Contrary to popular opinion the Book of Revelation was not, I repeat, not written to us or to our generation. Instead it was written to seven city-churches located in Asia Minor (today's Turkey) and to the saints of the first century to prepare them for certain catastrophic and age-ending events that were about to take place in their day. No, it is not about the coming of a future Antichrist, Cobra Helicopters, or World War III! Nor is it about the end of the world. It is about the destruction of Herod's Temple, the judgment of the Harlot City of Jerusalem, the end of the Jewish Age (the age of Moses), the revelation and establishment of Messiah's Kingdom and His Church. All of which took place in 70 A.D., when Titus and the armies of Rome destroyed the Jewish temple and burned Jerusalem, just as Jesus and the prophets of Israel had prophesied they would! 

The study of the Book of Revelation began May 8 at 7 PM and will continue on Thursday evenings for eight consecutive weeks. Don't miss this exciting, relevant, and life changing study as Bible Scholar, Educator, Missionary, Author, and Pastor George Kouri (following the Greek text) allows Jesus and the Prophets of Israel explain the prophecy given to John the apostle to prepare the saints of the 1st century for what was about to happen in their day.

This eye-opening study is hosted by the King's Academy in conjunction with the Apostles Theological Seminary. The King's Church is located at 9861 St. Augustine Road Jacksonville, Florida 32257 ( Google Map ). For more information call 904-940-6314.

To listen to the podcasts click on the titles below:

Part 1a-Introduction To Revelation (Goals For The Study)

Part 1b-Introduction To Revelation (Preliminary Observations)

Part 2a-Introduction To Revelation (Author And Dating)

Part 2b-Introduction To Revelation (Author And Dating)

The illustration above is a print of a 14th Century painting of Jesus of Nazareth, risen, ascended, and seated on the throne of His father David, governing heaven and earth as Son of David and Son of God. It is called by early Christians, the Pantocrater.  Jesus Christ is not only Lord of heaven and Ruler of the kings of the earth, He is also the Chief Apostle and Head of His Church.

The Apostles Theological Seminary serves as an online resource center: providing news of strategic events, hosting online dialogues, posting relevant articles, pod-casts and book reviews.

Whether you are an experienced minister looking to increase your usefulness to the King, or just beginning your journey, as Chancellor of ATS, I wholeheartedly invite you to join our global community of  faculty and students. Let our seasoned faculty and leadership team help you determine the right course of study, custom-designed to develop, strengthen, and enhance your ministry-gift and calling.

Visit our campus regularly; let us become a strategic resource center for your ministry and sphere of influence in Christ's Kingdom.

Don't forget to check the archives section listed month by month (and by year) on the left-hand side of the ATS blog page.

God's Agenda For The 21st Century Part 1
God's Agenda For The 21st Century Part 2
God's Agenda For The 21st Century Part 3
God's Agenda For The 21st Century Part 4
God's Agenda For The 21st Century Part 5

A powerful two part teaching, this message deals with the often ignored chronology of events that took place as Jesus made His redemptive journey from the cross to the throne. It not only deals with what happened during the 3 days and 3 nights in which He was in hell, but also His resurrection appearances, His ascension and exaltation to the right hand of God the Father, and the receiving of His Messianic Kingdom.

Part 1, Brother Kouri's Good Friday message, deals with Jesus' suffering on the cross and His descent into hell.  Part 2, Brother Kouri's Easter Sunday message, deals with the events that took place during the 3 days and 3 nights that Jesus was in hell, His dramatic conquest of Satan, sin, death and hell, His resurrection appearances, ascension, and glorious enthronement.

This message is the heart of the apostles' faith  and the faith of the early apostolic church!

Part 1, Good Friday

Part 2, Easter Sunday

Formed in 1999 the Communion of Apostolic Churches is a global communion of apostles and churches seeking to model what the whole Church could be if we were all built together on the same foundation and functioning as one apostolic Church.

The doctrinal statements and architectural structure set forth in the CAC Constitution have been widely recognized and commended by numerous apostles and pastors as setting forth authentic apostolic  Christianity, i.e. the Christianity of the original apostles, and providing architectural guidance for today's apostles and other fivefold ministers enabling them to rediscover the foundations of Christ's Kingdom and reorder Church life in accordance with the instruction of the Lord Jesus and the apostles in the first century.

At the request of many the Constitution posted on the CAC website (www.cacvirtual.org) is now available as a book to help fivefold ministers and church leaders in their personal study of the Word of God and in structuring and ordering their ministry sphere.

Shane Mason, a prophet of the Lord, after carefully studying the book version of the CAC Constitution declared:

"This 96 page book is by far the greatest I’ve ever read or seen on Apostolic Ministry, Ecclesiastical government, Kingdom order, and the functioning of Church leadership as a whole. I strongly recommend that anyone who is, at this present time or will be in the future, in any kind of ecclesiastical leadership to read this book! Whether you are a pastor, a deacon, a usher, or just a pew warmer, this book has the potential to fuel the fire of apostolic reformation in the United States and internationally!

"I have studied the apostolic ministry for years, I have read everything from Rick Joyner, Peter Wagner, to John Eckhardt and many others, and none come close to the profound insight and revelation that the Lord Jesus Christ has released through Apostle George Kouri contained in the Constitution of the CAC! The insight contained in this book is not left field, but sound, biblical, and Spirit breathed!

"We are truly living in blessed days, and the Lord has not left us without a clear word for reformation and a fresh awakening of revival!"

To order your copy of the Constitution click here.

Dr. Kouri's book, "The Last Watch," is now available for purchase.

Based upon Matthew's stirring account of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee, this small (36 pages), but powerful prophetic book deals with Christ's Kingdom authority over the governments and nations of the world, His outpouring of the Spirit of God upon the nations, and the restoration of apostles to the work of the Kingdom of God. 

Our Lord's divine strategy in raising up the present apostolic movement is for the purpose of enabling today's apostles restore authentic Kingdom foundations and reform, reorganize, and restructure His Church, so that it might function as one holy apostolic community in the world and succeed in its Kingdom mission to disciple the governments and nations of the earth and fill all things with the glory of the sons of God.

Produced by Eric Granata for Monarch Publications this critically important book is available in several formats:

  Buy eBook : $2.95  

  Buy Paperback : $7.95  

There will be times throughout our lives as believers in which God will demand things out of us that seemingly are beyond us!

THE KING AND HIS ARMY is series of strategically important prophetic messages preached by J. Ern Baxter in the UK at the Lakes Bible Week in 1975. As one of Brother Baxter’s sons in the faith, I had the great joy and privilege of being with him, my life and ministry forever impacted and shaped by the profound and powerful Word of the Lord proclaimed. This series of messages places before us one of three major prophetic models found in the rich typology of the Old Testament for the Apostolic Reformation of the Church today.

Brother Ern used to say: "Four men speak to the Church typically from the Old Testament today. Adam speaks to us racially; Abraham speaks to us redemptively; Moses speaks to us congregationally, and David speaks to us regally or royally!" David’s long and difficult journey from Ziklag to Zion speaks prophetically today about the stages in the strategic journey of reformation that the Church must make, if we would move from our present subnormality and ineffectiveness to maturity and the fulfillment of mission and destiny!

Dan Bowen, my friend from the UK, is involved in that journey. Because of his sensitivity to the Spirit, his appreciation and respect for Brother Baxter, and his diligent labor in faithfully transcribing these messages from the Lakes Bible Week, we are able to present this strategically important prophetic series. But before presenting Ern’s first powerful message, "The Head and Shoulders Man" I present Brother Bowen’s tribute, "A Prophet - One as Untimely Born"

"A Prophet - One as Untimely Born” by Dan Bowen.

Why a Forty Year old Prophetic Vision is only coming into Fulfillment Today.

At the Newfrontiers Brighton Leadership Conference 2004, leader and father of the movement, Terry Virgo came to give his two keynote addresses and chose to base in the Lake District in 1975.  Terry said; “Ern Baxter, a remarkable prophetic preacher from the USA, spoke powerfully at a number of the early U.K Bible Weeks.  None of his messages was more telling than a series he entitled, ‘The King and His Army’” .  Reporting on Terry’s two sermons, his wife Wendy wrote;

Terry recalled the way Ern Baxter, a mighty preacher of the 70s preached about this. Now with the passage of time we can see some of his prophetic predictions coming into being, notably that ministry that appeals to the intellect, the flesh and is man-centred will decline in power and authority, while that which is anointed by God ... will prosper” .

Why would a series of sermons some 29 years old seem so influential that they be re-called and re-preached?  What was the substance of such a message that so impacted Terry Virgo and the gathered thousands who heard the vision preached at Brighton?  Who was this Ern Baxter?  Why did he preach as he did?  What compelled him?  What motivated him?  What envisioned him?  And most importantly why has “The King and His Army” been remembered as the most significant series of messages he preached in the United Kingdom during the many years he came here?

Firstly we must make it clear that this introduction therefore will not focus so much on the man himself but rather on his awesome vision of God.  I believe Ern Baxter would wish it so.  This will maintain the balance that Justin Taylor warned must be kept .  I neither wish to exalt Ern Baxter to a pedestal he is not worthy of, neither do I wish to allow him to fade into history when he was a unique gift from God for our good.

I feel a tremendous affinity with Dr John Piper in my own love of Ern Baxter’s vision of God.  Piper wrote that joy always seemed peripheral to him until he read Jonathan Edwards.  Just so for myself the Church as expressed in Ephesians 2:20 seemed peripheral until I met Ern Baxter.  Again just like Piper , it took one sermon of God-centeredness to take me captive.  For him it was Jonathan Edwards’ book, “The End for Which God Created the World”.  For me it has been his presentation of this series, “The King and His Army”.  Those sermons captivated me because of the broad cosmic sweeps of the Kingdom of God that it portrayed.  I remember hearing that sermon for the first time and barely flinching throughout.  Truly, “I have seen the city of God and I cannot turn away!” . 

It should be made clear that to understand Ern Baxter, one must understand the vision of God and His Kingdom that he held – for that vision motivated him, stirred him, and even possessed him for most of his life.  One of the men who knew him best – his administrator Ritch Carlton wrote of his God-breathed vision;

“This is the carefully thought out, studied out and prayed out understanding by a man who ... walked through the squalor of Christianity as it has been demonstrated in the twentieth century.  He was a witness to Christianity’s divisions – from the inside and the outside.  With disappointment he cried, “Where is the Church?” He knew that the Church is God’s instrument to the earth to declare His glory and righteousness.  He loved the Church ... above all else Ern still believed that God had a purpose for the Church in the earth that would be realized in ultimate and complete victory” .

It is my belief that the vision of the Church contained within the “King and His Army” is one of the most dramatic presentations ever portrayed.  Ern was a unique preacher and each of his sermons a beautiful tapestry of compelling vision.  Charles Simpson said of him that he; “used words as artistic tools and in the pulpit painted magnificent pictures” .  Live within the pages of this book and you will find your vision of God and His Church expanded and enhanced like never before.

However a word of apologetic is required if the words of Puritan Thomas Brooks are to be heeded who complained that the world is full of books and of how many contain quality that is really long-lasting and truly beneficial to the reader who invests time and attention in opening it’s pages .  There are three reasons why this book has been compiled and they may be understood as the debt paid out, the vision made clear and the challenge left standing.

1. The Debt Paid Out.

To whom much has been given, much will be required.  It’s a biblical concept that must be faced and yet isn’t often spoken of as is the parable of the talents that the Lord Jesus gave.  If the Scriptural evidence isn’t clear enough, C H Spurgeon’s words cannot be denied or ignored;

“Beloved when you and I have seen or heard anything which God has revealed to us, let us go and write it, or make it known by other means ... You have not been privileged to see, merely to make glad your eyes and to charm your soul; you have been permitted to see in order that you may make others see and that you may go forth and report what the Lord has allowed you to perceive” .

When, through the sovereignty of God, I came into the possession of several hundred audiotapes and videotapes of Dr Ern Baxter I knew that I had a number of choices.  I could keep them to myself, and do very little with them other than to allow them to gather dust or I could constantly listen to them and enjoy them myself.  However I was surprised in speaking to people who had actually been at the Bible Weeks where Ern Baxter spoke, to discover that many of them had forgotten what he said perhaps not having the time or the motivation to revisit the dusty audiocassettes sitting on This seriestheir shelves. 

It was at this point that a respected pastor friend of mine came to visit me at my home and we decided to spend some time together in prayer.  I was amazed when he opened his mouth and began to prophecy ; “The call is to publish”.  He too hadn’t expected such a powerful and direct word.  We had never discussed or even thought of publishing.  But as we weighed the prophecy we felt that the call was to take the measure of glory and anointing contained on the audiotapes and ensure they were transcribed into the written word as soon as possible.

Therefore in the presenting of the transcribed collected sermons of “The King and His Army” – I feel one step closer to repaying the said debt.

2. The Vision Made Clear.

Newfrontiers teacher John Groves was correct when he said that the “King and His Army” is certainly not classical exposition – it is more prophetic teaching .  Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote that the task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the alternative dominant culture around us .  “The King and His Army” most certainly does that.  It perhaps isn’t the best choice of tomes to consult if one wants a theological understanding of the events in 1 and 2 Samuel surrounding Saul and David, but it most certainly does fulfil Brueggemann’s criteria of presenting an alternative to the dominant culture around us.  The reader may not accept it as a genuine word from God but the facts are unaltered that Ern Baxter was and is presenting an alternative – he should therefore be taken seriously as a prophetic preacher .

The major example of the vision presented concerned the three major cities that played a part in David’s life.  The three were Ziklag (1 Samuel 27:6), Hebron (2 Samuel 2:1) and Zion (2 Samuel 5:7).  Of these three cities Ern Baxter said; “These represent three historical junctures in David’s progress towards the ultimacy of his kingship” .  He made the connection between these historical junctures and the prophetic symbolism for us by saying;

“I believe we are at Ziklag right now.  Right now the Heart government of God is under the gun.  It’s no longer welcome in the courts of Saul but people are gathering to the Lord at Ziklag under pressure.  Spiritual authority is rising up all over the earth.  All over the world God is raising up men who are saying things that are attracting people who are sick and tired of Head and Shoulders government and want to get next to the warm heart of David” .

But Baxter made it clear to those in the marquee at the Bible Week that he wasn’t content to allow the Church to remain hidden in Ziklag.  He earnestly believed that the time was coming to move on.  However this mobilising will be accompanied by outpourings of the Holy Spirit.  Ern Baxter said;

“He is anointed a second time.  I believe that this means that there is an increase in the intensity of the divine anointing and provision for the demands that these crises propose.  We can look for an acceleration of the activity of the Holy Spirit as we move on in God and there will come new empowerments and new dimensions and new anointings to accommodate the new demands and the new confrontations and the new requirements that are being made upon this.  This thrills me!” .

This vision of the “coming down” of the Spirit of God was characteristic of Ern Baxter’s vision .  The last two or three decades have seen many men of God, churches and indeed movement of churches that have professed to have been both Reformed and charismatic fall down on one side or the other (mostly in my experience they have abandoned their charismatic dimension and become solely Reformed).  When investigating this decision it has become apparent that this decision is usually made through fear or observance of excess demonstrated in the charismatic movement.  Ern Baxter himself would have had more reason than most to made this decision to abandon all things charismatic.  After all he lived through the Pentecostal Movement and saw excess.  He lived through the Latter Rain Movement and saw excess.  He lived through the Healing Movement and saw excess and he lived through the Charismatic Movement and saw excess .  Disappointed he may have been but at the end of his life and ministry in 1991 he declared that the last 60 years of his charismatic life had been glorious and he would not exchange them for anything .

So why was Ern Baxter any different?  He saw like Gordon Fee that;

“The Word of God is the Spirit’s sword, and as it is faithfully spoken forth in the gospel, in the arena of darkness, men and women hear and are delivered from Satan’s grasp.  Biblical preaching, empowered by the Spirit proclaims a redemptive word that sets the church free from its captivity to the powers”. 

The two must come together!  They belong together!  And Ern would not allow “wrong use, to permit no use, but rather right use”.  This was Ern Baxter’s vision – that God’s purpose for the church was ultimate and complete victory and it would be empowered by the Spirit of God.  The gospel not coming in word alone but with power.

3. The Challenge Left Standing.

The Word of God presents another principle.  Deuteronomy 34 gives an amazing account of Moses final days on earth.  The Lord said to him that he would be taken up a mountain and shown the land from east to west.  He would see it but not cross over there.  In the New Testament the author of the book of Hebrews spoke of “all these having obtained a good testimony through faith did not receive the promise” .  Ern Baxter is one such man and as such his teaching and sermons left many challenges to us who follow.  He seemed to deliberately leave challenges in the Bible Week series that he preached as though he knew that what he was preaching was material that would potentially open the eyes of people’s hearts to the vision and hope of God’s alternative kingdom .

The challenge did not just ring out at the end of the Lakes Bible Week 1975 but again at Bryn Jones Dales Bible Week 1976 in the heartfelt sermon, “The Kadesh Crisis”.  The plea at both Bible Weeks was quite simple.  Dare to believe God.  He insisted that there are two choices facing the Church today – just as there were two choices facing the children of Israel prior to entering the land.  They could die in the wilderness or they could believe God and go in.  Just so with us, we can face dying in immaturity or we can believe that God has got a higher purpose for His Church and a higher calling than we are yet experiencing.  Ern’s administrator Ritch Carlton said Ern cried out; “Where is the Church?” Like Moses he was shown it but he wasn’t permitted to go in.  That challenge still stands open and ready for someone willing to rise up and fulfill it.

This is Part 2 of “The King And His Army” series preached by Ern Baxter at the Lakes Bible Week in the UK in 1975.

Speaking of this powerful prophetic series and it’s significance for the modern Church, Ern declared: “There are four representative men in the Bible that I want to make reference to.  Adam, Abraham, David and our Lord Jesus.  To Adam we relate racially.  To Abraham we relate redemptively. To David we relate royally and our Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of all three men.  Adam was a type of Christ as Christ entered the whole human race.  Abraham through his seed speaks of the redemption of those who are saved through Christ the seed.  As for David, someone said once how they find things in the Bible that have been there all the time.  For years I didn’t find David.  I found Adam and I found Abraham but David, well he was the shepherd boy who killed the giant.  That was about the extent of my placing him in the whole picture.  Now I am seeing that in this present moving of the Holy Spirit David is the prominent figure. Adam is not, neither is Abraham.  We are in the period of the Davidic emphasis.  Why?  David speaks of reigning.  Abraham speaks of redemption.  But redeemed to do what?  Here is the crunch in our theology.  What have we been redeemed to do?  Someone said well we have been redeemed to go to church.  Or we have been redeemed to stop this or stop that.  Has it ever dawned on you that we have been redeemed for a higher calling to fulfill the Davidic type?  That Jesus was not only of the seed of Abraham, but he was of the seed of David to reign, and we are also not only of the seed of Abraham, but through Jesus Christ we are of the seed of David.  And as the seed of David we reign in life by one Christ Jesus! This is an emphasis that has been lost to the church for years.  All we heard was that we get saved to go to heaven.  One of the easy ways out was that there was a bus coming that would get us out of the whole nasty business and so we get up hopefully every morning and say, “Maybe the bus will come today. “

There is a dimension and as we go along in these nights from my point of view I hope to send you back to wherever you come from with a new sense of meaning.  I want you to go from this conference adjusting your crown, pulling your purple toga a little tighter around you, squaring your shoulders and standing ten feet tall to go home to change your community and plant the flag of Jesus Christ on top of City Hall!

The Decline and Death of the Head and Shoulders Man
___________________________________________________
The King and His Army Series - Lakes Bible Week 1975

We’re breaking in at chapter 11 now of 1st Samuel.  Remember God gave Saul every chance.  That’s like God.  And listen - don’t misunderstand God’s concessions.  Just because God concedes something to us, let’s not think that He has changed the Bible to accommodate us.  God has a very gracious way of saying, “Alright Bill - if that’s the way you want it then go ahead”.  Somebody said, “Well if Bill is going the wrong direction, then God will leave him”.  Listen, if that were true then how many of us would have God with us at all tonight?  How many in this tent have taken a wrong turn since you’ve been a Christian?  Question number 2 - when you took the wrong direction did God leave you?  No.  He stayed with you.  Now that’s what we’re saying.  The people said, “Give us a king”.  God said, “Alright - here’s a king and you’re never ever going to be able to say that I didn’t give your king a chance”.  So He gave Saul a new heart and He gave him the Holy Spirit.  Saul prophesied and He gave him a confirmation of His kingship in chapter 11.  He gave him a victory and He rested him with authority

Now let’s look at chapter 11: 

"Now Nahash the Ammonite came up and besieged Jabesh-gilead and all the men of Jabesh came to Nahash and said, ‘Make a covenant with us and we will serve you’.  But Nahash said, ‘I will make it with you on this condition, that I will gouge out the right eye of every one of you thus I will make a reproach on ...’”. 

Whom?  Talk to me - whom?  Israel.  How much of Israel?  All.  Ah but it was only Jabesh Gilead that was being besieged.  That was enough to bring reproach on all Israel because all Israel didn’t have enough life and energy to come to the defence of their fellow countrymen.  Brothers and sisters tonight we stand in the shameful position of being unable to withstand the incursion of the powers of darkness in the raids of the Philistines or come to the rescue of our brethren.  The scandal of our divisions!  The shame of our corporate powerlessness should have driven us to our knees and to God’s Word and to renewed commitment that God will restore the glory of His People in the earth and vindicate the honour and the Name of His Son.  Now verse 3:

"And the elders of Jabesh said to him, ‘Let us alone for seven days that we may send messengers throughout the territory of Israel then if there is no-one to deliver us, then we will come to you’.  Then the messengers came to Gibeah and Saul and spoke these words in the hearing of the people and all the people lifted up their voices and wept.  Now behold Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen and he said, ‘What’s the matter with the people as they weep?’”

So they related to him the words of Jabesh (v6).  "Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul mightily and when he heard these words and he became very angry’”. There is a place for anger.  The Bible says, “Be angry and sin not”.  He took a yoke of oxen and he cut them into pieces and sent them throughout the territory of Israel by the hand of messengers saying, ‘Whoever does not come after Saul and after Samuel” (Saul knew where to plug in.  He was yet recognising God)”.  Alright.  “Saul and after Samuel so shall it be done to his oxen.  Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people and they came out as one man”.  Hallelujah!  It looks good.

“And he numbered them.  Then he sent the messengers and said, ‘Tell the men of Jabesh-gilead that we’re coming to help them”.  What was the result?  (v11) “And it came to happen the next morning that Saul put the people in three companies and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and struck down the Ammonites until the heat of the day and it came about that those of them who were left were scattered so that no two of them were left together.  Then the people said to Samuel, ‘Who is he that said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’.  Bring the men here that we may put them to death’.  But Saul said, ‘Not a man shall be put to death this day for today the Lord has accomplished deliverance in Israel’”.  Now in his first contest as king he won the day by yielding to the Spirit of God.  You say, “Ah that’s great.  He’s a Head and Shoulders man but he’s yielded to the Spirit of God”.  Now this is the area of danger that a Head and Shoulders Man will yield to the Spirit of God but in times of crisis, his wilfullness will come through and he is disqualified.  Saul was a charismatic king and he had a first great victory and so we have him now invested. 

Verse 14; “Then Samuel said to the people, ‘Come let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there’.  So all the people went to Gilgal and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal.  There they also offered sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced”.  Now everything looks great and good.  But let us remember that Saul was a Head and Shoulders Man and on this occasion he is dependent on his charismatic anointing and he has won a victory.  I wonder if I can say this without being too obvious - it is possible for you and me to add the charismatic dimension to our Head and Shoulders wilfullness and get results but not permanently.  You say, “I don’t get you”.  Well let me pluck another illustration out of history.  Samson was a charismatic.  Samson was endued with a charismatic enablement to judge Israel.  Samson said, “I’ve got such power that it really doesn’t matter what I do”.  So Samson was a willful man.  He toyed with his lover and he toyed with the Philistines but he stayed too long.  On one of the last occasions to show that he had this charismatic gift and what he did was not important - he lay with a harlot all night until midnight.  Then he rose up from his bed of sin and went up and pulled up the gates of Gaza and went screaming in charismatic victory up to the top of the hill and said, “Come you Philistines and get me.  I can sleep with a harlot till midnight but still talk in tongues.”

I don’t do that just to shock you, but I hope it shocks you.  I hope it shocks you enough to realize that the message of the epistle to the Corinthians has a very solemn note in it.  The people in the Corinthian church were divided over ministers.  They were getting drunk at the Lord’s Table - there was fornication commonly talked about among them and such fornication as was not so much as named among the Gentiles.  There was incest.  A man was living with his stepmother. There was litigation among them.  There was all kinds of carnality.  Paul said, “You are carnal” yet he said in the same breath, “You come behind in no gift”.  He said, “I want to tell you something - don’t be ignorant of the face that all of our fathers were baptized into Moses in the sea and in the cloud and all did eat the same spiritual meat and drink the same spiritual drink but with the majority of them God was not well pleased and they died in the wilderness.” Because God has charismatically visited you does not mean that you can opt out of your character responsibilities.  God is a God of morality and God is a God of goodness, righteousness, holiness and talking in tongues and prophesying and beating tambourines and getting goose bumps is not a substitute for goodness, joy, peace, love and the holiness that comes to those who are the People of God. 

But you see you must understand that the gifts and callings of God are grace gifts and Samson thought he could get off with his character aberrations as long as he had the strength.  But one day he let out the secret and he lost the secret of his strength - his Nazarene hair.  When he came to this time the Philistines had bound him and he couldn’t break the cords.  He was still a young man and he died prematurely.  In the Corinthian church Paul speaking of the covenant meal - the meal of renewal - he said, “If you do not discern the body for this many sleep”.  You and I may think that because we can exercise charismatic gifts while our character is not right that God is winking at our character aberrations - no!  It’s the goodness of God leading us to repentance and you don’t talk in tongues because you are holy.  You don’t prophecy because you are entirely sanctified.  These are gifts from God.  “And if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.” There must be character with the charismata.  If you don’t have character with the gifts, it’s not long until the gifts become empty and your life starts to wither away and in the Corinthian church people were starting to die prematurely.  Everything seemed to look God for Saul, the “Head and Shoulders Man.” He had the Spirit and had the best of both worlds.  He had his first victory and defeated Nahesh and delivered all of Israel.  They renewed the kingdom.  Alright?

Now let’s move on to chapter 12.  This is one of the most poignant chapters in the whole Bible, outside of Deuteronomy, where Moses sings his swan-song.  (v1): “Then Samuel said to all Israel, ‘Behold I have listened to your voice in all that you said to me and I have appointed a king over you.  And now here is the king walking before you, but I am old and grey.  Behold my sons are before you and I have walked before you from my youth even to this day.  Here I am.  Bear witness against the Lord and His anointed.  Whose ox have I taken or whose donkey have I taken?  Or whom have I defrauded?  Whom have I oppressed or from whose hand have I taken a bride to blind mine eyes with it?  I will restore it to you.’ They said, ‘You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from us or taken anything from any man’s hand.’ He said to them, ‘The Lord is witness against you and His anointed is witness this day that you have found nothing in my hand.’ They said, ‘He is witness.’”

Now Samuel has cleared himself character-wise.  The most he could say about his delinquent boys was that they are before you.  In this there is a gesture of committing them for what they were.  He said, “Here are my boys,” and that’s all he said.  There was the protection of the parental heart.  He felt badly about his boys. He said there they are for what they are.  But as for me? Can you charge me?  Have I defrauded you?  Have I taken anything?  Is there a man in the entire congregation who will stand up and point an accusing finger at me and say, “Samuel, I remember an occasion when you did this or that.” It reminds us of our Lord when He stood before the angry mob and said, “Which of you accuses me of sin.” And not one could lift up their voice.  Nor could they with Samuel.  Now this qualified Samuel to speak.  “Then Samuel the prophet said to the people, ‘It is the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron and who brought your fathers up from Egypt, so now you stand that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous acts of the Lord which He did for you and your fathers when Jacob went into Egypt and your fathers cried out to the Lord.  Then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron who brought your fathers out of Egypt and settled them in this place.” Now what’s he saying?  He is saying what I said to the ministers this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen hear me!  For Christ’s sake hear me!  For your own sake hear me! 

We need in this hour a restoration of a recognition of the divine, unalterable, independent sovereignty of Jesus Christ to establish the rules, the regulations and the dictate and purpose that are His for the functioning of His community in the earth.

What does God want?  Not what do I want?  What does He want?  He is saying, “If only you people would remember your own history.  It was God who has done everything for you up until now.” But he said, “You’re very much like your forefathers.”

Verse 9:  “They forgot the Lord their God, so He sold them into the hands of Cyna, Captain of the army of Hazor and into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of Moab and they fought against him.  They cried out unto the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and Ashtoreths but now deliver us from the hands of our enemies and we will serve Thee.’ Then the Lord sent Jerubbabel, Bedal, Jeptha and Samuel and delivered you from the hands of your enemies all around, so that you live in security.  When you saw Nahash the king of the sons of Ammon come against you, you said, ‘No but a king shall reign over us,’ although the Lord your God was your king.”

Now what’s Samuel saying?  He is saying what I said to you last night.  He is saying, ‘Instead of turning to the God who has a history of delivering you, you turned to the arm of the flesh.  Now God’s going to tolerate you.’ Notice verse 13: “Now therefore here is the king whom you have chosen, whom you have asked for and behold the Lord has set a king over you.” Now isn’t that a paradoxical statement?  He says, “Here is the king that you have chosen; here is the king that you have asked for, and the Lord set him over you.” You say well, “Who is getting the blame here?” The people got what they wanted.  We dealt with that last night.  They got what they wanted.  God said, “You want it?  You sure you want it?  You’re really sure?  Dead sure?  Alright you’ve got it.”

