Category Archives: Apostolic

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The Compass, The Anchor and the Stormy Seas of Life

17 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in Apostolic, Discipleship

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We have arrived at an hour in the Church when there is much confusion, many questions and a multitude of heretofore unheard   and unexpressed doctrines and spiritual practices being promulgated by so-called “revivalists,” “apostles” and “prophets.” I have italicized these titles, because I am convinced that a fair number who claim such designations are not what or who they claim to be. This in no way is intended to denigrate the legitimate among us, but rather to differentiate between the true and the false.

Without doubt, no generation since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ has been faced with more questionable and previously unheard of teachings than the current generation of believers. This is a time when mature believers who have been grounded in the incorruptible Word of God must stand up and let their voices be heard. In the balance are potentially millions of souls who are naive, gullible or ignorant of the devices being employed to destroy their faith in the Sovereign God.

Sadly and dangerously, we also have come to an hour when anyone who questions currently claimed revelation or “present truth,” regardless of how spurious it might appear, is held in absolute contempt and disregard and is relegated to the ranks of the hyper-heresy hunters, doubters-of-everything good, and the Pharisaical accusers of the brethren or even as outright enemies of the Cross.

Because of the immediate and violent attacks any honest enquirer might be confronted with, many have been effectively silenced because of the scorn and retribution meted out by those who embrace extreme and extremely questionable doctrines.

The writer of this article has no reputation to protect and no empire to preserve, and thus welcomes any and all attacks from those who oppose honest questions from simple believers in Jesus.

I am only one voice, but I am a voice. I will not be intimidated by those who choose to indict my faith and insult my intelligence by hurling their own accusations. So long as God gives me breath, I will speak the truth as it is revealed in His holy, pure and incorruptible Word.

In this article, I have been kind I think, generous and even positive in my assessments of what I have witnessed by those involved in various Charismatic and Pentecostal movements, renewals and outpourings. I have not attacked and will not accuse any person; I refuse to condemn any individual. My observations are about doctrine and practice, and not personal criticism. I remain supportive, as a Brother in Christ to those with whom I disagree. This is about positions and practices and not personalities.

I have not accused any man or woman of being demonically controlled or of being adherents of New Age teachings. I have maintained the position that the Lord of Hosts would eventually reveal either the truth or the error of events in and around various revival movements. I believe that ultimately, a righteous and holy God will deal justly with those who would lead even one of His own elect astray. I continue to refrain from personal attack, even though those affected by this article may feel otherwise.

Finally, this writer is no enemy of renewal and revival; on the contrary, I have been both a student of revival and a participant of a powerful move of the Holy Spirit which began in my own life and church in 1995 and continued unabated until 2003. The effects of that move of the Spirit remain with me today. There are those who will make the claim that since “the voices of the former move of God will always condemn the current revival” I am obviously guilty of the same. I sincerely hope that is not the case.

Whenever I learn of moves of God here or revival there, my initial sense is always of support and not opposition. I caution anyone against attacking any revival before the fruit of that revival may be seen, and some fruit takes longer to appear than other fruit.

After spending many years (now 45) among Pentecostal and Charismatic fellowships, and after having seen the genuine, the precious move of the Spirit of God, the lives transformed, healed and set free, I also have witnessed abuses, excesses, gross error and rampant disregard for the solid Rock of God’s word. I am compelled to speak for the sake of the innocent and the hungry and for the future of revival in a world so desperately in need of a genuine visitation from heaven.

Gregory J. Austin, Th.D.

Approaching a trans-oceanic vessel from water level, an ocean-going ship appears monstrously huge. Its hull was laid with the effort of men and machines and with much sweat and muscle and exertion. Gazing at such a massive craft, one would likely not notice or pay attention to something as mundane and minuscule as a compass, or even an anchor. Yet without these two devices, any journey would be suicidal, for one provides direction while the other assures security. It is the compass that ensures the seaman of his course and of his eventual destination. It is the anchor which grips the sea floor and holds the vessel in place when wind and waves would shatter the ship on rocky shores.

If I have perceived anything regarding some current expressions of “revival” as manifested in various places around the world, neither instrument is prominent, and without both a compass and an anchor, an eventual collision between the ship of this revival and the jagged rocks of reality is inevitable.

The compass and the anchor of which I speak is the singular instrument of the Bible, the divinely written, inerrant, perfect, complete and holy Word of God: A book possessed by virtually every modern believer in Jesus Christ, but one which either is untouched by or largely unfamiliar to far too many Christians.

Biblical Knowledge has been Trumped by Spiritual Experience.

We live in an era of general biblical ignorance, where the value and emphasis of experiential Christianity trumps the old, “boring”disciplines of learning and applying the scriptures to one’s life. The Bible itself warns, when people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is happy (Proverbs 29:18 NLT). We want this verse to refer to divine guidance as experiential revelation, but the context of the verse leaves no room for misunderstanding, “. . . whoever obeys the law is happy.” The “Law” refers to The Book, The Word of God. Jesus explained that “you shall know the truth (His Word), and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). If freedom is what we as childrem of God desire, God’s word will take us there.

Experience Finds its Source in the Word of God, not the Reverse

Many have quoted the well used line, “A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.” That is a patently false, misleading and dangerous statement: If someone has an experience that flies full in the face of the revealed word of God, are we to accept that experience over and above the clear teaching of Scripture? If however a person reports an experience which is upheld by the Word of God, the very reliability of God’s word trumps any other experience, because all spiritual experience must flow from the word of God, and not the other way around.

Merely because someone physically shakes is not an indication that the Holy Spirit is the primary causa of that physical experience. Falling to the floor or being “slain in the Spirit” in itself offers no certain evidence that God is involved in the falling. Speaking with other tongues, or glossolalia, while impressive to the ear is not in itself necessarily expressive of the Spirit’s activity.

