Tag Archives: Mormonism

Why is David Barton 100% Wrong To Tell Glenn Beck The Third Great Awakening Has Begun?

The following is an excerpt from Brannon’s new book: The Coming Religious Reich: Exposing the Sinister Influences Sweeping The World Toward A Satanic Global Empire. Click here to order your copy now: http://www.worldviewweekend.com/products/books/coming-religious-reich

I had predicted in 2010 (specifically on my September 14, 2026 radio program) that it would not be long before the worldview of the NAR and New Age, Mormon Glenn Beck merged, but how did I know this? Simply because most false teachings eventually merge. Since this has happened time and time again, I can say confidently that over the coming years you will see a syncretism you never thought possible as the religious Reich develops.

Since 2010 we have seen Glenn Beck and proponents of the New Apostolic Reformation together. To mark the five year anniversary of his 8/28/2010 rally in D.C, for instance, Glenn Beck held an 8/28 rally in Birmingham, Alabama in 2015 called Restoring Unity. This time the event was actually co-sponsored with NAR proponent Jim Lowe. Lowe’s website states that he is the pastor of The Guiding Light Church in Birmingham, but what jumped out at me in his bio was the following:

“On May 6, 2003, James L. Lowe Jr. was ordained as a bishop by the International Communion of Charismatic Churches and Bishop Earl Paulk in the Cathedral at Chapel Hills—Decatur, Georgia.”

As soon as I saw that Lowe had been ordained by Earl Paulk, it made sense why Mormon Glenn Beck and Lowe were working together. The late Paulk was one of the most radical of the Word of Faith/New Apostolic Reformation leaders. I wrote about Paulk in Religious Trojan Horse and warned that it was only a matter of time before Mormons, the Word of Faith, and NAR got together in their joint love of another Jesus, a different gospel, and their radical dominion theology. Paulk promoted the Manifested Sons of God theology, also called Omega Children, Joel’s Army, and Overcoming Bride.

Jewel Grewe, wife of an Assemblies of God pastor, has been researching the Manifested Sons of God theology since the early 1980s. She and her husband, like many within the AOG, became concerned when this heresy began to surface in more and more churches. In 1991, Jewel released a report (even more relevant today than when it was released) entitled “Joel’s Army” in which she correctly identifies four problems with the Manifested Sons of God heresy:

“The claim to perfection through progressive revelations beyond Scriptures;

The written Word of God is held in low esteem and experiential knowledge very high;

The Word of God is perceived as a symbolic book;

The claim that the “god-man” dwells in every member and is waiting to be discovered and manifest by the believers.”

Paulk, who died in 2009 after being the pastor of a large Pentecostal church in Georgia, held this view on the Manifested Sons of God:

“Jesus Christ has now done all He can do, and He waits at the right hand of His Father, until you and I as sons of God, become manifest and make this world His footstool. He is waiting for us to say ‘Jesus, we have made the kingdoms of this world the Kingdom of our God, and we are ruling and reigning in Your world. Even so, come Lord Jesus.'”

It is a humanistic blasphemy to believe God is waiting in heaven, helpless until man reclaims the world and the culture, takes dominion like some Christian Taliban, and then hands it all over to God so He can send Jesus back to earth to accept the kingdom we have built for Him. The proponents of the Manifested Sons of God point to Romans 8:19 as justification for their heresy: “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” Like so many of their beliefs, this is based on a misinterpretation of Scripture through spiritual allegorizing. The Romans 8:18-23 passage is talking about believers returning with Jesus Christ at the Second Coming in their resurrected bodies. At that time, Christ restores creation as it was before the fall and sets up His millennial kingdom. The Romans passage cannot be correctly interpreted to produce the belief that Christians on earth become the sinless sons of God who raise the dead and establish God’s kingdom on earth.

The quest for global dominion and cultural renewal is why NAR proponents are interested in ecumenicalism. Paulk describes his ecumenical strategy this way:

“What would a meeting be like which brought together liberal evangelicals, such as we are, conservative theologians, represented by Holiness groups and Southern Baptists, and Catholics. Seventh-Day Adventists, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Many of these groups have become so different that we almost regard them as enemies, rather than as brothers and sisters in the faith. How can we step over these walls that have been built so high?”

