The Evil of Scripture-Based Deception – Part 1

Introduction

Deception of any kind is one of the most despicable and evil things a person can inflict on another. It cannot be anything less than despicable and evil because it is based on lies, deceit, dishonesty, and knavery of the worst kind, of which Satan is the sole originator. (John 8:44). Even more despicable and evil are the false apostles and prophets who have learned how to use Scripture copiously and quote carefully chosen passages to deceive people (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). No wonder Jesus severely rebuked the Pharisees of his day with these words:

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

Matthew 23:13

John F. Walfoord writes:

Those woes in contrast to the Beatitudes denounce false religion as utterly abhorrent to God and worthy of severe condemnation.

Walfoord, Matthew: They Kingdom Come, p.171.

False religion is not necessarily non-Christian like Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. The most dangerous and infectious false religion to infiltrate the church today is a mixture of an idolatrous system of selfism embedded in mysticism and authoritative power-hungry new apostolic word of faith methodologies such as dream-work, imaginative or creative thinking, and positive/negative speaking.

In “Divine Correction For Distraction” Volume 1, Given O Blakely writes:

A Modern Heresy
The scripture nowhere suggests that one who is created can himself create or call something into being. Within the Christian community, there are some who affirm men can “create.” Certain men say that faith is a “creative force” or power. This erroneous supposition is based upon a corruption of Hebrews 1:3: “Through Faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Rather than faith being the means by which we understand how the worlds came into existence, these men say that faith is the means God Himself used to create the world. It was, they say, the creative force of faith that brought them into existence.

This is a teaching that is embraced. and energetically taught, by Charles Capps. Kenneth Hagin. Kenneth Copeland, and others. It states: “Faith is the mightiest force in the universe. No other force can produce this kind of reaction. Faith is the creative ability of God. It is also the creative ability of man” (http:www.servantsnews.com/sn0201/faith.htm).

In the hook titled Ye are Gods, Annalee Skarin writes, “YE ARE GODS shows that man himself creates every condition on earth, that the eternal source of power is released within man! lt proves the truth of the great scriptures that ‘All that the Father has is yours.”

Other similar statements that have been made are as Follows: “Faith is a force just like electricity or gravity” (Copeland), “and it is the substance out of which God creates whatever is” (Capps). God uses Faith, and so may we in exactly the same way in order to produce the same results through obedience to the same “laws of faith” (Capps) that God applied in creation. “You have the same ability [as God has] dwelling or residing on the inside of you” (Capps). “We have all the capabilities of God. We have His Faith” (Copeland). “Words are the most powerful thing in the universe” because they “are containers” that “carry faith or fear and they produce after their kind“ (Capps). God operates by these very same laws. “God had faith in His own words . . . God had faith in His faith, because He spoke words of faith and they came to pass. That faith force was transported by words . . . the God-kind-of-faith . . . is released by the words of your mouth” (Hagin). “Creative power was in God’s mouth. lt is in your mouth also” {Capps). Because man is a little god “in God’s class: very capable of operating on the same level of faith as God” (Capps). and “because all men are spirit beings” (Hagin), therefore anyone. whether Christian or pagan, can release this “Faith Force“ by speaking words if he only believes in his words as God believes in His (Hagin). “Cod is a faith Cod. Cod releases His faith in words, [and we must do the same] . . . Everything you say [positive or negative] will come to pass” (Capps). “Spiritual things are created by WORDS. Even natural, physical things are created by “WORDS” (Hagin) Beyond Seduction (pp. 51-53] and The Seduction of Christianity (pp. 28, 217).

This is a total misrepresentation of the Hebrews eleven text. Faith has to do with apprehending and understanding, not creating. There is no clear record of a personality that has been created accomplishing a creation, whether by word of any other means.

But there is no need to labor to establish this point. The Holy Spirit is clear on this matter. “All things,“ with no restrictive word, were created “by Him and For Him” (Col 1:16), and “without Him was not anything made that was made” (Jn 1:3).

Given O. Blakely, “Divine Correction For Distraction” Volume 1, pp 244, 245

Satan’s stratagem is to wean people from a biblical-based faith in God to a faith (positive confession) in your own faith or spoken words. In doing so he is blasting a hole as big as a mountain in Hebrews 11:6 which says it is impossible to please God without faith. It is sheer idolatry of the worst kind. Do the Word of Faith fraternity really think they are pleasing God when they claim they are gods (with a small “g”) and can speak things into existence in the same way God did in Genesis 1? Jesus taught his disciples to “have faith in God” (Mark 11:22), not in yourself, your faith or anything or anyone else. However, should their twisting of Scripture come as a surprise when their father, the devil, was the one who introduced them to this vile modus operandi when he tried to entice Jesus Christ with quotes from the Bible into disobedience to his Father in his wilderness temptation?

