Beginning of Wisdom (Torah Club) lesson #46: Venerating false Messiahs as men who pleased God

 

Would you expect a Christian ministry to include a story in one of their publications about the purity and righteousness of Joseph Smith?  How about one that speaks of the actions of Charles Russell (founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses) as an illustration of what the Apostle John was trying to teach about the love of God?  If that sort of veneration of false teachers was found in any publication of any reputable Christian ministry or denomination, the uproar would be loud, widespread, and entirely justified.  I could have chosen Buddha or Confucius to make this point, Gandhi or the Dalai Lama, or any number of people that are admired by many, even millions of people, but who did not have a relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  We can admire someone, we can be fascinated by their life story or what they accomplished, but only God sets the standard for who is righteous in his sight, and that status is only possible through his Son.  To venerate anyone as a righteous person who pleased God WIHTOUT Jesus is an anathema to the Gospel, it is blasphemy.  

That's exactly what First Fruits of Zion has done in Lesson 46 of the Beginning of Wisdom, they just did so by using 18th century European mystics that are not as familiar as my examples are to an American.  To be clear, this objection is not an indictment of the life of either of the two Jewish leaders that FFOZ chose to venerate, nor is it an indictment of Judaism, or even Hasidic Judaism, the branch of Judaism the two of them were instrumental in founding / shaping, in particular.  They may have been good men, they may have been wise in their area of study, they may have been loving and kind, even exceptionally so.  They may be worthy of veneration within the religious movement they helped give direction to.  What they are not, what they cannot be, no matter what, is an example of someone whose righteousness pleased God.

To a universalist, that's an absurd statement.  If we set aside the bedrock truth of God's Word that, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" because, "There is no one righteous, not even one." (Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:10 & 3:23), and we set aside the bedrock truth spoken by Jesus, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life," (John 14:6), we would find ourselves in a world where people who are decent, good, even righteous in human eyes who should be lauded and praised for rising above the evil in this world.  BUT, we don't live in that world.  The reality is that there are none who are righteous in God's sight, all have sinned, and "the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23).  Without Jesus Christ, without faith in him to save us from our sins, we are entirely and irrevocably lost, period.  Whether this Truth is palatable or not, it is the Gospel given to us by God.  There is no other path, no Plan B or consolation prize, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is not other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12).

Unless you are a universalist of some kind, someone who doesn't believe that Jesus is necessary for salvation, at least for some people...

Lesson 46, page 15
"A similar story is told about the Baal Shem Tov.  It happened once that the Ball Shem Tov realized a heavenly decree had been issued against the Jewish community.  He determined to persuade God to reverse the decree.  Like Moses praying to enter the promised land, he threw himself into prayer and fasting, wrestling with God, so to speak.  He refused to relent until hie managed to reverse the decree and save the Jewish community.  However, the victory came at a great personal price.  A heavenly voice informed him that he had forfeited his own place in the World to Come.  Rather than grow despondent over the prospect, the Baal Shem Tov rejoiced.  He said, 'At last, I will know that my service of God is born purely out of a heart of love for Him and devotion to Him and not out of any hope for reward or fear of punishment.'"

Before we look at what FFOZ said about him, the Reader's Digest version of who Baal Shem Tov was: Baal Shem Tov, or "Master of the Good Name," is how Israel ben Eliezer (1700-1760) is known.  Israel was a Polish Jewish mystic who is regarded as the founder of Hasidic Judaism (a segment of ultra-Orthodox Judaism originating in Eastern Europe, most followers of it today live in the USA or Israel).  Today his life is surrounded by legends of miracles, so much so that the apostate Bart Ehrman has used him as an example to discredit the eyewitness account in the Gospels of the miracles of Jesus Christ by saying that eyewitnesses believed Baal Shem Tov to be a miracle worker too.  

From the Jewish Encyclopedia article on his life: {Besht is an abbreviation of Baal Shem Tov}

"The foundation-stone of Ḥasidism as laid by Besht is a strongly marked pantheistic conception of God. He declared the whole universe, mind and matter, to be a manifestation of the Divine Being; that this manifestation is not an emanation from God, as is the conception of the Cabala, for nothing can be separated from God: all things are rather forms in which He reveals Himself. When man speaks, said Besht, he should remember that his speech is an element of life, and that life itself is a manifestation of God. Even evil exists in God. This seeming contradiction is explained on the ground that evil is not bad in itself, but only in its relation to man."

