The Truth About Christmas – Kindle edition by Fulcher Jr, Dr E C. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

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Grace, the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings. Seems simple enough to understand and accept right? Free and Unmerited Favor of God. Who wouldn’t want that? You would think that everyone would be lining up to accept this amazing free gift, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Let’s talk about that.

Why is Grace so hard to accept?  Maybe the question should be asked this way: Why is YOUR Grace so hard for OTHER people to accept?  Because that’s the real problem.  It’s not that you cannot embrace Grace; it’s that others cannot accept your accepting Grace.  Kind of convoluted, isn’t it, but makes sense. People see you enjoying your freedoms that Grace has allowed you and immediately they are offended and become judgmental of your expression of acceptance. But why?

In the Bible, Grace is mentioned 170 times in 159 verses.  The first time is in Genesis 6:8 “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord”.  But what exactly did that mean?  If you read the verses leading up to verse 8, you will see that the LORD is planning on destroying every living thing for Genesis 6:6 “And it repenteth the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart”. But he didn’t repent the existence of Noah.  He gave Noah a get-out-of-jail-free card because he “found favor” Proverbs 3:4 “So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man”. What had Noah done to receive that Grace?  Nothing.  It was a gift.

As you look through the other verses where Grace is mentioned, you begin to notice a pattern.  Grace is a gift.  No one does anything to receive it.  They are either given Grace, or they are not.  Grace is always tied up with another word: “found” or some variation thereof.  The Lord gives Grace and men either find or obtain Grace.  Proverbs 3:34 in various translations of the bible, hint that the Lord gives Grace to scorn the scorners, “Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly. Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly. Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble. Surely he scoffeth at the scoffers; But he giveth grace unto the lowly. He mocks the mockers, but gives grace to the humble”. Reading this and thinking about the original question of why is it so hard for others to accept your grace, makes the answer more obvious and easier to swallow. It’s simple-jealousy. 

Grace allows you to do something and be something that they cannot be: FREE.  Everyone without Grace is bound to try to follow the WHOLE law of God, which is impossible.  In order to find salvation, they must obey every jot and tittle to the letter.  In numerous places, in several letters, Paul refers to this juxtaposition of Grace vs. Debt.  Even James says that if you follow the Law, you must follow the whole law and that to break even one the most minor of rules negates the whole thing. 

Grace frees you from that.  Christ’s death frees you from that.  The blood of Christ frees you from that.  When God sees you through the blood of Christ, one of God’s natural laws comes into play.  Photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston and others used this law to their advantage.  Panchromatic film (Black & White film) does not see or record color in the way our human eyes and brains do.  B&W film sees ALL the visible colors of light.  (God sees all the colors of light, after all he created it: “Let there be light.”)  So, if you are looking at a red rose and photograph it through a red filter, when you go to print the picture, the rose will appear white.  Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”. 

In effect, the jealous person becomes incensed because he can see a red rose; he can touch a red rose; he can even smell a red rose – therefore, the rose in your picture should be red.  But you can hold the photo up and say, “No.  God sees my rose as white.”  You see, there is nothing that anyone can do to make that red rose turn white.  Like the followers of Baal on top of Mt. Carmel, all the shouting, self-flagellation, dancing in the spirt… in short, nothing will turn that red rose white.  But that also means that you, as the possessor of Grace don’t have to do anything, either.  God sees your rose as white because of the filter he looks through. You are now free to devote what time you may have used trying to turn the red rose white towards other, more fruitful projects like Matthew 11:29 “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 jealous person can look at you and see your “sins”.  You may drink.  You may smoke.  You might even go to a club in which scantily clad women (or men) perform. And they can get all Bertha-Better-Than-You about it.  But according to the Bible, it is written that 1Cor. 15:50 “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption”. 2 Cor. 5:16 “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more”. So why try to perfect something that cannot be perfected in the first place.  This line of thinking actually leads us into another question for another post: Why are some people so blinded that they cannot see the obvious? All they have to do is read and understand.  But that must mean that God does not want them to understand.  In other words, God does not love everybody…. WHAT??? And the crowd goes Wild!!! We shall definitely come back to that, but for now, lets focus on those he does love.

To those of us he does love, he looks at us through the blood of Christ and does not see our sins.  Not that our sins are not there.  He just doesn’t see them.  And therein lies His Grace.  He freely looks through his filtered spectacles (i.e. the WORD) and sees us as he first created us before the fall, giving us the chance to know Him as Adam was supposed to know him.  Freeing us to be what we were originally created to be.

Why wouldn’t anyone want that????

Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya J. Tillman

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What is a Denomination? Why is the meaning of the word Denomination important? What does the word Denomination have to do with religion? These are all very good questions and I would like to take a moment and talk about them.

