Wow!
What a summary of who Montanus was and why he had such an effect on those who wanted to be religious but had rebelled against Christ.

Every human being’s flesh hates what comes from Jesus, because the flesh must die for Christ to live in men.

Men of God, then, and now, make it clear, “It is the Spirit of God, or nothing at all.”

There is no compromising and no other paths or ways for serving Christ, because every religion (in Jesus’s name) that springs from the heart of men and not God, hates the Jesus they declare to be serving.

Whew!
Love it.
Thank you-
Jerry

Wow!  Just the name of Chapter 5 had me on the edge of my seat.

Chapter 5: Cursedianity

I had to stop myself from reading ahead and pouring through this.  It is perfect!

On Feb 26th, I wrote down a thought that followed what I heard when we read Chapter 3 together, and during that reading I asked Jesus how His people got to this place of accepting and wanting to follow a man known for his ability to quench the spirit and keep his wits about him and losing the wonderful power of God.  And Jesus answered and said we get what we settle for.

After that thought, I was lying in bed talking to Jesus and heard the thought:

“If Christianity is really God’s curse for settling for something other than His Son, then isn’t Christianity God’s deadliest plague and His greatest curse?”

I lay there dumbfounded and scared to really hear that thought but saying “Amen!” at the same time!

As I read this tonight, my soul said “Amen!”  from name of Chapter 5 on! If I tried to find something wrong with it, I couldn’t because I can’t get past the Amen that I feel!

And I have never felt Rev. 18:4 more!

“They echo the plea of the Father to His children to come away from the straw man so that God can set it on fire: “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues!” (Rev. 18:4)

And when you added⁷ the part and the feelings of witnessing how those hearts really feel about Sister Seaver and really felt about Jesus, it let me FEEL why that is so awful.

I love how this feels. I love the Amen I FEEL inside!

“Christianity’s very name is a lie. It has nothing to do with Christ. Paul said that anyone on earth or from heaven who dared teach a gospel different from his was cursed. I believe that. And based on that truth, the rightful name of Christianity is not Christianity, but Cursedianity. That sounds a little odd, but Jesus, and both Montanus and Paul, would say amen.”

Jesus put this inside of me. I know it’s right. That is amazing to me!

Beth D.

Dear Pastor John,

Thankfully I was able to follow the Sunday morning meeting live this time, and there was a testimony that reminded me of something that happened to me 2 years ago. 

Damien mentioned that God one time asked him: “What would you do if I told you, you’re gonna be damned, no matter what you do for the rest of your life?”  I think Damien’s answer was something like “I would still try to live right just in case there was a crack in the doorway”.

Well, throughout my life of faith there were a number of times when I was tempted by a spirit (one that felt very strong and powerful at the time) that told me that my faith and my love for God is a lie, my repentance has always been a lie, that I was heading to sure damnation. 

The first time it happened was in 2006, after I left the Bible College for the first time because I felt there was a lack of sincerity about their doctrine on the baptism of the holy Ghost.  I think it only took a couple of days after I left the campus and moved back home that this feeling of complete hopelessness, gloom and an utter lack of right feelings (such as love, joy, peace) took over me, and I instantly believed that that was God revealing the truth to me about myself.  I thought it was all over for me.  What I did not understand then, but I do understand now, is that some of my thoughts and feelings at the time were true, namely, that I, indeed, had not been born again yet, I didn’t have the Spirit of God inside of me.  God was being merciful to me by letting me sense that something was missing from my life.  But (and this is a wonderful truth that you mentioned yesterday, Pastor John, that means so much to me for a number of reasons), even though I didn’t have the Spirit at the time, my name had already been written in the Lamb’s book of life from the foundation of the world, and so, I was already a child of God, I had already been conceived and was being formed in the womb, and it was only a matter of time for me to come around and become the new creation I was always meant to be.

This period took more than 5 years, at the end of which (after the Christmans of 2011, in Germany, in the house of my sister’s family) I experienced true repentance for the first time in my life, and a few days later, while alone in my room back in Hungary, I received the baptism of the holy Ghost. 

