This is tape number K040, entitled, To God
Be Glory in the Church, spoken by Arthur
Katz.
A plumb
line will fall down from heaven.
If you have any other standard of measure,
it stinks.
There's only one standard, that which drops down
from heaven.
It's perfect.
Would you have a heart to discard and
scrap and alter and adjust everything that is
not in perfect conformity with the perfect standard?
I'm quoting so much Shakespeare these days, but
you know a line just came to me?
How weary, flat, stale, and unprofitable seem to
me all the things of this world.
That was the cry that went up in
the spirit of our brother earlier in this
night.
It's God's cry also.
There's something about the drive that I had
today to get down here, past the walnut
stands and the gas stations and the hot
dog joints and all of the drab, gray,
utilitarian joints that pockmark America, that just makes
my spirit crumble.
To think that men spend entire lifetimes in
merchandise, making a living, so-called.
There's something so pathetic about unredeemed living.
And out of all that grayness, there should
be one glory conspicuous.
It's the church of Christ Jesus.
I want that plumb line to be dropped,
okay?
Shall we pray for that?
You're not mad at me, are you?
No?
Okay.
Precious God, Lord from heaven, by the operation
of your own spirit and life, out of
your own mouth, words, out of your own
heart, out of your own book, by the
anointing of your own spirit, brand something in
our hearts tonight, a divine discontent for this
people, for anything less than that which comes
down from heaven.
Mighty God, give this people a blueprint and
a pattern by which to measure their life
together, so that at the end result, Lord,
there shall be a glory to God, shining
brightly and bringing out of dens and coves
and little two-bit joints and all of
the cheap paraphernalia of the world, desperate souls
who will find life because they've seen the
light.
Bless this night, Lord, and make it historic
for this people, a signal night in their
walk with you, and we'll thank you and
praise you for it now, as we ask
it together in Jesus' name.
Amen.
If you didn't say amen, you didn't agree
with the prayer.
Okay, you can be seated.
My text tonight is Acts, the 13th chapter.
I think the full title of the book
of Acts is the Acts of the Holy
Spirit through the Apostles.
And I want to tell you while you're
turning that one of my very favorite words
is apostolic.
I'm liable to spit it out at you
tonight so many times you'll get sprayed.
Apostolic.
It's my opinion that the apostolic church described
in the book of Acts is the heavenly
standard.
It is the plumb line of God.
And more than this being an hour of
renewal, a word so popular among charismatics, I
would much rather say it's an hour of
restoration.
God is not renewing tired, fagged-out denominations
and jazzing up their services to make it
a little bit more interesting for the saints.
He's restoring us to the apostolic model.
How many of you love the book of
Acts?
Do you love the book of Acts?
How many of you would desire to live
in the glory of the apostolic age?
How many of you, if you had the
opportunity and it were possible, would turn the
clock back and you'd much rather live in
the first century when the church was besieged
and oppressed and persecuted, harrowed and pursued, but
lived in the fullness of the glory of
God with signs and wonders and demonstrations and
great grace was upon them all and with
power gave they testimony to the resurrection of
Jesus Christ?
I'll just make that a rhetorical question.
That means I ask it, but you're not
required to answer it now.
You just file it in your think box
and chew it over.
Because if we ain't going to be honest
with each other tonight, I'm prepared to sit
down now.
I'm not here to entertain.
And if this is just going to be
another night's diversion, a visiting speaker, keep it.
Now, here's my question.
How many of you would give up your
present security, comfort and well-being, nicely
accompanied by church services, dutiful attendance, participation in
the choir, visiting the jails and the elderly,
and give all that up to face the
rigors, the trials, the hounding, the persecution, the
living by faith, the want, that is the
accompaniment of the apostolic age?
Did I say to you the last time?
If I did, it's worth repeating.
The absence of persecution of the Church of
Jesus Christ in America is a scandal.
Something is grievously wrong that the world has
not found sufficient offense with us to hound
us, harass us, to reproach us, rebuke us
and to persecute us, let alone to slay
us.
I'll be far more comfortable and heave a
great sigh of relief when persecution returns to
the Church, for I will know by that
symptom that the Church has returned to God.
Are we together so far?
Oh, dear children, let us not impede God
one iota tonight by any stiffening of our
spirits or tightening up or reacting adversely to
the personality of the speaker or any such
thing.
Let us be wide open to God, not
to find offense in a comma or a
punctuation or a manner of speaking and miss
God's great point.
I just have a sense in my spirit
that God has a divine destiny for this
Church and if it were not so, we
would not be here.
I don't want you to miss that destiny
and I think it has everything to do
with God restoring the apostolic model with you.
It far eclipses anything that you presently now
understand as Church.
It might take and will take the most
radical revision of your present practices.
It'll scare you stiff.
It'll mortify you and humiliate you.
It'll be extravagantly expensive in every way.
Maybe half the people who are presently in
this room will not be able to take
it.
You'll cop out and cut out and you'll
find another place that is more comfy.
But the glory, the prospect for the glory
that remains for those who remain is unspeakable.
