If the Gospel consisted of words accommodated to human reason, and/or philosophical slogans, we could say that the Great Commission was already concluded; the mass media are full of all this, even of words as declared by God, offering people prosperity and well-being.
But what does ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me‘ really mean?
Are we talking about the same Gospel?
Pastor Pedro Montoya
29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? 30 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words everyone from his neighbour. 31 Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. 32 Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord.
Jeremiah 23:29-32
The experience of prophets speaking in the name of God, sent to individuals and/or communities with false messages, is not new. Their practice is widely referenced in all biblical writings. Moses warned that people would arise with messages as from God and stipulated the way to know if their messages were from God, or if the prophet was speaking by his own inspiration.
Jeremiah rebuked the conduct of the people and the kings of his time because many prophets whom they heard and heeded were false, and their messages were not from God.
The gravity of following and heeding the message of a false prophet is weighed in the advice of Moses in the following text:
If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; 3 thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 13:1-3
False prophets are a spiritual reality not a social evil, or a sociological phenomenon, and are aimed at diverting the attention of the people and directing them to the observance of false gods. The appearance of a false prophet demonstrates the existence of a spiritual force of darkness that sustains them. The apostle Paul clearly states that these men and women respond to doctrines of demons.
This reality is clearly observed in the discussion between the kings Jehoshaphat and Ahab as to whether Jehovah favored the idea of going to war against Syria at Ramoth-gilead. The scene highlights that Achâb seeks in Jehoshaphat an ally to enter into a war not endorsed by God. The intervention of spiritual beings who seek to influence Jehoshaphat to accede to Achab’s request is observed. In the end Achâb dies and Jehoshaphat receives a reprimand from God for having entered into an alliance with Achâb.
21 And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so. 22 Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil against thee.
2 Chronicles 18:21-22
A deep study of the Scriptures reveals that false prophets are the result of satanic spiritual activity that envelops the person in a unique, esoteric, religious mysticism that gives the person the courage to believe that their message is real and true.
False prophets are not a necessary evil, and they do not come because of satanic spiritual activity, isolated from the sovereignty of God. False prophets come because of man’s disobedience and his attitude of not allowing God to intervene in his daily life.
They are not the theoretical result of a basic religious doctrine to identify those who do not want to submit to the norms of the community that marks them as such. They are people, men, and women, who naively and devoutly believe that the message they transmit is real and true.
False prophets are found surviving within the same communities of faith. They arise basically because of a competition within faith communities to present themselves to others as the bearers of the ultimate revelation that God has delivered.
The experience of false prophets goes back to the very beginnings of humanity. The beginning of their foundation rises from the experience of the temptation of Adam and Eve. Although not a person but an animal creature of those that God Jehovah had created, the serpent presents himself with a false message that leads both Adam and Eve to disobey God’s commandment, eventually to be expelled from Eden and to suffer the consequences of their rebellion. The message came from Luzbel who, in his eagerness to introduce rebellion among God’s creation, hired the serpent to force Adam and Eve to do the opposite of what God had arranged in the garden. This is the basis for the existence of false prophets, to lead those who are sent to personal disgrace and spiritual alienation from God.
In order to understand the seriousness of the presence of a false prophet and the spiritual danger of his message, we must first understand the spiritual weight of a person in the spiritual position of prophet.
The weight of a false prophet is spiritual, it does not depend only on the message he carries, nor on his argument, nor even worse, on the ability to convince or manipulate the behavior of others, his true value is that his performance has the ability to establish an empire of darkness, oppression, slavery, blindness, spiritual numbness among the inhabitants of his region.
In the same way that a prophet of God establishes spiritual government and presence of the Almighty in the assigned places, a false prophet has the capacity to govern spiritually and regulate the life of those under his jurisdiction.
This is because the prophet is a person who has received spiritual authority and the ability to spiritually govern the regions where he is positioned. Of course, the government of a false prophet belongs to darkness and the agenda he sets is satanic.
This spiritual capacity and authority of a prophet is evident in the following texts:
7 Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine… 17 So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children.
Genesis 20:7-17
It was not the spiritual capacity or divine support of Abraham alone; it was the capacity that a prophet has because of the position he occupies in the spiritual spheres. A prophet is not a prophet only by a human designation or ordination, he is a prophet by a spiritual designation and by the location within the spiritual ladder.
For that reason, when we read about Balaam’s person and performances, in the book of Numbers, it seems to us as if Balaam were a sorcerer proscribed to the margin of the Law of God. We will notice that Balaam knows who Jehovah God is, obeys him, enters dialogue with God’s angels, and even prophesied about what would happen in the future with Israel.
Balaam defined himself as a man with open eyes. His ability and performance are evident in the rest of his self-definition: He who saw the vision of the Almighty; Fallen, but eyes opened.
Balaam was a prophet, but as the apostle Peter assures us, he left the right way, and went astray, who loved the reward of wickedness. Balaam became a false prophet.
People do not become prophets, they are born prophets, although they themselves do not know it. This principle is observed in the statement Jeremiah receives from God about the purpose of his calling in Judah.
