Satan is the master persuader, not because he lies outright, but because his lies are hidden in the truth. He provides those whose hearts aren’t wedded to the truth opportunity to justify doing their own thing while appearing to do the right thing. In this correspondence, Myles Munroe gives his satanic pitch for a form of godliness that denies God’s Power and Authority.
Greetings,
Do you keep the Biblical Sabbath? (Friday evening to Saturday evening.)
Paul Cohen
Helena, MT
November 24, 2005
Dear Paul,
Thank you for your email dated November 22, 2005.
With regards to your question about the Sabbath, as you may be aware, this issue has been the topic of much controversy over the years and still generates passionate debates. However, I believe Shabbat is a concept that was introduced by God from the beginning to establish the principle of “Rest”
Gen 2:3 –And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
I believe it is important, reasonable, wise and healthy to keep the Sabbath because the entire creation was designed to enjoy a period of rest. Man as God’s primary creation is not exempt. I teach others that it is important to work. But, we must also rest. In Ex 16:23 – He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord”.
I know that many people focus more on “the 24 hour day” concept than the principle of “Rest”. This was also the issue Jesus took with the religious leaders of His day. In Mark 2:24- The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Vs 27-Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Vs. 28-So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Therefore, I totally believe and practice keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest and I teach our Fellowship to do the same. Our bodies, minds and spirits need it. However, we must also be careful not to confuse the Sabbath with the day of worship for these may not be synonymous. Worship and fellowship must be a daily experience and a part of every Believer’s life. Therefore, I encourage you and every one to take a Sabbath day of rest and allow your life to rejuvenate itself in obedience to God’s command to rest.
Sincerely,
Dr. Myles E. Munroe
President/Senior Pastor
Bahamas Faith Ministries int.
Nassau, Bahamas
Greetings in the Lord Jesus Christ, Who has called me to serve Him in truth,
Myles, you didn’t answer my question directly, though I conclude you answered in a roundabout way with a negative reply (you don’t honor the Sabbath as commanded by God). Let me know if I am mistaken.
The reason I asked you about the Sabbath is because I heard you say on TV that the Christian is an ambassador of God and, as such, must honor His Laws. The Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments, the moral Law of which not one jot or tittle would pass.
The Sabbath wasn’t the first day of the week or any other day but the seventh day. God confirmed that the seventh day was the Sabbath by providing manna in double portion on the sixth day, so the children of Israel could rest on the seventh according to His commandment (Exodus 16:22-30).
You speak of taking “a Sabbath day of rest,” and not of keeping the Sabbath day set apart by God. You can no more change the day of the Sabbath than you can change who your parents are. God also says in the Ten Commandments to honor your father and mother. You aren’t given license to say, “I prefer Aunt Annie and Uncle Charlie and will honor them instead.” The same can be said of the Sabbath. You can’t choose another day instead of the one God has sanctified.
Remember what Jesus said about our standing in His Kingdom, which has come on earth:
“Whoever therefore may loose one of these commands–the least–and may teach men so, least he shall be called in the reign of the heavens, but whoever may do and may teach them, he shall be called great in the reign of the heavens” (Matthew 5:19 YLT).
To be an ambassador, one must represent God as He is, not as one might interpret Him or His Laws to be, as you have here. In the same vein, it can’t be said that any Christian is an ambassador of God. Many are the citizens of a Kingdom, but few are those called by the King to serve as His ambassadors.
You’re like a man handing out counterfeit money, giving people an illusion of being millionaires. Perhaps for a time the fake money will buy things in this world, but in the end the deceived will end up worse off than when they started, bitter and disillusioned in jail. The one handing out the money has greater culpability in the eyes of the law than those taking it, though all are held accountable for breaking the law.
In these things you aren’t serving God in your works and teachings, but Myles Munroe. You’re making many friends with things you aren’t qualified or permitted to hand out.
What will you do after hearing the truth, and what will the Lord do now that you’ve heard it? Is repentance possible for one so given over to promoting his own image? Yes, God is able to abase those that are proud. Unlike man’s, His penal system works.
In His service,
Paul
I now add, the day after Myles Munroe died in a plane crash on November 9, 2014, that God’s penal system applies to the next world as well as to this one.
The Lord Jesus Christ “preached to the spirits in prison, to disobeying ones, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared (in which a few, that is, eight souls were saved through water)” (1 Peter 3:19-20 MKJV).
We are in the day of completion of God’s judgment on all ungodliness:
2 Peter 3:5-7 ESV
(5) For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God,
(6) and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
(7) But by the same Word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the Day of Judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
Myles was trying to have the best of both worlds, which is impossible.
