REVIEW

Now we must examine more closely what Kenneth Copeland and his ilk teaches as to what FAITH IS and HOW IT WORKS. By way of review, we have seen that Copeland teaches what vast numbers of people who identify with Christianity believe:

1. GOD HAS FAITH.

2. GOD LIVES BY FAITH.

3. GOD ACTS BY FAITH.

4. FAITH IS A MATERIAL SUBSTANCE.

Well then, I suppose that we should be glad that God is a Believer. Seeing that nothing exists equal to or above God, it must be that He believes in Himself. That is reassuring, because to have a God of unbelief would leave us with quite a dilemma. It would put us in the awkward position of believing in an Unbeliever. Aren’t you glad that God has FAITH? It all gets very bizarre.

We have dealt with all of the above in FAITH OF GOD – FAITH IN GOD PT.1. The Word of God teaches nothing of the sort. We saw that God DOES NOT HAVE FAITH, GOD CANNOT HAVE FAITH, and that there is no such thing as THE FAITH “OF” GOD. Rather, there is only FAITH “IN” GOD. It is all an invented religion, and has nothing to do with the Bible or Biblical Christianity. But the invention is now about to become downright “STAR-WARISH.” Are you ready for this? Then read on!

I. GOD’S FAITH FORCE

Now Copeland goes on to say:

“FAITH IS A FORCE.”

But more than that, Kenneth Copeland teaches that:

“GOD DID NOT CREATE THE WORLD OUT OF NOTHING. HE USED THE

MATERIAL FORCE OF HIS FAITH.”

THE FORCE! THE FAITH FORCE! It is all reminiscent of the Star War Movies where we hear over and over again the following:

-MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.

-THE FORCE BE WITH YOU ALWAYS.

-LUKE, THE FORCE BE WITH YOU.

-USE THE FORCE, LUKE.

-REMEMBER, THE FORCE WILL BE WITH YOU, ALWAYS.

But here, in this case of modern fantasy religion, the FORCE HAS A NAME – FAITH – GOD’S FAITH – GOD’S MATERIAL FAITH FORCE.

So now:

1. God has FAITH.

2. God’s FAITH IS A FORCE.

3. God created the world by FAITH.

4. God FAITH FORCED the world into being.

God FORCED the world into existence, and that FORCE IS HIS FAITH. More than interesting is why Copeland would call God’s FORCE or POWER – FAITH.” Why not simply call God’s force or power by its real name – FORCE or POWER? Why screw it up by calling it FAITH?

The Bible has a name for the FORCEFUL-POWERFUL GOD. We read of it many places, among them Genesis 17:1 where God introduced Himself to Abraham by saying,

“I am God Almighty….”

That name so attached itself to God, that it never came off, that is until now. Copeland wants us to believe that the following are synonyms:

“GOD ALMIGHTY AND GOD ALFAITHY AND GOD ALFORCEY.”

We are to believe then that God’s faith, God’s force, and God’s might are all one in the same. There is only one problem here, and that is that it is ALFALSEY. It is false, fraudulent, and unconscionable! It is really the consummate degree of falsehood. As always with Satan, he tries to trick us with very desirable words and concepts. He is such a lying pest and a cosmic pestilence. And there are two huge falsehoods here that contaminate the entire Word of God, and they are:

1. THAT GOD HAS FAITH.

2. THAT FAITH IS A FORCE.

*******

II. EX NIHILO – EX SOMETHINGO

We must understand something about heresies that never fails, and it is this:

“WHEN ONE FALSEHOOD IS ALLOWED TO STAND, OTHER FALSEHOODS WILL

FALL IN LINE BEHIND IT LIKE TRAIN-CARS ON A TRACK.”

Once that locomotive gets moving with all of that weight behind it, it is hard to stop. Here comes the train! News Flash! CNN’s “Breaking News!” We interrupt the regular scheduled programming with the following report! Here is Religious Humanism’s correspondent Ken Copeland reporting, “God did not create the world OUT OF NOTHING! He created it by His RAW MATERIAL SUBSTANCE called FAITH FORCE!”

Yes I know that it has already begun to sound cultic. The Mormon Church does not believe either that God created the world EX NIHILO – OUT OF NOTHING. Rather they believe that God brought order out of material chaos. We must understand that where the spirit of falsehood/heresy is present, it will always go back to the beginning of the world. Always! There is no heretical religious system around that doesn’t leave its fingerprints all over a twisted and contorted creation theory. Mess up the Bible early, and you can mess it up all the way through.

