Q & A: False Teaching vs. The Word of God
False teachers certainly abound these days! I often hear from people who are confused about preachers’/teachers’ sermons and “Christian” professors’ lectures that are blatantly or subtly laced with the poison of unscriptural, false teaching. Some are downright wolves in sheep’s clothing – false teachers, dishing up the doctrines of devils and feeding them to unsuspecting sheep. Others, I believe, are men/women who may love the Lord, but are themselves misguided and deceived, and have succumb to false teaching through their own sin and compromise.
This is an email I received from a confused seminary student in regard to something she read in a book authored by a famous ‘Word of Faith’ preacher, coupled with the false teachings of her professor (details of his teaching are edited here to focus on Hagin’s false teaching).
HER QUESTION:
Hi Salli! Today I read something that has left me very confused. It is in the book, “How to Be Led by the Holy Spirit", by Kenneth Hagin.
In his book, Hagin states:
I hear people, bless their hearts, talking about being in the valley, then being on the mountaintop, then getting back down in the valley again. I have never been in the valley. I have been saved more than fifty years and I have never been anywhere but on the mountaintop. You do not have to get down in the valley…People talk about "valley experiences." I have never had any valley experiences. Oh, yes, there have been tests and trials, but I was on the mountaintop all the time, shouting my way through—living above the tests and the trials!
This made me remember my class with Professor H-----. We talked a lot about times that we are in darkness and during that time, I was convinced that darkness is good for our growth in God. But somehow, I felt that it isn't right because Jesus said He is the light. So, how can we have darkness if Jesus is in us??? Even when we go through tests and trials, and we "feel" like we are going through the "valley of death", if God is with us, the light is with us, isn't it? We are just so deceived by our emotions and feelings...I am (yet again) very concerned about what we were taught in the class and by this book... Let me know what you think! Thank you!
MY RESPONSE:
As we are seeing, there is, unfortunately, SO MUCH false teaching that has infiltrated the church in recent years. I am finding more and more that even ministers who used to preach the unadulterated Word, have added false teachings to their message. But God’s Word warned us to not be surprised by it, but rather to expect it and be on guard as this must happen before the end comes. The Word warns us repeatedly to “be on guard”, “watch out”, “stay alert” because of these things. He warned us in Scripture that many “false Christ’s” will come - and many false teachers/prophets will preach another Jesus. What they preach/teach/prophesy will NOT line up with God’s Word (even though they mix scripture in it, like our professor and this ‘word of faith’ preacher did). We are seeing the great “falling away” that the Word says will take place in the last days. (Matt. 7:15-20; 24:4-6; Mark 13; Luke 21; 2Thess. 2:3; 2Tim. 4:1-5; 2 Peter 2 & 3; 1John 4:1-3; Jude).
To answer your questions, I don’t agree with Professor H----- (as you well know) nor do I agree with Kenneth Hagin based on his quote you sent me. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he is just ignorant of the meaning of “mountain top” or “valley”. Every human being, including the believer, walks through dark “valley” seasons and wonderful “mountaintop” experiences. It’s part of being human. Jesus was not “on the mountaintop” when sweating drops of blood in Gethsemane or when hanging on the cross crying out, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?!” Rather He “endured the cross for the joy set before Him”. He was 100% God but also 100% man and experienced the emotions man would experience in a moment like that - yet did not sin in it. (Luke 22:44; 23; Hebrews 12:2).
From Genesis to Revelation, we see the suffering of mankind, the experiencing of dark pits of despair, including great men of God like Elijah, David, Jonah, Samson, John the Baptist, etc., and women of God like Hannah, Rachel, Esther, Ruth, etc. That’s one of the great treasures of the Psalms: we get to see David in his pits of despair and dark valleys and learn from his journeys with God through those dark valleys. But like all these men and women of God, when we cling to God in those dark seasons, the solid rock, Christ Jesus, brings us peace in the storm, calms our fears, and comforts us in our gut-wrenching pain. We have “Christ in us the hope of glory” to empower us to “endure to the end”. As Christians under the New Covenant (ratified by the blood of Christ) we have the Holy Spirit in us and the body of Christ, (fellow believers), to “bear one another’s burdens”, when we can’t carry it alone. Jesus was “a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief” and “touched with the feelings of our infirmities”, yet “overcame the world”. As a result, it’s in Him our soul finds hope and strength when “all around my soul gives way” (when we are suffering beyond our soul’s ability to rise above the dark pit of pain/fear/grief on its own). Daniel in the lions’ den symbolizes this and encourages us that even when we are thrust into the dark pits of death, we will not be consumed, for God will protect us from being devoured by the enemy. (Col.1:27; Gal.6:2; Ps.94:19; Daniel 6).
