I feel led to share something that the
Lord only rarely on occasion takes out, kind
of a Magna Carta of apostolicity.
What are the quintessential elements, what are the
constituent elements that comprise apostolic reality?
If you can't understand the title, how shall
you understand what follows?
I have it here on free sheets, it
deserves an entire seminar, and may the Lord
give me grace to condense it in one
speaking, but to leave it on file and
on record, so that later on when you
come of age, you're not there now, you'll
be able to appreciate and receive the benefit
of a statement that I need to make
now, because if I don't make it now,
it will not ever be made.
You'll not hear it from another man, and
I'm not sure that I'll ever be back
here, or any place that I'm going in
these days.
I have a sense like once and for
all, and so Lord, whether or not I
will is up to you, but I'd rather
believe soberly, wisely, that this is a once
and for all occasion that will not be
given again.
And I see it that way, I ask
you to see it that way, and Lord,
you know the difficulty of the topic that's
before me, it doesn't lend itself to easy
statements, it makes demand upon the hearer, and
I'm supposing that most of what will be
shared will be incomprehensible, and the congregation will
look at me blankly, but put it on
record Lord, see to the recording of it,
so that later on when the time is
right, they will have access to a statement
that was made in time, and that would
not have otherwise opportunity to have been expressed,
that will be invaluable for the ongoing call
of the church that bears your name in
this city and this nation, for the word
apostolic comprehends everything, and it's a word like
all the great words now presently suffering not
only abuse but threat, that they might become
familiar and have casual meaning that misses the
meaning.
So Lord, show us what comprises this word,
what are the quintessential elements that constitute apostolicity,
the apostolic reality to which we're called, and
if we don't attain, we forfeit the whole
identity and calling which is ours, as the
church that bears your name in these last
days.
We're needing a special grace, and we're asking
it Lord, for their sake and for your
name's sake, in Jesus name, amen.
So one of the first things that will
denote a church that can be rightly called
apostolic is that it enjoys a radical anticipation
of the end.
It has an anticipation of the end, which
is to say that it's a church that
is eschatologically minded.
It knows that it's moving not just to
a conclusion but to a consummation of an
ultimate kind that had its origins at the
commencement of the redemptive, salvific work of God
from the beginning.
Because it has a mind and a consciousness
that we're moving toward an end, it is
aware of what was the beginning, and is
in connection with that beginning.
It sees itself in an unbroken continuum with
everything that comprises the true apostolic and prophetic
past of the church.
It's not a present now, independent of that
past, and it's one that absorbs and takes
that past to itself in unbroken communion and
continuity, and is looking toward the conclusion.
Something that is caught up in that statement
about the invisible cloud of witnesses that are
overhead and are not complete without us, to
whom does that make sense?
Who cites that?
Who expects that?
Who anticipates?
Who knows that what they are about in
God is of such moment and such consequence
like today, right now, that there is in
fact an invisible cloud of witnesses overhead in
Singapore and overhead in this church.
And who are they that comprise it?
Those who have suffered, sacrificed, died for the
fulfillment, the conclusion, the reality, the consummation of
that for which they sacrificed, and are not
complete without us.
So they're looking on with more than a
casual interest.
They're looking on because they realize that we
are in unbroken communion with them, and that
somehow that we have received the baton and
we are bringing it to the place of
completion and finish, which if we don't attain
it, they are eternally and perpetually disconnected and
shorted of the thing for which they sacrificed.
See, it's a certain mentality, saints.
It's a certain apprehension of things invisible, eternal,
that had an origin and a consummation, and
we are in process toward that end and
the inheritance of that which preceded us.
That's a deep apprehension of spiritual reality, and
I'm saying that unless that distinguishes the church,
it cannot rightly be called apostolic.
Those that are looking down upon us as
the invisible cloud of witnesses are more than
just observing.
They're actually bringing a quotient and a dimension
from the other realm, from the heavenly realm,
into our proceeding now, without which we could
not continue or have the full-bodied intention
of God expressed.
You know, when you begin to think like
that, it's not long before you'll be saying
with Paul, who is sufficient for these things?
If what you are about art right now
is a point of time which God not
only knew from the beginning of creation, but
was in his thought as works to walk
in that were established before the foundations of
the earth were laid and need to be
consummated and fulfilled this morning through the piece
of dust that you are, who has had
a lousy night's sleep and is shabby and
worn out and at odds with himself physically,
and yet that requirement has come.
The moment is now.
It's full of eternal portent, there's a good
word, P-O-R-T-E-N-T,
full of eternal significance, and it has come
to rest right now in this moment, and
it will not ever be given again.
It's once and for all.
How do you like to live like that?
Not just because it's this morning, but tomorrow
will be exactly the same for tomorrow.
That is to say, apostolic view of reality
is always sensing the utter significance of what
it is about in every moment of time.
There's nothing casual, there's nothing light, everything is
altogether significant because it encapsulates the past and
it points to the future and it has
everything to do with the consummation of the
whole salvific history of God, his name, his
honor, and his glory.
And it's got to come out of you
at a time when you're not at your
best, when you're feeling especially weak and fuzzy
and out of it.
That's when he makes the greatest requirement.
This is a lifestyle, this is a mode
of being, this is a certain kind of
consciousness that the world would condemn and maybe
even take those people who subscribe to it
and put them in mental institutions as being
out of touch with reality because they have
such a heightened sense that the moment that
they are about is of ultimate and eternal
significance.
And yet the remarkable thing is that that
is definitive reality and definitive sanity.
