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Ten demonic trends are infiltrating the church today. Last time we covered one through five: anti-semitism, Jesus was a social justice warrior, Jesus wants us healthy and wealthy, all good is from God and all bad is from Satan, and religion is bad. Today we're hitting six through ten:
- #6: Jesus was all inclusive
- #7: Discernment is actually judgy
- #8: Hell isn't real
- #9: Jesus isn't a person
- #10: Everything in the Bible was written to me
Demonic Trend #6: Jesus Was All Inclusive
We hear this a lot. "Well, Jesus accepts everybody." "Jesus loves you just the way you are." Okay. So let's break this down a little bit. Let's compare how we view things to how God views things.
External vs. Internal
When we look at inclusivity or embracing everyone, human beings generally are looking in terms of physical attributes—age or gender or nationality or intelligence and achievements and education. We can look at titles, degrees, all that kind of stuff. But those are all external things. All right? God doesn't do that. God looks at the inward man. That's what he's concerned about. He doesn't really care what titles you have, what education you have, what gender you are, what race you are, etc., etc.
And so, while it is true that Jesus says that those who come to him, he will not in any way turn away—that's true—but does that mean he doesn't turn anybody away? Absolutely not.
It's all based in the attitude in which you come to him.
He'll never turn you away. But he turned away the rich young ruler. He offered the rich young ruler a chance and the rich young ruler turned away.
The Rich Young Ruler
Here's the key about that particular story. The rich person came to Jesus and said, "What must I do to be saved?" And anyone who would approach me with that question would be like, "Okay, here we go with the gospel message." Jesus didn't really give him the gospel message. He said, "Go sell everything you have. Give it to the poor. Do specific things."
But here's the difference. Jesus, it says before he told him that, knew his heart. He knew what this person was looking for in reality. We don't have that ability to know their heart per se. But Jesus did. And he didn't do what we think in terms of modern Christianity—that well, we'll just share the gospel message. He let that man walk away. Right? Because he knew his heart.
The Feeding of the 5,000
Matthew 14, the feeding of 5,000, is really interesting. He had all these people. He performs this miracle and then after that they head to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And all of a sudden the next day people are like, "Where is this Jesus who fed us yesterday?" Now Jesus acknowledges something about these people. The next day, people that wanted to find Jesus found him in Capernaum. But Jesus's response to them was:
"You just want your belly filled. You're not looking for Jesus. You're looking for the benefit—particularly the earthly benefit, the selfish benefit of what he can do for you."
Benefits vs. The Benefactor
There is benefit to coming to Jesus Christ as your savior. And forgiveness is the number one thing. You get redeemed. You get forgiven. And then we want to add on a bunch of other stuff to it because why? Because that's part of it. You get these blessings. You get these benefits. Then the benefits become what it is that you want, not the one who gave it.
The relationship between a husband and a wife and the father and the children—just like our heavenly Father with Jesus and us, because we're the bride of Christ. He's like the father-in-law, right? He's going to hand the bride to his son. And so his relationship with the Son—and Jesus as our Father and Son and Holy Spirit, the triune God—when he is in our life, we have these benefits.
So think about a dad who wants to buy his child a new car. And the only reason the child wants to be around the dad is to get the new car. Right? Instead of loving being around the dad. And by the way, my great dad gave me a new car. It's just a different turn in the subconscious and the heart of a person.
And that's why the phrase of the year is "contentment with godliness is great gain." You're content with what your heavenly Father gives you. And then when the blessings come, you're celebrating with him these blessings. Instead of, "I'm coming to Jesus cuz I want the blessings. And by the way, I guess I'll get forgiveness too." And so there's—it starts with that contrite heart. And that's why he turned some of the people away after the feeding of the 5,000.
The Flip Side
There's a flip side to that same coin. Because if you're coming to Jesus for that physical benefit—for the actual bread, not for the bread of life—when the reverse happens, what do you think is going to happen? You're going to leave.