Let’s start by talking about what the word Denomination actually means. To start off, let’s go to Merriam-Webster and see what they have to say. This is their definition of the word; denomination noun

de·​nom·​i·​na·​tion | \ di-ˌnä-mə-ˈnā-shən  \

Definition of denomination

1: an act of denominating: the denomination of prices in U.S. dollars

2: a value or size of a series of values or sizes: metric denominations

especially : the value of a particular coin or bill, bills in $20 and $50 denominations

3: NAME, DESIGNATION: especially : a general name for a category, listed under the general denomination of gifts

4: a religious organization whose congregations are united in their adherence to its beliefs and practices, people from several different Christian denominations

Now let’s go to the Granddaddy of all Dictionaries, The Oxford English Dictionary,(OED) and see what they have to say.

1. A recognized autonomous branch of the Christian Church; 1a. A group or branch of any religion.

2. The face value of a banknote, coin or postage stamp; 2a. The rank of a playing card within a suit, or of a suit relative to the others.

3. Formal name of designation, especially one serving to classify a set of things; 3a.The action of naming or classifying something.

So now that we have a basic understanding of what the word Denomination means from two different sources we can discuss it further. Why is it important to know what the word means before we continue, well, you have to know what you’re talking about before you use the word. We will go further into that thought a little later. For now, looking at the definitions presented, do you realize that of all the definitions, there are really only two of those definitions that a person thinks of when thinking of using the word Denomination. Those two would be;

1. When talking about money; and
2. When talking about religion

That’s not so surprising, as many words have many meanings that we don’t use. But what is surprising is the two definitions that are always referenced when dealing with this one particular word, Denomination; money and religion. Why do you think that is? Why is it interesting? Well, let’s talk about it.

Let’s start with the religious aspect. Did you know that the word “Denomination” does not appear one time in the Bible?  That is not to say that one of the definitions for the word denomination is not evident in the Bible. PHARISEES, SADDUCEES, and HERODIANS were all religious sects and easily fit the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition 4. a religious organization whose congregations are united in their adherence to its beliefs and practices, people from several different Christian denominations, as well as Oxford English Dictionary’s definition 1 and 1a  A recognized autonomous branch of the Christian Church; 1a. A group or branch of any religion. It is probably safe to say that from the moment man began worshiping the creature and not the creator, there have been different sects from the beginning of time.  Do you worship the thunder or the lightning? The rain or the flood?  The wind or the sun or both?

But what makes a denomination or sect?  I think the most humorous, facetious, and perhaps the most correct example was in the movie THE FOUR MUSKETEERS when Porthos asks Athos why they are fighting the Huguenots and Athos explains, “We cross ourselves from right to left and they cross themselves from left to right.”  A sect can stay within the religion, but a denomination is a complete split or Autonomous as the OED calls it.

Well, what’s wrong with a denomination? You might ask.  Everything, I would answer.  Christianity was founded on the principle of the believers being of one mind and one accord. Acts 1:14: “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” Acts 2:42: “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Acts 2:46: “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.” There are also numerous other places that all state the early Christians were of one accord.  They were like-minded.  They all believed the same thing.  Jesus, himself, preached this unity of mind in Matthew 18: 19-20: “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven.” “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Do the Baptists believe the same thing as the Presbyterians?  No.  Do the Presbyterians believe the same thing as the Catholics?  No.  Each denomination has formed a church around a slightly different set of core beliefs.  They have made void the Word of God by their traditions. 

Now, about the definition surrounding money. Looking at the Merriam-Webster definition 1 and 2 along with the OED definition 2. The face value of a banknote.  Church denominations are just like money denominations.  According to the Baptists, you must do x, y, and z to be saved.  According to the Presbyterians, you must do a, b, and c in order to be saved.  They are as different as are a 5- and 10-dollar bill.  A $5 will only buy you half as much as a $10 and a $10 will only buy half as much as a $20.  And none of them will buy as much as a good old Ben Franklin $100.  Different religious denominations promise you salvation and justification but in none of them do you have to perform the same actions to get saved.

Not long ago, Pastor Dr. E C Fulcher Jr went into the hospital for some much-needed surgery.  While he was being admitted, the attendant asked him what his religion was.  “Christian,” the Pastor answered.  “I mean what denomination,” the attendant asked.  “Christian,” the Pastor repeated.  “No, I mean, are you a Baptist, Methodist or what?” the attendant asked.  “Christian,” the Pastor answered totally dumbfounding the attendant who, obviously, had no idea what he was talking about.

We are not Baptist.  We are not Pentecostal.  We are not Presbyterian.  We harken back to that first church the one where the members sat in the upper room, all of one mind and one accord.  We believe in doing things the Bible way and not as some deacon board in some city in Georgia wants things done.  We are Christians and that calls for a whole different allegiance, one to the Word of God and not the traditions of men.

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A while ago, during a sermon, Dr. E C Fulcher Jr made a statement that got me thinking. He mentioned that while he was a Man of God sent here to perfect the saints as it states in Eph 4:11-12 “ And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:”, that he could save us and yet also be a castaway himself. I thought to myself, how could that be possible. I considered this statement and realized that he was echoing Paul’s famous statement in 1Corinthians 9:27 “But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”  Reading this scripture only made me think more and I decided that I needed to do some more digging. There must be a deeper meaning.

The word Castaway being translated here in the New Testament is the Greek ‘adokimos’ which means unapproved, rejected (and by implication) worthless.  And it got me to thinking… are the men of God in the Bible castaways of one sort or another?

