THE THIEF COMES TO STEAL, KILL & DESTROY (PART XVIII)

“How to Catch a Pulpit Predator”

By Akin Ojumu

Shepherds in Israel at the time of the Lord Jesus kept their sheep together in a single communal sheepfold, typically built with tall sturdy walls and a single entrance. The doorway is guarded by a hireling who watches over the sheep and ensures that access into the sheepfold is restricted to the shepherds who own the sheep kept in the fold. Whenever a shepherd comes to take his flock out to pasture, all he needs to do is call.

John 10:2-5

“But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”

Now, you may be wondering how shepherds are able to tell their sheep apart from somebody else’s and how the sheep recognize the voice of their shepherd when he calls. Well, the answer lies in the unique bond between the shepherd and his sheep. A special connection exists between sheep and their shepherds that makes it possible for both to recognize each other.

Because the sheep is raised and cared for by the shepherd, this creates a level of intimacy that makes it possible for the shepherd to immediately recognize his sheep. And it’s the same familiarity that helps the sheep to recognize and respond to the call of only their own shepherd. 

Given the acquaintanceship they have with their own shepherd, sheep will not respond to the voice of another shepherd because the voice sounds foreign. Because of their intuitive sense of stranger danger, they will not heed the call of another shepherd or that of thieves and robbers.

What the Lord Jesus is doing here is to, essentially, expose the religious leaders for who they really are and whom they really serve. By using a metaphor of the special relationship between a shepherd and his sheep, a concept of shepherding which they are familiar with, He is telling the crowd gathered around Him that the reason the Pharisees don’t believe His Word is because they are not His sheep. Had they been His flock, they would have recognized Him as the Good Shepherd, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, that they’ve been waiting for all their lives.

John 8:42-47

“Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

The religious leaders obstinately reject Jesus’s message and obdurately refuse to believe in His miracles because they do not know God and do not belong to Him. These men deafen their ears to the voice of Jesus and would not hear Him because they are not His flock. While they may profess to be God’s servant, in reality, they are servants of Satan and of their father, the Devil.

Isaiah 8:20

“To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.”

The Household of God is His sheepfold. Those who worm their way into the Household of God by way of false theology and aberrant doctrines are thieves and robbers. Anyone who sneaks into the Church of God by climbing the ladder of false teachings is a thief and a robber. 

Impostors who surreptitiously creep into the Church to pervert the Gospel message are thieves and robbers. Pushers of any corrupted version of Christianity that bears no resemblance to the true faith that was passed down to us by the Apostles of the Lord Jesus and apostolic Fathers who succeeded them are thieves and robbers.

1 Corinthians 12:3

“Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.”

Whenever the Word of God is twisted and distorted, we besmirch the person of God, the image of Christ, and the character of the Holy Spirit. What happens when the person, image, and character of the Holy Trinity is maligned is that we end up with a totally different God, a completely different Jesus, and an entirely different Holy Spirit. 

Scriptures couldn’t be more clear. No one can claim to be working under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and preach a different gospel of a different God, a different Jesus, and a different Holy Spirit, which is no Gospel at all. Anyone who preaches in the name of a god that is not the God of the Bible is merely proselytizing an idol of their own making. Such a person is a mouthpiece of Satan and a predator on the pulpit.

And here’s how you can spot pulpit predators.

If your general overseer habitually twists and distorts the Word of God, you must know that he is preaching a different Gospel about a different God, a different Jesus, and a different Holy Spirit. Such a person is a thief and a robber who does not know God and neither belongs to Him. 

Those of you whose spiritual fathers and mothers are proponents of false theologies and promoters of erroneous doctrines, your parents in the Lord are preaching a different Jesus. That makes them enemies of God doing the bidding of their true daddy, who is Satan himself. 

The pastor who hoists a rod and asks his followers to focus on it as they ask that God should reverse all the irreversibles in their lives is most certainly a thief and a robber. The preacher who tells his members that a chair he sits on is a conduit of miracles to which people can come, sit and pray in order to receive their miracles definitely doesn’t know God or belong to Him. 

Similarly, the bishop who regales his undiscerning and biblically ignorant congregation with the lie that the reason God refused to secure Job’s blessing was because Job did not tithe, is a pulpit predator and an enemy of God. 

The same can be said of the preacher who bewitches his audience into believing that those who give to the needy but don’t tithe will soon fall on hard times and become needy themselves. That preacher is a thief and a robber on a mission to plunder and pillage.

Abo oro la nso fun omoluabi, to ba de inu re a di odindi. Codes and metaphors are more than enough to pass along a message to a responsible person. The moment he hears what he has been told, he quickly gets it. If you are reading this, I really hope you are an omoluabi.

Stay tuned till next time.