In churches throughout America, the same seductive Baal spirit is at work. Multitudes of believers are driven by the urgent need to make it big. As a result, they’re being swept into lavish living and bottomless pits of debt. This doctrine is especially seductive as our nation is in the deepest pit of debt it has ever seen with an economy that is hardly surviving. This spirit has also produced a cockeyed view of success similar to the world’s. When a Pentecostal movement in Canada recently held a seminar for “successful pastors,” it stipulated that only ministers with congregations of at least 1,000 people could come. Apparently, large numbers was their only criterion for success.
Jesus describes how such believers become lukewarm: “These are they which…hear the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful” (Mark 4:18-19). Simply put, anything that interferes with our walk with Jesus is sin. If we allow something to press into our hearts — a drive for success, money or acclaim — it will put us on our knees before Baal. Our spiritual eyes will be blinded. And our hearts will grow cold, no longer zealous for Jesus.
The Israelites flocked to Baal’s church of success and prosperity. And soon this backslidden church was rife with unspeakable corruption. Elijah faced 850 false prophets in a life-or-death showdown over whose God would prevail. Some 450 of these prophets served the pagan god Baal; the other 400 were priests of the idolatrous groves built by wicked Queen Jezebel. Now, in a demonic ritual, the Baal prophets began dancing and wailing, trying to awaken their god. When the frenzy finally ended, the prophets lay bleeding profusely, totally exhausted. The idolaters sacrificed a bull and cried out to Baal from morning until nightfall, even slashing their skin until blood flowed, but nothing happened.
Then Elijah stepped up for his turn. He simply called on the Lord, and instantly supernatural fire fell from heaven. The engulfing blast of heat consumed both the prophet’s sacrifice and the twelve barrelfuls of water he’d poured around it. It even consumed the rocks on the altar. What an awesome display of God’s almighty power. The people fell on their faces, shouting, “The Lord, He is God; the Lord, He is God.”
1 Kings 18:36-39
At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The LORD-He is God! The LORD-He is God!”
Elijah ordered the people to slay the 850 false prophets. Elijah then slew every one of those 850 false prophets. Suddenly, revival was back in Israel. The awakening Elijah had prayed for had finally come — or so he thought: “This is God’s hour. It’s the beginning of the renewal I’ve preached about for so long.”
The Lord our God has always had this problem with prosperity preachers that entice God’s people to doctrines of demons. From 900 B.C. til today. Peter warns us in 2 Peter 2:
But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.
Doom of False Teachers
For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)— then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.
Deceptions of False Teachers
For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”
We must not follow these preachers who turn us to fornication with other gods than the one true God and our Lord and Savior Jesus. We must expose these false prophets for who they are. I have two video below of some of these prosperity preachers and false teachers. I will keep updating with more videos in time. Blessings and love in Jesus name.
