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"I trusted what Pastor Arnold Murray from Shepherd’s Chapel was saying."
"Can you please share with me why you
don’t like that church any more?"
Question/Comment:
----- Original Message -----From: Emailer #243To: Paul StringiniSent: Thursday, August 14, 2014 9:34 PMSubject: please respondHi, I just found your web site tonight, I need to read more but I have read enough to believe that you Believe:
----- Original Message -----From: Paul StringiniTo: Emailer #243Sent: Friday, August 15, 2014 12:39 PMSubject: Re: please respond
Hi Emailer #243 , I gotta run today, my brother recently died of cancer, so today is the wake and tomorrow the funeral, but I read your message and will write back as soon as practical. I just wanted to let you know because I'm just wont be able to get to it till Sunday earliest, but I look forward to it. You ask good questions.Sincerely,Paul Stringini
----- Original Message -----From: Emailer #243To: Paul StringiniSent: Saturday, August 16, 2014 6:08 AMSubject: Re: please respondOh, thank you so much, I pray all goes well with your brotherI look forward to your responseGod blessEmailer #243
----- Original Message -----From: Paul StringiniTo: Emailer #243Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 8:51 PMSubject: Re: please respondHi Emailer #243 ,Yes, I believe in those four points you mentioned.Can you please tell me, when this world becomes one government, and the anti Christ is here pretending to be the almighty, can we spend our own money or will that be bowing down to the anti Christ?I don't know exactly, but Revelation 13 says this "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."I don't think that spending your money would constitute accepting the mark of the beast. What Revelation leads me to believe is that your money will not be officially acceptable any more. If you do not have the mark, it won't matter if you have money. So the mark is more important than the money. The bible never says that buying and selling itself is somehow a part of being marked. Just that the prohibition on buying and selling will be against anyone who does not receive the mark.Now, there are other things to consider. One is the fact that the Mark will be official policy, that does not mean that there will be no back channels or black markets through which one might obtain necessary things. I don't see how we can rule that out. The Lord always make a way in the wilderness. When they guarded the gate to seize Paul, they let him down the wall by a basket. The rule will be that no one can buy or sell without the mark, and there will be persecution over this. But it is not so easy to keep people from slipping through the cracks in the system.Also, there is reason to expect divine intervention on our behalf.Revelation12:14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.I do not have lots of dreams. But I had one dream once that I thought was prophetic. I was sitting in my kitchen. It was absolutely my kitchen, not some weird dreamy kitchen, as would be usual in my dreams. But it was during the reign of Antichrist, I knew this, I don't know how. We needed water, because all the wells were poisoned, these were things I was just aware of in the dream. I was sitting at the kitchen table, and, looking at our water jug, it began to fill from the bottom with the cap still on. A strange feeling came over me, and I fell into visions in the dream and things were told me which I cannot now remember anything about.A very strange dream, but it meant a lot to me. Most of it is useless because I can't remember. But there seems to be a single useful point. God will take care of us. If the wells are poisoned he will provide water, that, or we will die. But I have confidence that the Lord has plans for those of us who reach those days. And as Elijah was fed by the widow's barrel and by ravens, so he will look after us in the days of Antichrist.I prepare for the tribulation by learning to walk godly, soberly, and righteously in this present world. That is the best preparation.Do you believe the period will be 5 months after the anti Christ that the real Christ will return?I don't know. The period spoken of concerning the locusts in chapter 5 is five months. There will certainly be things leading up to that, but I do believe that the most intense period will likely be those 5 months and your question might point at the correct answer. I am unsure. There is the 3.5 year period spoken of elsewhere. I would mentally prepare for a long tribulation. That seems like the wise position.If you have any follow up questions or other questions I'll be happy to give you my take on it. I also have a free line by line study in Revelation which you may find has useful insights. http://oraclesofgod.org/studies/66_Revelation/66_revelation.html Feel free to write any time. I am at your service.Sincerely,Paul Stringini
----- Original Message -----From: Emailer #243To: Paul StringiniSent: Tuesday, August 19, 2014 12:40 AMSubject: Re: please respondThank you so much, I believe what you are saying makes sense. I am trying to be careful as to whom I am trusting about the true word of God. The one thing that is making perfect sense to me now that did not in the past is the fact that there will be many false prophets. What that means to me today is: it’s not that people are purposely misleading Christians in the word of God, it’s that they are unknowingly teaching things that are false and will not be “awake” when the antichrist comes. They will fall into his trap and it will be too late. Thank you for sending me the link at the bottom of your email, I will be checking that out. My next order of business very soon is to find people and a church in my area in order to gather more facts. Keeping in my what you said: the best preparation for the tribulation is to walk godly, soberly and righteously. I will try my best as I continue my search. Never in my whole life have I felt so compelled to learn more about our Father. It is such a strong feeling that I am convinced The Holy Spirit put that feeling in me!Thank you again for your time, I pray we will have more conversations.