The second time I was tempted by this same spirit, and I gave into it, was when I was visiting with you all in Graham.  I remember I even told a number of you, while we were sitting around in your house, that I feel like I am not a believer.  Again, I got convinced that the good things God had done in my life up until that point were all a big lie, and now my real self was unveiled.  Once again, some of what I thought and felt at the time were true; when I experienced, simply by being there with you all, what life in Christ really looks and feels like, I realized that I had not been living right, and my mind wasn’t made up yet whether I really wanted what you all had.  And so, by sitting on the fence, I gave room to this unclean spirit, and once again, my life took a turn it shouldn’t have.  And this time it took 7 years for me to finally humble myself, and give over to God what I wasn’t willing to give over 7 years earlier (what it was, I really am not sure, but God saw my heart and His judgment is true). 

And so, in February 2022, after finding out about my mother’s condition, with my pride and ego crushed into pieces by those 7 years of misery, I once again went down on my knees, and started pleading with God, not being sure whatsoever that He would ever listen to my prayers again.  But He did!  He had been waiting for me all those years.  He was just “A Prayer Away”, but may I add: a sincere prayer away.  After all those years of darkness and hopelessness, I suddenly felt the presence of God restored to me and around me.  I started feeling Him, I started feeling hope and love, and for a while I just couldn’t believe what was happening to me.

Now, I’m not sure how many days or weeks after this experience it happened, but there was a moment, while laying in my bed, when some thoughts started coming into my mind, and in a matter of moments those thoughts led me back to that same feeling: “It’s all lie. You are still not being sincere with God.  No matter how hard you keep trying, you are doomed!”  My first reaction was what I, at this point, had already gotten used to doing.  I believed it.  I think it was about a 24 hour period that I kept going around doing my business, but with the feeling that it doesn’t really matter because I am lost anyway.  

I remember that I was having an appointment at my hairdresser, and on my way there and back I was just wondering how I was gonna keep living my life like this.  Then, after I got home I started looking up some sports news on my computer, and suddenly a thought came into my heart.  It was this: “Well, whatever the case may be, I’m still not going to live in sin.”  And as soon as I had that thought, that cloud of condemnation started departing from me because I realized that that was the real me thinking.  My mind was made up that whatever I might think or feel for the rest of my life, I’m still gonna do what I believe to be the right thing.  Wow!!  That was a revelation.  And it’s perfectly echoed by what I read in the Thought for the Evening* yesterday:

“Make up your mind to serve God, no matter what you think or feel”

Even after this occasion, I remember being tempted by this same spirit once, and it felt tough at the time, but I know that the victory I had 2 years ago was big, and it has changed the dynamics of the whole thing – for good!  As yesterday’s Thought for the Evening* puts it, “A made-up mind IS the victory”, and I am experiencing that day by day.  Praise God!!

Just like Sister Amy said it yesterday (and I LOVED, LOVED her testimony): “When you want Jesus more than anything else…”  That’s the place you want to be in, and you want to hold on to that, because when you’re in that place, no challenge, no circumstance will be too hard for you.  God is so good!

Zoli

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Thank you for that testimony, Zoli.  When we will not entertain that hopeless demon’s voice, it will move on to find another home, another mind to torment.  I am glad you finally finished with it.

We are “appointed unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”  Those spirits are appointed to damnation, and they have no hope of escaping it.

Pastor John

* https://goingtojesus.com/gtj_thoughts.html?tname=tfe02-25

Brother John,

Chapter 3 of the Montanus story feels like it is quite an undertaking. I can’t imagine authoring what we read tonight.

After tonight’s reading, I feel like I can recognize three clear points along the timeline:

• Folks who criticized Montanus were once aligned with the God of righteousness that Montanus was pursuing. Those men even spoke well of and defended Montanus.
• Those men eventually left that perfect (righteous) path and chose their own lawless way of serving God, forsaking the God of Montanus, and instead of going away quietly into sin, reinvented the history of Montanus to paint HIM as the bad guy.
• Those men (or men like them) eventually branded themselves and their ungodly way of serving the Lord as “Christianity,” because there was nothing left about them or their way of worship that resembled Christ. They had to call themselves Christ-like.

Something I considered tonight—

Men calling themselves after the name of Christ (calling themselves Christian) reminds me of what your father, Preacher Clark, said about the wonderous signs described by in Mark 16:17-18—”And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up…”

I recall that Preacher Clark had said, “Men put signs on the outside of their churches to identify who they are because they don’t have the signs within.”

