A Firm Foundation

A FIRM FOUNDATION

Christian’s Walk

(A look into the life of Ben Pollock)

At age 15, I ended my soul torment of works versus the understanding of who Christ Jesus really was. That day became the most freeing day of my life. I thank the Lord for many who discipled me, to make that decision (my parents, Mr. & Mrs. James Robinson, Bill Gothard and the many Christians in my life that held up the Word of God and said that it was inherent and inspired by the Holy Spirit of God ). It was Bill Gothard that hammered that the Bible was our soul standard for living and if we wanted to know the heart of God, we had to know his Word. From age 15 to 25 my life was a roller coaster. One redeemable factor after I came to Christ, was the fact that I spent many days devouring the Word of God, fasting and praying, alone, in the swamps of Florida.

At age 25, I came back to my first love which was the Lord Jesus Christ. All of the discipling from men and ladies of God in the past was there, but seemed so far away. I prayed and sought God’s face on how I would not so easily fail Him in the up and down Christian walk again. He showed me at least three things I needed to do. Knowing the Word of God was #1, to change the music that I was listening to, and choosing my friends more wisely.

During that time I found my beloved, Tina. I had nearly destroyed our marriage with the self-centered lifestyle that I was living. For example, I had no desire to have children, for they would keep me from being wealthy, in my mind. After seeing through God’s Word how He desired to bless me with children, Tina and I both agreed to allow the Lord to give us as many Blessings as He chose. And that part of my life is a whole other story!!

Through the journey of raising children in Holiness, teaching them to choose good over evil, it was a constant battle. As I grew in God’s Word, I realized the shallowness of the Church that I was attending; I knew in my heart that we had to do something different. With the immoral lifestyle of the youth group that I had grown up in, I knew we had to make a change.

With our third born child, the doctor nearly killed my wife. Due to his fear, he made a rash decision, and my wife nearly bled to death at home, 4 weeks later. With the world’s wisdom, we would have to stop having children. And with the weak willed Christians that we were around, saying that we were going overboard with holiness and everything was a witch hunt, we continued to seek God, and to dig deeper into His Word. Everywhere I found in His Word that the safest place to be was in the center of His will. We could not accept things in our home that were dishonoring and displeasing to God. And Tina could not choose her life over the lives of the children that the Lord would bless us with. A man asked me when we were expecting our fourth child to be born at home, “How are you going to be able to handle it if your wife dies?” My answer to him was, “I don’t know, but I will be able to tell my children that their mother was the Godliest woman I ever knew.”

During that time, we met a group of (homes schooling, home churching, home birthing) midwives and their families, in Geneva, Florida. We were immediately drawn to their lifestyle of training their children in holiness from the start. Many of them had been discipled by Bill Gothard and found in the scriptures, just as we did, that children are truly a blessing of God. Through Bill Gothard’s ministry, there was a great awakening in America. Many fathers, for the first time, turned their hearts back to their children. (Malachi 4:6).

On my birthday in 1993, God blessed me with the best catch of my life with my fourth born child, born at home. Things I saw in scripture, I was seeing in this body of believers. It was so beautiful to see God’s Word being lived out in such a culture of self-centeredness.

I had many from my old church scoff and say that it was a cult. The ladies wore dresses and head coverings and the men were challenged to be the priests of their homes. During this time, we heard many great testimonies of how families were being transformed by going back to God’s family order and His Word. Oh, how God’s heart must break when man chooses the relationship with man over His Word!! When the leader, Dave Taylor, subtlety hinted at doctrinal errors in God’s Word, over a time of several years, they chose error over truth. The last Sunday that the Pollock family attended, they stood up and said, “This is the Ark and unless you’re in the “Church of Geneva” (Florida), you will not be saved.” And at that point the heresies came spewing out like a waterfall, even to the point that in their prayer meetings, they prayed for Ben Pollock’s death because we were encouraging others back to God’s Word. They began to change God’s name and His Word and today they are a hippy cult in Tennessee that totally denies Christ and follows after the vain traditions of men (II Tim. 4:3-4). Many of our friends chose relationship of man over God’s Word. Many of the families that were discipled in schools of higher learning and even some that were discipled in knowing that God’s word is inherent were deceived. Even though we’re two thousand years from His word, it is still just as Word perfect as when the disciples penned it. Pride and arrogance of man’s wisdom will ALWAYS destroy man. If any of you from Geneva are reading this, I am still praying for you to come back to your first love. (Prov. 17:17)

