WesleyGospel Ministries

The door is open
Now I’m running away
Comfort waits where I will seek
How to free a light for weeks

Can you see me now?
I’ve fallen near the end
Can you see me now?
You hold the end

Succumb to shock and fear
To a climate drawing near
Extending shadows that grip your mind
To whisper its doubt like one of a kind
One of a kind

Culture in jeopardy
A line drawn and feathering
Cut and spread, force feed the false ego
As you philosophize an enemy

Hallucinations dissolve into the floor
There’s no meaning anymore

I see
You are

Reading my mind back to me
It’s clear you are here
Whilst sharing the same air
I can disappear

–Loathe, “I Let It In and It Took Everything”–

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave them kids alone

Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone
All in all, it’s just another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers, leave them kids alone

Hey, teacher, leave us kids alone
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall

–Pink Floyd, “Another Brick In the Wall”–

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In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
–Genesis 1:1 (KJV)–

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
–Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (ESV)–

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AiG, “Christian Education vs. Public School.”

J. Gresham Machen, Education, Christianity, and the State (Trinity Foundation, 2004).

Jeff Farnham, The Octopus of Humanism (Sword of the Lord, 2009).

Dr. John R. Rice, Evolution or the Bible–Which? (Sword of the Lord, 1963).

John Stamper, Conflicted (Master Books, 2023).

IndoctriNation (Gunn Productions, 2011).

John Piper, “‘Atlas Shrugged’ Fifty Years Later: Appreciation and Criticism.”

There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets,
and shall shew great signs and wonders;
insomuch that, if it were possible,
they shall deceive the very elect.
–Matthew 24:24 (KJV)–

Love bombing, people saying “I like you,” the holy kiss, and a lot of poor uneducated people. A few superficially redeeming qualities were the interracial Pentecostal aspect, the drug addict ministry, communal care, and even divine healing experiences. But Jones got high on himself and told people to stop communicating with family and friends that didn’t join the Peoples Temple. He’d also separate mothers from their children; and force children to be raised by someone else in the church. He’d drive a wedge between husbands and wives during counseling sessions; and goad them to say cruel things to one another. Romance in marriage was taught as a distraction from the spiritual life; and from the social justice and poverty alleviation concerns of society. This broke up a lot of marriages. Church staff were required to work a minimum of sixteen hours a day. The staff wore special uniforms. Everyone was always exhausted all the time.

Jones would have KKK simulations in church, plays that simulated a black person being lynched, in church. Jones believed that this would happen on a mass scale in America; and that they needed to create a special community to protect themselves from this ever happening to them. And so he controlled them with these irrational fears.

Public humiliation was common: on one occasion many people were whipped with a belt publicly, because somebody drank wine. This cult leader pastor was viewed as a “father,” and the adult church members were viewed as his “children,” who had to trust him, learn from him, and even be physically disciplined by him with extremely sadistic corporal punishment. They even gave electric shocks to little kids! Strangely enough, these were regular people from Wesleyan church backgrounds, like Church of the Nazarene and Assembly of God. One young lady was even beaten seventy five times with a board! People were threatened with divine judgments if they didn’t give 30% of their incomes to the church. Actual death threats were given like in a gang–so people would be afraid to leave the church.

“All that believed were together, and had all things common” (Acts 2:44). This verse was used to manipulate people to sell their property and give the money to the church. Jones hoarded $26 million for himself. Finally he led them off to Guyana to form a community called Jonestown, named after himself, where he made them all drink poisoned Kool-Aid; and finally pressured them all one last time: into an act of mass suicide. –J.B.

⁹ When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, ¹¹ or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. ¹² For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. ¹³ You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. ¹⁴ For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.

