An Unclean Bottom-Feeder
Denies Christ Comes in the Flesh
Those who believe in Jesus Christ feed off of His flesh and blood, while the religious who seek their own fame and glory will feed on any vile lie they can find, if it serves their purposes. Here we see how Max Solbrekken went bottom-feeding and got caught in a trap, exposing himself as a liar and false teacher, again.
“I have put a net for you, and you have been taken, O Babylon, without your knowledge: you have been uncovered and taken because you were fighting against the Lord” (Jeremiah 50:24 BBE).
Max Solbrekken, the “Doctor of Divinity,” has responded on his blog to the posting of him at The Path of Truth as a false teacher.
Mr. Solbrekken doesn’t contest the facts exposing him, but instead attempts to refute what we teach. Rather than actually reading and responding to our own words in context, however, he apparently did a Google search and plagiarized the ranting of our disingenuous, confused, and hypocritical critic, Gene Shaparenko, who wrote Victor Hafichuk – “Prophet” or Tool of Satan?
Making slight alterations in portions of text that he cut and pasted from Gene’s writing, Max added his own thoughts and cobbled together an incoherent analysis of what he presumes we teach based on the secondhand knowledge of Gene, a man who knew nothing of what we taught and guessed wrong every time (the full story on our site: Gene Shaparenko – A Pygmy Acts Like King Kong). The result is insanity squared.
It’s obvious that no one after the truth can rely on Max for an honest appraisal. Like his source, Gene, Max only offers people an excuse and no godly substance or reason for dismissing what we say. I sympathize with anyone who, in good faith, would actually try to comprehend his critique, because of the muddled mess he presents. Better they don’t waste their time.
But where darkness abounds, Light abounds much more, dispelling the darkness. Thank God for His illumination through Jesus Christ! By His grace we can see without partiality towards any, making the situation plain for those who want the truth. For those who don’t love the truth, His judgment will correct them. The Lord will liberate all captives in the fullness of time; therefore He commands, “Let there be Light!” And that which He commands happens.
Max’s attack begins with guilt by false association, even in his bold title, “FALSE PROPHETS JOSEPH SMITH & VICTOR HAFICHUK – NOT GOOD FRUIT: PROUD, DECEIVED!” After laying out some quotes and brief thoughts on the teachings of Smith (founder of the Mormons), Solbrekken says: “Joseph Smith was deceived by the Devil. Others like Organic Farmer Victor Hafichuk has strayed into his camp.”
Have Victor and we “strayed” into Smith’s camp? Solbrekken offers the thinnest of evidence, which upon consideration, withers immediately, like a dried blade of grass in fire.
By Max’s reasoning, we would also be Catholics, because we agree with the Pope that Jesus Christ is Lord. Or Jehovah’s Witnesses, because we agree that Christmas is a heathen abomination. Or Seventh Day Adventists, because we agree that the seventh day is the Sabbath.
Just as we are not any of these things, so we are not Mormons because we agree with a particular aspect of their teachings (though only superficially, as you’ll see). As for Smith and his invented Mormon religion, we have a history of exposing their many lies and fallacious claims – see our section on Mormonism.
But Max wouldn’t know these things, because all it seems he has red is Gene Shaparenko’s pack of lies, which link us to Smith through Mormonism’s teaching that men become gods. Here is Victor’s quote (in italics, beginning at “ironically”), which Max lifted from Gene’s site and is misconstrued (in part) because taken out of context:
“NOTICE: Hafichuk has swallowed Satan and Joseph Smith’s lie. How sad! ‘Ironically, at that predestined point of oneness with his Maker, man no longer seeks to be independent of Him (to have a “free will”); he HAS BECOME God.‘”
Here is the full context of Victor’s quote (from A Question and Answers about Free Will), with the portion Max quoted in red:
“In 1997, when the Lord took me, with gracious opportunity granted to consent (choose), and lowered me down to the very bottom, He revealed to me, Justin, that we were, all of us, in ‘wrongness.’ Knowing what I know now, after that terminating, needful, and ultimately blessed event, I suppose that it would be madness and folly for God to give man any opportunity to determine anything on his own, until he becomes one with His Maker. However, then, it is not on his own, is it? Ironically, at that predestined point of oneness with his Maker, man no longer seeks to be independent of Him (to have a ‘free will’); he has become God, a mature son, grown and formed into his Father’s very image (‘like Father, like son’), finally free, not to do what is inappropriate, but what is right and good, always, by a Divine Nature.”