----- Original Message -----From: Emailer #243To: Paul StringiniSent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 3:28 AMSubject: Re: please respondHi, I do have a question for you, as I said I am trying to gather information from teachers of God’s word that I feel is God’s true word. I trusted what Pastor Arnold Murray from Shepherd’s Chapel was saying. Can you please share with me why you don’t like that church any more?I keep praying God will direct me and lead me to the truth of His word, but I feel I need help learning it. I hope I do not offend you by asking that question, I am just trying to gather facts so I know who I can depend on for the right teaching of Gods word.Thank you for your responseSincerely,Emailer #243
My Third Response:
----- Original Message -----From: Paul StringiniTo: Emailer #243Sent: Friday, August 22, 2014 12:32 PMSubject: Re: please respond
No offense at all. I will need a day or two more before I can reply.
----- Original Message -----From: Paul StringiniTo: Emailer #243Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 5:26 PMSubject: Re: please respondHi again Emailer #243, Sorry it took so long to respond. When I told you before that my brother's funeral was the 15th and 16th, I thought that was the case, I even got dressed for the wake on that Friday. It turned out it was actually the next weekend. So it has been busy for that and other reasons. Overall it has been a crazy August for me. Thanks for your patience.I trusted what Pastor Arnold Murray from Shepherd’s Chapel was saying. Can you please share with me why you don’t like that church any more?I have written extensively on that subject, but the writing is a little old. There are many reasons why I do not follow the Shepherd's Chapel anymore, and why I discourage others from doing so.1). One, Arnold Murray is documented as having made false prophecies. Yes, in the past (1980's). But even up until a few months before his death he was still following the same principles that led him to make the original false predictions. It is not as simple as "Oh, I made a mistake, I'm sorry." I think even false prophecy is a forgivable sin. But if we continue in that sin, that is another matter. I have never uncovered any evidence that Arnold Murray ever repented of his false predictions. In fact, what I eventually came to believe was that many of his odd prophetic teachings regarding current events down to his final days, were directly related to his need to continually justify his original false prediction back in the early 80's.I started studying with Pastor Murray in 1993 and traveled down to Arkansas in 1995 to marry another Chapel student (my current and only wife of 19 years) While sitting in the Passover meeting Arnold was talking about prophecy, he was speaking about the fifth Trump and said of the fifth trump "that is where we are right now." I think that was the first time I really felt a strong sense of disagreement with Pastor Murray, it did not result in my immediately rejecting his teachings, but I walked out thinking "Why would he say that?" The fifth trump covers a five month period, there is no way we were in the fifth trump in 1995 and even if we were just past the fourth trump somehow, that was almost 20 years ago now! The maximum time the tribulation period could last is seven years. And I think it is safe to say that the trumpets are the great signs of the tribulation. That is what a trumpet is, a signal.For all his talk about tongues being babble, it is odd to me that Arnold Murray believed that most of the trumpets had sounded, but I never once heard him point to specific events that WERE the trumpets. If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, how shall we prepare for the battle? You have to be able to recognize the sign as a sign. But I continued to listen to his tapes, eventually running across some older tapes and seeing how he got on this weird timetable. When Arnold Murray predicted that antichrist would appear in 1981, and the prediction failed, he then proceeded to change his prediction and back up those new claims with divine visions. Instead of Anti Christ appearing, Arnold started opening the seals. On several tapes Murray claimed to have seen a vision of an angel in a cloud standing next to a roman numeral IV and the angel removed the I to signify they were moving from the fourth to the fifth seal. This was the mid 80's and Arnold basically kept pushing the prophetic time clock forward a few inches every year in order to cover up his 1981 mistake. By the time we got to 1995 we were in the fifth trump. In the meantime his ministry was growing by leaps and bounds. He never talked about this stuff on TV, he didn't need to, because most of the TV audience knew nothing about it. But he was stuck in this weird prophetic timetable based on his 1981 prediction, there were still enough people around him that knew about it that he could not just get off the bus and say "I made a big mistake and set a date for the appearance of antichrist that was incorrect."Anyway, I do have a page dealing with the 1981 prediction, but a lot of the rest of what I just said has not been organized into a document. I'm more interested in doing my own bible studies, and the hard-line chapel students don't seem to take any evidence seriously, even when it is out of Arnold's own mouth. http://oraclesofgod.org/1980/1980.htm2) The prophetic issue alienated me from Arnold Murray, but it did not turn me against him. In 1998 when I released my first CD, I