South Africa Meeting 2000 - Part 1

When was the Lord? Oh, we did have a precious time this afternoon. If you were here last night, I'm trying desperately to justify myself before men and God. I think what it's really about is the strangeness, the uniqueness of the prophetic call. So unfamiliar to the Church, however much that is presently being watered and many professing to be that, the experience for us is extremely rare. When it comes, I don't think it can help but be to some degree offensive, bright and threatening. So, I wish I could invite you to stand in my shoes if I were wearing them. You need to believe me when I say that a man like myself has no knowledge of what is going to issue from him. You may have a precept of it. You may have a text that has been put in. You may have some sense of a direction of how that is going to come forth, what mode of expression is invited out of his hands. It's not just praying for the Word of God, it's praying for the mode of God and the means by which it's to be expressed. So when I find myself, as I did last night, cavorting and carrying on and teasing and provoking what shall I say? Now, I don't know what we're going to get now. It might likely be utterly utter than last night and tomorrow yet, I put it still, that these brothers will be traveling with me who know that by the end of five weeks it will be so variable that you could hardly believe it's the same man speaking at every place. That's how much we are calibrated to and adjusted from on high to give the appropriate word of command in order to speak. Because the prophetic man bears the Word of God, God's Word. Substantial, great responsibility. So Lord, You know what kind of beginning we have had and I'm willing to bear my responsibility in that aspect of last night which was not Yourself, but me and compounded, my God, the offense. Forgive me for that. Courage me for that. Here we have, my God, on each occasion a yet pure expression of Your heart, Your voice, Your will, Your Spirit. So even now, Lord, take us on and we thank You for the abrupt beginning of creation and culture conflict that the sharp thing that takes place when these things meet at the point of time having been assembled and prepared in a remote northern Minnesota location and then being thrust into South Africa. And we thank You, Lord, for the tension between the prophetic and the pastoral. The necessity to guard and protect. The necessity to challenge and to stir up, somehow, to bear that tension and not inhibit or dismanel the thing we've learned from it. So we're coming to a place, Lord, where the process of God may this speaking now be a contribution to that great plan. Bless us together, my God. Have Your way be perfect for the possession of this vessel, Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. How many were not here last night with their saved book? Oh, count your blessings. While we are in the Book of Acts, in Chapter 17, Paul's sermon on Mars' King, an extraordinary statement not sufficiently examined by the church because he strikes such a note, such a theme in the awkward place that Athens represents that I think is resonating still. Paul brings his apostolic perception to bear as if reality as he sees it and perceives it is the definitive truth of God. He's not in the place of relativism where you have word and I have mind. He's absolutely in his own conviction and feels an obligation to communicate that and bring his hearers to the same place of speaking and see that he himself enjoys. And he has only the one occasion and he says outlandish things that are difficult to be understood and most of which rests on a God who is a creator and who raises a man from the dead whom he has appointed to judge the world in a soon coming time and that he holds the nations accountable for failing to have sought God for he's lived every one of us and has established the bounds of our habitation giving us life to seek and find him. And as I tried to make clear last night, not only for our purposes individually and personally but for our purpose as nations. So I want to encourage you to come increasingly into a consciousness of nations per se as nations. What makes it so difficult is that we have been permeated by a very individualistic and subjective view of reality. We think only in individual terms which is probably the greatest obstruction to the bringing forth of the church as the corporate reality of God's invention. We are so individual minded, Paul was corporately minded that Godhead itself is a corporate phenomenon of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and a certain quality of relationship and deferring of the one to the other that makes God glorious. And when that kind of reality is replicated in the earth by the body of God and all of its diversity deferring one to another prophetic to the pastoral teacher at the department we will be about the glory of God in the heavens and its goodness in the earth. Now this morning in my devotional time I read through the Psalms every day and in Psalm 4 today and this was the fifth but in the context of my reading of the Psalms it was Psalm 45 rather than Psalm 5. Tomorrow I'll be reading Psalm 46 and 47 and so on. So I keep pace and I want to commend them to you how precious a literature the Psalms are and how neglected they are by the church and what a peculiar literature they are and a provision for the last days But the thing that struck me as I read in Psalm 45 and then I drifted on to 46 and so on these are called the enthroned Psalms the royal Psalms that have to do with the establishment of a king the reference to God as king was central to Paul's whole apostolic mentality and it's most of us, particularly Americans the whole concept of king, royalty is a distant and remote kind of consideration we are democrats we're in a republic and the whole idea of something aristocratic and, what's the word when something