Is The Church An Evil Tree? (An Online Deliverance Ministry)

By Pamela Sheppard

Daily I am being put into contact with many longterm, faithful churchgoers who are practically demon possessed.  Jesus said that to look at the fruit, one must examine the tree. If the tree is good, then the fruit is good. If the fruit is evil, then the tree must be evil. So based on this simple premise of “you shall know them by their fruit”, why then are faithful churchgoers in so much demonic torment?

Good question!!!!

One thing I have learned through the practice of deliverance, the casting out of devils, is that I really don’t help anyone. I have never helped anyone!!!! It is always the Lord who does the work.Whether I lay hands or not, I am never actually DOING the work.

It is CHRIST JESUS WHO DOES THE DELIVERING!

Furthermore, I have found from my own personal experience as a good, sincere pastor in the organized church for over 25 years, that those who had been faithful members, followers of my ministry bore significantly less fruit than those that I counseled as a professional, Christian therapist on a weekly basis. So I had to ask myself one simple question.

Why IS that? Someone can come into telephone counseling with me for 6 months to a year and bare ten times more spiritual fruit than some who had faithfully attended my “church” for 5 years, 10 years and 15 years.

It should also be pointed out there are people in my camp that have heard countless sermons and teachings. I had known them personally and been an active figure in their lives, yet spiritual fruit in Christ was barely visible. I believe the Holy Spirit began to show me WHY churchgoers were more demonized than non-churchgoers.

The passive model of church, where the pastor gets up on a platform, gives “a word” after the choir sings, DOES NOT BARE FRUIT.

To bare real fruit for Christ, each sheep must be individually fed through counsel, guidance, up front and in your face ministry at least one hour a week, one on one. As the babe grows, the contact can be reduced after a year or so. Once the babe is a mature Christian, then he or she can “feed his or her self and then become a worker to feed new babes.

Take a case in point:  A young woman came to Jesus by way of a Mormon outreach and the Blue Book, as she watched Christian television. She truly was convinced that she was saved by repeating a sinner’s prayer, yet almost immediately, demons began to imitate the Holy Ghost. This client was sent by a supernatural experience to the ministry of a mega preacher whose name I cannot mention to protect the client’s confidentiality. She gave up fornication, and became a very faithful church member, Yet as time when on, the demons became more active. So she sat in church, sought counsel from her pastor, who referred her to another pastor. Ultimately, this client found me through the Internet.

The Lord sent her to me primarily to expose the problem. The Holy Spirit revealed to me that if I don’t speak to that demon, it will NOT come out. I have spoken to it and it has laughed and giggled back at me. But I am convinced that it WILL come out once I discover what ground it is standing on. Even so, my client is truly blessed because I have done the most difficult task of all.

Try to imagine how hard it is for someone who looks saved, acts saved, sounds saved, goes to bible study not once but twice a week and twice on Sunday, does not drink, fornicate, and tithes too?!!!! How hard it is for a pastor who is over at least 100 folks, to personally minister to, disciple and (if necessary) deliver such a one???  A good, upstanding, moral member of the church who may not even KNOW they are in need of deliverance?  Of salvation?  Of discipling or enlightenment?

Beloved web visitors, that is practically impossible.

On top of that, she is in the ministry of a mega preacher and his son, no less!!!!! I have been looked down upon by clients who merely study the works of mega preachers, much less who are in their company on a regular basis. Yet, I have been able to prove and convince this client that she could not possibly be saved. If I don’t do anything else, I have done my job. This particular client did not understand either repentance or resurrection, and so it was very obvious to me from the beginning, in spite of all of her good works, that she was not saved.

In truth, I have accomplished a major task with this young woman. For several others have hung up the phone on me with a curt “how dare you question my salvation?”

If it were not for the torment and the fact that this young woman is hungry for the truth, she would be just another statistic of a person who “missed it” for reasons that are not of her own doing. (I bolded the “and” because even some professing Christians who are seriously demon oppressed have refused my counsel, blind and foolish are they.)

Where I really throw my hands up in the air is not over this one person.

It is over the countless millions who are in the same boat as this young woman, either sitting in a church somewhere, or God help them, learning on their own from Christian television (or nowadays, checking out various ministries on social networks, YouTube and BlogTalkRadio).

For example, droves of people are responding to the call in various mega churches and taken into another room to receive the gift of tongues. The issue here is not that mega preachers don’t preach Christ. They do!!!!

Nevertheless, I learned something from my small caseload that I did not realize before. I did not think that the devil would use the word to birth disciples into his own kingdom.

Well, he DOES!!!! In practically ALL of my cases of demonic torment, a common factor is that 95 percent of them were not demon possessed BEFORE THEY WENT TO CHURCH!!!!

