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There is such a false doctrine in the church today about apostleship. "Apostle, He first advocates an important belief." "First, advocates important belief." Does anybody know what the definition of apostle is that is in the church world today? It is "the sent one," but what they will tell you that it means is that if you have started a church and turned it over to a local pastor, and then you have gone out and started another church, and you have started a series of these churches, you started them and established them, raised them up and turned them over to other pastors, that you are an apostle.
Now I know that Paul did that. Paul did do that, but that is not what makes you an apostle, brethren. According to my research it is not even one of the characteristics that makes you an apostle. A pastor said to me just before this ministry was raised up, well he didn't say it to me, but he said it from the pulpit, that his assistant pastor had left and started a church in Ireland, and that now the assistant pastor was this man's apostle. This is the expression that is going around the church world, "I am your apostle." No longer, "I am your pastor," but "I am your apostle," and then they want authority over you. If God raises you up and you come out from under their ministry, they want authority over you. Brethren, that is not Scriptural at all. That is from the pit of hell.
The Greek definition of the word "apostle," Strong's #652, means "a delegate, an ambassador of the Gospel, a messenger with miraculous powers, he that is sent." We just heard that one, but what is he sent with? He's sent with miraculous powers. He is not just a good business man or PR man that knows how to raise up a church. He has miraculous powers, and he has the Word of God in his heart. Glory to God. Not only does he have the Word of God in his heart, but he is the first advocate of the new revelation of that hour. Now this Greek word that I just read you the definition of, is from three roots. The first two roots mean "to set apart, to send out on a mission, to set at liberty," and the second word that it is from implies, "withdrawing yourself from someone that you are attached to and then standing."
Now we know that we are married to the living soul that died and because we are married to him, we are married to fallen adam, and Satan is the spirit that rules in the living soul that died. Because we are married to him we are in a lying down position, because anyone that exists on the soul realm, spiritually is in a lying down position. You are spiritually weak. To stand up would mean you would have to be joining yourself to someone who is spiritually powerful in the realm of the spirit.
So, an apostle is one who was joined to someone who had him in a weak position, he was separated from that person, and he was raised up to a position of spiritual power. That is what it means. Glory to God. That is to withdraw one's self from that which you were joined to and then stand, and that is what is happening to us, and Paul exhorts us to do that in Ephesians when he talks about putting on all the armor. He says, "When you have done everything to stand, to stand." We are all trying to stand up. We are spiritual children that are not walking yet. Maybe we are crawling, maybe we are hobbling, I don't know, some of us more than others, but if we are walking we take a couple of steps and we fall down. We are not there yet because if I was there I would not have gone through last night and this morning what I went through. So we are not standing, but everything is in stages, and it is a process so we are getting there, but we are not standing. Glory to God.
The second category is, who calls apostles and whom do they represent? Romans 1:1 says, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God." Now those two words "to be" is not in the original text. The words "to be" are in italics so how the Scripture really reads is, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle." Called an apostle. Remember that teaching we had when we did the study on the creation? To be called was to be named, and it didn't just mean to be given a name. It meant to be given a character, and a nature so he was named as an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God. When he was named way back when the creation was first started, when adam named all the beasts of the field, Paul was named that he was going to be an apostle. Glory to God.
The word "called," Strong's #2822, means "to be appointed, to call by name, to give a name to, to be separated." It also means "to set off by a boundary, to mark out or to bound." I got ahead of myself. That is, he was marked from the beginning of the creation, way back at the beginning of the creation when the Sons of God were being formed in the earth, it was determined and ordained of God that he would be an apostle. We know that God does things like that. We know that He did it with Jeremiah the prophet.
Romans 1:4-5 says," And he was declared to be the Son of God with power by whom we have received grace and apostleship." So what are we saying? In the first case, Jesus Christ called you to be an apostle. In the second case, the Son of God with power which is also in Jesus Christ, calls you to be an apostle, and in 1 Corinthians 1:1 "Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God." Those words "to be" again are in italics, and it should read, "Paul, called an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God." So he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. He is a representative of Jesus Christ through the will of the Father. If God happens to raise you up while you are sitting under some man's ministry, brethren, he is not your apostle. Glory to God. He is not your apostle. Jesus Christ is your apostle. Hallelujah.
1 Peter 1:1, "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ." You are an apostle of Jesus Christ. That means that when you are an apostle that you serve Jesus Christ. It does not make you a chief honcho, who has all these lesser ministers, evangelists, pastors, etc., flocking to you. In case you do not know it, the higher up in God you get, the more of a servant you are, and the more of a servant you are, the more of your life you are required to sacrifice, and the more you get crucified. When I first came to the Lord, preaching just looked so glamorous. Everybody wanted to get up there in the pulpit with that microphone. Oh, they just wanted to hold on to that microphone. Right? Just give me that microphone. It is not all glamour, brethren. It is hard, and it is arduous, and it is painful, and sometimes your only reward is from the Lord. Sometimes the people that you minister to do not appreciate you.
I know there was one preacher who came into the church that we went to, the people had risen up against him, it was a denomination, and they put him out, his heart was broken, and his wife's heart was broken. They actually had him displaced from the church. It is a tough, rough walk, and God is not going to let you into that position until He believes that you are ready to stand. I had to wait about 5 or 6 years after God told me that I was called to be a teacher, and I would cry out to Him and say, "Oh God I want to teach, I want to teach, why can't I teach?" He told me, "They will destroy you. If you go before you are ready, you will be destroyed." He told me that, and He was right. He was right, there is not a doubt in my mind that He was right.
There is a lot more to this than meets the eye. It is glorious, and the spiritual growth is intense, but, brethren, it is with persecution. It is with persecution, and if you cannot stand the persecution, not only is it not going to be for your benefit, but God will not be glorified either. Hallelujah.
Who are apostles sent to? Romans 11:13, "For I speak to you Gentiles inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles. I magnify mine office." God sent the apostle Paul to the Gentiles, but it was Jesus Christ in Paul. Paul is the servant of Jesus Christ. God did not send Paul to laud anything over the Gentiles. He sent him to minister the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ as a humble servant to the Gentiles. If you ever see anyone that calls themselves a minister of the Gospel, and they are giving themselves all kinds of offices and ungodly power and authority and attitudes over you, you had better check it out with the Lord if that is where He wants you to be because ministers of the Gospel are not given carnal authority. Very often they are beat, they are crucified, they are lied about, they are blasphemed, and they are run out of town on a rail. You are not supposed to be wearing robes and gowns and fancy things. Something is wrong. If they are, something is wrong.
Galatians 2:8-9, "For He that worked effectively in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles." So Peter was the apostle to the circumcision, and Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, and He tells us that there was something inside of them that wrought effectively, that made them what they were. Strong's #1754, "wrought effectively," means "to show forth self to be mighty," and it is from a word that means "to be active and to be efficient." They had Jesus Christ within them actively, efficient, vibrant, not weak, not in a lying down position, standing up tall in spiritual strength and power, and He was their apostle, and because He was their apostle they became apostles also. You become what you join to, brethren. The reason Paul and Peter were apostles was because the chief apostle dwelt within them. Glory to God.