And that was played out when he cast out the demons from the man and sent them into the swine, and the swine ran into the Sea of Galilee and drowned themselves. And what was the people's response?
"Get out of here. Step off. We don't need you around here. You're making life rocky and bad for us."
So if you're coming to Jesus for the good things, when you receive the bad things, you're going to do the opposite. You're going to walk away. That's why it's so important that you come to Jesus as a person who needs a savior, not as somebody who wants a simple benefit.
And they did not understand the power that he was actually demonstrating. They didn't, in the swine thing. They were focused on what's good for me, what's bad for me right now—instead of eternally.
Why Debate Doesn't Work
This is why you don't debate somebody. Nobody comes to Jesus after winning an argument. You just proclaim. Why? Because what we're talking about here is spiritually discerned. Which means God has to draw you to give up this life for the next, to understand your sin and cry out for mercy to the holy God who can. And instead, it's just processing the good and the bad, how it's going to affect us. And then that's why when tough stuff comes, people fall away—because they didn't come to Jesus with the right heart.
And Jesus won't put up with any of that. Coming to him based on what's good for us, or rejecting him because that life might get rough or bumpy—that is the exact opposite of the people that Jesus is calling. It's more than "He gets us."
Biblical Examples
In the Bible, it gives us some examples.
Noah and the ark, global flood. Did God let everybody on the boat who wanted to be on the boat? No. And what about the people that were beating on the door after the rain started coming? Do you think they had a realization, a reality of what really was going on? "I have chosen wrong." I think they did.
Look at Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean, whoa. He brought Lot out of that. He could have brought all those people out of that. But Jesus doesn't just accept us the way that we are.
Seek and You Will Find
Luke 11:9-13 says:
"And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?"
Exactly. Seek and you will find. If you're seeking what it is the Lord is offering you, you are going to find it.
The Real Truth About Acceptance
And so the point is this: we come to Jesus by grace to the realization that we are not acceptable to God in any way, shape, or form. This does not align with the whole "Jesus is all-inclusive and he accepts you exactly the way you are." He accepts nothing about the way you are. He transforms you into a completely new creature. You are not the same person that you were before.
"Jesus accepts you just as you are"—it's a little bit of a misnomer. More accurately, Jesus is willing to accept you in spite of the way you are. And he also does not leave us the way we are. So he really doesn't accept us the way we are. He's willing to forgive us for the way we are, but then he's going to change us. So it's not always the best, most accurate description.
Because the believer realizes that there's a hope in their complete unacceptableness. Is that a word? Unacceptableness. Let's just go with it. There's a hope for the person in that state when they realize that's the state that they're in. And when they realize Jesus is the solution, there's a great sense of indebtedness to this Christ who is willing to make you acceptable to our heavenly Father.
So no, Jesus is not all inclusive.
Demonic Trend #7: Discernment Is Judgy
How judgy is Jesus? He's coming as judge, right?
So the question is, are we supposed to judge? And I hear that a lot even to this day, even though we have talked extensively about Matthew chapter 7—because verse one is the one that they like to use about "don't judge lest you be judged."
You got to read the rest of the chapter. Read the rest of the chapter.
It's About Hypocrisy
And when you get down to it, later in the chapter he says, first remove the plank that's in your eye and then what? Then you'll be able to help get the speck out of your neighbor's eye. So he's not talking about don't judge. He's talking about hypocrisy.
And I think that's a big thing that we can take away—that most of the things that really got Jesus agitated was the hypocrisy. You say this, but you do that. You say you love your brother, or you say you love God, but you hate your brother. And over and over Jesus is pointing out the hypocrisy. So it's not about "don't judge anything."
The Danger of Not Judging
Actually, if you're not judging things properly, you're going to be carried off into error. And we have seen that over and over and over from the don't judge crowd. Right? In other words, "don't judge" leads to tolerance. Tolerance can be a good thing. We have to have an open heart towards people and love people. But they've gone so far that they flipped the script into something that is not biblical. It's a demonic deception. Yes, it is. And it all goes back to not being able to judge properly, not being able to look at something and say, "That's wrong. That's not from God. That has a problem with it."