points to a layers of politics hierarchical governmental structure is somehow offensive to our democratic temper but it was not to Paul and I began to realize, where did Paul get the kind of thing that he was communicating in one song where did he speak about where did he get the idea of God as the creator of the heavens and the earth and all the human race and that he has created the nations and all races and nations of men and has called them to seek him his purpose for their creation where does he get all that where does he have this sense of a God who has appointed a day in which he will judge we need to get into the not only into the rudiments of this apostolic mindset but to its origins we need to come to it in a certain sense in the same way in which Paul came to it namely, his investment of himself in Old Testament scripture and proof particularly the book of Psalms, the prophets so in Psalm, where was I 45, 46 verse 6 of Psalm 45 your throne, O God, and yours forever and ever your royal scepter is a scepter of righteousness you love righteousness and hate wickedness therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of bladders to your repentance your oils are all fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia from ivy-possessed women and infants made for you this is a remarkable conjecture, picture and suggestive of the son, though he is not named who is anointed beyond his companions because of his love of righteousness and truth and that the center of his kingdom is righteousness is that a word that frequently comes from the verse righteousness if you had to write a paragraph, did you find it pertinent what is it and yet it's foundational to everything and it is the distinct word of God's kingdom certainly it's absent from the consideration of men and their nations they are expedient they look for the thing that's pragmatic the thing that works to serve their purposes but what politician or human statesman thinks in terms of righteousness equity, justice these are the distinct words of God this is the expression of his very nature and one day, when his rule will pervade the earth this will be his character do you love righteousness? more than your friends? God seems to give an anointing in proportion to the love for that righteousness because righteousness is God himself so oh there's so much Psalm 46 I couldn't help but look ahead the first verse God is our refuge and strength of every person held in trouble therefore I do not fear will the earth be changed will the mountains shake the heart of the sea will its waters run and fall will the mountains tremble with its toll I do not fear because God is our refuge and strength now this is either what's the word, cozy? poetic? rhetoric? a kind of fanciful play on words or it's the most upstanding truth that is to be found God is our refuge and strength he himself is that is so mind-boggling it's not that he's going to provide a help that will be a security he himself is that security he himself is that help and a present help in time of trouble will you remember that? will you remember it as just having a kind of an echo of something that you once read in the Psalms or will you remember it with the same kind of conviction and certitude and confidence that will actually dismiss fear in a word, have you come to the same perception of God as that to which the Psalms must come? what does it take to come to a place where you know God in such a way as you can say, he is my strength, he is my saviour he's my refuge, he's my power a present help echo the Psalms can only know that if he's passed the code and you can be assured that if you have this kind of quest to know God in this way you're going to experience trouble because the powers that be in the world despise any saint who has this kind of desire to know God in this way and will trouble him but the very trouble that comes from the diabolical machinations of an enemy who hates the lovers of righteousness and of God is the very ingredient that God employs to show himself as a help in that very time the Psalms wow how do you come to this kind of consciousness of God and it actually constitutes your strength, your safety your refuge not just under normal conditions but pressing and open conditions of distress and trouble he is a present help that's why I say this is an end time book we're going to come to a time when no other external thing, no other provision no other physical, human, worldly, social governmental thing will be our help if God is not our help, we will be helpless we've got to move from a realm where God is a fanciful Sunday consideration to the sum and substance of what we are we live and move and have our being in him, Paul says in Acts chapter 7 this is where Paul drew his heart, his understanding we will not fear the Lord's host is with us in verse 7, the God of Jacob is our refuge now, why does that have to be upended, the God of Jacob isn't it enough to know that he's simply God do we need this particular identification, the God of Jacob, yes because unless you know him as the God of Jacob you may be flirting with some other deity who because your concept is abstract and general, it opens the door to any kind of self-refuge, like anything that appears to be God, is accepted as God, we've got to make sure that the God we're worshipping and celebrating is distinctively the God who is, and that's the God of Jacob the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, God brings us back as Gentile believers increasingly and repeatedly to the reality and if you've not accepted me as your God you might well question what kind of Jew I am if your Gentile disposition is not that amenable to being reminded that God is the God of Jews, you may find yourself flirting with another deity if God designates himself as the God of Jacob how then shall we know that the Psalms are located if you had me back again and I would invite