An Open
Letter from A GAC Insider to the Leadership and Saints of GAC:
May
22, 2008
Dear Friends:
First of all, I want everyone to know up front, I am a GAC “Insider”. In other
words, I regularly attend a
I do mean I am an insider to the extent that I believe I am in the Body of
Christ and I believe that William Sowders along with many other ministers were
called, chosen, and sent of God to do a special work in restoring the latter
rain church, a place for God to gather His people together, under the headship
of Christ, and to produce the remnant of the man child spoken of in Revelation.
And I do believe that God gave William Sowders the doctrinal truth that he
received. I don’t believe he copycatted somebody else. I believe God spoke to
him, called him, and gave him the truth that he received.
I do not believe that William Sowders was a deity incapable of doing any wrong.
I do not believe William Sowders viewed himself as a God or King but simply as
a vessel that God used. I believe he made his share of mistakes, but his desire
was to do the right thing for the furtherance of the truth of the Gospel. But
God did not give even William Sowders everything. I’m sorry if you disagree.
And I’m sorry if you disagree that the Lord used William Sowders.
I’m not here to argue any of those points, nor will I respond to anyone
attempting to pick apart what I have said my beliefs are. I am simply sharing
them with you as a means of identifying myself with this group of people, as
being one of these people.
However, even though I am one of these people does not mean that I agree with
everything that has been done among us. I do not. And I have something to say
to our leaders, not about any case in particular, but in general about how we
have operated, and are currently operating, and how it is hurting the saints
and even those outside of the church (of whom we are to maintain a good report
also).
I am going to state this real plain. The core of the corruption within us has
been and continues to be: ABUSE OF POWER AND IDOL WORSHIP. And those two things
feed off each other beloved, ABUSE OF POWER BY LEADERSHIP AND IDOL WORSHIP BY
THE FOLLOWERS.
Brethren, recognize the problem here. Sexual abuse is just one form of ABUSE OF
POWER that we have suffered from. I’m not making light of it. Sexual abuse is
simply an advanced stage of ABUSE OF POWER. It is the extreme of ABUSE OF
POWER. And if we’ve hit the extremes, what about all the other ABUSE OF POWER?
I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that God is using the internet, the
news media, and these public cases to shine light on faults that have been
hidden for way too long in the church. I am convinced that God will continue to
use these tools at His disposal to work everything out of us that He needs to
work out of us on these issues, so that we can be restored rightly in Him. When
He gets us to that point, message boards on the internet and the news media
will cease to be a burdensome stone to the Body of Christ, but not until then,
not until we finally get it right in God’s eyes, or until, God forbid, He gets
tired of dealing with us and moves on. Incidentally, I don’t feel like we have
reached that point yet. I believe God is still working on us as a group of
people and we still haven’t gotten it right. When we finally get through
getting buffeted for our own faults, we will finally be in a condition to
suffer for the cause of Christ.
And that is why I remain a part of the GAC, as some of our detractors like to
call us. And I’m not looking to leave, unless God leaves. He hasn’t. But He
could. I can still feel His Spirit in our services and I can still feel His
Spirit in you preachers preaching, at least some of you. But God is using those
outside the church to whip us, brethren. It won’t kill us unless we continue to
respond incorrectly and God destroys us. But you brethren need to do the right
thing. Because God is holding you accountable. This board is just a tool in His
hand.
WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN BEFORE WE REALIZE WHAT GOD IS REQUIRING OF US? How many
cases have to be brought to light, how many lawsuits filed, how many
closed-door hush meetings, how many victims post on the Internet, how many of
our saints quit church and become our public bashers, how many of our children
and women molested and abused, how many of our ministers appear on the evening
news, how many marriages and homes broken up, how much of our tithes money
looted by fraudsters and con men before we realize the core of the corruption?
The core of corruption is ABUSE OF POWER AND IDOL WORSHIP.
ABUSE OF POWER is what has happened in our leadership. That is where I will
start since the leaders are supposed to be the examples, they’re supposed to
LEAD! They’re supposed to lead in humility. They’re supposed to lead in
correcting themselves. They’re supposed to lead by being accountable to God and
being accountable to each other, to the multitude of counselors, and they should
be transparent to the saints as well. Instead, they have used their power to
put down and avoid dealing with issues over and over. It is what it is. ABUSE
OF POWER is manifested in NEGLECT, DENIAL, and COVER UP, NOT TO MENTION THE
ORIGINAL SIN OF A LEADER THAT IS BEING NEGLECTED, DENIED, AND COVERED UP! The
reason I say NEGLECT is because in many of these cases, there has been total
refusal to deal with cases that have been brought up with hard evidence. There
have been multiples of people come forward and testify on matters and still our
leaders continued to DO NOTHING! THAT IS BLATENT NEGLECT AND DENIAL! THAT IS
ABUSE OF POWER! Instead of listening to your saints, the sheep that you are
responsible to God for, you have ignored them, and now God has had to take you
to task by using outsiders. Can’t you see that?
Many of our leaders right now are taking on this spirit that it is wrong for
anyone to point out fault among them. They’ve taken on what I would call an
elitist attitude or spirit. That is to say, they think just because they are in
leadership that they don’t have to listen to other people who are not on their
“level”, that they can get their direction directly from God or MAYBE some of
their pastoral friends (clique), and bypass the saints and the rest of mankind,
when all the time God is talking to them through the saints, and through former
saints that have left their churches. Elders, this is happening among a new,
younger generation. Some of you are passing on traits that you should not be passing
on. You are passing on traits that have been handed down to you. You can’t just
blame the previous generation on this count. You’ve got to look at yourselves.
This is our generation we are talking about. We have to look ourselves in the
mirror and say it is us that have abused by neglecting and covering up, not
just the previous dispensation.
We have some younger ministers in our midst that you can’t tell anything. They
just won’t listen, because they are the preacher and you are just a saint. You
have no right, who do you think you are, go somewhere else, because they ain’t
listening. They’re feeding off the same spirit that infected the last
generation and that is infecting this older generation of ministers. Some of
them would just as soon cut your head off as to look at you. They know it all.
They make assumptions that aren’t true. They even make accusations towards the
saints that aren’t true, no proof, without verifying. I know this personally
because I have been the direct recipient of some of these accusations by other
leaders that don’t even really know me, that have never even been my pastor,
yet they’ve accused me of doing things that I did not do, talking to people I
did not talk to and I never talk to. In my complaint, this untruth finally wound
its way to my doorstep through my good friends and family members. I just
laughed. An utterly ridiculous, baseless allegation designed to deflect
attention away from the leader who really had the problem, and onto an innocent
saint. I know many other good people that this has happened to also. Some of us
have been besmirched unjustly by some of these ministers with no consequences,
no accountability. This is a symptom and a form of ABUSE OF POWER, my friends.
