Gospel Ministers: Slandered, Reviled, and Maligned

By Dr, Robert Morey

(Submitted by reader)

Faithful men of God have always been the object of vicious attacks from hateful and malicious people. They have always been maligned, slandered, denounced, called every evil name in the book, and accused of all wickedness. Yet, biblical history and Church history remembers these great men of God while their critics are forgotten forever.

In the same way, modern men of God who stand solidly for the truth of the Gospel against liberalism, Islam, the cults, the occult, and, yea, against all unbelief, are maligned and slander on every hand. But the foundation of God remains secure. The gates of Hell will never prevail against the Church or her faithful ministers of the gospel.

Whitefield is remembered today as a man mightily used by God in one of the greatest times of Revival in English history. His ministry is credited with saving England from suffering a bloody revolution like the French Revolution.

While George Whitefield is praised today, he was often maligned and persecuted in his own generation. Rev. Reeves wrote an insightful article on the abuse heaped upon Whitefield during his ministry.

Let all true ministers of the gospel take note that if Whitefield, Spurgeon, and, indeed, our Lord himself, did not escape slanderous abuse and malicious attacks, they why should we think that we shall escape persecution.

The following is part of the Dudley Reeves’ article “George Whitefield in Scotland” (Banner of Truth, no. 162, March 1977, pgs. 27-28)

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A third valuable lesson that Whitefield taught Scots was to receive personal abuse and spiritual opposition with patience and humility.

In 1742, Whitefield suffered an onslaught of pamphlets aimed against him. This was no new experience to him, for in the six years he had been a minister there had possible been as many as 160 pamphlets directed at him in England and America, in addition to the sermons, magazine articles and news reports attacking him and his work. The Scots Magazine itself had joined in the jibes before Whitefield became known to Scotland I person. Many of the 160 pamphlets were written by fellow ministers, many contained scurrilous personal abuse and some had descended to the indecent and the obscene.

In 1742 the Secedes’ understandable anger towards Whitefield turned into inexcusable abuse. In June, Adam Gib, one of their ministers, published his 75 page pamphlet against Whitefield. Part of the title reads:

“A WARNING against Countenancing the Ministrations of Mr. George Whitefield…Wherein are shown, that Mr. Whitefield is no minister of Jesus Christ; that his Call and Coming to Scotland are scandalous; that his Practice is disorderly and fertile of Disorder; that his whole Doctrine is, and his Success must be diabolical; so that People ought to avoid him from Duty to God, to the Church, to themselves, to Fellow-men, to Posterity, and to him.”

In 1744 a Seceder accused Whitefield of “dreadful Error, flagrant Enthusiasm, gross Delusion, and horrid Blasphemies” and making “filthy lucre” his chief aim.

Though Whitefield continued to be the object of abuse elsewhere, in Scotland there was less criticism after 1750…In a letter to Lady Huntington, Whitefield was able to write,

God be praised for the many strippings I have met! It is good for me that I have been supplanted, despised, censured, maligned, and separated form my nearest, dearest friend. By this, I have found the faithfulness of Him, who is the Friend of friends.

Whitefield’s patience and humility while under fire from several quarters must have been a good example to many Scots. Surely others felt as one Aberdeen minister wrote of Whitefield in 1741,

His calmness and serenity under all he meets with, yea his joy in tribulation is to me so surprising, that often think, the Lord sent him to this place, in particular, to teach me how to preach and especially how to suffer.

Conclusion

Let us all learn from Whitefield to embrace slander and gossip as proof of our ministry. Rejoice for great will be our reward in heaven when men revile you and say all manner of evil against you falsely

 

California Pastor Falsely Accused by Police

(Taken from a CNN On-line news article.  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  Used for educational and discussion purposes only)

Pastor with limited English has been arrested in Sacramento and falsely accused of solicitation for prostitution.  4The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department has arrested John Oselsky Wednesday, along with 23 others, during a prostitution sting.  Mr Oselsky is the senior pastor at Grace Family Church, which mostly serves the Slavic community in Carmichael.  According to his biography, Oselsky has four children with his wife.
“He is 100 percent innocent,” said a parishioner. When asked how the man who identified himself as a church volunteer knew of Oselsky’s innocence he replied: “The mistake was done by the Sheriff’s Department and police.”
Parishioners who did attend seemed sympathetic for both the church and their pastor. “I hope our church will unite and won’t condemn him. But instead really love him and do everything what is required from us to help restore.”

