Producing Christian Character. Part One. Introduction

The ultra godly George Muller. 

Rembrandt’s painting ‘St James the greater’. Another name for James the Just, the brother of the Lord and an early church father.

A depiction of he martyrdom of James The Just

 

This series was written by me and published on this my personal blog-site in May this year.

Each day I try to publish a Christianity themed article which is devotional and meditational.

I thought this Christian Character series is particularly relevant in view of many of my recent articles on this site about even further dysfunctions of the Prosperity Gospel crowd.

I’ve coined the expanded term ‘Prosperity and Property Gospel’, a term which captures more fully the intent and love of these avarice and greed-filled so-called Christians who have taken over much of Western Christianity.

A further even more descriptive expansion of the term is ‘Prosperity, Property and Possessions Gospel’.

There is no end to the dysfunctions and scandals of these so-called Christians.

Quite soon “Pastor” Kong Hee head pastor of City Harvest Church Singapore, Dr Phil Pringle head pastor of C3 Glocal church’s spiritual son and protege, is destined to go to Changi Prison Complex Singapore for eight to twelve years for breaking Singapore Charity laws and committing multiple serious frauds involving over USD$30 million in the Crossover Project aimed at making Kong Hee’s wife Sun Yeouw Ho a middle aged Madonna or Whitney Houston. This was never going to happen.

I’m thinking Kong Hee will get ten years. Kong Hee has already received eight years but he made the mistake of appealing and could end up with ten or even twelve years.

Twelve years in Changi Prison Complex would end Kong Hee’s adult life and he may not even survive Changi Prison Complex hell-hole. He is aged 45 and 12 years would make his release date 2028 when he’d be 57. In 2028 “Dr Phil” Pringle will be an old man of 76. He will have enjoyed 8-12 years of freedom while the man he tutored, prophecies over and empowered in the errant ‘Cross-over project’ goes to Changi Prison Complex hell-hole.

“Dr Phil” Pringle is largely responsible for Kong Hee’s demise. Of course the ebullient Dr Phil, a master of spin and lies will never admit his role in Kong Hee’s demise. Such is his arrogance and narcissism. And all the C3 and Hillsong pastors will deny all and continue on in their sins and deceptions as if nothing is ever wrong.

 

Dr Phil- in denial

“Doctor Phil” Pringle leading “Pastor” Kong Hee to jail

Kong Hee: “Thank you “Doctor Phil” for mentoring me. Now I’m going to Changi Prison Complex. I love you brother Phil. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Hug. Hug. Hug. Blessings. Its Sunday today Dr Phil. I hope you have a nice day with your wife Chrissie and your pastor pals out in the down at the beach in the Aussie open air after preaching our Great Prosperity Gospel at your big smart church on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. As for me and my friends here in Changi Prison Complex, we’re having chicken, chick-peas and plain old white rice for Sunday lunch after I preach to my seven friends in our little cell-home. One thing about being in a Changi Prison hell-hole cell all day and all night is that my seven unconverted cell-mates can’t escape when I start preaching our great Prosperity Gospel. I hope they don’t kill me for preaching at them all day and for praying and crying all night long about missing my sexy pop-princess wife Sun Yeouw Ho and my cute little boy”.

“Pastor” Robert Fergusson Hillsong false teacher. Evil Pedophile Protector of the founder of Hillsong Frank Houston.  Long-time Hillsong Senior Pastor and Elder. Leading many astray.

Saint Brian of Hillsong Baulkham Hills in Sydney Australia. Posted this photograph of himself on Twitter, with an Apostolic beard praying. The Great Brian Houston on of the vainest, most narcissistic, most dishonest men of God on the planetPastor Brian Houston CEO of Hillsong International. The polar opposite to Christ, the suffering servant of Isaiah chapter 53 in the Holy Bible.

 

In Australia where I live and New Zealand where I was born and raised, the Prosperity Gospel churches like Hillsong Global, C3 Global and many others dominate the “Pentecostal” church landscape. These churches are no more Pentecostal than a ATM machine or a pokie and gambling bar. The “pastors” of the Prosperity Gospel movement like Americans Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Credlo Dollar (love the name) and many other Americans, and Australians like “Dr Phil” Pringle, “Pastor” Brian Houston, “Pastor” Pat Mesiti and many other Australians are ‘hidden reefs in Christian love feasts’.

