Avoiding Cultish Leaders – Expecting Outrageous Consequences

Avoiding Cultish Leaders

Proverbs 14:16 16 A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.

When I see people raging, loudly and confidently — accusing and ranting over and over again, month after month, year after year, always claiming innocence, never admitting any fault and claiming persecuted status, I just have to ask myself — did Yeshua (Jesus) ever display such behavior? Or Paul? Or even Peter? How about Moses? Do you know how much real opposition they faced???

To grumble, rage, complain and rant about things, to incite hatred without evidence, not in a moment of weakness but as a pattern of behavior — when do we look at that person and really start to wonder if everyone else is really the problem? When it’s a family member or a neighbor it is bad enough, but what happens when it is a minister? That is how cults get started.

The pattern is generally the same every time. Gather followers with something interesting, keep feeding them brain candy, claim persecution when anyone challenges (painting oneself in Messianic terms), present oneself as desperately needed, as someone extra set apart, make your supporters feel like a special remnant and damn your detractors to hell. People get slowly sucked in, even really smart people because it has nothing to do with intelligence but manipulation, and if the person is good enough at it, the followers feel persecuted when he is persecuted, and they actually feel guilty about even daring to question him. They want the special secret teachings (even if they have to pretend like they understand when they really don’t), they want to be the special remnant, they don’t want to be the ones in danger of hell fire. And if they are lucky, really lucky, they start to see that they are in a trap, that no one is allowed to question and no one is allowed to walk away unscathed. There is fear over not being under the tutelage of the leader, as well as fear over what will happen if they leave, a paralyzing fear that can be mistaken for the leading of the Holy Spirit.

No one gets to simply leave the cult without being demonized.

It is vitally important that we know the character of God through His Messiah intimately, personally, apart from any leader. We need to know His word and what He did and did not do. We need to see how He acted and how He did not act, in context. We need to have a whole picture of Him. Because if we do not know His character, we will always be deceived by those who misrepresent it — as long as they are interesting or offer us something we desire — like approval. And I can tell you that every single time I have been deceived by a ministry leader is was because I did not know His character well enough to recognize the behavior that was not godly.

Torah alone doesn’t protect people from getting sucked in to a cult, and neither does salvation — but knowing the character of God does. Someone who knows His character may get fooled for a while, but in the end they will see.

Why did Thomas say that he wouldn’t believe Yeshua had risen until He touched Him? Because he had been warned by Yeshua not to just believe any Tom, Dick or Harry who said, “Look, He is here.” Thomas knew Yeshua intimately, and wasn’t going to risk following anyone but Yeshua. Thomas wasn’t a doubter, Thomas simply wanted to make sure it really was Yeshua he was following.

We should do no less. That isn’t a lack of faith, it is wisdom to know exactly who it is we are following, and what that says about our ideas concerning the character of our King.

Expecting Outrageous Consequences

Don’t give the rebukes that Messiah gave unless you are willing to die the death that Yeshua died — for the very people He was rebuking. I mean, really. Don’t overturn tables unless you are willing to be scourged without complaint. Don’t preach unless you are willing to be rejected and take it gracefully.

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Don’t go doing the stuff that is easy in the flesh until you are able to lay down that flesh.

It makes me mad to see people throwing around insults, overturning tables, and preaching hell fire and damnation when they aren’t willing to suffer with grace. You want to use Messiah as an excuse? Then you had better be imitating ALL of His behaviors, or else you are just doing what you want to do and using a few episodes of His life to justify it. You want to do the outrageous stuff? You need to be willing to suffer the outrageous consequences.

The Character of Yeshua (Jesus) Pt 1: Understanding Boundaries

Learn from people — the healthiest people emotionally aren’t always the folks who had it easy growing up (it might just seem that way because they haven’t been tested). The healthiest people (or the people who will one day be the healthiest), do two things better than everyone else — they set clear boundaries for themselves and respect the boundaries of others. And they do it without resentment, complaints, and judgment.

