The Negative Spiritual Power of Mixture Part One : Leaven

As the Holy Spirit guides us through life again, this time "seeing only God", we can be sure He is showing His Light on many of the things we were just taking for granted.

One of the things we didnt see
Living in the land of "just-me", of a supposed independent self,  us as entirely self-empowered beings, we were entirely caught up in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that is , in a Land of opposites that we had to gingerly pick our way through.

How Great is that Darkness
Jesus said if the very light that we have been living by, turns out to actually have been Darkness all along, then how great, clever and manipulative this same Darkness has been. And this is ofcourse what we are beginning to say louder and louder. This whole process of picking our way between opposites as an activity is actually none other than the root of  "the speculations and thoughts raised up against the knowledge of Christ" that we are now tearing down.
This manner of living was the school master to lead us to Christ : the Law, but once we meet Him and connect with Him we get caught up with His actual Life.




Our lives were a good deal more complicated than black and white, good and bad. We could be doing good as an outer act, but from the dodgiest of motives inside.


Mixture is a Power
But this is all a preamble to say that as fast as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has  been set up to "contain" people until such time as they find the Real One, the devil gets to tamper , particularly with the now established Tree of Good.  So the Good we are working with, actually isnt.

Manna
We don't live from the "bread", the leavened dough, of man's Tree of Good and Evil knowledge.
But by "every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God".
Either in direct format where we hear  "Go out of Egypt" then we go, but all the while celebrating this Word with unleavened bread.....
OR...
The Bread itself is coming out of heaven as did manna.

But what both pictures are, are unleavened. They are pure. They have not been through man's left-brain sorting system, his filtration system, whereby only the bare bones of the chicken remain, and the MEAT, the POWER, the enabling POWER, the GRACE SUBSTANCE , the GOD SUBSTANCE, has been removed.

Leaven exercise
Here's two exercises for you to establish my meaning. One historic, one more recent.

• Acts 2

Acts 2:21 :And everyone who calls
   on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Acts 2:39 :The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

This was just ten days after the disciples had watched Jesus go up into heaven. Notice Jesus never said "Wait for ten days". He never relayed to them ....and on the day of Pentecost, you will receive the Holy Spirit in power. As far as they knew, they could have still been waiting.

So this explosive sermon of Peter's came out of his own personal restoration on the Gallilee shore. It came out of the disciples subsequent experiences seeing and learning from Jesus AFTER His resurrection. And finally it came out of his most recent experience of obeying the Lord to wait "AS ONE" for the Holy Spirit to come as promised, though they were never given a firm date....but as the crowds who had come for the annual Feast of Pentecost mingled, and the Holy Spirit had come upon the disciples, Peter was under an incredible thunderous anointing as he spoke these words. It was less of a sermon and more of a prophecy. This was Jesus-Peter addressing the new thing in the earth that had properly been born that day...

THE NEW COVENANT  ECCLESIA   CHURCH OF GOD  ON EARTH.

Nowadays, this would be a name tag on a black church outside Birmingham UK.

So now you too are a witness to verses 21 and 39 as spoken under Holy Spirit anointing. So what on earth is happening here in Joppa in Acts 10 :15 "What God has cleansed no more consider unholy."
In other words, once the immediate anointing had lifted from speaking the words Acts2 :21 and 39, Peter had slipped back into default leaven thinking.  What was the default leaven thinking?  That salvation was all about Jews.

• Ern Baxter at Kansas City Shepherd's Conference 1975 - Address Final meeting: Thy Kingdom Come.  

To hear this message all you have to do is click the message on the lefthand side panel of this blog. It is from here that we can get a good idea of what St Peter sounded like on the Day of Pentecost. I spoke with Ern on the phone in 1984 while he was staying in Dunstable with Stanley Jebb, asking his permission to use some of this message as a dramatic presentation in Emsworth. I asked him to confirm his own statement in Dales Bible week that for part of that address, Ern's feet weren't even on the ground. All the 5000 leaders present had already taken off their shoes because the worship was on another level that day in the stadium.

Now, if you are not familiar with these type of churches, visit a church that came into being on the back of the 1970's Bible Weeks. There are many throughout the world. Now compare say, how Terry Virgo of Clarendon Church Brighton is now, compared with this very message which launched these type of churches.
Much of the outer form of the doctrine is still vaguely similar, but the inner substance of God Himself, His Presence, His actual Living Word doctrine, has lifted off these churches. They are little more than a shell. Human leaven, which is actually the doctrine of demons, has long retrenched itself in the meetings and the structures.

What Ern was conveying was a living version where a Living Christ rules and reigns over His church, supernaturally raising up supernatural giftings and ministries, apostles ,prophets, pastors and teachers, together with supernatural evangelists, to build His Church. I can even now get that same whiff of excitement in the 70s magazines as we learned that apostles and prophets still existed in our day and age.

This is the present day reality induced by human leaven.
Terry Virgo thinks an apostle heads up the show.
That one apostle forms a whole load of churches, which are like Baptist churches with Baptism in the Spirit.(How do I know? because Terry came to our Renewed baptist Church in Old Town Amersham, and unlike Graham Pulkingham, who spoke much 3rd level truth and was never invited back, Terry Virgo was welcomed back with open arms.)
That he then is the responsible elder over all the  self-proliferating network.
That teachings, or the "outer forms of teachings"  can be fed through an organisation about
baptism in water
baptism in the Spirit
tithing
running meetings with a worship group followed by a Baptist sermon
home groups constructed on computers according to geographical areas
people out and about "doing witnessing"
evangelistic events  to which others are brought to hear about "these outer forms" of what people think salvation is
surrounded and buttressed by prayer meetings of various types, which are only populated by the few, because they mostly take the form of lists, and people out loud giving God extremely good reasons why their various good ideas and initiatives should surely twist the arm of God, and He be behoved to bless their endeavours.
In amongst all this, the prophetic, and the heartfelt, and further revelation gets emasculated and controlled, and firmly "submitted" under the thumb of the spiritual leaven of  "those with more experience".

BUT as Acts 10 shows, this form of "spiritual checking" fails right here......thinking according to Old leaven Patterns, the tradition of men. And Peter wasn't including in his thinking the very purpose of God: to bring in the FULNESS of the Gentiles.

Maurice Smith: Will the true apostle please stand up?

Chris Welch on Facebook...........Gracebook....I'dlike to share about a ministry to give you an example of how Word works. He was big in the 70s. Maurice Smith.

8 hours ago via BlackBerry · Friends only ·LikeUnlike · Comment · View feedback (19)Hide feedback (19).


