9 i) Joyner’s
antipathy towards Christians who won’t accept with his new “revelations”: Joyner claims that on one of his visits to heaven he saw a “great
multitude... called the foolish virgins... who had gnashed their teeth in
the outer darkness,” (p.
89), and who now live on the outskirts of heaven. These, however, were not
unbelievers but Christians. Joyner claims to have had conversation with
six of these saints. They told him that they had been thrown into the “the
deepest dungeon of hell,” (p. 90), for a season, supposedly having
experienced “the second death,”(p. 87), which they said had
been “much more terrible than we understood,” (p. 87). This
is despite the fact that all six had been seen as good Christians whilst
they were alive on earth. Joyner claims that the first, whom he had known, “had
been a faithful believer,” (p. 87), the second had been “a great
man of God,” (p. 92), the third “one of the greatest Christian
leaders of all time,” (p. 95), the fourth that great leaders “wife,” (p.
99), the fifth a “contemporary” of Joyner’s who had also
had “a great ministry,” (p. 107), and the sixth “considered
to be one of the best writers of all time,” (p. 111). All these Christians
are seen bemoaning their failings whilst in heaven rather than rejoicing
in their salvation. This is similar to the way in which Joyner believes
he saw a counterfeit apparition of St Paul in “heaven” who claimed
that St Pauls ministry on earth, and that of all the other New Testament
Apostles had been failures and that we should not trust their Epistles in
the bible for teaching, (see Ch 4). I believe that this reveals the antipathy
Joyner has toward any believer who did not, or will not, move in the same
New Age form of spirituality that he advocates. We saw in Chapter 1 that
Joyner calls for spiritual warfare against all such believers as part of
a Christians Civil War. He also claims that all those who cannot be converted
to his views by this spiritual warfare will eventually be cast out of the
church altogether. Joyner must therefore believe that any Christian who
will not submit to his side’s leadership as judges will be numbered
amongst the foolish virgins when they die. That those who reject joiners
visions will suffer the same and will likewise experience a period of judgement
in hell before being allowed into the outskirts of heaven far from Jesus’ throne.
9
ii) William Branham’s influence on Joyner: By contrast when
Joyner sees a man in heaven, who from the long description we can confidently
identify
as William Branham, (see chapter 7), he is exalted and seated on a great throne
next to Jesus own throne. However we saw in Chapter 8 that Branham ended his
days as one of the most deceived “Christians” of the modern era.
Branham promoted a form of occult spirituality and mixed this in with Christianity
in a very similar way to Joyner. Branham also had the same antipathy towards
Christians who would not receive his deceptive vision. Using quotes from Liardon’s
book, “Gods Generals,” “Branham taught that denominationalism
was the mark of the beast, that the Protestants were the harlots, (p. 340).
Joyner has clearly been influenced by Branham since his childhood and this
may go some way to explaining why Joyner’s visions depict more bible
based Christians in such a derogatory way, including Pentecostal and charismatic
believers who adhere to scripture.
9 iii) Misplaced conflict in the church: In Branham’s day, in the 1930’s
to 60’s, there was ardent public debate between the Christian cessationists,
who didn’t believe in healing or the other gifts of the Spirit, and
the Pentecostal ministers who did. Joyner’s visions of warfare appear
to perpetuate this conflict today when this is not really the case. Today
the cessationists are in a minority as most of the historic denominations
now accept healing and the gifts of the Spirit and so, in the main, they now
agree with Pentecostal Christians about this. The battle in Joyner’s
dream concerns his claim that a new gifting and power exist which is not mentioned
in the bible. Joyners battle is about whether or not we should go beyond scripture,
and beyond what Jesus disciples experienced, and seek prophecies and greater
anointing from the spirits of people who have died as Joyner advocates. It
is important that the reader doesn’t confuse these two things. Those
that don’t move in Joyners new forms of spirituality appear to be classed
as the foolish virgins in his book. It is other ordinary Christians like these
that Joyner’s appears to believe will be sent to hell for a season when
they die if they continue to refuse to accept his sides leadership and ministry.
Whilst those Joyner sees occupying great thrones in exalted positions in heaven
are the ones who stop following the form of spirituality and gifting as laid
down in the bibles Epistles and turn to something similar to the New Age instead.
Joyner and the Kansas City Prophets used to see themselves as superior prophetic
elite back in the 1990’s and from that deluded position must have viewed
ordinary bible believing Christians as rather foolish. Joyner’s visions
of depicting such saints experiencing hell fire reveals just how extreme his
deceptions are concerning this.
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