PULPIT ABUSERS

Do pastors of today preach the word of God out of love for God and the work of God or it is just a mere fear mongering business aimed at making people submit and pay offertories that would fatten the pockets of such preachers?

It is their main act to scare people with the dangers of heaven and never touching on the beauty of heaven. Should it be so?

I seem to be complaining and lamenting about this situation, but the fact is I am not the type who would keep quiet on issues like this and think straight.Being a Christian ( though not one God would be so proud of ) I cannot help but speak on issues like these which are tainting the image of the once noble faith.

Somewhere in Africa, a pastor says the Holy Spirit has commanded him to impregnate 20 of his church members. And he would twist a scripture to back this devilish act. A friend comically said, “that spirit is not holy” and I guess he’s right. Sadly, he (that so-called pastor) would have people for his defense in court. And he may go scot-free.  Another one said he had a call to go and preach outside his country and also to go with some members of his congregation. He went on to call on some members of His congregation to pay some good monies for securing travel documents to the said country he was ‘called’ to go. He later fled with the money and was looked for long before his arrest.

Some of the pastors would not travel or commit the atrocities mentioned above. But they have their own subtle and ill-conceived ways of making things happen their way. They either preach and inject the congregation with fear about hell and brimstone.  Once they get the members on a full dose of fear, they succeed in playing their antics of money laundering by claiming they can deliver the people from whatever they are facing. And because people would not read the Bible for themselves and know what God’s word says about such things, they fall prey and fail to realize it early until it becomes too late.

I have heard a friend who had to pay consultation fees for deliverance for what I don’t know until he returned to penury and could pay no more.

But for a fact, people who preach nothing but hell fire and brimstone must do so because they have never experienced the grace and love of God. They condemn others, because they aren’t so sure about themselves, and they want to make sure that someone else is worse off so that they will make the cut. As if God grades on a curve.

Fire and brimstone is a valid sermon topic, but not for every sermon all the time!

The latest and most used of the tricks is “I have a prophecy”. They do a half prediction of the future. they sometimes get their guess works right and mostly wrong. But this is what the Bible says about accuracy of genuine prophecy “ ^{Deut. 18: 22} When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.“ Many people have believed these preachers who prophesy and yet say there is something hindering the prophecy. By that they make themselves the mediators between God and man. And so call on their members to pay monies and bring certain things that would be used for rituals in order either break a curse in the way of success seen or plead that an evil curse be overruled.

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I am not saying do not go to church, or do not seek godly counsel with reputable leaders in the church but when you go to a church where your pastor’s interpretation and actions deviate from the central truths of the Bible, that is not a church God wants you to go to. Remember  2 Peter 1:20 ^“…that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” Know that you cannot know if you are being misled unless you know the truth of God’s word for yourself. Study to show yourself approved unto God.

Till when? When are we going to wake up as a people and realize the need to read our Bibles for ourselves and know when we are being misled by a quack ‘men of God’? Let’s use our reasoning , personal relationship with God and His word to escape this great and ever growing abuse of the pulpit.