Let’s take a look at Moses. Moses was chosen to lead his people out of bondage into the promised land, yet… he became unapproved and was rejected from crossing over into it.  His people weren’t any less saved or less chosen because of his mistake.  He became a castaway on the wrong side of the Jordan River.  He was allowed to look into the promised land, but he was not allowed to enter it, Deu 32:52 “Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.” Thus, making him one of God’s castaways.

Then there was Joseph, who began his adventures as a castaway.  He was unapproved and rejected by members of his own family.  His brothers hated him so much because he was loved by his father more than all his brothers, Gen 37:4 “And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.” He was cast out of his family by his brothers and sold into slavery, Gen 37:27 “Come let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content.” Yet, he was able to use the gifts of his dreams and interpretation that God gave him to overcome his castawayness (my word) and rise to the highest position in the land of Egypt. Gen 41:42-43 “And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph’s hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; And he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee: and he made him ruler over all the land of Egypt.”

Not to mention Sampson, another of God’s castaways.  Sampson was gifted strength by God, his command was to never tell anyone the source of his strength. However, Sampson fell in love with a woman named Delilah. He allowed himself to be seduced by her and because of his love for her, told her the secret, Judg 16:17 “That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.” This gave Delilah the information that she needed and she turned him over to the lords of the Philistines for payment, who came and cut his hair. His loss of strength was a symbol of his castawayness. 

According to historical records, Isaiah and Jeremiah were unapproved and rejected by the people they were trying to reach.  Isaiah was so rejected that he was murdered, sawn in half, by the people who refused his message.  Jeremiah had to flee Jerusalem and ended up in Ireland and the people who rejected him ended up in captivity in Babylon. 

But the Bible was written for those of us upon whom the end would be and it was written in English (KJV) which means that we also have to look at the English word “Castaway” and derive some meaning therein.  Cast – a – way.  Something that is thrown away.  But thrown by whom? 

Take Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were “cast” into the furnace by the King’s men, Dan 3:21 “Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.”

Then there wasJonah, he was “cast” into the sea by the sailors for the whale to swallow him, Jon 1:12 “And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea: so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.”  

Now Stephen was “cast” out of the city to be stoned, Acts 7:58-59 “And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  

In virtually all the verses in which “cast” is used, it means to throw. 

But when you “throw” something, you throw it somewhere.  There is no nebulous place called “away”.  If I throw a wrapper “away”, I have thrown it into the garbage.  Think of all the “away” places you have thrown things and you will see that whatever “away” place has been your target, “away” has been a place.  And a “place” equals a target.

A baseball pitcher throws a baseball away from him but towards the target of the catcher’s mitt.  A quarterback throws the football towards a receiver downfield.  The whole concept of being a castaway depends on who is doing the throwing: man or God.

Now, I live on a boat, so the whole concept of casting something away took on a whole different direction.  I’m a fly-fisherman.  Norman Maclean nailed it in the final paragraphs of his book, A River Runs Through It.  Robert Redford used it as the closing soliloquy for his movie of the same name:

            “Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn’t.  Like many fly fishermen in western Montana, where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening.  Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being on with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

            Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.  The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.  On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

            I am haunted by waters.“

When Dr. E C Fulcher Jr talked about being a castaway, this statement flooded into my head and took on the form of an analogy.  God is the fly fisherman.  The men of God are the fly (bait) and the fish are the Hagios.  God is not seining netting the river to capture all the fish that are swimming there.  He doesn’t want them all.  He is very particular about which fish He wants.  He casts his fly, the Man of God, to a specific location and the Man of God’s message lures one fish in particular to it.  He is not casting his fly away.  Rather He is casting it to something.  The chosen, the called-out ones, are harvested one at a time, slowly with meticulous care until the creel is filled.  The creel only holds so many.  This many and no more.  Only in the eyes of an unbeliever, can the Man of God be a castaway.  To us fish, he is something to be desired above all else.  He is the direct connection to God and by him, God will reel us in.

Rev 22:1 ” And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya J. Tillman

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My name is Dr. E C Fulcher Jr. I am the Pastor of Truth House Ministries Church Inc. in Abingdon, Md. I have been preaching full-time for over 50 years. I came to Maryland in the mid-’70s. Abingdon was not where I landed, but Harve De Grace. In November 1975, with a small nucleus of believers, I rented an old bar in Havre de Grace, Maryland, and with the nucleus of believers, I had been preaching to, 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 my magazine changed from Crusade for Truth to The Present Testament Magazine.  Some of the 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 to people.

By the early 2000s, it became clear that we needed a bigger space to accomplish our goals.

3303 Emmorton Road was a piece of property that was first owned by a United Christian Pentecostal Denomination. The Pastor had put a slab of concrete down and wanted to start building. Unfortunately, he did not get the county’s permission to build and was therefore shut down for not following procedures. During the same time as that, the Pastors wife had an affair leaving the Pastor feeling as if he should leave his position. He felt that since his wife had an affair, and he had not ruled over his own home, that he should not be ruling over a congregation, so he gave the property to another man, Mr. Mitchell.

