The real Laodicean call – a message to the church of Laodicea

[I'd like to make right clear from the start I do NOT believe in the seven church ages interpretation of the first few chapters of the Book of Revelation - I think that is abysmal theology.]

I listened to so-called prophetic revivalist Matt Sorger recently (who is endorsed by Patricia King, Stacey Campbell, Che Ahn, Dutch Sheets, James Goll, Marcus Lamb, Bob Weiner, Mahesh Chavda, Rodney Howard Browne, Robert Stearns, Todd Bentley and Lou Engle of The Call  fame among others. He is an actual official ‘associate’ of Todd Bentley’s.)

About a week ago, Matt Sorger was speaking at an Open Heaven conference in Islandia, New York. Now he is called a ‘prophetic revivalist’, but a lot of things are called ‘prophetic’ nowadays without actually being so. For instance, there were a team of dancers there at the conference that were supposedly doing ‘prophetic dance’. Now, while I know that God can use body actions and language and physical objects as a prophetic statement when He wants to, along with the word accompaigning the physical display before, during or afterwards (eg Ezekiel turned on his side), to claim that Christian dancers doing an uninspiring and previously rehearsed set to a worship song is ‘prophetic’ is stretching this title into making something out to be what it is not. No word accompanied the ‘prophetic’ display of what was basically just a load of glorified kneeling and hand raising made in sweet and graceful pretty movements. It was a nice enough piece, and I do not say Christian dance is wrong, or cannot be a blessing or sometimes be inspired and inspiring, but don’t just throw the title out and say something is ‘prophetic’ when it is clearly not.

There are a lot of other things claimed to be prophetic nowadays too that are not prophetic, such as prophetic art when it is just a picture of a lion or an eagle, rehearsed and scheduled prophetic drums playing… what will it be next, I wonder, prophetic tea making?

‘Do not despise prophecy’  the scriptures say, but making the prophetic commonplace like this by labelling the ordinary and uninspired ‘prophetic’, in my view is  despising it, as it lowers prophecy’s value in everybody’s minds whether they realise it or not.

The true prophet is the mouthpiece of God – he/she speaks God’s word and reveals His heart and will. Yet much that is the so-called ‘prophetic’ nowadays has no word, let alone scripture, and thus no interpretation and no accountability. That is very interesting for neo prophecy is evolving from the word  into a sensual visual, auditory or physical experience,  feeling  or manifestation  only. That has no real audit controls.

It is a fundamental shift as bit by bit the flock get out of the habit of thinking, while glorying themselves in experiences alone, encouraged to lose their analytical mentality and just go with the flow in ‘the river’. Then gradually over time they lose their ability and also desire to think about or discern or scrutinise anything – they accept everything at face value as it feels good for them and they enjoy themselves. Their feelings become the plumbline for what is discerned as ‘anointed’. The flock thus become malleable puppets that get led astray very easily without even realising or stopping to think.

Most of the ‘radical converts’ into these new churches barely know the scriptures for themselves, and what they do know is very twisted. So beware of new forms of ‘prophetic interpretation’ – they are a lot more dangerous than you may realise. I’m sure the girls who were doing the dancing at this meeting in Islandia were very sincere and well meaning, but that’s not the point. Puppets on a string make the best puppets when they do not realise who is really yanking their chain.

It should be noted that even when words are spoken the neo-prophets still  despise prophecy. They prophecy and talk a lot (mainly only in vagaries and buzz words these days), but even Mike Bickle linked to IHOP and the former named Kansas City Prophets says he has only ever really paid attention to and cherished a handful out of all the thousands  of prophecies he has heard over the years. What does this then say about the quality of the prophets around about him? It says even Mike Bickle knows they are false clanging bells that cannot be trusted! Then you have people like ‘prophet’ Bob Jones who says it is to be expected for a prophet to be wrong most of the time, for the church is apparently not yet ready for 100% accuracy or the level of responsibility that comes with being a true prophet! This is of course excuses made by the false prophets to cover up for themselves.

People like Bob Jones and Kim Clement have been shown up numerously with their prophetic predictions being obviously very wrong, and the current trend with the neo-prophecy movement is to move away from specific predictions (e.g. an earthquake happening next year that is easily proven as having happened/not happened) to sweeping statements loaded with double meanings and with claims so broad it is catch-all. The prophets become no better than ‘phone line psychics – but worse as they do it in the name of the Lord.

