In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, "The LORD has been very angry with your fathers. "Therefore say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Return to Me," says the LORD of hosts, "and I will return to you," says the LORD of hosts. "Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds." ' But they did not hear nor heed Me," says the LORD. "Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers? "So they returned and said: 'Just as the LORD of hosts determined to do to us, According to our ways and according to our deeds, So He has dealt with us.' Zechariah 1:1-6
Over and over again down through the years men have chosen to hear or heed the word of the Lord given by His prophets to return to Him and to repent from the error of their ways. Then they wonder why judgment falls upon them in terms of sickness, plagues, famine, loss or war and innocent people are hurt as a result. But sin does hurt and affect everybody including innocent people. And no one knows this more than God. His innocent son was murdered by evil and wicked ones. God’s word is unchanging:
"Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. "Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. "And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. "Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. "Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'
"But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.' "So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.
"Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?"
They said to Him, "He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons."
Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD'S doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes'? "Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. "And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder." Matthew 21:33-44
No man or group of people, including a church, is invincible or irreplaceable by God. Many have risen up and have done their thing and in due season ceased to be an existent thing in the resulting judgments, not blessings of God. As a matter of fact most of God’s people don’t know the blessings of God like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job and Jesus did because they are not walking in obedience to His voice. And yes God does destroy wicked men who are not faithful in his vineyard and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.
Speaking of evil and wicked ones, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on August 29, 2002:
Baptist group to gather in Phila. The convention will be the largest in the city in 2002. More than 30,000 are expected to attend.
The Rev. William L. Shaw of West Philadelphia’s White Rock Baptist Church is president of National Baptist Convention USA. After three years of reforms following a huge corruption scandal, the National Baptist Convention USA Inc. will arrive in Philadelphia on Monday for the city's biggest convention of the year. More than 30,000 delegates are expected to fill the Convention Center for five days as they approve new fiscal and organizational plans for their denomination.
Once the nation's largest and most prestigious African American religious denomination, the National Baptist Convention USA was taken over in the 1950s by leaders who often put their own financial interests ahead of the membership.
Well the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship (FGBCF) held its first convention in 1994 at the New Orleans Louisiana Superdome. More than 30,000 Baptists attended. At the time of its formation, there was concern among the leadership of the largest denomination of black Baptists, the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., as to the group's purpose.
Rev. Henry Lyons, former president of the 8.2 million member National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., (NBCUSA) told delegates at their 1995 Convention, "They are our brethren. I don't want to get into their way or the Lord's way", (1) thus distancing himself and the Convention from any formal ruling on the subject of churches and pastor's holding dual membership in both organizations. Lyons, citing a passage from the book of Acts read, "And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. However, in an earlier statement Lyons was less understanding. "My personal opinion is that my friend Bishop Morton (founder of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship) is trying to put me out of business."
At issue was whether or not newly established Full Gospel member churches would be allowed to retain their membership in the nation's largest African American protestant denomination. "In New Orleans, Baptist preachers who held memberships in both groups were lovingly advised to resign their posts with the NBCUSA before they were kicked out.". Within this directive lies the framework for potential division to take place.
The Rev. Paul S. Morton, Sr., pastor of the Greater St. Stephens Full Gospel Baptist Church, an eighteen-thousand member congregation in New Orleans, Louisiana, started the Fellowship in 1993. Morton calls his new association, "The movement that gives Baptists the right to choose". The focus is on two contrasting additions to traditional African American Baptist Church history. First, "a more Pentecostal approach to worship including speaking in tongues and the laying on of hands."
Second, the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship initiated, " a structural hierarchy that many Baptists do not support." The introduction of bishops, elders and other denominational titles into the African American Baptist Church threatened Baptist polity which adheres to the autonomous nature of the church. Morton, however, sees his group as giving a space for African American Baptists to express themselves without feeling constrained by tradition. H. Beecher Hicks, District of Columbia pastor and educator, wrote in an article for the Journal of Religious Thought , "This Fellowship is not designed to threaten or replace mainline denominations, but to provide an opportunity for those who wanted to remain Baptist and yet exercise all of the gifts of the Spirit, particularly speaking in tongues."
The Full Gospel Fellowship published two documents detailing their purpose and beliefs. A ten-point theological declaration, "Doctrinal Statement of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship," and the "Full Gospel Distinctives," a list of fifteen items describing their beliefs. These documents were distressing to some within the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. Hicks writes, "The Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, then represents a significant institutional change that will ultimately and radically alter both church and community."
At its outset, the Full Gospel Fellowship began attracting several of the larger NBCUSA congregations and their pastors. Within this group were younger clergy. "Most pastors who have embraced this movement," Hicks states, "are tired of 'do-nothing' boards and other layers of political structure within the Baptist church." They see this adherence to 'tradition' as a hindrance to the work of the Kingdom. These are, "obstacles to accomplishments of the mission of the church and deterrents to the minister's sense of purpose and calling."
Well the Lord blessed the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship which now had over one million congregants and 5000 churches in thirty-five and He disgraced that National Baptist Convention which doesn’t know how many membership that it now has?
