Norris Johnson, II: The era of deception
WARNING: This post is Scripture-heavy. Things like sin, hell and the devil are all up in this one. Opt out now if you’re Scripture-squeamish but, if you do, you’ll be missing it. You’ll miss generational hope. You’ll miss an anointed, appointed, apostolic vessel who is on the precipice of blazing trails many Christians will consider asinine.
A few posts back, I wrote about a shift in the content space that is, thankfully, moving the needle to usurp the cacophony of deafening degeneracy we social platform enthusiasts scroll through on a continuum. That post featured Forrest Laurent, a leading IG Influencer and coach whose School of Hard Knocks words of wisdom includes helping people navigate some of life’s relational, emotional and spiritual choppy waters. It’s good. Really good.
Here’s what, though: the aforementioned shift is turning into a wave.
As such, this review introduces Norris Johnson, II, an online and itinerant preacher of the gospel, who I referred to as “a stellar voice” in this post and quoted on the blog’s ABOUT page.
Let me save everyone some time.
If you call yourself a Christian and you’re legit concerned about the fact that, in many churches, what is being accepted as Christianity is nothing more than homogenized, glorified TedTalks with an, at best, dotted line to Scripture, Johnson’s content is for you. If you’ve had it with church leaders who assign blame to God because they are ill equipped to provide answers to life’s toughest challenges (am I the only one annoyed about that?), follow Johnson on all available platforms (here, here and here). Just do it. You can thank me later.
You’re Probably Not Ready
This Contrarian Review highlights a recent (as of August 2023) installment of Johnson’s weekly Bible Study titled “The Era of Deception,” which he teaches live on various social platforms (have you followed him here, here and here yet? Get your mind right.).
In this particular study, Johnson breaks 2 Timothy 3 and 2 Timothy 4:3-4 down.
All the way down.
Also, he’s 29 years old.
Listen, I encourage you to get out of your head about that fact. Actually, you’ll likely forget about his age the second you hear him speak. He’s got some serious Timothy (as in Paul’s apprentice) energy going on. If you’re either a Gen Z’er or Millennial who’s tired of golf clapping your way through your weekly spoon-feeding at church while you’re teetering on the edge of lukewarmness, it would behoove you to lock in.
Likewise, if you’re a Gen X’er who believes the last revival died when Billy Graham changed addresses and the deep things of God stopped being preached when Myles Munroe prematurely went to heaven, Johnson’s full 60+-minute Bible study is worth the time investment.
The 29-year-old flattens old constructs, yet he’s as old-school as “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now,” by McFadden and Whitehead (IYKYK).
So, without further adieu…
Watch. Listen. Learn. Reject your ageism. Check your skepticism.
What’s That Sound?
If you need to actually budget sixty minutes to watch the replay, and in the spirit of the bite-sized portion, I’m extracting three clips from Johnson’s Bible study to whet your appetite for the full meal.
He is what the Bible refers to as a “peculiar” person. He’s irregular; atypical.
His knowledge of The Word and his current-but-not-carnal teaching style is the antithesis of the glorified TedTalks overwhelming pulpits stages on Sundays. In fact, he’s all about preachers preaching in pulpits revered as the actual house of God versus entertaining on stages after the obligatory two-fasts-and-three-slows “worship” time. He is beyond grieved about the absence of accountability in that regard.
To that end, Johnson is an unapologetic go-along-to-get-along dissenter. When challenged with a broadly accepted comment about “the culture,” he’ll look straight into the camera and say things like, “You’re all perverted” eleven times in a row without blinking. His urgency doesn’t mince words. He can’t. Souls are at stake. He’s for real/for real about the gravity associated with souls being saved, and he wants people to know-know the Truth.
Not their truth; the Truth… with a capital T. There’s one Author of the Truth, and it’s not anyone dusting up a grave or spewing rhetoric about crystals, secrets and demonic poses disguised as “exercise.”
@ me if you want to... receipts are handy.
Johnson is a believer in the Bible from the Table of Contents to the maps. He’s an Oral Roberts University-trained preach-purist.
