Thread: Fallen Ministers - Entitled to Full Resoration?

Originally Posted by Nikos

Excellent post. You are making sense. Most of the posts are nothing but baloney.
The sin of adultery is not a light thing and must be seen as it really is. This man committed a terrible sin and then wants me and others to believe that he prayed some lay me down to sleep prayer and it is all right now. No way!
He has a track record that shows he is not to be trusted. He has turned away from God and treated his wife wife hatred and betrayal.. Adultery is a terrible sin. It is more than a little fun on the side. It takes hold of a person and buries itself deep in his soul. This is not a Grace issue, it is a sin issue. Why don't the tattoo man just walk off the platform and out of the spot light and sit down, shut up and serve the Lord quietly.
O BTW, he will have to get a job where he works to support his family and hopefully pay something to the precious wife he abandoned. Now that might be something he wouldn't want to do.

sigh.........

I'm sure glad that

SINCE SO MANY HAS MINIMIZED THE SIN OF ADULTERY, I will be back with a post showing the evil of adultery. Be watching!

You are mixing salvation with church offices. Of course everyone who is in a church office must be a person who is saved, but that alone is not the way to becoming an Evangelist, pastor, etc. This man may have never been called in the first place. I doubt if he was. He did not love God and the calling enough to forsake sin. Instead he boldly went deep into sin and then likes to flaunt himself before the people as superior in spirituality. He need to silence himself and serve as a layman in a local church. I do not see him serving even as an usher or deacon in a church unless he can keep his eyes off the women. He should instead minister in a nursing home or go to the prisons and minister. But never to usurp the leadership of the local church.

In our discussion about qualifying for church offices, I have noticed the somewhat light attitude regarding adultery and its severity. Here are five reasons why I think adultery is really, really, really bad - especially for a minister of the gospel.

(1) The Old Testament penalty for adultery was death (Leviticus 20:10). Not, "Sacrifice a lamb to atone for your sin and make fair restitution to all whom you have wronged," but, "You don't get to live any more. Not even if you're really really really sorry and promise to undergo counseling and not do it again. Die."

(2) The New Testament penalty is far more severe. In the Old Testament adulterers were merely executed, but in the New Testament they go to hell. Believe it or not, the Old Testament says nothing about the damnation of unfaithful married people, but the New Testament talks about it quite a bit. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says that adulterers will not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21 also says that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. Ephesians 5:5 says that they have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Hebrews 13:4 says that God will judge adulterers. Revelation 21:8 specifies how he will judge them: they will be among those "consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur."

That's why I have never had a problem telling an unrepentant adulterer, "You're going to hell." Yes, I would say this to a pastor or evangelist. Especially to a pastor/evangelist, because James 3:1 says that preachers will be judged more severely than normal people.

Can adulterers be forgiven and go to heaven some day? Yes, but they must repent. In the 1 Corinthians 6 passage above Paul says, "Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (verse 11). Thank God for the hope of forgiveness. But lest we forget how seriously God takes adultery, let us reflect soberly on the fact that the Bible commands execution for it in the Old Testament and warns of hell-fire in the New.
This is a bad sin.


More will be posted later about this sin of adultery.

Originally Posted by Nikos

You are mixing salvation with church offices. Of course everyone who is in a church office must be a person who is saved, but that alone is not the way to becoming an Evangelist, pastor, etc. This man may have never been called in the first place. I doubt if he was. He did not love God and the calling enough to forsake sin. Instead he boldly went deep into sin and then likes to flaunt himself before the people as superior in spirituality. He need to silence himself and serve as a layman in a local church. I do not see him serving even as an usher or deacon in a church unless he can keep his eyes off the women. He should instead minister in a nursing home or go to the prisons and minister. But never to usurp the leadership of the local church.

I'm not mixing anything up, thanks.

Here is more about this sin of adultery. I have posted above, two reasons that adultery is bad. Here is one more:

3) Adultery is always connected to deception - massive, massive amounts of deception. I can imagine an honest man losing his temper or succumbing to envy - but I can't imagine any honest man carrying on an extra-marital affair. He's got to lie constantly. ("Why were you late tonight honey?" "Oh, I had to, umm, go to WalMart to get some...socks. But they didn't have the kind I wanted.") Adulterers lie to everybody while they're cheating on their spouses. These sneaky lying devious scoundrels have no place in the pulpit, where everything depends on the earnest proclamation of gospel truth. If someone were to say, "Evangelist So-and-So is a real man of integrity - he just happened to cheat on his wife," I'd respond, "Please don't be naive. The man is a liar to the core. And while the caldron of deception boiling in his heart erupted to the surface in the matter of infidelity, you can be sure it has erupted in many other places that you don't know about." Not all liars are adulterers, but all adulterers are liars.
KEEP THOSE WOLVES OUT OF THE PULPIT!!.


I may have a couple of more reasons this is such a bad sin. I hope some of you will see the seriousness of this sin. It is definitely a dis-qualifier for a Church office.

4) What about the woman?
The collateral damage wrought by a cheating preacher is beyond calculation. He ruins people's lives, and many of those lives stay ruined.

(5) Adultery can only spring from a thoroughly corrupt heart. We all sin in various ways, and some fall into some sins very quickly - like when Peter, intending to remain faithful to Christ, realized on the night before the crucifixion that he too was in danger of being slowly tortured to death and blurted out, "I don't know him! I don't know him!" But adultery does not pop out of nowhere like that. I cannot imagine a man who regularly says his prayers, reads his Bible, walks humbly with his God, treats his wife lovingly, manages his kids with tenderness and discipline - but suddenly one night goes to bed with another woman. I deny that that is possible. A man must first walk down a long, long road of corruption, deception, narcissism, indiscipline, hypocrisy, and contemptuous disregard for all others before he could do such a thing. And all that time this character has been deceiving a flock? That is an act too revolting to countenance.

So let the ban be permanent and absolute. Send a message of righteous fear to all wavering pastors that if they fall off this cliff, there will be no putting back the pieces and going on as before. And send a message to the world that we don't tolerate shenanigans among our clergy. Lance Armstrong will never race again in the Tour de France. Pete Rose is permanently banned from the Baseball Hall of Fame. Charles Manson will not get paroled. And cheating ministers must never be allowed in the pulpit again.

Originally Posted by Quest

No just as any 'ministry' should operate...as God chooses.

I'm not that interested specifically in Todd Bentley or Rick Joyner or whoever oversaw Bentley's restoration. But in general I don't think that who is in the limelight and to which degree necessarily reflects "as God chooses" to any large degree. In the business sense and from a short term perspective, it is easy to just keep going with something that draws crowds and money.

Even though I believe a pastor can commit adultery and be truly restored to ministry I understand where Nikos is coming from in a general way and not specifically TB

There have been pastors who were restored and for a season looked ok but then they fell again and some were even restored and fell the third time.
When does the church finally say enough as it's no longer 1 family broken but now a number of families wounded due to continuing adultery.

Some believers will say if he repented then he is cleansed and forgiven so why should he not preach again even though he has now sinned with 3 different women and Gods call is without repentance.
I know one pastor who makes me upset when I think of the damage he has done but of course he is all forgiven now but who picks up the pieces of the mess and disgrace against Gods name.

So I can't not help feel some of Nikos fiery comments are justified ....certainly against serial adultery