awise ignorace is raised havoc

Satanism and Witchcraft:
The Occult and the West—Part One
By Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon
[Caution: Contains graphic descriptions of satanic and witchcraft practices.]
Some members smoke a little pot.... Other members use cocaine because they believe it
heightens their senses and gets them piqued to accept the spirits. Next we call upon
Satan.... We ask the Prince of Darkness or sometimes lesser demons to come into our
sanctuary. Once we feel the power around us—we know that Satan is here.... We may
decide that on this certain night we’re only going to do destructive magick. The group will
save up its demands for that night that concern hurting someone else. We would never hurt
anyone within the group. But we couldn’t give a s___ about someone outside. —Satanic
high priest Nolan Waters1
I. Do you have human sacrifices?
S. Yes, mostly babies.
I. Where are the sacrifices held?
S. At houses in the woods....
There are three rings of guards. The first would stop somebody, tell him he’s on private
property. The second would try to run you off. He might take a shot at you, but it would be
just to scare you. The third would kill you. —Satanist describing eye witnessed killings2
I’m convinced that our own nation is rapidly undergoing demonization. —Mark I. Bubeck,
The Satanic Revival3
In 1989 15 bodies were uncovered in a mass grave in Matamoros, Mexico, just a few
miles from the Texas border. The victims, including one American, were murdered as part
of the practices of Santeria (“worship of the saints”), which is a mixture of African tribal
religion and Catholicism that has “white” and “black” forms. In this case, the particular form
is called Palo Mayombe and had been syncretized with a mongrel variation of Satanism.
Black magic, voodoo, and drug-smuggling were all involved. In Cuba, Santeria is called
Palo Mayombe or Abaqua. In Haiti it is called Voodoo; in Brazil, Umbanda and Macumba.
In its various forms, this religion has experienced significant growth in some cities of
America, including Washington, D.C., Miami, Denver, and Tucson, and is responsible for
drug trafficking, human sacrifices, and other felonies.4 But it is only one illustration of the
increasing paganization of America.
In 1974 Arlis Perry, a young Stanford University student and committed evangelical
Christian, was, while in California, kidnapped and horribly tortured and killed in a satanic
ritual. She had, apparently, been attempting to witness to members of the group. As it turns
out, “Son of Sam” murderer David Berkowitz was also apparently a member of this group—
part of a linked nationwide satanic network which had ties to Charles Manson as well.5 In
fact, Berkowitz “emphasized the hideous torture Arlis endured—indicating knowledge that
© Ankerberg Theological Research Institute Page 2
went far beyond any newspaper account.”6 Berkowitz had smuggled a book out of jail. On
pages 114 and 115 of Peter Haining’s The Anatomy of Witchcraft, he had written the following
message on the top of the pages: “Stanford University” and, to the left, “Arlis Perry,
hunted, stalked and slain, followed to California.”7
From Haining’s book, the following text was underlined, “The shade of Aleister Crowley
looms large in the area, but his excesses pale into significance compared to today’s devil
worshippers” and “there can be no doubt that Manson exerted complete authority over his
followers and when he preached to them that evil was good and that nothing he as their
Christ/devil asked them to do could be wrong, they accepted it without question.” The quote
continued, “Their lives were his for whatever purpose he chose... devoting themselves to
drugs, music and magic.”8
On another page ran the following notation of satanic murders:
Several years ago, at Port-Louis, a certain M. Picot made a pact with the Devil,
assassinated a child and ate its heart still warm.
