There is within the growing ranks of Oneness Pentecostalism an unspoken yet prevalent doctrine and belief that I’ve never seen addressed, preached about…never heard it in a sermon, never read it in a book, never heard it spoken on CD or tape, yet it has crept across our movement like a shadow, reaching its hands inside our constituency to interweave its tentacles into the very fiber of our movement. To the Hebrew people and those who study the Law, it would be easily discernable, not as something prevalent in our movement, but something missing from our movement. That is the lack of restoring what we have destroyed or taken from another in our moments of wrong. We as a people have no problem going to the Throne of God for forgiveness. No, we expect and mandate that to the point that it is an easy believe-ism among us. It’s the act of restoring what we have taken from another brother or sister after our repentance that we have a hard time coming to grips with. As a whole as a movement, we struggle with this.

I’ve lived through three decades of Pentecostal change, watching great men and women of God rise and fall in our ranks, always wondering how and why someone so bright, so powerful, so driven, so on-fire could fall seemingly overnight. I challenged one of my childhood heroes, a giant of Pentecost; recently, because he had the audacity to tell me that his “best saint backslid overnight,” even after writing a book that was published throughout Pentecost telling everyone that “nobody backslides overnight.”

In this case, I knew what I was talking about…I’d been married to his “best saint” for ten days short of three years, and endured the physical, verbal and mental abuse that only someone totally given over to demonic activity could dish out. I told him point-blank, that if she was an example of his best saint, his church was in big trouble and that that “best saint” had been backslidden for 3 years, but he had blinded his own eyes to it. He’d spent three years ignoring me and hanging up on me every time I called him, while I’d spent those three years getting my face punched in by his “best saint,” my kids slammed into walls by his “best saint” and spending hours upon hours at night on my face in my prayer closet weeping and crying out to God to intercede in the situation.

God did intercede. He moved me out of that church, out of that state and into other situations that tested my mettle, knowledge and experience against things that Paul stated he had also endured in his writings…storms, perils of false brethren, fasting…you name it, God took me through it. I even had a UPC minister set me down and tell me that if God had not moved me out of the situation that the ministry would have found a way to kill me spiritually. I’ve never heard a Pentecostal preacher say something like that before then, but it’s become a common theme of late. Ezekiel 34 wasn’t just written for ancient oneness Jews. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that those things that were written were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world have come. Get ready Pentecost. You haven’t ever seen or even thought about the things God is going to bring upon the world and his church this year!

I spent those three years, and a short time thereafter, wondering not why it was happening, but how I was going to survive. In my spirit, after counseling with one of the most powerful men of God I know in spiritual matters, I understood a little of why I was going through the mess I had gone through. I still could not understand how someone so cruel, so hateful, so manipulative and violent could trick an Apostolic minister into believing they were a Godly saint and not only taking their side, but completely shutting out the other party from all communication or meaningful communication that could have saved a marriage.

Now, a year and a half later, I know of a certainty that the marriage could not have been saved. That was never her intent. Her entire purpose and goal in life had been to drive a wedge, not in our marriage, but between me a minister God had placed me under for spiritual growth and training.

Understand this, hell will never circumvent heaven’s plan in your life, no matter what the enemy tries. Hell could turn the whole Oneness organization against you if God allowed it, but if God called you to do something and you set your heart to follow Him wherever he takes you, God will not abandon you, he will take you through it, friend. In my case, God brought me through something totally unexplainable, using the two people whom I loved most to drive me to the point that I did not hang onto a ministry, a spouse, an assembly, or even family, but locked my eyes firmly on Jesus Christ with the determination that if I could only hang onto him, everything would be alright.

For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company. Psalms 55:12-14

Now we live in a time where Pentecost, like the Jewish priesthood of old has determined that they are untouchable and uncorrectable and that God could not send anyone to correct them. Like Israel of old, Pentecost has produced a generation of “God’s Generals” who are now “God’s UNTOUCHABLES,” refusing spiritual correction by whatever venue God chooses to send it. The priesthood and leadership in those days rose up against the prophets and slew them, and we as they have raised a generation of priests who slay the prophets God sends into our lives. God will not tolerate it forever, my brother. He spoke to me two weeks ago and told me that “the blood of the prophets is on the hands of the … Pentecostal Church.” I edited this for politeness, as I attend a UPC church. You can put your own movement in the blanks if you care to. We will stand in judgment for what we have done and failed to do the past 20 years.

He awakened me recently in the morning with one sentence, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” In a generation and a church that has chosen to tell everyone that “God loves everybody,” the word of God stands forever settled. I tried to shake the words that echoed in my spirit as I got ready for church that day, only to spend 2 hours in church with the leadership of that service quenching the Spirit of God and refusing to worship because two visitors had come who they did not want to offend…Unfortunately my father was visiting that weekend and he’s never worshipped or prayed quietly in his life.

