Christian life issues, and ongoing
wickedness examined in the light of
the King James Bible

EDITOR:
Steve Van Nattan

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DOES MY CONSCIENCE AGREE
WITH THE WORD OF GOD?

A study in Bible teaching about the conscience,
including discussions about examining my
working conscience and whether or not
it tells me what the Holy Spirit is saying.

By Steve Van Nattan

 

DID YOU MISS PART ONE?

DID YOU MISS PART TWO

 

PART THREE- THE WAY TO HAVE VICTORY
WITH A CLEAR CONSCIENCE

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us
somebody may be watching.”
H.L. Mencken

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful,
and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart.

HOW TO HELP A CHRISTIAN WHO SHOWS
SIGNS OF A DEFECTIVE CONSCIENCE

I will make no effort to help a jack boot preacher who hammers his people with standards that he or John R Rice invented. I am only talking to preachers who love their people, who want to see them grow mature in Christ, and preachers who are willing to teach their way out of any bad situation rather than declare war on the saints.

 

First, do not look for sin

There is sin enough without you becoming a cop trolling the congregation for holiness violations. That is not your job. You may be a bit shocked at that, but I can show you that what you see is not the real problem.

1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

A sin problem is really a heart problem. You can count on it that probably 90% of the time, the sinning saint heard from their conscience but brushed off that inner voice. Your job is to, without taking the Holy Spirit's job away from him, to help the saint want to listen to their conscience. If you accomplish that, they will hear from the Holy Spirit, and you will not have to arrest the saint.

Do you want victory for the members, or do you only want compliance? Take the high road, preacher.

This section is also for any Christian who wants to help a brother or sister get victory back.

 

Second, do not panic.

Having said that, and hoping the idiots with their "Baptist standards" have clicked out of here. I give you a situation.

A lady member has come to church several times in dresses that are distinctly suggestive. What do you do?

Watch the lady when she is in a group where men other than her husband are present. If she is her normal self, keep watching. If, at any point, you see her acting coy and flirty with the men around her, you have a lady who has decided to hustle at the church house. DO NOT TALK TO HER. If you talk to her about this, you are a fool. Talk to her husband. She is not to be subject to you. Read that again please. You are NOT the man in her life. I have heard so many stories of preachers who took charge of women members. That is exactly what Satan and the lady want from you in order to get you into bed with her. Not you? Oh really, from reading the Psalms, would you have guessed that King David would fall for a lady taking a bath on the roof top in plain view from the palace? Hmmm. Talk to the husband, big tough Christian, or you are damned.

Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

I always assume that, when a pastor tries to take charge of another man's wife in the church, he is trying to seduce her and get into bed with her. This is because I have seen the thing so many times. Again, you are a FOOL if you rebuke a woman instead of talk to her husband. And, my dear gullible friend, do not call the husband and wife into your office together and think you can then rebuke either one of them. NEVER humiliate a man in front of his wife, nor a wife in front of her husband. You are NOT their judge..... Christ is. Talk to the husband and ask him to take charge of his wife's wardrobe and manners with other men.

If the two of them rebel, show them the door at once. This is devilish rebellion, and a man who thinks it is cute for his wife to seduce men in the church is a deadly man to leave running loose in your assembly. Sending them away is not a victory. It is a failure, probably not for you, but for the man of that home. You should weep, NOT brag at the next preacher's rally, about how you "churched" another rebel.

 

Third, sometimes she is not evil.

If you see no signs of seductive behavior by the woman in question, you must assume she is simply trying to be trendy and creative. Creativity is a God given quality in humanity, and without it we would be miserable people. The question is, what has gone wrong?

The problem is with a defective conscience, either in the lady or her husband, or both. Some men cannot see when their wife is looking poor in her dress. I would suggest you ask one of the aged women, one who is truly godly and of excellent reputation, to counsel the lady. This should be done totally informally in one of their homes, NOT in your office. Sorry to be hammering you about things, but some of you boys are dumb at a rock about dealing with people. The key word here is GENTLE. Jesus was the picture of gentleness as he hugged kids, and as he refused to judge a woman who was caught in adultery. Read the account of the woman at the well, and ask yourself if that is how you would have handled the thing.

 

The above example of dealing with the conscience of a church member is just one of many examples. There are thousands of ways in which my conscience can become defective. It may be because I am not in the Word enough. I may not have enough man friends who will hold be accountable. It may be that I am still not mature enough in the Christian life to have heard from the Holy Spirit about some life choices. God help me if I have a pastor who simply throws the Bob Jones University rule book at me. The rough approach by a pastor, when confronted with a saint with a defective conscience, is because that pastor is a lazy slob. He does not want to come along side the sheep and spend the time with them to lovingly lead them into victory. Such a pastor needs to be horse whipped.

Fred came by to pick me up so we could go to the KOA and shoot pool. Yes, the game with the numbered balls. If that offends your Baptist conscience, then stay away from it. I have no problem with shooting pool except that I am no longer very good at it. I lost my touch after going many years not playing pool lest some Baptist preacher see me and tell the whole community that I am backslidden. Well, Fred needed to shoot pool because he was tempted to backslide and run to a bar. I told him that any time he felt temptation, call me, and we would shoot pool until he got over the urge. It worked great. He stopped missing Sunday church because he was no longer hung over after a Saturday night failure.

When I got into Fred's pick up one time, I poked the button for his glove compartment. Inside were a stack of CDs of rock groups, among them was Motley Crue. I shut the glove compartment and said nothing. Fred said, "I need to get rid of some of those, pastor." I told him I figured he would do the right thing.

The next time I went shooting pool with Fred, I poked the glove compartment button, and all the CDs were gone except Willy Nelson. I shut the compartment. Fred said, "I got rid of them all except for Willy Nelson. Do I have to get rid of him too?" Now, I was between a rock and a hard place. I had no patience with Willy Nelson, but Fred had made so much progress in the thing, and it was clear that his conscience was in much better health. So, I only said, "I just like the way it looks now. You figure out about Willy Nelson." You see, I had butted in already when I poked that button. I felt like I needed to step aside and let the Holy Spirit take total charge. I never hit that button again. If I had it to do over again, I would buy him a CD of Alabama and ask him to switch it out for Willy Nelson. Of course, if you think Alabama is wicked, you will make me into a backslider now. May God have mercy on your wee soul, sir.