***

Let me try to address the unaddressable. The Christian Church throughout the ages has always rightly taught creation “Ex Nihilo,”a Latin couplet which means “Out Of Nothing.” God in creating the world had nothing to work with substantively but His own power. No architectural drawings except what was in His astonishingly creative mind. No building materials, no Home Depot, no nothing.

It simply states in Genesis 1:1,

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Who was the only One around before the world began? That’s right, God was alive before the creation of the world. In fact, God had been alive a very long time, if you will a very long forever. There has never been a time when GOD was not, but there was up until then forever a time that what He created had never been.

This is not a matter of what came first, the chicken or the egg. This is a matter of:

“THIS IS THE ETERNAL GOD CREATING THAT WHICH HAD NOT EVER BEEN.”

That means that God doesn’t have a birthday. He is the only Being who never celebrates a birthday. We do, but he doesn’t. He can’t, because He never began and He will never end. But everything that the eternal God created has a temporal birthday. God has no beginning, for He always was, is, and will be. He is the One who decided to create our world. Before that, there was nothing and no one but God.

So that when God created the heavens and the earth, He has absolutely nothing to work with but Himself. God is so all-powerful that He was able to make everything we can see out of nothing at all! It is called EX NIHILO – Latin for FROM NOTHING. Imagine what it would have been like to watch God create the world out of nothing! God is super-amazing. There is only one God and nobody can do the things He can do. Astonishing is a gross understatement!

Copeland says that the world was not created EX NIHILO. True, the couplet “Ex Nihilo”is not literally in the Bible. However, it is clearly taught in the Bible, as we read in Hebrews 11:3,

“…so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”

We also read in Romans 4:17 that God,

“…calls into being that which does not exist.”

He called forth existence into being from non-existence. He called forth everything from nothing. He called forth being from non-being. He called forth fullness from emptiness. He called forth substance from non-substance. He called forth life from non-life. He called forth numerology from zero. It was God’s “EX NIHILO CREATION CALL.”

Hear it:

“NOTHING CALLED GOD INTO BEING BECAUSE HE ALWAYS WAS. GOD CALLED

EVERYTHING INTO BEING THAT NEVER HAD BEEN.”

He called out to nothing, and boy oh boy did it become something. We call to something and we get nothing. Not only our children, but sometimes even our dog won’t even come when he is called.

***

Someone is bound to come along and say, “Well, God must be made up of something, some stuff, for He can’t be made up of nothing. So the stuff He used was Himself – His own stuff. So therefore, He did not create EX NIHILO. ”

Au contraire my friend! We read in John 4:24,

“God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

You see, God is not composed of the physical, or the flesh, or the material. God does not consist of any element such as hydrogen, oxygen, helium, or silver, or gold etc. God is not a carbon-based being. God doesn’t have a carbon footprint either. God is comprised of the totally immaterial. That immaterial is called SPIRIT. So Jesus in the Bible tells us in Luke 24:39,

“…for a spirit does not have flesh and bones….”

*******

III. BIG BANG – BIG FORCE

But in Copeland’s brand of Religious Humanism (religion made up by man and for man), “From Nothing” has been replaced by something – “Material-Substance-Faith-Force.”

This is more of a concoction than the Theory of Evolution. Evolutionists believe in the “BIG BANG.” It is predicated upon the notion that matter is eternal, and matter got so dense that there was a BIG EXPLOSION – BIG BANG, and after the dust settled there was a perfectly formed and ordered universe. It is also called the “Super Dense Theory” because you have to be super dense to believe it.

Religious Humanism believes in the “BIG FORCE.” Faith Force! Sorry, there was no faith or force involved. The entire FAITH FORCE thing is FAITH FARCE. Let alone there being no faith or force, I don’t even think there was a “BIG FUSS.”

The Bible tells us in Genesis 1 that God simply “SAID.” Romans 4:17 tells us that God simply “CALLED.” I can hear the faith-force theorists say, “Well at the least He must have shouted.” Why would He? There was nothing to shout at, and even if He did, there was nothing and no one to listen anyway. What’s the point? He could have whispered for all that! He is God, and the issue here is not HIS VOLUME, but rather the issue is HIS ALMIGHTY VOICE!