Hi-Tech Deceivers

Nowadays, churches use some of the most expensive overhead projectors and monitors so that their congregants may screen-read Bible verses instead of paging through their own Bibles to find the passages or verses on which the pastor chooses to base his sermon. What is so wrong with that? Nothing, I suppose. The only convenience with that is that congregants may now innocuously deprive their Bibles of attending Sunday church services with them, and lazily check their minds and consciences at the door whilst they gluttonously lap up every word their pastors say without even trying to be a true Berean (Acts 17:11). In fact, they are told that a discerning (critical) mind is not a virtue but a curse and should be avoided at all cost because it supposedly causes division. Not so, saith the Lord of hosts in his Word.

But the natural, nonspiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are folly (meaningless nonsense) to him; and he is incapable of knowing them [of progressively recognizing, understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them] because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated.

But the spiritual man tries all things [he examines, investigates, inquires into, questions, and discerns all things], yet is himself to be put on trial and judged by no one [he can read the meaning of everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise or get an insight into him].

1 Corinthians 2:14-15, AMP

Afterward, the pastor says whatever he wants to advance his specific agenda, mostly clothed in “Word of Faith,” “positive confession,” “New Apostolic,” and/or “mystical” (“contemplative spiritual”) vestures, and sneakily like an angel of light, convinces his audience that whatever he says is the truth and nothing but the truth (1 Timothy 4:1). Solid biblical hermeneutics fly out the window because no one dares to criticize or question the “New Apostle’s” authority. To keep his congregants in line and never give them an opportunity to check him out according to God’s Word, he curses any form of non-compliance with his teachings at the end of his sermon in a prayer. Watch out guys, God is not going to bless you if you contend for the faith that was once delivered to us by the genuine apostles and judge the teachings of the new super-duper apostles of our day. (Jude 1:3).

Whether you like it or not, the Bible has become the single-most powerful and best tool in the West to deceive people and lead them to hell. That’s how far the apostasy has gained momentum which the Bible says will engulf the church in the end-time. I can only cry out “Oh God, be merciful and open the eyes of those who have been entangled in the satanic net of the Word of Faith and New Apostolic lies before it is too late.”

“I Came Not to Send Peace, but a Sword” (Matthew 10:34)

Have you ever heard a Word of Faith or New Apostolic preacher preach from this passage in Scripture? Please let me know whether you’ve ever had the privilege to listen to a sermon on this passage from the lips of your Word of Faith or New Apostolic preacher. Oh Yeah, they do speak about division but they usually lay this “curse” at the door of those who expose, exhort, warn, and rebuke their unbiblical teachings in obedience to “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” (2 Timothy 4:2).

Paul Crouch, the deceased co-founder with his wife, Janice, of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) lambasted his critics in the following vitriolic way:

To hell with you! Get out of my life! Get out of the way!…I say get out of God’s way! Quit blocking God’s bridges or God’s going to shoot you if I don’t…I don’t even want to even talk to you or hear you! I don’t want to see your ugly face! (Praise-a-Thon, April 2, 1991).
(Word of Faith and New Apostolic preachers usually encourage their followers to look at the fruit of their ministries. Let’s do that now and follow the links to see what kind of fruit they produced.
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2013/12/02/televangelist-swindler-paul-crouch-leaves-a-dirty-legacy-evangelical-christians-look-the-other-way/
https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/june/tbn-jan-crouch-granddaughter-rape-suit-mandatory-reporter.html

Benny Hinn took a step further when he placed a curse on everyone who criticized his ministry.

Some of you reading this article may not like what I am about to say but I believe it with all my heart in the light of what Jesus says in Matthew 10:34. I sincerely believe that every child of God whose heart is not fully attentive to following Jesus the way He commands us to do in his Word, has never, and probably never will, experience the painful severing power of Jesus Christ’s sword of division.

