"THE DRAWING & COMPELLING OF GOD"

 

"Here is the truth: God has spread the feast but the fact is that NOBODY is hungry, and NOBODY wants to come to the feast, and EVERYBODY makes an excuse to keep away from the feast. and when they are bidden to come they say, “No, we do not want to”, or “We are not ready yet.”

Now God knew that from the beginning, and if God had done nothing more than spread the feast every seat at His table would have been vacant for all eternity! I have no hesitation in saying there is not one man or woman in this church tonight, but who made excuses time after time before you first came to Christ.

You are just like the rest. You made excuses, so did I, and if God had done nothing more than just spread the feast every chair would have been vacant, therefore what do you read in that parable in Luke 14? Because the feast was not furnished with guests God sent forth His “servants”. Oh, put your glasses on. It does not say “servants”, it says God sent forth His “servant” and told Him to “COMPEL” them to come in that His feast might be furnished with guests. And there is not a man or a woman in this church tonight or in any other church that would ever sit down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb unless you had been COMPELLED TO COME IN, and COMPELLED BY GOD!

Well, you say, what do you mean by “compelled?” I mean this, that God had to overcome the resistance of your will, God had to overcome the reluctance of your heart, God had to overcome your loving of pleasure more than loving of God, your love of the things of this world more than Christ. I mean that God had to put forth His power and draw you, and if any of you know anything of the Greek or have a Strong’s Concordance, look up that Greek verb for “draw” in John 6:44, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” —

It means “use violence”. It means to drag by force. There is not a Greek scholar on earth that can challenge that statement—I mean—and back it up with proof. It’s the same Greek word that is used in John 21 when they drew the net to the land full of fishes. They had to pull with all their might for it was full of fishes. They had to drag it!

Yes, my friend, and THAT is how you were brought to Christ. You may not have been conscious of it. You may not have known inside yourself what was taking place, but every last one of us was a rebel against God, fighting against Christ, resisting His Holy Spirit, and God had to put forth almighty power and overcome that resistance and bring us to our knees, and if any of you object to that strong language, then I am here to tell you, you do not believe in the teaching of this Book on the ABSOLUTE DEPRAVITY OF MAN.

Man is lost, and man is dead in trespasses and sins by nature. Listen, it is not simply that man is sick and needs a little medicine: it is not simply that man is ignorant and needs a little teaching: it is not simply that man is weak and needs a little hope: man is dead, dead in trespasses and sins, and only almighty power from heaven can ever resurrect him and bring him from death unto life.

THAT is the gospel I believe in and I do not preach the gospel because I believe the sinner has power in himself to respond to it. Well, you say, then what is the use of preaching the gospel if men are dead? What is the use of preaching it? I will tell you. Listen! Here was a man with a withered hand, paralyzed, and Christ says. “Stretch forth thine hand!” It was the one thing that he could not do! Christ told him to do a thing that was impossible in himself. Well then you say why did Christ tell him to stretch forth his hand? Because Divine power went with the very word that commanded him to do it! Divine power enabled him to. The man could not do it of himself. If you think that he could you are ready for the lunatic asylum, I don’t not care who you are. Any man or woman here who thinks that that man was able to stretch forth his paralyzed arm by an effort of his own will is ready for the lunatic asylum! How can paralysis move?

Well, I will give you something stronger than that. You need something strong today, you need something more than SKIM-MILK, you need STRONG MEAT if ever you are going to be built up and grow and become strong in the Lord and the power of His might—

Here is a man who is dead and buried and his body has already begun to corrupt so that it stank. There he was in the grave and someone came to that graveside and said, “Lazarus. come forth”, and if that someone had been anyone else than God Himself manifest in flesh. He might have stood there till now calling, “Come forth”. What on earth was the use of telling a dead man to come forth? None at all, unless the One Who spoke that word had the power to make that word good.