Well then, what is the real point of all this BIG FORCE business? The point is that in Religious Humanism/Man-Made Religion, everything has to be about POWER-FORCE-EXPLOSION-LOUDNESS-KABWAAM. Why? You see, man, even religious man, loves BANG-BOOM-BWAAM not only, but he associates POWER with LOUDNESS. Nothing can be powerful that isn’t gazillions of decibels.

There are preachers who cannot preach without screaming for one hour, for after all, the Word of God must always be shouted. It surely cannot carry its own weight and produce its own power unless it is vocally magnified. They not only believe in SCREAMING DEMONS, but also in a SCREAMING GOD. When in fact, the still small voice of God sometimes cannot be heard for all the raucous!

III. FAITH IS BATACH AND PISTEUO – NOT KABOOM

Nowhere in the Bible is God said to have FAITH, and nowhere in the Bible is faith defined as DIVINE FORCE.

The word FAITH is sparsely used in the Old Testament. The main Old Testament word for FAITH is “BATACH” in the Hebrew, which means:

“TO TRUST – TO LEAN ON – TO BE CONFIDENT.”

“BATACH”of the Old Testament is the Greek “PISTEUO”of the New Testament which also means:

“TO ADHERE TO – TO RELY ON – TO TRUST IN.”

Faith is therefore defined for us in the Old Testament long before we get to the New Testament. It is TOTAL TRUST IN AND RELIANCE UPON GOD.

Religious Humanism completely redefines and falsifies Biblical faith from TRUST TO FORCE. Hear it:

“ANYTHING THAT DOES NOT REFLECT THE SPIRIT OF TOTAL RELIANCE UPON AND TRUST

IN GOD IS NOT FAITH – IT IS A FAKE.”

***

The Psalmist David expresses his faith over and over again. One of King David’s favorite prayers is when he declares that his TRUST, not his TORQUE, is in God. We read about David’s trust in God in the following Scriptures from the King James Version of the Bible, such as Psalm 31:1,

“In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed:

deliver me in Thy righteousness.”

Or as David declares in Psalm 56:4,

“In God I will praise His word, in God I have put my trust; I will not

fear what flesh can do unto me.”

Why have I quoted those Scriptures here? Do you see it? David speaks of GOD before he speaks of his TRUST. He doesn’t say,

“I put my TRUST in God.”

Rather, he states,

“In GOD I have put my trust.”

I like that! I really do. I always have! It has caught my eyes many times throughout the years. Hear me:

“GOD IS THE SUBJECT OF THE FAITH/TRUST LIFE, AND NOT FAITH/TRUST ITSELF.”

Listen:

“THE GOD OF OUR FAITH/TRUST IS THE PRIORITY, NOT OUR FAITH/TRUST IN GOD.”

He does it over and over again. God is the priority in the faith (trust) life, and not faith itself. In Christianity, it is “God our Trust” that receives the primary focus, and not our ‘TRUST IN GOD.” In Religious Humanism, it is “Faith-Force” that receives the spotlight.

***

I get it now, though I didn’t at first. In fact, it took me some time to learn that God all along has been trying to teach me TO TRUST HIM fully and no one else including myself. That is why God’s way is the hardest way, for if it was always the easy way, I would never learn to put my full trust in God.

TRUST EXAMPLE:

[At first I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die. He was out there sort of like a president. I recognized his picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him. But later on, when I met Christ, it seemed as though life were rather like a bike ride, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the back helping me pedal.

I don’t know when it was that He suggested that we change places, but life has not been the same since. When I had control, I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable. It was the shortest distance between two points. But when he took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places at breakneck speeds. It was all I could do to hang on! Even though it looked like madness, He said, “Pedal!” I worried and was anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?” He laughed and didn’t answer, and I STARTED TO LEARN TO TRUST. I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure. And when I’d say “I’m scared,” He’d lean back and touch my hand.

He took me to people with gifts that I needed, gifts of healing, acceptance, and joy. They gave me gifts to take on my journey, my Lord’s and mine. And we were off again. He said, “Give the gifts away; they’re extra baggage, too much weight.” So I did, to the people we met, and I found that in giving I received, and still our burden was light. I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He’d wreck it, but He knows bike secrets, He knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, He knows how to jump to clear high rocks, He knows how to fly to shorten scary passages.

