Reviewing a short collections of stories from this week...

::::::::

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. - Romans 1:16 (ESV)

Click Here

The ebb and flow of heretical news coming out from the NAR apostate church is very unpredictable. It seems sometimes we cannot find something worth writing about that has not already been discussed a dozen times. Then other times it seems we are bombarded with smaller stories that deserve some attention but maybe not a full blown devotional. We usually scrape these stories up like gum off the pavement and consolidate them into a weekly special. This is one of those weeks that saw several stories that we should be aware of as followers of Christ who seek to discern. So let us reason once more together.

Let's start with a lesson to be learned from pastors who continue to fall from grace and the Purpose Driven Industrial Complex that tries to get them back to work as soon as possible. We have seen this over and over again. Ted Haggard, was caught having a decades long relationship with a male hooker who he liked to do crystal meth with while head of the National Association of Evangelicals. Yeah, he came back pretty quickly into church leadership again. Mark Driscoll stole $200,000 from tithes, cheated the NY Time Bestseller List, abused staff, and talked about his victims as a "pile of dead bodies under the Mars Hill Church bus" and then ran off in the dead of night to avoid church discipline. He of course was ushered back into the fold a short time later. Recently, we heard that Carl Lentz, who had multiple affairs including seducing the family babysitter to have sex in the bed he shared with his wife, is now back again. Maybe we ought to start listening to people who actually worked with these hirelings and swear to us they are unfit for ministry. Cause we were told that on all of them and James MacDonald as well.

MacDonald was once the darling of the evangelical world and in full disclosure I used to enjoy some of his writing through daily devotionals. Of course, I did not know behind the scenes he was an angry, abusive pastor with gambling problems, and accusations of financial abuse of the church as well. I only heard about that when he was caught on a hot mic wishing he could plant child pornography on a rival's computer. After being kicked out of his own church by elders who declared him unfit for ministry, MacDonald would soon try and make a comeback. To this day, I still get fundraising emails from him, but I did not want to fund whatever his next big bet would be on. Perhaps those who knew him best knew better than the rest of us though because MacDonald was arrested recently for allegedly attacking a 59-year-old woman over a minor traffic incident. The story says that MacDonald struck a car with his truck while trying to parallel park. The woman got out of the car to speak to him when he attacked her. Witnesses had to come to the woman's aid. James faces seven years in prison if convicted. Now, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but this story sounds in line with who we now know James MacDonald to be. I only bring this story up because it is vitally important that we discern properly, who we are going to follow and listen to. The bible gives us qualifications for pastors for a reason. We ignore them at our own peril. Mark Driscoll, Ted Haggard and Carl Lentz are disqualified. James MacDonald is disqualified. So is Brian Houston before anyone gets any ideas. Mind you they were all disqualified for the false gospels they preached but the events surrounding each of them was God exposing them and sadly, many simply refuse to listen.

That brings us to sunny story number two, which exposes the unbiblical nature of how the apostate church pretends to be doing the Lord's work. For this we travel down to Oklahoma and ironically enough the church Carl Lentz has landed at recently, Transformation Church (TC) and Pastor Michael Todd. For their Easter service TC put on a play that was widely criticized for its luridness and unchristlike overtones. This included scenes of girls twerking on the altar, I mean stage. The production also contained many secular songs including one called "Die Young" by Ke$ha, which include these reverent lyrics commemorating the victory Jesus won for us on Calvary:

Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die young

We're gonna die young

We're gonna die young

Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die young

Let's make the most of the night like we're gonna die

Young hunks, taking shots

Stripping down to dirty socks

Music up, gettin' hot

Kiss me, give me all you've got

It's pretty obvious that you've got a crush (you know)

That magic in your pants, it's making me blush (for sure)

Yes, we all remember Jesus preaching from the mount about the magic in our pants don't we? Right after the section on celebrating the defeat of sin by shaking our posteriors in a sexually suggestive manner? No? Me neither. It turns out that Pastor Todd has never done a Resurrection Sunday sermon, so he instead wanted to put on a play that went "right to the edge." When asked for clarification he said, "We gonna' do everything short of sin.'" Well, you can start by going to a basic English class while you consider that you missed your own mark so pitifully. Look, there is simply no defense of this beloved. None. This is the biggest day in our faith! The day that Jesus defeats the grave! The day He rises to allow us to be reconnected to the Father and you choose to use sin, sex, and the world to "celebrate?" If that was bad enough it was not the reason why I wrote about it because I actually passed over this story a few days ago. Not today, because now Todd has the audacity and poor understanding of theology to publicly declare that 500 people were saved through this debacle. Let that sink in for a minute because if you think that is even vaguely possible, then you need to get out of your own apostate church.

I am trying to understand why anyone would think this is remotely plausible. Was someone weighing their sin and then when they saw the twerking the Holy Spirit convicted them? Was the worship set that day insufficient to consider Christ but once they heard Ke$ha singing about stripping down to dirty socks they decided to give their lives over? C'mon. as patently stupid this all is, it does reveal what the apostate church does to dupe its followers. I am assuming that TC held an altar call after the production where they mangled a short prayer and asked people to raise their hands if they wanted their own personal, cosmic bus boy - Jesus wing man. They counted the hands raised and reported 500 did so. All that really happened, assuming they are telling the truth, is that 500 people raised their hands. No one got saved. NO ONE. How can we be so sure? Because the key verse teaches us that the only thing that has the power of salvation unto God is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, TC claims the production, "showed how God's love conquered sin, death and the grave."