Physical responses, often called “manifestations” may be the result of the activity of the Holy Spirit, but they are not certain indicators of God’s presence. I’ve watched Satanists shake and Hindus fall to the floor in trance-like states. I am not persuaded that God is present just because someone shouts unintelligible syllables into a microphone. I’ve heard men shout “hula, hula, hula,” “boola, boola, boola,” and “yoi, yoi, yoi,” among other unintelligible phrases. I’ve never felt particularly spiritually encouraged or especially blessed in the hearing of these utterances. I am, however impressed when the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame walk.

Indeed if the Spirit’s work in an individual is to place him into a state of ecstasy wherein he can merely mumble incoherently, please tell me how that person will effectively be a witness for Jesus in the marketplace of men. Will a non-believer suddenly cast off his unbelief and embrace Christ if I chant, “hula, boola, moola” to him?

Heart and Character, Not Trances and Dances

The acid test of all spiritual encounters is this: What happens to the character of the person experiencing that manifestation? If I have been genuinely touched by God, should I not expect to be benefited in my heart and in my character? As has been said, “When a man is truly born again, even his dog ought to know it.” Any person touched by heaven will reflect something of heaven to those around him or her. That’s Bible: You can trust your life – your eternal life on that Book, and only on that Book.

I realize in making such a statement that there are believers, followers of Jesus who do not hold to a time-worn and time-tested reliance upon the Word of God as the singular infallible, divinely inspired, inexhaustible rule of faith and conduct. I recognize that in some Christian circles today, such language is considered out of date, pathetically cerebral, without anointing or unction, but, dear reader, those very terms – anointing and unction came to us not by a revival-spawned revelation but by anointed men of God, moved upon by the Holy Spirit.

The biblical phrase “inspired by God” in 2 Timothy 3:16 is translated from a single Greek word qeopneustos. The first word is qeos. It is the word for God. The second word is pnew which means “to breathe” or “to blow” and is also the verbal form of the Greek word pneuma, meaning “spirit.”

The resulting understanding from Second Timothy is that “all Scripture is God-breathed.” The very breath and Spirit of God is infused into the words of Scripture. This is why we refer to the Bible as the Word of God. If reliance upon the Word of God, the very God-breathed words of God is somehow unspiritual or out of date, what then may we rest our souls upon and in what may we place our trust for our eternal future?

In support of the veracity and genuineness of what many Charismatics and Pentecostals call renewal or revival, various devices outside the Bible have been utilized which, under scrutiny fail to bear the weight of authenticity. Following is a non-inclusive listing of the most objectionable teachings and or practices I have witnessed by the proponents some of these movements and the extreme prophetic, “mystical” movement.

1. Use of Well-Known Personalities to legitimize and justify an experience, renewal or revival. The appearance of and endorsement by known apostles within the Charismatic church is not an assurance of biblical accuracy or of ministry appropriateness.

It was no less a recognizable name than the Apostle Paul who declared, “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

I care not one whit if Smith Wigglesworth or John Wesley themselves are trooped across the stage in support of any so-called move of God; if their testimony is not consistent with the eternal word of God, their presence means absolutely nothing to me beyond the astonishment of seeing the dead raised to life.

With reference to well-known and beloved ministry personalities, I will doggedly hold to Paul’s counsel in Galatians 1:8, cited above. I may love and honor such persons, but they are not equal with or superior to the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God.

It is biblically and spiritually appropriate that we recognize and honor any man or woman whom God has used mightily, we are never encouraged by Scripture to place our trust or our hope in any human vessel. The world has never seen any faultless, complete or sinless figure outside of the Person of Jesus Christ Himself. To place final trust in any man or group of men is to invite spiritual disaster. God’s Word and not God’s creation must be our ultimate and final authority. This is especially and critically true with regard to those who claim prophetic gifting, calling and office. Vast numbers of hungry believers have been devastated because of foolish, presumptuous and even down-right silly so-called prophetic direction.

2. Relating with Contemporary Society by adopting the language and the behavior of the culture outside of Christ. Simulating the use of illegal drugs, and using the language of the illegal drug culture is not a legitimate way of reaching the “lost.”No exceptions and no apologies. Terminologies such as “Godka,” “Toking the Ghost,” “Jehovajauna” and “Holy Ghost Bartender,” among many others do great dishonor to the character and nature of a holy God. To reduce the Holy Creator of the Universe to a joint of marijuana or a bottle of alcohol is a crime I am convinced no true, sensitive follower of Jesus could ever allow him or herself to commit.

“Toking the baby Jesus” as was demonstrated in one online video is blasphemous. Strong language, I know, but the images I have viewed of such behavior also are strongly objectionable and trivialize the Holiness and the Purity of our God and of His Holy Spirit.

Further, consider one specific meeting where the leader advocated and demonstrated the procedure for locating and injecting a vein with heroin. The “leader” then mumbled, “that’ll hit you in about half an hour.” Imagine someone in that meeting who had recently (even not recently) been delivered from mainlining heroin or from any other illicit drug: How will that person respond to such a suggestion?

3. Use of New Age or Misinterpreted Terminologies and Practices will never be conducive to a true, Spirit-engendered practical theology and faith. I have listened to one “revivalist” use terminologies such as coming into the state of the “ecstasy” of God wherein he describes the spiritual states of “Mystical Union,” “Absorption Ecstasy” and “Concentration Ecstasy” as conditions that thirsty Christians should seek to experience. These terms are mentioned in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) where, on page 996 under the heading of “Prophet” (dealing specifically and exclusively with the question of how “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” in 2 Peter 1:21) and hails to the unio mystica discussed by J. Lindblom in the aforementioned text.

