Latter Rain Heresies

The Return of the Glory

Summarising two separate messages, "The Divine Unveiling of the Church" by Rob Wheeler of Aukland, New Zealand, and "Old Testament Promises" by Bill Britton, we can see clearly that the expectation is for the Shekinah Glory of God to return to its spiritual "ark" in the Living Temple of the Church in the last days.

"In Ezekiel 44 we read of the Sons of Zadok who ministered in the Most Holy Place. So shall it be for those who inherit the promises; they shall see God face to face and be the habitation of the living God."

In II Cor 6:16 we read, "For we are the temple of the living God; just as God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them and I shall be their God and they shall be my people.

" Thus, we have the promise that God will dwell in us, and the Holy Spirit is given us as the pledge, or firstfruits of that fulness. It is Christ in you that is the hope of glory (Col. 1:25-27). We are approaching the climax--the time at which God will dwell in us that we might be the vehicle of His manifest presence.

The latter-rain sequence has the return of the Shekinah to the Temple (Church) producing the Corporate Christ which then harvests the world by a signs and wonder revival, while simultaneously bringing judgement on the Harlot (disobedient Christians).

The Glory, in their understanding, is the visible manifestation of the Spirit. Now, in light of the satanic nature of this deception, it is not surprising that deceived Christians are being led to expect a manifested SPIRIT and not the visible return of the Lord Jesus.

I believe the way we are headed is into teaching about the return of the "lord" to his church, in glory, BEFORE (or perhaps even instead of?) the physical return of Jesus.

Bible translations that encourage the wrong interpretation

Unfortunately, modern translations of the Bible help in this deception. The Authorised Version has the blessed hope as the appearing of our great God in glory. Many other translations have the return OF THE GLORY!!

KING JAMES: Titus 2:13 13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; (KJV)

NEW ENGLISH BIBLE: Looking forward to the happy fulfilment of our hopes when the splendour of our great God and saviour Christ Jesus will appear...

REVISED STANDARD VERSION: Awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ....

JERUSALEM BIBLE: while we are waiting in hope for the blessing which will come with the appearing of the glory of our great God and saviour Jesus Christ....

GOOD NEWS BIBLE: as we wait for the blessed day we hope for, whenthe glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ will appear....
Is it any wonder that new Christians are confused on this issue, when the very scriptures they read seem to confirm that we are awaiting the "return of the glory" instead of the return of the Lord Jesus in a physical Body.

False Prophecy of the Return of the Glory

"The Glory of God, my Glory, says the Lord, after a sacrifice had been prepared and offered up, shook the very foundations of Hell as I defeated Death, Hell, and the Grave, I shall bring my Glory once again back into my dwelling place, the heart of a sinless man. Such as this you have become...Haven't I said If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, a new type of man who has never before existed? And this existence, says the Lord, is as my dwelling place and my home. For the Glory of God, my Glory, says the Lord, the Heavy Presence that shook the very foundations of the earth as I proclaimed Goodness and Mercy, has come once again to dwell in a tabernacle of flesh...

"You are temples, you are vessels, you are receptacles, you are containers of the very Fires of Heaven, measured into you as you will receive it. Some taking much, moving from Glory to Glory, changed by the nearness of my Glory, ever growing, ever changing, ever allowing Me more of you.

"Do not be afraid of my Glory, of my Heavy Presence says God, the God of Glory, for a time when I could not allow you to come near Me has passed. No longer must I hide you in the parting of the Rock as Moses was hidden, but today I bring you face to face with my Glory... For the Glory of God, my Glory says the Lord, is soon to come in His fullness, and where once men were shielded as I proclaimed Mercy and Grace, finally I will proclaim righteous judgement.

"Wait..... do you say `rejoice'? NO NO NO...weep and cry out, for then the souls of all who would not hear Me will be devastated, their lives destroyed, for every mans life, every mans work shall be judged by Fire, and only what has been straked and splattered by the Blood of Redemption will stand as a testimony to my Righteousness, and what is wicked, what is sinful, yes, even all that is not of Faith will burn in the very presence of my Glory in you, in you, in you, in you, in you, in you, IN YOU! [Carl Killingsworth on the Vineyard's New Wine BBS.January 1995:]

When Richard Riss wrote to explain his views on the Rapture (an earthly spiritual transformation) Bill Benninghoff replied to comment: (6)

"So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. I believe that this refers to the church, the Israel of God (Galatians 6) which will be purified by the Lord and indwellt by the Glory and Presence of Jesus....The Lord will dwell in His church in a marked and noticeable way as a result of the great outpouring of the Spirit, and the nations will know that Jesus Christ is God Almighty!

The feast of Passover is experienced by the believer at the moment he or she is born again. The individual is brought out of Egypt (the world) and into the Kingdom of God and into covenant relationship with God through Christ. The feast of unleavened bread and the feast of firstfruits are also fulfilled at this time as the new Christian is cleansed of all his/her sins. The feast of Pentecost is experienced by the believer when they are baptized into the power of the Holy Spirit.

