The IRS and The Church

The IRS and The Church
By Pastor Jim Phillips
1.Now the IRS was more subtle than any organization which the Lord God allowed to be established. And it said unto the Church, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not receive subsidies from every thing which God allowed to be established.
2.And the Church said unto the IRS, We may receive the tithes and offerings of every member of the Church to Meet our needs:
3.But of the 501(c) 3 tax-exempt status which is from the IRS, God hath said, Ye shall not receive subsidies from it, neither shall ye incorporate, lest ye die:
4.And the IRS said unto the Church, Ye shall not surely die:
5.For God doth know that in the day ye receive your Corporate status, that artificial life shall be breathed into your Church by the State, and your Pastors shall be as smart as God knowing “Public Policy” better than the Word of God.
6.And when the Church saw that the IRS was able to subsidize it’s pet projects, and that it was the politically correct thing to do, and that it gained a certain amount of respectability from the world, the Church took the subsidies, and gave the benefits also to her Pastor with her; and he did compromise.
7.And the eyes of them both were opened, and they realized that they were powerless spiritually, and they made excuses, and covered up their sin:
8.And they heard the Word of the Lord God convicting them in a real Church: And they tried to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the real Churches and men of God in the world.
9.And the Lord God called unto the Pastor, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10.And he said, I heard your Word preached in a real Church, and I was afraid, because I was powerless spiritually; and I hid myself.
11.And he said, Who told thee that thou was powerless spiritually? Hast thou received subsidies from the IRS, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not receive?
12.And the Pastor said, The Church whom thou gavest me to Pastor, she gave me benefits, and I did take them.
13.And the Lord God said unto the Church, What is this that thou hast done? And the Church said, The IRS tempted us, and we voted to receive their subsidies.
14.And the Lord God said unto the IRS, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all institutions, and above every organization in the world; you are lower than a snakes belly, and shall be cursed every day of your existence.
15.And I will put division between thee and the true Church, and between your Corporate Churches and Hers: they shall win in the end, and yours shall persecute Hers until the rapture.
16.Unto the Corporate Church he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy future ministries, and thy desire shall be to the Chairman of the Trustee board, and he or she shall rule your Corporate Church with a Constitution given to it by the State.
17.And unto the Pastor he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of the Corporate Church, and have received your Tax Exempt Status from the IRS, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not receive subsidies of the IRS: cursed is your Corporate Church because of you; in sorrow shalt thou receive of it’s subsidies all the days of thy life;
18.Divisions also and strife shall Corporate Status bring to thee; and you shall submit to the IRS because of the subsidies you receive from it:
19.In the days preceding your business meetings shall thou study thy Constitution, till thou return unto the true Church; for out of it did you come: for it is a Christian you claim to be, and unto my Church only should you return.
20.And the pastor called his Corporation, “First Baptist Church, Inc.” because it was the founder of all future Corporate Churches.
21.Unto the pastor also and to his Corporate Church did the Lord God allow to be established the Christian Law Association, to convince Churches that it is better to obey the “Public Policy” that it is to obey the Word of God.
22.And the Lord God said, Behold, the Pastor thinks he is smarter than us, to know what is good for him and what is not: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take over an unregistered Church, and compromise it, and it remains a Corporation forever:
23.And God sent the Pastor forth from the true Churches, to preside over his Corporate one which he established.
24.So he drove out the Pastor; and he placed at the pulpit of the real Church a man of God, with a King James Bible, to keep Jesus Christ as the Head of His Church.
(Disclaimer notice: The writer of this article in no way supports the changing of God’s word as do all of the Modern translators of the Bible today. The sole intent of this article is to take a Scripture passage and apply it to a modern day predicament and to make the scripture relevant to the issue.

I do not pretend to speak for God on this issue, but I do not believe that God would allow His Church to be dictated to by IRS or the State as to its manner of Government, or as to the content of the messages that are preached from it’s pulpit. The writer of this article is in no way against the paying of any lawful taxes due to the IRS.)

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The Spirit

The spirit that
people drink is more
than the Spirit in the heart.
The animal in the forest is more
protected than the people of the earth.
Statues of man are worshipped
more than the GOD in heaven.
And life is less important
when your Fatherless.

by Kim Nelson

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It’s Over

It’s Over
by Steve Dines
11/14/12
———————————————————————It’s over. The relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and the group of people who are called “the church” is finished. And if my life is as prophetic as I have come to believe it to be then look out, because fire and death will come upon us suddenly.

