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church, deception, discerning the spirits, Ecumenism, evil spirits, exhortation, experience, fake love, false spirits, feeling, God's love, knowing God, love, Nicky Gumbel, obedience, Satan, sin, the devil
Picture source http://www.datekoupdatekar.com/blog/fake-world-fake-people
God knows how often since October last year I asked Him when this series about discerning the spirits finally would be over. However, I never got a direct response from Him. Instead, He taught me consistently new lessons about dangerous spirits that look so innocent and “holy” on the outside. If this kind of teaching was only a “mind thing”, that would be no problem at all. But God always lets me FEEL those evil spirits, meanwhile even before I meet them. Brothers and sisters, that is not fun!! Yet I believe it must be important to God that we learn to merely listen to His voice and to keep ignoring those other seducing spirits that approach us every day.
Well, that kind of spirit I pointed to in my headline is one of the most dangerous spirits because many people believe this is indeed the Holy Spirit. You can see this kind of spirit somehow freewheeling through Christianity and you can watch people getting happy and merry about knowing “god” through this certain spirit. What are his characteristics then?
(1) The spirit of false unity causes people to never take a stand for the truth. Instead, he seems to be acting according to Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer where He prayed “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (Jn 17:21 ESV) That is quite tricky, indeed. You can watch efforts of ecumenism not only in mainline churches, but also on a personal level in home churches, and even on the internet. This spirit tries to create oneness of mind and/or heart between people by ignoring that Jesus told us, “I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” (Jn 17:9 ESV) It is not about making more and more people “one” in a sense human reason understands it. Actually, divine oneness with God and Jesus requires having received eternal life by Jesus before (cf. Jn 17:3). This gift eventually enables us to “know” (read love) God and Christ through our own spirits who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And if God puts us together with someone who has received the same eternal life we have, more and more perfect oneness between these believers will be the outcome. Alas, mere human efforts of ecumenism and of trying to become “one” with others avoid God’s intervention here. If we cannot wait on God, which is indeed quite difficult at times, we might be tempted to create oneness as we see fit by seeking to find some proper people with who we could become one. Whether we feel drawn toward them by our feelings (heart level) or if we simply agree on certain doctrinal issues (mind level), believe it or not, that is mere human stuff and an area where the devil is at work.
(2) Are there different kinds of “love”? Yes, indeed, there are. Perfect agape love is never man-made and we may not confuse it with being touched on a human level when we see someone is hurting to a certain degree. What I meant by “fake love” in the headline was a love that keeps giving and reaching out to others by ignoring the truth. Since there is only one truth (Jesus Christ as The Truth), it should be quite clear that there are not many contradicting truths that could be reconciled through what we call “love” (or our emotions in this case). If there is only one truth, then there are not two, nor three, or even more. The fact that there is so much division in churches and between Christians has to do with the fact that people have become used to listening to spirits of division instead of listening to God. This whole confusion in churchianity has been Satan’s work alone; in fact, he is very good at it. In contrast, the love of God is a much different thing as the apostle John told us here.
“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” (1 Jn 5:2-3 ESV)
I am sure that John did not ignore those of us who stumble into sin and repent; he knew that we do such things at times (1 Jn 2:1). However, John, and Jesus before him, made it very clear that the love of God that should be seen by the world consists of both loving our brothers and sisters AND keeping His commandments which God has enabled us to keep, of course (see Phil 2:13). If we, then, try to become one with others who obviously ignore, let’s say only one of His commandments, do we think that God will truly encourage such a friendship or even fellowship with them? 🙄
I will close this article with a hopefully thought-provoking quote by Anglican vicar and Alpha Course founder Nicky Gumbel.
The same Spirit lives in the Catholics, and the Orthodox, and the Pentecostals and the Protestants, even the Anglicans have the same Holy Spirit living within them. That’s what makes us one!
“Same Spirit” does not necessarily mean the Holy Spirit, right? So, it is not a lie at first sight, yet it immediately leads to deception if we only believe what is proposed here. If someone is interested in reading more as to false unity, you could follow this link http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=17458.
