In this sermon, the speaker reflects on his personal journey of being stripped and exposed to the nations by the Lord. He emphasizes the importance of being broken and losing our humanistic perspectives in order to meet with broken and dejected people who have lost their orientation. The speaker highlights the danger of valuing temporal and transient things over eternal truths and the ultimate purpose of existence. He calls for a shift in focus towards the church being a demonstration of God's defeat of the powers of darkness, free from the influence of worldly culture. The sermon also raises the question of who will resist the forces of fear and intimidation, even in the face of suffering and death.

And so in the recent time in the Philippines where we had ministers conferences, I said to these third world ministers who have come out of poverty and are now enjoying a certain degree of prosperity and dignity in their ministerial success, better to be known and feared by the powers of the air than to be accepted, received by men. And they agreed. I said, okay, now you're not going to be feared unless you consciously and willfully reject the acceptance and the esteem of men. How many of you will stand for that? And when you're a third world person and come out of poverty and you're first tasting certain kinds of acceptance and esteem to forsake that in order to be marked and opposed to the powers of darkness, there's nothing less nor other than coming to the cross. Much easier for us than for them because our self-esteem is not predicated on our ministerial success. We have other avenues, but for those out of the most abject poverty, to give up the esteem of men ministerially is the greatest sacrifice in us. But that's what it's going to take. So that brings us to the reason for which God has created all things, that through the church, what? What through the church? That the wisdom, the manifold, many-sided, complex wisdom of God in its rich variety, you may have another expression in your version of the scripture, might now be made known to whom? Not to the world, not to men, but to the rulers and authorities, the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This is a mouthful. This is mind-boggling that the purpose for the church, the essential purpose, its primary and first purpose, without which no other purpose will attain or succeed if it fails in this, is to manifest before an invisible realm of spirit entity called the rulers or the principalities and powers of darkness, the manifold wisdom of God. That's the reason God has created all things. The angel was delayed in answering Daniel's prayer because he was opposed by the prince of Persia, was it? So the prince principalities seems to suggest very chief demonic entities that have governmental authority over particular locations. The powers seems to be a more diverse and general expression that accompany that and are associated with it. But Paul does not give us any more exacting definition. Whatever it takes to oppose the one is equally what it takes to oppose the other. And they both need to be opposed as one, for they are in concert one with the other. So we mustn't be technicians. It might be interesting. But what is interesting is that there's now a foot in the body of Christ, a mentality that thinks that these powers can be defeated by identifying them, that if you can find out the prevailing name that that is the key to their defeat. As I hope to show you now before we conclude, that the means of defeat is not through some kind of cognizance or knowledge, but rather a demonstration, which requires much more than mental acuity or the name of a particular principality, but the demonstration of the wisdom. And that is our subject. What does that mean? So the first thing I have to say is it doesn't mean what you think it means. Wisdom here is not being wise. It's not having noble thoughts or an understanding of how to get certain things accomplished in a right way. Wisdom here, the manifold wisdom of God, Lord help me, the essential mindset and value system of God, as against a corresponding and opposing system of values that is called the wisdom of this world. There are two sets of conflicting wisdoms, two sets of values that are seeking for the allegiance of men and their subscription to them as being the overarching truth and purpose for being. So that the powers of the air in their wisdom have controverted God's wisdom and they take the ultimate and eternal things of God and give it at best only a transient and passing meaning and have taken the ephemeral, excuse my language, and transient things and have made them primary and ultimate. They have reversed the whole value of God and seek to seduce men and to engage them with those things that are temporal, ephemeral, passing, and give them an ultimate value and meaning as if they are the true reason for being. Wealth, power, prestige, all of which we are told will turn to dust. And the things that are eternal, as in fact eternity itself, heaven and hell, eternal reward, eternal punishment are eclipsed as momentary, if that at all, and made object of derision and contempt. And so the great cartoon that adorns our popular magazines is some guy with a beard carrying a sign, repent for the end of the ages at hand or the doom or the judgment of God. It's made a laughing object of derision when it should be the foremost object of consideration. There's a whole contest of what is to be valued. What is the truth of existence? What is reality itself? What are the