Saturday, June 15, 2013

Ecclesiastical Plantation Owners


ECCLESIASTICAL
PLANTATION OWNERS

The greatest heresies are those surrounding the Person of Jesus Christ and the essence of salvation. There are literally scores of such false teachings. There is a plethora of false guides and teachers today who sell books and Cds and rent out large auditoriums and sell all kinds of merchandise. They buy blocks of television and radio time and spread their heresies to the masses. John told us not to allow heretics into our homes neither bid them Godspeed and yet millions of professing believers invite them into their homes and their hearts. It is a phenomenon that has expanded by leaps and bounds and now permeates every corner of evangelicalism.

But I want to address another form of heresy and falsehood. Many decades ago certain preachers began what is now commonly called the “seed faith” teaching. This teaching suggests that if you give some money called a “seed” in faith that God will honor that and do something for you. God’s part is defined as anything from cars and homes and debt cancellation all the way to physical healing and the salvation of your loved ones. The promises attached to this seed are almost without parameters according to these prosperity teachers.

And if you watch the absolute circus when these television stations hold their seasonal fundraisers you will behold a spectacle beyond what your eyes can even believe. The lies and shallow emotion are shameless. The station managers call in certain celebrity preachers who specialize in being melodramatic and eliciting great sums of money through all kinds of lies and false promises and yes, even witchcraft. How can anyone who has even read the gospels be drawn into such blatant theatrics which are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus? It is demonic.

But throughout America there are preachers and pastors who oversee their own ecclesiastical plantations and now enslave the people with chains of hedonism and diabolical lying spirits. And many of these so called preachers are black and should honor the miracle of the emancipation but instead set themselves as modern masters over their people. And yes, the white prosperity hucksters are no better. This Bourgeoisie-Proletariat construct is an affront to the Spirit of God. But the thirst for money and power and pleasure is so strong that God’s truth must give way to fables and self serving snake oil salesmen. Jesus is presented as an American bell hop who operates on tips.

Let me share this story with you. David Livingston gave his life serving and being Jesus to lost Africans. Even after he was able to bring his wife to be with him she died not long after arriving. He was attacked and maimed by a lion and suffered many maladies. Still he remained faithful. Livingston became so disabled that he had to be carried to any village where he would minister. In fact some of his CONVERTS ministered to him and would help him walk and even get into bed. One night one of his helpers came to put him into bed but was told Livingston was praying so could he wait a while. After a long while the man crept in to find Livingston on his knees. When he gently tapped him on his shoulder Livingston slumped over. He had died on his knees.

What do you believe God thinks about these shameless hucksters of today?

What we have today is a sham and an affront to anything associated with Jesus. His name is being used and abused and instead of being the Lord of Glory He is presented as some caricature of a western superhero. This is not the faith once delivered unto the saints. This is a cartoon that uses the name of Jesus but has nothing of Him. People by the millions listen to golden throated warblers who speak enticing words of men’s wisdom designed to draw disciples after themselves as well as load up their personal coffers.

The Lord God sees the heart and He responds to faithful obedience, self denial, and worship which lifts up Jesus and not us. This is no game of barter. Imagine a group of sheep who hold a conference on how to get the shepherd to take care of them. Absurd and bizarre. The Great Shepherd has been taking care of us all along even when we have not completely followed Him. Yes, He operates in His own grace. But God will not respond to human ingenuity and greed. These dog and pony shows only bring God’s judgment not His presence and blessing. These hedonistic puppets claim that mammon can be leveraged to get our God to act not just on our behalf, but to fulfill our whims and lusts. Look at the bloody scene at Calvary and tell me that His sufferings were for cars and houses and bank accounts.

And now we are faced with a vast landscape of ecclesiastical plantation owners who buy and sell human beings with their hollow words and false promises. A mailing list is gold to these pied pipers as they lead sinners to perdition. These grandiose communicators have concocted all sorts of so called principles which are all centered upon our earthly success and their own financial advantage. They have desecrated the cross and made it of none effect. Their message is worthless and without any redemption. They are self righteous and puffed up and they live in luxury and claim it is God’s will.

