Six Questions About the New Apostolic Reformation Part 1

INTRODUCTION

Tonight I will begin with a personal testimony.

As we talk about the absolute jungle that is the New Apostolic Reformation, with its bizarre new age, cultic practices, we are talking about a church that I nearly joined.

When I came back to the Lord after living pretty rebelliously for my first couple of years at college, I started attending a church in Richmond that all these college students were flocking to.

Harvest Renewal Church

Like most churches that college students flock to, it had top notch modern worship music.

It had engaging, charismatic leaders.

On the surface, it just seemed like church with a little more speaking in tongues and laying on of hands than I was used to, but hey, --“who am I to judge—I’m just getting back into the scene.”

After a few weeks, I decided to sign up for the New Members Class and I attended.

While I was there, I began hearing some things that were very different than what I was used to.

This was more than just some charismatic worship. This was a totally different structure than the one I had seen in the local church I was saved in as a teenager.

At the meeting, the lead pastor informed us that he is actually not a pastor at all—he is an Apostle.

And he told us that the Apostles have the senior authority in the church.

He also told us that the Prophets they had on staff were crucial in helping the church hear from God.

Underneath the Apostles and prophets, you have the pastors and teachers, who answer the the offices above them.

And then you have Evangelists, who do the same.

So five offices govern the church:

Apostle, Prophet, Pastors, Teachers, Evangelists

He read Ephesians 4:11

Ephesians 4:11 ESV

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,

And then he said, “If you don’t believe in modern day apostles and prophets, you don’t believe the Bible.”

I told the Student Pastor at my parents’ church—the church I was saved in—about it and he immediately said he was concerned about what I was getting involved in.

He gave me Charismatic Chaos by John MacArthur, and after doing some reading, I decided I needed to run for hills.

I did not complete the membership process and in retrospect, I now know that by God’s grace, I narrowly missed joining a very dangerous so-called church.

I narrowly missed joining up with a counterfeit.

Harvest Renewal Church was a part of Harvest International Ministries—a church network for the cult of the New Apostolic Reformation.

I narrowly missed joining something that should be watched out for and avoided.

Here is what Paul says to the church in Rome:

Romans 16:17 ESV

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.

This is what we do with divisive false teaching and those who peddle it—we watch out for it and then we avoid it.

Mark and void.

The New Apostolic Reformation must be treated this way.

Now, maybe tonight is the first time you have heard that term.

That is just fine.

We will spend two sessions defining it and articulating the positions that those who are involved with it hold to.

And in order to do this, I am going to ask and answer Six Questions Regarding the New Apostolic Reformation.

What is the New Apostolic Reformation?

What are the beliefs of the New Apostolic Reformation?

What are the practices of the New Apostolic Reformation?

Why is the New Apostolic Reformation spreading?

How dangerous is the New Apostolic Reformation?

How do we resist the New Apostolic Reformation?

We will only have time to ask and answer three of these questions tonight.

You might wonder— “Why are we spending two sessions on this?”

Why this and not Christian Science? Why aren’t we doing Scientology after all? Why not New Age?

Because those are all subjects I had planned to tackle at some point.

Well—I am doing it because I think the New Apostolic Reformation is pretty dangerous.

And I think it is insidious.

And I think it is sneaking up on many just like it snuck up on me in college.

I believe it is successfully ingratiating itself to American Christianity as “mainstream.”

We spend the 2 sessions because I believe we need to be sure that as a church, we are marking and avoiding this dangerous movement.

WHAT IS THE NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION?

We start tonight with our first question:

Question 1: What is the New Apostolic Reformation?

BILL JOHNSON

To tell the story of the New Apostolic Reformation, you have to tell the story of Bill Johnson and Bethel Church in Redding, CA.

Johnson is a 5th generation pastor who has led Bethel Church since 1996.

Bethel say this about themselves:

Bethel’s mission is revival—the personal, regional, and global expansion of God’s kingdom through His manifest presence.

Bethel Church, Redding, CA

Their church teaches that this expansion does not take place merely through the preaching of the Word of God, but primarily through miracles.