Judy Povey bring it on :o)
8 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch There was Bryn Jones,Gerald Coates,,Arthur Wallis ,Dave Mansell,John Noble,George Tarleton,Terry Virgo, John McLaughlin and many many more taking the renewal out of tonguetalkin denominational sectarianism into a "word hearing cloud followin'" People.
8 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch Nearly all of them would have used the word apostle to describe themselves, and some like Terry still would.....but I want to tell you a Cinderella Kingdom fact.PROBABLY Only ONE WAS....and he to this day probably doesn't know....because most saw him as a prophet. Maurice Smith.
8 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Judy Povey That's interesting. I don't remember the name Maurice Smith although of course I remember most of the other names. I was part of a harvesttime fellowship (Bryn Jones) in Ipswich for a few years. The "shepherding" style of leadership eventually drove most of us out and we re-grouped independently. Now that same fellowship is in the New Frontiers family.
8 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch It may be all the others were "apostles" of what Ern Baxter referred to (speaking of David in Thy Kingdom Come) as a ZIKLAG job.....God's initial purpose of positioning people. But who remembers a solitary word of what Gerald and John Noble and George Tarleton were saying 40 years on? Yet first in a book called 5.5.55 ,then in "Amazing Grace" some 40 years before Steve McVey, Paul Anderson Walsh, and Darin Hufford are all the TRULY important apostolic foundations of a REAL Christian life.
8 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch Maurice is virtually unknown now too.....but his foundation is the only living vibrant one of all of them here on the net. The others knew how to get you saved and filled with the Spirit.So did Christine and I when we were 13, but we never ...called ourselves apostles....or anything else really. No....I think we've all lived under a 40 year illusion that because you're a Type A personality with an organisational ability to hire a school hall and a worship group,and preach a reformed "Baptist" type "You are not measuring up to this New Testament Law" Word, this is truly an apostle. Baloney!See more
8 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch The Word of the grace of Christ layered into a believer's insides,imparting to them faith and hope is what an apostle is. In 1981 Maurice twigged finally what Norman Grubb was going on about, and saw the fulness of "Christ in Maurice as Maurice".Others saw a weak man crippled by paralysing fears and gutwrenching nerves....Maurice now understood himself as "God's grace made perfect in weakness" "a vessel container of God's glory."
8 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch Hasn't it been an interesting road here in the UK and the States Judy? Both the Fort Lauderdale crew who were a big feature for us in Amersham....Don Basham lit the fuse in 67 or 8, and the Pioneer,New Frontiers,Harvesttime crews were ident...ical in bringing Word,bringing the start of Church order.....but not being properly 3rd level,in the longterm built nothing more than "human franchises" from which devastations Spirit people are crawling from Terminator film-style all over our 2 countries. May God bless the net,so long as we have freedom to share.See more
7 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch Reading thru this did you understand "the only living vibrant" foundation was the one Maurice brought as opposed to the other 70s names.....I didn't mean as opposed to Steve McVey or others now on the net. Wanted to avoid confusion and pain here.
7 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Judy Povey It has been an interesting road Chris. How I loved listening to Ern Baxter - he came to the Anglia Bible Week in 1983. And first of all we called our groups house churches which they soon weren't because we moved into community halls and ...we soon got stuck in legalism again. But we're all groping for the truth and I've struggled with the paradoxical (?)/conflicting Biblical themes and narratives and finally come home to trusting in JESUS. Is that what Maurice meant by "the only living vibrant" foundation? Is there anything on the web about Maurice Smith?See more
7 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Paul Noble Interesting Chris. True apostles never draw attention to themselves but to Christ. They are the pioneers of the faith because they lead the way, they plant new things overturn the status quo. Those guys probably did have apostolic anointing... but were also responsible for error in the church (the heavy shepherding movement) because they saw themselves as apostles overseeing what God had not given them any authority for. Unfortunately the charismatics have still not got over the control that introduced. In the Brethren movement the same thing happened, anointed men of God rose up and paved the way for the people of God but then became institutionalised and people looked to them rather than God.See more
6 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch Not that I've seen....in fact if you google you might end up in the excerpts I've been putting up,I think firstly on Dan Bowens Baxter blog and mine too.
6 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Paul Noble http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_New_Church_Movement
6 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch Exactly how long do you think itis Paul that we get away from believing the work of God is something like believing on His spoken Word something like Mary in Nazareth....to the point where we chase round building "things'....as if we can bu...ild the Kingdom in Lego or something.We can't even put together a human in a womb....in flesh and blood terms....how do we end up with the notion that we can "put Christ together on earth ". Is this an advanced Lego kit that only the Brethren and charismatics know about? Have I been reading my Bible wrong all this time ?
6 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Paul Noble I was thinking - the metaphor the Bible uses is living stones - Lego is definately not in my Bible LoL. Those stones are all different sizes and colours and shapes & also change when your not looking! It is only when they come to Christ they fit into this glorious temple that God is building!
5 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Abundant Grace Church Always great to hear such people
4 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch I'm really young in understanding how "builder-types" work. It is alien to me as a musician/philosopher type. I noticed the ease with which the St Matthew-types, or St Peter types , or Rory and Wendy types, or Stan Warren of Emsworth..or Andy Elmes guys have built a framework before breakfast.They are made that way in God.cont..
4 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Chris Welch Outside of God though,they seem to build things and call them God. As I was saying,I naively went along with everyone's notions that they were apostolic.....but now I see them as builder types,but it isn't the same thing at all as Fred Prui.tt or others who are actually laying the Word of "Christ as you" in folk. This level has NOTHING to do with buildings...or even meetings,directly....this is to do with impacting people's life for the WHOLE of the rest of their lives....DIVINE encounters. Like when Jessie Penn Lewis was a few hours with Norman Grubb....and he was still reeling with what hit him at his "seeing level" at age 97. It makes the toytown stuff in our locality pretty cheap!!!See more
4 hours ago · LikeUnlike.Paul Noble Interesting again Chris - I think you will find that the musician/artist/philosopher types are often prophetically gifted (I am partly of that bent). HOWEVER I believe both giftings (Apostolic & prophetic) need more than their natural equiv...alent Eg in the secular you get these sort of giftings in the art & business world. I do wonder sometimes whether people are operating more in a natural gifting rather than a spiritual one and that is why we end up with yet another structure or music that is just a copy of what the world is doing with christian words.

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first appeared here in Chris's Preblog on Dan Bowen's ErnBaxter blog Comments section

Yesterday when I got up my eyes caught a book I have not noticed for over 20years...by Maurice Smith
called 20th Century Pilgrim ISBN 0 947599 03 7 publishers VINE. here is Chapter 1. If you like it I could do chapter 2 which is on Maurice discovering he is dead (in a Romans kind of way).
-----------------------------------
Go on, go on, go on, go on,
Go on, go on, go on;
Go on, go on, go on, go on,
Go on. go on, go onl
I first heard those words 'go on. go on' from Henry Holloway some twenty-five years ago. The de-nomination without a name that we were in, had no set rules and regulations, or fixed doctrines and dogmas; but we had a great deal of unwritten liturgy. For instance, we used no Christian names,well hardly any. Everyone was Brother this and Brother that. Brother Holloway was around eighty years old I guess, so of course he naturally became','Old Brother Holloway'. I don't think anyone has influenced me more. He was a university graduate, in his youth - a rarity in those days - and spoke 'with a highly cultured diction, which disguised an
almost constant chuckle. He was diminutive of stature, neatly dressed with a watch-chain resplendant across his striped waistcoat. There was a permanent twinkle in his eyes. Time and again he would sidle up to me and whisper a word of wisdom in my ear. This particular 'go on' word has been with me ever since the day he looked me straight in the eye and delivered it with all the seriousness of a Shakespearian actor.

Now two and a half decades later, on a sweltering hot Sunday afternoon, the first of August. 1982 I am pursuing those same words 'Go on, go on as they’re emblazoned on-.the back of a young man's T-shirt in the Dartford half-marathon. I'm now a veteran runner and strenuously trying to maintain form to keep up with the wearer, but I do so enjoy seeing young men, and women on full stretch for the tape. Little does the T-shirt wearer know that his disappearing vest is speaking volumes to me in another dimension; the dimension that O.B.H. had opened up to me time and time again. He finished his course, we're still running on.I seem destined to be influenced by old men. At about the same time as I was listening to the thoughts of Brother Holloway, I used to sit at conferences and watch the face of an old gentleman who I would estimate was well into his seventies. This an's name was Oliphant - Brother Oliphant of course. Watchman Nee once called this old warrior The Womb of theWest, and  across the lines of his face were he signs of suffering and I knew just a few of the details and the cost involved. Looking at him across the conference hall I grew to respect that lined face and silently asked God to give me some of the peace    tranquility I could see written there. Somehow,those dissimilar twins of gaiety and suffering, so admirably portrayed in two of the Lord's old gentlemen, have set a course for me through the middle part of my life. They hadn't stopped going on. They
were satisfied but not satiated. My mind was made up; I'm in the race of joy and suffering for a lifetime. I didn't know it then, but I was beginning to accept the need for darkness as well as light, to make room for pain and sorrow; to receive the negative side of God and his creation as well as-the positive. Perhaps then I saw all the unpleasantness as mere back-drop to  the good God wanted to do in the world, whereas the years have begun to teach me how essential suffering is to produce character and to enable us to finally reign with him ...but I begin to run away with myself. Much of the time, this was a light-hearted period of life. Jesus
and me, in good fellowship, and my acceptability as a preacher falsely giving me the impression that
I was making really good headway in this Christian business. Looking back I can see there was a lot of self-
effort in my believing, but no doubt it's all been necessary. So often we have to labour to enter into our rest. Then I felt I knew so much of God's eternal plan end purpose. Although I vehemently declared there was no set pattern for church structure and order in the New Testament, I had secretly come to believe that we were nearer the ideal than most. I'd swallowed volumes of Watchman Nee and T. Austin-Sparks and spent hours under the expert tuition of Robert Warke from Ireland. I felt ready to set in order much that was awry in the church scene. Oh my, what the intervening years have contributed towards the maturity I saw in those aged saints. It’s been painful and it’s been fun; like everything else I’ve encountered with God, ther’s a paradox to grasp and live with.