At the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention in 1998, the Rev. Henry Lyons of St. Petersburg, admitted to an ``inappropriate relationship'' - an increasingly popular euphemism for adultery - with a woman employed by the nation's largest black church group. He said he was sorry and asked for forgiveness and they forgave him.
Rev E.V. Hill a leader in the National Baptist Convention, led the charge of corrupt ones to support his very dear friend Rev. Henry J. Lyons no matter what. As a result the Leaders of the National Baptist Convention USA stood by President Henry Lyons, who had been indicted for racketeering and grand theft and supported Dr. Lyons in every aspect of his legal endeavors that included money. Years earlier, Hill stood by televangelists Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, both of whom were involved in sex scandals.
An internal church probe directed by pastor E.V. Hill determined that Lyons did not take any of the denomination's funds, and that any money he received included honorariums and fees the church agreed to pay him. Hill promised to help Lyons with his legal bills even though Prosecutors contend that Lyons diverted millions of dollars in church funds to finance a lavish lifestyle. But the courts had a different opinion about Lyons and his lying and thievery.
Rev. Henry Lyons peccadilloes and the grand theft and racketeering convictions by State of Florida and the Government of United States against him didn't stop Rev. Hill from supporting his friend for birds of feather stick together.
Lyons resigned as head of the convention after pleading guilty to five federal counts. He is serving a 5 1/2-year state prison term and a concurrent 4 1/2-year federal sentence. He was a man called by others as Rev. Hanky-Panky who was a personal friend of Bill Clinton. A man who sought spiritual solace in the bathtub smoking marijuana after a hard day of playing patty-cake with Nigerian dictators and the financial stewardship of the NBC including secret bank accounts, forged signatures, missing files and hushed-up lobbying work on behalf of those wacky, zany Nigerian scamps.
A man who made a $200,000 rip-off of an Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith donation, which found its way into his pockets instead of burned out Baptist churches where it was originally intended. A man whose whole hand picked board of the National Baptist Convention refused to see the facts about Lyons and forgave him unanimously and unilaterally. So that they could also be forgiven if caught doing the same thing in the pattern of President Oral Roberts who forgave Jim Bakker for what was not forgivable.
Lyons had been the focus of state and federal criminal investigations since the summer of 1997 when his wife set fire to a $700,000 waterfront house he owned on Tierra Verde with a former convention employee, a convicted embezzler and his alleged lover. The fire triggered revelations about secret bank accounts and large commissions on convention business deals and deductions concerning his total gross salary.
"Born Again" Senior Pastor E. V. Hill did not accept Lyons guilty verdict charging that jury was racist. Later lying Lyons approved the National Baptist Convention advertisement which labeled Florida `the most racist state'' in the union and called for racial unrest in the black community of St. Petersburg, the same community rocked by two riots in late 1996.
Lyons was convicted in February 1999 of swindling more than $4 million from companies that wanted to market life insurance, credit cards and cemetery plots to his convention members. Prosecutors said Lyons padded the convention's mailing list with names randomly selected from phone books across the country. Even a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan was on the list. He pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion, fraudulent activities and lying to officials.
In his sentencing, Judge Schaeffer had ordered Lyons to pay $2.5 million in restitution to the companies who bought his phony mailing lists and to pay $97,000 for the cost of the state probe into his dealings.
Lyons is now serving a five and a half year prison sentence and has divorced his wife. His bid for a shorter prison term gets nowhere with a trial judge fed up with his crimes. A judge flatly denied the Rev. Henry Lyons' bid to reduce his state prison term rejecting pleas that the religious leader is suffering physically and mentally from incarceration.
Lyons, who has tested positive for exposure to tuberculosis, ``can be treated in prison,'' Pasco-Pinellas Circuit Judge Susan Schaeffer told about a dozen of his supporters. ``Prison is a place that brings on illnesses, a place where you are going to be among murderers, thugs and thieves,'' the judge said. ``There isn't anything about it that's supposed to be fun.'' Schaeffer did not mince words during an almost half-hour long oral ruling from the bench.
And neither did the media mince words - "Thieving reverend sobs his apologies" - St Petersburg, Florida:
The Rev Henry Lyons, president of one of the United States' largest and most influential black denominations, sobbed and apologized as he resigned yesterday, two weeks after being convicted of swindling more than $US4 million ($6.4 million).
"I'm just so sorry about all of this," he said at a news conference outside his Bethel Metropolitan Baptist Church, where he told the board of the National Baptist Convention USA of his decision. "I'm truly repentant about it. I hate that I hurt so many people," he said, his voice breaking. Other ministers surrounded him, saying: "You're not alone."
"I appreciate it," he said as he began sobbing. The Rev E.V. Hill, who will run for president at the convention's next elections in September, patted Mr. Lyons on the back, saying: "We forgave any errors you have made. We love you."
And the Rev. E.V. Hill, longtime pastor of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles and ardent supporter of lying, thieving, adulterous Dr. Henry J. Lyons died on February 25, 2003 after a bout with pneumonia and other undisclosed medical problems. May God have mercy on his soul and awful and wicked deeds!
by Josephine Melrose on April 6, 2003 at 12:40 PM