If you're a little bit staggered by the
fancy word, I think I invented it.
It's already a standing joke with the Ben
Israel people.
Apostolicity.
Because it's much more than just apostle or
apostolic.
It's an all-inclusive, all-embracing word.
And God has been drilling my heart to
show me how central it is to everything
in His purpose.
Maybe you'll understand a bit as we just
quote from a familiar scripture in Ephesians.
Now, therefore you are no more strangers and
foreigners, but fellow citizens, which are saints of
a household of God, and are built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
We are built upon the foundation of the
apostles and prophets.
Not just what apostles and prophets teach, what
they bring, what principles they express, but what
they themselves are.
You are built upon the foundation of the
apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself the
chief cornerstone.
And if it's the cornerstone of Jesus himself,
the foundation then is the apostles and prophets
themselves.
It's far more than the matter of teaching,
far more than the matter of correct principles
or correct doctrines.
It's correct men.
Because what distinguishes the apostolic church is not
that it's some kind of organization that operates
according to certain correct and abstract principles, but
that it's a living and palpitating organism made
up of men.
What they are through and through.
And I believe with all my heart that
the apostolic church cannot rise above or exceed
the condition of its apostles.
And therefore the issue of what is true
apostle or true apostolicity is an enormous question
for us all.
Because I believe already that there is a
phenomenon moving in the midst by which there
is that which is not true, that which
is sane, that which is false and inauthentic.
And if there is something inauthentic about our
apostolicity, we have had it.
By its very nature, if the church is
to be glorious and to be apostolic, it
must be true.
To be false is a contradiction in terms.
That's what makes it glorious.
So I want to quote a little bit
from a newsletter.
In fact, it's this present issue of a
lead article which I wrote in some expression
of this theme.
I won't read it all.
But I begin by expressing something that was
sounded on a recent ministry trip to New
Zealand where there were two prophetic leadership conferences
and a number of believers coming from different
parts of that country.
At the beginning of both conferences, they took
a poll and sounded out the reason why
these people had come to this particular conference.
The whole thing was so vague and so
ill-defined.
What is a prophetic leadership conference?
I don't know how the title was even
discovered.
But it was interesting that a great many
made the same kind of response.
We have come to the end of our
charismatic tether.
We sense that there is a further dimension
which eclipses what we have known and had
hoped in, but we don't know how to
identify or even find it.
We have come hoping that the Lord would
reveal it here.
I continue by saying, I wonder how much
this expresses the heart of God's people today.
My impression is of an organic, swelling cry
rising up to heaven from the earth for
a real, personally transcendent and significant Christianity that
is not and cannot be found or experienced
in anything less than that which is truly
apostolic and prophetic.
Yesterday's charismatic enthusiasm is fading now that the
novelty is past and our inner man is
increasingly smitten by the hollowness of our once
titillating choruses and spiritual catchphrases.
But what is that which is authentically apostolic?
How can its messengers be identified?
How is it to be obtained?
This much is certain.
If we are to make of that which
we have made of the more recent subjects
of discipleship, the body of Christ, submission, etc.,
it will be the cruelest delusion of all.
God save us from yet another word game,
from institutionalizing or systematizing that which is apostolic
and holy.
You understand what is being said here?
That we can do with that which is
apostolic what we have done with that which
is charismatic.
We can make of it a fun and
games.
We can make of it a new kind
of vocabulary.
We can be just as glib and facile
and hollow with apostolic phrases as we have
been with charismatic phrases.
And we need to be on our guard
because if we produce and lessen that which
is apostolic, there are no further alternatives.
That's it.
That which is apostolic is true and holy.
It's the hope.
It is the authentic thing given of God.
And we have to be careful lest we
find ourselves merchandising in it as we have
merchandised the things that have come before it
in our own generation.
Already numbers of men who have a penchant
for traveling and a brusque ability to quote
set things in order are publicly advertising themselves
as apostles or prophets.
Many of these are likely self-appointed amateurs,
crude apprentices appropriating scriptures and holy things whom
the head of the church has not sent.
See, this is the heck of it.
That anybody can appropriate the phrases.
They're there.
Anybody can take them to themselves and begin
to develop a kind of facility for the
speaking of them.
That's exactly the danger.
And we think because we employ the vocabulary
that we are it.
But I want to tell you that an
apostle is a very formidable phenomenon that goes
far beyond the ability to speak apostolic catchphrases.
And I intend tonight and in the other
opportunities that are given me to address myself
wholly to the theme that by the end
of these days that through me and through
others you shall have a very distinct knowledge
and impression and understanding of what true apostolicity
is.
Surely the things that are apocalyptic are at
the door.