I suppose we all start with a vision. For me, overriding everything else in my life were the the words of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 “that they may all be one…that the world may believe that you have sent me”.
There seemed so few in those early days that were concerned for a togetherness. Plenty were ready to go for an old style evangelism, but the results were unimpressive, except in the case of a few very talented individuals. It was the corporate nature of our life gripped me. Somehow it wasn't just that I had etemal life now that I had believed in Christ, but more importantly that we shared it together. We really were members of one another and were meant to be together, get on together,and be such a visible provocation to the world that they'd want to know what we had got. This all seemed a million miles away from the experience
going on around me, where all I could see-was .break-up and division, back-biting and hurts, and people so full of insecurity that they didn't seem any better off than folk who had not experienced the great transaction of salvation through knowing Jesus Christ. In fact, to be honest, very often they seemed worse off. I remember doing a very simplistic survey once, when I observed over a period, and recorded, that the Christians in my street looked, on average, more miserable than their non-Christian counter-parts. There just had to be an
answer to such a sorry condition, "where the recipients seemed to have an initial experience of joy ; and first love, and then gradually sink back into a knowledge of their position, without the attendant radiance that was there at the beginning. Actually as l say, I didn't fully identify with this morbid Christian scene for several years because I was able to hide behind my preaching and natural charisma,but the crunch came when I finally felt dry. wearied of marking time. and began to search for more light and truth . The vision of the Church continually gripped me; "That they might be one' pounded in my ears day and night. Here was I with the Normal Christian Life and Concerning Our Missions To be called the Normal Christian Church Life
off pat; but I couldn't make it work. I was learning that revelation was not enough, and that the Father's way is to allow suffering to come across our path. In order to guide us into the realising of what we have seen.' He wanted what we had taken hold of to take hold of us, so that there was no strain in our living.How could I get all these Christians to be a happy band of pilgrims? How could we live the joyous overcoming life I saw portrayed as normal in so many New Testament Christians and others since them down the centuries? How could we in our generation produce men and women of the calibre of those I so admired? The visible church to my century was a laughing stock, the ready prepared material for the comedians and cartoonists. I could
no longer hide my grief and despair that. for all the ardent preaching of the vociferous minority, we were having next to no impact.

The arrival of the world-wlde charismatic movement and the consequent opening up to the Holy Spirit made a difference. But in my own experience, after the initial course of joy and the use of several spiritual gifts, I still found that life was far short of all I knew it could be. I thought the baptism in the Holy Spirit, as so many called the . experience, was going to settle everything, but far from it In fact. it seems that for me, that  experience marked the commencement of a long period of severe dealings. Maybe as John the Baptist warned we were to be baptised with the Holy Spirit and fire .Everyone I listened to conveniently forgot
the fire. They never promised me that . I usually tell folk that ever since the days of my deeper knowing
of the Hdy Spirit, life has been quite dreadfel. Sorry if that doesn't/fit the recognised charismatic theology. but it's the truth. Like Jacob, I've experienced 'the gate of heaven' and 'a dreadful place' both at the same time. There has been a new sense of the presence of the Lord; a new joy, plus depths of darkness and despair that I never dreamed existed.

Certainly had I known the path ahead I would never have joined, but for me the Christian life seems best summed up in the title of Norman Grubb's book, 'Once Caught. No Escape!' Most of us are in for keeps.
The original slide-away from the joyous consciousness of his life within me and into the subtle dependence upon laws and methods and arbitrary standards of performance, had been instigated almost from the moment of my conversion. On that magic day in 1955, I had given my life to Christ; lock. stock and barrel, as best I knew how. I awoke the next day with the assurance of my reconciliation to God and a feeling of peace."

Everything seemed okay. There was now no desire for the thirty cigarettes a day which were my previous assurance of some semblance of calm amidst the storms of earning a living and bringing up a young family. As soon as work on the first day was over I shot down to the rectory to tell my good news to the rector. Dr. G. C. B. Davies, who had been instrumental in my final capitulation to God and I wanted him to share the enjoyment. He was, I was informed, at the village hall to officiate at a function, so I ran all the way there and burst in with my proclamation. Collis was delighted and confided that the Lord had told him that one person
would be converted under his ministry in the Cotswold village of Kingham where we all lived at the time. He moved on to pursue a more academic calling and was soon a lecturer at a University and eventually became Canon of Worcester Cathedral.

But I digress. I asked where a close friend was, for I wanted her to join the party. I had a river of living water
gushing up inside of me and I wanted everyone to drink. Soon I found her, and with the strains of the amateur musicians in the background I shared with her my testimony. She was absolutely overjoyed and we laughed together in quite a natural manner. I followed on the conversation by saying. as the river of life continued to rise in me:
'Can I have this dance please?'

It was a kind of celebration act to me. I can't  remember now whether she accepted or not, because I was so stunned by her reply. She leaned forward and whispered to me, 'Christians don't dance, Maurice!'
0h dear,' was my word in response. It was a strangely disappointing interchange and I was temporarily confused. However, I soon recovered and sallied forth into my new found Christian experience with great enthusiasm, but almost imperceptibly the first chain of bondage had gone round my leg. A law had been applied. It was not the inward working of God writing in my heart, but the external application of a mode of behaviour that was to gradually stifle the thrilling experience , of walkjng with the presence of God's spirit within me. I had taken a step away from grace, which meant God doing something for me  and I had moved into an area of law, which meant me doing something for God. And this had happened within
twenty-four hours of my conversion!

I can now see that like many Israelites of old, I was born a free true child of God, but born in a land of captivity.  There were folk on every hand to tell me what I I had to do to become a good Christian. Soon I had  more and more rules to observe. One well-meaning ; soul upon hearing of my conversion, asked me if I
was having a Q.T.
'What's that?' I enquired, by now perplexed; I' ve  ' never heard of it.'Then followed the serious explanation of a regular Quiet Time. A period of study and meditation held early in the morning without which no serious
Christian could possibly exist. A necessary discipline I was told. No one told me to treasure the spirit within, but how to polish up the externals.

Before long I heard,'You realise Billy Graham reads five Psalms and three Proverbs every day -should you do less?' Oh dearl A sense of heaviness is coming over me,the honeymoon is passing, It's time to get down to
the nitty-gritty chores of married life with God. I think I'm losing my first love. I've failed to keep the 'ten commandments of the Old Testament and they had led me to Christ as the only hope. Now I've got to get down to the business of keeping the one hundred and ten commandments of the New Testament. Then I couldn't commit adultery, now I mustn't even have an appreciative glance according to some. Murder was out under Moses but now I mustn't hate anyone. Of course it wasn’t long before I was disliking people intensely
but loving them in the Lord', whatever that sickly phrase means, This 'love' didn't seem to be having
much effect on them that's for sure. Well, here's a fine dilemma; in thesame breath, senior Christians
telling me to trust, and not try, and here's what you must do. One classic contradiction of advice came when I was seeking guidances over a particular matter. Within hours of each other two well- meaning advisors stated...
'When in doubt, do "nowt"' and 'When in doubt, strike out!'

I realised that I was going to have to find some easier way than this; but I didn't. I opted for getting down to it. Searching the scriptures daily, for I felt in them I had eternal life.12 Praying long and hard,trying to keep my mind from wandering. Taking communion as often as possible and getting into condemnation every time my mind wandered on to the Arsenal Football Club instead of the Lord's great sacrifice for me. I so wanted to be a good Christian I so wanted to please God, that I gradually took from OB this new life-style; this do-it-yourself Christianity, this self-improvement plan! And, compared with many others, I became good at it. In public I was a most impressive pray-er and was often asked to lead in prayer at public gatherings. I could pray in spiritual jargon for the best part of twenty minutes,telling God things he knew before the foundation el
the world, but I couldn't call him Dad- (Abba)" and get an answer.

