Listen to Apostle Eric teach on the subject of:
Substitutionism, wilderness Christians, and sweeping changes God has initiated for the church

Satan’s lure for you is the same as it was for Adam and for Jesus, namely to make God act or move on your behalf. In other words, it’s up to you to make God move, and that is the premise behind speaking declarations. The belief is that God will act once you speak; that God follows your word.

Now let’s see where Satan is coming from. Have you ever turned over a large rock on a patch of land you’re clearing? Hidden underneath that rock, out of sight, is an invisible kingdom of spiders, bugs, and snakes. Once you turn that rock over, you can clearly see what a moment ago was concealed. That’s what God is doing. He’s turning over Satan’s promise to allow you to get a clear view of what he’s been hiding from you.

Just one word will bring this into focus for you— LACK. The devil came at Adam and Jesus from the same angle, speaking about the things that appeared to be lacking from their experience and promising that soon things will change. All they had to do is find out how to make God move on their behalf. In fact, the devil made it seem as if God was waiting with open arms for them to step out.

We’re talk about Adam first. The devil came to Adam and spoke to him about what he didn’t have and suggested that in that place of need and desire that there was something Adam could do to bridge the gap, suggesting that in fact, God was waiting for him to act, in essence saying, “if you want God to fill up this need that you have then you’ve got to take action, you’ve got to eat of the fruit of this tree and you will have what you want.”

What Adam didn’t see was Satan’s offer to cover his nakedness. Satan was addressing Adam’s vulnerability. Adam desired the things God had planned to give him, yet he wanted it his way.

The issue was never about Adam having what God promised, the issue was about believing the devil’s account about God’s promise. That’s when Adam perceived that he lacked and this is when he became vulnerability to Satan’s wiles.

Satan always speaks to marry your desire to God’s will to impart to the mind an urgency to initiate an act to get God to move on your behalf as if it was God’s idea. When defending the false doctrine about making prophetic declarations (warped warfare tactics), you’re asked to think about the things you feel that are lacking in your life, the areas where you don’t feel whole, like broken relationships and broken promises, and then you are led to envision God fixing and rebuilding that area in your life, giving you a chance to start anew—and then speaking that out loud as if you are repeating a proclamation from heaven. But you’re not, you’re repeating Satan’s proclamation.

You have just replaced God’s revelation with Satan’s proclamation, which is substitutionism (the antichrist spirit). Satan is the one pointing to the areas of perceived lack to bring faith under the shadow of his guilt and shame. He wants your faith to reflect his separation from God. Satan was one of God’s beautiful angels. He knew God’s desire was to lift up Adam on high so he made Adam fall by taking ownership of God’s desire for Adam to redirect it with lack to make Adam act to cover that perceived need.

Prophetic ministers do the same thing today. They approach faith from the position of lack, asking believers if they are tired of the devil interfering with their day-to-day life, blaming the devil for things not panning out the way they had imagined they would, telling believers that they have a right to change circumstances by “releasing prophetic decrees” and chanting scripture, promising remarkable changes. To them, faith is all about ironing out the wrinkles in their day.

This knowledge is false and does not bear the anointing because the Holy Spirit will not assist the knowledge of this world. The knowledge of this world is death—its dead to God. The knowledge of this world only lives in the signature of man. That’s the wisdom of this world; it’s the wisdom of man, which is an abomination to God.

The reason why it is an abomination is because it does not work to His glory, it does not build His house, this is not His joy. You are called according to God’s purpose. The purpose of God has to do with the covenant that He has provided for us. If you’re keeping the terms of the covenant you are flowing with the gifts of grace within your priesthood. You have put on the garments of righteousness in the priesthood of Jesus Christ and your experience of that grows and increases every day. That’s what you’re relating to and talking about in the body of His knowledge.

So now we’ve lifted up this abandoned rock (promise) in the field and saw what was underneath (deception). How did this pan out for Adam? After heeding Satan’s counsel Adam hid from God, and thus God teaches us that Satan’s wiles is concealed in the nakedness of the soul. That’s where he’ll come at you.

Revelation 3:17
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

Let’s see how the devil tried to pull the same trick on Jesus, only this time it did not work. The devil came to Jesus with the same bait to lure Jesus to put God to action, after all, did not God say this and that. In essence the devil said, “Look here Jesus, I know you must be feeling weak and low and powerless seeing that you are clothed in flesh and subject to need. The Pharisees won’t like you, the Scribes and Lawyers won’t like you. I know you are hungry to make disciples.

