WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! was the clarion call of the Marxist/Communist party.  Note the word WORKERS.  Marx’s entire philosophy hinged on the belief that the proletariat, the wage-slaves, from around the world would unite in one great revolution and create the ultimate Communist utopia.  There was no room for what we call “welfare” in his system.  He considered non-workers scum (his word not mine) and warned against this non-laboring class of people being swept up into the revolution as the hired thugs (his word, not mine) of a Reactionary Elite.

In Marxist philosophy, there are four words that you really have to key on: Proletariat, Bourgeoise, Capitalist, and Reactionary. 

The Proletariat were the workers, the wage-slaves, the field hands of the Bourgeoise elite.  Capitalists were the owners of the corporations, companies, and businesses that employed the Proletariat.  With Bourgeoise, think middle-class in today’s terms, lower-end capitalists, small business owners who employed a handful of people.  Reactionaries were people who wanted to keep and return to the society from which the Marxists were rebelling.

Reactionaries wanted to keep their serfs and wage-slaves; the Bourgeoise wanted to keep the business that lined their pockets with money and let them lead a good life; the Capitalists wanted to keep control of their corporations.

According to Marx, these three groups denied the Proletariat the right to receive the proper compensation for their labor.  For Marx, it centered around who owned the means of production.

Think of a company, any company that makes a Billion Dollars a year. Say they make a Widget.  The president of the company makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.  The company’s executives make huge amounts of money but not as much as the president.  And the workers who actually make the Widget get an hourly wage.  If there is a huge demand for Widgets in a particular year, the president and the executives all receive bonuses.  And the workers continue to make their hourly wage.

According to Marx, the people who actually made the Widget should receive the financial benefit not those at the top.  He argued that the Billion Dollars should be equally divided among ALL the employees in that company and not shared only at the top.  In his world, it was a sin that the Capitalists were living high on the hog off the blood, sweat, and tears of the common laborer.  It was the laborer who invested his heartbeats in making that Widget and therefore really owned the Widget and should reap the benefits from its sale.

Expanding that to the national and then the world level, since the Proletariat owned the means of production for everything, they should all share equally in the rewards for literally making everything.  Stop and think for a moment.  Is there anything that you use, wear or eat that is not made, handled, or grown by someone else?

Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity!  Marx raised the whole idea of Communism to a kind of religion, as well he should since he stole the whole idea from the Bible.  But wait, you say, Communism is atheistic.  There is no God in Communism.  Marx called religion the “opiate of the people”.  In the Communist Manifesto, he literally dismisses religion in one line as not worthy of even being discussed.  He had to because anyone who seriously read the Bible would see Marx was a fraud.  He took God’s plan for his chosen people and then substituted the State for God.  And with that substitution, he doomed Communism to failure.

What, you don’t believe me?  Acts 2:44-45 “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.”

And

Acts 4:34-35 “Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.”  

Can someone say, “Commune?” 

The God of the Bible is a totalitarian who favors communism/socialism for His followers.  The first law is that God comes first in everything.  If you put God first, you almost automatically become a Communist.  You work to please God, not yourself.  You give God all that you make.  And since you have given all, God, who knows all, gives you back what you need.  And what do you need?  The Bible says, 1 Timothy 6:8 “And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”.  Everything else is vanity.  Notice that the Bible didn’t say “with Chateau Briand and Gucci let us be therewith content.”  If you don’t believe me about all being vanity, read Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 2:24 – There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.

Ecclesiastes 5:19 – Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat therefor, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God.

And then there are all the verses about a man enjoying the fruits of his labor.  Grab a Concordance from the Library (when one opens again), or download a Bible App and search the words “fruit”, “labour”, “work” and their various variations and you will be shocked at how many talk about the laborer getting the full benefit from his labor:

Psalm 128:2 – For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

Proverbs 14:23 – In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.

But, as Marx supposed, how can a laborer enjoy the fruits of his labor if there is someone there to take them from him?  And then you have the nail-in-the-coffin (so to speak): 2 Th 3:10 – “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”  If you don’t work, you don’t eat.  Could you be any more Marxist than that?

