Hijacked by Jesus

Introduction

  • Hijacked-by-Jesus
  • Stephan-Joubert-en-Andre-Bartlett

Stephan Joubert wrote a little book called “Hijacked by Jesus. Embark on an Adventure of Grace with God.” The title itself reflects Joubert’s uncanny flair to use words that are very appealing and very spiritual but do not fit into the character of the real Jesus of the Bible.

Maybe one can attribute words like “hijacked” to another Jesus, another gospel, and another spirit but never to the genuine Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

Hijacked by another Jesus

For [you seem willing to allow it] if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted. You tolerate all this beautifully [welcoming the deception]. (2 Corinthians 11:4)

In Jeremiah 29:13 God speaks and says, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” To “find Him” is to know who He really is and not merely imagine Him to be someone who you can “image” in your mind.

Stephan Joubert is fond of teaching his followers to use their imagination because he says, “It is a gift of God. Use it well.” If human beings are so zealous to protect and defend their unique individual identities, then clearly the true God would insist on being properly identified. He will neither reveal Himself to nor enter into a relationship with anyone who will not acknowledge Him as He truly is. An imagined god who supposedly hijacks people whenever he feels like it, is not the God of the Bible.

The Berean Call reports,

The Bible identifies Him as “the God of Israel” 203 times, “the God of Jacob” 28 times, “the God of Abraham” 17 times, and “the God of Isaac” 13 times. Never is He called the “God of any other ethnic group.”

These designations are foundational to everything the Bible teaches, including the very character of God.

To profess to believe in God and at the same time to hold a prejudice against God’s chosen people, the Jews, or against Israel, which turns these clear biblical identifications into meaningless titles, casts doubt upon whether one really knows the true God.

Stephan Joubert and his followers’ prejudice against God’s people scale heights much higher than the heavens itself when they tenaciously believe that the twelve tribes of Israel no longer exist [despite the affirmation in James 1:1) which, as you can see from the above quote, is a blatant denial of the God of the Bible.

Hence it is no surprise that Stephan Joubert invited Alan Hirsch, George Barna, and Leonard Sweet to write dazzling songs of praise to him in the foreword to his book, “Hijacked by Jesus.” As the maxim says, “Birds of a feather flock together.”

Alan Hirsch’s song of praise to Stephan Joubert

In his celebrated foreword to Stephan Joubert’s book, Alan Hirsch writes,

“I remember being very impressed with Stephan Joubert when we first met. I sensed that there was something good about him, something that reminded me about Jesus. This impression was only confirmed when, over time, he began to rather reticently unveil of his own story —

. . . It has been said that a saint is someone who makes it easier to believe in God. I think that this is true for Stephan. I find myself being called to be more and more like Jesus through my encounters with him.

. . .  — just read the manifesto and then ask those who know him if he is being honest, and you will find in Stephan someone who is not faking it. He is a person who actually lives his creed. . . .

Stephan, it appears, has a holy fixation with Jesus and he is bent on making this obsession yours as well. I, for one, completely share his passion and affirm this basic commitment. I fully believe that only through a constant and ongoing encounter with Jesus (what I call reJesus) can we remain genuinely Christ-ian people. When we veer away from Jesus and base our faith on some other center, we tend to lose both our direction and authenticity as His people.”

Source

Alan Hirsch’s encounters with Stephan Joubert, as he himself admits, encourage him to become more and more like Jesus. In the same vein, this requires a constant and ongoing encounter with Jesus via Stephan Joubert so that the obsessive flame of being more and more like Jesus is never quenched. In short, Stephan Joubert has taken over the work and role of the Holy Spirit to help Alan Hirsch inwardly to become more and more like Jesus. Bully for you, Stephan.

Is this not patently what Alan Hirsch calls a veering away from Jesus to base one’s faith on some other center (in this case, Stephan Joubert)? No degree of repetitive close encounters with whomsoever on planet earth can possibly enhance close encounters (reJesus-ing) with Jesus Christ via someone else.

It is Roman mysticism par excellence that places the emphasis on the person (for example Mother Teresa/Stephan Joubert) and not the Person (Jesus Christ). This is the very reason why Stephan Joubert could say such an outrageous thing as “when you give the living dead a cup of cold water, a slice of bread, a meal or a quid or more, they (the living dead) immediately become a friend of Jesus.” Jesus who? Well, of course, the one who reminds one of Jesus – Stephan Joubert – and his “something good about him.”

It was the Anglican archbishop William Temple who once noted that if our concept of God is radically false, then the more devout we are, the worse it will be for us because then we would be opening our souls to be moulded by something else. He advises that in such a case it is better to be an atheist! If we believe wrong things about God and then get all devout about these false ideas, we become toxic people. Toxic to ourselves and toxic to those around us.  

Alan Hirsch continues by saying,

. . . Jesus defines our reality as Christians and therefore without a constant re-Jesusing of the church, we will inevitably become obnoxious and dangerously religious people who ultimately bear false witness to the amazingly graceful person and work of our Lord. Sadly, church history — European, Asian, American, and yes, South African — provides ample evidence of this.  . . .

There is no doubt in my mind that to be faithful and biblical people, our devotion to God must be sought, discovered, and engaged in and through Jesus Christ our Lord. Furthermore, I have little doubt that we need constant reminding of this most elemental task. It is the role of prophetic voices to lovingly call us to this service. Stephan’s is one such voice. We do well to listen to him. — Alan Hirsch

Hirsch’s eulogy of Stephan Joubert being reminiscent of Jesus Christ and his encounters with him as steppingstones to be more and more like Jesus is patently anti-Pauline, and, therefore, decidedly anti-Christ. It would be wise to remember that Paul received the Gospel directly from Jesus Christ.

For I want you to know, believers, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man’s gospel [it is not a human invention, patterned after any human concept]. For indeed I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a [direct] revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12).

Consequently, Paul’s two-point manifesto in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2 carries far more weight than Stephan Joubert’s weighty and boastful 17-pointer, “The ABC of a Jesus-Hijacking: A Manifesto.” 

He mentions his “I” (ego) no less than 26 times in his 17-pointer manifesto, while Paul states the “I” a mere four times. What else can you expect of a limitless “reJesused, re-Jesusing,” godly humble follower of Christ who is forever bragging about his spiritual achievements in generously giving alms, sacrificing his life for the poor and the marginalized, and unselfishly offering his services while denouncing many of God’s eschatological doctrines, even the very essence of the doctrine of redemption?

Even the motto of his online ekerk church “Jesus Visible Palpable Understandable” is not biblical. Jesus Christ Himself once said, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29). Ekerk’s encouragement to see, touch, and understand Jesus Christ in a tangible way, especially by means of ekerk’s good works, is a faith-killer. Faith, as God tells us, “. . . is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1). It renders Stephan Joubert’s ekerk motto a total misnomer.

