To make a fair assessment of the theological background of popular heretic Bill Johnson and Dr Michael Brown, we need to examine their theological backgrounds.

From New Order of the Latter Rain leaders such as William Branham, to the Charismatic (NARismatic) Renewal Movement leaders such as John Wimber to the New Apostolic Reformation leaders such as Steve Hill, their false ‘Gospel of the Kingdom‘ has been leading so-called believers out of the loving arms of Jesus Christ and into the embrace of Satan and his power-working demons.

“The gospel came not in word only but through power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. So the gospel is demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit… And that’s how they get converted. That’s how they find Christ. It’s because they believe in that manner.“ [Source]

It was also John Wimber who founded the Vineyard Church movement. Their false gospel and their false power evangelism tactics have been leading Christians into believing they can take cities for God.

However, what these men and this movement is practicing is not Christianity.

The bible identifies men like Bill Johnson, Michael Brown as pagans.
Sorcerers in facts.
God’s Word exposes their theological practices as nothing but witchcraft.

“But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.” Acts 8:9-11

Michael Brown is a VERY good example of a Simonist. The proof is in his self-proclaimed ‘revolutionary’program ‘Line of Fire’. Notice how often Michael Brown is attempting to sell his ‘product’ to his gullible listeners? If he really considers himself that ‘great’, why is he putting a price on the Holy Spirit who he claims inspires him to write his material? And if he doesn’t consider himself as “somebody great,” how can he explain this?

Rosebrough exposes Dr Brown as a NARpostle at Isi De Gersigny’s circus church?

Notice what Simon does to the Apostles when he sees them move in power:

“Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”” Acts 8:18-19

Simon the Sorcerer saw the Holy Spirit as “this power.” A force. This is how these men view the third person of the trinity. Whenever they claim to move in the power of God, they claim they move under the “anointing.” They treat the Holy Spirit as “this power.” This “anointing.” Satan would be so proud of such men who have replaced the Holy Spirit with “this power.”

And this is because they are seeking to demonstrate this “power of God.”
Just like William Branham.
Just like John Wimber.

Just like Benny Hinn, Rodney Howard-Brown, Frank Houston, David Yonggi Cho, Sunday Adelaja,
Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Michael Brown, Bill Johson and many others we monitor.

And how do they pass “this power”on to you? You need to buy their books or pay money to go their conferences.
It’s about THEM.
Just like Simon.

When Dr Michael Brown recently asked Bill Johnson on his program ‘Line of Fire’ how he came to become a revivalist, Johnson’s ‘simony’ is blatantly evident:

Michael Brown: “What about your own journey in terms of revival and the presence of God? What happened in your own life to get you where you are today?”

NOTICE it was Apostles of the New Apostolic Reformation like Wimber, Hill (Pensacola) and Arnott (Toronto Blessing) who converted Bill Johnson to this new ‘faith’. It wasn’t the Christian gospel of repentance and forgiveness of sins that Johnson was hoping to embrace. He couldn’t care less of Christ’s cross – he wanted what Simon wanted: “this power” at whatever cost.

Bill Johnson: “You know, in 1987, I attended a conference with John Wimber in Anaheim. And I heard things that I had taught for the previous couple of years. But he had fruit for what he believed and I just had theology. And I went home, disturbed actually, because there wasn’t the fruit in my life that there was in his. And I realized I needed to kind of put a demand on what I believed and not just wait for it to happen around me but to actually pursue and take risk. And so we did. Within a week or so, we started seeing things we’ve never seen before. That started it.

I went to Toronto in 1995, and I didn’t have any dramatic experience. But I saw – I sensed the same anointing presence that we had been experiencing in recent years. I went to Pensacola in ’96. Very different expression but same anointing. And I just came home and said, ‘Lord! I just give you my life to demonstrate what you’re doing in the earth. And I just commit myself to live for this purpose: to display your wonders in the earth’.” [10:41]

Notice that Bill Johnson claimed that the Vineyard Phenomena, Toronto Blessing and Brown’s Pensacola were very different expressions but had the “same anointing.” If Michael Brown was truly a Christian brother, he would have rebuked Bill Johnson by this stage for connecting the Holy Spirit to the blasphemous Toronto Blessing and Vineyard Phenomena. He didn’t.

The result of Johnson’s experience at Michael Brown’s Pensacola?

He converted to Simonistic paganism under the satanic NAR gospel by praying the Simonist’s prayer:

“I just give you my life to demonstrate what you’re doing in the earth.
And I just commit myself to live for this purpose: to display your wonders in the earth’.”