Now then my friends, I preach the gospel to sinners, not because I believe the sinner has any power at all in himself to respond to it: I do not believe that any sinner has any capacity in himself whatever. But Christ said, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life”, and by God’s grace I go forth preaching this Word because it is a word of power, a word of spirit, a word of life.

THE POWER IS NOT IN THE SINNER, IT IS IN THE WORD WHEN GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT IS PLEASED TO USE IT.

And my friends, I say in all reverence; if God told me in this Book to go out and preach to the trees. I would go! Yes sir. God once told one of His servants to go and preach to bones and he went. I wonder if YOU would have gone! Yes, that has a local application as well as a future interpretation prophetically."

[From a sermon Arthur Pink preached in Sydney, during his Australian ministry in the 1920’s.]

Prayer

Armando P. Mariano

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Pastor
El Chayil Christian Fellowship, Intl.

HOW TO BE LED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

Excerpt from "How You can Be Led by the Holy Spirit"

by Kenneth E. Hagin

Number One: The Inward Witness

The Spirit itself [Himself] beareth witness with our spirit.... —Romans 8:16. You will find that being led by the inward witness is the number one way, or the primary way, that God leads all of His children. Let me go back—I said I would in the preface of this book—to what Jesus said to me in February 1959 in El Paso, Texas. It was 6:30 in the evening. I was sitting up in bed studying. My eyes were wide open. (There are three types of visions. The highest type is an open vision. In an open vision, one's physical senses are not suspended, and his physical eyes are not closed. He possesses all of his physical capabilities, yet sees into the realm of the spirit.) I heard footsteps. The door to my room was ajar twelve to fourteen inches, so I looked to see who was coming into my room. I expected to see some literal, physical person. But as I looked to see who it was, I saw Jesus. It seemed as if the hair on my neck and head stood straight up on end. Chill bumps popped out all over my body. I saw Him. He had on a white robe. He wore Roman sandals. (Jesus has appeared to me eight times. Every time, except this time, His feet were bare. This time He had on sandals; that's what I had heard as He approached my door.) He seemed to be about 5 feet 11 inches tall. He looked as if He weighed about 180 pounds. He came through the door and pushed it back until it was almost shut. He walked around the foot of my bed. I followed Him with my eyes—almost spellbound.

He took a hold of a straight chair and pushed it up close to my bed. Then He sat down on it, folded His hands, and began His conversation with me by saying, "I told you in the automobile the other night...." The automobile had been full. My wife and I and others were driving along within two blocks of where I now was, as Jesus sat by my bedside talking to me. In the car, I had heard the Spirit of God speak to me. I thought everyone in the car had heard it and I said, "Did you all hear that?" They said, "No, we didn't hear anything." In the Old Testament the prophets would say, "And the Word of the Lord came unto me saying...." Did you ever wonder how it came? It could not have been literally audible. If it had been audible everyone present would have heard it—the prophet would not have had to tell the people what the Spirit said. The Word of the Lord came to the prophet's spirit from the Spirit of God. It is so real that it seems audible at the time. The Word of the Lord was so real to me, I thought everyone in the car with me had heard it too. As Jesus sat at my bedside, He said, "I spoke to you the night before last in the automobile and told you certain things. I told you, by my Spirit, that later I would talk to you further. So now I have come to talk to you about this..." It was concerning the ministry of the prophet. Jesus sat there in that chair and talked to me for an hour and a half. And I talked to Him. I asked questions in reference to what He was saying. He answered them. I will not go into all He said about the prophet's ministry; that is another message. But I will get into some of it.