Verse 9," And when James, Cephas, and John who seemed to be pillars perceived the grace that was given unto Paul they gave him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship that Paul and Barnabas should go to the heathen, and James, Cephas, and Peter should go to the circumcision." So you have to have grace to be an apostle. First of all, you have to have Christ in you, you have to have a mature Christ in you, and you have to have grace which means that God sent you. You cannot send yourself. It means that God sent you. Because if God raises someone up that happens to be sitting in your congregation, brethren, get your swelled head under some cold water, it does not make you an apostle. Glory to God.
1 Peter 1:1, "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." So Peter was not only the apostle to the circumcision, he also went to the Gentiles, and we all know the account in Acts of the vision that Peter saw with the big sheet that came down, and he was sent to the Italian band. So God sent him to the circumcision and also to the Gentiles, but Paul apparently was just sent to the Gentiles, but they are both apostles of Jesus Christ, servants of Jesus Christ, landmarks in this realm of appearance in which the Spirit of God, which is invisible, dwells so that people who are looking for God can find Him. People that cannot find Him for themselves, they can find Him in His landmark apostles. Glory to God.
Characteristics of apostles, signs, wonders and miracles. 2 Corinthians 12;12, "Truly, the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds." Signs and wonders and mighty deeds. To be an apostle you have to be a vehicle through which proceeds supernatural miracles. Acts 5:12, "And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people." So the signs and wonders are directed towards the people. It is for the people. God is here for the people. In case there is anybody that does not know it, the Lord Jesus Christ is ministering to His people, and He wants to help them, and He wants to do more than heal their bodies and cast out some evil spirits. He wants to bring them into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants to take them from being a soul man to being a spirit man. He wants to raise them up in spiritual power where they will be without need. Glory to God.
The word sign, Strong's #4592, means "sign, token, wonder, or indication," and Webster's says that a sign is something material or external that stands for or signifies something spiritual. Now this gets back to our teaching on the landmark. If you know...if you hear that brother so- and-so or sister so-and-so is a man of God, that when He is there the Spirit of God manifests in him, that there is healing, that there is deliverance, that there is mercy, however it manifests, that there is teaching, that there is grace, you know, and the word can get out by word-of-mouth. There is a landmark that says, "God can be found at brother so-and-so's. Get down there, maybe He will manifest Himself to you, and you do a lot better than standing out in the middle of 347 saying, "Lord manifest yourself to me." You get down to the landmark where you know that, at least sometimes, He manifests. Glory to God.
A sign is an objective evidence, a human being. It is also a remarkable event which indicates the will of deity. So as we said in our other teachings, the landmark is not only in the realm of appearance it is also in the realm of the soul, something that you will experience with your senses. You know, even if you do not understand it, you know when the anointing fell. You feel good. You know if God has ministered to you, and you know if you see a miracle, you know if you see a demon cast out. It is hard to see a healing, but sometimes there are creative miracles. There are things that you can see, but in the realm of the soul there is a landmark also. You can discern the spirit no matter where you are in God, even if it just makes you happy. A sign is any indication to be perceived by the senses or the reason. A token is an outward sign, a distinguishing feature or a characteristic. As we said in our other teachings, you are not looking for the spirit of God in a dog. We know that the landmark in this realm of appearance where the Spirit of God dwells is a man.
Now we know that He has spoken through a donkey, but that seems to be an unusual case, and if you are looking for God you are not going to go out looking for a cow or a horse. You are, at least, going to start with man. So there is a way to find Him. Glory to God.
A miracle is an extraordinary event manifesting a supernatural work of God, an extraordinary event. Someone gets up out of a wheelchair, someone is healed of cancer, an extraordinary event. A wonder is a cause of astonishment or surprise, a quality, sense or state of exciting, amazed admiration. Now that is what we were just talking about before, feeling good. I know sometimes I have walked into a service, and the excitement just overtakes me. The Holy Spirit is there. It is the Holy Spirit. He was there before I got there, and it is just exciting. So I am discerning Him in my soul. It is not just something that I see.
Another characteristic of an apostle is that the people will fear him. Now that does not mean they are quivering in their boots. It means that if they have any spiritual sense at all, God help us as a lot of us do not, they will discern at some point that this person has spiritual power, and that when you curse someone that has spiritual power with God, brethren, you could be signing your own death warrant. We have a lot of ignorant people in this world, and God has mercy on them, but it is very dangerous to curse someone that manifests the Spirit of God. You could die, but sometimes God has mercy on you. Maybe those of you here remember, I do not have time to give the testimony, there was a practicing witch that actively tried to kill me. He literally did what he had to do to kill me only I am still here, and 6 months later I asked the Lord what happened to that man, because his attack was vicious, it was premeditated, he knew what he was doing, he wanted to kill me, and God showed me that he saved him. The man was saved, and he was serving God. So if you are an apostle people will fear you if they have any brains in their head at all.
Acts 2:41-43 says, "Then they that gladly received His word were baptized, and fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles." So when people see supernatural signs and miracles, they are supposed to be afraid of you, but there are many ignorant people in this world. God tells us about them throughout the Scriptures.
Apostles are not subject to law, and they have seen Jesus. 1 Corinthians 9:1," Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord?" Now what is he talking about when he says that he is free? What does he mean when he says that he is free? He means that he is not subject to the law. He is not subject to the law of ordinances. He does not have to follow dietary laws, and he does not have to follow the laws of the Old Covenant, and he does not have to pray in tongues three hours a day. He is above all these things because he is in a high spiritual realm where he enters into direct communication with God, and his needs are met. If you pray in tongues three hours a day, do not let me discourage you. If that is a blessing to you, if you believe in it, if that is where you are, God is honoring it, but I am telling you that there is a place in God where you do not have to do that. There is a place in God where you pray without ceasing, where every second of your waking life you are in such close union with God that you do not have to use this intermediate measure. That is what he means. He does not have to do natural things to commune with God. He has been granted communion with the Living God at will on a regular basis. He still is subject, however, to the law of God. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy mind, and thy soul, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." He is subject to that law, but he is not subject to the law of carnal ordinances. He does not have to celebrate feasts.
Paul is there, he is free. He does not have to do any of this stuff, and he says that he has seen Jesus. So apostles see Jesus. Now what does the Scripture say about seeing Jesus? It says that when we see Him we are going to be like him. Well, Paul said that he saw Jesus, and we are told about that in the book of Acts. He saw Jesus, and what happened? He was a murderer, his name was Saul, he was a murderer, and he saw Jesus and he became like Him. Hallelujah. Glory to God. He became like Him.
