Now, I have to admit, Lord, that I cannot imagine in what state today’s Christianity would be without the publishing business. In fact, the Bible itself is allegedly the very first book ever printed. Today, perhaps, millions of pieces of religious literature are being printed and disseminated daily.
Yet, there is another tool which might have an even greater influence, greater impact than publishing – it is the radio and television ministry. Thanks to modern technology, this electronic religion now literally “covers the whole world”.
This is my letter to You, Lord of Glory, yet I asked You at times that Your Spirit would lead me. But You say to me: “If I am to lead you in all your words, this would be My letter to Myself. Therefore, continue as before and declare the thoughts and movements of your own heart and the Truth shall be established. It shall stand even through the days of shaking when everything else shall fall. And how great shall that fall be. But the Truth shall stand as a rock, and on It shall stand all those that loved It.”
Lord, I feel that the radio ministry is very much like the publishing ministry. Quite often they are the same men which broadcast and publish. Before the TV era the radio ministry was much more needed and appreciated and in many areas it was and still is “indispensable” – the only way to reach some people.
As to its value, it was much simpler in message and thus much clearer, with greater anointing, greater impact and purer fruits. As time progressed, it became more “sophisticated”, more intellectual, more profound as to its scope and goals. It, therefore, became more corrupted and less effective in the spiritual battlefield.
Today the radio ministry resembles the situation in the publishing ministry, yet, not to the same extent. How many Christians can afford to publish and how many can afford to broadcast?
I wish to say only one thing, Lord. The airwaves, just as the bookstores, are overcrowded with doctrines of all kinds and shades. These are supplemented by interviews with more or less prominent Christian leaders and with all kinds of psychologists and doctors of theology, book writers, and others.
Most of the simple but wholesome radio ministry of the first half of this century has been turned into an intellectual exercise. It has become a lecturing in biblical history, in biblical psychology and parapsychology, in reading and explaining interesting biblical stories, in discussing interesting aspects of Christianity. It has become a forum where we can successfully “attack one another in the Name of Jesus”, where we can air our own stuff, whether it be beneficial to Your Body or whether it be detrimental.
Even here are some exceptions for which I thank You, O Lord of Glory. And I thank You also for radio ministers who faithfully and boldly declare Your simple Truth in the right spirit and whom I did not have the privilege to hear.
You showed me one radio minister and publisher from Eastern Canada. To judge righteously, I must say this: He is one of the few who is courageous enough to publish and to speak out against anyone by name and against anything which he considers evil or dangerous within the Church or outside of it.
His voice and publications are not false, his intentions are noble and clear. Nevertheless, I do question the spirit in which many things are done and, thus, the degree of fruitfulness of this ministry in the spiritual realm.
For example, he is out to war with anyone who is not using the King James Authorized Version of the Bible. He is quite capable to back it up by a thick historical documentation. Now, I believe and KNOW in my spirit that he is right and correct in his reasoning and intentions and in his “war”! Yet, what will he achieve when Your Spirit is not in it???
I can proclaim openly that even the New King James Version is already soaked in satanic spirit and I cannot even read it! Nevertheless, unless Your Spirit reveals this to the reader, unless the reader has his NEW MAN developed and sensitive enough to see and smell that satanic spirit, what can I do? Shall I bombard him with arguments as a good “Christian lawyer”? It is sheer vanity and You know it, Lord.
What shall I say then? This is what I say: An intercession with grace and patience and faith is needed just as much as the proclamation of any truth! Mental arguing is the pit into which even the best ministers seem to slide sooner or later. Mental arguing is the chief contributor to the division of Your Church into the “clubs”.
Nevertheless, he at least declares the truth and declares it boldly. Therefore, I pray in the depth of my heart, O Lord of all Truth and Grace and Patience, that not only he, but WE ALL would learn and be enabled to proclaim Your Truth both boldly AND in Your Spirit, thus ensuring its effectiveness and fruitfulness in the spiritual world. Its fruit in our physical world will follow in due time, if there is sufficient time left. Amen.
You showed me another radio minister and publisher from the Southern United States who is a doctor of theology and calls his listeners “my beloved”.
When I wrote a long letter to him, and attached to it my first book and asked for certain help, he did not bother even to reply to his “beloved” listener. On the one hand, he can describe biblical persons and events in quite a colorful and interesting way. On the other hand, he can publish a very foolish, divisive and slanderous material on “tongue folks” – simply because he himself never tasted of Your Spirit!
Again, it is all mind – and no living water. It is truly a spiritual Sahara, yea, it is a spiritual cancer which can spread so rapidly. And a spiritual cancer produces physical cancer, for it is a tool of Satan. Nevertheless, by his words he shall be justified and by his words he shall be condemned!
I pray, therefore, that You would grant him Grace to REPENT and turn away from the cancer that he has been spreading about the gifts of Your Spirit, thus sinning against Your Body. And if he shall refuse to repent, let him NOT see Your Kingdom of heaven! Amen.
Today’s radio ministry has also become an endless promotion and repetition of what “we must do” and what “we must not do”; these things irrespective of whether we are able “to do” or “not to do”. And so, after a lot of broadcasting and publishing, after reading stacks of books and listening to endless programs, both the broadcaster and the listener, the writer and the reader, ALL go on doing precisely what “we must not do” and avoiding what “we must do”! Why? Because we flood our brains with a new input – but within our hearts we remain the same! If the same at all (!), for with all that new knowledge, we are now pretty puffed-up. We may even be worse than before!
And then, oh yes, there is a tape ministry – just in case we missed that broadcast or that book. There are tapes on anything, including the music. Hundreds of tapes, hundreds of pamphlets, hundreds of broadcasts … if I add to that about one thousand sermons and about five hundred Sunday or Sabbath school teachings, which an average church-goer passes through in ten years, well, Lord, we might be well qualified to start lecturing Your angels in Heaven.
Fortunately, we do not have to worry about that … because our great knowledge, which we were so diligently gathering, worshipping, glorying in, indulging in, even paying for – shall vanish away! (1Cor.13:8). So shall our gifts which Your Spirit gave unto us! And then, a very embarrassing situation may happen to us should we discover that we have NOTHING of REAL ETERNAL VALUE, no true fruits of Your Spirit.
A truly embarrassing situation, should we stand before You empty-handed, like that fig tree with a lot of leaves but no figs, which You cursed! (Mt.21:19).
Beloved Lord, You will not ask us how much Christian literature we read, how many tapes and broadcasts we listened to, how many times we read the Bible from cover to cover, how many verses we could recite by heart, how many passages we have interpreted correctly, how many prophecies we have uttered or how many biblical mysteries solved. You will not ask us how many sermons we have preached, how many books written, how many seminars and conferences attended, how many tapes we have taped and how many broadcasts made, nor yet how many teachings and doctrines we have presented.
Well, what will You ask us then? By Your Grace, I will answer this in the last chapter for them that will dare to kneel with me before You.
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(To be continued next week in part 2)
brother Hanola
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