you to church and we would have like three days on the Psalms I've never thought that would be a glorious thought about just to invest ourselves in the glory of this particular literature so come behold in chapter verse 8 the works of the Lord in Psalm 46 see what resolutions he has brought on the earth, he makes wars to cease on the end of the earth he breaks the bow and shatters the spear he burns the shields with fire what? is God being held responsible for conflict and their endings is he that sovereign is he that implicit and involved in the wars and conflicts of nations and of mankind and he makes them to cease at the ends of the earth then what shall we gain at the negotiation table what shall be our profit if we give up the golden heights or make some other concessions if it's God himself is the one who makes wars to cease what are we to be seeking in rather than negotiation how come you have to hold that position because you're the only ones who are in a place to know you think they read the Psalms you think they're Jews and if they do read you think that they can leave us with the inspiration they think that this is a Jewish literature and our contribution to mankind of which we also tell you what this tells you it's not enough to say that we know that God is sovereign his word says so we've got to demonstrate the actuality of that knowledge and that conviction in our whole life in the world that's why it says we still know that the Lord gave you a whole flood of insight into this that even the key to knowledge is what it is you want to know about it stop your clamoring stop your programs stop your methodology stop your tactics be still bring it to a quiet of your devices however you're meaning and your very obedience to the word of God will release the knowledge of God be still really be it quiet every fear and anxiety like even in these days we were even praying Lord let those who were a little bit ruffled yesterday last night hold steady don't let them act in their immediate and this or whatever and quit hold be patient get the whole thing from God don't be quick to dismiss which is so contrary to the temper of our civilization that is so hazy so pacific, so now oriented I'll tell you the series of literature in the Psalms is to experience an inward metamorphosis it'll bring change of a remarkable kind it's another reality and it is the distinctive reality all together at odds with everything external about us and we'll have to make a choice of what reality it is to which we shall subscribe for the thing that is visible, celebrated acclaimed by great and seems to be the prevailing mode or is it what the psalmist sees and expresses and seems in every point to be at odds with what is external in the world hey, if you take these psalms seriously and invest yourself in them as if they represent the distinctive and definitive reality it will make you unfit for that world outside you'll be strange you'll be a stranger pilgrim and a sojourner you'll be mocked by your very evident difference you'll look at your eyes and voice the way you dare yourself is marching to another being and is reflecting another reality which is the reality by the way that will pervade eternity why not enter it now in my way why not prepare ourselves for what shall be the continuing and abiding reality who has gone and likes us now through this world but it's one that threatens to put everything in discharge it's not just a difference it's an antagonizing difference it will put us at odds with a number of people with a set of values with a way of seeing what they think to be truth and right and we'll be we'll experience some trouble but God will deepen the revelation of himself accordingly so we still know that I'm God I'm exalted among the nations oh yeah well if not now at least millenially and eternally in fact the exaltation of God over all the nations is the whole sum and substance of what our faith is about did you know that read Psalm 2 at your own leisure how the nations rage and the people stake forth against God the nations presently and historically are in a rebellious posture against God they will not have this man to rule over them the nations want to be autonomous and independent and do their own thing independent of him who created and established them for his glory the Psalms are full and the prophets are full that the nations will exalt God every knee will bend and every tongue will confess and that this will be the completion and the consummation of the whole of the divine strategy of the beginning is to bring rebellious nations back and under the curfew of the God who has created who have gone off his way to do what his rank is unsung and they'll never come to that place until they come to it in relationship to one nation which he himself has chosen as the focal point and the pivot of his whole theocratic order yes, who? one group of evangelists they're not uptight they're too insignificant and they're full of contradiction God has set a stumbling stone in Zion the war shall go forth out of Zion and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem is not a piece of poetry it is a piece of graphic literal statement of God that he will fulfill all the more because it was the world wrought, because the world in its gentilic, greedy mind does not want to defer to antichrist nations God has not chosen them because they're distinctive he's chosen them because they're the least he's chosen them because he's a God who chooses right? because he's a God who elects, he's a God who appoints, because in that exercise and that authority and that might and that power, God is God and so to oppose Israel and the choice of Israel as being the focal point of the whole confederacy of nations that live to God is to be an ox with God in some people the irony is that the nation that he's chosen does not even want to be chosen they want to be like all other nations no matter