It is alarmingly obvious that Paul’s manifesto, centered uniquely around Jesus Christ’s cross, has gullibly been replaced by the discipleship (reJesusing) of modern-day so-called Jesus-followers who claim to be ushering in the Kingdom of God on earth through service, sacrifice, and generosity. To quote Alan Hirsch, “It has been said that a saint is someone who makes it easier to believe in God.” Not according to Scripture that asserts, “ . . . men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” (2 Timothy 3:13).

There is no need to look any further to see where this anti-biblical idea of discipleship had its origin. Djwhal Khul (a demon) inspired Alice Bailey to write in her book, “The Kingdom of God on Earth.”

Aliced-Bailey
Alice Bailey

“Christ taught that the Kingdom of God was on Earth and told us to seek that Kingdom first and let all other things be of secondary importance for its sake. That Kingdom has ever been with us, composed of all those who down the ages, have sought spiritual goals, liberated themselves from the limitations of the physical body, emotional controls and the obstructive mind. Its citizens are those who today (unknown to the majority) live in physical bodies, work for the welfare of humanity, use love instead of emotion as their general technique, and compose that great body of “illumined Minds” which guides the destiny of the world.

The Kingdom of God is not something which will descend on Earth when man is good enough! It is something which is functioning efficiently today and demanding recognition. It is an organized body which is already evoking recognition from those who do seek first the Kingdom of God and discover thereby that the Kingdom they seek is already here.

(Alice Bailey, Excerpted from “Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I,” “‘The Reappearance of the Christ’” and “Serving Humanity.”)

“It is through supreme service and sacrifice that we become followers of Christ and earn the right to enter into His kingdom, because we do not enter alone.”

(Alice Bailey, From Bethlehem to Calvary – Our Immediate Goal, Chapter Five – The Fourth Initiation.)

“The true Church is the kingdom of God on earth … composed of all, regardless of race or creed, who live by the light within, who have discovered the fact of the mystical Christ in their hearts.

(Alice Bailey, From Bethlehem to Calvary, Chapter Seven – Our Immediate Goal.)

” . . . Christian people are to recognize their place within a worldwide divine revelation and see Christ as representing all the faiths and taking His rightful place as World Teacher. He is the World Teacher and not a Christian teacher…. They may not call Him Christ, but they have their own name for Him and follow Him as truly and faithfully as their Western brethren.”

(Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul, The Reappearance of the Christ, Chapter IV – The Work of the Christ Today and in the Future.)
Leonard Sweet
Leonard Sweet

The above quote echoes Leonard Sweet’s “Evangel” manifesto he calls “Nudging.”

“I believe the lifeblood of evangelism is not propositions, but prepositions. For God to do something through us, God must be doing something in us. If we are not always evangelizing ourselves, we have no business evangelizing others. In fact, it is usually as God’s grace courses through us to someone else that we become aware of God’s love in and for us. Evangelism is an invitation for broken people together to meet the Christ who loves broken people. We all are damaged but loved, crushed but cherished, with a divine embrace. When love is the motivation for evangelism, nudging is love in action. And the cracks in our broken vases are where Jesus leaks out first.”

“Nudging is more about dialogue than monologue, more Facebooking than blogging. Acts of evangelism intentionally scooch and shimmy people in the direction of truth without the need for knee-bending, beat-my-back altar calls. Evangelists nudge the Jesus in people to sit up and take notice. Evangelists are nudgers, not shovers. Whereas evangelism has been known to violate others’ dignity, which I call the reproach approach, nudgers are not smudgers of the divine in people.”

(Leonard Sweet: Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There- Leonard Sweet.)

According to Leonard Sweet and Stephan Joubert evangelists who present lost sinners with the unadulterated Gospel of God and urge them to repent and believe the Gospel are violating the dignity of lost sinners. It follows that Jesus, John the Baptist, the twelve apostles, and Paul were all violating lost sinners’ dignity when they urged them to repent and believe the Gospel. A gentle nudging (prodding) is enough to awaken the already dormant Jesus in everyone. This, they sat, is a more dignified approach.

Nudging
Nudging the dormant Jesus

The title of his book itself, “Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s already There,” (inside of you), smells of universal panentheism. Every individual has a divine spark in him/her that simply needs to be set alight (enlightened) to realize they are already gods. This heresy was promulgated by one of Stephan Joubert’s and Leonard Sweet’s and especially Trevor Hudson’s gurus, Thomas Merton who said:

“It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, … now I realize what we all are…. If only they [people] could all see themselves as they really are … I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other…. At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth…. This little point … is the pure glory of God in us. It is in everybody.”

(Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Publishers, 1989), pp. 157-158.)

These nudgers, as they call themselves, will be nudging the divine (Jesus) in others on a one-way ticket to hell, unless they repent of their wickedness and return to the old ways of evangelizing the lost.

Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. (Jeremiah 6:16).

Stephan Joubert, a true disciple of Leonard Sweet who has had, and still has, an immense influence on his spirituality, also talks with much disdain about “propositions.”

“The other day at a Bible school I did at a church in Pretoria, I asked the people to play a little game with me. And the game was about, let’s for a moment, say to ourselves, we only 1have the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. What would our spirituality look like? And it was like a shocking game for us all, because you won’t find in the book of Proverbs anything about the cult, cultus (sic).

“There is no temple. There is no religious personnel. There is no holy times or holy foods or holy stuff. There is only one life and it is the real life. There is only this life where I live and God is immediately in this life or not. And it is the wise person, and not the fool, who will be able to see where God is and where God is going. It is a way of life. It is not in propositions.”

(Stephan Joubert: Mosaic Congress presentation, “Being a Radical Pilgrim and prophet” held at Mosaïek Kerk (Mosaic Church) on 4 and 5 September 2009,

Why do Stephan Joubert and Leonard Sweet regard prepositions and not propositions (divinely authorized biblical doctrines) as the lifeblood of evangelism? The dictionary defines prepositions as an indication of relationships between other words in a sentence and tells you where something is or when something happens.

It seems Leonard Sweet chose prepositions rather than propositions because the first mentioned represents the fiber of their emergent spirituality which are “relationship” and “nudging” others to realize that God is already there in inside of them. Hence the flawed interpretation of Jesus’ words in Luke 17:21, “the kingdom of God is within you.” The two legs on which Leonard Sweet’s and Stephan Joubert’s law of anti-smudging stand, are —

  • “Evangelists nudge the Jesus in people to sit up and notice”?
  • “Nudgers are not smudgers of the divine in people”?