Something was wrong somewhere. This fight against sin, this strained endeavour to be a successful Christian. The great burden that dropped off me at conversion seemed to have crept back on again; but I had to keep up the front I was telling people that I was the one with the real joy and they, the non-christians, were the ones who were unhappy. I did wish some of them wouldn't be so nice though.That first-love excitement had soon worn off; mind you I still had the inner assurance of salvation and that wasn't to be sneezed at. I
knew where I was going, even if the present was not too enjoyable. That eternal life seemed to have slid into the future tense somehow, and I wanted to share some of its thrill and excitement along with all the others in my new-found family. That corporate quality of life was supposed to make such an impact upon secular society; they were supposed to be asking what was the secret behind this great spontaneous expression of carefree living. 'Pie in the sky when we die' Christianity was not such a Crowd-puller. We seemed to be answering questions that nobody was asking, and that's rude. I suppose for me the prime example of this was one day set forth in the delightful Cornish seaside resort of Port Isaac. I was the guest speaker at Stan and Marjorie  Bates' Christian guest house, and after dinner one Tuesday evening I strolled down to the harbour for a breath of sea air  and to take in the local atmosphere. T

The town band was playing on the harbour front and,. After I had listened for a while they struck up the Floral Dance and headed up the steep hill towards the guest house. Hundreds of holidaymakers formed up behind and began the traditional one-two-three hop. Well. you can't keep me out of that sort of thing (but I do hasten to add (that incident occurred after my baptism in the Holy Spirit because before then I would have felt such enjoyment to be rather worldly. Probably the effect of the no- dance routine I had got into). As we passed the guest house I peeled off and danced up the pathway and into the lounge where I was due to give my spiritual talk for the evening. One ultra-respectable lady looked across the room and commented in a frosty manner,
'Here comes our carnal brother' I looked around for support.'That's nothing,' said Stan, coming to my aid, ;
'we had someone so irate in here one night, because the band was holding up our Bible study, that she rushed out to witness to them. After a few moments she returned triumphant,' "Did you manage to speak to them about the Lord?" I enquired,' said Stan. "There was too much noise," she replied, "but I did manage to poke a tract down someone's trombone"'

What are we coming to? Was this the life that sprang from a relationship with God? Were these sincere but unhappy people to be my companions on this long pilgrimage? I did hope not; it seemed to be getting more and more restricted along the way. and many of these fellow travelers had evidently settled for restriction; but something' inside me just wouldn't settle; as O.B.H. had said, I had to 'go on'.

Apostolic Protectionism

This Facebook series from yesterday is important enough for public posting. The ministries Michael Reid,Terry Virgo and Peter Stott are mentioned. Not to bring a slur to them, but in my opinion to bring them (perhaps kicking and screaming) into the Body that Christ is building today. You'll have to have seen Toy Story 3 to understand the picture reference.

Chris Welch Compare present apostolic network methods with the first Gentile Christians. It was so open plan, Paul COULD write don't be of Apollos,Paul,Peter or whoever. They each imparted Word, then moved on, and that which really was Word remained, often after a firestorm. They understood there had to be a firestorm.None of this Michael Reid,Terry Virgo,Peter Stott single person protectionism ...cont
17 hours ago ·
Friends only ·LikeUnlike · CommentHendrik Ginting likes this.
Chris Welch as to who gets to minister, apart from in the most heretical cases. The early apostles understood that a true Jesus foundation stands by itself and "protectionism" is often biased anyway,preventing the full Counsel of God from across the Whole Body of Christ. Charismatic conferences try to be as WIDE as possible...but even they are so much like the protected environmental domes of the Cornwall Eden Project.
17 hours ago · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Chris Welch It's possible to spend life flitting from one nation's charismatic dome to another, never fully embracing Jesus's Open Plan Kingdom Life.He has no domes.No protective environments, save for the Holy Presence and fear of the Living God. When things got too open plan in Acts, Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead!
17 hours ago · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...André van der Merwe Love it Chris!
17 hours ago via Facebook Mobile · LikeUnlike · 1 person
Loading...Paul Noble Apostolic networks are another second level concept!
14 hours ago · LikeUnlikePaul Noble The Apostle has is very much a third level guy or gal: a planter, builder, pioneer of a work - guys like Calvin & Luther were probably apostolic along with many in history who never got any credit but pushed the borders of the kingdom a little wider!
14 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch Yes Paul.We are going to look back at this era trying ever so hard to get off the floor from rolling around laughing.It's going to be tough, but in 20-30 years time some will force themselves up on their feet and manage to just about regain composure.cont...
13 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch ‎"What, you mean Terry Virgo had ultimate say for around 40 years on who he related to,who related to him,who related to all the sheep in x gazillion locations.He was the arbiter of the rather finite list of what got taught and what didn't in any of his network churches. It's a wonder that a band as good as Phatfish could have ever emerged there!!"!
13 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch ‎"What you mean Michael Reid got a bit of a gifting in praying for healing,then to make a hit with the Africans(because UK wasn't interested!)he actually designed his own Archbishop's robes and set himself up as head of a new Pentecostal denomination, and set up choirs in matching garb.He then organised conferences for 30 years where he had sole control of who could and couldn't minister.cont...
13 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch And , what! You say Peter Stott for more or less 30 years confined input into the church he formed, to himself and a very limited group of his choosing including,mainly and sadly an apostle who was caught up in adultery. Didn't anyone in ...his congregation think that was strange? Didn't anyone feel that their learning experience was somewhat limited? How many apostles and evangelists emerged from this rather dedicated form of restricted input? None? What? In 30 years? Didn't anyone think this strange?What about that Argentinian fella that had pioneered a couple of churches already before he came to the church? Oh, he was reduced to strumming a guitar for years!"
WwwwHhhhaaaaaaaTtttt? And unable to control themselves everybody is on the floor again.
See more
13 hours ago · LikeUnlike Paul Noble Brilliant Chris you have a gift in irony - Its good to see the funny side but I think we both agree ---- its tragic! Why Why Why! By the way who is the argentinian fella?
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike Paul Noble Just been reading about John Calvin - amazing Apostle and really respect what he did in his time BUT he introduced this idea of the Pastor at the top of the pyramid elders underneath him & then deacons below them that so many churches are stuck with.
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch Jose and Elizabeth. Jose has a lot in common with my background.We get on well. Well that's not saying much.The whole world gets on with Jose!
Re Calvin. Well he didn't introduce pyramids,he sort of didn't de-introduce it....in that it came... right through the Catholic infrastructure into Lutheranism....just changing the role of the leader only but keeping the pyramid. At least you didn't "go through" the leader to God anymore...well not as actively as Catholics anyhow.See more
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike Paul Noble So whats Jose doing still in Havant?
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch He believes as we all did, that by submitting into an infrastructure he will somehow get his anointing back. When our anointing and grace are caught up in knowing and being in union with Christ, and all those who are "following the Spirit".... In Havant the distinction is so subtle you have to be in a brilliant Key of David meeting to even start to see it,but once you do,you see bondage everywhere. There are soul ties everywhere you look. There's an uncanny yieldedness of the male to an unbroken female spirituality,that at first sight looks mature, but it's one step off witchcraft. Rather than chase darkness down rabbitholes ,Havant just need a good dose of Galations 2:20 ...or to focus on the finished work of Christ...or to wheel in Andre Rabe ,Francois du Toit or Rich Novek or somebody....or perhaps more Paul Noble!!!See more
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike Paul Noble Interesting - maybe we should a breakout club? I'm seeing the "Pastor" of our church next week and laying it on the line: they either let me be who God created me to be or I leave.
11 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch My background is largely female. One of the main 3rdlevel females was Basilea Schlink who continuously led you back to the finished work of Christ. An unbroken spiritual female weaves a kind of coterie that is never transparent.You are somehow never quite good enough, especially if male.its like an impenetrable club,that allows you in just as long as you submit your will.cont...
10 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch A 3rd leveller never needs to spin webs to hold you in or keep you out. There is next to know difference between a 3rdleveller male or female, both are rooted in the transparency of God's Life....they know Him who is from the beginning....and "they are the ones who take the hits that you may know Christ". False manipulators make sure that you are the one taking the hits,,,,and that you should always go through them to get to Christ.
10 hours ago · LikeUnlike Paul Noble What your talking about is that old chess nut the Jezebel spirit? You can see that Elijah even though a very anointed prophet was weak in his identity and jezebel went for the jugular! I believe God is raising up champions in the spirit that don't need to be "in: or "out: of any group but are intimate disciples of Jesus and know him. Look at Paul he just didn't seem to care - thats cos he had caught a glimpse of the risen Christ and lost the fear of man!
8 hours ago · LikeUnlike Brian Mirte Longridge Yes we are called like healthy plants to grow straight up toward the Sun, as we receive the proper nutrients of Gods lavish, unconditional love, He secures us in our identity and therefore we have no need to unhealthily bend to receive our core identity from others unconciously trying to get them to tell us who we are,do we measure up etc.....
7 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch Good comments.How clear a picture Brian.I think Paul your time with Andy will be like a session I had with a couple who stay with us,and like a piece of NT scripture.Have you never wondered why Paul had to "write that bit of foolishness",is it Corinthians....where he lays out his apostleship credentials...twice shipwrecked...wild animals etc..
2 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch You'd think with hindsight ..how obvious...or worse with a carnal mindset ...there he goes blowing his own trumpet. But no,one of the adjustments we all have to make in Body Life is to help each other where we have too low an opinion of ourselves,but the converse is try to disabuse those that will listen of their overly high opinion.
2 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch This is what the Bible means of raising up the low places and bringing down the mountains.They are both "false seeing", "false images scrawled in Ezekiel 10:8 style on our inner walls" and when we confront either they have the weight of Satan behind them.Just like teenage,Christian teenage or the "young men"stage is equally weird.Like the disciples,get a little power in your finger tips and these charismatic "wunderkinds" think they know everything as do teenagers. So, like Jesus, one minute we are praising them up to the eyeballs,the next we're opposing some high and mighty lofty spirit as it was with Peter. · LikeUnlike Chris Welch The sad thing is if the criticism "doesn't take".Staggeringly after all these key encounters in the gospels, the disciples never got terminally offended,but stuck with Jesus to the very end. In my experience sometimes,especially now that th...ere are three clear levels in church today...if people don't want to hear 3rd level stuff and grow there is a perfectly good Endlevel environment for them to go off and nurse their "bruised denial" and be endlessly sustained in their false notions.And this is what happened with the people I confronted.They have not stayed with us since.And,interestingly enough..they were really generous every previous time...but obviously judged me in the flesh because this last time nothing was returned.You have to understand that when we give hospitality we do not expect any return....it is just that it was done in this way...which makes it seem as if it was "conditional payment".See more
2 hours ago · LikeUnlike Chris Welch Endlevel is a Blackberry typo for 2ndlevel.

