Phil is telling the absolute truth here. 

Vicki


----- Original Message -----
From: Phil Scovell <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, July 14, 2014 4:19 pm
Subject: The controlling dynamics of Fear

>
>
> I believe I mentioned this before but not in relationship to what fear can do even collectively to a church.
>  
> The death of this church I'm about to talk about, happened 15 years ago.  My youngest son was 14 or 15 years of age at the time so I would have been about 45 years old.  It occurred when he was a student at a school run by a church called Westland Baptist Church.  I had preached there myself, knew the pastor personally at that time, how be it, there was a different pastor there when this happened with my son, and a teacher and a school principal, all of whom were involved.  The church buildings are still there, and two different, very different, churches are using the main auditorium and the large gymnasium for a Charismatic church and another Baptist church.  The auditorium holds perhaps 250 to 350 people and the gym holds half that.  The Baptist church is renting the auditorium out to the Charismatics for now but is moving back into the complete facilities shortly.  You will understand why as you continue to read this true story of faith and belief.  I am, by the way,a member of the Baptist church but if, as a Baptist, you went to one of our services, you'd probably never come back because it is far from the average Baptist church service.  It isn't wild like the Charismatic service across the parking lot, which I've been to many times and thoroughly enjoyed, but even as a former Charismatic pastor in more than one Body of Believers, I'm still going to the Baptist church.  I wonder why; hum.  Perhaps God has something to do with that.  Yes, the pastor of the Baptist church knows I am Charismatic.  No, he shows no fear and he rarely refers to the church's name as Belmar Baptist church but calls it Belmar Church.  Again, I wonder why?  At any rate, enough background.
>  
> I am writing to demonstrate the power of fear which can, and will, effect any person, be they born again or lost in sin, and even a whole church or so called parachurch ministry.  If you've never experienced anything other than personal fear, you may be glad to know that collective fear is just as bad and just as destructive.  In other words, churches, bodies of believers, are not exempt from fear.  Let me explain.
>  
> A friend of mine and I had been discussing having a prayer group in my home for several months.  Well, we specifically were interested in it being an intercessory group and not just a prayer meeting.  Eventually, this group became Safe Place Fellowship and it's associated website.  One night the Lord just moved us to start praying as a group, with whomever wished to come, on Friday nights at 8:00 PM, but the group grew.  The first few times just my friend and my family all prayed together.  Eventually we began singing and worshipping the Lord for awhile before prayer.  Although, some times the praise and worship took up two hours as we sang our prayers, in a manner of speaking, to God.  Sometimes God needs to hear our praises more than our prayers, if you get my meaning.  If not, read this verse:  
> "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them," (Acts 13:2 AV).  The word used for "ministered" in this verse simply means serving as did the priests in the temple of God in the Old Testament.  Although this is accomplished in many ways in a Believer's relationship with the Lord, singing, praying, meditating, whistling a song to the Lord, you get the picture, is praise and worship.  You can minister to the Lord while going to sleep, walking the dog, praying with your children or a friend, paying attention as the pastor is trying to preach, letting just your thoughts dwell on the things of God, and so much more.  Anyhow, the word "ministered," strangely enough, is only used 3 times in the New Testament and it means the same thing in each verse.  So it is safe to say, the brothers were worshipping, ministering, and praising the Lord.  Then the Holy Ghost, which the old English translators used in the King James Version to mean, (Holy Guest), and later He was called the Holy Spirit, spoke and told the brethren what the Lord wanted done.  If you have never experienced this in a prayer meeting, the Holy Spirit speaking to one, or all of you, then much of what I am writing about won't be of much value to you.  The only problem is, it happened just as the Holy Spirit said it would as I prophesied in prayer.  If you doubt what you are going to read, there are those on this list right now, and those of whom I can give you phone numbers, that all will verify exactly to what I am testifying.  Now, let me continue.
>  
> My youngest son occasionally got into trouble at this Christian school.  One problem we had was related to his pager.  Cell phones hadn't really taken off as of yet and those around were super expensive.  So we bought 3 pagers for each of our 3 children.  Whenever we paged them, therefore, they would, as soon as was possible, find a phone and call home.  When cell phones came along, they got those instead and it made keeping track of them much easier.  Back to the pager my son wore on his belt to school.  A teacher, the pastor, and the principal accused my son of being a drug dealer for a gang because of the pager.  You heard me.  Plus, the teacher lied to me, my wife, and to my son, and probably others.  I have a 9 page letter I sent to the principle describing all of this which I still have.  They called a meeting and I, and a friend who was my pastor at the time, went to the church for the meeting.  Yes, my son was in the room as my letter was read to everybody in the office room we were using and was discussed line by line.