VERBAL ABUSE OF A SAINT IS ABUSE OF POWER. Those men should be accountable for
their words and actions.
In my own particular case, which I consider to be very minor compared to some
of my friends in this church, so minor it is not worth talking about except to
illustrate a clear example of how we feel and think about many of you leaders,
I should be able to confront this minister and get correction. Brother Pastor,
you should repent for making wrong assumptions and accusations. You should
repent because when you did that, you sprung a leak in your bottle of influence
and it is slowly ebbing away. You should repent for your own good and the good
of your church, not because I’m holding it against you. Because I’m not holding
it against you as doing me wrong. I have already forgiven you for it. You know
why? Because you are JUST A MAN, my friend. I can walk up to you and hug your
neck, because I truly love you. Not only that, but I actually like you. I have
enjoyed being around you, feeling your enthusiasm. And I really appreciate your
ability to be flexible enough to do things that most men would not be willing
to do. You have some excellent character traits and strengths, my dear brother.
But, do you think I have confidence in you? I’ve lost a significant portion of
my confidence in you. You see, there is a difference between forgiveness and
restored confidence. We can forgive all day long but our confidence cannot be
restored in each other without repentance and accountability, that simple
acknowledgement of your error and agreement that it was wrong and humble
willingness to be accountable in the future to God and His people, so as not to
keep repeating the same offense. You won’t get back the influence you lost
until you realize your mistake and take on the right spirit and quit ABUSING
POWER by making false accusations against a saint with no proof. And because
you ABUSE POWER there is no way I am going to walk up to you and confront you
about it, which is really what should be done. I should be able to confront you
with it and you should repent and get it over with already, and get that hole
in your radiator of influence sealed up. But because you ABUSE POWER and
because you cover yourself with others that ABUSE POWER, there is absolutely no
way I am going to subject myself, my loved ones, and my friends that loved me
enough to tell me what you said to more of your ABUSE. You’ll just have to
learn about it through open, public forums on the Internet, or through a
courtroom, or some other outside source until finally God gets on your case bad
enough that you decide to operate differently. And I sincerely hope that you
do, because you have potential to do just as much good as you have potential to
do evil. I’m not going to go around talking about you because I don’t want to
be guilty of the same thing that you are. But if the subject came up and I was
asked, I’m not going to lie about you either. I’m going to tell the truth. You
have made a false accusation against a saint and you are dangerous as long as
you operate in this ABUSIVE vein. That is not how Christ worked. LEADERS, IF
PEOPLE FEAR TO APPROACH YOU AND CONFRONT YOU WITH YOUR OFFENSES, YOU ARE
ABUSING POWER. WHEN YOU WILL NOT HEAR AN OFFENSE AGAINST YOURSELF AND DEAL WITH
IT PROPERLY, WITHOUT DENYING IT, WHEN YOU WILL NOT BE ACCOUNTABLE TO THE SHEEP
THAT YOU ARE LEADING, YOU ARE ABUSING POWER.
A subtle truth about Power is if you abuse it, you start losing it, unless you
do something to fix the loss. It’s just like a car radiator. A radiator is
designed to hold up to a lot of pressure and keep the contents inside of it
cool so they can be used. You shoot a hole in your radiator, the contents, your
influence with people, starts to leak out. It can leak out slowly, or if the
gaffe is big enough, it can blow out in a hurry. All the same, you are losing
your influence when you do not acknowledge, repent, and make the necessary
adjustments. We, as saints, can forgive you all day long. But we can’t have our
confidence restored without acknowledgement, repentance, and you changing your
ways. God is having to use outsiders on you leaders because you won’t respond
right to the saints that you are supposed to be leading.
Some of our younger ministers are steadily running saints out of the church,
trying to establish THEIR hierarchy and THEIR LEGACY, trying to establish their
own big throne and little kingdom, like they seen their elders do before them.
We just left a meeting where this very thing is happening. They’re in serious
trouble and don’t even know it. And a lot of our older ministers are just watching
it happen, satisfied that things are going just “well enough” in their own
little domains, satisfied that because God is restoring their relationships
from years past that they can just coast through on that great move of God.
That is ABUSE OF POWER by NEGLECT dear brethren. You are neglecting the sheep
in an assembly. Not only that, but you really are neglecting that type of
pitiful leader, who so desperately needs be held accountable and make changes
in how he handles the people of God.
It is not good enough just to “coast” through on what we “know” God is doing,
that is the work of unification. God is doing many things at once, not just one
thing, and our leaders need to recognize it. They need to quit thinking that
just because God is working to reunite different factions of us that came out
from William Sowders that they don’t have to worry about anything else or they
can simply ignore all these other problems and God will take care of them down
the road somewhere. It will not work that way. GOD IS ASKING OUR LEADERS TO
TAKE CARE OF THINGS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN TAKEN CARE OF, THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN
TAKEN CARE OF A LONG TIME AGO! GOD CAN DO MORE THAN ONE THING AT A TIME MY
BRETHREN! He is working on restoring us together, in HIM. He’s not going to
allow us to be restored to one another in the flesh, which is exactly what some
of you are doing with all the flesh petting, high rolling, buddy buddying, and
the constant focus on natural things (big buildings and money) instead of
things of the Spirit. Brethren, we will never truly be reunited under the
headship of Christ until this infection and corruption is purged from us. God
has us in a strait, and we won’t get through until we drop some things off. And
if we do not purge ourselves from it, the infection and corruption of past
generations, specifically the ABUSE OF POWER of the previous generations and
this current generation, will re-divide us down the road just as sure as I am
writing this. God is asking us as a Body to purge ourselves from ABUSING POWER.
And IGNORING PROBLEMS that hurt and divide the sheep is another form of ABUSING
POWER. And allowing a young generation of leaders to come on the scene that
ABUSE POWER with no checks from you elders is simply a continuation of a chain
of ABUSE that will cause this next generation down the road to suffer. ELDERS,
IT IS YOUR GOD GIVEN RESPONSIBILITY TO NOT LET THESE THINGS BE CARRIED FORWARD
BY OUR YOUNGER GENERATION OF LEADERS!
If I NEVER EVER HEAR ONE OF OUR BEST MOST SENIOR LEADERS IN THIS DISPENSATION QUOTE
“JUDGE NOTHING BEFORE THE TIME, TIL THE LORD COMES…….” AGAIN, I THINK I WILL BE
RELIEVED. Some of the cases that are simmering among us, God done came and left
two, three, or four times already. He keeps coming back around too, only the
next time, He’s a little stronger, a little more forceful. We’re finally going
to get to the hammer dropped on us. We’ve already passed the pillow and the two
by four stages. Jesus didn’t say, “Judge nothing until there is a huge
explosion and everything is on fire, burning up, and there is major damage.”
