And the serpent said to the women, “You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”(Genesis 3:4,5 )

It would appear that an old heresy is making a grand comeback under a revised name and what is so alarming is that it is being promoted by men and women whose Christian witness and integrity rank among the notable who’s who in evangelical Christian circles. Men like Peter Wagner and Dutch Sheets, and Bill Johnston to name a few are the ‘new apostles prophets’ crying in the wilderness calling out to the Christian Church to prepare the way; not for the coming of the Lord but for an unveiling of the new Latter Rain/Manifested Sons of God company of believers.
Their mandate which is taken from Genesis ‘that man shall have dominion over all things’ is a literal dominion over the seven mountains of influence in this world. The seven mountains of influence according to these men and women in the NAR (new apostolic reformation) are these: government, business, education, media, family, religion, and entertainment.
The fact that this issue is not a passing fad should raise more than an eyebrow or two. Anyone at some point or other gets somewhat distracted and begins to run down some rabbit trail or sidetracked on some minor bone of difference or contention. This is different, when men and women renowned in the Christian community begin to write and publish books, articles and videos you know that an indoctrination is in the process. At a glance this endeavor seems noble, a true cause to rally the troops and storm the enemy’s walls for the majestic takeover. However let us raise the question that begs to be answered, does this so called mandate referred to in Genesis 1:26 really mean what these leaders purport.
Let’s take a look at the context of this scripture to see whether the context of what God was saying implies these seven mountains of influence. Genesis 1:26, Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our own image according to Our likeness ; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”(NASB).
As you read through the text you come away with the sense that God is giving man an authority or a dominion over all the living things on the planet as the Bible reiterates in verse 28, God’s says “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish in the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”(NASB)
From verses 26 to 31 God is laying out the parameters of mans influence; it becomes quite a stretch of biblical exegesis to include media, education or government. Actually, God was the only ruling government on the earth for until the children of Israel begged the prophet Samuel for a King which was not a God idea at all. This was the brainchild of a rebellious people who rejected God’s rule over them and opted for a more contemporary form of government like the nations around them. The all too obvious meaning in these verses clearly reveals Man was to rule and have authority over things in the air, (birds) things that creep on the ground and things that swim in the water like fish.

 
We could make the case that at times we tend to come up with a doctrine and then go about finding scripture to try and support our thesis, when we should draw our doctrines from scripture that clearly teach and instruct us in matters of teaching, truth, correction, all for righteousness sake.(2Tim. 3:16) I believe this ‘reaching out’ has with it the same implications as the original deception in the ‘Garden of Eden’.

 
Nowhere in New testament teaching can one come away after reading the epistles of Paul and Peter and all the other writers for that matter that God has left out some critical details or is now in these last days decrying that we be focused on a literal apprehending of the ‘kingdoms of this age. All of which are in my opinion, the seven mountains of influence described by the leaders of the NAR meant to enforce a Christian world view on the world. Should one be against having influence in government or the market place, not at all, I believe the key difference is taught to us in scripture. Take the case of Daniel or Joseph in the Old Testament their gift and godly character was undeniable to the heathen/pagan rulers of their day. These Kings and leaders appointed them to rule in accordance with their distinguished moral characteristics, they recognized in them an excellent spirit in contrast with the other prospects around them. You don’t read of them trying to overthrow the established leadership to impose their religious beliefs, they simply ruled in their God given wisdom and gift and within those parameters, impacted their people and nation even in an atmosphere of envy animosity and hatred as in the case of Daniel.
The other scripture that comes to mind is in Romans 13:1 “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. There is no power but of God: The powers that be are ordained of God.” (NASB)The early Church got on with the business of the Kingdom of Heaven and paid no heed to which Caesar was in office or who the editor in chief of the local newspapers was. In fact history clearly shows that it was persecution and trials that propelled the Gospel into the known world and the ‘fiery trials’ that we in the West so despise actually produced a purer clearer message out of a purer cleaner messenger.

