Shamgar and Promise
Keepers
Big kids get into male bonding and little kids aspire to be Sons of Shamgar to slay the "Philistines" (us) or those who oppose them.
And yet the "ox goad" we
have to worry about is the effort to infiltrate control
agents into every church in every denomination and into
Catholic churches to move the Godly leadership away from
Christ and into a "one world order" church where all local
control will be lost. Whatever the mark of the beast is, it
will be stamped into the forehead (mind) by a church which
has been suckered into the notion that every religious
organization must level out its doctrinal views to fit into
the "big Football Team in the Sky" or the new espandable wineskin of Jubilee.
If you lead your child into being a warrior with a pointy stick just playing silly games, don't be surprised when he finds out that a gun works better than the jawbone of an ass! The ox goad and confession of sins as power devices sounds like the typical Discipling Dilema or the Shepherding Movement. Watch out with kids in your church carrying "pointy sticks" and calling them songs or sermons:
In the Masculine Journed followed by Promise Keepers "Hicks bemoans the absence of ceremonial initiation rites for adolescent males. He suggests a "way we could make more ceremonial the first rich awareness of our mortality and utter sinfulness." He continues: "I'm sure many would balk at my thought of celebrating the experience of sin." He then says:
For example, we usually give the teenagers in our churches such a massive dose of condemnation regarding their first experiences with sin that I sometimes wonder how any of them ever recover.35
"Albert C. Ouler points out that the new religion of the heart and the rationalism of the Enlightenment were both antiestablishment and both mistrusted external authority; both ranged themselves with moderns against the ancients...
"A new type of piety developed alongside the rationlalism of the Enlightenment, which is often called 'the religion of the heart.' Although it was centered in the heart rather than the head, it shared many of the same preoccupations as Deism. It urged men and women to abandon external proofs and authorities and discover the God who was within the heart and capacity of everybody. (Armstrong, Karen, a History of God,. p. 315)
Kant claimed that he had, in our words, "destroyed doctrine to make room for faith." "the new religion of the heart and the rationalism of the Enlightenment were both antiestablishment and both mistrusted external authority; both ranged themselves with the moderns against the ancient. (Armstrong, p. 318)
"Many of these sects seemed to respond to the immense changes of the period by violating religious taboos.
Some appeared blasphemous; some were dubbed atheistic, while others had leaders who actually claimed to be incarnations of God.
Many of these sects were Messianic in tone and proclaimed the imminent arrival of a wholly new world." (Armstrong, p. 319)
The Ranters
"deliberately broke Christian taboos in their libertarian creed and blasphemously claimed that there was no distinction between God and man. Some Ranters claimed to be the Messiah, a reincarnation of God, who was to establish a new kingdom." Armstrong 320)
Rubel Shelly: It is that desire to live as Holy Spirit-empowered followers of Christ not just "belonging to Jesus" but being Jesus to our world in our time --
"The accounts that we have of their lives suggest mental disorder."
in the self-exaltation of the Ranters or the Inner Light of the Quakers it is possible to see an aspiration that was similar to that expressed a century later by the French revolutanaries who enthroned the Goddess of Reason in the Pantheon."
"Several of the Ranters claimed to be the Messiah, a reincarnation of God, who was to establish the new kingdom. The accounts that we have of their lives suggest mental disorder in some cases... William Franklin, a respectable householder, became mentally ill in 1646 after his family had been smitten by plague. He horrified his fellow Christians by declaring himself to be God and Christ, but later recanted and begged pardon. He seemed to be in full possession of his faculties, but he still left his wife and began to sleep with other women... Mary Gadbury began to see visions and hear voices, prophesying a new social order which would abolish all class distinctions." (Armstrong, p. 321)
Hicks suggests a different approach in dealing with young men who have their "first experience with the police, or their first drunk, or their first experience with sex or drugs." He suggests using such an instance as a "teachable moment and a rite of passage." He proposes that "the true elders could come forward and confess their own adolescent sins and congratulate the next generation for being human." He somehowthinks this would help young men understand their sinfulness and learn about forgiveness and restoration.
