Prosperity and Health, Death and Poverty

On the night of December 19, 2010, Pastor Wendell Smith of the City Church died, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke, saying, Set your house in order, for within one year's time you will die, and I will place another in your office.

"Correction [is] grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: [and] he that hateth reproof shall die." Proverbs 15:10

On the twenty-first day of January in the year 2009 I Bryan went at the command of God to the home of Pastor Wendell Smith of the City Church. At the time of the setting of the sun I knocked on the front door of his house in Kirkland, Washington. Pastor Wendell Smith opened the door and I introduced myself and informed him that I had come with a word from the Lord about his illness. He replied, "Okay, this is not really the proper way to do that." I stated that I would like to read the letter to him. He responded that it was not healthy for him to stand in the cold doorway, and asked if I could mail it to him. I informed him that I would rather hand it to him and requested at least one more time permission to read him the letter. Pastor Wendell Smith again declined. When I could see that he would not suffer me to read the word of God to him I placed the letter back in the envelope with the letter delivered to him at the City Church in May of 2006. As I did, I looked up at Wendell Smith and said these words, "The Lord Jesus Christ has sent me to set before you the way of life and the way of death, the way of blessing and the way of cursing. Therefore, choose life and obey the voice of the Lord your God, to love Him and to serve Him only, that He may prolong your days upon the earth." Upon speaking these words I handed the envelope containing both letters to him. Wendell Smith stated that this was the first word the Lord spoke to him after he became sick. He asked after my name and I told him again, informing him that my name and email address were on the letter that was first delivered to him at the church about two and a half years earlier. I turned to leave and the door was closed, as the sky grew darker at the setting of the sun.

These are the words contained in the letter delivered to Pastor Wendell Smith on Wednesday, January 21, 2009.

To Pastor Wendell Smith of the City Church:

This is what the Lord Jesus Christ has said concerning you:

I have given you space to repent of this vile doctrine of prosperity with a purpose. As yet you have refused to receive My word to you concerning this matter. Therefore, this is what I say to you, Pastor Wendell Smith: There comes a time when things have reached their usefulness and they are good for nothing but to be thrown away. Therefore, hear My word to you: if you do not repent of this doctrine of prosperity with a purpose, you will have reached your usefulness in My kingdom, and I will remove you from the earth. Set your house in order, for within one year's time you will die, and I will place another in your office. You have sought for healing, you have pleaded for mercy, you have confessed wholeness. But it shall be to no avail if you refuse to return to Me in this matter about which I have spoken so clearly.

You have built for yourself a habitation in the earth. You have excelled in wisdom and wealth. But your hands are defiled, your wealth shall be your poverty, your wisdom shall be your foolishness. What was for your praise amongst men will be your undoing. There is another who competes with Me in your heart, whose appeal is so beguiling. Wealth, wealth, where is your wealth, Wendell? Health, health, where is your health, Wendell? You have forgotten the true riches that are in Me, says the Lord Jesus Christ. I am your Reward, I am your Treasure, I AM and there is no other. I the LORD should have been your strength, but what was strength for you will be weakness. You have desired thirty more years, but you shall not know thirty, neither shall you know fifteen. Your days have drawn to an end if you will not repent.

Would you receive My chastisement as a son, or will you turn your back on Me as a bastard? I am your Father, says the Lord God of heaven and earth. I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I will restore you if you would only turn from this profane teaching you have promulgated in My church for far too long. This disease cannot remain amidst My people and not result in death. Neither can this cancer remain in your body and not take your life, unless I heal you. I have afflicted you in My faithfulness, My son. But if you will not repent of this pernicious doctrine you preach to My people, I will remove you from your place in the earth and raise up another in your stead. He shall be a praise before Me, but his heart will I try as I have tried yours. And he too will face this issue, he too will be confronted with the word of his God, he too must give account before Me for that which he will teach. And what shall be the end of his praise?

