Review
Last time we learned how to recognize someone who is against Christ or antichrist.
People who are against Christ depart from the essential doctrines or beliefs of the church concerning Jesus Christ. Though they may have started with Christ on their mind, they leave without the person of Christ ever having penetrated their heart.
If you would ask the Jehovah’s Witness if they believe in Jesus, they would say, “Yes, I believe in Jesus.”
If you would ask the Mormon does he believe in Jesus, he would answer, “Yes, I believe in Jesus.”
If you would ask the Muslim does he believe in Jesus, he would reply in the affirmative.
However, each of these religions have created Jesus after their own imagination and not according to the Bible.
Jehovah’s Witnesses believe:
When it came time for the savior to be born, Michael the Archangel became a human, in the form of Jesus. Jesus grew and kept all the laws of God and never sinned. Finally, when Jesus died, it was not on a cross, but on a torture stake, where he bore the sins of mankind -- but this did not include Adam's sins. Jesus rose from the dead as a spirit, not physically (his body was dissolved and taken by God) and during his visitations to people on earth, he manifested a temporary physical body for them to see and touch.
Mormon’s believe:
In the Mormon plan of salvation there needed to be a savior: Jesus. But Jesus was a spirit in heaven. For him to be born on earth, instead of letting any other man do it, they teach that god the father came down and had relations with Mary, his spirit daughter, to produce the body of Jesus. Jesus was born, got married, and had children.2 He died on the cross and paid for sins -- but not on the cross only. According to Mormonism, the atonement of Christ was not only on the cross; it began in the Garden of Gethsemane before he went to the cross.
The Muslim believes…
In the supreme idea that Muhammad is Allah's prophet. But they also acknowledge that several prophets preceded Muhammad. The major ones are Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus. Jesus, then, was simply one of many prophets according to Islam. Therefore, they deny the Christian doctrine of the deity of Jesus, the need for His atoning sacrifice. According to Islam, no sacrifice is needed to be forgiven, only faith in Allah, sincere repentance, and obedience to Islamic law.
Believe it or not, these aren’t the major kinds of false teachers and teachings the church is warned to be aware of. These religions propagate false teachings outside of the fellowship of believers. What the church is warned to look out for are false teachers who would slip into the church and rise up from among the fellowship of believers.
When Paul exhorted the elders of the church of Ephesus he had this to say:
Acts 20:27 "…I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.
Acts 20:28 "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.
Acts 20:29 "For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
Acts 20:30 "Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.
Acts 20:31 "Therefore watch…”
Peter warned the churches in Asia Minor:
2 Pet 2:1 …. there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.
2 Pet 2:2 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.
2 Pet 2:3 By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.
Later in chapter 4 of 1st John, John writes:
1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
We will take our text for today from 2 Peter 2:10-11. For the context we will read verse 1-9:
2 Pet 2:1 - But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.
2 Pet 2:2 - And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.
2 Pet 2:3 - By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.
Peter begins to introduce his readers to the characteristics of false teachers.
* They secretly bring in destructive heresies. (vs. 1)
* The deny the Lord who bought them (vs. 1)
* Many will follow their destructive ways (vs. 2)
* By them the truth is blasphemed (vs. 2)
* They aim to exploit the children of God (vs. 3)
In verses 4-6 Peter tells us that just as sure as God judged the false teachers of the past, He will surely judge the false teachers of his day.
In verses 7-9 Peter encourages his readers that as God delivered His children from the false teachers of the past, He will deliver His children from the false teachers of the present.
God has called the pastor-teacher to shine His light on false teachers and their teachings. If I as a pastor don’t shine the light on the false teachers of our day I am not fulfilling my ministry as a Shepherd.
In fact, the church as a whole is charged by Scripture to make note of those who spread doctrine contrary to what is written in Scripture.
Rom 16:17 Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them.
Paul’s argument for the purity of the Gospel is stronger than Peter’s:
Gal 1:6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,
Gal 1:7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
Gal 1:8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
Gal 1:9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
In 2 Peter 2:10-11 we are taught five characteristics of the false teacher.
False teachers indulge the flesh. 2 Peter 2:10 says they, “…walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness…”
The word “walk” is the Greek word (poreuomai- por-yoo'-om-ahee) that means, “to proceed along a road, to go on a journey.” It speaks of the act of leading or ordering one’s life.