A pastor who is a man among men will have a men's fellowship at least once a month. He will encourage the men to make friends of one another in order to find a friend to be accountable to. Accountability in the Lord's Church is at a historic minimum. Fundamental churches tend to exalt loners, and that results in men who have no one to answer to, especially you pastors. If you have no other pastor in your area to whom you are accountable, you are headed for serious trouble and disaster. A brother in Christ will see, one day, when your conscience shows signs of a defect, and he will, in love, ask you the right questions. If that offends you, sir, you need to go sell insurance. You are not qualified to be a pastor.

Charlie Skoda was a hard working missionary in Kenya with the African Inland Mission in the 1940s. He and his family were alone in west Kenya starting a work. Charlie had no man friends around to be accountable to. So, Charlie found a Canadian Pentecostal missionary some distance away, and he suggested they get together once a month to pray for one another and their work for the Lord. This pleased the Pentecostal missionary, and Charlie's son told me there was no discussion of gifts of the Spirit, just prayer for one another. While this might seem like a compromise for either of the two men, they got what they needed in Christ..... accountability. A clear healthy conscience is a lot more important than many of the doctrinal issues we disagree on. You can have a fantastic theological system all worked out and end up in the Slough of Despond if your conscience is defective.

1 Corinthians 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

I had a friend in college who was in the seminary across the campus. He was well known in the seminary as the ultimate authority on John Calvin and Calvinist Theology. The professors would even consult with him as to the teachings of John Calvin. He was tall and handsome, and he was happily married. After graduating, he took a Presbyterian church not far from the seminary. It was only six months until he was in bed with another woman in the church and was shown the door. I can find nothing about his life or work after that. The brother badly needed another man to come along side and help him keep his conscience in good form.

Having unloaded on you pastors, let me say this. You MUST NOT let a saint with a defective conscience run loose in the assembly without victory. You will need to look for a way to make a close friendship with the man (never a woman) and work up to a point where you can quietly ask him to consider any issues you see that needs attention. Your goal is not to whip the man or break his will. Your goal is to LEAD HIM TO MAKE HIS OWN DECISION about standards for HIS life. If he adopts your standard, the day you leave to move on to another church, that man will backslide because you, his cop, are not there to keep him towing the line. If this is your plan for the saints, YOU ARE A FAILURE as a pastor.

Now, go do the right thing.

 

Stop getting your feelings hurt.

Many pastors preach their hearts out, only to watch church members go right out and violate the wise teachings of the teacher. When this happens, can you behave like Jesus? When the disciples showed little faith, Jesus did not get mad. He just kept teaching.

So, you teach a series on stewardship. I hope you can do that without talking about tithing. Stewardship is what each saint does with the time and energy and wealth resources God gives him. So, you get it all down in three sermons, and you cover the whole thing well.

Then, usually by the help of a meddling pest whom you should NEVER listen to, you hear that one of your members is buying lottery tickets. Your whole world caves in. The worst of it is that it is a deacon. So, you get him aside and rebuke him soundly and tell him he is a terrible example of a leader. The deacon is offended, especially if you, like many idiot Baptist preachers, rebuked the man in front of someone else, maybe even his wife. And, the deacon packs his grip and moves his membership to John MacArthur's church. He wants a place to fade into the background. And you, preacher, will answer to God for driving the man out of the fold instead of leading him to victory.

And, the end of the story finds you in your office in tears because that deacon was a great tither. And, you got your feelings hurt and now wonder if you should look for another church where the people respect you more.

You poor baby, you. What a disaster YOU are. What did Jesus get out of his disciples? Judas, the treasurer, betrayed him for the purpose of cash flow. Peter denied Jesus, and all the other disciples abandoned him at his trial by the Jewish leaders. Did Jesus get his feelings hurt? Did he throw in the towel and go back to the family carpenter's shop in Nazareth?

When you start getting your feelings hurt, if you decide to stay and tough it out, there is a very great chance you will become a bully and start nagging and nannying the saints. Your reasoning will be that they are so stubborn and slow to apply your brilliant teaching that you must put the hammer to them and FORCE them into line. At that point, you sealed your fate. You have become a hireling. Only a hireling takes revenge on the saints instead of on the devil. Keep your eyes on Jesus and how he dealt with his limping often confused disciples, and you cannot go wrong.

How can you stop getting offended by the saints and get back to being like Jesus?

1 Timothy 3:2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

I can tell you, if you are losing patience with the saints, that you are not being hospitable. Are the saints welcome in your home? If not, you need to go sell insurance and get out of the way of the Master. Open you home, visit the sick, visit those people who let you down. You will find a whole lot of sorrows people suffer which you never knew about. This will make your little burden seem much smaller, and you can then busy yourself trying to lift those burdens for your people. Your whole feeling and love for them will be recharged and become like Jesus.

Galatians 6:2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 4 But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
5 For every man shall bear his own burden.

The burden in Verse 2 is a normal weighty burden.

The burden in Verse 5 is in the Greek diminutive. Your burden in a miniature burden compared to theirs.

Stop whining about all your burdens. Consider your burden small and no bigger than God thinks you can bear with his help. But, when you find a saint with a burden, consider it serious and too much for them. Nothing will destroy your peace and make you worthless to Christ like self-pity. They don't seem to apply the sermons you teach, and they just don't walk the aisle like you think they should. So what? Serve them more, love them more, and let the Holy Spirit make the application. If you are too busy to do this, dump some things out of your life so that you can get back the time to behave like Jesus.

When you visit the people's homes, stop looking for trouble. Look for indications of needs they have, and set about to solve them. The eves on an old deacon's home are full of leaves, and he is afraid the water will back up and rot the roof sheeting. He also should not be climbing a ladder at his age. This is that deacon who is playing the lottery. Find a young fellow in the church who can get up a ladder and empty the eves. Meanwhile, pray that the Holy Spirit will give an opening to talk about the gambling problem. Ideally, the deacon will one day ask you what you think about playing the lottery.

I had a young lady in the church I pastored in the High Desert in California. She went to Las Vegas to play the slot machines in the Sands Casino. She hit a jackpot. When she hauled the coins away, she suddenly decided she had dirty money for her winnings. She came to me with the whole jackpot and told me, "Pastor, this is dirty money to me now. Would you decide what to do with it?" I let it sit in my closet of several weeks because I did not know what to do with it. Finally, the Lord showed me that "the idol is nothing," so I could simply put it into the offering, which I did. I never had to rebuke her. She heard loud and clear from the Holy Spirit about it, and she did the right thing.

