Leaving the NAR Church: Maaike's story
/"After literally hours and hours of that prayer I saw myself as a 3 month old baby being raped by my father. I recovered memories about being raised in a satanic cult, abused in the most awful ways possible and suddenly the prophecy about giving my heart to Satan became clear."
Maaike is from the Netherlands, and her story of inner healing took her back to her childhood, where false memories were inserted into her head. This Sozo or Theophostic - type healing is foundational to New Apostolic Reformation "deliverance ministries," which Maaike was a part of.
In this series, I want to take readers beyond the textbook What is the New Apostolic Reformation Movement explanation, into the personal experiences from those who have been there, and what happened when God opened their eyes to the truth.
Maaike has allowed me to share her painful journey about how she was deceived:
In 1984, I started to attend conferences lead by a woman named Martie Haaijer. She was a faith healer in the Netherlands who was healed of terminal cancer in a Kathryn Kuhlman service, and on the airplane returning to the Netherlands God allegedly told her to bring this ministry to the Netherlands. Her focus was not only physical healing, but also inner healing and deliverance. The fact that she was healed gave her credibility and a special status in God's kingdom. At least that's what a lot of people thought. What I thought...
She called herself the “anointed one of God,” and we loved to serve her. Serving her was the same as serving God. Of course she was always right, and criticism was not allowed.
Once, she had a prophecy that Jesus would return within 10 years. Several men of the inner circle were asked to test the prophecy and of course they all agreed. So Jesus would return before 1999. Although we left this ministry in 1996, I fully expected the Lord to return in 1998. It was the weirdest New Years' Eve ever. When the fireworks started at midnight I was relieved and sad at the same time. At that moment I knew that she was a false prophet, but I didn't dare to say it out loud. "Do not touch the Lords' anointed!"
For years I struggled with understanding how and why Martie Haaijer was healed of terminal cancer. The answer is simple. Jesus warned us in Matthew 24:24,
For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
In hindsight, “healing services” are terrible; there are a lot of sick people in the services, all waiting for their BINGO moment. We used to joke about that, but it's very sad. It's abusive and most of all, it's addictive, because maybe next time I will win the healing lottery; or maybe next time the Lord will see me and heal me. It's all pointing to me, me, me. Not to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It's not about taking up your cross and following Him. It's about following a human being, in the hope that Jesus will take away your cross through that person.
We learned a lot about “spiritual warfare.” We prayed in tongues, rebuked demons, and practiced prayer walks (circling certain buildings 7 times). The warfare part felt great. We were making a difference, ushering in the Kingdom of God! We were taught to pray a cleansing prayer after we had completed warfare, which we did when we came home from the mall or even when we had talked with others. Whenever we’ve had guests, we had to cleanse the house, for maybe they had left some demons behind. It was a huge bondage, we were always cleansing ourselves, seeing demons everywhere; resisting and rebuking.
There was a lot of talk about the 5-fold ministry coming back. It wasn't there yet, but it wouldn't take long.
I use to go forward at every opportunity. I longed to get healed in spirit, soul and body, so that God could use me, so that I could serve God better. They prophesied over me and told me that the Lord would heal me and use me as a faith healer and a spiritual mother. Someday I would draw large crowds, but of course I had to get healed and delivered first.
I really wanted to believe everything they said and be obedient to my leaders and to God. I went through inner healing sessions where I had to ask Jesus to show me where He was in a specific situation in my childhood, and it seemed to work. (See article on Theophostic Memory Healing) I “saw” Him writing my birth announcements, I “saw” Him playing with me, I “saw” Him in all kinds of situations, good and bad situations. I believed it really was Jesus who was appearing in my memories, healing my memories.
They told me I needed deliverance and went through numerous exorcisms. Sometimes quietly, sometimes very violently. I spent hours on the floor “resting in the spirit”, I laughed in the “spirit”, I was drunk in the “spirit”.
I started attending when I was 23 years old, I got married with someone who was also involved in this ministry, we served the ministry with our time, money and prayers. There was a couple that thought their ministry was to take care of our children while we were busy serving the Lord.
We prayed with people and people were healed. We delivered people from demons and their lives were changed, but somehow I always ended up depressed, in need of yet another experience; another touch of God.
I also went to Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship with our leader and several other people from the ministry. The minute I walked into the meeting hall I started jerking. I could hardly walk, I involuntary bowed all the time. It was seen as a special manifestation that the spirit was working in me.
A lady prophesied over me and told me the key was in forgiving my father. Then I could heal and then God could use me in a wonderful way in the Kingdom. Martie Haaijer told me that this lady never prophesied over individual people, she was a Prophet and would only prophesy for the whole congregation. That gave the prophecy even more credibility. The only thing was: what do I have to forgive my father of? I had no idea. I received that same prophesy several other times during that year. I was desperately trying to find answers to the question: what did my father do?
