A response to Pastor Wisper Gwena
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Original comments of Pastor Wisper Gwena
The following are Pastor Gwena's comments from the Off The Shelf website:
JANUARY 4, 2018 AT 11:32 PM
- The clip you played in your recent episode on the scripture on Israel sojourning in Israel for 400 years, you took an extract that leaves your followers thinking I was teaching our congregation to not believe the bible yet that is not the impression that anyone who listens to the full sermon will ever get. I find the way you are extracting clips without giving the full context of the argument most misleading and typical of a red herring. John Collins in his comments tries to reinforce the same by emphasising that I was doing the bible down which is far from the truth.
- The simple point my sermon was making in giving these examples was for us to learn from scriptural precedents. Anyone that takes the bible on face value will see the difference between 400 years and 430 years as a contradiction. Bible critics cite this as one of the contradictions in the bible. But we bible believers all know there is NO MISTAKE in the Word of God. It follows there is a revelation that is behind the difference between the 400 years and the 430 years which unless it is explained to you or revealed to you, you will not know.
- I find it most strange that you people are happy to dig up explanations to defend the bible (which I also do because I believe the bible is 100% accurate) but you cannot accept when we use the same concept on defending the message. You brand this as cognitive dissonance and red herrings. We defend the bible on the basis that it is the absolute Word of God and we stand against ALL bible critics on the revelation that the bible is true. Critics of the bible take us to be crazy when we take such a position and consider us to be heretics who are deceived and lost but we are happy to be branded whatever they may because we have a revelation that the bible is right.
- SO LET THIS BE WITH US WHO HAVE A REVELATION ABOUT WILLIAM BRANHAM’S MESSAGE. We are not ashamed to say that we apply exactly the same precedents on the message of Brother Branham because we believe that the message is the truth. There are things that on face value can be criticised in the message, but just like there is an explanation behind the 400 years, there are also explanations about those things you raise criticisms on with the message. Just like you are satisfied with your explanations on the bible, I am also satisfied with my own explanations of such bible scriptures as the 400/430 years which though my explanations may not match yours but still I defend the bible. In a similar way I am also satisfied with my explanations about the message though they may not fit your critic’s position. Not only do my explanations fit me, but we have a whole message community that is very satisfied with the same explanations even after going through your website. You may call us deluded and deceived, but bible critics have called us thus for years and we are unmovable on the bible. In the same way, message critics can call us thus and we remain unmoveable because we have a revelation on what we believe.
- Coming to the scripture of God asking Elijah to anoint Hazael and Jehu, again the point in my sermon was for us to learn from scriptural precedent which you try and dismiss as being red herrings. How can scriptural precedent be taken to be red herrings when God says my ways are not your ways? For us to learn the ways of God we have to get into His way of looking at things and not use our ways. We can ONLY learn God’s ways from scriptural precedent. God clearly asked Elijah to anoint Hazael, Jehu and Elisha which we know Elijah died without anointing Jehu. Applying the way you critics of the message would look at things, you would have concluded that Elijah died with a failed vision. In your episode 3 you try to give an explanation saying that Elijah was a ‘disobedient’ prophet but NOT a false prophet. That is your way of trying to defend the bible. As I said earlier, I might not agree with your explanation in defending the bible BUT I agree with the concept and the objective. My point in my sermon was we have a scriptural precedent of things said to a prophet which a prophet does NOT fulfil and yet we still accept him to be a prophet because we know the bible is 100% right. Whether we understand the reason behind Elijah dying before fulfilling what God asked him to do or not, we still defend the bible. We are NOT called to ONLY understand the bible BUT we are called to ONLY believe the bible; by and by we will understand the reasons. SO LET IT BE FOR US WHO BELIEVE THE MESSAGE.
- There are things you brand as failed visions which for us we have explanations for. If you don’t accept our explanations it does not mean we don’t have explanations. You simply want to dismiss our explanations just like bible critics dismiss our explanations about the bible; it’s the same spirit.
- Let me conclude this portion of my response to your episode 3 comments by this; if the message of William Marrion Branham (OUR PROPHET) was just a written message, we could have been confused by your criticisms. However, God in his infinite wisdom made sure that the message of WMB was recorded on tape. Whilst listening to the tape, we are all able to discern the SPIRIT behind what we will be listening to. We are all able to make our individual choices on whether Brother Branham was trying to bring us to himself or to Christ. We are all able to judge whether his gift was fake or real. As for me, every time I listen to them tapes I come up with one conclusion, THE SPIRIT THAT BROTHER BRANHAM OPERATED UNDER WAS THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. Even though I may fail to explain some things BUT the Spirit I discern coming from those tapes is the SPIRIT OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST and I can’t deny that. To me the ultimate test of the message is the type of Christianity it has produced in my life. I have lived the highest form of Christianity in my life in THIS MESSAGE. This message has made me a more solid bible believer and has brought me closer to the Lord Jesus Christ – HOW CAN I FIND FAULT WITH IT WHEN THAT HAS BEEN ACHIEVED IN MY LIFE?
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