What is the Word of Faith Movement?

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Put your hand on that television set. Yes. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus.

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Thank You, Lord Jesus. He received

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Your healing. Yes. Now, say it.

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I take it. I take it. I have it. I have it. It's mine. It's mine. I thank

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You and praise You for it. Yes. And I forgive if I have ought against any. And I praise

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You that I'm well and whole. According to the Word of God, I'm healed.

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And I consider not my own body. I consider not symptoms in my body.

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But only that which God has promised. Only that what the

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Word has said. And by His stripes I was healed.

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And by His stripes I am healed now. I'm not the sick trying to get healed.

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I'm the healed and the devil's trying to give me the flu. That's right. Or whatever else kind of thing he's trying.

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Yeah. Ah -ha -ha -ha -ha. Healed and well.

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Yes. In the sweet name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Amen. Hallelujah. All right. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish.

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Entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I am one of the co -hosts here.

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I am here, as always, with Andrew Supersleuth. The Supersleuth of the show. How are you, man?

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I'm doing well. I'm doing great. Yeah. So we are in very interesting times. We are actually here in studio with Melissa Dautry.

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No. Doughty. Every time. Why do I always mispronounce your name? Every time. Because I will teach you to mispronounce my name.

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Doughty. Because Doughtry sounds better than Doughty. I always think of that because of that band. It was the guy, Doughtry.

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I'm going home. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So we're here with Melissa Doughty. Thank you.

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And you've been on with us before. Yeah. We had a discussion about Bethel and the new ways. That came out last year.

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And we are here once again. Glad you could make it here. You actually made it here before we all get all the travel bands going full effect.

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Lord willing. Yeah. Hopefully I'll be able to go home. Yeah. It'll be very interesting to see where we are by the time even this episode gets released next

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Tuesday. It's just the world has changed in the last week and a half. And also, we're here with Stephen Bancars.

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Good to see you, man. Third time's the charm. Good to be here. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to this one. And we don't actually have to worry because that prayer was made on the

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TV. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes. And we received that. We just have to receive it, claim it, declare it.

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His hand was even wet with like oil or he's washing it for the coronavirus. There's actually no oil. It was just the anointing.

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Oh, okay. It was just seeping from his hands. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So the context as far as the audio goes, and we might play the actual video if you guys are watching this on YouTube when it gets uploaded.

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That was, I believe, yesterday, Kenneth Copeland. He was standing, declaring victory against the coronavirus.

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And he was declaring in Jesus' name that we would be protected from sickness. And it's just interesting because you talk about the timing, about having a relevant topic right now because we decided, we always want to try whenever we have a guest on, we always want to try and pick like what's your passion topic?

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What are you really about? So when we had you on with Doreen, Doreen's passion topic was really to talk about the

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New Age aspect and her concerns regarding the movement at Bethel. And that was a good conversation.

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And it was on both, really both your hearts to really talk about the Word of Faith movement and really talk about those important issues.

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I know that's something that's always really been on your heart, Stephen. And so it just so happens now that we have this worldwide, now it's been declared as a pandemic.

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Pandemic. Yes. And so the economy is in turmoil. Like right now, and again, it's just people, you go to the news and people are going to freak out.

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But you look at the reality of what's happening. You turn on, like I'm going to pop on Drudge Report and World on Edge, panic after travel ban, system failing,

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Fed pumps another one trillion, worst day on Wall Street since 1987. You have cities right now that are shut down, that are in complete lockdown, travel bans in Europe.

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I mean, this is by, who knows where we're going to be by the time it releases on Tuesday, when this episode releases.

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And so what's really intriguing to me as we get into this discussion is that the primary aspects of the

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Word of Faith movement always focuses around your health and your financial prosperity.

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Those are directly connected to your spiritual well -being. And it just so happens we are in a world where both of those are in incredible turmoil.

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People are terrified about their health catching this coronavirus. And it's still, no one really knows, but there's all these uncertainties about what actually is going to take place if you catch this.

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I guess some people are recovering, some people are dying right away. It's just one of those things, like no one really knows.

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This is playing out its course. And then you have, right now, if you look at all the grocery stores, right now people are lined up, you know, just back, you know, they're just, people are flying, you know, toilet paper's flying off the shelves.

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You know, you have the panic about, you know, now people are trying to buy canned foods. I mean, this is just, I don't think,

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I've never seen anything like this so far in my lifetime. I can never remember. I remember, so Y2K, before we jump into this,

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Y2K 2003. I remember Y2K, yeah. People thought that the whole world was going to collapse because of whatever it was, whatever the numbers were lining and stuff like that.

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I worked at a grocery store in 1999, New Year's Eve, and people were losing their minds.

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So for those of you who work in retail, we are praying for you.

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Thoughts and prayers. So yeah, all that being said, this is a very interesting time. What do you guys think about this whole,

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I mean, the timing of everything with this discussion? And also we're going to talk about the connection with New Thought and like the

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New Age, because both of you have backgrounds in that. But I mean, you came from that, and now you have ministries directly focused on that area.

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Just with everything going on and with the relevant topics, give me your thoughts on the relevance of this podcast, especially with everything going on right now.

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Yeah, I think it's really relevant, especially when you have people who are in the Word of Faith community, like Kenneth Copeland.

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I'm sure we're going to see stuff coming out of Benny Hinsmouth and other people such as him. Sean Boltz had a prophecy recently that the coronavirus is going to die and fade away.

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And Rodney Howard Brown, another Word of Faith teacher in his church in Florida, recently made a declaration and a decree that the entire state of Florida will not be touched by the coronavirus.

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And when he was asked, well, why wouldn't you just make that declaration? If you have a right from God to make an effectual decree on behalf of the entire state of Florida, why not do that for the entire country?

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Well, I'm just doing what I'm responsible for kind of thing. And so it's important to have an understanding of what exactly are we guaranteed and promised in Christ and also to be able to identify teachings around sickness and around disease and around hysteria that promote fear, that don't provide comfort to the soul, that are false, that are misleading, and that can create suffering, pain, disappointment, brokenheartedness, a weakened faith.

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You're basically told if you get in the Word of Faith movement, if you're sick, the problem is your faith. It's with you. It's a spiritual problem.

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And if you're not healed, it's because you don't have enough faith. And we'll get into all of that. But what made this conversation important to me and to Melissa as well,

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I'll let her speak on that. But for me personally, when I came out of the New Age movement, I was studying the law of attraction.

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I was trying to practice the law of attraction. And these same principles that we're going to cover that Word of Faith teachers have been teaching since the early 1900s about man being ontologically

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God by nature. And we're going to go through primary quotes from Word of Faith teachers and from New Thought New Age teachers showing striking similarities and parallels between Word of Faith and New Thought New Age.

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So this isn't meant to be a discussion trying to undermine every single Word of Faith doctrine. There's people who are more biblically qualified than us that can do that.

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Someone like Acosti Hen, for example, who might be a good guest to have on sometime about this topic. But I came out of the

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New Age. She came out of New Thought. And we're both saying there's striking parallels between the Word of Faith movement and the

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New Thought cults and the New Age cults that we were a part of. Little God's doctrine, the idea that Jesus isn't really that unique.

