Catherine Crick is a pastor of a large church in Los Angeles. She also calls herself an apostle. She regularly goes viral for her faith healing and deliverance videos. But who is she, where does she come from, and how does her teachings stack up against the Word of God?
00:21:33.060If you've been listening for a while, you know that seven weeks coffee is not just a sponsor for us. It's part of our daily routine. We absolutely love seven weeks coffee. We drink it in our home. I look forward to every morning waking up just so I can drink my seven weeks coffee. I love that it's mold free, pesticide free, super clean, tastes great, all of that good stuff.
00:21:51.880But of course, the best part is they donate 10% of every sale to pregnancy centers across
00:21:56.700the country because you guys have opted to allow your coffee to serve a higher purpose.
00:22:01.320They've donated nearly $2 million to these pregnancy centers across the country that
00:22:06.160has translated into saving thousands of baby lives.
00:22:09.820So go ahead and make the switch to seven weeks coffee.
00:22:12.200When you subscribe, they'll send that box of coffee to your front door every month.
00:33:44.240who was later, of course, replaced with Matthias, and then Paul, who was also chosen after his
00:33:48.920conversion, but of course, did see Jesus and did interact with Jesus. The apostles were personally
00:33:56.240chosen by christ okay that is one distinctive of an apostle luke 6 13 and when day came he called
00:34:03.200his disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles acts 1 1 through 2 and the first book o
00:34:09.520theophilus i have dealt with all that jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken
00:34:14.580up after he had given commands through the holy spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen paul
00:34:19.320had to defend his apostleship on the basis that christ had appeared to him and called him because
00:34:23.580when Jesus was alive, he was terrorizing Christians. He was making sure that Christians0.99
00:34:28.780were martyred. He had to defend his actual apostleship by saying this in 1 Corinthians0.96
00:34:33.4409.1, am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? So that is his substantiation,
00:34:40.860his evidence that he is an apostle. He has seen Jesus our Lord. In 1 Corinthians 15.7-9,
00:34:46.240Paul says, Christ appeared to him last of all, last of all, implying that the resurrection
00:34:50.720appearances establishing apostolic witness had reached their conclusion. So after the apostolic
00:34:57.140era, early church leaders acknowledged that they did not share the apostles' unique authority
00:35:01.420because no one today can meet the biblical qualifications for apostleship because Jesus
00:35:06.020has already ascended into heaven or received from the original apostles. There are no apostles in
00:35:12.140the New Testament since today. The Bible therefore remains the church's only apostolic authority that
00:35:18.260still exists today. The idea that new apostles are being ordained today comes from in large part
00:35:24.640what we referenced just a few minutes ago, this new apostolic reformation. We'll get into what
00:35:29.920the NAR is. You probably heard about it. Elisa Childers has done a lot of good work on it.
00:35:34.500Mike Winger has done a lot of good work on it. We'll just do a brief description of what the
00:35:39.600NAR is in a second. Let me pause, tell you about Legacy Box. Legacy Box is such a cool and unique
00:35:45.700service. If you've got all the different kinds of memories that you don't know what to do with,
00:35:49.960you don't know how to organize, you don't know how to make sure that they are preserved,
00:35:53.620especially if you're moving soon, or maybe you're trying to take care of an aging relative,
00:35:58.720you want to make sure that you can keep those VHS tapes, those pictures, you got to digitize
00:36:03.760them. You got to save them in the cloud. That's the best way to make sure that you can pass down
00:36:08.400these memories to the next generation. That's what Legacy Box does. They send you this big
00:36:12.920cardboard box. You put in all of these, you know, all of your videos and pictures and everything
00:36:17.600into there. You send it to them and they hand preserve each of these. They digitize everything.
00:36:24.720The videos, the tapes, the pictures that you have, they organize them. They save them to the
00:36:29.960cloud. They send that file to you. And then they send you back all of the hard copies of everything.