Matt Sorger’s website carries his ‘prophecies’ and I could not get one specific claim from it, just a load of ‘God is going to bless this and that, increase anointing, move out into this area, bless children blah blah blah’  claims, the fulfilment of which cannot be proven or denied by real events [but they can be tested by scripture] as per most of the prophecies that come out from C Peter Wagner’s apostolic-prophetic network nowadays. I  think that this has been co-ordinated and orchestrated intentionally (although God was not involved in the decision), and the prophets were ordered to do this from ‘higher up’ (their movement) after all the discredit done to their movement from proven false prophecies in the past. (Not that it seems to make any difference with people still eagerly lapping up Kim Clement’s and Bob Jones’ garbage).

But no real word now means no accountability, and no accountability means no failure, and no failure means no discredit. Bland non directive words are another way of avoiding accountability, but they are also another way of moving from the word  to experience.  I expect to see more of this in the emerging apostate church over time.

A lot of the times I read the neo prophet’s prophecies and it is just a load of buzz words that basically say nothing or not a lot in very many sentences – they are never ever critical, apart from about the neo prophets’ detractors who love the word of God and point back to scripture, and they will attack these detractors and the remnant church who is against their ‘moves of God’. These false prophets never truly stir, convict or inspire their audience – though they will hype and work the crowd which is different. These false prophets are nothing – just mouth and no substance, no more prophetic than the ‘prophetic’ dancers. And even their audience know this deep down, as they are still hungry for real bread, going from one experience to the next seeking a new better more mystical high. It is no wonder then that ‘prophecy’ is despised.

And when the true  prophets speak, it is not recognised by most as it is chalk and cheese from the false and contradicts almost everything the neo prophets believe in and advocate. They are also in the minority, they follow a different crowd – solitude often - and are generally not well known in their own generation at least and are despised by the majority. We are called ‘harsh’ or ‘judgmental’ or ‘unloving’ or ‘divisive’ as we dare to criticise and call to repent. We get them angry and hot under the collar when we verbally tear down their idols. And thus prophecy gets despised again by the church but for different reasons.

The great A W Towzer said he had preached himself off  more conference platforms than he could dare to count – he was not invited to the Keswick Conventions etc, but the ear ticklers were. But who is remembered and more revered in Christiandom now, Towzer is it not? The ear ticklers were but as chaff in the wind. I know anybody who appears on The God Channel or TBN or the 700 club is almost guaranteed to be flaky. Thus I only watch Christian TV very occasionally for research and not for pleasure, though I have to say I cannot stomach any of its teachers or prophets for long even then.

Do you want to be an unpopular and in the minority, a criticised and despised builder,who builds on solid rock, or a popular and in the majority chaff in the wind?

The Identity Network’s website founded by Jeremy Lopez (yet another prophetic website with an eagle on it – see previous post on Patricia King and the double meaning of eagles) that sells the prophetic word shamelessly claiming that: ‘the Lord reminded (him) that the gospel was not free that it cost the life of Jesus. Jesus paid an ultimate price for our sin and debt. Strange as it seems, people do not put value into things they receive freely. Our salvation is not free, it will cost you everything you are. We exchange this life on earth for life in Heaven…..We simply ask only out of the love that you have from the Father to bless this ministry. Can you really put a price or a minimum on hearing God’s awesome prophetic word that WILL change your life forever! Is He not worth given whatever we have to just hear Him speak to us?’ 

