The Lord has been unmasking the gross errors in deliverance ministry and Satan’s ministers continue to cover them up as they press harder to legitimize what God is tearing down.

The unveiling of the self-centered, self-referencing “Me gospel” blindsided the enemy and sent shock waves through the church, upsetting the very principles deliverance ministry and spiritual warfare are built upon.

In a recent teaching, John Eckhardt tried his own hand at preaching against the Me gospel with deliverance principles to free himself from it, but he actually reinforced it, saying: “There’s self-will, self-pity, self-promotion, self-exaltation, there’s selfish ambition.”

• He mentions “self” five times because this is the system he’s trapped in—self-, and this is the system he’s trying to overcome.

Eckhardt confronts the fruits of iniquity, but he never submits to the process God designed in Jesus to heal the scars Satan afflicts upon the soul. He recognizes a “destructive spiritual force” at work, yet he never recognizes Satan’s substitutions for Christ embedded in his own tactics that he continues to accept.

He’s simply splitting the wolf’s hair as he examines himself in the covenant void. But examining the wolf’s hair never reveals Christ. It only reveals the wolf.

The principles of deliverance ministry and spiritual warfare tactics are part of the life Satan built for Christians in the wilderness and function like the five stages of grief.

Deliverance ministers take believers through the stages of bereavement. You’re mourning: “Why do I feel envy, why do I feel strife, why do I feel angry? Why do I have all these bad feelings?”

Teaching starts with iniquity. Where is sin hiding? How have I let the enemy into my life? Where have I allowed the devil to build barriers to God’s blessings? Where does selfishness live in my life and how can I be a blessing to others?

This self-examination of iniquity is the examination of the wolf’s hair. The building blocks of the wolf are what they’re trying to cleanse themselves of, as they try to identify the sheep from the building blocks of the wolf.

• When believers are taught to interpret their dysfunctional faith by emphasizing the diet of the beastly nature of man, they are examining what’s on their plate.

Deliverance ministers cut up the wolf and put him on their menu. But this does not deliver God’s people from the wolf—it merely strengthens the fake gospel the enemy teaches. That’s the wolf’s menu. That’s not Jesus’ covenant that God constructed to minister and heal your soul.

Deliverance ministers make themselves an authority to make themselves a magnet for the people. The teaching people are drawn to holds them prisoner to Satan rather than freeing them to Christ.

They go through the 5 stages of bereavement every time they teach.

Iniquity answers iniquity. That’s where Satan wants you, struggling against yourself. That’s all he wants and that’s all he does. The devil knows that the soul that is left outside of Jesus’ covenant will struggle for clarity and struggle to unbind itself from the fruits of iniquity he uses to afflict you.

Eckhardt leads believers into the covenant void where Satan’s shortcut theology roots them in the environment that continually produces the symptoms he attempts to cast out.

You know the drill: “Cast out selfishness. Cast out the demons of self-will, self-pity, self-promotion.” But God is redirecting the church to return to Jesus’ covenant and His sanctified, holy knowledge to answer Him in a priesthood that increases His fruits of righteousness rather than answer iniquity with iniquity.

• As God shines a light on Eckhardt’s wilderness teaching, He asks, “Who will you answer?” The conscience answers the one who governs and dictates to it.

You can go through the ritual of casting out selfishness all day long and never be equipped to answer God according to Christ. We answer God with a pure conscience according to Christ. In this, the Lord shows His pattern: face answers to face. (Gen. 30:33)

If you’re building with Satan’s knowledge, then iniquity answers iniquity. If you are building with God’s knowledge in Jesus, then our conscience reflects Him, and we answer Him according to the gifts of His propitiation. We bear His likeness.

I want to share a vision that my wife, Teacher Maria, had on  July 26, 2026. This is going to assist your understanding of why God doesn’t use iniquity as His pattern or starting point. You’ll also understand what the Lord means when He says that “face answers to face”.

In the vision the Lord ministered during prayer, Teacher Maria saw what God sees. The Lord showed her many pairs of people facing each other, each pair consumed in what can only be described as a rapid and living conversation. The vision was shown in a fast-forward animation where those sitting opposite each other were gesturing to each other and talking at each other at the same time. A cloud then slowly formed to envelop them both, obscuring them.

God’s teaching point: iniquity answers to iniquity according to the pattern Satan laid in the inner man, responding on cue to the prick of the conscience, to self-referencing knowledge, to regret, to shame, to guilt. This cloud obscures discernment. This covering is not of Me.

That’s the face of iniquity answering itself—it is the gospel that has taken hold of the church—the “Me” gospel that has created a mindset for the church to reason with itself while splitting the wolf’s hair. Is it any wonder that they seek to be delivered from such bondage?

Ezekiel 14:7

For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the Lord will answer him by myself:

The nature of man reflects the nature of man and can never produce the nature of Christ. What Eckhard sees in the fruits of iniquity (self-will, self-pity, self-promotion, self-exaltation, there’s selfish ambition”) is reflected in the face of his struggle and in the face of his teaching.

