Received on the CWM COMMENTS Board (Go to http://www.c-w-m.org/archives/Entre/cwmguest.php)in July 2002.

We thank & praise God for your ministry of TRUTH, we have been blessed today by coming across your web site for the first time. The Lord has been confirming many of our queries especially the AOG churches! We admire your boldness in confronting heresies as our hearts grieve for the Body of Christ to "hear what the Holy Spirit is crying out for the deaf to hear!"
We hunger & thirst for more of the TRUTH and look forward to learning more from CWM, CEFT & VANGUARD ministries.

Africa:

While TB Joshua and others are practis(c?)ing their wares the 'The Times Saturday' newspaper (www.timesonline.co.uk/travel)is promoting tours to various parts of Africa. Largely due to the UN declaring and International Year of Eco-tourism. Amondst all the activities one would expect - watching elephants, lions. Helping with crop planting/harvesting. Go on fishing trips. - there is the explanation of folk medicine and associated applications. Refer other article.

'The Times' article will certainly encourage to take a tour to these areas, and goodness knows, they need the money. However it will bring people into contact with new type of non-Christian religion(s).

This means we need to be ever vigilant and not tire.

Latest Magazine

However they also have a gem or two in questioning some of the practices and utterances of Religious groups.

Let me give you some examples:
May 2002

• - Microchip for humans being touted as solution for crime, lost children.
• - "living in sin" the problem for evangalism
• Pastor Bruce Puddle and a definition of Christianity. Where does accepting Jesus Christ as saviour fit in with this?

June 2002

• Creation being taught in a UK school
• Reasons to believe in Jesus #1

July 2002

• Reasons to believe in Jesus #2

August 2002

• Why are you a Christian? Rev Ian Lawton and Buddists.
• Interesting letters concerning Darwinism and evolution. Mentions "Man, Science & God" by Prof John Morton and "How Blind is the Watchmaker?" by Prof Neil Broom

Want to subscribe? Thought you might! http://www.investigatemagazine.com

spruik - verb

(i) Colloquial 1. to harangue or address a meeting: *This time, the candidates will be forced to return to basics - door-knocking, baby-kissing, glad-handing during street-walks, visits to shopping malls and pubs, perhaps street-corner spruiking - WEST AUSTRALIAN, 1992

2. to harangue prospective customers to entice them into a show, strip joint, shop, etc.: *In Chinatown they are now subtly spruiking for custom. - HERALD, 1990 [origin uncert.; ? from D spreken speak]-spruiker n.

LETTER of Encouragement

Thank you for the updates on the current "trends" in the Church.

I was attending a Sunday service at a local Penticostal Church fellowship in Campbelltown recently. A visiting "evangelist" preached a message about " stepping UP in God".The whole drift of it was how to be a success and to aim for leadership. No servanthood was mentioned only a me centered " God wants you to go beyond what you can do to what you can't do " in order to bless you,etc. Tithing was mentioned many times and " robbing God " etc.

There was no Lord's Table at the meeting at all and THREE times the "bucket" was passed around. The Pastor and wife also led the collections personally for some reason. At the end of the altar call the "evangelist" gave a personal prophecy to the pastor saying "You will pick up a pen and bring stability to the churches in Australia "

Brian Huston was praised several times and a "jolly good time was had by all " but actually it is sad. The Bride seems to have left her bridal chamber and gone to a disco for a bit of lite relief But Thanks be to the Lord of the Church His True Bride is preparing herself.

A friend of mine has lost his wife to this fellowship.She can now ( sadly )be seen in this fellowship every meeting waving a large flag at appropiate times during the services while her estranged husband tries to survive daily living out his life in Christ serving others instead of self.

Alas another casualty of progressive techno- church. ( Names and ministers involved are withheld unless required )

In His Love

A.L. Australia

COMMENTS

From Gillian at***@msn.com

In these days of apostacy, apathy and an anodyne Gospel, I wish to encourage you in your service for the Lord and your exposition of the whole counsel of God, quite a refreshing change!..Those who would have you to be unloving and unforgiving brethren, need to be reminded that Love ''rejoiceth in the truth!'' ( 1 Cor13: 6 ) and that forgiveness is based upon confession ( 1Jn 1: 9 ), and can only come from the party wronged, ''if he repent'' or ''turn to thee'' for forgiveness, as Jesus says in Luke 17 vs 3,4...and Paul in 2 Cor.2: 10 makes it clear that he forgave those whom others had ''already'' forgiven, for Christ''s sake....Many times the scriptures direct us to admonish our brethren, and to accept chastisement as sons of the living God, not to is to ''despise'' ones own soul ( Prov 15: 32 )and the goodness and love of God (Job 5: 17,Prov 3: 11, Heb 12: 5) and he who despises , despises God Himself says 1Thess 4: 8. Our goal must be ga! in the lost at any cost yes, but that ''any cost'' cannot mean at the cost of the truth of scripture, for it is the word that saves and brings regeneration ( Rom 1: 16 , 1 Pet 1: 23 ). If we do not preach God as He is, the ''Judge of all the earth'' aswell as ''Love'' then we fail that goal. The love of God is perfected in those who KEEP His word, says 1Jn 2:5...Seeds of error cannot we watered with truth, truth has to be watered with truth, or truth maybe watered DOWN with error.The Word of God is a piercing sword aswell as a comfort, it is wrath aswell as mercy and judgement begins at the house of God. How unloving it is to leave out these verses and watch the flock, the easily led sheep, the silly women laden with sins, the ear tickler lovers, and even those who profess a good witness and make a bold stand, follow the hireling shephereds into the wildreness to be devoured as prey. The love of God rejoices in the truth of God , and it may well get to the point where l! ike David and other saints of old and even Christ Himself, that those who make the stand are forsaken and left. BUT Jesus said HE would never leave us nor forsake us, and therein lies our comfort! I pray that the Lord will use you mightily to the pulling down of these strongholds of error of the enemy, dangerous poison, doctrines of devils, and that many would have their eyes opened to God''s love in truth. For God indeed is such wondefful love! God Bless you brethren and may you be rewarded with His riches for the work that you do for Him.