Apostle-ibly?

Norman Grubb made it clear that apostles were just "father level" ministries.Apostles are not church builders as is meant commonly here and in America. We use the term to mean people who can establish structured churches, installing a CEO pastor as head submitting to a "man's apostleship".
Real apostles just reproduce Christ in other believers. Such that they believe and walk in the knowledge that they are Christ as them.
When real apostles establish churches, they "pin" people down in the Spirit to believing that their local church is The Church in that locality, as per Watchman Nee. You can have many local churches in the same area....but ofcourse they will have a different location or street. Their function or calling will be designated by God in every case....but nevertheless they are the Church.

The walk of faith is
- "pinned down"
- is specific.
-Is the Kingdom of heaven fixed covenantally, tethered covenantally to the Earth in the hearts of believers.

Right now, we are Christ going on as individuals.
Right now we are the only one Church going on as a group of believers.

This specificity marked the callings and ministries of Ern Baxter, Ed Miller,and Jorge Pradas.
It is debatable whether the more general leadership in this country is tied down enough in their specificity.

Remember...faith is specific. It is believing the precise thing God says about us. Muzziness
does not work. It's the difference between Portmouth UK mooting the eventual possibility of a monorail round the bay....
and John F Kennedy saying "In 10 years we will have someone on the moon!" Only one of these has taken place!
Dan Bowen was decrying the passing of various "apostolic" leaders from the 70s, wondering who was going to take their place. Somewhat stirred I wrote this in his comment section.

You and I believe totally different about this. You are still at home in teaching houses that call themselves churches. So by that criteria Tony Morton Bryn Jones and Terry Virgo are apostles.

The revelation handed down to us in the scriptures is all we have. So we can only go on what is there and what isn't there.

By virtue of his authority people like St Paul DID DO long teaching sessions to which everyone listened. We know that because someone fell out of the window and had to be brought back to life.

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INSERT

My first ever post up on Dan's...or anyone's blog- click on The Knowledge London taxi pic above and scroll right down to the middle of the comments section to see the original

Chris said...
A safer view of ministries has been stated by Ed Miller who helped father the 50s Argentine breakthrough, and various subsequent moves. He talks of them as taxi drivers.Taxi drivers to the throne of God. Once they have done their task, they actually have less relevance. The end goal of ministry being to reproduce Christ in others.
03 February, 2008 10:18

Dan Bowen said...
Thanks Chris that is a really helpful view of ministries that I haven't really considered before. "Taxi drivers" to the throne. I like it. Lots. The suggestion then (although you didn't say it) is that it is healthy and fitting for ministries once they have completed their God-given task to step aside and fade into other duties, maybe not so prominent. And then as you say - allow other ministries to step forward and continue leading.

It is an incredibly wise and experienced and brave man I think who can walk in intimacy with God so much that he knows when he has had his time in the limelight and it is now time to walk with God behind the scenes. Such is the "heady wine" of conference platforms and prominence.

Maybe if more ministries could grasp that concept then spiritual casualties would be less.

04 February, 2008 00:47

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

So I am not saying that what Bryn,Terry and Tony did is not a part of it. But it is essential that you get around some third levellers, more like Ern himself. because at the moment you describe all these figures as if they are in some way equal. They are not at all equal. You cannot put these three in the same category at all.
All three are more like superwarmed up Baptist preachers and teachers with a human capacity for organising structures like administrators.

An apostle is something in the spirit or nothing at all. He leaves behind him a trail of
self-standing people who themselves reproduce the same Word that they have eaten

I'm sorry, but this is NOT true of Terry, Bryn and Tony.

As a first generation thing of people finding their way in the religious darkness left in its wake by nearly apostate churches throughout Britain, God has honoured them and continues to honour their advances.

But unlike Ern, who himself only skirted around the edges of what his private secretary George Warnock had to share with him about Galations 2:20, Bryn ,Terry and Tony only shared about the early principles of moving in the Spirit.

They have no real clue about the last session Jesus had with the disciples in John13-17.The clearer you see it in the Spirit, the clearer you will understand what has been going on in Britain, and the very real and rebellious cut off that occurred in 1979-80 when Jesus specifically brought in many thirdlevellers to share,
but it was a Kadesh Barnea moment.
At that point The UK closed its heart and became a "closed" wilderness zone...basically frozen in its level of doctrine until things started opening again, interestingly enough, roughly when you made the decision to start your blog.

While i greatly benefit from men of the calibre of Greg Haslam who came here 2 weeks ago, I can tell you really clearly Greg has no clue yet as to the existence of a third level, still preaching as they all do,
adding to your salvation with various activities that are going to make God like you more.

Terry says some great things about grace as you know....but like Greg
that's the edge of what he knows.

Whenever you talk of maturity and authority it seems to be in terms of either the amount of people that fall down at once, or to a human authority thing born of many years study. Well John Stott has tremendous intellectual clarity and authority in his studies, but where was he during the Bible Weeks?
There is only one Melchizedek order which people choose inside of themselves to be a part of or not. This is a unique form of authority which opens and closes doors in the earth. It has nothing to do with tickling the ears of Dan Bowen with yet another insight into the New Testament so he can share it on his blog.

(If you think this is unusually abrupt- I am getting the same treatment from thirdlevellers...if that means anything) End of comment.
********************
The truth is there are a whole host of third levellers or apostles stacked up ready right now!
You laugh.
They were there in the 40s and 50s. They were there in the 70s and 80s.
And they are there in the wings right now. Like Jesus. Knocking at your door. Patiently. It is you Church that are refusing them entrance. Because of the cost!

John 7.19If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God.... The first step is always being willing.....then the teacher appears!!!!

A Third Level Approach To Ministry II : Twinklers

Prodded a little by Lydia Joy losing her grandfather I wanted to continue this summary of thoughts on how the 3rd level changes everything we ever thought we knew about ministry.Maurice Smith calls mature Christians twinklers (see my book list).While others may age less than gracefully, with a growing cynicism, twinklers twinkle more!! Their eyes just give the game away. And you just know. You know they know Him in whom they have believed.

Without a powerful experience of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, a Christian seems to take several decades to become a true twinkler. Whether Protestant or Catholic, they are people of prayer and the Word. The slight snag is by the time they are twinklers, it is nearly time to go home...and they are severely restricted by limitations of age, mobility and possibly other issues.

So Youth With a Mission, Morris Cerullo, and Rheinhardt Bonnke hit on another system. Give the people of God an experience...a powerful experience coupled with a lot of training on the life of faith...and send them out to turn the world upside down!! In a way this is what happened on April 6th 1972 to all of us in a little corner of Bucks,England. And it seemed for a while we did turn our corner of things in Amersham a little bit upside down.But here is a snag. Youth With A Mission, Morris Cerullo and Rheinhardt Bonnke call this making twinklers. (Well they don't...but they call this sending workers out into the harvest). It is and it isn't. Let's return later.

