The Counterfeit Revival
Hank Hanegraff of Christian Research Institute

[The following transcription is taken from a taped radio program. This is a short segment of what was aired on the Christian station [circa 1997]. Most quotes are the actual voice of counterfeit revival leaders -- John Wimber, Paul Cain, Jack Deere, Mike Bickle, Wes Campbell, and Bob Jones.]

Narration by Hank Hanegraff:

…They [the leaders of the Second Wave -- the Charismatic Renewal/Endtime Restorationism movement] were convinced that only through the restoration of charismatic gifts would there ever be hope for global revival.

Now, while the First and Second Waves had restored such supernatural gifts as tongues and healing, in time, a third wave would crash upon the shores of Christianity and this wave would restore super apostles and prophets to the church.

Counterfeit Revival leader Jack Deere says that with the Third Wave would come Endtime Apostles and Prophets [voice of Deere] "who will do greater works than these. That's never been fulfilled.  I mention the two prophets in Revelation 11:5-6, those two prophets there, uh, who do greater works than the apostles, than Jesus or any of the Old Testament prophets. Those are all yet to come."

Paul Cain whom Deere believes to be one of these Endtime Prophets says that the emerging Third Wave would [voice of Cain] "contain the good of the all previous moves and much more." Says Cain,  "God is building something so strong and so powerful when he releases His mighty wave it's going to engulf every body from the Baptists to the Episcopalians and from the Episcopalians through the Catholics and every denomination on the face of the earth."

Vineyard founder John Wimber believes that Paul Cain is the premier prophet of the Third Wave. He credits Cain with saving the Vineyard Movement and calls him a ten on a scale of ten. Like the Apostle Paul, Cain would not come with great oratory but rather with [voice of Wimber] "with signs and wonders."

In Wimber's words, he's much like Jeremiah, much like John the Baptist; singled out before birth for the ministry that he now has.

The prophetic power resident in Cain is so awesome that Wimber says [voice of Wimber], "He's interacting in two dimensions continually. He's not only seeing you and talking to you, but he's, uh, hearing from God constantly. There's a continual flow. I think it's interrupted periodically, but a continual flow of information coming to him about things."

Wimber goes on to say that Cain can actually [voice of Wimber] "be in one room and be listening to the conversation of people in another place at the same time."

Jack Deere alleges that the Creator's communication with Cain even includes disclosing such details as how many people would die in the earthquake that hit San Francisco during the 1989 World Series.

Cain himself says that the power that rests upon him is at times so potent [voice of Cain], "You're going to have something more than something that will knock out the cameras and knock out the phone lines and knock out all the power lines and set off the fire alarms like it did in Kansas City, or Olathe, Kansas."

This kind of power says Wimber is not unique. [Voice of Wimber], "We are entering a time in history in which the ability to perform mighty deeds is going to become somewhat commonplace. There are already in Korea and Japan religious groups that do not relate to Christ at all, who are healing the sick and casting out demons and performing miracles over nature."

Wimber's awareness of occult power caused him to take a hard look at Cain's background. He made it clear that Cain's prophetic prowess hinged on his personal character not his prophetic correctness. He assured followers that he had thoroughly checked out Cain. And in doing so he had determined that [voice of Wimber], "This man is authentic. He's the most truthful, the most guarded man with his mouth I've ever met."

Wimber claimed that, like the Apostle Paul, Cain was a eunuch of the Lord. Jesus Christ allegedly had appeared to Cain on the road to Santa Maria and had physically [voice of Wimber] "…touched him on the chest. Some time later the Lord visited him and touched him again and took all sexual desire out of his body and for over forty years he's lived with no cognizant sense of sexuality."

Kansas City Prophet Mike Bickle confirmed John's Wimber's words, adding that when Jesus appeared in the flesh and touched Paul on the chest, the fire of God went through him and his chemistry was change instantaneously. From then there on Cain was not aware of a single romantic or sensual thought; instead, he was allegedly recreated for the Lord's pleasure.

In spite of Cain's radical transformation into a eunuch for the Lord, Wimber acknowledged that Cain [voice of Wimber] "…had gotten involved with a woman, I think, in Scandinavia."

At the time he was allegedly at the peek of his career. However, the accusation of sexual impropriety caused him to abandon his ministry and go into seclusion for twenty-five years. During these silent years the Lord promised his beleaguered prophet [voice of Wimber],  "…that there will be a day that he would stand before a New Breed of Men. Paul [Cain] was given a mission. The mission, as he states it, is to initiate the Endtime Ministry."

