If I don't have the same cheerful countenance
as Derek, it's because we're cut out of
different bolts of cloth.
He comes leaping like a roe, always delighting
in the microphone, and I come like a
snail.
For me it's always an agony, always with
deep sighs and groans, and wishing that the
floor would open and swallow me and that
there's some other place that I could be,
especially tonight.
Not because of the offering, but because of
the thing that's on my heart, because I
already have a reputation for being the bull
in the spiritual china shop and taking things
by the horns and being indelicate and lacking
tact and causing furor and storms and all
that kind of stuff.
You're not helping me repent.
It was true.
I want to speak in the spirit of
the three dominant prayers that have been breathed
for this Convocation.
If Larry will remind us all, one was
for a freedom in the spirit, the second
was for a spirit of restoration, and the
third, dealing with self-complacency.
Well, what is in my heart, my touch,
all three bases.
The kind of thing that usually falls to
me to do is not to deliver fixed
set pieces, but more and more it's an
event that I'm involved in rather than a
message.
And what's on my heart has been born
not out of study of a word or
a theme, so much as the event of
recent days pertaining to the very serious decision
by a body of responsible men to cast
another brother out of fellowship to excommunicate him.
The actual verse that was employed in the
letter that was sent was to give him
over to the devil for the destruction of
his flesh that his spirit might be saved.
That was the first time that I have
ever been involved in any dealing of that
kind, anything as profound and as total and
as serious and as earnest as that.
I was not there in the eight hours
of discussion that preceded that decision, but had
I been there, I would have assented completely
with that decision and felt that it was
necessary.
And then, as you've already been informed, the
brother who was involved presented himself here with
the statement that he was going to attend
these convocations, that we had asked him privately
to refrain from coming.
And then we faced him yesterday, and he
came nevertheless.
But this morning, in a meeting of the
elders and responsible brothers, he expressed a note
of repentance, asked apology, and spoke of a
dream that he had had.
And I think that the general consensus was
to take this at its face value and
believe that it's sincere and authentic and a
step in the right direction for the restoration
of a brother.
And I also hope and pray that indeed
it is authentic.
But it's the word authentic that is in
my heart tonight, and all through the day.
Maybe I've not yet sufficiently recovered from our
experience of only a week or so ago
in Winnipeg, where, by the Lord's providence, I
was a speaker at Jesus 79.
I had one earlier such experience, I think
in 1973 or 1974, the first of these
Jesus rallies, and that was enough.
I vowed then, never again, I would never
again be part of this carnival outdoor atmosphere
of women in their halters and shorts and
cracking of gum and the stuffing of your
face with potato chips while you're hearing what
ostensibly purports to be serious words of God
from the platform, and the whole atmosphere just
chilled my soul.
But when this invitation came for Winnipeg, despite
my determination, I felt that it was God,
and I went.
I wasn't supposed to be a speaker at
the general sessions, but as is the format
that is now increasingly becoming popular in these
big charismatic shindigs, there's a large general assembly
at night, but then the morning sessions are
given over to the denominational and non-denominational
charismatic groups, and I was invited to be
the speaker at the Baptist charismatic group, so
how could I refuse?
So novel an invitation as that.
And indeed, those speakings were blessed.
Well, it fell to me to sit on
the platform on the night of the big
general meeting where an internationally known speaker was
the message bearer for that night, and unlike
all the others that entered into the general
merriment, I sat there like a glum lump.
I was completely out of it, hurting, actually,
stunned and mortified at some of the statements
that I was hearing made, and the whole
happy atmosphere in which these statements were being
received was a general sense of hokiness.
I don't know of another word like it.
I don't know how the English language has
gone on this long without an adjective like
that, a sense of artificiality, of things synthetic
and feigned, of having the appearance of things
real but being somehow false, although it employed
real words, really meaningful terms, phrases out of
scripture, references to the unity of the body.
I don't know what your reaction would have
been had you been in my place and
you had heard the speaker saying that he
had taken to task a Pentecostal minister at
a previous Jesus rally who spoke on the
issue of sin and repentance, and he castigated
this man because he felt that such kinds
of speaking would interfere with the spirit of
unity.
