Wow, not bad.
Let it be, Lord.
Let it be, not only for this servant,
but the church that is called to be
the exemplar of that prophetic reality in the
earth.
So do we bless your great name, my
God, for the privilege of this morning, of
today, and ask from the first word to
the last, you would be the alpha and
the omega of this concluding time, as we
believe you have, my God, from the beginning.
So may we hear your voice, so may
we catch, my God, the sense of your
heart, the disposition of your spirit.
Speak, my God, unerringly, right into the deeps,
the foundation of the church, my God, this
little microcosmic audience, sufficient to draw your heart
out, but to record it and give it,
my God, amplification and circulation beyond those whom
you have assembled today.
We bless you, Lord.
We love to hear you.
We look, my God, for the precious truth
that issues from your heart and throne.
Give us hearing ears, willing hearts.
We thank and give you praise for the
occasion, my God, that you have given in
Jesus' name.
Be delighted, be gratified.
In your great name we ask it.
Amen.
Well, I have so much.
I don't know where to begin.
Already what I have surveyed from the earliest
morning hours from Isaiah on the Shabbat of
God would be a topic deserving in itself
and looking at, who is it at Jericho?
Moses' successor.
Joshua at Jericho, crossing the Jordan, the whole
entry into the land so fraught with significance
for us who stand exactly at that threshold.
And then my subject for today, which is
at least a day-long seminar in itself,
the principalities and the powers of the air.
And then on top of that, I found
some notes that I had made for myself
in Minneapolis, invited on April 28th to a
conference called Wisdom 2001, where they invited some
of the significant speakers of the charismatic generation
to express now their review of that charismatic
past and the wisdom to which they had
been brought thereby and how they perceive the
present and the future.
And here's the prayer that I encouraged the
congregation, mostly Catholic charismatic, to pray with me
that is equally as appropriate here, I suppose
in every place, that the foe would be
discombobulated, that the cosmic alignment of powers over
the city and the nations, and those especially
that have God, have great sway in all
the institutions that affect the life of men
through falsehood, lying deception that corrupt their values,
rob them of eternal reward and honor and
glory of eternity itself.
And in the institutions, may you especially penetrate
and set in disarray those powers that prevail
by cunning and deceit in the most powerful
of all institutions, religion itself.
Through a word of event, out of your
apostolic and high priestly heart that is appointed
and on time, in the glory and the
power that raised Jesus from the dead and
enabled him to ascend on high for your
eternal glory, praise and honor.
In the holy name of Yeshua, I pray.
Amen.
And then I went on, the great corrective
that needs to come to the church, that
in fact constitutes its very distinctive as the
church, is not that which pertains to the
needs of men, either in healing so much
or even yet in their salvation, devoutly and
rightly as desired as those things might be,
but the glory of God realized in the
coming of the king and his theocratic kingdom,
the consummation of all the ages in these
final and consummating last days.
Not bad statements.
And that the crucial axis, the nub of
that consummation, is the millennial reign of Christ
in the establishment of his throne through a
redeemed Israel, obtained through a final Davidic cataclysmic
judgment and return, accomplished through a self-sacrificing
church that demonstrates his very mercy and before
the face of all nations so much as
to acknowledge that the God of Israel, the
God of Jacob, the creator of the heavens
and the earth, is a lone God to
the eternal praise of his glory.
All of these are thematic statements that I
had hoped to amplify in the one speaking
given me in that conference.
And to speak of the church of the
21st century, this is the kind of phraseology
that other of the speakers were making, is
to betray a complete loss of this eschatological
and apocalyptic expectation because to speak of the
church of the 21st century assumes that there's
a continuation and that we go on endlessly
and timelessly, the 21st century, the 22nd century,
that there's no termination, there's no climax, there's
no conclusion.
They lack an eschatology.
They lack an apocalyptic expectation and they substitute
a lesser excitement and leave undisturbed and still
ruling and prevailing over men and nations, the
kings and rulers who rage against God and
against his anointed and seek to break their
bands of sunder.
Their final defeat and the release of the
nations to that rule is the eternal purpose
of the church, the forfeit of which constitutes
apostasy, the great falling away, however much we
may be occupied with the benevolent concerns of
men.
Well, it goes on.
In the unfathomable wisdom of God, I believe
that the issue of Israel rightly and prophetically
understood, it's God's very provision for an errant
E-R-R-A-N-T church.
For it alone produces the perspective by which
the church itself is to be understood and
understands itself.
That is to say, if the church only
subscribes to Israel in a nominal or sentimental
way, it loses all this value.
The only way that Israel can be to
the church what it must, that defines the
church's own understanding of itself, is when the
subject is rightly prophetically and apostolically understood, which
is the complete contravention of the sentimental and
present affinity that most charismatic and evangelicals have
for Israel that omits the necessary judgment and
suffering through which the present Israel must pass
in order to prevail as that Israel of
God that is the locus of his theocratic
rule.
So glad that this is being recorded, because
there's no way, unless you have a gigantic
IQ and spiritual perspicuity that exceeds Paul's, that
you can fathom statements like this in the
hearing.
But they have got to be spoken.
They have got to be sounded.
So the church's origin is derived from Israel,
salvation being of the Jews.
Its continuation is by being grafted consciously and
willfully, gratefully into a tree, which is the
life of God that flows from her root.
And the church's destiny is as God's salvific
agency in moving Israel to jealousy, extending mercy,
that they might become the Zion, that the
church itself might become the Zion out of
which Israel's deliverance comes.
That deserves such explication as will require another
weekend, but I commend Psalm 102, my brother
wanted scriptural references, that what is the set
time to favor Zion?
It's when my servants have compassion on her
stones and pity upon her dust.
When God sees that, the deliverer is released
to come and to save Israel.
It's something that does not issue from Israel,
it issues from Zion.
Zion in this case being a symbolic statement
of the servant people of God, who contrary
to all the world, who are gloating over
Israel's disaster and the fall of present-day
Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv, and all of the
other modern-day cities of Israel, does not
join the chorus of the world's delight in
Israel's disaster, but laments it and mourns and
has compassion upon her stones and pity upon
her dust.
And even that is not a statement of
sentiment, but a statement of identification with Israel
in her judgment.
When God will find a church like that,
the set time to favor Zion has come.
