This is very similar to a dream I had; dream-sept 2010
The 7 Great Lies in the Church Today STEVE HILL
False teachings running rampant within the American
church have created a “whiteout” condition for millions of believers.
Here’s how to detect—and overcome—these destructive doctrines before it’s too
late.
Editor’s Note: Most Charisma readers
remember Steve Hill as the fiery evangelist from the Brownsville Revival who
has since continued to win countless souls for Jesus around the world. But what
many readers don’t realize is that Hill only recently came out of a three-year
battle with melanoma. During that time, he received a prophetic vision warning
the church of an impending “spiritual avalanche” that could kill millions. The
following article on deception in the church is part of this timely message,
now delivered in his latest book, Spiritual Avalanche.
Years ago my wife, Jeri, and I were driving on the
interstate when we were overcome by a white cloud of windblown snow. “I can’t
see a thing!” I shouted. We were experiencing a complete whiteout. I lost all
sense of direction. I couldn’t see the road or other cars. Everything had
vanished, replaced by this strange, mystical blizzard of white. The only thing
I knew to do was to slow down and pray that I was still on the road.
By the providence of God I came to a stop in the
median, where we waited out the storm. When it lifted, I was shocked at what
we’d gone through. Miles in front of me and miles behind were wrecks—too many
to number. Massive trucks had slid off the road and turned over. Cars were
everywhere. It was purely by the hand of the Lord that we survived.
A whiteout is a weather condition in which
visibility is severely reduced by snow. The horizon disappears completely;
there are no reference points at all, leaving the individual with a distorted
orientation.
This is what’s happening today in the church. Many
are oblivious to the dangers on the horizon. In this spiritual whiteout the
reference points—the ancient landmarks—have been covered. Erroneous teachings
have merged together with truth, causing innocent believers to become
disoriented—and blinded.
The Lord recently imparted to me a vision concerning
the state of the church and what we must do about it. Those familiar with our
ministry know we’ve never played games and have a deep, reverential fear for
the work of God. Given this, I urge you to take heed to the following words. If
you think I’m just letting off some steam, understand that I’ve just passed
through three years of cancer treatments. I had been given only days to live.
And as Leonard Ravenhill often reminded me, we must speak with the unction and
urgency of God. We are all nothing more than dying men preaching to dying men.
In the vision I saw the church, depicted as a
beautiful ski resort, with an enormous avalanche hovering overhead. The Lord immediately
revealed the interpretation. This impending spiritual avalanche carried a
threat that could destroy everyone. I’ve spent countless hours in the past
attempting to rescue those who had fallen prey to false teaching. Now, in this
visitation from God, I saw layers upon layers of snow steadily covering the
solid, traditional truth of Christ. As with a whiteout, the truth had been lost
in the flurry. No one who loves God willingly preaches deception, yet a
spiritual whiteout of unhealthy, unbalanced and, in some cases, unbiblical
teaching is blinding the body of Christ in America, and it is quickly spreading
around the world.
How Has This Happened?
Unhealthy and destructive teaching can enter the
church in various ways. Sometimes a biblical truth is taught to the exclusion
of other biblical truths, producing a dangerous imbalance. At other times a
biblical truth is taught in an exaggerated way, often going beyond what
Scripture actually says, and in the end this does more harm than good. Many
times clear, biblical warnings are ignored or reinterpreted so radically that
they lose all impact or effect, leaving people vulnerable and exposed.
Paul warned that the “time will come when
[believers] will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires,
because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and
they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables”
(2 Tim. 4:3-4). Today’s church in America, as a whole, is dangerously close to
turning aside to such fables. Millions have already succumbed to these false
teachings. Before we lose any more souls, it’s crucial that we identify what I
believe are the seven greatest lies that have infiltrated the church and have
led to a whiteout of error.
1) Overemphasis of Prosperity
Undoubtedly, some adherents of the carnal prosperity
message are motivated by greed. For them, preaching Jesus is a means of
financial gain, something Paul rebuked in the strongest possible terms,
speaking of men “of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that
godliness is a means of gain” (1 Tim. 6:5).
Yet many sincere believers embrace this message
too—and back their case with Scripture. They point to the covenant blessings
the Lord promised to Israel for their obedience, including financial prosperity
(Deut. 28:1-13). They highlight verses in Proverbs and Psalms that link
financial prosperity to generosity, hard work, godly living and faith (e.g.,
Ps. 112). They remind us of wonderful promises, such as those found in Proverbs
3:9-10—and how Jesus reiterated these in the New Testament with teachings such
as, “Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6:38). And they quote Paul, who
wrote about the financial principles of sowing and reaping (1 Cor. 9; 2 Cor.
8-9; Phil. 4:11-19).
Are you with me? I am not against you having money.
