Category Archives: the soul

WHAT TO DO ABOUT FALSE CONVERSIONS Part 1

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in altar call, fake Jesus, false doctrine, the cross, The fake Jesus, the great falling away, the soul

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False conversions.  I call them “counterfeit births.” I suspect that false conversions are the major sign of the great falling away. Clearly, it is rather obvious, even to the least spiritual among us in the world and in the religious world that there is certainly something wrong when there exists such a state of utter religious confusion and doctrinal mumbo jumbo.  An understanding of today’s dilemma was prophesied by the Apostle Paul in his revelation to Timothy when Paul wrote that in the last days, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.

Evidently, the primary demonic strategy is deception. Deception is the first stage of the falling away process. One of the goals of this blog is to un-complicate things. So I personally took the first step of self-examination.  Once I discovered that there is a fake Jesus, the first thing that I did was to confront the issue of my own salvation, head on.  Since it was so supernatural in nature,  after more than two decades, I asked myself “Pam, are you REALLY saved?  I did what Paul recommended to the Corinthians as recorded in II Cor. 13:5: I examined myself to see if I be in the faith.  I proved my self.  I examined myself to see if Jesus Christ be IN me.

Now to be IN me is not a physical or a soulical thing.  Jesus is not IN my heart because my heart is a part of my soul.  No, by the power of the Holy Ghost, He is in my spirit.  I examined myself by John 15, to see if there is any fruit in my life.  What is fruit?  I will address that in yet another post.  However, there were 3 things I looked for.  Did I experience godly sorrow that worked repentance in me.  Did I see my own sinful nature?  Was I drawn to the cross or led to the Lord’s sacrifice by the Holy Ghost.  Did I understand the resurrection the day I was saved.  I realized that I have to first understand it in order to believe that a dead man lives in a physical body, who is now seated at the right hand of God.

I knew BEFORE I even examined my salvation that I was born again.  However, I examined it ANYWAY.

So what do you do about a false conversion.  You start with YOU.  More in part 2.

SERMONS, DEMONS AND COMMUNAL INTOXICATION

12 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in African American Denominations, altered state of consciousnes ASC, altered states ASC, charismatic witchcraft, EXCERPTS FROM PAM'S BOOKSpAM, gifts of the Spirit, preaching, sermons, spirit, soul and body, the soul

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I was a preacher for almost 3 decades. I preached an average of one sermon a week for 20 years, with 8 of those years preaching 3 sermons a week.  On one occasion in the pulpit, I felt a strange power come upon me where it seemed I was “not myself.” I was in a rather strong altered state of consciousness. I thought is was an extra powerful anointing of the Holy Ghost. IT WAS NOT!!!

Pam Sheppard, "THE LORD LED ME OUT AFTER 25 YEARS AS A PASTOR"

When I was sent to church for the first  in 1979, I had never heard a sermon and so when I was informed in 1981 that upon entering ministry, I would be required to preach a trial sermon on October 25, 1981, I had no idea what a sermon was. In the summer of ’81, I began to preach in my sleep, in preparation for the October day of trial. I also walked around all day for about 30 days, muttering “sermons.”

I thought that I was under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. It took about 25 years for me to find out that in those early and strange days, I was under the “anointing” of the religious demon assigned to me. I thank God then when   DID enter the pulpit to preach and pastor, it was only ONE time in at least 2 thousand sermons that that same power came upon me. I have since discovered that it is a demonic power, in no way, the Holy Ghost.

Oh yes! Demons enjoy preaching. I came out of a denomination where men who were adulterers, fornicators, perverts, closet homosexuals could preach so hard, that they could affect even me, in spite of what I knew about the intimate, sometimes secret details of their lives.At least 10 times a year, 50 ministers gathered at various regional church functions and a hanful would preach at these gatherings.

When they were preaching, I  harneseds down my soul from being overpowered, but there were times when I could not. Their power was too strong.  I often wondered about it over the years. How could these corrupt men overtake my soul with one of their sermons in spite of my resistance to it? Could this be God? Would God use such sinful creatures to preach HIS WORD???!!!

