From the Coffin to the Cross: A Much Needed Awakening

From the Coffin to the Cross

A Much Needed Awakening

Calvin McDonald

How foolish can you be? After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

Galatians 3:3 (NLT)

This is all the more urgent, for you know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living."

Romans 13:11-12 (NLT)

Copyright © 2012 Calvin McDonald

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Author Photo by Gary W. Sweetman Photography.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7790-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7791-3 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-7792-0 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012922674

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WestBow Press rev. date: 12/13/2012

Contents

Chapter 1 – The Spiritual Mask

Chapter 2 – The Unrecognizable Awakening of the American Christian Church

Chapter 3 – The Coffin versus the Cross of Jesus Christ

Chapter 4 – Building Religious Shrines Around What God Calls Sin

Chapter 5 – Getting Over the Hump

Chapter 6 – Calvinism Versus Arminianism

Chapter 7 – Patriotic Preaching Instead of Godly Preaching

Chapter 8 – A Living Grace

Chapter 9 – Christians Hiding behind the Veil

Chapter 10 – Jealousy and God’s Pending Judgment

Chapter 11 – The Spirit of Jezebel in Today’s Churches

Chapter 12 – Communism in America

Chapter 13 – Two Great Nations and Their Coming Demise

Chapter 14 – Last Days Woes

Chapter 15 – The Wayward Generation

Chapter 16 – Leadership Crisis

Chapter 17 – Conveying a Full and Accurate Message of Christ

I dedicate this book to two of the most influential people in my life, both of whom have been deceased for over two decades: my grandfather, Bishop Calvin Saunders, and my mother, Maggie Dell McDonald

Special Thanks

To my loving wife, Elsa, who provided support, inspiration and proofreading for this entire book.

Summary

The inspiration for this book came from a vision God gave me when I was the lead pastor of my first church. The vision was an eye-opener for me and hopefully will be for the rest of the world as well. Even though I was in a very small church at the time, I realized that God gave me this vision to have His people wake up from their spiritual sleep. This vision originally inspired a sermon called The Coffin, the Veil, and the Cross. If every believer in every local church in North America could get the sense of this vision, understand what it is God is saying to His people, and pay heed by turning away from our foolish mistakes, then we will hear from heaven: If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV).

When God says something to the seed of Abraham, it stands as a decree throughout all the ages. This is what Jesus meant when He said, For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled (Matthew 5:18 KJV). Now that we are in Christ Jesus, we are heirs of the promises of God. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29 NIV). Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory (Romans 8:17 NIV).

Many of the leading denominational churches of America have become so big that they have forgotten from whence they have fallen. In fact, there is an inside joke among the ministers of one of the oldest evangelical/Pentecostal denominations in America about its leaders that says, How do you know when one of our state leaders is lying? His lips are moving. This kind of sentiment is fast becoming a reality in so many corners of what was once the greatest Spirit-filled movement in the entire world since the turn of the twentieth century. Many ministry workers have now become opportunists driven by the mentality of look out for your own hide. Many of these movements have abandoned the godly principles upon which they were founded and from which they emerged.

There was a time in the history of these denominations when the only thing that mattered was that men and women were called by God and living a life that was pleasing in His sight. These days it doesn’t even matter if a person is called of God or if they are even truly saved, but more that they are sons and daughters of the soil whose parents have earned them the rite of passage to a leader’s position. In virtually all of today’s church organizations, the children of God have become as the backsliding priests of the Old and New Testaments who were so busy setting up themselves, their friends, and their family that they completely lost sight of the plan and purpose of God. "For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?" (1 Peter 4:17 NKJV).

This book will show that genuine truth and love have but dissipated in the body of Christ. It will show how the business aspect of church has become more important than the actual people it serves and should be seeking to bring into salvation. I’ll also reveal how young men and women, called of God, are simply thrown into the sanctimonious pit of a false brotherhood that legitimizes the failure of some organizations. The apostle John understood the need for a clear understanding among his fellow Christians that they knew just how significant these two elements—truth and love—are to the continued cohesiveness and survival of the entire body of Christ until His return. The Christian church today must turn back to God through the doorway marked God’s truth and love if we are going to be awakened. John the Revelator, in the gospel of John, and the first and second epistles of John, seemed to be preoccupied with a strong desire for believer knowing and keeping the truth and Love of God alive. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:34–36 NIV). He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 John 2:4 KJV).

