This is the seventh in a series of messages on the book of Job. This message was delivered at Hillcrest Baptist Church on the evening of April 14, 2013. This message deals with the heresy that is the word of faith movement (aka name it and claim it). This post contains an audio recording of the sermon, plus my sermon notes. Please note that the notes are not a full transcript. To get the entire message, you’ll need to listen to the Audio.
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SERMON NOTES:
Job pt. 7 / Word of (false) Faith
Job 22:28
NAME IT AND CLAIM IT: (Word of Faith)
Psalms 37:4
“Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”
Oh how these verses have been misused.
The Lord is not some genie in a bottle, here to grant our every wish, although some people believe that. Hence the errors of the word of faith movement.
DIRECT QUOTE FROM A WORD OF FAITH FALSE TEACHER:
“As you begin to mature in the Lord, God wants you to come to the place where you decree things and speak them into existence. As a believer, you have that authority and it is scriptural for you to do it. You can take authority over problems, difficulties, circumstances and situations. You can decree that fear and confusion be gone from your life and those around about you. This is part of your inheritance as a child of God.”
ERROR 1: GOD IS OBLIGATED TO OBEY THE COMMANDS OF PEOPLE.
According to this teaching, we can tell God what to do.
In contrast, God’s will determines the answers to our prayers
Romans 8:26-27
ERROR 2: WE ARE LITTLE GODS
According to this teaching, we are equal with God, in that we have the power of creation.
To speak things into being, confers on us the power of God, to believe such is blasphemous.
Genesis 1:1
Genesis 1:27
God created man in His image, not as His equal.
If we had this type of power, as implied in the word of faith movement, what need would we have of a savior? Why did Christ have to die? Why did Christ have to be made “lower than the angels” when He became a man, if man is equal to God?
Hebrews 2:9
Why did Jesus have to give up His equality with God to become a man, if man is equal to God?
Philippians 2:5-8
ERROR 3: WE HAVE NO NEED OF GOD
According to this teaching, we have no need of God. We can solve our own problems.
Proverbs 3:5-6
The Bible teaches reliance on God, and that we are to cast our cares on Him.
1 Peter 5:7
Why would we do that if we could solve our own problems?
ERROR 4: GOD’S FAVOR RESULTS IN RICHES.
All of this implies that that we could use these supposed god-like powers to attain riches. Many false teachers stress that point.
Why not, wealth is what our sin-depraved minds would naturally desire.
However, If the purpose of our prayer is financial gain, then we are in opposition to the Word of God.
1 Timothy 6:9-11
Righteousness, Godliness, faith, love and patience are what we should be pursuing.
The two verses that we looked at, are the ones that are primarily used as an explicit teaching that we can decree things into being, but. . .
We can’t speak our troubles away.
We can’t speak our diseases away.
We can’t speak ourselves into prosperity.
Speaking good things will not necessarily cause good things to happen.
One who delights in The Lord, will have the same desire as The Lord. We are told that if we ask something in Jesus’ name, He will do it.
Here’s the thing, you can’t pray outside the will of the Father, and in Jesus’ name at the same time.
To pray in the name of Jesus, you MUST be praying within the will of God. Jesus Himself set the example when He taught the disciples how to pray, and He said “your will be done.”
Luke 11:2
God is not here to grant our selfish desires, but to do His will. Contrary to what Eliphaz tried to tell Job, you can’t declare something into being.
Contrary to what the Joel Osteen’s and Kenneth Copeland’s of the world would have you to believe, you can’t declare something into being.
as for Job 22:28
You have to understand that the counsel of Job’s friends was wrong, and God rebuked them for it.
Job 42:7
We don’t declare to God how things are going to be!
We don’t make the rules, God does!
We can’t speak things into being, only God has that power.
We ASK God for what we want, and if you want your prayers answered, you will ask according to His will, not yours.
John 14:13
“So that the Father may be glorified in the Son”
God answers prayer for His glory, not for ours. If something doesn’t glorify God, then saying “in the name of Jesus, Amen” isn’t going to help.
In Defense: The Blog 
Posted on April 18, 2013
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