Now, I want to turn to that famous, and many times rather infamous, television ministry. What a sad picture, Lord! There is not much to cheer about.
Grant me Your Grace, O Lord, that I may pick up the few pearls and precious stones, the few grains of gold and silver before I judge the hay and stubble, even the dung thereof. Yes, I am bold, Lord, because I have Your Spirit and because I am not seeking my will but Your Will, because I do not judge what I see or hear, but I judge a righteous judgement. If I were not sure about this, nor confirmed by Your Spirit, I would not dare to write one iota.
There is one servant of Yours which was called with two others, and he has been faithfully preaching Your Gospel by radio and television for almost four decades. He had been tempted many times, tempted by pride, and by men in very high worldly positions. It must be his own spirit and heart to tell him whether pride had taken hold of his soul and to what degree.
He learnt precious lessons when You allowed him to mingle with high politics, and I thank You, Lord, that by Your Grace You pulled him through. You caused him to overcome and remain faithful to Your Gospel alone. Though he stays away from direct politics, he has still been using politics and diplomacy in his walk and service.
Now, there is at least one thing in him that ought to be repented of and cleansed. No true servant of Christ calls a servant of Satan “His Excellency”! He did. He even published it. In his human zeal he had committed errors, sins and unrighteous judgements, as every one of us has! In Your Grace, You forgive us a host of errors, sins and unrighteous judgements, as they are being committed in our utter ignorance, human zeal and foolishness. Yet, there are things, sometimes rather few in number, which You will NOT forgive nor pass over unless we repent and learn never to repeat them again.
Behold, this is one such sin, one such foolishness which Your Spirit shall NOT pass over in his case! A servant of his stature must never stoop so low as to privately or publicly call any of Satan’s servants “His Excellency” – while he NEVER used that same title for You!
Therefore, I say to him on Your behalf: “REPENT, repent publicly and retract your words which you publicly proclaimed. And use this exaltation toward Him Who is the only true Excellency that there is – namely, the Lord Christ Jesus whom you are preaching!
And take heed, for should you fail to hear these words and refuse to repent publicly, I tell you in the Name of His Excellency the Christ of God, whom you preach, that even you shall NOT enter into His Kingdom of heaven, just as Moses was barred from entering the Promised Land!”
Lord, lead this servant in the way he should repent and enable him to do that … for Your Glory and his rulership in Your Kingdom. Amen.
And then, there is another servant of Yours, whom You called many years ago. He was faithfully preaching Your Word, even using the gift of healing. He would have become a much greater and fruitful servant had he continued in Your Spirit. But then, not long after starting his ministry, something awful happened – a woman had to “save his ministry” because You, Lord of Heaven and Earth, were apparently “unable”.
Whenever a woman “turns white as a sheet”, it simply indicates that the Jezebel inside her shall not tolerate what she hears! Even though she may hear it from God’s servant and even though that servant of God may be her own husband. And this is what that Jezebel had inspired the woman to say to Your servant, her husband: “Man, I can’t believe what I hear! The services are TOO good and the people are turning more to YOUR ministry every day! And you want to quit? You must be nuts! Vows or no vows, principles or no principles, this must NOT happen … I AM going to handle this and save your ministry!”
And that is precisely what she did. She went to the pulpit and among other pleading words she said: “…I know God has called him (my husband) and that he must continue to obey God. I am asking you to help him. Together WE CAN SAVE this ministry.”
Thus she sinned against You, Lord, against her husband and against the ministry … and to this day she is not aware of it. And as she performed this shameful act, her husband, Your servant, instead of rebuking her in Your Name, was proud of her and “thoroughly ashamed of himself”! What a way to “save” and develop a spiritual ministry. What a grave error! And so, from that day on, the spiritual (eternal) value of that ministry has diminished for “the stamp of Jezebel” has been on it. She “saved it”, did she not?
I had no doubt about the sincerity, honesty and devoutness of Your servant’s heart to his ministry, about the vast efforts of himself and his close partners, about the good that this ministry produced in the realm of physical body and soul, about the genuiness of his gift of healing.
But You, Lord, have been “purged out of that ministry” and thus, in the realm of spirit, there has been achieved precious little, if anything.
