Wolves Not Sparing the Flock (Part 1)

What happens when an evangelical church demonstrates cult-like activity?

How can you protect those you love? The Bible doesn't say Satan can transform himself as an angel light. It says he does. So the Bible says his messengers transform themselves as messengers of righteousness. So what I've learned is the enemy can transform a message that appears to be light appears to be good to pull us away from God. I mean why does Solomon at the dawn of his reign cry out to God and say give your servant a discerning heart that I can tell the difference between good and evil. You have to remember it was the good side of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Eve was drawn to not the evil side. Listen, blatant satanic rock concerts, orgies, other things like that. Blatant evil is not what is going to deceive if possible even the elect, Jesus said in the last days.

It is a form of good that is rebellious to God that is going to deceive if possible even the elect. That is why we must have a vibrant relationship with the Word of God, with the Spirit of God, and be really plugged into our local churches. This is Understanding the Times Radio with Jan Markell. Jen talks with a couple today who lost their daughter seven years ago to a ministry that counseled her not to have contact with her parents. Today we discover what happened and how it has affected these parents. Here now is Jan Markell. Welcome to the program. You know we look at news, views, truths from a decidedly biblical perspective.

Got a tough hour here today. Some of you are parents or I hope you're going to really listen up because today I talked to parents who lost a child to Bethel Church, Reading, California. And yes, I am intentionally using the word lost. Caitlin was a very normal young woman, though one who experienced some serious health issues, certainly as a teenager. And in 2011, Dirk and Joan noticed that Caitlin's phone bill was $300 more than usual with hundreds of texts and calls from people in California. Katie told her parents that she had to go to Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Reading, California.

And Bethel, just a little insight, they suggest that the Spirit of the Lord has actually left Jerusalem and had come to Reading, California. And Caitlin was told that she had to move out there or she would miss the true move of God. Now, those communicating with her from Bethel suggested that Caitlin's parents were controlling her, that she needed to get away from them. This is a heart-wrenching story that actually likely isn't finished yet because Caitlin is still estranged. And her parents, who are in studio with me for this hour, feel that the things are going to be made right eventually.

So Joan and Dirk, thank you for coming in, telling us your story. Joan, it kind of starts with Katie's illness. As a teenager, and we don't have to go into details, but as a teenager, she was seriously ill. She was. She had a very simple surgery when she was 12.

And there were some complications by the time she turned 13 on the 4th of July. I started taking her to specialists all over the city. I took her to the best infectious disease specialist in the Twin Cities. And she said, you're going to have to take her home and put her to bed. She's got the highest titers of a disease she'd ever seen. But the only drug that could help her would damage her liver. She said she's too young for that.

You need to just take her home. It did go away. When she was 19. Was it supernaturally taken away? Well, we believe the Lord touched her.

We were by December of that year. Her health was deteriorating. And we ended up at the Mayo. And she was on almost $1,000 worth of prescriptions a month to make her blood circulate, to handle other issues with her health. And we were making frequent trips there.

We actually sent fluid specimens to Europe to a clinic. But she did get better. When she was 19, we feel God healed her. God touched her. OK, but this is going to play into the story.

That's why I'm raising it. I don't know that the details are important, but the fact that she was ill, Bethel Church was going to tap into this fact that she had been ill. About the time that Bethel started contacting Katie, she started acting strangely. How? I don't know how to explain it, except that she started to almost act like she was afraid of us. And we had no idea why. She'd never acted that way before.

But that last summer, before she left, her behavior changed radically. And we couldn't figure out what was going on. Then we got our phone bill in August. And we knew that there was way too much influence from these people. And we drove to Indiana to meet with them.

Katie and her little sister were there helping these people with their ministry. And we had no idea that they, we thought they went to a conservative church in Texas. That's what we thought we knew about them. And we found out then that they were involved with Bethel. We talked to them.

We asked them, you know, what was going on. And that's when they told us we needed to move to Bethel because... But they wanted you to move to Bethel as a family? Yeah, they thought Dirk should sell. We should sell all we have and move to Bethel, to Reading, because the spirit of the Lord was there and nowhere else. Nowhere else.

And Dirk, he owns a family business that's been in existence since 1926. It wasn't something that we were prepared to do. And then they proceeded to tell us that we were really making a big mistake, not listening to them, that we were missing out on God. OK, so then did Katie just get on a plane and head out there? Actually, she was working with them every, for a week, every month with meetings that they were having for young girls, 12 to 15, that they presented as... In Reading or... No, they were all over the country.

