Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at a distant city of Ethiopia. Mark expired at Alexandria, after being cruelly dragged through the streets of that city. Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in the classic land of Greece. John was put in a cauldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterward banished to Patmos. Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward. James, the Greater, was beheaded at Jerusalem. James, the Less, was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple, and then beaten to death with a fuller’s club. Bartholomew was flayed alive. Andrew was bound to a cross, whence he preached to his persecutors until he died. Thomas was run through the body with a lance at Coromandel in the East Indies. Jude was shot to death with arrows. Matthais was first stoned and then beheaded. Barnabas of the Gentiles was stoned to death at Salonica. Paul, after various tortures and persecutions, was at length beheaded at Rome by the Emperor Nero.
Unknown Author

FAITH

FAITH

There are three valuable things the reader of this paper should keep in mind to help him/her understand it:
1) This letter was written to an individual whose name has been blanked out. Some may recognize from the context here who that person is. If so, just keep it to yourself. This was written to correct a teaching,not condemn a man.
2) I use the word metaphysics a lot in this paper to denote certain false teachings. There is a legitimate use of that word. So don’t label every one who uses the word as a false teacher.
3) This paper is meant to be read with the footnotes. Look them up and read them as you read along, or you will miss a lot. You can recognize the footnotes by the  symbol followed by a number. That same  symbol followed by the corresponding number will be found in the footnotes immediately following the end of this paper. They are marked FOOTNOTES between two rows of asterisks (*)

Dear Brother XXXXX,

Recently I read one of your booklets entitled Having Faith in Your Faith. What you say leads me to the conclusion there is a definite occult influence in your teachings. (By occult I do not mean Satanism but metaphysics.) Out of concern for your welfare and the welfare of the many people who follow your teachings, this issue must be examined.

I want you to understand I do not make a rash statement without knowledge. I was a student and teacher of metaphysics for many years and am very familiar with its teachings. Nor have I drawn a hasty conclusion about your teachings. I have been familiar with your writings and ministry since I first became a christian 19 years ago. Even then I wondered why some things you teach are identical to metaphysics. I always felt something was amiss, but I gave every benefit of the doubt and reserved judgment until I had fully examined the issue. I have read and reread this particular booklet several times as well as a number of your other books and booklets to make sure of your meaning and of what I say. Now after 19 years I am certain what I always felt to be amiss, is indeed amiss.

Please understand I am not a trouble maker. I am not looking for faults just so I can put you down. I would much rather ignore this whole thing, but for the sake of your own well being and others, I cannot. I shall attempt to show you clearly and thoroughly what the error is and why it is error. So please listen because this is not for your harm but for your help.

You open your booklet Having Faith in Your Faith quoting Hebrews 11:13 which says “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen are not made of those things which do appear.” Referring to the word worlds in that scripture you say of God “He created them by the word of faith.”1 But that scripture does not say God created the worlds by the word of faith. Rather, it expressly says He created the worlds “by the word of God”. Yet you make that verse sound as if God is the one who had faith and that He created the worlds by His faith. But God is not the one having faith in that verse, it is we believers. We were not there to see when God framed the worlds, but we understand by means of faith that He did so by the word of God.

I repeat: God did not frame the worlds by faith. He framed them by The Word of God, which is Jesus Christ. That is the name Jesus Christ held before His incarnation, and He is called by that name again after His resurrection. I give the following scriptures as proof:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made…and The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory as the only begotten of the Father.”–John 1:1-3,14

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.– Revelation 19:11-13

…and to make all people see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; Ephesians 3:9

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. Colossians 1:13-17

These scriptures tell us clearly and precisely that Jesus Christ is The Word of God by whom God framed the worlds, and we understand that by faith.

You then reference Genesis 1 saying of God “He said, “Let there be …” and there was!”2 “God had faith in His own words.”3 Again you make the scriptures say God had faith in His words, but that scripture does not say God had faith in His words nor does it even begin to imply it. To make that scripture say God had faith in His words is to add something to that scripture which is not there and to change the meaning. Let us not put words in God’s mouth making Him say things He did not say. God does not need faith. Why do I say that? If God needs faith, then He is not the Almighty. He lacks one thing–faith. If God has to have faith, then such a thought would be clearly expressed in the scriptures, and it is not.

The scriptures say “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” If God operates by faith, then what God is it who speaks to Him? Or must He first confess the scriptures or declare His own words to Himself before He can have faith? If that were true, then God could never do anything because if He does not first speak, then He could have no faith; and if He has no faith, then He cannot speak. So God would be mute and thus faithless and impotent. That makes God unfit for the Throne and unworthy of the title Almighty. I must submit that God is God and requires not that He speak in faith in order to perform His works. Rather God speaks on the basis of Himself–that He is The Almighty God. God does not merely have power, He is Power. And His words have power because it is God The Almighty who speaks them. In other words, it is not the words of God which are powerful, but the God who speaks them.

You go on to say “We know from scripture that Jesus had faith in his own words, too.”4 To substantiate your statement, you quote Mark 11:12-14,20 22…when they were come from Bethany, He was hungry. {13} And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, He came, if haply, He might find anything thereon: and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. {14} And Jesus answered and said unto it, “No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it… {11:20} And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. {21} And Peter, calling to remembrance, saith unto Him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.” {22} And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

That scripture does not say Jesus had faith in his own words. What that scripture does say is “Have faith in God”. Yet you say “we know from scripture that Jesus had faith in his own words, too.” I am compelled to ask, Where in scripture does it say that? I have made an exhaustive search of the entire bible on these words: belief, believe, believed, believes, believer, confidence, faith, trust, and hope. I could not find even one verse which said God or Christ had faith in their own words. I did, however, find hundreds of verses which said man ought to have faith and confidence in God and to trust in, hope in, and believe in Him and His Son.

Now the scriptures say “In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established”5, but I cannot find a single verse in all of scripture to support the idea God or Christ had faith in their own words. One scripture came close. Isaiah 55:11–“So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Yet even here the emphasis is not upon the word God spoke, but upon the God who spoke it. If God had faith in anything, it was not in His words but in the One who said them–Himself. And if God’s words are believable and trustworthy and He is confident they will accomplish what He purposes, it is not because the words themselves are anything but because the Almighty God said them. The emphasis is upon God, not upon the words. The words by themselves are meaningless since anyone, even an unbeliever or a parrot, can speak the words. The conclusion of the matter is the power is not in the words or in that God (or anyone else) has faith in them. The power is in the God who spoke them. To this the scriptures give numerous witness and I quote one which perfectly illustrates this thought: “He (Abraham) did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, {21} and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.”–Romans 4:20-21. Abraham had faith, not in the words themselves, but in the God who spoke them.

You then translate Mark 11:22 as “Have the faith of God.”6 You go on to say “Jesus used the fig tree to demonstrate that He has that God-kind of faith, then He said to his disciples–and us–You have that kind of faith.”7 You go on to say:

“For…whosoever shall say …and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” (v.23)

Jesus said He had the God-kind of faith; He encouraged His disciples to exercise that kind of faith; and He said that “whosoever” could do it.

Why did He say “whosoever”? Why didn’t He say, “If any of my disciples say it”, or “If some of my followers say it”? But He said, “Whosoever” because all men are spirit beings

We live in a body, but we are spirit beings…That is why Jesus said, “whosoever shall say…and shall not doubt IN HIS HEART”8

You say whosoever believes what he says shall have whatsoever he saysincluding unbelievers. You say the reason all men, even unbelievers, can exercise the God-kind of faith is “because all men are spirit beings.” To translate Mark 11:22 as “Have the God kind of faith” is erroneous, and to reason that “all men are spirit beings” who can exercise “the God-kind of faith” is a false reasoning. I will prove what I say first by examining your statements and then by a careful translation of Mark 11:22.

  1. You say Jesus was not speaking just to his disciples, but to “Whosoever” meaning, as you say, “all men”. Yet that very verse says he was speaking to His disciples when He said that. Mark 11:22 starts with these words “And Jesus answering saith unto them” and by context of verses 1-24 the “them” referred to is Jesus’ disciples. Luke 17:6-7 supports this conclusion while Matthew 21:20-21 absolutely proves it. The whosoever in Mark 11:22 refers to whosoever believes, not whosoever in general. In scripture, believing is not some metaphysical kind of faith where one believes in what one says, but as all of scripture exhorts “to believe in God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.” You make it sound as if faith is the domain of “all men” who are “spirit beings” and they can exercise it in and of themselves. Faith, however, is not just some metaphysical ability which all men have and can exercise. Rather it is hope and confidence and trust in God and His Son Jesus Christ, and this faith comes only by God Himself and not by man. Faith always Begins with God and Ends with God, that is why God (and Christ) are called The Beginning and The End. For illustration of this truth read John 1:12-13.
  2. If as you say “whosoever” means all men–and that includes unbelieverscan have the God-kind of faith for themselves, then all men do not need God nor faith in God, but can exercise their own God-kind of faith. If that were so, then any man could exercise “the God-kind of faith” with no regard for the man’s relationship to God and with no regard for God Himself. That dishonors God, dethrones God, and enthrones man, and is therefore false. That which usurps God cannot possibly be of God.
  3. You also say “whosoever believes” can have whatsoever they say because “all men” (and that includes all believers and all unbelievers alike) “are spirit beings.” If all men can have whatsoever they say by their own Godlike faith without ever knowing God or being subject to Him, then that again mocks God’s sovereignty and negates His holy demands upon the lives of man by removing man’s need for God and man’s subjection to and relationship to God. And it exalts all men to god status. To put man and God on the same spiritual level makes gods of men and makes God just another god (albeit The Chief of the gods, and isn’t it big of us men to grant God that honor). Now that glorifies man and degrades God and the things of God as common or unholy.

What you teach concerning faith is in full accordance and harmony with the doctrines of metaphysics and wholly at odds with what the scriptures teach about faith. The “God-kind of faith” you teach exalts not just believers but “all men” to the same spiritual level as God, but true doctrine teaches one to abase oneself and to honor and submit to God, not become as God. True doctrine exalts God and humbles man. To be as God (and thus not need God) is the original sin; and what condemned man in the first place cannot now be faith for the believer or the unbeliever. That spirit which exalts man to God status is the serpent in the Garden, not the Spirit of God.

4. If all men are spirit beings who can exercise their own God-kind of faith, then such a marvelous and powerful teaching would not be isolated or obscure in scripture. Such an astonishing doctrine would be clearly revealed in scripture and plainly taught and practiced by Jesus Christ and His followers. Yet such a teaching cannot be found anywhere in scripture, and it has never been practiced by the body of Christ in the 2,000 year history of the church. I must wonder what strange new secret, this dark saying, is that God has kept hidden from the saints these two millennia? God Himself gives the answer–“I (God) have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth…I show the end from the beginning.”9

Beings who are of the same spiritual substance as God and/or who can move on the same level as God by exercising their own God-kind of faith in their own words are in stark and startling contradiction to the clear and oft repeated injunctions of God to man to have faith in Him alone. So I repeat: If man were a spirit being in God’s class capable of exercising the same kind of faith as God, then such a teaching would be clearly present in scripture and it would be clearly demonstrated in the teaching and life of Christ, and it is not. In fact, such teaching is markedly absent from scripture, and Christ lived and taught wholly to the contrary.10

In another writing of yours where you say similar things you make this statement of man: “He is in the same class with God”.11 I know you do not mean man is God. I know you mean man is a spirit creature in a class with God, but that is just not so. Man indeed has a spirit, but by no means does that mean man is in God’s class. Think about what you are saying. God’s class of being is God. To be a being in the same class God with God is to be a god. Now God is uniquely God. God is the “I am that I am.” God is not the “I am that I am, and so are you.” God alone is God. There are no gods before Him, nor after Him, nor are there any beings even remotely like Him.12 God is alone is uncreated and eternal. Every other being is created, and that sets God off in a category all by Himself.