Stop whining and feeling sorry for yourself, and trust the Holy Spirit to do what he does so well. Get back to feeding and loving Christ's sheep. And, please burn that Bob Jones University rule book, sir.

 

My question to pastors is this?
What is your objective as a pastor of the Lord's Church?

Answer: I invite you to make any adjustment to your tendency to let your Ego rule. Learn to pray this prayer Christ prayed to his Father before he left the world.

John 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Not of the world.

First, you better be sure YOU are not of the world before you pretend to lead the saints to victory.

Second, Teach, teach, teach, Stop preaching standards. Stop talking about hair and hemlines. Teach the saints how to not be of the world by helping them with Bible truth that inspires them to examine THEIR OWN lives. Stop throwing the rule book at them. You have failed if your men cannot set the standards for their own home with the help of only the Holy Ghost and the King James Bible. Your church is nothing but a copy of a Bob Jones University dormitory rule book managed by a Baptist nanny..... you.

Jeremiah 23:1 Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord.
2 Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.
3 And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.
4 And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the Lord.

Pastor, which one are YOU? Do you scatter sheep, or do you feed sheep?

 

Last grenade

TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, and trust the Holy Ghost to make the application. If the only place of Christian victory is at the front of your church during an altar call, you failed, sir.

If you teach the church to mature to moral victory, you will one day be rewarded and feel intense joy when a teen age girl comes to church dressed modestly for the first time. You will know that Daddy got control, indeed, Christ got control. Someone's conscience is functioning without your supervision. You do not have to carve notches on you blasted gun. You will get all the reward in Heaven that you can handle for simply teaching the Word faithfully.

Five young adults came to our church one Sunday morning for the first time, and unannounced. I did not know they were coming. They came from thirty miles away. They had seen in the newspaper that I was preaching several messages to the Pope which I recorded and sent to the Vatican. The object was to show our church family that there was no way to fellowship with Catholics as if they were Christians.

These young adults all startled me. One fellow had long hair, but he was carrying a big Bible with a newsletter from Peter Ruckman on top. Wow. What is this, a KJV only hippie? Another fellow acted very zealous for Christ, knew the vocabulary, but had a pig tail. A married couple had on military field jackets, and the husband had a huge beard and long hair. His hair was the only way I could tell who was the husband and who was the wife.

The Holy Ghost was practically screaming at me to back off and let him lead. I got the message and did my best to show love and welcome. As it turned out, all of these people were zealous for Christ. I decided not to say anything about appearance and just keep doing what I always did..... teach the Bible. After about three Sundays, and husband came with his beard gone and a total hair rework. The field jackets were replaced with comfortable casual dress. The guy with the pig tail never did deal with it. But, we ended up with a Bible study in their city for them later, and to this day the married couple are a blessing to me in my old age.

Do you trust the Holy Ghost enough to let him take the teaching you do and apply it in his own way and in his time? I have done this since 1976, and I have never regretted it. I have seen many many times when saints changed things in their life by taking the teaching and using it to deal with something in their life that needed fixing. I fear that some of you preachers simply do not think the Holy Ghost is smart enough to change saints better then you can.

WHERE TO START TEACHING
ABOUT THE CONSCIENCE

Do I have to tell you?

Well, for starters, look at all the Bible texts used in this article. This is a place to start. Then, open your Bible search program, and start looking for "conscience." Use other search words as thoughts come. Here is a great text for a sermon on how to have a healthy conscience:

Psalms 119:66 Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments.

Once you have your Bible based plan, be very sure to add parables to help illuminate the truth. The stories I included in this article have helped any man reading here to grab the truth personally. We men need stories. Jesus taught nothing without a parable.

Matthew 13:34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them:

The best place to find parables is in the world. How about discussing how Christians flocked after Donald Trump like he was a prophet of God, while they looked the other way about his two divorces and married a porn queen? And, he made seven trips on the Lolita Express to Jeffrey Epstein's lust lodge in the Virgin Islands to use under aged girls sexually. That is the only reason to fly on the Lolita Express. A Christian must have a defective conscience in order to exalt such a man. You will also need to talk about the very patriotic choice of abstaining from voting, even from politics in general. Paul had no time for Roman politics, nor did Jesus in his day. A clear conscience calls for the saint to disengage from wicked options.

Ezekiel 44:23 And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
24 And in controversy they shall stand in judgment; and they shall judge it according to my judgments: and they shall keep my laws and my statutes in all mine assemblies; and they shall hallow my sabbaths.

Are your people just keeping your Baptist Standards law code, or can they tell me the "why"? Do they know why they do not do certain things, and why they do other things? If they do not know the why of the "difference" in the above text, you failed preacher. Their consciences are immature and crippled.

 

Teaching a man made law code is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit

When you try to foist Baptist Standards on your members, you are boldly offending the Holy Spirit. You have come up with a set of rules you believe will make the saints sanctified and spiritual. All religions have rules and laws that they use to force compliance on the members. Thus, your man-made standards, no matter how squeaky clean they are supposed to be, are nothing but religion. Why? Answer: Because God the Holy Spirit is not the author of your standards. Jesus tells you who, in the order of the Christian life, does the work of authoring the conscience.

John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

Sin and righteousness and judgment are the three things that drive the human conscience. Even the lost have a conscience. It is defective though, and the sinner needs to become born again so that the Holy Spirit will enter his mind and start to turn a dead warped conscience into a divinely authored new creation. Please read that again.

It is crass arrogance for you or any pastor to imagine the Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin, and of righteousness, and judgment, but he leaves the work of convincing the saints to YOU. That would make a lazy slob of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit indwells every believer, will never leave, and can talk to them 24/7. You cannot. So, the Holy Spirit does not need you to convince believers of sin and righteousness and judgment.

Furthermore, your Baptist Standards, or the standards of any denomination, cannot make a saint more sanctified or complete. That has been done when they confessed faith in Christ.

Colossians 2:10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

There is no sinless perfection. The saints at Colossi were still sinning and confessing sin in the model of Romans 7 as taught by Paul. So, being complete is not contingent on the believer's level of victory in his personal standards of life.

God does not make dead men alive and then ask you to make them better. Every believer in front of you on a Sunday morning is complete in Christ, and when you give an altar call inviting them to come forward and let your standards make them a better saint, you are a heretic. That cannot be done. And, you are a devil if you try.