Apostles produce fruit. 1 Corinthians 9:2, "If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord." If you are an apostle, you are in a spiritual condition where you can reproduce the Life of Christ in another believer. The way you do it is not by forcing them to do things the way you think they should be done. The way you reproduce the Life of Christ in another believer, at least at this time to the extent of my knowledge, is that you establish a relationship with them where they acknowledge that you have something spiritual to offer them, and they, therefore, are open to receive it from you, and you impart spiritual truth and wisdom and all kinds of spiritual things through this Godly soul tie that has been formed. We said in the service last Sunday that every interaction that you have with another human being produces fruit. Remember we said that Sunday? If you love each other, if you are friends, if you are married, if you have a nice evening out, it produces the fruit of love for each other. It strengthens your relationship. If you do not like each other, if you are going out to dinner with someone, and it is an obligation you are going to produce the fruit of resentment and hatred. It is going to tear down the relationship. It is going to be worse.
So you produce the fruit of Christ in another believer when, first of all you have come to a spiritual place where you are capable of doing this, and our natural example is that young people cannot reproduce themselves. Twelve year old children cannot reproduce themselves. So you have to come to a mature place in Christ. It is one of the characteristics of being an apostle where you can establish a Godly soul tie with somebody and exchange spiritual life with them, and you are going to produce fruit in this Godly, loving relationship rooted in respect and honor for each other, and you are going to find what you have in Christ is growing in their soul, but you cannot give it to somebody else until you have it. You can give them the letter of the Bible, you can give them the letter of the Law, but you cannot spiritually impart the Life of Christ to them unless you have it to give.
Now the Scripture I just read was, "If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord." The Greek word translated "seal" means "the stamp impressed as a mark of genuineness," and the spiritual growth of disciples is a witness of the authenticity of the apostle. So if you have a seal, that means that you are genuine. To be genuine, you have to have Christ, and if you are somebody's disciple, and you are moving on in God and manifesting all the signs of Christ that is a witness to anyone with eyes to see that the teacher, that the apostle, whatever name you want to give to the spiritual elder, that they are authentically an apostle of God because they have reproduced the Life of Christ, and not everybody can do it.
Apostles are Holy, Ephesians 3:5 says, "Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His Holy apostles and prophets by the spirit." Holy apostles, they are without sin, and how are they without sin? Their sin was not just covered over by the blood of Jesus. Their sin had been blotted out, swallowed up by the Life of Christ that was within them. Remember at the beginning of this message, we said that you are an apostle because the Apostle, the Lord Jesus Christ, dwells within you. When the Apostle, the Lord Jesus Christ, dwells within you He swallows up everything in you that is sin, and Paul said, "I no longer live, but yet I live, but not me, it is Christ in me that lives." Christ was birthed in Paul, he came forth, he grew up to full stature, and he swallowed up Paul's carnal personality that was riddled with sin. For all intents and purposes, Paul died, but he was living by the life of Christ that was dwelling within his vessel. This is what is waiting for all of us, brethren. When Christ comes forth in you, every problem you have is going to get swallowed up, but He has to be birthed in you, and the Holy Spirit is not the Son. If you speak in tongues that does not mean that Christ has been birthed in you. There is a birth that has to take place. Hallelujah.
Revelation 18:20, "Rejoice over her thou heaven and ye Holy apostles and prophets for God has avenged you on her." In that Scripture we are talking about Babylon, and God calls Babylon the harlot city. It is really the living soul that died. It is really the soul life within you, and the Scriptures rejoice over that soul life within you, "thou heaven, the spiritual realm. And ye Holy apostles and prophets for God has avenged you on her." She has brought death in your life. She has brought torment in your life, and Christ has been birthed right in the midst of her, and swallowed her up, and disarmed her, and destroyed her ability to destroy you. So he says, rejoice ye Holy apostles and prophets, the carnal mind no longer has power to destroy you. So we have #9 here. If you are an apostle you are Holy, your soul life that sins unto your destruction has been swallowed up by the apostle, the Lord Jesus Christ, dwelling within your spiritual being.
What do apostles do? They witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Acts 4:33, "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and great grace was upon them all." There are two Greek words translated power, Strong's #1411, and it means "dunamis power, miraculous power, miracles, powers, strength, and mighty works." So the Scripture says, "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ." Well, how did they witness to His resurrection? When Jesus Christ was resurrected where did He go? We know that He ascended to the right hand of the Father. Then what happened to Him? He poured Himself out of His spirit upon us. He is back in the earth by His spirit. Well where is He? Is He floating around Route 347? Or is He in His landmark people? He is in His landmark people. So when they gave a great witness to His resurrection He was showing Himself through them. He was not out in left field somewhere. When the apostles gave great witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, they did it by working mighty wonders, supernatural wonders, by the power of His indwelling presence within them. Glory to God. It is very exciting, brethren. He's going to live in us swallowing up our soul life that causes us to sin and die, and we are going to be right in there with Him working all these miracles. Glory to God. What a promise. Hallelujah.
The apostles also impart the Holy Ghost. Now this is something I just found out today. I find this very interesting, brethren. Acts 8:5, "Then Phillip who was an evangelist went down to the City of Samaria and preached Christ unto them, and the people, with one accord, gave heed unto those things which Phillip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits crying with loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them, and many that were taken with palsies and that were lame were healed. Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that at Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost. Then Peter and John laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." Phillip could not impart the Holy Ghost to them. He could cast out demons, and he could perform healing, and he could preach the word of God, but he could not impart the Holy Ghost to them. Is that not interesting? Now, I do not want anybody to think, "Well, I know sister so-and-so, and she imparted the Holy Ghost to somebody, and she is not an apostle.
Brethren, to be an apostle you have to bear all of these signs. All of us are moving on to apostleship so it is possible that you have one sign or you have one aspect of the things that I am talking about. What is very interesting to me is to find out that everybody cannot impart the Holy Ghost, and Phillip could not. That was Acts 8:5-17, and 17 is the Scripture that says, "And they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost."
Acts 19:6," And when Paul had laid His hands upon them the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spake with tongues, and they prophesied." So here again, we have Paul the apostle imparting the Holy Ghost. Apostles impart the Holy Ghost, and not everybody can do it. Glory to God. We are up to #10, they can impart the Holy Ghost.
OK #11, Apostles execute judgment. They have the authority to execute the judgment on people. Now a lot of people get very upset about this. We have talked about it in this ministry, and I believe that the people here have received the Word for you, that if you cannot tell whether God is anointing you to execute judgment or not you will not do it, and I believe everybody has that understanding here. Well, apostles have the authority to discern sin with the righteous judgment of God, and this involves not judging with your soul, not accusing and not excusing, but with the righteous spirit of God within you discerning that something has happened that requires judgment and executing that judgment, and if you have that authority when that judgment is executed, it is executed, brethren. If you do not have that authority, it is witchcraft so if you do not understand this, if you are not sure that you are moving in this realm you had better stay away from it. I warn you with the best of my ability because if you do it, and it is not God the judgments will fall on you. Hallelujah, but the apostles, when you attain to apostleship you will be executing the judgments. This is not very popular in the church world today. Everybody wants to dance and sing. They do not want to hear this, but it happens. Glory to God.