>  
> There is a great deal of detail I am leaving out of this testimony because if I told it all word for word, it would take a book but the reason my son was being accused by these brothers that should have known better as grown adult Christian men, had to do with fear.  Yes, good old fashion fear.  The only thing that made it worse was it was collectively being experienced in the leadership sitting in this room.  What came out in the meeting was that the principal of this Christian grade school and high school, about 150 students in all, had gone to a local police department lecture on gang violence.  The cop who spoke taught the audience gang signs to look for and identify in their student body, hand signs which have various meanings of identity in a gang or threat by one gang to another.  It's like one driver giving the finger, or bird, to another driver who just cut him off except it is gang related and not sexual in nature, if you get my drift.  Anyhow, as I said, the pastor of the church and the principal had gone to one of these local police lectures and came back to the church and school and became authorities on scaring the be jeebers out of the students and church members and other staff, including the teachers, with their newly acquired knowledge on the topic of gangs.  They admitted they were afraid a student might get shot by some gang member passing by if one of their students threw, this is how it is referred to, if they threw a gang sign.  So anything associated with the hand was banned and you could be expelled if caught doing it.  Of course, the kids were throwing gang signs right and left to each other all the time just horsing around, as kids are want to do, so kids were being kept after school, sent home, and all kinds of things, including being expelled for throwing gang signs.  Remember, I said that these men of leadership in the church and school, were afraid, the key word is afraid, someone of the student body was going to be shot and killed.  They preached this fear as if they had heard it from on High and continually made it an issue within the school.  To prove how frighten of gang activity these men were, let me tell you another shorter story.
>  
> One day they called the police, they were calling the cops weekly by this stage, because they were rooting through student's lockers and found a pipe bomb.  The bomb squad, and other supporting police, were quickly summoned, and they all came running into the building, getting everybody out, and then being very careful as they examined the bomb.  They went and found the student who had made, the bomb, and he started laughing and said, "This isn't any bomb.  It is my science project.  Here," he said, "Look," and he open the cardboard tube and dumped out all the marbles that were stored inside.  The cops, in front of everybody, said, "Stop calling us with these ridiculous and bogus gang related police calls.  We've got better things to do with our time."  It became the talk of the school, the behavior of the staffed, that is, and the kids considered the source as ridiculous.  So did I but the pastor and his leadership didn't give up.  So that's why my son was called in for having a pager.  He was, as I said, according to the principal and the pastor, an obvious gang member selling drugs because, they said, the cops at the lecture told them that most gang drug dealers carry pagers.  Can you see the fear building in this story?  Demons love fear.  It is their environment in which they function and they are drawn to it like mice to cheese and bears to honey.
>  
> There's no reason to put in more details at this point, so let's fast forward to one Sunday morning prayer meeting in my home.  I say Sunday, instead of Friday, because it had developed, by this point, into a Friday night intercessory prayer group meeting and a Sunday morning Bible study and prayer time.  As I say, an intercessory prayer group meeting is different than just a prayer meeting like a few churches sometimes have.  When I was growing up, prayer was tossed in during Wednesday services and 3 or 4 men, picked out by the pastor each week, would pray over assigned requests and no one else could be involved no matter how led of the Holy Spirit you were at the time.
>  
> Our praise and worship time was over, the Bible study was done, but as with the Friday night prayer meetings, anyone who wished to pray could do so before we closed the Sunday meeting; it just wasn't generally as intense as Friday night prayer meetings.  As I listened to others praying, when it became obvious folks were about done, I heard a small voice in my thoughts say, "Pray for your son situation and especially pray for the church and the school."  I said, "Lord, I will but I don't want to pray for them."  I began closing in prayer and the very last thing I mentioned was my son and the church school situation.  It was, at least, a half hearted effort, at first, on my behalf because I truly didn't feel the desire to pray for this whole screwed up mess but I noticed my voice getting stronger and more resolute as I prayed about the church and school and I could not stop it.  I could have stopped it but I didn't want to because it was God doing something quite important.
