Latter Rain, Prophecy Reviews

Prophecy: A billion people will become Christians

Prophet: Bob Jones

Status: Unfulfilled

This prophecy was made by a person who had a long history of making the most fantastic and oversized prophecies you could imagine (and he could imagine). It is inline with or an extension of his megalomaniac eschatology of Christian superheroes who will take control of the world with their super powers. It is “comic book Christianity” that started either when Bob Jones started reading comics or when he heard about and fell in love with Latter Rain (LR) theories.

It is part of a raft of LR ideas and really the easily predicted end result. The basic dream is that Christians of the future will have special spiritual powers and be able to perform special miracles. With all this extra power they will be able to get all these extra people persuaded to become believers in Jesus Christ. Because their power will be so great, a billion conversions is within the realm of possibility. It is logical but only if the underlying assumption is correct.

Presupposition

The base assumption is an unorthodox and controversial interpretation of Scripture by a boy who worked in a mail room during a revival in Canada and felt he was anointed. He wrote a book. The rest is history (or in this case the future). It is even crazier in some ways than the Mormon history of an adult who claimed he angelic experience. It is so cringe-worthy when you deep dive into its history.

So, anyway, of course people wanted to believe they would become extremely powerful, so they took the idea and ran with it. But when they never got the power they dreamed, the movement lost its appeal; it pretty much died down and everybody went home. It stayed in the background until enough people who were good at hype revived it. Bob Jones was one of the Latter Rain hype revivalists who revived it in the 1980s.

In his eschatology or imagination — it is usually impossible to tell which it is — future Christians will become perfect (sinless) and virtually as powerful as Jesus. This came from the guy who was caught in sin and banned from ministry.

New breed

The superhero element of Jones’ view of the future was encapsulated in his associated New Breed prophecy. The new superheroes he called the “New Breed.” He said Todd Bentley was the first of a new breed. He said this publicly in Lakeland, Florida in 2008 just before Bentley’s ministry collapsed in spectacular fashion. If the billion souls are supposed to get saved by the New Breed, don’t hold your breath.

Percentage

The whole idea that a billion people (out of world population of over 7.5 billion) will become Christians is a total pipe dream!

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:13-14).

Value

This word has value for cheerleaders. It is good for rallying the troops. What could be more positive and exciting for those who want to see souls saved than to hear a billion will? But it is hype.

Endorsements

Various leaders including Che Ahn use it to get people excited. It has also been repeated on the Charisma website in 2016 (Che Ahn), 2019 (Patricia Bootsma) and 2020 (Holly Watson) with no critical consideration on whether it was invalidated.

Blind eye

You have to be more than your average eternal optimist to believe this prophecy. You also have to deliberately ignore every false prophecy Bob Jones ever made.

Conditions

There is no wisdom with the word to say how anybody could get more power to become more effective at evangelism. This makes it very weak if not powerless.

The Bottom line

Extremely unlikely to happen.

When a prophecy sounds too good to be true it probably is.

The heavens now are declaring His timing… He’s beginning to raise up the eternal church, built on the foundation government, and He’s beginning to mature that.

And within another 4-5½ years, somewhere in there… You’re going to begin to see anointed men of God begin to move with the Holy Spirit in power… You will see the glorious church begin to come in and you will begin to birth it. It will take probably another 15 to 20 years to get some of you into some level of maturity…

First, He will bring the five… there is a ministry after the fivefold, called the ministry of perfection: the Melchizedek priesthood. You that are children will be moving into the ministries of perfection… coming into that divine nature of Jesus Christ—not having to come out of the wilderness, but being birthed natural into the Spirit.

All their days movin’ with the Spirit… You’re in the warfare. Start to take the promised land. And then you raise up the generation to possess it. Well, the children that are coming forth are to possess the promises of God. It is the last-day generation.”

—Bob Jones, 1988

“Visions & Revelations,” Mike Bickle with Bob Jones, Fall 1988, KCMO, pp. 49-50.

Quoted by Ernie Gruen, Documentation of the Aberrant Practices and Teachings of Kansas City Fellowship, 1990.

www.banner.org.uk/kcp/Abberent%20Practises.pdf

Authenticity

The prophecy’s authenticity as far as whether Bob Jones actually said it is uncontested. It may have been prophesied at Mike Bickle’s church in Kansas City. Jones was known as one of the Kansas City Prophets and was often interviewed by Bickle.

The transcription was published by Ernie Gruen, senior pastor of a church near Kansas City, in his Aberration report which was distributed across America in early 1990. His source was a cassette recording; this was the standard for teaching distribution at the time; tapes were offered for sale to the public through a tape catalog.

Timing

Jones’ prophecy has time parameters. It was dated 1988 (Gruen’s report used the F88 tag). It may have been recorded earlier than 1988 but first distributed in 1988. But it seems fair to say it was recorded no later than 1988. When you add the 4 to 5.5 years to 1988, it’s 1992 to mid-1993.

Review

There was nothing special or significant that happened between 1988 and 1993 which could indicate let alone prove the fulfillment of “You’re going to begin to see anointed men of God begin to move with the Holy Spirit in power” either in terms of existing ministries suddenly demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit — or new ministries starting to show it — and certainly not by Jones.

Jones said: “It will take probably another 15 to 20 years to get some of you into some level of maturity.” This was not a prophecy; it was an opinion. The word “probably” obviously is opinion. Any “prophecy” with the word “probably” is immediately suspect; it undermines the entire prophecy. It makes the audience wonder if not just the sentence with “probably” but the entire prophecy is speculation.

Even if you discount the word “probably” as an inadvertent mistake, a slip of the tongue, and then add 15 to 20 years from 1988, you get a prophecy saying powerful men will be demonstrating the Holy Spirit by 2003 to 2008. But, again, there was nothing significant during this time frame, either, to prove or validate the prophecy — including by Jones himself.

The most significant part of the prophecy is the final sentence: “It is the last-day generation.” This shows Bob Jones believed the generation that would be demonstrating God’s power starting between 2003 and 2008 (or between 1992 and 1993) would be the last generation. We have been in the “last days” since the Day of Pentecost because the Joel 2 last days prophecy was fulfilled on that day according to Peter’s sermon. Jones must have been talking about literally the last generation.

That is a really hard sell! What respected Christian leaders if any today believe the end is near?!

The Church as a whole, and with very few exceptions, operates at very low levels of spiritual power. This is true of any kind of spiritual power you can imagine from prophecy to miracles, signs, wonders, or any gifts of the Holy Spirit. There is really no evidence of a rising tide of spiritual power as if an entire generation is more mature or more spiritual than any previous generation.

Besides lack of accuracy, lack of power is another reason why Bob Jones prophecies have been so difficult to believe. He did not have a healing ministry. He did not demonstrate what he prophesied. “If we are supposed to grow in power,” somebody should have asked him, “why aren’t you!?”

Conclusion

False prophecy

Comments

The entire prophecy is not clean and clear. It seems like rambling with a few ideas cobbled together with some opinions on eschatology thrown in as if he made it up as he went along. Its value would have been considered very limited because it provided no guidance on how to get the power it promised. It completely lacked wisdom and responsibility. It had no associated miracles or signs for confirmation.

The Billion-Soul Harvest Prophecy by Bob Jones