Such a doctrine which makes men as God(s) or as god or godlike is discussed in scripture, but it is called divination, soothsaying, enchantment, wizardry, sorcery, witchcraft etc. and is thoroughly condemned by God. Such a doctrine as man being in the same class as God was known to the early church, but it was the Gnostics (and other Mystery Religions) who taught such things; and the believers denounced it and condemned it as sorcery. (Church history credits Simon Magus, the diviner/sorcerer mentioned in the book of Acts, as the founder of Gnosticism; and Gnostic writings also point to this.)

5. The scriptures say plainly and repeatedly God is God alone and that man is to have faith in God alone13. The scriptures also say it is the diviners and soothsayers who presume upon Divine prerogative to believe they speak with divine authority from their own mouths.14 Metaphysics is the 20th century descendent of Gnosticism and is also mixed with Hindu and other Oriental Mysticisms. Those philosophies teach that man is of the same spiritual nature as God (or actually is God) and can therefore speak and do as God, but the scriptures never state or imply that man is a being like unto God or that he has his own God-like faith if he just realized it. The only times the scriptures refer to man as being as godlike are in negative circumstances. For example, in Genesis when the serpent told man “You shall be as God.” and God agreed and said “Surely the man has become like one of us.” and then He cursed them and threw them out of Eden. Further, in scriptures talking about diviners and soothsayers who believed they could divine (be as God) to speak with divine authority and work divine works.15 And lastly, in scriptures dealing with men (and angels) who lifted their hearts up to think themselves as God, and they were brought into terrible judgment.16

To put man in the same class with God is not Bible doctrine, but Serpent doctrine.

You say “Jesus had his own God-kind of faith and taught his disciples to have it too.”17 That is a bold statement which cannot by any means be substantiated by scripture. Jesus, in fact, says exactly the opposite to what you say He says:

“I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.”–John 12:49

Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.–John 5:19

I can do nothing of Myself. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.–John 5:30

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.–John 14:10

Jesus’ faith was not in his words at all, but in God and the words God gave him commandment to say. Jesus looked to His Father and waited in faithful dependence upon His Father’s words and not his own. Jesus’ faith was in the Father alone and in what the Father told Him to do and to say. Thus Jesus never acted in His own faith or believed in His own words, but looked solely to the Father.

Mark 11:22 commands us to “Have faith in God.” You base what you believe on what you say is a literal rendering of Mark 11:22 as “Have faith in God.” Now those are two opposite meanings. One is an injunction for man to have faith in God, the other is an injunction for man to have God’s faith as his own, or as you say “to have the God-kind of faith”. For a man to possess God’s faith as his own, or to possess the God-kind of faith for himself is a roundabout way to say for a man to have faith in himself.

Let us examine these two meanings to determine which of them is correct. Ask this question, Which of the two meanings fits the whole of scripture? The first teaches (in fact commands) us to have faith in God. Here God gets the glory, and that’s scriptural from Genesis to Revelations. The latter instructs us to have faith in our own godlike faith. There self gets the glory, and that’s not scriptural at all. Scripture does reference men being as God or as gods in three circumstances, and always in judgment:

  1. in Eden where men first sinned by seeking their own glory to be godlike beings, and even God said “the man has become as one of Us.” and then condemned man for it. Genesis 3:1-6, 22
  2. in instances where men are using divination, soothsaying, etc. in vain attempts to be like God. Isaiah 2:6, 41:23, Isaiah chapters 40-48, Jeremiah 10:10-11, Jeremiah 27:9-16, Ezekiel 21:21-23, 22:25-31
  3. when men (and angels) have taken glory to themselves to think themselves as God. Isaiah 14:13-15, Ezekiel 28:1-17, Daniel chapter 4

God is the only proper focal point of the believer’s faith. We are to have faith in God. For the believer (or anyone else) to have faith in their faith is false because it transfers the focus of the believer’s faith from faith in God to faith in oneself. That in itself tells you there is something dreadfully wrong with the thought of having faith in one’s own faith. That is self worship. The believer’s faith is to be in God, not in his own God-kind-of faith.

You build a major doctrine on a solitary text of scripture lifted entirely out of context. In so doing, you violate three cardinal rules of scripture interpretation. (1) You don’t build doctrines on isolated or obscure texts. (2) Scripture is interpreted by its immediate context and by what the scriptures as a whole say on that particular topic. (3) No prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation. (All scripture is by nature prophetic–given by God.) As regards point three, your interpretation of Mark 11:22 is singularly private. It is of an esoteric source which has been rejected by the church of God since its beginning. Your definition of man as a spirit being in God’s class is eons old and has been taught by the diviners and Magi and sorcerers for millennia, but never has it been taught or believed by the saints until now.

The translation of Mark 11:22 as “Have the faith of God” is faulty. It is a misinterpretation of the Greek forced upon that verse by an English thinking mind. Greek is very different from English. If one would understand Greek, then one must think Greek, not English. You need to be educated in the Greek use of the genitive and ablative cases, and especially in the uses of the genitive case with nouns of action. That verse is not literally “Have the faith of God” but (echete pistin theou) “Have faith of God.”

(Note the absence of “the”. With no “the”, the whole force and meaning of that verse changes. I do not know who gave you that literal translation, but a first year, first semester Greek student would know better than to translate that verse with a “the”.)

The word God (theou) can be genitive or ablative. The ablative case shows the source or point of separation or origin. If theou is ablative, then this verse would be translated “Have faith which is of God” meaning He is the source of faith, and that is scriptural. The genitive case is primarily description or possession. If theou is genitive here, then it is a genitive used with a noun of action. (Faith is the noun of action. If you have faith, you believe.) The word in the genitive case can be either subjective (the one doing the action18) or objective (the one receiving the action19). The subject of the verbal phrase “have faith” is the disciples to whom Jesus was speaking, and God is the object. Thus this is the objective use of the genitive in a noun of action. The correct translation is “Have faith in God.” To bring out the emphasis of the Greek, it says “You disciples, be having (continuous action) faith in this object -God.”

A further discussion of the genitive case in Greek sheds even more light on the verse in question. The basal function of the genitive case is limitation. It marks out and imposes a definite limit upon the word it modifies. The genitive case limits and specifies. “The genitive reduces the range of reference possible to an idea, and confines its application within specific limits.”20 In that verse the specific limit within which faith is confined is in its reference to God. Thus that verse says the faith of the disciples is confined to this specific limit–in God. It specifies that the believer’s faith is to be in God and nowhere else. Therefore to teach believers to have faith in their own faith does injury to the gospel and to the believer by directing one’s faith away from God onto oneself, and it does injustice to the Spirit of the gospel which always gives God glory. That is not to say believers do not have faith, but that the object of their faith is God. Faith in God (which is tantamount to obedience) is the common thread which runs through every book from Genesis to Revelations. Faith is always in God, it is never in man having faith in himself or in his own words by his own godlike faith.

To translate Mark 11:22 as “Have the faith of God” is a gross mistranslation and misinterpretation making it to mean something which the other gospels and the whole of scripture do not substantiate but rather repudiate

You can force the meaning “Have faith of God” to mean “Have God’s faith”, but such a translation does not fit the context of that scripture nor is it in keeping with the teaching of the scriptures as a whole on that subject. But if there were such a thing as the God-kind-of faith (and there isn’t) and men could possess it and make use of it, then that would usurp God and put the power of God into the hands of man. And it is simply ludicrous to think mind-darkened saints who yet see through a glass darkly or carnal men who are evil in their thoughts could have the very faith of God especially since God doesn’t need or use faith.

My brother, you should take a few minutes to meditate just on the title of your book. Having Faith In Your Faith. What??? Whatever happened to faith in God? The very verse you quote says to have faith in God. It does not say to have faith in oneself or in one’s own faith or in one’s words. If what you say is true, then man does not need faith in God, but only in his own God-kind of faith in his own words. This usurps God and robs Him of His glory and of our faith in Him. That is not the spirit of God, but the spirit of rebellion, the spirit of the usurper, the devil.

Faith is an act of worship–it is trust in and devotion to a deity. If God has faith, then what is the deity he believes in? Does God need to believe in Himself first? or must He first believe in His own words? That is preposterous. And if man has his own God-kind-of-faith in his own words and “whatsoever he saith…he shall have”, then this steals the believer’s faith, worship, and devotion from God and puts it in himself; and that steals God’s glory. Thus man becomes the god in whom he trusts and the god to whom he is devoted.

If man’s faith is in his own faith, then he lives by every word that proceeds out of his own mouth instead of “by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” That usurps God and enthrones man, and that is devilish. Now I am sure you do not mean it that way, but having faith in one’s own faith is false and devilish no matter how it is meant.

You say the reason men can have such faith is “all men are spirit beings” and “He (man) is in the same class with God.” That raises man to God’s level. While that is quite flattering to man, it is demeaning to God. If, as you say, man is in the same class with God, then it is just as accurate to say God is in the same class as man. Is man a god? Is God a man? Is God like a man who needs faith? And what God does God have faith in? Is man like God that what he says words come to pass like God? And ought man, as you say, to have faith in his own faith? That is the implication, and you even say as much. Then man is indeed a god in the same class with God, and that is pure Satanic doctrine. Sheer common sense tells you God and man are in two separate categories. God is an uncreated being and man is a created being. That is a definite and very great distinction between beings, and the gulf between the two is infinite.

Man is a created being, a human being, but the Eternal God is a divine being, in fact The Only Divine Being, and is in a class all by Himself. God alone is God, and there are none like Him. Man is not God, nor a god, nor a spirit being in the same spiritual class as God. Man is not Deity, nor is he divine, but human. God and man are not the same class of beings, they are two separate and distinct classes of being–God is God and man is man. Common sense tells you God is in a class by Himself. But if common sense doesn’t instruct you, then the first commandment should, “I am the Lord thy God…Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”

When you say God had faith in His words, that presumes God operates on faith. What? Does God need to believe in His words before they are empowered? If that were so, then it means the power is not in God Himself but in the words and His ability to believe them. If God needs faith in His words then the words are greater than God because He must believe them. On that basis, the power would be in the words and in their believability instead of in the God who spoke them. That makes the words a power greater than God, for He must first believe them, and that robs God of His glory and power.

Faith is an act of worship. It is trust in, reliance upon, adherence to and devotion to a god. If God needs faith in His words, then the words become the object of God’s faith–a deity before whom He must bow–and that is absurd. God is The All Sufficient One and The Almighty. There is none like Him. He alone is God and requires nothing other than Himself. His words have power because they are His words. They are empowered because the Almighty spoke them.

