Separating the facts from the fantasy is a fairly regular routine. No special skills are needed and one does not need a “How to” list from experts. Virtual reality, cosplay and slogans are the main tools of the false forces. No-one should think that a list of ingredients, fine print, very small print, and huge billboards are unrelated to the proliferation of alternate ideas about the real and the false. We have no choice but to put into these categories much of what passes for intelligent and effective Christian doctrine.

There are far too many people opining about things they have not seen. One can watch a lot of videos and read a lot of books, but let us be sure that it is not the quantity of material one consumes but the quality of one’s sources. Real knowledge is arrived at through inquiry. Merely repeating what we have heard does not make something factual or reliable.

Filtering out the false

Critical cautions can come in a dream, from reading the text, or from the behaviour of a beetle. Instruction in the truth is a matter of being alive and eligible. Truth has a destination to which we travel and we do so with our own truth. Incorrect or corroborated statements have no place at all in our growth arrangements.

Source and Sources

Our security comes down to – not walls – openness and deliberate testing of what people are saying. If we have to consider who is speaking before we give yourselves permission to ask the diagnostic questions then we are enmeshed in the deception network.
Dead people are locked in on food and drink, dedicated to Moses and any prophet of their choosing, and we will find them repeating catchy phrases, intimidating converts, and making the same claim as the desolate house Israel-Judah.

The Old Testament is still informative but it is not an authority since John the Baptist. It is pure laziness on the part of interpreters of the gospel to keep slamming audiences and readers with the same old tired mantras of the law and the prophets. Yeshua on the scene meant an urgent and dramatic change was in the making, and with the exception of the disciples as his remnant the Jewish economy became rubbish.

We have lost our credibility when we teach people that the new covenant has the old covenant at its centre. If a person is distracted by the number of pieces of literature they are expected to read in addition to the bible then the answer is to get back the Bible.

No two ways to interpret

The terms of the new covenant says that the new covenant will exclude the words of the old. That there is a new arrangement: no confusion.

For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Hebrews 8:8

That new arrangement veers away: no confusion. The old and the new, the ex and my new spouse, cannot occupy the same space.

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. Hebrews 8:9

Useless Teachers

How many times since becoming an adult have you been told what to think and what to do by someone with no authority over you? It is happening every time someone spouts off about the moral law of God.

And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. Hebrews 8:11

Why do people cling to nonsense like “the Law of His shows God’s character”? Why do we find people who still try to pretend that they are teaching people about the Kingdom of God and His great message of salvation? They have, just like the Hebrews at Sinai, refused to hear the divine voice, and they have refused to accept the death of Christ as the end of the “marriage” to sin, death and the law.

If we are unable to introduce people to Jesus, and if we all unable to find what it was that Jesus taught so that we can teach people to observe, then we understand because people are not looking at Jesus, but looking at Moses and God knows who else. They are probably not even reading the words of Yeshua. Now that’s the place to begin to settle one’s house on the foundation: the very words of Jesus.

The vast majority of teaching experiences that we have seen in the modern era are mere window-dressing: there’s nothing there. No one is really asking any hard questions so no one is really trying to answer them. Those teachers who seem thrilled to keep reciting things that their ancestors have said over the centuries since the apostles died may likely be dead (unsaved and without a calling).

People are afraid to teach what Yeshua taught because his teaching is still a call for radical thought, and we do not need not need to think if the pie-in-the-law and the law-is-the-pie doctrine is our treasure.

While most Christians will tell us that the priority of life is its external character many have not distinguished endless life from divine life. The evangelical focus on going to heaven at death seems like more of a rug under which one can shove the immediate receipt of life than the confidence of a happy future. That we have passed from death to life is not in doubt but many prefer to see the Christian experience as partly our perfect position in Christ and partly a defining performance as less than stellar, which only a few dare try to defend. We are not now immortal, so eternal life, as a present possession, is not immortality.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. John 3:14-15

A complaining mindset complication

The details of the bronze serpent episode cannot go much further than the manner or timing. “As” ought to shape our extraction of truth from the Lord’s saying. He means “like this” in our wilderness journey.

The overarching reason for death in the wilderness was unbelief. As surely as God brought Israel to Canaan he will bring us to heavenly Zion despite snakebite and huge casualties.

And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Numbers 21:5-6

Imagine having to look at a snake for relief from its fatal venom that is coursing through your veins.

This episode from Numbers is the background for the famous passage John 3:14-16 and the experience as a paradigm for life maintenance has been poorly appreciated.

Evangelists and teachers of all stripes love to trot out John 3:16 as the salvation call. Salvation from snakebite however is not the same as life from the dead and 3:16 does not address anyone getting life.
The Bronze Serpent in the Wilderness episode does not adress anyone coming back from the dead. Israel was a saved people who were kept alive by unusual means the most arresting of which is right here in the Bronze Serpent episode.

God loved the world thus, he gave his only Son so that anyone who keeps believing in him may keep his grip on divine life.

Coming to Christ and getting salvation happens once, but relief for injuries along the way – the Saviour Raised as a Bronze Serpent – once saved, is a necessity

I’m sure you’ve seen some guy (usually male, young and of African descent) on TV abusing a perfectly incontrovertible fact.
Christ came to save from sin,
not to heal and terrorise people with the love of ease and the world.
You may have also seen the demeaning boot camp environment of military training that colours the so-called teaching sessions or Bible studies. It is distressing when young children are being taught to decree and declare instead of praying to a caring heavenly Father. Hopefully, there is not one in your church.

No pride

Parents ought to be ashamed of children who, for example, not knowing what the Bible says about life,
eternal or human, dare to teach others, and by children who rise no higher than following the crowd. Typically, this ambassador of humanity most likely skipped Bible school at Yeshua’s feet to learn to decree and declare (squat). This preacher-healer-apostle-bishop no doubt went to Baalist and hypocrite-trumpeting university to learn to pray.

Test the facts

So in the interest of genuine prayer and facts let’s see a quick end to harassment in the guise of blessing, prayer, and prophecy.

How many times can one decree all demons to flee (or go back to hell. Were they ever there?) How many people need to agree for God to approve and deliver our requests? I have felt like jumping in the fray with something like …

Hey preacher! Decree this!

Decree away the darkness that covers the mind. Please.

Decree away corrupt governments.

Decree away the ignorance that makes Christ saviour from everything but sin.

Decree away the influence of Islam and neo-Babylon from from our communities.

Decree away the African exodus to Europe

Oh yeah! While you are decreeing and declaring, decree a few dollars into the pockets of the poor you pass every day on your way to the set…

Not only can we do better than putting out trashy entertainment, our duty to feed and guard Christ’s flock comes with the equipment for producing excellence.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Peter 2:9