Ephesians 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Dead men are made ALL THE WAY alive. They do not need spiritual cardio pulmonary resuscitation because they cannot die spiritually. They were not saved by keeping the law, and they sure will not be made more secure in Christ by keeping your remodeled version of Moses Law.

Do you remember the day when you could take your car tires in and have them retreaded? Those tires with new tread on an old tire were dangerous at best. The tread had a habit of coming off when the tire got really hot. Your Baptist Standards are a man-made retread on an old conscience. The Spirit of God wants to get rid of the old conscience and install a new one. And, like the retread tires long ago, when the temptations and cares of life get real hot, your Baptist Standards will come flying off, and there sill be a wreck. Now, there is a parable that will preach.

It is time for you, preacher, to stop preaching law codes and teach the saints to apply the promise of I John 1:9 to the believers.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Baptist Standards, and any other denomination's standards of conduct, will not make born again sinners better sinners. Only the Blood of Jesus will make a saved man more like Jesus. The saint needs to confess his sin, get up and walk again, and file the memory of that sin in his long term memory so that his conscience can remind him how it went the next time he is tempted. That is why God forgets our sin but we do not.

How about giving the Holy Spirit back his sheep and covenant with God to feed the sheep and then get out of the way?

Please recall the story I told above..... A preacher I heard at a pastor's rally got up and said, "I thank God that pants have never touched my wife's legs." Did that pastor have a wife who was more sanctified than the wives of other pastors in the room? Was she made a more complete spiritual woman by not ever wearing pants? When you convince your people that Baptist Standards will make them more "complete" as a good Christian, you are teaching heresy and inviting them to be proud. You see, when people manage to keep all you damned Baptist Standards, they will do four things that will destroy their walk with God in the end.

1. They are tempted to imagine that your standards for them are all there is to Christian maturity and sanctification. All of sanctification is rolled up in short hair and a three piece suit. If they learn that you are their nanny to deal with all of life with your laws, they will come to matters where their conscience should speak to them, and they will hear nothing because you missed that issue. This will result in your people walking into sin and sorrow because of you. You simply will not be there to say, "This is the way, walk ye in it."

2. They will become proud as they compare themselves to other believers in your church who have not yet decided to keep every one of the Baptist Standards. This will result in cooling of love one for another, and some of your people will simply flee to safer havens. The only use they will be to you will be as sermon illustrations of Christians who live a defeated life. And, YOU are actually the defeated one..... a meddling hireling.

3. If the Holy Spirit wants a believer to have a higher standard than your Baptist law in some particular issue, the believer will brush the Holy Spirit aside, ignore his own conscience, and be content with your law. Does that bless your soul with satisfaction? I hope not.

4. As the people before you learn to keep all your laws, they will become snot nosed brats toward Christians in other denominations. Do you foster this be mocking at non Baptists? If so, my dear bully preacher, be aware that you will spend eternity with some of those imperfect law breakers in yonder non Baptist church. What rank destruction you do to your testimony in the community.

Do not deceive yourself, preacher..... This horror story WILL get around the town in the form of gossip by both the ungodly and by non Baptist church people. Even many of the unsaved can tell when they are looking at counterfeit Christianity.

I am not making this up. I HAVE SEEN IT MORE THAN ONCE. And, the pastor aids and abets the treachery by exalting anyone who keeps all of his laws. What blasphemy.

Lest I hammer some preacher beyond what is honoring to Christ, here is your alternative:

1 The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:
2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
3 Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.
4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.
5 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

YOU ARE NOT CHRIST'S NANNY TO THE CHURCH?

You are to be humble, patient (not by constraint), willing, never wanting money, and of a ready mind (ready to change anything God shows you is not a blessing to him). But, let me ask, "Pastor, are you submitting to the saints?" Until you find out how to do that, you are not finished your probationary period as a pastor of Christ. If submission bothers you, try reading about Christ's trial before Pilate. Christ asked no favors and demanded nothing of Pilate. Is that like you?

 

I have a discipline I use to judge myself so that I will not be judged by God. I use this teaching from Jesus:

Matthew 12:37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

I still have much to learn in this department, but this is the standard.

The singular pronoun "thy" means that this is done person by person by our Lord. So, let us get ahead of the day of judgment. When I am thinking about any issue in my mind regarding right and wrong, I speak the thing out loud. Then I ask myself, what did Jesus think of those words? So, based on the answer to that question, what should my conscience be telling me about it? It only takes a couple of seconds to hear from the Holy Spirit when I am serious and willing to change the assumptions.

Start teaching the saints HOW TO instead of about HEMLINES AND HAIR. Give them the tools from God's Word.

If the discussion of Donald Trump would tear up your church, find other issues where the saint has to decide about engaging with the world or not. Leave the discussion of hair and hemlines to the fathers and husbands of the homes. Give the saints the tools to make their own way spiritually and morally through the next week. Get your wretched posterior out of the nanny business, sir. The Lord's Church is not a day care center..... it is supposed to be a battle station for mature soldiers who can stand alone and win a war when they have to.

 

My last thought is a question to all pastors and church members:

Are you happier when you obey your conscience?

Pastor- can you give me objective examples of people who are now happier because they adopted your Baptist Standards? I am not talking about zombies who mindlessly trot along in your shadow, people who only feel safe when you are nagging them about standards. I mean people who prosper spiritually and have their own thoughts about life and moral issues..... especially fathers and husbands who have put their home in order based on every family member's conscience.

In order to answer these questions, you will first have to decide if you trust God to make your life better as a reward for following your conscience. If your conscience is hard wired to make your life miserable, something is dreadfully wrong. You are doing a lot of thinking, but you are not having close fellowship with the Holy Spirit.

A deacon in the church ends his day by drinking a shot of whiskey, and it helps him go to sleep. So, you convince him that any use of alcohol is a deadly sin. He stops the shot of whiskey, and he has insomnia issues now. How is his submission to your standards helping him? In desperation he gets a prescription of a psychotropic drug to help him go to sleep. This will slowly destroy his short term memory. Does that cause you to pause? Could you let the poor man have his shot of whiskey and not go into a Baptist panic attack over it? I use this illustration because my uncle, who was a Lutheran, did exactly that, and it helped him. Fortunately, Lutherans generally allow moderate use of alcohol, so his pastor did not worry him about his protocol. If the deacon has a clear conscience about his protocol to sleep, who in Hell are you to second guess that man? And, I mean "in Hell," because your meddling is a ministry of the flesh or Satan.