OK. They were in Indianapolis and in Sacramento and a couple other places. And they actually, she went to Singapore with them for three weeks, the year before, over Thanksgiving. And when she came home from Singapore, she was starting to act different. And she had a little bit of school left to finish, so she finished it. And that's when they really turned the screws on you.

She graduated. You have to come to Bethel to please God. What are you thinking at this time? Well, we started to research, what is this Bethel place and what's going on there? And really became aware that their whole focus was miracles, miracles, healings, healings.

And it seemed like we're trying to touch business and music and art and anything that you would think would be a vocational discipline, they would say, we have the best. We did confront this couple and said, well, what about this? What about Matthew 12 or Mark 12 where it says, evil generation seeks after a sign? And his response was, well, our pastor wants all they can get. Our pastor wants every miracle possible.

Okay. That pastor is Pastor Bill Johnson. And folks, honestly, we're not attacking the Bethel folks or Pastor Johnson in this hour, but we are trying to sound a warning that same situation could happen to you.

If in fact, part of your family gets enthralled with what's happening in Bethel Church right in California. I've actually had communication with them because I've referenced them in previous programming and they've reached out to me and I reached back to them. And I know I'm going to hear from them here in the coming days as well.

And I will communicate with them. Now, Joan or Dirk, whoever cares to answer this, they were going to tap into the fact that Katie had been ill and they were actually going to sort of threaten her as far as I can understand and say, if you don't come here and kind of do what we tell you to do, you might get sick again, or perhaps you're going to get sick again. Is that what they told her? They prophesied over her. They prophesied and said that would happen. God would make her sick again if she did not go with them to Bethel and that bad things would happen to her family.

And we have a big family and we're very close. And I believe they made her a martyr. You know, she had to go, even though she didn't want to, to protect us all. And they told, you know, she had to prove that she loved Jesus more than she loved us. By the way, you're listening to Understanding the Times Radio and Jan Markell. I have in the studio with me, Dirk and Joan Miller, and they approached them several, a couple of months ago, happened to be visiting a church in the Eden Prairie, Minnesota area. They came up to me and we started talking and I started hearing a little bit about Caitlin's experience or the ordeal they've been through and decided after I got more information that Caitlin's story and Dirk and Joan's story should be heard so that parents who could be going through the same thing or will go through the same thing can have sort of a warning that there are some Pied Pipers out there, that they may sound spiritual, they may sound good.

You may even be listening to some of them on YouTubes or wherever, Christian radio, television, they may not be the most sound. At least that's my conclusion as it concerns Pastor Bill Johnson of Bethel Church, Reading, California. And you folks saw Caitlin after she'd been there for a short time. And you said to me that once she got to Bethel, she almost became a robot, that she became stiff, she didn't have much effect in her countenance at all. And what do you think happened when she got there, Dirk? Do you have any idea? Well, you know, at first she said where she was going to communicate with us weekly, soon she said, you're crossing my boundaries. And then a few weeks later, I got an email at work saying, I can't have any more contact with you.

And this was kind of out of the blue. We know from doing research and actually from going out there, that they strongly insist anybody that has a problem or a perceived problem go through their church counseling, they call it sozo counseling. Sozo counseling, that's correct.

And it's, as we understand it now from researching it, it's a form of recovered memory counseling or regression counseling, some people call it, that's been around for years and years. But they've repackaged it at Bethel and by putting a nice Greek word sozo on it, that means I've been delivered, I've been restored, I've been healed, I've been saved. Let me play a little clip of Bethel in their own words, talking about this sozo counseling. We have a lot of questions about exactly what sozo is. So I want to explain not only what the word is, but also what we do and what we don't do in the context of the process or the sessions that we sit down with. Sozo is a Greek word that is used 110 times in the New Testament. It actually means to be made whole, but the translators translated it saved, translated it healed, and translated it delivered. And so the sozo ministry is a place where we go in, find the wounds and lies, find the roots of issues that stop people from being able to deal with life, being able to deal with issues that are coming into their life, plus we also go in and help you find, develop, and heal the reasons why you don't have a good relationship with each members of the Godhead.

Sozo is not counseling. It is not a prayer ministry. It is a team of people going in, helping you make that connection with the Godhead, and thus have a place to go to deal with all the issues and crises that will happen with you. It is also a deliverance ministry because once you go in and heal the wounds and lies, heal the reasons why the demonic thinks it has legal access, the demonic has to leave. And that's in essence what deliverance is. So that's what sozo is.

