Deceptions Of The Mind

            I have been carrying this writing in my spirit for quite some time now, and it has been weighing heavily on my heart for months. I have tried to get out of writing it since it’s inception and have not been able to shake it off. The reason for my hesitation is that I don’t relish confrontation, but I am convinced that I must speak out on some ideas being broadcast throughout the kingdom circles that are destructive and deceptive, in my opinion. For this reason, I want to express my distress with these statements of ideology that completely miss the mark of truth and could lead many into a pit of confusion.

            I do not profess to have all the truth and I do not view myself as having any advantage over fellow believers, but I do have a responsibility to speak truth as I feel the Father has revealed it to me by His word and by His spirit of revelation. I pray that all that read this writing will read it with that premise in mind and in the knowledge that I love the Body of Christ with a true love and only want to see it grow and flourish in the earth under the direction of the Father of lights.

            Having said that, let me be frank regarding my concerns. I have been ministering the truths of the kingdom of God for over 30 years now and have seen a lot of good things and have also seen a lot of bad things in the midst of this word over those years. The kingdom message has always been a lightning rod for the vain and profane to show their wares, coming into the midst of the true sons of God to take advantage of the grace that permeates our message. Despite the best efforts of the fleshly carnal mind of men, truth prevailed and the word of God continued to be spoken, with the antics of carnal men providing valuable teaching sessions for those that knew the true sound of truth.

I can remember the times, when I was a young minister of this revelation, that I would be in attendance at a kingdom convention on the west coast and would be enthralled with all that I was hearing and seeing in the meetings. At this time, I was a babe in this word, just glad to be in the midst of such a time in God. At this time, I was taken under the wings of some of the great ministry of this revelation, and would be dragged along with them after the services to eat and discuss what was taking place in the meetings. I was always amazed to hear the old heads talking about what was said and done, things that I had thought were done and said in harmony and unity, only to find out what was really meant by the ones that ministered them. I was shocked! What I thought were harmless words and actions, were really attempts to promote doctrines and ideologies that were full of error and falsehood. It was during this time that I started to get my eyes open to the ways of men, and to begin to understand that some men are not satisfied with doing evil things in their own name, but that some would do evil in the name of God and would willfully deceive the people of God from the pulpit itself, even speaking in tongues one minute and telling lies the next minute.

These men would prophecy in the name of Jesus, work gifts of discernment and heal the sick, and all the while twist and corrupt the scriptures to lead others into darkness. When I thought that some of these false prophets were just speaking about the love of God, sometimes they were actually meaning a love that was of the flesh, a physical intercourse that they justified as an act of love. Many marriages have been torn apart by the message of “free-love”, which has been preached by many different titles, all of which come to the conclusion that we are free to participate in a physical act of intimacy with those that the spirit of the Lord would reveal to us as our true “counterparts” in the kingdom. Over the years, my wife and I have counseled many couples that have been deceived into this belief, their lives becoming a living hell and their homes torn apart by false apostles speaking ungodly doctrines in the name of the Lord and in the name of the kingdom message. Some of these ministers started to preach that the kingdom of God could not be entered into by the women unless they partook of the “seed” that was in the ministry, meaning the sperm of the man, in an act of intercourse. Many went into this deception, only to learn that it was only a carnal act, without any truth in it whatsoever, a sinful act that was preached in the name of God as truth.

Where does this kind of thinking come from and how do people fall for such stupidity? The truth is, there are some people that will believe anything, as long as it is preached from the pulpit. Some people can’t believe that ministry could be that corrupt, that ungodly, as to actually use the name of God for their own fleshly lusts, but they have and they always will, until corruption takes on incorruption. Some that preached this “truth”, justified it through a message of “pre-existence”, meaning that we had lives that we lived out before the worlds were made in Genesis. They went on to say that in those pre-existing lives, we had soul mates, kindred spirits that lived with us as man and wife. The deception goes on to say that any of those that have come to the message of sonship must now seek their spiritual soulmate, and be joined to them again in the flesh. This opened the door to many couples that were having the usual problems in marriage, making them believe that their lives would be wonderful if they could only find their true partner, which usually ended in illicit affairs and a messy divorce, only to be left alone when the minister of this fallacy went on to the next city to make new “converts”. Unbelievable that normal men and women would fall for such a scam, isn’t it? But it has been happening in the Body of Christ since the days of Paul the Apostle and continues even today.

