An Undiagnosed Disease

Imagine visiting the doctor because of what appears to be a minor ailment only to discover that you have a malignant cancer consuming your body, and which has already reached an advanced stage. You would not greet such news with apathy and say ‘it’s not my problem.’ You might be astonished that you were not aware of the disease and its progress earlier, but once the doctor tells you what the signs were, it becomes clear that symptoms were actually present early on, yet went unrecognised.

Here in Israel, we too have a cancer,--a malignant and destructive growth that has been gnawing away at our spiritual vitality and eroding the very core of biblical faith, and though referred to by other names, it is often known as the ‘Apostolic Prophetic Movement’, or most commonly as the term the ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ or NAR -a name coined by one of its senior architects the late false apostle C. Peter Wagner.

Years ago this movement set out (as one of my old friends who had been researching the movement and its progress in the West for many years) to ‘infiltrate and pervert the course of the true Church, in order to plant a whole new understanding of God, the Holy Spirit, the Coming, the Endtimes – and almost everything else’, and it is very close to achieving that -worldwide. So much so, that Wagner boasted 'The NAR, in fact, is the 21st century's mainstream Christianity'.

Cuckoo in the nest

Though the NAR is a massive global phenomenon Israel believers (particularly Hebrew speakers) know next to nothing about it, and like an undiagnosed cancer this makes it all the more dangerous, because Israel has not escaped infection; quite the opposite in fact. Its publications boldly and undiscerned on our congregational bookstalls here; it openly indoctrinates our youth through training schools and camps and disseminates its propaganda through the Body by sophisticated, high-profile and very well-funded media outlets;--and so pervasive and ubiquitous has it become, that most evangelicals visiting Israel will encounter it as the face of the believing Body here:--that’s quite an achievement for a movement very few here are aware of! Like a cuckoo planted in the nest, it has already outgrown the rest of the chicks and will eventually supplant and eject them, or cancer-like, subsume them into its malignancy unless action is urgently taken.

Why the all pervading ignorance about this movement in Israel and why has it managed to progress so far?
Simply put:

1. There is a great deal of research material in English, but until very recently zero documentation in Hebrew on this movement its origins and its teachings.
2.  It is a loosely organised movement, not a denomination with a unified leadership and doctrinal statement, so it is less easily recognisable, though a recognisable group of key international  leaders is emerging as the streams converge.
3. Though many of its teachings were recognised as error 70 years ago and proscribed by the general council of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God; they were seeded back into the churches via the Charismatic Renewal of the 1960’s, and began to be accepted as normative.
4. Information on the NAR is often scattered about; like a disease, you have to know the symptoms to recognise it.
5. Doctrinal ignorance and even indifference to biblical doctrine is a serious problem over here. I have had this impression for a number of years, and it has been abundantly confirmed from the lips of a number of Sabra leaders.

All of these factors, and more, have combined to create an environment where false teachings, faked, fleshly, and even demonic, counterfeit signs and wonders and spiritual experiences can flourish. The enemy is already in the camp and we are being overrun, the time to sound the alarm and awake to our predicament is long overdue.