 

11 “Woe to them! They have traveled the path of Cain; they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam; they have perished in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These men are the hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted. 13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.…

Jude 11-13

 

We read in my article on this site about the errant “Dr Phil” Pringle, a false prophet and head pastor of C3 Global, which claims over 300 churches in its orbit, and how “Dr Phil” receives $100,000 plus flights and all lavish five-star expenses every time he flies from Sydney, Australia to City Harvest Church Singapore for a weekend of preaching and seminars.

“Pastor” Brian Houston is the same. Brian reaps his earthly rewards preaching on the American Prosperity Gospel circuit and rakes in hundreds of thousand of US dollars per annum from these scams.

 

Please compare these greedy errant men who are ‘reefs in pure Christianity’ and only good for the fire. I’m not saying the fires of hell. God is judge. I’m sure Brian’s father the lifelong secret pedophile Frank Houston, who sexually abused hundreds of little boys over seven plus decades of his foul life, wont be in a place of honour in the Hereafter. Again the Lord is Judge.

 

Please consider Brian Houston, Phil Pringle and all the other Prosperity Gospel pastors and compare them to real men and women of God like those I mention in this series of articles, like George Muller, John Bunyan, James the Just, my father Rev Reuben Donald Elley, my mother Valerie Jean Elley, and my godly forebears from Scotland.

 

Producing Christian Character. Part One. Introduction

 

George Muller

A Christian of impeccable character who helped over 10,000 orphans in his lifetime.

Incredible transparency with the large amounts of finances donated to his Orphanage.

Every penny was accounted for and the orphanage books were open to anyone.

To George Mueller and old-school Christians financial integrity was incredibly important. As was personal holiness, sanctification, prayer and studying the Holy Bible.

Annual accounts for his orphanage were published for all to see if they wished.

As a result millions in today’s money was entrusted to him by Christian donors.

George Muller lived a humble lifestyle.

 

Producing Christian Character. Part One. Introduction

This article is the first in a series on Christian character.

 

What I see lacking in Christians these days

As I observe Christians these days there are a many issues and things I see lacking.

These include a shortage of honesty, integrity and Christian character.

A lack of genuine love for others outside family or their church group.

No emphasis and little practice of sanctification, the baptism in the Holy Spirit and personal holiness.

Lack of prayer and studying the Holy Bible.

Stinginess with giving to the work of the Lord.

Christians not tithing.

Christians not giving to, or helping the poor, vulnerable and needy.

A mistaking of rock-off loud worship for Christian devotion, godly meditation and gentle Spirit-led worship.

Most Christians these days haven’t been genuinely baptised in the Holy Spirit or have had deliverance from evil spirits.

Prayer meetings not attended by many in churches.

Today is characterised by very controlling pastors and leaders who seem more interested in their own ego and lining their pockets than true pastoral care, sacrifice and Christian service.

The preoccupation of Christians including pastors and church leaders with money and material possessions.

The spread of the poison of the Prosperity Gospel.

The proliferation of heresies, false doctrines and false spirits in Christianity.

An acceptance of immorality as being ok with the rationale “we’re all sinners” or “we’ve all sinned a thousand times but the grace of God is always there for us”.

These sayings are not Scriptural truth- read the book of Jude. Read the book of Revelation. Read the book of Daniel. Read carefully the Teachings of the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul- the Biblical Foundations of Christian faith. It’s not ok to sin repeatedly.

The modern era is characterised appallingly by the common acceptance in the of homosexuality even in the church and church ministry as being all good and OK. “Whatever makes you happy”.

This is not Biblical Christianity.

Homosexuality, lesbianism and transgender renovations, additions and alterations are an abomination to Almighty God.

As is sodomy, lesbian fellacio and every other immoral and what the Apostle Paul called ‘unnatural practice’.

“Man was created for woman and woman for man”.

 

Some back ground on me and my beliefs

I’m writing from the perspective of a man who has walked with God all his life having been brought up in a pastor’s household.

From knee high to a grasshopper Biblical truths have been my milk and bread. My heart hungers for the truth and spiritual reality.

I haven’t always lived right. I regret to say this. I make no excuses.

However for a large percentage of my life I have been serving God quietly and faithfully.