"Well, who are you to say? And everybody else is doing it." And so we get caught up into this, "Well, I better not judge if I'm righteous."
And the actual opposite is true. You judge, and then how you behave after you've judged in your heart can mean a lot. You don't have to be a jerk about things, but you can stand firm.
Why the Church Has Lost Power
And that's why the church has no power—in the general visible church in America, part of it is: "We don't want to judge because we'll be unloving if we judge. The Bible says don't judge lest you be judged." And it's like, no, don't take that out of context. There's a context there that's legitimate. But a lot of y'all take it too far.
He's speaking into hypocrisy, not looking at things and making a judgment. Because sometimes we see this in the church and we sometimes see this in ourselves—that we tend to start getting hypercritical and we are just ready to pounce on any slightly wrong move that anybody makes. And in Matthew chapter 7, that's where Jesus is saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, way back." Because if you want to be really nitpicky and just pounce on every little thing that everybody does, you're going to be judged in that same manner. Life is not going to be pleasant to you. So he was wanting people to relax and show a little grace. There is a time for judgment and there is also a time for grace. And so there was a correction going on there.
What the Bible Actually Says
Does the Bible have anything to say about what we are to do? Absolutely.
1 Corinthians 2:15 says:
"The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one."
How do you square that with the idea that we're not supposed to judge anything?
John 7:24 is a Bible verse where Jesus is telling people:
"Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment."
Look deeper. Hold your water. Figure things out before you just make these snap decisions. We aren't able to look at people and see their heart like we were talking about how Jesus could. So we have to take a moment, weigh things, consider things. And this is just very, very important. We can't just look at something and snap make a decision. First impressions can be very misleading and very wrong.
The Response to Cherry-Picking
So when someone says "the Bible says judge lest you not be judged," just say, "Well, what about John 7? What about John 7:24?"
Cherry-picking verses to have a social, cultural, personal viewpoint justified is not what the Bible is for. The Bible is salvation history revealed. Jesus from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22. And in its whole context with scripture interpreting scripture, you will find that although initial appearance judging is wrong—I mean, I learned that in first grade with the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover"—proper discernment is commanded.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." All of that is gone now with the twist. And many of the progressive culture who've twisted this into wokeness—to where we have to be tolerant of everything or we're not loving—they have cherry-picked verses at the beginning instead of looking at the full context.
And that's part of what this is about—without apology saying, "Look, let's get back on track biblically." That's the point.
The Wisdom of Examination
I mean, even in a court of law—that's why our courts of law exist. And when you go back to Proverbs and you listen to the words of David, he gives us this little bit of wisdom where he says, "The first one to plead his cause seems right." That's absolutely true. We see this all over social media. We'll see a little clip. We'll see a little segment. And we're ready to say, "That's great." Or we're ready to say, "That's terrible." Instant instant justice.
But he goes on to say, "Until his neighbor comes and examines him."
Examination. Proverbs 18:17:
"The first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him."
Demonic Trend #8: Hell Isn't Real
This is something that we're hearing a lot of. Even Kirk Cameron came on and said, "Well, I really doubt that the fires of torment and maybe God has another plan." And that really resonates with us in our subconscious because we want to believe that people who just reject Jesus don't get tormented forever—because some of them didn't really even understand or they didn't... I don't know.
And so we struggle with this as a human condition. And so when Kirk Cameron came out and all the theological people went, "This is outrageous because of what the Bible says"—yes, and amen—but on the other hand, it's like, kind of understand what he's saying and why he's saying it.
The thought of that eternal torment—that's what he was questioning. To him it seemed like, well, that's way too harsh of a judgment for some of these little transgressions that we have.
