Art Katz addresses the pervasive issue of the 'fear of man' within the church, emphasizing that many congregations are caught in a cycle of idolatry and superficial worship, failing to wait on God and instead seeking immediate gratification. He draws parallels between the Israelites' impatience in Exodus 32 and the modern church's tendency to prioritize pleasing men over God, urging believers to choose between idolatry and true sacrifice. Katz calls for a radical commitment to God, challenging listeners to confront their fears and the idols in their lives, and to embrace the cross as the only path to authentic unity and love. He warns against the counterfeit unity that lacks the foundation of the cross, urging a return to true consecration and the priesthood of believers who are willing to sacrifice for God's truth.

Introduction If there is a phenomenon that has pierced my heart through that seems endemic and prevalent throughout the whole of Christendom and particularly in ministerial ranks it is that thing which is called the “fear of man”. And it's on that theme that I believe God wants to speak tonight. It's been a cumulative thing working in my heart and it began only a Sunday or so ago in a Canadian Baptist Church. Where when I had the Sunday morning off, I was brought by a Jewish colleague to that church which he attends to hear a pastor called “Spirit-filled.” I don't think I've recovered from the experience. I wrote down some quick notes on the back of the bulletin. And as is my manner, I like to observe the faces about me, catch the atmosphere, sense what is being said and done and try so much as I can to dissolve into God. That His heart is my heart, His perception is my perception. And here's what I wrote down looking at the faces in this Baptist congregation and all you need to do is substitute Methodist Presbyterian and the whole host the varieties of other names including Pentecostal and can we even dare suggest Charismatic. To see what is I think a universal phenomenon. I wrote “hard obdurate faces” and “bare truces in marriages and families.” You say “Katz’s that's Jewish hutzpah, that's really presumption, you can look at a couple sitting in the pew and you can suggest that their marriage is a bear truce?” Yeah. What can I say? It's my mode of operation. God has so honed my intuitive faculties. I apprehend situations, because He juggles my life day and night from place to place and I find myself plunged instantly from one environment to another, one nation to another, one religious’ category to another and have almost immediately to discern what is there. That God might have a mood, a temperament, and a Spirit by which to address it. And I don't think that I'm a miss here to suggest that looking in the faces of many of those couples I saw hardly anything better than could be can be called a truce. I saw in faces indifference, unrelatedness. And I listened to a little a lot of religious gobbledygook and yet I can say in the same breath that the message was perfectly correct scripturally sound. And was even on something which we Charismatic should applaud. It was on praise and worship and yet I say in the same breath it was religious gobbledygook. Are your own faculties sufficiently honed to know that just because something is doctrinally correct and scripturally clean that it can still be a bunch of nonsense? Have you seen by the eye of God what is going on over Christendom for lo these many centuries right to the present day of people sitting on Sunday hours like wooden Indian sticks listening mesmerized by some kind of ceremonial incantation that has no sense, no relevance to their lives and they fulfill their hour and are discharged to continue for the rest of the week being the lords of their own lives? The minister feels he has fulfilled his function, the religionist feels that he has fulfilled his and the filthy truths goes on week after week in the name of God. And I want you to know there's a cut bruised and bleeding heart that is viewing this scene since time immemorial it's very God Himself. And I think He's had a gutful. Gray, sullen, despondent lives incapable of praise. For that congregation to be addressed on the subject you have a praise was as nonsensical and that irrelevant as the nomenclature of an M1 rifle. It was just pure ceremony. The pastor started his message with the references to the beloved. “Beloved”, he would say, “beloved”, but there was nothing beloved or loving either in him or them. That too was part of the posturing. In the back rows with a tittering teenagers dressed in the most mod fashions serving their time waiting to be dismissed. Wholly indifferent what was going on below, having their own gossip and their own tittering and shrieks and laughter all the while sleeping adults. And the manner of the pastor, the voice - man pleasing, oily, condescending, inoffensive, irrelevant, unreal though the sermon was technically good scriptural correct and quote and unquote sincere. God was giving me my afternoon message by being in that service that morning and I invited that pastor to come. I said “I think that God has something for you personally if you'll come.” And it had to do with this man pleasing thing of a pastor who had a baptism in the Holy Spirit, but doesn't want to rock the boat and is continuing with great so-called sensitivity and prudence week by week nowhere. Why if human reckoning determining what he thinks is prudent for his congregation, but what he is really reckoning are those things that will not be allowed to happen that should jeopardize his existence, his security, his well-being, the applauds of men. I want you to turn with me with that introduction to Exodus the 32nd chapter and join your hearts with me in prayer because God Himself is going to have to put this together. Opening Prayer Let's pray. Gracious holy God, great Jesus, we ask mighty God that the Spirit of Truth would abide with us this night. Gracious God, that you might attend to your Own word with such an unction by Your Spirit that our hearts will be deeply penetrated, our eyes of understanding opened that You might speak out of the depths of our heart Lord where as long harbored there and