Jesus said to me, "The prophet of the New Testament is very similar to the prophet of the Old Testament in that the prophet of the Old Testament was called a 'seer' because he saw and knew things supernaturally. The prophet of the New Testament also sees and knows things supernaturally. But the prophet of the New Testament does not have the same status as the prophet of the Old Testament, in that I did not set prophets in the Church to guide the Church. A Christian under the New Testament need not seek guidance through prophets. He might receive guidance through prophets, but he should not seek it. It is unscriptural to do so. The ministry of the New Testament prophet in this area is only to confirm what people already have in their own spirits. "Under the Old Covenant, only the priest, the prophet, and the king were anointed by the Holy Spirit to stand in those offices. What you would call the laity did not have the Spirit of God upon them or in them. Therefore, under the Old Covenant, people would seek guidance through the prophet because he had the Spirit of God." Under the New Testament, thanks be to God, we not only have the Spirit of God upon us—we have Him in us! Jesus also said to me, "Under the New Covenant, it does not say, 'As many as are led by prophets, they are the sons of God.' The New Testament says, 'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God'" (Rom. 8:14). Then He said, "The number one way, the primary way, that I lead all of My children is by the inward witness. I am going to show you how that works so you won't make the mistakes you have made in the past."

 Then He called my attention to something that had been happening to me for the previous three days. For the past three days, I had sat down to write a letter to a pastor confirming a date to hold a meeting for him. Somehow, the first day, I got about half a page written, then I tore it up and threw it into the wastebasket. The next day I did the same thing. The third day I did the same thing. Then it was the day that the Lord was here in the room talking to me.

Jesus said, "You see Me sitting here talking to you. This is a manifestation of the Spirit called discerning of spirits. (Discerning of spirits is seeing into the spirit realm.) This is the prophet's ministry in operation. You are seeing into the realm of the spirit. You see Me. You hear Me talking. I am bringing you, through the vision, a word of knowledge and also a word of wisdom. I am telling you not to go to that church. The pastor would not accept the way you would minister when you got there. But I am never going to lead you this way again. (He never has, and that was many years ago.) From now on, I'm going to lead you by the inward witness. You had the inward witness all the time. You had a check in your spirit. That's the reason you tore up the letter three times. You had something on the inside, a check, a red light, a stop signal. It wasn't even a voice that said, 'Don't go.' It was just an inward intuition."

Then Jesus reminded me of another invitation. I had preached a convention for one of the Full Gospel denominations the previous year. Nearly every pastor there asked me if I would come and hold a meeting. I had hundreds of calls, I suppose. One fellow came up to me and said, "Brother Hagin, do you ever go to small churches?" I said, "I go anywhere the Lord says to go." "Well, we only run seventy to ninety in Sunday School. But if God ever speaks to you, we want you to come." I dismissed that conversation along with many others. Several months later, however, while praying in the church one day about my services that night, that conversation came back to me. Then every day it continued to come back to me. Finally, after about thirty or forty days, I said, "Lord, do You want me to go to that little church for a meeting?" The more I would pray about it and the more I would think about it, as we say, the better I would feel about it on the inside of me. It wasn't a physical feeling, but it was a feeling in my spirit. Sitting by my bedside, Jesus referred to this: "The more you thought about it, the better you felt about it. You had a velvety-like feeling in your spirit. That's the green light. That's the go-ahead signal That's the witness of the Spirit to go. Now you see Me sitting here, you hear Me talking to you, and I am telling you to go to that church. But I am never going to lead you to go anywhere like this again. (He never has.) From now on, I am going to lead you just like I do every other Christian—by the inward witness."

Then the Lord said this to me, which is not just for my benefit, but also for yours: "If you will learn to follow that inward witness, I will make you rich. I will guide you in all the affairs of life, financial as well as spiritual. [Some think God is only interested in their spiritual well-being, and nothing else. But He is interested in everything we are interested in.] I am not opposed to My children being rich; I am opposed to their being covetous." I have followed that inward witness and He has done just what He said He would do. He has made me rich. Someone asked, "Are you a millionaire?" I didn't say that. Some people fail to realize what the Word "rich" means. It means a full supply. It means abundant provision. I have more than a full supply. I have more than an abundant provision. It is because I learned to follow the leading of the Spirit by the inward witness. What He did for me, He will do for you. It won't come overnight, or by next Saturday night. But as you learn to develop your spirit and follow that inward witness, He will guide you in every area of your life. I knew a man down in Texas. He had never worn a pair of shoes until he was 12 years old. He only had a fifth grade education. But way back when money was money, he was a millionaire. Two different people, one from California and the other from Minnesota who had been frequent house guests in his home, told me that this man told each of them the same thing. He said to them both, "In all these years and in all these investments [that's how he made his money], I have never lost a dime." That beats my record. How about yours? "Everything I have ever invested in, has made money,"

