And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.-- Ephesians 4:11-16 (ESV)
These are the last days beloved. I firmly believe within a few generations, Jesus Christ will come back for His bride. Those truly saved will be few, as the scripture tells us. There will however be a huge apostate church, which we see being formed and growing before our eyes each and every day. This started over the past few decades fueled on by the perfect storm of the Purpose Driven Church, the seeker friendly schemes of church growth and the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). The Purpose Driven Church was written in the mid-1990s by Rick Warren and is the blueprint for destroying the church as God intended it to be. It took the pastoral responsibility of the vertical growth of the sheep and exchanged it for the Godly responsibility of the horizontal growth of the church. It took the focus off of feeding the sheep and onto entertaining the goats. It created cult of personality pastors who needed to be vision casting CEOs instead of shepherds. It allowed for blessed subtraction, to remove anyone who objected.
The seeker friendly theories of church growth demanded that the church market itself to the lost; although now we call them unchurched. Think about the devastation just in that change. When you no longer focus on their salvation status and instead focus on the church status, you fundamentally change the desired outcome. Millions will be fully churched, for several decades and stand before Christ saying, "Lord Lord" only to find it is too late for He never knew them. If salvation is no longer a constant and we are trying to draw people who think the things of God are utter foolishness then the first thing that must be compromised is the Gospel. Why? Because the true Gospel divides. Jesus did not come to bring peace but rather -- a sword. Dividing father and children. Mother and Father. The call for repentance of sin to be saved was replaced with a sloppy agape love that deems anything biblical to be legalistic.
The New Apostolic Reformation was the final piece to the puzzle. Founded by heretic C. Peter Wagner in the late 1990's, the NAR claimed God was putting the band back together so to speak. That apostles were being reinstituted and lo and behold, it was Wagner and his friends! The NAR started as just a reorganization to plant a false authority paradigm within the church. Loosely based on mangled scripture, the NAR insisted that the apostles and prophets would lead the church, not the pastor. They set up fake apostolic networks to prop each other up. We started seeing a meteoric rise in false prophets who created false Prophetic Networks for the same purpose. International coalitions were formed to continue to give the appearance of officialness. As the NAR grew it also brought in a focus on false signs and lying wonders as a means to draw people away from the verity of scripture and onto their personal experience as the benchmark for godly truth.
As these three facets learned to support one another and metastasize together, they formed what I often refer to as the Purpose Driven or Seeker Friendly Industrial Complex. They have their own schools to teach their heresies as biblical truths. They have their own international music industry. They have their own itinerant circles for false prophets, apostles and preacher to roam the world spreading their false teachings while making a killing. They target youth so it can be a generational movement. The complex first and foremost job is to protect the brand at all costs. Secondly, it is to spread their power and revenue generation. For example, in 2008 a new fake evangelist showed up in Lakeland Florida named Todd Bentley. His schtick was absurd. He would punch and kick people in the face to impart healing, claiming the Holy Spirit told him to do so. Even the unsaved saw through this ridiculous façade. Not the complex though because Todd Bentley made money. He put butts in the seats and was packing 15,000 a night into tent meetings to watch this demonic activity. So the NAR climbed in their clown car and drove to Lakeland to anoint Todd a prophet. Seriously. They poured oil over his head and everything. I am not talking lightweights either. Major figures of the Complex went, like Bill Johnson and Che Ahn. C. Peter Wagner even went. Bentley would fall from grace within a month for sleeping with his nanny. The Complex needed to protect the brand and not lose his revenue generation so they assigned Bill Johnson and Rick Joyner to oversee a sham restoration that allowed Bentley to divorce his handicapped wife to marry the nanny he was having an affair with. This is just a microcosm of how the Complex works. I say this as a backdrop for exploring the next major plan the NAR appears to have in the works. They are coming for your pastor. Above is a link to a page regarding an upcoming book by NAR adherent John Burton. The title of the page is what caught my eye. "The coming shift in the church away from senior pastoral leadership: The Coming Church." This may run long, so go grab a snack and settle in.
"The church army became a nursery. We want to play all day and cry for our needs to be met. Grow up! ~Isaiah Saldivar
I'm currently writing my next book titled The Coming Church, and I am continually stricken by fear and trembling as I communicate what is about to hit. The coming fire will be consuming everything that is outside of God's design. The coming church will look so different than the church of today that we will find ourselves speechless. Everything man-made is going. Everything that God deems good but outdated is going. The coming church will be a defined by fire and it will repel the lukewarm and religious--as it draws in the hungry and desperate." -- John Burton
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