I’ve been putting this third part off out of dread of having to open up that sorcerers handbook known as “The Physics of Heaven” put out by the leadership of Bill Johnson’s Bethel Church, Redding.  It really has become a wearisome task but I aim to see it through.  You may ask why.  Go ahead.  I do every time I turn a page.  But then the glaring heresies that greet my eye provide the answer.  People I love have bought these lies.  And hundreds more in my acquaintance are entrenched in the worship culture mass-produced by this kind of teaching.  And all the while the one true God as revealed in the pages of His sacred scripture is misrepresented, maligned, and minimized.  You might think heresy is a strong word but here is what it means according to Oxford: “Belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine.”  And here are a few examples from “The Physics of Heaven”:

1. A new doctrine of angels: “God sends angels to run errands on our behalf.” The example given in the book is of an apostolic leader saying “God is beginning to release Kingdom building codes.”  Right after, an angel stood in front of Cal Pierce and said, “I’m sent by God to answer your question about the energy crisis.  I am the energy angel.”  This angel went back with Cal to his hotel room to talk about energy.  The angel showed him the plans for a “water car” on a scroll and also “shared how water produces energy and about Niagara Falls and how we can use water to produce power”(89,90). Now I’m pretty sure the concept of hydro-electric power showed up long before that so-called angel but the next level of this heresy is certainly brand new.

2. A new doctrine of God’s Word: “God’s Word is living and active and it will not return void”(92).  This is true.  Nothing heretical there.  But what follows is this, “What makes it not return void?  Angels” (92). Here’s their explanation:

“When you get the will or word of God in you, you have something in you of God that is creative.  When the creator releases a word, the word itself becomes creative.  Angels obey the sound of His word. When we speak His word, angels then take what we say to completion… they are waiting to for us to speak the sound of God’s word so that they can take it out to accomplish what He has sent it to do.  It’s our partnering with the angels and angelic activity that is going to cause sound to become creative.  Angels are around you to activate the revelation of the truth that you speak out into its creative form.  That’s why faith requires a confession–so that it can be heard.  Because Angels don’t know what you’re thinking, they’re waiting to hear what you’re saying.  So as we speak out the word that God has given us, angels will begin to bring it to completion and it will no longer go out void… That’s why the Word requires a sound” (92,93).

3. A new doctrine of the Holy Spirit:  According to “The Physics of Heaven, the arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as promised by Jesus Christ was incomplete.  But “we are on the verge of experiencing Pentecost at a new level and in a new measure” (95).  Since we never got the fullness of Pentecost, since what Christ Himself promised was insufficient, here’s what we “really need”:

“What we really need is to experience something beyond the realm of mere proclamation.  We need to see and experience God with all of our spiritual, emotional and physical senses.  We need to be impacted with the same kind of ‘sound’ from heaven that penetrated the atmosphere on the day of Pentecost.  I’m weary of sermons and teachings that only restate our need for transformation.  What I’m hungry for is to experience something fresh from heaven.  Now! Not later!” (95,96)

4. A new doctrine of the fall and regeneration: Orthodox Christianity affirms that according to Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve committed cosmic treason against their Creator plunging the entire creation into immanent death and ruinous destruction, they hid themselves from the very God with whom they had perfect fellowship with when they heard the sound of Him walking in the garden. This has been the natural state of man ever since.  And unless He calls to us as He called Lazarus out of the tomb, we remain in that guilty state forever.  But “The Physics of Heaven” has a different story to tell:

“Through the ‘sound’ of God’s voice, divine energy was released, splitting the atoms and forming a heaven and earth suitable for the habitation of created man.  Not long afterward, this created man, Adam, also heard the sound of God’s voice in the Garden, beckoning him to a deeper relationship with his Creator.  All this tells me that a divine sound from heaven, or at least the sound of God’s voice, can cause mind-boggling phenomena to happen. In the case of Adam, hearing the sound of God’s voice was merely an invitation into a deeper realm of supernatural experience.  That which began as a sound, apparently, led to multiple expressions of seeing, feeling, sensing, and communicating with the Creator” (96,97).

After making a fallacious connection between “the sound of God’s voice to Adam” being “an introduction into other realms of encountering God, and the sound of the wind at Pentecost opening the believers “up to other realms of supernatural phenomena” the author ties both events to the experience of “synesthesia.”