The church of Jesus Christ shall soon again
be commended for having tried them, quote, which
say that they are apostles and are not
and has found them liars.
This is an end time phenomenon and is
already current now in the experience of God's
people.
What we must pray for, seek and wait
upon are apostolic prophetic men whose understanding and
commission has come from God and who like
Moses, who is the master archetypal builder before
them, are the meekest of men upon the
face of the earth.
I'll just insert something even into my own
statement that a phrase came to my attention
once where a brother writing about this theme
used the phrase apostolic meekness and I was
so bowled over by the conjoining of these
two words that it has never left me
that when I had an occasion once to
hear one purported to be an apostle and
broke my neck to get at the church
to hear this man whose reputation is national
who has a penchant for church establishing or
maybe I should say franchising more like McDonald's
hamburger chain that I came winded and out
of breath to sit in and catch at
least the last ten minutes of his speaking
I wanted myself to see the phenomenon of
a true apostle.
And hardly two minutes had elapsed in the
hearing of him that I nudged the brother
who was with me and said to him
if this man's an apostle, I'll eat the
pulpit.
You say, how can you in two minutes
have come to so conclusive an understanding?
I'll tell you how.
Because whatever he was saying was so touched
with bombast was so inflated gave so much
the aura of ego and self-conscious authority
that he, by the virtue of the expression
of that spirit nullified himself as being a
candidate for an apostle he simply did not
have an essential necessary attribute apostolic meekness.
Moses had it and there's a reason why
such men must have it and I hope
to explain to you why and how.
For what they have, what a true apostle
has is received in communion with God upon
the mount to which they have been sovereignly
summoned and will not presume to ascend themselves.
Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and
causest to approach thee that he might dwell
in thy courts.
Psalm 65 verse 4 And the Lord said
unto Moses Come up to me into the
mount and be there and I will give
thee tables of stone and the law and
commandments which I have written that thou mayest
teach them.
My intention is to speak from Exodus and
from the verse that I have just quoted
and hope by it in an examination of
the life of the first great true apostle
to show you the quintessential, classic and eternal
elements that must be in every apostle and
everything that is apostolic including the apostolic church.
So precious God, such a task as this
requires your enablement and the grace of your
spirit.
We roll up our sleeves, Lord, with delight
for it's a formidable task and a meaningful
task and we want to be saved from
that which is false both in men and
in ourselves and in our own fellowships lest
we find ourselves toying with things that are
holy and robbing God's people of a last,
final and true hope.
My God, may you put something in our
hearts of such a burning character, such a
kind such a vision, such a sense that
we will seek for such men who have
met you on the mount and who come
down to teach us that which you alone
have given and not just a mere banding
about of principles and the establishing of franchises.
Help us now, my God, because this is
in your own great high priestly and apostolic
heart and we'll thank you and praise you
for the sounding of such a theme in
such an hour as this the privilege of
hearing and receiving such a word in Jesus'
holy name for such a kingdom.
Amen.
Well, you can turn with me to the
book of Exodus in the 19th chapter we
find the first invitation of God to Moses
to ascend the mount and the description or
the reference to the mount itself of which
I think we have been guilty of dismissing
as a symbol of the law that somehow
Sinai has been replaced by Zion and I
want to say that we're already on dangerous
ground if we have so glibly put away
so enormous a phenomenon as this mount in
this wilderness I hope one day to ascend
that mount myself at least as a respectful
and sensitive tourist if not actually to be
summoned up but I think that it's a
mistake to summarily dismiss it and not truly
understand why it was to this mount that
the great apostle and master builder were summoned
so in the third month after the sons
of Israel had gone out of the land
of Egypt on that very day they came
into the wilderness of Sinai and when they
set out from Rephidim they came to the
wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness
and there Israel camped in front of the
mountain and Moses went up to God and
the Lord called to him from the mountain
saying thus you shall say to the house
of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel
you yourselves have seen what I did to
the Egyptians and how I bore you on
eagle's wings and brought you to myself now
then if you will indeed obey my voice
and keep my covenant then you shall be
my own possession among all the peoples for
all the earth is mine and you shall
be to me a kingdom of priests and
a holy nation these are the words that
you shall speak to the sons of Israel
so Moses came and called the elders of
the people and set before them all these
words which the Lord had commanded him let's
try and make a beginning I think that
it's altogether significant that Sinai is a wilderness
because that betokens the fact that it is
