Protestari
We are the Protestari
I have watched for a long time some of the processes taking place within Charismatic Christianity and wondered, how much longer Lord? What I mean is, how long until you step in and change things for the better?
I listened to many stories when we lived on the East Coast, I could see the hurt. But how do you tell people that the very system they love is what is causing the pain? What I knew was needed for change was momentum, a grassroots momentum seeking Holiness, Purity, and Jesus alone that could fuel the fires of change. I was hopeful when Stephen Powell exposed Todd Bentley, perhaps then something could move forward.
But, that did not happen. There was research, people interviewed and many stories were collected concerning Fresh Fire & MorningStar Ministries. But the powers that be suppressed it all under very human, good intentions.
I pondered for a while the idea of just “fading” into the background like so many others before me who had left MorningStar and just built a new life somewheres else. But then the Lord in His own way changed all that when he asked me a question. The question was, “What is the legal definition of the word complicit?” Through this, I realized that by being silent, I was legally complicit in the eyes of the Lord, and that is not a good feeling.
Then the Lord spoke to me and had me go on a journey of historical research and personal discovery. Along the way, I learned a lot about our own broken and scattered history. And in this, I found that the protestant movement is just as broken and scattered as many historical Jewish communities, in this, we have much in common.
But then there was a change in the wind and people like Elizabeth Herder & Alan Hood, along with many others pulled the rug off of IHOPKC for everyone to see. That turned into a firestorm of exposure, and the fire is still building. As of this moment, IHOPKC is closing its doors. And I suspect the day is soon coming when people will see Mike and perhaps his son behind bars.
I have been excited for months that a true Holy Spirit grassroots movement is finally moving forward. Now, I am not rejoicing to see the destruction of established ministries, but I am rejoicing to see that the light is being directed to these very dark places. Because of this, I fully believe some will be removed and others will be rebuilt. But that’s the Lord’s judgment, not ours. As this firestorm continues to build many, many other well-known ministries are going to get the carpet lifted up for the world to see what’s underneath. If you want to know who is next, just look at who is currently popular and who is connected to whom.
It is hilarious to me, all the ministers who are either pretending this is not happening, or trying to redirect the eyes of the body away from it. Or, they are speaking out against all this. What this tells me is that they either do not understand our own history, or they hope the rest of us will not.
The very word “Protestant” essentially means, “The Protestors.” We are the ones who protested against the injustices of Rome. We are the ones who were willing to die by the millions at the hands of the Catholics for the cause of Christ. And when I say millions, that is not an understatement. It has been calculated that around 50 million of us died in Europe during the dark ages, and that is a low estimate.
So you could say, that standing up and protesting that places like IHOP should be held to a higher standard is in our blood, it is at our very core. We seek justice for the broken, and Holiness for the Bride of Christ, is anything less even worth it?
A Short History Lesson
After the Book of Acts, the last of the first Apostles died. The Body of Christ however continued expanding. The Apostolic letters were copied, and distributed and Rome slowly started learning that no amount of spilled blood could stop the growth. Because of Rome’s policies, many believers moved far and wide to find places of refuge. The general idea is if you can get beyond Rome’s grasp, you could possibly live free.
Ireland, Scandinavia, India, and Africa all saw some of the early Christians seeking shelter in their lands. Christians who still lived around the Mediterranean however continued to suffer in many ways. Most of these small groups could track their teaching back to certain Apostles like John, Paul, or Peter. So when the “newcomers” came, gaining government favor and power, things got a lot worse for the Body.
Newcomers was the term the early Christians used for the Catholic orders. And very soon the Roman Caesar Augustine joined them. History was now getting repainted to show that this transition was a good thing. But it was far from good for the average Christian in the empire. Very quickly you were given a choice, convert or die. Many did convert, they even turned in their fellow brothers and sisters. This forced people to leave their homes in the middle of the night. Spreading into the hill country, they soon found homes in the caves of the mountains, determined to keep the Apostolic faith that was given to them.
In time, many historical slaughters happened at the orders of the popes. Eight thousand here, forty thousand there, whole villages and cities were turned to ash. There was hardly a place in Europe that was untouched by the fires of Rome. All the while, the Popes were very busy rewriting history to legitimize their own presence. They altered scripture, they altered history, added books, and changed dates and seasons to fit the Holidays. This, as many subjugated groups in the world soon realized, history is written by the victors.
Passover was outlawed, replaced by a pagan replacement and Christ’s springtime birthday was moved to winter to fit the occultic celebration of Mithra. There is much on this, and as I have already spoken on this in my book, My Fathers House I will not rehash it here.
It was in the seedbed of this craziness, watered by the blood of millions that a rebellion started to grow, the Protestant Reformation. It took time, time for the shape of it to form, and eventually, certain people drove various spiritual “fence posts” into the ground establishing a set of common phrases that many of us know today. Phrases like Christ Alone, By Grace, By Faith, as well as others.