“Synesthesia, ‘meaning to perceive together,’ causes a person’s neural pathways to be cross-wired in such a way that their five senses interact with each other.  This unusual mingling of their senses allows them to hear colors, smell numbers, taste sound, and so forth.  Considering the description of Pentecost in the book of Acts, it appears that a spiritual synesthesia of sorts happened on that day… a heavenly ‘sound’ can create a heightened level of synesthesia that opens our senses to extreme encounters with the supernatural… What if the men and women at Pentecost had only embraced what they heard?  It’s possible that they would have missed God altogether.  Instead, after hearing a new sound, they were willing to allow that sound to cause a synesthetic response in them.  Through this cross-wiring of their spiritual senses, the neural pathways of the spirit realm created a myriad of spiritual encounters.  This is the kind of heavenly sound for which I’ve been longing.  It’s a new sound that will trigger our senses to ‘hear’ what we see and ‘see’ what we hear… the more our senses are involved in receiving from Heaven, the more of God’s Spirit we will retain.  In this next move of the Spirit, I am convinced that our encounter with God will radically transform the realm of our senses.  This will be the second Pentecost… In light of this truth, we need to start training ourselves to hear from God with our entire being.  No longer should we limit the way we ‘receive,’ nor should we cling to the ways we’ve preciously ‘heard’ His voice” (97-99).

Beloved, the only thing that prevents a person from hearing the voice of God is the fact that they are dead in their sins.  And they remain dead in their sins because God has not called them out of the darkness of that sin-sealed tomb.  1 Corinthians 4:6 says that “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  When God says ‘Let there be light!’ or ‘Lazarus, come out!’ or ‘Sinner, be born again!’ neither darkness, nor corpse, nor rebel has any ability to un-hear that voice.  Moreover, when a person is made alive through the quickening of the Holy Spirit, there is no partial quickening.  Jesus Christ promised the Holy Spirit in full and the Holy Spirit delivers in full.  There is nothing we can do to receive more or less of His presence any more than there is anything an unregenerate person can do to be made a little more alive or a regenerate person can do to be made a little more dead.  It is absolute heresy to say that “the more our senses are involved in receiving from Heaven, the more of God’s Spirit we will retain.”

5. A new doctrine of worship: It’s important to understand this one because many would argue that there’s nothing wrong with singing the worship music produced by people who subscribe to this New Age mindset.  I urge you to consider the way worship is perceived by the producers of this book, the same producers of much of the mainstream worship music filling our churches, airwaves, and playlists today.

“If the essence of everything is vibrational , then it is fair to say that everything carries its own sound… One of the greatest revivals in human history–the vibration of heaven in Acts–set all kinds of things in motion.  Why? Because, the 120 believers in the Upper Room didn’t get hung up on sound alone.  They let the sound take them somewhere else, triggering all their senses to the point that they were drunk from the vibration… I believe that many of the spiritual discoveries of the New Age movement could be likened to the time in the Old Testament when the Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant from Israel. In both cases, then and now, that which belongs to the church fell into the hands of unbelievers.  So, in order to posture ourselves for the next move of God, like King David, we must take back what is ours.  Certain dynamics such as synesthesia, quantum physics,  and ‘vibrations’ are God-stuff, and we must not be afraid to seize what belongs to the Creator of all things… It shouldn’t be a surprise that David was a worshipping musician.  It was his worshipping spirit that played a big part in taking back the Ark.  This says to me that the coming sound of worship and warfare is going to be much more than we previously imagined” (102-104).

Here’s the goal of their worship folks:

“What if God chooses to speak more frequently in colors and numbers in this next outpouring?  What if he uses colors, numbers, smell, feeling and sound at the same time?  Or speaks to us in a combination of modalities that are physical, mental, and emotional, or even vibrational?  Are we really open to ‘new things’ in God?  The answer should be yes! And our cry should be, ‘Speak to us God!  We are now aware that You want to activate our spiritual and physical eyes, ears, taste, smell, and other senses.  No longer will we allow our minds to block out the sound of heaven because of our religious dogma.  We are committed to developing the sensitivity of our spirit, soul, and body, so that we can experience all the different ways Heaven expresses itself “

As long a post as this has become, sadly it only covers 15 more pages of the book– which means in this section alone we’re averaging a heresy every 3 pages.

Shred it.

P.S. I’m adding this link today because the Cultish podcast just released their 3 part series interviewing 2 former new-agers on their inside perspective on Bethel Church and the New Age.  They specifically reference this book! Click here to listen.