If some of your own family members and best of friends have always remained loyal in their love and friendship toward you, and have never openly become your enemies (Matthew 10:36) whenever you exhorted them to stay away from false teachers and their teachings, you are probably living in a constant state of compromise for the sake of a hellish post-modern kind of love and friendship, and/or you have shunned God’s command to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1:3-4). Unless, of course, Matthew 10:36 is a farce.

Why does Christ Jesus wield his sword of division even in one’s own household, let alone among regular church-going friends who seemed to be genuine friends the first time you met them? “Oh, but they are so kind and friendly . . . and always so helpful when you need them. They just love to hug you. They must be true Christians” is often said of those who are indeed the friendliest among friends. Paul of Tarsus wrote:

For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. (1 Corinthians 11:18-19).

For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

1 Corinthians 11:18-19

A similar Old Testament antecedent is in Deuteronomy 13,

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 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; 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

Whoever follows the teachings of false apostles and prophets probably do not love Jesus Christ and his Father, and the Holy Spirit. Multitudes who claim to be Christians are convinced that whatever their Word of Faith and New Apostolic preachers say in their pulpits and at heir men’s and women’s meetings cannot be compared to God’s indictment of false prophets in Deuteronomy. Their preachers, they say, are not enticing them to follow other gods; they are motivating them to follow Jesus and they do everything in the name of Jesus. Sorry to say, but this means absolutely nothing in the light of the following passages from Scripture.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we [the true apostles in the Bible] have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

Matthew 7:21-23) (2 Corinthians 11:3-4

To illustrate how the Word of Faith and New Apostolic preachers use the name of Jesus to present to their congregants ANOTHER JESUS (other gods) instead of the genuine Jesus of the Bible, the remainder of this article will focus on a sermon Pastor Jannes Labuschagne of the Base Church in Muldersdrift, Krugersdorp, delivered on Sunday, 4^th August 2019 titled “Our Apostolic Mandate – The Work of an Anointed Deliverer.”

Twisting Scripture to their Own Swift Destruction (2 Peter 2:1)

Magicians are able to delude their audiences into believing that their tricks on stage are miraculous feats by the cunning sleight of their hand movements. Paul says in Ephesians 4:14 that false teachers have the same cunning craftiness to delude audiences by the sleight of their words into believing their false doctrines, and that those who believe and accept their crafty words are like children being tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine.

The most successful way to toss to and fro and carry about the “children” who believe every word false teachers say, is to rip the Scriptural contexts from which they take their sermons to pieces and then cleverly pack them together again into a confusing puzzle of their own making. Jannes Labuschagne seems to have learned how to perfect the Word of Faith modus operandi which E.W. Kenyon, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Charles Capps, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, et al, have made famous.

In his sermon, “Our Apostolic Mandate – The Work of an Anointed Deliverer” (4^th August 2019, The Base Church) he kicks off his cunning and crafty deception with Exodus 5 where God commanded Moses and Aaron to go to Pharaoh and tell him, “Thus saith the God of Israel. Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.” (Exodus 5:1). We know from our Sunday School days that Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go and adamantly commanded the taskmasters and officers not to provide the Israelite slaves with straw any longer but that they themselves should gather the straw from wherever they could find it to make bricks in the same time-frame as before.

Deception is not always embedded in what you say but mostly in what you willfully refrain from saying, especially when God’s Word says it in its true context. You cannot understand the context of Exodus 5 without the previous chapter 4. There God said to Moses, “When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.” (Exodus 4:21).

Instead of mentioning Exodus 4:21 to get the context right, Jannes Labuschagne willfully omits it from his sermon because he wants you to believe that the New Apostolic Word of Faith believers have the mandate to be deliverers in the same caliber as Moses when he led the Israelite out of their bondage in Israel. The question is this: Was Moses anointed to break the “curse” of hardheartedness God Himself placed on Pharaoh so that he (Moses) could deliver his people from slavery in Egypt? If, as the New Apostolic Word of Faith protagonists believe, they (whether Christian or pagan) have the same kind of God-faith the Triune God applied when he created things out of nothing, then we may indeed hail the so-called new apostles as delivers in God’s class. The fact is that neither Moses nor anyone else was the deliverer, but God Himself. Who else but God could have wrought those terrible ten plagues in Egypt? Moses? Perish the thought. Moses was merely God’s spokesperson who by faith in God (and not in his own faith or positively spoken words, as the Word of Faith followers declare) did what God commanded him to do in order to bring about God’s miracles.

Is it God’s Work to Have Faith in His Own Faith?