Mr. Mitchell had made plans for the property, but they never came to fruition. It’s funny because years prior to this, I had actually looked at this property and thought the price would be out of reach, so I moved on. During the time of Mr. Mitchell taking ownership of the property and deciding what to do with it, I was across town looking at another piece of property. I actually put a down payment on a property. During the inspection process, it was discovered that the property was unsafe and would not be a good purchase, so I withdrew from that and continued looking.

At some point, I came into contact with Mr. Mitchell and he visited my church that was located in Harve de Grace at the time. A very small building but filled with the Word. Mr. Mitchell said to me, this place is way too small for what you have going on here, you need a bigger place. So we talked and he decided to sell me the property that he was given by the other Pastor. The beginning negotiations were a little rocky and financing had not been made available at the time. Between Mr. Mitchell and I trying to work out something, he had gone back to Florida and I was here in Maryland. At some point, we spoke and continued with negotiations. I said to him, “ You have seen where I am and have acknowledged that I need a bigger space, so you acknowledge I am in need. Now the bible says in 1 John 3:17 “But if a man has this world’s goods, and sees that his brother is in need, and keeps his heart shut against his brother, how is it possible for the love of God to be in him?”  Mr. Mitchell was at a loss for words, he expressed that no one negotiates like that, at which I pointed out I do. He had nothing left to say except, ok. Let’s work something out. He came back to Maryland and we came to an agreement. I put down $100,00 with no idea where or when financing would come. I just trusted God.

At this time, the property was ours and we began working on immediately in the month of November. Instead of hiring a construction crew and spending thousands of dollars, the men, the brothers of the church answered the call to come and build a house for the Lord. Yes, we all know that we individually are houses of God, but when we gather to meet we need a physical place to do so, hence building a house for the Lord. Just like the bible says we should.

Haggai 1:2-5, 7-8 “Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’s house should be built. (3) Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, (4) Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? (5) Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. (7) Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. (8) Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD.

I always thought it slightly comical how God gave the property to a man that never did anything with it, and I had to buy it from that man. But besides God having a sense of humor, it goes to say that God will give the opportunity for His word to come to pass. Think about it, Haggai 1:7-8 states, “(7) Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. (8) Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD. His word doesn’t say to buy him a house, it actually tells us to go, bring wood and build the house. So maybe we had to purchase the property in order to build the Lord’s house so that His word would come to pass…..

Even if that wasn’t the case, the fact that the brothers of this church built this building, God’s House with their own hands, gave their heartbeats to fulfill this endeavor is a true blessing and testament to the love and dedication to God’s Word.

I remember the opening day celebration and service. It was surreal. My ministry is called Truth House Ministries Inc, but I dedicated this building to God and during the first service, read a verse of scripture that resonated so powerfully that it became the basis upon which the building was named the City of Truth.

Zec 8:3 “Thus saith the Lord; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain.”

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As we have seen, the Democratic Party started out as the big business, whites only, small central government party.  There were Progressives (as they were called before 1917) but those people tended to be on the Republican side of the aisle.  Theodore Roosevelt was considered a Progressive and he was a Republican.  Woodrow Wilson was considered Conservative, and he was a Democrat.  But that all changed with Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and the 1935 relief act. Brief Description (FDR signs Emergency Relief Appropriation Act – HISTORY.)

To understand what happened, you have to look at what happened in Russia in 1917.  There was a revolution.  Actually, there were a series of revolutions: the Tsar was overthrown; the Mensheviks took power; the Bolsheviks overthrew the Mensheviks and established a Marxist state run by a triumvirate of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.  While Lenin and Trotsky were working towards the creation of a Communist/Marxist state, Stalin was working behind the scenes to take full power.  He made his move when Lenin died.  He ousted Trotsky and assumed complete control of the Russian Communist Party. 

Books have been written about what Stalin did and the millions he murdered in his quest for power.  One of the best was written by Trotsky before his assassination in Mexico in August of 1940.  The upshot of the whole thing was that Stalin was NOT a Marxist/Communist.  He was one of the Reactionaries that Marx warned about in the Communist Manifesto.  He basically reinstated Tsarist policies under the guise of Communism and made himself the sole, unquestioned ruler of the reconstituted U.S.S.R. (The Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics).  The old-timers knew what he had done.  My grandparents and their friends who fled the 1912 revolution in Russia called Stalin “The Red Tsar”.  He hid his totalitarianism behind the façade of communist jargon.  What the Left, the media, and the pundits are all spouting today are not Marxist principles but Stalinist ones.

Now, into that mishmash, we have to throw in a little American Exceptionalism. 

Americans have a way of adapting European concepts to fit themselves in a totally unique way.  There are some politicians who try to deny this, but a simple reading of world history will put the lie to them.  Americans broke from England with its King and parliamentary style of government and created one with a revolving President and an offsetting Congress and Supreme Court.  They took the Leftist ideas coming out of the Soviet Union and adapted them to the American Experience.  All worker’s jobs in the USSR were protected.  There was no unemployment because the government found you a job whether you liked it or not.  Millions died in Soviet Government-owned factories, worked to death and Stalin simply murdered anyone who tried to tell about it.  It was years before the truth of what was happening behind his Iron Curtain, as Winston Churchill called it, came out.

