by admin | Jan 18, 2023 | Authority, Change, Change & New Things, Charismatic Gifts, Church, Church Leadership, False teaching, Featured, Fivefold Ministry, Leadership, Prophetic, Spiritual Gifts, Steven Lambert
Now as pointed out before (in the book, Charismatic Captivation), the Church is the quintessential Theocracy. Its government is not a political government wherein the governed themselves constitute, devise, and effect their own government, such as that of this nation, the United States, which is a form of democracy (republic), supposedly “of the people, for the people, and by the people.” Rather, the Church is literally governed by a singular Supreme Potentate—the Lord Jesus Christ—who God has appointed as its Sole and Sovereign Head. The absolute necessity of understanding this one concept is emphasized and re‑emphasized repeatedly in this volume, and indeed is the ultimate and salient point of this book.
But, once it is understood that Christ Jesus Himself is the ultimate Head and Cornerstone of the Church, it is just as vital to understand that the government that Jesus presides over is an intermediated or proxy government in its physical application. In other words, He does not govern alone, nor directly, nor even in person. Rather, His government is a “representative” or “delegate” form of government, if you will. This is to say that as God set apart and specially consecrated the Levites to represent Himself unto the people, so also Jesus appoints, anoints, and sends special envoys, ambassadors, to represent Him and His government unto the Church. These envoys are His personal proxies, His delegates, His stand‑ins, whom He sends to convey and effect His purposes, plans, pleasures, and passions.
by admin | Mar 9, 2022 | Uncategorized
God desires for all believers to be INFORMED, NOT IGNORANT concerning the manifestation gifts of the Spirit, just as He desires for us to be informed about every other matter of the Spirit realm. Yet, there is perhaps more ignorance regarding this one matter than any other.
One of the remnants ostensibly of the Dark Ages in the Church which is still prevalent in many churches today is the ridiculous hypothesis that ignorance about spiritual matters perceived by some to be potentially erroneous should be totally avoided and that one should emulate the ostriches and bury his head in the sand so as to not even look upon anything which may be unorthodox or different than the traditional beliefs. Many denominational churches still teach that kind of childish and medieval-like behavior even for their adult church members pertaining to the matter of the baptism in the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, and related spiritual matters. Non-Pentecostal/Charismatic preachers and church leaders admonish their parishioners against becoming involved with Charismatic groups with such foolish statements as “you better stay away from those tongue-talkers and those ‘holy-rollers’ and those ‘snake-handlers’ lest some of that what they’ve got might get on you.” The premise of their thinking is that ignorance and avoidance of anything different than the traditional doctrines of that denomination is the way to prevent deception.
Nothing could be further from the Truth! Even the pagan Bereans had more spiritual sense than that, for when they heard the preaching by Paul of “another Way” than what they had known, they “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). The only way to know whether a teaching is true or false is to examine it in the light of Scripture. The deception preventative prescribed by God’s Word is to “Test and prove all things [until you can recognize] what is good; to that hold fast” (1 Thes. 5:21, A.B); and the only way we can test and prove any spiritual matter is by comparing it to Holy Scripture. If God’s Word says it, then it is so.
by admin | Feb 20, 2021 | Authority, Charismatic Cultism, Charismatic Gifts, Church, Church Leadership, Discernment, Doctrine, False Ministers, False prophets, False teaching, Fivefold Ministry, Leadership, Prophetic, Spirit Baptism, Spiritual Gifts, Supernatural Power of God
This is second part of two-part series aimed at demonstrating that there are distinct and vital differences between the nine Manifestation Gifts, aka, the Charismata or Gifts of the Spirit, enumerated in Scripture and the five Ministry Gifts also delineated in Scripture. I urge you to read Part 1 of this series to understand the foundation and framework we are working from in this part. The overall point is that there are indeed major differences between the gifts of the Spirit and the offices Jesus established as the Head of the Church through which to continue His own ministry on the Earth in the Church He is building in His absence and on His behalf until He returns to claim the Church as His Eternal Bride, thereby culminating both the Church itself as well as the Church Age.
by admin | Feb 20, 2021 | Apostolic, Cessation Theology, Charismatic Gifts, Discernment, False prophets, Fivefold Ministry, Leadership, Prophetic, Spirit Baptism, Spiritual Gifts
Though the matter of personal prophecy is by far the element of the prophetic realm of greatest interest to the vast majority of Spirit-Baptized believers, it is not the most important. Nevertheless, personal prophecy is part and parcel of the present Prophetic Movement that has been nascent since the mid-1980s, and therefore requires some understanding and knowledge. In this article is presented a fairly simplistic overview of the matter of personal prophecy that is not intended to be an in-depth theological treatise on the subject. Herein, the term “personal prophecy” is simply a term used to refer to prophecy expressed to and pertaining to an individual person.
by admin | Dec 13, 2020 | Apostolic, Change, Church Leadership, End-Times, Fivefold Ministry, Leadership, Steven Lambert
The greatest church-growth program ever devised in the history of mankind and the church Jesus is building is the Fivefold Ministry Model outlined in Ephesians 4:4-16. Every senior church leader in America and some other nations around the world has at their ready disposal some of the most battle-tested, God-anointed, God-appointed, life-experienced Fivefold Ministers on the planet living right in their “backyard,” so to speak, in the form of highly-experienced preachers/teachers/ministers who reside in their geographical sphere of operation — in their immediate locality, their region, or state. God has distributed these mighty warriors of God all around you like salt on a plate of food.