These ideas grew from the teachings of a former catholic monk by the name of Luther who had enough of what he was looking at. From this, we became known as the protestors, or in the language of the day, “The Protestari.” Moved by the blood of our brothers, we were unwilling to change or even conform a little. We resisted and protested the teaching of the newcomers.
To his credit, Martin Luther lit a firestorm that reformed many policies and teachings. But Luther’s teachings did little to reform the heart. In this area, the movement did not go far enough.
The evidence for this is clear, many of the groups, even some under Luther’s own orders starved, tortured, and condemned many of their own brothers to death for having a slightly different version of faith. Basically, the teachings of the Protestari improved the doctrine, but the demonic Catholic spirit of anger and war lived on in the hearts of many Protestari congregations, even to this day.
A New Day
A wind is picking up in the Body of Christ. In many corners, not just the Charismatic, believers are getting shaken awake by the horrors of corrupted leadership. The after-effects of this are causing the Body to protest.
One of the key things the protestant movement in the past demanded was to have the oldest known scripture for themselves. The idea was simple, they understood that Rome was fully invested in corrupting scripture for their own purposes. So, the protestants knew, that the older was the more accurate, and that was a good thing, it was a wise thing. Unfortunately, as the centuries have passed we have not always followed this mandate.
We also have had a problem with discernment. We seem to fail in the understand that the fruit of spiritual character trumps outward appearance. In effect, we are still impressed with the ways of men and not God. This has led to many odd by-products of thinking including mega-congregations where no accountability is seen. Ignoring the fruit of leaders’ lives, as well as promoting people to positions who are biblically unqualified.
But all these issues are slowly coming to the surface, before the eyes of the body. This is where the Body must become appalled at the filth that has been hidden. The reason for this is simple, we will never change unless we are forced to clean up our own mess. And we will not clean unless we realize that there is no one else to do it. So if you want to wallow in the pig sty, feel free to do so. But for the rest of us, we want a clean home.
Scripture
As I mentioned, one of the key issues in the past was the desire to have the oldest possible scriptures. As there are now around 900 Protestant denominations and movements around the world. It would be fair to assume that there are at least a hundred or so different versions of scripture as well floating around the Earth.
Today, the corruption of scriptures is everywhere. Corporations have now purchased various versions of the Bible, like the NIV, and started altering it to “fit” what they believe should be said. You also have far smaller groups or even individual pastors like Rick Joyner who have been releasing his own versions of scripture like the MorningStar Vision Bible. A version where Rick has personally removed certain scriptures and rearranged the wording.
As appalling as this may sound, these tricks are not new in our history. Consider this story.
“In 1597 AD, a pagan king compiled together a series of teachings on the demonic world calling the book, “Daemonologie.” It covered many dark subjects including the classification of demons, witches, sorcery, werewolves, necromancy (the use of human body parts like brains and eyes) and much, much more. “for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.” (Ephesians 5:12 NASB).
The fruit of this book, although written with the idea of exposing darkness, actually has helped to encourage the growth and spread of darkness over the centuries. Shakespeare apparently used it in the creation of his play, ‘Macbeth’. In more recent times many claim it inspired the creation of the board game Dungeons and Dragons as well.
Then in 1611 AD, this same pagan king, King James ordered the assembly of the Bible. When he did, he ordered the scholars to substitute the word ‘church’ in the place of ‘assembly.’ The very nature of the word, ‘church’ automatically draws the reader's attention to the building. Whereas the term ‘assembly’ draws the reader’s thinking to the people. This simple change helped to mentally and quietly draw the peoples’ thinking away from each other to a closer connection to the institution. Nearly every translation since that time has included the word ‘church.’
This problem only served as a foundation for future errors in other translations, extremely watering down the effectiveness of the words of God. Today the Holy respect of His words are often shuffled aside if a person does not like what they are reading. That is until they find another version of the Bible that pacifies the tension the Holy Spirit was using to bring correction to their lives.” Except from my book, My Fathers House.
It was well known that King James was a raging homosexual. So much so the common term for him on the street was “Queen James.” James loved his boys, they were “his” royal concubines. And this is the gay king who not only was very familiar with satanic rituals but he ordered and altered scripture with his KJV version. And this is the version so many believers love today.
If we, the Protestari are so willing to chop down the fruit of a bad tree like Mike Bickle, should we not go all the way and rip up the roots of older, more sacred cows that so many protect? If we are, then we should go all the way to even older problems.
Old Testament
We base our New Testament on the foundation of the old, so let’s look at it for a moment. Currently, the majority of the old is founded on the Masoretic text. The Masoretic is a collection of 24 books of the Hebrew bible as compiled by Rabbinic Judaism, sound good right?