things to be valued? And that's what we need to understand. God is wanting not just the explication or the articulation of his wisdom, but its demonstration, that the church might demonstrate the wisdom of God. That is to say, it is living and having its being, not by what the world considers to be wise or valued, but what God considers, which means a complete inversion and an opposition to the world and its values. And that's what makes us strangers and pilgrims and sojourners in the world. We're not marching by the world's beat. We're not seeking its rewards. We're not seduced by its values. We're not attracted to its inducements. We are indifferent. We recognize it as false. And it can only be performed by the church as the church. God doesn't say that I've created all things in order that outstanding virtuoso saints might demonstrate. No, no. He says that in order through the church, that the whole church in its corporiety, in its corporate character might demonstrate. Because, in fact, it takes that. The power of the logic and the wisdom of the world is so great, so subtle, so insidious, so penetrating, so compelling, so seductive, that unless we have the benefit of the concerted strength of an entire body, we cannot oppose that wisdom. We will necessarily be sucked into it. And what do we see in the outstanding religious successes of our generation? Men who have employed it and are responsive to it, building their own petty kingdoms, using public relations methods, mass mailings, inducement, threat, intimidation, or hope of reward. If you give this money to me, then you'll receive, that's your seed, then you'll receive this benefit. Or I'll send you an anointed handkerchief. Inducement, fear. I had to write a letter to one of the leading nationally known evangelists, world known, because I sat in his meetings and heard things that made my hair go straight up, where he virtually threatened his hearers that if they did not give to his notable ministry, they would suffer curse. That's intimidation. And intimidation and threat is the wisdom of the powers of the air. Why? Because God disarmed them at the cross. They can't actually physically dominate, they can if you allow them, but the principal means of success over the nations and races is threat, intimidation, fear, or reward of lust, the gratification of lust and material well-being and all those kinds of things. So if we allow ourselves to move in that wisdom and to succeed religiously by the employment of that wisdom, we are rendered null and void in any opposition to those powers. That takes a conscious, careful avoidance of condescension to anything that is in the value system of the powers of this world. Prestige, popularity. You've got to be almost one who hides and chooses obscurity and hiddenness to refrain from being so seduced in order that you might have a valid ministry and that what you represent is contrary to what they represent. And this is the whole struggle. This is the whole heart of the mystery for which God has created all things. The powers of darkness yawn. They're completely bored. They're indifferent. They're not at all impressed with all this hype because hype is the name of their game. Hype is exaggeration. Hype is manipulation. Hype is playing upon people in order to obtain response. So when they see their game being played by the church, they relax and lean back and they laugh. Self-initiation, even religiously and even in the name of the Lord, is playing their game. That means the obscurity is not only a geographical hiddenness, but an obscurity in which you are as a dead man until you're quickened by the Lord. You can do nothing except by him. And it's at the moment of his choosing. There are people in this room who thought that I was dead. They heard of me in the 1970s where they read Ben Israel or saw me on the Katharine Kuhlman program, and then I faded from view. Well, art was either lost to the faith. They didn't know what was happening. The Lord brought us to this place of obscurity and hiddenness. But out of that obedience and in the time and moments of his lordship and dominion and authority, things have come forth and are coming forth quietly, unobtrusively, and yet authentically that will affect the church and the nations, like those ministers in the Philippines who got up to that invitation. I tell you, that was so solemn and so holy. There was a presence of God to witness that and to record that, that their ministries after that affirmation will be forever changed. And what will be the consequence in the Philippines? Because the Philippines, like every other nation, will one day soon have Jews passing through. What will they see will have been affected by that call. And that invitation was given in the authority that comes out of an obedience. And I have myself submitted to it. I cannot propose it to other men. And where did I come and where was I trained and shaped? In the bosom of a little community, in the interplay of the persons and the receiving of correction and admonition, like every other brother and not some holiday inn specialist who is running a staff and paying salaries where people have to applaud and commend and and go along. So complex answer. But it's a trust that waits and the Lord will not be, what's the word, mocked. And I said somewhere over the break time, the greatest threat to the raising up now of apostolic and prophetic authenticity are men who purport to be that and are establishing elaborate structures of organization when organization itself is