THE HIGHER LIFE OF RICK JOYNER CHASING THE DELUSION OF POWER AND DOMINION
by G. Richard Fisher (Personal Freedom Outreach)

“[Rick] Joyner is one of a new breed of ‘super-prophet’ in our day, a breed which desires nothing less than to redefine biblical Christianity in these last days of the church.”1

Any well-taught, well-grounded Christian finds it ludicrous to think that believers ever will get to the place where they no longer need the words of Jesus Christ and the teachings of ????ure.

Yet, there is a growing group of teachers who are self-proclaimed prophets and self-anointed apostles insinuating in many ways that ????ure is outdated and no longer applies. Though these teachings are not along the lines of “Get rid of the Bible,” the prophecies and revelations are touted as fresh, exciting and what is really needed today. These teachers also promote a false gospel of self-aggrandizement and empire-building. Someday, they promise, the wicked will forfeit all their wealth to Christians.

An example of this disregard for ????ure is popular author Tommy Tenney. Tenney is from a Oneness2 background and brazenly states in his best-selling book, The God Chasers, that: “A true God chaser is not happy with just past truth. He must have present truth. God chasers don’t want to just study from the moldy pages of what God has done; they’re anxious to see what God is doing.”3 Tenney has emerged as one of the notable celebrities within the Charismatic world and has been promoted by Charisma magazine and at the Pensacola Revival.

So God’s Word is denigrated and characterized by Tenney as “moldy pages of what God has done.” This is but one example of how God’s Word is trashed by these new apostles. They would have us believe that ????ure is passé and no longer relevant for our day. At times they speak out of both sides of their mouths and may play up the Bible so as to not alarm their more conservative followers. However, the way they exalt their prophecies and revelations makes the Bible seem uninteresting in comparison.

Any serious reading of 1 Timothy 4 and 2 Timothy 3 would show us that this is what we can expect as the present age wears on. The one revival we can expect is not one of “super prophets and apostles” but of heresy, deception and confusion.

Such thoughts of demoting the Bible and elevating man’s imagined prophecies of dominion have their origin in the heresies of the Latter Rain Movement originating in the 1940s4. The bizarre ideas of Latter Rain were rejected by most thinking Pentecostals, including the Assemblies of God, but today many who once denounced such teachings now embrace them.

AN INCREASE IN PROPHETS

Rick Joyner, founder and ????utive Director of MorningStar Publications and Ministries in North Carolina, is another proponent of these ideas of a new breed of super prophets and end-time restorationists. Joyner says his conversion to Christianity came in 1971 and from that time has “an ability to foresee certain future events accurately” and “occasionally look at people and know details about them such as problems they were having or spiritual callings on their life.”5 He associates with other self-proclaimed prophets such as Paul Cain and Mike Bickle.

Despite his “prophetic” calling and service in full-time ministry, Joyner acknowledged that he “was shallow in [his] personal relationship to the Lord” and his “lack of intimacy with the Lord had caused [him] to lean more on formulas and procedures than the anointing that is essential to giving life to truth.”6 This crisis of conscience caused him to leave the ministry in 1980 as he “drifted from the Lord” until 1987, when he “was again called back into ministry by the Lord with the word that [his] commission would be given to another if [he] did not return at that time.”7

MORE PROPHETABLE THAN ????URE

Joyner leaves no doubt as to where he thinks the “Voice of the Lord” is found and it is not in ????ure:

“It is typical of our Western mind-set to want a clear formula for how to get to know the voice of the Lord. There must at least be an obvious ‘how to’ in the ????ures, we think. Many have attempted to wrestle one out of the Word, but it is not there. The only way we can come to know the voice of the Lord is the same way that the sheep came to know their shepherd’s voice — through time spent in His presence.”8

Joyner further disparages the Bible by teaching that while ????ure is used for constituting doctrine, it is unable to provide wisdom and counsel in our daily lives. He states:

“The ????ures alone are used for establishing doctrine, while ‘the voice of the Lord’ is used to give us day-to-day guidance as well as revealing the strategic will of the Lord. The Bible does not address some of the most important decisions we must all make — whom we should marry, our choice of professions, where we should live.”9

Joyner is far afield here. Every Epistle gives us direct commands or principles for every single aspect of living. The Apostle Paul was forthright that ????ure was not just for doctrine but for “reproof, correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Psalmist also records for us a truth which every elementary Sunday school student has memorized: “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).10

Joyner puts Christians on a slippery slope by disparaging the Reformation and encouraging believers to follow “dreams and visions.”11 His advice is reckless when he suggests:

“...many Protestant and Reformed theologies not only hinder, but actually prohibit, Christians from knowing God’s voice. These theologies can be traced to the extreme interpretation of the prime Reformation motto sola ????ura, which means ‘????ure alone.’”12

Joyner sows even more confusion by admitting, “We all would like to have a basic formula for interpreting dreams, but there simply is none.”13 There is none? This is as bad as the old quip that says: “There are only two ways to please a woman — and nobody knows what they are!” God help us when we lock people into impossible dilemmas and offer them “guidance” with no map or chart. In the end Joyner offers a quagmire.

