The Word of Truth Ministries
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God Has Warned Us Against the Corruption
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It is time that we start writing again about the problems that are transpiring among God's people as they attempt to free themselves from the law. What has happened to God's people is that the New Testament saints have been brought back under the law by unscrupulous men who do not know the word of God cannot interpret and will not interpret the word of God correctly a-- teach and preach tiths as a way of or the New Testament church biving; of course this was never meant for the New Testament church.
Only in Ephesians 4:11 is the pastoral ministry specifically spoken of, that is as named a ministry in the New Testament church. There are other places and ways that it is implied and referred to. But when Paul delineates the ministries, only in this one verse in Ephesians is the specific ministry of the pastor actually spoken of as one of a number of ministries announced. Yet, today, the pastor ministry has become so common that it has become almost vulgar in the sense of that word and in the behavior of many functioning in that ministry; it has unnaturally rose to the apex of all the ministries, a position God NEVER intended for it. (1) And since this one ministry has arisen as the dominant ministry of what we generally call the five-fold ministry (although there are other ministries beside these five) we see 1.) widespread corruption in the way it is administered, by 2.) those who are functioning in that ministry, by 3.) the vast authority taken by those occupying that ministry, and by 4.) the cultish nature of congregants responding to that ministry and the personage in that ministry. This single ministry is adding more untoward behavior in the church because of its vast and ever-expanding range and power that was never intended. (2) This series of messages will examine these four aspects of the pastoral ministry and what God's word says about this one ministry since it now occupies the greatest preeminence among the ministries. I am aware that many of you have not given any space or thought to this idea of a ministry gone mad, but God has and I want to stir your pure minds-- we are admonished to "PROVE ALL THINGS and hold fast to that which is good." [1 Thes. 5:21] Already, there have been too many allowances given to wicked men who hide in this particular ministry. Wicked men need rooting out, the ministry needs cleaning up, and we cannot afford their trite and self-serving notions that God will clean this ministry up himself--that he will do, but we are workers together with him and there is something we can do now as well. Indeed, he said, "Occupy until I come." The way that is done is by opening the eyes of believers to the truth of God's word, for believers are those who will know the truth and act upon it! It is worth noting that in 1 Corinthians 12:27-29, where Paul talks about us being the body of Christ and members in particular, he states the ministries that God has set in the church, but he does not mention the pastor ministry. Of course, many want to see the pastoral ministry in every instance that Paul, Peter, John, etc., mentions the word elder, but that is more of their self-serving desire than it is a biblical fact or a correct interpretation of God's word. And it is partly because of this type of liberty and loose interpretation that have allowed many pastors to bring the pastoral ministry into such vulgar disrepute, capturing the imagination of many wicked men and women as a source of finance, sexual promiscuity, and self-esteem. The entire ministry of Christ is for advancing Christ as savior of all mankind, not to serve some low self-esteem and deficient man in his lusts. (3) What we see today is that wicked men/women in the church (and they are in fact IN THE CHURCH--Acts 20:29) have misinterpreted God's word to say everything and anything they want it to say, especially in the presence of weakened saints, who are blind saints, not knowing their right hand from their left as it concerns the things of God and who will not ask meaningful and hard questions of those occupying the position of pastor. Indeed, wicked men have taught these weakened and blind saints that to challenge the word of a minister/pastor is disrespectful. But that reasoning is a device of subjugation; the Bible gives everyone who would be saved and would go on to perfection the right to question any minister who says he is of God and purports to speak in the name of God. Moreover, Paul expressly admonished us to PROVE ALL THINGS and hold fast to that which is good. [1Thes. 5:21] Anyone, especially today, who allows a preacher, pastor, teacher, evangelist, bishop, etc., to teach, preach or say anything and go unquestioned and unproved is not someone God respects very highly because he/she is someone who will easily follow Satan's bidding down the road to hell. Some time ago, one very sad brother said to God's people, "Even though the Bible may not say a thing, because I am your pastor and you respect me, you should do what I say because I say it." That is the way the Jim Joneses and other cult leaders start. I rebuked him and told