19/05/2026
A sermon from 3rd Biddeston has been posted on Exposing Abuse.
As part of a summary from ChatGPT says:
🧭 What This Sermon Is Doing (In Plain Terms)
It is:
* Rewriting the story so the ministry is the victim
* Discrediting whistleblowers
* Reassuring loyal members
* Avoiding accountability
* Reinforcing obedience
* Reasserting worker authority
* Minimizing the seriousness of abuse
This is exactly the kind of messaging that allows abusive systems to continue unchanged.
---
🩹 Why It Feels So Harmful
Because it invalidates the pain of victims, protects abusers, and pressures members to stay silent.
It tells people that questioning abuse = betraying God.
That is not spirituality.
That is control.
(full ChatGPT summary in comments)
Over 300 survivors and 220 perpetrators reported to TBTA. That’s not ‘nothing to see here’.
Attached is the sermon.
TRIGGER WARNING : Blatant spiritual abuse
3rd Biddeston 2025
Hymn 305 Very happy to be here amongst you all and to share your fellowship and to talk with you and to listen to your story all the same, in the sense that we all came in through the same door. We came through the ministry that Jesus established and there's only one like him, only one in this world. It's great to be in a country where they've got no worries.
I know everybody's good as gold, that's all I've heard since I came here. No worries, no worries, not even one. I had a companion one time and he said, I don't know why people emigrate to the States or to Canada when Australia's here. It's a great country and I've seen that for myself.
Your testimonies I've enjoyed because your testimonies are the heartbeat of the convention. What comes from your spirit and from your mouth is the heartbeat of the convention, the condition of the heart. And as I've listened, I thought again that we can say for sure because of this that God is alive and well. God is alive and well and he's still changing people little by little through life experiences and making them like Jesus. That's a great work. It's a work that he doesn't rush.
It's a work that he gives himself to. I'm surprised that he ever took on the responsibility of my life. So unpredictable, some of us. I was always a risk taker and there was another way I would always find it, but he never, he never gave up with me. And I, I remember when I, for maybe four or five years, I told God there's no way I would ever go into work. No way.
And I kept it up for four years. But eventually he won. And I would have to say today that I'm glad he did. That everything, every plan, every arrangement that he's ever made for me has been good. Like that 91st Psalm. He says, the fountain shall die at thy side, but you'll be kept.
Lord will keep us. And that is true, isn't it? We look back over life and we, we see the times that we came very near to the edge and he brought us back. Sometimes I think this, this way of God, Jesus said it was narrow. And I think on one side, on one side there's a, there's a ditch. Both sides of the ditch. One side is like self-righteousness. The other side is my way. And sometimes we veer off. It's the devil.
We listen to the devil. But listening to your testimonies again, and we know the things, the events of the past two years. Some felt it more than others. It's almost a sin to be a brother worker. But he's kept us. The fountain shall die at thy side. And some, some that we might say were our enemies. Those three ladies that were working against us. But not so long ago that one of them said, one of them said, we will destroy this. We'll destroy this ministry. And the other one was just as hateful, but he said, you'll never destroy it. We do what we like. You'll never destroy it. You'll never destroy the fellowship, because it's God's fellowship. It's God's ministry.
So I'm glad that we've been able, we've been able to say through it all, that all is well. You remember when Absalom rose up against David, caused a lot of trouble in the kingdom, his vision, his seekfulness. But still David had this love for him. I think it says somewhere that David, he was his favourite son. And he didn't him like he should have. Anyway, this day, they went out to find Absalom. And David said, be gentle with him, be gentle with him.
So they went out, you know the story. He got caught in that tree. Joab came along and he thrust him through with a sword and killed him. And then they were sending messengers back to David. And one messenger overtook the other one. And he got back to David. And David basically said, is all well? He said, yeah, all is well. And it wasn't well.
Absalom was dead. And David knew where he'd gone. He'd gone to the wrong place. Because David said, would to God that I died in your place. Anyway, this messenger was a good messenger. And he said, all is well. Now, in one sense, no, it wasn't well. But in a true sense, it was well. Because the kingdom was stabilized. The kingdom was protected. It's just David's poor, poor feelings that suffered.