You see, sir, God ALWAYS replaces anything we give up to his glory with something better. I will prove it with a text that you cannot possibly evade.

Psalms 40:1 I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.
2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.

Infinitely more Hell is dragged through the front door of the church house by a meddling old woman who is a gossip and a legalizing judge of the saints than the damage done by one cigar a day. You never heard of a cigar starting a church fight by gossiping on the phone. This is not an apologetic for smoking tobacco. It is not a good idea, but if you major on the cigar and act like a mindless wimp in the face of the old biddy trashing your fellowship, you ought to be horse whipped, and I mean that.

So, get a cup of coffee, pastor, and go sit still and pay attention. Are the people in your assembly happier because of your teaching of standards. Or, are you driving them into a dry and cynical life with your home brewed Baptist Standards? (Or, Pentecostal standards etc.)

Are YOU happy, pastor? If you are a crappy dry bones old boy who has many reasons to be mad at life and impatient with the dumb dirty sheep, you are a loser. Repent before God puts you out of the pastoring business for good.

Psalm 68:3 But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: Yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.

Who is glad because they followed your advice? Who is singing a new song? Who says, "I got rid of my anxiety, pastor, after I stopped _____________________." And, they figured it all out because of your faithful teaching.

I did not make all of this article up. I learned these things while living in a pastor's home and later pastoring four churches. Whenever I got it right, I made sweet memories that help me keep my sanity in my old age today. When you are very old, sir, you will get very little joy out of the memory that you made all the man in your church wear a coat and tie to church. The memory that some deacon stopped chewing tobacco will not comfort your soul when you have old age insomnia. You better start paying it forward with teaching that causes saints to keep walking godly AFTER you are long gone. There is no greater joy to me than to hear that some saint in a church I pastored is still living in the life changes he made when he applied the teaching to his own life just between him and the Holy Spirit.

Finally, Pastor, the day so often comes when the sheep decide that the shepherd is a hireling. When that happens, they hold a church business meeting to decide your fate. You have met these preachers have you not? They stand in the foyer of the church where all the pastors come to charge their batteries. And, these whipped tyrants never confess that they bullied the sheep, and the sheep tossed them out of the fold. They tell you what a wonderful job they did of building the church and winning souls. But, you have heard the rumors of the way they brainwashed the people, and how they got a rush out of "churching" sheep, that is, tossing them out the door.

Well, sir, whatcha gonna do
When they come after you?

You will experience a church house version of a new rope and a live oak tree. If you have no instinct to inquire of your soul to see if there be any wicked way in you, then I have bad news for you. You are a bastard son. You may be born of a Baptist altar call long ago, but you are NOT born again.

Hebrews 12:8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

Now, go do the right thing, sir.

__________________________________________________

 

To the pastor, who follows a former tyrannical pastor, as the pastor of a church

If you are called to pastor a church that was dominated by a tyrannical pastor who had the members whipped and living in blind mindless trust in the tyrannical pastor, you have your work cut out for you.

The members will be eager to learn what your Baptist standards are. They need the comfort of your standards to deliver them from anxiety and fear of YOU. They feared the previous pastor as they worshipped him like a guru. They will expect you to hammer them every Sunday and demand submission to your plan for them.

If you start teaching what the Bible says about life's issues, they will feel lost and adrift. They are not used to in depth Bible teaching. They want to hear clichés and buzz words and a long list of labels for every issue of life. If you do not do that, they will start thinking you are not very separated, you are worldly, and they may even quietly form a resistance movement against you.

I suggest you deal with it head on. Talk about the choice of learning from Bible teaching from messages, about the role of the pastor as a teacher, that you are not told in the Bible to take charge of the members' consciences, and that they should be reading their Bible daily and hearing from the Holy Spirit. Show them Bible texts that are addressed to all believers about doing their own thinking in Christ.

Philippians 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Talk about biblical perfection, that is, becoming mature and compete Christians.

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

"The man of God" is every Christian, not just the pastor. Perfect means mature or complete, and only the Word of God can do that. Since they all have Bibles at home, they need to be reading their Bible and hearing from the Holy Spirit.

In a church I pastored in Michigan, we took an entirely different approach to worship. I wanted real worship, not just "preliminaries." Every Sunday I asked the people to tell me of any encounters they had during the week for Christ and the Gospel. Men, women and born again youth were encouraged to tell of their encounters for Jesus. Some spoke to people about Christ, and some handed out tracts. The people came to love the stories we heard each Sunday. There were both victories and seeming defeats. Members began to pray for one another during the week. People who had done nothing for Christ became self-conscious and started trying to be a witness.

I also asked the men of the church who were regular to come Sunday prepared to share something the Lord showed them in their Bible reading during the week. This really became a priceless moment in our worship. It showed the people, indeed, even the kids, that I was not the only one the Holy Spirit talked to. It also built up the men in zeal to hear from the Lord by faithful Bible reading. I strongly encourage this for you. This would break up the mindless dependence on you the pastor to accomplish growth and maturity in the members. I did not invite the ladies to do this because there was often admonition by the one sharing, and I did not feel it was appropriate for ladies to admonish the men. But, some ladies would hand me a note with a verse on it, and I would read it and comment.

You must lead these sheep, which the Lord put before you, into green pastures and convince them that they must feed their souls themselves.

Psalms 23:2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth me beside the still waters.....

But he did not force them to drink. Lead them to the Truth, and let them feed themselves..

TO YOU WHO HAVE BEEN ATTACKED BY A TYRANNICAL PASTOR:
BEWARE OF BITTERNESS AT THOSE WHO HAVE TORMENTED YOU

There is almost nothing as harmful as people who memorialize the abuse they have received in the past.

We had a couple in a church I pastored who had both been divorced before they married one another. They would occasionally have their trigger pulled by some innocent member talking. The result was that this couple went off on their "Ex". They would tell horror stories about how badly they were treated. It may have all been true, but it was absolutely worthless information to the rest of us, and it threw cold water on our fellowship.

I am sorry if you have been attacked by a bully tyrannical pastor, but please forgive the bum. You need to let go of those horrible offenses so you can walk away from the man and live the rest of your life free of bitterness. If you keep the stories of how he abused you fresh, and tell them over and over to other believers, what is really happening is that the ghost of that pastor is following you down the road and still tormenting you. What did Jesus do about all the wicked Jewish leaders who falsely accused him and demanded his crucifixion?