Verse 14:  “If you will fear the Lord and serve Him and listen to His voice and not rebel against the command of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns over you, will follow the Lord your God.  But if you will not listen to the voice of the Lord your God and rebel against the command of the Lord, the Lord will be against you as He was against your fathers.”

Now look at verses 16 and 17.  “Even now take your stand and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes.  Is it not the wheat harvest today?  I will call the Lord that He may send thunder and rain then you will know and see your wickedness is great which you have done in the sight of the Lord by asking for yourselves a king.  So Samuel called to the Lord and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel.”

God sent a sign following Samuel’s warning.  “Then all the people said to Samuel, ‘Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, so that we may not die for what we have added to all our sins, this evil by asking for ourselves a king.’ And Samuel said to the people, ‘Do not fear.  You have committed this evil but do not turn aside from following the Lord, yet serve the Lord with all your heart.’” Isn’t that beautiful?  How God comes down sometimes to our level that He may ultimately lift us up.  Let’s not misunderstand Him when He does that.  Alright.  Verse 21:  “And you must not turn aside for then you would go after futile things which cannot profit or deliver because they are futile.  For the Lord will not abandon His people on account that they are,” all so good-looking.  And they have so much money.  And they are such special people.  Yes?  No.  “The Lord will not abandon His people on account of,” What?  “His great Name.  Because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself.”

I’ve got news for you folks.  He’s going to work you over and He’s going to work you over.  And you’re going to say, “Ouch!”. “For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth and spanks every son that He receives.  If ye be without chastening then are ye bastards and not sons.” Better you come willingly than via the woodshed!  (*laughter*) Because the Lord is not over and above administering some posterior, protoplasmic stimulation. (*laughter*) Now please stay with me.  This is not an easy assignment tonight, because I have got to talk to you about the “Decline and Death of the Head and Shoulders Man.” That’s not a happy subject!  But if you listen carefully I think that you will see what happens to a Head and Shoulders situation and I think that if you’ve got ears to hear then you will see and hear the contemporary parallel.  Alright?  Starting in at chapter 13 this Head and Shoulders Man:

1. Violated Divine Order.

Let’s break in at verse 5:  “Now the Philistines assembled to fight with Israel.  30, 000 chariots and 6, 000 horsemen and people were like the sand on the seashore in abundance and they came up and camped in Michmash, east of Besthaven.  When the men of Israel saw that they were in straight for the people were hard pressed, then the people hid themselves in caves, in thickets, in cliffs, in cellars and in pits.  Also some of the Hebrews crossed the Jordan into the land of Gad and Gilead but as for Saul, he was in Gilgal and all the people followed him trembling.” Now that’s a mess isn’t it?  Here’s the Head and Shoulders Man, the fellow that’s taller than all the Israelites; he’s got a lot in the head and a lot in the shoulders.  He is the brains and the brawn!  But isn’t it amazing that now the Philistines are coming upon them and the people are running; they’re afraid; they are frightened and they are in hiding.  This is the state of God’s people because the Head and Shoulders Man is not able to deal with the Philistines.  The Head and Shoulders Man can’t cast out a demon.  He can’t lead a soul to Christ.  He can’t inspire hope; he can’t lead people in worship.  All the Head and Shoulders Man can do is to give you his best intellectual estimate of the situation as it is. 

I’m not interested in an intellectual estimate of our situation tonight!  Worldwide we are in economic trouble.  There is something that has come into the world economy that even the best experts that we have in that area say they cannot understand.  A friend of mine, whose an owner of a stock broking company in Kansas City, told me one day, “Ern, we have two kinds of people who give us advice on stock.  They tell us how the market is going.  Then we have a second type; these men are scientists.  They understand world trends from recorded economic history.  They built up laws and give us readings on world economy.  They came to us recently and said, “We can no longer serve you.  There is something in the world economy and we don’t know how to define it.  We can’t put our finger on it or explain it.  When the President of the USA called all the leading economists to come up with a solution to the American economy.  They came up with as many solutions as there were men.” I turned to my friend who was telling this to me, and I said to him, “Milt am I hearing you?  Are you saying what I think you’re saying.” He said, “That’s what I am saying.” I said, “You’re telling me that there is a supernatural element that has come into the economy. “ He said, “That’s right.”

I was in Duke University, the headquarters of Paris psychology trying to conduct a Bible seminar.  I repeated this little story and a young man came up to me afterwards and said, “I’m a business administration major in Harvard University.  What you’ve said tonight has been confirmed by the Professors of Economics in Harvard.” A few days later he wrote me a letter with an article out of an economics magazine which said the very same thing, “Something has come into world economy that men cannot handle with their senses,” and as I heard all of that the word of the Lord came to me, “As men cried to me, ‘Alas!  Alas!  For Babylon the great has fallen.’” Now I want to say something very specifically.  Don’t you get uptight about Babylon falling.  And for goodness sakes don’t try and put an extra bushel of potatoes in the attic, because a Gentile might shoot you to get them.  (*laughter*) When Babylon falls, if I wake up tomorrow morning and the pence and pounds are no good and what I’ve got in my pocket won’t buy a thing, I will go out and gather manna off that grass.  I believe God is bringing us into a realm of supernaturalism where we are not going to have to be dependent on the vacillating, ambivalence of an unregenerate society.  God is forming a counter culture and a new society and as surely as God rained forty train loads of manna on the desert sand every morning and gave water out of the flinty rock and made the shoes grow on the kids feet and their clothes grow on their back and brought before them a Captain of the Lord of hosts of Israel with his sword bathed in heaven’s authority, just so surely under a better covenant will God in this crisis hour come to help and aid of His people and prepare us a place in the wilderness.  The world economy be hanged. I’m still going to eat!  (*laughter and applause*)

Now you remember I told you to put something on the back burner last night?  Two things:  how many remember?  Samuel had said to Saul, “Go down to Gilgal and wait seven days. I will be down.” Verse 8: “Now Saul waited seven days according to the appointed time set for Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal and the people were scattering from him, so Saul said.” Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin.  Samuel was of the tribe of Levi.  The tribe of Benjamin had no right handling sacrifices.  Benjamin provided Saul the king, but Levi provided Samuel the priest/prophet.  Samuel said, “Wait for me at Gilgal; I will do the sacrificing and you do the reigning.” I wrote a little booklet years ago and I think it deserved a better fate than having gone through a few issues.  Maybe I will revive it.  It was called, “The Measure of Faith.” There are two kinds of faith.  There’s a faith that you can measure to yourself.  There is the faith for living: “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” You can just get all of that you can handle.  But there is a faith that is measured to everyone of us which is the faith for our place in the body of Christ.  When God measured you that faith, He gave Bryn a measure, and He gave my brother a measure, and me a measure.  That measure you can’t alter.  You can excel in that measure and you can become apt and able in that measure but you can’t alter it.  That is a measure that is measured according to the sovereign appointment of Christ.  When He ascended on high, He gave some apostles and He said, “That’s your measure.” He gave some prophets and He said, “That’s your measure.” Some evangelists and He said, “That’s your measure.” When a man does not stay in his territory and tries to go into another man’s territory, then he gets into trouble.  Find out where your measure is and excel in that but stay out of another fellow’s measure or you will get into trouble. 

Now Saul is a Head and Shoulders Man.  He is not a Word man as we’ll find out.  He is a man who thinks things out.  He said, “Man everything’s rough.  Half of my people are hiding in the rocks and caves and the pits.  Some of them have run away completely.  I’ve got 600 trembling soldiers.  I’m in a mess and divine authority hasn’t arrived yet.  Samuel hasn’t come. I need Samuel! The last time I got the gang together I said, ‘Come to Saul and Samuel’ and they all came.  But there’s no Samuel around and obviously I have lost my touch.” Buster, you never had any touch!  Head and Shoulders Men don’t have influence in a crisis.  You know a Head and Shoulders Man can’t help you.  I had a young fellow come to me in Lauderdale the other night where I was taking Bob Mumford’s Bible class during the month of May.  I was speaking that night on shepherds and when I got through, a young fellow came up to me and said, “I wonder if you would pray for me.” Now in other days, I would have said a prayer over him and got rid of him.  I didn’t know who he was but God is increasing our concern, and let’s be very honest, God is talking to me about being more and more genuine and being frank and open and honest and straight forward.  Not being professional.  If you have to deal with a thing then deal with it honestly.  Don’t opt out; don’t pretend.

So I said to the young man, “Son do you have a shepherd.” He said, “Well I go to First-So-and-so church in Miami.” I said, “I asked you, ‘do you have a shepherd.’” “Well,��� he said, “We have the minister.” “What’s his name.” “Dr So-and-so.” “Do you know him,” I asked.  He said, “No.” “If you were in trouble, would you call him.” He said, “I couldn’t reach him.  The church is too big and he’s too busy.” So I said to him, “I repeat my question, do you have a shepherd.” “Well I’ve got Jesus.” “Great,” I said, “I’ll see you later.” I wasn’t really going to walk away.  But as I walked away, I looked back and I could see shock and hurt on his face.  I turned back to him and said, “You see son, Jesus is not enough.  What you’re really asking for is a Jesus with skin on his face and a Jesus with hands.  Why do you want me to put my hands on you?  Why do you want me to pray for you?  Because in the order of God, He has delegated authority to shepherds and apostles and prophets.  There is a whole order of men in the earth tonight who have delegated authority to look after God’s people.” I said to him, “You are hungry for one of God’s men to touch you.” Big tears came into his eyes and I said, “Come here.” I put my arms around him and I drew him to me and started to pray for him.  He was a big old fellow and he put his head down on my shoulder.  I prayed and said, “Oh God, all I pray for this boy tonight is that he will find what he’s looking for temporarily in me; that he will find arms to go around him in his need.  A shoulder that he can put his head on when he’s discouraged.  A voice that can speak to him when he needs counsel.  God I don’t know where he’s going when he leaves my arms, but please work a miracle; let him find a shepherd.” Ladies and gentlemen, God’s restoring spiritual authority across America tonight.  Hundreds and thousands of people are finding shepherds; they are finding men that are appointed to love them, care for them, teach them, look over them, appointed to love them and counsel them.  And this is upsetting Head and Shoulders Government!  The Head and Shoulders want to preach a sermon on Sunday morning and collect the dues then send them home.  But God is raising up shepherds that will look after you Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the middle of the night, the middle of the morning, whenever, whatever.  It’s a new day!  Glory to God!  (*applause*)

Now the Head and Shoulders Man says, “Well spiritual authority isn’t coming, so I will do it myself.” Now he waited seven days according to the appointed time set by Samuel, but Samuel didn’t come.  Now look at verse 9: “So Saul said;” that’s the start of the trouble.  “Bring to me the burnt offerings and the peace offerings.  And he offered the burnt offerings.  It came about as soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering that behold Samuel came.” Why didn’t Samuel come before?  Because God was showing that the Head and Shoulders Man didn’t have heart obedience.  Let me tell you something; if you’re going to be the Head and Shoulders Man, you will reach a point where God doesn’t show up when He should and you will do your own thing.  That proves you are a Head and Shoulders Man.  But if you are a heart man, you will wait until God comes.  Because the Bible says we are to come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need or as Bishop Westcott translates it, “In the nick of time.” How many know anything about God arriving in the nick of time?  (*laughter*)

Man, through the years I have learned that.  I’d say, “Lord it’s Monday morning You know.  Could you give me a hint about next Sunday?  Just a hint?” (*laughter*) Nothing.  Tuesday would come, and I would still feel pretty good.  I’d say, “Well it’s Tuesday Lord, have you got any thoughts about next Sunday?” (*laughter*) Wednesday would come and I’d say, “Er Lord?  Have you got any thoughts about next Sunday?” Thursday would come, and I was busy all day getting ready for Thursday night so didn’t have much time to think about Sunday, hoping that while I was preparing for the Bible Study something would come.  So Friday morning I would wake up and say, “Lord, it’s Friday.  (*laughter*) Today Lord?” Nothing.  Saturday.  Saturday noon.  Nothing.  And now I’ve got the butterflies.  I’ve got some other physical problems too.  (*laughter*) I think I’m talking to a congregation of ministers here!  Saturday night, it’s awful.  Nothing.  It’s two in the morning and I’m drinking my 4th drink of warm milk.  (*laughter*) It’s Sunday morning, and no angel has appeared.  No voices.  I’ve been reading the Bible and going over all my old sermon notes.  I’ve been calling on the saints, burning candles, doing anything!  (*laughter*) Now I am sitting on the platform, and I’m desperate.  “Lord I’m on the platform.  Elder So-and-so is leading the hymns.  Lord?  Lord!” The choir gets into the anthem and I hope it’s an hour.  (*laughter*). Now, I know the anthem is about to end and still nothing.  The elder is announcing me.  “Lord, it’s between here and the pulpit.  Lord?  LORD!” (*laughter*)

Well that may be a bit of an exaggeration but not too much!  The Lord is wanting to teach His committed people that He will be there when He’s needed.  But Head and Shoulders Men won’t wait.  Even some of God’s heart men are sometimes a bit Head and Shoulder-ish.  See God told Abraham, “Abraham, I am going to give you and Sarah a son, the seed.” Nothing happened.  Abraham kept asking and Sarah kept saying, “No.” At last Sarah thought, “Well, I am going to have to come up with some help for the Lord.  It’s going to be hard on me to do this.  She called her husband aside and said, ‘Now Abraham I think we ought to help God out.  It’s going to grieve me greatly, but I suggest you go into my maid Hagar and she will conceive and I will have a child by proxy and God will confirm the blessing to him.’” Abraham said, “OK if that’s what you want.” So he went into Hagar, and she conceived and bore Ishmael.  You know it is an interesting thing and I don’t want to get into this too much, but Hagar, the Bible says, was an Egyptian handmaiden.  Isn’t it interesting that it identified her as an Egyptian for Egypt is a type of the world.  Up until now the world was serving Sarah the mother of the holy seed or the church if you will.  But the minute that Abraham and Sarah made use of the world to try and accomplish the will of God and Hagar knew that she was pregnant with Abraham’s child, everything changed.  Sarah called her and said, “Hagar?  Hagar!” “What do you want?” “What do I want?  I want you to get in here!  You’ve never spoken like that to me before.” “Madam, I want you to know that I am bearing your husband’s child.”

What am I saying?  The minute that you and I get under obligation to the world, it stops being a servant to us and starts to tell us what to do.  I don’t owe the world anything.  They didn’t give me my salvation or my Baptism with the Holy Spirit or my call of the ministry.  They didn’t give me the blessed Presence of the Spirit.  They didn’t give me the Word of God.  They don’t give me supernatural protection.  I don’t need them to help me out at all.  God’s going to do what He is going to do and I am going to go with God.  Now Ishmael came along and when Ishmael was a young lad, along came Isaac.  You see the problem is that, if you have an Ishmael, sooner of later Isaac is going to come and you will have both.  A lot of us have both Ishmaels and Isaacs!  Abraham said, “Lord can’t we arrange to have them both?” “No,” He said, “Ishmael has got to go.” Abraham had to send Ishmael out.  Do you know that God didn’t recognize Ishmael as far as the seed was concerned, because He asked Abraham to take Isaac up Mount Moriah and offer him and He said, “Take Isaac thine only son.” As far as God was concerned, the son He recognized in a divine continuum was Isaac.  God doesn’t need our help!  And the Head and Shoulders Man had violated divine order and he broke in and made a sacrifice.

So Samuel came on the scene verse 11 and said, “What have you done?” Saul said, “Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the appointed days, and that the Philistines were assembling at Mishmash, therefore I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not asked the favor of the Lord, so I forced myself.’” How many know anything about forced revivals?  “God you’ve got to move.  You’ve got to move Lord!  You’ve got to move.” So we use our gimmicks, soft lighting and quiet organ music.  All the theatrics.  Everything the world uses.  We’d do anything to get God to move!  God lengthens a leg a quarter of an inch and by the time we are through, its 3 feet.  (*laughter*) We exaggerate.  We use psychological methods.  We will do absolutely anything to get God to move, forced revivals.  God doesn’t need our help to force revival.  He has told us what to do for Him to move and that is to obey the principles of His Word and when we obey, then He will move.  He doesn’t need our assistance with a load of gimmickry and a whole load of suggestions from us as how to build the Kingdom of God.  He has told us how to build the Kingdom of God. If we go by His recipe, we will get it built!  If we keep on doing it our way, we will raise a race of Ishmaels and when Isaac comes, we are going to have to make a terrible adjustment.

Now the first thing the Head and Shoulders Man did was to violate divine order.  So Samuel went after him.  Look at verse 13:

“And Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have acted foolishly.  You have not kept the commandments of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, for now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.  But now your kingdom shall not endure; the Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own (here’s the first hint) heart.’”

Now we’ve got the first indication of where God’s sensitivity lies.  Not with the Head and Shoulders Man but with a man after His own heart.  “And the Lord appointed him as ruler over His people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.” Are you listening?  God will use those who will obey His Word.  When you go outside of the Word of God to try and get the Kingdom of God built, God will disown you, or me, or anyone else.  Now if you’ve got ears to hear, you hear!  What is God doing across the earth?  We are in tents, homes, cottages and barns.  In New Zealand they are in public buildings and in Australia they are in warehouses.  In America they are in any kind of thing that will keep the snow and rain off the church!  God is not interested in us putting on a Head and Shoulders display.  God is interested in us obeying Him.  If He says go and stand in the corner of the tent on your head and whistle, then you go and stand on your head and whistle; if that’s what He says!  “Abraham,” “Yes Lord?” “I want you to leave Ur of the Chaldeans.” “OK, Lord.  Where am I going?” “You just leave and I will show you.” “Well, I would like to know where I am going.” “None of your business right now; just get up and leave.” (*laughter*) The Bible simply says, that Abraham got up and left and went on to become the father of the faithful. 

See what is upsetting Head and Shoulders government is that He is blessing heart people.  You say, “Well they are psychologically unstable; they are emotionally unbalanced, and they are mostly illiterate.” (*laughter*) I remember reading the British Weekly years ago, and it said that the Pentecostal people were the fanatical fringe of Protestantism.  Well, I’ve got news for you; Pentecostal people are now the controversial center of Christianity because God has sent His Spirit not to be laughed at.  God sent His Spirit not to be shoved onto the peripheries of the Christian thing.  He sent His Spirit to replace the Lord Jesus Christ at the very heart of the redeemed community.  Jesus said, “It is expedient for you that I go because I am God localized.  For when I go away, I am going to go and the Father, and I will send the Holy Spirit back, and He is going to be the Trinity universalized.  When the Holy Spirit comes, He is going to spread all over the earth, and He is going to bring men and women into the redeemed community, and He is going to establish the Kingdom of God among the sons of men. He is going to display the glory of God.” God will not allow the Holy Spirit to be shouted at, shoved, or pulled anymore.  Have you thought about the sufferings of the Holy Spirit?  We preachers dramatically point out the sufferings of Christ on the Cross.  For three and a half years He suffered and then that awful agony on Calvary.  All of which is true, but have you thought that for two thousand years the Holy Spirit has been down here being blasphemed, neglected, rejected, confounded with para-psychology and extra sensory perception, called nasty names, denied, grieved and quenched for 2, 000 years!  He’s suffered.  It’s His hour now!  It’s His hour to come into supremacy and prominence, and the Spirit is at the heart of the thing now.  He is not out there knocking to come in; He’s in here!  Directing the traffic!  (*applause*)

Let’s jump over to chapter 15 and see the second thing that the Head and Shoulders Man.  Stay with me.  He:

2. Made Provision for the Flesh.

Now before I get into this, quickly, I am going to give you the results of about forty study hours of work on the word, “Flesh.” I am going to give you a capsilated definition.  Whenever the word, “Flesh” is used in the New Testament in a moral sense you will find that this definition will fit.  If you want to write it down; you are welcome.  It’s mine, but there is no copyright on it.

The flesh morally considered is the tendency in our nature to self-gratifying behavior.  It’s not somebody else living in you; it is you behaving in a self gratifying manner.

Now anywhere the New Testament says not to walk in the flesh or uses the word, “flesh” in a moral sense, you can take that little simple definition and it will fit.  Ladies and gentlemen, if you are going to have a part in what God is doing in this hour you are going to have to dethrone once and for all any intention you have to have your own way, as opposed to His way on any issue.  Boyfriends; girlfriends; automobiles; homes; businesses; anything.  You have no right to make a self-gratifying decision.  You see we’ve preached Christ as Saviour for so long that we don’t realize that you can receive Christ as Saviour and not receive Him as Lord, and then it’s questionable whether you have received Him at all.  For every time the Bible speaks of Him as Saviour, it speaks of Him 29 times as Lord.  The ratio is 29:1.  Yet we go into evangelistic meetings and we urge people, “Won’t you please accept Christ as your Saviour?” Fiddlesticks!  That’s not what it’s about at all.  The whole tendency today is that Jesus will be your buddy; come just as you are with all your sins, and He will forgive you, and He will be your buddy, and He will give you a little card with your name on, and you will put it in your pocket next to your heart.  Then when you get up there, you will flick it out and say, “There St Peter, one night in a meeting I raised my hand and there’s my card.” That’s not what it’s about at all.  Paul says that salvation begins when you confess Jesus Christ as Lord.  Being saved means that you turn your life totally over to Jesus Christ as despot. 

There are two Greek words for “Lord.” One is “kurios” and the other is “despotes” from which we get our English word, “Despot.” Now we think of a despot in a bed sense, but think of it in a good sense for a moment.  Think of it as one who has total power to do whatever needs to be done for you under any circumstance, and if you will give your life to Him, He will do that thing for you under any given circumstance.  You can’t get a better deal than that!  Blessed despot, take my life; govern me!  Rule me!  I never could understand that old hymn, “God be in my head and in my understanding,” now however, I love it.  I was a boy soloist in the choir of 60 boys, and I remember we were singing, and I had to sing the solo part to that hymn.  I thought, “What in the world do I want God in my head for.” (*laughter*). You see I was raised as a boy on the other side, the emotional side.  “Let Jesus come into your heart.” What that was I’m blessed if I know, but it had to do with weeping and going to an altar and getting emotional and going away and doing what you jolly well please.  The Gospel of the Kingdom is the rule of God’s government over our lives, and it means that you don’t belong to yourself, and Jesus Christ has total right to your life, to govern you completely.  That’s not bad; that’s good because you haven’t made a good job of it up until now.  So let Him have it.

Now the Head and Shoulders Government does not deal with the flesh.  You know that.  But what is happening today?  I said to a group of my brothers the other day, “Brothers, are you finding God bringing extra pressures into your life?” They all looked at me as though I had been reading their private experiences.  Any man today who is trying to walk in what God is doing, God is pushing him into corners and back you come.  “Lord, you never said anything about that before.” He says, “No I didn’t have to before, but this is a special day, and while I’m talking about this, I want to talk about this.” (*laughter*) I said, “Lord take it easy!” (*laughter*). You see He cannot alter the world with a bunch of people who are not absolutely submitted to His Lordship.  So the next test of the Head and Shoulders Man is what he would do with the flesh.  Chapter 15: 

“Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘The Lord sent me to anoint you as king over His people over Israel.  Now therefore listen to the word of the Lord.  Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he set himself against them on the way from Egypt.  Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has and do not spare him but put to death both man and women and child and infant and ox and sheep and camel and donkey; wipe them out!”

Alright, that’s the word of the Lord.  Verse 7:  Quickly now. 

“So Saul defeated the Amalakites from Havalak as you go to Shea which is east of Agag, and he captured Agag which is east of Egypt.  He captured Agag, the king of the Amalakites alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.  But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the takings, the lambs and all that was good, and was not willing to utterly destroy them all, but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.”

Now why didn’t Saul kill Agag?  Because Agag was too like Saul.  You see a Head and Shoulders Man reserves the right to make Head and Shoulder’s judgements.  God said kill them all!  Agag was undoubtedly a great man.  You had to be a great man to become a king, because in those days you became a king by beating up everyone else.  That was the way with tribal warfare.  You became king because no one else could beat you up in the tribes, so you would have had to have been a big fellow.  Saul looked at him and said, “I’m sure God wouldn’t want me to get rid of him.” He said, “Look at those sheep, I’m sure the Lord would love to have those sheep for some of the religious services.  Samuel would like them.  I’m sure the Lord didn’t mean all.  We’ll save the best.” The best of what?  The best of the Amalakites.  The Amalakites are the flesh!  You don’t save the best of the worst.  You don’t save the good of the bad.  Are you there?  (*laughter*) Don’t go to sleep on me now!

Now without me being too specific, think what has Head and Shoulders government in Christendom done about the flesh?  It saved some very fine things about the flesh.  Do you know what is cursing the professing community today?  We are so loaded with the best of the flesh that God can’t get a wiggle of the little finger out of the Head and Shoulders Government, and when God starts to move, they say, “But our culture Lord!” Culture be hanged; what’s culture going to do for you?  In that last day when the Lamb sits on the throne, His countenance angry in judgment; the great men and the mighty men will call for the mountains to fall on them.  “ALL!”

Verse 10: “Then the Word of the Lord came to Samuel saying, ‘I regret that I have made Saul king for he has turned back from following me and has not carried out my commands.’ And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all night and Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul and it was told Samuel saying.”

If you go through the Bible you will find every man of God gets up early in the morning, if God wants him to do something.  Now it’s not literal.  Although, I do get up in the morning early; it’s no virtue.  What it means is that the first order of the day is not to serve yourself, but you serve Him.  If He says do something get up early and get it done.  Abraham got up early in the morning.  Isaac got up early in the morning.  Samuel got up early in the morning and went down to meet the king of Israel who was supposed to have cleaned out the Amalakites.  Saul was supposed to have done a mighty work with the flesh, to have had a great sanctification and holiness convention and got rid of the flesh.  Samuel was going down to see the results of the meeting.  He gets down there early in the morning, and says, “Where’s the king?” Someone said, “Oh he said he would be late.” “Late?  What’s he doing?” It says in the NASB, “Saul came to Carmel and behold set up a monument to himself.” Then turned and proceeded on.  What was Saul doing?  He had not obeyed the Lord by cleaning out the flesh and he celebrated his disobedience by setting up a monument to himself.  (*laughter*) The world is covered with monuments that men have set up to themselves. 

The judgment seat of Christ is going to be interesting when you see men walking up to the judgment seat, and you say, “Who’s that?” Someone says, “That’s Jack Jones!” “Who’s Jack Jones?  D L Moody I know and Billy Graham I know but who’s Jack Jones?” Jack Jones was a man whose name has never appeared in a magazine.  Jack Jones was a man who served God deeply and fervently and devotedly.  He burnt his life out unseen and unsung but up here he is a big shot.  I don’t know if any of you know of a man by the name of Baker.  He wrote some books and I knew him.  He was as rough and ordinary as an old shoe.  He was an apostle in China and he left groups of people in China that were self-contained and had elders.  When the Communists came, the Christians said to him, “Go, don’t stay.  Go and tell others what you’ve told us.  You warned us what was coming and we will survive.” He said, “I will stay and die with you.” “No,” they said, “Go!” He was already an old man.  He went over to the Chinese island of Formosa and at the age of 70 learned a whole new language.  When he came to Canada, I entertained him.  He’d come home because his wife was not well, and he thought he would bring her home.  She wasn’t getting any better, so they got together one day and she said, “Now husband, we have both given our lives to God and I know your heart is back in Formosa.  It looks like the time has come for me to go home.  Why don’t we say goodbye and you go on, and I will see you in the morning. “ He said, “Well alright.” That was the kind of commitment they had.  So they got everything ready, and he was going to go back and leave her for the Lord to take her home.  Instead of that the Lord healed her, and they both went back to Formosa.  (*laughter*) The last letter I saw from them, he was in his nineties and now I hear he’s gone to be with the Lord.  You don’t know him; how many of those people are around?

A monument?  There’s no monument to him!  You go all over the countryside and men want to leave monuments to themselves. 

The only monument I want to leave is a monument that is recorded in the book of God that says I gave myself without reserve to the work of God and the people of God; what are monuments? 

My loving brother and sister, when the world is on fire, “I want God’s bosom to be my pillow.  Hide Me over in the Rock of Ages, Rock of Ages cleft for me.” Why care about a monument?  A monument is only going to be here until the Lord cleans the world up.  I’ll take my monuments later on; praise God!  Verse 13: “Then Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him.” Oh religion is great.  Can’t you see Saul coming to him and saying?  Remember in the days of Jesus, they were always coming and saying religious things?  The flesh is always trying to be religious especially in the presence of the servants of God.  They get very religious.  You know, “God bless you.” Look at Saul. This Head and Shoulders Man who has disobeyed the Lord; look at him and look what he said. 

Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord!” (*laughter*) That’s supposed to solve everything?  “I have carried out the commands of the Lord!.” You fibber!  (*laughter*)

This raises another point; when you start to vacillate and play around with the flesh, you become a rationalist and a liar.  You don’t face things for what they really are.  But Samuel said, “If you obeyed the commands of the Lord, what are these fleshly sounds that I am hearing?  What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” “Oh, said Saul, “I can tell you about that.  They brought them from the Amalakites for the people.” The people.  Here we go again.  “The people; I didn’t do it; the people did it.  The people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God.” Your God.  See he’s trying to play up to Samuel.  “But the rest we have utterly destroyed. “ “Then Samuel said to Saul, ‘Wait and let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.’” (*laughter*) Man, I wouldn’t like to have been Saul at that point!  (*laughter*) Any of you kids know what it is like when Mum says, “Wait till Dad comes home tonight.” (*laughter*) “He said, ‘Saul.’ Saul said, ‘Speak.’” (*laughter*)

Then Samuel said, “Is it not true that though you were ill in your own eyes you were made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed you king over Israel?  And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go and destroy the sinners, the Amalakites and fight against them till they are exterminated;’ why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?  But rushed upon the spoil greedily and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” “Then Saul said to Samuel, ‘I did obey the voice of the Lord and went on the mission which the Lord sent me, and I brought back Agag the king of Amalek and have utterly destroyed the Amalakites, but the people took some of the spoil, the sheep, the oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal.’ And Samuel said, ‘Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as obeying the voice of the Lord?  Behold to obey is better than all your fleshly sacrifices.’” Hello?  Did you hear me?  You can’t buy God.  He didn’t say, “Son, give me your violin.” He didn’t say, “Son, give me your voice.” He said, “Son, give me your heart, and if I’ve got your heart I’ve got all the rest of it.” “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed them than the fat of rams; to rebel is as the sin of divination.  Disobedience leads to deception.

