Corrupt Pastors

One of the scourges that plagues the people of God in the days of the prophets was the presence of corrupt pastors, that over to corrupt themselves they corrupt the people. In fact God many times through his prophets denounced their evil behavior and the big damages they caused to his people. Here there are some of the words spoken by the Almighty God against them.

God said through the prophet Isaiah: “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.’ … O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.” (Isaiah 56:10-12; 3:12b),and through Jeremiah:“Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. … the pastors also transgressed against me … My tabernacle is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains. For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered. … My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.” (Jeremiah 12:10; 2:8; 10:20-21; 50:6), e through Ezekiel: “Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.” (Ezekiel 34:2b-6)

During these last times of the ages, this same curse plague the Church of the living God scattered upon all the earth, because many leaders of the Christian Churches became corrupted and they are spoiling the vineyard of God.

Now I will briefly describe their characters and their behaviors, so you can recognize them.

They teach many things opposed to the sound doctrine. Here there are some of these false precepts:

• God wants we are materially rich (and to obtain this prosperity it is required to give the tenth and who doesn’t give it is a thief);

• God expects from us we enter in politic to rule over the world;

• woman can teach and then can be pastor;

• woman has not to veil the head when she prays or prophetizes and she can wear any kind of clothe because ‘God watches the heart’;

• any kind of music is good to worship the Lord;

• we can amuse as do those of the world;

• God never punish us and doesn’t chasten us because he is love;

• we can drink the blood and eat the things sacrificed to the idols and the choked things;

• the divorced people can marry again without commit adultery for this;

• the baptism with the Holy Spirit is not at all followed from the speaking in tongue as the days of the apostles and then the speaking in tongue of today is from the devil, and the time on who God distributed his miraculous gifts is finished after the death of the apostles;

• who accuses the pastors to do wrong things or to teach false doctrines, even when he/she prove it, is not by God but by Satan.

They don’t know the Scriptures. Although they preach or quote some passage of the Scripture and make a speech, they don’t know the Scriptures, in fact they don’t know the doctrines of the Bible, and to understand this it is enough to meet them in any moment out of the church-building to ask them to explain to you a biblical doctrine and to listen how they will answer to you.

When they say they have not any time and “we will talk another time about it”, they say to you that they are not important topics, or that you will understand certain things later, or they explain the topics contrariwise or in such distorted way, and therefore indeed to delete the confusion from your mind they increase it.

They are not devoted to the Word of God, and in fact they are not able to exhort in the sound doctrine and to persuade the contradictors. But they belie this their not devotion to the Word by sentences like: “I don’t want be argumentative, I limit myself to talk about Jesus” or “I am not a theologian”, etc. The real thing is that these people are not interested in the doctrine of God.

The sermons they present are copied by others, and they are good to recite them behind the podium. When they are able by themselves to draft some sermons, they lead nowhere, they leave us completely baffled, they are incomprehensible, twisted and confused. That’s why these people are clouds without water.

They are able to entertain the goats: jokes, screams, riots and other unseemly things, in fact are present in their dry speeches. They have a sweet and flattering speaking by who entice the unstable souls.

When they spread the Gospel, they talk only and exclusively about the love of God, and never about the judgment to come upon the sinners that will be manifested even throw them down the flames of the hell after the death and their message is not: “Repent and believe in the Gospel”, but it is: “Accept Jesus and He will solve any problem of you”. They have not to scare who listen them, and then they adopt this kind of speaking. And then many of them don’t believe even to the existence of the fire in the hell, that’s why they never talk about it.

And moreover they adopt techniques of evangelizzation (like theatrical scenes, mimes, puppets, etc.) that are not concerned to the Word of God.

They cleverly know – from here I relate only to the Pentecostal pastors – how to influence people, inducing them to utter incomprehensible words to let they believe they have received the baptism with the Holy Spirit by the evidence of the speaking in tongues, like even to let they confess to be healed when indeed they are still sick.

They thrust people upon the floor in many ways, willing to lead people to believe in this manner that God is with them and than that is a manifestation of the Holy Ghost that attend their preaching. Moreover they burst out laughing and make people laugh in an unrestrained way, and say that is the joy of the Lord that pour out of their wombs, but as matter of the fact it is just such craziness they have in their hearts.

They say false prophecies and forecast great revivals.

They say God is making a new thing, and this thing should be essentially that God is pushing his children to transgress certain His commandments of the New Testament (the commandment of the veil for the women, the commandment that forbid the woman to teach, the commandment regarding the prudish and humble outward ornament of the woman, the commandment that forbid the second weddings to the divorced people, and the commandment to renounce to the worldly lusts, just to quote some of the transgressions). The truth is that Satan is using them to make an old thing.

By their false prophecies they promise blessings to the rebellious people, and threaten the God-fearing people that are even called uncircumcised. Some of their features is to talk against those that truly sanctify themselves, that are subject of their witticisms and jokes; and indeed they speak highly of those that follow the world and that are a hitch to many by their scandalous behavior.

They are friends of people that is not God-fearing and with them often go into business. These friends of them often have the title of “apostles” and “prophets”, but they are just impostors that by their lies help these corrupted pastors to command respect – until this point I refer only to Pentecostal pastors.

They introduce in the Churches so-called “adoration and prophetical dances” by sensual and provocative dancers, and out-and-out group dances, like even theatrical scenes, mimes, and puppets, and other unbecoming things, to bring fun and to entertain. Their message is “the people of God has to rejoice”, but as matter of the fact they want say that it has to have fun.

They are not an example of holiness in their behaviors (together their families): in fact they are free with one’s hands, violent, double according their speaking, lovers of money and in fact they keep continuously to ask for money using various pretexts, they have hearts exercised unto cupidity that desire to pilfer and this practice by any sort of cheat when the occasion presents itself to them, they are unrighteous because indeed to admonish the messy people they admonish who reprehend the disorder, they are vulgar according their speaking (they say easily some swearwords out of court), they speak evil of dignities, they are lovers of luxury (in fact they mind to high things) and of the pleasures of the life (in fact they go to have fun like the pagans) and there is even who is given to the fornication o to sins against nature.

They are not an example of holiness because they don’t love the holiness in the house of the Lord, and then they allow any kind of evil: funs, pleasures of life, gambling, indecent women’s clothes, modern music, theatrical scenes, mimes, clowns, puppets, vulgar speaking, and nearly any sin, among which fornication, adultery, homosexuality, abortion and so on. And in fact you never can hear them preaching against these things. What’s the reason? They don’t love the holiness, and yet the Bible says the holiness befit the house of the Lord.

They are proud and arrogant, and in fact they rule the people of God. They are almost unapproachable. They try to keep a certain distance between them and the sheeps. It is almost impossible to be seen by them, even when you are sick, and this because for them you are a number and not a sheep of the Lord of who have care. If you present to them a little right remark, or you correct them, they begin to despise you and lead everybody against you. And of course they vilify you. They are people that don’t love the correction, and this because they are unwise.

They are able to threaten physically you, and to lay a hand on you if there is the need.

They are ecumenical, some unashamedly and others in an underhand manner.

They love and practice the lie. Today they say one thing, tomorrow another thing, and if you point out it to them, they say you have misunderstood. They say various lies to cover their misdeeds and their business.

They extend to driving out from the church those who sanctify themselves, while they keep closer to them the fornicators, the adulterers, the homosexuals, the thieves, the lier people, and other people that have shameful behaviors.

“Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.” (Jeremiah 23:1).

He who has ears let him hear

Giacinto Butindaro

(translation by Sambataro Stefano)