Dear Saints ,

a word of caution on New Age spirituality influencing Christian leadership. I'm curious and open to hear what you think about these things

Elder Raymond -Open Door Fellowship
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/secure/cwnetwork/article.php?&ArticleID=613

April 3, 2006

Dear Raymond,

The closing paragraph of the article you sent me on how Middle Eastern spirituality is influencing modern day Christianity sums up my view well on what is happening across a broad path. It reads...

"The church of Jesus Christ is facing spiritual seduction on an unprecedented scale. The Word of God is no longer viewed as sufficient and Christians are running after anything that will give them an exciting experience. Truth no longer matters, feelings do. Our children are being trained in pagan practices in their church youth groups. Major leaders are now willing to promote practices that 25 years ago were only being engaged in by Roman Catholic, Buddhist and Hindu monks. More than ever before, discernment is the need of the hour. May the Holy Spirit grant this discernment to the remnant of believers who stand against this tidal wave of error." [Nicholas says AMEN]

This very thing is strongly evidenced in Benny Hinn gatherings and every subsequent AOG affiliation afterwards that he largely influenced and was accepted by. Many today are looking only for signs and wonders and when spiritual power is evidenced, whether real or staged, the spectators are drawn up like starved children who jump at a morsel of food. There also is a spiritual connection to why this heresy has crept into other movements like the Pentecostal orders. Because the desire for the supernatural is so strong in western society (just look at the current wave in America). Most everyone left what was firmly grounded in the Word which once afforded them discernment, protection, guidance, reproof and verification, for the more readily seen "miracle-like" manifestation of supposed healings, laughing, falling down, twisting and contorting one's body uncontrollably and the wierd "slithering of one's tongue" as though a "snake" had possessed an individual. With the manifestation of such signs the "preachers" of heresy are then able to spread their seeds of contempt and fill the hearers ears and eyes with nothing but deception.

During Christ's ministry, people responded much the same way and scattered easily when tested. After feeding and healing thousands, there still was only 120 persons initially gathered in an upper room awaiting "pentecost." Professing Christians are being tested today by God and many are failing the tests. The wheat is being sifted and separated from the chaff and soon, only the good wheat will be put away in the barn but all else that is foreign will be swept up and cast into the fire. This is what is wrong with AOG leaders, straying Pentecostals and Four-Square groups as well as all the other more popular charismatic groups. Just look at how wide the path is and how many can travel it and then contrast that with how many are only willing to stay on the very narrow path that only Christ walked. It won't look or be any different than what the Word foretells or establishes so there is no way to justify any contrasting doctrine or movement because the Word judges it and judges all men confessing one thing with their lips but seen doing another. Either believers are firmly grounded in the TRUE pattern of God's Son or they are as wind tossed waves producing foam as they are blown to and fro.

Add to that the centuries long ecumenical movement of the RCC and its pharisee-like traditions and rituals spiced with mystical apparitions and incorporating the modern charismatic movements into its "come one - come all" attitude of "universiality," enjoining all faiths and you end up with an "end-days" church worthy only of being spat out of God's mouth. Many are like cattle or swine - just put hooks in their noses and lead them to the slaughter-house to be butchered. Those that are being tested are miserably failing and will likely be slaughtered if they don't repent from Satan's delusions, signs and wonders. "Discernment is Crucial for Survival."

I really believe that among the list of problems in today's society with respect to contemporary Christianity is that most are too lazy to read the Bible for themselves and it is easier to hear what another man will have to say on the subject. If that man is likable then he is generally accepted and received and all that he says is often believed. The second problem is that the gospel of salvation today has somehow become a selfish pursuit promising selfish rewards when in actuality the gospel of Christ crucified is really a "selfless" gospel promising great rewards only to those who give their lives for others thereby making many sacrifices and enduring real suffering after the very pattern that Jesus demonstrated. Salvation was never intended to save the person you are or were apart from Christ -NO - Salavation is offered only to those who lay down their lives for others thereby becoming "living and holy sacrifices" as Jesus so demonstrated and the Apostles so exhorted.

With all sincerity and love for the truth
Nicholas

My dear brother Nicholas,


Greetings from God our Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our hope!

I can only say that the same Spirit that shows me His light seems to also show the same to you. For the last several years it has been made clear to me that are two women in view in these days before the Day of Christ. One is a brazen, arrogant, self serving wicked harlot who sees God the Father as the means to the fulfillment of her own selfish desires. She seeks material things not as a means to serve God but for her own selfish pleasures and these pleasures surely have become the idols of her heart and a stumbling block before her face. She also seeks idols of power (earthly-political , i.e. "dominion theology", "christian reconstructionism", thinking that the Lord cannot return until the church takes political control of the planet, religious-hierachial , as in RCC teaching or more recently self appointed "apostles and prophets" who parade themselves about speaking words with authority that God never spoke and pseudo-spiritual or soulish given fully over to the adultery of false signs and wonders , not taking the time to or deliberately ignoring the Lord's commands to "examine everything carefully" (1 Thess 5:21) or the admonition that " ...he that is spiritual judges [examines] all things..." (1 Cor 2:15). All such people are sadly mistaken. It grieves my spirit to see so many taken in by the wickedness so clearly manifest today. This harlot pseudo church is what is visible and lives to be happy in this present life and bows down to the idol of happiness and personal self fulfillment. She samples daily of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil deceived even to think that she is eating from the tree of life. She shuns the Cross and thinks somehow that Christ died to make her happy rather than to make her holy. She knows nothing of the teaching of union with Christ in His death and that true intimacy with Christ means sharing His suffering. Did not our Master say "
John 6:53, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves." ?

