The Truth Behind the Membership Roll

In Acts 3, we read of the account of Peter and John healing the crippled beggar at Beautiful Gate and on that day, the membership of the new Christian believers grew to about 5000 men, excluding women and children. Then we read of the arrest of Peter and John for their act and how the Sanhedrin endeavoured to silent the new movement.

We can clearly see the schemes or designs of Satan, working through the Sanhedrin to frustrate and thwart the expansion of the church and to drain the spiritual vitality of the disciples.

From Acts 4, we saw Satan employing a few strategies against the church, Peter and John.

Get rid of the key leaders and block the church’s forward motion. Satan did it here through the arrest of Pete and John. We need to pray for those in places of spiritual authority.
Tempt by blaming God. Wonder what run through the minds of Peter and John that night when they were arrested? “Is this how God rewards me for being faithful?”, “what is going to happen to us? To the new 5000 converts?”. Most of us would be able to relate to this almost on a daily basis.
Tempt with worry and discouragement. Most of them in Calvary Church would definitely be able to relate to this. Disheartened, discouraged and often times, disturbed.
Tempt with feelings of inferiority.
Intimidate and threaten.


Satan is predictable. God is not! The strategies Satan employs against the church in Acts stays exactly the same today. His 3 strategies are:-

1. defeat the church (or the individual) by causing it to doubt, fear, despair, blame others, blame God, or sin. It is an attack against the spirit of the church or individual.
2. defeat by the church by promoting division. Often this is done through the functioning of selfishness. Many times it is doctrinal.
3. defeat the church or individual through persecution or seduction. Actually persecution and seduction are two sides of the same coin. A torturer is often more successful with a captive when he lures him with advantages rather than persecution. In Acts, we do not see Satan using seduction to any degree. That comes later in church history.

Can you identify the above strategies used by Satan against Calvary Church? We cannot accuse our Christian brothers and sisters who support the TTG cause for having malicious and evil intention. Their hurts and disappointments are genuine, (although misplaced and not well-informed), but we need to pray and intercede for them as well. It is equally difficult for them to oppose their church in such fashion.

However, after making a few phone calls and spoke to a few persons, we would like to draw your attention to some facts we have found out recently.

1. There were less than 200 members of Calvary Church who had been removed from the “Voting Members” and “Associate Members” list.
2. The 200 names had been DOWNGRADED and MOVED to a list called “Inactive Members”.
3. There are also some who have passed away, and there are also some who have transferred membership to other churches.

Without publishing this fact, some of our brothers and sisters of a differing view may think otherwise. You may choose to call Calvary Church or email them to verify. Their contact details is at their church website at http://www.calvary.org.my

So, for those who saw photos of their friends smiling behind the “We love Calvary Church” banner in the newspaper last week, good news is, their names are still on the membership roll of their church.

More to come...