On Jeremy Lopez’s website is a post by Dr Paula Price where she ’sells’ personal prophecy to her audience, and in the article she answers the main questions and objections from anyone seeking buying prophetic ministry from them and talks about the question: ‘What about false prophecy?’ (The all-important question, or it should be, but it is listed last in her list as seemingly the least important.) She says: ‘Of the more than 500 times the word prophet appears in scripture, only 21 mention false prophets. Perhaps because less than 10% of the prophetic actions recorded were false. Of the thirty plus prophets identified in scripture, including Major and Minor Prophets, only two false prophets are named, Jezebel and Baalim. That is not to say that there were no others, but it implies that false prophets and false prophecy were less of a threat than today’s popular teachings communicate. Divination, the word for false prophecy, is in the Old Testament about twelve times. While false prophecy is a concern, more damage is done by uneducated or overly sensual prophets such as those given little opportunity to perfect their skill before now.‘ 

Now Dr Paula Price surely does not really believe this, but if she does she is deceived and she certainly does not know scripture well. The Old Testament is riddled with stories and prophecies mentioning the false prophets and the problems they caused ‘whitewashing the wounds of God’s people’. The reason why these false prophets were not specifically named individually by name is not because they were not a problem or not in the majority – for they very obviously were on both counts – but because it was not necessary for us to know the names of these bits of chaff in the wind as they were of no consequence and destined for the fire, just as we do not know the names of most of the Baal worshippers or those who sacrificed their children to Molech or those who fell prostrate before the golden calf etc.

It is also incorrect to say only two false prophets are named in the Bible. Right away without even thinking on it one name comes to mind: Hananiah. Just reading Jeremiah through tells us of the numerous prophets who prophesied peace and blessing and did not call to repentance prior to the captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah was persecuted for years by the ‘church’ for speaking the truth – judgment was coming unless they repented – but the people did not believe him preferring their false prophets majority who said ‘peace and safety’ to them. They needlessly died as the false prophets lead them astray and placated them with false religious doctrine – they offered a false peace and a false gospel. As Jeremiah says these prophets could have called out to repentance but did not, only encouraging and affirming the people in their wicked ways still further. The false prophets caused death and suffering on a huge scale and of course sinned against God but this is apparently ‘not a threat’according to the word of Dr Paula Price? They led Israel away from God into idolatry and to worship false gods but that is not a threat’ either? Eternal damnation for millions is not a threat’ ?! Hmm… These same false prophets led Israel into judgment and also captivity, and then led them astray and encouraged them to stay in Jerusalem to starve or be slaughtered against God’s orders when fire from Babylon came. Because of the false prophets tens of thousands of Jews (and later even Egyptians when the remnant disobeyed and went into Egypt) were slaughtered, and mothers even turned to cannibalism during the prolonged siege of Jerusalem. The Book of Lamentations is horrible, it vividly describes this time. It broke God and Jeremiah’s heart. But this is not a threat?  Anyway, we have the specific prophet, Hananiah, who said that after two years of captivity God would break the yoke of the Babylonians – Jeremiah had repeatedly said 70 years in comparison. Hananiah had faith but it was false faith as he was not speaking for God. ‘Hear this, Hananiah! The LORD has not sent you, and you have raised false confidence in this people. For this, says the LORD, I will dispatch you from the face of the earth; this very year you shall die, because you have preached rebellion against the LORD. That same year, in the seventh month, Hananiah the prophet died.’  (Jeremiah 28).  This were serious enough for the false prophet to die. It was considered a big threat to God.

Furthermore, you do not just do a search through your Bible for the words ‘false prophets’ to find them referred to. In the story of Michaiah in I Kings 22 many prophets are mentioned without the word tag ’false’ written in front of them, even though they were clearly so. The Hebrew Old Testament does not use that phrase, but it implies and shows that the prophets were false by telling their story and making it clear from the account that they were not true prophets.

I have heard it taught (wrongly) by Ivan and Isobel Allum, prophetic people linked to the former Toronto Airport Vineyard, that a Christian cannot be a false prophet as ‘falseness’ is to do not with what is being said but is rather defined by ‘identity’ and if a believer is a Christian they cannot therefore be false. According to them Baalam was false as he was pagan and not because he as wrong. So therefore, they said, Christians cannot be false prophets and it is quite OK for true prophets to get it wrong. They then ‘activated’ the whole room to prophesy whatever came to their minds (without checking it or weighing it) and said encouragingly to all ’it’s ok, you cannot be false!’  This is not remotely true or scriptural. Afterwards Isobel prophesied over me and was way off mark. But that’s OK, right, she is not a false prophet because she is a Christian? Yeah right! Other troubling teachings also came out of their mouths during that time.

