Living Journey

I am not sure how many of you have been following my posts on a certain other church? But this church is having a speaker called ‘Danny Steyne’. He is part of this ‘Great Awakening‘ and on that site there are some articles written by Steyne and others. One that caught my eye is ‘We have entered the Feast Of Tabernacles by Arthur Burt‘ and I would just like to say…. NOT!!

“We are not soon to enter the (Feast of Tabernacles); we have already entered it. Only those who have ears to hear will experience it. You must ‘come out’ before you can ever ‘enter in.’” Paraphrased, You must leave something old to arrive at something new. God wants to pour out the new wine, but will only pour it into the new wineskin - those prepared to receive.”

One key word from the above article that I will listen out for is ‘Third Day Company’, I haven’t researched this term yet but I will commit to memory this term. Maybe someone out there who reads this blog knows more about it?

Anyway concerning the ‘Feast of Tabernacles’ I am of the understanding that we enter into the fullness when His actual feet touch the Mount in Jerusalem, when He comes again just as He left.  (Of course there has been a shadow of this feast, there has also been a partial fulfillment (PDF File) when the Lord tabernacled with us in the flesh… and then we look forward to the prophetic fullness of that feast when the reign of Christ begins here on earth, prophecy is cyclical as well as lineal with the complete fruition promised to us of which we look forward to ultimately).  We wait for the 1000 years of the Kingdom to be established here on earth. Obviously the above quote supports ‘Kingdom Now‘ theology which teaches that we are in the 1000 years of the Rule of Christ now and that the 1000 years is allegorical and not literal.

To understand the differences see ‘Summary of Christian eschatological differences‘.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday, and she has just informed me, that after 26 years she and her husband has left their church!

What a shock! She is absolutely devastated and cannot believe what is happening in her church.

She was talking to me about a few concerns she and her husband had a few months ago, and had said that their church had done the whole purpose driven thing, and now they were getting into the ‘40 days of community’. She was all for the whole humanitarian driven thing. But something was missing, and she couldn’t put her finger on it.

This is all happened because of a new pastor and his wife had been put into their church with no-one electing him. They were just told from the ‘Apostolic leadership’…(hmmm…red flag) that they were to accept this new pastor with no questions asked and obviously no democratic election was applied in this situation. After reading a little bit about the church, it seems that this is the way the national apostolic body works.

Policies and denominational direction are determined by the National Leadership Team. The National Leadership Team meets several times each year to watch the progress of the church and consider matters before it.

The NLT plays the major role in setting corporate vision and providing general direction for the Apostolic Church Australia.

This new pastor and his wife — the wife by the way, insists on being called Pastor as well — has gone through the process of electing new leaders in the church and getting rid of the old pillars so to speak. This has divided the church and many have left because of these new changes.

A particular case in question was a woman who had been in the church only one week, was elected as a leader and took to the pulpit.

My friend was talking to me last night, and she kept saying she couldn’t put her finger on what was going on, or why this was happening. When I started to tell her about the Purpose Driven plan for Church growth and the way in which the changes come about she was absolutely amazed!

This includes that the ‘Old Pillars’ or as Rick Warren calls them ‘Resisters’ are to be identified first. Then it is to be determined what kind of effectiveness that those in opposition will have on the changes that the church needs to go through, this is the first step. Once identified and assessed they are to be marginalised, vilified and then suggested that they either be quite or they must move on (See Purpose Driven Resisters - Must Leave or Die Those who oppose the “program” are called leaders from hell) in this process some who are undecided are befriended and encouraged by those who have accepted this change. Once this stage has happened then there must new rules established that will silence all ‘Resisters’. This is exactly what is happening in my friends church. Once these so called ‘Resisters’ have either left or have been silenced you now have new ‘Change Agents’ in place and that is when you can change your church to the Purpose Driven Model. Well, from my reading of the ‘Apostolic Church’ constitution, the constitution was perfect for this kind of take over unfortunately. Know I understand why that particular church does not have membership, as it clearly does not follow ‘Congregationlist Polity‘.

When I was telling her these things, she said to me that this is the first that someone has made any sense of the situation. She said all the terminology I was using she was hearing from the pulpit. All the changes that I mentioned to her that have been introduced as the Purpose Driven Model, she was now witnessing the fruit of these changes and unfortunately she and her husband are now considered bad fruit.

She said the pastor and his wife have become so uncaring that they shout and demand certain things from their congregation without a care in the world. The pastor now has ‘yes’ men and women and can pretty much dictate whatever terms they want, all the people have been put in place so there is no resistance to any new move however unbiblical this move may be. She also said, and this was the part that hurts her most, that when they told the pastor and his wife they were leaving the church, the pastor did not even seem to care on iota.

After all these years, 26 years she kept saying to me.

Please pray for her and her husband, I have sent some material from ‘Lighthouse‘ and ‘Dominionism and the Rise of Christian Imperialism‘. I told her that I would find some material for her to read and she was grateful. But what I have sent will not tickle the ears, and will be hard to hear. I pray that they will both be Bereans and search the scriptures to see if what they were involved with was in any way biblical, and I pray that they will continue to be Bereans and test all things according to scripture.

That is pretty much how I ended my email. A lot is riding on this, they have come to a cross road, or perhaps they have seen this particular scripture be fulfilled within their own church community.

Mat 24:11-12 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Update: I am not sure how many of you have been following my posts on a certain other church? But this church is having a speaker called ‘Danny Steyne’. He is part of this ‘Great Awakening‘ and on that site there are some articles written by Steyne and others. One that caught my eye is ‘We have entered the Feast Of Tabernacles by Arthur Burt‘ and I would just like to say…. NOT!!

“We are not soon to enter the (Feast of Tabernacles); we have already entered it. Only those who have ears to hear will experience it. You must ‘come out’ before you can ever ‘enter in.’” Paraphrased, You must leave something old to arrive at something new. God wants to pour out the new wine, but will only pour it into the new wineskin - those prepared to receive.”

One key word from the above article that I will listen out for is ‘Third Day Company’, I haven’t researched this term yet but I will commit to memory this term. Maybe someone out there who reads this blog knows more about it?

Anyway concerning the ‘Feast of Tabernacles’ I am of the understanding that we enter that feast when the reign of Christ begins here on earth, when His actual feet touch the Mount in Jerusalem, when He comes again just as He left. This is the 1000 years of the Kingdom here on earth. Obviously the above quote supports ‘Kingdom Now‘ theology which teaches that we are in the 1000 years of the Rule of Christ now and that the 1000 years is allegorical and not literal.

To understand the differences see ‘Summary of Christian eschatological differences‘.

Update:

My friends were so grateful for the links I provided in the email I sent them, now they have realised that there are so many hurting people within the body of Christ.  Continue to pray for them and God’s Church.