God does not need faith nor does He operate by faith. It is man who needs faith, and his faith is to be in God alone. One’s faith is not to be in one’s own words, but in God and His word. It is not even enough to believe the word of God, we must believe in the God who spoke them.

There is no power in the words themselves, otherwise those same words uttered by any other being would create the same results. If the power were in the words, then a raven squawking the same words could create a universe. You might say, no it could not because he cannot believe them. Well, then any being, man or devil, could say and believe them and create a universe, and that too is preposterous. There is only One God The Creator of Heaven and Earth. The power is not in the words, but in the God who speaks them. God is El-Shaddai, The Almighty God, and there is nothing and no one like Him.

A little reflection and common sense ought to tell you we are to have faith in God. Faith in anything but God is faith in a false god and is idolatry. There are no other gods, nor is man a spirit being in God’s class (because that would make man a divine being, and God alone is Divine), and man doesn’t have faith like God, but is to have faith in God. And God doesn’t have faith in anything unless it is in His own person. Does it really require faith to believe you are you? No! Then I must extrapolate that God who is greater than man doesn’t need to believe He is God or that He is mighty. What you teach is occult (i.e metaphysical) doctrine, though you might not even know it. So if these few paragraphs have not persuaded you, I encourage you to read on. I shall try to prove fully what I say so that there will be no doubt.

Speaking on faith you said, “It used to bother me when I’d see unsaved people getting results, but my church members not getting results. Then it dawned on me what the sinners were doing: They were cooperating with this law of God–the law of faith.”21 You say the reason they got results is “because all men are spirit beings”22 and the implication is that men are spirit beings like God who is a spirit being. You say whosoever has faith in their words like God had faith in His words, shall have whatsoever they say. That exalts not only believers to a level with God, but sinners as well. And that is manifestly false because God is separated from man because of their sins. Even believers do not yet see Him face to face. Even when believers see Him face to face, He Alone is God for “I am The Lord. I change not.”–Malachi 3:6. God does not lie. Therefore the first commandment will be true for all time and eternity. There is but One God.

Brother XXXXX I must insist no man is a spirit being on a level with God nor can any man (believers included) exercise their own God-kind of faith. And I must doubly insist unbelievers could not be exercising faith nor cooperating with God’s laws for the scriptures say most plainly “the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can it be.”23

My dear brother in Christ, what you say about unbelievers cooperating with God is not true. That word enmity is the Greek word echthra which means hostility, opposition, ill will, and hatred. Those who have hostility, ill will, and hatred toward God do not cooperate with Him or His laws, but oppose God and His laws. Man’s natural (unregenerate) state is enmity with God, not cooperation. The natural man is not a spiritual creature, but a carnal creature. The spirit of the natural man is in rebellion against God and is allied with Satan.

If, as you say, “all men are spirit beings” who can exercise the God-kind of faith by cooperating with what you call “God’s law of faith”, then God is unnecessary, Jesus Christ (the very Author and Finisher of faith24) is unnecessary, the Holy Spirit is unnecessary, and repentance and faith towards God is unnecessary in order for man to enter into spiritual things. On that basis man is his own god whose faith is in himself (in his own god like faith) and in his own words, and divine laws are the mediator between this godlike man and his faith in order to bring to pass the thing for which he believed. On that basis God is dethroned, Christ is usurped, and the Holy Spirit is supplanted making them of no effect, and man is exalted in their place.

Anything that supplants God cannot be of God, but is of that usurper the devil. A “law of faith”, rather than being a “law of God”, is actually a way of entering into spiritual things without having to submit to God and bow the knee to Jesus Christ (and the very proof of that is you say “all men” (and that includes unbelievers) “are spirit beings” who can exercise the god-kind of faith or use God’s laws to produce results); and that is the very spirit of rebellion and witchcraft, i.e. godlike power under man’s own control.

We are to believe in God. We are also to look lovingly and dependently in faith to Jesus Christ the author and finisher of faith. God and Christ are the source (the author) of faith and the object of our faith. Just as the scriptures say: “What shall we do that we might work the works of God. Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God: that you believe in Him (Jesus Christ) whom He has sent.”25 The scriptures never exhort us to have faith in our faith, nor do they ever exhort us to believe we are spirit beings who have the faith of God and can exercise godly prerogative. Those concepts are well known in Eastern mysticism and western metaphysics, but they are alien to the scriptures except when the scriptures reference them as divination, soothsaying, enchantment, wizardry, sorcery, etc.. I am sure you do not realize it but what you teach is the very same thing Hinduism, mind science, divine science, Christian science and New Age groups teach.

In case you are unfamiliar with divine science, I will give some quick instruction. (A very short and instructive lesson is that it is divination -duplicating divine power.) Divine science is the (supposed) science of the spiritual/divine realm and the laws which govern it. Another way to say divine science is laws of God. The divine science and metaphysical groups teach that man is a god, a spirit (or divine) being in a class with God. (Some teach man is God outright, while others teach that all of creation together is God. There are numerous variations of this theme.) They say man is a spirit like God is a Spirit, and thus man shares in divinity. Because man shares in divinity his words and thoughts have power like God’s, and it all works on the basis of universal divine laws26. That is nearly equivalent, if not identical, to what you teach. (Now please understand I am not saying you are a false teacher. I am saying this doctrine is false and you need to abandon it.)

To teach “all men are spirit beings” created in the image of God and capable of exercising “the God kind of faith” makes all men (saints and sinners alike) spiritual beings who can enter into the things of God by the virtue of their own godlikeness. On that basis man has no need for God, but is himself like God. That makes God unnecessary to saints and sinners, and that makes a mockery of all the Law and the prophets and Christ. If “all men are spirit beings” like God who can get results by having their own God-like faith or by cooperating with the laws of God, then that eliminates God and man’s need for God. It usurps God and it exalts man to God’s level; and that is the original sin.

Man is not a spirit being in God’s class. Man is man, a human being; and God alone is God. God and man are two separate, distinct classes of beings. God is Creator, Man is a creature–a creation. God is Spirit, Man is not. Man is not just his spirit. Man is spirit and soul and body. Man is not, as you say, a spirit who has a soul and who lives in a body. The whole man: spirit, soul, and body is man.27 The body is not simply some external vehicle of the spirit. The body is part and parcel of the man.

To make men into spiritual beings in God’s class is to exalt man to the level of godhood and to reduce God to the rank of chief of the gods whose main duty, it would seem, is to teach men to be as God. Well, Praise man! and Glory to man! Now doesn’t that have a hollow and devilish ring to it?

The error of metaphysics is this: The body is all but unimportant, it is earthly; but the spirit is divine, i.e. of the same spiritual substance and nature as God. In metaphysics, the real man is the spirit. The earthly man, the body, is to be transcended. To transcend the body does not mean to overcome it and rule over its base desires, but to despise it and ascend above it into the spiritual (divine) realm. Thus as one transcends the base earthly body, one realizes one’s inner spiritual, divine nature. In other words, metaphysics believes man (the spirit) is on a divine level with God.

You have apparently been influenced by the same misconception. Neither christians nor any other men are “spirit beings”, but rather are human beings; and as concerns the flesh they do not transcend it but subdue it and offer it to God a living sacrifice. Thus the believer’s life is a living sacrifice in the flesh lived wholly for God and Holy before Him, and this is well pleasing in His sight.28 The body is every bit as much a part of man as the spirit. Why else did Jesus come in an earthly body, live a holy life to God in his body, and die in his body, and resurrect in his body? The body is every bit the part of man. The spirit is, of course, the more important part, for the body without the spirit is dead. But the whole man is man, not just his spirit.

To show the error of your thinking consider animals. Animals are called souls in scripture.29 The Hebrew word soul (nephesh) means a creature with breath or spirit. Animals have breath and Ecclesiastes 3:21 says animals have spirits. Are animals in God’s class? Animals have spirits, souls, and bodies like man. Are animals men? No! It is evident men and animals are not in the same class. Now angels are more like God than men because they are spirits30, but they are not in God’s class. They are angels. If angels were in God’s class, then Lucifer would be on the throne. He is the only angel arrogant enough to presume he could be as God and sit on the throne of God. For such arrogance he was cast down to earth; and one day he shall be cast down to hell. The conclusion is that all living creatures have spirits, but they are in different classes. Animals are animals, men are men, angels are angels, but God alone is classed as God.

Only God is God, or the first commandment isn’t true. If God is not the only God, then He is jealous of the other gods for egotistical reasons, not because other gods are false gods. That would make God vain and petty. But God is not petty. He is full of humility, mercy, and lovingkindness. Consider how He humbled Himself to walk the earth as a man, and to be despised, reviled, and rejected. In spite of our hate for Him, He loved us. (Truly God’s greatness is His humility.) Though God is not vain nor petty, He alone is God, and He alone is glorified as God. “To whom shall you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal? I, even I, am The Lord. I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God besides Me. I am the first and I am the last, and beside Me their is no God. Before Me there has been no God formed, neither shall there be one after Me. For I am God, and there is none else; I am God and there is none like Me.”31

What you say makes God and all men spirit beings who do divine works by means of God’s laws32. On that basis, even God must operate by the law of faith. That thinking is right at home in metaphysical circles, but is it sound bible doctrine? By no means. God does not operate by faith. It is exactly the other way around. Faith operates by God. God does not need faith, but man does. So God speaks in order that man can have faith, for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. If what you say were true, then God Himself could not have faith until He speaks. For until He speaks there could be no hearing, and where there is no hearing there is no faith for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So if God could not have faith until He speaks, then He would never have faith to speak because He would not yet have heard the word in order that He might have faith. Thus God could never say anything, and thus He would be impotent. What you say makes the words themselves The Power, not God; and that proves the fallacy of such thinking because God is not weak that He needs faith for He is The Almighty, The All Sufficient One, who needs not that He should rely (have faith) on anything.

The power of the words God speaks is not in the words, nor in faith in the words, but in the God who speaks them. Faith is an act of worship, it is a declaration of trust in and submission to a Deity. If God had faith in His words, then the words are a Deity greater than God to whom God is dutiful and before whom He bows His knee and gives faithful reverence. The words would be greater than God because He would have to depend on them and believe in them. If God needs faith, then He is not the Almighty. He lacks one thing–faith. If God needs faith, then He is not the All sufficient One. If God needs faith, God is usurped and Faith sits on the throne, yes such a faith before which even God Himself must bow. What does that tell you? What spirit is it which would dethrone God and set some other thing in His place? Lest there be any doubt I tell you it is Lucifer who would humble God and set his power on the throne. (Teach believer’s to operate by their own godlike faith if you wish, but know this: it is really the power of Lucifer you teach them to use whether you think so or not.)

That God would be subservient to faith or the law of faith is preposterous. God is God. There is nothing greater than He. If God had faith in anything it was not in the words He spoke, but in the One who spoke themHimself. 33 God is the Almighty, the All Sufficient One who is sufficient within Himself and needs not to believe in anything. What you call “this law of God–the law of faith” is actually an ancient method of divination. If you are yet unconvinced of what I say, then read on. I shall attempt to prove what I say beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Natural (unregenerate) men cannot cooperate with the things of the Spirit of God. There is a definite difference between natural and spiritual things. Natural laws are one thing. They are universal. They work for all men. Any man can understand natural laws and use them to his own advantage whether he believes in God or not. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.34 That is a sign of God’s love, not man’s cooperation with Him. Rocks cooperate with the law of gravity every day. Are they spiritual? Do they have faith? NO! Spiritual things are very different from natural things.