But what FDR did with the 1935 bill was add protection to the unemployed, something that was totally anathema to the Marxist concept.  Yes, the US Government established a work program, the WPA, but there were some people who did not or could not work.  In Marxist theory, these people should have been allowed to die off.  They would become the collateral damage of establishing a new social order, as one former American President described them.  By extending this protection to non-workers, FDR created a class of individuals who were dependent on the Government for their sustenance without contributing to the fund from which that sustenance derived. Some may think this is great, it will provide for those that can’t provide for themselves. Well, consider this story that was told to me…..

A mouse is placed in a glass jar filled with its favorite grain, corn. He thinks to himself, this is Amazing! I don’t have to search for food any longer, fearing for my life, wondering whether I will starve or not. So the mouse beings to eat freely whenever he wants. As time goes on, he begins to taste some things that he doesn’t necessarily like, but hey, there is still plenty of corn, so he dismisses the things he doesn’t like and continues to eat the free corn. More time passes and now the mouse is at the bottom of the glass jar and he finds nothing but dirt, rock, and weeds. No more corn. Then the mouse realizes that he is at the bottom of the jar and cannot even climb out to go find food for himself. Then one day, some corn is dropped into the jar. He thinks I am saved, I have corn to eat. But the corn does not come when he wants. Now he realizes that the food will only come when someone drops it into the jar, otherwise, he has nothing to eat. At that moment, he begins to think that he is doomed because he is now at the mercy of someone else for his food and he is no longer able to forge for himself, so if no one drops corn into the jar, he will surely starve to death.

I ask, what does this sound like to you? What do you think this will create?

This created the underclass that Marx warned about, a class of non-workers that Politicians would keep subservient to them in order to ensure their elections.  But to what end?  Marx called the politicians who used this subservient class, Reactionaries because they were using their political power to return the government/society to something that had gone before and was not progressing towards the sought-after Communist utopia.  But just what is it that the people who run the Democratic Party want to return to?

For Stalin, the only kind of Totalitarian government they knew was the Tsar.  Remember, they had been ruled by one family since the 1600s, yet the first Tsar was Ivan the Terrible, and he took control in 1547.  Europe had seen various families controlling the governments of vast regions of the continent: Frederick III, a Habsburg, was confirmed the first Holy Roman Emperor in 1452.  The last Habsburg Emperor, Frans Joseph died in 1916.  At one point in European history, there was a Habsburg on virtually every throne in Europe except England.  The Prussian states, which eventually became Germany had the Hohenzollerns.  France had the Bourbons.  England had the Plantagenets, Stuarts, and others.  So, when we look at the history of European Totalitarians, the “Left” has numerous examples of ruling families to emulate in the New World Order.

But, what about America?  We have never had a ruling family.  But, we have had people who knew how to rule on the same level of subjugation.  Remember Andrew Jackson and his plantation?  Just look at Cuba and Venezuela.  The Castros, hiding behind the façade of communism/socialism have basically reinstated the old Colonial paradigm with themselves as the rulers over a captive population, Venezuela, the same.  The colonial paradigm works as long as the conquered colonials are kept a step or two above the level of desperation.  Only desperate people revolt. 

In America, the paradigm is the Plantation, and as we have seen from history 1620-1865, the Plantation system works.  It wasn’t the slaves who rebelled and started the Civil War.  It was the plantations’ economic competitors in the North.  On a plantation, you had masters and slaves.  The slaves worked to provide the master with things to sell (cotton or tobacco); the master would sell those commodities and then provide the slaves with what they needed to live from clothes to food to shelter to medical. 

In my humble opinion, the Democratic Party is a party of Reactionary elites who are trying to re-establish a national plantation with themselves as the masters and the rest of us as their slaves.  The middle-class, the new proletariat, the workers are being taxed with ever higher and higher taxes to get them used to the government taking all and then giving back just what the proletariat needs to be a step or three above the survival level.  They are taking the money, now, and rather than redistributing it among the workers, they are giving it to the non-workers only because they have to have a place to put it.  Once they achieve their goals and convert the working middle class into their slaves, they can get rid of those on welfare, just as Venezuela has done by either allowing them to starve or run away.  But in all honesty, there is nowhere else to run.  Anyone on welfare today will become the collateral damage of tomorrow when they are no longer needed to vote the Democratic elite into power because once the Reactionary Elite has achieved that level of power, elections will no longer be necessary or will be so controlled as to be meaningless.  Stalin had elections.  He always won.  One day, in the not too distant future, we will have elections here in America and the Democrats will always win as will a couple of Republican flunkies just to make the corrupt elections seem honest.

But the Democrats will be in for a big surprise.  They have ignored the Bible and the last day prophesies.  As the Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky triumvirate, or the Pompey, Crassus, Caesar triumvirate, or the triumvirate of Octavianus, Antony, and Lepidus, someone will emerge from the shadows to assume supreme power with an angel of Satan, or Satan himself empowering him.  And he or she will rule until the Saints of God return in their power to establish the millennium.  Consider these scriptures….