From the ISBE, I quote regarding the unio mystica, or mystical union, “The ecstasy of the true prophets did not usually display itself in peculiar behavior, for their ecstasy was basically a private experience of the conscious reality of God’s presence. The prophets’ profound spiritual experiences should not, therefore, be confused with mystical experience, nor with the frenzied and irrational behavior of heathen prophets.” Please note that final sentence: “The prophets’ profound spiritual experiences should not . . . be confused with mystical experience, nor with the frenzied and irrational behavior of heathen prophets. “Hula, boola schmoola?”

4. Uncorroborated Testimonies of Healings and Raisings from the Dead. Nothing will kill the reputation of revival quicker and more decisively than making claims of miracle healings and raisings from the dead which cannot be substantiated by outside medical sources. Expecting believers and non-believers alike to simply “swallow” these claims without evidence is not only arrogant, but stupid. If a person were raised from the dead at a hospital, do you actually believe that no nurse, no physician, no friend or family member at that hospital would be aware of such a miracle, and be willing to talk about it?

Over the years, secular journalists who have heard reports of conspicuous miracles – the dead being raised, cancers dying, diseases disappearing, have sought to receive from the related ministries medical corroboration of such phenomena. Time after time, generalized testimonies and incomplete information, coupled with evangelistic gobbldy-gook has not only substituted for simple, direct medical evidence, but has also given the Church a black eye in the view of the unbelieving public. Verifiable testimonies and medical documents go a long way in substantiating claims made and establishing the veracity of any claimed move of God. Yet the media packet held no proof beyond names, locations and contact information which had been blacked out.

If God – not a contemporary evangelist or the Apostle Paul or Greg Austin – if God is raising the dead, we should expect to see evidence of these miracles. We should be able to see these people on camera, listen to interviews with them, and hear the astonished physicians’ statements of the veracity of these claims. These would surely honor God, but refusing to provide anything specific beyond claims that “we have X number of people raised from the dead and counting,” is both dishonest and dishonoring to God.

5. The Centrality of Angels and Apostles to the neglect of the true centrality of the Person of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit does not desire to be noticed, but He always points our hearts to Jesus. The Holy Spirit has come to us to guide us into all truth: Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” The Holy Spirit magnifies Jesus. Never do we find the Holy Spirit exalting angels. Indeed, Paul asks the Corinthian church rhetorically, “do you not know that we will judge angels?” (1 Cor. 6:3).

Much emphasis today has been placed upon the title or office of Apostle. I have watched with some concern at what I believe is an unhealthy and unholy veneration of those called “Apostles.” As I read through the New Testament, I see the apostles as servants; men and women with hearts of humility and grace, who desired that the work of God and the Kingdom of God should be advanced far more than their own work and their own were benefited or that their own names should be known or remembered. The Bible speaks of apostles as “foundational” gifts to the church. These are they who establish and maintain the flow of spiritual ministry based upon the revealed word of God. Nowhere in scripture is there any indication that apostles should be worshiped, or their words taken as the inspired word of God. Apostles champion God’s word; they do not seek veneration from any man.

During His temptation, Jesus told the devil, “’You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve'” (Lk 4:8). To a Samaritan woman who desired to understand true worship, Jesus said, “worship the Father” in John 4.

When a messenger from heaven appeared to John in Revelation 19, John says, “. . . I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

When certain Greek seekers came to Philip, their request was straightforward: They said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” The point in all these scriptures is that there is only One Who is worthy of our worship and our adoration. I thank God for those true apostles who quietly and decisively carry out their calling and their office, but a true apostle would be the first to warn us “don’t worship me.”

In all that I have said, I am not suggesting that no miracles have taken place in any revival or renewal atmosphere. I have listened to more than one testimony from individuals I personally know who have testified to receiving healing or miracles as they sought God during such meetings. But here is the key: They were seeking God. A principal upon which we may rely is this: God will not deny Himself, and if an honest seeker reaches out to God in faith, regardless of what personality may be present on a platform, God will honor such faith. One of the greatest dangers to any leader is to believe that when miracles are taking place in his meetings, he is somehow responsible for those healings.

The Word of God is the only reliable compass for negotiating the spiritual realms of life. The Word of God is the singular anchor that will hold us when the storms of life arise.

Any reliance upon any other device for direction, doctrine or practice than God’s inspired and immutable word; any use of so-called revelation that takes one beyond the boundaries of the revealed word will lead surely and ultimately to disaster.

Forgive my repetition, but it bears reiterating: “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

There is no legitimate “progressive revelation” that will carry us beyond the parameters of “the faith which was once for all delivered.”

Jude writes (Jude 3) “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Please observe, “the faith which was once for all delivered . . .” “Once for all.” There is no progressive revelation that will carry us beyond the parameters of “the faith which was once for all delivered.” The principles of the Word of God have been established for all time and eternity. The thrice repeated declaration of Jesus should settle our hearts on this matter: “heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall never pass away” (Mt. 24:35; Mk 13:31; Lk. 21:33).

God’s word is all inclusive; that is, whatever man needs to know or may know about the secrets of the Kingdom of God or the world to come has already been provided within the covers of our Bibles. If we waver on this crucial issue, we lose the whole structure upon which our faith is built.

May we grow in our understanding of the increasing depths of God’s word? Absolutely! Is God’s word so deep and so rich with spiritual truth and meaning that we may not, in a dozen lifetimes understand all its secrets? Without doubt. But once again, all the truth which may be known concerning faith and Christian practice is contained within God’s word.

There exist mysteries which finite man cannot know. There are unknown realms man cannot approach because we are creatures of time and space and not of eternity – yet. It was John, the Apostle who declared, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 Jn 3:2).