Face answers to face.

Iniquity is the stumbling block of those who have separated themselves from God, setting up the Baal teachings of the fleshly gospel before their face. Their teaching only addresses the cycle of bondage they’re caught in, but that bondage is broken in Christ. God is answering them by showing them their abominations.

“By My knowledge I set you free.” This is God’s will for you. We see Jesus in His foundation knowledge that engages us in His covenant, enabling us to reciprocate to God as a new man in Christ—born to bear His image by His power.

We see God face to face in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. This is a daily, ongoing miracle for all those who live in Christ according to the gifts of contact by which He governs us. This is the true gospel God has returned to the church through His real apostolic character. You will never fail in Christ. You will never fall short of His glory.

The failures of deliverance ministers come into sharp focus. The idea of needing to “cast out” selfishness and all of the connecting branches of iniquity appeals to the natural man searching for control.

And that’s why Eckhardt and other deliverance ministers advocate a denial of self, saying that “fasting can break the power of selfishness”. What are they looking for?

They’re looking for a power to govern the fruits of iniquity, and they think they’ve found that power in their wilderness gospel through spiritual warfare and deliverance ministry. But God’s pattern is different. He governs us in His grace and truth in a new priesthood.

Eckhardt says he roots his teaching in scripture, but he’s creating links in your mind to build a false pattern for God’s will. God roots His teaching in Jesus—which all scripture confirms.

And now, in this new apostolic season, God is shedding His light on His true pattern to overturn Satan’s counterfeit pattern.

God placed the pattern in Himself from the beginning. Before anything was created in this dimension, God swore by Himself that all things would be measured to Him, and that this Oath would never be violated.

That’s why Jesus said, “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” Jesus was saying, “I AM the true standard of God—the original scale.” We come into 100% agreement with God: the original pattern exists only in God Himself. (Rev. 3:14)

Jesus is the beginning of the creation of God because He is the seed of His plan. God Himself provided Himself, so He recognizes faith only when it is established in Jesus’ covenant.

The fruit God creates in us by His own design in Christ pleases Him perfectly—every time without fail. Everything about Jesus’ covenant is about equipping us for obedient fruit bearing in the inner man.

Everything about Satan’s gospel is about managing rebellion and governing a defiled conscience. This is why Eckhardt teaches on what he calls “the rebellion side”.

Do you want to manage rebellion or be an obedient child of God?

Having denied the covenant, wilderness ministers can only describe the symptoms of the environment in which they themselves remain. Their gospel continually directs believers to examine selfishness, cast out spiritual problems and deny themselves, while the covenant that delivers believers from the dominion of darkness is absent from their counterfeit gospel.

The counterfeit gospel describes the covenant void. Separated from the grace of God established in Jesus Christ, believers remain inside a spiritual environment where one condition strengthens another, one bondage gives birth to another, and one symptom continually produces another. The wilderness system cannot produce life because it remains separated from the covenant through which God ministers the life of Christ.

The Lord now overturns this testimony. He is not calling His people to begin by denying themselves or by searching within for the next spiritual issue to overcome. He is calling them into the covenant He sanctified in His Son.

What’s your first gut reaction to the call to return Jesus’ covenant and to pick up  His spiritual tools and to abandon what you have learned in the wilderness church? Most have the same reaction: “This is legalism!”

Maybe you’ve said that yourself, or you’ve heard that preached from podcasters and influencers. I want to get into this for just a moment and share with you from the new book I will be releasing soon, Apostles Restore the Lost Foundation.

In the following excerpt, we’ll define legalism from God’s perspective and shatter the fear Satan nurtures: the fear believers have of losing the freedom to explore their roots. Let’s get into that section now:

From God’s perspective, legalism is nothing more than Satan’s cry for freedom that believers inherited. Satan designed a wilderness path disguised as freedom. He produced another system to address the weakness of the flesh that gives believers permission to explore the history and roots of their vulnerability—promising healing in a cycle that only produces death.

What Christians actually fear is not legalism itself. They fear losing the freedom to explore their roots, their vulnerability, and their history—their way. Their cry is, “Leave me alone. I just want my freedom. God and I will sort this out privately on my terms.”

• This is the fear that becomes an obsession: the fear of being told that God has already chosen the path, already defined His starting point, already provided His tools.

The reality of learning they’ve been on Satan’s wilderness trails—the ones that he designed to rival God—the ones they are now called to abandon—feels like freedom lost.

Satan’s Liberty: to Excavate in the Covenant Void

Many fallen ministers and Christian authors use the word “excavate” to describe what they ask God to do in their life, as they examine the spiritual roots of dysfunction in their family history and how that shaped their adult struggles.

They want to know that they are not alone in their struggles and that God has their deliverance planned. And while God placed both your daily discernment and deliverance in an active, living priesthood, Satan removed your priesthood and introduced another system.