Another statement was that let's forgive the Catholics
for unity's sake and that there's no point
in pressing past issues in that kind of
spirit and sense.
And there were prophecies that came that night
from a certain assemblage of men who were
called the word unit, Catholic charismatic men who
ostensibly have a gift in prophecy and who
write them out on yellow legal pads and
give them over to an overseer who then
calls them to the microphone at the appropriate
moment to speak to them.
I'm just describing my impression, a terrible sense
of unreality, all the more because it was
couched in things that are very real.
You understand what I'm saying?
Well, by the end of the night, my
spirit was such that I couldn't wait to
leave the platform, but unfortunately I was assigned
to bring the benediction at the conclusion of
the night, and I somehow felt that I
should not be involved in anything that took
place that night.
I should not lend myself to anything that
took place and be part of it.
And so I went over and tugged the
sleeve of the man who was presiding at
the platform and I asked to be excused
from the obligation of bringing the prayer of
benediction.
I said, let someone else do it or
end in some other way, but instead he
called my name.
And so I came to the microphone in
that terrible agony and frustration that some of
you might know, and all that I could
do was to ask them to stand up
and take off their sun bonnets and visors
and come to a posture of respect before
God and to sing with me the Lord's
Prayer.
And that's the way the night ended.
The Lord sort of bailed me out without
further embarrassing implication and involvement.
But as I was leaving the platform, a
lave man who was in charge of arranging
for these sessions asked if I would be
available for the general session the following morning.
And at first I abruptly said, no, I
want to say I'll have nothing to do
with this at all.
But then I said, only if God gives
me something specific.
And so we went where we were staying
that night, my spirit still bruised and still
pondering that night and our response to it.
Those that were in the car with me
had reacted in a like manner.
The young lady at whose home we were
staying said that she thought that the raucous
noise of that night was something akin to
the noise that Moses must have heard coming
down the mount with the tablets of the
law.
And that statement stuck in my craw.
It embedded itself in my spirit.
And I woke the next morning still thinking
of it.
And we drove to this open park where
this rally was being conducted, where I had
to be the morning speaker at this Baptist
section and discussing with my colleagues whether I
ought not indeed take advantage of the invitation
that was given me and speak a word
distinct and different than other than the kinds
of things they had been hearing.
And we prayed together because I didn't want
again to fall into that role of bringing
that kind of word.
And so without making any haste to get
there, in fact hoping that we would be
too late, we parked the car and walked
to the platform where the public meeting was
taking place at the very moment when it
was time for the speaker to be announced.
They had already assigned another speaker in my
absence.
But when the man saw me come up
the steps of the platform, he immediately called
to me and they rushed me right to
the microphone.
And so I began in the spirit of
please pray for me.
There must be something grievously wrong with me
that prevents me from entering in to the
spirit of general merriment that prevailed last night.
That I could not sit there through the
night and listen to the statements and rejoice
for them.
And that as a matter of fact I
shared the impression of this one that I
described to you and read from the scriptures
in Exodus of Moses coming down the mount
with the tablets of the Lord to hear
the noise which was not the noise of
battle nor the noise of victory but the
noise of singing.
And I said I have the impression also
that it was this kind of noise that
characterized last night.
And it has much to do with that
earlier event in men and women impatient to
wait for God to come down the mount
with the real thing.
And therefore simulating something like it but not
it.
A golden calf of a substitute kind and
dancing and prancing about it.
Imagine how these words were going forth.
And even as I had been walking up
to the platform that morning I heard one
of the so-called prophecies in which the
speaker was saying I the Lord have been
with you through this weekend I've given you
my spirit and I'm going to do this
and I'm going to do that and for
me it was as leaden as anything could
be without life.
And I said my condition is even so
bad I don't even witness to these prophecies.
And I wonder indeed that if my condition
is not some kind of idiosyncratic thing I'm
some kind of dyspeptic character who always seems
to find the negative thing but if it
somehow is an expression of the heartbeat of
God we might well ask whether functions and
events like this are some kind of massive
deception in which we have been inducted unwarily
and because the phrases have been so rich
and so suggestive and because our hearts have
panted after true unity in the body of
Christ and because we've been impressed with the
three or four thousand who gather out of
Catholic and Protestant ranks that we have been
willing quickly to call this that unity when
in fact it is not.
