A Note re: SOZO

The following is a comment I placed on Craig’s blog regarding sozo. I wanted to share it here just to reiterate the truth –

I was trained as a sozo minister under a local prayer and healing room that I had been a part of for several years. I administered this process to a number of people and I also went through my own sessions. I can attest these sessions can be quite powerful. I also underwent another type of prayer taught at Bethel, but the name escapes me, which was every bit as powerful as sozo.

I was amazed at the amount of visions which occurred during these sessions, and the presence of that spirit that even invaded my dreams and thoughts during the days surrounding these sessions – the messages that came so quickly that I could barely write them out, often resorting to sketching – a new thing for me – in that effort to capture all that truth being revealed. This was often the occurrence whether it be my own sessions or that of another person I got these messages and visions! We were in awe of the power!

Stand back and look! Look to the word. Because in all its power, in all those visitations and visions we will never find this process defined for us in the bible. We will never find an example or story or teaching that requires us to visit our past or find a root for our troubles.

We are told to repent, to forgive and not to look back.

This is how we can tell if this procedure or any is from God – is it in the bible??? Pretty simple isn’t it?

Sozo is a practice from what we can term as New Age, it is found in pagan circles, it is found in those who practice visualization techniques that were so popular in pop psychology of the 90′s.
However, it is never taught nor practiced by Jesus or His disciples in the word of God. Once we shake off that sugar-coating and stop making excuses we see the truth. Sozo is a dangerous practice that should never be attempted by any Christian and that goes for any and all of these healing methods.

Sozo is a great example for Colossians 2:8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

Sozo participants – you have indeed been cheated from the truth and freedom found only in Christ Jesus through His death and resurrection in which he claimed – “It is finished!”

Repent and be restored!

Always Reaching, Never Finding

After I left the healing room ministry I began to do additional research into what they believed and taught others. It’s pretty much the same Word of Faith garbage repacked and sold by Cal Pierce, International Association of Healing Rooms out of Spokane WA.

I did quite a bit of research using my bible and a concordance – the resources I already had in my home. I didn’t have to go out an buy an expensive dvd or cd set or take a bunch of courses or pay hundreds of dollars to see the truth the way I did to see the lie. Imagine. Freely you have received, freely give. (Who said that?)

So after my research I put all of the information together along with a personal explanation and sent it off to all the members of the healing room, past and present.  None of them left the ministry, and only a couple asked questions. But, to my knowledge not one of them took to heart the truth of the scripture against the lie of the so called ministry. They continue to follow their heralded “famous one” who leads them to the path of apostasy who teaches them if a person is not healed there is a reason why and usually the problem is within.

Sadly, I see the ministry I left and those I warned plan to continue with teaching their “How To’s” this coming weekend. And all for a bargain price of $20! After all, they have the secret formula for healing! So, I wonder why they are sick? Why they need breathing machines to sleep at night, why they take medication or end up in the ER, why do they wear glasses and why are they overweight? Why do they go through surgeries and medical procedures and suffer bad effects from the medications? Why do their bones break or muscles pull? Why does the food they eat disagree with them?  Why do they succumb to seasonal viruses or request that those who are sick keep away from them? Why? Are they not all healed? NO. – -NO NO NO!!

Then how can they possibly continue on with such a mindless charade of lies that physical healing is in the atonement and it is part of a believer’s heritage to live disease free? Can someone else please tell them that we, even if we are saved, are still fallen, subject to sickness and disease?  If you have ever known someone who is chronically ill you will see from them that the miraculous is not so much in a person’s healing, but in they way they effect others while they are sick. It is in their testimony that they still stand and worship God and believe in Him and trust in Him despite the illness!  It is because they have purposed in their heart “Thy will be done.” These are the true faithful ones. So they do not have a need to go running around from place to place, in a crazed frenzy seeking out that healing, going from church to conference in cars, trains and airplanes spending their very last nickel to “get some healing” or “experience God’s tangible presence in this place with a special anointing” or visit that special person who is famed to “have the anointing on him/her, or who moves in the gift of…“. Because they have found it is NOT all about “me”.

But this is the topic they will be teaching on this weekend, How to Heal Biblically, or healing the way Jesus did. Listen, I was with them for almost 3 years and I only saw one person get healed during that time. Only one! Has anyone posed the question that if it were really God’s will to heal then why don’t the people heal? Crazy.

We know Jesus laid hands on the sick and they were healed instantly. We know He told his disciples to heal the sick and they did. We also know we do not see that same amount of healing today. We don’t know why. But, there are plenty of ministries like this one that will make you believe they have the answer to that question and they are happy to teach them to you. Believe me, these so called “answers” are not found in the bible.  See my writing Are All Healed.

They will also teach that there are such things as generational sins or curses, this is “sins of the father” that are passed from one generation to the next. This is old testament, and not true of a believer. Repentance brings forgiveness and we are not held responsible for another person’s choices. Jesus took the curse for us on the cross. All of them. Galatians 3:13  See my article on Generational Curses.

While it may be true there were special places of worship and of God’s visitation in the old testament, it is not the norm for a new testament believer. We are given the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as part of the new covenant, which old testament believers did not have. There is no need to visit a place of healing or a faith healer.  When we are taught otherwise we are being taken back to the old covenant and in doing told to ignore or forget the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And when we believe these lies we are following after another gospel and have perverted the faith. Consider how many of these deceived and false teachers refer to the old testament rather than the new.  They are taking Jesus out, just like unbelievers. It is ok to believe in God, just not His one and only Son.

These healing room ministries are all about the person – the healing, the gifting, the anointing, the authority. Yes, Jesus is in there somewhere, but He is not the head because it’s only His name that is used.  If He were the head there would not be such an emphasis on the person. And in this environment where there is supposed gifts like wisdom, teaching, prophecy, revelation, dreams and visions and gifts of intercession, there is also something called jealousy.  Yes! Looking at others wanting what they have, coveting, not being content in their own gift. But such a thing  called- contentment – is not the way of satan, who himself claimed to Eve that she could could be like God! Never content, always wanting more, wanting even demanding through crazy decrees and proclamations to speak things that are not as though they were forgetting this refers to God, not man! Going after what is out of their human reach or design to have, to know or to understand – out of God’s perfect will. Is this not the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life warned about in (1 John 2:16)?

Always reaching, never finding.

2 Corinthians 11:3-4  3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.  4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted–you may well put up with it!