Bob Jones and the Kansas City Prophets: The Blueprint Behind IHOPKC

Bob Jones was a significant figure within the Kansas City Prophets and the development of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOPKC). Jones emerged as a notable prophetic voice during the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Kansas City Prophets gained prominence. His ministry was characterized by numerous claims of prophetic visions and dreams, which he led others to believe were divinely inspired. Many of these alleged visions defined the course that IHOPKC would take and, ultimately, influenced the New Apostolic Reformation. Though he is considered a highly controversial figure in the NAR, his ministry continues to influence the Charismatic movement and define the role of the so-called prophetic ministry within modern Christianity.

According to Jones' testimony, he had spent over twenty years living in "complete abandonment to sin." His life story, eerily similar to William Branham's life during the Latter Rain revivals, included wild women and liquor smuggling. (Branham helped his father produce whiskey for liquor tycoon Otto Wathen[1] during Prohibition, supplying the Cincinnati and Chicago mobs with illicit liquor.) Jones claimed that he was demon-possessed and eventually landed in a mental institution, where he began hearing voices from God, which was also similar to Branham's descriptions of his own battles with mental health.[2]

Spent over 20 years in complete abandonment to sin--alcoholism, street-fighting, barroom brawls, chasing women, gambling, liquor smuggling, and self-acknowledged demon possession ("...when they'd take over me, I'd go completely wacky! Just lookin' for trouble. When you drank enough, you became possessed, I become possessed...'), until finally, while in a mental institution, he hears "Jesus" tell him (concerning 12 people) to "either kill them or forgive them, Bob." Fortunately, he decides to forgive them, he gets released, and he abruptly becomes a self-declared "prophet of God for the end~ times."[3]
- Ernie Gruen

According to Mike Bickle, leader of the Kansas City Fellowship and founder of IHOPKC, Bob Jones played an integral role in defining the first eighteen months of the IHOPKC history.[4] Bickle convinced his cult of personality to believe that God had "separated Bob Jones" for a spiritual purpose during his years as a young boy in Arkansas,[5] much like William Branham's fictional life story accounts told during the Latter Rain Revivals about his so-called supernatural youth experiences in Kentucky.[6] (According to Census Bureau reports, Branham was raised in Indiana from age three).[7]

There's nobody in the natural that had a more ‘integral' role in establishing the foundations in that kind of prophetic way than Bob.[8]
- Mike Bickle.

In March 1983, Bob Jones met with Mike Bickle to convince him of these alleged visions, claiming that he would soon be part of a movement that would have greater signs, wonders, and miracles than was presented in the book of Acts in the New Testament.[9] According to Jones, the movement he was starting would redefine Christianity, and a "new order" of Christians would emerge. Jones convinced Bickle that he had started seeing visions concerning the new order in 1974 and that he had seen nearly a hundred visions and spiritual dreams about the new order in the years leading up to his meeting in 1983. According to Bickle, these visions were in technicolor,[10] and Jones' descriptions of the new order were "like the first time you see Star Wars."[11] Interestingly, Bickle initially believed that Jones' meeting with him fulfilled his own alleged vision of a false prophet. This was largely due to Bickle's inside knowledge that Jones had been accused of being involved with the occult and that Jones had been known to place curses upon his enemies.[12] Like the similarities between Jones and Branham in the life story accounts, cursing or hexing one's enemies was a practice commonly used in Latter Rain by William Branham. Branham claimed to have the power to paralyze, give diseases, cripple, or maim those who questioned his authority.[13] However, evidence suggests that Branham's claims of cursing, such as The Man from Windsor, were complete fabrications.[14]

So Bob Jones comes in and...of course, I was looking for a false prophet and he looked like one to me. I'd never seen one, but he looked as close as I could come up with. And anyway, the guy comes in feeling the oil and feeling the wind, ‘Uh huh, uh huh, this is it, this is it.' "And I remember his first words, as he goes, ‘I've seen you.' And I said, ‘And I've seen you.' And he said, ‘Yeah, I thought you probably would.' And what I meant was that I had had a prophecy about a false man that was coming.[15]
- Mike Bickle

So I knew instantly, the first minute he prophesied his acceptance; so I knew he was the false prophet--no question in my mind.[16]
- Mike Bickle

Like William Branham and other Latter Rain prophets, many of the so-called visions given to Jones were copies of other so-called prophets and marked by failure. When Branham admitted that his vision of a massive revival in India failed,[17] and his Latter Rain adherents did not brand him as a false prophet, Branham set a precedent for self-proclaimed prophets for years to come. Such is the case with Bob Jones and his stock market prophecy. Months after John Paul Jackson[18] began spreading the word about his vision of a stock market crash in 1988, Bob Jones claimed to have had the same vision. Jones warned people to pull their money out of the market because it would soon fall below 400 points. It was a brilliant strategy, considering the end-of-days theology; those who had pulled their money out of the market would then be able to invest it into the growing movement.[19] When the market did not crash, both John Paul Jackson and Bob Jones should have been labeled false prophets. However, with the precedent set by Branham, they simply shrugged their shoulders and went after the next prophetic claim.