Gibbor: The Hero Archetype?
Hicks says, "The Hebrew word gibbor reflects this male in his warring strength." In setting up a warrior stage of manhood, Hicks embraces aspects of Robert Bly and others in the secular men's movement. He quotes Bly as lamenting: "The warriors inside American men have become weak in recent years." Hicks emphasizes the importance of the "warriors inside American men" when he says: "As men it isvitally important for us to embrace the latent or rejected warrior within ourselves."
He quotes from Patrick Arnold's book Wildmen, Warriors and Kings: Masculine Spirituality and the Bible:
The warrior is one of the most important archetypes in masculine spirituality and a central male role invirtually every society since Paleolithic times. . . . Over the millennia, the Warrior has become in the collective unconscious the archetype of resistance to evil in its myriad forms.
The Kabiri were also Assyrian gods. In Hebrew the name means "the mighty ones," Gibborim. In Samothrace, an island famous and renowned for its Mysteries all over the world -- perhaps the oldest ever established in our present race -- they were the Samothraces. The latter are considered identical with the Kabiri, Dioscuri and Corybantes. The names of the Samothraces were mystical, denoting Pluto, Ceres or Proserpine, Bacchus and Æsculapius, or Hermes. At one time all the deities connected with fire, whether they were divine, infernal or volcanic, were called Kabirian. With the Christians, however, they are now devils, although the modern Archangels are the direct transformation of these same Kabiri.
Gibowr (h1368) ghib-bore'; or (short.) gibbor ghib-bore'; intens. from the same as 1397; powerful; by impl. warrior, tyrant: - champion, chief, * excel, giant, man, mighty (man, one), strong (man), valiant man
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Ge.6:4
Ezekiel 31 the Assyrians were "the tallest trees in Eden."
Candidates for initiation into the KABIRI were crowned with a garland of olive and wore a purple band round their loins. The dancing was then begun.
In fact, homosexuality was part of the ritual, what the historians in their scholarly dungeons called their "most immoral tendencies." The purpose was to evoke a passage beyond earth to a higher life.
That is, in their mystical dances, continued leaping into the air achieves a shamanic state of trance, a transfer of consciousness
analogous to the transformation of the magician into a bird whereby the apprentice masters his powers to join a gay brotherhood "who, by nature, are superior to other men." 14
"Smiths and shamans are from the same nest," also declares a Yakut proverb from early North America, cited by the mythologist Mircea Eliade. 15
"Those who know anything of the Samothracian mysteries will remember that the generic name of the Kabiri was the "Holy Fires," which created on seven localities of the island of Electria (or Samothrace) the "Kabir born of the Holy Lemnos" (the island sacred to Vulcan). According to Pindar, this Kabir, whose name was Adamas, was, in the traditions of Lemnos, the type of the primitive man born from the bosom of the Earth. He was the archetype of the first males in the order of generation, and was one of the seven autochthonous ancestors or progenitors of mankind. Source
lal-eô , talk, chat, prattle,
II. chatter, opp. articulate speech, as of locusts, chirp, Theoc.5.34; mesêmbrias lalein tettix (sc. eimi), a very grasshopper to chirp at midday, Aristopho 10.6; anthrôpinôs l. Strato Com.1.46 .
tettix 1
1. a kind of grasshopper, the cicala, Lat. cicada, an insect fond of basking on bushes, when the male makes a chirping noise by striking the wing against the breast, Il., etc.
2. chruseos t. a golden cicada, worn by the Athenians before Solon.'s time, as an emblem of their claim to being autochthones (for such was the supposed origin of the insect), Ar., Thuc.