These are the prophets of Baal and the voices of Balaam. Their consciences are seared with a hot iron and their tongues are guided by the serpent. And even while these clouds without water falsely prophecy rain, evangelical preachers by the thousands join hands with them. The patch quilt matrix of mutual support among preachers breaches all sorts of Biblical and doctrinal boundaries. The Word of Faith heretic shares the platform with men who reject such things. And if you bring in nationalism and patriotism there are no boundaries at all. Mormons and Word of Faith and Calvinist and orthodox and any and all doctrinal miscreants can pull up a seat together.

So here we are living not only in the midst of the kingdom of darkness, but also in darkness that calls itself “Christian” and “evangelical”. And the professing sheep love it.

Jer.5: 27 As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.
28 They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.
29 Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
30 A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land;
31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

These verses lay out a prophetic blueprint for what is happened in the church. This is no game. This has drawn the attention of God Almighty and how can He cover His eyes? Not only do these liars teach falsehoods, but they use pictures of the downtrodden and starving children to raise their funds and support their hedonistic lifestyles. As if you could live in lavishness and throw a few morsels to the poor and that will please Jesus? And look at verse thirty-one. “…and my people love to have it so…”

Without drug users the drug dealer goes out of business. And without blind supporters these false teachers would have to get an honest job. But what continues to transpire is blasphemy at its core. Who would have thought that Christianity would be reduced to a financial scheme? What would the martyrs think? What would John the Baptist think? What would Wesley and Whitefield and Moody and Livingston and Huss think? And what does God think? He that spared not His only begotten Son but delivered Him up for us all now looks down and sees His Son presented as the golden goose. There must be a special wrath for those who promote such lies.

We are living in the end times when everything has been unraveling. Now is not the time to find something new. Now is the time to dig a well that reaches Christ and continue to quench your spiritual thirst from that Rock. He alone will one day claim His rightful throne upon this earth, and on that day those that embraced deception will howl and wail. Watch and pray. Endure to the end.

6 comments:

michael said...

And here we go again! Another spot on and timely Word. This morning in my prayer time ironically I was given to ask:

Psalm 80:4 O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?

Reading this article brought back some memories.

I was asked in 1979 early part of the year to pray about going on a scouting trip to the Philippines. I prayed and got a sense I should go. I called my Pastor and said I believed I received the witness in my spirit to go so things were set in motion. I quit work. Being single at the time quiting work wasn't a burden, besides we had many church plants by then and the doors swung open for me to do some state side travel to a number of these churches I labored to see financially established to raise the funds needed to travel there for three months. I was loaded up with more than enough money to travel the world a couple of times over before it was all said and done.

First stop was Manila. Wow, never been to a country where cool was in the high 80's! I lost a lot of weight just from sweating! Anyway, as the locals began to open doors for the few of us on this mission pastors began opening up their houses and people to us. I was amazed at how much these people knew about the tactics US shucksters had already done spoiling these men! One afternoon I was paid a visit by a young "promoter" from one of these churches letting me know what I could do with $10,000.00 dollars. He had a standard game book and laid out a convincing argument that if I'd put up the money he could assure me a hundredfold return minimum and if I had "fire" in my preaching even more! Ha!

I wasn't amused! I was down right angry!

Several years ago I was told this story by a dear close Pastor. He was a part of a movement started in Texas. The group had a whale of a personality for a pastor who seemed to get the dead in the grave to come alive and give him money everytime he spoke! My dear pastor friend had some authority and influence in this guy and he began hearing stories about him and how every time he preached he'd always somewhere in his message get to talking about money and how you could get God to increase you bank account by putting money into his.

He'd been perfecting his diddly so by the time my friend caught up with him he was prepared to teach him a lesson!

This guy had been a regular on TBN for a few years and amassed a small fortune anyway. But there was something in him he just could not break away from. Anyway one night my friend was with him doing some of the warm up preaching. It came time for this younger preacher to do his thing.

On this occasion he stopped right in the middle of preaching and in dramatic fashion feigned he just was spoken to by God. He stops and looks over the gathering of onlookers who really were getting theirs ears tickled and says to them "God" just spoke to me that if you will get up right now and empty out your wallets and give it as a love offering God would return that amount back to you in a week or so 100 times! Give a hundred get back ten thousand!

