In my work as a deliverance counselor, I am being put into contact with too many long-term, faithful churchgoers who are practically demon possessed. A few years ago, this phenomena just did not make sense to me. Simply put, Jesus said that to look at the fruit, one must examine the tree. If the tree is good, then the fruit is good. If the fruit is evil, then the tree must be evil. So based on this simple premise of “you shall know them by their fruit”, why then are faithful churchgoers in so much demonic torment? Good question!!!! After taking a year to study church history, I answer the question in the book “the Fake Jesus: Fallen angels Among Us.”
When I was a good, sincere pastor in a well-known denomination for 25 years, to my dismay, I discovered that those who have been faithful members, followers of my ministry bore no fruit.Yet as I counsel as a professional, Christian therapist on a weekly basis, my clients bear MUCH fruit. Why IS that? Someone can come into telephone counseling with me for 6 months to a year and bare ten times more spiritual fruit than some who have faithfully attended my “church” for 5 years, 10 years and 15 years.
It should also be pointed out there were people in my camp that heard countless sermons and teachings. I have known them personally and been an active figure in their lives, yet spiritual fruit in Christ is non-existent. I believe the Holy Spirit has recently given me my answer. Don’t hold on too tightly to your pew or to your pulpit. Here is the simple, yet profound answer. The passive model of church, where the pastor gets up on a platform, gives “a word” after the choir sings, DOES NOT BEAR FRUIT.
To bare real fruit for Christ, each sheep must be individually fed through counsel, guidance, up front and in your face ministry at least one hour a week, one on one. As the babe grows, the contact can be reduced after a year or so. Once the babe is a mature Christian, then he or she can “feed his or her self and then become a worker in the church to feed new babes.One shepherd can feed about 4 sheep a day, 7 days a week, for about 6 months to a year or about 27 people at a time. If the sheep learn quickly, then this would be about 54 babes a year. As a writer and a trainer, I cannot do a full-time job of counseling sheep. Full time pastoring would consists of 6- 8 sheep a a day for six months or a year.
From my personal background and experience, I can clearly see that the denominations are not working and I have grown to a place where I know that unless there is wide scale repentance within the denominational church, they are coming DOWN!!! I also have known for a while now that the devil has been using the non-denominationals and the Christian cults like the Mormons, but I certainly did not fathom the extent of the problem. Whether it be denominations, non-denominations, Christian television or radio, I finally came to terms with the fact that NONE OF IT IS WORKING!!!!!
Several of my clients have done wrong things— sins of all kinds, witchcraft, incest, you name it but some of my clients have done no wrong. They have lived lives that Christians who are not being tormented by demons should emulate. It is sad to say but there are countless faithful church goers who have been out-and-out deceived by religion and religious people. I can find no excuse to place the blame on the deceived. Today, people are being saved and delivered, one at a time over the telephone. I am available 7 days a week, 4 hours a day allotted to deliverance counseling. But I am only one person. I can only handle 30 clients a week. I am getting closer to the end of my life. I can only make a very small impact. Even if I was a mega preacher, I would not be able to do more than any of the rest of them are doing. So what is the problem? It is the model that we have ALL been using–bringing huge crowds as well as small groups into small and big barns, without repentance, on a “believe and receive” gospel.
Let’s face it and be real here. As a denominational pastor for years, I myself could do absolutely nothing. Yet today, the tide is turning, the Holy Spirit is moving and people are being saved and delivered. My job is very simple. I preach the gospel of repentance and the bodily resurrection of the Lord and the Holy Spirit is moving on hardened hearts to lead people to repent, giving them the faith to believe on Jesus. I am casting out demons—on the telephone, no less–from those who will humble themselves to receive it. This one referenced case has taught me that since the organized church is not working, radio and tv is not working, it would be useless for me to reinvent the wheel cause it wouldn’t work with me either. It hasn’t and it won’t. I don’t know any other models other than working with people one on one. I have been out on the street in street ministry. That DOES work if the basic gospel is being preached and it is not aimed toward bringing people into a church that is going to confuse them.
What I am expecting is that the Lord is going to do a mass thing, around the world, similar to what He did to me and for me. I was an atheist and I was not seeking Him. He came after me in a dream and brought me to the cross without the benefit of man. I was sent to church, not to be nurtured, but that I would understand and perceive the problem and learn what NOT to do about 25 years later. More than two decades of “Church” has not done much for me. As I wrote in the “Come Out of Her, God’s People”, I have remained a root in dry ground. I got a hunger for the word from Kenneth Copeland and others and Joyce Meyer provided some good, solid teaching.
But for the most part, I was attracted to Copeland and the rest of them because they were “supernatural” and my background was in witchcraft. The two were almost an extension of each other and so I found word of faith to be “comfortable”—in other words, charismatic witchcraft. The denominations harmed me in the beginning because they were loose on sin and so until I got grounded on my own and took dominion over my own sin, I fell to carnal ministers. But once I had sexual sin under control, the denominations did not really harm me. They may have hurt my feelings and injured my pride, but they didn’t harm me. They couldn’t harm me because I was saved BEFORE I arrived. Just as the denomination I was in didn’t know the truth, I didn’t know the truth either.
The major point I am making is that the church as it is now operating today is “doing harm” to people who are serious about finding Jesus. For too any churchgoers have contacted me because they were demonized in church!!! And I shudder at the thought. I KNOW the problem. The problem is 200 years old, starting with evangelist like Charles Finney and others. I thought I KNEW the organizational solution. Once, I thought that the answer was in home fellowships, in spite of the many problems that can affect that also. Home churches run by people who have not been deprogrammed from the effects of religion will simply carry the problems of the organized system into home groups.
You see, I really didn’t realize just how much the devil has penetrated the church. I have faith that God is going to raise up endtime pastors who are equipped to feed the sheep and who are empowered to protect them from religious demons. I am simply praying, “Lord, this battle is YOURS and I don’t have a clue as to how you plan to deal with it. You have revealed a portion of MY part in it. Just “cause me to be ready.”
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