I remember reading the book “Animal Farm” by George Orwell in high school. The story line was barnyard animals overthrew the humans and set up their own culture and government, but in time the Pigs ended up twice the tyrants the humans were and it was déjà vu. The book was on the required reading list to graduate. I’m thinking today they wouldn’t want you to read it. Turns out Mr. Orwell (1984) had deep insight to the nature of man. Once delivered and free, they became as their own oppressors had been. I would suggest you could follow that cycle right on down through history and here we are today.
The Roman empire was destroyed through the loins of its leaders. Immorality, homosexuality, perversion and lust brought one of the worlds greatest empires into the ashes. Out of that empire, came the Roman Church with It’s own Caesars, Senate, rules of law and quest for world dominion. It set up its popes, bishops, cardinals and priest to exercise authority and control of the masses. Stop and think about it…. if that’s what Jesus wanted he would have instituted it from the beginning but he did not. “He that is greatest among you shall be servant to all”
He set up a servant mentality not to the people but to their leaders. Shepherds not rulers. Jeremiah said, “A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?”
The people actually desired slavery in Egypt over freedom in the presence of God. In Ezra’s day Jewish leaders brought the Kabbalah back from Babylon, polluting the ways of God with traditions of men. And the people loved it because it was so Babylonian, they felt at home. It felt right. In both cases, they were used to being oppressed, manipulated and controlled, it felt normal to them.
When Rome fell, the church there used twisted doctrines to enslave the people, controlling them through fear. Lording over them in direct contradiction to Jesus’ command to serve…. they picked up the fallen empire and repackaged it as Christianity…. Same devil different dress.
What rose up in place of the Roman Empire was Roman Catholicism, an exact duplication of Roman rule with a veiled cloak of religion hiding its ugly core.
“While they promised them liberty, they themselves were the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.”
This brought world dominion back home to Rome, and Roman oppression all across the world. It eventually brought what we know to be the dark ages and a battle for power between church and state that continued until the dawn of the reformation when England broke free.
Exactly as Mr Orwell displayed in his writings, I believe they set up the exact same government, and made the exact same mistakes as those before them. So was born the Church of England, and its sisters throughout the Middle Ages…. the protesters of Rome became her child. Martin Luther sought to reform the Catholic Church not start his own. Even today, each week as they gather, every Lutheran recites the Roman Nicean Creed and pledges allegiance to the Catholic Church.
It’s in every denomination, the “us” and “them” the rulers and the ruled. The keepers and the kept. They sit in elevated places and demand obedience to a second book of rules, manuals, synods, headquarters, denominations, Bible Colleges and Cemetery’s. Replacing prophets of God with the educational institutions of man, they head recklessly back to their Roman roots. Joel Osteen and TD Jakes are not the only ones basking In opulence, filling their coffers with the people’s gold and silver, tickling their ears instead of preaching the gospel. That Vatican is its own nation and has more gold than most countries. The Papal footprint is upon every version of organized religion today whether world wide or local…. it has its popes, cardinals and ruling class, and then there is its people. The wanna bee’s lording over the worker bee’s.
What if we broke this cycle and returned to the early church, before man got a hold of it and twisted it to their own philosophy, ideology, and ultimately,a pagan theology far from its biblical roots. I suggest that just as the masses flocked to lady liberty in New York’s harbor over a hundred years ago fleeing from centuries of oppression, church buildings could not hold the throngs of its membership longing to breathe free.
I call it Organic Christianity, nothing added! Beginning back when the children were young, I saw the results of Lording over them, as the church lost 80 % of its young people to the world. Religion didn’t change that. It couldn’t, because religion is external, as was the Old Testament Law. I left the the Roman school system, and we educated our children at home. We brought my wife home out of the Roman work world to be my helpmeet and the Mother she was called to be. They laughed, they mocked, and while enslaved in their Roman corporate mindset, they lost their children to the world. By the grace of God, all seven of ours (we left planned parenthood’s birth control also) today are killing it in life, active in ministry, and loving God with all their heart. They are the fruit of a journey out of bondage into liberty!
I will confess it’s the hardest journey I have ever made because all the doctrines of man, the witchcraft of control, the power-lust innate within carnal man had to be rooted out as my default operating system. It’s a battle I still fight on a daily basis. Coming out of religion and into Christ requires cutting the head off the snake.
In the early church they were free from the law, living a glorious life of liberty in Christ. All authority is delegated authority from God. He gives it into realms, the church, the government, the family, the individuals. All authority has boundaries, hard lines of demarcation. When one steps out of that boundary their authority is moot. It ceases its empowerment. No soul upon Gods green earth is ever to submit to misguided and usurped authority. Herein lies the pivotal problem that has plagued the world since the fall of man.
I came here over a decade ago, to plant an organic church. One that does not exist on programs,talent and ability but clings to anointing, worship and doctrine… A first century church. A church that embraced the apostles teaching and the words of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are not there yet, as Paul said we have not arrived, but the fruit on the tree is looking very healthy, and the roots bypass Rome heading straight to new Jerusalem.
At Cedar Hill, Marriage is a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman born as such. God is One person not three people. Our message of salvation is identical to Peters, and our experience is the same as the early church on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.
Men love and lead their wives and families in their God given realm. Their pastor does not counsel their helpmeet, nor overreach into their marriage covenant. He doesn’t raise their children, that’s for the parents. It takes place in the home. Older women, well established in the faith, teach the younger ladies to love and obey their husband, to live in all purity, without gossip, staying at home and raising the next generation. It may all sound strange to us today but that is what the Bible teaches and it evermore works! It stops divorce, it makes a house a home, it births a love for the things of God that the entire world stops to notice. People ask us all the time, “How did you raise such awesome kids” …. there’s the recipe oh gentle reader, taste and see that the Lord is Good!
We give to the widows, the fatherless, the homeless. We serve our community, shouldering the burden of of love through the establishment of a 130 acre family retreat in Wallace, MI. where this “Organic Christianity” can embrace both its families and its Creator in the beauty of His creation!
Cedar Hill is a place of liberty our founding fathers came searching for. A place of true intimacy with Christ and one another as the body He established as His Church. We have embraced the original New Testament teachings and life in the spirit. We seek the early church that turned its world upside down!
And it’s working! We are in revival, a divine visitation in our assembly that is spilling out into the streets of Marinette and Menominee. People are experiencing healing, both of sickness and emotional abuse. Alcoholics have been delivered, drug addicts set free, marriages restored. Those on the brink of death brought back to life. Born Again, into the glorious liberty that sets us free.
As the woman at the well told her city…. “Come and see a man that told me all things” I invite you to visit Cedar Hill…. we meet with Jesus every Sunday 10:30 am at 3036 Carney in Marinette. Come out to any of our Sunday gatherings at Cedar Hill in Wallace, (Memorial Day through Labor Day) for great food, fellowship and an evening of music and worship … or call to arrange your personal in home Bible study on the early church. You’re going to love it♥️♥️♥️