Butch and I can be comfortable worshipping with most any Bible believing Christians. We don't feel that we must
agree on every point of doctrine in order to rejoice in Jesus Christ together.
But in short order we regularly seem to offend someone for the simple fact that everywhere we go, we
always have our testimonies handy, and we are quite liberal in handing them out.
Well, sharing our testimony is never a problem (at least no one has ever admitted that it is). The problem
comes when folks notice the address to our website on front of the testimonies and visit it.
Most of the opposition to what we publish usually comes from pastors and other leaders.
Such was the case when we were recently visiting a very nice fellowship in our town. On our second visit
there, we were having a happy time fellowshipping with the members of the congregation, we overlooked the fact that the
pastor seemed to deliberately not greet us (as he was greeting everyone else on our pew), and were quite enjoying
the sermon when it suddenly became obvious that the pastor had visited our website and seen what we stand for--and
he did not like it.
We had never said a word to this pastor (or anyone else-we had only visited once before) that we had discerned an effeminate spirit oppressing him. Likewise, we had not said a word about the obvious
areas of occult he was involved in (i.e., martial arts, Native American spirituality etc.--apparent on our very first
visit). We had actually wondered if he was even saved. **
But shortly after a good start on the morning message, He got sidetracked, and we were completely blindsided,
when he began preaching a long (and very vicious) sermon against "King James only" people.
(although we love and reverence the KJV, we are not "King James only" (see "Bible Versions"
on navigation bar), but that is the conclusion many come to, and we catch a
lot of flack for our choice of which Bible we believe is most reliable--in fact, I'd say most of the persecution
we endure is because we refuse to compromise on that point).
He blasted any who stood for the word of God saying, "Jesus brought peace and love, and no one should "beat"
anyone over the head with the "king James Bible" (implying that it might be alright to discuss things using
any other version??).
He kept repeating Peace peace and love love incessantly and compared using the word of God (That horrible King
James Version of course) to reprove of sin as being manipulative and divisive. He insisted that Jesus
would never be divisive.
At this point, can anyone tell me why scriptures like, "I have not come to send peace, but a sword,"
and "Contend earnestly for the faith," and, "have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" come
to my mind?
I was also wondering how he reconciled (with himself) his conflicting message. On the one
hand Jesus was all peace peace and love love and would absolutely never be divisive.
On the other hand it was perfectly alright to instill into the hearts and minds of his trusting flock pure
hatred and prejudice for people who love the King James Bible. Go figure...
At any rate, he was so obvious, vicious and hypocritical in his lambasting, that our
appetite was completely ruined, so we didn't stay for the salad dinner and fellowship that we had been looking forward to
after the morning service.
**If anyone is wondering why we went back a second time after discerning what we did the first visit,
it was because the pastor we heard was substituting for the regular pastor who was out on sick leave and was supposed
to be back the following week.
