Month: May 2014 (Page 1 of 2)

The People-pleasing Syndrome

May 30, 2014 / C.H. Fisher / 1 Comment

But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Acts 4:19-20

Peter and John made an unshakable declaration that they would listen to God and speak His truth. It was an act of commitment to obey God rather than man. In a world of people pleasers, they stood out as having a higher objective. Later on (Acts 5), Peter and other apostles were cast into prison for preaching the Gospel. An angel set them free in the night, and they went right back to preaching. When they were arrested again and set before the council, the High Priest asked, “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name?” Peter and the other apostles responded, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

The way of those who are in the world system is to curry the favor of people. They are so addicted to attention and fame that they will do almost anything to get it. It is part of our human nature to want to impress people. I don’t have to go into detail to explain how much trouble that creates. The opposite extreme is not the answer to people-pleasing syndrome. I refer to people who are so fearful of being rejected that they mutilate their images and go to the extreme in a vain effort to eliminate fear of rejection. It is a farce because they attract more attention as freaks and crave acceptance in their particular cliques. In attempting to run from the problem they have landed in a cultural prison and have no place to go if they fail to fit in.

Every true Christian ought to know that when we commit our lives to God through Christ Jesus, the desire to please people must be resisted. In fact, we have to submit it to the work of the Holy Spirit. However, it can be difficult for leaders in the Body of Christ, especially if they are not really called to be leaders. The church has evolved into a people-pleasing system that pressures pastors, evangelists, and other leaders into performance based relationships. A fiery young preacher will eventually realize that if he does not tone it down. If he does not refrain from themes that produce conviction, he may be ostracized from the church society. Conversely, the ones who shamelessly preach to excite emotions and cause people to feel good about their spiritual condition move to top positions. They are rewarded greatly for their religious obeisance for favor.

The face of one particular television preacher comes to mind. He wears a perpetual, static smile throughout the sermon. He speaks as if his mouth is filled with pudding, always disarming and charming. How can one talk about the need for salvation to a lost world as if he is hosting Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood?

When we warn people about the danger of entering eternity without Christ, it is the most serious warning they will receive in their lives. We are inviting them to submit to a baptism of death so that they might be raised in newness of life. However, that is not the goal of the church game. The church game is to compete with other players (churches) for numbers. They build the “sanctuaries”, establish the programs, hire the most articulate and presentable preacher, assemble a worship band and singers, and let the fun begin. There is an unwritten (and sometimes written) rule that the preacher/pastor does not say anything to bring discomfort to the congregation. This means that conviction was banned long ago along with any references to the great deception and encroaching apostasy. Heretics and heresies are not named and the result is that there is no opposition to the aggressively wafting fumes of destructive doctrines and practices that have stricken Christianity with what many believe is an irreversible plague of diabolical delusion.

We are now witnessing entire denominations succumbing to apostasy with little or no resistance. Let me be perfectly clear about what is and is not resistance. It is not resistance to complain no matter how loud or many the complaints. Complaints always wane and the offender survives to commit more atrocities. When leaders sin, action must be taken. When a denominational leader commits an act of apostasy or that will lead to apostasy, he must not simply be asked to resign. There ought to be charges filed against him for specific crimes against the believers. Horrendous acts of apostasy have been committed by leaders of at least two large denominations and the reaction is simply complaining. Neither of those leaders has altered their behavior and their denominations are rapidly apostatizing.

Many ordained preachers refuse to stand up in opposition to the apostate leaders because they have the people-pleasing syndrome. They have lost their spiritual backbone. It does not take them long to count the cost of doing what Peter and the other apostles did, and they are unwilling to pay it. It does not matter how loud and forcefully they declare that they live and preach for God alone, their actions or lack thereof prove that they preach for accolades, position, and remuneration. Peter preached for the reward of prisons and beatings. Paul preached for the reward of dungeons and stones. They both preached for the reward of execution, but ultimately they preached for Christ and counted their suffering all joy.

