Dr. Brown keeps trying to protect the brand, not the victims...

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Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. - 1Corinthians 10:12 (ESV)

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This is now the third time I will be addressing the ongoing saga out of IHOP in Kansas City. If somehow you missed the news, IHOP founder and false prophet extraordinaire, Mike Bickle, has been credibly accused by many women of sexual abuse over the last 4 + decades. His leadership team has admitted the accusations have merit and have been vetted. They have also admitted that Bickle engaged in manipulation and attacking the credibility of the victims. It currently appears as if they initially wanted to sanitize the investigation instead of turning it over to an outside source for the sake of credibility. They appear to have now thought better of that. I had written previously about the statement they put out and how this goes far beyond the 10 + women, one of which may have been underage at the time. This goes to the heart of a cult that needs to end now. The IHOP community needs to go find reputable churches and hear the true gospel for the first time in many of their lives. Filling Bickle's void will only result in building on the ashes of the legacy of corruption, lies, heresy and sin. That said, today we are looking at the response linked above by Dr. Michael Brown. I am sure that Dr. Brown is sincere in his statements and emotions. However, his answers reveal not only the problems within the good old boys' network of the apostate church that still sees people like Mark Driscoll and Ted Haggard preaching today, but it also reveals his propensity for protecting the wolves at all cost. Do not lose sight of the fact that Mike Bickle is a wolf and was long before this story broke. Let us reason once more beloved.

Throughout this hour-long show, Dr. Brown is constantly referring to the "if" the charges are true mantra. This ignores that Bickle's leadership has already vetted the charges and agrees they are credible. All we are missing are the details, which leadership appears to want to hide. Along with this, Brown is constantly saying this is not the time for throwing stones. This only serves the purpose to stop people from correctly criticizing IHOP and Bickle. It reminds me of whenever there is a mass shooting, like the recent one in Maine. All the Republican politicians come out and say this is not the time to talk about sensible gun control. Nonsense. That is the exact time to, and this is the exact time to discuss what Mike Bickle actually did. The IHOP community needs to hear it so they can properly move on from the IHOP cesspool. It absolutely helped with Ravi Zacharias to have the truth fairly reported by an outside entity. Dr. Brown prefaces this by saying he wants to respond as honestly and candidly as he can, and I am sure he believes he is but one revealing thing he says later on is regarding his own acceptance of correction.

"Leaders, if you see something wrong, bring it to attention. It is a godsend to me if there was something wrong in my life and someone brought it to my attention, wrong attitude or whatever it was. Wrong word or wrong action. It's a godsend, fellow leaders to not just look the other way." - Dr. Michael Brown

It is sad really because this is obviously not true. What Dr. Brown means is that if someone he already agrees with points out something wrong, he thinks it is godsend. The reality is that many people, including myself, have made appeals to Brown only to be marginalized, called a heresy hunter, and dismissed out of hand. I know Chris Rosebrough has also tried and many others. When he went on Benny Hinn's show for a week I went on Brown's radio show to try and explain why he was damaging his witness for Christ. I know Pastor Rosebrough tried as well during the sneaky squid debacle from Jennifer LeClaire that Brown supported. When I was on his radio show a different time, I tried to get him to see the walking pile of heresy that Bill Johnson is, and I was rebuffed harshly. And why? Because he knows Bill! He has taught at his heretical school of the supernatural. In another moment of deflection in this show he said the following:

"I appeal to my fellow leaders. It's so easy to mess up, open a door, and take the wrong steps.

Those that didn't like Mike, his ministry, or don't like Charismatics and kinda gloat, that's a bad move. You should grieve also. 1Corinthians 10:12 - lest you fall. This is time for introspection. This is a time to search our own lives." - Dr. Michael Brown

Dr. Brown is the master of strawman arguments and here are some examples for us. The issue is not "liking Mike." I do not know Mike Bickle. I only evaluate his teaching and ministry. I despise his ministry because it deceives people and leads people away from Christ, straight to hell. I have no doubt that some of the people in Matthew 7 who say Lord Lord will be there because of what Mike Bickle taught them. I do not however dislike Charismatics as I believe the gifts are for today. I dislike how Charismaniacs abuse the gifts. None of these strawmen are relevant because they do not make me gloat. This is a time to grieve but I do not grieve for Mike Bickle. I do not grieve for IHOP as an institution. I grieve for the victims. I grieve for the 10 + women whose lives were wrecked by a man pretending to be a prophet from God while he sexually abused them. I am grieving for the other victims - the IHOP community, that remains enthralled with the false teaching of Mike Bickle if not the man himself. I do not grieve for wolves. Also, the misusing of the key verse for today needs to be pointed out. The verse is about the proud who think they have arrived. I am in no way that, but I can speak intelligently, using the bible, to rebuke what is false as we are instructed to do. Mike Bickle being a raving heretic and now predator does not elevate me one iota. The story is not about me. I am just a guy with a bible telling you what it says. I agree with Dr. Brown that this is a time for self-evaluation, but I would go further to say that every day is such a time. Brown continues:

"Swaggart - I loved Swaggart, his preaching, and its emphasis on holiness. When he fell, I couldn't believe it. If you lead a house of prayer and the charges prove to be true, that doesn't take away your calling to lead a house of prayer. Think of Ravi Zacharias. Years and years of building a ministry, walking a certain way and you throw it away for a moment of emotional or physical pleasure. Matthew 7:2 says as we judge others is how we will be judged so let us by all means hold to accountability and righteousness on every level but let us be people of mercy. Galatians 6:1 says if someone is caught in a fault, you who are spiritual restore." - Dr. Michael Brown

Here we see some of the core problems with Dr. Brown. The problem is that you couldn't believe it. You claim to say there are not rock stars but that is exactly what Swaggart was, which is why you couldn't believe it. That is why 30 years later you still sound dumfounded and actually admit that you loved the holiness preaching of a man who when he was done preaching to you about holiness, would go hire a hooker. There is a fancy ministry term we have for that, and it is called being a hypocrite. Jesus actually spoke very much against that. The overarching point here is that after you discover he was busted with a prostitute in 1988 and again in 1991, maybe you shouldn't love his holiness preaching anymore because it was a lie. Likewise, Mike Bickle was a liar. It doesn't matter if you liked his exegesis or not - he was LYING. After preaching to you about something you liked, he was having sex with one of his sheep or trying to silence one he already had sex with. The entire thing he built was corrupt and false. So, I am sorry if you followed this wolf and now lead a prayer house, but your prayer house is just as false as Mike Bickle's, and you should run away from it as fast as possible. Find a good bible-based church and pray for repentance. Ravi Zacharias spent years and years building a ministerial façade. He spent decades lying about who he was. Now, I do not expect perfection from ministers because we are all human. I do however expect that my favorite minister is not importing sex workers from other countries, bringing personal masseuses on ministry trips, forcing them into sex and then lying about it. You know, at a bare minimum. Lastly here, have some mercy for the victims Doc instead of for your ministry buddies accused of sexually abusing them. That is the mercy we will be judged on. The next interesting quote is regarding an obvious question that he admitted he could not answer. To deflect however, he makes one of the most absurd anti-discernment ministry arguments I have ever heard.

"What happened to all the prophets - perfectly fair question but I do not have a simple answer.

What about this. There are many "quote" discernment ministries. They may use that name for themselves. Others may use that about them. Many times I have issues with them because I feel they are hyper-critical. But the discernment ministries regarding Ravi Z, why didn't you discern that something was wrong? Understanding that the charges against him have been validated. All of you in discernment ministry, why didn't you recognize that? What about the southern Baptists? Do you know how many major scandals they have been in, in recent years? Including allegations of major leaders, covering up sexual sin. How come others didn't know. I don't know." - Dr. Michael Brown

Are you serious? I am stunned that such a learned scholar would ask such a fundamentally stupid question. Discernment ministries do not pretend to be prophetic. Discernment is the ability to tell what is of God and what is not. It is not clairvoyance. Southern Baptists? I personally wrote about their latest scandal last month. It seems however that Dr. Brown is inferring that discernment ministries should have been able to magically tell the problem existed before it came to light. That isn't discernment, it is psychic parlor tricks. I have never been to Kansas City. I have never met Mike Bickle. Others however, such as Dr. Brown has. Francis Chan has and declared how much he loved Mike Bickle. The question is not how come some discernment ministry in New York didn't know but rather why those ministers declaring their love for Bickle did not know. I need to add here that I did tell you about Mike Bickle. Discernment ministries have told you for decades, but you refused to listen. We told you IHOP was a cult. We told you IHOP covered up the Bethany Deaton murder. We told you that they employed a former sexual abuser of minors and when asked about it IHOP leadership dismissed the victim by saying the perpetrator had undergone 18 months of repentance and restoration. We told you the bridal paradigm was horrific heresy. We told you the worship music was soft core pornography. We told you the 24/7 mandatory prayer was unbiblical and performative. We told you every time someone escaped and retold horror stories of abuse and spiritual manipulation. We told you about Bickle's false prophecies and those of the false KC Prophets. We told you over and over and over again, but you called us heresy hunters. You said we were divisive. You said you knew the man's heart. You said you knew him personally. How dare you try and say now that it was discernment ministries who should have warned everyone about the wolf you kept excusing from the correct warnings of discernment ministries! The unmitigated gall is staggering.