him that his notions were foolish and anti-bible. For as long as I was with that poor brother, I could pull him from the edge of darkness and foolishness, but when I went on to do a work, he descended into darkness, harming weaken saints of God and scattered many with his preaching of such foolishness. No such authority and power should be given to ANY minister, regardless of how he packages his deception. PROVE ALL THINGS and HOLD FAST ONLY TO THAT WHICH IS GOOD! For evil men of old have crept into the church teaching damnable things and gathering men unto themselves and not to God. [Acts 20:29-31] Since we know this, why die at such a minister's hands? For surely if you do not question your minister constantly and repeatedly, with serious questions, and not taking fluff answers to those serious questions, you will follow such unquestioned ministers to the grave and die like a fool, even as Abner died! Many pastors in many of today's churches have reduced themselves to little more than cult leaders with congregants who care more about them than they do about the word of God, and they will accept what those pastors say more than what God's word says. Matter of fact, they will do harm to any person defying their pastors, preaching against their wicked pastors, or who refuses to see the position of the pastor as a position that cannot be questioned with hard and difficult questions to ascertain whether the things that pastor (s) says are so. (4) If this type of scrutiny was good for Paul, it is certainly good for today's crop of ignorant and deceitful ministers. [Acts 17:10-12] Careful questioning and scrutinizing a minister's words and behavior is the requisite diligence that faithful saints in light need to have today, lest they give themselves over to blind guides! Remember Paul said that it is required that stewards (saints of God entrusted with this gift of salvation) of the Lord be found faithful. [1 Cor. 4:2] We have allowed wicked men to lead and guide the church of God, which Christ has purchased with his own blood, far too long, but now that darkness has passed and the light of God is shining upon them! (5) Paul admonishes saints in light to PROVE ALL THINGS and hold fast/tightly to that which is good. [1 Thes. 5:21] Notice this admonition came after seeing the diligence and faithfulness of the Bereans who were wise, prudent, cautious, and noble in their faith toward God. [Acts 17:11] In contrast today, we have people who are, as Peter calls them, "willingly ignorant" concerning the things of God and will not work out their own salvation, but will foolishly allow another to do that for them. [2Pet. 3:5] Yet we are talking about the most important thing in one's life--his/her eternal salvation! These are people who walk and live in the flesh and walk as fools and shall needlessly die as fools. Tragically, there is a culture of ignorance that has taken root in many of these man-run churches, and it is masquerading as some strange form of godliness and respectability, which it is not; it is only a form of godliness, it has not the power of God! God will destroy his people as he has destroyed his people before because of their ignorance. [Hos. 4:6; Jude 3-8] And that ignorance that is purveyed to God's people by wicked men directly and indirectly grips and enslaves them to a pastor and not to God's word. That ignorance is the glue that allows cults to thrive and forge an assembly of perdition-bent souls who actually think they are heaven-bound when they are clearly hell-bent. But they are ignorant and blind to this reality and so many more, so they cannot see their predicament--a predicament that possesses them as saints in darkness. For purposes of clarity and full disclosure, I have been the pastor/lead minister of some four churches, and I have always been very cautious and careful to not abuse my educational achievements and the vast capacity for abuse such an education has or to not abuse any authority I have been granted by the pastoral position I occupied at the various church assemblies--again, it is required that a man be found faithful in the ministry and the gifts that God has given him. [1Cor. 4:1-2] This ministry as well as the gifts of God are for the edification of the saints. The ministry of pastor in many churches has gotten out of hand and has become extremely abusive, even mad, in many Apostolic, Holiness, and fundamentalist churches today. These pastors read such scriptures as servants obey them that have rule over you, obey your parents in the Lord, etc., and interpret them to mean, accept their abusive authority. These are wicked men who use God's word to further their wickedness, and because they hold the doors to the churches, they act as Diotrephes, seeking preeminence and allow whom they will to come into the church and speak the word of truth to God's people and would even venture to put some out of the church if they do not comport themselves according to a tradition they have concocted. [3 John 9] Many of the once-Apostolic Faith churches that are no more apostolic because of the gross abuses of many ministers in interpreting the word of God, have gone far from the faith and the truth of God's word and actually shamed the name of Christ. Their great sin