completely unmarred by anything that men can touch
or do it is absolutely bleak absolutely barren
and there's nothing more or less than that
which God himself has given and it's I
think altogether significant that that's the setting in
which the call comes for the apostolic man
to go up because as we'll see from
the whole unfolding of this as I plan
to go on with it that there's nothing
of man that can intrude that the call
of God does not come in some million
dollar headquarter building or some Jerusalem of men
or some religious institution or any such thing
but comes in that which is absolutely unspotted
by anything that men can touch or alter
or change it's the wilderness as God himself
has given it and even a very distinct
wilderness a Sinai which means my thorns and
maybe it's good that it should be that
because that of itself automatically disqualifies great numbers
of men who would in their carnal hearts
have apostolic ambition but they don't have apostolic
character they don't have apostolic mettle they don't
have a heart that is willing to come
to a wilderness place and to a thorny
place let alone to ascend the mount alone
which is there praise God for that and
that eliminates in one fell swoop all that
are facile, shallow, glib attention seekers, the egotistical,
the bombastic and all the other kinds of
guys who are making sounds to be apostolic
and who are not there's a pattern here
from the very first that demands our deepest
attention and I praise God for the genius
of it that his call, this high call
because the church cannot exceed its apostles it
rises and falls with the quality and the
condition of these men and these men must
be called in this place and in no
other the thorny wilderness and they camped in
front of the mountain would to God that
we had such an opportunity a mountain soon
to be wreathed in fire and with thick
clouds and thick smoke and with shaking and
with quaking so awesome that it will keep
us from our fornication and all of the
other kinds of debilitating things for which already
the statistics are mounting of men who are
falling and apostolic leaders and heads of fellowship
who are biting the dust by running off
with the organist or a council lead any
such thing there simply is not the requisite
fear of God in us that is one
of the true central and intrinsic characteristics of
apostolicity if the fear of God is out
it cannot be the church of God we
need to be reminded again of that quaking
site we who have so goodly dismissed this
mountain as the law I'll tell you there's
something to be said for the law and
the righteousness of the law which God has
never forgotten which cannot be obtained by law
but only by those who walk in the
spirit that the righteousness of the law might
be fulfilled or made manifest I just want
to remind you tonight that God has not
forgotten his righteousness and the church that does
is no longer apostolic two central necessary ingredients
deep, awesome fear and reverence of God and
an abiding and profound awareness of the righteousness
of God which somehow adheres in this great
mount before we need to camp and fill
our eyes with the sight of it or
we cannot go on everything which seems to
be attached to the word charismatic has already
come to mean in our generation that which
is contrary to what I'm describing glib, anxious,
easy, facile disrespectful divorces and remarryings and all
of the kinds of hanky-panky things that
betray and reveal an absence of this kind
of awesome fear of the mount of God
I think it's good for us to be
brought back to that mount and I think
it's out of that mount that a rock
is cut without hands a stone without hands
that shall crush and destroy and pulverize all
of the kingdoms of this world and shall
be an everlasting kingdom itself it's out of
this mount that it's cut the mount of
righteousness to which God summons the apostolic men
and an apostolic people and we cannot ascend
until his voice summoning us calls any man
who dares go up himself at his own
initiative and at his own time is finished
there are bounds and restrictions that need deeply
to be acknowledged and any people that have
not a stomach to acknowledge the restrictions of
God are already disqualified from being apostolic oh
I'll tell you there are riches here guys
that we have too quickly dismissed and Moses
went up to God and the Lord called
to him from the mountain saying although it
says Moses went up before the Lord called
I don't have the slightest hesitation to say
that he did not dream to take but
a first step until he heard that voice
and I would say a requisite for a
man who has a true apostolic calling is
a willingness and the ability to wait until
he himself hears God's distinct call come up
here that's the thing that distinguishes the bombastic
amateurs from the true there are too many
clawing their way up because they've learned to
a certain facility with scriptures and how Paul
did it and are able themselves to give
the same kind of exhortation and counsel and
advice and think themselves to be the same
kind of men there's a going up but
it waits upon God's own time and any
man who will not wait and any church
that will not wait is ipso facto no
longer apostolic an apostolic man in an apostolic
church and you can say it in the
same breath because they are the one and
the same the church and the man is
one who waits one has such a sense
for the reverence of God's place and the
reverence of God's time that he will not
exceed or take liberties with either got the
idea?
