Kicked Out

By: Chris Ardern

Membership Revoked!

“They shall put you out of the synagogues…” John 16:2

I’m Chris Ardern, I’m 53 years old and I first encountered Jesus when I was in my early 20’s. I was brought up in a religious home but no true conversion. I had a radical Born Again experience truly repenting and surrendering my life to Christ. My friend Kip prayed and witnessed to me and it all came to a head when he told me “Narrow is the Gate”. I had never heard that. It was the verse the Lord used to pierce my heart. I lived sanctified for about 2 years, really studied the word hiding it in my heart. Much of this I received from pre-apostate John MacArthur and Grace Community Church.

I started to let the world back into my life. Bought a project car that I convinced myself would be a good thing. Bad decision, it only led me to all my old ways. The distraction took my eyes off the Lord. Drinking and pornography crept back in which the Lord had completely removed after my conversion. I had “mingled” as I’ve come to learn. Mixing the trappings of the world with my walk with the Lord. Completely fell away, the powers of darkness had taken over again. Drinking became a huge problem and the 2nd DUI in 6 months caused me to enter rehab. By this time I was involved in cocaine. Sobered up in my late 20’s. The AA did help me coming out of the Alcoholism. Don’t recommend anyone make a career out of AA but it did clear out my head and after a few months I was hearing Gods voice again.

Made a decision to recommit and God honored it by opening my eyes again. Another visitation by the Holy Spirit, not as radical but every bit as real as the first. Got plugged into Church. I look back and still believe church back then was church. There was good fellowship, people really loved the Lord with true worship. Ended up at a big evangelical Church, made good friends, really experienced inner healing. Met my wife, became very involved in ministry but realized much of the draw was the newly introduced Psychology: Larry Crabb’s Inside Out, Search for Significance. etc.

We’re in the early 90’s now. Married, involved in young couples bible study. Kids started coming along, very busy with life and survival, teaching Sunday School with my wife. Doing “all the right stuff”. The Church was growing using the Psychology based material, and the seeker friendly format on Sunday morning. The concept was to keep the Sunday sermons entertaining and always pointed you towards the small groups for the meat of scripture. The Church was really growing, a lot of people were finding their way to the Church through the divorce recovery ministry. The Church was fun, a lot of good friends based on the good experience in the earlier times together in the singles ministry.

Fast forward to 2008: 4 kids and 2 Churches later, all part of the same denomination. We planted one Church and ended up moving to the city where another of the earlier plants had started. My wife and I were involved with the youth. Life was very hard for me, supporting a family, self-employed trying to just keep everything together mostly in my own strength. The seeker format was leaving me really starving for teaching. I depended on my early studies to sustain me. Ministry was becoming drudgery. Got involved in the men’s ministry, wanted to get back what I had experienced in my early years at the Church. The men’s bible studies were dead. Reading out of workbooks answering questions. Getting shushed by co-leader when I would go deeper than the “New Guy” in the class could handle. My drinking was gone but the pornography, with the help of the internet had crept back. Tried all the Church solutions: accountability partners, tracking software etc etc. It would always rear its ugly head when least expecting it. Confession with my accountability partners who were struggling with the same thing over and over no victory.

I heard the Lord say to me that if I was going to get any life into the men’s group I would need to take the initiative. One night in the men’s group I stood up and layed it all out there. Confessed in front of everyone. Asked for prayer. It was a good night in the group. Two days later I had a new clarity in my ear. Had been dealing with the conviction of the nagging temptation for years. It was gone. God did do a miracle work in me that night because in the 2 1/2 years since, I can honestly say I haven’t pondered an impure thought . I really wanted to get the true fellowship back into the group that I had experienced 20 years earlier. Nothing happened as far as to the group, but since I was waking up my comments were becoming more and more obscure to the men in the group.

The Lord began a work in me that day and it hasn’t stopped. I was hearing Gods voice again, my freedom was working its way into my marriage, which was always a struggle. Started to work on the marriage. We’re in the early part of 2009. Obama signs the partial birth abortion bill, I’m beginning to learn about the shadow government. Economic crash of 08 was really effecting my business. I’m waking up more. Spent 6 weeks obsessing over the New World Order. I was craving truth, praying and discerning what I was learning. Bilderbergers, Fed Reserve, the Freemasons. All the emotions, anger, freedom from lies, fear, panic etc. Dialog with the wife over these issues was not received. I knew in my heart I had to study the scriptures, light bulbs were going off left and right.
One night while driving after a busy week of learning & listening, I was digesting what I had taken in and I got hit right between the eyes with spiritual revelation. God told me “hello” this is the Beast System you’ve been watching for 25 years. I went into the house in tears. Told my wife, this is it honey, the New World Order is the Beast System.

She couldn’t hear a word. From that night on my attention had turned towards the Church and digging out my understanding of prophecy and plugging it in to what I was learning. Realized the effect of the media on the masses. Had made the big mistake several years earlier of listening to Chuck Colson saying it was OK and brought Harry Potter in to the house for a weekly Friday movie night. The whole family fell in love with it. I realized that had to go. I knew I needed to take more authority as spiritual leader of my household. That was the first thing to clear.