–DEUTERONOMY 18:9-14 (NKJV)–

Halloween might have been turned into a pop holiday for cute kids’ costumes and going door-to-door for candy, but the spiritual substance of Halloween, if people would just stop and think about it, is essentially devil worship, Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA), Wicca, and Druidism. Even human sacrifice! Not to mention devil-glorifying horror films which bring demonic oppression and hauntings into people’s lives. If people want to give attention to fear in October, then use this time to preach hellfire and brimstone sermons, not to glorify the devil. Trunk-or-Treats are a sign that even Baptist and Pentecostal preachers don’t have enough faith in the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3)–allowing kids and parents to dress up like Harry Potter or some witch AT CHURCH! And to not rebuke ’em for it! The fact that idolatry, worship of other gods, and outright lying to kids right there in church is going on, goes to show that American tradition is more important to such preachers than the Ten Commandments. It also shows us that SUCH PREACHERS DON’T BELIEVE IN THE SUPERNATURAL; AND ARE ACTUALLY UNBELIEVERS. If they did, they wouldn’t allow this watered-down Satanism into the church, and PREACH AGAINST THE MIRACULOUS GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AT THE SAME TIME! –J.B.

It was in 2007 that I read Streams of Living Water by Richard J. Foster. Now, that was a unique book. It brought together the spirituality of Leonard Ravenhill, Assembly of God, Billy Graham, and St. Francis of Assisi. It brought the Baptist, the Pentecostal, the contemplative charismatic Catholics, and the Wesleyan-holiness people into one spot. And in one way or another, blended them so that you don’t feel confused, but fulfilled in every dimension of Christian spirituality as its described in the Bible. It truly was an “eat the meat and spit out the bones” approach to applying the Bible to your spiritual life. It was also educational in that it forced you to think outside of the theological box; and like Wesley, to sort of adopt an evangelical ecumenism, or what he had called a “catholic spirit,” in one of his sermons.

Since 2007, instead of going the way of Billy Graham into Christian universalism, I’ve gone more in the direction of Leonard Ravenhill and David Wilkerson. This means that the priority of Christian spirituality is laid on the Wesleyan-holiness tradition, because it helps you flesh out the Gospel and preach it properly, and to view the building of fervent evangelistic sermons, as the most important “work of an evangelist,” that a preacher of any type could be “called by God” to do (2 Tim. 4:5; Heb. 5:4). Second to that, comes the call to private prayer. As far as I understand, Ravenhill had a few heroes in the life of prayer: 1. E. M. Bounds, 2. David Brainerd, and 3. A. W. Tozer. He believed that cultivating a private prayer life opened you up to the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit; and could even alter other people’s conversions with God’s presence, and create revival events that surpass human control and planning.

Ravenhill and Wilkerson both believed in prophetic ministry or sharing words of knowledge during services, but laid such a small emphasis on them, because they knew that they were so prone to abuse, confusion, and scandal. They believed that a preacher’s primary task was PRIVATE PRAYER and building EVANGELISTIC SERMONS; and so they stuck to those two main tasks.

I also think that John Wimber, with whom Ravenhill ministered on occasion, can teach us to supplement the Wesleyan-holiness and Assembly of God spirituality with a stronger charismatic emphasis on worship, the presence of God, and divine healing. And that these spiritualities, when converging are healthy, if they’re put in that order. It also agrees with the general three-fold set of priorities that Assembly of God set for church life so long ago: 1. Evangelism, 2. Edification, and 3. Worship (see P. C. Nelson, Bible Doctrines, pp. 91-94).

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Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water (HarperCollins, 1998).

Mack Tomlinson, In Light of Eternity (Free Grace Press, 2010).

Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries (Bethany House Publishers, 1959).

—. Meat for Men (Bethany House Publishers, 1961).

—. Revival Praying (Bethany House Publishers, 1962).

—. Tried and Transfigured (Bethany House Publishers, 1963).

—. Sodom Had No Bible (Bethany House Publishers, 1971).

—. America Is Too Young to Die (Bethany House Publishers, 1979).

—. Revival God’s Way (Bethany House Publishers, 1983).

David Wilkerson, The Vision (Spire Books, 1974).

—. Racing Toward Judgment (Spire Books, 1976).

—. Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth (World Challenge, 1985).

P. C. Nelson, Bible Doctrines (Gospel Publishing House, 2009).

John Wimber, Power Healing (HarperCollins, 1987).