Abraham
Father of Faith
Where has the
Faith Movement gone?
We
have all been taught to some extent what is now termed the “Faith
Message” "The Word of Faith Message" or whatever it
has been renamed regionally or locally, by Plagurist Preachers,
Teachers, and Evangelists, seeking to pretend these doctrines
are their own..
However
in truth many of these current "Word of faith" practices
and teachings did not exist in the early 1970’s when I first
came to the Lord. In those days I sat under a pastor and his
wife, The Pastor had a teaching ministry and he predominantly
taught on having Faith in God. He also taught from Walter Buettler’s
notes on developing a deeper personal relationship with God.
His wife was an Evangelist that had a powerful healing and deliverance
ministry. They had begun their ministry in the 1950’s in the
mountains of Pennsylvania during the tent revival days. And
they lived what was termed in those days “The faith life,” this
entailed that they received little or nothing in the way of
offerings, for they preached the gospel to the poor and to the
infirm, so they had to “pray in” their daily needs, food on
the table, clothes for their children, money to pay rent etc.
This dependance upon the Lord for one's daily bread was Having
Faith in God, this wholly leaning upon the Lord day by day in
for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse and in sickness
and in health was "The
Faith Life."
For
the last few hundred years Pastors all over the country and
Missionaries lived this way, and many sold everything they owned
in this world and gave it to the poor as recorded in scripture
to follow Christ, so as to enter into this faith life, and to
walk as He so walked. And the men and women that so did God
miraculously undertook all their needs and signs followed them
where ever the Good Shepherd led them to lay down in the feild. However in
the 1970’s there arose a cry among a corrupt generation that
knew not God and they refused to live this way anymore. – They
wanted for themselves houses and lands, they wanted the wedge
of gold and the goodly Babylonish garment. They want big good-looking
churches that they might be the envy of world.
And all of their desires and lusts cost a whole lot of
money. So for their dreams of avarice to come into being they
at that time set a yolk upon the laity called “The Tithe” for
without “The Tithe” they could not have the all things that
their darkened hearts lusted after.
In
contrast to these Hirelings my Pastor and his wife not only
lived in what was once termed “the faith life,” but they were
(As promised in Scripture) were also greatly persecuted in those
early days by all the local churches in the area they lived.
And in those days my Pastor and his wife and family auffered
immeasurably in this area in Pennsylvania where they had been
led of God to work. I am happy to report their faith failed
not, and they were faithful and obeyed the Lord, and continued
to preach and teach the word of the Lord in the face of all
that oppostion. And in time ovr a period of 10 –15 years they
overcame in the full biblical sense the local “Klesia” and God
raised them up. After they built the work (Literally building
the church building and all of the members that came to join
that fellowship from the ground up) As unthinkable as it may
sound God then led to walk away from it, and turn the work over
to others. (They did not appoint themselves as Apostles, nor
did they collect any tithes and offerings from that fellowship
after they left.They gave up all once again to follow the Lord.)
For several years they traveled as an Evangelistic team, And
eventually they were led of the Spirit to a little church that
had split down to a handful of old timers and a dozen or so
new members in Silver Lake, New York where I first came in contact
with them.
A
year or so later in 1974-1975 I came upon the teachings of Kenneth
E. Hagan and I read everything of his that I could lay my hands
on. And at the time I read these books over and
over. The hyper–Faith that Hagan spoke of in his books was like
crack cocaine when compared to what my Pastor and his wife taught.
The words of Kenneth E. Hagan were so boastful about himself,
about what he called “Our Standing in Christ,” and about what
he claimed that Christ gave us unconditionally upon salvation.
One of Hagan’s chief claims in those days was that all
the promises in the bible, no matter to whom they were spoken,
or regardless of what circumstances they might have been given,
– and all of these somehow through Christ were now all owed
to us. And could be obtained by our say so, our relentless demanding
that God give them to us.
Here
it becomes essential to know that Kenneth E. Hagan had been
a Baptist preacher and that this doctrine is actually modification
of the Baptist doctrine he grew up with.
(Incidentally
the Pastor of the largest Baptist Church here in Fairbanks,
Alaska recalls when he was a student at his Baptist Bible Collage
that the then “Baptist preacher” Kenneth E. Hagan was a guest
speaker there from time to time.) For since 1910 Baptists have
taught that upon salvation you receive everything in God. That upon salvation God indwells you, and
at that very same moment God fills you with the Holy Spirit
– even though you can’t see, feel, or do anything as any evidence
of this infilling. This Baptist doctrine was originally written
after 1910 to counter the 1906 Pentecostal revival. Their theory
was that if they could get their people to accept the empty
notion that we had it all already, they would not be as susceptible
to what they termed as all of that was false and demonic emotionalism
of Pentecostalism, in other words an infilling of the Holy Ghost
that can seen, hear, and felt.
Jesus sternly warned about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
and I cannot think of something
that would accomplish this more than calling the works of the
Holy Spirit the works of satan.