But I am adamantly against money having you. The problem is, there’s more to
the story that the carnal prosperity preachers fail to mention:
Jesus warned against storing up treasures on earth
(Matt. 6:19-24) and covetousness (Luke 12:15).
Jesus emphasized caring for the poor (Matt.
25:31-46).
Paul and John both taught that we should not live
according to this present age (1 Cor. 7:29-31; 1 John 2:15-17).
Jesus did not die to make us financially wealthy but
to save us from our sins (Matt. 1:21).
God chose the poor to be rich in faith and kingdom
heirs (James 2:5).
More importantly, the carnal prosperity preachers
have ignored other biblical warnings, like Paul’s powerful words to Timothy:
“Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many
foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the
love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from
the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness,
godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness” (1 Tim. 6:9-11).
Carnal prosperity preachers encourage God’s people
to seek after riches—or to seek after God for the purpose of riches—often even
judging your spirituality by the kind of car you drive. What does that have to
do with the gospel of Jesus?
2) Exaggerated View of Grace
This hyper-grace teaching has become an epidemic
(see “What’s Wrong With Grace?” on p. 28). It has slipped in almost unnoticed
and taken root like an unwanted weed—easy to get in but hard to get out of the
Christian. I have personally dealt with many young people who were once on fire
but fell under this “kicked-back” view of God. Now, instead of pursuing Him,
they are partying. This “unmerited freedom,” if not tackled and taken out, will
spread to future generations, leaving us with millions of lukewarm Christians
who have traded their passion for poison.
Sadly, some hyper-grace preachers live in sin and
ease their consciences by preaching about a God who is all love and who never
condemns, a God who doesn’t judge us by our conduct. Like the false teachers
Jude confronted, they “turn the grace of our God into lewdness” (Jude 4). The
New International Version describes such lewdness as “a license for
immorality.”
But not every hyper-grace preacher is looking for a
way to justify sin. Some truly love Jesus but are simply preaching truth mixed
with error. They’ve taken an undeniable, glorious truth about God and presented
it in such an exaggerated form that they nullify all divine warnings and even
claim that the words of Jesus don’t apply to New Covenant believers. If this
seems judgmental, then it’s time to honestly line everyone’s
teachings—including mine—alongside the Word. Don’t just go through the Word;
let the Word go through you. Why are we so afraid in this godless generation to
confront fallacies?
These hyper-grace teachers rightly emphasize that we
are saved by grace and not by works (Eph. 2:8-9), that while we were yet
sinners Christ died for us (Rom. 5:6-8), that we are no longer sinners but
saints in God’s sight (1 Cor. 1:2), that God’s love for us is not based on our
performance (Rom. 5:9-10), that having begun in the Spirit we can’t become
perfect by human effort (Gal. 3:3), that we are now sons and daughters of God,
joint heirs with Jesus (Rom. 8:15-17), and more!
But they ignore mountains of other scriptural truths
and draw wrong theological conclusions. For example, they rightly teach that
Jesus died for all our sins—past, present and future—but wrongly conclude that
as believers we no longer have to deal with sin (meaning we never have to
confess sin or repent of sin, and the Holy Spirit no longer convicts us of
sin). Aren’t you tired of hearing of another backslidden brother? Trace his
steps and you’ll often find he was given permission to slip away from the
wonderful freedom of holiness into the bondage of humanism.
3) Antinomianism
Antinomianism—long word, simple meaning. The word
literally means “against law.” It’s a short jump from an overemphasis on the
grace message to complete antinomianism. In practice, it means that “anything
goes,” since Jesus has set us free. The problem is, Jesus didn’t set us free to sin;
He set us free from sin.
Jesus died for us and broke sin’s power on our lives
so that now, by the Spirit, we can live out the righteous requirements of the
law (Rom. 8:1-4). Yet purveyors of this poisonous teaching fail to realize that
Jesus calls us beyond the requirements of the law in His teaching, stating, for
example, that adultery refers to adultery of the heart and not just the
physical act (Matt. 5:27-28).
God’s perfect, holy, glorious law is not the
problem. Sinful flesh is the problem. Sin will take you farther than you ever
wanted to go. Sin will cost you more than you ever wanted to pay. And sin will
keep you longer than you ever intended to stay. Sin will promise you everything
but leave you with nothing. Sin will love you for a season and curse you for
eternity.
For all the antinomians out there who believe
“anything goes,” the question is, where do you end up?
4) Deification of Man
Many false teachings today start with man rather
than with God. In contrast, when Paul laid out the gospel message in Romans, he
started with God and then went to man: God is holy and we are not; He is
righteous and we are not; we are under His judgment and in need of mercy, and
that mercy comes through the cross.