Luke 23:33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

You and I have not come anywhere near suffering like Jesus did. Let us forgive the abusers and be free of them once and for all.

 

You need to learn to laugh at them.

Laughter is a form of asymmetrical warfare. Just when the tyrant has lain you low, and as he takes a deep breath for round two, you suddenly start laughing. Watch his face as he rants, and ask yourself, "What kind of animal has a face like this?" Maybe what comes to mind will trigger your funny bone, and you can really laugh.

Tyrants are clueless. They often have no idea what they are doing, and they have no idea that they have no idea. What I mean is, the tyrannical abusive pastor (or employer, university professor, or any other tyrant) has no ability to step back and examine the horror and chaos they are foisting on other people. The Baptist standards and rules of conduct are tools tyrannical pastors use to control people. And, it works. Why should they ever question themselves?

Ephesians 5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; 20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; When the tyrant attacks, start singing to him a merry hearted tune. He will totally lose it.

I can tell you when you will know that you are finally totally free of these people who haunt you from back down the road..... It will be when you can finally laugh at them. And, that applies if they ever confront you somewhere between Sundays when you happen to be where they are. If they come up to you and ask you a sinister question about when you are going to repent, LAUGH AT THEM. The reason is so that you can walk away and leave them to soak in their own juices. If you give any answer, you will be a sermon illustration in that preacher's next Sunday sermon. Do NOT give them that satisfaction.

So, where did I get the notion that laughing is a weapon of spiritual warfare? Answer: From God himself

Psalms 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

No tyrant can stand to be laughed at. He believes that he is so important that anyone he confonts, on any topic, should become very serious and repentant. If you laugh at him, he will turn to a puddle of jelly. Do keep an eye on him because, if there is any time a tyrant will lose it and attack physically, it will be when his victim laughs at him.

Furthermore, when you laugh when there is stress IN you, or OUTSIDE of you, you walk away cleansed of stress yourself. Here is a video about this.

I hope you watched the video. Rizzo ambushed the toll booth guy. The guy was not ready for the laugh, but he jumped on it and things went well for Rizzo. If your pastor is a creep, he will not see any humor in your laugh, but that does not matter. Laugh anyway because it will change YOUR mindset from misery to mirth. If the preacher laughs with you, you may have made a good friend whom you can help leave his disgusting manner of pastoring.

Also, notice Verse 5 in the above text. There is a time to show wrath at a wicked man, especially if you are not the victim. When a pastor is bullying another saint, and that saint is wilting under the fierce attack, blast that pastor, and tell him what a creep he is. Only hold back enough to be sure you do not resort to profanity. You may tell him he is a "bastard son" though. Memorize Hebrews 12:8 before you do this please so that you can prove you have biblical grounds for the term.

Furthermore, if you laugh at them, you will feel better about life in general.

Proverbs 17:22 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

WATCH THE UNITED NATIONS LAUGH AT DONALD TRUMP WHEN HE LIES
What could he do? He had to laugh with them because his conscience told him he had made a fool of himself.

WATCH JOHN PIPER THRIVE ON THE LAUGHTER OF PEOPLE AT HIM.
If your pastor laughs with you, and at himself, you have judged him very wrongly if you think he is a tyrant.
Start over, and get to know him better. If he makes Baptist Standards for you, try to overlook it, and see if you can be at peace with him. I knew a pastor who laughed very easily at himself in spite of also being way too autocratic. I just ignored his pushy side, and we got along pretty well.

 

So, you have decided to stay in the church pastored by a jackboot.....
How can you do so at peace with your Lord?

I hate to condescend to help someone stay in a loonie farm under a jackboot preacher, but here goes my best effort

First, you must find a way to pamper the preacher. If you have a three piece suit, wear it, and you will give the pastor the impression you are in submission to him. Tell your family you will all be complying with all the Pharisaical laws of the pastor and his Baptist Standards. I fear you are deluded to stay in a legalistic church and try to resist the legal system. You will only be miserable, and you will be regularly attacked. But, if you intend to stay there, submit to the law system.

Second, make a covenant to God that you will take full responsibility for your home, your wife, and your kids. This means that you will have to find a way to deflect the pastor from trying to take charge of your family in ANY way. If the pastor approaches your wife to recruit her to work at the church without talking to you, tell him alone that you want him to talk to you about anything to do with your wife of kids. He may accept this if he is not a rabid sex pervert trying to get your wife into bed. If he rages at you, you are a fool to hang around that church any longer. You will cry hot tears of remorse after your wife divorces you and runs off with the preacher, but it will then be too late to stop the hustler. I am not making this up..... I know of it happening more than once.

Third, if your pastor does not show signs of being a sex pervert, find ways to make a friend of him. It may be hunting or fishing, or he may love to run to auctions. Whatever you can find to charm the tyrant, if he decides you are his personal friend, he may not be so eager to torment you and your family about standards and tithing.

Fourth, try to set up your schedule so that you have commitments that will make it impossible for your pastor to recruit your family to do busy work like slaves to the pastor. Tyrants are famous for enslaving other men's wives to work in the church and neglect their homes. The flattery the pastor gives you later is no payback for the harm he does. Plan to not be his victim.

Fifth, make close friendships of a couple of other men in the church who are like minded with you. Try to use them to keep watch for gross behavior in the pastor and deacons. Tyrannical pastors simply all have a tendency to be perverts, and they are quite happy to violate your wife and daughters. Some of the AC/DC pastors will even hustle your boys sexually. You are a beast if you hang around a church where you are getting signals of any men openly hustling women other than their own wives.

Finally, I must say that this plan of survival is a lot of unneeded trouble if you simply get your testosterone up and go find another church to attend. Sure, you will leave some good friends behind, and you will have to start over making new Christian fellowship, but the pain you deliver your family from will be worth your trouble.

I must warn you though, the Sunday you leave to attend another church, you will be used by your former pastor as a sermon illustration, and he will probably even claim that you were never born again in the first place. He will also forbid the church members from having ANYTHING to do with you. If they all shun you when you meet them at the super market, that should tell you that they were not really very sincere friends. And, you should be delighted to be free of the slavery of the tyrant.

Now, go do the right thing, sir.