And the other thing that thinks that this
is just a transient moment, one like another,
one Sunday like another, that is irregular, that
is insane, that is unhealthy, that is unapostolic,
which is to say unreal, because the synonym
for the word apostolic is authentic or authenticity,
what is ultimately real issues from God as
God himself sees it, knows it, and performs
it.
Authenticity is the name of the game, not
play acting, not a facsimile thereof.
And the greatest danger right now is over
the two great words, apostolic and prophetic, for
there are men who are very adept at
creating the facsimile thereof and enjoying widest acceptance
because they're not the real thing.
Because the distinguished mark of prophet and apostle
is that they are the thing in themselves.
It's not that they've learned to acquire an
appropriate and new vocabulary.
They are the thing through and through.
It's the word made flesh.
It's truth personified.
It's not an affectation or a religious show.
And that kind of reality is not produced
in a moment.
It's the work of a lifetime when a
man is subjected because he has that call
which he has not appointed for himself from
the God who has given it and therefore
is required to pass through experiences of a
formative kind that have at its heart the
cross, having to do with radical separation, the
dealings of God in order to attain this
kind of mode and framework of understanding and
live and move and have his being in
it consistently.
So a church, imagine a church of this
kind, because it has this foundation.
The church is built on the foundation of
the apostles and the prophets, not some glib
men who have plagiarized Paul and are able
to apply it to present church conditions as
problem solvers and are called apostolic or are
franchising whole geographical territories and appointing certain ones
to preside as being the apostolic representative of
their ministry.
And how was the ministry occasioned?
Some false prophet prophesied that he who was
once a professor in the seminary is now
an apostle.
And so the assumption is founded on a
false prophecy and they validate one another.
I don't want to say more than that.
I'm already getting a little heavy, but I
just want to identify for you the kind
of critical hour that we're in because the
enemy knows more than we how the issue
of what is authentically apostolic and prophetic is
the issue.
And anything that can be done to dissipate,
change, alter, warp that understanding and offer some
facsimile thereof that is not the thing in
itself authentically, the powers of darkness will promote.
So I'm pleading with you to be jealous
over the two great words and to know
that they're not easily understood, let alone demonstrated,
and yet it's your call.
If you're not that, what are you?
If God is giving you an elaborate foundation
that can only come exclusively with those who
are apostles and prophets, what then are you
expected to be?
Why would he give that investment, that extravagance
of men who have been nurtured and formed
at the cross in privacy and hiddenness, unless
he intended for you to be raised on
that foundation and that the superstructure of what
you are as church is exactly in keeping
with that foundation in character and kind.
And that will glorify him forever and fulfill
his eternal purposes and the mysteries for which
we are called to be the fulfillment.
So I'm just, I could have begun anywhere,
I'm beginning with that.
A church that is apostolic has a radical
apprehension of the end and an anticipation of
it.
It's consciously moving toward that.
Therefore, its church services are not a mere
succession of Sundays.
They are a preparation for that end consciously
and willfully.
And the pastors and leaders and teachers are
not afraid to make requirement of their congregations.
And they'll be specific and pointed and they'll
name names and they'll identify things and call
for an obedience and the discipline because we're
moving towards something of great magnitude that requires
maturity.
And we want to get away from that
man-pleasing Christianity that speaks in generalities to
people who are lost in the multitude of
the congregation and can hide.
So the powers of darkness seeing a congregation
with this kind of intention, even before it
even comes into that reality, will oppose it.
They'll be marked in the consideration of the
powers of the air as a dangerous entity
who before that time, they could safely ignore.
And they could say, Jesus, we know, and
Paul, we know, but who are you?
The Church of Singapore, who?
One thing about the powers of darkness, and
by the way, are you aware of the
powers of darkness?
Or are they some kind of mystical ephemeral
realm that is lost somewhere in the world
of spirit and has not any substantive reality,
let alone the most formidable reality against which
we're called to contend?
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but the principalities and powers of the air,
the world's rulers of this darkness, you dear
saints.
We're having a field day with Singapore because
they've not been recognized because there's not a
church yet that has the keenness of discernment
to recognize their presence and to see their
wiles and their manipulations and to blow the
whistle on their fraudulence and save those that
are captive by them to be brought to
a freedom.
It recognizes there's a spiritual battle and a
struggle on, and it's over the issue of
what, in fact, is reality?
What, in fact, are true values?
For what should men live?
What is the purpose for our being?
To be consumers?
To have a position in the economy that
produces the goods that others might consume them
and we ourselves?
And that our whole life is given to
having and spending, laying waste our powers and
little we find in nature that is ours?
An A for the day of anyone here
who can recognize the poet from whom I've
just quoted.
You're not too conversant with poetry.
That's your problem.
You're not poetic enough.
You're too matter-of-fact.
You're too mechanical.
You're too legal.
You're too statistical.
You're the kind of thing that the system
wants that will be efficient because the reason
for being in this system is efficacy to
produce goods and distribute them and see to
a certain prosperity and because it has no
concern for that which is ultimate or eternal
and doesn't realize that this lifetime is a
preparation for that same.
Is that the idea?
No one has told it.
No one has shown it because to persuade
the world that this life presently is transient
and preparatory for that which is eternal and
abiding requires people who come down from that
place who are in the world but not
of it and exude eternity and not just
possess it as a category.
They're timeless and they're eternal in the reality
of what they are in themselves and therefore
they can move through the world and through
society and culture and it's water off the
duck's back.
They never are jerked or manipulated or self
-conscious or fearful or intimidated or threatened by
any such thing.
