Is ignorance a sin?

     A certain kind of ignorance is indeed sin.

     If I have a heart to know God, and I am pursuing Him by studying His word and listening to His Spirit, but I simply haven't yet perceived and understood a certain truth, then I am in ignorance, but this kind of ignorance is not sin.

     Such was not the case with Hophni and Phinehas.  They "knew not the Lord."  And they didn't want to know Him either.  They were deliberately ignorant of God and His ways.  To be deliberately ignorant is sin.  This sin is compounded if you are a believer, and it is even more grave when you are a Christian leader. 

     I want to share with you the most shocking example of spiritual ignorance that I have come across in my 28 years of being a Christian.  I share this example, not for its shock value.  Nor do I claim that such extremes are common.  They are not.  But much can be learned from the example I am about to share.

     In 1981, I joined a newly formed Charismatic church.  The handsome young pastor, and his beautiful wife were like little Ken and Barbie dolls.  Let's call him Pastor X.

     He and his wife had come to my city to pioneer a church.  I joined their church during their second service.  Having been born-again only a few months, I was quite naive'.  I pretty well just swallowed whatever they said.

     Over time though I became concerned with what I saw in the ministry behind the scenes.  All churches and ministries have their flaws--mine included.  But their flaws seemed to me to be quite glaring.

     Pastor X was very "cutting edge" and charming.  Having been a successful salesman for years, he knew just how to present a sale and close it.

     I began to see that he seemed to play up to people who appeared to have money.  Then once those people had given a fairly substantial amount of money to the church, and did not appear likely to give more, he would suddenly become cold towards them and play up to someone else.  I wondered if this were just in my imagination.  After awhile, he made a statement to me that showed me my concern was not unfounded.  

     His statement was made a few months after I was ordained through Pastor X's church and began ministering in 1982.  Not knowing much about how ministries were structured and financed, I asked my pastor for advice.  I will never forget his response. 

     He said, "Hit the old people, Mel!  It takes money to run a ministry, and the old people are the ones that have it.  That's how I did it.  You see, before I started this church I worked for a home repair company.  And I was the most successful salesman they had.  I would just keep calling and calling those old people until they finally bought something just to get me to leave them alone.  I sold roofs, siding, storm windows, and all kinds of stuff to them that they really didn't even need.  Then I took the money I had saved up, came to this town, and started my church." 

     He laughted uproariously.

     I did not laugh.  I stood there in complete shock.

     Suddenly, he sobered and backpeddled.

     "Uh, Mel, I was just kidding.  Uh. . . You need to really release your faith, and trust God . . ."

     The rest of what he said was a blur. 

     I was shocked to the core of my being because I knew that for the first time in the year or so that I had known him, Pastor X had just for a moment let his mask slip, and had accidentally allowed me to see his true nature.  He hadn't been "just kidding."  He had told me an ugly truth.

     His statement that he "hit" people for money confirmed my uneasiness about him.  Within a few services, I saw him "hit" on someone for money.

     Our church had just remodeled an old department store into a church sanctuary, and we had moved in.  Pastor X had bought building materials and furniture on 30 or 60 day credit, and he needed some quick money to pay off the debt.  I watched in a service as he "prophesied" that someone had a major extra asset that they did not need, and "Thus saith the Lord, I have given you that asset so that you can have a major seed to sow into this ministry.  Come forth now, in faith, and do it." 

     No one came forward.

     He took a considerable amount of time to exhort and warn whoever this was, to come forward and not to "miss God." 

     No one came forward.

     He quickly closed the service, and made a beeline for a young couple in the audience.  My heart sank.  Just before the service, this couple had been telling everyone that they had just inherited a home through a death in the family.  Pastor X pulled up a chair right beside them, leaned close, and began whispering to them.  Did they sign over that house to the church?  I don't know.  But I do know that the church's short-term debt of $30,000.00 disappeared overnight just after that.

     I did not repeat to anyone in the church Pastor X's statment about hitting people for money, or my suspicions about his other questionable activities.  I quietly left his church, and allowed my ordination papers to lapse through his ministry.  I no longer cared to have his seal of approval.

     For ten years, I avoided this pastor.  I continued to come across saint after saint who had attended Pastor X's church, and been used and cast aside when they were of no more use to him.  Yet as the spiritual casualties mounted behind the scenes, his public reputation grew greater nearly by the hour.  

     The newspaper and various other media told the story of his great success.  His congregation grew to 1,000 members.  He built one building and outgrew that.  Then he built a second multi-million dollar facility, and pioneered eight christian radio stations.  Well-known ministers came and ministered for him.  He was the definition of success in the local Word of Faith circles.