For what God has been waiting for is
not Israel's disaster, but the church's coming of
age.
And it's measured by its ability to identify
and relate with Israel, not in had her
best but had her worst, in the same
way that he related to us while we
were yet in sin and transgression and rebellion.
He loved us and died for us.
When he'll find a church that will be
like that to Israel, he will have obtained
a bride for the bridegroom.
So the church is not the kingdom, but
an interim provision for Israel's restoration.
For it is time now to restore the
kingdom to Israel on David's throne on the
holy hill of Zion, or there is no
kingdom at all.
It is the tabernacle of David that must
be restored, or there will be no theocratic
rule for Edom and the nations, which the
Lord our God shall call.
The church is a means and not the
end in itself, but the being that obtains
an end more glorious than the redeemed millennial
nation itself.
By the church being to Israel what it
must as a means to Israel's restoration, it
obtains an end for itself more glorious than
that of redeemed Israel, namely the exaltation of
having glorified bodies and ruling and reigning with
Christ ascending and descending upon the Son of
Man.
I'm Jewish and I resisted the revelation of
the mystery of Israel and Israel's restoration because
I was fearful that there would be some
measure of loss for the glory for the
church.
I was so imbued with the church and
the glory of God in the church that
I was a little bit concerned that Israel's
restoration might take from the church anything of
God's intent and glory, but I'm saying now
that when the church will recognize itself not
as the end of itself, but a means
to an end greater than itself, Israel's restoration,
and be willing to play, if you'll use
my excuse my language, second fiddle to come
under in a priestly way, in a supportive
way, to bring this people back in restoration
both to God and to the land in
truth, that very process of being willing to
play second fiddle and come under in a
priestly way will exalt the church to a
yet more glorious eternal future than that of
Israel itself that has only millennial blessedness, where
if a child dies at the age of
100 it's considered an anomaly.
They will have prolonged existence and the reaper
cannot keep up with the sower of the
seed and they will, the fruit of Israel
will flow out to the nations and yet
I'm saying that the glory of the church
will exceed that.
Only if the church will serve the purpose
of God which is to come down and
under in support of the restoration of this
people at the period of the greater shame
and travesty when their sin will have required
the kind of judgment that must fall.
To identify with someone in judgment is really
to identify and that's why when Jesus entered
the waters of baptism, the father was so
pleased that the son was willing to lower
himself and to come into the water of
Israel's judgment that poor John was so perplexed
that he would say, I have need that
you be baptized of me, that I be
baptized of you.
What are you doing in these waters?
You have no need, you're the impeccable son
of God.
It's needful for righteousness sake that I come
into the water of Israel's repentance because I'm
identifying myself with the nation in her sin
or I have no prophetic relationship with her
and no messianic prospect for her redemption through
me.
I must come down and into that condition
of sin and when he came up out
of those waters the heavens opened and the
father said, this is my beloved son in
whom I'm well pleased and he'll say it
today when he'll see a church willing to
go down and into the shame and depravity
and increasing transgression and sin of present Israel
which will grow worse until its sins will
exceed that of its fathers but we will
not be repelled by it for they must
go down before they come up and our
willingness to go down with them is the
set time that favors Zion.
So the church is not the kingdom, that's
the chutzpah, the exaggerated sense of itself of
which Paul warned that if you miss the
mystery of Israel and the church you'll become
wise in your own conceit.
You'll think that you are the object of
all things and that rather than the kingdom
being Israel's, is it time now to restore
the kingdom to Israel?
Never offended Jesus.
It was a perfectly valid question.
The kingdom is and must be Davidic.
It must have its reign out of Zion.
There must be a son of David to
occupy David's throne from that Holy Hill or
there's no kingdom at all.
Israel's mistake in its narrow nationalism was to
think that the kingdom was for itself.
It has its origin with you but it's
not for you, it's for the nations and
it is time to restore the kingdom to
Israel and to restore Israel to the kingdom
but not for the church to presume that
it either is the kingdom or brings the
kingdom in and of itself.
You see how the relationship with Israel is
the very factor that affects the church's own
right and proper identification of itself and its
evangelistic and missions function.
That when the fullness of the Gentiles come
in so all Israel shall be saved as
it is written.
So the church is not to the nations
to save the nations but a people for
his name from all nations so that the
fullness of the Gentiles may come in.
What is the fullness?
The number.
Some number from every nation for his name
that I believe in my own prophetic and
intuitive heart is the exact number of principalities
and powers of the whole angelic realm in
the usurping governmental role over the nations that
will be dispossessed and cast out from those
places and that those vacancies need to be
filled by those who rule and reign with
him from the heavenly places.
The number exactly to fill the vacancies the
fullness of the Gentiles being come in.
Oh I'm getting a little holy ghost chill
at the grandeur of God's intention and the
terrible distortion that has come to the church
to think that it's going to save the
nations.
No a number elect number of Gentiles that
must come in and the incentive for that
salvation is that by it deliverance shall come
out of Zion for Israel.
Israel will be acted upon having no virtue
in itself and no power in itself to
establish its own redemption being the epitome of
man in his own human self-sufficiency is
the very thing that God is condemning before
the world in the example of Israel.
