A Pleading Letter to the

Church of God in Christ, Mennonite

Article yF 1998

Beloved one's please do not become guilty of being like God's people of the Old Testament repeatedly were! Please do not do what God's people, the Jews, did in the following verse; "...and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." (Mat 13:15). Do not close your hearts and minds to what the truth is, whatever it may be, for if you do you will meet the same terrible fate as the above Jews met. yF-1

V In 1940 one of your elders named Tobias Unruh in speaking of your Church and of how in his day, it was drifting away from it's past proper standard, repeatedly stressed how one to be secure must be grounded in the word of God. He concerning a shallowing out and drift in your church in his day said, "many of the things that are sinful already abide in the church today". He also speaking of the church said, "if the whole Church should fall and give away, I would still believe in the ground, upon which I came when I repented, that this is the right way". He also said, "I did not expect to live to see what I have seen". He also earnestly warned the church against preplanning speakers for church services, and speaking of how at funerals some speakers were preplanned he said, "That is going to far! That does away entirely with the liberty to let the leading of the Spirit have it's free course. It will break in more and more in the future, and go further, in the regular services that way if you will not be careful and on the guard and watch over this. In the old church which I left it was that way." He also said, "some of you older ones will know yet how it used to be in the house of God. The younger ones do not know it so good.". He also said "Today there are already many things in the house of God that were not tolerated in the past, and these things are not considered as a sin anymore. ...Taking such liberties makes you powerless to defend the faith, and you become unfruitful" In this speech of Tobias' he often advocated that to truly be secure, one must be wholly anchored in the word of God. He said, "The time is coming when we will have to be grounded and rooted upon the word of God if we will want to make our stand in the test that is coming over the true children of God" He also said, "Be strong in faith, ground yourself upon the solid word of God, that is the only way that you can once appear free before God. And besides that it is important that you get well grounded and established and have a good foundation. For we see the storm coming the dark clouds are rising higher and higher. It is coming much faster than I thought it would, already a few drops are falling. ". yF-2

V Now almost sixty years later, a minister of your church in commenting to our congregation about the above speech of Tobias', in commenting about the dark time or cloud Tobias seen coming, comforted himself and our congregation saying, he was thankful he did not need to go by his own light but could rest in the light of the church! The writer in hearing that comment in one respect was surprised, firstly because this comment was so opposite from Tobias' earnest exhortation to be personally anchored in the Word, and secondly because this comment was so opposite from acknowledging that the Church can greatly err as Tobias also so clearly revealed in his earnest exhortation. Yet in another respect the writer was not surprised at this ministers comment, since what this minister said about not needing to go by our personal light, but rather simply resting in the light of the church is so great a thrust among you today. What is happening? yF-3

Another of your ministers around fifty years after Tobias' warning, in speaking of how secure and great the church is wrote, "To her, God has vested all the truth that is necessary for salvation and Christian experience (2 Peter 1:3). If any member of the Church of God lack deeper understanding, a grater sanctification, etc., he need not look to some other place, "For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. {10} And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:" (Col 2:9-10). Note this minister is very prominate and well accepted minister among your church. This writing is in an editorial of your Church paper of March 29 1989. The writer could here give many examples where your leaders have greatly emphasized the Church as above, yet since he has included them in other writings he will leave these as sufficient. Note a letter coded yB includes numerous more examples. yF-4

Dear and beloved ones, one of your ministers recently spoke of a time years ago in your church, when some families or brethren were together and the older people were speaking and discussing spiritual things so fervently and earnestly that the young people observing it being convicted within themselves, went outside to different places to pray. How beautiful! Yet where is that Spirit among you today? If strange means something out of the ordinary, that now would be very strange! One of the older brethren here speaks of the time when they were converted how they stayed up till midnight earnestly and heartily speaking about Spiritual things. Where is that among you today? Dear ones, please remember how Tobias in 1940 said, "some of you older ones will know yet how it used to be in the house of God. The younger ones do not know it so good." yF-5