You could feel the energy it was so electric! My friend jumps up and right in the middle of this charade walks up to the back of this guy and whispers in his ear " God didn't tell you that! If He did I want you to right now publicly pledge to these people that you and me will go to your bank tomorrow and you will empty every bank account and give me the money seeing you have several large money accounts I know of personally"!!!

Needless to say he got another word from God and changed his tune somewhat ashamed and embarrass.

That helped him get freed from this sort of manipulation. The young man went down hard some years later and don't know what's become of him? He lost his ministry he founded in Texas and now does something in the name of The Lord but I can't tell you what?

Anonymous said...


What is the mission of a thief? Their mission is to rob the unsuspecting of their money!

This is happening not just in America but worldwide. Their evil plan involves teaching that God will increase your bank account when you put money into theirs!

God does multiply our "offerings" but let's be very careful not to bring them to Satan's workers.

Reine Gnade

Anonymous said...

This is a great reminder Pastor Rick, especially in these days of economic turmoil. With the 'western world' sinking into poverty, it will enable individual believers to face the reality that the 'prosperity gospel' is in fact a hoax. My family always told people that God blessed them financially for their practice of tithing, but then as I grew older I 'woke up' to the fact that much of their money was obtained through opportunism, exploitation, taking advantage of the vulnerable. As they get older, it gets worse - people generally don't 'retire' from greed, it just gets more concentrated and eventually they exploit their own families. In the bible, God constantly speaks out against this, yet 'christians' just ignore it.

Annette said...

Psalm 4:4-5 "Be angry and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, And put your trust in the LORD."

Matthew 21:12-14 "Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" The the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them."

What beautiful words from the Word of God. To ponder these Scriptures for one moment.

Pastor Rick, your post calls out a very grave sin concerning the depravity and licentiousness that has been boldly promoted within the faith community....without any shame. It's as if God, our Heavenly Father, is supposed to be our sugar daddy and financial wealth is a "sign" of His great blessing upon our lives. Really? These heretics, wolves in sheep's clothing are not only promoted in the elaborate mega churches, but they have wormed their way into small town America churches as well....and when you come against these modern day babylonian idols, then watch the teeth sharpen and the claws extend themselves from people who you once believed were grounded in their Biblical faith. And then, perhaps, the follower of Jesus Christ may empathize with David...Psalm 57:4...as he pours out his soul to God...."My soul is among lions; I lie among the sons of men Who are set on fire, Whose teeth are spears and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword."

Continued with the next entry

Annette said...

I have sat in churches where the invited guest pastor gave a compelling sermon, then encouraged all of us to buy his books, his cd's, his dvd's, and other misc, religious paraphernalia that were carefully displayed right beside the exit door. Does his works usurp the authority of the Word of God.....and you will know the deception involved when you are made to feel guilty for not "supporting" his ministry. The shame of it all.

Pastor Rick, I do find such comfort in this revealing Scripture passage, Matthew 21:14..."Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them." After overthrowing the money changers, Jesus healed the blind and lame with a mercy and grace that I find amazingly wonderful considering the surrounding circumstance. What LOVE it that!

Perhaps faithful followers of Jesus Christ are in many respects, blind and lame; some in the physical, some in the spiritual...but we know for certain, that Jesus is waiting for us to call on Him, and Him alone, to offer us His mercy and His grace.

There is no greater love than this.

On this Sunday morning, may the love of God be with all of you witnesses here on Pastor Frueh's blog, in the name of Jesus Christ. You are the "living stones" and I Praise our LORD for all of you.

Anonymous said...

The Bible uses the word blind to describe the unsaved. The pharisees in the time of Jesus thought they could see but Jesus informed them that they were blind.

An unsaved person distant from God living a self-willed life believes he can see and believes he is essentially right in what he says and does.

Almighty God longs to be able to draw unsaved people to the good Shepherd, Lord Jesus, but they must willingly decide to respond in trust and obedience to His voice and His Word.

The way to Jesus, the Way, is a narrow way which few find!

The good news is that Almighty God blesses those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Let's hunger and thirst for a living relationship with the risen Lord Jesus Christ and if we are still unsaved desire that He becomes Our righteousness.

Truly our praise is for righteous Lord Jesus, Our beloved trustworthy Friend of Friends and Lord of Lords!

Reine Gnade