Psychology in the Church

Our world is full of unhappy people pursuing happiness. With such a distraught populace the church is looking for programs, schemes, and methods to meet these hurting individuals where they hurt. The hearts of most pastors and lay leaders are sincere. They want to help those who come to them.

The problem in not sincerity. Most churches, even of the liberal philosophy, have no deviate design to deceive. Pastors, as a whole, are not in league with the devil to lead our world to hell. Of the hundreds of Christian leaders I personally know they are normally hardworking, sincere, and devoted to the task they have accepted. Then, what is wrong in our church and society that causes our best efforts to be so utterly fruitless? The most we can claim for todayÂ’s church is a few mega buildings and programs where religion is celebrated with great fanfare and the counseling centers are full from dawn to dayÂ’s end. If this is the Book of Acts, then IÂ’m greatly disappointed.

Christianity and Psychology DonÂ’t Mix
The church world has been psychologized and in the process defeated. They Holy Ghost, speaking through Saint John, said, “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son” (1 John 5:8-9). (In your King James Bible the word “Spirit” is not capitalized. The original Greek, according to the Texus Receptus, was capitalized and means the Holy Spirit, not the human spirit.) Every pure source of spiritual energy is confined to this trinity of power. The Holy Ghost, operating by the Word of God and by virtue of the vicarious blood, is the totality of the church’s need. Anything added to this life-changing, world-changing authority destroys its effect. God will not honor the arm of the flesh operating in His sanctuary. Consider how He judged David when he numbered Israel. Victory was turned to defeat when the king depended on His strength instead of God’s program.

The entire root of psychology is completely foreign to the “truth of God.” There are seven basic premises to secular psychology. Please notice that each of them destroys one or more of the powerful principles of the Holy Scripture and Biblical theology. Psychology is a sociological effort by man to find himself without surrendering himself to the Creator. Many human designs of this caliber have evolved over man’s history, and this is probably the most devious.

Secular psychology is premised on Darwin’s theory of evolution. Here are the words of the authors of Basic Psychology, as they describe the relationship between psychology and evolution. “Darwin’s theory of evolution, which states that any plant or animal species developed through modification of preexisting species, was highly controversial, but it had a tremendous effect on the study of human behavior and experience. It promoted all sorts of speculations about continuity from the animal to the human mind and about the nature of animal mental life. Furthermore, the idea of animal instincts, which was well accepted, led to speculation about human instincts and to the study of human motivation.” (Basic Psychology)

Any idea based on DarwinÂ’s theory of evolution is evil and false. The entire basic model of Psychology is premised on the development of manÂ’s personality rooted in evolution. Since we developed slowly from the tadpole to the human species, then the healing of manÂ’s problems must follow that pattern. The created marvel of man has only one problem and this is the root of every other problem. It is the root of every other problem. It is sin. When you bypass this problem, the cure is faulty.

Secular psychology says that man is basically good and does not possess a depraved or adamic nature. Robert Schuller had made this false idea acceptable with his spurious teaching of positive thinking. The constant drum of todayÂ’s preaching is about human potential, how to be successful, relationship techniques, and self-esteem. The Biblical idea of self-crucifixion, sanctification, and the total renouncement of fleshly living doesnÂ’t even earn second place. Such preaching cannot succeed. Every man has a spiritual button in his chest and the only person who can find it is the Holy Ghost.

Confession of complete human bankruptcy is the only first step to redemption. The Bible calls it “confession of sin.”

In the psychological man there is no need of a Savior because we are not lost. Of course, this also eliminates heaven or hell because there are no judgments or rewards where there are no transgressors or servants to sin. The new psychological savior is a positive attitude. The mind of the educated elitist is a picture in stupidity. While denouncing sin and replacing it with a negative attitude, they reduce man to an animal subjected to the control of his elitist peers. The truth is that all of this is preparation for Antichrist domination. B.F. Skinner was quoted in Time Magazine as saying the following, “But Skinner insists that autonomy is a myth, and that belief in an ‘inner manÂ’ is a superstition that originated — like belief in God — in manÂ’s inability to understand his world.” “Our task is not to encourage moral struggle or to build or demonstrate inner virtues. It is to make life less punishing.” (Time Magazine, September 20, 1971, p. 48.)

Fourth, the psychologist has stolen the human soul and replaced it with a subconscious mind. All of America and the civilized world has heard talk of a subconscious mind until it’s natural to believe it. It is an invention of psychology and is totally contrary to Biblical truth. Don Matzat in his book, Inner Healing; Deliverance or Deception, described Jung’s theory as the following: “The central theory of Jungian psychology, that which is often associated with the name Carl Jung, is the theory of the collective unconscious. On the basis of his experience with patience (evaluating the content that often erupted from the unconscious), Jung theorized that there was a deeper level of unconscious content beneath the Freudian personal unconscious. Within this ‘deep mind’ were the memories of the race: its cultural, religious, spiritual, mythological development. Religion for Jung was innate, inbred. He defined the collective unconscious as impersonal and transpersonal, transcending one’s own personal experience.” (Inner Healing: Deliverance or Deception? Don Matzat, p. 69.)

It’s easy to see the transition into the occult from the basis of a subconscious mind. Preaching on the fourth dimension is a product of this spurious thinking. Reincarnation is also becoming a dominate idea in the Western world and is a natural result of the “subconscious mind theory.”