If you read a biography of Marx, you will discover that he was a student of Fredrich Hegel’s philosophy and adopted his dialectical method to criticize established society, politics, and religion from a leftist perspective.  It was this dialectical method that led him to develop an abject dislike for organized religion which he blamed God for.  He, therefore, took what the Bible had to say about labor and took God out of the picture, substituting the State for God.  But he forgot about human nature, and that’s where non-God-Centered communism breaks down.  A person might feel moved to give ALL to God, like the poor woman who gave her two mites in Mark 12:42- “And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing”. But how many would feel so moved to give all to the State?  In a beautiful, altruistic world in some other matrix, maybe.  But not on earth then, or today.  Man is too in love with the seven deadly sins. 

Which brings us back to today’s Democratic Party and the Reactionary Elite.

To Be Continued…….

Written by Eric B. Ruark

The post The History of Politics appeared first on Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr..

You may think that people go to church to learn of God and understand the Bible, but that is not always the case. Most people actually go to church to learn what God can do for them or to appear that they are really dedicated Christians. The opposite can be said about those that attend Pastor Fulcher’s church. People come to Truth House Church to hear Pastor Fulcher preach the Bible as it is and to learn what God expects of them.  Some have stayed; some have left.  Some people who have left have found other churches that cater to their whims and have disappeared into the woodwork. They think that they have found a church that everyone fits into, that lets them do what they please how, and when they please, they think they have found freedom and have hit the jackpot. The problem with that is the Bible says in (1 Cor 7:22) For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called being free, is Christ’s servant.”

What distresses Pastor Fulcher and other Pastors like him that teach the Bible as it is, is that sometimes when people leave for personal reasons and need to validate them they become enemies of the church. Some cannot find fault with the doctrine that has been taught so they find fault with the person teaching that doctrine, the Pastor. These people tend to attack the personal life of the Pastor. They will find fault with his human life or the decisions and actions that he takes from the pulpit without having an understanding of why he has done or said what he has said. They base his actions on what their human reasons would have been in that same situation.  When you take away all the rhetoric and smokescreen of emotion, you discover that these people are attacking Pastor Fulcher for his particular stand on the Word of God. 

Pastor Fulcher’s stand on the Word of God boils down to a simple either/or question: either the Bible is the Word of God or it isn’t.  If it is not, no big deal.  But… if it is… shouldn’t you pay close attention to everything it says?  And that is exactly what Pastor Fulcher does and by doing so “inconveniences” those who are not willing to follow him as he follows Christ, (I Corin 11:1), “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ”.  For example, Pastor Fulcher holds two services a week: one on Friday night and the other on Sunday afternoon.  To some people, the Friday night service means they either have to give up clubbing or delay their going until after the service.  The service on Sunday interferes with watching the pre-pandemic NFL games.  Pastor Fulcher also teaches firmly and plainly (Heb 10:25) “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more as ye see the day approaching.” To those that believe the Bible means what it says and follow Pastor Fulcher or any other Pastor that teaches this, it means that they will be present for any and all services that their Pastor holds. Some might say, Oh but if you go to Pastor Fulcher’s church you can’t go on vacation, not true, no one is told whether they can or can’t go on vacation.  There are plenty of people that go on vacations routinely, they just make the choice to vacation during the week so that they may keep the scripture of Heb 10:25. 

This is not an inconvenience for those who put God first.  It is for those who don’t.  And those who don’t put God first are basically in Satan’s pocket which explains the virulence of their attacks.  They were never of God, to begin with, no matter how long they sat at the feet of the man that was revealing God’s word to them.

The other group of detractors are so-called Christians who are upset that Pastor Fulcher, by using the Bible, can so easily unmask their hypocrisy.  “He doesn’t live the life,” they claim.  “He’s a sinner.” But by who’s definition is Pastor Fulcher a sinner and what does that have to do with his ability to teach the Word of God? Remember they called Jesus a sinner as well.

One of the best lines in a western is in the movie Heaven With A Gun.  In the movie. Glen Ford plays a gunfighter turned preacher.  After one of his sermons; the dance hall girls come up to him and thank him for allowing them to attend the church but they would be willing not to attend if it would make things easier on him to which the Glen Ford character responds, “If God closed the doors to sinners, I couldn’t get into my own church.”