Over time, it became clear that Bob Jones was attempting to recreate Branham's healing and prophetic ministry from the years 1947 through 1965. From 1936 through 1945, Branham developed a stage persona that included an alleged vision of a commission by God to heal "white-robed people." Branham was ordained by Roy Davis, the second-in-command of the Ku Klux Klan, and held revivals with Caleb Ridley, the Klan's supreme religious chaplain. In the mid-1940s, as the Klan was being revived in California, Davis moved his base of operations to Upland, near San Bernardino, where he connected with several of the San Bernardino and Los Angeles elite. Not long after, Branham's stage persona was rewritten to replace the vision of his commission with one involving an angelic visitation, and the Kardashian family sponsored Branham's revivals[20] as what would eventually develop into the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International founded by Kardashian's nephew, Demos Shakarian.[21] According to Bob Jones, that same angel visited Kansas City in the early 1980s to begin this "new order" of Christians. According to Jones, the "angel" was named "Emma."[22] Jones was apparently unaware that Branham had described his alleged angel as a male,[23] which was likely due to the fact that Branham's claim was in conflict with his doctrine concerning the gender of angels.[24]

During the Latter Rain movement, Christ for the Nations founder Gordon Lindsay wrote a book entitled Man Sent From God.[25] that was sold during Branham's revivals.[26] The book detailed the transformation of Branham's stage persona to include an angelic visitation and the alleged power granted to Branham by God. In the '90s, Jones claimed to have been visited by the same angel, insinuating that he had been given a similar commission.[27] According to Jones, the angel had been with William Branham until Branham went astray, at which time God took him away, referring to Branham's tragic automobile accident in 1965. The angel allegedly said that Boise Assemblies of God minister Roland Buck was chosen next until he began worshipping angels and was also taken away by God.[28] Jones claimed that now he was the chosen one and that he had "experienced death" in the mid-1970s. Jones then began to more clearly define the "Message" allegedly revealed to him, which he claimed was a hundred-year roadmap of events.

The so-called "100-year prophecy" declared that the Latter Rain movement of the 1950s had revealed the power of God through men such as William Branham, while the Charismatic movement of the 1960s had revealed the spirit of God. The 1970s allegedly revealed the word of God, and the 1980s revealed the prophets of God. The 1990s would reveal the government that God would establish, and the 2000s would reveal the glory of God. The next five decades would be the culmination of the Manifest Sons of God, revealing the faith, rest, family, kingdom, and finally, the Sons of God that were to be made manifest on earth. This alleged prophecy effectively built upon the prophetic claims made by Branham and others in the Latter Rain movement but arranged them into a timeline of events spanning from the birth of Latter Rain to the 2060s. According to Jones' alleged vision, the year 2060 would bring the power and glory of God, and the so-called Manifested Sons would conquer death.[29]

After Bob read William Branham's book "A Man Sent From God" and the account of the visitation of the Angel of the Lord to William Branham on May 7, 1946. Bob then told Patrick about when the angel of truth appeared to him on Valentines Day 1993 the angel said to him, "I was with William Branham and I was with Roland Buck.
{...}
Bob explained to Patrick that the angel was with William Branham and then at the end of his life William Branham went off and the Lord took him home to Heaven. then the angel of truth appeared to Roland Buck and then the people began to worship the angels and the Lord took Roland Buck home to Heaven. Next the angel of truth appeared to Bob. [30]  

Jones worked closely with Branham cult member Paul Cain[31] and devised a scheme to implement many of Branham's Christian Identity doctrines in the new movement. The Manifest Sons of God doctrine was the most significant by far, introduced in the early years of Latter Rain. According to this doctrine, the "army of bugs" described in the Old Testament book of Joel that plagued Israel was interpreted to mean an end-times army of spiritual warriors that would claim dominion over government. In the Latter Rain implementation of the doctrine, it was aligned with Christian Identity to overthrow what Identity leaders claimed to be a Jewish-controlled United States government. Branham, as well as many other leaders of Christian Identity, believed the final battle would be the result of Jews "uniting against Jesus,"[32] ending in a battle wherein "white and colored will fight again."[33] Branham manipulated his cult of personality to believe that the "Son of Man" would be manifested among the Church in the form of supernaturally empowered Christians and that one single prophet, the so-called "Messenger of the Age," would be the human vessel into which God himself would be "manifested."[34] Jones and Cain resurrected the doctrine to become a central theme in IHOPKC. In Jones' version, an elite group of end-time warriors would arise to execute God's judgment on earth.