With that brief consideration of the life of Baal Shem Tov (Israel ben Eliezer) in mind, how does FFOZ choose to connect this mystic to its lesson?  By praising a bold assertion of heresy.  In the story related to the Torah Club members by Lancaster and FFOZ, God rewards Baal Shem Tov by answering his prayer, but at the cost of condemning his soul.  This supposed "bargain" with God not only elevates Baal Shem Tov to a messianic level (he supposedly saved his entire people from destruction by sacrificing himself), it also portrays God in a blasphemous way as a God who would trade the soul of one he loves simply to change his own mind.  God has never condemned a soul unjustly as he is portrayed as doing in the story FFOZ cites.  Such a God is unworthy of worship and praise, that's who God would be if he let Abraham go through with sacrificing Isaac, such a God is NOT the God of the Bible.  

To recap the dangerous errors of using this example of Baal Shem Tov in the lesson: (1) It venerates a false Messiah-figure, (2) it treats the actions of a non-believer as righteous before God without reference to faith in Christ, (3) and by extension it puts an implicit stamp of approval on Baal Shem Tov's heretical pantheism.

Lesson 46, page 15
"Once, it happened that the disciples of Schneur Zalman (1745-1812), the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, overheard their rabbi in ecstatic prayer, crying out, 'I don't want your Paradise, I don't want your World to Come, I want only You.'  These stories illustrate the Apostle John's words, 'There is not fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.  We love, because He first loved us.'"(1 John 4:18-19)."

Before we look at what FFOZ said about him, the Reader's Digest version of who Schneur Zalman was: Schneur was a Russian Jewish rabbi commonly known as the Alter Rebbe who was the founder and first Rebbe (spiritual leader) of Chabad (a dynasty with chosen successors), which is a branch of Hasidic Ultra-Orthodox Judaism.  The 7th Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (d. 1994) taught that Baal Shem Tov was a divine manifestation (known as Sephirot) of infinite faith, and that Schneur Zalman was a divine manifestation of infinite wisdom.  By many of his followers in the movement, Schneerson is believed to have been the Messiah; that's the movement that Zalman founded, and the one that FFOZ is linking its teaching to.  

In case you are wondering, linking to the Lubavitch Movement and its messianic claims is the kind of thing that would shock both liberal and conservative rabbis within Messianic Judaism.  FFOZ isn't building bridges here, they're lighting them on fire.

With that brief introduction into Schneur Zalman in mind, how does FFOZ choose to connect this mystical rabbi to the lesson?  By making him an example of what the Apostle John was teaching about perfect love.  This use is beyond the ordinary false teaching of FFOZ into the realm of outright blasphemy as it is telling Torah Club followers that the Apostle John, the very disciple whom Jesus loved, was talking about someone like Schneur Zalman in 1 John.  What's the problem with this connection?  The answer is simple, and it doesn't have anything to do with Zalman's life except one fact about it.  John's entire contextual (the part FFOZ likes to ignore) thesis in 1 John is that any true and genuine believer must have 3 things to prove they have the genuine faith that pleases God: (1) walking in the light / obeying God's commands, (2) love for our fellow brothers and sisters in the faith, and (3) affirmation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  Take away one of them and the whole thing falls apart.  

1 John repeats these 3 factors over and over, fifty-two times to be exact {I know because I wrote a book on the subject: Christianity's Big Tent: The Ecumenism of 1 John}, with thirty-one positive statements on how to demonstrate you are part of God's family, and twenty-one negative statements that show who is not.  Of these, seventeen are about what we believe, eleven times John says we must affirm Jesus (as the Christ, the Son of God, who came in the flesh) and six times we are told we cannot deny Jesus and be in God's family.  In case you're curious now, there are fourteen statements in John about our need to love each other, which leaves twelve about our need to follow God's commands.  That is what John is actually teaching, in context.

