Excerpt From "satan's M.O."
By Evangelist Joe Murray
In the crime world there is a term used called modus operandi.
This is a Latin term that means the manner in which something operates
or a person's manner of working. When a crime is committed, every
detail is noted and recorded. Soon, another crime is committed
and it corresponds with the first one, down to the last detail.
When several crimes take place, an M.O. is established and the
lawmen know that the same person is committing these crimes.
In January of 2001, I was pastoring a good church that was getting
better day by day. First Baptist in Tucumcari, New Mexico.
These were great people and the nucleus of them really wanted to follow
our Lord Jesus and fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great
Commission. I had thought that this would be my ministry until
the Lord Jesus came or I went to be with Him.
During this time, God began to trouble my heart while reading an
article by John Loudat in the Baptist New Mexican. John was and
is a man that I greatly respect. He reported that according to
John Maxwell, 1,300 pastors per month were either outright fired or
forced to leave the churches they were pastoring in 1997. That
was unbelievable to me. Pastors cannot Biblically be fired
because you do not hire a pastor. They are called of God and
grafted in by the Holy Spirit. If they are hirelings, the Lord
Jesus says that they will run when the wolves come. If they are
hirelings they will always be looking for higher pay and benefits with
no regard for the church or the people of God that they are responsible
for.
Being called of God means that the Holy Spirit sends them and intends
for them to remain as long as God has planned. The people can
receive him as pastor, the overseer of the Church under the Lord Jesus;
or they can reject him, but they can't hire or fire him and be right
with God.
The only two exceptions that I know to this are if he is immoral or is
preaching heresy. Then the procedure is as follows:
"Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three
witnesses. Them that sin rebuke before all (the whole church)
that others may fear. I charge thee before God, and the Lord
Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things
without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality."
(1Timothy 5:19-21)
How does a church of our Lord Jesus Christ end up getting rid of their
pastor in non-biblical ways? Somewhere between 75-90% of the
churches in my denomination have either reached a plateau or are
outright declining. That's 33,750 at 75% and 40,000 at 90%.
These, at one time, were New Testament, on fire for God, in love with
our Lord Jesus, churches. What happened? satan's M.O.
This message to the church is not intended to be just a negative
fact. I believe in most churches there is a nucleus or remnant
that really wants to follow the Lord Jesus. This group of
believers, I believe, is totally ignorant of satan's M.O. The
objective of the message is to reveal what is happening to this group
in each church that really wants our Lord Jesus to be manifested and
exalted. This nucleus knows that the Lord Jesus could return for
His Church at any moment, and their desire is that their Savior and
Lord will find them walking in the Spirit and not fulfilling the lust
of the flesh. If a church is cold and carnal, she is Laodicean,
and the Lord Jesus is on the outside knocking to get in His own
Body. Dr. McGee calls this a headless body.
Let's look now at satan's M.O. and what the church needs to do to stand
against it and keep it from happening. First of all, satan only
operates in churches that are alive, where God is moving in, lives are
being changed, and the Kingdom of God is being advanced. One
friend of mine held a revival meeting in First Baptist Church in New
Mexico, and eighty-seven folks professed faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ. Hallelujah! The church was revived and on fire for
God and His Kingdom. The pastor started weekly meeting with sixty
young people, and a year and a half later, he left the church with
nowhere to go, and his wife almost had a nervous breakdown.
A good church not far from where I was pastoring had a deacons
meeting. The chairman of deacons looked at one of the men and
said, "You've run the last three pastors off, and you are going to run
this one off over my dead body. I entertain a motion that you be
dismissed from the deacon body." They voted him out and the
victory was won, but not before three pastors had been forced to leave,
and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus had suffered great damage. I was
talking with a tremendous pastor the other day who shared with me that
one woman got into his mind with her words and actions, and he left a
powerful ministry. Where does a person get the power to do
that? I'll explain later, but Beloved Saints, these are just
illustrations that have happened in thousands of churches. These
are not unique, isolated instances. This is satan's M.O.
In one sense it is a great compliment when satan and his demons come
against a church because it is genuine evidence that our Lord Jesus is
really using His Body to minister His life to folks. God is
genuinely moving. 1 Peter 4:12-14 says it is because the Holy
Spirit is upon you. You are really anointed of God, and He
is greatly using you as He saves the lost, brings homes together, and
the saints are growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But what are the devastating results to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus by
satan's M.O. of getting rid or the pastor, who is the overseer of the
church, and therefore the one whom the Lord Jesus is leading through in
overall direction? I personally believe the pastor is the feet of
the Body as every local church is literally the Body of Jesus
Christ. The Lord Jesus is the Head, the mind, and the authority
of the church. In the overall directions, the Head tells His
feet; as the feet start out, all the other members of the Body kick in,
as the Holy Spirit has grafted them in and gifted them. The feet
are the lowest members of the Body and are the servant leaders of the
rest of the Body. The feeding of the sheep, the lambs, and the
sheep, and the fulfilling of the Great Commission and the Great
Commandment belongs to the pastor. This doesn't mean that the
pastor does all of the teaching and preaching. He, being
responsible to our Lord Jesus, supervises what is being taught and
preached to the sheep, lambs, and sheep. Hebrews 13:17 says,
"Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves; for they
watch for your souls, as they must give account, that they may do it
with joy, and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you."
And so the Lord Jesus gives the overall direction of the Church to the
pastor. What a tremendous responsibility! Pray for your
pastor much, much, much and hold his hands up to God like Aaron and Hur
did for Moses. Also, pray much for his family.
Copyrights © 2006 Evangelist Joe Murray