The Logic Behind Rejecting Hell
But that gets back to this. They want to kind of disregard hell because it's such a negative thought. It's such a bad thing. And then you take it a step further to one of the demonic trends that we talked about in last week's show—that all good things are from God and all bad things are from the devil. Well, if God only does good things, he certainly could not have created a place called hell to put the wicked into. He couldn't have done that because only good things come from God, right? That means that God could not create a place like that.
Can't be taken literally. So now we have to figure it out. And now we get into our intellectual prowess. And who's the smartest guy or gal in the room right now? And that's what generates it.
The Smugness of "Superior Consciousness"
I've never seen anybody come humbly along and say, "Hmm, you know, I don't want to be the one to say this, but I kind of get a different interpretation of the Bible." It's always, "Listen to what God has revealed in my superior consciousness." And it's just—test it. Tell me if I'm wrong. I mean, the reality is we have to take what God says literally.
Understanding God's Holiness
And then the other caveat is that we don't understand the immense holiness of our creator God. Right? And we don't understand how he can't be around sin. He can't be in the presence of sin. And he wants to be with us forever. That's his goal. God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
And so when we come through the only passageway to God, which is the blood of Jesus Christ, we get to now be with him forever. And those that are not with him forever—some people don't like to talk about the fires of hell. They want to say "eternally separated from God." And so if God's not there, then there is no goodness there because God is the goodness. And that's where you get this "God is always good, Satan is always bad"—and that's not real, from last episode.
But the idea that hell isn't real is very troubled water to be in theologically, biblically.
Hell Is Mentioned in the Bible
It's hard for some people to reconcile in their brain. And they'll even go so far as to say, "Well, hell isn't even mentioned in the Bible." Well, it is. Hell is referenced by a lot of different words:
- The lake of fire
- Hades
- Sheol
- The grave
I mean, there's all these different words that paint a picture of hell. It is a place. And hell is a word that we use to kind of encompass all those words that the Bible uses for that place of eternal torment. I mean, the Bible talks about that.
Scripture on Hell
So if you're wondering, is hell really a literal place? Let's go to Matthew 10:28:
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
In hell. That's a place. That is a place.
Then Luke 12:4-5:
"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I tell you whom to fear: Fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him."
Fear him who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.
These are serious things that you just can't gloss over. And when you take the Bible in its full context, there is no denying hell is very real.
The Good News
And the good thing—God is so good. He offered his son to save us from that repercussion of ourselves. So that's not a bad thing. That's a really good thing.
Demonic Trend #9: Jesus Isn't a Person
Jesus isn't a person to follow. Rather, a consciousness to be reached. This is the one I've been waiting for.
The Deception Explained
So the rejection is that Jesus, yes, was a person, was a man, but he wasn't necessarily God. He was just this really great example that we can follow to reach our God consciousness like Jesus did. That's the concept. And that we will become like Jesus when we reach this consciousness. But Jesus was just a man. He's not God. He's not a person that we need to go to to be reconciled back to God.
This is a big one. It's kind of hard to wrap your brain around it.
The Common Thread Among False Teachers
Get around the people—and I'm talking intellectuals, seminary professors at false seminaries, college professors at former Christian colleges but still have Christian in their name. Been around a bunch of them. A lot of them write books and they used to come on shows and we'd interview them. And there was a common thread through 95% of them. And that was this:
"I'm so smug that I have figured out the hidden thing about consciousness and that Jesus might not really be a person."
And it's all wrapped up in their own significance. That's where the phrase—the joke—comes from: "My humility is part of my greatness." You get it?
Intellectual Gymnastics
What they want to do is they get to these clear unmovable truths and then they cannot conform to it. So they conform around it using intellectual gymnastics to try to get to a place where two things happen:
- The hard unmovable truth gets softened and set aside
- Their elevation in the intellectual community, in their status, in their significance, in their book sales, in their Twitter numbers, whatever—becomes increased because they've cracked the code and "oh my, this might be actually legitimate"
The Evidence for Scripture
So you come back at them with, "Hey look, the second most original manuscripts in the world of any ancient text is Homer's Iliad at 640 copies. The New Testament is number one with 7,000. All of scripture has over 20,000 original manuscripts."