We were able to help several families that were on the verge of their faith being shipwrecked, but we also saw other families where their faith in God, to this day, is as if it’s been erased. We tried to go back to minister at our former Church to encourage the brethren, but it was as if we were reading and following two different manuscripts. Doctrinally we had the same way to heaven which was the shed blood of Jesus Christ and that we are sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30), but it was still the same battle of two different lifestyles in raising our children in holiness. I knew we could not stay, but I did not know where to go. Even the most fundamental churches were liberal to God’s Word or did not understand the differences between a priest that was not married versus a priest with a family and children. So many times we try to lump all of our responsibilities together to the destruction of the next generation. And as in the story of Pilgrim’s Progress, God always has a haven of rest in between this life of tribulation. Covenant Bible Church with Pastor Bob Franklin was that refuge for me.

During this time, I was involved in a Prison Ministry for eleven years and raising five children. One of the best days of my life was when Pastor Franklin asked me to study with him with one-on-one discipleship to be a pastor. Only the Lord Jesus Christ knew that I had been praying to be tutored under a great man of God. Pastor Franklin had disciplined himself to memorize the entire New Testament and the Psalms and Proverbs and many other Old Testament books. When he asked me to study under him, I knew he must’ve thought I had serious emotional problems because I cried and slobbered all over his suit!! It was such an emotional time for me. I knew I wasn’t college material and knew I would not be able to go through the rigors of college with five children and I would not put my wife and children through that. I thank the Lord for Brother Franklin and the things that he taught me during those years. The most important thing that any Christian has to know to grow in the Lord is that you ALWAYS interpret the Bible with the Bible.

Six years had passed since our time in Geneva. Now we are blessed with seven children. But the nagging question still lingers in my mind. “How could Godly families be so easily deceived and drawn away from truth?” I know we are in the last days and men are going to be listening to false prophets and antichristian theology is going to become more and more prevalent. Even in Paul’s day, they were looking forward to God’s glorious appearing and Hallelujah, I am too!! I learned in Geneva that families can come together under the discipline of the Word of God and have sweet fellowship. Today’s mega-churches miss out on so much of the actual working of the Body of Christ. But there is still the question of “Why men choose relationship of men over their first love, Christ?” Men truly are as sheep and need the shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. I have always had a heart’s desire to help in the fields under my Savior, but I knew I had to know the answer to that question. I can’t exasperate this point enough of the soul searching that went through my mind.

It was at Heritage Bible Church, with pastor Santiago Huron, that that question was about to be answered. Pastor Huron was taking on the discipling task where Pastor Franklin left off. Pastor Huron asked Steve Graves to teach a Church History Class and I will always be indebted to both of them for this because God used it to answer that question that had been plaguing my heart for so long. Through this class, in studying early church documents, I became more grounded than ever in God’s inherent Word. Through the documentation of past Christians, I saw there has always been God’s Word and there has always been tainted versions of God’s Word as from the beginning when Paul warned of men corrupting the Scriptures (II Cor. 2:17). From the beginning, satan has always been deceiving man with these words, “Yea, hath God really said?” (Gen. 3:1) Man has been falling for that trick ever since his existence.. It seems like we could learn from our forefathers that the inspiration of Scripture is of the utmost importance of keeping ourselves from doctrinal error. As the Psalmist said, “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.” It is said that King David memorized the law and sang it back to God in the Psalms and for this reason God called him a man after his own heart.

The question had been answered and it was so simple. It was exactly what I had been taught since I was a small boy. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” That the Word of God is inspired and inherent and that the King James Version of the scripture is Word perfect to the English speaking believers as much as the Peshito Bible was to the Syrians for the first church.