 

THREE INFLUENCES THAT HELP YOU RESIST EVIL

There is a war for your mind and your conscience. Satan wants to break down your resolve to conform to the mind of Christ.

Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

When your zeal and religion is all about parking your butt in a church pew every time the doors are open, you have not finished the job. Verse 2 makes it clear that your mind and conscience have to be made new. When a preacher hammers you regularly with his notions about what your conscience should include (such as Baptist standards or books by John R Rice, Bill Gothard, or Mike Pearl) that preacher is taking possession of your mind. Jesus Christ does NOT own your mind and conscience. Romans 12:1-2 above are YOUR responsibility. Neither man, preachers, nor Satan himself should have access to your mind and change it for you.

So, in the battle for your mind, what outside influences will help you guard your mind and keep the standards of conscience that you learned from the Word of God and the Holy Spirit?

If the following three influences are not present in your life AND YOUR LOCAL CHURCH, you will one day be over powered by Satan and compromise. Indeed, if these influences are now missing in your life, it is of the highest priority that you change the deficiency and make sure all three are present.

All three of these influences were part of Jesus' ministry in Galilee, and the Apostle Paul exalted them also. These influences are godly morale boosters that will carry you through the attacks of Satan and the persecution against your zeal for Christ by the demonic world and culture we now war with. But, if you are not in the Word of God daily, and you don't hear from the Holy Spirit regularly, these influences will merely be human qualities that will make you more comfortable in life, but you will not have victory in Jesus Christ.

The three principles of morale are:

INFLUENCE ONE- Total confidence that Jesus Christ is in control of your life.
Things look bad in your job. The management is encouraging unethical practices, and they have totally ruled out open devotion to your faith. Do you really believe Jesus led you to this job? Is he really there every day and minute with you? Will, truly, all things work together for good?

Only by keeping in the Word of God daily, and by listening to the Holy Spirit, will you have the strength to resist the temptation to become a traitor to Christ. Your pastor's Baptist Standards will not see you through this war. Only Jesus will never abandon you.

And, is Jesus always at home in your home? Marriage tensions come. Kids rebel. Extended family launches an attack against you for taking a stand on some moral issue. Is Jesus really in control? Again, the answer is not in some sermon or standards of conduct your pastor imported from Pensacola or Hammond, Indiana. If Jesus is really welcome to control every decision you make in your family, he must have gotten total control of your mind and conscience.

INFLUENCE TWO- You must have people outside of your present conflict
who need you and pray for you.

Have you taught your wife and kids to defend and encourage one another against ALL attacks? Does your family pray for one another when apart? In the battle in the world, you need to always know that your people expect you to come home the same man you were when you left this morning.

Do you attend a church where people look forward to being with you? Do they pray for you? Is the pastor's home open to visit when life goes south? If your church people do not try to get together any time other than for services on Sunday and Wednesday evening, your church is not an influence to call you home to victory.

Hebrews 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Verse 25 is always quoted alone by preachers trying to intimidate a church member who is not "there every time the doors are open." Try getting Verse 25 into context with Verse 24. Do the members in your local church provoke one another to love and good works when they get together? If not, you are in a dead church. It is all about nickels and noses and a butt every 18 inches, and nothing more than that. Do you have a craving to meet other Christians between Sundays for social AND spiritual fellowship? If not, this influence to boost your morale is totally missing. You better belly up to IHOP with a brother who fires up your zeal, and talk Bible for a while. If you have a pastor who looks for you between Sundays for nothing but fellowship, that preacher is priceless. See if you can keep him. CAVEAT: If you have to pay the bill every time, that preacher may not be there for the best motives.

INFLUENCE THREE- You must understand the enemy and his tricks.
Here is what the Bible says to you:

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour

Satan has a legion of evil workers who arrange trouble and temptation for you. You need to study what the Bible tells us about how Satan works and how he attacked Jesus and the Apostles.

2 Corinthians 2:10 To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ;
11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

The context here is the godly instinct we must have to forgive those who offend us. But, as to the devices of Verse 11, Satan has hundreds of devices he uses to attack our mind, destroy our peace and homes, and shipwreck our consciences. The pastor does not have enough Baptist Standards to guarantee you will never fall into sin if you observe them all. You do NOT need Baptist Standards, or any other man-made list of rules and regulations, if your mind is immunized against Satan by the Word of God and the voice of the Holy Spirit.

I strongly encourage you to watch the news, read articles online, and watch TED talks with a mind to identify propaganda inspired by Satan and evil. Start with Climate Change, and see what it is in the message and vocabulary that mitigates against the teaching of the Word of God. Go on to watch behavior and other employees at work. If you are a student in university, make mental notes of anti-Christian propaganda and that god named "The Science." Even the message in advertising is straight from the flesh and the devil.

In other words, learn to see the influence of Satan and the world as you see it or are tempted by it. Learn, from your Bible reading, to mark down answers from the Word of God to Satan's devices, as Jesus did.

Luke 4:1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
3 And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.
4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Satan, evil men, and troublesome Christians are used to call you away from God's divine ideal for your life. Nothing is more deadly than to be asked to change your standard IN YOUR OWN CONSCIENCE by a close Christian friend or your pastor. Learn to quote the Word of God to them as Jesus did. If they attack you for standing on the Word of God as your standard, find new friends.

 

HOW CAN YOU TELL IF YOU ARE LIVING BY MAN-MADE STANDARDS?

Here are some sure indicators that you have standards of life that did not come from the Holy Spirit:

1. When an issue of life comes up, you at once ask yourself what Pastor Smith would think instead of what Jesus would think. You may even go to the pastor and ask him what to do about the life issue instead of going to the Word of God for light.

2. When confronting an action or discussion, you ask yourself what your church friends would think. This does not imply that your friends are not important as a consideration. The issue is, like 1. above, you are not at once wondering what Jesus would think.

3. When you see someone, whether a Christian or a lost sinner, doing something that violates your church's standards, it makes you feel more holy than they are. If Jesus saw what you see he would feel sad, while you feel superior.

4. When you break a standard of Pastor Smith, you feel the need to "go forward" at the next altar call and "get right with God." Pastor Smith speaks in your conscience rather than the Holy Spirit. If you got your standards from the Holy Spirit, you would at once confess your violation as sin to Jesus.