And if we can begin to explore that
maybe we need to ask also about the
validity of the whole charismatic phenomenon and whether
we actually have an authentic baptism in the
Holy Spirit and indeed whether we have ever
actually been born again of the Spirit or
from beginning to end we have been inducted
in one of the most colossal jobs that
has ever been perpetrated in the religious world
in all history.
Those were the kinds of questions that I
raised and then I invited as many as
would to come to the session where I
would be speaking immediately at the conclusion of
that morning session where I was to speak
on the Spirit of Truth.
There was a cry that was expressed by
one of the elders in the gathering of
the elders that preceded this convocation here.
We sat there awkwardly as such men will
in the first meetings when you come together
nobody wanting to break the silence nobody wanting
to violate against the Spirit of God and
introduce some carnal element but this brother, bless
him, had the courage to express the cry
of his heart which I believe is also
the cry of God's heart.
It was a cry for authenticity.
It was the cry of one who was
increasingly conscious of something plastic a film coming
over the religious world.
It was a man who had not broken
through that film and whose heart was desiring
that which is real with God and with
men.
It's also my own heart's cry and this
afternoon as I spent the entire afternoon pondering
before the Lord the events of this morning
a man making the statement of confession the
desire on the parts of those men who
were in the room so anxious for reconciliation
to receive such a word as being authentically
that of repentance no one knowing for sure
whether indeed it was or not and not
wanting to be the victims of well-meaning
intention knowing that we have responsibility and can
I just say a word about that that
the responsibility goes far beyond the issue of
the individual involved.
Can I say that it touches the whole
issue of the validity of the church of
Jesus Christ in the earth.
It touches the whole issue of the government
of God whether it's a mock or a
truth.
It touches the whole issue of whether indeed
there's going to be in the earth an
actual kingdom of heaven that can be recognized
and discerned not only by those who make
it up but by the world who presses
their nose to the window to look in
and to behold the enormous phenomenon of people
living in the truth and in love.
It touches all these issues when serious and
responsible men will come to a determination to
cast and give a man over to the
devil for the destruction of his flesh.
I would say that this is an ultimate
judgment not to be done in pique or
irritation or because it dismisses a...
an irritating problem and well they were right
in taking eight hours to come to such
a conclusion.
In fact, if you would know the tens
and the hundreds of hours that preceded discussion
and involvement with that same individual you would
know that the whole thing was very soberly
considered from beginning to the end.
A whole fellowship had been devastated its members
dispersed to the winds it was a brave
work that seemed to us to be going
down the drain there was injury and damage
and bruising the issues were not light.
There was the issue for the individual himself
his own restoration there was the issue of
the preservation of that expression of the body
of Christ and beyond that there were the
larger and the eternal issues of the validity
of God's word of the seriousness of God's
men covenanting together to come to such a
statement of agreement and the necessity to see
it through to its ultimate conclusion.
And so I pondered these things as I
left this morning service all the more because
of the references to suffering to the cross
to atonement of the things that have been
paid for in excruciation in blood and agony
lest we find ourselves trampling on the blood
of the Son of God ourselves guilty of
some kind of plastic cheapy counterfeit kind of
charismatica when the cry of God is for
authenticity in the earth.
Would you believe it that I took down
a dictionary and looked up the word plastic
in that the word has been spoken so
often in these days?