The word holy means set apart or separated. God is Holy, i.e God is set apart from every other being and every other thing in a place of His own uniqueness. God alone is Holy God, He alone is wholly God. God alone is creator. All else is a creation. God is separate from the creation in that He is Himself uncreated and the creator. Thus God is separate from all else. He alone is set apart as God and there is none like Him. (I do not exclude Christ or the Holy Spirit in this, but emphasize a point here.)

Spiritual things are holy, they are separate from natural things. The natural man cannot enter into or cooperate with the things of the Spirit of God any more than a dead body can interact with the living. The living and the dead abide in their own domain. The dead don’t walk around with the living, and the living don’t abide in caskets in the earth. The natural man is dead and is literally a world apart from the Living God and from the living things of God. The natural man is in death, while God is Life. Thus the things of the Spirit of Life are not only alien to the natural man but are utterly beyond his reach in another realm.

God is Life and the things of God are the things of Life. The natural man is dead and abides in death and has nothing in common with God. It is only as one is born again one is reinstated to relationship with God and only then does man have a common union (communion or fellowship) with God.

The natural man (while alive to men) is dead to God, and the things of Life are beyond the reach of the dead. It is interesting that the root word of holy is whole meaning integrated and healthy. And there is none so integrated, so whole and healthy and alive as God. No natural man who is unholy–decaying and dying–can handle the Holy Living things of God. It is only as one is washed in the blood of the Lamb and in the waters of regeneration that one can approach the presence of the Holy God.

The natural man is dead and dwells in death. He is unholy or spiritually rotting just as a dead body is bodily rotting. The natural man is an animated corpse to God. God is Life and He dwells in Life. God is Holy and the things of God are Holy. The dead and the unholy have no intercourse with the Living, Holy things of God. Faith is one of the Holy things of God. (There is a natural human kind of faith, but it is not the faith which is of God.) Faith is either a gift of God’s Holy Spirit or a fruit of His Holy Spirit, and no natural man can enter into the Holy Place. Any way into the Holy Place of the Holy Spirit other than by God’s way is a false way. God’s way is Jesus Christ–“the author” (source) “and finisher of faith”. He who would enter any other way is a thief and a robber. Read John 10:1-10 If a sinner is a spiritual being who can cooperate with the laws of God in faith, then he has found another way into the Holy Place. Since that cannot be, it proves this is the thief’s and robber’s way in and not the way of God at all.

No man (saved or unsaved) uses his own God-kind of faith because faith is of God and no man uses God. No man simply cooperates with the laws of God because that supplants God, and anything which supplants God cannot be of God. Therefore, whatever faith it is these unbelievers used it was not the faith which is of God. The natural man is a corpse to God and cannot trespass into the things of Life. He must be washed by the blood of Jesus Christ and be born anew of the Holy Spirit before he can even see the Kingdom of God. But that does not mean once you are Christian it is now your prerogative to use your own God-kind of faith. The reverse is true. The Christian, like Christ, “lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”. Yet you say Jesus had the God-kind of faith in his own words and told his disciples to have that kind of faith too35; and that encourages us to live by the words that come out of our own mouths. That is totally contradictory to scripture. If we live by faith in every word that proceeds out of our mouths, then that robs God of our faith in Him and transfers it to ourselves; and it robs God of His glory and power and transfers it to ourselves.

You go on to say christians should believe in themselves and what they are in Christ. Now that emphasis is all wrong. It is not what I am in Christ, but what Christ is in me; and my confidence as a Christian is not in me, but in Christ.36 Christ is the preeminent one. It is Christ in us who is the hope of glory37, not what we are in Christ. What we are, we are by the grace of God38 and apart from that grace we are nothing.39

So no one can use his or her own faith, nor can one simply employ or cooperate with divine laws, nor ought anyone to have faith in themselves. Christians ought to know better than all men not to believe in themselves or use impersonal “laws of God” but that we are to look to God and Christ alone because they and they alone are worthy to be believed. The believer’s faith is to believe in God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.40 To God and Christ is the glory, and we look to God and to Christ in faith. Again I am compelled to say what you teach is out of line with the scriptures, but it is in accord with the doctrines of metaphysics. I substantiate what I say with the following reasons:

  1. The Lord brought me out of metaphysics and science of mind. I am well acquainted with the concepts of faith in faith and cooperation with divine laws and they are occult.
  2. The Spirit of God within me witnesses against faith in faith. We are to have faith in God and Jesus Christ. We are not to have faith in faith, nor in divine laws, nor in our own words, nor in what we are in Christ. We are to have faith in God and Christ alone. Faith in faith supplants faith in God, and anything which supplants God is manifestly against God. Any substitute for God is an idol, and idolatry is demonic.
  3. The following scriptures prove that faith in faith is false.

Romans 8:7–the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can it be. Carnal men are carnal, not spiritual. They cannot enter into the Holy things of the Spirit of God. Therefore unbelievers cannot have true faith and they cannot cooperate with God’s Laws.

1Corinthians 2:14– the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned.

John 6:28–The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent. An unbeliever does not believe, he does not have faith, and therefore cannot work the works of God.

John 3:3–Except a man be born again (by the Spirit of God) he cannot see the kingdom of God”

John 14:7 echoes the same thought: The world cannot receive Him (the Spirit of God) because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.

Unbelievers cannot submit to or cooperate with the things of the Spirit of God because God is their enemy and they oppose Him. The things of God are foolishness to the unbeliever. He cannot even know them. The scriptures are quite clear that unbelievers are in rebellion against God and cannot submit to Him. Every unbeliever cooperates with the God ordained laws of nature every day, but to make that mean the unbeliever can likewise make use of spiritual laws is to put no distinction between what is holy and what is common. The laws of nature are common to all men, but the things of the Spirit of God are holy and are not at the disposal of men to use at their instigation.

You must differentiate between the laws of nature and the things of the Spirit of God. Now the law of God is spiritual41 and therefore holy. The holy things of the Spirit of God (and the law is spiritual) are not common and available to unbelievers. If unbelievers are getting results by cooperating with “the laws of God”, then that proves they are not God’s laws at all because unbelievers are carnal and “the carnal mind is at enmity with God for it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can it be.” That proves the so called “laws of God” are not of God at all but are of another spiritual source–the usurper, the would-be-god, the devil.

I must add as a side note here, faith in faith or using the laws of God is just as false for a believer as it is for a carnal man. We are to have faith in God, not faith in faith. We are to obey God, not believe that God is obedient to the word of man or that God is compelled to honor us because we cooperate with His laws. God is not bound by the faith or the words of any man. That would make any man who learns to use faith or who employs the proper law the master of God, and that is not only preposterous it is sorcery.

To think we bind God to act by our faith or that we can harness the power of God by cooperating with so called “laws of God” is either to take authority over God or to usurp God; and that steals God’s glory and takes it to ourselves. It is not the Spirit of God which seeks to command God or usurp Him, for the Spirit of God is submitted to God. It is not the Spirit of God which would steal God’s glory and take to itself, for the Spirit of God always glorifies God and Jesus Christ. The spirit which takes God’s glory to himself is the usurping spirit, the devil. Let it be known: God does not obey man by faith. Rather, man obeys God by faith. God does not give His glory to another. God may well manifest His glory through His servants, but the glory remains God’s from Alpha to Omega. To God be the glory, not man.

If any man (believer or unbeliever) has his own God-kind of faith in himself and in his own words, then he has usurped God and is a god unto himself because we are to live “by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”, not by every word that proceeds out of our own mouths. And if man can simply have faith in his own God-kind of faith, then he does not need God, nor does he need to submit to God. That circumvents God and places faith in man’s own godlikeness, and that is idolatry. I reemphasize: Faith in faith is occult, and using so called laws of God is occult because it supplants God. Thus it is just as wrong for a Christian to practice such things as it is for the unbeliever, and in fact it is more wrong for a believer to practice such because he should know better.

To see the occult character of faith in faith, examine it closely. A man giving substance to his own words by faith is for man to be his own God; and God needing to have faith reduces God to just another god who needs faith. God operating by faith lowers God to man’s level, and man operating by his own God-kind of faith raises man to God’s level. Thus faith in faith demotes God and exalts man. I ask you, what spirit is it which demotes God? and what spirit raises man to Godhood? The Devil! The Devil set out to dethrone God and sit on His throne in his rebellion, and he enticed man to join him in his rebellion by promising him godhood. Faith in faith enthrones man and dethrones God. So I repeat, Faith in faith occult.

By saying all men are spirit beings who can make use of God’s laws or have their own godlike faith, you put common man into a class with God. You fail to make a distinction between what is natural and what is spiritual, between what is common and what is holy.42 Natural laws and natural things are common to all men. Saints and sinners alike may handle them and make use of them. They work for all men whether those men are good or evil, and they work whether they are used for good or evil. Natural things are common to all men, but spiritual things are not common to all men and they are not workable by men. Spiritual things are holy, they are reserved and set apart unto God.43 The things of the Spirit of God belong to God and they are distributed and manifested as He directs.44 No man can approach the things of the Holy Spirit of God except by the blood of Christ, and no man (believers included) can make use of them for his own purposes. The things of God are wholly His and are Holy unto Him. They are God’s things, not man’s, and they are to be respected as such.

Not even the priests (and all saints are priests of the new covenant) can approach the Holy things as if they are common lest they profane God and bring sin upon themselves. Ezekiel 22:26 says: “Her priests have violated My law and profaned My holy things; they have not distinguished between the holy and unholy, nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean;” You must distinguish between that which is holy and that which is common. You dare not profane (make common) the Holy things of God. To make the Holy things of God the jurisdiction of “all men” (including sinful men) who “are spirit beings” is surely to profane them; it is sin. For a Christian to handle the Holy things casually as if they are common is to profane them; it is sin. To make the Holy things of God the jurisdiction of all men is to elevate men to godhood which is rebellion and witchcraft45, and that surely profanes the things of God; it also is sin. To make God subservient to the man who uses faith or to the man who cooperates with the laws of God is to make faith, the law, and God Himself profane; and that surely is sin.

Spiritual things are not just things, they are the things of the Spirit of God. They belong to God. They are God’s own things, and thus are set apart or holy. Spiritual things are God’s personal domain and they are not accessible to men except by the way God has laid out, and that way is always by Him Personally through the blood of Jesus Christ and washing of regeneration of the Holy Spirit. No man approaches God or the things of God any other way–period. No matter what godly sounding name is given to various means to access spiritual things, any other way into spiritual things is devilish because the devil is that spirit which presumes upon the things of God to take them to himself. There is only one way into the Holy Things of God. Those who enter into spiritual things by another way enter in by another door and by another spirit. Thus those who can exercise spiritual power or employ it simply by cooperating with a so called “divine law” are climbing up into the Holy Things of God than by some other method than the blood of Jesus Christ. They are spiritual, not with God’s Spirit, but with the spirit of the devil.46

If faith is a law which even God must use, and if God Himself is subject to the faith of a man or to some so called “divine law” set into motion by a man, then God is not God. Rather the faith or law(s) to which God submits is the Almighty power to whom even God must bow; and that is false. Anything which diminishes God is not of God, but is of the devil. God is not under obedience to any law, and especially is He not under obedience to honor some man’s use of a so called spiritual law, nor is God bound by the faith of man. Such methods make God and the things of God common, and they put God under obedience to any one who uses the proper spiritual formula. On that basis, men or even devils could manipulate God to do their will as long as they cooperated with His laws, and God would be dutifully bound to obey because He cannot transgress His own laws. That is not only pure foolishness, it is pure witchcraft. God cannot be manipulated to grant the desires of men just because they cooperate with so called laws of God. In ancient times such spiritual laws or formulas were divination techniques called spells47, and while they are spiritual they are not of the Spirit of God, they are occult and satanic.