Israel is acting out something for the world
that they need to see for it is
the epitome of human arrogance presumption and conceit
almost succeeding in 50 years to afford to
accomplish what no other people would dare even
begin to aspire to attain to take a
malarial wasteland and to convert it to a
high-tech society in half a century and
resuscitate a dead liturgical language and make it
a modern Hebrew language and all of the
other remarkable accomplishments of a remarkable accomplishing people
but they cannot accomplish that which will bless
all the families of the earth that's God's
accomplishment and requires the death of their human
excellency in order to obtain which is what
we are about and should have known that's
what the church ought to be the resurrection
phenomenon that knows that what God is waiting
for is not the death of our defects
but of our virtues the very thing that
we cherish and least want to relinquish is
our human ability our religious ability to think
to accomplish and to perform and God is
waiting for the willing death because we know
that in man is no good thing at
all that even his good is not good
enough in fact as good as the very
deterrent to the glory of God that only
God is good Jesus would not allow himself
to be complimented why call this on me
good there's no man good but God and
do you think I'm going to surrender to
your temptation to enjoy your compliment because if
I do so I reinforce all your categories
and you need to know that all your
categories are in error though you have followed
the law impeccably from your childhood on there's
no man good but God Israel needs to
learn that and they'll learn it painfully but
they will learn it at least the surviving
remnant will learn it and that's the great
drama of the age of which the church
is God's David God's salvific agent but only
on that resurrection basis because if it comes
to Israel and Israel's own ground of human
excellency then it has accomplished nothing it has
got to demonstrate Israel the very thing to
which God itself calls Israel namely resurrection reality
so the church is not the
means not the end but the means to
an end and the willingness to come under
and play that second fiddle role obtains an
end for the church that will glorify it
forever and qualify it to reign from the
heavenlies so in this in the final frenzy
of the end which is now brewing in
their own self-opposing ignorance they may likely
regard us as enemies and as a threat
to their Jewishness in the anti-semitic Fuhrer
of a last day's time of Jacob's trouble
we may have to suffer this even as
modest at their hands as Stephen did as
a crucial or critical necessity of sacrifice to
bring by it the revelation of the Lord
that turned Saul from persecutor to Apostle remarkable
statements I don't expect you to understand that
it's being recorded that's the purpose you know
what I'm saying martyrdom may well be our
experience in fact that is the genius of
what the church has ever and always been
in every generation is a modern church but
what we had not considered is that we
might suffer the first pangs of martyrdom not
at the hands of the world but at
the very Jewish people whose salvation we desire
and who cannot recognize the goodness of our
intent and see us as a threat as
Saul saw the early church as a threat
to the interest of the God whom he
did not know who art thou Lord and
so we may have to bear their violence
in the defense of their Jewishness which is
now being threatened and they will see us
quote as Christians constituting that threat and we
bear it and I have a little preview
of that speaking at universities and confrontations all
over the world where Jewish students are in
greater proportion than any other place where you
can find them and I have to I
say I'm like a pincushion and I have
to absorb their anger their bitterness their confusion
I represent the enemy it's like a white
man in a black high school you represent
white you represent the establishment so your heart
is something completely other what you are physically
and overtly is what they see and identify
and so for the Jewish students I'm a
missionary paid flunky why else would an intelligent
man speak this Goya shirt Greek and thing
that is antithetical to all Jewishness unless there's
some financial remunerative motive so he's a lowest
scum betraying his own people for financial personal
gain and putting himself in continuity with every
injury that Jews have ever received in the
name of Christ and they give it to
you harshly and you just stand there and
receive it like a pincushion you can't say
hey hey no no no I don't represent
that that's not really the church those Crusaders
were not regenerate they don't even know what
the word regenerate means to them they were
Christians and that's that's it for my mother
Hitler was a Christian Germany was a Christian
nation you can't argue with them at Columbia
University City College of New York right on
the spot and straighten them out you have
to absorb their frenzy their anger their furor
and after they have spit it out then
maybe you'll get a word in edgewise all
of that will be greatly heated in the
last days and we may be on the
receiving end a lot of a lot of
their pained reaction opposing themselves in their own
ignorance and how we receive that will be
critical to their their salvation in the way
that that Stephen received it Lord laid not
the sin to their charge dying with such
equanimity with such grace he fell asleep what
a precious race he had fulfilled his purpose
he bore the insult in the injury speaking
courageously giving them a whole survey of the
history of Israel and its apostasy from the
beginning that they and he saw the heaven
open being full of the Spirit and Jesus
standing at the right hand of the father
and they could not bear to hear that
that one whom they had crucified thinking to
put him finally out of business as a
threat to Israel was now in the holiest
place of all in the very presence of
God the Father and they put their fingers
in their ears and ran and gnashed upon
him with their teeth to extinguish the the
reality that this great busboy was seeing I
believe that that is a foretaste of the
end a little preview of some some of
us will have to play that Stephen role
in order to turn the persecuting adversary from
assault to appal nothing less will bring that
conversion because Israel has an apostolate to the
nations and that's why Paul could say when
you see me I'm a man out of
time and joint I'm a representative of Israel's
future and in my apostolic ministry to the
Gentiles you catch a glimpse of God's intention
for the whole nation Israel in its apostolate
to the Gentile nations they will be to
the nation's what I presently am to the
church brooding over jealous mother father nurse that
Christ be formed in them laboring day and
night without reward with tears and from house
to house in public places giving the whole
counsel of God that when it was time
for Paul to come to the end of
his apostolic career and he called the elders
of Ephesus they wept when they heard that
they would see his face no more that
kind of love for Paul from Gentiles who
knew that they had received something from this
precious Jewish man that was not in any
way tinged or tainted by Jewish pride or
religious superiority or anything like that but who
humbled himself he came under he was a
priestly ministrator of the wisdom of God for
the nation's will we will see exactly the
same thing that the Jews who today are
anathema feared despised resented will one day be
clutched by the nation's to have one come
into their midst to clutch the skirt of
one who will take us to God for
they know him that's Israel's destiny and to
be to the nation's what Paul was to
the Gentile church will of course take a
conversion as profound for Israel as it was
for Saul himself so our hour as the
church coming under the purpose of God for
Israel's redemption God's firstborn son among the nation's
is calculated for our humility we cannot expect
their understanding nor gratitude sacrifice in their behalf
like Christ dying for us while we were
yet in transgression dead and sin we will
die for them while they are yet in
transgression and sin and that very process and
the very willingness is that final sanctification that
fits us as a bride for the bridegroom
see the mystery of God all the depths
of the riches both of the wisdom and