One of your brethren told me he had an particular experience that had a great affect on him, and possibly made him different. He then told one of his brethren about this experience and how it affected him, afterwhich he then was told that the safe way to prove any experience is if fits and flows with the brethren. Beloved ones, John Holdeman whom you claim to be following, after he had particular experiences and met God in a new way, writes he became strange to his brethren. Brethren in a vital respect you don't need or shouldn't want experiences that make you fit in and flow with today's standard, you need to be strange and different. You need that fervency and earnestness which might make you talk till midnight more than anything else on the earth, which sadly now is out of the ordinary and strange! We need that inspiration which makes us say, "we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard"! Such fervency is the fruit of a true and living faith whereby man is justified and without which faith one cannot be saved. A lack of that faith is why during our last revival meetings, when the invitation was given for those who feel lost to stand up, almost the whole congregation stood. Yet supposedly most received salvation within a few days because most then confessed peace with God and partook of communion. yF-6

It appears that you as a Church are implanting and developing a strong inner attitude among your members, your youth, and your innocent children, that one should lightly esteem their personal understanding and convictions and with great or total faith and confidence trust in the church no matter what they might think. It appears you are creating a strong inner attitude among your members, youth, and innocent children that a quite vital aspect of self denial and surrendering all, is to give up you own light or convictions and accept the light of your church. The writer says this, because in your sermons, the writer has clearly noticed that often it is advocated that giving up your light to the light of the church is an a important aspect of self denial and full surrender. It appears you are creating a church of members whose main and number one conviction in reality is to believe and accept the light of the Church. It appears you as a Church are developing a inner attitude among all your members, youth, and children that it is loathsome or gross to have a strong personal conviction in so much one would actually stand against the light of the great majority as did John Holdeman whom you claim to be following. Concerning any one who would be willing to stand alone in the gap against the light of the drifting or erring Church, you portray such an one to your members, youth, and innocent children, as a fool and shameful person doing something that is evil and doing something that God would never require him to do. You are creating members with shallow personal convictions who are not deeply and personally grounded in the Bible and who will be unable to stand in the gap if needed and who rather will blindly follow the blind unto destruction! It is very possible that you, are paving the way for the destruction of both you and your children. Jesus might well tell you that which He told the Jews, saying, "weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." (Luke 23:28). yF-7

M The way you emphasize the Church are you not in reality establishing the Church as a mediator between God and your members, and saying that neither you or any of your members can really connect to God and to truth except through your Church? Your members likely think their Church has the full authority to interpret to them what the Bible and Holy Spirit mean, but don't realize that rather the Bible and Holy Spirit have the full authority to teach and show your members when the Church has gone off course! yF-8

M It appears that you possibly are taken up with the issue of the church, involving it's many laws, decisions, meetings, and committees, similar to how the Jews in Christ's time were taken up with the law of Moses and it's many related issues. It appears to the writer that possibly you are wrongly trusting and defending your Church religion just like the Jews in Christ's time wrongly trusted and defended their Moses religion. Is their not a similarity? Jesus enraged the Jews who were over emphasizing their place as a special people of God, making statements similar to the following statements; Note the names of the particular groups involved are changed in the below Scriptures to make these statements of Christ appear to you, like they largely would have appeared to the Jews; yF-9

M (Luke 4:25-27 yet names changed) "But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in the Holdeman Church in the days of Prophet Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; {26} But unto none of them Prophet Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Lutherns, unto a woman that was a widow. {27} And many lepers were in the Holdeman Church in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Baptist." Yes Jesus made statements that sounded to the Jews largely like this sounds to you! Note after Jesus said this the enraged Jews "...rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong." (Luke 4:29)! yF-10

M (Mat 8:10-12 yet name changed) "When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in the Holdeman Church. {11} And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. {12} But the children of the kingdom [Holdeman Church] shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Yes Jesus said this also! Is it a wonder they said he had a Devil?! yF-11