Anyway, back to Matt Sorger speaking at Islandia last week. He claimed that that the transitional new breed of Christians would be characterised by ‘worship, devotion and boldness.’  I found it very interesting this emphasis, as more and more nowadays it is about a sensual worship time (which is actually focusing on self and not God), personal kicks and mystical experiences of devotion reflected in passion ‘fire’ and feelings and experiences and anointings (when the apostle John says there is only one true anointing), and getting activated and all fired up, and little is about truth, real love or devotion, holiness or Christian service.

The apostle John in I John said that true Christians with the one true anointing would be characterised by love (expressed in works of service to others and to God), holiness (meaning avoidance of and hatred of sin not  super spirituality) and truth (loving the word and avoiding error and testing false teachings and spirits). This is significantly different to a fired up new breed who have zeal without knowledge and do not test for Antichrist spirits, but who are characterised Sorger style by ‘worship, devotion and boldness.’ 

Many ministries advertise their conferences ‘come and have a blast’  says Patricia King for Extreme Prophetic, and Todd Bentley says: ‘Come join Evangelist Todd Bentley and Fresh Fire Ministries staff for a “whopping good time’ .  Church is really not about having a blast or having a whooping good time, it is about pleasing God and being a living sacrifice to God by taking up our cross daily, even when it hurts which it will if we walk right. Yes of course we can have fun sometimes at church but if this pleasure is our focus and pleasure is what attracts us to a conference (not the search for truth) then something is wrong. Very wrong. Indulgences in the 21st century!

The apostate church can be summed up as being very passionate – but with a fired up zeal without knowledge based on experience after experience and a false anointing that has no foundation so that when heat comes - puff, faith is gone.  

Worship and passion is all very well, but not if is of ‘another Jesus’. For did not even Jesus say in Matthew 25 ‘away from me you evil doers I know you not?’

Please read Mathew 24:36 through to end Mathew 25. The parables of the Faithful Servant, The Ten Virgins, and then The Sheep and the Goats.  You can also compare these with the Parable of the Talents and even the Good Samaritan. They are all saying basically the same thing. God is looking for servants. He expects service from his people and if he does not get it He will be angry indeed.

Jesus said the church at the end of the age would be characterised by lack of love as it would be characterised by lack of service  and the apostle of love, John, understood (the book of I John again) that no actions means no real love (for how can you truly love someone and let them go hungry and cold etc), and no real love means no real anointing and thus no real knowledge of the real God and thus no real salvation. This lack of love and service is also associated with apostasy and a lack of love of the truth, a lack of righteousness and continuing in habitual sin. This is why Jesus said ‘away from me you evil doers…I did not know you.’   because it is the truth. It is not a denial of those who he already knows but is merely angry with as they were bone idle. These professing ‘Christians’ goats do no truly know God for they do not love, they do not serve, they do not love scripture and do not test truth, they do not hate sin. They do not know Him, for if they did they know him and have a true and not counterfeit anointing that comes with real faith and real repentance then would do these right things ‘naturally’ supernaturally - the goats at the end of the age have thus received a counterfeit anointing and counterfeit salvation as they do not do these things! Think on these things, this is a vital truth the modern church must hear! Ask not ‘have you asked Jesus into your heart’  but ask ‘what is your heart doing for Jesus?’

I believe the real call to the church in Laodicea is one to love – but not with the type of love Matt Sorger talks about (a mystical gnostic self serving sensual fired up love), but one that loves God and others and is proven in works of service. Thus the real Laodicean church of the 21st century is a fired up passionate worshipping and radical church which embraces experience and gnostic knowledge, is known for ‘worship, devotion and boldness’ but it does not embrace the world or its own brothers and sisters in true love expressing itself in actions and does not embrace the true Jesus for it does not truly know Him (for if it did it would love as per I John and keep His commands by nature). They are the ‘evil-doers’ Christ talks about, for what they did not do for a lost and hurting world, they did not do for Him. Because they did not really care. They are similar to the church in Sardis that Christ says of:  ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die. So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.’ (See how this compares with Mathew 24 talking about the end time church being ready and need to be keeping on serving til that time!)

The ‘waking up’ is not in relation to prophetic revelation and knowledge of the times (though that is important), in this context it is about the worthless servant stirring himself into action – getting a kick up the backside to serve! Getting a wake up call.) 