>  
> I have experienced the joy of the Lord many times during prayer, that is, a note of praise the comes that fills you with joy and happiness.  Normally that means you got through with your prayer but sometimes just that you obeyed the leading of the Holy Spirit so joy is the result.  Anyhow, this time was different.  As I began praying for the church, it was like someone grabbed me by the collar, picked me up like a rag doll, and shook me violently.  I could hear my voice but wasn't at all certain what I was saying at times and later had to ask those praying with me that day what I had been saying.  No, I was not praying in tongues but just praying like we all do; in English.  I felt the wrath of God for the first and only time in my life.  The voice of the Lord was booming in my mind and I was repeating what I was hearing in my thoughts to focus on in prayer.  My voice became so loud, I was hoarse for another 3 or 4 days.  I have never yelled that loud in my whole life about anything.  As it continued, I took the notebook I had been using for my notes as I taught and threw it as hard as I could on the floor and screamed condemnation upon this church and school if they did not obey my voice, meaning, God's voice.  I was now speaking in the person of God through the leading of the Holy Spirit.  God told this church, if they did not declare a day of prayer and fasting, staying up all night, walking up and down the halls, and in and out of class rooms, and throughout the entire building, calling down His Holy angels to come and walk the halls and rooms with them, casting out evil and the demonic lying spirits that were behind the overwhelming fear that had overcome the church and especially it's leadership, He, God, was going to put out their light, the church would be no more, and He would scatter her people."  When the prayer was finished, I collapsed back into my chair, totally exhausted, shaking, and I could feel the danger the church was in so strongly, it was almost tangible.  Not danger from Satan or gangs or shootings but from God's wrath and eternal judgment falling upon them.  I felt inside God was saying He would tear the church down.  I didn't know how, or in what manner, but I sure did get the signal loud and clear.
>  
> Two weeks later, on a Saturday night, Sandy and I were eating supper at our dining room table and talking.  Suddenly, a spiritual awareness went on in my head, sort of speak, and the Lord said, in so many words, what we had heard about the church was the result of my prayer.  It wasn't my prayer, no sir ree Bob David, it was God's prayer and wrath.  I was just a witness to what He commanded this church to do or else.  Well, the or else, had begun.  Two weeks after my prayer, while other things occurred such as the fake pipe bomb, or what the cardboard tube and marbles inside which the principal thought was a real pipe bomb instead of a science experiment of some kind, the church and school was closed down for two weeks because of an outbreak of head lice.  I'm not fooling.  The school and the church both were shut down by the county health department.  My sister and her husband had been members there for 13 years and when they went to church, after the first week had passed, every single person entering the church had to be personally examined by someone else with prior experience to see if they had head lice.  During those two weeks, the health department had the church bring in professional fumigators to clean the entire facilities.  No church and no school for two weeks and until they were all inspected upon their return to school.  I've lived in Denver for 42 years and I have never heard this happen even in a public school let alone a church and it's school.  Perhaps it has happened but I've never heard of a facility being closed as a result.
>  
> I said to my wife, "Do you think what happened when God grabbed and shook me a couple of weeks ago and I yelled until I was hoarse had anything to do with what we've heard?"  She thought it did so I called two or three others that were there that morning it happened to me and they all said, without a doubt, it was the fulfillment of God's commands which I had been privileged to pray.
>  
> Later that day when I had prayed this prayer of wrath, my son-in-law said that as I was praying, he saw in his mind's eye, in a manner of speaking, huge angels walking in and out of rooms at the church and school, and up and down the halls and he confessed, "I've never seen anything like that ever before."
>  
> Reducing this testimony of even more details, let's talk about how it all turned out.
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> Soon, within less than a year, the pastor felt called to pastor another church.  The school, during a short period of time, began losing students until the church could no longer afford to keep that school open.  People left the church and soon no one was left.  The property was rented out to other churches for a time and then a handful of people left over from the first church, found a pastor and they rented their auditorium to a Charismatic church while they used the gym for setting up chairs and having their services.  Now, they are able, after rebuilding the congregation, to keep all bills current, they started a Christian school which has already become a Charter School, and the church and school are both growing.  Soon the Charismatic church will be moving out and we all will be moving back into the main facility.  The name of the church has been changed, the pastor of the flock has been changed, and the people have changed.  As I said, you'd be hard put to identify the present church with what used to be there under the original name.
>  
> So, now you judge.  How far can fear take you and what does God take seriously in His people?  Is the Father God still a judge or has He given up on that Godly character trait?  Something to think about.
>  
> If this had happened today at this point in my life, I would have gone to the pastor privately, pointed out what I had heard from the Lord, and left the decision of what to do, obey and be freed, or disobey and be destroyed, to him as the church shepherd and let it go at that.  Additionally, if you interpret this as pride on my behalf, you'd be wrong.  I took no pleasure at what happened but I knew when God spoke through me, He was going to do what He said.
> 
> Phil.
> Living His Name
> WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.COM

As Always, Vicki
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