So
Kenneth Hagan embroidered on the Baptist “We have it all already"
doctrine and called it "Kingdom Truth." Again Kenneth
Hagan’s Baptist training becomes most apparent – In his marshalling
of the scriptures splicing together passages with his Strong’s
Concordance. In so doing Hagan reasoned like the Pharisees at
the time of Christ that if “We are kings and priests in Christ
Jesus” we had to have been kings of something. So he further
reasoned in his soul that Christ intended us to replace the
god of this world and that we could spoil the spoiler taking
all satan's earthly riches and spoils to heap upon ourselves
for our own lusts. And
so he taught we could plunder the whole of the kingdom of darkness
by claiming it by faith.
At
first glance the concept of spoiling the spoiler is very attractive.
And it probably all started with healing, at least one would
gather that from Kenneth Hagan’s personal testimony. As near
as I can tell one of Hagan’s earliest works was what he called
“Our Rights as a Believer.” These so-called rights were a collection
of words and phrases from Hagan’s King James version Bible.
Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, or Latin were never one of Kenneth
Hagan's strong suits – later he would bandy about one word or
another like Dunamis and tell us the word means dynamite dynamo
it speaks of vast power – but these are all English words in
the Greek Dunamis is also translated “to build” or just “to
do” and these more common and mundane uses of the word Dunamis
in the New Testament are quite common, in fact Dunamis is used
more than more times in the New Testament as the common words
“to do.” But you can’t build a career off the words
“to do” or “to build” but you can build a career of the words
Dynamite and Dynamo. Hagan's teachings concerning all of this
untapped vast Dunamis power that all his hearers were supposed
to have – was in hagan's teachings based upon his hearers becoming
independent agents from Christ, that is that they were empowered
to wheel and deal with christ to get all this dunamis He owed
them, and then go out on their own whim and pleasure to do with
this dunamis what ever they felt like -- which was to lift up
and exalt their own names, and make themselves fithy rich. Whereas
Christ actually only bestowed those gifts and operations on
those who were the most intimately acquainted with Him. This
would be the 3 the 12 and the 70, and later Stephen, Philip,
and Paul. See in the book of Acts under the best possible teaching
that is from the Apostles themselves we do not have the 3000
walking and healing people with their shadows, it was Peter.
We do not have the members of the church of Ephesus wearing
cloths and ripping them up and sending pieces to heal the sick
and cast out devils from unbelievers – that was Paul only and
if Hagan were to be faced with these issues (He’s dead and died
of a heart attack some years ago) he would have either accused
me of unbelief or that Peter and Paul just never really realized
what they had (In other words they just didn’t teach it right
like Hagan did.)
As
an example of what I am speaking of, when Hagan would come upon
a well known the verse in:
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
He
would write down: There is no condemnation in Christ. And then in many a sermon he would shout, “There is no condemnation!
There is no condemnation! There is no condemnation! There is
therefore – no condemnation in Christ Jesus.”
But
this is plainly not at all what this verse says at all. See
there are several qualifiers
The
first may not be all that obvious: To them that are IN
Christ Jesus.
The
second is even more understandable: To then that walk NOT
after the flesh
The
Third may not be all that understandable: To them that walk
AFTER
the Spirit
So
in other words this verse tells us that there is condemnation,
and a whole lot of it for those who are not IN Christ Jesus, and that there is a whole lot of condemnation
for those who walk AFTER the flesh and there
is a whole lot of condemnation for those who DO NOT walk after
the Spirit.
But
when you want to build a populist mass following, and make millions
off of people with soft brains that know not the scripture or
God – you are going to deep six anything that might call into
question the quality of spirit of your followers or call into
question your own carnal practices.
So
now the staunch Haganite is angry at my words, and like the
one they have discipled themselves after (Kenneth E. Hagan)
they shout: :It is the devil condemns and the Holy Spirit gives
life. The devil condemns
and the Holy Spirit convicts, believing that by saying these
things I am condemning Kenneth Hagan and his followers. No,
Kenneth Hagan condemned himself and all those that slavishly
follow him and his pernicious teachings will according to scripture
be made partakers of his sins also.
Citing
the words of Hagan that the devil condemns and the Holy Spirit
convicts is a very novel approach. The flesh loves this teaching,
but it flies in the face of scripture.
Condemn
and Condemnation are used some 40 times in the New Testament. Some of the words that are translated differently
are actually from the same Greek words for example the word
“judge” and “judgment” and these are used over 130 times in
the New Testament, and it is also translated as the word “discern”
8 times. The English word convict(ed) is used only once in the New Testament
in James 8:9
Let
us look now at some of these verses.
John
3:17 For
God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but
that the world through him might be saved.
This
verse is read and preached as that Jesus does not condemn believers.
We have been programmed to read it this way.
What this verse really says is God did not send
Christ to condemn the unsaved.
Jesus
repeats elsewhere: “That that He came to save
sinners, and not the righteous.
