From: Edward
Sent: January-22-17 1:32 PM
To: Victor Hafichuk
Subject: Man of God
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
My name is Edward. I’m writing to you from Zimbabwe and I wish to be added to your mailing list. I only have peace and joy in the Lord as I read what He has to say to His children in this day, yesterday and forever on your website.
Can I also ask you if it’s possible to have a ‘man of God’ or an ‘apostle’ who hears from God and yet still be found lacking in some area of their lives – especially when the ‘true marks of a cult’, are applied to them. I know this might be one of those silly questions but I am just wondering especially when the person or ‘man of God’ involved makes public confessions about ‘not being the finished article’ or repentant just like anyone else in his ‘church’.
The man I’m talking about is based in Zimbabwe, he calls himself Apostle T. F. Chiwenga, of the ‘Jesus Revelation Ministries’. You can check out their site online if possible – Jesus Revelation Ministries, as well as on facebook – Apostle T.F. Chiwenga Ministries.
I am asking this because most of the things I’ve heard him preaching do not contradict the Truth contained on the path of Truth website. He also speaks out against other popular false prophets in Zimbabwe and Africa in general. My question stems from the fact that he keeps saying that he himself, still has a lot to learn from God and repents in accordance with the revelation he receives from Him.
Thank you for taking your time to read and respond to my email.
In Christ,
Edward
From: Victor Hafichuk
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2017 7:35 AM
To: Edward
Cc: Paul Cohen
Subject: Man of God
Edward, you ask, “Can I also ask you if it’s possible to have a ‘man of God’ or an ‘apostle’ who hears from God and yet still be found lacking in some area of their lives – especially when the ‘true marks of a cult’, are applied to them.”
Can you tell me where you find in Scripture a man of God like an apostle or prophet declaring he isn’t a “finished article” or that he has need of basic repentance? Where do you find God ever choosing a man to be an apostle or prophet within men’s systems, a man who continues to be a member of men’s works?
How did it work for Moses, the prophets, John the Baptist, the Lord’s personal apostles or their disciples, or the Lord Himself? Did any of them remain a Pharisee or some other formal sect?
Did any man of God claim to need repentance during his anointed ministry? If any man needs repentance, it means he is still walking in sin, breaking God’s Law. Can two walk together unless they’re in agreement?
I say that anyone who makes such declarations has created for himself an escape route, an excuse for his shortfall. Why? Because he knows he isn’t where he should be even as a believer, how much more an apostle? And why must he title and bill himself as an apostle?
Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying a man of God can’t err or sin. Paul the apostle said he watched himself lest after preaching, he should be a castaway. So, it is possible. I too have disobeyed God and have had struggles in various times with various matters; however, I do not continually walk in sin, by God’s grace.
Men of God do not do those things we cover in Diabolical Doctrines and The True Marks of a Cult.
“I know your works and your labor and your patience, and how you cannot bear those who are evil. And you tried those pretending to be apostles, and are not, and have found them liars” (Revelation 2:2 MKJV).
“I know this might be one of those silly questions but I am just wondering especially when the person or ‘man of God’ involved makes public confessions about ‘not being the finished article’ or repentant just like anyone else in his ‘church’.”
Many false teachers say those things. Why wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t those declarations serve all the more to deceive?
This “Apostle” Chiwenga may even be sincere, being deceived himself, which makes his work all the more powerfully deceptive. However, the marks of falsehood are all there for those who have eyes to see and hearts to perceive.
This from his Facebook – “Apostle T.F Chiwenga Ministries” (https://www.facebook.com/www.jrm.org.zw/) is enough to tell you the man is false.
If you still wish, we will add you to our mailing list and you can also participate at our Forum at TPOT.
Victor
From: Edward
Sent: January-26-17 12:21 PM
To: Victor Hafichuk
Cc: Paul Cohen
Subject: Re: Man of God
Hi Victor,
Thanks for the quick response and correction. I am still a baby in the Kingdom of God but He is guiding me. I certainly need to grow and by His grace, there shall come a time of maturity in the Word of God.
From: Edward
Sent: February-08-17 2:05 PM
To: Victor Hafichuk
Cc: Paul Cohen
Subject: Re: Man of God
Hi Victor and Paul,
Here is my confession and experience.
I am writing this to you in order to confess my sins in accordance with James 5 vs 16 – that says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed”. It’s a very long read I tell you in advance, but I thought I needed to write it.
