Hello, my initial attempt at building a website, a little scary, but here it goes. My reason for doing this is to keep in contact with friends and family in a more expanded way and to facilitate my work which is essential to present the message of Jesus and teach the Scripture. I refer to myself as an "old time Gospel preacher."

Thanks for visiting!

My Story

My parents left Nebraska in the late 1930s, due in part to the "dust bowl" and moved to Portland, Oregon. They rented a house in the Northeastern part of Portland and my dad went to work in the shipyards making Liberty Ships. Later, after the war, they moved to 6515 NE 6th Ave. and my dad started selling Fuller Brushes--he keep at this for 50 years and did very well at it. The Family (I was the first born, Bruce the second, and Gary the third) moved to Sunland/Tujunga, California during the Christmas break of 1954.
    I attended Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, a Los Angeles City school.. As a new kid at school I had some trouble with bullies for awhile, and managed to get through those years but did not really like my school days much.

My Story Continued

    My close friends were Bill Mauch, Dick Dixon, Larry Reebie, Bobbie Davidson, Mike Roth, Gary Tapper, Danny Brahm, Bill Johnson, Larry Skarda, Jim Strand, and Bill, Dick, and Larry remain my close friends to this day. Played a whole lot of baseball plus basketball and football, but baseball was the sport. We played in an LA leadge, team called the Sunland-Tujunga Stars and went undefeated. We had no uniforms, one bat, and one little league ball. My brothers Bruce and Gary played on the team and my dad helped coach. Starting coaching at age 15, Dick and I managed a Little League team, Sunland Moving and Storage. (I still have a great black and white of the team.)
    After two years at Glendale College I married Bobbie Davidson and joined the Air Force. For a 19 year old surfer-type dude, unskilled at anything except playing baseball, the military came to my rescue. Basic training in Texas at Lackland AFB was not too pleasant right in the dead of winter. I was assigned to Travis AFB in Fairfield, California as a medic but landed as a medical administrator with 2nd Casualty Staging Flight. It was a dream come true as i was able to work nights and go to school in the day time. I was determined to finish college. At the same time as i attended UC at Davis, I took the maximum number of credits by correspondence--from Iowa State University. Then on to Sacramento State with a BA majoring in psychology. Right in the midst of my masters in psych I dropped out and moved to Mill Valley to attend Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.  Mid-way into my Air Force stint I became a Christian, a surprising event for a guy like me, through the preaching of Bob Lewis, then pastor of the First Baptist Church of Fairfield. You can see him in the picture when he was present at my ordination on October 2, 1966 while I was pastor of the Excelsior Baptist Church in Byron, California, situated between Antioch and Tracy.
    Then in February of 1967, while attending seminary and pastoring the small rural church  in Byron, I felt called, quite dramatically, to go to the hippies in San Francisco. I had been attracted to the beat life in the LA area and had tried to copy Jack Kerouac's version of the beat life found in his novel, On the Road. So the hippie thing was something I thought I understood so off I went and started on an adventure that still impacts me. It was the Jesus People Movement and I spent many years totally emersed in it. Part of it was the band Joyful Noise, many Christian houses (communes), Christian book stores, high school Bible Studies, travelling quite a lot (3 extensive trips to London), and so much more that it is more than I can do right now.
    In 1972 those of us engaged in the Jesus Movement in Marin, principally Mark Buckley, Kenny Sanders, Bob Hymers, Roger Hoffman,  Mike Riley, Dick Bruner, and a whole host of others, began Church of the Open Door that initially met at the Scout Hall in Mill Valley then moved to Carpenter's Hall on Lindaro St. in San Rafael. An adequate history of these years is not possible now. They were years when the Jesus Movement was still under way, that is God was pouring out His Spirit in incredible ways, and they were years of confusion, deception, and sadness. Most of us managed to survive it all however. I have written of this period extensively in a book to be published soon titled America's Great Awakenings, with a focus on the Jesus People Movement.
    Toward the beginning of the Church of the Open Door we branched off into four additional churches, and most importantly began a ministry called Love in Action. Due to my involvement in counseling (my career objective had been to be a school psychologist) I began, in our first Christina book store, on Fourth St. in San Rafael, run by an exceptionally special Christian woman, Betty Kenner, the Marin Christian Counseling Center. In one week three different men made appointments with me and each one told a similar story: they were Christians but were emeshed in the gay life--and they wanted out. We started meeting weekly, were soon joned by three lesbians, who told similar stories, and one of them, a lady named Bev came up with the name for the group. I stayed with this ministry until 1978. Two of the books I wrote during that time were for the ministry of Love in Action.    
     I left the church under strained circumstances in 1980 thinking I would leave the ministry completely. Thinking I needed a new career I went to San Francisco Law School. However in 1982 an old friend from seminary, Prince Altom reached out to me and brought me to the church he pastored, now known as Hillside Community Church in Corte Madera, CA, and I was there working with Prince for three years. In August on 1984 I was asked by the American Baptist Churches, USA, to pastor a small group of elderly folks left over when First Baptist Church of Mill Valley closed when their pastor, John Streater, formerly of First Baptist Church of San Francisco, and the person who introduced Ruth Bell to Billy Graham, retired. Then in July of 1985 we began a new church and changed the name of Miller Avenue Baptist Church--and I am still the pastor of this church.
    During the 1970s I began writing books, about fifteen in all, five of which were published. A Manual of Demonology and the Occult (a ThM thesis), The Third Sex?, The Gay Theology, If the Devil wrote a Bible, and The Deliverance Book--all or most of which are still available somehow through Amazon.com, and several of the books especially an incredible book, if you will allow, called Recollections of a Warrior, the story of Vietnam vet David Hyatt., The book is exceptional not because of the author's skill, which are marginal, but because of the penetrating look it provides of that war. For eighteen years I quite writing and started up again in 1996.
    In 1995, but it really is an ongoing process, I went through a fundamental paradigm shift in my theology, I moved from a Arminian, with a lot of Dispensational thought, to a Reformed theology. It would be proper to say I am reforming rather than I am reformed. But I love the doctrines of grace, the sovereign electing mercy of God  who calls us through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As a result of this turn around I began writing again and found a wonderful publisher in England, Evangelical Press, and they published the results of what I had moved to and why in the book they titled, Are You Really Born Again? My title had been, The Mystery of Conversion. Then followed For Pastors of Small Churches, Why I am a Christian, Are you being Duped? How to care for your Pastor, and through the publishing house we here at Miller Avenue Developed, Earthen Vessel Publishing, How Christians Cast Out Demons Today, with a DVD with it.
    These are busy and productive days for me personally, still coaching baseball at the high school, Tam High where my twin daughters graduated from in 2008 (they are now attending UC Santa Barbar), and am in my fourteenth season of baseball at San Quentin State Prison. I consider myself as an old time Gospel preacher. I love to proclaim the message of Jesus and His cross to those who are lost without Him and teach the Bible to disciples. For 25 years now I have had a weekly television program, employing a talking head format and no editing, called The Bible Study, verse by verse through books of the Bible.
    My life verse is Romans 1:16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel,  for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.. There is a second verse from Romans, 10:17, that means a great deal to me. "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ."