There are many so-called kingdom ministry today that teach we cannot be deceived, that God will not allow us to go into deception, but I know that to be untrue and naďve. Deception is alive and well in the Body today, especially in the kingdom ranks. In fact, the kingdom message is being purposely diluted by men and women of deception in an effort to preach deception with impunity. Across the country kingdom groups are opening themselves up to such falsehoods and erroneous teachings in an attempt to be pictured as “spiritual and revelatory”. I have come to believe that much of this poisonous deception is being delivered with much cunning and purposeful design.

Usually, you can categorize the ministry that are teaching error in varying degrees of conscious deception. From those that are your typical airhead, space cadet, believe anything types, that preach Christ like some sales people sell cars,  (promise them anything as long as you make the sell) to those that are ravenous wolves preying upon the flock of God. Others file in somewhere between these two extremes. Ego is behind almost all deception, the worship of self over God. Only those that think of themselves as being God over their world can consciously deceive people about their relationship with their heavenly Father. Some only are repeating what others have said on a tape or written on the internet or on paper. They are religious mimics, not having enough dedication to get their own revelation from the spirit of God, they get themselves on the mailing lists of all the kingdom preachers and repeat what is said or written as though God came down personally and discussed this word with them face to face. The truth is, they have never seen God, or heard His voice, but they minister the left-overs from someone else’s experience. These don’t bother me in the least. They are as superficial as a Hollywood B-Movie Starlet, an open book that a fool could discern, not taken seriously by anyone.

But, there are others that are smart enough to dress in sheep’s clothing, to disguise themselves to get close enough to the lambs to go for the kill. These are flies in the ointment, spots in the feast, lurking under the covering of kingdom talk, speaking about Christ and the cross, and the resurrection, peppering their messages with selective scriptures, all the while inserting disconcerting statements meant only to speak to the weak lambs of the flock, using buzz words of Love, Grace, Incorruptible, Freedom to lull the watchmen asleep.

All deceivers are con men and all con men are schooled in the art of psychological warfare. They are always the most loving of all people, showering their prey with affection and shallow concern. They go to great lengths to have you take them into your confidence, becoming your entrusted friend, your mentor and personal guru. I have known many over these last 30 years and all of them were well thought of by their victims before they showed their true self. Some are after your money, others are after your virtue, but most of them are out to control you, to bring you under their will until they can manipulate you and turn you away from Jesus Christ and toward their own way of thinking.

One of the greatest tools these false teachers use to deceive the sons of God is the concept of freedom. In fact, this phrase will be heard over and over again in their teachings, and nothing is emphasized more than this phrase, “I Am Free!” Of course, this is a statement based upon a scriptural truth, that we are made free by Jesus Christ, but what are we free from? In their perverted message of freedom, we are free from all responsibility, free from worship, free from prayer, free from righteous acts, free from judgment, free from morality, and on and on. The message of false freedom is meant to lead us into the concept of being the God of our own life. If it feels good, do it. This false freedom removes all consequence from any action undertaken and especially gives them liberty from serving the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the foundation for all other deceptions to have full access to the heart of the child of God. The false teachers say that you are free to believe anything you want, that there is no more right and there is no more wrong. Heaven help those that get snared in this delusion, as it will lead them into paths they would never dream they would go down in their right minds.

Much has been written in the kingdom circles about the account in Genesis that deals with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In fact, most false teachers don’t believe in the scriptures anymore and only use them to make certain points about their false teaching. I heard one man in a Conference re-write the whole first chapter of Genesis, saying that God revealed to him that his interpretation of it was the way God meant to write it. Well, it served his purpose, to make up his own account of Genesis that totally contradicted the biblical one and to portray himself as a “deep” kingdom teacher. He ended up stating that there was absolutely no difference between himself and Jesus Christ, which at the surface seemed bad enough, but by the time he was finished with his message, I think he really thought there was a difference, that being he was actually a little higher than Jesus Christ! Such boldness, without shame or fear of being in error concerning the holiness and hallowedness of our precious Lord comes from a spirit of delusion that has taken over the mind of the propagators of such garbage. When you believe that there is no such thing as good or evil, you are opening yourself up to anything that is false and untrue. As much as we need to know the goodness of God, we also must be able to discern the evil of men.

