Temcat's
Testimony Satan is a deceiver; he is a liar. He gives us the idea that there are a lot of good things to be had, that the Word of God forbids. Just as he did with Eve, he takes something God has forbidden and makes it look like it is so important that we have it or do it. To do this he leads us to think that God, our dear Heavenly Father, Who loves us, is selfish and mean and just wants to spoil our fun! I want right here to assure you that God denies us nothing that is for our good.
He
gives us the idea that there is special knowledge away from God,
heathen, devilish things, that, although we know that they are not true,
we can study and we can separate the good from the evil. Then we will be
greatly blessed because we can get a lot of good from them. What does he
propose that we use to know which is good and which is evil? The Word of
God? Oh NO! Never does he want us to rely on THAT! He knows it exposes
all his snares! No, he wants us to use our feelings! Our Opinions! Things
that are as unstable as sand-dunes, and things that he is expert at
manipulating!
This
writer
could probably show you articles written a few years back advocating
that very concept. I thought people were very narrow and bigoted when
they would refuse to study such things because they said they were from
the devil, and there was really a lot of good in these things and we
could be greatly benefited by studying them. I know differently now, but
it has taken a while for me to learn it and I can only wonder at the
incredible patience and graciousness of our Heavenly Father, who
lets us run, when we are determined to do so, through all the manure
piles and all the garbage heaps of worldly wisdom, until we finally
realize that there is nothing good out there that He does not already
have on His banquet table for us.
When Eve ate of the tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil, she obtained knowledge, but not of good and evil, she only
obtained the evil, because she already had everything that was good!
Eve was led to doubt God’s goodness because she felt something
was withheld from her that she needed to have. When she ate of the tree
of Knowledge of good and evil, she mixed evil in with the good that
God had already given her. The only thing that God had withheld from
His children was the knowledge of evil. Evil doesn’t bring any
goodness, it is a destroyer, it brings sickness and death. Adam
& Eve are not here with us today because they are dead. And millions
of others are dead, why are they dead? Because of the evil, not
because of the good that God had given them, but because of the evil
that they were determined to have. In the early 1800s there was a special movement designed of God to wake up the people and bring them out of the errors that still clung to the churches. He wanted people to study and understand what the Bible actually teaches and get rid of the pagan ideas that were clinging to them like burs. These pagan falsehoods affect the characters of those who believe them and God could not perfect a people to stand before Him in the last days, Holy, Harmless, and Undefiled, until these false ideas were eliminated. It was called the Great Advent Awakening -- 'Advent' referring to the 2nd coming of Jesus.
People
all over the world turned to personal Bible study, but especially in
America some small groups spent many hours getting together, praying and
studying through the night sometimes, pleading with the Lord that the
Holy Spirit would teach them the truth. They prayed for light and God
sent light to them. He sent light through the Holy Scriptures and He
sent extra light through the Holy Spirit of prophecy; and so they worked
out line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a
little until finally the doctrines stood clear as the Bible taught
them. In their beauty they gleamed forth free from all the accumulated
baggage of heathenism that had gotten mixed in starting from the first
century.
Why
did God send extra light? Because He knew we needed it! We are the most
degenerate and degraded generation that has ever walked the earth. We
are 6,000 years from Adam, and corruption is so great that none of us
has been able to be born and grow up with out being corrupted in some
way by the society we live in. None of us have been free from the
‘Wine of Babylon’, none of us have been protected from the influence
of heathenism because our society is saturated with it and we think it
to be ‘normal’. We think many heathen things are Christian, and
that means all of us, I’m talking about the most enlightened
'Christian', all of us have been influenced by the wine of Babylon and
corruptions of heathenism.