And we can say today, all is well. There have been some casualties, yeah. But all is well in the kingdom. God hasn't moved. God hasn't changed. You folks that have been faithful, has he taken anything back? Has he taken your peace back? Has he stopped talking to you, speaking to you? No. All is well. And it will be well. It will stay on his side. The future is bright. That's what happened there in that occasion. And David got over it.
I read of that time after Jesus was crucified. You know, those days that led up to the crucifixion, it appeared that everything had gone wrong. And we all go through times in life like this, that everything seems to be going the way it shouldn't go. That I don't believe any one of those disciples ever understood that they were going to lose him, that he was going to die. I believe they felt that God was saving, like he had done many times before. But actually, it was going well. If there had been any other change, it would not have done well. Satan's desire was, he didn't want Jesus to die. Otherwise, we would be all lost. So, it went well.
And I noticed something very nice, usually when a conqueror or the leader of an army came back from war and had been victorious, that the citizens, the people would line the streets with flowers and they would sing and say All hail. All hallelujah. And that was because of their appreciation and their affection for the king and the victory that he got. But in this case, when Jesus came back, he said that to them. All hail. He appreciated. They didn't feel they'd done very much, but they stood by him. They didn't understand, but they stood by the one that they loved, waiting day by day to see how it would go.
And it's going to be like that for us too, because we won't always get the answers. God doesn't always give us the answers. It's his choice. It's his plan that we live by faith. And like we've heard many times, somebody said, the greatest honour we can bestow on God is to trust him. That's what he loved, to be trusted.
So in these past months, there's been this attack, we know, on the kingdom. I remember what somebody said one time. He said, you remember when the sons of Korah spoke against Moses and they said, who do you think you are, that you're making all the plans and all the decisions? Can't we make some plans too? And we know what happened. The ground opened up and swallowed them up.
And then later on, something else happened and the children of Israel were doing some similar things. And they said to one another, we better be careful. Otherwise the ground will open up and swallow us up. But God said, no. He said, I will spew you out of my mouth.
And this man said, that's because this kingdom is self-cleansing. It's self-cleansing. Anything that is not of God will be spewed at because he wants to keep this kingdom clean and protect his own. And he will do that because it's the most precious thing to him and to his people. God said one time, he said, of all that I have made, he said, the castles, barns, fires, and hills are mine. I don't want those.
But he said, the greatest joy that I get from all I've created is with the sons of men. And that's why he wants to dwell in us. And he wants to give, give, and give. And that's what he's done. I would have to say all my life, he's continued to give and give. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. I'd have fallen by the wayside.
Jesus told his disciples one time, he said, it's your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Something very, I know this one time, very special about God, his nature, that he loves to share. That's something we all have to learn as children. But God loves to share. He shared, he opened the doors of his kingdom. He shared with the world his son. He's very glad. And now Jesus says, it's my father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
A little story comes to mind. One of our friends in China, maybe 25 years ago, when it was starting to open up, there were quite a few, quite a lot of students on the streets of Beijing, far more than probably any other city in the world. Maybe 60% or 70% of them had degrees because they had time to study and they enjoyed it.
And so this lady, she got a job with a joint venture company, foreign company. And when somebody else saw how good she was, they headhunted her, to use that term.
So they went along and they offered her more money. So she moved and she went to work for that company. And it wasn't long again before it happened again. And they said, we'll give you more money. You'll come to us. This happened a few times. And then the company she was in, she said to them, will you give me more money and I'll stay? They said, no, we can't give you any more because we've given you a rise many times.
But what we will do, we'll give you shares in the company. So this will be partly your company. And that's what he's done for us. He says that we will be joint heirs of Christ. Joint heirs, that we would share and we would own. And it's good if we have that, we have that understanding. If you're working for a company, you never think so much about it. You never care so much about it as if it was your own. You just do your job nine till five and you leave.
But if it's our own, this is the story. We need to, we want to work in such a way that we get more and more involved. And move into the centre in many ways and make ourselves available to help in any way. Because it belongs to all of us. God has promised to give his best, give us the best. He loves to give us the best.
