Session Four: Church of What’s Happening Now

Thank you for rejoining us in session four of TheNewsBeats.com conference “The Church of What’s Happening Now” for a look at what is taking place in the visible church today. In session two, we began looking into the poisoned well conference billed as “New Spring Leadership Conference.” We were able to determine that the conference was not about building leaders at all, but was instead a scheme for developing menservants. In session three we compared the law of tithing to the law of circumcision, and asserted that the men who would hold others to the law of tithing could themselves be held to the whole law; as a rebuke.

This is all bold assertion for dealing with false teachers, and put very bluntly; but you’ll find that it’s in the Bible, and the Bible is bold in dealing with sin and false teachers. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul had to deal with when false brethren, who were brought in unawares, actually spied out his and Titus’ liberty which they had in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:3-5).

On these subjects, on circumcision as on the subject of tithing, these false brethren were not given place, and should not be given place, for even an hour!

These false teachers can now be told, by their own preaching that they are under the curse of the law because they have failed to keep all things written in the law to do them (a quick house inspection will reveal they do not keep all the ceremonial laws).

But now, that would be getting religious. Ah, but this is a religious conference. So let’s visit biblical giving for that saint. Here are Paul’s instructions to the church at Corinth, which were the same instructions for the church at Galatia:

Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come. (1Co 16:1-2)

Notice it’s a collection “for the saints,” and not for a bloated overpaid staff to build their careers and buy jet skis. Notice also that whatever percentage can be extracted here is bound in the phrase “as God hath prospered him.” The tithe is a terrible hardship for many poor saints who are extorted to pay it.

Consider the disparity. Ten percent of thirty thousand annual income cuts a lot closer to the bone that ten percent of three hundred thousand annual income.

Exposing Rapacious Financial Exploitation

Before we go any further, it is imperative that we here and now both expose and understand how this tactic of applying the law of tithing is actually used by these false teachers. There are predictable dynamics that follow in most of these cases. Let’s lay them out.

First, congregants are threatened with cursing from God on all their finances and usually everything else, health included, if they don’t give the pastor the tithe (this drama is even effective on unsaved members). They are told that only by observing this law will God bless them and ensure the remaining ninety percent of their money will go even further. When it doesn’t because they are not under the law, but under grace; their faith takes a beating.

After being compelled to pay the tithe before paying even living expenses, dept rises to strangle levels, and saints begin to wonder if they really are cursed by God. They begin to think that maybe there’re being cursed for something God hasn’t forgiven them for yet. They asked for forgiveness, but God is withholding it.

Over time, they begin to feel like fugitives who have been driven from the face of the Lord with nothing but the mark of Cain to protect them. God has spared them, but they’re under a curse. Maybe, they begin to wonder, it is because they haven’t tithed in the past.

And then they are forced by circumstance to take the next step; they being giving less the ten percent, but they still refer to it as the “tithe.”

Results of Financial Exploitation

The result is they are downcast, downtrodden, and demoralized. They are cursed by God, second class saints, and according to the false teacher, they have become thieves stealing from God. They dare not tell anyone, and in that they also become liars.

This is what has been done to them. The saints are bullied into living a compromised walk of faith, and to live in sin, and sin make cowards of us all; so they are now even more easily manipulated by the false teacher.

Now, don’t think for one minute that these false teachers are unaware of these dynamics. They depend on them.

Why Financial Exploitation

These false teachers know of, and sometimes even moan about, studies that reveal average giving in churches is probably closer to two percent then to ten percent. But they will gladly settle for an average near five percent of the income from a house full of thousands of slaves under their power and control. They work these dynamics on them to horribly abuse them; knowing full well that tithing is crushing them and destroying their walk of faith.

They also know it is preventing them from having any opportunity to really serve the Lord in the spirit, and live life more abundantly.

They would deny them the opportunity to serve the Lord because the false teachers want to be the lords over them, and that means the last thing they want is group empowered by the Holy Spirit. God might take charge though godly empowered men, and then where would they be?

This is not a working conference with an exam at the end of the sessions, so test materials were not handed out to you, but the answer for that last question is: mercifully, they would be gone.

Why They Build Their Kingdom on Rock and Roll

Their staying power can be explained by another set of dynamics employed. The absence of the spirit of God and a focus on man’s efforts having been emphasized through tithing and personal leveraging, the saints are reduced to carnal Christians. In that state, they are more apt to respond to carnal appetites.

This explains the use of rock and roll music complete with all the accouterments of strobes, pyrotechnics, and smoke machines.

False teachers reduce saints to walking in carnality, and then use rock music and its atmosphere to satiate them and further control them. In this, the false teachers are following the same cycle used by drug dealers. They dispense the sweet to sooth the sting they themselves have inflicted.

Why They Give Passes to Satan’s Children

The ulterior focus of this expose has been on an appeal to saints who have found themselves enslaved in these churches to wake up and remove from them, and as a warning to others to avoid them. The aspect that these churches have been purposely populated by the unsaved has largely been ignored in this conference until now. Here we’ll address it, because it’s another tactic employed by false teachers.

This mingling of the saved and unsaved is the result of the gospel of community, and it provides a dynamic of control for the false teacher. The substance of this other gospel is spun on an intricate web of relationships, and invites the unsaved to take their communion through programs such as the Alpha Course, and 40 Days of Purpose, and others packaged as outreach efforts.

These ongoing encounters do more to form unequal associations than to evangelize the lost. The programs actually accustom the saints to fellowship with the lost, and to accept the unsaved in their condition. False teachers have even issued passports for them by creating such categories as “pre-saved” friends and “seekers” to enable them to move about the church freely.

Here’s the reason why: these populations of unsaved supply an ever ready contingent for the false teacher to leverage against the saints in worship using worldly music and devices. They also reduce the presence of the Holy Spirit and keep spiritual strength in the church weak. The false teachers don’t want you to know this, but now you do.

There is, however, a another secret and more sinister tactic than any that has preceded it in this expose, and one which they would most dearly like to keep concealed from you, and especially from their victims.

Masters of the Catharsis

Lastly, there is the powerful tactic that has made these heretics infamous in Christendom, but which is largely misunderstood by those outside their fraternal order. False teachers will often turn their monologues into irreligious tirades where they rant against traditional Christianity and Bible believing Christians and pastors. While in many instances this does stem from their animus towards God and the truth, there is a even a darker underside to this tactic.

They will ‘preach’ in this punk and rebellious attitude to provide a means for the congregants to experience a catharsis, or to vicariously experience the rebellion that many desire to participate in, but cannot in their weakened spiritual condition. The abused saints secretly desire to rebel against the yoke of the false teacher, and by this tactic they are placated and neutralized. As the drama unfolds, they are made to feel that they have participated in a rebellion, and they experience a sense of relief. Thus, the would-be rebels are quelled. The unsaved are naturally rebellious, and they are satiated, or given their natural reward in this process.

Captured enemy espionage agents should be manipulated so well.

In Our Next Session

The gross manipulation of the saints through deceit and coercion, and the abuse they are subjected to is sacrilegious. False teachers who employ these tactics are in a word: diabolical.

In our last session of this conference, we’ll take a look at the other side of the tithing coin, and one more tactic used by these false teachers. Any one attending this conference who also attends, or is trapped in, one of these churches should be feeling stronger now, and more confident to stand up to these men, and to come out from among them. Now, you know what they are doing to you, and now you know why they are doing it, and, more importantly, you know how they are doing it. The lid is off. Spread the word.

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