Last year, in the same town in January, a sorcerer called Diane tried to win the services
of the Infernal Powers by slitting the throat of a seven-year-old boy and sucking his blood
straight from the wound.9
The text continued from the earlier quotation:
The bizarre and gruesome trial which followed... proved one of the most extraordinary in
American legal history.... Counsel for the Prosecution asked the young woman if it was true
that she regarded Manson as Satan and that she was one of his witches:
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“And you consider that witches have supernatural powers?”
“Yes.”
“Would you tell us what you thought your powers as a witch were?”
“I could do anything I wanted. I was made to believe I was a witch, right from the
beginning. Charlie (Manson) said we were going to build this new culture and learn to
control others by witchcraft.”
One of the men also expressed similar beliefs and devotion to Manson’s cause in the
witness box:
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like nobody else counted but us and we would learn how to have
all our desires fulfilled by using the same kind of magic that the witches used in ancient
times. He told us that there wasn’t any right or wrong.... ‘There is no good, there is no bad.
There is no crime, there is no sin.’... Everywhere he went he got this suicidal loyalty from
everyone. He was big on Black Magic. It was pretty powerful stuff. He was continually
hypnotizing us, not the way they do in night clubs but more like mental thought
transference.”10
Today, a dozen books collectively present evidence that Satanism has now gained an
impressive hold in America and, because it seeks to destroy the foundation of American
social and moral values, constitutes a genuine threat to society. Among these books are
Jerry Johnson’s The Edge of Evil: The Rise of Satanism in North America (Word, 1989);
Mark I. Bubeck, The SatanicRevival (Here’s Life, 1991); Ted Schwarz and Duane Empey,
Satanism (Zondervan, 1989); Arthur Lyons, Satan Wants You: The Cult of Devil Worship in
America (Mysterious, 1988); and Bob Larson’s Satanism (Nelson, 1989).
For example, Dr. Carl Raschke received his Ph.D. from Harvard and is an authority on
the history and philosophy of occult religion. He is currently professor of religious studies at
© Ankerberg Theological Research Institute Page 3
the University of Denver and director of its Institute for Humanities. He is the author of a
book whose title tells it all: Painted Black: From Drug Killers to Heavy Metal—The Alarming
True Story of How Satanism Is Terrorizing Our Communities.
Maury Terry is an award-winning investigative journalist whose years of research resulted
in The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation of American’s Most Dangerous Satanic Cult,
which linked Manson and “Son of Sam” killer Berkowitz to a satanic networking. Arthur
Lyons states in The Second Coming: Satanism in America, “Satanic cults are presently
flourishing in possibly every major city in the United States and Europe.... The United
States probably harbors the fastest growing and most highly-organized body of Satanists in
the world.”11
(to be continued)
Notes:
1 Quoted in Larry Kahaner, Cults That Kill: Probing the Underworld of Occult Crime (New York:
Warner, 1988).
2 Quoted in ibid.
3 Martin Bubeck, The Satanic Revival (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life, 1991).
4 Kanaher, Cults That Kill, pp. 112, 120, 126.
5 Maury Terry, The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation of America’s Most Dangerous Satanic Cult (Garden
City, NY: Dolphin/Doubleday, 1987.
6 Ibid., p. 347.
7 Ibid., picture inserts after p. 346.
8 Citing Peter Haining, The Anatomy of Witchcraft (London: Souvenir Press, 1972), pp. 114-15. This
material is on pp. 105-06 of the 1982 Taplinger edition.
9 Ibid., p. 143.
10 Ibid., pp. 107-08.
11 Arthur Lyons, The Second Coming: Satanism in America (New York: Dodd Mead & Co., 1970),
pp. 3, 5.
3NAStaff0703

