It would be interesting to see how many verses the "Old Testament" state that Yahweh has a son. If we take the phrase "image of God" as literally as possible, then that too would be an allusion to the fact that God has a son, though there's only so much that can be gleaned from that phrase before things start to break down. But that's not the point of this post. Today, we're going to focus on the questions "what is his name" and "what is his son's name", or more accurately, we're going to focus on what they are not.
You might be thinking that the Sacred Names movement is responsible for the trend of butchering God's name (and his son's name). And you would be partially correct. But the first historical instance actually comes from the Hebrew scribes themselves. When vowel points were created for the Hebrew alphabet (called the "alef-bet"), and the scribes started making copies of the Bible that had these points on them, whenever they reached the name of God, they would deliberately put the wrong vowel points on that name. The vowel points used caused the name to be pronounced "Yehovah" (English equivalent is "Jehovah"), and these deliberately incorrect markings were to remind the reader to never pronounce God's name. Instead, they say "adonai", which is Hebrew for "lord". "Adonai" is God's title, not his name. And because God's people (including Christians) follow human rules rather than God's rules, the completely pagan law forbidding the name of God from ever being pronounced is followed in spite of the law of Yahweh!
Today, we have the Sacred Names movement and other movements butchering God's name to some degree other another. Some are not as bad as others. The one's that can be abbreviated "YHWH" in its transliteration, and contain three syllables at most are the least egregious of these butcherings. As for the rest (as far as I'm concerned), it's a different name, and therefore, a different god. One that masquerades as the God of the Bible! This deception is so much worse than the fake faith healers. Because one killed by a fake faith healer may still be raised to eternal life if their faith is ultimately in Yeshua instead of the "faith healers", but those who put their faith in these demons disguised as God will perish in the lake of fire!
21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' 23 And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" [Matthew 7:21-23; NKJV]
Again, different name, different god! And while we technically do not know with 100% certainty what God's name is thanks to the above-mentioned scribes (I believe it's "Yahweh"), we do know with 100% certainty what our Messiah's name is! It is "Yeshua" in Hebrew. Of course, that won't stop people from saying that it's really "Yahshua" because that means "God saves". This ignores the fact that (a) those who speak the language (rather than merely studying it to better understand Scripture) pronounce it "Yeshua", and (b) not every name that contains the "YH" is pronounced "Yah". Some names ("Benyamin" for example) are pronounced with "yah" instead of "ye".
And, just like with the name of God, changing that one syllable simply because of a lack of understanding of the Hebrew language is the least egregious of these mutilations of the Lord's name. And like with the first, I dare to say for the rest, different name means it's a different god! A different savior! The only exception to this rule would be if someone used "Yehoshua", but only because "Yeshua" is the contracted for of "Yehoshua", which literally means "God is salvation".
In the previous post, I exposed how some false prophets/teachers use certain verses to protect their dangerous teachings from Biblical scrutiny. In that post, I mentioned that some of these false teachers also claim to bring healing for those who need it, nevermind the physical injuries that may result from the other things that they do. I thought it would be good to expose these self-proclaimed "faith healers" for what they really are: Frauds!
The faith healing is actually one of the things that these people would have gotten right if they were going by what the Bible says. For Yeshua gave his disciples the authority to heal in his name (Matthew 10). And there are numerous places where he made it very clear that healing comes by faith. For instance, Luke 8:48. Too bad they're serving a false god with a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit. Deuteronomy 13 definitely comes into play here. And remember: the Deuteronomy 13 Test is not just us testing the teachers. It's also Yahweh testing us to see if we will keep his commandments or follow other gods. So even when the healings are real, that doesn't mean that what the healers are doing is Biblical. In fact, there's no guarantee that it's even from Yahweh. For most of these "faith healers" are part of the New Age cult, which is 100% witchcraft.
I saw a video on YouTube once where a girl with one leg shorter than the other went to a "faith healer" for the shorter leg to grow to be the same length as the other leg. Actually, this video was exposing the fraud of the faith healer. One thing that stuck out to me though was how the preacher was saying this very lengthy prayer for the healing to happen, which for some reason included a description of the process of the shorter leg growing to the same length as the other leg. Matthew 6:5-7 comes to mind here. But instead of the prayer being lengthy because the preacher thinks that Yahweh will hear him. The prayer is lengthy to distract from the fact that the healing is being faked right in front of everyone's eyes! The preacher was making it look like the girl was being healed when in reality he was slowly pulling the shoe that was on her shorter leg to match the position of the shoe on the longer leg. The girl's faith, along with the faith of her parents, was probably shattered by this fake healing. But the audience believed that it happened and praised God.
