Let's Not Do the Twist

It seems like there's a type of theology that has become popular these days, into which certain errant doctrines can be shoehorned. I really don't know if there is a name for it, but it's the kind of thinking that allows for a certain "openness" by God to allow His mind to be changed, for whatever reason.

One thing this might explain (for me) is how some people deal with God's foreknowledge and foreordination, and what they believe about their ability to affect their own destiny. Because they see Him changing His mind about things, some people teach that prayer can "change God's mind," about future events. Maybe a reading of a text like Jeremiah, Chapter 18 would clear that up. True repentance from evil might show God's mercy concerning a future judgment for that evil, but He isn't changing His mind. He is showing mercy to a repentant heart, or a repentant people.

Look at Jonah. He understood that God does not change. He had every confidence that God would be rich in mercy and compassion toward the Ninevites if they repented of their evil. It's His nature to be so. God keeps His covenants. He keeps every promise He makes. It wasn't that God would change His mind that angered Jonah. Rather, it was because Jonah knew God is consistent, and proved that when Nineveh showed repentance.

29 "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent."

I bring this up because a man I know told me the other night that he and his wife are learning (at their church, presumably) that they can "speak" things into existence. I told him that I was curious, and wanted to know which Bible verse says that? He told me, "The word bears that out. That's how we got salvation. We confessed Jesus as Lord and Believed that he died on the cross for our sins." I was a little surprised that he would make a statement like that, as if by confessing Jesus, and believing He died for us somehow translates into some sort of power we possess that speaks our salvation into existence.

"Okay, you repented of your sins and placed your trust in Him for your salivation, right?" I asked. When he answered yes, I said, "So you placed your trust in Him to be your provider."

He told me that the Word states that it is out of the Abundance of the heart, that the mouth speaks and quoted Romans 10:9-10 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." He asked me, "Do you see the confessing and the believing part there? If you believe what your confessing, then it will come to pass. See? Confession. Your words are containers of power. You can edify, or you can tear a person down," he continued. "There is life and death in the power of the tongue."

I tried to place his previous statement into context by having him read from Matthew 12:34, where Jesus was confronting the Pharisees for their disbelief and their blasphemy, "O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." His response was to say, "See? They were speaking evil, and in Genesis 1, God spoke it and it happened."

To be honest, I was confused by his logic. I said, "Okay, but the Bible says that the power of life and death belong to the Lord, and that He is the Creator."

He then said something that was just about as off the wall as it gets. "God had Faith that what ever he said, it would come to pass. It's true that He's the Creator, but aren't we made in the Image of God Himself? And hasn't he given us the Power to create things?"

" I'm confused bro," I told him that, "Faith is not something ordered of God for Himself. He doesn't need faith. We do. He is all-powerful. We are just little finite wimps."

"Didn't He ask Adam what the Animals would be named?" he returned.

"He gave Adam a job to do, yes." I responded, a bit confused.

He then told me that the important thing was that he and his wife were looking to God to provide their needs, and since he seemed to be getting a little upset, I let the conversation drift to other things. The truth is that if you are believing that you have the power to create things by speaking them into existence, you are believing a lie from the pit, and it is the same deception that Eve fell for. It's fueled by pride.

I can be such a blockhead at times and it only occurred to me later that in that in our conversation, my friend, in saying (incorrectly) that God asked Adam what the names of the animals would be, that he was essentially saying that when Adam spoke the animals names, the animals appeared. He is implying that Adam spoke the animals into existence by faith, because he was made in the image of God. That isn't what the Bible says, and that's the problem with thinking that God is open to any influence we might have regarding His will. We are to follow His will. We can't determine it for Him.

Our reflection in a mirror is not capable of doing anything, it is merely a reflection. God created us in His "image," and we are no more capable of doing the things He does under our own power, than our mirrored reflection is of driving a car. To say otherwise, is a grand twisting of the Word of God. We can't change the mind of God, and we can't create things by speaking about them in faith, or speaking faith "at" them. If someone thinks otherwise, whether they know it or not, they are diminishing God in their minds, and trying to place themselves on equal footing with Him.

This kind of talk shouldn't surprise me. Adam and Eve only had a few lines in their Bible, and they blew it. We have quite a few more verses in ours, so there are just more things in it for mankind to twist. The deal is, they are just twisting the same old thing. With all the history in it though, how do its readers miss the warnings? Shameful.