Once you are in the realm of eternity
and eternal value that which is in time
comes into its proper focus whereas the enemy
wants to exaggerate its importance and by that
make you captive.
A church that is the church sees these
things and is so effectually delivered from them
that it lives in a kind of remarkable
and transcendent freedom that the very observation of
such a church makes those that are captive
aware for the first time that they are
captive.
That they are the products of a time
and age and they're being jerked and manipulated
and their life is being stripped from them
for merchandise.
In fact we know in the book of
Revelation that the souls of men will be
made merchandise.
So we need a presence in the earth
of those that are really free from the
influence of these powers and are marching by
another beat and have a sense of those
things that are invisible and eternal and know
the eternal weight of glory that makes the
present affliction both momentary and light and in
fact they can expect present affliction because they
are that kind of saint.
If they were just ordinary pure occupiers faithful
to attend services through a dollar collection plate
they'll never be bothered by the powers of
darkness but once they imbibe and catch vision
and have a sense of these things that
are eternal and recognize the conflict with the
invisible realm of principalities and powers over domination
of the earth and who it is that's
going to call the shots and define what
is reality when the powers recognize such a
one they will begin to oppose them and
so they'll experience afflictions and the remarkable thing
is that God allows it.
He did not save Paul from the consequence
of being Pauline from the consequence of of
being an apostle and inviting the devastation of
the powers that opposed him.
Men vowing that they would neither eat nor
drink until he was dead because he was
not fit to live.
What about Paul that was so onerous another
good word o-n-e-r-o-u
-s I'm doing wonders for his vocabulary that
men would vow that Paul was not fit
to live.
Isn't it remarkable the man who shows forth
more powerfully than any the genius of God
because what is an apostle but the expression
of what is intrinsic to God himself who
is the high priest and the apostle of
our confession.
Paul is only the continuation of Jesus Christ.
I say only everything that he says and
does is what the Lord himself would have
performed and expressed had he continued in his
own body because when Paul says for me
to live as Christ he's not just making
a liberal statement of a poetic kind he's
describing the definitive truth of his life.
So don't you applaud him for being a
Jewish celebrity and that his attributes and the
things that distinguish him are his intellect or
his courage.
No that was all dung.
His rabbinical inheritance was all dung that he
might win Christ and know him in the
powers resurrection and that's why he's so much
the perpetuation of Christ and living in the
power that raised Jesus from the dead.
That's why he said I've labored more diligently
than you all.
So Paul is more than just an object
of our curiosity he is the emblem he's
the personification of the very thing to which
we're called and the heck of it is
we don't even have Pauline intention we don't
even have apostolic intention we're content to be
charismatic which isn't bad but it falls short
of the glory at its best it's only
a transitional thing but it does accentuate the
issue of the holy spirit baptism of the
spirit gifts of the spirit which in the
charismatic context falls short and that's why it
has run out and has lost its currency
God never intended gifts of the spirit as
a mere adornment he intended it as nuts
and bolts provision for an authentic church fighting
for its life against the powers that contend
against it and are the key to the
salvation both of Israel and its own generation
gifts of the spirit are a life and
death provision for an earnest people who are
on the firing line being opposed by the
powers of darkness unto death when we make
of those gifts a kind of denominational distinction
an option of you could or you couldn't
it's not all that important we're already out
of the picture so a church of this
kind will be distinguished by its acknowledgement and
awareness of the struggle by its necessity to
be profoundly established in the realm of spirit
and can trust the expressions of spirit as
not just something to liven services but a
life and death provision of God for wisdom
for situations that cannot be anticipated and for
which all previous experience does not fit us
see i'm saying so much how can you
hear this how can you receive this what
am i saying we can anticipate in the
last days radical requirements life and death situations
that will affect many that we had not
been that we could not have anticipated nor
prepared for and for which any previous experience
will not now help us so unless we're
hearing right now from the spirit of God
this is the way walkie in it take
this direction do this do that anticipate this
we will have lost the moment the gifts
of the spirit prophecy tongues interpretation are critical
life serving enablements from God and we have
trafficked in that whole dimension and made it
a kind of charismatic adornment to improve our
meetings if in fact it is even that
much today it has fallen into such disuse
and such a lack of esteem even by
those who call themselves Pentecostal but when we
begin when we begin to become apostolically minded
and see ourselves involved in a remarkable continuum
of an unbroken kind moving toward a consummation
and conclusion that the powers of darkness dread
and are fighting furiously to retain their usurping
influence in the earth will need every gift
of God and will need to hear prophecy
from those vessels whose character we know and
when whom we can have confidence that they're
not speaking out of the flesh that they
could be heard or be admired that is
to say that we have come into a
configuration of relationship by which we know one
another's character and we're not strangers lost in
the obscurity of the congregation of hundreds but
there's face-to-face relationship there's things that
are tested because if we're going to receive
the call of the Holy Spirit separate out
unto me this one and that from the
congregation that I want to send to Malaysia
or wheresoever and lay hands on them that
they might be sent forth by the Holy
Ghost I want to know whose hands are
being laid on me what were they doing
with those hands the night before the day
of my being sent were they twiddling the
dial of a of a tv or even
giving themselves to worse practices because when you
lay hands on someone whatever is in you
and composite in you is made manifest into
that vessel and yet Paul and Barnabas can
receive that prayer in Acts 13 and God
says and so they being sent forth by
the Holy Ghost went God equates the prayer
fasting and laying on of the hands of
men and women as being equal to ascending
of the Holy Ghost it waited for that
meant anti-archal congregation to come to a
maturity and a quality of life and relationship
that was so authentic and true that a
piece of it could be separated and sent
out into the world and sent out by