I think the same could be said for men calling themselves “Christians.”  Some men may call themselves Christian (Christ-like) because they haven’t the attributes of Christ within.

I believe Montanus would agree that if we have to call ourselves Christ-like for men to know it, then we aren’t like Christ at all.

Thank you for your hard work in revealing this godly man’s story.

Jerry

 

Sister Willie’s wonderful testimony last Sunday stirred up something in me that I had meant to share for a while, and then, something Pastor John said towards the end of the meeting about feelings, reaffirmed that it would be good for me to share it, so here it is.

The first real experience I received from God happened to me 24 years ago. It was a dream, or something like a dream that felt very much like reality. It was so real that before I went to bed I was an unbeliever, but when I woke up, I just knew, in every fiber of my being, that God did exist, that He was real.

In this dream I was taken to a place that I believe, to this day, was heaven.  The only way I can at least try to describe it is, it was as if I was standing on an ocean shore, and waves of the most wonderful, heavenly feelings kept washing all over me and penetrating my soul through and through.  I was feeling perfect love, perfect happiness, perfect peace…  But, and I want to emphasize this, I can’t remember seeing anything.  The only element that I have ever been able to recall from this dream is the feelings I was feeling in it.  And this is something I had never thought of before, until very recently.

I am now realizing that it is no accident that in my very first experience with God, the only thing He gave me was feelings.  Through that glorious experience, God put an imprint on my soul, and in the years and decades that followed, even though I never realized it, I was actually looking for a place where I would find that THING that God so graciously allowed me to feel for a moment.  I started going to church, because I wanted to meet that God who gave me those feelings.  I decided to get water baptized because I wanted to get closer to THAT God.  I went to Bible College because I believed that by doing so, I would learn more about THAT God, who allowed me to feel something from His perfect love and His glory.  And then, when I left my church and started attending another church, where they put more emphasis on the holy Ghost, I did it because I was looking for something that would match those feelings I was feeling back in 2000. 

Having been listening to Pastor John’s teachings for a while now, I now know that it was by God’s design and in His wisdom that He didn’t allow me to see anything in that dream; He only gave me feelings.  This quote from Hebrews came to mind recently: “For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched.”

It is not through our eyes or any of our earthly senses that God is leading us, because “things that are seen [or can be touched] are temporal, but things that are not seen [or cannot be touched] are eternal.”  As I am now pondering over this, Paul’s words come to mind, when he said that even tongues (something we can hear) will cease (1Cor 13:8); and as Pastor John put it in The Sound of the Spirit booklet: even the sound of new birth comes with a “familiar feeling”, that is how we know it’s the real thing, and not fake. 

The truth that Pastor John teaches, the lives his ministry have produced over many decades, the fruits it is producing in my own life, and the feelings God gives me EVERY SINGLE DAY as I’m walking in the truth, are the reason I know, deep down in my soul, that I don’t need to keep searching.  I just KNOW it!  In recent weeks I was having the same thought a number of times: “It doesn’t even make sense that anything but THIS would be the truth.”  Or as Peter and Uncle Joe put it: “This is that!”

I LOVE listening to Sister Willie’s testimonies!  I have listened to the one she shared last Sunday twice now, and both times I was in tears, but they were tears of happiness and gratefulness.  I am a happy man, and inexpressibly grateful for the grace God has poured out upon my life.  Oh, the privilege of having the feelings that I have and an understanding of the truth that has been given to so few, even among God’s own people!  Oh, that the goodness of God would lead me to repentance if there are still things in my life that I need to repent for.  May His blessings and His love drive me further and further down the road of humility; may I never be puffed up by the wonderful things He’s done and keeps doing for me.

God bless you all!

Zoli

Pastor John,

I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate the work and time you have put into your new book about Montanus. Each time we get together and read a draft of what you are working on, it gets clearer and clearer how much Christianity was and has not ever been form God. Not only that Christianity was never from God but also that there have been great men and women like Montanus who have had no part with it.  

It makes me hurt for God’s people, the culture we live in today here in the west is dominated by Christianity. Even if you have never been to a Christian church, it has affected your life in some way. It is a lie and I hate it more and more all the time, only because so many of God’s own children are giving their life to it, not understanding that the one who bought them is not in there. I hope and pray that the work God has given you and us reaches every person He wants it to. 