what they want to be, because God has chosen them as a point, they will be as God but not without the word of salvation stay tuned for tomorrow's mission and I think what we're getting is something that this world couldn't be free of so psalm 47 the Lord most high is awesome and will be a great king over all the earth, this is where that's why he's not intimidated with the glory of his grace, he can see their naked temples and all of the appurtenances and visible evidences of the glory of that great civilization and beyond that he's not at all intimidated he has an inward seeing of something that eclipses whatever men think to be worse, that is naked than it is, it's the God of Israel, who is king not only over that nation, but over all creation, for what he has made, that's why he can go right into the midst of that and say this God whom you ignore in worship I declare unto you he's king over all the earth and that includes ashes and you better know it, because he's going to judge you in a day or point for your oblivious to consider that God has gone up with a shout of mercy like the Lord with the sound of a trumpet sing praises to God, sing praises sing praises for him, sing praises for God is the king over the earth sing praises for the sun, God is king over the nations, God sits on his holy throne, the priests of the people gather as the people of the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth, the kings of the nations belong to God, he is God the exalted, the issue of God's supremacy over his creation is the issue of God as God what you're born you're born a new Christian and it has hardly more than the sum of successive services it's because you have not your great apostolic view of what the whole purpose of creation and redemption is is to bring all of creation under the wardship of him who created, that he might be king over all that every nation will pay homage to the living God who is also the God king right now they're in a state of rebellion and they rage in front of the house the reason that Jews are despised, the reason for antisemitism beyond any way to understand it sociologically is this underlying and unidentified hatred of the nations against God and against his rule through that people in Israel why will there be a future holocaust why will Jews be hunted and pursued through every nation and a future time that is not this because if the enemy could annihilate every Jew from the face of the earth he will have prevented God from establishing his sovereignty and rule from their Jerusalem, their holy Jerusalem to eliminate a Jew physically bodily is to remove and take from God apostate from his theocratic governance of his creation that's why he rages and that's what he will be pursued so great is the Lord and many will be raged Noah in a little nook here backing up the psalms verse 6, the Lord the host is with us in verse 11, the God of Jacob is our refuge the psalmist has to now move from his personal statement about himself to making it an inclusive statement of a plural kind he's our refuge there's more than himself involved, there's a people involved, there's a congregation there's an assembly, there's a a corporate expression of that life that shares a common faith together that the God of Jacob is our refuge are we going to believe that when violence increases in South Africa and that any kind of wisdom requires ourselves to be armed and to establish some kind of physical provision for safety will we believe that God is our refuge when threatens with human casualties and fatalities have a naked place, I don't know if I have the faith by myself to sustain that unless I have the encouragement of others with me who share the same precious faith that God is our refuge this is not poetry this is nuts and bolts provision for the United States and puts all premium on being part of a body that shares this precious faith because it will be weapons or songs radical trust or human dependency Hebraic faith or Greek humanistic confidence you see that as the age becomes more tenacious and sharply issues now are coming to our door things that we thought not likely that happens to other people are now coming to Christian threat how do we meet that what does faith mean, does it mean subscribing to a correct body of doctrine or trusting that God is our refuge will he honor that trust and if he doesn't then we die would we prefer to die believing that he will honor it and we should survive by pulling triffids why is all this heated up why are the issues becoming so radical and compelling this whole faith of a kind that we would not otherwise have sought and that we must find together or we will not have our refuge you wonder if if the stuttering tongue that have taken place in society are not even coming from God's own hand for the purpose of bringing the church to the place of the reality of the Psalms and the Prophets that we would have otherwise ignored or read only as a kind of Sunday literature when he comes will we find faith in the earth of this kind so I wrote down at the bottom Psalms, poetic delusion of our ultimate reality the hymn book of the church outdated, too far fetched too unrealistic or the greater realism that we have not considered what is it put up or shut up we are going to get earnest about the word of God and what it means what kind of confidence these royal Psalms were formatted for Paul in his apostolic eschatology and cosmic view why haven't they become that for us excuse the fancy language Paul's eschatology Paul's view of the end was drawn from Psalms that were already predicted from back then of the conflict between the nations and the final resolution of Israel's restoration and all nations' instability and acknowledging the God of Jacob this time Paul knew the end because he saw the evidences in the Hebrew Scripture my question is why haven't we seen it why haven't we had our mind formed apostatically by