Here are some of the meanings given in
the dictionary soft enough to be molded yet
capable of hardening into the desired fixed form
easily bent twisted or manipulated easily let an
influence lack of will and real character easily
modified to suit needs conditions or uses subject
to precious I'll tell you that a plastic
world is devoutly to be avoided but a
plastic kingdom is a tragedy of such proportions
that I could break down and weep for
the kingdom of God to be plastic subject
to precious and influences to accommodate and suit
the needs and moments of men is something
that cannot be considered I looked up the
word pseudo because I have a sense that
we need to be alerted for the kinds
of end-time deception the spirit of antichrist
which is already so rife you know where
it says in 2 Thessalonians that these things
shall not be till there be a great
falling away the Amplified gives an amplification which
reads this way let no one deceive or
beguile you in any way for that day
will not come except the apostasy comes first
that is unless the predicted great falling away
of those who have professed to be Christians
has come and the man of lawlessness is
revealed who is the son of doom of
perdition that's a little amplification that the King
James and other renderings do not give the
falling away of those who have professed to
be Christians I think there's a lot of
profession without actuality and in fact I have
invited and encouraged Derek to come up after
me tonight if there shall be sufficient time
and I don't know how long my remarks
will take to speak on a subject that
God has given him about the true being
born again of the spirit of God so
we're very much concerned with the things that
are plastic the things that are pseudo false
artificial synthetic imitative counterfeit the things that are
spurious the things that are false I even
looked up the word sham which says feigned
pretended a trick that deludes a hoax imitation
or counterfeit purporting to be genuine to act
intentionally so as to give a false impression
was this statement this morning of a brother
a true expression of repentance or was it
a sham was it feigned or pretended was
it a trick that deludes was it a
hoax an imitation or a counterfeit I'll tell
you that the answer to that question goes
far beyond this morning far beyond the individual
far beyond the men who are making such
reckonings it affects the whole corpus of God
it affects the whole body of Christ everywhere
in the earth and I am absolutely convinced
determined you cannot shake me from this that
what we will do with regard to this
issue shall affect the body of Christ throughout
this entire nation and in the earth and
it doesn't matter whether anyone else in any
other expression of the body knows of this
particular incident or not they will be the
recipients of our ability by the spirit of
God to discern the things that are authentic
or the things that are sham they will
be either the victims or the beneficiaries of
an issue of truth that was seen to
its ultimate conclusion or that was allowed to
slip by because of a disposition in men
to reconcile the nitty gritty thing after all
it's an irritation and a nuisance and how
long will this go on listen the guy
sounds like he's repentant why not take it
at his face value give him an opportunity
to demonstrate it and let bygones be bygones
I even looked up the word real not
artificial nor fraudulent illusory or apparent genuine occurring
in fact necessarily existent true if you don't
have to wipe the saliva off your chin
after hearing those words something is amiss with
you don't these things excite something in your
salivary glands my God are we so destitute
and so numb that we don't occur in
fact the very heart the knit the fiber
the texture of the kingdom which is reality
don't we understand that the world is freaking
out and dying for the want of it
don't we understand that there are men who
are going berserk and absolutely beside themselves because
of the meaninglessness of the universe that they
occupy looking for some novelty some cheapy some
diversion to take them through the length of
their hours because they have not glimpsed anywhere
that there is an alternative that is available
to them called the kingdom of God the
kingdom of reality it simply has not yet
surfaced nor been demonstrated by God's people dear
children if we need to be anything foremost
it is to be eminently real eminently loving
eminently living in the truth speaking the truth
walking in the truth doing the truth being
true it's much more than just being correct
or scriptural or doctrinally sound it's something that
is suffused right in the marrow and the
knit and the maw of your makeup it's
in your eyes in your speech in the
inflection of your voice in your posture in
your walk in your talk not artificial or
fraudulent or illusory or apparent but genuine occurring
in fact a true saint true conversion true
baptism in the Holy Spirit true utterance in
tongues true interpretation true prophecy a true word
of God I was sitting in Aud Bibi's
living room the other night and I just
my hand fell to the ground and I
the carpet and I picked up some publication
that he'd received in the mail and I
looked at the article because it said something
about that dearth of the word of God
that would come in the end times men
would be running to and fro to find
and to hear a true word and he
went on to speak about the oil crisis
always the interesting parallel between what is happening
in the natural world and what is happening
in the spiritual world the extreme crisis for
oil but nowhere near as extreme as the
crisis that is in the kingdom for the
holy anointing oil of God I don't know
about you but I'm starving for a real
word I want to hear an anointed word
out of the heart of God I want
a word that's incisive and penetrating that illuminates
and lays bare real words real gifts real
saints because there is real conversion born out
of real repentance and real godly sorrow nothing
feigned nothing illusory nothing deceptive nothing imagined nothing
counterfeit nothing substitute real I hope I'm not
presuming against God if I say tonight all
unreality is sin that the very God who
is true and his anointing which is true
anything that is inimical and opposed to that
God that is hokey and feigned and makeshift
that is a collaboration or a dealing or
devious or wrought by men or imitated or