To justify such unbiblical ecumenicalism, Paulk, and others like him, take the Apostle Paul out of context. Paulk writes:

“It is my honest opinion that the Kingdom of God cannot come to pass until “we all come in the unity of the faith.” He specifically does not say anything about doctrine, because he is not concerned about doctrinal points. As long as the world of religion continues to act as it is acting now, there will never be a Kingdom of God in reality. For so long as we have said, “Why don’t the Seventh-Day Adventists change? Why don’t the Mormons change?” Perhaps we should be the ones to change.”

Paulk clearly does not recognize any doctrinal distinction between Mormons, Catholics, Seventh-Day Adventists, and others, and what he hoped for is happening now. My friend and excellent Bible teacher Tommy Ice exposes the problems with Paulk’s thinking:

“We have searched the Bible in vain for the passage which Paulk has in mind where Paul lays down the unity of the faith as a condition for the coming in of the Kingdom. He seems to have in mind Ephesians 4:13. But the Kingdom of God is not even found in this context…How can Paulk say that Paul is not talking about doctrine. The phrase “the faith” is a synonym for doctrine or teaching. Paul is using it in the objective sense—the content of what we believe. Paul contrasts the faith in verse 13, with “every wind of doctrine” in verse 14. So it does have something to do with doctrine. The unity to be achieved is a unity of the faith. This is supposed to protect the Church from being tossed around by false doctrine (v. 14), like Mormonism. Apparently Paulk has not attained to a unity of the faith, or he would not be interested in merging with Mormons.”

This brings us to the August 31st, 2015 headline on Glenn Beck’s website that read: “David Barton tells Glenn he thinks the Third Great Awakening has now begun.”

Glenn on his radio program explained that he had David Barton were having a conversation on the plan on the way back from the rally in Birmingham with James L. Lowe Jr. and David Barton announced to Glenn that the third great awakening was under way. Here is how Glenn explained this conversation:

“I think this is — I think we’re at the beginning. I flew back with David Barton yesterday. And David said, just matter-of-factly, he said, we’re in the awakening. And I said, I leaned up and I said, hold on. What did you just say. And he said, we’re in the awakening. And I said, the third great awakening? And he said, oh, yeah. I truly believe it’s happening now. That’s great that’s great. He’s the one that told me about the great awakening. He’s like, we need the great awakening to happen. And we had people of all different faiths walking together.”

Glenn continued:

“So we had people from all different faiths. One of the leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention was there. Leaders from all different churches were there. Pastors, priests. All marching together.”

David Barton could not be more wrong! You cannot have a Biblical revival or Biblical, spiritual awakening when people like Barton and Beck are proclaiming false theology and uniting in unbiblical, spiritual enterprises that God’s Word declares will bring the opposite of God’s blessing as described in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17.

It appears as though Paulk got his wish as we now see so-called evangelicals, Mormons, Catholics, and numerous false religions uniting. Despite what David Barton might think, what took place in Alabama at Mormon Glenn Beck’s events are not signs of a Biblical awakening but further evidence that God has given over America as described in Romans 1.

The late Vance Havner warned about proclamations from people like David Barton and Glenn Beck when he warned:

“I am more afraid of false revival than of no revival—a false revival with a false gospel, false evangelists, false converts, false joy. It will seem so genuine that it would deceive, if possible, the very elect. Many church leaders will endorse it. Other good people will be afraid to oppose it for fear that they might be fighting against God.”

Most of this article was was an excerpt from Brannon’s new book: The Coming Religious Reich: Exposing the Sinister Influences Sweeping The World Toward A Satanic Global Empire. Click here to order your copy now: http://www.worldviewweekend.com/products/books/coming-religious-reich

The False Teachers: Joseph Smith

FalseTeachers-02

By Tim Challies from CHALLIES.COM

A few weeks ago I set out on a new series of articles through which I intend to scan the history of the church—from its earliest days all the way to the present time—to examine some of Christianity’s most notorious false teachers. Along the way we will visit such figures as Arius, Servetus, Fosdick, and even a few you might find on television today. We continue this morning with a false teacher who has at least 15 million followers in the world today, many of whom have undoubtedly knocked on your front door. His name is Joseph Smith.