He’s a wearer of hoodies in the middle of August.
This man doesn’t skip pages, skimp on precepts and is an equal opportunity offender of the religious, the legalistic and the Scriptural sloth. Equal parts loving rebuke and reviving grace, Johnson gladly steps on bunions with the prize of people knowing and believing the Love and the Word of God as his resolute focus. Being accused of bruising feet is worth it to him if it means people are saved from hell. Literally. His intolerance for Christians (including himself) not living in the fullness of Jesus’ finished works can show up, to the easily triggered, as if he’s fussing. Johnson is kind of like a 21st century Smith Wigglesworth. But, he’s not fussing at people; he’s evicting the spirits oppressing them.
Lest I erroneously paint the picture that Johnson is perfect, he’s not. Instead, he’s a transparency disruptor (he could teach a clinic on it), and tells the whole truth about what he regularly confesses as his moral failures: the past drug addiction that collided with his ministry entry, the prodigal years, the premarital sex resulting in the child out of wedlock which preceded the subsequent cancellation of his undeniable anointing by some folk in the faith space.
By the way, serious question, are alleged Jesus folk still DQ’ing flawed Christians? Really?
Okay, somebody please get your people and tell them the Pharisees and Sadducees from 167 BC called, and they want their legalistic, self-righteous indignation back. Thanks. #eyeroll #bored #dropthestone
That was a necessary diversion. Unserious Christians need to do better. Immediately.
I like the way Ron Carpenter said it: “Righteousness is a gift. Holiness is a pursuit.”
Meat. Not Milk. Not Similac.
Johnson’s “The Era of Deception” teaching is a cornucopia of both chapter-and-verse and quick-witted pop culture references. He’s not scattered; he’s got range, and he covers a lot of ground in an hour.
Throughout the Bible study, Johnson seamlessly bobs and weaves his way through a gamut of attention-grabbers: prophecy, the late, great Tupac’s confusion, the devaluing of Scripture, entire flocks being wooed out of God’s will by preachers who actually teach against the Bible, the sacredness of virginity and celibacy, and a throwback revelation about how drinkers of Old English 40s used to have more respect for God than many people sitting in pews. While spanning these topics, he simultaneously shouts-out viewers in Ecuador and Fiji.
Try and keep up.
Here’s an example of one of Johnson’s platinum nuggets: “I believe we have been in the last days since Jesus rose from the dead.”
That. Part.
I’ve been waiting a long time to hear someone other than me say it. Meanwhile, scholars, prophets and seers argue and publish books about the exact date they’ve studied, prophesied and seen that allegedly confirms 2023 marks the beginning of the “last days.” With all due, the last days started the second Jesus got up.
The 29-year-old said it.
He Said What He Said
There’s no room for misinterpretation here. Johnson is plain when he crushes popular anti-Bible narratives. He asserts that love is actually truth, and contends that love fights for - and vehemently disagrees with - the woefully deceived. Extra points for his use of the words “vehemently” and “woe.”
I told you this post might make you itch.
This clip reminds me of Galatians 4:16 (AMPC). “Have I then become your enemy by telling the truth to you and dealing sincerely with you?”
It's a rhetorical question.
Johnson’s point underscores the fact that, when Christians cower from opportunities to identify and minister truth to people who are being destroyed by what is deceiving them, we are not loving them. When we do it, we actually prove that we hate them. He explains the thin line between love and acceptance in a way that many Christians would consider being judgmental.
It’s not. It’s compassion. It’s love.
Gratification Ain’t It
This clip includes Johnson discussing the eternal implications of what society calls “self love.” The underpinning, obviously, of that hedonistic phrase is, If it feels good, do it.
He goes on to dissect the dead end associated with society considering what God approves and calls good as bigotry, and references a social media comment he saw wherein the commenter said they’d take the Apostle Paul to task if they could chat with him today. Johnson says that person, who purports to be a Christian, thinks Paul missed it. He calls out the “low-key surgical removal” of Scripture’s righteousness that has been replaced with an altar to self. He not-so-gently chastises those who are conviction-deaf when it comes to cussing (gulp) and weed smoking and, because he’s a former cusser and weed smoker, he gets to call that spade a spade.