Who needs propositions (biblical doctrines; the ability to discern between truth and error) when nudgers have the divine ability to awaken the already present Jesus in all people with a little nudge? Stephan Joubert identifies this Jesus as one being disguised in all people, especially the poor, and the nudger simply needs to “un-disguise” or disclose Him by humble acts of service, sacrifice, and generosity.

Joubert, Hirsch¸ and Sweet would do exceptionally well to take note of the Anglican archbishop William Temple’s advice:

“. . . that if our conception of God is radically false, then the more devout we are, the worse it will be for us because then we would be opening our souls to be molded by something else. He advises that in such a case it is better to be atheists! If we believe wrong things about God and then get all devout about these false ideas, then we become toxic people. Toxic to ourselves and toxic to those around us. For us as Christians, it is Jesus who must form the living center of our thinking about God, ourselves, and the world.”

William Temple’s advice is rather harsh when he says, “that if our conception of God is radically false, . . . it is better to be atheists.” However, Jesus’ advice is even harsher when He said, “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

The “nudging evangelization” of Leonard Sweet and that of his compatriot, Stephan Joubert compounded in his words, ““Remember, every person that you serve turns into an immediate friend of Jesus. Go one step further: see him or her as Jesus in disguise” are radical false representations and betrayals of Jesus Christ and his cross. Who needs the cross when you have so many illustrious nudgers pouncing around in their holier than thou tutus (shirts overhanging their pants) and awakening the dormant Jesus in everyone? (1 Corinthians 1:18).

In the following short section, we shall witness how radically wrong Leonard Sweet’s, Stephan Joubert’s and Alan Hirsch’s concept of God really is, so much so, that it proves without any doubt that they are re-Jesusing themselves and others with another Jesus which of course is nothing else than a counterfeit Jesus (a demon or the devil himself).

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles [disciples] of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20:29-30)

Whilst they feign to be disciples (followers) of Jesus, they are tirelessly making disciples to follow them and their heretical teachings. As Paul said, “ . . . [may] the Lord reward [them] according to [their] works: (2 Timothy 4:14).

God is a Metaphor (a Symbol, a Simile, a Force, an Allegory)

Allan Hirsch acknowledges Joseph Campbell, who declares that “God is a Metaphor,” as one of his favorite authors, in the very same way Stephan Joubert honors Alan Hirsch, and vice versa.

Incidentally, Joseph Campbell, inspired the creation of the religion of The Force in the Star Wars series that is a wild hodgepodge of Hinduism, Buddhism, pantheism, panentheism, and blatant occultism, all of them aspects that define our modern-day’s ecclesiastical ecumenism and Stephan Joubert’s philosophy that there are truths in all religions, including atheism.

This, of itself, proves that Stephan Joubert and his buddies are not following Jesus Christ but are reincarnating re-Jesused ecumenical little Jesuses (little gods with a small “g”) who have an Alice Bailyan proclivity for service, sacrifice and generosity to the impairment of sound biblical doctrine. (2 Timothy 4:3).

We shall look a bit more deeply into Hirsche’s spirituality to get more acquainted with his (and Stephan Joubert’s) Jesus a wee bit later. It is shocking, to say the least. How goes the saying? “If you mix with chaff, the pigs will eat you.”

Jesus, the Unlawful Hijacker

Let us now again turn our attention to the word “hijacked” to see how utterly inappropriate, despicable, and foolish it is to use it in juxtaposition with Jesus Christ. The OxfordLanguages, the world’s leading dictionary publisher and widely regarded as the world’s most authoritative source on current English defines “hijacking” as follows.

[To] unlawfully seize (steal an aircraft, ship, or vehicle) in transit and force it to go to a different destination or use it for one’s own purposes.

Besides the fact that the word “hijack” or “hijacked” never once appears in God’s Word, Jesus did not come to the world to hijack people, and least of all to force anyone against their will to a different destination, aka Calvinism.

He came to seek and save lost sinners (Luke 19:10). Joubert’s foolhardy suggestion that Jesus came to the earth to do something unlawful, causes the thin thread which his incarnational and emergent missional spirituality hangs, to be pulleyed down further and further into the abyss.

In aggressive antipathy to the cross where Jesus Christ bore the sins of all humanity, especially for those who believe (1 John 2:2), Joubert makes a mockery of sin and transgressions in “Hijacked by Jesus.” The following examples from his book prove this to overflowing. He quotes Henry Ward Beecher who said:

 “Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation” — Henry Ward Beecher. The term sinner is as old as the proverbial mountains. According to Wikipedia: “Sin is a term used mainly in a religious context . . .”

John 3:18 rather tersely states, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

No, no, saith Henry Ward Beecher in an unashamed denunciation of John 3:18, “Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.” His statement sums up the entire purpose of these emergent culprits which is to replace a biblical grounded faith as the only means to salvation with a compassion void of any true love, benevolence, and empathy. It is as false as they themselves are.

Indeed, the “term sinner is as old as the mountains;” it had its origin with Adam and Eve. But this is not what Joubert has in mind. His homemade maxim expresses the notion that the term sinner has become taboo in our enlightened post-modern era and confirms it when he contemptuously refers to it as “that stuff,” as though it resembles any old stuff on the earth.

“Yes, we still do that stuff that the Bible calls sin. But sin does not define who we are. Our identity is not shaped by it. Jesus removed the word “sinner” from our lives once for all. It’s supposed to be a bad word now for Jesus-followers.”

If Jesus has eradicated the term “sinner” from a reborn sinner’s life once and for all, his brother James would never have written, “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner (hamartōlos) from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. (James 5:19-20). Joubert, being a very competent Greek scholar, should know this.

Restoration is in view here and not redemption because James addresses brethren who had lost their way like wandering stars and needed to be brought back to the truth. It follows that those who had gone astray and fallen away from the truth are sinners.

They are, in fact, clearly defined as sinners despite Joubert’s claim that sin (falling away from the truth) does not define who we are. It so happens that Stephan Joubert, Roedolf Botha, Prof. Jan van der Watt, and all their followers, including the leaders of the Mosaïek Kerk and their followers, are sinners because they have been wandering from the truth for decades, and I can prove it, as I am doing now.

Joubert quotes two sources, as you may have noticed; the one is Henry Ward Beecher, and the other is supposedly Wikipedia. Before we quote some revealing stories about Henry Ward Beecher from Wikipedia (these quotes are legal and literally correct, and not like the one by Joubert above that is a fake), it is imperative to point out that not even God’s compassion could cure Israel’s relentless sinning.

He compassionately spread out his hands to Israel night and day in a desperate plea that they return to Him, but to no avail. They foolishly turned their backs on Him and continued to follow false gods, in the very same way ekerk is doing today. However, one can understand why Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) made such a statement.