This is a heavy word, and I’m running way over time, but can I just go a little longer Bryn?  Let me tell you something, and you hear it now because these are important days.  When you rebel against God, or I rebel against God, or any man who is in the professed redeemed community rebels against God, on the authority of the Word of God, he is a candidate for deception.  Remember, it is obedience or deception, because if you disobey you will walk into deception.  “Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.” “Then Saul said to Samuel, ‘I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed,’ and he pled with Samuel.  Samuel said, ‘No I am not even going to go back with you; you have rejected the Word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.’” Do you see the equation that keeps coming up people?  The Word = God = the Word?  You and I are only valid members of the Kingdom of God, as we respond obediently to the Word.  You can’t detour that; you can’t go over it; you can’t get under it; you can’t go through it; you have got to embrace it.  The Word is God and God is the Word and the Word is the ultimate thing and the Word is the thing that has got to be obeyed. 

Look at verse 28: “So Samuel said to the king, ‘The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you.’” Why was David better than Saul?  David was better than Saul in only one area, and that was that Saul was a Head and Shoulders Man, and David was a heart man.  He believed God and obeyed His Word.  Oh, listen to him in Psalm 119: “Thy Word.” Listen to the Psalmist singing about the Word.  How he depended on God, an altogether different man.  He was a heart man.

Alright, let me finish up by saying these final things.  Fleshly rationalization over what God requires always goes with disobedience.  “I can’t go with God because He’s going to do this or that.” Don’t try and rationalize God’s Word; obey it.  The terrible price of disobedience is to lose what you are in God functionally.  I’m not unchristianizing you, but the terrible price of disobedience is to lose your place in God functionally.  The inevitable fate of the flesh, what is it?  After Samuel had dealt with Saul; look at verse 32: “Then Samuel said, ‘Bring me Agag king of the Amalakites,’ and Agag came to him cheerfully.” Or in other translations, he came mincingly.  What did he do?  He came into the presence of Samuel cheerfully!  He said, “Surely the bitterness of death is over.  The war is all finished and you are surely not going to kill me; that wouldn’t be the thing to do.” Samuel said, “You bet it’s all over.” What did he do?  You see the flesh.  It says, “Now, come on brother; don’t be such a fanatic.  Just hold it.  Don’t go destroying everything; after all we have had our little revival now.  Let’s just level off.” Level off nothing; this war is to the death.  Look what he did.  Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women, and Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal.” Wack!  Pow!  There lay the flesh, splattered all over the ground.

3. What is the end of Head and Shoulders Government? 

Now, I don’t pretend to be a prophet or a son of a prophet, but you listen to me, as sure as God is God and God’s Word is God’s Word the Head and Shoulder’s government like the Head and Shoulder’s government of every other generation in the realm of the professed Kingdom of God will go into deception.  It will seek out the witch of Endor, and it will be eventually be killed by the very thing that it allowed to live.  When Saul was in the agony of his death blood, an Amalakite came by and saw that he was still alive, and Saul called him over and said, “My life is still in me; do me a favor and plunge the knife deeply into me. I don’t want to be caught by the Philistines or they will torture me.” So the Amalakite slew him, and then came running to David, and told him what he had done.  David rent his clothes and wept.  We will deal with that later.  And he said, “Fall on that Amalakite and kill him.” Now that Amalakite wouldn’t have killed Saul, if Saul had killed him.  If you don’t deal with the flesh, the flesh will deal with you.  It’s who kills whom first.

I want to finish with 1 Chronicles 10, and lets see who does the killing.  In the ultimate, verses13-14:  “So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the Lord because of the Word of the Lord which he did not keep.” “Because of the Word of the Lord which he did not keep. And also, because he asked counsel of a medium making enquiry of it and did not enquire of the Lord, therefore, He killed him and turned the kingdom to David the son of Jesse.” I declare to you, and we will develop this theme later, God is going to take care of the Head and Shoulders Government and establish Jesus Christ as unassailable Lord indeed.  Head and Shoulders cannot survive.  But be sure what camp you are in.  Where are you tonight?  Are you playing between Head and Shoulders and heart?  Or have you sold out completely to the Word and will of God?  “Whatever it costs I’ll go with God.” We’ll find out in the next 3 nights what it costs to go with God.  It costs an awful lot more to play the Head and Shoulders game than it does to go with God in heart.  You think it’s rough in this hour - God is hard on those of us who are trying to walk in His ways and obey His Word.  It’s nothing compared to what God is going to do with Head and Shoulders before He is finished.  I’m happy to be where I am.  How about you?

Transitioning Between Kingdoms is the third in The King And His Army, the five part series of powerful and relevant prophetic messages delivered by Ern Baxter in 1975 at the Lakes Bible Week in the UK.

My colleague and good friend Arthur Wallis pointed out to me at breakfast this morning, before my eyes were quite open, that I had made two blunders last night – which I think isn’t bad for such a long sermon.  (*laughter*).  I had attributed the statement; “I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion” to Psalm 110 and it’s actually Psalm 2.  (*laughter*).  I am sure that He is going to do it whether it’s in Psalm 2 or in Psalm 110, but its good to be accurate.  And then I had attributed Samuel’s lineage to Levi and he was an Ephramite.  Now of course I had done both of these deliberately because I wanted to destroy any illusions you may have had to my infallibility.  (*laughter*).  I may tell you if it’s any comfort to you that I have made some dandies in the past, such as the night that I put the ring on the Prodigal Son’s toe.  (*laughter*).  What further added to my discomfort on that occasion was that I couldn’t figure out why everybody was laughing.  (*laughter*).  Thank God for laughter!  When God saved me, He converted my ‘laugher’ and my ‘cry-er’ and hand-clapper and my jumper-up and downer as well as every other part of me.  Thank God that the last two nights are over!  (*laughter*).  I don’t like dealing with dismal aspects of history but they are necessary and we must take the bitter with the sweet.  We have been talking on the last two nights about a man by the name of Saul, son of Kish, who stood head and shoulders above all Israel.  We referred to him as the “Head and Shoulders Man”.

I was teaching on this in a conference in America – and do you have “Head and Shoulders Shampoo” over here?  (*laughter*).  On the last night of my ministry I came up to the pulpit and there was a tube of Head and Shoulders Shampoo on it.  (*laughter*).  I’m thinking of having it framed and put it up in my study.  We are teaching on the assumption, which we feel is valid that as kingship was inaugurated in Israel that God allowed Saul to become the first king and he was the choice of the people.  Furthermore he was a Head and Shoulders Man.  The Head speaks of human wisdom, and the shoulders speak of human strength.  Now I don’t know how well you have heard what I am saying or if you have been able to put it into the context that I hoped you would put it, and that is that Saul was the king of the Israelites, and that he was a king who tried to run Israel by the human mind and human strength.  It is interesting that the Ark was not consulted in the days of Saul.  Saul did not attempt to govern Israel under divine authority, and it would appear that the only times he turned to divine authority was when he needed Samuel to dig him out of a scrape.  As we learned last night, he finished up his life in deception and in demonic delusion and torture and was killed by an Amalakite, whom he should have wiped out when God told him to wipe the Amalakites out – instead an Amalakite wiped him out ultimately.  But we finished up by pointing out that the one who killed Saul was God Himself.  A rather terrible thing to say, and yet, we read on several occasions that God killed men because they were just too bad to live and had outlived their usefulness.  Now we have already discovered that Samuel told Saul that the kingdom was going to be taken from him and given to a neighbour who was better than he was.  So Saul knew that his days were finished and that the kingdom was going to be given to someone else.  Tonight we are going to look at the transition from one king to the other.  And there are some very practical lessons here that I trust we can hear and benefit by, and I pray that God will give us clear thought and articulation so that we can bring them to you.

So I’d like it if we can break in at the end of 1st Samuel 15.  As we look at men like Samuel and other great men in Israel’s history, we are inclined to put an aura of perfection around them and of course none of them merit that.  All men outside of our Lord Jesus Christ had their flaws.  Although Samuel was a great man and was obviously morally pure and could stand before the congregation of Israel and challenge them to charge him with any act of moral impropriety – yet he was still a man, and he had his areas of weakness as we will discover tonight.  But they are weaknesses that I think will be very quickly recognised as weaknesses that we ourselves have.  After Samuel had to tell Saul that the kingdom was being taken from him, he went up to Ramah (v34).

“But Saul went up to his house at Gibeah.  And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death.  For Samuel grieved over Saul and the Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel.” Samuel grieved over Saul. 

Why did Samuel grieve over Saul?  I think that Saul was exactly what the Bible said he was.  A tall, handsome, broad shouldered, attractive man, and Israel’s first king, who had at the beginning showed such promise as he destroyed Nahesh, and was received by all Israel as king.  Then Samuel watched him deteriorate as he disregarded divine order and forced himself to sacrifice at Gilgal – refused to deal with the flesh and wipe out the Amalakites – celebrating his fleshly disobedience by building a monument to himself and going on to rationalise his disobedience and tell Samuel that what he had done with the Amalakites was what he thought was best to do.  That’s where the ‘Head and Shoulders’ thing came in.  God said utterly destroy.  Saul said, “I disagree with God – we should save Agag and we should save the best of the flocks.” And for all of this, he was disallowed the kingship.  However, Samuel grieved over him.

Now we move into (v1).  I think that Samuel grieved over him because he found himself attracted by this man.  I hope that what I’m going to inject here is not foreign or alien to the text.  But I think that all of us tonight are impressionable.  Big things impress us!  I don’t mean any offence if there are Roman Catholic friends here tonight, but I remember reading years ago the biography of Cardinal Newman, and there comes the point in his life when as an Anglican he is thinking about changing over to the Roman church, and he is going to make a trip to Rome, which in those days was arduous and difficult.  The story of his trip to Rome is quite interesting but when he came in sight of St Peters, he was so impressed by what he saw that he said, “This must be the true church.” Now what impressed him was the magnificence and the grandeur of the externality of the Roman church.  He was impressed by it.  He said, “This must be the true church.” I’ll never forget that phrase – it gripped me.  Because I saw this man making his final decision in terms of being impressed by St Peters.  So he came back to England and he went to a parish priest, dropped to his knees and said “Receive me into the true church,” and went on to become one of Rome’s princes.  I think if we’re honest tonight every one of us are impressed by the things we see.  Big things – things impress us.  I am sure Samuel was impressed by Saul, and he grieved over the fact that Saul had failed, because Saul had impressed him.  This great handsome broad shouldered hunk of flesh, “Now the Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel?’” Now that’s a rebuke.  He is saying, “Samuel how long are you going to grieve over what I have had to do with Saul?  Are you going to agree with me?  Or are you going to go on weeping in your closet over the fact that this man has failed?  Who are you with Samuel?”

I wonder sometimes if many of our decisions are not made in the realm of sentiment, rather than in the realm of principle.  God had rejected Saul.  It was Samuel’s duty to stand with God.  Let me digress to give you another Biblical illustration of this.  When the Tabernacle was inaugurated, the two sons of Aaron – Nadab and Abihu – took strange fire into the sanctuary and fire from God came out and burned them, killed them on the spot.  God spoke to Moses and said, “Tell your brother Aaron that he must not grieve over what has happened, for the anointing oil is upon him.” Now this seems severe.  It seems to be a harsh demand on the part of God.  That old gentleman had to stand there and watch his nephews carry their cousins, Nadab and Abihu, yet in their linen clothes or coats past him, out to be buried in their coats outside the camp.  And he couldn’t shed a tear because Aaron stood in the temple as the representative of God with the anointing oil upon him.  This was a divine judgement, and even in terms of his own flesh and blood, he must not show emotion – he must not in any way indicate that he disagreed with God’s judgement, and I can imagine that he stood there biting his lips as he saw the inert forms of his two boys go by to be buried.  He would never see them again!  Undoubtedly he conjured up visions of their childhood – when they were little fellows running around their mother’s knee, and now in this great hour, when they were to share with him in one of Israel’s highest moments – the inauguration of the Tabernacle.  His boys had failed, and he couldn’t allow himself a trembling lip.  But he had to stand there stoically, and watch the boys go by him to their premature funeral, and not in any way show emotion because the anointing oil was upon him, and he had to stand with the verdict of God.

It seems severe doesn’t it?  Yet the question tonight is – how much are we motivated by sentiment and traditional attachment and religious nostalgia?  How much are we doing what we’re doing not out of principle, but because we are sentimentally attached to something that God has left?  What is the answer?  God said, “Samuel how long are you going to carry on like this?  Are you going to stand with Me or are you going to lament what I have had to do with Saul?  Where are you Samuel?  I will tell you what I want you to do if you are with Me.  Fill your horn with oil and go!” Now what does that mean?  It means get a new anointing and get with what God is doing!  Stop hanging around the old tombs and getting nostalgic over the revivals of other days and going back to see what God did yesterday – but through disobedience is no longer related to the today of God.  Stop living in the nostalgic past!  Get hold of the new anointing that is moving in the air!  Grab hold of your horn of oil and let’s get going!  The past is done – let’s be done with the past and let’s move on in God.  Get hold of your horn of oil, fill it with oil and let’s go.  Fill your horn with oil and go.  I will send you Jesse the Bethlehemite for I have selected a king for Myself from among his sons.”

Now remember Saul was the people’s choice.  God has now chosen a king for Himself.  “But Samuel said, ‘How can I go?  When Saul hears of it, he will kill me.’” That was a very valid fear.  He said, “Now just a minute Lord!  Let’s talk this over.  That’s all very fine for You to send me down with a new anointing all full of the Holy Ghost and talking in tongues with goose bumps and my hair standing on end …” (*laughter*).  “It’s great Lord for you to get me involved in this charismatic thing but Lord – Saul is still alive and if he hears I have gone down there to anoint another king while he’s still living, then I am dead!’” Saul, the fleshly religious authority, was still nominally in charge, and therefore a threat to the new anointing.  How many are hearing anything?

“And the Lord said (you know the Lord is not above a little arranging.  Have you ever noticed that?  The Lord is pretty wise.  He knows how to fix things) “I’m not going to ask you to walk out and stick your head in a noose.” He said, “Let’s do it this way.  Go down and hold some special meetings.  (*laughter*) And while you are down there have a laying on of hands service.” (*laughter*).  He said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I’ve come to sacrifice to the Lord, but be sure that Jesse and his sons attend the sacrifice.’ And you shall invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do.  You shall anoint the one who I designate you.’”

Now we are coming to the difference between democratically chosen ‘Head and Shoulders’ ecclesiastical authority, and divinely ordained spiritual authority; as we move along, you will understand why un-spiritual people don’t understand spiritual authority.  So Samuel did what the Lord said.  He obeyed.  Samuel had learned, ever since God talked to him as a little boy in the temple, that God could be trusted.  So Samuel said,
“Alright if that’s the way it is – then I will go.” So he went and prepared the people with all the proper purifications for the sacrifice that was to come.  He told them to consecrate themselves. 

Now (v6).  Here we see Samuel’s humanity coming through again, and I think we will all relate to Samuel if we are honest.  For God’s sake let’s be honest in this hour.  If anything will destroy what God is doing in your life or mine, or in our lives in this hour, it is dishonesty.  God is calling for a kind of candour that He has never required from us in the past.  I think in the past, if I may take a Scripture out of context, He winked at the times of our ignorance.  But now He requires us all to repent.  I know that is out of context, but I think God is bringing new pressure on His people for integrity, such as He has never done before.  “Then it came about when they entered, that he looked at Eliab.”

Now what happened was that the laying on of hands time came, and he said, “I feel that Brother Jesse should bring his sons forward and we ought to bless them.” So brother Jesse brings his sons forward, and they all line up.  Samuel looks them over, and there they are lined up from the eldest to the youngest.  He looks at the oldest one whose name is Eliab and man – he is a dandy!  Great tall broad shoulders, fine head and Samuel “looked.” And Samuel “thought.” And Samuel “concluded.” And Samuel got it wrong.  (*laughter*).  If you and I do that, then we will be wrong too.  For we walk not by sight but by faith, and many times we have looked, and we have thought, and we have said, “surely the Lord’s anointed is before me?”

“But the Lord said to Samuel.” You see Samuel was ready to take that horn of oil, get it over with and get on home.  He was reaching for the horn of oil when the Lord said, “Samuel?” “Yes, Lord?” “That’s not him.” “But Lord – look at him!” “Samuel I have had it up to here with ‘Head and Shoulders’ men!” “The Lord said to Samuel, ‘Don’t look at his appearance or the height of his stature because I have rejected him.  For God sees not as man sees for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’” Samuel says, “Okay Lord, but he looks good to me.”

Now this confirms what I said at the beginning, that Samuel was still equating kingship the way all of those oriental people did, with a big strapping fellow.  Anyone who has read a history of those times knows that for a man to become a tribal chief or a king, he usually had to arrive at that position by beating up every contender.  He had to be the heavyweight champion of his tribe.  He arrived there because there wasn’t another man who could stand there in swordplay or in any form of physical combat.  He was the strongest and the mightiest and that’s why he was king.  Samuel was still going by the human criterion and he said, “Lord, I think you’re passing up a good thing when you pass up Eliab.” So the Lord said, “Samuel please let me run My own business.”

We have done that through the centuries – we have said, “this ought to do it – my, look – that ought to do it.” God has given us gentle nudges and little hints, and we have got a whole array of Eliabs and Head and Shoulders men, and God will bring along some illiterate dummy, and fill him with the Holy Spirit, and He blasts the work of God wide open, while all the PhDs are sitting there wondering what is happening to them. 

(v8) “Then Jesse called Abinadab.” He was the next tallest, and made him pass before Samuel, and he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” “Next Jesse made Shamah pass by, but it was not him.” (v10) “Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The Lord has not chosen these.’” He said, “Lord?  We’ve run out of boys!  (*laughter*).  I’m sure you told me to come down here and anoint someone, and You said You would show me who he was, and I have been obedient to you.  Now we have got no more boys.”

The Lord said, “That’s what you think.  Ask the old man if he has got another son.” “Sire, do you have another son?” “Well yes, I’ve got another.  There remains yet the youngest but he’s got peach fuzz on his face and is out tending the sheep.  He sits out there with a harp composing choruses, so I didn’t even bother to bring him in because I was sure you wouldn’t want him.” Samuel said, “Look sire, by now I’ve decided to let God do what He wants.  God wants him, so send for your boy.”

Now notice the urgency of this.  “Then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him for we will not sit down until he comes here.’” “We will not sit down until he comes here.  We will not take our ease until God’s order is brought in.  We will not take our rest until Jesus Christ has been declared Lord, no matter how.  The Head and Shoulders thing may be declared dead, and it may be over, but we will not sit still until God’s order is ushered in.  The first order of business – priority number one is for God’s order to be established.  The fact that the old order is on it’s way out is not enough – the positive must take place.  We will not sit down until he comes!”

“So he sent and brought him in.” He was ruddy – a redhead with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance, and the Lord said, “Arise anoint him for this is he.” Can’t you see I never cease to be charmed by the picture of young David.  They sent a messenger after him and he’s out there in the hills you know, probably working on a new one.  (*laughter*).  The messenger said, “David, the prophet is in Bethlehem, and your fathers and your brothers and the people of Bethlehem are all gathered, and your father is sending for you.” David said, “Me?  What’s it all about?” “I’m not sure – I’m just sent to get you.” So he slings his harp over his shoulder and takes his shepherd’s crook and comes in and stands there, and his eyes are as big as saucers, and he has got stardust in his hair, and he bows to his father and bows to the prophet.  God said to the prophet, “Go anoint him.” Now, I am not too sure whether David knew what it was all about.  But the prophet moves over and takes the horn of oil, and he anointed him in the midst of his brothers, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David mightily from that day forward.  Samuel arose and went to Ramah.

Now a very important point is this- that while the Head and Shoulders Man was still nominally and officially on the throne, God already had anointed the new order.  Let him that hath an ear, hear.  This has always been the case – there has always been the overlap.  When Jesus Christ was anointed in the Jordan, He was anointed as the Son of God – He walked out of those waters and He wasn’t going to finish His walk until He had made all His enemies His footstool.  He was king from that moment on, but the nominal Head and Shoulders government of Israel still ruled.  David was now God’s king.  But nominally and officially the Head and Shoulders Man was still in charge.  Are you hearing this?  Because from now on, we are going to find out how to act in that time of overlap. 

Look at (v14); “Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorised him.” The Spirit of the Lord left him while he was still king.  He wasn’t the king of the Hittites or the Hivvites or the Jebusites, but the king of Israel.  The covenant community!  But in actuality, he no longer had kingly authority. 

David the youth – the lad was the new thing.  Not Jesse’s first son or second, or third, or fourth or fifth but his eighth.  For eight is the number of a new beginning.  And David was Jesse’s eighth son.  One is the number of God.  Two is the number of fellowship.  Three is the number of manifestation.  Four is the number of the earth.  Five is the number of grace.  Six is the number of man.  Seven is the number of completion.  Eight is the number of a new beginning.  What are we seeing?  That David was anointed to be the king of God’s new day! 

This is the day that the Lord hath made!  This is the new day, and David the eighth was anointed for the new day, but he is anointed while the Head and Shoulders Man was still nominally in charge. 

(v15); “Saul’s servants then said to him,’Behold now an evil spirit from God is terrorising you.  Let our Lord command our servants who are before you.  Let them seek a man who is skilled to play the harp and it shall come about when the evil spirit from God is upon you and then he shall play the harp with his hand and then you will be well.’ So Saul said to his servants, ‘Provide for me now a man who can play well and bring him to me.’ Then one of the young men answered, ‘Behold I have seen the son of Jesse the Bethlemite who is a skilful musician and a mighty man of valour – a handsome man and the Lord is with him.’”

Out of all the sons of Israel, isn’t it amazing that the finger of destiny should fall on David?  The law of compound probability would suggest that it was probably a million to one that David was the one who would come in and sing his spiritually inspired choruses to a demon demented and terrorised king.  “So Saul sent messengers to his servant Jesse and said, ‘Send me your son David who is with the flock.’ So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a jug of wine, a young goat and sent them to Saul by David his son.  Then David came to Saul and attended him.”

Note this will you?  “And Saul loved him greatly.” You know I don’t want to read more in here than I see, and I don’t want to impose on you an interpretation that seems to be strained, but oh, I see so much that is contemporary here.  I don’t know if you do.  I wonder if you’re seeing what I’m seeing.  That the Head and Shoulders thing, that has long since lost it’s anointing – the structural, democratic, ecclesiastically maintained thing, devoid so much of life, and when it sees life – it’s first reaction is to love it.  Why?  Because deep in the heart of Saul I’m sure he remembered that day when the anointing oil was upon him, and when he went out and prophesied with the prophets – he felt the Presence of God, and when this young lad came in and played his harp and sang to him, it brought back memories, maybe deep in his subconscious, and something reached out, and he loved David.  It was a love/hate relationship however, and it went on for some time. 

(v23) says; “So it came about whenever the evil spirit from God came to Saul, David would take the harp and play it with his hand, and Saul would be refreshed and be well, and the evil spirit would depart from him.” Now what am I saying?  I am saying that David – the new order – ministered in the house of Saul – the old order – and brought it some comfort and brought it some release from it’s inevitable destiny of death.  There was an overlap for a time.  David ministered to Saul even though the Spirit of the Lord left him and he was tormented by demon powers.  God ordained that the new visitation should minister to the old.

The Tragic Account of Jonathan:
Now let’s turn to chapter 18.  We have the beautiful story of David and Jonathan that I don’t have time to go into – other than to say that Jonathan to me personally is one of the most pathetic figures in the Bible.  He loved David and he championed him.  He believed in him, and if you will read the Bible carefully, the covenant was from Jonathan’s side.  The overtures were from Jonathan.  There is no question that David responded – all you have to do is to read the poignant passages of David’s lament when he heard of Saul and Jonathan’s death – to know that David loved Jonathan deeply.  Jonathan saw the anointing – he felt the anointing – he was an anointed boy himself.  He knew what it was to go out single-handedly with his armour bearer and clean up a whole host of Philistines.  He knew what it was to walk in the honey bath of God’s glory until his eyes sparkled with the anointing.  Jonathan was a beautiful character!  But he made one mistake – he didn’t go with David and it was a fatal mistake.  In that battle when Saul and his son Jonathan fell together, the tragedy was that Saul somehow deserved it.  He had spent his days.  He disobeyed.  He had fought with God.  He had fought with a prophet.  He had not consulted the ark.  He had been a Head and Shoulders Man, but that beautiful young fellow beside him – his son – his boy.  He was a man of integrity.  He had the sparkle of heaven’s blessing in his eye.  He had known how to wheld a sword and how to walk in the Spirit.  He had held company with God’s great king David in the days of his embryonic youth to kingship.  He made one fatal mistake however.  He didn’t leave the Head and Shoulders thing when he should have, and he died with it.

I am constantly asked a question that I am sure every minister who is moving in what God is doing is asked at some time or another, and that is, “What shall I do in relation to this situation or that?  Shall I do this or do that?” I can’t tell you what.  Let me tell you that any man of God who tries to tell you what to do, I feel, is moving out of the orb of his responsibility and his right.  If God has given you His blessed Holy Spirit and He has given you a heart to love Him, then God will let you know what to do and when you are to do it, and be sure that your heart is prepared for what you have to do.  Don’t fall into the trap of Samuel and be sentimentally and nostalgically attached to something that God has left.  When the hour comes to move – be ready to move!  Lest you die with Saul. 
I was asked to conduct a seminar in an American city in a great large Presbyterian church.  In the night we had a public service and in the afternoons I spent two or three hours with ministers in the city from all different denominational backgrounds, and at the end of my time of ministry with the ministers on the last afternoon when we had closed, one of them stood up and said, “We have so appreciated this.  I wonder if Dr Baxter would stay another hour and we will sit around informally and chat.” I said, “I’d be glad to.” My wife had come to pick me up and the ministers meetings were held in quite a large chapel.  She was sitting at the back waiting to drive me back to our hotel, and she sat back there while I dialogued with the men.  During that week there had been one man there who had been identified to me as a Roman Catholic priest.  Later I found out that he was a Trappist monk.  I was never able to read his face – I never could quite tell whether he was agreeing with me or disagreeing with me or just where he was.  But after we got comfortably seated in a less formal manner (because I had been teaching from a chalk board), and we were sitting around, the first one to speak was this priest, and I shall never forget it.  He was like a little boy crying in the dark.

He said very quietly, “I buy everything this man has said.  There is nothing he has said that I do not buy – but my church will not buy it.” Then he looked at me and said, “What shall I do?” I can’t tell you how I felt.  There was something in my heart that was very paternal – I had felt it when my children were tiny, and they had hurt themselves, and I ran and picked them up in my arms.  I wanted to carry him into the will of God.  I had an emotional response that I can still feel.  Yet I knew it wasn’t right, and I remember I said to him very simply, “Brother my heart goes out to you, and I love you in Christ, and I want to do at this moment whatever I can do for you.” But I said, “If I were to tell you what to do that wouldn’t be good enough.  It’s not good enough to do something because Baxter said.  You’ve got to go on a ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ A ‘Thus saith Baxter’ is not good enough!  I will tell you what I will do.  I will pray for you and I will hold you before God that you will know what to do.” He smiled back and said thank you.  Then we went on.  Three months later I was talking to the Lutheran minister in the city who had organised the seminar.  And I said, “How is my Roman Catholic friend doing?” “Oh” he said, “Great.” I said, “Tell me about him.” He said, “After you left he went to his bishop and asked for a years leave of absence to find the will of God.” I thought as I heard that how many of us would inconvenienced our careers and jeopardise our future to find the will of God?  He found the will of God and incidentally found a delightful wife and a beautiful ministry and today is a very happy shepherd of a group of God’s people.  The last time I found him he was radiant and didn’t blame me at all.  He said, “This is the way the Lord has led me,” and as he said it, I knew that he was walking in the way the Lord had led him.

This is why to me Jonathan is so pathetic.  Remember what he said in one of those tender scenes with David?  He said, “David I know that someday you will be king, and I will be at your side.” The beauty of this man – his character always enchants me.  There is no ambition.  He saw God in David – he saw the anointing in David.  He saw David as God’s king and while it was his by right, yet he knew where the anointing was and he was quite prepared to pass up his right to be king and for David to be king; he would gladly be at his side.  But he missed it.  There is a time in the affairs of men.  Sam Jones – the great American evangelist – used to tell a story and he would apply it to sinners, but I am applying it these days to us in this moment of crisis.  He said there was a little boy who lived down by the seashore and on the sands there was a hulk of a big ship.  The little boy took an interest in that ship and he almost personalised it.  He would watch as the tide came in and as it moved with the tidal waters he would say, “Go out old ship!  Go out!  This is your chance – go out!” The ship would creak and groan and almost look as though it would catch the tide and go, and the little boy would shout and throw his hat in the air, and he would say, “Go out old ship!  Go out!” Every high tide would find this little boy down there rooting for the ship to go out.  One day he went down and the tide seemed higher than ever and stronger and the chances were greater than ever before.  He screamed his voice hoarse and shouted, “Go out old ship!  Go out!  This is your chance!  Go out!” He watched the tide go out, but the ship stayed in, and then something terrible happened.  With a final groan the ship disintegrated on the sand, and the little boy threw himself down on the shore and he sobbed and said, “Now you’ll never go out old ship.  Now you’ll never go out.” There comes a time when the tide is right.  Jonathan missed it and he never went out.  I’m sure that up into David’s old years there was many a time when David would sit quietly and think with great emotion of what it might have been if the man whom he loved with a love that is celebrated as being one of the finest demonstrations of manly love – if only he had lived.  But he died because he made a wrong choice.