simulated is sin and it has its corrosive
and its deadly effect not only in eternity
but in the here and the now all
nature and creation is groaning for true sons
for true fellowship and I would say that
part half of the the friction between Charles
and myself and our fellowships over the years
that have sometimes surfaced in the course of
these summer convocations has been this cry for
authenticity this sense hey, aren't you guys a
little too playful aren't you perhaps dangerously at
the doorstep of some new kind of gamesmanship
however attractive and however much it employs apostolic
vocabulary watch it far better we don't know
the words but have the corresponding fact than
we should deal in the words and have
only a pseudo effect of what it is
that we're so desperately seeking apostolic reality truth,
glory all unreality is sin it's the sidestepping
of the cross the avoidance of pain and
suffering it is through much affliction that we
enter the kingdom of God you know what
the temptation is to say okay brother, sure
you had a dream and you're saying repentant
words this morning why not let's forget this
terrible issue this division this strain this conflict
at our doorstep that continues to surface we
don't seem to be able to reconcile it
it'll be a relief to receive your words
as being sincere and I somehow sense that
and I'm not saying that the words are
not sincere but I'm only saying that God
has triggered something in my heart that goes
beyond the episode of these days to raise
the larger questions of authenticity before the body
of Christ are we willing for authenticity's sake
and for truth's sake not to take shortcuts
not to grasp at the first straw that
floats that seems to present the possibility of
resolution and an end of conflict are we
willing to see an issue pressed to its
uttermost because if we not if we are
not we may see men bend but we
are not going to see them break and
you may be content with bending but I'm
not I want to hear snap crackle pop
I want to see something crunch right at
the foundation of that citadel of rebellion and
self-will and independency of spirit and insubordination
and raucousness and resentment and hatred and bitterness
I want a breaking not a bending a
little dent which will soon enough pop out
again at the slightest provocation and I'm convinced
that's the issue of the cross and Charles
brought up this morning with the references to
suffering are we willing to enter into those
sufferings and share in those sufferings that we
might also experience his glory humanly we desire
shortcuts unwilling to suffer the tension of seeing
an issue through to its true resolution in
God see I'm struggling some issues of my
own isn't it interesting ironic that I should
be preoccupied with such subjects as bridal love
when I'm not a Derek Gitchin somber what
can I say God has given me the
theme but he has not yet given me
the corresponding reality and one of my own
tensions is not to jump the gun and
to simulate something of my own that has
the appearance of love and is not I
want that which cometh down from above however
long I've got to bear the terrible agony
and the reputation of lovelessness I don't want
a saccharine counterfeit a slap on the back
and a bear hug and a twiddle of
the cheek and some adept phrase that makes
me seem like one of the boys who's
really interested in you when I'm not I
want the burden from God for you as
I want the burden of God for you
for Israel and again not some sentimental thing
that will as easily burst the moment that
you're denied your petrol at the pump cry
for authenticity in God's people for if we
have it not how shall the world know
and see that there's a God who is
true and a kingdom that is true are
you willing to suffer the tension of seeing
an issue through to its true resolution in
God a precious saint I know in California
a profound woman of God said she had
more hope for my marriage than any number
of Christian marriages that she has known that
have started so beautifully and auspiciously when ours
has started almost from the beginning in wretchedness
and problems and difficulties of adjustment beyond speaking
I said how do you say that look
at the history look at the pockmarked history
of this relationship she said that's why she
said I don't man over to the devil
for the destruction of his flesh is to
be lightly disregarded and left that or to
be count demanded or sidestepped by some kind
of devious strategy if that were the case
it's the stake of the issue of truth
and the reality of God in God's people
it's the stake in the issue of the
corruption of deceit and sham as the very
leaven of deception which can permeate and corrupt
the entire lump you just let one phony
confession get through you give a brother the
benefit of the doubt because you're too lazy
or unwilling to suffer the truer resolution and
you allow to come into the lump a
leaven that will surely corrupt it and bring
upon you the very spirit of deception which
has affected him it's the issue of judgment
in the church and the judgments of God
being exercised through the church and in the
world you wanna know something dear children for
all of the hullabaloo about revival and this
great happy charismatic thing and the hundreds of
thousands that have been swept in my own
opinion is that the church of Jesus Christ
has never been in lower repute it's authority
more questioned it's character more assailed the dignity
and the honor of God more traduced the
name of Jesus more blasphemed than it is
in this present hour I'm broken over the
condition of the church because we have not
been jealous over the issues of truth because
we have chosen easier ways because we don't
have a disposition for tension and suffering God
has called the church to be a judge
and a government an exemplar and an influence
in society and in nations and in the
world instead we are a backwater a hiss
and a proverb a Sunday addendum providing the
ministers to invoke the sessions of congress with
prayer and the various other sanctifying things that
society will give us tax deduction for but
not the powerful alternative of another kind of
kingdom that lives in the totality of God's
truth and righteousness and love we ought to
be sobered by the fact that Christianity has
lost its witness and credibility in the very
areas of the world which spawned them the
church at Ephesus in Turkey have you been
to Turkey lately?