[He] “. . . [was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God’s love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His rhetorical focus on Christ’s love has influenced mainstream Christianity to this day.”

(A genuine quote from Wikipedia)

His overemphasis on Christ’s love to the impairment of Christ’s righteousness, holy anger, and righteous judgments (a peculiarity ekerk proliferates daily in their articles, videos, and webinars), seems to have influenced his love for other men’s wives.

Could he have been reflecting or meditating on James 5:20, “Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

Anyone, including Stephan Joubert and his buddies at ekerk should take care not to twist the meaning of this passage as they do many others. Joubert continues to underestimate the dangers of sin when he says:

“Once again, the term sin wasn’t really used by religious leaders to describe individuals’ internal state of mind . . .. Therefore, atonement for sins didn’t focus too much on internal forms of remorse and guilt.”

What, may we ask, is the difference between an internal state of mind and the external carnal acts of internal thoughts? Nothing! The one sins in his mind and the other expresses what’s in his mind through his actions.

Here’s a simple question for Joubert: Was it the internal remorse and guilt feelings of the tax collector in the temple who cried out, “Be merciful to me a sinner” who moved God’s mercy and grace, or was it the stalwart and arrogant boasting of the Pharisee who relied on his good works for salvation?

“I doubt whether Stephan Joubert knows the answer because he believes that when doing good to others, especially the poor and the marginalized, they immediately become a friend of Jesus because the disguised Jesus within them only needs to be nudged into reality through the selfless service of the reJesus-followers. He wrote:”

People who have been hijacked by the grace of God, spread goodness around like wildfire. They constantly infect other people with the right virus – grace. They are highly contagious and beautifully dangerous. They set wildfires of mercy alight that spread from person to person and to the rest of God’s creation.”

Scripture consistently refers to “grace” as a merciful act of God and our Lord Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit and is applicable to either a lost sinner or an already redeemed one.

Admittedly we can, and are obligated, to tell others about the indescribable, wondrous, and undeserving grace of God, but we cannot spread it like wildfire with any degree of goodness, benevolence, and even love.

Impossible, and why? Goodness, as Jesus put it, is a unique attribute of God and Him alone (Luke 18:19). Anyone who assumes goodness, especially in acts of social upliftment and efforts to make the world a better place, even to the extent of letting God’s Kingdom come upon the earth here and now, are playing God who believe that they can pour out grace upon those whom they serve. And to make this look good and right, they call themselves reJesus-followers. The question is: Jesus who?

Strange Fires

The so-called reJesus-followers boast that they are “beautifully dangerous” and “set wildfires of mercy alight that spread from person to person and the rest of God’s creation.” Beautiful? Absolutely not. Dangerous? Unquestionably! They are not spreading wildfires of mercy but strange fires that deserve to be treated like Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10).

Stephan Joubert continues his campaign against sin with: –

“The reason: too much sin talk, too little grace walk. Did we actually help the wrong virus to spread right under our noses of all places? Too many thoughts and discussions about sin shaped our vocabulary in church, or should I say distorted [it].”

Anyone and everyone who downplay the horrendous consequences of sin, that is the eternal separation from God in hell, is not preaching the unadulterated Gospel of God but another Gosspel of another Jesus and another spifrit.

It is impossible to understand the horrible consequences of sin without exposing it in the light of God’s Word and pointing out its eternal penalty in the Lake of Fire. In the first place, God’s Law, according to Galatians 3:24-25, “was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” 

Our hearts are so desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and so utterly powerless to realize the wickedness of our own hearts that God had to write (and not merely talk) about it on two stones.

We would never have known what sin is without the Law because it works like a mirror. It shows and exposes our sins and transgressions with the intent to bring us to Christ, the only Saviour.

The word “sin” appears 448 times in the Bible, 336 times in the Old and 112 times in the New Testament, while the word “sins” appear 172 times in Scripture, 86 times in the Old and 86 times in the New Testament.

It means that we will have to speak about sin and sins nearly twice a day which is more than what Stephan Joubert, his ekerk and Mosaïek Kerk of Johan Geyser, Melissa van Biljon and Trevor Hudson can vouch for.

Oh, what should we do about these guys in the Emergent Church who are so reluctant to use the words “sin” or “sins,” “unrighteousness” and “rebellion?” There is absolutely no evidence in Scripture that Jesus bore our problems on the cross. Whenever Stephan Joubert uses the word “rebellion” it is always in connection with Israel and never with the present-day unbelievers.

Sin is a moral issue, problems are not. Jesus never took our financial, marital, health or any other kind of problems upon Himself on the cross. He bore our sins. Sin alone contaminates and defiles the soul to the extent that it kills you spiritually and separates you from God. Problems can never do that.

Jesus died on the cross to remove the enmity caused by sin and not problems between God and us, and to reconcile us to Him for all eternity. The words “sin,” “sins,” and “sinned” appear 759 times in the KJV. Guess how many times the words “problem” and “problems” appear there – not once, zero, zilch, nada.

Moreover, Stephan Joubert’s scornful treatment of sin and the necessity to talk about it maligns the cross of Jesus Christ where he bore our sins and became a curse because of our sins (Galatians 3:3). His malignant talk is analogous to the curse in 1 Corinthians 1:8, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” 

Joubert’s foolishness filters through in his statement “too little grace walk.” Notice he does not say “walk in love” as the Word of God admonishes us to do, but “grace walk.” In other words, his walk itself dispenses grace which is a lie. Only God can dispense salvific grace, not man because his best “walk” (works) are as filthy rags. (Isaiah 64:6).

The following statement from Stephan Joubert’s book “Hijacked by Jesus” is a real gem of how false teachers twist Scripture to suit their demonic whims.

“Paul knows very well that Christ died for us when we were sinners (past tense; yesterday’s news; a previous life’s identity marker— Rom 5:8). It’s a thing of the past now. The term sin or sinner is an identity marker that belongs to the past.”

Scripture is very clear on the sin of adding or taking away words or passages from God’s Word (Revelation 22:18-19). Notwithstanding, Stephan Joubert doesn’t seem to have any qualms to replace the words “while we were yet sinners” (Romans 5:8, KJV); “while we were still sinners” (AMP) with “when we were sinners.”

His omission of the words “yet sinners” or “still sinners” is a very subtle way of moving the spotlight from Christ’s death for sinners to a supposed loss of an identity marker as sinners.

Paul simply wants to emphasize the fact that God did not wait until sinners reached a certain level of righteousness and sinlessness before He gave his Son to be slain on a cross. He died while we were yet [stll] sinners.