the blessing of those from that sending base
by the laying on of their hands that
did not confer evil or questionable things but
things that were holy and righteous because they
lived in a relationship intensive enough and intimate
enough to know whose hands were being laid
on our modern Christianity has moved away from
that model and now we have mega churches
where you don't know who the guy is
behind you alongside you and you take communion
what you hold a plastic cup and a
little piece of waffle and a certain instruction
you'll eat and drink when he eats and
drinks and the guy is complete stranger to
you how is that communion well once a
month is sufficient for that until you come
into the configuration of God's intention of earnest
saints relating together as the community of God's
people once a month will not be enough
I was sick and tired of my Pentecostal
once a month communions I gulped it down
it had no effect whatsoever even made me
feel uncomfortable but when the Lord called us
into community and life together in a rugged
environment in northern Minnesota in hardship where where
the saints become trying and the best of
the charismatic darlings show another face when they're
living together intensely day after day and week
after week they become unraveled and it's amazing
what they're capable of and how disappointing and
disillusioning and that you yourself are the most
shocked by the revelation of the truth of
yourself that you had not seen until you
were brought into that intensity of relationship and
I'll tell you what and you're going to
be kind and nice and patient and forbearing
and loving maybe the first week depending how
nice a guy you are you're pretty nice
guys but by the second week you have
run out of human well-meaning intention and
magnanimity and you need God so when you
come to that communion table you're not just
sucking up a little grape juice and a
piece of flat bread you're taking the substance
and spirit of the living God who has
imputed himself into those elements as a covenantal
meal for the inner man that we can
show forth to one another real patience real
love real forbearance we need the provision of
God which has been reduced to a triviality
because our Christian life has become equally trivial
you start getting serious with God about your
apostolic calling and the necessity to live together
with one another in more than just Sunday
services and you'll be rushing to the communion
table and you'll be leaving for something more
than an emblem by the way I take
communion every morning by myself because I'm up
early and have a time of devotion with
the most high or you wouldn't be getting
very much now because what a man expresses
publicly is what he in fact is privately
before God you're receiving the benefit of all
of my unknown and unrecorded daily times with
the Lord that are not distinguished by great
senses of his presence but by faithful attention
to the book of Psalms the book of
Proverbs other scriptures to which I'll be directed
the remarkable writings of Oswald Chambers of Spurgeon
morning and evening outstanding devotional material and waiting
on the Lord and praying as the Spirit
inspires and then I conclude by taking my
own communion I carry a little sack with
me with with matzo with unleavened bread and
a little flask of wine and if we
don't have wine we'll take water but every
morning I need the fresh impartation of the
most high I need to be strengthened in
the inner man and I have a faith
to believe that what I am taking is
more than just what it is as natural
elements and certainly much more than symbols as
your faith is so be it unto you
and all of that begins by just recognizing
that there's an end toward which we're moving
and everything needs to be a contribution toward
that end and that that opens you to
the attack of the opposing powers of darkness
who ventilate their spite upon us and brings
us to a place where we are in
a felt disjuncture with the world wow that
is a mouthful when you begin on a
course of conduct and mentality like that how
long will you be one of the boys
how long will you be good fun and
acceptable and and a nice guy and a
christian too you will find yourself in a
conscious and growing disjuncture with the world you're
no longer as comfortable in it in fact
now you're beginning to see through it and
those things that purport to be ostensibly good
are for you more apparently evil than evil
itself you have discerned you have developed discernment
because it's easy to discern what is evil
but to recognize that good that often motivates
us out of sentiment because it's nice and
acceptable and makes people feel good is likely
more inherently evil than evil itself if it
keeps us away from the obedience to god
in truth you're able to see through what
purports to be good and recognize that in
what the world endorses as good and the
church also sanctifies and condones is the most
vicious evil of all if it satisfies us
with some superficiality by which we get by
and lose our apostolic significance you know you
go on like that you'll feel like a
stranger and a pilgrim and a sojourner in
the world it's a strange it's strange to
feel strange and there's something in us that
is human that wants acceptance wants a nice
pat on the back that we're one of
the boys we are christians but you're acceptable
also we don't want to come to a
place where we're so abnormal in our attitudes
and our perceptions and our eyes are filled
with things eternal and we're not motivated and
moved by the kinds of things for which
others are laboring diligently that we will be
looked upon as strange one of our jewish
brothers whom we brought to community his mother
not only had him to meet with rabbis
but with psychiatrists because he had lost his
jewish distinctive he was no longer concerned with
his success and she was sure that he
was mentally deranged how could he you know
how could it be a nice jewish boy
and not be concerned with his success because
he was taken up now with a whole
other realm of concern that was transcendent and
eternal that in his jewish mother's eyes was
an alarm he had changed so that he
had to be sent to a psychiatrist the
man was out of his mind he was
walking by another beat he had another set
of values but what he represented was definitively
real and her alarm was predicated on what
is essentially false and i'm asking you you
want to be apostolic it's not a cutesy
little game that you play by taking on
a nice vocabulary you will be at odds
with the world you will be in disjunction
it will not mean to you what it
means to others you'll feel uncomfortable and you'll
make others uncomfortable just by what you are
in yourself who want you to confirm them
in their relationship with the world but your
very indifference to their values and success makes
them to be threatened and therefore the way
for them to solve the dilemma is to
get rid of you one way or the
other and the whole history of the true
apostolic church that unbroken continuum is the history
of persecution unto death not by the world
but by religious bodies that cannot stand the
apostolic reality because it blows the whistle on
its fraudulence and shows it to be synthetic
and false and only superficially religious and the
