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NOTE: This article or series has not been updated recently. As such, it may possibly contain some outdated information, and/or ideas and beliefs which I no longer embrace, or which have changed to some degree.



This is an updated version of an article I first authored in the Spring of 1997. While some of the information it contains is a bit dated, nevertheless, overall, it is still relevant for our current times, because the lies and deceptions which I expose in this article, are still being promoted fifteen years later by the supporters of the Urantia Papers, or the Urantia Book as it is also known. I was motivated to write this article due to the following erroneous statement which was made by one Dr. Byron Weeks, concerning the supposed relationship between Jesus Christ and the Archangel Michael:

----- Begin Quote -----

"According to the Urantia Book, The Archangel was the "Archangel OF Michael" for Michael is the Heavenly title or name of Jesus, who is the Creator of this "Local Universe." Melchizedek is one of His Sons, and Not Jesus Christ. "Michael" has a whole hierarchy of Sons which include Lucifer, and his subordinate, Satan . . ."

-----End Of Quote -----

As my regular readers will already know, in quite a few of my articles, I have sounded the alarm regarding the many lies and inaccuracies which are being espoused and propagated in this current "Age Of Deception" by New Age thought advocates and other self-styled false prophets who roam the Internet, and publish books galore. The previous quote is yet another example of the strong delusion which has ensnared so many people who, for whatever their reasons, have rejected God's holy Word; that is, the Bible. In thinking about our current situation and the level of deception which exists, I am reminded of verses such as the following:

"And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many . . . And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many . . . For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."


"For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock."


"For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works."


"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;"


"But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived."


"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;"


". . . because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:"


The previous Scriptures are but a small sample of the many verses which are found in the New Testament, where we are warned to beware of false teachers and false prophets, and the misguided doctrines which they espouse. You will find many more such verses in my companion article entitled "The Urantia Book: An Attack on the Blood Atonement".

While I have read parts of the Urantia Book, I will readily admit that I have not read it in its entirety. However, to be quite honest, based on what I have read, and the grave errors which I have discovered in it, I have no intentions of reading the remainder any time soon, if ever. In my view, to do so would be similar to a person who is drinking a bottle of poison. Once he realizes that he is drinking a poisonous substance, would he continue to drink it, or would he stop? The answer is rather obvious, isn't it?

Taking into consideration the previously-quoted material, as well as another letter that was written by Dr. Weeks in 1996 -- which I will be sharing with you shortly -- personally, I have no doubt whatsoever that the Urantia Book is another product of New Age psychobabble. According to what I have read, this deceptive tome was "received" as a collection of papers from so-called "spiritual entities" during the first half of the twentieth century, under conditions which seem very similar to what is now referred to as channeling. If you are a Bible-believing Christian, then you may know that the Bible refers to such entities as "familiar spirits", and that endeavoring to engage in communication with them is strongly condemned by the same. Consider the following verses:

"Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God."


"And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people."


"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer."


"And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger."


"And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger."


"Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the LORD."


"And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?"


"And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards."


"But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments . . . Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee."


"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."


"Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts."


"And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived."


Regardless of how the Urantia Book originated, it has become evident to me that the primary motivation behind writing it was to strike a heavy blow at the credibility of the Bible, and the Truth which is found within its pages. It is because of the fact that its primary purpose appears to be to rob one's faith in the Bible as the inspired Word of God, that I prefer to call it the Unbelief Book. As will become apparent by Dr. Week's letter below, the Urantia Book strikes at the very heart of Christianity, and at the Cornerstone of our Faith, which is Salvation by faith in the redemptive Blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed on the Cross at Calvary for the sins of the world.

Because of its demonic influence, I do not recommend that any Christian -- particularly young Christians who are new in the Faith and who may not yet be grounded in the true Word of God -- read this satanic work of darkness. If you do, you may find yourself seriously doubting your Christian heritage. To reiterate, as far as I can tell, the voices or entities which inspired this book are definitely not of God. As the Apostle John warns us in his first Epistle:

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."


For some people, my words may seem rather harsh. However, after reading the following excerpts, I am sure you will understand why my reaction to this material is so strong; particularly if you are a Bible-believing Christian like myself. Here then is Dr. Byron Weeks' letter of 1996, in which he shares excerpts from the Urantia Book. Allow me to warn my readers again that this letter is full of deceptive ideas which do not hold up to Scriptural scrutiny by any means:

----- Begin Quote -----

August 10, 1996

Dear Ms. Wallace,

Thank you for being concerned about the condition of my soul.

I suggest that we rethink our concepts about the nature of God and Jesus, after reading the following references from a modern epochal revelation, The Urantia Papers, which are given at the end of a dispensation.