I know it has become popular to state that we need to be able to see God in every man, and although I am constantly straining to see that seed of life that has been sown into the hearts of all men and do see it by the spirit, I am not going to blind myself to the evil that men do. Just because I can see a tiny spark of good in all men does not dictate that I am to turn a blind eye to a bonfire of evil in those same men. God has given us the gift of discernment to be able to tell the light from the darkness and to know that we are walking in the light of His love and not the darkness of our carnal mind. But, for some, their whole purpose is to do away with the discernment of good and evil, providing a covering for evil to come into our midst and continue to corrupt the hearts of mankind. Judgment in the scriptures speaks of discernment, the ability to separate one thing from another. In the new-agey, cosmic terminology that some are trying their best to insinuate into our consciousness, there is no more judgment, no more distinction to be made, because everything is God, every voice that speaks is God’s voice, every message is truth, no matter how ungodly it may seem, just be free to eat of any of the words of men and it will be good for you. My heart is extremely troubled over how many of the dear saints of God are falling head over heels in love with this message of total freedom.

If you think you cannot be deceived, you are already deceived. I know men and women that at one time thought they couldn’t be deceived either, and now they are as far from God as one can get. One man, who at one time was a wonderful kingdom minister with a great gift of speaking and writing, also felt he could not be deceived and started to get involved with concepts of I AM and pre-existence and the belief that there is no difference between good and evil. He went down that path until now, right at this present time, he is an avowed atheist and as enthusiastic as he was in preaching a “kingdom word” he is just as enthusiastic in promoting atheism. He is the head of a chapter of atheists in the Midwest area of the United States and has a web site and an email list that he uses to shout to the world that there is no God! Another man, who also at one time was a tremendous minister of the kingdom truths is now living and ministering a perverted message. This man, who I will not name, wrote a popular chorus that is sung in most kingdom circles: “The cells of my body, speak forth a new life, every atom radiates, His glorious light, so rejoice O earth, at the sound of my voice, I’m a new man walking, I’ve never walked before.” This man went down the same path of freedom to walk anywhere he wanted to go, and that path took him to the belief that he is God Almighty. It was told me by good friends of mine that attended one of this man’s meetings, that his wife played the piano and sang in the nude and he stood in front of the people and called God and Jesus Christ every filthy name one could imagine, and then exalted in his freedom to do so. He has been known to share a bed with his wife and another man and has appeared on the TV show, “60 Minutes”, where he proclaimed that he was a manifested son of God and was physically immortal. All of these believed they could not be deceived.

A number of years ago, I was invited to come to minister to a group of so called kingdom believers in Indiana and arrived at the church building in time for what I thought would be a service. I was led to the basement, where we ate a great dinner and I was starting to think it was getting a little late and expressed to my host that maybe we should go upstairs and start the service. My host let me know that they didn’t have services anymore and in fact didn’t have speakers anymore, but they just gathered to eat and talk. He then told me about how they had come to the revelation that we are no longer to be spiritual, but in fact, we were to be natural. Instead of desiring to be in the spirit, that we now desire to be in the flesh. It was about this time that I started to look for the exit, as I didn’t really feel led to be around when they started to get in the flesh. They used to be good, solid kingdom believers, moving on in the spirit of the Day, until a “kingdom teacher” came and showed them a more excellent way. I attended another meeting a few years ago where I was invited to minister, a supposed kingdom church, where a well known kingdom teacher that I had heard about but never had met, told the group that he had an experience that convinced him that he was God. He had come close to death in a car wreck, was in the hospital for a long time, and one day he was leaning up against the wall outside his hospital room and saw himself step outside of his body. He asked this apparition, that looked like himself, “Who are you?” and the apparition said, “I am God” and then walked back into his body. From that day on the man was convinced that he was God. In fact, after his message, everyone started addressing each other by name with the name of God at the beginning, such as God Jones, God Smith and so on. Again, I left as soon as possible. I could go on and on with accounts of those that I have personally known that have gone into a strong delusion, completely away from the spirit of God into a world of darkness and imagination.