Moreover, the fact of the matter is: the Ephesian Four text indicates you cannot possibly accomplish what God wants for you to accomplish in the establishment and edifying of a local church WITHOUT utilizing these Fivefold Ministry officers and functionates in your local church. It’s impossible to properly build the local church according to the Biblical model without them! No matter who you are, how anointed you think you are, how brilliant you think you are, and how successful you see yourself as being, you CANNOT do it all yourself, by yourself, and for yourself! To think otherwise is total deception and foolishness!
by admin | Jan 13, 2020 | Apostasy, Change, Change & New Things, Church, Church Leadership, Doctrine, End-Times, Falling Away, Featured
In 2020, one of the emphases of the Spirit will be eschatological events, because God wants His betrothed, the genuine Church He is building, to understand that Jesus’ return is imminent–HE IS COMING BACK SOON! Eschatology is the knowledge and study of endtimes.
The Book of Revelation coupled with the Book of Daniel hold the keys to unlocking the mysteries of the endtimes. The Spirit-inspired words with which the Book of Revelation begins explicitly reveals the reason God revealed it to His Son, who revealed it via an angel to the Apostle John, who was commanded to convey it to the Church: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him to show to His bondservants the things which must shortly take place….” Eschatology consists of “the things which must shortly (soon) take place….” Revelation means the unveiling or uncovering of that which has been heretofore concealed, or a “mystery.” God instructed John to memorialize these things in a book in order that the events of the endtimes be revealed in an understandable fashion to the Body of Christ, particularly believers “upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor. 10:11); i.e., believers actually living in the endtimes.
by admin | Dec 1, 2019 | Apostasy, Charismatic Cultism, Church, Church Leadership, Deception, Discernment, Doctrine, End-Times, Falling Away, False teaching, Featured, Leadership
There’s no other way to put it, Rick Warren is on a dangerous path away from sound biblical doctrine toward an ecumenical apostate form of Christianity with Rome that has the potential to lead many astray. The facts stare us in the face. Warren’s pathway to Rome is dangerous!
Why do so few recognize what is happening? Do you know someone who is caught up in the deception but does not see what is going on? Maybe this would be a good time to pray God’s grace would open their eyes, and they would see the truth of God’s word.
Over the last few years, I have been astonished and appalled to learn of the wholesale ignorance and lack of spiritual discernment demonstrated by a number of eminent leaders (many of whom self-identify as apostles) of the Pentecostal/Neo-Pentecostal church stream I have attempted to converse with regarding Rick Warren and others of his ilk who have emerged over the last three decades or so as the prominent proponents and propagators of the apostate teachings associated with the nascent so-called “Emerging or Emergent Church.” The lack of awareness and understanding of those who are touted as the “chiefs of the chiefs” of the most elite and exalted ranks of “apostolic leaders” I’ve attempted to dialogue with regarding this alarmingly fast and facile advance toward apocalyptic apostasy has been nothing short of stunning to me.
by admin | Nov 22, 2019 | Apostolic, Authority, Deception, Featured, Fivefold Ministry, Leadership, Prophetic
In vocational ministry, however, there are divine limitations to our fruitfulness. Those limitations are often intuitively understood, but not as often well defined. We may subconsciously realize that the large majority of God-called ministers will never have the impact of the Apostle Paul, yet we sometimes talk as if all ministers could attain to Paul’s level of spiritual success, if only “we were as dedicated as the apostle Paul.”
by admin | Nov 15, 2019 | Apostasy, Apostolic, Cessation Theology, Deception, Doctrine, End-Times, False Ministers, False teaching, Featured, Fivefold Ministry, Prophetic, Spirit Baptism, Spiritual Gifts, Supernatural Power of God
Modern day Sadducees not only, “make utterly nothing of prophecy,” they also deny the reality of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This doctrine has produced spiritual morticians which have so effectively turned their churches into funeral parlors that even God is not welcome in them if He disturbs the dead. Even the thought of the disruption produced by the “rushing mighty wind” of the Holy Spirit’s presence alarms them.
by admin | Nov 13, 2019 | Doctrine, Featured, Fivefold Ministry, Prophetic, Spirit Baptism, Spiritual Gifts
I consistently meet Christians who challenge parts of the Bible solely because they do not fit their denominational standard. Pastors are especially guilty. Calvinists reject “Arminian” teachings and Arminian believers reject Paul’s writings about election, predestination, and the sovereignty of God. What is our obligation? We are to believe all of the Bible regardless of our being able to reconcile it. It is in the theological challenge that we learn. Our first responsibility is to God–not our local church. Mental stretching does for our spirit what physical exercise does for the body. Such work-outs may be painful and tiring–but, they produce strength.
by admin | Oct 21, 2019 | Apologetics, Apostasy, Deception, Demonic, End-Times, False Ministers, False teaching, Featured, Leadership, Paganism
Editor’s Note: It has been astounding to me over the past two decades or so to see that virtually none of those who identify as “leaders” within the Charismatic realm, including the elite, eminent super-apostles of the International Coalition of Apostolic Leaders (ICAL), and the like, have spoken out to warn the Pentecostal-Charismatic stream concerning the panoply of deceptions that have been promulgated by the so-called “emerging” or “emergent” church during that time; and, they are many. Frankly, I have been waiting and watching, hoping that someone with a national voice would step forward with such some prophetic warnings against these dastardly but insidious “doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1). However, the silence has been ear-piercing as well as dumbfounding, to say the least!
by admin | Jun 9, 2019 | Change, Fivefold Ministry, Prophetic, Sanctification, Spirit Baptism, Steven Lambert
It is now time that individual believers and the collective Church that Jesus is building MUST begin to advance toward the accomplishment of the end-times purposes and plans of God!
God is doing a NEW THING as He promised in His word He is constantly doing, and it is up to every genuine believer in Christ and the collective church to know, understand, comprehend what those new things are and begin to walk in and according to them!
Page 1 of 912345...»Last »