Just like you parents should love to give your children the best. We know what the parents have done with us themselves, so that the children could get a good education. So sometimes I tell something that's happened to me about getting the best. I think it was my third or fourth year in the work. And we were staying with some friends. And he's very rich, this man. Maybe I was looking a bit miserable one day. And as I say, he was very rich. And he said, go take a ride in one of my cars. Go on your own instead, you're free. So the choice was a Rolls Royce, or a Range Rover, or an XJS Jaguar.
So being a humble man, I took the Rolls. And I went all around the town, impressing everybody that would be impressed. I went around the town maybe six times. And what I'm saying is, I knew whenever I pulled up to the traffic light, I had the best. If anybody parked beside me, I would look down on them. Because I had the best. And we can say this, like I've said already, God has given us the best. I don't need anything else. We're short of nothing.
We were teaching one time in a city in Israel, Tel Aviv. And we used to do it free of charge. And we were teaching teachers. It was a teaching college. So the teachers were teaching students to become teachers of that subject. And so I'd done it for like three years. And the lady in charge, she said, why do you do this for nothing? Well, I said, to be honest, we have so much joy that we like to share it.
We have to use every opportunity we can. We've never heard that before. But we have, true.
God has given us so much that we're fully satisfied. I mean, that's why we would like to pass it on to someone else. And in this work, God has made us available that we can sit down and talk to people. And I like to do that. My companion too. I like to, if I can, to spend at least three hours a day with people.
Because, you know, Paul said one time, he said one time, I feel a debtor to all men. To the Greeks and the Jews. I feel a debtor. Not that he owed them anything. Anything monetary. But I think he meant this in the light of all that I've received from God. All the blessings that I've received that they have not received. I owe it to them to be an example. I owe it to them to share with them the love of God, the care of God.
Hopefully that they would feel it. And that's the way he spends his life. Trying to share with others what had been so kindly given to him. And I feel the same. As I move amongst people, I do feel a debtor. Because we cannot count. We cannot measure all that God has done for us. And it's a great, it's a great thing to be able to say that I'm fully satisfied. I'm the happiest man in the world.
And if they start to ask you, have you got a wife? You got a car? Where are your children? We haven't got any of those. I try to avoid those questions. It's not so easy in that country where we are. We don't want them to know too much about us. But it doesn't make sense in the sense that it's the thing that men want. I want to speak to the ladies. I want to speak to the men. Men want a wife. Men want a car. Men want a house. Men want a bank account. All these things that we would like.
There was a time when I was younger, before I went into the work, that I thought some of these things I've mentioned, I could never live without. No, I could never live without. But God has shown differently.
That with his help, we can do anything. With his help, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. And so we can speak so positively about God. I wanted to find that verse where Paul says, anyway, we've heard a lot about the will of God in these meetings, right from day one. And we all know that that's the most precious thing we all possess. There's a lot of people in this world that can worship God. And they do worship God with their money. And they worship God with their time. And they worship God sometimes with what they own.
But they won't worship him with their spirit or with their will. And we know, you know, like I do, there are so many religious people in this world. And they, they appear to be doing a lot.
But as one of our friends from England, she professed at one point, and I think she offered her little work. And she was a tough character. Something went wrong and she became a nun. And she was down there in Spain for quite a while. And she told us some of the things that these nuns would do. She told us some good things, but she said there was a lot more. But anyway, her conclusion was, they make lots of sacrifices, but on the wrong altar. It's a waste of time doing anything that God has not asked us to do. It's our will.
And all these religious people, they may be sacrificial, they may be, but it's their idea. It's their baby, as we say. But for you folks, and for us in the ministry, we are going against ourselves and we enjoy it. That's a miracle. That's the promise of God. That we'll find joy.
There's real joy in the will of God. And submitting to the will of God.
And there was a verse in one of the Psalms, you know, that goes on there. But when I was, I was in England, say, four years ago. And one gave his testimony from Wales. I don't, think the Australians are big in rugby too. Rugby players. Wales is, they like rugby. And he was speaking about that verse, they that continue to the end shall be saved. And he said, he was in rugby when Wales was playing. He said, if victory was declared at halftime, Wales would have won the cup many times. He that endures to the end will be saved. Not halftime. Or halfway. So we folks, we've heard a lot about the will of God. Why did God give us a will of our own when he never intended us to use it? To the like of what we use it?