The feast of Tabernacles (which actually has three parts: trumpets, day of atonement and tabernacles) is something that to my knowledge has not yet been experienced by individual believers or by the church corporately. Some leaders in the Body of Christ have taught that trumpets will be experienced by the church as the rapture, the day of atonement is the pouring out of God's wrath on the earth while the church is in heaven and that tabernacles represents the return of the church with the Lord to earth to begin the Millenium. I don't believe that the Scriptures teach this at all I believe that the feast of trumpets represents the prophetic flow of God among His people. This is something that the church really began to walk in as a result of the 1948 latter rain revival

The Day of Atonement was a time in which the sins of the covenant nation were cleansed and in which in the year of Jubilee (every 50th year) debts were cancelled, slaves were set free and land was returned to its original owners. It seems that this present move of God is one in which men and women who are already members of the covenant nation of God are being delivered from their sins, healed of their woundings and strengthened by the Spirit of the Lord. It seems to be a time of corporate cleansing and restoration in the Body of Christ.

(So today is the time of the Day of Atonement) I believe that all seven feasts must be experienced by the church on earth before the work is completed and the Lord returns for His bride. He will not return for her until she has completed her mission to become the expression of the Glory of God in the earth and until disciples have been made of all the nations.

YOU are the Antichrist!

I promised to reveal a dangerous aspect to the teaching of Ken Copeland, that the "christ" is the "anointing" upon all believers. This leads him to the belief that all who rebel against the anointing, or the anointed ones, are THE ANTI-CHRIST! Scripture identifies the antichrist as those who deny that Christ "is come in the flesh". If an anointing, or a glory cloud, is believed to be the coming of Christ into a Body of Flesh (his church) then anyone who denies the reality of such a thing could be labelled, scripturally, an antichrist.

Because we deny that Christ has come invisibly into this Body of people - thus we are the antichrist and we must be destroyed. Far-fetched? Unlikely ever to be applied to us? Well, this reasoning has already been applied:Earl Paulk writes in "The Wounded Body of Christ"

"Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard was coming and is now already in the world. (1 John 4:3) When John dealt with identifying the antichrist, he said the spirit of antichrist was already at work. This spirit was identifiable by the fact that it...does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is the area in which we must test the spirits. The greatest test of the antichrist is its attitude towards the church - Jesus Christ himself is not a threat to any community unless there is a living thriving church in that community. Therefore, the spirit of antichrist refuses to recognise that GOD IS HERE IN THE FLESH. Attacking such figures as Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker and Kenneth Copeland are attacking the Church of Jesus Christ - such mockery and criticism are the means by which the spirit of antichrist operates."

Ken Copeland makes the same application. He goes to great lengths to try to prove that the word christ means anointing, so every time you come to the word christ in the Bible you should retranslate it, the anointing. Jesus was a man who was christed, he had the anointing. Now that same anointing is coming upon the Church, and if you oppose it you are anti-anointing, and that makes you an anti-christ!

"Once you start re-translating the word christ, as anointing you'll realize how the message of the anointing permeates the entire new testament. Even in those early days, the devil sent people in to steal that message,-------- people with the spirit of anti-christ (anti-anointing). For if you reTranslate the word anti-christ you'll realize it's referring to someone who is opposed to the anointing."(7)

Now we have to consider what this all means for us, and what it means in terms of the events of the endtimes.

Similarities to the Reign of Antichrist

If this were just another heresy it would be doomed to wither and die, like all the others. BUT, this is more than just a heresy by a few isolated groups. It is so widespread that almost every large group and ministry today has been infected by at least a part of the latter rain teachings,We cannot deny that we DO have an outpouring at the moment - this is not just fantasy but fact. So whatever the human thoughts and beliefs behind this, there is a spiritual power that fuels it - a power so great that it is able to influence the entire Church and bring about signs and wonders.

I want you to consider the latter rain teachings in the light of the book of revelation. You will notice some similarities.

1. THE WHITE HORSE: (Rev 6:2)

THEY CLAIM:
That the White Horse is the victorious church going out to conquer the world, at the beginning of the renewal, the beginning of the latter rain revival. (Bob Jones claims he saw a vision of a white horse in 1982, ready to ride - he believed this was the start of the revival.)

WE KNOW:
The white horse is clearly no Jesus Christ, but the spirit of antichrist! It closely resembles the Lord Jesus, but the Lord Jesus doesn't come at the start of the seven years, but at the end! The white horse is one of the four judgements sent out by God - it is the great apostasy that must come before the end.

THUS THEY HAIL THE ANTICHRIST APOSTASY AS THE VICTORIOUS CHURCH.

2. THE RETURN OF THE GLORY TO THE TEMPLE

THEY CLAIM:
that the Spirit of Christ will incarnate into a Body - his church (and maybe one representative of that church, its new head - see Appendix and this is seen as the entrance of the christ spirit into the Temple. And it is also seen as the spiritual marriage of the Bridegroom and his perfected bride.

WE KNOW:
Antichrist comes to a Temple, as God! "he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God".(2 Thess 2:4)He will also have a counterfeit bride - the Harlot, Mystery Babylon.