I will also state how there are so many of today’s believers sitting in church pews every Sunday who totally disagree with denominational doctrines and biblical truth because they could care less what a church actually believes. Falling in line with the postmodern theory that you decide your own truth, many believers have just learned to spiritualize these ideals and have become members behaving badly in what is supposed to be the house of God. The book will also show that an entire generation of believers have failed God tremendously due to constant infighting and disunity in many churches and communities all over North America. In fact, many church doors had to be closed because this issue went ignored for too long. When the governments of the United States and Canada began adopting human secular policies into their political legislations, the spirit of the Pharisees also came calling on many evangelical church leaders who were such cowards that they simply adjusted their Biblical policies to fit in with this new age mind-set.

In order to affect the body of Christ in these contemporary times, Satan put a plan of distortion into action thousands of years ago, introducing perspectives that are rooted in self-consumption. These are perspectives where the hearts and minds of individual believers are deceived into depending on their own comprehensive powers to know the things of God rather than the powers and wisdom of God’s divine Holy Spirit. The Scripture commands us to Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5 NIV). Today there are people who are of totally different opinions struggling for control over the body of Christ. People who are of a Calvinistic persuasion are sitting in churches whose doctrinal creeds are based on a Wesleyan-Armenian theology. Additionally, there are people who are of a Wesleyan-Armenian persuasion sitting in churches whose doctrinal creeds have been established in Calvinistic theology. For many church congregations all over North America, this issue is like a big, reinforced concrete hurdle sitting in the middle of the churches. All biblical truths have to go over, under, or around it. So by the time it gets to you, it is so weak there is absolutely no substance in the message.

After creating this distortion of God’s truth, Satan has established another lie that says that none of this matters since we are all one in Christ. Gifted people who are valuable to the work of the ministry are being tossed to the wayside while a growing sense of disunity and discontentment spreads like wildfire. Churches and their leadership need to wake up and stop this problem by accepting that people just don’t get along in churches anymore. This disunity is actually a result of failure in many ministry leaders to walk in the power of Christ’s biblical authority upon their lives. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye and say that it does not matter how believers choose to perceive God or what’s ingrained in them due to their cultural upbringing. The idea that God will meet us no matter how we choose to find Him dismisses all need for personal spiritual growth in today’s Christians. Too many pastors and leaders are so focused on keeping people in the pews that our spiritual truths and godly values are disappearing. Instead, pastors and leaders should be seeking God’s guidance and direction on how to minister to this generation.

Chapter 1

The Spiritual Mask

What exactly is this spiritual mask? It’s the mask of religiosity: strutting around like a bunch of self-righteous peacocks. Starting when I was sixteen years old, I attended various churches—some denominational and some nondenominational. After attending most of the denominational conferences for just a few years, I got so tired of hearing about what a great job everyone was doing and how the battle was being won. I think that it was this kind of spiritual subverting that led to the invention of the religious mask. It is the pride of today’s spiritual leaders that was the catalyst for the features of these masks. While most evangelical denominations have done an exceptional job in many areas, one in which they have been falling short is steering their members in righteousness (the right ways of the Lord). But at the same time, they’ve done a great job at steering them in the ways of their denominational rules. Consider 2 Timothy 2:14, wherein the apostle Paul spoke of the approval and disapproval of fellow kingdom workers: "Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers" (NKJV).

Church Fallout in North America

Some churches are going so far to accommodate the desires of the world that they seem to totally ignore the Scriptures’ command to come out from among them and be separate … Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you (2 Corinthians 6:17 NKJV). Many of them have become like funeral homes, catering to no particular spiritual ideal or biblical truth, but simply in the business of dealing with the dead. While this business appears to be about bringing comfort to the living, its survival depends on how well they actually deal with the dead. This makes me wonder just why Jesus said to His disciples, Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God (Luke 9:60 NIV). As funeral homes put up deceptive signs and advertisements to give the impression that they care about the living, so many churches are putting on programs to give the impression that they care about one’s eternal soul, but in all reality they only care about building social programs and increasing their numbers. Consider a funeral home. In order to get your relative’s body, they appear to be the most loving, caring people to complete strangers. Once they have been paid, they quickly move on to the next dead body. How many people who have lost loved ones can tell you they’ve received call after call from their family’s funeral director to see how they were doing after being paid in full?