The Bible teaches that Jesus, himself, dined with publicans and sinners and the hypocritical religious leaders of that time thought that was terrible. (Matt 9:10) “ And it came to pass as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples” and (Mar 2:15) “ And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him.” Likewise, when Pastor Fulcher uses the Bible to expose the hypocrisy of modern Christians, they hate him for it, because it means they would have to change their thought process or keep living a lie. 

Despite the attacks on what he teaches and the attacks on his character, Pastor Fulcher realizes that he is in good company.  All through the Bible the Men of God withstood attack after attack to preach what God wanted them to.  I Kings 18:20 starts the story of how on Mt. Carmel, Elijah challenged the priests of Baal. He defeats the priests of Baal and in doing so incurs the wrath of Queen Jezebel and has to go on the run for fear for his life.  By 1Kings 19:4, he is hiding in the wilderness praying to die. All because he stood for God and did what God told him to do, not the people.

2 Kings 2:23 tells of a group of children disrespecting Elisha.  Children are the mirror of their parents.  They disrespected the Man of God because their parents disrespected the Man of God. 2 Kings 2:24 shows how God dealt with these children for disrespecting His servant.  Jeremiah 38:6 tells how Jeramiah is lowered into a pit with mire for preaching exactly what God told him to.  (Dan 6:10-16) Daniel a mighty Man of God was thrown into a lions’ den simply for refusing to turn his back on God. He chose to continue to pray and give thanks to God even though the King signed a decree that it was not allowed.  (2Timothy 4:14-17) shows that even Paul came under attack from Alexander and was thrown into the lion’s den as well, but God delivered him out because he was faithful to God’s word, not the people.

People not of God hear and see everything through the colored glasses of their own vanities.  They don’t realize that they have put themselves first, worshipping the desires of their own bellies. Therefore, anyone that challenges their misguided beliefs feel they must attack their human life because they can’t attack the doctrine, the Bible says what it says. When Pastors teach the Bible as it is, it shines a light on their shortcomings and weaknesses and they can’t let that happen. They must justify their decision to turn their backs on the Bible, and they can only do that by judging a Pastor with their limited understanding. People simply don’t like to be told that they are wrong.  This is a perfect example of beasts who are biting the hand of the man who is trying to feed them.

So, if Jesus, our Lord, and Savior was hated and crucified, Pastors in this day and age that are talked about, hated, and disrespected for following God’s word and not the peoples, are in good company. It just further proves that they are called of God. (Matt 10:22) “ And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.”, (Mar 13:13) “ And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”, (Luk 21:17) “ And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.”

Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya Tillman

The post Why are Pastors Hated Throughout History? appeared first on Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr..

There are many in the traditional Christian world that believe you do not need a Pastor to be saved.  But according to the bible, that is not true. (1 Cor 1:21) says: For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Just because one attends a seminary or a bible college does not mean that he has been anointed to preach the gospel.  Jesus said in (Luke 4:18):  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. One may have a degree from OR University but unless that person has been anointed by God to preach the gospel that degree will not mean much. Having a degree will only allow you to know what man knows, and that boils down to the traditions that have been handed down through the generations. The Bible says that man makes the word of God to none effect by his traditions. (Mark 7:13) Making the word of god of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye. The Bible also says, (1 Cor 2:13)  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

So, who does God call to perfect the saints? (1 Cor 12:28)  And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.   Who hath set them?  God, not man.

An Apostle is one that is sent (by God). (Rom 10:14)  How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?  A true Pastor is a man who has been anointed by the Holy Spirit to teach his congregation how to use the Bible to compare spiritual things with spiritual.  And the only way that can happen is if the Pastor’s eyes have been opened to see past the plain words printed on the page to the hidden meaning beneath… something you cannot learn in a school?  It has to be revealed to you.

To further drive this home, it is written in (Rom 10:15)  And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!  Note, the Scripture says, “be sent.”  A Bible School or seminary does not send you.  It indoctrinates their students in the particular brand of theology they are teaching so that their graduates will all agree with the doctrines of their specific denominations.  Not all Bible Schools teach the same doctrine.

Yet, the Bible says in (Isa 55:9)  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my  ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.  God’s thoughts are higher than man’s thoughts and as such, by nature, must be revealed.  No degree can reveal God’s word, only God can reveal His word.

Written by Jerry Corsaletti and Eric B. Ruark

The post Does A Degree Make A Pastor or Is It A Calling From God? appeared first on Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr..