prepare us for the understanding of what shall be increasingly the sickening realities of our own age. Precious God, may the truth set us free, speak now without let without hindrance not allowing a syllable to fall to the ground fully vent Your own soul and have Your way out of this piece of clay and well thank you praise you for this occasion which You have ordered for this speaking for your glory and for the establishing of your true kingdom in Jesus name we ask it amen. The People “saw” - Walk by faith not by sight The 32nd chapter of Exodus describes the unhappy episode of a people who could not wait for Moses to come down from the Mount. And who descended into idolatry in the most filthy and pagan way. And what you would think is an episode so removed and so unrelated her own age I think is far more pertinent than we can realize. So, by the help of God, I just want to just call again and bring forth now what I believe that the Lord was showing me through these afternoon hours. It begins: Exodus 32:1 (AMPC): When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, [they] gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, Up, make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him I think there are some rudiments and some elements even in this first verse that should not be ignored. It begins when the people “saw” and I suppose that as always, a very poor beginning and is always going to eventuate in unhappy conclusions. We're told that we should live by faith walk by faith and not by sight. When the people “saw”, living by another faculty than the faculty of faith “for the just shall live by faith.” And I can't tell you how much that Scripture is etched into my heart increasingly in these days, but just like so many other scriptures they have become like truisms or they've lost their cutting edge. They've become banalities things to which we have given consent and acknowledged, but have not lived, “the just shall live by faith.” I don't know how we're doing at Minnesota, thirty souls unsalaried, but somehow, we're eating, we're clothed, we're housed, we're learning about a Living God Who has called us to fulfill the Scriptures in spirit and in truth. When the people “saw” is always an unhappy beginning. They saw a Moses who delayed to come down from the mountain, which shows a disposition not to wait. If you're asking what is God doing in Minnesota? He's building in us a disposition to wait. He's teaching us such elementary things as patience and waiting on the Lord. And I'll tell you children if that has only been a phrase the actual experience can be in itself excruciating. I find myself in the same predicament day by day now. Choking and stumbling over my own tongue, wanting to express so much that God has inserted there and finding that if I could had a zipper to zip down my chest and take my heart out and ring it, I would have a far better way of communicating than just by this pathetic method of speaking. Patience, waiting on the Lord, living by faith, the things which we have heard and quoted and recited are the very ground and foundation of our being in life. And God is preparing some of us now in remote places and more of us shall be brought to such places. Wave after wave as we shall see the world increasingly deteriorate all about us and these verses shall either save us or we shall perish. We shall either have learned to live as the saints of God or we shall die mumbling spiritual incantations that cannot sustain us. Waiting on the Lord is survival technique and I don't have the time to tell you how the Lord is teaching us what that means in very painful ways. They could not wait there's always an itch the human heart that cannot wait for God to come down from the Mount and therefore the necessary conclusion is make us gods give us some alternative. They may not be as lustrous, it may be a shabby alternative, but we need something tangible now. Isn't this the now generation? Fly now pay later. Immediate gratification. Now! My mother must be some kind of archaic relic something to be laughed at or wryly to be acknowledged. That coming from Europe as a young woman and desiring household furniture and not having learned about fly now pay later. She went into the furniture store and indicated to the man what she liked and gave him what amounted to a kind of a down payment, but instead of obtaining the merchandise it remained in the store until month after month after month of laborious and careful payments had been completed then she obtained the thing desired. What an archaic echo of an age now dead. The whole spirit of this age. Now gratification. Now. Make us gods. Rising up early for Idolatry or Martyrdom Exodus 32:6 (AMPC) “And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and for the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” Interesting about the phrase “rose up early” to conduct their little religious carnival around the golden calf. It's exactly the same phrase that God describes Abraham doing when the word came to him “Abram take now thy son thine only son whom thou lovest and make of him a sacrifice in the mount that I will show you” (Genesis 22:2) so says “so Abraham rose up early in the morning” (Genesis 22:3). You know what I think children and call me a simpleton if you will, but I think in the last analysis at the end of the age they're only going to be two alternatives for men. Both requiring a rising up early, one to rise up in pagan reverie: to eat, to drink, and to play or the other to rise up early to make of our Isaac a sacrifice to the Living God. In a word I want to suggest that in the at the end of the age which is not too far from us there are only two options for men idolatry or martyrdom. You say Katz’s that's very strenuous and very extreme? But dear children I would believe with all my heart those are the only two true options and I'll tell you what it has ever and always been so there are a lot of us vacillating somewhere between the one and the other, but the very nature of the age which God has called us to conclude our life and conclude the age is so radical that there shall not be any midway position. We shall find ourselves rising up early to dance