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The idea that faith is a force. The idea that you can kind of make positive affirmations and confess your reality into existence with your words.

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We're going to get into all of this. But what interests me about the Word of Faith teachings and the

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Word of Faith practice is that it's a baptized version of the same thing

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I was involved in when I was in the New Age movement. You're just slapping the name of Christ on it. There's a few differences, but the principles are the exact same.

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And we're going to prove this with primary quotes. So I'm looking forward to that. It comes from the same root. And this is sort of the area when you talk about how is it relevant to our area of focus.

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And again, we're a show. We have a show. And it's funny. We always get the reviews that we're like, we're really a cult talking about cults and stuff.

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And people think we have some sort of hidden agenda, but we're always very open about it. We are a show that deals with the world of the cult from a biblical perspective.

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And given that we look through worldwood and neutralities and myth, and that God is the arbiter of truth, that the terminology of cult is any group or any person sitting around one particular person or organization's misinterpretation of the

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Bible, where they always will use Christian terminology, but ultimately they deny the nature of Jesus, that he's the eternal

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God in human flesh. And even in this particular case, what you'll see, it's a terminology difference.

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They will use the words Jesus, faith, healing, and they will talk about these particular things.

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But you'll see, once you see the origins of the new thought, and you see the connection between where the faith teaching, and when you start making these comparisons, that's where you see the similarity.

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And that's when Walter Martin talks about being familiar with the original. What's a biblical basis for this and how do we get a response?

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And I think it's also really good too, because especially even now, dealing from a Christian perspective with everything that's going on in the world right now.

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In 2 Timothy 1 .7, it says, And so, when we look at what's going on in the world, and honestly, we have to think about, there's a lot of people right now that have this perspective, that have this worldview.

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So we're not here to bash anyone. We're here to talk about, we're not here to sensationalize anything. We're just going to talk about primary sources.

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But then again, you talk about practically, how do you live this out? How do you see the world?

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Because there's a lot of people. Just for example, we'll talk about one person, for example, that's primary when you think of someone as far as word of faith goes, is

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Joel Stein. And he always talks about making your declaration. It says, I am who I say

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I am. And you have all these things. And it just so happens that they just announced that Lakewood Church is shutting down their services.

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It's only going to be online. So why aren't they making declarations? All these people want to make declarations that I'm free from the coronavirus.

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They're not doing that. So it's one of those things where when the rubber meets the road and you have this crisis that is directly connected to how they view the world and theology, how is this going to affect them?

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It's revealing their true colors. Yes. They'll say this stuff applies in any and all circumstances, but it just so happens when the most important circumstance emerges.

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Well, we're going to shut down our healing rooms now. We're going to shut down our services now. You should be the ones asking people to come in because we're making declarations that nobody is going to catch this disease, this virus in Jesus name.

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But it's really revealing where they actually stand. And on one hand, they're hypocrites.

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They need to be addressed as such. But on the other hand, we should kind of applaud them for at least being like, okay, great.

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You're using some common sense now. There is a point where you're willing to abandon all this weird, fluffy, declaration -based doctrine that lacks biblical precedent.

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And we also want to address, too, in this podcast, not just show a parallel, but also what does the

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Bible say about this topic? So we're going to look at a topic, address it from Word of Faith teachers, primary sources,

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New Age teachers, primary sources. But what does the Bible say? Because we want to encourage people in the truth, not just show them what error is, but give them the alternative and instruct them in that.

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And Melissa, I kind of want to get a little bit of feedback from you because you were raised in New Thought. And you actually have some

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New Thought books with you today. You said you have hundreds of New Thought, New Age books on your bookshelf at home.

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My great -grandparents were Christian scientists. So that led us into a lot of weird waters growing up.

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But yeah, I have a ton of these books. And the ideas in these books are inherently everything that we're talking about.

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Your health, wealth, your life in general is all determined on the manifestation of your reality, basically.

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With your words. Your thoughts, your feelings, with your words. And I had no idea this wasn't Christian. I thought that this was higher spirituality.

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So if you're talking about bringing health and wealth and things into your world, it's done through your thoughts, feelings, actions.

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To me, growing up, the reason why I'm passionate about this in particular is because I was more word of faith than I realized.

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Because I was really into the law of attraction. I was really into affirmations. Well, not so much affirmations as I was into claiming that I was something.

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If I wanted money, I was wealthy. I am this. I am that. And it was a thought life that I have adopted at that time.

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And I brought the secret with me. The secret is the law of attraction. A lot of people would be familiar with this book.

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Others, not so much. You have these new thought teachers that were all over in the 1900s, 1800s.

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And Emmett Fox is one of them. A few people might know who he is. Most won't. But they all believe in the same thing.

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They all say the same things in their books about tithing, for example. There's a law of tithing.

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If you give 10%, then according to the law of tithing, the Bible says you must receive that back tenfold.

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And that reminds us a lot of what we would hear on these televangelists. Whatever you sow, you will reap.

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And so we find this threaded together in these books and these teachings. And they call themselves

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Christians. They say that this is what the Bible teaches. And then you have word of faith teachers who change it a little bit.

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It's not exactly the same, but the premise of what they're saying and what they're doing inherently is a new thought.

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So when I saw this happening, when I came out of the new thought and get into countercult ministry,

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I see all of these teachers in Christianity teaching what

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I see to be law of attraction based, like Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen, some people might love him, but what he teaches inherently is the law of attraction.

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He's talking about your best life now and the power of I am.

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Everything about that premise is new thought, law of attraction. You know what's interesting about what's happening right now in our society, especially with the coronavirus?

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You're saying when it all comes down to it, this is what they practice. This is what they preach. The truth is that's true because they separate themselves in the times where they say they actually have this power.

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They're going to close their church, distant themselves from the sick, and yet still try to speak something into existence, yet not being right with it.

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It's like a spiritual pushback. It's like their bluff is being called almost. When there's suffering in the world or when there's something that's happening out of your control, you actually find out where people's faith truly lies.

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Yes. That's the situation that we're getting into. We heard Kenneth Copeland in the beginning giving that declaration.

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He's using words like faith or healing, but what exactly does he mean by that?

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We're going to be getting into that today. It's something totally different than what we would think in Orthodox Christianity.

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Stephen hit on it earlier by saying a force, but we're going to get into that. I think it's really interesting, especially the signs of the times right now.

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You'll see by people's practices where their faith actually lies. It's going to strip away the supposed

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Christian exterior, and you will see truly what they mean by their actions.

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It's interesting because if you look at the history of the Word of Faith movement, it seems as though there's some primary fathers of the

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Word of Faith movement, which would be Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, and William Branham, maybe another one or two, but then you also have the grandfather, the unanimous grandfather of the

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Word of Faith movement, which would be Essek William Kenyon, who was a Baptist minister, but who was surrounded by metaphysical influence at the university he went to.