Having convinced his audience that God wants his apostolic deliverers to work by faith from his exposition of Exodus 5, Jannes Laubuscagne immediately moves from there to Genesis 2 to deceive them into believing this work of faith constitutes faith in your own faith. He continues to say:

We are going to talk about works [this morning]. We are going to talk about the works of an anointed deliverer. How does God expect an anointed deliverer to work? And can I say from this example, it looks like it gets worse before its starts to happen the way God wants to do it. [Bear in mind that the way God wanted to work according to Exodus 4:21 was to harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not consent to Israel’s deliverance. His sermon works from the premise of him wanting to prove that God works by faith and, therefore, must deliberately ignore the real way God worked in Egypt. This sort of deception is called the twisting of Scripture to advance their own agenda which is to spread thte Word of Faith lies that we are gods in God’s class and or words have the same creative power of that of God).

We are going to discover this morning, there is onely one way to work; we have to work by faith. Whenever God speaks, He wants us to respond, and when we take our first step it is not always easy. We find ourselves inthe position; we find ourselves saying, “Make more bricks.” Many believers today live in the line of “never enough” – never enough time, never enough money, never enough this, never enough that. Why? Because we’re not working in the way God is wanting us to work. We are going to use a biblical, theological approach. We are going to take God’s story from Genesis right through and look at the work of an anointed deliverer. [His entire eisegeses is clearly not biblically or theologically endorsed; he says it is a biblical and theological approach to keep his audience in a constant state of deception). How does God expect you to work? How does God expect me to work?

Let start at the beginning. Let’s start in Genesis. Let’s see how God works. . . . Genesis chapter 2. Let’s see how God works. It says the heavens and te earth were completed in all their vast array. . .

Labuschagne continues to read from verses 5 to 9 in the NIV and places special emphasis on the words, “Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Jannes Labuschagne’s main goal in his emphasis on those words is to deceive you into believing that God did not only create man in His own image; He also created him in his image of being a co-worker and co-creator with God. He continues to say:

How does God work? . . . We need to understand how God works. God works like this. God works by faith. I got your attention? Where the heck is that in the passage, Jannes? I missed that in Genesis 2 [Well of course Jannes’ congregants will miss it in Genesis 2 because it is absent from it just as much as teeth are absent from a chicken’s beak). It says there was nothing when God came and He spoke; He saw it, He imagined it and when He spoke it He created it. It sounds pretty similar to the definition of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. It says that faith is the substance of the things you hope for, the evidence of things you do not see. . . . “I expect you to work like Me; you might not see what you’re asking. You might not see it in the physical [realm] yet but by faith I want you to stand, I want you to speak is, I want you to dream it, I want you to create it, I want you to go after it without having to worry.

If this is not sheer blasphemy, I really don’t know what else to call it. It certainly is not faith, let alone a God kind of faith, if ever there is/was such a thing. As I mentioned earlier, the best kind of deception Satan likes to evoke is packaged in the things false teachers deliberately refrain from saying within the context of a biblical-based exegesis. For instance, Genesis 2:4 is certainly not pretty much like Hebrews 11 in the sense that it corroborates the notion that an anointed deliverer must do the same kind of creative works God established by having faith in his own faith. Jannes Labuschagne willfully omitted verse 3 which states that “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”(Hebrews 11:3).

Faith in this verse refers to man’s confidence (reliance, trustworthiness) in God’s magnanimous omnipotence to have been able to create everything by his word. His word does not need to rely on anything (including faith of whatever kind), simply because He is the only omnipotent God to whom nothing is impossible. To say that God created everything because He had faith in his own faith and that his anointed deliverers need to accomplish similar works through dreams and imaginations, and their spoken words (Rhema), places them on par with God’s omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience. It is the very same old lie Satan told Eve when he said, “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5).

The Heresy of trying to “Speak things into Existence”

Jannes Labuschagne obviously knows that many so-called anointed deliverers have tried to speak things into existence like God and it never worked for them.