and to play or to take our Isaac and make of him a sacrifice. Of Moses God says “that he chose to suffer affliction rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25). It was true then and it's true now. We'll choose either iniquity or suffering affliction with the people of God. Don't say He never told you. These are the true final and ultimate options and I think that God is wanting to prepare a remnant now a small number now to steal their hearts and make a conscious and mature choice of which of these alternatives they will choose. One has to do with gratification to a people who have an itch that cannot wait, who are moved by their senses and their faculties rather than by faith, who wants something now, gratification. The Cross brings True Unity And the other by a people who have inured themselves their gratification and have learned the way of denial. And by that, I only mean the way of suffering, by that I only mean the way of the Cross and that dear children is a message so infrequently spoken that it arrests our attention when we hear so much as a passing allusion to the cross. And I want to be on record to say that I believe that the omission of the cross particularly the prevalent omission in the things which have become groovy and popular in modern day religion and especially in the charismatic ranks is a most decisive and significant omission. I believe that men are attributing to the Holy Spirit, such offices and functions and things which God can render only at the cross. And as much as I love the heavenly dove and would not for a moment want the Holy Spirit to be parted from me, I am unwilling to consider that it should be that instrument by which only the cross can bring the true things of God. True love, true unity, true reconciliation. There's something growing in my Jewish heart and I'm not by nature suspicious and that is a growing apprehension of the increasing deception and darkness which is not only coming upon the earth, but is particularly coming upon the people of God. There is nothing groovier, more seductive, more easy to be spoken, more quick to justify every kind of Christian activity than something done in the so-called name of unity. There's nothing closer to the heart of God and there's nothing that Satan seeks more quickly to emulate then the same devoutly to be desired goal. Will you be suspicious with me? Of all of the kinds of functions and conventions and conferences and ecumenical wing-dings and get-togethers that we're going to see in the name of unity. Unity is not something that is established by the Holy Spirit. Unity true reconciliation, true love is the work only and ever of the cross. Be careful and be suspicious of the easy facile and continual references to the dove in the Holy Spirit under whose generous banner anybody and everybody can get together for the unity of the so-called body of Christ. A pox on the pseudo synthetic fake imitation of the true working of God at the end of the age. The Cross is where we sacrifice our Isaac to God We're going to rise up early in the morning for one thing or the other to make a sacrifice of our most cherished Isaac the ultimate denial or the practice of idolatry. And I think I got to give you a little under spot definition for idolatry lest you think that that has to do only with naked carnivals around golden calves or something pagan and utterly unrelated to modern day practice. Are you ready taking notes? Idolatry is any form of religious exercise or activity which requires only a modicum of response from men and gives in turn a sufficient religious or psychological or emotional sense of religious satisfaction that one might think that they have fulfilled their religious obligations and are free effectually thereafter to be the lords of their own lives. You just got a mouthful I know if you understand that. Shall I go run that through again? Well, have to take off my jacket okay. Praise God for Jews and I'm not being an ethnic what you may call it or a racist or anything like that, but I believe that he has some special purpose for them in the body of Christ. And that is a jealousy for the sanctuary of God, our reverence for the things that are holy, and a concern for those things that profane the sanctuary of God. Something in me winces at any kind of religious undertaking that seems to emulate things that are godly, but are not. Seems to give men a modicum of religious satisfaction and doesn't it all require them to come to the cross. There is no true Judaism of God, no true calling of God excepts at the cross of Christ Jesus. The cross. The cross. The cross. And as we all know theoretically and theologically it is the place of ultimate sacrifice, it is the place of shame, it is the place of humiliation, it is the place of death, it is also the place of Resurrection. The world's religion is any attempt to give men some kind of psychological and emotional religious satisfaction independent of the cross of Christ Jesus. And I'll tell you what you can do that in Christian churches, a dollar in a collection plate is just as effective a substitute as an Israeli bond or endow a pew or any other kind of building program or religious vent a valve that allows men to continue being the lords of their own lives without having come to a true place of submission unto God. You know when that true place is reached? When God shall speak to you by a holy voice and say “take now thy son thine only son whom thou lovest and make of him a burnt offering in the mount that I will show you, so Abram rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took his servants and he went.” No ifs, no ands, no buts, no wise, no how. And I'll tell you that three days later when he saw the mount it wasn't the day in which the execution was to take place it was the day of resurrection, because the moment that God's voice spoke Abraham the man of faith which is to say the man of obedience slew his son already in his own heart. Dear children have you put the knife to the Isaac of your life in your own heart already? Because if you have not you are going to defer to men your voice is going to become squealy and full of kind of personality unction, you're going