way to get rid of that threat is
to get rid of them so the hutterites
and the the mennonites and all of these
uh radical wings of the reformation their whole
history is filled with violence with rejection with
persecution being cast out and moved to other
countries because they their presence could not be
tolerated by religious bodies who wanted to enjoy
a status quo and did not make any
requirement of its believers and uh and whose
religious leaders were flunkies and public officials who
baptized them in a and gave them certificates
of citizenship but here were earnest believers they
were called in german die stille im lande
the quiet ones in the earth no noise
nothing conspicuous but the quality of their life
look how they love one another no man
thought that the thing which he had was
his own they had all things common those
that believed were together in a real togetherness
that was more than sitting alongside each other
in pews and and retreating back to their
privacy when the service is over they remained
they were in community they had a lifestyle
there was a mode of being that was
heavenly and those that are in the earth
religiously cannot abide the presence of those people
and the only answer is to get them
out or to burn them at the stake
or to take the young girls and tie
them back to back and dump them into
the rivers that flow through the city zurich
and expunge their presence because their presence blows
the whistle on the fraudulence of the religious
profession that calls itself christian you know what
i believe we're going to see the reiteration
of that in again in the last days
are you prepared for martyrdom why me if
that's your attitude you're not prepared but to
count it privilege and you don't have to
go out and look for it it will
be the logic of a truly believing life
as for me i'm not expecting to die
in bed in fact this may well be
my last trip going to malaysia and indonesia
where a jewish christian and american head would
be a trophy and if not there then
somewhere else but the logic of a life
truly lived in god invites martyrdom and it's
not some masochistic thing over which we become
maudlin m-a-u-d-l-i-n
which is falsely sentimental the remarkable thing is
that should that be the conclusion of our
life the logic of a life rightly lived
we count it privilege we obtain a crown
which will be able to lay at the
feet of the lord an eternal honor because
we're living in the realm of what is
eternal and the momentary suffering that by which
our death has come as martyrs is counted
privilege and not fate the true church is
a martyr church not that we will necessarily
have to suffer such an abrupt extinction but
we're living in a particular way martyrdom is
a lifestyle by which your life is not
your own isn't that what it says in
revelation they overcame him by the blood of
the lamb the word of their testimony and
they did not love their lives unto the
death that's definitive christianity you dear saints how
close are you to today how are you
how close are you willing to come and
be fitted to stand in that dimension in
the last days and not be among those
who dwell in the earth they'll either be
the heavenly minded or the earth dwellers and
the earth dwellers will not be able to
stand the prophets few though that they be
whose words torment them and when these prophets
are killed they give each other gifts because
they're rid of the nuisance of such men
whose indictment they could not bear there's two
classes of people at the end of the
age earth dwellers and the heavenly minded paul
had his citizenship in heaven what does that
mean that's just not where he was registered
it's where his thought had its origin his
purpose his understanding his inspiration his values he
his life was essentially lived from that place
and from that center well art such a
heavily minded man has got to be irrelevant
in the earth that's how much you know
the fact of the matter is because he's
heavenly minded he will be the more relevant
in the earth who is it that gives
the church counsel on how to take communion
how to deal with this with the erring
sinner how to restore such a one back
to the faith what to do with the
widows what to do what to exhort slaves
paul is full of practical immediate counsel all
the more because he has his citizenship in
heaven and i have to say in all
love you guys are not sufficiently heavenly minded
the earth is too much with you and
i've never seen an environment in my travels
all over the world less conducive to heaven
than singapore this is a tidy little society
that you have here it's nice i mean
the housing the the sections even the great
apartment buildings the shopping sections the apartment department
stores the traffic the cars is there so
much as one bruised battered rusty vessel a
vehicle in the whole of singapore is every
vehicle flashy and new and shining and resplendent
my god is this make-believe is this
for real is there any tragedy around here
is everything comfortable and cozy and nice and
this is either the best of all worlds
or the most deceptive so brother what's the
alternative get your eyeballs into the apostolic scriptures
be imbued with that reality that is timeless
and be suffused with it so that when
you look out on singapore it has lost
its its glow and its radiance it doesn't
seduce you you can take it leave it
you can walk through it as one untouched
because your eyes your being your thought your
your whole purpose for being is caught up
and identified and fortified by what is in
the holy writ of the things that are
yet to come the things that were you're
connected with that past and you're aiming for
that future and that consummation and conclusion and
because you are you're out from this world
and you'll look at and and people will
know it and no one will be more
offended than other christians who think you're going
too far now and you're too radical now
and you're not the fun that you used
to be you're so serious now and occupied
with something that can't quite be expressed or
defined but it robs you from being one
of the boys one of the nice guys
that used to be counted on as fun
and you're willing to pay that price such
a people who are not who are in
disjunction with the world and at enmity with
the world that is at enmity with god
who know who see its systems as false
and whose values are discerned and are consciously
repudiated therefore become a statement of the kingdom
to come because to the degree that they
have broken free from the influence of the
world and are marching to another beat and
have another anticipation another set of values and
reason for being they are already exhibiting that
kingdom which is to come the church is
more than the place for a succession of
services it already begins to show forth the
configuration of a heavenly kingdom they have a
kingdom orientation a kingdom consciousness kingdom expectation which
celebrates the king they're not satisfied with benevolent
political rule through men they're looking for a
kingdom whose authority is god's and righteousness shall
dwell in the earth because they love righteousness
this distinguishes them and it's a word that
you can hardly even define in fact all
of the great words are beyond definition you
