Fwd: Is that you, God?
naboth675
<naboth675@...> wrote:
When confronted by a fellowship where all the ministers are saying
the
same thing on so many issues then there are two conclusions to be
drawn.
1 - They are a fellowship that are hearing from God.
2 - Their is a rigid system of conformity which ensures uniform
belief.
The problem comes when people with little of no understanding of how
religion works opt for the first choice.
You will find that there is much uniformity within certain
denominations yet those groups differ on many areas of doctrine with
The Potters House. Given the difference between these groups it is
safe to assume that they can't all be hearing from God. Is there
such
a thing then as one group that hears from God perfectly and all the
others can be dismissed as 'being in error'?
Believing something like this can put a person at risk of making the
same mistake again after leaving a Potters House church.
In the fellowship I was taught that if you had the Holy Spirit you
would know the doctrine, whether it be of God or not. However after
a
number of years and considerable reading I realised that among the
most off key religious groups were Pentecostals {these are the ones
most claiming to hear from God.}
Because I saw uniformity in other christian groups that were
different
to our own I realised that the argument that 'all our ministers are
saying the same thing therefore must be hearing from God' just
didn't
hold any water.
Given that the fellowship has in place a very rigid discipleship
programme and that most fellowship churches can trace their roots
back
to Prescott in 3 steps or less and that around the world the
churches
came together for bible conferences and these conferences tended to
have the same central people in the fellowship as the main speakers
it
was clear that this was a unity of uniformity and not of the Spirit.
Another thing that became clear was that people generaly did not
hear
from God at all but heard from leaders who claimed to hear from God.
This makes it very difficult and intimidating for anyone to think
independantly of the group for fear of being in error. {After all,
how
can you disagree with God?} A related problem comes when a person
believes they heard from God and it doesn't fit the mould of
fellowship teaching. It is dismissed as 'not of God' and that person
may be suspected of 'having another spirit' and sowing false
doctrine
among the sheep. Therefore if you think you are hearing from God
then
it will very likely be in line with what the fellowship is saying
generaly.
I also noticed that alomost anything can be attributed to God if it
is
in line with fellowship teaching. This was true at U.K bible
conferences where top speakers like Harold Warner and Wayman
Mitchell
would preach regurgitated versions of old Foursquare doctrines and
people would be in awe of these men for their biblical exegesis.
{'This man has the mind of God' was the cry.}
When people claim that God was speaking to them I began to notice
how
suspiciously it was worded just as a fellowship leader would say it.
I
knew a young lady in my old church who had been there a few months.
The subject of television had been discussed and within a couple of
weeks she came to church declaring that 'God has DEALT WITH ME to
GET
RID of my television. The similarity between her speech and the
pastors was unmistakable. She never even suggested she could hear
from
God before yet now she was speaking with confidence. It was just so
clearly wrong.
The problem is seriously exacebated by the hyper confidence which
pastors are encouraged to have. This creates a false perception that
they know what they are doing. However when you have seen the king
of
hype and exitement himself, Ernie Toppin virtualy go into
convulsions
about how God is going to bring revival and then get kicked out of
the 'building of destiny' then you can grow confident in the
knowledge
that this is little more than a religious circus.
My opinion is that so much of the so called voice of God is whipped
up
in emotionaly driven services and an overreliance on an over
confident
minister. Just because they are all saying the same thing it doesn't
mean they are hearing from God. In fact just about every authority
in
a communist state says the same thing. Do we conclude that they are
hearing fom God or should we conclude what is far more likely. They,
like us were living in a controlled environment.
regards...naboth675
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