to say right things, but without the penetration of God. You're going to conduct services and other forms of religious activity and feel that you're discharging religious obligation without effect. You're going to be a man pleaser rather than a God pleaser, so long as there's one Isaac left to whom you defer before God. And that Isaac could be a son, it could be a brother, it could be a father or a mother, it could be a friend and I tell you that God is going to bring us to such a fearful place in the soon coming days that many of us are going to have to make such choices. Danger of Music and Gamesmanship When Moses came down from the Mount with the tablets of the law, he heard already raucous noise. Exodus 32:17,18 “And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, there is a noise of war in the camp. But Moses said, it is not the sound of shouting for victory, neither is it the sound of the cry of the defeated, but the sound of singing that I hear.” Excuse me children, I don't want to be disrespectful, but if I'm meeting sag we can always try it out the good old choruses and I said to a young discipleship group last night whose music was extraordinary. Watch out. Read the “latent power of the soul” by Watchman Nee and recognize that there's nothing that has the greater capacity to emulate and to feign synthetically give the appearance of unction anointing and presence of God joy and all these other things then that which is a dude induced by music. The true disciple is that one who will break his guitar over his name and let God give it to him back together again. Oh, I know the function of music. Do you understand? How I'm speaking and why I'm speaking and the hyperbole and the exaggeration that God must use to make His points. It wasn't the sound of victory nor was it the sound of defeat that was the sound of singing that they heard coming down the Mount, because these children of Israel were not engaged in warfare either to win or to lose, they were engaged in fun and games and that dear children I'm afraid is what many of us are engaged in. Are we still friends? I think that so much of our religious life is gamesmanship. Fun and games. Discipleship community. Submission authority. We're the first in our neighborhood to have one. Look at me I've learned submission I can quote Watchman Nee. I'm the spiritual person. And I think a lot of the strife and a lot of the things which have been engendered recently and still continue in the charismatic movement for which there was a conference in this city are the result of that gamesmanship spirit. Men who have found shiny new toys with which to play. Playing the games the only pity is that there are real lives involved. I said to a dear brother let me offer you one of two choices, how would you like to be a member in some kind of Jewry Pentecostal congregation dead as a doornail the Holy Spirit has departed long since, singing the songs going through the numbers listening to the pretty sermon going out relationships unreconciled marriages as truces the whole bit gray dismal lifeless in earth or would you rather be in some kind of snazzy charismatic home fellowship group where they're learning the principles of discipleship or community or submission, but it is not from God, men in their cleverness have appropriated true principles and are manipulating and making and establishing whole networks of relationships and systems which is a mish-mosh and a mess. What you which would you rather have? I said to this brother, he said “give me the Pentecostal thing any day, I'd rather languish on that until the real thing comes.” I was an embarrassment to my colleagues everybody knew about the body of Christ, except Art Katz, man was on everyone's lips everyone could give the naseous definition of the body of Christ they had all learned it, but me I'm sorry I cannot learn it by precept, I cannot learn it by principle, I only learned it when God hammers it into my very core puzzles and being in my relationship with Inger thank you. I learned the body of Christ in the agony and the wrestling's and writings of my own marriage. I saw the mystery when I struggled and suffered through it. You know what God's great lament over Israel was? The knowledge of Me is taught by precept. What's wrong with that? We're swimming in tapes and teaching aids and books and every kind of thing which I suppose I myself from something of a culprit, but that's the last way to apprehend the truths of God. God wants them appropriated in our life and experience in due season in Him was life and His life was the light of men. And I tell you children I am very cautious about any other light than the light which emanates from His life, I'm a cross scented man. His life comes out of death and the light that comes from that is a glory, but there's a lot of other light which may be even a bit bedazzling, but it's not as authentic and as life-giving. I'm speaking like a fool, because I'm in the family of friends and I won't say thus saith the Lord, I will say listen, open your heart, ask the Lord, sharpen your discernments, chew the meat spit out the bones, but I've got to open my mouth and express what I'm saying. Well now we're coming to the heart that what I have to share with you and as we say in Brooklyn at Hoyts. Becoming a Priest of God Exodus 32:25 “And when Moses saw that the people were unruly and unrestrained (for Aaron had let them get out of control, so that they were a derision and object of shame among their enemies.” I think in King James's says they were naked. Exodus 32:26 – 29 “Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, whoever is on the Lord’s side, let him come to me. And all the Levites [the priestly tribe] gathered together to him. And he said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, every man put his sword on his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about 3000 men. And Moses said [to the Levites, by your obedience to God’s command] you have consecrated yourselves today [as priests] to the Lord, each man [at the cost of being] against his own son and his own brother, that the Lord may restore and bestow His blessing upon you this day.” Now dear children do