can't run to the dictionary i'm sure you'll
get something but these are the words that
need to be intuited and appropriated and you
know you have them as i so often
say when the juice runs in your mouth
when it's sounded you love righteousness do you
love truth you understand the glory of god
forever these are things that don't lend themselves
to mechanical understanding but rather to appropriation to
absorption to taking it into your being you
love righteousness and there's an integrity that is
more than just a self-conscious keeping of
your nose clean you don't become a little
stuffed shirt who's afraid to say this or
do that you you live in a wonderful
freedom because you're freed from the level of
rules and regulations that govern the insecure and
are afraid of missing it and you're living
in a transcendent wonderful freedom that is predicated
upon righteousness that is intuited taken in you
sense it you know it that what is
right in speaking and attitude and thought that
conduct and you love the god of righteousness
whose righteousness will pervade the earth and therefore
anything that is unrighteous that is manipulative that
is discriminatory that is self-seeking makes you
to wince you're chafed by the unrighteousness that
is implicit and inherent in the world and
will not subscribe to it in the slightest
even to for your own advantage to get
a diploma or finish school or be honored
or have a title when it becomes an
issue of integrity before god you'd rather lose
the benefit of the material thing that in
any way you should compromise your integrity in
the sense of righteousness in order to obtain
something for which you lust because you resist
those earthly lusts not because they're necessarily sinister
but because the origin is out of the
earth and not from above anything that calls
for your emotion your participation your involvement that
can be reduced to earthly lust is not
because it's grotesque or necessarily profane vulgar obscene
or pornographic but because it's earthly the only
desire that is not lust is that which
issues from above the identification of things that
the lord would have you to desire because
you're free to receive and move by that
having broken the power of earthly lust and
seduction titles success you don't automatically go to
college or university to obtain a career you
consult the lord first what would you have
for me to do it could be you
don't intend that i should have a title
a career maybe what i need is the
kind of character training that comes by taking
up the public garbage and if that's your
intention for me that's what i will do
because your government my government must be upon
your shoulder for of the increase in the
piece of it is without end i will
not assume anything that you're required to come
behind to condone and to authorize as if
of course everybody knows you have to make
a living everybody knows you have a profession
everybody knows you have to go to education
to get it no not everybody knows the
lord is not lord until he has been
consulted until he's heard because we don't come
before him with any predetermination of our own
as to what we think appropriate for ourselves
we allow him to give us the disposition
of his heart and will that might confound
every thought that we thought that was appropriate
to ourselves that he would necessarily endorse and
unless we come to him like that and
desired the revelation of his will even if
it cheats us of our own ambition and
embrace that will and delight ourselves to do
it how is he lord and if he's
not lord then what are we doing playing
a game and saying lord lord when he
in fact is not and we're arbitrarily and
independently making our own choices our own decisions
plotting our own course our own life our
own future and then come on sunday and
and sing his praises lord lord that's where
the powers you have can look down and
say jesus we don't pour we know but
who are you we see right through you
we know what is the truth of your
life and if you are not true on
the issue of his lordship you're not true
in anything you've made the word lord a
kind of beep and a a verbalization it's
lost its meaning and if it's lost its
meaning there where is their meaning anywhere i'm
still on page one so we know that
we're involved in a great moral cosmic drama
whose conclusion is felt as imminent what does
that mean i double m i n e
m t it means it's at hand the
kingdom of heaven is at hand the conclusion
of the age is at hand the judge
is at the door we're moving toward that
conclusion and it's not in the in the
far distant future it's about to be realized
it's now there's a certain immediacy and expectation
which paul inculcated in the churches that were
raised by him who expected the lord's coming
and that he would save them from the
day of his wrath they lived in the
sense of the imminent expectation of the lord's
coming who brings with him rewards to distribute
to each person according to their works we
have lost that sense you dear saints and
when we say come lord jesus we don't
really mean it we don't really expect it
and we don't really desire it after all
our careers are not yet completed our purposes
and our ambitions are not yet fulfilled so
take it easy lord don't rush there's no
jealousy for his coming and his kingdom we're
losing that component which distinguished the church in
the paul's time though it was 2 000
years further away from it than we and
they lived in that expectation which is to
say it brings a dynamic a sense of
urgency and importance because you're expecting the lord
who will come in as judge not to
have that expectation is to lose that urgency
to lose the fear to lose the awe
and to settle down into a kind of
one day like another one sunday like another
hoping that this sunday in spiritual roulette will
hear a word that will really give us
a momentary flush of excitement but we're not
moving toward a conclusion which we feel is
imminent and at the door all of this
constitutes apostolic authenticity and constitutes a serious threat
to the powers of darkness who hold the
whole whole world in check living in bondage
to fear and to the and to present
earthly lusts we'll know that we have attained
this when we can persuade our own children
when our own children are persuaded that what
we as adults are about is ultimately real
and earnest and sees the degree of our
sacrifice in the attainment of it how shall
they withhold themselves when our children have drifted
away and are drawn off to the world
and its amusements and its technology and its
computer manipulations and all the games and things
that excite them something is amiss in denmark
we have not attained a reality that we
would be expressing not consciously in order to
win them but all the more powerfully because
it's unconscious because it's unintended it just comes
out we're about something so earnest and so
real that even our children are persuaded not
only then to attend but to participate so
we can always measure the degree to which
we are moving toward this reality to the
degree to which our own children have been
drawn to share with us in the attainment
thereof if they are drawn off by the
world then what we are about is not
as compelling to them as it is to
