Weekly Thoughts
11/10/07 – Coming to US?
Hi all,
A bit different this week: Some thoughts about 3 topics that I hope you will find interesting and thought provoking: One is about the 7 visions William Branham had in 1933; the second a stunning admission from Bill Hybels, the founder of the Seeker Sensitive movement, that he was wrong about seeker sensitive churches producing disciples; and the last has to do with news about a Senate investigation of 6 TV ministries. I know this week is US oriented, so my apologies to our European, Asian, African and Australian readers, but it is interesting still.
A couple weeks ago Barb saw a TV ad for the new Chrysler min-van that included a family playing checkers in the back area on a table. She remembered a vision William Branham had in 1933 where he saw people driving in cars that were egg shaped and people playing checkers in the back, and that prompted me to do some searching.
If you read his visions you'll see they are in chronological order; the first 3 deal with World War II, but the last 4 are relevant to our day. Part of the reason of these Weekly Thoughts is to update and get people thinking about what they believe and why...thought this was interesting.
William Branham
1933 Seven Visions
Concerning end time Events From 1933 to The End
(web link provided at the end of these "Thoughts")
The Seven Visions of William Branham in 1933
Vision One:
He saw in a vision that the dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini, would invade Ethiopia and according to the voice speaking to him, Ethiopia "would fall at his (Mussolini's) steps". However, the voice continued and prophesied a dread end of the dictator, for he would have a horrible death and his own people would literally spit on him.
Vision Two:
The next vision indicated America would be drawn into a world war against Germany which would be headed up by Adolph Hitler. The voice predicted that this terrible war would overthrow Hitler and he would come to a mysterious "end". In this vision he was shown the Siegfried line whereat a great toll of American lives would be exacted, but Hitler would be defeated. It might be well to mention here that a subsequent vision relative to this war predicted that President Roosevelt would declare war against Germany and in so doing would eventually be elected for a fourth term.
Vision Three:
The third part of the vision showed that though there were three "ism's"; Fascism, Nazism, Communism in the world: that the first two would come to nothing but that Communism would flourish. The voice admonished him to keep his eyes on "Russia" concerning future involvements, for Fascism and Nazism would end up in Communism.
Vision Four:
The fourth vision that appeared to him was one in which there was predicted to be tremendous technological advances right after the war. This was symbolized by an egg shaped car with a plastic bubble roof, going down beautiful highways completely under perfect remote control. There was no steering wheel in the car and the occupants of the car appeared to be playing a game like checkers.
(John's note: Of course remote cars have existed for years though our highways aren't set up for them, but we could also say GPS guiding the vehicles is about equal to what he saw in 1933, and/or the symbolism indicating computer's which actually control our modern cars.)
Vision Five:
The fifth scene that appeared involved the womanhood of the world. In this scene there appeared the fast moral decay of women. Starting back when she received her so-called liberty to enter into worldly affairs, she soon began to wear clothes that were too revealing. She bobbed her hair and adopted the clothing of men. Finally the vision showed her all but stripped naked and she merely covered herself with a tiny apron about the size and shape of a fig leaf. With her womanhood so little valued a terrible decay of all flesh came upon the earth and with it perversion even as set forth by the Word of God.
Vision Six:
Then there arose in the United States a beautiful woman clothed in splendor, and great power was given to her. She was lovely of feature but there was a hardness about her that defied description. Beautiful as she was, she was cruel, wicked and cunning. She dominated the land with her authority, she had complete power over the people. The vision indicated that either such a woman would literally arise or that this woman of the vision was merely a type of an organization which is scripturally characterized by a female.
(John here - remeber that was 1933 and TV was unknown - it wouldn't be a stretch to say that to someone seeing a slick TV-based modern Presidential campaign Hillary might have looked beautiful (if he was seeing her)).
Vision Seven:
The voice bade him look once more. As he turned and beheld, a great explosion rent the entire land, and left the land of America a smoldering, chaotic ruin. As far as the eye could see there was naught but craters, smoking piles of debris, and no humanity in sight.
The vision then faded away.
Seeker Friendly method wrong
Bill Hybels admitted that he has been wrong in his approach to the gospel...rather than my own comments, I will quote the article of Bob Burney...Bob Burney is Salem Communications’ host of Bob Burney Live, heard weekday afternoons on WRFD-AM 880 in Columbus, Ohio.
"For most of a generation evangelicals have been romanced by the “seeker sensitive” movement spawned by Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. The guru of this movement is Bill Hybels. He and others have been telling us for decades to throw out everything we have previously thought and been taught about church growth and replace it with a new paradigm, a new way to do ministry.
Perhaps inadvertently, with this “new wave” of ministry came a de-emphasis on taking personal responsibility for Bible study combined with an emphasis on felt-needs based “programs” and slick marketing.
Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. The study’s findings are in a new book titled Reveal: Where Are You?, co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. Hybels himself called the findings “earth shaking”, “ground breaking” and “mind blowing.” And no wonder: it seems that the “experts” were wrong.
The report reveals that most of what they have been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers yes, but not disciples. It gets worse. Hybels laments:
"Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn't helping people that much. Other things that
we didn't put that much money into and didn't put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for."
If you simply want a crowd, the “seeker sensitive” model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it’s a bust. In a shocking confession, Hybels states:
"We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own."
Incredibly, the guru of church growth now tells us that people need to be reading their bibles and taking responsibility for their spiritual growth."
Senate investigates TV ministries
One of the big news items this week is a Senate committee headed up by a Republican asking for financial documents of 6 ministries by December 6th: Eddie Long, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, Joyce Meyer, and Benny Hinn. The Senator said he wants to make sure they aren't outside their not-for-profit status by living lavish lifestyles - "living like billionaires" he said on the news last night. (Web link below)
Readers of these 'Thoughts' may recall some things the Father told me a few years ago about "watch out when Hillary takes office" and about the election between Kerry/Bush. At that time I felt a difference in the Democratic party and the Father told me; "It's the spirit of socialism; it can be delayed but it won't be stopped."
At the time I mentioned if Hillary gets elected it would mean the federal government expanding to intrude into various church and ministry practices. So this Senate investigation is of interest. The progression would be that the Senate finds some or all these ministries outside the bounds of the intent of the law concerning churches (or finds them clean). Either way it could lead to laws restricting 501(c)(3)'s and/or churches. If not a law, remember the IRS takes it's orders from Congress, and Congress could move on the IRS to more closely audit and examine churches of all size and shapes.
On the other hand, I believe the Lord has for years been trying to get some of the prosperity teachers to come back to balance, but few have heeded.
Things to think about, blessings,
John Fenn
www.ifaithhome.org
Link to news report:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/06/
cbsnews_investigates/main3456977.shtml
Link to the Branham site:
http://www.williambranham.com/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=1