I’ve always attend church since I was 19. And did so from birth until age 13 when I refused to go for 6 years.

My life is red hot for God now and has been since January 2014. At age 59 this is it for me and there’s no turning back or going back into the swamps of sin- John Bunyan’s ‘Slough of Despond’.

 

 

John Bunyan’s ‘Slough of Despond’

Extract from John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrims Progress’. Written after John Bunyan had heavenly visions while in jail for his faith in the 17th century. ‘Pilgrims Progress’ is the greatest feeling book in human history after the Holy Bible which has sold far more copies than any other publication in human history.

“7. Slough of Despond

Wherefore Christian was left to tumble in the Slough of Despond alone; but still he endeavored to struggle to that side of the Slough that was still further from his own house, and next to the Wicket Gate; the which he did, but could not get out because of the Burden that was upon his back. But I beheld in my dream, that a man came to him, whose name was Help, and asked him, What he did there?

Christian: Sir, said Christian, I was directed this way, by a man called Evangelist, who directed me also to yonder Gate, that I might escape the Wrath to come. And as I was going thither, I fell in here.

Help: But why did you not look for the Steps?

Christian: Fear followed me so hard, that I fled the next way, and fell in.

Help: Then said he, Give me thy hand; so he gave him his hand, and he drew him out, and set him upon solid Ground, and bid him go on his way.

Then I stepped to him that plucked him out, and said, Sir, wherefore, (since over this place is the way from the City of Destruction to yonder Gate) is it, that this plat is not mended, that poor Travelers might go thither with more security? And he said unto me, This miry Slough is such a place as cannot be mended. It is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond; for still as the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, there arises in his soul many fears and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place. And this is the reason of the badness of this ground.

It is not the pleasure of the King that this place should remain so bad; his laborers also have, by the directions of his Majesties Surveyors, been for above this sixteen hundred years employed about this patch of ground, if perhaps it might have been mended: Yea, and to my knowledge, said he, here has been swallowed up at least twenty thousand cart loads; yea Millions of wholesome Instructions, that have at all seasons been brought from all places of the King’s dominions (and they that can tell, say, They are the best materials to make good ground of the place) if so be it might have been mended; but it is the Slough of Despond still; and so will be when they have done what they can.

True, there are, by the direction of the Lawgiver, certain good and substantial Steps, placed even through the very midst of this Slough; but at such time as this place doth much spew out its filth, as it does against change of weather, these steps are hardly seen, or if they be, men, through the dizziness of their heads, step besides; and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding the steps be there; but the ground is good when they are once got in at the Gate.”

 

This my blog-site

This blog-site is my personal blog-site and not specifically a dedicated church watch site, the official voice of a Christian organisation and it is not an anti-Hillsong or anti-church heresy site.

However this site is some of these things and more as it reflects my passions and concerns, particularly for the church, the Blessed Universal Eternal Body of Christ here on earth.

This site reflects my person, my character, my interests, my hobbies, my passions and my beliefs.

I am a traditional New Testament Protestant Christian.

I favour both women and men in ministry and women’s rights. I was brought up to believe women are equal to men and that all races and ethnic groups are equal and have equal rights on earth and my understanding of God, the teachings of Christ and the Holy Bible agrees with these tenets and this ethos.

I have a Biblical view on homosexuality and lesbianism.

I believe in gay rights in the sense that under the law of the land they have the right to be homosexuals.

I don’t believe in legislating holiness or forcing minority groups to conform to the Christian ethos by legislation.

I agree with the age of consent being 18.

In NSW it’s 16 for heterosexual sex and 18 for homosexual sex. Young people under 18 need to be protected by the state.

I regard Hillsong Church as a cult, a spiritual poison and a danger to mankind.

I believe in global warming and that mankind must stop felling trees, clearing forests, polluting rivers and the ocean, cease using fossil fuel for power and so on.

