(Comments by Joan Boney)
First Jesus warned us.
Matthew 24:3-5 And as HE sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto HIM privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?
4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in MY name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
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Each of these men say, "Jesus is Lord", but they show themselves to be antichrist in various ways.
In the first church I attended after I was born again. The pastor was teaching that tongues are of the devil. He did a whole week of teaching on this subject of tongues being of the devil.
One day I was reading the Bible and saw the following which was spoken by the apostle Paul.
I Corinthians 14:39 Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues.
After I saw what the apostle Paul said in the Bible, I never returned again to that church that taught against tongues, for that church taught against the Bible. (antichrist)
***
The second church I attended was a very large church in Dallas. They had about 3000 members. It was called Beverly Hills Baptist Church. (a Spirit filled Baptist church)
I can't recall anything the pastor ever taught. But one time I made an appointment and went to speak with him. I think I was talking about following the Spirit of God and hearing from God. I do recall him saying, "But you'd have to be a spiritual giant to do that!"
I recall telling him that I thought every one in the church was supposed to hear from God and follow God.
Jesus said: John 10:27 "MY sheep hear MY voice, and I know them, and they follow ME:"
***
Next, I attended Word of Faith church in Dallas, Texas.
The pastor talked a lot about prosperity and I didn't like hearing what he was saying but I liked to go to the Sunday morning Bible class so I stayed at this church for approximately 4 years.
At one point, in 1979, God gave me the following dream:
Destruction was everywhere.
I went into a room where a man was speaking to a group of people. I sat down to listen to him.
A second man rushed into the room and said, "Stop ... wait ... can't you see ... It's too late ... It's already begun."
Then this second man disappeared and the first man resumed speaking.
No one seemed interested in that which was spoken by the second man. The people just kept their eyes glued to the first man who resumed speaking.
But I wanted to know what had already begun so I looked out the window.
There was a tall pole with a yellow civil defense type warning speaker on top of the pole. Out of the front of the speaker was coming a white gas and it started drifting through the air and was coming directly toward us who were seated in the room where the man was speaking. I knew it was a poison gas and it would kill the people.
The shocking thing was this: The speaker that had been set there to warn the people was the instrument that was being used to kill us.
I looked at the man who was sitting next to me. He had a big smile on his face and was very attentively looking at the man who was speaking.
Then I saw it! This man was dead. He was a corpse. Though he seemed to be alive.
I looked around the room and all the other people were also corpses, dead.
And as I sat there among them, I began to feel drowsy and I knew I was falling asleep too as I sat among them.
The gas coming from the speaker was killing me too!
End of dream.
In 1982, I was at Word of Faith on a Wednesday night, the pastor was speaking.
I looked at the man who was seated next to me.
I was shocked. He was the dead man in the Poison Gas Dream of 1979. I looked at the congregation and felt they were the dead people in that dream.
I got up immediately and went to the ladies room and began praying: "God, I think YOU are showing me to leave this church group so I am going to get into my car and drive away. But if YOU want me to come back, I will turn around and come back."
God didn't want me to come back.
Instead God began teaching me of the fallacy in the Faith Movement doctrine.
***
Story of Pam Padgett:
When
I was 14 years old, a sophomore in high school, a boy in our class was
killed in a motorcycle accident. For the first time I realized that
someone my age could die.
I was terrified, for somehow I "knew" that if I died right then, I would not go to heaven.
I also "knew" that the various things I had learned in the Catholic church could not save me.
(God had put these things in my heart as we're told in Hebrews 8:10 and Hebrews 10:16.)
My only hope was God.
I began to pray, but then realized I didn't know who to address this prayer to. So I said "I
know there is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but I don't know which
one to pray to. So please get this prayer to the right one."
I then asked that if there was any way to save me from going to hell, to please do that.
As I was talking with God about my situation, asking HIM to please somehow save me, I noticed a scripture on a bookmark which had been left at our house, and this scripture was a comfort to me.
The scripture was
Matthew 11:28-30 in which Jesus says ...
Come unto ME, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take MY yoke upon you, and learn of ME; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For MY yoke is easy, and MY burden is light.
Not long after this, I realized there was a change in me. The only way I knew to describe it was that "something of God was now in me."
It
was 3 or 4 years LATER. I was reading in I Corinthians and saw 2
scriptures that tell us that the Holy Spirit lives in us. Then I knew
it was the Holy Spirit that was in me.
I Corinthians 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?I Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
When I went to college, I was still attending the Catholic church and believed what we had been taught in that church.
One
of the other students was a young woman, Connie Jo, who identified
herself to me as a Christian. We became very good friends.
One day as we spoke I mentioned something about Mary being "assumed" into heaven, much as Jesus had ascended into heaven. Connie Jo asked me "Where is that in the Bible?"
I responded that I didn't know where it was in the Bible, but that I
was sure it must be there, for that is what we had been taught in the
Catholic church. I set out to find this in the Bible, but couldn't find
it. The next time I went to my parent's house, I looked this up in
some Catholic encyclopedias they had, and was shocked to learn it is not
in the Bible!
After this, I began proving what I had been taught in the Catholic church by seeing if their doctrine was in the Bible.
I kept a
list of doctrines we had been taught that were either not in the Bible
at all, or contrary to what was in the Bible.
I
was very confused by this, for we had been taught that the Catholic
church is the only true church.
Was I misunderstanding what we had been
taught in the Catholic church, or misunderstanding what the Bible said?
This
was resolved for me in an interesting way.
A Catholic nun attended the
same college I attended, and I asked if I might talk with her. When we met, I had
my list of Catholic doctrines that I couldn't see lining up with the
Bible.
I explained that I had been reading the Bible and saw several
things that were contrary to Catholic teachings, and I told her the
first such doctrine on my list.
The
nun turned completely white, and she said that she couldn't answer my
question about these doctrines, that I would need to talk with a priest
or brother.
Then she added "This is why lay people (those not in the clergy) should not read the Bible."
Seeing
this nun's strong reaction to what was in the Bible clearly showed me truth of the situation.
It wasn't that I had misunderstood the Bible nor what
the Catholic church taught, but that many Catholic church doctrines
were, in fact, contrary to the Bible.
I never attended the
Catholic church again.
I went to some church groups with friends, mostly Baptist churches, but never joined any of them. They seemed "dead" to me.
Then
a couple years later some people I worked with told me about a
non-denominational church which had just started and how wonderful it
was.
I began going to that church, attending both the main service and
the singles group meetings.
At
one point I rented a room in the home of a divorced woman I met in the
singles group. At first she seemed content to remain unmarried and to
raise her daughter. But then she began obviously seeking another
husband (she had already been married and divorced twice.)
I
shared scriptures with her which warn that if a divorced woman
remarries she commits adultery, and if a man marries a divorced woman he
commits adultery.
Shockingly, she responded, "I don't care what the Bible says, I know what I believe."
Matthew 5:32 Jesus says ... But
I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the
cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever
shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Romans 7:2-3 For
the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so
long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the
law of her husband.
So then if, while her husband liveth, she be
married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her
husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no
adulteress, though she be married to another man.
Right
after this happened I graduated and moved to another town which was
about 30 miles away from where this church group met.
I stopped
attending the singles group meetings but continued to attend the main
Sunday morning service.
I heard that this twice divorced woman had become engaged to a
man from the singles group. I knew this man and went to him and
warned him and shared scripture with him telling of the adultery that
would result if he married a divorced woman.
He said he would
consider these things, but I heard that the wedding plans continued.
Then
I heard that another woman I had met in the singles group was to be the
maid of honor when this man and divorced woman married.
I went to her
and warned her of the adultery that would be committed if these two
people married.
She said that she knew it was wrong for them to marry,
but that they would marry whether or not she was the maid of honor so
she was going to go ahead and be the maid of honor.
(I Timothy 5:22 ... neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure.)
About
this time something very puzzling began to happen when I attended the
Sunday morning church service.
Although I no longer attended the
singles group meetings, I always sat with those in the singles group
during the church service, visiting with them before and after the
service.
One day I got to the church building early and sat in the area
of the auditorium where the singles always sat, but none of the singles
came to sit in that area.
As the church service began, I turned around
and saw that the singles were sitting several rows back. I didn't
think too much about this.
The next Sunday morning I sat in the "new" singles area, but the singles sat in the "old" area.
The
following Sunday morning I got to the church building shortly before
the service began. The singles were sitting together and I went and
joined them.
Without saying a word, they got up and moved to another
area of the auditorium!
Now it was obvious that those in the singles group wanted nothing to do with
me, but I didn't know why. I cried out to God asking what was going
on? "Had I done something wrong?"
A
couple weeks later after the church service, a woman came to me saying
she had a word from God for me. The word was that God knew how those in
the singles group were treating me, and that I needed to know it was
because I had spoken against the marriage of the man and the divorced woman,
and that my warning to these people had been what God wanted me to do.
I was so grateful to God for sending this message to me!
I continued attending the Sunday morning church services, but no longer tried to sit with those in the singles group.
One Sunday morning just as the church service was about to start I heard this:
"What are you doing here? I told you to get out. Now get out!"
I was stunned, sitting in stunned silence throughout the service.
When I got
home I asked God if this was from HIM and if so, when had HE told me to
leave that church?
I was reminded of Joan Boney sharing the "Poison gas dream"
and warning of churches that are antichrist, not upholding all
scripture.
I came to see that the church I was attending did not uphold
scripture about a divorced woman re-marrying, for the wedding ceremony
of the people I had warned was held at that church with one of the
pastors performing the ceremony.
I left that church.
***
(Comments by Joan Boney)
In the Bible, the apostle Peter and the apostle Paul both warned us of the apostasy that was coming into the churches.
Jude also wrote about the evils coming into the churches.
Jude vv. 3-4 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Many antichrist preachers today say, "Jesus is Lord", but they deny scripture and omit sections of scripture and explain away some of the scriptures. And they set up other doctrines in their church groups. And often they live ungodly lives in private as they commit adultery, fornication, and such things. Some even commit homosexual acts in private. And they lead their church groups away from the doctrines of Christ in the Bible and they lead the congregation into various sins, denying the Holy Bible while saying "Jesus is Lord."
This is the end time apostasy in the churches of today.
And Jesus warned us about this and told us the following: Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in MY name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (Mt. 24:4-5)
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