And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion Jesus Christ. And when I’m sure I just can’t do anymore, He just smiles and says . . . “Pedal.” (Author unknown)]

Today, especially today, we are all tempted by the quick fixes in the world and in the church, tempted by the kind of instant gratification that will do an end run around our need to trust God every step over the long haul. Instead, we find a plethora of books being written today like “Your Best Life Now,” which of course knocked the ball out of the park. You have the distinct feeling that the book would not sell nearly as well if the title were:

“YOUR HARDEST LIFE NOW – TRUSTING GOD IN THE DESERTS OF LIFE.”

*******

IV. FAITH-FORCE FIATS

Copeland then goes on to explain how God’s faith-force works in the following quotation:

“GOD USED WORDS WHEN HE CREATED THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH…EACH TIME GOD SPOKE,

HE RELEASED HIS FAITH –THE CREATIVE POWER TO BRING HIS WORDS TO PASS.”

Ah yes! Here it comes! Now we are getting somewhere. In fact this is where all of this has been leading from the beginning. This is where the rubber now really hits the road, Jack. This is both the method and the design of the madness. It is all very crafty. Follow along.

Kenneth Copeland in the above refers to CREATION, and when he does he declares as a Biblical fact that GOD CREATED THE WORLD BY FAITH-FORCE POWER. Moreover, he states that God released His faith force through His words, and that His creative words were empowered by His faith force.

So then, here is how it all breaks down:

1. God created the world by His faith. (False – God has no faith.)

2. God’s faith is a creative power or force. (False – faith is trust)

3. God’s faith power was released through His words (False – God’s creative power is His Word.)

Here it comes like a sneaky thief through the back door. But when you see the scheme of it all, you will understand how the thief got in. It really is as masterful as it is deceitful. We have to give discredit where discredit is due. It is all, pardon the pun, very creative.

***

Religious Humanists of the Copeland brand teach that God spoke “Faith-Force Words,” and thereby realized the miracles of the six-day creation. So now, and here is the real design of all of this, Religious Humanists tell us that Christians, who also live by faith, can create through their “Faith-Force Words” as well. Even as the great and only God said, “Let there be,” and there was, so Religious Humanists teach that believers can likewise say, “Let there be,” and there will be.

Now you got it:

“EVEN AS GOD CREATES BY HIS FAITH THROUGH DECREES, SO CHRISTIANS CAN

CREATE BY  THEIR FAITH THROUGH DECREES.”

Walla! A whole new religion is born:

“GOD AND MAN THE CO-FAITHERS AND THE CO-CREATORS AND THE CO-DECREERS.”

Sounds like:

“PLANET OF THE GOD AND OF THE GODS.” 

Exactly, for Copeland believes that believers are not like God, but that they are themselves gods.

Oh how people fall for this stuff by the droves! Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation…” I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said:

“LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, WE CAN FIND IT ON OUR OWN.”

If not, then spiritually and morally today, it will find us!

EXAMPLE

I was sitting at a Christmas gathering some time ago, and out of the blue someone who is caught up in this delusion came up to me and said,

“You know don’t you that we can create with our words?” 

I sat there with a mouth full of teeth. I had never been approached by anyone before in my life with this shocking statement, let alone at a Christmas gathering. The speaker stood there proclaiming to be a co-creator with God through his faith-force words. Like he was about to pull off a 7^th day of creation before my very eyes or something! I remember feeling weirdness coming over me and thinking that I had better look into this far-out stuff soon. So now I have! I have discovered and am sharing with you what has come to be known as:

“THE WORD OF FAITH MOVEMENT.”

***

In addition to all of the falsehoods that we have already clobbered, there is another huge problem. The Hebrew word used here for “CREATE” in the Genesis 1:1 account is “BARA,” and it is only used of God in the Bible. Hear it:

“TO CREATE IS EXCLUSIVELY A DIVINE ACTIVITY UNABLE TO BE DUPLICATED

OR REPEATED BY ANYONE OR ANYTHING.”

When it comes to “BARA,” we are eternal miles over our heads here. We humans cannot create something out of nothing, only God can do that! In other words:

“DIVINE CREATION IS FOREVER UNREPEATABLE AND UNDUPLICATABLE BY

ANYONE OR ANYTHING”

Furthermore, “BARA” is never used in the sense that God took an object or substance of some kind out of which He created or fashioned everything. God created everything from nothing – “ex nihilo.” One of the great laws of physics is that:

“MATTER CAN NEITHER BE CREATED OR DESTROYED. IT CAN ONLY BE CHANGED.”