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In Boston during the time of the massive New Thought movement. He studied this stuff, and he had an extensive metaphysical library, and it undoubtedly influenced his thoughts, his teachings.

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He is someone that Hagin plagiarized over and over and over again. We can document that.

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Hagin would have these visions where he claims that he went to heaven, he saw Jesus, but then what Kenyon ends up teaching out of that is literally word for word taken from a

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Kenyon book. There's many examples of this, but Kenyon himself, who was influenced by people like Mary Baker Eddy and Phineas Quimby, who are the founders of New Thought, influenced

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Kenyon. Kenyon then influences Hagin, who is really the modern father of the

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Word of Faith movement, starting an official Word of Faith denomination. I think it was the early 70s or late 70s.

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It was 79 or 72 or 79. Yeah, and starting Rhema Bible College. We're not saying that everyone who attends these colleges isn't saved, or everyone who follows

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Hagin isn't saved, or that if you identify as Word of Faith, you're on your way to hell, but these are dangerously misleading teachings.

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I would say that there are some teachers in the Word of Faith movement, some of whom we're going to be talking about today, where the quotes that they have said are so blasphemous and so heretical, people can make their own decisions.

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I think we would unanimously agree that they're in danger of hellfire for the things that they're saying.

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You cannot be a born -again believer, born of the Spirit, born of the same Spirit that wrote the Bible, and say things that contradict it in very major ways that are black and white in Scripture.

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Where's the fear of God in their eyes in the way they handle Scripture? Well, then if the Spirit of God is in you, it's almost like how can you be saying these things if you're getting direct revelation from God and it's going against what you've even seen as Word?

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And what you're saying aligns more with new thought teachings, metaphysical new thought teachings, than what you would ever see in the

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Bible. And that's where I cry foul, personally. And I thought about Kenyon. So Kenyon, yes, he would deny that he ever had any involvement in the metaphysical cults.

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He denounced them. So it's interesting because he didn't even consider himself a

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Pentecostal. But the Word of Faith movement did start in Pentecostalism. If you're really going to do your homework and go back, it started with Pentecostals.

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Branham and Lake, and people like that. So it didn't really start in the new thought metaphysics. It was influenced by it.

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So you had people like Kenyon. Kenyon's the one who really was, it's like he was the tiny tip of the bigger iceberg.

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He had small things that were out of whack that turned into much bigger things. And that's really how it all started.

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But people would argue about Kenyon being influenced directly by Christian science or Columbia. But it's demonstrably, you can just read what he wrote and simply see the connection, like little gods, and positive confessions, things like this, that were mirrors of what you would see in new thought.

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Without a doubt, you could see that there's a connection there, even though he would not connect himself at all with the metaphysical cult.

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So some people I know in the Pentecostals or even hypercharismatic movement would argue that Kenyon was legit, and he's not.

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I mean, if you read his writings, they're going to match up to what we're seeing from Hagen, which I'm sure that they would revert to, look at with respect.

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But that's what we're going to show, is how it's paralleled with what we see in new thought. And it all started with Kenyon.

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It lacks biblical parallel, but it does have new thought, new age parallel. Yes, exactly.

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So Kenyon can say, and people who want to defend Kenyon can say, well, he had no influence from the metaphysical cults. Okay, show me what he's saying in scripture.

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You can't. But I can show you what he's saying in The Secret or in some of these works from Quinius Fimby, we're going to be quoting today.

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And here's a thought, too. It's like when Jesus says, you will know a tree by its fruit.

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You know the ultimate root of something by the fruit that is produced out of it.

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Immediately in the 70s, when Hagen started his Word of Faith denomination, you had very solid

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Christians, Dave Hunt, John Akenberg, I think that's how you pronounce his last name, who were immediately, within like two years, writing books, renouncing and responding to this, holding conferences where they're having debate panels, warning people about the

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Word of Faith teachings, about their metaphysical lineage. Even Walter Martin. Even Walter Martin. So how is it that that's the fruit of a move of the

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Spirit of God, right? Because they believe, just like new thought teachers believe that their ultimate source and origin for their information is revelation knowledge, that they're having some kind of spiritual transmission given to them in their spirit man, and it's manifesting in these new teachings, and they've been called to be the pioneers.

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Why would we believe that people such as Hagen or even Copeland, who always talks about the conversations he has with the

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Lord, and I want you to teach people this, they're receiving it through kind of the same general mechanism, revelation knowledge, some secret, special knowledge that I received, and now you have to come to me to get it now, but okay, well let's test the fruit of it.

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The fruit of it, instant division and confusion. You have 70 % of the body of Christ, who's like, that is completely unbiblical, and then you have 30 % who's like, well there's some truth to it, or maybe it's even like 33, 33, 33, 33, where you have some are saying, yeah,

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I can see some of it, some are saying, I see none of it, and some say, yeah, I see all of it. How is that the fruit of the move of God when a fruit of the

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Spirit in scripture, one of the things that pleases the heart of God the most is when people who are in his bride can come together in unity.

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That pleases God, he loves that. In Psalms it talks about brothers dwelling in unity, it's like anointing oil dripping down the beard, and it's beautiful though, and it's lovely.

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We all have different views. We can come together and serve around the gospel, and serve around the cross, and worship around an altar together, and just love on the

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Lord and love on people, but immediately when these word of faith teachers who apparently hear from God directly, the immediate fruit of it is division, confusion, books being written by very solid

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Bible scholars. That's one of the things that Walter Martin always did too, is that he always sought unity on the essentials, and that's one of the things he did too in his ministry back in California when he found the

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Christian Research Institute, is that he worked with a lot of the churches, and he just said we need to figure out the essentials because the kingdom of the cults, this is the ground zero there, and we need to really mobilize and work off of what we have common, and because this is just a huge, almost like a pandemic of cultism in the 70s.

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We're gonna speak in parables a little bit. What is really intriguing with me, and just with some of the books that we've read in preparation for this, and I've noticed this just with the discussion when it comes to the hyper, you call it hypercharismania, or just looking at some of the hyper -Pentecostal movement or just some of these word of faith movement teachers, especially originating from the 1900s, where when you look at a

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Christian view of revelation as one of the best arguments against the world, the kingdom of the cults, because every single cult always starts off of a private revelation, whether it's

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Joseph Smith, whether it's Mary Baker Eddy, or whether it's Charles Taze Russell, they always have some special, their own private revelation, or they have a special insight or ability to interpret the

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Bible that no one else has, and they have to basically be the mediator in which to interpret the Bible for someone else.

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And so what you see, however, with the Christian worldview is that you have the

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Bible, which is a reliable collection of historical documents that was written by eyewitnesses who saw supernatural events and fulfillment of specific prophecy.

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These are all publicly eyewitnessed accounts and historical documentation, so you have a public accounting and a revelation that's verified.

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And so that's what you have with the Christian worldview versus these cults and these counterfeit movements that come out.

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What's particular to me, and this doesn't mean that every single person in the Word of Faith movement, we're not saying that every single one of them are cult leaders, but what is alarming, though, is that the authority and the acclaims by which they are establishing these doctrines, they always seem to be, there's language that's used about restorationism.