1. The wife of Charles Capps, one of the major Word of Faith teachers who influenced Jannes Labuschagne’s own teachings on the creative dynamics of the power of our words, received medical treatment for cancer. In his booklet The Tongue, p. 43 Capps wrote, “I don’t deny the existence of disease. I deny the right of this disease to exist in this body, because I’m the Body of Christ.”
2. E.W. Kenyon, the Father of the Word of Faith Movement, and one of the initial teachers of divine healing who believed it always was and still is God’s will to heal His children died in a coma brought on by a malignant tumor. Kenneth Copeland said that Kenyon was sitting in a rocking chair, his daughter came into the room and Kenyon said “there’s Jesus, goodbye,” and went to glory. It’s a lie. He died from disease.
3. Robert Tilton, God’s “profit” admitted he had to get special face-lifting surgery because of the danger of getting ink poisoning from laying on all the prayer requests he received. Why didn’t he command healing or speak health into existence. . .like he does for countless others over the airwaves?
4. Kenneth Hagin’s wife had to be hospitalized for an operation even though Jesus “appeared” to Hagin and gave him a special anointing to heal the sick (I Believe In Visions). People strongly believed that Hagin was an anointed deliverer and that the sick were healed whenever he spoke the word. I guess his own family members doubted his healing powers.
5. Joyce Meyer, the fastest fund-raising Word of Faith female preacher, admitted on Aug. 31st, 1998 on her morning broadcast TV show that she had breast cancer and was receiving medical treatment.

These are only a few examples of the great anointed delivers who “say it and claim it” into existence whose “God-faith work” did not work. Why? Jannes Labuschagne continues:

When you go out working Monday to Friday, you say, Jannes its not that easy. I can’t just sit back and just imagine and dream. I can’t just speak things. I do the work. I say, exactly, you’re right. But sir, when was the last time that you sat back with your staff and you start speaking about the vision of what God is doing for your business? When was the last time you spoke with your wife and said, let’s talk about what God is busy saying? Let us just imagine what it is that God is busy saying. You see, we need to work like God works.

That’s his passion – to create out of nothing. What an incredible opportunity. . . . It says that when God made [the earth] there were shrubs and there were trees but they were not yet formed. Shall I read it again for us? Look at this. Verse 5 and note, “Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, . . .” Were these things there? They just haven’t appeared yet. Do you follow the drift? Everything that man needed for what he had to do was already in place. God’s provision was there already but it has not yet appeared. WHY?

It reads, “God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground,” How will you work when you know that God’s provision is already waiting for you? How will you work different if you know God has provided everything is there, everything is there in seed form, everything is ready for you. All you need to do is to pick up, take responsibility and say I’m going to work like God, I’m going to dream it, I’m going to speak it, I’m gouing to imagine it and it is going to happen.

Jannes Labuschagne either does not know what it means to till the ground or he is trying to prove that his audience is so stupid that they do not understand what tilling the ground means. Indeed, it is as he said, God provided the seed. Therefore, something of substance with its own unique or particular DNA was already there and only needed to be cared for, tilled and kept free from weeds in order for a crop to flourish and grow.

God provided the water (rain) as He alone can do (Matthew 5:45). There is not the slightest hint in this passage to suggest that man is capable of doing the work of God in creating things out of nothing. Tell that to any farmer who sweats and toils in his fields from Mondays to Saturdays in the hope that God would provide enough rain for him to reap his crops. No farmer in his right mind is going to sit on his butt and say, “I’m going to work as God, I’m going to dream it, I’m going to speak it. I’m going to imagine it, and it is going to happen.” It makes me very angry to see how so-called men of God who call themselves “anointed deliverers” are deceiving, misleading and spreading lies, even to the extent of leading their congregations to hell (Proverbs 14:12).

Albert Barnes comments as follows on Genesis 2:5:

This verse corresponds to the second verse of the preceding narrative. It describes the field or arable land in the absence of certain conditions necessary to the progress of vegetation. Plant and herb here comprise the whole vegetable world. Plants and herbs of the field are those which are to be found in the open land. A different statement is made concerning each.

Not a plant of the field was yet in the land. – Here it is to be remembered that the narrative has reverted to the third day of the preceding creation. At first sight, then, it might be supposed that the vegetable species were not created at the hour of that day to which the narrative refers. But it is not stated that young trees were not in existence, but merely that plants of the field were not yet in the land. Of the herbs it is only said that they had not yet sent forth a bud or blade. And the actual existence of both trees and herbs is implied in what follows. The reasons for the state of things above described are the lack of rain to water the soil, and of man to cultivate it. These would only suffice for growth if the vegetable seeds, at least, were already in existence. Now, the plants were made before the seeds Gen_1:11-12, and therefore the first full-grown and seed-bearing sets of each kind were already created. Hence, we infer that the state of things described in the text was this: The original trees were confined to a center of vegetation, from which it was intended that they should spread in the course of nature. At the present juncture, then, there was not a tree of the field, a tree of propagation, in the land; and even the created trees had not sent down a single root of growth into the land. And if they had dropped a seed, it was only on the land, and not in the land, as it had not yet struck root.