Obviously Victor isn’t saying we supplant God, but rather as His offspring, we become as He is. Doesn’t all of nature tell us the same? The conceived becomes as the conceiver. Isn’t this what the Scriptures say?
“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2-3 EMTV).
But the wicked go on in their impurity, not having a love of truth:
“But the wicked are like the troubled sea, which cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt” (Isaiah 57:20 MKJV).
Max, being ignorant of what we teach and the testimony and meaning of the Scriptures, goes on to cite the following as if to disprove us:
“The Holy Scriptures teach that when we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour He comes within us to abide, and we become one with Him. (John 15: 1-7) We are then ‘hid with Christ in God’ (Col.3: 3) and are ‘heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ’. (Rom.8: 15-17).
We are made ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Pet. 1: 4). He fills us with the Blessed Holy Spirit (Acts 1: 8, 2: 4; Eph.1: 23; 3: 19; 5: 18), gives us the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5: 22, 23) and the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor.12: 1-18. He gives us His Own Nature (2 Peter 1: 4) and in Him we ‘live and move and have our being’. (Acts 17: 28)”
Amen! That’s precisely what Victor was saying. This is what we teach. A bona fide born-again son of God has His Spirit and partakes of His Nature. By faith the believer takes up the cross and becomes dead to the old man, but alive in the new man, the Last Adam:
“And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him Who created him” (Colossians 3:10 KJV).
Taking on God’s image, man becomes God.
The quotes from Joseph Smith that Solbrekken copies from Gene’s site show that the Mormon founder had another teaching altogether, based on his perversion of the Scriptures and invented fantasies. Smith taught that God started out as a man who attained Godhood over time, thereafter siring many spirit children on another planet, among them Jesus and Satan. This is carnal and devilish non-Biblical nonsense from Joseph Fable-Smith.
God is the eternal Spirit Who created all things. He is the same from everlasting to everlasting, the unique, One and Only, Creator, Who took on human form and became, as the First-Begotten from the dead, the Lord and Savior of all men. Jesus Christ is not the offspring of God, as Smith proposes, but is God begetting man in His image by the resurrection from the dead.
“And we preach the Gospel to you, the promise made to the fathers, this God has fulfilled to us their children, raising up Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are My Son, this day I have begotten You‘” (Acts 13:32-33 MKJV).
The begetting of Christ by His resurrection from the dead is for the sake of those who believe, who are also begotten in Him, the Firstborn:
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, for Him to be the First-born among many brothers” (Romans 8:29 MKJV).
But as Head of the Body, Jesus Christ was always God and always will be. He doesn’t change:
“For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6 KJV).
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8 MKJV).
The reason God came as the Son of Man is because God made man to manifest Himself. This isn’t man’s opinion, but the Word of God:
Hebrews 2:3-7, 16-17 MKJV
(3) How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by those who heard Him;
(4) God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with different kinds of miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His Own will?
(5) For He has not put in subjection to the angels the world to come, of which we speak.
(6) But one testified in a certain place, saying, “What is man, that You are mindful of him; or the son of man, that You visit him?
(7) You have made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of Your hands….”
(16) For truly He did not take the nature of angels, but He took hold of the seed of Abraham.
(17) Therefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like His brothers, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of His people.
What is this “great salvation,” but the receiving of God’s Spirit, by which man is born again and completed in His image?
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6 MKJV).
But Joseph Smith, like Muhammad before him, preached a gospel of satisfying his carnal lusts and appetite for power and pleasure. Smith teaches that men become gods in the image of his god, a product of his own fleshly mind and desires. His god was a man who became God, which is what he aspired to and essentially claimed for himself. That is the work of devils, not of God, Who through Christ alone begets His children:
“But as many as received [Jesus Christ], He gave to them authority to become the children of God, to those who believe on His Name, who were born, not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God” (John 1:12-13 MKJV).
If one honors Smith’s teaching, he is encouraged to seek godhood for selfish purposes, by man’s authority and the power of his flesh. Smith’s doctrine isn’t there to give anyone a hand up to God, but to lift Smith up and honor him as a prophet, so that he could have the power he craved. Little did Smith realize how badly this would end for him, not believing Christ or the Word of God:
“For whoever exalts himself shall be abased, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11 MKJV).