When the twenty and five years had ended God sent forth his prophet once again. This time he was called to identify the leader of a New Breed of Men. Endtime Restorationist Mike Bickle characterized him as a [voice of Bickle] "…Samuel looking for David."

With nothing more that a promise and a pocket full of credit cards he set out in search of God's chosen instrument.  First he went to Seoul, Korea and met with Paul Yonggi Cho. But, the Spirit of the Lord said [voice of Bickle retelling Cain's experience], “No this is not him.”  He said [voice of Bickle], “I was sure it was him.”

[Bickle explains.] It was going to be an international purpose, not an America purpose, but far bigger. He meets with Jimmy Swaggart. The Spirit of the Lord says, 'This is not the one.' Paul [Cain] says, 'I was sure this was the one.'

He goes to James Robinson [sic. Robison], he meets Pat Robertson. He meets leader after leader after leader, uh, in other nations. And every time the Lord says, 'This is not the one. This is not the one.' "

By 1988 Cain had traveled to such far away places as Singapore and Korea. When he was finally invited to meet John Wimber in America, he was utterly discouraged. He thought to himself, well, this is just one more river to cross, one more leader to see. However, on February 12, 1989 when he stood in John Wimber's pulpit he prophetically proclaimed [voice of Cain], "… that I found that leader that's going, before he dies, to usher in a new move of God, a new wave. And not just a little gathering here and not a few vines out there. But it's going to be more than a cluster. Listen to me buster. I mean it's going to be more than a cluster. [cheering] Amen, ha ha ha. I mean, in spite of all your blunders God's still going to give ya signs and wonders."

The Almighty allegedly announced the day of Cain's his coming with signs and wonders. At 3:38 A.M. on December 3, 1988, an earthquake hit Southern California. Even before the full prophetic import of the earthquake struck Wimber, he was shaking. [voice of Hanegraff] 'What kind of a man is this?' he exclaimed, 'The Lord announces his coming with an earthquake!'

While counterfeit revival leader Jack Deere could not recollect the exact day the earthquake had struck, he did recall the sound. [voice of Deere] "The noise was frightening. They don't usually occur out here with noise, I've been told, but this had noise with it, rumbling, you know, where you thought your bed was just going to fall down in a chasm. You know, it was just that walls were shaken, the bed was shaken. Just scared the… It scared us to death."

More foreboding than the earthquake itself, however, was the fact that it portended to be an omen of things to come. As a serious earthquake had shaken California, so too, a symbolic earthquake would shake the Vineyard. John Wimber found the prophetic significance of the earthquake in the notion that Cain had come in the Spirit of Jeremiah and that the earthquake had occurred at 3:38 in the morning. Thus, he concluded that the interpretation of this omen could be found in Jeremiah 33: 8.

[Possible omission here during the taping]

Near judgment had come on the Vineyard as a result of immorality in the ranks. He [Wimber] had sinned, he said, the sin of Eli and had ignored the immorality. But God's promise through Jeremiah 33:8 was [voice of Wimber], "I will cleanse them, the Vineyard, from all the sins that they have committed against me and forgive all their sins of rebellion against me."

Wimber went on to say God himself appeared to Cain and told him that since the sins of Vineyard leaders had been forgiven [voice of Wimber], "…that I was the man that He had been looking for and that we were the people and this is the movement that God wants to endorse and begin this ministry with. And the reason for that is that God says that these people won't be corrupted by the power, this time, as we were last time."

When corruption struck the Vineyard once again, Wimber acted swiftly. He publicly disciplined a prophet named Bob Jones for using his prophetic powers to manipulate people for his own personal desires. He also disciplined him for his sexual misconduct and for rebelling against pastoral authority and for slandering leaders along with the promotion of bitterness within the body of Christ.

Wimber made it clear, however, that Jones’ guilt did not impugn his giftedness, although Wimber had once before informed constituents that he judged Paul Cain on the basis of his personal character, not on his prophetic competence, he now instructed them to judge Jones on his prophetic competence and not on his personal character. He warned them that judging Jones's sexual sin should not translate into judging Jones's seer status.

Counterfeit Revival leader Mike Bickle agreed. While acknowledging that the pain and trauma of Jones's victims was unbearable, he agreed that the anointing on him was greater than ever. In fact, according to Bickle, Jones was the very prophet God used to confirm Cain's selection of Wimber as the leader who would usher in a New Wave that would [voice of Cain], "…contain the good of all the previous moves and much more, to lead the church of Jesus Christ into the greatest season of harvest, manifestation of power and glory and righteousness that the world has ever known."