Luke
2:34 And
Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold,
this child is set for the fall (judgment) and rising (justification) again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall
be spoken against;
John
8:16 And
yet if I judge, My judgment is true: for I am not alone, but
I and the Father that sent Me.
John
8:26 I have many
things to say and to judge of you:
Acts
10:42 And He commanded us to
preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was
ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.
The
apostles understood that Christ was our judge.
Romans
2:16
In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus
Christ according to my gospel.
We
see here God the Father and Christ judging men, and in so condemning
the unrighteous to eternal death. All the nonsense that has been preached by the so-called purveyors
of the faith message of the devil sitting in the seat of judgment
against us condemning and pointing the finger at us is not in
the bible. (There is
not one scripture that says the words that are taught, there
are passages in which the God of this world contends with opposes
and makes accusations to God of living beleivers but the
devil does not sit in final judgment of anyone. And one other
point; the devil in scripture can test one's faith and faithfulness
to God, and in scripture the devil accuses people before God
of existing real sin, existing corruption and and existing filthiness.)
The
reality in scripture is that the only damage that the devil
can do is in the here and now.
The corruption that he puts in your heart, your mind,
and in your soul, you will take that with you in death.
And when you stand in judgment before Christ and God
it will be as the one that came to the wedding without a white
clean and pure wedding garment – and when that man was questioned
as to why he did not have a wedding garment, Jesus said the
man was speechless and cast out into outer darkness where there
will be weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth.
All
those neat populist teachings of Kenneth Hagan and his ilk on
certain words that Paul used as being legal words, and that
Christ has some Perry Mason approach of standing over a man
that had utterly corrupted themself within and without and died
that way. And that Christ is going to go to bat for them saying
I paid for that, let
this corrupt and depraved individual in heaven. This is worldly
sentiment, this is done daily by liberal judges allowing child
molesters and murderers back out into society to prey upon the
innocent. And this is in fact the type of corrupt judgment that
has been ascribed to Christ. If you are capable of looking at
this for face value you will see that in this doctrine it has
in it the threads of the Baptist doctrine of eternal security.
Remember Kenneth Hagan was raised a Baptist so when he read
the bible he was using a Baptist lens and this has leavened
the whole lump acordingly.
The
above examples are just a microcosm of the better mouse trap
that Kenneth Hagan and his disciples have spliced together to
win wide appeal of the worldly and the wealthy.
The
mark of the Gospel was that it was preached to the poor and
sinners in need of salvation. This was changed
forever in the Word of Faith Movement when they decided at their
own peril to sell to the rich and to the self-righteous bogus
fire insurance policies.
These
people preach fantasy. These
people preach darkness, these people preach lies so that the
unrighteous might believe these lies and be damned.
Hagan’s
teachings came in layers. And
with every compromise that he made in the word of God, each
one opened up several new areas of corruption that cried out
for him and his followers to explore. In the bible we are told
we are to be moving from grace to grace and faith to faith but
there is a passage that speak of people moving from sin to sin.
Movement here does not connote growth. Action and activity by
supposed beleivers do not in themselves mean spiritual growth.
There has been many a soul that has wandered in the wilderness
and perished, -- wandering is just that -- wandering, and nothing
more. Think of the Israelites in the wilderness that
wantered for 40 long years.
It
must be understood that the corruption in Hagan and his clone's
teachings are geometric in nature.
And that this corruption grows exponentially with each
new layer of corruption that is added upon the other layers.
This
radical jihad faith is taught in utter contradiction to Jesus’
words: “My kingdom
is not of this world,”
and that Jesus said
“The
servant is not above the master.”
Paul the apostle said. “For we know in part and
prophesy in part.” – and that
what we have received in Christ was “the earnest of our
inheritance” which if we are
faithful to Christ we will receive the fullness of this when
we would see Christ face to face.
The
Gospel Kenneth E. Hagan spat out had believers yelling and demanding
of God healings, deliverance, finances, etc. What
Hagan has done is to say that it is the height of spirituality
is to act as the Children of Israel did when they chided and
threatened Moses for their daily wants. Hagan and his clones make it out to be that God is there to service
our personal wants regardless of whether they are to consume
upon our lusts, they are for our personal needs, they are to
lavish upon our friends, or they are just for the enhancing
our personal standing before men and our ministry.
Further
what Kenneth E. Hagan declared in his teachings is that salvation
and Christ’s suffering and death upon the cross is little or
nothing, treating these things with great contempt. Making salvation
out as no more than "Salvation is only threshold to the
great coliseum of Christiandom." Within the Coliseum Hagan
plainly teaches that all the real action, and games for believers
take place. (Leaving
behind salvation, leaving behind Christ's suffering, leaving
behind Christ's death and burial these are but a threshold to
be trodden upon -- so as one can get the power glory riches
and wealth they desire and to be as god.)
In
the Gospel according to Hagan instead of a believer falling
on their knees and weeping for joy for Christ having died for
them when they did not ask Him to do so, Instead of a believer
on their knees weeping for joy for Christ having been scourged
and dying for them when they did not care. When we should be
filled with fear and awe that the God of the universe would
loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us Kenneth
E. Hagan has instead taught that all this was some small
light thing and that we are being
disobedient to God, if we spend our life worshiping Christ at
the foot of the cross.