And of course, Johnson himself claims to be a miracle-worker.

He got his supernatural powers after an intense spiritual experience in 1995, just before he comes to Bethel Church.

I went from a dead sleep to bring wide-awake in a moment. Unexplainable power began to pulsate through my body, seemingly just shy of electrocution. It was as though I has been plugged into a wall socket with a thousand volts of electricity flowing through my body. My arms and legs shot out in silent explosions as if something was released through my hands and feet. The more I tried to stop it, the worse it got…It was raw power…It was God.

Bill Johnson

Johnson, with all his divinely bestowed power in tow, leads Bethel to leave the Assemblies of God denomination, freeing him up to teach his new doctrine about revival through miracle-working.

When this happens, half of the 2,000 person congregation leaves the church.

However, Johnson built it back up to over 11,000 people today.

Johnson is the Apostle over the church in Bethel, Redding.

He is also the Apostle over the entire network of Bethel churches.

KRIS VALLOTTON

Now if Bill Johnson is the Joker of the New Apostolic Reformation, Kris Vallotton is the Penguin.

Johnson is the Apostle, but Vallotton is known as the Prophet over Bethel Church and all of the Bethel churches throughout the world.

As the prophet over the church, he is receiving new revelations for the global church—critical truths that must be heard and applied if God’s miracle movement is going to come to pass.

Vallotton says he has known there was a special anointing on his life for some time.

He claims that in 1985, Jesus came into his bathroom.

Jesus walked into my bathroom amid my evening bath and told me, “I have called you to be a prophet to the nations. You will speak before kings and queens. You will influence prime ministers and presidents. I will open doors for you to talk to mayors, governors, ambassadors, and government officials all around the world.

Kris Vallotton

He says there was another instance 13 years later when God spoke to him and told him a new reformation was afoot that would be the greatest movement of God in history.

He was lying on the floor praying when God supposedly said:

There is a new epoch season emerging in this hour. Much like the Protestant Reformation, there is another reformation coming that will unearth the very foundation of Christianity. This move of the Spirit will absolutely redefine your ideologies and philosophies concerning what the Church is and how she should function…My Church is moving from denominationalism to apostleships.

Together, Johnson and Vallotton are THE Apostle and Prophet for any official Bethel church.

They are recognized as having spiritual authority by many more churches and Christians who are a part of this movement.

And they also sit on the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders—a group started by NAR leader, C. Peter Wagner.

The group delivers revelations that are supposedly given by God to the global church.

THE INFLUENCE OF THESE MEN

So these are not fringe cult leaders.

I am going to tell you some disturbing things about what these men and their churches say and do, but understand—they are not off in some corner of the world doing weird stuff that no one is impacted by.

To the contrary, Johnson and Vallotton have launched their movement into the pop culture of the American religious landscape.

Over 11,000 people attend Bethel Redding every week.

There are four other megachurches officially connected to them, but there hundreds of churches unofficially affiliated with them like Jesus Culture Sacramento—another NAR church.

So when we think of how many people are going to NAR churches every week, that number is well over 50,000.

Their YouTube Network, Bethel TV, has 512K subscribers.

That is over 100K more YouTube subscribers than the Dallas Cowboys

On Spotify, their church’s band has 4.2 million monthly listeners

That would be the same amount as popular musicians such as Kenny Chesney, Soundgarden, 3 Doors Down and ZZ Top.

These are influential men. This is an influential movement.

It is one of those things that cannot be ignored.

We must mark and avoid.

WHAT DOES THE NEW APOSTOLIC REFORMATION BELIEVE?

Now, the question is WHY? What is it about this church that is so out of bounds?

Is it just the claims about miracles and new revelations?

Well—that is our 2nd question of the night:

Question 2: What does the New Apostolic Reformation believe?

I believe the defining doctrines of the New Apostolic Reformation are as follows:

1. There is a seven mountain mandate that the church must fulfill in order to bring about the 2nd Coming of Jesus.

2. In these latter days, as the seven mountain mandate is fulfilled, the adherents of NAR will do greater works than Jesus.