“If you make God act on your behalf then you would be a winner, not a loser; you’d feel empowered. Jump off the pinnacle of this temple and certainly God’s angels will catch you because that’s what God does. God desires to prove His love to you. You wouldn’t feel so weak if you saw a demonstration of God’s power. All you have to do is act. Make the jump your declaration!”

The difference between Jesus and Adam is that Jesus did not capitulate to the devil. He was in the flesh, but not vulnerable to act from a place of lack because He did not lack anything.

The inclination of the natural man is to qualify our weakness for strength and that’s where Satan gives his witness to validate it, but God teaches us that His daily dose of grace is our strength and the new place from which we labor (the activity of faith with the knowledge and tools of Christ).

Jesus did not place faith in the evidence of the flesh. Jesus operated from a different reality, that of His own record, which He came to establish for our confidence and faith to show us this way of righteousness and holiness that is in Him. And you’ll notice that angels came to minister to Him upon His refusal to follow Satan’s suggestion. He refused the knowledge of Satan because it was not that of the anointing, it came from Satan’s own lack and weakness, which he wished to transfer to Jesus.

When God transitioned the church back to the covenant knowledge, stewardship, priesthood, and tools of Jesus’ covenant, faith again followed the right path—the record of Jesus Christ—which is the true faith of the righteous.

is a stronghold in the minds of believers to this day. We all know what took place in the Garden of Eden. When Adam accepted Satan’s counsel over God’s word, sin and death reigned in the place of righteousness and holiness.

The carnal mind only sees a trade going on, that Adam traded the life of God for a life of sin and sickness, and so imagines his redemption to be another trade taking place whereas Jesus takes his sins and he get Jesus’ righteousness.

This imitation faith (trade/substitutionism) is based on the history of Adam’s fall, it’s not based on Jesus’ record. The two are not the same. When coming at redemption from the history of Adam’s fall we see how Satan addresses your perceived lack, just as we discussed above.

Instead of engaging God with the tools of Jesus Christ based on the terms of the new covenant, and thus accept the testimony that God had given in Jesus Christ, faith is put into a mental state. Let’s examine this further.

The condition of sin and death was not a trade off, but rather a condition brought about by consent of contact. God was teaching Adam, “As long as you allow false knowledge to be your counselor, you are allowing Satan to be your source.” That’s why God commanded Adam not to touch or go near the tree of good and evil.

Having established a new covenant in Jesus Christ, God provided a record for faith in Jesus so that He might be our source of life. I want to be clear that I’m not talking about the scriptures being our source of life, but the record of Jesus being our source of life. The two are not the same.

A mental trade requires no covenant contact. You simply follow the instruction the devil gave to Adam in the garden, and that is to talk about God’s desire for you, to see that as something presently missing and then to fill up that need by initiating your own actions.

Satan wants you to share in his shame (separation from God) and so he’ll always point out how your expectations are being thwarted and how you ought to be fighting against this lack to release God’s best for you.

The deception is in the mental trade or agreement or philosophical partnership. But how do you know when a mental trade has been put on the table? It’s simple, look at and listen to the declarations that are being made and you can hear the struggle that is present in the trade, yet absent of the anointing (the reality of Christ).

Believers make declarations of who Jesus is and make declarations about His righteousness and talk about the will of God and desire of God to restore you, but the knowledge is not joined to the covenant stewardship or tools for faith to become active. So their confession of faith has to do with countering their feelings of guilt, countering loss, countering the things they feel are standing in the way of their obtaining the blessing of Christ when Satan’s shadow passes over them.

Apostle James brings this out, how the shadow of the devil upon thoughts becomes that tipping point where thoughts are again bent towards dissolving circumstances. That’s the shadow of Satan and the turning of faith from Christ to self.

James 1:17
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Instead of Jesus being the mirror of their faith, Satan is the mirror of their guilt—and faith follows after the shadow to fight against it. Apostle Paul warned believers against shadow boxing with the devil, “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air.” (1 Corinthians 9:26)

Wilderness ministers state that they have “weaned” themselves off of the traditions of man, yet their faith continues to mirror Satan’s guilt, and you can hear that in the counsel they give as they try to resolve that state of mind by reading something positive in the Bible and trying to recreate that, arguing their justification, which is an effort to conceal their lack (nakedness). Even though they say, “I am not guilty, I am not talking about guilt”, their entire preaching and teaching puts them under that yoke.

We define this power (guilt) in association to Satan as he infuses his shadow over our conscience. Satan’s presence brings condemnation as his shadow of doubt passes over our conscience manifesting the state of our weak flesh which bears no reflection of the light of God. The sinner associates weakness to sin because Satan uses the law for the boast of the flesh to deny faith.

