Awaken Bible Prophecy Update 9-27-23: How Open Theism Fails in Bible Prophecy

There is a somewhat popular, so-called doctrine in the world of Christendom called Open Theism that we’re looking at today.  Its heritage is that it’s descended from a previously popular belief system known as Moral Government Theology, or MGT.  As MGT became more widely known and discussed, it became clear that it was heretical, or as one theologian critically stated, it “must be classified not as a form of Christianity but as heathenism masquerading as Christianity.”  That’s a serious indictment and well-earned, as we’ll see shortly.  However, since MGT effectively gave birth to Open Theism, and this doctrine is prominent today in NAR circles, we need to investigate both of these theological ideologies to better understand what is being taught in some areas of Christianity.

The astounding fact that I came across in researching this topic is that a popular NAR end-times belief system is rooted in Open Theism.  That being the case, what this stream in the NAR movement believes and advocates, is ultimately built on a lie.  You may think I’m too hard on this whole area known as the New Apostolic Reformation, but as I learn more about NAR, I can only conclude that it is infiltrated by demonic deception.  I’m not saying the NAR adherents and their churches which embrace NAR are demonic themselves, but when Christians go down a non-Biblical path, bad things happen.  In our case, because I inevitably link my work to Bible prophecy, we’ll see how this affects the post-Tribulation Rapture position versus that of the pre-Tribulation Rapture, which I hold as true.  Additionally, I’ll burst some bubbles when I speak about where Open Theism is actually being taught and practiced.

Transcript:

There is a somewhat popular, so-called doctrine in the world of Christendom called Open Theism that we’re looking at today.  Its heritage is that it’s descended from a previously popular belief system known as Moral Government Theology, or MGT.  As MGT became more widely known and discussed, it became clear that it was heretical, or as one theologian critically stated, it “must be classified not as a form of Christianity but as heathenism masquerading as Christianity.”  That’s a serious indictment and well-earned, as we’ll see shortly.  However, since MGT effectively gave birth to Open Theism, and this doctrine is prominent today in NAR circles, we need to investigate both of these theological ideologies to better understand what is being taught in some areas of Christianity.

The astounding fact that I came across in researching this topic is that a popular NAR end-times belief system is rooted in Open Theism.  That being the case, what this stream in the NAR movement believes and advocates, is ultimately built on a lie.  You may think I’m too hard on this whole area known as the New Apostolic Reformation, but as I learn more about NAR, I can only conclude that it is infiltrated by demonic deception.  I’m not saying the NAR adherents and their churches which embrace NAR are demonic themselves, but when Christians go down a non-Biblical path, bad things happen.  In our case, because I inevitably link my work to Bible prophecy, we’ll see how this affects the post-Tribulation Rapture position versus that of the pre-Tribulation Rapture, which I hold as true.  Additionally, I’ll burst some bubbles when I speak about where Open Theism is actually being taught and practiced.

As usual, we want to pray and read from God’s Word, then we’ll get right to our topic at hand.

<PRAY>

Scripture:

2 Peter 2:1

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

How Open Theism Fails in Bible Prophecy

• To build our case, we first need to look critically at Moral Government Theology – MGT
• For this Prophecy Update I pull heavily from articles by Holly Pivec, who is a known expert on NAR
• These articles are linked in the Transcript – found here, here, and here
• Note also, that I’ll often directly use her phraseology from the articles
• To begin, the following are several areas in Christian belief that MGT attempts to address and redefine:
  • The nature and attributes of God
  • The nature of man
  • The process of salvation
  • The question: Did Jesus literally pay for our sins on Calvary?
  • The question: Is Christ’s righteousness imputed to us when we believe?
  • The question: Does God possess the attributes of immutability and omniscience?
• Right off the bat, you can see that if a theoretical Christian approach to what we believe attempts to tackle core doctrines such as these and change them, some red flags may instantly arise
• That is indeed the case
• If MGT is questioning these issues with the intent of altering the clear teaching of Scripture, we’ve got a serious problem
• Without getting into the deep theological discussion that people more qualified than I have done, we’ll continue our bullet-point analysis
• If you’re interested in digging into this subject with the theologians, you can check out their articles in the Transcript here and here
• What we learn in summary are the following points about MGT:
  • It denies God’s perfection in knowledge, goodness, and power
  • It denies original sin, i.e. that man is born morally neutral
  • It denies human moral inability, i.e. we don’t have an inherited sin nature
  • It denies the substitutionary satisfaction in Christ’s atoning death
  • It denies redemption
  • It denies justification, i.e. the crediting of Christ’s righteousness to believers by grace apart from works
• Other than these few minor points, Moral Government Theology should pose no problems for true Christian believers
• Right – just kidding
• It’s difficult to comprehend how this heretical belief system got any traction whatsoever among churches
• But it did
• It started during the 1930s and slowly progressed
• It had its biggest heyday largely in the late 1970s through the 1980s, and as recently as into the 1990s
• Now, having addressed key aspects of Christian doctrine with the denial of core beliefs, what is that MGT specifically teaches?
• Are you ready?
  • God does not know His future plans
  • God changes His mind and His plans
  • God doesn’t know beforehand what actions people on earth will freely choose
  • God doesn’t sovereignly control all earthly events
  • It teaches that we are not born with a sin nature
  • It teaches that our salvation was not purchased by Christ’s blood
  • It teaches that we are saved by ceasing to sin
• Is your head spinning yet?
• In a rational, Christ-and-Scripture-affirming world, this doctrine would have been laughed out of the church from the outset
• If the people in the 1930s had known where MGT would lead, they would have stoned its author as a false prophet as was done in OT times
• Sadly, that didn’t happen
• Rather, it birthed the concept known as Open Theism
• Now Open Theism isn’t quite as problematic as Moral Government Theology, but, as you’ll see, it’s pretty bad
• The points of intersection that I gleaned from my study are at least four main items that I noted earlier
• These same points that Open Theism has in common with MGT are:
  • God does not know His future plans
  • God changes His mind and His plans
  • God doesn’t know beforehand what actions people on earth will freely choose
  • God doesn’t sovereignly control all earthly events
• From these main arguments, Open Theism subsequently derives and believes the following:
  • God is aware of free will decisions by man, but He doesn’t know which He will choose until man makes them
  • God must subsequently decide and act in this world based on His best guess as to what man will do
  • God is thus sometimes mistaken
  • As a result, He occasionally regrets a decision and must operate on a Plan B alternative
  • From this, God learns from historical events
  • God needs man to accomplish His plans on earth
  • He relies on people to cooperate with Him to bring His plans to fulfillment
  • This cooperation includes prayer, spiritual warfare, and missionary work
  • Thus, God not only influences man, but man exerts influence on God
  • The course of history is not a product of God’s divine action alone
  • God has no control over tragic events
  • God is love and He does His best
  • But God realizes that all His choices may not have worked out so well
• Rather shocking, isn’t it?
• The issues we need to address for our purposes today are these three:
  • Given these beliefs of Open Theism, it’s clear that this doctrine denies God’s exhaustive foreknowledge
  • By definition, this denies the inerrancy of Scripture
  • Because God is not seen as omniscient in Open Theism, it’s clear that this doctrine believes that He cannot guarantee all OT and NT prophecies will come true

• Obviously, if we don’t have a God who is out of time, and knows the end from the beginning, and is able to see the entire course of human history in His omniscience, that leads to a belief system which says God requires mankind to help Him out so as to make Bible prophecy come true
• We’ll come back to this momentarily
• First, I want you to know the following:

1. Open Theism is a core component of at least one segment of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement
2. This may surprise you . . .
   1. Some years ago, Loren Cunningham who founded YWAM – Youth With a Mission – allied this organization with NAR
   2. In the process, Cunningham also originally adopted the Moral Government Theology doctrine which was taught extensively throughout YWAM
   3. When MGT was shown to be unbiblical, YWAM subsequently embraced Open Theism, which it continues to teach today at a number of its base camps around the world

• As you can imagine, this is problematic for all those young people who join YWAM with the allure and understanding that they will be bringing the Gospel to the world through their missionary fervor
• The question is: What Gospel are they bringing?
• There are numerous cornerstone teachings at YWAM that correlate to NAR teachings
• I won’t elaborate on these today, but you can see more details in the links I’ve provided plus one more in the transcript here
• These are some of these problematic teachings:
  • Hearing God’s voice
  • Treasure hunting evangelism
  • Asking God specific questions in the tradition of Moses
  • The wise men principle
  • The popcorn method
  • Magic 8-ball way of reading the Bible
  • Prophesying blindfolded and drawing prophetic pictures
• For further information on these methodologies, check out the links provided plus more at Holly Pivec’s website
• As an aside, at our church several years ago, there were several folks who went deeply into some of the NAR teachings
• These were then brought to the general congregation and specifically taught in classes – which I attended in my ignorance at the time
• We practiced “hearing God’s voice” and “prophesying blindfolded” concerning other people – so I’m intimately familiar with these techniques
• Think for a minute, how the many beliefs and practices noted here could influence the YWAM understanding of missions and how this aberrant theology might ultimately be detrimental to young, idealistic Christians . . .
• Here you are on fire for God, and you go to YWAM
• In this system you learn that your contribution as a missionary is even more significant than you previously thought
• As such, the missionary enterprise you’re about to undertake has much greater urgency than you imagined
• Why?
• Because God needs humankind to accomplish His plans throughout the world
• Because God doesn’t have complete control, He absolutely relies on people to bring His plans to fulfillment
• How does God do this?
• Through prayer, spiritual warfare, and missionary programs such as YWAM
• You, as part of this amazing organization, will gain great power since you are integral in accomplishing what God is unable to do through His own efforts
• In fact, you will have extraordinary authority, gain critical new revelations, and obtain miraculous powers, much like the OT prophets