There is a fallacy of logic that more favor with people means more power to get things accomplished. I would say that Christ and every New Testament Christian has shot that all to pieces. Favor with God is the most powerful force in this temporal realm. No one’s faith is complete and supplied with power that has not broken the people-pleasing syndrome and fully submitted to the precept of obeying God rather than man.

Edmond Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” I respectfully disagree. I have never known a situation when evil triumphed while good men stood by inactive. Good men do not watch the innocent die without making an effort to save them. Good men would never allow evil to destroy innumerable souls because they feared rejection or some other repercussion. Good men jump into action when evil encroaches. Evil triumphs because there are no good men or enough good men to defeat it. The Men who would be good were/are too busy seeking the favor of people rather than God. In doing so, they are neither helpful to those that they please nor a profit to God.

Oratory skills, fine offices, expensive automobiles, innumerable admirers, high positions, praise from all quarters, and the esteem of their peers, are all qualities that individuals can gain with the proper attention to religious decorum. However, the one most desirable reward is based solely on obedience to God. I want it. I would die for it. I hope that I live deserving of it. “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.”

An Invasion of Hirelings

May 29, 2014 / C.H. Fisher / 1 Comment

The way to break the succession of godly preachers and pastors, and kill the faith of an entire generation, is to fill tenures in seminaries, Christian colleges and universities with atheist, homosexual, and apostate professors. After sitting under their teaching, students will believe that Moses and other biblical figures were eponyms, that God created the heaven and earth by Darwinist evolution, that Christ really wasn’t born of a virgin birth, that miracles really didn’t happen, and it goes downhill from there. There is nothing new from the kingdom of darkness. Satan recycles the same old nonsense to which ever generation is gullible and spiritually depleted enough to swallow it. It appears that is the case concerning many of the last few generations of ordained ministers.

A. W. Tozer once wrote, “Knowledge by acquaintance is better than knowledge by description.” However, many ministers graduating from seminaries, colleges, and universities today are void of knowledge by acquaintance. They are for the most part concerned about numerical church growth and the social gospel. Salvation is viewed as a mental assent to a belief in Christ, but not an actual experience, born again or otherwise. They most certainly do not have affinity for teaching or preaching about the end times. It is no wonder that Christianity is under a mass invasion by New Age paganism, and that Protestants see no harm in re-submitting to Roman Catholicism. Several past generations of liberal theologians and covert (and some not so covert) proponents of what is called “higher criticism” are their mentors. Most of them are theologically liberal and as a result have no personal relationship with God. They attempt to diminish or outright delete the supernatural from God’s word, among other errors.

It is fruitless and even dangerous to put ones trust in such ministers. They are never going to warn anyone of encroaching apostasy or even the pitfalls of heresy. Truth is not the primary concern of apostate ministers. Their churches are more like bad game shows, focused on entertainment and other sensationalism. Listening to their preaching is more like attending mass psychotherapy or a motivational conference for multi-level marketing. Even though ministers of Satan appear as ministers of righteousness, they are led and possibly possessed by the spirit of darkness. Their main task is to disarm Christians, strip them of discernment, quench or remove completely their love for truth, and render them helpless and witless while the kingdom of the Antichrist is being made ready.

The Eighth Church

May 16, 2014 / C.H. Fisher / 1 Comment

There are presently a number of influential Protestants making a strong push to bring the Protestant church back into agreement with Roman Catholicism. I will never go back for a very good reason. It is impossible for me to go back to where I have never been. Additionally, I would have to apostatize to join the Roman Catholic Church, and that will never be in my plans. However, a number of influential Christians are expressing the desire to go back to “Egypt”. After all these years, all the liberty to serve God truthfully, all the souls that were saved, and mighty works of God manifested, they are ready to submit to the Roman church. Why? Is it because the priests, cardinals and bishops beguiled them with flattery and other rhetoric? They have certainly nothing of substantive Christian value to offer Protestants.