This is something I wish I would see more of in online preaching.

People who have been on my facebook wall long enough pretty much know my boundaries. No calendar or name arguments, and I am not willing to argue about the divine nature of Messiah. I am also not willing to have anyone insult or belittle anyone on my wall. And I very rarely allow anyone to post a video or a teaching here unless it is from a very select group of teachers that I have vetted and feel comfortable about. I also really want things to stay on topic. Now, to someone who wants to do what they want where they want. that is going to seem controlling. And it would rightfully be considered controlling IF I held them to the same standards on their walls as well. But I respect the rules everyone else has on their walls, and I abide by them.

Now, people may CHOOSE not to be on my wall, and in fact many choose not to, which is fine. And there are walls of people I really like but I CHOOSE not to go there because I am not willing to interact with people under the guidelines they have set (especially the “anything goes” sort).

Now that right there is a facebook example of what the boundaries in our lives look like. And we all choose whether we are willing to be in relationship with others based on whether we are interested in respecting their boundaries and if they are willing to respect ours. No respect for boundaries means there is no real relationship, because when two people love each other (not necessarily talking familial type love, but friendship love as well), they want to stay within the reasonable boundaries set by the other person.

Reasonable boundaries are about what we consider to be right and wrong. If my husband loves me and respects my boundaries, he will not ask me to do something sexually that I find revolting. If I love and respect my husband, I am not going to cook the types of foods that he hates. If I like that food, I can wait until he has gone hunting or make it for lunch while he is at work, but I won’t put it down on the table in front of him.

So how does this relate to facebook preaching and preaching in general? You know — Yeshua (Jesus) our Master, He would stand up and preach in the synagogues when asked to. He would go to a town and preach in the open, and those who wanted to hear would listen and those who didn’t could walk away without Him following them home. He would preach in the wilderness and people could come to Him. When He was in His Father’s house, the rules would change and He respected His Father’s boundaries and overturned the money changer tables.

Yeshua showed us something important here — you have a right to listen, or not to listen to someone’s preaching or teachings. Like Paul, who probably heard Yeshua preach at some point or another, you have the right to not be ready to understand something yet. No one has the right to force you to listen to a teaching, or to try and push an understanding or revelation on you that you are not able to deal with at this time. The things I say, I don’t force them on anyone. I don’t post them on people’s walls unless they ask. I don’t send out friend requests so that more people can hear what I preach. My Master didn’t force Himself on anyone and so how would I dare to do it?

By all means, preach, and whoever comes will come and whoever runs away, let them run. Don’t slander them, don’t judge them and don’t try to manipulate them into coming back. That would be as pointless as judging and giving fertility advice to Sarah, Rebekkah, Rachel, Hannah and Elizabeth — when the time is right, the ground will be fertile, and who would we be to judge them in the meantime?

The Character of God as Father Pt 14: Letting Bad Things Happen to Good Children

So why do bad things happen to good people?

First, our Messiah said there was none good but God, period.

Matthew 19:17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

Scripture says that we can do good, but to be good requires there be no evil whatsoever, and I don’t measure up to that and neither do you. Evil can be a mixture, like salt or bitter water, but good must be pure or it is no longer good.

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Second, God is in the business of refining us TOWARDS goodness, and to that end, He uses the terrible things that happen to us. Evil circumstance is our ally in refinement, not our enemy. Without the bad things happening TO us, the bad things IN us would never be exposed.
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Think back to Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego (affectionately known as Rack, Shack and Bennie to many of us). Something bad happened to them, well a couple of things really but I am going to focus on one because this was the picture Father just gave me.

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Sin was happening to these three Hebrew men in the midst of Babylon, in the terrible place that God placed them, and through the prophet Jeremiah, told them to settle down in and make themselves at home for a good long while.