00:36:35.880What a great gift to give to yourself, to give to your family, to give to your mom, aunt, or uncle,
00:36:40.820go to LegacyBox.com slash Allie. They're having an America 250 sale going on right now. Save some
00:36:49.160money. Save your memories. LegacyBox.com slash Allie. So the NAR or the New Apostolic Reformation,
00:37:02.280it's a loosely connected movement within charismatic Christianity. And so it's not
00:37:07.540a specific denomination with NAR-affiliated churches. It is loosely connected. And in general,
00:37:15.080they teach that God is restoring the biblical offices of apostles and prophets to lead the
00:37:20.340church into the present day and into the present day revival. John MacArthur, he wrote a lot about
00:37:27.040the dangers of the NAR when he was alive. Another incredible spiritual leader that we lost last year,
00:37:33.240um he said this in short he said it is not new it is not apostolic and it is not a reformation
00:37:40.000he warned about issues in the hyper charismatic movement including nar in a book that he wrote in
00:37:45.7602023 called strange fire the danger of offending the holy spirit within counterfeit worship
00:37:51.740but you know he had been talking about this for decades of his ministry he was also in la
00:37:58.100that's where a lot of these charismatic leaders have gained popularity over the decades and really
00:38:04.100since the 60s john macarthur has been showing the difference between a biblically based faith
00:38:10.760and what the fruit of that looks like and then this extra biblical anti-biblical practice of
00:38:18.980name it and claim it's supposed manifestations of the holy spirit which he would claim are not
00:38:25.280manifestations of the Holy Spirit at all. So it's not a single denomination, but many of its leaders
00:38:31.060emphasize the same things like modern day prophecy, miraculous healing, casting out demons,
00:38:36.720the idea that apostles have unique authority to govern churches and direct believers. And again,
00:38:42.740it's not the difference between cessationism and continuationism that we are focusing on today.
00:38:48.520This is hyper charismatic. This is the belief that in order to have any sort of revival,
00:38:54.180in order to be legitimate Christianity, we must have these things, and we must have modern-day
00:39:00.080apostles and prophets that are basically self-appointed lead us into that revival. It
00:39:07.200must look, according to this loosely associated group of people, like Catherine Crick. The movement
00:39:12.640grew significantly during the 2000s, 2010s, fueled in part by the rising popularity and global
00:39:17.520influence of NAR-associated churches like Bethel Church in Redding, California, the International
00:39:22.720House of Prayer in Kansas City. There was a leader named C. Peter Wagner. He claimed his
00:39:29.040own apostleship based on modern prophetic declarations, not biblical standards of actually
00:39:34.420having seen Jesus, but just the idea that he had said some things were going to happen and that
00:39:40.980they had happened. He pointed to a 2001 apostolic decree as evidence of his apostleship, claiming
00:39:47.220that god had given him authority to declare to an end to mad cow disease in europe okay nearly a
00:39:54.200decade later doctors and veterinarians were still diagnosing the disease in both humans and animals
00:39:58.740across the continent okay so a prophet of the lord what they actually prophesy will come to pass
00:40:06.680and that particular nar leader prophesied something that was not actually true wagner's
00:40:11.600international coalition of apostles further institutionalized modern apostleship through
00:40:16.080nominations, memberships, annual dues. And this really, according to Grace To You, that's John
00:40:21.940MacArthur's ministry, reduced what scripture presents as a unique office established by Christ
00:40:27.420into some kind of credential. Then you have people like Lance Wallnau and Bill Johnson.
00:40:34.780They wrote a book called Invading Babylon, The Seven Mountain Mandate, explained how new
00:40:40.000Christian apostles should advance the gospel in every sphere of society. You've got Che on.0.98
00:40:44.980He is a leading NAR quote-unquote apostle who teaches that the office of apostle continues today.
00:40:52.300He encourages believers to embrace this apostolic anointing.
00:40:56.940Bill Heyman is a pioneer of the movement.
00:40:59.700He had a book called Eternal Church, The Eternal Church, a prophetic look at the church.
00:41:03.940Her history, restoration, and destiny explains how the 21st century church is restoring the truths of early church
00:41:10.960through not better understanding of the scriptures.
00:41:14.460remember the Reformation that we had 500 plus years ago through Martin Luther. It wasn't a new
00:41:21.400teaching. It wasn't something that was completely revolutionary. But Martin Luther said, hey, we
00:41:27.700should read this infallible and errant word of God, and we should stick as closely to that as
00:41:32.320we possibly can. This is outside of that. This is saying, no, no, the biblical canon is a limitation
00:41:38.420on what we must be and do. So this is not the same as the Reformation of yore.
