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IS JOHN O'BRIEN A PASTOR AND A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST OR...?

 

The person we would like to tell you about in this article is a John O’Brien. Who is he? He is an American Christian missionary and a pastor who is living in Kharkov with his wife and children. Here is his FACEBOOK account - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1285505326

This is what he himself has to say about his mission in the Ukraine

 

 

“Welcome to Missions2Ukraine, the home of John & Cathy O'Brien. We are church-planting Baptist missionaries serving in the Eastern European country of Ukraine. 

Our Mission

God has sent us to eastern Ukraine as church-planting Baptist missionaries. As we work in Ukraine's second largest city, filled with more than 2 million souls, we must overcome 70+ years of atheistic communism and the Satanic stranglehold of religion. By God's grace, we are birthing Christ-honoring Indigenous, autonomous Independent Baptist churches and training Ukrainian Believers to be the future leaders. We believe in, preach about, and practice the doctrine of the local church.”

 

 

Despite the fact of you being either a believer or not, you can easily imagine what an honorable position it is to be a mouthpiece of God’s Kingdom, Love and Will in the eyes of people and God. Even if you don’t believe in Christ and don’t trust Bible it’s hard to deny or refute the fact that the Bible has a lot of fundamental truths and principles which promote peace and good neighboring. It’s not a bad thing, after all, even from a nonbeliever’s point of view, let alone a believer’s one. Being a peace-maker, being a person of Christ’s way of life and acting is fundamental for every Christian, or, at least, it should be. Jesus Christ is the role model for every believer and pastor.

What is the purpose of missionary work, do you think? What is the purpose of Christianity? It is to follow Christ and help other people find the way which leads them into the Kingdom of God. And how do we do it? By going to church? By sitting there? By saying that we are Christians? By doing some work in God's name? Well, of course, we doing these things won't harm us but they are not exatly what leads us to Christ's Kingdom and way of life. The most difficult part of work is a internal transformation of our character, thinking and attitude towards other people.

Ephesians, chapter 4, 22

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts”

Ephesians, chapter 4, 29

“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice”

The above lines show that following Christ is internal work which is to be performed within the heart of every disciple of Christ.

Luke, chapter 6, 44

For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Speaking of John O’Brien, we have to bring to your attention a lot of questionable actions, words and attitude on his part which Ukrainian Christians have been witnessing. We want to understand what gives John O’Brien the right to use the name of God and his great commission as a pretext for his stay in the Ukraine while his attitude and words testify that he has no respect to Blood of Christ and people in Ukraine. Is calling people fools something that is an indispensable part of his Christian mission? Did really Christ commission him to insult people?  “Well, what if those people are to blame? What if those people are fools?” – you may ask. Indeed, what if they are?! Let’s return to the point of us being resemblers of Christ again.

Let’s read:

Luke, chapter 23, 33-34

“And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.”

I think we can try to imagine how it feels to be crucified. I think we can imagine how much pain and humiliation a person feels at such a time. How do you react when you are treated unfairly? How would you react if someone kicked you? How would you react if someone were going to kill you? And what did Jesus say? “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Let’s have a look at John O’Brien’s reaction and manifestation of God’s love to people living in Ukraine. In the picture below you can clearly read in Russian:

"Надо купить таких дураков билеты “домой” в россию. До свидания, коллорадские жуки."

[He made some minor mistakes as he meant to say: Надо купить такиМ дуракаМ билеты “домой” в Россию. До свидания, колорадские жуки.] In English it means: Tickets back home to Russia should be bought for these fools. Farwell, Colorado potato beetles!

 

 

 
 

 

          Do you consider it a norm for a pastor and a disciple of Christ to call people, for whom Christ died, fools and Colorado potato beetles? It’s a rhetorical question of course. You might wonder why Colorado potato beetles. Well, it has to do with the current internal conflict in Ukraine which basically divided the country into to parts. One group supports the new Ukrainian government which acclaims the European Union the other one considers the new government not legitimate and acclaims Russia. Those people who are against the Euro integration of Ukraine use The Ribbon of St George. You can read more about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbon_of_Saint_George This Ribbon looks like this 

 

It looks like a Colorado potato beetle? Right? It does. But is it really an appropriate comparison in terms of God’s love and a pastor’s mission?

Well, what would Christ do in his place? What was Jesus’ attitude towards politics?

Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, 6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

 

We can see that disciple of Christ didn’t see his Kingdom only as something spiritual. They saw it as a revival of their national power and ruling. So, they mixed politics with Christianity. And now we know that Jesus never called on people to overthrow authorities or make political revolutions or support those who do so or don’t support them.

He was saying that:

John, chapter 18, 36 “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.”

 

        I don’t know what it tells you, but in my opinion it shows that Christians’ priorities lie beyond politics and beyond taking someone’s side in a political crisis of any country’s, especially of the one’s which is not even the country where you were born. It’s all understood that we all have or, at least, can have our stance on certain political issues but it doesn’t mean that even if you have some you are entitled by God and people who sponsor you to get involved into judging, criticizing, insulting those Ukrainians whose opinion differs from yours. It doesn’t give you a permission to start slanging matches on FACEBOOK humiliating people for their civil position. This kind of behavior is a disgrace for God. 

Here is another example of O'brien's gloating over Ukrainians who see Russia to be the only country which can help them protect their rights.

It reads: Once they ran them out of here on Tuesday morning and jailed 70 of them, their leader fled back to Moscow and all over town yesterday popped up huge billboard warnings of the new law passed on Wednesday: Russian protests are illigal, you will sit in jail. Awesome to see!

 

What Christian words and attitude! Jesus is really happy to have such a loyal follower who enjoys seeing other people suffer in jail. Is John O’Brien the JUDGE who was appointed by God to judge Ukrainians for their civil position? I don’t think so. So, who gave him the right to say such things? Who does he think he is?

 

      We find John O’Brien a man who discredited himself as a pastor. We know that it’s easy to give a blind eye to such unpleasant things and just keep living and seeing only positive things. But would it be fair to pretend everything is OK? Definitely not. We hope that there are a lot of people out there who really want to support GOOD NEWS of Christ and not those mooches who act like Christians but in reality all they want is another transaction from the people who support them in the US. Due to a very profitable exchange rate of the dollar into the hryvna (1 United States Dollar = 11.4 Ukraine Hryvnia) you can know for sure that life in Ukraine is not so hard. An average Ukrainian wage is about 2500 Hryvnias (about 225 $) a month which is 7.5 $ a day which is about 1 dollar per hour if you work 7 hours a day. Calculate yourself how you can live here with 1000$ a month. If you are one of those who support John O’Brien we ask you to reconsider whether he is the right man to support. We can recommend you this person Stephany as we know for sure how she supports orphans in Ukraine. Or you could support this family The Hess family they are real Christians (Baptists). They don’t talk about politics they don’t insult people instead they preach about God’s love and respect people.

 

PS: We don't post all the dialogues with insults and disrespect by which many people who are ex-friends of John O’brien, have been abundantly “blessed” lately. But there were many more, you can trust us on that. One common thing for all the responses of John O’brien to those who don’t agree with him is that the opinion of his opponents is trash, apparently, we are also trash in his eyes. Well, it’s just his opinion as we know that God has another opinion which he showed on the Cross. 

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