Church by church, assembly by assembly, the Lord has been visiting those who say they belong to Him, and church by church, assembly by assembly, each has fallen short of His evaluation. We have failed to hear His voice, we have turned a deaf ear.

Some people try to tell me that there are some good churches out there, but I don’t believe it. To my mind, to my whole being, there is no such thing as a “good” church.

It is with our beloved churches that we, like Old Testament Israel, have defiled the land; we have brought to ruin our promised life in Christ.

That’s because our love for that “sacred cow” we call local church has replaced our love for the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have come to believe that being in church is the same as being in Christ, that listening to church leaders is the same as listening to Christ, but they are complete opposites.

The difference is something that is of vital importance to us, it is a matter of life or death.

I saw a news item on a popular “church” news TV program last night, a church out West in Canada had burned to the ground and was completely destroyed. The Pastor and the congregation were wondering what it was God was trying to tell them. Perhaps the message is plain enough, “the second death is by fire”.

I know I keep on banging on about it, but I can’t keep quiet. This is my message:

Wherever you see hierarchy, formal use of power and authority, routine or mechanistic ways of getting things done and a predominance of one-way communication, then this is not the Lord Jesus Christ at work but men.

It is the work of men that has defiled our Holy Land, our Canaan, our promised life in Christ. It is our human thinking and our human ways that have set Christ aside and caused us to turn a deaf ear to the voice of the Lord. For years He has been calling us to repentance, now the time has come where He is giving us over to what we want. And what we are going to get will eventually destroy us.

We are going to get a radiant, beautiful church that has power. You want a transformed church? You’ll have it. You want an influential church? You’ll have it. You want a church that will unite all “believers”? You’ll have it, and then some. But you won’t have Christ. Because it’s over. The Lord is not going to suffer our insults any longer.

Since coming to Canada, I have come to learn there are two areas of my life you can’t touch, my intelligence and my integrity.

Insult my intelligence or question my integrity and you will see a side of me that you won’t think is very Christ-like. Perhaps the Lord built me this way so that I have a better understanding of how He feels about our churches. Not that I am excusing my sin or my sinful nature, I am having to face up to the fact that I need the life of Christ more than anyone.

But we have to face up to the fact that with our churches we insult the Lord’s intelligence and question His integrity. How? By organising and planning, by directing and controlling, by “leading” the people who are called by His Name. The Lord is quite capable of doing that without our help.

Is not putting ourselves in the place of Christ the work of anti-Christ?

Stay in church long enough and you will get the turnaround you have been asking, seeking and knocking for. But be warned, destruction will follow and you won’t see it coming. That’s because the Lord is testing your ability to hear Him now.

Look through scripture and tell me when there was an occasion where the Lord did something without announcing it well in advance first? Tell me when the Lord allowed people to continually turn a deaf ear to His warnings of destruction without eventually hardening their hearts such that they could not escape His judgement?

Church has brought us to the point of delusion. The time to leave church is now before it is too late.

Since writing “Too dark to work” I’ve been deeply troubled. The Lord speaks, we should listen and respond (willingly cooperate) accordingly. Failure to do so puts us in great danger. “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” because those that do harden their hearts will perish.

God is not speaking to His people today through Pastors or Evangelists or so called Apostles or Prophets. He is speaking with His people directly. This is how He is sorting out the wheat from the tares, the sheep from the goats and the live branches from the dead ones.

Those of us speaking out about what we believe act as a means of ministering to the saints. We speak to encourage those who are hearing the Lord for themselves. Jesus didn’t tell Peter who He was, He asked. Now there’s a lesson for our local church leaders (and don’t forget, I used to be one who thought he would preach and teach!). Maybe now I should ask, “so who do you say church is?”.

So as far as church is concerned, it’s over. The Lord is done with it. He is not striving with men any longer.

The people who are, “called by His Name” must make their choice. Either take heed to the voice of the Lord and “come out of Her, My people” or face the consequences.

Fire and death are on their way. I know, because I’ve already lived it.

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A man’s love of God & Country

If a man’s claim of love for God and country cannot co-exist when the purposes of each are at odds.

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Unity in Christ

is founded on Christ’s sayings, doctrine and commandments, not those that man has established outside of the Holy Scripture. Certainly not on the half truths that man twists scripture into.

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Origins of Halloween

The Occult Origins of Halloween
Nothing in depth. Simply a short 15 minutes video interview of a former satanist.
Credit to Mark Watson for posting the infowars link.

