CHRISTIAN FANTASY - LIES NOT TRUTH

PREFACE
We frequently encounter Christian fantasy especially in the Full-Gospel Movement. Hos. 4:6, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. We perish because of our ignorance. II Tim. 2:15, Study to shew thyself approved unto God. You must study by yourself; you can not depend on others to teach you everything. II Tim. 3:16, All scripture is given by inspiration of God. Many times you get little scripture in a message and a lot of man's words. The Bible from cover to cover must be read repeatedly and meditated upon. James 1:22, But be ye doers of the word. It does no good just to read or hear the Word of God; you must put it into practice. Head knowledge will get you to Hell; heart knowledge will get you to Heaven. As you can see from these scriptures, you must study the whole Bible and put it into practice. We are not just New Testament Christians ignoring the Old Testament. We are children of God following the whole Word of God.

After Byron died, I decided to quit playing church and start following God as my Lord, Master and Savior; before then He was only my Christ. I was concerned because I had not gone to the seminary or Bible school. God told me just to accept the Bible in simple childlike faith, put it into practice and watch it work. That fit in well with my practical engineering background. Since that time, I have followed those instructions; signs, wonders and miracles have followed the teaching of the Word.

DEFINITIONS
Fantasy: hallucination, fanciful, imagination, caprice, unrealistic, improbable, daydream. Fable: story, fictitious, legend, falsehood, lie. Cliche: stereotype, trite, overly familiar. Myth: parable, allegory, tradition, unfounded, false, imaginary, unverifiable.

TRUTH
Deut. 32:4, A God of truth. Isa. 65:16, The God of truth. Our God is the one and only God; He is the God of Truth. I Kings 17:24, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God. If you are of God, then truth will flow thru your mouth. Jer. 4:2, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgement, and in righteousness. Many Christians fall into Satan's trap that God is love only and not judgement also. John 4:23, Worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Some are not true worshipers but are hypocrites that are putting on a religious show that stinks in God's nostrils. John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Unless we accept JESUS CHRIST on His terms, we will never come to the Father. I John 1:8, We deceive ourselves. There was only one perfect person on earth - JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God. All others sin. To be perfect, you must completely follow the whole Word of God every moment of your life. Gal. 4:16, Am I therefore become your enemy? Do you get mad at Earline and me because we tell you about the hard sayings in the Bible, and do not pet you in your sins and weaknesses? We call this practice petting demons.

LIES
Num. 23:19, God is not a man that He should lie. God doesn't lie but man does. I Sam. 15:29, Will not lie nor repent. God doesn't have to repent for lying but man should. Job 11:3, Should thy lies make men hold their peace? Eze. 13:10, Peace; and there is no peace. The ministry cries peace, peace when America and the world are deteriorating into sin and degradation. Prov. 6:19, A false witness that speaketh lies. There are a lot of pat phrases in the Christian world that are not true when put to the test. This is false witness and deceives others. Prov. 19:9, He that speaketh lies shall perish. It is dangerous to follow false teachings of any kind and you will perish in some manner. You will pay for any area of the Bible that you are ignorant of. As Earline says, you burn while you learn. Isa. 9:15, The prophet that teacheth lies, he is the tail. Instead of being a head of Christianity, he will be the tail. Isa. 28:15, Under falsehood have we hid ourselves. Are Christian fables your refuge? Isa. 63:8, Children that will not lie. God's people do not lie. Jer. 14:14, The prophets prophesy lies in my name. People prophesy in the name of God but the prophesy comes from their soul. It is a soulish prophesy that frequently ends with "thus saith the Lord". Jer. 23:14, They commit adultery and walk in lies. How many preachers and teachers have you seen committing adultery and teaching lies? Jer. 23:25, Saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. These are false prophets with false dreams. Jer. 23:32, Cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness. False prophesy will cause the people to err. Taking Christianity lightly is error. Eze. 13:19, To slay the souls that should not die. This is talking about false prophetesses. Acts 5:4, Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. Some lies are unto God. If you say your soulish prophesy is from God, then you are lying about God. I Tim. 4:2, Speaking lies in hypocrisy. Hypocrites who depart from the faith continue to teach lies. Rom. 1:25, Who changed the truth of God into a lie. God will give Christians over to vile affections who want to believe lies. Heb. 6:18, It was impossible for God to lie. It is comforting to know that God does not lie and we can completely rely on His Word. We can trust our lives in the hands of God.

CHRISTIAN FABLES AND CLICHES
There are many fables and cliches (Glen Miller calls them tradition) that are passed off as the Gospel. Generally, these are sayings that make you feel good. They take many different forms. If repeated often enough, the Christian world believes they are true. Some of these follow; the list could go on and on.

"God will do everything for you; you don't have to do anything yourself." God will always do His part of the covenant; we must do our part also. "God will take care of your family if you take care of God's business." We have no right to neglect our families. "All of God's promises are ours." The promises are ours only if we meet the conditions. For every promise there is a condition.

DELIVERANCE MYTHS
There is much ignorance and many myths about DELIVERANCE. DELIVERANCE is the most misunderstood part of the Christian life. Most traditional Christians know little or nothing about Satan and his army. They do not believe they have a personal Devil, Satan. Most Full-Gospel Christians do not believe that a Christian can have a demon in the body or soul. Satan is eating their lunch and they think it is just the flesh. Many DELIVERANCE workers and ministers do not realize how demonized they and the Christian body still are. Sometimes they fall by the wayside because they do not continue to purge their bodies of demons.

