Tag: False Counselors

“The Lord Says” – A Common Line Used by the Wicked to Deceive and Control Us

~ Jeff Crippen ~ 2 Comments

It is soooo common today for people who claim to be Christians to also claim to speak God’s Word to us. They have their little phrases – “Well, the Lord says….” or “The Lord showed me that…” – you’ve heard this stuff I am sure.

This is not a new evil. The enemy always sends His lying counterfeits to us in order to deceive, shame, control, and destroy. Paul pronounces such a person “anathema” (damned by God for destruction) in his letter to the Galatians. Read the following Scripture passage carefully and you will see that this very same wickedness was going on in Jeremiah’s day. And notice also that the Lord’s wrath is set against people who claim they speak His Word but have not been sent by Him at all:

Jer 23:21-36  “I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.  (22)  But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.  (23)  “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away?  (24)  Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.

(25)  I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’  (26)  How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart,  (27)  who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal?

(28)  Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD.  (29)  Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

(30)  Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who steal my words from one another.  (31)  Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who use their tongues and declare, ‘declares the LORD.’  (32)  Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the LORD, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the LORD.

(33)  “When one of this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the LORD?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden, and I will cast you off, declares the LORD.’  (34)  And as for the prophet, priest, or one of the people who says, ‘The burden of the LORD,’ I will punish that man and his household.  (35)  Thus shall you say, every one to his neighbor and every one to his brother, ‘What has the LORD answered?’ or ‘What has the LORD spoken?’  (36)  But ‘the burden of the LORD’ you shall mention no more, for the burden is every man’s own word, and you pervert the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God.

Many of you have been the target of evil people we call abusers (revilers is the word in Scripture). And I suspect that those of you who have would be able to tell us how your abuser would claim to be speaking or acting according to the Lord’s instruction to him.  They can be rather slick at this deception. So much so that people who really know Christ and want to serve Him can end up thinking that they have to listen to “the word” a lying, counterfeit speaks lest they end up disregarding the Lord’s command to them.

Beware of anyone who is quick to hand out “divine” orders to others. For myself, I immediately dismiss anyone who comes up to me and says something like “the Lord gave me a word for you.” I literally say to them before they can even get started – “No He didn’t. Begone.”

Christian – Do Not Permit Anyone to Put a Yoke on You!

~ Jeff Crippen ~ 2 Comments

Gal 4:3-7 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. (4) But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, (5) to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. (6) And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (7) So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Gal 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

People who were enslaved to some cult at one time generally have a pretty hard time getting free. Even if they get free physically by being rescued or fleeing, it still can be quite a task to get mentally free.

I have seen this dynamic in people who were in legalistic churches. They are still afraid. They want to serve the Lord. They want to do what is right. But they keep struggling because they have been taught for so long that their old law-preaching pastor and elders are in authority over them, that they must do what they are told, and that if they do not they will incur the Lord’s wrath.

Let me give you an example.

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So Just How do we “Test the Spirits?”

~ Jeff Crippen

Gal 1:8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

2Co 11:3-4 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (4) For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough….2Co 11:14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

1John 4:1-2 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (2) By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

We are seeing claims of late that Jesus Christ has appeared as a so-called “light man.” The claim made is that since the Bible says God is light and Christ is the Light of the world and so on, then if someone reports that “the light man” appeared to them and said he was Jesus bringing them salvation, we must at minimum believe that such a claim is possibly valid. Even if it is made by a woman who claims to have been molested as a child by Billy Graham, Richard Nixon, and other notables who were all part of a secret conglomeration conspiracy organization consisting of the CIA, the Masons, the Roman Catholic Church, and others. The woman insists that at the age of six she was held in a cage with other children in subterranean levels of an army base and these children told her that they used to get visited by “the light man”.  When asked during an interview what does that mean, the woman said,  “they (the other children) described him and I said to them, “oh yeah, I know him.  That’s Jesus Christ.’”

And now we are being told that if we don’t believe these reports then we are denying the ways that Christ works today, that we are refusing to help abuse victims, and worse.  But this is not Christ. Nope. It is not, and I will tell you why.

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