I have I've been to Ephesus and some
of the other vestiges and the archaeological ruins
of what was once the glory of an
apostolic church Muslim land from beginning to end
and what do you say about this Muslim
resurgence which flaunts in the face of God's
people a gauntlet that we can't even answer
have you had my experience of standing in
the church at Bethany outside of Jerusalem and
trying to speak a word on the resurrection
of Lazarus when out over the wall next
door comes the wailing of the electronic megaphone
of the call to prayer in the minaret
of the Muslim mosque that drowns out your
words and the spirit of it was intimidating
it wasn't a happenstance it was a malicious
gleeful delight of Islam in silencing the voice
of God through his service don't you ever
pick up a magazine do you know what's
happening in the world there's a Muslim resurgence
in the earth and a little handful of
believers that are in Muslim lands are going
to catch it you pray for us that
the Lord will seal the trip to Egypt
next spring where we've been invited to bring
a five day conference where the Egyptian saints
will face reproach and persecution suffering and martyrdom
how do you think that this Muslim Islam
resurgence has taken place where was God sleeping
or is it God's own statement and judgment
against a sleeping church that he has allowed
this phenomenon to taunt us and to cheapen
us and to disparage us in the world
in the very places where the church was
born there the Muslim resurgence flares up in
Greece the condition of the church is pitiful
beyond all speaking the land of the great
church of Ephesus and Thessalonica 400 Pentecostal believers
in all Athens and everyone divided against the
other you can't believe the pitiful condition of
Pentecost in Greece 4,000 Pentecostal in all
Yugoslavia in a land that is 50%
Muslim the church has lost its witness and
credibility in the very areas of the world
which spawned them societies and nations once acknowledging
the sovereignty of Christ had become totally secularized
even hostile to Christian witness was the process
of that decline and diminution different from what
it is today how much of the responsibility
for it was due to the failure of
men to earnestly contend for the faith which
was once delivered unto the saints and I
have a sneaky feeling that doesn't mean the
doctrines the tenets of the faith it means
the faith the utterness toward God the jealousy
for the righteousness of God for the truth
and the purity of his body we need
to contend for that faith how much is
it the same issue now we need to
watch lest we find ourselves among the many
that will have a form of religion but
deny the power thereof the stakes are enormous
it goes far beyond an individual far beyond
the decision of a body of men who
have responsibility in northern Minnesota it touches a
kingdom it will have eternal reverberations it has
to do with whether there shall actually be
in the earth a kingdom that has its
origin in heaven and shows forth heavenly things
to a despairing mankind a church that will
not be a backwater but will be a
leader not the tail but the head that
will set the tone for society and for
civilization and will show men what truth verity
integrity righteousness true love unfeigned is and it
has to do with issues like this now
the government of God and the integrity of
God himself the kingdom of God as an
actuality in the earth an alternative to a
plastic age to a bankruptcy of the spirit
in which there is no oil an answer
to the cry for authenticity final statement I'm
reading today a magazine about Christianity in Greece
this Greek spokesman writes if you were to
take away lay efforts the initiative of certain
labors in the gospel it is questionable whether
the church as an organized body could raise
up an army of warriors as an offspring
of her spiritual stature and of her historical
splendor the result of this situation is glances
of pity at her expense an extreme fomenting
of religious pride merchandising in religious things and
an inability to take a saving initiative and
to shake the ground of satan at its
foundations and to inflame the hearts of believers
an inability to take Take a saving initiative
in the world, a backwater, no influence, nothing
really to be regarded, a bunch of hokey
pietists at best, a little charismatic hand clappers,
little choruses that are innocuous, charismatic clinics that
affect nothing.