The Greek word for word “walk” that we are familiar with is peripateo, which means, “to order one’s behavior.” The word “walk in verse 10 has to do with pursuing a course of action. (Wuest)
These false teachers, according to Peter, walk according to the flesh. That is, they pursue a course of action that is in accordance with their totally depraved nature. It isn’t the Spirit of God who leads them, it is their only fleshly desires.
The word “uncleanness” is the same word used in verse 20 to refer to the corruption or pollution of the world. The false teacher described in verse 10 is having intercourse with the world’s system. Their ungodly ways are more characteristic of the world than one who professes to know and serve God.
Rom 16:17 Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them.
The Bible teaches that the message of the Cross is foolishness to the world of unbelievers (1 Corinthians 1:18). You can go out on the Internet and find all kinds of people and their writings that teach that the message of the Cross is foolishness.
One characteristic of false teachers is how they malign the faith; they make jokes of and ridicule sound doctrine. Listen as I read a quote from a very popular teacher who denies the doctrine of the depravity of man:
“Now whether you like it or not, whether you want to admit it or not, whether you want to operate on it or not, you are made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Most people who go to denominational churches never ever hear that! They never hear it! Never! All I was ever taught to say was, ‘I, a poor, miserable sinner.’ I am not poor. I am not miserable. And I am not a sinner. That is a lie from the pit of hell! That is what I was [sic] and if I still was, then Jesus died in vain. Amen?”
This quote was taken from Joyce Meyer. Now, Meyer may be telling the truth when she says she is not poor and not miserable but 1st John 1:8 would disqualify the rest of her comments about not being a sinner. Even Paul thought himself to be the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).
As Christians we are, after all, saved sinners. The Bible teaches in Romans 3:10, “there is none righteous, no not one.” We have righteousness imputed (credited) to us through the death of Jesus Christ. It is not our righteousness; it is God’s as Paul clearly teaches:
2 Cor 5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Meyer’s comments point out the real issue: She clearly attacks the theology of the Reformers.
Let me say before I go any further, I’m not saying I don’t like Joyce Meyers; she seems to be a nice person. What I am saying is some of her teaching is false. If I were to say that “I like Joyce Meyer as a person” what I am saying is I like her television persona because I really don’t know her. I like the image she projects on TV; I like the way she talks. I like her use of the English language. Most of you are like me; you like what you see on TV but neither of us know her personally.
When Jim Bakkar was on TV, I liked the image he projected on TV but I did not know what was going on behind the scenes at Heritage. This is why we must take an objective view on what these people believe and teach.
Romans 16:18 says, “For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.”
In 2 Tim 3:6 Paul writes of those “who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various impulses…”
False teachers indulge the flesh. That is, they pursue a course of action that is in accordance with their totally depraved nature. Their ungodly ways are more characteristic of the world than one who professes to know and serve God.
False teachers despise authorities. 2 Peter 2:10 also says they, “…despise authority…”
The word despise is made up of two Greek words, “kata – “down” and phroneo – “to feel, think and have understanding.” It literally means, “to think a thing down.” We say, “look down our noses at things.” The word means, “to disdain, think little or nothing of, to condemn.”
Authority is the word that means “dominion, power or lordship.” We can interpret this statement to mean that false teachers either or both despise the lordship of Christ or any authority but themselves.
It is interesting that when televangelist Jimmy Swaggert was caught in a motel room with a prostitute, his unwillingness to submit to church authority caused his key supporters to withdraw their sponsorship. Swaggart was told to take a leave of absence from his ministry, he refused the order, believing Jimmy Swaggart Ministries could not survive without its star.
Many false teachers believe that they have this personal “connection” or “pipeline” to God. Thus they receive counsel from no one but “Gawd.”
When what they believe isn’t in the Scriptures, they can easily defer to some “new revelation” they received from God. Some of their followers are so gullible they will not contest it even if they cannot find it in the Bible.
Another way that false teachers despise authority is subtler than what we have just discussed. They “take God as hostage” to their interpretations of His Word or force God to comply with how they interpret His Word.
A favorite expression in the Word Faith movement is "positive confession."
It refers to the Word of Faith teaching that says your words will create; they have creative power. They say, "What you say you create!" So if you believe it strongly enough to speak it, you'll create it.