thus shall you say to the house of
Jacob and tell the sons of Israel you
yourselves have seen what I did to the
Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's
wings and brought you to myself and in
that one statement the Alpha and the Omega
speak both the beginning and the end of
all things that's the whole purpose of it
all to bring us to himself in truth
and apostolic men are those who shall guide
God's people that they might be brought to
himself as a habitation for God by the
Spirit this ultimate and final and true union
between God and men is the whole purpose
of all apostolic leading a final communion with
God that we might be a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation these are the
words that you shall speak to the sons
of Israel so Moses came and called the
elders of the people and set before them
all these words which the Lord had commanded
him taking note add this an apostolic man
not only will find his own place or
his own time he will not either find
his own words he'll only speak that which
the Lord has commanded him I marvel to
read that such a one as Paul says
pray for me that utterance might be given
that I might speak the mysteries of Christ
as I ought when Paul makes that his
prayer request what shall we say who are
much lesser men how dare we presume to
speak our things so Moses came and set
before them all the words which the Lord
had commanded him come up it says in
Exodus 24 and we'll be seeing that tonight
or tomorrow some future time and I will
give you the law that you may teach
them if he doesn't give it what shall
we teach oh we can find it ourselves
we have concordances and bible study guides and
lots of tapes and if we want we
can take some notes and become studious and
appropriate ourselves certain apostolic and biblical truths but
it's not that which is given and therefore
you are rendered invalid to teach them that's
why we hear so much prattle that is
biblical and yet unimpressive it does not have
the ring it does not have the power
it doesn't have the penetration and the authority
which only comes from that which is given
on the mount that you may teach them
there's no possibility whatsoever except it be given
and I'm one of those stubborn holdouts that
have suffered a long embarrassment because I was
not the first in my neighborhood to be
able to talk about the body of Christ
I'd heard it from Charles Smith and heard
well but it was not yet mine by
virtue of hearing it through another man it
was good to hear it and to receive
the instruction but I'm not in any place
to teach or communicate holy things from the
mount of righteousness until it is given on
that mount by a God who summons me
up and my heart is to wait to
hear from such men and we should hear
second hand versions of two things that are
somehow not true because they have not gone
up because they have not received and therefore
they have not qualified to speak oh guys
if there should be such a jealousy in
you for this that is true that when
you hear the word apostolic you actually salivate
the juice forms in your mouth because it's
a word so pregnant with meaning it's so
charged it's glorious the high priest and the
apostle of our confession and if it's not
priestly it's not apostolic and if it's not
apostolic it's not priestly it needs to be
like him who is the high priest and
the apostle of our confession I'll tell you
if you come out of this camp with
nothing more than this the deepest reverence and
awe and respect for that which is apostolic
you have had good days it is to
be jealously guarded because already there are those
who say that they are apostles and are
not I know a certain young snot knows
myself great guy and called of God and
talented and precious fellowship and he has an
ability to teach and now he has a
call from another fellowship a little bit more
distant in the same city and he has
been released from his own fellowship to fulfill
the apostolic calling to go to this other
thing in the same city who are in
need of teaching and what I said to
his wife let him go but if he
dares use the word apostolic about his going
I'll kick him in the rump let him
merely serve and let him teach but let
him not adorn himself with the title already
someone has come to lay hands upon him
and pray for him from out of town
and to confirm his apostolic calling listen guys
I'm getting a little itchy that already we're
too close to a kind of fun and
games thing about that which is holy, holy,
holy I don't think that this young brother
has yet been in the place of his
thorns and has known the place of wilderness
let alone been summoned up to a mount
that he dare presume to take that word
upon his lips as a description of himself
and any man who already wears the label
makes me suspicious let alone it should be
on our office doors or that we should
refer to each other as Apostle John or
Prophet so and so they're the meekest of
men something more like the spirit of Mary
who me?
you mean me?
I'm continually staggered about the high priest and
the apostle of our confession who knew his
calling and who walked in it superbly and
yet as you survey the gospel and listen
to him speak and get the whole sense
of his demeanor and spirit and attitude you
get the sense of such an utter mindlessness
about himself there's no sense of any inflated
consciousness that he is the son of God
though indeed he is and even when he's
required to say such things it's with such
a what shall I say a seemly attitude
with such an inoffensiveness such a mindlessness such
an absence of vanity of any kind that
you're not at all even pricked or adversely
affected by it may we have such apostles
may we have such prophets who speak only
that which is given on the mount the
12th verse well let's read a little before
that all the people answered in the 8th
verse together and said all that the Lord
has spoken we will do and Moses brought
back the words of the people to the
Lord and the Lord said to Moses behold
I shall come to you in a thick
cloud in order that the people may hear
when I speak with you and may also
believe in you forever when Moses told the
words then Moses told the words of the
people to the Lord and the Lord also
said to Moses go to the people and
consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them
wash their garments and let them be ready
for the third day for on the third
day the Lord will come down on mount
Sinai in the sight of all the people
and you shall set bounds for the people
all around saying beware that you do not
go up on the mountain or touch the
border of it whoever touches the mountain shall
surely be put to death no hand shall
touch him for he shall surely be stoned
or shot through whether beast or man he
shall not live when the ram's horn sounds
a long blast then they shall come up
to the mountain another thing for your notebook
a function of the apostle is to set