Please notice, “it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.” There are unknowns, ambiguities, secrets unrevealed, undisclosed until the Day of Christ.

The natural instinct of man is a desire to teneo ultra, “know beyond.” When the serpent approached Eve in the Garden, her vulnerability was the thirst to “know beyond” what God had revealed. The entry point for the venom of sin was the desire to teneo ultra, to “know beyond.” The serpent played upon her desire for knowledge beyond what God had provided. While every tree God had placed in the garden was available to her and to Adam, one tree was forbidden of God to be touched. But the curiosity, the desire to “know beyond” what God had revealed drew Eve inexorably into sin like the mesmerized Ulysses of Homer’s Odyssey is drawn to the seductive song of the Sirens, who lured men to their death on the rocks around their island. Interestingly, Homer depicts the Sirens song promising “wisdom and knowledge of past and future.” And so Eve attempted to satisfy her desire for “wisdom and knowledge,” and in the process committed an act that would require the sacrificial death of God’s own Son to remedy.

New Age practitioners, cultists of every ilk, and myriad false religionists and magicians play upon the same, instinctual need to “know beyond” in order to ply their trades and fill their coffers. When a Syracuse, New York banker named David Hannum (not P.T. Barnum) proclaimed, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” he was merely affirming the truth that man wants to know and is willing to commit intellectual suicide or pay exorbitant material and perhaps eternal, spiritual fees in order to know even what cannot be known.

Many claims have been made by various revivalists of visitations to the “third heaven.” Support for those claims comes from Paul’s statements in Second Corinthians 12 of his own (singular, so far as we can read) translation into the third heaven. He writes, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago–whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows–such a one was caught up to the third heaven.”

Follow Paul’s discourse regarding that incident in Second Corinthians, chapter twelve. Does he speak of revelations that surpass contemporary knowledge of the things of God? Does he reveal deep revelations of angelic encounters or of prophetic knowledge beyond what other apostles were aware of? Paul’s own words are notably absent of any such claims. In fact, he divulges no deep secrets to his readers. He speaks of “inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” He makes no claims of super-revelation, he is decidedly not lifted up in pride and arrogance. He is silent about what he saw and heard while in Paradise, but instead tells us that he is careful not to boast of the experience, and even goes on to describe his personal caution.

He says, “I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me. And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.”

A Final Proverb

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus and his men have landed on the island of the Lotus-Eaters, and Odysseus sends out a scouting party of three men who ate the lotus with the natives. This caused them to fall asleep and cease to be concerned about going home, with only a desire to eat the lotus.

Odysseus went after the scouting party, and dragged them back to the ship against their will. He set sail, with the drugged soldiers tied to the rudder benches to prevent them from swimming back to the island. Unrealized by the stupefied sailors, Odysseus not only is saving their lives, but he is returning them to the true desires of their hearts; to their homes.

After a life of pursuing truth and the knowledge of God’s Son, the Apostle Paul bursts forth with the heart-cry, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Philippians 3:10).

There are, I fear, those who only desire to “eat the lotus” and not to know the Jesus Whom Paul pursued and was willing to lose everything in order to find.

My heart cries out for these “scouting parties” who have fallen prey to the “lotus” of false spiritual experience and subjective revelation. I want to reveal the truth of God’s word, and with Odysseus, drag them back to the ship of faith in order to save their eternal lives.

The false, temporal substitute of the Lotus – of temporary psychological, emotional, physical manifestation and experience crumbles and falls to the earth in pieces when confronted with the superiority and supremacy of a solid and true faith and experience in the Christ of God’s Word and in the Word of God’s Christ.

I am thankful to God for the Compass of His Word and the Anchor that holds us in the swelling tide. “On Christ, the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

Several years ago in Derry, Northern Ireland, I was conversing with Clive Price, a free-lance journalist from England, (Now a resident of Northern Ireland). We were discussing the very topics I have written about here. Speaking about certain extreme practices and unsupportable claims I said, “Clive, I believe God is calling the church to clean up its act, and if we won’t clean up our act, the world will do it for us, and the world won’t be benevolent when it starts cleaning.”

Blood Moons and a Rising Son

01 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in Apostolic

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I didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to go here, to be caught up in speculation, rumor, hidden “truth” and The End of The World discussion. But here I am; a longtime friend wrote me today, asking for my opinion about all things scary. Here’s my response to him; maybe to you, too.

What will it take, what is required to turn a nation, a world to it’s knees and to the living God?

Will terror and destruction and tragedy and death turn a wildly spinning planet to its Creator? Will persistent messages of grace and mercy, of love and forgiveness cause hardened and sinful hearts to repent and to find atonement for their transgressions?

In our recent history, fuel-laden jet aircraft smashing their way through New York’s World Trade Center buildings and into the guarded halls of the Pentagon chased people by the tens of thousands to church.

For days, perhaps even for weeks following the 9-11 attacks, church attendance in America increased. Some thought, and excitedly promised that revival would surely ensue but now, looking back fourteen years, revival was not spawned by ruin.

Nearly three centuries ago Jonathon Edwards delivered his famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon. In his closing remarks, Edwards encouraged, “Therefore let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come!”

That kind of warning and promise will not move a society plugged firmly and fully into a digital electronic world of continual mental and emotional stimulation where the dividing line between reality and fantasy is hopelessly blurred.

Simply stated, we’re not living in the reality that surrounds us. Ours is a society that has succumbed to the siren call of a secular world around us. We are surely “in the world” and we have largely become “of the world” in the daily habits of our lives.

Life in the 21st century has become essentially an amusement park ride in a gaily-painted fantasy world; what we see and hear and feel and experience on nearly every level of existence is illusion and not verity.