And the changes in them, the nuances in them actually show even more that it's God's word being handled by men and divinely inspired. Because many things are little punctuations or a verse has been added here that wasn't there. And so, "Oh well, it was written by men and it has these differences in it." Just the fact that the eyewitnesses in Luke, Matthew, Mark are different on the same story at the same location but tell the exact same thing from a different perspective shows the authenticity more.
Bending Truth to Your Liking
Same thing with Jesus as being an actual person to follow. And yes, his teachings are great. Yes, they help our consciousness. Especially new life in Christ helps us. But when you run into absolute truth and you want to reject absolute truth, you have to find a way. And the only way to do that is to make stuff up and make it believable that isn't real.
If Jesus is no longer this tangible objective reality and you can just reduce it to a mental gymnastics that you can now manipulate, well then that's much more palatable. And you are then able to create a Jesus of your own creation. You're going to be able to start bending it and twisting it into your own liking. And that's what we were talking about in the last show about iniquity. Our iniquity is the bending and twisting of what? God's word.
And so it's easier to do that when Jesus is just a figment of your imagination and not an absolute truth that you have to deal with.
Common Biblical Sense
And my experience has been that when I speak like this, the idea is to disregard me, to set me aside, to ask where my degree is from. Right? To find out what I've got. I've sat down with doctors of theology. I've sat on platforms with them. And I got to be honest with you, using common biblical sense, it's not hard to hang with them. They're just not all that. Right? They're nothing more than people who—some of them have overeducated themselves to becoming worthless. And I'm just telling you the truth.
There are a lot that have gleaned much. And there are so many good theologians out there like Chris Rosebrough, the Christian pirate, like Justin Peters, like John MacArthur. And RC Sproul is one of my heroes. So is John MacArthur. They disagreed on a few theological points, but they didn't disagree on the fact that Jesus was a real person who came as fully God, fully man, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death as our substitute, and then—I always say—spiked the football with resurrection from the grave to give us victory over death and hell.
And hell is real. And Jesus was a real person.
Scripture Proves Jesus Is God
So first of all, Genesis 1:1:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
That tells us that God existed before us. And so Jesus, if he is God, cannot come about in us. He had to exist before us. And this is spelled out in a couple other verses.
So if Jesus is God and God existed before us, let's turn to John 1:1-2:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."
There you go. Jesus was there. Jesus was God. Jesus was a person. We were made in their likeness. And all things were made through him and without him nothing was made. So Jesus cannot possibly be our consciousness. That's just an oxymoron.
John 1:14:
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."
And every Christmas, whether I'm in the Matthew account with the wise men or whether I'm with the shepherds in Luke, I always point to this as being the most powerful Christmas verse of all. Because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It's just an amazing thing.
There's no wiggle room there. There really isn't if you're honest with yourself.
Personhood
And so because we are made in his image, we have personhood. We talk about that a lot when it comes to just individual rights and so on, particularly in the United States. So if there's a personhood to us, then our creator has a personhood as well.
Our consciousness creates nothing. This is a trend and I'm not going to get into it too much, but that what we think manifests physical reality. That's not true. It's not true. Our consciousness creates nothing. Our consciousness is not God.
We learn from God's word that Jesus exists eternally and before all creation, external to us. Therefore, he is a living, existing, creative, active person. There's just no question about it.
Demonic Trend #10: Everything in the Bible Was Written to Me
Context, people. Context.
It was written for all humans. It was written for us, but not necessarily written to us. Does that make sense?
The Right Questions to Ask
The best way to understand this is just go to the scriptures themselves.
And when you are reading passages, a good thing to ask yourself is:
- Who are they talking to?
- Why are they saying this?
- What's going on at the time?
And then that will give you an idea of is this specifically for you or is this for someone else.