• The enemy begins to reason with you at the place of your struggle with the roots of iniquity.

Deliverance ministers and spiritual warfare enthusiasts believe they are cooperating with God as they implement their strategies and practices, but they are actually cooperating with the system Satan built to bring them into bondage.

God is exposing the underbelly of this monster to help you see Satan’s spiritual warfare system for what it is.

Unhealthy thought patterns that create conflict and damage relationships are examined from the history of the flesh: what triggers anger and resentment, jealousy, selfishness, bitterness, suspicion, low self-esteem, self-doubt, or shyness? Where did these ingrained tendencies come from? Can those roots be traced? Can these habits be broken? Can healing come?

Perhaps you have heard this spiritual advice:

“What many believers dismiss as personality flaws or family dysfunction can in fact be generational strongholds that require deliberate spiritual warfare to break.”

And a prayer follows: “Lord, I want you to excavate my life.”

This prayer was taught to wilderness believers as a proxy for the growth cycle God gives us in our priesthood. Instead of experiencing the operation of God in their soul, it opens the heart to Satan’s path to self-healing. While thinking that they’re breaking through generational strongholds, they’re merely keeping alive the very practices Satan introduced to the church.

The problem is not that believers lack the right “deliberate warfare”. The problem is that the entire discernment is from the wrong kingdom. The things you’re struggling with cannot be conquered in the absence of Jesus. And His absence can be hard to discern when your prayers sound like you’re giving Him permission to go there, to unearth what needs to be unearthed so that healing can take place.

It sounds humble, but the language is based on their approval of seeking—searching—breaking down strongholds while dismissing the one and only avenue God gave us in Jesus’ covenant. The prayer and spiritual advice are nothing more than a humble voice with proud words.

Satan’s Liberty: to Agree With him About Your Condition

Fallen ministers feel they are agreeing with God about their condition, but they are actually agreeing with Satan about their condition—their struggles, their inner conflicts, their desire for an exploratory freedom that begins with themselves.

• They want freedom from their doubt, their failures, their emotional cycles, but they reject the very priesthood God provided for that freedom.

In doing so, they send Jesus back to the cross, asking Him for new provisions they believe would better suit their present struggle. The language Satan’s ministers created for themselves is dressed in vulnerability, accountability, and transparency in an attempt to show submission. But it’s blasphemy: a denial of the sufficiency of the covenant God already sealed in Christ.

They see the word “warfare” in the scriptures, and they want to set this within their own struggles to address their inner conflicts. But God doesn’t start reasoning with you based on your struggles with the roots of iniquity. That’s the kingdom of the flesh, and it’s not generational; it is Adamic.

This history ended at the cross. No curse follows us into Jesus’ covenant, where our new history begins in Christ and He alone is the token of our cleansing.

Satan begins with the roots of iniquity because he needs you tethered to Adam. God begins with Christ because He needs nothing from Adam to form His nature in you. God’s starting point is not the same as the devil’s starting point.

• Satan’s starting point: the roots of iniquity, the history of the flesh, the emotional debris of Adam. Satan begins with the believer’s past.
• God’s starting point: Jesus’ covenant, your new history, apostolic stewardship, the tools of the Spirit and your new growth cycles. God begins with Christ’s present and the covenant He mediates for your benefit.

God’s real apostolic stewardship shows you the fork in the road where two kingdoms begin their reasoning in two utterly different places. God is helping believers discern Satan’s starting point and how it deceives. God does not begin with your brokenness but with Christ’s completeness. Satan has tried to hide this divide, and God is now making it visible.

God is helping believers hear the voice of the flesh accurately in spiritual advice given through false ministers, so they can finally discern how their practices work against His covenant. God’s deliberate contact with us requires a deliberate equipping that allows you to at last put down the warfare tools the wilderness taught. It requires the tools of the Spirit that fallen ministers teach believers to dismiss, the very tools that form Christ in us.

The Lord is unveiling the devil’s scheme to give the church false self‑cleansing practices. Satan substitutes warfare for priesthood, excavation for covenant contact, and emotional struggle for spiritual growth. But God’s cleansing is God’s way—because there is no other way to overcome self, Satan, and the world.

Entrance into Jesus’ covenant changes our prayer because we are now touching Jesus with His tools. Our foundation has changed and our experience has changed and our prayer follows: “Lord, I agree with you 100% that your covenant knowledge is your path to work your nature in me.”

• Do you see the difference in these two prayers? One offers your own life up for excavation, and the other accepts Jesus as God’s path to build Himself in you.

When you are in a covenant relationship with God, you can wake up every morning prepared to labor with the Holy Spirit in your priesthood as the Lord builds His nature in you.

You don’t wake up to your history anymore—you wake up to His. You are part of God’s family and covenant house that is already active, already equipped, already working Christ in you. No excavation into iniquity is required. God’s power is in His tools and His active involvement with you is in His tools.