring the harassment. During that time, I stopped looking up at the sky and simply would not acknowledge the images. I turned away whenever I noticed one of them. I knew that this had happened due to my own actions of allowing witchcraft to remain in my house, and I whole-heartedly repented of it. I read the Bible and filled my mind with the Word every chance I got. I prayed constantly. Then, finally… one day it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen them for a while. It had taken months, but they were gone… Completely gone!
Wolves? Who is Randy Clark?
If Randy Clark actually believes he is an apostle as Paul, Peter, John, and the others were (and remain), apostles, then he also clearly believes that he has the authority to “add” to God’s written Word, just like Paul did, even though he claims that the Bible is the final authority. He can’t believe that and believe in signs, wonders, words of knowledge, and prophecies, can he? Therein lies the tremendous danger.
Wolves? Who is Perry Stone?
There’s another problem with Perry Stone and it is one that is common to the signs and wonders crowd. Many believe that God has deliberately kept things secret even from godly Christians for generations until the time was right to release those secrets. Jonathan Cahn operates under this con that God has given him the knowledge about certain things (often related to America), that no one else has been privy to because the time is allegedly the right time now to release that information. Cahn has published numerous books that have claimed special knowledge about biblical things. He has yet to be correct and his exegesis is seriously flawed.
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