The
Advent Movement was given clear light to understand the true teachings
of the Bible! It is these true teachings we make available to you on
this website. Did you know that every time God sent light into the world
there were always many who said- “Oh I don’t need this, I’m fine
with what I already have.” It was said about the Old Testament
prophets, the New Testament writers, the writers of the epistles and so
on. They said the same thing to the Lord Himself- “We believe Moses,
but who do you think YOU are?” What does the Bible say? 1John 4:1 "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”. How are we to 'try' them? By our feelings? By whether or not we like what they say? NO-- by the Word of God! Isaiah 8:20 "To the law (10 commandments) and to the testimony:(Bible) if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Did you get that? It doesn't say there is some good in them, some truth, some light, and you need to gather it out using your own human 'wisdom'. Oh NO! He says there is NO LIGHT in them! Why, oh why is it, when God gives us the very best, perfect gifts, do we insist on mixing the pure heavenly light found in the Word of God, with more and more earthly dross until the last rays of that godly bounty flicker out and we are left groping in darkness? So Satan comes to Christians with his ideas, he starts with things that seem good and then mixes in a bit of poison- It is interesting to note that when the ancient Israelites apostatized it was always by adding something from the heathen that seemed to have good in it, but it led minds away from the firm foundation and eventually more and more heathen things came to be seen as ‘having a lot of good in them’ and before you know it, it didn’t even seem wrong to them to sacrifice their children to idols! It has always worked the same way and it is always followed up by condemning and persecuting those who stand firm on God’s truth as being 'unloving', backward and fanatical. There was a time in the days of Nehemiah, that even the descendents of the priests had intermarried and mixed so with the heathen that they didn’t even speak the Hebrew language any more and didn’t understand the truths God had given them. I fear the same thing has been repeated today among Christians. We have adopted so much from the so-called 'scientific' community and now we are taking in large draughts of spiritualistic, energy-concept theories from heathenism, that we speak only a polyglot and anyone who teaches the straight truths of the Bible, is no longer understood by us!
Did
you know it was that way in Jesus day? His teachings were NOT any new-fangled
ideas. New-Agers like to infer that Jesus made a trip to Tibet or some
heathen place and brought back new teachings of mysticism and magic for
which He was crucified. This is just pure rubbish, Jesus never taught
anything that is not found in the Old Testament scriptures! But even
the religious leaders were so caught up with mixing in Greek Philosophy
and mystical cabalism that they no longer recognized there our
Scriptures when taught in their purity. Christians today are in exactly
the same boat!! Much being taught from the pulpits of today is
spiritualism and not Bible at all!!!
Why
do I entitle this message, “Batteries Not Included?” well you see,
God does not give power to those who do not walk according to His Word! He
only promises power if we obey Him, completely.
His power is to bless and enable His children to live in the ways
He has laid down for them. He has never authorized us to add or take
away from His counsel. If we do start practicing things He has
not enjoined or neglecting things He has enjoined, He can’t bless us,
we cut the Power lines off completely.
His
power can not be found in one who has taken ideas, ceremonies and
theories from the world of heathenism and added them to our message, those
who do this no longer have the batteries of heaven, the power of God’s
blessing just won’t be there! God does nothing in partnership with
Satan's falsehoods. Many people are looking at the eastern religions and saying, “ Now there is real truth”, they look at the teachings of the American Indians also and say, “Oh yes, that’s the way to live. That is Natural.” But they forget a vital point! You must take a good look at how those people ACTUALLY lived, because it is not what they SAY that counts- it is what they DO that matters! If you study history, you will see that although they may have had many exulted proverbs, and ‘great wisdom’ in their traditions, (it sounds like great wisdom to us as human beings) it sounds good, BUT the batteries are not included- there is no power to live up to a creed that you make up yourself. Spiritualism tells us that Man is basically good, indeed he is a god in the making. The BIBLE on the contrary shows clearly that Man has no power to do good in himself, not at all! Absolutely none! And so no matter how exulted the teachings of Buddhism may sound, or the teachings of Wicca, Hinduism, or Taoism, or Krishna, without God and without Christ there is no power in it to allow anyone to obey. You can profess the loftiest things, but there’s no power in you to carry out your profession. So you will find in these religions, people who have naturally very strong wills excel in these religions. You see, some people do have a type of stubbornness and natural will power that if they make up their mind to do something, some can live up to this especially if by doing so they gain the admiration and acclaim of others as a kind of ‘holy’ person.
Certain
Yogis seem to have, at least outwardly, will power to live a rigid,
abstemious life through their own determination. (Sometimes they just
put on a lying, false front as well) Satan helps some of these by not
tempting them too much, as to have them seeming to succeed in his
lying service is bait to others and good for his business. They can
thus appear godly when there is really no godliness in them at all.