Autochthôn
I. sprung from the land itself, Lat. terrigena: autochthones, hoi, like Lat. Indigenae, aborigines, natives, Hdt., Thuc.; of the Athenians, Eur., Ar., etc.
II. as adj. indigenous, Hdt.
auto-genês , es, self-produced, daimôn v. l. in Hermes. ap. Stob.1.49.44, cf. Ph.1.618, Max.Tyr.16.6, Procl. in Prm.p.893 S., Orph.Fr. 245.8.2. autogenes, to, = narkissos, Ps.-Dsc.4.158; ostoun au., = kolokunthis, ib.176.
narkissos 1 the narcissus, Hhymn., Soph., etc. [From narkaô, because of its narcotic properties.]
The homosexual Kabiri smith guilds also lie behind the mythical Cyclops who forged the thunderbolt for ZEUS.
The KABIRI were also the protectors of culture, such as dance and poetry, and theyafterwards worshipped in the mysteries of the Twin gay deities of CASTOR AND POLLUX, originating in ancient Sparta, where they were otherwise called the TYNDARIDAE, merged with a "society of men" to worship the Anatolian Great Goddess.
Rather than being based upon Scripture, however, Arnold's book is based on the Jungian collective unconscious, Jungian archetypes, andother aspects of Jungian theory. Arnold, a Jesuit, had what he calls a "mystical" experience in which he "experienced first-hand the malearchetype of the Wildman." His descriptions of masculine spirituality are those of various male archetypes, which Jung "discovered" in myths, dreams, and occult experiences. Click For More Psycho Heresy
Another First Person experience notes that:
On October 3, 1993 in the men's class we started into the workbook section about "Exploring the issues with other men" The first question deals with men growing up with confused models of sexuality, the second about fighting the argument of "God made me this way," the third and fourth questions is where we get into trouble, (pages 32-34 of the Masculine Journey Workbook)
"3. Our culture has presented many initiation rites, or passages to manhood, that are associated with the phallus [penis or oxgoad]. Which ones have you experienced? Do you have a story to share with other men about one such event?
- When I was potty trained and stopped wetting my bed - Pubic hair and growth - An unfortunate experience with pornography - My first dating experience - My first really embarrassing moment with a girl - The wedding night - Conceiving my first child - other:
4. If only the church had alternative initiation rites to the ones offered above. What creative alternative celebrations can you think of?"
Why do Christians need to talk about these things? Why so much emphasis on the penis? Freudian psychology is based upon genitalia and the discussion these matters, the Bible condemns such discussions. If we are dead to sin should these questions even be allowed in the Church? For example: What experience with porn and my penis could be discussed without the presence of sin? What experience about my first date and my penis be discussed without sin? (not much) What experience about my penis and my wedding night would be permissible to discuss with other men, does not my body now belong to my wife, how dare I discuss such intimacy with anyone else but her? Conceiving my first child, what's to discuss that would not violate my vows, or my conscience before God?
Dr. Hicks doesn't stop here, but wants men to have "creative alternative initiation rites" to those listed above. How can this be? Again this is not possible without sin.
What does Dr. Hicks base his teaching on? The Bible, as seen through the eyes of Basic Secular Psychology. On page 176-177 Dr. Hicks discusses the matter of initiation, I was determined to understand what he was trying to say in the workbook insert provided Sunday and here is another quote,
"I'm sure many would balk at my thought of celebrating the experience of sin. I'm not sure how we could do it. But I do know we need to do it. "
To defend (rationalize) his point he talks about how we condemn our teens when "--- they have their first experience with the police, or their first drunk, or their first experience with sex or drugs---" He says we could look upon any of these "--- as a teachable moment and a rite of passage --
" Then he says the "true elders could come forward and confess their own adolescent sins and congratulate the next generation for being human." Then Hicks closes the paragraph saying "that is when we can move on to forgiveness and restoration!" I can not believe any Christian could make such statements unless they are deceived, or in a terrible backslidden state! Brothers, I admonish you to put this material in it's proper place, the trash can
Romans 8:5-6 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace.
