Sr. Montanus

Prophet to an Apostate Body of Christ
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-934782-28-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 160 Seiten

Reihe: Montanus

So powerfully and effectively did Montanus denounce the Christian religion that Christians' hatred and fear of him did not die when he did. His memory has haunted Christians for almost two thousand years. They have cursed it, labeled it, ridiculed it, and run from it, but they have never been able to escape its relentless cry. Mountains of dirt have been heaped upon the memory of Montanus, yet Christians have never been able to silence him. The echo of Montanus' powerful voice not only dogged Christians of his day, but it has also continued to dog them for two millennia, and it will dog them until the end of the age. This book presents a perspective on Montanus that is long overdue, for it confronts believers with questions which have never effectively been answered: What if Montanus was right? What if Montanus was a messenger sent from God and his critics were the heretics?

My wife and I married in 1975. We have four children and nine grandchildren. I have ministered for five decades now in a home fellowship setting. Among the books I have written are Suffering and the Saints, Marriage and Divorce: What does the Bible really say?, Is the Bible the Word of God, Revelation, Tithes and Offerings, and After Jesus Died. I have also written about 100 songs that you can find online at songsofrest.com. And you can hear some of my sermons and bible teachings on our YouTube channel: TheSpiritisthewitness.com. The home of my youth was devoted to Jesus; at the same time, our lives were unconnected with church religion. Without my realizing it, that setting made me an alien to the religious world that most believers know. Twice a month, on Sunday afternoons, my parents would gather in a home to worship with a few others, while we children played outside or sat with the adults in the prayer meeting, as we chose. Beyond that, every Sunday morning, my father read the Bible with the family, sang a song or two, and finally, knelt with us to pray. That was the extent of my boyhood corporate worship experience. In daily life, faith in Jesus sustained and preserved us, and godliness was the expected standard. So foreign to me was the Christian religious system that after I graduated from college, when my father suggested that I attend a seminary, I had no idea what a seminary was. Being 'led into all truth' by the Spirit was the only education in spiritual matters that I was aware of, but my father felt the seminary experience would benefit me. And it did. Still, my elders' way of living and of worship taught me to look to Jesus to guide my heart and shape my thoughts. How well I learned that lesson, I leave to the judgment of others.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sr.,