HOW could Zalman know the "perfect love" that "casts out fear" if he didn't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  If he had confidence before God, it was a false confidence because it was based upon his own work not that of Jesus Christ.  If he did not feel fear when contemplating standing before Almighty God in judgment, he should have, because all who will stand before God without the being clothed in the righteousness of Christ will be condemned.  Being good, kind, loving, smart, zealous, none of it matters.  Our faith is in Christ, and Christ alone.  Faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone.  As a reminder, FFOZ utterly rejects the Five Solae of the Reformation: Rethinking the Five Solae

The stories of Baal Shem Tov and Schneur Zalman are NOT stories that illustrate what the Apostle John was teaching in 1 John.  To claim this, as FFOZ has done, is to deny the necessity of the saving Blood of Jesus Christ because John's entire point is that our connection to the love of God must be through Jesus.  We already know from Aaron Eby's, "What Replaces Replacement Theology?" that FFOZ is willing to hint that the Jewish people don't need Jesus to be saved.  This lesson is a much bolder assertion, it proclaims that men who have been elevated to the status of prophets, or even that of a Messiah, by their followers, who have thus led many astray away from God's salvation, should be venerated as wise and righteous despite having no connection to Jesus Christ.

The average American sitting in a Torah Club hearing this lesson won't know who either of the Jewish mystics are that FFOZ chooses to proclaim as heroes of the faith.  Most will assume that both were Messianic Jews, that they shared with them a belief in Jesus.  Ignorance is not bliss.  What FFOZ is doing in this lesson is heretical (an implicit statement that Jews don't need Jesus since these men who rejected him are elevated to saint-like status), blasphemous (ascribing "perfect love" to someone who doesn't know Jesus, thus equating human effort with divine grace), and grossly cynical as it depends upon their followers being unwilling to examine what they're being taught.

For the sake of those who are being led astray by FFOZ, I wish I was only able to find small errors or follies, but the opposite is true.  The dangers of FFOZ are very, very real.

An incredible story of God's love chasing after his lost sheep: A family's 20-year journey into the Hebrew Roots Movement & back out again.

 

In a powerful story of God's grace and faithful love for us, Joshua and Carla share their own story spanning twenty years and three countries as they journeyed into the Hebrew Roots Movement, wandered from the Church they had been raised in, and were pursued by God until his grace called them back home to a place where Jesus Christ is the absolute center of their relationship with God (and not their own effort at Torah observance).

This story also is a message to family and loved ones who are concerned about someone in the HRM: (1) Pray for them, (2) Be patient, (3) show compassion, (4) and don't let the relationship be broken for the sake of an argument.

Sermon Video: Sing and Make Music to the Lord - Ephesians 5:15-20

After warning disciples of Jesus that they need to make "the most of every opportunity" through wise living because the "days are evil," the Apostle Paul transitions naturally to our need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

How then do we embrace our connection to the Spirit of God?  One key way is through worship, particularly worship through music and song.  So, whether you like to sing or not, whether you can carry a tune or not, sing to the Lord!

Beginning of Wisdom (Torah Club) lesson #45: Gnostic mysticism, Sabbath idolatry, and elevating heretical extra-biblical sources

There are many topics connected to our faith about which the average Christians is mostly or entirely ignorant.  Some of that is a failure of education/discipleship, but much of it is simply the breadth and the depth of ideas and concepts that touch on the faith that steers our lives.  In all honestly, even scholars who spend their whole lives in study are a long way from knowing everything.  With that in mind, we shouldn't be surprised that people in Torah Clubs don't run away as soon as Daniel Lancaster and FFOZ starts to teach them Gnostic mysticism.  Our ancestors in the faith, however, who spent generations fighting against the malign influence of that philosophy during the 2nd to 4th centuries would have recoiled in horror because they knew how dangerous it was.  FFOZ is taking advantage of our collective ignorance of Early Church history, and particularly of the heresies that the Early Church rejected.  That needs to end.

Lesson 45, page 5
"in the version of the story told in the Midrash Rabbah, the LORD explains, "If you are buried here, near those who died in the wilderness, then they will enter the land for your sake at the time of the resurrection of the dead."

