Bishop Wooden on the Divine 9: There is Only One God

Blessings to Israel presents Discerning the Times, a program committed to encouraging you to view current events through the lens of the Bible. Now, in honor of the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, please join us for today's program. The preacher is to call the people to a higher level.

We're to protect the glory of the house of God and not allow anything to take place in God's house. A person allowed a service to take place in God's house the other day and they posted it. I would have never known. I've never been to that church. I wouldn't know how to get there. I have no idea where it is.

But, you know, a person don't have to know how to get there if you post it yourself. The word divine in the Christian doctrine refers to God, Jehovah. Am I right? The God of the Bible, God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Christ, the divine one. Welcome to Discerning the Times. So great to be with you once again this week. And we're going to circle back today on a topic that we've discussed quite extensively over the past several months.

And I'm referring to the Greek sororities and fraternities. We've had multiple guests on to speak to the idolatry that we see in these organizations. And we had actually planned something different. But I came across this sermon in which I heard Bishop Patrick Woodin Sr., the pastor of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ, who you heard in that opening clip. And he was addressing it. And I felt the Holy Spirit tell me to just park it here for a moment. And the Holy Spirit does that sometimes. We have other things planned.

But he say, no, just just keep it right here for a moment. So I'm following the leading of the Holy Spirit in sharing this with you today. And I know some of you may say, OK, you you've talked about this at length and we get it.

But again, I'm following the leading of the Holy Spirit. So you heard him in that opening clip speak to the divine nine. And for anyone that is not familiar with that term, that is the phrase that has been given to designate the nine predominantly black fraternities and sororities. So, of course, we know fraternities and sororities are not exclusive to blacks only. There are ethnic groups all across the board that are in these organizations or have their organizations. But he is speaking specifically to these predominantly black ones. And so I want to share an excerpt from his sermon today, which is going to take up the bulk of the program.

But I'll be back with some commentary at the end. So let us rejoin Bishop Patrick Woodin, senior pastor of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ, speaking on the divine nine. Paul said to us, he says to them, there are many gods to the world. But to us, there is one God.

This is what Christians believe. One God. Now, I believe that there's one God. I don't believe that there's ten gods. I don't believe that there's two, three, four or four, hope you want to say it, five, six, seven, eight. Nor do I believe that there are nine.

And yet a preacher the other day allowed what is called the divine nine to worship in the sanctuary of his church. I wasn't there and I would have never known anything about it had he not posted it. Just as I'm being streamed right now, I realize that and people have something to say. And my position is people have mouths. You can say what you want to. I don't want to speak up for me.

I don't have to fight my battles. God does that. But the Christian church used to believe in the divine one. The divine one. We didn't know that there was nine. Spinks, Katesh, Atlas, Themis, Cento, Minerva, Apollos, Thoth, Shekinah, Anbus, Horace, I guess I'm saying it right, Pallas, Athena, Aurora. You count them all up because some of these gods and some of these groups have more than one. The divine nine consists of 16 total gods.

I didn't think that there was but one. The greatest verse of scripture in the Old Testament, it's called the Shema. It says, know ye Israel that the Lord our God is one God. The whole New Testament. I said the whole Old Testament I mean. The whole Old Testament is based on that passage. The Shema.

What is that? Deuteronomy chapter six and verse four. I guess we need to look at it. I'm going to preach.

But I need to deal with this. Deuteronomy six. And don't y'all walk out on the scriptures here.

And I pray that those who disagree with me, how about disagreeing with me according to the scripture? Now if you don't like the color of my suit, I understand that. You don't like the way I wear my hair?

It is funny looking. Now I understand that. There are 10,000 things that you could criticize about me. My diction is not always what it should be. I understand that. And you're not perfect either.

But this is not a personality contest, nor is it a beauty contest, nor is it a how you wear your hair contest. It's whether we're in line with the Bible. The Shema, verse four of Deuteronomy six.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Love him with your whole heart. That is with all of your awareness, with all of your consciousness.

Love him. Amen. Heart, with all your understanding. And with all thy soul, with your whole body and mind. And with all of your might, with an intense passion.

Good God almighty. With a vehement love for Jesus. You're to be impassionate about him.

People who have a salvation and nobody knows that they have it, but them don't have it. When you love him, you can't keep it to yourself. Amen.