Let’s look at chapter 18:6.  David has taken care of the great Philistine; “and it happened as they returned David from killing the Philistine that the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tambourines, with joy and musical instruments.  The women sang as they played and said, ‘Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousand.’ Then Saul became very angry for this saying displeased him.  He said, ‘They have ascribed to David ten thousand but to me they have ascribed thousands.  Now what more can he have but the kingdom?’ And Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on.”

Now what was it that precipitated the confrontation between the Head and Shoulders Man and the heart man?  For David was a man after God’s heart!  God didn’t choose David because he was Head and Shoulders.  God took him from the sheepfold – from out there tending sheep.  He was just a strapping youth.  You don’t pick out those kind of people to be king.  God saw something in that young man – He saw that young man had a heart.  That was the young man who spoke about his “heart panting after God as the hart pants after the water brook.” He knew here was a man in whom was integrity, not perfection.  He would make his mistakes – there would be the awful Bathsheba thing.  Trust men to make more of that than anything else! 

Isn’t it amazing how a man’s mistake is monumental, but all his acts of service are forgotten.  God certainly had no sense of approval of the Bathsheba thing, but that one blot on David did not deny him the right to be called a man after God’s own heart.  “I love Thy law,” he said.  “I will walk in My integrity – Thou art my God – Thou art my rock and my strong tower!  Thou art my salvation!  When my enemies are against me in Thee will I trust – Thy Name is as a strong tower.” Oh, he loved his God!  How he had a heart for God and God saw it!  He was only a boy tending his father’s sheep. 

I feel that the Spirit of God is saying to me tonight that there are in this tent young people who have that kind of a heart.  I’ve already said it to the leaders of this convention, that I believe that there are young people here who will be apostles and prophets and evangelists and shepherds in the days that are ahead.  There’s openness in some of your countenance.  There’s something that comes to me – I feel Kingdom vibrations coming from some of you young people.  I believe they are material for the Kingdom.  I believe they are material for what God is doing in this hour . 

But I urge you in God’s Name – read the Psalms.  Make them your vocabulary.  Read five of them every morning and one chapter of Proverbs and you will go through the Psalms and the Proverbs once a month and you will learn how to live towards God and live towards man and you will become God’s kind of king.

When was it that Saul got upset with David?  It was when David started to accomplish things that Saul couldn’t accomplish.  As long as David was just the nice son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who came in for special times to sing songs to him he loved him – that was lovely.  After all it was nice to have a revival in the old church.  A little stirring every now and then – that was nice.  It’s good to have a lift every now and then.  But of course we have no intention of changing the whole court.  You see what we have here is a man going down and a man coming up.  The man going down doesn’t know he’s going down.  And he doesn’t know that the other man is going up until there comes the collision with Goliath.  When David proved that he was a man with the anointing to deal with the enemies of the Lord, and all Israel recognises it and sings an anthem of acclamation to him – aha!  Now Saul sees things differently.  As long as you’re inconsequential, as long as you’re not disturbing the status quo too much – get blessed, but don’t rock the boat.  If you want to have a meeting in your house Friday night go ahead, but don’t make a big thing of it and for goodness sake don’t go having a revival.  (*laughter*).  Because that will just upset everything.  If you don’t make much fuss I won’t have to say anything to the superiors.  (*laughter*).

(v9); “And Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on.” How many know anything about this?  “Now it came about on the next day that an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul and he raved in the midst of the house while David was playing his harp as usual, and a spear was in Saul’s hand, and he hurled the spear at David for he thought, ‘I will pin David to the wall’ but David escaped from his presence twice.  Now Saul was afraid of David for the Lord was with him.  But he departed from Saul.”

It’s amazing when people stop flowing in God, and are yet involved in Head and Shoulders religion – they become stupid.  Imagine Saul, knowing that God was with this man, and yet he tried to kill him!  This is the same stupidity that you see in the Pharisees and the Sadducees – the very same thing.  They said, “There’s no question that He is doing miracles and He is attractive to the crowd – there’s no question about that but we’ve got to get rid of Him.” They tried to kill Him!  The very first time He spoke, they tried to kill Him, and after Christ ascended to haven, and sent His Spirit back, and His apostles went out, they tried to do the same thing with them!  That a miracle is done, there’s no question, but don’t let the word get around!  You see when the Spirit of God moves out of religion, men become stupid.  I am going to tell you something tonight – I might as well get my head cut off anyway.  (*laughter*).  God is going to do this thing whether Saul likes it or not.  God is going to have a people in the earth whatever Head and Shoulders government wants to do about it – they can try and kill him if they want – but they will not succeed.  Jesus shall reign where’er the sun doth its successive journeys run. 

This Head and Shoulders thing reminds me of the siege at Samaria.  The Bible says that all they had left to eat was asses’ heads and doves’ dung.  Now that’s not a pretty diet is it?  What does that mean?  Asses’ heads stands for human wisdom.  (*laughter*).  And doves’ dung stands for all that is left of the dove after the dove has gone.  When the Spirit of the Lord leaves religion all that is left is human wisdom and empty form.  Where was the Spirit?  The Spirit was with David.  The Spirit had left Saul.  Now look – don’t fuss with me.  Go fuss with the Book!  I didn’t write it!  (*laughter*). 

Now if you are listening to me you may be able to see the handwriting on the wall.  I’m not saying for whom.  But at that point when David ceased to be a nice little Psalm-singing, happy brother, bringing visitations of blessing into the court, as long as that was it, that was fine.  But when his influence grew and he became a man of war and was doing what Saul should have been doing but couldn’t because the Spirit had left him, the whole thing changed.  When the new anointing gained momentum … now look I may be a million miles off but I don’t think so.  If what I see going on across the earth tonight is what I think I see, I see the Davidic anointing, as it is gaining momentum, and a few years ago we were just a bunch of Psalm singers that were bringing a bit of pleasure into the Head and Shoulders court.  But now bless God, we are killing our tens of thousands, glory to God, and the diabolic world is feeling the reverberations of our voice as it speaks with the authority of the risen Christ, and the army of the Lord is getting ready … (*applause*). 

Brothers and sisters I’m not a young man and I haven’t got the time to make silly sensational statements.  I haven’t got the time to preach to the gallery.  If I have come to England for your applause or to preach you a sermon, then I am not what I think I am .  I believe with all my heart tonight, from what I see across the earth (and for me to travel across the earth is an inconvenience), that if I what I see happening was just someone preaching to a tent full of crazy fanatics who would believe my way if they were the only people in the world, then I would be persuaded that we are cracked, and we are just a bunch of people who are hallucinating.  But I want you to know that in every nation under the sun, some more and some less, there are crowds like this from every denominational background, who are meeting in tents and halls and public buildings and open fields and wherever, and the same thing is being said, and the same volume of praise is going up to God, and the same choruses are being sung and the same hymns are being hymned and the same Psalms are being psalmed and the same shouts are being shouted – it’s all over the earth!  The army of the Lord is forming!  (*applause*).

And so it became inevitable that David had to go.  Without going into chapter 20 (you can read it for yourself), it was obvious that Saul would have killed him.  David had been warned by Jonathan, and he was evicted from Saul’s court.  He was kicked out!  Now he wasn’t kicked out of the Hittites or the Jebusites.  He wasn’t kicked out of the Rotary club.  (*laughter*).  He was kicked out of the Head and Shoulders representation of Jehovah’s community.  He was put out, and you don’t have to agree with my interpretation, but I believe that if we have a valid analogy here, that as this thing starts to grow, there will inevitably be a confrontation, and you can rest assured that the hour will undoubtedly come when we will be persona non grata in places where we are yet invited to bring our hearts.  But when that happens it is on to Ziklag, and then to Hebron, and then to Zion.  Hallelujah!  Now I have imposed on you so badly for two nights that I am going to give you a short one tonight and let you out real early. 

We will finish with this point and it is a very important one.  Saul was still the nominal king, and after he had put David out, David went to the cave of Adullum, and eventually to Ziklag, and had to find a place among the Philistines to live.  Now you can give this any name you like.  It could be that you could say that David was driven underground.  I want you to know that you are not only ordained for goose bumps.  You are ordained for lumps.  We are not only ordained for blessing, but also for suffering.  If you haven’t incorporated that into your Scriptural philosophy, then you had better hurry up and get it in.  Preachers that go around telling you that when you become a Christian and commit yourself to God, you will find yourself on a velvet cushion being whisked through life and brought comfortably into His Presence are not telling it the way it is. 

There is a paradoxical passage in Thessalonians that says that they received the Word of the Lord with much persecution and joy of the Holy Ghost.  When Paul and Silas sat in a jail at midnight in the maximum security section – their backs running bloody from the deep wounds created by the Romans cat-o-nine tails, as they sat there with the rats running beneath their feet at midnight (what more desperate plight?), with no light, no lamp, but darkness, Paul said, “How are you doing there Brother Silas?” “Fine Brother Paul and how is it with you?” “Good.  Feel like a little song?” (*laughter*).  “Well frankly Brother Paul, I don’t feel like a song, but my heart is happy.  What will we sing?” “Well, what about Number 5 in the Redemption?” (*laughter*). 

Now the Bible says that they sang at midnight, and there was an earthquake, and all the prison doors were flung open.  When God’s people can sing in the midnight of their trouble, they will be the community of heaven and the prison doors will be flung open and the world will cry, “What must I do to be saved?” We are destined for suffering!  We are destined for misunderstanding. We are destined to be maligned and lied about.  But if we can hold fast in our heart and know that we are sharing in what we are seeing in the analogy of David and Saul – that there is a period of overlap and a period of transition from the Head and Shoulders thing to the formation of David’s Army – and that we are going on to take Mount Zion – the joy of the whole earth – if we can see that, we will hold steady in the darkness of night, and know that our hour has to come.

Binding the Strongman.
But God is fitting us for a big job, for this might well be the generation that is to go into the land and prove to the world that Christ wasn’t just talking when He said, “I will build a church that will kick the gates of hell in.” That isn’t what He said!  No, but that’s what He meant.  You see it is that strange perversity in Scripture in terms of circumstance instead of revelation.  So all my life I have head it taught this way, “On this rock I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Then I hear people saying, “I’m glad I’m a Christian.  I’m glad I’m in the Church because the devil can’t get at me.  And I’m so glad I’m here and I’m waiting for the Lord to come and get me out of the mess and I hope the bus comes soon!” (*laughter*).  That isn’t what He said!  He said, “I will build a congregation that will get the job done.” That Greek word “ecclesia” means congregation.  Seventy times in the Septuagint version, the word “congregation” is translated “ecclesia” and when He said to His disciples, “I will build My congregation.” He was saying something!  When you come to the book of Hebrews you find out what He was saying.  He said, “Moses as servant over the house was faithful, but Christ is Son over the house.” Moses couldn’t take them into rest.  Joshua couldn’t take them into rest.  Jesus said Moses’ congregation didn’t make it.  But I am going to have a congregation that is going to make it.  They’re going to break the gates of hell in.  It’s not a matter of the devil not getting at me – look out devil here I come!  (*laughter*).  Hallelujah!

You know we have made a big thing out of exorcism.  I believe in exorcism and I practice it.  I believe that I have power to cast out a demon or demons.  But when we come to the last chapter of Ephesians, the apostle Paul is not talking about me casting out a demon or you casting out a demon.  He’s talking about something bigger than that.  I’m going to tell you – I don’t think Satan is too much concerned about us casting out a few demons here and there.  Any great army general knows that there has got to be a few casualties.  So if he loses a few demons here and there, I don’t think he will be too upset.  But listen to what Paul says, “Finally brethren.” Not “finally brother.” “Finally brethren.” And then he grabs hold of a whole fistful of Greek words that are just full of divine dynamite.  “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” Strong!  Power!  Might!  Three tremendous Greek words, and when you put them together they spell God unleashed!  Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  “Put on the whole armour of God, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the dark places of this age and spiritual wickedness.” Now here is where we have been on a one to one basis.  Along comes Brother Jones and casts out a few demons.  Everyone says, “Hallelujah isn’t that marvellous?” The devil says, “I sure hope that they keep on thinking that is marvellous.  I hope that they don’t realise that I don’t care that much about that really in the final analysis.” What’s he concerned about?  He is concerned that if you find out that God Almighty through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit has equipped us as a church not only to deal with spiritual wickedness, but that we can deal with the princes, the deputies and the under-rulers. 

Tonight there is a dark, satanic, angelic power hovering over the capitol building of every nation of the earth?  There is a Prince of England, a Prince of Canada, a Prince of the United States; there is a Prince of Russia – to whom Satan has delegated authority to exercise his diabolical influence over that nation.  Then they pick strategic spots in the nation, and they send deputies to those places – for remember that Satan and his powers are not omni-present.

Now I know a little bit about your country because I saw some of it when I was here last time, but there are cities in England and America that are undoubtedly ruled by satanic deputies.  And then there are the rulers of the dark places.  We haven’t begun to dislodge them.  We haven’t begun to touch the gates of hell.  God is going to have a people that will dislodge those powers.  I believe the hour is coming when we will change things at city hall.  I believe the hour is coming when we won’t have to petition against pornography.  We will get together as the People of God and we will unleash God into those situations and blow them to smithereens.  I believe the hour is coming when our Sunday morning prayer will find its answer in the Monday morning paper.  I believe the time will come when we will start to pray with such corporate intelligence that when men put their pen on a ballot to vote in the halls of legislation they will go to vote one way, and something will push their hand over and they will vote another!  That’s the angel I sent.  “I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail.”

Now while Saul was still king, David was hitched out and Saul tried to kill him.  On two occasions David could have killed Saul.  Please listen to this carefully.  This is important.  Twice David could have killed Saul.  He had him right in his hand.  His friends said, “Kill him!  He tried to kill you.  Kill him!” David said, “No.  He’s still a nominal authority and it’s not my job to kill him.  I am God’s anointed and God will have to take care of him.” If you can understand tonight that heart people must not try to kill Head and Shoulders people, I am reading things these days that grieve me.  As I read about men who are trying to kill Saul, I don’t have to kill Saul.  Frankly deep in my heart, I would be something like Samuel, if I didn’t stop myself.  I feel sorry for Saul.  I could look at the great monuments to the revivals of the past that are sprinkled across the earth, that tell of great visitations of other days, that tell us of men who like Saul had a change of heart and an anointing of the Spirit.  I don’t want to chop down steeples and deal with the men who want to kill me in revenge.  I don’t have that feeling tonight – I can’t find it in me to want to do that, and if you find it in you, that’s not a heart man.

You don’t have to kill him.  Nor do you have to get any pleasure out of the fact when I tell you that God is going to kill him.  Because when God killed Saul and the word came to David, you read in the first chapter of 2nd Samuel that David rent his clothes and he wept and wrote one of the most beautiful passages in all literature as he sung and eulogised Saul and Jonathan.  Brothers and sisters the men that may be on your back tonight, the men that may be trying to pin you to the wall, are men of a tradition that can be traced back to some very beautiful things.  And I’m not going to get involved in names tonight but our history is filled with men who started well, but the thing they started became a Head and Shoulders thing, and I tell you something else, if we are not careful, the thing that God is doing now could become a Head and Shoulders thing too.  I was pleased to hear Arthur say what he did about the charismatic movement.  I don’t like the word “charismatic.” I don’t like anything that divides me from anyone else.  I have only one word that I feel is right to use and that is either Christian or believer or disciple.  I have no right to use a term that will divide me from any other man that calls Jesus Lord.

Up in our country in Canada a couple of years ago we were having Brother Derek Prince and a few others come up for a conference, and since I was the senior minister in the area, they asked if they could use our sanctuary to host the meeting, and our sanctuary seated 1200, so we said, “Fine,” we would.  They asked if we would prepare the brochure as we had our own printing establishment in our church complex.  We were going to call it the “Pacific Northwest Charismatic Conference” and a young man in the printing room brought in the first rough draft of the brochure and he sat it down in front of me.  I was going to proof read it for any changes, and as I looked at the front – “Pacific Northwest Charismatic,” and as I got to “Charismatic,” as sure as I am standing here – God said to me, “What’s that word?” I said, “Charismatic.” He said, “That’s divisive.” I said, “You’re right,” and called the young man in and said, “Charismatic has got to go.  There is only one word that we are going to put in there and that is the ‘Pacific Northwest Christian Conference.’” I was so pleased when Arthur made the point that is accurate, and that is that every, and any man who has come into the life of God, has come into the charismatic dimension.  Every real Christian is a charismatic.  Now the extent of charismatic involvement varies in this room tonight, but let us not divide God’s people.  I will declare myself a brother to any man or woman in this arena who calls Jesus Christ Lord.  They may slam the door of rejection in my face, but I will lay my love on them.  I will declare they are my brother and sister in Christ.  I will make this affirmation before devils and demons.  I will not be party to division.  Every man who sincerely declares Christ to be his Lord – he is my brother.  I don’t care whether he is Armenian or Calvinistic, Pre-mill, A-mill, Post-mill or Pan-Mill.  (*laughter*).  You say, “What in the world is a Pan-Mill?” (*laughter*).  Well that just means it will all pan out in the end.  (*laughter*).  Don’t play God.

The road to Zion is not easy but it’s sure.  You don’t have to deal with Saul – God will deal with him.  Don’t go round trying to kill the people that are trying to kill you.  That is not God’s order.  Just build the Kingdom.  Just keep on building.  Just keep on loving.  There is nothing that will make some carnal Christians madder than you being happy.  (*laughter*).  You know that yourself.  Have you ever had a down day? You know when you are kind of out of touch with God, and along comes one of those perpetually happy brothers.  (*laughter*).  You know the kind I mean?  They never have a low moment.  “Praise the Lord brother!  Praise the Lord!” You’d like to give them a one-way trip to the moon.  Don’t try to kill what is already dead.  Feel sorry for it.  Reach out.  If they will still let you – sing to them.  If you can calm their tortured souls, play your harp.  If they drive you into exile, then know one thing – we’re marching to Zion.  Hallelujah!  Tomorrow night we will talk about the Army.  God is forming an army! 

The Committed Vanguard is the fourth in The King and His Army Series, a powerful and relevant prophetic message on the restoration of the Apostles’ understanding of Christ’s Kingdom and the reformation of His Church delivered by Ern Baxter in 1975 at the Lakes Bible Week in the UK.

Shall we pick up our sequence of thought now?  We are going to start talking about the army tonight and again tomorrow.  The subject of the series is “The King and His Army” and in five nights of course we can’t give it in its entirety or in depth but I think we can give you a broad overview of what we feel God is saying from this portion of Scripture.  Our basic assumption is that we have here a picture of God bringing into being the kind of kingdom that He wants and in His great providence, I’m sure, since He has said to us through His servant Paul that the things that happened to Israel happened as examples for us that we were allowed to see the terrible danger and tragic results of trying to run God’s Kingdom with a Head and Shoulders king.  I’m not going to labor the Saul matter anymore because we want to go on now into the very positive aspects of David (for remember Jesus Christ is the seed of David).  David speaks of the kingliness of our Lord.  Abraham speaks of Him redemptively.  But it is as the seed of David that He is referred to on the Day of Pentecost where Peter said that David’s greater Son has ascended to take the throne that was promised.  So the whole Pentecostal thrust is a thrust of authority.  We think of redemption as occurring at Calvary and in the Resurrection but the rod of His strength – that rod and scepter of authority – had it’s inauguration on the Day of Pentecost.  When Christ ascended on high and in response to God’s promise to David and sat on David’s throne and became the king of the Kingdom.  When we say, “Thy Kingdom Come”, we are saying Thy kingdom be fully manifest for it has come in the sense critical and it’s coming in the sense progressive.  It is my personal conviction shared by many others that we are viewing at the present time – all things considered as we look at ethnic Israel and as we look at the state of the nations and we see the perplexity of the present situation in the world – it seems that we have come to that hour in human history when God is going to show forth His glory in the manifestation of kingdom power and authority.

And so as David takes over the kingdom from Saul, I am suggesting that we have here something helpful for us to follow in what we can expect in the process of moving out of the Head and Shoulders situation into the Heart situation.  Remember again we are not talking about worldly government.  We are not talking about the Hittites, the Hivittes and the Jebusites – and all the other parasites.  We’re talking about the Israelites.  Let us understand that we are talking about all those who profess to have a relationship with God.  The move from Saul to David wasn’t one of crisis – it was one of process.  You see this; I hope that God will help us to see and be encouraged by the fact that there is an inevitable process.  I say inevitable.  It is as inevitable as God taking the kingdom from Saul and giving it to David that God is going to take the kingdom from Head and Shoulders government in the professing Christian community and it will be put into the hands of Heart people with spiritual authority.  In fact you know I sense something here tonight and last night in the joy – put that on the back burner and hold it.  (*laughter*).  I don’t know if we’ll get to it tonight or not.  But don’t minimize this joy.  This is not some little odd by-product.  This is very, very meaningful.  Amen?

All right let’s dive in shall we?  I haven’t got much by way of introduction and I haven’t got much of an ending but I hope I’ve got something to put in the middle.  (*laughter*).  I think most of you have been along each night and need to see ourselves in David’s discouragement.  Some of us like to give the impression that we are perpetually on top and some of us get a little intimidated when we see somebody that almost convinces us.  But I must confess I have my low moments.  And David, although he was anointed and knew he was anointed, by now knew he was to become Israel’s king, got discouraged.  I am not saying that you should emulate David’s discouragement, but that you should be encouraged by it, if you happen to get involved in it.  (*Laughter*) (V.1).  “Then David said to himself, ‘Now I will perish one day by the hand of Saul.’”

It must have been rough.  The Head and Shoulders man in Israel had kicked the Heart man out of his kingdom, and he wasn’t going to make it.  Oh Saul had been entertained for a while, as long as David sang to the king and brought him a little revival from his demonic tortured state.  But when David became a mighty man of war, and it was obvious that he was gaining favor far beyond what Saul had ever planned for him, then Saul realized that he had to get rid of him.  And he tried to kill David with a spear, and you may remember that Jonathan warned David that there was no hope of any reconciliation between David’s kingdom and Saul’s.  If you are hoping that somehow the house of Saul will have a revival, then you are flogging a dead horse.  There is no revival for the house of Saul.  God has declared that He is taking the kingdom from Head and Shoulders government and is putting it into the government of a man after His own heart.

All right?

(V.1) “‘I will perish one day.  There is nothing better for me than to escape into the land of the Philistines.  Saul then will despair of searching for me in all the territory of Israel and I will escape from his hand.’ So David arose and crossed over, he and the 600 men who were with him, to Akish, the son of Meoch, king of Gash.  David lived with Akish in Gath with his men each with their household, even David and his two wives.  Now it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, so he no longer searched for him.”

Now what happened?  I’m not going to impose an interpretation here because I am loath to press types to fit every little detail.  But it does appear that in the crisis, when the Head and Shoulders religious structure of Israel put David out – that he was driven right out into the world.  He had to find temporary living and existence among the Philistines who were Israel’s perennial enemies.  Does this mean that the Church will be driven underground?  Does this mean that the people of God will go through a crisis time when God in His providence will have to provide for them some kind of protection?  Does this mean some kind of outlawing of the people of God? 

I’m not sure I know what it means, but I mentioned to you last night that in the paradox of our relationship to God we must have two ingredients: suffering and joy.  The suffering is as inevitable as the joy, and we must be prepared for it.  Now I don’t want you to get morbid about it.  I don’t want you to be irresponsible about it and I don’t want it to come as a surprise to you.  I mentioned H. A. Baker the other night – the great apostle in China.  He saw what was coming, and he warned his flocks across the country. When communism took over China, they were ready while other Christians were not.  Many Christians had been told that before their lives would be involved in any risk the Lord would come and whisk them out.  If you are thinking tonight that before the axe falls you are going to go riding out on a magic carpet, you had maybe better re-think that because I find nothing in the Scriptures that tell me that you are any better than any other generation of God’s people, and that they that are godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer.  We are ordained to suffer.  It’s not something we should shun – I don’t know what the future holds for us, but I know who holds the future.

I think in the analogy here we have to look at the “crisis crunch.” The time comes when Saul no longer entertains David in court.  The time comes when Head and Shoulders government says, “That’s it.” We don’t want any more of that stuff.  It’s gaining popularity and it is gaining strength and we don’t want any more of it – it’s got to go.  If this doesn’t mean anything to you then push it to the back of your plate.  But to some of you I am sure; you know what I am saying.  I think you should be ready for it.  Don’t sit around like Samuel mourning something that God has said is over.  All right?

So David asked Akish in (V.5) if he could have a place to live and Akish gave him Ziklag in (V.6).  “Therefore Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day, and the number of days that David lived in the country of the Philistines was a year and four months.” I’m not sure I totally understand why we are given that period of time, but I have a suggestion, and if you will hold that until we get near the end of our message tonight, you will see that in a year and four months living among the Philistines, the Heart man David had one of the greatest revivals he ever had.  In 1932 Joseph Stalin said, “By May 1st 1937 (that was at the end of the 1st 5 year plan) the very name of God will no longer be heard in Russia.” Well 1937 has long since come and gone, and so has Stalin, and the very name of God is still very much alive in Russia.  In fact the report I get is that there is a considerable move of the Holy Spirit, and I’ve talked to people who have been in Holy Ghost meetings in Russia where what is going on here is going on there.  You just can’t keep God out of His own universe!  The Bible says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and all that dwells therein.”

Now I have been suggesting that everyone should hold to that verse when you open your eyes each morning.  Just declare it!  “The earth is the Lord’s.” We have been so intimidated by sin, and we have been so intimidated by demons and the devil – we’ve been so intimidated by the world and all its machinations that we have forgotten to believe the facts.  The fact is that the world belongs to the Lord!  The fact also remains that all who are in the world belong to the Lord!  The fact remains that you and I are supposed to be reigning with Christ now and running the world; instead of that, we are hiding in caves and pits and mountains waiting for something to happen that isn’t going to happen.  We are saying, “Lord take us out of it,” and He is saying, “That isn’t what I had in mind – I told you to get into it!” He didn’t say to sit around and wait for Him to take us out of the world; He told us to go into it, and we are spending our time waiting to get out of it.  So while we are coming out, we are meeting Him trying to push us back in!  (*Laughter*)

We’re the salt of the earth!  We’re the light of the world!  If you entertain the idea tonight that the Second Coming of Christ is the hope of the world, you had better go back and read your Bible.  The Second Coming of Christ is the damnation of the world – it’s the judgment of the world – it’s the end of the world’s hope – the world has no hope!  The coming of Christ is the believer’s hope not the world’s hope!  You say, “What is the world’s hope?” The Gospel of the Kingdom is the world’s hope! The Gospel ministered in Word and in community manifested through the redeemed people of God. 

We’re the world’s hope!  The world is looking at us – they are saying have you got anything to offer us?  That’s why God is raising up in this hour literally a counter-culture.  A new society!  I mean that!  For a long time we have had our souls saved.  Whatever that was – it’s something “in here.” But our lives were a mess and our relationships were all fouled up.  And our philosophy of life was all screwed up.  But hallelujah, our souls were saved.  Now God is saying, “I came to redeem the whole man.  I not only want to save your soul, but your spirit, your body, your boyfriend, your girlfriend relationships, your husband and wife relationships, your family relationships, your redeemed community relationships – I want to make you a new society – a new order!” God is doing that now and He is working on every area.  The last few years He has been saying, “Prophets!  Talk to My people about husband and wife relationships.” “Yes Lord.” “Prophets!  Talk to My people about family.” “Yes Lord.” “Prophets!  Talk to My people about getting together – it’s about time they got together down there!” “Yes Lord!”

Now all of this has been coming through – why?  God is forming His society because the world is ready.  The world has run out of options.  We are the only option they have got left, and right now it doesn’t look too good for the world, but we are going to get our house in order, and God is going to set the house of the Lord on the top of the mountain, and the nations are going to flow up unto it.  That’s going to be a miracle – did you ever see water run uphill?  (*Laughter*)

Ziklag, to Hebron, to Zion.

Now there are three places that I want you to keep in your mind tonight and tomorrow night.  Ziklag – Hebron – Zion.  These represent three historical junctures in David’s progress towards the ultimate manifestation of his kingship. 

In Ziklag David has been kicked out of Saul’s court and gets started in building the new society.  Let us now go to 1 Chronicles 12, “Now these are the ones who came to David at Ziklag while he was still restricted because of Saul the son of Kish.  And they were among the mighty man who helped him in war.” I am calling these people, “The Committed Vanguard.” Ziklag stands for those who rallied around David, when Saul was still trying to kill him, and when he was restricted to Ziklag and the land of the Philistines because of Saul’s demonic desire to erase him.  While he was at Ziklag restricted, these were the ones who came. 

“Now they came.” I like that.  “They came to him.” They weren’t coerced.  They came.  They were attracted to him and they came to him under the risk of death.  They came to him at Ziklag, and I might as well tell you now before we get into it that I believe we are at Ziklag right now.  Right now the Heart government of God is under the gun.  It’s no longer welcome in the courts of Saul, but people are gathering to the Lord at Ziklag under pressure.  Spiritual authority is rising up all over the earth.  Now I don’t want to give you any wrong impressions here because I don’t want to equate the Lord with men, other than to say that the Lord has chosen men who have spiritual authority and these men are Heart men.  They are men who feel with the heart of God.  All over the world God is raising up men who are saying things that are attracting people who are sick and tired of Head and Shoulders government and want to get next to the warm heart of David.  Does anyone understand what I’m talking about?