The majority of the book keeps referring back to the phallus (penis). The first 70 pages do so clearly and so does the last chapter "A New Male Journey" which is where I quoted from above. I believe the Promise Keepers idea of bringing men together in Christ is noble, but not with such ignoble teachings as this. Dr. Hicks needs prayer, in addition to this I detect problems in who he holds dear, when he makes a point to quote Charles Darwin of all people at the beginning of Chapter 2, "Man with all his noble qualities still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin."
All mind-control movements depends upon the "group mind." That is, people abandon their own minds and it gets submerged into the collective: one screams "kill the ump" they all scream 'kill the ump." One cries and they all cry. One repents of preaching the truth - they all repent. Their minds are left at home so that the bodies can bond into one person. Hitler knew that: he used athletics and even the religious and patriotic musical themes to whip up the masses. However, in any mass movement, if the instructions are to "praise God" people will praise God. However, if the command is to "kill Jesus" then even a Jubilee turns into a "Get God" mass movement even if they have to honor a Barabbas (Chaldean abba).
Fathers at Atlanta
Because the Atlanta PK meeting focused on the weak point -- the clergy -- we quote a clergy person who attended the Atlanta break down:
"Many groups led by men whom God has deprived of spiritual eyes and ears have lost faith in the methods of Christ revealed in Scripture.
This is what happens when you go into a hypnotic trance. Jesus specificially repudiated the mass meetings. In fact, He deliberately spoke in parables to all collected multitutes because "seeing, they do not see and hearing, they do not hear."
The Jewish clergy had lost their connection to the "Father" and were not, therefore, given by Him to the Son. In Matthew 13 Jesus said that He spoke to the multitudes in parables to prevent them from hearing His Word! However, this pastor believes that the real Christ was at work in Atlanta:
"Atlanta changed my life! There, I've said it, OK? To be a part of the world's largest-ever collection of clergy (42,000) in one building at one time; to hear the thunderous, ear-splitting applause, the four-part harmony, and that eerie, haunting, inspiring chant of "Je-e-e-s-u-s" as this hand-holding, mid-sized city of men affirmed their common faith-what can one say? It will never be forgotten.
The cry is Ya Zeus which is not the name of Jesus.
If I wanted to preach the gospel I would send these 42,000 "clergy" out into the world which will grow from 4 billion to almost 9 billion within the life-time of some of the clergy "running on idle" focused upon their apparently lost masculinity. The use of music is the sure sign that these groups are finding their feminine side and not their masculine, Word-oriented Jesus side. Oh yes, we know that they slander Jesus by calling Him "a phallic kind of guy."
However, if I wanted to prepare the world for destruction, I would collect 42,000 clergy into one arena and do an Atlanta Brain Drain. I would make sure by bringing the little Shamgars along next time.
Being a clergy person so underemployed that one can leave the flock and go seeking male bonding prevents one from understanding the absolute prohibition of sounding the alarm when the "congregation was to be assembled." (Numbers 10:7). Alarm is:
Ruwa (h7321) roo-ah'; a prim. root; to mar (espec. by breaking); fig. to split the ears (with sound), i. e. shout (for alarm or joy): - blow an alarm, cry (alarm, aloud, out), destroy, make a joyful noise, smart, shout (for joy), sound an alarm, triumph.
This was the same ear splitting triumph-over which Psalm 41 says will not succeed for Judas. Did you know that the Judas Bag was "for carrying the mouthpieces of wind instruments" or the same trumpets which were to panic the enemy but could not be turned on the congregation except like a "church bell"?