the harlot who shall one day ride the beast shuns the Cross because it will kill her and she wants to live and rule . This spiritual Jezebel is all around us brother Nicholas She lusts after power and position and imagines herself a queen , even equal with God . She is an earthly caricature of what the Lord calls church. She seeks entertainment rather than edification. She compromises rather than corrects. She is a ***** whose idols are large numbers in the pews, no matter what their spiritual state, and the admiration of men. She seeks satiation rather than service . For her long ago Truth was slain long ago on the altar of expediency. She would kill the Lord again in whom she professes to believe and by her deeds she does crucify Him afresh and put Him to open shame. This harlot is the tares among the wheat, the bad fish caught in the net with the good, and she will be left behind when those who embrace the Cross are taken. ( See Matthew 13:24-30, 47-50, and 24:40-44)

This is what the Lord spoke to my wife and I a few years ago The word cries out to us :

2 Cor 6: 17 "Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.

18 "And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

Nicholas , and it was not about coming out of the "world" but coming out of what is recognized as "the church"

and so we plead with God to keep us from apostasy and from embracing the harlot while we reach out to the precious remnant that remains in her midst , to call them out into narrow way of life.

for this is also true and a command of God is in it to "come out" again

Rev 18: 4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive of her plagues;

5 for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

6 "Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.

7 "To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ' I SIT as A QUEEN AND I AM NOT A WIDOW, and will never see mourning.'

8 "For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong."

Con't Pt II

Continued Part II

What shall be done then my brother? Only this , we must cry day and night to cling to the Truth as His remnant Bride, the few in whom the Son of Man , when He comes, will find faith on the earth. The Bride embraces the Cross, she is a fearless witness, she loves the embrace of prayer , knows her position in Christ and knows it is by the sheer mercy and grace of God that she remains there . She has seen all too often and all too clearly the end of those branches which bear no fruit . She has wept as she has seen them wither, be broken off , and become fuel for the fire. She fears God intensely not because she fears condemnation but becauses she knows that apart from the complete weakness of death to her own will and utter dependence on Christ she will fall into the harlot's ways. She has read of the harlot women of old "Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister." (Ezekiel 23) , she has read of the Israelites and the golden calf,(Exodus 32), and Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:19-40) . She rejoices in the correction of the Father becauses she knows it makes her more to be desired by the One she loves, Jesus the Savior of the World, and because it assures her that the Father loves her. She will embrace martyrdom for the Lord's sake if need be because she knows that her real life is in Christ and not in the earthly realm. She knows that there is no crown without a cross, and she accepts it not even to gain a crown for herself , but only that by so doing she may , in the tender mercies of her Father, cast it one day at the feet of the One she longs for with overwhelming anticipation. She rejoices in her salvation not even because she is saved from the lake of fire so much as because it brings the Father and Son glory . She says together with the two Moravian brothers " That the Lamb of God may see the reward of His suffering and be satisfied" . She would serve the Master even if He sent her to hell simply because she loves Him and because He is worthy of all service, praise , glory and honor.

Rev. 5:12 saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing."

13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, " To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever."



May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit both now and unto the end of the age,

in the love of the Father , the embrace of the Son, and in the mercy and concern of Holy Spirit

Look up for your redemption draws nigh!

Raymond, a small servant of the great God

April 4, 2006

Beloved Brother Raymond,

That was a beautiful testimony and one that I fully embrace and acknowledge as being genuine!

I bid you and your beloved the shalom that surpasses all understanding in your love and obedience to our Lord's selfless pattern of righteousness. I received with overwhelming joy your letter of confirmation regarding the duel image of what is called Christ's Church. I too, like you also heard directly from our Master and Lord to come out from among them. At the time it was so shocking and so different than what I was taught in my then current paradigm - I needed further confirmation.

Messengers came from afar over the course of two years exhorting the same while I struggled with abusive practices and hypocrisy in the mainstream fellowships I was then involved with. These men were strangers to me and each other but both said, "I've been looking for you," and the second at one point hugged me (six months later), kissing me on the cheek after I made a choice to depart from the mainstream and he said, "I've been waiting for this moment son, know that you are forgiven." As most true messengers have done, once the mission at hand was completed, he moved on to continue carrying out the commission God granted him. Then God punctuated His Word with what Paul had exhorted long ago with a qualifying statement...

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 "I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person."

I then understood as you did, the exhortation was not to come out of the world but to depart from the harlot church who is still to this day - a harlot of harlots! I also became strangely aware that I could hear God's voice - Freightened... I sought to test all I heard with what God's Word alone established - to be sure that I was hearing the Word and not some perversion uttered by a fallen angel or demon. Over the years, God has been faithful always exhibiting the degree of faithfulness He desired of me. There have been times I was sent to speak and minister to individuals or groups and other times when others were sent to me to minister to my need. Whenever our paths crossed, there was always an undescribable surge of energy between us and among us and the knowledge I was in the company of brethren attending to the Father's will. It has been and still is today a wonderful journey and one that I hope will continue to bear fruit as I continue making a steadfast stand against those who come against us and try to weaken our faith, conviction and resolve. Though our numbers are few compared to those who travel the broad highway, the power that is in us is sufficient to carry us forward doing what we must to continue the redemptive pattern and works that Jesus established and authored for us.

It is good to know my brethren and have a place to fellowship should our paths cross in the journeys we take. God willing... perhaps we will have that opportunity to sup and fellowship one day. May all the praise, glory and honor be His forevermore - AMEN

With all sincerity and love for the truth and our scattered brethren abroad,

Nicholas A. Stivers, a humbled God fearing man, scribe and messenger.