On January 22, 2009 I received an email from Troy S. Anderson of the City Church, telling me to read the attached letter. The attachment contained in the email was this letter:

Re: The City Church and Pastor Wendell Smith

Dear Mr. Hulen:

Your letters to Pastor Wendell Smith commanding him to repent of certain Bible teachings, and warning him that if [he] does not repent he will die within the year, were hostile, inappropriate and threatening. Your attempt to enter his Kirkland home yesterday evening to deliver your "message" both heightened the level of your threats and demonstrated the potential danger you pose to Pastor Smith and to The City Church.

The Smith residence is private property. On behalf of the Smiths, I hereby notify you that you are not to come to their residence again and that if you do so you will be trespassing.

The City Church's campuses are also private property. You are not to attend any of our church services, small groups, or other functions or to come onto any of our church properties. If you do so you will be trespassing.

Finally, you are not to send letters or emails to or otherwise attempt to contact Pastor Wendell Smith or any other City Church pastor, employee, or member.

We have discussed your threats and actions with the Kirkland police department and have made them aware that you do not have permission to come to the Smith residence or the church campuses. We have police security at each of our locations and ongoing relationships with the city police departments.

You may contact me by mail or by email for the limited purpose of discussing any questions you have about the contents of this letter. My mailing address is listed on this letterhead and my email address is troy.anderson@thecity.org.

Sincerely,

Troy S. Anderson, J.D.

General Counsel

The City Church

I answered not a word to Troy Anderson or the City Church.

(originally posted 2/3/2010)

The City Church

The word of the Lord Jesus Christ came to me, telling me to go to the City Church and proclaim His word to the saints of the City Church. Thus I went on the 22nd of October in the year 2009 on the first night of the Prosperity With a Purpose Conference and stood outside of the Kirkland campus proclaiming the word of the Lord to all who came and went from the church. From about 6:00 pm until about 7:30 pm I stood at the entering in of the church property, prophesying all that the Lord God Almighty had sent me to speak. Early in the morning on Sunday, October 25th, Pastor Aaron Haskins of the City Church died. After hearing the news of his death, I fell upon my face and cried out, Ah Lord God, will You yet have mercy upon this church?

This is the word of the Lord that He sent me to speak outside of the City Church in Kirkland, Washington on the night of October 22, 2009:

The High God has spoken, the Holy One has uttered His voice, His word resounds from heaven above to the inhabitants of the earth, to the saints of the City Church. This is what the Lord has spoken to you: Come out from among the people, My people! Flee, get you out from among them, and be separate, declares the Lord. Prosperity shall prosper you no longer, for I have seen your ways amongst men, your dealings in the earth. How high would you seek to climb in the success of a system that is corrupt to the core? You want wealth, you want worship, you want the ways of God; and you want them in that order.

There is a mixture amongst My people, says the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an unholy mixture--the holy combined with the profane. Her leaders and those led of them desire worldly gain. I look upon the City Church and I see a people whose lust consumes them, whose passions push them further away from Me with every breath, with every heartbeat. I have raised you up, Oh church of My heart, but you have corrupted yourselves, embracing another master, whose ways allure and attract, distracting you from your First Love. You cannot walk in the ways of God and in the ways of man, serving Me and serving mammon. Away with it! Away with your lusts, for you are enflamed in your heart, burning for another lord whose love will swallow you up in death.

What profit shall you gain, who have labored for the wind, wanting more and more, an insatiable desire for another lord? Your pastors have led you astray. Your teachers have taught you to walk another way. I have judged them, and their sentence is set. Wendell Smith, your view of death is deficient, thinking it to be when you have breathed your last breath. But this I tell you, that as Adam died in the day he ate of the fruit, so it is with you. In the year you have refused to repent, you have died already, being removed from the holy and high calling unto which I called you. I have placed a man of praise in your office, stripping you of your authority and placing your mantle upon another, says the Lord God Almighty, the High King of heaven. With your removal from the office unto which you were called you have died the death of a man who refuses to repent. For toward rebellion and prosperity is your heart bent.