us and that should be an important index
for our consideration and a kind of a
reality check oh there's so much here corporate
prayer worship is not a technique a methodology
it's it itself is the statement of the
truth of those from whom it emanates our
real intercession prayer and worship is not something
that we add on it's the expression of
what we are and i'll show you how
foolish we were in our own history as
community our worship exceeded the truth and the
reality of our life together we had gifted
musicians and we could get lost in an
aura of what's the word euphoria that music
itself by its nature can generate so you
know what we did we covenanted with god
and said lord don't allow our worship to
exceed the truth of our life let it
be in constant tandem and be the expression
of the measure of reality that we have
with each other and with you right after
that if you come into one of our
meetings you put your fingers in your ears
you never heard anything more discordant than off
key and voices and because that's where we
were and so we mustn't allow the worship
to deceive us that we ourselves can produce
out of our own musicality to give us
a euphoric sense of a spirituality that we
have not yet attained better to to be
the reflection of the truth because when when
worship issues out of that truth it's worship
indeed and is more than just affecting the
atmosphere of the meeting and the lord waits
for it to be blessed by it and
our praise our prayer is exactly the counterpart
of our worship true intercession and true prayer
will be the reflection of the truth of
our life together and not just a mechanical
obligation or religious obligation and we're going to
need true prayer there's saints because we're in
a battle we're in something really earnest now
and we need to pray because among the
other obligations that we have of which we
are conscious even though they be few in
number is to move the Jew to in
the locality where we are where there are
two synagogues in Singapore none of which have
any cognizance of the existence of the church
in that city so long as it leaves
them alone not once have they been challenged
by the sense that there's a presence here
issuing from gentiles of a kind that stirs
us in a remarkable way because what they
exhibit is what we Jews ordinarily ought to
be expressing but don't but they are seen
to be in a more authentic covenant relationship
with the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob
than we so Paul answers the question in
Romans is God finished with the Jew the
Roman church thought so they had every right
to think so they crucified their own savior
they stoned their own prophets Paul said God
forbid you should think that they have only
momentarily stumbled and fall but through their fall
salvation has come to the gentiles and leave
it to Paul not to end there but
to say so as to move them to
jealousy listen you dear Chinese and other saints
there's a purpose for your salvation beyond yourself
and if that were not so you would
have brought the disposition of egocentrism out from
the world and into the church now it's
your meetings your faith your enjoyment your spirituality
me me me my is it's just changed
its content it went from carnality to spirituality
but it is still powerfully egocentric and the
only thing that can break that is the
recognition that the purpose for your salvation is
beyond yourself and for another and and it's
another whom you never would have chosen or
considered it's the Jew what have we to
do with them that strange people God says
they have stumbled and fall fallen so that
salvation should come to the gentiles so as
to move them to jealousy and I want
to say you will never be the apostolic
entity in this city and in this nation
and be a sending place into the world
until you take that mandate to your heart
seriously it's not to be measured by the
number of Jews available to you but by
your consciousness of this mandate and calling that
God in his wisdom has ordained for the
church and once you take it to heart
it's amazing the things that will follow there
will be contact there will be confrontation there
will be challenge Jews will be aware of
your presence will want your your prayer will
want something from you all the more as
they move increasingly into an age of threat
and peril as anti-semitism is sweeping the
globe and they want something more and they'll
need something more than just your evangelical superficial
affinity the issue of the Jew is the
issue of the church and it's an issue
that hasn't even begun to we have not
even begun to consider and why should you
as gentiles consider the Jew and what is
more anomalous I can't even spell that then
that a gentile Christian who is Asian and
Chinese or Indian or Malaysian should be occupied
with the subject of the Jew as if
this is not just another ethnic minority who
also needs the gospel but as the foremost
consideration of God as the chosen people who
have a yet unfulfilled destiny and will be
brought to it through the salvific role to
which the church is called thank you lord
I got that out I'm not expecting them
to understand it but it's on record and
they will be brought to that understanding because
it will transfigure them it's God's blessing for
you to be taken up with a people
other than yourself whom you would not have
chosen and have them as the object of
your deepest concern because being a people who
know that we're moving toward an end and
to a conclusion and consummation know they are
at the heart of that Israel's destiny her
fulfillment her restoration her return to God is
the issue of Zion is the issue of
the theocratic rule of God that must come
forth from the holy hill the word of
the lord must come forth out of Jerusalem
and the law of the lord out of
Zion or it'll not come forth at all
and it waits on their return to God
and to the land not the present state
which is a step toward that which must
fail before the other succeeds but that must
come into your consciousness because it will do
you a world of good it'll enlarge your
whole understanding of the mystery to which you
are called expressly to fulfill that is beyond
any capacity that you have however well-meaning
however intelligent however sincere that is to say
you can only fulfill it on the basis
of the everlasting life on the basis of
the supernatural resurrection life and power of God
that raised Jesus from the dead that is
to say you'll have no effect upon the
Jew and therefore what shall you have for
the Greek unless you affect the Jew out
of the power of his risen and ascended
life you've got to be vessels for the
incarnation you've got to have this treasure in
your earthen vessel and live from that treasure
which the schools in Singapore have not instructed
you to do they want you to live
out of yourself out of your own brightness
out of your own capacity your own intelligence
your own humanity you'll never succeed with the
Jew or the eternal purposes of God for
them through you on that basis we're called
to be sons and daughters of the resurrection
more than just those who subscribe to the
correct doctrine but are living eminently out of
that power how else can we be such
a church well have I said enough I