He said, that's the way I want you to love me. And that doesn't leave room for another, much less nine more. All right, let me step in just for a moment to set the stage for those of you who are radio and podcast listeners only, because you can't see the video of what they're about to play. This is a video of a church and there are sorority sisters and there's a line of them that are up on the platform, the pulpit. And then there's another line of them that are coming into the church by way of looks like the main entrance. And so it looks like they're making their way up to the pulpit and, and they're doing dance moves as they are entering or as they are parading in again, sorority sisters of a divine nine sorority. And so that is what Bishop Wooden is addressing. I want to show you something that just took place in William Murphy's church.

Now he put it out there. Greek life and the divine nine. Listen to the music. Listen to what's going on. Now is that dancing for church?

Some girl shaking their boot. Is that the church? Look at this. All right, that's good music.

That's good. That's in a church. Now you tell me, is that supposed to go on in a church? Well, you know, I don't really care because you don't love the Lord. When you love the Lord, you care. When you love the Lord, you have a problem with anything that God has a problem with. God doesn't understand a believer.

Well, he does. He knows a believer who looks at what God says is wrong and said, I don't have no problem with that. And part of the problem is, and this is in the text, I'll show you. That's part of the problem. We have lost our sense of righteous indignation and our attempt to gain the world's approval to love the world, to be like the world and all that kind of stuff.

The world we've lost our stand. Well, I couldn't agree with the Bishop more. There are things that are taking place today in the name of Christianity, people who are claiming to be the church. And we see just a desecration of God's house that has taken place. And that is why we are addressing this topic.

Because again, there are many people who are professing to be believers in Jesus Christ, and yet they are attaching themselves to organizations that are based on false gods. And that is what Bishop Wooding is addressing. And again, I agree with him wholeheartedly, and we've talked about it at length in weeks past. And so we're going to pause now for a brief announcement, but don't go away. We'll be back with more from Bishop Patrick Woodin Sr., the pastor of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ. He is addressing the divine nine sororities and fraternities and what is taking place in the church.

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For more information, please visit our website, BlessingsToIsrael.com, or write to us at BlessingsToIsrael.com, or text to us at BlessingsToIsrael.com, or text to us at BlessingsToIsrael.com, or text to us at BlessingsToIsrael.com. And bringing into the house of God, and don't care who knows, not the divine one, nine. Bible teaches that folk who are going to go to heaven among other things are those who have not lifted up their souls to vanity nor sworn deceitfully. Amen. And to lift up your soul literally means to take a vow. Amen.

So I want to know is this stuff right? And should this be in the house of the Lord? Are you with me? Amen. There seems to be no shame.

There seems to be a falling away. I have all of them here. From Alpha, Pi Alpha to Zeta, Pi Beta and all of these fraternities and sororities. Every one of them. When the people say I went on pledge, I pledge, they pledge to a God. They pledge to an entity.

You know I'm right. They don't pledge to the heir. The God has a name. But the name of these gods, none of them are found in scripture.

But none of them are found in scripture as a positive. Now the God of the Bible says thou shall have no other God. King James says before thou shall have no other God besides me. Now it doesn't matter how many gods you had pledged to before you met the true and living God. But once you meet the true and living God, you're supposed to let them other gods go.

I don't care if you don't clap. I'm right. And when you stand before him, so you don't want your husband to keep the girl that he was dating before. You don't want your wife. Well, honey, you know, I went with him for 40 years before I met you. You don't want to see him no more.

What you want is a single hearted commitment. Because let me tell you who is not going to participate. And it's not personal. It's not personal. I'm not speaking on behalf of myself, you know, because when they try to get me to pledge, I didn't. When I was in college, they tried to get me to pledge. I didn't ask me why. I told my mom I'm already a part of something.

This is what I said, did Jesus Christ and the church of God in Christ. That was enough for me. And, uh, and I was a preacher and I wasn't, I wasn't about to be running around on campus all day in a hot, uh, army jacket. I got to run everywhere.

I go carrying a ball. I just wasn't going to do it. Jesus told to know Jesus. All I had to do was to confess him as my savior to know Jesus, to know Jesus, to know the true and living God. Paul said, I ain't got to go dig him up. I ain't got to pull him down. All I got to do is to confess with my heart, with my mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in my heart that God had raised him from the dead.

Paul said, thou shall be saved. See, you can tell when a thing is manmade because it requires aestheticism. It requires, see, God never requires to follow him. Self-humiliation. He requires humility. Satan requires humiliation.

But when you've met the true and living God, you come out and, and I don't understand why something like that would be a struggle. Man, I loved a good cheap balona. Until I got a hold to a good piece of meat, steak, something nice. I said, Lord, please keep me from having, I thought that was good.