Of course, God is never bound by natural laws, He transcends them.

***

APPLICATION

And the beauty of all of this is that if you continue reading the creation stories in Genesis, you will find that God continues to make something out of nothing. God takes the non-existent and makes existence from it. First He makes and then He fills. He made the earth and filled it with plants and animals. He made the heavens and filled it with stars and planets. God takes the formless and empty and makes something quite distinctive, beautiful, and good. If God could take nothing and make something good from it, can He do it again? Can God take the nothingness of my life and yours and make something good from it? Can God bring light out of our darkness?

The opening words of Genesis 1 describe the condition in which we sinners live. Our lives may seem empty and formless, with no shape or meaning, unfulfilled and going nowhere, stumbling in the darkness of our world. Bill Gaither has written a song whose chorus brings to light God’s intention for all of His children. The song is entitled, “Something Beautiful.” These are the words of the chorus,

“Something beautiful, something good, all my confusion Christ understood.

All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife,

But He made something beautiful of my life.”

We can stand in the peace and power of God’s presence for He can turn the darkness of our lives into the brightest daybreak through the creative power of His Son Jesus Christ. We read in II Corinthians 5:17,

“Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things

have passed away; behold the new things have come.”

*******

V. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

Kenneth Copeland goes on to state:

“THE VERY FAITH THAT GOD USED WHEN HE CREATED…IS THE FAITH THAT IS BURNING IN YOUR SPIRIT…WELL, HE CREATED ALL THE PLANETS, HOW COME YOU CAN’T CREATE SOMETHING? YOU DON’T KNOW AS MUCH AS HE DOES. HE HAS GREATER WORKING KNOWLEDGE OF THAT FAITH THAN YOU DO. BUT WE’RE LEARNING. OUR TIME IS COMING. AND IN SOME WAYS IT IS ALREADY HERE.”

FIRST of all, close only counts in horseshoe, and if we think that we can come close in creating or prophesying or anything else, we are only horsing around. Anything that creatively errs or prophetically bombs is not a good attempt, IT IS A DUD. Listen:

“THERE IS NO SUCH THINGS AS FAITH-FORCE-WORD CREATION INTRODUCTION,

AND THEN FAITH-FORCE-WORD CREATION 101, AND THEN

FAITH-FORCE-WORD CREATION 102.”

Well then, practice all you want, but nobody is going to practice on me or my church. NO CREATING OR PROPHESYING OR ANY OTHER “ING” PRACTITIONERS ALLOWED. God the Holy Spirit gets it done right the first time and every time. NO PRACTICE NEEDED! PERFECTION! I can’t imagine God saying, “I’ll try again tomorrow,” or, “I’m starting to get the hang of it.” Hear me – No DRY RUNS. No TRY AGAINS. No DRESS REHEARSALS. No RETAKES. No WHOOPSES. No COME CLOSES. No NEAR MISSES. No JUST ABOUTS. No NICE TRIES. No SORT OFS. No OUT TAKES. No YOU’RE GETTING WARMERS. No THAT’S MORE LIKE ITS. No VAST IMPROVEMENTS. No, no, no!!!

What does the Bible say as in Mark 7:37? We read,

“And they were utterly astonished, saying, ‘HE HAS DONE ALL THINGS WELL;

He makes even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.’”

It does not say, “And they said, ‘Could you come back tomorrow and work on the other ear?’” The word “WELL” means “TOTALLY RIGHT – STRAIGHT A – NO ERRORS – PERFECT.”

***

SECOND, and hear this real good:

“THERE IS NOT NOR CAN THERE BE TRAINING AND PRACTICE IN THE SUPERNATURAL.

IF THERE COULD BE, IT WOULD BE NATURAL BUT NOT SUPERNATURAL.”

The supernatural is not like practicing the piano or the clarinet or the trumpet. That is natural. Indeed those talents we can get better at, and over time we can really excel in. But we will never reach perfection on this side of eternity. Even the best, blow it from time to time. I have heard mezzo sopranos and basso profundos go flat or sharp. It is called a sour note, and that is the human dilemma at its best.

Come on now, let’s get real:

“THE SUPERNATURAL IS TOTALLY GOD’S DOING, IT IS NOT MAN’S DOING.

NO ONE CAN GET GOOD AT WHAT GOD ALONE CAN DO.”