Furthermore, Proverbs states that “though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again...” (Pr.24:16). That doesn’t sound like someone who has always been on the mountaintop.
I just don’t find scriptural support for Hagin’s claim. If, as believers, we are always in a “mountaintop” state of being than why is the Word of God full of hundreds of verses exhorting and encouraging us (men and women of God) to “fear not” “be not discouraged”, “don’t lose hope”, “don’t be anxious”, “put on the whole armor of God”, etc.
If life was always a mountaintop (a “high”) why would Jesus say in Revelation that “he who ENDURES to the end will receive the crown of life”? Why would He speak of prayers, so soaked with anguish, that they are “groanings that cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26)? Why would we need Psalm 23 to remind us He is with us in the valley?
I too have been walking with Christ for over 50 years, yet I have experienced much suffering in my life. We are “new creations in Christ Jesus” (2Cor. 5:17), but “many are the afflictions of the saints” (Ps.34:19). My heart has been crushed at times to the point I thought I could die from the grief and pain. But no matter how dark the trial, God was there with me. They were not “mountaintops” but very dark pits, dungeons of despair, and valleys of the shadow of death. But His strength sustained me, and the promises in His Word anchored my hope. In Christ, we are NEVER alone! He is “our ever-present help in time of need”, “a friend who sticks closer than a brother”. He is “Immanuel”, “God with us”! (2Cor.1:20; 12:9-11; Ps. 46; Prov.18:24; Isaiah 7:10-16)
If Kenneth Hagin “was on the mountaintop...shouting his way through” every trial, then from what I can see, he is greater than any man of God or woman in scripture - even Christ Himself. Again, even Jesus didn’t “shout” His way through Gethsemane, the Via Dolorosa, and the crucifixion - He sweat blood and cried out to God…and He was God! God Himself said there was no greater man of faith than Moses, yet he certainly wasn’t “on the mountaintop” when he struck the rock in anger causing him to not be able to enter the promised land.
I don’t know much about his life, but claims like Hagin’s, can serve to make other believers feel shame and guilt, and even condemnation, when they can’t find strength to “shout on the mountaintops” when they’re working through the effects of past trauma, their child dies, their spouse abandons them, their children are addicted to drugs, etc.
In my humble opinion, I would be careful about listening to a preacher that makes claims like that (while he, and many like him, are raking in millions of dollars as a circuit preacher maintaining a lifestyle of the rich and famous). I have seen Hagin say and do some disturbing things over the years. Like I said, I don’t know a lot about him, but I don’t listen to him personally because of his edgy doctrine. He may have some good teachings, but he has also said and done things that simply don’t line up with Scripture. And the word of God is clear that we should beware of those who mix the cup of the Lord with the cup of demons (1 Cor. 10).
Stay in the Word, sister. “Meditate on it day and night” (Psalm 1), “hide it in your heart” (Ps.119:11) and let the Word “dwell in your heart richly” (Col.3:16). The more we know the Word, and walk in obedience to His commands, the easier it is to recognize error. It is the Word of God that is the “lamp to our feet and light to our path” (Ps. 119:105) as we walk the narrow path in this very dark world. We are at war with the flesh and the enemy who is crafty, disguising himself as a “minister of righteousness”, (2 Cor. 11:15) but is a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” (Mt.7:15). They often use a verse in Scripture taken out of context to deceive. The Word of God warns us repeatedly to “be on guard”, “watch out”, “stay alert” because of these things. We must be like the Bereans in Acts 17 who “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” - because even genuine men and women of God don’t get it right 100% of the time. We all fall short sometimes. Only Scripture is the infallible Word and the final authority.
I hope this helps! Have a wonderful week!
If you have questions that you would like to submit, please email me at sall@divinemiracel.org.