"Loud" or "music" creates the impulse of fight, flight or sex. Therefore, we can understand how such mass meetings at football games is much like a sexual encounter and your mind gets confused:
The highlight for me had to be somewhere around the time of Steve Green's emotional presentation of "Let the Walls Come Down," leaving thousands of male pastors of every race and denomination tearfully hugging
while offering and receiving apologies for centuries of injustice and blindness to each other's plight. Hats off to Coach Bill McCartney and the team for bringing vision to fruition as they launched the much-needed Promise Keepers' theme for 1996, "Break Down the Walls."
When you are hypnotized, you can be told to "pee in your shoe" and you will do it. Nothing spiritual about that. Do you suppose that the whole Bible is wrong in demanding that only a tiny remnant gives a hoot about the Word of God? Are all called also chosen. Is there no error? If one is guilty then one should repent but this sin is primarily a clergy problem because most are occupying roles which Jesus took away from you.
Try to vizualize Jesus assemblying the apostles and the Jewish clergy and forcing them to do some male bonding! Why didn't He have a Greek or Roman orator as "the worlds highest paid performers" come in and pour out some new wine to soften up the Jewish clergy? How about modern four-part harmony? Couldn't a bit of hugging and bundling have broken down the walls? How much better if those tens of thousands of Jewish priest went into all the world to preach the gospel. Well, that is not the real world of the Spirit. The walls came down but, as in many Scriptural examples, it was so that the enemy could get to the Jewish clergy and a million members of their old denomination. Jesus simply never used a gathering and featherbedding priesthood.
When the walls were broken down by God in Isaiah 5 it was because the clergy had turned from teaching and living the Word and consumed the wealth of the people on daily musical festivals -- of course, "you offer the sacrifice to God but you eat the meat yourself" (God). According to Isaiah, your "laiety" is almost by definition starving for the Word of God. The music and excitement, therefore, is a sign of the end of your tenure!
"Sports Motif: Oh, some things were missing-the beer, the cigarettes (for the most part) and the gutter language. But the similarities to professional football were all too noticeable-
the incredible hype,
the "wave,"
the close-to-hypnotic chanting for your team
(now here's a difference-everyone cheered for the same team!),
the frenzied buying of souvenirs,
the loud singing on the go-train after.After all, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, right?
And now it's time for that big annual cup game. So it's expected that you leave the wife and kids at home to take offand do the male-bonding thing for a few days. Too bad it's over Valentine's Day, but she'll understand-I'll send her a card....
Oh, but the "beer" was there: it is called endorphins or a morphine-like drug high. You were "under the influence" of mainlining the most powerful drug known to mankind and it was created by the noise, speech patterns and ear-splitting noise. How can you know whether the game is good or not if you are dumbed out on dope?
This is clearly an example of mass hysteria or an actual "sign and wonder" directly from God. The urge for women prophets probably means that those who have had the experience believe that they have been directly touched by God and there is no way to deal with that.
So yu have it: they were all in a trance and that was exactly the goal. You cannot do that to men already in possession of their masculine identity. In that music, noise - induced ecstasy your rational brain was smashed perhaps beyond redemption. Now, you have really busted the "masculine" hemisphere of your brain! If history repeats itself, you have closed down the rational (spiritual) nature and you will never again be able to hear Jesus. Oh well, you have Jesse Ventura or some other "event of the day" to use to starve the lemmings into panic:
"Promise Keepers, I beg of you: Seriously, biblically, prayerfully, consider the unprecedented impact your organization could have in tearing down this remaining wall. I can imagine no single project that would more favorably impress the hundreds of millions of women in our continent, and offer hope to billions of oppressed women around the world,
........... than to "let the women prophesy," educate and ordain them to do it,
........... and finally propel this new Christian church into the third millennium,
........... free from all walls, with a message of hope and equality for the other half of its population.