It does not mean that we were sinners then and now we are no longer sinners because we had been freed from that so-called identity marker. In fact, those who claim that we are no longer sinners are still lost, despite them naming the Name of Jesus in all their sermons, books, videos, and articles. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).

The last example of Stephan Joubert’s sinner-less identity marker is shocking and teeters on the edge of pure blasphemy.

Temple sacrifices in Old Testament

“The shoulders of those poor animals that were sacrificed at the temple just weren’t strong enough to bear their sins. In the end the temple was just a bloody disgrace, a sacrificial joke. And the joke was on God’s people!”

Whoa, this is dangerous speech and infamous God-dishonoring language. The Old Testament priests “made reconciliation with [animal] blood upon the altar, to make an atonement for all Israel” (2 Chronicles 29:24).

It was decreed by God and as such could never have been a “bloody disgrace” or a joke as the prima facie false teacher, Stephan Joubert, mockingly says.

Of course, the sacrificial animals were but types and shadows of Christ, through the shedding of whose blood alone (Hebrews 10:1-18) this reconciliation/atonement could be accomplished: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; Hebrews 9:12, etc.).

The Bible is clear: “without shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]” (Hebrews 9:22). Every Levitical animal sacrifice was holy unto the Lord despite Israel’s continual sins and idolatry. A mockery of the animal offerings in Leviticus is a blatant mockery of the shed blood of Christ on the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18).

God never, NEVER intended the shoulders of poor sacrificial animals to bear the sins of his people. That’s a load of nonsense. The animals, and especially the lambs, were merely a prefigure of Jesus Christ’s sinlessness (animals have no sins; they are innocent) (Hebrews 4:15). The shedding of their innocent blood was also a prefigure of Jesus Christ’s blood that was shed for our sins.

To call it a sacrificial joke, and a joke that was on God’s people is untenable, disgusting, despicable, and hell-deserving. No wonder, John had the guts to write, “Outside are the dogs [the godless, the impure, those of low moral character] and the sorcerers [with their intoxicating drugs, and magic arts], and the immoral persons [the perverted, the molesters, and the adulterers], and the murderers, and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying (deception, cheating).” (Revelation 22:15).

Note carefully that the lying, cheating, and deceiving false teachers are mentioned in the same breath as dogs (the godless, the impure, and those of low moral character and conduct), sorcerers, adulterers, perverted, murderers, and idolators. Stephan Joubert’s horrendous views of the divinely instituted sacrificial system in the Old Testament echo the Emergent Church’s views of Christ’s cross itself.

Stephan Joubert, like all emergent church leaders and followers, downplays the redemptive work of Christ on the cross as the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins and deceptively uses it as a mere example of service and sacrifice to the poor and the oppressed. In an interview JOY Magazine had with Joubert in 2013, he said the following about sacrifice and service.

“Don’t get me wrong – I believe John 14:6 with my whole heart: Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He is the only One! BUT I also know that people who don’t believe this will probably never be convinced if I keep on providing them with unintelligible answers to even stranger questions.”

“Their question to me/us would probably be something like: ’Show me the money! Show me in your own life what it means to follow Jesus, then we could probably have a conversation!’” (DTW note: This proves that Stephan does not know what following Jesus truly means.)

“It’s not so much our beliefs [such as our belief that Jesus is the only Way, Truth and Life], but our integrity in terms of following Jesus in the smallest details of our lives through service, sacrifice, humility and generosity that will provide intelligible answers to the right questions here in our day.”

This not only maligns the power and wisdom of the preaching of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18) but also spurns the work of the Holy Spirit who was sent to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). Whoa, none of these are effective and, therefore, must be displaced with Joubert’s service, sacrifice, humility, and generosity.

Move over Jesus, your sacrifice on the cross for our sins is no longer required. Stephan Joubert and his buddies have found a new way to win sinners to you — they merely show them the money because your Word is inadequate, old-hat, and impotent. (Hebrews 4:12).

Bio_FosdickHarryEmerson_001-opt_0
Harry Emerson Fosdick

It echoes the liberal theologian and pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City, Harry Emerson Fosdick’s (1878-1969) blasphemous outburst that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was a “pre-civilized barbarity” and that Jesus’ going to the Cross should be seen as an example of a life of service and sacrifice and not compared with “old animal sacrifices” (“The Modern Use of the Bible”) (“the temple was just a bloody disgrace, a sacrificial joke. And the joke was on God’s people!” in Joubert’s own words.) In his book “Dear Mr. Brown” Fosdick states:

“Too many theories of the atonement assume that by one single high priestly act of self-sacrifice, Christ saved the world.”

BLASPHEMY!!!

Stephan Joubert’s Goodness

Sinner? NO! Goody-goody? YES! Well, according to Alan Hirsch. Service, sacrifice, humility, and generosity are the things which he lauds with much aplomb in Stephan Joubert’s make-up as a reJesus-follower when he —

“sensed that there was something good about him, something that reminded [him] about Jesus. This impression was only confirmed when, over time, he began to rather reticently unveil aspects of his own story — the reticence itself not coming from a natural shyness, but rather from the kind of godly humility that comes from having one’s life changed and transformed by Jesus.

It has been said that a saint is someone who makes it easier to believe in God. I think that this is true for Stephan. I find myself being called to become more and more like Jesus through my encounters with him.” (Alan Hirsch, Foreword to” Hijacked by Jesus”).

The Jesus whom Stephan Joubert reminds Alan Hirsch of cannot possibly be the Jesus of the Bible. And here’s why. This quote from his book “The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church” will shed some light on what he really meant when he said “[I] sensed that there was something good about him, something that reminded me about Jesus.”

“If we’re going to impact our world in the name of Jesus, it will be because people like you and me took action in the power of the Spirit. Ever since the mission and ministry of Jesus, God has never stopped calling for a movement of “Little Jesuses” to follow him into the world and unleash the remarkable redemptive genius that lies in the very message we carry. Given the situation of the Church in the West, much will now depend on whether we are willing to break out of a stifling herd instinct and find God again in the context of the advancing kingdom of God.”

God never called for a movement of “little Jesuses” whom Stephan Joubert reminds Alan Hirsch. If Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, as he says in John 16:4, it follows that Alan Hirsch’s “little Jesuses” (aka little gods) are “little ways, little truths, and little lifegiving lives that also lead to God.”

Although Stephan Joubert admits that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life during an interview JOY Magazine had with him in 2013, he complacently accepts Alan Hirsch’s tribute to him as “a little Jesus.” But do not let it disturb you because double-talk is a keen feature of all false teachers.

