deception

crystal cathedral, deception, hour of power, robert schuller

Robert Schuller – Dead today

Posted on April 3, 2015May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Robert Schuller, Crystal Cathedral megachurch, founder, dies

The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, a California televangelist and author who beamed his upbeat messages on faith and redemption to millions of followers from his landmark Crystal Cathedral only to see his empire crumble in his waning years, has died. He was 88. Schuller died Thursday at a care facility in Artesia, daughter Carol Schuller Milner said. He was diagnosed with terminal esophageal cancer in 2013.

Schuller had a bigger effect on CHristianity than many are aware. The effect was assuredly negative. Mr Schuller taught many false things, wrapped in positivity, self-esteem, and church growth strategies. Rick Warren is a spiritual child of Schuller. See links at bottom.

For now, here is a Guest Post by R. Craig Fulford in which he encapsulates my sentiments exactly. It is printed with permission

——————————————–

Today was the DOD for Robert Schuller. Many probably said, “Well now he will get what he deserves”! Or something close to that.

But my reaction was very different. I actually found myself with tears in my eyes because his death reminded me that none of us “deserve” God’s Grace and the fact that Schuller lead so many people down the road leading to destruction while knowing that Pastors are subject to even a higher standard regarding the truth means that Schuller is particularly suffering God’s wrath. And that is no cause for joy nor is it a cue for born again believers to say he deserved what he got.

It is, however, especially significant that his death occurred on the weekend that Jesus paid the price for his sins and yet Schuller never came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. To the contrary, he was one of the most heretical teachers in recent history and laid a foundation for other false teachers to follow.

So today we see an epidemic of “seeker sensitive”, universalistic, easy believism churches that teach “relativism” as the accepted norm and totally misrepresent God’s word in favor of the doctrine of “pragmatism”. And that false doctrine is not just limited to the Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. The same liberal influences have infected the traditional mainline denominations as well.

And yet another less publicized beneficiary of all of this liberal and non-Biblical heresy are those who look at what is now considered to be Christianity and understandably view it as something closely akin to the “Twilight Zone”. And who can blame them?

Biblically sound Churches are becoming almost impossible to find and many “wanna be believers” are settling for doctrines they believe are close enough. But as Spurgeon so famously said:

Schuller’s death could very well be the catalyst born again believers need to realize the spiritual consequences both our friends and even members of our family face. It’s indeed ironic that Schuller died close to three days before Jesus was resurrected. Just saying!

Schuller’s death has caused me to pray, with a new conviction, that those I know and love who are deceived and don’t realize they are, will be convicted unto regeneration by the Holy Spirit. And that God will enable me to speak to them under the control of the Holy Spirit.

I know that my efforts are not sufficient in any way shape or form. But I also know that I’m commanded, not asked, to make sure His word is heard because faith comes by hearing. The rest is up to God!

HE IS RISEN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The church is rapidly accepting occult, channeled books as divinely inspired

Posted on September 23, 2014May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

Here is a definition of automatic writing, or spirit writing from the Free Dictionary,

Writing performed without conscious thought or deliberation, typically by means of spontaneous free association or as a medium for spirits or psychic forces.

Automatic writing is the process, or product, of writing material that does not come from the conscious thoughts of the writer. It differs from inspired scripture in that in inspired scripture,

The process of inspiration was not a mechanical dictation where the apostles heard a voice and wrote down what they heard. Nor does it mean that they went into some sort of a trance and God wrote through them without their knowledge. Instead, the writers were free to write what they wanted as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In fact, the writings reflect the personality and style of the various writers. Yet, the personality and style of the writers did not degrade the quality or authority of the biblical writing.(source)

Automatic writing is Ouija Board with a pen. Some of the more remarkable things about automatic writing is that the people through which these written products emerge describe a very similar experience. No matter which millennia or decade they participate in their writings, they describe similar sensations, similar feelings, and the same process. Where I quote their descriptions of their own process, I put in bold type the similar phrases they use to describe it.

You would be surprised at how many people have produced written works of novel, poetry, plays and even music by this occult process. It is an old, old practice. I suppose because fascination with the “other side” by pagans is also a constant throughout time. It is a fascination for the Christian, too, but we are fortunate to have THE authoritative and perfect, inerrant, infallible bible. It is God’s revelation of Himself to us, and it in its entirety is profitable for reproof, correction, training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16).