I see a solar revolution in process whereby within a decade the planet will be transformed and within two decades coal will be mainly redundant. Oil and gas companies will become outdated just like mankind’s progress has made many things redundant. For example one hundred years ago gas lights used to light the streets. The auto industry was in its infancy. Mankind was just learning to fly. Horses and carts were still on the streets. Sail ships were being replaced by steam ships powered by coal. Ice was being shipped all over the world for refrigeration by sailing ship and steam ship. Penicillin was being introduced to mankind. Infants were dying in high numbers in the developed world. Mothers were still dying in child-birth. Women in many countries like America still hadn’t got the vote. It was to be a long-time before blacks and other minorities got the vote in America. By the way to use the term ‘black’ in America for African Americans is not construed as racist. Blacks are called ‘blacks’ and whites are called ‘whites’.

I have shared a little of who I am and what I believe in.

 

 

My education

I studied at university for four years from 1975 to 1977 and a year in 1979.

In 1975 I did year one of a law/ arts degree at Otago University in the deep south of New Zealand. Legal studies, psychology, philosophy and economics.

In 1976 and 1977 I studied at Victoria University Wellington New Zealand. I studied year 2 law, philosophy stage 2, political studies stage 1 and 2 and religious studies stage 1.

Geoffrey Palmer, later to be New Zealand Prime Minister for one year, taught me the Law of Torts. He is a very smart guy.

 

Could be very arrogant and abrasive. Not popular with some

 

In 1979 I did philosophy stage 3 and religious studies stage 2 which involved some theology taught by Dr Jim Vetch.

Dr Lloyd Geering taught me stage one and two religious studies subjects.

 

Professor Lloyd Geering. New Zealand’s greatest heretic. Heretic to Bible Believing Christians. The Messiah to atheists and the trendy lefties.

 

I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy.

I studied advanced building subjects and have an Australian Builders Licence.

 

My profession

I was a self-employed Construction Project manager and Builder since the 1980s in Sydney. I had a carpenters license from the 1980s and a builder’s license from the late 1990s.

I am now a developer and farmer. My main income source is from rural real estate developing.

 

Christian Character and money

I’m not going to boast about who I am or what I do, how much money I have or haven’t made although I will mention in passing that tens of millions have been entrusted to me over the years in my company but I am not super wealthy.

I’ve been a millionaire since 1990 when being a millionaire meant something. Now almost every property owner in Sydney is sitting on a property worth a million or more. Back in 1990 a Sydney Lower North Shore house was worth $450,000. An apartment $200,000. The same properties today are worth $2 million for a house and $1 million for a nice large apartment.

Money doesn’t make a man or woman.

Money is a tool and is important but the Lord doesn’t want money and possessions to be our focus.

My father

My father Reverand Reuben Donald “Don” Elley was a leading New Zealand Evangelical Presbyterian Minister for over 50 years. He died in August 2012.

I was there alone with him at the old folks home in Auckland when he died at 1am. The Presence of the Lord filled the room and he was gone. I’m certain there were holy angels in the room that night. I slept in a long chair and guarded my dad’s body all night till the doctor came at 10am to certify his death. I felt uneasy about some of the staff and I didn’t want anyone apart from the doctor and the undertakers to touch my father’s corpse.

Sometimes we have to stand up for what we believe and take action as Christians to safeguard things and issues we believe in.

Sometimes we have to stand up for our family- this we love and cherish. Those who are wrongly disloyal to family or manipulate others wrongly are anathema to me.

 

Dad. Not your normal clergy.

Dad. Using cauliflowers from mum and dad’s garden as ears for a joke. The funniest man and most uninhibited man I’ve ever known.

 

‘An Evangelical’ is a term similar to ‘Protestant’ which denotes a belief in the literal and true to text interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, a belief in a personal faith with the Lord Jesus Christ, and a belief in evangelism and Christian missions.

My father was known widely across Protestant denominations and ministered at many youth camps for Presbyterians and other Protestant denominations like Baptists. Dad was not Pentecostal but open to the Charismatic movement but not involved with it.

Dad preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in a contemporary way for his time without compromising Biblical truth.

Dad was very fond of The Beatitudes, The Lord’s Prayer, The Lord’s Parables and the book of Psalms.

Psalm 121 was dad’s favourite Psalm.

Psalm 121

A song of ascents.

1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

New International Version (NIV)

 

Dad had the Holy Spirit but was an old-school Protestant clergy

If we can combine the Spirit-filled life with the moral conservatism and the integrity of character of old-school Protestant men and women like my father, mother, maternal grandparents and paternal grandmother then the world would be a much better place.

