Pandemic of Deception

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Holy Spirit uncovered another crisis quietly unfolding within the American church. Just as the virus was spreading across the globe, a spiritual pandemic was moving through congregations, carried along by deceptive teachings and distorted doctrines. When these ideas weren't tested against the truths in Scripture, they spread like a silent and deadly disease, infecting people's hearts and minds. As the deception took root, the need for spiritual discernment became more urgent. Without it, the lies grew deeper, harder to recognize, and more dangerous to the spiritual health of many.

I witnessed this unfold in a dream, where doctors prescribed snakes to their patients. These doctors symbolized some pastors and leaders within the charismatic movement. In the dream, one of the doctors inserted a snake into a person’s nose, much like a COVID-19 test. This procedure was being performed on newcomers to their ministry. Later, I saw the same process repeated on someone who had been part of their church for a longer time. She lay on an exam table as the pastor performed the procedure again, but this time, he allowed the snake's tail to fully enter her body, as though it were a vaccine being injected into the bloodstream. I was deeply alarmed. Now, the snake was completely hidden, making it impossible to remove without an X-ray.

In this dream, God revealed how some church leaders had popularized a false belief in "spiritual vaccination," the idea that placing faith in Christ grants instant immunity from sin. Like the serpent’s deceit in the Garden of Eden, this lie had crept into some churches unnoticed, distorting God’s word. Rather than teaching believers to overcome their sinful nature and live in obedience to Christ, some leaders were claiming that spiritual transformation happened instantly at salvation and baptism. This false teaching was blinding congregations to the ongoing reality of sin and self-righteousness, leaving them spiritually vulnerable.

In a second vision, I saw a senior church leader wearing a medical mask over his eyes instead of his mouth and nose, like those meant to stop the spread of COVID-19. It was a striking picture of how he had willingly turned a blind eye to the spiritual epidemic raging within his congregation. Rather than addressing the spread of false teachings, he had led part of the church into division and criticism during the pandemic, fixating on debates over masks and vaccinations. His focus on these outward matters revealed a deeper issue, a growing self-righteousness that valued being right over truly caring for others. Just as viruses spread when precautions are ignored, spiritual deception spreads when false teachings go unchallenged. When leaders fail to confront them, entire communities become vulnerable. In this case, they were fostering a sense of moral superiority instead of true righteousness.

During the pandemic, parts of the American church were led into an uproar over the government’s COVID-19 policies and mandates, which sometimes treated healthy people as if they were sick, requiring them to wear masks and quarantine from others. In the dream, God was exposing a blind spot in the American church. Some of its own leaders are diagnosing the spiritually sick as healthy and refusing to treat them, a far greater injustice. While I’m grateful that most Americans will fully recover from COVID-19, not one person will ever overcome sin apart from the true gospel of Jesus Christ. This truth is right under our noses, clearly written in God’s word, and the Holy Spirit gives us discernment so we can break free from the deception and damage these teachings cause.

SEVERED FROM TRUTH

During my first year of ministry school at Bethel Church, I was taught that, as a new creation in Christ, I could no longer sin in my heart. A well-known minister reassured me that the internal struggle I had felt to live a righteous life had been unnecessary, insisting that Jesus had already made me righteous. According to him, sin was only possible if I gave in to external temptations, something that would only happen if I failed to fully grasp what he said Jesus had accomplished for me on the cross.

This new teaching appealed to me because it lifted the burden of responsibility I had always felt to actively participate in my salvation and righteousness. As a child, I had really strong convictions, but at times, they led to feelings of condemnation and guilt. Now, I was being told that this inner struggle was simply the voice of religion, which I needed to ignore. All I had to do, it seemed, was believe I was righteous, and it would somehow manifest in my life. Instead of testing this teaching in God’s Word, I trusted the minister's understanding of Scripture above what could be plainly understood. Believing I was stepping into a new level of spiritual freedom, I let my guard down and allowed this teaching to shape my thinking.

For years, I exposed myself to instruction like this, which now I realize only encouraged me to silence my conscience and resist the inner work of the Holy Spirit. While they certainly eased feelings of guilt and shame, they also nurtured a growing sense of arrogance and resistance to correction. Someone in a position of spiritual authority even told my class once that we unconditionally had the “heart of heaven,” which led me to be accountable only to myself and the church leaders who taught me that grace had made this possible.

Though it wasn’t obvious since I wasn’t breaking any visible commandments, my heart was gravely ill. My new understanding of grace had led me to judge my spiritual condition based solely on outward behavior because I believed my heart was immune to sin. In reality, this belief severed me from the purifying work of the Holy Spirit and the deeper transformation God wanted to do in my life.

Looking back, I can see how embracing this so-called revelation led me to resent other churches and people who didn’t share my beliefs. It’s painful to admit, but I believed I had become more spiritual than they were, dismissing them as “religious.” It wasn’t just me, though. Some of my classmates shared the very same attitude, resenting their past when it didn’t align with their newfound understanding of grace.

In ministry school, I bought into a false teaching that went against what Scripture says about my flesh being at odds with what God’s Spirit desires (Gal. 5:17). Instead, I was taught that my desires were always in line with God’s will, and I just went with whatever I felt. When things didn’t go my way, I stubbornly pursued them anyway, mistaking my own will for God’s. In the process, I shut down my spiritual discernment and allowed myself to be deceived, thinking I had found 'freedom' from religion through Bethel’s teachings.

