Dispensationalism Star Messengers and Present Word

[Faith Hopegood]

Hello Fellow Streetcar Readers.
I thought I would bring this little finding to your attention. It is a website with an associated pdf that speaks about Dispensationalist theology, Star Messengers and Present Word.

Now... I wonder where we have heard these words before! Vic Hall would have you all believe that he is getting personal revelations direct from the "unassuming Jewish guy" aka Jesus and that the "special word and revelation" that only the people at the Christian Fellowship are receiving from God via his chosen anointed one Victor Hall.

I won't explain Dispensational Theology - just google it and do a bit of research. But it is the alternative view to the Covenant theology.

Anyway, here is the website:
https://www.bftchurch.org

And if you want to download the pdf (which I would recommend) for closer reading, just type into google the following:
"dispensationalism star messengers of christ"
and then check out the two top hits.
Then also type in "dispensational messengers work book" to get the pdf.
I would highly recommend downloading the pdf Dispensational Messengers Work Book.
As I joke I substituted the name William Branham with Victor Hall and all becomes clear!

What you read in this rubbish is just absolutely frightening. To me it looks like Vic Hall has downloaded this book and his using it as his special handbook for revelations etc.

[Faith Hopegood]

Following on from the above I am sure this link will create some lively discussions.
I just did a little skim of the pdf and whose name do I see listed among the Star Messengers - none other than Ray Jackson.

EDITED I quick search of the pdf yields the name of Raymond Jackson 24 times. Initially I assumed this is none other than Ray Jackson Snr (known as Broer) who fell from grace in MCF! However some Google searching makes me believe it is a different Ray Jackson. However, that said, the stuff they are talking about with Later Rain etc and Eagles etc is so similar to the BCF and Jerusalem Passion theology that they are nearly identical. After a very quick perusal of the document it doesn't take much to make the leap that Victor Hall certainly sees himself as one of these later day star messengers and a minor dispensation prophet/messenger. END EDIT

If any of you can follow the waffle and dribble in the pdf titled "Dispensational Messengers Workbook" you are a better reader than I!

Anyway, the lid is now off the BCF can of heresy worms and we can openly read the "Instruction Manual".
Kudos must go to Boundary Rider, who had Vic Hall nailed pretty well years ago and this pdf just proves it.
Enjoy.

Yours in Christ Jesus
Faith Hopegood.

[Faith Hopegood]

And to throw another curly one into the mix. I was doing a bit of research on the above and the guy mentioned was Richard Gan. So a quick google search revealed his website. And among the gems I found was this:

Then, God showed me that I should be re-baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ because Father, Son and Holy Spirit were titles and not the Name(s) of God.

Now, where have we heard this before?

Not sure what the current BCF baptismal practice is, but I certainly know what they were doing from the mid-1980's up until the mid 2000's - we were all being baptised or re-baptised in "The Name of the Lord Jesus Christ" because it was said to be a more superior baptism than being baptised into the "Father, Son and Holy Spirit". Apparently it was supposed to represent the power and proper name of Christ etc etc. Vic Hall again led all of the Christian Fellowship to believe that baptism into the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ was a special revelation to him that no other christians or churches has received! It was a "special word". All other Christians who were baptised into the F,S,HS were somehow inferior christians. Again, if you stopped going to the Fellowship or questioned this baptism, you were considered to be a backslider or a lesser class of Christian, or perhaps even losing your salvation because you were now denying this present word special revelation that only the Christian Fellowship had.

Anyway I found the above quote on Richard Gan's website and again, it just shows that Vic Hall was just copying what he read from overseas! The guy is complete charlatan and exists purely by pinching other peoples ideas. Isn't it marvellous how a little bit of digging and googling can reveal things. (not that everything on the internet is factual) but before the ability to search the net, one had to actually travel overseas and go to these other dispensational churches and read some pretty obscure books in order to reveal that Vic Hall is just a plagiarist.

Another thing which becomes evident that all these "star messengers" receive special visitations or are taken up to heaven for special revelations.

There is nothing new under the sun!

[Dexter]

This is very interesting and warrants further investigation. Respectfully, it would be great to get all the star messengers together to sort out who’s who. They can’t all be the star messenger… can they?

[BreakFree]

It was something that made my brain really hurt trying to keep up with. I'm going from my memory so please bear with me.
The theology of the lampstand went through various changes.
Initially CF as a whole was a singular lamp.
then they became a branch with the buds on the branch all representative of an aspect of the 5 fold ministry
then the base became the point of connection to the elders (who were connected to Christ)
then each branch of the lampstand became individual congregations
and then it suddeldly multiplied by 10 so individuals were a lamp on a lampstand and the elders who were by this stage the right hand of Christ holding all 70 lampstands.
by this point my brain had exploded and I could not keep up any more. the metaphor was getting more and more confusing.