Let's take a look at a Church that
was a glory to God and is a
model that came down from heaven in Antioch.
Now there were in the Church that was
at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Bonibus
and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius
of Cyrene and Menaean which had been brought
up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul.
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted,
the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Bonibus and
Saul, for the work whereunto I have called
them.
And when they had fasted and prayed and
laid their hands on them, they sent them
away.
So they being sent forth by the Holy
Ghost departed unto Seleucia and from thence they
sailed to Cyprus and when they were at
Salamis they preached the word of God in
the synagogues of the Jews.
Period.
You say, what's so hot about that?
That sounds commonplace and dull.
Oh yeah?
Let's take a look at what is disarmingly
described in those few verses.
Because I tell you that in those few
verses is all of the pattern of the
true Church of God which is a glory.
Now there were in the church, it doesn't
say there were those that attended the church
and it doesn't say there were those who
were registered or there were in the church
is more than men who attended.
It's a description of men and women who
are organically joined and knit by the Spirit
of God who themselves are the church at
Antioch.
And what kind of men were they?
They were prophets and teachers.
That's not a picture of a way station
where prophets and teachers happen to stop off
for refreshment.
I believe it's a picture of a church
so in the keeping of the pattern of
God that it produces teachers and prophets.
And I want to suggest that if you
want a standard of measure by which to
examine yourself to ask how close are we
to the apostolic model you can ask it
in this way.
Are we producing teachers and prophets?
True church of a people knit with each
other and with God will produce apostolic ministers.
You say big deal.
So what's a teacher or a prophet?
Everything.
You know the world is dying for the
want of hearing the words of God and
the earth.
You know how desperately needed the prophetic cry
is?
Where are the prophets of our generation that
will shake a slumbering nation?
Where are the men who will cry out
to the people of God how long do
you hold between two opinions?
If God be God, follow him.
Where are the men who are passionate and
consumed with the things of God who see
by the eye of God right through the
haze and the mist to the true and
the eternal realities and can speak them by
the power of God that will shake people
awake.
The prophetic ministry is desperately and urgently needed
in this particular generation.
Where are such men being produced?
Where is the environment that is conducive to
the bringing forth of men of apostolic stature?
That's the point, guys.
Such men are not produced in a day
and they're not made by magical wands being
waved.
They need to be born in an environment
that is hospitable and be nurtured and be
brought to maturity in a congregation that loves
them.
You say what has love got to do
with it?
Because prophets are obnoxious.
They're hard to live with and they're ungainly.
And they don't worry too much about their
politeness.
And they're abrasive and they come on hard.
And they're strange ducks and they jostle you
and it's better not to have such in
the midst.
And it's tough enough when they've come to
maturity but when they're in the process of
growing they're even worse.
Then it's a mishmash of both flesh and
spirit.
It's an ungainly bird flapping its wings and
squawking with a hoarse voice.
But unless you give such birds an opportunity
to squawk they'll never be able to bellow
for God in due season.
Where is the environment that will encourage the
birth and the nurture and the coming to
maturity of men of this kind?
True church is such an environment and it
cannot be produced by mere Sundays alone.
It takes a people who have come together
in a certain quality of relationship that is
hospitable to the Holy Ghost and are willing
to pay the price of sacrifice that such
relationship entails.
The first thing that'll have to go is
your seating arrangement.
You're not going to produce apostles, prophets, and
teachers looking at the backs of each other's
heads.
It's going to be by the dynamic interplay
of a people who meet each other and
God face to face.
Because this kind of arrangement encourages passivity and
not participation.
There might well be potential prophets in this
audience right now.
But you're not likely to hear from them
in the present structure of things.
But you turn the chairs around and make
it a kind of spiritual free-for-all
in the sense that the Holy Spirit has
sway through whatever vessel He pleases to speak
and touch and sound.
And you'll begin to notice certain men coming
forth in a certain way and you'll recognize
the prophet's mantle.
It's much more convenient to remain seated as
we are and look up and let somebody
else do it on the platform.
Oh my God, you might well be the
prophet.
And you know what the usual fate of
those men are.
There were certain prophets and teachers and scholars
and God even names them.
Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and
Lucius of Cyrene and Manana which has been
brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul.
Why does God take the pains to enumerate
them by name?
Because He reveals the diversity of these men.
Barnabas was a Hebrew, an Israelite.
Simeon that was called Niger was likely according
to most biblical scholars to be a black
man.
Lucius of Cyrene is yet another nationality, Gentile.
Manana which has been brought up with Herod
the Tetrarch was a Roman and Saul we
know was a Jew.
You say what has that got to do
with anything?
And my answer is everything.
The true church is not a country club
where people of the same economic and social
status have a little cozy thing going together.
The true church is the expression of the
local believers in a given locality.
If they're black, they're white, they're Jewish, they're
Gentile, they're older, they're younger, they're poor, they're
skinny, they're fat, they're every shape and size
and description but they are God's people together.
This was a remarkable church.
It was diverse men as one and the
fact that they had different racial origins, different
nationalities and even different callings of God did
not separate them but they were a brilliant
church together.