have to cut this short in righteousness and
I've hardly gotten into page two about the
issue of the cross the risen and ascended
Christ life which has consciously and willfully been
sought and recognized as primary and central well
you know what the catch is about that
you can't have that life and live out
of it and abide in it so long
as you're retaining your own natural life one
thing one thing or the other has to
go you can't speak two languages through the
same mouth you can't speak in other tongues
if you'll not let go of your known
language something has to go good though it
is in order to obtain the heavenly alternative
you're going to have to pull the plug
on your natural life that is to say
not live from your confidence in it and
trust that he's in you to willing to
do of his good pleasure and that if
you'll be willing to die to your own
self-sufficiency and trust him for the enlargement
and power of his risen life you'll experience
it in fact you're hearing from God from
me right now on that basis few Christians
know anything about this but the moment you
start to take seriously the intention of God
that you should be an apostolic entity in
the earth in the last days you are
of necessity brought to the issue of the
risen and ascended life of Christ that is
only available on the basis of death resurrection
must be proceeded by a death to the
very thing that the world has encouraged you
to develop your own natural ability propensity talent
and to cast yourself and trust on that
that you're Christians who speak the right vocabulary
but the life out of which you live
is not his but your own his great
works will never be allowed to be attained
on that basis think on it believe for
it desire it and be willing to forfeit
your confidence and trust in that which is
natural try it as a teacher as I
did who had five classes a day in
an interracial community of black militant radicalism that
hated whitey and I had these students in
my class because I taught a compulsory subject
history and all they were waiting for is
the first opportunity to rise up out of
their back seats and to do whitey in
because they had no intention of succeeding they
were failed from the beginning and they wanted
to ventilate their racial enmity and hatred as
the man who symbolizes the institution that they
despise so the only way to prevent that
is to maintain control by the exercise in
the exertion of your own natural ability and
power but I wasn't getting anywhere my intention
was more than just conducting a class or
giving students grades my intention was to touch
them for eternity I had more access to
them than parents if they had parents or
pastors if they were church attending and if
something didn't happen in my classroom a secular
classroom they were doomed who's sufficient for those
things I was exhausted after the second and
third period you could pick me up with
a blotter and so I said lord I
was a young believer lord I don't have
it I can't and my colleagues are telling
me to take it easy and conserve my
energy or else I'll be victim but I
know that I've got to pull out all
the stops and trust you because I read
in the bible that there's a resurrection from
the dead and that because you live we
will live also so I'm gonna not conserve
my energy I'm gonna pull out the stops
I'm gonna exhaust myself with these students and
I did by the second third class I
was reeling my tongue was cleaving to the
roof of my mouth my head my mind
I couldn't think my eyes were squinting and
shutting and I was just beginning to see
these bullies coming up out of the back
seat finding their opportunity in my weakness because
the resurrection will not come till the real
death not an approximate death not the vocabulary
of death to self while self is very
much alive and even strengthened by the deceptive
vocabulary there's a death we need to taste
and not fear and submit ourselves unto the
end of ourselves because in that moment just
as I was fading there was no basis
for hope in man in that moment something
began to rise up in my legs and
up into my cavity in my chest and
my head my eyes blinked wide my tongue
was loosed and I began to speak with
an authority and a penetration that kept those
guys in their seats and subsequently filled the
entire youth section of our Pentecostal assembly by
conversion in a secular classroom in the power
of God in the wisdom of God that
issues with his life when we will pull
out the plug of our own confidence and
dependency upon ourselves and trust him so let
me pray for such a church here Lord
what a high calling we have in Christ
Jesus and how pathetically have we fallen short
of it and have learned to play church
and conduct it admirably and impressively but we're
falling short of the apostolic glory the powers
of the air are not threatened they're yawning
at us and so we're asking my God
for a day of new beginnings for apostolic
intention which we know will not be cheap
which will cost us something and we're willing
for the cost anything that will save us
from eternal embarrassment and shame that we have
lived entire Christian lives beneath the glory of
God we've not affected our society we've not
impressed the Jews we've not missed moved them
to a jealousy we're hardly even conscious of
their existence in our community and our one
Sunday is like the other and we're still
rooted in our own selfishness seeking our own
thing our own pleasure our own satisfaction our
own enjoyment only now it's not just carnal
now it's spiritual but it's still egocentric ourselves
break that power Lord loose us from that
wrong center and give us a center which
is your glory your honor your eternal purposes
by which we cannot conceivably fulfill however well
-meaning but only on the power of your
life for those things that are of you
must be fulfilled through you that to you
might be the glory of God forever and
if we are not a church who has
at its deepest center this one thing the
glory of God forever how then are we
the church that is deserving of your name
Lord give us even now a repentance a
broken heartedness for our shallowness that we had
to wait for you to send a Jewish
character to berate us like this before we're
conscious of these things that we should have
long before understood give us my God a
spirit of breaking show us how essentially selfish
we are and that how modest our intentions
toward you are yes we were serious and
sincere but not in the way that would
threaten our status quo but in a way
that would become comfortable and compatible with our
own self-interest and yet be Christians save
us from that hypocrisy that play acting that
duplicity that falling short communicate to us the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus that
can only be fulfilled through Christ Jesus risen
and ascended who is the life of our
life the thought of our thought the speaking
of our speaking the love of our love
the power of our power that we might
say with Paul for us to live as
Christ come my God do something even today
in transaction by a people who have a
whole fresh and new intention of themselves with
you and know that it will cost something
and are willing and counted all privilege for
we ask that in Jesus holy name and
God's people said