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When You Are Given a Gift…

Do you insist on paying for the gift or do you graciously accept that gift? We graciously accept it, of course. Then why would anyone be so insistent in wanting to work for the gift of Salvation?

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”(John 3:16-21)

But upon receiving a gift, we do want to show appreciation don’t we. How best to show appreciation for the gift of Salvation by becoming a disciple of Christ and giving our life over to Him.

Let’s look at it another way. You have received a gift. It’s a book, by an author you don’t particularly care for. You feign appreciation, but after the gift giver departs you throw the book in the trash. Somehow word gets back to the person who gave you the gift that you threw the gift in the garbage. How do you think that person will feel about you? Depending on how they feel about the importance of the gift there could be a range of emotions from disappointment to outrage and anger. Now think about the gift of Salvation. If we accept so great a gift and then throw it away through our own carelessness or outright disobedience to His commandments, how do you think He will react on the day of His return?

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

24 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

26 “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” (Mat. 7:21-26)

Verse 23 is the last words I ever want to hear from the lips of the one I profess to love and follow. No, I yearn to one day hear my Lord tell me “Well done good and faithful servant”.

Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. 2 For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, 4 God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will? (Heb 2:1-4)

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Tithing Alternative for Pastors

Dr. Watchdog Gives a Tithing Alternative to Pastors as We Enter the Season of Tithing Sermons

 
“I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.” (II Cor 9:7)
———————

October is the month when we see the absolute worst tithing sermons. Of course Perry Noble and Steve Gaines are tithing preachers for all seasons, but October is on average the worst month for pastors misusing scripture to deliver the anti-gospel bad news that God has cursed you, your family, and your checking account because your offering each week does not equal 0.1 times your gross income.

So I want to try to help this year. I would like to take a proactive approach, to help prevent the sheep-beatings and scripture twisting BEFORE it starts, rather than having to blog again this year about pastors threatening church members with curses from on high.

Pastors, because I care, here is an alternative approach to the same old tired tithing approach you’ve taken year after year:

1. Acknowledge Your Tithing Sermons Don’t Work: Pastors, please recognize that while you might be teaching tithing year after year, it is not helping. You aren’t gaining a larger percentage of tithers, and the amount donated per “giving unit” is not going up.

2. Understand that Your Members KNOW You Aren’t Telling the Truth: Realize that since such a low percentage of Christians practice what you are preaching about the tithe, this means they don’t believe your tithing nonsense. They KNOW you are lying and scripture twisting, or at best they are demonstrating their grace toward you by tolerating your ineptness at this one theological point. They KNOW God does not require 10% as a starting point, or as a condition for God to bless them, or a threshold below which God curses them and their families and their finances. They know there is no set percentage at all! While you preach fantasies and fairy tales of tithing and first-fruits giving from the Old Testament as a fund-raising tactic, your church members know the NEW Testament says clearly:

“Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (II Cor 9:7, NIV)

Or better yet, what another version of this verse says:

“I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.” (II Cor 9:7, The Message)

Your church members don’t want to hear your sob stories and they don’t want their arms twisted again this year. Christians decide what percentage and amount to give. When you arm-twist and threaten and coerce, you make it very hard for your church members to delight in what they give.

3. Acknowledge to Your Church You Might Be Wrong: In your stewardship series this fall, start off by humbling yourself. Admit from the pulpit that you might have been wrong about tithing in the past. Tell them that you’ve researched things a bit – you can mention John MacArthur and David Croteau and Andreas Kostenberger as credible sources on the topic – and that you have decided that Christians should decide what they give because that is what the New Testament teaches. Even challenge your church members to read John MacArthur’s views on tithing, tell them about Croteau’s book.

4. Don’t Misuse Malachi and Don’t Mention Melchizedek, “First Fruits”, and “Storehouse”: Tell your people that you might have been wrong about the “church” being the Old Testament “store house”. Tell them that what the Jews gave under the tithing tax probably has no bearing on what Christians do with their finances in 2012, but that the New Testament does say we should all be generous, regular givers of our resources, and this will manifest itself in varying percentages and dollar amounts. Please resist the urge to misuse Malachi and Melchizedek. Whatever you do, don’t bring up Ananias and Saphira in the context of tithing. Teach New Testament grace giving.

5. Tell Your Church Members You Trust and Appreciate Them: Tell church members that they are the best ones to know what percentage of giving to the church is best for them, their kids, and for their futures. Tell them no mater what they give you will appreciate it, and you know that it represents a sacrifice on their part. Tell them that you are fully trusting them to do the right thing, and that if the church revenue increases you’ll praise God, and that if the money decreases you’ll praise God and gladly adjust the budget accordingly.