The Spirit and the things of the Spirit are the domain of God. God personally oversees, administers, dispenses, and works the operations of His own things.48 Therefore any spiritual power which is not personally submitted to God or which can operate apart from His direct control cannot be of Him. Therefore an impersonal spiritual law which operates on its own is not of God; and any so called law which brings God under obedience is not of God. The thought that men could cooperate with such a law and bind God to bring about its fulfillment ought to shock you for that is to take authority over God, and that is rebellion and witchcraft. And the thought that men are spirit beings on a level with God ought to shock you because that’s the devil’s original lie–that man, even sinful man, can be as God. (To gain the ability to be as God, man had to sin.49) What unthinkable arrogance and unbelievable ignorance to think any man can be as God or can bind God to action just by using “divine” laws. That would make man and these laws as God or the Master of God, and that is a diabolical delusion. A so called spiritual law to which even God must bow His knee usurps God as Almighty, and anything which usurps God is not of God, but is of the devil.

The Spirit of God is not under obedience to any spiritual laws. Rather it is spiritual things which are totally under control of the Spirit of God; that is what makes God both Lord and God. All the powers, gifts, fruits, and manifestations of the Holy Spirit reside in the Spirit of God. These are not things separate from God, they are manifestations of Himself. God is always personally and vitally linked to the gifts, fruits, and powers of His Holy Spirit50. He possesses them, dispenses them, operates them, and controls them as He wills. God does not bestow these manifestations upon men as their individual powers or as separate from Himself. These are not the manifestations of man, they are the manifestations of the Spirit of God.

That God manifests His Spirit through men does not mean that God has transferred the control of the manifestation of His Spirit over to men, but rather that He has found faithful servants who have humbled themselves to permit themselves to be vessels through whom He might manifest His Spirit.

  • Here I must add a word of warning: just because God has moved through a man, does not mean that man serves God. God has been known to manifest Himself through men who were greedy and evil. God prophesied of the salvation of Israel by Christ through the same high priest who later condemned Christ to death.51 God also prophesied over Israel through Balaam the soothsayer and diviner.52 Be on your guard, not everyone who is moved upon by God is of God. There are those who sit in the seat of authority and, even though their hearts are not right before Him, God sovereignly moves through them to bless His people. You can spot those in error by their abuse of religion which they use to exalt themselves to power and riches, and they preach a worldly gospel instead of an heavenly one. The error of the religious leaders at the time of Christ’s sojourn in the flesh and of Balaam are identical–they are in it for themselves and the money the can make out of religion in order to build their own kingdoms and a name for themselves.

The things of God are never separate from God because they are manifestations of God Himself. Thus unbelievers cannot enter into the Holy things of the Spirit of God, and believers do not possess them and employ them as their own because that would be to possess God and direct His Spirit; and no man has ever been God’s counselor nor has any man ever directed God.53 God is God and He moves and speaks as He wills. Neither God nor any part of His domain is under a man’s control. Common sense ought to tell us God is in submission to no thing and to no man.

Because this is so I important I reiterate for emphasis: Any spiritual law or power not submitted to God (that is any power which can operate without His direct, personal involvement and control) is occult. (If God is not in control and command of His own power, then He is not fit to be Lord and God.) It is the devil and his spiritual forces which are not submitted to God and which operate separate from Him. The unsaved are energized by the spirit of the devil and are “children of disobedience” upon whom the wrath of God abides.54 The unsaved are motivated by an independent spirit, the spirit of Satan, which operates separate from God. The devils and unsaved men do their own thing, not God’s. Therefore unbelievers are in cooperation with the spirit of rebellion, which is Satan, and are at enmity with God. The spirit of the unsaved is not in cooperation with God, but with the devil. The spirit of the unsaved man is not submitted to the law of God, and indeed it cannot submit.55

An unbeliever cooperates with God’s natural laws every day and is even able to harness them to his will. However no unbeliever cooperates with God in spiritual things. The unbeliever is disobedient and rebellious towards God, in fact he is altogether hostile towards God.56 The unbeliever cannot avail himself of spiritual laws because he is altogether opposed to God.

The natural man has not the Spirit of God and “no man knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. {12} Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. {13} These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. {14} But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”57 The natural man is of the spirit of the world and his spiritual alliance is with the spirit of iniquity. The natural man abides in death, and the Spirit of God is life and abides in Life. Thus the natural man cannot grasp spiritual things because they are in an altogether different dimension than he. The things of the Spirit of God are alien to the natural man, they are foolishness to him, he cannot know them, and he opposes them.

Whatever natural law man cooperates with is just that–natural. A farmer planting wheat and reaping wheat is a physical process which works for all men alike. The spiritual realm, however, is a place quite apart from the natural dimension and it is utterly beyond the comprehension and the reach of the natural man. The only exception to that statement concerns the things of the spirit of iniquity. Man frequently taps that spirit because they are on the same plane–iniquity. The spirit of iniquity is spiritual, but by the wrong spirit. The things of the Spirit of God, however, is God’s personal domain and it is under God’s personal control.58 The things of the Spirit of God cannot be harnessed by a man employing so called spiritual principles or laws.

As I said, such spiritual laws put God (or the power of God) under the control of anyone who properly employs them. That is not cooperation with God or His laws. It is, rather, to rule over God. It is rebellion against God. Man is to submit to God, not rule over Him, and that proves the spirit behind so called “laws of God” which any man may put to use is not of God at all, but of the devil. It also proves the scripture, “the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can it be.” No man nor law holds God under its power because God is not bound by any man, (or by any being) or by any law or by anything.

There are two spiritual powers at work in the world. There are the Spiritual powers of God and the spiritual powers of darkness. The things of the Spirit of God are just that–they are of God: they belong to Him, they are under His dominion, they are submitted to Him, they issue from Him, they accomplish His will, and they return to Him.59 The things of God are utterly of Him and utterly submitted to Him. That is what distinguishes that which is of the Holy Spirit from that which is of the other spirit. The things of the other spirit are not submitted to God because the spirit of the evil one is not submitted to God. The things of the other spirit work independent of God, because the spirit of the evil one is independent of God. The things of the other spirit (since he is a rival god, and a false one at that) work irrespective of one’s relationship to God on the basis of so called spiritual laws, and that makes a mockery of the cross and the blood of Jesus Christ.

Spiritual laws are nonliving things, but the things of the Spirit of God are living. The things of the Spirit of God are like the wind which blows wherever it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell from where it comes or where it goes. Now God is the one who directs His Spirit to blow wherever He wishes, but so called “laws of God” or “spiritual laws” are impersonal, nonliving, set and unchanging forms which will yield results for whoever properly employs them. Thus so called “spiritual laws” blow wherever the one who properly employs them wishes and they accomplish whatever this one purposes. This is man playing God for God is the one “who works all things after the counsel of His own will.”60

I do not mean to imply by my former statement that God changes with the wind. He is ever the same, but He is not lifeless or limited. You cannot fence the things of God into a law or formula otherwise you remove the Spirit of God, the breath or wind of life, right out of the picture. The Spirit would not blow where it wishes, but where the law/formula directs it; and that removes the Life and authority of the Spirit. If laws direct the Spirit, then God does not; and that is false because that usurps God of His authority and robs Him of His glory.

The things of God are living and blow wherever God wills. The things of the other spirit are mechanical and work by the law/formula by whoever sets the law/formula in motion. To illustrate this, liken the things of the Spirit to a human being and the things of the other spirit to a robot. The man is living and spontaneous, the robot is lifeless and mechanical. The man is a living, breathing, spontaneous organism; the robot is a lifeless, formulated (i.e programmed) mechanism, a machine. The man is moved by his spirit, the robot is moved by the laws of mechanics and by formulated responses. Do you see the point? Any man can run a machine (work a law), but no man runs God.

The Spirit of God is Life, and life has a mysterious, undefinable quality to it. No man can formulate the undefinable, limitless Spirit of God or the things of the Spirit of God into a spiritual mechanism which any man can use. If God or the things of God could be so easily reduced to spiritual formulas, then God could be manipulated by anyone employing the proper spiritual mechanism. Thus God, The Most Holy One, would be common. Such false spiritual techniques make God and the things of God something any man (clean or unclean) may approach with indifference and impunity. That is the same as an unwashed, uncircumcised, gentile robed in common street clothes entering into the Temple of God and going behind the vail into the Holy of Holies at his own disposition and for his own purposes in complete disregard for the commandments of God. It is to think man can approach the Holy Presence of God for his own purposes or for his own advantage with no reverence for God or His set way.

Spiritual laws give man the means to control61 the things of God and permit him to approach God and the Holy things of God any way he likes, anytime he likes, for whatever he likes as long as he cooperates with the so called “laws of God”. And to the astonishment of heaven, he does not need to humble himself before God, nor repent of his wickedness, nor be washed in the blood of Christ and the waters of regeneration. No, such a man need not bow low, but can (even as a sinner) approach God as an equal. He is a spirit being in God’s class and can interact with the Holy things of God even though he is clothed in the filthy garments of his own uncleanness and while he is yet an enemy of God. And –wonder of wonders– God Himself must bow low before the man to serve him and honor his request because he cooperated with a “law of God.” Such thinking is filled with the spirit of arrogance and blasphemy.

If man can approach the Holy things of God on the basis of “laws of God”, then the unsaved do not need to shed the filthy garments of their sinfulness, do not need to be washed with the blood of Jesus Christ and the waters of regeneration of the Spirit, and they do not need to be robed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, but can boldly enter behind the vail into the Holy Place in the filthiness of their flesh at their own choosing and for their own ends, and God Himself must honor it because they come by a so called “law of God”. That makes a mockery of God and is an insult to Jesus Christ. What arrogance! What conceit! What delusion.

I must add that no believer can enter the presence of God casually, nor treat His Holy things as common.62 This is no common being, no ordinary King, but the Most High God, the King of Heaven, The Most Glorious One before whom the whole heavens and earth tremble with fear. Believers have no special privilege to act with arrogance before God. They do not barge into the presence of God and demand their needs or wants to be met because they have the right of sons. True sons approach the Father with humility and godly fear, not with evil arrogance demanding God to submit to their request and fulfill it. How dare anyone have the brazen conceit to barge into the Throne-Room of The King, hold His own word in His face and demand He grant their request because He must honor His covenant to them and their right as sons or be found a liar. Arrogance is never of God, it is always of human conceit or devilish deceit. No man commands God or makes demands of God and no one approaches Him just any way. Believers ought to know that better than anybody. There is nothing for any man to boast of before God.63

Believers do not barge into God’s presence and demand He submit to their requests. That is unholy arrogance, not holy boldness. The boldness the believer has before God is this: By the blood of Christ, we stand before God without the sentence of condemnation upon us. The believer enters into God’s presence humbly and reverently by Jesus Christ and His blood, and our boldness is in Jesus Christ and His blood. By reason of the blood of Jesus Christ, the Christian who is yet clothed in unholy sinful flesh and yet dark in their minds (for none see perfectly) can stand in the presence of The Most Holy God without fear of condemnation or destruction.

