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Playing God, The Lust for PowerPart 3
By Dave Hunt
Ye Shall Be as Gods
Like Finis Dake in Gods Plan for Man1 televangelist Benny Hinn
claims that Adam andEve were super beings who could fly faster and
higher than birds, even into space, andoutswim the best fish under
water: Adam was... the first Superman... with one thought hewould
be on the moon... he could swim [underwater] and not run out of
breath and so didhis wife... they were both super beings.2 Consider
the following from other Positive Con-fession leaders:
Man was designed or created by God to be the god of this world
(Robert Tilton, Kenneth
E. Hagin, Charles Capps).3
We have all the capabilities of God (Kenneth Copeland).4
Creative power was in Gods mouth. It is in your mouth also
(Charles Capps).5
We are in God; so that makes us part of God (Kenneth
Copeland).6
Satanist leader Michael Aquino stated with conviction on the
Oprah Winfrey Show, Weare not servants of some God; we are our own
gods!7 In at least partial agreement, Ken-neth Copeland and Paul
Crouch insist on TBN that they are indeed gods. You are a
littlegod, declare Copeland and Benny Hinn on TBN. I am a little
god! exults Paul Crouch oninternational television, and condemns to
hell the heresy hunters who say this teachingisnt biblical.
Rodney R. Romney, pastor of Seattles First Baptist Church,
embraces and teachesalmost the entire spectrum of occultism that we
are exposing. In his book Journey to InnerSpace: Finding
God-in-UsRomney writes, To know God, to love God, and to
understand
God is finally to realize ones own godhood.8 The book has been
republished with all itsheresies intact since we exposed it in The
Seduction of Christianity. In that part of the bookwhich he says he
received from the higher source by listening9 (like the two
listenersreceived God Calling),Romney records these words from
God:
Through prayer and meditation the individual divinity of your
being unites withomniscience, and the microcosm becomes one with
the macrocosm... this sacred place ofyour inner knowing... is the
stepping-stone to the stars.10
To teach that man is God, a god, or equal to God, and that faith
is a force that worksaccording to certain laws, differs little from
atheism. Either way, there is no being in theuniverse who is mans
superior. So it is in the New Age movement.
Freemasonry, too, in its secret rituals, promotes this central
lie of the serpent. In hisexplanation of the 18th degree, Rex R.
Hutchens, 33rd degree, states with approval, Themost ancient
mythologies speak of men made gods. In the lecture for the 23rd
degree,Albert Pike commends Pythagoras for having taught the
necessity of personal holiness toqualify as man for admission to
the society of gods. The ritual for the 31st degree deter-mines
whether the candidate deserves to dwell among the gods. The
candidates escortis the Egyptian god Horus. Isis, Horus mother, is
the first to speak. Eventually the godThoth reports that a majority
believe the man worthy to dwell with the gods. Osiris ren-ders the
final judgment, giving his approval as well.11
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The Mormon Church has its own variation on this theme: As man
is, God once was;and as God is, man may become. Mormonisms God is
an exalted man who, like thecandidate in Masonry, attained to
godhood through much effortand every Mormon malehopes to do the
same. In 1974, the late Mormon President Spencer W. Kimball
declared:
In each of us is the potentiality to become a God.... Man can
transform himself... he has
in him the seeds of Godhood that can grow. He can lift himself
by his very bootstraps.12
Notes:1 Finis J. Dake, Gods Plan for Man(Dake Bible Sales,
1977), p. 35.2Praise the Lord Show, Trinity Broadcasting Network,
December 25, 1991; as cited in G. Richard
Fisher and M. Kurt Goedelman with W. E. Nunnally, Stephen F.
Cannon, and Paul R. Blizard, TheConfusing World of Benny
Hinn(Personal Freedom Outreach, 1997), p. 134.
3 Robert Tilton, Gods Laws of Success(Word of Faith Publishing,
1983), pp. 170-71; Kenneth E.Hagin, Plead Your Case(Tulsa, 1985),
p. 3; Charles Capps, Gods Image of You(HarrisonHouse, 1985), p. 34,
etc.
4 Kenneth Copeland, Questions and Answers, in Believers Voice of
Victory, June 1986, p. 14.5 Charles Capps, Seedtime and
Harvest(Harrison House, 1986), p. 53.6 Copeland, Believers Voice,
June 1986.
7 From a written transcript of the Oprah Winfrey Show, February
17, 1988.8 Rodney R. Romney, Journey to Inner Space: Finding
God-in-Us(Abingdon, 1986), p. 26.9 Ibid., p. 121.10 Ibid., pp.
138-39.11 Rex. R. Hutchens, 33rd degree, A Bridge to Light.12Salt
Lake City Tribune, September 18, 1974; October 7, 1974.
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