the same influences that were available to him we've not read the word as he read it nor taken it apart we've not seen ourselves in it and we have celebrated the Torah over Zion does Zion mean to us are we looking for the conservation of all things and the rule of God going forth in that one place of the earth that he himself has erected the holy hill of Zion he's declared the decree I have set my king on the holy hill of Zion this day I have given you the nations and the Gentiles for your inhabitants Paul knew that he steeped himself in that if you squeeze him he squishes and issues forth a whole mentality behind him that makes him the bearer of a whole reality that we call apostolic and God says the church was built on the foundation of the apostles we have that foundation and if not what are we building and is it building and swaying and to steep yourself in these realities and in these scriptures is to have opted for a certain way that will put you at this junction and at odds with the reality that reports to be you'll be marked you'll be strange but inwardly all the peace all the rejoicing, all the confidence all the trust, all the delight all the joy that God is our refuge at a present time we need not fear thank you Lord well I just wanted to whet your appetite a little bit for the Psalms and to encourage you to make it your daily devotion in reading every morning early while it's yet dark let's turn then in the time that remains to Acts 17 again because in verse 30 God has overlooked the times of human ignorance but now he commands all men have a right to repent who is this who commands repent that's his right, that's his prerogative see how Paul can speak out of the psalmist understanding of who's in charge because he has a fixed day in which he will have the world judged in righteousness beautiful word again by a man whom he has appointed and now this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead the whole message to Athens the message to Greece the thing that makes it so full and so contemptible, so offensive to the Greek mind is this sinful thing on which everything is predicated resurrection from the dead and listen any Greek nationalist any philosopher will tell you ah ah, no man is raised from the dead death is final death is irremediable, there is no coming back, let alone a man appointed a judge because of the distinction that God raised him from the dead and then it says when they heard of this of the resurrection of the dead some scoffed, others said we'll hear again about this and you can be assured they never did at that point Paul left them nothing more need be said the fact is in the fire he's made a statement and it's predicated on the subject of a God who has raised a man and then he left them but some of them claimed unto him and here it says joined him and became believers including Dionysius the Eurypaean a woman named Damaris and so the episode ends a few who heard believed and claimed unto Paul others said we'll hear again, kind of a respectful beep but they knew that they did not and others just turned away scoffing and contemptuous rejection classic formulation but it raises a remarkable question how can Paul leave them with a statement of this kind that is seething over with imminent judgment that God was going to judge the world in an appointed day which means in Athens and expect them to believe that on what basis should they believe that what were his credentials and what were his proofs invoking the absurdity of resurrection from the dead we have a difficulty the disciples had a difficulty in believing resurrection that they believed not yet even after they saw Jesus in his resurrection body they were still afraid they were still questioned the spirit hath not flesh and blood as I have there's something so resistant to the idea of resurrection it's an ultimate scandal opposed to everything that men celebrate as reasonable enlightenment and Paul makes that the foundation of his hope remarkable thrust and he leaves them so I always ask my traditions on what basis how could Paul expect that a Greek philosophical audience who have no background in scripture, no understanding of the Hebraic mindset believe his statement charged with imminent judgment resting on the reality of resurrection and walk away how could they be expected to do that what background did they have what preparation can you answer that? your inability to answer is the most damning indictment of our own separation from the reality of resurrection this dear theologian a man I have in the world plucked out of obscurity Edo Slata who lived in Germany at the time and liberal theology was really sweeping the scene that became the god of his death theology he was one of the few radical god oriented bible believing scholars of his time and painstaking in his examination of the word in his own languages you know what he says about Lutheranism and it must have been such a slap in the face he said the Lutherans have contended themselves with the doctrine of salvation as if it constitutes the reality they have not been saved by the word of god that proclaims the gospel they have substituted the belief in and the acceptance of the doctrine of God's salvation and it seems that in that they have satisfied the requirement of god or known reality no wonder here came the power in a Lutheran nation that was nothing but a vacuum of a spiritual kind through which the demonic forces could sweep like a hot knife through the open body it was not the reality it was not the spirit reality of a people who knew god and the salvation of god but had only the doctrine of God the propensity of the German mind to think and to make doctrinal and to study and discuss had lost and were never known to be empty and when I read this well that's true I know something about Lutherans I've lived in that part of the world I've been in a Lutheran seminary and had my hands full I said you have