You say how do you know Art?
Are you just assuming that?
The very next verse indicates it.
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted.
I want you to know that that is
not any light accomplishment.
When men of that diversity can minister unto
the Lord and fast together you have a
measure of a church that has touched the
glory of God.
It's interesting how discreet God is and he
doesn't give us all the particulars.
We know what fasting means.
Have you ever fasted together with others?
Can you suffer the rumbling of each other's
stomachs?
You know how stale your breath becomes when
you fast?
And if you get breathed on, would you
be offended?
But what does it mean they ministered unto
the Lord?
Did they sing charismatic choruses?
My own suspicion is that they had come
to the highest pitch of true worship which
is silence before God.
You ain't seen nothing yet.
You know it's easier to sing than to
be silent?
I'm only speaking from the sparsest personal experience
but sufficient to give me a little clue
and an insight of what God did to
us in Minnesota up there in the woods
when he brought us to a certain impasse
in our lives when we came to a
terrible dead end where we didn't know how
to go any further.
We were beyond our own knowledge, our own
expertise, our own ability.
We confessed, we prayed, and God's answer did
not yet come.
We were suffering terrible poverty, financial distress, debts,
and we didn't know why.
The place was loaded with suspicion and jealousy
and irritation and resentment.
That's what we had come to.
We were at a dead end and if
God did not break through, we would have
perished.
And the last thing that we did was
call a fast.
And toward the end of that fast, the
Lord had us on the floor in one
room together for 13 hours.
And all you could hear is an occasional
sob or a whimper.
You say, wasn't it boring?
No, it was not.
I can't describe to you the profound engagement
between the Spirit of God and men.
Something was taking place in the heavenlies that
we could not identify.
Something was being transacted for which we did
not see the result that day.
It was a kind of worship unto God.
How many people know what the root meaning
of the word worship is?
It is utter prostration and bowing before God
in abject and total dependency upon Him.
Have you ever been that flat out where
you can't even whimper or groan, let alone
have anything clever to say or to pray?
You are finished and you are finished together.
And if God doesn't answer, you've had it.
It's a form of worship of which few
saints know anything.
But I have a sense that these men
at Antioch, different though they were in race
and background, at a time when for a
Jew to associate with a Gentile was considered
unthinkable, these men were so knit as the
family of God.
They were so much true church that they
could fast and minister unto the Lord together.
We've got to come again to that place.
And we shall not attain it in our
present conventional structure.
I wonder if you're listening intently tonight.
I wonder what this is sounding like in
your ears.
Is this some kind of harebrained thing or
you're just listening to some eccentric guy sounding
off?
Or can you believe that God is crying
out for the restoration of true church?
And I want to ask you a question,
guys.
You're at a crossroad right now.
What would you rather have?
A successful church or an apostolic glory?
What is the extent of your ambition in
God?
You want to have a snazzy program and
multiply the congregation and have all kinds of
youth work and retreats and nice things going
and prison ministries and the elderly and all
that stuff and have your budget balanced and
have a good staff and a happy congregation
and every service will be a delight?
How many people think that what I've just
described is the ultimate end of what a
church could be?
It's good.
And few churches have attained that.
But I am jealous over you with a
godly jealousy for something more than that which
is good but that which is perfect and
is the heavenly and apostolic model.
For these men that were separated by the
Holy Ghost by name and were sent forth
by the laying on of hands shook the
earth and turned cities upside down.
Don't tell me about successful ministries.
They can't compare to the apostolic splendor and
the glory of what happened from those who
were sent forth out of Antioch.
For God's sake, wake up and become discontent
with things that are merely good and successful.
Two such men turned cities upside down.
These are they which turned the cities upside
down was said of these apostolic giants who
brought with them the reality of God that
was nurtured in the assembly of the saints
which was true church or a peace of
the kingdom of heaven on earth.
But I'll tell you, it doesn't come easy
to be able to minister unto the Lord
and fast together with a black man or
a Jew or a Roman or a Cyrene.
Oh, I'll tell you, there's a grading.
There's a dealing.
There are things that'll rise up to the
surface that will disgust you.
You'll be amazed at the revelation of your
prejudices.
You didn't even know they were there.
And you'll never see it so long as
your religious life is reduced to services and
potluck suppers.
Anybody can be cordial for an hour but
let me see you stretched out 13 hours
on the floor with men who are different.
Can you understand that relationship is the key,
guys?
That a kingdom is a social entity, a
kind of society, a reality of men and
women of diverse backgrounds coming together in an
unusual kind of relationship that can only be
described as the kingdom of heaven.
Can you see why it will take the
power of the Holy Ghost?
Can you see why we wouldn't be able
to do this out of our own natural
aptitude or well-meaning intention?
It will take very God and great grace
was upon them all.
You better believe it, it'll take great grace.
And God will extend great grace when he
is blessed and pleased with people who are
walking in the way and whose church life
is not structured by the world but by
the apostolic model that came down from heaven
as the plumb line of God.
I'll tell you some of those that were
sent forth by the Holy Ghost never returned.