Revelation 6:2-8 “(2) And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. (3) And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. (4) And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. (5) And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. (6) And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine. (7) And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. (8) And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

Now with those verses in mind, take a look around the world today, and hopefully, your eyes will be opened.

Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya J. Tillman

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

From its inception in the 1830s, the Democratic Party was the party of big business.  I know, you are thinking that wait a minute, the Republicans have always been the party of big business.  Maybe 20^th Century big business, but not 19^th Century big business.  In the 19^th Century, what we consider the big business, today, still gleamed in their inventors’ eyes or fledgling companies just struggling to get the venture capital to get off the ground.  Railroads were regional and men like Cornelius Vanderbilt were working at monopolizing them.  But that was to come after the Civil War.

Prior to the Civil War, big business was cotton.  Cotton ruled the world and American Southern planters ruled cotton.  In fact, as people were beginning to contemplate a Civil War, the Southern politicians thought secession a done deal because they thought that England would not allow the supply of southern cotton to be disrupted to their mills.  If the English mills did not get southern cotton, the British economy would collapse.

Well, the dearth of southern cotton played right into the hands of a small number of wealthy mill owners.  Fearing a civil war in America, these men began growing cotton in Egypt along the Nile and in the blossoming British Raj in India.  What was once too expensive to import economically suddenly became the rage when Lincoln blockaded the southern ports and the supply of American cotton began to dry up.

This also allowed the British mill owners a chance to kill off their competition.  Much of Britain’s cotton products were produced by small, home industries.  When the supply of American cotton dried up, these small businesses went out of business and the workers had to leave their homes and go to the manufacturing centers looking for work.  These underpaid wage-slaves became the hunting ground for a new philosophy coined in Germany by a young man named Karl Marx.

Europe had one thing that America did not: a class-based society.  It was exactly the thing that the early Americans had run away from.  In America, a longshoreman like Cornelius Vanderbilt could work their way up the economic ladder and become one of the wealthiest men in the country by sheer force of will and fists.  In Europe, that would not be possible.  A man born in one social-economic class was fated to stay in that class.  Marx became preoccupied with an attempt to understand his contemporary capitalist mode of production, as driven by a remorseless pursuit of profit.  According to Marx, that profit was derived from the exploitation of the workers whom he called the proletariat.  (Think of the British cotton workers in the example above who lost their home businesses and then had to work for the men who had destroyed them.)  According to Marx, this class struggle would eventually lead mankind to Communism as the fairest and most equitable means of distributing the wealth earned from a class’s common labor.

During the course of the 19^th Century, the Marxist philosophy began to take hold among the down-trodden of Europe’s lower classes.  The most famous expression of his socialism was the Paris Commune of 1871 when a radical socialist, anti-religious and revolutionary government took control of the city of Paris when the French government collapsed during the Franco-Prussian war.  When France surrendered to Prussia and a new government was formed, the Paris Commune refused to recognize it.  Eventually, the new government sent in the French army and the commune came to a bloody end. 

Marx’s writings had a deep impact on those people who felt that the system had marginalized them, slipped them into categories from which they could not get out.  And there was no country where that was more apparent than in Russia.

Russia was ruled by the Tsar.  The Tsar was more than a king or an emperor.  He was the owner.  Basically, the Tsar owned Russia and everyone there lived there by his sufferance.  He gave out the property for the nobles to live on.  If the Tsar gave an estate, that estate included everyone and everything on it.  The people were not allowed to leave the estate without the owner’s permission.  It was a form of slavery that made America’s slavery look like a walk in the park.  Whereas many American states had laws as to the treatment of slaves, there were no such laws in Russia.  An estate owner could beat one of his serfs to death without consequence.  The Romanov family ruled Russia as Tsars from 1613 to 1917.

In 1917 there was a revolution in Russia, followed by a series of mini-revolutions and coups the result of which was the establishment of a Communist government under the control of a triumvirate, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin.  When Lenin died, Stalin maneuvered for control and became the sole ruler in Russia.  Trotsky fled to Mexico where he was eventually assassinated. 

The Russian Revolution attracted many Americans.  Remember, this was the height of the Jim Crow period.  Racism was rampant.  Big business, Republican-style was King, Workers were being exploited and living in dirt poor conditions while the corporation owners were living in the mansions on top of Nob Hill.  Marx’s socialist ideas found a home with a small group of people who felt the need to rectify this exploitation.  Unions were formed and struck for fair wages.  At the Ford Motor Company, striking workers were machine-gunned by the Nation Guard which was established to keep this “Red” terror in check.

Coal miners struck.  Pullman train porters struck.  And all strikes were met with an iron fist.  Since the company owners tended to be Republican, their workers began to find a welcome mat spread for them with the Democratic Party.  As time went on and the 20^th Century progressed, more and more Marxist ideas became enshrined in Democratic platforms.  Minimum wage.  Fare wage.  Social Security. Workers had rights.  Workers had the right to be protected.  Workers had the right to safety measures.  Then in 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt created the first National Welfare program that had nothing to do with workers, but rather with those who did not work.