Where is that ponderous presence of God on
the earth, that force, that voice of judgment,
that clarity that teaches men how to live
and shows what truth is?
To take a saving initiative and to shake
the ground of Satan.
Paul I know and Jesus I know, but
the body of Christ in La Porte, Cass
Lake, Bemidji, who?
Spokane, Washington, who?
It's going to take an utterness toward God.
If the church is to have a saving
influence, to shake the ground of Satan at
its foundation and to inflame the hearts of
believers.
Will you pray for me for the church?
Will you understand why it is that we
have been trembling over the responsibility of these
days?
Why it is we're not so quick to
grasp at what seems to be the olive
leaf of peace, the sense of things plastic,
things famed, things hokey, things counterfeit.
Hail, hail the gangs all here, Jesus 79,
hokey things over the nation.
Great cavalcades, thousands of souls in their halters,
cracking gum and stuffing their face with potato
chips listening to pontifical addresses about let's forgive
the Catholic Church without the necessity for repentance
of the blood of martyrs that has flown
incessantly for 2,000 years.
Well, some hotshot speaker may have the privilege
of forgiving them, but it's not my prerogative
and especially without any evidence of true repentance.
Where's their breaking?
Where's their acknowledgement of what they have wreaked
on the Hutterites and the Mennonites and the
Anabaptists and the brave men and women who
were tied back to back and thrown into
streams to drown or were burned at the
stake or cut into pieces and flogged to
death?
I'm not so quick to pronounce a cheapie.
I'm waiting to see the authentic signs of
brokenness, acknowledgement of true sin, that there might
be true restoration, true reconciliation, true fellowship at
the cross of Christ Jesus.
Shall we pray for truth?
Precious God and head of the church, you
who gave your life's blood for your eternal
masterpiece, the church of Jesus Christ, that it
might be a glory unto thy name.
Lord, will you break our hearts, mighty God?
Would to God I could experience the relief
of tears.
Let this lump, mighty God, that is in
my chest break.
Let there be a groaning and a crying
and a writhing for the lamentable condition of
the church that bears your name in the
earth, that is a reproach to your holy
name, that is smiled at by knowledgeable men
and reporters and slicksters about the born-again
football players, the born-againers and all of
the cheapie phrases that touch holy things and
defile them.
Precious God, will you restore to us a
sense of reverence for you?
Will you restore to the church the fear
and the awe of God?
We're willing, precious God, to see your glory
and power restored to the point that if
it means some of us being carried out
feet first, we're willing.
Let the church be an awesome entity in
the earth where men are exercising by the
power of your spirit true government and true
authority, that their words shall not be smirked
at or laughed at or dismissed, but that
men would receive them with the appropriate tremblings
they deserve, that they might be broken and
not just bent.
Lord, if there are any of us here
tonight who are bent but not broken, we
ask your mercy.
See us as the pathetic victims we are
of a cheapie age.
Easy come, easy go.
Easy decisions for Jesus.
Why don't you accept him already?
Nobody had ever required of us a repentance
that we might believe.
How many of us are continuing to struggle,
Lord, with stubborn problems and habits and difficulties
that will not go away because we can't
stand the suffering and the humiliation of confessing
them to another?
We've been living in the spirit of false
confession and we're struggling with the same stubborn
problems that will not go.
Mighty God, will you help us?
Will you break us for the church's sake?
Will you purge us, precious God, of all
the plastic things, all that sugary stuff and
marshmallow stuff, of sham-fabricated affection and love
which is only human and passing and qualified
and has to do with whether we're in
a good mood or not.
Will you get that truth out of us,
Lord God, which people are so quick to
accept and give us a disposition even to
suffer, lovelessness, while we wait for that which
is authentic to fill our hearts?