They found themselves stoned to death, imprisoned, burned
at the stake, sawn asunder.
They wandered naked and destitute.
They lived in caves and holes.
And you want to know something tonight?
You can bet your life on it.
We are surrounded this night by a cloud
of invisible witnesses of the very men that
I'm describing are watching this service tonight.
I'm getting a chill, goosebumps, half inch high.
This service is being watched by a cloud
of invisible witnesses who will not be perfect
without you.
They're wondering if you're going to get with
it.
They're wondering if you're going to be satisfied
with the status quo and be just another
groovy and successful church or you're going to
break through into the kind of realities that
will again shake the earth and turn cities
upside down for Christ's sake, though it's going
to cost you and though there'll be casualties.
How many of you have the faith to
believe, Pentecostals though you are, that the Holy
Ghost can actually speak into a congregation and
separate actual individuals by name?
When have you heard such a thing last?
And how many of us would be willing
to wait until the Holy Ghost calls the
shots and we don't determine who's going where
by some committee arrangement or we think it'll
be a good thing if this one did
that and that we're just as content to
minister unto the Lord as to go?
Have you come to that?
That is high priestly service of which few
saints know anything.
Turn back to the book of Leviticus.
See what it took for the ordination of
priests.
See men who had blood dripping from fingernails
to elbows in sacrifices and heave offerings and
splattered with oil and splattered with blood and
washed in water and dressed in linen and
publicly humiliated in all of these things before
the congregation who stood at the door of
the tent of the meeting to watch it.
When the whole bloody business was finished, men
who knew what sacrifice meant because you could
no longer distinguish them from the sacrifice.
They were so full of the blood and
the gore of it, wearied.
There was nothing left of them which is
God's perfect beginning.
No hot shot bravado.
No men are going to do things for
God.
Wiped out and exhausted by the foolish requirement
of sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice till they
were steeped in the blood of sacrifice and
they were not yet ordained for service.
They still had to wait seven days in
the door of the tent of the meeting.
How many of you have an itch to
do for God?
To run and go and be seen and
perform?
Shot through with human ambition, wanting to justify
yourself.
Wanting to be seen doing.
You'll never have apostolic glory from such vessels
as that.
Only men who are utterly dead unto themselves,
steeped in blood, and who have been burned
out at the door of the tent of
the meeting.
On the eighth day, the day of new
beginnings, the glory of God fell for the
priests who gave themselves to that kind of
ordination.
Where is the family Zadok, the priests who
have the charge of the sanctuary, who have
not trafficked in the outer court and accommodated
the people with man-pleasing sermons, but have
kept the charge of the inner place and
have ministered unto him?
Who can wait on the Lord until they
hear the call of the Holy Ghost, and
if it doesn't come, they're just as content
waiting as going.
I remember I made one of my overseas
trips to talk about apostolic glory.
I don't have a word to describe how
God has saved congregations and entire denominations in
four nights in Yugoslavia going to the meeting
every night not knowing what to speak.
And to be driven to the airport when
it was all over and to be told
by the men taking you that in the
middle of our crisis, when we were helpless
and at the point of complete extinction, God
sent the living word.
That's because I had people 5,000 miles
away in Minnesota on their faces, praying and
fasting for three days while I was on
the firing line.
Apostolic glory, day after day and week after
week.
And so I was going to take a
21-year-old brother with from our fellowship,
precious young disciple, full of sap, wanting to
do.
And I said to him as we came
close to the day of departure, I said,
Brother, supposing at this late moment I decided
not to take you but to take another,
what would you do?
He said, Art, it's all the same to
me whether I go or I remain.
I said, Great, now it's safe for you
to go.
Have you come to that?
Dear children, the world has not seen priestly
service unto God.
And I want to say with the authority
of God, if it's not service unto God
first, it's not service unto men either.
How many of us have that priestly sense
of waiting on the Lord and ministering unto
Him in the inner place, in the sanctuary?
What does the word say?
As they ministered to the Lord and fasted,
the Holy Ghost said, Separate unto me Barnabas
and Saul for the work were unto I
have called them.
You think it's coincidence?
Or was God waiting and brooding for the
moment that men would be found ministering unto
Him?
Then the call of the Holy Ghost came.
And so when they had fasted and prayed
and laid their hands on them, they sent
them away.
I guess that the call was so explicit,
it was so heard by the entire congregation
that there was no question whatsoever that God
had called these two particular men.
But before they would let them go, they
fasted and prayed again and laid their hands
upon them and sent them forth.
That's the way I came from Minnesota to
California on this trip.
And I wouldn't dare dream to leave except
that I was sent forth in that way.
It's either some kind of shabby ceremony or
it is one of the most profound kinds
of requirements of God, which has been completely
ignored in modern times.
Whose hands do you want laid on you
if you're going forth into an apostolic journey
where you may not return?
You want some guy who was at the
pool hall the night before or masturbating or
twiddling with his TV set or playing through
the sport pages?
Or do you want a man whose hands
were raised before God?
Do you want to be sent forth by
a people whom you know and trust and
who are in this together with you?