We read in Psalm 72:18,

“Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who alone doeth wonders.”

And again Psalm 86:10,

“For Thou art great and doest wondrous things, Thou alone art God.”

Question:

“HOW IN THE WORLD CAN MAN BE TRAINED IN OR PRACTICE FOR WHAT

NO ONE ELSE CAN DO EXCEPT GOD?”

Creation was totally supernatural! The manifestation gifts of the Holy Spirit in I Corinthians 12:1-11 are totally supernatural. Granted, He executes those gifts through human beings, but they are totally of His doing and for His glory. Many times the supernatural is operating through us, and we don’t even know it until we hear the report. You don’t actually think to yourself do you, that after you prayed and laid your hands on someone and he or she was healed, “Boy, I’ve really got the hot hand?” If you do, you are much dumber than you look!

It is to be thoroughly rejected what is going on today. I read over and over again about religious seminars for the following:

-Training in the miraculous.

-How to release the supernatural.

-How to impart the anointing.

-The mechanics of miracles.

The entire thing has become fleshly, carnal, humanistic, mechanical, blasphemous, and makes me puke.

Of course, we as the disciples of Jesus Christ are commanded to pray, to lay on our hands, and to anoint with oil. Those are not mechanics of the miraculous, but acts of obedience to our sovereign Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There is nothing mechanical about the supernatural. There is no manual about how we are to do the miraculous. Hear this and hear it good:

“MIRACLES ARE NOT ABOUT US LAYING ON OUR HANDS, BUT TOTALLY

AND EXCLUSIVELY ABOUT GOD BARING HIS ARM.”

Finally on this very important point! For any preacher, teacher, prophet, prophetess, or any other “ER,” “ET,” or “ESS,” to go around conveying that he or she can train people in the supernatural and the unfathomable mind and ways of God, is to have an EGO THE SIZE OF A ELEPHANT AND THE BRAIN THE SIZE OF AN ANT.”

We read in Romans 11:33,

“Oh the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable areHis judgments,and His ways

past finding out.”

Come now you pretenders, you inflated dudes and dudesses, how can you train others in what you can’t find out for yourselves.

Listen:

“WHEN WE PRAY FOR THE MIRACULOUS, IT IS LOWERING OUR PRAYER BUCKET

INTO THE EXCLUSIVE OCEAN OF GOD’S MIRACULOUS. AND WHEN WE PULL

IT UP, IT ONLY CONTAINS WHAT OUR BUCKET CAN HOLD FOR

THAT MOMENT, NOT WHAT THE OCEAN OF GOD’S

MIRACULOUS INFINITELY AND

ETERNALLY AFFORDS.”

And the point is:

“AND EXACTLY SO IT IS WITH OUR THIMBLE-SIZED UNDERSTANDING OF

THE MIND AND WAYS OF GOD.”

Be strongly corrected and admonished you with your religious egos the size of an elephant.

*******

VI. DECLARATIONS AND DECREES

Well now, this is where this entire phony FAITH-OF-GOD baloney was leading to all the time. We now have hit the jackpot that is promised people who don’t know better and who are Bible illiterates. Here it is in the form of a syllogism:

Major Premise – GOD CREATES BY FAITH-FORCE WORDS.

Minor Premise – MAN HAS FAITH FORCE LIKE GOD.

Conclusion – MAN CAN CREATE WITH HIS FAITH-FORCE WORDS JUST LIKE GOD DOES.”

There you go! Bingo! Bull’s eye! And here is the cosmic catastrophe that is happening across the religious spectrum worldwide. Listen closely now and read carefully, and you will understand how this thing has massively corrupted Christianity and those who practice it.

And so it is, that Religious Humanists do not so much PRAY ANYMORE. No they don’t! Rather what they do is DECREE – DECLARE – DEMAND all in the name of Jesus about this and that and everything else. Just like God decreed with HIS FAITH-FORCE WORDS, “LET THERE BE, AND THERE WAS,” so now those who have been deceived by this no longer petition God, rather they too DECREE WITH THEIR FAITH-FORCE WORDS, “LET THERE BE.” It has totally replaced the heartbeat of the Christian faith from humble petition to human control. What has tragically resulted are hosts of pitiful pipsqueaks acting and talking like pontiffs.

There is just one huge problem with all of this. The syllogism’s major premise and the minor premises are both false, and therefore the entire syllogism reaches an equally false conclusion. The entire thing is bogus!