According to the Bible, Jesus said, “For ye have the poor always with you.” (Matt 26:11) For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always, and (Mark 14:7) For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.  Pastors like Dr. Fulcher have to teach their congregations that physical wealth is not the wealth that Jesus was talking about.  When Jesus taught his disciples on the mountain, he told them that (Matt 5:3) Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The bible teaches in (Matthew 11:5) The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them, and in (Luke 7:22) Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things you have seen and heard; how the that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.  

When traditional Christian churches talk of doing the work of the Lord, they refer to such things as feeding the needy. But what does God say His work is? In (Matt 11:29) Jesus said, Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. The key phrase being “learn of me.” Dr. Fulcher and Pastors like him that wish to teach what it truly means to do God’s work will have to instill in their congregations what Jesus implied when He said “learn of me.” It will be like a domino effect, you learn of Christ, you do His work.

When Dr. Fulcher created Truth House Ministries Church, Inc. and The Present Testament Ministries and those first, few, people began following him, he was faced with a daunting task.  Most people come to a church with preconceived ideas of what a Christian is and what a Christian does.  As the Pastor, Dr. Fulcher had to literally wipe the blackboards of the peoples’ minds clean of misguided traditions, incorrect teachings and false understandings and write anew the true Word of God on their hearts. 

One of the first things Dr. Fulcher had to teach his congregation was what was the truth behind doing God’s work.  Ask virtually any man or woman on the street who calls themselves a Christian and they will tell you that doing God’s work revolves around feeding the needy, giving money to the poor, housing the homeless and any other of the numerous charitable functions that most traditional churches think up.  Traditional churches have all kinds of charitable programs through which they claim to be doing God’s work.  The Catholic Church alone has dozens of programs that their faithful can give to.

The Bible says in (1 Cor. 15:50) Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.. If flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom, what can then?  Just as the Pastor teaches that there is an inner and an outer version of the Bible, there is an inner spiritual man and an outer fleshly man.  It’s the inner, spiritual man that must do God’s will.  He is, in fact, the only one who can. 

Most Christians know little or nothing about the inner man because their Pastors don’t teach it.  Most Pastors, having come through traditional Bible schools, don’t know the Truth themselves and being unaware of the Truth are not able to pass on what should be as basic as a-b-cs. 

So when it comes to the topic of Feeding the Needy, what do you think it means? Do you take what traditional views and concepts or do you take the words Jesus spoke in the bible when he explained who the needy were and what His work was?

Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya J. Tillman

The post Feeding the Needy: What Does it Truly Mean appeared first on Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr..

Dr. Fulcher did not plan on pastoring a church.  It was the furthest thing from his mind, he wanted to play music for a living. But as the great Scottish poet once said, the best-laid plans of men often go astray.  He had grown up in churches and seen the hypocrisy, compromise, and make-believe worship and wanted no part of that. In fact, at 17 years old, he fell into agnosticism. The corrupted church world, rife with hypocrisy and compromise, had driven him to doubt God’s existence.  It only lasted for a short time.  He hid away and fasted for 21 days and nights, asking God to visit him, or he was giving up on all forms of so-called Christianity. While on the fast, God spoke to him concerning his ministry and anointing shortly to be manifested.  Also, God revealed to him that it was the religious traditions that were out of control and false, not God.  He began studying the Word of God even more intensely and began building his ministry on Luke 4:4, which says, “And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”

In the beginning, Dr. Fulcher was an evangelist going from church to church, from crusade to crusade with his message that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.  But God had other plans for him.

In 1970, Dr. Fulcher began to call his ministry “Crusade for Truth”.  He had developed the reputation as a debater.  This came from challenging other preachers who did not preach the Truth as it is written in the Bible but were steeped in the traditions of men.  Many congregations liked him to challenge their pastors because they knew their pastors were wrong.  As you might imagine, he did not have the support of many established churches since his message was in direct opposition to what they were preaching.

These were difficult times.  Not everyone was willing to listen to and accept the Truth.  During this period, he was also writing tracts for his magazine Crusade For Truth and sending them out.  In late 1974 he wrote a tract entitled, “The Key of Deliverance”.  Somehow, it got to a woman who ran a little church in Level, Maryland.  She contacted him and told him that his tract had fed the little flock that attended their church and she wondered if he would come and preach to them.  They were sheep in search of a preacher.

