Fleece My Sheep?: The Unprecedented Tragedy of the Church in Bed with a Sinful World

By Sarah Ajala-Immanuel

Miracles, signs, wonders, healings, financial breakthroughs, ecstatic spiritual experiences are most of the teachings propagated from very many pulpits today. Are these truly the rewards of Christianity to which members are expressly entitled?

Charismatic preachers are competing for space on the world stage of celebrities as they accumulate wealth and riches with a continual lust for more...but their wealth, supposedly a reward from God, is limited to the leaders! The congregation continue to invest their hard-earned cash and wait endlessly for their promised multiple-fold and miraculous returns. If this is Gods promise as is taught, then why do the promises from ministers who preach those messages never actually materialise?

Did Jesus Christ receive all the insults and abuse from His enemies, have Himself nailed to the cross, wear a crown of thorns, and have His body mutilated, just to make His followers financially secure and ensure they never again experience physical illnesses? If that were so then we can rightly conclude that Jesus mission failed because Christians still suffer poverty and sickness. Did the Apostles fail to realise the financial rewards of Christianity as they lived self-abasing and sacrificial lives? Are Christians entitled to and promised personal miracles by God?

Since the healings and financial rewards of hard work that is claimed by many Christians today to be miracles delivered by their powerful ministers are also common to unbelievers, then can we rightly assume that unbelievers are saved because they have received the rewards of Christianity?

These are questions we must urgently address for us to ascertain whether the practice of Christianity in most churches in the world today, lead to the all-important saving faith in Jesus Christ. If the answers to the questions do not directly point to salvation in Jesus Christ and peace with God, then more souls than can be imagined are being lost and are in real danger of hell, the dreaded and abandoned word in modern-day Christianity, but a place about which the Lord warned us severally during His earthly ministry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456776701

Sarah Ajala-Immanuel

I am Sarah Ajala-Immanuel, an evangelist, serving as ministering pastor of Living Word Church in Kent, UK. I was raised a Moslem and was called to follow the Lord at the age of 14 years in 1981. My family life meant that I did not respond to that divine call, not understanding what it meant. A couple of years later I developed an interest in Christian music and joined a church group which turned out to be a cult. I was in that movement for 14 years, and then the Lord took me out of it and into the true Gospel ministry in June 1996. I do not claim to have had a phenomenal personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, but He saved me and revealed Himself to me in the power of His Word, the Holy Bible. Since that period I have committed my entire life to the purpose of the Lord, and live to propagate the true life-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to lead people in repentance and obedience to fulfilling their purpose in life, which is to bring glory to God. My preaching and teaching ministry upholds Jesus Christ alone as Lord and the only Way to salvation and eternal life. I am a lone parent of a son and four daughters, who are being raised in the whole counsel of God. In the daunting task of parenthood and ministry, I have found the Lord Jesus Christ the only faithful source of all our needs, spiritually and physically. I joyfully live for my union with the Lord of life as I stand in the spiritual battle with Satan, the enemy of our souls, to see as many as the Lord would call to salvation hear the Truth of God that gives absolute freedom from the evils of the world.

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© 2011 Sarah Ajala-Immanuel. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/16/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-7669-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-7670-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

All Scriptures are taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV).

Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

Table of Contents

The Divine Calling and Election

Apostates – Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

Devils on Rampage

Spiritual Assault on the Church

Saints – Slaves to Jesus Christ

A Final Word

Dedicated to the saints of our Lord Jesus Christ

the memory of those who have gone to be with Him

those who daily suffer the pains of persecution

those who courageously hold on to the truth

— may He continue to uphold you as you live

in service to His glory, amen.

Foreword

There are serious problems in the Christian church today, issues that appear to have taken the Church of Christ away from the purpose for which our Lord established her—to build up believers for service to the Lord through sincere teaching of the Word and in true worship of Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church in bringing glory to the Father. The ‘abomination that causes desolation’ is standing where it should not be…Satan has found a place and is establishing quasi-thrones in what is generally called ‘church’ but is not actually the Church of Christ. This is the ‘visible church’ constituted of wheat and chaff, saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers or the saved and unsaved. They are very apparent in the world and can be rather influential in society and definitely amongst their members. They practice church as fashioned by their ‘leaders’ and are very entrenched in tradition and organised religion. To the world they have all the appearance of and represent the Christian church, but they are actually the ‘synagogue of Satan’ as the Bible (Revelation 3:9) refers to the unfaithful church, because their loyalty is not to Christ Jesus but to their leaders, traditions and doctrines based on heresy and demonic teachings.

Apostates—men and women who having been exposed to the true Gospel of Christ, have turned their ears and hearts from it and followed their own lustful instincts, lead these churches. They have been deceived and seduced by Satan and have made the choice for death over life, and exchanged the truth of God for myths and lies. We do not have a major problem with the apostates who actually depart from the faith and leave the church when the love of the world engulfs them; the ones against whom we must contend are those who remain in the church to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting and undiscerning followers. They have been and are being installed in the church by Satan for the purposes of robbing the people and bringing the Name of our Lord into disrepute.

Sadly, their stealing is not limited to physical resources of finance and wealth, which very many have specialised in doing, but more importantly is the stealing of the souls of their followers! They peddle salvation through easy-believism, which is non-saving faith, in order to gain as many followers as possible and rob them of their material wealth whilst making all kinds of false promises that have no eternal value. Their churches are not subject to Christ but to the world as they offer every kind of service that please the unrepentant, thrill-seeking, money-hungry, miracle-hunting punters that they can attract. Sermons consist of jokes and sometimes obscenities, and entertaining words to tingle the uncircumcised ears of listeners who delight to have their egos boosted and their natural sense of greed encouraged. The hard words of truth contained in the holy Scripture is abandoned for myths and lies, words of flattery that will not offend the hearer—the congregation must be kept happy and excited so that they will keep attending because they are the financiers of the rogue leaders.

There is no reverential worship of God but an atmosphere of pagan revelry most of the time, as worship music is composed and arranged to worldly standards to keep the listeners excited and interested. Every now and then, a more subdued musical version is introduced to work up emotional self-pity in the hearer. All of the nicely and cunningly structured music is aimed at stirring up all kinds of emotions in the congregation to prepare their hearts for the seeds of deception that the false teacher will sow. Whether the congregation are thrown into some emotional frenzy with any format of gospel music or the quieter kind of worship songs, they are told they are under the ‘anointing’ of the Holy Spirit. Of course, these feelings and experiences are only ever temporary and in the particular environment, but the Holy Spirit inhabits true believers permanently and subdues our own spirit so that we conduct ourselves within and outside of the church gathering with reverential honour of God. He is our constant companion through each moment, directing our thoughts, words and activities; He is not just an august visitor who shows up in certain controlled (or uncontrolled!) environment to give us an astonishing experience. The only record in Scripture of persons under spiritual influence, who were falling in frenzy or were uncontrollable, was when demonic spirits inhabited them. There is no precedent of our Lord, the early prophets or the apostles demonstrating any level of spiritual ecstasy, and they were all supremely filled with the Holy Spirit.

There is a God given desire to worship in every human and insofar as Satan cannot take that away from man, he creates all kinds of gods for people to worship—anything but the true God is good enough for him. He damages worship by means of false religion, idolatry and the corruption of true worship.

We will never have the Day of Pentecost revisited when we will have the appearance of seeming tongues of fire sitting on members of a congregation whereby they all begin to prophesy in other languages. I lay emphasis on the word languages because what is touted as tongues today is very distinct from the biblical tongues, which were actual languages that people could understand. That occasion happened in line with the promise of the resurrected Lord to His Apostles that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit descended on them and they would go forth to witness to His Lordship. The Apostles and believers who gathered in that room in Jerusalem received the promised power of the Holy Spirit and they went forth and witnessed to Christ the risen Lord. The legacy passed on to the Church is preaching and teaching the Gospel in continuation of what the Apostles and Prophets established. We must not expect miracles, signs, wonders and tongues any more as a routine—not because God cannot bring them about if He so chooses, but because there is no need for them in this age as the study of Scripture reveals. The canon of the Word of God has been closed and nothing more can be added. Those temporary sign gifts were for the appointed time and are not for show today, as is being deceptively imitated by false teachers for profit.

There is severe lack of discernment plaguing Christians today, which has led to the great number of unsaved Christians who make up the visible church. On the other hand, known to the Lord, is the ‘invisible church’, which comprises the elect of God in heaven and on earth, those whose lives are devoted to Christ in purity of holiness and worship. Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: The Lord knows those who are His, (2 Timothy 2: 19a). They are not recognised by the world because they live in meekness of spirit that the noisy lustful spirits of the unbelieving world cannot understand. These members of the body of Christ have embraced the Gospel with spiritual fervour, have been broken and rebirthed by the Holy Spirit and spend the rest of their earthly life in sincere devotion to the Lord in loving service. They are the Church that will be raptured by Christ Jesus on His return, and they joyfully and thankfully wait for that day. These believers fight against sin and worldly affection, are citizens of the kingdom of God living as aliens in the world as they witness to the Gospel of Christ in order to bring as many as are called to repentance and salvation. Their lives and zeal are comparable to the prophets and apostles in Scripture—the life of Jesus Christ.

Although salvation is a free gift of God to as many as would accept the message of the Gospel of Christ and bow the knee to Him in pure devotion, giving up their own lives for the new life in Christ Jesus, it is not as cheap as the false teachers are leading their followers to believe. These false teachers teach their congregation many lovely sounding slogans that give them false assurances of salvation whilst not submitted to the Lordship of Christ, without which no person will have eternal life in the holy presence of the Son and the Father. Slogans like ‘Jesus is Lord’, ‘I am blessed and highly favoured’, ‘I am a child of the kingdom’, ‘I am seated with Christ in the heavenly places’ and such, are empty talk and futile when the heart remains uncircumcised and the so-called Christian remains unbroken from and entrenched in their sinful and carnal living. True believers do not actually strut about mouthing slogans for show but the assurance of their salvation is evidenced in their peaceful and joy-filled disposition.

It is unfortunate that some Christians with a sincere desire for salvation are actually caught up in the activities and religious practices of the visible church, in most cases because they started out as Christians in those establishments with their false doctrines and have not been exposed to true biblical teachings. These beloved sisters and brothers in Christ are the reason why believers must contend for the true Gospel of Christ and expose the deeds of the ranks of Satan, the apostates and charlatans who have taken over the pulpits in what is recognised by the world as the church of Jesus Christ.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. (Ephesians 5: 8-11)

Both the old and new testaments of Scripture speak strongly about the coming and presence of apostates and charlatans in the Church and we have no reason to be misled if we fully embrace the Word of God as inspired by the Holy Spirit and written down for us by those faithful servants of God who are today with Him in glory. In Fleece My Sheep? I will examine various warnings contained within Scripture and relate them with the current state of what is falsely regarded as the church of Christ. Unless a Christian is faithful to the Word of our Lord, they can bear no fruit, are like the unbeliever, and will face judgement and eternal punishment after passing from this world.

"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15: 5-6)

Contrary to what is being falsely propagated, church attendance, baptism, tithing, sowing financial seeds and holding an office or position in the church, will not get anyone eternal life with our Lord. A simple child-like faith is all that is required in believing that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary was the only acceptable atonement for our sins. In appreciation of forgiveness and resultant promise of eternal life, we live in full submission and obedience to Jesus Christ in thanksgiving for that sacrifice that only He could have made, and which He made without compulsion but by mercy and grace.

As the world advances in science, technology and civilisation, it is drowning deeper and deeper into a hopeless state of depravity, carrying along with it a horde of people looking for drastic solutions to daily problems outside