The spiritual decline of this religious enterprise has affected all its leaders including Your servant who is losing even that which You gave him in the beginning. They measure their success by their outward achievements, by the buildings put up, by vast health services and educational services provided to hundreds and hundreds of people, by their financial prosperity, by the multitudes that write them, support them and call on them for help.
Years back, I was one of them, and I thank You, Lord, for granting me what I needed at that stage through that ministry. Yes, I supported them with a good measure, pressed down and shaken together, I prayed with them and for them, rejoiced with them, personally wrote letters to Your servant, though he never once answered.
Today, I still thank You for that servant and his ministry for, undoubtedly, it fills many needs of many people in the physical and intellectual realms. However, the needs of the spirit are NOT met, the spiritual man is not changed and does not grow – because the stamp of Jezebel is upon it!
Their gospel is: “Be prosperous and in good health” which is scriptural, indeed. But if this is the only thing You wanted to convey to Your Creation, then, dear Lord, the Bible could have contained only one page!
To this day, these people and many, many others in other ministries do not understand that whenever the gifts of Your Spirit operate (healing, tongues, prophecy, miracles, knowledge, etc.), it does NOT mean that the Giver must also be present in Person!!! And so, even this ministry has become a religious enterprise and, as all the other religious enterprises, it has become like unto the Tabernacle in Shiloh or Gibeon!
The Tabernacle in Shiloh, and later in Gibeon, was without the Ark of the Covenant, which was taken out and never returned (1Sam. chap. 4; Ps.78:56-60; Jer.7:12). The priests kept performing faithfully … and were doing “according to ALL that is written in the law of the Lord, which He commanded Israel”! (1Chr.16:40). Everything seemed to have been going as usual and the activity in the Tabernacle had not diminished nor changed – yet, the most precious and basic part of the Tabernacle, its very “raison d’etre”, was missing. The Ark of the Covenant was missing!
Today the religious activities in this and all the other enterprises are widespread. The New Testament priests and Pharisees are accepting sacrifices in the outer court and burning incense in the Holy Place. They are trying to keep the light of the candlestick going and they are trying “to do ALL that the New Testament seems to require”.
Yet, they somehow have not noticed that You, Lord of Glory, are MISSING! For YOU ARE the Ark of the New Covenant. And You are NOT in the great auditoriums, cathedrals, universities, enterprises … behold, You are in small private homes of Abinadab and Obed-edom … and in a small very ordinary tent of David which he pitched in the midst of Jerusalem (1Sam.7:1,2; 2Sam.6:11,17).
What is more, You NEVER returned to Shiloh nor to Gibeon! You remained in David’s small simple tent until Solomon built his magnificent Temple. That is to say, even today You are still present in the small simple “tents” of men, which are after Your heart and willing to fulfill all Your Will (Acts 13:22). And the tents and men are in the midst of Your Church.
But the religious tabernacles, enterprises, cathedrals, auditoriums built by human hands and zeal are Arkless – without Your Person! And You will NEVER return there until You have established Your Throne in Jerusalem. So be it, Your Majesty Christ Jesus.
Now, I believe that You never left Your servant, because his heart was honest and simple toward You – but You left the ministry, that enterprise which is not Yours. One day Your servant shall see it. He shall also see how he had been slowly deceived, from the very beginning, from the hour that Jezebel “saved” the ministry. How he had been slowly filled with pride and how his human zeal led him to greater and greater foolishness. And the second “Jezebel” only speeded up the process.
Also, his son has turned himself into a Hollywood actor, quite sure of himself, even pretending that You are whispering Your wishes into his ears. What a farce!! What a terrible spirit coming out of him! I would rather remain poor and sick in body than to be healed and prosper being so deceived, so puffed-up, so drunken with this so-called religious “success”. That is truly an Amway religion and is doomed!
To Your servant and his partners I say this: “Whatsoever a man sows, he shall also reap! I do pray for you that the Lord of Glory and Grace would spare you in reaping what is being grown … even what is being yet sown by you and your son and others. Unless you REPENT before the Lord of Glory for all your pride, zeal, foolishness and blindness … even you shall not see the Kingdom of heaven!”
So be it, Lord and King!
(To be continued next week in part 3)
brother Hanola
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