I received this email and the author agreed to let me share it here…praise God for His truth and Charles’ courage
Dear Athena,
You may not remember me, but we talked once back in the end of 2004. I had signed up with WinePress books to publish a book called “Where is the Fear of God? Finding the Treasure of the Lord”, but I was never able to get it in print through them. I was going to the mission field to Kenya at that time and was trying to get it published before I left. At the time it was so frustrating, for each time we did what they said to do, and each time they came back and blamed the problems on us, when we did exactly what they said. After a year of trying I (and my friend back here in the states, Ros Chin) gave up, forsook the money we had paid to get it printed, and walked away. Little did we know what was taking place at WinePress and that this was right when the takeover was occurring.
When I came back from Kenya in 2009 I tried again to get it published through a ‘secular’ company and in 2 months time I had books on my doorstep, super easy. I never understood why it never worked with WinePress, until you ‘told your story’. So today nearly a decade later I finally understand why God never allowed to be published by WinePress, and I am truly thankful, for God’s ways are higher than our ways. So thank you for not being afraid to tell your story, it has truly encouraged me in several ways.
One of the things that goes far deeper than the publishing of the book was how you and I both were delivered from the snares of the devil. I also found myself in a cult (though for many years I truly felt I was in the best church on earth). But through the years it began to change and more and authority was brought in which abused and manipulated and bullied the members of the church, until finally there in Kenya Nov. 2011 I finally took a stand to say I was not going to compromise and not going to obey a man’s word over Jesus Christ. Well, that was the end for me in that ministry.
Once I brought correction to the leader on where he was contrary to Jesus’ example and his words, now men and women from around the world were stirred up against me to condemn me, strive with me, shame and rebuke me – ‘How could I dare question the man of God?’ Didn’t I know he was ‘Moses’ and the ground would open up and consume me for even questioning him? Now for the first time I felt what so many who were dis-fellowshipped before me must have felt: judgments, condemnations, curses, warnings I would go to hell and my wife and children die if I left their ‘perfect’, ‘loving’ fellowship that was so of God, how deceived I must be even to think they had any error.
Apparently I was even denser in understanding, than others as to what this ministry had become, because I served there faithfully with my whole heart for 22 years. Every friend I had in this world was there. Yes, we did the same things as you. We cut off every one who did not agree with us, we separated ourselves from family members who didn’t submit/agree with our doctrine, Yes, I mortgaged my home, as well as many other church members, and gave it all to the ‘Set Man’, the Lead Elder, so that he could run the ministry. We were not as extreme as some of the practices that you went through (like living in other peoples homes), but it is amazing how many of the practices were identical.
So I know a little of what you went through, and I can honestly say I am sorry you had to endure such things at the hands of one who called himself a man of God. It is the greatest shame. Sadly such men because of the extreme self-deception and over-abundant pride that is in them, cannot see that they are doing ANYTHING wrong. They have an amazing ability to discard their conscience, to justify EVERYTHING they do and to shift blame on others. I just wanted to know I will be praying for you that God will heal your heart and that you will continue with God in fellowship with other believers. That of course is one of the boasts of such men, that ‘everyone that leaves us is shipwrecked’. They truly believe they are ‘messiahs’ and that people are lost without them.
Those who abuse authority in the church always want to gloat that those who leave their ministry are always shipwrecked and don’t serve God anymore and their lives are destroyed. But if we truly received a good foundation at a ministry which prepared us properly as the bride of Christ, shouldn’t many of those who leave continue on faithfully in the Lord? Isn’t that a test of every ministry? Isn’t that the hope of every true parent? “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Pr 22:6 Is it possible that God will inspect the devastation in the lives of those who were associated with a certain man of God and credit that as bad fruit?
Thank God we are not shipwrecked. We will go on to serve God without Diotrephes lording over us. We will be a testimony of those who have been delivered by the Lord himself from the oppressions of unjust men. Such men do not know the devastation which they have caused in the lives of so many who have left their ministry and the condemnations those who leave have had to endure. First, they make those under their rule dependent on them, removing every support they have. Then when some can no longer endure the hypocrisy and are tired of being used and abused, finally decide they must leave. Then they are condemned, shamed, and evil spoken of, so they leave broken, disillusioned, deeply wounded. When such people wander spiritually or many forsake altogether the things of God, such leaders use that as ‘proof’ that they never should have left?! Amazing how such leaders never hear Jesus’ words: “whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Mt 18:6
I could hear in your words on the Blog, some of the same things I have had to pass through and still at times struggle with: How could I be so stupid not to see what was going on for so long? Why did it take me so long to get out? Why did I let another talk me into what I knew in the depth of my heart was not right. This surely is one of the tools of the devil, to try to crush with shame those who come out of cults. But I pray all who come out of such abusive groups will in time become even stronger through such things to help deliver others who may still be caught in such groups and not even know it.
So thank you and God bless you and lead you. May he heal the places of your heart that were trampled on by the proud and arrogant. They will meet their day, if not before the courts of men, then surely before the court of God. Where will all the men who exalted themselves before God’s people hide themselves on the day of the Lord when he returns?! On that day: “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day. For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low.” Isa 2:11-12
Praise the Lord for his mighty deliverances! He has set the captive free. The day will come when he will show “strength with his arm”, when he will scatter “the proud in the imagination of their hearts”, when he will “put down the mighty from their seats”, and he will exalt them of low degree (Lk 1:51-52). I have to say I was grieved by the first person that responded on your blog. It truly shows how so many have no understanding of the abuse and pain people pass through when they are in such groups. In reality why did we get involved in such? Simply because we had a pure and humble heart and wanted all that God had for us. That is what prideful men of God take advantage of, when they begin telling us what we need to do in our walks with God, and stepping into the place in our heart which only Jesus the Lord is to occupy.
There is a spirit that is working in the earth which works in men who wield authority in the church and subtly they become lifted up just like Lucifer was and now they expect people to listen and obey WHATEVER they say. They become leaders after the manner of the Gentiles exactly like Jesus warned his own 12 that they were NOT to do: What you encountered was none other than the very same spirit of Diotrephes where a man wants preeminence in the church and in the hearts of God’s people, so that he may rule over our faith. But Paul, though he was a man of great authority was never like that. Notice how he and those with him did not “have dominion over”, they did not ‘rule over’ the faith of the believers, but were “helpers of [their] joy: for by faith ye stand.” (2Co 1:24).
Some ministers it seems that their truest joy is not in bringing joy to the believers, but rather in keeping them under their control, in lording over the sheep, and reminding the sheep of all the ‘great things’ that such a minister has done. In such places the leader often gets more attention that Christ Jesus himself! Such ministers want to convince the sheep that they ‘stand’ by their obedience to that man and to his subordinates. But scripture is clear, we stand by faith, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, not faith in men. But I have even heard it said from such men, “All I ask is that you trust in the Lord and trust in the servant of the Lord and when we ask you to do some thing, just to do it.” That may sound innocent to some, but that is unbiblical. That is EXACTLY what the antichrist wants from each of us – just to trust him and do what he says.
I was blessed just yesterday with a scripture. Even God shows us why we should trust him. Why do “the children of men put their trust under the shadow of [his] wings”? because of “how excellent is [his] lovingkindness” (Ps 36:7). But men want to say that “ALL” they want is for you is to just trust them?! We are truly in the last days when men are deceiving and being deceived (2Tim 3:13). When men partake of such a spirit, requiring people to trust them, they indeed have drunk of the Luciferic principle. Praise God for the scriptures, which set us free when we see them rightly.
Ps 146:3: Put NOT your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
Ps 118:8: It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
How sad some church leaders use the word of God as a club to beat the sheep into submission, to intimidate and to bully, the very opposite of what Jesus said to do (Mt 20:20-28). Truly many have forgotten the servant model that Jesus left us. Who should be the greatest servants in the church? Many men make it be the sheep, but Jesus said it should be the leaders! How then can a church leader call himself “the Shepherd” (which in truth is no different than saying he is “the Senior or Chief Pastor”) when only Jesus is “the Shepherd” and certainly he is the Chief Shepherd?! How can this be, unless such a man is already drinking of the Luciferic principle! How can a church leader call himself “the set man” or “the lead elder”? unless he is blinded by his own pride and self-importance. How can men praise themselves in the house of God while God is watching, and feel no shame? unless they are Pharisees inside their heart.
Some of the very things you have experienced I also have gone through, although not to the same depth. But it is the same spirit of antichrist authority that would put God’s sheep in bondage to the will of a man and keep them under his control, rather than growing in maturity and being able to discern the will of God for themselves. I pray that you again rejoice to here your Shepherd’s voice (Jesus) as he leads you into the green pastures he has for you.
Sincerely,
Charles von Hammerstein
Not Afraid to Tell My Story 