You will create your riches.
You will create your health.
You will get out of your wheelchair.
They say your positive confession determines everything that happens to you. Your confessions, based upon your faith in faith, will bring things to pass, and God has to act because it is a law. Whether you are a Christian, Jewish, or Non-Christian it's going to work.
Kenneth Hagin writes,
"You can have what you say. You can write your own ticket with God. And the first step in writing your own ticket with God is: Say it."
What they are trying to do is to get you to say it, and say it, and say it, and say it, until you finally convince yourself you believe it. And then supposedly once your saying it becomes believing it, you will create it. Hagin says:
“If you talk about your trials, your difficulties, your lack of faith, your lack of money--your faith will shrivel and dry up. But, bless God, if you talk about the Word of God, your lovely Heavenly Father, and what He can do--your faith will grow by leaps and bounds.”
In his little booklet called "How To Write Your Own Ticket With God," Hagin's supposedly inspired four-point sermon is:
Say it, do it, receive it, and tell it.
Hagin claims Jesus told him, "If anybody, anywhere, will take these four steps or put these four principles into operation, he will always have whatever he wants from Me or God the Father."
Write your own ticket! God is held hostage to someone’s self-centered interpretation of His Word. This is another way of despising authority.
Connected with this characteristic, Peter writes that:
False teachers are characterized by brazen arrogance. “…They are presumptuous, self-willed…” They seem to have a super confidence. But it's not holy boldness. It's brazen arrogance. There is a difference.
There are those in the Charismatic movement who believe that people today can have the same gifts that the Apostles have...Benny Hinn is sort of the prototypical healer today. But it started out with men like Oral Roberts, Morris Cerullo, and Jimmy Swaggart.
Benny Hinn is one of most notable in a group of people who believe that they can do what the Apostles did: they have the power to heal, the power to cast out disease.
In a televised event Benny Hinn said that "if you have somebody in your family die. Leave their body in the living room, take their body over to the TV, drape their arms over the TV, because God is going to use me to raise the dead through the television!"
Dr. John MaArthur says “There is a cruelty that goes along day after day, week after week, with this bizarre expectation of healing, and then this false staging of supposed healings, that continue to raise people's hopes. All that does is create false hopes that are dashed to pieces. And much of the fallout of that movement is people who reject the gospel, reject Christ, because they didn't get what they were promised they would get.”
There are also those people who sell and work the trade, particularly in the media. They are very effective at raising millions of dollars.
One such preacher, T. D. Jakes, alone took in, personally, in 2000, 63 million dollars! They are trading on the desperation of hundreds of thousands of people. That's why Jesus, when He sent out the Seventy, said, "go and heal, but take no money." (Luke 10:4, 9)
Jesus, if anyone, had the opportunity to make millions off of the people. He was the real deal. He did heal people. He did make the blind see. He did raise the dead. But Jesus says in Luke 9:58, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
When people came to hear Jesus speak, He fed them and they had food to take home. When people come to hear many of the teachers of our day, they have to fill the teacher’s pockets. Some teachers won’t even come to speak at your event unless you can guarantee them a certain amount. Something is wrong!
Jesus wasn’t concerned with accumulating a lot of money. After He was crucified and when it came time for Him to be buried, He had to be buried in a borrowed tomb.
Some of these false teachers have the brazen arrogance to tell you to sow into their ministries and if you sow God will multiply your gift by 100.
Someone has said, had Martin Luther, considered to be the father of the reformation movement known today as Protestantism, been alive in today’s day and age he would probably have been posting a second thesis on the doors of The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in protest of the principle of salvation for a buck.
What the Catholic Church was doing in the 16th century is exactly what the tele-evangelical community is doing today… running a business in the name of forgiveness and God.
In 1999, R.W. Shambach prophesied that if people make the $2000 faith pledge to TBN, not only will God give them the $2000 before the year 2000 but he will also make them totally debt free AND their WHOLE family will be saved before the year 2000. (TBN. Wed, 03-Nov-1999 16:50:58 GMT) People were promised salvation without ever having to turn away from their sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Just put your faith in your faith and in TBN. They'll do all the work for you.