The time when the Lord comes is when you have multiple witnesses that come to
you and tell you there is a problem. The time to deal with it is all along as
witnesses are coming to you. You gotta take care of things in the proper time.
You are using this scripture to neglect and delay judgment. IT’S NOT WORKING!
And it is leading to all of us suffering being overran by all these cases that
are dogging you. NEGLECT IN LEADERSHIP IS ABUSE OF POWER.
We’ve got cases among us that some of our leaders deny because “they never saw
anything”. WELL, BIG HOOPTY! SO WHAT YOU DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING! GET YOUR EYES
CHECKED AND GET YOUR EARS CLEANED OUT! HOW MANY PEOPLE GOTTA TELL YOU IT
HAPPENED BEFORE YOU ADMIT IT TO BE TRUE?!?!?! AREN’T YOU SEEING THOSE SAINTS
WALK OUT ON YOU? YOU NEED TO SEE AND HEAR THOSE PEOPLE! YOU NEED TO START
ACCEPTING WHAT THEY ARE TELLING YOU OVER AND OVER AND OVER FROM MANY, MANY
DIFFERENT PEOPLE. Naw, you’re waiting for a movie or something that you can “see”
instead of taking credible people’s testimony. You’re waiting for the Lord to
come with His big booming voice straight out of heaven and knock you over and
tell you it’s time to judge the case. And since He ain’t don’t that, well,
deny, cover up, and go on down the road like nothing has happened yet and
people are just “overreacting”. SICK! DENIAL IS ABUSE OF POWER!
Abuse of power, specifically not listening to testimony, or denying testimony,
or ignoring testimony, or worse yet, verbally bludgeoning the testifiers and
marking them as rebels and attempting to destroy their influence, has become so
rampant among us that a lot of people don’t even bother going to the ministry
anymore, just like I described to you in my own case. They will say, “What’s
the use? I’m not gonna risk getting my head cut off. They won’t believe me.
They ain’t gonna do anything. They are God’s anointed. Please don’t tell them I
said this.” And eventually a lot of those people wind their way out the door
and down the road disappointed that things never changed. They are still
suffering with their case. The case should have been dealt with for their
salvation. It is pretty poor leadership that puts the burden on the sheep to
“FORGIVE” and FAILS to put the burden on the leaders to REPENT AND BE
ACCOUNTABLE.
Look at some of your churches brethren. Assemblies that used to run several
hundred are now down to a handful. Where did they all go brethren? DON’T EVEN
TRY TO THROW OFF THE WHEAT AND CHAFF EXCUSE! DON’T GO THERE AND WASTE OUR TIME.
SOME OF YOUR ASSEMBLIES HAVE TOTALLY EMPTIED OUT! DID YOU PRODUCE A WHOLE CROP
OF CHAFF?
Here’s another very obvious abuse of power and how it is still affecting us:
THE EDIFICATION AND GLORIFICATION OF MEN THAT ABUSED POWER. Tommy Jolly and
Lloyd Goodwin are the most obvious examples of this. They are not the only ones
but they are two of the most obvious, worst ones.
Tommy Jolly was judged by God in 1965. 1965 my friends, when he admitted his
guilt and the ministers at that time were working to still save him (NOT HIS
MINISTRY BUT HIS SOUL), still keep the Body together, still save the sheep,
without dividing the Body.
Tommy Jolly divided the Body. And he took a bunch of preachers with him when he
left the fellowship. He refused to come to the meetings that were already
scheduled and he tore down all those that continued to attend the meetings that
he had already called. He tore down those that he admitted his guilt to.
GOD CUT TOMMY JOLLY OFF IN 1965, not 1990 or 1991, when the ministers that had
continued to follow him after 1965 finally rebelled against him because they
couldn’t take it any more. They didn’t judge Tommy Jolly. He was already judged
in 1965. He judged himself. He wouldn’t subject himself to a counsel when he
was uncovered and he subsequently admitted his guilt to multiple brethren. He
got caught when he molested another preacher’s daughter for crying out loud! He
just didn’t get his full sentence, the judgment execution, until years later.
After he admitted his guilt and told the brethren he was going to step down, he
then refused and started calling people and telling them not to go to the
meeting that he had already scheduled. Those brethren that followed him need to
step up to the plate and admit/acknowledge that they missed God in 1965, TO
CLEAR THEIR OWN SELVES and quit covering up that they missed it! They need to
acknowledge that they continued to participate in IDOL WORSHIP and cover up,
neglect, and denial and continued to ENABLE TOMMY JOLLY TO CONTINUE ABUSING
POWER. If they had investigated properly, if they had sincerely sought the
truth, if they had counseled with the brotherhood, they would have known better
and would not have followed Tommy Jolly. I personally know some of them did
counsel with the brotherhood. Their judgment was so bad that they didn’t
believe what was said and their flesh was sucked in by Tommy Jolly’s ways. Most
of them are dead now, but they knew. Many of them that are left were and still
are in denial. You can hear it oozing from them when they speak!
It doesn’t matter if you didn’t see or know anything in 1965. What matters is
you participated in Tommy Jolly’s ABUSE OF POWER and a lot of you are
continuing to ABUSE POWER because Tommy Jolly taught you how to do it. It is
hurting this Body and it is hurting your ministry, what there is left of your
ministry. When you “preach” and quote Tommy Jolly constantly, telling all the
wonderful things Tommy Jolly did, acknowledging Tommy Jolly as your leader and
father in the Lord, you are just making it worse. It needs to stop! All you are
doing is emphasizing the contrast between a POWER ABUSER like Tommy Jolly and
other men who followed leaders that weren’t perverted. All you are doing is
putting your own denial and neglect on full display for the whole sainthood,
and really for the whole world to see since information about Tommy Jolly is
now readily available on the Internet. How could you possibly stand before this
world and paint a one-sided picture of Tommy Jolly, tell how wonderful he was,
and leave out all the corruption and abuse he propagated, much less stand in
front of us and do likewise and expect to have any credibility at all? It is
beyond comprehension and it totally DESTROYS YOUR CREDIBILITY, among us. Do you
really expect the world to cut you a bigger break then the saints in the church
that are working under your leadership cut you? YOU ARE ABUSING POWER BY NOT
TELLING THE WHOLE TRUTH AND CONTINUING TO BUILD UP TOMMY JOLLY AND YOU ARE
ABUSING POWER WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN ASKED BY YOUR FELLOW MINISTERS TO QUIT TALKING
ABOUT HIM AND YOU REFUSE! YOU ABUSE POWER BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT EVEN ACCOUNTABLE
TO YOUR FELLOW MINISTERS, MUCH LESS THE SAINTS. DO WE THINK YOU ARE ACCOUNTABLE
TO GOD? Not as long as these conditions exist.
BUT GOD IS GOING TO KEEP HOLDING YOU ACCOUNTABLE WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!