what got lost ?

The aim of humanist worship is to develop aesthetic sensation, 'the feel-good factor', the exalting 'I'm saved' feeling. This 'charismatic' movement is but a repeat performance of the delusions of nineteenth-century evangelical revivalism and emotionalism. This can be seen in 'happy-clappy' churches, the churches of 'therapy', the only 'successful' and full Protestant churches today. However, they have no lasting impact or long-term value, with their huge turnover of superficial believers.

Today Heterodox religious belief, reflecting the secular world, has been individualised and privatised. It reflects consumer choice. Any individual can pick and mix from the supermarket menu of religion. Religion is customised for its customers. People 'shop around' as a therapy for the most convenient religion, regardless of Truth. 'Worship committees' devise new 'styles of worship', new forms of emotional self-satisfaction. Worship is just another recreational activity, a leisure time occupation, an empty shell, because without the Absolute Revelation of the Holy Spirit, worship has no authority, it is hollow. You can make up your own religion based on secular, humanist ethics - after all religion is only a 'lifestyle choice'.

As a result of this long process of degeneration, modern Heterodoxy faces a meltdown, for it has come to profess secular ideals, those of spiritual barbarism, of hell. In hell people are prisoners of their sins. And that is the definition of humanist society - one in which people do not even realise that they are prisoners of their own smug sinfulness, self-interest, self-indulgence and self-satisfaction.

THE LOSS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HUMANIST RELIGION

All social and intellectual changes are dependent on the existence of a spiritual force without which they would not have been.

Christopher Dawson,
Religion and the Rise of Western Culture

Humanism has almost completely replaced Heterodox Christianity. The following Christian dogmas have been usurped and replaced:

The worship of the One God has been replaced with the worship of humanity, the one human race. Belief in the Holy Trinity has been replaced by anti-racist belief. Humanism, after all, is the worship of the human race in its unity in diversity. Racism is therefore similar to disbelief in the Holy Trinity, for racism expresses disbelief in the human race.

The belief in the Virgin Birth has been replaced by the belief that humanity is above sin and has sacred qualities. ven a bad idea the relgion of good luck, so when can or where can we find that relationship<<<  the non hummist cultus  but spirit led life without all the dweeble stuff added on,,,, wow scary mess kiddo thanks  says the young guy in conversation.... long ways from the   1st century !! long ways ......  

inside out...

Witnessing today’s alarming growth of religious sects, churches, and denominations, many a-sincere individuals are quite confused as to which really of these organizations embraces the whole truth of God’s salvation. Nearly every denomination today claims to have the truth, and that they are of God, yet each one greatly differs in doctrines and principles from each other as far as basic key truth of the Scriptures is concerned.

People today say, “Oh, you have to belong to this or that, a sect, a religion, or a denomination. If your name is not on our book, you are lost.” This is nonsense. It’s a cult that says that. God never saved man on the basis of becoming a member of an organization, but on the basis of election through faith in the WORD. He “Who had saved us and called us with an holy calling, NOT ACCORDING TO OUR WORKS, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (11 Tim. 1:9).

God does not call His people by an organization. He calls them as individuals - whether you are a Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Protestant, or what you are. Before the foundation of the world, God knew you, and predestinated you - either to eternal life or to eternal damnation.

SALVATION IS AN INDIVIDUAL AFFAIR WITH GOD....

Salvation is an individual affair between every person and God. Each human individual is a unit, and you will never go to heaven as a denomination or as an organized church. You have to answer by yourself at the day of judgment. God did not save you because you are a Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Protestant or whatever “brand” you have got “tagged” on you. That doesn’t make any difference to God. But He saved you on the basis of His elective Love.

Ephesians 1:4-11 says this: “According as He hath CHOSEN us IN HIM before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love; having PREDESTINATED US unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” Romans 8:30 declares: “Moreover, whom He did PREDESTINATE, them He also called: and whom He CALLED, them He also justified; and whom He JUSTIFIED, them He also GLORIFIED (past tense). And God sent Jesus Christ to redeem these people alone, and not the whole world.

THE BIRTH OF DENOMINATIONS....

So, have we ever asked ourselves where have all these denominations came from? Do take note that the DENOMINATION came from the Catholic Church. She is the Mother of all denominations and each denomination has come right down from her.

Authentic historical records show that the Catholic Church was the very first ORGANIZED religion founded by Constantine of Hippo in 325 A.D. in Rome. But history revals that TRUE CHRISTIANITY never started in Rome. It originated from JERUSALEM on the Day of Pentecost (33 A.D.) when the Holy Ghost came down in tongues of Fire to indwell every true believer, which wrought them power, miracles and supernatural wonders.

The SECOND organization, according to history, was the LUTHERANS, when Martin Luther protested the Catholic Church in 1517 A.D. and his followers organized his teachings after Luther was gone. Then after that came ZWINGLI. It came down through CALVIN, and from that came the ANGLICANS, and from the Anglicans down into the METHODISTS. Out of the Methodists came the CAMPBELLITES, then came John Smith, then the CHURCH OF CHRIST. Then came the BAPTIST CHURCH which had lots of pull-outs : the Southern, The Northern, The Trinity, the Bible Baptist, and all the Baptist churches there is now.