One of the terms that have come into the midst of the kingdom circles that I have been connected to in the past is the term, “illusion”. As in most phrases that are used in deception, there is an element of truth to the initial concept, but as you follow it through, it ends up in an eastern, new age concept that leaves the scriptural plan of God and leaves you believing in a plan devised by the mind of men. The false teaching of illusion is the belief that this world is nothing more than an illusion, a false imprint on the mind. Nothing that we see outside of ourself is real, bringing us to the conclusion that the only real thing is ourself. The false message of illusion goes into such depravity that it does away with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the need to be cleansed in His blood, and even states that original sin is an illusion. Mis-Identity is a concept that goes hand in hand with the false teaching of illusion. This concept states that we are not really sinful, we just have been programmed to think we are sinful and if we could just awaken to our God-Self, we would cease to be sinful, because sin is a state of mind, not a condition of our nature. This message has been taught and promoted extensively amongst most of the kingdom believers today and some are innocent in this deception, parroting others and repeating this falsehood without really considering the impact of what is being taught, but others are fully aware of what is being said and are actively leading others into error. It is nothing else but the teaching of Hinduism, with a little flavoring of Buddhism and New Age teaching mixed in. In fact, the real difference between what is being said in a lot of false kingdom ministry and what has always been said by some in the past, is that we are hearing a dangerous hybrid message that mixes kingdom phrases with new age phrases. This is not by chance. It is done on purpose by the false teachers to give them an open door into the midst of the true kingdom people and to gain the confidence of the immature and unlearned. These deceivers will use words such as “Jesus, The Christ, The Blood, Judgment, Grace, etc,” but what they really believe those words represent is far from the truth. They believe in Jesus, so they say, but a different Jesus than we may believe in. In their eyes, He is an equal, but not their Lord and Master. Now, they won’t say this openly, nor will they confess this belief when asked about it face to face, but as they minister their revelation, that is what they say.

It is for this reason that I believe we are seeing a strong DELUSION coming out of many of the kingdom teachers. The difference between an illusion and a delusion is that the illusion is how something appears to us, such as a mirage of water in the desert, but the closer you examine it the illusion goes away. This is not so with a delusion, which is an internal deception, a spiritual insanity if you will. Recently, a movie was produced entitled, “A Beautiful Mind”, that described a true life story of a brilliant mathematician that had a fairly common mental condition, schizophrenia, in which the person actually sees no difference between real things and imagined things. As the movie is shown, the director purposely leaves the audience in the dark about what is real and what is unreal and it is a shock to find out what the schizophrenic actually was imagining to be real. The problem with delusion is that once given over to it, no one can prove to you that what you are believing is not true. Your mind has convinced itself that it is true and no longer can “discern” between real and false.

I believe this condition is afflicting many kingdom teachers today that teach such false teachings as illusion, I AM GOD and one of the more popular falsehoods being taught today, The Finished Work At Calvary. The message of IT IS FINISHED is based upon a true statement, uttered by Jesus at the end of His cross experience, but the false message carries it to ridiculous conclusions. That conclusion is that Jesus meant everything was finished, including the plan of salvation, immortality, perfection, single-mindedness, etc. This message states that everything from that moment two thousand years ago is actually finished, done, complete with no further operation of the spirit of God to be accomplished. Everything that seems to be unfinished in the world is the product of the imagination of our minds, which would be changed if we would just wake up to the finished work accomplished at Calvary. This message declares that there is no need for us to refined, changed, processed, saved, restored, renewed, transformed, transfigured, translated, etc., but we are already finished and the plan of God is finished, but our mind just won’t let us see it as done.

Now, to illustrate the difference between believing in an erroneous concept and actually having a spiritual case of strong delusion concerning what is right and what is not right, what is God and what is not God, I would like you to consider what the message of the finished work is actually saying and how the actions of the teachers of this falsehood contradict the message itself. When we say we are speaking truth, then surely we should be living as though we actually believe what we are teaching, right? After all, that is one of the things that the teaching of the rapture illustrates to us, that although preachers will speak about it with much conviction every single service, they are not actually living like they will be raptured any second. Most rapture teachers have long term plans for their lives, most rapture believing churches have building projects, and some of them even prophecy over those projects and God tells them that by the time they are finished with that building next year, that this is going to happen and that is going to happen. Well, it seems to me that God just let them know that there isn’t going to be a rapture for at least that time period, so why don’t they just take a break from flight school and do some real constructive work in the Lord? The truth is, they can’t help but preach a rapture, even when they don’t believe it in their hearts, because it is a strong delusion, no longer a matter of them thinking intelligently about it, because it is imprinted upon their mind, not their heart.