Jesus teaches something very different from Smith about man’s conduct and destiny, though He speaks in the same terms as men being “gods”:
“Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, You are gods?’ If He called those gods with whom the Word of God was, and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of Him Whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’” (John 10:34-36 MKJV)
Those who believe Christ aren’t gods unto, of, or by, themselves, but are joined to Him, made one with God in heart, mind, and action, which is something far, far greater than Smith, or any man, can conceptualize.
1 Corinthians 2:9-10,16 MKJV
(9) But as it is written, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,” nor has it entered into the heart of man, “the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
(10) But God has revealed them to us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God….
(16) For who has known the Mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the Mind of Christ.
“For both He Who sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of One, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will declare Your Name to My brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.’ And again, ‘I will put My trust in Him.’ And again, ‘Behold Me and the children whom God has given Me’” (Hebrews 2:11-13 MKJV).
Christ, Who as God sanctifies us, is our Brother! Shall we not appear like Him? “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Indeed, the sons of God become as their Father. We don’t replace Him, but we are as Him, even closer than an earthly relationship between father and son, because Christ is our Head and we are His Body. How is that not God?
Blasphemy? No, the Word of God, which cannot be broken; but yes, blasphemy to children of darkness.
The sum of the matter is that anyone who says man wasn’t made to become God denies the Lord Jesus Christ and His coming. That’s what the apostle John declared:
“For many deceivers have entered into the world, who do not confess Jesus Christ [God] coming in the flesh [in us, in these earthen vessels – 2 Corinthians 4:7]. This is the deceiver and the anti-Christ” (2 John 1:7 MKJV).
“Who is a liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the anti-Christ, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father, either. Therefore let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:22-24 EMTV).
If those who believe and have Christ’s Spirit abide in God, it’s no longer man at work, but God manifested in all their works. Isn’t this what the apostle Paul said of himself, because he walked in the faith of Christ?
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).
“For to me to live is Christ…” (Philippians 1:21 MKJV).
Peter said the same:
“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:1-2 KJV).
How can Max Solbrekken find fault with these things? He can’t, but he will and does because he must discredit us to discredit our exposure of him. He is a prisoner of pride and ignorance of the things of God, unable to admit wrong or that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. How impossible it is for the children of darkness to believe, who trust in themselves! How hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God! Drunkards, drug pushers, and harlots enter ahead of the Solbrekkens.
Max serves another god, namely himself, which makes him anti-Christ. He presents himself as a son of God presumably teaching others the Way, yet he scoffs and denies that one can be a true Christian, that is, filled with God’s Spirit and a member of His Body speaking and acting by His authority. How could he mock and despise these things if he was joined to Christ?
“For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord loves the Church [His Body]” (Ephesians 5:29 MKJV).
It is the anti-Christs like Solbrekken who follow Satan and fulfill his words in eating from the Tree of Knowledge – “You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5 MKJV).
Max denies men can be as God while acting as if he is God! Having the knowledge of good and evil in his corrupt flesh, instead of the knowledge of God by the Tree of Life (Christ), this anti-Christ walks in the enmity of his carnal mind, doing religious works in the Name of God. He “opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself forth, that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:4 MKJV).
Max, you say, “Just in case anyone is as stupid as Joseph Smith and other New Agers and cult leaders like Victor Hafichuk, Jesus said: ‘Without Me ye can do NOTHING.’ (John 15: 4,5)” Where do you find in Gene’s twisted presentation (since you haven’t red our materials) that we teach anything but dependence on Christ?
You say: “Only an idiot would follow Satan’s advice and that of Joseph Smith and think they are gods or can become gods! The Almighty says: ‘To whom will ye liken Me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Have ye not known? Hast thou not heard, that the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of His understanding.’ (Isaiah 40: 21-29)”
So salvation is a matter of intelligence, and you were smart enough to figure it out? Salvation has nothing to do with the grace of God leading people into repentance and keeping them from sin? It’s all by your virtue and ability? Yes, that’s what you’re saying. You’re your own god, yet you condemn us for partaking of His flesh and blood and truthfully declaring we dwell in Him and He in us.
You give yourself away with every word, Max. If you cared at all for facts and the truth, you would have red our testimonies and the writings on our site that you condemn, where we plainly confess ourselves as sinners to whom God showed great mercy and patience, all praise and thanks to Him. We aren’t comparing ourselves to Him, but if He has granted us repentance and His Spirit to follow Him and to be as He is, where does it leave you by calling this “idiocy” and “following Satan”?
“A voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Don’t say that the things which God has made clean are impure’” (Acts 11:9 GW).