Susanne, I appreciate your warning here. There are so many kinds of deceivers among us these days (2 John 1:7). How will we come to recognize all of them, for many come as angels of light who can say, “Jesus is come in the flesh,” even as “good loving Christians”? I think it all comes back to this as to how we avoid being deceived by false spirits…
Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
If we can truly see our Father AS He IS, we will also see the enemy and his minions as THEY are. I believe that as we let our Father purify our hearts through the work of the cross we are called to take up as our own as we follow Jesus, we eventually will be able to say with Jesus, “The prince of this world is come and has found nothing in me.” These kinds of sneaky spirits that are coming at us will only be seen for what they are if we are pure in our walks toward the Lord and have no hooks in our flesh that they can hang things on or grab hold of. Or as David put it,
“Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part you shall make me to know wisdom. Purge me… Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” (Ps 51:6-10, KJ2000)
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That was very well said, Michael. Thank you!
Yes, I also think if we share the purity of Christ’s light, the darkness won’t serve to confuse us any longer. Instead, we will be able to clearly see that which we now merely sense with our spiritual antennas.
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Susanne, you nailed it once again!
“…if we share the purity of Christ’s light, the darkness won’t serve to confuse us any longer. Instead, we will be able to clearly see that which we now merely sense with our spiritual antennas.”
John put it this way,
“If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1John 1:6-7, KJ2000)
These men in that link in your article that are trying with all their flesh to be one (have fellowship one with another) will not succeed unless they release their own darkness to God and embrace the Light of Christ alone instead of their own intellectual light. Our unity is always found as we abide in the LIGHT of Christ alone!
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Oh, thank you very much, Michael! 🙂
In fact, I only shared my thoughts and you come up with the proper Scripture of which I had not thought before. Amazing! Thanks again!
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I am having a very hard time to read that link you posted. I feel the anger surging up on me. Please forgive me. Most of my family is Catholic and can’t they hear? I’m DEAF!!!! 95% DEAF. And they can’t hear? Joyce Meyer? I used to love that woman and grieved over the fact that she was a wolf! I even kissed her cheek before I started to seek truth. God forgive me! I am so sorry Susanne. I am an outcast in my family anyways and have been for years. I think the only person who really understood me was my brother. And now he is dead. And the rest of my family more or less just ignore me. And yes I do love them but I can’t tell them anything. They don’t believe me. If I should happen to be in a nut ward again than you know why. LOL Sorry. That link angered me. If you want to delete this post I understand.
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I am sad to hear about your lonely position in your family, Stacey. 😦
My whole family is Roman Catholic too and I know only God can draw them to Jesus, I can’t….. Often tried, always failed in the past.
If something I read arouses anger in me, I know that there is an old wound in my heart that has to be healed, still. But that is easier said than done, i.e., waiting on God to finally do so.
As for this particular link, well, the man you see facing the Pope is someone to who I listened quite often on TV and, in fact, He said some good things about Jesus too. However, since he has been part of the charismatic movement, his message got more and more confused over time and I can only pray for him. Regarding the Pope, uhm well, to me he is a normal man like any other. And if people, esp. women, praise him for being closer to God than anyone, then they do so because they often long for a “good father figure” in their own lives. Just my two cents…
If someone tells me what the Pope or anyone else who is a famous Christian has said, I only listen to my heart and check whether that could have been God’s voice or not. Sometimes God speaks through them, though… However, they do not know about it because they do not know God and Jesus and they cannot discern the spirits. Therefore it is so important for us to become acquainted with God’s voice – He can speak through anyone when He wills.
Joyce Meyer, well, I think it is good to know about her painful past (having been abused by her own father) and to also discern that she has listened more and more to the wrong spirits over time. She is in my prayers, too.
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Stacey, I just found a quote from Ossie Chambers in one of my blog posts where he referred to those saddening experiences we need to go through when we have trusted in people more than in God. Eventually, we will see them as they are without putting them on a pedestal any longer… and then unconditional love may begin. ❤ If you’re interested, the link to that article is beneath the quote.
“Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens— if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God, and in what God’s grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.”
The End of Illusions or… Should We Trust Anyone?
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Even within a single traditional church, so-called “unity” exists only because the people have surrendered their freedoms and inheritances to a hireling. The last such church we went to, was a huggy-kissy bunch before and after the service, while at the same time, were the most gossipy and manipulative bunch of people I’ve ever tried to fellowship with. The huggy-kissy stuff was responsible for giving Karen and I a nasty virus last winter (locally called “the creeping crud”) that came back twice over the course of 3 months before it was finally gone. That in and of itself strongly suggests a spirit other than love and unity was at work there – when it resulted in 3/4 of the congregation getting sick.
So last week I was writing a friend about what it means to be “in Jesus name”, where His name (Greek: onoma) is the very person, character and authority of Jesus. Some people say “in your name” like it’s an incantation or invocation that makes holy whatever work of the flesh they’re striving to complete. Realistically, to be “in Jesus name” means to be in Jesus Himself, which is only possible when we are crucified with and in Christ – our flesh must be crucified. Where the flesh rises up, it opposes the Holy Spirit, so oneness is not possible where the flesh exalts itself.
Galatians 5:17 ESV “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”
Karen and I took some lumps before we figured out the love and unity in that church wasn’t real … the only way we figured it out, is there was always a bitter after-taste. It seemed authentic on the surface – but then, in a church situation, it only has to fool a person for an hour or 2 and where everyone is silenced by religious tradition, we only encountered it before and after the service where it seemed genuine. Where it began to show itself was outside the services, in business meetings, during gossipy lunches,competitions over who would lead music, etc.
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Eek!! What a nasty experience you and Karen had to go through, Jack! 😛
Nonetheless, I am grateful that your testimony illustrated my theoretical approach above. Thank you for sharing your hard-earned insights on here.
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Sometimes with the things you write, Susanne, I feel like your comedic ‘straight man’ … 😀
What was so humbling about all of that, is that we’d been out of the institutional church for nearly 15 years before we moved cross-country and He sent us back to an IC for a few months. Our recovery this time has been much faster than the initial coming out – still it showed us that it is not so much about what we’ve learned, but about leaning on Him, listening for Him, etc. We got in trouble because we assumed (wrongly) that because He had led us there, it was all good …
In hindsight, God answered our prayer for a friend for Karen the 1st Sunday we were there. It’s funny how symbolic that all was – when we were seated, Karen sat to my right, and the woman God had given to be Karen’s friend for breaking bread, prayer, etc., sat in the chair to my left. She’s a tiny gal and sat on the half of the chair nearest to me, sort of leaning into me. I thought maybe she was cold and large as I am, I’m a human furnace … or perhaps I’ve gotten so large that small people get caught in my gravitational orbit … anyway, sitting between Mary and Karen, I introduced them – more or less put Karen’s hand in Mary’s then stepped out of the way and they’ve been the best of friends since. We didn’t really need to go after that 1st Sunday, but we assumed we were supposed to continue there.
It was in making assumptions of God and His will that proved to be our undoing.
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“…comedic ‘straight man’…” 🙂
Indeed, Jack, sometimes we learn quicker through our bad experiences because they can serve as a wake-up call from our spiritual slumber.
I am glad Karen found a good friend in Mary!
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And most times I sat alone unless Ceaser found me and he was a challenged but sweet kid.
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Ceaser? 🙄
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Well that gets me thinking. The Methodist / Presbyterian (yes it is both) building I was going to. Some thing did feel odd at first. Like I had to come home and pray after each service as something didn’t feel right. That feeling did go away after a few months. Although I feel farther from GOD then I did before I started going. Any way the best part of that service was when I felt love was during the pacing the peace ( giving every one a hand shake and greeting every one) and also I felt some love after the service during the cookies and coffee stuff. I think in a conversation with Michael I had mentioned this. I can not remember what he had said about it though.
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I know that “pacing the peace” thing too, Fred, even in the Roman Catholic church it has become a habit. The main problem is that we indeed might have encounters with people who are honest and open AND let us feel some love, BUT if they regularly attend these churches and submit to another authority than Christ (priest, pastor, elder), the love experienced cannot grow when the Holy Spirit is not in it. That applies in particular if the church’s teachings contradict the Bible (for example regarding tithes that belong to the Old Covenant, not to the New Covenant).
