Mark Rouleau (1 June 2006)
"Deception of the 'Last Days'"

RICK WARREN –  DECEPTION OF THE ‘LAST DAYS’

A deception is taking place in the church, and Rick Warren is a key player.  A New Age gospel is being preached, but without the word “new”. Terms are redefined. It is my intent to expose this,  using KJV, and adding my own emphasis, hopefully causing you to be “Bereans” and search the scriptures  to see whether these things are true (Acts l7:ll). When Jesus describes the time just prior to His return in Mt. 24, the first thing he says in v. 4 is, “Take heed that no man deceive you.”  In fact, v. 24 says if it were possible, even the elect would be deceived.

The New Age teaches that all is one, all is divine – a part of God, so therefore man is divine.  He has forgotten his divinity, and the way to bring about this transformation is through meditation, which brings you in touch with demonic influences to lead you to accept New Age beliefs.  Man then takes the next step in evolution, which is spiritual, recognizing he is God.  A utopian peace begins when they have achieved a “critical mass” of  people, which ushers in the ‘Christ’, (Maitreya, Immam, etc.)  They believe resisters will be removed from the planet (which will actually be the rapture) by UFO’s!

In Purpose Driven Life, Warren states, “The Bible says, He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.”  He is quoting from a paraphrase, the New Century Version.  This is redefining Eph. 4:6 which reads, “One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all,” and means the Holy Spirit in believers.  New Ager Alice Bailey says, “The Christian church…can serve as a St. John the Baptist…as a nucleus through which world illumination may be accomplished” (self-realization).

Rick Warren teaches dominionism, that the church is God’s instrument to take dominion of the earth back from Satan and set up the “Kingdom of God” and that Jesus cannot or will not return until the church brings about this transformation.  Rick Warren says, “Then I believe the second reformation will not only be the mobilization of Christians and the multiplication of churches and the eradication of global giants and the cooperation between congregations but the evangelization of the planet…He’s not coming back until that happens.”  

At Angel Stadium on Sunday, 4/l7/05, Warren said, “I’m looking at a stadium full of people who are telling God they will do whatever it takes to establish God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven…“If Jesus Christ does not come back a thousand years from today, there will be no organizations, or government…there will be a church”.       

Warren is teaching New Age meditation.  On his website, Pastor’s.com (where he sells his sermons to pastors), are five mentions of contemplative prayer, which is designed to induce an altered state of consciousness.  In Purpose Driven Life, pg. 89, Warren says, “Use breath prayers throughout the day, as many Christians have done for centuries.  You choose a brief sentence or a simple phrase that can be repeated to Jesus in one breath.”  Breath prayers are a technique used in the New Age Movement to silence the mind and “practice the presence”.  It is repetition that brings one into an altered state of consciousness.    Since he is teaching New Age beliefs, how is Warren connected?

Warren graduated from Robert Schuller’s Church Growth Institute and spoke at the Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership. Schuller has said, among other blasphemies, “The most destructive thing you can do to a person is to call them a sinner, and Jesus never did that.”  On Hour of Power, Nov. 9, 2003, Schuller said, “Yes, God is alive and is in every single human being!  Warren has extensively used Schuller’s books, without due credit, in forming Purpose Driven.  See the book, Deceived on Purpose, by Warren Smith for numerous examples.  Schuller has said he “thinks of Warren as a son”.  Schuller wrote the book, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation.                                                                   

At the Pew Forum on Religion, 5/23/05, Warren says, “Peter Drucker…he’s my mentor.  I’ve spent 20 years under his tutelage learning about leadership from him”.  In Drucker’s book, Landmarks of Tomorrow, Drucker said, “Society…needs the deep experience that the Thou and the I are one, which all higher religions share”.  He helped Warren establish Purpose Driven and has been a close friend of his for years.

Warren promotes Richard Foster on his Pastor’s.com site.  Foster has written a “bible”, Renovare Study Bible, and in it he quotes New Ager Thomas Kelly as saying, “Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a DIVINE CENTER”. In Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, pg. l5, Foster says, “Christian meditation is an attempt to empty the mind in order to fill it”.

Brian McLaren is the leading spokesman of the emerging church movement, which embraces mystical practices of the past, including meditation.  The premise is the   church needs to attract the post-modern generation so they will experience “the silence” through contemplative prayer.  McLaren’s book, Speaking My Mind, is endorsed and quoted on Warren’s Pastor’s.com.  In the book, McLaren states, “Islam and Christianity reach the same God during mystical experiences”.  McLaren also says, “Hell and the cross are false advertising for God”.