DELIVERANCE is the most controversial and unpopular part of the Christian life. Unless the Church gets involved on a regular basis with DELIVERANCE, many Christians will continue to be defeated by Satan. The Devil will use their ignorance to plague the Church.

When the Christian finally accepts that he can have a demon, the response is that he can only have a few demons. Actually, Christians have many demons. When the young Christian starts to cast out demons, he will make statements like, "You are completely free of demons." JESUS never told anyone in the Bible that they were completely free of demons. He spent days casting out demons from the multitudes.

PROPHECY MYTHS
Prophecies can be a blessing or a curse. Personal prophecy has caused some Christians to try to make it come true with disastrous results. The most danger for abuse lies in personal prophecy. Charismatic witches use personal prophecy to control others. Some Christians think that they have to have a word from the Lord or there is something wrong with them.

The true prophet does not make any mistakes. All of his prophecies come true. In the Old Testament, if the prophet missed God, he was stoned (Deut. 13:1-5, 18:20). I wonder what would happen if we killed the false prophets today.

Many prophecies are soulish prophecies which are made up in the mind of man or woman. Frequently they do not line up with the Bible. Sometimes people prophecy just to be noticed.

You have a responsibility to check out everything you see, hear or read by the Word of God, by the Holy Spirit within you, and by your intelligence. Otherwise, you will follow every wind of false doctrine.

Some prophecy is divination. Divination is the false gift of prophecy. It has destroyed churches and ministries across the land. The prophecies are right on but the purpose is to control. The diviners want to take over the pastor, then the church, and finally the property.

Satan has a counterfeit for everything that God has created. Just because it is spiritual and happens in the church, does not mean that it is from God. The demons go to church with the Christians and non-Christians to hinder or destroy the church. Don't underestimate the power of Satan and his forces; he is the second-most powerful spiritual being in the universe, only second to JESUS CHRIST who defeated him. We have power over Satan only because of JESUS CHRIST.

BATTLE MYTHS
There are many myths about Christian warfare. Most Christians don't know that we are in a battle. Actually, we are in a life and death battle with Satan and his host of demons. We have to fight to take the Kingdom of God by force from the enemy. Satan is a good Devil, a worthy Adversary, at what he does; he works twenty-four hours a day to destroy us. He will probably take 98% of the world population and 75% of the church population to Hell with him. His army consists of billions of demons and hundreds of millions of fallen angels. He has multiplied demons for every person on earth, now about four billion people.

You will be tempted until you die. God will not stop the temptation but will make a way for you to escape. You need to learn to war in the spirit world to protect yourself and your family. The best defense against Satan is a good offense which is all-out spiritual warfare. God didn't provide any armor for our backs as cowards running from the enemy.

GENERAL MYTHS
The following are negative statements or myths: "There is a single answer to my problems and living the Christian life. My problems in life can be worked out overnight. We can pick and choose what parts of the Bible to follow. It is not necessary to discipline our soul or body. We can let our mind be blank and God will fill it. We do not have to take care of our body; God will heal us when we get sick. We can let others feed us spiritually; we don't need to do it ourselves. We don't need to go to church; all we have to do is watch television evangelism. If we don't like DELIVERANCE, we can ignore it. God will supply everything we desire. If we can just find an anointed man or woman of God, they will pray for us and everything will be fine. We can live with one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom of God. If you do God's work, you can ignore your responsibilities. I can be a passive Christian and watch others do the work of God. The pastor and leaders do the work, not me. I am not in a war, God will fight all of my battles. All I have to do is to follow my pastor; he will hear from God for me. We can live a sinful life and receive all of God's blessings. I can sin, get forgiven and my family will not suffer. All we need to have in the church is token DELIVERANCE. Rejection is not a demon. I have a right to my unforgiveness because of the way I have been treated. Sex is love. Bad emotions are not demonic. I do not have to examine every area of my life. I can keep my cursed objects without causing any harm.

We can get all of our demons cast our in one grand event. I can be ashamed of my DELIVERANCE; God won't mind. When someone makes me mad, I can react however I feel. I can be ignorant of Satan's wiles; what I don't know can't hurt me. God is love; He won't send me to Hell. I can do anything I want to; God will protect me. God is pie-in-the-sky by-and-by. We can be gluttons as long as we are not drunkards. I do not need to get my demons cast out; all I need is to get prayer for me to be healed. It is all right to take mind control drugs. I need to go to a psychiatrist; God is not interested in my mind. The sins of my ancestors will not cause me any problems. I can do things my way; God will approve."

TRADITION NOT COVERED
There are other areas that were not covered in this lesson. Some of these areas are holidays, puppetry, origin of evil, false strength of Christians, divine order, separation of healing and DELIVERANCE, taking care of the body and soul, what you sow - that you reap, Christians are not cursed, and parlor games won't hurt you. When this lesson was taught at Lake Hamilton Bible Camp, Glen Miller commented on these subjects. Tommy Cook also reviewed the topic of Prophecy Myths.

PRAYER
Before DELIVERANCE from demon bondage, pray about being controlled by charismatic witchcraft or trying to control other's wills which is also witchcraft. Repent, take authority over these forces, break soul ties, and break curses placed upon you. Then cast out the demons.