Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'" - Matthew 4:8-10 (ESV)
I feel like there needs to be some caveats to state before discussing this issue today. First of all, there are political arguments that many want to make for why they voted for Donald Trump or defend that vote, or vehemently disagree with the Democratic side of politics. This discussion has nothing to do with that. As Americans we all have the carnal, secular right to vote for whomever we choose to. The vast majority of Americans voted for Mr. Trump and that is how our system works. The bible actually directs us to pray for him and all of our leaders. The problem I have is when the church, driven by the manipulation of the Republican Party and their cohorts in the NAR, try to turn the profane into the holy. When they pretend that God's choice was Trump. What have we heard for the past ten years? That Trump was the second coming of King Jehu or King Cyrus. That he gave his life to Jesus in 2016. No wait, I mean 2018. No wait, after his assassination attempt. That he had a Deborah anointing with an Elijah mantle. Even since the election, what is the meme making the rounds on Christian Facebook pages? That Trump is just like King David, who is a type of Christ. How blasphemous. So, you must understand that this is no small matter. Millions of people have deified Mr. Trump. The fake Christian media platform of Charisma News has taught this election season that if you voted Democratic, you were chaff facing the unquenchable fires of hell. That beauty was from Jack Hibbs. Or that you were hell bound and unredeemable, according to the likes of Mario Murillo and Greg Locke. What happened to the faith of people who refused to bow the knee on Election Day? What about all the people who have built their faith on nationalism and the notion that Trump is somehow doing the Lord's work? Make no mistake about it beloved. This is the number one driving heresy in this country today that will lead literally, millions of people to hell. Regardless of how we might feel about Donald Trump and his ability to make our fortunes better in this country, he is the idol in the idolatry of the NAR.
The second caveat is understanding that the NAR cancer inside of the church is still metastasizing. It is growing every single day. What furthers the spread of this disease is that many who attend NAR churches and espouse NAR beliefs of dominionism fail to realize any of it. Many excuse Charisma News and their propaganda away. For goodness sake, Trump's former "spiritual advisor" was Paula White! I have heard many Christians defend Jack Hibbs despite his blatant heresies regarding dominionism and Trump. He just wrote last month that if you chose to not vote, you were going to hell! All of the Charisma News false prophets that were exposed for falsely prophesying Trump's reelection in 2020 are now pretending that this election vindicates them somehow. This is all poison that is causing a slow decay within the American church and it is the calling of our lifetime in discernment ministries to put aside our carnal preferences to speak truth to the power of Satan corrupting the church before it is too late.
The final caveat is about the nature of the NAR. There are forces that would prefer to discuss the NAR in the bubble of C. Peter Wagner, who coined the term in the late 1990's. Now, Wagner did have dominionism within his theories but his focus was more on the false Apostolic authority paradigm. There are plenty of folks who still only wish to discuss the NAR according to this paradigm. The reality however is Wagner has long since left this earth. His theories have been expanded upon greatly. The seven mountains heresy was borne out of the theories of C. Peter Wagner and now, are the primary feature of the NAR. Sure, Charismania and the false signs and lying wonders are also core, as well as the Apostles nonsense, but dominionism is the primary focus today. When Holly Pivec and Doug Geivett had their recent round table with Dr. Michael Brown as part of the American Gospel series of movies, one of their mistakes was overly focusing on the apostolic paradigm. This even had them imploring Brown that they had not ever considered him NAR. Are you kidding me? Dr. Brown is pure NAR and is a gatekeeper for all of the NAR false teachers and prophets. This is the danger of wrongly concentrating on only one facet of the NAR and ignoring the largest offense. It allows the cancer to continue to spread.
So, this brings us to the issue that unfolded this week on Facebook, which is a microcosm of the problems discussed above. There is a Facebook group that is supposed to be about exposing the false teachings of the NAR. It is not a small group as there are over 6000 members. So, there are 6000 people who are trying to discern between truth and the heresies of the NAR. In full disclosure, I was a contributing member when it first formed many years ago. From what I recall, there were too many people in the group who defended the very NAR teachings of dominionism that should have been exposed. I eventually withdrew and started a much smaller group but would still comment on posts if needed throughout the years as many people ended up following my ministry as a result of being involved in this group. So, a couple of days ago there was an admin post in this group stating unequivocally that no discussion about Donald Trump would be allowed in the group. Huh? So, I asked a question on the post as to why, because it made zero sense to not allow discussion about the primary source of idolatry from the NAR, within a group pretending to be concerned about exposing the NAR. Now, I understand the desire to avoid foolish arguments, especially in a group that large. While it may be difficult work, the objective should have been to allow respectful discussion about the spiritual aspects of dominionism as they relate to Trump. Any defense of Trump from a carnal, political perspective should have been considered off-topic. Instead, the admin deleted my comment without so much as a word. So, I made my own post again, respectfully asking why. This generated a 25-comment thread with a healthy dialogue that the admins promptly deleted. They then sent me a threatening message, speaking to me like a child. I made on final post, knowing they would delete it saying goodbye and reminding people that they should be very suspect of a group alleging to be about exposing the NAR refusing to allow any discussion of the primary source of heresy within the NAR. Just consider that Charisma News, the primary fake media outlet for the NAR, is generating about 80-90% of its articles about Doanld Trump, yet none of it would be open for discussion. That is beyond disturbing. The gaggle of NAR/Charisma News false prophets that are now declaring that all of their false prophecies from 2020 are now somehow fulfilled in 2024, would not even that would not be open for discussion. Once again, very disturbing.
The situation however appears bleaker after I did a little research. The group has five admins. One of them I have been trying to lovingly correct for several months as they were continuously posting NAR propaganda designed to exalt Trump and persuade people to vote for him. They had even posted the insane and hurtful lies about our Haitian brothers and sisters eating pets in Ohio. Another admin had a picture of Trump wrapped in a flag, holding a sword and declaring "47 and God bless you" on their page, which they posted. A third admin had a picture of Trump with a wry smile and the declaration was something about they were circling back. The implication here is a microcosm of why the NAR keeps spreading its disease in the church today. Because even the people who are trying to discern cannot separate out their carnal political desires from the cause of Jesus Christ. Do not gloss over this. The majority of admins for a group with 6000 members that purports to want to expose the NAR, support the primary focus of NAR dominionism and then refuses to allow anyone to even discuss that idolatry. This is no minor issue beloved and provides a glimpse into the reach and influence the NAR can exert even over people who intend to discern. As I said in my final post in that group:
"Trump is not King David, that is blasphemous. He is not King Jehu, Cyrus or Elijah. You have every right as an America to vote for him and conclude that he would be best for the country. What you do not have the right to do is pretend God told you he was God's choice or bully other people into thinking they have to vote and then have to vote for who you say. I have said this recently but the real problem is that the NAR never can see or consider that what they are selling as blessing from God is actually judgment. So, Satan took Jesus up to the highest mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world (sound familiar) and said these can be all yours if you just bow down and worship me (sound familiar). Jesus said away from me for it is written to worship only God Himself! I have seen many well intended churched folks quoting the verse that says when the wicked rule the people groan but i think they fail to see what side of that equation they are currently standing on. Let the groaning begin. Take care everyone. We are in the end game now."