POSTED 05 MAY, 2005

Mystical Tsunami

by Mark Huey
mhuey@outreachisrael.net

The naive Messianic community has been primed for a surging tide of mysticism, that like a tsunami of counterfeit teaching, is getting ready to batter the unsuspecting beaches of those attempting to walk in the Hebraic Roots of our faith. Tremors discerned have been coming in mounting influences, but almost in concert with the Summer movie releases is a significant wave of deception that is coming to a gathering in your neighborhood. My friends and fellow brothers and sisters in Messiah Yeshua: be warned!

In recent months, as the tide has been rising, those Believers imbedded on the shifting sands of sensationalism, yet ostensibly hungering for the wisdom and understanding of what the Holy Scriptures communicate, are susceptible to error because they are not firmly anchored on the Rock of Salvation. The insidious nature of ear tickling teachings that have been lapping the shores are now gaining momentum as the enemy is launching his offensive. Paradoxically, an array of unsuspecting emissaries—who in their collective ignorance may not even know that they are being used to disseminate the lethal elixir of mysticism that mixes the profane with the holy—are making their rounds throughout the Messianic movement.

Buried deep in the bowels of spiritual waters is a tidal wave of ancient errant instruction that is surfacing on the horizon and heading your way. Do not be fooled by or enamored with those who bring forth these primordial revelations. Instead, cling to the Rock, test all the spirits, abide in Him, and cry out to the Holy One for discernment regarding what you read and/or hear from those who profess these “deeper” understandings.

Like watchmen on the wall, we can only warn you and pray that you will have the ears to hear and the eyes to see what is coming at this hour. May the Holy One in His mercy, have compassion on all of us (Amos 5:15).

With this in mind, Outreach Israel Ministries and TNN Online have been thoroughly examining and researching these, and related topics, over the past year. TNN Online editor J.K. McKee has just released an article entitled, “The Effect of Mysticism and Gnosticism on the Messianic Movement,” that we will be e-mailing to our subscribers in a three part series. I highly recommend you read and forward this article to others you may know who are succumbing to the influence of this treacherous misinformation. Over the years we have witnessed many, who in their search for “truth,” have begun to engage various “slippery slopes” emanating from mysticism. In too many cases, such individuals have been persuaded to deny the Divinity and Messiahship of Yeshua. Since the punishment for trampling on the blood of Yeshua is quite severe according to the author of Hebrews, our concern is heightened:

“For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned” (Hebrews 6:4-8).

Please keep this admonition from the Apostle John in mind, as you encounter these approaching spiritual waves designed to sweep you into the pit:

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

Finally, let these words from the Apostle Peter be a sobering reminder that what we are bracing for this Summer is not a new tactic of the evil one, but one that he has employed by his minions down through the ages:

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet. These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved. For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Yeshua the Messiah, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘A dog returns to its own vomit,’ and, ‘A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire’” (2 Peter 2:1-22).

Nothing more needs to be said. Keep vigilant in your pursuit of the Lord, who alone gives eternal life!

Declaring His truths until the restoration of all things…

Mark Huey (B.A., Vanderbilt University in History and Graduate Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) is the Director of Outreach Israel Ministries (www.outreachisrael.net). He is the author of several books, including: TorahScope, Volumes I & II, and Counting the Omer: A Daily Devotional Toward Shavuot. He is also co-author of Hebraic Roots: An Introductory Study.