The primary heretical error in this lesson is gnostic mysticism, but with FFOZ there is typically room for several other dangerous ideas.  Here we see that they are uncritically citing the Midrash Rabbah to concur with its (false) assertion that the Israelites who died in the wilderness because of unbelief will be welcomed into the Promised Land (i.e. Heaven) by God because of the faithfulness of Moses.  This isn't the first time that FFOZ has taught that human beings can share salvific merit with others, an idea utterly rejected by the Apostle Paul, particularly in Romans.  This isn't the first time they've elevated Moses' exploits to the level of hero-worship.  There is nothing wrong with citing Jewish rabbinical teaching to illustrate a point, however, the uncritical way in which Lancaster does this leads to dangerous errors like this one.

Lesson 45, page 9
"Any person who seeks the LORD with repentance, searching for Him with heart and soul, will find Him and receive the forgiveness of sins.  The LORD will gather that soul in with His people to save it from the coming day of fire."

If not for my research into FFOZ, I would probably assume that this is an orthodox statement by assuming that when they say, "seeks the LORD" they mean in this New Covenant era, "any person accepts Jesus as Savior."  But that's not what this is.  This isn't simply a statement expressing confidence in the Grace of God to ensure Gospel acceptance on the part of all who seek him.  Instead, we are once again seeing FFOZ toy with ideas of Universalism.  We've already noted the times that FFOZ has hinted that Jews don't need Jesus because they're already the Chosen People, here they are hinting at an even further extension by saying that some who will be saved won't even be a part of "His people."  Word choices matter in theology.  When the one being saved isn't spoken of as being a part of God's people, but instead as being "with" them, it raises eyebrows.  When the person/organization making such a statement is already known to subvert the Gospel, there is apt reason to be concerned.  Read the statement again, compare it to Jesus' own words, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but my me." (John 14:6).  

Lesson 45, page 14
"The early Jewish believers in Yeshua taught the same concepts.  The collection of teachings and fictionalized narratives titled Clementine Homilies."

Thus Lancaster elevates the Clementine Homilies to the level of a trusted, even authoritative source.  See how simple that was?  All he needed to do was connect it in one sentence to Jewish followers of Jesus, no further explanation needed.  Except we really need one.  The Clementine Homilies were not written by Clementine of Rome, as with many ancient manuscripts the name of someone famous is used to lend authenticity or weight.  While the original was written earlier, our only surviving version dates from the 5th century.  The Early Church historian Eusebius dismissed it in this manner, "And now some have only the other day brought forward other wordy and lengthy compositions as being Clement's, containing dialogues of Peter and Appion, of which there is absolutely no mention in the ancients." (Ecclesiastical History, 3.38)

What does this collection of writings contain?  Among other things through a gnostic and Arian influence it proclaims that Jews don't need Jesus to be saved and portrays Jesus primarily as the final prophet to the Jewish people rather than as the savior of the world.  If, then, the Clementine Homilies is an accurate reflection of what some of Jesus' followers believed in that era, it shows them to be disciples with a dangerously flawed theology, albeit one that aligns with the false teachings that FFOZ is currently selling.

So, what is it from the Clementine Homilies that FFOZ wants its followers to embrace?

Lesson 45, page 17
"God remains the stationary point from which all things emanate and to which all return.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.  Unmoving and at rest at the center.  God is outside the flow of time like the infinite world to come."
"This then is the mystery of the hebdomad.  For He Himself is the rest of the whole who grants Himself as a rest to those who imitate His greatness within their little measure. (Clementine Homilies)"

Gnostic mysticism is the answer.  Gnostic philosophy is NOT compatible with faith in Jesus Christ.  The attempt was made to meld them together by Gnostics, but we can see that combination being rejected even in its earliest form in 1 John.  Long story short, the Gnostics believed that the divine and physical realms could not touch because it is matter that is corrupted but spirit that is pure.  The result is to remove God from direct connection to this world, a real problem for those who believe in the Incarnation.

Lesson 45, page 17b
"A hebdomad is a group of seven.  The significance and hidden meaning behind all of the Bible's sequences of seven, including the seven days of creation and the seven days of the week, are explained in the idea sketched out above.  The hebdomad concept also gives us a tool to visualize the seven heavens differently."