sent a box of 50 to the Chapel. It was not until 2007 that I actually made a webpage dedicated to fighting his ministry. This was precipitated by events in 2005. In 2005 my life was in a bit of a rut, I was writing bible music but I was addicted to drugs and alcohol and that was having a negative effect on my life in many ways. In March of 2005 I was contacted by a young man from a church in Wisconsin. He was a fan of my music and wanted me to come play at his church, the whole thing was arranged. I enjoyed playing at the church, but the message preached that day seemed to reach right into my soul. I was hungry for righteousness but felt like my life was missing something. I had asked God to send me the Holy Spirit many times in my life and nothing had happened. People told me I should just go on believing that something had happened. I tried that and I was spinning my wheels. On my way home that evening I was very thoughtful and I stayed up all night reading the doctrinal statement of that Church. I wanted them to pray for me to receive the holy spirit, but I was not going to ask that from people who I believed taught false doctrine. I agreed with most of what their statement said. I did not believe in soul sleep at that time, but I did not view it as a barrier, I thought it was a plausible doctrine. The only hard disagreement I had was over the issue of tongues. I did not believe in speaking with tongues. I went back the next day and told a few of the men my story. I told them I did not believe in tongues and that I would not speak in babble unless God actually made me to it. Then I asked them to pray for me. I remember standing there in the empty church with the Pastor and the two young men having their hands on me praying, and I was thinking "Paul, you are going to stand here all day, like and idiot, and nothing is going to happen." then I chided myself, "come on Paul, you have to have a little faith." and I whispered, "Lord Jesus, Grant me my heart's desire." Immediately a strange sensation of power came over my hands which I had never experienced, I questioned it openly and tried to test it by toughing things, but when I touched something the power would stop. They told me to keep praying. I didn't really pray much, I had just asked, so I didn't really know what else to say, I was just really happy because I felt like I knew God was answering my prayers. The power spread from my hands to my ears and to my feet and to my mouth. And when I opened my mouth to thank God my lips moved of their own accord and I could not understand the things which I said. This experience was never repeated.I'm cutting that a bit short to get to the point. I think Arnold Murray was wrong about tongues for obvious reasons. I don't expect my experience to be convincing to you, It was convincing to me, this is part of why I oppose Murray, for Good or for evil. That is what is was for. When I touched anything else with the power, it disappeared. My wife was stunned by my experience, needless to say, she did not believe me at first. But after she was convinced it was another two years before she received the Holy Spirit, which was a very difficult time for both of us.After having received the Spirit, my doctrinal views changed overnight, I rejected Murray's view of the millennium, the elect, freewill, death, his personal philosophy and more. And I never had any problems with drugs or drinking again, and I quit smoking too. I still look to Christ for justification and I still have a ways to go in order to conform to the image of Christ, but those events changed me forever and two years afterward I decided I should come out in my opposition to Arnold Murray. I wrote a document outlining my reasons for opposing the Chapel http://oraclesofgod.org/shepherds_chapel_document.htm , but since then I have developed more reasons and refined my understanding of Pastor Murray's false teachings. I have corresponded with dozens of Chapel students and others on the subject of the Shepherd's Chapel and developed a deeper understanding of what is wrong with the chapel.3) Arnold Murray's confidence inducing abuses. Arnold Murray is an abusive pastor who attempts to gain the confidence of his students in order to cause them to believe false doctrines. This was one of the things I realized after I started to oppose him. When he makes a point he often praises those who agree with him and suggests that those who disagree with him are "stupid." If you agree with him you are probably one of God's elect, if not, well, you may be a little bit stupid, because, apparently, in Murray's world you get the feeling that only smart people are chosen of God. He is very fond of "sounding the trumpet" before himself, announcing on television, that he never takes a salary for teaching, that he "never begs" (even though he asks for donations every single broadcast) and he points out how he is superior to other teachers in many ways. He is simultaneously anti-establishment, and one who is obsessive about making the people around him believe he is a scholar.But he is not a scholar, at least, not a competent one. In the limited time available to me I have attempted to demonstrate this. There are many emails but I did this particular study to make a point. http://oraclesofgod.org/shepherds_chapel/exapatao.htm"Don't trust me" is a classic con-man technique. You say that, and the intention is to cause people to trust you. I took the suggestion to "check him out" seriously, and so I did more than just follow the trail of