This is a different gospel. And if ANY Christian is bound by this false gospel and its satanic power, they need to repent. While the Apostle Peter rebuked Simon “because [he] thought you could obtain the gift of God with money”, God rebukes Johnson “”because [he] thought you could obtain the gift of God with [works].” The end result is that Apostle Peter called Simon to repent of his wickedness.

Below is another story of a man set free from this “wicked and perverse” anointing of the NAR that John Wimber, Rodney Howard-Brown, Michael Brown and Bill Johnson are all proud to revel in. The man who came out of this was involved in the New Apostolic Reformation in its early days in Australia’s first Vineyard Church. His name is Eric Pederson. He recently shared his story on the Outback Berean podcast.

His story is worth listening to. Either follow the attached link to listen to his story or read the transcript below.

What in the NAR’d is going on.

Episode 0002 – The Outback Bereans
Reading: Matthew 12:33-42

Source: Outback Bereans, http://theoutbackbereans.podbean.com/e/what-in-the-nard-is-going-on/?token=4ce1292cb35ac6c80b20108c79564944, Published 01/11/2016. (Accessed 07/11/2016.)

TRANSCRIPT

Erik: “How are you Gordo?”

Gordo: “Yeah good, how are you?”

Erik: “Aw Yeah, not bad mate. Hear that rooster going off again?”

Gordo: “What rooster, do you have roosters?”

Erik: “The ones you woke up snoring that night mate!”

Gordo: “Not me, I don’t snore, I keep telling you that.” (Rooster crowing in background)

Erik: “Your Mrs tells me she has a freight train visit nightly.”

Gordo: “She has a freight train visiting?”

Erik: “its name’s Gordon.”

Gordo: “What do you know?”

Erik: “Not too much mate, had a bit of a fall, I had my first ‘old man’ fall the other night.”

Gordo: “Yeh?”

Erik: “Yep.”

Gordo: “What did you trip over?”

Erik: “That lovely big piece of rock in the garden, you know that show piece?”

Gordo: “Yeh.”

Erik: “It was dark, and I was catching chooks from some young kids in the neighbourhood, they flashed me with a torch, mate I went blind, went straight over the rock, face planted, head first into all the chook poop, got a rock up under me ribs. I spent the night in pain, man, I tell yah, twisted me ankle. It was the perfect first ‘old man’ fall.”

Gordo: “No good at all.”

Erik: “Ah it happens mate, you’ve gotta have a few every now and again ay.”

Gordo: “True, true.”

Erik: “I know I don’t bounce anymore, I know that much, mate when I hit the deck, it was just smack.”

Gordo: “So what’s up with you lately? You’ve been listening to heaps of podcasts”

Erik: “Ahhhhh, don’t start man, I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff about Dr Michael Brown and his whole denial of ‘NRAmania’ that’s he’s involved in.”

Gordo: “Yeah.”

Erik: “Yeah, it’s been kind of sending me loopy mate. It’s a very interesting subject and it’s very close to home for me.”

Gordo: “It’s certainly stirring a lot of people up.”

Erik: “I just get really upset Gordo, because I’m hearing these guys talking about things that I was actually involved in, and their denying the truth and I don’t like people that lie.”

Gordo: “No one does, but you know to think that anyone’s ever going to stick him down is like calling out a politician, you can’t stick that mentality down, they know how to evade you too well.”

Erik: “Yeah, oh well, everybody knows the truth, it’s the sad ones that are in those churches, that are caught in them, that really do love Jesus that are getting fed this garbage and eventually, it may shipwreck their faith. That’s why I get so upset Gordo, because I don’t want anybody’s faith shipwrecked. When it all came down to it mate, when I started to expose a lot of the lies in my old church, it was game on mate, and they trashed me and that’s the sad truth when it all comes down to the punch. It’s not about Jesus. So yeah, the ‘old man’ fall shook me up a bit, add to that all the crap about listening to the NAR. Listen man, I’ve been reading books, listening to books, listening to sermons, I almost feel like I’m Michael Brown at the moment, so anyway Gordon, moving on.”

Gordo: “One day, if listing to all that stuff is just sort of dragging you through the mud and the pain of the past, I don’t know if sometimes it’s beneficial for you to be waddling through those waters again. You know, it’s um what the Pentecostals are doing is wrong and to keep on punishing yourself with that information, and they’re never going to repent, I can hardly imagine some of these people repenting. The only way they’re going to do it is by hearing the word, but to punish yourself with that kind of information again, to me it just seems pointless.”

Erik: “Um, yeah it does, I think the Mrs thinks that sometimes too, but when she sees what comes out at the end, where I can get clarification on their teachings, separate it and distinguish Pentecostals, Charismatics and NARs, it does become beneficial in the end. It’s already in there Gordo, it’s not like it’s doing any more damage and it’s actually getting me to acknowledge areas in my life that are still influenced by their teaching.”