For a Biblical perspective on Atlanta 1997 Click Here
See Rubel Shelly and prophesying women
Paul had something to say about women prophesying in First Corinthians 11. Prophesying was not foretelling in a revelation sense but actually stripping literally to excite the paying customers and speaking in tongues with musical accompaniment. Those in Atlanta were stripped emotionally. Being naked, the common Apocalyptic theme is that rather than repent there is a rush to force others to join the Lemmings as they pour off God's Holy Mountain and down into the dark valley of instrumental music, mixed sex choirs and the logical conclusion -- a real or imagined sexual encounter as the walls were broken down. Click Here. All ancient resources demand that it was Satan who taught men like Jubal how men could seduce both men and women using the same mind-bending methods. Once they fell under the hypnotic spell God would never speak to them again because they had deliberately disobeyed His Word and turned their body over to rituals which damaged them beyond repair.
When you have to seek masculine reconstruction using effeminate means it seems that "thee protesteth too much."
Those dipping into the "lake" of mass meetings, like Lemmings, are not suicidal but when they get into the crowd and get to a lake or river they just naturally get pushed in and swim until they drown!
That is why Jesus demanded that we remain at home and "don't go out."
It was prophesied that Jesus would never call an assembly and Jesus never called an assembly. When people got hungry for food or they Word they came to Him. Furthermore He commanded that we not go out trying to find the kingdom because "the kingdom of God is within you."
"Father" Ehud had a special gift--a grand daggar which he could hide in his bloated body. However, Shamgar the "son" just had a little pointy stick:
So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years. Judges 3:14
But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab. Judges 3:15
They did not want spiritual deliverance. Eglon was not a spiritual deliverer but an assassin. Furthermore, when "God sends" it is often in a permissive sense.
"Another judge, Ehud, a left-handed Benjamite, delivered Israel from the oppression of the Moabites. Ehud, a fat man who had hidden a sword under his garments on his right side so that when a search of his person was made it would be overlooked, brought tribute to Eglon, the Moabite king. Upon Ehud's claiming to have a secret message for the king, Eglon dismissed the other people carrying tribute. Ehud then said to the King, "I have a message from God to you," assassinated him, locked the doors to the chamber, and escaped. Rallying the Israelites around him, Ehud led an attack upon the Moabites that was decisive in favour of the Israelites. Shamgar, the third judge, is merely noted as a deliverer who killed 600 Philistines. (Britannica)
The "father" was an assassin who used lies and deceit to destroy a physical enemy. Shagmar, the "son" followed like a Lemming and killed 600 people with a sharp, pointed stick.
God permits, but does not cause people to lie and assassinate unless it is a sign that they have no help from Him.
Sons of Shamgar, Arise!
It comes as no surprise that they willfully, and as a supernatural sign, lift Scripture out of context which really pronounces judgment against them.
The choice of Shamgar, rather than Jesus, as the standard of new Religious-Militia thinkers is a clear prophetic message that many believe that they are enlisting in God's army to pass out rewards and slay the enemies of God -- even if the enemies are those of their own household.
The use of deception is consistent with the need to defeat the enemy in time of war.
Implicit in this rejection of God and demanding to walk like the nations by breaking down the walls is the use of music as a weapon to take away the keys to knowledge.
Some background to Promise Keepers helps set the stage:
"Sincerely believing that they have the absolute and correct interpretation of their god's will, they have premised their movement upon the idea that people must submit themselves entirely to their god's will - all people. Including those who don't happen subscribe to their theology. This idea isn't uncommon among devout Christians, especially conservative Christians - but the idea of forcing upon others isn't quite so common. Since the Old Testament is supposed to represent a "perfect society," Old Testament rules are to be enforced by the government through public laws.
Those who disagree are "apostates" or "tools of Satan" and would have their religious freedom restricted and their actions curtailed.
Democracy is of little value and the harsh theocracy of Geneva under the leadership of John Calvin is the modern model of Reconstructionists.
This may happen even when the children don't carry a literal oxgoad. There are much more effective to minimize anyone who does not fill in the blanks with just the right theology.