I’ve had people who studied these religions say to me,
“How can people who advocate such noble sounding truths as these Eastern
religions and the North American Indians yet be so hideously cruel?”
The answer is, that there are no batteries included when you make up
your own religion or follow one made up by someone else. There’s
no power in it, and, without Jesus, man does not have power to do
anything but obey Satan and exult himself. Man can not change his
own heart and so these external restrictions are always a heavy burden
to bear, but they can put on the front for the sake of worldly honor.
It
is important to realize that the heathen don’t have a monopoly on this
problem, any time we try to practice religious tenets of our own
choosing God can’t empower us, and the best we can ever become is
a hypocrite just like the Pharisees! They refused to accept God’s
doctrines in the simplicity in which they were given and added their
own rules to God’s truths and embroidered them. So they had pulled
the plug on God’s enabling power, and a life of externals and
lying hypocrisy was the best they could ever have. Only religion that
comes from God's Word can lead to God!
Jesus
came and what was He teaching? You know many people claim He had
completely new, unheard of ideas! Some even go so far as to claim Jesus
went to the east in His youth and brought his teaching from there! But
every thing He taught was taken from their own scriptures! He had
nothing new, but they had so far mixed in Greek philosophical error,
their own traditions and departed from the Bible truths, that they
didn’t even recognize them any more. Jesus, through the
enlightenment of the Spirit, stripped away the man-made additions and
presented the pure scripture truth.
Whenever
you mix the perfect word of God with any heathenism, the result is
heathenism. It’s not perfect anymore once it’s mixed and it
isn’t the Word of God any more once it’s mixed. The Jew's religion
was mongrelized so badly they couldn’t even understand the simple
Bible truths any more. Jesus cleared away the trash and when the
disciples first went forth to carry the truth of Christianity to the
world it was at first pure and so it was powerful. God could bless
it.
Very
early, however, scholars, coming in from paganism, began to think that
they could improve Christianity by combining the ‘best’ of their own
high pagan educations with it and once again, a mongrel religion came
about. God’s power could no longer bless and soon the church
took hold of the arm of the state to enforce its now powerless religion
and the papacy was born.
The
gospel that was given us by God is perfect! It could not be improved
upon. In its purity and completeness it is powerful and it has the added
power of His blessing! Nothing that the world or science, so called, or
heathenism or spiritualism has can hold a candle to the life-changing
power of pure Bible truth! This message is so simple that many grossly underestimate its power and grab after more complex theories of the world, which are only spiritualism in new, scientific disguises, and seek to add to it or update it or make it even better, and the result is that we loose it, and we loose God’s blessing and power. Then Satan lures us on into his snares until we loose our souls as well. God’s pure truth has the Batteries included; God backs it with omnipotent power, but just add to it man’s theories and His blessing vanishes as the morning mist. There is another big reason that man likes to grab onto other things, even though the Bible teachings are really so clear. Man LOVES self and sin. We see in the medical world people are continually looking for a 'magic drug' that will let them live intemperate lives and do whatever they want and still have perfect health! It will NEVER happen!! So man wants a religion that does away with any AUTHORITY but his own. He wants to be his own god. He wants to do as he pleases and still have the assurance of eternal life. It won't work! but there are many who'll try and sell it to you!
There
is one book that works, the Bible, it is still there and it doesn’t go
away; but if you were to start looking for a self help book of ten or
twenty years ago, you’d be most unlikely to find it. There’s a new
crop all the time. Why? Because they don’t work! They sound good, but
they don’t work!
I
want now to tell you a little about my own experience in studying
heathen philosophy and many ‘self-improvement’ theories as well as
the psychiatry and psychology I had to take to become a nurse. To become
qualified in nursing psychology you have to study various theories that
oft times contradict each other and you end up with a confused bunch of
soup in your head that is supposed to help you to care for mentally ill
persons.
One
theory began as one man decided to keep a careful diary of the
development of one baby, his own son, as he grew and developed; then from
this careful diary of this one baby he made his theory which is now
taught as the normal way for all babies to develop. People think it has
been scientifically studied with thousands of children, but no, it was
from one man's observations of one baby.