It took two decades or more to find out the answer to that question. The answer is NO!!!! The Holy Ghost does not anoint such preachers but the devil DOES!!!. It is called communal intoxication by the founder of sociology, Max Weber.

Communal intoxication is defined by Weber as the supernormal ability of magicians, wizards, witches and charismatic religious leaders.With the god concept at its center, they induce an altered state of consciousness in their followers as demonstrated by the congregation’s manifestation of convulsions, trembling, and intense effusions of excitement and ecstasy. (Come Out of Her God’s People, pg 190)

Weber points out that that communal intoxication has a contagious effect where it can spread throughout  an audience or congregation of people, infecting those assembled with sensations of enhanced emotionalism and vitality. This definition explains the so called holy dance, holy rollers, holy laughter, running around the church building, perhaps even tongues and slain in the spirit phenomena.

This power was manifested in my presence for 25 years  among denominational African American preachers. Keep in mind that Weber’s studies were predominately tribal communities on other continents, including Africa and Asia. Webers findings suggest that the altered state appeal has a significant connection to today’s charismatic leaders’ ability to cause large numbers of people to believe that they have been released from bondages and that they have “heard from God.”

As a result, what has been happening in church is that demons have been using corrupt ministers to preach. I would say that that is reason enough to “COME OUT OF HER, GOD’S PEOPLE.”

When you come out, join us at www.pamsheppard.com/online_ministers_available

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HOW SATAN USES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS AND CONFIRMATION

09 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by in deliverance ministry, deliverance testimony, demons and devils, the soul

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Pam specializes in "Knowing the Enemy"

 The enemy really designs his deception based upon his knowledge of us.  The secret desires of our hearts  and our assumptions provide religious demons with  both the blueprint and the building blocks of the grand deception that fuels  the enemy’s overall  plan.  The plan begins as a kind of conspiracy theory which answers the questions , “what makes him or her tick? And if I do THIS,  then will he or she do THAT?”  What the religious demon has to do is to find a way to “guide our steps.”  There is no greater thrill than for a religious demon to manipulate and control a child of God and cause that person to become both his prey and his captive.

So I believe that we overcome by first knowing ourselves.  When you know yourself better than the enemy knows YOU, then you are on your way to victory.  For example, if you are an achiever, your desire to succeed CAN BE a key contact point on the blueprint and the religious demon will begin to “build the plan.”

Consider the movie “the Devil’s Advocate.” An advocate is a lawyer, and Keanu Reeves, “the advocate” was a lawyer in the movie, as was the devil, played by Al Pacino.  The  devil’s plan to guide the steps of   his advocate began with setting Reeves up  to win every case as a defense attorney.  By doing so, Pacino
said to himself, if I  cause Reeves to win every case, will he  to literally do “anything” to win when it appears that he may lose his first case? Will he neglect a sick wife?  Will he ignore his mother’s warnings?  Will he even cheat to win? Will he hide evidence?

In the movie,  the devil had been watching the advocate from the time he was born, and he wanted to see if he knew  Reeves better than the advocate  knew himself.  Just in case the advocate had any surprises in his back pocket, the devil  had a back up plan.  His first plan was to cause Reeves to risk
everything in order NOT TO LOSE A CASE.  And when that didn’t work, Pacino’s final plan was even better.  What was the foundation of the entire devil’s conspiracy?  It was the vanity of the advocate relative to his desire to always succeed and excell.

Vanity was the advocate’s Achilles heal. Where Reeves went wrong was in his assumptions. He assumed that he was winning each and every case because of his skill, when in reality, the devil was helping him to win.

So point number one in trying the spirits is this: When you go wrong in your assumptions, you have given place to the devil.

What is an assumption?

An assumption is taking for granted that a particular supposition, fact or circumstance is true. It is prematurely accepting as truth, what is merely an hypothesis or a guess.   For example, when I reflect upon my very first assumption as a Christian, I “assumed” that because I had power in my hands to heal, that:

1.  the healing power was from God;

2.  that God was calling me to minister healing.

