A Final Farewell From Appolus

Dear Saivts

I was asked to post this final farewell from our dear brother Frank.

Blaine

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I just wanted to say goodbye to the Saints on SI. I have been richly blessed over the past 7 years by many genuine saints. Greg has seen fit to kick me off of Sermon Index. There has always been a tension between myself and Greg, even although we have worked together over the years and I invited him to come to Glenock to have a conference in my hometown. Yet this is his site, he created it, and he maintains it, and he controls it, and he is perfectly within his own rights to kick anyone off of it. I want to think the many people who have emailed me their appreciation of my posts over the years. Obviously there are a few who violently oppose certain messages and that is their right. When God puts a message, a fire in your bones, who should one listen to, God or man? It is my pleasure to follow the Lord no matter the consequences or bitter opposition (you should see some of my emails). So take care saints and always follow hard after the Lord, never follow men. My email is appolus@aol.com. Please feel free to email me at anytime on any subject................................Brother Frank

Saints,

We did give multiple opportunities of grace towards allowing brother Frank to interact with us on reasons for possibly being asked to leave the site and in the end also gracefully leaving. It is sad how things have to come to asking a brother to leave interacting on a website that is to be a place of edification and encouragement. SI is not a church but is a place where there is fellowship and therefore we all need to be accountable to each other and also to brethren who moderate.

What on earth??? This is an internet FORUM, not a church for crying out loud. Just leave and let it be, no muss, no fuss, no need for drama or continued strife and certainly no need for anymore threads about it either...sigh. There is absolutely no need whatsoever why you should have to explain ANYTHING to anybody brother Greg except the person you remove which you have already done I am sure. It is no-one elses business and this thread should never have been started in the first place. PLEASE CLOSE THIS BEFORE IT GETS OUT OF HAND!!!

Greg, Could you please tell us why you have asked Frank to leave Sermon Index? I believe that this thing can be worked out if handled in the right way.

We have had fellowship and have known frank for 7 years I believe. Over that time there have been disagreements as brothers can disagree but in the end after humbling ourselves we continued to have open fellowship. This is not a matter of that but of the SermonIndex forums themselves.

SermonIndex is not a personal pulpit or platform for any good brother to spearhead their mission or to say it worst at times agenda. Simply put brother was asked more then at one occasion not to post his blog writings on SermonIndex, we have asked many others also not to do this, also his blog was advertised at the footer of every of his posts, many brothers we have removed the links long before and tried to only allow links to blogs or sites that will edify.

In the end it is a privilege I believe for anyone of us to post on a website that has all of this godly content and speakers on it. We are adding our thoughts and sharing our views which is humbling considering we are posting along side Tozer's, Ravenhill's etc. Also the forums are read by a world-wide audience thus it is important for us to realize this, that we are representing the Lord Jesus Christ when we write, respond or disagree (in love, gentleness and maturity).

In the end brother frank continued in the vein of not really respecting the moderators when they tried to bring any balance to a thread and also did not stop posting threads that were even using words that I posted and continued to share in the vein of what frank posts about on his blog. It is sad to have to send a personal email a few times and lastly in the end because of the brother not wanting to work it out or respond but only respond publicly on the forums we had to remove his account.

I trust I am not slandering in anyway brother frank but sharing simply that this is a last case thing to remove a account, it is NOT dis-fellowshipping a brother, it is not claiming he is not a brother, it is simply a form of discipline (not even fully church discipline). I do not want to share any other details because it would not be honouring to the brother or honouring to Jesus Christ to say things publicly.

Perhaps there is simply a season for all things, I have enjoyed franks posts in the past and now he is very strong on what God is telling him to preach and SermonIndex simply is not the place for that.

This is what Frank wrote on his blog today publically I think it summarizes what he really feels:

Hi sister. Thank you for your comment and I wanted you to know that you and a couple of others have been the only reason that I have continued to interact with Sermon Index which has long since lost the place. I think if you were to check out the devotional section you would see a barren wasteland of no replies. It is akin t a church with no prayer meeting. It is very sad to see it go in such a way but this is what comes when men are determined to be in control and God does not have the place. I will certainly keep in touch sister, we are kindred spirits because we have been baptized into the one Spirit with one heart that beats in love with Jesus our Lord who is preeminent in our lives. I have met so many saints over the years where there is an instant fellowship and love and friendship and loyalty. Now, with the religious man, there is none of that, quite the opposite. As Tozer said ” The once born man is always the deadliest enemy of the twice born man.” …………bro Frank

We are going to lock the thread as per the suggestion of brother Mark. I would encourage saints to please pray for the ministry of SermonIndex, the moderators and for all the people that interact on the forums. We have so many precious saints who are on the forums and to see division amongst radical believers is very sad, there is so much wrong in christianity and to start to divide amongst ourselves of who is really "in" is quite sad. May the Lord allow us to show love to each other and be willing to yield and humble ourselves to others and not think we need to be right.

this thread is locked.