For those without a relationship with God and an inability to understand the bible, they still long for eternity. So they seek it anyway, but unknowingly through satan.

Hildegarde receiving a writing,
tentacles from the other side, reaching into her brain

Hildegarde of Bingen was a Catholic mystic. (1098 – 1179). Her visions became important content for the Catholic Church and eventually were accepted as theological works. In one vision she wrote of her process, “And it came to pass … when I was 42 years and 7 months old, that the heavens were opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance flowed through my entire brain. And so it kindled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burning but warming… and suddenly I understood of the meaning of expositions of the books…”

You hear the automatic writers use the word “suddenly” quite often.

William Butler Yeats is an infamous occultist, participating in automatic writing for a decade, having been introduced to it by his wife Georgie. His famous poem Second Coming (Slouching Toward Bethlehem) was written in 1919. During the first years of his marriage, he and his wife Georgie experimented with automatic writing, and he and George contacted and were contacted by many spirits and guides they called “Instructors”. The pair also experienced flashing lights, cracking sounds and breaths of warm air as signals of the entity’s presence.

Automatic writer Rudyard Kipling said circa 1915, “My Daemon was with me in the Jungle Books, Kim, and both Puck books and good care I took to walk delicately, lest he should withdraw. I know that he did not because when those books were finished they said so themselves… When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait and obey.”

The main difference between holy inspiration of the bible writers, and occult practice of automatic writing, is that in the former, hard thinking was required. Study, thought, and knowledge was demanded of the men and is still demanded of all Christians today. In Galatians 6:11, Paul wrote,

See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.

Pulpit Commentary says,

Through some cause or other, we know not what the cause was, writing with his own hand was not a welcome employment to him; so far unwelcome that he generally devolved the actual penning of his letters upon an amanuensis, merely authenticating each letter as his own by a postscript added in his own hand (see 2 Thessalonians 3. fin.). Perhaps Philemon forms the only’ exception (see ver. 19), apart from this letter to the Galatians. We may, therefore, imagine the apostle as painfully and laboriously penning one portion after another of the Epistle; often pausing weariedly in the work as he came to the end of each γράμμα, that is, to the end of each section of his argument, each seeming to him a long and toilsome effort. And now at last he exclaims,” Look, what long, laborious performances of handwriting I have achieved in writing to you! And from that learn how deeply I am concerned on your behalf, and how grave your present spiritual peril appears to me to be!” Ordinarily it was only a brief “piece of writing” that he wrote with his own hand; here, long pieces, added one after another with painful effort.

The bible writers prayed, and then used their minds to produce what the Spirit wanted them to produce. Today, preachers, writers, commenters, seminary students, bloggers, and theologians do the same. (Though their words are not inspired). Their minds are completely engaged, because the Spirit transforms the mind. How many times we are urged to think, study, wrestle, renew your mind, do not be double minded but single-minded, etc. See the verses here that speak to the thoughts and mind of a Christian:

93 verses about Thoughts And The Mind

Contemplative prayer is to automatic writing as marijuana is to crack. It is the beginning of a practice that, seemingly benign or innocent, will drag you down to the depths of Sheol and ultimately to death. In contemplative prayer and automatic writing, the directive is the opposite. Rather than engage the mind with the text of the bible, we are told to “Drift, Wait, and Obey.” Clear your mind. Be still. Be quiet. GotQuestions describes the process,

Contemplative prayer begins with “centering prayer,” a meditative practice where the practitioner focuses on a word and repeats that word over and over for the duration of the exercise. The purpose is to clear one’s mind of outside concerns so that God’s voice may be more easily heard. After the centering prayer, the practitioner is to sit still, listen for direct guidance from God, and feel His presence.

In Occult writing, and in Contemplative-meditative prayer (which I mentioned is a precursor for deepening occult activities), the point is to DISengage from the process, free the mind, and let someone or something else take over.