Was the apostle Paul ignorant of God’s mandate that he failed to clearly articulate a matter of such importance to the church. Actually Paul was set apart by God that he should bear the name of Jesus to the Gentiles, their Kings and the sons of Israel and that he would suffer greatly for the name of Jesus. It does not say he was a king but that he would stand and suffer at the hands of heathen Kings and Jewish leaders. This dominion teaching takes us one more building block closer to a larger deception that is already at work in these circles. ‘God knows that in the day that you eat the fruit your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods knowing good and evil’. (Gen.3:5)

 
Over the last thirty years we have heard it from some of the various teachers in the faith movement in regards that we are ‘little gods’. This teaching falls right in line with a more widespread consensus spoken and inferred to by many contemporary leaders that the church is now ‘weak and without power because we are not in control of storms earthquakes natural disasters’. The idea being that very soon men and women will rise up and control weather patterns over the earth and sea and by spiritual decree change governments and social systems and as was stated earlier take over the media and educational establishments through a spiritual warfare aimed at displacing principalities over cities and nations.
I WOULD HOPE THAT THIS ONE FACT DOES NOT ESCAPE THEM OR US; any spiritual ‘powers or principalities’ that have gained access and presently rule over these regions have done so by our own sin and default. They can only be displaced as the Christian Church in these areas humble themselves, unite and seek the face of God for a visitation of repentance and of Hi s Presence. The influence of godliness, righteousness and holiness in the lives of God’s people will bring the change needed as we all in an attitude of brokenness stand in the gap for the lost condition of the world and the present compromised state of the Church. The Christian Church in North America must get back to some Biblical basics of seeking God for God alone.
Is it the culmination of so many years of hearing how great and powerful the North American Church is that we somehow have started to believe our own press releases! It seems if we just believe something strong enough and long this becomes the ‘only condition’ for God to move on our behalf in complete disregard for God’s greater purpose and will in the affairs of men and nations. It seems that we just want to push ahead with a plan, any plan, no longer willing to wait ‘in rest’ for God. We just begin to exercise our newfound dynamic faith and authority by releasing so called words of power and might into the atmosphere desiring to change the spiritual landscape of our nations. Haven’t many proponents of this hi jacked kind of faith been doing this for the last three decades? With what results?
Are they talking about a parallel takeover like Constantine did in Rome in the third century? How does one convert those who have no desire or inclination to becoming followers of Christ? How does one take these seven mountains of influence referred to earlier and transform them in such a radical way as to reflect the nature of Christ unless of course the Spirit of Christ indwells each individual and then those individual lives then begin to impact others and so on.
Christianity, changes the world one soul at a time. The testimony of the Christian faith is not displayed in the powers of government or legislation it is seen and embraced in the love that believers have one for the other. What dominion theology exemplifies is a reach for ‘godhood’ as those who espouse its teaching await some kind of mysterious spiritual transformation which will ‘endue’ them to turn the world system on its head in order to implement a kingdom of their own design and making. The bottom line being that those who embrace this teaching have or will have within themselves some inherent power that is ‘obviously’ independent of God and at odds with His will and purposes in the earth. If this was God’s master plan for the Christian Church, we, you would think would be able to read of it clearly in God’s master book the Bible.

 
There is only one large event at the end of the age that the Bible clearly and repeatedly speaks of and it isn’t about an end time Christian government or media or even of a large scale worldwide revival that many are waiting for. Rather the Bible speaks of an all encompassing deception that unless those days were shortened even the elect would be pulled into it.(Mathew 24:24 ; 2 Thess.2:9) It is almost as if leaders now days are trying to rewrite a Biblical foregone conclusion that has been prophesied and spoken about in scripture and reconstruct the end time events according to their own imaginations.

 
Some may object to such statements but take a serious look across the North American Christian horizon. What you will see predominantly is an unbalanced fascination with miracles signs and wonders and as you view the postings and read the various articles you sense this ‘impatience’ building if you will, with God, He just doesn’t seem to be moving fast enough or doing enough of the big wonders to attract any attention to Himself and thus we must act out on our own intuition. Some celebrity ministers have hired on the wall street crowd to study and analyze communities at large and to come up with better marketing techniques to draw in the unchurched Harry’s and Mary’s because the old fashioned cross doesn’t quite cut the mustard anymore in bringing people to Christ.( There has been an about face on this topic in regards to the Willow Creek prototype. They have since moved off of this fruitless endeavor)