suspect because it's a human manipulation and arrangement rather than that which divinely ordained by the spirit for which men wait. But men have suddenly thrust themselves forward, have established all kinds of complex networking systems of organization and title and acknowledgement that they have received by someone speaking to them a prophecy that they are the apostle of the hour. And therefore, that's sufficient reason to assert the title. There's a whole system going up that threatens to steal the show. And yet we're realizing how critical to have holy apostles and prophets who alone can reveal the mysteries and the church so desperately needs it. So shall we despair? Or is the Lord allowing this flash in the pan stuff? And maybe the church has got to go through a kind of, what shall we say, dabbling in the false thing and realizing its hollowness and its pretension that they might prepare for the thing that is true. Because when the true thing comes, it will call them to the cross. It's interesting that these, in my opinion, counterfeit or bogus apostolic prophetic entities have a very great receptivity among upper middle class Christians. That's not just an accidental sociological observation because they are people who are therefore told that they are being engaged on the cutting edge of God's last day's works and makes no requirement on their lifestyle. It's commitment without cost, without the cross. And yet the heady, give me another synonym for heady, exhilarating sense that you're really participant and you're on the very cutting edge and your prophecy and your apostolic function is making the difference with the principalities and powers by which whole cities can be taken. Where the real work of God, in my opinion, is unobserved, quiet, unobtrusive, going forth in his own way and place. And it will ultimately triumph. When I see some of these people, I think to myself, how long would they make it to Ben Israel? Two days, three? I don't think they'll last a week. You know, they'll come apart at the seams with all of their presumption of where they are in God. I don't think that they'll last in a real and an authentic apostolic environment. But that's the very thing that they need. But they're living outside. They're living in cocoons. They're living privatistic lifestyles. They come together only for ministerial purposes. There is no true relatedness, no exposure, no confrontation, no censure, no correction. Who's to correct them if the leaders themselves are in that false reality? And so that's what we have seen in the history of Ben Israel. The finest of God's saints coming apart at the seams within a week, two weeks, or continually. There's always something coming to be exposed and dealt with. And it's out of that environment, which I believe was the truth of Antioch, that the first apostolic calling came when the Lord said and spoke by his spirit in Acts 13, separate unto me Paul and Barnabas for the work unto whom I have called them. Because they were men already separated, not only from their culture, from their nationality, their ethnic origin, but even from their ministerial ambition. And therefore they could go forth unto him for the work without the work even being identified. Whereas here we have just the opposite. The works are glorified, full color brochures and all that business. But it may be, as Shakespeare said, sound and fury signifying nothing. So we have to have a jealous heart that God did not think it too extravagant to create the world in order that through the church, that is the church, this final defeat might come by a demonstration in the reality that the church itself has obtained, free from the influence of the powers, without fear, without intimidation, without jealous concern for its own security, its own future, its own career, its own ministry. Maybe it would be good just to dip for a moment into the sixth chapter, where Paul tells us the kind of armament we need and how to be girded in the struggle. In verse 10 of chapter six, be strong in the Lord. Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of this power. Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God. You dare not allow a chink, you dare not allow a crack, the omission of any part of God's provision, for the enemy will assuredly find that and employ that to do you in. Take up the whole armor of God so that you may able to withstand on that evil day. I don't know what Paul's referring to here. Maybe it's not just an ultimate eschatological climax, but any day in which you are in confrontation with those powers. And having done everything to stand firm, the whole armor, having done everything, how inclusive Paul is. And we don't miss a detail. Stand, therefore, and fashion the belt of truth around your waist. I love it that it begins with this. If you don't begin with truth, you can forget the rest. And so Paul is speaking metaphorically. Is there an actual belt? No. But then how are we to be girded with truth? And what is truth? Is that merely factual correctness? Is that enough to keep us in defense against the wiles of the enemy? Or is it the whole truth and nothing but the truth, through and through? To be girded with truth is to be true. Nothing phony, no pretense, no faces, no putting it on, no playing spiritual, no looking dreamy and saintly. But what you are by the grace of God in that moment in time. And there's a church who can bear it. You don't have to put on a performance for to put on a performance is to be untrue. A performance itself is a lie. To be