YOU HAVE REACHED.....THE CHURCH ZONE!

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension … it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.”

—Rod Serling

I don’t know if any of you ever remember the anthology series from the 50s and 60s ‘The Twilight Zone.’

They remade it again, with Forest Whitaker as the host in 2002.  TV Guide called The Twilight Zone…the ‘TV’s Best Cult Series EVER!’

Well, just as television has its ‘Best Cult Series,’ religion has its best ‘cult series’ as well.

By definition, a cult is a group of people (not just a church, by the way) that have a certain set of characteristics that single them out.  According to http://www.howcultswork.com/, a cult “trick people into joining and coerce them into staying.”

What I want to point out to you in this post is that MANY people who claim to have ‘left the church’ or who are not ‘religious’ are, in fact, still VERY RELIGIOUS.

I have noticed something that is quite disturbing:  I have noticed a trend of groups of people who do recognize the frailties, the faults and the inconsistencies of religious organizations, of churches, and they heed the call to ‘COME OUT’ of the church.  So they will leave their denomination, their church, their fellowship, their clique, their group.  Then they will start a ‘church,’ a ministry, another group or fellowship that mirrors EXACTLY to a tee what they JUST got delivered from or came out of!!!!!

For example, I have seen people leave out of holiness churches and start a ‘home’ church, then turn around and get a pulpit and put it in their house, go buy some clergywear, go get some papers (I guess to ‘look’ legitimate, whatever THAT means), and start the whole wicked, outmoded, outdated, harlot system ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!

Then when the crowds come, they go get a building.  And what they claim they were delivered FROM, they have actually NOT been delivered from…but mirror the exact same institution they came out of

I want to say this to all the people who claim they have heard from God to leave the church:

WHAT IS THE POINT OF LEAVING THE CHURCH…IF YOU ONLY GO AND START ANOTHER CHURCH????

What I’m convinced of is that most leaders are not aware of the fact that if God called you OUT of the church, it was FOR A REASON.  And it was NOT to perpetrate the same fraud (whether its your intention or not) that was committed within the organization you came out of.

THIS is the gross error that most commit when leaving a church, feeling like they are heeding the call of God.

God will NOT call you out of an institution,  a church, an organization-showing you all of its glaring errors, mishaps and all-only to have you come out from among them, be separate…and then reproduce the SAME ERROR you came out of.

I think I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating:  RELIGIOUS DEMONS are attracted to churches.  ANYTHING that looks like a church, ACT like a church, SMELLS like a church, CONDUCTS itself like a church…you best believe YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE RELIGIOUS SPIRITS flock to your buildings.

YOU’RE STUCK IN THE CHURCH ZONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Erecting another church, or having a group of people in your home, over the phone on various conference calls, on Skype, over the Internet that looks in ANY WAY like a church is just like putting up an ad that says:  ’RELIGIOUS SPIRITS WELCOME HERE!’

And if you’re not careful, you can become a CULT.  MANY churches have morphed into mega-cults…and mini-ones, too.

I was talking to Pam Sheppard-a friend of mine-about this phenomena about why this is the case.  Why people leave the church and then turn around and start a church.  This is how the conversation went:

Pam:  ”I am inclined to believe that it was the devil-A religious demon called her out to continue the SAME religious ways with a new message….Satan knows THIS message also….”

She went on to confirm something I believe the Spirit of the Lord showed me as we talked about this phenomena….

The enemy knows AND preaches the message of coming out of the ‘church,’ too.  It is a religious demon that actually mimics the voice of God and it can preach this message to a tee!  It will have you hooping and hollering, too!  But it only does that to lure out those the enemy wants to single out as having recognized it for what it is…only to annihilate them once they come out of one religious setting…and go into another!

In other words, a religious demon will mimic a word/message to sound genuine or authentic.  We all know a religious demon is a murdering spirit.  And it will do whatever it takes to kill its intended target, even preach against its own institution, other preachers, etc, to gain the trust of those who recognize (obviously and openly) religious spirits.

