Pastor Killers and Church Splitters
It is with deep compassion, inner pain, a heavy and I trust a righteously angry heart that I bring this before you. I am sure that it is nothing new or even all that shocking anymore to many of us. That is a very sad problem in itself. What I am about to address happens so often these days, that it has become accepted by many as a gruesome but inevitable, ugly fact of church life and death. Massacres at Church Hollow!
They are my good and gifted fellow shepherds (pastors), and they are being driven away from their flocks by rebellious and power-authority-hungry goats in the flock that are disguised as sheep. “Billie and Bully Goats Gruff” who refuse to be led by the God-ordained shepherd and connive to turn the rest of the flock against him when he even slightly exerts his leadership over the sheepfold!
GOATS – WOLVES – RABBLE
Pastors are “God’s Gifts To The Church.” We read in Ephesians 4:11,
“And He gave some as pastors….”
DIVINELY SAVED AND SENT TO CARE
.”
Honestly, if these pastors today had lived before Christ, they would be prophetic types of Jesus, and if these chuurch hooligans had lived before Christ, they would be prototypes of the Jewish Sanhedrin.
VARNISH OF RELIGION.”
Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 10:16 that He was sending them out:
mighty have fallen!”
“Tell it not in Gath, proclaim in not in the streets of Ashkelon; lest
the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters
of the uncircumcised exult.”
MULTI-HEADED FREAK SHOWS
Because of their totally rebellious, non-submissive and power-hungry spirits, they believe the following:
SHEPHERD LEAD THE SHEEP.”
They believe that the shepherd is there to follow the sheep and do and preach what they require. They totally reverse the teachings of Jesus about shepherding, and they corrupt the Bible so that John 10:27 reads as follows:
“Our shepherd hears our voices, and he knows us, and
The Bible throughout unequivocally instructs us that there can only be ONE MOSES, ONE JOSHUA, and ONE JESUS. There can only be ONE HEAD. And these church cement-heads cannot get that through their heads. In short the Bible is full of the principle that:
“THERE MUST BE SINGULARITY OF VISION AND PLURALITY
OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PASTOR’S VISION.”
Which is exactly why we read in Joshua 1:1,
“Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant
of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of
Nun, Moses servant….”
Therein is the consistent chain of command throughout Scripture! Moses the leader of Israel is called “GOD’S SERVANT,” and Joshua is called “MOSES’ SERVANT.” That is the way God ordained it, and it has never changed. The pastor is “GOD’S SERVANT,” and the elders and deacons are “THE PASTOR’S SERVANTS.” Of course, they are all God’s servants, but it is the chain of command that is being revealed here, and without the church’s understanding of and submission to this, rebels wll continue to dominate amd terrorrize the body of Christ.
Elder-run churches, deacon-run churches, committee-run churches and parishioner-run churches are unbiblical and totally out of order. There can be only one captain of a ship and one pilot of an airplane. The co-pilots and the co-captains are there to assist and obey the captain and the pilot. The elders and the deacons are in truth co-pastors to obey and help the pastor fulfill his vision. While their input is valued and welcomed, they are not in office to control the pastor and run the church according to the bitching rebels in the congregation.
Likewise, there can on be one head of the marriage and family. All of this is according to superabundant Biblical principle. How many times I have been repulsed by the statement, “She wears the pants in that family.” True, in some cases she has to by reason of the husband’s and father’s defaulted leadership. But we clearly read in Ephesians 5:22-23,
“Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”
“For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is
the head of the church, He Himself being the
Savior of the body.”
Then later we read Paul writing in Ephesians 5:33,
“This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to
Christ and His church.”
Therefore we can and must say in the light of all Biblical givens:
“ELDERS, DEACON AND SHEEP BE SUBJECT TO YOUR PASTOR-
SHEPHERD AS UNTO THE LORD.”
This is when the goats really get butt-headed and ornery. They will always try to take over, lead and control the shepherd and the sheepfold. When in fact they must be driven out of the sheepfold by the shepherd and the true sheep for the good and safety of the flock! This is not however most often what happens. They drive the shepherd from his flock instead. He is being rebelled against by these long entrenched rebels, driven out of his house, and finally he becomes an exile from his own rightful sheepfold. These goats in sheep’s clothing continue to be the rotten and infamous actors in this ongoing and often repeated church tragedy called:
“MULTI-HEADED FREAKSHOW CHURCHIANITY“
METHODS OF DESTRUCTION
They do their real dirty work behind the pastor’s back. It’s their usual MO, especially when he is out of town or on a well-deserved vacation! Then they seek out other likeminded and ill-spirited fellow “Schemebags” in the congregation to join them in planning the shepherd’s defamation and ouster, many times with disloyal board members. These rebel board members will even call board meetings behind the pastor’s back or while he is out of the church R@R.
