You can leave behind your denominations, but if you retain their trappings, you’re still trapped. And you can search the Scriptures all day long, thinking to rightly divide them, but if you don’t come and listen to Him Whom the Scriptures are about, as He lives today, you will be sadly mistaken.
(Click here to skip to Berean Bible Fellowship)
From: Dr. Paul W. Box <minister.box@….com>
Hello,
First I would like to thank you for your extensive site. It provides a wonderful reference for me in my desire to grow closer to God.
After thinking about some things, I have several questions which I would appreciate your reply. I was pretty much dismissed years ago in a methodist seminary for my views concerning water baptism versus the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I did attain my divinity degree but as a consequence, I never sought ordination from the church but worked as a pastor through the years until devoting the greater percentage of time in the last five years or so.
What about this great question? I have even gone as far dealing with this issue as to advise a person that if they insist, water baptism can be performed to make them feel more assured as a ceremony symbolizing the transformation from old to new but it is not the great sanctifier that is the baptism of the Holy Spirit will come to mean in their life both here and in the hereafter. I would love to hear from you on this. My stance on this was developed after study on my own and with the Berean Bible Fellowship. I did not read anything about them on the site.
Lastly, for now. I am greatly troubled by the evident and prevailing effort to justify the so called same sex marriages and homo sexual/lesbian/trans gendered life styles. I think this will be a death blow to organized religion in our country. Many years ago, I stopped being a part of the denominational church and at first sought Christ on my own and carried on a ministry as I worked a regular job. Then, I continued my ministry and started attending some Quaker meetings, which have a strong attraction with me as they practice silent worship or as I know it deep and meaningful prayer in search of ‘light’ as they say. Your opinion on the move to push this via the church and to normalize it in society?
I appreciate your time and look forward to a response. Also, I will continue to refer to your site.
God Bless,
Paul Box
Hi Paul,
Let’s see if we can be of service in Christ to you.
First of all, you need to repent of your sins. This would naturally lead you to drop the “Dr.” title. God doesn’t regard doctors of men, especially when it comes to the things of God. He recognizes no earthly honors, credits, or bestowments of titles in His Name. Frankly, He despises them. And when Saul of Tarsus came to know Him, Saul soon saw the vanity of his religious scholastic achievements and called it all “dung”:
Philippians 3:2-11 MKJV
(2) Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision party.
(3) For we are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh;
(4) though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other thinks that he has reason to trust in the flesh, I more.
(5) I was circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. As regards the Law, I was a Pharisee;
(6) concerning zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness in the Law, blameless.
(7) But whatever things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
(8) But no, rather, I also count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them to be dung, so that I may win Christ
(9) and be found in Him; not having my own righteousness, which is of the Law, but through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God by faith,
(10) that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death;
(11) if by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead.
Besides, if you received your doctorate at a Methodist or other seminary and were dismissed for disagreeing with some of their doctrine, I would think the title should be worthless to you even in logical terms. Carrying the title, you contradict yourself and give credibility to the organization you can’t be a part of. Does that make sense?
This is assuming, of course, you received your doctorate there in theological studies. You don’t clearly spell that out. For all we know, you’re a vet or dentist. Still, our spiritual context is the trump card here and you should regard it as such. If you got your doctorate in some other field, you aren’t any better than the charlatan prophet Dr. Owuor, whose doctorate is in the sciences and who nonetheless uses the title to impress in spiritual terms, as if credentials of this world lend merit to the Kingdom of God, which they don’t. But simple souls are impressed and fall for it.
Dr. Len Horowitz is another stinker who thinks his dentistry degree should buy him credibility with those seeking spiritual guidance. That tells you how far short he falls from what he thinks to have. I wouldn’t trust him with a filling.
If you think to persuade people by earthly credentials (whether a “doctor of divinity” or any other) to trust you to lead them to faith in Christ, you’re greatly mistaken, notwithstanding the results you may presume to have achieved in your work as a pastor. If people come by carnal motivation, they are no better off than those entering the Great Marriage Banquet without a wedding garment. And you know what happens to them (Matthew 22:2-14).