3. The church has a fivefold ministry and the Apostle and Prophet are the blessing brokers.

4. You must have your power activated, in order to be a part of the movement.

5. God is continuing to reveal HImself to us with new messages.

6. Prayer is to be declared.

I am going to walk through these six beliefs fairly quickly.

They don’t capture the entirety of NAR beliefs, but that can be hard to nail down.

Not every church is exactly the same.

But these are six beliefs that are pretty common to all NAR churches.

SEVEN MOUNTAIN MANDATE

We start with the Seven Mountain Mandate.

NAR leaders say:

1. There is a seven mountain mandate that the church must fulfill in order to bring about the 2nd Coming of Jesus.

NAR teachers say that in this new season, Christians are to “build the kingdom” or “advance the kingdom” or they are “bringing God’s kingdom to earth.”

Now we will use language like that sometimes when we talk about evangelizing and starting new churches and sending out missionaries, but that isn’t what they mean.

They teach that the strategy that is to be used for building kingdom is the Seven Mountain Mandate.

They say that God has called the church to infiltrate and occupy the highest positions in the seven major institutions of society.

Government

Media

Family

Business

Education

Church

Arts

Once these spheres of society have been conquered, the seven mountain mandate will be complete and God’s Kingdom will be established on the earth. Christ will return.

And who will be the ones ruling the seven mountains?

Pastors? Teachers? Evangelists?

The common church members who feel called to lead?

Of course not. It’s the Apostles!

NAR “Apostle” Che Ahn said this:

We must also recognize that apostles have the authority to govern on all seven mountains of culture.

Che Ahn, NAR “Apostle”

A couple of years ago, Bethel worship leader, Sean Fuecht, ran for congress in California in an attempt to help fulfill the mandate.

He came in 3rd out of three.

During his time in the limelight, he traveled to Washington DC and took the Lord’s Supper under the dome of the Capitol Building and proclaimed that the Capitol was God’s house.

Of course, the Lord’s Supper takes place in the local church, so that wasn’t the ordinance at all.

That was just a man having a little bread and wine in the rotunda.

But it demonstrates the 7 Mountain Mandate mindset.

GREATER WORKS THAN JESUS

Secondly:

2. NAR leaders teach that In these latter days, as the seven mountain mandate is fulfilled, the adherents of NAR will do greater works than Jesus.

They derive this teaching from a twisting of John 14:12

John 14:12 ESV

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Listen to what Bill Johnson says:

Jesus’ statement is not that hard to understand. Greater means “greater.” And the works he referred to are signs and wonders. It will not be a disservice to Him to have a generation obey Him, and go beyond His own high-water mark.

Bill Johnson

But is that really what that verse means?

What is the context?

Well it comes in a passage in which Jesus is explaining His departure to the Father to the disciples. The time for His death, resurrection and then ascension is drawing near.

And when He ascends, He will then pour out His Spirit upon His church.

See--The Son of God never left a 175 mile radius during His teaching ministry.

But after He ascends and the Spirit is poured out, the church will spread out and take the Gospel to the whole earth.

That is what Jesus is speaking to.

He is not saying that we would all be going around, building the kingdom, by doing miracles greater than those that are done by Him—God in the flesh.

No one surpasses the “high water mark” of Christ in miraculous works.

BLESSING BROKERS

So we have the Seven Mountain Mandate and greater works than Christ. A third belief is one we have already touched on a bit tonight:

3. The church has a fivefold ministry and the Apostle and Prophet are the blessing brokers.

Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers.

This is the fivefold ministry of the church.

But as we have said, the Apostle and the Prophet are the blessing brokers.

If you want God’s blessings, you have to align yourself with what the Apostle and the Prophet say.

Holly Pivec and Douglas Geivett have written a phenomenal book on the New Apostolic Reformation called Counterfeit Revival.

In it they point out that when NAR followers are told that they must “align” themselves with what the Apostle and Prophet say, what is really being communicated is that they must submit.