The Wilkes Journal Patriot, a newspaper that publishes three times a week in North Wilkesboro, N.C., featured several articles on Joyner and his MorningStar ministry. These detailed reports provided insight into the mystical environment and activity of Joyner. One of the articles revealed:

“MorningStar already has bought over 300 acres in the [Pores Knob, N.C.] community with moving its headquarters there from Charlotte. Joyner and his family moved to a house near the intersection of Price and Broyhill roads in late 1997 and there are plans to provide housing for 40 to 50 other families moving here with MorningStar ... Joyner has said events leading to the move to the Pores Knob community began with a man in Kansas City dreaming Joyner moved to a place in North Carolina ... The man also dreams Joyner would meet recording star Ricky Skaggs. A few weeks later, Joyner met Skaggs. ... Skaggs is on the MorningStar’s board. ... Joyner said he felt God was leading him to visit the Pores Knob section of Moravian Falls and he did so in 1989. ... Joyner said it caught his attention when he learned that Moravian Falls was a center of newspaper publishing around the turn of the century and that one of the early newspapers was called The Morning Star.”14

SHARING THE PROFITS

Joyner recently had a hand in relaunching the career of failed and then jailed televangelist, Jim Bakker. Charisma magazine reported:

“Jim Bakker, who says he is ‘nearly 100 percent healed’ from the PTL downfall and his subsequent prison term, now wants to help restore other ministers who have fallen or who suffer from stress or burnout. Thanks to a donation of property by Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries, Bakker and his wife, Lori Beth, will get that chance. Joyner’s ministry donated a 17,000-square-foot log lodge in Charlotte, N.C., to the Bakkers’ New Covenant Fellowship Ministry in May.”15

True to the modern-day prophetic movement, Joyner claims he is led by dreams, visions and revelations as well as Jesus Himself. In the Introduction to The Harvest he tells his readers:

“Some of the revelation came in ‘open visions.’ These were visible, external visions that were like watching a cinema screen. Others were gentle, internal visions that are like having the ‘eyes of your heart’ opened. I now have frequent visions and dreams that are filled with symbolism requiring interpretation like most of the biblical visions, but these were not that way; many of the details that you read in this book I actually saw in the visions. ... Some of the understanding shared in this book came in literal conversation with the Lord. I did not hear His voice audibly but it was more intimate and real than I could ever remember knowing before.”16

Yet, ironically, Joyner warns us about “The Wizard Spirit.” He identifies wizards as “one of the primary forms of false prophets who try to infiltrate the body of Christ. They will usually have a clean, professional appearance, and will often establish their credibility by ‘prophesying’ information that they know in the natural.”17

Joyner is not really much of a prophet and it appears that the following must have been done “in the natural.” In the late 1990s, Joyner jumped onto the Y2K bandwagon as he claimed that the Lord “finally did begin to speak” about the issue. According to Joyner, God supposedly revealed that, “The most severe difficulties will come from the panic generated by the situation” and “The Lord told me to observe the problems that Y2K will cause in the natural world as a reflection of the problems we have in the body of Christ.”18

Thus, according to Joyner’s revelation, the Church must not have had problems since Y2K was a non-event. Was God wrong or was Joyner just pretending and speculating “in the natural”?

On the Joyner organization’s web site, the MorningStar Prophetic Bulletin is advertised as a publication “devoted to the distribution of strategic prophetic words, dreams and visions that have critical timeliness.”19 Many of these are nothing more than Joyner’s sermonettes hyped up as “prophetic words.”

The vague and general nature of Joyner’s revelation is illustrated in a portion of his “prophetic” word for New Zealand in 1991: “Your name is prophetic - there is a NEW ZEAL that will arise from the church in New Zealand. This zeal for the Lord and His purposes will help to bring conviction upon the worldwide body of Christ for her Laodicean spirit of lukewarmness. ... Your zeal will be a NEW zeal,” and so on.20

Joyner offers the worn and faulty cliché predominant among Charismatic superstars such as Benny Hinn and others when their theological ignorance begins to show or their prophecies fail. Joyner says of himself: “Even though I have not been able to go to journalism school, or even Bible school, in many ways I would not trade my education for anyone’s. Like Paul, I can say that what I received I did not receive from men.”21 ????ure anticipated these self-assuming prophets and warned of their foolish rationale (Zechariah 13:4-5).

