WORDS OF COMFORT FROM
A PASTOR
"The way of the just is uprightness: Thou, most
upright, do weigh the path of the just. "
Habakkuk 2:9-12
"Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high,
to escape the clutches of ruin! [10] You have plotted the ruin of many peoples,
shaming your own house and forfeiting your life. [11] The stones of the wall
will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it. [12] "Woe to him
who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by crime!
Brother Freeman had written
this scripture using the King James Version in one of his emails and I looked
it up in the New International Version and it made me shutter. This is what we
are directing our websites to. These men i.e. Tom Jolly, Lloyd Goodwin and Lee
Ray built their churches by spiritual abuse and financial robbery of the
precious people who belong to God. We are those stones crying out against it
and others are echoing and it will bring shame to their households or families
because they have established their churches by crime.
Thank you Brother Freeman for
speaking up for us and praying for us. It doesn't matter whether we believe
every doctrine or custom the same. We are brothers and sisters and we thank you
for your prayers. God bless you for sharing your heart with us.
A Letter from Pastor James Freeman - freemanjt@yahoo.com
Dear Wanda,
I appreciate your letter. I regret all the
pain that has been inflicted upon the people of God in your area. I am a
minister in Stockton, CA, where I live and I would not in my wildest
imagination, do to the people that God has put under my care what LLG has done
to you people.
After reading your recent testimony
concerning your time spent at Des Moines, IA. I felt really bad for you and for
all the people at the Assembly in Des Moines. I also read your sister's story
and all of the other statements made by others concerning their journey through
Des Moines. I never met Lloyd Goodwin but the man that I sat under in Modesto,
Ca. knew him since he was a child. At times he would come out to the Modesto
Assembly with his wife and visit. His spirit seemed a lot different then. In
about 1972 he began to change in his attitude toward the other ministers
throughout the fellowship. He actually left them as I heard him on a tape, he
called them "Anti-christs" and that anyone that didn't go along with
him was an anti-christ. He claimed that he was the "Man of the Hour."
The general body of the Gospel Assembly Churches fellowship did not teach that
God was going to restore the church through "One man" but through a
five-fold ministry. My pastor taught that there was safety in "the
multitude of counselors".
He taught us that if a man would not allow
himself to be questioned about what he taught, that he was a dangerous man. We
recognized that when he left, that he was dangerous to his people because he
would no longer submit himself to the general body fellowship. During the last
couple of years 1971-1972 that he was with us you could tell through his
messages that he was not going to be in the fellowship very much longer. The
way he worked with other brothers was an indication that he felt that he was a
cut above the rest of us. He would take people from other assemblies and sell
them on what he was doing in Des Moines. He didn't care whose assembly it was
that he took people from; whether it was a prosperous assembly or an assembly
that had just a few people in it. It didn't matter because he was "The
Man".
We were taught that men that worked like
that were workers of iniquity. They are men that separate God's precious people
from one another. I know that in the general body that most people are taught
not to place all your confidence in just one man. I was taught by my Pastor,
that if he were to leave the general body and go off to start something on his
own that we as the saints in the church should leave and go where they are in
fellowship with the general body.
I agree also with you about the likes of TM
Jolly. The Pastor I sat under while I was in Modesto is one of the ministers
that were responsible for having him removed from the fellowship in 1965. He
told us the horror stories of how he destroyed ministers and saints' alike,
whole churches. I can tell you the book that TM Jolly studied to use mind
control over people and other ministers alike. The title of the book is called
"The Prince". I can't remember who the author is but the book was
written in the eighteen hundreds. I checked it out at the public library about
25 years ago and read it. It is like an instruction book on how to control the
men that work with you and how to keep the people in your kingdom submissive to
you. After reading this book I could see where men would use these methods of
control to get people to react and do exactly as they wanted them to. There are
two very basic methods of control. One is Intimidation and two is Flattery. If
someone doesn't succumb to intimidation they start pumping up the ego in a
person. When a person is vulnerable to being told how great they are, you can
get them to work so much harder. You probably know yourself that there are
many, many ways that it can be used on people in a way to control them.