Or just a bunch of strangers who happen
to share a seat in the pew in
the church and are sending you forth as
just a kind of matter of ceremony?
We're talking about life and death things.
That was not any little mock gesture.
It was an act of the profoundest identification
between those who go and those who stay.
A commitment that though you are from us,
yet shall we uphold you in prayer and
in fastings oft.
Yet do we give God the opportunity to
wake us at any hour of day and
night and bring us on our faces prostrate,
crying out for you wherever you may be.
How many times has my fellowship told me
that we don't know where you were at
but at a certain day we felt that
you were in some kind of danger.
You were somewhere in Yugoslavia or some such
place and we just prayed.
And I said, gee, nothing happened to me.
I don't recall anything.
But what would have happened had they not
hearken to the Holy Ghost.
So they fasted and prayed and laid their
hands on them and they sent them away.
And the fourth verse says, So they being
sent forth by the Holy Ghost.
There must be a typographical error.
Didn't the verse before say that they laid
hands on them?
So what is this verse saying?
So they being sent forth by the Holy
Ghost.
Because when they laid hands on them it
was tantamount to and equivalent to being sent
forth by the Holy Ghost.
You couldn't tell where men ended and God
began.
It was all the same.
It was the church that was at Antioch.
No one was confused that it was the
voice of the Holy Ghost calling men by
name.
Whether it came as prophecy, whether it came
as tongues or interpretation, I don't know.
But the gifts of the Spirit were so
tested in that congregation and they knew so
well the integrity and the character of the
vessels being used that there was no doubt
that God was calling these men.
How many of us are playing with the
gifts of the Spirit?
And in how many Pentecostal assemblies are those
gifts rarely expressed?
What God has been teaching us is that
it's love that really sustains.
You remember back in Israel's history when three
Gentile uncircumcised armies stood on the borders of
Judah threatening to inundate and invade and crush
the life out of that people in the
time of King Jehoshaphat?
And He came and He stood on the
steps of the temple and He looked up
to God and He spoke to the people
and He said, Lord, we have no might
in ourselves.
Neither know we what to do but our
eyes are turned to Thee.
And He proclaimed the fast in all the
land and they came from all the cities
of Judah and assembled together with their wives
and with their children.
Boy, I'll tell you it was an earnest
moment.
It was life or death for an entire
people.
And if they had been destroyed in Judah
there would have been no Messiah.
You wouldn't be sitting here.
It's not a little idle episode in history.
It was a crisis of unspeakable proportions and
men were earnest to the uttermost.
And it says in that moment that the
Spirit of God spoke into the congregation through
the prophet Jehoshaphat the battle is not yours
saith the Lord it is mine but go
ye out against them tomorrow.
You know what they did?
They fell on their faces and they worshipped.
Nobody scratched their head and said well I
don't know about that guy who gave that
prophecy.
Sometimes he's on sometimes he's off and they
worshipped.
They knew the priest he's mentioned by name
Jehoshaphat.
They knew his integrity in God.
They knew he was a tested vessel.
They knew they were hearing the voice of
God because they went forth the next morning
to do battle.
Supposing it were not the voice of God
speaking.
Supposing it was some kind of fleshy believer
who was half on half off and you
never know when and that was not God.
You know what would have happened that day?
They would have gotten smashed.
Dear children we are coming again to an
hour when the gifts of the Spirit are
going to be crucial life giving life and
death instrumentalities of God operated by love in
a people who are in it together with
their wives and their children.
When are we going to wake up and
start getting serious with God and stop playing
at church because it is convenient and doesn't
require much of us but a few hours
in the week and a small portion of
our substance.
Unto God be glory in the church.
Paul said he was a bond slave to
Jesus that he might make all men see
what is the fellowship of the mystery.
He was passionate for the church.
Are we?
I love the first word of this 13th
chapter now.
Now there was at the church that was
at Antioch now.
God is waiting for a now.
He is waiting for a people who will
get it together apostolically who can fast and
minister unto the Lord.
A fellowship that produces apostolic men of stature
prophets and teachers matured that God can call
them forth for ministry in the world because
there is an environment that is hospitable to
their birth to their nurture and to their
growth.
Now priestly men who can wait and minister
unto the Lord and it's all the same
to them whether they go or whether they
remain.
Not an organization an organism organic growing up
together by the spirit of the Lord a
local body diverse but one tested gifts of
the spirit submitted to the head of the
church separate me Paul and Barnabas for the
work I have called them.
It might be a little different from the
work that you would have chosen but it
was true church under the headship of the
Lord through the government of men in a
people who can minister unto the Lord together.
It was a society.
It was apostolic and the results were apostolic.
They shook the earth.
They were a people who were diverse but
they were a people who were together.
Those that believed were together.
Neither thought any of them that the things
which he had were his own.
They had all things common.
It was a different kind of society.
Those that had properties and incomes and other
things sold them and laid them at the
feet of the apostles who made distribution for
the saints in need.
There was a koinonia there that the modern
world has not seen in two thousand years.
