GUILT-TRIP PREACHING

Guilt-Trip Preaching

Zac Poonen

 

"God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it" (John 3:17 -Living)

When we preach God's Word, we must NOT preach it in such a way that we make God's people feel guilty and condemned.

The Bible tells us to "ENCOURAGE one another" - and to do it "DAILY", if we want to save God's people from"being HARDENED through the DECEITFULNESS of sin" (Heb.3:13). That means that EVERY day, in EVERYmessage we preach we mustENCOURAGE the believers we preach to. Only thus will we be able to save them from sin. But Satan deceives us into thinking that we can make believers more holy and more devoted to God by making them feel guilty through our preaching. That is a lie.

The Holy Spirit does indeed convictGod's children through the preaching of the Word. But He encourages them at the same time too. As we just read, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but tosave the world. And God did not send His Spirit into the church to condemnbelievers but to encourage them. God is a God of encouragement. He always lifts up our spirits and gives us HOPE (See Rom.15:5; and2 Cor.1:3,4). A ministry of condemnation is"an old covenant ministry" that will only lead people to spiritual death (See 2 Cor.3:7-9).The new covenant ministry however is a ministry of life that will lead them to godliness.

It is easy to fall into the trap of exposing sin in such a way in our preaching, that believers feel condemned and guilty. Then we have FAILED in our ministry and sent people on a "guilt trip".Such man-induced guilt can become a prison from which people will find it very difficult to extricate themselves.

It is a common technique among preachers (especially when they are young, inexperienced and insecure, or when they feel inferior and want to impress people) that they preach a high, unrealistic standard of holiness and thus make everyone (except themselves!!) feel guilty. The level of life they preach will be something that is impossible to achieve. It will be a level that even Jesus and the apostles did not preach or ask others to live by. These preachers themselves do not live by the standards they preach. But weak-minded believers hear their sermons and feel condemned and guilty - and get discouraged.

Most of the challenges given to believers in Christian circles, to enter into "full-time" Christian service or missionary work are based on this"guilt-trip" method. The need in various parts of the world is stressed by the preacher to such an extent that the listeners feel guilty and some of them end up quitting their jobs in order to go out as missionaries. But Jesus and the apostles never used such techniques to send anyone into the harvest field of the world. Jesus told His apostles to go to every nation in the world and to make disciples. But He did not send them out by making them feel guilty by comparing their comfortable life in Israel with the poverty in other parts of the world. It is because of such “guilt-trip"methods adopted by preachers that there is so much of shallowness among most Christian workers today. Most of them went forth to serve the Lord� because they felt guilty about remaining in their secular jobs, after hearing a missionary challenge. God had never called them to His service. But they went forth, propelled by feelings of guilt. Full-time Christian work is such a sacred task that we have no right to engage in it, if God Himself did not call us to it.

Most of the teaching on tithing and giving in Christendom today also follows this guilt-trip method. Believers are made to feel terribly guilty for not giving money for "God's work". Thus they end up giving thousands of rupees of their hard-earned savings to covetous preachers for their "ministry". This is one of the worst evils being perpetrated by preachers today, on poor believers - and it is all being done "in the Name of Christ". We never find Jesus using such high-pressure methods at any time. His word was, "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15).He told Peter, "If you love Me more than everything else, then take care of my sheep and feed them" (John 21:15-17). God loves only those who obey Him cheerfully (2 Cor.9:7).

This is God's way in the new covenant - the way of free, voluntary, joyful service, without any soulish pressure being applied by any preacher. We must learn to distinguish between the soulish pressure that clever preachers put upon us and the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit. When demons possess people they take away their freedom of choice and control them totally. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, never possesses people. He fills them. The difference is that He never takes away their freedom of choice but gives them total freedom, even after He has filled them. The Holy Spirit will never take away our free will, nor will He pressurize us - as Satan and many preachers seek to do.

We must discern "guilt-trip"sermons immediately - and reject them in our minds at once, if we want to walk in the freedom of the Spirit.

In my younger days, when I did not understand what it was to be a new-covenant servant, I too did a lot of legalistic, "guilt-trip" preaching. But I repented of it and gave it up long ago."When I was a child, I thought like a child and spoke like a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things" (1 Cor.13:11). The "guilt-trip" method of preaching will only bring people into bondage - whereas Jesus and the Holy Spirit have come to set people free.

Every preacher who adopts the guilt-trip method of preaching is a legalist. But he does not know this. The worst legalists are those who preach from the New Testament Scriptures, in the spirit of the old covenant. They imagine that they are preaching the new covenant, but they have been deceived by Satan to preach the letter of the new covenant without entering into the spirit of the new covenant. The new covenant is not a gospel of the letter but of the spirit. The words that Jesus spoke were "spirit and life" (John 6:63). The ministry of the Spirit is never one of compulsion or condemnation, but always one of encouragement and hope. God is the "lifter of our heads" (Psa.3:3), NOT the "lowerer of our heads". He never tries to shame us into obeying Him. School-teachers may try to shame their students into obedience. But loving fathers will never do that. They get their children to obey them cheerfully, byencouraging them (See 1 Cor.4:14,15).It is by our attitude to our flock in this area that we can discover whether we are teachers or fathers. Our churches do not need teachers. We need more fathers.

We need to distinguish between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the condemnation of the Law. Guilt-trip preaching leads people to be discouraged and to condemn themselves. Therefore, they cannot come into a life of freedom in the Spirit and become overcomers.

Whenever a preacher adopts this guilt-trip method, it indicates that he does not really know the Lord, or the ways of the Holy Spirit. It proves that his knowledge of the Bible is poor. And he is also dishonest - for he cannot possibly be living by the standards he preaches. Jesus DID first and THEN taught (Acts 1:1). But these preachers, like the Pharisees of old,"load you with impossible demands that they themselves don't even try to keep" (Matt.23:3,4-Living).

It is impossible to have genuine fellowship with a guilt-trip preacher, for he is not poor in spirit. "The poor in spirit' are defined in the Amplified Bible as "those who rate themselves as insignificant" (Matt.5:3). I have met very few preachers in my life who would consider themselves as insignificant. The airs with which most preachers preach proclaims to everyone that they rate themselves as "very, very important people" compared to the ordinary believers in their congregations!! I always switch off inwardly, when listening to such men, for I know that I cannot receive anything of eternal value from such proud people. Such preachers are infected by the spirit of the Accuser and that is why their "guilt-trip"preaching consists mainly of accusing others of not measuring up to God's standards. They imagine themselves to be "prophets", but they lack the compassion of genuine prophets. Such arrogant preachers cannot possess the kingdom of heaven(Matt.5:3). And so they cannot lead others into the freedom of the Spirit (that characterises the kingdom of heaven). Such preachers will never be able to build a brotherhood or a local expression of the Body of Christ anywhere. They will only be able to build congregations of their own"admirers". May God save us all from such a calamity.

I have noticed that it is usually young men who indulge in "guilt-trip preaching". But I have also seen that if such young men do not judge themselves and seek to grow in grace, they will remain unchanged even when they are old men and become elders of churches.

Let us therefore ensure that we NEVER use the "guilt-trip" method in our preaching to try and convict others of their failure to obey God. Let us never allow any preacher to send us on a guilt trip, through his preaching. Let us repent of being legalistic teachers and seek to be fathers instead. The glory of our Lord was seen in the fullness of GRACE and TRUTH that was manifested in His life and in His words - throughout His earthly days (John 1:14). May that glory be manifested through us too. Amen and Amen.

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SUDDEN DESTRUCTION

SUDDEN DESTRUCTION

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

    1 Thessalonians 5:3.

 Wrong Weather Forecasts

          Some destruction gives a warning; it is already being expected even before it has touched down. Some other destruction, however, gives no notice, choosing the most unlikely times and places. Of such a destruction does the apostle here warn, which rushes upon a people in a very “sudden” manner, and that at a very unsuspecting time when all the headlines scream, “PEACE AT LAST; SAFE TO SLEEP!” Mark the manner and the timing of such sightless voices.

        Mark that season “WHEN they shall say….” You might never be able to tell the specific calendar date when “they” would start the sedative propaganda of peace, but that such a season comes, the prophet says we should not be unaware.   And you need not bother who “they” will be that would publish such sayings in such a season; “they” that have the means of the media and the power to reach majority ears and therefore scorn the distressing minority-vision of the seeing prophet whose commissioned voice warns of a destruction to which “they” and everyone else seems so blinded. Mark that season when the headlines begin to sing songs of “peace and safety.” The suddenness of the destruction that such seasons bring is usually a type that“they shall not escape”– not even the smartest and prayermost of them. 

        The sponsored appearance of peace is sometimes a tactical and murderous deception. The deafening proclamation of peace to drown the sounds of an approaching storm is sometimes a strategy of war against those upon whom the storm comes…suddenly.

 Same Stones, Different Sights

        Everybody doesn’t see the same thing when everybody looks at the same thing. That we are all looking in the same direction does not mean we see the same thing. At a climactic season in His life and in the history of humanity, while Jesus with His disciples was walking through Jerusalem, they paused at the magnificent temple and all took a look. All the disciples – which means the majority observers at that time and in that place – saw the breathtaking stonework of that architectural masterpiece, and all began to force His attention to what they were seeing. Strangely, even though they were all looking at the same temple, He was seeing something other than they were seeing; something that had nothing to do with their here and now; something opposite to magnificence; something sad and very bloody. Their natural eyes saw beautiful set stones, His prophetic eyes saw broken and prostrate stones. Their networked ears picked the happy sounds of their mutual voices reporting the pleasant sight; the Prophet’s ears were restless with the lamentations of mothers as their infants were seized from care and smashed against those silent stonewalls.

          Those disciples were sincere, which did not right their error; they were also men of God, which did not mean that they saw better. They saw beauty, He saw destruction; they heard “peace and safety,” He heard wails; yet they were all focused on the same thing. Read the account for yourself in Luke 21:5-6, Mark 13:1-4, and Matthew 24:1-3.

           I wonder if none of them cursed Him secretly in their righteous hearts for His minority vision. I wonder if none of them got vexed with that good Man suddenly turned a false prophet, for daring to see what none of them saw, and for so unpopularly announcing a future of pains when they were unanimous in celebrating the present beauty in the house of the Lord. 

           What he saw, or what we Saw?

           The prophet Isaiah had a remarkable experience. By prophetic directive, following divine instructions, a watchman was recruited at a very distressing season in the land, and given the following clear terms of reference: “Let him declare WHAT he seeth” (Isaiah 21:6). The instruction was clear: “Announce what you see.” As he watched from his tower elevated by virtue of his office – thanks to his far sight as a result of that privileged altitude, he saw the serialised approach of some harmless domestic animals. However, he would not take those appearances on their face value, so he subjected them to further prophetic scrutiny;“he hearkened diligently with much heed”(v.7), and this was the shocking alarm he raise, “A lion!” They were different forms of the same beast; they were different external disguises of the same devourer, a lion.

           What the watchman announced was not what he had seen, which we also saw. What we saw with him were horses and donkeys and camels; yet what he announced and warned about was the approach of a wild predatory animal – a lion. Who was wrong? The watchman or we? Who was wrong? The minority watchman or the majority lookers and sleepers? Who was wrong, the one who“hearkened diligently” to the signals he was getting, or we who took things for what we thought we saw? Need we call a prophet mad because he sees what somebody else does not? Need we proceed to take the baton from those of whom it is lamented, “Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars…” (Romans 11:3)?

   They have Killed Thy Prophets

           I pray that in centuries to come, if not a few tens of year from now, the Church in Nigeria would not have to apologise to one of her own prophets whom she stoned to silence; a prophet that did not go by the title (as not all prophets bear the title); the prophet Pastor Bosun Emmanuel. By no criteria is the one-chapter book of Obadiah less the word of God than the 66-chapter book of Isaiah; it did not take less inspiration to breath the one-chapter epistle of Jude than it took to birth the 22 chapters of Revelation or the 24 chapters of St Luke’s gospel. John the Baptist was not a prophet merely because of the publicity he had and the size of the multitudes that thronged him from high and low, from the political and ecclesiastical classes. He was a prophet in spite of the size of his fans and the occasional unpopularity of his voice. Not upon us, O Lord, the tag of those “Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets” (1 Thessalonians 2:15); not upon us, O Lord. Below are my prayer points.

 While I sat Waiting for a Flight

         A few weeks ago, I sat waiting for a flight in the privileged lounge in one of Nigeria’s principal airports. By me was a parliamentarian. As if he were unburdening his heart, he said to me that whereas it was generally feared that the mercifully concluded recent general elections were going to be the means by which the scheming international and diabolic powers would achieve their malicious prediction on the split of Nigeria in 2015, the threat is not yet past, and in fact, that now that no one looks anymore in that direction is when to watch out more carefully, because the hawks have not yet returned to their nests. He gave me his informed insights, and unveiled the alarming pointers some of which had been a loud pre-election theme. I will not here call names.

The Tares among the Wheat

        I am just returned from an evening prayer meeting where my legs literally lost strength at hearing sobering reports calling for urgent national prayers. I had to ask permission to sit, when I lost my legs; rumours of wars and of the malicious sabotaging of the efforts of the Nigerian military against Boko Haram jihadists.

       Days ago, a previous leader of the army under the former government of Dr Goodluck Jonathan was rubbished by the media (or by those that hired them) for confessing that their fight against Boko Haram jihadists was hampered by the activities of what he called “fifth columnists,” who worked for the enemy while they wore the uniforms of the nation’s military. Those were more committed to their religion and their pockets than to national interest. Dr Goodluck Jonathan himself had lamented that sympathisers with the divisive Boko Haram ideology were in his government as well as having infiltrated the intelligence agencies. In other words, not everyone had been wearing the military and paramilitary uniforms honestly.

        From rumours reaching us, the activities of these saboteurs have lately grown more brazenly pernicious, especially within the military. Report after report points to a clandestine plot where ‘superior officers’ that are jihadist themselves have consistently devised intrigues at drastically demobilising and diminishing the potential capabilities of officers from ‘the other side’ in religious and regional respects. In some cases, officers have been deceived to disarm because a ‘very senior officer’ was coming to see them out there in the wilderness of war, only for the ‘very senior officer’ to turn out to be Boko Haram fighters that mowed down the disarmed defenders of the nation’s integrity. Not once. It calls for prayers to cover those in the military who have put their lives on the line, sincerely committed to blotting out error and terror. 

A Tithe of the Truth

       If these ‘rumours’ be true which one has heard from recurrent independent sources, what is the ultimate agenda of the determined degrading of personnel from ‘the other side’? So that in the event of a war (for which ‘they’ have been earnest in preparing), there would be no helpers for those that would have to choose between their sword and their holy book? In one arm of the military, the latest scheme, we hear (and the schemes keep being revised as soon as they are discovered), is the allocation of a new type of their uniform. Those who get assigned the new uniform usually ultimately get posted to the war zone, and often do not return to shout Hallelujah. Sometimes those from ‘the other side’ constitute the essential battalions that go out, to be ambushed by the enemy. The papers do not often carry a tithe of the truth or of the pains we hear.

       From just before Nigeria’s last elections, based on signals from on high and thanks to the many voices of prayers, I breathed relief that at least I’d had a break from the insistent tremors of an approaching war. I thought at last it was time to set tables and face a ‘normal’ life, but the revelations of war have begun to pour in again, also from many other quarters, and my soul will not be quiet for what I see. I am thinking, Why would God thus persistently be calling attention to the matters of our future rest, after a brief post-elections pause?

“What seest Thou?”

        All watchmen do not see the same things; it depends on where each stands. Jonah was not the only prophet in the northern Kingdom of Israel at the time God sent him off to Nineveh. The others never heard about Nineveh what Jonah heard about Nineveh. It was not every prophet that God sent to Gomer when God sent the prophet Hosea to marry her. “What seest thou?” is a question God posed to respective prophets, and sometimes repeatedly to the same prophet. The answers were never the same (Jeremiah 1:11; Amos 7:8; Zechariah 4:2).   Even the best of prophets sees merely a “part,” the “part” that is committed to him – the other ‘parts’ having been committed to others. The final (and therefore authentic) prophetic picture would usually be a combination of all the prophetic part-pictures (1 Corinthians 13:10; 14:29-31). In the effort to blow my alarm for the things I see, to wake up mighty men unto prayers (Joel 3:9), I have been called some of the unkindest names, even by my brethren and friends; yet my voice is determined not to be muted. It is I who will answer to God for my trumpet unsounded (Ezekiel 3:17-18).

         I see a team of ‘wise men’ from the east, assembled in a place, to divine and advice the ruler on who and who should be given what place, who should sit at the gates and who should be kept far from where. The list you have been waiting for has not been seen and will not be seen until it will have passed through the diviners turbaned from the east, before it should be ‘presented’ for parliamentary rubberstamp. He needs the mystical clearance of those astrologers reading the stars to read the future. I see in another room, experts of the law assembled; they have also been there for the past few moons studying our law, to pick loopholes that could be exploited in days to come, and implemented phase by phase to fight their cause, Ishmael’s cause. These have not actually been silent months while we waited unduly so long to birth an exceptional child so difficult to find; they have been a season of retreat while the wise men of the law and the wise men of the stars consult and confer to advise and direct. May God Who makes diviners mad, who makes seeing eyes blind, blind the eyes of the astrologers, and smite the wise men with self-annihilating foolishness after the order of Ahithophel (2 Samuel 15:31; 17:23). Amen. 

That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish(Isaiah 44:25).

A Shopping Prayer List

        Not to bore you with a long epistle, I shall pause here, and continue the burdens in a subsequent post, with prayer points more disturbing than these, from the open pages of the newspaper. However, please, pray for Europe; she faces an invasion of pain and evil, and needs every prayer from every quarter, and America also. 

I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence(Isaiah 62:6).

         A call has gone out to the Church in Nigeria: a vigil holds across the land on Nigeria’s Independence eve on Wednesday, September 30, from 10.00pm or 11.00pm to at least 1.00 am or later on Thursday, October 1, 2015. Nigeria’s Independence Day in this season falls in the Hebrew New Year-month, in the Shemitah year, the Sabbatic Jubilee (or 50th) year, after 7 circles of 7 years (7x7=49+1=50 – Jubilee/Sabbath year of release and rest). If you are unaware of any of these vigils holding in your city, then kindly arrange one with your household and invite others in, otherwise use your church and let other churches come in to declare God’s New Year on Nigeria, then leave the rest to the Lord of Hosts. It shall be a Passover vigil concluding with a Communion. Amen.

RESIDENTIAL AND MIGRANT CURSE

RESIDENTIAL AND MIGRANT CURSES

And the city shall be accursed, even it, AND all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.

                                                                                              Joshua 6:17.

Residential Contaminants

That was Joshua speaking after Jericho had fallen. He said that the city of Jericho was accursed, as well as “ALL that are therein,”irrespective of age or status.   In other words, not only the physical location of Jericho but also the residents in that location, for being resident in that place at all, were accursed. If one lived there for a month, one carried a month-long curse; if one merely spent a business weekend in a five-star hotel there, one contracted a brief five-star curse camouflaged with air conditioners and manicured gardens. If one chose to plant a church there unsent by God, they would be inundated with endless and recurrent ‘deliverance’ sessions for the people and the place. For those who got born there, and lived there year in year out, it was a lifetime of curses within and without. To the extent that the primary curse was attached to the place, the only way to deal with it would be to check out, until there came an Elisha to deal with the matter wholesale with his double portion of Elijah’s anointing (2 Kings 2:19-22).

Blinded by Skyscrapers

Are there curses, like viruses, that are contracted merely by contacting the place where the curse is endemic? Yes, which means that one may not have to live in every place; and the trip planners with their commercial wonderland pictures of a place may not be spiritually reliable. Therefore, how comfortable a place looks, how many gardens it has, how tall its skyscrapers are, is not sufficient basis for deciding where one chooses to live. That was how Lot got fooled.

10 Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley… 12 …and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. 13 But the people of this area wereextremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord (Genesis 13:10-13, New Living Translation).

Sometimes we contract a curse, different types and categories of curses, merely by where we choose to live. All curses don’t live in huts, some live in mansions and skyscrapers; all curses do not turn a fruitful garden into a barren wilderness, some would leave it that way, to bait its victims, whom it kills slowly with poisoned apples and venomous cherries.

The Mysteries of Ephraim: Withering by the Riverside

There are not only cursed places, there are also “pleasant places” (but that is not the present focus). Of Ephraim, for instance, God said,

13 Ephraim… is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.

14 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts (Hosea 9:13-14).

This passage about Ephraim, however, raises fresh issues. When a tree withers by the riverside where every other tree flourishes, it is a puzzle whose answer should be sought in the tree. God was stating that even though Ephraim was planted in a pleasant place, his life carried a curse of untimely deaths, and the fine location was not going to make any difference to that curse: his wives would be barren (with dry breasts), or would miscarry, if they got pregnant at all; and if they managed to give birth, the children would be murdered. It had nothing to do with where they were but whom they were. Surprisingly, strangers would prosper there, but not Ephraimites, not the owners of the pleasant place. If such Ephraimites found themselves in a cursed Jericho, the worse for them: a cursed person in a cursed land. That was the lot of the people of Jericho. The land was cursed, AND the people were cursed.

Ephraim, “planted in a pleasant place: BUT…” One may escape a residential curse by checking out of the place, but we do not always solve a problem by relocating to a different ‘better’ place, if the curse is on the migrant. That is the problem of often seeing greener pastures that soon turn into a wilderness. In other words, there are both external and internal dimensions to the issue; both personal and environmental dimensions to curses. We may not always blame the place for our woes when the same symptoms have followed us about in different places. Too frequent and too many transplantings kill a plant. A diseased plant will die quicker on a diseased soil, yet even on a good soil, it will still die; slowly, slowly. If a tree keeps dying in every place, then we might need to check the tree; but when even good trees begin to die in a place, one may have entered into Jericho.

May God take from you the curses that follow you, and plant you this day in “a pleasant place.” Amen.

                                                                                                                       From The Preacher's diary.