Something, I'll tell you something happened to me just to try to illustrate my point. I was about eight or nine. And my mother said one day, it was her birthday. Are you going to buy me something? And I said, I don't, don't have any money. Oh, well, she said, I'll give you some money. I don't know if it was a trick or what. I got sucked in. She said, okay, I'll give you some money. So she gave me the money. And I went out and I bought these nice bunch of flowers. What you men should be doing. You got it right from the start. I bought these flowers. And I brought them back to her. And she was delighted. She was over the moon. And I went right up in her estimation.
But by eight o'clock at night, she came in my bedroom. I was alone. And I was sat there in bed, eating a big box of marshmallows. And I became very unpopular after that. Because that money was supposed to be for her present. But I kept some for myself. And it's like that with the will of God. God gave us a will with this reason, this purpose that we would have something to sacrifice and give back to him. What else have we got? He wants our will. There's more than anything else.
But how many times do we give most of it? And keep back some marshmallows like that. We keep back a little bit for ourselves. And God's very disappointed. He can't accept that. When we just give part of it. He needs our own. And he gave it to us in the first place. Just like she gave me that money in the first place. It's something we have to work on. We work on every day. So what's the worst?
I remember when I was just a couple of years in the work.
Convention time, if you were working in London, Convention time was a busy time. You spent most of your time at the airport. Bringing visitors in and then seeing them away. And this was a time after the convention and workers were going home. And this particular worker, some of you would have known him. Gareth Hughes. Some of you knew Gareth Hughes. He kind of came after George Walker. Anyway, he was an old man, maybe 84. And he said very little. Very little.
Anyway, there could have been 60 people and we were all standing around. They were talking until it was time for his plane to leave. And I was stood in one corner and he walked over to me. And he said, remember this. He said to his disciples, you didn't choose me, but I chose you. I chose you. In other words, you've no right to boast. It's not your decision. I chose you in your mind.
I've often thought about that because the devil sometimes used to tell us, you can't do it. It's too much. Too much to expect. And there will always be things that God asks us to do that we think it's too much. But it's not my choice. He chose me. And then he made it possible for me to choose him. And that's the same for all of us. He chose us. Great, great prince.
I'm interested sometimes that I look at the flags of different countries. The Union Jack reflects all the wars that they've been through and all the lives that are lost. So it's like one cross on top of another. You've got a cross this way and a cross this way. It represents the sacrifice of many lives.
But there's a little island off the coast of England. It's called the Isle of Man. And it's been there a long time, all the islands have been there. But there have been people there and running a government since the 1300s. And it's a British dependent island. They depend on us to protect them. But it's really a tax haven. They really don't like the British.
Anyway, the flag, the emblem of this island is three legs from the side and around the feet are some golden stirrups. And then the writing underneath says, whichever way you throw me, I land on my feet. That's the promise that we have through Christ. Whatever way, whatever comes in our lives, we say, whichever way you throw me, I land on my feet. And the older I get, the more I appreciate the Son of God. Things that he said, things that he did, become more and more my daily bread.
And that's the way it should be, I believe. That's the way it should be. So I hope we can all go forward with confidence. As we said already, this ministry will never be moved. This kingdom will never be moved. The people of God, some are trying to say, and some are trying to destroy the ministry. But no ministry, no church. It's as simple as that. No ministry, no church. False ministry creates false church. And there's not another ministry in this world like this ministry.
Sometimes I've tried to talk to people. Most churches don't even have a ministry. And some that make some attempt, they don't really attach too much importance to it. Why is that? When we understand that this homeless ministry produces this church, a fellowship of love.
And I believe it's because, like in Jesus' day, the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the quarter. And this is the stone, the ministry that he set up and will never be moved, never be destroyed.
And what does it say there? This ministry is built, or this church is built upon the apostles and the prophets. And Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone. So we're grateful for those who play a humble part to keep this kingdom free, to keep hearts where God delights as well. Because that's our life. All will be well. And that's our future.
(there are a few 'clues' in this sermon that would suggest the speaker is Andrew Culbert - Labours in Greece, from the UK - please let us know if you can confirm it's a different worker - only other options are John Lepore or Ross Wetherell)