The christian’s boldness is in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. By reason of God’s most gracious sacrifice of the blood of His Son, the Christian may approach The Presence, and that in godly fear before this Most Glorious One before Whom worlds tremble in fear, and star’s stagger in awe. Boldness does not mean we cast our sonship in God’s face and demand he fulfill our requests or else be found a transgressor of His own covenant. That is self reverence and unholy arrogance and is born of that spirit which reverences not God but itself–Satan.

Let us consider this Jesus and his blood by which we can stand boldly before God so that we might reverence both God and Jesus more and more. Jesus Christ and His blood are held in such reverence that holy angels hide their faces at the glory of Christ and stand awestruck at the wonder of the blood.64 At the presence of the glory of Christ, holy apostles and prophets fell prostrate as dead, and Heaven itself trembles with Godly fear. But unsaved men can approach God willy-nilly dressed in the filthy rags of their own sinfulness and unbelief and compel God to honor their requests because they cooperated with a (falsely so called) “law of God”. And saved men push their way into the throne room and demand their rights; and that is an outrage. That is not cooperation with God, that is arrogance and conceit of the highest order and is contempt for God, His Holiness, and His Holy things.

There is only one way into the Holiest of All and no unbeliever can enter through the vail. The Holy Place is God’s place and you approach Him accordingly as He says. The only kind of faith that unbelievers can exercise is faith to repent and repudiate their wicked old man and receive Christ; even this is a work of the Holy Spirit. For unbelievers to do as you suggest is to make another way into the presence of God and to transform the Holy things of God into common things which common men can make use of for their own ends; and that is false to the core. God is merciful and will receive all who come to Him, but He sets the way. No man approaches God on his terms, but must approach God on God’s terms. Otherwise the sacrifice of Christ is a lie.

Unbelievers cannot operate by faith or cooperate with the law of faith because true faith is either a gift of the Holy Spirit or a fruit of the Holy Spirit and unbelievers do not have the Spirit nor do they cooperate with the Spirit of God, but rather they are in rebellion against it. Unbelievers do not make an end run around the Holiness of God and get God to cooperate with them because they used what is falsely and foolishly called a “law of God”. That categorically proves what is motivating them is the spirit of rebellion not a spirit of cooperation with God. No natural man receives Spiritual things, nor can he make use of them. The natural man is of the world and the spirit of the world, and that is the devil. The things of God are of the Spirit of God, and the two spirits are literally worlds apart.

You might think I overstate the issue or that I am picking on you, but I do neither. If I express outrage or disgust it is not with you but with teachings which rob God of His glory and holiness and which make gods of men. God alone is God, and He is the Almighty and All-glorious one before whom flesh melts from the bones and withers to dust. For all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man, even a regenerated man, is but a pale reflection of God. An unregenerate man is but animated corpse to God, and that is why Christ died to restore such an one to life. To suggest an unregenerate man (or any man) is a “spirit being” who can interact on God’s level and who can approach the things of God is to glorify putrefying flesh and make a mockery of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. If man can approach God in his dead, rotting sinfulness; and if man (christians included) are in God’s class, then God is a liar, Jesus is a fraud, and the Devil is the Holy One because he is the one who makes men of flesh into Godlike beings. No man is as God, especially not Christians. That sort of thinking is satanic and outrageous and deserves to be contemned and revealed for the unholy wickedness it is. Christians ought to flee such foolishness and wickedness as though it were hell fire.

Now I am certain you neither think of what you teach that way, nor mean it that way, but it does not change the unholy, occult flavor of it even though you mean it in all sincerity and believe it to be of God. That is why I am spending so much time and trouble to prove the devilish inspiration of what many christians today believe to be of God. I am not out to hurt anyone, but to help them. If in the process of destroying false doctrine I hurt some feelings I am sorry, but it is for everyone’s good and no one’s harm. I am not trying to cause trouble or create it where it does not exist. There is an error here, and it must be corrected.

I want you to know I am not speaking out of response to something I read in someone’s book, but out of years of personal involvement with the occult. Before the Lord saved me, I studied E.S.P. (which in other times was known as magic and wizardry), Science of Mind, Edgar Cayce, and numerous other metaphysical practices. All these teach men are gods, teach faith in faith, and teach cooperating with the Divine and his laws. I was one of those unbelievers you wrote about who got results (I thought) by using faith in faith and cooperating with God’s laws and the principles of the Bible, and I tell you the faith in faith thing is utterly occult. It is another way into the presence of God. (Not in truth, but it purports to be divine.) It is not faith in the living Christ, it is man having faith in his own faith, and that is false faith.

Having faith in faith is also called the power of positive thinking, mind power, divine science, science of mind, Christian science, and a host of other similar names. It was known in older times as magic and wizardry and its origin is in Babylon. Even God said (Genesis 11:6) nothing shall be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Another way of saying that is, Whatever man can conceive and believe, he can achieve. This makes man the source of faith and the object of faith. Success is dependent upon the imagination of man to conceive of something and upon his ability to believe in it and in himself in order to bring it to pass. Such faith is faith in what man can achieve simply by believing he can do what he believes he can do. It is will power or mind over matter and is the exaltation of the human spirit. It is a belief in self and that is the essence of all witchcraft. This works for anyone and does not require one to repent of the old self and submit to God. It does not need to look to Christ as savior. Rather one only needs to use God’s laws to deliver oneself from an evil situation. This technique is independent of God and works for anyone, anytime, anywhere. That proves it is not of the Spirit of God, but of some other spirit.

Faith in faith does not need faith in Christ or dependence upon God to work. A man merely employs divine techniques to work what he wills. It should be self evident that this kind of faith is not the true faith which comes from Christ and which is focused upon Him. Rather it is of man, is focused on man, and it serves man. It is a self-oriented and self-serving faith in oneself. That is not the true faith, but a false substitute.

It is the heart of an independent, self-serving spirit which makes gods of men, and that is the original sin and cannot be the faith of Christ. Christians fell into this trap by letting Christian sounding metaphysical philosophy invade the faith. Metaphysical belief substitutes faith in the Book (Bible and its principles) and faith in divine principles for faith in God and His Christ. Any time we substitute God and Christ with anything else other than themselves we have touched the spirit of witchcraft. We can do it in ignorance and that is one thing, but we ought to know better. God will set us straight if we are sincere in heart, but wrong in practice. However, when we substitute God with some thing other than Himself as a working principle, then we have fallen into the spirit of witchcraft because anything that is a substitute for God is anti-God and anti-Christ.

Man is ever seeking to be able to bring things under his own control rather than being submissive and dependent upon God who has all things under His own control. In other words, man is always trying to be God; that is the nature of the old man and it is also called rebellion and witchcraft. The christian’s faith is in God and is utterly dependent upon Him because faith comes by hearing and hearing by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. We do not follow laws or principles, we follow the Spirit as God directs. We have a real relationship with a real God who lives and speaks and we walk as He directs. We do not presume to lead ourselves on the basis of the Bible alone because that would supplant God with His own scriptures. We are not led by the book alone, we are led by God’s Spirit.

Faith in faith, faith in laws, or even faith in the scriptures is false faith. It is faith in something other than God, and we are to have faith in God. Listen to me carefully and do not misunderstand me. I do not say we do not need the bible, and I do not say we are not to believe it. I most wholeheartedly believe the bible, but I do not believe the scriptures for themselves. (That would make a god out of the bible, and the bible is our guide not our God.) I wholeheartedly believe the scriptures because I believe in God, but it is God who is the Power and the Glory, not the scriptures. I believe the bible, but my faith is in God. God is the object of our faith. (I do not leave out Jesus, as He is inseparable from God.) Faith in any other one or any other thing than God is idolatry, the worship of a false god. Faith in one’s faith has man as its object. Thus it is false faith in a false god, namely man.

With this other kind of faith, one is dependent on one’s own ability to believe for what that one wants. It is not dependent on God, but on man; and man is the wrong object of faith. Faith in faith does not need God. All it needs is for a man to have faith in his own faith and his ability to believe the scriptures. If that were true, we would not need God but only the scriptures. Such a faith that does not need God is false because anything that displaces God cannot be of God. It is also false because it has man for its source. The source of the christian’s faith is not himself or the scriptures, but Christ. As it is written (Hebrews 12:2), “Jesus (is) the author (source) and finisher of our faith.”

It is man, not Christ, who is central to faith in faith; and the will of man is central to it rather than the will of God. All that is necessary is that a man use bible principles to believe for biblical things. While that might sound right, it puts God right out of the relationship, and that proves the error plainly.

Faith in faith is faith in the wrong thing. Faith laws, or whatever else they are called, are false because anyone can set them in motion and even God is subject to them. That usurps God as the ultimate authority, and anything which usurps God is devilish. God is not bound to the decrees of a man, nor is He a slave to a so called spiritual law set into motion. That kind of faith makes man the Master and God the servant. It is man getting God to do man’s will. That is exactly backwards from the way it should be, and that shows the error plainly. This type of thing is man doing his own will in the name of God and that is the error of Adam and of king Saul and is labeled rebellion and witchcraft. It is arrogance and rebellion to think man can bind God by His own scriptures or demand He obey His own covenant. (Will a man order God?) It is sorcery because it is man playing God, and that is the original sin.

Faith in faith allows man to depend not on God Himself, but on his own so called God-kind of faith. Faith in faith is the same seductive lure the devil used to seduce Eve. She was led to believe she could be like God. In ages past that sort of thing was called witchcraft and divination. So how is it now called faith for the saints? Such faith is not faith, but rebellion, and rebellion is rebellion no matter what name men give it. Real faith teaches us not to have faith in ourselves, but in God. Real faith is God centered and has God’s will as its whole purpose. Real faith issues from God himself through the person of Jesus Christ. Our faith is in Jesus personally and not in biblical principles or divine laws, and not even the Bible. The bible did not shed its blood (it has none), nor die on a cross (it is not alive), nor go to hell, nor resurrect. Only Jesus, the Christ of God, did all that and our faith is in Him. Jesus is the source and finisher of faith. Real faith brings us into personal relationship with God and makes us utterly dependant on God. He is the source of our faith and the means of our faith and the object of our faith.

Real faith must come from the will and the mouth of God and not from human desire, not even from the desire for good and scriptural things. The scriptures are often referred to as bread, but “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”65 Christ is the bread from heaven, and apart from Him the scriptures avail nothing. Christ is the Word of God, and apart from Him the word (Bible) means nothing. It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh and the letter profit nothing apart from Him. God commands, The Word (Christ) goes forth by The Spirit to make alive; and it is all by The Living God as He commands and quickens. No man employs his own faith to quicken the scriptures to himself. We are not led by our own mouth or by our own faith. We are led by the God of heaven and He is the source of faith and not the bible or so called biblical laws. No one (believer or unbeliever) can simply speak faith or believe for whatever they want simply because what they want is scriptural. It must come from God.