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Well, Fred, the reason you felt better during the parts where people were being friendly instead of the institutional “service” is that the kingdom of God is a family, not an institution. It is organic and not a machine that is programmed to function by the man with the title… the paid Christian. When we are with a group of people who are yielded in the Spirit to God it much better yet, as HE orchestrates the will of God and His love flows between us.
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You are right Susanne. I probably do still have some old wounds that needs healing. Especially towards my childhood memories and a couple of others. I love people as a whole but do not ever want to put anyone on a pedestal again. Jesus has to be my focus. I have this darling 5 yr. old granddaughter lying next to me and she is just so pretty! I count myself as being blessed to love my kids and knowing that even when my daughter when she was very young was smart enough to ask questions in “catechism” class that the teachers thought she was disruptive. A priest mentioned it to me as we were leaving and I asked my daughter what were her questions? It had to do with communion. I agreed with her and we never went back. It has been an interesting journey.
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The URL at the end of Susanne’s article, appears to be an apologetic web site. The author’s summation of the speech given at the Alpha conference identifies several concerns (alarms) he has with the statements made by the speaker. I, too, would be concerned with them, especially the one Susanne quoted; in fact, when I read it, I asked myself “what spirit” for in this world, there are many, the nastiest of which is the anti-Christ spirit.
Perhaps the spirit the speaker referred to is what Paul called the “spirit of slavery” (Romans 8:15) or the “spirit of stupor” (Romans 11:8) or perhaps the “spirit of the world” (1 Corinthians 2:12). Most likely, however, it’s probably “D) All of the Above!” The speech really doesn’t come as a surprise to me, since the spirit of anti-Christ has been consolidating control over the religious natures of men since the beginning.
Karen and I were once fans of Joyce Meyer, until the Lord led us out of man’s church. During a conference in Rockford, Illinois, about 2001, she told the crowd something like “if that old dead church you’re going to is not feeding you, but you’re being fed by my ministry, then you owe me your tithe”. At the time, the Lord had been exposing the false tithe doctrine during our morning devotional time, so Joyce’s comments really angered me. We walked out on her mid-speech and haven’t listened to her since. I have the same reaction whenever I see her name in print.
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Yes, it is an apologetic website, Jack. And I do understand such angry reactions. I remember having heard a lot of “evil-spirited” stuff from Joyce Meyer and I sensed it got worse the more famous, powerful, and rich she became. However, on the other hand, I could never forget her childhood drama (abused by her own father) and thus I still feel compassion ALTHOUGH that does not mean I trust her and her twisted teachings in any way.
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It occurs to me that man’s traditional church is already in unity. I experienced it first hand when, after the Lord led me out, I tried to arrange concerts in them, but none would admit me because I wasn’t a member of a church. Their first question was always “what church do you belong to”. A group of us tried to form a guild of singer-songwriters who were outside the camp of religion (Hebrews 13:13-14), dedicated not only to performing our original songs, but also arranging non-church concert venues and hosting other musicians where we lived. It seemed like a great idea, except that the local churches would not endorse our concerts. Their “unity” is like that of the mafia. “If you wanna get in, kid, knock tree times on da door and when Bruno asks ya’s, da password is “tithe ’til it hoits”. 😉 😆
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Yes, indeed, Jack, it is the same if you want to publish a Christian book. If you do not belong to them, nobody wants to read it, they believe. In particular, they are not interested in people who truly know the Living God because these believers do not NEED churches. Therefore they are dangerous and should be avoided no matter what. Risk of contagion! 😛
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Hey I work at Oral Roberts University and they are Pentecostal and I have told them that I do not see things the way they do–they do not fuss at me but they do listen to me and I just tell and show them who Jesus is and how He works–I am so glad that when I was unsaved I was not in to organized religion.
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Great, Ken! Indeed, you work where the devil spreads his poison and don’t get affected. So, it must be the Lord who protects you. I have Pentecostals as my neighbors – that is no prob, either, since here are either Catholics or Pentecostals only. 😉 It is always good to know that it is never the person who is our enemy, but the unseen spirit that “drives” them.
I am glad they listen to you, Ken. Take care!
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