But always doing so at first in secret and dark corners, for it is in truth a work of darkness and removed from the eyes of the true sheep of Christ. They plot and carry out some of the blackest acts under the sun since the sun hid its face from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. They may even open their shadowy, underground-subversion meetings with prayer to sanctify their Hellish intentions. In fact:
“THESE PEOPLE ARE SUCH SHADOWY AND SHADY CHARACTERS
IN COVENANT WITH SATAN
Thus they are Satan’s fittest instruments for his devilish work. He has them positioned in just about every church. They are just like him, for they in fact were spawned by him. They as Isaiah refers to in Isaiah 28:18:
Christianity is rooted and founded upon as Hebrews 13:20 states,
These subversives and insurrectionists are rooted in and founded upon:
Why do I say that they are in “Covenant With Satan?” As in all covenants there are contained two parts. Satan the prototype rebel and his under-rebels are both in agreement that they must be the head and run the show. They think exactly alike. And they both will rebel against anyone who erodes their sense of ultimate authority. That authoritarian personality has been bred deep in their genes and guts by Satan, even as Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 8:44,
TO GOD BUT WITH DIRGES OF DEATH TO SATAN.”
myself like the Most High.”
God refers to Satan in his sinless state as “Star of the Morning.” (Isaiah 14:12) However, it was too disparaging for Satan to simply be a star. He wanted to be the sun.” Lucifer would not submit to Divine authority, and he has bitten and poisoned the human race with his rebellious, devilish genes.
They are vermin who have infested, held hostage and ruled many local churches for years, driving pastor after pastor out of town on a rail, and they are not about to give up their rule. They think that they are the backbone of the church, when in fact they are the basest part of it. Many of them are on church boards as well in congregations, often connected by family bloodlines, and when that combination is in operation, it is the recipe for “The Perfect Storm.” Thoroughbreds of rebellion and unsubmissiveness in the board room and in the pew! Fact:
“THESE RENEGADES HAVE DONE MORE DAMAGE TO THE CHURCH
THE CHURCH FROM WITHOUT.”
More often than not, they are the first ones at the train to welcome the pastor. I am reminded of the elder in my rookie pastorate that called on us at the parsonage and in the midst of his see-through fawning and smooth talk, slipped in the trouble-laden words as he put it, “I like to consider this to be my church.” Little did we know that we were being welcomed by the prince of darkness and the self-enthroned king of his own ecclesiastical kingdom! He proved to be “The Nightmare on Church Street!” In fairness and credit to him, decades later he apologized to me and asked for my forgiveness. Better late than never I suppose!
“How can he do what he does?” we ask ourselves and each other amazed. We must never forget what the Bible says about Satan in II Corinthians 11:14.
“And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as
as an angel of light.”
Listen, if Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light, when in fact he is absolute darkness, he can also take on the form of devoted looking and sounding elders, deacons and parishioners. Not a problem whatsoever for him! He can change his looks, his voice, his dress with his deceptive disguises. Satan is a past master of presenting himself to us as a serpent under the form of a saint.
DEVILS OF DIVISION
They will even go after the minister’s wife and children with their lying tongues to bring suspicion and shame upon the pastor’s family. They are not above the cruelest and most dispicable tactics. The Apostle Paul warns us about these gainsayers and slanderers in Philippians 3:2 where he says,
Why? Because they viciously bite and rabidly infect their victims! They have the fiendish skill of attacking an angel and they soon will have people believing that he or she is a devil. They accomplish against the minister and his family what Paul warns about in Romans 14:16,
It is very simple really:
FAMILY BEFORE THEY CAN UNDO HIM
.”And there are always enough dumb sheep to fall for it, for sheep are so easily conned and misled. Others, while they like the pastor, they remain quiet and peripheral through all of the crimes being committed against him and his family. They may even send him cards and letters of affection, but they will not publicly stand with the pastor and stand against the rebels because all they want is peace. Of course, there has never been true peace in those kinds of churches, but at best a fake and imposed harmony while just below the surface there is rotting disease and seething disharmony. As we read in Jeremiah 6:14,
“Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause
dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which
has lifted up his heel against me.”
ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICIANS
And speaking of a false peace, denominational leadership such as Stated Clerks, Superintendents, Primate Bishops or what have you, will more often than not allow these beasts to ravage and savage the local church and the parsonage so as to appease the ravagers and savagers in their ecclesiastical domains. It is much more convenient for them to lose a loving and sincere pastor than to excommunicate a number of tithing schemers and schismatics.
Many of these church hierarchies are not first of all made up of shepherds but rather politicians who want to keep the numbers and offerings up in their realm of authority. They don’t decry the crimes and the criminals in the split-apart church, though they may feign a tear for the mutilated minister and colleague. They may even say to the pastor, “I’m so sorry and I will be praying you.” But the real motivation behind their religious politics is:
AND THE MONEY COUNT.”
In short:
POURING OIL ON THOSE WHO CAUSED THEM.”
In all of this, the grassroots ministers who are the defenders of the faith are left defenseless, as their denominational overseers are really co-executioners of pastors though artfully, skillfully and cowardly disguised as denominational leaders and highly esteemed saints. When all the while they are on the side of the seditious libelers and slanderers of the pastors who are supposedly under their care and protection!
THE TRAGIC OUTCOME
What of course should happen is that the Lord’s true over-shepherds of the denomination and the true saints in the pillaged and pummeled local church should call the pastor-killers and the church-splitters to repentance and the public confession of their hellish actions. They should be required to do so in front of the pastors and churches that they have so maliciously damaged and scarred if not destroyed.
These rebels and rabble-rousers must ask for public forgiveness from the pastor and the church. They must be removed from all positions of leadership in the local bodies of believers, and their membership placed under at least 2 years probation. But if they will not repent and confess their blackest of hearts and deeds in the full light of the Son, they should be driven from His church and as Jesus Christ in Matthew 18:17 enjoins:
But what all too often happens is that the pastor tragically leaves the church so as not to split it. How often I have heard these bullied and bloodied brothers of the cloth say to me, “I am stepping down for I cannot and will not split the church.” Of course they are not splitting the church, for the devil and his demongogues are the ones doing that. I try to encourage them on the basis of Biblical principle not to leave, but to fight the good fight of faith. For the Lord says in John 10:12-13,
“He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, who is not the owner
of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep,
and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.”
“He flees because he is a hireling, and is not concerned
about the sheep.”
However, the great difference here often is that the wolves were already there dug in when he came, and had been dominating and terrorizing the scene with their bloodletting, slaughter and divisiveness. He doesn’t know the full story, but they were the ones who drove his predecessor out of town, which fact is often discovered very soon but too late.
Oh of course the pastor-killers and church-splitters will not get away with it, even though they seem for the moment to hold pastors and churches hostage. God will hold them responsible one day and they shall be dealt with severely and appropriately by Him. Jesus Christ states in the firmest and most fearsome of words in Luke 7:49-51,
prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill
and some they will persecute,”
“in order that the blood of all the prophets, shed since the foundation
of the world, may be charged against this generation,”
the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be
Finally, we as fellow pastors must learn to be a fraternity of mutual love and care, especially for those brothers of ours who are being and have been torn apart by these abominable minister-haters. We as fellow ministers and our wives must reach out in loving care to heal their wounds and meet their needs spiritually, maritally, familially, ministerially and financially. We often are blind to how hurting their wives and their children are as well.
CONCLUSION
Another tree, the giant California redwood, may tower 300 feet into the sky. We’ve seen pictures of tunnels carved into massive trunks wide enough to drive an automobile through. It seems they would require the deepest of roots to anchor them against strong winds. But instead their roots are actually shallow. And they reach in all directions, intertwining with roots of other redwoods. Locked together in this way, all the trees support each other in wind and storms. Aspens and redwoods never stand alone. They need one another to survive.
So do pastors! Especially pastors! God help us as pastors to be a strong forested fraternity of love in Christ for each other. May our spirits of whatever Christian fellowship be intertwined as one, so that for the enemy to attack one of us, he has to go through all of us. Amen!
PLEASE REFER AND SEND THIS TEACHING WHERE IT IS
DESPERATELY NEEDED AND WHERE IT CAN DO THE
MOST DAMAGE TO HELL AND GOOD FOR
THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST.