Now let’s look at the kind of people who were coming to him.  (V.2) “They were equipped with bows using both the right hand and the left to sling stones and to shoot arrows from the bow.  They were Saul’s kinsmen from Benjamin.” Isn’t that something?  The first ones that are mentioned are people that come right from Saul’s own tribe, and there is reason to believe they might have been personally related to him, and yet they are among the first to come to David.  There is divine irony for you!  The ones that are right close to the Saul government come to David at Ziklag, where he is restricted because of Saul’s demonic desire to kill him.  These were the ones who came, Saul’s own kinsmen, Benjaminites were among the first to come.  I remember reading this a few weeks ago, and suddenly there flashed into my mind another picture, and I thought that there was some irony in it too, as I thought of another Saul, who was also of the tribe of Benjamin, who was a Head and Shoulders man, if ever there was one.  He went armed with letters from the High Priest to take Christians prisoner and take them into the synagogue and have them flogged.  This man was so mad, that he would hold the coats of others, as they sent the first martyrs into heaven under a pile of stones.  So Saul is riding along on his little donkey on the way to Damascus, and the Bible says that he was “breathing out threatenings and slaughters.” “Just wait till I get my hands on those crazy Christians – they’re upsetting the whole Head and Shoulders thing.” (*Laughter*) As he is riding along on his donkey; suddenly, pow!  And the Lord Jesus says, “I’ll take him.” (*Laughter*) So Saul of Tarsus hit the dust and became Paul the apostle.

1.  The Committed Vanguard were Men of Balance.

Saul’s own kinsmen were among the first to join David.  Let’s take a look at the character and ability of this committed vanguard and let it speak to us.  This is very practical here tonight.  “The men who came to him from the tribe of Benjamin could use both their right hand and their left to sling stones and shoot arrows.” That means they were men of balance.  I know that balance somehow gets confused with imbalance, and that men will use the word “balance” when they really mean, “I don’t want to stand for the truth – I want to keep balance.” Their idea of balance is to be off balance.  But balance is very necessary, because the Bible is full of counter-parts of divine truth and balance is extremely necessary.  These men who came to David were men of balance. 

I wonder if I can share something with you.  Some 12 years ago I had the second of only two visions that I have ever had in my life.  I was speaking in a convention in a large church in Canada.  Now I don’t care for platforms very much.  I try to avoid them as much as possible, so I found in that church that to maintain the symmetry of the pew arrangement with the pillars of the church, that at one point the pew came out the other side of the pillar, and there was room for just one person to sit next to this great pillar.  Nobody wanted to sit there – it was kind of an orphan seat.  So every night I would take my briefcase and slip down the aisle and sit there, and I was protected from the sight of the people by the pillar, so the only people who could see me would be one or two people on the platform.  I had my own private little office, and could get the feel of the meeting there, and pray and when the time came, I could slip up and minister.  One night as I sat there I felt as if I wanted to kneel and pray.  I don’t think I would have done it if I had been on the platform, but no one could see me, and there was no question of me appearing hyper-spiritual, so I swung around and got down on my knees.  As I did that I had this vision of the globe – the earth – projected into space, much like what you see when the astronauts take a picture of the earth from the moon.  That’s how I saw it.  It was projected into space, and all over the earth there were these Quonset huts.  How many know what Quonset huts are?  (*Laughter*) Ok, I have to start from scratch then.  (*Laughter*) After the last world war they sold them in Canada as army surplus.  Ok?  Now we understand each other.  (*Laughter*) Now, I saw these huts all over the globe, and the interesting thing was that they were all the same size.

But they were all over the globe.  I said, “Lord, what’s this?” He said, “I am going to have in every place a people that are known for the anointing, and when you travel from place to place, you will not ask for My people by this name or that, but you will say, ‘Where are the People of the Anointing?’” Now I was frightened by this and I thought, “I’ve had enough!” I can understand how some of the Old Testament men felt when they saw an angel.  I thought that’s enough – I’m going to sit up.  But as I sat up in the pew, it kept coming: “They went out from us because they were not of us.  Had they been of us, they would have remained with us.  But you have an unction from the Holy One.  And the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.”

I understand that.  Antioch was the first time that the Holy Spirit got a chance to exercise sovereign domain over the children of God.  Up until then He had been all tied up in Jerusalem with Judaistic concepts and principles, but down in Antioch was the first time the Holy Spirit really got free to come and do the job He had come to the earth to do in propagating the Gospel across the earth.  So I held that vision in my heart, and I have shared it, and I believe it is a valid vision, especially as later on, I began to see the truth of the Church in the community (locality or city), and all of God’s people in every place, and it became very real to me. 

What is it that has brought us here tonight?  Is it because we are all agreed on baptism?  Or is it because we are all agreed on church government or some other doctrine?  The one thing that has brought us together in this degree of unity is the anointing.  I go into a conference (and I’ve done this many times) and Arthur you may remember this – we did it in Palmerstone North in New Zealand one night.  They took an alphabetical poll of the audience starting with Anglicans, Baptists and so on down.  Of course the great racetrack bleachers were filled with hundreds and hundreds of people.  And as they named each of the denominations, I thought everyone voted on every issue.  As they said “Anglicans,” it seemed to me as if everyone put their hands up.  As they said “Baptists,” it seemed as if everyone put their hands up.  That wasn’t so of course, but there was a representation from the whole alphabetical list.  Now what brought them together?  The anointing! 

This is the first time I have said this publicly, and I hope I am right in doing it, but for years I have wondered how this was going to happen.  In the last six months I think the Lord has given me an insight that He is preparing men in every place who are Christ-like, wise, who are gathering around them bodies of people who are full of the love of Christ, that can be depended on to represent the Lord in this crisis hour:  The Vanguard Community – people of balance.  People that are not riding hobby horse issues and getting up tight, but people who are concerned to be corporate representatives of Christ.  I repeat this is the first time I have said this publicly because I have never had permission to say it before.  In America I can take you to city after city where already I can see that community is coming into focus – I am tingling right now as I say it – where God is raising up people who are manifesting Christ in such a way that they are becoming the nucleus around which God is going to gather the Church into the community.

I believe that in this committed vanguard, as we find the description of those men who came to David at Ziklag, we are going to see the characteristics of the kind of people that God is raising up right now in preparation for Hebron and Zion.  These are special people!  And one of the first things about them is that they are people of balance – they can use both hands equally well. 

I came out of my home in Canada one morning and was going down the back steps to my car.  As I looked on the cement pavement at the foot of the steps I saw a little bee, and it was acting rather strangely.  It was buzzing, but it wasn’t going anyway, so I decided to investigate and got down real close.  I found that he had lost a wing, only leaving him with one.  If you have only got one wing, you are not going anywhere.  All you are going to do is go into a circle.  Now we have got people that are all for prayer.  “Oh God … Oh God … oh Godddd.” (*Laughter*) Then we have got others, and all they do is praise the Lord.  We have got an emphasis and wonder why we are not getting anywhere.  You have got to get the balance.  The counter-balance.  The people that God is going to use in this committed vanguard in this hour are going to be balanced people.

2.  The Committed Vanguard were Men of Order.

Not only could they use both hands, but they had order.  You are going to see this coming up as we move into the Army – look at (V.3) “The chief was Ahiezor then Joash (and I am not going to name all these other fellows).” (V.4) “And Ishmaiah the Gibbeonite, a mighty man among the 30 and over the 30, then Jeremiah, Jahazieal, Johanna, Jozabad” and on down.  Now what am I saying?  In this group of men that came to David at Ziklag there was not only balance but there was authority.  Authority is a word that we do not like. But I will tell you what the kingdom is about ladies and gentlemen.  It is about spiritual authority.  I think here in Great Britain you should have a cultural background that will make you more amenable to this than those of us in the USA.  We have so much permissiveness, so that “no one will run my life.” But if it can work in America, then I am sure that it can work here.  Anybody knows that bad government is better than no government.  Everybody knows that we have got to have authority. 

Much of the authority of the Head and Shoulders governmental, ecclesiastical thing has been man-made, and therefore not helpful.  It has not been loving, and it has not been considerate, so we have turned away from authority.  But God is raising up all over the world tonight, men and women who are Christ like.  They have got a passionate concern for the sheep.  God is putting authority into them and they are manifesting the authority that God has given them, not for their own sakes, but for the sakes of God’s people.  God is establishing His authority, His government, and He is putting men in spiritual government over other men, and men don’t mind having a man over them, if he is the kind of man who has got valid spiritual government over him.  Now I don’t know what’s happening here, but I know that in America the men who are kicking against the message of authority are men who know very well that if authority comes into their lives, then they themselves are going to have to change.  You see before a man can exercise authority, he must be under authority.  You can’t have authority unless you are under authority.  And when these men came to David, these men understand authority.  They had a chief, and other men, the thirty, and a man over the thirty, and a structure of authority.  “God hath set in the church first … second … third.” People get so uptight.  One of the things we are hearing all the time is, “Oh, you are establishing a hierarchy.” Well, what is a hierarchy, but a structure of authority?  The Trinity is hierarchy, and there is a structure of authority within it.  Father – Son – Holy Spirit.  When God brought Israel into existence, He called a man by the name of Moses, and then Aaron and his sons, and then chiefs over the tribes.  God is a God of authority and order.  When He wanted to bring into His existence His Church, He said, “I will appoint My governmental authorities,” and here is where the crunch comes.  “When Christ ascended on high, He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and some shepherds and teachers for the adjusting of the saints with a view to the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ.” Man with his built in perversity didn’t live with that very long before he turned the whole thing around and started to ordain authority.  The Kingdom of God is not a democracy – it is a theocracy and spiritual authority is not the product of a democratic vote – it is the product of theocratic appointment !

God makes appointments!  Who in the world would have ever picked Saul of Tarsus – that little bow-legged, beetle browd, hook nosed Jewish rabbi who was full of murder and threatenings – who would have chosen him?  Jesus Christ chose him!  You may be here tonight ready to punch me in the nose – but tomorrow you may be an apostle.  (*Laughter*) You see if you know what to look for in what God is doing – that is a great help.  If you will look around and find where there are men that are speaking with spiritual authority – where there are men who are doing God’s work with spiritual authority.  Not only with an authority in their voice but an authority in their conduct and in their dealings with one another and with other men; you can look to them and not be unduly concerned about submitting your lives to them, because they are obviously men of spiritual authority. 

Across the word one of the most controversial words is ‘authority.’ Books are being written on it!  The history of authority is being re-written by modern writers – why?  It is one of the key words of the hour!  Authority has gone out of the social system.  We’ve got people walking the streets of Canada and the United States who have committed 2 or 3 murders, raped 3 or 4 women, and yet because of the looseness of our legal sanctions, they are out on bail and ready to do the crime again.  God is raising up a counter-culture where we have got men and women who know what it is to be submissive to authority.  There are a people out there tonight who are scared stiff.  They see the society crumbling and are saying, “Is there anywhere we can find authority?  Where can we find a decently ordered society?” I don’t want you to go away from here because I’m dealing with this and think I don’t believe in the blood or in regeneration.  I do!  I am not talking on that level.  I am talking about the formation of God’s people.  It’s fine to get people to the altar, but what are you going to do with them after that?  It’s fine to get them into the baptistery, but what are you going to do with them after that?  It’s fine to lay hands on them and get them to talk in tongues, but what about after that?  They have got to be brought into the structure of the redeemed community. Did you ever read Acts 2 all the way through in one sitting?  You would think after 3, 000 people had come through that dynamic experience that we would have a very deep course in Christian doctrine.  The whole chapter is filled with the life of the new society, “with gladness and singleness of heart they went from house to house breaking bread and rejoicing in the Lord and found favor with the people.” The people said, “Isn’t that beautiful?” Whereas, they look at us and say, “Eugh!” (*Laughter*) The world is waiting for a corporate manifestation of Christ!

You young ones are the people to do it.  Some of us old guys will never get out of our ruts.  Some of us have been in it too long – now we may tag along.  It’s hard for us to change.  If you young people can only hear this, “Submit yourselves to people that have got authority – let them mould your lives – let them disciple you in God.  Submit to those that rule over you.” God is giving vision to men across the world of the redeemed community.  I’ve been 43 years in the ministry, and what I’ve been hearing in the last 3 or 4 years I have never heard in my life before!  It is a whole new insight into what God is doing all over the world.  God is raising up spiritual authority, and people are coming into covenant relationships and into submission and are being discipled in God. Instead of a lot of people going around with a one way ticket to heaven in their pocket book, we have got people that are learning how to live for Christ – get their lives together – get their marriages together – get their homes together – get their finances straightened out – find out how to relate – find out how to develop – how to mature – how to grow – how to help – God is bringing into existence His Kingdom under the Lordship of Jesus Christ! 

Let’s look at verse 8.  Here’s some more of those that came to the committed vanguard.  “And from the Gaddites, there came over to David …” I like the King James better here.  It says, “They separated themselves unto David.” I am going to be brutally frank with you here tonight.  The hour is past when you can play the game on both sides of the religious fence.  You are either going to separate yourself unto what God is doing or you are going to be caught in the tents of compromise when the storm comes.  I am saying to you, “find out what God is doing and separate yourself to it – not in any legal sense – but as truly seeing what God is doing.”

I have got all kinds of friends who feel sorry for me.  (*Laughter*) They say, “Poor Baxter, he is really mad.” I tell you now, it is the most delightful kind of insanity.  (*Laughter*) I have lived in my ivory tower of unilateral authoritarianism, as that single pastor up there at the top of my organization, with all of my underlings and satellites under me, and I would come down from my crows nest to preach my sermons and went back up.  (*Laughter*) Eleven years ago the Lord started to deal with me about these things.  I saw plurality.

The Montreat Conference

It was only a year ago in Montreat where one morning a group of brothers said to me, “We are going to meet in a room Brother Ern – we’d be glad if you’d join us.” About 200 men met in that room and I will never forget it.  They began to talk about relationship.  They began to tell how God had brought them together in a relationship that was protective and beautiful.  I don’t know why, but when I went in that room I started to cry.  Now, I am not a cry-er.  I am a laugher!  I am a hand-clapper and a shouter.  When I cry it is usually God.  I sat there weeping and couldn’t understand why I was weeping.  I just sat there and wept and wept.  I wasn’t sure what I heard, but I was hearing a sound.  I saw brothers.  (I am not going to be a name dropper for some of you know the brothers I am related to) stand up and bare their hearts.  I saw a man I didn’t think capable of crying – he is a man of the military – but I saw him throw himself over the pulpit and weep.  At last because they had always respected me and loved me, they said, “Brother Ern would you like to say something?” I said, “I don’t know if I can compose myself.” At last I went up there and stood and said, “If I did what I feel to do, I would prostrate myself on the floor and say ‘Brothers – cover me.’” I didn’t have to throw myself on the floor.  A few hours later we met in a little room, and I entered into a covenant relationship.

Something happened in the spirit world – something happened in my spirit, and I found that I was plugged into men of God, and after 40 years it was like I had come home.  I had been 40 years on the way home, and I am no longer alone.  I don’t know what that means to you, but I am telling you that God is bringing a dimension into the earth now, as He is bringing the redeemed community into the formation of relationship where we are plugging into one another.  We are no longer going to church and saying, “Good morning brother and God bless you,” but we are finding one another in a community of concern and love and relationship and protection that is one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened to me in my life.  I wish that I were free to say more about that.  But what God is doing right now is bringing spiritual authority, plurality, and rank and order into this committed vanguard.  Men are separating themselves unto this.  I was interested in the word that we heard this morning – probably it’s not the time for a lot of people to come in, but I believe that there are a lot of people here tonight that know it is time for you to come in.  It is time for you to find a place to plug in.  It’s time for you to come into a community situation with brothers and sisters with whom you are covered, and with whom you are related, and you know where you are covered, and where you are related governmentally, and you know exactly how to plug in to the vine.

You see Jesus said He is the vine and we are the branches.  He didn’t say, “I am the root and you are the branches.” He didn’t say, “I am the trunk and you are the branches.” He said, “I am the whole vine – root, trunk and branches.” Then He talked about abiding in Him.  What if you are a twig way out here and yet plugged into a branch?  You say, “Well, I don’t think I am plugged into Jesus; I should be plugged into the trunk.” No – if you are plugged into a branch, you are plugged into the vine.  What am I saying?  I am saying that in the body of Christ, you are plugged into the one that is next to you, and that the one next to you is plugged into the one next to him, and so on. And while by the Holy Spirit the life of Christ does indeed come to you directly–the life of Christ also comes to you through a vital relationship to the vine, from those around you; you draw Christ’s life from your brothers and sisters connected to you in the Lord. 

There is no such thing in the New Testament as someone going it on their own.  Everybody has got to be plugged into the vine – where are you plugged in?  Where are you attached?  I am not asking about nominal Church membership tonight.  I want to know where are you plugged into a vital part of the vine – where are you drawing life?  I don’t mean vertically.  You can draw on that in your prayer closet.  But there is another dimension that the Bible is very clear about; you have got to be in a community relationship, as a member of a body of believers where you are drawing life from the ones that you are plugged into and in that part of the vine where the Spirit has placed you.  You can’t go it alone.  God never made you to go it alone.  Two are better than one and if one falls down the other will lift him up.  If one gets cold the others will keep him warm, and they will have a better award for their labor, the Bible says.  Don’t try to go it alone!  An Amalakite will get you and shoot you in your eye!  You get people preaching on healing and they say, “There was not a feeble one among them when they came out of Egypt.” Do you know why there wasn’t a feeble one among them?  They all got killed.  (*Laughter*) Everyone thinks that there was a great healing service – no!  The Bible says that the feeble got dragged along and got so far behind that the Amalakites came up and killed them all off.  That’s why there wasn’t a feeble one there.  What am I saying?  You had better stay with the pack or an Amalakite will get you.  (*Laughter*) There is no use looking at me like that – I am not going to stop.  (*Laughter*)

3.  The Committed Vanguard Were Men Trained For War.

Now these men of Gad that were separated unto David in the stronghold in the wilderness were mighty men of valor.  Here is another thing that we don’t like today.  They were men trained for war.  They were disciplined!  “I don’t want to be disciplined – I don’t want anyone to run my life – I just want Jesus.  Jesus and me.” Yes, I’ve met you kind of people before.  In fact some of you were in my church!  “Don’t bother me!  If I’m not out on Sunday then don’t phone me!  Mind your own business!  I will come and hear you preach, and I will come and put my dollar in the offering, but don’t bug me about what I’m doing!” Yet they are the very people who scream to high heaven when they are in the hospital for three weeks, and no one has visited them.  “I don’t understand those Christians down there – I’ve been attending for six years and no one came to visit!” (*Laughter*) Of course no one came to visit you because you told us time and time again to mind our own business and that you wanted to run your own life.  This is a two-way street mister!  If you are going to be one of my sheep, then you are going to have to tell me your name!  You are going to have to tell me where you live!  And I want to know that I am responsible for you, and I want you to know that I am responsible for you, and I want to know where you are. 

One of the names of an elder or shepherd is an overseer.  An overseer is one who sees over.  Can you imagine a shepherd so irresponsible that when he gathered his flock and looked over them he said, “Oh, I don’t know – some of them are missing!” Jesus took care of that didn’t He?  What man if you having a hundred sheep, if he lose one, he does not leave the ninety and nine to go into the wilderness and look for the one until he hath found it?” The discipline that we are being called to is called in the Bible discipleship.  For so long we have been asked to accept Jesus as our Saviour as though we were doing God a favor.  “Please won’t you accept Jesus?  Please?” Did you ever go through the Acts of the Apostles and find an altar call?  In the early church people were trying to get in!  “And no man durst join himself to them.” When you and I become a community of power, people will be beating down our door to get in!  But now we lower the standard of the gospel to get a decision.  “Just let me see your hand – put it up half way?  A quarter way?  Wiggle a finger?” (*Laughter*)

You know what I am offering you tonight?  I am offering you the opportunity to come into the redeemed community of King Jesus under valid spiritual authority, God-men trained, gifted and appointed by God to help you keep your life in hand and to teach you what it is to have a life that is properly disciplined by a man of God – that is what we are offering.  We are offering you the opportunity to come into a redeemed community where God Himself has placed shepherds that will love you and that will lay down their lives for you . 

They were disciplined.  They were trained for war.  They knew what it was to be disciplined and come under authority.  They were also balanced.  It says that they could handle the shield and the spear.  What does that mean?  A shield is defensive and the spear is offensive.  That is balance.  It is not enough to be always defending or always on the offensive.  Jesus said, “Come in for food and go out for service.” If you stay out there constantly trying to minister to others, then you will starve to death.  If you come in and sit all the time at Bible conferences, then you will get too fat!  You come in to get fed and go out to serve.  You fend off the enemy, but you are not forever fending off the enemy – you give him a whack too.  (*Laughter*) Balance!  Fearlessness!  “Faces of lions,” the Bible said!  There was fearlessness and a courageousness characterizing this committed vanguard.

I am telling you in this hour that if you are going to stand with what God is doing, you are going to have to have some courage.  You are going to have to have the face of a lion, because in the Ziklag experience, we are still exposed to Saul.  “They were as swift as the gazelles on the mountain” and they were resourceful.  As they skipped across the mountain, they had to be sure footed.  They knew how to adapt.  They knew how to move and find their way.  They were men trained for exactly this kind of thing – this was the committed vanguard!

Spiritual Authority is Earned Authority.

Now also order.  Isn’t this interesting?  We have the same thing here as among the Benjaminites.  Look at (V. 9) “Ezer the chief, Obadiah the second, Eliab third, Mishmannah fourth, Jeremiah fifth, Attai sixth, Eliel seventh, Johannan eighth, Elzabad ninth.” What’s this all about?  Order.  Structure.  Authority.  Someone says, “I want to be first.” You have got to earn the right to be the first.  You have to earn the right to be heard.  You have to earn the right to have authority – you can’t buy a living in this community!  You can’t get a job by bribery here.  You have to earn the right by your life and consistency and resourcefulness and courage until men come to you and say, “Brother will you take me?” One of the charges that is being levelled against some of us in America is that we are reaching for men and want to take over their lives.  That is about the biggest lie I have ever heard.  I have men constantly calling me long distance and saying, “Baxter in this troubled hour … I am this kind of minister or that.” They come from all kinds of backgrounds.  “Will you take me?  Will you disciple me?  Will you shepherd me?  Will you counsel me?” Now, they are doing this with other men.  What are they hearing from me?  I am just one of many!  They are hearing 43 years of experience, and they are hearing from someone who has been there through the wars.  They are hearing from someone who has the same scars.  Someone who has been through what they are going through, and they are saying, “Help!” You don’t have to reach for men when you deserve the right to exercise authority in lives.  You don’t have to reach – but look, don’t you try to be number one until you have earned the right to be number one.  There was order in the committed vanguard.

You know lately it’s come to me very strongly that I think it’s very important in this hour that we don’t grow too rapidly, because brother, once this thing breaks, we better have men and women ready to take what’s coming in and be ready to handle them.  Many of you young people are going to have to learn to submit to authority because you may be the youngest leaders in history.  Already in many places of the world where this message and this emphasis of the Holy Spirit is coming, I’ve gone into communities in America of three-hundred or more where young men in their twenties are exercising an eldership of maturity that would put fifty year old men to shame, but these young men have come under authority to other men and have worked at it and submitted themselves and sat at the feet of other men and have earned the right to be heard.  You say, “I’ve never heard this kind of talk before.  I thought you just got saved and joined a church and paid our dues on Sunday morning and heard a sermon.  I don’t understand this!” I am sure that the majority of you do.  I don’t want to talk down to you, but you see folks for years we have had an emasculated, watered down, anemic kind of Christianity, that barely resembles anything like the reality, yet now we are finding out what reality is!  Reality is total involvement!  “Christ is my Lord!  He puts me in the Body!  He puts me under authority!  He puts me under a shepherd!  I learn to be disciplined, trained, equipped for service and for war.  I start to function in the redeemed community!  I find my own place of authority and responsibility and I become part of reality.  It’s not just a Sunday thing – it is a whole week thing!  It’s a life thing – I’m totally involved in an alternate society – in a counter-culture – in a new order.  I am so excited I am going to jump out of my skin!” (*Laughter*)

4.  The Committed Vanguard Were Superior People with a Tradition.

Not only were they people of order – they were superior people.  “He who was least was equal to a hundred and the greatest to a thousand.” Hallelujah!  You know what’s happening in this thing?  It is so thrilling to me.  I’m finding today where young people are moving into this sphere of relationship and discipleship and submission – I am finding young people of quality and courage that are like no young people that I’ve ever seen.  I think this is the greatest generation of young people have ever lived.  I do.  Across the world I am finding them.  There is something in them, and they are ready to commit.  They’re ready to do whatever.  There’s not just one here and one there.  There’s a generation, and there are thousands of them across the earth!  There is an army of young people right now across the earth, with a bedroll under one arm and a Bible under the other, with a glint in their eye, and they are saying, “Where next Lord?” Hallelujah!  They are not a bunch of renegades – they are committed.  They are seeking oversight and seeking shepherding. 

Verse 15 is an interesting verse because there is nothing that I can find in the Bible that tells us where it happens.  But it says, “These are the ones that crossed the Jordan in the first month when it was overflowing all its banks, and they put to flight all those in the valleys both to the east and to the west.” Those people had a tradition of bravery and they were proud of their tradition.  You say, “How does that fit in with what you are saying?” Oh, very well.  Did you ever read Hebrews 12: 1, “Seeing that we are encompassed by so great a cloud of witnesses”?  What crowd of witnesses?  All those in chapter 11 – that is our tradition!  Elijah is looking at you tonight.  Jeremiah is looking over this crowd.  Abraham is having a peep!  There is David looking through the tent over there.  We have got tradition!  We ought to be the best generation of Christians that ever lived. 

I remember 10 years ago I preached in Glasgow, and they were taking me to the airport at Prestwick, and we were going through some hills, and the driver said to me, “Do you know where you are?” I said, “No.” He told me we were going through the hills where my forebears had rendezvoused at the risk of their lives to meet for the meal of covenant.  Suddenly, as we were driving along, I felt the tears running down my cheeks as I looked out at those hills, and I could see at dusk forms making their way down those valleys to rendezvous at some pre-arranged spot at the risk of their lives to break bread.  I said, “Those are my people!  And I have got a tradition!” You see there is a Christian tradition that is valid – don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Don’t decide because God is bringing us into a new dimension that all the old dimensions were bad.  Don’t do that.  I’m afraid that we have done that with some of our singing.  We have thrown out the grand old hymns as though they were apostate.  I have met people who received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and they figured that everything they knew about Christianity prior to that time was apostate.  That is ridiculous!  Christianity didn’t start in 1966!  (*Laughter*) God always builds on what has gone before – there is rich tradition.  I am a lover of Church history!  There have been great men in the life of the Church!  Great men.  My library is full of biographies that I dip into from time to time.  They have challenged me and charmed me and inspired me and thrilled me.  We are indebted to them – we’ve got a tremendous tradition!

In this hour God is bringing us into a new dimension and one of the challenges is that we have got a past that should inspire us to move into this new dimension – perhaps one of the most demanding of Church history!

I want you to look at verse 16.  “Then some of the sons of Benjamin and Judah came to the stronghold to David.” They were latecomers.  “David went out to meet them and answered and said to them, ‘If you come peacefully to me, to help me, my heart shall be united to you, but if to betray me to my adversaries, since there is no wrong in my hands, may the God of our fathers look on it and decide.” This is the nature of commitment.  It is honesty and integrity.  Brothers we are learning the meaning of honesty.  I talked to the shepherds and their wives today – we are living in an hour when we can no longer play the phoney baloney church game – when we can no longer put “the face” on.  We can’t play games anymore!  The hour has come for reality.  The hour has come to take the masks off.  The hour has come to bear our hearts.  The hour has come, when we can’t be hypocrites and do the double living thing.  The time has come for us to enter into relationships that are honest and clean, and where integrity is involved, and we have a beautiful picture of it as these people come to David.  David said, “Alright, I will lay it on the line to you.  If you are men of integrity and honor I want you to know – if you have come peacefully to help me, and if your heart is one with my heart, then I want to enter into commitment with you.  But if you have come to betray me, then I warn you that I have done nothing wrong, and I am right with God.  You will have to answer to God for it.” That’s not playing games.

Commitment has to have the Holy Spirit in it.  “Then the Spirit came upon Amassi who was the chief of the thirty and he said, ‘We are yours oh David and with you son of Jesse.  Peace, peace to you and peace to him who helps you, indeed your God helps you.’” That’s the response.  My heart is with your heart!  I can’t enter into that kind of commitment with you people here.  I can’t do that.  But back home I have got that kind of commitment with men who will die for me.  I have got men back home who are one with my heart, and my heart is one with their heart.  Don’t you raise your voice against me in their presence!  We have made a commitment, and we’ve met one another with all our bareness hanging out.  Nothing covered!  We know about one another.  We know each other’s weaknesses.  We know each other’s strengths.  We have entered into commitment, and we are one with each other. 

This is the whole drift of the New Testament ladies and gentlemen!  This is why the world has no time for us.  We’re not even decent to one another – we don’t even have integrity to one another.  We are not honest with each other, and we don’t defend each other, but rather speak evil of each other!  The hour has come for us to be the committed vanguard as God is bringing in the climax of the age, and as people like you begin to have understanding.  Enter into relationships!  Find your place in the vine!  Plug into authority!  Find your place under shepherds!  Be men that are honest and have integrity and stand for one another because the fire will get hot before we are through.

The result of this was that David made them captains.  People want authority without commitment.  You want authority?  Submit to authority and you will get authority.  If you want authority without submission, then you won’t get it.  People are no longer listening to what comes out of our mouths.  They are listening to what comes out of our spirits.  There is a new perception coming into the body of Christ and you can’t fool people anymore like you used to.  People hear the sound of your spirit. 

5.  The Committed Vanguard Saw Inevitable Increase.

All right let’s drop to verse 22.  “For day by day men came to David to help him until there was a great army like the army of God.” The inevitable increase came day by day to David and the vanguard.  Let me comfort your hearts tonight brothers, especially you that are in the leadership of this move of God, this thing that is happening.  People are deriding us because of what we are saying.  Derision is part of the satanic plan.  It was derision that got Eve to fall in the Garden.  The serpent said, “Oh yes?  Did God really say that?” You see; we can’t stand derision.  You know how Satan usually brings derision today?  He says, “Now brother, you’re an intelligent man.” You want to be an intelligent man of course!  Satan used to do that with me about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  He said, “Now Baxter, you are an intelligent fellow,” and I would preen.  Now when they say I’m an intelligent fellow, I say, “No, I’m stupid.” (*Laughter*) That disarms them in a hurry!  They don’t expect you to admit that you are dumb!  “I’m foolish” – well I am to them!

“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.” I can’t explain to a natural man the mechanics of regeneration or the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  I have got so many things to say. 

All right!  “Day by day they came to David.” I want to encourage your hearts by saying this.  Even now in Ziklag, when we have been kicked out, lied about, berated and mocked – even now, the growth of God is among us, and across the earth men are coming into the reality of the relationships of the redeemed community.  But remember!  Don’t stop at Ziklag.  Don’t let the better become the enemy of the best.  When you sing your songs – sing it right.  Don’t sing, “We’re marching to Ziklag.” We are at Ziklag, but we are not staying here.  Don’t sing “We’re marching to Hebron.” Go right to the end of the track.  Zion!  “We’re marching to Zion!” We’ll talk about that tomorrow night.

From Ziklag to Zion is part five of The King and His Army Series- a powerful and still relevant prophetic series preached by J. Ern Baxter at the Lakes Bible Week in 1975. Based upon the prophetic significance for Christ’s Church of David’s perilous journey and the journey of the twelve tribes of Israel from Ziklag to Zion, graphically, with great insight and humor, Ern proclaims what it is going to take for the Church to enter in and lay hold of the Kingdom and succeed in it’s mission to disciple cities and nations and fill the earth with God’s glory!

In the kind of thing that I’ve been saying this week I realize I run the risk of being misunderstood, probably misrepresented and even the things I say being misused.  I was sharing with the brothers at lunch today something of my personal feeling, which I think is a safeguard against getting into the “we-they” mentality.  I feel I should say to you tonight that we don’t get into the attitude of “we are the people” and whoever “they” are – “oh well, we just feel sorry for them.” If you will notice (and it will come out again tonight) even though Saul tried to kill David, David always loved and respected Saul.  We should all read the 1st chapter of 2nd Samuel when the announcement of Saul and Jonathan’s deaths came to David, this is one of the most beautiful passages as David sings his song of lament over the death of the man who tried to kill him and Jonathan his son with whom he had such a deep covenant relationship.  As we will find out tonight, David’s love never seemed to slacken even after Saul’s death.  He continued to have a respectful affection for the very memory of Saul.  I don’t like to keep laying on you the fact that I have been 43 years in the ministry, but I have watched several revivals come and break on the rocks on exclusivism, and they said, “We have it – we are the people.” I want you to know that my brothers and I feel that whatever God is doing with us, we will never get into the exclusivistic camp, and we will hold solidly the position that every man who calls Christ Lord is my brother.  He may not be flowing in what I feel is right or what I am doing, but I am not going to allow myself to be painted into a corner.  I am going to love all of God’s people. 

More than that, while I am obviously not in favor of Head and Shoulders government, that doesn’t mean I am going to retaliate in kind.  Because Saul tries to pin me to the wall, I am not going to try and pin him to the wall.  I will continue to love those men I feel may be involved in Head and Shoulders government, and I think we have got to be careful, brothers and sisters, that we don’t equate Head and Shoulders government with things that we don’t personally like.  We must be very careful that we ourselves have been completely purged of Head and Shoulders attitudes, and I am not sure that we totally are.  Hang loose!  Keep a big heart!  Don’t get exclusive!  Don’t say “We and they” – it is “us.” All right, I think you will see the importance of that as we move along tonight.

Now last night we dealt with Ziklag, and tonight we’re going to go on to Hebron.  Hopefully, I will leave you in Zion while I go to Manchester.  (*Laughter*) You will notice in this very significant analogy of the Head and Shoulders government of the Kingdom versus the Heart government (human authority versus divine authority) that as I have laid this out that there have been places where I am not quite sure what it all means.  I think this is a healthy thing to do.  If you are not sure, say you are not sure.  Don’t make something up just to try and make people think you are an encyclopaedia.  I do know that this story is an analogy of what is going on because God is going to have His David be the ultimate Lord.  He will be supreme, as we have just seen.  When I say I don’t know what something means – I don’t.  If you know – write me a letter and tell me.  There are some very significant things, and one of them we’ll find tonight is that for a year and four months David was cooped up in Ziklag because he was restricted by reason of Saul’s design on his life.  For a year and four months there came to him day by day, men who were defecting from the Head and Shoulders regime of Saul – until we learned last night that there was an army like the army of God.  I suggested (and this is just my personal view) that we are at the present time at Ziklag.  I don’t think I’m just being critical.  I think it’s obvious – it’s just patently obvious that all over the world tonight government is crumbling. 

We are not just talking about ecclesiastical government – we are talking about government generally.  Head and Shoulders authoritarianism is crumbling because there was a day in the USA and in the UK and many other nations when there was a healthy, official recognition of the sovereignty of God.  In the last 100 years or so, with the coming of Jewish pragmatism into education and higher criticism into theology, we have lost our moorings and now human society across the world is in trouble concerning authority.  In America we are facing the possibility in this bicentennial year of announced threats that there will be indiscriminate bombings by extreme left and right wing political fanatics, so that we can expect any moment that a bomb will go off in the USA.  Now I don’t have to labor that.  I’m only saying it because I don’t want you to get the idea that I am some kind of obscurantist with a little view that is not proper.  Unless you don’t read the newspapers or know what is going on, the world is in trouble, because Head and Shoulders government, whether civil government or ecclesiastical government, is not the government of God!  Let me say this – that civil government ought to be the government of God, for the powers that be are ordained of God and a nation will only rise as high as it’s recognition of the sovereignty of almighty God in it’s affairs of state.  So I want to clear the ground on that.  And I don’t think that it’s any secret that ecclesiastical government is in trouble.  All over the world it is in trouble.  It is no secret that many denominations can’t get any young men to go to seminary.  I went to a great large seminary in Australia that at one time housed 400-500 ministerial candidates for one of the largest denominations in the world.  It was almost sad as I walked through this four-story building and saw the rotting mildew mattresses and was told that the best that they could manage was 17 students.  Churches in America cannot be manned by ministers because there are no seminary students coming up.

So when I am talking of Head and Shoulders government collapsing I am not talking through my hat.  I am simply making a point of the obvious, and that in it’s place, if there is any validity to the analogy I am drawing, if Head and Shoulders government is falling, then I have a right to expect that somewhere in the earth there is something comparable to David’s army in formation, and I believe I see it.  But I am warning all of us not to get into an exclusivistic attitude.  If you feel you are a part of what God is doing – hallelujah!  But don’t try and pin Saul to the wall.  If you catch him in a cave in a deep sleep, don’t cut his head off.  Let God take care of him.  Not only don’t be negative towards people that you feel are caught in Head and Shoulders government, but have a genuine concern for them.  I think you probably know what I am saying. 

Let’s turn to 2nd Samuel chapter 2.  Chapter 1 tells us about the death of Saul and Jonathan and the beautiful lament of David.  Notice how he finishes in verse 27.  “How have the mighty fallen!  Then it came about after Saul’s death …” Here’s another point where I am going to say that I don’t know what that means exactly.  But if my analogy is correct, there is coming a crisis when the army that is being formed in Ziklag has been forced out of the Head and Shoulders situation – that army is going to be released by what is referred to as the death of Saul.  Now follow closely:

“It came about afterwards that David enquired of the Lord saying, ‘Shall I go up to one of the cities of Judah?’ So the Lord said, ‘Go up.’ And David said, ‘Where shall I go up to?’ He said, ‘To Hebron.’”

Well that can’t be any plainer can it?  The Lord said, “Go to Hebron.” So David went up.  Verse 4, “Then the men of Judah came and there anointed David king over the house of Judah.”

The Meaning of Hebron

David had three anointings.  He was anointed by Samuel in Bethlehem, which anointing carried him through to the death of Saul.  Now he is going to move into a new dimension with added demands upon him.  He is anointed a second time.  I believe that this means that there is an increase in the intensity of the divine anointing and provision for the demands that these crises propose.  We can look for an acceleration of the activity of the Holy Spirit as we move on in God, and there will come new empowerments and new dimensions and new anointings to accommodate the new demands and the new confrontations and the new requirements that are being made upon us.  This thrills me!  Sometimes now I can hardly stay in my skin.  I think that if we get an increase in this anointing, I suppose the Lord will just have to toughen my skin a little bit.  (*Laughter*) “There they anointed David king over Judah.” So David’s second anointing equipped him to reign over the house of Judah. 

“And they told David saying, ‘It was the men of Jabesh-gilead who buried Saul.’” You remember Jabesh-gilead was the place that was besieged by Nahash on Monday night, and Saul got angry, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he cut up that sacrifice and sent it off to Israel and said, “If you Israelites don’t come and stand with me then this is what is going to happen to you.” The Israelites came streaming in, and Saul won a great victory.  Now the men of Jabesh-gilead had a sense of loyal responsibility and fond memory of what Saul had done, so they got his body and buried it.  “They told David saying, ‘It was the men of Jabesh-gilead who buried Saul.’” Now I want you to see David’s attitude. 

Visions and Dreams Belong Together.

I feel deeply tonight in the light of what I have seen in the past.  Please forgive me, but the Bible says, “Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.” Visions are made out of the stuff of the future, and dreams are made out of the stuff of the past.  If a young man’s vision isn’t tempered by an old man’s dream, then he will blow his head off.  If an old man’s dream isn’t inspired by a young man’s vision, then he will rot on the vine. They have got to go together.  I want you to know that I have seen revivals of considerable promise that went down the drain because there came an attitude of self-righteous exclusivism that said, “We are God’s people and no one else is.” If you happen to be among the 300, you are going to have to have the grace that Gideon and the 300 had when the thing breaks wider – to let the cowards that went home come and help in the mopping up exercise.

Verse 5, “And David sent messengers to the men of Jabesh-gildead and said to them, ‘May you be blessed of the Lord because you have shown this kindness to Saul your Lord and buried him and now may the Lord show loving kindness to you and I also will show this goodness to you because you have done this thing.  Now therefore let your hands be strong and be valiant for Saul your Lord is dead and also the house of Judah has anointed me kind over them.”

What’s he saying?  This is very beautiful.  David could have said, “Bless God – Saul is dead.  Now is my time for revenge.  I’m going to go up and clean up those people that didn’t join me at Ziklag while Saul was after my life.  I was tied down there for a year and four months, and those boys hung around Saul’s court and didn’t join me.  Now Saul’s dead I will go up and fix them.” Was that his attitude?  If you haven’t got a heart that is big enough for every man that breathes the breath of life – you haven’t got God’s heart.  You know a personal thing I have discovered – many a man whom other men call rank modernists and liberals whom I have got close to and cultivated their friendship – yet way down underneath all the debris that they learned in an unbelieving seminary – I found a spark of faith!  I don’t count any man out. 

As a young man I went to a Canadian city where I had an uncle by marriage who was the minister of a very modernistic church.  He came to hear me preach, and that night I mentioned hell.  Because of the relationship between us he figured he should have me for tea; so I went.  He started to talk to me, and he thought probably while he appreciated my zeal, that I was a bit unwise, and he started to give me the business.  I let him go on and on, and at last I looked at him and said, “If I were a young man whose heart God had touched, and I came to you to ask you what I should do to fulfil God’s purpose in my life – would you talk to me this way?” It was the word of the Lord, and he quietly said, “I’m sorry.” He said, “You may not believe this, but I gave my heart to Jesus Christ at a street service on the streets of Edinburgh, and I apologise.  I’ve drifted a long way.” We finished our evening, and the years went by literally, and I was then sharing in a great large auditorium down in eastern Canada, and an usher came to me and said, “There is an old gentleman outside, and he says he’s your uncle by marriage.  He gave his name and said he’d like to see you.” “Oh, I will come,” I said.  They took me through a side door and there standing outside of this great auditorium was my uncle all stooped with age, but his face was radiant.  He took my hand and said, “I had to see you.  I can’t come in – I’m not well enough to sit, but I had to come and tell you that since we talked together last I have got it back!”

Beloved have big hearts.  If you see some truths you are going to have to stand for them and be driven to Ziklag, but don’t let it touch your spirit.  Don’t let it make you bitter.  Don’t let it make you retaliate or become exclusive.  Don’t let it make you turn people off.  All kinds of people around you are hungry – never go by what a man is saying.  Many a time when a man is maddest – he is the weakest.  Remember when Jesus came down from the Mount of Transfiguration and the disciples couldn’t cast the devil out of that boy?  Jesus spoke to that devil, and the last thing that devil did was he tore that boy up before he got out.  That’s like a bad tenant when he is told to get out, and he tears the wallpaper off before he lives.  You will find that when a man is most retaliatory to you – he is just about ready to cave in.

Verse 8, “But.” There is always somebody around to “but.” Goats butt with their heads.  When the sheep hear the voice of God, they say, “Baa … abba.” (*Laughter*) “But Abner the son of Ner, commander of Saul’s army had taken Ish-bosheth the son of Saul and brought him over to Mahanaim to Gibeon and he made him king over Gilead … even over all Israel.  Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, was 40 years old when he became king over all Israel and he was king for 2 years.  The house of Judah however followed David and the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.” Saul is dead.  The major representation of Head and Shoulders government is dead, but the momentum carries on.  Abner took one of Saul’s sons and tries to carry it on, but it is a dead issue.  For seven and a half years this went on.  Let’s look at chapter 3.  “Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David.” That’s a long war.  David grew steadily stronger, but the house of Saul grew weaker continually.  You see the issues are clear.  We want everything to happen quickly.  God is telling us in this story that they don’t happen quickly – that there is a crisis and a process.  This is the same with conversion.  Becoming a Christian is a gate and a path.  It’s a birth and a life.  It’s a crisis and a process, and what is happening in the world today is a crisis and a process.  Some of us want the process to happen with the crisis!  But the crisis I believe has already struck in this visitation of the Holy Spirit that is showing the Head and Shoulders government up for what it is.  The process of bringing the whole house of Israel under the lordship of Christ is not about another denomination.  I don’t want to belong to another denomination – I don’t want to belong to another part – I want to belong to the whole house of Israel!  I don’t want anybody left out, including me!  How many understand what I am saying?  Whether you agree with me or not – do you understand it?

Let’s turn to chapter 5.  At the end of the long war, Ish-bosheth is killed along with Abner.  Mephiboseth is the only one left of the house of Saul and he is lame in both feet.  Mephiboseth is the son of Jonathan and David and Jonathan had a covenant that David would be kind to Jonathan’s house.  Mephiboseth is brought into David’s house and puts his feet under the king’s table because of the covenant made with Jonathan.  However all the power is now gone out of the thing.  There’s nothing left – Abner is dead.  Ish-bosheth is dead.  There is nothing left now, but for Israel to come to David.  So we come to Hebron.  “Then all the tribes of Israel came to David and said, ‘Behold we are your bone and your flesh.  Previously when Saul was king over us you were the one who led Israel out and in.” Isn’t that interesting?  Even when Saul was alive and we were nominally loyal to him, we knew who the real king was.  Does that say anything to you?  “And the Lord said to you, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel and you will be a ruler over Israel.’”

I was speaking on this one night in Fort Lauderdale, and suddenly God put faith in my heart, and I am going to tell you about it.  It may be purely a personal thing, but if it witnesses with you – hallelujah.  God put faith in my heart, and if you are caught as some of us are, when you are in a place where you are going to have to declare unpopular things, you may agree with what my friend says, “Every time God calls – He calls us to inconvenience.” I will never forget about 8 or 9 years ago, I was having one of those seasonal confrontations with the Lord, and He got me in my bedroom one day, and we really had it out.  I shouldn’t say “We.” He had it out.  He worked me over real good, and I shed all the tears that I could shed.  He took me into Isaiah and really worked me over.  About 5:30 pm I was at the side of the bed limp, and I said, “Well Lord – what do you want now?  You’ve got me beaten down here – what do you want?” He said, “I am going to make you a divider.” I said, “Thanks a lot.” (*Laughter*) “That’s great.  Going all over the country known as Baxter the divider.” But He went on to say, “The division will not come because you go deliberately to divide, but because as you declare the truth men will respond, and men will refuse, and there will be division.” Do you know that when they issue public relations about me to put in papers that they write it up and say of my ministry, “Ern Baxter is committed to the unity of the body of Christ”?  God knows that is the passion of my heart.  Yet when I come into an area and speak of the body of Christ, people scream, “He’s dividing!” They are not using the right word.  I am threatening.  Unity threatens – isn’t that amazing?  But when you talk about all God’s people in a given area coming together in the unity of the Spirit of faith, you will hear a scream to high heaven.  People will say, “Well, if everyone gets together – what’s going to happen to me?” Invariably, I am sorry to say, that comment comes from leadership.  If only they knew that their greatest joy and expression in ministry would be found in unity.  I haven’t found ministers anywhere in the world who have got into an experience of relating to other ministers that haven’t found it to be the most fruitful, delightful, blessed experience in the world. 

So the Lord said to me, “You’re going to be a divider.” As I was speaking in Ft. Lauderdale on this, “all the tribes of Israel” came.  God put a faith on my heart – I believe God put it there.  I am pretty sure He did.  I saw a new expansion of my own vision.  I had wondered in this move of God across the earth (which the Bible says is going to happen), whether there will only be a little bunch from here and from there.  Until that night something burst in my spirit, and I saw all the tribes coming.  All the tribes!  You say, “It’s a miracle!” Well, God specialises in miracles!  You say, “Baxter I just can’t see it.” Well, you believe a lot of things you can’t see don’t you?  Have you faith tonight that God can take all of our denominational tribes with their distinctive contributions and do a mighty work of grace when this crisis thing comes - where the Head and Shoulders thing dies – when God kills him?  Remember the other night God put him to death?  I don’t know what that means, but there comes a time when Head and Shoulders government is put to death, and God raises up spiritual authority.  Can you believe that there is a time when all the tribes will respond to King David?  Even those tribes that stood apart for seven and a half years will come – can you believe that in the purpose of God they will all come?  Hallelujah!  I believe it tonight!

Don’t be sticky about it.  Don’t say, “Well, we stuck it out for seven and a half years – where were they?” (*Laughter*) I read that parable about the fellows who came at the last hour and received the same wage as the ones that worked all day – that’ll fix you.  (*Laughter*) I will tell you something.  Bryn preached on Gideon and I was going to include that in one of my messages.  It was great and I enjoyed it tremendously.  Think of the 300.  Do you know quite apart from special rewards that the Judgement Seat of Christ will distribute and all that sort of thing – those 300 will have something that the rest of them could never have.  They can sit around at night and say, “Wasn’t it tremendous when that trumpet blew?  Glory to God!  When we smashed those pitchers – do you remember the goose bumps we got?” (*Laughter*) If you are part of the vanguard in this hour – if you are part of that body which has seen what is happening – if you are part of it, and then suddenly God does some protégée of power in the earth and whatever it means by the death of Saul and his house – and all of the tribes start to come, then don’t you dare keep them out and ask them where they have been!  You welcome them with open arms – but they won’t know about the wonderful days when you were the vanguard at Ziklag.  They won’t know about those wonderful days when you fought and won battles, and you were the minority – they won’t know about that!  You don’t have to be jealous.  You’ve got something that they can never experience!  Hallelujah!

Verse 3, “So all the elders came to the king at Hebron and King David made a covenant with them.” Notice they came.  They came.  Brothers and sisters we’re not going to have to coerce men – we won’t have to drag them – they will come!  When God does what He’s going to do, men are going to come.  Look at the end of verse 3.  “Then they anointed David king over all Israel.” This is his 3rd anointing.  He’s got to have a new anointing – he’s got a bigger job now.  His first anointing took him through to Ziklag.  When he went to Hebron and had to rule over Judah, he had to have a new anointing.  Now he’s got the biggest job he ever had in his life – he’s got a whole nation.  He must have a new anointing.  Brother if I’m right and we are still at Ziklag, then we have got two big jobs coming up, and we have got two anointings up the road somewhere.  Hallelujah.  You think we have had visitations in this revival.  You think this is marvellous?  Just think that there are two more and each is bigger than the other one.  The next one will be bigger than this, and the third will be better than that one.  Verse 4, “David was 30 years old when he became king.” Isn’t that interesting?  30 years old.  “And he reigned 40 years.” At Hebron he reigned over Judah 7 years and 6 months, and in Jerusalem he reigned 33 years over all Israel and Judah. 

Now let’s go over to Chronicles chapter 12 again.  We are going to break in at verse 23, and we are going to establish the purpose of God.  How many believe in the purpose of God?  How many believe God is going to work out His purpose?  He has got a lot of patience.  If this generation won’t go in – He can wait.  He will work out His purpose as surely as He lives.  So if you can find out what the purpose is, then go with the purpose.

All right?  Here’s the purpose.  Verse 23, “Now these are the numbers of the divisions equipped for war who came to David at Hebron to turn the kingdom of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord.” Ladies and gentlemen you can fuss and fume and get upset and you can stomp and kick, but the Lord has willed that all Israel is going to come together, and in that hour they shall see eye to eye in Zion, and Christ shall be Lord in very deed in a time/space world through the power of the Gospel.

“The sons of Judah who bore a shield and a spear were 6800.” There’s balance again.  “Of the sons of Simeon mighty men of valour for war – 71, 000.  Of the sons of Levi – 4, 600.  Jehoda was the leader of the house of Aaron and with him were 3, 700 – also Zadok a young man.” I like that.  “A young man – mighty of valour and of his father’s house – 22 captains.  And of the sons of Benjamin, Saul’s kinsmen, 3, 0000 for until now the greatest part of them had kept their allegiance to the house of Saul.”

Are you listening?  Up until now where had their allegiance been?  Saul was a Head and Shoulders man, but where did they finish up?  With the Heart man.  Hallelujah.  So that Head and Shoulders fellow you just put a spear through yesterday, may have come in if you hadn’t killed him.  (*Laughter*) Verse 30, “And of the sons of Ephraim 20, 800 – mighty men of valour – famous men in their father’s household.  And of the half tribe of Manassah 18, 000 who were designated by name to come and make David king.” Designated by name – that whole tribe came together and they chose 18, 000 and said, “We want you to go as our representative to make David king.” Look!  All of these people are coming from Head and Shoulders government.  This confirms what I felt in the Spirit.  I think that what God has laid on my heart by way of warning tonight keeps coming up in my spirit – don’t spoil it!  They’re coming!  We are all coming!  I will not be part of the division of the body of Christ.  I will not rest night or day preaching the totality of God’s purpose, because I believe it is the will of God to not raise up just another group of revival people, but the hour has come for all Israel to come together. 

Let’s take the charismatic renewal.  I feel I have got to labor this thing.  I would not have believed 10 or 15 years ago that this could happen.  I couldn’t believe it!  If you had told me 15 years ago that I would share a conference with a Jesuit priest, a Franciscan priest, a Trappist monk, a Presbyterian minister and a Lutheran minister – all on the same platform, I would have said it can’t be!  But it’s been!  (*Laughter*) How did it be?  I’m not letting out any secrets – the ecumenical movement as such is dead.  It can’t get anywhere.  What is God doing?  He is shaking all our boxes and is bringing us together so we find ourselves in conferences and conventions and we are saying, “What is your tribe?” “Oh, I come from the Roman Catholic tribe.” (*Laughter*) “And what do you bring to the house of Israel?” “We bring discipline – we bring an understanding of authority.” Do you know what I’ve learned from my Catholic brethren?  I have been taught all my life to be a pulpit pounding, dogmatic, Roman Catholic baiting, thundering anti-papal … you get the point.  (*Laughter*) I have been told all my life that on the other side of the fence there are things that you wouldn’t believe … (*Laughter*) Last year at the Shepherds Conference when I arrived, they said you will be sharing a room with Father Francis McNutt, who I found to be a very beautiful man.  Someone said, “What’s it like?” (*Laughter*) I wonder what they thought – I don’t know what they expected.  He was a beautiful human being who loved the Lord and comes from a different background and says things I wouldn’t say, and I wouldn’t understand.  I say things he wouldn’t say, and he wouldn’t understand.  But I tell you, we had one or two spiritual crises, and we were able to comfort one another in the Spirit.  Then I went to another conference just a few months ago and shared a room with Ralph Martin – the editor of “New Covenant” – the great Charismatic Catholic magazine.  He had a bad cold and I caught his cold.  That’s the first time I caught a Roman Catholic cold.  (*Laughter*) I kept hearing a voice saying, “Go show yourself to the priest.” (*Laughter*)

Do you know what I have discovered?  I have discovered that when the tribes come together that they all bring something that we need.  It’s now 5 years since we held in the city of Seattle what we now call, “The 1st Charismatic Leadership Gathering in America.” There were some 35 of us who responded and when the meeting opened up the chairman was trying very diplomatically to set the scene.  I looked around, and that was an odd assortment of men I tell you.  There was a Jesuit, a Franciscan, a parish priest.  There were two outstanding Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists and Baptists – all sitting around the circle.  When the chairman got through making his introductory statements, the Jesuit priest simply said, “Brethren – I don’t trust you.” I thought, “Hallelujah – what a great way to start a conference.” (*Laughter*) Incidentally the charismatic brothers in Seattle at that time were sufficiently strong that they could bring us in, pay our return fares and promise us an honorarium.  That’s what can come from unity!  Seventy ministers in Seattle were now formed into a functioning body of flowing charismatic ministers in the city.  I thought – this is great.  There goes thousands of dollars down the tube.  You know though – it was the Word of the Lord for us?  Every one of us sitting in the room knew it was right.

The Holy Spirit then moved in and we all found ourselves in each other’s arms.  You could hear men saying to each other, “I trust you my brother.” Incidentally that Jesuit priest became one of my dearest friends to this very hour.  For a week we talked about everything.  I mean everything.  And you know what a bunch of ministers can be like when they get talking!  It is worse than a bunch of women at a bargain basement sale.  (*Laughter*) Never once did I hear a voice raised in acrimony or the sound of resentfulness.  We discussed whether a man could have a demon or whether a demon could have a man.  We discussed whether babies should be sprinkled or immersed.  Or whether adults should be immersed or sprinkled.  You name it – we talked about it.  We never came to ultimate decisions, but we talked about it.  We learned how to grow up in that meeting, and we learned how to sit together in basic doctrinal disagreement and finish up with our arms around each other celebrating the unity of the Spirit, not yet able to celebrate the unity of the faith.  Our hearts were together but our heads were not together yet. 

Everything was going fine until the middle of the week when the same Jesuit priest spoke up again.  He said, “I would like to have communion with you brothers.” I thought, “Boy you just about blew it on the first day, but you’ve fixed it now.” (*Laughter*) “This is going to be great!  What are we going to have?  Mass?  What’s going to happen here?” We had history in that room – hundreds of years of history!  The chairman with a twinkle in his eye said, “Alright, will Father So-and-so and Larry Christenson prepare the communion.” A Jesuit priest and a Lutheran minister.  I thought, “There’s irony for you.” (*Laughter*) They smiled at each other and said fine.  We went out to lunch and came back into the room to have communion.  Someone had gone to the college cafeteria and got some dinner rolls and put them into the center of the room with a bottle of wine and a chalice, and there the elements sat in stark simplicity.  We took our places around the table as we had done during the discussion.  What would happen?  What would take place now?  As we sat there, once again the Holy Spirit did what He had done the first day, and I still believe that I saw a preview of what is coming in this hour.  He moved in, and our hands were raised, and we were singing in the Spirit.  Oh, how we sang!  Suddenly we started to slip to our knees and nobody said anything.  I heard coming from voices, “I submit to you brother.” Now these were men whose books are on seminary shelves.  Men, who are names in the charismatic world.  It wasn’t a human submission.  It was the kind of submission that God wants us to have.  A spiritual submission.  I don’t believe in legal submission, but I do believe in spiritual submission.  I don’t want any submission from anybody that they don’t want to give me.  I don’t want any submission from anyone that I can’t respond to responsibly.  I heard them saying, “I submit to you my brothers,” and I was weeping, and others were weeping.  It was a holy time. 

I think I’ve talked to every man that was there and asked them, “Do you remember if anybody blessed the elements,” and no-one remembers them being blessed.  I think the precious Holy Spirit pronounced the blessing on the elements.  The first thing I know was that somebody was pressing some bread to my lips – the blessed Body of our Lord.  Through my tears I discerned a face of a brother, and he left the roll in my hand, and I blessed him and turned and shared it with my brother and left it in his hand.  Somebody pressed the chalice to my lips, and I passed it on.  It was communion.  It was no ritual.  It was the common sharing of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus.  As we were sharing having all partaken, suddenly across the room I saw a man, and he and I had a strained relationship for some time.  I think we both knew it.  It wasn’t talked about, but we were two men opposite.  Suddenly as I looked at that man something in me said, “Your life depends on getting across that room.” I made my way gently across the room and he turned to see me.  I threw myself into his arms and said, “All I ask from you, my brother is your love.” He gave me his love, and he gave me his life.  We are two of the closest brothers in the world tonight.  I started telling you all this to tell you that God is the God of miracles.  I think the miracle of healing a cancer or a tubercular lung is an easy miracle.  I think the miracle of blending human personalities, each of which is microcosm of the universe, is the mightiest miracle that God can perform.  He can heal your cancer, but can He heal your relationships?  Can He heal your stubbornness?  Can He heal your vengeful spirit?  Can He heal your memories?  Can He heal my desire to get back at you?  Can He heal my personality?  Brothers and sisters I feel in my spirit tonight that the Spirit of God is saying, that “the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof, the world and all that dwell therein,” and He is not going to let this thing wind up with a lot of moral poppers.  He is going to have kings and princes, men and women whose lives have been changed, whose personalities have been blended into the glorious community of the Redeemer, into the very Body of Christ, for He has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son.  I believe in miracles.

Verse 32, “And of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times with knowledge of what Israel should do.  Their chiefs were 200 and all their kinsmen were at their command.”

If you check the others, you will find out that they are a pretty tight knit clan.  Maybe that’s why they had such discipline.  God could give them a knowledge of their times.  Don’t you see that as long as we are divided that there is a part of our total equipment missing.  I don’t want to be a namedropper, but I think most of you know that I have a relationship with some men in America.  Derek Prince, Bob Mumford, Don Basham, Charles Simpson and John Poole with others.  But those men are my immediate relationships.  We all come together on a Monday morning and a subject will come up that we have to discuss.  There will be four or five different opinions expressed over that subject, and then we will start to work it over.  I have seen us finish up this discussion, and every one of us would have been wrong had we been left to our original opinion.  I have seen us, out of the five of us sharing, come to a conclusion that is nothing less than the Word and truth of God come in community, and we have stood and lifted up our hands and praised God in sheer delight.  Do you know what it’s like to spend 40 years alone?  You say, “You weren’t alone.” I was alone!  I could go to a conference and meet a bunch of ministers.  I could go and have a milkshake with the Baptist minister, but I was alone!  I made my decisions up in that big office under the tower alone.  I made bad decisions, and I finished up a physical wreck and had a heart attack in 1958 at the same time – because I was alone.  If you had been alone, as I said last night, and suddenly you found out what it means to be in relationship, you know what it meant to me.  I walk into that room and see those brothers sitting there, and I know that at the end of our time together, it will not be my view or Derek’s view or Don’s view or Bob’s view, but it is probably going to be God’s view filtered through the five of us.  I said, “Oh God hasten the day when we’ve got the brains to realise that there’s part of us over there and part over there, and we wonder why we’re making so many boners and boo-boos.  We’re not together!  Where’s the tribe of Issachar?  The devil knows what he’s doing in keeping us divided, because he knows if the tribes ever get together, they will blow him clean off the face of the earth!  I don’t care to talk about denominations in an antagonistic way.  I consider them to be tribes.  I don’t think we can deny that we have a tremendous debt that we owe to almost every segment of the Christian thing. 

God led me in a very strange way because when He put me into the ministry, I thought which tribe shall I join?  But He didn’t let me join any tribe.  I became a pre-charismatic charismatic.  I started to hunt for truth and started to build a library and glean from all fields.  I read the saintly Anglicans – the godly Bishop Moule and his beautiful expositions of Ephesians and Colossians.  The erudite Bishop Lightfoot and Westcott.  I read the Congregationalists and drank deep from their streams.  The Hodges and Alexanders and the Presbyterian world.  The Institutes of Calvin and the Journals of John Wesley.  I became spiritually ecumenical years ago, so that when the charismatic thing hit I said, “glory to God – at last we’re going to get it together.” Because every tribe has a contribution to make, and I have faith to believe that tonight brothers and sisters that there is a new anointing coming that will bring us to Hebron.  There is a new anointing coming to enable Israel to come together under the lordship of Christ.

Now notice.  Let’s drop down to verse 38.  “All these being men of war who could draw up in battle formation came to Hebron with an undivided (or perfect) heart with one thing in mind and one only – to make David king over all Israel.” What is your passion tonight?  Is it to make Jesus Christ Lord?  If that is your one passion, then you are moving in the streams of God.  For God has declared that He is going to have His Son have pre-eminence in all things.  The oldest creed of the Christian era will become the battle cry of the redeemed united community, and you will hear it ringing across the earth, “Jesus Christ is Lord!” I don’t rebel against it.  What a thrilling thing it was for the Pope to finish the charismatic conference recently in Rome by finishing his address with “Jesus Christ is Lord.” I don’t rebel against it.  If we are going to get into the mud-slinging business, there is none of us here who haven’t got some skeletons in our tribal closet.  You want to discuss some of the dirt in historical Presbyterianism?  You want to discuss some of the dirt in historical Baptist circles?  You want to discuss some of the dirt in historical Pentecostalism or Plymouth Brethren circles?  Come on now – let’s be fair.  We’ve all got skeletons in our tribal closets.  But is it still God’s purpose to bring His people together, and already the committed vanguard is to be seen.  Where did you come from?  What are you doing here?  You didn’t come primarily on a doctrinal basis.  You came because a new anointing has visited the earth.  God is preparing a people to come under the lordship of His Son, and the committed vanguard is forming across the earth. and our greatest responsibility, if we are part of the committed vanguard, is not to ruin the on-goingness of God’s purpose because we are coming to Hebron!  And we are going to get another anointing!  Hallelujah!

Not only the fighters came to make him king, but the suppliers came too.  The last verse 38, “And all the rest of Israel were of one mind to make David king.” Whether they were fighters or suppliers – then what happened?  They became a celebrating society.  They had a party!  Someone said, “Man in one breath you can be so serious, and the next breath you are talking about a party.” Well you had better find the same kind of balance.  If you go around trying to carry the load of the world on your shoulders without some holy joy, you will have a breakdown.  I’m not going to have anymore breakdowns – glory to God!  No more!  (*Laughter*) I believe everything I’ve said to you solemnly – those things came out of the depth of me, but I believe that there is another dimension in God that’s just as real as that.  It’s a kind of dimension that will take you back to your caravans tonight, and you will drink some tea and Horlicks isn’t it?  (*Laughter*) And you will talk about the Lord; some of you young people will hold hands … I don’t know!  (*Laughter*) God has made us to be together.  He has made us to be social creatures – we want to belong.  We are reaching for one another.  I get on a plane tomorrow and can’t wait to get to Minneapolis and see my brothers.  They will say “What are those Englishmen like?” and “Is it safe for us to go over?” (*Laughter*) Dr. Charles Price – a great man in his day – I heard him in a great large conference just shortly before he died.  People held him in such high esteem, that they almost deified him.  So they took an offering for him and he said, “Many people ask me what I do with my money.  I buy ice cream.  I get hair cuts.” You don’t think of great men having ice cream!  Before I start travelling, I held such men in awe.  They need their trousers ironing and need pop!  God has made us for one another.  There are no big shots in the kingdom of God.  There are men that we esteem and love, but we all need one another.  Many ecclesiastical big wheels may miss what God is doing because they are going in circles.  The amazing thing was that when all Israel got together they had a party.  They had three days of party!  “They were there with David three days eating and drinking.”

Look at the last line of verse 40.  “There was joy in Israel.” Someone said, “That is a superficial ending to the whole thing.” Oh really?  Open your big ears and listen while I quote you a very important Scripture.  “For the Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Joy.  Joy is the end product of righteousness.  Righteousness is right-ness, and our divisions are wrong-ness, and when we get the wrongness of our divisions straightened out, then we will have righteousness and peace with one another!  Then we won’t be pot shooting at one another and speaking evil of one another, but we will have peace.  And then we will have joy!  Hallelujah and we’ll celebrate the victory of our Lord.  We will have communion services a million miles wide! 

We have got to go to Zion.  This is good – but there’s something better.  The good can be the enemy of the better, and the better can be the enemy of the best.  Remember as long as there are Israelites who are not under the Lordship of Christ, you and I can’t experience the ultimate joy that will be ours in that hour when God gets it together.

Let’s go to Zion.  2 Samuel 5:6-10, “Now the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebbusites – the inhabitants of the land and said to David, ‘You shall not come in here – the blind and the lame shall turn you away.’” They said, “we won’t even put our best soldiers up – you can’t take us.  We Jebbusites are up here, and this is an impregnable fortress.  You try and come up here, and we will put our blind and lame, and they will push you off the cliff.” So David took it.  (*Laughter*) Verse 9 says, “So David lived in the stronghold.” He kicked the Jebbusites out and took over.  “David lived in the stronghold and called it the city of David.  David built all around and became greater and greater because the Lord God of hosts was with him.”

Now let’s take another look at the same thing in 1st Chronicles 11:1-4.  We are backtracking just a little bit.  “Then all Israel gathered to David at Hebron and said, ‘Behold, we are your bone and your flesh; in time past even when Saul was king, you were the one who led out and brought in Israel, and the Lord your God said to you, ‘You shall shepherd My people Israel.’ So the elders came to the king at Hebron and David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord and they anointed David king over all Israel according to the Word of the Lord through Samuel then (that’s an adverb of time) David and all Israel went to Jerusalem that is Jabez and the Jebbusites and the inhabitants of the land were there and the inhabitants of Jabez said to David, ‘You shall not enter here.’ Nevertheless David captured the stronghold of Zion that is the city of David.”

We are not marching to Ziklag.  We are not marching to Hebron.  We’re marching to Zion.  Have you noticed that throughout the Bible, Zion is God’s ultimate name for His corporate people?  We’re on our way to ultimate unity.  This is God’s world.  This is God’s age.  This is God’s plan and purpose.  You and I can’t see it now, but bless God we are getting a foretaste of it.  This stirring in the earth is just the beginning.  It’s the committed vanguard coming to the Lordship of Christ at Ziklag, and we’re going on to Hebron, and then all Israel will come and make covenant with our Lord, and then we are going to go on and take the heights of Zion and Jesus Christ will be Lord in very deed, and the rod of His strength will go out of Zion and this world will know what it means to have Jesus Christ in lordship over the earth! 

Please don’t reject what I’m saying, because if your rejection is unbelief, then to that degree you are hindering it.  Let’s believe God tonight.  Do you think it is the purpose of God for the devil to wreck nations?  You think it’s the purpose of God to have the redeemed community all torn up and in fragments?  Your common sense tells you that.  You don’t need a Bible to know that if the God who we know is the God He is, then this isn’t what He wants!  Has He spoken?  He has spoken, and He has said He will bring all things together in one in Christ.  Ephesians 1:10 says this is His purpose, that in this age which is called the fullness of time – this is the last age of the ages – in this age it is His purpose to bring together all in one in Christ.  He will do it whether you believe it or not – I declare to you that He has stated He is going to do it, and I believe He’s started to do it and won’t stop short of getting the whole bunch in.  Hallelujah!  Thank you for the privilege of being with you and sharing with you.  I go back to take to my brothers and the people in America the things that I have seen here.  We shall be praying for you and remembering you.  Keep big hearts.  Keep a big vision.  Don’t paint yourselves into corners.  Lay your love on everybody.  Love them, if they hate you.  Call them friend, if they betray you.  I pray God will give you such extension in your own spirit that you will have nothing to make you small.  That you have a heart as big as the heart of God – big enough to house a world if necessary! 

Amen.

(Watch for the posting of Ern Baxter’s prophetic message: THE KADESH BARNEA CRISIS! Also, if you are interested in receiving more of Brother Baxter’s teaching on the Kingdom, the Church, Apostolic Church Government and the Church’s Mission to the nations, see the Ern Baxter School of The Apostles Doctrine, Church History and Theology at the Apostles Theological Seminary, http://www.atsvirtual.org

If you are interested in learning more about the restoration of Christ's Kingdom and the reformation of His Church, ATS Chancellor George Kouri offers a special course dealing with PROPHETIC MODELS FOR AN APOSTOLIC REFORMATION. This dynamic and prophetically relevant course is built around Brother Baxter’s prophetic insights drawn from his conference messages on The Kadesh Barnea Crisis and the King And His Army, dealing with the Israel’s reformation from Moses to Joshua and from Saul to David. It also deals with prophetic significance of the reformation of Israel under Ezra and Nehemiah. Brother Kouri is uniquely qualified to teach this course having labored with Brother Baxter as one of his Timothies and as an apostolic deputy for more than 18 years.) To read details about AM350 or to enroll click here.

CHANCELLOR GEORGE KOURI ANNOUNCES THAT ATS WILL CHARGE A ONE-TIME ONLY ENROLLMENT OR REGISTRATION FEE!

 Starting in January of 2010 all students who desire to receive credit towards one of our outstanding ministerial degrees will be required to pay a one-time $50.00 registration or enrollment fee!

ATS is an apostolic mission, not an education business. In March of 2003 the Lord instructed us to build a leadership training engine to train Kingdom leaders for the 21st Century.  As a result of this mandate from the Lord, all of our courses are offered free of charge to anyone who desires to serve Christ and His Kingdom. This is only made possible through the generous support of partnering churches and individuals who long to see a new generation of five fold ministers raised up around the world.

However, beginning in January of 2010 there will be two "one-time only" charges required of all students wishing to receive credit towards one of our ATS degrees.

First, there will be a registration or enrollment fee of $50.00 to cover costs of paying a registrar to evaluate and create transcripts.

Second, there will continue to be a $300.00 Life-Learning Evaluation Fee for students who wish to have their life-learning or work experience evaluated for credit towards one of our special ATS degree.

(Please note that ATS reserves the right to waive these requirements for worthy students who are unable to pay either the Registration or the Life-Learning fees. In order for these fees to be waived the prospective student must contact the ATS Registrar at gekouri@mac.com.)

If you are a student of ATS and pastor a local church, head an apostolic jurisdiction of churches, or an individual believer with a heart to see Christ's Church reformed and His Kingdom fill the whole earth, please consider becoming covenant partner with ATS and adding us to your mission budget. Your regular gift of $50.00, a $100.000, or more will go a long way towards enabling the ATS administrative team and core faculty to continue fulfilling our apostolic mandate to raise a new generation of Kingdom leaders for the 21st Century!

Dr. George Kouri

As I speak in this message about the government of God, it’s with the belief that in our day, we are actually seeing God’s government coming into focus in the earth through the redeemed community. Let me first point out that in talking about the government of God, I am talking about the whole Bible, for the Word of God is a revelation of God’s governmental word and authority over the earth and over time. Romans 13, undoubtedly the classic chapter on the matter of government in terms of civil government, says this: "Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God" (Rom. 13: I, NAS). God is the source of all authority; and even distorted and violated authority exists by His permissive will and is subject to His correction.

Government and authority originate in the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the greatest illustration to us of diversity in unity. And certainly their diversity in unity is a great mystery. The individual roles of Father, Son and Holy Ghost are not to be confused, and yet these are one God. 

In the unity of the Trinity we have government-government that is not a question of equality, but a question of office. The Father sent the Son. The Son came in obedience to the Father and returned to heaven, giving an account of His mission as He sat down at the right hand of the Father. The Son then sent the Holy Spirit on His
mission. Father, Son and Holy Spirit-co-equal, co-substantial, co-essential-one God. That is government on the highest plane, within the unity and diversity of the Trinity.

Among the great angelic hosts of archangels, seraphim, cherubim, principalities, powers, angels-a tremendous, humanly incomputable number of angelic creatures-we see order. When I think of God Almighty conducting a universe, governing and sending forth ten thousand times ten thousand of His angels as ministers into a time/space world, who in turn minister with infinite accuracy like divine clockwork; I see order and government. And when I think of God reaching down in the days of Israel’s incarceration in Egypt, bringing 3,000,000 people out into the desert without modern communications-3,000,000 peopIe marching in order, tenting in order, under the government of Moses-I can see that God’s desire is to have His will ” ... done in earth as it is in heaven.” I believe that in talking about God’s government, we are talking about more than just His blessing-we are talking about the life of God released into our lives to bring about order and a manifestation in a time/space world of what God desires for man.

Now I want to talk about three phases of God’s government, which we will represent by three separate communities in Scripture. By communities, I mean a group of people who have been brought into a relationship under proper order and government.

I. THE COMMUNITY OF EDEN

In Genesis chapter 1 we have the first community-the community of Eden. God created the world. He planted a garden and He created man and started the first human community.

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female, He created them.
And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of
the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth”. (vss. 27-28, NAS).

Fill the earth! Subdue it! Rule over it! This was God forming His first community of humanity-God projecting Himself according to His own sovereign pleasure, speaking the worlds into space, bringing man into being as the product of His own creative genius. Man-the apex of all that He created, His delegated authority over all the magnificent diversity of earth-His king, His deputy.

He said, “Adam, I want you to fill the earth with your kind. I want you to subdue the earth through the knowledge that I impart to you as My image, and I want you to institute government in the earth that will be a reflection or a reproduction or a materialization of government as it is in heaven.” I don’t believe God’s purpose has changed. I believe it still remains now as it was then. and God is today calling us to account. He’s checking us out. My personal belief is that God is today raising up a generation of men and women who will know what it is not only to rejoice emotionally, but to respond by an act of their will to the Word of God in obedience. In this, our great Elder Brother has given us an example. For coming into the world, He said, ” ... in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, 0 my God" (Ps. 40:7-8). Without turning to the left or the right, Jesus Christ walked His thirty three and a half years doing the will of God, and because He was “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross ... God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:8-9). Jesus was the Pioneer of what is possible for everyone of us.

Now if you’ll look over into chapter 2 of Genesis, verse 16, we have God speaking a governmental word; and this word is not optional.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die" (vss. 16-17, NAS).

This is a governmental word that the Lord laid on Adam.

In the first letter to the Corinthians, we find another word which is an ongoing expression of God’s governmental purposes for mankind. We’ll just touch on 5 verses: I Corinthians
I I :3, 8-9, 11-12.

But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man [that’s government], and the man is the head of a woman [and that’s government],
and God is the head of Christ [that’s government, too] .

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; [that is God’s governmental purpose] . For indeed man was not created
for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake.

However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man,
so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.

God’s governmental source is protected. Man and woman’s redemptive quality is protected. But the governmental structure is defined. God is the head of Christ; Christ is the head of man; man is the head of the woman. But the man and woman must not consider this in terms of inequality of worth. It is simply the structure of His government. This we need to hear. And if it’s disturbing to us, then we need to return to the illustration of the Trinity.

The Father sent the Son. I am sure that if we were to speak anthropomorphically (or in the language of man), the Son could have responded to the Father by saying, "But Father, You understand that sound theology states that I am coequal with You. I see no reason why I should go down and do that job.” But. of course, that sounds almost like blasphemy. Jesus never even thought of that. Instead, in the mystery of the Trinity of God, the Word rose up and emptied Himself of His divine prerogatives, placing the royal robe of His coequal authority with the Father over the back of His throne, and came down to snuggle in the womb of a little virgin peasant girl. And being born as a man, He went through all the exigencies of human existence, dying naked and twisted in agony on a cross, a man under authority. Then He returned to heaven, saying to the Holy Spirit, "Now, it’s Your turn!"

I can equally imagine the Holy Spirit could have said, "If You think I’m going there after what they’ve done to You .... “ But again we don’t even think in those terms because when we think of God-Father, Son and Holy Spirit-we think of infinite, accurate order, even with regard to obedience.

Coming back to the book of Genesis. to that very beautiful account of what God did in creation, one can’t help but reflect how beautiful it could have been if Adam had only obeyed God’s word of government to him. For Adam was no inordinate piece of protoplasm floating on primeval waters, waiting for a fortuitous event that would bring him into some kind of formation looking like a man. God Almighty had with His own infinitely accurate fingers formed that body. All systems were “go”; everything was ready. God stooped down and kissed into Adam the breath of life, and he stood up-a living soul! When the time came for God to make a woman, He put Adam to sleep and took out of his side not only tissue, but personality; and formed a magnificently beautiful creature. The first wedding was performed as God marched down the leafy aisle of Eden with Eve on His arm, presenting her to Adam who, coming out of the anesthetic, looked at woman and said, “This is it!”

Just think what might have been if magnificent Adam and exquisite Eve had produced beautiful children, trained them in caring for the garden, and then had exported to the entire earth the life of the community of Eden. The entire world would have become a Garden of Eden! But the calamity of disruption of government intervened, and as Paul says in Romans 5:19, “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.”

Adam disobeyed God. Adam disobeyed God because there was a deception factor in his life. Eve was deceived, but Adam walked into it with his eyes open. With deception and disobedience came expulsion. God drove the man out from the garden, and as He did I believe God had hot tears coursing down His cheeks. I can imagine Adam turning back and protesting through his own tears, "Oh God, please, does it have to be this way?” And I think if there was any anger in God, it was an anger mingled with grief, for I doubt if God is ever angry without being grieved.

So as He forced the man out through the gate, He did so with great grief. Nevertheless, God drove Him out. My Bible tells me that He no sooner drove man out than right at that eastern gate He built an altar and placed there the cherubim, the protectors of God’s holiness, and set up a sacrificial way whereby Adam could maintain a new relationship with God and become the beginning of a new order.

God has not changed His mind for what He is going to do in the earth. God’s infinite patience is described in these words, "He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth" (Is. 42:4). The earth is the area where God is going to manifest the fulness of His Son. There’s no great glory to God if it’s done in heaven. But when it’s done in earth. Satan will stand back in anguish as he sees God counteract the satanic success which disrupted the government of God through Adam.

II. THE COMMUNITY OF ISRAEL

When God drove out the man, man set out to make his own way in the world. He continued to oppose God until God not only had to put the man out of the garden in expulsion, but He also had to cut man off from the earth in excision. Only one family was left: the family of Noah. Even after that, man, instead of obeying God and peopling the earth, built a tower to maintain his name. So God looked down and confused their language and dispersed them from the tower of Babel over the whole earth.

Time went by and into the picture came a man by the name of Abram. God reached down and called Abram from Ur of the Chaldees and started a whole new program of bringing community into the earth-the community of Israel.  When He called Abram He made His purpose very clear.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives
And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;
And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you, and make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12: 1-3, NAS).

I want to make it very clear to you that God’s purpose is a man. God’s purpose is people-human beings. God’s purpose is you and me.

God’s purpose from the beginning is to take you and me as the creatures of divine, predestined purpose and make us perform as a projection of His government in a time/space world. But we’ve bucked Him, and bucked Him, and bucked Him.

We have to understand that God’s governmental purpose is us. It’s not way out in some abstract, theoretical, euphoric somewhere. It’s right here in flesh-and-blood men and women. God wants us to do His will. God wants us to understand His government.

With Abram, God brought headship into Israel. Abram begat Isaac. Isaac begat Jacob. Jacob had twelve sons. The twelve sons became a great nation. God then raised up a great man called Moses. In the book of Hebrews, Moses and Jesus are contrasted and compared. As a matter of fact, there are only two churches in the Bible: the church under Moses and the Church under Christ.

Moses’ church was destined to go to a land comparable to Eden, and there set up a theocratic government from which the will of God would be disseminated through the entire earth. Israel was to be the witnessing community that Adam and Eve had failed to be.

God instructed Israel at Mt. Sinai and gave them the divine constitution covering every area of life. There was no dimension of life that was not covered in the divine constitution. Indeed today, British and American jurisprudence to a great degree is still built upon the Mosaic code delivered at Mt. Sinai.

Every aspect of life was covered so that, as these people went into the land and drove out the Canaanites who had distorted government and brought rapine, war and destruction into the land, they would come armed with a divine constitution and set up in that land a nation that would be ideal because it was governed by God through the Mosaic code. They would have the finest wheat, the finest vineyards, the finest government, the greatest understanding of hygiene, sociology, interpersonal relationships. Every aspect of life delivered by God to Moses would be fulfilled in that community in the land until the nations of the world would see the community of witness under the government of God.

We find that the Israel community likewise disobeyed God. They violated government. When the time came for them to go into the land and set up the theocratic, evangelistic center for the earth, they rebelled against God at Kadesh Barnea and turned back. God drove them into the wilderness. and for forty years He bore with them.

Eventually God took Israel into the land under Joshua, and while He fulfilled His part of the covenant and gave them every piece of ground He had promised them, they failed in responding to that covenant by not driving out the Canaanites.

Instead of going into the sad and tragic details of Israel’s defection, deterioration and disobedience, we’ll go directly to Stephen’s address, one for which he had to give his life. In the course of that address, he turned to those people who were the representatives of Moses’ church, and said to them what God had said to Moses: “You’re finished.”

Our Lord Jesus had already said it as He stood over Jerusalem, again with burning tears, and said, "0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... how often would I have gathered thy children together ... but ye would not!" (Mt. 23:37). In those two little words, "how often," are written hundreds of years of divine entreaty. In those two little words, "how often," you’ll find all the names of the prophets. In those two little words, "how often,” you’ll find every providential act of God’s covenantal love which runs over the span of hundreds of years as God reached out His hand to His people, whom, according to Jeremiah, He found as a babe cast off by a mother who didn’t want it. He picked it up, and it hadn’t even been cleansed; the birth fluid was still on its body. So He bathed it, and He swaddled it, and He waited for it until it grew into a beautiful girl. Then He wooed her, and He won her, and He married her. Israel became His wife. but she went a-whoring under every green tree.

The God to whom Israel was married was the God who stood over Jerusalem as He had stood over Adam, and with hot tears running down His cheeks, He said, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often .... I would have forgiven you; in spite of your adulteries I would have taken you back, but you wouldn’t come back. Now your house is left unto you desolate, and the Kingdom is taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

Stephen, in his martyrdom address, turned to this people and declared, "ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.” Brothers and sisters, I want to say to you that just because you have the Holy Ghost doesn’t mean that you can’t resist Him. The fact that the Holy Spirit is moving in charismatic dimensions doesn’t mean we can’t resist Him.

God says to you and me, “If you will live this day, you will obey my Word, and in obedience to that Word is life." I don’t want to be found resisting the Holy Spirit for any reason, and I especially don’t want to be found resisting the Holy Spirit for a religious reason.

When God dealt with the Israel community, He dealt with them in love and mercy but in severity. When Paul speaks in Romans 11 of the great division between Jew and Gentile, he warns those of us who are predominantly Gentile not to think high-minded thoughts of ourselves because God rejected the Jews. "For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee” (Rom. 11:21). In that context he then makes a statement, "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God" (Rom. 11 :22). When that scripture was quickened to me about six months ago, I began to realize that I was a great beholder of the goodness of God. I celebrated the goodness of God; I rejoiced in the goodness of God. I noticed all the choruses we sing are about the goodness of God.

Now I love the goodness of God, but Paul didn’t say, “Behold the goodness of God.” He said, “Behold the goodness and severity of God.”

Have you ever noticed how discriminating we are in our Bible reading? I bet I can tell you what some of your favorite verses are: 

"My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches.” How many of you like that one?

Let me give you another one-” All things work together for good." How many of you like that?

Try this one on for size: I’d like to see how many claim this one from Hosea as their favorite scripture: "Beware lest I tear you in pieces." Any takers?

When I had my first charge as a young minister, some kind sister gave me a promise box, and I just have to say that whoever put that promise box together was a religious sadist. He got every rough scripture in the Bible and put it in there. (That’s where I learned the one from Hosea.) Just after I got that promise box, I got up one morning and I really needed some help from the Lord. I was pastoring a little church on the Canadian prairies, where the temperatures reach 40 below in winter. I’d get up in the morning and the water in my wash basin would be frozen, so I’d have to go out and fuel up my old potbellied stove to get it hot. Since heat rises, I would stand up on a chair, and hold my hands up to get them warm, and as the heat would come down, the rest of me would thaw out. Well, I kept the promise box on the top of the refrigerator and while my hands were up getting warm I’d pick a promise out of the promise box. This particular day the one I picked up was "Beware, lest I tear you in pieces.” I thought, "Lord, thanks for the
encouragement!”

Well, needless to say, I edited that promise box ... and it got thinner every day!

Now I injected that little bit of lightness deliberately because it’s very hard to talk to contemporary Christians about the severity of God. We are so satiated with His love and His mercy that we don’t even understand that God’s anger is the other side of the coin of His love. But if God is the kind of indulgent God that I hear represented again and again, He’s not God at all; He’s Santa Claus. But we all know God is not Santa Claus, don’t we.

As a youth, I literally hated my father. My father, with his Scottish Presbyterian discipIinarian back ground, said to me, "Son, you’ll be in every night as it starts to get dark.” I was a big boy for my age, and I was running around with boys five and six years older than myself. Every night when it started to get dusk, I’d have to break away. I could hear the fellows saying, "Too bad ... Baxter’s old man won’t let him stay out." When I got home and walked into the house, I wouldn’t speak to my father. I hated
him for what he was doing to me. It was unfair.

But everyone of my chums went to jail for stealing cars, and the only reason I didn’t go to jail for stealing cars was that I wasn’t out at car-stealing time. And the reason I wasn’t out at car-stealing time was because I had to submit to the government of God. The Kingdom of God in my home made my father God’s deputy, and while I resented his delegated authority, it kept me out of jail. When I see my dad as he is today at age 84, with his stooped shoulders, and I see him having walked in the integrity of God for 60 years, there wells up within me a love that far outweighs the hate of my youth, for I know that my father loved me enough to run the risk of my displeasure to keep me out of jail.

Any time you begin believing that there is no severity of God, you’re toying with fire, because the Word of God commands us to "fix our gaze"-that’s the meaning of “behold” -upon the goodness of God and the severity of God. If you’ve got a Santa Claus concept of God, you’re going to have an awful struggle with the seige of Jerusalem at A.D. 70. You’re going to have an awful struggle with the way women in Jerusalem butchered their babies to keep their own bodies alive, while God used His providential agent Titus to walk into Jerusalem, raze the temple, walk out with the menorah, and scatter Israel across the face of the earth. You’re going to have a hard time with a God like that if you don’t understand that God did that only after He had exhausted every attempt to bring those people under His government. "How oft would I have gathered you, but you would not. You did not want to submit to My government.”

It may sound very strange, and almost out of context in discussing such a serious subject, but did you ever realize that the definition of the government of God or the Kingdom of God in Romans finishes up with the ultimate being “joy“‘? The government of God is righteousness, vertical and horizontal; peace-the inner integrity and integration, with interpersonal relationships that are sound; and the end result of that is joy. The government of God is made for joy.

For the government of God is doing things right and as a result having peace, that the end product may be joy.

III. THE COMMUNITY OF THE SON

Now we come to the third community. The community of Eden failed to obey the government of God. The Israel community failed to obey the government of God. Jesus Christ said, "I’m going to build My community." The writer to the Hebrews said, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.”

God can’t top His Son. God has no aces up His sleeve. God is very careful to tell us He’s got an only begotten Son. He’s only got one Son, and He has given that Son, and He has nothing better to give. To give Gabriel or Michael would be anticlimactic. To send us a seraph would be anticlimactic. When the fulness of time was come, God reached into His bosom and took the darling of His heart and sent the best that He had into the earth. "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of he only begotten of the Father,) full of grace" and beauty and reality. We saw what God was like. We saw God with a face. We saw God with a body. We handled Him, we felt Him, we talked to Him, we heard Him speak. He was the Word of life. We’ve written about Him, and the words we write are alive, and they’re meant for all time. There is nothing better. This is it; and we’re it.

On our shoulders rests His government. You say, "But just a minute, Baxter. The Bible says ‘the government shall be on His shoulders!’" Yes, but He’s the Head. The Body is down here. We are the ones who have the shoulders. The government of God is in our hands.

I would like to point out to you just how important you are. No one loves to magnify the Lord Jesus more than I do. No one delights more in declaring “Jesus is Lord” more than I do. But the Lordship of Jesus Christ is going to fall short of manifestation apart from you, His Body, the extension of that Lordship in the earth. You are the people of the Lord. You are the ultimate community of witness.

The whole world is packed full of economic distress. The nations are running out of options. And yet there is coming into each nation a body of men and a body of people that is initiating the government of God. They are attracting the attention of sincere men and women who are yet in the Adamic society, but who see that heir Adamic society is falling apart. And they are saying, "It looks like the alternative is there." It’s not a matter of our saying, "Jesus Saves," and "I go to church on Sunday”; it’s a matter of saying, "We’ve got it together in such a way that as a people we have a society that functions under the governmental rule of God. We can show you how God wants people to live in a time/space world on terra firma.”

In I Peter 2:9, the new nation is described as "a holy nation." Now, other nations are noted for the genes in their blood, but across the earth this morning there is a nation of people called a holy nation-the people of God who’ve got genes in their spirit whether they’re black, yellow, red or white. The genetic source is the Holy Spirit, not blood. 

This nation has no boundaries; it has no immigration posts; it doesn’t have passports required to pass from one part of the earth to the other. It is a people that is in every human governmental situation (every city and nation).  They are characterized by one common thing: hey have spiritual life.

They are God’s nation. What Adam was in the confines of Eden ... what Israel was in the little country of Palestine, this present holy nation is in the entire earth under Jesus Christ’s Lordship. We’re not talking about a Iittle spot, some remote part of Mesopotamia called the Garden of Eden. We’re not talking about a little nation that’s presently called Israel at the center of the earth geographically because the Kingdom of God is not confined to any geographical boundary other than the earth itself.

The ultimate of the Kingdom of God is that the glory of the Lord-the invisible attributes of God-shall be visibly manifest in the redeemed community worldwide through all boundaries. It will know no boundaries because the genetics of it are spiritual; it will be the people of God filling the earth until the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

This is the hour of the fulness of times for God’s government to be expressed. The charismatic visitation is the Holy Spirit blasting us loose to recognize that He is doing something in the earth that is very special; that in this time of the end He is going to have a people earth-wide who will demonstrate heaven’s government.

So it is important in this day that you understand about order. It is important that you understand about relationship. It is important that you understand about authority and government.

BAPTIZED INTO PEOPLE

For every time the Bible speaks about Jesus as “Savior,” it speaks of Him twenty-nine times as “Lord." What God is doing in the earth is more than blessing us, as we define “blessing” emotionally. I thank God for the guitars and the tambourines and the choruses and the hand-clapping and the dancing, the shouting, and the praising. Hallelujah! That’s a part of the celebration of joy. But underneath all that is a deep subterranean moving of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the ministry that He was sent to perform. “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body.”

When you are baptized in water to affirm your covenantal relationship with God, Paul said, "You are baptized into death." You were buried in baptism. That was your cutting off from the whole of the Adamic society as a controlling influence in your life, the whole of the demonic realm as an influence in your life. As you rose out of that water, you were baptized with the Holy Spirit, and you were surrounded by the Spirit of God. You were given a new life principle (Kingdom power) to walk in newness of life.

However, the dimension we have missed in baptism is that we didn’t realize that just as we were baptized into death and baptized into life, we were baptized into people. That’s been the missing dimension. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body and all made to drink into one Spirit." To be baptized in water and be baptized with the Holy Spirit is only two-thirds of the deal. The other third is that I’m baptized into people.  If you’ll read the second chapter of Acts, you’ll find that as it progresses, it tells about this beautiful body of people into which 3,000 people that day had been baptized: “going from house to house with gladness and
singleness of heart, breaking bread.”

The beauty of what God is doing in the earth is people brought together in the unity of God’s government. We’re not brought together in some kind of indefinable potpourri. We’re brought together in a definable, governmental structure under God that is cIearly delineated in the Word of Truth as the churches of God in the earth with their elders, with their leaders, with their (governmental) authorities.

I affirm my faith that God will, according to His Word, bring all things into one in Christ in this age of the fulness of time, and that God is going to have a definable, visible community of men and women which will manifest His glory under the government of His Son Jesus Christ.

I want to be very practical about it. It’s got to start with you and me. It’s got to start with our personal submission to authority where we are. It’s got to start with our understanding that the government of God is imperative in our lives; that when we were born again, we were born into government. We were born into a Kingdom; we were born into the realm of King Jesus and all His delegated authorities. We recognize King Jesus when we recognize King Jesus’ delegated authorities. We need to grasp that the government of God in the earth is the realm of our highest joy; that the government of God in the earth is the realization of our personhood; that the government of God in the earth is the fulfillment of our destiny; that the government of God in the earth is the evangelistic demonstration of God’s love to lost mankind. It is the ultimate form of evangelism: "Father, I pray that they may be one, as You and I are one, that the world may know that Thous hast sent Me.”

THE COMING KINGDOM

Let me close by asking you a question. Have you ever wondered about the significance of the United Nations? Basically, the United Nations (which doesn’t profess to be Christian) represents secular man’s unspoken hope that deep down in the gut-level of unregenerate humanity, in the subconscious of all men, there’s something left that says we were not meant to kill one another; we were not meant to fight with one another; we were meant to be united. We were meant to be one; we were meant to belong.

The United Nations, by its very existence, is the cry of unregenerate man for what he somehow knows he was destined for, but doesn’t have the moral dynamic to produce. He wants peace. He wants the hungry to be fed. He wants things to be done in the earth that are worthy of his unregenerate concept of what human beings should be. Do you hear that Christians? The United Nations is an expression of unregenerate man’s cry for the realization of our Lord’s prayer. 

In the hour when we rise up from the earth as the people of God under the government of God, the United Nations is going to become unessential. They’ll be beating our door down because we will have the answers for every area of life-for there’s no area of life that God has left outside of His government. He has revealed it in His Word, and if we will walk in the Word of God, living in subjection to the government of God, bringing our lives out of the permissiveness and the human deterministic attitudes that we’ve had saying, “I will function under God’s government,” we will be hastening the coming of the Kingdom of God. We will be answering the prayer of our Lord: “Thy Kingdom come ... Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

Can your faith rise at this moment to believe? That great oaks from little acorns grow? That great trees from little mustard seeds grow? That a piece of dough can be leavened by a little piece of yeast? Can you believe that you and I have enough potential, if we will obey the government of God, to infiltrate communities and nations?

There is no question of the ultimacy of God’s government. "Jesus shall reign where ‘er the sun, doth his successive journeys run.” He shall reign until His enemies are made His footstool. Lift your vision higher. Expand your mind. Dare to believe: the world was made for God’s government.

E. Stanley Jones said, “Every man is built for the Kingdom.” Even the most irascible sinner, the most intransigent violator of the law is constitutionally structured for God’s government. We have the only answer for them. They are built for what we’re talking about. God’s government is designed for man.

God’s got a Man on the throne of heaven who has extended Himself into the redeemed community in the earth. We are the government of God. Let us hold our heads high. Let us walk in faith. And let us believe that a world that has run out of options is going to beat a track to our door, as it sees the government of God expressed in us and through us, to the praise of His glory. 

I was waiting on the Lord this morning for a response on how we should be addressing situations that occur in the earth like the ‘Haiti Earthquake’, which has estimated over 200,000 people killed and many more serious casualties to the point of doctors having to undertake amputations in the midst of the rubble left of streets and houses.

That God has heard the cries of His saints' hearts to pour out His mercy on that nation is very apparent because of the massive response from all over the world to help rescue and save as many as possible. This is the hand of God moving the Nations to respond to the crisis. What the church has to grasp today is how our God responds to His church on earth. He uses ordinary people like you and me; He uses organizations; He uses Nations. The truth of the matter is that Jesus has been ruling over the nations of the world from the right hand of Glory since His resurrection and ascension that took place 2000 years ago (Acts 2:30-36). Christ rules in His justice and mercy, which manifests itself as salvation and judgment. For example God moved Great Britain and its allies to bring Hitler and his Nazi followers to their knees; God used the nations of the world to end Apartheid.

In the 2^nd world war He motivated England to fall to its knees in prayer for the troops stranded at Dunkirk, and then sent a flotilla of small boats that saved an army.

When these calamities occur, God mobilizes the nations; we see it time and time again. We’ve become so dull and insensitive to the move of God and in many cases limited it to showmanship in mass meetings. God moves a lot more outside the four walls of our church buildings than we realize. Jesus was a field man, always out in the field with the sick, the poor, the hungry, and yes, even sinners. He hasn’t changed. He is the one who puts it into a president’s heart to send millions of dollars of aid to these situations. Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, like a river of water He turns it wherever He wishes.”  Why do you think Paul exhorted Timothy that prayer and intercessions be made for Kings and all those in authority. Come on church. Lift up your eyes and look beyond your little fellowships and independent agendas and see your God at work in the earth!

What the Lord impressed upon me this morning was that the church of this generation is largely in reaction, and as long as we remain in this mindset, the world (society) will continue to crumble and deteriorate into darkness and chaos. The doom and gloom boys will continue to pour out their rhetoric and their negativity on us, whilst making a fortune on books and media.

Having spent 33 years of my life in police work and having been largely involved in strategic management, I suddenly saw the picture very clearly. Consider this. Police law enforcement is divided into two functions, 1. Reactive Policing, 2. Proactive Policing.

• Reactive policing is simply put as the action a police force takes after the commission of a crime. Investigations, arrests, dockets, court and sentencing. What I call mopping up policing. We never get ahead of the crooks, and spend our time mopping up after them. Have you never noticed how Police and traffic officials always tell us how many arrests and tickets they have made; it is all reactive policing.

• Proactive policing is described as the action a Police force takes before the commission of a crime, intended to prevent that crime from occurring, or apprehending the perpetrators in the act of committing the crime. This is what hurts the criminal world. It requires a lot of research, investigation, informers, and most of all proper operational planning. The officials need to be highly trained and motivated.

If you look around at our world and focus beyond what seems to be happening on the surface, you will see a whole different set of factors that lead up to the situations we see and react to.

For example the Haiti situation could have been a lot less severe, if that nation didn’t have corruption and poverty dominating it. We are told that many of the buildings collapsed because of faulty or substandard building standards. The fact that this island is situated over a documented fault line is nothing new; the powers that be have known this all along.

How could the church have prevented this from occurring? (In other words been more proactive than reactive.)

The Somali situation, how did such a situation come to pass ?

And so on we can go from crisis to crisis in the earth, and ask ourselves, "how did these things come to pass?"

We see protest groups like "Green peace",  anti-this and anti-that protestors all over the world doing the "Church’s job" and being what they see in their unspiritual minds as "proactive", whilst the church focuses largely on in-ward looking religious agendas.

How should we deal with situations like Haiti, tragedies waiting to happen, considering what Paul said to the Ephesians, “And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23)?

In other words Jesus rules over all things (the world and the nations) through His church in the earth which is His inheritance.

The church in general, excluding preaching the gospel, is largely in reaction to the world, and needs to move into a more proactive mindset. The reason for this reactive mindset is that our underlying doctrinal understanding is negative; it sees the world on a collision course with destruction and corruption as inevitable, unavoidable. We’ve been programmed into a underlying pessimism that’s left the church with "no fight in it." A church has been disarmed by erroneous doctrine and philosophical humanism. We have this mind-set that the "Anti Christ" is coming anyway and will destroy all that is good in the earth. So why try to change anything? For many today the Christian life is about "waiting to fly away."

We move from crisis to crisis in survival mode asking God to patch up our world so we can make it to the rapture. This is not the ever increasing Kingdom (Isaiah 9:6, Dan 7:27)! It's certainly not what Scripture teaches.  Sadly, Moslems in many instances are having more effect on the world that we are. But even many of them are probably waiting for the so-called rapture to take Christians and the Church out of the way. (I want to provoke your minds to read what scripture says and think carefully about what I am saying).

What I understood the Lord saying this morning is that the church should be filled with great zeal to see justice established in the earth. Not out on the streets protesting before the world like those who have no eternal hope, but rather we should be protesting day and night before the “Court of Heaven.” Daily the Lord's church should pray and intercede for God's justice and His righteous judgments to be released with power in the earth. We are too passive, too focused on ourselves. Justice and peace on the earth is within the church's grasp.  All we have to do is use the authority and power God has given us collectively for things to be change.

We need to pray proactively for unjust and corrupt governments to be removed and replaced by righteous men who know the truth.

How much prayer warfare has been brought before the courts of heaven on the Somali situation. We know that the world’s reactive policies have had little effect; all the world's navies that are actively involved there haven’t changed a thing. The warlords and their evil supporters must be removed and brought to justice. That is what we should focus on. But it is not going to be accomplished by one prayer on the part of a couple of people; it will take days, months and even years of united prayer and spiritual warfare in the heavenlies to move the hand of God in behalf of that nation. The church, as a whole, needs to discuss these things, agree on a spiritual strategy, then see it through to victory.

This is how God's peace, justice, and mercy is going to come into our world. We have to “Pray it down”. But you might say, "Somalia" doesn’t effect me; I don’t even know where it is." Well then you haven’t understood the Kingdom of God and are still a babe in Christ, concentrating on what you can put in your own mouth.

You see the follow-up strategy once the powers of darkness start to loose their iron grip in that country is to send forth laborers into the field to establish the Kingdom. That’s how we are going to take to world. Look at every military strategy. It always starts off with intense bombardment to weaken and soften up the enemy's hold and put him on his back foot before the foot soldiers go in. Our prayer bombardment is, “Mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds”. The bottom line is that God can and will change the mindset of governments, or even remove them if need be, to bring justice and peace to a situation. As Christians we have the privilege of asking Him to do this. Consider this scripture,  "Ask of Me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession," Psalm 2:7-8. You might say that this is in answer to Jesus the Son. Well, His mandate to us is to disciple the nations.

Then what about God's sovereignty over any ruler or situation (See Romans 9:14-23)?

As a church we have to get our eyes off ourselves and see that the Lord has delivered the planet earth into our hands. A kingdom mentality is a conquest mentality, a “go in and possess mentality”.

Last word: The Gospel of the Kingdom is not about saving people so that they can escape the world in a rapture, but to save people in order to work together with Christ the King to bring the earth under His subjection and rule. There is a vast difference between these two.

Giles Hunter

Kings Church

Durban

George Kouri, Chancellor of ATS and the Presiding Apostle of the CAC, is happy to announce that the new, updated, and revised website for the Communion of Apostolic Churches is now ready for viewing. The CAC is a global communion of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, and the ministries and churches they represent.

The Apostolic Council of Apostolic Ministries and Churches International, a member  jurisdiction or ministry sphere of the Communion of Apostolic Churches, has announced that it plans on using the CAC Website as an architectural blueprint of what apostles and apostolic companies should be doing together around the world to restore the foundations and reform the Lord's Church. Brother Kouri also plans on using the new website as a special laboratory for his new ATS Course, AM250-The Work of Apostles And Apostolic Companies in the 21st Century.

To view the new CAC site click www.cacvirtual.org.

The last 10 years weren't just about terrorism and recession. Amid the storm clouds, God was working in profound ways.

How has God been working during this tumultuous season? Here's my list of seven megatrends that marked these last 10 years:

1. Third-World Christianity kept growing. There are now about 600 million Christians in Africa. Protestant Christianity grew 600 percent in Vietnam in the last decade. In China, where a 50,000-member megachurch was raided in Shanxi province a few weeks ago, there are now an estimated 130 million churchgoers.

Astounding church growth has occurred in Guatemala, Brazil, India and Ethiopia. In Nepal, which had no Christians in 1960, there are now a half-million believers. The Christian population of Indonesia has mushroomed from 1.3 million to 11 million in 40 years.

Smug scholars in Europe and the United States love to cite Islam as the world's fastest-growing religion, but observers know the facts: Christianity, while waning especially in Europe, is growing faster than ever in the Southern hemisphere. Philip Jenkins, who wrote The Next Christendom in 2002, declared: "The center of gravity has moved to the global south. So if we're looking for the religion that is going to affect the largest number of lives in the 21st century, it is almost certainly going to be Christianity."

Traditionalists complained about all the new terms technology added to our lexicon: TiVo, Twitter, Skype, iPod, iTunes, YouTube, Hulu, Kindle, webcams. But the shift to digital media happened faster than the speed of a wireless signal. It will forever change the way we live, work and play. Rather than fighting change, we'd best find God in the swift current and discover how He wants us to use new media. The possibility of reaching every person on this planet with the gospel has never been this huge.

3. The global economic crisis didn't stop the church. It seemed as if God pushed a great big reset button in 2007. The mortgage bubble burst, banks were in trouble and credit dried up. When U.S. gas prices hit $4 a gallon in 2008, people feared that the American Dream had died.

Yet, amazingly, while hundreds of thousands of people lost jobs and the government was bailing out GM and Chrysler, charitable giving to churches actually went up 5.5 percent in 2008, even though other forms of giving declined. Faith actually thrives in a recession.

4. As militant Islam increased, so did a backlash. On 9/11, terrorists hijacked our planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania farmland. But in some parts of the world where radical Islam is predominant, protest movements flourished. This was never more evident than in 2009 when Iranian youth activists took to the streets to denounce their own tyrannical government. In other parts of the Middle East, Muslims are finding Jesus Christ after having supernatural dreams about Him. Terrorists did not stop democracy—or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

5. Spiritual hunger grew more intense. Although secular culture seemed to grow more hostile to Christian faith and values during the '00 decade, movies, books and music reflected a growing interest in spirituality—everything from atheism to pantheism to vampires to The DaVinci Code—and Christian ideas competed for the global stage.

The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson's 2004 film about the Crucifixion, became the highest-grossing non-English film of all time—and Egyptian Muslims lined up to see it for weeks. Disney's 2005 version of the C.S. Lewis classic, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, became one of the highest-grossing films ever. And Christian books such as The Prayer of Jabez (2000), The Purpose-Driven Life (2002) and The Shack (2007) put Christian themes at the top of mainstream best-seller lists while a relatively homemade Christian movie, Fireproof, became the highest-grossing independent film of 2008.

6. The charismatic movement experienced a painful but needed purging. Although global Pentecostalism continued to grow, parts of the independent charismatic movement went into a tailspin. Marred by high-profile divorces, sex scandals and a credibility crisis, segments of the charismatic church fell on hard times. The overhaul of Oral Roberts University in 2008 seemed to be a prophetic harbinger of a movement-wide housecleaning.

At the close of the decade, charismatic churches were energized when thousands of youth gathered for protracted prayer meetings at Mike Bickle's International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo. Those youth were not focused on the carnal prosperity message but on personal holiness, Spirit-empowered evangelism and prophetic social justice—values that are now emerging as key components of a new charismatic agenda.

7. A "healthy church" movement emerged. Refreshing younger voices arose on the charismatic/evangelical scene in the '00s—reminding us that when Jezebel threatens, God always reserves His prophets in a cave for a crucial hour. Although this young movement has its stars and its cheerleaders—such as Louie Giglio, Robert Morris, Joel and Jonathan Stockstill, Chris Hodges, Mark Batterson, Samuel Rodriguez, Priscilla Shirer (daughter of Bible teacher Tony Evans) and Francis Chan—it is driven by thousands of faceless leaders who are contending for a return to passionate faith.

These leaders, from both charismatic and non-charismatic backgrounds, are reclaiming integrity, humility and purity while rejecting the egotism and greedy excess of the past season. They are committed to solid Bible teaching, relational discipleship and a nonreligious church experience that is appealing to the next generation. And they are planting churches—both traditional ones in buildings, as well as house churches—at an aggressive clip.

I'm worn and weary from the stress of the last 10 years, but I have never been more excited about stepping into a new season of opportunity. We have no reason to fear the future. Whatever challenges loom ahead, the same God who carried us through this past decade will give us success in the next one.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady. He invites you to post on our forum what you believe were the highlights of the past decade.

Subscribe to his newsletter here.

God uses ordinary people!

Joseph, a humble carpenter from Nazareth, falls in love with a girl named Mary.

All of a sudden Mary turns up pregnant, as the plan and purpose of God breaks in upon Joseph's life and scrambles it.

As his life appears to be coming apart at the seams, God sends the angel Gabriel with a message:

The greatest enemy to faith is not doubt; it is fear. 

Fear hinders faith and keeps us from doing the will of God.  Sometimes the greatest challenge to faith is simply the fear of doing God's will, the fear of the consequences or the cost!

As we face the challenge of a new year the greatest challenge you and I will face is the challenge of not being afraid, not being fearful to do the will of God in our lives. If we can learn not to fear the purpose of God for our lives, we will walk win!

To listen click here.

This is the will of God for each one of us. It is why Jesus came as Immanuel, God with us. Not just so we might experience the momentary miracle of the new birth, but so each one of us as believers might live miraculous, supernatural lives every single day of our lives.

Amazingly, the angel's announcement of Messiah's birth didn't shock these shepherds.

Could it be that they were expecting this event?

Reared as Jewish men, they were actually expecting this event to happen! In this insightful and powerful message Bishop Kouri deals with the question: "What was the Christmas expectation of the people at the time of Christ's birth in Bethlehem?"

One of the greatest authentications that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah, is that what happened that night was exactly what the shepherds expected to happen. God had revealed to Daniel the prophet that during the time of the Roman Empire the Messiah would come. Later God revealed to Daniel the exact time that the Messiah would come. As a result the entire Jewish world was filled with expectation! They knew what the prophets had promised.

What did the prophets promise? What were the people expecting? What was the "Hope of Israel"? Why is it important to us today? It is important because the Hope of Israel in the first century has now become the Hope of the Church of Jesus Christ in our century !

To hear this message click here.

Preaching from Isaiah's wonderful Messianic prophesy recorded in Isaiah  9:2-7, Bishop Kouri proclaims the good news of the first coming of the Son of God.

In order to fully experience the meaning of Christmas, we must recognize the authenticity of Jesus, respond to the authority of Jesus, and receive the accomplishments ...of Jesus.

Note: Record level of this sermon is a bit low.  You may need to turn your volume higher than normal to hear it well.

To hear this podcast click here.

Alexander Chisango writes: “Last month, I received special requests from my KC101 students to somehow avail a live lecture to aid students in their study. So before leaving N.Y. City for Zimbabwe I recorded a series of four 75 minute lectures on the topic, covering almost every scripture in the posted lecture on the site, plus more.”

“Also, Kingdom challenges and unique opportunities to serve God’s Kingdom purpose that I see in Zimbabwe since my return to my own country prove to me that the truths set forth in my new course Apostolic Architecture And Kingdom Dominion provide Scriptural answers to the problems involved in discipling nations.”

Click here to view these videos!

What really happened after Jesus gave up the ghost and died on the cross?

The Gospels tell us that Joseph of Aramathea and Nicodemus took His body down from the cross and laid it in Joseph's tomb. And the Scriptures reveal in various places that His spirit and soul descended into hell. What happened during the three days and three nights in which Jesus was hell?

This message is entitled, "The Mystery of Redemption: From The Cross To The Throne". In this powerful message, Bishop Kouri unfolds the mystery of our redemption and explains the chronological order of events that took place as Jesus' descended into hell where He suffered for three days and three nights, His victory over Satan, death, and hell, His resurrection on Easter Sunday morning, His ascension and exaltation to the right hand of God in Heaven, and His enthronement on the throne of David, where He governs the nations today as King of kings and Lord of lords!

This is the true message of Christianity proclaimed by Peter on the day of Pentecost, also by Paul and all the original apostles of Jesus Christ; it is the authentic foundation of the Christian faith that enabled the saints of the early Church to overcome the power of the Devil and turn their world upside down.

Part 1  "The Mystery of Redemption, From The Cross To The Throne"--- deals with what the Scriptures reveal about the the physical and spiritual sufferings of Jesus as he was made sin for us, died on the cross, and descended into hell to be tormented by the powers of the Kingdom of darkness.

Part 2  "The Mystery of Redemption, From The Cross To The Throne"---climaxes with Jesus' triumph over all the powers of the kingdom of darkness, His taking of the keys of death and hell from Satan, the release of the Old Testament saints like Moses and Elijah and moving them from paradise into heaven, the taking-up again or resurrection of His own body by Jesus Himself at the tomb of Joseph of Aramatheia, His ascent into heaven as High Priest to sprinkle His blood on the altar of God in heaven to establish the New Covenant as the foundation of His Messianic Kingdom, His amazing resurrection appearances, and many other amazing events that took place as Jesus was exalted and seated on the throne of David the right hand of God the Father in heaven.

(Please note the 15th c. painting above; ancient Christian artists often depicted Jesus triumphing over Satan and the demonic powers of hell and then moving paradise into heaven. Moses, Elijah, and King David are among the Old testament saints portrayed.)

Sunday Night and into the AM hours of Monday, I felt a shifting in the realm of the spirit.

While I felt this shift, I was seeking the Lord and in the midst of conversation I heard Him say, "09 has been a great year of transition for my People, An intense season of warfare."

The Lord showed me and pressed strongly upon my spirit that, 

We should not lose heart, and we should stay focused on the prize that He has set before us. We must continue to keep a proper perception for our future. If we can perceive it, we will receive it. If we can see it, we will attain it! Without Vision (prophetic revelation) God's people perish. This is a season were we cannot afford to be caught without the Lords vision for the future and without an understanding of our placement within that Vision.

The shift will take us well into 2010.

This will be a year of fullness and I believe a time of relative rest from the attacks of the enemy for those who have found themselves in such an intense escalation of warfare in 2009.  2010 will mark a year of the tithe that belongs to the Lord. It will be as we reevaluate the last decade and prepare our hearts for the next 2 years that this will occur. I believe as in Mal 3 The Lord will rebuke the devourer for the sake of His believing and tithing church!

2011 will be again another great time of transition for the body.

But if we have prepared our hearts properly through 2009-2010, the transition should be relatively smooth, and the warfare of the enemy will not have the penetrating force it seemed to have in 2009. However our safety and our refuge in the coming days will be dependent upon our ability to hear the Shepherd's voice and not following a stranger into paths of deception and destruction.

2012 will mark the greatest advancements in the Kingdom, I believe since the Reformation.

I have spoken much on 2012.  However, I will recap and say, it will be a year of apostolic alignment. The Apostles of God will be positioned once again to begin a brand new work in a previously pastorally ruled church (a Church ruled by pastors instead of apostles). This means that in the next 2 and half years great upheaval will continue, tearing down the old, so that planting and building will become assessable in the coming days.  Great Shifts will occur and great judgments will be released into the earth; these judgments may seem harsh and even scary, however these judgments will be made in favor of the saints, and God has prepared Goshen for His chosen.  

But He who began a good work will finish it!

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells the parable about the importance of building our lives (described by Jesus as our "house") upon the unshakable foundation (the "rock") of His Kingship. Jesus observed that sooner or later the storms of life will come and test us. If our lives are not built upon the rock (Jesus Christ) the flood will sweep us away.

In Hebrews 6:1-3 the writer catalogs for us the components for an unshakable Kingdom foundation.

In his provocative and eye-opening series, "Building Life On The Unshakable Foundation,"  George Kouri deals with what is involved in laying a valid Kingdom foundation in our lives. He deals in depth with repentance, faith towards God, water baptism, receiving the gift of the Spirit, finding placement in the family of God under valid apostolic and pastoral oversight, and being rightly related to the government of God and His anointed King.

In a day when the message of the Kingdom proclaimed by the apostles has been diluted by centuries of religion and distorted by modern philosophy, and when the instructions or commands given by the apostles in the first century have been replaced by the traditions and opinions of men, this series of messages, "Building Life On The Unshakable Foundation," is desperately needed!

Part I of his current series, "Vision 2009 And Beyond," these provocative and powerful messages were preached on Sunday mornings at the King's Church in Jacksonville, Florida, where Bishop Kouri currently serves as pastor.

Message 1.  The Importance Of The Unshakable Kingdom Foundation

Message 2.  Repentance And Faith Towards God, What It Is And It's Importance

Message 3.  What Is Involved In Valid Water Baptism?

Message 4.  What Is The Gift Of The Spirit And How Do We Receive It?

Message 5.  Receiving The Gift Of The Spirit, A Definite And Demonstrable Experience

Message 6,  The Power To Live Like Jesus And To Do The Works Jesus Did

Message 7,  The Essential Question In Kingdom Initiation

Message 8, Recap Part I

Message 9, Recap Part II

Message 10, Being Added To Christ And His Church Part 1

Message 11, Being Added To Christ And His Church Part 2

Message 12, Being Added To Christ And His Church Part 3

Message 13, Being Added To Christ And His Church Part 4

Message 14, Being Added To Christ And His Church Part 5

Message 15, Being Added To Christ And His Church Part 6

Message 16, Being Added To Christ And His Church Part 7

Message 17, Being Added To Christ And His Church Part 8