For New Frontiers and a whole host of other networks of new churches, this is insufficient, so they believe in yoking developing ministries to local church situations over months and years. Possibly sending people to a more formal type of Bible College, be it run by their family of churches or some other institution that holds an evangelical position. Unless these new ministries are exposed to a radical Holy Spirit anointing either directly, as in Rob Rufus'case, or through other ministries...the tendency is always to settle back into "sound teaching of the Bible" but with little power and little miraculous fruit.Both approaches I would call the twin sides of the second level.
So to recap:Firstlevellers, by dint of continuing in the faith, continuing in prayer, continuing in the Word, continuing with the ups and downs of fellowship life, may well after decades and decades ...if they don't duck out... find themselves twinkling.
Secondlevellers will experience a baptism in the Holy Spirit, be introduced to the reality that Christianity is in fact supernatural in manifestation, be then driven back into a hunger for the Word, and a fresh hunger to experience fellowship together with other Christians, but this time at this new supernatural level . The growth arc will probably be shorter than in the first case. But if our experiences in the UK are anything to go by, we are still talking somewhere between 1 and 3 decades even moving pretty quickly before anyone even approaches twinkler status. And again there is absolutely no certainty that people will press right through. For this reason Paul writes "Do not harden your hearts as the Israelites did in the days of rebellion in the wilderness."
Firstlevellers know how to get others into a born again experience.
Secondlevellers get people born again and baptized in the Spirit. As I have mentioned before, in the year of 1972, at the age of around 14(Christine is one year younger), both she and I in our respective areas of the UK were doing all this. Now this for many fellowships would mean we had arrived. Well, here we are at age 50, and we still haven't. Because you see there is a 3rd level of growth.Without a vision, the people perish. Without even a sketchy understanding that there are 3 distinct growth stages, people all over the world in the Body of Christ are floundering around. You've got people like Amy, (see Amy's blog) who have probably been compliant for years in their church system...thinking that that would amount to something, confusing 2nd level churches with the raw real deal of the anointed Living Body of Christ. Ofcourse in parts it is....but the 2nd level stuff contains other ingredients as dangerous and poisonous as the worst plant foods that you could ingest.So Youth With A Mission, Rheinhardt Bonnke, David Hathaway, Morris CerulloAlso New Frontiers, and all the other 70s and 80s like networks, be it under Terry Virgo, Alan Vincent, Gerald Coates,Barney Coombs and so on and so on....are all (probably unwittingly and out of anxiety to get the job done) doing the Body of Christ a huge disservice....Why?Because they are calling the 2nd level a mature ministry and as the world instinctively knows...it isn't.
Because they are not raising the people's sights and expectations to believe that Jesus is faithful to complete the work in us to make us fit and able fathers who reproduce after our kind.We either believe in the power of His Word to raise us up as fit ministers ....or we don't. And if we don't, we help God along a little with more programmes, and training procedures and conferences.....
when what people need to understand is
How Genesis 3:5 works
How Jesus came to destroy all the works of the Evil One
How He came to lay the axe to the root.

What root? The religious system? The 2-bit secondlevel structures the grace-bloggers are railing against? Terry Virgo? Nope Nope Nope The axe is laid against us? Every flipping last second of the day we are not living from the reality of what the Cross has won for us. We don't need to go around looking for others to single out.Every little second we catch ourselves living the Genesis 3:5 "Just independent me"lie...we needDan Bowen, Amy, Sheila, Lydia Joy,Matt Daelon,Jamie,Leonard...to prophesy back to us..."Hey you...you are now Christ you...you have no separate existence...to believe that is to fall back into sin again, and to give life again to something that since the Cross can never have life again...the old Adamic hubris life of the devil himself lived through mankind.The people I have listed as Missions and New churches above...the YWAMs etc they need to be preaching according to the models in scripture. And I have never, I repeat never, heard anyone of them preach according to these lines.

Model 1. Jesus For 30 whole years He did nothing apart from grow in the understanding of how life works. He grew in knowledge and wisdom. Carpentry. Just learning to believe who He was. By faith. No flash stuff.Then was baptised in water and the Holy Spirit. Had the quickest 2nd level in history in the testing in the wilderness. That's because his personal foundation in God as a normal person for 30 years meant He could skip most of what we've had to go through in the 2nd level. Then straight afterwards He began to operate in the 3rd level. Two fold: Declaring War on the Devil in the territory allotted Him by the Father:Israel. Secondly: to raise up father ministries like Himself in just 3 years. All this while also preaching and teaching the Kingdom to 1. outsiders 2.believers and closer disciples and 3. the 12 apostles to be.

Model 2: The 12 apostles They were Jews. They understood the 1st level basics. That God is sovereign. That we give our life over to Him, expressed first in water baptism. That He alone can forgive our sins and make us new. They entered into an early prototype 2nd level, where although not knowing a born again experience yet, nor a complete baptism in the Spirit....from pretty early on they were sent out to chase the devil off God's Earth with power to heal,deliver and forgive sins.This shows us that at one level Morris Cerullo, Terry Virgo,YWAM and all are correct. As long as there is at least one 3rd level ministry...not everyone needs to be a 3rdleveller before embarking on mission trips.(There was only one Graham Pulkingham , but many in the Fisherfolk team for example)It shows us also, as we found on 6th April 1972, and again in Lakeland Florida this yearThe Power of the Baptism in the Spirit is put in context: as a tool for preaching the GospelThis is absolutely Terry Virgo and Morris Cerullo territory. And is accurate.Secondly, if you want people to grow fast...you expose them from early on in doing the work of the Kingdom with power. Even if that carries a high risk tag...as we saw with Todd Bentley. I am so glad that Jesus - knowing all about how sinful I was - still allowed me to lay hands on folks at 14 and get them filled with the Holy Spirit.Jesus came at the disciples with love, but also slicing stuff off them with His prophetic use of the Word...such that in only 3 super intense years they were ready to launch the Kindom for real at Pentecost. But as I've taken time to point out again and again in these posts, in Acts 2, they'd already gone through their 2nd level...which almost left them totally devastated...so when the Spirit came in power, they were 3rd Levellers....fit and able to father the first ever church at Jerusalem.All ministries that I have grown up with are totally wrong in equating our entrance Baptism in the Spirit with Acts 2.Morris Cerullo is wrong if he implies that at the end of one of his Schools of Ministry, as wonderful and life transforming as they are.....if he equates that with what the disciples were put through over a 3 year period. Rheinhardt Bonnke is wrong. You can't quite level the same at New Frontiers....in fact if anything they are too slow by Jesus standards....or they again call maturity what is not maturity....not like Acts 2 at any rate.

Model 3. Paul As one untimely born. Filled with the Spirit from the word go. But NOT given Holy Spirit wings to then go off straight away and turn the world upside down. (Morris Cerullo take note)Praise God that everyone hated him, or was cautious about him. He might be converted, but he'd been responsible for many deaths...one was specifically named: Stephen, the martyr. So there was no way he was going straight out on the road. Norman says Paul spent 3 years in Arabia. Gene Edwards says he spent several years in the Antioch church. Two things happened. He received from heaven during this period his gospel. Everyone has to have their own gospel.Divine revelation from Jesus Himself. It's not so we all start our individual cults. There is only one Jesus. And only one gospel. But Jesus has to make it our gospel. He has to write it in us. So we become living letters read by men.After 36 years I have a gospel. As we start preaching the stuff that is actually in the New Testament , and not the 2 level stuff we've been preaching for years...there is no reason why we cannot (in Jesus) raise up local bodies that grow believers in similar time periods to Jesus. In fact we have something that Jesus never had: we have the Holy Ghost Growing Machine - The Body of Christ . So this was the second thing that happened to Paul : that which was now in him was being worked out and recognised by this early example of a Gentile Church. This Jesus will make Himself known to others in our surroundings through us. Our gifting will be perceived.

As we look out at many weary faces who have been faithfully attending charismatic churches now for 30 or 40 years....it is sad to now say, there is in fact no reason why it had to take this long. The good side of our history is that the Terry Virgos, the Gerald Coates rushed in to fill the vacancies to provide good, solid, faithful and sacrificial leadership. Listen, Terry actually came to minister to us in Amersham instead of being present at the birth of one of his children. People only get born once!!! How sacrificial was that!

On the bad side, virtually the entire leadership in our country never knew that a 3rd level existed, let alone how to minister it. So ofcourse as they hit us with verses from John 15-17 about bearing fruit, and unity, and as we all sink in condemnation, because largely these things are not so in our networks...........little did we know that none of these things are really possible til we hit the motherlode of the 3rd level. Think how disastrous the disciples were in their 1st three training years. Forget unity. Forget pure fruit. They were arguing who was the greatest. Who's DA BISHOP!