He told each of them on different occasions. Then he told them how he did it. "I always do this. When someone comes along with an idea, wanting me to invest in something, my first reaction is mental. Now I know when Jesus said, 'When you pray, enter into your closet,' that He didn't necessarily mean you have to get into a closet to pray. I know He meant for us to shut things out. But I have a large closet in my bedroom where I go to pray. I pray about it. I wait long enough— until I hear what my spirit says. Sometimes I wait three days. Now I don't mean that I stay in there 24 hours a day. I might come out and eat one meal. Usually I miss a few. I come out and sleep a little bit. But the majority of the time I am waiting, just by myself, until I know inside by an inward witness what I am to do. "Sometimes my head says, 'Boy, you would be a fool to put your money in that. You'll lose your shirt.' But my heart says, 'Go ahead and invest in it.' So I do. And in all these years, I have never lost a dime. "Then again, someone comes along with a deal and my head says, 'Boy, you had better get in on that one.' But I don't pay any attention to my head. I get in that closet and wait. Sometimes all night long I wait. I'll pray and read my Bible, but a lot of the time I just wait. I just get quiet until I can hear inside what my heart says. When my heart says, 'No, don't do it,' and my head says, 'Yes, you'd better get in on it,' I don't do it." What had this man done? He had learned to follow the inward witness and God had guided him in his business, until in the late 1930's and the early 1940's he was already worth two million dollars. That doesn't sound big now, but it was big then. Do you think God loved him more than He loves you? No, but this man took time to listen to God. He took steps and means and measures to wait upon God.

 I was with a group of ministers and we were talking personally, and conversing with one another. Someone asked a certain individual who is a very successful minister, "Now we know that God called you and that the anointing of God's Spirit is upon you. But from your standpoint, is there any one thing you do that you would say has contributed more to your success than any other one thing?" That man said, "I always follow my deepest premonitions." What was he saying? He was simply saying, "I always listen to my spirit. I do what my spirit tells me to do. I follow that inward witness." The inward witness is just as supernatural as guidance through visions and so on; it is just not as spectacular. Many people are looking for the spectacular and missing the supernatural that is right there all the time.

MISCONCEPTION OF A “GOOD PERSON”

It is not enough to be what we term “a good person.” We must have an intimate, on-going relationship with the Lord Jesus.

   This is brought out in the testimony of another Colombian youth taken by the Lord into hell (recorded by the international ministry, Light for the Nations):

    We continued with Jesus, holding His hand even tighter. We came to a section that really made an impression on me. We saw a young man, 23 years old, suspended waist-high in the middle of a fire. We couldn’t see exactly what his torment was, but the number 666 was engraved on him. He also had a metal plate on his chest that read, “I am here for being normal.” When he saw Jesus, he extended his hand towards Jesus begging for mercy. The Word of God says in Prov. 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way of death.” When we read the plate that said, “I am here for being normal,” we asked the Lord, “Lord, how come? Is this possible that a person can come to this place for this reason?” So Jesus asked him, “Andrew, why are you here in this place?” He answered, “Jesus, when I was on earth, I thought that just killing and stealing were sins, and that is why I never tried to get close to you.” In Psalm 9:17 it says, “The wicked shall be turned into Hell, all the nations that forget God.”