Leaving Catholic Hildegard of Bingen in the 1100s behind, we now shoot up to the 1820s. Joseph Smith received the Book of Mormon from an alleged holy angel named Moroni. In his 2002 book, “Automaticity and the Dictation of the Book of Mormon“, Scot C. Dunn wrote,

“In this essay, automatic writing refers to the ability to write or dictate text in a relatively rapid, seemingly effortless and fluent manner with no sense of control over the content. A consideration of this phenomenon is important for Mormons since a number of authors have asserted that this was the method through which Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon. Such a claim, if correct, can have important implications for the way Latter-day Saints approach their scriptures.” … It is clear that Smith’s translation experience fits comfortably within the larger world of scrying, channeling, and automatic writing.”

“Scriptures”. You see that yet again, as Hildegarde’s writing was taken as theological treatises, Smith’s are also taken for theological treatises, going so far as to call them ‘scriptures’. Just because the heathen senses an other-worldly presence, it does not mean it is a holy presence. The holy presence for the Christian is the Spirit dwelling inside us, a presence we usually cannot feel but know by faith is there. For unsaved people any presence they feel will be an evil, demonic presence.

There is a whole slew of writers throughout the 1900s who channeled their books. You would be surprised at how many. The famous writer, Richard Bach who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull got his book from channeling an entity through the practice of automatic writing. Bach was influenced by by occultist Jane Roberts,

In late 1963, Roberts and Butts, living in the Elmira, New York area, experimented with a Ouija board as part of Roberts’ research for a book on extra-sensory perception. According to Roberts and Butts, on December 2, 1963 they began to receive coherent messages from a male personality who eventually identified himself as Seth. Soon after, Roberts reported that she was hearing the messages in her head. [inner voice] She began to dictate the messages instead of using the Ouija board, and she eventually abandoned the board. Roberts described the process of writing the Seth books as entering a trance state. She said Seth[the entity] would assume control of her body and speak through her, while her husband wrote down the words she spoke. They referred to such episodes as “readings” or “sessions”. Ten volumes of “Seth books” emerged.

That’s the way it goes. One person gets a piece of writing from the spirits on the other side, and a friend says, ‘hey, that’s cool, I want to do that too’, and the first occultist becomes a mentor to the second. Yeats was a student who became a mentor/teacher in His occult club known as Golden Dawn. Roberts taught Bach. In a circle of friends, a little leaven spoils the whole lump. Occult practices don’t stay politely to one side, but soon permeate the entire sphere of friends, and then soon goes looking for other spheres to pollute.

“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. 44″Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. 45″Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45)

Like Hildegarde heard an inner voice, so did Bach. Richard Bach was on a walk one day when he heard an inner voice declare, “Johnathan Livingston Seagull.” There was more. He went home and began writing immediately, furiously, trying to keep up with the flow of words that were coming spontaneously to mind.” He said his book came in one sitting.

In 1923, AJ Russell “authored a book called “For Sinners Only.” One day, he was gardening. He wrote,

“I worked on, thinking of nothing in particular. Suddenly a strange experience came to me. There seemed to be a faint electrical crackling in the clear air about me. There was positively nobody else in the garden, but someone or something spoke to me: a voice that was audible and yet (paradoxically enough) quite soundless. That seems the only way to express what I shall always believe was a supernatural experience. I felt a message impinge on my brain from the air. It alighted softly like the caress of a leaf or the touch of a gentle zephyr. It was accompanied by a sense of exaltation both pleasurable and unforgivable.

Russell’s experience sparked the interest of two ladies in the 1930s, who were curious to try Russell’s recommended method of “Quiet Time”. (AKA Automatic writing). Russell had recommended sitting down with pencil and paper, letting the mind go blank, cleared of thought, and then allowing any entity to impinge a message to it and through the listener writes it down.

The two ladies did so and God Calling was the result. God Calling is yet another book received by an unknown entity from the other side via automatic writing. The people being used for this channeling were unknown, only calling themselves Two Listeners, because they wish to remain anonymous. All we know is that they are women, one Catholic and one Anglican. They sent their manuscript to Russell and so impressed, he published it.

The For Sinners Only book caused the Two Listeners to write God Calling and God Calling caused Sarah Young to do some automatic writing of her own, and Jesus Calling was the result.