the knowledge of God well imagine speaking that
in one hour again I felt like it
was a flub as I have been feeling
in these days but I'm told that it
was an iraculous statement will turn to Ephesians
chapter 3 and we'll consider the mystery of
which our great Apostle Paul was the steward
which has been lost to the church's comprehension
in modern times and therefore the church has
lost the whole heart of its being and
condemns itself to becoming an institution it has
lost its apostolic identity to the degree that
has lost its understanding of the mystery of
which Paul was a steward which was granted
him because he was the least of all
saints and that he really believed that of
himself it was not a feigned humility but
the more he deepened in his apostolic call
and the intensive knowledge of God the more
he recognized the littleness that was himself the
least of all saints murder and persecuted haunted
him all of the days of his apostolic
career not in some kind of psychic sickly
way but in the healthiest recognition that a
man needs to know there but for the
grace of God go I murderer and persecutor
not out of some malevolent or vicious intent
but out of my best well-meaning intentions
to honor the God of my father's that's
the point and that the best intentions of
men will in the last analysis and in
the very murder and persecution of God himself
and when Israel will recognize that there'll be
the deepest repentance that the world has ever
seen so profound the repentance when we shall
see him whom we have pierced that no
man can even come to that repentance in
the presence of his own wife and no
family in the presence of another family every
family apart every husband and wife apart for
they will be bellowing and prevailing and such
an anguish of soul of depth of recognition
of what our historic sin has been that
it's a repentance unto death and out of
it out of the ashes of that will
rise another nation that will bless all the
families of the earth so Paul describes himself
in chapter 3 as a prisoner for Christ
Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles and
then reminds them of the grace that was
given him the mysteries were made known by
revelation and this mystery in verse 5 was
not made known to mankind as it has
now been revealed to his holy apostles and
prophets by the Spirit that word holy is
not a little appellation that's what these men
were and are who are in fact authentically
prophets and apostles not that they go tripping
on eggshells and have a superior spiritual out
of spirituality that is ethereal there are men
who can knock back a beer with a
steak or a glass of wine within a
piece of pizza and love jazz and are
earthly and and or earthy not earthly earthy
in many ways and yet they're holy apostles
and prophets because the cross has done its
number on false spirituality that requires certain exterior
semblances of what is construed to be spiritual
and as false they are authentic men through
and through they don't have to wear camel
hair garments to evidence the fact that they're
prophets they can be worried three-piece suits
but they have been formed and called processed
at God's hand and to them can be
entrusted the mysteries of God why because they'll
never abuse that trust they'll never exploit it
they'll never turn it to their own advantage
they counted they cherish the precious mysteries that
had been commended to them that they might
make them known and not the least of
the mysteries in verse 6 is that the
Gentiles have become fellow heirs and members of
the same body what same body of the
body that already exists of Jews who believe
and receive the Messiah and continue in the
precious holy faith now you who are far
off and without hope in God have been
brought nigh by that blood of their Messiah
into that revelation that understanding and that body
into the Commonwealth of Israel itself into the
hopes and covenants of Israel oh you lucky
stiffs if it weren't for that God's grace
to admit you into the salvation which is
exclusively Israel's you'd be a bunch of dum
-dums to this day you'd be drinking beer
not out of cans but out of skulls
and fornicating like jack rabbits and being given
to every kind of vile idolatry but God
in his mercy has hebraicized you brought you
out of Gentile dumb dumbness and into that
ethereal transfiguring relationship with their God that is
called salvation that's the grace that has come
and Paul is a steward of that mystery
through the gospel and then he speaks of
another mystery that's the one that I want
to discuss with you this morning that was
according to the gift of God's grace given
me by the working of his power in
verse 8 on the very least of all
the saints this is not self effacing humility
of a salesman's kind this is Paul just
telling it like it is or else this
mystery would not have been given him the
grace that was given to me to bring
to the Gentiles the news of the boundless
riches of Christ to make everyone see what
is the plan of the mystery hidden for
ages in God who created all things in
order that stop don't read any further or
you'll be transgressing don't rush but hold your
breath for we are about to hear from
the chief of Apostles the purpose for all
creation itself and if we have not some
sense of that purpose we are floundering in
darkness I don't care how adept our gifts
or how much men honor us or what
we bless if we have not a sense
of the purposive God who has created out
of nothing what is that Latin term ex
nihilo out of nothing the glory of creation
in order that we're now going to hear
the reason the purpose why God has willed
and performed this my god we need to
stop breathing or else we will reduce this
to a commonplace and read through the book
of Ephesians as if we're reading gone with
the wind or some cheap novel no wonder
we are in the abysmal place that we
are we don't even know how to read
so let's not rush we're about to hear
something that God has given to the Apostle
as revelation of mystery and given him a
mandate to cherish and to make it known
that all men might see this mystery hidden
for ages in God who created all things
in order that through the church stop number
two stop breathing through the church that dinky
nothing that institutional hodgepodge that cheapy Sunday service
oriented institution that the purpose of creation was
that something in order that through the church
Paul you're going too far you've only taken
one aspect of civilization and culture which has
a nice way of taking the edges off
the harsh features of life and has Sunday
schools and performs marriages and funerals and gives
us a biblical message on Sunday come on
don't get carried away that the principal purpose
of God in creation has something to do
with the church or have we been laboring
under some kind of dull misconception that the
church is only one of institutions deserving some
kind of recognition but is the principal purpose
for creation itself just that one understanding is
that the heart of apostolic comprehension that changes
the whole way in which we regard that
which we have seen only in a minimal
way and therefore cannot even serve it in
the way for which God has created all
things so that God has created in order
through the church but this is getting thick
the plot is thickening that the manifold wisdom
of God and its rich variety might now
be made known to the rules and authorities
in the heavenly places much learning has made
me mad this is the most of screws
absurd irrelevant kind of statement to ascribe to
the church that the whole purpose is to
make known some kind of wisdom to the
principalities and powers of the air and it's
only relevant tell us where the church is
a value in the world how it will
bless men how will affect institutions touch poverty
sickness disease that's what we want to know
that's the real thing what is this abstract
abstruse reference to some wisdom to be made
known to the principalities and powers of the
air that's a figment of your imagination that's
a hangover of your Judaic mysticism and what
do they call that occultic Judaic origin that
talks about some phantasmal realm of spirit life
come on Paul grow up and that's why
this has been grossly rejected by the most
authoritative scholars and theologians of our generation that
this is a hangover this is a vestigial
remnant of Paul's Judaic upbringing that has to
do with some mystical and occultic realm of