It took about 25 years for me to find out that “the healing power that I had was NOT from God.”  So logically speaking, if the the power was not from God, and if it was not from ME, then it must have come from the enemy.  If the power came from the enemy, then what was his agenda in giving me the power?

When I “tried the spirits” on this matter, I realized that I had first manifested healing power while I was a new age occultist.  When I became a Christian and I saw in the bible that Jesus is a Healer, I just “assumed” that since I was now “born again,” I could simply transition occult healing into my
Christian work for God.   WRONG!!!  Along this same train of thought, we “assume” that because what we are doing is similar to what the early apostles did, that we are doing “the same thing.”  It ain’t necessarily so.

With every Christian, the enemy assigned to you is going to “set you up” to be disappointed in God, so that eventually, you will be so frustrated with failure, that you will throw your spiritual hands up in the air and declare, “I’m done with this.”  This was the intent of the healing power I operated in.  The religious devil’s  motive was to frustrate me when those I laid hands on did not “keep” their healing.  This works also in the opposite direction.  If the sick keeps the healing, then “the healer” will assume that he is operating off of divine power, when he is not.

Consequently, the devil remains in control and can exercise authority in the healer’s life whenever he sees fit.

 

Assumptions are constantly made by Christians who believe that  “the 3 witnesses rule”  is an indication
that a sign, wonder, message or circumstance is  “a confirmation” from God.Confirmation!  Its a twelve letter dirty word that covers a wide field of consideration! In fact,  Satan and his crew get many chuckles out of this one.

There are so many varieties of “confirmations” that it is hard to present one representative example, so I’ll have to  make one up.  You had a dream that you should move to Georgia. Or perhaps someone from your church prophesied over you—“God has called you to minister in Georgia.”   The same day, you heard Ray Charles sing, “Georgia on my mind.”  Then  someone called you on the telephone from Georgia, but it was a wrong number. In the afternoon, a friend stopped by and gave you some peaches.  Georgia peaches.

“So there it is” you say to yourself.  I got 3 signs or witnesses that provide “confirmation” to my dream or prophetic word.  God wants me to move to Georgia.

I use  such a ridiculous example to highlight what foolish believers do constantly.

The”confirmation” thing is nothing but an assumption, not based on fact, not based on truth. When God sends a message, He does not have to confirm it. He may, or He may not. Here is an instance in my life where God supernaturally “showed and proved.”

I had recently divorced my last husband because his drug addiction became unbearable.  However, I still loved him very much so I was vulnerable to him  if he attempted to reconcile. I thought, “since he had not cheated on me since we were married, perhaps I should not have divorced him.”

One morning, I dreamt I saw a mudslide.  My husband jumped into it.  When he got up, a woman was hidden underneath him—in the mud.

As I lay there, considering the meaning of the dream, the phone rang.  It was my ex.  He wanted to reconcile.  I listened but I was quiet, remembering the dream I had just 5 minutes before the call.

I got up out of my bed, and walked into a room that had once been his den.  Laying in the middle of the floor, in a room that I had cleaned several times was an application for credit, made out by my ex.  What I noticed was that he used a different address and phone number on the application.  So I dialed the number. A woman answered.  I asked “Can I speak to Rich?”  She replied, “He is not here right now.  Who is this?”  I said “his wife..”

The woman went berserk.  She screamed “you are not his wife.  You have divorced him.  I have been his woman for the last 3 years.  So you need to go about your business and leave him alone because Rich is MINE!!!”

So when I try the spirits, this was rather supernatural.  It all occurred within the space of 20 minutes. Something appeared on my floor that was not there for two months!!!!  I dreamed about the hidden woman, “under the mud” of my ex’s secret life 5 minutes before his call.

Was this the devil trying to get me to go over there and shoot somebody and end up in jail? For I also had her address.

Not THIS time! lol. Both God and the devil know that I am too wise and too much in control of my emotions to fall for THAT one. The Lord simply provided me with the hidden information that I needed to stop punishing myself for divorcing an adulterer and for NOT TAKING HIM BACK!!!!  I had every
right to divorce him.