Leseproben

Chapter One
Why Montanus?
  No Bitterness   On November 30, 2007, I was told of an intriguing article in the local newspaper. I drove to a local store to buy a copy and saw that the article was positioned “above the fold”, that is, at the top of the front page, the space reserved for the most important news of the day. By that, the editor of the newspaper was signaling to his readers that in his judgment, this story was more important for them than any national or international news that day. The article said that a local minister had for years been breaking up marriages, that he had telephoned an innocent woman, out of the blue, to tell her she was evil, and that he was teaching that the only way people could be saved from eternal damnation is if they lived in North Carolina. Significantly, the two principal sources of the information were Christian ministers—reliable sources, certainly. And one of them was even a relative of the heretic minister; so, he surely knew the truth about him. About a week later, another article appeared in the same newspaper, this one penned by another Christian minister, accusing the heretic of teaching that God had no people on earth except the few who participated in the home fellowship he pastored. It was all quite shocking. Why would anyone listen to such a nut? The most surprising element of the articles, though, was that I personally knew the minister about whom they had been written—it was me! None of the accusations were true, but I learned soon enough that the truth is irrelevant in such situations, for once slander is made public, the slanderer’s purpose has been achieved, which is to kill the influence of the one being talked about. As Winston Churchill noted, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” After the news articles came out, I was cut off by businessmen and others with whom I had enjoyed good relations for years. Some contractors refused to come again to do work on my property. Young people in my congregation were ashamed to show up at school, fearing that their schoolmates had learned of the newspaper stories. Others, young men as well as women, were unceremoniously dumped when those they were dating found out about the articles, and some were ostracized by their peers as belonging to a cult. Anyone associated with me was liable to be in some way abused. The public humiliation was, to that time, the most hurtful event of my life, but Jesus used it to teach me precious lessons, and I sincerely thank him for it. One truth he taught me was that if we get the gold out of a trial, even a very hard one, we will end up thankful for that trial and will pray for those whom God used to put us through it. My wise Uncle Joe’s testimony from long ago became very real to me. He said, “I will tell you who your friends are. Your friends are whoever God uses to get you closer to Him.” I felt that truth now, deep in my soul. In fact, so much more like Jesus did the experience make me that I told my congregation that God is the One who put those articles about me in the newspaper, and it thrilled me to realize, after some time, that in my heart was no bitterness toward anyone, neither the editor nor the people whose lies he had published. I genuinely felt toward them the way Joseph felt toward his brothers who had cruelly sold him into slavery years before: “Yes, you meant to do evil to me, but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20). Joseph was able to make that statement only because he had gotten the gold out of the trial God had put him through.   Rejoice (as Soon as You Can)   Another lesson I learned is that Jesus never exaggerated; he meant exactly what he said. His words now carried more weight with me than ever, for I had experienced the truth Jesus spoke when he told his followers, “Blessed are you when people revile and persecute you, and say every evil thing against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be glad! Your reward is great in heaven, for that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Mt. 5:11–12). After I got the gold from my trial, I felt blessed by what I had suffered! Half seriously, I suggested to my congregation that I wish God would let us edit Jesus’ exhortation to say, “Rejoice, and be glad, as soon as you can.” Likewise with James’ exhortation: “Count it all joy as soon as you can, my brothers, when you fall into various trials” (Jas. 1:2). It took me a while to get there, to feel that way from the heart, but the important thing is, I did. We all did. Neither I nor my congregation would now take anything for that painful experience. It hurt, yes, but then, so does any surgery, and the Great Physician had been working on us for our good. Paul was speaking from experience when he wrote, “We boast in tribulations, seeing that tribulation produces patience, and patience, character, and character, hope. And hope does not make ashamed, for the love of God is poured out within our hearts by the holy Spirit which is given to us” (Rom. 5:3–5). If we get the point of the trials our heavenly Father determines for us, we are improved by the experience, for the love of God is poured into our hearts for everyone, and that love prevents bitterness from taking root in our souls.   Bias   Few servants of God since Paul have been hated and maligned as much as Montanus has been. Churchmen and earthly rulers conspired for centuries to shield society from the influence of Montanus, and their efforts were remarkably effective, for not a scrap of the “infinite number of books”4 that Montanus and his fellows produced have survived. Consequently, any conclusion reached about Montanus, including that of this author, can only be a reflection of one’s bias. As for my bias, I believe that Montanus and his fellows were of God because (1) the writings of the apostles show that the first-century body of Christ, en masse, forsook the truth5 and (2) the writings of second-century Christians show that the first-century apostasy worsened in the following century. Tragically, that downward process continued, culminating in the Synthesis of Rome and Christians in the fourth century. At first, it seems odd that Christian writers from the second century onward appear to be oblivious to the massive first-century apostasy, but that becomes understandable once one realizes that they did not acknowledge that great apostasy because they were part of it. Even if I am wrong about Montanus himself, and he was not sent by God to cry out against the inchoate Christian Movement, someone should have done so, for it was demonstrably false. So, why not Montanus? Nothing that is surely known about him disqualifies him from being a true messenger of God, and at that time in history, God’s children desperately needed one. And everything that is certainly known about Montanus indicates that he was such a messenger.   A Unique Kind of Sting   The few surviving statements attributed to Montanus, recorded for posterity by his adversaries, suggest the heart of a true man of God, and I am not alone in that opinion. Here is an excerpt from the journal of John Wesley:   Wed. 15. By reflecting on an odd book which I had read in this journey, The General Delusion of Christians with regard to Prophecy, I was fully convinced of what I have long suspected: (1) That those like Montanusd, in the second and third centuries, were real, scriptural believersc, and (2) That the grand reason why the miraculous gifts were so soon withdrawn, was not only that faith and holiness were well nigh lost, but that dry, formal, orthodox men began even then to ridicule whatever gifts they had not themselves and to decry them all as either madness or imposture.6   Wesley’s personal experience of being persecuted and slandered by fellow Christians for his devotion to Christ no doubt shaped his thinking concerning Montanus. He considered sincere believers like himself and Montanus to be true Christians because it never dawned on him that Christianity began with the Roman emperor Constantine in AD 325, not with Christ. In spite of harboring that wrong idea, sincere servants of God like Wesley will always feel the unique kind of sting that comes when believers reject the Spirit of truth. It is unforgettable, and in the hatred so often expressed against Montanus, Wesley felt that feeling. Christian ministers have always been especially passionate in their reaction against the truth, for they sense in the preaching of true ministers of God a threat to their status. They feel no kindred spirit when God’s true servants speak; most often, they feel attacked.   Honorable Christians   John Wesley also made an observation concerning Montanus which he could not have made had he not first suffered similar abuses from “honorable Christians”:   God always reserved a...