So it is, that we see ministry preaching a finished work at Calvary, all is accomplished, none of us can add to it or take away from it, God has an appointed time for us to awaken out of our sleep and to see us in our finished state, not by works or faith on our part, it is finished and that is it. May I ask one question please? Why in the world are these teachers and those that believe in such a lie still holding meetings, sending out newsletters, making tape of the month message tapes, creating web sites, writing book after book, all saying the same thing, IT IS FINISHED? Why do people travel hundreds, even thousands of miles to attend a meeting to hear these men and women tell them over and over again, IT IS FINISHED? OKAY, OKAY, IT IS FINISHED, now everyone go home!!! Quit preaching, quit traveling to hold meetings, quit writing, quit making tapes, quit ministering conferences, quit reading out of the bible, quit quoting scriptures, quit receiving love offerings, close down your meeting houses, give away your bible computer programs to those that don’t have this revelation and quit all of your RELIGIOUS, HYPROCRITICAL WORK OF MINISTRY.

Don’t worry. They won’t because they can’t. They are not preaching truth, they are preaching deception, and deception has a life of it’s own, that delusion still wants to infiltrate the sheep of God, weaving it’s spider’s web to trap any that are weak enough to believe such a laughable fallacy. Over and over, we are told by the finished work crowd to deny the illusion of going on to the fullness of God and to JUST BE. Deny, Deny, Deny. And, for this they travel all over the United States and the world to tell us that we are finished. Sheesh. Save your money and stay home if that is what you truly believe. Can any of this religious activity change anything if God is in control? Busy little bees, making honey that we have supposedly already eaten of, in our alter finished self. For some of these so called kingdom teachers, they would be better served to get a bit acting part in the movie, The Matrix, Reloaded which Hollywood, the master of illusion and deception, has produced by taking a hybrid tale of new age concepts and eastern religious concepts and tells a tale of a world of illusion that is being exposed by NEO, THE ONE. I could swear that a lot of the terminology of the finished work sounds suspiciously like the dialogue contained in this fictional work.

Of course, the finished work is a product of wishful thinking, men and women who want to find another WAY into the completed form of the New Man, devoid of any testing, any process of dissimilation and re-assimilation, and as one space cadet of this mind set said to Charlotte and I after a meeting we ministered at, “I love you, but there is no fire in Zion!” Sorry, but our God is a consuming fire and we are not going anywhere in God unless we pass through the fire of His substance.

I have never seen such disregard for the hallowed things of God as I see in the kingdom message today. I have visited some of the discussion boards on the internet that are supposedly dedicated to the “message of the kingdom of God” and all of them are being permeated with messages that are so God-less, so arrogant and decadent that it causes my heart to grieve. On one of the most popular and well known discussion boards, a poll was started that took votes on whether the blood of Jesus was needed or not needed for salvation. The last time I looked, it was dead even, for and against. Others were talking about going to meetings to hear men that were born on another planet, and channeling for those on the other side to enlighten the listeners. All of this is being projected on a site that labels itself, “kingdom”.

If you haven’t noticed it before, let me make it plain that I am in the process of setting myself apart from this dangerous and false influence upon the Body of Christ and am drawing a line in the sand between what I am standing for in this Day of glory and power and what I am hearing and reading being said by men of deception. I will not name any names, and don’t have anything personal against the men and women that are teaching kingdom deception, all of them are precious in the eyes of the Lord and some of them have been close friends of mine and remain in my heart and prayers. But, I will no longer be quiet about this indignity, as my spirit is grieved over the ever expanding agenda of this crowd of hypocritical zealots. I do believe that everyone has a right to believe what they believe and every man has to answer to God for those beliefs, but I also have a responsibility to the helpless and the weak in the Body of Christ, to let them hear a dissenting word on the falsehoods that are being allowed to speak blasphemy from kingdom pulpits, all in the name of unity and grace. I for one am counseling all pastors in this message to start taking your place in protecting the sheep. Some would say, only God can protect the sheep, and if they are deceived then God wanted them to be deceived. Horse biscuits!!! One minute you declare yourself to be the voice of God, His express image in the earth and then when you have to take a stand for the right and the truth you fall back on that old, worn out mindset. There is an agenda at hand, my friend. Things are not as innocent as they seem, the con is on and we are being asked to allow things to have freedom in our midst that have no business in the city of God. As I have stated, let these purveyors of mind control and spiritual insanity start their own church and hold their own meetings, you are not obligated to allow them access to your home or your spiritual family.