spirit until the Nazi time came then my
call bought God bless him whom I love
the Swiss German theologian who had disregarded this
and counted it as a mere residue of
Paul's rabbinical origins took a second look and
said hey this is not some mere flight
of fancy this is where the action in
fact actually is for the principalities and powers
of the air that we thought a figment
of Paul's Judaic imagination have actually taken possession
of the whole of the German state and
nation and made it an engine for the
destruction of the Jewish people and have succeeded
by it in annihilating whole European Jewry one
third of the Jewish race and and catapulting
the world into a cataclysmic conflict that has
almost ended civilization where they wore skull and
crossbones on their caps and burn books and
burn men and exhibited another wisdom that was
dark and demonic satanic that was not content
merely to influence nations but to possess them
that's why German Jews thought this too shall
pass surely the nation of Goethe, Schiller, Fichte,
Hegel, Nurti, Schopenhauer, Wagner, great giants of poetry,
music, literature, science, philosophy are not going to
succumb to this riffraff of gutter snipes and
homosexuals and deviates who meet in in basement
cellar beer pubs surely that's a passing phenomenon
that they'll get out of their system and
we'll get back to men like Bismarck and
Chancellor so-and-so and men of nobility
and class who can govern the state in
view in light of German culture and civilization
this too shall pass it didn't and they
went up like smoke what a graphic demonstration
that Paul was not majoring in minors but
majoring in majors this is where the action
is you dear Saints and though we have
not seen the Nazi phenomenon here don't think
that it's so far removed from any possibility
in good old USA apple pie mama and
football it waits its opportunity it's already present
it jerks and manipulates it usurps it influences
but when the time comes it possesses Paul
knew where the action is and the church
is the only agency given of God to
recognize discern and identify this spirit power realm
and to oppose it and to bring it
down and the church that does not see
that as its task and its purpose for
being is ipso facto not the church in
any apostolic sense of the world word it's
only an institution that purveys services for men
because the very next verse says verse 11
this was in accordance with the eternal purpose
that we carried out in Christ Jesus Lord
timeout stop breathing the eternal purpose only Paul
could use language of that kind lavish language
that he's not ashamed to employ as if
this all is only an adornment to give
a certain sense of importance to inflate something
by the use of the word eternity or
eternal no this is an apostle that's holy
given a stewardship over a mystery that he
recognizes in its context is eternal in the
intention of God it was ever and always
the mind of God from eternity to eternity
and needs to come into the comprehension of
the church that is not even eternally minded
but rooted in time and culture lacks the
apostolic perspective of eternity so how can it
recognize that this mandate is in accordance with
the eternal purpose of God and here's what
I want to say dear saints and I
say it wherever I have opportunity that church
hear this you ministers who are getting this
tape that church you and especially those ministers
who purport to be apostolically and prophetically minded
where are you today why aren't you here
even to contradict me what to find faults
or to confirm your suspicions that you should
be in the same city where there's a
conference or seminar being conducted that is called
apostolic and prophetic foundations by a man who's
the author of seven or eight books and
has a global reputation and a history of
37 years and you are content to go
to the golf course or to stay home
and not even to inquire as to what
will be communicated under that great title and
you profess to have a concern for what
is apostolic and prophetic that leaves something to
be questioned I wouldn't stay home I would
break the door down in any place accessible
to me where these this subject is purported
to be discussed because it's the eternal purpose
of God and that church which will not
take to its heart as its foremost purpose
for being the eternal purpose of God whatever
it is dancing on I don't know what
walking on our nose I don't care what
it is how absurd if it's God's eternal
purpose and we will not take it to
heart as the first purpose for our being
corporately then we are not the church if
we have no regard for what is of
eternal importance to him how are we the
church we're an institution that purveys services for
men and employs scripture and other graces from
God and miss the very reason for our
being and that's why we lack any significance
that's why the powers of the air can
say Jesus we're no employment oh but who
are you you haven't even begun to recognize
what your purpose for being is and you
constitute for us no threat at all but
art that we become imbued with the eternal
purpose of God then of course there will
be irrelevant in time that's too airy that's
too phantasmal just the opposite it is only
because you have embraced the eternal as the
first and foremost purpose we being that makes
you relevant and Paul himself is the great
demonstration as I think I mentioned yesterday who
handled all of the practical questions of the
church and was told them how to wipe
their bum bumps how to conduct communion not
to come to the table out of gluttony
how to wait for the others how how
to deal with sin in the camp how
to deal with correcting a brother how how
how how Paul was the nuts and bolts
man that attended to the practical daily relevancies
of the church because he was in the
heavenly because he was heavenly minded because he
was occupied with the eternal purpose of God
was he all the more the man of
relevance for the church in its present hour
and the same thing will be true of
us we have lacked this this requires therefore
more than Sunday services this requires sacrifice this
requires being a whole church together because the
statement says that God has created little things
that through the church the manifold wisdom of
God and switch variety might be made known
to the rules and principles and powers of
the air through the church not individual virtuosos
a few odd catches will not do praise
God for them but as this is the
call of the church as the church or
the demonstration the wisdom cannot be made known
for it's not an articulation of the wisdom
it is the demonstration of the wisdom and
that demonstration must by definition be corporate it's
another wisdom so what is the word wisdom
here mean it's not what constitutes being wise
it's a better word would be value the
value system of God the mentality of God
what he counts as dear what he counts
as real in fact what is ultimately real
what is worth pursuing what is worth investing
your life about your energy and your time
your sacrifice that's what's at stake here because
they're two contrary views one makes of man
number one take care of yourself nobody else
will see the own satisfaction your own gratification
obtain possess exploit manipulate see to yourself be
enriched be strengthened powered credentialized and have prestige
see for yourself for this life is what
counts and your marriage isn't going to well
we'll get rid of the bum after all
you still have your good looks and try
try again after all you have only this
life so you might as well enjoy and
it's not this isn't working out try it
again get rid of this guy after all
pleasure gratification the redemption of your lifetime is
really what counts for the effort is like
there's nothing through the lie that is and
how that ties in with the meteoric rise
of the divorce rate because people see only
within the context of this limited lifetime and
don't realize that there's an eternity beyond that
will haunt us if we have failed to
take God into our deepest consideration and to
believe that because she's the covenant keeping God
that however desperate our present marriages and seems
gives no prospect of success that he's the
third fold that will not allow it to
be broken and will in time bring his
redemptive answer so what if it's 25 years
of suffering and denial and forced abstinence or
whatever else needs to be born if the
end of it is not marital compatibility but