Acts 8:18, "And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles hands the Holy Ghost was given (there it is again, the Holy Ghost) he offered them money." Verse 18, "But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee because thou has thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money." Verse 21, "Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter for thy heart is not right in the sight of God." Peter discerned and made a judgment that Simon's heart was not right with God. He refused to lay hands on him that he might receive the Holy Ghost. Did you ever see a minister of the Gospel refuse to lay hands on somebody? I have, and a lot of people are offended. People do not understand, they are carnal, but if you are a minister of the Gospel and you have a prayer line that you are ministering to, and the Lord says to you, "Do not pray for that one," brethren, you cannot pray for them. We have got to stop looking at the person standing up there and thinking that it is them. You have to make a judgment, either that the person does not move in the power of God at all, and you should avoid going to their services or if you make a judgment that they are moving in the power of God you have to stop seeing what they do as a carnal act of their own will. Glory to God. Hallelujah.
Verse 22, "Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart might be forgiven thee." Now this is what happened. Peter discerned that Simon wanted the Holy Ghost for the wrong reason, and he refused to do what would have been necessary to impart it to him, and he suggested to him that he repent that perhaps God might forgive him. Now he did not promise him forgiveness. He said repent that perhaps God might forgive you. Listen to Simon's answer. Verse 24, "Then answered Simon and said, pray ye to the Lord for me that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me." He would not repent. He would not repent, he wanted deliverance from the symptom, he wanted deliverance from the symptoms, he did not want the judgment, he did not want what was happening, but he would not repent.
This is throughout the church world today, brethren. They do not want the pain, and they do not want the torment, and they do not want the symptoms in their life, but they come to God for deliverance, and when He hacks away at them and shows them the root cause of the symptoms in their life they will not repent. Then if you are the minister that has been showing them these things, they call you a fraud, and they blaspheme God, and they go away under judgment. Hallelujah.
Apostles will raise the dead. Glory to God. They will raise the dead, #12, they will raise the dead. Now the raising of the read is both natural and spiritual. We seem to be seeing more of it in the spiritual today than the natural, but if you have an active Christ in you and God brings you to a person who is ready to receive Christ....do you know that you cannot bring someone into the Kingdom by giving them information? It is a spiritual thing, brethren. You have to say something....Jesus said "My words are spirit and My words are life." You have to say something that is going to quicken their heart. It is not just an intellectual thing. So for you to have the power to impart a word of life to someone which is going to bring the spirit of God into their heart you have, for all intents and purposes, at least done the first part of raising the dead. As always, we have natural example, and I believe that when God raises up apostles again they will be actually raising the dead. I believe that, although it is happening in the spiritual today. In case you do not know, we are all in the process of being raised from the dead, but we will not be completely alive until we enter into the Kingdom of God. We are in transition at this time.
Acts 9:36, "Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, and it came to pass in those days that she was sick and died, and they sent unto Peter two men, and Peter kneeled down and prayed, and turning to the body said, Tabitha arise, and she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up." I believe that we are going to be doing that. Glory to God.
Apostles preach and teach, and they are not the same. They preach, and they teach. Preaching and teaching are not the same. We know that there are many people that preach and teach, and they are not apostles. As I told you earlier, to be an apostle you have to have all of these characteristics. You may be an apostle in training. Acts 2:42," And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers." The Greek word translated "doctrine" means "that which is taught." "Fellowship" means "participation, spiritual intercourse, communication, distribution, a sharer."
Now it sounds simple, but it is very important because a lot of people that you hear preaching and teaching are not preaching and teaching their own doctrine. They have read books, they have gone to Bible school, they have PhD's and all kinds of degrees, and what they are teaching you, brethren, is what they have learned from other men, but the implication here is that, although it is not too obvious it is really there and you can study it and pray about it, it is really there that apostles have their doctrine directly from God. Apostles get their doctrine directly from God. Their doctrine is from God. What happens when they get a doctrine from God? All of the men that spent 10 years in the Bible schools tells them that it is false doctrine and start stoning them spiritually, if not naturally. Apostles have a doctrine, and it comes from that vibrant life-giving apostle, the Lord Jesus Christ, who dwells within them and is leading them into all truth. Glory to God.
The fellowship in this Scripture is among the believers because Acts 2:41 tells us that there were 3,000 people there, so obviously all 3,000 people were not fellowshipping with the apostle every day, but what this implies is that the doctrine coming down from the apostle was imparted to everybody, and then the disciples were spending time together. They were fellowshipping, and talking about it, and learning from each other, and sharing it, and loving one another and establishing relationships, and praying together and for each other. Glory to God. This is what the Lord requires of us, to fellowship.
It is very prevalent in the church world today that people are afraid to fellowship, that pastors are afraid to fellowship with their congregation because everybody is still so carnal, and I am not excluding myself from this. The state of the church today is so carnal that everybody manifests, and if you are not really mature in Christ what happens is the whole congregation gets busted up, so the pastors will not fellowship with their people because then the people leave the church. What's happening today is that Satan will not stop at anything to break up Godly fellowship and relationships in Christ, and, brethren, the only way we are going to overcome this....there is only one way we are going to overcome it, and that is to discern the intents of our own heart and our own motive.
If we get into a conflict with another believer, there is no way it is going to be adequately resolved if everybody involved is not going to admit their part in it, and repent, and lay it before the Lord. You cannot cover it up because we are becoming spiritual people, and we are starting to discern the intents of each other's hearts, and if someone gets into a fight with somebody the only resolution is to sit down before the Lord, actually desiring to resolve it, actively desiring to resolve it, admitting your part in it, repenting of it, and loving each other and going on. Otherwise, there is no hope. You cannot put up that big front of pride and say, "Oh, I did not mean it." You cannot do that any more, it is not acceptable to God. God does not want to beat you, He does not want any penance, He just wants you to discern the intents of your own heart, admit what is there so that you can get rid of it. This is the New Covenant, glory to God. He has imparted unto us power to get delivered from this stuff. You do not have to cover it up any more, but that is the situation as far as I know in most of the churches on Long Island. Relationship are very shallow and very casual because the pastors are afraid they are not going to have a congregation left if they really get to know the people. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
So we are told in Acts 2:42 that when the doctrine of the apostles comes forth it is life giving, and it is powerful, and if we will wield it as a weapon it will enable us to enhance our relationships, to overcome any problem in a relationship, but we have to be able to put that spotlight on our motives, and sometimes it is very painful, brethren. Sometimes it is just really, really painful, but God is requiring it of us in this hour. It is time to go on to perfection, and you have to confess it before the deliverance comes. Hallelujah.