“I began reading God Calling, a devotional book written by two anonymous “listeners.” These women practiced waiting quietly in God’s Presence, pencils and paper in hand, recording the messages they received from Him. The messages are written in first person, with “I” designating God…this little paperback became a treasure to me. It dovetailed remarkably well with my longing to live in Jesus’ Presence. (Sarah Young)

Sarah Young wrote the pseudo-Christian book Jesus Calling in exactly the same way as all the other automatic writers. Young describes her process:

“One night I found myself leaving the warmth of our cozy chalet to walk alone in the snowy mountains. I went into a deeply wooded area, feeling vulnerable and awed by cold, moonlit beauty. … Suddenly I felt as if a warm mist enveloped me. I became aware of a lovely Presence, …When I prayed for myself, I was suddenly enveloped in brilliant light and profound peace. Yearning to hear the Lord’s voice isn’t complicated. But it does require some discipline to find a quiet place and to allow some time just listening. Perhaps the hardest part is clearing your mind. With all the noise of life regularly cascading through your mind, it can be hard to hear God’s voice.”

A Course In Miracles is another pseudo-Christian book gotten through automatic writing. Author Dr. Schucman said,

“That was my introduction to the Voice. It made no sound, but seemed to be giving me a kind of rapid, inner dictation which I took down in a shorthand notebook”. And, “I call it a voice, but “a voice” has sounds…or sounds as though it has something to do with hearing. And I didn’t hear anything. I think it’s the sort of hearing that you can’t really describe.” (A Course in Miracles, Schucman)

In 2008, William P. Young wrote a story for his kids about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit that his wife encouraged him to publish. It became the runaway bestseller The Shack. Christian apologist Norman Geisler wrote of The Shack‘s origins by quoting from The Shack‘s afterword,

“In the final section of the book titled “The Story behind THE SHACK,” he reveals that the motivation for this story comes from his own struggle to answer many of the difficult questions of life. He claims that his seminary training just did not provide answers to many of his pressing questions. Then one day in 2005, he felt God whisper in his ear that this year was going to be his year of Jubilee and restoration. Out of that experience he felt lead to write The Shack. According to Young, much of the book was formed around personal conversations he had with God, family, and friends (258-259).” Toward the end of writing the book, Mr Young had said that he spent one weekend writing four chapters, and one chapter, came out whole and he never edited it.”

Neale Donald Walsch wrote a trilogy called Conversations with God. In this interview with Walsch, we learn that it is also is a book born from hell through automatic writing.

Interviewer: Since your original “Conversations With God,” has your communication with God continued, and if so, is your experience akin to channeling or automatic writing?
Neale: Yes, although sporadically, the communications do continue. The process is quite simple. First, it must be absolutely quiet because I can’t do this work with anything or anyone distracting me, even in the slightest way. So generally, these communications occur at 4:00 in the morning, when there is no sound of any kind. It’s not channeling or automatic writing, but more like taking dictation. [automatic writing IS dictation & vice-versa]. What it feels like is someone is whispering into my right ear. There is a voice inside my head, a voiceless voice saying things to me, and I write down what’s being said, literally one sentence at a time. It’s as if I were listening to a voice that doesn’t have a voice.

Neale: The feeling is always a physical warmth, and a kind of joy that makes me want to cry. I find myself often moved to tears by what is being written in front of me. Sometimes, I just sit on the couch and write the words down and cry because the beauty of the thoughts and how exquisitely they are being expressed. It’s 5:00 in the morning, and there’s no one around, mind you. I feel like I’m being embraced in the kindest, gentlest way one could even hope to imagine.

Interviewer: What are some of the ways each of us can begin to strengthen our personal communication and rapport with God?
Neale: One way is to sit and be absolutely still and quiet, and go to a wonderful secret place. I don’t necessarily mean sit in meditation, but be somewhere absolutely quiet.

Beth Moore wrote When Ungodly People Do Ungodly Things, or rather, God wrote it for her. Moore was only the channel for it. Moore describes her process-Moore says-

In conscious writing it is the writer who moves the pencil; in automatic writing it is the pencil that moves the writer. Source
“When the message for this book was complete (in His estimation — not mine!), [just like Kipling’s Daemon said, too] God compelled me to ink it on paper with a force of the Holy Spirit unparalleled in my experience. He whisked me to the mountains of Wyoming where I entered solitary confinement with Him, and in only a few short weeks, I wrote the last line.”

