“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ (Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV)

 The question is not, “do you know Christ?” The question is, “does He know you? Just because you see miracles happening doesn’t mean they’re done through Holy Spirit. They may ‘know’ God but does He know them. Do not be deceived by those who hawk their wares or by the gospel pimps, prostituting the precious word of God for their own gain. “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” (Matthew 4:24 NASB)

  It breaks my heart and grieves my spirit to see so many precious lambs of God being taken in by these wolves masquerading as shepherds. The Lord told me one time, “They’ve closed their eyes till they’re blind”. They’ve been taken in by the glamour, the ‘bling’ and are blinded by the light! “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” (2nd Corinthians 11:14 AKJV)

  It’s all smoke and mirrors, just a big show! The ‘church’ has become a showplace with big bands, loud music, dancers waving flags in your face, and let’s not forget the bling and lights. No preaching about the love of God or His goodness, in fact a lot of the churches have removed the altars and the crosses. They’re preaching another Jesus, another gospel. They preach prosperity and how you can get rich by buying their tapes and books and in essence, they’re the ones getting rich from your naivety. They prey on the lonely, the widows, the shut-ins and people who are sick and are tired of being sick and grasping at straws in order to be healed. So they send these ‘no account frauds’ their money. They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible silly women. (paraphrased 2 Timothy 3:6) And God warns us to stay away from such as these. I sincerely believe there are people who go to ‘church’ not to worship God but to catch up on the latest gossip and be a part of the latest gimmick (what God’s doing). Can I tell you something….there’s nothing new under the sun. What has been done will be done again, what has been will be again.

  “He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. “He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep.…” (John 10:11-13)

  Jesus calls them hirelings! They care nothing for the ‘sheep’! They’re after their own gain, to fill their pews and their pockets. Here in Matthew 21:12 Jesus goes into the temple in Jerusalem and starts casting out those who were there to profit from God’s Word. These people in the temple were all religious people (who knew God) who knew what the scriptures said (studied and knew the word) and they used this knowledge to make God’s work and His Word a business that caused them to get rich and profit from what did not belong to them. So Jesus got angry and cast them all out! Don’t get me wrong, being rich is not a problem at all, but how you got rich is! If you are using God’s Word to prosper you or your ministry then you are a modern day money changer in the temple of God and at risk of being driven out before Christ returns for His church very soon. There are many and I do literally mean many so called christian ministries that are in danger of this today.

  All of this sounds a whole lot like the people in the temple who were profiting from selling doves and sacrifices for the people to obey the Word of God. If only the rich could afford to buy their sacrifices, then the poor were in trouble or deep poo poo as we country folk say it. This is the same situation we have in the world today. We have a bunch of ministries that are preaching a rich man’s gospel and the poor are left out to fend for themselves. These are ministries that are interested more in making a dollar than they are reaching the lost. These are ministries that God came to for free and taught them what to teach to His people and they turn around and think they own the message. Who do they think they are!

  Read what Paul said about this subject and pay very close attention to the Word of God and what is said in 1 Corinthians 9:18 “What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.” Paul clearly tells us in 1 Corinthians 9:18 that his reward is great because he has freely given the truth to everyone without charge. (Thank you Paul or else we wouldn’t have a big portion of the New Testament.) Paul further calls the charge of the gospel abuse of the power of God! Are you understanding what God just said? If you’re making any money from the gospel you are abusing God’s power and risk losing your eternal reward. These are not my words! I did not make this up! Is this not what your Bible says about selling the Gospel? So, do I sound like the ‘bad guy’ here? Are you going to shoot the messenger and ignore the message?

  All you have to do is go on the internet and search for them and you’ll find them. They have literally thousands of tapes, CD’s, Video Tapes, DVDs and books for sell if you have the price. They have taken the Word of God that was given to them for free (Matthew 10:8) and put a price on it because it was valuable to someone and they can sell it to fill their own pocketbooks in order to have bigger mansions, fancier clothes, finer cars and bigger jets. This is what I call prostituting the Word of God for money so I call them gospel pimps!

  In closing I want to leave you with the commandment and great commission given to the Church by our Lord Jesus Christ. “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Freely you have received from God, so therefore freely give to all men.” (Matthew 10:8)

  “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men (and women) of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.” (2nd Timothy 1-9)

In His love,

Elizabeth