This brings us to the question of just how effective you’ve been in ministry if you have yet to recognize the basic essentials and possess understanding of the truths, laws, and principles of the Kingdom of God. This may sound shocking to you, but don’t let your earthly riches dissuade you from soberly contemplating the implications of your spiritual position. If you have your confidence in dung, how can the results be of any value to God?
Concerning water baptism, Paul, you can read at Water Baptism.
And consider that you may be contradicting yourself. First, you say, “I am greatly troubled by the evident and prevailing effort to justify the so called same sex marriages and homo sexual/lesbian/trans gendered life styles. I think this will be a death blow to organized religion in our country.” But then you mention, “Many years ago, I stopped being a part of the denominational church.”
I can understand being troubled about evil having its way and running rampant, but are you saying you’re concerned that the same sex issue will be the demise of organized religion? Why should you be concerned? You aren’t clear.
If you had the right motive, you made the right move, coming out of the harlot church, Mystery Babylon the Great. Perhaps God has given you something there. Now if she, organized religion, is the harlot, then isn’t she destined to fall by God’s judgment? John says so in Revelation:
“And one of the seven angels who had the seven vials came and talked with me, saying to me, ‘Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot sitting on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and became drunk with the wine of her fornication, those inhabiting the earth’” (Revelation 17:1-2 MKJV).
And why must she fall? Here it is:
“And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great has fallen, has fallen! And it has become the dwelling-place of demons, and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a cage of every unclean bird which has been hated, because of the wine of the anger of her fornication which all the nations have drunk. And the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her. And the merchants of the earth became rich from the power of her luxury” (Revelation 18:2-3 MKJV).
“And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all those who were slain on the earth” (Revelation 18:24 MKJV).
We certainly won’t be any of those kings weeping for her. Instead, we’ve been among these:
Revelation 6:9-11 MKJV
(9) And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held.
(10) And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “Until when, Master, holy and true, do You not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
(11) And white robes were given to each one of them. And it was said to them that they should rest yet for a little time, until both their fellow servants and their brothers (those about to be killed as they were) should have their number made complete.
We are those blessed to do the will of God and His saints:
“O daughter of Babylon, whose fate is destruction; happy is the man who does to you what you have done to us. Happy is the man who takes your little ones, crushing them against the rocks” (Psalms 137:8-9 BBE).
Babylon’s plagues are well deserved and if you fear for her, you deserve those same plagues:
“And I heard another voice from Heaven, saying, ‘Come out of her, My people, that you may not be partakers of her sins, and that you may not receive of her plagues. For her sins joined together, even up to Heaven, and God has remembered her unjust deeds’” (Revelation 18:4-5 MKJV).
You ask our opinion on embracing forms of prayer and worship, using the example of the Quaker practice of silent prayer in search of light. Form and prescribed methodology will get nobody anywhere with the Lord – form is all about man’s righteousness. However, the Light has made Himself known to us, as He did to John, and John had this to say about true faith:
“If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7 MKJV).
Seeing you and others have contacted us about the Berean Bible Fellowship, let’s discuss them. No doubt, they’ve misled you in much doctrine.
The key spiritual handicap with them and with you, Paul (not condemning or even criticizing, but informing you here), is that you don’t have the Spirit of God. Going to their Doctrinal Statement, they say:
“The gifts necessary for the ministry of the Body of Christ are those enumerated in Ephesians 4:7-16. Of these, only the gifts of evangelists and pastors-teachers are in operation today. All the sign gifts of the Acts period, such as tongues, prophesy and healing (I Cor. 12:1-31), being temporary in character, have ceased (I Cor. 13:8-11).”
What they say is not true at all. They’re ignorant of God. Read The Baptism in the Holy Spirit. These people have never received the Spirit of God. Without His Spirit, how can anyone understand the things of the Spirit, never mind assume spiritual authority and teach anyone?
1 Corinthians 2:12-16 MKJV
(12) But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit from God, so that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God.
(13) These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
(14) But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
(15) But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one.
(16) For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
Berean Bible Fellowship’s case is a matter of the blind leading the blind and both falling into the ditch. Carnal understanding of Scripture confounds, misleads, and deceives. It is, put simply, satanic.