Screen shot from Moore video where Moore describes her vision
of a coming outpouring, a vision she says God gave directly to her.
In my opinion, Moore does not look too stable there.

Whisked her? Like He did to Philip? “And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.” (Acts 8:39). Moore continues,

“Oddly, the concept for this book came complete, God delivering the title to me in full. My Bible was open to these verses for the first time in a long while, and the instruction from the Lord came so unmistakably that I dated it in the margin: April 19, 2000. My pen still didn’t touch the paper until almost exactly a year later when I knew His Spirit was saying to me, ‘Now.’ I headed to the mountains, and within a few weeks it was done.”

Not so odd, as we have learned. Just satanic.

We have learned that any heathen in any era can be used for automatic writing. We know that the bible says,

No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds (2 Corinthians 11:14-15)

Automatic writing is one way the unholy angels masquerade as righteous, delivering the age-old satanic promise of wisdom from beyond.

For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. (Genesis 3:5-6).

It goes without saying that the work-product received always, ALWAYS is at contradiction to one or more doctrines of the bible. Invariably. Including Beth Moore’s books. These so-called godly books are from satan, who is the father of lies. The only book from the other side worth trusting is the bible. Period.

Brethren, gain your wisdom from the perfect Word. If you read Jesus Calling, or Beth Moore’s ungodly channeled books, or The Shack, or any of these supposedly divinely delivered books and writings, then aren’t you, too, eating the fruit of the tree from which you were commanded not to? Do not ingest poisonous fruit from a subtle schemer such as satan. Stay in the pure word, a lovely and wonderful holy book given to us by our precious Jesus. It is good fruit from the Firstfruit of all. (1 Corinthians 15:23)

CONCLUSION-

1. Automatic writing is an occult activity,
2. Automatic writing is an occult activity encroaching into the true church,
3. Automatic writing is an occult activity rapidly being accepted by the true church,
4. Now you know the buzz words regarding automatic writing,
5. Do not purchase, read, or accept automatic writers, including Sarah Young, Beth Moore, and William P. Young, Marianne Williamson, etc.,
6. Do not do automatic writing yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Evil men and impostors

Posted on February 9, 2013May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (2 Timothy 3:12-13)

There is a lot packed into these two verses! Our Lord is truly great in the way He speaks in such depth in so few words!

The verse is connected with a comma and the word “while”. It is plain- Christians are going to be persecuted. And persecution is going to happen because evil men and impostors flood the world and the church in ever increasing numbers. So no, it is not your imagination that things are getting worse. It is because they are getting worse.

The verse says evil men “and impostors” will go on. The word impostors is Greek, “goētes”. This is translated as “shameless cheat pretending to use supernatural power; an actor (cheap impostor), looking for self-gain, i.e. posing to be someone he isn’t…’a charlatan’, used only in 2 Tim 3:13, refers to a seducer (properly, a wailer) – a fraud who “sounds off” like a whining enchanter. This person uses their verbal spells and incantations to give the (false) impression they can do miracles.”

The entire comment is linked to the description at the start, a long list Paul records for Timothy, and us, to be warned by. He’d mentioned Jannes and Jambres, two of Pharaoh’s sorcerers who (for a while) copied God’s miracles He performed through Moses. What we should be wary of is the fact that we’re being told that these aforementioned evil men are going to use their verbal skills to deceive, and I’m not just talking about the obvious ones like Benny Hinn or Joyce Meyer. Or even Joel Osteen. These were sorcerers who can charm you and deceive you like no others. Remember, the two that Paul mentioned copied God’s miracles one for one during the first few plagues! They are powerfully deceptive.

Paul had said that the deceivers are evil. MacArthur wrote, “They are evil. That’s poneros, it’s used of Satan in Matthew 13:19, they’re as malicious and wicked as he is.”

OK, so that’s pretty evil.

And they are going to get worse and worse. Each individual man will wax worse and worse, and the general deceptions will get worse and worse. Attendant with the deceptions will come persecution.