That's right off their website. To be made whole. How can you have any contention with the concept of having to be made whole? And yet this is really what probably programmed Caitlin, correct? This is how they got at her mind and got at her innermost being was through sozo counseling.

We believe that's absolutely it. We heard through a young man that had gone to Northwestern, graduated and went out there, that if you want to work with the music ministry, you have to go through sozo counseling. And if you don't have anything to share that's wrong with you or your life, they'll make something up. He felt they were brainwashing him against his parents and fled and came home. But, you know, this was a kid that had graduated from college. And Katie was young emotionally because of how she'd suffered her entire adolescence. And when we spoke with one of the women out there who is a professional counselor, I said to her, I don't think you understand how sick she was.

Every doctor we've spoken with has told us when kids are that sick and in that much pain, they get stuck emotionally. She had some years of growing up to do emotionally, and I suggested that she was a lot younger than she really was. And she said, oh, no, she was a lot younger than that even. That was her perception.

OK. Well, here are some of the terms you used to me when I was kind of quizzing you about all of this. You suggested that she was like a robot is when you saw us. She's already out there. She's like a robot. You said it appeared as though she was hypnotized.

It was actually she was like that the day she left. She called us. We were on an anniversary getaway September 10th, 2011. And we got a phone call at 10 or something at night. And she said, God told me to go to Reading and I bought a plane ticket. And we said, wait a minute. She said, I'm leaving at six o'clock on Monday morning. So that was late on Saturday.

We got in the car and started driving, got home early Sunday. She was literally stiff as a board. It was it was frightening her appearance. Yeah, it apparently looked like the mind control had already started. Oh, yes.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk a little bit about the tactics used out there because they're legion. We've already referenced sozo. I think this sozo counseling, which is related to theophostic counseling, which I'm not convinced is a sound form of counseling. There are churches all around the country that employ this kind of counseling. And in the little clip, you heard them say that the word means to be made whole. Well, that sounds wonderful.

Who doesn't want to be made whole? That the demonic has to leave whoever they're practicing this on, the demonic has to leave. They say it is a deliverance ministry because that's how they the demonic has to leave.

And yet this is kind of what set everything in gear. And I haven't been out to Reading, but I'm just assuming that every student goes through sozo counseling. Do you know if that be the case? We heard that the kids that wanted to work with music have to go through, but I don't know about the rest of them. Katie did end up working with their Bethelmusic.org. When we went to try to meet with the pastors out there to see if somebody wouldn't visit with us about this problem, and we didn't see good fruit in their school, at least in our own daughter. And we were appealing to them, aren't you about family and building up families? They really didn't want to talk about that. In fact, they said, we can't help you. We said, well, we'd like to talk to one of the head pastors then.

Well, they were not very helpful with that. And they said, you should go talk to our counseling department. So I called the counseling department and they said, well, you'll have to come in and you'll be counseled separately. I said, no, we are we're a husband and wife. We're together.

We're one. That's the only way we'd come in and talk with you. They said, no, you have to come in separately. I said, well, OK, we'll move on. We tried to explain what was happening with Caitlin and they just didn't know what to do with us. They said, you'll have to talk to a pastor. Well, it was the pastor who told us to go talk to them. And nobody really seemed to care until we talked to Bill Johnson personally. And I want to ask you what happened when you talked to Bill Johnson personally?

And we'll do that. And folks, the other thing I want to do when I get back from a very short break is I want to talk just for a little bit, at least in the next segment, at some point in the next segment about what's called the New Apostolic Reformation or NAR, because this church is a part of the New Apostolic Reformation. I also want to clarify that this program is not an attack on all Pentecostals or Charismatics, only those that are going to extremes, such as what you're hearing, because you're going to hear a lot more in the minutes that we have left what Bethel in Redding, California is doing.

And I think most of my listeners would consider it, including a lot of my Assemblies of God listeners would consider it to be extremist. I'll be back in a couple of minutes. Don't go away. This from Bill Johnson. Did you know that Jesus was born again? Did you know that Jesus was born again? See, they teach that Jesus died spiritually in hell, ceased to be God and had to be born again. He had to get saved. Dear friends, this is heresy. This is heresy.

If there was ever a time in which Jesus was not God, if he ceased to be God, dear friends, then Jesus never was God to begin with. And this year's conference when you log on to OliveTreeViews.org. As we go into the summer months, we hope you'll still consider making a financial gift to this listener-supported broadcast. Our Coast to Coast ministry requires many people helping us to underwrite our radio costs. Your tax-deductible gifts are welcome when you write to Olive Tree Ministries, Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311.