Every city and county in this country has a courtroom. And if you are not
careful, God is going to use the civil powers of this world to beat a bunch of
money out of you until you get it and reject Tommy Jolly’s ways. God has plenty
of ways to get your attention. Like I said, we’re already past the pillow and
the 2x4. Now we’re headed for something much harder to get your attention. The
spirit, and your fellow brethren, and the sheep that you are responsible for
have been the pillow and the 2x4. Don’t listen to them and God will have to hit
you with something much harder.
Oh, you’ll slip around privately to your preacher buddies and tell them how
much you hate Tommy Jolly for what he did. They you’ll get behind the pulpit
and tell all the saints what a great man he was. It’s enough to make me want to
vomit. Because all I can hear is you vomiting all over the congregation when
you start talking how great Tommy Jolly was like you inherited all his greatness
and none of his baggage when all the while, you are ate up with Tommy Jolly’s
manners and methods. You need to turn away from Brother Jolly’s ways and truly
understand how wrong he went so you can purge yourselves from his ways, instead
of continuing to perpetuate lies and perpetuate Tommy Jolly’s abuse of power by
the way that you handle yourselves and the saints.
I’m not saying they are perverted sexually like Tommy Jolly was. I don’t know
of any who are. But they are perverted in that they do things like Tommy Jolly
does them. They ABUSE POWER. Most of them are carrying around Tommy Jolly’s
spirit, which is entitlement, they are more special because they are the
preacher and the saints aren’t special, they’re just “the saints”. That is an
elitist, entitlement attitude. It is not the spirit that the early church
leaders had. They’re carrying around the “eat in our own dining room because we
are the special anointed men” spirit. And that spirit is becoming more and more
prominent among us and GOD HAS FINALLY HAD ENOUGH OF IT!
I told you Tommy Jolly wasn’t the only one. Plenty of other ministers continued
to drag that kind of spirit around after he separated from us. In Lloyd
Goodwin’s case, there is not even private acknowledgement from many who were
the closest to the situation that he ABUSED POWER by ABUSING PEOPLE, only the
acknowledgement that it is a “possibility”. And in many other cases among us,
there is not even the “possibility”. We are simply wrong for even mentioning
the “possibility” because that minister couldn’t possibly be wrong.
None of these ways originated with Tommy Jolly and Lloyd Goodwin or any other
man either, save the first man, ADAM! They originated in Genesis. These ways,
methods, and characters are present in every man. We can either encourage those
sorts of things or we can kill them out. We’ve had too many of our past and
current leaders that are encouraging these ADAMIC ways instead of helping us to
kill them out of us as a group of people.
And it’s finally caught up to all of us. God is telling you to come down off
your high perch and humble yourselves and quit ignoring, denying, and covering
up, and be accountable for how you deal with the sainthood, with HIS SHEEP. God
is tired of His sheep being abused. He is finally getting to the point where He
is going to humiliate some of you to get you humble enough. And if that don’t
work, just expect a bigger dose of humiliation and judgment from God until we
reach the point, God forbid, where he rejects us outright just like He did
Israel……………..or you finally change. He, that being often reproved hardeneth his
neck…….. Finish it, you know it. God help us please.
We’ve got a lot of our preachers now that are MORE INTERESTED IN MONEY AND
NATURAL POWER THAN THEY ARE SOULS! Just another symptom of the same ABUSE OF
POWER. Because money and power go together………in the flesh. That is, if you are
building a natural kingdom in the flesh, you build it with money. So the more
money you got the more fleshly power you got. Some of our ministers are so
drunk on money and power that they are making decisions based on money and
natural, fleshly power, not souls. And that is exactly why God has resorted to
lawsuits and civil judgments to get your attention. It’s coming. This is only
the first wave, unless you change and change now.
We’ve got preachers sitting at the lead table in our minister’s meetings that
are involved in all sorts of business: home builders, shoe salesmen, dog
breeders, practicing attorneys, computer and electronics businesses, all sorts
of contractors, car salesman, car repair shops, music stores, software, books,
tapes, vitamins, cookies, candy, insurance, ponzi schemes, you name
it………selling everything but the GOSPEL! It has become the table of the rich and
famous and well-connected. Not only that, but a lot of those that are not in
worldly business are simply in natural church business, controlling millions of
dollars of ill-gotten gain, filthy lucre, from past and current leadership that
collected and conned those dollars out of the pockets of saints. No different
than the mob does, promising protection and blessings if the saints give, and
doom and gloom if they didn’t. They took advantage of the generosity of the
saints just like charismatic religion does today. They got the saints involved
in second mortgages, and a myriad of other schemes to get the saints to give up
millions of dollars to the church. The International Center and the Convention
Center both have this problem along with many of the brethren that have been with
the original group. Some of our past leaders beat the saints to death about
money. And all for what? To build up their own kingdoms, not God’s kingdom.
They received and enjoyed the benefits of all that money way more than God did.
They used that money to build up their own name more than the name of the Lord.
And that is a travesty. After all, it is God’s money, not theirs. That’s why
most of their churches are lacking PEOPLE! They got the money but not the
people! They’re sitting on those millions of dollars and using them as their
power base, even though they may have less than 100 saints, some of them
struggling to get even 50 saints to actually follow them. VALUING MONEY OVER
SAINTS IS ABUSE OF POWER. AND BUILDING UP YOUR OWN NAME MORE THAN THE NAME OF
JESUS IS ABUSE OF POWER. Some among you have actually sold the church, taken
the money, and used it to finance your own retirement or for the furtherance of
your own “ministry” by paying off their own personal debt and traveling to
another country to “apostolize” the people of a foreign nation. While the
people in the town that you left, are left with N-O-T-H-I-N-G except to sit at
home and reach out to the one and only true God, who has heard, hears, and will
continue to hear them.
God’s church is built with people.
Oh, so God blessed those that gave and they have been rewarded financially you
say? Yes, in some cases but not all. Many other people are broke and strapped
because of being conned into giving more than what the Lord was really asking
of them. Some of them are living in a locale where there is no longer a place
of worship because the preacher looted the place. Their children and
grandchildren are suffering and have suffered because they gave more than what
God asked them to. They gave because some preacher asked or told them to. They
got sucked into the big hype machine. But God is hearing their prayer and HE
WILL HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE for such blatant ABUSE.
God is going to require an accounting for what has happened to HIS PEOPLE and
HIS MONEY! What are you doing with it? Are you using it to buy jet planes, and
the fanciest automobiles, overspending for fat Cadillacs, Mercedes, and
Lincolns with gaudy thousand dollar rims, building monstrosity churches and
then operating them like your own private castle, building huge homes that you
don’t need. Going on trips, cruises, safari hunts, and motorcycle trail rides
all over the planet. Flying back and forth to some foreign country where you
can win a bunch of poor, ignorant people who will reach out for any kind of
“help”. Hiring defense attorneys to help you cover up THE TRUTH about what all
has happened in this Body and what mistakes our leaders have made, justifying
all of it as the Lord’s business? And then when the sheep start bleating, threaten
them to get them to hush. Or are you really using all that money to build God’s
kingdom and tell THE TRUTH?
