Our text passage of Scripture is very simple—if you fix a leak when it is
small, it is easily stopped and ceases to be a problem. But if you do
nothing, then in time it will become a BIG problem. A leaking dam can be
fixed, but if you wait until the dam breaks away, then thousands of people
may die when billions of gallons of water come crashing down upon the town
or village. Why are religious leaders so stubborn to deal with issues?
The disturbing news on the internet is full of horrifying stories of abuse, both physically and emotionally, of people in Bible colleges and churches. I won't mention a bunch of names in this article, outside of my own ongoing battle with the Bob Jones University crowd on Guam (i.e., the Harvest Baptist Church). I could name some of the biggest churches and Bible colleges in the United States, and a very long list of angry hurting people who are exposing, suing and publicly criticizing these religious institutions. Why? Why are all these people so angry? The answer is obvious to me—the people who should care don't care.
I read in the news several years ago about a perfectly healthy woman in Florida, who went into the hospital to give birth to her child. There were complications and the doctors needed to put her under anesthesia. When she awoke, both of hers arms and legs were amputated. She was horrified. But to make matters much worse, neither the doctors or the nurses, or anyone from the hospital administration, would tell her anything about what happened. She cried and suffered emotional abuse, being painfully ignored by everyone. The hospital was only concerned about liability, and told all their employees to ignore the woman. Can you imagine how she felt? She sued and won a $3,000,000 settlement. Her son was born fine. It turns out that the hospital was trying to save money by not setting the air-conditioning system cold enough, which caused the mother to contract a deadly flesh-eating bacteria.
I won't dare claim to know how that woman felt, but I do have some idea of what it's like to be ignored when in emotional and physical pain (my neck). I have been ignored by the Harvest Baptist Church on Guam for the past seven years, since 2014, simply because they don't care. In 2014 I was on Harvest's weekly prayer list for chronic neck pain. I loved those people so much. Pastor Herron was someone that I really looked up to. But when I befriended them with THE TRUTH (free grace Gospel, King James Bible, et cetera), I was cruelly dumped like a rotten sack of potatoes, abandoned like a dog with rabies, spurned like a young woman whose first lover ran off with another. My inexplicable pain of losing my church family cannot be expressed in words. The pain of losing the woman I loved, their nurse, cannot be expressed in words. I meant absolutely nothing to them. I am a victim of abuse at Harvest Baptist Church. What is a mere job to their pastors, was my family. I needed them so much, but I was just another customer. No wonder our churches are going to the Devil, and people are angry and suing these organizations. I don't blame them one bit!
God never intended for the local New Testament church to become a business. A 501c3 state-licensed non-profit organization is a secular business, not a church. A church may operate within the legal structure of a 501c3, but a legal business could NEVER be considered a biblical church. Sadly, we have tens of thousands of 501c3 legally designated churches, which are not Bible churches in any sense of the term. Many are religious cults, which preach a perverse gospel. A true “church” is an assembly of born-again believers. When so-called “churches” function as mere businesses, they are no longer biblical churches. That is why we see sodomites, women and atheists often employed nowadays in the clergy, pastoring churches. These are Satan's churches!
I'd expect the unsaved heathen world not to care, but you would think that professed Christians would care. The news is filled with angry people, many of whom are victims of abuse in local churches and Bible colleges, some incidents going back forty years or more. Some cruel critics tell these victims to “Get over it” and “Let it go.” The reason why they can't, and won't, is because the matter is still an open book. The issue has never been dealt with. Hurting people just want to be loved. That is what we all need and want. You show me a seemingly hateful, calloused, socially withdrawn, cold and reclusive person, and I guarantee you they've been hurt by people. We live in a throw away culture in America, where hurting people don't matter anymore. The homeless are forgotten. Former prison inmates are rejected by society. The poor are ignored. I haven't been too excited, as are the employees jumping up and down at NASA recently, over their exploration of the planet Mars. What about the homeless across America? Who cares, right? NASA received $22,600,000,000 from the U.S government just in 2019 alone, while millions of homeless people cannot afford to pay the outrageous rent costs anymore. In San Francisco the average rent is now $2,879 a month, down from nearly $4,000 before the pandemic hit. But still, a large percentage of lower income people cannot survive. Our priorities are wrong in this nation. The world never meets you half way on anything!
We see America's 350,000 churches
flourishing with members, money and resources, that support sinister
ministers like John MacArthur and his
extravagant luxurious millionaire lifestyle. Pastor MacArthur owns three
big mansions! This is Pastor Marty Herron's hero! Mr. MacArthur does say a
lot of great things doctrinally, and is a brilliant Bible teacher much of
the time, except when he starts talking about salvation, repentance and
espousing the lies of Calvinism. Pastor Curtis Hutson wisely said that
repentance is like buttoning a dress shirt, if you get the first button
wrong, then all the other buttons will be wrong too! If a man is wrong on
repentance, then he is going to be wrong on a bunch of other stuff too!
Ignoring A Hurting Person Is Abuse
I did some research today online about
emotional abuse. Did you know that
ignoring someone, giving them the silent treatment (like Harvest ignores me)
is a form of abuse? I don't mean when you want to be left alone, and you
kindly explain that to someone. I like to be left alone most of the time,
because my neck hurts bad always. The pain burns, in the bony area of the
back of my neck. I've had this horrible affliction since 2004. The
prescription pain drugs really help. Albeit, when you know that someone is
upset with you, and you ignore them, that is abuse. Matthew 5:23-24,
“Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that
thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar,
and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer
thy gift.”