EXAMPLE OF FAITH-FORCE PRAYER

Here is a common sample of what has become very prevalent in the modern religious world, and how all of this has impacted the prayer life of the church. What follows is FAITH-FORCE WORD on display in the context of what used to be PETITION TO GOD but is now DECREES AS GODS. Bear in mind that the word TO DECREE is to issue an ORDER. This is an actual typical modern prayer, when in fact it is not prayer at all, but pompous pontification. I will leave the pontificator anonymous:

“Heavenly Father in the name of Your Son, Jesus, we come boldly to the throne grateful for the access made possible by the SHED BLOOD OF JESUS. We DECREE and DECLARE household salvation according to Acts 16:3. We decree that the unbeliever is sanctified by the believer, that You are pouring Your spirit upon our children and everyone connected to us and they will begin to declare their love for You and confess that they belong to You.

We DECREE and DECLARE that President Obama’s heart is in Your hands, he acknowledges You in all his ways, he hears Your voice and does that which is right in Your sight and does not compromise Your word, You bless him, his family and meet all of his needs. We DECREE and DECLARE that his cabinet, the senate, house of representatives will uphold moral laws, be in unity and do that which is right for the people, they be concerned about the poor, the needy, the widower, the weak and do those things to protect and meet the needs of your people. We DECREE and DECLARE that those with hidden agendas will be exposed and pulled down….”

This is so far from the true spirit of prayer in Scripture, THE SPIRIT OF PETITION, as we read in Ephesians 6:18,

“With all PRAYER and PETITION at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be

on the alert with all perseverance and PETITION for all the saints.”

Listen:

1. Prayer must be led by the Holy Spirit.

2. Prayer is making petition at all times.

3. Prayer is being alert in petitioning for the saints.

4. Prayer has diddly-wop to do with decrees, i.e. barking orders.

The above DECREE TIRADE is so foreign to the prayer that our Lord Himself taught us to pray, that it is not nor can it be the Spirit of God. It is from another religious planet – the planet of the gods. It is not Christianity or Christian prayer. This prayer never made it past the end of the nose. Hear it:

“THE TRUE SPIRIT OF PRAYER IS NOT THE SPIRIT OF DECREE, BUT

THE SPIRIT OF PETITION.”

EXAMPLE OF CHRISTIAN PRAYER

What follows is a prayer by 95 year old evangelist Billy Graham. It is filled with the true spirit of prayer, for it incorporates the Biblical elements of confession of sin, petitioning God for forgiveness, petitioning God for His direction and guidance, and petitioning God with a heartfelt cry for deliverance as a nation and a government. This prayer went directly to God’s Throne of Grace:

“Heavenly Father, we come before You today to ask your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance. We know Your word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have killed abortionists and called it justifiable. We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from sin and set us free. Amen!”

VII. THE DISASTROUS RESULTS

For just a moment, imagine getting caught up in all of this, namely, that faith is a force, and that this faith force is released through the words of your mouth to create what you want to create, to affect what you want to affect, and to get what you want to get. Can you imagine the tremendous power of suggestion that this has in the lives of the spiritually gullible and naive, and the excesses to which this could lead, not to mention the messes that people could get themselves into through it?

Of course, embedded in all of this is the great potential for what must be called sins of presumption. Under the windshield wiper of his car which was now parked illegally, the driver, a man of faith, stuck this note, “I have circled the block for 20 minutes. I am late for an appointment. If I don’t park here I’ll lose my job. I believe that God forgives all our sins. Forgive us our trespasses.” When he came back from the appointment, he found a parking ticket under his windshield wiper with this note attached, “As a policeman I’ve circled this block for twenty years. It I don’t give you a ticket I’ll lose my job. Lead us not into temptation.”

EXAMPLE

And again, when you are FAITH-FORCE DECREERS, you can call forth riches and homes and whatever. All men by nature want it all, and now with faith-force decrees you can have it all. Ted Turner has had his wealth and phenomenal business success. When he sold his television network to Time Warner, he was quoted as saying, “The only thing I hate about it is I’ll never be the wealthiest man in America now.” Oh don’t feel bad Teddy boy, just get some faith force, and you can have God and have it all again too. That is how modern Christianity works.