THERE SHOULD NOT BE A SINGLE MINSTER AT THE LEAD TABLE AND IN THE MAIN
LEADERSHIP OF THIS BODY THAT IS INVOLVED IN OUTSIDE BUSINESS! If you are, you
should step down. Or get out of the business world. How in the world can you
truly trust God and be led by God when you are making your own way, you are
controlling millions of dollars and running millions of dollars of business,
and financing your own kingdom building? How can you possibly hear from God and
understand what God is doing without having a filtered, biased view of what God
is doing, based on how it affects your pocketbook and lifestyle? How can you
really build others up if you are spending so much time building up and lining
your pockets? How can God really extract everything out of you when you are jet
setting around the country, taking vacations, sightseeing all the time, going
on cruises, running motorcycles around the mountains, buying and flying jets
all over the place, and all this other carnal stuff that you have preached to
us about getting too involved in? And in your free time you are running
business!? Some of you have taken multiple vacations THIS YEAR ALREADY! That is
vacation away from the work of the Lord and going on trips for your own
pleasure and enjoyment. We go to contact you and you are up fishing in Canada
or on a hunting trip in Texas. How many vacations do you think the saints get
to take? Some saints take a vacation from their job that they work to pay their
tithes, groceries, utilities and mortgage, and go to the convention center or
the campground and WORK for the whole meeting! How can you take a vacation from
the work of the Lord? Too many preachers go to the meeting, then go back to
their hotel/cabin and sleep or get into an endless argument with each other.
Then they get upset if they don’t get to preach at the meeting and leave early.
Then they come back home and tell us how tired they are after they took an
extra 3-4 days coming home, sightseeing, shopping at the finest stores, and
eating at all the exclusive restaurants on the way home, while we went to the
meeting and slaved away in the kitchen. Then drove all night to get back home
to go to work. Then we get home and go to work at 5 am Monday morning and show
up for church midweek and the preacher is still “coming back” from the meeting?
Then we show up for church Sunday morning to hear the preacher preach to us
about our finances and tithing. That is if he is back from his little
sabbatical by Sunday.
These are the types of men that are starting to dot the main table of
leadership more and more. Then they get up and point to the lead tables and
say, “This is the main leadership of the body.” WHAT!? IF YOU BE, THEN START
BEING LIKE THE EARLY CHURCH LEADERS AND QUIT SERVING YOUR OWN BELLIES!
This all needs to be purged out of leadership. We need leaders who truly trust
God for their very sustenance, for their direction, for their time, for
everything, who are on the job for the Lord all the time, not satisfying their
own bellies, not off taking vacations and going to parties, not making
decisions on how it affects their individual bank accounts or their “loss of
control”. Without that, we can never measure up to the early church, much less
do greater works. The condition of the church is reflected in its leadership.
The early church leaders couldn’t even spell vacation. It was the end of the
age for them. There wasn’t anything else worth doing. They gave all and they
gave it all. We’re acting like we’ve got another couple hundred years before
the end of this age. At the rate we’re going, some of us are gonna get more
than that. We’re going to get at least a full thousand years before our number
is called up.
If you don’t fit into the classes above, you need to make sure you don’t fit
into the next class. That is, those that cater to the wealthy in their
congregations to extract their wealth and will not exercise proper judgment and
care of the sainthood because of it. This is another form of ABUSE OF POWER,
specifically a symptom of VALUING MONEY OVER SAINTS.
Some of you will NEGLECT and DENY dealing with the wealthy because you value
their money more than they value the soul of a saint that has been offended by
one of these. You don’t even value the soul of the wealthy enough to be willing
to tell them the truth for their own salvation. You only care about that
wealthy person’s pocketbook, not their soul. It’s obvious this is the case
because you don’t take care of problems involving those people, just sweep them
under the rug. In fact, some of our leaders will go around repenting on behalf
of another person instead of telling that person what they need to do. That is
SICK! Isn’t that how the Catholic priests do it? How much money do I gotta give
the preacher to get him to cover up all my sins and offending of God’s sheep
and get him to go around and repent for me? How much does it cost to buy that
kind of privilege? We’re entertaining Simon the Sorcerers but we sure ain’t
dealing with them like Peter dealt with Simon. Quite the contrary, just the
opposite. Peter called that man out. He knew what Simon was about, knew what
Simon was after, and most of all Peter knew he COULD NOT entertain that kind of
spirit. Some of our leaders don’t care if they lose 100 saints so long as they
keep Brother and Sister Deep Pockets happy. They don’t care if the church
closes so long as they can sell the building and cart the money off and put it
in their retirement fund or jam it into their next bigger, better church
building with only a handful of people in it. You simply can’t build God’s
kingdom that way. It’s another symptom of abuse of power when you put money
above people’s souls.
Speaking of Simon the Sorcerer, we now have and have long had a spirit among us
manifesting itself in men thinking they can buy a seat at the leadership table,
just like a businessman at the New York Stock Exchange. A man gets a few jingle
in his pocket and he goes to some town somewhere and buys a shack or a barn or
whatever, maybe even a church building, remodels it, all with his own money,
and decides he’s gonna put a church there because “the Lord told him to”. No
people mind you, just a business man that thinks he’s a preacher, with a fistful
of dollars. So, they buy some building somewhere, and start having church with
their family members, or they shag some people from one of the nearby
assemblies. Then all of a sudden, wala, they get a seat on the platform and get
a bunch of pomp/pump and supposed glory, get to go eat first at the dining
room, and get to be revered like they are something special when they’re not.
Then they get up at the meetings and take up time, take up time, take up time,
talking about themselves and how God talked to them and how they got this
building, going on forever, when they should glorify God for about 10 minutes
and sit down. And we are supposed to listen to them and follow them? IT’S ALL
ABOUT THEM! And when you go to their “church” they’ve got 6 or 8 people there,
mostly if not all family members. This is happening all over the Body right
now. And a lot of these men will stay in that location for YEARS with NO
PEOPLE, not winning anybody, no souls being touched or changed, just meeting in
their own “castle” that they bought and paid for, their own little kingdom. And
when they go to shut it down, they take all the money with them cuz, you know,
it’s theirs. That’s nothing but a glorified tax shelter if you ask me. I even
heard of a case recently where a man allegedly went to a town and opened up a
bank account, didn’t even have a church, no people, but now he’s “claimed” that
he is the pastor in that area and nobody else is allowed in that area! I
haven’t been able to verify that one yet but if I do, you wanna talk about
peeing on a stump, you wanna talk about Oklahoma squatters? How carnal is that?