You cannot be right with God VERTICALLY and be wrong with man HORIZONTALLY. That is what Jesus said in the preceding Scripture passage. If someone has ought against you, you need to attempt to reconcile with them, not just ignore that person and hope they will go away. That is why so many people are angry at churches and Bible colleges today—because the people running these organizations would rather ignore victims and hurting people, either hoping the problem will eventually go away, or else they're too proud to admit they were wrong, or they're afraid of being sued, or because those leaders just don't care. The reason doesn't matter, love always seeks reconciliation.
“The silent treatment is the ultimate gaslighting because it denies the reality of you, of your humanity.” —Stephanie Sarkis, Ph.D.
I've read umpteen horror stories in the news (hundreds in fact) where young women were sexually assaulted in a church, and then the church leaders blamed the victims, telling them to repent instead. The unfortunate female student at Bob Jones University, who reported to BJU leaders that she had been raped off campus in 2019, was expelled by BJU's leaders. I don't blame her for being angry and suing BJU. Abuse is commonplace in the Bob Jones camp. I was horribly abused at Harvest Baptist Church on Guam. Pastor Herron selfishly drove me out, shunned, ostracized and ignored me in my pleas for mercy, love and his help getting my broken life back together. I had an opportunity to marry their nurse, Kris, and we liked each other a lot. I was happy at Harvest, but because I loved them as my family, I tried to sincerely help them, by doing what a true friend does, I helped them to see. Kindly said, Pastor Marty Herron is a very foolish and unwise man. Pastor Curtis Hutson gets it 100% correct, exposing these wicked men as apostates who need to repent of their wrong idea of repentance, or they'll all burn in Hell in eternity. No one is saved who thinks that you must “turn away from your sins” to be saved. I've never met a single advocate of Lordship Salvation who believed in the assurance of the believer (i.e., eternal security). Case in point is Dr. Steve Pettit, who made this horrible statement to 2,700 students and faculty in BJU chapel on January 26, 2015:
“You can't just speak about getting saved, and you accepted Christ, and then that's it! There is a justification; There is a sanctification; There's ultimately a glorification, and though there are three parts, they are all part of the whole, and you cannot separate them. In order for you to qualify for the award, you have to get into the race, you have to stay in the race, and you have to finish the race. If you want to win, you have to run to the end; and winning in the Christian life is everything, because if you lose—if you don't finish—you lose everything—you lose your SOUL. And so, the Christian race is the life of faith that begins, is run, and is finished when we cross over into Heaven!” —Dr. Steve Pettit (“What Does It Mean To Run 'The Race'?” - 11:34)
There is no eternal security in Dr. Pettit's theology, because you won't know if your faith is truly genuine (as he foolishly says) until you've finished running the race. Pettit says if you drop out of the race, you were never saved. So how can anyone truly know they are saved, until the game is over? This in itself disproves his demonic junk theology. The free grace salvation that God freely offers to all mankind, is based solely upon the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, as payment for our sins, and His miraculous bodily resurrection three days later from the dead. I KNOW I am saved, regardless of how I choose to live my earthly life, because I am redeemed by GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS, and not my own. Philippians 3:9, “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:”
For befriending Harvest Baptist Church with these sound doctrines, I was booted out of their congregation, forgotten about, despised, shunned, ostracized, and not allowed to play in any of their reindeer games anymore. I was Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, with my bright shiny inspired King James Bible only nose!!! Consequently, I was laughed at, ridiculed, humiliated, criticized, insulted and left to wander on my own without a church family. I and Pastor Jack Hyles were called “a cult” by the pastors at Harvest Baptist Church. Meanwhile Marty Herron partied and enjoyed the good life, milking the money cow at Harvest for all he could, and then abandoned the sinking Titanic (resigning as senior pastor) in 2018, to accept a lucrative new 6-digit salaried position as the Executive Vice President of Faith Baptist Bible College And Theological Seminary in Ankeny, Iowa. Religious crime pays well! It is sickening. That man doesn't deserve that kind of money, and he sure ought not be allowed behind any pulpit in America! ...
We've got bunch of limp males standing
behind pulpits today, who speak boldly in the pulpit, but then run and hide
as cowards in real life. Outside of Harvest Baptist Church building, Pastor
Marty Herron had no spine. The last time I saw him at Asan Beach in 2018,
walking early in the morning, I walked toward him to speak kindly (God knows
my heart). Pastor Herron literally walked away as I approached him, because
he is a coward. If you notice in all my writings I NEVER have once called
him “Marty.” That is because I still respect him as a pastor, even though I
am 100% against his false gospel, arrogance and perverse view on repentance.
In sharp contrast, Pastor Herron addressed me as “david” (lower case d) in
our email correspondence. I told him that he was disrespectful, but he
didn't even have the decency to email me back, ignoring me as the BJU crowd
often does. Marty Herron is a spoiled man, who has played his cards right as
good career moves, but that is not God's wisdom. Pastor Herron needs to get
saved before it is too late.
