Are you trying for Elder?

That is what the Head Pastor asked me in leadership training, when I requested and passed the assembly of Elders over a decade ago. I was a founding member of this church, and had given of myself and my personal finances in its founding to a large measure, but that was OK because it was from the heart. I had spent six years under a man with a D.D., THD., and PHD in “Christian” Psychology. I was able to breeze through all the subject matter, and even completed in detail any subject matter forgotten.
I have never held an academic memory of Church history and Bible, although the Lord allowed me “total recall” of all the things I had learned in six years of devoted ministry study, when I was a young man equipped in street ministry. I never intended to embarrass anyone, my objective was to simply contribute what I had learned to the body of Christ in finding my niche, or so I thought.
To my personal amazement even I, could not believe what was delivered from my mouth to the ears of Ivy League educated men of the highest caliber. Yet the truth be told it was not me at all, but the moving of the Holy Spirit of God upon me. I exclaimed to the Pastor privately the Pastoral Vision which I had received after my marriage. The only thing I can remember is seeing his mouth moving in response, yet I could not hear as the Holy Spirit dumped upon me like a great waterfall, and it was all that I could do to continue standing upright!
I can still remember the shock and awl on those men’s faces as they clamored, sought council among themselves and reluctantly concluded that I was factually correct. I had really expected to be welcomed to this level of fellowship with open arms, and was thrilled to have obtained such a status and position for a man who had struggled with severe dyslexia as a child. Yet utter rejection was all that I experienced by men whom I had considered brothers.
I really thought with all the gifting’s I had been rated with in the denominational testing for office, I could finally find a place of belonging, especially as a man that I had joined the church with fared no better than myself in his understanding, yet consistently clowned around during theological teaching. Yet the Pastor liked this man, and he was moved from the diaconate to an elder’s office. He had even suggested me to be tried at leadership, probably because I could pass all his courses without cracking open his course book.
It may sound as if I am proud, bitter or disgruntled with the Church, and that is a fair enough assumption; yet the problem is actually much deeper than my personal feelings in this matter. You see the problem is not my flesh, but rather the Spirit of Antichrist which opposes the simple sheep like spirit within me. It is the age old rejection of the Holy Spirit of God within me, opposing the proud spirit of the world normally present within others, be it religious (as in this case) or otherwise.
The world loves their own, and rejects the spirit of the Lord who is sometimes found within others. They will hate you, because they first hated me, Jesus said. And the actual place in which you will experience Satan is within his people, and it is much worse if they have learned up a head full of Bible doctrines -which do not apply to them!
1 John 4 Commands that the children of God be able to discern the spirits, yet in Western cultures we are taught only to reason using our minds, and intuition which is spiritual discernment is most often dismissed, or even worse confused with the wrong type of judging. Yet we must learn and discern who our actual brethren are, and who are not lest our faith be destroyed!
And the faith destroying systematic theologies that actual brethren expect to learn from, and fellowship with, are actually twice the children of the devil because of being taught Bible doctrines without Christ!
It destroys the confidence that an actual follower of Christ can discern and walk with the Lord on an actual spiritual level, instead of just having head knowledge. This is the major reason the Holy Spirit came upon me as a great waterfall that day; as the Pastors seminary taught words would have helped to destroy the work which the Lord was actually doing in me!
Most of us would never have imagined that the “Church” would be a destroyer of our confidence in Christ, and our ability to walk alone with Him. Yet that is indeed the case, like in the Galatians Church who Paul wept for, Satan forms a kind of surrogate to Jesus Christ. Or who John called Antichrists _”ones who had started with the Lord like us – but became diverted to a different Gospel” (Church Systems and Priests) who can never replace the Lord Jesus Christ as our moderator between the Father and ourselves!
Anyone who assumes such a position is actually a heretic of the highest order, but are normally deaf and blind to the fact that they are actually taken on a destructive role of the Devil unknowingly, as they have not been given the light to see. Rather they think they are serving God in the name of Jesus Christ by orchestrating ministry functions and institutions which they have done without commissioning, and in continual independence from the Lord, who is Spirit and Truth.
In others words to sum up in a short sentence what I would like to put over: is that men use the Bible without (Spiritual) knowledge of the Lord, and so in essence are following Satan, who also uses the Bible, theology and doctrines independent of the Lord!
Now do you see why it is so very important to discern what spirit a person is of? It is not the words that they may use, correct or even incorrect teaching, but whose “spiritual camp” they are connected with!
The False Church *Revelation 17-18 (Mother of Harlots and her daughters) who are drunk on the blood of the Saints, is actually who I am speaking about – and most don’t even clock it!
Beware, and learn how to tell who’s who; or otherwise you will spend a lifetime in casting your pearls before swine!
I am 58 years old now, and have discovered I’ve been doing just that… And then discovered that most those who claim Christ’s name are mostly enemy, and I wondered why I had always felt rejected and ravaged by such pigs!