A flood of memories went back to those believers in Geneva, Florida. How simple it would’ve been for them to stand up with God’s Word and refute false doctrines with the Word of God in saying, “Thus saith the Lord,” but instead, choosing the comfortable way with friendships and earthly security. It is too easy for man to go along with the flow, but a true man or lady of God will always stand up against false doctrines and theologies that will ultimately destroy their fellow brother or sister in the Lord.

May we never lead men astray by teaching the philosophies of men?

All scripture is given by inspiration of God,

And is profitable for doctrine, for reproof,

For correction, for instruction in righteousness.

II Tim 3:16

BEWARE, LEST YE BE DECEIVED

A month back I read an article from a Baptist Pastor wondering why so many home-schoolers were now beginning to home-church. He was worried that these Christians were in doctrinal error and could not understand why they would be leaving the “church” in droves.

During the same time, it had come to my attention that so many of these home-church families are not only NOT sticking with the scripture as their sole doctrinal statement, but excepting man’s theology stemmed from the time of the reformation, not understanding all of the grave doctrinal errors which are associated with it.

Near this same time I was asked what I thought of a healing revival that had come to Lakeland, Florida, which is close to where I live. They had claimed to have already had 400,000 attend. Having already heard some of the apostasy that was going on in this revival, I immediately told him that it was a false prophet and that men could no longer stand to hear sound doctrine. (II Tim. 4:3-4). I went to the revival to see first hand the apostasy that I had been told about. I purposely missed the first two hours of loud rock music in the guise of worship. I came in towards the start of Todd Bentley’s (supposed) healing service. I had never experienced a man of God ever to get up and have so little regard for the Word of God much less the irreverence of the work of the Holy Spirit. He had claimed that earlier that day he’d received an anointing that was going to, “blow their minds”. The hour that I was their, maybe three partial scriptures were used, then he fell to his knees and screamed at the top of his lungs as if in agony and the crowd went crazy for the anointing that he (supposedly) was receiving. Whatever he was receiving, I can tell you, was NOT the anointing of God.

How did we get in such a place that we would take emotional feeling over truth of sound doctrine, but we are there. These three topics that I started with may seem so different but are very closely intertwined. Going back to the pastor of the Baptist church who does not understand why families would leave the comforts of an established church to cram into their homes with four or five other families. He obviously does not understand the desperate needs of these families. The home-church families that I have been a part of have one common goal and that is that the hearts of the fathers have been turned back to the children. (Mal. 4:6)

The most basic need in Christianity today is going back to the purity of marriage. The family unit has been so torn apart due to the culture and has had no help from the local established church, who has the answer, but the church has lost their way and turned more to winning the lost with the world’s way, instead of sound doctrine. So, for the last forty years in America, we have been in a spiral of reprobation that has led us to men of God, drawing 400,000 people to a little town in Lakeland, Florida, trying to find some kind of hope (from a pastor who is screaming, on all fours, writhing on the ground)!! Yes, the church is in need of a reformation, but to get there, one cannot look to the reformers, but has to look further back to their first love, which should be Christ Jesus.

The reformation grew out of the Catholic Church, which systematically went virtually throughout the known world destroying every ancient manuscript that they could get their hands on.  For we have always had the Word of God.  And it is not man’s job to preserve God’s word, but God himself who has given us that promise. (Ps. 12:6-7) With all of satan’s best efforts, he could not destroy the Word of God, so he reverted back to the oldest deceit, “Yea, hath God said?” And many of the reformers fell right into his hands. (Gen. 3:1) Satan, with the help of man, has done a great job of making the world believe that Catholicism is a legitimate Christian church. Catholicism today is just as much a damnable theology as it was from its conception and most of those that come out of it, unless their minds are renewed by the Word of God, will carry grave doctrinal errors with them that they received while in the Catholic Church. (Rom. 12:2)

The mind has always been on the forefront of satan’s battlefield. He knows that if we do not sift everything through the Word of God, and interpret the Word of God with the Word of God, he can easily deceive us and has done just that, time after time through the centuries.