Jer 29:4-7 The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims to all the exiles I have carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and settle down; cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. Get married and have children; then help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number there so that you don’t dwindle away. Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends on its welfare.

It was God’s will that Judah be in Babylon, that they experience Babylon, that they be tested and afflicted by Babylon so that they would grow up and be able to be a viable nation again, under Him. And as we see in the writings of Daniel, Esther and others, life in Babylon was fraught with difficulties and dangers — things designed to make Judah long for what they had and did not appreciate.

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So, sin happened to the Nation of Judah exiled in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar built a golden idol of himself and was forcing all nations to worship it, but the three Hebrew men refused. The King was so incensed that he commanded that the ovens be stoked seven times as hot as usual and that the men be thrown into it.

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Now I want you to look at that fire as you would any temptation to do evil. We all face fires, but this fire was seven times as hot as a normal furnace because this was the severest form of temptation — the temptation to save ones own life through bowing down to false gods. Notice this — that the men who had failed the test were consumed by the fire as they tried to throw Shadrach, Mischach and Abednego in, but Shadrach, Mischach and Abednego survived the fire because they had already been refined by the true fire of temptation and came through like pure gold.

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Note that these men would not have passed the test at all if they were still warm and comfy in Jerusalem, never having been taken captive, or if they had eaten the meat and wine from the King’s table when they were brought to court.

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I don’t think their lives were ever “good” in Babylon. Yes they were given authority and wealth, but they lived in a veritable minefield of corruption and sin just like we do — only worse. No one is trying to force the entire world (at this time, only parts of it) to worship a false god yet — but we are in a position where we are not living in the Land, under the leadership of our King, and we are having to make difficult choices about what we eat, watch, listen to and participate in every single day. The Word says that Shadrach, Mischach and Abednego were trained in all the language and culture of Babylon for three years, and that they did that without compromise. It could not have been easy. But every single bad thing they faced daily was preparing them for a fire stoked up 7 times hotter than normal.

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And in our lives, every bad thing we face is preparing us for a fire stoked 7 times hotter than normal — and it’s coming. And praise YHVH that He is preparing us with all this bad now, the minor things, training us up, starting with the little so that we will have the endurance and faith to withstand the big. Thank Him that He has provided a way for us to know our right hand from our left, good from evil. Be grateful that we endure evil now when it is safer to fail and to learn so that all of a sudden one day we will not go unprepared from absolutely unchallenged comfortable lives to being forced to bow down to Allah, or whoever. I want to be able to look at a knife coming for my throat and to be able to be faithful despite my fears, or have a gun pointed at my head and remain obedient to my King.

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That kind of faith doesn’t just magically come out of thin air, or emerge out of wishful thinking — that kind of faith and faithfulness is borne out of being obedient in the small stuff, and then the greater things — and not being resentful of it but being grateful for one more chance to have the hate, ingratitude, divisiveness, impatience, cruelty, greed, evil, adultery, brutality and lack of control exposed and dealt with.

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This is how my Father loves me best, by making me uncomfortable. Through exposing the evil that I have blinded myself to, by forcing me to look at it so that it can be dealt with and destroyed. My Father is doing everything in His power to make sure I don’t take a look at that hot furnace and bow down to another god just to save my skin. He wants me to have eternal life, it’s important to Him that I do not take the Mark of the Beast — that’s His goal. It isn’t His goal that I be completely sheltered and that my inner sins go undetected. He is a good Father, and He is preparing me for the future He knows that I will have to endure.

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In His eyes, the costs to me in this life are very small, but the dividends in the world to come are eternal. I lack perspective, and so I place my trust in His.

The Character of God as Father Pt 13: Peter, Paul, and protecting the younger siblings

Galatians 2

11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.

This passage can be difficult to understand if you don’t know about the traditions of the elders that Yeshua (Jesus) spoke against. I’m going to just give a quick overview of what was happening here that was rabbinical instead of biblical.