5. When you realize you have not broken any of Pastor Smith's standards for a number of days, you feel right with God. This is because you are totally out of communication with the Holy Spirit, and he probably is not at all impressed with how you think of yourself.

6. When you see a woman dressed suggestively, you blast her to Hell to any other Christian nearby. You no longer feel hurt in your soul that they probably do not know Christ as their Savior.

7. You no longer worry about any issue in your life that is not on the list of Pastor Smith's standards. Anything he has missed gives you liberty to do as you please in that thing. It no longer occurs to you to ask what the Holy Spirit might think about the issue.

8. When you are with members of your church, you keep the standards a lot better than when you are alone.

9. The more standards you apply to your life, the less joy you have, and the Christian life is no longer fun. Fun has become a deadly sin according to Pastor Smith.

10. Nearly every standard you got from Pastor Smith tells you what NOT to do. Seldom does he give you rules that help you find your way to peace and happiness. When someone smiles, you are suspicious that they are really sinning.

11. Pastor Smith strikes fear into you by certain gestures he makes and verbal weapons he uses. Such as, "You need to get under authority, brother." Or, "Are you in submission to your pastor?" Beware of ANY pastor who refers to himself in the third person as "your pastor." That is what royalty do, but it is a form of dominance when your pastor does it.

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

If any of these eleven symptoms of defeat are like you, you need to repent, confess your sin to Christ, trash your standards, and start over between ONLY you and the Holy Spirit. You also need to shuck off Pastor Smith and find a pastor who helps you use your Bible and your own mind to learn what God wants of you.

Again, I must remind you that there is no place in the Bible telling you how to destroy a pastor. Nor will God ever call you to divide and destroy a local church. When the tyranny gets too bad to tolerate any longer, pack up and find another church fellowship.

Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

The text clearly tells you to avoid them, not attack or destroy them. God sees these tyrants, and he will do what needs to be done with them. If God leaves a tyrant unpunished, this is a clear sign that the members of that church are mostly not even born again, and God wants the whole mob to suffer the fruit of their folly. The reason God never removed Jack Hyles over the years is very likely because God wanted those people in the that church to stay right there and not make trouble in some other church in the area.

ALTAR CALL TIME

Most altar calls are very badly motivated, and they cause more harm than good. So, why am I giving you an altar call? I admit, this is a bit tongue in cheek stuff. But, I do want to ask you to do something with what you just read, that is, if you read this whole article.

So, here is my altar call..... Could you share this article with some friend? If you learned something here, could you pass it on to another Christian who has the same struggles you have?

That's it. No walking the aisle, no weeping at the altar rail. Just take action with what you learned.

Also, thank you for reading this all the way through. It is what is called a "long form" article, meaning it is way longer than most articles. I do this sometimes because people are getting tired of articles that are about 200 words in the middle of the screen surrounded by twenty advertisements. May the Lord help you to get total victory in your conscience and let the mind of Jesus be in you.

DISCLOSURE:

Some who read here will have never seen anything like I have described, and you will think I made all of this up. I can assure you that I have hundreds of Emails from people who told me their horror stories of being assaulted by tyrannical jackboot pastors. They often want me to explain how a pastor can become so wicked. I can only tell them that the Apostles, in the New Testament, told us this would happen inside the Lord's Church. Satan simply has his helpers who go off to Bible college, get themselves ordained, and work themselves into the pulpits of Bible believing churches. Jesus told us how to discern them.

Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

If your pastor causes fear by his demands and rules of conduct, and if you do not feel really close to the other members in your church, that is bad fruit. The pastor is ALWAYS at fault. He is in a place where he can bring change in the church by sound Bible teaching. Does your pastor's preaching seem to result in a happier church fellowship, or is your church like a soap opera? By his fruits you can know him.

BY NOW, YOU, PREACHER, ARE PROBABLY ENRAGED AT ME

THIS IS FOR YOU

And, in dealing with a jackboot preacher, I follow my Lord's example:

Psalms 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

And to you who feel a kindred spirit in this article, please join with me in teaching, hugging, and building up the faith of the sheep God has given us. Let us hand them over to the Holy Spirit to grow their godly conscience as we teach them the "whole council of God."

 

ALL CLEAR

You can remove your seat belts.

Now, go do the right thing.

 

LINKS:

When you make a tin horned god or guru of your pastor, this is what will almost certainly happen to him. And YOU will be partly to blame? Why? Answer: These godlike tyrant pastors are psychologically energized by the mob of blessed idiots who sit in the pews and exalt them. These sort of moral degenerates feel immune from the wrath of God while YOU and your church friends keep exalting them to godhead. CAVEAT: Some very graphic language
HERE IS HOW IT ALL PLAYED OUT AT HILLSONG CHURCH

There is another lesson to take away from the Hillsong story.
STAY AWAY FROM ALL MEGA CHURCHES
I do not care how correct the Bible preaching may seem. Monster churches are freaks. There were NONE in the New Testament Church. Monster churches did not come along for 300 years until the Roman Catholic Church started building them. They are spiritual freaks and invested with devils, often right on the platform.
That includes Grace Community Church of the Valley where John MacArthur now presides and teaches heresy.

HERE IS A SERIOUS DISCUSSION OF MENTAL ABUSE IN FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST CHURCHES

HYLES' DAUGHTER EXPOSES HER FATHER'S WICKEDNESS

ARTICLE AT THIS JOURNAL ON JACK HYLES

THIS IS WHAT A TYRANT PREACHER WILL DO TO THE SHEEP

ARTICLES IN THIS JOURNAL EXPOSING JACKBOOT PREACHERS

HERE IS WHERE WE CAN END WHEN WE SEAR OUR CONSCIENCE TO DEATH

SEVEN QUALITIES THAT MAKE UP A BAD CHURCH LEADER

BEWARE OF GOING TO THE OPPOSITE EXTREME WHEN YOU FLEE FROM TYRANNY

JORDAN PETERSON ON THE WOKE CULTURE AND CONTROL FREAKS

TYRANT BAPTIST PASTOR EXPLAINS PASTORAL AUTHORITY "I RUN THE SHOW"
This is what happens when a novice is lifted up.

HERE IS THE SUPREME TYRANNICAL JERKWATER PASTOR AT WORK
What kind of silly fools stay in a church like this? What an offense to your children if you tolerate anything like this.

SEND MAIL- Feel free to send your story. But, if it is a horror story about a wicked pastor, please promise me this will be the last time you tell it to anyone.

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