[The following material is from O Timothy magazine, Volume 12, Issue 9, 1995. David W. Cloud, Editor. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites without permission from the author. Any articles which are redistributed by e-mail or print must be left intact and nothing must be removed or changed, including these informational headers. All rights are reserved. O Timothy is a monthly magazine. Annual subscription is US$20 FOR THE UNITED STATES. Send to Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org. FOR CANADA the subscription is $20 Canadian. Send to Bethel Baptist Church, P.O. Box 9075, London, Ontario N6E 1V0. The Way of Life Literature web site is located at http://www.wayoflife.org/]

PROMISE KEEPERS DEMANDS THAT PASTORS PARTICIPATE

At a Promise Keepers meeting at the Detroit Silver Dome in April, Bill McCartney made the following statement:

"We have a great army that we are assembling. They're the Christian men of this nation. However, our leadership, our clergy are not uniform. Our clergy are divided. Division is many visions. There's no unity of command ... there is tremendous division in our clergy. We have to assume that responsibility. We have to say, `Are we impacting our clergy in a way that's going to take them and make them all that they have to be in order to lead this army because the shepherds are the ones God's chosen to lead us out of here.'

"Now, I think many of your are in touch with the fact that we're having a pastor's gathering in Atlanta on February 12th, 13th and 14th. This gathering in Atlanta should exceed 100,000 clergymen. Why? Because we have many more than that, AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM OUGHT TO BE THERE. WE CAN'T HAVE ANYBODY PASS UP THAT MEETING. IF A GUY SAYS THAT HE DOESN'T WANT TO GO, HE NEEDS TO BE ABLE TO TELL US WHY HE DOESN'T WANT TO GO? 'Why wouldn't you want to be a part of what God wants to do with His hand-picked leaders?' We need to understand that our clergymen, many of them, are reluctant to go. Many of you come from churches and your clergymen have never been to a Promise Keepers gathering because they're keeping a distance from us. You need to go back and tell them: Promise Keepers wants to come along side you and be everything you need by encouraging [your] men and giving resources.

"Now listen to me men. February 12th, 13th and 14th to me is not a coincidence that it comes over Valentine's Day. I think we're going to have another St. Valentine's Day massacre. I think Almighty God is going to rip open the hearts of our leaders. I think He's going to tear them open. And I THINK HE'S GOING TO PUT THEM BACK TOGETHER AGAINST AS ONE. ONE LEADERSHIP. WE'VE GO TO HAVE ONE LEADERSHIP, ONE LEADERSHIP ONLY" (Bill McCartney, Promise Keepers, Detroit Silver Dome, April 29, 1995).

This is incredible presumption on the part of McCartney. He is DEMANDING that pastors participate in his unscriptural parachurch venture. If they don't desire to participate, he is DEMANDING that they give him a reason for their decline.

Praise the Lord that a great many pastors across this land HAVE given a plain Bible reason for their refusal to participate in Promise Keepers. I am thankful to God for each pastor who has the courage today to stand against this thing in spite of its tremendous popularity.

Who does McCartney think he is? Who do these Promise Keepers leaders think they are? God has ordained and established the church, not Promise Keepers. It is the church which has the authority to baptize, to disciple, to discipline, to send missionaries. This is what we see in the book of Acts. It is what we see in the New Testament Epistles. McCartney admits on one hand that it is the pastors who are to lead God's people in the churches, but on the other hand he claims that his organization is God's means of instructing the pastors. He has certainly got the cart before the horse! A good pastor needs Promise Keepers about as much as he needs another complaining church member!

This idea that God's people need "one leadership" apart from the local church is the heretical thinking which created the Roman Catholic Church. The Apostles did not establish any type of human authority over the churches. Each church had its own leaders (Titus 1:5). The only Head over all of the churches and all saints is JESUS CHRIST!

The true colors and aims of Promise Keepers are quickly becoming evident. They don't want to help the churches; they want to control the churches. They want to destroy the distinctives of the Fundamental, Bible-believing, New Testament church, and swallow up all churches into one non-doctrinal amalgamation. Isn't it interesting that this is precisely what the Bible prophesies will occur in the last days.

McCartney wants all churches to have the same vision. What vision? The Old Fashioned Fundamental New Testament church believes the Bible is the perfect, verbally inspired Word of God. It believes Jesus Christ is God of God and Man of Man. It believes that only by His blood atonement, and through faith in that atonement, can man be justified with God. It believes Bible prophecy will be literally fulfilled in an end-time apostasy, and it believes that this apostasy is blossoming before our very eyes. It believes that Romanism and Modernism and Unitarianism and Ecumenism and Charismaticism are all forms of this apostasy. Its goal is to preach the simple Gospel to the ends of the earth and rescue as many souls as possible from an eternal fiery Hell before it is too late. This is the "vision" of the Bible-believing church.

What is the vision, though, of the ecumenical church, the World Council of Churches-connected church, for example? Most of them deny the verbal inspiration of Scripture and believe the Bible is filled with myth and error. Many of them deny the deity, virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and atonement of Jesus Christ. Their goal, more often than not, is to build the kingdom of God on earth through social and political endeavor. They don't believe in eternal fiery Hell. They often don't believe in the new birth or personal salvation.

How can churches which have such doctrinally variant "visions" come together? Who will define Promise Keepers one vision? Who will enforce that vision?

Friends, Promise Keepers is great confusion. It is probably the most dangerous Christian movement to arise in this Editor's life time.

[From "Digging in the Walls," O Timothy magazine, Volume 12, Issue 9, 1995. Editor, David W. Cloud. O Timothy is a monthly magazine which is available by subscription from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org. Subscription price is $20.]