Have a real people.
Have glory in your name, precious God.
Have a true church.
Be the influence in the earth again that
you ought.
Take back the territory that has been ceded
and yielded to Islam.
Let there be a vibrant church of Jesus
Christ again in Greece and in Turkey and
in Jerusalem.
Bring your people to true repentance and true
return.
We'll thank you and praise you, precious God,
for the love that pursues us and will
not let us go, for thy kingdom and
for thy name's sake.
Amen.
I have a concern on my heart, and
I don't know how to validly express it,
but my concern is that we don't try
to, even in our sincerity, sing away the
tension of this moment, but that whatever God
wants to do, that we allow him to
do that, and that we take time, if
necessary, to wait on the Lord in silence,
or we dismiss the meeting, or whatever the
Lord would have us do.
Amen.
It's not my custom to come before such
a large group, but I have a small
word for you.
I spent last night with a brother whose
heart is torn over the same situation, and
it's more towards the repentance of the body
of Christ than one man.
The issue at which has been cast before
you, I hope you dare not take it
lightly, because my father's tears cry for your
heart, and they fall upon my soul.
I want your heart, and I'll settle for
nothing less.
Dare you to stand in my presence and
throw this in my face, and I shall
consume you.
Truly this world shall see my wrath, and
they shall see the glory of my saints
revealed in the hearts of those that dare
love me.
Even so, come Lord Jesus, and I know
there are those hearts here that are not
yielded.
You're not playing a game, and I truly
can feel those tears, and it's just like
drops of steel when they hit my heart,
and he weeps, and he receives the repentance
of those that are repentant, but he desires
all of you, every single one of you.
There's a place, and if I could spend
tonight too, if it would do any good,
I'd do that too, just with him, but
only do what he calls, and that's what
you must do, only what he calls you
to do.
If it means give your life, you give
it, because you love him, and it's not
a game, and it's not a play.
We desire to see life come forth, because
we can touch a brother and heal him,
and indeed we shall, but cry with my
father and with I, and yield yourself to
the beckon of his spirit, and I know
these issues have not been a short time
in coming, and it's not easy to see
them birthed in your own life, or in
your brother's.
Like Brother Gitchum here, I know him very
little, but I have died for that man
this year, and it's not easy to see
someone so frivolously dance before God, and kick
it in his face as dust, and God
has chosen that man, and blessed him, and
sent him partway around the world to bless
us with the love that the world has
so long waited to see, and that knot
that twists within you is not there because
of indigestion, it's your father, and he wants
your insides, and if you are called, he's
going to get them, because he, nor I,
nor anyone else called to this ministry will
let you go.
And for that we are committed, and for
that we shall die.
God bless you.
Charles and I are just whispering together about
should we dismiss or not, and so I
was instructing him what he should say, he
said, you dismiss them, and I was saying,
let them go soberly, and not to leave
bent, but to invite God to press, to
increase the pressure unto breaking, and if they
have nothing to repent for in themselves, let
them repent for the condition of the church,
break and weep for the church, be broken
for the condition of the church, don't let
it be a dull pressure that will in
time subside, but invite the Lord to press
unto breaking, don't bend, don't be satisfied with
merely being bent.
So Lord, we just ask you to seal
what was the work of your spirit tonight,
whatever the human admixture, Lord, we ask you
to make that null and void, dissipate it
out of our memory and consciousness, but let
that which came out of your own pure
heart continue there to work, mighty God, to
vibrate, to penetrate, Lord, to work a real
work, gracious God, to break us, have a
supple-yielded people, mighty God, who live in
the shadow of the cross, not a phony,
pious people, but those who are sinners saved
by grace daily, who can hear the confessions
of a brother, for they themselves live beneath
the shadow of the same cross.
Thank you, Lord, for this love of which
we're conscious tonight.
Seal us in this particular speaking, strive with
us through the night hours and in these
days to come, and let your word have
all of the effect and intent that was
in your heart to perform.
We bless your holy name and thank you
for such a love as this, a real
God, not playing with kids, but speaking to
us as true sons and daughters.
Bless your name.
Dismiss us with your blessing.
In Yeshua's name we pray.
Amen.