Level, Maryland is a small town in Harford County near the Susquehanna River.  The people there were touched by what he said, and there were some in the congregation who were so touched by God that they wanted to hear more of Dr. Fulcher’s straight, hard truth.  So he was invited back.  For the next year, he traveled back and forth from where ever he was holding a crusade to Level until he was led by God to cut back on the crusades and establish himself in the surrounding area.

In November 1975, with a small nucleus of believers, Dr. Fulcher rented an old bar in Havre de Grace, Maryland, and with this nucleus of believers, he established the foundation of a ministry that was to become capable of launching the message to the world via short-wave radio and eventually Internet Television.  It became known as Truth House Ministries, and his magazine changed from Crusade for Truth to The Present Testament Magazine.  This was not as easy as you might think, because, even though they were eager to learn the truth, they were as full of tradition as anyone else.  This purging took years of strained teaching to get them where they are today.

Some of the main goals of Truth House Ministries Church, Inc. are to:

1) Preach the message of grace and freedom to people who are bound by religious tradition and opinions of man, and:

2) To show that, even in today’s world, a Christian can be an intelligent, educated and completely normal person, capable of fitting into any part of society.  All they have to do is put God first.  Christians do not have to speak in tongues or quote Bible verses at people.

Dr. Fulcher teaches that one of the greatest ways in the world to witness to people about God is by keeping your mouth shut.  We are not supposed to try to save anyone.  We are supposed to be witnesses.  In Matthew 24:14, it says,  “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”

Written by Eric B. Ruark

Church at Level, Maryland. This is where Dr. Fulcher was invited to preach by the small flock that had read his tract “The Key to Deliverance”.

The old bar in Harve De Grace, Maryland that Dr. Fulcher rented when he moved to Maryland to preach full time. The small nucleus of believers renovated this property.

Dedicated believers of Dr. Fulcher’s ministry did the renovations.

More renovations by the dedicated small nucleus.

Transforming this bar into a house of worship.

The finished stage where Dr. Fulcher would preach from.

The finished auditorium.

The front-liner room where messages would be taken from callers around the world.

Truth House undergoes a makeover.

“The Key of Deliverance” from Dr. Fulcher’s Crusade For Truth Magazine. This is the magazine article that the flock in Level, Maryland read and fed them so much they invited Dr. Fulcher to come and preach to them.

The post The Beginning of Truth House Ministries appeared first on Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr..

Does a Pastor Live Multiple Lives or Just One?

To the members of a congregation, it may look like being a Pastor or Man of God they wear many hats and lead many different lives. They see him teaching the Word of God and comforting and counseling those that are in need, they also see him use the bible to show the errored ways of those who are out of line and bring them back into the fold.  Then, when he is not in church, he has his own household to run, and personal life outside the church. All these things may look like he is leading several different lives, but looks can be deceiving.  A true Man of God only has one life.  Jesus said, “(Mark 12:30) And thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all they mind, and with all they strength: this is the first commandment.”  A true Man of God must put God first.  Everything else is secondary.  When a Man of God, puts God first, the entire congregation and everyone that is in the Man of God’s life benefits.

The Bible is full of references to sheep and shepherds. Psalm 23:1 states, “A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” In this era of industrialization, we have lost sight of what a shepherd did and therefore, we had lost sight of what the Pastor does.  Sheep are not the smartest animal in God’s creation.  They are followers.  If one walks off a cliff, the others will follow.  They could be dying from thirst but they will not drink from moving water.  And if they are not sheared periodically, their coats will grow so heavy that they will fall to the ground and not be able to get up.  And other animals love to eat them.  The shepherd has to protect them not only from themselves but from predators.

So when you transpose all that a shepherd must do to keep his flock safe to what a Man Of God (MOG) must do to keep his followers safe, you can see that the MOG wears only one hat.  In any church where a Pastor believes in this and takes his role of shepherd seriously as the bible states, they will be the shepherd and the congregation his sheep. This is how Pastor Fulcher runs his church. He has to lead them virtually continuously.  He has to protect them from themselves and he has to protect them from the spiritual wolves that would lead them astray and allow Satan to devour their souls. 