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This is sort of like a restoration of lost things. And that's the area where it's alarming because even though, just to kind of bring

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Bethlehem to the conversation, I remember just for example, because they're part of this whole group, is that when it was back when we were doing the preparation for the

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Bethlehem New Age podcast, I believe it was in the Physics of Heaven, one of the chapters that Bill Johnson had wrote, which was alarming to me when he talked about there are these mantled, there's all these uncovering, these hidden mantles and anointings.

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And I'm like, is this sort of like the Legend of Zelda? The Legend of Zelda where you have to go to these hidden dungeons to find these mantles, and you're like Link, it's like, you found this mantle or something.

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But in all seriousness, that's what's alarming. So instead of, because the ultimate standard, how we detect a counterfeit versus an original, we always go back to the source.

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We have to go to the Word of God and test all things, and we know what is a counterfeit by studying the original.

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But what they're doing is that we're not going to the original. We're going to some hidden source, some hidden knowledge.

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And that's the aspect that's alarming in all this. And that's just something that people need to be aware of when you study the origins of this movement.

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There's a reason for it too, and Stephen was hitting on it. And this is a good base, I think, where we can start to help people to understand exactly the root of the connection between New Thought and the

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Word Faith movement. And Stephen was talking about this wisdom and also revelation. So there's a relationship between the material and the spiritual and how they actually relate to the importance and how one can actually manipulate the other.

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So in the New Thought movement, Melissa, for example, can you describe how the spiritual realm or this realm that you can get tapped into, you can actually use by your words or affirmations, you can change the physical reality?

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Well, the main premise of when you're in the New Thought, and even New Age, this is something they have in common. I mean, to kind of give the difference between the

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New Thought and New Age, by the way, New Age is, I usually say the

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New Thought's like the cousin or like stepsister of New Age. It's the same thing. And they're very much related.

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But at the core, it's that you're divine. And so if you have this inner divinity, which is what all

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New Thought teachers teach, you are divine. You're a little god. You're godlike.

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And as such, because you're made in the image and likeness of God, you can manipulate the world around you.

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You can manipulate your reality through your thoughts, words, and feelings. And the way to do that, and the reason why, is because you are divine.

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So that's the thought process. So what I do to you,

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I do to myself, which is the law of attraction, like attracts like. So that's why a lot of New Agers and people that are caught up in the

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New Thought, do you kind of have a sense of, I don't know, a false peace, I want to call it, because they stay out of the mix, so to speak.

29:58

They don't want to be involved in things that would mess up their reality. So in this aspect, you have teachers that say, don't think negative things.

30:07

Don't say negative things. Don't say you're sick. No, that's not true. Do not declare that you are sick.

30:14

Don't say you're broke. No, you are rich. You have wealth. You have health. You have joy.

30:20

You have happiness. All this stuff, and speak that, and out of those words, will become your reality. Yeah, it can manipulate the physical reality through this wisdom that you have obtained.

30:29

So Stephen, in the word faith movement, what's the relation to that? Yeah, there's a bunch of different ways that they will, it's a bunch of doctrines that each play a role in fulfilling that mechanism of, okay, why is it that when

30:44

I speak my words, they have the ability to produce change in the physical world? They're going to say, one, because of a few spiritual laws, which we'll get into.

30:52

One, because of the power of positive confession. One, because we're little gods by nature.

30:58

And I think that would be an interesting place to start looking at comparisons here because there's a whole bunch of, it's hard to appreciate the parallels unless we break down each individual idea because the word of faith teachers, they usually kind of mishmash them all together.

31:15

And there's not like a systematic theology book for word of faith teachings. Right. But when you begin to actually analyze them and say, okay, like categorically, what are you saying about man's ontology?

31:27

What are you saying about the nature of faith? What are you saying about the incarnation of Jesus?

31:34

What are you saying about the nature of positive confession and the spoken word? When you actually break it down kind of systematically, that's when you're able to get clarity because you can see, wow, there's a very clear parallel here between what they're teaching and what is taught in the occult, what's taught in New Thought, what

31:50

I was exposed in in the New Age movement. So for example, I want to quote from some word of faith teachers.

31:56

These are all primary quotes. I'm going to name the names of the teachers. And people can listen to this and decide for themselves whether or not they think this is orthodox and people we want to be listening to.

32:08

And also just to note that some people might be, sometimes get bothered or upset when names are named.

32:16

But the reality is is that you don't ever want to have a standard of piety that's higher than God's or that's higher than the

32:23

Bible. And the reality is is that Paul named names. Yep. Well, and they're publicly saying this.

32:30

So I mean, this is very easy to just go and listen to this. It's not like they're trying to hide it.

32:36

Yeah. Like, you know, Paul talks about Hymenaeus and what's the other guy? Hymenaeus and...

32:42

I'm not going to try to pronounce the name, bro. I know the name. I'm going to butcher it. But he says, I've handed them over to Satan so they may not learn not to blaspheme.

32:49

So he names people by names. Yeah. And he did that multiple times. So there is sometimes there is a biblical precedent for that.

32:56

That's all I want to state. But go ahead. Yeah. And it's also not to just like I'm not concerned about one man like Kenneth Copeland.

33:03

Like if his ministry doesn't exist anymore, he can go work a regular job. What I'm more concerned about is how many hundreds of thousands of people are giving money to his ministry, are believing these teachings, and are being hurt as a result.

33:19

Amen. Having their bank account strained as a result, having their walks with God stifled or confused, missing the mark in their devotional life and their walk with God because they're believing and participating in a form of Christianity that is not biblical

33:34

Christianity. You can't bury yourself in a room and read the Bible cover to cover a hundred times and come out saying these things these

33:42

Word of Faith teachers are about to say here. You can't have an organic reading of scripture, a pure, honest, just exegetical exposition of the

33:50

Word of God and come out saying these things that they're saying. And the thing is, they're not claiming this is necessarily coming from the

33:57

Word of God. Half the time they're claiming this came from special revelation, from visions, dreams. I was talking to the

34:02

Lord one time, okay, well no wonder it doesn't sound like anything scripture is saying because God never said it. And so I'm not saying every single person here is necessarily going to hell as of today or if they've already died that they're in hell right now.

34:15

That's not the point. I'm not like, whether or not we want to categorize these people as this or that, that's secondary.

34:21

Just people can listen to these quotes for themselves and decide, is this someone who is reliable or unreliable? That's all we need to establish.

34:28

Are they trustworthy or untrustworthy? Well, you're saying he's a wolf and he's actually not. He gave all this money to people in Africa or something.

34:35

Well, whether he gave money or not, whether he's a wolf or not is irrelevant. Is he trustworthy? Do these quotes demonstrate qualifications for overseership as given in the pastoral epistles, namely being above reproach and being able to teach so people can make their own decisions?

34:52

Love it. Earl Polk, Word of Faith teacher, Adam and Eve were placed in the world as the seed and expression of God.

34:58

Just as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so God has little gods. When God said, let us make man in our image, he created us as little gods.