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The conference will be live-streamed on our website, OliveTreeViews.org, at no cost. This is why James comes along in the New Testament and James makes this statement. He said, do not be deceived. I'm going to say it again. There's only one problem with deception. It's deceiving. The person who's deceived believes with all their heart they're right, when in reality they're wrong. That's scary. You know what James is saying?

You can live a life deception-free. Today, we're airing the testimony of a couple who lost their daughter to a church in California. She was told not to contact her parents. The church convinced her that her parents were abusing her. For more of the story, let's go back to Jan Markell.

Hi, guys. I can barely believe what I walked into in a Christian meeting a couple of weeks ago. And this is not the first time this has happened in a Christian church or organization here in Jerusalem. And I just despair at the deception, the counterfeit spirit, the Kundalini, evil that is coming in to our buildings and, you know, into the hearts of people who are perhaps striving to know God.

But what's even more worrying is that there's no shepherds to look out for them. I'm going to show you the footage that I took when I walked into this meeting. And as you'll see, it's all about birthing. This Kundalini spirit is the most disturbing thing I have ever walked into, especially in a place that's Christian. So I show you this, you know, please turn it off if it disturbs you, because it's very disturbing. But this is evil.

And I show you this to warn you to stay well away from this type of thing. It is not Christianity. It is the New Age Kundalini Antichrist spirit.

They're full TV. There's a great deception coming, folks. It's being drunk in the spirit. These people are under the influence of a cruel form of hypnotism. In which their psyche is broken down to leave them vulnerable to the power of suggestion and the manipulation of demonic spirits. Great deception is coming.

Frankly, I think a great deception is already upon us and it has infiltrated some of our churches. And I'm spending this program and part of the next program talking to parents who lost a daughter to the great deception. I'm talking for this hour and part of next with Dirk and Joan Miller. And they lost their daughter, Caitlin, to the, well, what you just heard going on at Bethel Church, Reading, California. And we've been talking the first segment a little bit about how it all happened. Caitlin had a serious illness for all of her teen years. Dirk and Joan feel that Bethel tapped into that. Even scared her by saying if she didn't come to Bethel that illness could return. And Caitlin had been healed of that particular illness. So they were using some fear tactics and then pretty soon mind control set in. Once the Bethel Church got into the sozo counseling, then more mind control and more hypnotized type behavior began with her. She sort of became a mind numbed robot.

And this is according to her parents who are in studio with me. Dirk and Joan, let me just talk for a few minutes here about some of the tactics used. We've already talked about sozo counseling, which is kind of memory regression, but they use other tactics. They've got these fire tunnels, which is bizarre. You have to watch it online to believe it, the fire tunnels. And I don't think you ever saw anything like that.

Folks, you'd have to see that online. But you did see love bombing. And that is extremely common with these types of organizations that are terribly cultish.

Can you describe what you saw there? They were telling our girls that they were the only ones with the gifts that they had that they'd ever seen. And these are people that are in their 60s and been Christians for years, raised five kids. And, you know, they were truly trying to persuade them that they couldn't live without them at Bethel. Caitlin, they were constantly calling her and telling her how wonderful and perfect she was. And they had to have her gifts at Bethel.

And, you know, they had 1800 students, I don't know why they needed Caitlin so badly. Are you aware of some of the other things that this church is engaged in, including the, I'm sure you are, the grave soaking? This is beyond bizarre. I want to just play a clip that actually talks about that because they actually lay on the graves of deceased saints and feel that the spirit in the grave is going to come into them. Again, this is Andrew Strom, who has done wonderful research on this Kundalini spirit.

And this is what we're dealing with, folks. It's kind of a Christianized version of Hinduism. Now, you know, anybody listening here at Bethel Church is going to deny this and say it's anything but that. But you can't, when you see it, that's all you can conclude is that this is some sort of Christianized Hinduism, and particularly when it concerns this Kundalini.

And if I had television, you would be seeing visually, you'd see these young people, heavily 20-something kids who are writhing, groaning, crying, screaming. You heard some of that in the clip introducing this segment of the program. It would seem to me that there's more demonism going on than anything else, and that's because of this Kundalini spirit. Hi, I'm Andrew Strom, author of the new 2015 edition of Kundalini Warning, A False Spirit's Invading the Church. And the main reason we've put out this new version of the book is because of Bill Johnson and Bethel Church in Reading, California. But what really concerns us is what's going on behind the scenes at Bethel. All of this footage comes from within Bethel itself.