When you realize all that's thrown into that stuff, you won't eat it. But I didn't know any better. I hadn't been exposed to better.

Once you've been, once you've been exposed to Jesus, I don't even get what the fight is. I've been touched. I saw the light. I saw the light. No more in darkness, no more in night. I am so happy.

No trouble in sight. Praise the Lord. I saw the light.

Now, maybe you hadn't seen the light. Brought all nine of them. Between the nine, because some of these places have three gods, 16 total gods. So much for thou shall serve, know the God before me.

I read this off of, out from among them. It said the core of these organizations cannot be truly Christian sense. For one, anyone can join an atheist, an agnostic, awakened, et cetera, can pledge.

If you go through the pledge, you can join. Additionally, while some rituals will attempt to mix scripture, it's just that. A mixing of the holy and the profane.

One part will be a Bible verse, and then on the other page, a connection to a pagan deity. This is clearly antithetical to scripture. If it were Christian, as one often claims, there would be no speaking of words, of the words, quote, in the name of, the name that God, in the spirit of, the name that, and I pledge my loyalty to, or taking an oath or a vow of secrecy about the organization. Why would a ritual book or a ritualistic ceremony even be needed if it was Christian? There would be no need to kneel, bow down, et cetera. There would be no there would be no need for a false God to be at the basis or attached at all.

These things must really be thought about. As they are anti-Christ practices, many attempt to justify and claim, okay, doing as a Christian. All I'm saying, we're now seeing it placed online and all these kinds of dances going on in churches, never here. We're not having that. We're not having that.

We're not having that. Well, that was the voice of Bishop Patrick Woodin, again, the pastor of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ addressing the divine nine and the idolatry that is rooted in it. And we see the church attaching itself to these idol gods. I echo the words of the Bishop and I have in my house, we have a placard in our living room. It speaks to the words of Joshua in which he said, choose you this day, who you will serve. But as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. Me and my house, we are serving the one and only true God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of the Bible. And that is the one we lift up. That is the one we praise. That is the one we bow to. That is the one who which we submit ourselves to for eternity. Not these idol gods that are associated with fraternities and sororities.

Folks, we don't need that. We are believers in Jesus Christ. And as he said, the Bible clearly says, thou shall have no other gods before me.

And as I stated earlier, I've had numerous guests on our podcast to discuss this. And one of the young ladies made a statement to me in which while she was still part of a sorority, one of these divine nine. And she said that she was suffering from anxiety. She was suffering from depression.

She had this urge where every weekend she had to have a drink of alcohol. She was making a point that her body was demanding something of her. And so she was becoming a slave to it.

And we're not to become a slave to anything. But she explained that those were the things she was struggling with. She had fears, irrational fears. And she said that once she renounced, once she came out of that sorority, and once she committed herself to following only the one and only true God, she said all those things went away.

And it's because those demonic spirits, those dark spirits were tormenting her. And there are people out there that try to deny this. They try to claim you can be Christian and still be in these organizations. But folks, it is very clear based on the Bible that these are things that we should not be a part of. There was actually one of these sororities actually has princess Diana, the same princess Diana that is in the Bible that was an idol goddess that the people were worshiping. And the apostle Paul called them to come out of that and it caused a riot.

That is the same idol goddess that is attached to this fraternity or this sorority, I should say. And we are to come out from among them, come out of the darkness. And again, I really applaud Bishop Wooden because he's one of those pastors who was not afraid to tackle the hot button topics, the things that the world deemed as controversial. And there are and there are a lot of pastors out there that say, well, we just want to preach the gospel and you won't stand on anything because you're men pleasers.

You want to please man. And you don't want anyone to get upset with you, but we have to stand on the truth of God's word and be faithful and obedient to him so that we can hear those words when we step into eternity, well done, good and faithful servant. So that's going to do it for this week. We are out of time, but I want to encourage you if you are a part of a fraternity or sorority to renounce it, come out and recommit yourself to our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Please come back and join us again next week as we continue to discern the times by view of life through the lens of the Bible. Until then, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel and to the only wise God be glory through Jesus Christ forever.

Amen. Thank you for tuning in to Discerning the Times. Please come back and join us next week as we continue to encourage you to view current events through the lens of the Bible. Until next time, remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, bless God's great nation of Israel and seek first the kingdom of God. Discerning the Times is presented by blessings to Israel.