Please do not misunderstand me. I do not put down the believer’s faith nor his faith in the word. I merely point out it is not by our own personal power we quicken the word, nor is the word simply for our own personal profit. Nor do I discredit the scriptures nor diminish their authority. The scriptures are the word of God given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the apostles and prophets. They are true and trustworthy. I study them constantly and I believe them wholeheartedly. But we must be very careful since the scriptures are God’s written word not to make them the source of faith. We do not believe the scriptures for themselves, we believe them because we believe God. The scriptures themselves say Jesus is the author (source or origin) and finisher (the one who brings to fulfillment) of faith. Let us not supplant God with His own word. We must be very careful not to make the scriptures the mouth of God and simply be led by the book. That would usurp God, and anything that usurps God is of the wrong spirit. The scriptures themselves tell us, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God–Read Deuteronomy 8:3 & Matthew 4:4.

If we make the scriptures the source of faith, then the Bible itself becomes a rival to God supplanting Him in our faith and devotion. We would be worshipping the Bible and not the God who wrote it, but we are to worship God Himself alone. God is knowledgeable enough to have given us the scriptures for a reason, but never did He intend them to replace Him for it is written “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.”66 God has not forgotten how to speak. While we are to meditate upon the scriptures day and night and let them fill our hearts and minds, we are to be led by the Spirit according to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and not by presumption of what we think He is saying in the scriptures.

Now the Spirit will never teach nor lead contrary to the scriptures. So the scriptures have a necessary place in the life of every believer. We are to study them and meditate upon them day and night67. They are God’s measuring rod for truth against which we can measure a doctrine or test a spirit whether they are of God or not. The scriptures edify us and encourage us in the faith and they correct us when we go wrong. The scriptures teach us of God and renew our minds. The scriptures are our guide and our guard to make us wise in the ways of God and knowledgeable of the truth. The scriptures, thus, are profitable for teaching and reproof and instruction in righteousness68, but they ever lead us to Him who is our life and righteousness so that we can walk in the Spirit. I wholeheartedly believe in the Bible, but we walk in the Spirit69 and are led by the Spirit70 and in Him we live and move and have our being71 and not in His book.

I speak this from experience because I love the bible and respect it. I have even sought to walk by the scriptures in my own strength, and God had to reprove me and show me (and He did it by the scriptures) it is Him I am to love and to reverence, and I am to walk by Him even as Jesus did. I was guilty of Pharisaism because, I sought the scriptures for in them I thought I had eternal life and they it are which bear witness of Christ. Man, it seems, ever gravitates towards that which he can control. We want to be in charge, and if we work it right we can control the scriptures. We can decide “I shall believe for this or that.” We do not pick and choose which scriptures we will believe nor do we look at the scriptures as a divine promise box to serve our ends. That is man in control, and we must not approach the scriptures with that attitude.

Faith is not man believing God will do whatever man can believe for. Faith is the settled and sure confidence that God is in control, and that He will do what He said He will do. Look twice at the difference between man believing God to do what man is believing God to do (man in charge), and a man believing God will do what He said He would do (God in utter control and man resting and settled in the conviction God is well able to perform what He has promised.) The first is man as lord believing and controlling, the latter is man subjected to and confident in God who has all things under His control. See who is on the throne–God!

It is the nature of man to control things, i.e to govern himself. It is the nature of God to break man of his self will and be governed by God. We all slip. However let’s not make following our own understanding of the scriptures the rule because that is us leading ourselves according to the scriptures. Let us forsake leading ourselves. Let us humble ourselves ever more to seek to know God and Christ and to be led by the Spirit.

This is why we need to make a special distinction between God and the scriptures: The scriptures are not God. We wait upon the Lord to move and then we move. We don’t move on what God said to someone else yesterday. We move on what God says to us today. For as many as are led by the Spirit, these are the sons of God.72 Again I don’t mean we don’t believe the Bible or follow its precepts. The Bible is our very wise teacher and we ought to meditate upon it day and night, be filled with its knowledge, and obey its precepts. What I do mean is this: when we walk in the Spirit, we will live out the scriptures. If we would be led by God, then we must truly be led by God and not merely lead ourselves on the basis of our understanding of the scriptures.

( A side note of apology and explanation: I know I shall be misunderstood no matter how I express myself because some will think I am attacking the scriptures or putting them down. Others will think I am saying we ought to set the scriptures aside and only follow the Spirit. Let me say I neither attack nor diminish nor cast aside the scriptures. I believe them wholeheartedly, study them earnestly, and firmly believe they are the inspired word of God given for our instruction, edification, and reproof in leading us ever on the right path and into ever deeper relationship and submission to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We by all means ought to meditate upon them and study them day and night. The distinction I am trying to make pertains to our spiritual walk and spiritual ministry. How shall we ever follow God, if we do not know Him. So please do not think I diminish the scriptures, but rather seek to fulfill them. If we are going to be led by the Spirit, then we must know His voice.)

Again, I am compelled to repeat, the Holy Spirit will never lead us contrary to the scriptures and we ought, by all means, to be thoroughly grounded and learned in them. The point I am trying to make is that the scriptures are not the Holy Spirit and they are not intended to displace the Holy Spirit but rather build us up in the Spirit so that we can be led by the Spirit. It is too easy to use the bible for a book of godly principles and so be following the book instead of God. If we only follow the book, then we rule God right out of the picture. In this way we supplant God and walk as the Pharisees after our own will and establishing our own righteousness and not the righteousness of God. It is a subtle substitute for submission to God. By following the book our lives might appear godly, but it is us leading our own lives. That translates into being our own lords and it misses the whole point of the scriptures to submit to Christ as Lord. It is a subtle means to attempt to attain godliness while retaining the lordship of our own lives, and that establishes another lord and another righteousness.

No one should be condemned for seeking to obey the scriptures, and I do not mean to make it sound like we ought not to obey them. By all means, we all ought to obey the scriptures. The point I am trying so hard to make is that we are not to let the scriptures take the place of God. We are to know God and hear God, but if we merely follow the book we can miss God. I am certain all christians have, at times, simply followed the book, and that is not to be condemned; but ultimately the scriptures should bring us into deeper relationship and fellowship with God and Christ. It is when we transform the scriptures into biblical laws or divine precepts by which we work the works of God that we get into trouble. For example, obeying the scripture which says not to commit adultery is commendable; but trying to raise the dead without first having God tell you He wants the dead raised is presumption. “It is God who quickens the dead and calls the things that are not as though they are.” God is God, and this is God’s will we are doing. We do not operate on presumption. Jesus did nothing except he saw the Father do it first, because he came not to do his own will but the will of the Father who sent him.73

Biblical laws, precepts, and principles existed before Jesus was born. If all man needed was the scriptures and his faith in them, then Jesus need never have come. Man could simply have had faith in the godliness and power of the scriptures and followed them to produce the will and purposes of God. That would unseat God from His throne and make man’s faith and the scriptures the ultimate authority. It might seem good on the surface, but that which would sit in the seat of God as God is the very essence of Antichrist. It is the same old lie of the serpent in the garden, that godly wisdom and knowledge in the hands of man makes him as God. If we would usurp God with His own Word, we ought to be warned we are under the influence of the spirit of Antichrist.

We all stumble and see through a glass darkly, and I am not talking of sincere believers who are trying to serve God and walk in righteousness. I am talking about making the bible itself the source of spiritual power. That rules God out of the picture and puts all the power of God into the hands of men. That makes gods of men and that is the original sin which damned man in the first place. The sin which damned man (and which brought Christ into the world in order to save him from it) is not true faith but the serpent’s subtle substitute.

Whatever displaces faith in God and His Christ is false faith. Therefore, If salvation (or any other thing of God) comes by the law (bible laws or faith laws or whatever else they are called) then Christ died in vain. If man having faith in his faith were true, then Lucifer would be the Light because he taught man to believe in himself and be as God, Jehovah would be the darkness, and Jesus would be a devil’s prophet. I hope that makes you sit up and take notice. I say again, this faith in faith thing is occult. Though sincere men, such as yourself, may mean well and believe faith in faith to be of God, it is occult and it needs to be exposed and abandoned.

(Please hear me! I believe my brother that you mean no harm nor intend no deception. I believe you are a man who desires to see God’s people grow, but you have been influenced with some very wrong thinking. I beg, I plead, I implore you in the name of our Lord to receive what I say. Don’t just reject me. Don’t let pride keep you from receiving correction.)

To further prove that we do not simply move on the scriptures and our own faith, let us see how Jesus operated and learn from Him. He said The son of man is not able to do one thing of himself but only what he sees the Father do.74 Again He said, I can not do one thing of my own self.75 or more literally from the Greek text, I myself have no power to be doing not one thing of myself. The Greek uses double negatives to show emphasis and this entire passage is very emphatic. To put it into proper English and show the emphasis it would read like this, I have no power of my own to do even one thing of my own accord. No servant is above his Master. We must all wait on God and seek Him until He shows us what He wants done and then we, like obedient servants, obey Him and do as He says after the example of His Son.

Based on Jesus’ example we can say faith is an act of obedience to the command of the Father because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.76 Before any Christian can move in faith, he must first hear what God says to do. No Christian can do any work of himself just because he is a son of God nor just because such a work might be within the bounds of scripture. For example, consider raising the dead: it is scriptural to raise the dead, but very few were raised by Jesus. Very many more were not raised. So how do we know who is to be raised and who is not? It is not we who decide. We are not God, nor do the scriptures tell us, nor must we proceed on our own prerogative or presumption. The Christian has no prerogative to act for God, that would displace God. We are only God’s servants who obey what He tells us. There is a very great difference between acting for God and simply obeying His orders. Like Jesus, the servant, we must first hear our heavenly Father speak, then we, as servants, obey.

As I said, faith is an act of obedience to the directive of God. In Hebrews 11, every one of the heroes of faith did nothing of their own initiative, but first were commanded by God what they should do. Only then did they believe and obey. None of them took it upon themselves to act as deliverers or prophets even though it is very scriptural to be a deliverer or a prophet. Why? “No man takes this honor upon himself.”77 It is God who calls, appoints, and sends. We are only servants who obey our Master’s voice. Therefore being led by the Book is not enough. We must be led by the Spirit. We must not move in presumption of our own sonship (would God’s sons displace Him?), nor must we move on our presumption of God on what we have read in the scriptures. We must, as faithful sons, wait upon the Father. We must first hear the Father’s will on the matter, and then we obey His word. Otherwise we are greater than our Master, Jesus Christ, who did nothing of himself, but only what he saw the Father do78.

If we are authorized agents doing what we presume to be the will God according to the scriptures, then we do not need God but can proceed on our own godly knowledge and authority. Thus we have usurped God with His own word substituting His word for He Himself. We have eliminated God from the relationship and have fallen into the error of Adam who thought to be like God in his own understanding. By eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam became as God. He possessed godlike knowledge and did not need to be dependent upon God. He did not need to be obedient to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God79, but could proceed on his own. That is the whole heart of rebellion and sin. That is the very error the son of God came to rectify, to keep man from acting on his own prerogatives as god, because that is for man to presume upon God.

Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness were to get Him to make the same mistake Adam did–to substitute some other godly sounding thing for God Himself. The devil tried to get Jesus to act on His own prerogative (on His own authority) to turn stones into bread; to act presumptuously on the scriptures (to use them as the source of his life and faith instead of God) to cast himself down from the temple; and to give him dominion over the world (was it not his right as lord?) thus freeing Jesus from the cross and living a life in service to God. The devil tempted Jesus to live his own life by his own authority as a son of God and to rule the world as his own rather than live in subjection to the Father. But Jesus did not fall in the temptations of Adam. Jesus stood where Adam fell, and showed us a son does nothing of himself, but only what he sees the Father do. That is to say, the son obeys the Father.

It is important to see the devil tempted Jesus to do the right thing for the wrong reason, to act presumptuously on his own authority out of self interest. Jesus was entitled to all those things the devil tempted him with as the Son of God. Yet Jesus’ response to those temptations was this:

(1) if God Himself did not give Him specific instructions he would do nothing even if it meant dying80;

(2) to act on the scriptures alone is presumption and tempting God81; and

(3) to set one’s heart on this world is equivalent to devil worship82. Jesus initiated nothing. He simply heard from the Father and then obeyed. If Jesus could not do the works he worked of his own prerogative or by his own power then neither can any believer. (And certainly no unbeliever can work spiritual works by any method.)

Faith is of God, and no one does anything by faith83 that God did not first author. By author, I mean it originated with Him. He performs His own counsel, calls whom He wills, sends whom He wills to do what He wills. God authors, commands, and commissions. No man sends himself, not even sons, or I should say especially not sons. Look at Christ. While the Son is God, the Father holds preeminence. The things of God issue from God, are then expressed to the Son, and executed by the Spirit. Faith is inseparable from God. It is an expression of God. That is why faith is either a fruit of the Holy Spirit or a gift of the Holy Spirit. The gifts and fruits of the Spirit come through a man, but they are not of man, but of the Spirit. The term “of” denotes: possession or relationship, source, means, or quality/character depending how it used. All apply here. Faith is of God: it is of His Spirit (faith is a manifestation of His Spirit–He inspires it), He is the source of faith and the means of faith, faith is intimately related to Him. From Alpha to Omega, faith has this quality and characterit is of God. Thus faith is of God, not man. God can inspire faith in a man or quicken faith to him or manifest faith in him and through him, but no man uses faith because faith is of God, and no one uses God. Any one using a faith that is of one’s own spirit quality is of the wrong spirit because faith is of God; and any one using a faith which can be worked by man, call it a law of God or whatever you like, it is of the wrong spirit because no one uses or “works” God. God is the Almighty God. He bows to no man nor any being nor any other power, and He “works all things after the counsel of His own will.”84

I appeal to you as a brother and fellow member of the body of Christ, hear me out. I come to you in the name of the Lord. Don’t just reject me as some jerk or troublemaker. Don’t be above correction. I care for you and am not opposing you but rather I am helping you. I know this must be hard and it might seem I would make you out to be a deceiver, but I don’t. I truly believe you are a sincere man who means well, but some things you teach are harmful. Please don’t take this negatively. I am not trying to tear you down, but to build you up. I care for you and for God’s people and I am trying to help you. I know you have taught faith for many years and this probably seems offensive, but it is not meant that way. No one is faultless or has perfect doctrine. We all need correction from time to time. There is no offense in this in the Spirit, but it does upset the flesh. Therefore, don’t just cast me off. I ask you brother XXXXX to read this letter and to consider seriously what I have said.

FOOTNOTES

1 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 2 lines 3-4 2 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 2 line 5 3 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 2 lines 5-6 4 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 2 lines 7-8 5 Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:5, Matthew 18:16, 2Corinthians 13:1 6 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 3 lines 2-3 7 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 3 lines 3-5 8 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 3 lines 7-24 9 Isaiah 45:19, 46:10, 48:16 10 John 5:19-20,30; 6:38,57,63; 7:16,28-29; 8:26-29,38,42,50; 9:4; 12:49 50; 14:10,24 11 Man of Three Dimensions, Tulsa: Faith Library, 1973 12 Deut. 4:35, 6:4, 32:39, 2Samuel 7:22, 1Chronicles 17:20, Isa. 40:18,25, 43:10-12, 44:6-8, 45:5-7,18-23, 46:9, Mark 12:29, 1Cor. 8:4, Eph. 4:6, 1Tim. 2:5, 1John 5:7 13 Exodus 20:1-2, all of #12 above, Psalms (too many to list) 14 Jeremiah 14:14-15, 23:9-40, 27:14-16, Ezekiel 13:all 15 For a good education read the scriptures on Balaam the soothsayer and enchanter. Numbers Chapters 22-24, Numbers 31:8, Numbers 31:16, Deuteronomy 23:4-5, Joshua 13:22, Joshua 24:9-10, Nehemiah 13:2, Micah 6:5, 2 Peter 2:15, Jude 1:11, Revelation 2:14 16 Isaiah 14:13-15, Ez. 28:1-17, Zeph. 2:11, Jer. 10:11, Psalms 82:4-7, 2THEss. 2:4*** 17 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 3 paragraph 1 18 For example “the preaching of Jesus” Jesus is the subject of the action, he is preaching. 19 For example, “the killing of Abel” Abel is the object of the action, he was being killed. 20 A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, Dana & Mantey 21 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 3 last line through page 4 lines 1-4. 22 Having Faith in Your Faith, page 3 line 20. 23 Romans 8:7 and Romans 8:14. God’s laws are spiritual while the unregenerate man is carnal and sold under sin. Carnal men and spiritual things are opposed, they do not and cannot cooperate. 24 Hebrews 12:2 25 John 6:28-29 26 These are the so called divine laws/laws of God/spiritual laws which govern the universe. They are everywhere present and everywhere applicable and universally available and workable to all. 27 1Thessalonians 5:23 28 Romans 12:1-2 29 Genesis 9:4 says the life (the soul) of the animal is in its blood. Leviticus 17:11,14 repeats this thought. 30 Hebrews 1:7 31 Isaiah 40:25, 43:10-12, 44:6-8, 45:5-7,14,18,21-22, 46:9-10, Romans 12:1-2

32 In metaphysics, God’s universal laws are spiritual laws which govern

the universe. They are everywhere present and everywhere applicable and universally available and workable to all. In that you say all men may access these laws proves you speak of the same universal laws of God as metaphysics.
33 Isaiah ch’s. 40-48; for quick ref. Isa. 44:6-8, 45:22-25 34 Matthew 5:45 “that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He

makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 35 Page 2 lines 6-8 & page 3 lines4-6,13-14 36 Philippians 3:3 37 Colossians 1:27 38 1Corinthians 15:10 39 Galatians 6:3 40 John 6:29 41 Romans 7:14 42 Common means just that –common, available to all. Holy means separate, reserved, not common, set apart. 43 There is one exception. The things of the evil spirit are not holy. The devil avails them to all men,and that is another ear mark of false spiritual power–it is common, available to all men. The devil was the first being to try to make holy things common (common to him, that is. See Isaiah 14:12-15); and all his things carry that trademark. His first temptation to man was for man to take godlikeness to himself thus making it a human thing rather than a Godly thing. 44 The old testament priests were given exact, explicit instructions on how to handle the things of God. No deviation was permitted. A priest was struck dead if he mishandled the things of God in a careless or common manner. Uzzah, a common man, was struck dead for trying to steady the ark of the covenant with his hand as it fell from a wagon. His intention was pure,but he was not a priest, he was not consecrated to God and had no business touching it. The lesson is clear. Man does not handle the things of God in a common manner. 45 1Samuel 15:23 46 The devil is God’s rival seeking to get men to follow his spirit instead of the Spirit of God, and it doesn’t upset him if you call him God in the process. Not everything which comes in God’s name is of God. 47 We use the same phrase today when we say something is all spelled out or exactly formulated. These things become spiritual forms, rituals, spells and incantations which when properly invoked and set into motion must produce the consequent actions. These spiritual laws were called by that very name in antiquity–divination, or divine formulas and sciences. 48 1Corinthians 12:4-6,11 49 Genesis 3:1-22 with emphasis on 5 and 22 50 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. Pay close attention to verses 4-6, 11. 51 John 11:45-53 52 Numbers 22-24, Especially Numbers 23:23,24:1 & Joshua 13:22 53 Isaiah 40:all esp. 6-8, 13-14, 41:28-29 & 55:9, Job ch’s.38-42, Romans 11:34, 1Corinthians 2:16 54 Ephesians 2:2, 5:6, Colossians 3:6 55 Romans 8:7-8 56 Luke 19:1-26 esp. vv. 14,27, Luke 20:42-43, Romans 5:9-10, Romans 8:5:8, Ephesians 2:1-4,5:6, Philippians 3:18-19, Colossians 3:6

57 1Corinthians 2:11-14
58 In fact, so is the natural realm; but God permits the natural order to

go its own way for the present time in order that He might have mercy. For if God enforced His government over this world, He would destroy it and the sinners in it out of hand.
59 Isaiah 55:11, Romans 11:36 60 Ephesians 2:11 61 Control is a synonym for dominion, and what man has dominion over God? No man! 62 Read Esther ch. 1 & 5:1-2. The priests of the old covenant had to approach God exactly as He commanded them or they were struck dead. We still follow the footsteps of the O.T. priests. We must be washed in clean water (regeneration and forgiveness), be clothed in clean linen (the righteousness of Christ), and purified by the blood of the spotless lamb. Though we can enter the throne of grace boldly, let us never think that means carelessly or arrogantly, but let us enter with Godly fear giving reverence to Him who sits upon the throne. And sinners –they have no place before the throne, except they come in repentance seeking forgiveness. 63 1Corinthians 1:25-31 64 Isaiah 6:2, 1 Peter 1:12 65 Deuteronomy 8:3, Matthew 4:4 66 Deuteronomy 6:16, Matthew 4:10 67 Joshua 1:8, Ps. 1:2, Proverbs 68 2Timothy 3:16 69 Galatians 5:16-25, Romans 8:1-5, 14 70 Ex. 13:8, Deut.8:2 Ps. 77:20, 107:7 Isa. 63:12 John 10 John 16:13. In reality the whole scriptures are about man submitting to God as a loving Father and letting Him lead, guide and provide. 71 Acts 17:28 72 Romans 8:14 73 John 5:19-20,30; 6:38,57,63; 7:16,28-29; 8:26-29,38,42,50; 9:4; 12:49 50; 14:10,24 74 John 5:19-20 75 John 5:30 76 Romans 10:17 The word “word” here is logos in Greek and it means discourse, speech, command or directive. 77 Hebrews 5:4, 1Corinthians 12:28 78 John 5:19-20 79 Deuteronomy 8:3 & Matthew 4:4 80 Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. 81 Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 82 The devil told Jesus “All this (the kingdoms of the world) will I give to you, if you will fall down and worship me. 83 Real faith, the faith that is of God. There are false faiths and false beliefs and even a human kind of faith, but those are not the faith of which is of God.

84 Ephesians 1:11