There’s no doubt in our minds that BBF doesn’t believe that one can and must hear the Lord’s personal voice or that prophets of the Lord exist today. Read the following Diabolical Doctrines: The Gifts of the Holy Spirit Are Not for Today, There Are No Prophets or Apostles Today, and Believers No Longer Hear God’s Voice.
Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27 MKJV).
Concerning baptism, they declare, “All saved persons have been made members of the Body of Christ by one divine baptism (I Cor. 12:13). By this one baptism every member of the Body of Christ is identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. In the light of the statement concerning the one baptism in Ephesians 4:5, the statements concerning baptism in Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6:3,4, and Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 1:17 that ‘Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel,’ we affirm that water baptism has no place in God’s spiritual program for the Body of Christ in this day of grace.”
They’re right there! There is only one baptism, that being the baptism in the Holy Spirit, of which water baptism is a representation, and a testimony of repentance from sin. However, seeing the people at Berean Bible Fellowship have denied the Spirit and the gifts, they don’t have the one baptism they rightly declare is the significant and needful one. Which goes to show that even right knowledge isn’t enough.
Did you know they’re denying the new birth, for that’s what the baptism in the Holy Spirit is?
“For also by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, even all were made to drink into one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13 MKJV).
Did you know they deny the Lord Jesus Christ come in the flesh, for that’s what receiving the Spirit is all about – Christ coming in the flesh? Of course, they would claim they have the Spirit of Christ because believing another couple doctrines of devils – read the Diabolical Doctrines: “Accepting” Jesus Christ as Your Personal Savior and Conversion Is Full Salvation.
Though it can’t be assumed for certain, it appears BBF believes in the common physical expression of the “Lord’s Supper.” They say, “The communion of the Lord’s Supper as revealed through the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 11:23-26 is for members of the Body of Christ to observe ‘until He comes.’”
Read Diabolical Doctrine: The “Lord’s Supper”. (Not that it much matters regarding them, seeing they don’t have the Spirit of Christ.)
BBF says, “The rapture of the Church ‘which is His body,’ and the second coming of Christ will be pre-millennial. He will come first to receive the members of His body to Himself (I Thes. 4:13-18; Phil. 3:20,21), and later to receive His millennial kingdom, over which He will reign (Zech. 14:4,9; Acts 1:10,11; Rev. 19:11-16; 20:4-6). Because of the distinctive nature of the Body of Christ, the resurrection and rapture of the Church, which is His body, will take place before the great tribulation (Jer. 30:7; Matt. 24:15-31) at His appearing in the air (I Thes. 4:13-18; Phil. 3:20,21; Titus 2:13,14; I Cor. 15:51-53). The resurrection of the other saved dead will occur after the tribulation (Rev. 20:4-6).”
It’s the same popular hash fed all over the earth in nominal Christendom. BBF gives several misinterpreted Scripture verses to defend this abominable escapist doctrine of the rapture. Read Diabolical Doctrine: Rapture before the Great Tribulation.
They declare, “The teachings of universalism, of probation after death, of annihilation of the unsaved dead, and of the unconscious state of the dead, saved or unsaved (Luke 16:23-28; Phil. 1:23; II Cor. 5:6-8), are opposed by us as being thoroughly unscriptural and dangerous doctrines.”
They’re right about the annihilation and “unconscious state of the dead.” Read Diabolical Doctrine: The Wicked Are Annihilated.
They’re right about Universalism – The False Kind and The Deadly Error of the Universalists. However, they’re dead wrong about “universalism – the true kind” and about “probation after death.” Read from The Restitution of All Things, perhaps particularly The Good News and The SIGN: The Book of Jonah, the Book of God.
How right and wrong they are here: “Jesus Christ was resurrected bodily from the dead (Luke 24:39-43). Therefore (I Cor. 15:21), all men will have a bodily resurrection (Acts 24:15): the saved to everlasting glory and the unsaved to everlasting punishment (John 5:29; Rev. 20:11-15).”
Yes, Jesus Christ was resurrected bodily from the dead and therefore we believe we will all have a bodily resurrection, the saved receiving everlasting glory. But where they are wrong is in the pagan lie that violates God’s Character as much as any lie can, the doctrine of eternal torment. No greater slander has been cast upon God. It is high treason and blasphemy.
Read (in The Restitution of All Things section):
Are Eternal Hell and God’s Love Compatible?
The State and Fate of Hell
The True, Scriptural Meanings of “Forever,” “Everlasting,” and “Hell”
If you read The True Marks of a Cult and Diabolical Doctrines, you’ll find much testimony against what BBF teaches and practices. For you, Paul, this isn’t a problem, but a blessing, if it’s your time to learn and God is giving you the grace to do so. It would only be a problem if you were to reject God’s Bible-substantiated truth that testifies against men’s doctrines and works. Many have a problem with what we teach. Too bad.
BBF declares eternal security: “All the saved are eternally secure in Christ (Col. 3:1-4; Phil. 1:6; Rom. 8:1; 8:29-34; 8:38,39; John 10:27-29; Eph. 1:13,14).”
Read Diabolical Doctrine: Eternal Security (Once Saved, Always Saved)
They declare the usual pagan trinity doctrine so prevalent in nominal Christendom: “There is one God, eternally existing in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Deut. 6:4; I Tim. 2:5; Eph. 4:4-6; Matt. 28:19; II Cor. 13:14).”
Read in our sections, The Trinity and Jesus Christ Is God, perhaps especially The Asininity of the Trinity and The Most Glorious of Truths.
We have little doubt BBF promotes the pagan feasts of Easter and Christmas, and keeping Sunday (the first Holy Roman Emperor Constantine’s pagan specialty served up in the 4th century at the Christian table by force, contrary to the Word and Law of the Lord, while penalizing by execution those who would remember to keep the true Sabbath holy).
Again, read our Diabolical Doctrines for much more enlightenment of Jesus Christ.
I hope you’ll not be offended in what we have to say, Paul.
Victor Hafichuk
Thanks for your information. I will study it in the days to come. I earned a PhD in Business Management and salvaged about 10 million dollars in radio station properties along the way writing a paper on the processes. It was not in divinity as I only received a masters and was not asked to leave or booted. I just was beginning to feel as if I didn’t want to be a part of the organized church…which term I use to describe as any church under the government status of non profit (501 C 3). Because they have the reins over the status of tax exemption, they will eventually require those units under their guise to follow their edicts and accept same sex marriages along with any other ruling which infringes upon religious freedoms. I really feel that this is a threat not only to those denominations which are “controllers” and “business models” but to any church, ministry or group designated as holder of the tax free non profit status.
As far as the Bereans, they may well not have the Holy Spirit as a group, however the few persons I know within the group are spirit filled as best I can detect from correspondence which is over time. I’ve yet to meet the first person with whom I’m in complete agreement on everything…not even my wife!
You have been very helpful and I appreciate your time. Looking forward to more study in the Lord with you. At times, it is difficult to discern truth from fiction in some things and takes prayerful endeavors.
Paul
How are you doing, Paul? I hope the Lord is granting you favor at our site and besides!
Victor
We haven’t heard back from Paul as of the end of 2014. I looked him up online and sadly found that Paul refused the godly instructions Victor gave him, backed by the Scriptures and proven in our lives as the way of eternal life. Paul continues in his role as “Dr.” Box, the minister, leading others astray. We understand that may be only a handful of people, but didn’t Christ die for them, too? And how many millions more are led astray by such men (no doubt each bearing his or her responsibility, because God keeps those whose hearts are after Him, the Truth)?
The Berean Bible Fellowship, propositioning itself as a promoter of “the gospel of the grace of God and the Word of God, rightly divided (Acts 20:24; 2 Timothy 2:15)” misdirects the “Dr.” Boxes and many others out there with their carnal misinterpretations of Scripture. They say they are there “to win the lost to Christ, and to edify, unify, and equip individuals, local churches, and para church organizations within the whole of the Grace Movement,” but all they’re really doing is strengthening the bonds of Mystery Babylon on her delusional children who think they’re outside the illegitimate works of men. Those iniquitous works live on inside them, fed by such as these so-called Bereans who operate “inside the camp.”
Hebrews 13:10-14 MKJV
(10) We have an altar of which they have no right to eat, those who serve the tabernacle.
(11) For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the Holy of Holies by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp.
(12) Therefore Jesus also, so that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.
(13) Therefore let us go forth to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
(14) For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.