And out of the Methodist came also the WESLEYAN Methodist, and broke-off again into the FREE METHODIST. And from that split came the NAZARENES, and from the Nazarenes to the PILGRIM HOLINESS, and on down. They finally wound up to the PENTECOSTALS.
And what did the Pentecostals do? The same thing that her Mommy did, she went back into an ORGANIZED RELIGION - into the ASSEMBLIES OF GOD, The CHURCH OF GOD, the APOSTOLIC ONENESS, the FOURSQUARES, and all the other charismatic splinter groups. Today, there are over 3,000 denominations all over the world - ALL of them organized, ALL having their OWN INTERPRETATIONS of the Bible, ALL claiming originality of the Word, fussing, proselyting and debating with one another.

ALL CANNOT BE RIGHT....

What is it, therefore, that these denominations are based upon? It is the claim to originality, and that they are of God, and the claim that their doctrines are right. ALL CANNOT BE RIGHT; IN FACT, NOT ONE OF THEM IS RIGHT. They say they are right because they are the one saying it, but saying it does not make it so. The churches have changed to a powerless group of people whose only weapon is argument. She could produce nothing in the Spirit, for her hopes are built on programs and not on faith in the Word. Where is the power that Jesus has promised for the church in Mark 16:17,18, that says, “These SIGNS shall FOLLOW them that BELIEVE, In My Name, they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues; if they take up serpents and drink deadly things, it won’t harm them. And if they lay hands on the sick, they shall recover.” It’s not there, for there is something wrong somewhere.

The Spirit is not active in any denomination. It’s not interested in making organization, because the Spirit Itself is contrary to the organization. The organizations are looking for worldly things, the mind of the world, and they make big temples and polished things, and great polished organizations, and polished preachers, and so forth like that, and the best class in the city. How can the Spirit work in an organization when it’s denying, taking creeds instead of the Word? Membership is what matters today with the denominations. Big membership, big Sunday school classes, pay prizes for somebody can proselyte and bring somebody else from some other church over, see who’s got the most.

GOD IS NOT AN AUTHOR OF CONFUSION

Denominations are NOT of God. They have never been and never will be. Denominations have caused a separation of brotherhood through their doctrinal differences, and thus, it has been a system that God is not pleased with.

God is not the author of denomination because denomination is CONFUSION, and God is not an author of confusion. Denominations simply SOW discord among brethren, and God never recognizes anyone of them as His own. Nothing types denomination in the Scripture but the TOWER of BABEL, where God confounded them of their follies.
They have turned away from the perfect will of God by adding their own man-made dogmas, creeds and doctrines, and let their members live by it, though they be CONTRARY to the Word of God.

Where can you find the “Vicar of Christ” in the Word? Where do you find a “Purgatory”? Where do you find a “Mass”? Where do you find “Paying money to get out of hell”? They are not in the Bible. They are man-made hybid teachings. The Bible also says that only Jesus Christ is the MEDIATOR between God and man; but here now they have made Mary as a "mediatrix". Did Mary die for us? They also say that Peter was the first "pope". That is a lie. The Bible says that Peter was married and had a wife, therefore, he can never be a "pope". Matthew 8:14 states, "And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever."

THESE TEACHINGS ARE NOT IN THE WORD. The perverting spirit of the serpent has again made all denominations write their own MANUALS and teach their creeds, set up their offices and church governments, and then claim that she, and she alone, truly speaks for God, as she is best qualified, according to each and every one of them. That’s what the denominations have done. In organizing, they separate themselves from the Word (as did Eve) and bring themselves into SPIRITUAL ADULTERY. She, the church, has accepted again Satan’s wisdom instead of the pure Word of God.

Villager, 

ALTERNATIVE ANSWER , TO NOT KNOWING THE DIFFERNCES

 TOZAR  AGREE LONG WAYS FROM HOME PLATE

Old-Line Rationalism

The passage quoted from Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians is not lifted out of context nor placed in a setting that would tend to distort its meaning. Indeed it expresses the very essence of Paul’s spiritual philosophy and fully accords with the rest of the Epistle, and I might add, with the rest of Paul’s writings as we have them preserved in the New Testament. That type of theological rationalism that is so popular today would have been wholly foreign to the mind of the great apostle. He had not faith in man’s ability to comprehend truth apart from the direct illumination of the Holy Spirit.

