Demonic Doctrines in Today’s Church: How False Teachings Are Deceiving Believers
The Church today is discouraged, discredited, anemic, and irrelevant.
The best description of the Church, speaking generally, is that it is in a deep, deep sleep. “When the groom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep” (Matthew 25:5).
Three things characterize sleep:
You don’t know you were asleep until you wake up! The Church does not realize it is asleep.
You do things in your sleep (for example, dream) you would not do if awake. We have allowed things to settle in that we used to reject with outrage.
We hate the sound of an alarm. This may upset you.
The reason for the Church’s irrelevance is mainly because doctrines of demons have crept into the Church, much like the way the ancient Gnostics wormed their way into the earliest Church. They came in “…by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord” (Jude 4). These doctrines are often upheld by well-known and highly respected leaders. Whereas the apostle Paul named names, referring to harmful men such as Demas and Alexander (2 Timothy 4:9,14), and John refers to Diotrephes (3 John 9), I will not mention any name currently in ministry. Although I mentioned names in my book Prophetic Integrity, I am not wanting to put down anybody, even if some feel that certain people should be exposed. It is the teaching or the absence of truth that I propose to condemn.
Here is my hope for you. I pray that the Spirit of God will help refine your discernment and lead you away—far away—from the ministries of those who uphold what I have regarded as doctrines of demons. All I ask is that you search your Bible and decide on your own whether there is merit to my deep concern.
You need to understand that those who uphold doctrines of demons do not believe for a moment that they are guilty of such a thing. It is like cancer in the body. It is painless until it is too late.
In both of his letters to Timothy, Paul warned about the inevitability of false teaching invading the church of Jesus Christ:
Now the Spirit explicitly says that in the later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons (1 Timothy 4:1).
For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3).
Please note that the title of my new book, Doctrines of Demons from Angels of Light, is not based on my words; they are taken directly from the Bible. Furthermore, you and I must not take lightly Paul’s claim regarding what “the Spirit explicitly says.” This is not Paul’s ordinary way of speaking. It is the only time he speaks like this. All his epistles are inspired truth, but when he augments his conviction with the phrase “the Spirit explicitly says,” he feels the need to drive home this warning.
It is like when Jesus says, “Truly I tell you” (John 3:3) or “Verily, verily” as in the King James Version. All that Jesus said is the truth. But if He feels a need to drive a truth home, He prefaces it with the word truly. Therefore, whereas Paul could have felt that way before as when, speaking of marital issues, he makes a distinction between what he says by “a concession” (1 Corinthians 7:9) and when he says, “I think that I also have the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 7:40).
My point is this. Paul feels very strongly indeed when it comes to his prediction of teachings of “demons.” He believes that the devil himself is at the bottom of certain teachings that will find their way into the Church. “Angels of light” are salient human vehicles who have been duped to propagate Satan’s lies.
I have chosen six teachings that are in existence today that I believe to be what Paul is referring to. No doubt there are more. Mormonism is satanic to the core. So too Jehovah’s Witnesses. Also, there are teachings that I might disagree with but do not deserve the adjective demonic. For example, many of my friends believe that the next thing to happen on God’s calendar is the rapture of the church.
However, I believe that the next thing to happen on God’s calendar is the awakening of the church before the Second Coming of Jesus. I don’t intend to prove my eschatology. Furthermore, some readers will know what is meant by Arminianism and Calvinism. I myself am reformed in theology, meaning I generally follow what I believe what Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–1564) taught, but I would not call the teachings of Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) demonic. Arminius reacted negatively to the double predestinarian teachings of William Perkins (1558–1602) who followed the teaching of Theodore Beza (1519–1605), Calvin’s successor in Geneva but who went way beyond what Calvin himself taught regarding predestination. John Wesley (1703–1791), a true man of God, was Arminian in his teaching.
My own mentor, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a strong Calvinist, unapologetically appealed to John Wesley for support for his teaching of the direct witness of the Spirit. I was brought up a Wesleyan-Arminian. God used this teaching to make me seek after Him with all my heart. I am afraid that many Calvinists do not experience this urgency.
Doctrines of demons are teachings that Satan himself imparted to some leaders and believers. As mentioned earlier, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) has noted that Satan was trained in the university of the heavens before his revolt and fall before the foundation of the world. In other words, Satan knows a lot about God and how God thinks. I am not the judge of those who teach doctrines of demons—whether they were never converted in the first place or have allowed Satan to intrude through bitterness and unforgiveness.
But can Satan actually influence the mind of a true believer? Yes. For example, Paul knew that holding a grudge gave the devil an easy access into the minds of his beloved Corinthians (2 Corinthians 2:10-11). People who do not forgive can become involuntarily influenced by satanic suggestions. They are not bad people. However, living with any level of unforgiveness weakens our resolve to please God and consequently makes it easy for the devil to cause us to miss completely the true voice of the Holy Spirit. This can happen to ordinary Christians, not necessarily merely high-profile leaders. So we cannot necessarily blame leaders only for people believing unbiblical teaching. The devil is appealing to the fleshly desires of ordinary people who lap up false teaching because it is what they want to hear. Itching ears probably do not primarily refer to leaders.