It reminds me of this scripture in Hosea 4-6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:” I hope that any of God’s children that read the work he has given to you that is helps them gain knowledge to understand who they really are and gives them the strength to “Come out of her my people.”  None of His people belong in that filthy thing called Christianity.  Thank you, John!!

Stuart

I am really enjoying this Montanus reading.  I asked earlier what order this book will be in the Iron Kingdom series because it’s doing such a good job of driving home the point of every other book in the series, so far.  It covers slander, Paul’s gospel, Christianity, the Apostates, etc.   You can feel that familiar Christian spirit and the absurdity in everything Montanus’ accusers were saying, contrasted with the love and the relief and the right spirit in Montanus’s responses.  I just loved it.  It was very plain and easy to follow.

It struck me that this was not only some dialogue that took place centuries ago, but we have actually lived through and witnessed first-hand those same kinds of slanderous accusations against you (us), and your responses have been very similar to what we read from Montanus (the same spirit).  I know you begin the book with your personal experience in dealing with the slander and accusations from the newspaper article, (I love that introduction), but I wonder if you might add at the end (or somewhere), a few of the accusations that have been railed against you in the past, along with your response to those accusations, as a way to show that you are writing about a history that still exists.  I don’t know if you want to dredge any of that up, but it certainly goes with what we just read tonight.

Wow!  Jesus is helping you defeat that ol’ anaconda!  I am happy for you!

Lee Ann

I’m so glad that I could be there tonight to hear chapter two. You always have a way of bringing things to life!  Many of the accusations were so ridiculous that you can’t help but to think of some of the similar accusations that have been said of you/us.  If not the same, then of the same spirit!

Hope you sleep well ( and long!) tonight. Thank you again!

Carrie

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Hey Pastor John,

Last night I re-read the copy of the first chapter of the Montanus book that you sent out.  It was so good!  What an honor to be a part of what Paul was preaching, what Montanus was preaching and now you.  After I read it I thought, “Jesus, I can’t believe you have let me hear this, see this and love this!”  I was so overwhelmed.  All I could feel was, I’m showing you (us) who you are!  With everything we are learning, it seems nothing has changed. There has always been someone passing the truth along and very few who follow.  I feel humbled and honored to be following the truth, that is a gift from Jesus! 

Thank you for passing all you learn to us!  

Michelle

Hi Pastor John, 

I pondered these recently and I thought to share them. John 10:14 – I am the good shepherd, and I know My sheep and am known by My own. I know that I am young, but I am serious about my faith. I even left my church family for truth because Christianity is not from God. God is not three in one. The wrong doctrines of Christianity have. We need to be baptized with the Holy Ghost to be born again and not in water. All of those are the reasons why I left the church. It took a lot of courage to do that, but God has been faithful. Along the way was not easy but I kept on. 

I met different people and opened my eyes to the reality of life that I never learned before. One of those was when I was a teacher. How other nationalities view Filipino people. One of my students said that Filipinos are easy to get because they are poor, and they go to other countries to make money. They do anything for money. I even encountered students who were very difficult to deal with having different personalities with no knowledge of God. Instead of being mean to them, I treated them right. As Corinthians 16:14 – Let all you do be done in love.  Romans 12:17-18: Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.

Those experiences deepen my relationship and total reliance on God. The more I know who He is and understand His word. I believe it’s not just me but also those who are his sheep. Our experiences shape us into who we are now. The Bible tells us in John 16:33 In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” It’s normal for believers to experience suffering and hardship. James 1:12 says: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 

It’s clear to me now, It’s not about the church or group you belong but the question is. Does God know you? Do you know God? It’s about the person who experienced Ezekiel 36:26-27. We didn’t choose God, but God chose us (John 15:16). In the judgment day in Matthew 7:21-23:

“Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. “

I remember this verse in 1 Timothy 4:12 – Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.  

Thank you for your kindness.

Leika

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Beautiful, Leika.

A person who walks uprightly in integrity and godliness never has to demand respect from others.  One will have the respect of others when genuine integrity is there.  And you have ours, dear Leika.

Thank you for writing.

Pastor John