Man was given a soul (personality) by the divine act of our Creator. The soul is eternal and possesses will, emotions, and conscious. This God’s imparted conscious is what psychologists have mistakenly called subconscious. It’s that deep sense of self (myself or yourself) and certainly possesses the spiritual capacity of both obedience and disobedience to God and toward man. While in obedience, it has great capacity for God; in disobedience, it carries itself into the depth of destruction and, finally, eternal hell. Remember the question, “Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:37). The psychologists have exchanged it for a subconscious and a bad one at that. Don’t forget, the whole industry of psychology exists to free men of his bad subconscious. Self-serving is an understatement.

The natural next step was to replace the spirit of man breathed by God with something psychological. The word psychic was their invention. Making these comparisons is not easy because of the different theories of the psychological world. They all do agree that man has what they call a psychic. This appears to represent to them the connection between our conscious existence and the unconscious data in our subconscious mind.

It’s easy to see this as their replacement of the God-breathed human spirit. Jesus made an incredible announcement in His ministry about our spirit as given by God. “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light” (Luke 11:34-36).

This recalls to memory the old song, “I saw the light. I saw the light. No more in darkness, no more in night. Now IÂ’m so happy, no sorrow in sight. Praise the Lord, I saw the light.” The redemption of man by the Holy Spirit is the regeneration of the human spirit. The light comes on in our heart. We suddenly know that God is our God, Jesus is our Saviour and forgiver of sins, and that we are sons of God by grace. The human spirit — put out by sin — is ignited. It then witnesses by the Holy Spirit that we are sons of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. (Romans 8:16-17).

No wonder this new religion of psychology hates Biblical Christianity. They donÂ’t mind dead religion in dead churches. It is only when revival and redemption by the sovereign work of the Holy Ghost breaks forth that they lose their hold on the population.

The human dilemma to the secular psychologist is a repression of bad experiences in the subconscious. This is the entire structure of their theories of solution. All techniques, ideas, counseling styles, and methods are geared to discover and release this bad data and create healing in the subconscious. They theorize that this will result in the external healing of the individual. They have only one simple problem, it does not work.

ItÂ’s easy to see that every method of psychology is regressive, not liberating. They must — by their own thinking — go backward into the individualÂ’s life and dredge up everything (plus) that has ever happened. In the process they create a maximum amount of fantasy and fear based on nothing but wild speculation. The person being counseled becomes a slave to the fears discovered and to the new priest or priestess who is saving them from these fears. ItÂ’s a marvelous plan by old Lucifer to enslave mankind.

The healing ministry provided by Jesus Christ is the exact opposite. He cleanses from all past experiences, forgives us from every sin we have committed, and renews us body, soul, and spirit by His sanctifying grace. Paul said it clearly, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). All old things have passed away. We are new creatures, created in the image of the Second Adam named Jesus Christ. When Jesus sets you free, you are free indeed.

Churches with classes on alcohol addiction, drug addiction, twelve-step programs, phobias, eaters anonymous, etc., have simply replaced the old-fashioned gospel with the lie of psychology. One lady called our radio program angry because of this kind of content and blurted out the question, “Do you think the Bible, the blood, and the Holy Spirit is some kind of cure all?” I almost screamed, “Lady, you said it better than I could. Yes, yes, yes, I do!”

The last promise of Secular Psychology is that all human action is relative. There is no right or wrong. That’s why the Ten Commandments have been removed from public school classrooms and the Bible is the only book we dare censor from the unsuspecting students. It is the number one enemy of our modern social reformers. It is also the reason that the Bible is being translated into less threatening terminology and its infallibility is under great attack. Psychology has caused many of our ministers to take a new look at what we used to call sin. It’s no longer acceptable to preach, “Don’t.”

Subtly, our western mindset has developed a new way of thinking. Very few people have any sense of the danger. We know something is wrong, but we donÂ’t know what it is. This last idea of the psychological mind is the beginning of our total collapse. When the concept of distinction between light and darkness is lost, darkness becomes our master. The two cannot co-exist. One leaves when the other becomes king.

Will The Church Survive? Yes!
The invisible church will survive the deception that is now almost complete. Out of every dark period a remnant has emerged who refuse to be assimilated in the leaven. Any man, woman, or church congregation that returns to the Holy Bible, the Blood, and the Holy Spirit has the trinity of spiritual success. There are no powers that can resist the fresh visitation of the power of God. Right now, God is choosing this remnant to visit for revival.

Give yourself to the Word of God. Learn complete dependency on the Holy Ghost. Every day and every hour depend on the Blood of Jesus to deliver you from sin, both known and unknown. When we humble ourselves under His authority, quit kicking against the commandments to live holy and separated lives, and find the joy of His complete sovereign will in daily obedience; incredible results will follow. His chosen will experience an awakening of power and holiness as we watch for His sudden appearance. HeÂ’s coming any moment and the holy, sinless saints will ascend to meet Him in the air. We will follow Him to the FatherÂ’s throne and return to reign on this earth with Him.

Trust only in the power of God and make a consecrated effort to cast out every thought or idea that does not exalt the knowledge of God and the name of Jesus Christ. Here is Paul’s commandment given by the Holy Ghost to the first church, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).