I have just now used the word rationalism, and I must either retract it or justify its use in association with orthodoxy. The latter I think I shall have no trouble doing. For the textualism of our times is based upon the same premise as the old-line rationalism, that is, the belief that the human mind is the supreme authority in the judgment of truth. Or otherwise stated, it is confidence in the ability of the human mind to do that which the Bible declares it was never created to do and consequently is wholly incapable of doing. Philosophical rationalism is honest enough to reject the Bible flatly. Theological rationalism rejects it while pretending to accept it and in so doing puts out its own eyes.

Verse

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:10–11

Thought

The type of theological rationalism that is so popular today would have been wholly foreign to the mind of the great apostle.

Prayer AGREE WHOLE HEARTLY SIR!!

INSIGHT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=SCFgwoQRtGU&list=PL9qYvPCmMiqFU0UrhCxP9dLN3YfFl7oke  read the books

Faith wardness

 Hope!!

in crease our faith!!! ?? 1700 years since !

The first recorded Christian sermon is contained in the so-called Second Letter of Clement dated between AD 100 and AD150.


IF YOU HAD  FAITH NO BIGGER EVEN THAN  A MUSTERED SEED , YOU COULD SAY TO THE MULLERrY -TREE Be  rooted up and  replanted  in the sea and it would obey you!!! so simple it;s so hard allt e fog and doubts  robbed us silly  ms ,  no sheets needed  \ customs nor  titles ,, servants ,amazing so simple so powerful so unreligous..just pure faith minus all the dross of doubt ... 

We get our words sophistry and sophistical from the sophists. Sophistry refers to specious and fallacious (bogus) reasoning used to persuade (Soccio, Archetypes of Wisdom, 57). The Greeks celebrated the orator's style and form over the accuracy of the content of his sermon. Thus a good orator could use his sermon to sway his audience to believe what he knew to be false. To the Greek mind, winning an argument was a greater virtue than distilling truth. Unfortunately, an element of sophistry has never left the Christian fold.

Sometimes the Greek orator would enter his speaking forum "already robed in his pulpit-gown." He would then mount the steps to his professional chair to sit before he brought his sermon.
To make his points, he would quote Homer's verses. (Some orators studied Homer so well that they could repeat him by heart.) So spellbinding was the sophist that he would often incite his audience to clap their hands during his discourse. If his speaking was very well received, some would call his sermon "inspired."
The sophists were the most distinguished men of their time. Some even lived at public expense. Others had public statues erected in their honor.
About a century later, the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322BC) gave to rhetoric the three-point speech. "A whole," said Aristotle, "must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
In time, Greek orators implemented Aristotle's three-point principle into their discourses.
The Greeks were intoxicated with rhetoric.' So the sophists fared well. When the Romans took over Greece, they too became obsessed with rhetoric. Consequently, Greco-Roman culture developed an insatiable appetite for hearing someone give an eloquent oration. This was so fashionable that a "sermonette" from a professional philosopher after dinner was a regular form of entertainment.
The ancient Greeks and Romans viewed rhetoric as one of the greatest forms of art. Accordingly, the orators in the Roman Empire were lauded with the same glamorous status that Americans assign to movie stars and professional athletes. They were the shining stars of their day.
Orators could bring a crowd to a frenzy simply by their powerful speaking skills. Teachers of rhetoric, the leading science of the era, were the pride of every major city." The orators they produced were given celebrity status. In short, the Greeks and Romans were addicted to the pagan sermon—just as many contemporary Christians are addicted to the "Christian" sermon.

THE ARRIVAL OF ANOTHER POLLUTED STREAM
How did the Greek sermon find its way into the Christian church?Around the third century a vacuum was created when mutual ministry faded from the body of Christ." At this time the last of the traveling Christian workers who spoke out of a prophetic burden and spontaneous conviction left the pages of church history. To fill their absence, the clergy began to emerge. Open meetings began to die out, and church gatherings became more and more liturgical. The "assembly meeting" was devolving into a "service."
As a hierarchical structure began to take root, the idea of a "reli-gious specialist" emerged. In the face of these changes, the functioning Christians had trouble fitting into this evolving ecclesiastical structure.' There was no place for them to exercise their gifts. By the fourth century, the church had become fully institutionalized.
As this was happening, many pagan orators and philosophers were becoming Christians. As a result, pagan philosophical ideas unwittingly made their way into the Christian community. Many of these men became the theologians and leaders of the early Christian church. They are known as the "church fathers," and some of their writings are still with us.