00:41:45.420Crick's ministry reflects a lot of this movement's defining characteristics, including the belief in
00:41:50.800modern day apostles, prophetic commissioning, so-called deliverance ministry. And so let's
00:41:57.360look at some of these deliverances or what she claims to be deliverances. So this is my second
00:42:04.560concern. My second concern is the theatrical nature of her exorcisms and faith healings and
00:42:12.080the fact that there seems to be evidence pointing to them not actually being real. And if that is
00:42:19.360the case, that is really evil and really, really bad. Even if there is any fake part of this at all,
00:42:25.600that should be disqualifying. So deliverance is a major part of Crick's ministry. In fact,
00:42:30.900her fame comes in part from extremely theatrical exorcisms that go viral online. And just to define
00:42:38.760something for you, deliverance typically means like being delivered of an unclean spirit,
00:42:44.220delivered of an ailment, delivered of a sin stronghold, delivered of demonic oppression.
00:42:52.780And of course, we believe that Jesus is our deliverer, that he delivers us from death. He
00:42:58.000delivers us from Satan. He delivers us from sin, but typically deliverance ministries are
00:43:05.500predicated on the idea that it must be convulsion. It must be seizing. It must be this kind of
00:43:14.040theatrical, I won't say that they would say performance, but that's what I would call it.
00:43:20.420So here's an example of what I'm talking about, Satin.0.59
00:43:23.400I cancel every demonic covenant she made when she did witchcraft, and I declare every spirit attached, every last spirit of witchcraft must leave her on three in Jesus' name.
00:43:45.700I detach her from all of that, and I declare every last spirit gone now.
00:43:51.340thank you jesus thank you jesus hallelujah hallelujah
00:43:58.160okay um example two katherine crick is making a guy collapse in the name of deliverance not 11
00:44:08.240i cancel that blood covenant now thank you jesus i detach him from that
00:44:15.560blood covenant now. And I command every spirit attached on three. I command you must leave him
00:44:22.760in Jesus name. One, two, three. Okay. There are lots and lots and lots of videos like this
00:44:36.540on her own Instagram. There was a woman flailing around on the stage when Catherine Crick was
00:44:42.820saying that she releases her from the spirit of witchcraft um there are a lot of examples like
00:44:49.000this and you might be thinking understandably like what's wrong with this don't we see throughout
00:44:54.020scripture in the new testament exorcisms the releasing of demonic power in a person and we
00:45:00.220even see convulsions in scripture we see this kind of thing so i want to draw some distinctions
00:45:05.840between what we see in so many of these videos remember back let's actually play it because it's
00:45:11.500voiceover so i can keep talking while we play it but um one of the first thoughts that we played
00:45:16.680and her blowing on the crowd okay i just want to remind you what that looked like when this is also
00:45:24.520what she is claiming deliverance she's not declaring anything we don't know what these
00:45:28.980people are dealing with these people look like they're worshiping look like they're christians
00:45:33.820here they don't look like they're demonically possessed and she is making sure that they fall
00:45:37.380that they fall, that they fall. Again, that one guy, he's not falling. He's got to stand there
00:45:41.520to make sure he knows that he's supposed to fall. Okay. So this is what that looks like.
00:45:45.660What are the red flags that I see that tell me that this doesn't look like from what she is
00:45:52.000voluntarily showing online, the kinds of exorcisms that we do see in scripture. So one red flag is
00:46:00.580that these exorcisms are typically in the videos that she posts long and drawn out when the Bible
00:46:06.740indicates that they are immediate. So Mark 1, 25 through 26, and Jesus rebuked him saying,
00:46:13.060be silent to the unclean spirit and come out of him. And the unclean spirit convulsing him and
00:46:17.960crying out with a loud voice came out of him. So we do see a convulsion here. We do see a loud
00:46:23.660voice here. It was immediate. No one, two, three, like you're talking to a toddler that you're just
00:46:28.840hoping obeys you by the time you get to three, but an immediate authority and immediate obedience
00:46:33.900of the unclean spirit, Matthew 17, 18. And Jesus rebuked the demon and it came out of him and the
00:46:39.960boy was healed instantly. Now, what's interesting about this is not only do we see in the videos
00:46:46.500that she posts that people are flailing constantly, even after she has declared the
00:46:51.780demon to come out of them. And so that tells me that they are still being, if this was genuine,
00:46:58.640okay, well, the deliverance didn't work because they're still flailing around. They are still
00:47:02.620acting like they're possessed by something. They're still of an unsound mind. And so even
00:47:08.640if you are to say that these exorcisms or that these people are really possessed by demons,
00:47:13.980even if you are to say demonic exorcisms or what we are supposed to practice today,
00:47:18.780what's going on with these people who are not healed instantly? That is not what we see indicated
00:47:24.740in scripture, but also we see the same people being delivered over and over again in her videos.