I have actually seen and heard these “FAITH-FORCE DECREERS” declaring their faith for a new house, and declaring in faith with their mouths that God was now going to make a way where there seemed to be no way, money where there was no money, and a house where there was no house. After all, they gave Him no options. What choice did He have? The FAITH-FORCE DECREERS had spoken, and He had to obey. They had “Faith-Force-Spoken” it, and now it simply had to become. My, my, what an absolutely handy and hands on arrangement. Simple, easy, clean! No downside or disappointments! 

Then, upon the basis of their faith-force declarations and their faith-mouth proclamations, they wrote checks on faith for their new house, with the totally presumptuous assurance that God would now provide the funds which they by faith had decreed, and which at the time they did not have. God didn’t provide, and the police had another name for it all – “Hot Checks.” Their checks bounced higher than a goofy-ball.

That is only one tragic example of Religious Humanism being carried out in a “Faith-Force Word-Fiasco.”

EXAMPLE

I have heard again and again of Religious Humanists trying to exert their faith-force and their mouth-might, and it turned into a huge disaster as well as into hearts of doubt and disillusionment.

In a Religious Humanist church in Nebraska, the pastor died of cancer. Of course, this should not happen to a pastor in the land of the gods, especially an ordained god. When it came time for his funeral, the people coming into the funeral service were all informed at the door that this would not be a funeral, but rather a resurrection service. As the memorial wake unfolded, the pastor did not awaken.

The service lasted for hours, as people decreed, cried, and shouted faith-force words of the binding of death, and faith-force words of the release from death for the corpse, as the dead body was commanded in Jesus’ name to rise from the dead and climb out of his casket. Over and over again they commanded the dead pastor to get up, but he didn’t obey. All he could do was to just lie there, dead as a doornail. Of course it wasn’t him, it was his shell. Hopefully he was in Heavenly bliss, and they were trying to bring him back down to earth’s mess by their verbal-faith-bluster.

The motionless corpse after many hours of faith-force-fiats finally stopped the resurrection service dead in its tracks. The end result was not only were the dead man’s earthly remains buried, but the misguided faith of many of his parishioners was buried with him. The church disbanded, and the people scattered everywhere, some of them to other churches, and some of them to no churches at all. This complete and deadly falsification of faith makes people lose their minds, their faith, and their church.

The time tested-truth is this:

“DISILLUSIONMENT IS THE CHILD OF ILLUSION.”

Such are the twisted and tragic remains of a church that gets caught up in the FAITH-FORCE FIAT movement. Hear me:

“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE FAITH OF GOD, BUT THERE IS THE

GLORIOUS GIFT OF FAITH IN GOD.”

VIII. THE WORST RESULT OF ALL

The Gospel of FAITH “IN” JESUS CHRIST FOR SALVATION is being replaced by a false gospel of THE FAITH “OF” JESUS CHRIST FOR POWER. There is an entirely different Christ being served up to the people from the WORD “OF” FAITH PULPITS. FAITH “IN” GOD has given way to FAITH “OF” GOD. People are eating strange manna. There is no life in it, it is all sugar and no substance. It is all FIVE HOUR ENERGY without any ETERNAL VALUE OR NOURISHMENT.

Jesus said of Himself in John 6:51 and 54,

“I am the living bread which came down out of Heaven; if anyone eats this

bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall

give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

“He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,

and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Amazing! Jesus is likening Himself to food and drink not only, but to a supernatural cuisine which if we eat and drink it, we will have eternal resurrection life. If you will:

“WHAT HE OFFERS US IS HIS FLESH TO BE WASHED DOWN WITH A

CUP BRIMMING WITH HIS BLOOD.”

Jesus had spoken earlier in John 6 about manna – the heavenly wonder bread that had kept the Israelites fed in their forty-year wilderness wanderings. Jesus used that as a springboard to now reveal Himself as THE TRUE WONDER BREAD OF HEAVEN UNTO ETERNAL LIFE. We have heard those TV ads that declare:

“BEEF – IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER.”

Jesus is saying:

“ME – I’M WHAT’S FOR DINNER.”

There was once a much older ad that asked,”Where’s the beef?” Well, where is it today? All we are getting today is watered-down soup. Will you right now EAT HIS FLESH AND DRINK HIS BLOOD? Eat up! Drink up! All of Him! That is, put your full trust “IN” Jesus Christ today as your Lord and Savior. Confess your sins now to Him, ask Him to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. He is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness, and give and nourish you with brand new and eternal life in Him. Hallelujah forevermore! Amen!