you want to be a priest of God? Do you want to render holy ministry unto the Lord to the end of the age? These Levites who were positionally in technically priests were not consecrated until the day that each man put on his sword and went into the camp and slew each men father, brother, friend and God said by this you have been consecrated to the priesthood today. I have never before seen it, but the consecration of priesthood comes in a bloody fearful pitiless ruthless way. It's interesting what the word consecrate means it means “with your hands filled”, the Hebrew root meaning and you know what it's filled with its filled with blood. If you have an eye of pity that shall spare a brother or a father, remember what Jesus said your mother and your brothers are without, he said who are my mother and my brothers, but those that do the will of my father. This is one of those awkward moments when a man is going through a message for the first time to find what he wants to find it says in the Gospel of Matthew in the tenth chapter several references to fear in the 26, 28, 31. Matthew 10:26 “Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.” Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Matthew 10:31 “Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Fear not. Fear not. Fear not. And I'll tell your children as I said there are two options at the end of the age: idolatry or sacrifice. There are two choices of fear also you're either going to fear men or you're going to fear God. That same Baptist pastor said Well he said “We've had first principles about fearing God but now we can go on from there.” I felt like standing up and shouting “hold it what do you mean going on you've not yet come to the first principle.” There's got to be a choice of fearing God or fearing men. And I don't think that you face that choice and have ruthlessly spiritually come to what God is calling us until you have put your sword on your side and have gone into the camp and are willing to slay father, brother, friend. Jesus said in the 32nd verse they after all these fear nots. Matthew 10:32,33 “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven, but whosoever shall deny Me before men him will I also deny before My father which is in heaven.” I'll tell you children every act of deferring to men rather than to God. Every act of man pleasing, every subtle thing in which you allow that oily unction into your voice when you're speaking the correct things and disarming the truth at the same time so it shouldn't step on anyone's toes or cause any severe reaction is putting men before God. Fear not. Fear not. Fear not and I tell you that you shall fear until the day that you shall take your Isaac that thing which is more precious than your own life your closest relationship father, brother, friend and be willing if God shall call you in your ordination for priesthood to slay them with the sword. Katz’s are you counseling real bloodshed? Art’s Testimony of taking up the sword of the word of God Not actually, but a heart that is ruthlessly determined to put God before men to the point where it hurts. Maybe I had practice which some of you were not allowed to enjoy in my first decision 12 years ago in the God who revealed Himself to me about the deck of a steamer in the first reading of the New Testament. In that one phrase that came out of the mouth of Jesus let him who is without sin cast the first stone something pierced my eyes and brain and heart and I was left a trembling leaf aboard that ship just knife right into by the sword of the Lord. And the first thought that came to me was. Katz’s what's your mother going to say about this? Oh children I know if you can believe it, I was the apple of my mother's eye and as we say in Yiddish she hasn't had too much knockers. She hasn't had too much satisfaction in her life like so many Yiddish mama's who have ringed their fingers and have gone to school to hear what the principal has to say about the airing son, high school dropout you know all that stuff who became a teacher and my mother could say my son the professional. I knew that this was going to cut my mother's heart to the quick. I knew that there was no way that I would be able to explain to her. I knew that she was automatically going to conclude that I had joined the enemy's camp. I knew that she could not distinguish between a Gentile and a born-again believer they're all Christians every Gentile is a Christian including those who threw stones at her in a way to school in London as a girl. I knew she was going to slam the door in my face and call me mad, but you know what else I knew that I loved the truth above every other consideration. Deny or Confess Christ before man is a daily decision And what God was showing me is that truth is God. Children, God is going to call you this night and, in these days, to put the sword on your side and go into the camp and ruthlessly to separate yourself from the fornicators, the idolatrous, those that jump and make lock and sing around the golden calf that you might be a holy priesthood sanctified and consecrated unto God in blood. Whoever shall deny Me before men him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven and that's a lot deeper than those who say I believe in Jesus. Day by day were making continual decisions by such subtleties of action as the tone of our voice and the quality of our witness and our forthrightness before for God and men which either denies Him or affirms Him. But whosoever shall deny Me him I also deny. Matthew 10:34-38 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.” Beware of Counterfeit Unity The cross. The cross. The cross. We're going to be increasingly invited children to happy ecumenical fun and games as we go on in the days ahead. Wonderful and groovy convocations on precious themes, such as the unity of the body of Christ. And my prayer for you and myself together is that we might have the discernment of very God by the Spirit to discern that which is of men, pleasing and groovy and accommodating in happy airy kinds of phrases about unity of the body of Christ, which is not true unity, about love of God, which is not true love, about reconciliation