In the words of Jones, Wimber would have [voice of Bickle], "a purpose beyond the Vineyard. The Lord would use those two.  And they would go even across the nations together. And there'd be a New Breed of leaders that they would help nurture across the nations of the world. And that they would build the platforms for the apostles that would be revealed in the 90s and et cetera; which means, that they would lay hands on, they would discover by the Spirit, and they would introduce to the body of Christ the apostles that were yet to come in the 90s.

God revealed the second purpose of the Vineyard to Bob Jones by transporting him in the Spirit to a great beach. He stood there before the sands of time and watched a succession of men as they put their hands in the sand and pulled out empty boxes.

Then the Lord came to Jones and said [voice of Bickle retelling Jones's experience], "'Put your hand right here, right there.'

And he [Jones] says, 'Well, Lord, Why? All I'm going to do is get an empty box.'

And He [the Lord] goes, 'Just do it.'

And he puts his hand in, pulls it out.

And He [the Lord] says, 'Now open the box.'

This massive box. And he opens this box and he sees all these draft notices. And he pulls out one. It says, 'Welcome you are inducted into the Army of the Lord.'  -- a draft notice, and you are…, and there's three hundred thousand of them in the box.

And the Lord tells him…

He [Jones] says, 'Lord what is this?'

He [the Lord] said, 'The men down there, uh, were like Martin Luther, and then John Wesley, and then Charles Finney.  They were the leaders that thought the appointed generation was theirs.'

And He [the Lord] says, 'And they all came up empty-handed.'

And he [Jones] said…, but the Lord says, [an aside by Bickle] and this is quite an incredible thing, He said that, 'Out of the sands of time I have preserved the best of all bloodlines of all the families of the earth for this hour.'

And He says, 'And this is the generation that will begin the leadership of the Endtime Army.'"

God also revealed to Jones that, before the best of all the bloodlines would emerge victorious in a great Endtime Restoration, the body of Christ would be bloody by a massive civil war. The Civil War Prophecy that today is a common refrain among leaders of the counterfeit revival was initially given to Jones in 1984.

God, in a voice that sounded like thunder, instructed Mike Bickle to call Jones and tell him that he was about to experience a full and open visitation from the Almighty. This was not going to be a thought, an impression or merely a dream. Rather, it would be a vision during which Jones would be lucid and awake. During His visit, God allegedly took Jones through a panoramic enactment of Genesis chapter 40.

It was in the story of Joseph's imprisonment and the false charge that he had attempted to sleep with Potiphar's wife. The Lord then told Bob [voice of Bickle retelling God's alleged message to Jones.] "The Church is going to go into humiliation. The church is going to go into a time of, you know, deprivation."

[Hanegraff] As the baker that Joseph met in prison would lose his head, so the church was going to be pulled down into despair and devastation.  The first major ministry to go down was [voice of Bickle] …"Jim Bakker, and the baker [representing Bakker in this case] lost his head." As Joseph experienced deprivation, so too, the church would go through a ten year period of dryness.

After this time of deadness and discouragement God showed Jones that he was going to throw a massive party for the church. In evidence he showed Jones a large mansion in the Civil War era. The massive ballroom of the mansion was filled with Christians dressed in colorful clothing. They were laughing, dancing, and having the time of their lives.

Suddenly, however, things began to change. The Christians who were dancing and laughing began to take sides. As they did, their colorful clothing was transformed to either blue or gray. Then, a bloody civil war broke out between the Blues and the Grays.

The physical violence that ensued was so horrifying that not a single Christian household escaped unscathed. Wes Campbell depicts the Gray Coats from the South as motivated by greed and characterizes the Blue Coats from the North as being motivated by God.

As he puts it [voice of Campbell explaining the alleged Civil War Vision/Prophesy], "The North fought the South and the South fought the North. And The South wanted to keep the people enslaved. They wanted their money. They wanted their bodies. They wanted their personhood to keep the system going. And the North said, 'No! Freedom! Freedom!' And they went into a terrible fight. And it was father against son, brother against brother and a man's enemies were in his own house. And the angel said this, 'There won't be a house that escapes …' [inaudible -- possibly the word 'reaping.']"