 

At times, God WILL confirm.  When he does, it will not be an assumption.  IT WILL BE FACT AND TRUTH THAT SETS YOU FREE.

  Take it from one who knows. Most confirmation comes from the devil.

Here is another personal experience.   I may have used this real life example before, but it bares repeating because it clarifies my point.  In 1979, I had a dream that I saw a
minister standing on my church’s steps, with a robe across his arm.   He looked at me and said, “Girl, I’m gonna marry You!” In the dream, he was wearing a navy blue suit purchased from Sears and a pair of navy blue swede shoes.

Two weeks later, on a Sunday morning, “a force” was trying to stop me from going to
church.  I “assumed” it was the devil. So I persevered and went out of the door,
walking to church.  Looking back today, I realize that it was God who tried to
stop me from going, or at least an angel sent from God.

When I arrived, the new visiting pastor was at the church, robed and wearing a navy blue suit and blue swede shoes.  I was sitting in the congregation and he set his eyes on
me from the pulpit chair.  Later that evening, my pastor called, claiming that the visiting pastor wanted to meet me.  When we met he said “Girl, I’m gonna marry you cause you sooooo pretty!” I asked, where did you buy your suit?  He said “Sears and Roebuck.”

Plenty of confirmation here!.


Without the dream and all of this “confirmation”, I would  never have given this man a second glance.  He was simply not my type.  So because of all of this “confirmation,”  I assumed “this must be God.”  To make a long story short, it was not.  This minister was one of the worst men to ever enter into my life.  He was a Satanic setup for things that could have literally “taken me down and out!.”

So when you have circumstances occur that are similar, with all kinds of confirmation, a try the spirits tip is this—- ,

Run like a bat let out of hell.  Its the devil.


The excuses that we make to explain why we find ourselves under demonic attack are another form of an assumption.  My meaning is better explained by illustration.  I founded a church with a name that I discovered more than a decade later, was given to me by a religious demon.  My kind of vanity was that I “assumed” that because the Denomination I was ordained in was defiled, that my ministry was clean.  You need to know that just because your opposition may be wrong, that doesn’t make you RIGHT!!! I was unaware of
this truth,   so I “assumed”  that the church that I founded was superior to any of the churches in the Denomination.

So when my church and I came under a persistent attach from all sides, I assumed, “we must be doing great things and the devil is angry.”  So the attack caused someone with a personality type like mine to brace myself and hold on to my church and ministry with an even stronger grip.  Little did I know that “this was the motive for the attack—that I would hold on to what God wanted me to let go of, as long as I assumed that I was doing God a service.

 

Usually when demons bombard you with frequent attacks, they are already in control.  They simply want you to assume that you have a fighting chance.  According to Jessie Penn Lewis, “They attack a person because they are in possession, but make him think and believe it to be an indirect attack, ie. through another person.  The blame is placed on the man himself or someone else, or on anything but the true cause, so that the intruder may not be discovered and expelled.  It is therefore important that all ‘excuses’ should be examined, i.e., the ‘reasons’ for such and such an unexplainable
manifestation.

 

The causes should always be gone into, for by believing a wrong interpretation of the manifestation, more ground is given to the lying spirits.  The believer may be refusing ground on the one hand, and giving new ground on the other, unless he examines all the suggestions which come to his mind
concerning his condition.” (War on the Saints, pg. 176)

 

This is what the enemy is looking for when he takes advantage of the assumptions you make.  He is looking for “new ground” to continue to deceive and control you. Those who are most vulnerable are those who love their ministry more than they love Jesus Himself.  Anyone who has a ministry should not assume that it was God who gave it to you.  So go back to what was going on in your life when you assumed that God called you into ministry.

 

Since I have “been there and done that,” it is easy for me to recognize those who are themselves possessed  by a ministry that they assume  God gave to them.  I can recognize an obsessed worker, one who is consumed with either revival, deliverance, setting captives free, healing, even saving souls, which no one does but God.