Even with that, Joyner leaves himself a back door by suggesting that New Testament prophets are different than Old Testament ones and make mistakes and are not infallible. In reality the whole thing dissolves since it is anyone’s guess when the prophet is right or when he is wrong. It really is a speculative subjective guessing game after all.22

Joyner and others in the modern prophetic movement have created a huge fiction that New Testament prophets can be right some of the time and wrong some of the time. Using 1 Corinthians 14:29 (“Let the others judge”), they say the message has to be sifted and ????uated and the good taken from the bad. This is a blatant misunderstanding of the text as Paul is actually saying that they must discern between true and false prophets.

New Testament professor Thomas Edgar states that “there are no direct statements of ????ure to support the ‘fallible prophet’ concept” and says of the 1 Corinthians 14:29 passage:

“In any case, how this [passage] can indicate that New Testament prophets are inferior to Old Testament prophets is not clear, since the entire congregation of Israel was also told to scrutinize their prophets (Deut. 18:22). ... The word diakrino does not imply that there is both good and bad to be sifted out. It is often used in a context such as this in reference to rendering judgment between two people, that is, determining which one is right and which one is wrong. ... [D.A.] Carson’s statement that ‘discern’ refers to judging the prophecy itself, if correct, would mean to judge whether the entire prophecy were true or false. It would mean not to sift out the good from the bad and consider the good parts as from God and the prophet as a genuine prophet. This is contrary to biblical practice. ... It does not imply that there are true and false statements in all New Testament prophecy or that a genuine prophet may give false prophecies.”23

Even if one takes the liberty to judge the prophet and his message, you are labeled a “pharisee,” or worse yet possess a “religious” and “Jezebel spirit.” PFO director Steve Cannon points out a recurrent theme in Joyner’s writings, a concept called “The Two Ministries.”24 Joyner describes the second of the two ministries as “faultfinders” and says they are a “destructive force.” Cannon maintains, “This doctrine ... is used, I think, to intimidate any who may criticize, into thinking that by doing so, they are operating under the spirit of Satan.”

Joyner also incorrectly employs Jesus’ instruction for confronting a brother who has sinned against you (Matthew 18:15-17) as a way to squelch questioning of his erroneous doctrine.25

His use of Matthew 18 (albeit out-of-context) is a tactic that PFO has encountered again and again and responded to in this Journal.26 Those, such as Joyner, who assert that they should be approached privately — rather than have their doctrine and practice exposed publicly — are really not willing to do so. It is merely a smokescreen. They hide behind legions of assistants and make themselves unavailable for contact. PFO personally encountered this in early 1999 when we tried to make contact with Joyner.

In January 1999, PFO director Cannon telephoned MorningStar Ministries to try to get an interview with Joyner. Cannon’s call was put through to James Arquit, one of Joyner’s assistants. Arquit was told of the purpose of the call. Cannon was told that Joyner was out-of-town at that moment, that he was a very busy man, and that the best way to secure an interview was to ???? the request in writing.

This PFO did on Jan. 7, 1999.27 That letter was followed up with a phone call two weeks later. As this article is published (more than a year and a half later), PFO has yet to receive a response to the request.

DIAMETRIC DOCTRINES

Though Joyner’s doctrinal statement is a rather standard one, we will see that in many places his writings and books contradict and undermine it. One can only wonder if his doctrinal statement is merely window dressing and subterfuge; or if perhaps his allegiance to a movement which views itself as a superlative extension of the Church has moved him away from a more stable and orthodox foundation. Joyner is like a child musician playing many sour notes with the good ones while telling us he is an accomplished prodigy. When we object, he will call attention to the few good notes. Joyner’s trumpet is off-key and giving out an “uncertain sound” (1 Corinthians 14:7-8). Had he lived in the Old Testament era, he would have been stoned by now (Deuteronomy 13:1-5, 18:20-22).

Joyner unabashedly promotes his more bizarre and unrealistic ideas this way:

“In the near future the church will not be looking back at the first century church with envy because of the great exploits of those days, but all will be saying that He certainly did save His best wine for last. The most glorious times in all of history have now come upon us. You who have dreamed of one day being able to talk with Peter, John and Paul are going to be surprised to find that they have all been waiting to talk to you! You have been chosen to see the harvest, the fruit of the seeds that they were planting.”28

Joyner is so bold to state that nations will be overwhelmed by the newly appointed apostles and that “Miracles which exceed even some of the most spectacular biblical marvels will cause whole nations to acknowledge Jesus. ... The appearances of angels will be so common that they will cease to be related as significant events. The Lord Himself will appear to councils of apostles and elders to give them directives.”29