is this: because they have the keys to correct entry into the kingdom of God, they are blind and ignorant concerning what happens after they escort one into that Kingdom of God; resultantly, many have bred retarded and developmentally delayed children of God. They take the saints nowhere after unlocking the entrance door to the kingdom; they teach only a part of holiness, thinking that such teaching is perfection (which is where the saints need to go to be ready for the return of Christ), but their teaching is not a perfection of the saints that will prepare saints for the return of Christ. Consequently, many who have gotten into the kingdom of God will not make it into the catching away/the rapture because they are not a part of that glorious church that has made herself ready! [Eph. 5;27; Rev.19:7] And this is a tragedy that many allow because they love men more than the word of God! And having no vision beyond Acts 2:4 & 38, many of these Apostolic Faith pastors medicate members by only teaching that Jesus is God, which he certainly is, but God is demanding perfection even as he is perfect, and teaching that Jesus is God is only a small portion of truth that makes no saint perfect. Perfection-preaching is usually off limits for most ministers; so being ignorant of the righteousness of God, they go about to establish another (their own) righteousness: they preach tithe-paying, pastor obedience (not God's word obedience), pastor appreciations, fundraisings, etc. And the poor saints who have gotten into the Kingdom of God linger there, doing nothing else that God tells them to do--work out their own soul salvation-- until they lapse into so much carnality that the church becomes little more than a social club named after Christ just to take away their reproach. [Isa. 4:1] This is what has happened to many Apostolic/Jesus Name churches and Churches of God in Christ and their members. Lying pastors assure these blind members that they are heaven bound, but these poor souls need to do as Luke cited the Bearean saints did, and God accorded them a nobility greater than the Church of Thessalonians: they need to search the scriptures daily to see if what that minister says to them is true. [Acts 17:11] Too many easily acquiesce to the word of the minister but not to the true word of God,. Wicked ministers love to have it so! Wicked pastors define this gullibility of saints as respect and love, but their gullibility is really disobedience to the word of God because Christ is made unto us wisdom.... Our eternal salvation is at stake, and that is too important to allow anyone to have unquestioned and unchallenged say in our lives. In the multitude of counselors is there safety, not one person and his cronies. [Prov. 24:6] God gave us that multitude in Ephesians 4:11. No person who knows the word of God and loves it will be content with the pastoral ministry and it alone. Such a person can never be perfected with just that ministry, or any one ministry. Warning About Pastors: We have a crop of unlearned and poorly prepared, and probably not called of God ministers who twist the word of God into their own montage of madness and call it the word of God. This is one of the reasons many in the world say that you can prove anything by the Bible. You cannot prove anything by the Bible to one who knows how to interpret God's word. But most of the preachers, whether pastors, evangelists, prophets or teachers, do not know God's word and are not stout enough in their understanding of it to confront wrong interpretations of God's word to help the Lord fight against the mighty. That is to their shame, not God's. There is a peculiarity common to American Christians: They have a clear history of misinterpreting God's word to make it say whatever they want it to say so that they are justified in untoward behavior. This truth is seen from the foundation of the country as a nation, through its slavery era, its Civil War, its Jim Crow era, and, yes, now in its vast economic and constant war era. As it was during the times of Emperor Constantine when Christians aligned themselves with him in politics, the American "Christian" church of today has aligned itself with politics and forgotten God as they find a new savior in politics and money. For wherever the love of money is, there is all other forms of corruption. Paul tutored Timothy that the love of money was the very root of all evil and those who would seek after riches fall into temptations, a snare, and foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. But many have already fallen and some have been overcome by money until they have erred from the faith and preach tithes, trumpet giving, and all forms of money schemes God never intended his church to descend into. [1 Tim. 6:8-11] God tells us to flee this lust since it is so powerful, deceptive, and evasive; in America money is a sacred cow and the very fabric and stuff of this nation, but it should not be so for saints of God. We are in this world, but not of this world, and regardless of what the Christian Right/Moral Majority (a political group, not a Christian group) tells you, America is NOT a Christian nation and never has been! It is a heathen nation with some Christians in it; God is not asking us