As for the simple answer you cannot seem to find, let me provide it for you. The reason why all of those prophets couldn't see anything is that they are not actually prophets. They are like the prophets who advised King Ahab who didn't want to listen to Micaiah, the only real prophet hearing from God. The problem Doc, is you believe in and follow nutcases who do not really hear anything from a God they do not actually serve. You keep acting as if the only problem here is the sexual abuse of the ten or so women. You still refuse to see what is underlying it. You refuse to see how Bickle's corruption was not just a statement on Bickle but on the entire thing. The IHOP 24/7 prayer nonsense, the false prophet brigade, Bob Jones, the Kansas City prophets - all of it! You still want to hold onto the rotten core now that you discovered that the seeds were false and corrupt. I saw a tweet from Dr. Brown today exhorting sheep in Kansas City that now is not the time to walk away! That instead they should be running into the very same horse manure prayer houses that birthed Mike Bickle and lied to them for over 40 years! The ignorance is overwhelming! No! Go find a real church that preaches the actual gospel of Jesus Christ while there is still time! Do not listen to people who think that you should stay in the same muck that you just discovered you have been mired in for years.

"Sometimes we have this loosie-goosy spirituality. Now I have never known this to be true regarding Mike Bickle and if these charges prove to be true, a shocker, a grievous shocker for someone I esteemed in the Lord. A grievous, painful shock. Does this bring a larger indictment against the things of the spirit, of course not! Goes back to Ravi - does his actions change the truth that he spoke? Bill Hybels, famous from Willow Creek Church and the seeker sensitive model, as he was getting ready to retire, there were accusations of sexual misconduct, some were retracted, some denied, others confirmed, or confirmed by outside organizations looking at things - what does that say about seeker-sensitive? It really doesn't. You have to evaluate it by itself. Not to throw stones at Bill Hybels." - Dr. Michael Brown

Never known Bickle to have a loosie-goosy spirituality? How about now? Isn't the problem that you did esteem him in the Lord for so wrong and now that esteem seems misguided at best? How many people did you personally lead to Mike Bickle? Isn't that the real question Doc? Why are you not apologizing to the body for misleading them right into the arms of a predatory wolf? Where is Francis Chan's apology? Does this bring a larger indictment against the things of the spirit? Obviously not but it does indict the false things of the spirit that Mike Bickle trafficked in, and Dr. Brown fully supports. IHOP was notorious for transcendental meditation, eastern mysticism, and other abhorrent practices. The soaking prayer garbage, the bridal paradigm, you name it. It is all indicted now and should be. Who cares a whit if Ravi Zacharias said something true once? The point is that while he was saying it, he was paying prostitutes and spiritually manipulating female masseuses in dire need of money. That overrides whether he once exegeted Galatians well. Who cares? I can find a good source of Galatians exegesis from someone who does not have an international network of sex workers from Thailand to South Korea, as Zacharias had. The body of Christ does not need Mike Bickle just like they did not need Ravi Zacharias. As for Hybels, for the love of all that is pure, stop minimizing the sins of your friends! Bill Hybels retired in disgrace, and he is lucky to have avoided criminal prosecution. He will still answer to the real judge one day, rest assured. To try and downplay the massive hurt he caused by again, sexually abusing many women over many years is just despicable. By the way, that is not "throwing stones." It is reading news reports. For the record, the seeker sensitive model was and remains wildly unbiblical. Hybels canvassed the neighborhood where he had planned to launch Willow Creek and discovered the unsaved masses were uncomfortable with crosses, so he removed all of them from his church. If you think that is good, I suggest you actually read the bible. Church is for the sheep, not the goats. We want the unsaved to come so they can hear the Gospel, which according to Romans is the only way they can be saved but salvation remains a supernatural event that belongs to God alone through the Holy Spirit. So, dumbing it down to make the unsaved feel more comfortable about their sin? Yeah, that will never work and is always at the expense of the saved, who the seeker friendly movement purposefully starves to death spiritually. Unfortunately, Brown was hardly done yet:

You say yeah, but there are so many scandals associated with IHOP - actually when you think of how many thousands of people around the world are involved with this, when you think of how many leaders have served there over the years, many of whom I know, actually the scandals have been quite rare but one is more than enough. You say what about the accusations that there was cult like behaviors, I am not close enough to know but let everything be examined. You say, what if some of the stuff by the spirit was counterfeit. Take the fall of Jerry Falwell Jr. That puts Liberty in a bad light, no it doesn't. Liberty is a great school. My oldest granddaughter graduated there last May.