The name Jesus means “Saviour.” (Luke 1:32) which, as you may have noticed, makes Alan Hirsch’s “little Jesuses” devoted little saviors. Thence, discipleship, as they perceive it, no longer warrants the preaching of the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ (Romans 10:17); the mere proclamation that Jesus is Lord is enough, as Alan Hirsch said at the inaugural PlantR Microconference that hosted Alan Hirsch on the topic of Missional Discipleship. Session 2 is on Incarnational Mission (how to make disciples).

Incarnation As Mission

  • We are sent like the Father sent the Son–incarnation.
  • Jesus is in the neighborhood for 30 years and nobody knew.
  • This way of incarnating the gospel is the most profound way God has ever engaged the world.
  • If the incarnation is the way God sends, then we must become incarnational.
  • The apostles worked with the message Jesus is Lord and that was enough.
  • You don’t commute to your mission.

Incarnating the Gospel via Discipleship (6 Ps)

  • Presence – God is with you on mission not just for you.
  • Proximity – Context is everything. Take your “small group” and put it out in public.

Jesus was in the neighborhood, and nobody knew? What utter nonsense! Suffice to say, is that this is an example of how the so-called followers of Christ deliberately twist Scripture to further their agenda of incarnational spirituality. Lesslie Newbigin offers one of the best definitions of incarnational spirituality. The following is an excerpt from “Assessing Missional Orientation: Observing Biblical Community, Incarnational Service, Bold and Humble Witness, and Reproduction of Disciples in The Light of an Awareness of the Holy Spirit” by Tim Volkman.

Newbigin pictures the church as God’s embassy in a specific place: “It will be a community that does not live for itself but is deeply involved in the concerns of its neighborhood. It will be the church for the specific place where it lives, not the church for those who wish to be members of it” (1)

Each local congregation is an outpost of God’s kingdom and is to be a place from which the good news overflows in good action. Guder et al. state, “The Church represents the reign of God by its deeds as servants to God’s passion for the world’s life” (2)

In the same vein, Storey comments that service is not merely a Christian duty but a part of worship, “The Church that fails to serve the needs of people on weekdays can bring no Sunday worship to its King . . .

The truly Christian Church preaches from a platform of sacrificial service to the needy of the earth.” (3) A kingdom of God mentality and heart will cause the church to love its community and all people within its community.

This love will be expressed in practical service, concern, involvement, and care, with no strings attached, as the Church realizes that service is a reflection of the self-giving, others-centered triune God.

This kingdom mindset and community involvement lead the Church to see ministry as much broader than church work. In practical terms, a missional church might seek to involve as many, or more, people to be serving out in the community as those serving inside the church walls.

No distinction is made between kingdom business and Church business. All activity that flows from the Church and from individual Christians has potential kingdom significance.

As a missional church engages the world with compassion, justice, and service, these encounters with the world become signs that the kingdom of God is now present in the world and is on its way in the future.

These acts bring wholeness and dignity to the world and thereby provide a taste of the kingdom, and these “signs” invite people to listen when the gospel is proclaimed.

Have you noticed the paradigm shift from proclaiming the Gospel to humanitarian work? These acts (of incarnational community service and compassion) supposedly bring wholeness and dignity to a broken world and not so much the forgiveness of sin through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Indeed, in Emergent Church terms, the Gospel must be made more palatable as a means to invite people to listen (and not necessarily to repent and believe the Gospel) to what we have to say when we proclaim a Social Gospel. Stephan Joubert articulated this particular paradigm shift as follows.

It [the Emergent Church] involves people who have a passion to say [that] the world and its culture in our generation need to be won back to Christ. And therefore, I am not going to criticize their culture but I’m going to engage it.

Therefore, I’m not going to take on their spirituality and postulate my truths. I’m going to listen to what they have to say because I can prove [to them] the truth ad infinitum as I did in the 1960s, and I can debate with a Buddhist or a Hindu and sit there with them and say, “here is my truth, here are my stuff.”

But now as an Emerging Church guy I will say [to them], let us listen. I’m not going to try and change you, but you also have the right to hear how I feel and I’m not going to make any excuses for who I am. I’m not going to force my religion down your throat.

As Alan Hirsch said, the only message the Apostles approved, was “Jesus is Lord,” and as Stephan Joubert’s pristine godly and “little Jesuses” kind of words evidence, he too only wants people to know that Jesus is Lord (Matthew 7:21-23). He is going to win back the world for Christ via his incarnational aphoristic lifestyle (as his aphoristic tweets so aptly entertain his equally aphoristic Christ-followers called “little Jesuses):

“And he (Rob Bell) says you should engage the culture. You should go and listen to the Buddhists. So, go listen to what those guys are saying. Then Christians faint, because they do not listen properly to what Rob Bell is saying. He is not saying become like them, but go and read their stuff. Then you will understand why they are so important. They may also have truth. Truth (of which Jesus Christ is the essence) is not only found in Christianity. You can find truth in Judaism. You can find truth in atheism. You can find truth by whoever. God’s general revelation is a bit wider, but you say ‘Jesus is Lord’. That is what you are aiming at with such a movement.” (From a sermon Stephan Joubert delivered on 1 March 2009 at the Kemptonkruin Dutch Reformed Church).

You cannot possibly say “Jesus is Lord” when you make Him a bit wider. The objective of saying “Jesus is Lord” in the Emergent Church Movement is rather like Islam’s The Shahada (testimony of faith), “La ilaha illallah Muhammad-ur- Rasulullah.” [“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger”]. Jesus, the true One of the Bible said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” (Matthew 15:8).

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

How do they propose to enter the strait gate and the narrow way when they engage the culturized and the uncultured, including its occult practices?

Alan Hirsch at The Burning Man Festival Engaging the Cultures

Burning-Man-2
Burning Man

Alan Hirsch’s format to engage the cultures and the cultureless is much more than just listening to them so that you also may put your faith-views on the table and then say, “Jesus is Lord.”

In the book Reframation: Seeing God, People, and Mission Through Reenchanted Frames, written by Alan Hirsch and Mark Nelson, three of the Emergent Church’s core elements are emphasized. They are.

  • Imagination
  • Paradox
  • Mysticism
Alan-Hirsch
Alan Hirsh at one of the Burning Man festivals

Stephan Joubert adopted all three on his journey to follow Jesus.

Mark Frost wrote:

I recently read a new book by Alan Hirsch and Mark Nelson called Reframation, in which they each describe formative experiences that brought this home to them. For Alan it happened at the Burning Man festival in Nevada, while Mark was confronted by it while walking the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. They each discovered their fellow pilgrims weren’t the least interested in the simplistic, two-dimensional Christianity they’d encountered before.

Alan has experienced this yearning for re-enchantment at Burning Man, a phenomenal outdoor festival in a dry lake in the Black Rock Desert.