trouble with me but the frightening part is have we done the same with resurrection have we satisfied ourselves with the approval of the doctrine of God rather than the reality of because your inability to answer my questions shows that you don't know instantly that the reason that Paul could have a total confident expectation that his hearers would believe that the reality of resurrection was because he himself was the manifestation of that reality he was the man of the resurrection his words were the resurrection proclamation his words were not humanly contrived they issued out of the life that had the total possession of the vessel because of all things it has done that Christ may be Lord he was the Lord to hear him and see him and his resurrection words was to leave no question that the thing in which he predicates the whole issue of judgment is in unquestionably true and I don't think that we can come to Mars Hill of our generation until we come in that power, that life, and that generation can you say with Paul for me to live this Christ you know about him or you're living by him of him and through him little wonder that Paul in closing his great statement on the mystery of Israel in Romans 11 breaks out into a doxology of such praise on the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, wisdom is constant but as Paul seemingly is getting so ecstatic for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever if ever there was the genius of what this apostolic son thought in a few words it's that glorious statement of grace unto him be glory forever you're going to be in apostolic theophanies later here's the absolute requirement that the central object of your contention, your concern, your jealousy is the glory of God forever can you see why we have to be occupied with the things that matter with the things that are eternal how shall we obtain his glory and the only catch is there's never been a glory that has not been first perceived by the sufferer you're going to take yourself corporately and you should be glory forever or you might be suffering that will never be over it's the only alternative to that egocentrism that is the curse of the church by which we measure everything in terms of our benefit and our satisfaction of eternal the only thing that can cancel out that deathly force that makes us the measure of our own satisfaction and how is it programmed, what did you say when you left here last night, how did you like it how did you like the preacher, how did you like the preacher how did you like, how did you like as if your liking is the ultimate sum and bottom of the whole thing that's how we train, that's what we go to the world and that's the mentality we go to the kingdom, it's powerful egocentrism, not only when it's common worldly but even when it's religious and spiritual what can save us from that deadly work of the preoccupation with something much greater than what we like the glory of God forever for of him and through him for all things for whom we glorify if it's not of him, it's not going to be of us it'll be a human enterprise it'll be something mediated out of our own skulls and bones, it's got to be of him but it also has got to be through him, it's got to be his enabler, it's got to be his power it's got to be his energy how are we going to make it for these five weeks if we're being so drained here and go from yesterday to where are we going to be that night and day after day night after night and come back for a month and then go out into Holland Germany, Switzerland, the Ukraine Russia and Finland on what basis that through him the enablement of his life and power we can be in the rest of God and serve the purposes of God as told in that day in Athens that's apostolic perception facilitated by apostolic power which is the life of God and raise Jesus from the dead is that normal? when you go to work is it on that basis that you go through operating your office, your profession the school, wherever you are are you functioning out of your own human ability what is there in your present church life that would compel you on to resurrection ground what demand is there that you cannot answer on the basis of your own ability and intelligence and closing intention where is the lack of a man in church life and reality that compels us to find and abide and remain in the resurrection ground not much I'll tell you what it says take the eternal purposes of God in your heart and the jealousy of his glory and you'll not be able to fulfill that except in the power of persuasion and he might be walked like forever not only because it's spoken but also because it's spoken what I didn't realize until early this morning was that all who articulate a gospel of salvation so to speak, he in fact did because what constitutes salvation is believing that Jesus is Lord and that God has raised him from the dead and that is intrinsic to this message because it speaks of the resurrection of one who is no longer judged who is saved and those who believe that message were saved by him this is a new thought for me, I hadn't thought of it I hadn't considered that because it wasn't a little cutsy formula that he brought, he brought an overarching cosmic view but in the staining of it, it was replete with the elements that are essential for salvation in believing that Jesus is Lord and that God has raised him from the dead if you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth thou shalt be saved those that claim unto Paul and believe were saved why do they claim unto Paul? because Paul did not just express the message, he was the message the man was the statement, the reality the validation that Jesus was raised from the dead because the message itself was a resurrection from the dead no man in his right mind has been to Bible school and Evangelical training colleges, is going to begin in a once and for all opportunity for Greek intellectuals