Obviously, as you can see, they're into spreading this drunkenness anointing, just like the others we've looked at. For years, Bill's wife, Benny Johnson, has been the senior co-pastor of Bethel alongside her husband. And this woman is into some truly weird new-agey stuff, reflexology, and much more. Benny Johnson herself put out this picture.

She's lying soaking on C.S. Lewis's grave. These are students from Bethel's School of Ministry, and they've been photographed around the world lying on the graves of dead Christian leaders. There's a teaching in some of these circles that you can soak up the anointing by lying on their graves. Here's Bill Johnson himself at the grave of the wife of Smith Wigglesworth, the famous healing evangelist. Of course, people say that Bill Johnson is such a great teacher, such a great writer, but it's actually what's going on in the background that concerns us. The spreading of new-age practices, the spreading of a new-age type anointing, a foreign spirit. Those are the things that really worry us about Bethel. In 2012, the Bethel crowd put out this book, The Physics of Heaven.

The subtitle says it all. Exploring God's Mysteries of Sound, Light, Energy, Vibrations, and Quantum Physics. Many Christian leaders, when they've read this book, say it is one of the most new-age things they've ever seen. The contents are unbelievable.

Just the chapter headings alone are proof enough. Vibrating in Harmony with God, The God Vibration, Dolphin Therapy, Quantum Mysticism, Human Body Frequencies. What on earth is a major ministry like Bethel doing promoting such a weird and mystical work? Of course, this deeply new-age book is still sold on the Bethel website to this day.

After all, that's who it's come from. You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio, I'm Jan Markell, and we're spending the hour talking about Bethel Church, Reading, California. Some of the tactics that they use because I have parents in studio with me, their daughter Caitlin, well, she was, I want to say she was sort of kidnapped by Bethel, not literally, but once she got out there, certainly her mind and emotions were taken over by this church. And Dirk, the thing that keeps coming back to me is that Bethel kept insisting that Caitlin had been abused. And obviously, and I know you folks as parents, it's the last thing you have in your agenda is to abuse your kids. Did you ever address, and I know you had a moment with Bill Johnson, it was a very brief moment, and you had some other time with another couple of pastors there.

Did you ever tell them that, you know what, it's the last thing on our mind that would ever do to our children would be abuse them? We told Caitlin's mentor, happened to meet with him once. We just said that's absolutely not possible that it happened on our watch.

Yeah, what did they say? Well, Caitlin's very fragile, you know. He actually told us that she thinks she had memories of abuse.

And as Dirk said, we said absolutely not. She was never abused. And in passing saw him and he said she absolutely remembers that she was abused. And that's very typical of this recovered memory therapy that they get these kids in a controlling environment, they start love bombing them, and then they move on to group therapy and one person says they have this problem and then the next one has the same problem. They have a couple books they use that have lists of proof that you were abused.

Did you ever have nightmares as a child? Every person on the planet could say, I must have been abused if they look at these lists. Yeah, so if you had one thing on the list. We don't know what was on her list. But if you had just one out of 70, 80, 100 points, if you had just one, then that that kid had been abused.

Right. And the man when the one time that we met with her, we tried to see her and they said we couldn't and she didn't want to see us. And I begged the next time we went out there and they said they didn't have anywhere to meet. And I'm thinking you have a huge church. You have a house. Your daughters have houses.

Caitlin has an apartment. Why can't you find a place for us to meet? And they finally said, well, we can meet in this obscure little coffee shop. And we found it. And they were sitting there with her on the one end of a very long table. And we went in and sat down. They wouldn't let us get near her.

And the woman had her hand on Caitlin's knee the entire time. And they started questioning us and intimating that we'd been abusive. And this was at that point news to us.

This was the first encounter we got with this accusation. And I was weeping. I said, what did we do? Katie, tell me. I'll ask your forgiveness for anything.

I will go before the church. Tell me what we did. And she said, it's on the list. And the man held up a legal pad, single spaced, covering this page of accusations against us. And he would not tell us what was on the list.

We had no idea what we were being accused of. I spoke with his wife later. I actually called her and said, can't somebody tell us what we did? You must have the list.

She said, oh, Mike just made that list so Caitlin could be sure and remember all the things you did to her. But nobody, we still to this day don't know what the accusations are beyond abuse, which we love our daughter. We love her. And we're not mad at her.

We know that these people have, I don't know what the word would be, brainwashed or seduced or to believe lies. You had a short conversation with Pastor Bill Johnson. And how did that play out? We decided to go back to one of their conferences as paying members just to be legitimately there from their point of view and hoping we could meet with some of the pastors.