That is the only way to get spiritual blessing in your life.

The closer you are with your apostle, the more you will receive the blessing of the corresponding grace and favor that comes with the alignment.

Kris Vallotton

If you are a pastor and you want your church to be blessed, the best thing you can do for your members, according to these false teachers, is to join with one of the New Apostolic networks.

Of course there is Bethel.

I mentioned Harvest International.

There is also Global Awakening—who claim to have influence on 55,000 churches in the world.

Once you join up with these networks, your church is under the “spiritual covering” of an Apostle.

That Apostle becomes a spiritual father to the pastor and the church members.

If you are attending a church that is not aligning itself with a NAR Apostle and Prophet, then you are in a church that is outside of God’s blessings.

After all, the Apostle and the Prophet are the blessing brokers.

You must align with them to attain God’s favor.

POWER ACTIVATED

Let’s look at the fourth common belief of the New Apostolic Reformation:

4. You must have your power activated, in order to be a part of the movement.

So let’s say you decide that you believe in all this 7 mountain stuff and the 5 fold ministry.

You get into a NAR church so that you can be under the spiritual covering of your new spiritual father—the NAR Apostle and his Prophet.

How do you get your miraculous powers so that you can do greater works than Jesus too?

Well it is kind of like Zan and Jayna, The Wonder Twins, from the old Super Friends Hour in the late 70’s—you have to activate your powers!

If you go to a NAR church or a NAR event, there is a time near the end called “Ministry Time.”

This is when an Apostle or Prophet on stage declares that God is healing people in the crowd.

And this is when they give prophetic words to people in the room.

And sometimes, they will lay hands on certain people in order to activate miraculous gifts in those people.

At Bethel Church, they also create fire tunnels.

This is when church leaders line up on each side and people go in between them like little kids running between the parents at the end of a soccer game.

Leaders form two lines, facing each other, and encourage people to walk through the ‘fire tunnel’—where individuals are believed to have ‘deep encounters’ with the Holy Spirit (seen by their spastic jerking movements and falling to the ground).

H. Pivec and D. Geivett

In these chaotic fire tunnels, that miracle power can be activated.

All of this feels comical—especially when we consider people activating their powers like The Wonder Twins—but in reality, it is a blasphemous way to think about and talk about the Holy Spirit.

He is not a force.

He is powerful, but He is not a power to be activated, like some sort of extraterrestrial gifting in a comic book.

He is not an energy to be manipulated.

But this is how this teaching treats Him.

The Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity and He loves to point people to the Son who gives access to the throne of grace.

He is the One who regenerates our hearts and witnesses to our souls that we can call God our Father.

He is not a force.

NEW MESSAGES

The fifth belief:

5. God is continuing to reveal HImself to us with new messages.

Here is what Jonathan Edwards said about those who seek new revelation from God:

And why cannot we be contented with the divine oracles, that holy, pure word of God, which we have in such abundance and clearness, now since the canon of Scripture is completed? Why should we desire to have anything added to them by impulses from above?

Jonathan Edwards

Edwards lived in a time in which many wanted fresh revelation and impressions on the heart from heaven.

And he objected to it because he believe the Scriptures are sufficient.

But NAR leaders teach just the opposite—they say that God is bringing new revelation to earth through His Apostle and Prophet.

To be clear, people like Bill Johnson and Kris Vollotton of Bethel Church, say that they are receiving direct revelation from God.

The main way they get this fresh revelation is by receiving “prophetic illumination” and being able to understand the “hidden meaning” of Bible verses.

For example, this whole “7 Mountain Mandate” thing came from “prophetic illumination” that Johnson received regarding Isaiah 2:2

Isaiah 2:2 ESV

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it,

I don’t see anything there about a 7 Mountain Mandate, but he sure does, since he is receiving new revelation from God.

No one in their right mind would claim to understand all that is contained in the Bible for us today. Yet to suggest that more is coming causes many to fear. Get over it, so you don’t miss it!