In addition to a flawed cosmology, Gnosticism is also built upon the idea of "hidden" or "secret" knowledge available only to a select few.  You've probably never heard of a hebdomad unless you're a real math geek.  You can look in vain through the entirety of sacred scripture without finding anything like this, but that's of little concern to Gnostic mysticism.  Why?  Because those of us who follow Jesus through orthodox methods have limited ourselves to the divine revelation of scripture, and the mystics are seeking the answers within themselves.  If the answers are within, they're not coming from God.  If the answers are within, we are the ultimate authority not God.  Mysticism, Gnostic or otherwise, has never been the path to Truth given by God to humanity.  God reveals to us what we need to know, it is made plain by God, not hidden away.

Why would FFOZ embrace mysticism?  In addition to wanting to elevate the Jewish mysticism of Kabbalah (which they have done numerous times in Torah Club materials), this sort of unfettered search for Truth that is not bound by Holy Scripture has great appeal to those who have embraced answers that are contradicted by the Word of God.  When you are proclaiming that the Church was never meant to exist and that those who follow Jesus have been in gross error for 2,000 years, it helps to embrace a methodology like this one that allows for "truth" to come from new sources, particularly from yourself.

Lesson 45, page 18
"The homily says that God 'grants Himself as a rest to those who imitate His greatness within their little measure.'  That is to say, those who rest on the Sabbath do so as a small token of rest in imitation of God's perfect rest at the center point of existence.  As a reward, God grants a portion of His own presence."

Another reason beyond mysticism that FFOZ wants its followers to treat the Clementine Homilies as authoritative is that it contains the type of Sabbath idolatry that they themselves are promoting.  Sabbath theology is a too big of a topic to do justice to here, but one thing that we can know for sure: Keeping the Sabbath does not earn you a "portion" of God's "own presence."  The mysticism being promoted here leaves no room for Sabbath keeping to be optional.  It is being described as if it is the key to communion with God.

The truth is, Jesus is how we connect to God in the New Covenant, not the Sabbath.  The Holy Spirit was given to every person redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, we have God's Spirit within us, we don't need a mystical Sabbath experience to get it.  When Paul writes of our need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that is, our need to have an increased presence of God in our lives, he never once mentions Sabbath keeping as having anything to do with it.

Lesson 45, page 19
"Entering the Sabbath should be like entering a state of being - specifically, God's Being - in which there is nothing unfinished, nothing incomplete, no future or past, nothing but the eternal now of perfect peace and bliss.  In that respect, the celebration and observance of the Sabbath offer a taste of the transcendent peace of simple participation in the Oneness of God."

Yeah, I'm going to pass on the idea that Sabbath keeping is the path to "participation in the Oneness of God."  The mysticism is so thick here in this description that it makes Sabbath keeping sound like a drug trip in which those who participate lose themselves entirely for a while.  "Just say, 'No!'" sounds appropriate here.

Lesson 45, page 20
Incidentally, the paradoxical concept of God as both resting point and source of all action helps explain an extremely cryptic and otherwise incomprehensibly esoteric passage in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas."

It was a good thing that I wasn't eating while I read this page or I might have choked on my food.  The Gospel of Thomas????  Did FFOZ really just drop that deeply heretical fake Gospel into a lesson as if it too deserves to be given respect?  Once again, FFOZ is hoping that Christians are ignorant, it is the only explanation that makes sense.  The Gospel of Thomas was found buried in the Egyptian desert in 1945.  It was written by unknown Gnostics a couple of centuries after Christ, who attached the name of the Apostle Thomas to it.  To say that it is heretical is an understatement.  The Jesus portrayed in this abomination of a gospel is NOT the Jesus whom we worship as Lord and Savior.  The only value that this document has are the insights we can gain from it into the heresies that the Early Church resoundingly rejected through the Ecumenical Councils.  To drop it into a lesson, without explanation, is the height of careless toying with heretical teachings.

In the end, this Torah Club lesson contains new errors when it leans heavily upon the Clementine Homilies and name-drops the Gospel of Thomas, but it is built upon the same error we have seen so many times from FFOZ: A willingness to elevate any source or method that supports the conclusions they've already proclaimed.  

Beginning of Wisdom (Torah Club) lesson #42-43: Afterlife uncertainty and more mysticism

Lesson 42-43, page 13
"God has ordered things so that 'man will not discover anything' about his fate in the next life.  We are only granted glimpses of Gehenna and Paradise.  It's impossible to construe those glimpses into a single and universal doctrine of eternal destinies."

One of the challenging things that I have found in my efforts to expose the false teachings of First Fruits of Zion is that there continue to be more dominoes that get knocked over by their abandonment of orthodoxy.  In this case, the orthodox belief that is now being cast aside by FFOZ is what is known as eternal security.  Since the Apostles, the followers of Jesus Christ have operated with the understanding that we have all the knowledge about the Afterlife that is necessary for faith and practice.  We don't know everything we want to know, in particular that whole "day and hour" piece of the puzzle, but we know everything we need to know to live with the certainty of faith in the here and now.  Using an unsound (non-contextual) interpretation of Ecclesiastes 7:14, FFOZ is proclaiming in this lesson that faithful certainty about what the future holds must be replaced with "glimpses" that cannot be pulled together to form an understanding that is true for all of us.

The implications of this sentence are far-reaching, unbiblical, and deeply dangerous: "It's impossible to construe those glimpses into a single and universal doctrine of eternal destinies."  The Word of God tells us otherwise.  There are only two kinds of people: Those who have been saved by the Blood of the Lamb who are safe in the Father's hands, and those who remain Lost who will perish apart from a relationship with God.

John 10:28-30 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!

1 John 5:12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

God has given us sufficient clarity about the Afterlife.  God has given us the rubric that applies to every single human being who has ever lived.  By proclaiming that this certainty is impossible to have, FFOZ is sowing seeds of doubt that will harm the faith of many.  Why would they do this?  What profit can they hope to reap from blurring lines that were clearly laid out by Jesus himself?

Lesson 42-43, page 19
"The soul forgets nothing.  It carries with it the record of every event, every deed and misdeed, every mitzvah and every sin.  Acquiring these memories is the reason the soul descends into a body and lives life as a human being in the first place.  The soul enters the world of concealment to attain merit through the free will to choose good or evil.  In this world, the soul learns to seek God, and through its many experiences in the body, it becomes uniquely you.  With those memories intact, the soul will one day be returned to the body for the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment.  The memories create continuity between the old you and the new you." {emphasis mine}

Did God create you so that you could obtain memories?? Is that why you were born?  My friends, we have a higher purpose than this.  We were created to love.  To love God and love each other.  To overcome evil with good. To live self-sacrificially in this life in the hope of God's justice in the next.  What FFOZ is teaching here is built on a false premise (the pre-existence of the human soul), and far too shallow to reflect God's glorious purpose in Creation.

In addition to the heresy of the pre-existence of the human soul, we once again see FFOZ teaching that merit is earned and combining it with the idea that human beings are capable of seeking God on their own {which is consistent with their embrace of legalism in the form of Torah idolatry}.  They need to teach that human effort on its own can bear fruit because they've staked their entire organizational existence on the belief that the key to pleasing God is properly obeying a set of rules.  

Here's the thing, the Apostle Paul knew better.  The book of Romans more than sufficiently debunks this wishful thinking.  Humanity apart from God cannot please him, has no hope of earning any measure of merit, and in fact is not seeking God anyway.  Without God's grace and the calling of the Holy Spirit we are dead in the water, period.

Lesson 42-43, page 19b
"This aspect of the life review can be considered the spiritual objective behind the commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  In the end, you will live your neighbor's experience as yourself."

Lesson 42-43, page 20
"one day, we will experience what we did unto others as if it was done unto us."

Lastly, one more new false teaching from FFOZ is introduced in this lesson, the "life review."  Borrowing from the testimonies of those who have been through Near Death Experiences, FFOZ is teaching that as you die you will actually experience your life over again, and on top of that, you will experience your life through the view of everyone else you have every interacted with.  They are saying that you will, literally, experience the impact of every good and bad choice you ever made in life by having that action done to you.

Aside from being a bizarre speculation into mysticism that has ZERO biblical basis, what is the harm of teaching what is assuredly unknowable and unprovable in this life?  It fits a pattern.  A pattern of embracing mysticism and teaching it as fact that is akin to FFOZ's uplifting of rabbinical teaching and even Jewish folklore as fact (rather than opinion).  A teaching ministry needs to be able to distinguish fact from fiction, truth from opinion, and what is known from what is only guessed at.  FFOZ has shown many times over that they lack this basic skill.