Roman Catholic moles have been tunneling their subterfuge in Christianity for many years. They have analyzed the strengths and weaknesses. No doubt they came to the conclusion that to snare the minds of the masses, all they have to do is convince the leaders. However, convincing them to “return” to Rome would be a massive undertaking; that is, unless they weakened them somehow, poisoned their spirits, erased their discernment, and eliminated the Holy Spirit warning system. How would they accomplish those objectives? Maybe it is by convincing Protestants to taste Roman Catholic contemplative spirituality and thereby inviting the spirits that dwell in that evil cloud. Ingesting the poison elixir of contemplative prayer would certainly bring them to the ecumenical round table. One trip to the spiritual zombie zone via contemplative/yoga prayer (self-delusion) and the word “protest” will dissolve from the term “Protestant”. Will they not then spiritually become hymenopterans? Please…I jest.

There are many problems with Protestants organizing a pilgrimage back to Rome, but one in particular that I would advise these mesmerized proselytes of Jesuitism to consider. In Revelation, John was instructed to write a note to each of the seven churches. Please notice that there is no note to the church in Rome. Of course, there was a church in Roman, but for some reason it did not appear to merit a note. I do not know the reason for the omission. I can say with confidence that when John wrote Revelation, around 95AD, the church in Rome was not the church that resides there today, smothering the world with its heresies. For one thing, they did not have a Pope. Further, they did not usurp authority over the other churches. Why did not God send at least a prophetic note that might later apply to such a significant religious entity as the RCC? God certainly knew that it would one day come into existence.

The truth is that God did send a prophetic note. No, John did not forget to write it. He simply wrote it where it ought to be placed in Revelation. The church that would come to dominate the city of Rome and over a billion people did not belong with the seven churches listed at the beginning of Revelation. As bad as some of them were, the Roman church would be far worse. It belonged at the back of the book where John describes what I believe is the culmination of apostasy, i.e. the merger of religions and of secular world views and power at the end of the age. The note that John wrote to the 8^th church covers the entire 18^th chapter of Revelation. Here is John’s description of the 8^th church that presently claims to be the one-world church, the Roman Catholic Church with its skirts around the world’s religions.

So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written:

MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS
OF THE EARTH.

I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. But the angel said to me, “Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.” (Revelation 17:3-7)

“And the woman whom you saw is that great city which reigns over the kings of the earth.” (Revelation 17:18)

Although the Vatican City rules over a significant portion of the world, some individuals believe that this is a description of New York City rather than Rome. I’m leaning heavily toward that opinion as well. Although the city of Rome may have a greater Roman Catholic presence, it lacks the immense power and wealth of New York City. What other city has more power economically and culturally than any other city? What other city has more powerful news outlets chocked full of Catholics and hosts entities as mighty as the United Nations and United Religions? New York City is the center of world commerce, where the ships of the world drop their wares, and where souls of men and women are bought and sold. It is, quite frankly, the most powerful city in the world.

It does appear that the 8^th church has taken up residence In New York City and from there is polluting the world. I believe that from that city the RCC and its ecumenically joined brothers will persecute the true church, the Body of Christ. The Roman Catholic population of the The New York Archdiocese is over 2.5 million or 45% of the city’s 5,789,000 population. There are over 1800 priests, 359 deacons, 1,493 religious brothers, and 3,153 nuns (catholic-hierarchy.org). Catholic New York is America’s largest Catholic newspaper. It might also be significant that New York City is home to 1.1 million Jews.

I wouldn’t put it past Satan to shadow the Statue of Liberty with a Marian apparition. The statue is of Libertas, “the goddess of freedom widely worshiped in ancient Rome” (Wikipedia). Suffice it to say that in New York City everything exists for the one-world order of religion and secular government. It is the model city for the spiritual Babylon of Revelation 18.