bounds right from the beginning you shall set
bounds by the bounds that are established by
him whom God sends I remember Yugoslavia giving
counsel to a young Pentecostal pastor who had
stolen the daughter of another Pentecostal preacher and
had run off with her and they eloped
and the father's heart was so grieved that
they had not consulted him and that this
young upstart had taken this liberty that though
they returned later to the congregation and then
later on broke from them and formed their
own congregation there's a schism a split a
painful separation right within that same Yugoslavian city
between father and son-in-law that goes
all the way back to the means by
which he obtained his wife and so I
just said to him brother I would commend
to you a going to your father-in
-law and asking his forgiveness for the usurpation
of his daughter that you did not seek
his blessing and his will and his time
and I said if you will not I
prophesy that you are going to be haunted
with men doing to you and in your
fellowship what you have done to him usurpations
runnings off and every kind of disobedience and
recklessness if this thing is not healed at
its root he said well who are you
to tell me that I just went silent
who am I to tell him that rather
it's a kind of a question like what
are you willing what value are you willing
to give this council do you think it's
just a matter of opinion in the passing
or do you see it as one sense
speaking the words of God for you to
receive and to do as God is setting
bounds and definitions and restrictions and requirements for
you to obey it's a matter of choice
and because men will choose not to observe
the bounds that God imposes through those whom
he calls to that degree and for that
reason we are yet not an apostolic people
I'm developing such a love for restriction freewheeling
saints that I have been in times past
coming to such a profound respect for the
genius and the wisdom of God that hedges
us in and sets bounds and in a
way that I cannot explain it I already
delight for the paradox that the key to
true apostolic liberty in the glorious realm of
spirit is to submit to the bounds that
God establishes through men there's freedom to be
found in the restriction when the ram's horn
sounds is another restriction not before then shall
you come up it's not a sound to
be made by men but it comes on
the third day with the thunder with the
lightning the flashes the thick cloud and in
the 16th verse a very loud trumpet sound
ram's horn not even an instrument fashioned by
men so that all the people who were
in the camp trembled and Moses brought the
people out of the camp to meet God
and they stood at the foot of the
mountain and Sinai was all in smoke because
the Lord descended upon it in fire and
its smoke ascended like the smoke of a
furnace and the whole mountain quaked violently I
don't know that we shall ever be privileged
to see such a thing but one thing
for which I could devoutly pray that the
sense of what people received who had that
privilege might also be communicated to us and
I cannot tire of repeating often enough the
necessity for the restoration if that word is
the heart of God in this hour the
restoration of all things surely one of the
foundational things is the fear and the reverence
of God who makes a mountain to quake
and to be wreathed in fire and thick
smoke by his very presence and his coming
it alone shall save us from our fornications
and hanky panky from the liberties that we
would otherwise take is to be reminded and
to have this fear restored by men who
can bring down the sense of it who
have been up and communed with this God
in fire we cannot gain it abstractly I've
broken my head to find out why it
is that this is so absent from our
experience and I have finally concluded it cannot
be abstractly communicated we cannot make it per
se a teaching we cannot have a bible
study on the fear of God and come
away with the fear of God we may
come away with a knowledge of the fear
of God but not the fear itself what
we need is something of the very aura
and the very presence of that quaking of
that fire of that mountain reed by men
who have been up to it and have
been in communion with that God in fire
and on the rare occasions and the privilege
that we have to meet such men we
know it and their very presence communicates that
fear Finney would be a wonderful example in
the illustration that we all know when he
came to that textile mill being shown around
the mill and as a woman saw him
approaching she began immediately to break out in
trembling and as he came closer her trembling
was so violent she could barely steady herself
and when he came closer still and she
beheld his face and his eyes she fell
to the floor by her machine and cried
out for the mercy of God to save
her and he had not yet even opened
his mouth to speak a word I think
he was a man who had been up
to the mount he knew God in his
presence he communed with Him in fire wreathed
in smoke and brought something of that awesome
thing down which is so desperately lacking in
our church today when Jacob saw the vision
with his head on the rock of the
church the Bethel of God the house of
God the first word that came out of
his mouth was how dreadful is this place
and dreadful doesn't mean biblically and spiritually what
it has come to mean secularly dreadful means
full of dread full of awe full of
fear and the reverence of God or it
is not the Bethel of God it's not
the house of God it's not the gate
to heaven if this is not restored to
the degree that it is not we are
not apostolic we're chintzy we're glib we're easy
going we're facile we speak the right words
have the right terminology but we are not
authentically apostolic in fact inexperienced because we have
not the knowledge of the fear of God
who makes mountains to quake when his presence
alights upon us the whole tenor of our
generation is exactly the opposite Jesus is our
pal our buddy buddy we can take his
name on our t-shirt it's a kind
of a genie lamp to rub when we
want something to happen for our good a
convenience a mail order house for boyfriend girlfriend
health prosperity or any such thing we have
completely lost or have never known the fear
of a God who makes the mountains to
quake and if you think that you're an
apostle or a candidate for such this needs
to be eminently in your soul such a
knowledge of this God in fear that it
can be communicated even to men without your
speaking and I don't think you'll come to
it no man can except he's first willing
to endure the wilderness of thorns and ascend
this mountain in God's call and in God's
time and not before if you're presumptuous if
you're demanding if you're itchy if you're impatient
if you want the esteem and the acknowledgement
of men if you itch to have the
label assigned to you you're disqualified you know
what made Moses meek?