girded with truth. These are the things that cannot be articulated or spelled out. They have to be apprehended. That's why the love of the truth keeps us from being deceived. It's not enough merely to acknowledge truth, to value truth, to respect truth. Who will not go that far? But the truth that is the truth through and through in our speaking, in our looks, our date, our posture, the way we conduct ourselves, the truth of our feeling, the truth of our commitment, the truth of our knowledge, the truth of our love. That takes more. That takes a continual vigilance and a love for the truth. If you love the truth, you'll receive correction from the brother. And if you love the truth, you'll bring correction because you always run the risk of being misunderstood. And what's your motive? And even if you're clumsy, better, better a clumsy attempt at correction than no attempt. So how shall we come to the, to the stature that God is wanting in the church, except by the very provision that God intends through the church, the church that loves truth and is willing for the inconvenience of it and willing for the misunderstanding that might follow in the expression of it. Got the idea? It's costly. And yet it's the first thing that Paul enumerates to be girded with truth. Even on this recent trip, like more than one time, people will come up to me and say, I've never heard anyone speak like this. They're not talking about my eloquence or my knowledge or authority. They're talking about my naturalness. Like they've never heard ministers so unaffected and free from, from self-conscious ministerial form. In other words, even the manner of presentation is in the truth, the spirit of the truth, the reality of it. So to be free from the necessity to put on an air. And I tell them, you have to be in safeguard over your own pastors and notice when his voice begins to take on certain ministerial overtones and become official and thus sayeth the Lord-ish rather than the natural. So it requires vigilance and love. It's a pretty sad commentary that the leaders of the church should be fearful of truth when the church itself is called to be the ground and pillar of truth. Probably one of the greatest present day problems is pastors and elderships like that or boards welcoming the prophetic man and the prophetic voice because they instinctively recognize something is going to be sounded that will be threatening to what we have established. So there's a struggle on, but we have to conduct it in the wisdom of God where you don't come with superior authority and weight and you guys are this, this and that and you're fearful and cowardly and you're defending your institution. We come with broken hearted identification that there but for the grace of God go we and that these men need to be weaned and nursed and helped however old they are out of their own insecurity and out of their own fear that we ourselves don't intimidate them by our own calling and bring it to the humility of God. And where do we come to that kind of grace and ability except that we have first been dealt with and fashioned in the bosom of a church that will be to us what we need. Every reiteration of the cross is the demonstration of the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is the cross. All that sums up God in his value and way in his heart, his understanding, his truth is demonstrated at the cross. Wherever the cross is reenacted, reiterated, expressed in a willing suffering through obedience that wisdom is demonstrated. We'll come to that and in fact to choose as our first purpose of being to demonstrate the wisdom of God as a church before any other consideration is itself that wisdom because this demonstration has nothing to do with any benefit that accrues to us. If God had asked us to do this or do that by which we would be recognized, celebrated or rewarded that's something else but he's asking for a demonstration that benefits him alone and he doesn't even explain why he wants it or why it's important to him. All we know is that he sets this forth as being even the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus which is the next verse. That's all we need to know. We embrace it. We consciously give ourselves to the expression of it. By that we make ourselves marked men before the powers of the air even because we have that resolution, that resolve. They would not have bothered with us so long as we're willing to play church at any other level but when we take the eternal purpose of God as being our first purpose to demonstrate corporately that wisdom whatever that is different from the world that is going to be opposed it marks us before the powers of the air and brings to us not a benefit but a painful opposition and you're yet willing to do it when there's no benefit for you but it only accrues to the glory of God and his will and desire. That is the wisdom of God because the wisdom of the world is seeking your own benefit first. What's in it for you? What value do you receive by believing or by serving? When you turn your back on that and make your first and primary purpose for being the fulfillment of his eternal purpose that brings you no apparent benefit but rather makes you a candidate for the opposition of the powers of darkness. By that choice you are demonstrating another wisdom. It's another value system that does not have you as its center. As a matter of fact until we do that we will be enslaved to the powers of the air because the power of self-interest is so formidable and cannot be broken except it is contradicted and affected by yet a greater motive the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose. If you have not that and the deeps of your being then necessarily you will always be ravaged always be susceptible to being appealed to and being directed and influenced by self-interest. Only the glory of God and the purpose of God is the greater motive and purpose for our being and we receive that benefit when we do not seek it as a benefit because if we sought it as a benefit we would be contradicted. See what I mean? It's got to be the pure willingness to make as our first purpose for being the glory of God and his eternal purpose that we should demonstrate another wisdom. It has no value for us. It has nothing for the world and yet we take it as the first purpose. That breaks the power of self-interest which has riddled the church and is the cancer of the church. Because the first thing that the church will say after meeting is, how did you like the speaker? How did you like the service? How did you enjoy? How did you like? How did you, you, you, like, like, like? Still we are at the center. We've just moved from carnal gratification to religious or spiritual gratification but we yet remain at the center and so long as that center remains we are not demonstrating God's wisdom but the world's. Got the idea? And if we despair that God can succeed in this I'm reminded in Isaiah chapter 9 where we're told that unto us a child that's born a son is given the government shall be upon his shoulder his name shall be called wonderful counsel the mighty God the everlasting father prince of peace of the increase of his government the peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this not your zeal not your self-conscious what do I have to do and how about this and the overwhelming sense that the forces are too formidable to oppose the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this what is faith trust quiet confidence in God who is not a man that he should lie and his word will be performed and therefore we don't have to seek we're not to strive we don't have to activate uh and and make sure that this is happening or that's happening then then we can bear the obscurity the hiddenness the Lord knows how to bring this out of it and what's 26 years for him a moment of time in the shaping of godly character how much did he invest in Elijah before he brought him on the stage before Ahab in a confrontation with the false prophets of Baal we're not told what a long investment in that man's life what dealings that that he would he could say to Ahab as the Lord my God lives before whom I stand he really stood before the Lord at a time when all Israel had lost the sense of that same God Elijah had it had it conspicuously and powerfully because he had a history with that God in obscurity and hiddenness in the wilderness place how much of our ambition is subtly interfused and interlaced with so-called purposes of God how many of those who are bleeding hearts for Israel and want to send Jews now to their destruction have a subtle provocation to do something to alleviate their consciences or their guilt or some other self-serving motive that corrupts it and renders it no longer priestly the only service to God that is service is priestly service and priestly service never has a shred of self-interest in what is being performed or what benefit will accrue to the servant for that service it has got to be selfless the cross the cross the cross and how many supposed prophets and apostles may actually have the call and are defeating its fulfillment by themselves being active seeking its realization I said to a young brother who said that he believes he's called to be a prophet I said better for you that you are living in total unselfconsciousness of that call because what do I have to do art you don't have to do anything if that call is valid God will do but your self-conscious concern to see it fulfilled and realized is the greatest impediment to it so may we be girded with truth and put on the breastplate of righteousness how many of us can even define that word what is righteousness and do you have it until you have been salivated until the juices come into your mouth at the very sound of the word righteousness you don't have it you will never have it as a clinical word or as a dictionary divine term righteousness it's in a category all by itself it's what God himself is as expressed in acts that he inspires and enables us to perform by the glory of the life that is given righteousness even to desire it how far removed are we let alone to be girded by it and put it on as a breastplate unless you have it as a breastplate how then shall you be defended against the fiery dots that are issued by the evil one but to have it and to love it that means that we've got to be very careful in exacting about unrighteousness about cutting corners taking liberties a little white lie that smooths things over confrontations that are avoided because they are likely to be painful righteousness is an ultimate demand and if we compromise it so much as an iota we have lost it so to be jealous for righteousness i don't i don't i'm beyond word sense i don't i don't know what to say or how to express it but the love for it and that we have daily occasion moment by moment where the issue of righteousness is before us in speaking in acting in relating so it takes a real vigilance moment by moment to safeguard and to cherish this righteousness to desire it and i think it says in revelation that the white robes of the saints are their righteous deeds you may be righteous in offending them in fact it's hard to think that you could be righteous without bringing offense you have to be willing to be an offense to be misunderstood because your love of righteousness is greater than the issue of your acceptance of the esteem by which men hold you righteousness will make you a fool for christ's sake righteousness is a complete opposition to all that is in the world which is what's the word flaky dubious deceitful compromising get by easy go righteousness to stand for righteousness in a world of iniquity and darkness is to is to be a candidate for monogamy the world cannot abide that presence and what have we seen historically the church that shows forth the righteousness of god has always been the object of the persecution not so much of the world but of its religious bodies luther was persuaded that the anabaptists were demon filled because they never cursed they never chased women they never drank they never got drunk they treated each other with civility and respect they lived in righteousness and he couldn't believe that men could have this as a motive and acted out in their communities except it was demon inspired because every other christian is you know is being saved and is a sinner being saved by grace but he's a sinner and he takes a drink now and then and sneaks around the corner but these people were exemplary in their righteousness and therefore they had to be demonic and therefore you could be justified in extirpating and removing them because their very presence blew the whistle against the fraudulence of what we profess to be as christians and claiming that that was the truth of god in the church these people put us to shame by their very quiet living example in german they were called the stiller in london the quiet ones in the land unobtrusive and yet living in righteousness as communities of god's people whose very presence could not be tolerated by the religious bodies persecuted and hounded unto death with a price on their heads bounty hunters and that is a picture of the last days you're going to love righteousness it'll mock you you'll be despised i've gone up with in elevators with leading ministers to the top floor with their conferences and their backs arched like like two cats meeting in an alley hissing without a word ever being spoken i don't know what it is that caused that kind of recoil so these are not little cheapies and flaky little superficial put-ons these are the very attributes and qualities of god himself my sister has named it righteousness is god and so on shield of faith being shot with the gospel of peace and so on taking the helmet of salvation the sword of the spirit which is the word of god so this is a little classic book groundbreaking pioneer work on this subject in the early 1950s came out of a man who lived in germany and through the nazi time and saw the reality of the powers of darkness not just influencing a nation but taking full possession of all of the instruments of power that the greatest demonstration of the reality of powers of darkness is the nazi phenomenon not just to influence but to possess the whole apparatus of state so that its particular wisdom could find enactment through the official offices of state itself and that the state itself more than just a function to mediate oversight in the affairs of men becomes the object not only of respect but of worship if you do not worship the state you're a candidate for the concentration camp for the state becomes the idol the object of ultimate reverence well that's where the powers of the air have their great operation the powers of the air have the greatest opportunity through the structures of organization whether in government society culture education and especially in religion and this man is the pioneer see if you can find a copy of this book maybe out of print christ and the powers is the title christ and the powers the publisher is herald press which interestingly is the mennonite publishing house you'll have to find out they have a branch in canada and also in the states find if the book is still in print and if not if it's out of print find through out of print book companies if you can get a copy the author the author is hendrik h-e-n-d-r-i-k berkhoff b-e-r-k-h-o-f hendrik berkhoff the anabaptist looked upon the state as being the expression of the world they were pacifists who would not take up the sword and certainly could not be inducted that's the word inducted into fighting the battles of these various princes over baronial territorial claims they did not believe in murder they would not commit murder they would not fight they would rather be killed than to kill and they would not give themselves to the state so that was that invoked the fury of the powers of the air because it threatens a whole system to which everyone else subscribes and if there could be an outstanding exemption of the people who see that as evil and will not condescend to give themselves to it it threatens then the whole credibility of the system of church and state and so the vehement bitterness directed against the anabaptists that made them to be expelled from their localities give up their homes their farms and and be aliens and and be pursued and hounded shows that the powers of the air were so threatened by their quiet example and that's what we will see in the future because they cannot allow that kind of indifference to their wisdom to exist lest it would influence others who will come out from the bondage of that system and be freed for god and so the way to answer to it is to annihilate the an annihilation violence murder annihilation is the wisdom of the powers of the air and what is the ultimate and greatest threat the restoration of a true israel the redeemed of the lord who shall return to zion and how shall they avoid that calamity by their annihilation and that will be the stage for the last day's drama of the expulsion and flight of jews from persecution unto death and give to us in every nation where we are the prospect of being for them saviors and deliverers and bring them to a place of refuge illumination understanding and salvation at the time of their greatest extremity those jews would not have considered the gospel under normal conditions will now be disposed to hear a life-saving message out of the extremity to which they have been brought by the persecution of the unregenerate who are motivated by the powers of darkness to have complete sway to express their wisdom of annihilation to a jews worldwide if germany collapsed and surrendered and gave expression to that wisdom despite the depth and history and of its culture and its civilization lord of the world over what shall be our resistance in america johnny come lately paper thin culture that will just collapse overnight under the force of this power that will sweep and it will prevail out of fear you dare not oppose it or you'll be considered disloyal or a jew lover and in one way or the other a candidate for that same death who then will resist those who are not affected by fear and who cannot be intimidated even under the threat of torture imprisonment suffering or death who is that those who do not hold their lives as dear unto themselves and have overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony the last days people of god who will not find just a moment's last courage but will be sustained by a faith that has been nurtured and established by which even now they do not consider their lives as being dear unto themselves but for another namely the lord they are free from the fear and the intimidation of the powers and if the powers cannot get you by the fear of death how can they get you what keeps you from not being afraid to die because you're already dead you have already been you're dead and buried with christ and life you're indestructible your essential life is in resurrection and newness and so what the envelope big deal or so they'll take you they'll cut your head or whatever well you'll have scars to show out of which the radiance of god will shine forth eternally and whatever you've had to bear in your body and because you know that you can bear that so the church of the last days the overcoming church has defeated the powers and is not afraid it can stand with the jew in that identification because you've been brought into kinship they are your brothers you've been brought into that commonwealth and because you know that their restoration and return is the coming of their king the establishment of his kingdom and his rule going forth over to bring righteousness into the earth wherein dwelleth righteousness it's worth everything and so great is your reward and it's the extremity of trial and persecution that will reveal it because something happens to a man in the wilderness if you've ever been there wilderness is stripping from all of the things that seem to have credentials and and compelling justification when you're living a life of affluence and comfort when you when you find yourself in extremity in flight and in wilderness they had they lose their credibility they lose their cogency and all of a sudden you're open to a whole new realm of questions which would have been to you idle and irrelevant when you were living high on the hog excuse that expression for jews but now all of a sudden the issue of salvation god eternity the meaning of why you're in flight the redeemed of the lord returned to israel the purpose of god the whole biblical context that you formerly were indifferent to or rejected or were contemptuous of now becomes viable and i don't believe that there's any shortcut to this it's the route that the lord had to take with me in stripping and being exposed to the nations where my categories that i thought were so viable were brought to mark because they were humanistic and so also the whole of israel in the last days and they will come to us in that condition broken dejected stripped lost having lost their orientation the things that they have valued and then they meet with us what do they hear from us and what do they see in us will be the issue of their own salvation and their return god says i will meet with you in the wilderness of the nations face to face if anyone was at the conference in idaho falls that was mc'd by a very precious brother a vietnamese war veteran still bearing psychological emotional scars of that conflict and working his way through many things and at one point in the proceedings he gave quite a lengthy testimony but it had no spirit quotient at all it was not life-giving it was more self-serving and the lord gave me at a later time to refer to that testimony publicly as being maudlin m-a-u-d-l-i-n it was a corrective word but it was spoken publicly whereas i might easily have taken the brother aside and made the same comment but i believe the lord wanted the entire congregation to be instructed because they were susceptible and easily influenced by a maudlin testimony and need to discern