Marilyn Hickey Promotes Unbelievers

Doing a some research yesterday, I found that false pastor and teacher, Marilyn Hickey and her daughter, Sarah Bowling, promote unbelievers to teach their audience about Christ:

Famous Christians in History is a chance to study the lives of renowned believers who made a difference in their world. You will be encouraged as you discover how God uses ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things.
Includes:• Accounts of their struggles, triumphs, and failures• Looks into their private lives • Stories of how they defended our faith or became famous living it out• Timeline to help you relate their lives to world events
Among those they promote are: Madam Guyon, Roman Catholic mystic; and William Braham, who was an anti-Trinitiarian.

What is disturbing is the encouragement of professing Christians to read Madam Guyon (Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte, 1648-1717). She was a Roman Catholic mystic and studied as well as taught the Eastern mystical contemplative spirituality. She is highly recommended by many in the Emergent Church Movement/Contemplative Spirituality circles. Christianity Today endorses her. As well, she is recommended on the dvd "Be Still".

Here are two her quotes, found from Lighthousetrailsresearch:

"Here [the contemplative state] everything is God. God is everywhere and in all things."

This is a pantheistic, perhaps even panentheistic, view of God, hardly biblical whatsoever. God is not everything, rather He is the Creator, unlike all He creator. He is unique, set apart:

Isa 40:18 To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?

Revelation proclaims the destruction of unbelievers, Satan, the Beast, death,and hell (Rev. 19:20; 20:10,14,15). This is incompatable with "all is in God and God is in all" view.

She also taught, "May I hasten to say that the kind of prayer I am speaking of is not a prayer that comes from YOUR MIND. It is a prayer that begins in THE HEART.... PRAYER THAT COMES FROM THE HEART IS NOT INTERRUPTED BY THINKING!"[Experiencing The Depths of Jesus Christ p. 4]

1Cor. 14: 14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. 15 So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.

According to Richard Fisher, "The school of mysticism that Guyon adhered to, sometimes called Quietism, was an extreme form of Roman Catholic mysticism that emphasized the cleansing of one’s inner life and included the belief that one could see Christ visibly."

"She taught that we can know of God by “passing forward into God,”7 going into a mindless, meditative state where we can get in touch with the Christ within the self, merge with that Christ and be lifted into ecstasy."

To their shame, Moody Press published her autobiography. Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) offers her book online as well. If CCEL offers it for research purposes, they need to boldly designate it as such. Otherwise it can been seen as an endorsement.

Whitaker House now publishes the book, which given their line of heretical books (Mary K. Baxter, E. W. Kenyon, Rebecca Brown) is much more understandable (one wonders why they promote their fictional book, "Winds of Evil" by Sharon Gilbert as "Be afraid of things that go bump in the night". Christians are not to be fearful nor be anxious about anything--but I digress).

For a thorough treatment of what Guyon taught, read Fisher's article here.

Lastly, Marilyn Hickey and her daughter Sarah promote William Brahman to their readers.

Branham said, "...not one place in the Bible is trinity ever mentioned...It's Catholic error and you Protestants bow to it" (Conduct, Order, Doctrine Q and A, p. 182). "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is offices of one God. He was the Father; He was the Son; He is the Holy Ghost. It's three offices or three dispensations,..." (Ibid., p. 392). This view of the Godhead is called Modalism and is a false and heretical view of God.

Branham explained, "There never was a person baptized in the name of `Father, Son, Holy Ghost' until early Catholicc church" (Ibid., p. 178)....Branham attempted to explain the distinction, "You see, you misunderstand it then. It's one God in three dispensations....

The Trinity, however is not a Roman Catholic doctrine. Rather its biblical. The Trinity is defined as: One God, and within that one God there exists three co-equal and co-eternal persons, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son, nor is the Holy Spirit the Father or the Son. They are distinct from one another, having a loving relationship between them, communication between them, the giving of gifts between them, and submission (the Spirit to the Son, and the Son to the Father).

Interestingly, Robert Bowman says:

Oneness accuses the Church of being tied with Rome with the Trinity being of pagan origin. History shows the doctrine of the Trinity was there long before Constantine’s time when the Church in Rome became a center for Christianity after it was legal to be a Christian.

Despite the accusation's of the Roman Church inventing and promoting the Trinity we find the Church in Rome falling prey to numerous falsehoods that they tried to keep out, one of which was Oneness. Almost 125 years before Constantine conflict arose with what is classified as modalism (Oneness Pentecostalism). This teaching found support with two early Bishops of Rome, Zephyrinus and Callistus. Zephyrinus was the head Bishop at the time and was attracted to the Modalistic view. Caught between two major factions trying to keep the peace, he was advised by his soon to be successor Callistus on how to keep both sides satisfied. After Zephyrinus died in 217 A.D. Callistus kept his policy and Modalism became the official theory in Rome for almost a generation. He also was determined to excommunicate both Sabellius ( who promoted Modalism) as well as Hippolytus (who promoted the Trinity) who he accused of promoting two Gods. He devised a formulae that would satisfy the contention of both parties to keep the peace, since he considered himself the Pope.

Only the Christian God is triune, and consequently, to deny the Trinity is to say that, historically, Judaism and Islam have been right about the being of God, while Christianity has been wrong. Oneness writers have said as much.

--Robert Bowman Jr. www.gospeloutreach.net

For an outline of verses that show the Trinity, go here and here.

Branham also taught that Eve had sex with the Serpent in the Garden,with Cain as the product of that union:

"Here is what actually happened in the Garden of Eden. The Word says that Eve was beguiled by the serpent. She was actually seduced by the serpent. He was as close to being a human that his seed could, and did mingle with that of the woman and cause her to conceive" (The Original Sin, pp. 2, 3).

For a detailed article dealing with the life and doctrine of Branham, go to Watchman apologetic website*. I found excellent quotes there for this article.

Of course Gen. 4:1 says: Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD."

Scripture attributes the birth of Cain to Adam and God. Not the devil. This is so clear that a child can understand it.

Claiming to be the forerunner endtime prophet to Jesus' return (move over John the Baptist!), he tried to predict that America would be destroyed in 1977 (The Seven Church Ages, p. 322)., but as you know, we're all still here. This proves he was a false prophet in addition to being a false teacher and false pastor.

One wonders if either Marilyn or Sarah have ever bothered to read Branham's material or do research on him, because had they done so, they would not offer him as an influence Christian man. As far as I know, Hicky claims to be a Trinitarian. Supporting Branham would go against that doctrine. Perhaps, like other "Christians" we see on TBN, the doctrine of the Trinity doesn't matter to them. This is to their shame.

As you can see, Marilyn Hickey and her daughter prove Paul's words to be true:

1Tim. 2: 11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

These two are decieved themselves and are disobedient to clear commands of Scripture. They should not be listened to.

*A cautionary note: on the page on Braham at Watchman, they offer Greg Boyd's "Oneness Pentecostals & The Trinity" for further reading on Oneness Pentecostals, but Boyd, once a Oneness Pentecostal himself, has since continued in heresy, the latest of which is the Open View of God--that God doesn't know all things and has limited understanding.