to try to make it into a godly nation! Think about it, you have not heard any minister preaching or teaching against these vices and deceptions of the pastoral ministry; for most, such teaching and clear understanding would not serve their interests because they are too dependant on the members to teach the truth. Thank God, he has not allowed me to be dependant on any church or the saints of God for my living; so I have no dog in this fight, as the expression is. I merely want the truth to make manifest the darkness that hides corruption and spiritual wickedness in high places. [Eph. 6:12] If you do not have the full ministry functioning for the edification of the saints in your church, you should realize that perfection of the saints can never take place without it. Could it be that the pastoral ministry is the problem? You must get ready to meet the king! [Eph. 4:11-12; 5:27] And you should get in a hurry because Christ comes! [I will continue this long message next week.] ________________ 2.) Notice the vast number of "Pastor and Wife" billboards that supposedly announce Christ's Church--these billboards only announce that man and his wife. Furthermore, these "pastors" have elevated their wives to "first lady." In the name of God, what biblical justification can that title possibly have? NONE; absolutely no bible justification at all!!! It is a name that governors and presidents have given their wives. But they are of the world! Saints should NEVER pattern themselves after the world; we are the light, not them!!! This action is indicative of their ungodly state, whether they know their blindness or not. A study of early mankind shows that the ungodly line of mankind begin to taken on titles to their names, since they did not have God, they endowed themselves with titles. The present crop of ungodly pastors have taken on unmerited and unbiblical titles, as they do not have God to give the sufficiency, they give themselves sufficiency in titles. But these are not men of God--men of God concern themselves with what God says; they do not twist and torture God's word to justify their sins or their carnal desires. These titles of "First Lady," etc., indicate much about this carnal nature of the minister and his wife. In John's third epistle, he writes that Diotrephes loves to have preeminence in the church, he prated against John with malicious words and even cast some out of the church--Diotrephes was an early example of the current cultish pastors who have taken more power unto themselves than God allows. [3 John 9-10] Diotrephes had such preeminence in the church as these pastors of today and their wives today, that he dared to put some out of the church and did what he wanted to do. That is the nature of wicked and unlawful preeminence among pastors and their wives. How strange this is: we know that many of the apostles had wives, but nowhere in scripture do we even know their names. That is because the apostles did not seek the preeminence that the current crop of ungodly pastors now demand, and their wives were helpmates to them not prominent congregants. Oh, how we have violated God's word in everyway that is possible and shamed the name of Christ by calling ourselves "Christians." Places of preeminence do not become real saints of God. "He who would be greatest among you, let him be your servant." 3.)Paul said that these men have literally changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man...[Rom. 1:23] They have made the church into a social club that promotes their desired norms and traditions. 4.) A now reformed brother told me of a question he asked of a bishop he inordinately loved. That question indicates his stance: "You want us to rough him up, bishop?" And that brother said that they would have physically abused the other minister who challenged "his bishop." Still another "brother" physically intimidated a brother because that person questioned and challenged "his bishop." All of these supposed Christians were supposedly of the Apostolic/Holiness faith. They are carnal men whom Paul called "brute beasts." Yet they masquerade as men of God and Christians while engaging in sinful behavior. 5.) Many are being exposed, but not enough! We are seeing lesbian ministers, homosexual ministers; serial marriages that are contrary to God's word; men and women who do not qualify according to God's word are holding positions they should not hold; we see thieves who are making merchandise of God's people; there are pedophiles, sex offenders; there are blatant liars and con artists; we see every type of wrong-doer there is among the Apostolic, Holiness, Evangelicals, fundamentalists, and many who once were saved but are not now saved at all! Some of these have been placed in jail, some are being audited by IRS; a few are being removed from their offices, but not enough. But sadly, even after these hideous acts are exposed these wicked men with their wicked reputations are being allowed to continue to function in holy positions although they are unholy men. And the scripture that talks about a good reputation of those within and those without is overlooked. See Part Two: Bastardizing The Pastoral Ministry & Harming the Saints
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