6. Actually trust God: I know this is hard to trust God with the finances at the church. You have for so long told your church members they should trust God and blindly fork over 10% of their income – well, now is the time is for you to blindly trust God that he will deliver the finances to your church as you release the members to decide in their hearts what to give.

I believe that if you humble yourself and take this approach, you might be shocked as to how people in your church actually respond. You may actually free them up to be generous givers at your church.

You say that no one would ever preach something like this, that it wouldn’t work. Not true. Click here, and you can see a Baptist preacher who actually has taught this for decades, and whose church grows numerically and meets their budget year after year.

Pastors, give it a try. Be innovative, cutting-edge, willing to try new things – you know, just like you tell your congregations to be.

http://fbcjaxwatchdog.blogspot.com/2012/10/dr-watchdog-gives-tithing-alternative.html

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Too Dark to Work

Jesus said that a time would come when no man could work. We cannot rely on our own (or anyone else’s understanding) of the time. We must have the Lord’s understanding.

I imagine that in Jesus’ day, to try to work at night was not just folly, but extremely dangerous. There was the problem of not being able to see and also the risk of encountering wild animals, bandits, thieves, robbers and murderers. Oh, perhaps a bit like our inner city streets today?

Today, I write with a sense of urgency; we are all in great danger. The darkness will be here sooner than we think and that darkness will last a time before the Lord destroys His enemies.

God shut Noah in the Ark seven days before the rain started falling. This is a chilling thought. It could mean that before the end of all things, there will come a time when God has finished His work of saving His people and then it will be too late for those left outside of Christ, but destruction will not come straight away, there may be a divine delay.

It could point to a time when the gospel of Christ can no longer be preached because God has hardened men’s hearts so they cannot be saved, like God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. This indeed, would be a very dark time. The Son not shining any longer because He has been hidden from men. The light that came into the darkness, now removed.

It seems to me that there came a time when Noah could no longer work because the Lord shut him in the Ark, but Noah’s work was finished anyway. Noah’s call to repentance had gone unheeded for one hundred and twenty years.

Inside the ark his voice was no longer heard and his work no longer seen. The people of the earth must have been celebrating and congratulating themselves that Noah was, after all, a fool and a madman, just as they had said all along.

That seven days delay must have lulled the whole world into a smug and self-righteous sense of security. Then the first drop of rain fell.

I’ve heard it said that as the rain continued and the waters rose on the surface of the earth, men were screaming to be let in but it was too late. But if we look at the Book of Revelation, we see that men would rather die than repent. So perhaps all Noah heard was some cursing and shouts of, “we’d rather die than be with Noah!”

Here’s another thing for us to ponder. It was only Noah and his family that were busy working for the LORD, preparing to escape the judgement to come. Today, it is only the Lord Jesus Christ and His family that are busy, preparing to escape the judgement to come. I am not saying that we are saved by our works here, I am pointing to the fact that as “competent ministers” the Lord has work for us to do and that work needs to be completed before it is too late, too “dark”.

As I finish up here I’m thinking about the Israelites waiting in their homes; blood sprinkled doorways, eating the Passover meal with their cloaks tucked in their belts and shoes on their feet. It was dark outside. God’s people were not outside working, but inside waiting.

Moses had finished all his testimony in the Land, now God was working, destroying His enemies.

Daylight, evening, darkness (divine delay), destruction.

by Steve Dines

http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=152636

 

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ian vincent's avatarIan Vincent

http://www.gospelfellowships.net/principles-book.html

PRINCIPLES FOR THE GATHERING OF BELIEVERS UNDER THE HEADSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST
Acknowledgements (pdf) (mp3)
Foreword (pdf) (mp3)
Preface (pdf) (mp3)
Introduction Letter (pdf) (mp3)

PRINCIPLES FROM THE BOOK OF ACTS
Principle 1 – Solely Looking to the Person of Jesus Christ (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 2 – Where 2 or 3 are Gathered Together (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 3 – God’s People Scattered in Sects (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 4 – God Directed Churches Needed (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 5 – The Book of Acts our Example (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 6 – Not Depending on or Needing Buildings (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 7 – The People of God are the Church (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 8 – Taking a Stand for the Testimony of the Church (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 9 – The Early Apostles didn’t Seek after Money (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 10 – Preaching the Good News (pdf) (mp3)
Principle 11 – Leading is…

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