In another instance that I saw, the preacher proclaimed a healing of a lame man in the name of Jesus and the man stood up in the isle with the attention of everyone in the Church. The preacher then proceeded to throw the man's cane away. There's just one problem with the whole thing: The man that was allegedly healed wasn't lame in the first place and the cane was not his! It belonged to the woman next to him, who was still lame after the service. After the service was over, someone interviewed the man who was allegedly healed and he stated exactly that during the interview, but said nothing during the service. Neither did the man next to him, who was probably too heart-broken to be able to say anything. Oh, and these are instances where nobody was injured or killed from these healings.
By the way, I think I found one of the videos I was referring to. This is a video of an investigation conducted by ABC in the early 1990s.
In one instance that I heard about, the preacher proclaimed healing to a person with epilepsy, and who was on medication to prevent epileptic attacks. I do not remember if it was a man or a woman, but the person believed they were healed and stopped taking the medication. Some time later, this person drowned in a pool after having an epileptic attack while swimming.
In another instance I heard about, a woman diagnosed with cancer was punched in the stomach by the preacher, with the preacher proclaiming "you are healed" in front of the congregation. The woman fell to the ground as expected by the crowed (see last post). After a few minutes, she got up with her and the whole crowed believing she was healed. She died a few days later, and it is believed that the punch to the stomach is what finished her off.
Now, go read the Bible very carefully. Also, take note of Matthew 11:20-24 about the purpose of all of the healings and miracles that Yeshua did. All these things were intended to bring the people to repentance. But the slightest bit of research will reveal that these "faith healers" just want to make a name for themselves, and use their fraudulent healings and ministries to get rich! Glory to Yahweh comes second to these wicked people. And there is no bringing people to repentance. Neither is there any preaching of the Good News of salvation through faith in Yeshua!
By the way. If you do have a medical condition that is healed, make sure to go to your doctor to get that healing on your official medical record. so you can provide proof to anyone who asks, and as a testimony to your doctor, so that he or she may believe in Yeshua and be saved. And also so that if you ended up getting conned by the minister, then you will know it before your medical condition can threaten your life.
I myself have witnessed some faith healings. At one Messianic congregation I used to go to, the preacher was a huge Todd Bentley fan, and towards the end of one of the services, people were going up to get healed. I don't recall anyone falling over, though this was a long time ago, but I do remember there was one man who required an oxygen tank to breathe. He went up for healing and a few seconds later, let his oxygen equipment fall to the floor. This must have scared half the congregation because next week, the preacher addressed the congregation about how the doctors found that this man's oxygen levels were normal. The man continued to attend after that as long as I can remember, but I never saw the oxygen tank again. Also, unlike the video above, nobody was called up by name, and the prayers for healing was not blasted through the speakers. In fact, I think the microphones were turned off and the speakers were playing some music. Back then, I didn't know about the Deuteronomy 13 Test. But after that healing service, the congregation went off the deep end and I never heard of any more healings from there again. Then Todd Bentley got found out.
At another Messianic congregation I attended (this one referred to Todd Bentley condescendingly as "the angel worshiper"), there was an obese woman who was allegedly healed of some sort of knee condition. And while I wasn't there to see her alleged healing, I was well aware of the alleged healing but didn't really know who it was. Then one day I came into the building to see her collapsed on the floor with about 2 or 3 people standing around her, praying for her. Later, I found out that she was the one with the alleged healing. This congregation also went off the deep end, but more slowly than the first. And I don't know of any real healings from that congregation, though there may be a very few that I do not know about.
So what's going on at these two congregations? And I doubt that these are the only two congregations that this has happened to. What I think is happening is that they recognize that there should be healings happening all over the place, as the Bible says. And for a short time, healings do happen. But let's think about what inspired these places to have the faith that results in these healings. It was from the New Age movement, and these congregations didn't have the discernment necessary to distinguish between the Biblical and unbiblical teachings. And the New Age movement uses Biblical teachings as part of it's deception. So rather than staying true to Biblical doctrine once these healings start happening, they adopt the Biblical sounding heresies of the New Age movement and the healings stop. Then nobody can figure out why the healings stopped because everyone believes that the heresies that they have adopted are Biblical. As Hosea said in Hosea 4:6, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Also, these two congregations, while I was there, seemed to have no knowledge of the Deuteronomy 13 Test. And neither did I while I was attending them.