This
is fearful damning stuff.
Hagan
has taught waiting on God (In
prayer) is a waste of time. Hagan has taught
spending a long time or repeatedly praying for the same things
is wrong. Yet Christ himself did so in the garden, and in the
Original Greek taught his disciples to so pray. Hagan has taught
that Christ can no longer heal, deliver or do anything on earth
because He had committed all this to the Church. That Christ gave the keys of the kingdom to
the church and so Christ is somehow now bound and can not do
what He has given to another.
When did Jesus
give up being The Way The Truth The Life?
When did Christ give up being
The Door? When did He give up being
The Great Shepherd? When did He give up being
Christ The Healer? There is nowhere in the bible that says He
gave any of this up. Instead
I read of Christ himself making charges that others have, and
will try to get into the sheepfold other than through (Him)
The Door. I read He calls these people thieves and robbers – workers of iniquity
and children of the devil. And
that does not bode well for a whole lot of preachers and evangelists
in our day.
After
I abandoned Kenneth Hagan’s teachings as a teenager he then
added to his demand list of God (I
am referring to the list of promises that he and his followers
profess, confess, and demand of God), that Hagan’s
disciples were to desire the corrupt mammon of this world, that
his disciples were to desire material wealth, and a lust for
the things of this world.
Hagan
also taught a kind of duality that we touched on already where
God was the God of good, and the devil was the god of evil,
the god of sickness, and death and destruction. He says that
in all those scriptures where God said He would bring plagues,
famine, that He smote someone with sickness disease or death
– that was not God. Hagan
says that all those scriptures are all untrue
(We are talking about hundreds of verses chapter upon chapter
here) and that even though those verses say
it was God -- it was actually the devil.
So
according to Hagan God actually has the devil actually working
in cahoots with Himself, doing all the evil, dirty work, that
needed to be done by God. But that because God wants to appear
righteous and on the up and up He couldn’t do any of these things
Himself. What Hagan is accusing God of being is a liar. And
Hagan is saying that the bible as written in the Greek, Aramaic
and Hebrew is false and that God has granted Kenneth Hagan and
his cohorts special permission to rewrite scripture. This
is some very damning stuff.
And
finally Kenneth Hagan has endlessly boasted of his being on
a first name basis with the devil, and spoke with him on a daily
basis for hours, and brags on about all of his exploits of mocking
the devil until he would creep away into the shadows. All this
was preached for effect. Hagan
said these things to build himself up in the eyes of his followers,
that he was mighty, that Hagan is one that rules over flesh,
the Spirit and devil by his power with God.
If we were to look at the writings of Smith Wigglesworth or
Dr. John Graham Lake we would find no such prolonged conversations
with the devil. Kenneth Hagan was obsessed with the devil and
his followers are likewise obsessed because they have been taught
and programmed to so do. In actuality Hagan was having conversations
with his corrupt soul while pretending it was someone else.
It is like my oldest son was little and there would be a bite
mark in every single piece of fruit in a bowl (They
were all corrupted) and I would ask him who
did it – there was no one else in the house and he would tell
me some invisible friend did it. That was cute in a three year
old but in a fifty-year old man it is reprehensible and completely
irresponsible to preach such a thing.
All
of which I listed above is taught over and over in his books,
in his tapes and is played daily on his radio ministry.
Kenneth
E. Hagan was truly a little horn filled with eyes that boasted
great things against God and His Word, who claims through various
means that he Kenneth Hagan is able to deliver to you the keys
to the power of Christ and the Apostles.
But I would say unto you be not deceived, neither Hagan nor
any of his clones at any time have approached the workings of
Christ in the Gospels or the Apostles in the book of Acts.
At
age 15-16 I was completely taken with Hagan's persuasive words
and the spiritual eye candy they represented. And I enacted
(confessed) and
I preached those things this man spoke with all my heart at
that age. I showed the Pastor and his wife these books wanting
them to preach Hagan’s message. But they were not taken in by
this man’s words, and were strangely silent on Hagan and what
he was teaching. I now recognize that they were reluctant to
speak against a fellow faith preacher, that at that time had
not indulged in the lust for wealth and power that they had
seen in the tent evangelists’ fall to in the 1950’s. And those they preached against.
Since
those days in the 1970’s many of the things have crept into
the church and have become indisputable parts of Pentecostal
and Charismatic faith doctrine. Eventually Hagan’s teachings began to be called
"Word of Healing" or "Word of Faith" teachings.
The name came about because Hagan’s books were published under
“Word of Faith Publishing.”