No, it did not. Look, this is not a game. Once King David had someone carry the ark who was not in the tribe God had set out and that man was struck dead. In the Book of Acts, we see Ananias and his wife Sapphira struck dead by God for mixing the holy and the profane. That is all this was. It was a secular play, with secular music, designed to fool a Christian audience. God does not work that way. We need to be more discerning that when mega-churches brag about their salvations or baptisms - nothing has changed in the heavenlies. Nothing.

Next up are three stories from the NAR Dominionist corner of the church, trumpeted on Charisma News this week. The dominionist wing of the apostate church is fully co-opted and owned by the Republican Party in this country as we will see in these stories. The first article was from Larry Tomczak, a notorious shill for Donald Trump and the grand old party. After the usual slanted article disguised as having something to do with Christians, it was Tomczak's summary that caught my attention:

"Here's the Deal: Amidst relentless attacks, Trump never gives up. May we emulate his example as we pray for him and our nation in this time of chaos. Let us repent as the people of Nineveh did and remember Jeremiah's words, "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?" (Jer.12:5)." - Larry Tomczak

Nineveh eventually recanted their repentance and were summarily destroyed. That aside, did you notice whose example Larry thinks Christians should emulate? Donald Trump's! It is rare that these charlatans say the quiet part out loud! We of course are to try to emulate Jesus Christ, not Donald Trump. This is one of the core heresies of the dominionist teachings within the church today. It worships man, not God. It violates the very first commandment! I do not have to get into how morally compromised Larry Tomczak's idol is because this can be any man. Even Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Younkin, for example.

Younkin is story number two. In an effort to prop up their politicians, dominionists such as Charisma News have to delude you into thinking they are all championing the cause of Christ. This week it was publicly announced and discussed on Charisma that Younkin was donating this quarter of his Governor salary, about $43,000 to an organization that spreads the gospel to the incarcerated. Sounds benign enough until you dig a little. First of all, Matthew teaches us to not discuss our good works publicly for then we have already received our reward. Secondly, Younkin famously rolled back crime reforms and essentially fought for laws to jail more people. So, it strikes me as a tad hypocritical to force more people into jail and then act like you are concerned about them. Now maybe some do not care as long as the lost are reached but this smells bad not to mention we know nothing about the organization that got the 43K because chances are they serve the apostate purpose driven church. Once again, without the real gospel, no one gets saved. Just to put a cherry on top of this story I assume some will not care because after all, isn't it sweet that someone is spending their own money to help people? Even Charisma News couched this story in the scripture of a cheerful giver! The problem is, this is the same scam that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Donald Trump ran. Glenn Younkin is worth over 470 million dollars. That's why he promised when campaigning to donate his salary. Either way, when dominionists prop up people to venerate remember that God will have no other gods before Him.

That brings us to the final story from the dominionists and for this devotional. It is a rare story about a false prophet who has given a date for his false prophecy to come true and that date was yesterday. It is the linked story above. This false prophet is named Albert Milton. I know, I had never heard of him either. Here are some quotes from the article with some observations:

"But author and prophet Albert Milton, who has over 124,000 YouTube subscribers, says that today, April 20, something will happen within the walls of the U.S. Congress that he says will shake the nation and bring "settlements" to crucial issues facing the American people, including the plight of former President Donald Trump." - Charisma News

Hmm, paint me a little skeptical but this is pretty vague. It is nice that he gives a date, which of course has passed without anything happening. He provides some specifics that include shaking the nation and settlements to crucial issues facing the nation and the former president. Yet none of that happened yesterday. It was a pretty quiet day actually.

'"This is just one more milestone towards the freedom and liberty and vindication and settlements. The word 'settlements' is the word God gave to me," Milton told Charisma News' John Matarazzo in a recent interview. "He says, 'I'll bring settlements in, in regards to President Trump. I'm going to use the House of Representatives for this.'" - Charisma News

Uh-huh, God gave this to you? The creator of the universe is somehow concerned with the happenings in Donald Trump's life? Is God aware that the House cannot settle anything? That is not the way our country works. But ok, he is doubling down on the specificity. This brilliantly shows why most false prophets never dare give a date or specifics like this.

'"No, I'm not nervous about this. At the end of the day, God wants us to prophesy what needs to happen, and God really gives us the dates as well. So for me, God told me that on April 20, tell the people, to prepare the people, and to release the faith, to speak to the mountains and to see them disappear. That's the kind of faith I'm operating"a prophetic anointing mixed with faith and then to speak to the nation to say what needs to happen to the nation."' - Charisma News

God does not need us to do anything, let alone falsely prophesy about things He has or has not said. This obvious partisan nature of these alleged prophecies reveal that God cannot be behind them. Such as this nonsense:

'"God told me that He is going to use a lot of the people in the House of Representatives; that He would raise them up in this time and season," Milton says. "God has spoken to me about many of those in Congress, like Sen. Josh Hawley, Rep. Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene and others. God specifically told me to pray for them and pray for their protection, to pray that they have wisdom and knowledge and that they lead from God so that they can do exactly what God wants them to do.' - Charisma News

'"I strongly believe that on April 20, right now, President Trump is going through a lot of legal challenges. I believe strongly and personally that God spoke to me and that He is using the House of Representatives, specifically men like Jim Jordan, on the day of the 20th, in a specific way, to bring the truth out to bring settlement in the nation and to clear up what President Trump is going through right now.' - Charisma News

Hawley, Jordan and Greene are not representatives for Jesus Christ. They are however idols of the dominionist apostate church. I only highlight this story because of its absurdity and because this false prophet is now on the record. I cannot wit to see how he tries to pretend this came true.

Reverend Anthony Wade - April 21, 2023

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.