Our pursuit of pleasure has outrun a consideration for our divine purpose and need. We are a temporal-minded and not a spiritual and eternity-minded generation.

And so the gospel has become mundane. The good news has been relegated to “old news.” The message of the Cross elicits more “ho-hum” than it does “hallelujah.”

If we attend a church meeting at all (and the national average of Sunday church attendance for committed Christians is now 1.6 times per month) we arrive at church expecting Hollywood quality lighting, music, seating, graphics, preaching (if you must) and better-than-average coffee.

Transport yourself in your own slick-whiz time machine back in time two thousand years to a hillside in Judea and imagine no sound system at all, no lighting except for the sun and a solitary Voice calling men and women back to the One, true God and to find a salvation and a redemption that neither antiquity or modernity can provide without the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Incrementally, just a little here and a little there, we have permitted ourselves to become spiritually dumbed-down. When it comes to matters of the eternal soul, a pandemic of deadly distraction prevents us from getting to know the One Whose life was cast to the grave for our eternal salvation.

And so, into this miasma of spiritual boredom and soul-slumber, a chilling, almost frantic voice is raised, warning us of blood moons and the Shemitah of all shemitahs, the great “year of release” and the collapse of the Stock Market and even of the U.S. dollar.

Christians across the world have begun to prepare their stockpiles of food and fuel and water filtration systems. If a tetrad (a group of four) of blood-red moons is upon the literal horizon and if the American economy is about to come crashing down, the prophetic shout warns us, then Christians – mostly American Christians – had better get to buying. The cry seems to be “Amazon-Dot-Com, here comes Armageddon!”

I’m not poking fun at those who have been stirred and motivated to store up food and survival equipment. They are “sluggards” who fail to consider the ways of the ant who “Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest” (Prov 6:6-8). The virgins of Matthew 25 were encouraged to ensure their lamps were filled with fuel. Preparatory action is not aberrant behavior. Wisdom is in preparedness.

Planning for rainy days is not irrational; the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared” is good advice for us all. But in this writer’s view, the troubling aspect of all this clamor and uproar over collapse and calamity and worldwide catastrophe is this: Where is the call to return to the Cross and hence to the Peace of Jesus? Where is the reminder that among His various victorious titles, our Savior is known as “Prince of Peace?” Where is the promise, “fear not” among the messengers of doom? Luke records encouraging words for us all, and all of humanity when he writes, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom” (12:32).

I want to be as clear as crystal when I say this: The world as we know it may come crashing down on September 11, 2015. I don’t personally anticipate it, but World War III may be just ten, or twelve or a hundred days away. The New York Stock Exchange may implode in less than two weeks. The volcanoes of the Ring of Fire may erupt with sudden and devastating effect before we live through another day. Earthquakes may shake the inhabitants of the planet before October arrives. But the amazing and revelational thing is, that’s the way the world always has been. “No man knows the day or the hour” of the biblical “That day.”

No less than the voice of Jesus declared that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away” (Mt.24:35) and “of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (V36). 

The gospel message has always been and continues to be – “live ready!” Be ready to live and be ready to die. Be ready for peace and be ready for persecution. The soul that is anchored in Jesus need have no fear of the ferocity of the storm, the raging of the waves or the viciousness of the tumult. As the songwriter reminds us, “the anchor holds,”

Though the ship is battered
The anchor holds
Though the sails are torn

I have fallen on my knees
As I faced the raging seas
The anchor holds
In spite of the storm

Surely, storm clouds are forming on the horizon of planet Earth. Spiritual and economic prosperity cannot be sustained when Government and Business and the Media and the Church – when society conspires to live without God, outside of His provision, in defiance of His purposes and plans. We cannot long continue to live as though there were no God and fail to experience the whiplash of our rebellions.

And now a most important footnote to my rambling discourse: Last night I watched a video posted by a Baptist Church that’s located not a mile as the crow flies from where I am writing these words. I pass that church frequently and never fail to notice the huge, white cross rising above treetops and buildings there. At the end of day, as I drive toward home, the sight of that cross announces the nearness and imminence of rest.

The video we watched consisted simply of a lady singing, with members of the church filing across the front of the church bearing cardboard signs of personal testimony. The chorus of the song was this:

If there’s anybody here who’s found Him faithful

Anybody here who knows He’s able Say, Amen.

Anybody here found joy in the midst of sorrow

Peace in the storm, hope for tomorrow

And you’ve seen it time and time again Just say. Amen –

My wife and I listened together and each of us responded – she with Goosebumps and me with tears. As the song concluded we heard shouts of praise as we watched arms waving and the overt gratefulness of a congregation of God’s people for the faithfulness of a Savior Who never fails, Who never falters, Who never forgets – Who asks us and Who promises us, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget you” (Is. 49:15).

“He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.”

If hell breaks loose across our nation or our planet, God is with us. If disaster crashes down around our fragile world, God “upholds all things by the word of His power.” If we are the terminal generation – if we are that people upon whom the ends of the world have come, we have a sure and confident word, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” but “I am with you alway, [even] to the end of the world. Amen” (Mt. 28:20). And we shall surely, if called upon to demonstrate His grace to an astonished world “overcome . . . by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of (our) testimony” (Rev. 12:11).

Blood moons come. Earthquake and volcanic eruption and economic destruction, do your best; God is our hope, His Christ is upon the throne of the universe, and our hope is sure and it is sealed; it is undeniable and it is undefeatable. “On Christ the solid Rock (we) stand; all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

 

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a NEW VOICE, a NEW FACE, a NEW HEART

06 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by in Apostolic, Ekklesia

≈ 8 Comments

With all my heart and soul I believe this: The citizens of planet Earth are currently living through the most critical and significant hour in human history. Further, the Holy Spirit of God is leading those “who have an ear” into a new dimension of revelation and glory that will catapult the Church of Jesus Christ into her true, God-ordained destiny in the earth.