Mike Borisov (Mr Oselsky’s Son-In-Law) wrote a note:

The Account of John Oselsky and His Arrest.
My father-in-law is John Oselsky who has been arrested for alleged solicitation of prostitution, a misdemeanor in the state of California. As someone who was personally involved in this unfortunate night, I want to shed some light on the events. There are a lot of rumors circulating around, especially since the media picked up the story. Interestingly enough, there is no personal mention of the other dozens of men (and some women) picked up on the same charges that night except for this “pastor.” This is of course, because “pastor caught in sin” makes for good sensational news. My father-in-law is in fact the senior pastor of a local, well-known, Slavic church. Firstly, I want to thank those of you who have not rushed to pass judgement. Even more, I want to thank those of you who have been in prayer for our family. My firm belief is that my father-in-law is innocent of the accusations he is charged with. It is my hope that those of you who have been making judgements based on little more than a catchy headline, can consider other information that is based on my first-hand experience and from my direct conversations with John, shortly after his release. I trust that as more evidence comes to light, it will support my own convictions as well as those of our family… Here is what happened on my end on June 12, 2014: I was awakened by a call from my mother-in-law at 12:40AM asking me to come to her house as fast as possible. I could tell something was wrong and hurried over wondering why my father-in-law wasn’t there. When I got there she told me that her husband had been arrested and he had called asking to be bailed out. I wanted more details but she said that all she could understand (the phone connection was bad) was that he had been trying to get food after working at his church and something had happened. We drove to downtown Sacramento and arrived at the County Jail. The doors were locked and we sat for a while in my car outside of the jail waiting for someone to come. During this time I looked up the arrest through our county sheriff’s website and when I saw the charges, my heart dropped. Sitting in that car I could not bring myself to tell my mother-in-law what I had just found, instead quickly scrolling to a different page. When we got into the front lobby of the jail and spoke with an officer, he seemed very surprised that my mom had come to bail her husband out. He even handed her a document that laid out the arresting charges and said, “Are you sure you want him out? Look at these charges!” Mom was looking at the document but could not understand what he was referring to. The most difficult thing I have ever had to do was explain to my frightened mother-in-law, in Russian, in that jail, what the term “solicitation for prostitution” meant. Mom looked like she was hit by a ton of bricks but did not falter and without hesitation said “yes” when the officer repeated his question if she wanted her husband out. I took this opportunity to ask the officers (there were two) if they knew whether this was an isolated arrest or if there had been some kind of sting. The officer told us that there had been a prostitution sting and they had picked up quite a few people. We were directed to go to a Bail Bond agency across the street to post bail. We ended up going to three different bail bond places because it turns out very few work with prostitution charges. Mind you this is around 2AM or so. At each one, I kept asking the bail bond agents two questions: 1. If they had heard about this sting and 2. whether in their experience it is possible for an innocent person to be “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” In answer to my questions I heard from each of the bail bond agents that they have been working like crazy this night because of this prostitution sting and also that it is possible that someone could have been picked up by mistake. I was asking these questions to try to keep a shred of hope alive for my own sake and that of my mom. Curiously, one bail bond agent asked whether John had an accent. When I affirmed his assumption he told me that the unfortunate fact is that police tend to profile people with accents. This was a big concern considering that my father-in-law has a very poor grasp of English. Finally, we posted bail and my brave mother stayed in front of that jail by herself for the next several hours waiting for her husband. I had to rush home to my own wife who was worried sick because I had not told her what was going on. He was released in the early morning and when he was out he called me asking to come over to my house and talk. He arrived extremely shaken up and shared his story: Around 7PM, John had two separate counseling sessions with different couples at his church. This is a regular part of his job as a pastor. These lasted until approximately 10PM. When the couples left, he spent a few more minutes working in the church office. Once finished, he locked up the church, set the alarm and turned to go. He left the church and decided to stop at a nearby gas station that has cheap gas and a burger place in a nearby plaza. He had not had dinner so he decided to grab a burger. When he pulled into the parking lot he noticed several parked cars. He pulled in across from the restaurant and turned off his ignition. At this time, two women were walking in his direction from the driver’s side. He decided to stay in the car until they passed but instead they approached his car and tried to get his attention. He partially put down his window and they were talking at him. As I already mentioned, his grasp of the English language is very poor and he could only understand that they were saying something about money and he made out the word “sex.” He tried to indicate to them that he did not understand them/was not interested. While this was happening a white van pulled up behind his car, partially blocking him so that he could not leave. The two women immediately went over to the van and began talking to the driver. John could not see to whom they were speaking but became afraid that he was about to be robbed (this had happened to him at a gas station several years ago). He pulled his car forward and then maneuvered it around the van blocking his path. He told me, “All I knew in that moment was that I needed to get out of there.” He successfully pulled away from the van and proceeded to pull out of the burger joint parking lot into the street. At this time, another pastor from the church called John and he put him on speaker phone. Before he was able to turn into the street, a car pulled sharply in front of him and a spotlight was turned on him. Several police officers got out and began yelling for him to step out of his vehicle. One of the officers kept yelling at him to turn his phone off. They pulled him out of the car and with his limited English (and confused/panicked state) John was attempting to ask them what was going on. They did not explain in a way that he could understand