Gordo: “I know, but see, in some respects do you consider that posting up a Dayspring church poster or something like that, that might cause me to go and investigate their stuff and say, ‘hey these guys are on the ball’, you know what I mean, I might be providing an opportunity for someone susceptible to things like that, that may not have considered that before.”

Erik: “Well that’s one of the reasons why I will always post something like that with an explanation, hopefully to bring about a bit of discussion. Because I don’t see it being talked about much either, which is the hard thing. I’ve had a few discussions on the street the other day, and I actually had  somebody walk away and they said, ‘you shouldn’t just talk about this stuff’, and the problem is, if you don’t talk about it, it becomes acceptable and it just becomes part of the life of the church, and it eventually just eats it away.”

Gordo: “Yeah, it does, but is it eating you inside still? That’s one thing it shouldn’t be doing is eating you up inside, where you’re at now.”

Erik: “No, it’s not killing me on the inside, what it is actually doing, is its showing me some of the wounds I do still have. Some of the crying I’ve been doing man, I’ve been feeling like Jerimiah talking to a tree, just not getting an answer back and just weeping and getting it out too has brought a lot of healing and it’s cleared my mind to be able to look at what I do know that is true to the Bible and what I do know isn’t, so it is painful but like God say, you know, His word is like a sword, it’s going to cut and if I wasn’t able to do it, I don’t think God would let me anyway Gordo, you know what I mean?”

Gordo: “That’s interesting, would He let you do it or not, I don’t know. Allowing you to investigate things to a certain degree and comparing to the Bible, that’s what we do every day. It’s just unfortunate when I come across people that, there’s one guy in particular I’m thinking of, I won’t mention a name, that’s not important, but he would be listening to Joseph Prince and say, ‘he’s pretty good’, and I would say, ‘oh is he? I’ll give him a listen’, you know and when I listened to some of the stuff he’s crowing on about and then compare it to the Bible, I think, whoa, no, no Joseph, you’re off track here man and then Steven Furtick was really powerful and he was very emotive and very Charismatic kind of guy and you want to believe in what he says. It only happened to me when I started listening to Chris Rosebrough’s show ‘Fighting for the Faith’, that I started identifying, it was a format I had not encountered before where he would play one of the sermonette, or whatever you want to call them, and he would pause it every now and then and comment on it and then you would go to the Bible and read it and you would actually pause his show and you go and have a look at it and come back and you go, well yeah, he’s right, what Steven’s saying there is not quite right. And to get people to get to that stage to know the difference is really hard sometimes because these people that are spouting this theology and their opinion and their take on it, it’s quite um seductive.”

Erik: “Absolutely Gordon, they do suck you in really well, one of the guys that sucked me in early on that was quite interesting, was Mark Driscall. As far as an orator goes, I think he’s really, really cool. As far as content goes and the rest of his lifestyle, yeah, it proved its point and eventually God revealed what was really happening. Those guys do make you feel good. I’ve got friends today Gordo, that left Hillsong and still to this day can be comforted by Brian Houston’s voice alone, regardless of what he talks about. Now that to me says there’s something in this movement, because Brian Houston is involved in the NAR, did you know that?”

Gordo: “Um, well, I’d heard it, but I hadn’t officially heard of any Apostles within the Hillsong church. I just see Hillsong from my point of view, I just see them as wishy washy. I was talking to someone the other day about commentaries and I started off studying the Bible, the first Bible I got was an NIV application study Bible, and the actual text seemed okay, but when you read the commentary about how to apply it to your life, it always seemed so wishy washy and that’s what it reminds me of when I’m listening to Brian’s sermons, it’s just so vague and you don’t know how to take it and that’s how I see it. And if you sort of get into something with a bit more meat like McArthur or the Reformation Bible and you have a look at commentaries on that, it makes more sense because it compares it to other parts of scripture rather than, sort of, in general terms.”

Erik: “I think one thing too is these guys like Lawson, McArthur and all them boys, they preach with conviction as well, they have the Gospel flowing through their blood, and you get guys like Brian and he’s not the only one, Phil Pringle is the same, the shows are always good. I was around back in the late 80s when these guys were just establishing themselves, so I’ve been around for a long time Gordo, and so I’ve seen the fruit of these guy’s ministries from when they were just establishing in the early days, and they don’t want people to know about it. You know, and that’s the sad truth. The reason too, I think you find Chris Rosebrough’s stuff so good, is because he actually teaches you what is wrong with it as well. JD’s program is brilliant, but I think it works on the premise that you are established in polemics and apologetics and you have an understanding.”