One of the big trends in Bible studies which is really dangerous is "what does that verse mean to you?" Instead, we should be asking, "How do we apply that verse in our life?" And, "What is God trying to tell us as a converted sinner into a saint as to how to live?"
I always use Jeremiah 29:11 as an example where, you know, "I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you." And people say, "That's my life verse." And it's like, no, he wasn't talking to you. He was talking to the Babylonian captives.
A Dangerous Example
But first, let's go to Jeremiah 33:6:
"Behold, I will bring to it health and healing. I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security."
Oh, how exciting is that? Is that something you wanted to say? "Hey, I want that. That's for me." I just got this urge to name it and claim it.
And false teachers—they will feed that to you and feed that selfish nature that rises up in all of us. Right? But false teachers are going to feed that. They're not going to say, "Wait a minute. Let's take a closer look."
Look at the Context
If we back up to Jeremiah 33:4, when we ask these questions—who is this written to, why did he say it, what were the circumstances under which it was said—this is what it says:
"For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah that were torn down to make a defense against the siege mounds and against the sword."
That's who he's writing it to.
The Important Caveat
Now here's the caveat. The same God who said that to these people—the houses in the city and of the kings of Judah—the same God who said that to them is our God. So we can go to him and ask him to say those things to us. And you want to know what happens then? It's called God's sovereignty. He may choose to, he may not choose to. We have a response to say no matter what: blessed be the name of the Lord.
And I phrase that in 2026 as my phrase this year that's going to become just "contentment with godliness is great gain." I don't want that to become white noise. I don't want that to become a turn of phrase that just gets so annoying, but it's true. Contentment with godliness is great gain. That means the God who said this to the houses and the kings of Judah is the same God who's my God. And he might say it to me, he might not, but his sovereignty rules and blessed be the name of the Lord.
Promises and Timing
We have to remember, when God sent the Israelites into Babylon, or when God let them wander around in the desert—people were born and people died before those promises were actually fulfilled. And so it doesn't necessarily mean that every single person when he spoke this was to even take that personally.
Look at that verse again. Who is he speaking to? He says it's concerning the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah that were what? Torn down. Torn down to make a defense for Jerusalem. If you haven't had your house torn down to make a defense against Jerusalem, then this is not for you.
It's not written to you. It's written for you to understand what was going on in this culture. And the richness of God's word—if we have the mindset that the God who said that to them is still our God.
So thank you for that correction: it was written for you, but it was not written to you.
Who Were These Promises Made To?
So the promise of abundance and prosperity and security—they were not made to me. They were not made to you. They were not made to the disciples or the apostles because they sure didn't see that. It was not written to the church. It wasn't even written to the prophet who spoke those words, which was Jeremiah.
Because when you look at Jeremiah's life, he was born and called by God to be his prophet and he ministered under all these kings. But by the end of his life, people were out to get him. I mean, his family, his friends, his hometown—they plotted to kill him. He was beaten. He was imprisoned. And he died in exile.
So was that verse written to Jeremiah? I'm going to say no.
But those words were spoken by God for Israel and he fulfilled those promises. So we can't do that. We can't misinterpret what God has spoken for someone else and then just say that was written to me. But this whole thing does indeed display the character of God. Eventually the nation was restored. The city was rebuilt. And just as the Lord promised to future Israelites who would come out of captivity—full stop—that's who this was for.
The Famous "Life Verse"
And so Jeremiah 29:11, that's the verse—along the same vein. And if you just read a little. That is the verse:
"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
And that's the kind of God we serve. But those words specifically are for the people of Israel who were going through pretty tough times. Times that most American Christians have not even come close to.
So if you back up to Jeremiah 29:4:
"Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon."
Have you been sent into exile from Jerusalem into Babylon?
The Encouragement
So when you hear those really common verses, I just want to encourage you. "Okay, that sounds really good. Let's go back to the Bible and see what the context is and who is God speaking to." And take it for what it is. Don't read into it by putting yourself as the object of those words.
