Forgive me for my irritation here. I am pretty disgusted with how this thread has degenerated. I, too, was greatly convicted by this message from Pastor Clendennen. This is a dying man. Without a miracle, he will not be with us much longer. Yet what is the cry of his heart? It's not Hezekiah's cry for more years, no. It's the Lord Jesus Christ on display in this beloved saint of God. At the hour of Christ's death on the cross His cry was Father, forgive them they don't know what they're doing. So what is Pastor Clendennen's cry? Father, forgive your church, help them see what they are doing so they can repent and confess their sin so You can send revival and show Your power to this desperately needy generation.
I typed up what he said in this short message. I pray you will get your eyes off the man speaking, and hear the God behind the man warning His people.
1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jn 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Quoting directly from the message by Pastor Clendennen:
Most of you in this vast audience around the world know I personally am passing through one of the most difficult times of my life at this very moment. But I'm sure there is a purpose in the whole. For some time I have begged God to not let me die until we've shown this generation His power, this poor, deceived generation His power. Somehow I feel this all is connected. The reason I feel so strongly about this is because the attack on me has produced a worldwide prayer meeting and calls are coming from around this world, from churches, individuals, letting me know they are fasting and believing God for total absolute victory. I sincerely believe that this prayer meeting could produce the final move of God that you and I have been praying for. Now, understanding that in my present physical condition if God does not give me a miracle, which through your prayer, I believe will happen, but if not, this could very well be my last communication with you. Therefore, you can be sure I weigh every single word that I speak. First of all, the Spirit of God has dealt with me very strongly for that revival to come, there must be deep confession and repentance on the part of you and I, the elect of God. The river of the Holy Ghost must be able to flow through us. Therefore, there must be nothing in us that would prevent the flow of this river of life. We must humbly come before our heavenly Father and ask His forgiveness, hear me ladies and gentlemen and earnestly seek His direction and guidance. We know His Word said 'Woe unto them that call evil good' but that's exactly what we have done by allowing the flesh a place in our worship. We confess before God that we've lost our spiritual, we must confess before God that we've lost our spiritual equilibrium and inverted our values. We confess that we've questioned the absolute truth of the Word of God by preaching so many other things. We've professed a love for the Word, but have ignored it. We have arrogantly given ourselves a title of Pentecostal, professing more power than all others, yet lack the power to witness to the lost, let alone live holy lives. We have worshiped other gods and called it prosperity, we've learned more from religious TV stars than the bright and Morning Star. We've ranted against perversion in our streets, but refused to confess that it was the compromising of the Word of God in the church which produced such perversion in the first place. Rom 1:25-26. By remaining silent, we've empowered the purveyors of perversion in the pulpit, in the voting booth, yet dare call ourselves holiness. We've murdered the unborn with our silence in the pulpit. We've prostituted our values because of our loyalty to our union, our party, our ancestors, our prejudices. We've committed the sin of racism by condoning the wrongs of the past and the present. Others have committed the sin of racism by their unforgiveness and search of revenge. We've neglected the poor in lieu of the appearance of more spiritual goals. We've lazily prepared to preach, satisfied with replacing anointing with noise. We've rejected to train up our children in the way that's right, then blamed the devil. We've complained because prayer is not allowed in the schools, yet a vast majority of church members have no altar in their homes. We've abused power and called it apostleship. We revere the high and mighty among men, and disdain little men who are much more holy. We've closed our lips to the concept of holiness to be more sensitive to the appeal of the lost. Not since the Pharisees accused Jesus of being Beelzebub has Christ been more dishonored than with this user friendly gospel. We've become user friendly without confessing it. We've shunned the past as arcane. Having accepted the trends of the modern church, our worship is guided by the top 40 gospels instead of truths embedded with the Gospel. Our arrogance drives us through the night oblivious to our ineffectiveness and our distaste for learning. Others trust in their learning and forget their living. We hastily judge other groups, presuming our perfection, preferring our new traditions, over a unique relationship. We've lost the vision of God. As a result, for the most part, we're unconscious of the destructive process going on. We don't know the way back to reality because we've the vision, my God, of where we've fallen from. We've confused noise with power, flamboyancy with anointing, charisma with calling. We've replaced conviction with counseling. Sin with tolerance. We've erased the reality of hell from the Bible to be loved by those who hate our God. We've ascribed on paper to the 2nd coming but it's rarely preached, taught or expected. We go on our merry way, driving past the lost, preaching to those who've already heard. We've created a climate where we're more interested about our own needs being met, than the needs of the community. We're pastors with a maintenance mind, desiring to make everybody happy. Their commitment is not to the great commission, it's to clean restrooms, neat bulletins, deluxe, pot luck suppers. We have young pastors who are more discontented with what others have done, but have no problem with what they have NOT done. We have pastors content with no progress, using the excuse of doing everything they know, but unwilling to learn. We have too many people who grovel over TV religious stars, who squander your money on limousines, mansions, airplanes and evangelism goes undone. We have more people vying for positions than we have sighing for souls. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance, we drift toward disobedience, call it freedom, we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of the lost self control and call it relaxation. We make light of prayerlessness, and delude ourselves into thinking we've escaped legalism. We slide toward Godlessness and convince ourselves we've been liberated. Due to discontent, we've replaced the presence of wisdom with carelessness, thinking all risk is better than none. God help us to turn to God. Listen, if we're going to see revival, there's going to have to come repentance and confession on the part of the church of God. If we'll separate the vile, that is the flesh, from the spirit, God said we can be His mouth and that's all that is necessary. I beg you today, church, hear me. I'm talking to a people. It may be my last message to you, but there must be an individually and collectively, a repentance on the part of the elect of God. Hear me today. God purify our hearts, turn us back to the truth and reality of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh God let it be so today.
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Kathleen
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