There
are many other theories that have be foisted upon the world by so-called
educated people that are out of fictional works made up by the mind of a
man. You see when you write fiction, you can make anything work, but in
real life, it doesn’t work, as it is contrary to God’s universal
laws that govern how things really work. That, by the way, is why
you’d better not read fiction, even so called 'good fiction', as you can
be badly misled. (This is why we warn against stuff like Harry
Potter) Other theories, I have since learned, came directly
through the person’s contact and communication with evil spirits!
I
started my quest through the rubbish heaps of Satan’s counterfeit
wisdom, with the study of Yoga. Influence by the popular movie of the
life of Gandhi, I studied first his writings, then yoga theory and
philosophy. Yoga, first used as a method to prepare Hindus for death, it
is now popularly claimed to be a road to ‘incredible health and well being’.
The
principles of diet, morals, dress and exercise are somewhat correct, but based on spiritualistic principles of universal
energy, the
occult, spiritualistic baggage that Yoga attaches to these things. Yoga
is a disguise for spiritualistic theory, self hypnosis, and devil
worship. I will warn you that the ultimate end of Yoga is not super
health, but rather demon oppression and enslavement.
Buddhism,
the same way, has a lot of ‘good’ philosophy and health advice and
teaches you to sit around and meditate – you know, we are supposed to meditate, but not that way!
We are not supposed to
meditate by emptying the mind and opening it up to allow the devil to
dump in it! We meditate by taking the Words of God and putting them into
our mind and focusing our mind to understand, while asking for the Holy
Spirit to teach us how these things are to become part of our lives. By
doing this we think God’s thoughts after Him and it lifts and
recreates us. God’s Word has great power to change us as we think on
it and lay it up in our minds. These false systems of religion have discipline and methods that one is to use to lift ones own self up by his own boot-laces, as it were. Many teach a series of steps that you seek to accomplish one at a time. Man can’t change himself at all, but he thinks he can get around that if he just breaks the change down to a series of baby-steps that he can work on one at a time.
So people in these religions sadly wear away their lives
always hoping that if they try hard enough and long enough the big
change will come and ‘ye shall be as gods!’ Oh, if you don’t make
it in this life, you can have assurance that you will be reincarnated to
keep on trying. Again there are always some, who are able to make a
convincing display of accomplishment of the physical feats of these
religions and so become known as ‘Masters’ or ‘Gurus’ and then
teach others.
These
things are such a pitfall as they lead you on, always expecting that
just around the next corner is the ‘real breakthrough’ and things
will really change if you just hang in long enough. You do accomplish
certain disciplines and improvements physically and you just know
you’ll get the rest in time.
Self-help
programs are like this too- you keep reaching out to that ‘carrot on
the stick’ thinking- this time I really have it, only to have it
recede before you. You are ever learning, but never come to a knowledge
of the truth and when you get in deep enough, they teach you that there
really isn’t any thing such as solid truth anyway! So you float along
in the devil’s fogs and mists always hoping for something real but
always finding it just around the corner, or just beyond the next level
or maybe you’ll get it in the next self-help seminar.
With
the things of the Lord, there is solid, authoritative truth; and even
though one can go on learning forever and not exhaust the bounties of
the Lord, as soon as you submit to Him you are given real solid evidence
and have something to stand on that makes sense. “Taste and see that
the Lord is good.” God invites us, “Take of the water of life
freely.” When we have a “thus saith the Lord” then we know what
the truth is, we don’t have to suppose and wonder.
Another
thing that all these systems of eastern and related philosophies have in
common, is that they all cultivate pride. Because as you progress in
Buddhism, Taoism, martial arts, Yoga or such things you become more
proud and self centered. They teach humility, but it is an external type
of ‘wearing of sackcloth’ put on to disguise the pride within.
These incredible ‘powers’ that these ones develop, are all
from the power of the devil but they think it is from themselves. Now
there are things that one can naturally develop, such as skill,
dexterousness, agility, strength, balance, technique, but exactly where
your ability leaves off and demonic assistance begins, is not really
discernable. When you find out that you have para-normal or supernatural
powers in some line then you are really proud. You feel your mind is
superior to others and is so highly developed and all that. Wow! What I
can do! The more you are able to accomplish in your own strength, the more proud and disdainful you become. That pride is a great barrier to really accepting the Lord, because you think you know certain things, and you can do certain things, and you have certain ‘powers’ within you and all these things bordering on spiritualism, make it hard to totally die daily to self and bow as a penitent at Jesus feet, admitting your hopeless lost-ness.