And not an herb of the field yet grew. – The herbage seems to have been more widely diffused than the trees. Hence, it is not said that they were not in the land, as it is said of field trees. But at the present moment not an herb had exhibited any signs of growth or sent forth a single blade beyond the immediate product of creative power.

Rain upon the land – and man to till it, were the two needs that retarded vegetation. These two means of promoting vegetable growth differed in their importance and in their mode of application. Moisture is absolutely necessary, and where it is supplied in abundance the shifting wind will in the course of time waft the seed. The browsing herds will aid in the same process of diffusion. Man comes in merely as an auxiliary to nature in preparing the soil and depositing the seeds and plants to the best advantage for rapid growth and abundant fruitfulness. The narrative, as usual, notes only the chief things. Rain is the only source of vegetable sap; man is the only intentional cultivator. [and NOT the intended anointed deliverer of miracles such as making it rain to moisten the crops] (emphasis added).

Jannes Labuschagne asks the question, “Do you follow the drift?” The drift he would like you to follow, is to believe that what God has already provided for his anointed deliverers in the unseen spiritual realm (Hebrews 11:1) (like the invisible shrubs and plants that had not yet appeared on the earth in Genesis 2:5), and that they only need to speak it into existence by the power of their words, by having faith in their faith, and work like God just as He worked by having faith in his faith.

Although Jannes Labuschagne did not say so, the rain God sent in Genesis 2 is now metaphorically believed to be falling in the last days as the Latter Rain. Having based their Latter Rain doctrines on Joel 2:23, they assert that the former rain refers to the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the latter rain refers to a future Pentecost when a revival is going to break out throughout the entire world. It is said that only the anointed deliverers who “exhibit the gifts of the spirit” and have learned how to work like God, will know this divinely inspired interpretation of how God works. They will know it by experience.

Jannes Labuschagne often uses the terms “dream it,” “imagine it” and “speak it.” If he truly wants to work like God, and not the way he supposes God works, he should first learn to obey God’s word. No one can do God’s work when they disobey God’s word. Let’s turn to God’s word to see what it says about Labuschagne’s pleas for “dream it,” imagine it” and “speak it.”

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done.

And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:) Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood; And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst: The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.

Genesis 6:5; Genesis 8:21; Deuteronomy 29:17-20

The Idolatry of Imagination

It is evident from the above passage that man’s imagination is often spoken of in the same breath as idolatry. Moses reminds the Israelite of their encounters with idolatry in Egypt and their own fallibleness into idolatry on their way to the Promised Land (Exodus 32; Numbers 25). He also reminded them how one man or woman, or a single tribe could defile many with the bitter poison of idolatry (Hebrews 12:15). You only need one man or one woman or one tribe (church) to water the root of idolatry and cause it to flower into an all-out apostasy that would bring God’s judgment on everyone who has been defiled by the poison of wormwood. That person or tribe (church) will bear thee brunt of God’s curses in Deuteronomy. Nevertheless, the one who flames the fires of apostasy and refuses to repent, will plead innocence “when he (a renegade) hears the words of this oath, and he imagines himself as blessed, saying, ‘I will have peace and safety even though I walk within the stubbornness of my heart [rejecting God and His law], in order that the watered land dwindles away along with the dry [destroying everything],’

And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. (Deuteronomy 31:12).

At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. (Jeremiah 31:12).

But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. (Jeremiah 7:24).

But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them: (Jeremiah 9:14).

Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked everyone in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not. (Jeremiah 11:8).

This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing. (Jeremiah 13:10).

And ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk everyone after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me: (Jeremiah 6:12).

And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will everyone do the imagination of his evil heart. (Jeremiah 8:12).

They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you. (Jeremiah 23:17)

He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.(Luke 1:51)(Emphasis added throughout).

Those of you who like to listen to Jannes Labuschagne’s sermon can find it here.

A STERN WARNING

Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

(2 John 1:9-11)

Whosoever blesses and supports the ministries of false teachers are partakers of (share in) their evil deeds of deception and lies. May God have mercy on their pitiful souls.

Another article on Jannes Labuschagne to be found here: The Seed Within You: The Base Church