   In hell, as we have seen, there are all kinds of people. There are philanthropists who think that they will change the world by good works. There was a Filipino doctor, who was kind, compassionate, and competent. He loved his profession and his patients, but was unable to believe in life after death. Then the time came for him to on his own deathbed. An uncertainty came over his soul, and he became troubled. What if his Christian friends were right, and he was totally unprepared for eternity? He sank lower and lower, and eventually slipped away, surrounded by loving friends and relatives. Then suddenly he came back, and he revived. A look of terror distorted his face and he said, “ I have been to hell and I don’t want to go.”  He then proceeded to describe some of the terrible agonies and sufferings of those in that place of doom. Loving friends led him to accept Christ as his Saviour and Friend. After a time, he was able to give them the assurance that he was truly saved, and that he had that joy and peace of Jesus in his heart. With a face enlightened by heaven’s glory, he then went to be forever with the Lord. Being a kind, compassionate, and loving doctor was not the door to heaven. It was his acceptance of Christ as his Saviour that was his assurance.

  

Another unbelieving doctor was attending to a patient who was in the throes of death. The patient kept fading in and out of consciousness. But every time he was resuscitated, his face contorted with terror and he would scream, “Get me out! I am in hell. Help me! Get me out!” The doctor could not save his life, but his patient left such a great impression upon him that he went to find friends who could lead him to accept Christ as his own personal Saviour. He remarked that no one would had witnessed the screams of his patient could be left in doubt in hell, and its horrendous torments very, very real.

  In a November 1995 interview on PBS with David Frost, Bill Gates (one of the richest men in the world) was asked if he believed in the Sermon on the Mount. “I’m not somebody who goes to church on a regular basis,” he said. “The specific elements of Christianity are not something I’m a huge believer in. There’s a lot of merit in the moral aspects of religion. I think it can have a very, very positive impact…In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don’t know if there’s a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.”

  In a cover story for the January 13, 1996 issue of Time magazine with Bill Gates:  Gates was asked if there isn’t something divine about the human soul. He replied tonelessly, “I don’t have any evidence on that…I don’t have any evidence of that.” He later added, “Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.”

   So the wealthiest man in the world (at the time of going to press) has no witness of eternity. This supports the words of Christ in Luke 18:24-25, “…How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eyes, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

(excerpt from Heaven's Glories and The Untold Horrors of Hell by Dr. Brian Bailey). 

ARMANDO P. MARIANO

WHO'S WHO IN HELL

Differentiations in Hell

The eternity of those who have known the truth and turned aside is far worse than that of those who did not know the truth. This fact is borne out by the testimony of another Colombian youth who was taken by the Lord into hell (recorded by the International ministry, Light for the nations):

"We came to the most terrible section of hell, where the worse torments happen--the centre of hell. There we saw the most concentrated forms of torment; such torments that a human being could never express them. The only people here were those who knew Jesus and had known the Word of God. There were pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and all type of people who had once accepted Jesus and knew the truth, but had lived a double life."

   There were also backsliders; their suffering was a thousand times worse than any one else. They were shouting and begging the Lord for mercy, but the Word of the Lord says in the book of Heb. 10:26-27, "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses."

Those souls were there because they had preached, fasted, sung, and lifted their hands in the church, but in the streets and at home they committing adultery, fornication, lying , or robbery. We cannot lie to God. The Bible say that to whom much has been given much also will be required (Lk. 12:48). 

   God then allowed us to see women who had once been Christian sisters while on the arth, but they didn't live a righteous life before the Lord. One said to the other, 'You cursed wretch! It's your fault that I am in this place! You didn't preach to me a holy gospel! And because you didn't tell me about the truth, I am now here in hell.' They would say these things to each other in the midst of the flames; and they hated each other because there is no love, mercy or forgiveness in hell. 

   There were thousands of souls who had known the Word of God, but their lives weren't clean before the holy presence of the Lord. The Lord said, 'You cannot play with God or with the flames of hell either!' He also told us, 'My sons, all the suffering on the earth concentrated in just one another is nothing, NOTHING compared with the suffering that a person has in the best parts of hell.' If it is that terrible for those who suffer least in hell, how much worse must it be for those in the centre of hell, who once knew the Word of the Lord and walked away from it."