In the foreword of the book, The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations by Dan Kimball, Warren says, “This book is a wonderful, detailed example of what a Purpose Driven Church can look like in a postmodern world…You need to pay attention to him because times are changing”.  Kimball writes in a section of the book, ‘Truly Worshipping in a Worship Gathering’, “It isn’t about clever apologetics or careful exegetical and expository preaching…Emerging generations are hungry to experience God in worship.”  On pg. l85, Kimball says services need to become “experiential and spiritual/mystical…so that church attendees can experience the ancient and mystical”.

Warren has solicited New Age and contemplative prayer promoter Ken Blanchard to aid him in implementing the P.E.A.C.E. Plan. “Ken (Blanchard) has signed on to help with the P.E.A.C.E Plan.  And he’s going to be helping train us.  For announcement, see  video at http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/pressreleasevideoclip.htm.  In the foreword of the book, What Would Buddha Do at Work, Blanchard says, “Buddha points to the path and invites us to begin our journey to enlightenment.  I…invite you to begin your journey to enlightened work”.  For more on his New Age     connection, visit   http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blanchardreportfeb06.htm .         

The Bible reveals there will be a false peace plan and one world church before Jesus returns to set up His Kingdom.  There will be no eradication of the global giants or revival.  Jesus said in Mt. 26:ll, “For ye have the poor always with you…”  Apostasy precedes His return.  It will be so bad that Jesus says in Luke l8:8,… “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”  It says in 2 Thess. 2:3, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day (the Lord’s return v. 2) shall not come except there come a falling away first, and man of sin be revealed…”  Antichrist is revealed after the Holy Spirit is removed at the rapture (2 Thess. 2:7, 8).  The antichrist will come in peaceably (Dan. ll:24) and sign a peace treaty with Israel, but it will only be a temporary peace, and many will be destroyed by this “peace” (Dan.. 8:25).  It says in l Thess. 5:3, “For when they shall say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them…and they shall not escape.”

Warren says the second reformation will bring about Global PEACE, which results in the coming of Jesus. >From his website, he says “The vision of P.E.A.C.E. is for every follower of Jesus Christ to be mobilized for the global glory of God.”  He plans to have “10 million churches with a hundred million small groups mobilizing a billion disciples”.  On 10-27-03, Warren said Saddleback would “change history” and “The global peace plan is going to happen.”  Warren reveals the P.E.A.C.E. plan, which is on the left side below, and on the right side are the five messages he would be preaching to solve the five biggest problems in the world, which he also refers to as the five evil, global giants:

             Plant churches….………………….................Spiritual Lostness

             Equip servant leaders…….......………………Lack of Godly Leaders

             Assist the poor…………………………...........Poverty

             Care for the sick…………...............................Disease

             Educate the next generation………………….Lack of Education

At The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Monday, May 23, 2005 in Key West, FL, when speaking of tackling the first “global giant”, Warren says, replacing the word lostness with emptiness, “The first one is spiritual emptiness…there is a purpose for every person’s life.  And they don’t know that, and they don’t know that God made them for a purpose…” (Spiritual emptiness is not knowing your purpose?)... Continuing, Warren says, “When Jesus sent the disciples into a village, he said, ‘Find the man of peace’…They don’t have to be a Christian.  In fact, they could be a Muslim, but they’re open and they’re influential and you work with them to attack the five giants.  And that’s going to bring the second Reformation.”    We can plant a church to tackle spiritual emptiness, but we don’t have to use a Christian?!!  The Pew Forum was a secular forum that he made this statement to.  This is such a distortion of Mt. 10:5-14!  Jesus tells his disciples in verse 7, “And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and verses 1l, l3, l4 say, “…enquire who in it is worthy… And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.  And whosoever shall not… hear your words… shake off the dust of your feet.  

The P.E.A.C.E. Plan is a mirror of the UN Millennium (familiar word?) Development Goals and the New Age description of the most critical global problems; compare them at      http://www.shareintl.org/index..htm;   http://www.crossroad.to/charts/millennium-goals-peace-htm (or crossroad.to, UN goals pt 3, 2, l); and http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals .

In Warren’s sermon of ll/2003, he said, “You’ve heard me say many times that the greatest thing you can do with your life is tell somebody about Jesus…There is one thing you can do greater than share Jesus Christ with somebody, and it is help start a church.”      

Warren is teaching New Age ecumenism, which will unite all beliefs into one “church”.