which is not true reconciliation, because it omits the cross of Christ Jesus and is an idolatrous substitute. I wonder if it is an accident that I'm just now reading the memoirs of Jesse Penn Lewis a little description of her life and teaching who was the chronicle of a legitimate revival that came to Wales in the early part of the century. Soon followed by what seemed to be worldwide Pentecostal outpouring of which she was in inordinately suspicious that it was satanic counterfeit and in time of obscured eclipsed and did away with the thing which is real. I had never before heard anybody suggest that what we have long acknowledged as the legitimate Pentecostal revival might itself to a large part have been indeed some kind of air sats and satanic substitute forged upon men who were not too quick nor concern to discern the difference and enjoy the aura and happy feeling of ecumenical unity and what seemed to be a new touch of life for the church and for the denominations. I wonder if a generation later we're not being victim again perhaps of the same thing. There is a unity of God. There is a great cry out of the heart of God for the building of the body of Christ, but somehow God forgive me I am NOT impressed and can't get enthusiastic when I see the platforms of Ministers with the turnaround collars and all of the other ecclesiastical trappings with their Full Gospel bear hugs and back slaps and that is supposed to be the picture of the unity of the body of Christ. Too cheap. Too quick. Too easy. Too facile. Too glib. The work of the so-called Holy Spirit in the absence of the work of the cross. I want the thing that's real. You imagine my responsibility speaking as I am and can understand how ask God virtually at the at the bedside at Pete's house. Lord, blot me out. Lord rend me silent, put me out of commission. Let me not be an instrument of confusion or just sounding opinions peculiar to myself, but if it has pleased you in the choosing of foolish things to have this kind of a voice around and this kind of a discernment and intuition and hunch and the expression then speak it for the edification of your people. Speak it for the love of truth. Speak at the sound the alarm and the caution. Speak it that we may be warry and on guard. Speak it that we be able to distinguish the thing which is true from the thing which is false. God help us. In an age in which the scriptures have clearly told us that deceptions of such magnitude are going to come upon us with lying signs and wonders that even the very elect will be deceived. I'm not impressed because people use the word unity, because I'm seeing now in the obscure place where God has brought our lives and in the 12 year history of my own relationship with a snubnose Gentile called Inger, what it really takes at the cross of Christ Jesus to knit hearts and lives together for real. I'm suspicious of the thing that is cheap, facile. and easy all under the happy banner of the so-called Holy Spirit. Priests that were priests positionally became priests actually on the day that they put the sword on their side and went in and out of the camp and slew and severely separated themselves from the idolaters though the idolaters were their own father's, their own sons, their own brothers. You know I think at the end of the age the true Levites of God the authentic priesthood of God the keepers of the sanctuary in the holy place are going to be required to do the same and in fact what you're seeing tonight and hearing is not just a message, but one performing it. I might even now be causing blood to flow the blood of my own friends who will perhaps when the meeting is over walk past me with such pain and hurt looks and give if they're able the most curt little complimentary regard and not be able to look me full in the face because I know that some of my dearest friends are involved deeply in the very things over which I have the severious kind of apprehension. Who’s on the Lord’s side I'm required to put on my sword and go into the camp and wield it unto blood for truth’s sake. Moses said to the people who is on the Lord side? Exodus 32:26 “Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, whoever is on the Lord’s side, let him come to me. And all the Levites [the priestly tribe] gathered together to him.” Who is on the Lord's side tonight? Who is willing to gird themselves with a sword to be the consecrated man of the priests of God and to put to death once and for all the fear of man? What minister here who is honest with his own heart and he has not trembled before his own congregation, his only denomination, his own community is willing tonight to go into the camp and use the sword and put to death once and for all that thing which does make cowards of us all, the fear of men. Now tell you that the other side of the fear of men is the too great regard for men. It's the celebration of personality, it's the same coin and it needs the same ruthless kind of separation and surgery. And I'm not surprised that among the other characteristics of this groovy ecumenical charismatic age is the celebration of personality. Praise God for obscurity. When the Holy Spirit came and spoke to a Virgin Mary and told her that she was highly favored of God she as much as said “who me?” Deuteronomy 13:6 – 9 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own life entices you secretly, saying, let us go and serve other gods—gods you have not known, you nor your fathers, of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, near you or far away from you, from one end of the earth to the other—You shall not give consent to him or listen to him; nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him. But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people.” Dear children there's a God who is calling us to the life of faith which is to say the call of Abraham to rise up early in the morning and only one or two options: to eat, to play, rise up to play or to bring that Isaac to the place of sacrifice. Idolatry or martyrdom. That Isaac is the thing more dear than your own life. If your brother the son of your mother or your son or daughter or the wife of your bosom or your friend who is