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But we have trouble comprehending this truth. We see ourselves as little people with very little power and dominion.

35:13

Until we comprehend that we are little gods and begin to act like little gods, we cannot manifest the kingdom of God.

35:19

Here's Kenneth Hagin. Man was created on equality with God and he could stand in God's presence without any consciousness of inferiority.

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God has made us as much like himself as possible. He made us in the same class of being that he is himself.

35:35

Here's Casey Treat. This is unbelievable. The father, the son, the holy ghost had a conference and they said, let us make man as an exact duplicate of us.

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An exact duplicate of God. Say it out loud. I am an exact duplicate of God. Come on, say it.

35:49

Say it again. I am an exact duplicate of God. When God looks in the mirror, he sees me.

35:54

When I look in the mirror, I see God. You know, some people say to me when they're mad, you just think you're a little God.

35:59

You got that right. Who do you think you are? Jesus. Or sorry, who do you think you are? Jesus? Yep. Are you listening to me?

36:07

Since I am an exact duplicate of God, I'm going to act like God. Benny Hinn. In reference to the creation story,

36:14

God came from heaven and became a man. He made man little gods. And here's a few from Copeland.

36:20

I want to be exhaustive here so people can see. It's not just one teacher. It's all of them. It's not just one quote, one time, source material.

36:28

This is going to be coming from a sermon called Praise the Lord that aired February 6th, 1986.

36:34

Then we're going to see one coming from a tape called Following the Faith of Abraham, tape number 013001.

36:42

People can go look this up for themselves. Here's the first one. Man was created in the God class. He was not created in the animal class.

36:49

He is in the God class. He has a uniqueness about him that even angels do not have and that is the

36:55

God, the God given right to choose his own words and speak them, thereby setting his own divine destiny, his own destination.

37:03

Are we gods? We are a class of gods. God's reason for creating

37:08

Adam was his desire to reproduce himself. Adam was not a little like God. He was not almost like God.

37:15

He was not subordinate to God even. And I want you to know something. Adam in the garden of Eden was

37:21

God manifested in the flesh. He was God's very image, the very likeness. Everything he did, everything he said, every move he made was the very image of Almighty God.

37:31

You see, Adam was walking as a God. Adam walked in the God's class.

37:37

Adam did things in the class of gods. So what are your first impressions?

37:42

Before we look at what the Bible has to say in a couple New Age parallels, what are your guys' first impressions of hearing that? It's pretty intense when you hear something like that.

37:52

It makes you squirm. Yeah. Because I believe in a creator -creature distinction. You know, there's a reason why

37:59

I was created and it wasn't to be God or to have the voice of God, to have that type of rule and control over this world.

38:09

No, it was to serve him and to do it for the reasons and purposes he created me. See, I see and I hear that.

38:15

I see that how can you actually have a good understanding of what the fall of man and sin was in itself?

38:20

If you think that you were created as like the same class as gods. See, and this is the basic premise.

38:27

In every book that you read, every new thought book, New Age, again, the premise is that you're divine and it's more than you're just divine.

38:34

You are God. And if you're going to fall in the same class and suit as God, then you can do the same things he did.

38:40

Right. Which is why they claim these things. If you're going to heal like God healed, well, you can because you're a little

38:45

God. You have the same power. You have the same abilities that Jesus had.

38:51

And this is, again, inherently new thought. I was taught that we could walk on water. If we had enough faith, we could do exactly what

39:00

Jesus did. We could raise the dead. We could heal the sick. We could walk on water. We could manipulate the reality around us by walking through walls.

39:08

Yes. Like crazy things. So it'd be like since we're created in the God class, that spiritual level is so much more powerful than the material world around us.

39:18

By understanding it, you can manipulate that reality. You are a co -creator. Right. I want to quote

39:23

Kenyon real quick just because he's like the root of where they get their stuff from. He says this in The Father and His Family pages 32 and 33.

39:31

He says, in other words, when man was created, he was made as near like deity as it was possible for deity to create him.

39:37

Man belongs to God's class. So we've got Hagen and Copeland. Where did they get this idea from? Kenyon. They got it from Kenyon.

39:42

Where did Kenyon get this idea from? The metaphysical. The metaphysical. Because there has to be a reason and a purpose to be part.

39:49

Because it didn't come from the Bible. There's a reason why you have to be in the same class as God. Yes. Or you can't do what he does.

39:55

And just for example, too, talking about just source quotes and the origins of this and the connection to metaphysics is that here's a quote by Phineas Quimby.

40:02

He says, and I want to look at your face if you're like, oh, like an alarm goes off. Quimby's feet.

40:08

But I just want to just throw this out and you'll see a comparison here in a second. So he says, he says, my theory, the trouble is in the mind, for the body is only the house for the mind to dwell in.

40:20

If your mind has been deceived by some invisible enemy into a belief, you have put it into the form of a disease with or without your knowledge.

40:29

By my theory or truth, I come in contact with your enemy and restore you to health and happiness.

40:36

So for those that don't know, Phineas, okay, what Kenyon is to the Word of Faith movement, Phineas Quimby times 10 is what was, is the father of the

40:44

New Thought movement. So everything that we see that has trickled down since Phineas Quimby is what we see in the

40:51

New Thought movement. I was always told that this was a timeless spiritual truth, that it went all the way back to, you know, the

40:58

Mayans and before Jesus and all this stuff, you know, it went back to the garden is where it went back to.

41:04

It started there that you can be like God. And so, whenever I realize that there's, oh wow, there's a beginning to this.

41:11

You know, it started with Quimby. Yeah, and so then, yeah, okay, we're going to these historical origins and some people might have their hands crossed sitting in their quarantined home by the time you listen to this.

41:22

Stay safe out there. I mean, we got to just roll the punches and God is sovereign and we're just here just taking this one day at a time.

41:28

But, you know, you look at this like, what's the so what? And I just want to say this real quickly is that when you look at the relevance of what's being taught in this movement and then you look at, for example, just a comparison to Joel Osteen and, like Joel Osteen, just a couple of quotes from Your Best Life Now just talking about the comparison of New Thought and the origins of this and especially relevant to like what people are experiencing right now with this pandemic and whatever is, whatever is going, whatever is moving forward.

42:02

I mean, this is, people really don't know and people are scared. But, just for example, here's a couple of quotes from Your Best Life Now.

42:09

He says, if you develop an imagery of success, I'm sorry, if you develop an image of victory, success, success, health, abundance, joy, peace, and happiness, nothing on earth will be able to hold these things from you.

42:24

And then he said, this is another quote, he says, the scripture says that God wants to pour out, quote,

42:29

His far and beyond favor. God wants this to be the best time of your life.

42:36

But if you are going to receive this favor, you must enlarge your vision. And just one more quote, and here's just one more quote, and I want to get your thoughts on this one so we can all just jump in here.

42:46

Olsen also says here, the scripture says that God wants to, His, pour out

42:53

His far and beyond favor. Yeah, he's kind of saying, God wants to be, God wants this to be the best time of your life.

43:01

But if you are going to receive this favor, you must enlarge your vision. You can't go around thinking negative, defeated, limiting thoughts.

43:09

So, let's just think about, so let's just think about this right now. Someone is following Joel Olsen's teachings.

43:16

Their 401K is being wiped out. All of a sudden, their hours went from, they're working in the hotel industry, or the travel industry, and their hours just went from 40 hours a week down to 10 hours a week.

43:28

And all of a sudden, they're thinking, I'm trying to think this thing, what's wrong with me? A lot of it has to do.

43:34

This is where, this is where we're getting to the discussion about, about theology hurting people. Yes. And this is why it's relevant.

43:40

Now that, so with, in the New Thought, if you're going to take something, like a circumstance like that, a lot of times, the goal, and this is what

43:48

Eckhart Tolle would teach, by the way, for people who know who he is, he's a well -known New Thought author in cahoots with Oprah.

43:55

They're BFFs. So is Joel Osteen and Oprah, by the way. They're, they, she approves of his teaching that should tell you something.

44:04

The basic premise is that if that were to happen, it's your thought life, A, that attracted that to you.

44:09

B, the way to make that stop and go away is to become mindless in a way, not think about that.

44:14

It's, it's more about changing the pattern of the way you're thinking.

44:20

So your circumstances don't necessarily mean, your circumstances do not have to control your thought life.

44:27

Deny your senses. Deny your senses. Search for a higher wisdom. Yes. And manifest that into reality because your wisdom can manifest things into this material world.

44:35

And anything else, it is your fault. Right. I mean, that's basically what it teaches is if something bad, negative, horrible happens to you, you somehow brought that into your life.

44:45

Right. And the first thing you should do is not think about how, like, what else you can do to bring that in there.

44:51

So if, if you're thinking about, if, if the world literally does revolve around you, which is what it teaches.

44:57

Yeah. Right. You are successful. You are wealthy. You are this, you are that. And you are at the center of this universe.

45:04

Everything that happens in your universe is subjective. So sickness doesn't have to be a part of your universe.

45:10

This is why I don't see a lot of new agers doing much about, you know, donating, for example, to, you know, children in Africa.

45:18

That doesn't have to exist in your reality. Pandemics are not part of your universe. Pandemics are not a part of your universe.

45:23

That's kind of what I'm getting at. So it's like if, if there's something, right now, so many people are feeling a lot of false peace.

45:31

I feel peace because God is sovereign and in control and no matter what happens, you know, I don't have to control that though.

45:38

I, I don't have to have any sort of responsibility with that. Whereas if you're in the new age, if, if you have that belief, you are in control because you're

45:46

God. That's your responsibility. If you're not putting out that energy, if you're not emitting something. I remember one time laying on my living room floor.

45:56

There was fires going on. I think it was here or in California. It was a while ago. But it was awful, like the awful fires.

46:02

I remember meditating on my floor, willing it to leave my reality. You know, it's, it's that kind of.

46:09

See, this, this is the thing. Like the, the word of faith response is the same response as the new thought when they're suffering in troubles.

46:15

It's the reason why you're still sick is that you have a lack of faith. Basically. Right. So we've, we've heard with people that have come on our shows that have come, come out of the

46:22

Jehovah's Witnesses the same thing. When they're having an issue, what's the issue? The issue is with you. There's no understanding. Anymore.

46:27

Right. There's no understanding of suffering at all in the light of God's sovereignty. Yes. In what faith is, is actually having faith and trusting in God and his promises.

46:38

There's, there's none of that because when you actually have faith demonstrated in the word faith movement, it's faith in yourself and faith in your own words as being a force that can manifest this reality.

46:48

So when the world starts crumbling down, you find that your faith was never placed in the creator.

46:54

It wasn't. You only had it in yourself. And what does Jesus say about ourselves? He says, you need to die to yourself. Pick up your cross and follow me.

47:00

Yeah. Which means submit yourself to his word, his teaching as the creator of the universe, distinct, separate from us, the objective standard overall.

47:10

Yeah. Because if you don't do that, you'll actually never understand it in the first place because when the light of these pandemics happen, where are you now?

47:17

Where are you now? That's why I think that these things happen for more of a, they expose the church. They expose people to what they actually believe.

47:25

We were talking about that before we got on. And with the little God, so Steve, you do have quotes here from New Thought Teachers.

47:32

Right. So we have the Word of Faith Teachers saying that we're basically little gods that were divine.

47:39

And it's directly paralleled to what we see taught by New Thought Teachers. There is a slew of books.

47:46

It's so easy to show that this is exactly what they believe. But for the general audience that may not know this, we do have quotes from many well -known, some not so well -known.

47:57

It's just so easy to find quotes from New Thought. Yeah. And just everything that was just talked about there is really, it really boils down to man's ontology.

48:06

The reason why your faith has significance, the words you speak have significance is because you're

48:11

God by nature. When God created Adam, he reproduced himself. And therefore, just like, you know,

48:19

God isn't I am. Kenneth Copeland has said, you know, when I see God saying I am in scripture, I just smile and say

48:25

I am too. Right? Because I'm a reproduction of God. You know, as Creflo Duller says, you know, everything produces after its own kind.

48:33

That's not even what the Bible says. Reproduce, this is what it says. God didn't need to reproduce anything. I can produce lots of things as a human.

48:40

It doesn't mean everything I'm producing is I can produce a water bottle. Everything doesn't produce after, I'm not producing a human when I produce a water bottle.

48:47

But, you know, because everything produces after its own kind, when God created man, he created God. And everyone, you can tell people in the audience are like, this is no, please, that sounds horrible.

48:57

And they're like really skeptical. But this is a universal word of faith doctrine that goes back to Kenyan, it goes back to Hagan, and this is why it's extremely concerning is because it's universal among word of faith teachers and new age teachers, new thought teachers.

49:14

Here are some quotes. Here's Neal Donald Walsh. He wrote a series of books called

49:19

Conversation with God, Conversations with God or Friendships with God. It's sold over 10 million copies, this.

49:26

You are quite literally the word of God made flesh. Compare that with Kenneth Copeland saying

49:32

Adam in the Garden was the word made flesh. Deepak Chopra, those who have knowledge of God are gods.

49:38

Rhonda Byrne, the author of The Secret, which has sold 26 million plus copies. You are

49:43

God in a physical body. It's the exact same thing we're seeing from these word of faith teachers. Here's a book called

49:49

The Course in Miracles. Once again, this has sold millions and millions of copies, has been pushed by Oprah Winfrey, has been pushed primarily by someone named

49:57

Marianne Williamson, a New Thought teacher who has six number one New York Times bestselling books and was a presidential candidate for the

50:04

Democratic Party. She ended up dropping out. The recognition of God, this is A Course in Miracles, the recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.

50:14

Here's another New Thought teacher named Scott Peck. God is within us. We are part of God all the time.

