This week, I recorded an episode answering listener’s questions concerning some beliefs of the New Apostolic Reformation. Some of these questions also included personal elements of how to navigate coming out of this movement and unlearning much of the teaching while also dealing with loved ones and family members still entrenched in it. Here was one of the questions from this week’s episode.

“My husband and I were in an NAR based church for 12 years.  As you can imagine, we’ve had some “experiences” and I’m trying to understand if it was biblical or not. My husband went through the Bethel worship school when it first opened up online. During a session one night, he asked God to hear His voice audibly. The voice told him something personal about me that turned out to be true and was confirmed a couple days later. What are we to make of that? 

Another time a woman was praying at our church and “prophesying” over me because our child had to have surgery. She said that there would be a doctor there with all red shoes on who would be with him the whole time. When we got to the hospital, the anesthesiologist who would accompany my son had all red shoes on. 

My husband and I have repented of the things we did and said in the Lord’s name and for being ignorant of His word. But these two things that happened have now confused me.“

*Personal details have been omitted from the original question to protect privacy.

This is a great question that many coming out of this movement have had to work through and take back to Scripture.

Many of us who were in this movement had real experiences, visions, dreams, etc. These things can bring confusion and even serve as a distraction, both within the movement and after exiting it. I believe that much time is wasted on trying to interpret dreams and visions in a rather subjective way when that time could have been better spent reading God’s Word and growing in true spiritual maturity. Although I was not a regular dreamer, I had very vivid dreams during my time in the NAR.

I had two dreams approximately one week prior to things beginning to unravel personally, and these dreams were vivid and disturbing. I remember mulling over them for a while after, wondering if they were from God. I had to come to terms with not knowing the meaning of these dreams, and I had to ask if they drew me closer to Christ, or if they were pointing to trust in my personal experience. Looking back, it was God’s written Word and His sovereignty, grace, and mercy that brought me out of deception. It was not the dreams. Our current pastor was willing to discuss them with me when we first came to the church, and he helped me through it, reminding me that it was not the dreams that saved me, but it was Christ who had saved me.

There is a growing desire to by many to hear God for themselves and to lay claim to supernatural experiences. These things are even expected to be a common occurrence, and some leaders will tell their followers that if they are not hearing the Holy Spirit speak to them regularly, then they need to make sure they even know God. When we ask for such an experience in our lives, we need to be aware that counterfeits and deception can come and oblige our desire for “something more.” As women, we desire intimacy and assurance that God knows us personally, and truth be told, Scripture becomes insufficient in knowing God, His attributes, and His love in sending Jesus Christ to die for our sins when we desire hearing God’s voice outside the confines of Scripture. I would be so bold to say that many are hearing their own thoughts and vain imaginations, attributing them to God when He did not say them.

We should also recognize that psychics and others in the New Age and in false religions will lay claim to accurate readings and obtaining information about individuals they could not have known. Could God speak to someone through a dream? Yes, God can do what He wills to do. We must understand however that this is not normative, and we can know that God personally knows us by what His Word says on the matter. When we begin to seek more revelation outside of His Word, we actually diminish the Word He has given us and that He has revealed through His Son, Jesus Christ.

We are not told to hold onto or trust a personal experience. We are told to trust in Christ alone. Peter helps us to remember that in 2 Peter 1:16-21. Though Peter’s experience in witnessing the glory of Christ on the mount of Transfiguration was real and powerful, Peter instructed others to trust in the more sure word of prophecy, which testified of Jesus Christ. This was lamp to light their way forward. It was not their reliance of a dream or a personal prophetic word.

Be encouraged when reading and hiding His Word in your heart that when your trust is in Christ to save you and to give you eternal life, you have all you need to know God, and more importantly, He knows you and will keep you.

Listen to this episode as I address some of my listener’s questions: The Lovesick Scribe Podcast: Dawn Hill- Your Questions Answered on Apple Podcasts