breadcrumbs he left for me to follow. That is how Arnold Murray used what is called a "selective use of evidence" to convince us of things that are not biblical.For example compare these two verses from Genesis:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, ...17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: ...In both verses we find the same formula. Adam's knowing Eve was the cause of Cain, Chapel students continually accuse me of being blind. Blind people cannot see what is plainly visible to those who can. When I look at Genesis 4, I can plainly see that the bible is trying to say that Adam was the father of Cain. When people tell me they cannot see that there, that is how I know for certain that they are the blind ones. We can either listen to the scriptures and let the bible be our instructor, or we can impose our ideas on the scriptures.How did I ever let some man convince me that I should not believe what is plainly written?I put Murray in the camp of those who read the bible and try to tell us that we should not believe what we are reading. If you carefully research the "tricks" Arnold pulls with the Hebrew (such as the meaning of the word "tree" and the meaning of the word "touch" in Genesis) , you will find that he is acting irresponsibly and corrupting the meaning of what is written. Most of his students do not even know how to properly use a Strong's concordance, and the Strong's concordance is just one tool of many. The real injustice is the way Murray causes people to take what the bible says lightly, because they end up reading Murray's personal ideas into whatever they read in the scriptures and the scriptures become clay in their hands.I hope that your prayers are answered in part by God leading you in my direction. I am not a mentor or guru. I'm just a mediocre bible teacher. I don't know it all, the most valuable asset I have is the sense I have in myself that I do not really know anything like I ought to know it. I have been studying the bible for 20 years and while I do feel I have come to the knowledge of the truth. I know also that there are greater riches to be had in Christ that I have not laid eyes on. I also know that the truth is not just for brainy people, but for all peoples from every walk of life. You asked me originally about some very simple ideas. Such as "Jesus died for our sins," the main focus of my ministry is limited to the implications of that very simple proposition. To lead people through the bible and exhort them to obtain the things to which by faith in Christ and his death and resurrection, they have laid claim. I don't try to create a lot of mystery to sell prophecy products, I don't have a special or unique message for the world. But I do think what I have to say is very important.These are the verses in the bible that speak loudest to me:2 Peter 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:We have been called to glory and virtue, so I want to help guide people to obtain these precious gifts which by faith we have claim to. All things have been given us which pertain to life and godliness, so I look to have my life conform more and more to the image of Christ and this is what I teach others to look for, pray for, and seek to obtain.
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.I want to partake of this divine nature, that is mine because I have laid hold of the promises of God in Christ Jesus. God has put all things under his feet, but it does not appear that all things are put under his feet, so it remains that God must fulfill his word, we look for that, believe in it. So also, I have escaped the corruption that is in this world, yet from time to time I find myself entangled in the corruption of the world, so it remains that I must escape the corruption in the world, and I'm not going to wait till I'm dead to do that because that is not the spirit of what is written here.5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faith+ 0 = salvation? Faith is NEVER alone, faith alone is an oxymoron. Faith breeds virtue, knowledge, temperance, etc. Faith is not some one time act or work that we do to "get saved" faith is salvation because we keep the faith and faint not.
9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:How many times have you heard them ask "Do you know for sure that you will go to heaven?" And what do they say makes them sure? A single work. Not faith. Faith alone is a code word for a one-time action, a work, which they claim makes us saved. But what saves us is the promise of God, and what makes me sure of my calling and election is the fact that I can SEE the operation of God in my life adding to my faith, causing me over time to conform to his image. That is where I draw my confidence, not from MY works (a one-time profession) but from GOD's mighty works in me, delivering me from drugs, alcohol, false doctrines, false brethren. Giving me knowledge, wisdom and patience. All these things I could not do for myself. My words and confessions are cheap, but the works of God are priceless. We have been given many great and precious promises and continual faith in these and the pursuit of godliness is all the weapons you need for any situation.11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
God is with you. I trust, whatever you feel about me, that the Lord Jesus Christ will guide you to all truth by his Spirit in his time.If you have any further questions, I am at your service.Sincerely,Paul Stringini
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