Are you a piece of Merchandise? Capt. Kelly Durant 7-06
The fleecing of the sheep by deceiving pastors!
2 Peter 2:3
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
John 10:10-12
10The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.
2. What do you see in this picture here? I have a sheep in my hand but it is no ordinary sheep, it is a sheep that has been fleeced! You see it all naked and unprotected, right? Did you know there are pastors in churches that have no communication with God and their goal is not to save souls for God’s kingdom in heaven, but to get all they can materially out of their sheep? Their objective is to fleece their sheep and use the Word to justify it!
The position of a pastor of any religious movement is a very important and dangerous one, because they can use the Word of God in a correct way which will give you life, light, wisdom, and encouragement and salvation through Jesus Christ. But if they are false, they can use the Bible distorting the Word of God just to make you feel guilty in order manipulate you and get you to give him money and serve their perverted appetite to grow big and rich.
3. The word in Peter states that God will punish those that use the word for their own gain, those that believe spiritually hungry people are just dumb sheep that need to be used by them for their gain and look again at the scripture “and their damnation slumbereth not”.
These false pastors with their wealth and air of importance will intimidate you and preach with sweet words and the people shallow in their faith admire them and their big rich churches, and get deceived!
God put it on my heart to warn you about this because we are living in the final days of our earth, and Jesus will return, and His Word warns us of these rogue pastors, many stating that they are the ones with the real Christ. You may say, well how will we know who is false?
4. A few weeks ago in California there was a Salvation Army Sergeant that left the Army and took his whole church o Soldiers to join a so called church group from Colombia. It is a movement that was good in the beginning with cell prayers groups, we believe in cell prayer groups, but this group become aggressive and deceptive. They have become a corrupt tree with corrupt fruit.
Their cell groups called the G-12 invade Hispanic churches and target the pastors and leaders and convince them that they are failures and that their methods are better. They claim that churches don’t have the power of God, that they have the real power of God, and that you are weak and have a bad spirit in your life and only they can free you from your bad past and family generational curses. They are the witchdoctors and they prescribe you are cursed hat’s why you need only them to free you. They first demand your 10%, then your 40%, then 100% and then they control your whole life! The steal you away from your original church where you were growing just fine!
5. These are false pastors that spend all of their time with the richer leader people in the church so they can determine how to get them for their selves with their support!
We just read how Jesus warned that the false shepherds come to deceive, to steal, kill, and destroy and this is happening today within many of the Christian churches because this group and others like them, such as the Iglesia Unversal in Brazil have only one agenda, to steal people’s loyalty from their current church to theirs, and then get you (church people) to obey all of their false teachings which are placed above the Bible in authority, common sense, and historical doctrine so they can exploit you.
You may ask yourself, well, how does it happen? How do people get fooled to let others control them? How can I be prepared to resist these aggressive false teachings from the false churches and teachers?
6. Self defense Point 1
Do not be ignorant! Ignorant of their devices and ignorant of the Word of God that exposes these types of deceivers!
How do you know how to distinguish between the false and the real?
If you have any money on you right now take it out of your wallet. That’s right, here, hold up a dollar bill in the light. Now look at it, study it and see the sort of hidden fibers and watermarks. The way you will recognize the false and counterfeit is by comparing it to the true. If you actually read the word of God alone in your house and, know what it says, then you will not be fooled by anyone’s false teachings. This implies you must be constantly doing your homework, even proving all of what I teach! 2 Tim
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Remember also how Jesus pointed out that His sheep hear His vice and they will not follow a stranger.
God will not forgive those who willingly choose to remain ignorant of His truth blindly permitting their own deception.
7. Self preparation Point 2
Do not be comfortable… in your culture, tradition, and customs. Jesus wants us to fight for the correct standard and not be conformists!
Romans 12:1-212 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Some people conform to their own feelings and habits more than to the obedience of the teachings of God. I will give you and example and keep in mind this example is a real one that has repeated several times. Compare what I am explaining with your spiritually walk with Christ.
The best way I can describe why people accept false religion is like this, with this example. Imagine an abused woman or man. She comes and cries and complains, I live with an abusive man. He puts me down all the time to make me feel guilty, like I am nothing, to get what he (or she) wants; then he then sweet talks to manipulate me. I work long hours and he takes my money away and buys things for himself, and I don’t even have enough left over for my food sometimes. He is never there when I need him. He tells me that if I ever leave him that he will find me and hurt me, and that God will send me to hell, because God doesn’t permit divorce. I am miserable, and I want to die!
8. So what can I say to an extreme abuse case? I say don’t let yourself be killed like that! Leave this devil and God will provide and take care of you, don’t be afraid, let Jesus be in control. The Bible doesn’t teach you will go to hell over this but the contrary in 1 Corinthians 7! So then she leaves him and I encourage her to have a relationship with someone in the future who is a real Christian, who is healthy, who loves God, someone who will say beautiful things to her, who will love her and not oppress her.
9. So later what does that sister do? She does go out and find a good Christian man, and God answers prayers and everything is wonderful, there is love, she can talk and open up, she is valued and loved; It looks like she went from hell to heaven. But then she starts thinking, the devil gets in because she does not thank God for her blessings of liberation. She says to herself, you know I don’t think Christian (her new man) really loves me? He doesn’t scream at me and hit me like he is jealous of me when I go out with friends.