There was a quality of fellowship and life
and joyful giving to the point of sacrifice
that has not been seen in modern times
that makes our dollar and our collection plate
and even our tithes look anemic and sick.
They were people who more likely lived from
the tithe than they lived from their income.
They gave the ninety percent and lived on
the ten.
They were people who lived in the expectation
of the soon return of the Lord.
They weren't laying up treasure for themselves on
earth.
They could be moved at the will of
the Holy Spirit.
Now had come to Antioch.
Great grace was upon them all.
Maybe we can just see some of the
verses in the third chapter of the book
of Ephesians where Paul gets utterly carried away
by the church.
Have you fallen in love yet with the
church?
How many of you really think that the
church is a peripheral matter and not the
main business of your life?
That the main business of your life is
making a living and getting it together for
your family and seeing to your security and
then of course whatever time is left over
to attend the services and to be faithful
in your church attendance.
May I say something flat out?
By the authority of Jesus Christ you've got
it all wrong.
The purpose for your being is that unto
God might be glory in the church.
Your jobs, your income, your security are only
the secondary things that enables your physical life
to continue that you might give yourself to
the masterpiece of God throughout all the ages.
He shall not do anything in the earth
outside of his church.
And I'm not talking about a building.
I'm talking about an apostolic reality.
The last verse of the third chapter says
unto him be glory in the church by
Christ Jesus throughout all ages world without end.
Amen.
Look at that verse.
You think that this is biblical rhetoric?
You think that these are fanciful phrases?
What does God say in that that this
church is going to be not only a
glory but an eternal glory.
Listen guys, you need to repent from a
mindset that doesn't understand what eternity means and
sees only things in terms of five years,
ten years or you expect to be transient
and moving and going.
You're too American and have not a notion
of things that are built to last.
Everything here is chintzy.
If we have a building fifty years old
we think it's old and we'll knock it
down.
You need to go to Europe and see
buildings that were built in the 12th, 13th
and 14th centuries still occupied because they were
built with such craftsmanship in another kind of
culture where men spent years in apprenticeship before
they were allowed to touch anything that when
they built they built to last.
What then shall we say of the master
builder whose supreme masterpiece is the church throughout
all ages?
World without end.
Amen.
Are you working with him?
Are you willing to give yourself to being
shaped and formed at his hand?
I'll tell you, if you had my experience
just recently in England of going through the
Royal Porcelain Factory you'd be stunned.
You cannot believe what men will do to
produce fine porcelain in China.
You can't believe the exactitude and the detail
and the concentration the impeccableness of what they'll
do to get the finest ingredients and mix
them in exact proportion at the right temperatures
to use as clay.
And how they'll press it into molds and
how they'll reject anything that's even slightly defective.
Because why send it through the whole process
if it has a defect and a mar
in the beginning?
And how those things go through the fire
again and again and again.
When I went on that tour the man
showed us exquisite pieces of China and porcelain
and he said the more exquisite the piece
the more times it goes through the kiln.
Baked in extreme heat.
And how it's joined together.
The most complex pieces and the handwork and
the detail they brewed over it with love.
It's not a new...
I met employees that worked in that factory
for 50 years in a company that is
300 years old.
Serving lengthy apprenticeships before they're even allowed to
touch any kind of costly piece.
Exquisite.
But it can't even stand comparison to the
church of Jesus Christ.
It's only what men can do.
What then shall God do world without end?
Throughout all the ages unto God be glory
in the church.
Oh I want to shake you.
I really want to shake you.
If I could give you an inoculation, a
shot the hype, I would do it in
one thing only.
A fervent, almost fanatical desire to see glory
to God in the earth.
Do you understand?
Can't you squint your eyes and say that
the world is deprived and is grey and
stunted for the want of glory in the
earth?
That there's something substandard and wrong for which
reason men lose their lives in merchandise and
pumping gas and have no better use because
they have not glimpsed any alternative, because they've
not seen the glory of God, because the
glory of God will not be seen except
to be seen in the church.
Unto Him be glory in the church.
Oh dear children, how it lies with you
and how far you're willing to go.
We who have been schooled and watching to
see if the service will get out on
time, feeling a little irritated if it runs
beyond the hour or so.
We need a wholly different perspective that comes
from heaven.
We who have hidden in our families, concealing
our selfishness, hiding in our privacy.
We who have been stingy in the giving
of our time and our substance.
How we need to see that the whole
purpose of our being is that unto God
be glory in the church.
An apostolic reality, men and women of apostolic
stature, true teachers and prophets, a people in
authentic relationship and loving the Spirit of God
moving through the gifts in love.
God at will calling this one for that
and that, sent forth by the laying on
of hands and they being sent forth by
the Holy Ghost.
No wonder Paul's passion was to make all
men see what is the fellowship of the
mystery, which from the beginning of the world
hath been hid in God who created all
things by Jesus Christ to the intent that
now, there's that word again, unto the principalities
and powers in heavenly places might be known
by the church the manifold wisdom of God.
Does that verse bore you?
Does that verse mystify you?
Is it a verse that just doesn't say
anything to you?
