Pastor John,
I listened to this message (below) the other day. This was so good to me. You remind me of Paul, just a different time. I’m so thankful for the truth that you teach us, your zeal and your boldness. It’s just like in the Jerusalem Council, Jesus has to touch you. He anointed you to teach us and then he has to anoint our hearts to take it in and love it. What a miracle we are!
January 2, 1983 meeting at Aunt Leatha’s house:
“Discerning who’s who in the body of Christ”
“Every one of us here is going to answer to God for the things that we’re teaching [and I am glad of it] because we didn’t make it up. It’s too hard on the flesh to make up. It’s too hard on the carnal mind to make this up. You’ve got to die out to the flesh to say, “Yes, God, is this right ! I love it if it is God.” And God will open your heart, and it will be the only thing you can take. Anything else will make you sick to hear. You’ll understand it’s a sin to deliver a sermon and say it’s from God when it’s not.
“I can say, God, do you remember the time when I was there alone in that house and I was studying “name ” in the Bible, and you revealed to me about taking the Lord’s name in vain? God, I remember the time when I was driving down to a meeting and the spirit of revelation fell on me and I saw the truth about the sacrifice of Christ. God, do you remember the time you anointed me to preach the whole book of Galatians to Barbara and me in my own home, and you began to reveal to me about the works of the law? You remember the time God, when you anointed me to write out a message on conversion and baptism, and when I had to read it in order to understand it myself, and you revealed to me that truth? Do you remember the time, Lord, when you showed me about slander or about discerning the Lord’s body? God, I confess all that before you. And I’m going to thank God for the things I’m teaching. And I’m trusting him to say, “Well done.” I’m not the servant of man. The things I’m teaching, I didn’t get from man.
“God’s people are not taught to get their doctrine from God. They’re not even taught to look for it there. They think it’s already taken care of over at headquarters. I thank God for these things in my life. I wouldn’t have any life without them. What would I teach if I didn’t teach what God taught me? What would be left but confusion – exactly what is everywhere where God isn’t. How can so many people have the Holy Ghost without seeing this? You don’t get the Holy Ghost by knowledge; you get it by faith, and after you get the Holy Ghost, then you’re supposed to move into the place where you hear the truth and acknowledge it and discern who the teachers are, and who’s been anointed to say these things and who hasn’t.
“Sometimes you get to feeling alone. You began to wonder to God, “Can’t you talk to anybody else but the few that I know?” Elijah got so lonely that he prayed that God would take his life, and He did. God said yes, but after he told Elijah he was going to take his life, he said, “But I do have 7000 in Israel that have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
“It’s going to be hard on the flesh, and if you don’t think you have to die out to yourself to teach the truth, then you try it sometimes. You don’t think you have to die out to the flesh to stand up boldly before people and praise God for this way? You try it.”
Michelle