THUS THE CHURCH IS BEING PREPARED TO ACCEPT ANTICHRIST AS HER LORD AND CHRIST

3.THE TRIBULATION

THEY CLAIM:
The second half of the last seven years will be the reign of the manchild as the corporate christ, ruling over the rest of the Church and the world. It will be a time of purging for the Church and the world of anyone who refuses to bow and worship the glorious Manchild, the corporate christ. They say God will be cleansing out the tares from his church! AND WHILE THIS IS HAPPENING, the manchild company will be ruling over the world, meting out God's judgement, immune to all this suffering and disaster, using their powers to produce signs and wonders to bring the world to christ.

WE KNOW:
On the contrary the last three and a half-years are the reign of antichrist - not of Christ. The Tribulation is a result of satan and his demons coming down to earth, and the Tribulation is not primarily God at work removing wickedness, it is satan at work removing those who are righteous. Anyone who refuses to worship satan will be killed. And his False Prophet will be producing lying signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the very elect.

THUS THE CHURCH IS BEING PREPARED TO WORK ALONGSIDE ANTICHRIST IN SLAUGHTERING THE RIGHTEOUS.

4. SPIRITUAL WARFARE

THEY CLAIM:
that the manchild company have to cleanse the heavens - they have to be raised spiritually so they can war with the evil heavenly powers and cast them out, so they can take their place and rule over the earth territorially. All this teaching about territorial spirits is leading to that moment, which they call the war in heaven (Rev 12:7)

WE KNOW:
that the war in heaven is not conducted by the saints, but by the Archangel Michael and his angelic hosts. And the result is that satan and his fallen angels are cast out onto the earth to create havok there - Notice also they say the spiritual elite, the manchild company will be transformed into spiritual beings with resurrection bodies. So I do wonder if some of these people will so open themselves to the demonic before the end that the fallen angels actually possess them, as in the days of Noah - and you will have spirit beings walking the earth again.

THUS THEY WILL HELP IN THE SET UP OF THE SATANIC KINGDOM AND ACTUALLY PLAY HOST TO THE DEMONS.

CONCLUSION

My intention in writing these articles is not to criticise individuals associated with Toronto or the false revival - for they answer to God. Nor do I intend to tar everyone with the same brush, for many people get involved because they have a zeal for God - they want to see the world and the church changed and improved. They have no idea where these teachings are coming from. (Yet they fail to respond when they are told it is not biblical.

)We do have a responsibility to alert believers to the true nature of these teachings. If God chooses to reveal to us the roots of heresy and the possible outcome of deception, we have the task of exposing these things in order to SAVE PEOPLE FROM A HORRIBLE FATE.

If you saw a kitten about to stumble blindly across a busy main road, would you stand by and do nothing, telling people that it would be unloving to scare the kitten into fleeing to safety? Or would you turn aside, hoping somebody else would go to its rescue? If you would have compassion on a kitten in danger, how much more so should we seek to "rescue the perishing" - in this case, those who are at risk of perishing from the antichrist deception now running rampant in the Church and world.

All who love the truth have a responsibility to denounce these teachings and to avoid all those who teach them - even part of them.

A Little Leaven Leavens the Lump

Once you accept part of the teaching, the rest becomes necessary and inevitable. If this is an antichrist doctrine, it is the doctrine of demons and we should have nothing to do with it. We MUST remain true to the light of scripture - to the basics:

* SALVATION BY FAITH
* THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS ON THE CROSS FOR OUR REDEMPTION
* INDIVIDUAL CONVERSION AND SALVATION
* THE GREAT COMMISSION TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY MAN
* THE EVENTS OF THE END - THE APOSTASY, THE TRIBULATION THE RAPTURE, HEAVEN AS A LOCATION, HELL AS JUDGEMENT FOR THE WICKED
* THE KINGDOM AS THE LITERAL RETURN OF JESUS TO ESTABLISH RIGHTEOUSNESS;
* THE ROLE OF ISRAEL AS A NATION
* THE MILLENNIAL RULE OF CHRIST, NOT THE CHURCH
* THE CHURCH AS THE BODY OF CHRIST, ALREADY UNITED, ONE WITH CHRIST, TO WITNESS, TO ENDURE AND IF NECESSARY TO SUFFER AND DIE - ALWAYS HATED AND REJECTED AND ULTIMATELY TRIUMPHANT IN HER ALLEGIANCE TO CHRIST.
* THE CHRISTIAN HOPE IS THE RETURN OF JESUS PERSONALLY IN GLORY AND OUR INHERITANCE IN HIM ALONE.

We must continue to preach the great truths of the Bible, undeterred, believing that God is with us and will support, inspire and help us - and protect us. He will honour his word, honour those who hold to his word.

We must call on anyone involved in these teachings to abandon them and repent of them.

We must remain open, patient, kind, helpful and forgiving - not become hateful, proud and elitist.

We must remember that we can all be deceived - by all means save some; if they will not hear you, move on.

2 Tim 4:2 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine - for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry."

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