And after Bill spoke at one of the sessions, he was in the back of the auditorium. So we thought, well, this is our chance to maybe appeal to Bill. And we went to talk with him and basically to appeal and say, boy, we've had this problem. And all communication has been cut off by our daughter from us and 400 people on Facebook. We don't understand that.

What's going on that she could be so affected by the Bethel School of International Ministry or whatever they call it, Supernatural Ministry. Bill threw up his arms and said, well, don't lay that on me. And I said, well, if not you, who? Aren't you the head pastor? And then his bouncer stepped in and said, I'll handle this.

And then Bill said, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You could maybe meet with my son. He's one of the pastors here.

Go see if you can get an appointment with him. And if you can't, I'll meet with you in two days. And we did not get to meet with his son, but we managed to meet with Caitlin's personal mentor, which would be one of the 64 pastors there or whatever. Then the head of the Dean of the school. Anyway, that's how it went.

What I want to do eventually here is talk to you about the graduation ceremony. And Dirk, you also said to me, because I'm assuming you had to pay the $2,500 a year for Katie to be a part of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, correct? We did not want her to go there once she made this pronouncement that she was going.

And we did a little bit of research. We said, Katie, no, you had some amazing opportunities lined up in career, you know, the career she was interested in. But see, we didn't know that they had told her God would make her sick again if she didn't go there. She managed to come up with the money herself and we couldn't stop her.

She was an adult. OK, so you didn't finance it then? We didn't finance it.

And the man that he may be, I don't know, we don't know what his entire financial input was with her. They totally cut us off from any information. We were treated like we were criminal abusers. And Katie lived with their daughter and her husband. And it was a bizarre living situation, actually. The girls that were living with those people paying rent actually had as their living area an unheated garage. And when we visited in November, it was freezing there.

It was the same temperature in Redding that it was in Minnesota, November 17th. And those girls were sitting in the garage on old furniture in their winter coats, shivering and doing their schoolwork. And I said, why aren't you guys in the house? I don't understand.

There's a heated house right behind us here. And they said, this is our special place. All right. When I get back, I'm going to just explain a little bit further what the New Apostolic Reformation is. And eventually, I want to get to the story of the graduation service, which is beyond bizarre, folks. That's all I can say. We'll do that. I am coming back in just a couple of minutes.

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This is Jan Markell. Many Christian leaders avoid the topics of our day, but here on this program we hit them head on. The times demand we address the hard issues and bring a biblical viewpoint into focus.

Thanks for joining us. False teachers have always been a problem. And it was a problem in the Old Testament. It was a problem in the New Testament.

It's a problem today. And Peter in this epistle describes them rather thoroughly. And so I want you to listen to what he says beginning in chapter two and beginning in verse one. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.

Their judgment from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. And welcome back. We're wrapping up program number one with my in-studio guests.

And I'll say more about them in just a moment. Just a quick reminder that we've only got a few hundred seats left for Understanding the Times 2018. You might want to think about making plans to just live stream it as we're offering that on the website OliveTreeViews.org at no cost.

They live streaming. But you do need a ticket if you want to go to the event itself. And you can call the Brushfire ticketing agency.

You can access them online Brushfire.com or call 888-338-5338. Again, there are just a few hundred seats left in our 40, well, almost 5,000 seat venue. But again, I would think about getting a group together and enjoying the live stream on Saturday, September the 29th. Again, speakers include Amir Sarafati, Pastor J.D.

Farag, Pastor Billy Crone, Pastor Jack Hibbs, Eric Barger. I'll be there. The team from Olive Tree Ministries all be there.

And I hope you'll consider, if not attending, at least just live streaming it or getting the CDs and DVDs about a month later. Let me just say a word quickly about what's known as the New Apostolic Reformation. You've heard my guests and me referencing what's known as the NAR or New Apostolic Reformation. This is a group of men and women appointed by some NAR leaders. The appointed NAR prophets and apostles have authority. And some would say equal authority to the prophets and apostles of the Bible.

The most influential leader in this stream would be the late C. Peter Wagner. Pastor Bill Johnson, whom we have been discussing in this programming, would be a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation. And again, let me say that it is not the purpose of this program to determine if this is a movement of God or not. I am critical of some of the so-called signs and wonders being promoted by the NAR. The leaders are engaging in a lot of what would be called extra biblical activity.

In other words, far more than what the Bible talks about. And too many of them, certainly not all, believe in what's known as dominion theology. That is that the church will make the world perfect and then Jesus Christ can return. And not until the church makes the world perfect.

