- Home
- Speakers
- G.W. North
- That Which God Has Joined Together
G.W. North
George Walter North (1913 - 2003). British evangelist, author, and founder of New Covenant fellowships, born in Bethnal Green, London, England. Converted at 15 during a 1928 tent meeting, he trained at Elim Bible College and began preaching in Kent. Ordained in the Elim Pentecostal Church, he pastored in Kent and Bradford, later leading a revivalist ministry in Liverpool during the 1960s. By 1968, he established house fellowships in England, emphasizing one baptism in the Holy Spirit, detailed in his book One Baptism (1971). North traveled globally, preaching in Malawi, Australia, and the U.S., impacting thousands with his focus on heart purity and New Creation theology. Married with one daughter, Judith Raistrick, who chronicled his life in The Story of G.W. North, he ministered into his 80s. His sermons, available at gwnorth.net, stress spiritual transformation over institutional religion, influencing Pentecostal and charismatic movements worldwide.
Sermon Summary
G.W. North emphasizes the foundational significance of baptism and communion in the early Church as recorded in Acts 2. He explains that Jesus established the Church through the Holy Spirit, and the first believers immediately engaged in both baptism and communion, highlighting their essential role in Christian life. North argues that these two ordinances were divinely ordained to be the primary practices of the Church, with no other ordinances holding the same universal obligation for all believers. He stresses that while other practices exist, baptism and communion remain the core elements that bind the Church together. This sermon calls for a deeper understanding and commitment to these fundamental ordinances.
Scriptures
That Which God Has Joined Together
The marriage of these two is finely displayed by Luke in Acts 2. The opening part of this chapter records the establishment of the Church on earth by the Lord Jesus. He accomplished this miracle by baptising the 120 into the Baptism which He had previously undergone at Calvary, and He did it with or by means of the Holy Ghost. The major reason He endured His crucifixion was that this should be accomplished. Following the record of the founding of the Church and the swift addition of a further 5000 to them, Luke loses no time in telling us that 'they (all) continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship (Communion) and in breaking of bread (the symbol of Communion) and in prayers'. So we see that right in the beginning, upon the very threshold of Church history God set the pattern — it was first baptism then communion. Every single member of that first church assembly went straight from one into the other. God and the apostles joined these two together that they should remain for all time the most fundamental and necessary ordinances of the Church. He added no other to them as though He were implying that together with them it should form an obligatory trilogy of common acceptance among His people; He ordained these two and made them universally obligatory upon His Church, and that is all. Other ordinances there are and each has its proper place and in that place is binding upon the person or persons concerned, but consideration of them reveals that none is obligatory upon every member without exception as are these two.
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download
George Walter North (1913 - 2003). British evangelist, author, and founder of New Covenant fellowships, born in Bethnal Green, London, England. Converted at 15 during a 1928 tent meeting, he trained at Elim Bible College and began preaching in Kent. Ordained in the Elim Pentecostal Church, he pastored in Kent and Bradford, later leading a revivalist ministry in Liverpool during the 1960s. By 1968, he established house fellowships in England, emphasizing one baptism in the Holy Spirit, detailed in his book One Baptism (1971). North traveled globally, preaching in Malawi, Australia, and the U.S., impacting thousands with his focus on heart purity and New Creation theology. Married with one daughter, Judith Raistrick, who chronicled his life in The Story of G.W. North, he ministered into his 80s. His sermons, available at gwnorth.net, stress spiritual transformation over institutional religion, influencing Pentecostal and charismatic movements worldwide.