was meeting this God in the fire faith
fulfilled this presence this awesomeness this dread did
something to him that made his faith blanch
and drained Moses of anything that he had
that was Jewish that was impetuous that was
human there's a reason that he was six
days in the six clouds before he was
summoned up on the seventh day into the
fire you don't have to be clever to
figure out what the six days require a
complete emptying of all that six signifies namely
that which pertains to man that which is
bumptious that which is presumptuous that which is
opinionated that which is hot shot and carnal
and self-conscious and super spiritual and all
of the other kinds of things that make
false apostles false and make the false apostolic
church false for the church cannot exceed its
apostasy show me a candidate who is willing
to be six days in the six clouds
don't think it's marshmallowy and billowy it's smoke
from the fire of his presence and if
you've never been in smoke you don't even
begin to understand what six days in that
experience must be some of you may know
that Judah building had burned down a couple
of years ago and it happened the night
that the Katz family was sleeping in it
started by some mattresses and pillows that had
been stuffed by the wall heaters in a
very cold November night when we turned up
the heat not recognizing what was alongside those
wall heaters and only to wake up by
someone shaking me to say ah there's a
crackling noise in the living room and I
ran out of bed to see the flames
already shooting up the wall and turned on
the spigot to get some water and out
came the thinnest dribble and all I could
do as that fire crackled and took hold
was get the family out soon enough before
the whole building was going up and the
place was filled with a thick smoke my
dear wife wanted me to go in and
to get her handbag and I had other
precious things right on the counter of the
kitchen as you guys know that building I
had the tapes of all of my ministries
the master tapes on the counter which I
was bringing up here to have in our
cassette room from which we would duplicate and
send our copies so I was going to
make one quick trip in and get my
wife's handbag and maybe these tapes one of
those things well I know that building blindfolded
I know it by heart I've been in
there a thousand times and I ascended in
and I wasn't in but a moment and
the thick smoke got me and I was
completely and totally disoriented I couldn't tell my
left hand from my right I couldn't remember
where I'd come in I didn't know where
the door was I didn't know where the
counter was I was completely lost to anything
that pertained to my human understanding my memory
and my knowledge it is a fearful experience
and indeed if we had a statistical survey
of people who have perished in fire you
would know that more have perished from smoke
than from flames more people more bodies have
been found charred or smoke killed one foot
away from freedom and from life than can
ever be but did not know that they
were one foot away because the smoke engulfed
them okay you hushed up still want to
be apostles?