Bill Johnson

THE PASSION TRANSLATION

The most egregious example of the NAR practice of receiving fresh revelation is their “Passion Translation” of the Bible.

The Passion Translation is made by Brian Simmons.

Simmons says that in 2009, Jesus came to his living room and breathed on him and commissioned him to write a new translation of the Bible.

He says that when Jesus blew on him, He gave him “the spirit of revelation” and the “secrets of the Hebrew language.”

Simmons also had the help of an angel named “Passion,” who empowered his work.

This angel travels with him everywhere he goes in ministry and he named the translation after him.

If this sounds familiar, it is because a month ago we learned about Joseph Smith getting a third testament from God and he found out about it from the angel Moroni.

Same lies with different make-up.

To show you how much this translation toys with God’s Word in order to slide in NAR language, let me just show you one verse.

I am going to read John 14:12 in the ESV and then in the Passion Translation. Remember, this is the verse that NAR leaders say teaches that we will do greater miracles than Jesus.

John 14:12 ESV

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

I tell you this timeless truth: The person who follows me in faith, believing in me, will do the same mighty miracles that I do—even greater miracles than these because I go to be with my Father!

Notice how language is added and words are changed in order to shoehorn NAR teaching into the Scriptures.

Simmons is intentionally tinkering with God’s Word and it misleads readers because words and phrases are inserted into the mouth of the Son of God that are not in the original manuscripts.

You would hope that all of this obvious tampering with the truth would keep people away from the Passion Translation, but it has become a best-seller.

Part of the reason why it is so successful is because it has been used by people like Brian Houston.

Houston is a Prosperity teacher from Hillsong Church, who has lost his place in ministry due to scandal, but his use of the Passion Translation exposed millions of people to it.

In fact, one Sunday in 2022, I got out of the pulpit and someone who went to our church at the time came to me and showed me their new Bible that they loved.

It was none other than the Passion Translation.

I had to share with them that this version of the Bible was no good and came from a rotten source and thankfully, they returned it.

But this shows you how pervasive NAR teaching is and how its stink has wafted into even the windows of our own church.

DECLARED PRAYER

So we have had the 7 Mountain Mandate, the 5 Fold Ministry, the Apostle and the Prophet as blessing brokers, miraculous power activated and fresh revelation. Now, the final of the 6 beliefs:

6. Prayer is to be declared.

This is where the New Apostolic Reformation and the Prosperity Gospel hold hands.

It is not rare to see Prosperity teachers like Brian Houston platform NAR teachers like Bill Johnson.

It is also not rare to see NAR folks turning their pulpits over to Prosperity teachers.

For example, Bill Johnson had the false Prosperity teacher, Benny Hinn, come and preach at Bethel Church in what was described as a “special visit where Benny led in a time of worship, prayer, ministry and teaching.”

New Apostolic teachers instruct that making requests of God is actually an inferior form of prayer.

They say that to pray in power, a believer must assert the authority that God has given them.

They must make “Prayer declarations.”

They speak things into existence.

Now this is nothing more than the same New Thought/Prosperity Gospel non-sense that we heard last week.

It is Christianized new-age practice to believe that you can declare things with spiritual authority and manifest them.

New Age philosophy’s law of attraction teaches that “energy” precedes “manifestation.”

If you have the right energy, you can manipulate the universe and manifest or attract the reality you want.

This is why you hear Millennials and Gen-Zers on TV saying things like, “I don’t like your energy.”

Bad energy could manifest a bad reality.

The NAR concept of prayer declarations is truly the new age practice of the law of attraction with a Christian spin on it.

But using Christian language doesn’t change the fact that the practice itself is unbiblical.

Nowhere does the Bible teach us that we are to make prayer declarations and we don’t see examples of believers making them.

Instead, when God’s people are in need, what we see them doing is declaring they don’t have the power to change their circumstances.

When faced with great threat, God’s people declared their powerlessness and uncertainty of how to proceed, yet expressed their confident hope in God’s power, knowledge, and goodness to act on their behalf.