The atonement doctrine was largely from the ideas of Paul of Tarsus, who had never even met Jesus in the flesh. It is almost identical to the Mithraic doctrine, a pagan belief in atonement by the barbaric shedding of blood, common in Tarsus (Tarshish) in Asia Minor where Paul spent his youth. I have yet to find in the Bible where Jusu bar Jussef said that He was going to die to "atone for the sins of mankind!" Sure, He laid down His life even though He could have saved Himself at any time, for His Father's will was that He go through death just as Man must do.

Could it be that you fundamentalists are the ones who are insulting God by your primitive belief system? God is a God of love, not of vengeance.

THE ATONEMENT DOCTRINE

Urantia Book, Paper 4, Page 59

Religious tradition is the imperfectly preserved record of the experiences of the God-knowing men of past ages, but such records are untrustworthy as guides for religious living or as the source of true information about the Universal Father. Such ancient beliefs have been invariably altered by the fact that primitive man was a mythmaker.

From The Urantia Book Paper-4 Section-5 Para-2 Page-60 Line-3 Para-1

One of the greatest sources of confusion on Earth (Urantia) concerning the nature of God grows out of the failure of your sacred books clearly to distinguish between the personalities of the Paradise Trinity and between Paradise Deity and the local universe creators and administrators. During the past dispensations of partial understanding, your priests and prophets failed clearly to differentiate between Planetary Princes, System Sovereigns, Constellation Fathers, Creator Sons, Superuniverse Rulers, the Supreme Being, and the Universal Father. Many of the messages of subordinate personalities, such as Life Carriers and various orders of angels, have been, in your records, presented as coming from God himself. Urantian religious thought still confuses the associate personalities of Deity with the Universal Father himself, so that all are included under one appellation.

Paper-4 Section-5 Para-3 Page-60 Line-14 Para-2

The people of Urantia continue to suffer from the influence of primitive concepts of God. The gods who go on a rampage in the storm; who shake the earth in their wrath and strike down men in their anger; who inflict their judgments of displeasure in times of famine and flood--these are the gods of primitive religion; they are not the Gods who live and rule the universes. Such concepts are a relic of the times when men supposed that the universe was under the guidance and domination of the whims of such imaginary gods. But mortal man is beginning to realize that he lives in a realm of comparative law and order as far as concerns the administrative policies and conduct of the Supreme Creators and the Supreme Controllers.

Paper-4 Section-5 Para-4 Page-60 Line-24 Para-3

The barbarous idea of appeasing an angry God, of propitiating an offended Lord, of winning the favor of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile and primitive, a philosophy unworthy of an enlightened age of science and truth. Such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the celestial beings and the divine rulers who serve and reign in the universes. It is an affront to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in order to win his favor or to divert the fictitious divine wrath.

Paper-4 Section-5 Para-5 Page-60 Line-31 Para-4

The Hebrews believed that "without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin." They had not found deliverance from the old and pagan idea that the Gods could not be appeased except by the sight of blood, though Moses did make a distinct advance when he forbade human sacrifices and substituted therefore, in the primitive minds of his childlike Bedouin followers, the ceremonial sacrifice of animals.

Paper-4 Section-5 Para-6 Page-60 Line-37 Para-5

The bestowal of a Paradise Son on your world was inherent in the situation of closing a planetary age; it was inescapable, and it was not made necessary for the purpose of winning the favor of God. This bestowal also happened to be the final personal act of a Creator Son in the long adventure of earning the experiential sovereignty of his universe. What a travesty upon the infinite character of God! This teaching that his fatherly heart in all its austere coldness and hardness, was so untouched by the misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures, that his tender mercies were not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon the cross of Calvary!

Paper-4 Section-5 Para-7 Page-60 Line-46 Para-6

But the inhabitants of Urantia are to find deliverance from these ancient errors and pagan superstitions respecting the nature of the Universal Father. The revelation of the truth about God is appearing, and the human race is destined to know the Universal Father in all that beauty of character and loveliness of attributes so magnificently portrayed by the Creator Son who sojourned on Urantia as the Son of Man and the Son of God.

Ref. The Urantia Book, pages 59-60 (There should be a copy in the City library.)

In His love,

Byron T. Weeks, MD

----- End Quote -----

What blatant lies! What heresies are being committed in the holy name of truth! As I point out in a number of my other articles, I am aware of the fact that the Scriptures which we possess today have been manipulated in times past by both political and religious authorities, such as the so-called "Church Fathers". As a result, what we have today is more than likely not complete. There were a substantial number of other scrolls, manuscripts and books, the contents of which were deemed either false, uninspired or inaccurate by the compilers of our modern Bible. Thus, because they were not included in the accepted canon, many people do not have knowledge of them.