Author Hank Hanegraaff reviews Joyner’s doctrine and practice and gives him the status of a “Counterfeit Revival leader.”30

RESTORATION ATTRACTION

Joyner has two major obsessions: “Prophetic Restoration” and “Apostolic Restoration.” He explains these as follows:

“A new wave of ministries is about to be released with extraordinary prophetic gifts. Others with revelatory gifting who were sidetracked because of controversy, or other problems, are about to get back on the fast track. ... The apostolic ministry that opened the church age will be raised up at the end to complete it. The Lord is restoring the apostolic authority to the church, and soon this will become a major emphasis. There will be almost a general openness to this as men of true apostolic authority, with a true apostolic lifestyle, take their place in leadership.”31

Glaringly absent from Joyner’s agenda is any biblical warrant for his words. There is no ????ure offered as proof for this self-serving illusion. Ephesians is clear that the Church is built on “the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets” (Ephesians 2:19). Why would God have to lay the foundation all over again? The Church, since the time of Paul, is described as “God’s building” (1 Corinthians 3:9-10). A building, especially God’s Church, is not in need of another foundation. No wonder Joyner gives no ????ure for his grandiose imaginings.

Joyner asserts that his book, A Prophetic Vision for the 21st Century, was “the result of the last ten years of hearing from the Lord both in visions and revelations.”32 He claims that the Lord said, “I have allowed you to see a little into the future.”33 Joyner further makes the breathtaking claim: “At the end of the vision in The Call, I saw the glory of all ages in a single moment.”34

Joyner’s ideas of ongoing revelation and prophecy bears a striking resemblance to the “continuing revelation” of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) as journalists Richard and Joan Ostling define:

“Religious authority, in Mormonism, includes the concept of continuing revelation through the current church president, who holds the titles of seer, prophet, and revelator. Earlier doctrine may evolve, but a previous prophet, though superseded, is not ‘wrong.’”35

BASEBALL HERMENEUTICS

However, Joyner does not just get messages directly from the Lord but sees omens and mystical meanings in all kind of strange things and at strange places. Imagine getting “prophetic” truth from a ballgame. It may sound silly but Joyner unashamedly teaches just that:

“In the spring of 1995, Bob Jones, a prophetic friend, told a number of us that the Atlanta Braves baseball team was going to win the World Series that year as a message for the church in America. This prophecy was fulfilled, and there indeed was a message in it. ... I think it was also significant that it was David Justice who hit that home run. He is a black man, and I do expect young, black ‘Davids’ to arise and slay the spiritual Goliaths who have been intimidating and holding back the armies of God in America. ... In the spring of 1996, Bob Jones received a word that the Braves would not win the World Series again that year and that this would be a message. When I was offered tickets to go to Game Five of the 1996 World Series in Atlanta, I knew that the Lord was going to show me something important. I was not disappointed.”36

We will not go on with the silliness. Would Paul have thought it spiritual to predict the winners of the Greek games? Do you think he ever sat at the Corinthian games to try to discern God’s messages and directions? Did he go to the Coliseum in Rome and try to discern truth and the will of God as the chariots whizzed by, asking himself what the event might have meant? Joyner makes a travesty of the concept of biblical prophecy. The message for America is still Christ and the ????ures, not who won last year’s World Series.

UNCIVIL WAR

One of Joyner’s other major themes, addressed in the apologetic newsletter Vanguard, is the “CIVIL WAR.” In an article titled “Rick Joyner: Christian Gnostic,” author Neil Richardson zeroes in on one of Joyner’s major themes. Richardson writes:

“His ‘big thing’ is The Great Christian Civil War: Like the American Civil War, the coming spiritual civil war will also be between the Blue and the Gray. In dreams and visions, blue often represents heavenly mindedness — the sky is blue; and gray speaks of those who live by the power of their minds — the brain is often called gray matter. This will be a conflict between those who may be genuine Christians, but who live mostly according to their own natural minds and human wisdom, and those who follow the Holy Spirit. (The Morning Star Prophetic Bulletin, May 1996, 2).”37

Joyner’s prognostications about the upcoming Christian “civil war” are many and various. The most widespread publication of these is in his books, A Prophetic Vision for the 21st Century and The Final Quest.38

CRN Journal ponders and summarizes Joyner’s intent:

“The violent images Joyner adopts are, it seems, to be directed, not against liberals in the church, as we might suppose, but against those who are ‘not open’ to the new visions and prophecies — those who ‘religiously’ stand on the written Word alone.”39

So the railing of Joyner is not against heresy or false teaching but against believers who disagree. Moreover, Joyner teaches that demons direct and ride Christians who think, reason and discern.40