How can I be sure that I have it right? I am not infallible. I am not an apostle. I am not a prophet. I am a mere Bible teacher. My best answer to you, the reader, is this. I must begin with my teaching and experience of forgiving those who have hurt me. Forgiving my enemies not only changed my life but gave me access into a measure of the Holy Spirit by which I have gained a clearer level of understanding than ever before. The consequence is that I can smell heresy a mile away! I regard the teaching and experiencing of the anointing as central to all I will say.
The Anointing
Although I am not the judge of the people who hold to the doctrines of demons, I would again urge you to be sure you have totally forgiven all who have hurt you, opposed you, or want to sink you. I can testify that experiencing the ungrieved Spirit who comes largely from total forgive-ness—not higher learning—has without doubt led me to trust in the Bible. It is my belief that the ungrieved Spirit gives a person an inner check when faced with demonic teaching. I believe that the obedience of forgiving everybody and anybody for anything would soon stop the propagating of these dangerous teachings.
As possessing wisdom will protect one from the “evil woman” (Proverbs 6:24), so the anointing will preserve one from demonic doctrines. “You have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth” (1 John 2:20). The anointing is the power of the Spirit that enables your gift to function with ease. It comes not by university or seminary education. The Sadducees were shocked at the boldness of the early disciples of Jesus, noting that they had not been to rabbinic school but “they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
After preaching recently in Seoul, Korea, a very bright woman whose job is working with AI (artificial intelligence) approached me with an unusual question: “Can one hear God’s Spirit in a way that AI can also produce?”
I replied, “I can hear the true voice of the Spirit only in proportion to how little I grieve the Holy Spirit.”
She was not prepared for that answer, admitting that AI could not produce that. But the Holy Spirit, when we have not grieved Him through bitterness and unforgiveness, certainly can enable you to hear the voice of God.
Pastor, don’t lean on AI to write your sermons! The Holy Spirit will do a better job for you.
The Spirit of God, the third Person of the Trinity, is a very, very sensitive person. When we say of another, “That person is very sensitive, be careful what you say to him or her,” it is not a compliment. But, like it or not, that is the way the Holy Spirit actually is. He is extremely sensitive. When Paul said, “Don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit” in Ephesians 4:30, he used the word (lupeite) that can mean to get your feelings hurt. Some will quickly argue that surely the Holy Spirit could not get His feelings hurt. But He can! Ephesians 4:31 immediately follows Paul’s admonition that when we let bitterness, anger, speaking evil of others and unforgiveness slip in, the Holy Spirit is grieved. If you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will never—ever—leave you. But when the Holy Spirit is grieved it is as though the Dove lifts, the sense of the anointing diminishes and leaves us, as it were, to ourselves. When we are left to ourselves, owing principally to unforgiveness, we are vulnerable to the devil alluring us to false teaching.
“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge…” (Hosea 4:6 NIV).
This means mainly the knowledge of two things: His Word and His ways. His Word is the Bible. This means that God wants you to know His Word! I don’t want to be unfair, reader, but how well do you know your Bible? How often do you read the Bible? If you want to be on good terms with the Holy Spirit, get to know His Word—He wrote it!
As for God’s “ways,” you must understand that God has ways. You may not like His ways. But He is the only God you have. Get to know and love His ways. My people “have not known my ways,” God said of ancient Israel (Hebrews 3:10). How do you get to know anyone’s ways? By spending time with them. My wife knows my ways. My son knows my ways. My best friends know some of my ways. God wants you to know His ways. You get to know God’s ways by spending time with Him.
How often do you pray? How much time alone do you spend with God? Children spell love: T – I – M – E. What if God spells love as TIME? How much time do you spend alone with God each and every day? John Wesley prayed two hours a day. Martin Luther prayed two hours a day.
According to a poll conducted by Christianity Today, the average church leader in Britain and America spends four minutes a day alone with God. And you wonder why the church is powerless? And exceedingly vulnerable to doctrines of demons?
In the short penultimate book of the New Testament, Jude says that he initially hoped to write a treatise on the doctrine of salvation, but was compelled instead to exhort believers “to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3 NKJV). The earliest doctrinal danger to the church became known as Gnosticism. Gnosticism (from the Greek word gnosis, meaning knowledge) promised a new way of knowing. They claimed to be genuine Christians. They promised to make Christianity better. The truth is, they would destroy the church. Jude knew this. Paul knew this (Colossians 1:15-20; 2:8-23). Peter knew this (2 Peter 2:10-22). John knew this (1 John 2:18-19).
Paul warned that in the last days there would be those who were “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). Can anything be sadder than this? Think of these words “never able.” No matter how hard they try, they cannot recognize, much less grasp, the truth.