It is interesting to view the different
perspectives that people have about the general Gospel Assembly Churches. I
feel very fortunate that I did not have an abusive Pastor. I've been here for
nearly thirty years now and I have never heard anybody teach that if you are
not part of this body that you are lost. I was taught that we don't have all
the truth, and that we don't have a corner on the market with God. There are
many things that we do have but there is so much more to receive from this
point forward. I have been to countless general meetings, and we have a local
fellowship meeting once a month in the Northern California area and I have
never heard any of the brethren make statements such as that. I'm not saying
that the men you have mentioned never used that statement because I've never seen
those men at any of the meetings that I've attended.
We know we're not exclusive. We know that we
are not mighty, or noble, or wise. We are just ministers that have a love for
God's people and want the best for them. I also know that every man, woman and
child must have their own personal relationship with the Lord. I have been
taught to pray every day and press into the spirit and take time to study the
bible. I love this time that I have with God it is more precious to me than the
success of my businesses. It has helped me to become a better Pastor, husband
to my wife and father to my children. They are grown now, and both of them have
their own relationship with the Lord and to me that is the most wonderful thing
that I could have ever hoped for. They are safe in the Lord's hands. I am their
Pastor but I know that they are in the Lord's hands, not mine. This is the way
I feel about the people in our Church. Each one grows at their own rate.
Each one has their own experience in The
Lord. I am there to be a helper of their joy. I teach the precepts, as I
understand them. I am not their taskmaster, their boss, nor am I here to do all
their thinking, I have a hard enough time with my own, I don't need theirs,
they have to put on the mind of Christ. I will counsel them when they ask for
it. I have learned a long time ago that any man or woman convinced against
their will is of the same opinion still. Do we have order in our church, Yes,
God's order, as we I understand it, not mine. I have seen people that would
pretend to be in order just to satisfy the man that they were under, but they
would sneak around to do things that they shouldn't do and later get themselves
in trouble with the Lord. They weren't in order they were just trying to please
a man. People need to learn how to please God. I do believe that the Pastors
fall under a much greater judgment from God than the saints do. I believe it
was the High priest that first had to offer for his own sins first and then
offer up for the people. So a minister, I believe MUST be first partaker of the
fruit. He must have the same humility working in him that Jesus had. I know
that some have pointed at the Pope at Rome as being the beginning of the
mystery of iniquity; but as we have heard here lately; It's not the pope at
Rome but it's the Pope at home, that is the beginning of the mystery of
iniquity.
Every man that is a minister needs to
recognize in his own life first where the iniquity is that works in him. If he
doesn't, he will do a dance with the harlot of iniquity as you all have
witnessed in Des Moines. I don't have the time now but I will say that I don't
believe that Bro Sowders got what he had from the Jehovah's Witness or the
Adventist movement either. I've studied with the witnesses on numerous occasions
and have read many of their earlier books by Charles Tayse Russell and they
only have a few things like we do but not much else. The Godhead doctrine
actually can go back as far as Arius in the 2nd century. The Ostrogoths,
Vandels and the Heruli were people that were destroyed by the Papacy for
believing that there were two in the Godhead. The difference between Bro
Sowders and the JW's on the Godhead is that they don't teach why there is
Godhead. He taught the purpose of the Godhead, not just the fact that there was
the Father and the Son. Truth is truth no matter who says it. I can't mention
Bro Sowders name along with Lloyd Goodwin and Tommy Jolly. It's like the
difference between light and darkness. I don't believe that Bro Sowders was an
evil man like the other two. Jesus called twelve and one of them was a devil.
I believe that what is happening to the work
in Des Moines is a picture of what happens anywhere that a man will work
iniquity against the people of God. The scripture is found in Hab 2:9-12 - Woe to him that coveteth and evil covetousness to his
house ... for the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the
timber shall answer it Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablish
a city by iniquity.
You folks are crying out about the iniquity
that was worked and the blood of people that has been spilled. As I've said
before we are praying for all of the people that are going through such an
ordeal.
God Bless You All
James Freeman