Furthermore, I have likewise long believed -- or at least suspected -- that there are other things which have been purposely hidden from our view, because those parties who have controlled organized religion for the past several thousand years either don't want us to know about them, for whatever their reasons, or else because they feel that we are not yet ready to accept them. As you may know, even the Apostle Paul felt obligated to withhold some of the deeper truths of God's Word from the young Christians of his day, as we can see by the following verses where he refers to "things . . . hard to be uttered":

"Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."


Of course, at the same time, it may also be that some of the manuscripts and scrolls have purposely been kept from us for less than honorable reasons. For example, once the Catholic Church began to exert its secular and religious power a few hundred years after the time of Jesus Christ and His original Apostles and Disciples, it is probable that they were afraid that certain scrolls and parchments might expose the lies of their own false religious system, which they have continued to force down the throats of countless millions to this very day. In short, as I explain in such articles as "The Book of Enoch: Truth or Heresy?", "Lies and Deceptions of the Roman Catholic Church" and "Pontifex Maximus: Pagan High Priest to Roman Catholic Pope", our spiritual course has been neatly and carefully served to us by organized religion since the early centuries of the Christian Era.

It is for the above reasons that I have made it a regular habit to consult my Hebrew and Greek lexicons whenever I study and research the Bible, and write new articles. Doing so will oft times lead me to a new -- or at least enhanced -- understanding regarding certain words that are found in the Bible. Sometimes I will also refer to other Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal works in order to try to fill in some of the gaps. However, please bear in mind that in reading such materials, I will always compare them with the accepted canon -- that is, the Scriptures -- in order to see how well they stand up to Scriptural scrutiny. If there is general agreement, or an expansion of what is already revealed in the Bible, and if I sense the same Spirit and Inspiration in the writing, then I may be willing to accept it. Please note, however, that to date, the Book of Enoch is the only work which I personally deem to be reliable to some degree.

In following this same process with the Urantia Book, I must tell you that it fails miserably in every regard. According to what I have read, seen and been told by certain Urantia Book supporters, this devilish tome is basically telling us that the Bible is so full of errors, misconceptions, myths and inaccuracies, that we should just throw it out the door and replace it with this modern, misguided work of deception, which they have the gall to claim is a much superior work. In fact, as I mention in my companion article "The Urantia Book: An Attack on the Blood Atonement", one particular person had the audacity to inform me that he uses "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy" in order to supposedly prove that the Bible is severely flawed. Can there be any doubt then regarding what some Urantia Book supporters really think of the Bible?

Tragically, these are the very people who claim to be the so-called "New Christians". They may be "New Christians", but they are certainly not following the Jesus that I know! They are in fact following another Jesus and another gospel; that is, a false Jesus, and a false gospel. In the sobering words of the Apostle Peter, these deceivers are teaching "damnable heresies" which outright contradict the Bible, and passing them off as New Age truth. Please seriously consider the following verses and be warned:

"For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him."


"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:"


"But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of."


Why in the world should we throw out a Work -- meaning the Bible -- which has saved literally millions, if not billions of souls over the past two thousand years, and replace it with some unknown so-called "modern revelation"? Just as the Apostle Paul warned his followers during the First Century, the Urantia Book -- the Unbelief Book -- is literally full of the doctrines of devils. As I have already made quite clear, its primary heresy is its sound rejection of the necessity of the atoning Blood Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which it claims is barbarous, primitive and repulsive to God.

Contrary to the false claims which are made in the Urantia Book, and promoted by some of its followers, I am convinced that what we have today in the modern Christian Bible -- and in particular, in the King James Version of the Bible -- is for the most part accurate and true. This holds particularly true when it concerns God's appointed method of Salvation by means of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Through His Power and Wisdom, I believe that God has made certain, and that He has absolutely guaranteed, that the most important Truths in the Bible have been preserved and remain intact, despite the many manipulations by men during the past millennia. To doubt this, is to doubt God's omnipotence, which I will not do not. God's spoken and written Word will endure forever. This is made very clear by verses such as the following:

"The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations."


"He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations."


"LAMED. For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven."


"Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever."


"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."


"Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:"


"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."


The notion of replacing God's proven Word with this New Age "revelation" seems rather sinister to me. As you may recall, this is the very same tactic that Satan used when he lied to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He tried -- and in fact succeeded -- in getting them to doubt God's Word. That snake made it sound like God meant something which He didn't. This is made evident by the following verses where Satan confuses Eve, and causes her to doubt God's Word:

"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."


Please go to part two for the continuation of this series.

⇒ Go To The Next Part . . .

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