 

 

 Saints and Angels

 Christians are worshipping saints and angels like never before—What’s going on?

The worship or adoration of angels and saints is nothing new for Christians—it  goes back many centuries. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church both have extensive histories of honoring, adoring, and praying to angels and saints, the saints being purified believers now present with God in heaven. It is thought that each person has a guardian angel who is actively engaged in guidance and protection through granting answers to prayer and miraculous intervening in real time. Additionally, the purified and holy saints in heaven are considered able to interact with believers living today.

Though the Christian Scripture does not endorse or promote the worship of angels or saints, the traditions of these churches do, and they trump whatever proscriptions might be found in the Bible itself. Therefore, if the church sanctions angel and saint worship, then it is permitted for the individual believer.

The foregoing is well understood. However, some Protestants (maybe the term should rather be “neo-Protestants”) are beginning to embrace the concept that angels and saints now in heaven are or should be involved in the life of the believer.

When Heaven Invades Earth

Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, wrote a book with the above title and believes that heaven has invaded earth by means of purified saints. Yes, he is not talking about the incarnation—the Word become flesh (see John 1:14) —he means that saints in “these last days” are engaged in empowering Christians to do mighty things, particularly healings.

It is all about power. A key phrase from Johnson is, “The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” As he describes it, saints, which are a part of the “mystical body of Christ in heaven,” are eager to be joined with the “mystical body of Christ on earth,” as in a marriage of a man and a woman. And when such a union occurs, then real kingdom power is unleashed and manifested with virtually unlimited scope and power. When this is realized, then the great branches of the Christian Church will be united.

Christians, Johnson teaches, may now avail themselves of the power of the Spirit, the angels, and the saints. He envisions the great cloud of saints in heaven becoming one with the believers on earth. Part of the authority for this doctrine comes from Hebrews 12:18-24 where in verses 22 and 23 are the words, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.” (English Standard Version)

There is not space here to adequately expose the passage, but the interpretation that departed saints are eager to engage with believers on earth now and empower them is certainly unusual and has nothing in common with the vast majority of commentators and scholars. The general theme of the passage is that what God has done in Christ is to establish a kingdom that is complete and perfect and cannot be shaken or destroyed.

The great cloud of witnesses

The purified saints—the great cloud of witnesses—have been rewarded by God and given authority to intervene in or invade the affairs of Christians living today. The invaders have the ability to work great power miracles in the ministries of Christians who understand the empowerment and seek it. The Christian living today should seek this out, according to Johnson—this gifting, impartation, or anointing—and can then bring healing and words of knowledge or prophecy to the body of Christ on earth—very heady indeed.