Gordo: “That’s coming apart too, that’s coming apart a little bit too, cause if you don’t understand the foundations of what he’s talking about, and I know recently, he’s been going into different terms that he uses which is really helpful, but if you don’t understand the foundations of what he’s talking about, you’ll says, ‘well, JD’s just another hater’, you know what I mean?”

Erik: “But I think a lot of the people who do eventually end up listening to the Polemics Report because they’ve got nothing else mate, they’re searching that hard for the truth, they end up in the Bunker because they need a place to hide out, you know, it’s a haven for me, it seriously is, the Pulpit Bunker is a haven for me Gordo, it really is.”

Gordo: “Your making me feel like we’re Mexican bandits with big moustaches that want somewhere to hide out.” (Laughing)

Erik: “You know what I mean, I can go into the Pulpit Bunker and feel safe in asking questions, that you would not necessarily do in an open group per say, because you know that the guys in there know what they’re talking about, they aren’t going to mess around and they will answer you straight up. Man, I have been offended so many times in the Bunker, but they were right and I was wrong, so I had to go away with my tale between my legs and deal with the pride and sought out my mentality and mindset, and get it right.”

Gordo: “Well, that just goes to show, doesn’t it? Quite often in the Bible, when you read a passage or a chapter or a whole book, you have to realise who they’re talking to and it’s the same in a Facebook group too, if the person you’re talking to is unregenerate, or not very along the path of sanctification, they may not have the underpinnings to understand, or the maturities to understand where you’re coming from.”

Erik: “Definitely, that’s happened a few times, I’ve seen our group itself, and I always approach people as if they are not Christians anyway, until I actually find out, listen to what they’re saying, and really, really get an understanding of who they are. Because it doesn’t take long to work out who’s who, and seriously, this whole language thing is really doing my head in Gordon, and dealing with all these Americans as well, because the misunderstandings we’re having are so simple and so funny when you sit back and look at them. I’m fortunate, I have Margot to interoperate for me, and Stacy over there in the States, and I get a bit of an inside information, so when people ask some weird questions, I go, ‘what are they talking about’, and they translate it for me into Australian.”

Gordo: “Sometimes, you put up a post and someone will say, ‘I don’t know what he’s even talking about’, and I’ll look at it and I’ll be like, ‘I don’t even know what Erik’s talking about either’, sometimes you talk a little bit cryptic on there.”

Erik: “Yeah, I do get a bit messed up mate.”

Gordo: “No not at all.”

Erik: “I do get a bit messed up, and seriously, you should try being married to me, my wife, sometimes when I talk to her, I see her eyes turning around with the conversation and it’s quite amusing, it’s getting better, it’s getting better, less and less.”

Gordo: “I was just trying to remember, there was a conversation between Dr Brown and um, do you remember the conversation Dr Brown was having about Apostles and he was saying that um, you know, he wouldn’t, you know, go as far as putting in on a name card, and he would say that some of the most important people in history do have an Apostolic kind of outreach, where they go and do special things and whatever and then being sent to do something. He was kind of, he was very much on the fence of, he wasn’t calling it an ‘Office’, he was saying they were doing that, and yet he was calling them Apostles, and I kind of think, if you want to use that term, you’re kind of redefining what that term actually means. And that was the point I was trying to make on Facebook, and it was really hard to try and get into characters, and then I had someone, a notable man, comment on it, and I think he may have taken me the wrong way on it, but I didn’t hear much further on that. But um, yeah I think that’s a real dodgy line to walk, it’s a bit like having people redefine adultery as affair or redefine what a marriage is, or whatever. It only means one thing, Apostle is an Apostle, when you start trying to make up another term for it, it’s just rubbish. And that would make, that seriously would make every person that planted a church from another church an Apostle, if that’s the way you want to define it.”

Erik: “Hey listen, you could kick somebody out of the church, you sent them out the door, so they are a ‘sent’ one, so does that make them an Apostle as well, hey?”

Gordo: “It really degenerates the term Apostle.”

Erik: “It does, and what does the Bible say? What was the church built on? Wasn’t it built on the foundations of the Prophets and the Apostles?”

Gordo: “There’s something in Revelations to it about the twelve foundations being of the Apostles as well.”

Erik: “So does that mean that there are no Apostles today?”

Gordo: “I find it hard to believe that there would be. I see, do you know, when you make a house or something like that, and you do a foundation of cement, everything that’s built upon that is not that cement, it’s bricks and windows and all sorts of things. But the foundation is something completely different, and that’s how I see the Apostles were, they were the foundations of the church.”