Wow, so IHOP is not that bad because Bickle only sexually abused a handful of women? Keep in mind Dr. Brown that this is only what we know. Maybe some of the other people there that you are still esteeming in the Lord are no better. Why would they be having been taught by Mike Bickle? You again dismiss the many, many stories of cult like behavior from people directly involved in IHOP! It has been examined! Stop it already! All of the spiritual junk was counterfeit! I included this mention of Liberty for a reason. I once questioned Dr. Brown on his radio show about Bethel and Bill Johnson and mentioned their heretical school of the fake supernatural because they clearly think they can teach people how to perform the gifts of the spirit. This is not a matter up for debate as they admit it and recruit off of it. Dr. Brown bristled harshly and told me he knew I was wrong because - he taught there. As if his personal experience trumps what the bible says. We see the same thing here. Liberty University is good in his eyes because his granddaughter graduated from there. Who cares? How does that change that it was founded and operated by Falwell Sr., who was incredibly false, and his son was worse. It is so spiritually disingenuous to respond to credible biblical critique with, "but I know him!" I only have one more blurb from the Brown broadcast:

I believe this is part of a larger purging in the body. I began to sense in 2019 a rising hunger and thirst for revival in the body. I was grieved because America is so deeply messed up, morally ands spiritually in so many ways, so deeply divided, that you'd think there would be more hunger, more desperation, there'd be more repentance, more crying out, there'd be more humbling of ourselves - God help us. God revive. God have mercy. You think that there would be but where is it? Refiners fire. It's God not wanting to move if there is sin that is covered up.

Let me say it again. This does not deny the reality of the Holy Spirit. Thus does not deny the truth of the bible. Listen to Mike Bickle go through Romans. Listen to his careful teaching verse after verse exegeting scripture. If he taught accurately, he taught accurately. This does not deny the love of Jesus message that he preached. The truth of scripture.

Once again, I am just saddened that someone so intelligent can be so blinded. Brown here interjects the very dominionism he always denies. This "America is messed up" theology is straight up NAR. Now, Brown is right that we are deeply divided in this country and those divisions are within the church as well. I also agree that you would hope there would be more seeking God in such dire times but what Brown cannot see is he is the divider. The NAR dominionism is nothing more than a tool of the Republican Party who is constantly trying to divide America into two camps and the other camp are always labeled as the bad guys. Greg Locke and Mario Murillo have built ministerial careers on vilifying anyone who would dare to vote Democratic, saying they are irredeemable. They drive the church into the arms of the most morally reprehensible man ever to seek public office and do so gladly in churches across this country. It is idolatry pure and simple.

Mike Bickle once exegeted Romans correctly? Well bully for him. Was this before or after sexually abusing victim number ten? Was he bullying victims at the time? Accusing them of falsely accusing him? Was he actively engaged in covering up Bethany Deaton's murder at the time? Once again, I do not need Mike Bickle to exegete Romans if he is going to sexually and spiritually abuse his sheep! Of course, scripture remains true, but the teachings of Mike Bickle are all false today. Even if he once handled Romans well, he did so while lying and abusing people. He did so while building a million-dollar empire by forcing young kids into prayer rooms at three in the morning. The truth of scripture? Yeah, that reveals Mike Bickle is disqualified from ministry, but scripture said that a long time ago. Only Dr. Brown wasn't listening. He was too busy esteeming Mike Bickle in the Lord. Don't get me wrong, he sounds very sincere in this video, and I do not doubt that he is torn apart by finding out someone he thought was good, was in fact EVIL. The problem is instead of dealing with this to protect the sheep, he seems intent on splitting the bill. Sure, investigate and IF Mike is guilty, blah blah blah BUT, don't leave the theological cesspool that Mike Bickle created! As if the years of abuse had no effect on anything else. As if Mike Bickle created a church model pleasing to God while he was spiritually and sexually abusing everyone. He did not. IHOP need to be shut down. The people who were duped, need to be directed to real churches so they can hear the real gospel. When people think of Ravi Zacharias today, they think of a liar and charlatan. They think of an international network of sex workers at his disposal. They think of him spiritually threatening his victims into silence. They do not fondly remember how he was esteemed in the Lord and once gave a good teaching on 2Chronicles. Hopefully one day we can say the same about Mike Bickle and the spiritual septic tank formally known as IHOP.

Reverend Anthony Wade - November 2, 2023

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.