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by Charlie Wolcott

“Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.” ~Romans 16:17-18

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been writing about words and how they are used for brainwashing people into believing false teachings. The church is not exempted from the process. Jesus warned that in the End Times, there will be a Great Deception that is so powerful that without God’s direct interference and shorting of those days, even the elect would be deceived. I personally believe that Evolution and the ideas of Deep Time will be the origins model for the One-World religion of the Antichrist and the False Prophet, or at least a precursor to it. There have been many false teachings throughout church history from the Gnostics to the Roman Catholic Church indulgences and now through Deep Time among many others, but few false teachings have corrupted the church of God as Deep Time has. I truly abhor this teaching because of what it has done to the church, producing many other false teachings, primarily because it stole the reading and interpretation of Scripture from God and left it in the hands of carnal, sinful man to treat as he saw fit. Many of the other false teachings we face today come as a fruit of this heresy.

Scripture warns against false teachers and the above verse is just one of many. The phrase I want to emphasize is how these false teachers get their message through: with smooth words and flattering speech. Brainwashing is in the church and it has so worked its way through the seminaries and the pastors that the watchmen who are awake and speaking against it are being mocked and ridiculed. The very places where the protectors of the Doctrine of Truth, the Gospel of Christ, and the Scriptures that contain them are supposed to dwell, have become dens of wolves and traitors to Christ. When the prophets in her midst conspire against God and devour the people for selfish gain, expect judgment.

But don’t just blame the false preachers. Also blame the false converts in the church who bring in these false preachers. Both are to blame for this: the preachers for brainwashing the people, and the people for desiring to be brainwashed instead of hearing the truth. But these are Satan’s plants and the goats among the sheep, the tares among the wheat. The question is, how do these people get past the sheep? How do these false teachers and false converts get around virtually unchecked? Here is one way: brainwashing.

Let me say this as straight as I can: the elect, the Christian, is not immune to brainwashing. When a Christian, who has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him, hears a false teaching, there will be a check in their spirit about it. The Christian who listens will escape trouble; the one who does not will not. Let me also say this, most of the brainwashing a Christian has faced was done before they were saved. A big part of the Christian life is a process of renewing our mind, not conforming to the pattern of this world – undoing the brainwashing. I’ll address that in more detail next week. But here is the grave danger, most people in churches have been brainwashed into thinking they have been saved, when in reality they have not been.

Words have meaning, and they have certain images that are associated with them. Think of words like “salvation,” “God,” “love,” “Christian,” “brothers,” and so on. Like any field of study, Christianity has its own “academic language,” in which you need to spend some time in the faith to start learning them. We often call it “Christianese.” Now, I am not a fan of big, academic language because often using big, fancy words is code for “not having a clue, but I want to sound smart.” The false teacher knows the Christian language and knows how to speak it. It would be wise to treat any person who can speak the Christian language the same way you would any person who can speak in the language of physics, geology, math, politics, or business. Their ability to speak the language does not make them right, or even an expert in that field. It only means they can speak the language. You still must test them on what they are saying.

The brainwashing takes place when the false teacher uses the same words but then begins describing a different image with those words. Christian theology has been replaced with humanism. The creation, marriage, God’s love, His mercy, the angels, Jesus, the cross, salvation, all of it was for the glory of God. Yet when you hear most teachings and read most books about those topics today, most are for the happiness of man and for the benefit of man. Same terms, different image. When the Gospel is presented, it’s no longer about God and what God did, but about you and how special you are. Same language, but very different message.

Just look at God himself. When I listen to the descriptions of God in many Christian circles and books I read, I seriously question how much of the Bible they’ve read. What I hear is not a description of God at all. It’s a description of self, either what they think God should do or be like, or what they would do if they were God. But you almost cannot say the name “God” or “Jesus” without getting a myriad of different images and ideas. Why? The answer is simple: Because very few are teaching who God truly is, and we have been brainwashed into thinking of God in terms of a general higher power or Deistic sense. I can’t think of a sermon where it was about the attributes of God. I’ve GIVEN sermons and talks about it. But I can’t think of a sermon where the sermon was simply about the character and nature of God. Many have included comments about them, but the sermon wasn’t about it. As a result, the preacher might be thinking of the true God, but the congregant may not be. Or the preacher might be thinking of his own image of God, and the congregant might be thinking of the True God. The latter is dangerous, because that’s one of the ways the false teachings are able to get by. The congregation thinks the message is about truth because the language is there, but the message is a lie from hell.

No matter where we turn, there are false teachings in politics, business, academia, and the church, and all will use brainwashing tactics and techniques to get their models and their teachings through to deceive the believer, and specifically, the simple-minded. What the Bible calls “simple” here are those who choose not to be diligent to study Scripture and to test everything you hear with Scripture as the standard. The simple are the gullible, and they’ll fall for anything that pleases the ear or makes life easier. But the wise are those who build upon Jesus and His Word.

There is a solution to not be brainwashed. Next week, I’ll share about how to withstand the deceptions and not be duped: by learning, studying, and believing the Words of Truth.

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