Thus the pagan notion of a trained professional speaker who delivers orations for a fee moved straight into the Christian bloodstream.
Note that the concept of the "paid teaching specialist" came from Greece, not Hebrew. It was the custom of Hebrew teachers to take up a trade so as to not charge a fee for their teaching.

The upshot of the story is that these former pagan orators (now turned Christian) began to use their Greco-Roman oratorical skills for Christian purposes. They would sit in their official chair and expound the sacred text of Scripture, just as the sophist would supply an exegesis of the near sacred text of Homer. If you compare a third century pagan sermon with a sermon given by one of the church fathers, you will find both the structure and the phraseology to be quite similar.
So a new style of communication was being birthed in the Christian church—a style that emphasized polished rhetoric, sophisticated grammar, flowery eloquence, and monologue. It was a style that was designed to entertain and show off the speaker's oratorical skills. 

It was Greco-Roman rhetoric. And only those who were trained in it were allowed to address the assembly! (Does any of this sound familiar?)
One scholar put it this way: "The original proclamation of the Christian message was a two way conversation . . . but when theoratorical schools of the Western world laid hold of the Christian message, they made Christian preaching something vastly different. Oratory tended to take the place of conversation. The greatness of the orator took the place of the astounding event of Yahushua Moshiach. And the dialogue between speaker and listener faded into a monologue.

In a word, the Greco-Roman sermon replaced prophesying, open sharing, and Spirit-inspired teaching. The sermon became the elitist privilege of church officials, particularly the bishops. Such people had to be educated in the schools of rhetoric to learn how to speak. Without this education, a Christian was not permitted to address God's people.

As early as the third century, Christians called their sermons hom-ilies, the same term Greek orators used for their discourses. Today,one can take a seminary course called homiletics to learn how to preach. Homiletics is considered a "science, applying rules of rhetoric, which go back to Greece and Rome.
Put another way, neither homilies (sermons) nor homiletics (the art of sermonizing) have a Christian origin. They were stolen from the pagans. Another polluted stream made its entrance into the Christian faith and muddied its waters. And that stream flows just as strongly today as it did in the fourth century.
CHRYSOSTOM AND AUGUSTINE
John Chrysostom was one of the greatest Christian orators of his day. (Chrysostom means "golden-mouthed.") Never had Constantinople heard "sermons so powerful, brilliant, and frank" as those preached by Chrysostom. Chrysostom's preaching was so compelling that people would sometimes shove their way toward the front to hear him better.
Naturally endowed with the orator's gift of gab, Chrysostom learned how to speak under the leading sophist of the fourth century, Libanius. On his deathbed, Libanius (Chrysostom's pagan tutor) said that he would have been his worthiest successor "if the Christians had not stolen him" (Hatch, Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages, 109).
So powerful were his orations that his sermons would often get inter-rupted by congregational applause. Chrysostom once gave a sermon condemning the applause as unfitting in God's house. But the congregation loved the sermon so much that after he finished preaching, they applauded anyway. This story illustrates the untamable power of Greek rhetoric.
We can credit both Chrysostom and Augustine (354-430), a former professor of rhetoric, for making pulpit oratory part and parcel of the Christian faith." In Chrysostom, the Greek sermon reached its zenith. The Greek sermon style indulged in rhetorical brilliance, the quoting of poems, and focused on impressing the audience. Chrysostom emphasized that "the preacher must toil long on his sermons in order to gain the power of eloquence."


In Augustine, the Latin sermon reached its heights. The Latin sermon style was more down to earth than the Greek style. It focused on the "common man" and was directed to a simpler moral point. Zwingli took John Chrysostom as his model in preaching, while Luther took Augustine as his model." Both Latin and Greek styles included a verse-by-verse commentary form as well as a paraphrasing form.
Even so, Chrysostom and Augustine stood in the lineage of the Greek sophists. They gave us polished Christian rhetoric. They gave us the "Christian" sermon: biblical in content, but Greek in style."