1 Timothy 2:7, "Where unto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle, I speak the truth in Christ and lie not. A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity which means truth." So, the apostles are preaching the truth. Could that possibly mean, brethren, that there are preachers and teachers around that are preaching and teaching lies. I am afraid so. They may not be deliberately lying to you, and it may not be their intention to destroy you, but if their doctrine is the doctrine of men they are teaching you lies, and they are destroying you, and the trial of their life, all of these people in the ministry....what will they do when they come face to face with a true apostle who is preaching the truth of the Word of God? Are they going to say, "I heard from the Lord," or are they going to blaspheme you and call you a false prophet? God is trying the five-fold ministry today. They are falling like flies.
The Greek word translated "preacher" is Strong's #2785, and it means "to herald as a public crier or to publish divine truth of the Gospel, to deliver a sermon, to urge acceptance or abandonment of an idea or course of action." We just spoke about that. Abandon your lies, abandon your false doctrine. This is the truth, will you receive it or will you call me a false prophet? "To exhort in an officious or tiresome manner, to advocate earnestly." So if you are a preacher, you are going to be suggesting to people to throw out their wrong thinking and move into the thinking of Christ that is going to renew your mind. It does not teach, it does not instruct, it does not explain. It says, "You have got a problem, here is a better way, come and listen to this, here is a better way, believe in Jesus Christ as an act of faith," but it is without understanding. This is prevalent across the church world today. Some very well-meaning believers, and they believe in Jesus Christ, they heard the word, I receive you as my Lord and savior, and they come up to the altar, and they kneel down, and they say the sinner's prayer, and they raise their hands, and they do everything that the preacher tells them to do. They receive it by faith, but they have no understanding. They are without understanding.
A "teacher," Strong's #1320, is "an instructor, a doctor, a master, or a teacher." Webster's says to teach is "to cause to know a subject, to make to know the disagreeable consequences of some action." We talked about this last Sunday, that some people felt that I was saying things that were causing people to be afraid, but, brethren, that is my job. Not to make you afraid, but to tell you the truth, and if something in you is afraid the solution to your problem is to get deliverance. It is not to change the message that God has given me, and sometimes it is very painful for you, and sometimes it is very painful for me, but I am commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ to tell you the truth.
You see preachers all across the country that have spiritually prostituted themselves, and it has been my prayer for years that God does not let that happen to me. I will tell you something, when you pray a prayer like that, brethren, He will hear it, but you do not preach without persecution. You do not preach without persecution, when that is really your heart's desire, and it is only by the power of God that you stand. You pray a prayer like that, and He is going to give you the Word to preach. Glory to God. So we are talking about Webster's, and he says that teaching is "to guide the studies, to impart the knowledge of, to instruct by precept, example, or experience, to train and to discipline," and we were talking about that Sunday also, that I am not here to make you feel good. I wish I were, but I am not. I am here to train you, and I am here to discipline you, and most of the time God requires you to strain yourself (all body builders strain themselves), in whatever you are striving to do. You always strive for what you know you cannot attain so that you know you are making the maximum effort. If you do not understand everything I am telling you, that is fine, God does not expect you to, but He wants you to reach out and lay hold of everything that you can. I know that I am giving you more than you can grasp, but that is the way it works.
You go to college, and they have 90 minute sessions there. Who walks away knowing everything that the professor said? That is not the way it works. You are not expected to understand everything so there is going to be more than you can understand, there is going to be frustration, and sometimes the message will be a little longer than you like. Maybe we are a little frustrated here that God is not pouring out the spirit in a greater abundance than He is right now, but nothing is perfect, and we are all under a strain, including me. We are all under a strain, but no pain, no gain. If you feel strained in any area, it means that God is moving in your life. Thank God for it. If you came in here, and you just felt wonderful there would be no spiritual growth. I wish it were different, but that is the way it is. If you have a baby it is painful. That is the way life is. I wish it were different, but it is not.
Even for little Joshua growing up, sometimes he cries like his heart is breaking, and I do not doubt for a second that boy is in pain. If he wants something, and his mother says "No," and he screams like the world is coming to an end, I really believe that he is in pain. He wanted it, and he could not have it, and he was strained, and he was pained, but when he is a man and someone tells him "No," he's going to be able to say "Yes sir" without going crazy. He is not going to take a gun and go out and steal it when he does not have the money because he will have overcome when someone told him no. Glory to God. Thank you Jesus for being so faithful to us.
We are up to Ephesians 2:19-20, "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone." I never really understood that Scripture, I knew I had some vague concept of the apostles and prophets being the foundation, but I did not know what it meant, and the Lord showed me in my study for this message that what He is talking about is the teaching of the apostles and the prophets. We are built upon the foundation of the teaching of the apostles and the prophets, and Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. Jesus Christ Himself is the Logos, the spiritual Word of God. He is the spiritual Logos, the apostles that are inside the landmark, apostles that are giving them the doctrine, and we are being built on the spiritual word of God that is being imparted from Jesus Christ in spirit form to His apostles being spoken out through the natural vessel, the landmark, the apostle of God.
Our spiritual life, our spiritual city, we are getting a new city, and its name is Jerusalem. It is being built in us, and it is a spiritual city. It is made out of spiritual things, it is made out of words. Jesus said, "My words are spirit and they are life," and as we receive in our spirit the truth of the spiritual word of God. we are being built. Our spiritual life is actually being built, and the foundation is the very Logos of God Himself, pure spiritual truth as it is being imparted to us through the teaching in the natural realm of the apostles and the prophets who, when they speak out by the indwelling Jesus Christ, their words are spirit and their words are life. Glory to God.
1 Corinthians 12:28," And God has set some in the church, first apostles and secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." The word "prophet" is Strong's #4396, and it means "a fore teller, an inspired speaker," and it is from several Greek words basically meaning "in front of, to make one's thoughts known," and then when you go back to the next step before that, it says "to shine, to make manifest by rays, to appear."
So what we are saying is that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself desiring to make Himself manifest by rays....we have had teachings about this that when someone is a prophet, or even if you are not a prophet your spiritual substance that is in here vibrates out in rays. It could be ungodly spiritual power too, but when you are an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ He is vibrating from you like this, and the Scripture says that when a manifestation like that takes place through a human vessel, it rains. I have experienced it once, brethren, it was one of the most exciting experiences of my life in God, and the only way that I can describe it to you is that He just poured out of me. Xxxx was present. We were at a group gathering, and I had no idea it was going to happen. He just poured out of me, and I literally experienced these rays flowing forth from me. They were impulsing, vibrating, inpulsing thoughts coming from within me, and they were coming from every part of my being from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes, and the whole room just filled up with dripping, dripping anointing. He has not done it since. It was about two years ago, but the day is going to come that it is going to be happening all the time.