Well, how is that working out for the world? Bethel has on its home page, if you visit it, on earth as it is in heaven. That is dominionism. And again, I strongly want to clarify that not all who are in the Pentecostal or Charismatic stream go along with NAR theology.

I suspect most do not. C. Peter Wagner invented the term New Apostolic Reformation and then pronounced himself, well, God's appointed leader. And he stated in 1988, he says, quote, I needed a name for a couple of years. I experimented with post-denominationalism. The name I settled on for the movement is the New Apostolic Reformation.

You might also hear it referred to as Latter Rain, Joel's Army, the Seven Mountain Mandate. They believe a great end time harvest is coming, an outpouring. It will occur once we battle enough demons, perform enough miracles and unify under these new apostles. And I certainly believe a great harvest and outpouring is going to happen during the tribulation, probably not before the tribulation. So God is giving new revelation to his prophets and apostles. That's what the NAR would believe. And I'm not convinced that C. Peter Wagner is correct in that today's prophets and apostles are appointed to govern the church. So that's just a little bit of explanation as to what on earth is this NAR or New Apostolic Reformation. My concern further is that Bethel Church Reading is establishing a trend within many churches today, a trend that is not producing healthy or well-balanced churches. I have in studio for the hour, Dirk and Joan Miller, and they have lost a daughter to Bethel Reading. And during the break, we were talking just a little bit about some of the additional tactics that are implemented.

And I want to just hit on a few more because one surprised me. I did not read this as I was doing my research. And Dirk, you told me that one of the things they participate in is contemplative prayer, which is a method of turning the mind off, numbing the mind. And you saw them engaging in, some call it contemplative prayer, others call it contemplative, same thing, contemplative prayer. You saw them engaging in this.

It's very dangerous, by the way. Yes, they have a special prayer building. And that's lots of people are in there. Just maybe some are praying normally, but we saw that they were encouraging. Turn your mind off and let God speak. Obviously, trashing the past is huge. And it's hard for me to comprehend how they even have a conscience to trash the past with parents like you who come along and then insinuating all the abuse that went on and then suggesting that there's a better way. There's a better way than how you folks raised Caitlin. There's a better way.

And if they'll just follow this better way, then you get this whatever they're promising and promoting at Bethel Church. Joan, your thoughts on that? They got her. They persuaded her that we were not worthy of having any communication anymore. And we have no idea what her specific allegations are, only that we were abusive.

And we have four other children that would deny that and an awful lot of friends that would deny it. People we've been very close to for years. It's been beyond heartbreaking. This has been since 2011 when this all began. September 2011.

So there's a lot of years that have gone by here. Caitlin is now, she's not in touch with you. Not at all.

Not any of us. She has, you know, changed email addresses. We have no, to us on this planet, she doesn't exist. Well, a number of your family went out to try to reach her. Some of her siblings went out. An uncle went out. You folks went out more than one time.

We went out four times. And she would say at one point in time, she would say, I can't wait to see you. Right. And then you'd get there and she'd be this mind numbed robot that couldn't spend time with you.

Nope. And her sister, she has an older sister who has several children and they made the decision that year she left, they were going to for Christmas, give their children plane tickets and fly to California. They, their father's brother lives there with his kids. So they wanted to see their cousins, but they also wanted to see Caitlin. They Skyped with Caitlin right after Christmas of 2011. She was still having communication with her sisters minimally, but Amy got a hold of her and they Skyped with her. She was all excited.

The children were all excited to see her. She said, I can get a ride to Sacramento, no problem, because it would have been eight hours one way for them to drive their children from where they were to visit her. So they were going to meet halfway. Four days before they left, Amy got an email saying, I don't have any way to get to you. I don't have time to do this.

And you know, it's not going to work. Amy immediately wrote her back and said, Caitlin, we will go anywhere. We want to see you.

The kids are excited to see you. And that was the end of that. She did not, was not allowed to see Amy.

And the last time we visited there, when we were there for two weeks, we were told that was the last time we saw Caitlin, that last day of the two weeks, they finally arranged the meeting. And that was one of the first things she brought up. You didn't, Amy didn't care about me enough to want to come and see me.

And that was an absolute lie. But they also admitted that day that they were vetting all our communication with her. And we know that she didn't see Amy's email saying we'll go anywhere. And there are other instances of, we know that they kept, they told us they were, they were only allowing her to see communication that would not hurt her heart. And apparently everything any of us sent her, we, I was even told I was manipulating her by sending her a Christmas present or birthday present.