 

Those who are obsessed by “their” ministries are blind to their condition.  Certainly, helping others, giving of your time, teaching and  preaching,  and un-deceiving the deceived are all rightful things.  Nevertheless, very often, the enemy uses ministry as a distraction to the worker’s own need of deliverance from the enemy’s deception.

 

If you put yourself into the hands of workers like these, you will be subject to both their confusion and their contraditions.  Such workers will seem strong, yet they are weak, loving but they are really stoical and distant.  Why?  Because they are  un-trusting and  afraid of every dark shadow.  Remember.  The
Lord’s yoke is easy and His burden is light.

Anytime you assume that God can’t do His work without YOU, you are in the devil’s hands.

To better “know your enemy,” SEW deliverance training may be for YOU!

www.pamsheppard.com/sign_up_now

 

 

THE SOUL AND FALSE CONVERSION

06 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by in counterfeit births, the soul

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HOW A FALSE CONVERSION OCCURS

Because the spirit and the soul are not separate but  tightly knitted or braided  around each other as are  the ligaments, marrow and jonts in our legs, it is difficult to discern the difference between the two.  The soul is easiest to recognize because the concerns and needs of “self” are generally apparent.  We recognize the “body” side of the soul because we can see the results through the activity of the natural frame.  We can see selfishness, ambition, competition, and jealousy  because the body,  through material and natural things, will engage in scenarios that expose self striving.   

However, where we fall short is in our ability  to discern the soul from the spirit, which is also “flesh.” I am considering a gospel account of the words of the Lord when a funeral procession went by. He turn to his disciples and said, “let the dead bury the dead.”  How can the dead bury the dead? What Jesus was actually saying is “let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead.” Those who are alive in both the body and the soul have a dead spirit.  A dead spirit is one that is separated, alienated, and without God in the world.  That is a dead spirit.  It doesn’t mean that there is no awareness or activity in the spirit.

The spirit of the lost is very much alive in the kingdom of darkness, but he or she is alienated from the kingdom of heaven. It makes itself known through various nightmares and irrational fears.  When it is active, man’s dead spirit is open to the hellish dark world of spirits ruled over by the Prince of darkness. When it is both active AND powerful, the spirit is capable of a variety of supernatural feats including but not limited to clairvoyance, clairaudience and astral travel or out of body experiences.

When a lost or alienated person “accepts Jesus” as Lord and Savior, it can’t be the spirit who does so because the spirit  of that person is dead, alienated, and walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in those who are disobedient by the lust of their flesh.  In such a condition, the soul has to take over.  In the lost, the soul fulfills the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and the lost person has the nature of self consciousness.

So since a dead spirit cannot “accept God,” the soul takes over in its parts: mind, emotions and volition or will and says, “I accept Jesus as Lord and Savior” and begins a religious ritual that imitates intimacy and relationship. The working of the enemy through the mind or ideas of man quenches the work of the Holy Ghost to quicken that person’s spirit.  For the powers of darkness are keenly clever in working alongside of and simulating the born again experience.

When a person is REALLY born again, the soul takes a back seat.  The Holy Ghost “quickens” the spirit through repentance. As defined by Paul to the Ephesians, to quicken means to be made alive.  As Jesus Christ was raised from the dead physically or bodily, to be born again is to be raised from the dead spiritually. In other words, a dead spirit has been raised to becoming a vessel for the Holy Ghost.  Since the spirit does not have a will, volition is a choice or decision made by the soul.  What the spirit has is intuition. Paul revealed that the reason the spirit is raise from the dead is because “God is rich in mercy.” So the resurrection of the spirit begins in the intuition and then translated into  understanding  by the soul.

When the soul “accepts Jesus,” the spirit remains dead but with great acting skills, the soul can religiously  imitate the things of God. The fallen spirit of man, alienated and separated from God is sunk down into the soul so that the soul manifests as intellect or sensuality, often in both. In such cases, the soul reigns over both the spirit and the body. The way that the new life reaches the spirit is shown in the Lord’s own words: You must be born again.  The Holy Ghost “breathes” where ever He chooses. This is not the decision of man but the will of God.