H. Pivec and D. Geivett

24/7 PRAYER ROOMS

This belief in declared prayer has led NAR ministries like IHOPKC to form 24/7 prayer rooms.

Mike Bickle, who is now embroiled in sexual scandal, started the International House of Prayer Kansas City, because he said the prayer declarations made in that room would bring about the fulfillment of the 7 Mountain Mandate and the 2nd Coming of Christ.

There has been worship and prayer there day and night since 1999.

When I was at VCU, many of our members went to the church I just avoided—Harvest Renewal.

I knew six people who went there that moved to Kansas City to be a part of IHOPKC after they graduated.

HEALTH AND WEALTH

NAR teachers, like their Prosperity friends, also teach that you can declare health and wealth—not just global revival.

Bill Johnson teaches that it is always God’s will to heal.

Even though we have passages like Paul pleading with the Lord to remove the thorn from his flesh and the Lord says no three times, Johnson still teaches this.

If you declare your healing with enough faith, you will be healed.

If you declare your healing and you are not healed, you either lacked faith or you are not aligned with your Apostle.

STRANGE PRACTICES

Let’s finish up tonight with our final question to answer:

Question 3: What are the practices of the New Apostolic Reformation?

This is where you really see how unorthodox this movement is. This is where you see how cultic it is.

What you believe informs how you practice your faith.

The adherents and peddlers of this false Reformation believe they are taking the world by storm because they have this eschatological miraculous power that God will use to conquer the earth and bring about the return of Christ.

So what that means is that they need to be able to claim they are doing miracles.

They believe in declared prayer, so they create environments where they can practice declared prayer.

They believe it is always God’s will to heal, so they are constantly claiming His healing.

Their belief informs their practice.

And the practices are as strange as they are blasphemous.

WAKE UP OLIVE

I will start with the “Wake Up Olive!” situation that took place in 2019.

On December 14th, 2019, a little girl named Olive, the daughter of a Bethel worship leader, suddenly sided in her sleep. She was two years old.

We all know this is unthinkable tragedy

Most would respond by crying out to the Lord, planning a funeral and preparing to deal with the grief for the rest of their days.

Instead, Olive’s parents kept her body at the local morgue and declared that their daughter would be raised from the dead.

Moreover, Bethel Church declared it along with them and spread it around social media.

All sorts of people joined in and declared the girl would be resurrected

Hillsong worship leader, Brooke Liegertwood declared it.

Kari Jobe declared it.

The story was picked up by the Washington Post and USA Today.

One day passed and there was no resurrection.

Another day passed and there was no resurrection.

Then the third day came.

Jesus was resurrected on the third day, so certainly Olive will be as well.

The third day passed and there was no resurrection.

Olive’s parents posted on Instagram that “Day 4 is a really good day for a resurrection.”

They posted the same thing on Day 5.

I remember watching this play out from the other side of the country and thinking it was awful. It was heartbreaking and frustrating to watch all at the same time.

Finally, after six days, the family and the church suddenly gave up and it was over.

USA Today published a story saying, “Olive Hasn’t Been Raised: After Praying for a Miracle, Girl’s Family Now Plans Memorial.”

Now why did this even happen?

What made this family jump to the conclusion that their precious little girl would be raised?

RESURRECTION TEAM

Well, because the church has a “Dead Raising Team.”

They go around and do exactly what the name says—raise people from the dead.

They claim that since the team started in 2006, they have raised 15 people from the dead.

Where are these people? Where is the proof? Where is the video?

Everything is filmed these days.

If you have a couple of guys get into a fight over a milkshake at McDonald’s, it goes viral.

If they are raising people from the dead, wouldn’t you think there would be some footage?

And yet, as ridiculous as this is, in a cultic culture where you have something called a “Dead Raising Team,” it is not hard to see why this couple would have thought that their little girl would resurrect.

All of this—the expectation of this resurrection and the dead raising team—are the fruit of a theology that says it is always God’s will to heal you.

If it is always God’s will to heal you, then your death, which is inevitable, is nothing more than a result of your own lack of faith.

If only you believed enough, you would live forever!