When Satan’s presence manifests it transfers the feeling of lack which frustrates the soul. Adamites were created in the image of light and life, but the flesh carries the transgression of Adam. Christ both died and rose again to remove the condemnation of the curse in the conscience, purifying it by faith.

Ignorance accepts the guilt as a tool to govern the flesh, placing redemption in a path of moderation, thus using the law for its scale. But the righteous possess the innocence of Christ by faith in the covenant priesthood.

When Satan’s shadow passes over the mind the feeling of lack occurs which rejects the fullness of Christ. The ungodly utilize this feeling to measure their own righteousness and seek justification in the law, which puffs up and begets heady and high-mindedness with religious principles. This is found in denying the flesh any satisfaction while at the same time resisting grace.

Thinking to find shelter from guilt by hiding their eyes from shame, they mirror Satan’s shame and transgression. The unrighteous man runs from this fear of guilt thinking he is running to a refuge, but is running away from God. This subtle shift of association bears Satan’s face of quilt and not God’s light.

Sinners then substitute Christ’s righteousness with a false rest by the justifications of the flesh with the law. This false rest is heard in the boast of the ignorant, which requires no faith or bond of charity.

Instead of the fear of God, they fear guilt which is Satan’s feelings of rejection and the shame of his iniquity. What you mirror in justifications is what you worship.

Believers read the scriptures about God’s will and God’s desire to give them the life of Christ and they think that the illumination and text will carry them through to experience, but it doesn’t. The text doesn’t carry the experience, the anointing does, and the anointing works with the knowledge of the record of Christ. That’s what the apostles were writing about in their epistles where they wrote about their experiences.

The truth is, the Holy Spirit will not engage your faith nor give substance to your soul if you are not resourcing the record of Christ.

When teaching believers how to make prophetic declarations, you can hear the lack of substance in how transition and change are put into the future. God’s best is put into the future—it is not that which is living and present in them, and that’s because they wandered from the covenant. They did not continue in the apostles’ doctrine.

1 John 2:24-26
24 Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father.
25 And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
26 These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.

These days everyone is making proclamation about what God is going to do, but they are speaking from their imagination. That’s the seduction.

The belief that God follows your word is taken from the account of Genesis whereas God spoke everything into existence with the Word of His Oath.

So there is an example in that that believers want to follow. Before we were created we were but thoughts in the mind of God and then He spoke and brought us into existence. But you must know that God had not intended to empower your imagination to be a token for your faith. We cannot follow this divine design now in this dimension of testing and reward, and I’ll explain why.

When Adam sinned it was through his imagination. Satan asked him to imagine what it would be like to take a short cut to the Godhead and Adam did so. He ate that which he labored with as he had substituted the knowledge of God for another token and another source.

God placed a curse upon the imagination by putting death upon it, which means that it is not a token that will give substance to your soul. God reserved that for Jesus Christ, and so there’s a contrast between the imagination and faith that allows us to labor to observe Christ in His covenant and tools to separate ourselves unto Him and thus avoid the lure of the devil to follow the record of our own soul, which is to fall away from Christ.

The imagination is like a bookmark in the signature of your soul, having no power to resource outside the letter (your signature), while faith is the power to resource God, reaching into the Word, Jesus Christ and His eternal kingdom. The imagination is so strongly tied to your signature (your own record) and self worth that God will not use it now for faith.

God will empower your imagination to create as He does in the baptism of light in the 10^th Enochian week wherein the mystery of Christ will be complete, whereof Isaiah prophesied saying, “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24)

Right now the mystery of Christ is restricted to His covenant whereas we serve Him with the tokens of His record. The mystery of Christ is at this time restricted to God creating in us the virtue and substance of His kingdom. He is beautifying and preparing your soul to be received of Him. Christ is preparing a Bride that He can love, as a pure chaste virgin, free from the guile of religious aspiration.

It is in this way of contrast between the imagination that works with the signature of the soul and true faith that works with the record of Christ that God divides the sheep who love Him from the goats who love themselves.

Believers went through a very trying time in the wilderness where the natural man used his imagination to create a gospel that would give him access to his signature to set God’s promise in the devil’s terrain (the wilderness where the Mother of Harlots has her abode).

When your imagination is used as a standard you will only believe you have arrived at your destination when things line up to your signature expectations. If you are confessing for a new car and you get one—bingo—you feel your faith has worked for you. If you confessed for healing from your cold and your cold goes away—bingo–you feel your faith has worked for you.

Entering into covenant with God your expectations drastically change from the natural to the spiritual. Entering into covenant with God is just like a getting on a train. The job of the train is to bring you to your destination. On that train you have everything you need for your journey, and God has provided all things for us for this journey to bring us into the next station, which is the throne of God. The next stop—the throne of God.