From a recent prayer warfare group on a college campus comes this post:
"Our calling is to be worshippers, warriors, and workers. We must first offer our lives as a living sacrifice in worship to God. From our worship will flow our intercession and warfare as we fight with weapons of righteousness in our right hand and in our left. Only after we have worshipped our God and fought the fight in the Spirit will we proceed to work in the harvest fields, advancing the Kingdom of God." [http://www.tribeissachar.com/]
What is wrong with this statement above? Below is another excerpt from the Joel's Army booklet written by Jewel Grewe in the early 1990s. This entire booklet is now posted in a pdf format on http://www.discernment-ministries.org website. Check under the "What's New" section.
"Another subtle deception abounding, comes through the use of terminology to lure Christians into thinking that a very high form of godliness will earn them a distinctive place in JOEL'S ARMY as a potentate. There is a great emphasis on praying and becoming holy before the Lord. It sounds so good - so attainable. Yet when Bob Jones and Mike Bickle discuss intercession, a perfectly scriptural term, they are meaning something quite unscriptural.
Bob Jones: "Intercession releases revelation and revelation will release proclamation - so get on your knees and get what God's wisdom is and then blow the trumpet - and it'll work."
Mike Bickle: "Okay, let's get that.........INTERCESSION RELEASES REVELATION...... revelation releases the proclamation under the anointing to bring it to pass". (Visions and Revelations, KCF)
"On the surface of the above quote it sounds as though Bob Jones and Mike Bickle are exhorting Christians to pray for grace, understanding and power to preach the Gospel of Christ with boldness. But, that is not what is being shared. Farthest from that, the meaning behind the terms is that Christians pray to become 'MANIFEST SONS OF GOD in 'JOEL'S ARMY' thus becoming the oracle of God and the executioner of God's wrath on those that fail to comply or conform to the NEW ORDER of the MANIFEST SONS.
"George Warnock said it all already in THE FEAST OF THE TABERNACLES:
"By faith all things are and shall be possible. The very dispensations themselves are but weak barriers and obstacles if men of faith are enabled by the Spirit to reach out and leap beyond them. Enoch did it. So did Elijah. And so shall the Sons of God. The Word of faith shall grip their hearts, and they shall reach out and appropriate the Resurrection and the Life [MANIFEST SONS OF GOD] even now in this life. If they do not, Christ never will return to earth. For God hath said 'Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' (Ps. 110:1) And the last enemy is Death."
"So accordingly, JOEL'S ARMY would arise to overcome the enemies of both man and Christ. This is also brought about by a 'secret inner coming' of Christ' to some Christians which would transform them.
"Christ should visit the saints in the last great Feast and minister His life 'in secret' before He is openly manifested! Christians think it is a horrible thing that Christ's second Coming should be spoken of in this manner . . When a Christian comes to that place where he really appreciates and understands and enjoys Spiritual things, then he can truly rejoice in the fact that Christ is coming back again to be manifested within. "(ibid).
"This is what is being portrayed in the teaching today when you hear Christ must come TO HIS CHURCH before He can come FOR HIS CHURCH. It has a very spiritual ring to it. The ring speaks of holiness and righteousness before God. We all long for HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS and HIS HOLINESS to be manifest in our lives.
"However, using Christian terminology does not make the doctrine correct. Bob Jones, a "prophet" from Kansas City says that . . . .
"the Church is in no condition for the Lord to come today.. . He's going to come for a church that is mature in righteousness... progressively going in this righteousness until you take on THE VERY DIVINE NATURE OF CHRIST HIMSELF and you begin to see Christ in the Church. Christ won't come for The Church until you see Christ in The Church. Until the Church looks like Jesus. PAPA [God] planted Jesus, He sowed Him down here in this earth to have a whole nation of brothers and sisters that looked just like Jesus and he will have it. His Son was ALPHA SON, your children are the OMEGA sons and daughters. . ." [Mike Bickle interjects here, "Jesus was the beginning, but our children and us, we're included in this... we're the end of this thing.] [MANIFEST SONS OF GOD]. "The Church is asleep, but when she gets woke up, there's not any power. . . when she gets woke up and joins together in an ARMY, there's not any power anyplace that can stop her, for she'll know nothing but victory when she joins hands and becomes one in purpose and that's to REVEAL THE KINGDOM ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH." (School for Prophecy, Session 7, Vineyard Ministries, 1989).
THE TRUTH:
"Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not In the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." (II John 9-11)