It is one thing to come to the Lord and miss it.  It is yet another to listen to someone who claims to know Christ preach and then pick up a powerful religious demon that is difficult to get rid of. I know what needs to be done for my clients.

They need to go back to ground zero and be convicted of sin through the spirit of repentance. They need to be brought back to the cross. They clearly do not understand resurrection nor repentance. My job is to rightly divided the word to them on both of those subjects.

Whether the Lord delivers them of the religious demon first and then immediately saves them or the reverse, is clearly up to Him.

My job now is prayer for mercy, since many of my clients are not at fault here.

IT IS THE FAULT OF THE ORGANIZED CHURCH!!!!!

The church models that are out there are, for the most part, NOT WORKING, in spite of the billions of dollars that are being spent on “preaching a gospel” which apparently is not THE gospel.

From my personal background and experience, I could clearly see that the denominations were not working and I have grown to a place where I know that unless there is widescale repentance within the denominational church, they are coming DOWN!!!

I also have known for a while now that the devil was using the non-denominationals and the Christian cults like the Mormons, but I certainly did not fathom the extent of the problem. Whether it be denominations, non-denominations, Christian television or radio, I finally came to terms with the fact that those who have done the right things but who has gotten the wrong results that NONE OF IT IS WORKING!!!!!

Several of my clients have done wrong things— sins of all kinds, witchcraft, incest, you name it but some of my clients have done no wrong. They have lived lives that Christians who are not being tormented by demons should emulate. It is sad to say but there are countless faithful church goers who have been out and out deceived by religion and religious people. I can find no excuse to place the blame on the deceived.

Today, people are being saved and delivered, one at a time over the telephone.

I am available 7 days a week, 4 hours a day. But I am only one person. I can only handle 20 clients a week. I am getting closer to the end of my life. I can only make a very small impact. Even if I was a mega preacher, I would not be able to do more than any of the rest of them are doing. They are not really the root of the problem. It is the model that we have ALL been using—bringing huge crowds as well as small groups into small and big barns, without repentance, on a “believe and receive” gospel.

Let’s face it and be real here. As a denominational pastor for years, I myself could do absolutely nothing. Yet today, the tide is turning, the Holy Spirit is moving and people are being saved and delivered. My job is very simple. I preach the gospel of repentance and the bodily resurrection of the Lord and the Holy Spirit is moving on hardened hearts to lead people to repent, giving them the faith to believe on Jesus. I am casting out demons—on the telephone, no less–from those who will humble themselves to receive it.

This one referenced case has taught me that since the organized church is not working, radio and tv is not working, it would be useless for me to reinvent the wheel cause it wouldn’t work with me either. It hasn’t and it won’t. I don’t know any other models other than working with people one on one. I have been out on the street in street ministry. That DOES work if the basic gospel is being preached and it is not aimed toward bringing people into a church that is going to confuse them.

What I am expecting is that the Lord is going to do a mass thing, around the world, similar to what He did to me and for me. I was an atheist and I was not seeking Him. He came after me in a dream and brought me to the cross without the benefit of man. I was sent to church, not to be nurtured, but that I would understand and perceive the problem and learn what NOT to do about 25 years later. More than two decades of “Church” has not done much for me.  I remained a root in dry ground. I got a hunger for the word from Kenneth Copeland and others and Joyce Meyer provided some good, solid teaching.

But for the most part, I was attracted to Copeland and the rest of them because they were “supernatural” and my background was in witchcraft. The two were almost an extension of each other and so I found word of faith to be “comfortable”—in other words, charismatic witchcraft. The denominations harmed me in the beginning because they were loose on sin and so until I got grounded on my own and took dominion over my own sin, I fell to carnal ministers. But once I had sexual sin under control, the denominations did not really harm me. They may have hurt my feelings and injured my pride, but they didn’t harm me. They couldn’t harm me because I was saved BEFORE I arrived. Just as the denomination I was in didn’t know the truth, I didn’t know the truth either.

The major point I am making is that the church as it is now operating today is “doing harm” to people who are serious about finding Jesus.

And I shudder at the thought.

I KNOW the problem.

The problem is 200 years old, starting with evangelist like Charles Finney and others. I thought I KNEW the organizational solution. Once, I thought that the answer was in home fellowships, in spite of the many problems that can affect that also.

You see, I really didn’t realize just how much the devil has penetrated the church.

I, too, had been contaminated by the beliefs, traditions and practices of both the denominational and the nondenominational Protestant church. It seemed that every week after I left the institutional church, the Lord brought to my attention some practice or some area of biblical “mis-” interpretation that I need to be cleansed from.

And He has been faithful to do just that!

If you would like to be cleansed, too, give me a call at 518-477-5759.