“On any given Sunday,” what emanates from most pulpits in America, sad to say, has the spiritual depth of Scotch Tape! Regardless of how pious-sounding and eloquently delivered the religious rhetoric, it is nonetheless void of the divine-power required to edify and activate the hearers’ spirits. Why?
Recently, I interfaced and interacted with a group whose primary commonality is their claim to be apostolic leaders, which, in my view, is extremely dubious in the case of but only a few. In the aftermath, a great disappointment and matter of dismay to me was being made aware, despite the decades of disapprobation and disrepute, some of their number, including some of their senior leaders, continue to employ in working/relating “covenant relationships” with junior leaders of their group such “spiritual covenants” of the ilk described and referenced herein. I was deeply grieved in my spirit by what I saw, discerned, and experienced at that conference. A major part of my concern regarding this group (as a group), is their ostensible lack of spiritual discernment and understanding regarding worldly and demonic influences that are apparently part of their theological and belief systems. As a result of almost continual prayer for several weeks afterwards, I was impelled by the Spirit to unburden myself by the writing of this article and others I will be writing to articulate some of what the Lord has shown me regarding the nascent apostolic-prophetic movements, past, present, and future.
“Spiritual covering” as theorized by those who teach, promulgate, and adhere to it is an absolute myth. No semblance of the version of “spiritual covering” taught by its proponents exists anywhere within the pages of Holy Writ (Scripture). I will take it a step further and state straightforwardly and unambiguously: “Spiritual covering,” in the vein that it is presented by its proponents and proliferators, is an unmitigated lie and complete myth! It is a complete fabrication concocted by the originators of these fallacious doctrines by which to facilitate and perpetuate their purely self‑aggrandizing objectives of subjugation, domination and control of the sheep of God’s Flock.
Authoritarian abuse (aka, “spiritual abuse”) is one of the most widespread and troubling problems facing the Church today. Indeed, the truth is that ecclesiastical enslavement and exploitation is pandemic in many sectors of 21st Century Christendom, though those churches and ministries employing it go to great lengths to disguise and conceal it. What makes the ubiquitous problem even more insidious is that many of the perpetrators and propagators of these spiritually repressive teachings and techniques are respected, and in some cases revered, spiritual leaders. Moreover these autocratic systems of religious hegemony are being imposed in church-groups espousing orthodox Christian beliefs, whose membership is comprised of a cross section of average Americans—individuals and families—of every race, education level, station, status, and vocation, rather than radical, fringe religious sects and cults as many uninformed people would suppose.
In short, Nicolaitanism was a heretical hierarchical system of church‑government devised, propagated, and instituted by a corrupt sect of usurpers that surfaced toward the end of the First Century A.D. The malevolent and ignoble objectives of these interlopers are succinctly reflected in the etymology of their name—Nicolaitans—a compound Greek word, comprised of two components. The first component is derived from the word “nikao,” which means, to conquer. The derivation of the second compound is the word “laos,” which refers to the laity, a term used in the days of the Early Apostolic Church to allude to congregational believers who are not Fivefold Ministers or a part of the governmental presbytery of a church. Combined, these two components precisely convey the overall primary goal of the Nicolaitans, which was to conquer the laity.
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