Gashmu Saith It!
The following is excerpted from the booklet The Technique Catastrophe by Evangelist Bob Creel (P.O. Box 4548, Sevierville, TN 37864, 865-712-4537 or 865-908-4244). It is subtitled An explanation of the multitudes of false professions in the Independent Baptist movement.
Remember back in Nehemiah chapter six, when Sanballat and Tobiah, the enemies of the Jews, tried to get Nehemiah to meet with them so that they could stop the building of the walls in Jerusalem? When he refused, they then threatened to write to the king and tell him that Nehemiah was planning to make himself king and rebel against Artaxerxes. As an extra measure to make this lie believable, they stated that they were going to tell king Artaxerxes that Gashmu saith it was so. You’ll find this in Nehemiah 6:6.
Wherein was written, It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel: for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king, according to these words.
Whoever this Gashmu character was, his name must have been much set by with the king. They felt as though their lie would be stronger and have a better chance of being believed, if they were to attach Gashmu’s name to it.
It seems as though this has become the pattern for the Independent Baptist movement! As long as you can attach Brother So-N-So’s name to an unscriptural practice, it will place more credence to a lie! My friend, all the Gashmu’s in the world cannot change God’s prescribed method of working with an individual’s soul, nor does it turn a lie into the truth! Anyone who denies the need for conviction and repentance in a soul winning experience is a liar! Anyone who instructs you to use a vehicle other than the one that has been assigned to you [in God’s Word], is guilty of misrepresenting God’s plan! Anyone who indicates that your reward is based upon how many people you lead to Christ has misled you! The Gashmu’s of this world march on, but that doesn’t change a lie into the truth!
Perhaps our real need is to stop reading the material of the Gashmu’s and spend a little more time in God’s Word! Most of our soul-winning practices line up with the Gashmu’s and not with the Bible, which helps me to understand why we are claiming so many conversions and so few additions!
If you add up the number of professions that some of our pastor friends have each year, and multiply it by the number of years they have been in that church, it would in some cases exceed the number of people that live in their area! Some of the missionary letters that I have read lately brings me to the conclusion that we will be able to call all of the missionaries home within the next ten years, because the entire population of that country will then be saved.
No, beloved, improper practices are lining people up at the gates of hell today, thinking they are saved, because some soul winner told them they were. You have a choice. Listen to what Gashmu saith–or what the Bible saith!