There are some promises in God's word that absolutely are for us. Go find those. Claim those. Thank God for those. But don't be deceived into thinking that because God told someone somewhere, "Hey, don't worry. I'm going to restore you to the wealth that you once were"—that's not written to you. So get a clear understanding of that.
We can't look at one verse and then build an entire idea around that. But that's happening all over. True.
Eternal Promises vs. Earthly Promises
And God's promises of prosperity and healing and all of that is for eternity in most contexts. And yes, he does prosper some and some he doesn't. Some he gives good health, others he doesn't.
Why does the date on my clock exceed 60 years? Because I'm over 60 years old now. We don't know when the clock gets to zero. But why do others' clocks only go to 45 years and 13 days and 14 hours or whatever it is? God's clock is on each and every one of us. And we don't know what the numbers are. But we do know this: when that gets to zero, there's nothing that we're going to be able to do that's going to extend God's time.
"Well, what about the king in the Old Testament that got an extra 15 years?" Look what happened during those 15 years. In other words, God said, "Okay, I'm going to give you what you asked for as an example to all the generations to come that when I'm telling you your time is up, let it be. Let it be. Don't cling to this life so strongly."
And so if you've been lied to that Jesus exists to give you health and wealth and prosperity and all of these other demonic things, I'm asking you to repent and to come out of it.
The Full List: 10 Demonic Trends
Let's review them all. These are demonic trends entering the church—or entering the Christian space, or have already entered, or been here for a while. The true authentic Christian is going to reject these things when they have a grasp of what they really are.
From Part One:
#1 — Anti-semitism — And it's growing across the country tremendously, across the world.
#2 — Jesus was a social justice warrior — I am heartbroken that the people behind the "He Gets Us" campaign who I used to have a lot of respect for are continuing to pound that subconsciously with the millions of dollars they have in that ad campaign. Just think if they would have changed it to "Jesus Saves Us" or "He Saves Us." Social justice is cherry-picking scriptures to the detriment of the Christian church.
If Jesus was a social justice warrior, he was really bad at it because his followers suffered tremendously and continued to do so to this day—because what they have is greater than anything in the world. That's the testimony through all that suffering. And we are told we're going to suffer too. And I hate that. I dislike that greatly in the Bible, that that's what it really could be. And in spoiled Christian America over the last 50 years, we've got this idea of Jesus as being a genie in the bottle.
#3 — Jesus wants us healthy and wealthy — I have people that come and say it's always Jesus's will to heal you if you just have enough faith. That means that Jesus is subjected to my faith, and if I'm not healed, then I don't have enough faith. And all that lie does is create a defeated Christian who does not get healed by the sovereignty of God.
The verse in Job—where Job, suffering greatly, says to his wife, "Hey, we accept good from God. Who are we to not accept bad?" He knew bad things sometimes are ordained by the Lord for his good, pleasing, perfect will.
#4 — All good is from God, all bad is from Satan
#5 — Religion is bad — Well, religion is really just a word to describe our outward behavior of what we truly believe. That's what it is. We all do it. Counting on religion to save you is the enemy.
From Part Two (Today):
#6 — Jesus was all inclusive
#7 — Discernment is judgy
#8 — Hell isn't real
#9 — Jesus isn't a person
#10 — Everything in the Bible was written to me
Final Thoughts
What proof to get into God's word and know it for yourself.
I have to admit that sometimes that's the first thing that piques my ears as far as, "Wait, what? This person is teaching or saying... does that really line up with scripture?" Because I'll think of other scriptures and it's like, "That sounds like that's contradictory."
And so I go back to God's word. I read and read and read. I look at other credible people that we know are credible teachers on each thing. And sometimes I'm able to go, "Hey, that does square. What they said is right." Other times I come to the conclusion that that does not square and what that person is teaching is not right.
So when we turn to God's word and let it change us, then what's happening is what's in Romans 12:2. We begin to be not conformed to the world, but conformed to his likeness:
"Do not any longer be conformed by the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's perfect, pleasing will is."