M Take warning dear and beloved ones, if you love your Church and your unity more than the truth, God might in justice, just allow you be united in untruth and deception! The Jews often took council, after which they then were united in error. Satan is not strictly division, but also has unity. Jesus speaking of Satan's Kingdom said, "If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?" The Jews wrongly held to their Moses and Abraham religion insomuch that they missed, salvation, truth and life! Beware lest you do the same! yF-12

V Sure God works among you, yet he also worked among the erring Jews in Christ's time. The angel year by year continued to trouble the water at the pool of Bethesda, and year by year the one who first dipped in was healed (John 5:1-4). Strangers continued to come to Jerusalem to worship and likely received a blessing in doing so (John 12:20, Acts 8:27). Yet the Jews obviously were in great error and were caught up with legalism and formalism and were failing in keeping the true and good intent of God's vital laws. Legalism tries to weed God's garden with a awkward bulldozer, while the Spirit of the law is both precise and flexible and like a hoe weeds God's garden. Spirituality does not need to legalistically disallow that which could do much good because it also could be used wrongly but rather simply uses it properly. yF-13

Don't think it strange if God's people while in grave error yet love to worship and pray. Following are several Scriptures pertaining to such; yF-14

(Micah 3:11) "The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us." yF-15

(Isa 58:2) "Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God." yF-16

Possibly many feel inspired by your huge annual meetings. Yet one of your brethren even after that I was excommunicated with much reason told me that you in your annual meetings continue to bring up the same old things again and again while nothing ever really happens. If you were God's chosen who are poor in this world and rich in faith as James vividly speaks of (James 2:5), and were really bearing persecution as God's true children are to bear like Paul vividly speaks of (2 Tim 3:12), likely numerous of those meager issues which you repetitiously discuss in your annual meeting would not even surface. yF-17

Isaiah 29:13 reads "Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:" Note how this verse reads, "their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:". By teaching your members that they must fit in with the brethren and should lay down their light and trust in the light of the brethren and Church as you do, are you not bringing forth children whose conviction and fear of God is anchored in the precept of men, the men of your church? God wants children whose fear of God is based on a living relation with Him, not children whose convictions are had merely subject to the approval of men. God wants children who are in direct contact with Him and who He can call on, depend on, and control. God wants children who will stand in the gap. God wants personal children, He does not want Church children! Whose child are you? God wants you! One of your ministers, who yet is a minister among you, speaking to me some time after I was excommunicated said that he is afraid your converts are getting converted to the Church rather than to God. He clearly shared my concern. Yet why do you who share my concern remain so quiet? Are you afraid and merely watching or wondering? yF-18

God's Old Testament people often were in grave error for long periods of time. The Bible in speaking of the end times, speaks of the Bride all slumbering and sleeping (Matt 25:1-13), speaks of the power of the Holy people being scattered (Daniel 12:1-7), speaks of the witnesses of God laying dead on the streets (Rev 11:1-12), and speaks of Satan again being loosed (Rev 20:3&7-8). What gives God's New Testament people the guarantee that they, unlike God's Old Testament people, cannot be in a great error for a period of time? Very dear and beloved ones, it appears you possibly are quite convinced that you cannot be in grave error or in need of a great revival because no concerned group within you has endeavored to instigate such a revival, nor has felt the need to come out from among you. In further considering such, you should consider that possibly the real reason no great revival has occurred among you, nor a concerned group come out from among you, is not because such is not needful, but rather because you have so greatly emphasized the security and light of the church, that most of you members are at ease in Zion insomuch that no group from within you is concerned enough to even recognize the need of a great revival or a coming out from among you! yF-19