When I came back from Toronto I started to go to more meetings in the Netherlands. I went to the LEG (Levend Evangelie Gemeente in Aalsmeerderbrug), to conferences by Bart Doornweerd of YWAM (Youth With A Mission), an organization I was involved with for many years.
One night in the LEG, a pastor came to me and prophesied that I had given my heart to Satan. But he didn't have more information and he left me in despair. At a conference by Bart Doornweerd I met a psychologist who was part of the ministry team, and he constantly prayed: "come Holy Spirit, reveal what happened to her".
Five days later, after literally hours and hours of that prayer I saw myself as a 3 month old baby being raped by my father. I heard myself tell this story with another voice. The whole experience was terrifying, I immediately thought I was being deceived, but the psychologist asked me if I'd made it up, which I didn't, so his conclusion was that this was a revelation by the Holy Spirit. We did bind Satan, didn't we? So he could not have done this. That made sense at the time and I believed the psychologist and so he became my therapist.
Soon after that, Rodney Howard Brown came to the Netherlands. I went to every meeting and the psychologist was also there. During that conference I recovered memories about being raised in a satanic cult, abused in the most awful ways possible and suddenly the prophecy about giving my heart to Satan became clear. For nine years I believed this, I changed therapists several times, but they all confirmed that it was true. I didn't make it up, did I?
While we were serving in the healing ministry we were also part of a local church. At that time we were part of a Berea church, which hosted “Toronto nights”. If you'd think that my story about satanic ritual abuse is one of a kind, you're wrong. In the years following we noticed that a lot of people recovered memories of satanic ritual abuse or other forms of abuse. It seemed to be very important to the Holy Spirit that we'd get healed and that God's light would reveal all the hidden traumas in the lives of His children.
Several people worked together to get a specialist from the USA to the Netherlands to help them with all the traumatized people. His name is Ken Thornberg of Freedom Encounters, and he had a special method for deliverance and integrate all of us who were suffering of multiple personality disorder also known as DID. I'm not going to explain it, but I was allegedly delivered of 1.2 million demons and all my other personalities were integrated during an 8-hour-long session. The problem with all of this was that it did confirm that I was a victim of satanic ritual abuse. Even when it became clear that this long session had not solved the problem, I still believed that I was the victim of satanic ritual abuse.
In 1997 I suddenly realized that Jesus was missing in our church. It was all about the Holy Spirit. We told the pastor and his wife (whom we thought were friends), that we wanted to have a six- week break from church to read our Bible to find Christ. We were naive to think that this could go well. Although they said yes and hugged us when we left, we were the topic of the sermon next Sunday. We were accused of being too negative, too critical and in rebellion. Needless to say, we never went back.
My therapy got more and more intensive, and we forgot all about reading our Bibles. I was hospitalized several times. We realized something was off with the Toronto “blessing”, but we never dared to say that it wasn't the Holy Spirit. We were so afraid to commit the unpardonable sin. What if some of it was the Holy Spirit and we'd say it was the devil? Just like we were also afraid to call the faith healer the false prophet that she was, because we didn't want to “touch God's anointed one”.
In 2004 I retracted my memories about satanic abuse. Several things happened and I suddenly knew that it could not have happened the way I remembered it. It was as simple as making a time schedule of the memories I recovered in therapy and the events that objectively happened, the ones I could prove.
I realized I was deceived, but I had no idea how this all could have happened. We were praying, we were asking God to protect me, so how could this have happened? It took me years to figure it out and only when I started reading my Bible and listening to faithful Bible teachers I started to see the difference between what the Bible teaches and what we were taught in these Charismatic Word of Faith groups.
Bob DeWaay has a lot to say about inner healing and deliverance, and that was very helpful. We listened to Justin Peters, and his seminar is incredible. The Strange Fire conference was very helpful too. Chris Rosebrough's teachings were and still are very helpful.
Once I knew the truth and started to read the Bible in context, I was convicted of my own sin. I repented of following false teachers. It's too easy to blame the teachers and leaders. I listened to them, I chose to believe them. The Lord has forgiven me as He promises in 1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
It was a long, terrible journey to get out of the NAR, out of the NAR mindset. But I'm very grateful that my husband and I could travel together. We are confessional Lutherans now, and we have a faithful pastor who doesn't demand obedience. He listens to our concerns and he answers questions, even the critical ones. We are being taught the word of God, Law and Gospel rightly divided. Thanks be to God Who opened our eyes and brought us out of this bible-twisting mess and brought us in the true Faith.
Author’s Note: You can read the entire series of NAR testimonies here. If you would like to send me your story about your NAR church experience and what happened when your eyes were opened, you can email me here. I will be changing your first name to keep you anonymous.