You see, right now you want deliverance. I call an altar call, and you come up here and you stand on the line, and a few people pray for you, and we hope for the best, but, brethren, the day is coming that you are going to come to this meeting, and the Lord Jesus Christ is going to manifest through me. Not only me. It is going to be happening in other ministries. He is going to manifest through the minister in this kind of a manifestation. You are not going to need a prayer line, brethren. He is going to touch you where ever you are sitting. How do you think He delivered 5,000 people when Jesus was a man, Jesus of Nazareth? How do you think He healed every person that came out? Jesus could not lay hands physically on everybody, but spiritually He laid hands on everybody. His spirit vibrated forth from His very being and touched every single person and healed them. No mistakes, no failure, every last one.
Brethren, it is going to happen again. God is raising up a people, He is preparing a people spiritually whose bodies and souls can tolerate this form of manifestation without destroying them. No more prayer lines. You are going to get it right in your seat, but at the same time fun and games is over. Do not forget Ananais and Sapphira. As we move into this hour of intense spiritual power the baby cakes game is over. You cannot be dancing around sitting in the back of the church saying, "Well I am not going to get delivered from that today." The Holy Spirit is going right to you. He is going to put His finger right on you. Get it now, brethren, at least open up your heart to it now because for the people in the church world that are denying that they need this kind of deliverance, denying the need to introspect, denying the need to confess their sins, they think that they are covered in the blood of Jesus and they are OK, and they are flying away to heaven. He is going to come on them as a thief in the night. I do not really know how it is going to manifest, I do not know what is going to happen, but I know He is going to do it. He is going to do it. Glory to God.
So if you are a prophet, the prophet is an instrument through which the Shekinah glory and the will of the Lord is revealed. The prophet himself has no power to bring it forth on his own. When it happened to me, I had nothing to say about it. God did not tell me it was coming, He did not tell me when He withdrew it, and I have been crying out for two years, and He has not done it since. I have no power to bring it forth from within me. This is the imputed anointing of God. It is the mind, and the life, and the will of the Lord within you manifesting to do what He wants at His will, and we are the instrument, we are the vessel, but the day is coming that He will deliver us to such a point that we will be without sin, where our mind will think like He thinks, and He is going to let us manifest at our will.
Just like when you raise children, you do not let them go out into the street when they are 2 years old, but when they are old enough to handle themselves in the street you let them go. You do not let them drive a car until they are 16 because it is dangerous. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is not letting us manifest that kind of power before we think with His mind or when we are likely to use it for ungodly purposes, but He is growing us up, brethren, and the day is coming that we are going to be able to turn that kind of power on and off at will. If someone would walk into a place like this or I would be walking down the street, and I would perceive by the Mind of Christ in me that this person has the faith to be healed, it will just come forth. I will be a vessel with nothing to say about it. We are going to be one with Christ, we are going to think His thoughts, and we are going to make the decision our self because He will have given us everything that He has inherited.
By the way, there is a Scripture that says one of the apostles perceived that the man had the faith to be healed. The faith to be healed, brethren, I questioned that for years, you know. Why does one person have the faith to be healed and the other not....to have the faith to be healed is to have the root of Christ. That is what he perceived, that the man had the root of Christ.
I do not want to get ahead of myself so let us go on according to some orderly fashion. The Greek word "apostle" is Strong's #652, and it means "a delegate, an ambassador." So the Shekinah glory is an apostle's state of being. He can manifest it at his own will. This is the imparted anointing. He is an ambassador of the Gospel, a messenger with miraculous powers. It is not something manifesting in him that he has nothing to say about. So another sign of apostleship is that he has the power to bring forth the anointing at will. There are many times that people come to me for prayer, and I am so frustrated that I cannot do anything for them. This will no longer be when you are an apostle. Glory to God.
I want to touch for a second here on what it was that the apostles were teaching and preaching, and I am in the last chapter of Acts which is Chapter 28, the last verse 31, and it says that "Paul was preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him." Now the Greek word "concern" means "all around, through, and all over," and what I am suggesting to you, brethren, is that he was not just preaching about the crucifixion and the resurrection from the dead. He was preaching all about the man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He was preaching what you are hearing here, and whatever else God has not given us yet. So apostles are going to teach the whole spectrum of spiritual truth. Glory to God.
I have a brief study in Ephesians 4:9-19, "Now that He ascended what is it that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens that He might fill all things, and He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors, and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ til we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we hence forth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but in speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things which is the head even Christ. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that ye hence forth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the Life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, has given themselves over unto licentiousness to work all uncleanness with greediness."
Verses 9-10, "Now that He ascended what is it that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth." The Greek word "lower" means "inferior." Lower is used to describe Hades, and it is from a root that means "downwards, beneath, bottom, down under," and "descended" means "to descend." "Ascended" means "to go up, to arise," and the Greek word "parts," Strong's #3313, means "to get as a section or allotment, a piece, a piece of the earth." That is, He descended first down under the many members of Christ. Remember the teaching on the creation, the Son of God first descended before the foundation of the earth, and He descended down under, He gave life to the earth, and He first was the life force down under every human being on the face of the earth before He ascended unto Glory. Hallelujah.
Verse 11," He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers." The word "some" is from two Greek words meaning "the truth." The first Greek word is the article and it means "the." The second Greek word means "verily, truly, indeed." Let me give you the numbers in case you want to check it. The word for "the" is #3588, and the word for "verily, truly" is #3303, so what we are really saying is "the truth," yet they translated it "some." The word "teacher" in that verse is singular. Pastors is plural, evangelists is plural, prophets and apostles are plural, but the word "teacher," although it is translated plural, in the Greek Interlinear it is singular.
Alternate Translation, Verse 11, "And He gave the truth in apostles, and the truth in prophets, and the truth in evangelists, and the truth in pastors, and one teacher being their source in the midst of them." Brethren, it is Jesus Christ in the five-fold ministry giving you the truth, and if you are dealing with a man that says he is in the five-fold ministry, and he is not giving you the truth he is not a minister of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If what he is preaching to you and teaching you is not coming forth by the Spirit of God, if it is man's doctrine, he is not a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is not a part of the five-fold ministry. Glory to God.
That is a hard word, but it is the truth. One teacher, being their source in the midst of them. Jesus said that He is the truth, He Himself is the truth, there is no truth outside of Him, and in the book of Matthew Jesus tells us to call no man rabbi, and rabbi means teacher. We are not to call any man teacher, but if it is Christ in me teaching you, if you desire to you could call me teacher, but only if it is Christ in me teaching you. If I am teaching you my man-made doctrines I am not a teacher. So we have a whole five-fold ministry out there that is not THE five-fold ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. They have gone to Bible school, and they have been ordained by denominations, and they have taken on the title, and they are not what they say they are.