This community runs a $2.5 billion dollar industry that focuses on selling books, tapes and magazines, selling ‘love gifts’, financing massive mailing campaigns and buying more airtime to send their message to a wider audience. And what happens to all the money that is collected? One example is the 5 million dollar, three-storied, nearly 9,500-square-foot house that boasts an elevator, a tennis court, six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a billiard room, a climate-controlled wine cellar, a sweeping staircase and a pool with a fountain. Who owns this ‘palatial estate with ocean and city views’? Paul and Jan Crouch, the owners of the same TBN that begs viewers to continue sending money so that they can keep doing their “evangelical work”.
Benny Hinn stayed at the Kahala Mandarin in the presidential suite that costs $3,700-$5,000 a night during his ‘Miracle Crusade’ in Hawaii in Jan 2002. When He goes to Maui (he speaks at First Assembly headed by Pastor Morocco) he stays at the Grand Wailea in the $10,000 suite.
The Bible does not condemn the accumulation of wealth nor does it condemn those who have it and use it for righteous purposes. (Abraham, among a few others, was a man of substance) It does however condemn fraud and taking a false oath. When these tele-evangelists make extravagant promises about God repaying the “offerings” 100 fold, not only are they making fraudulent claims but they are also signing a promissory note on God’s behalf; a promissory note, incidentally, that neither they nor any man have the right to sign. Let me be very clear, no one has the right to make promises on the Lord's behalf, other than those He makes himself in His word.
False teachers indulge the flesh.
False teachers despise authorities
False teachers are characterized by brazen arrogance
False teachers do not have proper respect for Satan and the demonic world. They are not afraid to slander celestial beings like the devil and his demons. We are not talking about a trembling fear of Satan and his power, but a healthy respect for his, considering that there is no one on earth that can take him out except for God.
Many of these false teachers live under a strange and bizarre doctrine that they never articulate, but it is definitive in the movement, and it is the doctrine of the "Sovereignty of Satan." It is inherent to that system to believe that Satan is sovereign--not God.
God would like people to be saved but He is not sovereign in salvation.
God would like to keep people saved but He can't, so people can get unsaved on their own.
God would like to solve the problems in the world but the devil keeps messing things up.
People in that movement are taught that when you get sick: it's the devil. When you little baby gets sick: it's the devil. When you lose your job: it's the devil. When it's announced to you that you have heart disease or you have cancer, or you have some other problem; when one of your children goes astray, whatever it is: it's the devil.
And so, you are living, literally, under the sovereignty of Satan in a mode of constant fear; the devil is under every rock, so you're always trying to "bind Satan;" you're always trying to cast out demons.
As a result of this false teaching there are parents who can't sleep, who live with anxieties and fears that the devil is going to come in and make their baby sick at night. Or the devil is going to get in their house, and they have to pray the devil out, or the demons out of their house, or bind Satan some way. This is utterly unbiblical.
We as believers have nothing to fear from Satan, in the ultimate sense. It is God Himself who has made the blind and the lame, it says in the Book of Exodus.
Exo 4:11 So the LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the LORD?
False teachers have no more spiritual perception than the animals. 2 Peter 2:12 – “But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption…”
In the 80’s Benny Hinn prophesied,
The Spirit tells me, Fidel Castro will die in the 90's. Oh my. Some will try to kill him and they will not succeed. But there will come a change in his physical health, and he will not stay in power; and Cuba will be visited by God. (tape recording on file)
Fidel Castro is still alive (as of the writing of this message). This was a false prophecy. Note Deuteronomy 18:20:
But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. (see also Hebrews 13:8 and James 1:17).
Benny Hinn also gave this “prophesy:”
The Lord also tells me to tell you in the mid 90's, about 94, 95, no later than that, God will destroy the homosexual community of America. But He will not destroy it with what many minds have thought Him to be. He will destroy it with fire. And many will turn and be saved, and many will rebel and be destroyed. (tape recording on file)
The homosexual community was not destroyed, and continues to be a strong wicked influence in America.
Hinn will be among the many of Matthew 7:22-23.
Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'
We’re talking about false teachers who have no more spiritual perception than animals.
In the November 1996 issue of Charisma T.D. Jakes spoke of people who have “failed to appreciate their divinity.”6 The word is derived from Latin (divinitatem) and means “godhead” or “the quality of being divine.” Divinity means that you are divine and it is a word that only fits with God.