    The Lord makes that very clear in Luke 12:47-48, "...And that servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.48 But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more."

    We need to understand that all have sinned, and the wages of sin is death, and by the consequence, is an eternity to be spent in the terrors of hell. Whilst there are degrees of suffering in hell, any aspect of hell has been said to be 1,000 times more painful than any pain experienced here on earth. 


(excerpt from Heaven's Glories and The Untold Horrors of Hell by Dr. Brian Bailey). 

The Correct and Balance Ministry of the Apostles

By:

Kenneth E. Hagin

 By not rightly dividing the Word of God, some people have misinterpreted the office of the apostle and taken it to the extreme. Anything taken into extreme is in error.

  People need to interpret Scripture in the light of other Scripture on the same subject. Therefore, in order to rightly divide the Word of truth on any subject, people need to take all the scriptures on a given subject and study them in the light of all the Bible has to say on that subject.

  By assuming the apostle is listed first because it is preeminent over all the ministry gifts, some people are going from church to church in a dictatorial attitude declaring that they are apostles and demanding that people and churches submit to them.

   Obviously, in the establishing of the universal Church following the resurrection of Jesus, the apostles and prophets were of primary importance because they brought forth the revelation of the New Testament that is the foundation upon which the Church in all generations is to be established.

   However, in terms of the operation of the local church today, First Corinthians 12:28 could not be referring to the offices of the apostles and prophets as the most important offices or the the governing offices with the local church, because Paul listed governments as an entirely separate category.

   Therefore, Paul couldn’t be listing ministry gifts in their order of importance within the local church because in the passage in First Corinthians 12:28, Paul lists teachers third. However, in Ephesians 4:11 he lists the office of the teacher last. That’s not consistent.

   Also, assuming that the “governments” is the pastoral office, in First Corinthians 12:28 Paul lists the ministry of helps before the pastoral office. If he were listing them by importance in the local church today, then the teacher and helps ministry would have authority over the pastor in the local assembly.

   That’s not scriptural. And according to the list in Ephesians 4:11, that means the evangelist would be in authority over the pastor in the local body! That isn’t biblical, particularly because the evangelist’s ministry is usually not a stationary ministry in the local church; it is usually more of a roving ministry to the unsaved outside of the church.

   So we can readily see that Paul does not list the ministry gifts in their order of importance in the local church today. Neither was he establishing the hierarchy for local church government by the order in which the ministry gifts were listed. No, the office of the apostle was not listed first because it is the most important office in the local body and is supposed to rule over all the other ministry gifts.

 Actually, in Ephesians 4:11 and First Corinthians 12:28, it would seem logical that Paul listed these offices in that order by the way God "set" or developed the ministry gifts in the Early Church. The Early Church didn't have the five fold ministry to begin with because it takes time for God to develop ministries and ministers. And God doesn't put novices in positions of authority or in ministry offices because He won't violate His own Word (1 Tim. 3:6). So for a time, the apostolic ministry was the only ministry in operation in the Early Church.

Therefore, the apostolic office was the first ministry gift that was initially evident in the Early Church. The twelve Apostles of the Lamb were the only ministers in the beginning days of the Early Church. These men had acompanied with Jesus in His earthly ministry (Acts 1:21). They were chosen by God, and the Holy Spirit had equipped and qualified them as ministers of the gospel.

The apostles seemed to have the ability to operate in all the ministry gifts to some degree. And, really, they needed that ability because the Church was in its infancy stages and no other ministry gift had developed in the Church yet. It would also be safe to say that they ministered prophetically to some degree, and they did minister evangelistically as well. There was also an element of pastoral oversight, and we know for certain that they taught the Word.