Barnes Notes explains,

“But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse – That is, it is the character of such men to do this; they may be expected to do it. This is the general law of depravity – that if men are not converted, they are always growing worse, and sinking deeper into iniquity. Their progress will be certain, though it may be gradual, since “nemo repente turpissimus.” The connection here is this: that Timothy was not to expect that he would be exempt from persecution 2 Timothy 3:12, by any change for the better in the wicked men referred to. He was to anticipate in them the operation of the general law in regard to bad men and seducers – that they would grow worse and worse. From this fact, he was to regard it as certain that he, as well as others, would be liable to be persecuted. The word rendered “seducers” occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means, properly, a “juggler, or diviner;” and then, a “deceiver, or impostor.” Here it refers to those who by seductive arts, lead persons into error.”

The Latin phrase ‘nemo repente turpissimus’ is translated “No man becomes a villain all at once.”

And the last part of the verse, ‘being deceived” is explained thus by Barnes Notes,

And being deceived – Under delusion themselves. The advocates of error are often themselves as really under deception, as those whom they impose upon. They are often sincere in the belief of error, and then they are under a delusion; or, if they are insincere, they are equally deluded in supposing that they can make error pass for truth before God, or can deceive the Searcher of hearts. The worst victims of delusion are those who attempt to delude others.”

MacArthur wrote,

These are dangerous times…dangerous times. The closer we come to the time of our Lord’s return, the worse men get. And the worse their influence gets and the accumulation of all the lies and false teaching mounts and escalates and we’re in dangerous times. And dangerous times call for strong people.”

Are you strong? Jesus said in Matthew 12:29

Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.”

You ARE strong! Barnes tells us, “A man could not break into the house of a strong man and take his property unless he had rendered the man himself helpless. If he had taken his goods, it would therefore be sufficient proof that he had bound the man. So I, says he, have taken this “property – this possessed person” – from the dominion of Satan. It is clear proof that I have subdued “Satan himself,” the “strong” being that had him in possession.”

Jesus is the strong One in you! He has busted satan out of your house (your body) and delivered you from the dominion of darkness! There is no one more strong that Jesus, and it is He that is in you. He is the best,t he top, the most, the superlative among all superlatives. There is no possible way you could be stronger than to rely on the Strong One who is inside you and loves you and made you His child. It is He that is in us who resists satan and overcomes that old serpent. No charms or deceivers can come if you rely on Jesus because even though things on the outside of us go from bad to worse, HE IS ALWAYS THE SAME. (Hebrews 13:8)

Victory in Jesus!

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:57

photo credit: Sprengben via photopin cc

burning down the shack, deception, doctrines of demons, end time, prophecy

Burning down The Shack

Posted on May 24, 2010May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

In July of 2008, at the height of Shack-mania, I wrote here that the best-selling book “The Shack” is a devilish deception. I wrote about it again in April of 2009 here, saying it is a book full of doctrines of demons. In November of 2009 I explained why Christians should not read The Shack, here. Are you getting the idea that I believe The Shack is not-good?

Tim Challies was one of the first to identify this book as a deception, back in January of 2008, and he wrote about it here. Another book has come along with a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal of the doctrines of demons contained in the best-selling book that has influenced millions.

Up in flames: Melting false teachings of ‘The Shack’: Professor takes torch to ‘blasphemous doctrine’ of best-seller is the subject of a promotion by World Net Daily. “Author James De Young says of The Shack, “its depiction of God as an African woman who suffered Christ’s crucifixion – and the book’s exclusion of any existence of Satan and hell – represent just some of its many dangerous deceptions.
If such deceptions, which upend biblical teachings on sin, redemption, salvation and damnation, go unchallenged, says De Young, this “feel-good novel” could prove terribly divisive and destructive to millions of Christians.” In my opinion it has already done great damage.

Here is another review of “Burning Down The Shack”, due out June 1:

New Book ‘Burning Down ‘The Shack” Exposes Great Deception Lurking in Church’s Blindside

It’s the feel-good novel about faith that millions of people love. And its warm and fuzzy depiction of God the Father is cherished by millions of Evangelical Christians who’ve embraced it as though it were gospel.

This mass adoration has helped seemingly cement William Paul Young’s The Shack to the stratosphere of numerous best-sellers list–where it’s remained for more than 100 weeks–a claim no other book can make.