I don’t feel like he loves and needs me because he doesn’t take all my money. So what does she do? She leaves the good Christian for another worldly man, but for another man that is just like the first one, one who beats her up, one who takes all she makes, and one who prohibits her from going anywhere. Believe it or not I have had to deal with this situation in real life many times! But I am telling you this story with the comparison of the churches treatment of you in mind.
10. Regina and I have seen many people come here to our church and receive nothing but love and material help, and encouragement, and we have even spent many days with people in the hospitals, days helping people move their furniture, days helping people with the courts problems and papers and problems when no one else would… only to see later they would decide that they wanted to go to another church where they could give their time and 10%? What kind of a betrayal is that? People come to Captain Regina and I because they know we are available, but these other pastors are never available!
Abuse doesn’t come from just pastors; it also comes from people who abuse the pastors! Regina and I have been heartbroken by these Judases who only came to steal our time and money however they could. We have cried many times for people who have not stayed under Jesus true authority in their lives but they preferred to go back into their old habits and another so called ‘real’ church.
Let’s look up …2 Tim 4:3-5
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
Do not be conformed to circumstances nor customs of the world. Those that abuse and those not stopping abuse both become guilty.
11. Self realization Point 3
Those that come to church not to worship God but only to get material gain are the ones that usually end up being exploited and getting what they have aspired taken away just for having their wrong ambitions.
Jesus compares himself as a Husband in relation to us, and we are His bride. We should be faithful to Him, dedicated only to Him, but there are some people that are not dedicated like a wife, but are like lover. They want to give only a little time to God, or a little money with the hopes that they will buy what they want in return. It does not work that way. God is not a man to get fooled.
People reap what they sew. Those that get into the Christian life in order to try to get what they can from the church usually end up letting some false church use them with the idea they are actually getting something! There are multitudes of business scams and now church scams. When you see a sign that says, “Work from home, make thousands a month”, do you believe it? There are dumb people, like sheep to the slaughter who contact theses places. They say, well, you need to send us your money and then you will get our products. Then you, after trying to sell products day and night and making almost $100 a week and seeing that selling 10 times more is almost impossible, you suddenly realize you got into the wrong business. I would almost bet that most of us here have lost money on some strange business that really was not a legitimate one sometime or another, right? False churches too promise great things but it is all a lie.
12. Do not be ambitious for gain.
Do not let another convince you that could be having more prosperity with them. If you do then you are being motivated by greed and God will reward you with poverty by allowing the greed of others to take away the little that you have!
It is enough hardship already just to live for so many people with barely being able to pay their bills and have enough money left over for food. And when I learn about Hispanic pastors (actually from all races!) that want not only the 10% but even a lot more so they can be richer and leave their people in poverty because they have been decieved, I get angry! They are not showing to the world a loving, caring uninterested in gain God, they are presenting a self seeking God who wants to oppress you playing on your guilt in order to manipulate you!
This is a concept of God that has plagued and destroyed us for centuries in all the false religions and kept us oppressed in the dark ages and it took many martyrs and burnings at the stake in order to free us from those people! We all must fight to expose abusive pastors, but the irony is most of the time thousands of dumb sheep follow them! Why is that? They are showing to the world a cruel God like that of the Oriental Religions; one where everyone is threatened, intimidated and oppressed; one where only they claim to have the truth, and all others are wrong, and if you leave them and their doctrine, then you are considered a heretic who will burn in hell! As for myself, after having loved and lived amongst the poor like I have seen in South American, I have a passionate disdain, disapproval, and dislike for false pastors who fleece the wool from the poor! Lets look up..
13. Prov 22:16-17
16 He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.
These are hard realities that we as Christians cannot be ignorant of. Remember in John 10…The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Here in the U.S.A. there are many churches where people are members that are just as domineering as the sects, and I never want to see any of you deceived by them; but rather I want you to be liberated from those that are oppressing! And you have a duty to educate them on the scriptures or the Lord will hold you responsible for not warning them of being deceived. Jesus came to give you life, not oppression!
There truly is the love of God here in this Salvation Army church, and His Holy Spirit is here, we have seen it and heard it from the testimonies of the miracles many times! Honestly, though, it does hurt me to know there are people who have the wrong idea of what Christianity is and a lack of an ability to discern between the false and the true and a lack of an ability to stand up for what is right!
As yourself, am I vulnerable? Am I weak in my walk with Christ and ignorant of the Word? Am I conforming to the practices of this world or am I interested in something for my self? Hear the conclusion…
14. I love this church and I believe it is one of the few churches that are still true to the gospel! We would not be here serving people day after day if we did not love the sheep. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep, he doesn’t try to find how the sheep can make him rich and famous by exploitation. The example Jesus gave us was as one who went out amongst the people and did loving acts of kindness, and each of you need to ask your self are you storing up treasures in the bank of heaven by doing God’s will serving in your Corps and church? Or are you coming to church for the wrong reasons and at risk to be deceived in the future?
Let’s pray…Lord help us to not be ignorant of the enemy’s devices, to not be a conformist to abuse, and to not be motivated by greed. God keep us from the wolves in sheep’s clothing, from the shepherds who are in it for the money, from the shepherds that oppress. God free us and make us submitted to You, the true shepherd.