Many of the large home-school families seem to be losing their way, where they were once following after Christ only, are being swayed by the rudiments of man. (Col.2:8) The doctrine that I’m speaking of specifically is Calvinism. (Please don’t fall into the trap thinking that you have to be an Armenian or Calvinist. True Christianity started long before these two movements. A true Christian is neither, but is a believer in Christ and follows Christ’s example).

I will not go into the horrid examples of non-tolerance that Calvin did to his scoffers, such as quartering and burning at the stake, nor will I speak about the Tulip as there are many good websites available to refute this, but I will list some of the reasons I do not support most of Calvinism.

The number one reason that I do not support it is very simple. God has always loved and regarded man, not just as a pot that he has made for destruction, but He has suffered long, striving with man, throughout His existence. The first characteristic of true biblical love is patience. God has truly been patient with man. For example: Even with the first murder on earth, God went to the murderer, Cain, before it happened. It is such a beautiful verse of not only God’s sovereignty in knowing the future and of being the alpha and the omega, but also His love for all of the created. God gave Cain a choice that if he would do right, he would be accepted. Cain chose by his own stubborn pride to reject the pleas and warnings of God and killed his brother anyway (see Gen. 4:5-7). And let’s not forget the patience that God had during Noah’s time with the whole world as Noah built the ark for well over 100 years. God’s man worked and preached of an oncoming judgment. But through the hardness of their own wicked hearts, they rejected the Grace of God and were destroyed.

The second reason is found in Genesis 18:19. The Lord says that Abraham will teach his children justice and judgment. We can only know true justice and judgment by God. Our own laws are taken from God’s Word. If you say that God has made the majority just to be destroyed in eternal damnation where the fire quenches not, with no choice or will of their own, when He has told us that, “whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life”, then you are definitely teaching and preaching a different Christ and are destined to raise your children with doubts and insecurities for the rest of their lives. For the majority of you were saved because you heard a true presentation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and received it into your heart knowing that it was a gift from God. You erase the picture that God laid out of 4000 years of man carrying a blood sacrifice for the remission of their sin and you cheapen the suffering and the love that God had as being the only Lamb of God for the remission of sin. The 4000 years of blood sacrifice was to show the need for redemption by the blood atonement. Just as in the Passover when they took a hyssop branch and put the blood around the door, so do we also, have to receive that same gift and put it on our hearts. We did not make the lamb, we did not shed our blood, but God gave it freely to all that will receive!

I am not denying the fact that God’s grace is only given by His Spirit and it is 100% God that saves, that is true. None of us can boast when we receive a great thing as if we had done something ourselves when we had no part in it. And also none of us are without excuse when we have violated God’s law and enter into eternal judgment by rejection of God’s shed blood.

Romans 2:14-16 is clearly talking of Gentiles that have never heard the Gospel, but yet having a conscience of the law, that all men are without excuse. Yes, we are dead in our spirit, but God has always made us a way of escape. The old saying, “Let your conscience be your Guide”, we all know deep down inside is a true saying based on these scriptures. Verse 15, “Which shows the works of the law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts, the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another. Also verse 16 says, “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of man by Jesus Christ according to the Gospel”. It is very dangerous to take it upon yourself to change the character of God and to say that He is just, without giving you a way of escape. The Lord Jesus Christ is our example of God in the flesh and He held himself to the limitations of scripture and why we think we have the right to alter the Holy Scriptures and try to make people believe that our God is not a just God, is beyond me. I serve my God as so many before me, out of a debt of love. (I Cor. 1:9)

If we cheapen the works of God and the responsibility of man, you will truly hinder the special fellowship that can only be found in Christ Jesus. I could expound for days on the abounding love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the responsibility of man to love the Lord our God with all your heart, soul and mind.

In closing, everywhere that I’ve seen the arguments for Calvinism, and I read the verses that they use to support their belief, it seems to make sense. But when they are read in the context they were intended to be read in, it always points back to God’s hearts desire that all men come to the saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Written by: Ben Pollock