When God saved dad out of the Baptist church, he also delivered dad from being a Baptist. He’s old time Pentecostal to the chagrin of many ministers and saints who claimed generations of Pentecostal pedigree. Dad has cleared out Pentecostal prayer rooms from the Midwest to the East Coast many times in the past. We’d better never get to the point that we think a program will save someone. Esau despised the things of God. The things God considered important, Esau held in contempt. It is the same in our generation. I’m not talking to the world. I’m talking to you, Pentecostal! We’d better never get to the point that prayer, fasting, praise and worship are outdated, Pentecostal!

I sat for three years and had a preacher tell me that he did not preach standards of holiness, modesty and separation because he did not want to offend anyone and “did not want their walk with God tied to their outward appearance.” That dog didn’t hunt when he told it to me in private and it still won’t today. You get what you preach, preacher!

All I can think when I was told that was, “you’d better hope that if you don’t tie their walk with God to their outward appearance, they had better get enough Holy Ghost in them to tie the way they look and dress to their walk with God!” That same minister and his wife could get in the pulpit or on the internet blogging and offend people or get them all up in arms about politics, not caring if they ran them out of church, but when it came to separation, modesty, morality and what many in Pentecost incorrectly label “holiness” standards, they insisted that the pulpit be mute on these matters. We will stand in judgment not just for the words we say, but for those we don’t. I think that’s what he meant by idle words. Those words said and those not said.

Therefore, without further adieu, let me restore a pledge and tell it like it is. If you get your neo-Pharisean/Pentecostal ephod in a twist because of it, then you’ll just have to walk crooked for a bit. Ministers and saints of the Most High God, how can we be so ignorant of the Word that we can defraud our brother or sister and even sometimes the Church and think that a little prayer of contrition and no restoration of what we have taken, destroyed or stolen somehow means God has forgiven or must forgive us.

Let me put it plainly, my brother and sister, how can we defraud the church of God, attempt to proselyte saints, ministers, missionaries, church or organizational property, sometimes even trying to self-justify and claim God told us to do so because our “brother doesn’t walk the same paths anymore,” when the word of God calls a thief a thief and a liar a liar? It blows like a plague across this nation and whispers in the winds that men of God are choosing sides, dividing the spoil of their churches and organizations and taking things that do not belong to them. Others are pushing with the horns and jerking away the shoulder and hardening the face and their heart as an adamant while plugging and making deaf their ears and refusing correction in the matter of their brother, whether of another organization, fellowship or body who are washed in the blood of the Lamb that they are. Do not touch the holy things, my friend. It’s God’s church, friend, whether you choose to fellowship with them or not, despite organizational lines.

End the bitterness, restore the pledge and reunite the body of Christ or God will bring the matter into speedy judgment this very year.

For two years God has sifted his church, strengthening that which stands firmly by tribulation and trial, strengthening the hands of those who will stand and preparing to judge not just a nation but the leadership of his church. Our nation stands in the balance and as the cauldron tips over toward judgment, God’s ministers are ignoring the clarion call to repentance and engaging in matters that do not prosper. Yes, send me another email telling me not to say such things. Build your own testimony against yourself and your generation of UNTOUCHABLES.

We for centuries we’ve spoken of how Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but that will pale in comparison to how God’s ministers bowed their knees to the idol gods of organized sports, entertainment, pride, prestige, finance, monetary gain, peer pressure, programs and control…even while they bow their knees to idols in the house of God, weep for Tammuz, burn incense to false gods and refuse to repent…because we are the UNTOUCHABLES. Autonomous. We have no authority over us and none can correct.

We’ve drawn our battle lines and put up our electric fences dictating to God who he can send to correct us, all the while bowing our knees to Baal and Ashtoreth and demanding that the King allow us to sit at his table and eat with the priests of the Lord. Why? Because since we have begun to pour out our meat offerings and drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven we have lacked nothing in modern, organized Pentecostalism. We pale from the path of our fathers who travailed all night in prayer and to whom fasting was not a lost art. It would be much better that Pentecost had remained on the wrong side of the tracks with eggs and tomatoes thrown at us after every service and still be reaching our generation, than that we should have become the affluent Pentecostal movement with money, affluence talent and prestige and not affect our nation. God help us.

For twenty years we’ve continued a downward slide into lethargy, and the further we slid into a backslidden state as a movement, the higher we set our walls of affluence not to allow outside correction. How better to protect an organization that to set walls up keeping outside influence from affecting its constituents. Now God stands outside our wall and like Israel he’s sending us a prophetic word, but not from any among us. He’s chosen to reach into the wastelands and call men and women who will listen to him and call His church back to repentance and restoration.

Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right, And hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbour's wife, neither hath come near to a menstruous woman, And hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment; He that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true judgment between man and man, Hath walked in my statutes, and hath kept my judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 18:4-9

Not much has changed in the church since the days of Ananias and Sapphira, friend. God is still looking for men and women of God who will execute judgment, restore the pledge and do what is right. It’s not all love, mercy and grace. God still expects us to judge righteous judgment. I don’t care who called you or who you sit under or over. If God speaks to you, do what he tells you or take off your mantle and pass it on to someone who will. God wants a prophet to exercise judgment, not be a hireling. Speak what God gives you and not what man or an organization dictates. Restore the pledge you made to God.