Listen, territory don’t belong to you. It belongs to God. And He don’t care how
much territory you claim for yourself. He cares about how much territory we can
salvage and take care of for Him. How much of God’s territory can you
effectively take care of? Not much if you can’t even win anybody. God is not
after natural carnal things my friend. Go open a hundred bank accounts, go buy
a hundred buildings and slap a sign on them. It don’t change who you are in
God!
Brethren, it has gotten so bad that we are allowing men to “DEVELOP” in this
way and they are winding up at the main table years later. We’ve got a whole
new wave of this going on, younger men doing the same thing, thinking this is
how you build: 1. you get money, 2. then you get a building, 3. then you
leverage someone else’s saints and finance your own operation for a long time,
4. then you wind up white headed or bald, with a seat at the main table because
of your seniority. No people, just a building and money. No spiritual gift, no
spiritual fruit, no real God given influence, just a building and a chair and a
maybe a loud voice and deep lungs, a whole lot of hot air, natural power
derived from natural things. And years from now, we will have to be listening
to them talk at us for hours on end, just because they are old and had money,
but no gift, and no fruit (people), just a business man with a fistful of
dollars and/or the ability to get a loan. Thankfully, I’ll be long gone by
then, hopefully resting in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I don’t want to
hang around and see that fruit. But I feel sorry for our younger generation
having to endure even a greater dose of what we are already enduring. May God
have mercy on them and help them to endure all that nonsense. I’m crying up
just thinking about it. We’re supposed to leave things better for the younger
generation, not worse. It makes me ashamed. And we are in danger of leaving
things worse if we only do a half job, if we ignore the entire work of God that
He is wanting this generation to do.
Just recently at one of our supposed “minister’s” meeting where usually 300-400
“ministers” show up, we had one minister get up and try to take “control” of
the convention center and campground away from certain other men and place it
into the “control” of a group of other brethren. OF COURSE THAT WAS WRONG! Not
only that but then one of the brethren that “CONTROLS” one of those entities
and I do mean CONTROLS it, got up and gave us all a typical Jolly speech,
letting us know that his people had bought the place and he had even had it
remodeled just for us, and if we thought he was going to just “turn it over” to
a group of men, we had another thing coming. FOLLY, FOLLY, FOLLY! JOLLY FOLLY!
Most of the brethren at the meeting thought he did well. They were against the
first brother. But God wasn’t in any of it. He wasn’t in the first brother’s
request to manipulate the arrangement and he sure wasn’t in the second brother’s
typical Jolly abusive power response letting everybody know that HE WAS IN
CHARGE OF THAT ENTITY AND NOBODY INCLUDING GOD WAS GOING TO CHANGE THAT! We
spent thousands of dollars and hundred of hours traveling all that distance to
listen to that, thousands of dollars to endure all that meddling and king speak
from two men throwing their weight around. Lord, please help us see, this is
not the way! That was a terrible spirit manifested that day by both parties and
most of us ate it up like it was something good because our man came out
blazing. God help us. If I wanted to see a boxing match, I’d hop over to the
Golden Gloves in Louisville.
Another ABUSE OF POWER is catering to natural family members and putting them
and their welfare above the rest of the church and showing them preferential
treatment, having only natural family members involved in the natural and
spiritual business of the church, etc. Those actions are going to coming back
to haunt the church for years to come if we continue with that type of ABUSE.
Because God does not want His Church built with natural bloodlines.
The whole idea of ministers passing their churches to their natural sons,
son-in-laws, nephews, brothers, just keeping it all in the natural family, just
like a small business does, that’s not God’s way. While I admit, there can be
cases where God does call a relative family member and destine them to inherit
the responsibility of the local work, it should be obvious among us that we
have taken this way overboard and gotten totally out of the spirit in the way
that we build, looking for puppets that we can pull strings and “control”, even
from the graveyard. And the majority of the time this is blood family. What
does it say about our leadership when they constantly turn their churches over
to other natural family members? What does it say for how well they are able to
build the message of the Body of Christ into their congregation, into other
saints, into other men? What does it say about how much they really trust God?
What does it say about a leader when he controls the spiritual work of the
church and also controls all the finance, keeps it all in the family? This is
ABUSE OF POWER and it stems from men not really trusting God properly to take
care of the work, and not trusting anyone else besides a family member that
they can get to “run” their church so they can exercise some “control” over it
from their own grave. Several of our churches have been run smack into the
ground because of these actions and some are currently being run into the
ground like a 747 going 600 mph straight down, people flying out of those
churches on the dead run, getting out before the thing crashes to little bitty
bits.
BRETHREN, GOD IS PURGING THESE THINGS FROM US AND HE WILL KEEP EXPOSING CASE
AFTER CASE AFTER CASE UNTIL HE GETS YOU TO START DEALING WITH THESE THINGS
RIGHTEOUSLY AND NOT SWEEP THEM UNDER THE CARPET. NOT ONLY THAT BUT GOD IS
INSTITUTING AN ACCOUNTABILITY AMONG US THAT WE HAVE NEVER HAD BEFORE. YOU
SHOULD WORK WITH GOD TO HELP HIM INSTITUTE THE ACCOUTABILITY AND PURGE OUR
LEADERSHIP OF SPIRITS THAT DO NOT WANT TO BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS OR
LACK OF ACTION, THEIR WORDS, THEIR MOTIVES AND THEIR PRIORITIES.
LEADERS, GOD IS ASKING YOU TO STOP ABUSING POWER.
TAKE HEED HOW YE BUILD! AND BUILD RIGHT!
IDOL WORSHIP
Idol worship is simply prioritizing anything or anyone before our service to
the Lord and doing what God would have us do. We need to purge ourselves from
Idol Worship and quit elevating things (man, the ministry, our jobs, our
spouses, our children, natural things) to a place that God does not want. The
ministry is not Jesus, they are not the equal of Jesus. You cannot bypass them
but you surely cannot raise them up to a level that they are not on. Because
when you do, you are facilitating them to be able to abuse power.
And I am sorry to say, but I am guilty along with almost everyone else in this
group. And for that, I sincerely repent for my part in participating in IDOL
WORSHIP. I want to do better and not be guilty of IDOL WORSHIP. I do not want
to be guilty of putting a man (minister) or anything else in the place of Jesus
Christ and being an enabler that enables that man to ABUSE POWER. I don’t
consider I have participated in ABUSE OF POWER directly, I am not in the
ministry. But I have assisted ministers in using their power to abuse by being
a participator in IDOL WORSHIP. I will make no excuses. I assisted ministers
and helped them abuse their power over people. I am guilty. A lot of us are
guilty on these counts and we need to repent for it and turn from it. I’m not
talking about something our forefathers have done. I’m talking about what we
are doing NOW! We may have learned it from them, but we are responsible for
what we are doing.