Biblically, all believers have been on equal standing since Mt Sinai. In fact, there has only ever been one difference — that being that the eating of the Passover Lamb is forbidden to the uncircumcised, but other than that, all things are equal and always have been. But the traditions of the elders, the Pharisaic laws, changed all that and made a wall of separation between those born Jewish and those born Gentile. Belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not enough, keeping the commandments was not enough — because one was still considered “common” or “unclean” until they had formally converted to Judaism according to their traditions. This was also the heart of the matter before the Acts 15 council, and the whole point of Peter’s vision — the belief that, unless one converted to Judaism according to the traditions of the elders (now recorded in the Talmud), they were unclean and anyone who touched them or ate with them or ate what they touched would be unclean as well. It was accepted to the point that ten years after the resurrection of Messiah, his own followers weren’t questioning it!

And might I say that to call someone unclean whom God has made clean is to question God Himself, as well as the scriptures? So this tradition had to go — or else the gospel would have never traveled beyond the Jews into the nations.

Acts 10:28 And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.

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But in Galatia, we have a problem — Peter, who was the very man the revelation that believers are not unclean or common was given to, backtracked and refused to eat in the homes of the former Gentiles who were now joined to Israel. Nor were the former Gentiles allowed to eat in the homes of Jewish believers in Messiah! There was now a separation — and who was it at the hands of? The mature, the older siblings. Not Jews who denied Messiah, but Jews who received Him!

Sidebar: This is the antithesis of the kind of family that God is building. In a good family, the older help care for the younger, the older serve the younger — because it is the younger and weaker who need served, not the eldest! The older teach the younger, patiently. The healthy aid the sick. The older are never permitted to beat up, or discourage, the little ones. The older siblings do not lord authority over the younger, but instead serve as faithful representatives and extensions of parental authority and never step beyond it, or assume that authority for themselves.

So we had the older siblings (1) abusing the younger and (2) treating them as though they are not even family at all. And the worst part is that Peter and Barnabus were in the thick of it — anything tolerated by Peter was going to be accepted as Messianic halakah — the doctrines that the Messianic believers would live by. Someone had to step in to avert the destruction of the family that God was trying to build through Yeshua. Fortunately, Paul stepped in — even though it would seem he was the only one who did.

He let Peter have it, because the family was at stake and the character of God the Father and Yeshua were being misrepresented. The Torah was being misrepresented. Their actions were calling people unclean who were clean! Paul did what Peter should have done. Peter knew the truth better than anyone that Gentiles were being brought in as full citizens of Israel WITHOUT becoming Jews, and be subject to the same King, the same laws, the same blessings, the same standing.

In the Body today, we see an upside down system. Leaders being protected as they misrepresent the character of our King, and the youngest and weakest being trampled underfoot. No true family works like this, even most bad families don’t work like this. Because we are doing this, because we are tolerating and promoting this, we aren’t being real brothers and sisters, we aren’t being real children of the King. It really reminds me of the cutthroat atmosphere of High School, where really, no one loves each other and everyone wants to be associated with the in-crowd — no matter what the cost to their souls or to their fellow human beings.

What would Paul say if he could see us? I don’t think he’d be nearly as concerned about the Sabbath as he would be with the obvious fact that we obviously don’t love each other as family. Perhaps if we were more focused on being a family and not turning a blind eye to those who are not acting like big brothers and sisters just because they are interesting, we would shine and lead many to righteousness. All these little ones need care, they need a real family, and we need to start working on providing them with something better than the world can offer.

Family is about the older caring for the younger, the strong protecting the weak, the wise instructing the unlearned. It is about being joined with like kind and producing the kind of fruit that speaks well of the Patriarch. Anything that does not meet these criteria, by definition, does not qualify as a healthy family.