So who is presumptuous and blaspheming? The one whose boast and confidence is in the Lord, or the pretender who does his own thing in the Name of Christ, using some right words, perhaps, yet void of the reality? All the derogatory adjectives Max uses to describe us who preach the mystery of salvation – Christ in you, the hope of glory – apply to him. He is deceived, a cultist drunk on Lucifer’s brew, because he is walking in the pride of New Age do-it-yourself spirituality. He is his own god.
Max’s approach shows how foolish it is to depend on another’s oil (or lack thereof). In one place, plagiarizing Gene Shaparenko, Max presumes to nail us with Gene’s reasoning, not realizing that Gene’s accusation comes from his faulty comprehension of the English language.
The charge pertained to Diabolical Doctrine: Salvation Is Possible Only in This Life. Gene wrote (which Max presents as his own thought) the following italicized red words within a quote from our writing: “In that men die only once in this world, can one suppose (…suppose? – and this is scriptural, from one who claims to be a ‘prophet’) that therefore there are not other worlds in which men may have occasion to believe?”
But we aren’t the ones supposing. Those who believe and teach that men are condemned to Hell forever because they enter judgment after this life are the ones supposing. The Scriptures we quoted there and elsewhere don’t teach that men are dispatched to eternal torment because they don’t know God or didn’t believe during this lifetime. Shaparenko and Solbrekken are the ones twisting and adding to His Words.
The intent of God’s judgment has always been correction, and always will be. The Scriptures teach this, and we readily prove it (The Restitution of All Things).
This means there is also hope for a brutish and belligerent beast like Max Solbrekken, whose lying ways and errors are exposed by God’s righteous judgment for goodness’ sake, to be done away with forever.
Max Solbrekken has been one of those on the nominal Christian scene preaching a counterfeit gospel. To the simple and unlearned, it looks similar and deceives many, but the true Blood-bought children begotten from above, through the Resurrected and Living Lord Jesus Christ, are given to know the difference. They won’t be fooled by the voices of strangers.
The false gospel is very much like an artificial plant. Plants are manufactured so skillfully today, one can scarcely tell they’re artificial. The structural forms and colors are there. One needs to look closely to realize they’re not real, and even then, it’s not easy to tell. So it is with the counterfeit gospel. Words, Scripture, prayer, praise, preaching, enthusiasm, passion, and pious performances are all there, peddled as the True. Unless people have the Spirit of God guiding them in discernment, they can be easily deceived, even by blatant shysters like Solbrekken.
Only God can make the living and the real. Man can only imitate with dead material; he can’t create life. God granted us to see the spiritual essence of this man-appointed evangelist or pastor more than three decades ago. Today, by his selfish, irresponsible, dishonest, deceptive, prejudiced conduct, and his reaction to what we have truthfully posted of him, he confirms himself as another servant of the Serpent, spewing confusion and blasphemy.
Solbrekken has spent his life preaching another Jesus and another gospel, deceiving the simple. We, sons of God grown to maturity to be as Him Who is God, according to the Scriptures and as He promised, do declare these things to all today.
John 5:25-29 MKJV
(25) Truly, truly, I say to you, The hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they who hear shall live.
(26) For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son to have life within Himself,
(27) and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.
(28) Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves shall hear His voice,
(29) and shall come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have practiced evil to the resurrection of condemnation.
By the Lord and by His authority, we are His voice.
“He Who testifies these things says, Yes, I am coming quickly, Amen. Yes, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20 MKJV).
Paul Cohen
[Note by the editor: If you wish to see parallels between sections of text from Gene Shaparenko and Max Solbrekken, ask me. I’ll e-mail it to you. Sara]
Our previous posting on this false teacher:
Max Solbrekken – Canada’s Own False Evangelist
Max Solbrekken has presumed to be the greatest, if not the only, evangelist Canada has ever produced. He is neither; and he doesn’t even have the “honor” of being the only false evangelist from Canada. Not that Canada should be blamed for such fruit.
Men who name their ministries after themselves and put themselves in the spotlight are liars and thieves, every last one of them. Men who call their works after the abominable and devastating Crusades of the Catholic Church are not only liars and thieves, but murderers. Men who wear clerical collars are pretentious “ministers” of God, carnal in all respects. Men who call themselves “Reverend” are usurpers of the glory of God.
Max is another false gospel-mongering soul-breaker whose end is just in God’s sight.