You would think to yourself, If it be the word of the Lord, let it come now. But My word has passed and you have not perceived it; it will surely come, but will you know it? As Adam you have tasted of the forbidden fruit, and as Adam you have died in the year of rebellion. Sin came by one man into the world, and by you, Wendell Smith, has sin entered the City Church. You have persisted in perverting the gospel of Christ, despising My correction, refusing repentance from your crooked way. You have been honored by men the world over, but I assure you of this, though you have sought to justify yourself before men, that which is highly esteemed among them is abomination in the eyes of God. The saints of the City Church will weep and wail, wondering why their pastor has died. For I will remove from them their glory, the man raised up to raise them up, who will fall down, having fallen from the height of his calling, loving another more than Me.

Oh, saints of the City Church, you have lived lavishly and in luxury, dancing delicately between two opinions. You would rather listen to a lie along the lines of your prosperity than hear the truth about the blessedness of poverty. But your pastor's disease is a sign to you of the ravages of prosperity in the midst of My body. It is not yours that I want, it is you, says the Lord Jesus Christ. What could you give to Me that is not already Mine? My covenant with Abraham was not for wealth in the world, but for My Glory in his Seed. And so he rejoiced in the seeing of My day. The price of that Glory was My blood shed in poverty, but will you see as did he? Would you walk another way? What could you want more than Me? I am God Almighty.

On the sixth day of June in the year 2009, I, Bryan, was joined in union unto Anna Marlene as a sign and portent from Almighty God. Anna Marlene was called of the Lord out of the City Church for its perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. On the tower I stand, from the mountain height of God I cry in love. Hear the word of the Lord: on the selfsame day the announcement was made on the website of the City Church that Judah Smith would be given the office of his father as lead pastor. Who has ears to hear, let him hear. Come out from among them, says the Lord, and be separate. Touch not the unclean thing, and I will dwell among you, and you will be My people and I will be your God.

Beginning on the night of November 21, 2009 until early in the morning of November 22, 2009, I, Bryan, and my helper in the ministry of Christ delivered these words to each of the City Church campuses throughout the Seattle area; at the North Sound, at Alderwood, at the University District, at Belltown, at the Plateau, and at Kirkland. The word of the Lord was posted on the doors of each of the churches. The following week I was contacted by Troy Anderson of the City Church, as was my father.

After I responded to his request to contact him Troy Anderson sent me an email which included these words:

I assume you already received my January 22, 2009 [letter] that I sent after you came to the Smith's house to deliver your message to Pastor Wendell. I have attached another copy. We have no choice but to consider you a safety risk and someone whose behavior we cannot predict. I ask that you please comply with that letter by staying away from the church and not attempting to contact us or deliver any more of your messages. Thank you.

Mr. Anderson's email to my father included the following words:

In January this year I contacted you about your son Bryan's letters and behavior toward The City Church, and in particular toward our founding pastor Wendell Smith. In January Bryan came to the Smith's residence and delivered a letter discussing God's judgment on Pastor Wendell and the church...In October someone stood outside our Kirkland church location as people pulled into the parking lot to attend a conference at the church and "prophesied" against the church. I did not personally view him doing this but our facilities staff has a picture of Bryan and believe that it was him...This past weekend the attached letter was delivered to our Seattle church locations. It appears to be from Bryan. I am concerned by the tone of this letter and in particular what he might do. My letter to him in January advised him that if he came onto any of our church locations he would be trespassing...I would like to communicate to him my concerns about what actions he might take and to tell him that we have heard his "message" and do not want to hear from him again.

On December 14, 2009 I responded to Troy Anderson by email:

Mr. Troy Anderson,

The way of life and the way of death, the way of blessing and the way of cursing has been set before Pastor Wendell Smith. He will choose for himself the way he takes. There are those who have spoken to Wendell regarding his healing. If they have spoken out of the mouth of the Lord, let them pray for Wendell Smith that he may be healed. But know for certain that as God has done, so shall He do, and the word the Lord has spoken regarding His servant will surely come to pass, that all the City Church may know the ravages of the doctrine of prosperity with a purpose in the midst of the body of Christ. My messages are not mine, but His that sent me. If anyone will do His will, he shall know of the messages, whether they are of God, or I speak of myself. Let wisdom be justified of all her children.

a bondslave of the Lord Jesus Christ and yours,
Bryan W. Hulen

(originally posted 2/3/2010)