With that in mind, please note that man is never addressed anywhere in Scripture as having divinity or being divine. I know that Jakes want to encourage the man to “be all that he can be.” But to even suggest that man is divine takes empowerment too far and is blasphemous.
In Jakes’ writings, he introduces so much in psychological terms that it is hard to cut through the thicket. It becomes hard to distinguish Freud from fact. He refers to immoral, lustful and sinful thinking as merely “little boy thoughts.” The Bible takes a stronger view and approach to mental sins and calls us to confession and the renewing of our mind. A lustful thought is as sinful as a lustful act in God’s view (Matthew 5:28-30).
Jakes refers to an adulterous man as a “frightened little boy” and a wife beater as a “terrified little boy.” The Scriptures never speak of such heinous things in such a cavalier way. If a doctor misdiagnosed a disease and called it by a different name a wrong diagnosis would lead to wrong treatment and malpractice. What T.D. Jakes is doing here is replacing the Word of God with questionable and changing psychological theory.
Lutheran pastor and radio host Don Matzat warns against the wholesale acceptance of very questionable psychological theory:
“Modern psychology is not an innocent helping-discipline that we can carelessly borrow from the kingdom of the left-hand and merge with our pastoral theology. There are theories and techniques in psychology, such as self-esteem, the encounter dynamic, and psychological mysticism, that can grossly distort Christian truth and inflict grave spiritual damage upon Christian people. ... We must carefully discern the theories and practices of modern psychology before we visit them upon the people of God.”
In his book, The Biblical View Of Self-Esteem, Self-Love, Self-Image, Dr. Jay Adams points out that:
“The self-love movement that was begun by humanistic psychologists has already had a significant impact on the church. ... You cannot simply ‘add’ the insights of this new teaching to your set of existing Christian beliefs; if you add them, you must modify or subtract many of the beliefs you already hold. ... You are choosing between two divergent views of man, his problem, and how to solve it.”
Jesus, in John 17:17, did not say, “Sanctify them by building up their self image,” He said “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”
The challenge for the Bible student is to dissect or weed through all the ear-tingling mumbo-jumbo that many of these people teach and get through to the essence of what these teachers believe about God the Father, Son and Spirit.
What do these people teach concerning salvation?
What do they believe concerning the Word of God and how God gets His message to men?
Joyce Meyer is confused when it comes to how God speaks today to His people. In the fourth chapter of her booklet, The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make Divine she claims that intervention and direct revelation are the source of her teachings. But in this booklet she teaches:
• That Jesus was born again.
• That hell, not the cross, is where salvation was purchased.
Concerning this teaching she says:
“The Bible can’t even find any way to explain this. Not really. That’s why you’ve got to get it by revelation. There are no words to explain what I’m telling you. I’ve got to just trust God that He’s putting it into your spirit like He put it into mine.”
As she foolishly appeals to divine revelation and God’s communication of the message to her personally, she now, in essence, has made God liable for leaving us a Bible that had become outdated. Thus, one must ask, why does she continue to rely upon revelation knowledge when all it is going to do is get old and outdated and replaced by newer revelation? By doing this she indicts God as the author of heresy.
And how can the average listener discern which part of Meyer’s materials are biblical truth and which are generated from her own imagination?
Here is another example of someone coming up with teachings that cannot be found in the Bible.
In his book The Harvest, T.D. Jakes writes, “Scripture teaches that receiving Christ as your personal Savior does not necessarily make you a son of God ... Just being saved does not make you a son of God, ...only those who are willing to be led by the Spirit actually realize and manifest the sonship of God.”
So in Jakes’ view, being a son is not something you are, it is only something you can opt to manifest.
If we were to believe Jakes, we would have to believe that receiving Christ and being saved are one thing and being a son of God is something entirely different that you can choose or not choose to become.
So you can be “saved” but not really saved. When you decide to be led by the Spirit you then manifest son-ship.
Let me tell you that these are not just sidebar issues concerning the Christian life—issues like whether the church is raptured before or after the tribulation. These are major doctrinal teachings they are confused about. These are major teachings of the faith that Christians are commanded to strive to keep intact:
In the book of Jude Christians are exhorted to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
We are commanded to take the faith that was handed down to the Apostles from Jesus and keep it from being contaminated. We are shining the light and exposing false teachers because the Scripture commands us to“contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Jesus prayed to His Father in John 17:17 "Sanctify (your children) by Your truth. Your word is truth.