With the infinite array of information, speculation, myriad “prophetic” voices; voices of doom, voices of encouragement, voices of sheer, emotional fantasy there remains one true, sure and unalterable word. That word proceeds from a heavenly and not an earthly Source. That word is the living, eternal and supreme word of God. It is from this word that all my belief and anticipation emerges.

As Christ’s church moves forward, we must recognize that our enemy is as much the “status quo” as it is Satan. The desire or need or penchant to return to past experiences, or the vestiges of that which God has passed by; any business-as-usual church experience will sound the death-knell to the full desire of the Spirit of God.

As surely as I know Him I am convinced that God is raising up a NEW VOICE, a NEW FACE and a NEW HEART in the earth. In 2008, Great Britain reported less than 2% church attendance. Having spent a good deal of time in England, I can attest to the veracity of that figure. Something is gravely wrong when the land that felt the footsteps of Spurgeon, Whitefield, Wesley, Wigglesworth and other powerfully gifted and anointed men and women of God has deteriorated into the state it currently languishes.

In America, the echoes of Azusa Street have faded into oblivion. The times of Jonathon Edwards and the Great Awakening have become merely historic footnotes in the anthology of the church. Dwight L. Moody, Aimee Semple McPherson, John G. Lake, Billy Sunday, Oral Roberts, Billy Graham all shook the land, but as someone has aptly commented, “America is overwhelmed today with dime-a-dozen imitator preachers.” Those who seek to plumb the depths of God’s Spirit and to tap heaven’s well of wisdom must look beyond former personalities and movements for direction and understanding. What God is doing is BEYOND. What God is doing is BEYOND denominations and conventional fellowships. Where heaven is leading is BEYOND corporations, programs, preaching services, man-made agendas, strategies and designs. God told Daniel to “seal up the prophecy” because it would require a future generation to understand. That future generation has been birthed, but where are the fathers, where are the leaders, where are those with “understanding?”

Ezra chronicled the temperament of the sons of Issachar “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.” These understood the times, and knew what to do! It’s the knowing of “what to do” that is critical and essential. The same “Issachar spirit” that placed the Tribe in holy writ is being placed within a generation that has awakened to a new day of God’s anointing for the earth, and that “spirit” must be recognized and given freedom to speak, to be heard, to be heeded.

A nucleus of forerunners is rising in this hour. These contemporary “sons of Issachar” have understanding, and are hearing “what the Spirit says to the churches.” It is these who will make a difference for heaven in our time and we all, who would follow Christ and who will be His body must listen intently.

I sat as an observer in a staff meeting in a world-renowned church. The church had grown rapidly, even miraculously when leadership surrendered their positions of power in favor of the power of the Holy Spirit among them. Yet once the church had experienced sudden and God-engendered growth, the leadership had turned to formulae and program and methodology to continue what had begun in the Spirit. The Apostle Paul identified the tendency when he wrote to the Galatian church, “Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:3).

I watched the expectant faces of the young leaders who had gathered in that staff meeting as the “orders of the day” were issued. The meeting soon descended into the drone of the minutiae of running a huge enterprise called “mega-church.”

My heart ached until I wanted to just get up and shout to them,

“This is NOT “that!” This activity does not bear the imprint of the Holy Spirit of Acts 2. These neat and impressive programmed services do not have the inscription and the unction of a church that turned the world upside down! Get Up! Get Moving! You can change your nation! Get up! Get full of God! Get His Power and His Resource and His Word and His Wisdom and His Enablement and abandon these man-engendered, man-enabled systems and storm the nations with His love and grace and mercy!

A Vital Question –

I love the men and women God has raised up in past generations. God uniquely placed and used them for their hour. I love and respect the men and women God has raised up in the most recent generation. But I wonder, could it be that God intends to use the former generation (my generation) to provide strength and stability to the church while at the same time an entirely new generation rises up, in union with the former, in a coalition of those who understand the times and who know what to do? Unless one is spiritually blind and deaf it is obvious that a rising generation will possess a completely new and different notion of changing the earth? The church of Jesus will never vanish away so long as the Holy Spirit remains in the earth, but the expression of His church is surely and essentially in the midst of tremendous transition.

Old systems are indisputably vanishing, cleaving away like a disused shell to reveal an inner vitality of the Body of life in God. An old wineskin, unable to contain New Wine is rotting before us, and a New Wineskin, capable of containing New Wine is about to appear.

I believe something significant is contained in the Darlene Zscech song, “Touching Heaven, Changing Earth.” We must place greater concern on “touching heaven” if we are to “change earth.” Where we have spent inordinate sums of money and time and energy with our buildings and carpets and music and lighting and preaching programs, we must place our resources on “touching heaven” because if we can touch heaven, if we can see heaven, if we can hear heaven, if we can understand what the Spirit is saying to us, to our generation, to our hearts, we will witness a changed earth.

The focus has been on doing “things.” Our energies have been consumed with developing programs, producing strategies, and doing things the way they always have been done because, our logic tells us, “if they worked for the church of the 1960’s and 1990’s and 2000’s, these things should work for us.” But to follow a former generation’s example without hearing the current whisper of the Spirit will cause us to miss what God is doing in our midst.

What God is now doing is unlike what He has done in other days. What Heaven is now doing is visibly and essentially different from what He has done. God is leading us, as He led ancient Israel into a place from which we one will testify, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before” (Joshua 3:3,4).