In this post I have not even covered the question of Bible Schools. The writing of Jesus gospel inside us so we become Living letters is such a profound work....that without a proper release of the Spirit can take a whole 7 decades as I began saying. There is no possible way apart from a wave of Holy Spirit Revival Power,Revelation, and supernatural deliverance , (which by the way, on many occasions has swept through Ed Miller's Bible schools)....ordinarily there is no way on God's earth that a Bible school be kitted out with what it takes to move a man or woman out of the deep deep delusions of selfhood into the 3rd level in the 2 or 3 years usually allotted for the task.
I believe, as a fulfilment of what Jean Darnall, and Harry Greenwood, and other renowned prophets prophesied into Emsworth, I believe I was a part of a prototype wave of ministry training as God will refine and hone in the future. I believe the Bible House model of training which came through Ed Miller and then Jorge Pradas, are much closer to the biblical model. Where everyone leaves everything to come together to:
seek God together
learn what it is to live and work as the Body of Christ together
to be dealt with at a very deep level

and to teach also the things it was not good at:
teaching us to minister in Power together as teams
teaching us Norman Grubb's insights as to the true nature of the human condition in Genesis
teaching us what it means to walk as Christ in our individual forms
and at this level of insight -how to live together in love and the Presence of God

So what is the difference between that and a monastery or nunnery?
It's more dynamic,prophetic. People come together until a specific work has been established amongst them. Like Paul and Barnabus they are recognised in ministry, called out by God, separated for specific tasks. It's all the things New Frontiers wanted to be, but never had the tools for. It's organic. Our Bible House began around a house church in new Brighton Rd Emsworth, but moved into 20 acres of property as the church vision grew. It's less programme based...more based around the expanding Word and gifting of some rather dead individuals.
That is , individuals who have so caught this thing about being dead in Christ, they themselves are the programme!!! Like Mother Basilea Schlink, Graham Pulkingham, Richard Wurmbrandt,Watchman Nee,Witness Lee....every time they open their mouth they cause irreparable damage to people's insides!!!
In short they have become Twinklers of the First order!

Rattling of the Bones: 2 blog posts of note

I have been away with the family. I have also been reading through some of the books in my recommended list. Some I have only skimmed before and am only now reading properly, others I am reading with great interest to see how I feel about them now.

In this blog I want to ignore these and recall a message by Alan Vincent to the church in Hazlemere, Bucks in the mid 70s. It was on the subject of the "rattling of the bones"in Ezekiel 37:7.

But first here are two outstanding blog posts of the last week or so.
The first from Jamie is an outstanding description of how grace works in our lives .
The second is from Terry Virgo on not forgetting the commands of scripture.

When I returned from RiverCamp (see link) Morris Cerullo had sent a brochure on the Names of God. John Paul Jackson has done a series on these names as have many teachers and preachers. When we receive the Holy Spirit at salvation and more so as He is released in our lives in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, unknowingly we find ourselves signed up to a Holy Spirit Training Course on the Names of God. This is the same course that the Israelites were on in the Wilderness after leaving Egypt.

• YHWH-Yireh (Jehovah-jireh) — "The Lord will provide" (Genesis 22:13-14).
• YHWH-Rapha — "The Lord that healeth" (Exodus 15:26).
• YHWH-Niss"i (Yahweh-Nissi) — "The Lord our Banner" (Exodus 17:8-15).
• YHWH-Shalom — "The Lord our Peace" (Judges 6:24).
• YHWH-Ra-ah — "The Lord my Shepherd" (Psalm 23:1).
• YHWH-Tsidkenu — "The Lord our Righteousness" (Jeremiah 23:6).

• YHWH-Shammah (Jehovah-shammah) — "The Lord is present" (Ezekiel 48:35).

My purpose in mentioning these is to catch the spirit behind Jamie's post."We can simply let the Life of Christ within us do the walking and with each step see how our paths are made straight for us, one step at a time. "
But rattling alongside this is the substance of Terry Virgo's blog describing how God's ministries were sent in with apostolic commands and injunctions.
But I want to stress even more than Terry does various points.
Firstly...unlike today when we have Bible studies on these scriptures....
1. The substance of these commands was coming out of a warm , caring relationship of the Holy Spirit's Presence coming through the love, care and intercession of the apostles ministering the Word. Many of whom had been through this same living, breathing, process with Jesus Himself whilst on Earth. Initially in 3 years of ministry, plus 40 days of rather special ministration with the resurrected Christ, before His ascension.
2. The total understanding of these injunctions is that NO WAY, no ABSOLUTE WAY were the hearers going to fulfil this in their own strength.
3. If that was true under a Pentecostal Baptism in the Spirit understanding....it is a gazillion times more to be stressed in a 3rd Level approach.

Let me explain the last point.
Maybe the apex of "Holy Spirit and Me" technology was reached in the late 80s with Benny Hinn's book "Good Morning Holy Spirit"
This is Pentecostalism to the nth degree of intimacy. You can't go beyond this.
Jesus said about John...there is no one born of women greater....but the least person of the Kingdom would in fact be greater.
This might have sounded very strange at the time when Jesus said this. I am going to say something just as strange. What I am saying is this.
The next generation in God will go way beyond Benny Hinn's book.
Why.
Because it was always prophesied so.
Psalm 110:3 Your ^(F)people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power and

Psalm 24:4-6(He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.

He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God his Savior.

Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, O God of Jacob.

You see in Genesis 3:5 we picked up an evil spirit of the Devil himself
whose total way of existence is summed up in a delusion of separateness.
He catches us up in his lying existence to make-believe that we as him can
live as self-running beings, with no need for a spirit battery!!!
When really in the background he swapped our God linkage in our spirits for
a permanent devil linkage. Only Christ's cross has severed this link.
But throughout history until the present day, this has not fully come to the fore.

So to this day Christians are running around as "separate " beings
trying to focus on Christ
trying to pray
trying to work miracles
trying to preach a message of salvation
even....and listen to this....trying to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Now in the best light that Benny had at the time, he saw himself in a dual relationship with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit and Benny.

But from now on the Holy Spirit does not even allow us this luxury.
He is saying in Psalm 24 verse 4 "You have spent your entire lives
living by what is false. You thought you were gods in your own right.
Then you tried to live your renewed lives in this same old revelation...as separate beings in your own right. I have overlooked this since the Pentecostal outpouring in the 1900s, but now
is my time for a generation who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Who experience within themselves this Name change. Not Benny and the Holy Spirit. Benny is dead. Now it is Christ Benny and the Holy Spirit.

So you see the generation that is now emerging and is to come will be a totally new type of believer. Totally identified with the death of Christ
And consequently because of the Jesus words "if you abide, in my Word,then you are Truly my disciples, and you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free."
Now.
On Earth.
Not in some heavenly future.
AS real as we experience the outbreak of the Presence of God in meetings now....so this will become our every day experience together...all day long. And the apostles were the prototype.
Yup, they had disagreements. They were slow to grasp that Gentiles were included in the deal.

But they didn't lie.
They didn't go off with other women.
They didn't grasp money to themselves.
They were submissive one to the other.
Not one was on a power trip. And they had raw POWER!

So don't any of you dare talk to me about the sweet by and by. About some Feast of Tabernacles in the future, as if it can't be lived today. (Joseph Prince I've got your number) It is in the future...but only if it is now...if you see what I mean. My heaven in the future is dependant on me getting heaven now by asking Jesus into my heart. It's like that.
Don't give me that rubbish about putting up with one another's sins til we limp into glory.
Don't give me that grace rubbish which never actually cleans up our lives.
Grace is like honey. But is also like fire!!! Just you wait and see!!! You won't know what's hit you.
Well actually you will. Because of this very blog.
But listen!!!You're going to be OK.
Jacob was OK after his wrestling. God let him live.
You and I are going to live too. On this earth.

So back to Alan Vincent.
You will notice there are 2 stages to the revealing of this glorious Body in Ezekiel 37.
The one prophesying assembled the bones. Called them together. Then they began rattling.
If you put all our blogs together there is a tremendous rattling.
Some are more Calvinist. Some are more Armenian.
Some are more grace...some are more like Janelle
Some are more individual in outlook. Some are more corporate Body of Christ
Some are more faith and here and now, some are more glorious Hope of our Calling

Well I've got some good news.Whatever you currently are becomes irrelevant in the 3rd level.
Why. Because as Paul says in Corinthians they were immature, saying we are of such and such a ministry. In the 3rd level we get the LOT. Everything we are now missing.
Evangelicals who currently get the exchanged life thing, the "I am dead with Christ thing" but have no clue about moving in the Spirit....Guess what!!! they're going to get particularly soaked!!!
Charismatic Christians, who love the gifts of the Spirit, but who haven't the first clue about living a normal every day life in God...guess what.......they're going to carry their giftings and anointings right into family life, creative life, work life, educational life....and God's going to especially bless them at that, because now everyone is laughing at them.