Burning Man is rooted in ten core principles: radical inclusion, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, gifting, decommodification, participation, immediacy and leave no trace, and culminates with the symbolic ritual burning of a large wooden effigy (“The Man”).

Fifteen years ago, when Alan Hirsch and I wrote The Shaping of Things to Come, we began the book by describing Burning Man this way: “It dares to offer acceptance, community, an experience of god, redemption, and atonement. in short, it resembles everything the church is supposed to offer, but many people are finding the transformational power of burning man to be far and away more effective than anything they experience in church.”

The word “radical” (one that Stephan Joubert often uses) and “self” frequently appear in The Burning Man manifesto that has no kinship with the teachings of the Bible whatsoever. Its main motto seems to be, “Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise, and rely on his or her inner resources.” “Inner resources” do not refer to capital income, assets, or wealth but to inner energy, if you will, a non-physical capacity to achieve goals through your imagination and visualization.

In Pentecostal circles, this relates to the positive confession mantra of speaking things into or out of existence. Surely, the devil knows how to paint the same theme in different multiple colors. Only the color changes while the theme remains the same – i.e. “radical self-reliance.” Who needs God and his atoning work on the cross when your inner resources can allegedly accomplish the same goal through inner self-redemptive resources, i.e., the god within you?

For our readers who are interested in a more extensive explanation of the horrendous implications of religious imaginative thinking, here is a link to an article I wrote in 2020.

Here is a teaser to whet your appetite and to demonstrate how dangerous the “imagination” teaching of Stephan Joubert, Johan Geyser, Trevor Hudson, ekerk, and Mosaïek Kerk really are.

Card #42 – Imagination (Maitreya)

Creation begins with imagination. The world you are in is what you have created with your thoughtful imagination. Imagination connects to your thought process. When you think, your mental energy is initiated and waiting for its manifestation. When you imagine, you begin to manifest that thought. Many people do not realize that they are the creator of their own reality; they are not aware that they hold the key to success, and that they have the power to manifest all they desire with positive intention and imagination. If you think and imagine all the negative and “bad” things that could happen in your life, then you will create in your life what exactly you have imagined. If you have past life issues related with imagination and creativity, you will find it even more difficult to imagine and to create. Imagination is connected to your intuition and your right brain. Imagination has no logic, it is not conditioned or rigid; imagination is spontaneous, it lives in the now moment, and it comes from your own heartfelt inspiration. When you truly let go of conditioning, fear, and rigidity, you can allow your imagination to resurface to be used for creation. [DTW comment: Johan Geyser also said that you should let go the bad things in your life and remember the good things, to imagine a preferable future in the now, the Kingdom-now realm].

The Burning Man’s core principles cannot be trusted because some of them radically contradict one other. Radical self-reliance and decommodification are radically incompatible. The latter (as coined by Karl Polanyi [1886-1964], an Austro-Hungarian economic historian, economic anthropologist, economic sociologist, political economist, historical sociologist, and social philosopher), is best known for his book The Great Transformation, which argues against self-regulating markets. (Wikipedia).

Decommodification asserts that no one needs to sell his or her labor to achieve well-being. Well-being is regarded as a right rather than a commodity delivered by the open market. It follows that the proletariat should be independent from the market for their well-being and survival. The unemployed are entitled to remuneration by the ruling government until they find another job. Does this sound like “radical self-reliance” (independence; self-sufficiency)?

The Word of God radically opposes decommodification. Paul of Tarsus clarified the godly Christian economy of welfare in 1 Timothy 5:3-4 where he affirms that the children and grandchildren of parents should serve and look after their wellbeing, especially when they no longer have the means nor the strength to look after themselves.

Neither the church nor the ruling government should have any responsibility toward believing parents who have children and grandchildren. The offspring that fail to provide for their parents (“pronoei” means “to think ahead, to provide by seeing needs in advance. Parents should not be forced to ask their children and grandchildren for help), have no claim to knowing God. They have denied the faith and have become worse than non-believers (Titus 1:16; 1 Timothy 5:8).

*The men Alan reads is troubling:

The Burning Man Festival

To recap what Alan Hirsch and Mark Frost wrote about The Burning Man Festival, the following quote,

Fifteen years ago, when Alan Hirsch and I wrote The Shaping of Things to Come, we began the book by describing Burning Man this way: “It dares to offer acceptance, community, an experience of god, redemption, and atonement. in short, it resembles everything the church is supposed to offer, but many people are finding the transformational power of burning man to be far and away more effective than anything they experience in church.”

A former participant in The Burning Man Festival, a pagan festival Alan Hirsch attended at will, wrote in an article entitled “Why I am not going to Burning Man this year,” came to the conclusion: “We lack a moral center in our society, and we are rapidly caroming toward the abyss.” A secular article from the August 20, 2015, New York Times defines this abyss, referring to the “sex-infused drug depravity festival that Burning Man has become.” The world has rejected its only “moral center, Jesus Christ. (source).

Debra, Alan Hirsch’s wife, who is heavily involved in mysticism and breath prayers, likens heaven to sex.

“With the provocative statement, “Imagine [one of Stephan Joubert’s favourite words] if heaven was like one endless orgasm,” Debra Hirsch opened her morning presentation to the National Gathering of The Fellowship Community, held Aug. 18-20 at the First Presbyterian Church, San Diego. A church leader, author, and trained counsellor who has worked in the field of sexuality for over 25 years, Hirsch also uses the line to open her new book, Redeeming Sex: Naked Conversations Sexuality and Spirituality.”

Stephan Joubert has had many strange bedfellows throughout the years but this one is the cherry on top the cake. Having proved on several occasions that he loves to give his imagination free reign, it is no surprise that he seems to fancy Debra Hirch’s practically Islamic view of what heaven is like.

The Qur’an very graphically describes how 72 beautiful virgins await Muslims who had been martyred and killed for their faith, each on her own bed. The fortunate martyrs have sex with each one of them for all eternity and, here is the punchline, without ever losing their virginity.

Yet Stephan Joubert lauded her husband, Alan Hirsch, with gilded words of praise in one of his tweets about eight years ago. How on earth can anyone invite someone whose wife [a real Jezebel] likens heaven to “one endless orgasm.” Is this their opus operandi to lure people to heaven? Shame on you Stephan Joubert. Shame on you!

Alan Hirsch in South Africa 2014

Echurch is overjoyed to announce Alan Hirsch’s tour to South Africa in March 2014.

Alan Hirsch is a South African born theologian, author, and established leader in the missional church movement. He is involved with several organizations and movements helping to lead the church into missionality, among them Forge Mission Training Network International, Future Travelers, and Shapevine.com. Some of Alan’s well-known books include The Forgotten Ways, Rejesus and his most recent one The Permanent Revolution. It is partly due to Alan’s selfless work and also his massive experience and knowledge of the local church, that we are able to discuss worldwide how believers can live a more fruitful missional life outside the four walls of the  church.