 
Much of the drive and momentum behind this campaign is an idea that is running on a great deal of human potential all the while connecting scriptural dots that really should not be connected for the following reasons. When Jesus stood before Pilate Jesus stated clearly that His (Jesus) kingdom was NOT of this world. When Jesus began His ministry and was led out into the wilderness to be tempted by the Satan, one of the temptations Satan threw at Jesus was that He could have all the kingdoms of this world and their glory if Jesus would only bow down to him(devil)and worship. They would have been all His in short order, delivered personally to Jesus by Satan himself. Jesus could have miraculously turned the seven mountains of influence in His day one hundred and eighty degrees had the Father so directed Him to do so. However and this is one of the most important points, for Jesus to do so He would have had to crush and overthrow the existing government of His day as well as displace the heavenly powers behind their natural counterparts. This would be true ‘Dominion Theology’; taking dominion is to dominate by force, how else can one bring down a rule and ideology of an enemy other than to conquer the many tenets of their government and replace them with one’s own. Those being vanquished refuse to embrace a new order until the forces applied are great enough against them to finally make them surrender. You can be sure that the multitudes in Constantine’s Rome who came across to a new imposed religion did so only to save their skin. It was a feigned conversion by most; the heart of most individuals had not been won to Christ.

 
This exact event will happen, you can read about it in the Book of Revelation when at the end of the age when Jesus returns to subdue the Kingdoms of this earth; all those who up until that point have refused and rejected His love, the sacrifice of His blood and the message of forgiveness through His cross shall be vanquished, and the kingdoms of this earth shall become the kingdoms of our lord and His Christ.( Rev.11:15)
But until then we who follow Christ will serve the Savior at His direction and in His purposes. There is a ‘weakness’ in the message of the cross that escapes us the moment we start believing we are something because God has ‘used’ us on occasion to do wonderful and even miraculous things. We tend to forget how close we are to the ground and the dust from which we come.
We were not put here to subjugate the world to Christ nor are we here to make this world a Christian paradise. The world and its systems are passing away; we have been entrusted with a message to share with this lost world, a hope as secure today as a lifeboat was for those going down on the Titanic. For all those early Christians who were escorted into the arenas of Rome and were willing to embrace their faith in the face of being torn by wild beast, the message of the Cross was enough.
The moment we think that Christians and Christian leaders cannot fall for one of Satan’s end time deceptions then we need to understand we are most likely already part of it.
We as Christians have no inward latent subconscious powers waiting to be tapped into by our ultra faith or by some inward journey to awaken such a depository.
We are not ‘gods’, we have been made into the image but the image is a far cry from the real person of God. YES, WE CAN DO ALL THINGS IN Christ who strengthens us, yet only as Christ directs us and only as we move and speak in obedience to His every command shall any resident authority or anointing earmark our lives. All assumptions on our part are the basis why at times we fall on our faces, thus missing the His larger than us, purpose. We cannot force God’s hand or somehow blackmail Him into doing something we believe and pray should be done according to our desires or well wishing.
Who is it that holds the future of the earth and its people in His hand, how is it that we can so boldly declare what God is about to do when we cannot even with any degree of accuracy forecast tomorrow’s weather in different areas of the world. We have all heard enough ‘prophetic words’ whose origin seemed apparent at the time of delivery, where it’s source lay, however for those making the predictive edict it did not take long as in the case of Lakeland to determine the source was the big ‘human self’.
I said it before and I’ll say it again, there are no great men or women of God, there is only a great God. We are His body not the head, the body responds to directions from the head. One of the most basic and yet most scriptural things for us as individuals to do is to let God begin to have ownership of our inward personal lives. Once God has gained rule of our wills, dreams and aspirations by our willing surrender of these things to Him the next step of obedience will fall right in line. We must get rid of our ‘gotta do something for Jesus mindsets’. Jesus has already prepared things for us, we just need to start clueing in to Him for direction and purpose, and while we are on the way love and enjoy the relationship with Him, for this is our ultimate joy and meaning.
Finally, Jesus will return at the Fathers direction and in the Fathers timetable. God is not waiting for the Christian Church to convert all the world systems so Jesus can finally return to a conquered earth that will be handed to Him by the NAR or any other human or Christian government. God shall accomplish His purposes so determined before the foundations of the world; He’s been doing it a long time, even before any of us appeared on the planet, imagine that.