My attempts at getting rid of Harry Potter were met with much opposition in my house. Went to Church leadership for help and that’s when all the problems began. Pastor said, “There’s nothing wrong with it.”  He told me he reads it to his kids. I realized at that point that maybe something is wrong with the Church.

This idea had never crossed my mind before that. I was just waiting for things to get better in the Church.
Tried to keep the peace in the house. Marriage was really struggling again. Wife thought I had mental problems. Heard a radio interview by an author, his new book The Seduction of the Saints was the real turning point for me. He put into words the thing I had started to see. He addressed the effects of the prosperity doctrines and the emphasis the Lord made about deception. I was awakening at a fever pitch by now. I realized Jesus had spent a tremendous amount of time warning us about deception. It had been there in my bible but it never grabbed me like it started to.

Started meeting regularly with one of the Church pastors. Bought multi copies of the book and handed them out. Put in a request to do a bible study on the book for the fall quarter. All the time I was handing out literature and CD’s to the leadership in the Church. Information I saw was vital for us to understand about the world Government and scripture. It was all rejected. I couldn’t believe what was happening. No one cared, no one. I couldn’t believe it. By this time the pastors sermons were sounding like the teacher on Charlie Brown: “Wa Wa Wa Wa.”

Received a message from the head pastor, my friend, on the answering machine. Message said, “We know you and Beth are struggling; we want you to come on in and let us do a little lovin’ on ya.” My wife and I went into the Church, into the meeting room where all the elders and the 2 pastors were, and they delivered their message. They made it clear I was not to speak of end times on Church property. Basically they verbally assassinated me in front of my wife.

They sent us to counseling. It was made clear the counseling was for me. The experience destroyed my wife. A very private person, all the attention on the family, on “us”, it was more than she could handle. One counseling session and the following Saturday she told me she wanted a separation. That went straight to divorce about 2 weeks later. I failed to stop talking about end times at the Church and was caught in 3 conversations. Another meeting was called.

This time the meeting was “off campus” as they say. They made it clear that my membership (of 20 years) was being revoked and I wasn’t to set foot on Church property.

My whole world is crashing down, I’m weak, all the attack and betrayal I just got hit with both barrels. Was really a broken man through all this. Came to realize though that through brokenness God’s power is unleashed.

All the elders and pastors were friends, the bride of my youth putting me out with the trash, unbelievable. But something else is happening too. Isaiah 28 says, the “hail will sweep away the lies”. This was happening to me. The hail is the persecution, it was sweeping away the lies I was holding onto. I’m connecting with Bill and Bob from the Watchmen Weekly, we’re ministering to each other on a forum, ministering to others with “truth”. I begin learning so fast my head was spinning. I’m staying in an efficiency apartment that was a converted 70’s motel, OK? Are you with me? Original wallpaper…I’m working in my shop behind my house, leaving, driving past my house looking inside seeing my kids in their jammies and I’m heading to the motel to receive revelation from the living God. God’s Spirit penetrated the wallpaper. Day after day the Lord is opening scripture to me, giving understanding. At times I would sit there and stare completely blown away by what he was showing me. The most amazing time was when I realized Salem Communication is controlled by the Secret Societies and is controlled Christian Media. I sat there and watched the faces of the mainstream figure heads scrolling past, one after the other on the website, realizing these guys are all riding the back of the Beast. The magnitude of this thing hit me.

From that time till now I have been seeking and hearing Gods voice. He gives me new understanding constantly, I know that pride will quench the Spirit and I watch and pray that I don’t become puffed up again. My family was my life, now I’m divorced. Can’t believe it, but accept it. All the craziness is right there in scripture, “A mans enemies will be the members of his own household”, “brothers betraying brothers”, “They will put you out of the synagogue”. I’m grateful. I see my kids all the time, the Lord is working in their lives. My one daughter said she sees the apostasy in the Church to me last week.

I just came to understand why the Church is in such a mess. It’s because it mingled with the world system. It decided that it was more important to grow than it was to purge sin. Mingling is what Lot did. The Corporate Church is Babylon. I know this for sure because I learned how to study scripture. I follow the parable of the mustard seed and realized the tree that the fowls nest in its branches is the tree in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. The tree of Babylon, and I see where it “feeds the flesh”. This spoke volumes to me because this is what I saw in the Corporate Church. Everyone is feeding their flesh. Daniel 4:12 “The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it.”

This is why in the Church men struggle, and why marriages fail, and why kids are getting pregnant, because there is no more life in the Spirit. The true Spirit. What I saw as Church was a place where we meet to “worship” (who or what is questionable) but after the service it was the time we talked about our idols. That’s what Church had become. I see God’s hand in my life the whole way through this. The most ironic thing of all was the fact that my struggles with the above mentioned temptation, before God woke me up and brought me to repentance and purging of sin, was keeping me from leadership. I had aspired to become an elder and wanted to pursue that. I knew though that I had to get victory over that sin before I could consider it. My goal was a year if i could go a year without clicking on the black hole I would be OK. I could never make it. Ironically that kept me from becoming an elder and ultimately protected me from that trap because it is the Church leadership that are the most blind whose ears are the most stopped up. Had I become a part of that system I might have fallen into the same snare. I know this for a fact because all of my best friends are pastors, and not one of them can hear a word I say. “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.”

Chris Ardern