Going back to stars I think its the same principal in that it will eventually morph that the elders are holding the stars with many points on them who are the congregation.

[Dexter]

It was something that made my brain really hurt trying to keep up with. I'm going from my memory so please bear with me.
The theology of the lampstand went through various changes.
Initially CF as a whole was a singular lamp.
then they became a branch with the buds on the branch all representative of an aspect of the 5 fold ministry
then the base became the point of connection to the elders (who were connected to Christ)
then each branch of the lampstand became individual congregations
and then it suddeldly multiplied by 10 so individuals were a lamp on a lampstand and the elders who were by this stage the right hand of Christ holding all 70 lampstands.
by this point my brain had exploded and I could not keep up any more. the metaphor was getting more and more confusing.

Going back to stars I think its the same principal in that it will eventually morph that the elders are holding the stars with many points on them who are the congregation.

You did better than me at comprehending that lampstand stuff. I had no idea it changed that much, or at all, to be honest. I guess it really went over my head. I only got the gist of the message, which I understood to be the superiority of Victor J Hall over the elders, the superiority of the elders over the congregation, and the superiority of the whole organisation over every other Christian group or individual on earth throughout history.

That’s a fair hypothesis about the star doctrine. It may be that the congregation gets promoted to “star” status in order to stroke their collective ego and lead them to believe that they’re finally on the same level as the elders after all these years (similar to being a “worthy house”), only for them to realise they’ve been had again as the elders one-up themselves and tighten their grip.

To be clear, it’s not the act of submission to elders per se that bothers me. It’s these particular elders’ need for adoration and their constant one-upmanship that grates my cheese. I’ve served at other churches where the elders don’t lord it over the people, which was odd but refreshing.

[Faith Hopegood]

Dexter and Breakfree, thank you for your contributions and thoughts. You have highlighted two extremely important points.

Firstly, a changing message. BCF has and still does have a constantly changing message. The Gospel is powerful and does not change. The powerful message of a loving caring divine intelligent creator who created in "his" image. (our creator is bigger and outside of the whole universe and is not constrained by the laws of the universe). Indeed our creator made the laws of the universe. Additionally, in order to bring us back into personal one to one relationship with our creator, our creator came to earth in the form of a frail human, to walk among us so we could see first hand his image and heart. In our sin, we crucified him, but our loving creator was not bound by human death, but was sacrificed once and for all, that those who believed in him by faith shall come alive, have sins forgiven and return to personal lively one on one relationship with our creator. The universe was lovingly created and love is in every created thing.

Secondly, on the point of eldership. Eldership is a servant hearted role (alongside many other attributes). But humble love is at the foundation of everything. Dexter, you have rightly highlighted the attitudes of a lot of Christian Fellowship elders, the need for adoration and constant one-upmanship and you are right, they do lord it over people. I would add to this that some of the Christian Fellowship elders are just straight out bullies with very little love and care for their flock. Sadly in organisations such as the CF, my experience was that beatings got worse as it went down the line.

I remember the former dreadful bully leader in Toowoomba (whom Vic and Co knifed a few years ago) reaming out a young leadership couple. I turned up early afternoon to do some voluntary administrative work for the church, and Falk had jumped on the chance to ream them out. He had them behind closed doors in the TCF office going at them for over an hour. It was truly embarrassing and cringing to listen to. I sat respectfully out in my car in the office carpark next to the young couples car, which had an open door, and I kept watch over their sleeping young baby who was in the car cradle! Falk kept at them for at least an hour. It was truly appalling. Eventually the young mother came out to check on the baby and then returned to the fire for more reaming. At this point I drove away and went back to work having achieved absolutely nothing and had taken about 3 hours off work to go and "serve" in the church office thinking I was serving the Lord. A complete waste of 3 hours of my time, not to mention lost wages from my employer whom I had taken time off work from.

Other people have had similar dreadful treatment from these unloving CF elders in other cities. My personal view and experience was that "like attracts like". That is, Vic (the narcissist bully) would surround himself in Brisbane by likeminded people who in turn would then promote and elevate younger unqualified similar minded young men into junior leadership roles. Perhaps not all the original CF elders from the late 1970's were narcissistic bullies, but a lot of the people that followed them and were promoted up through the food chain in the past 30 years certainly were. You only had to watch the periodic back knifing that went on over the years as they disposed of leaders and elders who fell out of favour - it was like repeatedly watching Caesar getting backstabbed in the Roman Senate! Of course after the ritual leadership sacrifice and knifing, a little story was circulated by those in charge, to defame the disposed backstabbed leader after they left, and then it was "nothing to see hear people go back to business as usual" and just forget about [insert deposed name here]. It was as though the congregation were deliberately being forgetful zombies who quickly forgot about people who left (whom they were formerly closely connected to) such was the blindness that descended upon them. (end of rant)

It would be a fairly accurate observation that Jesus Christ and resurrection and the Fruit of the Spirit were not very much present in a lot of the CF activities.

