Dr. Don G. Pickney takes time out from his current series of teachings to deal this week with some controversy regarding a modern, yet unbiblical term called, “a rhema word.”
The term has developed within our ranks in the charismatic and Word of Faith Community, a “rhema word” carries the general meaning of a special “quickened word” from the Lord Jesus. It’s initial origin is unknown, but is now accepted in many circles as a bonified unquestioned truth. With its adherents unable to go to the scriptures to find it, when it is taught there is a heavy reliance on personal special revelations from God to explain its meaning.
It became more controversial this week when on a weekly webinar under our ministry covering, a video was shown, whereby a popular WOF teacher, speaking at a WOF convention, told the audience that he had just received a new revelation concerning “a rhema word.” Convincing them that they were hearing something brand new from the Holy Spirit, he spent over an hour unfolding his new revelation.
He preached that God had revealed to him the reason so many WOF believers were unable to see the manifestation of their faith was because they were just believing the written Word of God without any special “rhema word” directly from the Lord Jesus concerning the scriptures they were believing and confessing. He said that without a “special quickened word” from the Lord Jesus Himself, their attempt at faith was presumption, and could not produce faith. Hearing the Word of God, alone, was not enough to produce faith in their hearts and bring any potential manifestation in their life.
His basis of this revelation was that God had shown him that in Romans 10:17, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” the word “God” in the verse was actually the Greek word “Christos,” meaning Christ Jesus Himself. Therefore, according to his revelation, the Lord Jesus Himself has to give a specially quickened (by Him) “rhema word” before the believer can actually “hear” and receive the promise of God’s Word.
Keep in mind, that seven verses earlier, the message of Apostle Paul was that “Faith speaks on this wise, ‘say not in your heart, who shall ascend up to Heaven to bring Christ (Gr. Christos) down from above, who shall descend into the deep to raise him up from the dead,’ but what saith it, ‘the Word is night thee, even in thy mouth and in thine heart… for with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
The idea, above, is that when you hear the preaching of the word of God it is likened by Jesus as “the sower soweth the Word,” that the anointed preaching causes the word to go into our hearts and is sown much like a seed put into the soil of the ground. But this WOF teacher, said that it doesn’t work that way, that nothing happens bringing faith into your heart without you receive a special “quickening” word directly from the Lord Jesus (Christos) Himself.
He mocked those who say they are “standing on a scriptural promise from the Word of God,” that they are in his words, “standing on nothing” but presumption.
Throughout his teaching, he used the term “a rhema word,” from “Christos.” In the past, hearing believers use the term “a rhema word,” which was usually meant to describe an action of their “walking in the Spirit,” being led by the spirit, etc. concerning a particular thing they were seeking God for in terms of direction or a decision. They would seek a special “unction” of instruction and call it “a rhema word.”
In this teaching, however, Pastor Don goes deeply into scripture showing the dangers of inventing extra-biblical terms, and the ultimate danger of defining and re-inventing a “made-up” term to broaden its meaning, producing error in the faith, as was the teaching in question this week.
We are sorry that this teacher, a well-known, and often called upon convention speaker and pastor, becomes the subject of such a grievous error as his teaching was. When his video spread through our congregation both locally and across the country, we had no choice but to deal with it.
Get ready for much biblical truth in this teaching as you listen to the audio or watch this week’s video teaching.