the glory of God for the marriage itself
is the mystery of the Godhead as is
the church also see what happens when you
begin to take eternity into your consideration it
affects everything that is practical and relevant and
down-to-earth but it must come through
the church and not individual virtuosos the entire
church per se as church must make this
demonstration of another wisdom which is the wisdom
of God the value system of God in
opposition in every point in particular to that
by which men presently live their lives in
the world and consider to be self-evident
truths as for example the pursuit of happiness
the Declaration of Independence it's a self-evident
truth that God has made all men created
equal that they might pursue happiness is it
so self-evident maybe the greater reason is
to bear suffering because there's a redemptive drama
that cannot be obtained without an intrinsic suffering
that is contrary to the issue of happiness
as being the purposeful being that's a premise
that needs at least to be questioned if
not shot down and the function of the
church is to question the unaccepted the unquestioned
premises by which men till now have lived
their lives in error and in complete disregard
of that which is eternal show me a
church like that mamma mia and I'll show
you a church that will move Jews to
jealousy show me a church that moves Jews
to jealousy and I'll show you a church
that it that infuriates and intimidates and threatens
the powers of darkness one in the same
they've come of age they've taken eternity into
their consideration and they have recognized we're not
going to attain this without sacrifice we can't
attain this as the aggregate of individualities in
there and our privatistic lifestyles and modes of
being we're going to have to become a
community of believers we have to be integral
related join we have to speak the truth
and love we've got to come to a
wisdom that we demonstrate by which fear intimidation
threat power sex all those kinds of things
have been done in and we're free from
those influences and we exhibit that freedom that's
the wisdom and will not come to that
unless we come to it consciously and when
I come to it consciously unless we come
to it willfully and will not come to
it willfully unless we come to the recognition
that that's not going to be obtained without
sacrifice and suffering why should we bear it
because it has to do with his eternal
purpose that's why because we love him because
we want him to be honored and glorified
and we want him to be satisfied that
he's created all things in order for this
then by all means God whatever it takes
we're going to do all we can by
your grace that you should obtain this because
your satisfaction and the fulfillment of your purposes
is what we are all about we have
no other purpose but that purpose show me
a church like I'm getting goose bumps show
me a church like that that has made
that resolution and I'll show you powers of
the air that brood over that locality that
are terrified by the presence of such a
people however small however incongruous however poor however
shabby their their building is the powers of
the air know them and fear them for
they have an abandonment toward God that terrifies
them because they are what Paul was and
what Jesus was and they can't stand that
demonstration they can't defy that demonstration they can't
intimidate people who are so sold out to
God that their whole purpose of being is
his satisfaction through the
church to make known to the principalities and
powers of the air to demonstrate what God
is in himself what he demonstrated at the
cross that defeated them then put them out
of Commission then made an open spoil of
them then and needs to be concluded by
the very same demonstration that the church will
exhibit as it suffers the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortunes of the last days with
the same magnanimity and grace and patience and
forgiveness as the Lord himself and as Stephen
himself show me a church even preparing for
that show me a church that anticipates that
because we have been fed exactly the opposite
prosperity health well-being success you if you
if you have faith you're driving a Cadillac
where is it where is there a church
that talks about suffering as being intrinsic to
the faith and the inevitable requirement at the
conclusion of the age when the powers of
the air will be released by the Lord
and given the ability to overcome us revelation
13 7 that power was given to the
beast to overcome the Saints what kind of
God is that it's the God of the
cross giving us opportunity who was himself overcome
that we might in our being overcome overcome
being overcome by the same grace that he
exhibited in suffering and in death that some
dumb Gentile centurion standing at the base of
the cross who had seen numbers of men
crucified saw something different with this man and
said truly this is the Son of God
I wait to hear that from my Jewish
people I'm waiting to hear that and I
think it's going to take the same revelation
in our suffering for them they're gonna have
to say this this people that I have
derided and and have been contemptuous of and
disdainful about the church the Goyish Gentile truly
this is the Son of God there's something
revealed in their suffering that is very God
himself because suffering reveals as nothing else will
some of you know that so this
is one of the chapters of the book
on apostolic foundations which I wish were available
now presently out of print pray for a
new edition but what is the genius of
this demonstration to the powers of the air
why should God be occupied that they have
to see something and what is this wisdom
that needs to be shown well any church
that will take as its foremost purpose for
its being some purpose in God other than
its own that is of an eternal kind
and has no practical pay off now or
benefit to be derived now by that very
act of choosing that purpose is exhibiting the
wisdom because the wisdom of the world is
self-interest the wisdom of the world is
what's in it for me did you enjoy
the service how'd you like the speaker how's
the attendance what's the budget what's in it
for me but a church that will make
a sacrificial commitment to the purposes of God
that are eternal that have no practical benefit
for them at all it has only a
benefit for God something that he wants and
are willing to do it and make it
not a purpose but the first and foremost
purpose of their being in that very act
of choosing are demonstrating another wisdom not only
will they not receive any benefit but the
very act of choosing God's eternal purpose over
their own makes them a candidate for suffering
and opposition and persecution from the powers of
the air and they're still going to choose
God's eternal purpose that choice is the demonstration
of another wisdom and the same mystery comes
with the redemption of Israel at the end
of the age were you Gentiles for whom
we've done nothing as Jews but to move
you to resentment or irritation or anger by
our arrogance and by our unwillingness to go
along with the game plan and insist on
things that are going to threaten the whole
world and will threaten it and cut the
oil supply and affect the world economy already
look how we're being affected by those two
planes that crashed into those towers there are
certain airlines that have gone bankrupt and has
set in motion a further complication in our
economy that were only at the beginning massive
layoffs a crippling of the economy I don't
know if we'll survive and we need not
have experienced it if it weren't for our
identification with Israel but a church that will
be so identified with Israel as to be
willing to be the victims of Israel as
martyrs in their in their own fury and
opposing themselves in their ignorance or to run
the peril like Kory Ten Boom by taking
them into our attics or into our basements
when they're in flight and being caught in
the process and going to the same concentration
camp and not coming out of it alive
why should we do that what did they
ever do for us look the other way
so they they are the least of his
brethren but you didn't see them naked hungry
thirsty and in prison you chose not to
see them because you were unwilling for the
inconvenience and the sacrifice that seeing them and
aiding them would require but the church that
will extend itself not only is the agency
of God's salvation for them but in the