Apostles, however, did not remain as the only ministry gift in the Church. As time progressed, those who ministered as prophets also began to appear. The prophets spoke by inspired utterance. The scriptures don't give us much detail on this subject, but we do know that the ministry of the prophet was well established by the time the account in Acts 13:1 occurred:

"Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain PROPHETS _______ "

Similarly, the Scriptures don't give us the exact beginning of the evangelist's ministry. However, we see the office of the evangelist first mentioned in Acts 8 in Philip's ministry. By then the Church had already been in existence for many years, and there had been time for the Holy Spirit to develop the ministry of the evangelist in the Church.

Pastors or shepherds were raised up as the Church grew and believers matured spiritually (Acts 14:23; 15:2; 20:28). And the ministry of the teacher was developed in the Early Church as believers were trained and instructed in doctrine (Acts 2:42; 13:1).

Another reason it is erroneous to exalt the apostle's office above all others is that even in the Early Church, the apostles didn't govern all the churches — even churches they had helped to establish. Paul only had spiritual oversight of churches while he was establishing them. But he had no oversight in the church at Jerusalem or any other church whatsoever. Once he left a church he had established, he delegated oversight to others (Acts 20:28).

After leaving, Paul did respond to questions the Church asked, and he offered godly input to them. But he did not control or govern them.

I don't really like to use the words "spiritual authority," in reference to the apostolic office because that gives the idea that apostles rule and govern people and churches, and they don't.

But the point is that in First Corinthians 12:28 when Paul said, . . God hath SET some in the church . . . he was probably referring to the order in which God "set" or developed ministry gifts in the Early Church. Another error in this doctrine is a teaching which says that all the ministry gifts make up the "government" of the local church, and each church, regardless of its size, is to be ruled by the five fold ministry.

Again, people haven't rightly divided the Word. They haven't distinguished between the Church as a whole — the universal Body of Christ — and the local church. In the Church as a whole, we will find all five ministry gifts in operation. But every local church will not have all five ministry gifts operating in its assembly.

These misconceptions really put the Body of Christ into bondage instead of liberating believers. The Bible says that the Word of God will set us free (John 8:32), not bring us into bondage.

You see, if we aren't careful, we can have misconceptions on both sides of this issue. We can get in the ditch on one side and deny the true office and function of the apostle. Or we can get in a ditch on the other side and give the apostolic office unlimited preeminence and authority.  Those who give the apostolic office too much pre-eminence and claim to stand in that office, seem to take the attitude, "I'm an apostle! You've got to do what I say because in order to have correct New Testament government, the local church has to be governed by apostles."

Actually, I can't find anywhere in the New Testament that there is any higher office in the local church than the pastoral office. I don't see anywhere in the New Testament where apostles ruled over pastors and other ministry gifts. These unscriptural teachings that apostles and prophets are to rule and govern people and churches are not new. I've been in the ministry more than fifty-seven years, and I've seen these same unscriptural teachings in the Body of Christ before. These errors run in cycles. They crop up in every generation in the Church and have to be dealt with.

You see, another generation will come up that hasn't been taught the truth of God's Word on a particular subject, and they'll get off in a ditch in an area and get off-balance scripturally.

In every generation God has to raise up someone in church leadership to deal with these issues. God raised up Donald Gee in the 1930s to deal with this same extreme teaching on apostles in his book, The Ministry-Gifts of Christ, which is now out of print. Donald Gee was one of the pioneers and great teachers of the Pentecostal Movement.

Then we had the same problem surface again in the Body of Christ in the 1950s. Gordon Lindsay addressed it again in his book, Apostles, Prophets and Governments, and the problem died down. Lindsay was the founder of the Bible school, Christ For The Nations, and he published the magazine, The Voice of Healing. Almost all the leading healing evangelists of the day published their articles in this magazine.

Because Donald Gee and Gordon Lindsay were respected leaders in the Church, and their books were scripturally balanced, they stopped much of the wrong doctrine that had surfaced back then. There was a real revival in those days, and that's usually when the devil starts all of these spiritual tangents to try to stop the move of God. He diverts believers by getting them off in spiritual error, trying to abort the real move of God's Spirit.