Satan
leads you on by giving you just enough success to keep you wanting
more;
but remember, he can’t give you total success, real victory, because
he doesn’t even have it to give you. Only God can give you that. All
Satan can really give you are novelties and parlor tricks, they are
unreal and largely meaningless performances; the only real thing he has
to give you is eternal death!
He
specializes in feelings and illusions; this is Satan’s realm, making
something appear real when it isn’t and he uses these things so
much in these pagan religions because he
can give you impressions and feelings to tantalize you and lead you into
his traps. So please realize that we must never have a religion
that is based on feelings and impressions!
New Age teachers can be as deceiving as the theories are. This
writer once took a series of treatments from a man who was the head
of a new-age modality school. I was under the impression that he had studied and
worked with this all his life, and because he was Japanese, of course, I
felt he had learned his 'art' from the ‘Masters’. I later learned he had
taken a couple treatments in Canada from a lady, studied a short time and
set up his business. This ‘great base
of knowledge’ that I was believing in, had no existence in fact at
all!
We must make our choices based on what the Bible teaches is acceptable in the sight of the Lord. Practices based on ‘energy’ theory, balancing of forces, eastern religions and such are not under His blessing even if they seem to be ‘natural’ to us.
Without God, there
are no batteries included and even though effects might be experienced,
no lasting good can come of it and Satan may use it as the doorway to
come in and destroy your soul, your family, and others through your influence.
Angels of God will preserve his people while they walk in the path of duty; but there is no assurance of such protection for those who deliberately venture upon Satan's ground. There is danger in departing in the least from the Lord's instruction. When we deviate from the plain path of duty, a train of circumstances will arise that seems irresistibly to draw us farther and farther from the right. It is vital that we realize that these practitioners of occult based therapies, and religions, often have demons backing them and the hypnotic power involved can deceive any one who puts himself in their sphere of influence. I know of many times when God protected me so that such power was not able to take hold of me; but I want to warn- please don’t feel that it is safe to investigate such things and that God will protect you while you satisfy your curiosity.
I
don't know how I came out- by God's incredible mercy is all I can say.
God plucked me from the fire , He opened my eyes and led me out step by
step- I did one thing when I got into Yoga and stuff- I think it was the
only thing that allowed God to pluck me from Satan's fist. When I was
taught that
I was to choose a Guru, and to follow him completely in my training, I
thought a lot about this, and then I chose Jesus! I now know that was an
insult to Him in a way, but I know he accepted me as His student and He
led me out! If I would have chosen a man, I feel for sure, I would have
perished. Oh what a
loving Saviour we have! Patient beyond anything we can imagine. Remember, God is the LIFE-GIVER, He has placed the living power of His Word in the Bible. This is the only real power and if we turn to Jesus, He will guide us to plug into it.
We certainly don’t need to run after Satan,
the author of death, to have something from him.
Can’t you see what his game is? By getting people looking to each
other and pagan rituals and ideas, he keeps them from
looking to God and plugging into REAL POWER!
Remember,
don’t depend on feelings to show you guidelines as to what is right or
wrong, or what you should or shouldn’t do. Feelings and sensations and
impressions and ‘wonderful experiences’ are all Satan’s
specialties to deceive, manipulate and lure man to destruction. It can
be so real! You can be so sure you are seeing wonderful light when all
is darkness! If you follow your own ideas, or the ideas of any man,
ancient or modern, you walk in the sparks of your own kindling, not in
God’s heavenly light and the Batteries are Not Included- there is no
real power!
I
urge you, dear ones, don’t leave God’s table, where on are heaped
all the treasures of eternity and the universe, to seek for scraps of
truth in Satan’s dumpster. Everything worth having has already been
given to us in the Living Word. God will give you much more; wonderful heartfelt Joy and
Peace through His Word and in harmony with His truth. The security of
belonging to Jesus, who loves us, is better than any of Satan’s
counterfeits. Take God’s inspired writings, pray for guidance- ask God
for the Holy Spirit to be your personal Teacher, Your Master, (He never
rejects a student!) bring to Him whatever questions you have and allow
Him to lead you into all truth. |