Good on him.
His deeper dive in this clip hits home. When touching on the commonly expressed complaint (within the body of Christ) in which we whine that loving people is the hard part of adhering to the gospel, he says, “Shut up. The hard part of the gospel is (you) saying ‘No’ to you. Loving people and just being what you want to be is not tough. It’s not hard. Yielding yourself to Christ is [hard].”
Spicy.
Lean Into the Sharp Points
“We have hit a time where people will follow after anyone that can satisfy the beast in them that is raging.”
Yowza.
Since anything I’d add to that one would dilute it, I’m just gonna leave it there. I’m not offering the timestamp containing this scorcher. Watch the clip. Wear any shoes that fit, folks.
Want more? This isn’t in this clip, so watch the full vid.
“I have many struggles; many things that I fight in my life. But I refuse to adjust my doctrine to ease my pain. I refuse to do it. Don’t skip the process of becoming like Christ. You can’t afford to allow the devil to make you chase a mirage.”
He’s 29 years old. Just thought that fact bears repeating.
His primary points in this clip:
“If the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness?” -Matthew 6:23.
Did you catch it? Read it again.
Johnson pours kerosene on the fire Scripture: “Jesus is like, ‘Do you understand how deep your darkness has to be when you think the dark room you’re in is lit up?’”
You’ll get it in a few minutes. It’s nuclear.
All Scripture is God-breathed. Period. Itching ears don’t want the truth that will set them free. Those ears want commiserating comfort functioning as lazy liniment on their open wounds; weeping wounds caused by sin that can only be treated with repentance.
Johnson is urgent about this thing. He’s breaking the emergency glass.
He. Is. Not. Playing.
“Let no one despise your youth…”
“…but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. “ -1 Timothy 4:12
Before you remember what I wrote referencing his prodigal past and question his purity, consider the fact that Johnson’s confession and repentance of his transgressions to God allows him to receive the forgiveness the blood gave him a long time ago. But, his confession of those transgressions to all of us grants him healing.
What’s more pure than a healed heart and a renewed mind?
Johnson is a persuasive messenger with tunnel vision about resolving three primary problems plaguing the people who are supposed to be salt, light and enforcers of the empty tomb:
A fundamental disregard for God’s holiness
Rebellion against God’s best-life instruction
Disregard for the inerrant truth found in God’s Word. All of His Word; not just the cherry-picked favorite parts.
Toward the end of the replay, Johnson explains why his magnet has a little bit of accompanying hammer.
“This is something that the Lord has really burdened me with. The name of my ministry is Preach Christ. My mandate is to preach Him. Not my preference and all those things; my mandate is to preach Him. My mandate is to declare Him. I don’t have an agenda in me that wants to go against what God is saying and trying to do things on my own. I don’t have time. My mandate is to preach Him. Your mandate is to preach Him. Read your Bibles. Study your Word. Believe the Word of the Lord. Believe Jesus. Believe Him. And stand for truth. Because pretty soon, it is going to be weird… to stand for God.”
He doesn’t conclude every IG, YouTube and Facebook Live with an invitation to accept Christ. Despite his chronological age and his questionable-decision-hiccups, I’m comfortable saying (prophesying?) that, as long as he keeps his ear on God’s heart (and has the right personal Board of Directors keeping him accountable), he’s en route to being counted as among the faith giants. His approach doesn’t placate spiritual milk drinkers, but he makes himself digestible to them. I personally think he’s going to tear through Gen X like a tornado. Many in that group are on spiritual life support, and he may just represent the unlikely packaged Word-based paddles needed to jumpstart hardened hearts.
He doesn’t check churchy boxes, but he staunchly recognizes holy things as holy. In a time when the word ‘holy’ is a four-letter-word that draws the ire of people outside and inside the church, I’m standing tippy-toe for more of the unleavened bread Johnson’s serving.
Norris Johnson, II is not for everybody, but he’s definitely a straight-no-chaser, truth-in-love voice for somebody.
That somebody is the body of Christ.