Yet it is infused with counterfeit Christianity, says author James De Young in his new book, Burning Down ‘The Shack’: How the ‘Christian’ Bestseller is Deceiving Millions, and its depiction of God the Father as an African woman who bore the scars of Calvary with Jesus Christ is just one example of its many dangerous deceptions.

De Young isn’t only a New Testament Language and Literature professor at Western Seminary in Portland, Ore., he’s also a former longtime colleague of Paul Young, and was his Portland-area neighbor when Young wrote The Shack.

Burning Down ‘The Shack,’ which WND Books publishes June 1, challenges readers to consider the perilous religious beliefs of the author. While writing The Shack, Young, a victim of child molestation, had recently embraced “universal reconciliation” — a belief identified as far back as the sixth century as heresy — which emphasizes that Jesus’ loving nature renders him incapable of eternally damning people.

In “Burning Down ‘The Shack'”, De Young delivers a chapter-by-chapter evaluation of more than 15 heresies within The Shack. Chief among the errors is what Young left out. “A familiar, but deceptive maneuver is to give an aspect of a theological issue, while ignoring an equally important aspect that qualifies or limits the first one,” De Young writes to explain Young’s obvious exclusion of Satan and Hell.”

What does the bible say? 1 Timothy 4:1 – “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” And The Shack is one of them.

deception, end time, prophecy

End time deception: trust no source except the bible

Posted on May 8, 2010May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The End Time is rife with deception. (Matthew 24:3-4) The truth will be harder and harder to find- even for the elect (Matthew 2424b). This is because the demons are given increasing control of the world. (Mt 24:37; Gen 6:4-5😉 The ONLY absolute barometer of truth is the bible. (2 Tim 3:16). Even previously unimpeachable Christian sources cannot be trusted at face value. Really? Yes, really.

I’ll give two examples from just this week of good, Christian sources reporting something as fact that wasn’t. First, a quote Obama uttered to the Turkish Parliament on April 6th:

In his April 6 address to the Turkish Parliament, President Obama referenced how many “Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim majority country. I know, because I am one of them.”

Now, many Christians took that and ran with it, including a major, international missionary magazine, saying in effect, ‘Obama slipped, he said he is a Muslim!’ Well, no he didn’t. And do you really think this man ‘slips’? This man, who forms every public utterance with such forethought that he brings a teleprompter to a sixth grade classroom? In actuality, he uses in a verbal tactic a person I had to deal with in my work happily used all the time, “plausible deniability”, or, saying something in such a way that you can plausibly deny it later. Many politicians use this tactic, but Obama has perfected it.

My opinion is that Obama is a demon from the pit of hell (or completely influenced by demons from the pit of hell), so we take the biblical position that since satan is a liar and the father of lies then Obama is a liar and the son of the father of lies.

His statement could be interpreted as ‘I am one of the Muslims’, or ‘I am one of the people who have had Muslims in my family’, or ‘I am a person who lived in a Muslim majority country’. Obama in my opinion did not say he was Muslim because he would never say anything unequivocal. (equivocal; “subject to two or more interpretations and usually used to mislead or confuse”.) If anything, Obama delighted in equivocating in this sentence so that it COULD be interpreted many different ways, for the dastardly purpose of un-discerning Christian fundamentalists running with it and having egg on their faces later. Which is exactly what happened.

Second, this week as I was driving to work I heard our major local Christian radio station report that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia issued a release that was picked up by the AP, that the Court would now hear arguments from a New Jersey Lawyer on Obama’s eligibility. That Obama’s Occidental College records had been subpoenaed and showed Obama traveled on a foreign passport and received foreign aid from Indonesia. This was an April Fool’s Day Hoax issued LAST YEAR in 2009, and the radio station, caught in an undiscerning moment, reported it as fact in 2010.

The point of all this is: even solid Christian sources stumble, because this is the time of high deception, we must now, more than ever, “TEST ALL THINGS…hold fast to that which is good.” Just take the stance that there are NO unimpeachable sources anymore, except the bible. (As a side note, it also might help to adopt the position that Obama will never utter a truth in his life and that he will never utter a statement he can’t deny later. Just a helpful tip.)

