The emperor has no clothes on!

God spoke to me a number of weeks ago, but I have been so swamped with work of late and other commitments, that I have not had the chance to properly type this out until now.

It was the morning after posting these posts on the site, so this sets the context for what I heard: http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/derren-brown-instant-conversion-and-slain-in-the-spirit/ and  http://endtimespropheticwords.wordpress.com/2008/03/30/modern-day-signs-and-wonders-hypnotism-and-trancework/   The previous couple of posts about Benny Hinn ‘killing’ someone by his antics, and then the soulish Holy Laughter also tie in, as it is all the same theme – on deception in the church, and people accepting the false and counterfeit for the true.

Anyway, immediately upon awaking that morning, I had a vision, and was reminded of the Hans Christian Anderson story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, and was shown how it was appropriate as an allegory of what is going on in much of today’s church (as a reminder for those long out of school, the emperor was fooled by scoundrels who said:  “We are two very good tailors and after many years of research we have invented an extraordinary method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible. As a matter of fact it is invisible to anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality.”    And so these scoundrels were hired by the emperor and fooled people – and if they did not directly fool, they managed to keep others quiet, by alluding that those who could not  see the worth of that they were doing were either stupid and incompetent. Consequently the emperor and others did not air their doubts, or speak out in case they were mocked or thought stupid – and so the charade was to get people into thinking a wonderful garment was being made for the emperor, when in fact it was all pretend, illusion, there was nothing actually there, it was not cloth invisible to the eye – it was nothing, the emperor was truly naked with nothing there. It was only a little boy who would not be fooled by the pretences and refused the panderings to pride who actually dared to say, ‘The emperor has no clothes!’.)

So in this vision, God was showing that many (note, I do not say all)  in supposedly spirit filled churches had no spiritual clothes on, although they thought  they had, as they had slayings in the spirit, tongues speaking and other goings on and other phenomena they thought to be signs and wonders sent from God. But many of these signs and wonders were actually nothing, they were no more real or ’supernatural’ than the signs and wonders performed by a stage illusionist or snake oil salesmen. Thus many were accepting what was in reality pretend, accepting the counterfeit for the true,  marketed by scoundrels or fools or both. In many cases, it wasn’t even that this stuff was spiritual – it was not God, and it was not even demonic spirits directly causing the manifestations (although they do  in some cases), – it was fleshly, it was nothing, pretend and illusion, based on human psychology and charlatans working a crowd like modern day Barnums. I refer to the recent case of the minister Glenn Smith of Shem Ministries International caught planting gemstones (he called it ’seeding’!) before a meeting at a Vineyard Church in Arizona, as another example of something that was not a demonic spiritual manifestation per se (although the deceit and charlatanism in the minister spurring this deception, and the false teaching accompanying it is  demonic inspired). And many of the ’slain in the spirits’ are psychologically and not demonically induced…. or are helped along by a firm push. We’ve all seen it happening or had it done to us. It seems the ‘power of God’ can apparently come for someone to fall over in the spirit when being prayed for, but to not actually heal them or do anything noteworthy, or do what they were actually being prayed for. It was thus an empty illusion – nothing. It was an experience that was deceiving. There are plenty of other examples of crowd working to induce holy laughter that is not spiritually inspired or all manner of other things. Read my posts about how, or watch, Rodney Howard Browne aka ‘The Holy Ghost Bartender’, working an audience, by laughing to get people in his audience laughing etc. The list goes on about how ministers intentionally work crowds.

It is time the church stood up and stopped accepting this mockery. For as long as she keeps on sinning by tolerating this charade, then the true power of God manifest amongst us will be in short supply.

***

I got this vision immediately upon awaking that day. Later, when I came to moderate the new comments posted overnight (that I had not yet obviously seen), I came across Paula Wagstaff’s comment (on the same topic): ‘Thank goodness that little boy finally spoke out and said ‘The Emperor has NO clothes’  –  which was an extra bit of confirmation.

Church – test and weigh your  spiritual clothes and see if they hold up to biblical scrutiny. You have nothing to fear and everything to gain, for if you find when testing that you recognise you are empty, wretched and naked, and poor rather than rich, then you can actually start in a place to get real, true, spiritual power, and real faith based on the word of God, and a real vision of what God wants, and a real place of consecration. And you will pray, obey and serve and keep on praying, obeying and serving til power comes -which it must, for God is a faithful God. If you find you are in fact, poor and wretched and naked, then all the better for someone like I pointing this out to you than to remain in your delusion, and so with the Spirit I will say to you: ‘I counsel you to buy clothes…and salve for your eyes to see.’ There are wonderful garments for the Bride to wear – but it is time she threw off her filthy rags – and/or cover her shameful nakedness….when all the time she thought she was wearing an amazing spiritual invisible dress. But she was all the times naked. The world can see it, why can’t the church?