in the heart of the greatest civilization of the ancient world by insulting Christianity, I perceive with all things, you're too superstitious wow, right in the head sir that was done immediately out of a man's skull, looking hard at it, re-engaging any more than I immediately apologized last night out of my skull on how to reoffend him he simply opened his mouth and the life of God gave his own expression and you know what? this apostolic mode of serving and being is not reserved for the few men of uncommon stature it's God's definitive intention for us all let me read you a little bit from Abel's letter and it's high time that you got into the writings and study of some of the great theologians with which God has founded the church, theology is for the church we don't know why so much of this we don't know major gossip we don't have to give ourselves to pedigrees, we've got the most substantial literature of men who have given their lives to the examination of every intricate implication of the Greek and Hebrew texts they've invested themselves because these are not labors that we could perform, but they are labors that we could enjoy one of my dearest friends is a black brother from Natchez, Mississippi, the deep American south and I watch the transformation of that man he's one of the most informed, theologically minded Christians in Natchez, Mississippi a man who otherwise, apart from that influence not be in any way distinctive and very much reflect the black culture of his time and place has been transported and elevated prolifically by investing himself in the thought and consideration of men who rested with the Word of God. He's an authority on the whole lot the unity of his language and he's not just dropping it to be expressive it's his lack of it in his reading he doesn't know what it means to be gay there's a great literature of this sense and I would encourage you to consult it I'll give you a little list two characteristics mark the word and indicate why its possession constitutes righteousness it is the word of faith which we proclaim we, Jesus' messengers, call in his own words, proclaim it is not the believer's own word discovered and conceived by him by hearing it the individual attains righteousness and faith it is both the goal of the word and hence it is communicated within them as a factor which proves to be powerful how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear except one preach and how shall one preach except he be sent for faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God it's God's word not man's word and the hearing of that word faith is created it's a creative word it's an act of God through the messenger the individual is told the word so that he might believe it by believing he receives what that word proclaims to him for by believing the mouth and the heart are activated he believes with his heart and confesses with his mouth that Jesus is good you know that there's a a slew of people who don't have a word vast mankind out there that have hardly been elevated beyond the level of a grunt you know that the world has slowly disabused of words and that has reduced its level of communication to such an extent that mankind and its youth are being capable of more than a grunt that they can't compose a statement or a sentence and that the ability to speak and communicate is the greatest distinctive of our humanity and the gift of God well I don't care how dull a man is I don't care how much he's been outraged by circumstances by conditions how much he's been impoverished how much he's not had opportunity he's not been to school I don't care how savage he could be a murderer of the most face kind but when he hears the word of God faith is communicated to believe and to confess that Jesus is Lord and to be saved that the first utterance that opens his mouth and will continue to open his mouth has been made possible by the proclamation of the word of God in power through the resurrection of Christ I'm encouraged by the gospel you know we have the word of one of our brothers said to us we have to realize this I mentioned this in a prayer before coming and one of the words we received during the Vatican the gospel of the kingdom is going to be proclaimed to all nations eventually I don't know if I'm proclaiming it any more than Paul proclaimed that when he spoke to the Indians but men prayed unto him and believed hearing the word of God and raised the man from the dead who will judge the world in righteousness by believing the mouth and the heart are activated that was otherwise stopped that was otherwise incapable of unhardening anything more than a grunt is the beginning of humanity and the ability of being able to communicate and to articulate and to have mind, thought, and will and significance it begins by hearing the word that opens your mouth and opens your heart because the word is the power of God preached and proclaimed in resurrection from the word originates the confession that Jesus is Lord and the heart brings forth faith in him that calls and acknowledges him as the one whom God raised from the dead for he who acknowledges the virtues of Jesus and believes in his life out of death will be saved these Greeks the Manus and the other one whose name believed because they heard the proclamation came to them out of that life it was not made about the resurrection but a proclamation by the resurrection because that's what apostolic is and that's what apostolic proclamation is how shall we live except one preach and how shall one preach except in the same way are you coming to a place where you can be ascending body and that a reality has been established corporately here that God will want to explore and bring to the Zulus because it has been obtained corporately and now can be sent out from this place by the laying on the pants of those who will uphold the messengers in their intercessions that the word