We all recognize religious spirits that wear only certain types of clothes, focus on outer appearance more than inward holiness.  We all recognize religious spirits that preach against fellowshipping with other types of believers.  We all recognize religious spirits that tell women they can’t preach and that they gotta wear veils and the such.

But there are MANY faces to a Religious demon.

There are other, more insidious, sneaky faces of a religious demon that I believe that MOST are simply not aware of.  This is why you should get “Faces of a Religious Demon” by Pam Sheppard.

(The enemy is trying to take out many who ARE hearing from God to come out by perpetrating that it’s not a religious spirit teaching and preaching that, when in fact, some of them ARE STILL religious, demonized by a religious spirit!)

They are imposters!

One of the lesser known traits of a religious spirit is that it WILL mimic another (authentic) message it KNOWS is gaining momentum in the TRUE EKKLESIA, in the Kingdom of God.

And it will cloak it, and package it in a religious tone, so it can be acceptable to the religious masses.

All in the guise of offering liberty and freedom from ONE religious setting, when, in actuality,  its only a ploy by the enemy to set folks up for the kill all over again by setting them into yet another religious setting-most of the time, more sinister and wicked than the one they left!!!

This is where the non-denominational ‘denomination’ came from:  they thought they were leaving religion, only to set up another religion called ‘non-denominationalism.’

But they aren’t the only ones guilty of this.  MANY who branched off and left churches to build other ministry have managed to sustain the SAME error, the SAME spirit, the SAME wickedness that they claim GOD delivered them from!

THIS HAS TO STOP!

If God is calling you out of the church – and HE IS – then realize this ONE THING.

GOD IS CALLING YOU OUT TO BE SOMETHING UNIQUE.  SOMETHING ELSE.  SOMETHING DIFFERENT.  GOD HAS A UNIQUE PLAN FOR US ALL.

First of all, let’s get some things straight.

The institutionalized church as we all know it was set up in gross error.  No, the error didn’t begin in the Book of Acts.  It began once the Roman Catholic church gained popularity and acceptance as the model in which to build ministry.

I became aware of this while having a conversation with my own mother.  She is a Catholic, and I was telling her about the Eddie Long fiasco-the whole crowning of him as king.  She hadn’t heard of the story, so I told her about it, how the four men erected Eddie in the air and they named him king, as four men carried him along like he was a god or something.

My own mother said, ‘Well, he is like the Pope.  You know, they erect the Pope like that…’  My mouth flew open as she stated that, like it was right or something!

I respectively but assertively told her that that was ERROR, for BOTH Long and the Pope to be lifted up above flesh like they are gods.  My mother is not a confrontational type, so she left it alone after that.

But I said all that to say this:  we mirrored our churches after the Roman Catholic error, even though in the 16th century, Martin Luther led the Protestant movement…supposedly OUT of the Catholic Church-because they didn’t believe the Pope should have that much authority and wanted to teach and prove the priesthood of all believers instead of a select few.

Yet in many of today’s so-called ‘Protestant’ churches, there STILL is the perpetuation of the priesthood being the select few and instead of having popes on top of the ‘Protestant pyramid,’ they now have bishops and apostles at the top.

The Protestant church of today have succeeded in perpetuating the very error they came out of within the Catholic Church!

They separate clergy from laity.  
They have the clergy wear garb that looks MUCH like what is worn in the Catholic Church.  

They still teach-in the 21st century!-that the people must come through the priests (today, it’s called the prophets) in order to hear from God.

They still have elaborate ceremonies that is supposed to prove to the people that the clergy is legitimate.

They still ‘pull rank’ within the religious institution.  (This is where the ‘apostles-on-top-teacher-on-bottom’ doctrine that is being taught now.)

They still allow the clergy to have illicit sexual behaviors, without accountability or responsibility.

THEY ARE STILL STUCK IN THE CHURCH ZONE!!!!!!!!

In order to get out of the Church Zone, one must recognize not only the error of which they are in, but be willing and courageous enough to NOT perpetuate the same error they came from once they are FREE.

THIS can take much diligence, much time in prayer, and even counsel.  Counsel by a dedicated team of ministers who are here to help those who TRULY want to be TOTALLY FREE of religion and ALL OF HER VARIED FORMS and FACES.