Just briefly, back to Verse 12. The reasons for the teaching is to perfect the saints. You are supposed to be perfected. You are sitting here again witnessing to what we have been talking about. You are not here to feel good, you are here to be perfected, you are here to be edified, to edify the body of Christ, you are here to learn, not to hear what makes you feel good, and sometimes the truth hurts, but that is why you are here. You are here, Verse 13, to come into the unity of the faith and a knowledge of the Son of God. You are here to be joined to the Christ within you.
I was in a ministry a while where they were teaching that the people in the ministry should be being joined to one another, but, brethren, the joining is between you and the Christ that is emerging forth within you, and then when Christ has emerged forth within you and Christ has emerged forth within you and within me, then we are going to be in unity because we are all going to have the same spirit. You cannot join yourself to me until we both have been joined to Christ. We will be made into a perfect man, the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we will not be children any more.
I was talking about this earlier, being tossed to and fro, receiving false doctrine, being knocked down by winds of spiritual power, by men, trickery, whereby they lie in wait to deceive you. We are going to come to a place in God, brethren, where no one is going to deceive us. Paul says in one place, "We discern every man, but they do not discern us." Do you know what that means? I did not know what it meant when I first read it. We see the heart of every man, and sometimes we look into the hearts of people, and we see things about them that they do not even know about themselves, but they do not discern us because if they would look into our heart they would see the Son of God, and they would know who we are. They do not know who we are because their mind is darkened. So we look into their hearts, but they cannot look into ours. Glory to God. Hallelujah.
So the Lord says you are called to this high calling, you are not here to be at a Sunday school picnic (which is fine if we ever have a picnic), but you are here for a purpose, to be raised up in spiritual power.
Sometimes when men stand up, and they preach and they teach from their carnal mind they are false prophets. A man that stands up and calls himself a minister of the Gospel....this is a hard word, brethren, I am not against anybody, I am telling you the truth. If you are a minister and you are hearing this, if you are preaching from your carnal mind you are a false prophet for that moment that you are preaching from your carnal mind. Do not get mad at me, ask God if it is true, discern the intents of your heart, and if it is true ask Him to help you. Who wants to be a false prophet? 2 Corinthians 11:10 says, "As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia." What was he boasting about? Glory to God.
Verse 12, "But what I do, that I will do that I may cut off occasion from them which desire Achaia." He's boasting that he is an apostle because there were false apostles out there saying that he was not an apostle. Do you know that is what they do to you? The false apostle calls the true apostle false. So if you are not strong in God you are going to go into confusion. We have to grow up, brethren, we have to grow up.
So Paul says in Verse 13, "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ." They are preaching from their carnal mind, and they dare to say that they are the apostles of Christ, and if your spiritual senses have not been developed, brethren, you have no way to tell who is who. If you cannot hear from God you are in trouble. If you cannot hear from God ask him for that ability. We are moving into a spiritual age. You are going to be like a two year old out on the street without his parents. You are going to be lost. If you cannot function in the realm of the spirit ask God to help you.
Verse 14,"And no marvel! For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." I have heard so much preaching about this. Well, who is Satan brethren? He is the spirit in the carnal mind. He is the spirit of the natural man. He is carnal man standing up in the pulpit across the country preaching his own doctrine from the vain imaginations of his darkened mind, and he is telling you that he is an apostle, an angel of the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan is not a being with a red head and horns and a tail. It is natural man opposing God from a position of authority.
Verse 15, "Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed into the ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works." God is talking about all the preachers in the pulpit today that are preaching out of their carnal minds the doctrines of men, and when the true apostleship comes forth they are going to call it unclean and blasphemy. They are already doing it. It is coming forth in part. I do not know anyone that is a full apostle, maybe they are in the earth today, I do not know them, but they are emerging. It is in the earth today. The doctrine is in the earth today, and they are blaspheming it. They are calling it false doctrine, and they are saying, "Who do you think that you are? Do you think that everybody is wrong, and you are the only one that is right?" Yes. Was it not that way when Jesus Christ of Nazareth appeared? Was He not the only one? Were not all the Pharisees, all the authority, all of the Sanhedrin, the high priest, did they not all say that He was not the Son of God?
Yes. If you are emerging as an apostle of God, if you have the doctrine of the apostle, and you are bringing it forth, and the whole rest of the church world is different from you, yes the whole rest of the church world is wrong. If they are preaching from their carnal minds they are wrong. I do not care if it is one out of a million, brethren, the truth is not in numbers. The truth is discerned by the spirit behind it. God help us.
I am winding down. I have a few specific examples of apostleship for you. Paul, Acts 19:12, "So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and their diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them." Now this word "brought" is not nearly as simple as that, and it is from three different Greek words. One is a double negative. I do not really understand that, but we know that a double negative is a positive, right? If you say, I do not want to not go - it means you want to go. In English, it is bad English. Some languages use a double negative....I know Spanish and French use a double negative. The second word means "to transmit a message, to give a command, to declare," and the third word means "to come into being, to make ready, or bring to pass, to attain, or secure an object or an end, to produce from seed as a mother, to bear to be born, to bring forth, to hit, to make contact."
So what are we saying? When Paul brought things from his body there was a contact, the anointing on him, the indwelling Christ in him, the apostle the Lord Jesus Christ within him, made contact. With what? Your ears? With your eyes? With your arms? It made contact, brethren, with the fertile parts of the souls of these people that received these cloths, and they were fertilized, and Jesus Christ was again producing from seed. You know the greater works? There is all this speculation about what are the greater works that Jesus said that we are going to do? Jesus Christ cast out demons and healed the sick. He did not impart the life of Jesus Christ to these people. It was not available yet. He had not been glorified yet. The greater works that we are going to do is that we are going to impart the life of Jesus Christ. We are going to go out fertilizing the world with the life of the Lord Jesus Christ that each and every individual might be made in His image and delivered from the bondage of sin and death. Glory to God.
He did not do anything like that. He just cast out a few demons. That is the greater works. That is what Paul was doing. By some miracle, this ability to fertilize the fertile parts of the human soul was transmitted on a piece of cloth, and why not? If God could do it through a human vessel why can He not do it in a piece of cloth which is earth? Well, he could not get everywhere so he sent out these cloths, and when the people received it they were fertilized. Glory to God. Hallelujah.
So what we are talking about here, brethren, Romans 8:11,"But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit that dwells in you." Now, that is not to say that you cannot be healed by an outpouring of the imputed anointing. You can, it has been done. It may remain permanent, and it may reverse. There is a church where all kinds of miracles have occurred, but I understand a large percentage of them reverted. Now what happened? Everybody wants to know what happened. One preacher was saying, "Well, they got healed but the demon at the root did not come out." All kinds of speculation as to why the healing was not permanent. Well, what we are being told here, brethren, is that there are two ways to get healed. There can be an outpouring of spiritual power which corrects the problem in your being, or you can birth the Christ, and as He comes forth from within you changing your very nature, swallowing up the sin in you, swallowing up not a demon but every possible root cause for disease, when you get healed from the indwelling Christ, brethren, there is no reversal.