And the exact thing that Marx warned against happened.  To Be Continued…

Written By Eric B. Ruark

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

Not many people get my sense of humor.  In fact, there are those who doubt that I have one, usually Liberals who can’t tell a joke themselves.  Take, for instance, the woman who, in her profile listed she/her as the way she wanted to be addressed.  She took offense when I responded to her that I preferred Sir as the way I wanted to be addressed.

Now, I am not a White Supremacist as she claimed.  I AM white and I AM superior to most people (my I.Q. was 162 the last time it was tested), but I tend to side with Puck in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream when he said, “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”  My answer comes from an old Bridget Bardot movie, in which the juvenile delinquents confront the hero and ask his name and the hero responds, “Monsieur, point Avant, point derriere.  Rien de plus”, which roughly translates as “Mister (Sir), period in front, period behind, nothing more.”  I have always wanted to use that line, but until the Liberals added a whole slew of sexes to the two that God saddled us with, I wasn’t able to.  Now, when I tell people to call me Sir, I am insulting them.  Go figure.

Okay, all seriousness aside, I do get a kick out of poking fun at people who take themselves too seriously.  Like the other day, I posted a comment: “Let’s reopen indoor dining and bars for those who have already had Covid.  They can’t catch it and they can’t pass it on.”  One of my Liberal friends posted:  Unproven.  This was from an intelligent man in his 70s who forgot that people who have had Covid also have the antibodies from that disease, which means that they can’t catch it again.  That’s why the government is pushing the vaccines so hard.  The vaccines do not cure the disease, they merely allow the body to manufacture the antibodies against it.

I thought we knew things like that.  That’s why we got the smallpox vaccine as children.  It allowed our bodies to make the antibodies so we would not contact what was once one of the most virulent diseases on this planet.  Polio, the same.  Measles, the same.  We have been so good at controlling diseases that the current generation has no concept of what the purpose of those vaccines was for.  I’d call them fools, but they are foolish because of ignorance, ignorant because they haven’t been taught. 

For example, there is a wave of posts on the internet about how the Democrats have been taken over by the Socialists/Communists and how we are headed towards a socialist government like Venezuela or Cuba.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Oh, we may be heading towards a Cuba/Venezuela style of government, but it has nothing to do with socialism.  To understand that, you have to go back to the beginning and learn things that the “Left” doesn’t want you to know, things that they no longer teach in school.  So, settle back.  I am about to unload on you.

The Democratic Party traces its inception to Thomas Jefferson and his agrarian policies.  But its real beginning was in the 1830s with the presidency of Andrew Jackson.  At that time, Jackson corralled the Jeffersonians from the various states and organized them into a viable political party with its various elements working together towards a common goal, namely getting him elected.  Jackson was the perfect organizer.  He was a general, known for having brought various elements together in his defense of New Orleans from the British in the War of 1812.  He owned an enormous plantation, The Hermitage, (which is currently a museum outside of Nashville, Tennessee) encompassing some 1,120 acres which took some 150 slaves to run.  And according to my History Professor at Rutgers, you had to be one hell of an organizer to run a plantation of this size in the early 1800s.

Jackson was hardly an egalitarian.  The press at the time called him King Andrew because he ruled by what we would now call executive order.  And he ruled with an iron fist.  I say ruled, rather than governed.  The United States had, at one time, a national bank, much like the Bank of England.  The Jacksonian Democrats thought the bank was a tool of corporate interests.  So, Jackson destroyed it.  He refused to recertify the bank’s charter and the bank collapsed. 

The Cherokee Indians were living on prime cotton land in Georgia.  They had Americanized themselves.  They were living in houses, had plantations, owned slaves.  But they were Indians and certain southern planters coveted their land.  So, Jackson ordered them removed to the newly created Indian territory on the other side of the Mississippi River.  The Cherokees took him to court and the Supreme Court told the president that he didn’t have the authority to move the Cherokees.  Jackson told the Supreme Court to go to Hell.  He had the army and that’s all he needed.  Hence, history has the Trail of Tears, unlawful removal of an entire tribe during the harshest time of year. 

Moderates were uneasy about Jackson’s imperial attitude, so they began grooming a well-known personality with a lot of charisma to go up against him, Tennessee Congressman David Crockett.  Jackson threw the whole weight of his machine against Crockett and in what was probably a rigged election, Crockett lost his Congressional seat and his chance to run for President of the United States.  When asked what he thought about the election, Crockett made the famous statement, “You can go to Hell.  I’m going to Texas.”  Who knew that immortality awaited him at the Alamo.

Democratic historians like to claim that these early Democrats represented a wide range of views but shared a fundamental commitment to the Jeffersonian concept of an agrarian society.  They viewed the central government as the enemy of individual liberty.  The Jacksonians feared the concentration of economic and political power in a centralized national government.  They believed that a centralized national government would intervene in the economy that benefitted special interests and would create corporate monopolies that favored the rich.  It was a political philosophy that became known as “States’ Rights”.  (Not exactly the Democratic position today.)