Launched about a decade ago in California, COR espouses "Christian reconstructionism." According to this religious ideology, the "inerrancy of the Bible states reality for all areas of life and thought," and the task of believing Christians is to "bring every society's judicial and legal systems into as close an approximation to the laws and commandments of the Bible as its citizens will allow." COR's program includes the abolition of public schools, the application of criminal sanctions (possibly including capital punishment) for abortion and homosexuality, the curtailment of the Bill of Rights and a hostility to democratic institutions as incompatible with its vision of a theocratic state.
In the compilation Go the Distance, a P.K. book published by Focus on the Family, McCartney suggests that his evangelical efforts will be met with "violent opposition." He told the gathered pastors in Atlanta that "many of you feel that you have been in a war for a long time, yet the fiercest fighting is just ahead. God has brought us here to prepare us. Let's proceed. It's wartime!"
He has referred to the clergy as "the commissioned officers" of his movement, and has even sought to penetrate the active-duty armed forces through the Pentagon's chaplain system.
The Atlanta clergy conference included a special meeting to organize military chaplains, which was addressed by retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Richard Abel, head of Bill Bright's military ministry, and by retired Army Special Forces Lieut. Col. Chuck Stecker, who now heads Promise Keepers' south central region.
The notion of Promise Keepers as an "army of God" in the most literal sense has been articulated by the
Rev. James Ryle, a P.K. director since its founding. Not long ago,
Ryle told Detroit journalist Russ Bellant that he regards Promise Keepers as the fulfillment of the Bible's prophecy of a great force that will destroy sinners and infidels in the period preceding Armageddon.
"Never have 300,000 men come together throughout human history," said Ryle,
........... "except for the purpose of war."
Because he is McCartney's personal pastor, Ryle may know whereof he speaks. His Colorado church, Boulder Valley Vineyard, is one of more than 500 congregations in a little-known nondenominational movement, the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, whose practices have become highly controversial in evangelical circles. It is led by former rock musician (and former COR member) John Wimber. Vineyard's proselytizing is targeted at a young constituency. Its theology is strongly imbued with "signs and wonders," a term that refers to faith healing and other alleged miracles.
Vineyard churches feature emotionally charged charismatic services. Underpinning all, however, is the "shepherding" or "discipleship" structure that has provoked accusations of cultism against Vineyard leaders by other Christian ministers.
Shepherding involves the creation of powerful controlling mechanisms among church members, who subordinate their will and personal lives
........... to the directives of pastor and small-group leaders.The likelihood of abuse in such arrangements is obvious, and the practice of shepherding by Vineyard leaders is now so discredited that Ryle once offered to resign from the board of the Promise Keepers to shield it from such criticism. His resignation was not accepted -- and Promise Keepers shows clear signs of Vineyard influence.
Promise Keepers' aggressive insistence on "breaking down the walls" of denominational separation, for instance ,
reflects Vineyard's long-term aim to eliminate existing doctrinal distinctions and organizational structures in the world's mainline churches.
This breakdown would lead to a "postdenominational" phase in which Christianity would be dominated by charismatic theologians claiming to be "apostles" and "prophets." (See Rubel Shelly's comments)
The emphasis in Promise Keepers on small groups and "accountable relationships" appears to be a revamped version of Vineyard-style shepherding. Like the obedience demanded in a military squad, the control imposed on small-group members in a charismatic church could provide ideal training for the holy war foreseen by Pastor Ryle aas the ultimate mission of the Promise Keepers.
The role of the shepherd is to keep the walls up and guard against the wolves:
[O TIMOTHY EDITOR: To say that denominational division is sin is to say that doctrine is not important, because doctrine is one of the key things which divides denominations and churches! Some churches teach sound doctrine about Jesus Christ and some teach false doctrine. Some teach sound doctrine about salvation; some, false doctrine. Some teach sound doctrine about baptism; some, false doctrine. Some teach sound doctrine about the Holy Spirit; some, false doctrine. Some teach sound doctrine about the New Testament church; some, false doctrine. Timothy's job in Ephesus was "that thou mightest charge some that they TEACH NO OTHER DOCTRINE" (1 Timothy 1:3). When a church stands upon the whole counsel of New Testament doctrine, it automatically becomes divided from churches which stand for different doctrine. This cannot be avoided, and it is not wrong. In fact, God forbids sound churches from associating with those who hold different doctrine (Romans 16:17).]