very act of extending itself to Jews as
Gentiles you're demonstrating another wisdom it is completely
against your self-interest as a Gentile to
aid a Jew in the epitome of his
distress at your own peril but your willingness
to do so and not under constraint but
willingly voluntarily and joyously that's the key when
you will joyously take the risk of loss
of life for another who is a Jew
who has never brought you any benefit but
threat you are demonstrating another wisdom and we
need to be consciously moving toward that fulfillment
William Stringfellow whose book I have never
read it's probably out of print aliens in
a strange land and there's another book about
the principalities and powers said any church that
conducts itself in complete ignorance to the centrality
of this theme and this purpose and calling
of necessity is futile beats at the air
and serves no real and everlasting purpose to
not have this in our comprehension consciously seeking
its fulfillment condemns us to a certain kind
of cultural or religious phenomenon that in no
way affects the fulfillment of God's prophetic and
apostolic intention for creation and we're not even
even our evangelisms and our programs are vain
if we have not first considered and contended
against the very powers of the air that
inhibit and blind men in our own locality
because our struggle is not against flesh and
blood but it's our struggle struggle has never
been convenient and Paul uses that word we
wrestle not against flesh and blood but we
wrestle and if we're not a weed there's
no wrestling it can only be corporately performed
it's an engagement of totality because though I'm
not an athlete a little ping-pong and
stickball but I can suspect that the choice
of wrestling as a metaphor is not an
accident but the very wisdom of God that
shows that the deepest engagement beyond strength beyond
skill is wrestling when you meet a man
eyeball to eyeball and fingertip to fingertip the
issue of defeat or victory is not your
superior strength or skill or experience but your
determination your gut your grit that that those
invincible interior things that can't even be defined
we wrestle not against flesh and blood but
against the rulers against the powers against the
world forces of this darkness against the spiritual
forces of wickedness and heavenly places Ephesians chapter
6 and oftentimes the word against against against
against against against is against the stream against
is against the flesh against is against ease
and convenience against our calling is against specific
entities that require a corporate opposition that is
against so a church that is lazy slothful
self-centered loving its convenience wanting its services
on Sunday where it could sleep in and
still come back in time for the football
game at a golf course is not at
all of a mind or disposition to be
against anything and the powers of the air
know it and prefer to have it so
that's why we have the great attendance that
we have here this morning they can't even
come up against their sloth against the desire
to be at the golf course against lazing
around on Saturday or tending the lawn or
the take the kids to the park whatever
it is there's no capacity against the flesh
against not only the things that are carnal
but especially the things that are good it's
the things that are good and valid and
legitimate the kids the family they deserve attention
sadly they are from work as the very
thing that inhibits the ultimate purposes of God
it will take what shall I say a
determination of so ultimate a kind where we
oppose ourselves in our own flesh we oppose
that which is good there's a determination I'm
not finding the right phrase we taste blood
it's not against carnality or evil but against
that which is ostensibly good that our greatest
issue rises because the church will condone and
applaud that which is good and lull us
into a kind of ease and sleepiness that
is morally approved and nice and benefits but
keeps us from the struggle for which we
are intended we have to oppose our own
self-interest in what is good if we're
going to be against against against against this
is wrestling this is struggle and it's a
corporate struggle it's waiting the activity of believers
together in Christ as a militant company so
long as we remain islands of individuality and
self-interest and privacy there's no way that
we're going to fight this and I can
tell you that the revelation that began to
come to us at Ben Israel took eight
years before it appeared we came to a
morning prayer meeting I felt hungover I was
depressed and I couldn't understand it at the
well cats you Jews your moodiness but when
I came into the prayer meeting everyone had
was in the same mood to were not
Jews see the advantage of community it saves
you from thinking that your individual barometer is
a mere statement of the vagaries of your
own soul we were all oppressed and they
said well I don't you know what what
the problem no what this is the the
powwow was on at the Chippewa Nation ten
miles away this is the annual powwow and
they're beating those drums all through the night
and releasing every kind of spirit and we
can feel it in the air any of
you who have ever traveled in the world
know when you cross a border and come
into another country you can feel it in
the air there's something in the air even
the world uses that language what's in the
air over Durham Raleigh North Carolina what's in
the air over Greensboro what's in the air
over Duke University and Chapel Hill what's over
the air of your financial institutions over your
religious networks over your apostolic and prophetic bodies
of an organizational kind because institutions are the
open door for the presence of these powers
of the air so we said okay let's
pray and so we began to pray eighth
year of our history as a community and
after two minutes I went knock it off
you guys call that prayer what do you
think this is a game what are you
playing hey this is life and death you
know this is the Indians and we need
to take those covered wagons and make a
circle and defend each man's back and put
your gut in it and we began to
pray and put our gut in it as
you had come in five minutes later you
would thought it was an insane asylum people
were flailing at the air there was some
were stretched out on their faces every kind
of posture of prayer conceivable without an iota
of self-consciousness or embarrassment how come that
we could pray like that totally abandoned in
open warfare aggressively fighting against and wrestling together
as a body because we had an eight
-year history that's why because we had been
in it and through it because we had
been had confrontations and and face-to-face
dealings and embarrassments and humiliations and failures and
every kind of thing for which if people
will pass whose life is really together and
who are together frequently enough and intensively enough
to face the issues that make a body
a body and break the power of privatistic
lifestyle it took eight years and as that
heated prayer was going up that corporate prayer
all I tell you and I looked up
I'm not a man given to visions I
saw a face and that face was looking
down on us leering with contempt Oh been
Israel haha no threat they're full of problems
they can't get it together there's no real
unity that but as the prayer went on
and the intensity of it rose in authenticity
not prayer as technique or methodology but the
gushings of the people who bring something together
corporately I watched the face change from contempt
and disdain to fear and that face Oh
hold your look okay what am I hearing
now who like and it began to back
up and we pressed in and finally that
thing broke and fled in panic and we
were pursuing after in the realm of spirit
and we came a moment boom when like
a fist broke right through like the splatter
was everywhere and our prayer stopped and people
started to laugh and giggle they knew that
we had broken through triumph in the realm
of spirit together that's what he's talking about
and I don't believe that any program that's
really a program is going to succeed over
Durham North Carolina until this first this contention
and contending against though that unchallenged realm of
spirit reality that has up till now yawned
in our faces and been completely indifferent to
our best activity taking cities for Christ to
worship and even talking about casting out demons
and being apostolic and prophetic and being related
to the best-known names today who are
organizing the whole structure worldwide they go ha
ha this our cats in with a half
-dozen people out in the boondocks near Greensboro
is more to be feared than they'll then
they allowed us professions of what they're going
to establish organizationally called apostolic and prophetic the
powers know whom to fear because they have
only one obligation and that is to recognize
what is authentic and when they see that
they tremble for that's what God is so
when I was in the Philippines I said
to these precious ministers and ministers conference and
apostolic and prophetic foundations you can believe that
unlike this year today every seat was taken
for three days in sweltering heat pouring out
my soul to those men on these foundations
and giving them an invitation I said to
them you know that it's better to be
feared and known by the powers of darkness
than to be esteemed by men oh that's
right on yeah and I know that I'm
talking to men who have come out of
poverty that they lived off of banana skins
and what they could pluck off of vines
there's no welfare program in the Philippines if
you don't pedal a bike and carry someone
there's no income and now they were ministers
with a suit of clothing and a house
and income and and respect and credibility and
I'm saying to them unless you're willing to
forsake the esteem of men you will not
constitute a fear of the powers of the
air you can't have it both way both
ways what do you prefer to the esteem
and favor of men and your promotion in
the religious system or to be known of
the powers of the air and feared it's
one or the other oh to have the
powers of the air to fear it's odd
okay said stand up and follow me in
a prayer to reject and forsake the esteem
of men who you cannot have the one
without the other I tell you it was
a moment of trembling and profound consecration and
the powers of the air were taking note
of what was transpiring at that moment as
being more effectual in the things pertaining to
the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of
darkness than anything that had come before them
so we're talking about the rulers of this
age which if they had known they would
not have crucified the Lord of Glory and
Psalm 2 refers to them why do the
nations rage the heathen and the kings and
the rulers take thought against the Lord against
his anointed what is that redundancy the kings
and the rulers was that like saying the
kings and the kings or are the kings
the visible earthly magistrates and the rulers are
the spirit realm overhead the rulers of this
age who are in concert with an influence
and jerk the physical visible magistrates below we
need to know where the action is and
what alone will challenge them because it's a
cosmic struggle for mastery over the entire cosmos
itself of one moral kind or another one
wisdom or another one that predator is predicated
upon lust force power threat seduction intimidation and
fear and the other self-denial so should
we take a break a little breathing yeah
Lord thanks for introducing us
into a precious mystery we want to be
more than introduced we want to be inducted
we want to find our connection my God
with the continuum that has been broken off
between Paul and ourselves for a whole number
of men now have risen my God over
the nation that call themselves Apostles and are
forming all kinds of consolidations and organizational networks
and are endorsing and validating one another by
men who purport to be prophetic and endorse
the Apostle who endorses the prophet and the
system has come up before us that bears
these great names apostolic and prophetic that not
only constitutes no threat to the powers of
the air but might might well be raised
up by them as an antichrist substitute for
the real thing for anti means not only
against but like as always the enemy seeking
to steal the scene and to get into
the act before and to give men a
devious substitute for the authentic thing that does
not require their sacrifice their suffering or the
cross appealing to nice established middle class people
that they can enjoy all of the semblance
of apostolicity and propheticness with with no stoop
no fuss no bother no cross no suffering
no sacrifice a new vocabulary that sounds exciting
and now they can go and pray in
and some call it kind of supposed authority
that affects the powers of darkness not at
all so Lord I'm crying out this morning
for the real thing for what is apostolicity
if it is not the real thing what
is an apostle if he is not authentic
what is a prophet equally my god and
these substitutes are inundating our Christian world and
I'm asking for discernment that only a body
can have that has made its commitment to
God that its first purpose for being is
the fulfillment of his eternal purpose and once
that consecration is made there is a new
discernment given a perspicacity and understanding a sensitivity
to fathom into sense that which is dubious
that which is questionable that which is imitative
that which is a substitute that which is
false because they have opted for that which
is real and they're willing to pay the
price of it my god we're crying out
for the church today in America that has
no explanation for the disasters that have come
to this nation and will come so Lord
give us an understanding not that we should
be coffee time dilettantes with our feet up
on the coffee table sprouting a new kind
of knowledge but that we should be the
thing in ourselves that we should be pioneers
a militant cadre in advance of the church
demonstrating and calling others to the reality my
god that makes the church the church help
us with a little help my god we
pray mercy my god for our failures for
our shortcoming have mercy on our ambition and
that we have been groomed in a religious
world to succeed coming out of Bible schools
and seminaries and becoming youth ministers and worship
leaders so that we can become associate pastors
and then full pastors senior pastor and we
can have our own little kingdom and compete
with and be as alluring and have as
as great a number and an attendance and
a budget as the most prominent of our
counterparts sound and fury signifying nothing so my
god give us we pray something of your
divine jealousy because you are the high priest
and the apostle of our confession and you
call this as holy brethren to the fulfillment
my god of that vocation and I pray
that you're doing something today and something through
this tape that will go into the heart
and spirit and consciousness of those whom you've
called to here and are willing to this
to put aside and cast away every faint
substitute for the real thing because they know
that they know that the real thing is
costly it means their life it means their
martyrdom and they're willing not begrudgingly but kept
with all joy that's what stupefies the powers
of darkness not only that we bear suffering
but we wish we take it with all
joy because we have eternal understanding of what
lies beyond this life the rewards that are
eternal and shall not fade away even the
reward of the Lord's own coming and kingdom
which we hasten by being the manner of
men we ought and receive the reward for
our labors that our labors deserve for they
are his works and not our own and
can only be fulfilled in the power of
his life my god wake us up to
what the church is called to be and
bless it and have an expression of it
in this locality my god where you have
brought us in these days that your word
shall not return to you void but accomplish
the purpose for which you have sent it
and we thank you and give you praise
for the privilege of this historic penetration whose
time has come that has been discarded and
rejected by men who purport to be interested
and even the expression of things prophetic and
apostolic and have not been so moved as
even to attend and to hear what is
being set forth so my god watch over
your word jealously to perform it give us
a breather a break bring us back my
god for such conclusion as it pleases you
my god to perform give us the full
measure of your heart today for this is
a day that's once and for all it
will not be given again and we want
my god all that you have ordained in
it and we thank you for the privilege
of what you're setting before us may we
grant you the response my god for which
you wait we thank you in Yeshua's holy
name God's people said