But what was that “Agrarian” society that the Democrats wanted to protect?  Look up the word “Agrarian” and you’ll read that the word means “relating to the cultivation of land”.  The current spin-meisters would like you to believe that the Jackson Democrats were all about the small farmer.  But small farmers weren’t the movers and shakers.  It was the big plantation owners, like Jackson, men with property and by property read slaves who ran the Democratic Party.  That’s why whenever states were added to the Union, one had to be brought in as a “free” state and the other as a “slave” state.

By the late 1700s after the Revolution of 1776, Northern States were coming to the conclusion that slavery was not profitable.  Northern states had to contend with something that the Deep South did not – Winter.  In the north, farms had to close down for about five months.  Anyone owning slaves, field hands dedicated to farming, had to have their slaves idle for most of the year.  It simply was not profitable.  What was profitable was setting up a mill on one of the many rivers that did not freeze over and set up some kind of manufacturing business.  This led to another problem.  During the winter, it was not only the slaves who were idle, their white owners/families were, too. 

The competition arose between the whites and the blacks for jobs in the growing factories in the North and since most of the blacks were slaves, there was nothing simpler to get them out of the way than to “sell them South”.   As the towns around the mills began to grow into cities, more and more white men and families moved off their farms in order to have a constant income.  This gave rise to a new class of people, later identified by a European Radical Reformer named Karl Marx as “wage-slaves”.  Marx differentiated “chattel-slaves” and “wage-slaves”.  (But more on that later.)  But in the South, the big plantations did not have to close down.

Although modern pundits would have you believe that the conflict between the North and the South was over slavery, it was not.  Slavery was one element, but the conflict was entirely economic.  The North looked upon the Southern economy as being based on “Free” labor.  The big planters did not have to pay their slaves whereas, the Northern manufacturers had to pay their labor.  How could the North compete with free labor?  The Northerners had to pay their employees a living wage.  The South did not.  And so the idea of the Abolition of Slavery began to creep into the politics of the era.  This brings us to the Republican Party.

The Republican Party emerged in 1854 to combat the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act allowed for popular sovereignty which meant that the people within the state had the right to decide whether or not a state would be free or black.  In Kansas, people from North and South flooded into the state to take part in the voting.  They began fighting hence the rise of the Bleeding Kansas mantra. 

In 1856, the fledgling Republican Party put up John C. Fremont for President of the United States.  Fremont was a well-known explorer and a Senator from California.  Despite his notoriety, he lost.  Their next candidate was Abraham Lincoln.  He won.  He won because the Democratic Party was split along regional lines, the more radical Democrats from the Deep South put up one candidate, and the moderates from the mid states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia put up another.  This three-way race allowed Lincoln to win.

When Lincoln won, the Deep South seceded, and we had the Civil War.

After the Civil War, the Democratic Party was shut out of politics on the national level for several decades.  But that did not stop them on the local level.  They created the Klu Klux Klan to terrorize people, namely the Blacks who had been given the right to vote along with their freedom.  Several of their surviving generals, led by former General Early began to push the concept of “The Lost Cause”. 

The Lost Cause was a revisionist history of what happened.  The South’s seceding was a just act and heroic cause.  They were defending States’ Rights.  Slavery was just and moral because the former slaves were happy, even grateful.  The Lost Cause permeated literature and as the century came to a close and a new century dawned, the Lost Cause entered the realm of Hollywood and the films.  The first full-length feature film was an adaptation of a best-selling novel extolling the Klan, The  KLANSMAN.  Hollywood changed its title to BIRTH OF A NATION.  Later came the ultimate expression of the lost cause in GONE WITH THE WIND.  The acceptance of the Lost Cause allowed the Democrats to work their way back into national politics.

As the Democrats regained power, Democratic politicians pushed through JIM CROW laws stripping Blacks of their civil and human rights.  Racism became rampant across the country.  1919 was the year in which more blacks were lynched than at any other time in American History.  The Democrats pushed for segregation.  School boards set up an American Apartheid in separate but equal schools.  Whites and blacks were not allowed to mix.  In churches, whites sat in the main area, and blacks were relegated to the balcony.  Blacks were marginalized as to where they could live.  Color lines were not to be broken.  Interracial marriage was against the law.  There was a separate movie industry.  There was a separate baseball league.  There were separate units in the Army.  In the Navy, Blacks could only be servants, not sailors, nor officers. 

To be perfectly honest, during this time, the Republicans were not doing much to resolve the racial issues.  They were the party of big business, expansionism, and high tariffs.  (Up until the Civil War, the United States Government took money in from Tariffs.  A tariff was a tax placed on goods imported into the United States.  During the Civil War, because imports were less, Lincoln inaugurated a personal income tax in order to pay for the war.  He said that once the war debt was paid off, the income tax would stop.  In 1862 a Republican congress passed a law taxing some incomes at 3% and others at 5%.  In 1872, the income tax law was declared unconstitutional and repealed.  It was later reinstated by Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat in 1913.)

If you are thinking that this doesn’t look anything like the current Democratic Party, you are right.  Something happened to change them. 

(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

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