This takes an incredible toll on him.  To perform his job at 100%, his devotion must be complete.  In effect, he has no personal life (as one of the sheep might understand it) because he has dedicated that life to God and the duties that he must perform.  That’s not to say that he can’t enjoy a hobby or two, but if one of his flock gets in trouble or needs counseling, that hobby must be put aside so he can be about God’s work, as the bible says in Luke 2:49 “ And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business”.

And what is “God’s work”?  In Matthew 11:29, Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and come and learn of me…”  The sheep need to learn and the MOG needs to teach, which means that a true Man of God must devote hours on end to the study of the Bible in order to impart its wisdom to his flock.  While others are out doing things, boating, going to a game, or just watching a movie on TV, Pastor Fulcher literally has his nose buried in THE WORD OF GOD.  He is studying not only to show himself approved but to educate his flock so that they might be approved. 

The keyword here is dedication.  Pastor Fulcher and others like him are dedicated to the Bible and imparting what they learn through that dedication to his congregation.  That kind of dedication takes a toll on a man’s natural life while invigorating his spiritual one.  A Man of God is a Man of God 24 hours a day.  It is not something that he can turn on and off.  And this also has an effect on the people around him.

Anyone involved in a personal relationship with a Man of God must understand that they are there to help him, not to distract him.  They benefit from their close relationship with the MOG, true, but at the same time, they, too, are just sheep.  They have to be taught.  They have to be led.  They do not have the luxury of slacking off even for one moment, lest they divert the Man of God from his assigned task.  They are there to stay the Pastor’s arms in those trying times that affect every man.  They have to be his support when he comes under attack from those who do not understand his motives for doing something and are unwilling to wait for the explanation. 

Pastor Fulcher does not live a “normal” life.  He doesn’t just go to work, do his job and come home and forget it.  He is his work every hour of the day, every day of the week.  Sitting out in the congregation, applauding and amening what he says is the blessing that we, the sheep, get from his hours of preparation.  Those hours of preparation come at a cost behind the scenes, that most sitting at his feet cannot fathom.  Our blessing comes through his blood, sweat, and tears.

                                                Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya J. Tillman

The post Being a Pastor:Behind the Scenes Part 2 appeared first on Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr..

What is the Truth About Truth House?  Simply put, Truth House Ministry is a Bible oriented church. 

In Matthew 4:4 and Luke 4:4, Jesus said, “…It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”  He was quoting Deuteronomy 8:3.  This is one of the seminal verses around which, Dr. Fulcher has built his church.  C. S. Lewis, the great Christian Apologist said, “You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.”  Dr. Fulcher made his choice.  For him, Jesus was and is the Son of God and as such, everything he said must carry enormous weight.

 As a young man growing up surrounded by well-known preachers, Dr. Fulcher noticed that when he would ask them a Bible question, they would invariably answer him beginning with, “Well, I think…” or  “We have always believed…”  What they never said was, “The Bible said…” or “It is written…”  Therefore, Dr. Fulcher set out to develop a church that centered on the Word of God as it is written, not as men told him what it said.  Dr. Fulcher teaches that for every Bible question, there is a Bible answer.  The truth about Truth House is this:  Truth House is a group of like-minded people who assemble themselves together to hear the Word of God preached in its purest form with spiritual answers for spiritual questions. 

As you might imagine, building such a congregation was far from easy.  The religious world was filled with hypocrisy, false worship, and people who compromised the Word of God to fit their wants and desires.  To be honest, many of those people did not know that they were being hypocritical or worshiping falsely, because they had never been taught correctly.  As the Bible warned, they had accepted the traditions taught by men and had not been taught what the Bible actually says.  Everyone has heard numerous preachers decry money as being the root of all evil.  Why?  Because they say, it’s in the Bible. Only it’s not.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say that money is the root of all evil.  But it does say in 1 Tim 6:10 “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” This is what Dr. Fulcher means by “every word”.  Traditional churches drop one word from Paul’s statement and that deletion changes the whole meaning of what Paul was trying to say.

In 1970, Dr. Fulcher began his “Crusade For Truth”, he was 18-years old.  That crusade has taken him around the world and across decades to reach and assemble his present ministry.  From the very beginning, he committed himself 100% to developing a ministry that centered around the Truth.  He suffered cold and hunger and came under severe pressure from his family and friends to do something else.  But Dr. Fulcher was intent on putting God first.  He would not give in to the pressure to deny what he knew to be the truth even if that meant sleeping in his car rather than a nice warm bed.

