Spiritual Manipulation

Hello, and thank you for listening to the

Testing the Spirits Podcast. Just a short episode today, but we're going to talk again about spiritual manipulation.

I feel like there's a lot of people today, not just the guys on TV, but even in real life, there are people who will claim, you know,

God spoke to me, or I got some new fresh revelation. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to manipulate you.

They're trying to either get your money, they're trying to pull rank, like, I'm way up here and you're way down here.

And I'm going to play a clip of Kenneth Copeland. I mean, he's him and Benny Hinn are like the, you know, master manipulators.

They claim fresh revelations from God and they met with God and Jesus or an angel came and visited me in my hotel room.

And they're just claiming this stuff all the time. And of course they're doing that to puff themselves up to make these outlandish claims to try to, you know, intimidate people and manipulate them into giving them their money.

And it works. It's, it's big business. So let's just play the clip and I'll explain to you why people, and again, even in real life in your personal life, someone that might claim to you that God told me this,

God spoke to me. This is spiritual manipulation and I'm going to explain why you shouldn't listen to these people.

Watch. And, uh, it's an experience that I've never, never before or since just in a sound sleep.

Now I've, I've waked up suddenly before, but not quite like this, this time

I've had the Lord just wake me up and, and, and there's been times I'm set up in bed or something, but that time

I was sleeping on my back, which I normally never do, but, oh,

I was so sound asleep. Certainly I just, but I didn't raise up.

I just raised my head like that. And when I did, there was Jesus at the foot of my bed, of course in the spirit, you know, and he had this big tray of cookies.

I mean, it was such a big tray of cookies. It was an arm. This tray was this big. And usually somebody with a tray of cookies is smiling.

He wasn't frowning, but he's stern. He said, have a cookie.

Well, I didn't know what to say, I had no idea what to say. He said, your response is,

I believe I will, I take it, I have it,

I forgive, no,

I thank you for it. I forgive. Yes. And he's gone. Okay. So why are they doing this?

Because they want to exalt themselves as the man of God. In the old

Testament, the term man of God was a term reserved for the prophets.

Now in the new Testament, even though people don't use the term, it's kind of a red flag.

Sometimes if someone calls himself, if a preacher calls himself the man of God, like typically that's not a great sign, but technically it is a legit term in the new

Testament. You know, Timothy was the man of God. So pastors are the man of God today, biblically speaking in the old

Testament, the term man of God is the prophet. Now here's the thing. If God speaks to you, you legitimately are a prophet.

Like if God spoke to me, which I don't believe God is doing that in this age, but if God did speak to me, that would make me a prophet.

So you know, Elijah, he was the man of God. God spoke to him. And basically in the old

Testament, you had two offices. Well, there's three great offices, prophet, priest, and King, but the two offices of intercessor were the prophet and the priest.

So God is up here. The prophet and the priest are in between God and the people who are down here.

So the communication either went up or it went down. So with the prophet,

God would speak to the man of God and he would give the message to the people.

So the communication was going down, but because God spoke to the man, he was a prophet.

He was God's mouthpiece. Now with the priest, the people would go to the priest with their prayers and petitions and they would give it to the priest and the priest would pray to God.

So the communication was going up, but with the prophet, it's going down. This is what Kenneth Copeland and people today are trying to do.

They're trying to exalt themselves that I am the man of God. I am a prophet.

Jesus comes and visits me in my bedroom at night. I mean, you saw it. That's what he claimed.

And because they are in this exalted position, as soon as people believe that, as soon as someone buys into that, now this man cannot be questioned.

So if he says, do this, you know, if he says, jump, you need to say how high and no matter what he claims, if he says, okay, everybody, you need to tithe your whole paycheck.

Of course, it'd be more than a tithe, right? Doesn't matter. Just do what I say. You need to give your whole paycheck next week because I need a brand new private jet.

Hey, you wonder how some of these guys can get away with this, but he's the man of God. Remember? So it's all about manipulation.

If they can get people to believe them, that they are God's man, uh, then they can pretty much do whatever they want.

We did a video a little while back about John Lindell and Mark Driscoll, right?

Touch not the Lord's anointed and he pretty much flat out said, you are not allowed to criticize me.

You know us, you know, we prophets, we, you know, these charismatic preachers who claim to hear directly from God, we are

God's anointed. We have a special anointing now in the Bible. Every true

Christian is anointed, but in their corrupt system, only the prophets are only the special preachers.

You know, they had this special anointing. You're not allowed to question them. So this is again, manipulation.

And if you know somebody in your personal life who says, hey,

God spoke to me, God gave me a message to give to you. That is manipulation. Now, maybe you said, well, how do you know that?

Maybe they're sincere. Well, they're sincerely wrong then because either God is speaking to them and they are a true prophet.

And I just have a hard time believing that, you know, your neighbor Tom next door who goes to the local assemblies of God church,

I have a hard time believing he's a true prophet. You know, there's Elijah, Isaiah, Moses, and Tom, you know, sorry,

I don't buy into that. So, but these are the options. Either he's a true prophet or he claims that God is speaking to him when

God really isn't speaking to him at all. But why would he claim that if God isn't, I mean, think about that. Why would somebody say,

God spoke to me and God told me this? Why would they say that if God didn't speak to them?

Well, they're trying to manipulate you in some way. They're trying to manipulate somebody.

Deuteronomy 18 talks about this, the prophet who presumes to speak a word of my name, which

I have not commanded him to speak. I mean, that prophet shall die under the law of Moses. This was a capital crime.

Think of trying to impersonate a police officer that can get, that can get you thrown in jail. I mean, that's a serious thing to impersonate a police officer.

Well, under the law of Moses, at least in the old Testament, if you try to impersonate a prophet, you know, cause

God actually spoke to Moses. God actually spoke to certain people throughout history and very small number of people.

But if you try to impersonate a prophet and said, no, no, God told me this. God spoke to me. God told me that you're imitating a prophet.

According to God's law, you should be put to death. These people doing that today are thankful.

They don't live in old Testament Israel and I don't know how often that was carried out, but that's what the

Bible says. And so again, this is very important because I just feel like it's definitely being done on TV.

People are scamming all day long trying to get your money, but it's being done even in real life.

People trying to manipulate you to get your money or to get you to do something they want you to do.

And I've heard of cases where this has happened. God spoke to me. He gave me a message and here's the message that I'm giving you from God and it's trying to get you to do something or trying to get you to not do something.

What is that? They're trying to manipulate you by pulling the God card and it's just, it needs to be called out.

Okay. One more clip here. Here is a Priscilla Shire, another very famous, charismatic preacher.

She's preached for Joel Osteen. She's the daughter of Tony Evans. You may know her from the movie, the war room.

I think it is. She's also an actress preacher. She claims that basically the way she describes it, the

Bible is just, you know, the Bible. Okay. The Bible is good and what pastors do is good, but you know, the

Bible is hand me down revelation. Like the Bible is God's revelation. Yeah.

But like everyone has the Bible, we should desire new, fresh revelation directed solely at me.

I want fresh revelation just for me. Watch what she says. I've been okay with hand -me -downs with secondhand clothes all of these years, but all of a sudden

I wanted my own stuff. I wanted something to come with my name on it that had specifically been chosen for me.

There ought to come a time in your relationship with the Lord where hand -me -down revelation just doesn't do it for you anymore.

There ought to come a time in your relationship with the Lord when hand -me -down revelation just doesn't cut it anymore.

Let me ask you the obvious question. Is the Bible quote unquote hand -me -down revelation then according to the way she's describing hand -me -down revelation?

Yeah. You bet it is. Now we thank

God for our pastors and our teacher. Of course we do. We thank God. Is there a butt in there?

I'm just wondering because if there's a butt, it's going to erase it. And our leaders that help us to rightly divide the word of truth, but there ought to -

But, but, you see, we thank God for our pastors, but, listen again.

Word of God from someone else to you. Now we thank God for our pastors and our teachers and our leaders that help us to rightly divide the word of truth, but there ought to come a time in your life where you've decided, you know what?

I want fresh revelation with my name on it. I want fresh revelation. Where in the

Bible does it say you need to expect fresh revelation with your name on it?

It has come straight from God's spirit for my life. Okay.

Now, think about that. The Bible is hand -me -down revelation, like, oh, forget the

Bible. I want God to speak directly to me. Well, I mean, number one, you're going to be waiting a long time, okay, because God isn't doing that today.

We already went over that. If he was, that would make you a prophet, and no, not every person is a prophet.

So God is not going to give new fresh revelations to her or anybody else for that matter.

So what's the - and we'll just end with this. What's the underlying assumption? The Bible is boring, and I think that's really what it boils down to with a lot of these, a lot of these people.

They think the Bible is boring. I actually had a person tell me this. They were like, oh, you follow the Bible? One person called the

Bible the dead letter. You need to follow the spirit. So you're following the

Bible, that's religion, that's legalistic. You need to follow, you know, quote unquote, the spirit.

And what they meant is you need to seek the voice of God. You need to hear from God, the

Holy Spirit, and basically it's follow your heart. If you get a feeling about something, that's

God speaking to you. If you get a thought and you run with it, that's revelation.

And that's what they're saying. You have to go with that. Go with your gut. Go with your spirit. Go with your own thoughts and your own opinions.

Follow the spirit. That's how they defined it, really. Because the Bible, it's just,

Bible's just, well, you get called a legalist when you actually try to follow the

Bible. So you just have to watch out and you'll see this with these people. Yeah, you have a religious spirit, you know,

Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, Todd White, a lot of these charismatic preachers, they'll do that.

If you're actually trying to like opening the Bible and preaching the Bible and say, hey, that's wrong because the Bible says, you know, you quote a verse, they'll say that, oh, this person has a religious spirit, you know, a critical, that's legalism.

And you got to follow the Holy Spirit. And I'm just here to tell you that's all total nonsense.

But unfortunately, that type of stuff has gone mainstream. One more time. What is it?

It is spiritual manipulation. These people don't want you opening the Bible and testing all things.

Why? Because it'll expose them. So we got to keep doing it. So much the more. Okay, 1

John 4, verse 1, test the spirits, brethren. Why? Because many false prophets have gone out into the world.