Tag: Prosperity gospel

Covid-19

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

When this Covid-19 was first mentioned I like many others believed it was just another flu virus such as avian flu and the other ones we have seen come out of China, but I have sought the Lord God with all my heart and I believe the Lord God Almighty has allowed this devastating disease to grow and flourish as a warning to the people of this earth. I remind you if you have not read it for a long time to take a look at this scripture:

Psalm 2 King James Version

1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.
7 I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

So, my brothers and sisters and fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I believe this is the time when many of us will be able to reflect. I hope it is a time when many will spend time in prayer and study of the holy scriptures as it is not a time to be busy, it is a time to be still. On this day, 19 March 2020, all the churches across the land are closed. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr Welby, and the Catholic Cardinals have closed down all their buildings. I believe the Baptists, the Methodists, the Assemblies of God and the Elim Pentecostal and the independent pentecostal churches will all follow suit. I believe this is also a judgment on the body of Christ as it is time to put away our banjos, our clever music, our programmes and seek God as we have never done before. We still have the access to the Internet. Many of us can contact each other through Duo, WhatsApp, Skype. We can also pick up our telephones and do something we have not done for a long time: talk to each other.

As for the prosperity gospel, this cannot function in this environment. I am not saying this is how things will end up, but I believe the Lord God Almighty is showing us what would happen if something worse came down the line. This is not a time to see how much money you have in the bank or how much you gain through ill-gotten gains. If you are mega-rich, it is time to sow. Remember the parable that Jesus spoke about of the man who built bigger barns and the Lord God Almighty said, “Thou fool, this night your soul will be required of you.” What will your money do if, God forbid, the Lord calls you tonight? What good would it have been? I am talking as a man who once had money who now has nothing but in my spirit I am very rich as I have learned what the apostle Paul learned, to be content in all situations, whether I have plenty or whether I have nothing at all. Jesus also said, “What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world yet lose his soul?”

My brothers and sisters, fellow ministers, we are going to experience for the next few months times that we never experienced. I believe this is the greatest opportunity that the Lord God has given us to reach the lost and the lonely. If you are able-bodied this is your opportunity to help those less fortunate than yourself. If you are rich, it is an opportunity to help the poor, as in the next three months the body of Christ is going to need each other more than we ever have in all the days of my life.

So I hope this message challenges you to not sit on your bottom but to see there are those in your community that you can give practical help to. Ask the Holy Spirit, “What should I do?” Even if it just means picking up a telephone or knocking on the door to help someone. I do believe that the blood of Jesus Christ is more powerful than Covid-19 and this could be a time when the church of Jesus Christ can really shine. We have sung it enough – Shine Jesus Shine – and Jesus can only shine through those He loves. I suggest you spend time and look at John 15 and make sure you are connected to the real vine and not just a sub-branch. As God is the gardener, he will cut off every branch that is not bearing fruit.

God bless you and keep you all and your families safe.

Rev Ross Rennie

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It Is More Blessed To Give Than To Receive

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My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,

It is with a heavy heart that I write today. I believe I have a word from the Lord Himself to His church. If you ignore it, it is at your peril, as unlike Eli who refused to chastise his sons I must obey Him who sent me. I have a burning in my heart to bring this message to you.

Where has the heart of My people gone? Have you hardened your heart as in the rebellion? You have seen down through the centuries where I have brought My church. There is an inconsistency in the things you do. You are more interested in what you can get than what you can give. My word says, it is more blessed to give than to receive. I do love to bless My children but unfortunately many of My children have become selfish. It was never My desire to see the poor begging for bread and the rich living in palaces. Much of what you do is to satisfy your own bellies. You are crying for revival but revival comes to My house first. So I would urge you all to repent and come back to the true gospel. I have left you a record, My word. I would suggest you study it.

Over the past few years my spirit has been very disturbed by the selfish attitude of the people of God. We are more apt to have another holiday, a bigger car, an extension on our house, and the list goes on, and we call this Christian, godly living when there are people in other parts of the world who are looking for their next bowl of rice, mission societies having to bring their people back off the mission fields for lack of money. If you check the statistics you will find many mission societies through these years of austerity cutting back for lack of resources. Then we hear about people buying Cessna jets and multi-million-pound estates in the name of Jesus. Unfortunately I cannot see this in the gospels. Paul was a Pharisee, he was probably very rich, but when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus he gave it all up. Matthew was a tax collector, Luke was a doctor. These men gave up family, home, everything for the sake of the gospel. Where have all these values gone in the church today? Our attitude to missions is we put a few pounds in the offering and we think we have done our bit. Sadly, my brothers and sisters, that is not the fact.

I suggest you search your hearts. Please do not shoot me. I am just the messenger. Just one thought: I do not believe there is any lack from God; I just believe there is far too much greed in the kingdom of God. Please think about it.