Let me spell it out to you that
God is the author of faith and he
who commanded us to live by faith himself
lives by faith.
And you know what his faith is?
That by the church unto the principalities and
powers in heavenly places might be known the
manifold wisdom of God.
He's going to make a declaration to his
eternal enemies, the satanic host that has made
mankind captive.
He's going to reveal his wisdom his manifold
wisdom his genius, his plan his way and
his glory through one instrument only the church.
I feel like going around with a sign
-up sheet tonight and see who how many
will sign up and be recruited how many
will choose a lesser thing that does not
make such demand upon their life how many
prefer conventional church experience that only requires mid
-week and Sunday attendance than to this kind
of thing to which one gives all.
Well, I think I said my piece.
How many people think that I'm mad at
you?
Did I sound like that?
Was I haranguing you?
I don't know.
How many people have the faith to believe
that God was speaking tonight?
Do you really believe that?
And then we might ask for what intent
and purpose was he speaking?
Was it just like mildly shake us up
a little bit or a little razzmatazz or
what?
Or was God dropping a plumb line from
heaven and saying here, this is my model.
You know what your question ought to be
if you're really earnest in your hearts?
Lord, where do we go from here?
I love it when I hear that when
some brother will come up to me trembling
after service and say, Art, where do we
go from here?
Or another brother or an elder or a
pastor will come and say, it's evident that
we cannot go on as before.
Where do we go from here?
And you know what?
I don't have the answer for you.
If I did, it would not be the
church of Jesus Christ.
He's got the answer for you.
When he'll see hearts that are determined to
go for broke all the way with an
utterness toward God willing to make every sacrifice
of time, of privacy, of substance and means
that unto God might be glory in the
church.
I would say it would not be a
bad idea to fast and to pray.
Let's see if you can put your fast
where your mouth is.
As we used to say in Brooklyn, let's
see you put your wallet where your mouth
is.
Did I ever tell you the time in
Uppsala, Sweden, where we had a university encounter?
This is one of the great intellectual centers
of the Western world.
It produces atheists by the carload.
And I was invited by Christian students to
a debate.
And I've had all kinds of debates at
different university campuses, encounters, but I never had
one like this.
It was a debate with Christian communists who
were going to bring about the kingdom of
God by force and violence.
It was satanic, you can't believe it, but
you should have seen God in action.
Did He stop the mouths of His adversaries?
And these Christian kids were so excited.
Such a breakthrough, they couldn't believe it.
And we had one following meeting the next
night.
I said, you know, we stand at a
place where God can turn this entire university,
where He can thrust in a wedge and
split something open and make that a center
for godliness instead of Satanism?
Let's fast for this last meeting.
Hey, Art, yeah, great idea.
One day fast.
I remember coming out of my room that
evening and out into the kitchen where these
brothers were waiting for me, and I stopped
dead in my tracks.
They were all eating.
One of the greatest scenes I've ever seen
in films, I don't know how appropriate it
is to share this, is a film called
On the Waterfront with, what's that guy's name?
Marlon Brando.
It's a fantastic scene without dialogue.
He's sitting in the back seat of a
car.
He's an old pug.
He's scarred.
His nose has been broken.
At one time, he had some promise he
might have gone on to the top and
been a champion.
And he's learning in that moment that his
brother, who was like a waterfront gangster, had
bet against him.
And he was so utterly mortified and stupefied
that he goes, Charlie!
What was I saying just before this?
That's the way I walked in on those
guys.
What's this?
You're eating!
Could you not watch with me one hour,
Jesus said, to sleeping disciples, that you fall
not into temptation?
You should have heard the excuses.
Well, Art, I got up this morning and
I was so unaccustomed to fasting that I
just automatically had breakfast.
Then it was too late.
Well, then I said, well, what about you?
Well, Art, I really lasted till noon.
But by noon, I was feeling so sick,
I felt I ought to eat something to
gain my strength.
Well, then what about you?
Well, Art, I had such a headache I
couldn't think straight.
I know God couldn't use me in that
condition, so I had to eat.
You know what the Lord whispered to my
heart in that moment?
A miss is as good as a mile.
Good intentions are not enough.
The road to hell is paved with good
intentions.
But God is looking for a people with
an utterness toward God that will deny themselves
and take up a cross and follow him.
Just let me end with this.
I've quoted Shakespeare.
I've quoted modern films.
Can I quote Muhammad Ali in something that
I copied from Sports Illustrated as he prepared
for his final heavyweight championship fight by which
he regained the title of first man in
history if you could take it three times?
You know when that fight was won?
It wasn't won in the ring.
It was won in the training.
That man drove himself like a fury.
Road work that was incessant.
35-year-old body, 36-year-old body.
The pain must have been excruciating, but he
wanted to win so bad.
I'm quoting him now.
He said, I wanted to stop, but I
can't.
My chest burns.
My throat is dry.
I feel like I'm going to faint.
My body begs me to stop, but I
make myself run another mile, two more miles
up those hills.
Pain all the time.
I'm in pain.
I hurt all over.
I hate it, but I'm taking it.
I'm making myself suffer.
I have to suffer.
