Update: Bill Johnson’s Library Mandate

I just came across this Bill Johnson blog post — Anointings Come From Honor dated February 2, 2009 — predating by over seven months James Goll’s “prophetic word” of September 17, 2009 as posted in Bill Johnson’s Library Mandate here on the CrossWise site.  In it, Johnson states that he bought Roberts Liardon’s library “in the past year” (from the Feb. ’09 date):

“In the past year we have purchased Roberts Liardon’s library/museum. He authored the wonderful series of books, God’s Generals (required reading in BSSM). While I have been collecting books and artifacts for years, his is the most complete I’ve ever seen or heard of. With over 11,000 volumes of books, and amazing items for viewing, the House of Generals will be a wonderful place to visit or study. Things like Smith Wigglesworth’s piano, and Kathryn Kuhlman’s wedding dress, are just a couple of the items for the museum. Priceless photo’s, letters, and memorabilia fill the collection.”

This conflicts with the timing of James Goll’s “prophetic word.” So, this begs the question: What is the significance of Goll’s “word” if Johnson already had purchased Liardon’s library prior to this “dream?”  The video in which Johnson delivers this “word” to — at least part of — the Bethel congregation (I presume it was the “Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry” as Johnson said it was a “prophetic word” about their “destiny”) was dated 9 days ago as of the date of this CrossWise blog post.

It cannot be argued that this was to substantiate the size as “the world’s largest library and artifacts of signs and wonders that church history has ever known” (even if that ends up being true) since Goll stressed the fact that there would be a “Roberts” who would be (future tense) “important” because Johnson “would receive something of a library inheritance by somebody with the name ‘Roberts”” and it wouldn’t be just “Oral Roberts.”

Open question to Bethel, Bill Johnson and James Goll: What was the significance of the “prophetic word” from Sepember 17th, 2009 that was posted on the Vimeo ibethel.TV  site on December 9, 2010 and how do you reconcile this with the contradictions as laid out above?

Bill Johnson’s Library Mandate

[Many thanks to the reader who sent this to me]

See update here added 12/18/2010. [Update 8/7/2020: the video had been deleted, but Internet Archive has a static page showing the thumbnail; see “The House of the Generals” hyperlink below the space left by the deleted vimeo (17658114) video.]

http://vimeo.com/17658114
The House of the Generals

Part of Bill Johnson’s current “mandate” is to build a library of works and artifacts of past “revival leaders.” He calls it “The House of the Generals.” This “mandate” allegedly came in a dream of James Goll on September 17, 2009 while he and Johnson were staying at Oral Roberts’ home. In the dream Goll was taken to a “large library and a museum of signs and wonders”:

“…of crutches and wheelchairs and signs and wonders,  The Holy Spirit spoke to me in the dream and said, ‘It is my desire to give the stewardship to Bill Johnson of the world’s largest library and artifacts of signs and wonders that church history has ever known….’

“…and I heard the name ‘Roberts’ and the name ‘Roberts’ would be important; and, it wasn’t just being Oral Roberts today, but there’s a double meaning because you would receive something of a library inheritance by somebody with the name ‘Roberts.'”

Johnson had already praised Roberts Liardon’s book God’s Generals in his When Heaven Invades Earth; so, it’s perhaps more than coincidental that this “prophetic word” would include Liardon’s library.

In honoring these past ‘revival leaders,’ according to Johnson, God will supposedly give “access to their anointings” — i.e., the “anointings” of mainly the dead including the unorthodox William Branham, John G. Lake, Kathryn Kuhlman, etc.  The bona fide first century Apostle John makes it clear there is ONE true anointing — the Holy Spirit indwelling — as well as a countfeit:

 ²⁰ But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.²¹ I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth…

 ²⁴ As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

 ²⁶ I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. ²⁷ As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.  [I John 2:20-21, 24-27 NIV] 

Bill Johnson asserts that studying the lives of these individuals will enable the reader to perform the same signs and wonders as their subjects:

“…We’re looking to be able to raise up a generation to walk in the fullness of what God’s called us to. And, to do that we need to study, we need to research, we need to appreciate and celebrate the victories of yesterday.”

As discussed in The Kingdom of God is at Hand, part II article in “The Changing Face of Christianity” section, Johnson has already, back in 2003, referred to the current age as the “post-denominational era” in which believers “gather around spiritual fathers” rather than those who stick to sola Scriptura — the Bible alone.

This leads down a very slippery slope.  Without objective Biblical Truth with which to anchor these “prophetic words,” this sounds not much different than the extra-biblical revelation of Mormonism’s angel Moroni.

See update here added 12/18/2010.