Erik: “What about, even just the miracles themselves, and the healings and the miraculous office that goes with that? Because they were establishing the church, and so they pretty much said we’re walking it, we’re talking it, here’s the proof, here’s the pudding and Jesus is the real deal. You know, if these Apostles today were anything like that, mate Bill Johnson wouldn’t be wearing glasses, you know what I mean?”

Gordo: “He wouldn’t have to wear glasses cause, you know, someone else would touch him and boom, there you go, your healed.”

(Music Pink: NAR NAR NAR NAR NAR)

Erik: “It’s ludicrous mate. And listen what was funny, was going and hanging out with all these guys. They were renowned, like I think it was Kenneth Hagin back in the day. That was before my time. He was the guy you went to if you had problems with your teeth. He had the ‘teeth anointing’.”

Gordo: “Really?” [Laughing]

Erik: “Seriously, yeah! But apparently now, with these new guys, these NAR dudes, you can get gold teeth for free.”

Gordo: “I don’t know what that’s about.”

Erik: “Like ten teeth missing. I would love to go in there and go, ‘Hey Billy, Billy Boy, how about you lay hands on me and give me some of my teeth and show me what you’re really made of.”

Gordo: “I’ll just give you a straw.”

Erik: “Yeah, girls blouse, that’s what they are, there’s nothing to them. I get upset, sorry Gordon.

I was actually involved with these boys, I actually had hands laid on me. Dr Howard Brown- you listening to me? Whatever your name is, Dr Michael Brown. I had hands laid on me back in the 1990s, by fella’s that were good buddies. We shared the same ‘anointing’ back then, me, Rodney Howard Brown, all the boys Gordo. When I got saved after all those years of church planting, I had laid hands on people, they had gotten healed, I told nobody in the Vineyard all those years that I wasn’t using their anointing, the power I had was that of Rodney Howard Brown was sharing around, the Holy Ghost ‘bartender’ himself.

When I came into the Presbyterian Church, finally Gordo about twelve years ago, you know what mate?

The truth of God’s Word got into my heart. I repented. I bowed before Jesus, my Lord and Saviour. And you know what Gordo? To this day I couldn’t raise myself out of bed if I tried mate. All that rubbish disappeared. I don’t talk in tongues anymore either.

Hey, what happened to all that stuff? If God is the giver of all gifts, and he gives them without taking them back mate, what was that? When I repented that disappeared out of my life?

Mr Brown! Hey! Dr Howard Brown! -Whatever your name is! Your all the same! You morph between each other. Bill Johnson- Howard Brown- they are no different. I repented and it all went away and Jesus saved me. And now I walk in the truth knowing that I’m going to Heaven. I know it. I don’t need nothing to prove it. I don’t need feelings. I don’t need feathers. I don’t need gold falling from the air conditioners. Jesus is my Lord and Saviour man, and you guys need to repent and stop preaching that crap, you are sending people to hell with your lies and it’s about time you woke up to yourself. We’re going to tell the truth and not for any other reason that you could come to know Jesus yourself. And all those who follow your lies. Stop standing up to them, come out from behind your mask and repent the whole lot of you.

Sorry Gordon, I got upset.”

Gordo: “Yeah, it’s um, I suppose it’s only human to get upset about things. I don’t know how far, this kind of movement has been going on for a long time, they would have had people objecting to them, they would have had people shoving truth in the face. So when we listen to Dr Brown on the episode the other day, when he had ‘Chris from North Dakota’ ring up, and he just showed him up straight up on the program, and the guy just kind of slipped around like he was covered in Vaseline. He’s like a slippery old snake, you couldn’t touch him.

And I just kind of think, well what’s the hope of anyone pinning these guys down to the truth? They just don’t want to know it. They probably do know it- but they don’t want to accept it. Bit like if Jesus performed a miracle, would you believe that everyone that would see a miracle would have faith in Jesus? They wouldn’t. They would still say He pulled a rabbit out of a hat, “I don’t know how He did it, but he is not who He says He is”- you know, you’re not going to get 100% belief through a miracle.”

Erik: “Mate, the Bible actually says, ‘a wicked and perverse generation ask for a sign’, so you gotta kind of ask, if these guys recon if we can prove raisin the dead and healing the sick that Jesus is alive, it kind of goes against what Jesus was saying.”

Gordo: “I don’t find faith in miracles.”

Erik: “Na mate, even the Bible says we walk by faith, not by sight. Could you imagine if we walked by our feelings, that’s why we have to set ourselves on the truth of the Gospel, isn’t it Gordo?”

Gordo: “Yeah, true, true.”

Erik: “It’s all we’ve got.”

Categories: Line of Fire