"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north;I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' - Isaiah 14: 12-14 (ESV)
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." - Genesis 3: 5 (ESV)
The wisest man ever, King Solomon, once said that there is nothing new under the sun. That what we see today is merely a repeat we have seen before throughout history. Such is the case when it comes to the ultimate sin, pride. I say ultimate because many would agree that there is an element of pride in nearly every sin. Pride is ultimately us believing more in ourselves than God. In thinking we know better than God. In thinking we are God. If you really think about atheism or agnosticism, they really boil down to recreating God in the image of man. The atheist, by denying the existence of God elevates man into the Godhead. Man now becomes the ultimate source of right and wrong and matters of judgment. The agnostic tries to have his cake and eat it too. He says that there is a God but does not strive to find out what He might want from us. How we ought to conduct ourselves and as such, man is again elevated into the role of God. The problem of course is that man makes a lousy god:
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? - Jeremiah 17: 9 (ESV)
It is the heart of man that has brought us war, famine, pestilence, greed, and hatred. The truth is we have enough resources on this planet to ensure that no one goes hungry. No one goes without medical care. Yet so many do because of the human heart. Because the desperately wicked human heart would prefer to figure out how to personally profit than help our fellow man. The Bible is not silent on these matters either. The first set of key verses today describe the fall of Lucifer from heaven. What was his transgression? Sinful pride. I will ascend to heaven! I will set my throne on high! I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the most high!
But Lucifer could not be like God. There is only one God. The position is already filled. Yet fast forward to the second key verse from today and we see Lucifer in the Garden of Eden as the serpent. What is his lie to lure Eve into sinful pride? When you eat the forbidden fruit your eyes will be open! You will be like God! There is nothing new under the sun. I will make myself like the most high - you will be like God! As it has always been so it still goes today. The Word Faith Heresy has been infecting modern Christendom for decades now. Some of the most followed and watched pastors and preachers are firmly heretical in their word faith beliefs. Benny Hinn, TD Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Joseph Prince, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Bill Johnson and many many others preach this abomination from pulpits across this country every single week. They teach that our words have the power of creation. They teach that positive confession is the secret to claiming blessings. They teach that we can ascend to the heavens and be as the Most High. That we are in fact little gods ourselves. Just consider the following quotes:
You can change your world by changing your words - Joel Osteen
"You got a storage bin, a storage locker in heaven that has a lot of stuff in it that needs to be claimed." - Joyce Meyer
Now I gotta hit this thing real hard in the very beginning because I ain't got time to go through all this, but I am going to say to you right now you are gods, little "g" - Creflo Dollar
Naturally when this is your base of belief the extremes can become downright frightening in their arrogance towards God. Bill Johnson and others believe that it is always the will of God for us to be healed so if you are not being healed then you must not be "claiming it" correctly. The recently departed Myles Munroe believed that God actually needs our permission to do anything on this earth. Who is God in that scenario? We are of course. We have ascended to the heavens and become like the Most High in that scenario. The Bible means nothing to these charlatans either. It is something to be strip mined for out of context verse fragments that they use to prop up their false theologies. They rely on the biblical ignorance of the masses. That if they just say something sounding biblical that no one will actually check if they were right in how they used it. I will give you two (paraphrased) examples from Joel Osteen sermons:
"Whatever you want, you have to be able to imagine it if you expect God to bring it to pass. It says in Genesis that nothing will prevent them from what they imagine."
"you should declare good things. Just look in the mirror and say 'I am strong, I am healthy, I'm rising to new levels, I'm excited about my future.' When you say that, it may not be true. You may not be very healthy today, or maybe you don't have a lot of things to look forward to, but the Scripture tells us in Romans we have to call the things that are not as if they already were."
The first quote sounds great except it is not true. The verse he was referring to was from the story of the Tower of Babel:
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. -- Genesis 11: 6 (KJV)
You cannot say with a straight face that this was a correct interpretation. These verses were dealing with God being very upset with man for his imaginations. So upset that He spread them across the world and confused their languages! To use that to pretend God was encouraging us to use our imaginations is simply untrue. It is a lie. The second one however is even worse. Here is the Scriptures in Romans that Osteen was casually referring to:
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