Here are some symptoms of Idol Worship:
When we go to the preacher before we go to the Lord, we are worshipping an
idol.
Piano players, I’m gonna pick on you since this one is so obvious and is
manifesting itself right in our services. When you look at the preacher and
expect the preacher to tell you when to stop and start all your songs, when you
quit looking to the Lord for direction and you get your direction from the man
sitting in the front and middle, you are participating in idol worship. I love
you all. But this is one symptom that is running rampant among us. We’ve got
many piano players that never hear from God anymore. They simply wait for the
preacher to tell them when to play, when to stop. Some of them even wait for
the preacher to tell them what to play. What has happened to being led by the
Spirit? Are you going to be led by the Spirit or are you going to be led by
Brother So and So? I’ve seen this at the Campground, at the Convention Center,
and at the International Center, not to mention our local churches. At one meeting
a while back, I don’t think there was one song played that the pastor didn’t
look over and tell the song leader to play and that the pastor didn’t stop.
This was an International meeting. It’ll be interesting to see if we have made
any progress in that area in the last year. That is way too much control, abuse
of power, and idol worship. And preachers, shame on you for abusing power in
this manner and teaching others to worship at your feet. It’s not your place to
lead the song service. Let the song leaders be led of the Lord and we will all
be blessed as long as they are led of the Lord.
Here’s another one and one that has been common among us. That is saints
thinking that a certain minister has to pray for them. They’ll come down the
prayer line at the meetings and get to the front, then they’ll ask for a
particular minister to pray for them bypassing all the other ministers that are
down front slaving away in the prayer line. That is idol worship. Man does not
heal you. God does. It is God’s touch we are looking for. You do that, it is a
symptom that you are worshipping a man, idol worship. And preachers, there’s
some of you that think you have to be the one to lay hands on the saints. You
will bully your way to the front, knock everybody else out of the way just so
you can slap your hand on the saint’s forehead and give them whiplash. That
ain’t God my friend. If you are supposed to pray for somebody, if God wants to
use you as His instrument, He will make a way for you.
Another symptom of Idol Worship is when you go to a preacher for all your
problems and expect him to give you all the answers and you do not go to JESUS
FIRST. You should go to Jesus FIRST and quit thinking that some man has all
your answers. Some of us have gotten so far engrossed in idol worship that we
don’t even go to Jesus at all, just straight to Brother So and So for all our
answers. DANGEROUS!
Another symptom of Idol Worship is when you think your pastor has all the truth
and you don’t need to listen to anyone else. This is another symptom of IDOL
WORSHIP that leads to ABUSE OF POWER, with saints enabling a man to abuse
power. I’m sorry, don’t mean to pick on my friends. There are many wonderful
people in our local assemblies that I love dearly. And I can’t say for sure that
all of our elders even taught this to their people. But enough of them did. And
enough of them allowed their people to do it and enough of you are allowing
your people to do it now. There have been many churches in this Body that have
been infected with this spirit. And some of them HAVE been taught this by their
pastor, that the saints are to only listen to them and nobody else. That is
teaching idol worship my friend. And saint, if you participate in that, you are
worshipping an idol. NO INDIVIDUAL MAN HAS ALL THE TRUTH AT THIS TIME to be
able to give you. When you listen to just one man and you refuse to listen to
anyone else, and most of all you quit listening to what the Spirit is saying,
you are participating in IDOL WORSHIP. THE ONLY MAN THAT HAS ALL THE TRUTH AND
CAN GIVE YOU ALL THE TRUTH TODAY IS JESUS CHRIST. This is one area that our
ministry is in danger of, and in my opinion has, worshipped themselves. Some of
these folk outside the church are telling them some of the truth that they need
to hear and accept. If you think that you can only hear truth from your fellow
brethren, you are in danger of Idol Worship, Brother Minister. There is another
hand of God and He’s spanking us with it. We need to hear what the voice of the
Lord is telling us.
Another symptom of idol worship is when you bypass the check that you feel
through the Spirit when a leader is speaking and you refuse to question him
because you “trust” him. If you feel a check in your spirit about something he
is saying or doing, you need to question him about it. Don’t just be a dead
fish floating downstream participating in idol worship. Every leader, if they
talk long enough, is going to get some things wrong. There is nothing wrong
with questioning them about it. They’re not God. They’re just men. That doesn’t
mean you reject them or treat them bad or dishonor them. But when the Spirit
gives you a check, you should not ignore it. We have to be led by the Spirit.
The Spirit is our checks and balances. You ignore it, and we head straight into
the ditch, because there is no checks and balances. Leaders, if you are
encouraging your saints and coercing them into not asking questions of you, you
are teaching idol worship and abusing power.
Another obvious symptom of idol worship is thinking that you cannot admit the
truth about our previous (and current) leaders because somehow you are speaking
against them, working against them, rejecting them, and dishonoring them. That
is idol worship and is something that has been bred in us for so long it has
become second nature to most of us. It’s not dishonoring or rejecting a man
simply because you acknowledge that he is/was just a man. These men that have
gone on before us, although many of them were truly great men, at the end of
the day, they were men. They ALL made mistakes. We can’t idolize them like they
didn’t possibly make mistakes. THEY ALL MADE MISTAKES. You are worshipping
idols if you can’t admit that. And you should be able to recognize in hindsight
what mistakes they made. There is no dishonor there, no rejection. Put it in
it’s proper perspective. Put people in their proper place. Do not elevate them
to “can’t make a mistake” status. That’s Jesus’ territory.
Another symptom of idol worship is when you are overwhelmed with the desire to
defend your pastor. NO PASTOR NEEDS TO BE DEFENDED BY THE SAINTS. Jesus is his
covering, his defense. If he be righteous, Jesus will cover him, and defend him
much greater than thousands of saints could. LET JESUS DEFEND THE PASTOR and
quit worshipping idols.
When you offer up a sacrifice to anything besides God, you are worshipping
idols. Some of us have done things to appease preachers, that had nothing to do
with pleasing God. The Spirit didn’t tell us to do it, the preacher asked us
to. When you sacrifice your time and money and energy to a man instead of God,
you are worshipping an idol. We should be giving as unto the Lord, not for any
of man’s recognition.
By the way, idol worship isn’t just limited to worshipping a preacher although
we have done that aplenty. Idol worship is anything that we do that takes
priority over God. IF YOU ARE FITTING GOD INTO YOUR PLAN INSTEAD OF ALLOWING
GOD TO FIT YOU INTO HIS PLAN, YOU ARE AN IDOLATER!