50:20

Here's a quote from Maitreya, which is believed to be an entity that a guy named

50:26

Benjamin Cream was channeling. Benjamin Cream is a part of an occultic school of thought called

50:31

Theosophy started by Helena Blavatsky back in the late 1800s. She was actually the first one to coin the term

50:38

Law of Attraction. While she was more of an esotericist and more of a dark occultist and more of a

50:44

Luciferian, she adopted New Thought principles as well. Here's a quote coming down that lineage from Benjamin Cream who believed that he was in contract with Maitreya who is this entity who is called the

50:56

Christ. It's a very unique relationship they think that Jesus of Nazareth had with this other entity named the Christ.

51:02

They believed that Jesus wasn't the Christ. Maitreya was and Maitreya overshadowed

51:07

Jesus. Like an avatar. Yes. And so Maitreya has said this. My friends,

51:13

God is nearer to you than you can imagine. God is yourself. God is within you and all around you.

51:20

And this is what I thought, this is what I believed. The New Age teaches pantheism. That's a distinction that we would want to make between New Thought, New Age, and Word of Faith.

51:28

They would teach New Age and New Thought teach pantheism that everything is divine like this water bottle is

51:34

God by nature. Word of Faith teachers won't say this water bottle is God by nature but they say man is.

51:40

So it's like a selective pantheism essentially. Now when it comes to a biblical response to this, what does the

51:47

Bible actually say? They're saying that we are little gods and we're running around as a bunch of recreations of God in the garden.

51:58

Isaiah 43 .10 Before me no God was formed nor shall there be any after me.

52:03

So no God was formed before or after Yahweh which would include in the Garden of Eden.

52:09

Psalm 90 verse 20 I use this one so much in ministry because it's such a prevalent topic in the

52:14

New Age movement the deity of man. Put them in fear O Lord let the nations know they are but Here's Isaiah 31 verse 3

52:29

Acts 10 verse 26 When people fell the guard fell at the feet of Peter because he saw the prison doors were open and the chains fell off Peter lifted him up saying stand up I too am a man

52:40

I'm but a man. I'm but a man. And what's interesting is the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14 in King Herod in Acts 12 these are the only people that tried to claim and wear deity for themselves in scripture.

52:57

So we see and they were all issued the capital punishment by God himself. What happened to them? Yeah. The biblical precedent for divinity claimers is capital punishment and the antichrist.

53:07

I mean with this depending on our eschatology but the point is is that if God wanted us walking around thinking we are ontologically

53:17

God by nature and that we are little gods he would set a biblical precedent. A better biblical precedent than capital punishment.

53:24

And then it's just interesting when you are mentioning these quotes and talking about scriptures to refute it I mean our if you guys look into our archives like our primary bread and butter our focus has been

53:34

Mormonism just because that's just been our primary ministry like Apologia Church was founded originally was

53:42

Apologia Christian Ministries which is pretty much a focus and outreach on the cults primarily reaching out to Mormons and also

53:47

Jehovah's Witnesses and different cults but that was primarily the focus and in all those times of ministering to them they have belief that they can become a

53:54

God one day and not necessarily that they believe that they are children of God that they are the spirit children not necessarily that they have their divine in the sense that word of faith it's different it's a different ballpark but it still it still falls into the same category still the same essence and so just for example two ways to also refute the distinction between the us being in the image of God the

54:15

Imago Dei there's a difference there's a difference between the Imago Dei versus actually being divine and that's

54:20

I think that's sometimes what people fail to grasp when they're in this movement but even two additional verses that has always come to mind that I always use and it's all when you talk with Mormons who believe that one that God is a man and we can become like him but this is also would be relevant to this area of discussion too the first one is

54:38

Hosea 11 .9 and I always like I originally memorized this in King James because like back then they'd obviously become a lot more liberal they just would always kind of want the

54:46

King James English so I always like saying King James English but you get the same idea this is what

54:53

God says in Hosea 11 .9 he says I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger

54:58

I will not return to destroy Ephraim for I am God and not man the Holy One in the midst of thee and I will not enter into the city but you see right there in the middle of that verse you see

55:07

I am God and not man the Holy One in the midst of thee so you see a distinction between God and man right there and then also

55:15

Numbers 23 .19 says God is not a man that he should lie nor the son of man that he should repent he has said and shall he not do it or hath he not spoken or shall he not make it good so again you just see right there they're making a distinction he's saying that God is not

55:33

God is not a little God God is not a man there's a distinction and that there's two different classes of being right not different different different beings of the same class right like these people are trying to teach us yeah and I think one of the biggest distinctions is the fact that in Adam we all die regardless of what you think about the essence of your nature can you stop your death well

55:57

I know one who is unique the son of God who came and lived in the flesh and died on the cross and arose from the dead let me see you do it yeah can't do it because you're not

56:08

God yeah exactly and that's something that they will try to pass off as well is that not just is mankind ontologically

56:17

God by nature but they will say touching the incarnation of Jesus in particular the incarnation of Jesus isn't that much different than your earthly birth and his ministry isn't really that significant compared to what you're capable of doing including his defeat of Satan and there's not really this hard distinction between made between Jesus Christ and us and you see that in the new age movement all the time that was such an appeal to me that I can be as Christ I can become

56:46

Christ and I was very surprised in prepping for this podcast to see quotes coming out of Word of Faith teachers that are shocking that are blasphemous and that would render these particular people as being heretics you can't say this and not be considered a heretic

57:02

I was blown away too man yeah so here's one here's E .W. Kenyon okay

57:07

God was in Christ wasn't he? an incarnation God is in you an incarnation if you are born again you are incarnate here's

57:18

Kenneth Hagin you are as much the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ was every man who has been born again is an incarnation you are as much the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ was like what do we do with that?

57:33

so check this out but here once again where are they getting this from? they're not getting this from there's nothing in scripture they're getting it from revelation knowledge here's

57:40

Kenneth Copeland talking about a conversation he was having with the spirit of God right? this is good the spirit of God comes to Kenneth Copeland apparently and says son realize this now follow me in this and don't let your traditions trip you up here the spirit said this think this way a twice born man whipped

57:57

Satan in his own domain and I threw my Bible like that and I said what? he said a born again man defeated

58:04

Satan the first born of many brethren defeated him he said you are the very image and the very copy of that one

58:10

I said goodness gracious sakes alive and it just began I began to see what had gone on in hell and I said well now you don't mean you don't dare mean that I could have done the same thing he said oh yeah if you'd known that you had the knowledge of the word of God that he did you could have done the same thing because you were a reborn man too so you could have defeated

58:32

Satan in hell just like Jesus did I do have to say though that's like good but I'm kind of I still am kind of laughing here because you're kind of like going to method actor but the fun thing is they all kind of have that way in which they like talk and make their personalities well it's very they speak very confidently and very boldly and they speak in a way where it's just self evident that it's emotional manipulation when you're preaching the word of God you don't have to come across a certain way because the the word of God cuts the word of God cuts it's the spirit of the ministry doing his work and his people and in the hearts of unbelievers you don't have to have this big booming voice

59:13

I mean if you happen to great but it's consistent within them it's very posturing and very arrogant and here's another one from Kenneth Hagen we are