between the things that are of the soul and of the spirit i'm saying all that to say this of how spirit-led we need to be and even in the bringing of a prospective offense like that that served the greater purposes of the body it was not something that we can humanly determine you know so this issue of leadership being a voice a significant instrument requires such a union with the lord that what men would condemn as being in principle wrong was in this instance right you see the thing and serve the greater purpose of god instructing many basilea sling once made a comment like that why did she publicly correct the sister when she could have taken their sister aside and privately have instructed her oh she said because all of the fellowship all of the order the women needed to be instructed by her example this is church and we're not going to come to the place where we have defeated the influence of the powers and are free from it except through this kind of operation except by the these things that are mediated by other saints or else we will to one degree or the other be subject to that false wisdom because we're alive to ourselves to our self-esteem and all these things so what a ponderous thing church is what a glory in its inception and the grace that came to gentiles to enter in to the hebraic fold into the tent of shem and what a continuing masterpiece to be perfected that the lord will have his final defeat of the powers by the same church that by what the character that is required by demonstrating another wisdom is at the same time the same church that moves israel to jealousy now whatever it took to defeat the powers by demonstrating another wisdom is exactly the character that will move israel to jealousy the two things are companion one with the other and both things are ultimate both require the operation of the cross both will be a suffering before it's a glory but unto him be glory in the church war without end throughout all ages forever and ever it's an investment worth making because it's a glory forever and ever throughout all ages and to all generations your privilege to be part of let's let's thank the lord for that privilege and ask his forgiveness if we have had an inadequate view of the church and its calling both in the final defeat of the powers that are the ages old enmity enemy of god and the instrument also of israel's deliverance and restoration his coming and his kingdom lord forgive us we identify with the church we are the church we have been guilty lord of shallow presumption of the church of some kind of organization institution performing programs our benefit our enjoyment what we like did you like we have still been the center and it's a false center because we have never understood or taken your purpose as being the foremost reason for our being even when it brings us no visible benefit at all but makes us candidates to be opposed so lord we want to say this morning forgive us and give us that true center that takes the eternal purpose of god in christ jesus to be the foremost purpose for its being its true center and from there there everything will follow grant us grace my god and free us from every insidious subtle influence of the powers of the air that play upon ego upon fear upon self upon all of the kinds of things that make up the foundation for another wisdom which is the worlds bring us my god into your wisdom free from all that selfless my god in your righteousness and your truth and we know that it will not come cheaply and without cost it's going to require something that kind of a church will have to be a suffering before it's a glory we'll have to be found out we'll have to be humiliated we'll have to be disillusioned and disappointed not only with our brothers with ourselves and we have to be in an environment in which uh we can freely be found out by by an accepting love that is not going to jump on us because it itself is in process it itself is defective there's a mutual mercy and grace and compassion for one another or how else shall we exhibit it to the jew so my god the first test is here and we pray for such a church in the earth our brother asked the right question how are we going to succeed in this the church itself opposes this truth it has its own purposes and vested interests to be perpetuated and be preserved and it itself resists truth and and those who will bring it but your zeal my god will perform it and we pray that even out of these days and for the very brother who raised the question that he himself would be fitted to be a prophetic instrument a holy man the thing in himself whether he speaks or is silent he himself represents that to which the church is called and must in turn respond we bless him we bless these children we bless these who hear these tapes for the high calling of god in christ jesus the church is the masterpiece the ultimate and eternal masterpiece of god its glory will even exceed that of restored israel for israel will be fixed in its earth and we will be ascending and descending upon the son of man so do we thank you lord oh precious god on high oh my god instruct our hearts instruct our understanding break the power of pettiness my god of gossip of all the kinds of things to which we've been subject of influence free your people up my god thank you for so great a gospel so great a power so great a blood so great a word so great a truth so great a spirit we bless you lord help us my god to be what we ought that you might be glorified forever through the church in yeshua's holy name