In our day, a new generation has grown up in the Church.  And this same controversy has resurfaced in the Body of Christ, so it has to be addressed again. I tried to get God to have someone else do it, but He said, "No, you do it." That's the reason for this book.

I will quote from Gordon Lindsay's book, Apostles, Prophets and Governments from time to time in this book, because it amplifies what I believe and his insights help explain some of the things the Lord said to me in that visitation. But one reason these errors have occurred again in our day is that people try to give the apostolic office of today the same status as the second or third class of apostle in the days of the Early Church. But it simply does not have the same status. 

Now there is no doubt at all that some folks in our day could rightly be called apostles in the fourth class. (We will discuss the fourth class of apostle in the next chapter.) But a fellow who goes around broadcasting to everyone that he is an apostle, probably isn't one. If you are a minister, I would encourage you to let others call you what they will based on the spiritual endowments or equipment and fruit they see manifested in your life and ministry. Let's just rejoice to see the ministry gifts in manifestation and glory in the work the Lord is doing in the Body of Christ without being concerned about titles.

February 05, 2019
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A disciple of Christ

Servant of God

 Preparing the Way of the Lord for His Soon 2nd Coming

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Providing excellent motivation and inspiration to unleash potentials in everyone and mentoring life's journey through life's experiences for us to become better persons that God want us to be, overcomers, victorious and conquerors for the glory of God.

YOUR TRUE CALLING

Have you ever considered why the Lord called you to be a child of God? Was it to become a powerful preacher of the gospel, to be a missionary in a far-off country or to be a good husband and father or wife and mother? Is your calling to be a successful business person or an efficient administrator? While these may be valid pursuits in life in obedience to the calling of God, we need to look more closely into the Scriptures to identify our true calling.

In my study of the Scriptures, I have discovered at least 41 calls that apply to the lives of believers. Consider, for example, that we are called out of darkness into His marvelous light (see 1 Pet. 2:9) or that we are called to be saints (see Rom. 1:7).

But not one of these 41 calls is our primary call. When God created Adam there were no churches to pastor, no heathen to preach the gospel to and no businesses or offices to manage. The primary reason God created Adam was to fulfill His desire for a family with whom He could enjoy sweet communion. His first priority is the same today as then: to enjoy His children in a love relationship.

Jesus declared, “’If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him’” (John 14:23, NKJV).

Our primary calling is our destiny to enjoy relationship with God, not to work for Him. The work God gave Adam to do was to have dominion over the earth. He was in charge of taking care of the place where he would live with his descendants and where God would come to walk with him and commune with him.

God’s desire for believers is to cultivate a love relationship with each of us. In the context of that relationship He will then give us specific tasks to do. Yet the tasks should never diminish the priority of relationship with Him.

Of course, God has ordained that the church, the body of Christ in the earth, serve one another as we serve God. But we must be careful to prioritize our calling the way God does and not according to man’s perspective. God intends that our service to the body of Christ and to lost humanity proceed out of relationship with Himself. That relationship of worship – the creature to the Creator, the redeemed to the Redeemer – will motivate us to serve out of a heart of love for God.

I am convinced that whatever God does to advance His purpose on the earth is born out of a worshiping people. When the woman at the well asked Jesus questions about worship, He responded, “’The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him’” (John 4:23).

It was the woman’s question and Jesus’ answer that led me to seek God and search the Scriptures in order to understand what Jesus meant by worship in “spirit and truth.” God seeks worshipers who will cultivate a love relationship with Him. He values our relationship with Him more than anything we can or will ever do for Him. We can show Him that we value it as well by laying hold of our primary calling to enjoy and worship Him.

BY: Dr. Fuchsia Pickett

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 About me:

                                   

A disciple of Christ

Servant of God/Discipler

Preparing the Way of the Lord

  for His soon 2nd Coming!

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