you want to ascend up into that wilderness
and that mountain into that smoke and abide
in that for six days and wait for
the seventh day's call and the rest in
the Sabbath of God that's the condition and
I'll tell you in those six days you
won't remember a thing that you think you
know all of your pithy sayings and all
of your wonderful overviews and systematic knowledge of
that which is apostolic will be completely lost
in the smoke you'll be bereft of anything
that is humanly understood that he might give
you afresh from his own hands that which
he alone can give that you may teach
there's a heart in me to wait for
such a man to come down from that
mountain there's a heart in you to go
up because I don't think that the condition
or the requirement is any less in our
generation than it was at the first this
is the pattern for all generations and the
Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the
top of the mountain and the Lord called
Moses to the top of the mountain and
Moses went up then the Lord spoke to
Moses go down warn the people lest they
break the truth of the Lord for days
and many of them perish it says in
my margin for the word perish fall and
I think that many of us have fallen
for just this reason we have not received
an apostolic exhortation in the authority of the
apostle to observe the bounds and the restrictions
of God and we've gone up to gaze
we've gone up in our curiosity we've gone
up in our carnal desire to see or
to have a coffee time virtuosity to speak
certain things glibly we've wanted just to cease
our eyes and fulfill our curiosity that's a
no no God is not an object for
being gazed upon you can see but you
cannot gaze you cannot fill your curiosity you
cannot learn apostolic glorious things merely to have
a bag full of catch phrases that you
might sound clever or witty or informed that's
gazing as a formula for falling and for
perishing that's why there are bounds and restrictions
to keep us at the foot of the
snob until we shall hear God call us
by name up and not to ascend before
I missed the scripture there the fifteenth verse
he said to the people be ready for
the third day and do not go near
a woman I don't know how to make
any comment about that without what shall I
say seeming injudicious or disrespectful or prejudice but
I just intuit something that I don't know
that I can find words I think any
guy who enjoyed his wife or vice versa
prior to the advent of the coming of
God upon the mount is not a man
who deserves such a seeing and such an
experience you know what is betoken to me
that it's just another meeting that somehow we
can enjoy this and that that somehow no
special necessity for consecration or setting up of
ourselves aside from our pleasure is a necessary
preparation for the holy and awesome event of
a God who comes and a mount raised
in fire and in fact that very spirit
is the essence of the charismatic spirit all
this and heaven too sleeping with our wives
and enjoying our pleasures and a good meeting
too because after all what is church anything
more than good meetings you understand what I'm
saying is there a heart in us so
devout so consecrated so understanding so intuiting the
holiness of what is about to break upon
us and be revealed before us that we
cannot go on with a business as usual
mentality that requires a setting side of all
things even that which is legitimate and alright
and I'll do in a total preparation for
an awesome event and because we have not
been willing to give this consecration we have
not received this experience and we have been
satisfied with something less called good meetings rather
than the visitation of a God who comes
down you need to hear this by the
spirit well the Lord's coming tomorrow but tonight's
tonight and you know what's the difference there
is a difference somehow the difference of heart
that will not set aside a pleasure that
can be obtained later a gratification that can
be deferred for something that is immediate and
holy you better put that in your notes
because I've just given you a definition of
what apostolic church is a people that will
defer gratification for that which is holy and
if it's apostles will not defer how shall
the people defer if the so called apostles
are running off what shall we expect from
the congregation as the priests so also the
people as the apostles so also the church
which is built upon his foundation we simply
cannot afford false apostles or we shall find
ourselves being a false people in the 24th
chapter of Exodus where again Moses is summoned
to the mount the 12th verse the Lord
said to Moses come up to me on
the mountain and be there and I will
give you the stone tablets with the law
and the commandments which I have written for
their instruction King James says that thou mayest
speak to them I love this speaking of
God come up to me on the mount
and be there and I will give you
I want to tell you that a condition
for receiving from God is being there but
if you're going just to receive you're not
going to get what did he say?
what I'm saying is so important I'll repeat
it until you get it come up to
me not to expediency come up to me
not because I'm able to give you but
because I'm me come up to me in
communion for my own sake and be there
totally in body, soul and heart and mind
and spirit and I will give you but
if you come up merely for the expediency
of getting you're not coming up that's not
a true coming up and it's not a
being there oh guys if I can rub
that into your spirit if you can understand
what is being said there why it is
so necessary that the apostle come up on
that condition alone because if he will not
if he is speaking only to come up
for what he can receive that he might
teach if God is only to him the
convenience that gives if he is not himself
to come up totally in all that he
is in his humanity in fullness of man
what then shall he communicate coming down because
if the apostolic church is anything it's a
people who are total before a total God
in mind and soul and body and spirit
who can be there it's a people who
can hear you and not hear you who
are distracted even while you're talking to them
whose minds are restlessly considering something of tomorrow
while you're speaking to them now if their
marriages are commonplace and black dash there's not
an intensity of relationship and quality of life
between themselves if they're not there with each
other how then is it apostolic they need
to know what it means to be there
they cannot know it any more than the
man who goes up upon whose foundation such
a church is built because that's what he
brings down that thou mayest teach them is
more than just virtuoso ability in communicating the
word it's not only proclamation it's demonstration of
what it means to be there if an
apostle is anything he's a total man so
he's not an apostle he knows how to
go up and be there I hardly have
words to express what I'm trying to get
at my heart knows it but it has
not yet reached my mind but this I
know that we are eminently superficial shallow casual