Anyway, on a more positive not, here is a good article from The Gospel Coalition which has a view on the characteristics of eldership which is worth a read.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blog ... ood-elder/

Wishing you all every blessing and protection this Christmas/ New Year break.

Faith Hopegood.

[Stargazer]

Yes I certainly agree with you that all the leaderships of the CFs are all bullies and are chosen on that one characteristic. I don’t believe any of the current leadership across Australia wide have ANY theological training. Please do correct me if I am wrong. The fundamental characteristics that ALL of the leaders possess are that they have unwavering allegiance to Vic Hall, they will do whatever they are told to do and have a bullying disposition. They are really not nice people…. And they are in control of hundreds of people!

[Faith Hopegood]

Hi Stargazer, thanks for your post.
Regarding the leadership of the Christian Fellowship and theological training, I think you are correct. No person in current leadership in the Christian Fellowship has any theological training (certainly here in Brisbane and wider Queensland). Formerly I was aware of the following: Alex Wylie (dec) was a Presbyterian Minister at Wavell Heights PC. Ian Barlow was a minister prior to joining the CF (not sure which denomination). Bruce Watkins (of Bell/Dalby/Toowoomba) was a minister (I think it was Methodist). I read in a book (can’t remember which one) that Bill Barnes was also formerly a Session Clerk/Elder at the Wavell Heights Presbyterian Church with Alex Wylie but I don’t believe Bill Barnes had any formal theological training.

Sometime in the 1990’s several Cross Bearer congregations came and joined with the Christian Fellowship along with their leaders. I am not if these were what could be called Open Brethren or Gospel Hall or Plymouth Brethren persuasion. I thought this included Raymond Guyatt and one of the Harry’s but might be wrong. I do know that the shunning practices and tendencies from the Exclusive Brethren somehow found their way into the Christian Fellowship. I can’t comment if the Cross Bearers leaders had any formal theological training. Perhaps the Morag Swartz book, Apostles of Fear, might more clearly set this out as it was extensively researched. But I do remember there was much celebrations when the Crossbearers congregations joined with the Christian Fellowship. And then within a year or two, at least one of the Cross Bearers Congregation and their leader formerly broke ties with the Christian Fellowship due to theological disagreements.

However, the overall summary, is that to my knowledge, ALL the current Christian Fellowship eldership and leaders have NO theological training and are all self-taught, apprenticed under Vic Hall. The current leaders are solely chosen for their ability to absolutely and unquestionably submit to Vic Hall and dish out his teachings and discipline. Vic Hall has no theological training (despite his elitist superior mystical powers which are held in awe by his followers). This is a dreadfully dangerous situation and, as we have clearly seen, leads to all sorts of problems, both in leadership and group behaviour plus in faulty (and sometimes heretical) beliefs and teachings. And the trouble is that the congregation won’t be able to discern if they are being taught by wise, learned and spirit filled leaders and won’t be able to discern the basic errors of the Christian Fellowship beliefs. The other indicator of faulty teaching and beliefs is that the teachings/rules/beliefs are always changing and are not set. Just like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, the Christian Fellowship teachings are taught from cherry picked scriptures out of context, but must be read by the congregation in conjunction with numerous tracts, teaching booklets, pamphlets and books published by Vic. The CF congregation and teaching is NEVER just reading the bible and letting the scriptures speak. The congregation is always being taught through the filter of Vic Hall and his faulty teachings and booklets etc.

Even the most basic observation is that the bible message is unchangeable and does not need changing whereas Vic Halls message is ALWAYS changing. If you compare what Vic Hall is teaching and promoting today is unrecognisable from what he was teaching 20/30 years ago.

In summary, no leader in the Christian Fellowship has proper training in the scriptures. Consider the comparison with visiting a medical doctor. Sure a lot of people read medical books widely and might be able to provide some basic medical help and diagnosis, but if you get down to serious medical diagnosis and conditions etc, I am sure you will agree that you would prefer to have a fully qualified experienced medical doctor, who has done an internship under the supervision of other qualified doctors! Particularly a surgeon or a an anaesthetist!

Doctor Vic has certainly prescribed an anaesthetic drug to his followers as they walk each day in a stupor and praise the medical capabilities of Doctor Vic believing his is a heavenly registered doctor! Sadly Doctor Vic (and his lackeys), have performed spiritual surgery on a lot of people and unfortunately his diagnosis has resulted in the spiritual and family relationship death of his patients. The heavenly medical board will no doubt examine his patient care track record in due course!

[BreakFree]

my final encounter with Tim Maurice was the following conversation.
"You blindly follow a man who claims to be god. There is a medical term for that, schizophrenia. You brag about your intelligence but out of the two of us I'm not the one who listens to the deluded ramblings of someone with schizophrenia".