In the “Global Prayer Rally Focuses on World Problems”,  May 16, 2005, Warren states, “ The first one (Reformation) was about creeds; this one’s going to be  about our deeds.  The first one divided the church; this time it will unify the church.”  Again, at the Pew Forum,  Warren said, “And you know, growing up as a Protestant boy, I knew nothing about Catholics, but I started watching ETWN, the Catholic channel, and I said, “Well, I’m not as far apart from these guys as I thought I was, you know?...Well,  I’m actually speaking at the University of Judaism this next month, where I’ve been asked to come in and teach the rabbis my preaching seminar…In 1 Cor. 9, Paul says, ‘Those who teach the gospel should make a living by the gospel.’” Warren continues, “He (Paul) says, It’s okay to pay your priest.  It’s okay to pay your minister, your rabbi or whatever.” (A priest, minister, rabbi or whatever teaches the gospel?)   “…And I think that’s how evangelicals and Catholics can get together.…”        

Warren takes many passages out of their original context, misquotes them and uses fifteen different paraphrases (the worst being The Message by Eugene Peterson) to justify    his “plan”.  Some good sites to research are:    http://www.atrueandfaithfulwitness.com/PDLCritique.htm;          http://www.cicministry.org/berean/php and enter PDL Discernment Tool;  and

http://www.crossroad.to/Bible_studies/message.html.

For example in the Purpose Driven Life, Chap. 7’s heading, Warren quotes the New Living Translation for Prov. 16:4, “The Lord has made everything for his own purposes.”  In the KJV, it says “The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.  In ‘Pastor Rick Warren of Purpose Driven Life talks to Beliefnet about Africa’, Warren gives his P.E.A.C.E. acronym and says “…The third thing he did was he cared for the poor.  In fact, in his very first sermon, he says, “I am here to preach the good news to the poor.”  He cared for the poor.”  This is a total misquote of Mt. 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  The truth lends a totally different meaning.  Three times in Purpose Driven Life, Warren says we don’t serve God out of fear, duty or guilt (pg. 77, pg. 95, & pg. 228.)  He then uses the CEV paraphrase which says, “The Lord is pleased only with those who worship him and trust his love.”  However we find the truth in Ps. 147:11, “The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy”.  In Warren’s sermon, ‘How to Get Ready to be Used by God’, in the context of the new reformation, he says, “everything manmade has a shelf life…The Bible points this out.  In fact, in Hebrews 8:l3 it says, ‘When anything grows weak and out of date it is obviously soon going to be dispensed with…’”  I do not know what paraphrase this is, but this verse is referring to the new covenant and it reads, “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old.  Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” (law is replaced with grace).  In Ladies Home Journal, March 2005, (a secular magazine), Warren echoes Schuller and says, “Learn to Love Yourself!  Self-esteem still wobbly after all these years?.... Accept yourself;  God accepts us unconditionally;  love yourself; be true to yourself; forgive yourself… Believe in yourself.”  In the end times, the bible says in 2 Tim. 3:2, “For men shall be lovers of their own selves.”  

We are told in scripture to look for the “blessed hope”, the rapture, in l Thess. 5:6 and to watch for his return.  It says in Mark l3:36, 37, “Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.  And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch”.  What does Warren say about prophecy, especially since he isn’t teaching it?  In Purpose Driven Life, pg. 285, Warren says, “When the disciples wanted to talk about prophecy, Jesus quickly switched the conversation to evangelism.  He wanted them to concentrate on their mission in the world.  He said in essence, ‘The details of my return are none of your business.  What is your business is the mission I’ve given you.  Focus on that!’”  In Mt. 24 & 25, Jesus went into great detail answering the disciples questions about prophecy.  In Rev. l:3, it says, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy…”         

There are many good books and articles written about Purpose Driven and the New Age.

Visit some of the websites below, search their sites for apostasy, Rick Warren, emerging church, contemplative prayer & spirituality, ecumenism, church growth.  An excellent site for transcripts of Warren is http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/warrenclips.htm. 

LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH;    EASTERN REGIONAL WATCH;     UNDERSTAND THE TIMES.ORG;    SIMPLICITY IN CHRIST;    WAY OF LIFE;  GRACEBIBLE.ORG;   WEBTRUTH.ORG;    MYFORTRESS.ORG;    WOOD & STEEL MINISTRIES;   A TRUEANDFAITHFULWITNESS;    DECEPTION IN THE CHURCH.COM;     CROSSROAD.TO;    PROPHEZINE;   SLICE OF LAODICEA;    

CRITICAL ISSUES COMMENTARY;   FEASITE.ORG;   APPRISING MINISTRIES;  LET US REASON;   SCRIPTURE VISUALS.ORG .

As we see the key players of the war of Ezekiel 38 and 39 aligning themselves for this war, and the apostasy overtaking the church, and peace plans  being proposed, we know  these are the last days.  Since the rapture of the church takes place before the war and appearance of antichrist and his false peace, we know the Lord’s return is very soon.

In 2 Tim. 4:3, 4, it says, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turnaway their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

Chatty-Kathi@comcast.net