as your own life. How many of us are deferring to men rather than to God? How many husbands have deferred to their wives rather than to God? No accident that I'm still paying the price years later for a message called eunuch for Christ's sake which men are unwilling to forgive me, because I implied that except that the axe was laid to the root we shall not have charge of all of God's treasure nor have the authority that was given to the Ethiopian eunuch. Shakespeare said conscience does make cowards of us all. And it's amazing what the unwillingness to suffer self-denial will result in the spiritual life of a man or a woman. You shall surely kill him your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death. Remember when Abraham's arm was raised above his Isaac the Lord said “now by this I know that you fear God and then blessing I will bless you.” There's something that has got to be required from the priests of our age the New Testament ministers, fearless whole commitment to God. Whole severance and separation even from that which is more dear than our own life though it should require blood. In the day that the Levites put on their swords and stood on God's side and went into the camp and slew God consecrated them as priests. Before we left Pete's house I looked up the word consecrate in the dictionary what was that “absolutely holy”, “absolutely totally sacred and holy.” Dear children God is a total God and we are the victims of a world of compromise and an age of the seat and getting by. Squishy vague frontiers of anything-goes. It sounds good it has the amens in the hallelujahs is altogether better than what we knew it must be of God and if it isn't well let's not make too fine a discernment. We shall not be a blessing in the earth and shall not be able to perform priestly function except we be consecrated and there never was a consecrated priest except that it could lift up hands above people that had been dipped in blood. Who's on the Lord side tonight? Oh, I just pray that the Spirit of God in His own way who knows us all so intimately is showing us where is the compromise and the condescension to lesser things in our life. Where is the fear of men or the too great consideration of them which needs to be slain? Who has put father or mother or brother or sister or wife or husband or before God? Who in his speaking however correctly and scripturally and doctrinally is by his anxious voice and queasy manner denying God. There's a world dying children. There are unreconciled marriages hardly better than truces, there are kids sitting in pews with mod clothes on wholly out of it and sincere religious congregation sitting like sticks of wood putting in their hour whose lives are a mockery and a travesty against the intention of God who gave us the blood of his precious Son that we might live through Him. Who came to give us abundant life and there's a world disfigured and grotesque and caricatured and stunted and dying and crippled for the want of the reality in the life of God in men. And that institution which God intended as the instrument for the conveyance of his spirit and life is deferring to men rather than to God. Groovy. Who's on the Lord's side? I'll tell you it's going to come to a showdown when God is going to separate us ruthlessly. He came not to bring peace but a sword and we're going to see that scripture fulfilled in our own houses, in our own denominations, and our own congregations, in our own fellowships, in our own families. Who's on the Lord's side? There's a God who wants to consecrate His priests and it cannot be done cheaply. It's not going to be done than the some happy groovy kind of banner called the Holy Spirit it always ever has required blood. All the mention of the Holy Spirit never a mention of the cross. I wonder if the Holy Spirit that I know or is a some pseudo dove a pigeon perhaps and could it be that it's even making his little filthy droppings on the cross of Christ Jesus while we are mindlessly applauding all of the happy facile ecumenical references to the Spirit to bring “love”, “unity”, “reconciliation”. Oh, children may there be such a heart in us that pleases God, such a desire for the thing that's authentic and true the real unity of God's people. Real love which we begin to see the necessity when we have been reduced into the ashes and see that all we had was a passel of words and cheap phrases and easy and glib references to first Corinthians 13, but had not patience and had not you humility and had not meekness and there's only one place where those attributes come is the transaction which is obtained at the cross in death and resurrection. The cross. The cross. The cross. No true love without it, no true reconciliation without it, no true unity without it. Be suspicious for God's sake to the numbers of messages you're going to hear all with very unction platform manner about the happy banner of the Holy Spirit that is giving us in so groovy and easy away unity, love, and reconciliation without a single reference to the cross of Christ Jesus. Who is on the Lord's side? We've got to put on the sword you're going to see that and I may have been the first of my generation to do it even this night. Is that to say that I'm indifferent to friends, I love them dearly. It would pain me to hurt them or to be misunderstood of them or to have to contradict them, but I think we may be coming to that when there may be the naming of names and saying I cannot participate in this, God has told me I'm not to have any involvement in that which bears the taint of men. I'm not to allow my life to be used and implicated in those shabby slapdash things which come together under the happy banner of ecumenism that has not its origin in His heart. I'm not to play around in the principles and gamesmanship of discipleship without authority, submission, all the rest of that stuff that have not the light that comes from His life. My sword is on my side, I'm a Levite, I’m Katz’s, righteous priesthood, I have no choice. I must. How about you? Who's on the Lord's side? Will you destroy the idolator? And what will you do if you should find that the idolaters in your own heart, where you're going with