How Satan Undermines Believers’ Confidence in Scripture (Part 1)

The church is experiencing the worse attacks in ages. The goal is to undermine the foundation of the faith in Christ Jesus through the Holy Scriptures. The intensity of the offensive, which manifests in false and demonic doctrines, have caused some believers to doubt the inerrancy of the Bible as the word of God. Recently, I saw a comment on a YouTube live stream where a supposed Christian woman described believers who accept the Bible as the word of God as ‘narrow minded.” This person went on to say that such Christians ought to listen to new revelations by theologians and Bible teachers that have shed more light on events recorded in the Bible. How is this for spiritual maturity? While Peter exhorts believers, especially babes in the Lord to desire the sincere milk of the word of God (1 Peter 2:2), modern day Pharisees and Sadducees want us to feed on human philosophies and ideas peddled by theologians and so-called Bible teachers. Every genuine child of God should say to the religious crowd, “Choose the gods you want to worship. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:14-15).

The enemy and his minions have deployed five specific weapons in their quest to undermine the integrity of Scriptures as contained in the Bible. These are testimonies of people who had near death encounters with spiritual beings; demonic revelations by so-called ministers of God; human philosophies and ideas used by some Bible Schools and Seminaries to counter Biblical truths; visions and dreams of doubtful origin and fake angelic encounters. This segment focuses on testimonies of encounters with spiritual beings, usually referred to as   Near Death Experiences (NDEs).

NDEs, also known as ‘out-of-body experiences, have been recorded in several parts of the world. These include personal visions and near-death experiences where the authors claimed to have had conversations with Jesus Christ, meetings with deceased loved ones, and even tours of heaven or hell. According to Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer, author of Visions, Near Death & Out-of-Body Experiences, such encounters are possible, but subject to deception and wishful delusions.

I have watched several videos on YouTube detailing some of these encounters. One thing that is common among them is an attempt to make suicide justifiable. In their testimonies, they claimed that the Lord Jesus welcomes some victims of suicide into heaven because He sympathised with them because of the depression that compelled them to end their lives. Where is the Scriptural basis for such an assertion? There are two clear instances where people committed suicide in the Bible. The victims, King Saul and Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Lord to Israeli religious leaders, are not portrayed as role models in the Bible! Some of the testifiers equally returned from their ‘journey’ with new revelations that invalidated portions of the Holy Bible.

If the Bible is full of errors as some of them claim, why did God who came down to earth in the person of Jesus Christ not say so? Throughout His earthly ministry, the Lord upheld all the Holy Scriptures, and so did the early disciples. Paul in particular said in 2 Timothy 3:6, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Similarly, Peter asserts, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Dr Lutzer warned that we must be cautious and realise that it is possible for a vision’s source to be demonic (1 Kings 22:1-38). He observed that false prophets often confuse God’s revelation with their own visions and words (Jeremiah 23:16). The author declared that most of these out-of-body experiences are clearly demonic, especially those where the victims claimed that Jesus told them that heaven welcomes everyone no matter their religion or creed. He noted that those who have had such experiences are so deluded that they do not fear death anymore because they believe the claims that heaven is the eternal home of all humans.

While we cannot stop people from feeding on this junks that question the veracity of Scripture, we can at least warn others so that they are better informed on this subject. One thing is clear – God is the same yesterday, today and forever. If He called ancient Israel to walk by faith in the Old Testament, nothing in the New Testament invalidates this requirement. Habakkuk 2:4 says, “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by faith.” This Scripture is quoted by Paul in Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38. To crown it all, we are told in Hebrews 11:16, that “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

The moment we start wanting to “see” before we believe, we open the door to satan’s counterfeit spiritual experiences. Of course, the Bible records many instances of God revealing Himself to people in bodily form or through dreams and visions. Nevertheless, those people did not spread falsehood and demonic doctrines in their days, as we are witnessing in the modern church. Let us learn to seek God in His word through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit. The safest place for any Christian to be right now is under the covering of the word of God. That is the only safety net in these evil days.

***** Additional materials sourced from Visions, Near Death & Out-of-Body Experiences, https://www.moodymedia.org.