might go forth and those who hear whose heart was stopped whose mouth was stopped can believe and speak and confess and be saved if there is any answer for South Africa let me know has the gospel of the kingdom really been proclaimed the word is the same in power because it is the word of Christ the word commissions his apostles, he charges them the task of proclaiming the message the task of his messengers is for Christ to speak to human beings through them this theologian goes one step further than I would have faithfully said and not only was Paul speaking by the resurrection power of authority but it was Christ himself in Paul setting forth his own word it was the word of God because it was God speaking through a vessel of holy serenity not only to his father but it's God Christ the resurrected one calling men to himself by his own word and his own power through the messengers by him in the last analysis it is he himself and me to live is Christ and me to speak is Christ and me to serve is Christ so precious God what shall we say? what is our faith? what is our understanding? what is our message? and by what power is it being proclaimed? is it not my God putting a boost into a formula, step one, step two how to get saved? is that the word of God? or is it going to be new media are you going to express it my God because you know who here it is you know his background you know how his heart and mind have been stopped how his humanity has been deadened how he's been made into a murderer he's incapable of feeling his conscience has been seared what kind of a word will open him to call and confess your name and receive your life only your word spoken in your power by you yourself through those vessels who have surrendered to you can't you know? my God my God, listen to me stop playing hide and seek for South Africa there's no other option maybe we in America still have some possibilities where we can play around count us back but for you your nation, the crisis of it is of such a kind that only this recovery will suffice those who trust God those who love him as refuge our trust in God Lord bless this people you know they've been crying out they sense something pulsating that something needs to be reversed something needs to be lifted you need to come into something larger and other than what they have now and I pray that you're answering that right now that you're raising up the vision not of some novel thing that never was but the truth and the verity that always was, from the beginning so it was for everybody apostolic reality apostolic mindset, apostolic seeing apostolic perception apostolic recognition and empower them and raise Jesus from the dead my God, test us and grant us the courage to pull out the plug of the dependency that we have on our own trail of humanity we're too gifted we're too able, we know how to do it and conduct services and perform it admirably but we've not pulled the plug out with quivering exhaust that we would be as dead men I'm most to be pitied if you were not raised to do that let them experience what I did when I tested you in the history classroom in Oakland, California there in the birthplace of the Black Panthers with those black kids in my class who hated writing and looked upon me as a representation of the establishment and the institution that they despised and how weak I was and was encouraged by my superior teachers that told me only fanatical conservative strength because if you lose your strength, you lose your authority and you've got to keep the lid on these guys will wash up out of their seats in a moment young naive leader that I was I was going to believe the resurrection and that if I was emptied out completely and did not withhold and spent myself without reserve and somehow in that emptiness in that death of any ability I would have in myself the life of God would come forth for resurrection follows the death of that which is natural I pulled out the socks in the third class of the day I was weeping weeping and collapsing and sagging and my voice was a croaking and my tongue was cleaving the roof of my mouth my eyes were slit like slits I couldn't open my tongue was hoarse I couldn't speak and I watched these black guys just about to come out of their seats and lit by the candle whether it was my imagination or not it seemed real enough it was life in a death the stakes had got to be real and in that final moment when every last thing was spent something came up I could feel the surge of the strength in my frame, in my body in my head, my eyes open, my tongue was closed my mind was clear, something went forth that was more than man and other than man and filled the whole youth group of our members of our church with its confidence on that secular history classroom where the resurrected king prevailed so Lord God forbid that we should do what the Lutherans did with salvation and make salvation with the resurrection mere doctrine only bring us to real life, show us the limitation of our own humanity, give us the willingness to forfeit and to trust that power that raised you from the dead thank you my God we bless you we love you let faith come by hearing let people be encouraged to believe for that life of themselves in the place where they are and let them see the greatness let them experience the best thing where they'll be in no man's land where they'll not get an instant response and they'll have their face sticking out in all terrible dependency upon God that is not immediately answered but when that answer comes it's not just that we haven't saved from the moment of embarrassment but that glory of God has been revealed my blessings to you my Lord stir their hearts, bring them to the ground, let there be in this locality, in this South Africa an apostolic entity that proclaims the soon coming kingdom and calls men through salvation into his name by the proclaiming word of the Lord, in Jesus name we pray