Today’s gospel, especially in America, has a very
different ring to it; rather than being all about God, it’s all about me. Just
as the American way is to make everything bigger and better, the American
gospel says that Jesus came to make you into a bigger and better you. That is
not the gospel!
Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to
come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For
whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for
My sake will find it” (Matt. 16:24-25).
We are in grave danger worldwide as millions upon
millions gaze upon man rather than God. Just take a look at our political
system. Words like messiah, lord, savior and anointed
one are tossed around like candy. I cringe at heaven’s response. This is a
setup for the Antichrist; as we become so accustomed to worshipping man, it
will be a simple maneuver for the Antichrist to move into position.
5) Challenging the Authority of the Word
The challenging of God’s authority goes back to the
Garden of Eden, starting with the serpent’s challenge to Eve: “Has God indeed
said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). This
satanic challenge was twofold: First, did God really say that? And second, God
didn’t really mean what He said. After all, you won’t die if you eat from the
tree (vv. 1-5).
That twofold challenge continues to assault us
today. Best-selling authors tell us the biblical text isn’t reliable, that the
biblical manuscripts we have in our possession are hopelessly contradictory,
and that we can know little or nothing about the real, historical Jesus. Other
authors tell us that the Bible is no more than a collection of religious
traditions and that God Himself is nothing more than a religious myth.
For the most part, though, the challenge to the
authority of the Scriptures is subtler, and some of it flows out of the
deification of man, which says, “The Bible must live up to my standards. I will
judge the God of the Bible based on my morality rather than the God of the
Bible judging me based on His morality.” In short, when the Scriptures
contradict our feelings and preferences rather than crucify our feelings and
preferences and bow down before God and His Word, we question God’s Word.
6) Rejecting Hell
Nowhere is this questioning of God’s Word seen any
more clearly than when it comes to the subject of hell and future punishment.
And because we preach an imbalanced gospel—emphasizing God’s love and ignoring
His wrath, emphasizing His mercy and ignoring His justice—we no longer have
room for hell and future punishment in our theology.
Why did Jesus use such strong language in talking
about the fire of hell and about people weeping and wailing and gnashing their
teeth (see Matt. 8:12)? And why did He teach that “it is more profitable for
you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into
hell” (Matt. 5:29)? And why do other New Testament writers warn us repeatedly
about the wrath to come (see Eph. 5:1-6)?
It’s one thing to debate the exact nature of the
future punishment that awaits those who reject the gospel. It’s another thing
to downplay or eliminate it. Whatever legitimate debate we may have on the
precise nature of the coming judgment, this much is clear from the Word: it
will be irreversible, dreadful and of eternal consequence.
Revelation 20:11-15 clearly warns about the coming
Great White Throne Judgment. Yet modern-day heresy teachers have taken it upon
themselves to erase the judgment. The result, if believed and followed, will be
too devastating to mention.
7) Universal Reconciliation
Universal reconciliation promotes a
get-out-of-jail-free mentality—that in the end, everyone will make it into
heaven because of Jesus’ death on the cross. (In contrast, universalism teaches
that all paths lead to God.) There may be future suffering, but it will be
purging rather than punishment, and ultimately everyone will be saved.
Proponents of universal reconciliation point to
verses that teach that God reconciled “all things to Himself, by Him, whether
things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His
cross” (Col. 1:20). And they point out that just as in Adam all die, in Jesus
all will live (Rom. 5:12-21).
What would you say if someone attempted to persuade
you that Adolf Hitler was in heaven? “Abomination!” you would scream. “You’re
deranged!” Yet that’s a sample of the fundamental false teaching of this layer
of “avalanche snow.” Added to other layers mentioned previously, we will find
the believer’s foundation deteriorated, and when the storms come, the house
will come crumbling to the ground.
During this season when we celebrate the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus, let’s determine to glorify Him by staying pure. A
gentle breeze of false teaching has become a strong wind of serious error, some
of it downright heretical, and a storm of doctrinal deviation has become a
massive deadly whiteout. Amid this whiteout, stay committed to His teachings.
Don’t permit any false teaching to subtly weave its way into your life,
bringing down an avalanche that could destroy everything you hold so dearly. I
won’t let it happen. Not in my lifetime and not in yours.
I urge you to open your heart and read Spiritual
Avalanche. Revelation will be imparted from its pages. This 30-minute,
full-color vision shook me to the core. I wept as I saw it and wept as I wrote
the book. I love the church and will do everything possible to prepare her to
meet the Groom. She isn’t ready, but she will be!
Yes, Jesus said in the last days even the elect
could be deceived. But not you! You’re too smart for that!
Steve Hill is founder of Heartland World
Ministries Church in Dallas. He is widely known for preaching the
uncompromising message of Christ throughout the world.