What the majority of Christians fail to understand is that Rabbinic Judaism is a Jewish cult whose concepts were built by Rabbi Akiva who was not even a Jew. Akiva’s background was Babylonian and his sole focus in life was to destroy the works of God from the inside of the movement. From his teaching, we see the very foundations of bad ideas like Bethel church occultic “grave sucking.”
Akiva students, after the death of their leader, altered various sections of the Old Testament to dismantle the Christian argument that Jesus was forever a priest in the order of Melchizedek not the order of Levi. By altering sections of the book of Genesis, they produced a false narrative that many Christian biblical teachers, I feel have incorrectly accepted that Melchizedek was actually another name for Shem, Noah’s son.
The Christian argument that Akiva’s followers were having a hard time with, was that Jesus's priesthood was not under Levi, and as such Levitical mandates did not apply. To win this argument they needed to alter the biblical timeline in a dramatic way.
Masoretic Text
The vast majority of our Old Testament is based on what is known as the Masoretic text. This text is what was assembled by Rabbinic Judaism (Akiva’s followers) In Genesis 11, the timeline of births and ages was all altered exactly 100 years. Each person's age when their son was born was reduced by 100 years so that Noah’s son Shem was theoretically possible for him to be alive at the same time as Abraham.
This way Akiva’s followers could claim that Melchizedek was just another name for Shem and by extension, Jesus was still a priest in the order of Levi. And if he was then his claims as the son of god were null and void. Now I know most of you are used to me writing very non-technical, so please bear with me for a moment as I dip into a few points.
Points to make here
“Melchizedek had no father or mother and there is no record of any of his ancestors. He was never born and he never died but his life is like that of the Son of God a priest forever.” Hebrew 7:3-5. Shem had parents, they were recorded and he died, so Shem can not be Melchizedek.
Melchizedek was recorded as a King. There is no supporting record that Shem ever became a king.
Psalm 110:4 states that God gives a vow concerning the coming messiah, “…you are a priest forever like Melchizedek.” If Melchizedek was Shem, who was never recorded as a priest, why was the name recorded as Melchizedek and not Shem?
The Masoretic was assembled after Jesus died and rose again. Have you noticed whenever the old is quoted in the new, and you look up the old it does not read the same? That is because what Jesus and his followers were reading was a far older translation.
Septuagint Text
Around 250 BC a Greek version of the Old Testament was assembled for an Egyptian ruler who wanted his own copy to read for himself. The Septuagint is far older and it completely matches the Old Testament quotes found in the New Testament. It was literally the same scripture Jesus and the rest of the Jewish community was reading.
With the Septuagint, the timeline issues placing Melchizedek as the same person as Shem go away. The mystery of Melchizedek continues and Jesus being a priest under Levi blows away and Jesus's claims remain solid.
Also, modern Archeological arguments also fade away, what am I talking about? For a long time, there has been an issue between the religious community and the scientific community concerning the ancient timeline. The problem is when you go way back, events no longer match and it has been used as “evidence” against our arguments. However, using the far older Septuagint scriptures the timelines now match. And now that they match the scientists will need to find some other argument to disagree with.
This is just another area that we, of the Protestant faith, need to revisit and make right. I personally feel that this time we need to go deeper than just a reformation. What we really need is a restoration. A true rebuilding of what Jesus died to bring us.
Hopefully at some point in the future Protestant leaders will gather once again from many corners of the faith and start taking a deep dive into these things. But I fear that if we look at the current example of what’s going on right now with IHOP. Then it will be up to the common, armchair Christian to keep pushing and keep pointing out the issues until restoration happens.
Complacency has always been a deadly enemy in the Body of Christ. It is the direct enemy of forward progress and should be challenged as we now see. It keeps leaders settled in overstuffed chairs while people struggle against the system. And I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the system.
Is There More?
Is this all there is that needs to be dealt with? No there is more, far more however to accurately deal with things, at least with the Charismatic will require two things to happen.
#1 We will need to “set aside,” many of our preconceived ideas about previous leaders within the Charismatic. As long as we hold up former leaders, even those from long ago then we are double-minded by turning these people into idols before Christ.
#2 We must be willing to allow credible voices from outside the Charismatic to speak, ask questions, and help us see. It is very hard to correct an issue when you are sitting in the middle of it. This is why we need counselors of quality. I remember in the early to mid-80s hearing reports that because Jack Deere had joined the Charismatic, various theological leaders were now willing to donate time to help give this movement a solid footing. Their offer was quickly met with a spirit of pride and arrogance by leaders like Joyner, Bickle, and Ravenhill who brought a halt to this help.
Where do you think we would be today if we had accepted this help?