The Character of God as Father Pt 12 — How to Break His Heart

Two days ago I fell into a very deep depression seemingly out of nowhere, and have been praying and pleading to know why ever since. I was pulling weeds out in the backyard last night and for a change no neighbor dogs were barking at me so I could actually do some thinking. I love my son Andrew more than my life, but I am going to pee on the third rail of special needs parenting here — I am going to admit one of the heartbreaking things about it. Our kids aren’t always accurately represented by the overachievers and over comers we promote in order that people won’t judge us for the decision we made, and in hopes that people won’t get abortions based on the realities we face daily, when they find out Suzy isn’t going to be all they wanted her to be physically and mentally. We know the rest of the truth, that they are wonderful and valuable, but we’re also scared, and a few enjoy being martyrs. Anyway, this isn’t about that — this is about something the parents of normal children also go through, but when your child is special needs the heartache it causes is amplified. And so for the last two days I have been in a deep depression, not realizing that it was a divinely inspired depression in order to show me a great truth.

What do you do when your disabled child is capable of more than they are doing, but decides that because they can’t do it perfectly, they use it as an excuse not to try at all?

Our greatest moments of triumph are when our children exceed everyone’s expectations and prove that they CAN do something. It is the greatest high imaginable — and some kids never look back and go even further, above and beyond — those are the ones you see on youtube and on the news as inspirational stories. Everyone loves those stories. But our greatest moments of sorrow can be when they stop trying, and go back to how they were, just giving up entirely, sometimes even refusing to take care of their basic bodily needs — even though they are absolutely able, sometimes even after they have received much healing in that area.

Its a picture of ourselves, with God, and God had to allow me to experience His grief as He watches us fail to even try to live up to His standards/laws because we can’t do it perfectly. It’s as though we are that disabled child, and we absolutely are, using our disability as an excuse to not even try to do the things we are currently able to do, and refusing to work on those things that are indeed achievable. Our disability isn’t merely physical, or mental, it is our desire for sin.

It’s our desire to do what we want to do on the Sabbath, or to eat what we want to eat even when it is not food, or celebrate how we want to celebrate even when we are perfectly able to do things the way He asks us to do them. It’s when we don’t even try, that breaks His heart — because He, despite being all powerful, is powerless to force us to want to do things His way. I understand that anguish and frustration on a very small scale. I have a child who calls me mommy and tells me he loves me and wants to be close and snugly and wants the perks (blessings) that come with being my child. But I can’t give him all the blessings I want him to have because I cannot encourage him to keep disobeying me and destroying himself. I have to discipline him instead of giving him gifts. In Biblical terms, I have to curse instead of bless — can you begin to see how much this would hurt me, day after day, year after year?

I know, with his innate sweetness, that if he could really perceive my pain, that he would change his ways. But right now, for whatever reason, he cannot see beyond himself and sometimes it just kills me inside.

What is “God’s own heart?” God’s heart is to bless and not curse. Even His cursing was designed to drive His children back into the place where He could bless them, the prophets were sent to warn His children back into the place where He could bless them. We have a Father who wants desperately to bless us, but we live in a way that He cannot encourage and so He cannot give us the fullness of what He desires for us to have.

Oh there are so many things I long to do for my child, places he could go without me and things he could do on his own, privileges I could allow for him to have. But his behavior gives me no choice. I cannot reinforce it, because his behavior is dangerous to himself, he just doesn’t have the maturity or desire to see it. I never saw it either, not for many years as I called myself by His Name but lived life my way. I said that it was impossible to live His ways perfectly, so why even try at all — completely missing the point of His laws, His house rules. His laws were there to teach me how to live righteously, how to move towards greater and greater levels of loving Him and loving my neighbors. Yes, I have a righteousness of God through Messiah, but that isn’t the same as living righteously, which has to be according to His definitions — so that I can live in harmony with Him and others. So that He can give me the blessings that He wants me to have.

The blessings that it hurts Him to have to withhold. Because, unlike us, He isn’t an enabler and as He sees the beginning all the way to the end, He knows what the stakes are, even if we try to ignore them.