The 3rd level is the 2nd prophesying. How do I work that out?
Well in the first level the Body of Christ as lived out corporately was impossible.
It's the release of the Holy Spirit. The baptism in the Holy Spirit that makes Body life a reality.
This is represented by the Holy Place and the Holiest Place. The outer courts was about us cutting covenant as individuals. The Holy Place and Holiest Place is about corporate life.
Particularly in the 70s the first prophesying was taking place as described by Maurice Smith's prophecy.

Now I believe is the time for the 2nd prophesying. The rattling was about assembling everything together. It was never meant to look good folks. It's a skeleton!!! Actually the Bible says skin and tendons came on it. But it was still a dead body.
Have you noticed the world has not been attracted by us so far!
Do you think there may be possibly another stage!!!!
Well that's what the 2nd prophesying is for!
This is the gist of Alan's word...but he didn't add the 3rd level bits.
So I believe that the 70s impartations were real. The visions were real in the same way that the Bible passages are real. But at that stage we did not have the Holy Spirit technology.
Our vision was a vaguely warmed up version of the church life as we knew it back then.
But the Way of God is a heart thing. David was the prototype of this.
Psalm 84:5 How blessed is the man whose ^(H)strength is in You, In whose heart are the ^(I)highways to Zion!

Later it is still my intention to do a summary on my thoughts about ministry, as affected by the revelation that a mature level, a third level, a father level as experienced by the Early church fathers, does exist. And it affects every single aspect of
1 the way we do church and
2 the way we do or don't do seminaries.

You don't getPsalm 84 " the strength" or "the internal heart highway" to Zion in a seminary.
You don't get it necessarily in a Morris Cerullo school of ministry or Youth with a Mission training centre. Perhaps you get an earnest...or a downpayment....
Jesus knew how to bring forth ministries by the power of His Word, all while they were sharing in ministry with Him. How cool is that? Maybe Rob Rufus is on the way to this. Maybe Peter Stott is also.

More on this later............

The Shekinah Construction Company and the Cave - A Church Parable of the last 50 years to the Present Day

My friend Dan (or maybe another Dan) watched from his window as a helicopter descended upon a rough craggy hill a long way in the distance. He could vaguely make out three pallet loads being lowered onto the ground in front of a cave which was hidden in the rocks somewhere near the hilltop. Some people on the ground were then attending to the items and wheeling them into the cave for storage.This all happened in the evening and by morning there seemed to be no trace of anyone working around the outside of the cave.

Then Billy Graham made his way up the hill, peered inside the cave, saw one of the pallets, and made his way down the hill with a pallet truck carrying what he thought was all that was needed for the job in hand. On the first pallet was stacks and stacks of thousands and thousands of invitations, freshly printed.

The Invitation read:

"You are requested to be present at a Shekinah Glory event that will last forever and ever."
The slightly annoying thing about the invitation was the vagueness in time details. The invitation seemed to point mostly to a future date, but did  include some contemporary details, however nobody could agree firmly on them.

Some time later, waves of other Shekinah construction workers came. 
There was Morris Cerullo. Winkie Pratney of Youth With a Mission. There was Benny Hinn. Rheinhardt Bonnke, many others. 

These all peered further into the cave and noticed two pallet loads. The first one as mentioned…but also a second one with perhaps the most important load in terms of content: It turned out to be the Ark of the Covenant with the very Glory of God actually above it. 

This proved very popular because people liked the fact that now the invitations pointed to something that appeared to start now, and went on for ever. The Shekinah celebrations were fantastic and even larger quantities of people were affected as these men all went on the road with their teams. By now also it was easier to teach other workers because the process was made easier by having more than just invitations to study and hand out. There was the real Ark to gaze  and be amazed at, and participate in. 

They discovered the fastest way to carry the Shekinah glory was on a brand new cart pulled by oxen.This had the convenience that the work was done for you, but it also maintained a nice link with the traditions of the past, that everyone admired.
Oxen,you see, added the needed gravitas to the whole affair. 

 Terry Virgo and Rob Rufus would simply pitch up in a new city, bring a crowd of people with them,skilled in the contents of the two pallets, wheel out the Shekinah and within a few weeks or a couple of years at most they had built "warehouses of the grace of God ", like PCWorld scattered all over the globe. Che Ahn was brilliant at this, so was Yonghi Cho. It was so impressive.

Just one thing though. One thing nobody seemed to notice. Dan had seen three pallet loads being put into the cave. A young man called Todd Bentley became aware that there were in fact three pallet loads in the cave and began wheeling the 3^rd one out of the back of the cave for inspection. It was the Florida Revival. Something new was happening!

Todd became increasingly irritated with the other men who had gone before, but he found it difficult to put his finger on why. Because, as they all assured him, they had the invitations, and the most important thing of all, the very Shekinah of God. Joseph Prince was really adamant about this. So Todd , although aware of the third pallet, never actually got to unload it properly and just buckled down, as instructed by Wagner, Che Ahn and others who were on TV, to a daily maintenance check of the new cart.

Todd had more and more trouble with his personal problems. Somehow the grace that Rob Rufus and Joseph Prince were talking about was not helping him as he was driving the cart forward. Rob Rufus, Joseph Prince and many others made encouraging noises to do with Romans Chapters 3,4,5 and 8. Dan wondered to himself, if Todd Bentley had been instructed properly about the contents and usage of the third pallet by his mentors from the beginning, whether he would have had so much trouble.He also noticed that New Cart preachers never went through Romans 6 and 7 properly.

Instead,every time Todd Bentley had personal problems, all would ask about his Cart maintenance schedule.( In fact all the previous apostles of the Shekinah Glory (ON THE CART INC), gathered round Todd at one point, to officially recognise him as a full OX CART evangelist as if he had been an OXCART Fellow Seminarian.) Todd pointed out that his Cart schedule was already pretty hefty, working out at 5 hours. The others reminded him that Benny Hinn thought 6 hours was necessary and carried on driving their own carts forward.

Pretty soon , as with all previous revivals, sooner or later the cart hit a severe bump and Todd was reprimanded very firmly by some and beaten into the ground by others. But the one thing that Dan noticed was that nobody had even mentioned that the third pallet had made a brief if somewhat unexplored appearance in front of the cave.

Dan went out of his house to take a closer look. When he arrived at the cave, in the darkness he could see that the Zerubbabel group (http://www.zpress.org/newsletter/) had already taken the cover off the pallet and were already working with the content quietly and unnoticed. What on earth was it? It appeared to be two long wooden poles or something. He asked them what they were going to do with the two poles? Were they going to carry the Ark of the Testimony with it? They said they didn’t believe in the experience of the second pallet. But they were gilding the poles quietly and that they would be happy with that and handing out invitations from the first pallet. (Rob Rufus had told Dan not to have anything to do with the poles. That’s New Age he said. I used to see fakirs sitting on top of them before I was converted. Have nothing to do with the third pallet Dan. It’s all grace and oxcarts now.)

Dan asked Zerubbabel,” But what about Che Ahn? Rob Rufus, Joseph Prince? Morris Cerullo, Benny Hinn? Youth With A Mission? “ “Never heard of them”, they replied. “Are they people on TV? We don’t do TV. And we believe the gold on the poles is everywhere, and that is enough for us.”

Dan was a bit shocked. Also he could see a long and protracted debate going on between them and people like Madame Guyon, and Mother Basilea Schlink, R.Edward Miller , Ruth Heflin, and Gene Edwards. They were all saying the poles should be called brokenness, like the pole that Jacob leaned on, and the staff that Moses had which budded. But Zerubbabel were adamant that these poles of the Christ Life within had now superceded everything else, because they reversed the original root problem in Genesis 3:5. So Dan went away totally bemused.

He thought to himself: "Rob Rufus , Terry Virgo ,Joseph Prince, Morris Cerullo, Che Ahn all had the second pallet, but hadn’t much clue about how the third pallet contents worked, or weren’t entirely sure of the pallet's existence. Because after all, it was grace, and the New Covenant! All you needed to do was drive a new cart around with the songs ,message and contents of the first and second pallet.  

Zerubbabel were familiar with the third pallet as were many others from the past, but didn’t feel it had any connection with the 2^nd pallet. Which was a bit odd...since the poles were only made to operate with the other pallets. They just liked the poles as they were, now gilded. And Todd Bentley was sitting in the corner of the cave confused, somewhat battered, and believing that somehow there was a way that all three pallets could be used together, so they could do away with the rather rubbish new cart way of pushing the glory of God around."

I SUBMIT THIS FOR DISCUSSION

The Basis of the Florida references comes from a report that was sent me surrounding the last weeks, that I have also sent Dan Bowen. Both Christine and I have been puzzling over the different strands of things that were taking place in Florida.