If somehow we can shift our concerns from the next popular ministry emphasis or what is happening in this geographical location or that arena to an emphasis on heaven, to an emphasis on worshipping the God of glory without concern for worshipping the way somebody is worshipping in America or England or Canada or Australia; if we can focus on hearing God and not hearing what a voice here or a voice there is saying; if we can focus on building deep, real and spiritual relationships with others in the Body of Christ, the resulting transformations in our own lives will have a powerful impact on the earth without the machinery of the systems and programs we have known in the conventional, institutional church.

We’ve got to touch heaven! We’ve got to become more connected with heaven than we are connected to the earth and its dying systems. We’ve got to become more connected with heaven than we are connected with a denomination or a treasured way of “doing ministry”! Until our supreme connection is with heaven, all our best attempts to change our world will fall ridiculously flat.

The emerging church – the true church of Jesus Christ cannot be as churches have been, or we will no longer possess a reason to exist. Let God lead into the deep, into uncharted waters, into latitudes no one has explored. Let God’s Spirit and God’s Wind carry us into a destiny heaven determined before the foundations of the world were laid.

God is building something far more substantive than an organization or a building. He’s building His church. Observing the machinery of a great church is instructive, but let me be clear: It’s not about machinery, systems, models or imitations. It’s about touching heaven and by virtue of God’s indwelling Spirit, touching one another.

Let us refuse to imitate yesterday’s anointing and discover fresh unction for today. When His Spirit indwells His church, His systems and models, His eternally creative beauty and brilliance will cause the earth (to) “be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14).

The Glorious Enterprise of the Valley

30 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Apostolic

≈ 2 Comments

There appears within Holy Scripture a divine fusion of the sublime and the grandiose, the small and the great. mountain-valley

The spiritual sojourner whose determination is to walk according to the precepts and the ways of a glorious God discovers on his way a transcendent magnificence that invites him upward. A continual “come up hither” invitation is issued to all who have ears to hear: “Come up!” The divine call always is to move higher, into spheres and heights, among territories above and unknown, into places untrod by fleshy feet and into fathomless environs populated by our God and His holy angels.

Indeed, moving in the Godward direction we find ourselves being lifted from the rough and twisting pathway of routine and mundane life into wonderful realms and heavenly places by the merciful hand of our gracious God.

And yet, in these lofty elevations we discover not some essence of ethereal splendor, not some unattached, disembodied spirit-life but instead we find ourselves dwelling among our own brethren, along the streets of commerce and among disheartened, broken, desperate lives in need of a Savior.

Hear a secret of the kingdom of heaven: The goal of the lover-follower of Christ is not earthly notoriety or human recognition. The objective of the believer-doer of the kingdom is to represent, to reflect and to reveal the inward-dwelling hope of glory, even Jesus Christ.

The purpose of the true disciple of Jesus is to be welcomed by, to be embraced in the spiritually atrophied arms of the disheartened; those who are broken, those who exist, unnoticed, in quiet and hopeless desperation. And in receiving such embrace, the Christ within is made manifest, He is seen, heard, He is known.

We are lifted up that we might function down.

He lifts us higher to enable us to labor lower. Heaven’s bright invitation is to gain endorsement, encouragement, to be energized on the mountaintop so we may effectually minister in the valley.

The true joy of serving Him comes, not from ethereal mountaintop experience but from valley effectiveness.

When Jesus experienced His great transfiguration, (Matthew 17 and Mark 9), three disciples were present and witnessed this mountaintop phenomenon. Jesus was literally, physically transfigured – changed in His appearance, and He shone with the intensity of an otherworldly, heavenly light. Indeed, according to Matthew’s account, “His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.”

The whole scene was so glorious that, cognizant that it was the time of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, and because he did not know what else to say because of his fear, Peter suggested that three booths, three tabernacles be constructed atop the mountain, one for Jesus and one each for Moses and Elijah. Yet as the intensity of the transfiguration experience diminished, Jesus immediately led His friends back down from the summit to the valley. The message is clear: To be effective for the kingdom we may visit, but we may not remain on the summit of our mountaintop vistas.Transfiguration

Indeed, Scripture does not reveal even the name of the mountain upon which the transfiguration took place, as though heaven were protecting future believers from making a shrine of continual occupancy in a place where little, true ministry could occur.

Arriving in the valley, Jesus, Peter, James and John immediately encountered a man whose son was possessed by a mute spirit. By His actions, Jesus showed those disciples and us what it is to move “from glory to glory.” From the glory of the mountaintop He moved to the glory of liberating a young boy who had been grievously tormented by demonic power.

The lesson to be learned is that while we may experience and enjoy the mountaintop glory, while heaven calls us upward into the heights of divine splendor and close association in the Holy Spirit, our place always will be among the multitudes, in the valley of service.

The heart of spiritual maturity is not found in a perpetual experience of “getting alone with Jesus” so much as it is “getting into the midst of people.”

It is a kingdom principle that he who would rise up, into heavenly places; he who would move higher in Christ must seek the lowest of estates.

It is here, in the low places of the valley that the visitor of the heights of God’s splendor finds true satisfaction, walks in divine righteousness and experiences divine peace and heavenly joy – for in these is the kingdom of God and not on some plane beyond and invisible to the physical, temporal world of men about us.

For the child of God, the route, the direction towards effectiveness must always be downward, while the consequence of effectiveness moves us upward.

When we live as Jesus lived, as we notice what He noticed, as we place our priorities where His were placed, we find ourselves moving among the poor, the brokenhearted; we find the captives and we discover the blind, and we fulfill the will of our Savior that we might “set at liberty those who are oppressed.” Such was the pre-determined agenda of the Son of God, the Savior, and such must be our agenda if we are to possess true, kingdom authority and grace.

In New Covenant grace and economy, believers, followers of Christ enter a royal priesthood as a function of our sonship with God. Instead of the requirements of priestly ordinances, we enter into priesthood through the efficacy of Christ. We enter this royal priesthood neither to gain stature among our peers nor to be seen as better, above or greater than anyone else: A true priest serves and is not served.

Our High Priest, Jesus reveals the divine order through His own example: “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

In like manner, our lives ought to be lived in obedience towards and in imitation of our Great Savior, so that we might set our lives to serve and give our lives for many.

The valley awaits, the multitudes groan, there is work to be done; there are chains to be broken, prison doors wait to be flung open. A royal priesthood anticipates its next members, what are you waiting for? Enter in!

” . . . Who Loves to Have the Preeminence”

24 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Apostolic

≈ 3 Comments

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves,”

 “And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them”   (Genesis 11:4,6).

 “ . . . let us build ourselves a city . . . that reaches into heaven.”

“ . . . let us make a name for ourselves.”

These two, “let us build” and “let us make” are interrelated, interconnected, and nourish one another with a poison that kills the soul as surely as does the fruit of the Hemlock that stilled the heart of Socrates.

The Flesh, the Greek’s sarkikos, the carnal, animal nature of man – the ego, self-seeking, self-serving pride, arrogance, the craving for self-importance, the need for adulation and the praise of men reveals itself in the voracious need to ‘build.’

It is the unredeemed, unsanctified ‘self’ that demands recognition; that presses itself into the bright light of public notice.

Mark those who clamor for attention; who need to be heard, noticed, seen, to be ‘first.’

John the Beloved forever marked Diotrephes, “who loves to have the preeminence.” His malicious words “prated against” authentic followers of Christ. “Who loves to have the preeminence.” The Message informs us “who loves being in charge.” Mark those among us who are always clamoring for attention, who manifest an inordinate need to make noise, to be heard, to be seen, to be “first.”

Jesus both counseled and modeled the truth that “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”

Diotrephes is the prototype of those among us who are ambitious, proud, disrespectful of apostolic integrity, rebellious and inhospitable – they love to have the preeminence, to dominate, to be seen as superior, to “have the rule” among us, to build something, anything that reflects their self-generated and self-assumed importance.

This craving to build is an accurate reflection of a deficiency of the soul and of a barrenness of the heart. Indeed, a heart made happy, one that is satisfied by the simple presence of the indwelling Christ is one that needs to build nothing at all, to advance nothing, to achieve nothing, finding itself satisfied that the Savior has achieved for us every needful thing.

John’s direction regarding the kind of self-promotion and egotism represented by Diotrephes is pointed: “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.”

Observe the correlation between religious arrogance and religious efforts that focus on and center on building.

Whether it is to build a bigger, more splendid edifice “for worship” or to build a larger donor base or to build the largest Facebook following, the blatant and insatiable need to build (or to broadcast or to publish or to become the most prominent name on the Conference Circuit) reveals an inner absence of godly satisfaction, godly character, emptiness of soul, and of stark, spiritual poverty.

The drive to build is in utter contrast to the extent that we are led by the Spirit.

When we are led by the Spirit, we will no longer be driven to fulfill the lusts of the flesh to create something significant, to build, to construct something, anything that would make ourselves known, to become famous, to be identified.

Our identity and our identification must issue from a single Source: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Italics for emphasis, mine).

It is “Christ in me, the hope of glory” and not “me in Christ, the hope of any glory.” It is “Christ in me,” overwhelming the “me” portion of me, the “I” part of me, it is “Christ” Who deserves attention, notice, adoration.

Even Jesus, the eternal Logos, the very Son of God “made Himself of no reputation” and took the form and spirit of servitude when He appeared among us.

Paul’s greatest desire was not for fame or for a memorial by which to be remembered, but it was “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”

It was he who wrote, “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

To the degree that we lack His identity, we are plagued by the incessant demand to build.

To the degree that we lack His identity, to the degree that we have not become “lost” in Him, we will be plagued by the demanding devil that suggests, that harangues, that requires that we “build.”

And so, the stimulus behind “let us build” is often, “let us make a name for ourselves.”

When Nimrod’s builders declared their intention to “make a name for ourselves” it was far more than a simple desire for a recognizable identification.

The issue of “names” is of serious note. “The Name,” the Hebrew “Ha-Shem” is esteemed to be holy, so revered, that faithful Jews have been prohibited against uttering it in public discourse. History has long since buried the correct pronunciation of “Ha-Shem” and some merely use, YHWH.

In the Jewish mind, a name is more than arbitrary designation, random combinations of vowel and consonant.

The Western mind determines a child’s name to honor a grandparent or because expectant parents like the sound of a certain name. It is not so in Jewish thought.

To the Jew, the name conveys the nature and essence of the thing named. It represents the history and reputation of the person named.

When Moses inquires of God in Exodus 3, he asked, “when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

Moses does not asking “what will You be called,” but “Who are You; what are You, and what have You done?”

The yearning to make a name, to exalt one’s reputation has a blasphemous root. It bears all the foul odor of the rebellion of Lucifer, who Isaiah identifies as the one who “said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

“Let us build.” “Let us make a name for ourselves.” These must bow in the presence of the One who alone will ‘build’ and Whose Name alone is worthy to be known.

Of this we can be assured, “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

If there is any building among us, let it be the building of the Lord. If there is any exalted Name, let it be Christ Jesus, the Lord, “to the glory of God the Father” because “God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.”

Not every building is the result of sin. Not every construction program is commenced in corruption. Jesus promised that He would build His church. He counseled that the wise man will “build his house on the rock.” (Observe that in both these instances, when Jesus uses “build,” He also speaks of a rock).

There is a building that is godly, worthwhile and eternal, but “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build.”

There is a name that is worthy and eternal, and that Name is Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God.