Super-normal or Supernatural

In 1956 Nicholas Ray produced a movie, Bigger Than Life, about James Mason, a twisted suburbanite addicted to cortisone. He experienced visionary, tyrannical delusions which his wife had to suffer through.

A pessimistic outlook of major mega-churches today is built around a "bigger than life person" who often is the focus of the large complex.

Strangely, these churches are built around the concept of scientific materialism, a form of materialism in which everything can be explained in natural terms or processes. They deny the necessity for God or any kind of supernatural intervention.

The template for this organizational state is found in Mark 12:20-24. Christ addresses the Sadducee's' anti-supernaturalism with the words: "You know neither the scriptures nor the power of God."

A large Church like Bellevue could not be the result of one man's accomplishments, although he may have the dream. Like most churches there are men who have a history of successful vocations outside the church and a history of "ownership" within the church. Perhaps this ownership may involve the donation of material wealth from family past. These men are "kingmakers", they are responsible for the pastor being their pastor. They put together the physical side of the dream the pastor or elders envision. Fundraising, budgeting, material, manpower and physical resources are their jobs.

They provide the physical aspects of the spiritual functions such as preaching, teaching and counseling.

Far the most part in American fundamentalism the glory of the material gets the better of the heavenly splendor. The creative powers of man outshine the miraculous provisions of God. God takes a backseat and is given lip-service.

Christ says you are not just wrong but you "do greatly err". v.27 Wrong about Scripture and the Power of God. Christ had refused the template laid down by Satan's wilderness temptations, he also refused to bow to these influential political leaders in Israel. He spoke boldly to the men who bridged the gap between Rome and Jerusalem. He would not say what they wanted him to say!

I dare say without exception that every mega-pastor today is saying what he is being paid to say! He may proudly boast he speaks for God, yet he dare not offend any of these "kingmakers". They sit and listen to the sermon week after week without an ounce of faith in God but full of man-made confidence and the security that if the pastor errs, he leaves not them.

Now there are disposable people in the hierarchy to be sacrificed and they are dispensed with as gestures of power. The "kingmakers" are immovable.

This is the source of spiritual blasphemy, resistance to the Holy Spirit and the unforgivable insults the men of God heap upon the spirit of Grace. The end product matches the Devil's template. Paul Williams is a product of such a process and Adrian Rogers was taken from this earth prematurely because He would not stand up to these men. Bellevue is experiencing the judgement of the hand of God.

This is not exclusive to Bellevue but is rampant in America. The common man knows big churches are businesses and money is the end product. "To whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." Luke 12:48