I know this is my last fight.
How many of us know that this is
our last fight?
That these are the end times and that
in the last days perilous times shall come.
This is our last fight.
How many of us know it as this
boxer knew it and that he has to
suffer because this is his last fight?
I know this is my last fight and
it's the last time I'll ever have to
do it.
Amen.
Just a few more weeks of pain and
suffering to live good all the rest of
my life to always be champion.
Hallelujah.
To always wear the crown.
To come up to the king of glory
and have a crown to lay at his
feet.
And not to come bareheaded without anything to
show for your whole earthly sojourn.
You mark my words.
I can't find any scripture to back me
up.
If the crown of glory that a man
has to lay before the feet of the
Lord in the day that he ascends up
to heaven when his earthly sojourn is finished
is not in exact proportion to the crown
of thorns he was willing to wear here
on this earth.
Suffering is the name of the game.
The cross is not a piece of church
architecture and a plastic ditty to be stuck
with suction cups on our dashboards.
Christianity is the way of the cross.
The faith is to fill up the sufferings
that remain.
It's going to take suffering to come to
the relationship by which we can fast and
minister unto the Lord together.
You think I'm kidding?
How many will be willing?
Because you'll love him.
And you'll choose not the path of convenience
but the path of sacrifice and self-denial
that unto God be glory in the church.
I asked God for a historic word for
this congregation.
You heard me in my beginning prayer.
And I meant it.
And I don't know whether you understand it
or not.
But God has answered that.
He's spoken a word to you tonight and
laid something before you to choose.
Whether you're going to have a good, groovy
church, successful, admirable in many ways, or you're
going to have an apostolic glory.
Shall we bow our heads before God?
Precious God, we admire your faith, Lord, that
you've put all your eggs in one basket,
the church.
But look at us.
We're flabby.
We're out of shape.
We're selfish.
We're spoiled.
We're indulged.
We're full of murmurings and complaint, resentments and
irritations and jealousies and covetousness.
We're indifferent.
We're insincere.
And you're going to take us in our
present condition and make of us a glory?
We praise you for that.
And we ask you to do it.
We want to yield ourselves to such a
working.
And mighty God, I pray for this congregation
that it be more than mere church, as
the world presently understands that word.
That there might be a glory in this
people and men and women coming to maturity
and the raising up of apostolic teachers and
prophets whom you shall call by name that
shall be sent forth by the Holy Ghost,
who will shake the earth again before the
end of the age.
And in the name of Jesus, and as
a minister of this gospel, I feel obliged
to ask for a commitment from as many
in this congregation who will resolve tonight to
be part of that glory.
You don't have to know what it's going
to cost you and when it's going to
cost you and how, but you have resolved
in your heart that whatever the cost, it's
to this that you want to give your
life.
Do you dare stand before God and seal
it before Him now?
Do it.
I ask you to stand before God.
How many of us can even think that
there'd be such a thing as suffering in
America?
When that Jimmy Jones thing took place in
Guyana, my spirit told me the eve of
persecution, the shot heard around the world, just
the excuse the world has been wanting to
begin to vent its real hatred and spite
against the people of God who cannot discern
between some hokey sect and the true people
of God.
It's the beginning of reproach and worse.
How many of us can believe that that
could happen in America?
How many of you will believe that there
are people who because they stood just now
are not going to die in bed?
Think I'm getting melodramatic?
Everything ought to be preparation for such eventualities
as that.
I'm not saying that to scare you, but
I'm saying it to sober you and that
you should not come to such a place
with your lips pursed, why do I have
to suffer this?
But counting it all glory that you were
found worthy to share in the sufferings of
Christ, to fill up that which remains for
his body and for his namesake.
Oh, dear children, this is the gospel.
I'm going to seal everyone who has stood.
So precious God, do it, Lord.
You've heard our cry, you've seen our prayers
tonight, Lord.
We ask that you would pour something out
of this mouth that was from your own
heart, Lord, that you would do something historic
for this people.
And now you've got them on their feet
in a most significant act of commitment.
And I ask you, precious God, to observe
this from heaven, every soul by name, and
to seal those who have stood.
And to undertake such a preparation in their
lives, to use what circumstances you will, to
measure out that thousand cubits more in that
deep, pure river of life to those who
have only till now been up to their
ankles.
And bring them in, precious God, up to
their knees, and let them feel the surge
and the force of that holy water.
And bring them in deeper by another thousand
cubits up to their thighs, where they would
wonder if they could even stand under the
pressure of those circumstances.
And then save for those whose hearts are
uttermost toward you, that final measure of waters
too deep to swim in, that cannot be
passed over.
And those who'll be borne up by those
waters of life shall bring healing and meat
for the seasons, and life wheresoever they shall
be brought by the waters of life that
come out from under the throne of the
temple.
Hallelujah, Lord.
Seal us that unto Him be glory in
the church.
Bring us into the deep waters.
Let the waters rise of circumstance, of distress,
of perplexities, of city councils haranguing us.
Whatever it takes that you might perfect our
character and life together, that we might be
the church of Jesus.