You may be worshipping yourself. If you think you are the queen or king of your
own house then you’re worshipping an idol, you are worshipping yourself. This
goes for natural families as well as pastors and pastor’s wives. There is no
scripture in the Bible that even implies that the husband/wife are the king and
queen of their house just like there is no scripture in the Bible that implies
that the pastor and his wife are the king and queen of the local assembly. How
do you like that for coming in the back door? Pastors, you shouldn’t be
elevating yourself and your wife and trying to promote each other as some kind
of “king” or “queen” of the local assembly. You are not and she is not and that
is not the order of God. You may be a good example of a father, a good symbol
of the father. Hopefully you are. Because we are short fathers. Plenty of
teachers, but not enough fathers. And your wife may be a good example of a
mother. Hopefully she is, with a quiet, meek, and humble spirit. And we can
honor her as a good example of a mother. But to elevate the pastor’s wife just
because she is the pastor’s wife into some kind of position as the “queen” or
“First Lady” of the church is not Biblical and it leads to a whole host of
problems, especially when the pastor’s wife ain’t all that, but instead she is
loud, obnoxious, and has a bad spirit. Not to mention, you should not elevate
yourself to “king” status. “King” is a term that should be reserved for the
Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father. You may be a brother, you may be an elder
brother, you may be one of the chief brethren, but you aren’t a king, not yet,
not in this world. But you may be one in the world to come. Maybe. But no
guarantees though.
And the preacher’s wife does not have a position to honor. She can be honored
for her work as a mother but not because she holds an official position in the
church simply because she is married to the preacher. Don’t make the preacher’s
wife an idol. She is not a “queen”.
And fathers and mothers, I sure hope you are pointing your children to Jesus
Christ as the Head of your home and helping them to realize that you are just
the caretakers in that home that God has given you and is holding you
responsible for taking care of a few of his little lambs, if and when you help
them get converted from being the devil’s children. You should quit trying to
be Lord Gods in the homes God has given to you, quit trying to take God’s
place, and continue to abuse power yourselves.
Some of us are worshipping a myriad of other things such as money, our career,
our position at the church, or even the natural family. We’ll put those things
above God, making time for them first and foremost and cutting God short,
teaching our families by our actions that Dad and Mom making the big bucks, or
Dad and Mom making career advancement, or Dad and Mom building up the tape
ministry, or the nursery, or the dining room at church, or the family doing
natural things for pleasure is more important than doing spiritual things with
and for God and His people. We should be teaching our families to serve God
first and foremost above all else being faithful to the spiritual work of the
Lord first and foremost in our own lives and then doing all these other things.
We can get so out of balance just doing the natural things around the church if
we are not careful and all of a sudden, we think the whole church revolves
around our little department in the church, whatever we are “over”, whatever we
are in charge of. That is the spirit of Martha. Jesus had to remind her of the
importance of the spiritual things. Martha was worshipping work.
There is a place in God’s plan for all of these things. Keep it in it’s proper
place. You can overbalance the scales in an attempt to balance them. Sure, many
of us have short-changed our natural families, have denied our natural families
the time that they should have had. Yes, many of us have not spent the proper
time nurturing our natural families. Most of us can see that in hindsight. More
of us need to admit though, I agree. We need to admit that we worshipped
another idol and not only denied our families, but we denied God His rightful
place, We fit God into our plan instead of allowing Him to fit us into His
plan. But we should not tip the scale all the way over into Idol Worship, my
friends, by over emphasizing anything, including our jobs, our positions at
church, even our natural family unit above it’s place. That’s no different than
emphasizing a man of God above his place. If you’re not careful, you will wind
up doing exactly what some of the ministers that you so disagree with have
done, that is emphasize money, or position or natural family so much that you
even do damage to the spiritual family of God, by abusing your power as the
heads of your household.
Anything that you think that you have to do that causes you to consistently
miss out on worshipping God in the spiritual, that causes you and your family
to miss out on the opportunity to let God work on you to fit you and your
family into His plan is idol worship my friends. We are to fit into God’s plan
not fit God into our plan. Don’t take what I’m saying overboard and think that
I’m saying that you can’t miss a church service. I’m not. It’s when you
consistently put all these other things above God and the plan of God on a day
to day or week to week or month to month basis, you’ve gotten out of balance
and are in danger of idol worship.
LEADERS, the other side of this is it would sure help things if you would
emphasize the natural family properly, not downgrade and denigrate it, and put
a little more time and effort into seeing that the natural family works in
harmony and enjoys all the natural benefits that a natural family should. And
if you want the saints to be more faithful to the work of the Lord, quit taking
so many vacations yourself and quit serving your own interests, start truly
investing into the work of the Lord, that is to say making a contribution
without expecting anything back, no glory, no honor, no power, nothing back.
That is investing in God’s kingdom. Anything else is investing in your own
interests. You gotta lead if you are a leader. You gotta lead in the right
things. Quit serving your own idols. Most of you leading ministers won’t even
visit a sister assembly unless you are going to get something back. You should
go and expect to contribute, to give. Way too many of you won’t really go help
your brother. I felt so sorry for one of our elder women at one of our recent
meetings. She was begging some ministers to come visit her church and bless the
people, just begging. I wonder how many of those that she asked to come by the
assembly have come? (I hope the excuse isn’t that the pastor hasn’t asked them.
Like they’ve got to have a special invitation, a special occasion just for them
to go preach.) If that didn’t strike a cord with our leaders, I don’t know what
will. If you only go where you can gain influence, gain power, that is more
abuse of power. Some of you are just power hungry, just looking for more power.
It’s got to stop. Be helpers one of another and watch your saints become
helpers of one another. I digress.
Another symptom of idol worship is when saints stay at home when the pastor is
out of town and only come to church when he is there. Isn’t this blatently
obvious also? Do I really have to say more? You ought to show up and worship
God, not show up when your idol is there and worship him. Quit making the
preacher an idol!
I could go on but enough already. There are many more examples of abuse of
power and idol worship that could be addressed. I am convinced God is going to
address each and every one before He is through.
SAINTS, GOD IS ASKING US TO QUIT IDOL WORSHIP.
In closing, I will add that for every word I have written here about what is
wrong among us, I could write a thousand words about what is right among us.
But it’s not about that. It’s not about having more right than wrong. It’s not
about the good outweighing the bad. It’s about purging ourselves from all evil,
all that is not Christ. You cannot truly represent Christ with sin, with the
flesh still present. We’ve got to overcome all things. If we just look at
things and justify them with there’s more good than bad, there’s more right
than wrong, we are no different than any other religious group or people. That
is to say, we won’t do anything to correct ourselves until the scales are
balanced in our own minds or tipped towards more evil than bad. We shouldn’t be
attempting to balance good and evil or to slightly overbalance the good to the
evil. We should be removing and purging ourselves from all evil, all iniquity,
all sin, all flesh. And that is why I am still with this group of people.
Because God is still working on us. He won’t let us by, won’t let us off the
hook. And I pray that He doesn’t either. My prayer is that we are able to
recognize and respond to what God is asking of us.
Anonymous