We have many warnings about the care we should observe over those who come to us with various doctrines. The Lord Jesus himself warned and recommended to take care of the doctrine of faith that we sustain, because in the end times they will seek to deceive and take them out of their positions of faith, we now understand that they are false prophets who seek to establish a government of darkness in our regions.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
Matthew 24:11
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
Matthew 24:24
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Matthew 7:15
The apostle Paul also left warnings in all the communities of faith he visited about the intrusion of false prophets and their spiritual rule of wickedness.
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
1 Timothy 4:1-3
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
At this point I must recognize that the vision we have had up to this moment regarding the false prophets is not only partial, but also deformed and has been used to feed the intrusion of false doctrines, atheistic and perverse, that take us away from the true God, and have brought us closer to a Baalic idolatry.
The vision that we have about the false prophets is careless, it has not awakened us to see the spiritual danger of the government of darkness that has been established over our communities of faith. We have seen the false prophets as preachers that come to our communities with doctrines without biblical support that we are able to identify, and we have said before such a vision, -I will know how to identify them when they appear.
The reality of the situation, as well established by the apostle Paul, the false prophets are already operating among us, it is a mystery of iniquity, and we have not identified them.
Even many true prophets have been affected, they have been subjected to them and are asleep, their discernment is disturbed, and they have not been able to properly exercise their ministries as the Almighty called them to perform.
Prophets have been established among us who have introduced doctrines such as fantasy, dreams, illusion, the magic of moments. Doctrines that have distorted the life of faith and contradict the value of the supernatural intervention of God. Doctrines that exalt sorcery, witchcraft, luck, and have even constituted them as resources of the believer to receive God’s blessing.
Doctrines that teach us to alienate ourselves from reality, believing and hoping that no matter how difficult what we are facing may be, what we need is a stroke of luck -a stroke of light- that will completely change our reality. Doctrines that inspire us to hope not in God but in the arrival of a “prince charming”, in the case of women, or in the opportunity to become the “hero”, in the case of men, who will allow us to make the opportune changes.
Unfortunately, we ourselves have exposed our children to such doctrines and allowed them to believe in them. We have acted naively and without spiritual responsibility about the seriousness of a satanic kingdom of darkness being established in our faith communities. We have consecrated our children to magic, to luck, to humanism, to atheism.
How can we preach of an Almighty God, who acts supernaturally, if on the other hand we have sponsored the doctrine that dreams come true?
How can we instill in our children the value of a life of faith, if we ourselves have exposed them to the world of Disney magic?
How can we teach about the supernatural ability of the Highest God, if we ourselves believe in the magic of the moment?
We have taken care to identify false prophets who come in the form of preachers, pastors, ministers in general terms, who come with deformed biblical doctrines, but we have not taken care of false prophets like Walter Elias Disney, Steven Spielberg, and J. K. Rowling who have introduced doctrines that oppose what is established in the Scriptures, and our children follow them, and “like” everything they publish and promote.
Disney, who taught us the value of illusion, who taught us to go after a dream. Who highlighted the value of magic, who taught us to dance to the sound of a hypnotic, alienating rhythm, waiting for things to change by themselves.
Spielberg led us to expose us to imaginary, imaginary realities, to atheistic, diabolical worlds, to believe that we can get ahead in the absence of God. Who distorted our faith as a way of life and instilled in us as a way of life that everything supernatural is fiction.
J. K. Rowling who led us to accept magic, sorcery, and witchcraft as good and tolerable. How can we preach about sorcery being outlawed in God’s Law if we ourselves sponsor that our children, and even we ourselves, watched the Harry Potter movie saga?
The serpent introduced a word of fantasy into the garden and continues to do so among us still. We do not want to hit him over the head because we have not seen the gravity of this established doctrine that although not preachers as we imagine, their doctrines are present in the communities of faith having deformed the spiritual discernment of those of us who profess faith in Jesus, Lord, and Savior. Many true prophets are bound by their exposure to these sites and by having participated in their delights.
The prophet Amos reveals to us our wrongdoing, and what we should repent of:
11 And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the Lord. 12 But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.
Amos 2:11-12
The prophet Micah reproaches us for having accepted false prophets who preach vain doctrines out of the imagination of their hearts:
11 If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.
Micah 2:11
The prophet Jeremiah exhorts us to repent and to abhor all this apostasy that has led us away from God:
25 I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. 26 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; 27 which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.
Jeremiah 23:25-27
To the question of the prophet Malachi, what shall we become, what would we be able to answer?
Forgive us our sin, O Lord, for we have walked according to the commandment of men, according to religious traditions mixed with idolatrous rituals of the nations that did not know you, and have brought them into the houses that we built for you….
Forgive us, because we have not lived according to your Word… because we have made your Covenant in vain, and built new doctrines based on atheistic philosophies… let us restore in our time as Hezekiah and Josiah did in ancient times… let us return to your Word and bring your kingdom to this earth.
5 I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out.
Joshua 24:5
All biblical quotations are taken from the King James Authorized Version.
Pastor Pedro Montoya
Treasure in Earthen Vessels 
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