We
need to be real clear here that from 1880 until 1970 for a full
90 years for three entire generations of believers, faith in
God was preached and the people in the Church had one powerful
healing ministry after another. And that in those days collectively well over
1 million healings had been recorded with great signs and great
wonders, and all of these ministries had accomplished all this
before; the thousands of pages of faith doctrine that Hagan
and his imitators wrote. We are speaking to here the numerous
burdensome doctrines and traditions we have been told today
that we must adhere too in order for us to receive and keep
our healing.
If
anything what I have witnessed over the last 30 years has been
a rise in the teaching of patterns and forms.
And this pattern-oriented dogma has become a bondage
beyond measure to believers, along with what I would term: “Pentecostal
superstition.” So that what was once was called faith in the
bible and was once spoken of an operation of the Spirit of God,
has now become a work of the flesh guided by the a seemingly
endless array of newly created doctrines and traditions of men.
Wanting
it so -- has become what is thought of as Faith.
First, we need to absolutely understand
that because we preach it, because we endlessly confess it,
because we want it to be true even at times with our whole heart,
all our mind, and all our soul that does not make it faith,
or even the will of God. Faith is not our wants and our desires. Even
when we deem our wants and desires to be good as Eve did in
the garden.
And because we see a verse of scripture
and we want it, and we claim it, and confess it, that does not
make it Faith, despite all our wanting of it.
And because we can wrap our lusts and selfish desires
with scripture or two does not make it Faith either. God is
not fooled by any of this simplistic Hagan claptrap. God sees
beyond our double tongues straight into our divided corrupt,
darkened hearts.
This phenomenon of deceptively shrouding flesh as Spirit is spoken
by Paul thusly: “That
which is of the flesh is flesh and that which is of the spirit
is spirit”
That is that which has its origin in our flesh, i.e. our wants,
and our desires; no matter how we dress them up, they are still
our wants, and our desires and therefore it is still flesh.
What once may have been the “Word of Faith message, has today
become the Word of Flesh message. A message that emphasizes that we are of faith
when we seek to use the Word of God to consume upon our own
lusts.
If the Devil came quoting the word
that proceeded out of the mouth of the Father to Eve in the
garden and later scripture to Christ, to try get Eve and Christ
to consume upon their own lusts, is it not reasonable that the
devil would not come unto us some 2000 years later quoting scripture
to try to get us to consume upon our own lusts?
Genesis
3:1
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field
which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said: Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Was this indeed the word of God or was it not?
I have heard
it preached time and again from so-called faith preachers declare
that the devil lied to Eve in the above scripture. The “Hath God Said” we are told was the devil mocking God. Yet nowhere in this passage nor
anywhere else in the bible does it say that the devil mocked
God in the garden when he spoke to Eve.
We
are then told by these same “faith preachers that when the serpent
asked Eve, “Ye shall not eat of every tree if the garden?” that, that
was also a lie. They
claim this was an absolute corruption of God’s word. Yet their
assertion that this sentence is a lie and a corruption of the
word of God is found nowhere in this passage, nor anywhere else
in scripture. How can this be?
It
would seem that the simple truth as to what these words mean
seemingly slips by every Word of Faith preacher.
They stumble past the truth and boastfully shout out:
”The devil is a liar don’t pay any attention to this scripture
because the devil is in it because the devil is a liar.”
So on a man’s say-so with no scripture to back up we
are to accept hands down a statement that obscures the nature
of temptation and sin, and say: “Yup, I believe a man’s word
over the word of God. And
not only that but I am willing to stake my salvation on men’s
words instead of the word of God.
And Eve responded: Yea for God hath said:
“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not
eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die.”
So Eve agrees with the serpent's quote
and then adds the following. Eve then brings up death and eating. It is only because Eve has such a strong desire
to eat of the fruit in order to gain the coveted knowledge of
good and evil – the things dreams are made of -- that the serpent
can tempt her with the words “Ye shall surely not die.” Today
when the devil come s along with his surrogate Eve's to us to
tell us that there is no sin in seeking weath riches and power,
we say we are intrigued, and we say to the subtle salesman and
his surrogates “Tell us more.” which we think means “I’m open
minded, so convince me.” While
it actually means “I’m empty headed so influence me to see things
your way.”
Now
what should have happened in the garden is that Eve should have
responded: Be gone serpent for We live by every breath of God, and God
hath said for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die.
But
she didn’t because Eve was drawn away by her own lusts. (As
James declares) We know that she wanted the fruit if the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil and she wanted it bad. But
we do not seem to grasp that because Eve wanted it and she was
“A believer” that , that did not change the status of what she
wanted. It didn’t change it for her in her state before the
fall and it does not change for us in our state after salvation.
Eve wanting it
so did not change that fruit from death unto life. Eve wanting
it did not ennoble her desire in the flesh for that fruit and
transform it into a spiritual desire. And this
is an issue where we as believers have major problems, because
we have been all too willing to accept the notion that the God
of heaven the creator of the universe has somehow become our
personal servant and as such willingly to grants whatsoever
we desire to heap upon our own lusts.