So no more gifts, mom. Dirk, you have set up an email, there are people listening, and we want to somehow be of an encouragement to them. And we can do that.

We're going to tape a segment of another program coming up here. And we can be a little bit more encouraging in that program. But you've set up an email for anybody who might be going through this as a parent for a young person who would like to get out of what they're in. Doesn't have to be Bethel. Maybe it's some other activity that has sort of cultish shades of Bethel red in California. And that email is joel3.16b at outlook.com.

Again, joel3.16b at outlook.com. And I'm hoping some folks will, will write you and get some encouragement, some counsel. Yes. And we're, we're wanting to appeal to the heart of, you know, all the family members who have been imprisoned emotionally by these groups. You know, because we've heard, oh, I feel brokenhearted, or I feel hopeless, or I feel trapped, or I feel afraid, and they don't know what to do. Because if they disappoint the group by going to their family, they'll disappoint the group.

If they go to the group, they disappoint the family, they're in a double bind. And, and yet, how do they get out of that? And one of the things that the Lord's just laid on our hearts is in Isaiah 61, the Lord reads that in Luke 4 18, Jesus in the synagogue is reading about himself. And he says, I was sent here. The second thing it says is to bind up the brokenhearted. And then it says to proclaim liberty to the captives, to open the prison to them that are bound. So if you're in a situation like this, we just encourage you to turn to Jesus and say, could you make those scriptures real to me? And watch what the Lord does. Folks, this has been a difficult hour.

And I want to wrap it up here in a few minutes. My in-studio guests and I, honestly, we have no interest in just casually calling out various leaders, pastors, and teachers. But we certainly have intended to sound a warning that there are wolves among the flock in today's church. What's going on at Bethel Church in Reading, California probably gives new meaning to the verse, in the last days, many false prophets shall come and deceive many.

That many will just want their ears tickled, perhaps with supposed supernatural manifestations. I want to play one more clip of a gal by the name of Heidi Baker. And she frequently ministers at Bethel Church. And as I said, I'm cautious about throwing out terms like false teacher very casually. But to me, watching Heidi online, she qualifies as a false teacher. I want you to listen as she works the Bethel kids into an emotional state in this clip.

At the end, you will hear a young man, perhaps 20 years old, scream as though he sounds as though a demon has been imparted to him. Now, this is serious stuff. This is playing with fire. And Bethel Church is playing with fire. And it's not just me saying this.

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of YouTube warnings online that you can find from very, very credible critics far beyond my warnings here today. And if you saw this clip, I can only share the audio. If you saw this clip, you would see that this was just a normal young man in the Bethel service. And Heidi Baker seems to impart something to him. And then he begins actually literally writhing and groaning. Because this it's like a mountain of provision of anointing.

The more you give away, the more you will receive, says the Lord. So right now I'm sensing I'm sensing really strongly. It's going to sound a little odd, but too late. I want you just to take in the spirit realm that crown that's on your head and just place it upon someone else.

They're going to just get wrecked all over the room. OK, don't do it. Don't do it like it doesn't matter. Do it in the most impartation, most impartation that you've ever believed for right now. You're going to impart to each other. So you're going to take it.

You're going to put it on somebody else's head and watch. And then say more Lord. Well, more Lord, everybody place place that anointing, that crown, that gift upon someone else's head.

Keep praying every single one of you impartation, legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy, increase your glory more. Lord, try it again. Try it again. Try it again.

Try it again more. Lord, there's fire. Place it on their heads. Find somebody. I think he's got it. Shake up a fire.

Place it on another one's head. Fire legacy, legacy, greatest thing you've ever seen in your life prophesy over them 10 times. Well, the new episodic reformation, it is not sound there. I said it. If you are caught up in it, hear the words of warning and take them seriously. We've touched on only 10 percent of the problems in this stream. By the way, we're going to have another segment, a short segment with Dirk and Joan Miller next week to conclude our two part series. Perhaps you'd like to get a couple of CDs to pass on to someone else.

Give my office a call. Let me just close with a couple of Bible verses. Matthew 24 24 for false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. In 2 Timothy 4, a time will come when people will not listen to accurate teachings. Instead, they will follow their own desires and surround themselves with teachers who tell them what they want to hear.

People who refuse to listen to the truth and turn to myths. We'll talk to you next week, folks. We conclude our two part series. Thanks for listening. Thank you for joining us for today's Understanding the Times radio with Jan Markell. Across America and across the World Wide Web, we continue to report current events from a biblical perspective.

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