Apotheosis is the self-elevation of man to deity status–man making himself his own god. This process began in the Garden of Eden and has continued unabated. In God’s church its all about government. Government is all about Who is in charge and how everyone else responds to the One in charge. In God’s church He commands and everyone obeys. The one we obey is the one we serve (Rom. 6:16). The one we serve is our master. Only those whose Master is the Biblical God are true saints. Note the circular progression: Obey=serve=recognition as Master=obey= serve …. The government of God operates in exactly this manner. As with man’s civil government which all are required to obey, everything is written. In the Church of God (not the denomination) His rules of life are written. Knowing that man would manipulate His Way to suit himself, God arranged to have His Way recorded so that His people would always have an unchanging standard to guide them through life. In order to keep man from using hammer and chisel on His Ten Commandments, He has hidden them so that to this day no one knows the location of the stone plates and the ark that houses them. Question: Who would be so arrogant, so self-exalting as to change the Words of God? Answer: Churchman, who is all about self-government.

Jesus tells us that the Words He spoke to and through His prophets and apostles did not originate with Him, but were given to Him by God the Father (Jn. 14:10). He also says that to reject any of His Words is to reject both Him and His Father (Jn. 12:48,49), and that only those who love Him will keep His Words (Jn. 14:23) and thereby abide in Him (Jn. 15:7).

Churchman reads those Scriptures, judges them and rejects their Author (Rom. 3:4). Note it: God says that when men judge His Word they are in fact judging Him, and that the judges are liars while He is true. The Counterfeit Church voids this warning it by creating doctrines more in line with her thinking, thereby declaring that she is true and God is the liar.

By hiding behind a facade of religiosity, churchman does not allow the rest of so-called Christianity to know that he rejects the Word of God as this would lower him in the eyes of millions of others who are doing the same thing. Each faker practices self-delusion by putting up a religious front while doing what all other fakers are doing. In sociological circles this is known as “impression management” whereby one strives to manage (formulate) other people’s impression of himself. While using God’s Word in religious speech, going to church, singing hymns, memorizing Scriptures, preaching, teaching, witnessing, etc., churchman practices mutual-impression management–each does to all others what all others are doing to him.

Religious man, like the world he emulates, has attained mastery in the art of self-delusion. Having listened to his hirelings tell him what he pays them to tell him, churchman has convinced himself that he is saved, born again and rapture-ready, thereby searing his conscience (1 Tim. 4:1,2) so that he builds his spiritual house on “doctrines of demons” borrowed from the world of heathenism. These doctrines include the Sunday Sabbath, the celebrations of Christmas, Easter and New Years, such beliefs as original sin, replacement theology, going to heaven or hell at death, the immortal soul, denominations, the rapture, the death of the Law, etc.

By rejecting God’s Word and substituting his own, man has perfected apotheosis–man has made himself his own god. No longer constrained by the Biblical God’s strict Way, man does as he pleases, attaches God’s name to his doings and declares them “the truth.” For example, though God condemns the celebration of Christmas (Jer. 10:3), man defies Him by doing what the heathen have been doing for thousands of years; though God condemns divisions in the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:4), man divides himself into hundreds of denominations; though God commands the observance of His Sabbath (the 4th Commandment), man defies Him by choosing another day, etc. A list of all of the offending Scriptures and churchman’s improved, more user-friendly substitutions for them would be lengthy as the introductory posting on this website attests. When churchman is confronted with God’s Word he simply declares himself saved, thereby nullifying any need to believe or obey the One he claims has saved him. As Winston Churchill so aptly put it: “Man occasionally stumbles over the truth. But he then gets up, dusts himself off and continues on his way.” And why not? Apothesis having elevated him to godhood, churchman need only answer to himself, making it impossible for him to be wrong. And Satan smiles.  Have a comment or question? Contact me at LPJ4142@gmail.com or P.O. Box 2352 Athens, Tx 75751 USA or (903) 677-5642. English only.