...Love in our Lord from a sister in Christ.

LETTER

This situation is so prevalent in the church today that I am about ready to throw my hands up and do nothing but home church in order to teach my family the truth of the Word of God without the perversion of prosperity and self adulation taking over.

I have tried consistently in four different churches(Presbyterian to Pentacostal) to speak the truth in love and point out the errors in these false teachings

...only to be patted on the head and told that I just don't understand the deeper mysteries of the Spirit or told that I am divisive and if I can't come under the vision of my pastor perhaps I should find another church.

I have tried to explain to my pastors that this is not the thinking of a true Sheperd that believes what he is teaching because a true sheperd would want to protect and instruct the sheep(care for them the way Christ instructed them too)

My heart breaks for the errant pastors and the flocks they are leading and I pray that the Lord will open the hearts and eyes of those believers truely seeking him that are caught up in this deception.

Thank-you for the opportunity to vent,

Sincerely, M. in Yakima, a small agricultural community in Eastern Washington.

LETTER

I realize that you probably receive many many emails, and do not have the time to read and respond to all of them. Nevertheless, I do wish to thank you, as I thank the Lord, for your ministry, and your website. They have been a tremendous resource of clarity, strength and light for me as I wrestle with some disturbing issues in my own local body.

I would also like to share with you my situation, in the hopes that you, or someone you know can provide me with Godly counsel, or point me to a resource which can help (along with, of course, much study, prayer and trust in Him who saved me). I am a bible teacher and member of the worship team at medium sized independent Pentacostal church, but which has close ties with both the AoG and the Church of God, Cleveland Tennessee. OUr senior pastor, who is now mostly retired, held AoG credentials at one time ( I do not know the circumstance of his leaving AoG), and his son, who is the current pastor, studied at Jimmy Swaggart's bible college in Baton Rouge, LA (Before Bro. Swaggart's unfortunate decline).

What has concerned me for some time is the dangerous line our church leadership and members of the body are walking as regards the teachings of Copeland, Hagin et al., as well as the apostasy and deception of the Brownsville and Toronto debacles. Some things taught from the pulpit bothered me (such as prosperity preaching, binding and loosing, desire for manifestations of the Spirit) as does the unscriptural use of tongues and "slaying in the Spirit". Like many others, I suspect, although the Holy Spirit was bearing witness to my spirit, I managed to apologize for this behavior, or excuse it. This was made even easier to do because the pastor and his wife are close personal friends of my wife and I. Likewise, much of this teaching and practice is not excessive (in relative terms, knowing that a little leaven leavens the whole lump), to the point in which I felt compelled to say anything. To add to the difficulty I had in responding to the Lord on this matter, is that I know the character of the elders, and the pastors, and know them to be sincere in their devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. The pastor is a true pastor in his devotion to the flock in terms of service, and rarely have I met so giving and sincere a person in the body.

However, I have prayed for a "Berean mind" so to speak, for some time, and wisdom to discern. To my joy and yet to my hurt, the Lord has faithfully answered my prayer. So much so, that I now know that i will have to confront these issues with my pastor. I do not look forward to that from a human perspective. Yet I know that I must also be faithful to the calling of the Lord. We have so many also in our body who drink from the polluted fountain of TBN, and sit under the teachings of false teachers and prophets via TV, book and tape. I would ask first of all for your prayers that His will be done in this matter, and also that the Lord might open the eyes and ears of my pastor and his family. Secondly, what advice or counsel would you give to someone as awkwardly placed as myself who has a necessary but hard task to do? I am concerned out of love for my brethren, and my pastor, yet I am afraid this will not be as evident as it should be. In short, it is a troublesome and confusing situation. Thank you for taking the time o read this, and I hope that you might be able to be of some help to me (even if it is to pray- what greater help can we give one another sometimes?).

Your fellowservant in Christ Jesus,

J. D.