 

Dad and mum at their wedding in 1955

 

My mother Valerie Jean Elley

My mother Valerie Jean Elley is still alive aged 87.

Mum is a trained Presbyterian Deaconess which was the highest position and training a woman could have in the Presbyterian Church in 1953-4 when she trained at the Presbyterian Theological College- Knox College in Dunedin.

Mum has dementia and can’t remember anyone including those she sees every day.

However mum’s wonderful godly character and impeccable faultless Christian character are still there.

Mum recently talking to me her eldest son who was very close to her at the old folks home she now lives in:

“O it’s so wonderful to see you. Friends and relatives are so important. Thank you for bringing me these beautiful flowers…O the colours are so beautiful…Are you my husband?”

Me: “No mum I’m not your husband. I’m your eldest son Donald”.

Mum: “O yes. I remember my husband is Donald. Is he still alive?”

Me: “No mum, he died three years ago”.

Mum: “Yes he was a good man. He was a minister. He was a good husband”.

Me: “Yes mum”.

 

Mum and dad at Khandallah Presbyterian Church. A pinnacle of mum and dad’s life. 1970s.

 

My maternal grandparents

My maternal grandfather Ernest Herbert “Bert” Brooker was a barrister and solicitor, as was my maternal uncle Don Brooker.

Their firm was Brooker and Brooker and they did all Colonial Mutual Life’s legal work in Wellington for decades.

My grandfather Bert was a small man but a man of strong character who could stand up for himself.

Bert had a heart attack in his sixties when I was young but lived another twenty years after changing his lifestyle.

He started walking every day and cut down on fatty foods. He used to swear on the benefits of eating wheat germ in your morning cereal.

My maternal grandmother Madge Jean Brooker (nee McLean) was also a little lady and a very kind godly woman. In her prime she was the leader of the Wellington Presbyterian women’s movement.

My grandfather Bert was a Presbyterian Elder for decades.

 

My maternal grandmother Madge Brooker. super godly and super sensitive, super sweet and O so lovely. Her and I were very close as I was to my father Reuben Donald and are to my mother Valerie.

 

My paternal grandfather

My paternal grandfather Jim Elley was a ships’s engineer on commercial ships. He was on commercial ships during WWI.

Jim refused to attend church because he distrusted preachers and thought they were just “in it for people’s money and were a bunch of crooks”.

Jim Elley did however have a Christian faith and used to say his prayers out loud each night alone in his cabin.

Grandad slept in a cabin outside the old weatherboard farm house in Hunua in the green rolling hills in South East Auckland, east of Papakura because he had this thing about the main house burning down.

He had an old-school decorated ceramic chamber pot under the bed for night emergencies.

 

New Zealand relatives in 1959: From left Grandad Jim Elley, my mother Valerie, Jim Elley dad’s brother, Georgina my maternal grandma, my dad and little me.

 

My maternal grandmother

My maternal grandmother Georgina was a large happy soul.

Georgina was very generous and loving and loved it when her grandchildren came to visit.

Georgina emigrated from Scotland on a sailing ship circa 1910 to New Zealand with her sister and never returned. These were the times before the aeroplane and travelling back to Scotland was a great effort. Besides they never had much money and their life was in New Zealand with their family. I don’t think it crossed her mind.

Georgina spoke with the warmest most beautiful broad Scottish accent and had a very generous heart of gold.

My grandfather Jim Elley developed mental illness from age about 45, and his devoted old-school wife Georgina was always there for him even to her death.

Jim was eleven years older but survived Georgina by ten years.

It was untenable for men and women like my father and mother or my grandparents to even whisper the word ‘divorce’. They took their wedding vows very seriously and were in it for the long haul, “For better or worse, in sickness and in health, til death do us part- so help me God”.

 

My father and mother at my neice Alana and her husband Jeff’s wedding

 

Godly character

This is some background on me although with any life it is only the beginning and only the tip of the iceberg.

In this series I’m going to share about Christian character using sold-rock scriptures.

If you read carefully what I’m going to write you’ll learn or reacquaint yourself with some Christian principles that I learnt a long time ago which I’ve practiced all my life.

The great lack I see in Christian young people and Christians of all ages these days is a lack of Biblical character.

We don’t have to be like other people.

 

The Holy Spirit of Truth. Here to help us.