“No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24 MKJV).
I listened to Mr. Munroe answering a caller’s question about keeping the God-given seventh-day Sabbath:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdQ1tG6kSgA
In his reply, Myles displays the supreme subtlety of Satan, agreeing with God’s commandment while finding a way around it. He even claims, unlike in his reply to me, that he himself observed the seventh day with his wife. (Perhaps this interview took place after our correspondence.) But unlike God, Myles wouldn’t think of burdening others with such a commandment. He says:
“I would hate to separate myself from my brethren because of our perception of what is to me a principle and not a prison…. So I’m a free man, I teach people they need to rest one day a week. Not everyone is capable of doing it on a certain day. People work different ways, different times, it’s the principle…. That’s my position…. I appreciate his position [the caller who spoke of keeping the seventh-day Sabbath] and I hope he respects mine.”
Magnanimous Myles – how godly he makes himself and his position appear! What a reasonable and accommodating fellow he is, speaking so highly of God and His “principle of rest,” while savoring the things of man!
“But He answered and said to them, ‘Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. However, they worship Me in vain, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men”’” (Mark 7:6-7 MKJV).
Here’s the Fourth Commandment, according to God:
Exodus 20:8-11 ESV
(8) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
(9) Six days you shall labor, and do all your work,
(10) but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.
(11) For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Here’s the Fourth Commandment, according to Myles (Satan), without his obfuscating flowery speech:
(8) Forget about the Sabbath, you don’t have to keep it holy.
(9) You can labor any six days you choose, taking off one day a week for yourself.
(10) Remember, it’s a principle of rest, not a prison.
(11) The most important thing is to accommodate and honor men, not God.
As the Lord said:
“Therefore whoever shall relax one of these commandments, the least, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:19 MKJV).
The fact that Myles spoke of keeping the Sabbath himself makes his offense all the worse, because he knew better. He was an unabashed man pleaser, teaching men to do whatever is right in their own sight for their support and praise. That’s the way of a mammon lover, and it’s why Myles was destroyed by his sins. No man of God, faithful to the truth, dies by a tower falling on him or his plane crashing.
“Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were sinners above all men who lived in Jerusalem? I tell you, No. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4-5 MKJV).
Matthew 7:21-23 MKJV
(21) Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord! Lord!” shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven.
(22) Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord! Lord! Did we not prophesy in Your Name, and through Your Name throw out demons, and through Your Name do many wonderful works?”
(23) And then I will say to them, “I never knew you! Depart from Me, those working lawlessness!”
In his letter of reply to Paul, Myles Munroe did make a point that is true and that is often not realized or understood. He says, “We must also be careful not to confuse the Sabbath with the day of worship for these may not be synonymous. Worship and fellowship must be a daily experience and a part of every Believer’s life.”
Worship is 24/7, not only on the Sabbath. Every day is for worship, but only the Sabbath is a day specifically set aside for rest from servile labor and doing one’s own pleasure; in other words, it is a day not committed to earthly gain or unnecessary activities.
So Myles Munroe had it right, yet didn’t acknowledge the importance of the Sabbath day as a day of rest for all men, though not a day of formal worship. We do worship while we work or rest, but we don’t work while we rest, and we can’t rest while we work… or can we?
And there’s a question to consider: “Mustn’t we rest while we work?” Spiritually, we enter into an internal rest that gives us the new nature to always rest while we work, no matter what we do, be it physical, mental, or spiritual. The rest of God that is a must for all believers to enter is a matter of spirit, motive, and attitude. This is the complete worship of the Father in spirit and in truth.
Hence, we worship 24/7 and we rest 24/7. And when we rest 24/7, we fulfill the Law of God, which causes us to remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. All our work is sanctified (set apart) unto the Lord. Whatever we do, we do to His glory. “Dr.” Myles Munroe didn’t even keep and teach the letter of the Commandment, much less have the spiritual essence of God’s rest.
It has been our experience that God appoints His timing to each individual to commence the keeping of the weekly Sabbath day. As His teachers, however, we need to inform them that the Sabbath is to be kept and not discarded, disrespected, or substituted according to custom or men’s whims.
For more information and understanding of truth and falsehood as it applies to “Dr.” Myles Munroe and so many others, read Diabolical Doctrines, Counterfeit Christianity, and The True Marks of a Cult. Read and run for your lives from the likes of Munroe and other false teachers… if you want life, that is.
Victor Hafichuk