This is Part 2 on my report on IHOP. See Part 1 first post above.
www.Truthspeaker.wordpress.com/Is IHOP a cult?
Joanne Panettieri
Editor, Kingdom Iconoclast
After doing extensive research on IHOP I have to say that it has all the earmarks of a cult. One of the most obvious being that if a family member disagrees with what the group teaches they will have them sever ties with the family member!! All cults do this. The Jehovah witnesses do it and even the Amish do it. This is a common MIND CONTROL technique.
But let me say this first. When you build something on a bad foundation you will eventually have problems with the structure. IHOP is built on a Biblically incorrect foundation. Jesus’ concept of a “house of prayer” is not a building, or a temple or a church or in a building, church etc. According to the Bible, WE, the members of Christ’s body, ARE the temple of God, and the HOUSE OF GOD.
Jesus said “MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL NATIONS”
The Bible clearly states that WE, the body of Christ. ARE THAT HOUSE:
Heb 3: 1 Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. 2 He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. 3 Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5 Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
1Pe 2:5 - you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
So, we see CLEARLY from Scripture that WE are God’s House! We ARE THE HOUSE OF PRAYER!!! Individually, corporately or where ever 2 or more are gathered)!!! The bible tells us to pray with out ceasing! We don’t have to do this in a special building or room! Wherever we are we are the house of prayer!
The concept of opening a building or a room and calling THAT the house of prayer is an Old Testament paradigm!! It is not Biblical for saints in the New Testament!! JESUS IS the restoration of David’s Tabernacle!! It’s not about 24 hour prayer and worship non-stop in a building!! It’s about Jew and Gentile being ONE IN MESSIAH!! David’s fallen tent is Jesus and it was restored so that THE REMNANT OF MANKIND MY SEEK THE LORD AND ALL THE GENTILES WHO ARE CALLED BY HIS NAME!!! It is NOT about music or prayer!!
Acts 15: 16 “‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, 17 that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.’
For more information on the erroneous teachings on the Tabernacle of David at IHOP see:
Confusion on the Davidic Tabernacle
Moving on I’d like to address the mind control issue. I think the mind control at IHOP comes from several sources
1. food depravation (required fasting)
2. sleep depravation - (praying at all hours of the day and night)
Sleep and food depravation are all used as mind control methods!
Mike Bickel’s own words: (Matthew 12:37 “for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”)
“We require that all our full-time staff missionaries commit themselves to at least 50 hours per week of dedicated service. This includes helping to lead prayer and worship meetings, training missionaries and leaders, evangelism, outreach to the poor, administration of the Missions Base, etc. Our missionaries maintain a rigorous prayer life with regular fasting as they serve the poor, sick, and needy in our outreaches.”
So, the question is how do you support yourselves? If you have to work a secular job to pay for your food and rent and then are REQUIRED to work another 50 hours per week as a full time staff missionary, this causes SEVERE SENSORY DEPRAVATION!!
Here is a good definition of Mind Control by a Christian ministry:
www.spirithingych.org/mincondef.htm“By definition, therefore, cultic mind control is a process of either unconscious or intentional change of an individual’s behavior, thought, and emotional patterns through subtle, deceptive, and damaging means by unethical spiritual leaders who hold positions of trust and authority over them. It involves a process whereby an individual’s means of independent thought is effectively controlled and even overcome by degrees, and an entirely different mode of thinking is adopted by them which is supplied by these leaders. It is this kind of power that leads men and women in cultic groups to accept as normal various kinds of abuse, outrages and privation that those outside the groups would recognize immediately for what it is.”
3. Members are wanting to be accepted by the rest of the group. This is used to create the dialectic as a form of changing your thinking to the thoughts and ideas of the group. Independent thinking is shunned and looked down upon. Because a member wants to fit in they will change their thinking to go along with the rest of the group, even denying what their discernment (or the unction of the Holy Spirit) tells them is true. You will deny the word of God to be accepted by the group. In the cult that I was in when someone challenged the teachings of the pastor they were publicly rebuked or shunned.
4. teaching them false doctrines (ie: Joel’s army, Elijah revolution, bridal paradigm) Also, it is a well documented fact that KCF and IHOP were both started on the false prophecies of Bob Jones and Paul Cain – both are known sexual deviants who Mike Bickel praises as great prophets.
“The KCF was founded in 1982 by Mike Bickle. By 1986, its leaders formed Grace Ministries, an umbrella organization designed to facilitate the emergence of a “new breed” into the church — end-time prophets. These they held to be part of the restored ‘five-fold ministry” (Eph. 4:11). These ministries immediately came under fire in the Kansas City area due to the teachings of KCF pastors Sickle, Jones, Jackson, and others. Strange stories were emerging of these men experiencing angelic visitations, visiting heaven and hell, perceiving auras around people, and giving public prophetic instructions to people (many of which did not come to pass). They also claimed to have received revelations from God on many subjects — including the economy, weather patterns, and natural disasters (many of which also proved to be false).
Later, Paul Cain — a former associate of William Branham (1909-1965) — joined this leadership circle. Cain is considered by KCF leaders and by Wimber to be a powerful prophet on the cutting edge of a new wave of end-time “superprophets.”
www.biblefacts.org/cult/cri/promov23.htmlSee these articles for more information.:
herescope.blogspot.com/2008/05/m ... jesus.html
www.intotruth.org/kcp/kcp-roots.html5. contemplative prayer (this is a biggie and maybe the worst! This is New Age meditation that brings them into the demonic realm) PLEASE See my blog on IHOP and contemplative prayer here:
truthspeaker.wordpress.com/2008/ ... rituality/
6. Deliverance – The constant deliverance they put the kids through says: “there’s always something wrong with you” so the STRIVING to be right with God and accepted by the group and the leaders makes them behave according to the groups standards.
7. The unbiblical practice of breaking generational curses. This is a misread of the scripture from Ex. 20 which says:
Ex 20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
6 BUT SHOWING STEADFAST LOVE TO THOUSANDS OF THOSE WHO LOVE ME AND KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS.
So we see what that scripture actually says…. The iniquities of the father’s are passed down to the generations of those WHO HATE GOD… but he shows STEADFAST LOVE TO THOUSANDS OF GENERATIONS OF THOSE WHO LOVE HIM AND KEEP HIS COMMANDS!!!
The BLOOD OF JESUS breaks all generations of sin and hate when we are truly BORN AGAIN!! This is a false teaching and a false doctrine!
The scripture also clearly teaches:
Gal 3: 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
So we see that Jesus, through his death on the cross, took the curse of our sin and broke it so that we may now be under the blessing of Abraham and receive the promise of the Holy Spirit!!
So, I said all that to say this: when you start with an incorrect biblical premise and then build on that foundation, what you will end up with is something totally unbiblical. In order for the leaders to maintain this they MUST resort to CONTROL of the members. Any time a member sees something wrong they must do damage control immediately so that the truth does not spread to others!!
Why, does this happen?? I will give you the simple answer…. follow the money trail!! $$$$$$$$
For more information read Ernie Gruen’s book “Aberrant Practices of KCF” PDF