False teachers adulterate the truth. In John chapter 8 Jesus tells us the truth is sent to set people free but false teachers pollute the truth and plunge their followers into bondage as they believe their deceptions.
For example, positive-confession encourages people to absolutely ignore their sins and deny their reality. You don't want to mention anything negative. It has produced multitudes of people who fear that a negative confession might bring them bad fortune and so they avoid confessing their sin—which is a negative confession—and their sins pile up.
This is like the Hindu view of "Karma" or some pagan concept of bad luck, i.e., "I don't want to say that or it might bring me bad luck."
Kenneth Hagin admits that he feels that way himself as he explains:
I wouldn't tell anybody if I had a doubt-thought, or a fear-thought. I wouldn't accept it. I wouldn't tell somebody if the thought came to me--and you know the devil can put all kinds of thoughts in your mind. We are a product of WORDS. Did you ever stop to think that the Bible teaches that there is a health and a healing in your tongue?
I never talk of sickness. I don't believe in sickness. I talk health. I believe in healing. I believe in health. I never talk sickness. I never talk disease. I talk healing.
I never talk failure. I don't believe in failure. I believe in success. I never talk defeat. I don't believe in defeat. I believe in winning, hallelujah to Jesus!
What he is saying is that he doesn’t confess sin. To confess sin is to confess failure; to confess failure is to confess negative words. But we are commanded to confess our sins:
1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
James 5:16 - Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed.
There is the account of one Word Faith church where the pastor rose awkwardly to instruct his congregation on a delicate matter. Some of the church members, he had heard, were spreading contagious diseases by bringing their sick babies to the nursery. Against the nursery volunteers' protests, these parents were “positively confessing” that their children were well.
Since the parents had “claimed their healing,” there was nothing to worry about. They may have been writing off those persistent whines and coughs as lying symptoms, but those lying symptoms proved to be contagious, and only an announcement from the pastor succeeded in putting an end to the problem.
Word Faith denial of diseases and problems as "lying spirits" or “demons” robs believers of an opportunity to minister with compassion and understanding to suffering people—everybody’s running around and saying, "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm well, I'm whole, I'm healed, I'm rich!"
How are you going to help somebody when nobody is allowed to talk about anything negative?
How can you help someone whose symptoms you believe are “demons” and lies from Satan--or worse, the result of a lack of faith, that anytime somebody's sick it's because they have no faith?
As a result, many followers of this teaching tend to be unfeeling, callous, indifferent, even to the point of being coarse and abrasive toward people they believe don't have enough faith to claim a healing.
I heard the story of a pastor and his wife, unable to bear children, who "were told by a member of their church that they needed to 'confess' a pregnancy and show their faith by purchasing a baby stroller and walking down the street with it!" Now, that’s coldhearted.
Some years ago Pastor John MacArthur received a heart-rending letter from a dear woman who was deceived by "positive confession" theology. She believed God wanted her to send everyone she knew a baby announcement for the child she was hoping to conceive. She was incapable of having children but she mailed all the baby announcements.
Months later she had to write to everyone again to explain that the expected "faith baby" didn't come. She was quick to add, however, that she was still claiming a pregnancy by faith, and she was fearful that someone might take her second letter as a "negative confession."
In conclusion, false teachers serve nothing more than what amounts to “junk food.” It tastes good going down but it is void of any nutritional content. Their message contains so many artificial ingredients if you don’t avoid it you will come down with spiritual cancer.
In this message I’ve only mentioned a few false teachers but many more people, perhaps some who are your favorite TV preachers, could be teaching false doctrine. How do you know?
Don’t get caught up in the charisma of the teacher; check out what they are saying about Jesus.
Check out what they are saying about authority—How many of them are without accountability and “only submit to God”?
Check out some of their arrogant statements and teachings about faith and salvation and prosperity.
Check out how they do not have a healthy respect for Satan and his demons. They are quick to say things like they can grab Satan by the throat or put him under their feet.
Check out how they can say some of the most absurd things and try to justify it with Scripture. Along with this, investigate how easily they can lift a verse from its context in order to create a spiritual principal.
Check out how they are amassing millions of dollars from the trusting and unsuspecting. Investigate where they are living and what they are driving and flying.