This mindset affected many areas of my life, including how I handled finances. At the time, I wasn’t working, and my husband had taken a pay cut so I could attend ministry school. Rather than adjusting our budget, I relied on my credit card to maintain the lifestyle we had before. I enjoyed having nice clothes and material things, so based on what I’d learned in ministry school, I convinced myself that God must also approve of these desires, or else I wouldn’t have them in my heart.

Reflecting on it now, I realize this wasn’t God’s Spirit leading my life. Instead, my actions were driven by greed, materialism, and entitlement. I had heard the saying, “If it’s God’s will, it’s God’s bill,” and took it as permission to run ahead of Him, assuming He would cover the cost. I’ve since learned that when something is truly God’s will, He provides for our needs and opens the right doors in His timing. Learning to wait on Him has helped me discern His voice from my own ambitions.

During this time, the Holy Spirit convicted me, but I brushed it off, thinking it was my religious past creeping back in. Now, I realize it was the Holy Spirit refusing to let me go. He allowed my life to become more and more difficult at times until I finally obeyed, using those tough lessons to keep me from straying further. God wasn’t willing to let me fall into the seduction of the megachurch, so He allowed hardship to serve as my guardrails during those challenging years.

Now, I realize that during this entire period, I was driven along by my own self-will. In doing so, I wasn’t resisting religion; I was resisting the Holy Spirit. As a result, I caused significant damage to some of my closest relationships, all while justifying my actions with spirituality and grace. I willingly turned away from the truths I had learned by studying God’s Word because a popular minister offered me a more comfortable Christian walk, one without discernment or self-discipline.

STOLEN INNOCENCE

God gave me a dream once that revealed the spiritual impact that Bethel’s teachings had on me. In the dream, I uncovered a tragic incident at the megachurch where I attended and worked. A young girl had gone missing within its walls. When I asked my boss, a senior church leader, about the seldom-mentioned event, he not only acknowledged that it happened but also told me that the missing person had been me.

Then the scene shifted, and I saw myself as a young girl standing in the megachurch. My age symbolized when I first opened my heart to a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit and sought out the teachings of the charismatic church. In the dream, that young girl, representing my innocence, had been abducted and gone missing while I was in ministry school and later worked at the church.

The dream revealed how Bethel’s teachings, though claiming to draw me closer to the Spirit, had, in fact, led me into the flesh, focusing on outward appearances and expectations rather than true spiritual transformation. When I was found in the dream, I was standing next to a known child molester, symbolizing someone who had perverted the gospel and misled me with his teachings. It devastated me that none of the other leaders in the dream bothered to investigate whether I had been spiritually abused by his ministry.

This dream exposed how my spiritual innocence was stolen, and I became a missing person within the walls of a charismatic church. I traded my own unique history with God to be part of a growing, influential movement. Yet, its deceptive teachings opened my heart to spiritual perversion, stripping me of both my innocence and individuality. After three years of embracing what was celebrated in the church but impure in God’s eyes, I no longer recognized myself. I had become a missing person.

Later in the dream, I saw that some church leaders had been aware of the molestation happening to God’s Word but chose not to confront it or protect the church. This realization broke my heart. Countless people, myself included, have been led into deception and destructive behaviors by flesh-driven teachings. Yet, in His mercy, the Holy Spirit showed me where these falsehoods had led me astray and gently guided me back to His Word.

The truth is, Christians still live with the weakness of their flesh. However, God’s Spirit helps us grow in righteousness, not just by declaring us so, but by empowering us to live righteously as we listen to His voice, obey His Word, and follow His leading. While we can choose to follow our desires at any time, that’s not the purpose of grace. God’s grace empowers us to overcome sin, and He gives His Holy Spirit to those who love and obey Him (Acts 5:32). Our journey with God begins when we place our faith in Jesus for salvation. From there, we begin to mature spiritually as we submit to the Holy Spirit, who applies the sacrifice, humility, and glory of Christ to our daily lives. Although He reveals the path of righteousness, God never forces us to walk in it. Instead, He gently nudges our hearts, and we must choose to stay by His side and follow Him.

Now, I realize that Bethel's teachings attempted to address shame and condemnation through human methods, offering only the illusion of freedom. These approaches missed the deeper, beautiful journey of learning to follow God’s word and responding to His personal work in our lives. The real freedom Jesus offers is rooted in His sacrifice on the cross, received by faith, and fully realized as we respond to Him in obedience. This freedom isn’t about ignorance or denial of sin; rather, it’s the transformative power of God’s love, guided by the Holy Spirit, that shapes our hearts and lives.

In ministry school, I remember one senior leader sharing from the pulpit how he rarely ever sinned. Yet, the Lord showed me that his teachings had fertilized a pandemic of deception within the church. This highlights how urgently we need discernment from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to serve as a mirror in our lives. Without them, we will fail to assess ourselves truthfully. Only God discerns the hearts of men. If we believe we're immune to sin, we'll struggle to recognize God's voice when He instructs and convicts us. He does this through His Word and in a personal relationship with us. In fellowship, His Spirit testifies about Jesus and His ways, and they become part of our story as we trust what we see and hear from Him to guide our steps.