Just to introduce myself again, I am Edward and I am Zimbabwean by nationality. I am 25 years old now. Currently, I am doing Masters in Migration and Displacement at Wits University in South Africa. I thank our Lord and King of kings, the God of gods, Jesus Christ for raising me from the dust. I was born in a family of nine and my father was a government teacher and died when I was in grade one. I am thankful to God that he gave my mother the wisdom to raise us and send us all (her children) to school. I am the last born in my family and we all grew up in a small, remote and rural village. Two of my mother’s children have since died. Maybe I can end here, but just thought I could give you a little bit of my background.
Turning to the subject matter, I grew up in Dutch Reformed Church in Zimbabwe. God knows, I never had an interest in ‘going to church’ when I was young – it was only as a result of being forced, for me to go to what they call Catechesis (not to mention that I was water baptized as an infant and can’t remember anything about it). After completing catechesis, I went on to the next stage, pursuing membership of the community of the saints – which is something I never achieved as I was entering early adulthood. Together with my brother, the second youngest in my family, we started smoking and drinking and going to ‘all-night prayer services’, wherever there was a ‘church event’ – looking for girls to date, even to the extent of interrupting ‘services’. It was a ‘youth gang thing’.
In 2009, I moved to a small mining town in Zimbabwe where I stayed with my sister, a government teacher to date, and completed Advanced Level in 2010. During these two years, I did not smoke, neither did I drink alcohol and had gone back to ‘church’ and started reading and ‘meditating’ on ‘Pastor’ Chris Oyakhilome of ‘Christ Embassy Church’ (Dutch Reformed). Meditating on ‘Rhapsody of Realities’ especially made me nothing but an ignorant arrogant fool, fully- convinced I had now become the ‘Master of my destiny’. I started making ‘positive confessions’ every single day of my life, declaring that I had been given full authority and power to determine my fate. I believe I actually, got possessed as a result of reading ‘pastor’ Chris’ writings and told myself to settle for nothing but ‘the best things in this world’.
In 2012 I applied and earned a presidential scholarship from the Zimbabwean government – the one that sends students abroad. As for me I was go to one of our neighboring countries, South Africa – where I am currently studying. Despite my disappointment that I did not get a place to study Law – for I had made a ‘declaration’ that I would certainly get a place to study it. During my first year at varsity, I was a regular ‘church-goer’ at one of the branches of ‘Christ Embassy just outside campus. There were days in ‘church’ whereby ‘local church leaders’ would just play a disk of a recorded sermon by Chris Oyakhilome. We would watch it to the end and call it a day without anyone preach any further before the collection of tithes. I remember the first day I went there and was asked whether I had received the Holy Spirit and/or able to speak in tongues. I said I couldn’t and together with other newcomers, we were taken to a private room, given forms to sign up for membership and ‘taught how to speak in tongues’. I thought God didn’t love me as I left the room without speaking any single word when others could speak so smoothly as we were being ‘taught’ how to.
‘Frustration with God’ soon gained preeminence in me and I decided to quit ‘going to church’. It would take another three years for me to ‘go back to church’ as all my declarations went in vain and there were days I attended classes only to go to bed without eating. My scholarship was struggling to send its students money and we were starving most of the times – contrary to the ‘good life’ (all positive – nothing negative) message I was hearing at ‘church. I conceded to peer pressure and started drinking heavily, as well as going to strip clubs.
Initially, I would tell myself that I want to watch them dancing, but it was never so. I tried to sleep with 2 different strippers and virtually failed on both of those accounts as my manhood would just stop working. I am afraid I am using foolish and wicked language, or maybe I am going to far, but I understand I have to confess my sins to God and/or a man of God, as well as others.
I continued partying at college until June 2015. It happened that I was smoking weed with my friends and I started laughing unstoppably, until I realized I was dying and laughing very painfully. While I was still laughing, I asked God that I would not do it again (smoking) if he saved me from death. The following few days I told myself I had to go ‘back to church’ and be in good books with God. I attended several ‘churches’, including those organized on campus by students. I started listed to the likes of John Hagee, Dr Owuor, and got obsessed, madly, and deeply with the ‘rapture’ doctrine. I tried to get rid of all my addictions, including football and computer games but I failed horribly. I would bank classes in order to watch the latest events taking place all over the world on youtube, listening to ‘testimonies’ of visitations to Heaven and Hell, especially those by Angelica Zambrano. I was never silent about my experience, going around telling people and warning them about the ‘soon coming of the Lord’ or the rapture. I must say most people, especially my closest friends then, were left shell-shocked and wondering what had happened to me such that I had become such a religious fanatic in a short while. I would engage people in conversations in which I tell them to ‘accept Jesus’ as their Lord and Savior, or else risk missing out on the rapture, awaiting the appearance of the antichrist who was going to persecute every believer on earth -immediately after the rapture. A prominent theme I would ‘preach during this time was also the doctrine of ‘eternal torment in hell if someone did not believe my words.