Scripture
declares that there is only one god that desires to grant us
desires to heap upon our own lusts. And that one is the god
of this world – Satan – the serpent in the garden. When
we are told by Christ and the Apostles not to lust after the
things of the world or lust after corrupt mannon , there is
one that says to us “Hath Christ said. . .”
and he tells us that as a Christian we can desire all
the things of the world and riches and eat of its fruit.
The
truth is that 100 years ago the message of the prosperity Gospel
would have not passed muster among the common believers of the
day, because many forsook all for the excellency of Christ.
But this is a day where believers seemingly have no discernment.
This is a day where believers have been blindsided and stumbled
by Satan into believing that because they are believers that
if they want it, that which is evil and perverse before God
somehow becomes spiritual and good, and that God has somehow
promised to give it to them when nothing could be farther from
the truth. This generation has been drawn off by their
own lusts. God has given
this generation up and over to the vanity of their desires.
They have been overthrown in the wilderness.
1 Corinthians 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all
our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea; And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud (The Shekina
glory) and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of
that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
Paul
is saying in this passage that a believer’s ignorance or a churches’
ignorance in these matters can be lethal.
Paul
is saying that our ensamples in Israel were are all baptized
in the sea -- every one of them was water baptized
Paul
is saying that our ensamples in Israel were all baptized as
well in the cloud – Every one of them was also baptized in the
Holy Ghost.
Paul
is also saying that our ensamples in Israel all did eat of the
same spiritual meat and drink of the same spiritual drink
-- Every one of them every day partook of Holy Communion.
And
I will add to the words of Paul that our ensamples in Israel
all were also covered by the blood of Christ – when it was struck
in the fashion of the cross on the doorposts – Every one of
them had their sins covered by the blood of Christ.
We
need to know that our ensamples in Israel were all there because
they had sought the deliverance of God.
They were not the unwilling participants as some preachers
have suggested.
But
with their having wanted this salvation, with their having willingly
washed themselves in the blood, with their willingly having
been baptized in water, with their willingly having been baptized
in the Holy Spirit, and with them willingly having partaken
daily of holy communion – had they arrived? Did they enter into
the promises of God? No! Instead the bible says of these people
that they were filled with their own lusts and desires and what
God did for these incorrigible people was never enough.
After identifying the church is the wilderness as us in 1 Corinthians 10:1, Paul is now going to tell us how an ignorance of this can be lethal.
1 Corinthians 10:5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown
in the wilderness.
With
all that in place, despite that fact that they had it all operating
in their lives at a level of demonstration and power in God
that we only could wish that we had – God was not well pleased
with many of them: for they that did not please Him with faith
in God were overthrown in the wilderness. And to be precise
Moses, the signs, and wonders, the audible speaking of God,
the visible appearance of God to over 70 men produced only one
convert. All of those that heard the audible voice of God, All
that visibly saw Him and communed with Him all day, all that
saw the signs and wonders died in their sins, even Aaron who
had been called an Apostle who himself had done numerous signs
and wonders, Miriam who had been a prophetess, all the priests,
the seventy elders who had all been endowed with the spirit
of Moses and had God speak out of their mouths like Moses, all
of them were overthrown in the wilderness and entered NOT into
His promise. Only one man was converted from that first generation
Joshua the son of nun. And Paul talks about Joshua’s traits.
He was not a priest, he was not a prophet he was the servant
of Moses and for his obedience and his servitude it was accounted
unto him for righteousness and when it pleased God He raised
the servant boy, above Aaron, Miriam, the entire Levitical priesthood
and the 70 elders and God was pleased to give Joshua a name
above all in his day.
This
issue of who was overthrown in the wilderness is something that
Paul the Apostle saw clearly. But we do not to our own damnation,
and the damnation of the churches we teach in. Paul he tells
us over and over again that he as an Apostle FEARED
that this might happen to himself and the Church. The Word of
Faith movement has also declared FEAR
is of the devil. Was Paul then a slave of the
devil having entertained the condemning FEAR of the devil? And
was Paul overthrown by such?. Is this not what were have been
told? Has it not been preached for 50 years that FEAR opens
the door of the devil? Have
we not been told that to allow FEAR is to give place to the
devil? I challenge you
to look up the word Fear in the Bible and see what it says and
I defy you to find a verse that says fear is of the devil and
that to have fear opens the door of the devil, and fear gives
place to the devil. You won’t find a scripture that says any
of that. It is carnal and corrupt men that have ascribed those
meanings to certain verses only in the past 50 years.
The
Fundamentalists of the 1700’s and 1800’s understood all too
well the fear of the Lord. The Pentecostal pioneers from 1900-1950
also understood the fear of God And the Latter rain Preachers
and evangelists understood the fear of God in the early days
of this revival 1948-1958.