Rev Ross Rennie

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Jesus Weeps Over His Church

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We are living in very strange times. Jesus warned us in the last days there would be many false prophets. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and there is no deviance in Him.

My Christian background was brethren. I was in the brethren church for seven years of my Christian life. I received the finest teaching from the finest teachers and I was privileged to sit under great men of God like Lance Pibworth the 20th century John Bunyan, Professor Verna Wright of Leeds University, Dr Knight from Wrexham, Roger Carswell from Leeds, my own pastor, who is now very elderly, Pastor Paul Brown from Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, but I thank God for these godly people whose instruction has kept me for many years, but even with after being taught by these people I still walked into error and spent between seven and eight years in false doctrine listening to false prophets.

One of my pastors once told me there is an element of truth in everything. The problem is we need to be aware of the error which leads us down the wide path to destruction. My dear old mum once said, all that glitters is not gold. As a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ I am saddened by what I see in the west: men and women chasing after power and adoration and some of them absolutely dishonest; these snake oil salesmen from America; TV evangelists; people denying the Godhead, teaching that Jesus was just a man like any other man and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the Jordan; others saying that Jesus went into hell, took on demonic properties, suffered as we would suffer in hell, then was raised on the third day, when we know He said on the cross, “τετέλεσται—tetelestai—it is finished!”

My brothers and sisters, whether you believe this or not it matters not to me. Jesus suffered hell on the cross when there was darkness over the earth from the sixth hour to the ninth hour. God punished His own Son for you and for me. No human being saw the pain that my Saviour suffered on the cross, so how these charlatans can say these awful things I do not understand. If Jesus was not very God and He was not very man then we are all condemned to hell and there is no heaven; there is just hell waiting for all of us.

Why have we become so selfish? It is not about you. It is not about what you can get, a bigger house, bigger car, a better education; it is about the countless souls that will be cast into the lake of fire because the church does not care. Where has the holiness gone? Our godly women go to church dressed as harlots. What is wrong with beauty? The church looks no different from the world we live in. it has lost its godliness. We cry for revival but much of it is self-centred. Our Christian TV and radio stations pump out more and more lies.

I believe the Lord is calling the nation to repentance or we shall get what we deserve. David wrote the wonderful psalm: “Search me, O God, and see if there is any wickedness in me.” We have ministers denying the truth, accepting gay marriage, allowing our young to fornicate. I am not into religion, I am into holiness and I write this with tears in my eyes. Jesus weeps over His church. We have leaders who deny that Jesus rose from the dead bodily. We have selfish people in the church who only look after their own interests and not the interests of others. We have accepted a false gospel. We have ministers visualising cars and houses, which is no more than Buddhism, new-age teaching, predictions which is nothing more than witchcraft in the church.

Where are the spiritual fathers who will call the church back to what it should be? I thank God for people like Gino Jennings in the USA, Charles Lawson and many of our great leaders such as David Wilkerson who have gone. We have young, puffed-up ministers such as Todd White, Todd Bentley and Steve Chalke to name a few, who are nothing more than false prophets. Where are the spiritual fathers who will speak up for the truth, I wonder. Are we a nation of orphans and as Jesus said, “Will I faith on the earth?” Not word and faith, name-it, claim-it, grab-it ministries, but holy, humble, righteous men of God? Where are you? Are you like Adam, hiding?

If you feel the same as I do, broken-hearted, today, share it with others as the church was never meant to serve itself, it was called to serve others. I know there are many out there like me who feel as I do that it is time we challenged those who are not following the true and living gospel as the apostle Paul did, as the apostles did, and as many in foreign countries who are under persecution are. I plead for my nation. We are at the time, my brothers and sisters, that we got back in the battle. Forgive me if I am speaking to those who are already in the battle. You know who you are. But now is the time to pray as we have never prayed before, or billions of souls will be lost.

God bless you.

Rev Ross Rennie

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Warning Before He Comes – Get Your House in Order

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“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Matthew 7: 15.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. 2 Timothy 4: 3-4.

Dear Readers,

I have been a Christian for over 36 years. I was saved in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, UK, in a free evangelical church. I went from there to Leek in Staffordshire, to an old Baptist Union church. I believe that in those formative years as a Christian I received the finest teaching from the word of God that a young Christian could ever receive. I was grounded in the word of God for my first seven years as a Christian. But there was a problem. I did not know about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I became very legalistic and sadly I was a hypocrite. I was, as CS Lewis once said, a Sunday angel but a Monday devil. I faced many conflicts in those years as I wanted to serve the Lord with all my heart but I could not. My pastor, who was a very godly man, when he baptised me gave me these verses:

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12: 1-3.