So what we have in the church today is the imputed anointing. I have had a lot of healing. A lot of people have been healed from the imputed anointing. I am not knocking it, but there is a better way, brethren. There is a faultless way without failure. Christ in you the hope of glory. Every healing in every area, every need met, and this is what God had given to Paul and to Peter, and He is raising up apostles today. It is real soon, brethren. They are going to be called the Sons of God. They are going to have the apostle the Lord Jesus Christ dwelling within their flesh, and they are going to have power to fertilize you if you have not already been fertilized, and if you have been fertilized they are going to have power to quicken that birth so that Christ comes forth in you in the full power and authority of apostleship. When that happens you are going to be healed of everything. I am not going to have to stand over you and say, "Heart be healed, kidneys be healed, spleen be healed." Everything is going to be healed. You are going to have a new life coming forth from within in the same body. Glory to God.
We have two more signs of the apostle. The next one is preservation, and this is very important because we have discussed this in this ministry that it is a part of salvation, and at that degree of salvation we do not get sick. A lot of people think that they have divine health because they do not get sick, but the spiritual reality is that they are basically healthy people, and they just have not gotten sick in 10 years. Divine health or preservation means that it is impossible for you to get sick, and the only way to prove that would be to do what John Lake did, to have his own blood exposed to typhus vaccine. I may have the disease wrong, but he had his own blood exposed to plague, and the plague died. The plague died. The plague virus died. That is preservation, brethren.
Acts 28:4, "And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on Paul's hand they said among themselves no doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he had escaped the sea yet vengeance suffereth not to live, and he shook off the beast into the fire and felt no harm. Howbeit, they looked when he should have swollen or fallen down dead suddenly [this is not even getting sick. This is something that should have killed him], but after they had looked a great while and saw no harm come to him they changed their minds, and they said he was a god." The Scripture says, "Know ye not, that you are gods, but ye shall die like men." A lot of people get upset at that Scripture, brethren, but you are a god because God dwells within you. You are a god because THE God, God Almighty, dwells within you, and He is sharing everything that He has with you. Glory to God. Preservation, I cannot wait for that sign of apostleship!
We just talked about this one, healing by imparting Christ. Acts 3:2, "And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called beautiful to ask alms of them that entered into the temple, and Peter, fastening his eyes upon him, as John said, look on us, then Peter said, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk, and he took him by the right hand, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength, and he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God." I had a similar experience, brethren. It was very exciting. At the time I was on my health food diet. I am utterly backslidden at this moment, but I was on my health food diet. I was visiting my parents, and I got this overwhelming urge for a hamburger. At the time I did not eat white bread, I did not eat beef. It was so strong I said, "What is the big deal, I will yield to it, I cannot see any harm in it," and I went to the diner.
There was only one seat in the whole diner, brethren. It was at the counter next to a drunk, and I sat down, and he started making a pass at me, he wanted to buy my dinner, he was treating me like I was a prostitute. Now he was drunk as a skunk. I do not know what he thought, and all eyes in the diner were on me to see how I was going to deal with this. They all expected me to get up and leave, and when I did not get up and leave I could hear their thoughts. This man had several hundred dollar bills, and he was throwing them on the table. He had money, and he was drunk at a skunk, OK? Everybody was watching me, and I started talking to him, and I could hear their thoughts. They thought I was after his money, they thought maybe I was a prostitute, or I was after his money. It was really funny, but I was mortified, but God would not let me leave.
As soon as I saw his condition I knew that I was sent, and that I had a mission, and I just said," Well, I despise the shame." This is a diner in my neighborhood. It was not that I would never go back there again. I talked to him, and the waitress was looking at me with this really strange look on her face. He wanted to buy my dinner, and I would not let him buy my dinner so then they really could not figure it out. We talked and we talked, and all of a sudden he opened up to me, he told me about his life. He was a nice looking man in his early 30's. He was a Viet Nam vet, and he had a Vietnamese daughter whose mother had died in Viet Nam, and she was here with him in this country. His mother was a believer who had been praying for him for years, but I do not think she was in very deep. Maybe she was Methodist or some mainline denomination, but she had faith, and she was praying for him for years.
At one point, I tried to minister to him when he was drunk as a skunk, but there was no opening to talk to the man until, at one point, God revealed to me what his problem was. He had killed several Vietnamese children who were carrying contraband. I understand that is what the North Vietnamese did, they used children, and he had to choose between killing the children or letting his whole company get killed, so he really had to kill them, but he was tormented for years that he had killed these children. Well, my eyes fastened on him, I knew it was not me, I knew it was not me, something rose up in me and grabbed hold of that man's eyes, and he got very uncomfortable. Talk about squirming in your seat, brethren, it seemed that he could not move. His eyes were locked to mine, and I said something to him. I don't remember exactly what the exchange was, but I knew that something went from my eyes to his eyes. Something entered into his spiritual being through my eyes, and it had nothing to do with me, I knew it, and it turned out that his heart was... and I know God gave him salvation.
I never heard from him again, I never saw him again, but I know that God did something for him. I think he was saved, but I am not sure. Something entered right into his spiritual being, and it was in a direct response to his mother's prayers. I even said to him at one point, "You know, you can talk to the Lord," and he said, "Oh yea, I know." I said, "You can tell him what you need," and he said, "Directly?" That was what he said, and I told him, "Yes." So I experienced that. Any supernatural experience is very exciting, brethren. Very exciting.
You can tell an apostle because of fear. "And great fear came upon all the church and upon as many as heard these things, and inasmuch as they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow them." The shadow of Peter is this. It is not the shadow from the sun on your natural body. This is the shadow of Peter. It is the anointing, the vibrating, thickness, sweetness of the anointing that came out and touched them, and it not only touched them, brethren, it fertilized them. It did not just heal them with an imputed anointing, it entered into the deepest recesses of their spiritual beings, and it fertilized them so that Christ could come forth in them giving them the fulfillment of all of the promises.
So we are saying that the apostles healed by imparting the life of Christ to you, and then they teach you so that it grows, and they give you everything that you need so that Christ grows up in you. Glory to God.
To close it out, I just want to confirm to you that apostleship is Christ in you, and we touched on this last Sunday in James 4:1, "From whence come wars and fightings among you, come they not hence even of your lusts that war on your members." The Alternate Translation of that is, "Where does this state of open, hostile warfare between two opposing forces and an internal condition of insurrection between yourselves originate from?" Because there are two of us, there is Christ and fallen adam in here. "Is its source not your own desires for satisfaction which have resulted in a military campaign with your own mind between your desire to manifest Christ by fulfilling the office of apostle which he is, and the desire of your soul man for sensual pleasure?" If you have birthed Christ, I do not care what infantile stage He may be in, if you have birthed Christ you are a potential apostle. You have everything in seed form that you need.
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