But in the late 1950’s they cast off the yolk of God
and played the whore with the lust of the world and the lust
for corrupt mammon while boldly proclaimed to their increasing
suspicious disciples that none of what they were doing was of
the devil or of the flesh but that it was Faith. Criticism against them rightly arose among
their faithful but then they attempted to remove any pointing
of the finger at them, and any questioning of their moral lapses(Just
as the Rabbi's did in the Talmud) so among these perverse preachers
and teachers the message was born the message of “Touch not
the anointed of God.” with
threats of severe judgments of God against any who obeyed scripture
to defend the flock of God from these grievous wolves, false
teachers, false evangelists and false prophets. And within a
matter of three years the majority of those who had so sinned
against the Lord and threatened his sheep – found themselves
consumed with God’s fiery indignation and were blotted from
the land of the living. (Almost
all the the top Latter Rain evangelists died near the end of
the revival which is completely unheard of in all of church
history.)
But there arose after them another generation who followed greedily
after their mantles and their sins and those are they that brought
a pox on the entire body of Christ – under the name of the prosperity
Gospel.
These
are not easy things to be said much less heard in a day when
there are 10,000 preachers that say that the Word of Faith message
as it stands and the prosperity gospel are so. But I sincerely
pray that God in His mercy allows you to see these things for
yourself. Regardless of what I write I fully understand that
God has ordained that many seeing they
see not, hearing that they hear not, lest at anytime they repent
and their heart is converted. In the end God can only speak to your heart
and reveal truth, my words can only prick your heart and hopefully
spur you on to a deeper more vital relationship with Jesus Christ
as your Master, Lord and Savior rather than men.
Like
the church in the wilderness with Moses, like with the early
Church after the Apostles those beleivers in both cases died
without entering into the promise, this generation
has been drawn off by their own lusts and God has given this
generation up and over to the vanity of their desires. I
declare unto you by the Spirit that this generation has been
overthrown in the wilderness, and shall likewise perish without
entering into the promise.
Luke 18:7-9 And
shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night
unto him, though He bear long with them? (Takes
long to answer their cry and prayers)
I tell you that he will avenge
them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall
He find faith on the earth? And He spake this parable
unto certain which trusted
in themselves (Having
belief and trust in one's self is not faith)
that
they were righteous, and despised others:
(Neither is despising and looking down
upon the unsaved and unwashed faith.)
If “faith” is what has been defined by the Word of Faith Movement
then when Christ returns He will find tens of thousands if not
millions filled with “faith.”
Now I am well aware that these same people teach that
they are going to fly away and God will not suffer a hair on
their head to be touched – while the rest of the earth will
have it’s collective head tribulated in.
This is the equivalent of in the Old Testament when the
false prophets cried peace and safety. They said Jerusalem was
the chosen of God and that it would never be taken by any ungodly
army. But a few lone prophets prophesied that the fullness of
the Jews had come – that God was filled with their iniquity
and deceit and would utterly destroy them.
And a great and terrible
prophetic event is beginning to unfold before our eyes, the
fullness of the gentiles. Men have supposed
that the preaching of The Gospel of the Kingdom to all nations
and tongues, and making the disciples of nations to be the fullness
of the Gentiles, and would thus usher in the second coming of
Christ.
My God open our eyes and help us to see that; The Gospel of the Kingdom
has not been preached to every nation and tongue as was commanded
by Christ. But instead
10,000 gospels of men have been preached, and have brought about
only futility, vanity, and corruption. May God help us to see
plainly the state of the nations of the earth nations as they
really are and give us the grace to be able to confess before
God in truth, which have been made disciples of Christ? There is no nation under heaven that is a disciple
of Christ not even the United States of America. The fullness
of the Gentiles has to do with the utter depravity and the corruption
of the Gospel by those who call themselves by His Name. What
satan could not accomplish by the Roman persecutions or by the
persecutions by the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans and the other
Protestant Armies. The death torture and wholesale murder that
they collectively created could not utterly corrupt believers
But what has occurred in the past 150 years has.
There are generations now that have drunk deeply of the corrupt teachers
of Liberation Theology, the New Age Movement and The gospel
of success, the gospel of the human power of the soul and all
of this has reached its culmination in the Gospel of Men that
has been laid out by the Word of Faith Movement. As message
goes out like a wildfire among men
For it offers everything for carnal men; the lust of the eyes, the
pride of life, a love for the things of the world, god anointed
wealth, god anointed reverence from men, god anointed rulership
over the nations the unsaved and the saved. With it you can
be the disciple of anyone and any church or any denomination,
and with this message you can even be a disciple of yourself.
In response to” “What
the challenges of the 20th century would be?”
General William Booth responded:
"I am of the opinion that the dangers which
confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy
Ghost; Christianity without Christ; forgiveness without repentance;
salvation without regeneration; politics without God; and heaven
without hell."
This is not a phenomenon only in the US, or Canada, or Europe. It
is taking place all over the globe as a giant leavening agent
that is leavening the whole lump from the least to the greatest
before our eyes. But instead of raising alarm or fear the church
at large is now actively weeking it’s piece of the action with
this perverse corruption, so that this message is even leaping
the firebreaks between denominations that in times past prevented
any such doctrinal thing from happening.