     But I knew it could not last.

     It was all built upon a foundation of lies, wrong motives, flattery, and manipulating people for money.

     Ten years later, I was preparing to move from that city to another city quite some distance away.  Pastor X was holding a dedication service for his new multi-million dollar building.  Since I was moving in a week or two, I decided to put aside my misgivings, visit the dedication service, and say goodbye to him.

     After the service I approaced Pastor X and his wife.  They remembered me.  We embraced.  I wished them well.  Silently, I hoped to God it was all built on the up and up.

      Two elders that I had expected to be present at this dedication service were absent.  Brother and Sister Y had been elders at the church ten years previously when I had attended it.  They had stayed with the church after I had left.  They kept holding out hope that if they "prayed and stayed faithful," God would correct the flaws in the ministry.  I believe them to this day to be people of integrity.  However, they were not at the dedication service.  Concerned, a few days later I gave them a call. 

     Although we had not spoken in years, they remembered me.  Brother and Sister Y told me that they had indeed been elders still with the ministry until a few weeks previously.  They told me that the church was in deep financial trouble.  Pastor X needed to borrow some money, and float some additonal church bonds to cover the remaining construction costs.  He had falsified the books to make it look like the church's income was greater than it actually was, and was going to obtain bank loans and backing based on the exaggerated numbers.  These two elders had refused to go along with the falsehood.  Two days after their last meeting with him, they received a letter in the mail from Pastor X, notifying them that he had removed them from their positions as elders and directors of the ministry.

     Hurt and shocked, they repeatedly tried to reach Pastor X to tell him he still had their loyalty, but that they could not suport him in this dishonest act.  They wanted to make the point that since God had raised up this ministry, there was no need to resort to dishonesty.  God would provide.  But after serving the church faithfully for years, Pastor X wouldn't even meet with them or accept their phone call.  Their usefulness had been exausted. 

     These two elders told me, "Mel, when all the truth comes out about Pastor X, he will be in jail."  For the first time, I opened up and told them that Pastor X had advised me years before this to "hit the old people."  They told me that they didn't doubt he had said that to me, because they had seen him talk a number of elderly and disabled people to sign over their life savings to the ministry.

     You might ask me, if they were people of integrity, how could they turn a blind eye to all the misconduct.

     The same way it is done in other ministries that get off into misconduct.  They draw a line in the sand and say "If it ever crosses this line, I'm leaving."  Then the misconduct crosses that line.  So they back up another few feet, draw another line and say, "if he crosses this line, I'm out of here."  Then Pastor X crossed that line.  So they said, "We'll pray."  The misconduct gets worse.  Then they begin saying, "We don't feel 'a release' to leave here."  After sin after sin is committed, and person after person is hurt, they back up and back up until they finally reach a wall.  Pastor X asked them to actively engage in falsifying legal documents.  It was at that point they finally came to themselves and said "No."  Pastor X cast them aside, and appointed other elders and trustees who gladly signed off on the falsified documents. 

     I moved from that city, and entered into the new things God had for me elsewhere. 

     Several months later, God gave me a dream.  It was a brief Word of Wisdom, similar to many that the Lord has given me over the years.  In the dream saw Pastor X standing in a used car lot, selling used cars.  (No insult intended towards used car salesmen.)  The Holy Spirit said to me, "Pastor X will be leaving the ministry."  The dream ended.

     Grieved, I knew something must have happened.  Some line had been crossed.  God had been faithful and had given this pastor many chances to repent and ammend his ways.  But Pastor X had never repented.  Now, Pastor X had done something that had caused the Lord to remove him from ministry.

     I called a prayer partner who still lived in my previous city.  Knowing her to be a woman of discretion, I told her the dream.  I knew she did not attend Pastor X's church, but she knew some people who did.  I asked her to quietly ask them if Pastor X had made any announcement about making a major change in ministry, or leaving ministry.  She asked them, and they told her that Pastor X had given no sign that he was considering any major change.

     Never-the-less, I knew what the Lord had told me was destined to come to pass.  The Holy Ghost is never wrong.

     Several months passed.  Suddenly, the truth came out.  Pastor X was in jail.  As the full story unfolded, it was a tale that even the imaginative minds of Hollywood would not have thought to write.

     He had indeed "hit the old people," in order to gain the money he needed to build his new church building.  And true to what the Elders had told me, Pastor X had talked a number of disabled people into "sowing" into the ministry their entire disability settlements, but it had not been enough.

      A few months after I last saw him in the dedication service, he had decided he had milked the elderly and the disabled for as much as he could get, and he needed a new source.  So he talked with a union representative that attended his church.  He asked him, "How do I get in touch with the Mafia?"  The representative told Pastor X that was the last thing he wanted to do, and he refused to help him.

     Pastor X kept asking around, trying to find an illegal source of money.   He later claimed that he knew he had the leading of God to do so, because after all the Bible does say, "The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just."  So, the answer was to go and get some wicked people's money.

     There were some major drug dealers who needed a legitimate business to launder some drug money for them.  Pastor X sought them out, driving across three states to meet with them.  They told him that they had money from the sales of cocaine, and they needed some business to take the money, and find a legitimate way to bring the money onto the books, and then back into their hands.

     Pastor X was ecstatic.  He told them that he would have no problem mixing the drug money in with the offerings in his church.  Then he could issue the drug dealers a check once a month putting it on the books as a "loan repayment."  Surprised that a pastor would agree to such an arrangement, they gave him several opportunities to back out on the deal.  He refused.  He told them, "I bet you've never seen a pastor like me!"  They agreed.  No, they had never seen a pastor like him.

     Over the course of the next nine months, Pastor X drove several times to the drug dealer's city, three states away from his church.  He returned with the money and laundered a total of $350,000.00 in drug money for them, taking a 7% kick-back.  He later explained that he came up with this figure because "Seven is the number of God."  (No, I'm not kidding).

     He and his wife gleefully mixed the money in with the offerings, and then issued a monthly check back to the drug dealers.  Dilligent steward of God's money that he was, Pastor X even went so far as to spend thousands of dollars to have a safe installed in his church office, so that the drug dealer's money would be safe.  He proudly showed them the pictures of the safe on one of his trips.

     Having found the pastor to be a reliable partner, the drug dealers told him they had just completed a major sale of cocaine.  They had $11 million they needed laundered.  They asked him if he could handle it.  He told them it would be no problem.

     Pastor X arrived at the drug dealers' hotel room.  They showed him the money, and gave Pastor X another chance to back out.  He declined.  So they told him they had something to tell him.

     They began by saying, "You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law . . . "  You see, these men were not drug dealers.  They were Federal marshals.  They had been conducting a "sting" operation.  All of their dealings with Pastor X had been videotaped, and they were charging him with money laundering or conspiracy to commit money laundering.  They took him off to jail.

     A day or so later, a letter from Pastor X was read from his pulpit.  It stated that he was resigning from the pastorate due to "spiritual reasons."  No further explanation was given.  Everyone was in shock.  But word began to trickle back from the prison--Pastor X had been arrested!

     Why?

     Money laundering.

     "Oh there must be some kind of mistake."

     No, no mistake.

     Pastor X got out on bail.  He rescinded his resignation, and returned to preaching.  Months passed.  He proclaimed his innocence, claiming that he had innocently gotten "trapped in a Government sting operation."  They had been "out to get him" because he was a pro-life pastor.  He played it from every angle he could think of.  And it worked--for awhile.

     Unbelieveably, when his trial was finally held, the jury bought his argument and found him not guilty.  The jury had watched the videos of Pastor X laughing and gleefully taking the handfulls of money from those he thought were drug dealers.  They ignored it all and ruled in his favor.  Church members who had followed the pastor hundreds of miles to the far away courthouse, and had wept and prayed, rejoiced in God's power to deliver from the strategies of the Enemy.

     But the joy was short-lived. 

     Pastor X and his wife faced numerous other charges for falsifying bank documents, fraud, securities fraud, etc.  While these trials proceeded, the Government appealed the jury's ridiculous verdict, and the appeals court reversed the jury's verdict, declaring Pastor X to be GUILTY.  The appeals court basically said that you can't chase what you believe to be drug dealers across three states, for nine months, turning down opportunity after opportunity to back out, launder $350,000.00 for them, and then claim that they trapped you.

     Pastor X began serving his time in a minimum security prison.  The other trials found him guilty also of various other illegalities. 

     What happened to the ministry?  The building was sold.  The elderly, the poor, the disabled, and the rest received pennies on the dollar.

     Pastor X and his wife brazened it out. 

     No repentence.

     Not one word of remorse.

     To this day, they still claim he was the unfortunate victim of a Liberal-dominated government out to get him.

     Years have passed.  Pastor X is still in prison.  His wife has continued holding the church services every week to this day.  Each week the congregation, consisting of a few hundred, listens to a tape recorded message of the Pastor, sent from his jail cell.

     They never batted an eye.

     Pastor X has served 13 years in prison.

     He is scheduled to be released soon.

     He plans to return to his pulpit.

     I've written to him several times in prison, sending him books or materials I thought might bless him.  And I've asked him, "Do you feel any remorse?  Have you learned anything?"

     No response.

     I looked back in my journal and identified the date when the Lord visited me and told me that "Pastor X will be leaving the ministry."  That date coincided with the time that he began mixing what he thought was drug money in with the offerings of the Lord in his church.  As with Hophni and Phinehas, God had forgiven Pastor X countless times.  But if you are determined enough, you can exaust even the seemingly limiteless mercy and forgiveness of God.

     Now, that is a lengthy and horrific story.  I do not pretend that misconduct of this magnitude is commonplace in our circles.  But I use this example to point out some truths.

     The lies and manipulation are but branches of the tree.  The root of the tree is ignorance.  This pastor and his wife are utterly ignorant of God's ways:

     Pastor X, like Hophni and Phinehas, knows nothing about God's ways.  And he does not want to know.  He is deliberately ignorant.  

     I want you to note the mercy of God in this whole process.  Just before I left this man's ministry in the early 1980's, Lester Sumrall came and preached at Pastor X's church.  Brother Sumrall preached a couple of times, and then never came back.  I always wondered why.  Years later, I found out.

     I was talking with a man on Brother Sumrall's staff.  When I mentioned the city of Pastor X's church, the staff member remembered travelling with Brother Sumrall to that church for those services, and he told me what happened.  Brother Sumrall had seen several things in Pastor X's ministry that were out of line, and in private, he rebuked Pastor X very sharply.  After that, when Brother Sumrall would call that pastor about ministering for him again, Pastor X refused to take Brother Sumrall's calls, and refused to return them.  This was the first of many times God gave this pastor the opportunity to repent.

     In the early years of Pastor X's ministry, I had attempted to talk with him about the excesses of his ministry.  He wouldn't listen.  I know his fomer praise and worship leader, those two elders, and numerous other people who cautioned this pastor for over 10 years, but he would listen to no one.  He refused Lester Sumrall's correction.  Lastly, the Federal marshalls themselves gave Pastor X a number of opportunities to back out of the money laundering.  He never did.

     Years have passed, but Pastor X has never issued a statement taking responsibility for his actions or expressing a single word of repentence or remorse.

     The sad conclusion to this example is this:  Give this pastor another year to get out of jail.  Let him build up his ministry a bit.  Then let him write a book, "God Saw Me Through!"  If he will portray himself as the innocent victim of the government and the Devil, Christian publishing houses will line up and fight each other for the rights to publish it.   And then within another few months, he will be the darling of Christian TV, going from program to program, telling people his story and raking in the money.  In a short period of time, his new ministry may be far larger than his old one ever was.

     Pastor X's wife recently called an itinerant minister and asked him to come preach at the church.  She said that for reasons unknown to her, "the congregation doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  Nothing is happening."  In other words, the Glory has left Pastor X's church just like it left in the days of Samuel.

     Pastor X's wife, can't understand it.  Why isn't God moving?

     She is still utterly ignorant of God and His ways.

     Now you might ask me if I believe a minister can sin, fall, repent, and be restored.  Absolutely!  But there does have to actually be genuine repentence.

     Could Pastor X be restored?  I doubt it.  If stealing people blind for 14 years, and then finally turning your church into a criminal enterprise doesn't permanently disqualify you from pastoring, then what does?

     My friends, our God is Holy.  He has revealed Himself to us through His written word.  He is a God of judgment and integrity.  He won't bless church games.  He won't bless ego trips.  He won't bless sin.  

     The Lord sent me to preach in Chicago some time back.  He said to me, "Go there and preach on, 'Make the Crooked Ways Straight!'"  I asked him, "Well, what is a crooked way?"  He replied, "Any way other than My way."

     The Glory has left us because we have ignorantly believed we could do things our way, and God would look the other way, and that He might even bless it.  But He won't.  He blesses only those things that are done His way.

     The Glory will return when we repent, lay down our ways that are contrary to scripture, and humbly take up His ways again.

     In the next article in this series, we will examine the next sin we noted in the list above.  Namely, the sin of mishandling offerings.  To access this article, please click on the title in the left column, or click:

"IV:  The Sin of Mishandling Offerings"