The church in Sardis’ deeds betray them as all but dead! Are you dead or alive? What do your deeds betray about you? Convicting eh? But oh be wise now and submit yourself to God willingly while you have the chance and let Him have you inside and out and then become a real flame of fire that will not be snuffed out!

Church: Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, repent!

A true anointing will lead to true love and to true service and to true repentance and true holiness.

How many counterfeit anointings there are in the church today! You have an anointing for this and that and the other, all imparted by the laying on of hands and spiritual manifestations of jerking and twitches and shakes and roars and perhaps a bit of gold glitter shoved in for good measure. Yet John says there is only one true anointing, and I have already gone into how that is manifested. Yet ‘With the Joseph anointing there is also a fulfillment of dreams and visions.’ says Matt Sorger, who prophesied this ‘move of God’ a few years ago. This is another extra Biblical ’anointing’ that the apostle John talks about and warns to steer clear of. Plenty more such anointings exist in neo-prophet land.

Please, if you are surrounded by these teachings, for God’s sake be wise and have nothing more to do with this flakiness and heresy! If you remain in you will only be harmed.

Lastly, we yet again have the influence of the Roman Catholic church adulterising the protestants through the apostolic-prophetic movement. Matt Sorger’s mom received healing during a Mass in a Catholic Church - 

“It was actually a quiet Catholic mass, my mom went forward to receive prayer from the priest who was filled with the Holy Spirit. When the priest prayed for her, the power of the Holy Spirit came and threw her more than ten feet back through the air. Her whole body was shaking under the power of the Holy Spirit. She thought she had died and gone to Heaven, because she had no idea what was going on. She had never experienced the Holy Spirit before. But when she got up she was completely healed.”

Now Matt is worryingly claiming that blasphemous and pagan mass is endorsed by God, that Catholic priests performing the mass rites are ‘filled with the spirit’ (despite the evidence to the contrary from scripture), and he did not need to see the need to test these spirits and claims by biblical standards. Matt Sorger claims to have a healing ministry – but by what spirit does it operate? The same as the Catholic priest had as Sorger evidently sees no difference. But then that is what I would expect from the neo prophetic movement where all roads lead to Rome.

I was just thinking the other day that the next thing to hit Charismania would be new teachings concerning Mary and she would start becoming a more prominent symbol in prophet land – covertly at first. I expect to see the ‘birthing’ teachings morph into something like:

‘Mary is a symbol of the church being full of God!’ , ‘Mary was a carrier of the Holy Spirit and we can carry the fullness of God like her’, ’she is our divine symbol for the manifest presense of God’, ‘like Mary we can have the godhead within us’, ‘the kingdom is within us as God is within!’, ‘we must speak to the God inside of us and seek it as Mary did with baby Jesus in her womb speaking to Him’, ‘we must birth the divinity within us by being overshadowed with the spirit’, ‘Mary will give us this spirit as the divine mother birthing the church’, ‘Mary is a symbol of being overshadowed and impregnated with God’

 - we must look to her, etc etc and more and more Mary related Mary visions even in ‘protestant’ circles urging us all to love and accept one another despite the doctrinal difference and become the manifest presence of God on earth through her womb – we must enter herto do this (the antichrist) – you get the drift. So I was just thinking this and then I find this following quote on Matt Sorger’s website – the teaching is already here! The ‘Christ child’ by the way is Latter Rain speak not for Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, but a reference to the church, which will become Christ -eg the manifest sons of God heresy! So it is Mary that becomes pregnant with the new Latter Rain end times church. She is the key for the Catholics, the Muslims and the protestants. Oh la la. Cue, enter the Antichrist.

‘During our time in worship the Holy Spirit hovered over us the way He overshadowed Mary when she became pregnant with the Christ child (Luke. 1:35). In Luke 1:31, 35-38 it was under the overshadowing of the Spirit that Mary became pregnant with the Christ child. What was impossible became possible. The supernatural became natural. The key to Mary receiving the impartation she received from God to carry the seed of the greatest move of the Spirit in history, the birth of the Son of God, was her simple act of agreement. Her response to the Lord was “Let it be done unto me according to your word.” In verse 45 it says “Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.” God just needs our agreement and simple faith to receive the fullness of all He wants to give us.’