And if the people around you believed more after you died, you could be resurrected, even if you die!

This is all ridiculous but 11,000 people go to the main Bethel campus every Sunday.

It is a ridiculousness that is being subscribed to by many and it is being done in the name of Jesus.

GRAVE-SUCKING

Bethel is also famous for its involvement with the practice of grave-sucking or grave-soaking.

This is when you go to the grave of some famous dead Christian and you lay on it and suck up their leftover gifting into your body.

They are dead and all that power is sitting their unactivated.

If you can absorb it through your clothes and your skin, then you can get a contact high off of their anointing.

They got so much bad PR over this that they have shut it down, but there are pictures of online of Bill Johnson’s own wife hugging graves.

ANGEL SLUMBER AND ANGEL FEATHERS

Another common feature of NAR practice is to claim they are interacting with angels.

On one hand, they say that they have a ministry of waking up angels.

They claim that there are angels who are slumbering in different parts of the world and if you wake them up, revival will break out.

For example, listen to the story of one woman who says she woke up an angel in Wales. This is from a book written by Bill Johnson’s wife.

She then stood there that day and yelled at the top of her lungs, “WAKEY! WAKEY!!!” Nothing happened for about five minutes, so she turned around to cross the road and go over to a shop. As she turned around, she felt the ground begin to shake and heard this huge yawn. She looked back at the chapel, and a huge angel stopped out. All she could see were his feet because he was that large. She asked him who he was, and he turned to her and said, “I am the angel from the 1904 revival and you just woke me up.”

Beni Johnson

In Beni Johnson’s public ministry, she often led people to cry out, “Wakey! Wakey!”

But not only do they wake angels up—they also gather feathers from them.

Bethel has claimed that on many occasions, angel feathers have mysteriously fallen from the ceiling and landed on the crowd during worship.

Justin Peters, a pastor who has a popular YouTube channel, put out an offer to Bethel:

He said, “You produce just one angel feather, and I will shut down my entire ministry.”

He said if they can produce a feather and they get someone to look at it and determine it doesn’t belong to any bird of the earth, then he said he would shut down his entire ministry.

To date, they have produced zero feathers.

GLORY CLOUDS

If sleeping angels and angel feathers aren’t enough for you, Bethel has also claimed to have had “glory clouds” appear during their worship services.

You can find videos of these glory clouds online.

It looks like glitter floating in the air.

One eyewitness described it this way:

Up from the floor it rises up out of nowhere, out of thin air. Standing underneath the source, you could feel it going through your body, touching your skin, or getting in your eyes. It owuld also stick onto anything. Those who had sickness and diseases were told to go under the cloud, and some were healed within minutes.

No one is quite sure what is up with the glory clouds.

Some say it is just glitter.

Others say it is a sparkling substance the church leaders put in the air conditioning vents.

There are rumors that some people gathered it up and took it to a gemologist for study and they determined it was not of value.

It had the scientific make-up of a party trick.

But these sorts of sensationalistic claims and tactics are common in NAR worship services and experiences.

ENDING RACISM

I’ll share one final example of their strange practices tonight by mentioning when they tried to end racism.

Back in 2020, in the midst of all the turmoil after the death of George Floyd, they brought a group of apostles and prophets on stage at Bethel Church and they had a wizards staff in hand.

They should, “Thou Shall Not Pass,” at racism as they banged the staff on the ground in an act of apparent divination.

After they were done, they claimed that they had just ended racism by simply declaring it with prayer.

Of course, we know that is stupid and that racism is alive and well and likely will be until Jesus comes back and slays it for good.

But they say there is no need to wait for the second coming.

Bang a stick on the ground like Gandalf yelling at a Balrog and declare racism is over.

Just like that—all the fallen people of the world suddenly stop acting with partiality.

CONCLUSION

We will stop there for tonight.

We know what they believe.

We know about some of their wacky practices.

But how is something so outlandish spreading like wildfire?

Next time we will tackle why NAR is gaining so much ground, we will talk about why it is truly a danger to the church today and we will talk about how we resist it.