Today, there are over 1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide. However, the RCC believes that the entire population of the world is under their authority. In the 13th century, Pope Boniface VIII decreed that he had full religious and secular authority over every soul on the planet. All successive Popes insist that all people, and thus all religions, are under his authority even if they resist or reject his claim. That makes the RCC the progenitor and modern protagonist of one-world religion. It also makes the Pope the self-proclaimed authority over all the earth’s governments. Thus, “the woman rides the Beast”.

The connection of Roman Catholicism with secular government was there from the beginning. Constantine, whom I consider the first pope, merged the secular and religious power and drew Christians into his scheme. In my opinion, that was the beginning of Roman Catholicism. (Scholars would disagree pointing to the organization of Catholicism. My rejoinder is that the true church is not necessarily an organization, but an organism.) I believe that it is the ultimate goal of the RCC to forge that Constantinian bond again worldwide. A key to bringing about that union is the Marxist philosophical system. There appears to be compelling Marxist philosophy in secular governments, intended or non-intended, especially America and the United Nations. It is reported that there was a strong influence of Karl Marx on RCC intellectuals in the 1960’s (How is is possible for a true Christian to be influenced by a demoniac?). That influence is apparently part of the world view of Pope Francis, astutely pointed out by Kieran Healy, CrookedTimber.org. He is aligned with the secular powers in a redistribution of wealth.

“In this play of elemental forces, poverty senses a beneficent power more humane than human power. The arbitrary action of privileged individuals is replaced by the fortuitous operation of elemental forces which take away former private property what the latter no longer voluntarily forgoes. Just as it is not fitting for the rich to lay claim to alms distributed in the street, so it is also in regard to these alms of nature.” (Karl Marx – Rheinische Zeitung, “Debates on Law on Thefts of Wood”, pg. 133 )

“Solidarity is a spontaneous reaction by those who recognize that the social function of property and the universal destination of goods are realities which come before private property. The private ownership of goods is justified by the need to protect and increase them, so that they can better serve the common good; for this reason, solidarity must be lived as the decision to restore to the poor what belongs to them.” (Pope Francis – Evangelii Gaudium, “The Joy of The Gospel”, pg. 189)

If a one world religion is formed via the Roman Catholic Church, and a sovereign one world government is formed though the UN, I have no doubt that they will be in solidarity with each other. The harlot church is composed of all religions joined with apostate Christianity. She will ride the Beast until they are through using her. Then the bond between religion and the secular realm will be violently broken (Revelation17:16-17).

The 8^th church will be bloated with the broad-path crowd. “Bigger is better”, quantity over quality, has been the theme of many denominations for generations. Success in ministry is measured by numbers, and spirituality has decayed because of that perverted quest.

If Protestants want to join the 8^th church, the harlot church, in a short ride of glory that ends in eternal devastation, they must do so while ignoring many warnings. They will have to ignore and even reject the Holy Spirit. Further, they will fraternize with demon spirits because this elaborate and evil scheme cannot be undertaken without satanic orchestration. They must marginalize every righteous soul that sacrificed to make Protestantism the great Movement it once was. Eventually, they will commit blasphemy by trampling on the body and blood of Christ Jesus, and succumb to a spirit of hatred for Him by persecuting His true church (John 15:18-25).

The “voice crying in the wilderness” has become still and small. The straight gate has become dusty from lack of use, its hinges rusty with time. The night is coming when no one can work. The watchmen still cries out, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire; Return! Come back!” (Isaiah 21:12).

Is your soul anchored in His true church? Do you belong with those who wait for the Lord? Then realize that it is the Lord God that bids us to return, not to the 8^th church, but to Him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength.

My soul waits for the Lord
More than those who watch for the morning—
Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. (Psalms 130:6)

Month: May 2014 (Page 1 of 2)

The People-pleasing Syndrome

An Invasion of Hirelings

The Eighth Church

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