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith was born on December 23, 2025 in Sharon, Vermont. When he was a child his family moved to Palmyra in western New York where there was a lot of revivalism and religious fervor due to the Second Great Awakening. The wild enthusiasm and the many denominations present confused Smith and he was uncertain of what to believe and how to worship. As he writes in The Pearl of Great Price: “In process of time my mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them; but so great were the confusion and strife among the different denominations, that it was impossible for a person young as I was, and so unacquainted with men and things, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong.”

In 1820, in this time of confusion, Smith read James 1:5 which instructs those who lack wisdom to request it from God. He immediately withdrew to a wooded area near his home to pray for wisdom and it was at this point that he recalls having a vision of a pillar of light coming down from heaven and God the Father and Jesus his Son standing above him in the air. Smith asked them which of the denominations or sects were right and which he should join. He was told that all of the denominations were evil and corrupt.

It was at the time of this experience that Smith became convinced he had been called as God’s prophet. On September 21, 1823, while praying in his room, he received an angelic visitation. This angel, named Moroni, told him that he had been chosen by God for a great work. He told Smith about a book written upon gold plates that had been buried alongside the Urim and the Thummin of the Old Testament. Smith immediately found this book, and, using the Urim and Thummin, translated it, and published it in 1830 as The Book of Mormon. This was the same year that he formally organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A commanding and gregarious figure, Smith began to amass followers. As the movement grew, it migrated west, in large part because their teaching was not welcome in most places and was often opposed with threats of violence. Smith moved first to Ohio, then to Missouri, then to Illinois. As the movement grew, it required more and more revelations, and Smith received them as need arose. These revelations continued until his death and were compiled into a book referred to as the Doctrine and Covenants.

There was strife within the Mormon church, and in the spring of 1844 it led to threats of violence between Smith and others in the town of Nauvoo, Illinois. The governor intervened and imprisoned Smith until he could stand trial. Before this could happen, though, an armed mob stormed the jailhouse where he was being kept, and Smith was shot and killed while trying to escape through a window.

False Teaching

The heart of Joseph Smith’s false teaching was that he put his own authority over the authority of Scripture. He added his own revelation to the Bible’s revelation and took it upon himself to identify and correct what he claimed were errors in Scripture.

Smith believed that the Bible was corrupt and insufficient and for that reason both took away from, and added to, God’s written revelation. Regarding the Bible’s corruption he said, “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers. Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.” These errors were both typographical and doctrinal. To address the Bible’s shortcomings, Smith produced his own translation of the Bible, making many corrections and additions to a variety of Old Testament and New Testament books.

He also claimed that his own revelations from God were the only access point to the true gospel that had apparently been lost. Mormon historian Richard Bushman says the “signal feature” of Smith’s life was “his sense of being guided by revelation.” He placed himself above all previous revelations and interpretations of the Bible—even those of Christ himself.

Followers and Modern Adherents

Joseph Smith gained many devoted followers during his lifetime. Immediately after his death, his followers split into two main groups: those who followed Brigham Young to Utah to become the modern “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” and those who coalesced under Smith’s eldest son, Joseph Smith III to become the modern “Community of Christ” (formerly known as the “Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”).

These are the two main groups who follow Joseph Smith today. They continue to adhere to his false teachings about the Bible and countless doctrines contained within it. They continue to deny the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture while elevating personal experience above the authority of the Bible. In total they number approximately 15 million and their ranks continue to grow through constant and systematic proselytization.

What the Bible Says

The Bible claims that it is the authoritative, infallible, inerrant, sufficient revelation of God. “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar” (Proverbs 30:5-6). It offers this dire warning: “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (Revelation 22:18-19).

The diversity of interpretations and sects among those who claim to follow the Bible, the very context which so confused Smith and led him to create an entirely new religion, does not provide warrant to say that the Bible itself is ambiguous or lacking in any way. We are told to expect divisions and factions among the body, “in order that those who are genuine … may be recognized” (1 Corinthians 11:18-19). Mormonism itself has been cut by endless in-fights and divisions, showing that the problem when the fractured church is not corrupted Scriptures but corrupted hearts.