Alan’s visit to South Africa takes place at the invitation of echurch from 8 to 17 March. His visit includes a two-day conference on missionality at the  Moreleta Park Church, a full-day’s seminary together with spiritual leaders at the Mosaïek Kerk, lectures at congregations in Centurion, and several other places. Echurch wholeheartedly invites all spiritual leaders, businesspeople, believers, and other interested parties to attend at least one of Alan Hirsch’s lecturers.

We anticipate that his visit will not only give us new insights with regards to our purpose here on earth, but that we will be infused with new vigour in the kingdom.

13 February 2014

Stephan Joubert and his buddies in South Africa needed 9 days to be taught how to do missionary work while Jesus (the real one and not the demon called ReJesus) taught his disciples how to do it in one sentence.

“And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) [and not a nine days mish-mashed gibberish about ReJused little ReJesuses].

YouVersion advertises Stephan Joubert’s books as follows: –

These daily readings from Stephan Joubert’s book HIJACKED BY JESUS will help you to reconnect with the ultimate Grace-giver. Jesus came so that tired, struggling sinners can rejoice in His redemption and new way of living. And so that we can pass His much-needed grace to others by emulating His way of life. (Bible.com. YouVersion Bible).

Stephan Joubert was not hijacked by Jesus Christ, but a demon called ReJesus, mimicking the real Jesus to near perfection.

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).
For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. (Mark 13:22-23).
Please share:

Tom Lessing (Discerning the World)

Tom Lessing is the author of the above article. Discerning the World is an internet Christian Ministry based in Johannesburg South Africa. Tom Lessing and Deborah Ellish both own Discerning the World. For more information see the About this Website page below the comments section.

2 Responses

  1. Luis says:

    Hi!
    It was interesting to find this site by accident. And realize how the sectarian spirit exists everywhere. Exclusivism seems like it will never cease to exist in the world. But looking at your website I realized that you don’t believe in water baptism. It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone teach such a mistake. There had to be something wrong. Fact: whoever criticizes Calvinism is not a reference of orthodoxy. Note that the great sects are Arminian. Roman Catholicism is Arminian. But there are good things about this site’s declaration of faith, in fact. But Jesus commanded to be baptized. But you, from your temperament which I have observed, must already have an answer I suppose. But not all Arminians feel the same way as you do about this. BUT NOT ALL ARMINIANS ARE LIKE YOU. Wesley had as a friend the Calvinist Withefield. Arminian Wesley’s most beloved book was written by CALVINIST David Brainerd (David Brainerd’s diary). It seems to me by the Confession of faith that you believe in eternal security. But how to believe in eternal security and still be an Arminian, to be consistent? Jesus once told those who did not believe that he was the Christ that they were not of his sheep. JESUS ​​GIVES HIS LIFE FOR HIS SHEEP. Which they hear his voice. LISTEN. They will never perish. John 10 refutes Arminianism, or one-point Calvinism (your kkk). As far as I know Freemasonry was started by Anglican pastors after Calvin. Do you use quotes from sites you don’t even agree with to denigrate Spurgeon by defaming him as a Freemason? Just because he was a Calvinist? I know an ARMINIAN who greatly admires Spurgeon. I’ve seen Calvinists speaking out against Wesley citing Wesley’s mistakes. Of course because he was ARMINIAN. It seems to me that it’s the same thing you’re trying to do, but in the opposite direction. Probably, even if you won’t admit it, the gospel possibly came to you because of something Calvin and Luther did in the past. But all glory be to God obviously. God used these men. Even non-exclusive, non-sectarian Arminians can admit this, and most possibly will. That is, you who are against baptism, who “nobody” knows who you are, who did not do the work of great men of God like Calvin and Luther, try to denigrate them (which the Catholic Church has always done). As if Abraham, Moses, David, Peter… had been perfect. Christianity is not just the dispensationalist fundamentalism you embrace, which is recent in the history of the Church, by the way. And not Calvinism. There are people saved by Christ in all Christian Churches and in all times since the foundation of the world. Unfortunately, I’ve seen Calvinists saying that there is no saved Arminian, but that’s not true. There are people who die in Christ without even forming an opinion about it. Did Huguenots who died on Saint Bartholomew’s night go to hell because they weren’t Arminians? An observation: I CONDEMN Freemasonry but the fact is that in Brazil it helped the traditional Churches to be established, more than 100 years ago, in the face of Catholic opposition (which does not justify a believer being a Freemason, of course). Maybe because it was a subject that divided (and divides) opinions, or maybe out of ignorance, many believers joined Freemasonry not seeing it as a religion, but it doesn’t mean that they delved into Freemasonry, it’s reasonable to assume. I believe, it is crucial for me to write, that all believers must abandon Freemasonry. But I also think that obsessively trying to find something that characterizes someone as a Freemason to the point of publicly saying that someone is a Freemason can be characterized as judgmental sin. Not all judgments that someone makes are right.
    The triangle has been around much longer than Freemasonry. If any person anywhere in any way used the figure of a triangle before the beginning of Freemasonry, or after, it does not mean that such a person is a Freemason. It is ridiculous to interpret that it is necessarily so. The obsession with knowing if it is or the obsessive doubt doesn’t seem like a good thing to me.
    Misguided methods of “warning” others against Calvinism seem to me to be attitudes of those who cannot refute it.
    “YOU HAVE NOT CHOSEN ME, BUT I HAVE CHOSEN YOU.”
    It pleased God to reveal his Son in Paul.
    To those who are called both Jews and Greeks Paul preached Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
    Those whom he predestined, THOSE ALSO HE CALLED.

    I’m from Brazil. I used Google Translate to translate what I wrote from Portuguese to English.

  2. Hi Luis and thank you for your comment.

    First of all, I must make it clear that I am not an Arminian, and neither am I a Roman Catholic or any other “ism.” I am a saved sinner washed by/in the precious blood of Jesus Christ. That’s it – nothing more, nothing less. Your statement “I realized that you don’t believe in water baptism” is rather disturbing. Jesus never said, “Believe in baptism.” He said, “believe in God, believe also in me.” (John 14:1). That’s it – nothing less, nothing more. I note that you quoted John 15:16 (You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you) without taking the context into consideration. Contrary to the practice in those days when disciples (followers) themselves chose a teacher, Jesus chose his disciples and not the other way around. Remember, Jesus also chose Judas tot follow Him. Therefore, this choosing cannot possibly be unto salvation and eternal life. Agreed?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *