The LEADERSHIP – Part 5 (Continuation from Part 4) (Open Letter pages 95-99).
At this point I am reminded of a sad moment when I met my former pastor for the very last time. I brought to him Your Word about “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (Eph.5:21). He rejected Your Word since he could not possibly submit himself to me as I was nobody … and still am nobody in the religious world. This did not surprise me as much as his words just before we parted. He frankly admitted that he was not sure whether “what we have been preaching all those years was really truth”! But he expressed hope that scholars would come up with the right answers very soon!
I do wish with all my heart, Lord, he had obeyed Your Word to him and me and stepped down from his throne to my ground level. Today he would have known the simple and marvellous truth … and would not have to wait for any scholars, lest he also should miss the Rapture (1Jn.2:27).
Do I judge him? Not at all. “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken (to him), the same shall judge him in the last day.” (Jn.12:48). I love him and would readily embrace him should he return.
Yet one more word I must say, a word of exhortation, to show him a truthful example of the misery and dangers of the pride and fears that are in him.
When my younger daughter was nine years old, she expressed a wish to be baptized being saved for some months. The pastor refused to baptize her on the grounds that I was not coming to the church anymore and he had “no guarantee that she would receive proper Christian education.” As if these were Scriptural conditions for baptizing newly saved believers! But the true reason was his pride and fears; he was even fearful and offended by being asked to do such a thing in his church for anyone carrying my name. And in his arrogance, he even agreed that I myself should baptize her in our bath tub!
The bitter truth is that he offended a young girl who believed in You, Lord Jesus! And this I say to him on Your behalf: “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea”! (Mt.18:6).
I do fear, beloved brother, that in your ministry your pride, fears, jealousy, arrogance and self-righteousness had manifold excellent chances to offend many other people, adults and little ones. Search your heart, search your spirit and REPENT, else you remain in the danger of being drowned! The Word of God is not written in vain!
I had come to you and repented … and you forgave me … but you never did likewise – as if it were impossible for you to sin. In truth I say unto you, unless you repent likewise, you shall NOT see the Kingdom of heaven! This is not my word … this is the word of the King of kings. Amen … so be it!
And then, there were two other brothers You brought my way for a while. One was an ordained pastor without a congregation, and the other was desiring to become a mighty servant of Yours. They fellowshipped with us in our house church for about two years, and I loved them. Then they departed South.
After another two or three years, they came back as if they were apostles with a message and the goal to restore Your house in Montreal. It was a noble goal, a grand undertaking, and they were sincere and backed-up by other brethren from the South. And You, Lord, knew it. And in Your Grace You would have granted them this privilege and, indeed, turned them into new Nehemiahs.
You commenced by showing them that before they can restore Your house in any city or village, they themselves must be restored first! In their pride and arrogance, they refused Your word flatly and were deeply offended by it. Their biblical knowledge and contacts with Christian leaders from the South have puffed them up. Their zeal and lust for work and leadership have been the fire that burned down the bridges to their true humility, to You personally, and thus to their own spiritual fruitfulness. They studied the Bible daily and diligently – but their motto, which was “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hos.4:6) misled them. Hosea never spoke about the knowledge of the Bible itself – but about the knowledge of the Lord Himself!
Even today, there are Christians who can neither read nor write, yet, they know You more than many scholars put together. The same prophet continues, saying: “then shall we know IF we follow on (our intellectual biblical knowledge) to KNOW THE LORD” (Hos.6:3).
May these two dear brothers realize that there are many scholars who know the Bible “from cover to cover” and they are ALREADY condemned to the everlasting lake of fire! Beloved Lord, will these two brothers ever see and admit their pride and arrogance? Will they ever repent? I acknowledge, Lord, that it is not easy by any means to see and admit and repent, no, it is difficult. Therefore, I do pray that they would be ENABLED to do so, for I know that unless they overcome themselves and repent, they shall in no wise enter into Your Kingdom!
I say this in sadness but boldly on Your behalf, for You know that this is so. I even bind the venom within them from spreading and damaging Your Body – in the Name of Christ! Amen.
These two dear brothers typify those young and highminded zealots who are so sincere and so burning to become new Aarons, Moses’, Joshuas, Gideons, Samsons, Daniels, Nehemiahs … that they cannot possibly stop, ponder and realize that Your ways are NOT our ways. All such brethren are usually stubborn as mules and are absolutely unwilling to abandon their ways, even to abandon themselves into Your hand. Yet, my sincere desire is that one day even these two brothers would return … not to lay down rules and goals for their brethren – but to lay down their lives for their brethren (1Jn.3:16); and to lay down themselves into our arms and repent. And we shall cry with them in joy. And if this day is not to be during our earthly pilgrimage, then it shall be at the next Judgement Seat of Christ, for there we shall surely meet again.
But I do feel sad, Lord, very sad. For I am no better than they are, I have not done more work than they have done and I do doubt whether I am more sincere in my zeal than they are in theirs. But PRIDE divides us … and I intercede for ourselves that it be destroyed … and the stubbornness … and all within us that offends Your Spirit and stands in Your Way. Amen.
(To be continued next week in part 6)
brother Hanola
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