It is interesting to note that in Luke 9, Jesus was busy doing the work of the kingdom of Heaven first. He sent all twelve of His disciples out into the mission field and equipped them by giving them power and authority. It would be good for those in ministry today to always remember that if we truly put our faith in Him, He will equip us with the two most essential things we need to complete the task: power and authority. No one can effectively do the work of the kingdom of God without power and authority. Remember His promise and walk in it: Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’ (Hebrews 13:5 NKJV).

I will always remember my first pastorate. A seasoned minister thought it wise to establish a super board to co-pastor with the unsuspecting new pastor. This super board consisted of two old men who didn’t have the mental capacity to comprehend that the church was not about them. This minister established an illegal super board as a reward for long service and dedication in the church. Because of their continuous years of perversion and lack of respect for spiritual leadership, this super board assumed power and authority as the overseers, superseding that of the lead pastor. This was a totally dysfunctional church. I spent three years dealing with such colossal failure from the past simply because a few spiritually deranged folks were allowed to run amuck making up their own rules to govern over Christ’s church. With almost no understanding of walking in the principles of God’s Holy Word, they enshrined their opinions and ungodly ideals as sacred while totally ignoring every key passage of scripture for guidance. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17 NLT). This passage of Scripture meant nothing to this group of people. In fact, one of these so-called leaders would say things like I know the Bible says so, but … The second member said on another occasion, As a pastor, you don’t need to correct anyone. The Holy Spirit does all the correction on its own. If only they had trusted in the power of the Word of the almighty God and had not leaned on their own understanding, they would have been so much farther in their Christian walk. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5 NKJV). Instead, they prefer to lie to themselves while claiming to walk in love. In addition to this being a total waste of time for the ministry, they foolishly alienate themselves from the community. I know you are probably thinking this was some independent, rogue church, full of a bunch of self-thinkers, but quite the contrary. This was a self-governed, denominational church left alone to prosper, but instead, they paid their dues in order to be left alone and were allowed to destroy themselves. The automatic question in this case would be this: why would a church like this be allowed to have autonomy in the first place? The serious fact is these kinds of scenarios are too commonly played out all over North America in too many evangelical denominational churches.

The Mask Worn in the Southern United States

In November 2005, I rounded up my family and relocated from the beautiful Islands of the Bahamas to the state of South Carolina in the United States of America. It was here my wife and I saw firsthand the real American church. I was born into one of the oldest Pentecostal ndenominations in North America where my grandfather, the late Rev. Calvin Saunders, served as the senior pastor for some thirty-five years. I was a proud third-generation boy of this great denomination, an identity I wore with great honor. From the time I can remember, I saw this organization through rose-colored glasses even though there were many visible failures in my own country. I simply thought this was attributed to the fact that we were a third world people with third world thinking. Every year I saw many evangelists come from the United States preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. This had a tremendous influence on my perception of what ministry in America was all about. It was after I became an ordained minister in the church in America that I realized all of the ministerial training I received in the Caribbean and the United States was rooted in the perverse southern traditions with a strong influence of Colorism. This history was and still to this day sold to people outside of America as a rich history rooted in the spirit of Pentecost where godly love and respect for all is a part of the embodiment of brotherly love in Christ. When confronted by educated people who were asking how this could be, the reply would always be that’s just the way people are in America. Not until I got to the United States and began to learn about the real organization and its true history that my grandfather, my mother, and I adored so much did I begin to ask questions that seemed to have escaped the memory of the writer of this rich history.

While we cannot hold any group of people, organization, or country to constantly be accountable for the actions of those who came before them, we should not hide the truth of what we have evolved from. Indeed, to keep the naked facts of who we really were continuously hidden from those living in foreign countries is deception by way of omission.