According to Campbell, God not only gave Vineyard prophet Bob Jones the Civil War Vision but, he also gave a similar vision, as well as the interpretation, to Counterfeit Revival leader James Ryle [of Promise Keepers]. As Campbell put it, the Lord even showed him how the Blue Coats stand for revelation and the Gray for gray matter or man's wisdom. Says James Ryle, blue is the color of the sky, thus blue symbolizes revelation. Gray, conversely, symbolizes the gray matter of the brain. It is thus, symbolic of man's reason.

In 1996 God allegedly told Counterfeit Revival leader Rick Joyner to begin preparing for this great war with the resolve to fight until there was a complete victory. Joyner is convinced that the Grays, who he characterizes as, spiritually ruthless and cruel, have to be confronted, exposed, either converted or removed from their place of influence in the church. After the Grays who, he says, constitute nearly half all believers in the world today are defeated there will be an entirely new definition of Christianity. As Joyner declared, believers and unbelievers alike will think, 'This is the end of Christianity as we know it.' And it will be. Through this, he believes, the very definition of Christianity will be changed, for the better.

[break]

Of course, in the mythology of Endtime Restorationists another hoax took center stage by the middle of the twentieth century. Men like A.A. Allen, William Brahnam, and Jack Cole[?] perpetrated the myth that the restoration of healing would lead to a final Pentecost greater than the first Pentecost.

Today, Brahnam protégés like Paul Cain appear to be taking healing hoaxes to brand new heights. Cain promises credulous Christians that in the fullness of Endtime Restorationism [Cain yelling], "All the sick are going to be healed. The dead are going to be raised and nations are going to turn to God in a day."

Triumphantly he proclaimed that one day soon the news media would have no news to report but good news. [Voice of Cain], "And when you see CBS, NBC, ABC news anchormen come on and they say, 'Hello there. Ladies and gentlemen, we have no news to report tonight but good news. We don't even have any sporting events to report. All the stadiums and all the ballparks are filled with hundreds of thousands of people. They have hearses lined up, the ambulances lined up. They have hundreds of stretcher cases and all that, and there are men standing there in the pulpit. There are women standing there that haven't had a change of raiment in three days. They haven't had a drink of water. They haven't had any food. And they're preaching under the mighty power. Why, did you see that last night on ABC? Did you see that man, uh, levitated? Did you see all those preachers just levitated? Did you see that fixed pose? They stood they for twenty-four hours in a fixed pose, worshipping and praising God. And hundreds of thousands came by and fell on their face. Nobody pushed them and nobody shoved them. They fell under the power of God. And everybody everywhere is crying, 'Oh this is God!' and 'Jesus is Lord!' It seems like the whole world is turning to God."

[Hanegraff] …Endtimes Restorationism includes the belief that God is going to restore Super Apostles and Prophets to the endtime church. Paul Cain, in fact, stood in John Wimber's pulpit and declared, I found that leader that's going to usher in a new move of God.
Wimber, in turn, lauded Cain as a Prophet who reminded him of the Apostle Paul…

… and like the Apostle Paul, Jesus Christ had appeared to Cain in the flesh. Unlike the Apostle Paul, however, Cain, he said [Wimber], would stand before a New Breed of men and be called to initiate the Endtime Ministry. It is believed that this New Breed of people would be the most powerful in the history of humanity.

As Paul Cain himself put it [voice of Cain], "No prophet or apostle ever lived equal the power of these individuals in this great army of the Lord in these last days. No one ever had it, not even Elijah, or Peter, or Paul or anyone else enjoyed the power that's going to rest upon, uh, this, uh, great Army.

Bob Jones, another endtime prophet, who says that God spoke to him audibly saying "You're a seer-prophet," pushes the envelope even further. He says the New Breed would not only have permission to remit people's sins, they would also have [voice of Jones], "…permission to remit, uh, that which sin has caused in their lives, like herpes and AIDS and things like this."

Jones says that the anointing of the Endtime Prophets and Apostles will be ten times greater than the anointing of Moses. While Scripture confidently endorses prophets like Peter, Paul and Moses, Scripture clearly exposes pretenders like Cain, Joyner and Jones. Not only do they fail the test given by Moses in Deuteronomy 13: 1-10 and Deuteronomy 18:19-21. But they mouth empty boastful words and by appealing to the lustful desires of the sinful human nature they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity. More than two millennia ago a faithful prophet named Jeremiah warned of false prophets like Joyner, Jones and Cain, who presumptuously used God's name to spread false promises and false prophesies…