• From this, it’s evident that there’s nothing man-centered or pride-inducing here, is there?
• Yeah . . .
• You can take this first-person account I’m linking here with whatever grain of salt you’d like, but this echoes what others have warned about regarding YWAM and the spiritual practices I mentioned a few moments ago
• The potential is also there for significant spiritual abuse by leaders
• In some respects, it can produce a very cult-like feeling, which may include manipulation of fear, plus guilt and authoritarianism
• There can be the denigration of critical thinking, the encouragement of social exclusiveness, and with that, the suppression of individuality
• The aforementioned practices can encourage leadership’s special interpretation of Bible verses and precepts to instill desired attitudes and conformity to the group’s ways

• With that. Let’s pivot to a brief discussion of how all this plays out with end-times beliefs
• In my prior Prophecy Update titled NAR Post-Trib End-Times Beliefs I discussed Mike Bickle and the International House of Prayer (IHOP)
• Recall what I said about how the post-Trib doctrine of this stream within NAR causes believers to think that:

1. They will enter and go through the Tribulation
2. The End-Times Prayer Movement (ETPM) is necessary for God to do all during the Tribulation that He intends
3. God will give the ETPM believers extraordinary powers
4. They will be the ones calling down God’s judgments
5. In fact, it is this last generation of Christians that will actually cause the Tribulation

• Are you beginning to see where this thinking comes from?
• It originated in Moral Government Theology, morphed into Open Theism, and has flowered in the NAR movement of today, particularly within the stream of NAR that follows Mike Bickle at the IHOP and, very likely, the graduates of YWAM who have been absorbed into NAR-following churches
• If you think that God cannot perform all that He sets His hand to without human cooperation, then the ETPM makes sense to you
• God requires this extraordinary group of millions of Christians praying and acting during the Tribulation so as to actually bring the Book of Revelation to fulfillment
• It is through them that that the Judgments of God will be released and kill millions of people
• Who knew – based on what Scripture actually says?
• But this is exactly what these people believe
• In a sense it is very much like the New Age practice of visualization
• You may recall the book from several years ago titled The Secret
• It taught the occult belief of the power of attraction
• In that you visualize and ask the universe for something
• Then you believe and receive
• Through this process you can achieve anything that you imagine
• Well, here we are with the ETPM visualizing, believing, receiving
• They pray that the Judgments described in Revelation will come to pass
• Through their great faith, they believe that the Judgments will come down to earth as they visualize
• They receive the desired outcome of death to unbelievers
• This ushers in the next glorious phase of God’s end-times plan, namely the Millennium – the 1000-year reign of Christ
• And it all happens because these Christians were faithful to their task
• I’m not sure what the outcome is if they don’t rise up in power, but I guess that’s not an issue – because man never fails at what he attempts – right?
• I think you can see the demonic deception in this belief system that I mentioned at the outset
• The enemy gets man to think he can do God’s job
• That results in less faith in the sovereignty, might, and power of God
• It causes pride and arrogance to swell in the heart of man
• It makes man essentially think he is god because of his god-like powers
• Gosh – that kind of brings us back to the Garden, doesn’t it?
• The bottom line is that post-Tribulation Rapture theology is based on faulty, even heretical, doctrine
• Where does that leave us?
• It brings us back to the one true Rapture position – which is pre-Trib
• The pre-Tribulation Rapture is completely Scriptural, whereas post-Trib and the others in that camp, do not line up with the Biblical text because of their origins
• We can trust God’s Word for what it says
• The true church of Jesus Christ will be delivered – rescued – from this evil, God-hating world by Christ Himself prior to the wrath of God raining down upon those who have chosen not to believe Him and His Word
• That time of redemption, Rapture – escape, if you will – is coming very soon