indifferent glib we don't understand that the very
heart of our calling is a relationship of
a total God calling to total man totally
to be there and if we are not
that ourselves in our experience and in our
own relationship with each other and with him
how then are we apostolic we're just a
bunch of plastic charismatics who have a more
apostolic vocabulary come up and be there come
up to me and be there and I
will give but if you come up with
a motive of giving it's not a true
communion can you understand what true church is
it's communion with him there totally for his
own sake and if you have any other
motive any other qualification any other reason for
going or being it's not apostolic it's vain
it's selfish it's religious if there's anything that
can be described as apostolic it's a total
communion between God and man and it needs
to be revealed what that totality is needs
to be revealed by apostolic man we need
to see what a living demonstration is of
total man now can I just make a
confession of an unwilling participant in in camp
dominion convocations and why every summer I have
a sense of dread before the opening of
the first convocation I'll tell you why this
summer is better than any previous one by
the way and that is because I know
the property is going to be flooded with
thousands of souls it's because I know by
virtue of their very numbers that there's no
way that I'm going to be in any
kind of real relationship with them by virtue
of their numbers and the brief time that
we have together I know that of necessity
we're just going to be like ships chanting
in the night and we're just touched but
superficially and I'm not one who can bring
myself to nod and to grin and to
how you're doing and to give you a
slap on the back I'm just going to
look glum I'm going to look pained I'm
going to look terribly out of it because
I am because what the heart craves is
that totality and I don't know how we
can do it God is going to have
to give us some transcendent way in the
brief time we have to find that penetration
in relationship with each other that is more
than just the casual touching of each other
internally because if we will get accustomed to
that and that shall be the character of
our relationship sweet pleasant friendly nice a pat
on the back a little chuck under the
chin and a word we shall not be
an apostolic people because it is eminently a
people who have learned what it means to
come up and to be there for its
own sake if we have not learned it
with God we shall not be able to
express it I don't know of any more
profound teaching that an apostle has to give
than this because if we cannot communicate that
we shall be victims of something less and
we shall be a self-seeking church that
looks upon meetings and the blessings of God
as something given for our pleasure our satisfaction
and not understand that it is what it
is we need to come to a place
that is so disinterested so void of our
motives of our seeking that finds its delight
merely in being there totally and to come
up to that is no easy going up
because we have been the product of a
shallow civilization that has taught us to get
by with just a phrase just a word
just a grin just a back slap if
you want to come into this kind of
authenticity of relationship both with God and men
you cannot accept your sin it's interesting how
revealing it is to pray with different men
some men whom you've known for years and
you say I'm really burdened let's pray before
this meeting tonight it's really enormously important oh
yes they're quick enough to agree to pray
and you go down on your knees with
the particular man and as the praying is
going on you recognize that he's praying his
prayer and you're praying your prayer and somehow
there's not a real communion between the two
and with God because I don't think that
anything more reveals the shallowness of relationship than
the quality and the character of prayer that
we are able to make rightly the surgeon
warned his students that the first evidence of
superficiality and loss of relationship with God and
truth is the shallowness and the superficiality of
our public prayer we have to learn again
what it means to come up and be
there not for what we're going to get
but just simply because he bid us come
unto me and I will give the stone
tablets with the law and the commandments which
I have written that you may teach them
so Moses went up into the mountain in
the 15th verse and the cloud covered the
mountain and the glory of the cloud the
glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai
and the cloud covered it for six days
and on the seventh day he called to
Moses in the midst of the cloud note
the conjunction between the word glory and the
word rest the moment that rest is not
there glory is not there either the moment
that striving is there the moment that impatience
is there the moment that restlessness is there
the glory departs the glory of the Lord
rested and still does and will never come
forth in any other condition but the condition
of rest good things will come forth and
happy meetings and good teachings and all other
kinds of good things but the glory of
God is eminently and uniquely to be found
only in rest whether it's on mountains or
upon mountains and on the seventh day he
came up hallelujah finished with the six days
business in the thick smoke and there he
abided for forty days in the presence of
God the eyes of the sons of Israel
and to the eyes of the sons of
Israel the appearance of the glory of the
Lord was like a consuming fire on a
mountain top and Moses entered the midst of
the cloud as he went up to the
mountain and Moses was on the mountain forty
days and forty nights something happened in that
intensity something happened in that fire something more
than tablets were given something more than a
message provided the man and the message were
fused the man became the message and the
message to man and man wished to God
who gives it that when he came down
there was a glory on his face that
brought a respectful awe and fear to those
who saw him and the thing that awaited
him below in the very moment that the
law was being given men were traducing it
by making a golden cap below to come
down with the tablets of the law to
see this sight of a people rising up
to play breaks the heart of an apostolic
man and except that you have a heart
to bear such breaking and such disappointment you're
not going to be God's apostolic man interesting
that he commanded that that golden idol be
ground to powder be pulverized and they were
compelled to drink it and nowhere do I
hear so much as a limper of complaint
well who were you to say such a
thing because he came down not only in
meekness he came down in authority because he
had been up to the mount and he
was there with a God in fire and
his face the aura of his being communicated
the authority which he had received and can
only be obtained in that place that not
so much as a voice was raised in
opposition to what he required that apostolic authority
that can only be obtained in that place