The believer who has been raised from the dead in the spirit to newness of like is born of the Spirit or “born again.” The Holy Ghost, who takes up a dwelling place in the reborn spirit, has given the believer a revelation of the Cross and the Lord’s resurrection. This revelation is first received in the spirit. As James indicates in his letter, the wisdom that is from above—from the Holy Spirit—is pure, peaceable, gentle, merciful—without any element of the life of the soul—opinions, self views, strife-jealousy. So when a person is born again, the spirit imparts  understanding  to the soul through the mind, will and the emotions.

What is happening among those who claim that “they accepted Jesus,” is that they have done so through the soul and therefore, their spirits have remained dead.  The intellect of one whose spirit is dead is decidedly fallible and becomes the most dangerous of the soul’s gifts because God seekers use their minds to understand spiritual truths.  The scriptures reveal that the soulish man cannot receive the things of the Spirit, because they can only be spiritually discerned.

According to the late great Jessie Penn Lewis, “It is the soulish element in teachers and professors of holiness, which is often the cause of separation and disunion.  There may be, it is true, love in the heart to those who ‘differ,’ but the ‘differences’ divide nevertheless, because the demoniacal powers, able to work upon the soulish element in the believer, always emphasize or exaggerate the difference in “views of truth,” instead of magnifying the points of union, and even drive eager believers to ‘fight’ for their view of ‘truth,‘ under the name of ‘witnessing for God.” It us also the soulish element in Christians which insists upon the minute correspondence of others its ‘views of truth,’ and ‘tithe mint and anise and cumin’, in words whilst leaving ‘undone the weightier matters of the law’—which in the gospel dispensation of the Spirit between believers as the condition of their growth into ‘unity of the faith. ‘In brief, the soul-life, influenced by evil supernatural powers, is the main cause of divisions and separation among the professing, and even the true children of God.”

For this reason as pointed out by Sis. Jessie, the churches are filled with nominal worshippers of Christ, who show no marks of a true Christian life within them. In a nutshell, influences that bypass the spirit and only reach the soul may prepare the way by bringing the seeker within the reach of the truth which is read from the scriptures.  Outer strivings may make for a kind  self righteousness that  has a value and place in the world.  However, by virtue of these outer trappings, such seekers  will be fooled into believing that the strivings of the soul is evidence that he or she is born again.  Not so.  Since God views self righteous as filthy rags, the spirits of such seekers is untouched. Dead.  Alienated.  Without God.

Those whose souls imitate salvation are diversified.  Dynamic personalities   sway and move the emotions of others.  Their fruit—like TD Jakes for example—is to move the emotions of the soul.  The problem is that the faith of the hearers stands in the influence or wisdom of people like TD, and not in the power of God.  Intellectuals uses schemes to reach men and bring them to God, some preaching hell and damnation to frighten people to God, others using heaven, prosperity, gospelfests, social fellowship, networking  etc.

The outcome is that people are attracted to the fake Jesus, and not of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. What happens is a dangerous thing, so dangerous, that I will have to address it in more detail Part III. Suffice it to say for now, that people who are deceived into believing that they got born again, STILL have a dead spirit.  When dead, the spirit is susceptible to the evil side of the spirit world where psychic power is mistaken for the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Consequently, unsaved people are speaking in tongues, laying hands on others, imparting demons into vulnerable people.  Also, when people with dead spirits pray to the Father in the name of His Son, the one who answers their prayers is the imposter, the Fake Jesus.

Can a person whose spirit has been quickened STILL allow his or her soul to dominate?  Most decidedly YES. These are those who have a sensual relationship with Jesus.  When they speak of “being in His presence,” they are not satisfied unless they can feel the presence of God continually upon their flesh, and almost bi-polar in the spirit, they experience loads of ups and downs akin to spiritual mood swings.  They need to be taught how to walk by faith and not by sight or feeling.  Although the Holy Spirit dwells in their spirits, they often allow the soul to predominate because they do not understand the spirit life and the actions of the human spirit in co-action with God.

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