It is a time of high deception, purposeful and deep deception. Do not take anything at face value, but think it through, test it against the bible, and pray. Stay discerning, Christian, even if you’re hearing something from a Christian source!

aliens, deception, end time, jafr, prophecy

‘Alien landing’ prank causes panic in Jordan

Posted on April 9, 2010May 9, 2016 by elizabethprata

The BBC reports:

“The mayor of Jafr, 185 miles east of Jordan’s capital Amman, is considering suing a newspaper after their April Fools Day joke caused widespread panic. Jordanian paper Al-Ghad’s front-page story described flying saucers carrying ’10ft tall’ aliens had landing in the small desert town late at night. Jafr’s mayor, Mohammed Mleihan, described the disruption caused by the story: “Students didn’t go to school, their parents were frightened and I almost evacuated the town’s 13,000 residents,” Mr Mleihan told the Associated Press. He was swift to call in the security authorities, who he said then combed the area looking for the aliens. A Jordanian security official, speaking anonymously, said an emergency plan was almost enacted in Jafr. While it has become somewhat traditional across much of the world for newspapers to publish hoax articles on 1 April, it is not a common practice in Jordan. Managing editor of Al-Ghad, Moussa Barhoumeh, apologised for any inconvenience and tried to defuse the situation, saying “We meant to entertain, not scare people,”

1 Timothy 4:1,7a says “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, … But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women.”

Note that the words at the beginning of the verse in the NASB are that the Spirit explicitly says. In the NIV it says the Spirit clearly says and in the KJV ‘the Spirit speaketh expressly‘. I think that it should be clear to us that God is emphasizing that it will be a time of incredibly heightened deception. I’ve been writing about how the last days are a time of increased deception. (here, here, here) In this run-up to the coming of the lawless one, there will be counterfeit miracles, lying signs and wonders, and evil as stated by Paul to the Thessalonians. “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2 Thess 2:9)

Jesus was even more clear in Matthew 24:24 “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. “We should not be ignorant of satan’s schemes, then, so as not to fall prey to the lies of the end times. (2 Cor 2:11)

So what are satan’s schemes and what are these upcoming deceptions? Well, satan schemes to get us to doubt the truth of God and His Word. He has since he planted the first seed of doubt first seed of doubt in the garden, in Genesis 3: he told Eve, “Has God said…?” If satan can get us to doubt God’s creation then we can doubt His Word. God did not make aliens. He made the angels and He made the animal kingdom and He made man after His own likeness. The bible does not record any other living things being created and living on other planets and interacting with us. If they were then that would mean they were affected by original sin and that Jesus died for them too. However the bible does not record anything to that effect.

The bible does record that there are beings from space who interact with humans, and those are the obedient angels, and the fallen angels. In pre-flood days, the fallen angels mated with human women, whom they thought beautiful, and the women bore their children. (“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Gen 6:4). There are no “aliens” as traditionally thought.

As for the Jordanian town that was so scared by the alien report to the point of panic. One article says “mayhem” occurred. Imagine how receptive to the lie of aliens they were, for the mayor to be ready to evacuate an entire town and on the basis of one report! And the report being published on April FOOL’S DAY! They would have to been good and ready to accept the deulsion that aliens were abounding. They would have to have been predisposed that other life forms exist and interact with humans. These paradigms don’t just appear in people’s thoughts. They are just not immediately ready to accept the fact of other life forms so easily. People do not panic and make plans to evade these life forms so readily unless they are predisposed to readily believe a lie. These thoughts have to be planted in global consciousness and then grown, built, and when ready, fomented. By the looks of how easily panic was fomented in Jafr, stick a fork in us, we’re done.

Christian, do not be deceived by lying signs. Do not be so eagerly ready to accept reports of aliens, the fact of which contradicts the bible record. Leaders who are not saved are more and more jittery and more ready to accept lies than ever before- and their decisions impact us. We should not be ignorant of satan’s schemes. For Pete’s sake, the bible tells us outright that there will be lying signs and wonders. Stay strong in the Word and know what is planned for us since the foundation of the world. Not widespread panic, but widespread peace. Not aliens come to snatch us away, but Jesus come to rapture us away. Not aliens to attack us but angels to protect us. Your protection from lying signs and wonders, delusions and deceptions is the safety of forgiveness in Jesus, and His word of Truth. It’s a peaceful place to be.