00:47:33.380She has actually been exposed for, um, healing the same people repeatedly. There is an outlet
00:47:40.520that I cannot across the board always recommend because of some of their reporting, but they do
00:47:46.880a good job of compiling different examples of people's like problematic theology and really
00:47:55.520digging into the research and giving evidence for the claims that people are making about people.
00:48:00.020And they compiled these different examples of the same people in different events being exercised
00:48:10.320by Catherine Crick. And so we'll just go through this. So here's the first example. Catherine
00:48:15.720Crick uses this girl with the distinctive tattoo right there, the blonde lady, um, being exercised1.00
00:48:21.860in two different, two different occasions. Okay. We've got example one. She's apparently being0.95
00:48:27.560exercised right now. Okay. And then we've also got example two. This is the same lady. This is
00:48:34.280voiceover three. And you can tell she's the same lady because she has a very distinctive tattoo
00:48:38.680on her eye. Now, maybe you're thinking, okay, well, she was possessed by two different demons
00:48:44.660and she's being exorcised two different times by Catherine Crick, maybe, or maybe she is just
00:48:50.080someone that is reliably very good at acting like she has a demon and that that demon is leaving0.98
00:48:55.540her. And so she has been used a couple of times. And then you have girl number two. There's another
00:49:00.940woman with distinctive tattoos that has also been used on Crick's videos multiple times and even in
00:49:06.560other exorcist videos. Okay. So here's example number one. You've got this video of a woman
00:49:14.300with a shoulder tattoo. So here she is in one video. In one instance, she's got a distinctive0.74
00:49:21.120shoulder tattoo. Here's an example of the same person in another video with the same tattoo.
00:49:27.980You can tell it's the same person. She's also been used in videos by exorcist Bob Larson.
00:49:33.380And then you see that Crick and Larson use the same person, what some people might call
00:49:39.360a crisis actor right here. Um, she was also exposed. Crick was also exposed for exercising
00:49:47.380the same two women two nights in a row at some of her events in Canada. Okay. I guess a very,
00:49:55.960we're putting up the pictures. There's a couple of videos. You can see that they're the same
00:50:00.700person. You can look at the pictures and decide for yourself. I guess you could say
00:50:05.260they were exorcised of a demon, and then the next night they were already possessed again,
00:50:12.180re-exorcised. We don't see examples of that kind of thing happening in scripture,
00:50:17.040but if you were to be very charitable, you could say that, or you could say that some people are
00:50:22.240tapped to continue to come back to these events to make it seem extremely sensational.
00:50:28.060A former church member posted his experience to YouTube describing a similar phenomenon,
00:50:32.920The same women getting delivered over and over again at meetings and people being told they were healed when they didn't think they had SOT-12.
00:50:42.160Just at the park, I would notice stuff like these six meetings.
00:50:46.100These same two girls kept screaming out during every deliverance prayer time, which that's a huge part of her format.0.96
00:50:55.460I'm just noticing these same two girls always screaming out during deliverance.
00:50:58.680and it's like, well, why aren't they getting delivered? Or why are they getting delivered1.00
00:51:02.320every single week? Like, did the demons not listen? Is the authority of Christ not here?
00:51:07.020What's happening? So, and then I would notice that she would pray for people with physical ailments
00:51:13.760and they wouldn't get healed. And then she would say, go, it's going to happen as you go. And
00:51:20.700there's a very seductive, deceptive way of making people accept what I believe
00:51:27.800are false signs and wonders. I don't even have any commentary to add to that because he did such
00:51:36.240a good job of pointing out the problems with that. His question of, is the authority of Christ
00:51:41.540not really here, is a really good one. Because if you recall in Acts, and we see the apostles0.98
00:51:48.040practice demonic actual demonic deliverance casting demons out of people healing people
00:51:55.100we read that the people were healed that the demons were cast out that these things were
00:52:00.800actually being accomplished and we don't read hey sometimes they had it sometimes they didn't
00:52:08.300and sometimes god decided to work through them and accomplish these things and sometimes they
00:52:13.080didn't. And we don't see any indication that they had to convince people that they were healed or
00:52:19.300they had to tell people, Hey, you're going to feel it. It's kind of like when you go to the doctor's
00:52:23.120office, it's like, Oh, you can't feel the numbing right now. Don't worry. It's going to kick in.
00:52:27.280We're just going to start drilling on your tooth like that. It's not like that with the power of
00:52:32.100God. I would actually think, I would actually say that my position, those who believe that
00:52:38.040cessationists like limit God, and we don't believe in the power of God, that my view of the power of
00:52:43.920God is actually much higher than a lot of the people who believe in the validity of the apostleship
00:52:49.020of people like Catherine Crick. Because my belief is that God's power is so authoritative, that it
00:52:55.460is so supreme, that it is so successful, that it is actually impossible for it to fail. And so if
00:53:02.600someone was truly an apostle, which again, I believe only existed in the apostolic age, and
00:53:07.580Jesus promised you're going to cast out demons in my name, they did it, that that was actually
00:53:12.140going to be accomplished. I don't believe it's this wishy-washy thing that apparently we are
00:53:16.900seeing through these so-called ministries today. So let's recall what it actually looked like when
00:53:21.960people were being delivered of demons in scripture. In Mark 1, in the synagogue at Capernaum,
00:53:28.720we read, and immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he
00:53:32.620cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who
00:53:38.220you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him, saying, be silent and come out of him.
00:53:43.180And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. Again,
00:53:47.640immediately. In Mark 5, Jesus rids a man of unclean spirits. The man was living among tombs
00:53:53.040with what seemed like superhuman strength, breaking the chains that bound him. Jesus asks
00:53:58.000the spirits their name, and they reply, Legion, for we are many. The demons are cast out into the
00:54:03.160pigs who then run off the cliff. So we see a few things here that demons make the entities that
00:54:08.480they possess do illogical things, do crazy things, often violent things against themselves or other
00:54:13.960people. Here's how the healed man is then described in verse 15, sitting there clothed and in his
00:54:20.860right mind. And they, everyone who was watching was afraid. And so that's what happens when a
00:54:26.680demon is cast out. It is immediate. Sometimes I guess there's convulsing. Sometimes there isn't.
00:54:32.980The person seems insane and then is of their right mind. It's an immediate transformation.
00:54:40.140Acts 16. As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of0.95
00:54:44.840divination and brought her owners much gained by fortune telling. She followed Paul and us crying0.72
00:54:49.560out, these men are servants of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. So it's
00:54:54.740so interesting. These demons know truth. These demons regularly recite what is actually true.
00:55:01.320And she kept doing this for many days, scripture says. And then Paul, having become greatly annoyed,
00:55:06.240turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
00:55:10.380And it came out that very hour, immediate and complete. And as far as we know, without fanfare.
00:55:17.360Also, from what we see, these people are not believers. These people are non-Christians.0.95
00:55:22.580they are being possessed by a demon. And then when they are healed again, they are of the right1.00
00:55:28.960mind. Now, is that the pattern that we are seeing? It seems to me that a lot of the people, like the
00:55:33.820people who are coming up to her in her like book signing meetings, these people apparently are
00:55:39.960Christians, even people who attend her church, people who call themselves believers. But even
00:55:45.000just being in her presence causes seizures and convulsions. And we're calling that deliverance.
00:55:50.900you don't think that we see a biblical precedence of that the deliverance ministry of crick is based
00:55:57.580on a misreading of scripture the binding and loosing that faith healers like her say that
00:56:02.200they're doing is based on matthew 16 18 through 19 when jesus says i tell you you are peter and
00:56:09.580on this rock i will build my church in the gates of hell shall not prevail against it i give you
00:56:12.760the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and
00:56:16.360whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. In reality, these keys are not giving
00:56:23.760Christians the authority to bind or loose anything. That's what Crick believes. She said
00:56:27.980that before in a sermon, but apply specifically to the churches. So as a Protestant, we say that
00:56:35.120that is the universal body of believers. And I believe biblically, that's what it is. The
00:56:38.820universal body of believers, not the institution. So specifically to the church's authority to open
00:56:44.840or loose the kingdom by preaching the gospel
00:56:47.100and close or bind the kingdom based on church discipline.