HOW SERMONIZING HARMS THE CHURCH chirche  or oirganl ecclesia 
Though revered for five centuries, the conventional sermon has negatively impacted the church in a number of ways.
First, the sermon makes the preacher the virtuoso performer of the regular church gathering. As a result, congregational participation is hampered at best and precluded at worst. The sermon turns the church into a preaching station. The congregation degenerates into a group of muted spectators who watch a performance. There is no room for interrupting or questioning the preacher while he is delivering his discourse. The sermon freezes and imprisons the functioning of the body of Christ. It fosters a docile priesthood by allowing pulpiteers to dominate the church gathering week after week.
Second, the sermon often stalemates spiritual growth. Because it is a one-way affair, it encourages passivity. The sermon prevents the church from functioning as intended. It suffocates mutual ministry. It smothers open participation. This causes the spiritual growth of YAHUAH's people to take a further nose dive.
As Christians, they must function if they are to mature (see Mark 4:24-25 and Hebrews 10:24-2 5). No one grows by passive listening week after week. In fact, one of the goals of the New Testament teaching is to get each member to function (Ephesians4:11-16). It is to encourage members to open their mouths in the meeting (1 Corinthians 12-14).
The conventional sermon hinders this very process.
Third, the sermon preserves the unbiblical clergy mentality. It creates an excessive and pathological dependence on the clergy. The sermon makes the preacher the religious specialist — the only one having anything worthy to say. Everyone else is treated as a second-class believer — a silent pew warmer. (While this is not usually voiced, it is the unspoken reality)"


How can the pastor learn from the other members of the body of Christ when they are muted? How can the church learn from the pastor when it's members cannot ask him questions during his oration? How can the brothers and sisters learn from one another if they are prevented from speaking in the meetings?
The sermon makes "church" both distant and impersonal." It deprives the pastor of receiving spiritual sustenance from the church. And it deprives the church of receiving spiritual nourishment from one another. For these reasons, the sermon is one of the biggest road-blocks to a functioning priesthood!

Fourth, rather than equipping the saints, the sermon de-skills them. It matters not how loudly ministers drone on about "equipping the saints for the work of the ministry," the truth is that the contemporary sermon preached every week has little power to equip YAHUAH's people for spiritual service and functioning.
Unfortunately, however, many of YAHUAH's people are just as addicted to hearing sermons as many preachers are addicted to preaching them.


By contrast, New Testament–styled teaching should equip the assembly so that it can function without the presence of a clergyman.
Fifth, today's sermon is often impractical. Countless preachers speak as experts on that which they have never experienced. Whether it be abstract/theoretical, devotional/inspirational, demanding/compelling, or entertaining/amusing, the sermon fails to put the hearers into a direct, practical experience of what has been preached. Thus the typical sermon is a swimming lesson on dry land! It lacks any practical value. Much is preached, but little ever lands. Most of it is aimed at the frontal lobe. Contemporary pulpiteerism generally fails to get beyond disseminating information and on to equipping believers to experience and use that which they have heard.
In this regard, the sermon mirrors its true father — Greco-Roman rhetoric. Greco-Roman rhetoric was bathed in abstraction. It involved forms designed to entertain and display genius rather than instruct or develop talents in others. The contemporary polished sermon can warm the heart, inspire the will, and stimulate the mind. But it rarely if ever shows the team how to leave the huddle. In all of these ways, the contemporary sermon fails to meet its billing at promoting the kind of spiritual growth it promises. In the end, it actually intensifies the impoverishment of the church. The sermon acts like a momentary stimulant. Its effects are often short-lived.


Let's be honest. There are scores of Christians who have been sermonized for decades, and they are still babes in Christ. Christians are not transformed simply by hearing sermons week after week. They are transformed by regular encounters with the YAHUAH. Those who minister, therefore, are called to preach YAHUAH and not information about Him. They are also called to make their ministry intensely practical. They are called not only to reveal Messiah by the spoken word, but to show their hearers how to experience, know, follow, and serve Him. The contemporary sermon too often lacks these all-important elements.