I started listening to the likes of David Wikerson, Paul Washer, John Macarthur, Carter Conlon, among many others. These, are among the people who helped me to stop listening to other ‘pastors’ like Chris Oyakhilome, T. b Joshua, Joice Meyer, Joel Osteen, T. d Jakes, and many others. Something however, didn’t change with me. Except for the fact that I had stopped drinking, my other addictions were still there.
I continued to search and pray for the ‘rightful church locally’, but wherever I went, my spirit would always grieve within me. For the rest of 2016 I did not ‘go to church’ and day by day, I was reconsidering going back to my vomit (Proverbs 26: 11). According I failed horribly and found myself drinking heavily again, towards the end of last year. After drinking alcohol on a daily basis during the first week of December 2016, I realized I had never come to the knowledge of God. I asked God to forgive me and to show me the ‘rightful church’ again and one day on a Sunday morning, I attended a ‘church service’ in which the preacher said something that I had never heard before. He is the one I enquired about from you – ‘Apostle T. F. Chiwenga’. He said that Satan was the ‘left hand of God’, demonstrating that Satan was a messenger of God using the case of Job from the Bible. It was honestly the first time I have heard something that left me so unsettled of all the ‘services’ I have been to. Deep inside, I could not refute what he had said but it was difficult to accept. He also said it was a revelation he had received from God and had seen maybe ‘just a single article or website’ that was ‘close to his revelation’ online.
I started searching related articles online and came across ‘Rejoicing life ministries’, led by ‘apostle/pastor’ David Johnson. Reading their articles online, I witnessed, in my spirit, a lot of Truth on their website, with specific regard to diabolical doctrines prevalent in most of Chistendom. I was however left grieving after realizing that on their website, there is plenty of articles David Johnson says, ‘we don’t necessarily agree with everything written but we give anyone willing to join, the opportunity to express their ‘opinions’ as long as it’s contrary to what they have heard in nominal Christianity. I thought there was some truth in this statement, but the question that bothered me was: Fine, but why relying on opinions of people, instead of hearing from God clearly? Does God entertain men’s opinions or we solely have to depend on Him in order to know His will?
I kept on searching until I came across the TPOT website. Looking at how big the list of false teachers was, I thought no, this can’t be true. The list was too long for all those people to be false apostles, I thought to myself. Worse still, I saw my favorite preachers, David Wilkerson and John Macarthur listed among false the false teachers. I saw correspondences with several people and it seemed like every person who was corresponding labelled both of you, Victor and Paul, cultists. I thought I had to run for my life and avoid ever coming back to this site.
During this time, I was also being asked by many, whether I had been water baptized or not. In my responses, I was always saying that I am being baptized in the ‘Real Waters’ – that being our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In addition, I was telling these people that I did not believe being baptized in physical waters was a necessary act/work for salvation. Nevertheless, I insisted that if I were to find the ‘rightful church’, I wouldn’t have a problem getting baptized in physical waters as an act of obedience that serves to testify my belief in the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It happened that one day I decided to check the Path of Truth website again. I started checking correspondences regarding everything written on the site and to this day, I am yet to see anyone who disagrees with you with substance. I realized I was too quick to dismiss the two of you as ‘heretics’ and have since repented of my foolishness. All I can say this day is: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” – Matthew 21 vs 9. No doubt you are God sent and it is indeed, a great privilege God has given me to understand the things of His Spirit that I see you preaching.
May the Lord continue to bless you as ever, for you speak the deep mysteries of God and surely my time for Salvation has come!
In Jesus Christ’s Name
Amen
Edward
From: Victor Hafichuk
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2017 7:31 AM
To: Edward
Cc: Paul Cohen
Subject: Re[3]: Man of God
Hi Edward,
Continue to pray and to study at our site while reading the Scriptures. Avail yourself of the Lord to guide and teach you.
Register on the Forum on our site, where you may share your testimony and confession with other believers.
Victor and Paul