What a wise man. He saw this tramp that came off the street. He brought me to the foot of the cross by using a wonderful little book, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. He and many others grounded me in the word of God, which has kept me through many years. But sadly as Jesus said, even the elect can be led astray (Mark 13:22). I was led astray. Though my own pride and my besetting sins I lost my first marriage by allowing a man I met to introduce me to the doctrine of demons. During that period of time I was filled with the Holy Ghost through pentecostal Christians who knew the word of God and the power of God. But he devil himself is very subtle and as the word says comes to us an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11: 14). This resulted in my being in the wilderness for approximately seven years. I still loved God, I still loved my Lord Jesus, but my life was a mess. I went to Bible college. I graduated. I pioneered a few churches. But I was led astray by false doctrine. I listened to such teachers as Kenneth Copeland, Jesse Duplantis, Morris Cerullo, Joyce Meyer and Creflo Dollar. In short, I became a prosperity preacher. I was part of a large ministry in the West Midlands, but unfortunately, my brothers and sisters, I was chasing after wealth, power, position and adoration from my fellow brothers and sisters. But our Father is so gracious; I did not get what I deserved. It was a time of tremendous growth and in spite of my disobedience and at times complete rebellion God blessed me mightily. I believed at the time that what I was doing was pleasing to God, but sadly it was not.

So I urge you my brothers and sisters to check the word of God, read it for yourself and make up your mind about these megachurches and prosperity preachers, as I have learned that there is only one true gospel and it does not say you or I should be rich or powerful; it does not promise us a new house, cars or lands; it tells us to go and to make disciples of all nations.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28: 18-20.

The message is to go, preach, teach and make disciples. This is the purpose of the church of Jesus Christ. No matter what denomination or grouping you belong to, go, preach, teach and make disciples of all people.

I believe with what is happening around the world and the fulfilment of much prophetic scripture that the Lord is very close. Most churches today sadly have become entertainment centres and people seem to be spending more time looking after the needs of those inside the church than what Jesus commanded them to do, to go and reach the lost. It is almost as if the leaders in the church have forgotten that the reason we exist is to reach as many as we can and bring them to the foot of the cross. When was the last time you saw anybody saved, healed or filled with the Spirit or your pastor teach on the second coming of Christ, which many of us believe is imminent? The upshot of this is you will not be judged on how many times you went to a church meeting, Bible study, conference or Christian concert; you will be judged on your fruit. So what fruit will you take with you when the trumpet is sounded and Jesus calls us?

Rev Ross Rennie

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This Must Be Read: Beware of the False ‘Gospel’

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I am writing today with a heavy heart as there is a heresy that is finding its way around the world and it is the prosperity ‘gospel’. I am saddened to find out that someone who has been very important to my own theology is being mixed up with the doctrine of demons, which we are warned in many parts of Paul’s writings to stamp out whenever we see it.

You may have been exposed to such people as Kenneth Copeland, Jesse Duplantis, Creflo Dollar, TD Jaques, Larry Lea, Trimble, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn, Trinity Broadcasting Network and this bunch of greedy TV evangelists who I would be bold enough to say are a satanic group. The Bible says out of a good tree comes good fruit and out of a bad tree comes bad fruit.

If you check the origin and the root of this you will find it goes back to a man called Robert Schuller, who is connected with the author of The Power of Positive Thinking. Such men as Kenneth Hagin took their original teaching from a man called Kemp. A famous book that I have on my bookshelf The Invisible Man was where Kenneth Hagin was influenced with the whole faith movement.

I was mixed up with this movement for several years and at one time I idolised and followed a man who taught these erroneous doctrines, not the Man Christ Jesus. By the way, these faith teachers say that when Jesus was born on the earth He was just a man and when He was in the River Jordan He was filled with the Holy Spirit. This is blasphemy, as if Jesus was not very man and very God He could not have died for us. He had to be the spotless Lamb of God.

Over the Christmas period and New Year the Holy Spirit has challenged me. He even took me to a book that I have always had problems with written by Rick Warren and is used by most megachurches around the world. To say the body of Christ in the west is in trouble would be an understatement, as many of our leaders are barricaded behind their church doors or are part of this insidious megachurch movement. Jesus said very clearly we can only serve one master, God or mammon. I hope like me you choose God. I have also been looking at the scripture recently Matthew 7: 13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” I am disturbed when I hear people preaching that the wide road is just another road and that it is up to you which road you want to go through, when scripture is clear: God’s way is the tough way. John Bunyan knew this and many of the reformers in Great Britain centuries ago.

I am glad that even though I rose to great heights and fell to the ground financially, I will never accept this garbage as it is another gospel, and as it tells us in Galatians 1: 8, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” Also 2 Timothy 3:1-5 “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these.”

The Bible says in the last days (Matthew 24: 24) “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” I am just ashamed that for many years I believed this rubbish, but now the Lord has opened my eyes and has shown me there is only one way – His way – to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Rev Ross Rennie

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