In 1975, Dr. Fulcher was invited to preach at a small church in Level, Maryland.  He preached a sermon entitled “The Hour of Your Visitation” that struck a chord with many of those in attendance.  Soon afterward, he moved the group to Havre de Grace, Maryland where he founded Truth House Ministries Church, Inc. and The Present Testament Ministries.

Dr. Fulcher set out to establish the strongest church in the world.  Not the largest.  Just the strongest.  He was looking for people who were willing to, as the Bible says, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God…” (2Tim 2:15).  He wanted to bring dignity, honor, and respect back to God’s word, purely because it was God’s word.  And he wanted to find a people who wanted that, too; a people who believed that the Bible was the Word of God and who wanted to hear it preached right for maybe the first (and last) time in history.

And that’s the Truth about Truth House.

Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya J. Tillman

The post The Truth About Truth House appeared first on Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr..

Splits, Cliques, Division and Congregation Perception

From the day a ministry is conceived, a lot of preparation and thought goes into how it should be run. The Pastor that wants to preach the True Word of God without tradition, will have to fight against the traditions and false doctrines that have made many traditional churches pits of hypocrisy, compromise, and make-believe worship.  The Pastor that strives to preach the Bible as it is written will have to preach out or expunge the human mindset that gives rise to splits, cliques, and divisions within a congregation. 

The human mindset that gives rise to splits, cliques and divisions within a congregation stems from the fact that the traditional way most churches are run does not mirror God’s order of things in the Bible.  I Corinthians 14:40 says, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”  But what is that order?  According to 1 Corinthians 11:3 “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God”.  A Pastor that wants to preach the Bible as it is written will be intolerant of cliques and divisions in any church he pastors. 

For a congregation to be Bible-like, it must be of one mind and one accord.  Cliques keep that from happening.  Cliques instill division, an us-against-them mentality, that eventually leads them to erroneous assumptions that they know more than their pastor.   Dr. Fulcher is a Pastor that chooses to preach the Bible as it is written, without traditional false-hoods. During the beginning of his ministry he had to show the people that it was their traditions that were out of control and false, not God. 

One of the first things Dr. Fulcher and Pastors like him have to do is preach out tradition to rebellious congregations and teach them who the Bible puts in charge of the congregation.  The Pastor is the shepherd and the congregation are the sheep and sheep do not tell the shepherd what to do, where to take them or what to feed them.  In the Bible order of things, the pastor is the one who is supposed to be in control.  And many people do not like that.  People’s egos can be so strong that they can become unwilling to accept their position as sheep to follow and not to lead.  Because of their lack of knowledge of bible order, they become the blind leading the blind and are not able to admit it or understand their error. The Bible says that people must “learn of Him”.  Those not willing to learn will be driven out by the continued preaching of the Bible.

Another problem that Pastors have to deal with behind the scenes is one of perception from the congregation and others.  Many times, things a Pastor says will be misinterpreted by those listening because they are not steeped in as much Bible knowledge as he is and they judge him by human standards and not Biblical ones.

Dr. Fulcher founded his church Truth House Ministries Inc on the teaching from Luke 4:4 which states that “And Jesus answered him saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”  For Dr. Fulcher and other Pastors like him, that means for every Bible question, there is a Bible answer.  There will be times that Dr. Fulcher and other Pastors will do or say something for a completely Biblical reason, but people listening may react based on their human understanding before that reason has been explained to them or the reason is manifested. A lot of congregations believe they know better.  They forget that the Bible also tells them in Ecc12:13 ‘Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” So they should do that before making a decision.  They forget that God’s ways are higher than man’s ways as the bible states in Isa 55:8-9, “ 8“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord, 9“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” and that needs to be taught to them.

A Pastor that is teaching the bible way without tradition will teach that God is in control and God’s word is right, Dr. Fulcher is one of those Pastors. Pastors like him strive to bring dignity, honor and respect back to God’s word simply because it is God’s word.  Some people will listen and some will not.  Dr. Fulcher and Pastors like him want to be sure that those who choose to listen understand the great gift they are being given.

                                                   Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya J. Tillman

The post Being a Pastor:Behind the Scenes Part 1 appeared first on Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr..