“The Glory of the Latter House shall be greater than the Former!” (Hag. 2:9)

The hour we live in without equivocation is the most spiritually profound of all of history, and certainly of all “His-story.” Indeed, it can be no less when we are told that all of the historical Biblical events comprising His-story—i.e., the history of Israel—“happened to them as an example (illustration) and they were written for OUR instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor. 10:11; cf., Rom. 15:4). God is therein declaring that the entire content of the Old Testament—the events it chronicles and the wisdom and instruction those events illustrate—are and always were intended for the true end-time believers comprising the end-times Church that Jesus is building!

Moreover, our spiritual assimilation of the morals illustrated and reflected in those Old Testament events and examples coupled with those given us in the New Testament will play a major role in producing the outcome that the Glory (tangible manifested presence of God) that abides upon those comprising the “Latter House”—the house of the faithful High Priest, who was faithful over His house as a SON (Heb. 3:1-6), that is, the Church Jesus is building—will far exceed any Glory that was ever upon the Former House—the house of Moses, who was faithful over his house as a SERVANT.

While the faithfulness of God’s SERVANT Moses produced per the Law of Reproduction a succession, intermittent as it was, of SERVANTS, the faithfulness of the SON over His House produces the surpassing results of “bringing many SONS unto Glory” (Heb. 2:10). By virtue of the fact that the House Jesus is building is a House of SONS, versus SERVANTS, the Glory of the Latter House MUST indeed be GREATER than the Former, for the Glory of SONS of God versus SERVANTS of God is like unto the glory of the sun compared to the glory of the moon (a non-illuminary planet).

God’s ultimate intent in the Creation of the Cosmos has always been to produce a burgeoning House or Family of SONS—SONS OF GOD! The choice and perfect Seed He sowed—His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON (itself one of the inscrutable mysteries of God, in that He was “begotten” and not “made”)—spiritually germinated and ever since has been producing like unto its Kind, that is, SONS! Abraham and his lineage, the Patriarchs, were SERVANTS. Moses was a SERVANT. David was a SERVANT. Though the magnitude of their servitude and faithfulness was incomparable, their highest expectation could only ever be to produce a legacy of SERVANTS, reflecting the Glory of SERVITUDE.

But, the SON, His legacy shall be an innumerable company of SONS, who “shall be like Him,” reflecting His Image—the Glory of SONSHIP! And, now, in these days, more than ever before in the history of the Creation, the Creation groans and writhes in the excruciating pangs of childbirth as it with rapt expectation awaits the revelation of the SONS of God.

Reader, I implore you to keep listening to this word. Stay attuned to the Spirit to hear this! Your life and the life of those you love depends on it!

Absolutely every segment and aspect of the foundations of all the systems of this world are unraveling and disassembling as God’s Spirit is shaking every thing that can be shaken to orchestrate a massive removal of all those things that can be shaken (earthly, humanly-made things) in order that only those things that cannot be shaken (Kingdom things, things of God) shall remain. So corrupted have the very foundations, fabric, and functions of the world’s systems become as the consequence of the utter corruption of its delegated stewards, the “sons of men” (Ps. 115:16), that the unseen elements that have been providing it stability, order, and cohesion, are being systematically removed at breakneck speed. While people go obliviously about the business of their self-consumed lives, the world we live in—that is, the systems that comprise human existence—has deorbited and is hurtling downward in its final spirals unto utter perdition. Do not be deluded, Church: nothing can or will stop its rapid descent! The world is on a collision course with Hell!

The end-times Church, the True Church, the Church Jesus is building, is not OF the world, but it is IN the world, for now. So, in this hour when the world is spiraling out of control in this final irreversible, precipitous decline, what is God’s message to the True Church? His message is the same as it has always been:

2 Corinthians 6:17,18
“Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.

2 Corinthians 6:14,16
Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

1 John 2:15-17
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

These are God’s words of advice to His children in these last days. The world is indeed in the process of passing away, along with all its self-indulging and self-consuming lusts, including the most damning lust of all—greed, or covetousness, or the love of money—which is the root of all the evil that pervades this dark and deceitful world. God’s people must be delivered out from under the strong delusion of the world and the spell of its lusts. But, seldom in the annals of history have the captives been liberated through self-deliverance. Jesus said the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him to set the captives free. Captives rarely gain freedom through their own efforts. God always sends a DELIVERER! A Deliverer like Moses unto the Israelites and Jesus unto ALL HUMANITY!

Our “most critical need” in this hour, as A.W. Tozer wrote more than four decades ago in the following article, is “men—the right kind of men, bold men.” Bold men who will come marching out of the desert, like John The Baptist, to a different drumbeat, confronting the systems of this world and the religious orders that are keeping the people of God bound in invisible chains of deception and delusion, whose pied-pipers continue to fiddle while the ship is sinking and Rome burns down all around them! We need MEN OF GOD who will rise up as DELIVERERS to set the captives free! GOD, SEND THE DELIVERERS, who will speak the truth in love to your people and thereby snatch some out of the fire!
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“OUR MOST CRITICAL NEED”- by A.W. Tozer*

THE MOST CRITICAL NEED of the Church at this moment is men—the right kind of men, bold men. The talk is that we need revival, that we need a new baptism of the Holy Spirit—and God knows we must have both—but God will not revive mice. He will not fill rabbits with the Holy Spirit.

We languish for men who feel themselves expendable in the warfare of the soul because they have already died to the allurements of this world. Such men will be free from the compulsions that control weaker men. They will not be forced to do things by the squeeze of circumstances. Their only compulsion will come from within—or from above.

This kind of freedom is necessary if we are to have prophets in our pulpits again instead of mascots. These free men will serve God and mankind from motives too high to be understood by the rank and file of religious retainers who today shuttle in and out of the sanctuary. They will make no decisions out of fear, take no course out of a desire to please, accept no service for financial considerations, perform no religious acts out of mere custom, nor allow themselves to be influenced by the love of publicity or the desire for reputation.

Much that the church—even the evangelical church—is doing today, it is doing because it is afraid not to do it. Ministerial associations take up projects for no higher reasons than that they are scared into it. Whatever their ear-to-the-ground, fear-inspired reconnoitering leads them to believe—or fear—the world expects them to do, they will be doing come next Monday morning with all kinds of trumped-up zeal and show of godliness. The pressure of public opinion calls these prophets, not the voice of Jehovah.

The true church has never sounded out public expectations before launching its crusades. Its leaders heard from God and went ahead wholly independent of popular support or the lack of it. They knew their Lord’s will and did it, and their people followed them—sometimes to triumph, but more often to insults and public persecution—and their sufficient reward was the satisfaction of being right in a wrong world.

Another characteristic of the true prophet has been love. The free man who has learned to hear God’s voice and dared to obey it has felt the moral burden that broke the hearts of the Old Testament prophets, crushed the soul of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wrung streams of tears from the eyes of the apostles.

The free man has never been a religious tyrant, nor has he sought to lord it over God’s heritage. It is fear and lack of self-assurance that has led men to try to bring others under their feet. They have had some interest to protect, some position to secure, so they have demanded subjection from their followers as a guarantee of their own safety. But the free man—never. He has nothing to protect, no ambition to pursue and no enemy to fear. For that reason he is completely careless of his standing among men. If they follow him—well and good. If not, he loses nothing that he holds dear. But whether he is accepted or rejected, he will go on loving his people with sincere devotion, and only death can silence his tender intercession for them.

Yes, if evangelical Christianity is to stay alive, it must have men again—the right kind of men. It must repudiate the weaklings who dare not speak out, and it must seek in prayer and much humility the coming again of men of the stuff of which prophets and martyrs are made. God will hear the cries of His people as He heard the cries of Israel in Egypt, and He will send deliverance by sending deliverers. It is His way.

And when the deliverers come—reformers, revivalists, prophets—they will be men of God and men of courage. They will have God on their side because they are careful to stay on God’s side. They will be co-workers with Christ and instruments in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Such men will be baptized with the Spirit indeed and through their labors He will baptize others and send the long-delayed revival.###

SOURCE: This World: Playground or Battleground?, [Chapter 7]

* NOTE: A.W. Tozier (1897-1963) for many years was the pastor of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Toronto and Chicago, the editor-in-chief of the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s official organ, Alliance Weekly, as well as a prolific author. Many revered him as a twentieth century prophet. Of his many books, The Knowledge of the Holy (Harper & Row), was perhaps the one for which he was best known.

Editorial Foreword [By Dr. Steven Lambert]: Prophetic Publishing Responsibility. While browsing through some articles published on a partnering ministry’s email messaging group site, I stumbled upon the following article, with which I wholeheartedly agree, and felt an urgency and unction of the Spirit to transmit it also to those of you on our email list. I am republishing it by permission of the author. Please read and absorb it…the points Bryan makes are poignant and apropos. I urge those of you who maintain email lists or websites to obtain permission from the author to republish the article as well, and to do so through your various means of distribution. I feel that strongly about the importance of the issue he raises in the article. As those who follow this ministry know, I am a lover of the prophetic ministry, which I myself have been operating in for more than three decades. Moreover, some twenty years ago, I authored a prophetic manual and course that has been used by Bible colleges and church leaders, which is a product of my personal study, research, and ministering in prophetic seminars, conferences, and other prophetic gatherings since the early 1980s, before “the prophetic movement” began. I have ministered prophetically to literally thousands in hundreds of venues.

I recite this information not to boast, but to affirm I am no novice to the prophetic. Many ministers who have attended my meetings can attest to that fact.

I believe in the prophetic, but I personally feel that despite the expansive surge of interest in and awareness about the prophetic that has thus far transpired, in many ways, the prophetic “movement” is still an immature movement. Perhaps, it could be equated to being in its adolescence at this point, having advanced past childhood, but it still is not matured. I still see a lot of “prophetic playing,” wherein people are more or less playing with the prophetic gifts, rather than using them for God’s intended purposes for them. Moreover, there still are a lot of people making usury of the prophetic gifts for self-aggrandizing or self-promoting purposes, rather than for bringing glory to and exalting Jesus. A few of the “pappa prophets,” as some have so distastefully elected to promote themselves, have even become quite wealthy or at least well-off through the ill-motivated usury they’ve made of the prophetic emphasis since the mid-1980’s.

Indeed, much of the responsibility for the immaturity of the prophetic movement, in my view, is directly attributable to the “organizationalism” that has so pervaded the movement. By that I mean the fact that so many who have become prominent figures in the prophetic awareness have been more concerned with using the prophetic as a means to “build” — promote, develop, increase — their own ministries (in many cases, kingdoms), than they have been concerned with the “building up the Body of Christ,” which is the God-intended purpose of the prophetic giftings and office.

Many years ago, the Lord specifically told me that one of the “downsides” of the prophetic movement that was coming would be a “flooding of the market,” to borrow a phrase, or a saturation of prophetic utterances. At the time, I had no way of envisioning the advent of the Internet, which has certainly been the greatest contributing factor to the superfluity of prophetic messages being published worldwide. This super-saturation of largely untested prophetic words by everyone and his brother claiming to be operating in the prophetic is now causing a set of problems that never existed a few years ago.

My how the pendulum swings! and how quickly! In just a few years, we’ve gone from a virtual prophetic drought to flash flooding, from being a non-prophet, non-prophetic church to a place now where “prophetic problems” are pandemic in the Neo-Pentecostal church. At the top of the list, and this is what the Lord warned me about way back there, was that true prophecy and prophetic operations would be devalued by the superabundance of unproven purported prophecy that we are now seeing.

As this article indicates, our need for greater accountability grows exponentially by the day, with the plethora of messages being published on the Internet claiming to be prophetic, and the ever-increasing number of purported “prophetic” organizations that are publishing those messages,
unfiltered, untested, untried, unproven. My sense is that very few of these prophetic organizations would know what a true prophesy was if it was hand-delivered by Jesus Christ Himself in a cloud of glory. The principals of these organizations are no more prophetically anointed themselves than the proverbial “man in the moon,” and the Word of God straightforwardly commands, “the spirit of prophets (meaning also prophesiers) are subject to prophets; for God is not a God of CONFUSION” (1 Cor. 14:32,33).

Moreover, the beginning verse of that immediate context declares that it is the PROPHETS — those who have been anointed and appointed by God to the OFFICE of the PROPHET — who are to “pass judgment” on prophetic utterances.

The Body of Christ needs a whole lot of education from God’s Word on the difference between “one who prophesies,” those operating the MANIFESTATION gift of the Spirit, and those who are set into the OFFICE of the PROPHET, who operate a MINISTRY Gift which emanates from the Lord Jesus as the Head of the Church. (For more information on this matter of Gifts Vs. Offices, see my Prophetic Manual).

I agree wholeheartedly with Brother Huppert’s remarks on this vital issue set before the Church in this hour and I call upon every leader in the Church that Jesus is building, and especially the prophetically oriented leaders, to begin to seek God about what He would have us to do to bring forth some effectual safeguards and some means of greater prepublication scrutiny of purported prophetic messages. I also invite dialogue with other leaders and lovers of the prophetic in this regard as we heed our collective responsibility to protect the precious prophetic gift which Christ bestowed when He ascended on high for the primary purpose of edifying the Church. [end Editorial Foreword]

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“Prophetic Irresponsibility”
Bryan Hupperts
“SheepTrax Media”

Call this an open letter of concern to the global prophetic community. Several years ago the Lord showed me a vision of prophetic ministers urinating and defecating into a beautiful, flowing stream. Downstream, people were dipping silver cups into the flowing waters and were gagging on the human impurities and waste! Because of the prophetic pollution problem upstream, there was precious little ‘clean water’ to drink.

The reaction to this vision was mixed. A pastor friend of mine was outraged that I would dare share such a thing and it eventually broke our relationship. Lots of fingers were being pointed at me, baseless accusations made, dark whispers about my motives, I was labeled a ‘troublemaker,’ and on it went.

The prophetic office and gifts were not given to the church so that someone could discern via word of knowledge the first three numbers of your cell phone number and wow the crowds, but for, according to Ephesians 4: 11-14:

“The equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.”

Like all other fivefold functions, the prophetic office has certain functions and should yield very specific kinds of fruits. First, they should be for the work of the ministry bringing about the unity of the faith. Next, they should bring increasingly clearer revelation and knowledge of Jesus. They should also hold up the pattern of Christ as the mark for which to grow and model our lives after. And why? So that we grow up and can stand fast so that we can discern a genuine move of the Spirit of God from often hurricane force winds of doctrine interjected into the body of Christ by tricky, crafty, deceitful men.

Whew!

SheepTrax Media was born on the web, thrives by the web, and has a global reach because of the web. Sometimes when I get letters from countries I cannot pronounce about how God has blessed or challenged people or churches through my work, well, it’s scary stuff to contemplate. It has driven me to be more and more a student of His Word.

Having said all of this, I am perplexed by a dilemma which I believe the global church can help resolve. There are many ministries that take alleged “words from the Lord” and publish them via forums like the wonderful service provided by InJesus without taking any sort of responsibility of godly oversight as to what they are actually publishing.

On several occasions I wrote to the proctor of one such list which numbers in the thousands of subscribers. Sighting a number of glaring examples of prophecies that proved to be demonstratably false; predicted earthquakes, bombs falling in Los Angeles on a certain date, and such, I asked this person if his ministry was providing any sort of corrective feedback to authors of these wildly inaccurate predictions.

His response? That isn’t our place. We just provide the forum (while selling loads of books, video, tapes, and rake in the special conference fees) and what is of God will stand. This individuals’ cavalier reply prompted me to coin the phrase “Prophetic Irresponsibility.”

Much of the church needs to embrace this verse: 1 Corinthians 14:29, “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.” Indeed, let the prophets speak! However, prophetic forums, especially those with global reach, need to obey the second half, the counterweight, of this verse. “Let others judge.” Here judge means to weigh, evaluate, to discern.

I am asking the body of Christ to begin exercising some spiritual discernment and begin holding those responsible who publish and promote alleged words from the Lord that prove false. I’m not suggesting we stand with a stone in each hand waiting for someone to trip over their tongue, but I am strongly advocating that there be accountability.

If the ministries who provide global access for words that prove wrong, please write to the proctors of those lists and ask them to begin exercising some authority. If the word was wrong, publish an account of it and issue a retraction. Be responsible. Hold its author accountable and bring some godly correction into their life. For instance, there is a group on the web run by two brothers who believe they are the two witness of the book of Revelation! I’ve never known them to be right with any of their predictions yet people still circulate their work! Another man believes that God revealed to him that prophets only need to be right about 40% of the time; it keeps the body of Christ humble while we learn to hear the Lord!

Beloved, if the prophets can’t tell which ‘word of the Lord’ is genuine, then how in the name of love can the everyday saint discern such things! How can we even know if this man’s “40%” word was right? Such foolishness is human waste and impurity that is polluting the river of God, and it is the downstream saints who are suffering for it.

If those who proctor such prophetic lists refuse to exercise authority and develop accountability, then quit reading and circulating what they publish. Stop buying their merchandize. When the finances dry, perhaps they will reconsider. These abuses have to stop and the body of Christ brought back into order. I don’t blame hapless pastors who come to despise prophecy! They are being deluged with so many false words, the prophetic gift has come into disrepute.

Well, let the stone throwing begin. Nobody ever promised this would be easy or popular, but it is the Truth.

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Bryan Hupperts © 2002 SheepTrax Media ™
PO Box 270256 St. Louis, MO 63127 USA
SheepTrax is the Christian “wit, wisdom, and deepthinking” of Bryan Hupperts.
Write to SheepTrax Media at: deepsheep@sheeptrax.com
Subscribe at: http://www.sheeptrax.com/

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Editorial Note: Recently I received an email from a subscriber who was asking me for answers to some questions he had concerning some troubling issues related to the nascent apostolic renewal. It was not until I was finishing the last paragraph of my response that I heard the Spirit tell me that I needed to post my answer, because it would also help others who have had similar thoughts and questions. Just bear in mind as you read my response, that this is not intended to be a theological treatise or comprehensive exposition on the matter of the apostolic or even this aspect of it, but rather I offer it to you as just one tiny little patch of the quilt the Spirit is weaving on the matter at this time in the Church…”line upon line, precept upon precept, a little here, a little there.”

Question: I hear a lot concerning “apostolic authority.” What does apostolic authority mean? I have known apostles who march into churches and tell the pastor he has to submit to them because of apostolic authority or they will ask the pastor, who is your apostle? Does the apostle have authority over the pastor in the local church? Help!!

Reply:
I will try to give you a relatively succinct answer to a rather complex matter, without fleshing it out much. I will answer the first question in what follows. The last question, which is the essence of what you are asking, I will answer directly first: No, an apostle does not have authority over the leadership of local churches of which he is not a part and is not esteemed as the “set man” of that assembly merely by virtue of some perceived “authority” inherent in the title of “Apostle.” Indeed, a true God-anointed, God-appointed, Spirit-trained apostle would never even THINK of such a thing.

Unfortunately, the kind of attitudes you describe represent what “Apostolic Authority” means to many misinformed and misguided people. A major problem in dealing with the matter of local church government, on the backdrop of the renewed awareness concerning Fivefold Ministry and the restoration of the Apostolic and Prophetic offices, in particular, is that while they are related, they are not the same, and the terminology we have been using regarding ministry offices or positions in the church has been contrary to Scripture.

Namely, in the last hundred years or so, predominantly, the Church has been using the term “Pastor” to refer to the chief or top leader in the local church, despite the fact that government, i.e., “ruling,” is not included in the office of the pastor, per se, as delineated in Scripture. The Bible is clear that “elders…rule” (1 Tim. 5:17, et al.). The local church is to be governed by a presbytery of elders (plural). However, here again most local churches have had that wrong as well, as to who elders are, especially denominational churches. According to the preponderance of Scripture, the eldership of a local church should be comprised of those who God has appointed to Fivefold Ministry Offices (Eph. 4:11), which appointment is attested by the anointing (spiritual gifting) inherent in those offices. And, among the Fivefold Ministry Office, those functioning in the apostolic, prophetic, and teaching should be regarded as preeminent in the government of the church (1 Cor. 12:28).

This picture becomes clear when the entire mosaic of Scripture is put together rightly (“rightly dividing the Word of Truth” [2 Tim. 2:15]), which is too complex and expansive of a matter for us to deal with here, but I will offer the following. Jesus chose Twelve of His disciples, and appointed (named) them “Apostles” (Mat. 10:1-5). These Apostles of the Lamb were His chief delegates, surrogates, or representatives in the Early Church following Jesus’ ascension. This set the precedent of Apostolic Appointment.

Additionally, 1 Cor. 12:28 clearly states the order of preeminence of ministerial authority and government in the local church: “And God as set in the CHURCH, FIRST Apostles, SECOND Prophets, THIRD teachers….” Notice that the pastoral office is not mentioned in this verse, per se. In fact the word “pastor” (poimen) only occurs once in the entire N.T., which is in Ephesians 4:11. So, using Scripture as the sole precedent and paradigm (and this order is clearly further corroborated throughout the N.T.), the office of apostle is unequivocally the preeminent ministry office, functionally speaking, with prophets and teachers respectively following next in succession. The Greek word in this verse translated “first” is the word “proton,” which connotes, first in time, first in order, first in rank, first in function, first in priority. (Now, while I fully realize that such teaching is controversial to those unfamiliar with it, exegetical development of these concepts is simply beyond the parameters of this article. Though, they are developed in several of my books and will be addressed further in forthcoming books.)

Now, the problem is, since the church fell into apostasy in the third and fourth centuries, it has not been recognizing these offices, and erroneous cessation theories purporting that the apostolic and prophetic offices ceased with the death of the Apostles of the Lamb have been prevalent, especially in mainline denominational doctrine. And then, somewhere along the line, primarily, as I said, within the last hundred years or so, local churches began calling the chief minister “the pastor,” even though that office, according to Scripture, does not entail government, per se.

But, the Scriptural pattern is that there is a “set man” (Num. 27:15-23) whom God recognizes and has appointed as the chief leader or elder in a local church. Functionally, this person is actually a “local apostle,” according to the Scriptural pattern, and should possess and demonstrate the giftings or anointing of an apostle, which are the entire range of the Fivefold Ministry offices. This man is esteemed by the other elders as a “chief among equals,” as was Peter among the Twelve, as was James in the Jerusalem Church and as the presiding elder at the Jerusalem Council (Ac. 15), as was John over the churches of Asia Minor in the latter part of his ministry, and as was Paul over the churches he founded, or to whom he became the spiritual father, for example.

However, “Apostolic Authority” is intrinsically parochial; that is to say, limited, to the particular local church(es) where God has established the apostle relationally—usually churches which they have had a part in founding, or existing churches that voluntarily have placed themselves under the leadership of an apostle who has become a “spiritual father” to those people and its leadership. Thus, “Apostolic Authority” is decidedly not some sort of automatic universal authority inuring to an apostle by virtue of the title of apostle. Morever, legitimate “Apostolic Authority” is never organizational, but rather is always relational. And it is vital to remember that all relationships among Fivefold Ministers are horizontal, not vertical. All Fivefold Ministers are peers with different functions, giftings, anointings, and callings. None is more important than another, or superior or inferior to another.

The church is the family extended and the family is the church in miniscule; thus, the principles of governance are the same for both (cf, Eph. 5:22-33). The family has ONE head — the husband/father (male). While a man is the husband/father of his OWN HOUSEHOLD, his authority is limited to that one household; his title/office of husband/father does not mean that he is the husband/father of any other household, and indeed he would be a trespasser and unlawful intruder if he tried to assert his husband/father authority over any other household. In fact, God’s Word expressly addressed that scenario through the writings of the Apostle Paul, dealing with the unlawful actions of deceived deceivers who were attempting to do that very thing in the Early Church:

For among them are those who worm their way into homes {households, NAS} and captivate silly and weak-natured and spiritually-dwarfed women, loaded down with [the burden of their] sins, [and easily] swayed and led away by various evil desires and seductive impulses. (2 Tim. 3:6; AB)

So, in the circumstance today in the local churches, regardless of what term is used to refer to him, the local church has a “set man” who presides as the chief leader, rightly so, because he has been so anointed and “set in” to that place of authority by God. Government and leadership of the local church is not a matter of titles, ascendancy, and authority, but of function, servitude, and esteem.

When multiple Fivefold ministers are laboring together to provide pilotage (leadership) to a local church, the proper Spirit-inspired attitude should be to regard one another as co-equals ministerially and functionally, though there is one among them who is esteemed as being the “leader of the leaders,” a la James in Jerusalem. Their goal as leaders should be to ascertain the “consensus of the Spirit”; in other words, to reach unanimity based on what the Spirit is speaking to them individually yet collectively. “It seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit….” “WE have the mind of Christ.” Christ reveals His full “mind,” counsel, to a plurality of elders, not a solitary leader. The notion that God speaks the entire vision and direction for a church to a single “vision-holder” is nonsense, unbiblical, and the height of hubris. I wouldn’t follow someone across the street who said he had no need for the counsel and consensus of other leaders. Apostleship is anything but autocracy.

Governmental AUTHORITY is limited to the role of leadership of the local church, and is not personal authority (i.e., authority over people), but authority to provide spiritual impartation as well as “pilotage” to the church and its affairs. Beyond the local church, there is no “authority” among ministers — Jesus told the apostles they were “all on the same level as brothers” (Mat. 23:8, LB), meaning they were co-equals. Thus, there is no ascending authority structure, or rank system, or “chain-of-command” among Fivefold Ministers, that is to say, no one of the ministry offices has authority or ascendancy over another, as purported by the erroneous concept of “positional authority.”) In other words, the premise is not that apostles are over prophets, prophets over evangelists, and so on, as if there were “rank” inherent in the the Fivefold Ministry Offices. That’s just not the way it works.

Though, clearly, as mentioned earlier, there is a preeminence among the Fivefold Ministry Gifts in terms of FUNCTION and ROLE — its governmental role, in particular. Governmentally and functionally speaking, the apostolic function is first, or preeminent, followed by the prophetic, and then the teaching function (1 Cor. 12:28). Among those functioning in the Fivefold Ministry offices, there is to be no envy, competition, or jockeying for position, but a faithful and willing subjection to the Scripturally-revealed Kingdom order. The commanders of God’s Army understand authority, march in line, do not deviate from their assigned lanes of function, and do not break ranks (Joel 2:7,8).

Nevertheless, there is, however, a deference, among Fivefold Ministers that is based entirely on earned ESTEEM, not any perceived or ostensible “authority.” Such esteem and deference toward proven and attested senior ministers, wherein believers, including ministers, esteem highly certain other ministers for the spiritual giftings, wisdom, leadership acumen, they demonstrate, is proper, appropriate, and Scriptural:

“But we request of you brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction (lit., admonition, warning, correction) and that you ESTEEM THEM HIGHLY IN LOVE because of their work.”

I hope this helps somewhat to answer your questions.

[Original Post Date on Real Truth Digest E-zine: 10/08/2003]

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ATTENTION, ATTENTION! CALLING ALL PROPHETIC PEOPLE!

International College of Prophetic Studies

Are you a prophetic person who realizes the need to be better equipped, trained, developed, and mentored in your prophetic gifting? If so, there is good news!

Dr. Steven Lambert, noted veteran prophet, prophetic author and mentor, has developed the International College of Prophetic Studies under the auspices of Christian Bible Institute & Seminary. The college exists as a resource to assist prophetic people in developing the prophetic giftings bestowed upon them by God, enabling them to attain unto their ultimate destiny in the Spirit. The ICPS offers a highly specialized certificate program whose curriculum consists of courses focusing on the prophetic gifts and office and related topics, in relation to the other Fivefold Ministry Offices and their proper place of function in the Church Jesus is Building.

Students will be guided through a program that combines both Biblical studies and personalized mentoring designed to enhance and expand their understanding regarding the foundational Fivefold Ministry functions and how to be achieve optimal effectiveness in their prophetic ministry.

The program is a stand-alone program that does not require enrollment in degree programs, however, credits earned through the program may be applied toward a CBI&S bachelors or masters degree. CBI&S is an accredited ecclesiastical Bible college, thus, credits earned are transferable to most Bible colleges.

Obtain the affirmation and creditation you need to function effectively in your prophetic calling by enrolling in this five-star accredited program today!

Remember, the proof of genuine desire is pursuit!

CLICK HERE for more information about the program.