Pastor Johnson of Bethel Church appeals to Matthew 10:41: “The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.” The context of the passage is plain enough. Jesus outlines the fact that those who will receive or hear the message of His representatives or followers are then receiving He Himself and will be rewarded with hearing the message of the Gospel. But Johnson makes the passage mean something else entirely. It is his way of encouraging Christians today to seek out the empowering of the “great cloud of witnesses”—the departed saints.

Johnson’s warning

Bill Johnson certainly knows that his view is not broadly shared in the Christian community, so he therefore issues a warning. He understands that most biblically based Christians will have been taught that communicating with the saints in heaven is demonic in nature, that it is a deception perpetrated by the devil. The resultant fear of the devil’s tricks, Johnson warns, would then cut one off from having faith in communion with the saints and the benefits available through the powerful working of these saints. A clever tactic indeed, bringing up and negating the argument Johnson knows will be used by biblically based Christians

Certainly, the Scripture is the barrier that Johnson must overcome. In chapter 6 of his book, Johnson concludes with this most revealing statement: “Those who feel safe because of their grasp of Scripture enjoy a false sense of security. We all have the Holy Spirit, but to follow Him, we must be willing to follow Him off the map—to go beyond what we know.”

For Johnson it is not the Word of God but the new move of the “Spirit” that matters. It is all about power and not faithfulness to the Scripture. Christians who adhere to the Bible are then belittled as being stuck in old revelation and not able to follow the leading of the Spirit into new regions. So, let the Scripture go, follow the new anointing, receive the new impartations, be empowered by the purified saints.

How did it come to this?

For people who have accepted the idea that God is doing new things in the “last days,” any new direction is possible. Everything then appears to have changed, because the end is near, and it is by a display of power that the kingdom will come. Christians must then travel “off the map” if they really want to tap into what God is doing—and Johnson, among others, position themselves as direction-givers on that new map to tell us exactly what God is doing now. Amazingly, thousands are believing this, and the numbers are growing. These concepts have exerted considerable influence not only in America, and not only among charismatic and Pentecostals, but in Latin American and in Africa. It is impossible to underestimate the influence of these ideas.

One note: How is it that one can be certain that the last days have come? Declarations that the end of history has come is nothing new. There is simply no way to know what God has determined by His own counsel. Anyone can make a claim or utter a “prophecy,” but experience and wisdom teach us that it is better to wait and see and not be pushed into adopting ideas that have a proven failure rate, which is 100%.

Why are these non-biblical ideas taking hold? Power, new anointing, new improved truth—the same old errors are at work once again. It is heady, it is powerful, for there is real power; miracles do happen—there is a real spirit at work, and when you see the power, you may well be convinced. What is crucial to understand here is that not all spiritual power is from God. The power gurus of Hinduism, like Osho or Muktananda, performed amazing power miracles. Power is deceptive. The magicians of Egypt were temporarily able to imitate the power of God demonstrated through Moses.  

Are those who propound communion with departed saints in order to acquire their power evil persons bent on misleading the people of God? Not necessarily. But, demonic deception and human error are both real.

Angel of light

In the church at Corinth Paul realized there were men who had a ministry that was running counter to that which he had been commissioned by Christ to preach. From the reports that Paul had received he understood the dangers involved. Here is how Paul described the situation:

            For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising

            themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan

            disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his

            servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

            2 Corinthians 11:13-15

 

“Angel of light”—who would not be deceived, especially if one thought that the last days had come and everything had changed and we were “off the map”? With angels of light you can imagine there would be amazing knowledge and power. It may be that those who are sure they cannot be tricked are most vulnerable to being tricked.

Summary and conclusion

Realizing the need to write this has not been pleasant, but as a pastor I am obligated to warn and protect the flock God has given me. I intend this also for a wider audience, because our part of the world has already been impacted by the false teaching described in this article.

We are not to be united with departed and perfected saints in heaven. As born-again followers of Jesus, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and have the written Word of God to instruct us. We have all we need. And God will bring in His Kingdom in His own time.

To be clear about this, my conviction is that communication with so-called saints in heaven is actually trafficking with demons. It is a base deception to suggest that Christians are to seek empowerment from the saints in heaven.

We are not to seek out departed saints or pray to or worship angels (see Colossians 2:16-20. In addition recall that when Jesus taught His disciples to pray the key words were “Our Father in heaven” and not an “Our angel” or “Our saint”) No, we are to be faithful followers of Jesus who are already empowered with the Spirit to proclaim the Good News of the cross and resurrection. This is our work, whether Jesus will return for us tomorrow or in a thousand years.

Kent Philpott

November 11,2009

 

 

  

 

 

Tam High Hawks 2009

Pastor Bob Lewis at ordination Oct. 2, 1966
Excelsior Baptist Church, Byron, CA