The Cleansing: The Removal of the Wicked set for June 9, 1994
by Jackie Alnor Ó 1993 The Christian Sentinel

Instead of teaching that Christ’s true church will be raptured ("snatched up" to heaven) prior to the Second Coming as many Christians believe, many New Agers believe in a reverse rapture of sorts.

They call it the "cleansing," and New Age literature describes it as a time when all the wicked people of the world – including Christians and others who don’t go along with the coming New Age occultism – will be removed and destroyed. "Prepare yourselves," wrote New Ager Aleuti Francesca, "for the day now closely approaches and those who are not so prepared must vanish from the face of this your Earth…. Those who align themselves with the things of the Old must surely be destroyed with that age of decay and darkness."

But not only do many New Agers believe in the "cleansing" instead of the rapture, this unbiblical apocalyptic scenario has recently been promoted on Jan and Paul Crouch’s Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN).

On March 14, 1993, Rev. John J. Hinkle of Christ Church in Los Angeles, who buys airtime on TBN, shared a vision allegedly from God with his congregation and the large international TBN audience. A couple of weeks later Paul and Jan Crouch shared his vision again with the audience on the TBN Praise-a-Thon and used Hinkle’s vision as an incentive for the viewers to give more money than ever before.

Here is a partial transcript of the original church service:

"I realize that, all apologies to my wife, for I’m not only putting my life and my whole future on the line this morning, but hers as well….On Thursday night, March the 11th, the Lord spoke to me in a loud firm voice…it was so strong that it just shook me. I was amazed that it didn’t wake up [wife] Bonnie as well. It was about two o’clock in the morning…His voice came to me a thousand times stronger than my voice is coming to you right now. I heard it outside as well as inside. But, what He said startled me. And here is what He said:

"’On Thursday, June the 9th, I will rip the evil out of this world.’ Now, immediately, I thought wait a minute! Nobody knows of what hour the Son of Man is coming. And I thought is Satan trying to trick me into something? That was my first thought. Immediately, the voice spoke this time deep inside my heart but just as clear, and He said ‘I did not say the second coming.’…And I thought, ‘ah, the date…I’ll check it.’…I looked at the calendar, and June the 9th was Wednesday, not Thursday. And my heart sank for a moment, and again that voice spoke clearly, just as clearly as I’m speaking to you, ‘check 1994.’ I did. And Thursday, June the 9th is 1994. And at that time something cataclysmic of glory and the power of God is going to come upon this earth…

"Now I didn’t say the world’s destruction. I’m not prophesying that. I’m prophesying a cleansing. (Emphasis added.) I’m saying what the Lord said to me. I’m not a prophet…The veil that is spread over all nations (referring to Isaiah 25:6)…means all of the darkness that you see going on today. It’s deception…The veil that is spread over all nations, that’s the veil I believe with all my heart I saw ripped asunder. He will swallow up death forever…He has chosen to set this world free of darkness. Praise God…And the Glory of the Lord shall be revealed…When that Glory comes, and come it will, there isn’t anyone who won’t be on his knees and on his face before the Lord…Now this sounds like the second coming. It is not.

(Using Luke 17 to interpret his vision.) "So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. Now it doesn’t say the second coming, it says REVEALED. You reveal something that’s already here but you don’t see it…And on the day when the Son of Man is revealed, this glory you will see and see things as you’ve never seen them before…Well, on the ninth of June, everything is going to change….One more thing here I want you to see. I tell you that in verse 34, I tell you in that night there will be two men in one bed. One will be taken, the other left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken, the other left. And the disciples said to him, ‘where Lord?’ and He said, ‘Where the body is the vultures will gather.’ That doesn’t sound much like the rapture, does it? It isn’t. It’s the cleansing! It’s the CLEANSING! God Himself will cleanse out this world.

"But He [God] said in those last days I will send out my angels and they will gather what first? What? The tares. They’ll bind them into bundles, and throw them into the furnace of fire…in other words and get rid of them…The cleansing. Again, this is referred to scripture after scripture. Believe me, as I said I would not dare speak to you of this if I didn’t believe it with all my heart and my soul. It isn’t a question of whether I can, I have to. The date was given and the time. The day, that is not the hour, but the time. And when I saw…the ninth of June was Thursday in 1994, I tell you the hair on the back of my neck stood right straight up, and the power of God just shook me. Now you take it for what it’s worth…And I have asked the Lord, as I said beforehand, If there is one word that I speak that is not from the Spirit of the Living God, destroy me, before I say it…I meant it cause I’ve never heard anything like this. It’s too big!"

After TBN aired this prophecy the Christian Sentinel wrote a letter to Pastor Hinkle with copies going to Paul Crouch and Pastor Jack Hayford (the Crouch’s pastor) asking them to reconsider the implications of this "prophecy" before going any further with it after learning that TBN had planned to have Hinkle on the Praise the Lord show June 1. Our letter, dated May 19, 1993, also included copies of New Age publications using the same terminology – "the Cleansing" in their own channeled messages which predict the disappearance of the "Pisces" (old-order) people before the quantum leap into the New Age could occur.

In our letter we warned them that "cleansing" theology is "a tactic of Satan who will want an excuse for the rapture of the saints after the event takes place…to quell public hysteria." We posed several questions concerning this "prophecy" which, if it were to be believed, makes void the word of God. The questions were scriptural tests to use to evaluate the origin of this new revelation. To date (late August) no response came in from any of the letter’s recipients.

But, on June 1 there was no Praise the Lord program because of the birth of the Crouch’s grandson. However, Paul Crouch did a special half hour Behind the Scenes program that day with John Hinkle as the exclusive guest.

Though Hinkle said that when he first heard the voice say that the evil would be ripped out of the world his first inclination was to think it might be the devil. "I thought ‘is Satan trying to trick me into something?’ That was my first thought," said Hinkle on March 14, 1993. Yet, on June 1 with Paul Crouch Hinkle said, "But the Lord Himself spoke and when He speaks in that voice you simply cannot doubt it. It’s beyond that!"

So, apparently Hinkle chose not to test the spirit. And Paul Crouch advised TBN’s international audience not to test the "prophecy" by Scripture. "I think the biggest mistake we would make right now," said Crouch, "would be to try and force this word into any particular dispensational niche or view of whatever. Let’s just accept it for what it is." And being true to his word, Paul Crouch promoted the "prophecy" even further by using it in his August TBN newsletter as an incentive for people to hurry up and get in on the final harvest.

It is amazing that whenever TBN or one of its regular guests is publicly criticized for false doctrine TBN complains that its critics never try to talk to them privately. Yet, this is typical of Paul and Jan Crouch’s failure to be accountable to the body of Christ. TBN simply ignores all efforts to dialogue with any voices of reason. This is by no means the first time we, and many others, have written TBN with our concerns only to be ignored.

We’ll have to wait another year to see how this pans out. On June eighth, the day before the "cleansing," Hinkle is scheduled to be the guest on the Praise the Lord show. Crouch already has interjected a face-saving plan by speculating that perhaps the prophecy has to do with the prophesied "latter rain" of Joel when supposedly God will pour out His spirit on everybody. That way it can be a spiritual happening that nobody will see in the natural. The only problem with that is that Hinkle clearly said, "all people will see it at once."

We’ll do an update on June 10, 1993, should the Lord tarry.

To express your concern write: Paul Crouch, 1973 Port Chelsea Place, Newport Beach, CA 92660 and/or Pastor John Hinkle, Christ Church, P.O. Box 75275, Los Angeles, CA 90075.