59:22

Christ he's calling the body God's calling the body which is the church Christ the believer is called

59:28

Christ the unbeliever is called Belial we are one with Christ therefore we are Christ here's another quote from Kenneth Hagen Jesus is the head we are the body the head and the body are one a person's head doesn't go by one name and his body by another people wouldn't call a man's head

59:43

James and his body Henry Christ is the head we are the body the body of Christ is Christ so that settles it

59:50

I guess that argument settles it we are Jesus Christ we're all as much of an incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth was and of course that has striking

01:00:00

New Age parallel I want to quote for a few quotes here and then get your guys thoughts on this before looking at what the

01:00:07

Bible says in particular but here's a course in miracles is he Jesus the

01:00:12

Christ oh yes along with you here's Marianne Williamson accepting the Christ is merely a shift in self -perception here's

01:00:21

Marianne Williamson again even if he takes another name even if he takes another faith he is in essence the truth of who we are here's

01:00:29

Barbara Marks Hubbard speaking in the place of Jesus you were born to be me the church is the body of believers who are conscious of being me now the

01:00:41

New Age movement would say that we can obtain Christ -like status through awakening to our own self -divinity now the method by which we become like Christ in the

01:00:52

Word of Faith movement is through the born -again experience right they would say it's through the born -again experience that we are

01:00:57

Christ and that we become an incarnation of Christ that doesn't necessarily apply to a person who's not saved but once you're in Christ you are just as much an incarnation as a born -again believer as Jesus of Nazareth was so the end game the principle that they're communicating is still there's no real distinction they would say in certain areas but in some areas there's little to no distinction between you and Jesus Christ and I mean

01:01:20

I don't even know where you can begin to justify that from the Word of God what comes to mind when you hear quotes like that you're just as much an incarnation as Jesus was

01:01:30

I'd say if you're filled with the Holy Spirit you're being conformed to the image of Christ where's your repentance where's the knowledge of the sin that you have where are you wailing over your faults and getting on your knees and praying to the

01:01:43

Holy God that you are not worthy do you have any idea or pounding in your body over the weight of your sin if you don't

01:01:52

I don't think you know Him there's an aspect of being a

01:01:57

Christian to where we are at war with the flesh the world and sin and the devil there's a war a spiritual war that goes on in every day of the

01:02:09

Christian life but this sounds so flowery and buttery you already have it we're already on the other side of glory

01:02:16

Christ is incarnate in you I'd say where's your battle where's your fight in the book of Revelation over the first three chapters

01:02:23

Jesus is giving pretty much He's talking to seven different churches and in those churches

01:02:29

He talks about victory and overcoming and having this battle it's a present day reality for all

01:02:35

Christians but where is it for them are they in battle? Why would we have to be in battle if we don't have any struggle

01:02:42

Jesus didn't have any struggle with sin there was no sin that He needed to conquer in His life so if we're just as much an incarnation of Jesus why don't we have this war between the flesh and the spirit

01:02:52

Romans 7, Romans 8 why don't we have this ongoing process why do we have an ongoing process of sanctification if Jesus didn't if we're just as much an incarnation of Jesus you know well don't a lot of teachers sometimes in the new age or I mean in the word of faith movement think that there's sinless perfection that you can obtain you know a life with no sin right and that's the idea behind the these teachings is that they all have this thing in common mm -hmm right yeah and this is the line where like it pushes out like Walter Martin would always talk about this he'd listen to his lecture on the health and wealth cult which is a response and we may do a couple quotes from him in the next episode but um he talked about when you start toying around now with the divinity of Jesus and you start going into this area mm -hmm he goes you're going from the discernment realm where someone is theologically out in particular areas and they'd be you could say that they're untrustworthy versus when they're making these definitive statements where there are distortions and you could even argue willfully of the nature of Jesus and Jesus gives the standard for eternal life when he says unless you believe that I am the eternal

01:04:02

God you will die in your sins for where I am going you cannot come and he says this is eternal life to know the only true

01:04:09

God and Jesus and Christ whom we have sent so when you when you were saying those quotes

01:04:15

I thought to myself God forbid I ever say something like that mm -hmm and like may

01:04:20

I be granted like immediate repentance if I ever tried to say something right of that nature and so that's just like the spirit of God is like like alarm bells go off so the question would be that it's one thing to be confused on the nature of God and maybe you can have an inadequate understanding like when you first got saved go up to a new believer ask them to explain the

01:04:43

Trinity they're probably going to say something that's a little extra or off so it's one thing to have a misunderstanding of the true

01:04:51

God of the truth versus an adamant distortion or a willful rejection of that and another thing

01:04:58

I thought of too is in 1st Timothy 1 -7 when he talks about the nature of false teachers and it says desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things in which they make confident assertions so they're asserting with confidence but they don't know what they're talking about that's in that verse

01:05:19

I feel like it's just emphasized in so much of what Hagin what

01:05:24

Copeland and what these different people of this movement talk about and that's really the concerning aspect because again that's where you're looking at going from people that are in error where they would be untrustworthy wouldn't meet the qualifications biblically to rightly divide the word of truth versus going into cultism which we would give the definition of a willful misinterpretation of the

01:05:51

Bible and primarily the nature of Jesus and this is why I just want to emphasize real quick this is why there's a lot of people who listen to our show who are not

01:05:59

Christians who might be atheists or agnostics you look at people there's episodes for example John Oliver he's a late night talk show host and there's a couple other people who've made mockeries of these prosperity teachers and they talk about how they want to sow seeds and give money and that sort of stuff they kind of mock it but they don't have an ultimate standard by which to judge why is that ultimately wrong and this comes from a theology a distortion of scripture they'll take verses and they'll twist them which the bible also talks about people who make confident assertions but it also warns about those who will twist the scriptures to their own destruction and other people's destruction so we have to be able to have an assertive standard by which to judge these people and if you're trying to approach this without beginning with the pre - supposition of God being the arbiter of truth and his word being the standard you can cry out that these people are wrong or they're being robbed out of their money or out of their paycheck because they're trying to sow seeds and whatnot but you can't give an ultimate you can't really give an accounting as to why they are doing that or why these people are victimized as wrong but we do as Christians and that's just an important thing to note but this is really good

01:07:16

I feel like we've only started to grasp the surface of this so we are going to jump into a part two we're going to try and get as many episodes as we can before because who knows what we will be who knows who knows what will be like when part two comes out so everyone just I hope that you are all wherever you are please stay safe and we obviously know that God is in control and we appreciate you listening to those episodes very very relevant and share this with someone to share this episode with someone that you know there's probably a lot of people that are confused right now and hurting and hopefully something that we said right here may give them some rethinking of that of how they should view the world right now also right now obviously right now there's a lot of uncertainty in the world however this show cannot go on without your financial support so for those of you who are part of the cultish crew we're very grateful for that if you please consider donating helping this program to continue right now especially just you know during times of crises and and uncertainty is when cultish media movements really start to boil up because people want to find hope and certainty during uncertain times so we really need your support so we can continue this ministry go to the cultish show .com