You will remember that God sought out Canaan as the very best place to test the Israelites who had not worshipped Him during their 400 plus years in Egypt. He would give them the land without violence:
I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. 23:28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. Exodus 23:27
By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. Exodus 23:30
And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow. Jos.24:12
However, Israel rejected God's Book of the Covenant by returning to the worship of Osiris in the form of Apis the golden calf. This worship included musical activity implied in Osiris worship and the use of the Hebrew word play.
As a result, Israel would have to often use human means and human weapons to defeat the enemy. In the book of Judges, the people always fall because they ignored the Word of God. God sent warriors to rescue the but to no good purpose: they just returned to their same idolatry:
And they slew of Moab at that time about ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valour; and there escaped not a man. Judges 3:29
So Moab was subdued that day under the hand of Israel. And the land had rest fourscore years. Judges 3:30
And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox goad: and he also delivered Israel. Judges 3:31
AND the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, when Ehud was dead. Judges 4:1
And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, that reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose host was Sisera, which dwelt in Harosheth of the Gentiles. Judges 4:2
Daughters of Jael next? The "father" uses a dagger, the son uses a pointy stick and the "daughter" nails the enemy's head to the ground.
The meaning of Hebrew words often reveal the message which Jesus said had been hidden in parables from the foundation of the world (Matthew 13).
Shamgar's father was named after:
Anah (h6030) aw-naw'; a prim. root; prop. to eye or (gen.) to heed, i. e. pay attention; by impl. to respond; by extens. to begin to speak; spec. to sing, shout, testify, announce: - give account, afflict [by mistake for 6030], (cause to, give) answer, bring low [by mistake for 6030], cry, hear, Leannoth, lift up, say, * scholar, (give a) shout, sing (together by course), speak, testify, utter, (bear) witness. See also 1042 (temple of responsive singing), 1043.
The ox goad in Hebrew is an anti-Christian teaching method:
Lamad (h3925) law-mad'; a prim. root; prop. to goad, i. e. (by impl.) to teach (the rod being an Oriental incentive): - [un-] accustomed, * diligently, expert, instruct, learn, skilful, teach (-er, - ing).
We have the Spirit of Jesus telling us:
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Isaiah 2:4
The ox goad teaching method involves the "praise the lord" music to panic the enemy and take away the key to knowledge:
And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: Isaiah 29:11
And the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Isaiah 29:12
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: Isaiah 29:13 (to the tune of a hickory stick or an ox goad)
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. Isaiah 29:14
In Ezekiel 33 God warns Ezekiel that the people will treat him like a musical prostitute but they will not listen.
Shamgar comes on the scene again in Deborah's song as she taunts the males of Israel for being cowards:
The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. Judges 5:5
In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways. Judges 5:6
Unoccupied means
Chadal (h2308) khaw-dal'; a prim. root; prop. to be flabby, i. e. (by impl.) desist; (fig.) be lacking or idle: - cease, end, fail, forbear, forsake, leave (off), let alone, rest, be unoccupied, want.
Some examples of the roads of Shamgar's day shows that they people refused to walk in the ways of God and simply refused to listen to Him:
And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious. Eze.2:7
And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. Eze.3:11
But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for they are a rebellious house. Eze.3:27
And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. Zec.11:12
Again:
In the days of Shamgar son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the roads were abandoned; travelers (wandering tramps) took to winding paths. Judges 5:6NIV
Aqalqal (h6128) k-al-kal'; from 6127; winding: - by [-way], crooked way.