the sword and do him in. How many of you sitting there in the pews tonight chairs and those who shall hear this tape are so conscious of the fear in their own hearts and lives? Afraid of men, afraid of what people will say and how you will appear and often time even squelching the authentic witness of your spirit when something was not kosher, because he didn't want to be the only one to react differently when everybody else seemed to be having such a groovy charismatic time. Fear of man and it's in your own heart and God is saying put that sword it on and go in there and destroy that idolator. More dear than your own life or you'll never be My priest consecrated for My service. It's interesting in conclusion what the name Levi means these Levitical priests it means “joined”, He who is joined to Christ is one spirit with Him. Jesus your mother and your brothers are outside, who is my mother or my brothers but he who does the will of God. He had the sword on His side. He suffered the cruel death for all idolaters who Himself was without sin. And if there's only one way to be joined with Him in one spirit it's at the cross that play place of ruthless merciless separation from every ditch to have gratification now. From every inability to wait, from every necessity to play a kind of substitute religion around the golden calf it's at the cross of death. The cross. The cross. The cross. Who is on the Lord's side? I don't know what kind of sense this has made you and I pray God that this does not appear and sound like some kind of fanciful sermon like some kind of clever playing on Old Testament texts, because I believe it is one of the most practical sound nitty-gritty things that has ever issued from my mouth. Children there's a God who is hovering over us with a great jealousy He happens also to be holy. He's the God of the real thing. He's the God of reality. He abhors imitation. He knows that there's only one place where his life is available and made manifest it's at the cross. Watch out for that thing which parades as the Holy Spirit, which may be just another kind of bird the defiling and dropping its filth upon the cross of Christ Jesus. Watch out for the groovy facile easy happy time ecumenism body of Christ. Ain't we got fun we're all together look we can sing hallelujah hallelujah ain't we got love. Who's on the Lord's side? Put on your sword and go into camp and ruthlessly destroy that thing worthier than your own life. That thing which is afraid of men and makes you to put man before God. God is looking for the priests of this generation who can bless the world. Dying and disfigured by raising bloody hands consecrated hands above them. I pray you'll understand. Closing Prayer Will you bow your heads with me? Precious God, we don't know how to pray Lord, what to ask, what to do? Mighty God, never felt more foolish, more absurd, being informed even out of our own mouths as we speak, trying out something before Your people because we're in the audience of friends. Gracious God how I ask the witness of Your Spirit. How I asked the revelation of the Spirit of Truth to show us in our hearts the idolator, that instinct that chooses the cheap, the easy, the more facile way the thing that would rather please men than please God. Precious God show us what it is to which were being called now by a resolution of will which Abraham exercised in a moment that he heard Your voice today now he rose up early in the morning it didn't require three days later to perform the act it was resolved in his heart the moment You spoke. He put on his sword and he did it. As a minister of this gospel I ask you, who is on the Lord's side? Who are the ministers and priests of God in this room tonight? Who shall be ruthless and not be stayed by sentiment feelings, saccharine tears? I'll tell you there's a noise in the camp, but it's not the noise of victory nor the noise of defeat it's a kind of a bland and mindless singing and gamesmanship and play-acting. And is a holy God who's throwing down His tablets. Will you put on the store tonight and ruthlessly destroy the idolaters your own heart will you serve God and not men. Will you ask God to give you the discernment of His Own Spirit. I'll tell you you'll be laughed at, you'll be scorned, you'll be called an enemy of the body of Christ, you'll be told that you're sowing division and much worse things. But we're coming to a showdown and they're only two alternatives: we're either going to be idolators or we're going to be martyrs. Why don't we just settle it once and for all now? If you're settling it now once and for all and you're putting the sword upon your side knowing that there shall be blood will you stand for God right now? I can almost wish in a certain sense that we had never heard any teaching on the cross. I could almost wish that we had never read Watchman Nee. I could almost wish that we were coming virginly to the first time to the revelation of the cross of Christ Jesus, the fount of all life, the ruthless place of separation, the place of utter death to the world of flesh in the devil and the issuing forth of His life. Precious God in Jesus name Lord may we covet the cling to celebrate the cross of Christ Jesus above every consideration. Mighty God help us by the word of truth by the Spirit of truth by the revelation of the Spirit to be able to walk in Your light in this hour. Save us Lord from things that seem to be and things that appear and reserve us for the things that are truly and genuinely of You and we know mighty God that those things which are authentic come at a cost and we're willing tonight to pay it our sword is buckled to our side and we are ready today now to go in and out of the camp and slay the idolator. May it begin first Lord with the compromiser and the fearful one of our own hearts that you might have a priesthood worthy of Your name. Seal those who have stood in spirit and in truth who have intuited and grasped what you're saying and with beating heart have a sense of what shall cost them and use them for Your glory and may they be the ministers of the true blessedness of God in Earth for the want of which mankind is dying is our prayer in Jesus Holy Name.