When I came to United States and began learning the true identity of the organization I so loved, I didn’t even hold it against the American members or the leaders belonging to this organization. But what I did hold against them was the fact that they have continuously forced a southern culture of racial separation. It was while living there that we found out that churches had color. There were black churches, Hispanic churches, and white churches. This was so obviously evident when attending the state’s camp meeting, where you could count the number of African Americans and Hispanics in a group of almost five thousand people. When attending these events you were constantly reminded of the phrase if looks could kill. Some people would actually come up to us and ask, What are you doing here? To see these people speaking in tongues, prophesying, preaching, and laying on hands reminded me of the Scripture that says, If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV). The last time I checked, it was still a part of God’s rule of righteousness that to knowingly live in direct disobedience to God’s Holy Word is a sin. In the second chapter of Ephesians, the apostle Paul teaches about how the blood of Jesus moved all objects of separation and brought God’s people together under one banner, bound by brotherly love in Jesus Christ. It is in verse fourteen that he used words such as barrier and wall of partition. For He himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14 NIV).

Because I had cut my spiritual teeth in this organization, I had a sense of belonging and, I must admit, a little sense of entitlement. It was at this time that I saw the real face behind the mask of what I thought was a great, God-ordained organization. The mentality that needs to be destroyed among God’s people is one that states, We love the Gentiles, but if they dare come to Jerusalem, they will be reminded that they are Gentiles. If you wear the mask for too long, you begin to think that you’re not wearing anything, but the Gentiles can see it, and they will call Christians hypocrites.

Growing Up in the Caribbean

I came from a town where people fall for emotional hype quicker than biblical truth. It is particularly easy to deceive them. I’ve met pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and ministry leaders who, for most of their lives, have traveled to third world countries and into towns and villages like the one I grew up in to preach and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, but they will come back to their homes and towns and won’t even speak to their African American, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim, and even Catholic neighbors across the street. Apparently with many of these North American tongue-talking, Holy Ghost–filled ministry workers, the love of Christ works differently in third world countries than it does in America.

In some parts of the country of the Bahamas—including my hometown—it is the people’s core Christian values that produce many of the God-fearing people found there. It is because of those values that many good Christian leaders are born and bred in small towns like mine all over the world. I would just like to grab the next racially separated ministry worker from North America heading into a third world country, give him a good shake, and tell him to go make peace with all the people of other races that he meets in his everyday life (jobs, schools, churches, and social and sport clubs) before going down to teach and preach the love of Christ. Ministry workers need to know that unless they do this, they are misrepresenting themselves as ministers walking in the love of the God they’re pretending to represent. Anyone can put together a few suitcases of Bibles, goods, and clothing, take them down to an exotic vacation, and mingle with the local people in a third world country, but very few can actually show forth the true love of Christ, which can only come from totally surrendering the human spirit to the will of the God’s Holy Spirit.

I’ve even seen in some churches where Christians are kept ignorant because they are easier to control that way. I totally understand that sometimes as a lead pastor, you can’t take some people too fast, but to totally deny them greener pastures is just wrong. Lots of times, as pastors, we totally allow ourselves to be consumed by fear that says, If we teach them and try to take them somewhere spiritually, they might get mad and leave.

Ministering in the Southern United States

While ministering in South Carolina, I was told such dim-witted things as You think like a white man. I thought to myself, What does that even mean? Also, There are racial lines in this state when it comes to hunting, and the blacks dare not cross them. When I bought my first Harley motorbike, a Christian told me A Harley is a white man’s bike. While ministering at a church there, I met one of the most ungodly individuals I’ve ever encountered who was full of hate and deceit but was complimented by one of the church leaders as being the most spiritual man he knew. During the 2008 and 2012 presidential races, this same man along with millions of Evangelical Christians denounced Barack Obama solely on the basis that he is African American, while giving full support to Mitt Romney. He did this even though Mr. Obama attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois - a Bible-believing Christian church; while Mr. Romney attended a Mormon church – which most American Evangelical Christians consider to be a cult. Trinity United Church’s history records how they stood up against many racial injustices of the past including radical black Muslims doing the years of the civil rights movement. This congregation of black Americans only crime is that they choose to celebrate their blackness. While some people often go too far in celebrating their ethnicity to the point of enshrinement these black Christians are never the less lovers of Christ Jesus as many white Evangelical Christians are. If born-again Christians are truly led by the Spirit of Christ they must not be led by hatred through racial prejudice. This will always lead to accepting something that is not of God and will push this nation even further away from God. Even though both Presidential candidates claim to be followers of Christ one is a predominantly a protestant African America Christian and the other the Mormon. The very nature of American politics has become so corrupt that its Government has abandoned all godly principles of righteousness which its forefathers once adhered to. The naked truth is none of these