V Jesus said, "I came not to send peace, but a sword". Eccl 7:7 reads "Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad..." Jesus got stirred and worked up about the needs about Him! Injustice and falsity were very offensive to Christ. Jesus was very offended at what he seen around him and rightly so! Does injustice and falsity offend you enough, or have you largely succumbed to being at rest while such abounds? Mark 3:5 speaking of Jesus seeing the falsity around him reads he "looked round about on them with anger" If Jesus was here among you today, like He 2000 years ago was among God's erring people, and would do among you, as he did among them, you very possibly might also say he has a devil! Note Jesus caused trouble! He overthrew the money exchangers tables and poured out their money. He meant business. What do you mean? Likely unity and flowing with your church! You likely say, your concerns are fine if you lay them down and make no disturbance. It appears it makes you feel good to have good people with good concerns among you, but watch out if one is so burdened by his concerns that he cannot freely and joyously blend in with you! For such an overly burdened brother will soon be a Church concern and if he cannot successfully be converted into an inactive yet joyous concern carrier he will be rejected. Oh fools and blind, yet very dear ones, who hath bewitched you. If Christ would have given his concerns and laid them down as you teach should be done, he likely would have been accepted and possibly honored and escaped being crucified. Which of God's prophets of the past meekly gave their concerns and laid them down as you teach must be done, and if they would have done such which of them would have suffered persecution? Oh beloved and dear ones, it appears you might not only kill (expel) the prophets that God has sent to you, but even teach that God no longer has or uses prophets (individuals) to speak to His people and now only speaks to His people in a modern Democratic way. yF-20

John Holdeman said God had revealed it to him that his followers after 6 generations or so, would be without the Holy Ghost or Spirit and wouldn't even be aware of it. This statement is quite verified as the writer numerous times spoke about such, to one who we will name Peter, and this Peter heard it directly from one who heard it quite directly from Holdeman. The individual who heard it quite directly from Holdeman, did not tell Peter this in a careless or casual way. This individual told Peter that possibly he should not tell him this thing which he had heard quite directly from Holdeman, but yet felt to tell him. Why should it seem strange to you if the Holdeman church would go astray? Most admit history repeats its self! yF-21

One of your ministers in speaking of the Church, to our congregation said "let the Church be your all in all let her be your everything". One of your most prominate ministers in speaking of how great and secure the Church is said she is the unsinkable Titanic needing and having no life boats. Now the thought of the Church ship having no life boats is becoming quite popular, it appears a hymn was even inspired because of this prominate ministers statement. A minister recently speaking to our congregation said the Church has no life boats, and advocated that we must hold to the Church ship or else experience the raging water and assured death. Dear reader please consider, that which is large is usually considered the ship and that which is little is normally called the life boat. God has repeatedly called a small remnant, apart for the large object or group. Dear and beloved ones beware lest the unsinkable Titanic in which you are trusting not only sink into the bottom of the ocean but into the depth of the bottomless pit, and with you having a false faith aboard! Beware for the Scriptures say, "Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these." (Jer 7:4). "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." (Isa 58:1). Yet their is hope, and possibly even for the ship as yet! yF-22

The writer was often moved to tears in writing this letter, and hopes the reader will consider the few things contained herein soberly. I in keeping this letter short have left numerous things unsaid. I like all men am a very poor and needy person and earnestly desire the mercies of God. The writer has heard of three classes of people, one class makes things happen, another class watches things happen, and the last and worst wonders what happened. God wants you to be a soldier of the cross not merely a watcher or a wonderer! Such will be cast into the lake of fire as unprofitable servants. Dear reader, does Jesus who so firmly and righteously judged the Jews hypocrisy judge you to be a defender of the truth and a worthy soldier of the cross, or does he judge you to be a fleeing Jonah? Take warning God is not mocked. God has often further or fatally hardened and blinded those who have initially closed their eyes and resisted the truth. Beware, for you dear reader are no exception. The writer earnestly desires the prayers of the saints, but dear reader does Jesus really count you to be one of His faithful saints who have come out of great tribulation? Or are you at ease in Zion, living a life of honor and ease as did the blind Jewish leaders in Christ's time? If you are you will meet the same fate! Note if your reaction to this writing is merely subject to how your brethren or Church reacts to it, Jesus cannot use you as His personal soldier and you likely are not worthy of Him! Remember Jesus said he " that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple". Wishing you God's blessings! Farewell. yF-23

(Count 4127 3/4/01)