If faith is not what has been defined by this corrupt cabal of fundamentalist,
evangelical Pentecostal and Charismatic groups – who the god
of this world hath blinded into believing they shall all fly
away. -- But if Faith is indeed the Faith as defined by Abram
and we here declare this to be so, if Faith is in deed the Faith defined by Moses of Elijah and Jesus
Christ and the Apostles – then quite understandably Christ when
He voiced His true concerns of whether upon His return for the
Ek-klesia that He will find any FAITH among them. -- The
greatest amount of beleivers of this hour who have laid their
trust in the men who preach and teach the "Word of Faith"
message do so -- to their own peril.
Having reviewed what is falsely palmed off this day as faith we will
now begin an examination of Abram the father of faith – in hopes
that we might be able to discern the difference between wheat
and chaff, that which is clean and the unclean, and the light
of Jesus Christ and the darkness of men.
Hebrews
11:6 But
without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh
to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek him.
Romans 4:3 For
what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted
unto him for righteousness.
Galatians 3:6-9 Even
as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
7Know ye therefore that they which are of faith,
the same are the children of Abraham. 8And the scripture,
foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith,
preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall
all nations be blessed. 9So then they which be of
faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.
James 2:20-24
But wilt thou know, O vain
man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father
justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the
altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works
was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which
saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for
righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then
how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
Genesis 15:4-7 And, behold, the word of the
LORD came unto (Abram) (The
Nabu Spirit of God came upon Abram. Abram was alone so God prophesied
to him from Abram’s own mouth.) saying, This shall not be thine
heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall
be thine heir. And (The
Lord ) brought (Abram) forth abroad, (Abram was carried away by the Spirit of God.) and (The Lord) said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able
to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
And Abraham believed in the Lord; and (The Lord) counted it to (Abram) for righteousness. And He said unto (Abram), I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give
thee this land to inherit it.
And Abraham believed in the Lord; and (The Lord) counted it to (Abram) for righteousness.
In
the Greek Septuagint the two key words “For Righteousness” in the Greek that is Dikaio-sunen -- which means: “An investiture with the attribute of righteousness”
It means that the righteousness that Abram received was imparted to him by God. In other words
it was not of Abram, Abram did not generate it, neither did
Abram did not confess himself into it or profess himself into
it, instead this Righteousness was imputed, it was imparted
from God. So that regardless of what has been taught you can
not confess or profess yourself into righteousness.
The
second word in Septuagint that we want to focus on is “believed
in” Epi-steusen The Greek is Epi = Proceed
from – Pistis = Faith
Galatians 3:6 is quoted directly from the Septuagint the words are in the exact
same tense. However
if we look into the Hebrew we see something different.
In
the Hebrew the word “Believed” is Aman = To build up
or support, to foster or nurse. – So the word is translated
to believe. In the Hebrew we see that believing or faith is
our being built up, our being supported our being fostered,
our being nursed. -- By The Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ.
So
we need to ask what did Abram believe that caused him to have
so great a righteousness imparted to him? In the Hebrew it says
he believed (in) Beth- Jehovah and that was what accounted unto
him as righteousness
What
do I mean by beth-Jehovah.
In the Hebrew the name of God was too holy to say so
it was represented by what is called the tetragrameton which
we know as JHVH. Well in this passage unlike anything else in
the entire book of Genesis there is a 5th letter
added to the name of Jehovah -- the letter Beth which generally
would mean by itself house so this reads Abram believed Beth-Jehovah
Now
in Hebrew when a “b” is used as a prefix it means the word “in”
In
the Greek it says in epi - Faith the faith proceeding from Theos
In
the Hebrew is says Beth-Jehovah.
Abram believed in what proceeded from Jehovah and that
was accounted to him for righteousness
Just
as the word Faith is integral to our understanding the New Covenant
This word “in” in King James or the Word “Epi” in the
New Testament is key to us understanding the faith that Paul
writes of in the Epistles.
For Paul uses the words In Christ, In Him,
In Faith and other similar terms probably one hundred
times and I believe Paul is referring to the Abram having righteousness
imparted to him in every one of those.
The
righteousness that Abram received was not from works or the
white knuckled faith and belief that is preached today it was
simply Abram realizing that he could not in himself fulfill
his calling and that Abram recognized at that moment that the
source of the promises he had received of the Lord was no less
than God himself. That his seed of promise would come (proceed
forth) from Beth- Jehovah.
And Abram reckoned it (The promise
of his seed) in (Beth)-Jehovah and he
believed
And so in the Epistles
Paul in every way possible is telling us faith proceeds forth
from Him that it is in Christ, in God, and in faith,
You
may feel like you already have had the lesson. But we really
do need to examine the life of Abraham to see if we are in the
faith that he had, and that the Apostles clearly pointed to.
Or have we been hijacked into something else that has been created
by men?
In Part two we will
hit the ground running with a close look of the faith or unbelief
of the Father of faith Abram and examine the Greek and Hebrew
in some key passages to try to get a better handle on what God
was saying to Abram.