Let me stress again, I believe it is the timing of the Lord for a stand to be made against the lies of the man of sin. I have been taking a stand against Religious Babylon for years, taking that whorish system to task by distinguishing it’s lies from the truth in the midst of the people of God and many of my fellow ministers have done the same. I have noticed  that we have not been as faithful in denouncing deception that is outside of the camp of Denominational Christianity, and I have seen many give free liberty to new age teachers and I AM GOD teachers to come in and teach concepts that are just as wrong and just as destructive as eternal damnation and rapture. I believe we are starting to reap our indifference as we see the new and unlearned children of this realm being tossed to and fro by concepts that have been mixed in with the foundational truths that the spirit of God has laid within our hearts. In my early days of this message, I was thankful for the old heads that refuted error, giving me confidence to hear God for myself and to look beyond outward appearances as I ate from the table of the Lord. I started to look for the nature of the Lamb, and not for the sheep’s clothing that covers the false and the profane. Without this protection I would have been wounded many times and would have been easy prey for the wolf.

Thank God for those that are being shaken by the spirit of God, releasing us from the anesthesia of indifference, which would tell us that it is not our problem, absolving us from all responsibility for letting the wolf take a lamb now and then. I am not instituting a witch hunt or some sort of holier than thou judgment, but I am crying out for justice to be seen in our streets again, for holy ground to be truly holy again, for us to wash our garments in the blood of the Lamb and to mark out the high ground of the Lord so the people that love the truth can find a safe place to grow in wisdom and understanding with pure water and new wine and bread that has been through the grinding stone. The young will always be able to exercise their senses in the Lord, there is enough evil in the world today to allow them plenty of opportunity to learn the true ring from the false clang, but that doesn’t mean that we should let them live in squalor and pollution all Day long. I sincerely believe that we will be judged by the Lord if we do not start to cry out for truth and the clear, unmarred image and likeness of our Father.

I say all of this in love, with fear and trembling, my head bowed low before the Lord. I will not be a part of this abomination of worshipping the creature over the Creator. We are not finished, we are not fully refined, there is more to be done in us, glories that have yet to be revealed, bodies to be changed, natures to be changed, a new language to learn, our vision to be extended. I could not tell you any different even if my life depended upon it. There are yet thrones to come down, old heavens to be burned up, memories to be healed, roots to be pulled up, walls to be built, dragons to be slain, love to be expressed. So much more to be done, that time or strength would not allow me to tell about it. We have only had a glimpse, a mere drop on our tongue of all that He is and all that He wants us to become. What can I say to convince you of this? How can I persuade you that to think all is finished in this present state and condition would be to rob you of your inheritance in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Pattern? How could we be so deceived as to think that we are presently anything like what we have been designed to be in God? It is your false self that tries to convince you of this. It is the God-Complex that has plagued men of every generation, an inherent desire, adamic in it’s core, that wants to be it’s own creator, the creature forever trying to supplant it’s Lord and King out of a genetic and psychic driven ego, always belittling the authority of it’s Maker, looking for a way to define it’s own destiny and become it’s own architect. Can you see it? Can you hear it’s subtle, cunning voice hissing like an ancient serpent in our ears?

Cast your cares upon Jesus, look upon His beautiful face, for He loves you endlessly and will not leave your soul in hell. Be restored in truth and purity. Leave the citadel of the profane, separate yourself from the ungodly, get up into the mountain of the Lord and sit at His feet and learn of His ways. Truth has come and will lead us home.

 By Bob Torango